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otherworldseekers · 6 days

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Waiting for Your Return

A little bit of Severia x Nero writing that occurs during 6.55 setting up things for Dawntrail.

I wrote it for the prompt "return" sent to me by @gatheredfates for a single word fic drive, but decided to make a separate post for it as it got away from me a bit and then I decided to add a few screenshots.

Severia lay on her back on her bed in the Balsesion Annex and made herself comfortable. Beside her next to the pillow was her Cockwork Novus D*. A familiar voice came from inside it.

“Hullo, darling. Miss me?”

“Of course I miss you, silly boy.” Never mind that they had seen each other just that morning before she had teleported to Sharlayan to meet with Krile. “Did you get much work done without me there to distract you?”

“At the risk of being premature-”

“You? Never.”

Nero laughed. “You tease. Are you sure you can’t come back for the night?”

“Well, of course I could, but we’re headed out at first light for the Isle of Hamm and you know teleporting that kind of distance too often wears me out.”*

“I can think of a few ways to-”

“I want to avoid that!” she protested with a smile. “Anyway, tell me your news.”

“I think I’ve made a breakthrough,” Nero said, smugness oozing from his voice.

“So that puts you ahead of Cid?”

“I’m fairly certain this puts me months ahead of him in research,” Nero bragged. “He’s still struggling to work out the formula for-”

Severia interrupted before he got technical. It was far too late in the day for that. “Have you decided what you’re going to make him do when you win?”

Nero grinned to himself. Her complete faith in him was always a balm to his competitive spirit. “That is the hardest part of this contest.* I need an idea that is suitably embarrassing while also not technically harmful. But I’m sure it will come to me. Now. Your news.”

And so Severia told him all about meeting Wuk Lamat and what the enthusiastic Hrothgar had come to Sharlayan for. “I’d never considered going to the New World before. I haven’t exactly said I would go yet, but I can’t deny I’m tempted.”

“Indeed. From what I’ve read the continent of Tural is quite vast and diverse. There was some talk at one point among the Legati about what kind of resources would be necessary to mount an invasion.”

“Seriously? Garlemald wanted to invade Tural?”

“The Emperor wanted the whole world under him thumb. Of course that included Tural. It was on the roadmap for the future, but it didn’t get any farther than that before you Eorzean savages started giving us too much trouble.”

Nero’s tone was facetious and Severia knew when he spoke that way his tongue was firmly in his cheek so she took no offense. Their former positions on opposite sides of a war was something they often teased each other about. “Yes, how dare they. If only they’d rolled over and taken it you might have ended up lost in the jungles of Tural one day getting hacked to pieces by Mamool Ja.”

Nero scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. It would largely have been an aerial assault. I certainly wouldn’t have been trudging along in the dirt.”

“No, I imagine you would have been mowing down the natives in the Ultima Weapon or such like.”

“Possibly, possibly,” Nero conceded. “So what’s this excursion to the Isle about?”

“We’re all going on a hunt.”

“Again, we?”

“Er, me, Wuk Lamat, Erenville, G’raha and Krile. Wuk Lamat wants to see if I live up to Erenville’s stories.”

“She doubts you?”

“I don’t exactly cut the most imposing figure, you must admit.”

“I must admit nothing. You’re all the more intimidating for your adorable size.”

“Well, you have the benefit of having watched me fight a Primal the very first time you saw me. Also you’re biased.”

“I am only biased in how much your incredible talents made me love you.”

Severia closed her eyes and pulled her blanket up to her chin, smiling in contentment. “I love you too.”

“So when will you return?”

“Tomorrow.” It had been some time since they had been apart from each other for more than a day and she had gotten used to the luxury of it. With a pang she considered how long they might be separated if she went to Tural. The sense of loss that rose up inside her nearly took her breath away. “I’ll be home as soon as I can get away.”

“I look forward to it, with all my heart. Goodnight, darling.”

“Goodnight, Nero.”

The following evening Severia walked through the front door of the cottage she shared with Nero in a thoughtful mood. She had all but made up her mind to go to Tural. The prospect filled her with both elation and a dread that she could not reconcile. She wanted to go. She wanted to see new lands, meet new peoples, learn new histories and make new discoveries. But she didn’t want to leave home. Home. A word that had once held no appeal to her had lately become so precious.

