echoes of truths that once rang clear, by bowblade
Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV
Relationships: Original Final Fantasy XIV Characters/Artoirel de Foretemps
Rating: M
Wordcount: ~55,000 words, 10 chapters
"You were, mine and your father's, brightest star. It is why we named you. Estelline."
Much as you wish it, love is not always enough, although it endures.
To lose everything held dear is to have a heart that still cares. In the fallen snows of Coerthas, a falsely accused Dragoon turned Convictor must make her father's amends, and find her own answer.
It's raining outside, a kind of deluge that would chill to the bone in mere moments but softly it envelops.
The sheer curtain was pulled back across the Juliet balcony but neither one of them closed the doors. Too occupied: and if Ashe is cold she hasn't complained yet, not with so much to like.
She holds her hand. It's important. Her outlaw's fingers race her veins and lifelines, roses coiling through to her webs. Together decided, that perhaps rooms that bore witness to heartache and farewells might suit joyous reunions for them too.
Her ankle presses into her lower back. Please be closer. This time be hers. No longer will rain in this suite be associated with goodbyes, only making love.
Fandom:Â Overwatch
Relationships:Â Ouihaw (Ashe/Widowmaker)
Rating:Â M
Wordcount:Â 118,214 (27 chapters, complete)
A gothic romance Junkenstein-verse fic featuring Countess Widowmaker, a vampire, and Warlock/Little Red Ashe, cursed to be a wolf. Featuring fairy tale curses, pining, falling in love and a defiance of the fate bestowed to you... and vampire bites, of course.
Preview of Chapter 1 and full list of tags/warnings below the read more.
Read at AO3.
Thunder looms, and out on the lake through the floor to ceiling window lightning strikes. The room illuminates for but a single solitary moment, but it's enough.
A shock of white hair and flecked deep red on her clothes to match the lipstick on her mouth, and the white of her teeth as the human wolf grins up at her.
"Now that wasn't very nice of you."
Feminine. Werewolf. Bandit. Thief.
"Outlaw," the countess recognises. Another defender of the Door in it for the money, who had vanished into the darkness of the night the moment Adlersbrunn was saved â or to the depths of the dungeons and quite a few vaults, given the immediate spate of petty robbery in the days after, written off as inevitable after zomnics take the town prisoner.
Her doing, as it happens. Her doing still. The outlaw had asked her, once, if she'd run into any thieves, and she'd told her hounds had.
It makes sense now why that doesn't and didn't bother her.
Another crash. Boom, boom, boom, like shotgun pellets. The outlaw does a dignified miniature rolling wave with her good arm, only it's not so good, as she winces and cradles it back toward her body. Her shirt hangs limp across one shoulder, with the majority of it wrapped around her torso, covering her ribs. Even she's surprised by how many scars she has. Wrapped around every bone and healed over, a thorn patch of ivy or roses. Yes, the perfume's odour makes sense, now. She vaguely recollects the fondness with the ink of a vine around her forearm, about the one place that isn't scarred. Clearly, this isn't the first scrape the outlaw hasn't perished in and lived.
No matter how much she heals, the reminder never fades.
It's different to a vampire. Or maybe just the same. The wounds on her neck pulse, faintly, and the countess rolls her shoulder. Regardless of her scars or her underdressed state, that still doesn't explain what exactly she's doing in her chateau and her parlour other than getting blood all over the upholstery.
"Why are you here?"
"Because someone," she labours, clicking her tongue, "shot me."
"I shot the wolf that stalks the town," the countess says cooly, folding her arms as she stalks into the room but stays standing, and the outlaw is still quite at home despite her presence, and she has the gall to shrug. She wonders why she tore her shirt to bandage herself, and not the intact hood and cape, still up over her head. "You are not innocent in this."
"I'm not here to talk innocence," the outlaw sniffs, dismissing her with a flick of her fingers. "I'm here to patch myself up. And I know an opportunity when I see one. I wondered how you'd been keeping since the door incident. So. Whatever scheme you're running, I want in."
It was her final vow, not to forget. But she had; and although she had the waking nightmare, the memory of her will suppressed and the order that came with it, it's always been in pieces. Pieces she had tried to stitch back together without success, where she grasped what she could and held onto what she couldn't as Luna sang.
It is a tiny, tangible thing: smaller than the key and the feeling that brought her here, the simple gold band that had once donned his finger as witness to what was theirs. Every day he had worn it. She had wondered, in her delirium, his pulse dipped scarlet on her fingers, why. It makes sense to her now.
Our tale resumes in Adlersbrunn, where the people's luck has once again run foul, and the esteemed Countess' services are in high demand...
...but what our servant of the night does not expect is to find a child of the moon, and a bargain to be struck.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Fandom:Â Final Fantasy XIV (Shadowbringers spoilers)
Relationships:Â G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch & Minfilia Warde
Rating:Â T+
Wordcount:Â 10,675 (complete)
"Even with her gift, she cannot hold them all. So I will do what must be done."
