#yok tural

[rivenroad]

Concept art for Dawntrail so far!

[hrms-t]

[demita-ffxiv]

Tetsuro Photography is once again open for business. Hope everyone is enjoying Dawntrail while Yarita slowly makes his way through the story and areas taking in the scenery.

[mythriteshah]

Pg. 32: Himlamb Sidewinder's Venom

With the new age of adventure in full effect, the great western voyage to the New World constituted the arrival of new combat disciplines for adventurers and citizenry alike to adopt and master! By popular demand, the Higuri Regalia has amended their most prized clothing line to include these new jobs, with Viper taking the helm!

Adequately dubbing the set as "Himlamb Sidewinder's Venom", this frigid take on the traditional Viper habiliments is sleek and light in design, providing ample protection in vital areas without hindering the movement of the agile beast-hunting job. The large overcoat is secured by bands made from an alloy of silver and mythril, and splits into two wide tails bearing the appearance of fangs dripping with poison. Snakeskin-patterned boots are further protected by icicle-like protrusions which form shinguards, and the white leather vest is adorned with blue lines resembling veins.

The ensemble is further augment by teardrop-shaped studs trailing down the sleeves and decorating the pauldrons, giving off an image of venomous proportions

Resonating with the wearer's aether, this armor set provides the Viper with additional enhancements when weaving through the battlefield with their serpentine movements. Slithering to a target leaves behind a frozen afterimage as though molting from an old body, and Reawakening gives the user a periwinkle-and-lavender aura, bringing the powers of frost and poison together in a sinister embrace.

The twinfangs have been dubbed "Shenyue Dao" - which is Doman for "Icemoon Fangs". The design of these blades was directed by the Valide Sultan, who took inspiration from Far Eastern polearm users and decided to put a spin on the Nagxian weapon known as the Ngao. Made of pure Himvat Mythril, these curved twinfangs are bound to leave a statement whether in the dual-wielding stance of the same name, or in Viper stance, which forms the two blades into a double voulge. The blades' irradiance intensifies as the wielder gains Serpent's Coils, and when utilizing Uncoiled Wrath, the Shenyue Dao give off the dazzling spectacle of a massive snowflake-like blade shredding through the Viper's foes.

Hunting the tural vidraal can now be done in arctic style, as the Himlamb Sidewinder's Venom takes to the field, leaving a wake of gelid poison amidst an unrelenting dance of blades. Don this gear set and bring glory and pride to your hunter forebears while showing them the next generation of Power and Beauty!

[sightseeinglog]

[pretzelbringer]

Tasting Tural #4: Big Food, Big Mood

all the food is so BIG here in worlor's echo! all the yok huy came back from their naps and there was a big feast! fat cat had big bread, big corn, big jerky, and then (youre not gonna believe this), THE warrior of light handed out the yummiest fruit EVER! fat cat is in heaven!

[impossible-rat-babies]

okay gamers I think we’re back in the pits bc I fell asleep putting together a DT timeline for eyrie and estinien

[tallbluelady]

*chinhands* Sooo, we know that Rowan comes to Tural with Urianger and Thancred, but does she takes an active part in their plans or is she there to simply observe and enjoy her honeymoon? How does she get along with Koana and what does she think about the entire succession thing? >:3

Thinking about it, I don't know if she's super active in Koana's journey in the Rite of Succession - she wasn't directly asked to. Thancred had to say, "Hey, Urianger got married recently, is it cool if his wife comes with us for this?" and Koana would probably be chill enough with it even without the context that she's a Warrior of Light. Rowan will offer advise if asked for it, but Koana seems rather independent overall. Honestly, her most pointed question to him is to ask him what country he seeks to lead when he talks about Sharlyan. She does go "neener neener" to Wuk Lamat's group with Thancred during Ihuykatumu, but that's about as competitive as she'll get. She's here to help Urianger and Thancred fulfill their contract to Koana and take in the sights.

As far as liking Koana, Rowan goes from neutral and occasionally exasperated to very proud of him after watching his arc through the Rite of Succession. She was extremely glad that Wuk Lamat asked him to rule along side her, because she did see that he does care for his country and would help patch the holes Wuk Lamat has herself.

