#prayer circle for regular oath posting

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

In other news, I finally found a nice nerdy motif that includes eyes to paint on my mask. I wanted a simple, reasonably beginner-friendly design that would read well on the mesh and that'd be easy to fix when it inevitably gets too badly scratched up by, you know, being repeatedly hit with a steel sword. (And in the meantime it's gonna get cool appropriately silvery details as the paint gets scraped off.)

Progress pics under the cut for those interested.

First, redrawing the symbol from a very low-res old rulebook scan, printing it out, and cutting out a stencil. There is a very nice high-res transparent png of this holy symbol available in the BG3 game files, but sadly it's a very detailed, fancy, redesigned version with way too many complicated thin lines to work for this.

The first step is just black and white primer, airbrushed on, kinda messy and blurry, as expected.

Then, freehanding in both black and white to sharpen it up and bring out all the details. Moonmaiden, guide my hand! etc etc etc.

And there you have it.

[violetsmoak]

Appetence [1/?]

AO3 Link:https://archiveofourown.org/works/20251420/chapters/47997634

Blanket Disclaimer

Summary: Red Robin is investigating the disappearance of a friend and stumbles into a spot of supernatural trouble. He doesn't expect to be saved by Jason Todd, miraculously alive five years after his death and now with the inexplicable ability to commune with the dead. Meanwhile, when Jason returned to Gotham he meant to maintain a low profile and not get involved with Bat business. That was before he found out how hot his Replacement is.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: #cemetery #haunting #relics

Canon-Compliance: Alternate Universe; Jason still died but was not found by Talia when he was resurrected. All other events mostly follow the same chronology as New Earth continuity, with mentions made to events in New 52

Author’s Note(s): My attention span was really terrible today and I couldn't focus on either of my two other fics even though the next chapters of both are completely planned out. So I'm posting the start of the third (and final) story that I'm doing for the JayTimWeek/Month challenge. Also, I'm really excited about this one. I spent more time planning this than either of the other two and I can't wait to hear what you guys think!I've got work stuff to do tomorrow so there may not be anything updated until Friday.

Beta Reader: I’ll get back to you on that.

________________________________________________________________

The Bat-Signal cuts through the dark and hazy clouds lingering above Gotham City, and for a split-second, Jason Todd has the urge to drop everything and race for the roof of the GCPD Headquarters. It’s hard to ignore the nervous jump of excitement in his stomach, the phantom sensation of a domino mask on his face and the heavy drag of a cape at his shoulders.

Which makes no sense, since it’s been at least five years since I even wore that shit.

Taking a drag of his cigarette, the smoke mixing with the familiar summer smog, Jason turns his back on Gotham’s literal beacon of hope and steels himself against nocturnal threats of his own. The city is for the caped crew—because apparently, the Bat has a posse now, he thinks with only a hint of a bitter sneer—and Jason has been fighting in a different arena for quite some time now.

He takes a final drag of the cigarette, and then grinds it beneath his boots, and shoves his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. It’s a weathered and worn thing that reminds him of one Willis Todd wore in one of the few memories Jason has of him that doesn’t involve alcohol or fists. He thinks it’s less pretentious looking than a trench coat and probably gives off fewer ‘creepy motherfucker’ vibes like the sartorial choices of certain other people. It’s also less likely to snag on things when he needs to make a quick exit while digging up graves.

Yeah, it’s a thing in his line of work.

Gotham Cemetery is a sprawling necropolis, as dark and forbidding now as it was the night he dug himself out of his own grave. Half a decade of Gotham-style tender, loving negligence has left the somber green hills overgrown and the majority of the old tombstones fallen or rotting.

You’d think in a city with the highest homicide rate in the country, the mayor would spring for better maintenance. Then again, it’s Gotham. The dead don’t pay taxes, so fuck ‘em.

Which…enough said.

Gotham and the world think Jason Todd-Wayne is dead and has been for five years now; in a way, it’s the truth. He’s no longer anything like the boy that was beaten to death by a psychotic clown, no longer the shrimp who fastidiously dyed his hair black and jumped into someone else’s cape and pixie boots just so he didn’t have to be his own screwup self anymore. He outgrew wanting to be Dick a long time ago, outgrew wanting to be Bruce, too, and embraced a whole new other set of skills to put him apart from them.

