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xiakha · 3 years

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FFXIVWrite2021 Prompt #13 - Oneirophrenia

The Scions did not return to the Crystarium alone. Well, the bally whole world also had to get back from the outing to Scree and Amity, and the residents of the Crystarium were no different, but there was another rumor.

Something else stalked those returning to the Crystarium. Whispers of something on the edges, a shape at the corner of the eye, an errant rustle in the stillness. The two day's travel was condensed into a day of forced marching. With the Light returned and so many of the Crystarium outside its protective walls, the chance that irreparable damage could be done to its personnel was too much of a risk.

But whatever it was followed them, somehow, across the sea despite each ferry being checked and triple checked for both stragglers and unwanted hitchhikers.

Was it paranoia because the grand scheme went awry? Was it simply exhaustion from sleepless days imbuing and doing hard labor?

It wasn't a sin eater. Even Lightwardens, as intelligent as they may have been, could not resist the lure of so much living aether to sup. They would have been attacked while organizing for the lift back down or while on the shore waiting for the ferry.

Ghost was the word passed around. An old concept from before the Flood when there was enough darkness to half see apparitions in. It enjoyed a new heyday with the return of the Night, but a ghost in the brightness, that strange contradiction, was in a way perhaps even more unnerving. Everyone needed to rest. In the confines of the Crystarium, so guarded for a full century without a breach in the walls, rest would come easier.

At least, for those not burdened with the truth. For those that didn't have a bellglass in their heads, the sands dropping one by one. If they tarried too long, never mind a breach in the walls, the Lightwarden, or worse, would be born within those walls. The Flood would complete its ruin, and the Calamity that the Exarch and so many others had worked centuries to prevent would happen anyway.

So rather than rest, they poured themselves into research.

Without the coming and going of the night, the constant brightness made days feel like bells. How long had it been since she had gotten any shuteye? She looked at Thancred, resting his head on his chin, hands crossed but still holding onto a mothbitten scroll. The man was hardly an academic, but the skills had come back to him after some practice. Alphinaud by her side, splayed across the table, a priceless ancient tome for a pillow. Urianger had left to peruse the archive in the Ocular, how long ago? Was it a bell? Three bells? A day? Her tea had long gone cold and the biscuits were all eaten. She looked at the pile of books in their reshelve pile. They had raided half the Cabinet of Curiosity and Moren would undoubtedly throw a fit whenever he would next check up on him. The next day? What day was it. Y'shtola was aware of the feeling of needing to remember a bellglass. They were working against time... for what?

She shook her head to clear her thoughts as the gate to the forbidden section that she and the Scions had inhabited for at least a day. Perhaps three.

"Alisaie, is that you? Have you brought us poor trapped souls more tea?"

Silence.

Alisaie didn't have the patience to sit and scour tomes. She and Ryne were running over all of Nordvandt to look for solutions. Y'shtola tried to focus. Perhaps they could be back from the Inn at Journey's Head by now.

But Alisaie was not very good at being silent, especially when addressed. Nor did she usually carry something heavy enough to drag behind her. The scrape and clang of metal on metal steps made Y'shtola glance at the two men at the same table with her aethersight, not turning her head from the stairs. No they didn't seem to rouse despite the sound. Was she dreaming? Was this a dream?

The thoughts of the ghost returned to her. Didn't they say it looked like a knight? Didn't it whisper something? "Run.." "Where..." and "Stolen..." were the repeated sentiments, reportedly.

Y'shtola prepared for the worst. She raised the tome she had been reading from defensively and wished she had brought her staff down here.

As the figure came into view, her mind's eye was overwhelmed with brilliant light.

Y'shtola turned and threw an arm up in an attempt to shield from the light instinctively before remembering that her sight didn't work that way. She willed herself to shut off her aethersight and was shocked to see even then some Light leaking into her head.

It was certainly in the shape of a knight, she recognized the armor to be of Ishgardian make, not in a remote way similar to the armored knights of the First. It dragged behind a large block of steel that could maybe pass for a greatsword. This was the ghost all right. And Y'shtola put a few things together quickly, even as sleep deprived as she was.

"Why, you must be Fray."

"Shtola..."