She actually gets a bit jealous of Khaliun for having gone with Wuk Lamat, as she actually takes the time to learn about the other civilizations! I figure that there's some paperwork for Urianger and Thancred to do once their contract with Koana is up, so Rowan joins Khaliun and Erenville to Shaaloani to have a little adventure and meet up with them later in Xak Tural. She knows exactly where they are when the Dome appears, and I'll have to make up what exactly it is they are doing if Squenix doesn't provide any information for us. But basically Rowan and Khaliun are Co-WoL'ing it for the second half of Dawntrail.

Thanks for the ask!

[windupaidoneus]

i also thought about. emet showing up in living memory while hilde would be walking around helping people & such, & the one to walk up to them being ere.nville who doesnt really know anything abt him or anything. but emet hasnt changed his appearance yet so its possible ere.nville has seen depictions of him during his time in sharlayan who knows. either way hes a random Living Person in living memory who hilde clearly knows... & its complicated to explain. but i think itd be interesting to have them talk. they have very little in common but emet Knows a lot so i feel like they could talk about animals as much as emet probably winces a bit abt it bc well his experience with creatures in big detail... looks at elpis. looks away. ultimately itd be fun to have him keep the secret that emets alive too. hes not even involved. but it means he & hilde can bond moreeee bc hes putting a big amount of trust in him there

[illicit-centipede]

Everyone in Yok/Xak Tural:

[siderealcity]

More Dawntrail narrative thoughts, this time about the Golden City. Spoilers below.

There are several layers to the Golden City as a plot device in Dawntrail, and I think they're interesting enough to just unpack them all and look at them.

The first time we hear the term, it's from Hades in Endwalker:

"Tell me, have you been to the ruins beneath the waters of the Bounty? Or the treasure islands beyond the frozen waters of Blindfrost, in Othard's north? The fabled golden cities of the New World? The sacred sites of the forgotten people of the south sea isles?"

It's telling that he groups that with the sacred sites of the south sea isles. The plot later tells us that they are explicitly connected to one another, but why does it call them "citiies," plural? Where's the other one, Hades?

(Also, we haven't yet been to the treasure islands in the north, but every one of those locations in the quote above has to do with cross-rift travel. Every. One. So, that may be something we see again later.)

But apart from their lore and plot significance (and potential foreshadowing), the Golden City is, from the first time we hear of it, a lure. Bait, dangled before an explorer, enticing them to go onward. It is, for lack of a better word, a promise of things to come. In the specific case in Endwalker, it's a promise that your story isn't over yet, there's still more to come. Even though you are, at that moment, standing in front of the amassed dead of countless worlds. Death is not the end, it's the beginning of new life.

The second time we hear the term, it's from Wuk Lamat. Who is, again, using it to entice us to join her. We don't know at that point that her actual title is, in fact, Promise. And that is significant.

It is, likewise, the bait for Krile's involvement in the story. The thing she knew her grandfather had been asked to study, the secret he'd kept out of the records of the Students, the promise of a connection. To the past, to someone she loved who is now gone.

But then there's the Rite of Succession. And it changes the meaning of the plot device entirely.

The Rite is structured to follow the Tulliyolal saga--the journey Gulool Ja Ja undertook, over the course of who knows how many years, to unify the peoples of Tural into a single nation. A journey which notably has nothing to do with the Golden City. To the Turali, it's a fairy tale. It is so detached from the story of Gulool Ja Ja that Koana immediately has to ask if the city being the final goal means his father actually has some proof it exists.

The Rite itself, as Gulool Ja Ja later admits to us, is meant to be instructional for his children. They are not meant to simply find and cross the finish line, they're supposed to be learning how to be the rulers of Tural.

As we complete feats in the rite, we are awarded stories of the Golden City by each of the races in Yok Tural. And they all follow a significant pattern: The Golden City was the literal dream of the Yok Huy. The conquerers of every single people in southern Tural. The stories we are given are the stories shared by colonized people of their oppressors.

