warnings: hurt, no comfort ; body horror ; violence ; drug abuse ; death

general: raha surfs the waves of space and time with a crystal board ; spoilers for shadowbringers and tales from the shadows (kinda?) ; feels ; hurt, no comfort—yes again quit complaining

noun

• a coming or flowing together, meeting, or gathering at one point
• the flowing together of two or more streams

The Ocular’s crystal walls fade to shining rainbows and thence to blackness. Streaks of light speed by, flashing like schools of fish dancing in the deep

The whispered goodbye dies on G'raha's lips, lost in a howl of pain as the crystal crawls ravenous over his skin. Ilm by horrifying ilm it spreads and grows, pulsing outward from his heart to methodically emtomb him, down to each finger and toe, in shining azure.

Eaten alive.

He begs for a swift end to this maddening torment, either through his own death or via his successful arrival on the First.

The tower and the river of time upon which it rides grant him no succor, nor could they. They care not who directs the tiller or why. They only ride the currents.

They simply flow.

Time's river bears him onward as he gazes transfixed and helpless at hurtling infinity, the constant undulating threads of fate, the shimmering fragments of unrealized potential mingling with painful memories.

Past, present, and future overlapping, tangling, melting into each other, merging the real and recognizable with the fantastic and strange. He sees them all, bound together like pearls on a radiant webbing, ensnaring his mind as surely as the crystal feasts upon his limbs.

His physical agony shrinks to insignificance against the weight of this knowledge. The mind, beholding the fabric of the universe, can do naught but fray; no mortal can withstand the face of god.

He breaks and the tide takes him, inhabits him, experiences him.

And he—it.

Huge golden doors slam closed, the glimmer of sealing magic over their surface punctuated by a single lament which then rises to a trembling crescendo—a thousand, thousand voices crying out for salvation.

A pitiless moon hangs gravid over a blasted horizon, stripped branches reaching corpse-like fingers to the bleeding sky. Wide fields of colorless gas grow the dead rather than flowers, each futilely gasping, desperate to prolong a meaningless existence. Death comes to claim the Warrior and she breathes her last, the violet sweep of her lashes falling closed to rest against a sallow cheek. Her armor becomes flowing cloth of silver and gold, a crown of red and purple blossoms nestled amongst her locks. The world falls apart, reality disintegrates, unmade in an instant, until her beautiful corpse is all that remains.

In a small room filled with blue haze, the Warrior lays spread-eagle on a pile of crimson silks, opalescent skin glowing and pupils blown wide. A blond man with the Garlean third eye fucks her torturously slow, broad hand switching between cupping a bouncing breast and squeezing her windpipe, his blue eyes fixed upon the ruby curve of her lips. The pale Doman woman at the Warrior's side is beautiful as the dark side of the moon, the long pipe at her lips exuding thin smoke from a tiny bowl. It smells of burning petals, sweet but not cloyingly so. She seals her mouth over the Warrior's but neglects doing the same to the Garlean.

Both have eyes only for her.

The Warrior again, but alone, her smooth skin unnaturally pale, streaked with shining gold in a grotesque mockery of veins. Ethereal wings like those of a moth wrap around narrow shoulders, burning hate like a cold sun, a majesty of blinding white emptiness behind her eyes. Where once there was life and laughter now there is only stillness and bland ennui, drained away much like the vibrant heliotrope of her hair and eyes. A goddess of gluttonous lethargy, her clawed hands and gaping jaw encrusted with blood and fouled by dripping viscera.

Flashes come faster, what is muddled with what could have been.

Himself and the Warrior in the tower and yet not, fighting back to back with sword and spell against clockwork beings nearly 8 fulms in height, their glass cores filled with a swirling magic sandstorm.

The Warrior and another miqo'te, holding hands as they watch a small dark-haired kit—doubtless their child—play in the sun. The man's slate skin bears heavy scarring save his left arm, which is not flesh but a facsimile wrought of delicate machinery. The pair share a smiling kiss, soft and sweet—the sight of it makes his heart ache.

Himself again, tangled with her in soft sheets. Hands grasping curves slicked with sweat, his mouth filled with the taste of her skin, her sex. Chests pressed close enough to feel the leaping beat of her heart as if it was his own.

