welcome!

25 years old, she/her. i'm an FFXIV RPer on the Crystal Data Center! this is my main blog and central hub for all of my active characters, general FFXIV posts, and any OOC nonsense (though this is kept to a minimum!) please check out my 'about' page for the my character roster, and enjoy!

[korporxie]

the roster

Audrey Yuna Matsuda-Benes: Audrey is a twenty one year old girl of Doman and Hingan birth. Raised in La Noscea after fleeing Doma with her mother and older brother as an infant, Audrey has lead a difficult life. Her birth mother died when Audrey was only five, leaving her to the cruel and abusive hands of the La Noscean family that had taken them in as a favor to her birth father - a Hingan general who believed young Audrey to be dead. After being trafficked into prostitution, she was eventually able to win her freedom - but the damage and the darkness from the underworld lingers. Follow her blog >here<. 

Laelia lux Caelius: Laelia had all the makings of being the perfect Garlean woman. Beautiful, immensely intelligent, wealthy, and young, the whole world was at her feet. The only problem is that the young doctor had no true loyalty to the Garlean Empire, aligned with its Populares party instead. With a genius IQ, she became a neurosurgeon at the age of twenty one, and was later drafted to become a lux in the Garlean army. It was while stationed in a Castrum that Laelia was able to make her escape from Garlemald in the midst of the Castrum being destroyed. She found herself stranded in Thanalan, with everyone she knew believing her to be dead, and has been doing her best to reclaim a life for herself in a freer land. Follow her blog >here<.

Elowyn Nollett: Elowyn Nollett is a twenty one year old Sharlayan scholar... or that’s what it looks like on the surface, anyway. Brilliant but spacey, an absolute child of the stars, a healer, a green adventurer, Elowyn seeks knowledge wherever she can find it. A protective and overbearing upbringing has kept her innocent and naïve, a true dreamer of impossible dreams - and terribly inexperienced. With a strange connection to another world, it often seems as though Elowyn has one foot in the First and one in the Source. Ask her about her books or the sky or... anything, really. She’d love to talk your ear off. Follow her blog >here.<

The Lotus: A young woman of many names - Tsai Xiu, Kinoshita Xiu, Lian Hua, Sun Xiu - it’s hard to know just who or what she is. Xiu and her older brother, Hui, were orphaned when the Garleans burned down the inn that their parents ran in Doma. Left to the streets at a tender age, they were taken in by a yakuza sect. Where Hui was trained for hands-off work, the oyabun of the yakuza saw potential in Xiu for something else. She became a highly trained assassin with an unfortunately hindering moral compass. A weapon of a woman, she now finds herself stationed in the mysterious Jade Palace. Follow her blog >here.<

F’kyla Dhol: F’kyla grew up hard and she grew up fast. Raised in a mining town in central Thanalan, Kyla started off with a happy childhood. She had two loving parents, and though they didn’t have much, they always had enough. Everything seemed to turn upside down, though, when her childhood best friend went missing along with his younger brother. Soon after, Kyla’s father became too sick with black lung to work in the mines, and her mother’s fragile mental health makes it almost impossible to provide for the family. It fell onto F’kyla’s shoulders to take care of her parents and her baby sister, doing whatever she must in their secretive hillside town to put bread on the table. Follow her blog >here.<

[korporxie]

WISHING THE DISASTER KIDS A VERY, VERY HAPPY 3rd ANNIVERSARY! The most unexpected pairing with the sweetest love story, I’ll always love you both and always be so grateful for the doors you opened to so many other stories. I’ll always be grateful to you for letting me get to know my best friend @benes-diction and for all the lives we’ve lived through the stories we’ve told. Here’s to many more!!!

[benes-diction]

Weep for yourself, my man You'll never be what is in your heart Weep, little lion man You're not as brave as you were at the start

Rate yourself and rake yourself Take all the courage you have left And waste it on fixing all the problems That you made in your own head

[benes-diction]

She's babie

[korporxie]

just a quick OOC post to say - thank you if you still follow me even through lulls. a lot of big plot things and new characters have come, and while i may no longer be consistent in posting the stuff i write for them, i'm always grateful for the support for the stuff i do post. i hope everyone is doing well. <3

[cherrytart-ffxiv]

knock ‘em down.

[[ part two to this post! ]]

Audrey lays back on the futon as the linkpearl rolls out of her hand. She can’t wipe the smirk from her face. She cannot resist the urge to laugh.

She was sure people had good reason to be afraid of Tsai Xiu, but she couldn’t find one just yet, if she could be so easily disarmed by words and requests said with puppy dog eyes. It’s almost better than a high. It feels familiar. It feels right. This was her, this was Audrey, no, Cherry - manipulating the people that couldn’t be manipulated, dismantling the people that couldn’t get shaken.

Finally, she does laugh, her head tilting back into the futon. 

It wasn’t a selfish request. It was for Cato. But hells. Fucking hells, it felt good. Better than any drug.

Being a miserable piece of existence tasted sweet. It felt sweet. If she had to be the bad guy for a good outcome, so be it. For the Benes family, she could always play the bad guy. She could risk it all. She would risk it all. If she went to this Jade Palace and was eaten alive for trying, that would be okay.

The urge to laugh fades. She stares at the ceiling, timing the sound of her breathing, listening to the water running in Caius’ shower. 

What had been the crackle? The explosion? The scream? 

Had the priestess been right about Hana? Was she just always… there? Cato had never said anything. He would, right, if he had been able to see her? Maybe her presence in the mortal plane wasn’t as strong as his, but–…

Wait. Wait just a damn minute.

