#and realizing thusly that that matters more to HIM

[marshmallowprotection]

how do you think suit saeran would react to MC looking him in the eye and telling him he's not scary? like im imagining lying on the bed looking at my phone when he storms in and starts his Whole Thing, looking up just long enough to deadpan tell him he's about as scary as a newborn kitten and immediately going back to the phone.

i mean, i assume he'll throw a fit bc that's how suit reacts to everything, but i dunno. i wanna throw him off. i want to catch him off guard. he's all bark and no bite (well except that one time). hearing his footsteps in the hall isn't what's scary; it's the click-click of kitten heels

(also, now, thinking of the one who is scary, I want to look at him and tell him that he'll never be as big and scary as he wants to be, because there will always be someone at Mint Eye who's more terrifying than anyone else could be--and he and I both know damn well who it is).

I've said it before and I've said it again, it doesn't matter how you respond to Suit Saeran. Even if you give him what he wants, I.E. you're filled with terror, crying out of your mind, and pleading with him to stop because you hate him; he won't be satisfied because he has no idea what he wants from you.

If you don't respond to him, he gets angry and demands something so he knows you can't disprove his strength. If you fight back, you only prove that strength comes to people when they're distraught and angry, thusly telling them that their Savior was right.

He is as fragile as they come. The only reason he's able to survive when he comes to see you is that he has convinced himself that the only way to survive is to obey the laws of strength. He was taught that the world was about survival of the fittest and that the best way to ensure his survival would come from being an angry person who could destroy every monster before they could get him. If he is a monster stronger than all the others, then he can't be destroyed.

If you tell him that he isn't strong and that you're not scared of him, you only serve to prove one thing to him. All he'll think at that moment is that you are patronizing him and belittling him as a person. You don't care about him. The only thing you care about is getting rid of him so that you can get your precious prince back. It doesn't matter if that makes any sense in a sensible manner, it's what he's going to believe.

It's good to stand up for yourself but bluntly telling him these things will only hinder his ability to realize what he's doing is wrong. Don't let yourself get pushed around but fighting fire with fire isn't going to solve the problem. It's only going to make things worse. Do you really want to make things harder for yourself and him? 

Everything you do and say throws him off. But, if you meet him with unwavering kindness that won't bend to fear and terror, that's going to be the very thing that dismantles him the most. 

[effervescentdragon]

YOU MOTHERFUCKER DID FICLETS FOR HALLO,EN????

i did! i managed like three before i passed out completely bcs atm im sick too :( like antibiotics lvl of sick. so im very happy i managed it. and i know you didnt ask for a trick or treat but here is a snippet from something silm ive written a long time ago because i love you 🩷 it was titled "glorestor" in my docs and i barely remember what it is, but here it is nonetheless.

He did not know where he was headed, but he did not need to know, for the roads of Gondolin took him straight to where he needed to go.

Glorfindel stood before the House of the Fountain for a moment, and then before he even realized what he was doing, he struck the metal door-knocker. The headache he could feel was only exacerbated when the door opened. He readied himself to greet a servant and beg for an audience, but it was not a servant who opened the door and let the dimmed light flood the night.

Ecthelion stood in the doorframe, his expression moulding from frustration into surprise, then understanding, and finally into stony, subdued anger in a matter of moments. Glorfindel opened his mouth to say - something, anything, but no words would came to him. His throat felt sore, and parched, and as if a stone block was filling it and preventing anything but a choked-off breath from leaving it.

Ecthelion stared at his friend, his face betraying nothing of his thoughts. Whatever he must have seen in Glorfindel’s eyes must have been enough, because with a soft sigh, he opened the door wider and moved to let Glorfindel come in, walking away from him without a backwards glance.

Glorfindel followed him to the parlor in the back of the house, as he knew Ecthelion expected him to. It was the one furthest away from any sleeping chambers and communal spaces, and the one Ecthelion used when he wanted to have discussions that would not be overheard by anyone in the household.

They used that room sparsely when conversing, and usually Egalmoth was present and usually the topic was political and hence sensitive, and it has been quite some time since Glorfindel was there, but he conceded that the topic of tonight’s conversation should not be overheard by Er- anyone else in the household of the Fountain.

Ecthelion lit only one lamp, but the soft light of the Moon alongside it gave the room enough illumination for Glorfindel to see the blankness of his friend’s expression. Glorfindel felt - awful. He had been feeling awful ever since their last meeting, and he could not sleep, nor could he think for the whole of the past fortnight. The fact that he was on patrol was a blessing and a curse both, and he found himself taking night guard shifts in effort to avoid thinking about his - idiotic blunder. It did not help; the lands around Gondolin were calm, and under Varda’s stars, all he could do was think.

So when he finally returned from patrolling, and gave his report to the King, he found himself restless and upset. He started walking, with no certain destination in mind, and now he found himself here. And he still did not know what to say.

Ecthelion spoke not as he poured them both some wine into two goblets that he then put on the table and sat across from the settee Glorfindel occupied. He did not drink the wine, nor did he say anything. He just - waited.

Glorfindel knew he would have to be the one to break the silence. He was the one that needed to apologize. His heart was heavy, and his throat was dry, and his mind was all tangled in knots.

“I am sorry,” he said softly into the almost-darkness.

Ecthelion still said nothing, only moving his fingers in a circle over the rim of the goblet. Glorfindel knew that would not be enough, but it was a start, and now that he had spoken, he needed to say more.

“I am sorry for what I said, and I wish I never had spoken thusly, for I did not mean it,” he said as sincerely and with as much conviction as he could muster, willing his dearest friend to believe him. “I am sorry, Ecthelion, and I will do anything in my power to make amends.”

Glorfindel knew that Ecthelion was not one to trust pretty words; he believed in actions, in showing instead of telling. Glorfindel was the one that could talk for hours, the one that could make pretty speeches, the one that could write with such feeling that the words seemed to come alive on the parchment.

Glorfindel was the one that could use words to cut even better than he could use his blade.

He kept his eyes on Ecthelion, refusing to cower or look away, because he decided not to be a coward anymore. He would face whatever repercussions his friend thought appropriate for his actions, and he would respect his friend’s decisions on how to proceed. He would not run away again, as he ran a fortnight ago to join the next patrol, unable to process nor fix what he broke.

Ecthelion took a sip of wine, not looking at Glorfindel. His profile as he stared into the night through the windows was beautiful, and in the shade, with only half his face visible, he resembled his brother even more than usual.

Glorfindel’s heart hurt even worse than his head did.

“Do you know,” Ecthelion said softly, still not looking at Glorfindel, who in turn could not look away. “Do you know what I had been doing for the past fortnight?”

It was a rhetorical question, Glorfindel knew that, so he kept his silence and trusted that his friend would reveal the relevance of his current train of thought.

“I spent the past fortnight dragging my brother from the library every single night, where he had sequestered himself.” Ecthelion turned towards Glorfindel now, and Glorfindel did not know which hurt him worse, the words, or the look in those eyes.

“You see, my brother,” and the venom in those words made Glorfindel flinch, “had been spending the past fortnight combing through the library in search of certain documents, all the while not eating, nor sleeping. Do you want to know why, Lord Glorfindel?”

Ecthelion’s voice did not change inflection nor cadence, but the ice in them could parry the ice of the Helcaraxë. It was a deliberate choice on Ecthelion’s part and they both knew it; just as they had both crossed it.

“My brother had spent the last fortnight searching the library for any texts that deal with the topics of our King’s beloved, deceased wife and any trace of Vanyarin language there is.”

Ecthelion’s eyes burned into Glorfindel, and he had never felt smaller, nor more ashamed, than he did in that moment.

“I am sor-,” he started to say, but a sharp snort from Ecthelion made his apology cut off before they could be said.

“I am certain you are, Laurefindelë,” Ecthelion said with viciousness Glorfindel had not seen since over a decade prior … since Nirnaeth Arnoediad. “I am certain you are very sorry, and very apologetic, and that you are feeling awful about once again letting your mouth run off without any thought put into your words. I am certain you did not mean to insult and hurt my brother with your callousness for the hundredth time. I am certain you did not mean it, as you have not meant it any other time when you did the exactly same thing!”

Glorfindel sat frozen in his chair, for there was nothing he could do or say to that. When Ecthelion whisper-yelled at last, still mindful not to awaken anyone who might be sleeping in the house, his voice took on a timbre Glorfindel knew well.

It was the power of the Word of one born under the Lights of the Trees. It was old power, raw power that Glorfindel thought mostly lost to the Calaquendi on account of their deeds in Beleriand and during the Exile.

Glorfindel had forgotten how much power his friend had always had. Glorfindel had forgotten how fierce Ecthelion could be, because he never flaunted his power, nor did he abuse it. He saved it, held it close to his chest, and only unleashed it in defense of someone he loved.

It used to be Glorfindel he defended, but not anymore. Now he had someone to defend against Glorfindel, and that realisation speared Glorfindel’s heart as viciously as an Orc-blade.

Oh Valar, what have I done?

[mllelaurel]

More Servant of the Shard

I’m about 40% of the way through, and on chapter 10. 

Cut for... honestly more rambling than spoilers. But maybe also spoilers, IDK. 

A little sad that the book hasn’t actually contained all that much Jarlaxle and Entreri interacting with one another so far, aside from the sparring scene in the beginning. One might even argue this book hasn’t contained much Jarlaxle period - his POV’s a bit sparse comparatively, and he’s thoroughly compromised by the titular shard so (probably I say, because I have not read other books,) doesn’t quite come off as his normal self. 

Now that I think about it, I wonder if part of the sparring scene’s point was to establish a baseline for both Jarlaxle’s character and his interaction with Entreri. He does, in fact, feel very Jarlaxle in that. So we read that scene, and it heightens how weird he’s acting later, and we miss Our Dude. 

On Entreri’s end, I rag on him a lot affectionately, and I especially rag on his quest for his own sketchy artifact to match Jarlaxle’s, but honestly? The book does a good job of selling me on why he wants and even needs Charon’s Claw. He’s surrounded by asshole mage and psionic drow who hate him. He feels deeply unsafe and is desperate for a safeguard. 

I find it really interesting, the way fear seems to be the primary driving emotion behind SO MANY things Entreri does. Like. He’d hate that with the fire of a thousand suns and sooner die than admit it, but it’s true. Even his thing with Drizzt can IMHO be fundamentally broken down thusly:

“If I’m the baddest bitch in the room, no one can ever hurt me again” is not a GREAT trauma coping mechanism, but it’s a great one to jump on if you’ve got a lot of pride in your fear soup. And it works for a long time, because he makes himself almost good enough. 

Meet Drizzt. Hello, Entreri. You are NOT the baddest bitch in the room. 

Oops, that coping mechanism was brittle and cracks right down the middle once contradicted. And somewhere deep in his psyche, under what he tells himself is cold rage, ya boy begins to panic. Because Drizzt’s very existence proves he’s NOT safe. He IS hurtable. And it literally does not matter to Entreri whether or not Drizzt himself is a threat. The cortisol in his brain just registers that Drizzt broke his safeguards (which was not Drizzt’s intent and also he’s not psychic) and proceeds to skip all other steps. 

Which results in him trying to kill a teenager repeatedly. GJ. 

Related to all of this, I kind of love that Drizzt has 100% run out of patience with Entreri, per his POV segment. He’s not a saint. He’s a nice enough guy to hope Entreri gets better hobbies and grows as a person, but if Jarlaxle stabs him? At least he won’t have to deal with Asshole Who Keeps Trying to Kill Him again. 

Drizzt’s POV seems on the whole pretty insightful as far as Jarlaxle is concerned. But then, there’s the honking Zak-shaped blindspot. “I don’t get how Jarlaxle can be close to my dad, but also THIS ASSHOLE.” To be fair, I don’t know if this is before or after Salvatore realized Zak and Entreri were huge character parallels and Jarlaxle had a mighty TYPE. But even if this was written after the realization, of course Drizzt would have a giant Zak-shaped blind spot. He loved his dad and lost him in a traumatic fashion (twice, even, I think.) Of course he wouldn’t put him in the same class as Mr. Murder Hobo over there. 

But to go back to Entreri for a second, there’s another interesting note to make. Underneath all the fear and pride, there is some tiny, squiggly something, reaching for some kind of squiggly light. Even beyond his fondness for Dwahvel, there’s his surprise and anger at Soulez for abandoning his daughter. His going out of his way to spare Marek. For all of his buried self-loathing, Entreri keeps having empathy for people who remind him of himself. Adhania as a child betrayed by a parent. Marek as another rogue pawn of the Bregan D’aerthe. It’s crumbs of empathy, sure. But those crumbs are there, even if he will spend paragraphs justifying how it’s totally not that, nope, nothing of the sort. 

I swear, my entire read of these books won’t be Let’s Play Psychoanalyze Artemis Fucking Entreri. 

Really. I mean it. 

What else have I forgotten to note?

The writing of women in these books so far? Not amazing; not as bad as I’d been led to believe, a gross scene early on aside. Dwahvel continues to be great. I don’t know what to think of Shalotta so far. She does have interiority, particularly when seen through Entreri’s eyes. He notes the fear and uncertainty under her cool facade. But as Dwahvel all but lampshaded, it’s hard to get a read on what she actually wants (aside from ‘not to die or be powerless,’ which can be inferred) and thus care. Also I feel like there are better ways to portray a female character who is power-driven and scheming than “sleeping with Jarlaxle and not accomplishing much.” 

Kimmuriel’s budding frienemyship? with an illithid is kind of cute if you squint, and will end so, so, SO badly. Also I love that here we have Jarlaxle and Entreri scrambling for sketchy bad idea artifacts, and Kimmuriel is like, nah, not good enough. Meet my sketchy bad idea dude. He’s the only one who understands me, for we are both psychic.  

Okay, I think that’s it for the moment.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

few more Musings on Possibilities working off of the premise that winston's dick energy is related to the [psych (lol.) this is Wendy's new therapist, really] subplot:

just that ofc maybe he doesn't quit before/at the start of the episode. that would just be a hypothetical way for higher ups to realize this therapist (is modern psychoanalysis inherently a therapeutic practice? i think so. ugh grimacing sighing at looking up the theory / origins of any psychiatric practice but lord when isn't that the case. automatically i want more for winston, for anyone, than even a theoretically good fit psychiatrist) exists. since this hinges on anyone considering his quitting enough of a disruptive problem somehow to be motivating, versus maybe a comedic "btw anyone seen winston like, this week, now that i think about it" "[unsure murmurings]" moment about it.

maybe ppl are bothering to interact with just him outside the office, that we get to see, b/c of some different avenue of singling out: like that i do figure if winston wanted to see a therapist he would not go to wendy / not consider going to her, so after twisting anyone else's arm about where all this coordination amongst employees to Hurt Wendy's Ego came from, it's quickly like, oh yeah it was winston who started it, he recommends it to his friend with so many problems tuk, or ben, or some such deal. then everyone goes off to twist winston's arm about it too, asap, nigh literally

maybe it's about figuring this is some nefarious plan of winston's; wags being a good friend to wendy by killing all nerds who won't accept her performance coaching(tm). and/or about wresting info about this nefarious rival therapist from him as the expert (seeing her first / the longest), or him as A person seeing her who they most feel like grilling for information like hey nobody wants to accidentally make ben cry again but if winston cries b/c you were assaulting him then who cares, go see your fancy new therapist about how you're a total pussy. maybe wags just can't stand winston possibly having the choice to give them info, or even to take his time in doing so, basically being the "sure some ppl don't like getting their hands dirty. some babies don't have the stomach for it. but torture works! & i'm just the loose cannon committed to The Goals to stop waffling around about it" cliche, &/or is Disproving any approach that might treat winston like a person like no, treating him like a nonperson is the way, how can we stand otherwise? meanwhile the secret edge this person has is the basic obvious shit in contrast to even wendy's non special occasion therapy(? performance coaching) tactics are still just "i want to hurt you as much as i possibly can" & how just like her official job goals are wringing as much from employees as possible & making sure the company can steamroll them in any matter if convenient, a lot of which entails supporting the egos & enabling the behaviors of the employees who shit on everyone else. and here's dollar bill, wags. rian, "wendy's people" from the start....herself. axe. prince on occasion

maybe there's absolutely no especial reason for going after winston except that the audience gets the setup that assaults are no stakes & entertaining if it's winston who's targeted, so we won't be asking for further explanation lol literally do not care. little a treat for him, in his maybe last episode for maybe no especial reason, to maybe see him attacked thusly in his own home, that doesn't look like a particularly characterized setting. if that's even where he is

antibonus points if the cool new therapist shit talks winston still lmao like even if to basically Also pull a wendy like "ohh some ppl are just sooo complex & interesting (as though axe doesn't run on one line of code abt continuously feeding his ego & everyone/everything being fodder for that b/c that's the only way he can view anything & his potential interactions with them. b/c all that there is is Feeding His Ego)" where she'll dismiss all those other peons she treats like heh heh yes whatever Them, open & shut bunch of losers but i'm still nice to them b/c that's my brand of professionalism. but, wendy! You! you're Extraordinary! in fact i'll drop them all to take you on, as further incentive / b/c you'd be the one standout worthy case :)

bonus points is, supposing winston quits After being graced with whatever treatment in the episode & after being given fucked up input like that maybe he hinges his self esteem too much on what this job or anyone or anything associated with it seems to validate. but that maybe it's also about the treatment he's gotten repeatedly, the whole time, & he gets to say anything about it, & nobody gets to just tell him to shut up / pwn him so that in establishing him as the loser/inferior, nothing he says matters

[eddiesisterhandsthtdanceslikeabb]

I Don't Like how I Feel abt JJK S2

aka making sense of my very confused watch and thusly, my very confusing feelings

what i feel is JJK 2's biggest fault is a lack of a concrete voice, particularly in terms of tonal fluidity and character dynamics + characterization, which is what made JJK 1 so amazing to begin with. this really dampens the stakes, especially when, apart from mahito, the fight mechanics and raw physicality that JJK 1 & 0 so effortlessly captured seem to be absent. like yk you're fcking up when u have a shounen bro asking for less fight scenes.

i just feel as if, other than sotosugu, which geto is carrying on his hunching, scoliosis riddled back, i don't GET the dynamics. none of the characters made me care, they didn't connect with me beyond a superficial level, which is maybe a skill issue but ik its entirely possible when the show became #great-again and made me give 100% of a fawk about geto in TWO episodes. the tonal mastery on display there, the pacing, his sense of isolation, his deteriorating sense of self, its all conveyed so eloquently, like we are IN his head.

it also makes amanai's loss tangible, it gives us consequences and stakes and demonstrates the weight of that raw, human friendship. it nuances geto in a way i felt was absent in the other characters and thusly made them feel flat and insignificant. — having written more now, i think what stands out to me is how filed down the characters feel, like i just realized yuuji doesn’t feel RIGHT anymore, like i’m missing a sort of energy he used to bring to the table which made his softer moments feel more authentic yet pronounced, and i think that’s what’s plagued the new characters as well, a lack of concrete ENERGY.

long post!!

and jjk doesn't really do that sort of thing, its strength USED to lie in the compelling nature of its dynamics and character relations, but now that that's suffered under the transition of authorial voice, i think they've struck GOLD with the introspective storytelling method.

part of what made JJK 1 & 0 so great is it felt as if its light beats were ALSO in service of either narrative, plot or progression of the dynamics and we got to invest in and learn more abt the respective characters through every tonal beat we were taken through, what they got serious abt, what triggered them, how they relate to others. but with the first 3 or so episodes of JJK 2, which are very little in retrospect, but GLARING in an episode by episode watch approach, especially when contrasted again JJK 0, or JJK 1 (which, while cringe at first cause i watched downloaded eps and i used to have a shameful penchant for dub so obviously the cringe was threatening to disengage me, plus a few odd shots which had me like damn, amateur hour — which btw i STILL feel/felt that way abt s2. despite the animation being so amazing that upon teasers first dropping I was pretty much assured that it would be a sensory delight no matter what, but gorgeous moving pictures does not a good show make it seems. like you are NOT sam levinson my dudes, you don’t convey the sheer SPECTACLE that makes that approach work —, but that feeling was dispelled within an episode and I was just as hyped as i’ve always felt upon JJK rewatches), it has a timeless quality to it, its very sure in its direction and its characters and how they interlink. plus the fights are great and often used to convey smth abt the characters or their relationships.

while s2 has me like… ok so what happened in the first 3 episodes? everything felt like filler, everything felt inconsequential, everything felt shallow.

and that’s in NO part bc of the new (sort of) cast of characters, i gaf abt JJK 0, like yuta wasn’t bbg but i loved watching him form relationships with the other characters (especially inumaki, yuta x inumaki otp you heard it here first. like at first i didn’t GET inumaki but upon a rewatch i started to catch onto his linguistic patterns and how soft of a character he REALLY is, like inumaki is so baby 🥺, and the two connecting over being edgy soft boys had me SEATED.

especially when yuta got over his preconceptions abt inumaki borne of the fact that he doesn’t communicate conventionally, and he had thusly fashioned a personality FOR inumaki that stemmed from him being different. but it didn’t feel so extreme that i felt undercurrents of discrimination, poor boy is just traumatized and views ppl who are cold to him as antagonistic, so i get it, especially bc his reactions were more on the softer comedic side. but he then realizes that dude is just the nicest guy ever and not being able to speak doesn’t mean you’re a scary or odd person), and while his whole thing with rika was kind of saccharine and had fbi ON speed dial, i came to really appreciate HOW he cursed rika and how her love for him was so pure, like it felt universal and unrestrained by any label and that’s smth beautiful to me cause things could’ve gone ban from seven deadly sins REAL fast and they subverted that.