His mind reels, sanity almost gone to tatters, tears streaming down his face. He screams, collapsing to the chill crystal floor and screaming more. Even after he goes hoarse. Even after the never ending tears make him retch. Even after the walls return to crystal and the tower beneath him returns to solid reality.

He screams. He dreams of screaming, though he's not sure he slept, much less dreamt.

Finally, feeling hollow as an insect's molted carapace, he falls into ringing silence, more certain than ever this plan must succeed and he must sacrifice himself to see it done.

The First awaits.

warnings: blood ; description of a deep abdominal wound ; i be spoiling everything up in here

general: feels ; hurt/comfort kinda; this just kinda took on a life of its own ; fuck if i know

adjective

• (especially of a liquid) only slightly warm; lukewarm.
• showing little enthusiasm

Glowing logs crackle and snap, then rustle as the soft piles of ash collapse under their own weight. Flames flicker and dance, casting grotesque and outsized shadows on the walls. The heat spreading from the grate is strong and steady, yet it barely takes the edge off the omnipresent chill.

Stelmaria slouches deeper into the thick quilt, pulling her stockinged feet up off the freezing floor. This unrelenting cold weather makes her bones ache and her nose run  freely no matter how many warming tonics she forces down her throat.

Camp Dragonhead is silent as a tomb this late, or this early, depending on your point of view. These bells before the first delicate peach and gold stripes of dawn reach for the eastern sky is the best time to sift through her muddled thoughts.

“Would you like company my friend? I’ve brought you a little something.”

Heavily distracted, an awkward amount of time passes before Stelmaria realizes Haurchefant is speaking to her, much less to register what he's asking. His smile never falters, even as the silence stretches on.

“Oh,” she murmurs, scooting to make him a space beside her. “That’s very kind of you.”

He shakes his head, silver-blue hair sparkling in the firelight, “Please, think nothing of it.”

There is a gently steaming mug in each of his broad, calloused hands. They, much like everything else about the elezen, are sturdy and dependable at any time of day or night.

And Stelmaria had cause to know.

She takes one from him, chapped skin greedy for the accumulated warmth of both mug and palm.

Except it isn't as hot as she assumed it would be.

“Did I burn the milk?” His voice is concerned.

Her confusion must have been obvious. “I just assumed it would be boiling hot,” she explains, letting the wafting chocolate and cinnamon smell bolster her heart.

A single brow lifts before he chuckles, warm and sultry enough to shame the blazing fire. “Ah no... I always thought it impolite to serve a drink so hot your guest cannot enjoy it at its most delicious. As it cools the chocolate settles to the bottom. If you daub cream in top it melts right away.”

“I see,” she says, without truly seeing.

He grins, cheeks coloring as he replaces the quilt slipping down her narrow shoulder. “In my admittedly inexpert opinion, hot chocolate  should be served at a temperature just above tepid. That's when everything is in balance, the taste, the scent, even the look of it. As a host that is the moment where I can maximize my guest's enjoyment.”

“And being a true paragon of knighthood—living to serve and all that—hospitality is all about giving your best for another,” she teases.

That first sip is smooth and rich, everything a sweet drink meant to warm from the inside out should be. Heaven contained within a humble earthenware mug.

“Indeed. Though the way may be difficult and the task daunting, to be a knight is to throw yourself against the odds and succeed,” he says heartily, clinking the lip of his mug against her own.

The more of Haurchefant she sees the more she grows to like him. His flowery offers of shelter, sympathy, and friendship unnerved her at first, but with every word and deed he'd proved himself the genuine article—a true man of virtue.

Her second sip is even better than the first somehow, spreading warmth and comfort from her heart to every ilm of her tense limbs.

“You would go so far for just a friend?”

“No such thing as ‘just a friend’ my dearest Warrior. Every soul is special to someone and should be treated as such.”

Her throat tightens, “And if the someones have all gone? What then?”

He puts his mug on the side table and faces her, clear blue eyes quite serious, “They haven't gone. The missing Scions will be found in time. Alphinaud and Tataru love you like family. And...”

Hesitating, he glances away.

“And?”

“And I would care for you as well. If it's not...”

“It's not,” she says, and resettles the quilt to cover him as well. Two against the world, instead of just one.

“Stella? What’s this?” asks the innocent, bird-like voice, so very different from the imperious tone that haunts her dreams.