Most occultists and even homo magi need to put conscious effort and intent into calling up or even seeing a spirit. Ever since Jason died and then mysteriously got better, the dead appear to him as blatantly and a solid as the living.

John told him he was a fool to come back here.

“Someone with your gifts, they’ll drive you bloody mad,” his mentor warned him when he left London. “And I ain’t talking about the dead ones, neither.”

“You’re just saying that because Batman wouldn’t hold your hand that one time,” Jason retorted, shrugging off the concern. He is Gotham born and bred, his blood is in those streets, and he has always wanted to come home, even if it wasn’t necessarily to a stately manor or its inhabitants.

He clenches his fists.

Inhabitants that wasted no time in replacing him after he died. Jason was rotting away in fucking Arkham, and Bruce was shoving another kid into the tights.

If it didn’t involve seeing him, I would hunt him down and break his jaw.

He surveys the graveyard proper. The everyday observer considers cemeteries to be places of peace and eternal rest; quiet, if a little bit spooky. To Jason, they’re as gruesome as any major battlefield.

Spirits pack the way before him; some of them look relatively normal if dated by their clothes; many others are disfigured and bloody from whatever killed them, whether natural or unnatural. They clamor and crowd, eternally shouting to be heard, or screaming as they relive their deaths in their own personal purgatories.

In the beginning, that din almost drove Jason insane. Bruce’s teachings kept him rational as long as it could in the months after he woke up, and then John’s training helped him temper his own awareness further. By now, he can function almost normally, automatically filtering the voices out as he goes about his daily business; it’s only in places like this, where the dead outnumber the living, where it’s harder.

Jason reaches up, adjusting the noise filters in his ears—mechanical devices that need regular winding but are still more reliable than anything running on electricity of batteries. They’re like steampunk hearing aids, only instead of magnifying sound, they drown out the constant moan of the ghosts when he can’t do it himself. Just one of many methods of protection he’s learned over the years. Some are physical, like the prayer beads wrapped around his wrist or the bottle of holy water in his pocket; others—spells and symbols and mantras—are carved all over his body in tattoos and blood writing. Anything to keep the otherworld away.

“Personal space is a key to a medium’s sanity,” John told him once. “That and a good bottle of single malt scotch.”  

Jason ignores the moss-covered path that winds through the larger and more prominent mausoleums. He deliberately doesn’t search out the one in the distance bearing the Wayne crest—

(Still remembers the feel of his fingernails splitting against the wood of the coffin, choking on clumps of soil and insects.)

—and instead seeks a small structure much farther away. It’s in the furthest part of the cemetery, the shabby section almost hidden by overgrown willows. Half of the name above the doorway is obscured by vines, but it’s easy for him to make out the name etched into the stone with bold letters.

HAYWOOD.

According to the public record, Sheila Haywood’s body was returned to Gotham at the same time as Jason Todd’s. Bruce paid for her funeral and internment, which was just as well since she had no other family, and then she was promptly forgotten about.

By everyone except Jason, it seems.

It took some doing and a few weeks tracking down everyone that had worked at the same refugee camp as his mother, but he’d finally managed to collect what possessions she left behind. A colleague of hers had put them aside when there appeared to be nothing of actual monetary value in them.

A gold coin, small bone carvings of stylized animals, dainty trinkets of garnets, amber and lapis lazuli, a compact mirror, some seashells, a decorative fan, quartz paperweight, and a brightly colored feather. There was a picture of Willis in there, too, young and almost Jason’s double. No picture of Jason, though, but he hadn’t expected it.

He kept the picture but left the rest in the small wooden box, which he now removes from his messenger bag and sets down in front of the stone bearing his mother’s name. He follows that with various tools and ingredients. Black candles arranged in a star shape around the box, a chalice, a jar of detritus—teff seeds, driftwood and soil, all from the place where she died—that he sprinkles around in a circle, a handful of smooth obsidian stones to mark a pentagram joining the candles, the dagger John gave him for his last birthday, vials of oil and holy water.

Murmuring a few protection oaths, he shrugs off his jacket, leaving his arms bare, and then digs out a pack of matches to light the candles; flickering shadows dance across the mausoleum walls. He takes up the chalice to combine the water and oil, and then reaches for the dagger.

Hate this part.