Her ruminations were interrupted when Nero came tumbling down the stairs holding a large duffle bag in each hand.

“Oh, welcome home, darling.” Without putting down either bag, he gave her a quick kiss and then went to the kitchen and started searching through drawers and cabinets. Every so often he found an item he wanted and carefully tucked it away in one of the duffle bags, which was now bulging with odd corners and bumps.

Severia watched at a loss. “What are you doing?”

“Hmmmm? Packing.”

“How did you know?”

“How did I know that you were going to come home and tell me you’ve decided to go? Because I know you, love. It’s far too good an opportunity of doing all the things you like most to miss.”

“All right, fair. But you don’t have to pack for me.” Was he that eager to see her go? Was he looking forward to time uninterrupted for his work?

“I’m not,” said Nero, as he weighed two identical spatulas in his hands before picking one and packing it away. “This is all for me.”

“You?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you going?”

Nero gave her the strained look he had when she was being a little slow. “To Tural.”

Severia sucked in a breath of surprise. “You mean…”

“I’m coming with you,” Nero said as if it were painfully obvious. He pointed at her with the rejected spatula. “You don’t honestly expect me to sit around at home once again twiddling my thumbs and waiting for your return while you’re out there having the adventure of a lifetime?”

“I didn’t… I just… I mean, that’s how-”

“That’s how it’s always been,” Nero finished for her and his brow furrowed in irritation for a moment before he released a sigh and relaxed it once more. He set the spatula back down on the counter and went to her, taking her hands in his. “But it doesn’t have to continue that way. Severia, I want to be at your side, you know that.”

“But your work… This contest with Cid…”

“Do you really think those things matter more to me?” He tipped her chin up so he could look in her eyes. Tears were gathering there. He hadn’t meant to make her cry. “Besides, the audacity of you going off on your own to explore an entire continent that may indeed be rife with monumental discoveries none but I are qualified to obtain! No true man of science could allow that.”

Severia laughed and flung her arms around his waist. “I’m so glad. Oh Nero, I wanted to go so much but I didn’t want to be away from you. You’ll really come with me?”

“Naturally. I look forward to sitting on the sidelines sipping refreshing tropical drinks while you slay all the beasties.”

“Absolutely not. You’d better pack your hammer because I won’t save you when you inevitably do something reckless and unleash some kind of great evil on the land. I’ll save everyone else, but not you.”

Nero gave her his best sad puppy dog look. “You don’t mean that.”

“No, I don’t mean it. But adventuring isn't all fun and games, you know. You are going to pull your weight.”

“Whatever you say, my love. Now, when do we leave?”

“Oh, not for weeks.”

“Hmmm. I’d better unpack the cast iron pans.” He released her and began rummaging again through the duffel bag.

Severia watched in astonishment as he pulled out an absurd number of cooking implements. “You’re bringing cast iron pans? Are you insane?”

“What? They’re excellent for cooking over an open fire.”

“This is too much stuff, Nero. I prefer to travel light.”

“Can’t you just put it all in your pocket dimension?”*

“Do you think I’m some kind of beast of burden?”

“Don’t be foolish. You know perfectly well anything that goes into that bag of yours is no burden at all.”

“Ugh. Fine! You win. As usual.”

Nero grinned and, still on his knees, pulled her into him for a kiss. “You love me.”

Severia sighed in surrender. “I adore you.”

Notes:

Nero turned the Clockwork Novus D into a long range communication device for he and Severia to use that is more secure and reliable than a linkpearl.

Teleporting large distances too often causes fatigue. A headcanon of mine developed for the sake of narrative pacing.

Nero and Cid have regular contests to see who can solve a specific problem first or make the better device fitted to a client's need. At this point they are tied for victories 11 to 11.

Severia's travel gear includes a pack with a relatively stable pocket dimension inside. A headcanon of mine to account for inventory space and a reference to this post.

