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the mothercrystal

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LALAPRIL DAY 6 - Potential

As Neneru surveyed Tuliyollal, she grasped the sudden potential for adventure.

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Lalapril 2025 Day 5:

Neneru made her way down the streets of Tuliyollal, taking in the sights while she decided her next move. As she took a bite of her fruit, her familiar Lucky pointed out something interesting.

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Lalapril Day 3: Azure

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I'm not going to say it was always the goal, but accidentally evolving into a magical girl makes total sense for me. Pretty Anarchist Rabbit Moon reporting for duty!!

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Valentione's greetings. This little follower of the maiden wishes you all the best in finding someone's hand to hold.

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And mummification asks the question "what if your skin was dry. Like *really* dry?"

vampirism poses the question "what if there was a fundamental, horrible, unending well of want in your soul that, if truly satisfied, would lead to great pain for all those you hold closest and, in turn, their absolute and total revilement of you?" and naturally as a person with no problems I don't relate to this in any way at all.

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Getting to actually enjoy myself at the moment instead of just sleeping off my covid. Made it to Fantasy Texas in FFXIV. Wander into town and the first thing that happens is I run into trouble with the local gang.

Erenville is like "Whoah, I know unspeakable bloodshed is your thing, but we don't want to get in trouble with the law"

except I'm a three foot nothing toddler with a juice box and a bad attitude. My main weapon is a paint brush and an overactive imagination. These bandits are thinking "The only person this kid is going to upset is a preschool teacher" but they're wrong.

I draw my brush and mutter "Y'all just painted yourselves into a corner, amigos."

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"I don't know. None of my comrades will let me drink! They say in too young!"

Can your WoL handle alcoholic drinks?

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Boku no Sharlayan Academia

With 'Reya's encouragement, I travel now to Old Sharlayan. I pray the coming years in study might shake loose whatever it is that has frozen my passion, not to mention dulled my magic. Though there were some hiccups upon arrival, I was able to enter the city and gain admission to the Studium with the help of letters of recommendation by my closest friends. They're more family, I believe. And I already miss them as such. I am enrolling under historical studies, but I want to also pursue some work in aetherology. 'Reya pointed me in the direction of Pictomancy, and if there is anything here that can help me, then I want to find it.

Already, I am finding like minds! I've acquired a small one-room apartment which I share with another student. There is not much opportunity for us to converse with opposite schedules, which I daresay will aid in our getting along.

As a last note, I tried the Archon loaf and I do not see the fuss. It does not taste half as dreadful as I was promised. I'm almost disappointed. But it did take far too long to get the server's attention for some reason.

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Same energy.

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Finding Love - Thavnair

"Dear Diary

Do the gods still speak with us? Until a short while ago, I was not certain they even truly existed."

Neneru sat on the edge of a fountain, charcoals in hand. Smudges smeared her hands as well as the front of her dress where she'd attempted to wipe them clean. The little sketchbook she would soon mail to her publisher back home was nearly full now--the newest volume detailing her most recent months spent abroad in Ilsabard and now Thavnair.

Kugane had been nice, but she felt as though she were staring at an exhibit. It was as though there were always a pane of glass between her and what she saw, as though she were doomed to only ever be the observer. Thavnair broke down those barriers with the abundant warmth of hospitality.

It didn't stop her from feeling like an observer. Rather, it made her yearn to be part of something all the more. Before the riots in Ul'Dah, before Sister Grimalkin, before the Masaraja pits, Neneru found life and love in her work writing down the stories and traditions she learned in her travels. Books full of folklore, recipes, truisms, history, anything people were willing to provide her. And along all of them, simple sketches in charcoal or full portraits from the little watercolor kit she sometimes carried.

But since those last days back home, there was a hole sitting inside her.

Neneru noticed it first when her magic lost its strength. She attributed it to the loss of her beloved staff during the fighting. Her mistress, F'reya, saw something different.

"You need to find that joy again. You've lost sight of what you're using magic for. What you're doing any of this for. My little dove, you used to love traveling before you came to me."

