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avirael · 7 months

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FFxivWrite 2023

Day 25 - Call it a Day

With a hiss the arrow left his bow, shot through the air and hit its target. It landed right into the Sandskin Peiste’s left eye and the creature, already studded with arrows all over it’s body, finally broke down defeated.

A'viloh marvelled at the other Miqo'te’s archery skills. Maybe one or two of A'vi’s own arrows had found their target while all the others had missed or didn’t even fly far enough. His skills had improved a little over the last few weeks but alone he would never ever manage to take such a monster down.

When Laqa did it though, it seemed so absurdly easy! The way he fought, the unflinching look in his golden eyes, every single one of his movements, the way he went still amid the turmoil before letting the arrow fly - it all mesmerised A'viloh.

"Phew! That was a tough one.", the blonde Miqo'te said and ran the back of his hand over his forehead as he turned to A'viloh. "You think three ones will be good enough to impress Gundobald?"

The two of them had arrived at Little Ala Mhigo around three months ago and while they had managed to befriend a few people, a lot of them remained wary of them. The most stubborn of them was Gundobald, who was unfortunately also the leader of this settlement. He tolerated them so far but winning his sympathy seemed like an impossible task. For U'laqa however this was more of a challenge than a hindrance and he took on every possible task that might enhance their reputation in the Ala Mhigan’s eyes. Today that had meant decimating the Peistes which had increased more and more around the settlement over the last few weeks.

"I don’t think anything is enough to impress Gundobald." A'viloh laughed. "You could bring down a Primal all by yourself and all you‘d get would be one of his stoic huffs."

U'laqa chuckled and yanked the arrows from the Peiste‘s corpse. "You‘re right. It just bugs me that I can’t win that stubborn old man over…"

"Ah yes... I can see how that‘s a heavy blow for someone as much-loved as you!", A'viloh teased.

Laqa handed him some of the arrows, then leaned down and planted a small kiss on A'vi’s lips. "I don’t care if they love me or not as long as you do, Vi…"

"You know that I always will, no matter how many monsters you can fight…", A'viloh blushed and fidgeted with the arrows in his hands. "...but if you want to we could try to take out another one."

U'laqa shook his head. "Nah! It‘s enough for one day."

"Alright, but I will try to aim a little better next time…", A‘viloh promised.

Laqa grinned and winked at him. "Maybe you actually would if you concentrated on what I taught you instead of staring at me half of the time."

"I am not!", A'viloh protested.

"Yes you are!", the other teased and nudged him.

A'viloh giggled. "Why would I? It’s not like you look distractingly handsome when you’re fighting…"

"You’re flattery isn‘t going to save you from target practice, Vi!", U'laqa teased, took his hand and pulled him along.

For a while he let A'viloh shoot arrows at a cactus from various distances, giving advice and correcting his posture, the later with a little more physical contact than would have been strictly necessary - Focus, Vi!, he teased knowing very well what he was doing - before he pressed a kiss to A'vi‘s cheek from behind and announced: "I guess that’s enough. Let’s call it a day."

A'viloh went to get his arrows while Laqa lay down under a big green tree nearby, that defied the blazing sun and offered them a patch of comfortable shadow. A'viloh sat down beside him and observed the view. Little Ala Mhigo at their backs, the landscape of Broken Water stretched out in front of them, the road leading towards Camp Drybone at their left and the ancient ruins of the Belah‘dian temple to their right. Not a soul to be seen far and wide.

"This is a nice spot, isn’t it?", A'viloh asked and looked down to Laqa.

"Mhmm… I really like the view.", he answered, deliberately looking at A'viloh instead. The red-haired Miqo'te looked at him as if he wanted to say Don’t be silly! but U'laqa reached out for him and pulled him down towards himself before he could say another word.

And as they lay there in the grass together, just the two of them, away from the prying eyes of Little Ala Mhigo, A’viloh thought that this had to be the best place in the world.

#ffxivwrite2023 #ffxivwrite #ffxiv writing #ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #ff14 #final fantasy 14 #Pre-ARR #A'viloh Tia #U'laqa Tia #This is another very short one because I am sooo tired...#I spent half of the night listening to a heartbroken friend and now I am at work trying really hard not to fall asleep...#I needed to write something cute to cheer me up!#I love writing about A'vi and Laqa #and once again Rael doesn't get character development...#and once again no plot advancements...#just fluff sorry not sorry #I imagined that screenshot as later in the ARR MSQ when A'vi would come across this place and remember this moment with Laqa...

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cactusxwren · 8 months

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Memoria

FFXIV Garlean OC

TW: referenced war, death

Spoilers: 6.x+

It was just before dawn when Rhela halted her bike just past the gates of Camp Bluefog. She sighed and shut the engine off, sitting back in the saddle slightly as she pulled out her tobacco pouch and used the tank in front of her as a table to roll a cigarette. The sun would take hours to break through the ambient fog, if it did at all. One foot balanced on the ground, holding up the weight of the massive motorcycle, and the other rested on the opposite foot peg. She sparked her lighter and cupped a wrapped hand around the flame as she brought it up to the roll between her lips.

