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storms-path · 9 days

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FFXIV Write 2024: Day 16 - Third-Rate

[Arashi enters, stage left. From the tattered state of her clothing, it is clear that she has emerged from another death-defying battle and emerged victorious. She gasps, stumbles forward to the door]

Arashi: Though the battle was fierce and my strength is sapped, I will not be denied! No force on this star nor any other will stop me!

[Arashi slams a bare fist on the door. Once. Twice. The third attempt fails as her strength gives way. Nonetheless, her knock is answered.]

[The lights rise on stage right. The Ala Mhigan palace is littered with bodies, both Imperial and Resistance both. It is clear that the doors separating Arashi from the palace are very large, and very heavy. Lyse, Raubahn, and Alphinaud are present, speaking in hushed tones.]

Alphinaud: Only two knocks. Did she miscount? Or has she not the strength to muster more?

Raubahn: Or has our enemy bested her at last?

Lyse: No! I refuse to believe it! I refuse!

Alphinaud: I, too, refuse. Terrible our foe may be, but Arashi is every ilm his equal!

Raubahn: That, I do not deny. But rumour has it that Zenos has tamed a greater beast than any the Mad King dared break. A dragon.

[A shiver is shared between the trio.]

Alphinaud: A dragon? By the gods, if that is the case…

Lyse: Did you so easily forget, Alphinaud? Arashi was the one who toppled dread Nidhogg, not once but twice! ‘Twas she who defied the dread Ascians and the Empire combined! And it was she and her allies who did fell the Griffin at the great wall!

[Lyse is gesticulating wildly, clearly caught up in her own words. Alphinaud and Raubahn share a glance.]

Arashi: Do you not hear me, my allies? The crown prince is dead! I am victorious!

[It is clear that her strength is failing her, though her voice remains strong. She slumps against the doors.]

Arashi: They know not that this land is free. They gave so much of themselves to see it done, and yet they sit and whisper and pray for me. All because I lack the strength to announce it. Curse this frailty!

[On the other side of the door, a woman dressed all in black emerges from centre stage. It is unclear how long she has been there, or how much she has heard. Only her eyes are visible, unreadable and full of unspoken feelings. Her appearance goes unnoticed by the trio.]

Sanda: Sister, do you still breathe? Are you still the sister I once knew? Or has the mantle of saviour devoured her, leaving only an empty husk? No. I must hold onto hope that you still live on, though the weight of your role is so heavy. But to do so, I must wait. Until the time I can spirit you away from all of this.

[Sanda melts away again, as if she was never there. Fareena and Stalwart rush in from stage right. Both are likewise battered and bloody, but Fareena wears a fierce grin. Stalwart does not.]

Fareena: What a fight! A thousand dead Garleans and more running at the sight of me! Shame Arashi claimed the prince for herself. I’m certain I could have taken him!

[Stalwart’s expression makes it clear that this is far from the first time Fareena has proclaimed it.]

Lyse: Fareena! Stalwart! What news from the city?

Stalwart: The army has broken. We hold the streets for now. But were it not for Hien’s reinforcements, things could have gone very differently.

Raubahn: Our eastern ally will be well compensated for his efforts this day, of this I assure you.

Stalwart: What news of Arashi?

Lyse: We heard two knocks, but no more. I want nothing more than to wrench open the doors, but Alphinaud forbids it.

Alphinaud: For all we know, Zenos himself awaits us on the other side, blade aloft. We must wait. For all our sakes.

[Fareena has heard enough. She stalks towards the door, shoving Alphinaud nearly into the crowd when he tries to stop her. Her aim is the door, but Lyse is quicker.]

Lyse: Wait! If we are to open this door, then let it be me that does so.

[Arashi perks up as Lyse draws closer. She staggers to her feet.]

Alphinaud: But-!

Fareena: No buts, pipsqueak! Here we stand, ready to receive Ala Mhigo’s fate!

Stalwart: Be it liberation or damnation, we will face it together.