Training to ignore pain doesn’t mean it goes away, and he grits his teeth a little as he draws his blade across his forearm, not deep enough to nick anything vital, but enough that the blood runs easily into the chalice. Without bothering to bandage the wound, Jason holds up the chalice in front of him and centers himself.

“Phantasma inrequietum, te voco,” he intones. “Eloguiorum mei audi: Sheila Haywood, te nominas!“ The stagnant air in the mausoleum starts to pick up. “In nominee creatricis, te impero, hic locum decede.” Hand over the top of the chalice, he swirls the liquid within, and then tips it into the open keepsake box. “Per sanguinem hominis et per sanguinem filii tui, non remane et apage! ”He strikes a match and lobs it into the box, not even flinching as the whole thing flares into flame; he intends to watch it until it burns to nothing.

“That’s not going to work, you know.”

“Jesus fuck!” Jason explodes, whirling to the right and glaring at the interrupter. “What did I say about sneaking up on me? Or just—showing up around me in general?”

The apparition in front of him doesn’t look impressed.

Sheila is still beautiful—or, at least, the side of her body that isn’t covered with third-degree burns and sections of pulverized bone—and still sharp. Cold, untouchable and self-interested.

But unlike the way she was before, she’s all-too present in Jason’s life now.

“Goddamn it,” he snarls, and against every lesson John has ever given him, lashes out and knocks the candles and detritus hard enough to send it skidding across the floor. “What the hell. I’ve done everything. You had last rites, your body was cremated, I just torched the things that had any value to you, why the hell won’t you just move on?”

“You’re asking the wrong questions,” Sheila replies, as always.

Jason scowls. “And of course, you can’t just tell me.”

She gazes at him balefully, and he runs a frustrated hand through his hair.

“Sheila, we’ve been over this. You can’t stay here. One, you know spirits that stick around past their time go Dark Side, and I really don’t want to have to exorcise your spectral ass. Two, it’s fucking creepy for a twenty-year-old guy to be followed around by his mother wherever he goes. What the hell is keeping you here? What more do you want from me?”

“Your forgiveness,” she tells him patiently.

“I already forgave you. Years ago.”

“You still call me Sheila.”

“That’s your name.”

“I’m your mother.”

“Who sold me out and got me murdered.”

“See? You haven’t forgiven me.”

“I have. I’m just stating a fact, Jesus…”

“Apparently the cosmic balance doesn’t agree enough to let me move on,” the ghost says dryly. “And to think, I used to be an atheist.”

“This is total bullshit,” Jason snaps, grabbing his jacket and stalking out of the mausoleum in frustration.

Three years of this mediumship crap, and neither he nor John have ever been able to figure out why the ghost of Jason’s dead mother won’t stop haunting him. Wards and sutras that keep even the nastiest spirits away from Jason don’t even phase her, and she’s inexplicably coherent.

And persistent.

As Jason stalks back through the cemetery, he can sense her in his periphery, gliding along beside him, unconcerned with his irritation.

“Can you just…stay away from me? Like you did in the beginning?” he grumbles.

“You were just learning how to communicate without going insane. I wasn’t about to disrupt that.”

“How considerate of you.”

“I try.”

“Look, I’ve had enough of the ghost-stalker thing for today. I went out of my way for this, you know. I didn’t even want to come back here. And now I’m back to the fucking drawing board.”

“It may not have been a waste of a trip,” she replies and vanishes.

“Oh, you can fuck off when it’s convenient for you,” he grumbles, though he already senses what she was speaking of.

Several yards away, a small boy, maybe eight, is clinging forlornly to an angel headstone. Translucent tears stream down his cheeks, but every now and again his face shifts, like a television caught between two channels, and his mouth widens into an unnatural smile.

Jason could have gone the rest of his life without seeing that smile again.

Still, he sighs and heads toward the kid.

“Hey,” he says, keeping his voice low and maintaining a safe distance from the boy, whose head whips up to stare at Jason in sudden fear.

“Who are you?” he asks, voice thick with tears.

“I’m Jason. You okay, kid?”

“I can’t find my mom,” the boy murmurs, wiping at his face. “I keep going looking, but I forget the way home. And then…I always end up back here.”

He sounds on the verge of tears again; it’s something Jason can understand.