Peistes and who knew what all else moved in the darkness beyond the gate lamps as she stared down the road at the faint glow of the ceruleum plant. Not for the first time, she considered turning back and going up to Mor Dhona first. Picking up a drink for herself, maybe spending the night there before making another attempt at the Castrum tomorrow.

Rhela took a slow drag, squinting through the scrim of smoke as she exhaled. It was a bad time to be doing this trip at all, with her mental state being what it was. But she’d planned it before everything had gone to shit. She pulled her tomestone out and clicked the screen on, not surprised to see no new messages. Anyone who might reach out was either drunk or had already gone to sleep. Delaying another day to spend the night in Mor Dhona wouldn’t make things any better. She pocketed the device again and kept staring into the murky darkness as she smoked.

Behind her, bells sounded the guard change. Once upon a time, this had been a strategically significant post. Now, it was just a sleepy little camp on the way to somewhere else.

“That time again?,” a familiar voice called out from the top of the wall.

“Aye,” Rhela called back, exhaling smoke into the fog.

“New bike?”

“Starlight gift.”

The guard whose name she had never bothered to learn whistled. “Must be someone special.” Rhela chuckled and shook her head. “We’ve been getting more reports of Ahriman. Watch yourself out there.”

She flicked her cigarette away. “Always do.” She hopped up to kick the engine over, and everything else was lost under the roar as she sped off once again.

—

Castrum Meridianum loomed large overhead as Rhela pushed her bike behind a long-abandoned barricade and threw the cover over it. The outer walls looked as sturdy as ever — a bastion of the Empire, of the XIVth Legion. Both long dead. She made her slow way up the last part of the hill to the remains of the cairn she’d built the last time. Someone had knocked it down again. Every time. For all she knew, it was the guard at Bluefog.

Seventy nine stones.

It took Rhela most of the morning to collect them again, and stack them back into the rough pyramid she’d fashioned the first year.

Seventy nine names.

She remembered them all. Garleans and Ala Mhigans, mostly. A few from the far flung provinces of the Empire. Sons and daughters and orphans. Fathers. Friends. Lovers. Brothers, to each other.

Seventy nine lives.

Titus’s men. And then her men, however briefly. So many lives were lost that day, but these. These were hers. And she had failed them all. Rhela knelt before the insufficient memorial in silence.

Eventually, she pulled her flask from her hip and uncapped it, dumping a bit over the stones. Tapped the container on the ground before taking a drink.

“Just one, this time.” She smiled and screwed the top shut before tucking the flask away again. “Sure isn’t the future we imagined, is it? But… I’m still here. World’s changing so fast, people are moving on. Heard the other day that what’s left of the senate made a trade agreement with Radz-at-Han. Guess the world almost ending puts things in perspective.”

Rhela sat back and rolled another cigarette, lighting it and smoking in silence after. More words would come eventually. Or they wouldn’t. She doubted the dead minded much, either way.

#wren writes #ffxiv oc #ffxiv rp #rhela #gpose #ffxiv screenshots #mini fic

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pangolinheart · 8 months

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FFXIVWrite 2023 DAY 13 - CHECK

Rhiki, Estinien, and Alphinaud have decided to team up for a treasure hunt! (I'm not gonna lie to you friends, this one really fought me. Writing it was painful and I didn't think I was gonna be able to do it. But I'm stubborn and I wrote it anyway. Thank you to everyone who helped me come up with ideas!)

Rating: General Genre: Adventure, fluff Characters: Alphinaud Leveilleur, Estinien Varlineau, Z'rhiki Irhi (Warrior of Light) Word Count: 1,524 Content Warnings: None

“Is that… what I think it is?”

“Huh?” Z’rhiki’s attention had been thoroughly focused on wiping the disgusting mixture of sweat, blood, and saliva from her face before it could accidentally make its way into her mouth, and she almost didn’t hear Alphinaud’s question. Even when she did, it took her a few seconds to process his words into something she could respond to. She looked up from the strewn bodies of the most recent wave of peistes to see him standing in the room’s far corner. In her peripheral vision she saw Estinien, his own armor slick with blood, turn his head as well.

“That depends on what you think it is.” He remarked dryly, strowing towards the boy. “If you think it’s a coffer, then aye.”

He was right. On the ground near where Alphinaud knelt was a small, gold-trimmed chest. It wasn’t particularly ornate, and time had dulled its color, but in their exhaustion and the dim light of the dungeon it seemed almost radiant.

