#ffxivheartless

[the-hawkeyes]

✝️- is my muse’s faith important to them? How does this inform their daily life?

I'm going to answer this for Silya, my mage monk.

Silya never really had faith, in the "worship the Twelve" sense. Growing up in the refugee camps was hard for her, especially as a transgirl (Her mother got her transition going, so the difficulty didn't come from there).

And then she went on the expedition of the Salemtaza's Voyage. You should look up the tag #FFXIVHeartless , because there is some *stunning* work in there. A large FFXIV campaign run by a dear friend of mine.

Through that expedition, she met a Fist of Rhalgr, Cecilia, and figured it'd be cool to learn how to do the cool monk shit. But, being the young mid-20's woman she is, she instead learned what it meant to worship and be devoted to something.

Through destruction can new things arise. From the old to the new. How to understand and care for others.

Now her faith informs her beliefs fully. She is a Fist of Rhalgr, here on this star to help out those that need helping. To grow new systems and uplift people into this new era. Post-Liberation, Post-Final Days.

The world she knew is gone, but a new one awaits with her at the doorway looking in.

[aidan-hawke]

deiform

It was a god. Or it wasn’t. Or perhaps it had been once. Gods were everywhere, whether you acknowledged them or not, and despite Garlean efforts to bleach them from the lands they ruled. They failed of course -- the Empire was gone, but gods remained in the marrow of the bones of the world.

Aidan knew gods -- you couldn’t not know them in the Twelveswood, the proper woods, not the city. City folk had Hearers and the Seedseers as their mediators. Anybody else sometimes got that, if you were lucky or tied to something bigger like a trade route. So you had to learn early. How to give your share of what you take back to the woods. How not to waste what you kept for yourself. To respond to anything you didn’t recognize with respect and wariness at the same time.

It was easy to know what you were looking at, even if you couldn’t see it directly. Allag had tried to tame gods, only to fall into ruin. Both it and Garlemald sloughed off the skin of the earth. Meanwhile, the bones remained for others to find in decaying labyrinths and derelict pieces of tek that inspired more shudders than excitement. A hell at heavens height.

He hadn’t thought about the eyes in the dark in a while. A year? Maybe longer; there had been a lot of other memories that beckoned louder (or demanded attention). Gaia, the deliverer of divine intervention when a monster stood to kill. Who spoke See The Truth, and his whole body obeyed. Who forsook her own name, gave it up in the face of subjugation. Whose one request of service was to die, in the end.

Not a god. Not anymore, perhaps. But in the longer stretch of his own life, the only one he felt cared the most, the way he’d been taught they should. Perhaps the best evidence he’d ever seen of divinity. Gods were everywhere. He knew. He had seen them.

[thatsadorbsyo]

Lucas (Foster, 1)

The dogs that roam wild around the perimeter of Rhalgr’s Reach, with their lean, rib-ridged bodies and lolling tongues, are all but alien to the type of dog I grew up with. I’m used to rounded heads and blunt noses, a snout that stands tall enough to fit into my palm, if I’m brave enough to open it. These Eorzean dogs are short and muttish, but curious and self-sufficient. I never see anyone tending to them beyond tossing them a few scraps from the garbage, but they take care of themselves. I wonder what Augustin would think of them, this motley crew. Would he know what to do with them?

I have a confession to make to you. (Don’t I always?)

I’m not okay.

I’ve tried to talk about it, but nobody hears what I’m telling them. When I say I feel like at any moment I could wake up and find myself back in the belly of an airship, it’s more complicated than either fear or nostalgia, but that’s all anyone wants to hear. So I’ve stopped saying it, but I haven’t stopped waking up in a stinking sweat, no matter whether I’m snug in my Ul’dahn apartment or sprawled out for a nap on a patterned rug in the Reach. Tight chest, hot eyelids, dry tongue; it’s all the same.

One of these times, I woke up under the afternoon sun with a mean, gold-furred dog lying in the dirt a dozen fulms away, with her grey-flecked snout resting on her paws and blackened eyes watching me closely. The moment she saw me looking, she picked up her nose and turned it the other way, aloof and resolute. No you don’t. You didn’t catch me staring.

Alright, bitch. Fuck.