Despite her present circumstances, she clicked her tongue in irritation, "You know better than to call me that," Even if this was a dream, she had standards. She lowered the book and placed it back on the table. Shtola, stolen, ah.

"Where..."

It occurred to her that there was something wrong. Fray was dressed in black armor, Xiao had told her. Not the gleaming white, dripping with astral aether here in front of her.

"Shtola... run..."

Y'shtola pinched herself. Definitely not dreaming here.

"Absolutely not. Besides where shall we run? Shall we run to the ends of Nordvandt and have you destroy the First from there? Shall we run back to the Source and wreak all sorts of ruin there? Jumpstart the next Calamity there and now? I think not."

"Where..."

For that, she had no response. The Warrior of Light was a bomb now. No different from the firekin that traversed Vylbrand, mayhap with but a little more self control. Y'shtola questioned for a moment how much control the bombs had to contain their explosions. Or was it all down to one errant slip?

"...Where is Xiao? Well, let's go bring you back to her, shall we?"

* * *

Her hand went numb. As if with the cold, but Fray's gauntlet wasn't cold. Jolts of fuzzy pain went up her arm like she had fallen asleep in an awkward pose and had compressed it under her body. She tried not to think about what her hand must look like.

As luck would have it, it was past clock midnight, meaning the rest of the Crystarium was largely asleep. Few people would see her escorting the ghost trailing and dripping with light aether to the Pendants. And even then, the Sorceress from Rak'tika aiding a ghost? Better her than them. She kept her aethersight on and gripped her mostly unfeeling hand harder to avoid looking back at what was a small sun in her mind's eye. The amount of aether cast strange shadows in the Musica Universalis.

The Manager of the Pendants of course was awake, but if he was surprised by the ghost that Y'shtola led by the hand, the Elf did not show it.

"You'll be headed to Mistress Longbao's room, I presume?"

Y'shtola nodded, now aware that her arm was completely numb to the elbow and somehow the numbness radiated to the small of her back. The manager went ahead to unlock the door and ushered the two, and the sword, in. Discretion was perhaps his greatest strength.

Xiao was in bed, seemingly slumbering, her expression troubled. Y'shtola, Ryne, and Alisaie had stripped her from her armor to her smallclothes and wiped the raw light aether from her body before doing another sealing of the Light and covering her with a blanket. The rags were burnt afterwards but Y'shtola remembered how stiff and brittle the cloth became. She wondered what was happening within the Warrior of Light.

"Shtola... Where..." The voice came from both Fray and Xiao simultaneously.

Letting go of Fray's gauntlet, Y'shtola kneeled by the bed and grasped Xiao's hand, entwining her fingers delicately and kissing the coarse, battleworn knuckles. Xiao did not squeeze back, but the troubled expression lessened. Her hand was still warm, warmer than Y'shtola's as usual, And if anything, the numbing that holding on to Fray's (or the thing that resembled Fray, Y'shtola there was none of the snide eloquence that Xiao had previously described) hand caused lessened.

Y'shtola still couldn't look at her directly with her aethersight, however. She was still far too bright, brimming with Light.

"Urianger found poetry in the Oculuar. Did you know they wrote poems and songs about us? The Warrior of Light and her Sweet? Apparently I die in your arms and you follow not long after. Very tragic. Very touching."

She placed her head on Xiao's chest, listening to her breathing, still deep, not shallow or pained. She didn't let go of Xiao's hand.

"Unfortunately I do not aim to be immortalized in sappy poetry anytime soon, so no dying in my arms, you hear?" Y'shtola said to Xiao's slumbering form.

She must have stayed there for quite a while, fingers locked with the other Miqo'te, for when she awoke again the specter of Fray had disappeared, whether it wandered off or returned to whence it came, she could not tell. Despite the awkward position in which she slept, she was refreshed, at least in the mind. Her back and knees were killing her.

Xiao also looked much more at peace, her brow was light and her mouth seemed curled in a slight smile. Y'shtola extracted her hand, all feeling returned, and left quietly. She needed more tea and biscuits and another tome to devour.

The bellglass in her head was righted and the sands began to slip once more.

#ffxiv #FFxivWrite2021 #FFxivWrite #story #wordvomit #horny'shtola #misc fic

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