#Grinnaux de dzemael

[aroseyetbloomedwrites]

[crystallineconflict]

.💙🤍 (by @/jiro__C)

[autumnslance]

FFXIV Write 2023 Day 5: Barbarous

“Just as I was beginning to doubt the efficacy of the Ishgardian justice system!” Alphinaud said with a nervous grin. “Come, my friend─let us put an end to this mummer's farce!”

Aeryn gripped the hilt of her rapier, teeth grinding as the judges nodded.

In her mind’s eyes she again saw young Lord Francel standing on the precipice, ready to leap into Witchdrop of his own accord at the word of a heretic masquerading as an Inquisitor.

It had been so easy, for the false Guillaime to pit faithful Halonics against one another, to sow discord among allies and friends, to send innocents to their doom. He had been believed, allowed whatever excess of cruelty, while any aid and kindness she or Cid or Alphinaud had offered had been scorned and met with suspicion.

This was no different. She stood here to defend her few remaining companions because of the supposedly unimpeachable claims of yet more supposedly holy authority.

The arena was set and Tataru separated from them by bars. Ser Grinnaux and Ser Paulecrain smirked across from her and Alphinaud. Her young comrade took a shaky breath, his tome at the ready.

A trial by combat, to “prove” her friends’ innocence. What sort of illogical nonsense gripped her father’s countrymen?

Games between the High Houses, Count Edmont had said. Powerplays between those who cared naught for who was caught in their schemes—just like in Ul’dah. This had nothing to do with the thrice-damned war!

Thank the Sisters her mother had had the wisdom to take them from this wretched place, to a homeland where both faith and educated reason coexisted.

The Judge held up his hands in supplication.

“O Halone, render unto us Your judgment! Raise up the righteous, and cast down the wicked!”

Fine. If they wished to resort to such barbarous methods as this, she would oblige. She fixed her eyes on Ser Grinnaux and his axe as she drew her sword.

Levin crackled in her hands, sparking down her blade. Icy wind played in her hair and clothes. She sensed the earth below her feet and fire behind her eyes, waiting to answer her call.

If her country of birth refused to be civilized, then she needn’t be, either.

And they would remember that in this realm, the Fury was her patron.

[sandcrafter]

My Little Pony: Ishgard

[herohikara-wol]

FFXIV Write 2k23

Pick Your Own Prompt (Bottled)

“I don’t see the purpose of this.” Even with the light in his eyes faded and his golden hair unkempt and messy, the stiffness to his posture gave away the truth of the man’s former occupation. At least it would to any former military man in Eorzea. Zephirin could slack off on his training and dress down to cut his ties as the former leader of the Heavens Ward, but he couldn’t hide the years of training by pretending the whole thing had never happened.

“The purpose is to get you outta this bloody slump you’ve pouted yourself into!” Grinnaux’s fist met his open palm with a forceful slap, “you disbanded the ward, fine, but we’re still your brothers in arms and we’re bloody worried about you.” Charibert had called this an intervention, a come to Halone meeting. Despite trying to free them of their obligations and send them back to their families and friends, the other eleven knights had found the loss of structure to their lives uncomfortable. Despite their personal differences, they all shared one common thing and it had made a bond between them that was ironclad.

What Thordan had done to them left scars deeper than words could describe, the memory of their tempered servitude was a curse Zephirin couldn’t be rid of. The guilt ate at him night and day, even when their unlikely savior tried to sit with him and talk him through the pain. Looking into his deep blue eyes and seeing only kindness instead of hate felt worse than simply being loathed. Hero had every right to hate him, he’d murdered his fiance, and instead Hero allowed him into his home.

Into his bed, once or twice.

While they’d never done anything intimate, the act of holding the small Viera against his chest and listening to him mumble in his sleep all the names of the people he’d lost was heart wrenching. So he retreated to his family’s manor and simply tried to pretend he was fine. He convinced several people too, only making one fatal mistake.

Charibert came to check on him, the former inquisitor had taken to making his old hobby profitable. Instead of burning heretics or hunting down what remained of Thordan’s cult in the church, he’d turned to alchemy and herbology. He’d been working on a tea meant to be taken at bed to ease night terrors and induce sleep, and Zephirin had told the man he was fine.

A bold faced lie told to a living lie detector. He knew it’d come back to bite him the moment Charibert’s painted lips thinned into a line with only the faintest hint of a frown at the corners. “Are you sure, commander?”

“I am no longer your commander.” Instead of insisting he’d tried deflecting and Charibert just nodded and left.

That was a week ago.

Hero had lured him to the bakery by promising sweets. Janlenoux had taken a job there and his cooking was a temptation that was hard to refuse. Adelphel greeted him at the door in a butler uniform and led him downstairs to the quiet of the unused venue space. Where he was confronted by the faces of his other former brothers in arms, all the furniture removed from the room, and Hero himself.