I went back to work, dismantling the arms and legs of an old Avenger model that the Resistance had dragged up from an underground storage unit over by Castellum Corvi. The magitek suit sat upright in front of me, an ape with nothing to say and nobody at the helm, losing itself piece by piece to my wrench. It’s mindless work, and I lost myself in it too, until I heard snuffling and grunting off to my left.

It was that same fucking dog, nosing through the bolts and screws I’d laid out. And I swear to you -- I wouldn’t joke about this, but I know you won’t believe me -- I saw her chomp and swallow three steel washers before I could shoo her away. Three flat Garlean steel rings, and this idiot animal chewed them up like kibble, staring me dead in the eye as she gulped them down, like she was laying down some sort of gauntlet. Try me. You gonna stop me? Pussy.

What the hell was I supposed to do?

Eventually we reached an uneasy truce. I’d lay out a pile of metal scraps for her to chew on, which I cherrypicked from the least-valuable and most-busted materials (even warped and pitted metal is still good to melt down, if you know someone who can work Ilsabardian steel, and fortunately I happen to be dating a guy), and she’d leave my carefully organized array of dismantled parts alone. She’d sit back down on her haunches, still about ten fulms away from wherever I was working, but watching me with a keen air of inspection. I felt judged, like a captain of some sort was watching over my shoulder, picking her teeth and spitting in the dirt with every twist of my wrench, but she was still more agreeable company than most soldiers are. Whatever. We worked it out.

And the next time I woke up on that rug with a nauseous lurch, surprised to find myself greeted by the Gyr Abanian sun rather than the dim blue glow of an airship’s indicators, I was weighted to the spot, nailed down by an impossible pressure on my chest. That bitch again, with her head and paws swaddling my rabbity heart until it was forced to slow. She locked onto me with one eye, dark but intelligent behind its glassy sclera. We shall never speak of this intimacy. Don’t look me in the eyes when I do this.

What would you have done? I looked away from her, ashamed, still disoriented from nightmares and dehydration, until eventually she picked herself up with a lazy yawn and slinked off into the shadows again with a belly full of screws. I’m going to miss her when I leave this place, but my pride won’t let me tell her that. She wouldn’t want to hear it anyway.

[dantinmikannes]

“I know in my heart that those final moments we’d shared were not a farewell, but a promise.”

[bride-and-bride]

Your name is Defiant Bride. You’re a Goldsmith, and a Secretary, and sometimes a fighter, and you hate flying and heights and flying high up in the sky...

But for the first time, you think you understand why someone might spend their whole life chasing this endless blue.

[forever-halone]

what twist of fate has brought us 

to roads that run so near? 

[cheche-dotharl]

2.12.2020 ~ 9.22.2020

[s-udarshana]

prompt #6: Longing

wc: 1,175

<When Tieve's lips touch your forehead, you feel something pleasant--something comforting. A scent? A vision? A taste? All? Think about it.>

....Byron’s Bread found itself another bountiful harvest. Wheat crops, not quite endless, not quite far. Enough to walk through - showered in amber light of sunset.

This far from Ala Gannha, the sounds reaching my ears as I drift through the fields are those of only nature - things taking to their natures, at that. I don’t feel the buds of wheats along my fingertips, but that’s alright. The price paid was worth it, merely to know and see it all grow, have this chance. Let the ones to come after us frolic and revel and toil working through as they wish - it’s all for them, just as it always has been. Maybe for me, too, if they’ll let me in.

Wind drifts around me, a sound of grace descending from Mason’s Falls, and with it, a gentle summer’s breeze. So violent in its intent I can’t help but follow its direction as it circles, guides, points. All I can do to stay in place, stay upright as I turn, and I’m grateful for it, given I’m reminded what exactly is producing those sounds of only nature - things taking to their natures. People, in the distance, groups and duos scattered. Over rustrock, over stream, next to tree and scrap, stoic upon boulder....

In the distance, come to rest beneath a tree seeing its leaves bloom once more, I see Synnove, all crimson and hat and wild fiery teeth, babbling and educating and lecturing for a crowd of two, one to partake, one to consume. Farid, smiling and grinning and nodding his head like a smitten puppy, as ever - but the sight is warming, inspiring, seeing that familial love and dedication in his eyes. I hope he comes to understand all she’s imparting to him, down to the essence - it’s the weight of a future. Vio’s learned to wear it well, seeing how she sits there with them, how radiant she still is cast underneath the trickling shadow of verdant. A silent regard, attention drifting from the apocalypse of ink and parchment beneath her and the cacophony of passion and madness speaking above. Focus, unyielding. Can feel my muscles ache in hopes that Synnove gives the red to her soon. Ache hits more when I hope Farid screams the loudest when it happens.

