Drabble: Homecoming

Home seems a little smaller once you’ve been away for a good long while, a Lominsan soldier warned her not even a moon into the fighting, peering gravely at her over a dying campfire. It just ain’t the same anymore. Same people, same places, but it’s you what’s changed, and there ain’t no goin’ back to who you were before you left. Home seems a little smaller, he’d said, but instead the Skysteel Manufactory feels bigger and louder than she remembers: thrumming with the familiar heartbeat of the bellows even in the middle of the night, casting a pulse out through Isghard’s ancient cobblestones. Joye stands for a long, silent moment outside the heavy doors, resting a hand against the weathered wood with her eyes closed, the better to feel Ishgard itself tremble at what the manufactory can do. Home.

She didn’t mean to sneak back in like this, slipping in after dark like a thief in the night instead of the proven warrior she was - instead of the proud machinist of House Haillenarte she’d shown herself to be on the battlefields of Gyr Abania. There’d been some talk of entering the city in a procession with the knights of all the High Houses, and doubtless there were some machinists who wanted to be part of that recognition, but...  Home. Moons with nothing but his voice, with nothing but half-whispered conversations while the rest of her squadron slept. Awful nights where she woke with nightmares - the old ones, and newer, bloodier ones - and reached shivering for his voice on the other end of the linkpearl, trying to draw strength from that alone. Grand nights where she tripped over her own tongue trying to catch him up on all she and the others were doing, all the things they’d accomplished, all the barriers they were breaking down - and he’d say I’m proud beyond words, my dear. But she’d have to imagine him smiling, and it... it just wasn’t the same. Drinking deep of Ishgard’s bitterly cold air, Joye pushes the door open and steps into Skysteel’s loud, welcoming warmth. She knows he’ll be here, somehow - playing the odds, mayhap; he’s nearly always here when she calls, happily complaining about the “mountain of munitions” the war effort has demanded of him. How much of that work is getting done, Joye can only speculate: there is indeed a mountain of commission forms sitting atop Fromelaut’s empty desk, and a quick glance at them reveals many of them are as yet incomplete; unsurprising. After all, if she’s not here, what’s to keep Stephanivien from working on whatever new innovation strikes his fancy instead of seeing to the demands of the war in Ala Mhigo? Exasperated fondness seizes her almost painfully, and she draws a sharp breath, resting a hand on the form-buried desk, looking around at the empty reception room: so little has changed! The work table, the bookshelves with their carefully-organized manuals, the pipes overhead steaming like a breathing beast, Stephanivien’s anvil... she moves toward the anvil itself, resting a hand on the hammer propped against it. What has he built since she’s been gone? Supplying the war effort, aye, but she knows him - she knows him well enough to know there has to be more, there has to be at least a half-dozen other contraptions he’s dreamed up in her absence, and she’s going to have to find out what they all do. She steps into the main room at last: cavernous and echoing - strange, how it used to seem so unnerving at night, but now it feels... like home.  And you. Home seems smaller, the Lominsan warned her, and mayhap he does: dozing at his workbench, surrounded by half-assembled projects, Stephanivien does seem a little smaller than she remembers. A little softer. The thought closes Joye’s throat up tight, making it hard to breathe - in Gyr Abania, she saw all the ways a man could die: brutally, simply, finally, and him... and Stephanivien, he’s no warrior, not really. For all he could stand with his machinists and fight the likes of Svara or Veri Selen, he isn’t a fighter, and... here, asleep in the safe heart of his manufactory, this is where he ought to stay. Right here, where nothing can hurt him. Because he’s too precious and too fragile to be risked elsewhere - Joye swallows hard past the lump in her throat, blinking back a surge of tears; she’s not going to cry. What can she do, really? Lock him up in a box somewhere, where no one can ever harm him? He’d not thank her for it, and... well. And she’s home now, ain’t she? She can keep him safe enough, probably. Probably. There were friends in Ala Mhigo she couldn’t - Not now. Deep breaths, deep breaths, she isn’t going to cry. She takes a few steps closer to his bench, heart aching and overflowing; he looks so tired! She knows how he is, going without sleep, missing meals - she’s gonna kill Pelderain; she told him to make sure his lordship ate and slept while she was gone -  She reaches for him, brushing his hair from his face: a simple, familiar motion, one she’d always been so hesitant in before she’d been sent off to war. Too personal. Too much. Why doesn’t it seem that way now, she wonders, letting her fingertips trace the curve of his jaw - it feels  different, he feels different: she’d always thought of him as handsome in his way, even after she’d abandoned the idea that she might be in love with him; now, he seems... well, softer, gentler. Is it just that she’s gotten used to the sharp cruelties of war? There was no time for softness in Gyr Abania - only quiet, stolen moments of peace through linkpearl conversations. Maybe he hasn’t gotten softer. Maybe she’s just gotten sharper, colder, and maybe home hasn’t gotten any smaller; maybe she’s just grown too many sharp, jagged edges, and they’re gonna catch on everything she brushes against. Maybe she’s gonna accidentally hurt him one of these days. The thought makes her withdraw her touch, just in time for him to stir: slow and heavy-lidded, he peers up at her in the lamplight. For a long moment, she wonders if he’s just gonna fall right back to sleep, and maybe that’d be best; maybe she can just slip away and he’ll think he was just dreaming. “Joye.” His voice is gentle, thick with sleep, and it makes her heart tighten all over again. Alertness dawns slowly - and then there’s his smile, just like she remembers, lighting up his whole being, as he realizes it isn’t a dream, not at all. “Joye, my dear Joye -” And then he moves, and she doesn’t even know how it happened, but she’s got her arms around his neck and her face pressed tight against his shoulder, her feet entirely off the ground, and his arms tight around her, his laughter and her own name ringing in her ears, and just like that - Home. She can figure out the rest later.