With the puzzling exception of Sheila, who appears to come and go as she pleases, most ghosts are stuck in certain patterns and paths when they die, frozen in an infinite loop until they break themselves out of it or until some arbitrary higher power decides they’ve suffered enough. And for some reason, Jason can break them out of it.

“You could always try again,” he suggests. “I think you’ll manage it this time.”

The boy shudders. “There’s scary people here.”

No arguing with that.

“I know. I see them, too.” Jason glances at the headstone, scanning the name and dates. “Your name’s Cole?”

“Yeah.”

“If you’re missing, there are probably people looking for you. They might have posted something online about it. I’ll check it out, but it could take a bit.” He holds up his phone, glad to see it’s at full charge and bars; that’s hit or miss around so many ghosts. “Can you hang around here until I’m done?”

The boy nods, silent, face flicking back and forth between sadness and the unnatural smile.

Fucking Joker…

Jason does a quick search of the kid’s name, pulling up obituaries in the Gotham Gazette in the past year. It doesn’t take long for an article to pop up concerning the Joker’s latest escape and a list of the dead.

He narrows his eyes, startling the kid.

“It’s fine,” he lies. “The internet is just really slow.”

“Or our phone is really bad,” Cole tells him with the blunt honesty of a kid that grew up constantly surrounded by functional technology.

“Everyone’s a critic…”

Another quick search for the parents, phone lists and social media, and he’s got an address. Crime Alley, of course. He brings it up on his map and enables a view of the street, holding the phone out to the boy. “Is this your house?”

Relief settles and settles over his face. “Yeah.”

“What if I helped you find your way home?”

Cole makes a suspicious face. “I’m not supposed to go anywhere with strangers.”

“Which is really smart. But you see, I’m not really a stranger.”

“Oh yeah? Why not?”

“Well, I’ll let you in on a secret.” Jason bends down, conspiratorial, and Cole’s eyes gleam the way any kid gets when hearing a secret. “When I was a little older than you…I was Robin.”

The boy gapes. “Like…Batman and Robin?”

“Exactly.”

“No way!”

“Way,” Jason smirks, crossing his arms. “And I’ll tell you all about it on the way to your house. Including the time that I stole the wheels off the Batmobile.”

“No way!”

Despite his scandalized disbelief, the kid is obviously hooked.

Jason’s heart clenches a bit at the open curiosity on Cole’s face, the reality hitting him that this boy will never have a chance to do anything mischievous or fun ever again.

From one dead boy to another, this sucks…

As he leads him out of the cemetery, Jason starts to tell the little ghost about his life. He edits out the less pleasant bits, like dying and returning to life half brain dead with the ability to see and hear ghosts.

He figures a good story is the least he can do for the boy.

⁂⁂⁂

Next Chapter

[chysgoda]

Let's talk about oaths

In which Art’imis loses her temper and Solkazgyl has a bad day

It was a nice day in Camp Dragonhead. A clear sky and warm sun brightened most moods and all the threats that they watched for were quiet. a good day to catch up on outdoor chores or just to feel like a person for half a bell. So one no begrudged the commander or the couple of Fortemps dragoons that had pounced on the opportunity to catch up when all of their schedules aligned on such a nice day.  

Dinadan noticed the group walking into the camp first. Art’imis he recognized first, her scale mail hauberk and white cloak had become as regular a sight as any of his brother and sister dragoons in the congregation. The other three he did not recognize at all. He elbowed Matthaios in the ribs to get the other dragoon to shut up for a moment. “Who are the foreigners with Art’imis?”

Haurchrfant leaned forward to get a better look. “That would be Lord Papashan and Captain Jenlyns of the Sultansworn they passed through here a few days ago. I do not know the Roegadyn however.”

Matthaios turned as well and frowned. Tension sparked off the group and it was obvious that the Hyru and Lalafel between Art’imis and the Roegadyn were keeping the pair apart. “Something’s going on there.”

“Indeed,” Haurchefant agreed. He rolled his shoulders back picking up the mantle of commander again. Matthaios and Dinadan glanced at each other as the fell into step with the Silver Fuller.  

The Au’ra paladin glanced their way and shook her head as their group approached the chocobo porter’s station near the main gates. She looked back down the the older lalafel walking next to her “which route will you return by?”