You’re desperate.

In the distance, breaking the air and shaking rustrock after square ilm of rustrock with the sheer force of their fervor, I see Livia, all beef and pride and vigorous enthusiasm as she slips further and further from that purposed holding back of hers as the heart is taken more and more by the performance of the aspirant before her. Silya’s her pride, my pride, our pride - only some few months into the path of the monkhood and she’s already seen two chakras opened, wrenched open and pulled taut by the skin of her teeth and the grit in her claws, and even standing away as far as I am, the sheer power of their training is infectious, sending hairs alight my carcass as I bear witness to the raw power of their twin smiles. Like you could take one and replace the other with it - maybe they did, given I’ve not seen them drop those grins, even when breaths are taken to pass comments of performance. Can feel my heart stir in hopes that Livia keeps her on the right path. Beats hit harder when I know that she will - that Silya’ll be the best of us.

....almost makes me want to take up teaching just to shout at them.

In the distance, preceded by shouting and noise more so than presence.....I see you.

I see him bent over at the waist, teeth gnashing, breath heaving, muscles twitching. You’ve pushed him too far, again, but there’s no one there to tell you that you’re supposed to beat him while he’s down, just as he had your family do to you. Can see how you’re biting it back, that frustration, the impulse - you’re not as tired as you were before all of this, invigorated by those two golden tonfa in your hand, that sacred quarterstaff in his. No--maybe not that. I see the third drift in from the edges of the makeshift arena, blooming and luscious as the vines he held reign over, his touch soft as ever as a single hand comes to rest upon your shoulder. You look at him, and he looks at you, and maybe you see something in that emerald gaze of his. I don’t know what - I don’t want to know what - but whatever it is, I can see the spark flare and flex in you, and instead of a kick, a punch, a scream crashing upon him - it’s your hand, offered, open, even if stiff as blanched cotton.

I’ll make sure he does not have to run again.

You said that men will choose and do as they wanted. You were right, of course, and as much as everyone wanted to share their well-meanings with you, I could see in that lone gaze of yours that you were tempering your expectations. Men will choose and do as they want - but they can always say as they want, at that. How many of us have a hidden leash of the Alliance around our throats, needing to put the ‘good of Eorzea’ before the good of men? Of Spoken? I heard the story so many times - all it took was a single pair of lips, a single wagging of the tongue, for Rensa to end up in the gallows, hung like any other dog of war.

.........but even with this threat, I’m still a hopeful fool. If Lawrence will shed his collar for you, so can the others. All they have to do is choose.

Men will choose and do as they want. Yet in all of this - aren’t you a man, too? Salgard wasn’t, but he became one. Iago wasn’t, but he can be. You...you aren’t. Not in this context. Not as you are.

It is desperation. You were right. But it wasn’t desperation for you to serve, not to atone, not to pay penance. A desperation to get you to hope. Because this is what hope looks like. Monsters being unmade. Brothers living their lives. Brothers in all. Us minding our business.

Hope is a choice. Not expectations forced on you from people yearning for a dream, like I forced on you, and you forced on me. Our message, passed on to you. Our message, which you received. Our message...which I hope will make you remember what you are owed from the world.

Hope is a choice, and it is a choice the world will not let you make right now. But it is a choice I--we, all of us-- it is a choice we’ll make to carve out the chance for you. For you are a man too, are you not?

You deserve to choose, too. And this time - this time, I won’t doubt you. Sunrise is coming. I hope you’ll choose to see it.

[crystalline-promise]

FFXIVWrite 2020: I - Crux

  Who were they to play god?

The ghosts of Allag gave her no answer. If it weren't for the static hum that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, the facility would have been left to its crypt-like silence. 

And crypt, perhaps, is what that place was.

Cords of lighting rimmed the circumference of a cavernous chamber, casting a pale blue glow along the walls and at odds with a more sickly green emanating from a series of vessels springing up from the floor like bulbous coffins. They towered over the trio of interlopers, casting strange shadows across the expression of shock that was so very much the same for all three despite such very different faces. 

