#starting with ysayle and mide

[morocosmos]

FFXIVWrite 2024 Day 11 - Surrogate

Masterlist Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV Characters/Pairings: Leofard Myste & Warrior of Light Rating: Teen & Up Additional Notes: Takes place at during HW patch 3.5. Major spoilers for the Shadow of Mhach alliance raid questline. Ao3 Link

Lady Raimille. The picture painted by Stacia's tale was everything an orphaned child could want from a parent. Everything except that she'd passed on too soon — but not before giving her foster son one last gift.

The noblewoman’s real portrait hung above them, enshrined in Leofard’s quarters. Presiding over his affairs and his family; watching over the man himself. Moro'a knew that paintings like this cost a considerable sum to commission, and that taking care of them required specific knowledge and attention; unexpected obligations for a sky pirate. 

But the painting gleamed, immaculately free of blemishes. “I had wondered as to the origin of his vessel's naming,” Cait Sith said softly, his voice touched with emotion. “‘Tis a most beautiful painting.”

Moro’a’s time in Ishgard had also taught him that portraits like this one were made to memorialise — a likeness captured in brushstrokes, preserved from time. Remember me as I was, in this moment. Remember what this person means to us. Situated where their loved ones could gaze upon them, and never forget.

I doubt I'll ever feel worthy to sit where he sat.

Throughout their adventures, Leofard had pretended as though the portrait wasn’t there, and it was all Moro’a had needed to know not to bring it up. He’d accepted it without judgement, without ever considering otherwise. What was he here for, if not to hide from ghosts and broken hearts; from memory?

But now that Stacia had told them what Leofard would never impart himself, the pieces that made up the leader of the Redbills had finally begun to click: why a man who prized freedom so highly would build his new home a stone's throw from the Holy See, and why the loss of his airship had made Leofard retreat into himself, like a creature seeking familiar refuge. 

It seems she kept him safe until the very end, Utata had said, and Moro’a’s heart had clenched so tight that he thought it might shatter.

It wasn’t any of his business. The voidsent had been stopped, and Cait Sith had found a new home. His time with the Redbills was coming to a close. It’d been an engaging distraction, which was precisely what Moro’a had needed; there were no stones left to overturn, no more accidental revelations to be had. He would go his separate way, into the unknown, and then…

Later, as he was stowing the few essentials he’d brought into the manacutter, Moro’a heard footsteps approaching. He turned to see Leofard, who was already dressed in a clean set of clothes and red-tinted goggles. “I almost forgot,” the sky pirate said, as breezy as could be now as he held something out in his hand. A Redbill scarf.

“You didn’t have to,” Moro’a murmured, feeling a strange mixture of reluctance and guilt. 

“And I say otherwise, Warrior. I reckon you’ve done more than you’ll ever need to to have earned this.” His hand stretched closer, and Moro’a considered refusing. He was ready to quit this place, to move on. I’m not who you think I am, he wanted to say. 

Instead he found himself reaching out for the scarf, and tucking it in with the rest of his things.

If, after he'd said his farewells, his hand reached under the collar of his shirt to gently hold the necklace that rested against his chest, to remember, he was the only one who needed to know.

[sundered-soul]

[ TOGETHER ]:  when the receiver awakens, they discover that the sender has been sleeping next to them, arms wrapped around one another for warmth, comfort, protection (for themis/astra hehe :3c)

She watches him turn around and bear his shield, protecting her from an attack that would have killed her. Relief doesn’t last—it never does, does it? His shield breaks and so too does a part of her when he hits the ground and never gets up again. When she’s forced to take his hand and smile, though, she’s screaming on the inside.

Another, someone else this time, but nobody less than the one before. Forced to watch the figure fall from the skies, believing in her—in what she’s doing and by doing what she can. She wears her belief, dons the mantle of Saint Shiva, but falls from grace as Ysayle, where ice turns to crystal and from crystal to dust. She’s left asking herself why and what to do with this mounting anger that beats in her chest in place of a heart.

Moenbryda makes peace. Mide joins her lost love in a final farewell. Papalymo follows the footsteps of his master.

Ardbert begs her to understand.

There are other faces, too many, and she doesn’t want to count them all—or even say their names aloud. Their deaths weigh heavy and she is sinking in the darkest depths of her heart as the despair pulls her deeper.

Down.

Down.

Down.

There is no end. Her grief is bottomless and so is the self-loathing and hatred born of her failure and their death. She is no hero, no warrior—she is a stranger, a person without a name and no background. Given a mantle and a role because nobody else wants to bear the burden, so why not this person who has nothing and therefore nothing to lose? No memory, no one looking for her—a sacrifice to the greater good.

The grief pulls her into the depths, but it is not dark. Rather, it’s blinding white, pulsing, alive, corrupting and consuming. It burns fire in her veins and ignites her soul. Turns it into the star everyone says she is, but turns a blind eye to as it burns her from the inside out. It burns. It burns.

It burns.

