#there's no visual reference for what a linkpearl looks like! it can be as small as i want it to be!! >.<)

[elliewiltarwyn]

FFXIV Write 2023 | Prompt #6: Ring

not about engagement!

6. Ring (661 words)

Lily turns it over and over in her hand, rolling it between her fingers like she’s seen Thancred occasionally do with his knives. The linkpearl is much easier to trick with and much less likely to slice her open, though.

She studies it carefully, gently, repeatedly tapping her finger against its side, careful not to press any of the buttons. It would be so simple to tap in the right sequence; they’re burned into her muscle memory by now, and she’d just have to slot the linkpearl against her ear, and then… It certainly would be easier than the struggle to defeat a manifestation of deepest nihilism and despair at the edge of the universe.

…Nope, she’s still more scared of this. It’d be hilarious if it wasn’t so pathetic. Hadn’t she already promised herself she wouldn’t falter on this sort of thing anymore, too? That she wouldn’t hold back on letting the people she loved know how much she cared for them?

…Well, the first person I did that for not actually reciprocating how I felt did kind of put a damper on that. She groans and drops her head back on her pillow, letting the linkpearl fall from her fingers and bounce off her cheek, thumping on the mattress next to her. The stunned expression on Yugiri’s face, in the immediate moments after Lily had confessed her feelings for her, is an image that is going to haunt her for a long time—it already has for moons, really. She’s surprised she had been able to hold herself together enough to focus on the war with the Telophoroi… or the crisis in Garlemald, and the revival of Zodiark… or the Final Days. Truthfully, at this juncture, she’s just so incredibly grateful the empty feeling in her heart hadn’t driven her to the absolute depths…to become a blasphemy. She shudders at the thought.

…We risked so much, came dangerously close to oblivion. She herself had entered oblivion, briefly; she has very vague memories of the moment when she, along with the other Scions, gave herself up to the dynamis in Ultima Thule, so that her best friend in the whole universe could walk unto the end. But she knows it was a sensation she never wants to feel again.

And that this emptiness in her heart is disturbingly close to it.

They’re safe now; the song of despair is over. They’re all free to live how they want now.

So, she thinks to herself, what do you want for yourself in the aftermath of the Final Days, when we finally have the leeway to be who we are; when oblivion is finally in the rear view, and you and everyone you love are triumphantly forging ahead to a peaceful tomorrow…

Lily sighs, curls her fingers around the linkpearl. Takes a deep breath. Lifts it, slots it against her outer ear. Even if this goes wrong, she thinks determinedly, ‘tis better than oblivion. And she punches in the sequence of buttons, and she waits.

The linkpearl rings once. Rings twice. Rings three times.

She lets go of the breath, which she hadn’t realized she had been holding, when a flurry of noise comes from the other side… and then the deep alto she’s been yearning to hear once more, ever since they went their separate ways from the Mor Dhona aetheryte. The voice of her best friend in the whole world. “Hello?”

Lily smiles, and a tear rolls down the side of her head. “H-hi, Ellie. It’s Lily.”

“I—oh! Lily, oh, gods, hi! I—wow, that’s crazy—I was literally just thinking about you.”

Her heart flutters like a butterfly. “What? Really?”

“Swear to the Twelve. It’s just…been a while. I miss you.”

Lily chokes back a happy sob at the words, her heart warming her from the inside out, and she lets the positivity and her hopes bubble to the surface. “...I miss you too, Ellie. Do you…do you wanna get some coffee?”