#writing these two just makes me think of zenos actually being excited to return to the ultimatium so that he can show her something new

[fatedroses]

Abstraction

[dravania]

A few notes about Ahru’s adventure + reactions to some MSQ stuff, spoilers throughout the end of Endwalker. LIKE BIG SPOILERS. BIG BIG ONES. Huge, they will ruin everything. Don’t read if you haven’t finished! (or don’t care).

First, I’m not going to stop being an emotional wreck about Grani legit being Emet’s mount, not after I headcanoned and wrote this. Softly debating: did Emet create it himself, did he ‘gain’ it during his travels with Azem, or did Azem make it for him. Regardless, I’m even more emotional about it and it wasn’t like I rode any other mount ANYWAY but I sure won’t be NOW.

Second... gosh... (this is a big’un) I keep thinking about that final fight with Zenos. It was everything. I wrote this blurb that’s forever been in my drafts shortly after the end of Stormblood:

A kindred beast wrapped in war and bitter despair. A cutting pain that leaves her gasping, bleeding - alive. Human. She remembers in the struggle what it feels like to drown, to barely stay afloat, and then, against all odds, to survive. It is the bricks and mortar of who she is, reconstructed in a terrible dance for the heavens to gaze upon. As her teeth bite down on supple flesh, and blood spills down her throat, she is once more the victor. Once more, alone.

Yanno, before he came back from the dead. He was right: she was seeking something in him back then. Gosh, man, he rode the light of the stars to her - listen, Zenoswol isn’t my BIGGEST ship but I have definitely shipped it and for me, their relationship is just... very singular, no matter what angle I approach it from. They’re enemies, they crave each other, in ways neither of them quite understands and... in ways they do, certainly. She wanted to accept him, maybe in part because she wanted to accept the parts of herself she saw in him.

Throughout EW, however, there was no forgiving him. He exhausted and frustrated her to no end, and when Alisaie said her bit to him? Nailed it, exactly. I really... just adore how it all came together tbh. Him coming across the stars to help us in our hunt. One has to wonder if we’d have been able to overcome the Endsinger without him.

With it all taken care of, Ahru could, genuinely, finally look at and accept his challenge. No, she wouldn’t deny his claims, no way. She has considerable bloodlust in her and my god if I was not screaming and howling in excitement. The whole fight was phenomenal, down to the point of throwing fists, which, was just icing on the whole cake for me. Ahru started as a monk; whenever a fight gets desperate, or sometimes just on the fly or instinctively, she will go straight back into throwing her fists, it’s most natural for her.

And just... the two of them laid out. Each on the edge of death. (I’m having a field day imagining the scars she’s going to be left with, tbh. Zenos has given her more than any other, that’s for sure.) In my head, Ahru absolutely drags herself over to him, collapses her head against his transformed arm, feebly folds her fingers over his, accepting him, refusing to let him be alone in those final moments.

I won’t go into too much detail, it’s my hope I can muster up enough sense to actually write the scene out properly.

There’s just... so much Ahru is processing post-EW, as I’m sure all WoL’s will be. X’D

Also after Zenos fight, her eyes have gone back to blue. Or, rather. I can’t make them the way I WANT to. I’ve headcanoned for a while once she got a handle on Azem’s powers and had some sort of resolution with Emet, they’d return to blue from gold, but with a line of gold around the pupil which... if you’ve made it this far you fucking know is how most Ancient’s eyes look. So been freaking out gently about THAT too.

Last, for now, hoo boy. Hoo boy oh boy. I am on the RahaWoL train, I’m a mess. Like I was a absolutely a ‘casual passenger’ before but hahahahahahahahahaahahahah wow. When it’s all said in done and void tools are back I’m eventually going to try and make that meme with G’raha: “This is my girlfriend Ahru, her boyfriend Thancred, and his boyfriend Urianger.”

Ahru is going to take him to Ishgard to meet her dad Edmont, and then go on that tour of Eorzea with him absolutely. Piece by piece, building a new adventure. 😤 Anyway, I have a whole nother post about all of that for later, and this is all quite rambly and hardly even touches on everything (how could I?) but I needed to get some things OUT.