but i also don’t feel that its coincidence that i felt more engaged by preestablished characters and their dynamics (the main trio and their reintroduction into the story). they have a shorthand, a familiarity that gojosquad lacked, and i’ve come to realize as i write that that’s intrinsic to always being the highest in the room (wink wink), but if that’s the case then that needs to be tangibly demonstrated, give small tells that despite wanting or trying to, gojo lacks the capacity for intimate human bonds outside of one guy, he’s a product of jujutsu society, which will always distance him from conventionality and attachments. give it significance and intention within the story bc without it being written in, it makes the show feel tonally disjointed and unrefined.

give us personal moments between sugusoto, shorthands or glances or shifts in tone or whatever that capture the duration and depth of their bond, show us them caring abt each other in a way only two untouchable people can, how their eyes always find each other first, how even when with others gojo is always watching geto, like i need moments™ (it doesn’t have to be showboating and glamorized depictions of interactions ALL the time, the quiet moments matter too). like don’t get me wrong i FAWKED with the aquarium scene but i think its telling how long it took me to recall it bc it was ONE moment, yk. like i want to FEEL how despite the loss or uncertainty of those around them they always have each other. THAT’S what’s missing. meggy and yu to the uji had that with their sukuna fight and megumi pledging to protect those he cares abt, in fact meggy came in swinging bc you had a strong sense of who he was and that he cared from day 1. i need their priorities and drives established, i need to know WHO they are. like yes the: who are you and what do you want scene from JJK 0 was ham-fisted and made retrieving my eyeballs from where they’d lodged into the back of my skull quite difficult, but stuff like that is needed and CAN be done tactfully. like i feel this season is all abt subtlety and undercurrents so that when the sheer shitshow that is obviously going to burst forth comes about we’re #shook but its called balance, and its initially what made JJK so great.

and with 1/3rd of the characters i still feel have a strong presence (mahito, gojo, todo – u will ALWAYS be famous… and mei mei) allegedly, supposedly, apparently being taken out of the narrative which is TOTALLY something i am having a well-adjusted and normal reaction to, i am FINE! shut up shut up shut up HGRLSOPFHUJWVOBEFBUQUUI!!!?!? ARGGHHH! NBHQYIJHVQJH!!!!?!!! BANGS TABLE BITES WALLS SEETHES IN A VERY UNAFFECTED MANNER ROLLS AROUND THRASHING AND SWEATING fine i am, fine yes yes. FINE!

well, its made me very apprehensive abt how JJK could progress. bc while i think the reintroduction into modern day was done well, i also acknowledge the slippery slope of its shortcomings, and how eliminating such MAJOR players and flavors in the JJKverse can leave a void too wide to be filled. if they can’t keep up the character dynamics and characterizations they have now the show, to me, is doomed, plain and simple.

bc on one hand you have the great mechamaru mahito fight, which actually works MORE bc it wasn’t afraid to be a little camp and tropey and FUN, but then you have yuuji fighting that bug and its like ???? or the toji gojo fight where istg, no limbs touched, not one, no kicks, no weight, no fight mechanics, just hella blur and faith in the lord. like i should not have to wait until the end of the fight to see some IMPACT, some goɾe, some injury, some STAKES.

with the absolute feral levels i get at the intro song (their best one and one of the best i’ve seen in anime tbh, in terms of visuals, aesthetics, music, it just- it makes me SO VIOL3NT, I LOVE IT HBWEVFHWJEFWKF) i want to see these obvious pools of potential realized, i don’t want or even like JJK when its good, i like JJK bc at its core its GREAT, and if they play their cards right we could be looking at one of the best animes of, dare i say all time.

like the villains feel foreboding, they feel ALIVE, they carry weight and i want that for the mains too. so far i’m happy with their handling of the main trio, with the episode dedicated to yuuji’s old crush being genuinely emotional, paced proficiently and ACTUALLY funny, like i’m not saying that the first 3 eps weren’t funny in their own way, but it wasn’t GIVING jujutsu kaisen, at its inception it wasn’t giving JJK with the way the season felt more like a thriller at first, but it was done so well that i wasn’t mad at it, then the levity and relationships came in and were just so underwhelming man. it was literally like being hit by a train tbh.

anyway, i’ve belaboured the point, all i have to say before talking abt the fɑscist in the room is that i was PHYSICALLLY and PERSONALLY pained by the diminishment of the fight scenes. ooooo going from todo yuuji, yuta geto, sukuna megumi, even gojo v that black dude (sorry idk his name and also justice for him that sht was a hate crime fr fr) honestly all the fights in the tournament between the jujutsu schools, to what we got in s2, that hurt me and me specifically and it is only grace from some celestial force that has kept me from doing smth drastic and unethical in retaliation.

anyways, what i feel could’ve capitalized on JJK 2’s strengths from the get go is centring get o (wink wink) and creating more tonal contrast or whiplash / a sense of bubbling foreboding which erupts at the climax of the season half’s finale, it would make everything sm more pronounced and eerie and meaningful, just generally imbuing more nuance into their portrayal could’ve made it LEAGUES better but then geto would have lost all mobile functionality of his spine bc he would’ve crashed under the weight of the show long before he crashed under the weight of his own mind. bro CARRIED.

to the point where he’s such a caricature of a fashie character now and i STILL have immense love for him, he’s like lightside eren jeager — if voldy and eren had a baby it would be geto (and part of the reason why geto works where eren doesn’t is bc they make a point to villainize him and verbalize how fashie his rhetoric is, which HURTS bc i am black and hearing him call humans monkeys has me like i can’t keep defending my maga bf like this, why is my taste in men so flagellatory???!! STAND 👏🏿UP 👏🏿! — only those of a certain hue are allowed to laugh @ that joke i am in ur walls) and while i wished they nuanced him more and factored in how he cared abt amanai into his descent, i also appreciate that that intimacy i was talking abt prior popped up. geto became who he thought he was supposed to be to carry out smth so incongruous to his former ideology and identity, he feels like a caricature bc he IS a caricature, but once the mask slips the softness and purity of his core personality is revealed and its ONLY for gojo, like JEQFBJHBFJQEJ

i don’t even ship sugusoto (like that). they’re both just so great that by brute force i intellectually recognize the excellence of their dynamic, like it just doesn’t make SENSE to not give sugusoto their tens bc of how intertwined within each other they are. like sorry, did not give a singular FAWK abt them before (when i had no familiarity with their material/dynamic) and now they have me crying out of sheer respect no one’s doing it like them.

and what makes empathizing with a character like geto so natural, and produces such a well crafted character in general is his NUANCE, i feel like, similar to eren jeager, you can’t find him endearing or sympathetic in any capacity without first giving significance to, not only the nature of his moral decline, but the inherent complexities of his character. liking geto without acknowledging that he touts rɑce science and plans to genocıde ppl he sees as biologically inferior is a YIKES, you can’t ignore that shite without seeming like a member of a third subsect yourself idk, like its not insignificant, and woobifying an active fɑscıst is existential horror if i’ve ever seen it.

its why aot falls flat for many but JJK excels in that department, bc geto is condemned and for good reason, HOWEVER, i think there was a way we could’ve muddled even the lens through which he’s condemned / the immensity of empathy we feel for him, and that’s bringing amanai into his ideological realignment.

amanai was the source of his moral turn and it feels like a missed opportunity to not have her be more core to its after effects, like HER dyıng is what gets geto so why wouldn’t the weight of her legacy and the purity of her character weigh on him more. the star platinum followers were human yes, but so was amanai, and having geto hyperfocus on one part of the equation when the other is arguably just as significant is a HUGE missed opportunity to say the least. like given his new outlook how does geto FEEL abt someone like amanai now, has he condemned her, and if so, why didn’t we see that more explicitly? like i feel its pretty inevitable that he has, since he sights human weakness and the sacrifice of jujutsu sorcerers for humans as his point of contention, which stems from him being unable to exercise justice against the religious group, but ALSO parallels gojo seemingly dyıng for amanai, someone who put them all in harms way through her ineptitude and the [to geto in retrospect, ultimately] false debt they felt towards her. like at first he idolizes THAT aspect of human innocence but as he sees its consequences does it not make sense that his turn would come from explicitly writing off its source?

OR even more powerfully, being plagued by knowing that good humans exist but valuing people like gojo, who he sees as the real unprotected and collateral of society, more than he values amanai. like in canon he’s so tired of fighting for ppl who underappreciate and can manifest such heinous forms of evil but it would’ve been an elevation to add him being tired of fighting for a shred of goodness that ever since he’s only seen its dark side, he comes to realize is gone anyway, so WHY is he still fighting? the mental fracture that brings and his conveyance of guilt and buried pain could be SO good cause deep down geto could ultimately agree with gojo that human life is precious, but that he can’t stop himself from HATING that, resenting that he can’t see himself or anyone else around him as precious too.

like oooooh would’ve made him best character of all time i fear. like caricature geto serves a purpose, but ANGSTY geto, the ppl were NOT ready! but regardless, i am MORE than happy with the geto we got. More than. i cant even fully articulate the depths i feel geto has and what we could’ve gotten out of him, like bro is the gift that KEEPS ON giving!

anyways, that’s it from me i think. overall i think JJK needs to realize that what made s1 so iconic isn’t bombastic shots or glamorous aesthetics, its all these masterfully conveyed moving parts coming together to create smth better than the sum of its parts. it’s the nitty gritty of character dynamics and characterization and meaningful fights and the mundanities of friendship, it’s the quiet moments which make the big moments so loud! it’s the dialectical nature of the show.

i WANT to trust JJK S2 to stick the landing, the gold is THERE, they just need to dig. and if a hyperfixation of mine goes to shite, well we can all pretend it was a fever dream and continue reading metas on the manga or smth, idk 🤷🏿‍♂️ will continue biting my nails till the very end.

[octhbroken-a]

@imaginariaarbor​ Response.

Being truthful, he was... little better than she was, following the event that she had been so brazen enough to do. She had fled quickly enough following that kiss she had given him, that he lacked the ability to say anything to her at the time and thusly had to return to the tasks he had at hand; the entire time though he happened to have the event replay in his mind repeatedly, and once he had finally finished, he let out the heaviest sigh that he had in quite some time as he brought a hand up to cover a portion of his face. Finally he had time to properly think about it-- or perhaps it would be more accurate for one to say that he could no longer think about anything else.

Just why had she done that? Why had she decided to just... abruptly kiss him like she had? It made no sense to him. And yet slowly, slowly things began to shift into place; for the first time since he had finished with what he had been doing, his mind actually flicked off of the kiss and onto something else. An event with her which had happened prior to the kiss, where she happened to state that she liked him. At the time he had been consumed by enough irritation that things hadn’t managed to properly get through to him, but now that he was much better off-- and armed with the context of that kiss-- it happened to hit him. She hadn’t been confessing to just “liking” him, she was actually confessing to him (despite it not being entirely of her own volition to do so). To say that he felt stupid as a result of this delayed realization would have been an understatement.

“ ... Honestly. “ His voice was left low, even with none of the other six deities being in his presence. “ She should have been a little clearer with her feelings, and not decided to take her exit as quickly as she did after doing this. Just what am I going to do with her... “

Being frank, he hadn’t disliked the kiss in the slightest. He had merely been startled by it, which was the truth of the matter. But she wasn’t close by for him to deal with this situation... though he did have a backdoor of sorts into her realm. He hadn’t forgotten about that fact, especially considering he was the one who most typically visited her due to all the work he had to handle as the head deity of this realm. If there was ever at time to make use of it, now was that time; and he would show that by acting upon it to get inside of Akashic’s realm.

Once in his destination, he had no doubts that she would already know that he was there-- though he didn’t let that fact bother him in the slightest. Still he would silently set off in her direction, considering things were a two way street between them with his abilities. Though... his intentions just yet were unclear even to himself. It was clear that there was no hostility towards her at the absolute least, but that was the only thing that was clear to anyone; how would he react once he saw her? Would he merely speak to her, with words that he couldn’t conjure up ahead of time for once in his existence? Or perhaps he would do something a little more... drastic? There likely wasn’t a single thing in existence that could tell, the records proper included.

“ ..... “

Finally he would reach a point where he could visibly see her, and come to a silent stop. For what felt like an eternity, at least to him, he merely stood there in silence; he still couldn’t figure out just how he was going to respond to what she had done, and finally let out the softest of sighs to break his silence. Eventually he would at last make up his mind, finally beginning to approach her while still continuing to hold his re-established silence... and once he had reached her, he took a moment to mull things over before promptly shoving everything to the side. The instant afterwards, involved him grasping one of her shoulders and spinning her to face him-- and then the use of the other hand to tilt her chin upwards, leading into a kiss from him. A kiss that would last a brief instant before he pulled away from her, yet left the grip of two fingers he had on her chin to remain.

“ Next time you shouldn’t be so quick to run away, Records. It makes things a little more difficult on everyone. “

[icharchivist]

aah that's fair that's fair! I'm glad you're feeling comfortable enough sharing it here though <3

I'm posting it like this so i can post the actual fic under a read more (else it'll be impossible to scroll by ahah) but thank you!!!

so i'm going through it and, indeed there's a few things that have been disproven since then, but there's no point in pointing them out as you're more than aware of those ahah. Yet it's really pretty nice! i do really get in the end this feeling of Lucilius trying to explain calmly and seriously his situation but somehow not realizing when he gets emotional on the side. I really like it.

and the line "Of course, they are both bastards, so that didn't work out." cracked me up really bad. And so did the line about Belial's sense of humor.

and that ending is actually perfect imo. The build up to Lucilius' anguish for this gutpunch by the end is just muah it's great. thank you for sharing it with us!!!! truly appreciating it, and i'm sure others will too ;D thank you!

[Onward is the fanfic Anon wrote]

So, we know that Lucilius and Beelzebub are clones of the Speakers, Sahar/Lucio and Shalem, made for the Astral World. For whatever reason, really. Probably has something to do with God splitting in two and one half going to the Astral World and one half staying in the Sky Realm. The why isn't that important, tbh, they're basically gods, they can do whatever the fuck they please.

But I imagine Lucio went "I don't want to burden my clone with all this power and responsibility that I hold. I want them to be able to live freely and find their own path in life. Not that predestined stuff". Shalem agreed and thusly nerfed her clone as well. That was the beginning of the end.

Because the Astral God was the creator half of Bahamut, their world is unchanging. Almost frozen in time. Astrals themselves pride themselves on not being subject to change, like those whimsical Skydwellers. So they lead long, long lives and remain static throughout. I still choose to believe that they start out as babies, because they look anatomically human and can canonically interbreed with humans. But mainly so we can picture baby Lucilius. Arguably the only one of the three to have ever been a baby. Lucifer popped into existence fully-grown and Lucio uh. Probably did, too. Admittedly, the idea of Bahamut raising two babies is adorable, but I'm getting sidetracked again.

So Lucilius and Beelzebub appeared as babies in the Astral world, cute and innocent. They were given to foster families and raised there. For bonus points, Beelzebub's family was slightly higher class, allowing him an easier start at life and to rise through the ranks in the Astral military more easily. Well, that, and because man's a walking wall of meat.

But growing up, Lucilius was haunted. Haunted by dreams of himself, with long, flowing hair, six feathered wings, cosmic powers at the tips of his fingers. But every time he saw himself in the mirror, all that looked back with bloodshot eyes was a scrawny little nobody. Short and weak. No wings, no powers to speak of and when he tried growing out his hair, it just looked weird. He was suffering almost some kind of dysphoria. Not to mention, Lucilius was defective. He required sustenance, needed to eat, which is unusual for Astrals. He was definitely picked on for this. Some mused that he was a Skydweller pedigree or that something was wrong with him. He definitely shoved a pencil up his head bully's nose for that.

That his parents weren't his birth parents wasn't a secret, anyone with working eyes could see as much, so they didn't bother hiding it from him. If nothing else, he appreciated the honesty. As Lucilius grew, he was less interested in figuring out his parentage and more how to bridge the gap between the him that he was and the radiant being he kept seeing in his dreams, but that he simply failed to grow into, no matter how much time had passed. He threw himself into his studies.

Beelzebub suffered similar dysphoria growing up, but it kind of mixed in with his actual dysphoria, so it was a bit less jarring. Let's assume that the Astrals aren't terribly transphobic and Bubs managed to transition in relative peace. With his refitted body, he was less haunted by the image of Shalem. He was himself now, Beelzebub. No comparisons necessary. The only thing he craved was ever more power.

Lucilius looked into evolution, in hopes of finding the fingerprints of God all over His creation. He wasn't terribly impressed by what he found.

When the Astrals invaded the Sky Realm, Lucilius wasn't initially terribly interested (Bubs on the other hand was all over that shit, waging wars on those poor Skydwellers in search of a challenge), but finally followed the siren song of his visions of Sahar. Perhaps this Realm held the answers to what he was looking for, after all.

He was a mere little research assistant, nobody paid him much heed, but that also meant that he was able to work in peace. After looking over the creatures inhabiting this fragile world, beings without the Power of Creation his people had been bestowed, creatures who would die, he became less impressed with the Omnipotent. Primal cores were something he fell into ass backwards, they were either an unintended side effect of an experiment of his, or something other Astrals had created, but didn't pay much attention to, since they didn't see the use.

Lucilius however decided to start researching those curious cores instead. He discovered that by inserting them into living beings, he could increase their strength and longevity. Assuming they survived the process, anyway. The rats usually did not, but larger creatures, such as dogs and cattle, had less issue incorporating the cores into their bodies. But still, perfect integration of tissue and core was difficult to achieve. Experiments with infant animals bore little fruit, as again, their bodies were too small. Thus, the idea of creating being with bodies specifically suited was born. In fact, if they were able to integrate cores perfectly, if they could utilize that power, perhaps he could recreate this figure that was always haunting him.

Lucilius got to work on creating the first primal beasts.

It took years and a lot of effort. Many crushed cores, many broken bodies, created with technology similar to the one that had helped Beelzebub transition to a form he found more suitable.

Lucilius' place was covered in bodies that all bore a more than uncanny resemblance to him, trying different combinations of different factors, but unwilling to budge on the amount of power that he wanted the core of his creation to hold. It had to be perfect. Most bodies, even if technically flawless, could not handle that amount of power. Lucilius had seen people bearing his face die more often than anyone reasonably should. It didn't even bother him anymore.

So consumed by his work was he, the council was beginning to think he'd gone mad. They sent Beelzebub to check on him, which was how those two idiots first met. To Lucilius' surprise, Beelzebub wasn't the big oaf he'd expected. In fact, he seemed very into the research he was doing with those cores, the goals he planned to achieve. Not to mention, a strange, almost familiar feeling of being near him. Like they were somehow meant to be friends and companions.

Of course, they are both bastards, so that didn't work out.

The finally, the day came where Lucilius' experiments were a success. Not just once, but twice, even.

The perfect clone, handsome, tall, white-winged and powerful, opened his sky blue eyes and Lucilius thought he was going to die. It was everything he ever wanted and more. He had created life, made right what had gone wrong with him. Truly, he was a god now and considering the power and beauty and immortality of what he had created, he was better than the old god had ever been. Perhaps he was a little bit mad after all.

And so absorbed was he in his triumph that it took him a few moments to recognize that the other one was starting to stir as well. The control group, so to speak, based on a different principle, created from a different mold. Really, more of an experiment of how far he could deviate from the formula and still succeed. He hadn't expected it to make it this far, much less for it to open its blood red eyes and look at him.

But, two was better than one, he figured, so instead of tossing the unwanted second one out, he named them Lucifer and Belial and presented them to the council, his head held high.

It felt good to see those self-righteous idiots overcome by awe for his genius. They appointed him their new head researcher and for a while, all was right with the world.

He ran that lab in Canaan and was free to do as he pleased. More research on primal cores had to be conducted, but also tests on the two creations that he had.

They were happy to play along. In between testing everything from their reflexes to their thought processes though, Lucilius found himself growing fond of them. Lucifer, of course, was his crowning achievement, but even Belial was still his work. The three of them spent a lot of time together, actually. It was a bit of a "we vs the rest of the world"-feeling that drove Lucilius, since he'd known them longer than all those phoney research assistants, who were either out to waste his time or steal his work. To Lucifer and Belial, he was, well, their creator. Almost like a father figure. They only really had him and each other, since they were the only ones of their kind and the only ones they could relate to. Belial and Lucifer were close then, like brothers. Despite his poor patience, Lucilius did his best to train them in combat, teach them about the world. It helped that they were both intelligent and quick learners. Every time they did something right, his expression brightened, because they surpassed his expectations and filled him with pride. Especially Belial seemed to really like it when Lucilius smiled, because he tried harder and harder to surpass his expectations. To surpass Lucifer. Despite being designed to be weaker than the other, because Lucifer had to be the strongest and most powerful, obviously, Belial pushed himself to keep up with him. All for Lucilius. Back then, even if he noticed, he didn't much care for the why. Only that the results made him look better.

But even the good times couldn't last forever and once the council determined that they knew enough about those existing primals, they wanted more. Hand the unwanted tasks of overseeing the Sky Realm off to them, leave the Astrals more time to do Astral things. So Lucifer was given a fancy new role and title, and Belial, as his adjutant. The two's relationship was never the same. The happy family time was over. But Lucifer would spend his entire life thinking back to those days, yearning for them.

Unfortunately, it turned out that mass producing more primals, angels to bolster the ranks and fulfill all sorts of purposes, didn't make Lucilius happy. With time, he grew bitter and paranoid. So he was a god now, a creator of powerful beings, but he still had to kowtow to the whims of the council and their dumb ideas. They were idiots.