“Revenant’s Toll, There are still remnants of the 14th legion in Northern Thanalan that are causing trouble.” Papashan said easily. “Captain Jenlyns wants to assess if the Sultansworn can aid in the efforts there.”

Dinadan let out a relieved breath when Art’imis smiled with honest approval. “Field work will be good for them. Thank you for keeping an eye on things in Ul’dah for me Papashan.”

The lalafel waved off the thanks with a huff, “I kept an eye on things long before you were born welp.”

Art’imis chuckled fondly tension beginning to leave the line of her shoulders. “I shall pray to the Dawn Father and Halone that you and Captain Jenlyns have a safe journey.”

The roegedyn snorted in amusement, “nothing for an old teacher Art’imis?”

All the tension snapped back into the free paladin’s shoulders. Next to her Papashan pinched the bridge of his nose. Art’imis’ lips pulled back and up in what was technically a smile but reminded Dinadan more of hunting wolves. “Nothing other than to let you know that you’ve no need to visit Falcon’s Nest. I’ll keep an eye on Constaint.”

“It’s hardly a bother to -” the Roegadyn’s eyes narrowed at his fellow free paladin

Art’imis interrupted before he could finish, “Solkazgyl, Let me clarify what I mean. Do not come back. You’ve done enough, and more damage besides.”

“Poaching students is rather poor form Art’imis.”

“As is abandoning a student for the sake of theatrics. Shall we compare sins?”

Dinadan tensed when the roedadyn’s sword hand flexed and Art’imis shifted her shoulder in preparation of using her shield. The two Sultansworn noticed as well. Jenlyns stepped between the two Free Paladins. “We need to be moving on Solkazgyl.”

The Roegadyn ignored the Sultansworn captain and stepped to side so that line between himself and Art’imis was clear again. “He would have been fine without your interference.”

“If by fine you mean dead, than yes he would have been.” Art’imis snapped back. “You manipulated a child into seeking out a death cult whose standard battle strategy is to summon void sent!”

“It was merely a test of conviction, you were tested in the same way.” Solkzagyl waved a dismissive hand.

“Three moons between when you first put a blade his hand and when you abandoned him. Mylla wouldn’t have even let him spar with how little you showed him.” Rage made the Auri’s words sharp. If she’d been a dragoon Dinadan wouldn’t have been surprised to see dragonfire flicker along her skin. Her left hand hovered above the hilt of her sword on her right hip.

“Art’imis,” Haurchefant called firmly. Her head snapped around to him a hissed response half formed before her better sense checked her wrath and she snapped her jaw shut. The Fortemps knight held the younger woman’s eyes and she dropped her hand from the hilt of her sword and nodded an acknowledgment.

“Well now that some of us have thoroughly out stayed our welcome we shall be off.” Papashan said, dry as the Sangolii desert. “My apologies for the disturbance Ser Haurchefant.”

Dinadan kept his eyes on the Roegadyn as Matthaios stepped to the side leaving a space for the small paladin to join them. Solkzagyl frowned at Art’imis’ back as she turned away from him.

< He’ll provoke her, He wants the fight.> Gorebash whispered a warning.

“Art’imis,” the Roegadyn called out, “did you fight that duel in ernest?”

“No.” The Au’ra didn’t turn back to him when she spoke. The insult plain in her body language, he was not a threat to her and it was not worth the effort of turning and looking him in the face.  

“Ah, well I think I will certainly be back than. It would be a shame if the boy learned to apply himself unevenly.” The roegadyn’s weight shifted to the balls of his feet. “I’d have thought you would have learned better after what happened to the Sultana under you care.”  

Dinadan would always remember the aetheric copy of Art’imis’ shield flying towards Solkazgyl as being the first thing that happened even when nearly everyone moved at the same time. Both Jenlyns and Papashan rounded on the Roegadyn flushed with anger. Haurchefant reached out to hold back Art’imis as both he and Matthiaos pulled their lances from their backs. The Au’ra paladin ducked under the Fortemps knight’s arm and had her sword drawn and shield in place before she took her first full stride.

Solkzagyl took half a step back in preparation to catch a shield that became nothing but sparks of aether. He recovered well, but his sword had only just cleared its scabbard when Art’imis invaded his space. The keen edge of her blade slicing through the  silk and wool just under the bottom edge of his breastplate. She dragged the cut with her as she rushed by and it found flesh and blood. She was past him then, just a head of his retaliation, and into the snow fields on the other side of the gate.