Dreams of opium scented smoke and sharp pinpricks of pain. Of moon-pale breasts clasped to moon-pale breasts. Crimson lips and fragrant petals.

Gunpowder and blood and castles falling into the sea.

Tsuyu’s wide, guileless eyes gaze at Stelmaria over the steaming mug, politely waiting for an answer.

Tsuyu and not Yotsuyu.

“It's called hot chocolate. Drink it before it gets cold.”

“Hot?” Tsuyu repeats, concerned.

“Well, it’s more warm than hot really,” Stel admits. “Go on. You won’t burn your mouth, I promise.”

“All right!” the Doman woman chirps, before quaffing the lot in one go like a greedy child. “Thank you!”

Stel does her best to smother a giggle. “What did you think?”

The carmine lips purse under a thin film of hot chocolate. “More, please?”

“Lyna, I beg you. Leave me to my rest.” G’raha Tia does his utmost to sound terse.

Really, he just wants a few bells of peace to catch up on his reports. He’s been shamefully behind since Stelmaria appeared in the First and his extended convalescence upon returning from The Tempest hasn’t helped matters in the slightest.

The knock comes again, more insistent this time, but the accompanying voice isn’t Lyna. “There’s no tricking me with that half hearted nonsense, and if it wouldn’t fool me you can be certain Lyna won’t believe it either.”

His crimson ears flatten, eyes darting everywhere to locate an escape only to come up empty. Every ilm of his flesh aches and the wound where Chessamile pried the flattened round from his shoulder itches like demon’s fury. He’s refused to accept help to bathe himself, neither has he finished a meal nor slept more than a bell at a time.

In short, he’s a mess and the Warrior is about to find out how low he can sink.

She must have grown tired of waiting for his reply because she breezes into his bedroom while he’s still debating jumping out the window. “Drink this,” she commands and places a steaming mug on his bedside table, heedlessly upsetting his careful piles of notes, books, and broken quills to do so.

He identifies it by scent alone. “Hot chocolate?”

“Yes,” she replies, without elaborating. “Drink that while I run a bath for you.”

The Lord of the Crystarium nearly spits the sweet mouthful across the room. “Bath?!”

“Lyna tells me you seem uncomfortable at the idea of her assistance, but she’s worried you’ll make yourself ill.”

He tries a confident chuckle before having a nonchalant sip of the chocolate, “Lyna is—“

“A lovely sweet woman who’s put up with her beloved grandfather’s ridiculous foolishness for decades? Yes I’ve heard all about it. Leaving aside Lyna’s observations, Chessamile tells me you smell like an unwashed amaro and you’re neither eating nor sleeping.”

Her entire diatribe is delivered in bursts as she stalks between his bedside—where she oversees his hot chocolate consumption—and his adjoining bathroom, where presumably a tub full of hot water awaits.

There’s no use in further obstruction. He swallows the last of the drink like an obedient kit and accepts her help in rising from his bed.

She smells of myrrh and orange blossoms, staying close to his side in case he trips, patiently attending his plodding steps. The chocolate, much to his surprise, radiates warm contentment from his belly.

“I’m glad you came. That you’re here,” he murmurs.

He doesn’t mean the drink or the bath.

Her face relaxes, the slow smile spreading over her features the same one he remembers from their adventures in the tower, all those years ago, when things were simple and a future together wasn’t an impossible dream.

“Me too,” she replies.

They had gone to the end of the universe together, just the two of them, all the way out past the razor edge of existence where the fabric of time and space begins to unravel. A place where anything that might be imagined can and does spring into being.

An eternal new beginning, the promise of life and hope stretching across that endless expanse the way that dawn brings a new day, all color in motion and joyous to behold.

She fought Zenos to the death there. She watched him breathe his last, whispering words to speed him on his return to the aetherial sea.

She bled there. Shrapnel from her shattered rapier embedded like diamonds in her skin. The hole Zenos put in her belly oozing dark, dark blood. The smell... all wrong... He placed a spell there, for healing, but it wouldn't stick. He tried staunching the wound the old fashioned way, using the pressure of his hands.

But the hole... it was so big... he couldn't... it wouldn't... something soft... the blood...

She was dying and he could not save her.

