a FFXIV Warrior of Light account, IC and OOC posting from the sprout playing the game for the first time and the WoL experiencing it. asks welcome, but not seeking longer RP. let's have fun
It feels like ages ago. It can't have been more than a week. I saw the world unsundered, and— even though in so doing I was wishing myself, everyone, and everything I know dead— I wept at the loss.
A week or so later, I fought to wish the opposite. Wish for life, for hope, for just one more chance to prove our worth, one more chance for our thousand fractured peoples to breathe, dance, laugh, fight, bleed, cry, live, die, and know.
In times past, I thought Hydaelyn naïve. Having walked with Venat, I can see that She, the architect of our suffering, knows full well what She has done. Her dream for all creation was pure and real. All She ever wanted was to see us walk the world as she once did. I could never begrudge Her that.
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This is the part I feel most obligated to chronicle for historians, but I don't know what to say. (You have my indecision to thank for the ink blots up there. Apologies.)
How can I write it? Ultima Thule was constructed entirely of dynamis— or akasa, or whatever you may know it as— and therefore followed no earthly rules. Life itself began operating on different algorithms. I tell of a memory of a memory of a memory. Forgive my abstraction.
We found dead civilizations. Endless wars. Their wishes for death, and one little bird. One little bird who did not know it was possible that the answer to her question could be "no." It was not a yes or no question. One by one, my friends gave up their bodies, their forms. Transfigured into wind and water, the land itself. I walked. When I was alone, I thought I heard Ardbert on the wind. Friends from lifetimes ago walked with me. I could have made anything, wished for anything, but I gave the little bird her field of flowers. Love is frail, and discordant, and small, and inconsequential, and it is all we will ever have!
Let historians make of that what they will, and gods above and below, let them skip this next part. Please.
What am I to do with the fact that fighting Zenos at the end of the world was the greatest high I've ever felt? Besides tell nobody and keep it to my grave, of course.
I am full glad he is dead, in that cold corner of the universe, far from Eitheirys. I don't think he would have settled for anything less dramatic. That was not the kind of man who dies of old age. May his corpse turn to dust and ice, particles too small for me to consider ever again. May he stop haunting me, forcing me to fight stupid battles in the hopes they'll be half as... I don't know. "Good" is the wrong word.
making good use of his pact. i like to think that misha calls on feo ul a lot to show them random things. landscapes that he thinks are pretty. the night sky over each land.
Archon loaf tastes fine. I was expecting an outright offensive flavor, but in truth, it is just bland. I find it perfectly acceptable as is, but if you really cannot stomach it, I have a few suggestions, though I'm no culinarian (yet,) so take them with a grain of salt. Speaking of which:
1. Add salt. This will almost universally fix the problem.
2. Add spices. I recommend star anise and pearl ginger.
3. Add a good heaping of sugar and make it into a tea cake. This will not work sprinkled on after cooking, so bake yourself a fresh loaf. Substitute fish for eggs so you get the binding without the... fish. Add nutmeg, cardamom, and cloves, definitely add vanilla beans if you can get your hands on them. This is similar to a variety served at the Last Stand. I like mine a little richer— I suppose I lack the Sharlayan palate.
4. Give up. Take quick bites and chase them with gulps of coffee. You won't need to eat for the rest of the day, so just bear through it.
I am soon to embark on a journey of unbelievable speed, leading me to an incomprehensibly distant place. I will not write my good-byes in the event I fail, because I cannot allow that to be a possibility.
I love this world. I love good food and good conversation, and I still don't have an answer for Venat's question, but I think I've had altogether too little of them both.
I don't want to talk about it. I know I should, but I don't. "Rely on your friends," or however Vrtra phrased it, something more elegant than that. Mayhap I would, if the throat would permit. My throat, I mean. It is mine again.
Ink, take these memories from me. Parchment, keep them to yourself.
I will never again complain of my body's aches and pains. They are an acceptable trade for the power I carry, earned or gifted or whatever it may be. Never again, I swear it. I did not realize the distance between myself and that soldier on the brink of death. The cold was brutal, stabbing and devouring the furthest ends of me him, slowly chewing, gnawing deeper. I know that body was once painless, soft, a bit worn, but consistent. I was only shoved in after it failed. It failed him and it failed me too. I am up writing this instead of sleeping because when I lay down I can still feel the motion, the twitches in my muscles, crawling through the snow, belly-down like a cowed hound. A shot, forgotten animal. Hells take me. Zenos yae Galvus was inside my body. What, was he bored of cutting me, and decided to go a touch deeper? And if it happens again, what then? It was so brief, it had to have been an experiment. At any moment, he could pick up the blade, drive it through its closest friends. He wants me to hate, and I do, I do. Rage and fear. I fear my own body. I have never known it to be constant, and now I know it to be capable of betrayal. Hells. Hells. Zenos viator Galvus, they said. I hope they note the change on the docket in the underworld, lest I confuse the bookkeeper when I send him down. Hells take us both.
Do you think there was some kind of memorial made for the fallen warrior of light in the 8th umbral calamity timeline? I started imagining graha visiting it and made myself sad
The Garlean soldiers hate me. They name me murderer. They want to lunge at me, but their hurts hold them back, like their own wardogs chained to posts. And they're right to lunge. Everyone deserves a chance to try and make things better.
I find myself thinking often of that half-blind man (something with an F. Flavius, I think.) He couldn't see my face, couldn't recognize me. I tended to him as best I could, and he thanked me. I wonder if he'll ever know who it really was that touched him.
All that fuss about the cold of Garlemald, but it really isn't so bad. Nips at my face, my hands, sure— snow always does— but only if you stop moving. The worse pain by a malm is how it reminds me of Haurchefant. I miss him so terribly. He would make this camp so much warmer, could charm even the most jaded soldiers, talk anybody out of drastic measures, yes; he would shine, here.
If anyone tries to hurt those twins again I'll have their head. Their father should be here, or at least be praying for their safety. Maybe he is, I don't know. When did I become such a mother hen?
Haurchefant would have loved Alisaie. He would have made an incredible father.
No time to think on it. I've already spent too long jotting things down. The world could end because I decided to take the wrong moment to journal.
This is a curse and a privilege I will shoulder with humility.