Dinadan’s eyes locked on the gleam and flash of light on the edge of Art’imis’ blade and followed its arc as she turned herself back to face the gate. She brought the blade up before her almost like she was saluting an dueling partner, the light flashing and gleaming again as a snap of her wrist showed the flat of the blade and the ruby rivulets of blood that were pulled in from the edge of the blade to gather in the fuller crystal bright-  His dragon wrapped around his senses and pulled his attention away from the light playing on the blade, it was almost physically painful. <Do not be distracted!> Gorebash hissed. <That trick is not for you.>

He blinked and assessed the situation, at least half of the knights of Camp Dragonhead were unnaturally focused on the Au’ra paladin. Both Haurchefant and Matthiaos watched with thinking focus. The Silver Fuller frowned deeply his eyes darting from his people to the Free Paladins squaring up outside his gates. The Sultansworn also seemed to have resisted the aether light that still tried to pull at his focus. The old lalafel had thrown out an arm to keep Captain Jenlyns from stepping in. Solkazgyl stalked towards the smaller Paladin who kept the space between them, backing up to draw her opponent further away from the gates. The pull on Dinadan’s attention stopped abruptly and he wasn’t sure if it was distance or if Art’imis has simply stopped putting effort into whatever it was.

“Back to your posts!” Haurchefant barked at his men who were shaking off the effects as well. The Silver Fuller looked at the two dragoons who nodded and then he turned to the gate and trekked out after the dueling Paladins. The two Sultansworn feel into step with them.

The two fighters had closed the distance between them and begun to fight in earnest when the five of them got close enough to see and hear the fight clearly. Art’imis was lighter on her feet than the Roegadyn and had no hesitation about taking whatever shot was open to her, but she did not have the same mass to back up her strikes. It was unnerving watching the small woman take blows that would fell most of the Knights in the Congregation. It shouldn’t have been so disquieting, Dinadan had seen her take the full force of a dragons lashing tail on her shield and keep her feet.  But The shapes here were different here, Art’imis’ size made her look childlike in comparison to her opponent. It looked to much like a child being meanced. He picked up the pace just a bit-

“Stop!” Papashan called out with the authority of an old captain. He darted in front of their group to stop their forward motion.

“She can’t mean to-“ Jenlyns gasped and then darted forward to stop them as well.  Ahead of them Dinadan could have sworn he saw the name of the Furry tumble from the Auri’s lips as she deliberately dropped to one knee as if in prayer. White fire crashed to the ground in a solid circle. A pained and surprised shout rang out from inside the light.

When the light faded Art’imis was on her feet again. Solkzagyl’s chest heaved with pain and rage as he climbed back up from his knees. “You dare call her scorn down on me?!”

“Did you not wish to fight in earnest?” Art’imis snarled at him. “Is this not what you wanted? To face the Eikon Slayer and prove that it is you who should hold leadership among us all, Sultansworn and Free Paladin alike?”

The pair closed on each other again to focused on their wrath to pay any heed to outsiders. Captain Jenlyns grimaced everytime a blow hit home on either fighter. Haurchefant rested his hand on the hilt of his sword but had not yet drawn. Aether made the air reek with a smell like tin that was so strong Dinadan could taste it. Swords bounced and deflected off of shields that formed of aether while the blow was swinging in. His heart stopped for a beat when the Roegadyn caught Art’imis’ shield and swung it out away from her.  She let it go rather than be knocked off balance. Solkazgyl’s smirk was an ugly thing as he stepped back, mouth opened to offer a chance of surrender. Art’imis did not stop, with her right hand she gripped the blade of her sword halfway down from the hilt. She changed the grip of her left hand as she raced ahead and swung the hilt of her sword like a war hammer. The crossguard smashed into the first wound she’d laid on him. He choked on a gasp and staggered back but she kept with him plowing her shoulder into his side and taking advantage of the momentum the stager had started. The giant fell and she jumped to the side and stomped on the wrist of his sword arm. When the fingers spasmed she kicked the sword away.  She pressed the tip of her blade against the side of Solkazgyl’s throat.

She turned her head and spat blood into the snow. “Dawn Father forgive me, but you have found the absolute limit of my patience.”

