mare lamentorum

#ffxivwrite2022 #ffxiv #prompt #stormblood #zenos #stelmaria #wolzenos #warning #spoilers #nsfw

warnings: dubcon, animal cruelty, sadism, obsessive behavior, violence

general: touch starved, frottage, fingers in mouths, zenos is combatsexual and i love that for him

noun

• a lightning stroke, a shaft or missile designed to be shot from a crossbow or catapult
• a wood or metal bar or rod used to fasten a door, the part of a lock that is shot or withdrawn by the key
• a metal rod or pin for fastening objects together
• a roll of cloth or wallpaper of specified length

verb

• to move suddenly or nervously, to move or proceed rapidly
• to break away from control or a set course, to dart off or away
• to secure with a bolt
• to eat hastily or without chewing

Even as a boy, Zenos yae Galvus lived for the thrill of the hunt.

To catch a vermin one must first understand its way of thinking, its desires and its fears. This understanding allows for anticipation, and anticipation for preparation. Only then can the trap be sprung.

In the frozen wastes of his native Garlemald he'd spent an infinity of bells tracking the small, nervous snow hares as they fled hither and yon, his broad shoulders hunched against the endless howling wind, following the meandering, panicked paths back to secret boltholes where he dispatched them.

He would watch in rapt silence, breathing fast, pink tongue moistening dried lips as red wetness crawled over soft, white fur, the blood in his veins thrumming to a fever pitch. He observed every twitch, memorizing the signs of impending death until the final stillness reigned. The young man meditated upon the heart's fickle flutters, its frantic headlong rush through the last of its allotted beats, as though the creature was excited to die.

Between those fleeting seconds he could understand somewhat the misguided barbarian obsession with the divine. Magnificent were the violent delights which blossomed from this sort of power. His breeches would tighten, imagining what thrills might be savored if one could achieve power like unto a god.

It was the first taste of what would eventually consume his life's flame.

Many years had come and gone since Zenos found any sort of challenge in the minds and spirits of his prey. It seemed he'd reached a zenith where no other could reach or touch him. The clear path from which he had not strayed now became lost in a shroud of heavy fog, a veil separating his current state from the godhood he deserved.

An emotion sprouted within him, one he had no name for; a great gaping emptiness which chilled his blood the way the Garlean winters never had, a greedy worm festering within the ripened apple of his heart. He floundered there, lost and searching, devoid of the contentment he found only in the ringing clash of blades.

In the end she was the one to name this feeling, and in so doing she gained absolute power over him. In so doing she was named friend.

---

At first she cowered, crawling away on hands and knees. He put a foot on her back and pinned her to the blood-spattered soil but quickly lost interest when she retreated into herself, growing still and silent like the rabbits of his youth.

When he saw her again in Yanxia she had changed so much he did not recognize her. She looked sickly, pale and sweating, her eyes bright and pupils dilated but when her sword met his...

Fate.

It was but a matter of a few scant seconds by all accounts, however for Zenos each moment stretched onward into shining infinity. She fought with the strength of ten men and the shock of each blow ringing in his bones made his blood sing and his soul take flight.

He laughed and so did she, the wild cacophony of their joy mingling into one transcendent experience he would do anything to experience again. They danced in beauty, together, blood slinging heavy and wet from the moon bright edges of their swords with every mad swing. Her breast heaved in time with his own, the synchronized beating of their hearts bringing them closer to divinity.

To revelation.

He caught her sword hand and swung her around hard, closing his mouth over the leaping rabbit pulse at her throat to bite down and claim it as his own. The taste of her blood muddled his senses, a high better than any wine or drug he'd ever tried. She screamed in pain and stomped savagely on the arch of his foot before driving the curve of her rump against him.

The stars overhead exploded, their light reflected in her skin and hair, glinting off the fangs in her open mouth. Her wamth presses close, a being of fury whose skin smells of opium smoke. His achingly hard cock grinds into her, pulsing bliss, releasing spend, as wild as an animal in rut.

She licked her parted lips and whispered, voice strained, “Are you lonely, Zenos? Does it frighten you to know you are unloved and unwanted?”

The fog on his brain clears, the tightening pressure in his groin vanished like morning mist.

Fear. That was its name.

“Yes,” he grunted, struggling to master himself but unable to release her.

She waits, still and quiet, once more the rabbit of his childhood hunts. He buries his nose in her violet hair, redolent with the scents of starlight, spices, and sex. Her small figure is soft, just as her sword's edge is deadly sharp. A gauntleted thumb slips between the sinful curves of her generous lips, hooking the lower line of white teeth.

He jerks. She follows, moaning.

He shoves her away roughly.

Fear.

She tumbles to the packed earth, streaked with dirt and bleeding from the mouth. Her eyes pin him, strange in color and luminosity—one onyx, the other amethyst, both giving a faint glow of reflected moonlight.

A realization strikes him as he gazes at her, the gravity of it growing larger with every passing moment; collecting certainty as a planet gathers accretions: this is his destiny.

Her.

Her face is the last he shall ever see. His demise is hers to witness. The fading thrum of his heart, the dwindling number of its alloted beats is hers to savor and hers alone.

Zenos sees his own death. He now knows its shape, the curve of her breasts, the taste of her skin, the weight of her sword. The mania that spawns from a single perfect moment gone too soon.

Only now does Zenos truly understand the frantic impatience of the rabbit's final heartbeats. How one can long for the presence of another called “friend.”