He is a relic of a darker age. If he stays he shall be consumed by the tower⊠and he made it that way. The only decision left to him is when, and for once he would like to play the hero⊠or the villain, so the Warrior of Light will not save him.
Minfilia shakes her head, ever so slight. "Exarch."
He smiles. "I must."
-
Anointed by fate, guided to a dying shard that isn't theirs to save, to endure for the one who one day will. To change a past and safeguard a future. Many hands that put them there, but it will always be their choice to make.
In the Crystarium, the Exarch receives a periodic, generational visitor.
Preview:
The early years are particularly perilous.
He is more limber then: his body not yet bound to the tower, and although he has taken to spellcraft, not a paladin yet. The young Crystarium newly risen on its plateau above the lilac woods of Lakeland as fragile as its namesake, a final observance rather than a nation, in need of every advantage he can give if they are to survive.
He arrives at the southern gate to find the sin eater recently perished. Already its overabundance of aether dissipates and a mauve hood covers the slayer's face and carefully shadows eyes, the barest hint of hair escaping past an expressionless mouth and they seem resolute, if not kind.
"I wish to speak with the Crystarium's leader," the stranger â they sound feminine, but he will not presume â says, and he catches the quiver of a gentle smile along with it. "Do you think this will serve that I mean no harm to his people?"
It's not why they did it. A convenient parlay, nothing more. The lowered shield bears the emblem of Eulmore â one less secret in the web of possibilities as to who they are for him to untangle, and the Exarch realises his own precautionary stoicism, that perhaps it is off-putting.
He clears his throat. If they do not know him by sight, a guard he shall be. "The Crystarium is open to all," he says, gesturing. "Although I would ask any traveller whence they hail."
He expects an island and gilded halls and a high tower. Perhaps allusions to further overtures and partnerships to ensure their two states flourish.
Instead the stranger speaks of other places. Of painted hills, and flowers. Of commerce, and hope, and loss. So much loss. Of places he knows as they should be.
He pictures it: as it used to be, when he closes his eyes.
"Home," he manages, the weight of its departure lodged in his throat, sounding more like the man he once was than what he has become. And recognition. "Minfilia."
She lowers her hood to empty blue eyes, forever marked by Her passing.
"Hello, G'raha."
She has wanted to meet with him for such a very long time.
She knows, in whatever she wants, that Ashe will be there to catch her.
Preview (NSFW, under read more):
She asked specifically for this.
In not so many words. But she's flexible. Suspended⊠draped on her back over the end of this fancy motel bed, torso obeying gravity and her arms tumbling down⊠fingers dusting floorboards and carpet, her hair untied for a halo. Petite breasts soft, hard and well-thumbed, wordlessly gazing up at her. It's only Ashe and her hold that keeps her from full descent, hands on her waist as she diligently moves into her.
Her legs are expressive, all whilst she's not. Thighs pressing on her hip bones; ankles sluicing her middle back, deeply intimate as she approves her cowgirl's pace, trusts her unconditional support, that she won't let her fall whilst she closes her eyes and faintly moans.
So maybe she's taken over. As she should. This is all about her feelings: each and every one of them as she opens her unfocused eyes and tries to chase it down.
Fatalities and endings, or new beginnings. Their seemingly metaphorical simplicity, their finality. In a single moment she lost everything. In another she gains. This gang that's hers as well as theirs and inexplicably they care, naturally included in everything where once there only used to be two.
Other days are for punches, the adrenaline backed by defiance. Kissing her a little too long. A grapple hidden high in the ceiling or a silent waltz in the dark. Where she lives for herself. Breath hers. Smile too. Shared bike rides begun a little before dawn, so they'll reach the valley as the sun starts its creeping rise.
Others still for knives. The actuating sharpness. The profound absent longing, so briefly felt. The inhale Ashe makes before she marks her collarbone with a bruised kiss; the way the outlaw whittles down prospective buyers until they understand she's a fury and a threat. The colour a person can bring. The pain of it. Of what's lost and what she now has, of a heart not yet done and with so much more to give, for her â for only her. The beauty of it, and the vice. The smile she'll never see again, the memories of a day she indulges for a time until it's more than she can bear and he stays hidden but not forgotten.
She forged this knife. It's hers. When she had nothing, she had this: Widowmaker. She carved herself from fragments as a weapon and a weapon's purpose is to kill, and now she's chosen otherwise. About what she wants to do. What she has to do.
She's been thinking about that a lot lately, the lengths people go through for love.
She takes her time. That's fine. She kissed her for so long, riling her up... it's her problem now. Hers to fix, or end. A gift, when somewhere between all this the clock struck midnight and now it's her birthday, and she can have anything she desires.