Yet, with a miraculous series of beeps they reappeared aboard the Ragnarok, spurring a frantic rush of movement and sound. Everyone trying to heal her all at once. Alphinaud, Alisaie, Yshtola, Urianger, at one point Thancred found a potion that he tipped down her throat, and Estinien snapped commands to the Lopporits to 'get this woman to a healer and do it now.'

Sharlayan.

The best doctors the nation could claim decided some of her organs were obliterated but no one will give him details. He just can't stop thinking about how far into the hole his hands could slip.

It turns his stomach.

A hot bath in the annex. The water red as wine, red like Dalamud, circling the drain to slip away and disappear.

A comfortable bed where he won't sleep.

He can't sleep. Not until she wakes.

Exhausted but tense, he pads to the kitchen and puts milk in a pan to warm. Then finds the chocolate and cinnamon and sugar and cream.

He decides to make it exactly how she does, down to which hand she uses to stir the finished mixture—always seven times clockwise—to set the magic charm. He adds everything she likes, as though he's planning to bring it to her, extra cream, extra shavings, extra cinnamon, and extra sweet.

Extra sweet, like her.

His throat tightens, burning as if he's swallowed the sun. He breathes slow. Concentrate. Breathe again.

It's done.

He takes it to her, thinking maybe she'll wake.

The bed seems huge, or perhaps she seems smaller than usual. The gleaming violet curtain of her hair fans over the pillow like a goddess' halo. Her narrow chest rises and falls but she's so ghostly pale, the only spots of color aside from her hair are the ugly bruises from the rapier shrapnel.

Her chocolate goes on the nightstand and he sits beside her, the burst of anxious energy that carried him this far finally spent.

He takes her freezing hand and rubs it between his own, trying to ignore the insistent belief that they've come to the end of things before they had a chance to begin.

“Is that chocolate?”

His laughter turns to tears as he runs his lips greedily over the back of her hand, and “Yes. Yes it is. It should be the perfect temperature for you to drink.”

warnings: dubious consent ; blood drinking ; fucking under duress ; body horror

general: fray!stel returns and they’re mad bro, but if they can just get some exarch dick they’ll be ok ; tomra redux ; monsterfuckers ahoy!

noun

• a person used by others for their own purposes
• a chess piece of the smallest size and value
  • a pawn moves one square forward along its file if unobstructed (or two on the first move), or one square diagonally forward when making a capture
  • each player begins with eight pawns on the second rank, and can promote a pawn to become any other piece (typically a queen) if it reaches the opponent's end of the board

verb

• deposit (an object) with a pawnbroker as security for money lent
  • also: an object left as security for money lent (noun)

They’d drunk too much. That was the first mistake.

Then, the dwarves neglecting to mention the sleeping arrangements until the last moment, specifically how the arrangement—singular—for two non-dwarves requires sharing.

The Exarch did not mind this so much. Stelmaria could be a light sleeper and prone to nightmares, but thankfully after a few drinks she could remain unconscious through a calamity. He’d felt confident she would close her eyes and stay that way until the morning.

Therein lay the second mistake.

Sure enough, she stretched full length on the narrow bed and immediately sank into dreams. Amused, he slipped off his leather sandals and curled up beside her, robes and cowl left in place, close enough to feel her warmth seeping into his crystal limbs but no closer.

A shining bubble in his chest bursts. Unnoticed, a low rumbling purr begins within his chest. Such an unexpected blessing and pleasure, this time spent with just the two of them, similar yet different to the adventures of their shared past. While both have changed, their connection remains strong—for which he is grateful.

Truly, Azeyma smiles upon him in these final days of his path and life.

And thus the seed of the third mistake was planted.

He swallows thickly, her claws pricking the skin of his throat as his flesh moves beneath her grip. “I—”

The cowl has dropped and he is defenseless before her.

“We tire of your pitiful subterfuge, G’raha Tia,” she growls, the harsh sound escaping past a long, thin tongue and a grotesque amount of fangs set within a monstrous gaping maw.

“How—?”

She swirls her hips and he gasps, the soft heat on his stiffening cock almost painful. “The smell. We knew you from the beginning the same way you knew us.”

The sharp claws drag down his chest, catching painfully on every facet and seam of his azure crystal, stopping in random spots to sink deep and draw forth a rivulet of crimson.

“What do you want?” He breathes fast, reeling and lightheaded at the stink of hot metal mixed with something familiar wafting from her skin—death without rot, a chemical mixture gone wrong, ageless flesh rendered hard as marble.