And while he took pride in Lucifer, that still didn't solve the problem of himself being defective and weak. He still needed to eat and while at least no one would dare mock him for it anymore, it irritated him beyond reason. What was the point to being a creator of perfect beings if you yourself are still so woefully flawed?

That's when it occurred to him that perhaps it would be best if all should come to an end.

He embezzled funds for his research and used cores that hadn't survived previous experiments, mushed them all together and finally created Avatar, the beast that could shake the world to its core. Surely if there were a God, He would have to stop him now, right? And the second He showed His face, Lucilius would be able to take a good look at it and tell Him how much He sucked. How awful He was for creating all these flawed beings and leaving them to fend for themselves in this imperfect world.

Truly, deep down Lucilius was just a petulant child, acting out because he wanted attention from his parents. But his parents were God and God had left this world. So his tantrums were left unanswered. Lucilius grew more and more frustrated with time.

His adjustant caught wind of his plans and threatened to inform the council. He tried to blackmail Lucilius - him, who had given life to gods. It was in his darkest hour that he remembered his other darkest creation and sicced Belial on the poor fool. The primal was beyond happy to be of use to his master. He also had no issues with murder. Quite the opposite. Lucilius remembered that if nobody else, he could trust his creations. They wouldn't betray him. Well, Lucifer, as appointed steward of evolution, might grow beyond his purpose and turn on him yet, but he had Belial. Belial, who wasn't meant to change. A perfect, immutable being with perfect, immutable loyalty.

So Belial was transferred from working under Lucifer to working under Lucilius. Lucifer was sad to see him go, but Belial had never been more ecstatic in his life.

Together they furthered the research into Avatar, spending many a sleepless night slaving over their work. If a primal caught wind of what they were doing, Lucilius had ways of making them disappear and incorporating their cores into his newest creation. He turned a blind eye to Beelzebub helping himself to primal cores that were as of yet unused, if only to see how that would turn out. Who was he to turn away a willing test subject?

As a contigency plan, Belial's tolerance to the Avatar core was increased. This included fitting him with new wings. Gone were the fluffy purple feathers, replaced by the same bat-like wings Avatar bore. Besides, they allowed him to glide soundlessly through the night. The process must have been excruciatingly painful, seeing how an angel's powers are stored within their wings, but Belial never complained.

The council decided that the Supreme Primarch should have a replacement, a precaution, if nothing else. And while Lucilius was offended at the notion that his perfect creation could ever be killed, by this point, creating primals was easy. Lucifer found out about this and begged and pleaded to be a part of the creation process, so Lucilius left the design process to him. When Sandalphon came into this world, Lucilius wasn't impressed. The dark hair and red eyes on the primal he could understand. It was quite obvious that Lucifer was nostalgic for the days when it had just been the three of them, or even just working so closely with the being who had shared his cradle. But seeing Sandalphon's short stature reminded Lucilius of his own shortcomings. Perhaps it was out of spite then that he refused to tell Sandalphon his purpose, to make him a target for the mockery of his peers, have his own insecurities gnaw at him. Like the God he despised, Lucilius had bestowed his own fate upon his creation. But while Lucilius had been allowed to rise above his station, Sandalphon was to stay in a garden, safely tucked away, always waiting for Lucifer to have time to spare to spend with him.

Another not-so ideal creation was Sariel, the Archangel of Execution, prepared for the purpose of cleaning up messes. He turned out far too sensitive for the task and attempts at lowering his emotional responses through limiters only hampered his intelligence instead. Like all his failures, looking at Sariel made Lucilius sick to his stomach. It was Belial who saved his fellow primal from either the incinerator or joining the ever-growing horror that was Avatar, suggesting that Sariel's naivety made him a useful pawn.

Things were going well for a while then. The council was far too occupied with their decadence to pay attention to what was going on right under their noses. Beelzebub was too blinded by his hatred for the primals in general and Lucifer especially to pay attention to anything. What a shame. Lucilius had had such high hopes for him.

Belial recruited more and more primals for him, those who were struck with ennui at the prospect of spending their immortal lives in servitude, or those who were still loyal to their creator. Though, he also flat-out lied to a bunch to get them to join him. And even Belial didn't fully know that he was leading this congregation to their slaughter like a flock of lambs. It didn't matter to Lucilius. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing but ending this hellish, imperfect life.

They called themselves the fallen angels, because Belial had developed a weird sense of humor Lucilius didn't remember programming him with.

Finally, the day arrived. The promised day, one that would put an end to all of creation. His fallen angels attacked the Astral and Primal forces. It was a massacre. People dropped dead left and right. Their blood covered what felt like all of Canaan, painted the buildings, the sky itself. It didn't matter. Everything was going to end here.

Lucilius had hoped for death for the longest time, at least somewhere deep down, but he hadn't expected to meet it at the hands of his perfect creation. And even in the face of total annihilation, Lucifer looked conflicted to have to slay his creator, his father, the man who had given him life and purpose. When his head was severed from his neck, Lucilius couldn't help but smile. Perhaps Lucifer wasn't as perfect as he had always thought. But at least he was still powerful and radiant. Just as Lucilius never could be.

He died that day and it was fine. It may have even been a relief. Lucilius was saved. Finally at peace.

Until he opened his eyes again, 2000 years later.

[iudiex]

salvia : is your muse possessive over people or things that matter a lot to them ? how do they express that possessiveness , or lack thereof ?

𝐁𝐎𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐇��𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒 : accepting !

yes,   yes,   and   yes.   as   a   dragon   -   neuvillette   is   simply   covetous   by   nature,   but   he   doesn't   exactly   realize   that   he   is.   he   thinks   it's   perfectly   normal.   he   is   less   possessive   over   material   items   (   except   things   that   have   been   gifted   to   him   by   both   people   and   the   creatures   of   the   water   )   and   more   so   of...   time,   and   the   few   people   he   becomes   very   close   with.   while   he's   not   aggressive   by   nature,   and   generally   reticent,   one   can   usually   tell   by   the   fact   that   he   simply   gets   mopey   (   and   thusly,   it   probably   starts   raining   ),   or   even   short   with   the   aforementioned   culprit.   depending   on   the   level   of   possession   he's   feeling,   and   who   is   trying   to   take   away   'his   person,'   neuvillette   could   also   react   in   distinctly...   draconic   hydro   sovereign   ways   if   pushed   far   enough   to   do   so.   as   in,   he   likely   would   not   hesitate   to   drown   someone   if   needed,   and   then   not   really   realize   the   why   that   was   problematic   until   after   the   fact.   

oh   to   be   a   possessive   little   dragon.   

[catrinathomas]

Far cry 4 de pleur fortress

Posts are spread around the Open Universe of Long ways 4. Every one has a place with an alternate leader in Agnostic Min's military.

Since two of the forts are in northern Kyrat, which is opened by means of the mission later in the game, the initial two you can endeavor are De Pleur's Varshakot and Noore's Baghadur. The two northern fortifications are Yuma's Ratu Gadhi and Agnostic Min's Rajgad Gulad.

far cry 4 de pleur fortress

Areas and Methodologies Kyrat's four posts are greater and harder than the stations. Immense, forcing fortifications with high walls and various cautions, every post is administered by one of the four fat cats in Min's activity: De Pleur, Noore, Yuma, and Agnostic Min himself. As a matter of fact, the strength of every fort is straightforwardly associated with its ruler. Assuming the administrator is as yet alive, the stronghold will be all set. However, when the comparing manager is ousted, the fortification will debilitate too. For example, Varshakot has three alerts (and thusly three accessible rushes of fortifications) while De Pleur is in power.

Whenever you've taken out him, the quantity of cautions tumbles to one. A debilitated post likewise has a decreased number of foes, the primary entryway is obliterated, and the mine field around the fort is no more.

Regardless of when you decide to handle every fortification, the guides and tips on these pages ought to assist with helping you through (particularly assuming you take out the alerts first). In any case, realize that the fortifications recorded here are the post-manager numbers, so you might see one more wave or two assuming you've chosen to handle a stronghold prior to dealing with its chief.

As a general rule, you ought to bring along a center accomplice to beat a stronghold. Anyway in the later levels you can with smart reasoning beat the post without help from anyone else. Bringing in a weapon for employ token is consistently useful. Additionally, recall that the fundamental road(s) paving the way to it are typically loaded up with landmines.

[aava9099]

What is october 2nd zodiac sign

In the event that you were brought into the world on October 2, you have an uncommon desire. Early in life, the vitally main impetus is your vocation.

You will take the necessary steps to ensure that your fantasies work out.

Your quiet, gathered, and elegant disposition is a magnet for some individuals. Obviously, you are extremely mindful of your extraordinary capacities. Accordingly, nothing appears to scare you as your continue on with your personal business.

What is october 2nd zodiac sign

Here is your full horoscope profile. It gives you every one of the significant subtleties connected with your amazing character.

You are under the zodiac indication of Libra. Your mysterious image is the scales. It addresses those brought into the world between September 23 and October 21.

The planet Venus leads your life. This divine body is answerable for your worth and feeling of appreciation.

Its vitally overseeing body is the Air component. This component arranges with Earth, Water, and Fire components to give more importance to your encounters throughout everyday life.

Mercury rules over the Earth sign (Virgo), while Venus is accountable for the Air sign (Libra).

Being on the top has presented to you a few critical advantages throughout everyday life. For instance, you transmit an internal wonder that makes you remarkable. Simultaneously, you are exquisite, innovative, and active.

Virgo's assurance mixes well with Libra's magnetism. This enhances your character.

Generally, you can comprehend individuals and circumstances far superior to a great many people.

You answer better to the requirements of your reality. This is on the grounds that it very well may be communicated all the more completely. Such is the force of your persuasiveness!

The apex of excellence assumes a compelling part in your funds. It implies that you have significant command over your spending and reserve funds.

You have found some kind of harmony between the two. In that capacity, it may involve time before you accomplish independence from the rat race.

Your visionary diagram demonstrates that your wellbeing is great. You will generally give close consideration to the requirements of your body.

Be that as it may, be careful with issues connected with hydration of your body and the strength of your kidneys.

Love and similarity The October 2 zodiac individuals are the absolute most confided in darlings in the whole zodiac range. You have confidence in being available when your darling necessities you.

Actually, you will forfeit your own solace to shield theirs.

With the soul of a genuine Libra, you realize that adoration can't exist without trust. Accordingly, you give a valiant effort to fabricate trust in your connections in general.

You are much more energetic with regards to close connections.

Your affection doesn't come modest! You should make certain of your accomplice prior to giving your heart to him.

Obviously, on the off chance that they give any indications of not being certifiable, you're speedy to excuse them and continue on.

Yet, you are never shy of admirers. Your appeal and engaging quality are major areas of strength for a for them. So you can stand to chip in your time until you get a collaborate with whom you are generally viable.

When you choose to settle down, you commit forever. Therefore, you like your affection life to advance all the more leisurely, until you are certain.

As a matter of fact, you will surrender love for a period for self-awareness and improvement.

It implies that the second you choose to get hitched, you are essentially an independent individual. You will have taken great steps in proficient development and self-improvement.

You are the most ideal for a cherishing, sure, and lively accomplice. These characteristics reflect what your identity is. You can get such a sweetheart from the zodiac indications of Gemini, Pisces, and Aquarius.

You are entirely viable with these locals. Thusly, your relationship will be productive, simply the manner in which you like it!

This is all the more obvious assuming that your darling was brought into the world on days 2, 7, 11, 13, 14, 17, 20, 25, 26, and 30.

[sagurus]

Regarding a Common Misconception of Hakuba Saguru

Lately I've been doing some reflecting on Saguru & the various ways I've seen him portrayed, as well as the ways I've portrayed him in the past. And then I was rereading some MK manga, and had some realizations. I've been feeling like rambling about them! So here I go, rambling.

[Disclaimer: I'm not personally taking issue with anyone's interpretation or impression of Saguru - just sharing my own impressions! This is just for fun <3 ]

Misconception: Saguru is constantly accusing Kaito of being KID

It’s a generally accepted fact in a lot of fics I’ve read (and honestly, maybe some fics I’ve written -- I used to hold this belief too!) that Saguru just unendingly insinuates that Kaito is KID--alone, in front of other people, always.

I won’t cite any here, but I’ve seen nods in fanwork to Aoko feeling a little stressed/frustrated about the fact that Saguru thinks Kaito is KID and makes it known. I’ve also seen fanwork where Saguru explicitly calls Kaito KID, presses Kaito for information, or otherwise makes his beliefs clear, even when others are around.

There are only five scenes in the Magic Kaito manga where Saguru makes direct indication toward his knowledge of KID’s identity.

First, of course, we’ve got chapter 17 - the first chapter where Saguru puts together that Kaito is KID.

For a long time, when I’d consumed more fic than MK canon, I recall an image born in my head of Saguru singling Kaito out in class and making the claim that Kaito is KID in front of everybody. I don’t know if I ever read any such allusion in a fic, or if it’s just an assumption I drew based on portrayals I read, but imagine my surprise when he does nothing of the sort.

Now, to be fair, Saguru is A LOT in this chapter. MK is still heavily in gag manga territory, so his behavior is extra extra played up. But if we take away the visuals, the dialogue between Saguru and Kaito can be summed up thusly:

[First scene where Saguru makes direct indications as to KID’s identity]

Kaito: You look so tired. Haven’t gotten enough sleep after chasing KID for three nights In a row, huh?

Saguru: Hmph. Aren’t you tired as well?

And then, a few beats later in the conversation:

Saguru: I’d like to invite you to the Ochima Art Museum tonight, where KID’s declared his next target. Kaito: Eh? Saguru: Then, you’ll understand why I’m so tired. Or, do you have other plans tonight? Kaito: Okay, I accept your invitation. It’ll be great to see your work in action!

And that’s it, that’s the big class confrontation. Aoko is present for it, but she’s more interested in joining in on the fun, and while I do think Aoko pieces together that Kaito is KID, she prefers to live in willful ignorance of it until it becomes impossible for her to ignore. She’s bright enough to pick up what Saguru’s implying, but because he never brings it past implication, there’s no reason for her to look at it too hard. Anyway, I digress. That’s conjecture and headcanon talking. My point is that Saguru never makes any explicit claims, just invites Kaito along to the heist.

Another neat thing about this scene is that--while certainly not motivated by mercy in this case, Saguru does give Kaito an out: “Or, do you have an excuse not to go tonight?” Of course, if Kaito took it, it would be rather damning, but I do think it would have been enough confirmation for Saguru. I don’t think there would have been any arm-twisting to get Kaito to agree.

But Kaito and Saguru are competitive bastards, so here we are.

Let’s move on to the heist!

Once again, the manga certainly plays up the whole ordeal. Saguru is intense and waiting for his moment, and Kaito’s being, well, Kaito.

At the heist, there are a few points where Saguru has opportunities to make allusions to Kaito being KID in a way others would pick up on, or otherwise make his suspicions known, but he doesn’t.

First of all, is this exchange:

Nakamori: Why are you guys here? Aoko: Hakuba-kun invited us! Nakamori: What’s the meaning of this, Hakuba-kun? Saguru: I thought she might like to see if KID is arrested tonight. Nakamori: You’ll fail if you’re too cocky! Saguru: We’re well-prepared. Besides, who knows… KID may already be here.

Saguru does imply KID could be present, but he makes no indication that he means Kaito. His next opportunity to hint at Kaito being KID or otherwise make accusations is when Nakamori asks him to consult as a magician.

Nakamori: Kaito, since you’re here, do you want to use your magic against KID? Kaito: [laughing sheepishly] Saguru: Oh, I want to see that fight, too. If you really can do it.

Needling, yes. Saguru knows what he’s saying and so does Kaito. Accusations, no. This is well within the realm of something Saguru would have said even if he didn’t suspect Kaito, considering their dynamic up until this point.

And then, the most explicit Saguru ever gets in terms of literally calling Kaito out as being KID, beginning when Kaito excuses himself to go to the bathroom right before the heist:

[Second scene where Saguru makes direct indications as to KID’s identity]

Saguru: [handcuffs himself to Kaito] Kaito: Huh? Saguru: I won’t let you do that, Kuroba. Kaito: What do you think you’re doing?! Saguru: I got the report back from the lab. The hair I got from KID indicated that he’s a high school student. After I compared KID’s data with other high school students’ data in the database… Kuroba Kaito came up in the final list. Kaito: That’s a coincidence. Saguru: Really? We’ll see soon enough. Let’s wait until the time KID is stated to come. [Some heist hubbub occurs as officers get into position even though KID hasn’t arrived at the heist time] Aoko: What? KID’s not coming? Saguru: Ha! It looks like I win! You’d better confess who you really are.

And from there, of course, ‘KID’ (Akako in disguise) swoops in and takes care of the heist. That more or less wraps up chapter 17, the first chapter where Saguru understands that Kaito is KID. And I would argue this is the most aggressive Saguru ever is. In fact, rather than persist in trying to accuse/capture/implicate Kaito as KID, he straight up vanishes from the narrative for several chapters.

Saguru doesn’t show up again until the Chat Noir heist, in chapter 25, when he calls from France.

It’s also important to note that at this point, Magic Kaito’s narrative has experienced a slight tonal shift. At the very least, while still often comedic, it reads less like a gag manga. Between the last time we saw Saguru and now, we’ve learned the apparent motivation behind Toichi’s murder, we’ve met Snake (an albeit rather incompetent villain) and Kaito has faced down gunfire and the danger posed by Snake and his men.

The way Saguru is portrayed has also shifted to reflect the shift too. Instead of a hulking antagonist-like character in a Holmes cosplay, he’s dressed primly and presents more as a cheeky but polite character. He’s also more effectively emulating the charm that the story tried to imply he had early on (“Hakuba Saguru, at your service!”, the girls in class fawning over him, the newspaper calling him out as a famous detective making a long-awaited return to Japan).

The interaction is entirely less antagonistic, too. For reference, I’ll paste the exchange (sans Saguru’s massive info dump) below.

[Third scene where Saguru makes direct indications as to KID’s identity]

[At the heist for the golden eye] Kaito: [Hiding in a bathroom stall while putting on a disguise] [His phone starts ringing] Hello…? Saguru: Hi, it’s been a while. Are you still alive? Kaito: [Thinking] This sugary yet obnoxious tone of voice is... Hakuba?! Saguru: You’ve made quite the stir in Paris. They’re all talking about how France’s Chat Noir is going to go up against you in Japan. Kaito: Idiot! It’s not me. It’s Kaitou KID! Saguru: Ha… it doesn’t really matter. I’ll share some information that I gathered over here. [Info dump cut from dialogue] Well! That’s about all I have to say. Do your best. I don’t want to see you lose to anyone until I capture you myself. Kaito: Like I’ve been saying, I’m not KID! Saguru: Oops, it’s almost time for the Paris Fashion Week. See you! Kaito: H-hey…

The only part of this conversation that I could consider to fall into the territory of antagonistic is when Saguru says “I don’t want to see you lose to anyone until I capture you myself.” And more than anything, I think this is less reflective of a real desire to capture Kaito, and more reflective of his competitive nature. Not to mention, within the context of the conversation, it feels much more like teasing than anything.

Saguru’s motivation for making the call is clear: He doesn’t want Kaito to lose, and he wants to help ensure Kaito’s success.

And most interestingly (although I’d like to see the raw manga to confirm this, or otherwise a more literal translation) he never explicitly calls Kaito KID either. Outside of alluding to KID’s actions, Saguru doesn’t explicitly say Kaito is KID or mention KID at all. It’s Kaito who does that.

When Kaito points out that he is not, in fact, KID, Saguru doesn’t argue. He simply brushes off the denial and shares the information he’s collected.

So, to summarize what we’ve covered so far: after Saguru failed to arrest Kaito during chapter 17, he stopped troubling Kaito so thoroughly that the next time he features in the story isn’t until he’s calling from overseas to try to lend Kaito some helpful information. He’s not even playing a part in trying to capture this thief he allegedly wants to catch.

And then, Saguru dips back out of the narrative, although for a shorter period this time. The next arc he appears in is a few chapters later--the Nightmare Heist which he arrives in the middle of. But, there’s not any interaction between him and Kaito, nor any allusions made by Saguru about KID’s identity, so we’ll move on.

The fourth time Saguru makes any indication that Kaito is KID is during the Corbeau arc, when KID is being challenged by a clad-in-black KID lookalike.

Before jumping into that specific scene, though, there’s another interaction I’d like to call attention to--between Saguru and Nakamori. Not because of something Saguru says, but because of what he doesn’t say.

Nakamori: Hahaha! Looks like you let your guard down because you thought I was at home with a cold! Saguru: Our plan succeeded, it seems. Nakamori: But I only told Aoko I had a cold, so how does KID know…? Saguru: Hm...

If Saguru were wanting to make some kind of accusation, even a non-explicit one, he would have made some remark. Instead, he doesn’t say anything at all, which continues to speak to the fact that he isn’t really interested in implicating Kaito.

Anyway, the next time Saguru makes any sort of implication that Kaito is KID he is, once again, trying to help. Last time it was over the phone, so the conversation was private. This time, the conversation is in a classroom, although based on the panels, it seems like Saguru and Kaito are alone at the beginning--or at least, no attention is being paid to them.

[Fourth scene where Saguru makes direct indications as to KID’s identity]

Kaito: [Talking to himself] It must be the case, there’s no other way. There must have been some trick with the case.