@haurchefantgreystone, I replied to this within a reasonable timeframe!

Joye feels him searching her eyes for shadows, and she makes herself hold his gaze for as long as possible... before, inevitably, she looks away, staring instead at the nearest pile of scrap metal on Stephanivien’s cluttered bedroom floor, wishing she could crawl beneath it and hide from Lord Haurchefant’s terrible sympathy. She never should’ve barged in like this; she wasn’t even really thinking when she did it - she was tidying up the hallway when the sudden burst of rage swept over her, and she knew he was still here, so she - She had questions, he had the answers; he had the answers she couldn’t get from no one else. Who else was she gonna ask? It wasn’t as though she could demand answers and explanations from the count or his knights, even if she had fought with several of ‘em; it wasn’t the same. Haurchefant, though... “That’s all? Just... just ‘learn to live with it?’“ Her hands curl into fists, and she can feel herself trembling - it ain’t his fault, she knows that, but it ain’t enough, not after all she’s seen. “Just... go about my life? Just like that?” Fearing that it may get easier, he says, not even knowing just how easy it got, there at the end; it was easy as anything to kill a Garlean especially - hidden behind that armor of theirs, it was easy to pretend they weren’t even people. She stopped thinking about them, stopped wondering about the lives they’d left behind -  Did that make her a monster? Her trembling turns to shivering, and she wraps her arms around herself, still glaring. “I might be the same person now as I was out there,” Joye murmurs, sounding less fierce than she’d hoped. “She’s in there somewhere, ain’t she? Who I was out there. An’ sooner or later she’ll turn up again.” And what if it ain’t on the battlefield where it happens?

Can we talk about the fact that when Hilda first met Stephanivien she evidently ripped into him and he still decided the best course of action was to arm her?

Unfollow me now; Joye Emotions are all I’m going to be writing about for the next like, two weeks.

Petition to let Stephanivien de Haillenarte go spend like a week with the goblins in Idyllshire 

Not pictured: Stephanivien de Haillenarte goddamn fighting Ser Aymeric over requisitioning Joye for the war in Ala Mhigo.

/hits level 63

/IMMMEDIATELY TELEPORTS BACK TO ISHGARD

/PINING INTENSIFIES

WHAT CHOICE SCREAM

hybridlancer replied to your post: hybridlancer replied to your post: ...

I’ll be honest. I’m sad I didn’t get Joye, but I was sure as hell hyped for Hilda.

I adore Hilda, and one of the things I’ve always wanted was to see Stephanivien and Hilda interacting - so I’m definitely thrilled I got that. But like. Joye tho. :c (She was off kicking ass and taking names, though, and it’s implied she gets to come home again and go right back to being a badass, so I’ll take it.)

hybridlancer replied to your post: Drabble: Homecoming

So much Joye

Do you know how disappointed I was not to see her in the MCH quests do you have any idea Steph’s occasional mentions of her gave me life but not seeing her tho. :c

haurchefantgreystone replied to your post: haurchefantgreystone replied to your post: ...

Steph whines that everyone’s so far and gets a kiss, and “I know, i’m sorry, however I am here right now?”

And it’s not that Steph doesn’t understand that duty must come first And it’s not that Steph doesn’t want the people he cares about to do their duty and make Ishgard and the manufactory proud But he gets lonely with everyone so far away and no one but his machines to talk to .......so he’s going to take advantage of Haurchefant whenever he chances to be in Ishgard for a time.

haurchefantgreystone replied to your post: I’m giving myself emotions over the idea of...

Haurchefant being present for those tho. Listening to the boy talk to his girl

Which itself makes a nice counter for all of the times Joye’s around to listen to Steph calling Haurchefant. ; u;

I’m giving myself emotions over the idea of Stephanivien and Joye having long-distance linkpearl conversations while she’s stationed far away. Send help, I’m dying.

