FFXIV Write Day 29 [Fuse]
This one is obvious. Though it's written from the perspective of my specific WoL, I left everything vague except the fact that this WoL is female.
Ardbert/WoL is truly bittersweet, but maybe that's why I have a soft spot for it.
It’s strange. A few years ago, her first meeting with Ardbert was one of contention. She was prepared to cut him down, and vice versa. Her in self-defense, and him out of desperation for his dying world.
Now they’re alone in the figment of Amaurot. Everlasting evening down in the depths of the Tempest. Quiet melancholy along the streets as the shades of the Ancients loop their final moments, none the wiser to their circumstances of being.
And here she is, dreading the possibility of what’s to come. The proposed last resort neither one of them actually says aloud. But they’re fragments of the same soul—of she who once called Amaurot her home. How can they not come to the same conclusion?
He tells her not to cry, for any intense emotion risks tipping her over the precipice. They can’t afford for the light to consume her. Not now. Not when they’re so close to ridding the Source and its shards of a menace, once and for all. Him and his delusions of bygone days under halcyon skies.
Him and his stubborn perspective that their lives, and all of sundered existence, are and were always worth less than his memories.
Memories are all she will have of Ardbert should worse come to worst. He is her friend, and a companion. Someone she never thought would be as dear to her as he became.
He is already dead, is what a rational mind would think. He deserves peace.
But is it truly peace should he simply become a part of her? Potentially lose his consciousness in the process of fusing with her? Is her life truly above his even if they are of the same foundational essence?
The latter is likely what assists her in the aetheric manipulation. Something she experimented once with him after they realized there was a physical connection when they attempted to fist bump. He was solid for but a moment, yet it was enough for her to practice making more of him whole.
Perhaps it’s a mercy now for what’s to come later. A consolation prize that she can make him tangible entirely in this very moment. Only to her, she’s sure, for it takes a lot of her focus to keep him from fading back into his spectral state. But his weight supports her nonetheless as he holds her close. She neither knows the reason, nor asks for it, when he embraces her. She simply trembles in his arms, her hands gripping his back, slipping underneath the shaft of the ax strapped there.
“Not about to let you succumb to this,” he tells her. “You’ve endured too much to let it all be for naught.”
She breathes, and sniffs snot away as she keeps him close. “You have also endured—”
“That I have. ‘Tis why I can’t let you end up like me. Or worse. My time is long over; won’t waste this chance to make sure yours continues.”
She tries excuses. How unfair it’ll be should it come to that. But she knows he makes sense, and being the Warrior of Light has taught her time and time again that the path she’s chosen to walk is paved with sacrifice. Of which caliber greatly varies.
She’s afraid that it will inevitably come to that, for as much as she’s tried to stand on her own two legs, the light within her makes it difficult to tread forward, or to even see clearly. She can’t let down the Scions. Not when they’ve worked so hard for her survival.
Not when the Crystal Exarch—G’raha, actually—spent over a century doing his best to ensure she doesn’t meet a premature end like she did back in his timeline.
Though her tears cease, she still doesn’t let Ardbert go. She jests that her comfort in his presence can be attributed to the fact he’s her literal soulmate. He groans, which makes her smile, for she knows he finds it cheesy and even told her not to say it since they found out a while ago from the shade of an Ancient by the name of Hythlodaeus.
But it isn’t until now that she understands why it bothered him so.
His embrace alone would’ve been indication enough, though it’s made all the more apparent when the intensity of his gaze and the beating of her heart clouds the realization of their lips meeting until a moment has passed. She refuses to let him go, instead deepening their shared affection. She holds back her sobs, but a tear rolls down her cheek nonetheless.
It truly is cruel for fate to do this to her. To believe she would never find love again after the death of her precious Haurchefant, only to ‘save’ her the repeated sorrow by giving her another who has already long passed.
She wonders which one is worse. They both break her heart, albeit in different ways.
“In another life—,”she tries to say when they part, “perhaps we could have—”
“Don’t,” he says quietly, holding her face between his hands. His forehead rests against hers. “Not now. Far too late for either of us to lament on ‘maybes’ or ‘what ifs’. It’s—and we’re even the same—we were the same person. Once. How would that even—no, just don’t ponder on it.”
There’s bitterness laced in his smile. His eyes are closed as he shakes his head. “This would happen to us. To… figure out the connection goes beyond quite literally being a fraction of another.”
“Ardbert, I—”
“Please don’t say it,” he says, looking at her.