Saguru: [Eavesdropping, apparently alone in the room with him] The case didn’t contain any hidden mechanisms. Kaito: Eh? Saguru: No hidden doors or things like that, as are often used in magic tricks. Kaito: W-what on earth are you talking about? Saguru: A new notice from Corbeau arrived this morning. ‘I’ll come and take the real Midnight Crow tonight.’ My name is Hakuba--so I don’t want a ‘white’ person to lose to some ominous black crow. [From here, Akako and then Aoko jump into the conversation.]

Surely a classroom is a risky place to have a conversation about KID, but the nice thing is that Saguru--once again--doesn’t bring up KID at all beyond saying that he doesn’t want the ‘white[-clad] person’ to lose to the black crow. From the outside looking in, all he’s doing is sharing information about the case with Kaito. It may also seem unwarranted from that perspective, but not at all implicating.

Also, another thing I’d like to call attention to is that when Akako joins the conversation (and seemingly blindsides Saguru, as if he wasn’t expecting anyone else to join), Saguru stops talking. He continues to be quiet when Aoko chimes in, and he doesn’t have any relevant dialogue for the rest of the scene.

Once again, Saguru’s clearly motivated to share information in the interest of helping Kaito. He has to share with Kaito’s civilian identity, since he can’t exactly arrange a conversation with KID, and this is likely the easiest way for him to do it. He makes no accusations, and this time he doesn’t even imply he wants KID caught.

So--Saguru is a part of the narrative again, but since rejoining the narrative he seems less interested in actually catching KID and far more interested in helping Kaito. And no accusations or incriminating allusions have been made since chapter 17, before Saguru’s first hiatus from the story.

The final time Saguru nods to Kaito being KID is from the Sun Halo arc. This is probably the interaction that’s closest to what fanon tends to depict when it comes to Saguru making subtle accusations that Kaito is KID. And even then, I tend to take this arc with a grain of salt if only because it felt less like Gosho was trying to add to the story and more like he was just trying to make a Magic Kaito addition that hit various fan expectations while still being wildly disappointing, lmao.

[Fifth scene where Saguru makes direct indications as to KID’s identity]

Saguru: [approaching and commenting on Kaito’s motorcycle] I see, a Suzuki GSX 250R. Akako: Ah, Hakuba-kun… Saguru: You’ve shown me something interesting. Perhaps this might help the police tonight. And could it be that you’ve forgotten… that the only motorised bikes we’re allowed to ride to school are scooters? Kaito: Eh?! For real?!

Once again, Saguru doesn’t explicitly mention KID at all--and segues from his mention of the police to pointing out that Kaito is breaking the rules right now, actually, which helps blend this teasing comment into the conversation.

Yes, later in the chapter Saguru does show up with a team of motorcycle experts. But that also means there’s more disguise opportunities for KID and more factors to account for, thus complicating things for, well, everyone--not just KID.

Also, I tend to dismiss that as Gosho throwing in some comedy, and as less to do with Saguru’s character. Call it cherrypicking if you like :P

To recount--there are five times where Saguru implies Kaito is KID.

The first two are in chapter 17, when Saguru first puts it together, and it is during this chapter that he gets the most explicit about calling Kaito out as KID, as well as the most aggressively he behaves about it. And he backs off so hard after that doesn’t work, that we don’t see him for several chapters.

The next two times he implies Kaito is KID are both in order to help him. No aggression or accusations, just the sharing of information. Even when teasing or suggesting he’s interested in catching KID, he’s good-natured about it, and when he realizes there are potentially people witnessing the conversation, he stops participating.

The final time he implies Kaito is KID is a tiny comment about finding something Kaito has shown him ‘interesting’ and ‘helpful for the police’ before smoothing into gently teasing Kaito for bringing an illegal vehicle to school.

In conclusion, Saguru may start off apparently aggressive in part thanks to early Magic Kaito’s overall tone, but rather than persevering in trying to catch Kaito after cornering him in chapter 17, he actually seems to back off. Once he’s playing a part in the narrative again, when he interacts with Kaito it’s almost exclusively to help him. Yes, he is on the task force and participating at heists, but where it matters, he’s less interested in catching the thief and far more interested in those the thief is opposing (excluding the police force).

[facesofone]

As an alter recently diagnosed osdd1b system I'm starting to dig deeper into what my gender might be because I've never quite been sure and I was wondering if Kyra could share some of her experiences with being a different gender than the body? If not thats ok, I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable, thanks for reading this ask anyway.

Hey! Sorry it took me so long to get back to you on this, been in the process of moving so things have been a little hectic. But yeah I can share some things.

*Just a warning there's a dark part, I mark with a trigger warning before and after the passage.

Well I would have to say my gender identity formed in first grade, my parents were pretty lax on gender rules and just let me be myself, but in elementary school I was met with more rigid standards. I saw girls playing and I wanted to join them, no thought to "I am a girl and that's where girls play" just that that was where I felt I belonged. When I got over there though, since the body was male, I was met with disgust as that was the age when boys had cooties. Ian was confused but I was hurt. I was basically told I didn't belong because of how I looked. When Ian went to go play with the boys they also treated me with disdain because I didn't understand their rules either. Elementary school was a rough time for us.

In highschool I was mostly pushed to the back by Jak, though he couldn't rid me entirely. I was able to produce enough feminine energy to have several close friends who were girls (even my best friend) which made me happy because for brief moments out of the day I could feel like something was mine. He enjoyed this because it meant he could talk to more girls, but he hated the way his thoughts went during it. He had a lot of gender confusion as he was very secure in his own identity, except for the series of contradictory thoughts that I produced.

When I finally got my turn to take full control of the body, I was able to explore my own identity and thusly identified as trans. It was hard to reconcile the fact that Jak was an alter so instead I chose to view him as the side of me that was holding me back from being myself. It was probably pretty obvious that wasn't the case considering he stuck around and complained the whole time, but I just wasn't in the right headspace to realize that yet.

[TRIGGER WARNING: Trans violence]

Fast forward a few years and we are mostly aware of ourselves as a system, and still presenting female. I was very cautious and aware of myself while in the city, and felt very proud to be myself. However I got attacked because of it, twice (the second time worse than the first, but in both I was lucky enough to be able to get away) and no longer felt safe.

[END TRIGGER WARNING]

So I decided to stop presenting myself in female attire and go back to the drab male clothes that let me blend back in. During this time I had a lot of turmoil, I felt that I was somehow betraying or abandoning my identity, but I realized I was only gatekeeping myself. My clothes didn't define my identity, and no matter what I was wearing I know who I am. We dress in jeans and a t-shirt, and have a beard so most people on the street will automatically assume male. This used to sadden me, but the people who are close to me, and really know me, recognize me when I am fronting and treat me as I want to be treated; so in the end I found a place to be happy with my gender.

Gender identity is confusing and can be twice as confusing as a system. I used to identify as a transwoman solely because of the AMAB/female identity dynamic, but I have come to realize I actually identify more as a cis woman (because that's what I am in the system) who just happens to be an alter in an AMAB body.

But that's just my own understanding of my own gender, and is just one of many ways people can interpret their own. I definitely encourage you to do your own self-discovery and see what fits you best. Hope this helped!

-Kyra

[starswornoaths]

Not Right, but Better - Commission!

Commission for the wonderful @sarenhale, who was such a genuine treat to work for! Featuring her Warrior of Light, Aydee, and an exploration of Heavensward through Estinien's perspective!

sfw Estinien x WoL, Heavensward spoilers!

content warning: vague violence/gore, canonical character deaths

word count: 14,322

~*~

Though only in the Seat for some few summers, the presiding Lord Commander made a point to connect with those he worked with the closest, that he might learn to lead them in the way that was most effective, for that particular officer. Estinien had been no exception, though perhaps had required the least questioning, to get there: they had known each other for long enough that a matter of how he preferred to be communicated with, need not be discussed.

Orders handed to Estinien, for instance, were always brief, oft little more than a folded up note, for all their formality. In this, he was standout from others: Aymeric understood how to reach the people in his command the most effectively, and had never wasted Estinien’s time, where work was concerned.

All the same, even he felt that there should have been more, to a message that read: “report to Camp Dragonhead, we meet with the Warrior of Light,” with the appointed hour writ on a slip of paper. Certainly, more than a bell’s warning would have been preferable, if only because there was something of an ongoing rivalry only recently ignited betwixt them.

Estinien had managed to be a few minutes late, because of course he did, and so ducked through the back entrance of Camp Dragonhead, through the armory, toward the main hall.

He lingered at the door, straining his hearing to try and make sense of the murmuring voice on the other side. It was Aymeric talking, he could tell, but the words were indistinct.

No sense in delaying the inevitable, Estinien realized with a groan, and cracked the door with a nudge of his shoulder. Not enough to reveal himself sooner than he absolutely needed to, but enough that he saw the subtle twitch of Aymeric’s hand, curled over the bend of his elbow; he had heard him.

With the door thusly opened, Aymeric’s voice was clearer: “On the contrary, Master Alphinaud—I think it more important than ever that this meeting take place. Rest assured, I shall return to my post on Ishgard’s walls the moment our business is concluded.”

Estinien wanted to snort at that. Typical of Aymeric, workaholic as he ever was.

“Before we move on to the subject of reinforcements, however, I would introduce you to a close friend and stalwart ally. Estinien!”

Taking his cue, he shouldered the door the rest of the way open, and stepped into the Intercessory proper.

Aydee looked like a completely different person, than the dragoon that had forcibly fended him off, at his most manic. Her posture had been slack—alert, for a certainty, but calm.

That was, until the name that had been called caught up with her. When their eyes met.

Were it not for the band of sunset orange across her eyes, and the bright shock of her soft green hair, he might not have recognized her at all.

Now that he was not looking at her in flashes of combat, and against the sun glare off of the snow, he realized, with a start, that her eyes did not match. One, a deep green, deeper than her hair. The other, a dark color that he could not immediately identify, from this distance. It felt like a warm shadow, when it settled on him.

He couldn’t help but stiffen, at the look of recognition that sparked in those mismatched eyes of earth and shadow.

Immediately, Aydee’s posture shifted—not outwardly hostile, but cautionary. Waiting. Perceiving him as an immediate threat.

Little wonder. Had she any other reaction, for how things ended last they met, Estinien would think her a fool.

“May I present to you Ishgard’s Azure Dragoon.” Aymeric said, his hands returning to his sides.

It seemed as though he were trying to soften his own presence, in an effort to put Aydee at ease. Estinien had been...vague, on the details of their last encounter, as Azure Dragoons, when reluctantly reporting in, at the Lord Commander’s behest.

Estinien did not doubt that Aymeric obtained the rest of the tale from Alberic, as the other solitary witness; at least, enough to keep Estinien from being arrested. Enough to placate the law, at least.

The sniveling, silver haired boy was gawping, Estinien realized, distantly. Evidently, he had not realized just how secretive Ishgard was, with regard to its military prowess.

Aymeric, however, was eager to take the opportunity to flatter Estinien. Unfortunately, as was his wont, he continued “They are formidable warriors, all. Yet, even among such masters of the lance, Estinien is without equal.”

On that point, they had come to disagree, of late.

“...You flatter me over much, Lord Commander.” Estinien said, with a glance over his shoulder at Aymeric, before settling his gaze back on Aydee. “If I was without equal, I am no longer. Be at ease, Aydee. I have not come to quarrel with you this day.”

It was hardly an olive branch, he knew. But it seemed to be enough for Aydee, in that moment.

Enough, at least, to let Aymeric steer the conversation back to the matter at hand: their next steps in dealing with Iceheart, and the encroaching assault the Dravanians aimed to lead on the Steps of Faith.

Knowing that they would be stepping upon the battlefield again, this time as allies, compelled Estinien to seek Aydee out again, after the meeting had concluded. It would not do, to have the two Azure Dragoons in a place of discontent, before they were to fight side by side, he reasoned.

When Estinien called for her, she stopped and turned her attention to him. For a blessing, he’d only just caught her, as the last of the group filed out of the Intercessory; their privacy was all but guaranteed, as the door shut behind Lucia, leaving them alone.

Almost immediately, she squared her shoulders, visibly bristling at him. Unsurprising, all things considered.

“Easy,” he said, hands held up, placating. “I understand your reluctance, but ‘tis as I said: I’m not looking for a fight—more, I want to ensure there will not be one, as it were.”

Aydee’s posture slackened, with a slow, careful exhale. Wordlessly, she nodded.

“Good.” he said, through a sigh of relief. “You have my word, as Azure Dragoon, I will be naught but an ally to you.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, Esti,” she answered around a fanged, bright grin. “I bet you’ll even be almost fond of me, before you know it!”

Ire rose up in his throat, too quickly for him to smother the growl it pushed out. Better that, than a sarcastic response; however much it might have given him some immediate catharsis.

“Doubtless.” he managed to ground out through his teeth.

~*~

Given Aydee’s...particular peculiarities, when compared to even their fellow knights dragoon, Estinien felt his skepticism in her ability well placed; it was rarely a cheerful person, who endured what was necessary to earn their soul crystal, in his experience.

And yet, he came to understand the Warrior of Light, beyond any name, title, or countenance, when she was at her most unreserved: on the field of battle.

Defending the Steps of Faith had been but the start, though it had been the catalyst, for Estinien to doubt his initial dismissal of Aydee: when attacking the lesser swarms of the horde that nipped at Vishap’s heels, she was a blur of blood and a blaze of fury. Were it not for the gleam of her spear, and the carnage in her wake, he might have missed her entirely.

Even still, she was not so drunk on the bloodshed, that she did not heed Lucia’s commands for manning the machinery that would win them the day; even when she could not get to it herself, she would ensure one of her comrades managed, and guarded their path there. If there was something she was not confident in operating, she had the presence of mind enough not to cease in fighting, to attempt it, instead working off of the faith that one of her comrades would handle it.

That sense of synergy was not withheld from him, either—when he struck, she was at his shoulder, covering his flank. When she struck, she did not flinch, did not question that he would return that same protection, knowing that he would.

Even seeing this early example of her abilities, and aptitude, Estinien could admit that, perhaps, his wounded pride had made him hunt for fault in her.

A belief more and more reaffirmed, once she, along with her remaining Scion comrades, were taken in as wards of House Fortemps. With their ushering beyond the Arc of the Worthy—a gate she had bled defending, no less—there was yet more work foisted upon the Warrior of Light. Doubtless, some noble, somewhere, figured it was her earning her keep.

Estinien spat onto the cobblestone.

It had been a morbid sort of catharsis, watching Aydee beat the Fury out of two of the Heaven’s Ward, acting as her comrade’s champion, in a trial of heresy.

Not long afterward, he had lingered near Aydee and her compatriots—there was little telling what sort of nonsense the Holy See would attempt to cook up, to try and rid themselves of what they clearly—and correctly, by his estimation—perceived as a threat.

It was less that he lacked confidence in Aydee’s skill; after witnessing the fight he just did, even had he never seen her in action before, would have done enough to dispel those thoughts. Moreover, he had every confidence that the Holy See would attempt to catch her off guard, when she thought herself safest.

For a blessing, it would seem their machinations did not extend, beyond their initial, blundering attempt to snuff out the last of the Scions: despite his concerns, they had made the journey back to House Fortemps without further incident.

His initial suspicions, however, had led him to an accidental discovery: the boy, Alphinaud, had a plan, as it turned out.

To treat with the Iceheart, in an effort to get to Nidhogg. Estinien struggled to know whether to laugh or scream at the Fury for how she toyed with him.

Every initial instinct that plucked at his nerves told him to leave, right then and there. Whatever pretty little ideas concocted from that little dreamer would doubtless be half-baked, and reckless: the boy’s precocious disregard for the lives he risked with his every plot rankled Estinien, down to his marrow.

But then, Aydee cosigned the idea, and positioned herself as Alphinaud’s protector, for such a journey.

Knowing that she would be backing it forced Estinien to reluctantly reconsider. It elevated the idea, from some far flung impossibility, to a tempting risk. The notion that Nidhogg would even entertain peace was laughable, but the attempt would get Estinien close enough to end this godforsaken war, once and for all, were he to throw his lot in with them.

And that had been, ultimately, what had convinced him that the boy Scion’s crackpot idea had any merit to it; at the very least, there was someone there behind the words that had the strength to back them.

~*~

It might have been that strength that she possessed that inspired him to join their effort to recruit Iceheart, but it was that same cheerful demeanor that he had so judged Aydee for, that ultimately thawed Ysayle’s heart, just enough for her to agree to their cause.

In truth, it was little else but Aydee, and Alphinaud, that had permitted any sort of accord, between Ysayle, and himself. Estinien wasn’t too proud to admit that, even if he was too angry and bitter to entertain the notion of calling the Iceheart a comrade, let alone a friend.

Already, the plan had been made into something a bit more reasonable—and a good bit further from Nidhogg, than he had originally accounted for. Much as he did not want to admit that it made more sense to attempt to treat with Hraesvelgr, rather than Nidhogg, it did not necessarily mean that he had to like, that he would be delayed, in having his opportunity for revenge.

Estinien misliked lingering in Dravanian territory. All the more, with how the Eye so stirred, the nearer they drew to Nidhogg’s domain. It took the bulk of his focus, just to keep his sense of self split from the great wyrm’s influence. Even still, he knew that, should he bear it, he would be rewarded with his vengeance—even if it cost him his life. It was enough, to rally his reserves of energy, to keep his tongue in check—mostly, at least.

At the sound of footsteps approaching, Estinien turned his head to see Alphinaud returning to the spot they had picked to set up camp, his arms resembling the twigs and thin bits of wood he cradled within them. In a way, it reminded Estinien of his young brother, when they were tasked with busywork around the farm.

But such thoughts had no place, on the eve of their entreatment of Hraesvelgr. Even less place, in the shadow of the great wyrm’s domain. As it was, he barely tolerated giving it his indifference.

Barely tolerated, aye, but the low murmur of Aydee chatting with their companions was a balm on his fraying nerves. He was far from a conversationalist—he could scarce stand his own company, half the time—but her voice was soft, as it was, and the distance between them made her words indistinct. That low din, if he pushed his focus away from it, almost sounded like music, to his ears. It was enough to keep his calm, when having to sleep so close to the brother of his mortal enemy.

Admittedly, her presence warmed him more than the fire they managed to build, at the center of their camp, even when he reluctantly drew nearer, once the night had settled in, and brought with it, its chill.

Not enough to thaw him, in quite the same way that the Iceheart had given to Aydee’s charms, mind. He still bristled at even the notion that there could ever be peace, between man, and dragon.

But when Aydee joined him, at the far edge of the fire’s light, he found that he did not mind his solitude being intruded upon.

“Are you cold, standing over here?” she asked, once she had moved close enough to talk.

“Do you forget where I come from?” Estinien snorted before he could stop himself.

With a wince, he tried again, gentler, “I am well. Thank you.”

His efforts were rewarded with a beaming smile, and a swish of her tail. At the sight, some of the tension in his shoulders unwound—just enough to remind him of their ache, at least.

“I’m glad to hear it.” she said, in a tone that implied that she had more to say.

Thus, Estinien waited, and stared, until she caught on that he was not going to prompt her with further conversation.

Her ears perked up, in time with the squeak of her startled realization, before she composed herself and elaborated, “Even if I don’t have the same experiences, I understand that it’s hard for you, to be so close to the enemy—two of them, I guess.”

Estinien grunted in acknowledgment. In truth, he wasn’t certain there were words he had, that would not get him chastised.

“And you stood up for me back there. With Ravana.” she said, and fidgeted. “What I mean is: I see you. Thank you, for trying so hard.”

Something warm unfurled in his chest, calming and quiet. As with most things surrounding Aydee, it caught him unawares.

“You make it bearable. Something I did not expect, from you.” he said, in a tone he hoped sounded more teasing than crass.

Crude as it may have been, his teasing got the intended result: she laughed brightly, smothering the noise behind her hands to keep it from traveling beyond their camp.

“You flatter me over much! I’m just here to help.” Aydee replied with a shake of her head.

“You sell yourself short. You fight for a place that is not your own, and your conduct is without reproach.” he said, fumbling for the right words. “So, err. My thanks.”

She laughed again, more of a hum of noise, than anything else.

“Let’s swear to never stop trying, yeah?” she asked.

It was endearing, the way her eyes crinkled with her smile. Not as immune to her charm as he might have liked to think, Estinien could not contain the errant twitch of his lip, in the suggestion of a smile, when he saw it.

“If you insist,” he said softly, though smiled fully when her own grin turned toothy.

“And I do! But come, the stew should be bubbling. Can’t hurt to see if there’s any help needed.”

She did not take his hand, did not press, but turned back toward camp, and looked at him expectantly.

At the prospect of their own little quiet being interrupted, Estinien could not bite back a groan.

“Must we?” he groused.

Stifling a laugh, she reminded him: “We just promised to never stop trying, Estinien.”

In the flattest voice he could manage, he retorted, “Mine own words, being used against me? Fiend. I thought we were comrades.”

Even through his grumbling, he could not stop smiling, for all his effort—all the more when Aydee readily gave as good as she got, as they meandered away from the shadows together.

~*~

It was hardly a surprise that their entreatment of Hraesvelgr ended as poorly as it did. In truth, it was all but preordained, even before their feet left the cobbled stone of Ishgard. Perhaps even before that.

Still, the attempt, and what fruit it had borne, had been enough to convince the Lord Commander to buy them time in the city, while they struck at the horde in ways that mattered to its maestros: Nidhogg’s brood, and Nidhogg himself.

Finally. Finally.

Like quicklevin, anticipation buzzed just beneath the surface of his skin. He couldn’t help but compare the feeling to the angry hum of an agitated nest of hornets.