The Roegadyn opened his mouth and Art’imis pressed the blade hard enough to almost break the skin. “No Solkazgyl, for once in your life you will listen. You preach endlessly about conviction and the importance of keeping oaths, but somehow you never take actual responsibility for those oaths. You throw one of the worst nights of my life in my face and dare to say that I lack conviction. Where was yours? Where were you when the Brass Blades and Crystal Braves seized the palace? Did you not swear to protect the house of Ul? Where were you when the wine was poured and I watched a sister claw at her throat trying to get air? Where were you when I was choking on the vapor of a silencing potion? Where were you when your brothers in the Sultansworn were attacked?”

Art’imis took a deep breath trying to contain her wrath. “Ever since Papashan put me on your trail I have found naught but confusion, fear, and death in your wake. Do you know how many were hurt by your damned theatrics? Do you know how many travelers fell prey to the cultists? Do you know how many knights of House Haillenarte were injured in the Sea of Clouds? You chose to let murders wander loose so that you could play your game. Did we both not swear our swords and shields in defense of innocents? Of those who could not shield themselves? So once again you are forsworn. For what? That you might teach the Sultansworn a lesson they already know far better than you?”

“Art’imis,” Haurcefant stepped closer to the woman. “You need to stand down.”  

Art’imis blinked realizing that there was a cut on Solkazgyl’s throat that was steadily trickling blood.  She sheathed her blade and crouched down so that she could snatch the winged circlet from Solkazgyl’s head and claim her prize. “Do not presume to interfere with what is mine again.”

No longer threatened by the closeness of Art’imis’ sword Solkazgyl sat up. “And you presume to claim all of Ishgard as your own?”

“Yes,” Art’imis spoke with a conviction and heat that reminded Dinadan of the white fire she’d called down. “Mine to protect, my sanctuary to maintain, my kith and kin to shield. You will not interfere with what is mine. Now leave, and do not darken my door again.”

Papashan had collected Art’imis’ shield and handed it back to her when she walked away from Solkazgyl.  The lalafel turned to the Commander of Camp Dragonhead. “Given the circumstances we would take no offense should you chose to assign guards to see us to your border without further incident.”  

“I do believe I will.” The Silver Fuller said flatly. “I trust you and Captain Jenlyns can keep your friend here until I send my men out?”

“Of course.” Papashan turned to consider Art’imis. He nodded to the circlet in her left hand. “I do believe that will look better on you. And since I rather think you bear the Fury’s favor already I will pray that your Dawn Father will take watch over your good sense.”

The free paladin flinched a little at the subtle reprimand of her loss of temper. Haurchefant rested a hand on Art’imis’ shoulder as they turned away from the Ul’dan group. The dragoons feel into step with them, closing ranks as they returned to camp dragon head.

Jenlyns watched realizing on some level he had taken for granted that Art’imis would one day return to call Ul’dah home, come back to the familiarity of training with his men between adventures or helping teach recruits at the Gladiators guild. “I did not realize how much I assumed she would return to Ul’dah once all was made right.”

Papashan glanced up when the Captain made the quiet confession.  Before looking back to the Ishgardians walking back into the safety of Camp Dragonhead. “Allegiance must run both ways to have any strength. The Warriors of Light gave Eorzea their faith and blood, the Eorzean Alliance repaid them with distrust and abandonment. If they’re needed they will come, it’s in their nature to. I do not think they’ll ever give us their trust again though.”

Silence fell until three knights wearing the colors of House Fortemps came out confirming Papashan’s words with finality.  

Notes

So I have lots of feelings about the 50-60 PLD questline, Frustration, Bafflement, and WTF mostly. So much about this line made me so mad. Among them just the straight up lack of sense the whole thing made and then the ingame admission of yea we know it’s stupid. Also the final duty was a serious let down? Like the duties with the Deaths Embrace required a lot more effort and then you get to Solkazgyl’s little tournament and he’s just not that hard a fight. Probably because the big blue jackass spends more time perfecting his dramatic entrances. Also it feels like Constaint is like stupid quick at picking up fighting skills given that the implication is that he hadn’t known Solkazgyl for that long before he “died”.    

Timeline wise I had the PLD quests done before I got to the great dravanian road trip so in my head this is all wrapped up before Alphinaud and Tataru get accused of heresy.