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gunbun · 8 days ago

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wolianger week day 2: memorial

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"eleven-eleven"

Tiona accidentally forgets an important, tragic anniversary, but this leads she and Urianger into discussing past and present love.

The skies of the Goblet were beginning to cloud over, obscuring the jeweled blanket of stars that was the usual nighttime over Thanalan.

Tiona leaned away from where she'd been hunched over the eyepiece of the large astroscope in the front yard of the adventurers' hall she now called home. 'Adventurer' being a loose term – most of the folks who lived there were academics of a sort, including the dour and grumpy roegadyn woman whose fringe astrology teachings both she and Urianger were here to learn.

(Tiona was learning the basics; where the stars were in the sky and how they moved and how to intuit their aetheric signatures against the Lifestream. Urianger, unfortunately, was learning something involving gravitational fields and background radiation and doing all the mountains of calculus that came with it.)

The group of stars comprising the Bole were due to set soon anyway, and with a shrug she recorded one more set of stellar coordinates and then hopped off the large, black, burnished-metal machine, being sure to reset the levers that put the optics cover back in place. Keltgeim was a dour, grumpy roegadyn woman and Tiona was certain she'd turn into a murderous one if the astroscope in the yard was not taken care of.

Everything set back the way it was when she'd started, Tiona gathered up her notebook and graphite pencil and went back inside. As she crossed the threshold, closing the door behind her, she heard a dull crack of thunder and heard rain start to patter against the roof. For a moment she stood there, her ears angled toward the door, and let out a small sigh.

As good a time as ever, she figured, to work on her reading. As far as she could tell, the Eorzean language was her second, and though by and large she didn't struggle with simple texts (though the Ul'dahn journalists loved to use long words and stilted metaphor in their articles), the sorts of tomes and journals the astrologians tended to rely upon were still a bit… beyond her.

Perhaps, she figured as she made her way down the warmly-lit wooden hall toward the room she and Urianger shared, she could give the second volume of the Encyclopaedia Eorzea a try…

Her intention was to pull Urianger away from his high-level differential equations for an hour or so, such that she could read aloud to him (he had been, from the beginning, surprisingly not judgmental about her difficulties and seemed always eager to help, and besides, it was an excuse for them to cuddle and not concern themselves with their studies); however, this idea went entirely up in flames when she entered the room.

She was then faced with the sight of him hunched over the table that was covered in pages of proofs. Tiona recognized the symbols and formulae; mathematics was universal in a way words were not, and every time she looked at his work there was something oddly familiar about it. However, it seemed as though both words and computation were beyond Urianger; he had one hand covering his face, and she could hear him sobbing quietly. The man looked like a final-year Radz-at-Han student during exam week.

Keltgeim was knowledgeable, and just as kooky as one would expect an astrologian to be, but apparently the elezen had reached his limit.

Frowning sympathetically, ears cocking in his direction, Tiona set her notebook and star-chart atop a low bookshelf and slowly breached the distance, until she stood behind him and rested both hands on his shoulders.

"Uri," she said softly, "I believe, as you would say, that something's amiss. What multi-matrix subfunction has she asked you to solve?"

At that, he chuckled, lowering his hand and wiping at his eyes, which were bloodshot and red. He then reached back to lay his hands atop hers. "Would that it were merely a frustration with numeric pursuits, beloved."

Tiona looked confused for a moment, until she remembered – "... ah shite. The anniversary."

Of Moenbryda's death. Today. And she'd said nothing of it to him. Such a short-sighted thing to do, really–

"Did you want to talk about it?"

"Surely 'twould not be appropriate–" He frowned, tears glittering in his near-hypnotic golden eyes, turning his chair so he could meet her gaze.

"Why wouldn't it be?" She lowered her chin, kissing the top of his head, her hands squeezing his shoulders. She felt him sag against her, as though her touch drained all the tension from his body all at once.

"I loved her."

"I know. Do you think I would be jealous?"

"... it is not entirely outside the realm of possibility, my dear bright star. Passions are oft fickle, and the reactions they invoketh between lovers are–" He paused, looking up at her with a sheepish grin. "Mine apologies. Nothing thou hast said hath given me cause for concern."

"Good. Because I'm not jealous. I know what it's like. Don't you remember what I told you that day?"

It will hurt. For the rest of your life. There's going to be a void inside of you that will never be filled all the way. I know from experience, and I am so truly sorry.

Tiona's words from the day Moenbryda died rang through Urianger's mind just as clearly as if she'd recited it to him just now. But she hadn't said more, merely stood close, her fingers slowly carding through his hair. "I'm not jealous," she said again, this time earnestly, after a few seconds of silence, "and I’m sure you know why."

He had had ideas, of course, but figured the discussion of dead lovers to be wholly inappropriate, especially considering his own feelings for the rava. How he'd pined for her for years, praying fervently that she would find him again– certainly he should have made his peace with losing Moenbryda. With Tiona in his arms, he felt he shouldn't have been occasionally mourning his loss.

Sighing, he nodded, wiping tears from his eyes and leaning against Tiona. "I still feel a great shame about it all."