She reeks of Light, as sin eaters do.

Her tongue slides across the upwelling blood and he shudders violently, though not in disgust. Even like this, slipping toward the death and madness he believed he’d tricked her into he would fuck them both into oblivion without hesitation if she asked it.

His hips grind up into her as he fights to keep a whine of need trapped within his throat. The claws dip further, beneath his robes, beneath the smalls, and claim the length of him, pulsing with heat and slickened at the tip.

“I wish to help in your endeavor. But I will require your honesty and some form of compensation. You must understand, my lord, that she is not and will never be your pawn, nor shall I. We are the queen, and this game cannot be won if we are sacrificed.”

Her free hand undoes the complicated buttons on her dress, the fabric parting to reveal what seems like malms of bare skin to his hungry gaze, then settles where her naked heat presses against his hardness, stroking both at once. Slowly, oh so slowly.

He believes he may go mad, “Tell me who you are first.”

“I see why she likes you,” the creature whispers, rubbing her core against him in such a way that he might slip within that blissful heat, but he does not and each near miss causes a shower of sparks in his brain. “You may call me Fray. I exist to protect her, and though we are in some ways one and the same, she does not know I am here. That it how it must remain.”

“Fray—” he groans, unable to say more.

“I require a gift of your aether if you wish to keep her from turning at this very moment, and there is quite a simple way to acquire what we need, should you agree…”

As if to punctuate the statement, lumps appear on her shoulders and the skin there tears and bleeds. Wings. She grunts in pain and pleasure both, his hips moving against his will.

“Yes,” is all he manages to force from his lips before she places her mouth over his and the head of his cock finds its mark within her.

The harsh slap of skin on skin begins in earnest—the pact between conspirators sealed.

warnings: implied bullying/blackballing due to prejudice

general: endwalker/shadowbringers spoilers ; the ancients were poly af, change my mind ; watch me make this shit up as i go along in 3, 2, 1…

adjective

• (of a task, duty, or responsibility) involving an amount of effort and difficulty that is oppressively burdensome.

Interminable.

These long ceremonies of investiture are absolutely interminable.

Boring, pompous, long-winded, and frankly unnecessary when there was so much work to be done these days.

And yet here is Hades, suffering at Hythlodaeus’ behest; which isn’t that unusual to be fair but at least today’s reason is something of a novelty.

Today, Hythlodaeus’ twin sister ascends to the seat of Azem.

Hades knows of his companion’s sister, but he’s never seen her. This sad state of affairs is not for lack of trying on Hyth’s part—far from it. It’s more to do with the woman’s odd habit of sequestering herself deep within the bowels of the Words of Halmarut for weeks or months at a time.

‘To better focus on her research,’ explains her smiling twin, as if that explains anything at all.

Outside the obvious shared parentage with his partner, Hades is aware of very few solid facts.

Firstly, her name is Freyja.

Secondly, she’s considered the preeminent protégée of Halmarut and Emmeroloth, having excelled in the creation of new, useful concepts that blend the best aspects of both subjects.

This work with concepts alone should have been enough to see her a seated member of Convocation, or at the very least the frontrunner to replace her mentors, however…

A rumor runs quickly for great distances and on legs longer than any concept known to mankind, nor does it tire or suffer from forgetfulness.

Unfortunate then that rumors are the only source for the paltry remainder of his knowledge.

Lastly, she takes after the twin’s father, Njörðr, an odd man so enamored with the peoples and cultures not of Amaurot he’d taken one of these unnamed outsiders to wife, adopted as his own name the one gifted him by the tribe, and even going so far as to name his offspring following the same tribal traditions.

Hence the twin’s unusual paired names: Freyja and Freyr.

Besides being held to account for her father's perceived social wrongdoings, Freyja indulges in eccentricities of her own including the refusal to change her birth name even after her twin changed his, and a propensity toward working with her hands, mixing odd concoctions from physical specimens rather than experimenting on concepts via theoretical calculations—among other things.

All of which is anathema of the highest order to run of the mill Amaurotines.

Her stubborn refusal to give up manual labor is likely why she smells of some fragrant spice, discernable on the air as she walks past with her long black veil dragging behind, while the Convocation waits, seated and dour on the dais ahead. More then half of their number seem less than pleased at this turn of events, the corners of their mouths turned down sharply enough to cut stone.