#Severia x Nero #Nero/WoL #Severia Zetsuen #Nero tol Scaeva #my writing #ffxiv fanfiction #All My Tomorrows #Endwalker 6.55 #Dawntrail spoilers #kinda I guess

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sunderedazem · 5 months

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WoLposting on main for what (and how) he's doing after Endwalker-

He's starting with changing his hairstyle from the long braid with bangs to a shorter ponytail/shaggy bob cut after Endwalker because it feels like. The end of an era. And he's mourning losing his friends' constant presence, a little (even if he and G'raha are now courting and being idiot catboys about it). It's just. Cutting away what was out of grief. He's losing the Scions, at least ostensibly, because they're all splitting up and going different ways, and he's. A lot lost without them.

But also the haircut is because he doesn't want to be some folk hero and only that. Like he's cool with it, but also- he wants time to be Corrain, to figure out who Corrain is. He became the Warrior of Light when he was seventeen and has been that ever since, and before that was just a Keeper foundling in Gridania trying to complete a conjurer apprenticeship so he could get citizenship - he hasn't had the time to figure out what he wants. And sure, being adopted by Edmont and House Fortemps helped - he had a home and a family and a nation finally, even if he's sort of in the same sort-of son category Haurchefant was - but he's got little snippets of Azem's memory bleeding through, he knows there's a wanderlust in him that won't settle, and he needs Corrain de Fortemps to be someone who has the space to find out who he is. And for that he can't be clocked as the WoL everywhere he goes!

So he takes a knife and chops off his braid and then Y'shtola and Krile find him sitting in front of a mirror with this awful fluffy mess and help him shape it better, and when it's long enough to put up he just ties it back in a ponytail. And he just- wanders aimlessly. He helps G'raha a lot, they're definitely dating in a Halone-sanctioned way lmao, and he trails around visiting Scions.

And he's almost invisible. The people who know who he is know Corrain and not just the Warrior of Light, and now the bards' stories don't describe him perfectly and- he's got space to breathe. Space to discover he genuinely likes archaeology and researching bygone eras and writing about them, space to go around and record the mechanical particulars of his forays into ancient ruins and alternate worlds and etc, space to polish his knowledge about foraging and botany and learn how to travel with cookware only and make meals from the land rather than carry food with him-

And all of this to say he finds that - outside of being the Warrior of Light - he genuinely likes the kind of adventuring that comes with learning opportunities. He likes studying the things he's found, likes the challenge of discovery in the first place. He likes the kind of work the Students of Baldesion do, likes working with scholars. (especially G'raha. Nobody saw that coming 🙄) And more than all that- he's genuinely good at it. He gets to realize a lot of his own archaeological/adventuring skill, while supplemented by time-period experts, is in fact it's own branch of knowledge.

So by the time Dawntrail kicks off - I think he's fully considering trying to write a thesis on it, and maybe try to see if Sharlayan would give him an Archon's mark about it. Sure- he's not a Sharlayan citizen, he has strong ties to Ishgard in the vein of being an adopted son of one of the four high houses. But he's also openly dancing circles around G'raha and Artoirel is definitely interested in having a no-inheritance-threat adopted baby brother with a foothold in Sharlayan and- well, House Fortemps approved of G'raha already anyway, they're expecting that to happen.

He's definitely found himself in a lot of ways by the time the next expansion will kick off. Of course part of that is being an actual adult and a twenty-something instead of a teenager, but also- coming to terms with being nine-fourteenths of Azem, coming to terms with defining himself rather than letting what he can do define him, coming to the realization that he's allowed to like what he does and who he is.

That the hope he found in Ultima Thule is actually allowed to feel like his own, and it's not selfish of him to feel that way. That he's allowed to live for himself.

And. Like damn. Finally! but also I'm proud of him. He turns out alright in the end.

Excited to start Dawntrail with this version of Corrain. He's just so much less- desperate to prove something. He proved everything he needed to prove to himself already. And now he finally just adventure for adventure's sake.