Alphinaud marveled at his find. “I was beginning to think we were never going to find anything down here,” he said. His voice was calm, level, but knowing him as she did Rhiki could hear the excitement eating at the edges of it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She reached up to make a last attempt at clearing her face, though only succeeded in smearing blood across her cheek. “We’ve found loads of stuff down here! We’ve found empty potion bottles, old buckles, rusty swords,” she listed, counting the items off on her fingers. “I found the fork and spoon from a mess kit, and that pair of socks with a hole in one of them! And Estinien found that hunk of moldy cheese. Oh, and obviously we found all of the monsters that are down here.”

“He means ought of value.” Estinien pointed out, his expression as stern as ever. She still couldn’t tell if he ever found her jokes funny.

“Just so,” Alphinaud agreed. “Well then, shall we see what’s inside?” Something in the way his hand fussed with the hem of his jacket made him look both eager and hesitant in equal measure.

Estinien had come to a stop and stood over the chest, arms crossed. “The honor is yours, boy.”

“Wait!” Rhiki called just as Alphinaud was about to rest a hand on the lid. After all of the traps and pitfalls they had encountered on their way through the labyrinth, looking at the gilded coffer gave her pause. It triggered a memory of Astrelle, leaning over just such a chest, strands of her white hair falling in front of her face. In the past, the duskwight woman glanced up at her. “Don’t be in such a rush, girl!” She scolded, but in the gentle tone she always used when she was teaching. “Always take the time to check for traps. The loot’s not going anywhere. Best to see if the wine is poisoned before you take a big gulp, eh?”

Alphinaud’s hand hovered over the lid, and he looked to her, uncertain, as she trotted over to join them. She dropped into a crouch to examine the chest from the same level as Alphinaud. “Do you mind?” she asked, though she fully intended on subjecting it to her inspection no matter his answer.

“Please,” the boy nodded, scooting back a few ilms.

She pulled her pack around her and dug through it, pushing aside supplies and incidentals. From within she retrieved the mess kit fork from several floors above.

“Wait, you kept that?!” Alphinaud exclaimed, surprised and a little bit mortified. She wished she could say she’d held onto it because she had foreseen just such a use for it, and if he ever asked, she would.

Slowly, carefully, she worked one of the tines of the fork between the lid and the base and, gently, raised the lid less than a fraction of an ilm. Her eyes darted back and forth across the seam of darkness, and she moved her head from one side of the box to the other, hoping to catch that tiny glint of light. Ah. There it is.

She extracted the fork with just as much finesse and tucked it back into her bag. Then, without warning, she seized the chest by the sides and lifted up, shaking it vigorously.

“W-what are you doing!?” Alphinaud demanded, and even Estinien looked startled (though she could only tell because of the slight lift of his eyebrows).

“Just a minute.” She listened carefully, until she thought she heard the tinkling she was looking for. When she did, she stopped shaking and held the coffer still. She counted in her head 30 seconds… 60 seconds... 90 seconds… 120 seconds…. That should be long enough.

Alphinaud and Estinien watched quietly for the entirety of the count. Neither likely knew what she was doing, but they seemed perceptive enough to know she was doing something, and they trusted her enough to allow her to continue.

Rhiki set the box back on the ground, neither with the precision as her initial examination nor the violence of the shaking. With Estinien and Alphinaud watching over and around her shoulder, she cracked the lid of the chest open. By then, it only smelled a little.

“Sometimes chests like these are trapped,” She explained. “See? There’s a little rod on the inside of the lid.” Her finger drifted over the thin silver cylinder protruding from the interior lining. “When you open the chest, it pulls the rod up and out, which activates a spring catch, usually with something heavy attached to it. When the spring releases, the weight it’s attached to will slam into some sort of delicate bottle or vial. See? If you tilt the chest up you can see it stuck to the front of the inside. Or what’s left of it anyway.” She pointed down to the splintered glass, only the portion still stuck to wall of the coffer having remained intact.

“That vial is usually filled with some sort of expanding gas or alchemical mixture that reacts when it’s exposed to the air. Then whoever opened the chest gets a face-full of it. It’s pretty potent, and it can make you really sick, or even kill you, depending on who mixed it and how strong your constitution is. But it loses potency really quickly once it’s been released, probably because whoever made it knew they might have to open it again at some point. The glass vial has to be really fragile in order for the spring-loaded weight to break it, so usually if you notice the little rod through the opening before it’s actually slipped the spring you can just hold the chest closed and shake it really hard. Then something inside will smash into the vial, or maybe you can shake the spring loose of the rod. Once you’ve broken the vial, you just need to keep the chest closed to keep most of the gas inside long enough for it to degrade, which usually takes a couple of minutes. 2 minutes is a safe bet, though if it’s a really strong mixture or a big vial of it it still might make you a little queasy. Maybe the people who set these kinds of traps know another way to disarm them without breaking the vial, but this way almost always works.”

“I-I see,” Alphinaud stammered, not expecting so thorough a lecture. “I must say, I’m impressed not only that you possess such knowledge but that you noticed such a well-concealed detail.”

Rhiki beamed. “Just one of those little tricks you pick up on the road, I guess!”