The conquest of Yok Tural is mentioned repeatedly. Every group we meet was displaced and enslaved by the giants during their empire, and the ultimate goal of that empire was to find the Golden City--a paradise of eternal life without pain or suffering. It is at this point that the Golden City becomes a warning. It is the promise of self-destruction. Searching for it ultimately toppled the Yok Huy empire and changed the giants forever. It displaced and disrupted numerous cultures and started centuries of war.

It is, ultimately, the reason why Gulool Ja Ja ever had to play the role of peacemaker and unifier in the first place. The divide-and-conquer tactics employed by the Yok Huy created every problem he set out to solve.

Why did he choose to make it the final goal of the Rite of Succession? A place he famously did not find before becoming Dawnservant? Was it, perhaps, as a lesson to his children, his Promises? Especially his son Zoraal Ja who had dreams of empire?

But interestingly, the Golden City was also set forth as the specific goal for Erenville to find by his mother. Cahciua wasn't present in the flashbacks to Galuf and Gulool Ja Ja and Kettenram viewing the gate, but we know that she met them afterward, and had Erenville with her. Was she with them the first time they'd found the gate? I have to think she was. The only people who seem to have known for sure about it, among Gulool Ja Ja's circle of friends and allies, were the explorers. The ones who would have been interested in searching for it purely for the joy of discovery.

I think it's safe to say that for Cahciua, at least at the time that she gives her son his quest, the Golden City is the Almost Impossible Dream. One that can, in fact, be found, but crucially, not alone. The Yok Huy, who searched for it for generations, and crushed everyone around them trying to get inside, had it in their possession all along. But they never even saw the gate. It took Gulool Ja Ja, who had friends to help him, who actually discovered the way in. It is the promise of discovery through love and fellowship, for her only son who was withdrawn and antisocial.

And then we actually find it.

It is not an accident that the way to reach the Golden City is through a cenotaph of lost hope. We literally pass through waters littered with the bodies of children who were never born--promises never fulfilled--to get to its gate.

And it's eating the Yok Huy ruin. The electrope spreads out from the gate like an infection, over-writing the Yok Huy stonework, erasing their culture.

And it's still... oddly beautiful? But in the way a poisonous mushroom is beautiful.

And it's closed. We don't go through it at this point, though we walk right up to the seal on the doorway. Because we're alive.

We're told by Erenville that many people have sought the Golden City, never to return. And of course they didn't.

Because this is the gateway to death.

Zoraal Ja is the first person we actually see go through it. The False Promise. Just to reinforce that this is, in fact, Zoraal Ja's role, Sareel Ja leads him to the gate and hands him the key with a speech that is wholly constructed of the same false platitudes about Zoraal Ja's magical birthright that have driven Zoraal Ja to be this self-destructive and miserable in the first place. And we can see how much the speech upsets Zoraal Ja, who just lost the contest to both his siblings. He knows every word of his inherent greatness and destiny is a lie. Sareel Ja hands him the key, and he grips it like it might be a bludgeon without even looking at it. And the second time Sareel Ja makes a "Resilient Son" speech, Zoraal Ja literally stabs him in the back.

Having skipped all the lessons and warnings about the danger of pursuing death and destruction, Zoraal Ja walks through its front door.

And I don't think it's accidental that the dome appears in Xak Tural, even though the gate itself is located in Yak T'el, far to the south. Xak Tural is the land that defeated the Yok Huy advance without a single battle. The unconquerable land. This is the part of Tulliyolal that Gulool Ja Ja didn't have to fix because it was never broken in the first place. They very notably do not live in the segregated societies the people of the south do, because nobody imposed that on them. The towns we see are a mix of races living together, and probably served as the inspiration for Gulool Ja Ja to build Tulliyolal in the first place, differing people pursuing communal and sometimes conflicting interests together. These are the people Zoraal Ja has been rambling about nonsensically, "teaching the value of peace by the misery of war." The ones who don't need Tulliyolal, but merely want to be part of it.

He can make his mark here because his father never did.