Thoughts so far: MCH

Battle

I am, for the record, really liking the flow of the adjusted MCH rotation so far; I’m starting to get a handle on the heat gauge. It’s hard to get used to not having Lead Shot (and I put Hot Shot in its old place on my hotbar, and I keep accidentally using it like it’s a DoT, which in turn overheats my Gauss Barrel waaaay too quickly, but that’s muscle memory and I’ll hammer it out soon), but everything else, I’m really liking. I’m particularly pleased with the shorter timer on Wildfire, making it more practical for non-boss fights, which was always my primary complaint about Wildfire in the first place.  I am super looking forward to getting cooling abilities, though, because even my Hot Shot abuse aside, it is very easy to overheat the gauge quickly if you’re really powering through the rotation/Reload/Quick Reload cycles, and Quick Reload is sadly not really enough on its own to compensate - at least not how I’ve been playing, which admittedly likely does need some adjustment. That said, the c/d on the Gauss Barrel once it’s overheated is much shorter than I expected it to be! I expected it to be a super long punitive c/d, but instead it is absolutely short enough to be fully recharged between pulls or before the end of larger pulls, making that extra overheated punch something worth pushing for if, for example, you’ve got Wildfire off c/d and you’re pushing 100% heated. The new role abilities are great and I have no real complaints. I’m happier than I have words to express that MCH finally, finally has a self-heal ability in Second Wind. It’s long overdue. I love that I never have to grind for Invigorate ever, ever again, because (no disrespect to LNC/DRGs intended) I hate playing LNC. I like that I can restore TP/MP without sacrificing any DPS on my end - and speaking of support abilities, I really appreciate that Hypercharge’s debuff effect is now the same on both Rook and Bishop. For the moment the fifth role ability I took is the stun, but that could change; it was a toss-up, for me, between that and Palisade. Time will tell whether I decide the protection buff is worth more in a party than an extra stun.

Plot

Oh boy okay here goes my heart; spoilers for the new level 60 quest under the cut. Also please bear in mind that as I’ve only done this first quest, this is a lot of speculation and guesswork and rambly thought nonsense, but I gotta get it down somewhere, ye know?

So at first glance, it seems like my fears were true: Stephanivien is definitely taking a back seat in the MCH quests going forward, with the focus shifting to Hilda - which I didn’t expect at all. As everyone who’s followed this blog for a while knows, I’ve been craving some interaction between Hilda and Steph, and with any luck, I’ll get it from this questline! I also wonder what it means for Hilda in terms of the MSQ; while obviously being a job quest NPC doesn’t mean she can’t be involved in the MSQ from now on (lookin’ at you, Estinien), it does make me a little worried SE doesn’t plan to do much more with her. I do hope she at least remains a MCH NPC for many, many expansions to come... although not at the cost of my Skysteel babies, of course. Speaking of, none of them are around for this quest, and my heart hurts. They’ve all been sent to help with Ishgard’s contributions to the war effort in Ala Mhigo, including Joye (no, I’m still not over Stephanivien referring to her as “my indispensable right-hand woman,” and no, I never ever will be, thanks for asking). Joye is the one who seizes my interest in particular, because she’s our most likely tie to moving the 60-70 MCH quests from Ishgard to Gyr Abania, when otherwise it’s hard to guess at the present stage in the MCH quests just how we’d end up there - given that we’re supposedly training the Ishgardian City Watch. Listen, what I want more than anything is for Joye to turn up wearing the new MCH AF gear, being badass and kicking ass in the name of House Haillenarte and Ishgard in Ala Mhigo and/or Doma. I want that so badly, you guys have no idea; I will literally actually scream. I also just really want my platonic soulmate babies to reunite because you can’t tell me Steph doesn’t miss his girl, even as he’s absurdly proud of all of his machinists proving their worth alongside Ishgardian knights.  Also I feel the need to scream a little bit about Stephanivien being an absolutely beautiful nerd over the gobbie tech in Idyllshire, because oh my god you wonderful ray of sunshine please god never change - if I’m at all okay with Steph taking a back seat in the MCH quests, it’s because it means he’s safe and free to just keep being his happy, hard-working self, without any wild crises coming along to put him through hell again. I’m not sure I could endure another arc where he doubts his own motives and wonders if he’s a terrible person; it might very well break me. Biggest surprise, to me: Rostnsthal! I swear I was just telling my roommate the other day how I didn’t expect we’d ever see any more of him, barring a cameo in a future expac or something - and here he is, back again to teach a new batch of machinists! Bonus points for letting my usually well-behaved WoL be playfully crude; character development. I also just love how Stephanivien goddamn sprints away at the end of the cutscene with Rostnsthal, because as much as he loves the tech in Idyllshire, he’s got so much work to do and he’s so here for it he is one happy little sunbeam. So basically, it’s not what I’d hoped the MCH quest would be, but it’s also not what I was afraid of: Steph is still around and will very likely still turn up periodically; I have high hopes of seeing Joye, Celestaux, and the others at some point in the future; they didn’t shove me with some new NPC who could never hold up to the old cast, and Hilda has more than enough personality and style to keep me invested. Also not gonna lie, I hope this stirs up some more Hilda RPers, because feed me. Iiiiiii think that’s everything. Yes. Looking forward to level 63!