#ffxiv wol #ffxiv #wol posting #wolposting #corrain gealai #ffxiv corrain #teenage WoLs are. a special kind of fucked-up. babies....#but he turns out okay. he's okay. and he knows it #post-endwalker plot for the Boy #he's sixteen when he joins the adventurers' guild #and he's twenty-two when he's done recovering from all his injuries from Ultima Thule #i know “canon” says all that was wirhin a year but. nah #five years #anyway this means G'raha meets an almost 18 year old Corrain and is like ???#and then meets him again when he's almost twenty one three hundred years later #and is just immediately like “Didn't think there'd be a glowup like THIS O////O oh no. thank the 12 half of me is crystal”#corrain #corrain meanwhile has been like “🥺 😍 cute boy...” since the Crystal Tower raids lmao

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pocketbelt · 8 months

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Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker Patch 6.5 (PS5)

The Endwalker patch cycle main story has been a neat little diversion but the way it comes together in this is remarkably fucking strong. The way all the different story threads come together and align to reinforce its core theme is expertly done, and 6.5's cutscenes especially use camera direction and control in cutscenes super well to imply subtle aspects that hearken back to seemingly one-off aspects all the way back to 6.1.

It also has a lot of what I wanted in part from Endwalker MSQ proper: actually making use of its direct visual and plot point lifts and references to Final Fantasy IV in cool and interesting ways, similar to how Shadowbringers played with the concepts of Final Fantasy III. There are still aspects there I think Endwalker fumbled the bag on and if anything, the way this patch cycle uses IV's concepts to different ends so fucking well displays that brilliantly.

It has some issues - there's a distinctly bastard return of the "Warrior of Light stands around like a fucking idiot while everyone does the actual stuff" problem in several of the pivotal cutscenes, in particular. Like, I get it; you have a wide variety of body types and a very wide array of classes with their own unique animations for similar actions, making the player do overly animated stuff believably is difficult, but after a point I think they're just going to have to try and engineer a solution to it. Either generic animations by role (melee DPS are the big problem here) or just take time during the Dawntrail patch cycle to come up with some that can be used, I dunno, but this sort of shit has to stop. It's actually kind of insane how differently the plot would go in places if the Warrior of Light didn't just stand around gawping like a fucking balloon in so many scenes - it's one of the core reasons I've long since turned on Heavensward's main story in particular when looking back.

It actually kind of undermined the weight of the 6.5 trial, which is a fucking cool trial (with a new killer remix, this patch cycle story has had so many 11/10 remixes/new takes on FFIV music) but due to the way you stand around like a tit before and after it while your party does everything, it feels like it was completely superfluous.

The final alliance raid is also pretty cool, it has really cool mechanics and effects and the final fight is really rad, but I think by the end I was tired of all the weightiness in this expansion. The AR story itself is ultimately very warm and well-meaning, it's quite sweet in a lot of ways, but it carries a lot of the lofty ideal preaching and between Endwalker MSQ, the patch MSQ ending and this, I'm good and ready for Dawntrail to be low-stakes fucking about.

I have some actual spoiler points over the jump, but in short, good shit but now I need you guys to chill out.

Re; Endwalker fumbling the bag with the usage of FFIV as a reference point, I still feel it's kind of insane that they went for basic bitch nihilism and not over-riding hatred as the source of the Final Days. I felt it was more thematically fitting to do so, between the constant casual racism of ARR and how hatred is fostered among the people of Eorzea because they don't work together or trust each other, how Teledji explicitly spun up hatred of Ala Mhigan refugees among Ul'dah's people and vice versa to further his own ends, how the ideologies and root of the Empire ultimately deal in hatred of non-Garleans and gods, etc; the same could be said of the Holy See of Ishgard and its legacy of hating the dragons and how the greed of the ancient Ishgardians driving them to kill Ratatoskr fomented the undying unyielding hatred of Niddhogg for them in Heavensward; Stormblood is entirely a lengthy fucking screed about all the ways imperialism is bad, how it works and divides and weakens people and core strands of that are it preying on hatred born of a nation's problems to sow discord in it and expose it to invasion and conquest. Fordola and especially Yotsuyu talk at length about the hatred they have for the people of their homelands because of the misery those people caused them, again born of hatred (even if Fordola's is really shittily done and very hard to empathise with at all) - the mid-fight grand narrative turn of the Tsukuyomi trial in 4.3 is quite literally Yotsuyu reaching deep down and trying to manifest her own hatred to fuel her ability to keep fighting! The distinct lack of Eorzea's racism and division is screechingly evident in the Crystarium and Amh Araeng in Shadowbringers and it's a core part of how they survived for 100 years at the very brink of the Light-borne apocalypse, and Emet-Selch is clearly worn down and lacks the full-throated venom for you and Hydaelyn that his compatriots show, he has none to will up at the end of it all and all that has transpired is rooted in the ancient tragedy that caused a rift, conflict and hatred to form among the ancient Eitheryians!

