#you can see how i tried so hard to keep mentioning anything too concreate about n'jinh's origins or how he came to tag along haha

[neriyon]

Hello! 12 and 21 for the Dawntrail questions for your purple catboy? :>

( 22 Dawntrail Inspired WoL/OC Questions )

Ohh hello!

12. What was their opinion of the culture of recycling souls and the use of regulators? Did this change as the story progressed?

Hawu'li is a white mage, so I feel like he'd be extra horrified over the whole concept. "You do WHAT to souls instead of returning them to the atherial sea???" or "Do you have any idea what that does to the balance if more souls stay out than go in??". Not to mention his knowledge of ancients and ascians and all that. Would their "removal of memories from soul" really work as well as they said it would? Atherial sea was said to do that too, but they already had met people who had memories seared too deep to be removed (Hermes), as well as reborn souls with shards of past still hanging around (his own unsudered self, Eleos, still hangs somewhere in his soul even if he's only made himself known like once). Not to mention the philosophical questions like "Are you still you if your soul dies and you have your memories planted in a new, unreleated soul?"

21. If they had to summarize their journey in Tural, what would they say?

Actually anwered this already here! But since Hawu'li had a brand new co-WoL with him this time (N'jinh, who's lore is still wip haha), I'll try to include some of his thoughts instead~

"Thoughts about the journey? Uhhh... I'm very new to this whole adventurer business to be honest. Not like I've even traveled Eorzea before, let alone across the sea to a new continent? Hawu'li kept telling me it'd be fine, that I'd like it and gain lots of new experiences, even if I had to sit in ship for ages to get there. The town... uh, Tuliyollal, was really cool! I've never seen a two headed mamool ja before, let alone them living in cities. And they had this crazy strong leader, Gulool Ja Ja! Bigger than anyone I've seen, and even with one head asleep he ended up actually keeping up with me! Also the big snake thing, whatever it was called. Those Alexandrians with their weird glowy rocks creeped me out a bit tho. I mean, who trusts their entire lives to some weird machine that just resurrects you if you die? If you don't trust your own abilities to keep you alive during a fight you shouldn't be fighting, that's just basic stuff. They have this very cool fight arena tho!"

[lightn1ng-sparks]

Winter

In my family, we don’t celebrate Christmas. 

Not really anyways. 

We do however try to act like we do. I was brought up Catholic, went to a Catholic school and I was in a Catholic church choir. Attended mass every day for a decade and sang over the holiday periods.

This meant I had rehearsals every day in December. This meant that my local church became my playground.

We used it when it was closed, used it in half dark (to save on the bill), used it so much it stopped being a place of worship and became somewhere I found solace in.

When I try and recount things, I always find myself mentioning this aspect of my life. How Christmas for us didn’t mean gift sharing. How I never had anything ‘new’ to show off in the New Year. How trying to make people understand this concept, especially in England made me feel like I had landed in unknown territory and no one could understand how I lived before.

It’s probably why I was bullied so much.

It’s probably also why I tried so hard to fit in so badly.

The hair straightened out over time. The glasses came off, showing off aspects of my big, beautiful body became something shameful. It wasn’t my fault I was here, but it was definitely my fault in the way I was treated. I remember in the first week of school, some boy whose name fails me made a comment about how it felt to be the biggest girl in the year. It never occurred to me that this was perceived as a bad thing. I didn’t anticipate my body being put on display, to poke fun at, to laugh at, just because it was different, within seconds of entering the school gates, and in effect entering a very brand-new life.

It was traumatising.

I remember now that all I could think of was the way I could swim to save your life. How I can swim so strongly, I could take a 20-stone man out of water and resuscitate him back to life. How, I could save your life in a few well-timed seconds.

So big, so strong, so wrong.

I used to be so proud of that though.

I used to believe that everyone had their own set of strengths and weaknesses. I used to believe that everyone should be given a chance. But that all changed that day. The walls came up, and they haven’t fully come down. I don’t particularly think they ever will.