Raubahn: And may Rhalgr help us all if it’s the latter…

[The stage lights dim as spotlights focus on Arashi and Lyse, on either side of the door. The orchestra swells as Lyse groans and pulls…]

Lyse: FOR ALA MHIGO!

[The doors open and Arashi collapses through them, directly into Lyse’s arms.]

Lyse: Arashi!

Arashi: It’s done. The prince is dead. We have won.

[Fareena rushes forward, stumbling over bodies. A flash of light aether indicates the healing at work.]

Lyse: Don’t try to speak, Arashi. Your wounds are severe.

Arashi: Nothing I can’t… handle.

[Arashi tries to stand on her own. Fails. Lyse’s grip tightens around her.]

Lyse: Oh, my love.

Arashi: My… love?

[Lyse says nothing more as realisation dawns on the assembled party]

Lyse: That is, I… You are important to me… As a treasured ally and-

[Arashi silences Lyse, pulling her down into a kiss with the last of her strength. This lasts as long as the actors feel is appropriate.]

Lyse: ...Oh. Oh!

Arashi: I love you too. How wonderful, that my heart should find liberation too.

[Arashi goes limp, clearly unconscious]

[Pandaemonium erupts. Everyone shouts in panic and alarm as Arashi is carried off-stage by the assembled band. The spotlight follows them, but then returns to centre stage. A man dressed like the late emperor Solus Zos Galvus appears in a puff of smoke.]

Solus: Fascinating. Most fascinating.

[The spotlight dims.]

[END OF ACT 3.]

Arashi frowned as she pored over the pages. “It’s… it’s certainly embellished, I’ll give it that.” She didn’t know where to begin. The list of inaccuracies stretched as long as her arm. The wandering minstrel, unfortunately, took it as a compliment.

“Perfect! To capture your adventures in a larger-than-life fashion is the sole calling of this wondrous play!” It was abundantly clear that no words would dissuade him. Arashi sighed, handing back the manuscript. Kugane would surely appreciate it, if nothing else.

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keicordelle · 4 months

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The Adventures of an Inconvenient Au Ra: Light Consumption

*CW: body horror

Pain wracked Keshet's entire body, fire searing up his nerves to char away his insides. No, actually, fire wouldn’t have hurt this much. It was more like the entirety of the foul light of the sun blazed beneath his ribs, burning away at his being while Azim watched on in amusement.

"I had such high hopes for you," the looming figure sneered, the scornful voice muffled through the haze of white that filled Keshet’s senses and burned away at his retinas. Something cracked in his chest, and Keshet screamed, spilling forth to his hands and knees to spew viscous white across the marble. The churning in his stomach slowed, and he was fairly certain that was only because his stomach had ceased to exist, his very organs turned to solid, unchanging stone within his gut. He heaved again, desperate to expel the light from his body, tears of crystal streaking down to mar his face as he scrabbled against the stone beneath him, a worm beneath the merciless sun. Light oozed from between his scales, the shining black plates cracking as the corruption consumed him, breaking his body to remould him in its image.

The fire and its wicked torpor spread, fetid tendrils snaking out from his stomach to seize his other organs, squeezing at his lungs and coiling about his heart. His bones shifted beneath his skin, each one shattered into dust, and yet somehow his arms still held him up, breath still rattled in his lungs, and sound still reached his ears, even if it was an indistinguishable drone.

Urianger. Urianger had had a plan. I trust him. He'll save me. He will. He will. The thought slipped like sand between the glass of Keshet's mind, and he fought to lift his head, peering beyond the searing light to see where the hazy shapes of his friends stood. He forced his eyes to focus, to look beyond the light that blinded him and stole away his sanity. The world wavered before him, and he sunk his teeth into his lip (he still had teeth?), the small pain lost amidst to torment that wracked him, but the world righted itself, if only for a moment, the wicked white haze clearing away just enough to let him see his companions.

Thank you, Nhaama, he thought, or maybe that was someone else's thought like driftwood through his brain. But it was not the Dusk Mother who wiped clear his eyes, but another foul trick of Azim's, revealing Urianger's tormented face, creased as though every crack of bone and lick of flame afflicted him instead.