“Something to keep in mind,” Estinien noted as he lowered himself to peer at the coffer’s content with them.

It was nothing terribly fancy – some gold baubles, a bit of materia, some rings (one of which she claimed, declaring it a “trap-finders’ fee”).

“It’s no Mistbeard’s Treasure,” Alphinaud said, turning over one of the materia in his hand, “but at least we know that there’s actually something to find, now. And if this was here, there may be more further down. Perhaps of greater value.

Estinien huffed. “Of course there is, boy. I wouldn’t have dragged us down here on vague speculation alone.”

“Well, let’s keep going, then!” Rhiki chimed, pulling herself up and dusting off her legs. She re-adjusted her pack as Alphinaud gathered up their haul. The way they had come was marked by peiste corpses, leaving the hallway before them their only choice if they wanted to continue. The success had renewed everyone’s enthusiasm for the adventure, and they set off in high spirits, with Rhiki leading the way.

At least, for two or three steps. Until she felt the stone tile under her foot sink into the ground and heard a “click.”

Whoops!

Further down the hall, in the next room, metal screeched against metal as cage doors rose. The baying of animals echoed down the halls, growing louder and louder as they approached.

“Rhiki!” Estinien snapped.

She grinned sheepishly back at him and shrugged. “Sorry!”

#ffxivwrite #ffxivwrite2023 #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv #alphinaud leveilleur #alphinaud #estinien varlineau #estinien #auggie writes #rhiki tag

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mendely · 1 year

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#VEY IMPORTANT POLL!!!!#priet is hysterical to me ok #priests #poll #tumblr polls #fantastic priests #how do I tag this lmaooo

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foewreckem · 8 months

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ffxivwrite #7 - noisome

"Ugh, I don't ride through that part of Thanalan anymore if I can help it. The smell's enough to do me in."

"I mean, the air from the mines is strong, but--"

"Bully the mines, it's the bloody undead wobbling around!"

"Th-the what?"

"The undead. They wiggle around like this. Smell makes you want to cut your nose off."

"Sure. Stop moving like that. Is the smell really the part of the undead we should be worrying about?"

"What else is there? Not like they can wobble half as fast as a chocobo."

"Well, I was thinking we could worry about how they used to be dead and how they got un'd. Seems like that ought not be happening."

"We don't get paid enough for that. Captains or somebody get paid for that. Our section of the pay scale is small peistes."

#ffxivwrite2023 #mooglesoft word

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aerialsquid · 7 months

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FFXIVWrite Day 28: Blunt

Continuing from the CidNero voidsent AU here. You know that thing where there's a guest star on a show and the spotlight focuses on them broadly disproportionate to their actual role in the plot because they're notable IRL? That's how it feels when I cameo a favored OC in a fic. In my head, they show up and the studio audience immediately starts cheering.

"You can't just call up one of your Reapers and ask their voidsent?"

"Most of my family's partners are weaker voidsent. They rarely speak, and have little on their mind but the hunger."

"Ah. And unfortunately for us Nero continues to be in his talkative stage."

"Fall in a ditch, Garlond."

Nero had been getting more and more twitchy the further they walked through the undercity tunnels of Ul'dah, following behind Drusilla and her lantern. He kept staring at the shadows, as if expecting something to jump out at them.

There were built-over passageways and walled off apartments all through the city, as the residents built over the old world again and again through the millenia. At the start they'd passed actual humans living in the tunnels, watching with wary milky eyes as they huddled in the careful assemblies of tarps and rubble they'd built their makeshift homes from. This deep, Cid couldn't even hear the sound of rats anymore.

"The advisor you're hunting," Drusilla said, "would need to be a voidsent who's well-fed enough that it can have more on its mind than consuming and hiding. One that's been in our world for quite some time without revealing itself."

"And I take it that's who we're going to visit."

Drusilla gave a curt nod, watching the floor for debris.

"In the void, its name was Plasmatore, but the Uldahns took to calling it Dollmaker."

"Charming moniker," Nero commented. "I'm sure it portends something dreadful."

Drusilla didn't confirm or deny the statement. "It's been here over 200 years, by its own account. Far long enough to sate itself back into sanity. I've arranged an audience, but it's up to you whether it likes you enough to be of any help."

They passed through a few metal grates, into an open area where a rusty chain hung beside a large, round slab of dark metal. Drusilla hefted the bag over her shoulder, balanced the pot of irises she'd been carrying on her hip, and yanked hard.

From the other side of the slab, Cid could just barely hear the sound of chimes.

"We don't need to do this," Nero was muttering, one arm around himself, the purpling in his skin dimmed as if to make him less visible. "I could find a solution myself."

"The last thing I want is to wake up to you tearing my throat out. Wasn't this your idea?"

Nero scowled and muttered something under his breath about holes in the air. Cid was about to ask what the hell that meant when the slab of metal slowly rolled aside on hidden tracks.