She swallows hard, a little frustrated with his adamant ignorance. “No, I will, because if things are going to end the way we know they might—that… that they will, at the very least, let me say it so you know that—”
“You don’t need to say it. I know. I know.” He cradles her face again in his hands. “And you know that I know, right? And I hope you know that… that I feel much the same. But it’ll be worse if we speak aloud of it. Moreso for you who will have to live with the memory of what I say were I to do so. No, no I won’t do that to you after the sorrow of your previous loss lingered so long in your heart.”
There’s a part of her that hates how much she agrees with him. But like him, she’s stubborn. He sighs in mild frustration when she opens her mouth to speak, and she wants to smack him for shushing her with yet another kiss. Her anger dissipates quickly, for the last thing they should be doing is arguing over three simple words. They don’t need to be said. Actions always spoke louder. So she kisses him back, and hopes through that, he can hear her heart clearly.
Though Ardbert’s no longer beats, his hold on her and the softness of his lips is enough of an adequate translation.
She grows weary, and her companion once again fades to his spectral state. The palm of their hands face the other, hovering a sliver apart. He smiles at her, and she manages a sad one in return.
“Can’t keep your friends waiting now, can you?”
“No. They’ve been patient long enough.”
“Then let us be about it, hero.”
—
If there is one thing she finds oddly comforting about her experiences on the First, it’s that she can, in fact, die. As formidable as she is, the Warrior of Light is still just a mortal. The illuminated aether she’s absorbed from Wardens overwhelms her after navigating the frightfully hazardous recreation of the Final Days in Amaurot. She only vaguely recollects the valiant last stand of the Scions. Everything is growing white, and all she can hear at this point is the cracking of glass.
Her legs give out, and she falls.
When she comes to, it’s a blank void. Bright and enduring. She is alone until she notices the other figure in her peripheral vision.
Ardbert is there staring ahead. His posture is impeccable, and his fists are rigid at his sides. Looking at him from profile, she can see why Lamitt was once so taken with him by appearance alone. She wishes to cup his cheek, perhaps feel the prickle of the coarse hair on his chin. But he speaks before her thoughts betray her further.
“If you had the strength to take another step, could you do it?”
He still focuses forward, brow furrowed in what she can only describe as determination. The same as when he was prepared to cut her down, believing the farce the Ascians fed to a guilt-ridden man. There is retribution to be had, and she will gladly help him achieve it.
“Could you save our worlds?”
“What,” she tries lightly with a smile, “all by myself?”
Ardbert looks at her way and huffs out half a laugh.
Her smile falls when he offers his ax to her. Its blade is dulled and crusted with blood along the edge, but it still glimmers in the everlasting light.
“Take it,” he says. “We fight as one.”
She stares at the weapon, and then up at him. The last resort has come to pass. In hindsight, it was inevitable, yet it saddens her all the same.
“I’m going to miss you,” comes her soft admittance.
His gentle smile is a kindness. “I’ll always be with you.” Ardbert lightly taps the left side of his chest with his other fist. “Right here.”
“That is true,” she says, reaching out for the weapon. “You are, after all, my soulmate.”
“Aye,” he agrees with a shake of his head, though there’s a fondness upon his visage, “that I am.”
It’s a small comfort hearing those words. She takes the ax and the light around her dissolves. Though Ardbert goes with it, she’s able to stand on her own two feet once more. Yet it’s almost as if she’s being lifted by a second pair of arms, a hand along the small of her back and an encouraging squeeze on her shoulder.
A voice not her own speaks. But the warmth in her heart is familiar.
“This world is not yours to end,” they say. “This is our future. Our story.”
She can’t quite hear what Emet-Selch says after the burst of light is gone, but his frustrated shout at seeing the Exarch come to her aid in the eleventh hour is unapologetically satisfying.
There’s a vitality she’s never felt before as she glides through the ensuing final battle. Lighter on her feet, and more force behind her blows. Hades’ large and imposing monstrous form fails in coercing fear and hesitation. Perhaps that is why, upon his defeat, he shrouds their surroundings in darkness, no matter how hard the Scions tried to banish him via auracite.
Bring this chapter to a close, she thinks. Or is it Ardbert speaking to her? Many more adventures lie ahead, but this one is long overdue for a conclusion.
An ax of light forms in her hand and she tosses it forward. When everything grows completely dark, she wonders if it was enough. The sole light from her armament manifestation bursts and narrows, piercing through the weaker will between them.
A promise is made under the dawn sky, atop a decaying memory of that which is no more. To remember that they once lived.
On the edge of the platform, lit by the waking sun, is the ax of light. Firmly planted into the ground, its glittering specks are carried along the breeze until it is no more.
She places a hand over her heart. The gentle beat is steady, and she smiles.