Oh. There is no cure. I'm going to die here. An empty thought in an empty head.

No! Keshet drew together the shattered fragments of his being, forcing them into a coherent form long enough to struggle back against his imminent demise. I will not die here, on this shard so far from home. Not like this, writhing like a maggot in the dirt! This is not an end worthy of a Dotharl. I can't die like this, I can't, I can't, I-

He reached for the strength of the void and that depthless portal that filled him. He'd shove as much of the light into that abyss as he could manage, and let it become the problem of the voidsent.

He found nothing. Where darkness should dwell, there was nothing but the same sickening radiance, seizing even the heart of the void within him. Where power should lay, there was nothing. He tipped forward, the sound of his horn cracking against the stone almost unheard as the white swarmed his vision, stealing away his consciousness as it stole his life.

Nothing.

There was nothing.

... There was light.

The memory of pain lingered when he woke. The effects lingered too, light shining between the cracks in his scales and his stomach turned to stone in his gut. But his bones were all intact (had he imagined that?) and his body and mind were his own, more or less.

The ghost who shared the color of his soul told him what had happened in his absence. The light, halted but not cleansed. A temporary fix. A stopgap that kept him breathing a few days longer while the others searched desperately for a cure. That kept him from turning into... Into... He couldn't think about it.

He couldn't think about anything else. Stillness reigned where the swirling void of ever-changing darkness ought to lay within him, and when he tried to dredge up that abyssal power to summon flame to his hand, naught but light shone in its place. It left him sick to his non-existent stomach - which he was starting to believe really had turned to stone, given the way his body rejected the bite of jerky he tried to force into it. Light rose like bile to splatter on the tile, the utter absence of color almost entrancing. He shied away from it, as if to stare into it too long might mean his death. It was funny; most people feared staring into the void - Keshet feared staring into the light.

No matter. He picked himself off the floor, ignoring the worried chatter of the ghost that only he could see. He had an Ascian to fight. If his breaths were numbered, he would not waste them resting in bed in the vain hope he might recover. He trusted his friends to find a cure. He had trusted them... They would find something. Or else he would die, dramatically, and his mutilated corpse would rain terror upon the first. Which, by then, would hardly be his problem. He hoped it wouldn't come to that. It couldn't. It might.

Thoughts churning the way his stomach ought to, he set out to find his way to Emet-Selch's hidden abode, off to face his death - and knowing that this time, his death would be permanent.

Death was really a long time coming. He should have assumed he'd get no peace, even with the light ravaging his soul. He'd covered his scales as best he could, playing it off as a chill when people asked, which garnered him some sympathy - but not enough for the many well-meaning citizens of the Crystarium to leave him the hell alone. His ghost trailed after him, maintaining his chattering commentary and feeding him lines when he could not think past the weight of the light. When it was too much, he led Keshet away, up a hundred thousand stairs to the city’s edge.

"You did this," he said- No. No. He didn't say that. The voices inside Keshet's head and without were all too loud in the stillness of his body, and he couldn't distinguish one from the other except through their refrain. You did this, you did this, you did this.

Try again.

"I can imagine how torn you must feel, looking at that sky. Knowing what it means to everyone... And that you're responsible." You did this.

So maybe he did say that.

"That's what heroes do, isn't it?" Heroes. He was just a man. Well. He was just a man. Now...

"Well? Come on, then!" A hand extended. Villain to hero, man to man, ghost to monster. Keshet took it.

A flash, light so blinding it cut off his already clouded vision, and then... The pain lessened. Oh he was still broken, still cracked and bleeding, but he could breathe again (had he stopped?) and a trickle of thoughts passed through that stagnant brain. I will not let it end like this.

Help, that was what Ardbert offered. Help when he needed it most. "If you need a push, I'll be right there behind you; if you lose control, I'll do my best to stop you." A promise that eased the burden strapped to his aether. A contingency, as it were. A shard of his soul kept outside his body, to keep him from losing himself entirely. After all, he was no martyr, to suffer his pains alone. He was not smart enough or charismatic enough or kind enough to fix the world on his own. So he relied on others. He would rely on others.