No, it wasn’t a crypt. At least it hadn’t been at first. 

This was a place where things were born. 

The glass of the nearest vessel was just translucent enough that Reima could make out the shape within. Almost human, if she hadn’t been sure of what she was seeing. The torso was too long; the legs too many. The suggestion of a tail dipped down toward the bottom of the tank and out of sight, obscured by whatever murky fluid kept the creature suspended in grim repose. 

She couldn’t bear to look at it. She didn’t want to look at it. There was nothing there for them to see. They could all leave right that second and she’d bury the image down, down to where nightmares went when they were through. 

But they weren’t leaving, and Valeriaux had already drawn nearer to the closest tank, searching for something along its socket-like base with determination etched in the lines of his brow.

Despite what her insides were screaming, Reima crept toward him. Toward the tank. “What are you looking for?”

“Some manner of control mechanism.” He didn’t look up.

Jeanne paused, worry touching the other woman’s features. In the short time Reima had been in the engineer’s acquaintance, she couldn’t imagine anything breaking through the air of easy confidence Jeanne surrounded herself with, but something about the facility they’d stolen into — or everything about it — had proven the assumption to be wrong.

“...Why?” Jeanne asked, bordering on incredulous. “This is some vile stuff we’re looking at.”

“So that we might power down the facility.”

Reima felt something like dread lance straight through her, even if she couldn’t say why. “But aren’t they...alive in there?”

There was a pause, pregnant with so many things that were understood and left unspoken. The ambient hum was like breathing and the atmosphere had grown too thick as they stood there together, dwarfed by the leavings of callous giants.

Twelve, she was too small for this.

“I dunno...” Jeanne spoke, shaking something off; breaking the silence. The tall woman’s eyes fixed on the tank until they found Reima. “At the very least, we may be able to get access to schematics. Something. And I know all the Allagan chimeras I’ve encountered alive out here have tried to kill me.”

Reima sucked in a breath; held it as she nodded. “I understand.”

And she did. On some level, she did. “I guess it just…”

“Just what?”

She exhaled, and when she answered, it trembled with the rest of her. “It’s just that they never asked to be made…”

The words were scant more than a whisper and immediately she regretted them. She saw Jeanne freeze and look away, something inscrutable on her face that Reima wanted to say was pain. In that instant she wanted to scream, to apologize, to cry, to buy time. She wanted to know why it fell to them to pick up the pieces of a fallen world. 

Who were they to play god?

And the ghosts of Allag gave her no answer. She felt the weight of them there in the silence, standing at a crossroads that would be the first of too many. Monsters and mercy — their legacy the burden of the living to bear.

She buckled under its weight.

The above was inspired by an evening of roleplay featuring @snowbird-down​ and @autochthonousone , with snippets of conversation having been altered slightly and truncated in addition to Unreliable Narrator Reima. If you feel I should have a cw on this piece, please let me know!

[lyndztanica]

start & end.

[scholar-thief]

final fantasy football

[the-hawkeyes]

Prompt 3: Temper

It didn’t happen as often as it used to. 

A humming melody. Muttered words of a long forgotten verse. The phantom pain of exertion. Throbbing in remembrance to the spell or the slash that afflicted her body. Never her mind the armor she had worn then. Armor didn’t matter in that place, or, at the very least, it mattered only in her mind. There was a certain kind of power that lay in belief. 

But after the Voyage had returned home, the thoughts and memories never left her. There were some that did wonder back when she had her staff made with Defiant Bride. A monolith to the Goddess Sophia, resplendent in her gold over her ashen skin. It was only a simulation, sure, but there were whispers. 

Temper. Tempered. Aren’t they acting strange? 

Silya ignored them at first. They had far more pressing matters to attend to than that. Keeping the Habisphere safe. Discovering the secrets of some hidden labyrinth. Flying back down to Eorzea for help from the Grand Companies. What time did they have to worry about tempering of all things? 

That same staff made years ago rested in her hand now as she practiced her old, thaumaturgical forms. It wouldn’t do to disappoint the Father, after all, for allowing her to have kept studying at the Ossuary when she did. 

But there it was again, that soft, gentle whisper in the back of her mind. A whisper that laid the seeds of doubt once again, just for a brief moment.