"Hello, Dollmaker."

"Drusilla."

The creature was long and massive, its body a glistening jet-black like an obsidian gemstone. The back end of its body was bulbous with two pairs of limbs ending in clawed feet jutting out to the side, like a Desert Peiste that had eaten far too much. The long thick neck held two additional sets of smaller limbs, and at the very end of its neck rested an unmoving porcelain mask, eyes closed and mouth sealed.

The mask stared down at them and then said, without moving any visible lips, "I thought you were coming in the evening." Its voice was almost comically high pitched for such a massive creature, and sounded like a large man doing a falsetto in a pantomime show.

"It is evening," Drusilla said. She offered the flowers, which the creature took with the topmost pair of limbs.

"Are you sure?" it asked, the mask canting to one side.

"Quite sure."

"Ah. I may have lost track of time. I was having–anyway, come in, come in." The leftmost upper hands gestured towards them.

The doorway led into a large room lit by lamps in the center and cloaked in shadow along the edges, with more light coming from a door to the next chamber. The floor was bare and worn stone, but there were several pieces of surprisingly nice furniture scattered about, as if guests were meant to be entertained there.

Dollmaker carried the pot of irises to the back of the room, where crystal lamps illuminated a small fountain, reminiscent of those that Cid had seen in the foyers of Ul'dahn merchants. The shelves above and around the fountain were ringed with potted flowers in various stages of life.

Dollmaker set the irises among them and ran a delicate fingertip over one blossom. The color drained from the tiny flower and it wilted on its stalk into a lifeless grey. Dollmaker brushed a fond hand over the other flowers, contemplating them, but their colors remained intact as it pulled away.

"It's…it's like a whirlpool," Nero muttered. He still had his arms around himself, as if the room were somehow chilly. "All of the aether going into that…that maw."

"You can see it feeding? Or–him, feeding?" Cid figured anything formal enough to have furniture counted as some sort of person type being.

Dollmaker called back over its shoulder, "Both are fine, friend. I rather like the 'it', gives me that exotic flavor."

"No. Yes? Sense the currents of the aetherial flow. Like how my third eye senses, but…there's more color. I wonder if I could chart…" Nero trailed off, lost in thoughts of scientific treatises as he stared at the massive voidsent conducting pleasantries with Drusilla. Drusilla proffered the sack, whose contents Cid couldn't glimpse before a wide slit opened down the length of Dollmaker's throat and a thick red tongue lashed out to consume the contents. A shrill animalistic shriek was abruptly cut off as its jaws closed with a wet crunch.

Everyone had to eat, Cid supposed.

"So this is the hybrid, yes?" Dollmaker said, delicately wiping at its neck. "Goodness. I've not seen anything like this in quite a long time. Let me have a look at you." The neck lowered, eyes on the porcelain mask squinting to inspect him. When two of the neck hands came up to touch him Nero flinched away, then reluctantly returned to be touched.

"Cold," Nero muttered. "Cold, but…"

"Not cold. Void. The emptiness in you feels the emptiness in me. Were we in the void, I might try to fill my own emptiness with what little life is left in you, until once again I grew hungry."

Cid saw Nero shiver in the voidsent's grasp and coughed hard, lest anyone else's eyes notice it. "You've seen this before?" he interrupted.

"Rarely, yes. When one's body is destroyed in the void one does not die, as mortals here are blessed to do." It turned Nero's arm over, pushing his sleeve up to inspect the veins of amethyst running up his arms. "Your soul is shredded into tatters on the wind. If you are left alone, you may slowly coalesce and return to form in time. If not, another voidsent will consume you before you reconstitute, and your essence becomes part of theirs."

One long fingertip traced a line of soft purple up to Nero's elbow. "Those tatters infected you through wounds incurred here, as they mindlessly followed your leaking aether back into your body. Weak as they were, they did not consume you, but rather you consumed them, and now their tatters and their hungers live in you. Which is a shame, but that really is a lovely shade of purple on you."

The hands were lingering more than might have been strictly necessary for an inspection. Nero tugged away hard, backing away into Cid.

"So can you cure me or not?"

"Blunt little thing, aren't you?" Dollmaker chuckled.

"It wasn't as if I intended to wind up like this. I wasn't even intending to be in the void to begin with, and I certainly didn't want any contract forged with Garlond. I want this contagion expelled from my body. Just tell me how to fix it."

Dollmaker set its lower limbs in a wide, huffy stance. "Let me trade blunt for blunt," it said, the falsetto voice growing harsher. "The tatters have merged with your mortal essence, little hybrid. To release them, you would have to release every soul stored inside you. The cure for your condition is death."

"Wh–" Nero staggered, focused, his colors flaring. Cid felt his chest tighten, and bit down on his tongue.

Dollmaker sidled its huge body around, putting its back and thick tail to Nero as it made to leave the room. "Count your blessings that you even keep your mortal will and form, and you have a patron ready made for you. There are others not so lucky." It turned to look at Drusilla, who herself was avoiding his gaze and staring into the floral fountain.