So - let us be about it, hero.

He could not do it. With his connection to the void severed, he was powerless. The sickening radiance that filled its place was clumsy and stunted - enough, perhaps, to best the illusory beasts Emet-Selch had set upon them, but not to defeat an Ascian. Not even with the entire strength of the Scions at his back. Bones cracked, pain flaring in a now familiar agony that seared down his spine and dripped light like vomit from his lips. Blood and light both oozed from the cracks in his scales, the comforting black peeling away as he screamed. Please. Nhaama. Hydaelyn. Anyone. Just make it stop.

No darkness rose to soothe him as his soul shattered at the very bottom of the sea on another Shard. There was no softness in death, only pain and suffering, and eternity. Light swallowed his world as one by one his companions fell, their desperate attempts to save him for naught. None but he could stand before Emet-Selch and hope to survive. None but... None. At least they won't die by my hand.

"If you had the strength to take another step, could you do it? Could you save our worlds?"

A hand, extended. Ghost to monster, man to man. One hero to another.

The word would not come, could not pass the light that bubbled up from his lips, even as he put his whole being into that one word. Yes... yes... yes, yes, YES!!

It didn't matter; Ardbert heard the song that sang through his soul, and even through the blinding light that had stolen Keshet's vision, his smile was unmistakable. "Take it. We fight as one."

He took it.

Darkness flooded him, washing away the corrupting light and breathing life into his broken bones. Flayed flesh knitted together in the span of an instant, Keshet's soul stitched back together, his ghost filling in the cracks to contain the light. Not eradicate it (no, nothing short of his death would do that now) but with Ardbert's aether melding with his own, it was not so heavy a burden to bear.

It was enough.

Abyssal flame leapt to his call as he hauled himself to his feet, the memory of agony etched in every movement. But he could stand, and if he could stand, then he could fight. A true, proper fight, pitting his darkness against Emet-Selch's, and may the better monster be the victor.

(It would be him. It had to be him. He had something to fight for.)

"We stand together!" The Exarch - G'raha, battered and beaten, but willing to fight with all his strength.

"One of us will die here," Keshet snarled, loosing the reigns on the abyss in his soul. "But it will not be me!"

And so, with flame and ice and darkness, they fought.

In the end, the light won. Keshet flinched from its rising glow, until he realized it came not from within, but without. It caressed his scales in a comforting chill, like the kiss of a mother upon her babe’s brow, before pouring past him to envelope Hades and Urianger's white auracite. With a simple thought, he drew on that light - that gentle, healing light - and it coalesced in his hand into a most fitting tribute to the stitches on his soul.

Then, with a whispered wish to remember, it was over.

Though the light relinquished its claim on him, it did not leave him unscathed. Oh, externally he was fine - his scales shone only with mundane, lustrous black, his horns were whole and unbroken, and not so much as a single scar marred his skin to mark his time as the Light's thrall. To look at him, no one would ever guess the horrors he faced and just how near he had been to losing himself completely.

But internally... Though the void answered his call once more, that light was still there, simmering within him, like it was just biding its time to strike again. It jumped to his summons, leaping gladly from his fingertips to harm or to heal, searing through him like a fever with every spell. Like a sickness, coiled around his soul.

He hated it. Revulsion rose every time he dared to poke at that latent power, memories like a tidal wave to crash over him and steal away his breath, his heart pounding like gunfire in his chest. He refused to touch it, refused to linger even a single moment longer than necessary swamped by its sickening radiance. Even if it made him stronger. Even if it finally granted him the power of life at his fingertips. Even if it might let it save his friends from so wretched a fate. Even...

Well. Maybe. Only in the direst of circumstances, if the lives of his loved ones were on the line. Then he'd risk letting that light infect him once more. But only then. For now, he'd take solace in the darkness, as he always had, and fight until not even his memories could trouble him any longer.

Read the rest of the series on Ao3!

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