Neneru stared.

"Am I wrong," 'Reya asked.

"No, sir." The Lalafellin apprentice opened her mouth to protest. "But my studies. My work with the Cross. Don't you need me here?"

"That's your lesson. That's your studies." F'Reya Fahl styled herself as the self-appointed 'Wizard Prince,' including the over-the-top regalia of her alleged station. The Miquote gave a shrug of a single shoulder and smiled down at her charge. "Neru, my little bell pepper, I want you to hit the road."

"If it ever happened that my mother found my journals, she would be broken hearted to know that I haven't believed in the Traders--or any of the Twelve for that matter--since I was a little girl. Nald'thal didn't rescue their city when the calamity came. And all the wealth of Ul'dah did nothing for my family and the other refugees who'd lost our homes all about Thanalan when we were hungry and dying.

When I later learned the nature of such constructs as Primals, well, I suppose that sealed it for me. If the Twelve ever truly existed at all, then surely they were Aetherial constructs of fanatical devotion. No true gods. None who could delivery us from evil, least-wise.

So why do I feel so strange about this encounter?"

"Your technique is lovely."

A shadow fell across her, darkening the page. Looking up, Neneru saw a Ciera woman towering above her. The simple size difference between the two made it seem like the older woman eclipsed the very sun. The lines of her face felt familiar as though she could be related to any of the Ciera Nene held dear. But the blue-green hue of her pale hair marked the tall woman as a clearly unrelated individual.

"May I?" She gestured to the fountain lip beside Neneru.

Nene affected her brightest smile--the one she kept on hand for children, stubborn merchants, and unexpected guests.

"Please. Do." The lalafell scooched to one side to give her new companion room. Nene resumed her sketch, now aware of the audience.

The centerpiece of the two pages laid flat across her lap was a detailed drawing of the bazaar's plaza with quick impressions of locals, hawkers, and guards occupying it. Surrounding the tableau, Neneru filled the pages with rough gestures of clothing and architectural details with notes about their cultural, religious, or political significance.

At this moment, however, her hands roughed in a pair of kneeling children she watched playing on the colorful pavers. She'd been watching the game for all of a half hour--since the children first settled to the task--and as near as she could tell it was a distant cousin of the game Jacks.

"Yes," the Viera hummed to herself. "Very good technical skill. Were you perchance a member of some guild?"

Neneru shook her head. "Self-taught." It was a skill picked up during her years at the Ossuary when she suddenly had ready access to more paper than she'd ever seen in her life. The skill proved especially useful when she'd started submitting her travel journals to the publisher. Not many bought the papers with her articles, but it was a thrill to know even a handful of people had copies of her writing.

"Well, you're quite talented."

Neneru did not take her eyes from the children, but the comment made her forced smile loosen with genuine warmth. "Thank you."

Blowing stray charcoal dust from the pages, she closed the book and set it aside. "I sense a 'but' at the end of your sentence."

If the Viera felt called out, she did not show it. Instead, she beamed. "Well, I complimented the technical skill because that seemed your focus. They are practical drawings. Do you not enjoying what you do?"

All technique and no passion. A familiar refrain these days.

"I do." Neneru gave the comment a diffident shrug.

"I sense a 'but' at the end of your sentence," the Viera returned with a wry smile.

A breath of a laugh escaped Neneru's throat. "Guilty. Mm, I suppose I'm just trying to find myself. I've been through much lately, and though I find naught to be wrong with me, there's no more flame."

"No more flame." The Viera woman mulled over the words. She had no other response, and the two of them sat in companionable silence for a time.

Across from them, the children's game was interrupted by the arrival of a hyuran boy. By appearance he seemed to be the big brother of one of their number. When the two hugged, Neneru caught the Viera woman shining with a joyous look.

As if sensing her questioning look, the Viera leaned in and stage whispered, "Don't these scenes always warm you? The love between two people?"

Neneru only smiled politely in reply.