Audrey pushes herself to her feet and grabs her jacket that she’d tossed onto the kotatsu, jamming her feet into the first pair of shoes she found.

“I’ll be right back!” she shouts to Caius. “I need to talk to Arashi!” 

There’s a cold drizzle as she stomps outside to their private courtyard. The shrine to Arashi here is smaller than it is at the main wing of the house, but it is, Audrey knows, where he’s more commonly found - because he can never stay out of her business, clearly.

“Arashi!” she yells, kneeling despite the enormous amount of disrespect she was feeling and carefully adjusting the incense from earlier. “You giant, smelly lizard, you better come out and talk to me now–”

With a quiet ‘pop!’, the smaller version of the lizard appears on the stone of the shrine, slowly blinking his yellow eyes up at the glaring girl. 

“What did I do?” he asks, his voice as deep and as big as if he was an actual man and not a tiny reptile.

“The priestess said Hana’s ghost is around me–”

“Ah,” Arashi noises, sagely and almost comically nodding. “You know, I’ve been meaning to mention that since you first were able to see me…”

Audrey’s eyes widen, and she thrusts her hands out in disbelief.

“What do you mean? What do you mean by that?”

“She’s not with you all the time,” he explains, like he was discussing the weather. “And she’s not solid at all. Not like our Cato. She’s much weaker, but… Sometimes. Sometimes she visits you. Most of her time is spent elsewhere.”

“Elsewhere,” Audrey echoes, narrowing her eyes now. “And where is that?”

“Mm… No spoilers. Not yet,” Arashi yawns, and Audrey lets out an indignant shout when he starts to disappear. Her hands reach out to throttle, only to fall on the wet stone, and she screams her frustration once more, slapping at the shrine in her outrage. 

“Fucking little worm– doesn’t even come to me in his full size–” There are plenty of choice words and angry words that come out of Audrey’s mouth as she stomps up to her feet, but in truth, her head is swimming. 

Sometimes? Where else did Hana go? No spoilers? What did that mean? Why was everything so cryptic? Why was he like this? Always? Sure, she supposed she was supposed to live without a god telling her the answers to everything, but still–

“It is frustrating.” Arashi pops up by her shoulder, and Audrey actually stumbles back a little in shock at the sudden return of his voice. There’s a clap of thunder in the distance, a streak of lightning, as she glares, and the little lizard kami raises his eyes to Audrey and spreads his little lizard hands in apology.

“What? That you won’t answer my question?”

“No, not at all. That you will be granted such easy access to the Jade Palace, where its kami barred me from entry - very rudely and aggressively, might I add. He has positively no manners,” Arashi grumbles. “A pompous, vain, full of himself…”

“Wait– the Jade Palace has a kami, too?” Audrey asks, faintly.

“Two. But their story is… complicated. I would advise much caution, Yuna. That place is dangerous - especially for pretty young women–…”

“Oh, I’d like to see them fucking try,” she growls, slamming the courtyard door shut as anothe clap of thunder rattles the sky and as the rain pours harder.

[korporxie]

set ‘em up.

Xiu’s linkpearl is ringing. It shouldn’t be ringing. The hour was late, Jun was away doing his monthly duties, and as far as she knew, she hadn’t angered the oyabun enough to warrant a call. All in all, Xiu had been on her best behavior. The Jade Palace was never uneventful, but it was quieter in recent days. Of course, Xiu knew better than to trust too much quiet. 

It was usually hiding something.

With a soft groan, she pushes herself up on her elbows and reaches for the little jade-hued device, laced with gold paint. It was a newer device, this one. It was for secure calls - to her brother, to the prince, to the servant girls if they needed her and she was not within close proximity. 

It’s not a voice she recognizes chiming in from the other end. 

“This is Tsai Xiu, isn’t it? I hope this isn’t a bad time.”

A pause. A heartbeat, a skip. The Doman is good, but it isn’t perfect. Accented. Not a familiar voice. A feminine voice, but not one she knows. And it’s someone using her... almost real name.

What in the seven hells?

“Who is this?” Xiu asks, eyeing up the walls and the doors, and she can hear the other voice smiling when it replies.

“Oh, silly me. It’s Audrey Matsuda-- or Yuna Matsuda, I guess, you may know me better by? Sorry. Still getting used to it. This is probably a big surprise! I’m sorry about that, but I got the contact information from...”

There’s another pause, and Xiu has to wonder why she’s still entertaining this call and why she hasn’t hung up yet.

Yuna. Yuna Matsuda.

Hana’s baby sister.

Hells. Fucking hells.

“--Mori Takahashi, who said he got it from your brother... Hui,” Yuna says, like she’s reading something. And now that she’s said her name, Xiu is able to hear it. She has a similar voice to her sister, in pitch and tone, but she can already tell that Yuna is not as soft-spoken. There’s a certain liveliness to the way she speaks, rather than the demure tone of a geisha that Xiu had grown so accustomed to. 

And Mori. Of course it was Mori. Of course he’d squeal to this woman’s father. Of course. Had he already set eyes on her? Was he already plotting something? 

Not important, Xiu reminds herself. Figure out why she’s calling you. Now. Figure out why she has so much information. And what the hell, Hui? How drunk were you to give Mori this line? 

“Mori is really talkative,” Yuna muses, almost apologetically, like she’s able to read Xiu’s mind, and while Xiu knows the likelihood of that is low, it still shakes her. It’s hard to catch her by surprise, but... Kami help her, she doesn’t remember the last time she had been so surprised. “I guess he spilled a lot to my dad. I’m sorry about that. That’s probably not ideal for you. But don’t worry. It’s just me, and I’m not gonna blow your cover or anything to the Garleans you helped. Lian Hua, right? I’ll call you that in case they walk in.” 