A song of the shifting sea.…….

[aidan-hawke]

if only we had been taller

[italicized bits taken from actual rp responses of mine and @mirkemenagerie​ ‘s]

“...I always felt so small in the Shroud, but here... I don't know how to explain it. The world is so big and so old. Here I am, nineteen. Some dumb girl from the Shroud. Touching something so old no one remembers what its history even is."

"Yeah. I know what you mean. It's like just when you think you understand even a little bit you find out you're wrong. And y'start asking well, why me? How'd I wind up here? Seeing this."

You took to the kid immediately. It was inevitable maybe -- you grew up in the same part of the world. You both had big families and had a story or three about most members. And you’d both been homesick and gods, sometimes all you want to talk about are simple things. Little things. Fried fish and cornbread. A stupid thing your sibling did when you were little. Call each other names to denote what neck of the woods was yours.

It helps, really. In a place older than you, older than home, older than anything you intimately knew. When one could not fathom the denizens of a labyrinth, one could at least debate the superior gravy with home cooking.

"Doesn't feel right, does it? Feels like you're wearing a coat that's the wrong size that used to fit. Everything's the same but you."

There were more technical terms for what she described. The reluctance to go home -- because how can you when you’re so different? How does one slip into a role they’ve outgrown? The metaphor’s easier to work with. It leaves enough room to talk about feelings without ruminating that there was a name for it.

A proper name meant it happened far too often. A proper name for it was for other people, not for her, not for you. You’d both just... changed some. Probably from leaving the woods. That was all. Or it was all she’d get to know, anyway.

"Don't talk like that, though. You're going to be okay. You have to be...I don't think I can lift that trunk."

You want to tell her she’s right. You want to buy into the belief so badly. But she is nineteen. You are a scant number of years older in your body but older still in your soul. So you apologize for being a touch too grim, make some pithy joke. Play the role of the big brother again; it’s easy enough. You have had much practice.

Besides, she is nineteen, farther from home than she likely ever thought to be. She deserves that much for reminding you of so much you missed while you were gone. Maybe you shouldn’t have asked her first. Could have chosen better. Someone more used to this. But maybe, if the worst did occur, an elder sister would find a little sister to take comfort with.

"Yeah. It's sad... all this coming to an end. Us, going on."

"'Tis. But might be it's long past time for any ghosts here to go. Not like we'll forget this. Forget them. Maybe we dunno much about 'em but we know they were here once. That counts for something, I think." 

It was the least you could do right? For being so small and experiencing this. They had lives too. You didn’t know much -- only what scant records and one pair of large, sad eyes entrusted to you in the dark. But you knew that at least. They were people once. They had gods.

They had loved with their whole hearts, too, once.

If only they’d been taller, maybe it could have been more. Could have found out more, been better able to fend off the beasts roaming the halls. But you are nineteen and twenty-five and so small you’d never have thought about anything like this. If only you’d been taller.

[jancisstuff]

Prompt #1: Crux

Over time, each war looked more and more like the last.

Only the minute details changed, really. She had been at this point before. When Garlemald threatened the borders, she paying off a debt with the Maelstrom, dressed in cherries that only grew more red. Or in Ishgard when the last dragonsong was sung, and she saved as many freezing knights as she could. The dry air of Gyr Abania, where by sky or by foot she was at the back of liberation. Though that wasn’t completed yet, either. She’d be back there.

Of course she would be. Every time it came up she ran head first into the danger. Fearless, almost thoughtless. Someone had to. And the more someones that did, the easier it would be. There was always someone to be there for.

This time was different, yet the same. Another enemy with a name and a face like hers. Close enough, anyway. A painful background that she could have easily had as well if just a couple different threads of Fate were chosen.

How unfair it all was, that life depended so much on a choice that was all chance.

It was a cold war. One without fanfare or much support. Stories and letters went and came, but they would be short lived. What bards would sing of these battles? What stories would carry on for generations past?

She stood there at the gates of an empire that died long ago, with a friend that had lied to her willingly. To save everyone else grief. To get what needed so desperately to be gained. To find more friends whom shared their pains and sorrows. Had more to share than those. Once this was over. There was a choice. She could turn back. To the other family and friends she had. That were waiting for her to come back. That loved her. That were waiting. Or she could continue forward through that gate.