When the dome appears over Yyasulani, we, the players, know it's Zoraal Ja's passage through the gate that caused it, but the characters don't learn this until after he's brutally slaughtered people. We players see the sequence of events as: Zoraal Ja, the Promise of Death, walks into the land of death and carries it out with him. But the characters are instead following the trail of death back to the land of the dead. We don't enter Alexandria through the Golden City. Not at first. We enter it through a swathe of destruction and desolation and a storm that never ends. That's our first view of it. The promise of ruin. We do not see the paradise that led the Yok Huy to their doom until after we know that Sphene, like the Yok Huy, is willing to lay waste to the lives around her to have her Golden City.

And then we have the vision.

I don't think it's an accident that the only people who have ever seen anything come out of the gate to the Golden City are the Warrior of Light, Gulool Ja Ja, Kettenram, Galuf, and indirectly Cahciua. All characters who inherently understand that life comes from death and the balance between them is vital. And it's symbolically significant that it's a child who is delivered from the land of the dead. Her parents don't come with her. The dead don't get to return, we get new life instead.

And then we go there. And it looks like Amaurot.

We call it Living Memory, but the resemblance to Amaurot, and the knowledge of what's actually here means that we immediately understand the lie. The Golden City, the cloud, the twelfth level of Everkeep, all of it has always been a false promise. Zoraal Ja, the False Promise, walked into the land of False Promises and became its king.

And Sphene, the Queen of False Promises, has always had the impossible task of keeping the dead alive.

As we make our way through Living Memory, it's notable that what we actually do is remove the beautiful, golden veneer from the land of the dead. The city is still there when we're done with it. We walk back outside through its gate. We do not have the power to remove death any more than we could destroy despair. But we take the lie out of it, we free the stolen life force to become life again. It's now just dead. No more promises of paradise or ruin to fulfill.

[autumnslance]

I really appreciate Gulool Ja Ja as a ruler, a father, and a hero in his own right. There were concerns about why the Scions, as outsiders, would be participating in a contest of succession, and everything we learn about Gulool Ja Ja's younger years, and his reasons for the Rite of Succession, neatly addresses that.

As a much younger man, Dad^2 traveled the lands of Tural with his own diverse group of comrades, from all races and walks of life. From Kettenramm as the foreigner, to Cahciua the long-lived Shetona wilderness expert, to Pelupelu and Yok Huy, to Hanu and Xbraal; especially given the animosity between some of those clans at that time.

And along the way, Gulool Ja Ja learned how much stronger they were together. Alone he is a formidable champion, but even Blessed Siblings can't do it all. He also learned about the diverse peoples and cultures of his homeland. It's not so far off from the Warrior of Light's journey; traveling with competent heroic companions as we adventured through the 3 Continents and lands beyond them for so long, loving people and places we found along the way.

But Gulool Ja Ja also became Dawnservant, and now as his years catch up to him, a new ruler must be found. And it's in the conversation after dueling the WoL that he bluntly states his reasoning, speaking to them as a peer:

Even this early in the contest, you must have realized…As potential rulers, all four claimants are lacking. This is why I elected to hold the rite of succession─not to choose a fitting candidate, but to cultivate one. And if no one has impressed me by the end of it, then to no one will I yield my throne. As a parent, I pray that my children rise to the occasion…With outsiders dragged into my game, I am also hopeful that the different perspectives you and your companions have to offer will inspire them to grow. I imagine you in particular have traveled many lands. Known many peoples and cultures─loved them and been loved in turn. Guide Lamaty'i as you think best. Walk at her side and, when needed, push her to walk ahead. Watch over her, champion. Koana's recruits are no less sharp─as one might expect of Galuf's countrymen. They saw the flaws in our claimants from the outset. The other two, though… They dismiss comrades willing to point out their shortcomings, and no good can come of it…

Emphasis mine.

We see this too, in the interludes to Team Second Promise, as Thancred and Urianger turn on their own Dad Skills and gently guide Koana toward his own realization: that innovation is all well and good, but so is taking into account the traditions and needs of his people. As he watches his sister's growth, and how the people love and trust her to respect their ways of life, to help them because it's the right thing to do.

And Wuk Lamat learns and grows, gaining confidence, learning when to rely on her comrades, how and when to face a challenge on her own. The Wuk Lamat after level 96 is a different woman than the girl we met in Sharlayan. She's not done growing and learning, not in so short a time, but the cultivation Gulool Ja Ja put in place succeeds in her and Koana--because they are willing to learn, and listen, and love.