Long story short I have thought extensively about the expansions and how they connect together; it's deranged to me that we left-field pivot to some twee bird girl trying to kill everyone because she had a brain aneurysm and decided nihilism was cool because multiple other societies ended in unfortunate circumstance (the ocean planet ravaged by hell plague), unrestrained hatred (the planet that warred itself to death) or blinding stupidity (you cannot convince me the Ea or the golden robe people as presented are anything but cornball idiots). The overbearing thread of "the hatred we create is the root of all our woes" permeating damn near everything before it leads almost fucking flawlessly to Zemus/Zeromus as final ultimate antagonist - because, for the very little we learn of Zemus/Zeromus in FFIV, the one thing we do know is that he fucking hates the non-Lunarian people and advocates for their eradication by his people, who he sees as superior. Zeromus is Zemus' unyielding hatred taken form, it is literally just manifest hatred! It was a fucking lay-up and to me it felt like they just chucked it out the window for something much fucking weaker, which they also delivered really fucking badly right at the end (but the problems with the entirety of the Ultima Thule section are for another time).

To that end, while the usage of Zeromus in the patch cycle is neat, it also feels like a bit of a fumble because this aspect isn't utilised at all. Zeromus isn't a manifestation of hatred here, it's the gigantic Dark aether pool made by the death of the Thirteenth's Zodiark shard melded into a being driven by the ragged emotions and longings of a dragon who's been tortured for centuries. It's the flipside of the rest of the patch cycle making great use of FFIV concepts and characters, because it has different or different-ish takes on them all and Zeromus is again left wanting.

On the other hand, Golbez is used immaculately. Instead of a man mind-controlled into being evil, FFXIV Golbez is a man with good intentions manipulated to evil ends, and now driven to desperation to fix the unfathomable mistakes he has made. He's beautifully tragic and performed so fucking well, driven to his mad plan because he can't conceive of any other method than finding a way to bring death back to a world that is bereft of it. The nature of who the Golbez we meet is helps that further, as are the supremely clever allusions made in the 6.5 post-dungeon cutscenes. I know this is the spoiler section but I'm putting it in ROT13 anyway:

Qhenagr vf pyrneyl n ybbx-nyvxr bs Mrabf, vs abg qverpgyl gur Guvegrragu'f funeq/ersyrpgvba bs uvz (vs ur unf gubfr gbb, fbzr qverpgbe D&N fhttrfgrq ur qbrfa'g), naq Tbyorm vf uvf orfg sevraq naq vqby. Jr arire frr Tbyorm'f gehr snpr, orpnhfr gur bevtvany Tbyorm jnf lbhe Guvegrragu funeq/ersyrpgvba. Gur ehzvangvba ba Mrabf frrvat lbh nf uvf sevraq, naq vs lbh sryg gur fnzr be abg, va 6.1 jnf yrnqvat gb guvf. Na vqrn bs ubj guvatf pbhyq'ir orra, vs uvf cngu jnf qvssrerag. Nyfb, Qhenagr-nf-Tbyorm vf znavchyngrq vagb oevatvat nobhg gur Sybbq bs Qnexarff, whfg nf Neqoreg jnf znavchyngrq vagb oevatvat nobhg gur Sybbq bs Yvtug, znxvat sbe fbzr avpr shegure cnenyyryf orgjrra gur Svefg naq gur Guvegrragu. Va bar jbeyq vg jnf lbh, va nabgure vg jnf uvz.