And she charged right through the gates.

[snowbird-down]

The Delphinus had been Laelia’s home ever since she fled.

It’d been over a year ago now when, fuel tank burning on fumes, she at last settled down in the Black Shroud to hide. It seemed the most logical thing to do; it was the only part of Eorzea outside of Gyr Abania that she was relatively familiar with. The Legion feared it, and the trees and foliage would help to keep her stolen airship hidden.

Unfortunately, that was as far as she got. Laelia had no real survival skills, nor did she know what to do without a steady salary to feed her. She probably would have died out there if it weren’t for the Sylphs. For Norhi. For Tieve.

It was Tieve who had ultimately changed her life the most -- who knew her as Garlean simply by touch, but who also did not judge; who said she knew somewhere Laelia could be gainfully employed; who introduced her to Nathaniel of Salem.

That felt like a lifetime ago.

And now...somehow...it was over. Never again would Laelia settle into place on the Voyage’s bridge. Never would she walk in to the clamor of the command room, to find Lune’s latest experiment going haywire and Lucas visibly greying over it. Never would she sit down to Swozbhar’s cooking, to the vibrant chatter in the dining hall, to music played by Lucaell and Juro. Gone were the days she, and Valeriaux, and Reima and Momori would huddle together and speculate about Allag. All the art, the stories the others shared -- finished. The friendly sparring, the kite flying, over. Scylla swimming about her tank, grinning and waving happily -- somehow endearing despite her monstrous appearance -- done.

For all the trials and tribulations associated with it, the Voyage had briefly become her true home. Laelia hadn’t felt a greater sense of belonging anywhere else since she’d lost her squadron. And now -- albeit under different circumstances -- she’d lost this, too.

So it was hard not to feel a bit hollow as she returned to where she’d hidden the Delphinus, now sore, scarred, and five-hundred grand richer. She stepped into the cargo bay, which she had slowly, through theft and legitimate purchase both, remodeled into a living space -- and then remodeled again to accommodate Valeriaux, once they’d, well, become a thing. He considered it home now too, a space far more welcoming than the Gentry Ward as far as he was concerned -- and Laelia couldn’t be happier for that.

But it was small. It was quiet. It felt empty after the Voyage. From now on it was just the two of them. And she’d wanted nothing more, truly, but...it was all so...

...normal? How did she go back to ‘normal’, after having seen the things she had?

Behind her, the cargo bay door scraped open. She ‘saw’ the space where Valeriaux was moving warp before he’d actually arrived in it. Gods, it was good to have her third eye uncovered for once.

Laelia turned with a half smile. “All loaded up?”

“Indeed,” the Duskwight intoned, levelly. “I am now at the mercy of you and the wind.”

“You make it sound so ominous.” She chuckled, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “But before we go on any big adventures, there’s one very important detour we have to make.”

“Brutus,” he guessed right away.

“Assuming I can get Victoria to relinquish him.” Laelia grinned.

“He could not have found himself a more capable dogsitter.”

“Heh! Capable’s one way of putting it.” Laelia turned for the cockpit, beckoning him to follow. “Pretty sure she’s just gonna endlessly give me shit about what I feed him. As though we all ate any better. Did I ever tell you about the time I was in the shower and Maxima came in looking for--”

Their voices faded down the hallway.

The door slid closed behind them.

Whether it was with a crew of two or two hundred, Laelia simply could never stop flying. She could still see the others, no matter where they’d gone, and that was a comforting thought. They all slept under the same sky, after all -- and so, Laelia could not truly be sad.

(( @autochthonousone​ for the blatant theft of Valeriaux, @norhimorovine​ , @endangered-liaison​ and @high-and-away​ for mentions! Vicky, I want my dog back! ))

[way-to-the-future]

#8: Clamor

I work best in silence. You will not see me like a fury on the battlefield, swearing oaths and calling for more. I keep my heart, my blood, silent and empty, tranquil like a river’s run. I tie back my hair, secure my armor – I strive for completeness, for restraint, for a veneer of perfect control. Often times, it works, even against the bitterest foe. Even in the direst of straits, I don’t lose myself. Patience, cold blood, a steady hand: these have always been my greatest virtues.