Nonconformity is the greatest social evil amongst modern citizens of Amaurot. Most would do anything required, pay any price to go unnoticed and unremarked.

They wish to be normal like everyone else.

It can be inferred then, without hyperbole, that eccentric is not a label one would wish to be saddled with in Amaurot, and the proof of the theory requires no further investigation than the case of Freyja.

Upon Halmarut’s retirement it seemed obvious who should succeed, yet Freyja remained a simple researcher through (rumored) no choice of her own. Talented yes, but just a researcher.

Similarly, when old Emmeroloth desired a return to the star, Freyja’s name surfaced again and again as a suitable replacement among those familiar with her work, however in the end the honor of the seat was extended to another.

Some say that both positions are now lesser for this blatant favoritism, but this, like so much else, is rumor and no more than that.

Hades shakes himself from deep reverie at Hyth’s insistent tugging on his sleeve. His gaze happily glowing lavender eyes, which haven't faltered for a moment in the face of his lover’s complete inattention. “Here we go,” Hyth murmurs, soft and dewy with pride at his sibling finally gaining the recognition she’d been denied.

Azem begins to speak ponderous words regarding ‘the vibrant soul that now stands before us.’ The blue eyed, silver haired woman launches into an exhaustive listing of Freyja’s many accomplishments, both solo and in the company of Azem.

Hades has long since lost the thread of the presentation entirely, unable to focus on anything but the poor veiled woman’s hands, clenched white-knuckled into fists and shaking like the final leaves on a tree.

“A lucky thing indeed that Azem took an interest in Lady,” whispers Hyth, stirring Hades’ white hair as he speaks into his partner’s ear. “She’d have spent an eternity locked away in a basement somewhere just singing to her plants, the flowers in her hair growing wild. All that talent gone to waste from sheer stubbornness.” He clucks like a mother hen worried for her smallest chick, “At least as Azem she can live, expand her horizons, broaden her friend circle outside of just Óðinn and I, maybe even fall in love?”

It takes Hades a long moment to remember that Lady is one of Hyth’s many pet names for his sister and to further recall the name Óðinn refers to a childhood friend of the twins, yet another hopeless eccentric.

“You shouldn’t meddle Hyth, it makes people irritated,” Hades grouses in an undertone. “Your sister is a woman grown and from the sound of it eminently capable. I have no doubt she will excel as Azem.”

His lover only smiles, “You are right of course. How easy it is for those of us who are comfortable with affection to forget the way that love can smother as well as uplift.”

Hades opens his mouth to reply to the—in his opinion—uncalled for jab but in the same instant Azem finishes speaking.

Solemn, she removes her crimson mask of office before replacing it with the simple white one most Amaurotines wear, including Hades himself. Turning, she lifts a smaller version of the same crimson mask, meant for someone with more delicate features, and extends it to Freyja like a gift.

The pale, shaking hands take the mask and draw it beneath the dark veil.

A moment passes.

Two.

The hand extends once more and Azem, now Venat, places a glowing yellow-orange crystal in the very center of the slim palm.

The fingers close, the stone brightens, and a low hum fills the room.

The Convocation members watch with baited breath.

The heavy veil drops with a sensuous rustle to the gleaming floor and Azem, newly masked, turns to greet the gathered assembly.

A tall man with brilliant red hair and striking sanguine eyes rushes to embrace her, but there is a moment where Hades catches a glimpse of Freyja’s face.

It is enough to leave him breathless.

Her long, flowing tresses are several shades darker than Hythlodaeus’ lavender locks, and seemingly composed of both hair and blossoms in the same heliotrope shade. She’s small for an Amaurotine and slight of build, almost bird or doll like, and gifted with her brother’s otherworldly beauty to boot. They are, quite unmistakably, twins.

Surrounded on all sides by a crowd of well-wishers she doesn’t speak, only smiles. Her redheaded companion—doubtless Óðinn—stays close, observing others as they interact with her with open curiosity, as if he is just as interested in her reactions as he is the behavior of those who wish to congratulate her.

“We should offer our most heartfelt congratulations, don’t you agree Hades?” asks Hyth, though he isn’t really asking, as he’s already out of his seat and darting toward his sister through the crowd like a fish slicing through water.

