#sariel heavensborne

[sariel-heavensborne]

FFXIV Write // Tempest // (Shadowbringers Spoilers)

Aleric grunted as he finished adorning himself with the heavy mail of the Eulmoran army, sans helmet. He had done this more than once before, so why was he so nervous? The drahn boy took a glance around the armory, located in the Mainstay floor of Eulmore. Various soldiers did abound, hurriedly suiting up and taking hold of their favored weapons: halberds, swords, bardiches, crossbows, the works. Not one of them bore a countenance that wasn't grim and unnerved. How could they?

It had been over seven decades since the Flood of Light altered the course of the world forever. What was once a handful of nations within Norvrandt were now dwindled to merely two--the very last ones remaining in this dying world. Even the storied knights of Voeburt could not stay the horde of sin eaters forever. The Oracle of Light had died and reincarnated numerous times to continue killing sin eaters--an inspiration to all, yet even she with all of her power was never safe. Yet here were a group of normal young men and women resolved to take up arms against the wicked white beings nonetheless.

And they knew what they were up against, even with the Oracle and the famed General Ran'jit on their side. A massive swarm of eaters had devoured an up-and-coming settlement in northern Kholusia, and the Sinbound batalion were to put them down by the decree of Mayor Veronth. A no-doubt inevitable victory, yet there were always casualties. The Sinbound weren't given very much notice to face this coming storm, furious as the mayor was with his new settlement already harried by the sin eaters. Yet just as the waves ever crash against the rocks of Kholusia, so too would Eulmore take up arms against its hated enemy; its predators.

Sheathing a sword into its scabbard after inspecting the blade's sharpness, Aleric quickly packed a few mild-numbing potions of his own making into his specialized satchel. Naught could save someone from being even mildly stricken by a sin eater, but the pain could at least be deadened so that one can stay fighting to the last. Fully kitted up, Aleric had spotted others turning their gaze to the armory's entrance, where walked General Ran'jit into the vicinities, here to lead his battalion into battle. Not one soul questioned him in any regard, so famed and admired was he.

Minutes later, the small army exited the Glory Gate. Dozens of shipwrecks from the waves within and beyond the Tempest and the Divide yet remaining crashed against the reefs surrounding the city's Derelicts. Aleric marveled at them, as he did every time he passed. So much death and misery, now merely a fact of life. Few would be mourned, as fewer still remembered the faces of the dead or the sin eaters they turned into.

Aleric's body would not return to his home city for over a decade. When it did return, it was flying amongst a choir of winged beings, hearkening to the clarion call of a new king. The waves were calm that resplendent day. They had been for a long time.

[sariel-heavensborne]

FFXIV Write // Horizon

Sitting upon a beach of distant Tuliyollal, watching the myriad colors of the setting sun, did Sariel contemplate. Just how far had he gone? Not physically--not only, anyway--but philosophically?

He had arrived here a couple of suns prior, victim of a surge of strange lightning that had left his airship grounded along with his crew: R'das, Anam, Celica, Cota, Lia. While not terribly useful in making connections like Celica was, he was able to hold conversations. A far cry from the silent hunter of aether and flesh he once used to be.

It was a good transformation, by all accounts. Not only to himself, but to others he spoke with, who smiled at him, who called him cute or pretty. Most of all, to those who trusted him. But where would this take him? Surely he could exist like this for eternity, but would merely existing be enough for him?

These thoughts roiled in his mind as he watched dusk creep up onto the firmament. A dusk he had never known in his homeland, but a sight so benign and completely ornery here in the Source. He was a completely different person in a completely different land--did he even need to indulge in these thoughts? Perhaps not.

But prevail these thoughts did, all the same. He still bore that shimmering golden blood, those feathery wings retractable within his flesh. The inability to taste, sleep, or feel sensations like pain. Just like the cycle of the heavens was unable to move forward unto dusk in Norvrandt, was he perhaps--

Sariel literally shook away those deliberations, his fluffy white, gold-streaked locks swishing about. He had been given advice on this before, and he need only heed it. He bore the same powers he once did, but he need not use them the same way. He now bore the potential to use them for whatever means he liked. A new horizon of possibilities, just like the new land he found himself in.

Thus did he resolve to take advantage of it, to be his own person, unbeholden to only his hunger. To embrace the whole of it: his unalloyed golden light, his wings and yes, even his charms, for more mindful pursuits. Smiling softly to himself, he gave voice to his mind.

"I shall grant this world further beauty, and the gentle peace once denied to me--that I did once deny, myself. My newfound choir shall supporteth me."

The pursuit of creating art sounds nice.

[sariel-heavensborne]