Xiu stares blankly at the wall in front of her. She can’t even find it in herself to be panicked. Yuna Matsuda talked a lot, but it felt natural. She wasn’t nervous. It was like Xiu was an old friend that she was catching up with, and Xiu was finding it hard to stop listening. Usually, by now, she would be questioning. She would be angry. It would make sense to be angry.

But this is Hana’s baby sister - if she’s to be believed - and... she sounds like her, in part. Hana was soft-spoken but she had been bubbly, too. Still... There was something else in the way that Yuna spoke that was familiar. It’s a horrible sort of dawning realization that Xiu comes to once she figures it out.

Misaki-fucking-Ito, Yuna and Hana’s cousin, sneaking in within just two minutes of conversation and trapping you before you even knew it, wrapping you around their fingers with pretty voices and easy conversation.

Not good.

“Yuna...” Xiu starts, closing her eyes, and she hears a shift of fabric, like Yuna was adjusting how she was sitting - like she was perking up. “This is... an incredible surprise, yes. Hana said you were dead.”

“Yeah, but you already knew that wasn’t true,” Yuna replies, and Xiu can still hear her smiling. “You know a lot about me, I think, ma’am. And that’s okay. I don’t have a lot to hide. But you do, right?”

Xiu pauses again, tilting her head to the side as she lets the silence fill the air. 

What did she mean by that? 

“So this Mori guy, I just couldn’t get him to stop talking about you. He went on for a while about how I reminded him of my sister, but you - kami, you were his favorite subject. And the Garleans - my fiancé ‘s family, oh, and don’t worry about him, your real name is still a secret between us - they said some stuff, too. They don’t know as much, and I’m sorry, I know I’m kind of rambling, so let me get to the point! You know anything about ghosts?”

W... What?

Xiu lifts a hand to the bridge of her nose and pinches, closing her eyes. There were a lot of ways this weird conversation could have gone, but that... That one, again, took the woman by surprise. Ghost? Why was she talking about ghosts? And why was she talking so damned much? 

To keep you spinning. To keep you on your toes and ready to tell her everything because you’re taken off guard.

“With all due respect, that’s quite enough. I don’t know you. I don’t know what you could possibly want from me, but this conversation is over. Do not contact me again--”

“When I first got here, a priestess told me I had a ghost following me,” Yuna continues, like Xiu hadn’t said anything, and she blinks, and she deflates, shifting so that she can stare out at the pond in the courtyard. “One that sort of looked like me, but her hair was lighter and so were her eyes, and she was scorched. Everywhere. Like she’d burned to death.” 

Xiu swallows. Yuna’s voice had grown softer, more coaxing, and Xiu thinks, this woman is a manipulator. She’s just like Misaki. She knows exactly how to use a person and I am sitting here, letting her do it, because she said a name that makes me feel guilty and awful. The oyabun taught me better.

“And that’s not really... Truthfully, ma’am, that’s not the biggest reason I’m trying to ask you for help. It seems like my sister needs some help peacefully crossing to the other side, and maybe she would trust you to do that - to help her. But... Right now, there’s something more pressing. Like a Garlean pilus primus and his cohorts and their spirits being out of place.” 

Slowly, Xiu closes her eyes.

“You’re out of your godsdamned mind if you think I’ll help you with anything like that,” she says quietly, tightly. “Do you know what the Garleans did to our people, Yuna? You were able to dodge seeing it firsthand, and for that, I am truly happy for you. I helped your Garleans once. I won’t do it again.”

This time, Yuna pauses. She lets the silence settle just long enough for Xiu to let her own words echo back at her. 

“But you’re the one person I know to turn to,” Yuna murmurs, and Xiu grits her teeth. No. She doesn’t want to believe her. She doesn’t want to believe the sadness that creeps into Yuna’s voice, but it’s like she had cast a spell. Xiu knows better than to trust her.

And yet...

“I know. It’s a lot to ask for, ma’am, from a stranger especially. But you know-- you know who I’m talking about, right? The oldest Benes boy? I know him. I can see his ghost, and-- we all can, thanks to my kami, but it’s... not right. And from everything I’ve heard about Hana, I think they’re similar.”

Another pause. Xiu knows that it is calculated. Still, she listens. 

“I may not get a second chance to know my big sister. But Cato, he has a shot at that second chance. If you don’t think he deserves it, then... let me try to convince you. If Hana has really been around this whole time, then let her convince you.”

“It is wrong to use your sister as a bargaining chip--”

Suddenly, the line crackles, and Xiu flinches as the whoosh of a fire fills her horns. She holds the linkpearl away, stiffens as she hears the horrible sound of what could only be a dying woman’s shriek, and then there is silence - come just as quickly as it had gone. She hears Yuna’s lips part, hears her suck her teeth just slightly, as Xiu’s heart races.

Hana?

“I’m not trying to. I’m trying to ask for help, as a desperate woman. My family got ripped apart.” Again, Yuna’s voice is soft, quiet. “But I found a new one. And I would like to be part of something whole, ma’am-- Xiu. You can understand that, can’t you?” 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Hang up. Say no and hang up. Smash the linkpearl. Don’t let her do this. Don’t let her crawl under your skin. Don’t let this girl wrap you up around her finger. You can tell it’s what she’s good at.