The other two claimants, as Dad^2 noted, don't understand the reasons for the Rite, for the methods the electors choose, or what the Dawnservant is looking for. And they refuse to entertain perspectives that would attempt to point that out, surrounded by sycophants and cronies.

Bakool Ja Ja doesn't learn the same lessons, though he comes around; he was never shown kindness and understanding, never asked what HE wanted, until Wuk Lamat demands he say it out loud. His growth is a surprising one, and along a trajectory he could never have imagined.

And Zarool Ja...his arc is a negative one, and a tragedy of his own making. He works as an antagonist because his fall is entirely avoidable, but utterly inevitable. It didn't have to be this way, yet there's no other way it could go. He internalized all the pressure and potential, all the comparisons, until it ate him alive.

This is a story about the complicated politics and demands of leading countries, of there being no easy answer to peace even when you wish there was. But it's more a story about family, and legacy, and honoring the past while striving to build a better future.

The Warrior of Light sees their own story reflected in Gulool Ja Ja's history, and in the shaping of Wuk Lamat. To fulfill their love of adventure and exploration, but from a new perspective. And taking all that experience and skill and applying it in a slightly different way, though perhaps not so different from some previous side and job quests where we help others and introduce them to friends so they can continue to grow and help themselves after WoL's moved on.

Hydaelyn's brave little spark has long been a beacon of hope for others to follow. As inheritor to the Shepherd of the Stars, the WoL takes steps toward shaping their legacy, still an active participant, but also seeing how those other stars might shine, and like Gulool Ja Ja, finding that some of those stars need a nudge to find their own glowing potential.

[hrms-t]

[aotopmha]

In celebration of spoiler embargo lifting I want to talk about probably my favourite dungeon in Dawntrail so far and how it examplifies the shift in dungeon design while also being really cool narratively.

This dungeon is Tender Valley.

First, I think this might be one of the few dungeons in the game I absolutely love all of the bosses from on a gameplay level.

Barreltender flexing between attacks is super fun, but almost all of his attacks being broadening AoE effects makes him a really fun dance. You have just enough time to react to them.

I think the exploding cactusses are the hardest to dodge because the safe spot is so specific and fairly small, but you never have too much downtime and always have to pay attention somewhat.

It's a great example of bosses being more engaging, rather than necessarily "harder" and I think a great fresh take on a classic Final Fantasy enemy.

Anthracite, on the other hand, has a really interesting dance that you need to read your environment for solving.

There are the obvious big AoE bombs, but there are also two different shapes of holes that lead to the labyrithine sewer system.

If a bomb falls into the round opening on one side, the attack will go through the round openings on one side of the arena.

If the bomb falls into the square hole on the other side, the attack will go through the square holes you can see on the other side of the arena.

It took me a bit to figure out there were two different shapes, but combining this with the base AoE can make for a little more involved dance, since, once again, you can't sit still for long.

This boss is a great example of also testing your environmental awareness in a little more of an inventive way than maybe some other encounters.

As you move towards the third boss, the environment changes and enemies styled after the Skydeep Cenote.

Or are they?

And then there's an interesting mob situation where you enter a room, which the mob essentially uses to attack with lasers while you have to use the walls in the room to dodge them.

But just like with Skydeep Cenote, the reference point is now pretty obvious.

This is strangely similar to some of the mobs and contraptions in Qitana Ravel.

And who else is the final boss, but the Greatest Serpent of Ron-Tural!

Yes, Tural!

I has such a grin on my face when I saw it.

It's a great punchline if you've done at least even the starting part of the questline in Rak'tika with Quinfort and his dreams suddenly fit perfectly within lore. He just had dreams of The Source.

It's like a perfect capstone to that questline.

I suspected the Ronkan connection the moment I saw Y'Shtola with those tablets in the trailer, but considering the Ronkan principles of "history being learned, not remembered" and in turn their similarity of the Yok Huy's principles of "we die when we are forgotten", it all falls into place in a great way.

Very smooth ties here. Now that we have this setup all nicely established, I wonder what else they plan to do with it.