Zeph couldn’t just turn and leave either. The staircase was blocked by Gurrique and Ignase. “I will adjust, in time, I just need space. I swear to you, I haven’t got any plans to do something stupid like pitch myself off witchdrop or the steps of faith. I just need space to think.”

“What does your Esteem tell you?” Hero finally spoke up, and for the first time those crystal blue eyes seemed to look through him. As if trying to see his heart laid bare. “I’ve studied a Dark Knight’s path, don’t try to pretend you haven’t got one. When’s the last time you listened to him?”

Esteem? Ah- Hero must have named his inner darkness. That made sense, he could use that strange orange soul gem to conjure figures, memories, and ghosts from the aether. Of course he could manifest his own inner darkness. Of course he’d give it a name. “I’ve never spoken to it face to face like you clearly have, so I couldn’t tell you. I-” Zephirin’s face twisted a bit as he looked down in shame. “I started ignoring it when I became the Very Reverend Archimandrite of the Heavensward.”

“Would you like to speak to him?” Hero held up that strange orange soul gem again, and his eyes went soft and kind once more. “I cannot guarantee what it’ll be like, he’s part of you after all, but I can make it so you can talk to him. Would you like to? I don’t think all of us telling you to forgive yourself will help, maybe what you need is to talk to the part of you that you’ve been trying to hide to really understand where you’ve gone wrong.”

“The part of me I don’t want to see is ugly and awful. I was blinded by ambition and I caused others to suffer for it. Even the man I looked up to- dead- because I didn’t see the warning signs.”

“Oh shut up!” Charibert snapped at him and scoffed, “you didn’t kill him. I did. I remember it clear as day too, the suggestion in my head. The whispers in the corners of my mind. I set him ablaze with a fire so strong his bones turned to ash because I was empowered and guided to do so. All you did was step into his place. If you want to blame anyone for his death, blame me, but we both know who was pulling my strings. We were all puppets and it’s time you stop blaming yourself and start recalling there was a puppet master. You think I don’t feel guilt for the innocent lives I stole? Of course I do, but I know the difference between penance and self-flagellation.”

The words cut like a blade, but arguing with Charibert was a trying task at the best of times. Swallowing nails was easier than arguing with him when he was right. Zephirin swallowed the snappy retort on his tongue and sighed instead, looking at Hero again. “Alright, but if he’s violent? Put him back.”

“If he’s violent, I expect you to fight him.” Hero smirked a bit, “I fought mine and now I’ve learned how to set healthy boundaries and stop blaming myself for the deaths of everyone I wasn’t able to save. Mostly, we’re still working on a few of those incidents.” Zephirin watched as Hero put his hand- and the orange crystal- to his heart and closed his eyes for a moment before smiling softly, “he taught me to love myself the way I love others. I can’t tell you what your inner darkness wants, but if you’ve been ignoring him since you were placed in the Ward? He probably has a lot to say that you need to hear.”

It wasn’t compulsion that made him produce his dark knight’s soul crystal, he knew what it felt like to have no control over his actions. However the movement was fluid, practiced, as if there was part of him that wanted to do this so badly he had no time to hesitate before the gem was in his open palm and offered out to the warrior of light before him. Hero held his orange crystal out and began to glow, his short hair fanned out as if being lifted by a current of wind- or maybe by the current of his own aether.

Then before him stood his own shadow, “Are you him, my Esteem?” Zephirin knew what parts of his heart had been summoned without thinking about it. All of it boiled to the surface the moment the odd ritual had begun, leaving him feeling raw, his voice naught but a growl.

“I am. Prepare yourself.” One of his brothers tossed him a greatsword- his greatsword- Shattered Heart, and Zephirin took stance to duel the physical incarnation of all rage and betrayal he’d been bottling in his heart since Thordan’s manipulations stole his will from him. His inner darkness, the part of himself he’d been trying to hide from since the tempering was broken, his Esteem.

[modchanisnori]

I was listening to merry go round of life

I need to watch this movie…

[cornunut]

some moments from before the ward (for most of them)

[ansemaru]

Let it never be said that I don’t give the people what they want. And I know that even now, what they want is shirtless Heavensward NPCs.

[oblivionlegacy]

I ship them x) Grinnaux/Zephirin with the Lesbian Makeup meme.

Zeph teaches him how to do makeup. And Grinnaux questions his life choices 😅

[elezenchaser-art]

2018

Grinnaux, because he's badass.

Pencil on paper

[aroseyetbloomedwrites]

In my eyes, akin to a summer day eternal, smiling, never shall you fade

Grinnaux de Dzemael : Me. Francel de Haillenarte: @modchanisnori

[crystallineconflict]

meido… times three (by vogggart)

[ascalonsmercy]

& may it never change us.

[jarael]

Today has been productive, obvs.

