#zefraha 5.0

[sharlayandropout]

Caught

Part I

Part II here

[sharlayandropout]

Caught

Part II (Part I here)

[sharlayandropout]

Landscape

The second week.

[sharlayandropout]

Heart's Rest, Soul's Ease

wolshippy ramblings below...

I remember sitting here more than a year and a half ago now, with my mind fully in the Crystarium, on an afternoon much like the above, absolutely delirious and enraptured and aching over the idea I had of these two people and what they'd just endured.

Two people who felt so, *so* old - and both were in some ways, different ways, but not at all in others - so utterly spent and exhausted, with the inherent desolation of a purpose fulfilled hovering just at their backs, a threat unacknowledged...

And then - falling into one another, finding home. Led on by a spark of kinship, of fellow feeling and deep understanding they'd shared years before; unspoken - only half recognised, really - but profound, and unaltered for all the changes, good and bad, they'd both undergone.

Finding home, and finding themselves again even as they did so. Finding joy, and mischief, and all the nascent parts of themselves they'd buried, or never allowed to be born at all. Becoming, together.

Two people whose words to one another could not but meet with compassion and understanding, whatever their import. Who found peace, and respite, and the comforting warmth of a summer afternoon in one another.

[sharlayandropout]

Night/Knowledge

From an answer to an old wolqotd, 'When did your WoL figure out the Exarch's true identity?'

Zef suspected it was 'him' almost immediately - the question was, in what form? Was this an Ascian, who'd infiltrated the Tower and taken over G'raha's sleeping - or deceased - body? An animated doll puppeted by the Tower itself? A clone, or a descendant? Was it indeed G'raha himself, his memories gone, or altered?

During their first encounter at the garrison gates, she was too furious at this abductor of her friends to question him. Aware that she was vulnerable herself, isolated and in a strange land, she kept her counsel; suspicious, observing. She was always expecting some betrayal in the beginning, for one of her darker suppositions to prove true...but over the weeks, through their time together, she gradually stopped considering him as anyone else. Taking him simply as the Exarch, an old warrior too, in his way - someone with whom she shared a sense of quiet fellow-feeling. If she'd thought about it, she'd have realised how familiar that sensation was, and where she'd felt it before - it was her biggest clue, but she was blind to it.

She took pleasure in his company despite herself, found herself lulled into an easy companionship with the man. Taking him at face value, judging him by his deeds, she resolved that whatever his behaviour, he surely had his reasons - and who was she to judge? Irresistibly, she trusted him.

There were always moments that pulled her up, brought all her speculation back to the fore - a phrase, a gesture, and of course, those sandwiches. But this person, with all his quiet strength and sadness, loomed larger than her suspicions.

She didn't realise what that meant, until he was gone.

[sharlayandropout]

Magic: Part I

Paglth'an

Part II here

Part II here

[sharlayandropout]

Magic: Part II

Paglth'an

Part I here