Durante wielding a greatsword and Dark magic, and explicitly being a Dark Knight in the flashbacks but not being the one to become a Paladin is also a really nice spin that works better for XIV. After all, Darkness is not evil and Light is not good here, and Golbez is able to use his Dark power for good in the end. On the flipside, Zero being freed from being a Reaper, becoming the Paladin she originally was as she learns to trust and takes Light into herself with the help of others (and not after ritually confronting her inner Darkness, as Cecil did in FFIV) as she learned to trust, that's a real fucking good turn on the notion of a "dark" class becoming a Paladin. The Dark Knight and the Paladin learn to trust each other and work together to do better by the world, and if the Paladin had been able to trust people originally and joined the Dark Knight back then, perhaps it could have all been avoided. But all one can do is keep going forward, making amends for their sins and errors. It's real fucking good, it's a good way of using IV's key moments and concepts in different ways better suited to XIV instead of blindly copying them (which, to be fair, XIV doesn't really blindly copy things in that fashion anyway).

It all reinforces the recurring theme of trust, of trust among people in each other being the way forward and for the good of all. That and the two striving to rebuild the Thirteenth, just as the Garleans must rebuild Garlemald and the First must rebuild itself, all in the wake of the Ascians and their machinations, it all lines up really well and makes for a good follow-up to the vanquishing of the Final Days. The worlds are healing in their own ways, and they don't need to be reunited or abandoned.

I was kind of hoping we'd still be packing the Lightwardens' light in our back pocket to blast Zeromus with or blow into the Thirteenth, but it seems we did indeed blast it all into Emet-Selch instead. Same effect but my preference would have us being more active, a thing they're a bit dodgy about doing. They don't want you to do everything, of course, as it makes the rest of the cast seem incompetent or pointless, but at the same time they keep making us seem a bit irrelevant at times. Zero and Golbez handle Zeromus so quickly after the trial that it makes the trial seem like it didn't matter or need to happen. They don't mention Zeromus being any weaker from you beating it, and hell it doesn't seem any weaker either.

Drawing Light from the frozen Flood on the First into the Thirteenth, and passing Zeromus' crystal to the First for Ryne, Gaia and Lou Beq to potentially draw massive quantities of Darkness from to heal the First are real nice caps. They kind of stumbled over the Unulkalhai/Cyvette "we're going to research the Thirteenth and see what we can do" plot thread locked behind beating all of Shadowbringers' role quests, but by necessity they kind of had to; they can hardly mandate that be done by all players, funny as that would be to do (you'd have to do the HW Extreme Trials, too, for Unulkalhai first but those are easily bullshitted with unsynced Lv80 parties/Lv90 solos). Gaia's scenes are optional and easily worked around, at least, but seeing her in main story was a real treat. It's always delightful to see the side content acknowledged as being real, and as ever, it's Shadowbringers stuff that does it best. They did add extra dialogue for those two if you've done that stuff, at least, which was a nice treat, even if it was obviously just paving over "hey why didn't these two get to meet Zero or take part in this at all".

I get deep into my thoughts and feelings about XIV a lot, but yeah, I really could do with some Alexander raid series-tier tone and style next time. Enough loft, enough warm and grand resolutions about peace and trust and love. We need idiot goblins blasting metal over super-robot fights or rapping over their time-bending divine robot summoning himself inside himself to help himself cave our heads in, or HW alliance raid style demons being dicks for the sake of it. Diabolos is still out there, I'm fairly sure he survived the Cyber Diabolos machina in Bozja!

Feeling that way is why I really front that it would be funnier if the Scions (or ex-Scions, now) didn't come with you to the New World at first. With all being said and done, everyone goes to the four winds to do what they want and will, and you stumble onto a boat to a new place like a lost child and no-one knows where you go. So they'd be frantically hunting your trail because they need you or just miss you and got worried, while you're having fun with new friends in the New World. The people there like this odd stranger who only nods at them, they helped with herding sheep and doing menial chores and are fun to watch eat new foods, and they just killed god what the fuck do you mean they killed god? That can happen? How? What do we do about this

I just think it'd be way funnier and lighter, and absence (sort of) would make us fonder of the crew we're so fond of as is. You'd bypass the touchy "city of gold" colonial explorer shite they're teetering on stumbling into, as well, and you'd be able to make and flesh out a delightful New World cast too with more focus and room.

#pocket-media-tag

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