“Convince me - at the Jade Palace,” is what Xiu actually says, quietly, staring at the wall again once she opens her eyes. “Those are my terms. You come here. I don’t go to you. Not unless I can be certain of you and your... ghosts.” 

“Deal.”

Yuna says it so quickly, and Xiu wonders if it’s a smirk on her lips on the other end of the line. Is this what she had been angling for? And hells - hells, was Xiu really evil, to invite a young woman where the Jade Lord could reach her? 

Something tells her that even he might have his hands full with this one. 

“I’m staying at my father’s home. You can forward the date there. I look forward to meeting you, my lady. And... thank you. Really, thank you. This means a lot to me. It would mean a lot to Hana, too, I bet.”

Xiu wants to tell her she’s wrong.

She can’t, because she isn’t. Hana was kind. Hana was the best of them. 

It’s true, she thinks, that the good die young. And now she’s stuck with the good’s manipulative little sister.

[cherrytart-ffxiv]

missing.

Hingashi is lonely.

The streets are always bustling. There’s always ijin crowding them - and how fuckin’ bold of me, to not consider myself one of them anymore, like I’m not just as much an outsider here as anyone else from La Noscea. I’ve gotten to develop a big fuckin’ chip on my shoulder, because my dad is important here, because no one can touch me here without suffering true consequences. 

It’s peaceful. Every day is… peaceful.

It makes me feel like shit.

Keep reading

[benes-diction]

I know those eyes following me

Dark and familiar, and deep as the sea

I know that face, strange though it seems

Younger and kinder, it haunts all my dreams

How can you stand there a whisper from me

Yet somehow be so far away?

In eyes once familiar, a stranger I see

With so many words left to say

[cherrytart-ffxiv]

everybody loves you

[benes-diction]

Screenie dump

[korporxie]

consequences.

“I implore you both to think, just once, about what you have done!”

It is the way these words come out of Hugo’s sister - anguished and angry and wracked with sobs - that makes him quicken his pace down the snowy streets of the Brume, head bowed against the cold and against begging hands that he could no longer help to reach her. 

Odette stands at the entrance to the apartment buildings where their family, in the last week, had been forced to seek refuge. Her back is to him, but Hugo can see the way that her slender shoulders are shaking. He does not need to see her face to know that she is weeping, to know the agony written across it, to see the way her throat and jaw works as she speaks to her mother who stands in the doorway, her eyes wide and horrified. 

“Odette...” their mother attempts as Hugo breaks into a sprint, because now he can see that it is not as simple as a regular fight. 

“No!” Odette screams, and Hugo flinches at the rage in her usually gentle tone. “No! You will let me speak, and you will listen!” 

The closer he gets, the more easily he can see a healer in the hallway leading to their apartment through the open door, and the more easily he can see Philip and their father kneeling next to Olivier, and he can hear the youngest of the Benoits weeping and begging his brother to open his eyes. 

“Odette.” As he comes closer, he reaches for her arm, and she turns, angrily, tears streaking down her face. Now Hugo understands, in full, why their parents look so horrified, so shocked. 

Blood looks as though it has been sprayed across Odette’s front, from the hem of her apron to the bottom of her chin. She is pale as a sheet, and her hair that had been tied up falls in bloodied braids and knots. Her eyes are bloodshot and wild, and she shakes herself out of Hugo’s grip to bear down on their mother, even as he tries to pull her back.

“We cannot walk through the streets with any sense of security! The knights feel well at ease to attack us, to assault us! Olivier was nearly beat to death, and you have the audacity and the stupidity to ask me why?!”

Her anger is frightening. Odette was not a person to feel such a deep rage. She did not raise her voice, and she did not lose her temper. Not easily. Never easily. Now, though - now, it is their beloved maman on the receiving end, and for what Hugo can only assume is good reason as he looks to his younger brothers in the hall, as he looks at Odette’s torn dress and the crimson that stains it. 

“Because they feel free to.” Odette’s volume suddenly drops in a way that causes goosebumps, her voice cracking, her tensed shoulders suddenly slumping, as she stares up at their mother. “Do you understand? Already, many in the High Houses detested our family. 

“They did not like us. They did not like you, because you never tried to endear yourself to them! You never tried to hide how you felt, and it made us targets, Maman! Do you hear me? There has been a target on our backs our entire lives, and now -- now they are free to fire at us as they please, with no consequences to suffer! They do not target you, or papa. They target your children! This is your mistake that we must now all live with!”

“I only ever tried to teach you that to be yourself was good,” their mother tries, and Hugo takes a breath, looking into the apartment hall to see that Olivier was beginning to stir with whatever the healer was doing for him. “That to express yourself freely was the best way--”

“It isn’t.” Odette’s voice cuts through the air like a knife. “It isn’t, Maman. Not here. Not in this place. They have already raped me. What now? What now, hm? Will Olivier being harmed shake you awake, or will it take them murdering Philip for you to see your mistakes?”

“Odette, please--” Maman cannot speak for weeping. She is crying so hard that she falls to her knees, buries her head in her lap as she sobs, as her shoulders quake so violently that Hugo fears that she’ll break. 

“I will not stop!” Odette’s voice rockets in volume again, and she moves closer to their mother, her eyes wild. “You have destroyed our family! My uncle has already agreed to duel for our honor, and then? What if he doesn’t survive? Why have you not begged him on your godsdamned knees to withdraw? There is nothing for us now. There is no going back. There is no point anymore!”