"Well, I refuse!"

Dollmaker, already turned around, craned its neck back over its shoulder to glare at him. "You refuse the laws of metaphysics themselves?"

"Frequently and with enthusiasm!" Nero shot back.

"It's sort of our thing," Cid put in, smiling despite himself.

Another look to Drusilla gave Dollmaker her shrug and then begrudging nod. The wide slit of its maw opened in a laugh that made the voidsent's entire body tremble like a gelatin mold.

"Ah, mortals and their many hungers, you're so adorable. Let's at least start at helping you understand your partnership, yes?"

Dollmaker sauntered up to a tall door, engraved and fillagreed in a way that outshone the rest of the room. One hand hesitated on the knob.

"You are both well-traveled mortals, if you have touched the void itself, yes?" Dollmaker asked. Anxiousness made the falsetto go a half-octave even higher.

Cid and Nero both nodded.

"Not prone to being easily shocked or offended by harmless oddities? Slow to judging the hobbies of others?"

"...depends on the hobby, but yes?" Cid offered.

The neck-limbs curled in on themselves in a way that Cid almost identified as embarrassment.

"And I am helping you, so bear that in mind," Dollmaker added in a low grumble as it finally convinced itself to open the door.

Cid found Nero standing closer to him, one foot before Cid's. "Something's odd in there," Nero whispered. "Something about the aether. It's…it's not moving. It's not right."

The door opened into a long, high-ceilinged corridor lined on either side with shelves that went up even higher than Dollmaker's head. Carefully arranged on the shelves were rows and rows of still figures lit up by spotlights. They ranged in size from broad-showed Roegedayn to pudgy, diminutive Lalafell. Many were standing but some were arranged on chairs or couches as if they were captured in a moment of pleasant idleness. They were dressed in an array of high fashions, trending towards ornate dresses with full poofy skirts and crinolines, but all of them were adorned in a veil or mask that hid most of their features.

With a sinking, almost resigned sense of dread, Cid whispered to Nero, "Those aren't mannequins, are they?"

Nero gave a short, jerky little shake of his head, his eyes wide as he stared at the shelves.

"Ethically sourced, before you get yourselves in a twist," said the voidsent walking in front of them, defensive. "Your city throws the corpses of paupers over the walls to feed the jackals, at the very least this gives them more dignity. I even pay the fee to Thal. And of course there are many who are happy to trade the part they don't want for the part they do."

"Why is their aether so…unusual?" Nero asked. "They don't all seem to match, either, and none of them are decaying." He stopped at one figure arranged as if it were having tea with its companion, a cup delicately grasped in its fingers. Cid also reluctantly stopped to look, following Nero's gaze. The fingers were Sea Wolf teal, but the hand was the color of tanned leather, and those were definitely Xaela horns poking out from the sides of the veil.

Cid was abruptly put in mind of a business trip he'd taken a few years back. He'd visited a specialist in dress-up mammets to discuss an Ironworks partnership, and she'd taken Cid into the back room to show off her personal collection of dolls. The menagerie had ranged from ancient, carefully preserved relics of past eras to dolls that wore miniature versions of the same fashions that Radiant Rose had in his shop windows.

Some, the specialist had confided, were one of a kind art pieces that she carefully built from scavenged pieces of other dolls, customizing them to resemble mythological figures or storybook heroes. The care put into their tiny earrings, perfectly coiffed hair, and delicately painted faces was more than most actual women put into their day to day appearances. Cid had never been much for dolls even as a child, scorning everything feminine in his overcompensating quest for masculine affirmation, but he had to admit the craft was impressive.

Dollmaker stretched out one of its topmost hands towards the figure Cid was inspecting. Cid jerked backwards as the figure slowly unfolded itself from the chair, grasping its skirt in one hand to give a low curtsy before sinking back into its chair and going still.

"It's my unique trait," Dollmaker said, with some amount of pride."I control the flow of aether in mortal bodies, or I freeze the aether in place, the better to rearrange the individual components. I can do it to the living, too. It's quite painless, and my fees are very reasonable, if you'd ever fancy being taller…"

"I'll keep my legs all the same, if you don't mind," Cid said, swallowing the discomfort in his stomach. "It's the one thing Nero gets to lord over me and I'd hate to deprive him of the opportunity."

Nero was a lot less appalled, or at least better at hiding it. "You swap out body parts like we swap out parts on an airship engine? Fascinating."