Never before had his vengeance been so close at hand.

Alas, they were made to wait within the city, as comrades of the Scions prepared manacutters for their mission, carried out away from the eyes of the church. Though he was not a patient man by nature, he was content to take this crucial time to prepare.

For how much he could prepare for such a thing, at least.

But Estinien was nothing, if not efficient, and he found himself with nothing left to occupy his time, as their ships were being readied. At first, he had tried to otherwise preoccupy himself with rechecking his gear, but he could only pack his equipment, unpack it, and then repeat the cycle so many times before he would snap.

Thus, to preserve his sanity, he dropped his equipment in the manacutter designated for him, and stepped out into the late evening air, to try and clear his head.

His meandering eventually led him to the Pillars—it seemed that his feet had fallen into old habits without his say-so, and he had fallen into an old patrol pattern that had taken him past the High Houses, toward the Astrologicum. Awareness did not inspire him to change his course; he had no true destination in mind. Thus, his wanderings need no direct path.

The familiar path set a tempo for the low din of the horde’s roaring. It filled his ears, clouded his thoughts; the dragons were reaching a fever pitch.

They were running out of time.

As he crested the hill, the airship landing loomed beyond. Estinien’s eye was drawn to the gleam of sunlight caught on the blade of a lance.

He froze mid-step, as his mind caught up with the familiar silhouette of a dragoon, sat curled in on themselves, atop the railing around the back of the airship landing. At a glance, she could have been mistaken for one of the towering spires that decorated the gate beside her.

But Estinien would know Aydee anywhere.

Before he could think on it, his feet had rerouted, and made their way toward her. Some part of him should have been worried, that he was so naturally drawn to her when his focus was not on his actions. As though he were some starved plant, desperate for a ray of sunshine. The nearer he drew himself to her, the discordant roaring in his ears eased, and fell into a sort of song. As if he had tuned his every ilm to her.

Eugh. Aymeric’s poetic waxing was getting to him.

“As eager to leave as I am, I see.” Estinien called as he drew near.

Aydee hardly reacted to the sound of his voice. In truth, he doubted he truly needed to announce his presence; like as not, she was just as attuned to the way their blood sang, when they were near one another.

“The horde is growing antsy.” she said softly. “As am I.”

Her voice was a low melody all its own. It fell in perfect harmony with the dragon’s song. As if she were their needed cue, the wyrms quieted in his mind.

Estinien wondered, in a distant sort of way, whether this was a reason why there had only ever been one Azure Dragoon at any given point. Was this symphony a boon, or a burden?

If a curse, would that truth be enough to make their song end? Would he even want it to?

Not something for him to consider. Not with Nidhogg’s persistent whispering in the back of his mind. His focus needed to remain on his resistance, or all of his struggles would be for naught.

He would not falter. Not at the hour of his vengeance.

“You feel it, then?” he asked her in a low, hesitant rumble. “The hunger?”

A constant gnawing at the base of his gut. As if he could sense the horde’s eager appetite for his blood, from within the cage of his own ribs. His enemies' bottomless gluttony echoed back to him, born within him, by fire and blood. A droning, angry song that buzzed in his ears, and consumed his senses, in moments of weakness.

“All the time.” Aydee answered in a whisper.

While his mental focus remained, Estinien permitted himself a moment to lean his hands on the railing beside her, and heave a heavy sigh.

With a start, he realized that for the first time since he rose from the ashes of Ferndale, he had someone that he could ask, reliably, for their perspective. Not as some retired mentor who distracts himself with penance who had not partaken of the dragon’s power in years, but a fellow active Azure Dragoon. One whose watch had not yet ended.

A comrade, not a mentor. A friend, dare he say, not a guilt-ridden warden.

“...What helps you?” he asked, with great reluctance.

“It depends. Sometimes, conversation helps. Didn’t want to even try it when I felt like the walls were closing in, though.” she replied, shrugging. “So I left to get some fresh air. I don’t like sitting still in one place for too long, even in the best of times.”

No less restless than he, then.

Through his years of training as a knight dragoon, he’d been silent as his comrades had taken turns sharing bawdy stories in low murmurs, anything to get the group to laugh as they marched through hellish terrain, anything to calm them down for the night when they made camp in the shadow of the horde. At the time, he’d dismissed it as pointless folly, the sort of thing that those less focused succumbed to, in a petty attempt to distract themselves from their fear.

Now, he wondered if they were much like Aydee, and needed to fill the quiet not out of fear, but restlessness. If it had kept them occupied in a way that little else could, when they were not otherwise occupied with their given task.

Estinien knew not whether it would do him any good. But having an ally— a friend— approaching the battlefield in peace, of a surety, would.

“Have you run into Ser Alaimbert, in your service to House Fortemps?” he asked.

“The dragoon? In the highlands, a time or two.” Aydee answered, in that startled sort of way that suggested she had not anticipated the subject change.

In truth, it almost surprised Estinien; he had not even thought about whether he wanted to talk to her. That it would help her, had been knowledge enough for him to make the choice to, it seemed.

“Did he ever get around to telling you how he got that title of his?”

He imagined not; dense as the man was, Alaimbert was only aware enough to introduce himself half the time, never mind explaining himself in any sort of detail. Idly, he wondered if the madman had introduced himself to Aydee lance first, as was sometimes his wont.

There it was—that fanged grin of hers. Just as he had hoped to see. Whether she was intrigued on the merit of the tale itself, or because it was enough of a tale to quiet the song in their blood mattered little. She was interested, and distracted, and for Estinien, that was enough.

When she laughed at the dry wit he would try to work into his recounting, it felt as though he had already claimed a different sort of victory.

~*~

Estinien had spent most of his life chasing the hour that he could drink deep of his vengeance. So many years wandering the desert of denial, and it was only then, when he had at last sunk his lance into the oasis of Nidhogg’s heart, that he wondered what it was meant to taste like.

He had presumed it would be bittersweet. Like burned chocolate on his tongue, the tang of blood between his teeth. That it would linger on his tongue for the rest of his life, would taint the taste of anything he ever consumed forevermore as penance for not dying with his family. That it would taste at all.

But there was nothing. No matter how much he glutted on the sight of Nidhogg’s eye, it all still tasted of nothing.

“You gifted my people a thousand years of suffering.” he called out through the heaving of his chest, his voice a guttural roar. “Now I gift you an eternity in darkness!”

He’d half planned that he would say something, at the hour of Nidhogg’s death, and half said it just to tempt out some sort of emotion other than adrenaline fueled apathy.

Starved for aught but disappointment and exhaustion, Estinien all but crumpled to the ground when his battered armor slipped on the blood-slick facets of the crystalline floor. Were it not for Aydee’s timely assistance, bracing his arm over her shoulders, he might have toppled over again, on his boneless attempt to stand on his own.

Trembling though his limbs were, the sharpest points on his clawed gauntlets dug into the Eye, lest it slip from his grip entirely for his blunder.

Unsatiated thirst left his throat dry. The want to speak startled him, for how rarely it occurred, though his chest heaved too heavily, for several long moments, to even make the attempt. Even then, it took effort to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth, all the more to force his throat to work.

When he could scrape enough of his voice together to speak, he could only rasp her name before the effort of doing so forced his lungs to give out. If she was concerned for his condition, she hid it well, clucking her tongue in admonishment as though he were a misbehaved child.

“Easy, easy!” Aydee chided with a grunt, as she shifted both of their weight. “I’ve got you.”

The world was swaying—starved though Estinien may have been, his senses were drunk on battle high and the scent of her hair in his nose.

If there were injuries that he sustained, he could not feel them. Though he felt hyper attuned to his surroundings, trying to listen to his body over the hammering of his blood in his ears reminded him of the murmur of conversation while submerged in water, muddled and indistinct.

Point of fact, it was only the buckling of his legs, as he attempted to get them back underneath him, that informed him of the level of his exhaustion. Beneath the bulk of his torso, he could feel how Aydee trembled with the effort of helping him stay upright.

Yet, when she grunted out a determined, “I’ve got you!” again as she adjusted her grip, Estinien believed her.

Once Estinien could keep his feet under him, he turned his attention to the Eye again. Prized from the point of his lance, fresh from the killing blow, it peered back at him. That hawkish gold, unblinking eye, now the only remaining trace of Nidhogg’s body—but that dark, oppressive weight of his aether remained. It pressed in on Estinien from all sides, and threatened to crush his chest in.

The blood that had soaked into his armor during Nidhogg’s wild death throes—and the aether that stained his mail with that blood, permanently corrupting it—served as a dowsing rod against that onslaught, just as he hoped it would. It was enough to clutch at the threads of his sense of self, amid the torrent of that roiling rage.

Nidhogg was dead—but not gone.

I have not forgotten thee, dragoon! Mine essence claimed thee once...and shall do so again! The wyrm roared in his mind.

“The Eye—” he croaked.

It had to be dealt with, one way or another. No traces. Nothing left.

Aydee’s eyes flashed with understanding. With a few stumbling steps, she encouraged him to lean against the jagged wall of Nidhogg An. Reluctant though she was to let him go, with a reassuring nod, she stepped back, just a bit.

“I know.” she said softly. “Just take a few breaths. Let me—”

Her hands hadn’t ventured far from him, hovering in the space between them. Thus, it was nothing for her to bend and reach for the Eye yet in his iron grip.

Exhaustion demanded that he slump over, hang his head, and focus on gulping down air. Demanded that he give in, just a little, and let her relieve him of his burden. Demanded that he do to her exactly as was done to every soul who took up their lance for the cause, and pass off Nidhogg’s fury and hatred to another Azure Dragoon.

Just as Alberic had done to him.

Estinien did not relinquish it—nor did he feel guilt for the warning snarl he gave her, to dissuade her advance.

“I am well enough.” he ground out.

Aydee’s mismatched eyes widened in alarm. The sharp intake of her gasp was quiet, but it pierced through the fog of Nidhogg’s lingering aether, and struck at his heart in a way he had not been prepared for.

He had little and less time to dwell on the feeling before a brilliant, red light emanated from Aydee’s chest with a suddenness that seemed to startle even her, though her shock morphed almost instantly into pain. With a gasp, she doubled over, a hand clutching at the armor over that fiery star that had sparked in her sternum.

Estinien had spent all of his energy clinging to Nidhogg’s back, in his last desperate thrashes of his fading life, and delivering the killing blow. He had felt, down to the marrow, utterly spent, even before he had fully processed that it had ended.

But when he watched Aydee begin to sway in place, he moved almost as quickly as he had in his blows against the great wyrm, to brace her, just as she had done for him. Suddenly, he had all the strength in the world for her.

Mindful of the Eye yet in his grip, he did not unmake the distance between them entirely—but moved close enough to give her aid, were it needed.

A raw sort of agony poured in through the newfound crack in his defenses, and drowned his tell tale heart.

Likely, when that swaying got worse, she did not need him to catch her, and brace her against his chest with his free arm. Very likely, she could have recovered on her own, even, without his interference. That knowledge—that faith—was not enough to restrain him from doing just that. Even as he swung the Eye out behind him, holding it as far away from Aydee as possible, even as he curled protectively over her, he had moved without even thinking.

After a few moments of tense quiet, where her legs buckled and her hand squeezed at her chest, she at last unwound herself. When she lifted her head and found his eyes from under the hinge on his helm, he could only describe the way that she looked, as having just returned to herself.

“What ails you, Aydee?! Are you wounded?” Estinien asked, once he saw her eyes adjust, and her mind caught up with her.

She seemed flustered—given how disoriented whatever just happened had left her, he could hardly fault her, her graceless scramble to get to her feet.

There were a few tense moments, where Aydee struggled to find a response, cradling her head in her hands as she let herself gulp down a few breaths.

Her explanation of the visions that assailed her was as stumbling as her movements, but far from inarticulate. Enunciating her words, she worked through the stammer of her thoughts getting ahead of her, hands moving in front of her as if to propel her through the tale.

That ‘twas Ishgard who struck the betraying blow, that orchestrated the opening measures of the Dragonsong War, under the guide of Haldrath—who then vanished, in his shame, and left the five remaining knights to lead the nation.

Five, then four, as one of them had hung his shield, loyal to his king to the last, and none other. A forgotten knight. Unnamed, even in this pull through time.

Voice low with wonder and worry both, Estinien said, “You have borne witness to history...to the culmination of the first battle with Nidhogg.”

The Echo was incongruous with Ishgard’s founding legends. Still waiting to feel something, in the wake of his draining adrenaline, he recounts the tale of valiant King Thordan’s leadership guiding their ancestors to the land of Coerthas. How the goodly king was slain by Nidhogg—who was blinded in the ensuing battle by the good king’s son, Haldrath, in noble combat.

“A rousing tale, is it not?” he groused bitterly. “Would that I could still believe it.”

Alas, it had been a comfort to him, that far flung tale of Ishgard’s noble foundings. A comfort that Haldrath was a supreme Azure Dragoon, a dragon hunter unparalleled.

Estinien had never truly put much stock in the words of those who had told him that tale, however. Not in a way that mattered.

Not in the way he did with Aydee’s.

“Your vision, which we must accept as immutable truth, leaves no room for doubt—save on one point: if Haldrath took both of Nidhogg’s eyes, then how came this eye to be lodged in the wyrm’s skull?”

He could certainly guess. Between the faint golden gleam to this new eye, when compared to the Eye that had been in his possession, even on the surface level, this power felt strangely different. Not so different as to imply it was from a lesser wyrm, however, which limited the likely suspects.

“There is one we can ask.” Aydee spoke his thoughts aloud to him.

That there was. It would behoove them to piece together the full story, ere they returned to Ishgard. He could not present his oldest friend with a half-truth.

The Theocracy had clearly done that to the both of them enough, as it was. To them all.

“Beneath every answer we unearth, another question lies buried…” he grumbled bitterly.

So distracted by this tumultuous feeling roiling in his chest, he had nearly missed Aydee reaching one of her hands out, expectant.

“It’s better we plan further once we’re out of here. Let me take one of the eyes, while we’re travelling.” she said, meeting his gaze evenly.

It was not that Estinien snatched his hand away, but it was a near enough thing. A move that she seemed to anticipate, as she chased the motion, and caught his wrist.

Though he did not pull away from her grip, he frowned at the way it tightened.

“We have our burdens, the both of us. This is mine to carry.” he murmured.

“Estinien—”

His rasp came out softer this time, when he repeated, “I am well enough.”

“I trust that.” Aydee said softly. Her free hand joined the one that yet held his wrist. “I trust you. Trust me enough to help.”

That was enough to make Estinien waver. Were it anyone else, he would have scoffed at the notion.

Even still...could he do to her, what had been done to him? What had been done to every Dragoon that had come before them?

“How can I force—” he tried to ask around the lump in his throat.

“You can’t force the willing.” she parried him gently.

Her grip shifted, and took hold of the Eye. There was no force there; she held it, but did not attempt to pry it from his hand. She left it his choice.

Instead, she quietly implored him: “trust me.”

Hesitation slowed him, but when he ultimately handed over the newly acquired Eye to her, he did so without doubt in her ability.

“Alright,” Estinien said, in a tone much like hers. “Alright.”

Even as the strain on his will eased for half of its pressure being passed, guilt was quick to take its place. Hardly a reprieve, but there was relief to be had, in finding someone he could trust so. Reminded of his exhaustion, the strength he had roused to push himself to her side bled from him in a rush. It was all he could do, to keep his legs from buckling again.

“Let us quit this place.” he finally said, half slumped over.

To keep them both upright, Aydee slumped into him, in kind.

It was well that his stomach was steeled against the sickening, wet noise of wyrm viscera being displaced, else the sound of their footfalls slipping on the crags of Nidhogg An’s floor would have surely upended what scarce contents were in it. He could only imagine how Aydee was faring.

“What glorious victory we have achieved.” he joked flatly, as they stumbled together.

For a blessing, she laughed. It made the path winding down seem far less daunting, even as they meandered back toward their Manacutters.

“I never think about the dismount after the fight, if I’m being honest.” Aydee mumbled. “Not beyond checking on those I’m with, at least. When they’re with me.”

“This one was supposed to be different.” he said before he could stop himself.

He was supposed to feel relieved. Supposed to feel something.

~*~

They shambled in silence for a long stretch of their journey from Nidhogg An. Not so long that they were near the manacutters, but enough that they had descended back through the Aery’s Apex, and were approaching the midway point to their initial landing spot.

“Sure didn’t think about the walk back, during the fight.” Aydee broke the silence, and wheezed a laugh. “My legs feel thrashed. I can only imagine how yours must feel.”

In truth, it was something of a miracle that Estinien had not fully collapsed, at that point. What energy he was regaining in the wake of their battle seemed incapable of being routed to his legs. Despite being able to get them properly beneath him, they trembled enough to warrant his continued leaning against his fellow Azure Dragoon.

“Boneless and awkward as a newborn doe.” he muttered, disgruntled at his exhaustion.

Aydee coughed out another laugh. Doubtless, she was hardly faring any better, no matter how she made light of it. Even one as effervescent and energetic as she had their limits.

“You’re right.” she said softly, when the silence stretched on further.

For a moment, Estinien thought she had somehow read his mind—or that he had said his thought aloud. But then, she added, in an even quieter voice, “it should feel different. It should feel…”

“Finished?” he offered.

“...Yeah.” she whispered.

He had been avoiding giving words to that feeling, but with their need to confront Hraesvelgr with this historical discrepancy, it was hard to feel as though there was any true accomplishment.

It was a familiar sort of bitter victory: the feeling of accomplishment at climbing a mountain, when there are several more to scale on the horizon. A small victory, in a seemingly endless war.

Except, this mountain was meant to be the last. This was supposed to lead to the prairie, all rolling fields and gentle slopes. It was supposed to lead to something.

Worse than dark chocolate and the tang of blood in his mouth—worse than nothing, this victory was as ashes in his mouth. Everything felt wrong.

“Then we keep trying. Until it’s over.” Aydee spoke up again, a little louder.

So he had promised. He hoped his grunt of acknowledgement would suffice, in lieu of repeating it.

The mere thought of more droning silence for Nidhogg’s echoing screams to fill was enough for Estinien to permit himself a pained groan.

Mistaking it for a response to something physical, Aydee fretted, “you’re sure we don’t need to stop?”

“Aye.” he grunted, stubbornly tugging with the arm she had slung over her shoulders, in a weak effort to encourage her to keep moving. “The sooner we quit this place, the better.”

In his peripheral vision, Aydee nodded in agreement.

Their footsteps were all that punctuated the roaring in his blood, for a time. It was little but a metronome for the discordant, agitated choir.

“I mislike this quiet.” she admitted softly.

“...I believe you owe me a story.” Estinien mused, once they had maneuvered around one of the deeper crags in the stone floor. “If it would help you to tell it.”

“Would it help you to hear it?” Aydee asked.

He felt her eyes on him, gauging his reaction.

When he laughed, it felt like it had been punched out of him. “Yours is a voice I would prefer to hear, over the Song.” he said plainly. “All the more if it would help you, to tell it.”

Doubtless, she heard it, too. The way that it grew disorganized, less a dirge to the horde’s enemies, and more the enraged, indignant howling of beasts set to melody.

Estinien could not begin to fathom how much worse it would get, with the death of Nidhogg. Already, the chords were fraying apart, without a conductor to control them.

Another mess to consider. A tangle of noise and violence for him to parse when there was naught left but to wait for the next step in their plan.

Aydee let out a tired wheeze of laughter. “Think I know just the one. Did I ever tell you how my fathers met?”

They had at least another half malm of stumbling ahead of them before they reached their manacutters, at that point. Just thinking about it was enough to inspire marrow-deep exhaustion.

That was not Estinien’s immediate focus, however.

Hobbling out of the Aery was made more bearable for the melody of Aydee’s murmuring. It was not enough to quiet the song in his veins, but it was enough for it to hush, and fall into momentary harmony with her tale.

Between shambling steps, Aydee spoke of a long walk on a desperate night. A tale of a father who caught the ire of the wrong group of bandits. Of his little girl, whose delicate life he feared for, as his ability to cover his tracks failed to keep their pursuers from following them.

Of a hunter native to the woods they had run to, whose kindness permitted them to see another day. A hunter that had come to be a husband, and father, to them. A fateful night of desperate fear that changed the lives of those who ran, desperate in the dark.

It felt familiar, in a way, as their limping eased to walking, once their limbs had stopped trembling. When their hearts settled, and their bodies remembered how to be at ease, even as the exhaustion painted their footfalls. Not fully righted, but better than before.

Listening to her share this story with him did not make his victory feel less hollow. In truth, it changed very little. The connection he could sense forming—something beyond the might of the horde, and free of its influence entirely, all the more significant for it—was a balm on his raw and aching heart. That it formed at all was something of a miracle, but that it had to be forged in such conflict tinged its sweetness with the bitterness of war.

Like dark chocolate, and the taste of blood in his mouth. Not correct, but right all the same.

~*~

Their dismount from the manacutters seemed to be the only moment their feet were truly beneath them, after that. Following the long, tangled web of history and all the intrigue that came with it sent them into freefall: one revelation after another, it was a long line of running, running, running—

The eye that Estinien had ripped from Nidhogg’s skull was not his own, but that of his brother. As they had suspected. Another Echo vision from Aydee confirmed what Hraesvelgr’s reticence would see left in the past.

Estinien did not fight her, when she returned the eye to the great wyrm. Such power had no business in their possession—he tasted the sort of power and influence born down upon someone with two eyes in their possession. It was not a strain he would wish on anyone, least of all one of them.

Hraesvelgr was not moved to aid them, however. Only into maintained indolence, as was his wont.