Hugo grabs Odette around the waist when she makes to suddenly lunge for their mother, and briefly he wonders if she’s lost her mind with grief. He should have been here, he tells himself. After what had happened with Odette and Jean, he never should have let her be alone. Their parents were scrambling, trying desperately to put money together so that they did not starve, and... Odette was not wrong. People who wished to hurt them were crawling out of the woodwork, now. First, it had been their father and Hugo. Then it had been Odette. Now Olivier. Who next, he wonders? Would they try again, would they keep trying until everyone in their family had been hurt or killed? 

Odette carried it all. She bore the brunt of their mother’s grief and shame. She was the one who their mother leaned on most heavily during the trials, because they were close. But after... After those past two weeks... It was becoming clear that Odette could not carry these things anymore.

She was cracking, and she was breaking, and Hugo couldn’t fault her for it. No one could. 

“Everything you’ve done, our entire lives, has had consequences for more than just you,” Odette breathes, her eyes wide as Hugo restrains her. “You are my mother, and I love you, but you... You have ruined us, Maman. Olivier is alive for now. But that was only because we were lucky. It was only because I was there to make them stop, and Twelve knows what I will be forced to do next time I must beg for my life or the lives of my family.” 

“Odette...” Maman sobs. “Forgive me. Please. Please, forgive me. This was never meant to happen. Never. I have only wanted the best for you, all of you--”

“And you have failed.” 

The words rip out of Odette’s throat, and it is the awful, heartbroken sob that comes out of his mother that drives Hugo to force Odette back inside, away from where she wanted to hurt all of her venom and hurt. 

“That’s enough,” he whispers to her sister as she collapses in his arms with her own pained weeping. “That is enough, now, Odette.” 

[korporxie]

how it starts.

Lots of people explain their maturity and strength and their wisdom by virtue - or vice - of having grown up quickly. For reasons beyond their control, they had to shoot upwards in emotional and mental years while physically, they stayed the same. I have no such story, I suppose. I grew up at the proper pace, and wanted for very little as a child. Maybe the lack of want made me even more immature than many other children. There were many parts of me, I think, that were unfortunately naive to the world around me. 

So no. I cannot say that I grew up quickly and gained wisdom from it, but I can say that I was shocked out of my blissful youth at age twenty with a hot iron and a sort of desperation that belongs only to those with a knife to their throat. My maturity came by force, by necessity, by a drive to survive and ensure that the people around me survived, too. 

That is not to say, however, that I knew everything I needed to know in a night. There were lessons to be learned the hard way. When my family was cast from the High Houses and sent to trial, with shackles that weren’t needed to keep my siblings and I still, kneeling on cold stone and praying, I hardly knew a thing at all. I knew music, and literature, and manners, and I knew that these things happened, but never to us. It could never be us. Right? We see the nightmares and we frown and we feel pity but we feel so certain that it could never be us standing on the chopping block.

Not until we are.

Claude Sinclair is an old, wealthy man, the Sinclair family an offshoot of House Durendaire. He’s been a widower ever since I was a young child, and he had always been beloved for being a talented artist with both words and paint. Many members of the High Houses had his paintings hung in their high homes. My own family had commissioned him for a painting of my mother while she was still on stage, glittering in rhinestone covered fabric and diamond jewelry. 

We had to sell it for half its original price in order to pay for a few of our meals, but I digress. 

When we became disgraced, Monsieur Sinclair came to call on me specifically, and at the time I was touched. Few people from the High Houses wanted anything to do with us. It was social suicide. We had dodged execution by a miracle and a miracle only, but we had not - and will never - be allowed back our place in society. But Monsieur Sinclair, it seemed, was empathetic to our plight. He walked to rickety home in the Brume and asked to walk with him with a smile on his face, telling me he had an opportunity for me to make some money.

Considering our circumstances - which included selling all of our worldly possessions to pay off debts - I wasn’t going to turn my nose up at anything. And why couldn’t I trust Monsieur Sinclair? I had known him since, well... since birth. He had already taken Hugo in as his personal attorney and financial advisor at that point, rescuing us before we could fall too deeply into a pit of poverty.

Surely if he had an opportunity for me then it would be just as appealing and dignified. Wouldn’t it?

“I have been meaning to hire a new housemaid, Odette,” he told me as we wove our way out of the Brume, and I blinked, but I did not balk. It stood to reason that this was one of my options. 

“I see. Is that what you came to talk to me about, monsieur?” 

“Ah, well, I suppose. But you’ve grown up so prettily, Odette. You are marvelously beautiful, you know this? Even more beautiful than your mother was at your age. Like... Like one of the muses of myth, come to life. Better than Menphina,” he added in a whisper, like the goddess couldn’t hear him, and I even smiled at the joke.

I smiled at the fucking joke.

“You are kind, Monsieur Sinclair, and generous with your praise, but I don’t need to be pretty to be a maid. It only stands to reason that I would need to be hardworking and reliable, no?” I asked, tilting my head, and he hummed a little at that before gesturing for me to follow him down a street that I wouldn’t usually wouldn’t take - not anymore.

It was a road that lead back up to the High Houses.

Monsieur Sinclair could clearly sense my hesitation, because now my skirts were not fine. They were of rough and unattractive wool that itched, but not as much as the rough wool socks I wore did. All of them, though, marked me - they marked me, although they shouldn’t have, because I was no lesser than I ever was. Those in the Brume were not lesser. But it is Ishgard’s way, I suppose.

“Come, mon trésor. You will be safe with me. You have my word.”

Mon trésor. My treasure. I thought little of it. He was an elderly man known for his romantic writings and romantic paintings and romantic way of speech. He was warm and familiar with all who interacted with him. Truth be told, I was quite fond of Monsieur Sinclair. He had given Olivier a great deal of advice, had always read over his poems and manuscripts and provided feedback in earnest.