All at once she wakes up with a start, sitting up abruptly as the light within her claws its way up her throat. She gags, chokes on liquid light and feels it pool out of her mouth instead of blood. The aether in her veins is on fire and every nerve on the inside that can still feel is screaming for relief. To relinquish what feeling she has left and drown in a life without pains or pleasure. The weapon they all want her to be. Weapon of Light; Monster of Light. Unfeeling, unflinching. Un—

“Breathe.”

The aether raging inside of her, begging to be free, subsides like waves to the tide. Crashing into her at first, begging for release before pulling back out to sea gently. Her hands tremble as she stares down at the blinding, bright light splattered over her hands, dripping down her chin.

“Astra.” He says her name with such familiarity that he might as well be another ghost to line the rest that haunts her every step. When his hand, gentle as it's always been, tilts her head to him, she doesn’t resist.

He looks as he always has when he first appeared before her, in the abandoned ruins of Dravania’s Hinterlands. His brows are worried together and his hands come up to her face to cradle it. She tenses and doesn’t miss the way his lips twitch in a bitter, melancholic smile as his thumbs stroke across her cheeks. She didn’t realize she was crying, and if the tears dripping down her face, look a little like liquid gold, neither of them acknowledge it; they could pretend she wasn’t a monster—a sin eater.

Lightwarden. Her mind hisses.

The aether inside of her cracks again, a pain she’s never known and robs her of the ability to scream, letting out only a quiet gasp.

“Focus on me. You’ll be fine.” He soothes.

She knows she won’t, but nods along, anyway. Lets him wipe away the tears and when the aether around them shifts, the clothes she threw light up on are replaced with something new and there’s a warm, wet rag in his hand to wipe away the remains of it on her face. She flinches from his hand and doesn’t see the way he clenches the rag tighter.

There were so many questions lying on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't open her mouth to voice them. She is standing on the edge and the conversation they need to have would thrust her off it, forever lost to the monster she was.

So she doesn’t ask, and he doesn’t elaborate. Instead, he tugs her close, pulls her into his arms and lays back down in the bed and the two of them listen to the sound of the eternal light just outside the windows. He holds her close, keeps his arm wrapped tightly around her waist as his thumb rubs circles on her hip, where her shirt rode up. His chin rests on top of her head and he watches as she struggles with what she’s becoming and her eyes flick up to his. He doesn’t smile, and she doesn’t make him. How long has it been since she stopped calling him her friend?

“Themis—”

She calls him by the name he first gave her. The name he had before the world was sundered, the name he nearly forgot.

“Don’t.” He interrupts and watches her mouth snap shut. Sees the furrow of her brows, feels the light festering inside of her and instead buries his face into her hair and pulls her closer. She fits up against him and she’s so much smaller and more frail than he recalls.

“Why?” She asks, at last.

That was always the question, wasn’t it? Why did he help her that day when they first met? Why did he keep coming back? Why did he care?

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t answer.

[keykidpilipili]

FF14 Raids Rated(ARR+HW)

1. Alexander and Cogs

The cast was endearing, villains and friends alike, Roundrox and Mide had a nice dynamic. I wish my favourite jaded explorer had moved on to adventures with her new machina-fan friend but unfortunately heterosexuality struck. Who expects freaking sentai theme??? I didn’t! Surprisingly the time travel plot points didn’t make sigh that much. The fights had fantastic music and mechanics, TANK LB TIME LADS! TANK LB TIME! 

2. Coils of Party Finder

Would have been higher on the list if I had played 1.0 and the DF queue wasn’t hell or Free Trial players could start parties in PF. The myths about Twintania synched being hard are all true my dudes, I swear I tried(but had to bail cause of dinner time). Alisae’s character development is stellar though and the twist about Louisoix as well as the CG left me speechless. Our gal mourning the dragons of Meracydia makes me wish she could have interacted with Ysayle and sincerly it moved me.

3. Not-Ireland’s Titanic

Blackbuttler had a zombie apocalypse, the Mhachi picked hot demons and that’s a choice they had to die with. Congrats on nobody dying at all or getting fridged during this story arc! FINALLY SOME HARD LORE FOR OLD CIVILISATIONS OTHER THAN ALLAGAN! Echidna’s theme was a beautiful ver of the Void Ark theme! HAUNTED FLYING SHIP! HAUNTED FLYING SHIP! Weeping City of Mhach would like to remind you are not immune to Evangelion ball of doom or accidentally falling off. Dun Scaith is a ghost town without ever housing any living beings and I wish I could go back and visit the rest of the zone like I saw people do in Puppet’s bunker or the Copied Factory. Scathach like a lot of fem bosses deserved a better outfit. Overall the raids kept me on my toes without feeling too much, the veterans were nice and patient. Leofard gets better characterization than I would have expected, like it’s not much but it’s also not bad and I would be glad if he showed up again in events or MSQ.

4. Crystal Tower

YES I ADMIT IT AS A STAND ALONE STORY I AM NOT THAT MUCH OF A FAN DESPITE LOCAL POPULAR MIQOTE DUDE! I don’t care about Nero at all and I really wish the clone subplot had more weight than simply ‘oh of course we have the same desires as our originals’. Syrcus tower has great dungeon design but World of Darkness and Labyrinth of the Ancients don’t click with me, also people get impatient quickly on Wod.