Yet since I have come here, I have found my barriers tested. I have found them more fragile than I thought. My heart pumps red Spoken blood, and my veins sing not just with fears, my fervors, but the burdens of others I must share. Shame, and dread, and all the terrible duties of being Spoken rather than a beast or a weapon. I boarded this ship with lingering hurts, with a seed of uncertainty already planted – and perhaps, had I been more vigilant, it never would have seen the sun. Somehow, somewhere along the path, I erred.

And did it not feel like error, when someone I barely knew – a stranger from a world away, queer in her manner, reserved and featureless as I myself wished to be – when she laid a hand upon my shoulder and told me that she had seen me? Was I not ashamed to find myself in the thoughts of another for more than a fleeting moment, and as anything other than a pleasant repartee or a respected competitor?

Was I not shackled with dread to be held, to be seen, to have my clever façade pulled away ilm by aching ilm and the squirming, loathsome thing underneath held up to the light? How adeptly could a woman of class and distinction, steeped in the high culture of my home city to which I aspire, see past years of discipline as though it were nothing but a childish ruse. How small and foolish I felt, and yet warmed and glad all the same.

These first, I consigned to small embarrassments – they had seen deeper than I would have liked, but I would not be ruled by such isolated shame. I affirmed my commitments, my ruthless devotion – and I saw no harm in a few instances of sweetness, where they could be found. I was as I always had been, so long as I could manage my indulgences.

I agreed in such circumstances. I hardly considered it a breach, at first; after all, it originated in the familiar. I will not strain with you the gruesome of details – but suffice it to say that I was confounded, made to pursue where I am accustomed to leave well enough alone. I cannot say even now what compulsion I felt – perhaps, even then, I recognized something of a companion spirit, a mind I could speak to in earnest. I wanted it. I wanted to find a place in it.

In return, his price was almost more than I could bear to pay, not that I ever felt as though it were a choice. I survived humiliations large and small and the alien knowledge of myself. He found the notches in my shell left by others’ hands, and turned them to his use. And all the while I pushed him, bid him to let me in. I cannot tell you that it was easy – I cannot tell you that it is easy now, but I have my place, and I cannot tell this story without him.

Things mounted quickly. Where once I carried only my own heart, now I had many. I found a means to share myself even with those I had once dismissed – one who sought wisdom above all else and who gave me the gift of a name unburdened by history, or one whose kind silences masked a well of understanding and burdens not unlike my own. The opening of my heart opened others to me – a fleeting spirit with eyes loving as they were seeking, or a woman of singular power and boundless tenderness, or even the finest, truest captain I have ever known.

It would be a grave mistake to suggest that I was always kind, always as fair with these and others as I should have been. I clung to the illusion of myself, of the man of stone and mental, even as fondness flooded through me like I was porous stone. To some, I made grave promises, ones which I will struggle to fulfill if I am called upon. To others, I remained bitter, vengeful, superior – and in the occasional, rare moment of clarity, I could not fathom that I would ever merit their forgiveness.

I have always felt myself apart; whether greater, or lesser, I have always sensed that I was born under a different star, blessed and cursed to walk a path all my own. How helpless I was when it crumbled into the sea before me, and I, too, plunged headlong, unable to stop or save myself. The sound and the fury of my world, angered sky and raging sea, were sure to pull me under. My blood surged like a brackish tide and near overwhelmed me – but I was saved, again, by small kindnesses, spirits rising out of the grey.

They said to me, we are all the same as you. They said that we are not apart save when we make ourselves so; you, too, can sink not into grief but into the fullness of a complete life, not barren and levin-scored but welcoming as a pool in the depths of the desert. They reminded me that as I make the man I see before me lesser, I who am his mirror becomes lesser, too. The chorus of their voices, pressing in on my spine, on the silence and the stricture which I had so long held sacred, did not shatter me so much as quell me.

In their wake I find myself, quite cold and afraid, facing a monstrous firmament that is no artifact of my fevered worries but a genuine challenge to those who have pulled me up from the depths of my soul. I would feel my blood chill, turn to readied steel, but instead my stagnant heart begins to leap – not in terror, or shame, but in pride, in a love so sorrowful that it becomes joyous and furious at once. The quiet of my mind is replaced by a clamor of thoughts, of hands, of faces as I march for once against what is not merely a danger to myself but to that which I love, as well.

The way is yet far to go, and I would not stop here – nor would I lose a single voice from that chorus.