There was no reason to not trust this man who had watched me go from child to teenager to young woman, who was now extending a hand out to my family in order to aid us in our time of need. 

Did I not say that I was shocked out of such blissful naiveté, though? 

“It is a shame that you will not be able to dance and perform as you once did, mademoiselle. To know that you were headlining a show always ensured a front row seat for me,” he lamented as he walked the winding paths with me keeping my head down, trying to trail after him as a servant might to avoid attention.

“Ah, monsieur, twenty is a bit old for ballet, anyhow. I was beginning to outgrow those leading roles. They’d soon start casting me as la matrone,” I joked, and he laughed, and I smiled because he’d like the joke. “But, monsieur... What is it that we have to talk about that I must go to your home...?”

His home was grand. Of course it was. He preferred dark, dramatic interiors to the lighter ones that I was used to. Maman adored wide open windows that let plenty of sunlight in, and light curtains that didn’t block it out. Our furniture was light, too, and the walls were painted pale yellows and greens and purples and pinks and blues. But Monsieur Sinclair had a flair for a different sort of dramatic, I suppose, with his rich, dark reds and dark browns and brocades in gold and black along his walls.

Servants bowed and curtsied to us as we walked inside, until they caught sight of my face - and then many of them looked a little confused, unsure if they should be bowing or curtseying to me at all. I wanted to tell them not to, as I always had, but something in me was beginning to feel that something was... off.

Maybe it had to do with how Monsieur Sinclair would merely chuckle or titter when I asked him questions until we got to his studio. 

“I’d like you to sit for a painting for me, Odette,” he said, closing the heavy wooden door behind me, and I fought to shake off this odd feeling settling in the pit of my stomach. 

“A painting...?”

“Oh, yes. You are the loveliest creature I have set my eyes on. How could I never paint you?”

“You have,” I began, and he waved a hand as he stepped through the messy studio. Canvases laid on the floor which was covered by thick white tarps, brushes overflowing in cups filled with colorful dirty water. The room spelled of oils, with more than a few splatters of color against the walls, as if someone had thrown an entire palette. 

“Not like that, not like that. Not a family portrait or one specially done to hang over a mantle, you see? Something of... of substance! Art, mon trésor! One of you, Odette. Just of you. One like... One like... Let’s see here...” 

I stood still as a statue as this old man - still in his thick jacket from walking outside in the bitter cold of winter - began to look through tarp-covered paintings leaned up against the wall. Someone knocked on the door, and I startled, but Monsieur Sinclair called for them to come back later, and I heard the footsteps disappear back down the hall, and we were alone again.

Leave, I thought. Trust your gut. Shouldn’t you trust your gut if something feels wrong? Tell him you have to go, and--...

“One like this!” the old man said brightly, and he stepped away from the wall with the canvas he had selected, smiling broadly while I stared.

The painting was... crude. It was beautifully done, I suppose, but it was crude all the same. It was of a woman of about my figure and size laying on her back, fully nude, with her legs spread and head thrown back, pleasuring herself with her fingers. Her mouth was open in apparent ecstacy, sweat beading along her skin, her dark hair undone and clinging to her shoulders.

“Monsieur--!” I began, horrified, and he started to laugh as he turned back to look at me.

“Exquisite, isn’t it? And how more exquisite - how more exquisite, mon trésor, if I was able to paint you just the same. No... No, not the same. You are so beautiful, Odette. You would transcend my abilities as an artist. To capture you would be to capture something heavenly. A sin, perhaps, for me to even try, but if it is sin that I am tempted into--”

“Monsieur!” I said again, louder, feeling my eyes shaking as I met his gaze, but... What else could I say? How could I have expected this? He had known me since I was a child. How could he ever-- how could he think--?

“My girl, you are as pale as a sheet now,” he said, laughing, and the laughter felt mocking. “You are not a little girl anymore, are you? Does such a painting truly shock you? I can hardly believe it would, after your upbringing with your mother, and I’ve seen how those young gentlemen chase after you. This cannot be new to you, can it? Or are you more pure than you seem?”

It felt like I had entered some terrible dream sequence. An hour ago I was merrily greeting who I thought was an old family friend, and now I was in his house, staring at a painting that he refused to tuck away and listening to him make assumptions of how pure or impure I might be, being asked to pose for just such a portrait, and...

“This is entirely out of line and disastrously inappropriate,” I said, breathless, forcing myself to look away from the painting and back at Monsieur Sinclair. “I am grateful, sir, for all you have done for my family, but this-- this is simply too much. You asked me to be your housemaid--”

“I did. And I stand by it. But how nice to make some extra money, don’t you think? I’d pay you well to sit and model for me. You know, Odette, I have had eyes for you for the longest time. If I didn’t enjoy my freedom so much, well, I’d be able to fix your tragic situation far more easily than this.”

His eyes glittered, and they were dark and horrible and did not house any of the warmth I used to see in them. In an instant, something had changed. He did not seem doddering or romantic. He seemed wicked. There was something nefarious and wrong in the way this man regarded me.

“I would marry you,” Monsieur Sinclair said, smiling, as he stared at me. “And what a beautiful bride you would be. But, I think, you make a far better muse. There is such sadness in your eyes, my girl. There always has been, ever since you were knee high. You know that? Such a tortured soul. But over what?”

“Thank you for your offer,” I muttered, starting to turn, “but I cannot accept. Not as a housemaid, muse, or your wife. This is madness, monsieur. This is surely some sort of sick joke that I can forget come morning.”