Estinien was content to let him wallow: Ishgard was being attacked by opportunistic heretics. Some of the more ambitious with Iceheart’s order, who did not act on her command, in her absence.

Another bittersweet boon: Ysayle accompanied them back to the city, and routed her followers from assailing the gates.

Not content to let Ishgard’s people be saved, she gave them a warning: all of the Brume would know of the truth of the Dragonsong War, and they would know it tonight.

From there, everything spiraled.

Under an unforeseen timer and a crisis of faith, Aymeric resolved to confront his father, martyr himself in an effort to legitimize Iceheart’s claims, and make of her their new rallying force. A plan that relied on the belief that all involved would find the trade-off of his life agreeable.

Rallied at the gates of the Vault with those faithful to the Lord Commander after news of his arrest, himself and Aydee among them, the two Azure Dragoons exchanged few words, but still made the effort to exchange them all the same.

“You will likely encounter the bulk of the Heaven’s Ward, on your path to the Archbishop.” Estinien grunted, in a brief moment of privacy between them, as everyone began to rally at the doors to the Vault. “Push through them anyway. Never stop.”

“I won’t if you won’t.” she answered.

As if he would ever stop trying to fight his way back, knowing that she would be there.

“We promised, did we not?” he grunted.

And that had been enough—at the time. In truth, it was the last bit of stability. The last time the ground was truly beneath their feet.

The less he thought about the way things spiraled after that, the better. The longer he thought on how the Theocracy demanded its pound of flesh—from Aymeric, from Haurchefant—and all for the crime of trying to do what was right. For trying, at all.

Were it not for the latter, the church would have taken from Aydee that very price. A complicated sort of relief churned in Estinien’s stomach, that she was still standing there, in the aftermath of it.

Tracking her down once he had ensured that Aymeric’s wounds were tended to had been hard, but not unexpectedly so. It only stood to reason that she would try to distance herself from the site of their loss—and defeat, besides. From the pinnacle of the heavens, to the very depths of the Brume, he descended.

Despite the thick coat he wrapped around his person, Estinien felt no less exposed without his armor. Though he was promised he would have it back within the bell—the armory was examining what Nidhogg’s blood had done to the set, and if it was at all salvageable.

He sincerely doubted it, but if there was a chance that at least some minor repair could be made to the set before they set off after the Archbishop, then it was a necessary step to take, while they all licked their wounds.

Once more, it was the setting sun glinting off of her lance that betrayed her position to Estinien. Curled up near the crumbling foundation of the wall facing the Highlands, and still armored to the teeth as she was, she resembled a gaunt gargoyle more than Azure Dragoon, for how still she was. He would have missed her altogether, were it not for her weapon.

But that was not his most immediate observation, in that moment. It startled him that he had forgotten how small Aydee truly was. The thought was foolish, even to him, but her pauldrons had lent a certain broadness to her frame, and the gravitas she carried herself with made her appear as though she were greater than her mortal form.

The conviction with which she carried herself, though, was what gave her a sense of might that made her seem as a giant. All the more, on the battlefield. Her tenacity was her shield, her righteousness, her spear. The Fury incarnate, were he of a more steadfast faith.

But Estinien believed in Aydee more than he ever believed in a god that had done nothing to protect his family, and even less, for her more faithful. Though this was a black day for them all, his faith in her remained unshaken.

He was no less rattled for how diminutive she looked in that moment. How she looked as though she were trying to make herself smaller by the moment, as if hoping to disappear into herself entirely.

When Estinien joined her, and leaned his forearms against the wall to mirror her posture, she did not react to his presence. For a moment, he thought she might have lost herself to her own thoughts, and not noticed, until she sheepishly leaned toward him.

It felt...not right, but better, flattening his palm against the cold, aquamarine mail draped over the small of her back. The thin robe draped over the armor itself did little to buffer the sting on his bare palm. The armor’s chill was familiar—preferable, even—to letting himself thaw against even a fraction of her warmth.

As if he had not already.

They way she tensed, however, rankled him to the marrow. He was surely the cause.

When he moved to withdraw his hand, however, Aydee whispered, “Don’t.”

In an instant, Estinien froze. If that bothered her, she did not show it, instead scooting to fill the scant gap between them, and pressed herself to his side.

“I’m sorry.” she said softly.

“What on earth for?” he asked, in a voice more gruff than he had intended.

At her flinch, his breath caught in his lungs. Gently, in a poor effort to soothe her, he attempted to squeeze her in a hug, with one arm wrapped around her. Or at least, the closest approximation that her armor would allow—and as much as the rust in the motion could permit, for how little he had done it.

She fit against him all the same—fit herself, when she squirmed to adjust for her armor and his winter coat. Not correct, but right.

“Because I’ve gotten this far on the backs of others.” she whispered despondently.

Such a declaration startled Estinien. By his estimation, limited though it may be, it was through her own toiling that she had managed to not only survive, but thrive. All that she had accomplished, she had done so by her own strength, and the strength of her character.

But then, he recalled the praises Aymeric was so fond of heaping onto him. How they never felt as though they fit properly—fit the title he wore, but not the man beneath. How the whispers that he was Haldrath’s second coming had always felt less as a medal of honor around his neck, and more as a wrought chain—even before he had known the truth of what it means to follow Haldrath’s bloody footsteps.

“And your own toiling.” he added, in lieu of a correction. “You had to be there to fight beside—”

“But they’re not here.” Aydee cut him off in a watery voice. Still, she did not look at him. “They’re not here, and I am. And it’s because I didn’t do enough. I relied on others to handle the harder parts of war—all this time—I could look away from it all, because there was always someone there—”

“Aydee—” he tried, poorly, to console her.

When he awkwardly tried to squeeze her side in another hug, she jolted back some few ilms, enough to whir toward him, eyes swimming in tears.

“I didn’t even look behind me!” she sobbed.

At her mournful confession—as if it were some cardinal sin, as if he would judge her—those tears that she had withheld began to escape her. When her face scrunched with the effort not to sob, her eyes squeezed out veritable streams of them.

Sorrow mounted upon her shoulders with such a weight that she curled into herself, and buckled, just a little.

Not enough that she was close to toppling. Certainly not enough to warrant the way he dashed forward to stabilize her. Somehow, it still felt the right thing to do, all the same.

“They are not here, Aydee. But I am!” he urged her, with a slight shake of her shoulders.

With his lungs heaving, and his chest feeling as though it were about to burst, he wheezed again, “I am.”

Estinien rarely cared about his appearance, beyond cleanliness, and keeping his gear in good repair. But even he could concede that he must have looked like a manic mess, lunging at her in his rumpled winter wear, eyes wild and wide.

Aydee seemed not to mind, however, and surprised him when she hauled herself into his chest, wrapped her arms as tightly around his torso as she could, and trembled against him.

Much as he might have thought her small in stature when he had first found her, there was something about the way that she fitted against him that felt almost right.

Her face crashing into the front of his coat seemed to be the last bit of pressure that broke Aydee—or perhaps she merely needed somewhere soft to land, as she broke herself down, just a little.

How she wound up weeping into his coat did not matter. Estinien did not care.

It had been years since he had last held someone. Decades, since he had done so regularly enough to be good at it. The motions were not entirely forgotten to him, but his arms moved with the sort of rust and reluctance that came with years of being starved of that sort of contact.

If the awkwardness of his return embrace bothered her—if he squeezed too tightly, if his arms were placed all wrong, Aydee seemed not to mind. She wept all the same.

Distantly, Estinien knew that holding her tighter was only going to bruise him, for her pauldrons prodding him, but he paid it no mind; it almost felt as though he were all that was holding her together.

“I’m tired of people sacrificing themselves.” Aydee cried into his chest. “I can’t lose anyone else. Not you, not—”

Another sob rocked her. Not eager to let her grief pull her from him, he cinched his arm tighter around her shoulders.

“No more.” she whimpered. “No more.”

For several long moments, he quietly held her, and let her tears soak through the front of his coat. When her breathing evened out, he held her shoulders, and implored her to look at him.

“You cannot hope to save everyone,” he said slowly. Though his heart ached at the fresh tears that welled in her eyes, he continued, “that you continue to try all the same, is why you were given the mantle of the Warrior of Light.”

Though he had hoped that it would help, it was clear that it was not what would chase away her tears.

Little wonder, impressing her titles upon her so.

“The people who rally to your cause do not do so merely because of you. It is because they believe in the same things that you do.”

A truth that Aydee likely already knew. All the same, it was clear that she was in need of the reminder, as the worst of the tension in her shoulders bled out of her.

“I swore to you that I would never stop trying.” he said, with no small amount of difficulty.

It was a different sort of vulnerability, to admit something like that. To her, most of all. But if anyone was worth trying for, it would be Aydee.

“I promised you that because I believe it to be the right thing—but you made me want to try for a kinder option. A better path.” he said.

“But we didn’t.” she argued weakly.

“Not for lack of trying on our part.” he countered. “You help me see the difference that makes.”

“Haurchefa—”

Aydee couldn’t even say his name, without the tears threatening to return. Estinien couldn’t fault her that.

Swallowing around the tightness in his own throat, he gave her arms a careful squeeze, even knowing that she could hardly feel it through her armor.

“People die for their causes. Even when they do everything right—when there even is a right. Even when things are simple.” he said—and measured the cadence of his words, to ensure they did not come across as cruel.

His effort did not go unnoticed: Aydee’s countenance softened, in response to him. As if rewarding his gentleness with more of her own.

“Such is the way of war.” he continued in that same carefully meandering way. “But people like you make people like me try to do better, even knowing that. People like you keep that death toll from climbing, in ways that you cannot even see.”

When she leaned forward again, Estinien let her. It was less that she collapsed into his chest again, and more that she had drifted into him, like a ship with its anchor removed in harbor.

Wrapping his arms around her this time felt more purposeful. The technique was still a lost art, as far as he was concerned, but the slow choice of a clear-headed hug felt different. Less a desperate collision of stars in supernova bursting in the indifferent void, and more akin to logs in a hearth.

They were burned out, and burning to keep those around them warm, but at least when they leaned on one another, the flames consumed them slower. They burned together.

A morbid description, perhaps. It was the only one that came to mind, for the thousand-fold ways that his heart was left raw and aching. For how the weariness had sunk beyond some physical border, down to his soul.

“I won’t stop trying if you won’t.” he reminded her, words half murmured into her meadow-green hair.

If his lips brushed her head in the faintest suggestion of affection, they did so without his conscious thought. If her bunting her head into him was done to encourage the touch, he dared not to dwell on it.

“You better not.” Aydee grumbled. “You promised.”

“Aye.” he agreed, and wished desperately that it would help to heal the hollow in their chests. “That I did.”

~*~

Making it to Azys Lla was enough of a trial unto itself, that Estinien almost doubted that he would live to see Thordan and his whoresons answer for their crimes.

Almost, but then, he was fighting beside Aydee. If anyone would get them there, it would be her—

—Ysayle, too. Would that the bloody Empire had not chosen such a time to attempt to intervene. Would that there had been a less desperate battle to even get into the massive Allagan structure.

Enemies though they may have been, they did not part as such. Estinien sent a silent prayer, the softest he could manage, on the Lady Iceheart’s behalf.

It tore at something soul deep within him, to leave the struggle against Thordan and his Knights Twelve entirely to Aydee. That he had entrusted the eye of Nidhogg to her, that it might grant her strength where his lance could not strike, did little to assuage the feeling that he was leaving her to her fate. That she was bringing a contingent of fellow Echo-bearing comrades to fight alongside her did little to ease his fears, his guilt, as he quit the Singularity Reactor and stole back outside to hurl himself into a different fray altogether.

Adrenaline and panic had replaced the blood in his veins. At least, that was how it felt, for the roaring in his ears, for the sparks that buzzed beneath his skin. Pacing in the hall outside the Reactor, hearing the muffled din of combat and knowing that he could do nothing but wait would only further agitate the hornets needling at his nerves. He was not a patient man in the best of times, and these were the farthest from that he could fathom, short of utter defeat.

So Estinien chose to make his excess energy the Empire’s problem. Anything to try to calm his blood. Anything but the waiting.

The discordant voices of the dragons was a distant, reverberating echo. His armor, still utterly corrupted with Nidhogg’s aether, had the unexpected blessing of dampening the directness of the horde’s howing. It acted as a grounding rod for the strongest of Nidhogg’s lingering influence, and in fact, had likely been the reason that he had been able to hold the eyes of two great wyrms and yet possess his mind. The way it rang distantly in his ears felt like the distant clanging of broken church bells. It pulsed against his skull with a pressure worse than a migraine.

Better that Estinien keep his focus outside of himself, for the moment, and instead expand it out to the battlefield. It kept the song’s screeching from overriding the roar of blood in his ears.

There was only so much he could do, mind, in keeping the bulk of them from encroaching on the area that Aydee had contained Thordan and the Heaven’s Ward to, for their clash. He was only one man, and even then, there were only so many of the Imperials that were close enough for him to contend with, without risking his manacutter to move about the area.

After all, Estinien had to think beyond how they fared in this battle—he had to focus on how best to ensure they got out as well.

To even think on after brought the sort of fear that facing Imperial fleets could not touch. All the more, considering the last of Ysayle’s wintry aether yet hung in the air like Coerthan mist. And yet, it hardly seemed a daunting task at all, to think of facing it with Aydee.

Not now. Not yet. He reminded himself, when he barely avoided an explosive round from a particularly persistent magitek armor pilot connecting with his shoulder.

There was work to be done. One last push, before he could dare consider the way that his heart fluttered at the thought of living again. When he thought of living, specifically, in a world where he could learn to love Aydee.

Another all consuming, thrilling fear, such purpose. It propelled him onward in a way that it had not in decades.

~*~

Eventually, the Imperials must have caught wise to the conflict within the heart of Azys Lla—or at least, had determined that whatever they were there for had either been acquired elsewhere, or was less important than the threat present—as they withdrew with as much preamble as they had arrived with.

Their hail of missile fire had pinned Estinien in an alcove away from the entrance they had taken to the Singularity Reactor, slowing his return.

But he would not be denied: he needed to see Aydee with his own two eyes, to know that she was safe. That they had made it.

Approaching the Reactor again made the song in his veins reach fever pitch. It felt as though every step was another beat to its wardrum. The proximity to Nidhogg’s second, true eye made the pressure he felt on his bones close in all the more. With every ilm of distance closed between them, Estinien felt as though his armor would turn into his coffin, for how compressing it felt.

He had the utmost faith in Aydee. From almost the first, truth be told. Relief flooded him all the same, when he entered the Reactor again, just as Thordan had collapsed in a miserable heap in front of her.

The bodies of the Heaven’s Ward lay strewn about the Reactor’s floor. All dead and dissipating aether, rapidly vanishing without a trace. They had given their last—down to their very essence—for a cause they had once thought righteous. A cause that had rewarded them with tempering and death.

Pity reverberated distantly in his mind as he moved carefully around their fading forms, but then he would remember the wounds Aymeric was left to tend to, inflicted during his imprisonment and at their hand, and he could not find even the faintest echo of forgiveness.

They were not his concern, besides.

Estinien did not stop moving until he was beside Aydee again—though he did not close that distance entirely.

For a moment, they stood in silence, both catching their breaths.

Finally, he spoke first. “...It is over, then?” Between wheezing breaths, he laughed. “I had hoped that mine would be the hand to end it...but knowing you, there was little chance of that.”

She laughed in that same breathless way. “You helped me, remember? If my hand ended it, then I was wielding your spear to do so.”

With a glance at the Eye in her hand, she amended, “Well. You get what I was going for.”

At last, the fire in his lungs had banked, somewhat. Breathing became easier, as his heart ceased its hammering. He nodded, and laughed again, easier this time.

Wordlessly, Aydee passed the eye back to him. Estinien accepted it, and held it out in front of him for a moment.

That weight resettled over his bones. His skin felt tight, as if it were stretched too thin across his form.

That exhaustion, ever present, bore down on him with newfound strength. Nidhogg’s reverberating roars rattled in his ribcage.

Nevertheless, he forced himself forward, toward the last discarded relic of Thordan’s dark work. The King’s blade, with Nidhogg’s second eye embedded within its hilt, loomed ahead of him. Even lying impotently on the ground as it was, the thrumming power from within that faceted eye was enough to inspire caution in his approach.

Aydee fell into step not far behind him—far enough to be sensible, but close enough to bolster him. Estinien was grateful for her presence—relieved, even, if he dared to admit it.

Her battle with Thordan had been fierce, indeed; he had hardly needed to tug, to rip the eye from its faceting. It must have taken some damage during the fight, to keep the eye itself intact.

Estinien had known that the strain on his will would only increase, the moment he touched the second eye. That he would feel his chest being metaphorically crushed in was not a surprise, only the intensity of it, the moment he held the second eye in his other hand.

“Its twin…” he rasped. “At long last…”

When he felt the way that his very soul buckled for a moment under the strain, he turned to look back at Aydee again. She met his gaze evenly, though her eyes were sharp, honed in on him for any sign of something going wrong.

He had noticed it ever since the Vault, but even had such tragedy not befallen them, he could not fault her for such concern, considering. In truth, he was not without his own worries, about this next, crucial step in his journey.

But it was almost over. Finally, finally, it was almost over.

“All that remains is to take them beyond the reach of man and dragon both. With this task accomplished, my toils shall finally be at an end.”

And after that...god, after that, he could almost dare to examine the way that Aydee made his heart flutter. Made him want to live beyond this conflict, made him want anything at all, beyond his revenge.

There was so much he had yet to even say, but talking was rapidly becoming strenuous—in more than just an emotional way, for a change. That pressure on his chest crept upward, squeezed at his throat like something with fangs sizing up their catch. Moved further up his neck still, to grip at his skull.

Aydee was in front of him. Estinien knew that. He did. But his splintering focus had closed in, his vision a pulsating red blur, as the rest of the world faded away.

That grip on his skull flexed, as if to test how resistant his head was to being crushed. His brain lurched—and then his body followed, even as he could not force his hands to open, to let go—

Panic-laced dread sunk his heart into his stomach, as he realized that it was not fear that froze his hands: it was that they were no longer his to move.

Thou hadst done well to resist mine influence, bathed in my power and blood as thou wert.

Shadows were creeping in, deep as the abyss itself. From within that darkness and through the ruby red pulse that encroached on the edges of his vision, he could see that same, slithering form that had so haunted his every nightmare for decades. The faintest suggestion of horns he had seen decimate people he had known and loved all his life.

All around him, the booming voice of the thing that had taken everything from him.

Alas, in thine anticipation of comfort, thou hast lowered thy guard!

If there was a weakness to wanting, it was that he had only let himself be lost to the mere thought of it, however partially, however momentarily. That he wanted was not a burden. Even facing what was to happen, what he could feel happening, he would never forsake wanting to love Aydee, only curse himself for not keeping his focus long enough for the chance to.

The keening of my fallen kindred..their smoldering desire for vengeance...Mine eyes have partaken of a thousand years of pain—a pain which I shall bestow upon thee. Drink deep of my rage, mortal...AND BECOME ME!

Estinien could have fought it. Could have burned himself out to the last, and it would have been for nothing. He understood that—he could feel that, in the way that his nerves began to alight with the sparks of Nidhogg’s aether from beneath his skin.

But to do so would be to break his promise to Aydee. To fight needlessly, and sacrifice needlessly, where he might otherwise at least help her slay him. He need not be Nidhogg’s kindling, when he could instead plant himself as an explosive charge, awaiting a strike of fire.

Thus, when Estinien felt his body being seized by Nidhogg, in a bid to create himself a new host, he did not fight the way that the dragon had taken control. It felt as though the great wyrm had settled his claws firmly onto the cross braces, eager to pluck at Estinien’s strings.

It was everything that Estinien feared it would be.

What strength he had left, he spent on insulating his fraying sense of self. Scraping together his defenses, meager and crumbling as they might have been. Anything to keep himself together, and bide his time. Anything to give Aydee an opening to end this, once and for all.

Because Estinien did not believe in anything more than he believed in Aydee. So he had to keep trying. He promised, he promised, he promised…

~*~

Estinien’s awareness had been such that it had only floated back toward the surface of the roiling tide of Nidhogg’s rage every so often—though in such times that he had begun to wonder if Nidhogg had any control over that, too.

Aymeric had defended one of Hraesvelgr’s children against Nidhogg’s onslaught, protected those of their fellow Ishgardians that had been present, when he had loosed that arrow at Estinien’s heart. He had known that. He had been proud of that, even.

Things became hazy again, not long after that. For how long, he could not begin to fathom. Days, weeks, perhaps even longer than that. Time had little meaning, barely conscious of himself as he was.

But then, the tumultuous seas of Nidhogg’s aether had begun to shift—the currents pushed him down to a trickling stream of consciousness, closer to awareness than he had been since he had first lost himself.

It was not that he had simply floated back to the surface of his conscious mind again—it was that Nidhogg was dying.

That opportunity that Estinien had been waiting for.

That alertness was not enough for him to attempt to seize the reins on his body during Nidhogg’s last desperate struggle with Aydee. Only in the aftermath—when the great wyrm’s aether had been spent on shifting Estinien’s body between different forms of itself, to attempt to hurt her.

Estinien remembered what his body was meant to look like. Mostly, at least. There had been undeniable change in the form that he took back for himself, the form that he forced to let go of its weapon. The form that he forced to stay still long enough to be killed. He could feel the wrongness on his skin, likely could have parsed out the particulars, if he had focused on it, but the details mattered little: he was himself. This body was his.