[frostsong]

9—09: YAWN.

noun: a reflex act of opening one's mouth wide and inhaling deeply due to tiredness or boredom.

rating: t

characters: paulecrain de fanouilley, prince haldrath, grinnaux de dzemael, original characters, euphemie de dansereau, ollie the oliphant

tags: the heaven’s ward survive-au m, reincarnation au (for hal), euphemie’s polycule (light party) au, theft, theft of the highest degree, JAIL!! JAIL FOR PAULE AND HAL!!! JAIL FOR A THOUSAND YEARS

summary: the case of the missing (toy) oliphant.

wordcount: 803.

surely this was the strongest bed in ishgard, having withstood the weight of (four) knights and former knights of the fury.

paulecrain was the first to rise in the tangle of sheets and limbs: after a few months of their arrangement he learned the usual order began with him or haldrath, then grinnaux and euphemie, with the latter’s ash-blonde tresses more often than not caught between the former’s teeth—the aching creak of the mattress whenever one of them left sounded like relief on its part.

“catch.”

haldrath, still blinking as his eyes adjusted to the morning light, caught the item in question that paule threw his way: ollie the oliphant, one of the original inhabitants of euphie’s bed, complete with tusks far softer than the real thing.

hide.paulecrain mouthed with a wicked grin, and from the peripheral vision of his single eye he confirmed her still being deep asleep, wedged between haldrath and grinnaux. hal took his sweet time falling under the more dubious influence of their antics, but in time he’d fallen, too—leaving euphemie the greatest victim of their schemes. but ollie, too, was a victim apart an unwilling pawn—haldrath returned paule’s grin in full as he rose from where he lay between the fair-haired knight and sleeping beauty (he was cautious, but there was less reason to be: for all her training in reading the ways of their former quarry euphemie was a known deep sleeper) and sought out an untouched hiding place for the cuddly oliphant.

the two men froze only when she let out a yawn—a soft coo-like sound, before she settled in further against grinnaux’s broad chest, and hal crept his way for the bathroom, the captive toy oliphant secure in one hand.

———————

“where’s ollie?”

with hal still in the bath and grinnaux in the armoury-turned-training hall paule was the only one to witness their scheme come to fruition (this time, grinn had risen so late that he’d failed to join in at the start—but paule knew he’d always played the role of accomplice if it came to tormenting euphie). half-dressed with her breeches still folded atop her vanity table she crept alongside the bottom edge of her bed, running her hand past the flurry of bedskirts. with a cursory glance at her toy chest (yes, she still kept it) the rest were present and accounted for: only ollie, indeed, was missing.

“you didn’t hear all the commotion last night,” he yawned, fixing his long white hair into its trademark knot.

“his family came and demanded for his return.”

her head snapped towards him, mouth wrought in a low pout. it was impossible for him to keep a callous expression with her attempts at wordless threat—maybe for those who knew her less, or worse—those she deemed an enemy—such a look warranted the terror she wanted. but paule and the other two men who shared the place she called home came to be braver than those less privy to the off-duty hours of lieutenant euphemie de dansereau.

“what did you do with him.” the coldness in her question, no, demand—was better fit for a criminal interrogation than the whereabouts of a mere stuffed toy. the former heaven’s ward had a mind to think she made no difference between one from the other.

“i made him more comfortable.” he shrugged, tying his eyepatch in place.

“he wanted to sleep in.”

“and where did you put him?” the lingering threat per-syllable grew heavier with each word. euphemie hated being so verbose with her anger—all four of them did. better off gripping a weapon than allowing a risk of tremble to the tongue.

euphemie now stood mere ilms in front of him, a true confrontation. by her standards, anyway—he simply went about fixing his eyepatch and securing the ties of his breeches, for he loved to see her rage rise with the blush of her cheeks, and her ear-tips: it meant that she, too, was beginning to remember how childish she—and he—and hal—were acting.

still, the baroness wouldn’t rest until ollie was found hale and whole and reunited with his friends in the toy-chest.

“…why don’t you ask our captain?” once content with his appearance, paulecrain leaned forward to place a chaste kiss to her forehead—so unlike him it was, but he decided it was haldrath’s turn to take accountability. besides, he’d yet to eat, and the maid hadn’t brought up the tray…the chronometer on her nightstand foretold lunch as the next closest meal. 

“mayhaps i will.” starsilvers fixed on sharp golds for a few seconds longer as she moved towards the bathroom. his smirk returned as turned to leave her bedroom for the kitchen, knowing hal would be the ultimate culprit, for ollie had made a bed underneath all four of theirs’ clothing in the laundry basket by the tub. 

[modchanisnori]

Going to a Barbie Art party makes you think a bit.. "Hiya Barbie~" "Hi Ken~!" They're awfully sweet.. Featuring Grinnaux and Francel, and a Francel Tour guide barbie (like Toys Story 2)