She annihilated his attempts at stoicism– though, as he'd sworn to her on the eve of their victory, there was nothing he would ever hide from her again, so he wasn't exactly keen to tell even a half truth– and he loved her deeply for it. Tiona was a welcoming presence in his life, and he had no intentions to squander the love that she'd given and that had likely brought him home.

"I do, too. About mine. I know I don't follow my own advice, but it's alright that you feel what you feel. If you wish to speak of it, I'll listen."

There was a long pause, and Urianger looked up at her to see her with darkened cheeks and a sheepish smile.

It occurred to him then that Tiona had never spoken beyond the generalities of what she'd experienced and who she'd lost– he surmised she'd been with a past lover who had met their untimely end, but he had never pressed the matter, and she had never explicitly provided details.

"I oft wondered," he said thoughtfully, "about thy situation. Thou never didst speak of–"

"I told you, Uri. I don't take my own advice. Call it a character flaw." Despite the somber mood, she was chipper, laughing quietly. "But you really do love her, don't you?"

He found it interesting that she would repeat something he’d already said. It was also interesting that she didn't use the past tense.

The most interesting thing of all, however, was that Tiona was exactly right – he did love Moenbryda, and perhaps part of him always would. When Urianger finally was able to voice the thought aloud, he found he could not meet the rava's eyes, his own still glistening with tears.

"You know that that's why I never pursued you, aye? I knew you were already spoken for in that regard." Her voice was still even, friendly, her usual rough cadence and occasional overemphasis of a syllable here and there a comforting blend of the familiar and foreign. Tiona was still on her feet, her arms still around him where he sat, her fingers still slowly and rhythmically trailing against his scalp, a soothing gesture. “If you and she were meant to be secret, you did a poor job of it.”

And there went his bright star again, her honesty and ease with the situation tearing down every wall he’d ever laid in front of her, offering reassurance and laughter (he hadn’t laughed much before their successes in Norvrandt, and he laughed now because Tiona was right – none of it had been a secret) and a small oasis of normalcy in the midst of all the world-changing business the Scions were involved with. He hadn’t had that before, and the darkly thoughtful parts of his soul often saw fit to tell him that perhaps he didn’t deserve it.

“Thou art, in many ways,” he said, reaching to lace his fingers amongst Tiona’s, “similar to her. However, I, being a fool, could not afford to be wholly honest regarding matters of the heart. ‘Twas a relationship that suffered from distance and separation– and yet, thou art correct. My love for her will always be present, and – truly, Tiona, wherefore art thou not jealous of this fact?” He was not certain why he found it so unnerving that she wasn’t.

“Because my story and yours aren’t all that different. You two were scholars. Vibeka and I were soldiers. But it was the exact same for me. Someone I was close to, but in a … complex way. And then she was gone.”

He learned more about Tiona in those few choppy sentences– and he could hear her chipper tone breaking just a little bit as she spoke them– than he had ever learned before from the years of friendship and reading lessons. He realized then that he had wanted her to be jealous, because if she held resentment to him for it, it meant she’d never had her heart shattered into pieces just like he had. He hated the idea of her feeling as he had– lonely and grieving and utterly hollow–

She did not deserve such tragedy. (He did.)

“Thou art taking thine own advice, beloved.” He leaned away from her so that he could look up into her eyes. "But I am truly sorry such a thing didst happen to thee."

She looked down at him, pensive, and with her own tears threatening to fall. Like him, she was probably caught up in memories of times past, or perhaps idle thoughts of a future that would never be. If she hadn’t already broken her way through his figurative walls to find the man he was beyond personas and duty, she would have rendered them transparent just the same. She saw through him, and he needed that from her.

“It’s a little easier with someone who understands,” Tiona whispered, a sudden smile on her face once her crimson eyes focused back on his. She had a manner of looking at people that clearly indicated she was paying close attention. She fixed him with this gaze as though she was trying to figure him out.

He knew already that she’d succeeded.

For that, he loved her. “Of course I would understand. I only wish thou wouldst have told me sooner of what had transpired for thee in the jungle, before thine arrival to Eorzea.” He looked back up at her; the smile on her face was genuine but the unshed tears still glimmered in the corner of her eyes.

She blinked them back and sighed, patting at his shoulder and stepping back to sit down with him at the table. Tiona’s shoulders were slumped and her ears were angled down, pinned slightly against the back of her head, and she was uncharacteristically still. “...what I just told you is all anyone knows. Because that's really most of what I remember. And I didn’t tell anyone about it. Today of all days– my woes ought not to be what we talk about. But I empathize with you on this. And I always will. What we’ve both had happen I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.” Leaning forward, she reached to take his hand in both of hers, rubbing thumbs across his knuckles. “All that in mind– what do you need from me? I can find something else to do if you’d rather be alone, or want to continue your work–”

Urianger was already shaking his head, pushing away from the table and turning toward her. A fresh wave of tears fell from his eyes. “I beg of thee, stay. I shall see to this ridiculous task Keltgeim hath set for me later." There was an earnestness in his voice when he continued: "Never again shall we face these old sorrows alone, my bright star. If I must still grieve, I would do it in thine arms, if thou wouldst permit it."

Tiona turned toward him, reaching so he could do just that.

#oc: tiona eryut #ship: lepus #woliangerweek #woliangerweek2025

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