Sometimes I sit down and think about all the changes I’ve made over the years to try and pass off as British. The biggest I could ever deduce is how I pronounce things. My language is harsh to the ear. It is loud. It is so present and obvious in my tongue even when I wasn’t speaking it. I learnt slang, tried to copy accents, made myself believe that this is the only way I’d ever be normal.

Nowadays I don’t share the fact that my family don’t share gifts during Christmas. Or on birthday’s. But that’s another story, for another day. It’s became easy to automatically omit aspects of my life. Just to make it a little bit easier to survive.

I remember the first Christmas I spent here. We lived in a rent free, heating free, lock free apartment in the middle of the roughest area in Nottingham provided to my dad by the company before it went bust. He didn’t believe anything was wrong. I still remember the way my mum used to panic when the light outside started to dim, because she wasn’t used to this, she wasn’t used to strange places, and people and a life she didn’t ask for. It had snowed for 4 months straight that year and it felt like we pretty much lived outside. For a while, we romanticised the snow. Just because it not what we were used to, but after a while, everything was just numb.

We lived with three other Maltese men, one of which gave up his bed for my brother and I. The only thing that mattered that year was when *Garret held a knife up to my dad’s throat in order to protect my mother.  The funny thing is, he’d done that to her three times in three months and only then did any of them snap.

It was also the year my mother decided it was time to leave.

Only it took her 5 years to actually leave. We counted down those years privately, until it was the only reason, both of us were still alive.

Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if we never left the island. Sometimes I wonder how different I’d be. Sometimes I wonder if we never came here in the first place, I wouldn’t have forced her to plan my funeral. I wouldn’t have forced her to hold vigils by my stark grey hospital bed whilst strangers came in to console her wailing.

My mother is strong woman. My mother has moved the tectonic plates of our lives and made them fit whole again. I still remember the day she just left. The house was in disarray. My brothers toy cars all over the living rooms concreate floor.  There were wet clothes sitting in their laundry basket by the door, like she was still trying to get on with everyday life, till the moment she couldn’t. The house was cold that day. Uninviting. It was raining. And it felt like we were living in black and white.

In hindsight I knew it was coming.

It’s what happens when you give life to unwanted children. They learn to live with their very unwantedness.

My father though didn’t expect it to happen. He was very sure that he was King and we were all tightly under his control. She didn’t tell him that she was only giving him half her monthly pay check. Didn’t tell him, she had booked both flights and a taxi home. He couldn’t see how strong she was, how willingly she sacrificed her own happiness to build a new life alone.

Because he made us believe we weren’t capable of living alone.

He made us believe that without him within the very fabric of all aspect of our lives, we’d be lost souls.

My brother was 13. An infantilised child up till that moment. He’s always been his favourite. He’s always had my dad bend over backwards for him.

But that day, I watched my little brother grow up. I watched him as he picked up the laundry to hang it up to dry. Watched him as he opened up our usually empty fridge to find it stacked full with food.

Watched him break down.

I watched him rebuild himself too.

We weren’t close up till that point. Designed by my dad to keep us apart and emotionally unstable.

Everything changed that day.

That day changed the very tapestry of our lives.

It took me three years to get out.

In between parenting and work and trying to survive, time passed and suddenly I wasn’t 18 anymore.

The moment I started to put my life back together again, was the moment things started falling into place.

Last Christmas was the first time I went home in nearly 2 years. Went back to the church I grew up in. Went back to a life I had forgotten.

It was the first time I heard my mother talk about life with so much gusto. 

Talk about a man that treats her right.

We shared gifts.

We shared stories of our lives we’ve all tried to forget.

We shared happiness together, for the first time in a very long time.

 In my family, we don’t celebrate Christmas.

We celebrate milestones.

We celebrate the things that usually pass everyone by.

My brother moved out this summer.

He moved right back in with my mum.

Money is tight.

And he can’t have the latest Nike trainers he’s obsessed with every other month.

But he’s breathed life back into my mum.

Breathed life back into me too.

In my family we don’t celebrate Christmas, we celebrate life.

Because breathing and living are two things we learnt to never take for granted.

-

*Names changed for privacy