Hades heaves a sigh and follows, though it takes him at least three times as long to reach the center of the crowd. When he does finally manage the task and stands next to Azem, his partner is nowhere to be found. Such is the way of things.

“I wished to congratulate you, though I wonder if I should. You seemed nervous,” remarks Hades with his characteristic bluntness.

“I will accept whatever my brother’s partner wishes to extend to me,” she replies smoothly in a voice as warm and comforting as a nap in the sunshine. “I hope the nerves will wear off after sufficient time has passed. Besides, Venat plans to refrain from returning to the star for some while yet, so I shall have her wisdom to guide me.”

Ah… an eccentric soul drawn to an eccentric soul. Of course. The retiring instructor that refuses to follow custom and the wide-eyed student grateful for an experienced puppeteer.

Venat has managed the trick of retiring while still having a voice in the Convocation.

Hades is suddenly very glad indeed that this burden, this mantle of responsibility for the safety and growth of the star has not passed to him. Nor shall it ever if he has anything to say about it.

He simply doesn’t have the temperament for it.

“Doubtless she will be of great comfort to you, should you need her, Freyja.”

She shakes her head, the flowers rustling and scenting the air, “It’s not Freyja anymore. Changing it was a requirement for accepting the seat.”

A thin filament of anger rises in him at the pettiness of those chittering old fools in their straight backed chairs. He smothers it viciously—that battle is not his to fight, though he would dearly love to, if only to make them all terribly uncomfortable, “Azem it is then.”

He bows and makes to leave, bored of playing the game for today.

“My brother's beloved should never address me by such formal means, Hades. Please, my name is Persephone.”

Persephone?

He freezes, rooted to the spot as his every hair stands on end.

What is she doing? To choose that name as a replacement and then to have the Convocation just accept it?

Persephone, the thresher of men.

He very nearly laughs aloud at the cleverness of it. The sheer gall, to make a show of yielding to their wishes then proceeding to choose a name so old… So cursed.

She is clever indeed, this unassuming little woman with her blossoming hair and her subtle insubordination.

No doubt Venat had a hand in this as well.

Woe betide any doddering old fart who places themselves against these two united.

Hythlodaeus reappears like magic and restarts the conversation with his sister and friend as though he never disappeared before Hades can fully digest this information, let alone act on it. Surprised, he finds himself at a rather embarrassing loss for words, choosing to cover it by raising her hand to his lips.

At this distance he comes to realize how different her eyes are from her brother’s—a strange and beautiful amber color, a red gold like ambrosia or warm, liquid honey.

“Despoina Persephone,” Hades says, nerves coming alive at the old honorific tumbling from his lips. “I wish to know you better, as my partner’s sister. Perhaps—”

“You should come to dinner!” interrupts Hyth, in unrestrained glee. “You too, Óðinn. No excuses.”

The crimson haired man laughs and bows, eyes dancing with boundless curiosity. He is beautiful too, in his own way. “The pleasure would be ours, my friends.”

Hades will not, will never, allow himself to be drawn into these political games and machinations for which he has no patience.

However he will shoulder any burden, fight any foe, or move any mountain for those he loves.

general: stel likes toppy raha ; in this house we love the twins ; patch 5.4 spoilers

warnings: none

idiom

• do something in the easiest or least expensive way; also, act illegally.

“That appears to be our merchant.”

The odd quartet of two adult miqo'te and two elezen youths is strange enough, but the way they've attempted to hide themselves, together, in the shadow of a single column, is quite another thing entirely. They fit in a shared space the same way a square peg fits into a round hole, or a grumpy housecat goes into his carrier—which is to say they don't fit at all.

Further, all eight eyes are trained on what appears to be an everyday merchant—a blissfully unaware lalafell man some 20 yalms away—watching his every move with the sort of dour intensity far better suited to the inspection of one's shoe after treading on something foul.

“I'll talk to him,” offers Alphinaud. “I've done this sort of espionage before.”

He attempts to straighten but he's still kneeling, pinned to the ground under his sister’s weight.

Alisaie snorts at the very same moment G'raha manages to say, “Wait.”

Without even hearing the new plan Alisaie talks over her companion, “G'raha is right. You look far too genteel to be believable brother, and for that matter so do I. It'll have to be one of you two then.”