And the bastard, he grabbed my arm. He moved faster than I had ever seen him, and his old hand was on my wrist, and he was preventing me from walking through the door. He was still smiling, but it was... worse. It wasn’t kind.

“I will speak plainly. You are not a stupid girl, nor are you a child, so I won’t dance around the subject. Your brother relies on me for income. No one else would take him in. And did you know that I’ve been helping Olivier get some of his writing published? I wasn’t sure if he’d told you yet. And Philip...”

I could spit. I should have hit him and run. I should have. But I didn’t.

“I offered to pay for the last bit of Philip’s studies at the boy’s school, Odette. Your parents are grateful to me. And how wonderful, wouldn’t it be, to continue working with me? I have been generous. And who else would take in a disgraced family like yours? Hm?”

How long had he been thinking of? How long had he been planning? Had he always wished for this day, where we were vulnerable and could not say no, or was it just a happy coincidence? 

“What are you getting at?” I snapped, and he tightened his grip on my wrist.

“Refuse me, and I will withdraw all of my finances and all of my assistance,” Monsieur Sinclair murmured, still smiling. “You will lose everything. You will be in the Brume, scraping and begging, for the rest of your life. I have connections. I could close your father’s business down. And it is a simple thing, Odette, to clean for me, to come and sit for paintings. Isn’t it?” 

Cruel. Cruel. Evil. Wicked. Shockingly wicked. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. Why was he doing this? How? And did anyone else know? Did people know this man’s true character and just chose to never speak of it? He had always known my family. How could he threaten them, now? How could he look me in the eyes and threaten them? 

But I was... naive. I was young. I was scared of the power he now wielded, because I had none to retaliate with. 

There was no saying no. He had trapped me, and I had never felt more idiotic in my whole entire privileged little life. 

“You are evil,” I whispered, and he frowned, letting go of my wrist.

“No, mon trésor. I am giving you chances and choices, because I love you and your family so. But nothing in life comes for free. You are no fool. You understand that now, don’t you?” 

Monsieur Sinclair sighed and took a step back, gesturing to the door, and I grabbed the heavy brass handle immediately. 

“Take a couple of days to think on it, Odette. Ah, but... I’d keep these terms and agreements between us. Your father has a hot temper. If he storms in here, upset over something silly and the Temple Knights got their hands on him again...”

My father. My precious father, laying in the snow and bleeding from the head while Hugo tried to shield my mother from the rest of the blows the night that they were arrested. My mother was screaming, Philip was crying, Olivier had already been knocked out for clocking a Knight in the jaw. There was blood, because my father had never known how to go down quietly.

Because on the Temple Knights had grabbed me by the hair and tried to drag me down the road away from them, and he had acted before he thought, and I thought they had beaten him to death right in front of our eyes. 

“Fuck you,” I breathed, and Monsieur Sinclair chuckled again.

“Only if I’m lucky. I look forward to your return, Odette. You’ll be back,” he added, winking, and I hated him. I hated him so much I could scream and lose my head. I hated him so much for preying on us when we were weak.

I hated him, because we both knew that he was right.

I stormed from the house. I stormed through the High Houses and their winding, sloping roads, and I found a dark alley, and I screamed into my hands until my throat felt like it was bleeding. Betrayal and backstabbing had always been a hallmark of Ishgardian society.

But then again, well... You never think it can happen to you, do you?

[korporxie]

this is my favorite thing i've made

[korporxie]

the new kids.

miss odette (lothaire) benoit

&

miss soraya-shai.

[korporxie]

odette.

“Ah!” Olivier noises from behind me, and I turn in my seat to see him with his legs over one arm of his own chair and his head thrown back over the other. 

“You are distressed,” I note, sipping slowly from my now lukewarm cup of tea before placing it back down on the desk after turning back around.

“How could I not be?” he groans, and I can hear his clothing shuffling as he, presumably, lays one of his hands across his eyes. “I have been a fool, sister - a terrible, bumbling sort of fool! A fool too hasty by half!” 

It’s only when I don’t respond that I hear the shuffling of his clothing once more, as my younger brother deigns to rise and make his long-legged strides over to the handsome mahogany desk at which I sit. Looking to the side, I see him with his hands planted on his hips, and looking upwards, I see his brow furrowed rather crossly, a golden curl caught between them - cross, I assume, because I have not chased after the information that makes him a fool.

“And why, then, are you a fool this time, Olivier? Apart from the many obvious reasons that I could--”

“You do not even care, Odette, about my plight! About my aching heart, nor the way it feels as though it’s been ripped from chest!”

“How can you feel it ache if it’s no longer there?”

We both look up as Hugo enters the room, appearing rather run down and as stone-faced as ever. He shakes the newspaper he’s carrying in his hand open as he sits upon the loveseat beside the window - where there is no sunshine, but instead a gray sort of day glaring at us. Of course, there’s little else I’ve come to expect from living in Ishgard, but one can always hope for a spot of light in this miserable stone cage that they call the Holy See. 

“You would be the last one to ever understand how I feel,” Olivier accuses our eldest brother.

“You know that Hugo felt all five of his yearly allotted emotions at the beginning of the year when Lady Celine agreed to dance with him at Auntie’s ball, and when he lost that case against the lawyer from Ul’dah,” I murmur, painstakingly and preciously placing another pen stroke on my list of things needed from the market. 

“Have you considered work as a comedienne rather than a housemaid?” Hugo grumbles at my back, and I turn to smile at him, part my lips to answer him, before Olivier looses a sigh that feels as though it may shake the windows. 