It's "minor" enough on its own that it can just stay as a fun bit to further confirm Source/Shard connections, but I feel like Ronkans and the Yok Huy just might have some more important lore stuff coming.

We have the Shard travel plot line with Unukalhai and Cyella and the 13th and Ryne and Gaia also still truly looking to restore the First.

I'm curious if Rak'tika might just become extremely important regarding these plots now since we have this clear connection.

But this also is an optional dungeon.

We'll see.

To finish off talking about the dungeon itself, though, The Greatest Serpent of Ron-, I mean Tural, combines the two aspects of engagement of the previous two bosses.

You have the reactive aspects with reading the Bouncy Council (great name) and the various AoEs and the environmental aspect with Greatest Labyrith, where you have to find the correct path of arrows out of the maze.

I think there are varying solutions for the maze, but I'm not entirely sure. It's another great call back to Rak'tika, though.

I enjoyed the puzzle solo duties a bunch and I still think they're some of the more cool and unique ones from the game.

It's a very specific kind of "great" to me.

Some are really great at specifically gameplay/story integration (Amaurot, Dead Ends), some have really great set pieces/bosses (Matoya's Relict, Bardam's Mettle) and some just combine some really cool important "side" lore elements with great bosses (The Twinning).

Tender Valley feels like a Twinning moment to me where technically it is all "side" stuff, but not really because it is still connected to pretty important big picture stuff.

I'm curious what they'll do with it. And honestly okay with the answer is "nothing much", but I also don't buy it wouldn't have more importance in some way.

[wildheart-ffxiv]

Xeelja Chan

ABOUT:

• Name: Xeelja (Shee-Lah) Chan

• Age: 28 years

• Race: Hrothgar

• Pronouns: She/Her

• Sexuality: Straight

• Birthplace: Yok Tural, Tuliyollal

• Profession: Healer

TRAITS:

Appearance: Fur as white as snow, it's interesting to see one around in a tropical home. Golden eyes that shine with mischief, surrounded by wild hair styled in the way her best friend Lamaty'i loves. Small for her kind, yet just as wild as those with a heart for adventures.

A kind soul to those young and old, taking pride in her work as the healer for the royal family. Devoted to her friends and secret lover "The Resilient Son," Zoraal Ja.

OOC:

Hi everyone!

Who I Am

• Beginner writer and RPer. Some small experiences here and there.

• Seeking mature, adventure, dark fantasy/romance, and more

• Known to not really post daily, but I am working on it

• Lover of those who are a bit crazy (they are the best to write)

What I Seek

• All RPers welcome. MUST be 21+

• Discord RP will be the main. GPOSE RP pics are a plus

• Must respect boundaries and time. I do work and can be tired some days.

• OOC chat is very much encouraged! Let's be friends

[dragons-bones]

FFXIV Write Entry #13: A Sky Full of Stars

Prompt: butte || Master Post || On AO3 (coming in October)

A/N: Spoilers for Dawntrail, mostly for the existence of a certain character.

---

Wuk Lamat hauled herself over the lip of the cliff with only a small grunt of exertion. “And here’s the top!” she said cheerfully, shrugging her pack off and setting it down.

“I thought you’d gotten lost,” Erenville drawled from his spot next to a cheerfully crackling campfire.

She turned up her nose and sniffed haughtily. “I had a passenger, and couldn’t go rushing up a sheer cliff at breakneck speed,” she said, and looked down. “How did you like the ascent?”

“It was fun, Lamaty’i!” Gulool Ja said, reaching up once she finished unclipping him from the inner cache of her pack he had been sitting in for the climb. (Erenville had sewn the sturdy leather clips in himself as well as made the matching harness, which was the only reason she hadn’t had a heart attack the many times she’d felt her nephew stick his neck out as far as he could to get a better look at the drop below them.) Wuk Lamat obediently hoisted him up and out, because she was, as Rereha had put it, completely whipped. Gulool Ja beamed up at her and added, “I can’t wait to be able to do it myself!”

“It won’t be too long, now!” Wuk Lamat said with a grin. “And better than the ascent: the view!”

She gestured broadly with her arms, and Gulool Ja took his first look at Shaaloani from the top of one of the buttes that dotted the landscape.