"Then you should. If you mean it. I'll let you have me completely. Really show meâ mmnnâŠ"
She fucks her. Thoroughly as she writhes against their sheets, suspended and well-bred, and she needs more, more stimulation, Ashe rubbing her own swelling clit one handed, eyes rolling back.
There's so many little things about Ashe, that tell her it. Pinched fingers on paler skin. Swallowed demands that persist as weighted exhales. The coil of her hand as it lapses along her brow, pulse drumming its beat in her wrists. Every muscle tensed, like maybe she'll snap; that the nearest thing will take the brunt of her scorn, her fury, and that's her.
She's doing a middling job at keeping it at bay but the observation almost breaks her and Ashe shakes her head in defiance, now somewhat aimless.
That's familiar, even if the rest isn't.
"I don't understand why you're not," Ashe says, forcibly calm but still not looking at her, each word very deliberate and careful. "I meanâ I know why."
They're out by the ravine. What's left of the train tracks frayed at their feet. Surrounded by canyon on all sides and the slither of mist covering the impossible, never-ending probable fall into the abyss, where one step is all it would take.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Fandom:Â Overwatch
Relationships:Â Ouihaw (Widowmaker/Ashe)
Rating:Â M
Wordcount:Â 1,358 (complete)
The only thing she's ever wanted is to be hers.
Preview:
She's been thinking. It's what she always does. Waits for the perfect moment, the shot they'll remember for the rest of their livesâ and every detail's striking. The door to the balcony still open. Cold air on her skin, the old phonograph. Smoke on Ashe's fingers and the smile she can't help as she looks up at her from where she's lounging on the couch, shirt half undone.
It's different. It's not the same at all. It isn't about someone else's feelings. It's⊠about her own, foolish as she may be to believe they still exist.
Her fingers tense against the bathrobe. She'd arrived through that open window. Full of thrill and fret, hands laced around the outlaw's middle. She didn't want her to look. She had. Her attention then and her attention now. Waiting. Waiting for her and her choice and her change. Fled to the shower to quiet her racing heart and failed. The night is hers. They always are. Ashe wishes to be hers, too.
Would she still long for her, after? Would she want her still?
If this is the response that awaits her she'd consider staying overnight on business more often â except she wouldn't, because that would mean depriving herself of her spider's presence. But if she does, she gets this.
It's hard to keep track of. As soon as was polite, and was generous, she'd taken her tie, unbuttoned her blouse. Spent an overflow of small nicks down her neck, short and sweet but savoured, and now she's as she is, a hand curved against the underside of her breast as long slender fingers move back and forth, pertness caught between them.
It's an afterthought that she's wearing so much in comparison. But it's easily fixed: each one of Ashe's expensive shirt buttons deftly discarded whilst choosing to leave the tie intact. The tie is a statement; something to use to pull her close enough to kiss as they blindly coordinate removing Ashe's belt, her pants shrugged half way down her legs but not bothering with the rest because it's taking too long.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV (post-Endwalker)
Relationships: WoL/Gâraha
Rating: T+
Wordcount: 635Â (complete)
Preview:
The Warrior of Light is always beautiful, of course.
But there's something about that moment â this moment, happening here and now â that actuates it, that he'll always remember. Not when she's battered and bruised and she accepts the force of the blow on his behalf, or she takes the staff in hand to keep him steadied, or when she bites her lip to loose an arrow from her quiver, or when she's entirely unattainable to anyone, lost in the latest of tomes he's snuck out of the lowest reaches of Sharlayan's libraries just for her, because if anyone deserves to know all the things that the Archons do, then she does.
She is beautiful then too. She has a knack for taking his breath away, that kind, gentle smile that never buckles beneath the weight. But it's now, in this small gesture, when she gathers her hair from her shoulders and ties it back high, a little left behind to accent her face, that he's floored. That he's the luckiest man alive as his hero smiles just for him and his focus settles slightly lower at uncovered shoulders, and G'raha Tia notices for the first time that her skin has the same scattered freckling that covers her nose and cheeks, a constellation of stars in the half dark.
Inevitably you'd like to keep her, when she's so ideally suited to you. Weathered hearts begin to shore. And when you think of her, you'll come to think of her as this.
Preview:
Ashe thinks it a lot sooner than she'd like to admit.
Her heart's like a damn runaway train, a good enough metaphor, 'specially when she so frequently has to intervene to stop it from careening right off the rails, all so that she doesn't say something stupid that she'll never be able to take back.
Things like,
I love you,
I don't want to be without you,
Andâ
Well, she's already failed at two out of three.
The last thing? She doesn't just halt the speeding train. She derails the derailment. Reminds it that no, we're not getting that attached. This is pleasure, mixed with some business â not a life story. Let it stay that way.
It seems the same. It's not. Not in the slightest. If it were still only her, Widowmaker, alone, and she didn't have all these other things to her that matteredâ