In retrospect, the way she spoke was strange. As though she were the mentor figure in a parable. I told her nothing of my late sister, but I get the impression she knew. It didn't need to be said. I fear I must sound paranoid. Her question after sounded so much like Mistress 'Reya's. Had I not such familiarity with my teacher's glamours as to be able to spot them, I would swear it were her trying to clumsily teach me some moral lesson.

"Is there aught that you love, Miss Neneru?"

Nene regarded her through hooded eyes. "How did you know my name?"

"Did you not tell me?" The woman considered it for a moment. "I am certain you did."

Nene did not feel so confident, but she corralled her protests. To the original question she said, "Certainly I do. We all do, don't we?"

"Not everyone." The woman's smile turned sad now. "We are full capable of forgetting how to love after hard times, and there is something of it that can cause your humanity to wither. Food becomes tasteless, things that once propelled you forward now provide no impelling fuel, things that came so naturally no longer click into place."

The comment thumped uncomfortably close and Neneru looked away, schooling her face and voice to mirror stillness. "Yes, well, is not everyone undergoing hard times?"

"Of course. Interesting times we live in, are they not? Calamities and scions, and the End of Days. Abominations in Thavnair, famine in Garlemald, riots in Ul'Dah. One could easily lose their way in all this despair."

"But it's all over, is it not?" Neneru hated that the question sounded so uncertain. The riots, at least, were over for the time being.

"Like as not, we'll see more trials ahead. And I think people need to remember how much they need each other, need the things and people they love. The passions that push them forward."

Half turning, Neneru fixed the woman with a searching look. "Do I know you?"

"No, I apologize. I think I just lose hold of my tongue some times. Please forgive me if I'm being over-familiar. Say..."

"Yes?"

"Could you perhaps draw me? I'll pay."

Neneru considered it for a moment.

"Please?"

A warmth like the first gulp of a cup of chain heated her smile and Neneru took up her leather sketchbook once more.

We talked for a time, and she said much the same as Mistress 'Reya and even Miss Trachynwyda about needing to remember what I care about. After, she paid me. A handful of gil coins from a scattering of nations. I made to tear the page out to give to her, but she merely asked to inspect the drawing. She smiled and handed it back to me, leaving without another word. Though the entire encounter has left me with the sense of something larger happening beyond my sight, I did not find the last piece until looking back over my day's work before bed. In the footer of the woman's portrait someone had written "There are many kinds of love."

And beside it, a drawing of two circles, one greater and one lesser. The moons Menphina and Dalamud. Though I counted coins from Thavnair, Kugane, and even Sharlyan, the lion's share came from Ishgard. Didn't the archon Louisoix put one of his monuments to the Twelve in the slopes of Coerthas? I will make a note to visit when I return to the Cross. I'm still unsure what good I am to the organization, but I'll keep trying. People I love are counting on me.

Neneru stuffed her journal back into her travel bag and leaned against the walkway's railing, watching people in the plaza below. Two days now she'd come back, hoping for some glimpse of the mysterious pale-haired Viera. But so far she was disappointed. But her time was up. Mistress 'Reya was due to arrive by Aetheryte soon, and she wanted to clean up and look presentable for her mentor.

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*melancholy jazz music plays*

I picked a bad day to stop drinking hi-ethers.

She came in to my office, 8 foot of Roegae-dame with legs for days. Said she had a job for me: Her husband had gone missing.

I knew the job smelled funny from the start but I wasn't in a place to turn down work. It was my first case in weeks, honest or otherwise, and I was deep in debt with a lalafell mobster name'a Robobbin Dabanks. In fact he just darkened my door 3 hours earlier with a handful of his best goons, MCHs all of them, packing enough heat to burn down Orbonne Monastery in a hail of gonnefire. If I didn't pay him soon, I'd be taking in the fresh air at the bottom of the waters of The Source in Lakeland.

Turns out the Dame's man was also in deep. Seems he'd fallen in with a bad crowd: The Aliapoh family. You've never met a more ruthless gang of rum runners and extortionists.

Time was running out, but the only question was whose: his or mine?