She glances at G'raha and Stelmaria, the purple haired woman leaning to rest her elbows on the Archon's shoulders, while he holds the squatting sit all miqo'te males seem to be comfortable with.

Satisfied that her opinion has been registered she removes her knee from the small of Alphinaud's back, allowing her twin to rise to his feet. Since her return from the First, Alisaie's bright blue eyes have not ceased twinkling for even a moment, so thrilled is she to be home and once more about the business of saving Eorzea.

Today is no different.

Alphinaud grimaces and rubs his back, though it's difficult to say which affront chagrins him more, his sister using him as a stepladder ('otherwise I can't see you ninny!') or everyone seemingly agreeing that he's “too genteel” to be allowed.

Rather than replying, Stelmaria heaves a great sigh and straightens. She pinches the apples of her cheeks then she rubs her lips together to plump them. That done, she unfastens the top button of her ruffled dress.

Then adjusts the neckline lower before unfastening another.

And another.

Alisaie reaches to shield her brother's eyes just as G'raha finishes dusting himself off and sees the Warrior.

“Aria!” he hisses, tugging off his scarf and throwing it slapdash around her shoulders.

Alisaie fails to smother a chuckle at hearing the rather intimate pet name.

For all their attempts to keep this relationship private, her friends are shockingly bad at subterfuge.

“Hmmm?” Stelmaria, supremely unconcerned, adjusts the scarf from where it has tangled in her hair and ears to its proper position. It fails to cover the rather substantial amount of décolletage on display.

All right. It’s not that shocking.

“They’ll know your face,” observes Alphinaud, batting his sister’s hands away and suppressing a grin.

“Yes! Yes, exact—!”

“Shhh.” Alisaie whips her head around. Thankfully, the lalafell hasn’t moved. “If we don’t get a move on we’ll be discovered—“

Stelmaria readjusts her neckline again. “We all know they won’t be looking at my face,” she says, with the same tone others might use to say ‘the sky is blue’ or perhaps ‘fire is hot.’

Alphinaud stares at the rolling hills of the La Noscean countryside, momentarily struck dumb.

Alisaie chokes on her own spit.

“The most direct method is fast and easy. Why make it more complicated than it needs to be?” asks Stelmaria, shaking her violet tresses so they frame her heart-shaped face in a most becoming fashion.

“No,” says G’raha, softly, “They’ll know you. You’re a long time Scion and you’ve been seen with the Admiral, besides. It’s too risky for you to go.”

The Warrior deliberates, chewing her ruby lip with one fang.

“Then what do you suggest?” Alphinaud raises a brow at his companion.

G’raha grins widely, a bit of the cocksure youth resurfacing, like the sun bursting from behind heavy cloud, “I’ll go. Anyone that could recognize me is in Gridania or Mor Dhona.”

“Very well,” relents Alisaie.

The miqo’te bounces off, ears and tail flagged high and shining a burnished copper in the sunlight.

“Got what you were aiming for, I take it?” Alisaie murmurs conspiratorially.

“Always,” replies Stelmaria, (not so) subtly rubbing the scarf against her cheek. “Taking charge suits him; he should do it far more often.”

An indulgent smile slides across the Warrior’s face and Alisaie finds herself reciprocating.

Happiness is infectious after all. They may be gods awful at being discreet but at least they seem to be enjoying themselves.

post type:

#wordoftheday #prompt #drabble #ffxivwrite2022 #shitpost

series:

#ffxiv

• #wolshipewfic
• #exlibris
• #ffxivwrite2022

#dnd

• #threadsbetween

genre:

#horror #nsfw #kindansfw #fluff #au

universe:

#ffxiv

• #worldunsundered
• #prearr
• #arr
• #heavensward
• #stormblood
• #shadowbringers
• #endwalker
• #postmsq

#dnd

• #eberron

ship:

#felstel #hythhades #wolcred #wolexarch #wolgraha #wolmagnai #wolship #wolzenos

character:

#ffxiv

• #alisaie
• #alphinaud
• #ancients
• #estinien
• #exarch
• #fel
• #fray
• #graha
• #haurchefant
• #magnai
• #poppy
• #rosie
• #stelmaria
• #thancred
• #wol
• #yotsuyu
• #yshtola
• #zenos

#dnd

• #polly