“Woah…”

Wuk Lamat would admit to a bias for Tuliyollal, of course, and the magnificence of the many environs of Yok Tural, but the arid beauty of Shaaloani stole her breath on occasion. They were far enough north that the twinkles of the Sheshenewezi Springs aetheryte to the southwest Mehwahhetsoan one to the east were just barely visible on the horizon lines. Faint blue smoke from the ceruleum fields caught the reflected light of the setting sun, but otherwise the view was nature in all her glory: the flat, dusty earth, stretching far, far out into forever to meet the sky; the hardy scrubs and cacti breaking up the monotony with their vibrant greens and rounded lines; the slow, shadowed movement of a rroneek herd settling down for the night, the cows protectively circling their calves as the bulls took watch; the distant form of a wheeling eagle, riding the sunset thermals.

Leagues and leagues and leagues of nothing save the stark wonder of the world, raw and untamed, with the setting sun setting sky and land alike afire with reds and oranges and pinks and golds.

Gulool Ja stared and stared and stared, and Wuk Lamat gently patted him on the shoulder before going to help Erenville with dinner. And this wasn’t even the best of it!

Erenville flashed one of his rare grins at her as she plopped down next to the fire. “You did tell him,” he said.

“I did!” Wuk Lamat said, taking out a small cast iron pan from her pack and a stack of tortillas she’d made back at the palace. She set the pan on the edge of the fire and waited impatiently to be able to reheat the tortillas. She was hungry. “But there’s telling and then there’s seeing!”

Erenville actually chuckled. “True enough,” he said, tending the pot in which he was cooking the rroneek filling for their taco dinner. “How many of the old stories do you intend to tell him tonight?”

“As many as I can before he can’t stay awake any longer!”

It was as they finished the preparations for dinner that the stars began coming out.

The blanket of night had crept in steadily from the east, but the brilliance of the sun had kept night’s attendants hidden until only a faint pink line in the west remained. The north star appeared first, of course, the guide to all her siblings. Then a few more. And another. And another. Slowly, at first, and then faster, and faster, until the night could barely be called dark with the density of stars overhead, white and gold and even some blue and red, and the magnificence of Valigarmanda’s Wake wheeled in the heavens.

Gulool Ja had come to sit next to Wuk Lamat, and he stared upward, mouth agape, tacos forgotten. “I didn’t know there were so many,” he whispered, awe infusing every word. “Alexandria doesn’t even have any stories about stars.”

Sorrow suffused Wuk Lamat then, both for her nephew and the people of Alexandria. To not even have stories to remember that once stars had existed for them… How awful!

“Well, then, Gulool Ja, here is your first story,” Erenville said, and pointed towards the north star. “That is the north star. Here in the northern part of the world, it will always lead you true. In Eorzea, they call it the Navigator’s Jewel. In Tuliyollal, they call it the Serpent’s Eye.”

“It’s said, many long, long millennia ago,” Wuk Lamat said, picking up the thread, “when Valigarmanda was new to his great power, he fought for ten nights and ten days with a great queen of the Xbr’aal. The queen won, eventually, but at great expense to her people and kingdom, but Valigarmanda had been subdued—for a time.”

“The queen claimed Valigarmanda’s eyes,” Erenville said. Wuk Lamat took the opportunity to drop a dollop of salsa onto her current taco and pop into her mouth. Her friend continued, “The great serpent would of course grow them back; he was Valigarmanda, and no mere battle wound would overcome his strength and magic. But the Xbr’aal queen would take a trophy, and with her own magic, she set one great eye into the northern sky, and one into the southern, so that no matter where they were, the peoples of the land would always have a guide by which to steer them home.”

Gulool Ja stared with wide eyes at them both, idly remembering to nibble on his food. “Does every star have a story?” he said.

“Just about!” Wuk Lamat said with a grin and a wink. “Pick one, and we’ll tell you.”

Gulool Ja took a moment to think, casting his gaze about the heavens, before pointing out a pink one just south of the Serpent’s Eye. “That one.”

“Ahhh, the Lady,” Wuk Lamat said. This one was a favorite of hers! “This is what my mama told me about her…”