“That is not your hand, wyrm!” he bellowed, trembling like a leaf, as he struggled against Nidhogg’s last, desperate clawing at his nerve endings.

Even in death, Nidhogg demanded more blood. Even in defeat, he craved Aydee’s blood.

But Estinien would not permit such a transgression. Already, Aydee had been hurt too much, in too many ways, for Nidhogg’s machinations.

No more. No more.

Nidhogg’s frustration swelled like the tide on a full moon, away from the shores of Estinien’s mind. It crashed back with sudden force, when his own hand lunged for his throat, and began to strangle him.

But the wyrm was counting on Estinien wanting to live, no matter the consequences. Had dared to hope that he would survive his possession.

The battle over his limbs forced him to his knees. Through the armor, his armored hand squeezed his throat with enough force to send him into a wheezing cough.

Just before Nidhogg ripped control of his jaw from him, he spat blood on the stone. He felt his mouth move, and heard his voice roar out in time with Nidhogg’s, “Thou...wilt...obey!”

It nearly dislocated his jaw, to force himself to speak his own words, but they were necessary.

“I would ask one last favor of you, Warrior of Light...finish me—now, while I have the beast subdued!”

The use of her title was deliberate: if Estinien lied to himself enough, he could almost pretend that he was not asking something so horrid of Aydee. Not after she had wept at the thought of losing more people.

But it was a thought that Aydee was too kind to have. Aydee, and Alphinaud both, as they both attempted in vain to pry the eyes of Nidhogg off of his body.

The ache in his chest was bittersweet: a shame that he could at last know what it was to be loved enough to fight for, at the last hour of his life, but at least he could die feeling something warm. Could die himself.

“You waste your time. Kill me! It is the only way! Ending Nidhogg...will be my final duty…”

Alphinaud was yelling—more insistence that he could not do this. More hope wasted, on top of time.

But then, Aydee’s voice rose up, where the boy’s faltered.

“You promised to never stop trying! As long as I did, too!” she screamed, over the howling aether that pulsed from him, that demanded to be unleashed. “And I’m still trying! So keep your promise, Estinien!”

Aye, he had promised, at that.

When the eyes were torn from him—from hands seen and unseen alike—it was enough for him to remember how to breathe again. Enough to think with a mind unclouded, for the first time in what felt like decades.

Likely was, in truth.

When the skies calmed, and Nidhogg’s aether was a distant memory—as Aymeric had carried him, had spoken in a low, comforting murmur, Estinien remembered. He made the conscious effort to remember.

Because he had his end of their promise to keep. It was the least that he could do. In his present condition, it was also the most he could do. He prayed that it would be enough.

~*~

That Aydee had all but stationed herself at his bedside was not a surprise to Estinien; more, it worried him, that it felt as though she were always there, regardless of the hour of day it was when next he opened his eyes.

To wit, the only clue to Estinien that time passed at all, apart from the position of the sunlight streaming through the window—or its absence altogether—was when others joined Aydee, in her vigil.

He could count on one hand the number of times he had woken without her sitting beside his bed. After the first sennight, he finally started snarling and snapping at her to step out to take her meals, to get fresh air, to give her time to just breathe. Any opportunity he could give her to escape that, meagre though his means may be, while hospitalized, he took them.

Hardly enough, he knew. But he had a promise to keep.

Even stuck in this room as he was for the time being, Estinien had managed to hear all about the gossip, through the chirurgeons, and Aymeric’s own worrying, that Aydee was receiving no shortage of overwhelming demand for her time. Be it in the form of well wishers, or those who intended to take advantage.

Often, such groups overlapped greatly, in his experience.

Eventually, Aydee admitted that she felt better when she was with him—and that no one dared to disturb her unduly, when she was with him. Point of fact, they were often turned away at the door to the Congregation, as she told it.

“The Lord Commander’s doing, no doubt.” Estinien sniffed.

“He’s worried—for both of us, really.” she tutted, though she was smiling.

Estinien could imagine. In truth, he shared that concern.

“How fare you?” he asked in a low murmur.

Her answer stalled on her tongue when he shifted to sit up against the pillows with a grunt. Once he had sufficiently waved off her concern, she settled back into her seat.

“Well enough.” she reassured him. “I was cleared by the chirurgeons—I promise, I’m alright.”

But he knew her well enough, to know when she was lying—or at least, not being entirely truthful.

And she knew him well enough to know that he was not going to prompt her further with words, but with the weight of his glare.

With a huff, she asked, “Can you blame me for worrying about you?”

He could. He should. He should blame her, and Alphinaud, and Aymeric, and everyone who ever dared to waste their effort and their love on him, when he had been so set on dying for his hateful cause.

But where did all that hatred—towards Nidhogg, towards himself—ultimately leave him? Where had it left them?

“I suppose not.” he said softly. “So long as you do not blame me, in kind.”

“Never.”

And he believed her. He had never believed in anyone more than he believed in her.

All the same, he could tell that was not all that she was withholding, though he could not guess at what remained.

Taking pity on her, he noted, “There is more you would say.”

Aydee’s eyes lowered—an answer all its own, where she was otherwise reticent. Pearly fangs gnawed at her bottom lip. His eyes traced the creases where the pressure beneath her teeth was greatest, transfixed.

So distracted by the sight, he nearly missed her fidgeting in her seat.

Finally, she spoke, “I’m—it’s just—are you sure you’re alright?” she asked again in a whisper.

Before he could answer her, she continued, “it’s just that...I felt how Nidhogg’s aether raged during that battle—how did you manage to fight through all of that? How did you stay yourself?”

How indeed. Betimes, Estinien had certainly feared that he would lose himself to the roiling sea of Nidhogg’s rage, that such a stifling torrent of aether would sweep him away in its storm, and he would exist in memory only, the last of a name he had forsaken for vengeance, twisted into the thing that had stolen his family from him.

But then, he would remind himself. He would remember. Meadow green hair catching the breeze. A larksong voice speaking to him softly, the words wrapped around a fanged grin. Mismatched eyes meeting his, seeing him in a way that he could not see himself. How he wanted to know, what it was she saw, when she looked at him.

Before he could think better on it, he was reaching for her. Before he could fear that his touch would be unwelcome, she met it, her hands wrapping around his wrist, bracing the back of his hand, guiding it the rest of the way to cup her cheek in his palm.

Just as he thought, Aydee was warm as springtime, in his hand. Ears perking toward him in anticipation of his answer, she leaned bodily into his hand. Amidst her soft trembling against his palm, he realized, with a start, that he had never answered her. Little wonder she looked fit to burst into tears.

“Tell me, did you always have such a terrible memory, or is this the brain damage from our clash on the Steps of Faith?” Estinien asked, half to dispel her tension.

He got the reaction he was hoping for, as Aydee huffed against his palm. The pad of his thumb smoothed her pout away.

“Do you not recall the oath we swore?” he asked her, softer this time.

When his thumb stroked her cheekbone, her eyes slipped shut. When she finally answered, her voice came out as a dreamy rasp.

“To never stop trying.” she murmured into his skin.

“Just so. It would not do for me to break that promise. Not to you.” he said, and hoped she would understand.

Despite his wounds, he shivered at the feather light touch of Aydee’s fingertips tracing up the length of his arm, her hands wrapping around his, yet holding her face. He watched, transfixed, as she curled herself into his hand.

When her eyes found his in a slow, affectionate blink, he knew that she had seen his heart.

If Estinien harbored any doubts on whether her heart beat in time with his, they were dispelled when, with a barely restrained whimper, she curled herself over his chest with a careful sort of desperation that spoke of her need to feel him, and her fear that doing so would cause him pain.

Let it, he thought.

The moment she had begun to move, his other hand shot out to mirror its twin yet holding her face, to pull her to him. It was hard to parse how much of them colliding was his pull, and her push— but once he felt the petal soft press of her lips against his, the details ceased to matter entirely.

As they moved, her hair slipped between his fingers. The whisper fine touch of it reminded him of younger years, of the touch of wheatgrass tickling his hands, as he sprinted through it as fast as he could. In his hands, she felt warm, but not burning—like sunning on a flat rock on a balmy summer evening.

To him, Aydee felt like home.

Their kiss didn’t last long—and it had been long enough that Estinien could admit that he was out of practice enough that it lacked technique—but it was enough for the both of them.

Not correct, but right.

[lizadale]

this falls under the category of 'boring but important,' i think

probably the end of recovery arc

[]

You cannot sleep that night. Polterpup has left the house as it often does in search of nighttime entertainment, leaving the bed to you alone, but you are too wired to even consider enjoying it. After quickly shoving a barrier in Luigi’s head so he may sleep, you flee straight into the study and sit at the desk, reconsidering your position.

You only know the basics of the Prophecy of Scales, but any Ancient not raised by wolves is familiar with it. It is singly the most important prophecy ever divined from the Stars, and one of the few to have lasted so many millennia that it has become somewhat part of the working shaman’s identity.

It details thusly: there are allegedly two powerful beings that come into existence every few thousand years who essentially control the balance of moral energy. One controls the side of those who walk in the light; the other controls the side of those who walk among the darkness. The two forces meet and push against each other, and their constant strife is what causes both sides to even out. There is supposed to be peace during these times. Even after the two beings pass, their influence lasts for centuries afterward, and once the moral ‘scales’ begin to skew again the Stars will create a new batch of Star Children, and among them the two harbingers will rise.

The only reason you know of this prophecy is because Mother was obsessed with it. At the time of your upbringing, she complained emphatically that it was the one thing that ‘stunted her potential.’ Then, unexpectedly, the dark half of the scales perished, and she joyously set out on her flight for world domination and never returned. You would like to meet the person responsible for her eventual defeat; they would have to be tenacious indeed.

She also spoke a lot of Thunderhand, and her desire to have been able to steal it. It is a lightning element bestowed only on the dark half of the scales. It behaves mostly like a regular element, but its properties are boosted far beyond that of the norm. Resistances do not matter in the face of Thunderhand; it is a defense-piercing attack.

You never dreamed you would see it up close, and you are ashamed of the primal fear and awe it inspired in you. Luckily, Luigi seems reluctant to use the technique. He has obvious hang-ups about it and is unlikely to use it against you even if you anger him. But this does nothing to quell your unease that he is the dark half of the scales. His threat to kill you or break your legs for hurting his friend suddenly contains a lot more probability. If you end up having to fight him, you will not win.

You stop twisting in your chair and tilt your head when you hear a door open in the hallway. Confused, you listen to Luigi’s slow footfalls in the hallway; there is no reason for him to be up at this time of night, and usually he sleeps the whole way through until morning. Unless he is seeking a midnight snack—

A terribly loud thud sends you out of the chair entirely. You hesitate, listening, and hearing nothing you open the study door.

“Did you trip again, you great oaf?” you ask. You have met few people as graceless on their feet as Luigi is. He is a chronic tripper, if that can be a thing.

He is sprawled out face-down on the floor of the hallway, and only stirs minimally when you nudge his shoulder with your foot. You glance toward his bedroom; the door is standing wide open. Then you look down at him, realizing he is just now waking up, and a chill goes through you.

“Nngh,” he says, propping himself up on an elbow.

“What were you dreaming about?” you ask sharply.

He slumps a little, then rolls onto his back, hazy and unfocused, and looks up at you. “’Men’chio?” he asks, squinting in the dim light of your eye.

“Yes. Now, what were you dreaming about?” you repeat impatiently.

“Mm. Was swimmin’ in Soda Lake. Was nice.”

Swimming. Not walking. There is a chance that there may have been walking before the swimming occurred, but—

“It moved me ag’in,” he complains. “So rude.”

This is not good news. It means the Chaos Heart can sleepwalk him without even accessing his dreamscape. But—

What is it trying to do? Why did it walk him out of his room and dump him…

Right in front of where you are?

Your brain immediately supplies ‘it wants you to remove the barrier,’ but that is preposterous. The Chaos Heart is not a living thing, it is a power source—it does not have desires of its own, it is not sentient.

Is it…?

You are disturbed.

“Get up,” you snap at Luigi when he shows signs of falling back asleep on the floor.

Surely it was just a coincidence that it lost control of him right here, and you are overthinking things. You are very good at analyzing—you have just gone several steps too far.

You shove him back into his room. He moves sluggishly at your coaxing, half unconscious.

“We will talk in the morning,” you tell him menacingly.

“Am I in trouble?” he asks you sleepily, collapsing onto his bed. The blanket has been thrown entirely on the floor, as well as a pillow.

“More than I anticipated.” You shut the door.

You are not sure why you thought finding out his place in the world should change your plan any. He is a clumsy dolt of a man, and if the shamans are still operating the way they were thousands of years ago he has no idea about that prophecy himself or that he might have natural leverage over you. This changes nothing.

-

You end up not having the conversation you planned for the next day because you pass out from exhaustion before he wakes. By the time you awake, he is on his normal routine out of the house, and there is a persistent knock at the front door. You assume it not to be Daisy, as she would have either kicked the door down or unlocked it herself, so that limits your options significantly.

“Salutations, clan head,” you greet Merlon with forced politeness when you open the door. “What brings you past the gate this time? Or has my grace period expired?”

“Peace, Dimentio. I am here for a chat. Alone,” he adds in amusement, noticing the way you are looking past him for reinforcements.

You give him a look of distaste. You know he has probably been waiting to make sure Luigi would be in town for a while so he could intrude unimpeded. “I might invite you in, if it were my house,” you intone passive-aggressively.

Merlon looks entirely unbothered. “Then I will show myself the way.”

You back away to let him in. It is not in your best interest to fight him—you could, if you wanted, as you have enough magic now. At the very least, you could teleport him into the store you visited with Luigi, since that is the farthest you have traveled in this dimension. But then you would be labeled as a hostile, and he might send the kingdom Curser or Charmer after you, and they you cannot fight. Not yet.

You are not completely alone, anyway; Polterpup has returned this morning and it barks in protest when the shaman enters. You place a staying hand on its head, and it reluctantly quiets.

Merlon closes the door behind him and only glances at the dog, disinterested, before his attention is back on you. “It has come to my attention that I may have been too…contentious in my previous call.” Not an apology, you notice. Just as well. “I will try to be more forthright this time. Your presence in this kingdom will beget a potential catastrophe.”

“Is that statement not meant to be contentious?” you ask.

“As contentious as it may sound, it is merely a statement.”

You smile grimly. It is never too early in the morning for a battle of wits. “What say you to discussing my criminal tendencies over tea?”

After directing him toward the living room, you retrieve the kettle you had only finished preparing minutes ago and take two cups with you into the room. Merlon has settled on the sofa, with the dog leering suspiciously at him from the opposite armrest. You sit in the armchair Luigi usually inhabits after placing a cup in front of the shaman.

Predictably, he does not touch it. “I do not believe you one to have criminal tendencies,” he admits affably. “You merely do as you please.”

“Some would consider that criminal by itself.”

“—But what you are doing currently is an enigma to me, and it does not align with the future I see.”

“Perhaps you are not looking closely enough,” you suggest.

“My power is just as limited as any other Seer. That is why I am here to ask you outright: what are your intentions?”

“I believe it is quite apparent, given my history.”

“It is not. I have only a brief synopsis of the events in Flipside. Your history comprises of manipulating several players on both sides of the Prognosticus to gain control of the Chaos Heart, but it remains unclear to what end.”

“Ah. You want to know what I plan to do with it? Then you are aware it is here.”

“It is extremely difficult to hide a fragment of a dark artifact of unprecedented destructive power from a Locator,” says Merlon. Despite her peculiar personality, their Merluvlee is more capable than you thought. “That is not the issue I take exception with. I have not acted thus far because you are taking an indirect route of getting what you want when it is right in front of you. Obviously, there is something I am not understanding.”

You blink. “If you suspected me of simply killing Luigi to get at the Heart, I find it odd that you did not send your Curser for me immediately.”

“The situation seems to be a little more precarious than that. The first time I saw you and gauged your magic, you were by no means strong enough to do much of anything, and Luigi may be ill, but he is far from too weak to deal with you.”

“Of course. He is a harbinger, is he not? That is why you will not supersede his free will.”

Merlon’s eyebrows go up. “So you knew.”

“I found out,” you admit. “What a surprise that was! Now, let me tell you how precarious your situation is. Your dear harbinger of darkness is unwittingly incubating the Chaos Heart. He is both providing it the energy to recover as well as keeping it safely contained. It is not a fragment, by the way. It is the whole accursed thing.”

“Impossible. It is too weak to be—”

“When is the last time you had Merluvlee sight it? I believed the same thing at first, that it was a mere shard. Not so. It is submerged because he is fighting it, but there are times when its energy surfaces, and it is obviously whole. If I did something so foolish as extract it from its vessel, I would be ripped to pieces.”

“That is indeed a precarious situation,” says Merlon, disconcerted. “To think that we have not entirely escaped the Void…”

The Void? The—

Oh! This fool! He believes the Void will reopen if Luigi loses control of the Heart! What an incredible convenience, that the entire shaman force might be on high alert with that false information! No wonder Merlon has not outright had you extricated or erased!

You have to hide your grin behind your cup, lest he suspect something. What luck, what incredible luck—!

“Yes,” you tell him. “Imagine the state we would be in, if Luigi were to suffer a grave misfortune—perhaps I kill him out of sheer annoyance, or maybe he falls down a flight of stairs and breaks his neck—then the Heart will escape its vessel. Need I remind you that we no longer have the Purity Heart with which to fight it?”

Yes, yes, you will not lie about it directly yourself, but you will gleefully allow him to believe that Luigi’s death will pose a danger to all worlds. My ambitions are by no means pure, but go ahead and believe that our interests align. Leave me to my devices.

“The kicker here is, of course, Luigi would assuredly die anyway, without my interference,” you press on. “The thing is slowly but surely devouring him. The more he struggles against it, the more it sinks its teeth in.”

“And what you are trying to do is reverse its course,” says Merlon darkly. “Are you confident you can remove it?”

Oh, you could pass out from relief. What an idiot.

“I am helping him weaken it, yes! Once it is has been tempered enough, extracting it will pose no problem. I have dipped my hands in it before; I am familiar with how it works.”

The Guide studies you for a moment, his eyes bright in the shadow of his hood.

“I am not pleased with the prospect of letting you do as you please,” he says.

“I imagine so.”

“But the safety of our Moon is imperative.”

“Moon?” you repeat. “Ah—is that the moniker of this iteration?” In predictable Ancient fashion, every time the scales reappear they are given titles. The two who came to be a thousand years earlier were dubbed Day and Night. “Sun and Moon are not exactly opposing roles, are they? They often share the sky.” you comment.

“As they are brothers this time, it is difficult to enforce opposition,” says Merlon drily.

“Brothers?” Then Mario controls the side of light? You had not even considered the possibility. But the two halves being related to each other, let alone brothers, is absurd and unprecedented. “It is a miracle the whole design has not fallen to pieces.”

“The mood may be different,” concedes Merlon, rising from the sofa. “The worlds may not be at peace, but we are still a long way from anarchy.”

Truly, you think that is a shame.

“Know that I will continue to…monitor the situation.”

You smile vacantly, stalking him to the door. “Yes, of course. You shamans are known for observing and not lifting a finger. I suspect you would let your house burn down were it prophesized to do so. Truly a superior model of work.”

Merlon turns around after opening the door. It is raining outside now, soft but steady. “If you do not question my work ethic, I will not question yours,” he says wryly, and steps onto the path toward the forest.

You hover there, chagrined by the parting implication that you are doing work for him, but overall you are pleased with the encounter. Giddy, really. The shamans cannot interfere directly with whatever you do as long as Luigi stays alive and involved; they are forbidden from skewing prophecies, and as Luigi is a harbinger their interaction with him is strictly limited. That is why the shaman system is so irksome to you. They may gather all the information in the world and chances are they cannot do anything with it. A complete waste of magical talent.

And Merlon incorrectly believes the Chaos Heart will cause the Void to reopen, which means he is under the impression that your work to get your hands on it is beneficial to him. That explains why he changed his tune after you failed to outright attack Luigi like he expected. The Chaos Heart is not an agent of the Void by itself; it is merely a battery, a brimming source of raw energy. The Dark Prognosticus is what created the Void—the Chaos Heart was only necessary to power the Void enough to span all dimensions. These fools have such narrow knowledge of the Dark Prognosticus that they have gotten it all wrong, and that is amazing news.

You are in a good mood. You finish your tea and take both cups back to the sink, and then you sit in the living room and wait for Luigi to come back. You press your feet against the coffee table, flexing your heel, wondering if a little regular stretching might help you stand better. The tape from yesterday is still on and holding very well. Polterpup brings you the ball again, so you humor it with another game of keep-away. You are still not quite fast enough, but you believe you are improving, and Polterpup does not mind either way.

The rain has paused by the time Luigi arrives, and he spends an odd amount of time in the entryway. You peer over the back of the sofa to see what he might be doing and find him examining both the door and the front step very closely, a look of consternation knitting his eyebrows. Then he comes in, closes the door, sheds his muddy shoes on the mat, and slowly walks toward the living room as if he is following something. You watch in confusion. He does not even look at you, but he reaches out and touches the armrest of the sofa.

“Who was here?” he asks, and you recoil a little in surprise.

He places his palm down on the cushion on which Merlon was seated over an hour earlier, and his frown deepens.

“You can tell!” you exclaim, intrigued. Is the sixth sense that sharp? That he came home and immediately realized someone had been on the doorstep and retraced the intruder’s steps in his house?

You are glad you never bothered to snoop in his things behind his back. You are now concerned he can tell not only where you are currently but also where you have been. What an obnoxious power to have!

He looks right at you. “Who was here?” he repeats.