Dollmaker preened a little. "And an essential service! I have contracts with so many that I never want for aether *or* coin, and I may maintain a far more comfortable lifestyle than most of my contemporaries. Why, some of my dolls were even left to me in their owners' wills, so grateful were they for our business relationship in life. And I do so love seeing them in their pretty dresses, and playing with their soft hair, and painting up their faces…"

It shook its head firmly, opening a cabinet in the wall and shuffling through its contents. "Ah, but don't let me be caught rambling or we'll be here all day talking about my lovelies. All night. Whatever time it's supposed to be. What you want is a different doll. A lovely and very open-minded gentleman from your very homeland came by about forty, sixty years ago? Fascinating man, amazing creative mind, not a clue where he ended up, but he did leave me one of his Galatea. They used them for training Reaper and voidsent partnerships back in your country, so I'm sure you'll find its familiarity quite the comfort!"

And there went the flipping in Cid's stomach again. He was beginning to regret having even had dinner in the first place.

#ffxivwrite2023 #cidnero

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i0veless · 1 year

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im not defend him but what if he’s innocent. i mean the same thing happened to Neymar and he wasnt guilty. the girl said lies about r*pe/abuse

i don't think we should be too quick to judge about it, i hope it's not true..💔

I know it is too quick to judge, but I hate to be the one to say it people would rather support a liar than a r*peist, so regardless of whether he is guilty or not, until the investigation is over and he is proven innocent, he will be guilty in the eyes of the general public. as it is not the first time a male in a position of power has used his status to get away with heinous crimes. and I must clarify I am not defending or attacking him until the evidence is shown. still, until then, I am remaining neutral and merely making people aware of this situation and to be cautious when consuming content about him with these allegations hanging over his head, as r*pe is an unforgivable crime. as a fan of him this is very difficult to do, part of me wants to deny the possibility of it being true, but the majority of me is prepared to accept that the player that I have grown to adore may not be as nice that I thought he was, but once again I am prepared for both out comes and prepared to take appropriate action.

#inbox :: anon #achraf hakimi #achraf hakimi x reader

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peist · 1 year

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Jan Kilbride and something… else

#tma #mag 106 #jan kilbride #by Peist #the vast #the magnus archives #my art

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onwesterlywinds · 7 months

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PROMPT #27: Sole

Rosenheim had only traveled so far south on one prior occasion, and the circumstances had not permitted him time for socialization. The dry air tasted as he remembered it from Ashelia's memories, and all the bitterness she associated with it came to the fore of his own emotions; then, not so far from the entrance, two women's laughter cut through the quiet.

He found Gundobald further from where he usually took up guard, cleaning his pike of peiste guts at the southern entrance. The man glanced up as Rosenheim made his humble approach.

"Can I help you, traveler?"

For the first time in longer than he could remember, Rosenheim hesitated.

"I wanted to speak with you directly," he began. "And in private."

"If this is about safe passage home," Gundobald replied, "I'll have to connect you via mail with Bertliana, our representative on the new council. She's facilitating as many relocations as she's been able, with priority going to the most needy."

"Thank you," said Rosenheim, "but I've just come from the Ala Mhigan capital."

For the first time, suspicion crossed over the old bear's wrinkled face.

"I've owed you a meeting for quite some time," he continued. "From one soldier to another-" Here he looked around, the better to determine that they were not being overheard. "-I've wanted to thank you for taking care of my daughter."

Gundobald's hand stilled. He set down his pike upon the desert earth and stood to take his full measure of Rosenheim. For the first time, too, he saw the man as Ashe likely saw him.

"Riot," he breathed.

Ashe had warned him plenty of times that their surname was not popular in the refugee camps, as too many of the others' loved ones had been disappeared during the Mad King's purges. To hear Gundobald speak it so softly put that understanding into perspective. All the same, he nodded.

"It is no less than I would have done for any child," Gundobald began. He opened his mouth as if to continue that line of explanation, then shook his head. "I owed it to your sister. To Alma. She saved my life and the lives of my men during the king's reign."

Try as he might, Rosenheim could not recall any incident like this from his memory or his daughter's.

Gundobald's mustaches fluttered as he let out a heavy breath, staring out across the same lifeless stretch of the Sagolii that he had surely seen for more than twenty years. "I led a group of us from the Saltery to the city gates. We gathered more and more people along the road until we became a mob. Perhaps we thought ourselves the mob that would storm the palace, even." He shook his head to indicate the foolishness of that notion. "And Alma was on duty at the city gate to meet us. By protocol, she should have called for more of the city guard to surround us then and there. But she, barely out of girlhood and scarcely taller than five fulms, locked eyes with me. And she pleaded for us to turn around."

He had read the reports at the time, mostly with an eye for anything in her behavior that might have been deemed incriminating or sympathetic to the rebels. To hear them from one who had been there, so many years removed, brought tears to his eyes that he could not entirely attribute to the desert air. "She's alive, in case you didn't know. Continuing to root out imperials in Dalmasca."

"Ashelia's told me some in her letters. I'm glad of it. As I am glad of her mother's recovery."

Gundobald had not looked at him for some time, and Rosenheim followed his line of sight out toward a horizon that glistened with heat. "She was not an easy child," he conceded.