“Forgive us, Olivier. There’s clearly something you’re bursting to tell us.”

It’s then that I notice that he’s been holding a note of his own, which he lays down in front of me before pacing towards the window to stare pensively out of it. He even reaches up to stroke at his jaw, like he has some facial hair there that may make it look impressive, as opposed to the sad writer’s stubble that’s grown along his cheeks and jawline like a shadow. 

“Ah. Hugo, it’s his will,” I say as I read that he’s left all of his books to me and all of his favorite shoes to our youngest sibling, Phillip. “It looks as though he’s left you nothing at all. What a shame.”

“A shame, indeed... I’m rather fond of his blue smoking jacket--”

“Heartless!” Olivier exclaims, turning around to lean against the windowsill with wide eyes. “Terribly heartless! I am giving you my will because I plan on killing myself by the morning. Do you recall that Marais girl?”

“The one you said was your true destiny - and positively, this time, not like the times you were wrong with the gentleman from House Tremblay or the lady from House Allain?” I ask, raising my eyebrows only to earn myself another terribly withering glare. 

“Yes, I suppose, if you must bring up such terrible, old hurts. Well! I was incorrect this time, as well. The Marais woman is dreadful. She argued with me extensively about the subject of optional commas and was, perhaps, admirable in her staunch belief that they’re unnecessary, but terribly cold in believing that they don’t add a certain flair to a piece--”

This is something, I know, that could go on for hours if he’s allowed. I watch as Hugo sinks deeper into the loveseat and blows out his cheeks before sighing, glancing over at me and then to Olivier and then to the door, as if silently begging for some sort of out of this conversation. By now, though, Olivier’s rants and tyrades sound something like a familiar song. It’s not a song that one usually enjoys, nor that one would seek out to listen to on its own, but... more like, I suppose, a song that your friend forces you to listen to and you’re simply too tired of asking them to change it. 

Olivier, of course, will not kill himself. He simply needs to finish being dramatic before he can once again pursue love and lust in kind. 

My bigger worry is that Maman is once again asking for only the most expensive things that our limited budget can buy. She told me the night before that a tradesman from Ul’dah was arriving in Ishgard with carpets from the Far East, and how she will simply die to have one, and can’t I budget it in somehow? 

We do not need a carpet from the Far East. Alas, Maman is insistent on the finer things, even if our much-smaller-than-before estate can no longer house quite as many as she’s used to. Of course, living amongst House Lothaire her whole life and for a good portion of mine, Maman is used to luxury. That’s something she may have considered before getting us cast out from the High Houses with my father as her willing accomplice. That is, though, a story for another day.

Maman wants a carpet that we cannot afford. Phillip needs new books for his studies, and while his work as a stable boy supplements his income, it’s not enough. People are dying less now that the Dragonsong War is over, which is a lovely thing, but it also means my father is doing less business, too - and he has been, ever since we were disgraced and our caste was lowered, because the High Houses and their power is remarkable and disgusting .

Hugo cannot get paid the same amount he used to, despite being an excellent attorney. Olivier is a self-proclaimed “starving artist” who doesn’t often seem too focused on making a proper living for himself, knowing that none of us will allow him to fall onto the streets or starve. And I am a housemaid, now, for a widower of House Durendaire. The widower in question is a painter, a poet, someone who Olivier looks up to and who I would prefer to avoid, for all of his verses he writes to me and for all of the paintings he forces me to sit for.

“You are my muse,” the widower croons to me whenever he shuffles towards me in a velvet robe and house slippers. “Oh! An angel! Menphina herself, dear Odette. You are all things divine. How could you be anything less than my most special of muses?”

I tell him that I’m his housekeeper, and he laughs and tells me there’s no reason I can’t be both. Of course, professional muses do get paid for their time. Monsieur Sinclair does not pay me extra, except for the times where I really must sit for hours to be painted. So I’ve found a compromise.

I steal from Monsieur Sinclair regularly, and his favor in turn is to never mention it, complain, fire me, or have me flogged in the streets. It’s a fair enough trade, I suppose. Sometimes I think he even restocks his fine things for me to line my pockets with, that he may leave gil out on purpose. And if he wasn’t - my fingers have gotten very light since my family fell out of favor with the High Houses. I shop where the wealthy like to go. I often act as a waitress at their parties. 

Their wealth is not my wealth, though. No - their wealth goes to where it ought to be going. It goes to those less fortunate in the Brume.

If the High Houses and the rich will not assist the poor on their own, then they will do it against their will. Their pockets have no need to jingle, and they have more than enough surplus to buy new earrings or bracelets or rings so that they may sparkle in what little sunlight we receive. The widows and children begging in the Brume, in the freezing cold, sick and starved, are not so fortunate. 

My name is Odette Madeleine Lothaire, the only girl and second child of the family . More accurately, I suppose my name is Odette Madeleine Benoit, as Benoit is the surname of my father - but I prefer Lothaire, my mother’s maiden name. It does infuriate the still-wealthy members of my family to know I wear the name. But what will they do about it? Stone me? Ishgard is working on becoming a better, warmer, more accepting place. Isn’t it?

So, with all due respect - fuck the rich. Help those in need. If they won’t spread their wealth, then I will be happy to do it for them. 

It’s nice to meet you. 

[korporxie]

I'M HERE TO PUT YOU ON MOTHERFUCKING BLAST, FOR MOTHERFUCKING STEALING, MY MOTHERFUCKING BLAND-ASS, BASIC-ASS CHARACTERS! THE AUDACITY!

ahhhhh oh nooooo you got me ahhhhhh no pls i’m already dead noooo