“Ah,” you say, considering if there is any advantage in misdirection. No, you do not know enough about sixth sense to be confident he cannot call your bluff. “Merlon.”

For a moment Luigi looks livid, and automatically you lean a little away from him when the Heart’s energy pokes its head out from the tall grass. He reigns it back in with moderate difficulty, sighing.

“We merely had a short chat,” you divulge appealingly. “After noticing I am but a poor, penniless cripple with no ill intentions, he graciously decided there was no reason to continue to harass me. He may even allow me to live!”

The look he gives you is sardonic, but he does not comment on your so-called lack of ill intentions. Instead, he glances around the room, probably checking to make sure Merlon did not go anywhere else but the sofa. Ooh, yes, you are very relieved you have not been rifling through things for ammunition.

“Why’s the window open?” he asks, pointing.

You never closed it after you opened it last night, you realize. There is a sizeable puddle underneath it.

“I wanted the breeze,” you admit, feeling vaguely silly for not noticing the rain coming through the screen to gather on the wood floors. “And I forgot to close it.”

Luigi retrieves a towel from the first-floor bathroom and lays it to soak up the spot. He goes to close the window but pauses, glancing at you, and leaves it open a crack. “I never really thought about it before,” he says. “You’re air elemental. That’s why you have trouble floating up and down the stairs, huh?”

“There is not enough airflow on the staircase,” you confirm. Manipulating still air is not difficult, but it is harder to utilize for levitation than air that naturally moves. The column of the staircase only allows for very limited movement, which is the root of your problem. Not that it is much of a problem; when Luigi is home to potentially laugh at you crawling up or scooting down them, you simply teleport past them. It consumes energy to do so, but it defeats the alternative of getting caught in the act.

“Maybe you should learn to use your feet,” he suggests. “I can show you some yoga poses that might help. I think you’d like yoga, it’s not taxing and kinda meditative.”

You know what? “Sure.”

He blinks at you for a moment, having trouble processing that you actually agreed to one of his suggestions. “Wait, really?”

“Ignoring your evident allegations that I am lazy,” you say, clipped. “I am not against trying alternatives to strengthen my legs.”

“…That was a really wordy way to say ‘screw you,’” he observes. “But, yeah, I’ll make lunch and then show you a couple sitting stretches.”

-

Later that night, you withhold placing his sleeping safety net until he answers your questions.

“Symptoms…?” he repeats unsurely. “It’s not like—well, I guess it is like I’m sick.”

“I would like to know exactly how it is affecting you.”

“Uh, well, it’s complicated?”

You sigh, exasperated. “How so?”

“I mean, I feel weak, but not physically,” he says. “Like it’s draining my capacity to function…emotionally, I guess? Uh. It’s—well, you know about the sleepwalking thing. It’s trying to hollow me out, I think.”

“Hollow you out?”

“So it can take over.” He sits on the edge of his bed and looks at you kind of helplessly. “I dunno what it wants, though.”

“It cannot want anything,” you inform him. “It is an object.”

“No,” he says, dismayed. “It’s—like I said, it’s complicated and I dunno how to explain it to someone like you, cuz your magic is so different from mine—it’s got intentions. Not a voice, but—It’s connected to my soul and I feel it. It wants something. And either it’s trying to possess me to get it, or—or that’s all it wants.”

Your hackles rise. You were under the impression that he was physically housing the Heart, like it was safely contained and was something you could extract. This sounds—as he said—much more complicated. You do not know much of the concept of souls.

“It can only control you when you are unconscious?” you ask.

“Yeah. It can’t override me now, but when I’m asleep it can—it gets in my head. Gives me nightmares. Shows me things.”

He shivers, and you experience a brief, disorienting flash of pity. You shove it aside in annoyance.

You add an extra layer to the ward you place as an additional deterrent and leave him to it.

Then you lock your door when you go to bed that night, just in case.

[abimee]

what is tocks lore/backstory if youre comfortable sharing ?

well first we have to start with the prologue that is her family

Takka Tutti was a well-known merchant in Ul'dah pre-calamity, specializing in connecting artisans with buyers through her vast connections across Eorzea. She married a lalafellin man named Moro, the son of a wealthy lalafellin family who had little experience in the merchant trade and lived off old money.

Takka and Moro would wind up having 24 children, some of which were not Moro's and some of which were not Takka's; their marriage was strained and distance from the start, as Moro married Takka to inheret the rich Tutti merchant name, and Takka was forcefully married to Moro for the sake of the continuation of the family trade. Moro often cheated on her, and when Takka started cheating on him since she saw it as fit since he did it too, he only became more volatile, and would eventually come to control Takka and attempt to wrangle the Tutti family name from her.

Of her 24 children, all wound up being women. this angered Moro, who wanted sons for the face of the family. Takka revealed that the tuttis have an ''old family curse'' on them where any boy that is born to the Tutti name will die before seeing adulthood, so all their children are born women or grow up to become women, thus the 24 daughters and 0 sons. Takka exclaimed that the moment he took the name, Moro was cursed with this too, and that now no matter how many women he sleeps with he will never have a son again unless he drops the tutti family name. Angered upon realizing she intentionally refused to tell him this upon their marriage, Takka furthers his plan to take the Tutti name and inheret its wealth, and use all 24 of his daughters for it.

Thusly did all his children become Tutti merchants, each made to specialize in a specific trade and begin to sell their wares. The Tutti named boomed with knowledge that not only do they now have trade connections, but now that they themselves make finery and various medicines, foods, jewerly, clothing, etc. The Tuttis become so well known, that they are eventually able to open up international trade.

of the 24 sisters, the most important on is the second to last born; Tatala Tutti, child of moro and takka tutti. Her and the last born sister, Holly Tolly, were closer to their mother than their father, and were often excluded and thrown around by their 22 other sisters, who were predominantly their father's daughter, and therefore on Moro's side more than Takka's. Tatala is a merchant who specializes in chronometers/clocks, which furthers her sister's distain for her as they see it as a ''useless, moneyless profession of knick knackery and junk." Around three years after Holly Tolly was born, when Tatal was ten, Wakka turned gravely ill and abruptly passed away, after a few months of being bedridden and unable to work.

Now alone with a father who sees her as a disgrace and sisters who use her as their verbal and physical punching bag, Tatala was raised under the ire that she was just like her mother; a loudmouth, a volatile, a child who talked back at authority and did her own thing. She hated her sisters and her father, but was unable to leave due to not wanting to leave Holly Tolly, her more sensitive and defenless sister, at the mercy of their family, and didn't want the Tutti family to fall to shame after all their mother had done to raise it up.

When Tatala was in her twenties, she began sleeping around often with adventurers and people passing through Ul'dah. She didn't want to get married after what her mother went through, but was a good-time girl nonetheless, and would after meet with men and women for the night and then never see them again. During one summer she met an Au Ra man named Marin, who would wind up getting her pregnant (this is him!)

Upon realizing that she was, she momentarily though about abandoning the child, as she still lived under the Tutti roof with her sisters and father, and thought bringing a child into such a family would be evil, but winds up carrying the child believing that it'd be better to love the child through the bad than to deprive it of the good, and that is how Tick-Tock Tutti was born on the first second of the first minute of the first hour of the first day of the new year

Tock was very obviously Marin's child, as she had the blue hair with pink whisps, and two big emerald eyes compared to her mother, who had pitch black hair and two yellow eyes. The family gave no heed to the new child, as it was yet another daughter from a useless daughter, so Moro wanted nothing to do with either of them. However, when it became obvious that Tatala had a child out of wedlock that looked nothing like her, and that the gossip of a Tutti merchant having a bastard child with a man she doesn't even know would surely spread the moment the child was seen, Moro recognized that this could do damaging things to the Tutti name, and began to plot to take Tock away.

Moro had set up Tock for adoption under Tatala's nose around one month after Tock being born, and found a wealthy ishgardian family willing to take in an outsider lalafell child for a hefy amount of coin. Moro, with the help of an uncle and a friend, gnabbed Tock out of her cradle one night, and when Tatala chased them out of the house and demanded her father listen to her and give her back her daughter, she was promptly smacked to the ground as Tock was given to a man on a chocobo carriage and sped off into the night. Thus was the night that Tatala lost her only child.

on the other side of town, an elezen man by the name of ''Vance'' was pedalling his trade; tricking the rich into buying his snake oil products, and robbing them of their goods in the dark of night to be dispersed back to the lowerborn. Vance was the son of a manservant in Ishgard, who was raised to believe he had to serve the House too without question, but Vance's mother was a lowborn who was not allowed to work in the house, and who questioned highborn authority. Not wanting to be like his father, Vance took up the trade of robbery and trickery in an attempt to get back at the rich for what they've done to the poor like his mother, and goes across Eorzea picking up odd jobs to help people rob or reclaim what is rightfully theirs.

Tatala and Vance meet in a bar after a spat where Vance attempts to trick Tatala out of her coin, thinking that the Tutti family are greedy overpriced merchants, but she reveals her situation with her father being the one running the name to the ground with his outrageous and pathetic attempts at being a tradesman. She eventually reveals that her daughter had even been sold off to an Ishgardian family just to save the family's name and earn extra money, and Vance, upon coming to like Tatala and her ideas, offers to help her return her child to her, stating he's never had to steal something that was alive before but that he was damn willing to try.

The plan they devise is Vance, knowing the politics of Ishgard, will plant the seed of gossip that the family who adopted Tock, a lower noble house, actually acquired her through illegal means and that the child is a bastard child, which they were going to attempt to hide, thus why they went through such seedy and private adoption methods. There, Vance would steal the child away, and extort the family by saying he'll tell the world that they threw the baby to the Brume if they don't hand over the papers of her name back to him.

Holly Tolly gets in on the plan too, but through her she is forced to reveal what Tatala is doing to her sisters through extortion, who in turn tell their father what is happening, which will tarnish HIS name and his reputation if they get out what he had done, and that it was him who adopted out the child. Moro, fed up with Tatala's antics, confronts her and Vance, and nearly attempts to kill them both to keep them quiet, but some of Tatala's sisters intervene and end up killing Moro in the process.

The plan works out, and Vance is able to extort the family in giving Tock's papers back and to reveal none of what had happened, and in return he offers to clear their name and make sure their house doesn't fall lower than it already has to make sure they don't go back on their word, and Tock is thus reunited with Tatala.

Now, without Moro around to control the family, Tatala returns home with her daughter in hand and Vance by her side, and confronts all of her sisters at once; the few sisters who helped kill Moro say that were influenced out of fear to pick on her, as their other sisters and their father was known to be verbally and violently persuasive, and they feared being ostracized but understand now the horrible things they did to Tatala. not every sister agrees with the sentiment, but enough do that Tatala is able to take over as the head Matriarch to the Tutti family name, as she was the first sister to bare a little girl, as all the rest had sons who died off. Tatala thus takes over the Tutti merchant name, and works to gain the family back to what her mother always wanted it to be; a family of merchants who traded, sold, and bought for the people.

Tock grows up just fine after that, but the Seventh Umbral Calamity happens when she's 8 years old and of which heavily traumatized her and restarted her development, making her have to re-learn to talk and write and socialize at age 8 as if she was a baby all over again, making her develop at a different pace than the children around her. When she's around 10-11, she takes up the Accordion, a design by Vance as a birthday gift that Tatala uses her clockmaking and woodcarving skills to make. She takes to the Accordion and music incredibly quick, and reveals that she has always seemingly ''heard music'' coming from people since she was young, and that she dreams of singing people's songs like an adventurer of music.

Feareful in the aftermath of the Calamity, Tock was often kept sheltered by her family in the merchant shop due to the impact it had on Eorzea, and Tock grew up with no friends and rarely leaving Ul'dah at her. She wasn't allowed to talk to the adventurers who passed by, and often spent her days learning various trades and playing her Accordion, until her aunts decided she needed to finally pick a trade and begin learning the life of a merchant. She would be sent out with some premade goods and her Accordion and told to attempt to sell them at the Avenue Exchange, and while her musical prowess would sometimes bring in money, she could barely sell a thing. Instead, she wanted to see the world and make money off of her music, and sing for people all across the realm, but her family often shot down that idea in fear of how the Calamity set back the world, and how she's too young to understand the horrors outside.

Undeterred however, Tock pocketed the money she made from her performances at the exchange avenue and planned to sneak out one night to take a one-trip to Limsa Lominsa, where she would register herself as an Adventurer and begin her journey on singing the song of the great Warrior Of Light, an enigmatic adventurer she had heard about in the exchange. Little did she know that she would be THE warrior of light, in a sense, and what would lie ahead of her the night she slipped out without telling her mother and got onto the boat to Limsa

[4ragon]

oh can we please hear the magatama essay??

Oh boy oh boy, let’s go

Ahem

How to Lie to the Magatama

An essay by JJsADragon

Unlocking Psyche-Locks with the Magatama is a really fun mechanic throughout the Ace Attorney series. It’s introduced in Justice for All when Pearl charges the Magatama Maya gifts to Phoenix with spiritual energy. She describes it thusly: “This is the power of the Magatama. Only you can see these "Psyche-Locks", Mr. Nick… The more someone wants to hide their secret, the more locks you will see. If it's only one, I think you can easily unlock it.” 

Basically: If someone has a secret they don’t want to share, you have to present in-game evidence and break the locks. Things get a little more complicated with the introduction of Black Psyche-Locks, but the general gist of it stays the same. Someone has a secret they don’t want to tell you, and you can unlock that secret with evidence.

This, I believe, is fundamentally wrong.

Why do I think that? Well, I always really like picking apart these mechanics, both as in-game mechanics and how they would work in the real world. In particular, I think the most interesting way to see how something works is to figure out its shortcomings. What does and doesn’t set off Apollo’s bracelet? Why doesn’t Athena notice The Phantom’s whole deal? And, more to the point, when does the Magatama straight up get things wrong?

There are several moments I want to focus on. We have seen the Magatama fail several times throughout the series. Or, to clarify, we have seen at least one time when locks should have appeared where they did not, and several times where the chains did appear and the answers uncovered were either incomplete or just straight-up incorrect.

So, let’s find out how and why the Magatama fails us. First up: 

The False Negative: Farewell, My Turnabout

Fortunately, I think this one is the easiest one to understand. The Magatama has one very clear false negative in Justice for All: Farewell, My Turnabout. Phoenix asks Matt Engarde if he murdered Juan Corrida, and he replies, “Just so we're clear, dude, I didn't kill anyone, and that includes Juan Corrida, OK?” And he’s correct. He didn’t kill anyone. He did not actively commit any murders. And on that technicality, the Magatama does not go off. He did not kill anyone, and he knows it. He believes it. He feels no residual guilt over it. His hands are clean. Hell, he seems kind of gleeful about the fact that he was ‘technically right’ when the truth comes out later.

So, why didn’t a Psyche-Lock appear? As I said, it was a technicality. He wasn’t trying to hide it from Phoenix, he just truly felt no responsibility for what happened. He felt no guilt about it. The Psyche-Locks don’t appear until Matt’s secrets come up. 

This, of course, lines up neatly with our understanding of the Magatama. This instance very clearly falls within what we know about Psyche-Locks. If you’re not trying to hide it, if you truly believe what you’re saying, it’s not a secret the Magatama will alert you to. So, what about these other instances? Do these line up as neatly in the rules of the Psyche-Locks?

The Half Truth: The Cosmic Turnabout

This one is a little strange so I’m just going to touch on this.

In day one of your investigations for The Cosmic Turnabout, you run into a conflicted Bobby Fulbright. When pressed, two Psyche-Locks appear, and unlocking them leads you to three conversations: 1) The bomb threat before the launch, 2) Why Simon Blackquill was given permission to prosecute, and 3) The mysterious Phantom.

So why do I call this a false positive? After all, he is technically hiding all these things. And yet, a lot of how this Psyche-Unlocking goes down doesn’t really make as much sense when you consider that Bobby Fulbright is The Phantom. It really doesn’t make much sense how much information he’s feeding them about the situation, unlocked Psyche-Locks or not. Especially the way he goes about the whole thing. 

We know in hindsight that The Phantom doesn’t actually care about Simon Blackquill or solving the crime that he committed. Every display of emotion is an act. So why does he make a big show of feeling conflicted? Why does the bomb threat that he made lead him to divulging all of these worries about Simon going after the Phantom? Was him revealing this information part of his game? Since we know he was trying to cover his tracks, was he feeding us half truths for a reason? Did he want to feed us this information?

If that’s the case, that leads us to a new problem. Since the question asked was “Why Are You Being Cooperative”, why wouldn’t the fact that he was the Phantom ping the Magatama? He was being cooperative so that he could feed you information, not because he cared about any of the things he was ‘troubled’ by. So why does the Magatama only pick up on half the truth? After all, the Phantom wasn’t knowingly tricking the Magatama.

(Also if you haven’t read this comic I thought it was a super interesting theory. Not sure I ascribe to it 100% but it was a really interesting take.)

I think it’s important to note in this example that, no matter how you interpret The Phantom’s actions, all signs point to him wanting to divulge this information for one reason or another. There was an intent about it. He may not have known a thing about the Psyche-Locks, but he very clearly was baiting the protagonists with an intent. And technically, without knowing it, he was also baiting the Magatama. 

This means that, in the end, the information he actually revealed to the protagonists was not a closely guarded secret of the heart. Yes, you still needed to present evidence and draw it out of him, but I think The Phantom wanted the characters to draw it out of him. It’s not a secret that a bumbling detective was having trouble hiding, it was information that a spy wanted planted. There was intent here, no matter how you look at it. And that leads us to our third example.

The False Positive: The Stolen Turnabout

Unlike the previous two cases, this is the first time that someone has straight up lied to the Magatama. Trials and Tribulations: The Stolen Turnabout. I always get so mixed up by this case. It took me three playthroughs to finally get the hang of who was doing what where and when. And do you know why that was? It was because of one lie that Luke Atmey told us early in the investigation.

Phoenix: Detective Atmey... You were knocked unconscious by the thief, weren't you!?

Atmey: Ha ha ha! Surely you must be joking... You think that I, Luke Atmey, could be knocked unconscious so easily!?

Phoenix: This sword proves it!

Atmey: ...! Th-That's...

Phoenix: Before the theft, this sword was in the hand of the statue of Ami Fey. Furthermore... at that time, it was not bent.

Atmey: Aaah... Err...

Phoenix: ...There's only one explanation. You were struck on the head and knocked unconscious by this sword! Well, Detective!? What about it!?

Atmey: ...I'm impressed. You truly are an "Ace Attorney"...

Unlock Successful

Unlike every other instance, this is just a straight-up lie. This is not a technicality, like with Matt Engarde. This is not pieces of the truth, like The Phantom. This is just factually incorrect. Luke Atmey was not knocked unconscious by Mask☆Demasque. In fact, this not only is a lie, it’s a calculated lie. Without knowing about the Magatama or its capabilities, Luke Atmey used it to convince us that he was knocked unconscious by Mask☆Demasque at the scene of the crime to disguise the fact that he was Mask☆Demasque, which is even wilder when you realize later that even that was a lie! He was covering up a lie with another lie with another lie. It was not just a ploy to fool you into thinking he was attacked my Mask☆Demasque, it was also a part of him convincing you that he was Mask☆Demasque when he wasn’t.

So why the FUCK does the Magatama go off?!

There’s of course a meta answer. The writers weren’t thinking that hard about it. They just wanted to use the Psyche-Locks to make the story more interesting. But that’s boring. I want to go deeper.

Luke Atmey, like The Phantom later on, wanted information planted. But he couldn’t simply tell everyone he was attacked by Mask☆Demasque. After all, he knew admitting to it would put his credentials under scrutiny. So he needed someone to organically draw it out of him. Again, he wanted this information out there. Otherwise, him agreeing to Phoenix’s conclusions, hell, him setting up this scenario with the Shichishito wouldn’t make any sense. Plus, it was only behind one Psyche-Lock and led to him revealing a photo of the crime, one that he was very meticulous about taking to create an alibi.

So. What does this all mean? How are people confusing the Magatama? How are people lying? I think that the element that Pearl got wrong in her initial explanation is that the Magatama reacts to secrets that, deep down, a person wants to divulge. After all, with enough evidence, you can eventually draw all sorts of information out of a person. Some are certainly more closely guarded secrets than others, but in the end, I think the Magatama reacts to secrets that a character wants to share but is not willing to do so without that prompting. It doesn’t have to be real, it just has to be something the person is keeping secret with the intent of finding a way to plant the information.

This can even apply to Black Psyche-Locks. Unconscious secrets that are hidden even from the person hiding them? Those are deep hurts that I think drive a lot about these characters’ personalities and motivations, and I think things like that are the kinds of stuff that a character wants to confront but is unable to do so out of fear, so they push it from their minds.

Let’s look at a few more examples. In Bridge to the Turnabout, Miles demands info from Larry, and he’s able to completely circumvent the Psyche-Locks by divulging something completely irrelevant about his crush on Iris. When Miles realizes his mistake, he discovers a completely new set of Psyche-Locks. Or when Phoenix confronts “Iris” about the presence of another Iris at the crime, “Iris” (cough Dahlia cough) uses that to start planting these ideas about Iris as the original betrayer, as the one who had wronged Dahlia in the first place. I feel these are both things that the characters did want to share, despite not wanting to do it unprompted.

Anyway, uh, that’s most of what I got. Perhaps there’s a stronger answer out there for why the Magatama may react in places it shouldn’t. Maybe there’s some other hidden rule they haven’t mentioned. Or maybe it is just as simple as “The writers didn’t think that hard about it.” But hey, I think I like this interpretation better.