"No," the old bear laughed, wiping at his eyes. "She was not. And I cannot claim we always gave her the care she needed."

"But you, in particular - you were the only one who always had a place for her, no matter what." It was not his place to broach her tenure in the Corpse Brigade by name, and yet somehow, he knew Gundobald understood. "I see her exhibit that same grace as a leader of a new Ala Mhigo, and I know she did not learn it from me."

They sat together in as long of a silence as Rosenheim could stand, until the first hints of gold began to tinge the horizon and they might well have mistaken the canyon walls all around them for those of Gyr Abania.

#FFXIVWrite #FFXIVWrite 2023 #Ashley Rosenheim

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lal-ffxiv · 2 years

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(Carry Me Home - The Sweeplings)

Riva carried the ashes, Haran carried the weapons. The world had been heavy on their backs, but their hearts had never felt so. The wind scattering the sands, whistling through the dry rocks teased a familiar voice. Riva could imagine their humming as they walked, their ceaseless chattering. “Here where I fell while escaping a Peiste, Frynch couldn’t fly then and we fell to the river. It was a nice fishing spot while I waited for my leg to heal up, but I had to deal with some cultists. Or maybe not cultist. They wore robes and threw fire at me. And here is where…”. Riva’s dry eyes stung as sand blew into them. Squinting xe looked at Haran, and zie stood tall with eyes forwards. Riva wished zie would speak, say anything to fill the hollow of noise. Riva broached the idea of talking, to say any nonsense, but Riva couldn’t summon up xyrs voice either.

Riva and Haran passed the gates of The Springs of the Sagolii, and stood still attempting to reconcile the stories Luka told them with the place in front of them. The settlement has developed into a functioning sanctuary, once again connected to the rest of the realm. One thing that hadn’t changed was the U’s wariness of outsiders though. Especially outsiders as strange as Riva and Haran. The Huntresses encroached on them, and not subtly, as the Nunuhs approached them.

“What commerce brings you to our gates?”

Haran was still in mourning silence, so zie looked to Riva to speak of their purpose.

Riva brought out the urn, “Their memories are with us, and Mephina has surely embraced them, but their body was from these sands”. Riva tried xys hardest to use the language Haran would have used. Haran presented the last weapons with names etched onto the hearts. Not the names of past Huntresses, but simple words of meaning: Wind, Moon, Light, Sea, Sands, Sky, Shade, Freshwater. Now more of the U were drawn closer by curiosity, but no one moved to accept either the urn or the weapons.

“And who was this?”

Neither has spoken their name in sennights. They would always flick their ears to the sound of their name no matter how far the distance it was called over, or how quietly it was whispered. Always knew they were being called for something more, something important, and would give themself fully to that call. Haran was reminiscing on those memories when the Nunhs spoke again,

“That is not a name common to the U, no matter whom it belongs to.”

Haran nearly spoke, but held. Riva also held xymself back. Xer hands clenched around the urn, and through gritted teeth Riva said, “They were cared for by the junkmonger of this tribe at the dawn of the seventh umbral calamity.” Riva had a promise to keep, and would not be refused. “They were from here more than anywhere else. This is where they wished to return. This is where they should rest.”

“Our traditions are not often broken.” The Nunh stood resolute, but shared a look of doubt. “Follow us.”

The Huntresses stood back, but followed as way all the way to the foot of Nunh’s door. Once the door was closed Haran and Riva knew the huntresses were still standing behind it. Neither could retell the stories they heard of the U’s Huntresses as told to them, so neither would hear the stories be told the same way again.

The scroll detailing the births and deaths of the U was well preserved and honored. Riva and Haran were instructed to turn when it was brought out. Haran could hear the parchment be unrolled and how lightly it was touched while each name was searched.

“This was written in your father's own hand.” “Yours was one to pave new traditions over the old.”

“Were you family with this miqo’te?” One of the Nunh’s asked, still reserving caution of these outsiders.

Tears brimmed quickly for Riva, and Haran’s mouth opened.

“There isn’t a doubt about that.” The other Nunh spoke for them. “You’re allowed to look now, as family to them.”

There was their name written in full, Luka E’res. Under U’kali, Junkmonger. One nunuh penned in Warrior of Light besides’s Luka’s name.

“Luka always spoke of returning here. This is where they should rest”. Riva finally let go of the urn, placing it on the table for the Nunh to take. One did, and promised for the rites to be held in the next sun for them.

In the morning it was only the Nunh’s and the Captains that came out for the respect for a warrior. One captain carried Sky and the other Sand. One Nunh prayed the rites and the other released the ashes.

Riva was seized with fear at the moment in a way xe had never been before. “This is the right place?”

Haran smiled. “Yes,” zie voice freed of mourning. Finally, Riva was relieved of everything.

A strong wind overcame the party, spreading the ashes far and freely to sands beyond the horizon.

#Fate & Future #Haran Queer Light Party #Riva Queer Light Party #own writing

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