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#FFxivWrite2023 is underway – a daily writing challenge presented to the Final Fantasy XIV writing community for the month of September. You can join any time throughout the challenge with any prompt number!
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Otolin goes tumbling and tossing through dirt and stones, but eventually comes to a complete stop face-down. No sounds except for a long sigh.
He’s always hurting to some degree.
Getting clobbered in the chest by a big beefy arm courtesy of a voidsent isn’t anything new.
He slowly gets up to the sounds of a derisive snort and a keen, killing look. It’s ready to do something. It wants to go. It wants more. It wants-
It wants to fight.
“... alright, alright,” he offers with a little shake of his head. “... give me a moment…”
It doesn’t really heed any words.
The creature begins to charge.
“... oh.”
Fangs bared, claws at the ready, big feet stomping and stamping and-
BOOM!
The sound follows the flash.
In comes a familiar figure garbed in black, a gunblade of steel and red death in a hand, penetrating the creature and exploding in one fell swoop. His face is covered in blood, but his teeth are pearly white, standing out in the miasma of color and carnage.
“Ha! Fuck you!”
Otolin has barely gotten up, and so he just lays his head back down for a few. A sigh.
He’s just going to lay right here for a moment.
“Not everyone gets to make explosions with just their hands and feet! MUST BE FUCKING NICE!”
“.... Arismont, please.”
“No, no, I get to bitch. I get to complain once.”
The creature, which had gone flying in the opposite direction, begins to get back up to its feet and lets out a roar.
Arismont just smiles and brings his weapon around to bear, loading another cartridge in the chamber and slamming it shut. There’s a satisfying mechanical sound, a chunk-chunk, as it does so.
“And now that I’ve saved your ass, Otolin, I’m going to get my mo-”
The voidsent is already on him.
“Oh, fu-”
BOOM!
The sound follows the flash.
Otolin is on the creature’s left in an instant, and lets loose with a right fist that connects with its jaw. It goes flying again, tossing and turning in the air, before hitting a nearby wall and crashing through it in a heap.
“Come the fuck on!” Arismont exclaims, dropping his stance. “That’s not fair!”
“... you said you would only complain once,” Otolin retorts in that deadpan tone.
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#FFxivWrite2023 is underway – a daily writing challenge presented to the Final Fantasy XIV writing community for the month of September. You can join any time throughout the challenge with any prompt number!
Entries can be written on any online writing platform (tumblr, Archive of our Own, Google Docs, etc.). Submit the link and be sure that I have reading access.
About the Prompts
Check you entries here in the Public Spreadsheet
Rules & Info || Prompt List || #FFxivWrite2023 || kofi
He sees it through his peripheral anyway, and his lips bend but don’t break. Almost a smile, but… not this time. It isn’t in Otolin’s style to smile at most things anyway.
“Wipe that look off your face.”
Gruff. Annoyed. Good-natured.
“... what look?”
Deadpan. Quiet. Maybe a little bit mischievous.
“The one. You know. That one. You’re about to fucking smile. I can see it.”
“... me?”
“Yes, you. Halone’s freezing tits, you know what I hate most about you, Otolin Stone?”
“... what’s that, Arismont Coultene?”
“I can’t tell what’s going on in that big bald head of yours.”
“... I have hair, you know.”
“Do you fucking think I am looking that close?”
“... yes.”
A growl.
“... Arismont, you’re… you’re perceptive. You hold onto things. You… you don’t forget. It’s like… like a snake that doesn’t want to shed its old skin.”
A pause.
The middle finger has retracted, but it almost begins to unfurl again, cocked like a finger on the trigger of a gunblade.
Submit your entry here:
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#FFxivWrite2023 is underway – a daily writing challenge presented to the Final Fantasy XIV writing community for the month of September. You can join any time throughout the challenge with any prompt number!
Entries can be written on any online writing platform (tumblr, Archive of our Own, Google Docs, etc.). Submit the link and be sure that I have reading access.
About the Prompts
Check you entries here in the Public Spreadsheet
Rules & Info || Prompt List || #FFxivWrite2023 || kofi
When Otolin opens a chakra, the sound produced is a loud ‘pop’.
Some have described it like when the cork is removed from a bottle of wine, but others have mentioned it sounding like thunder heard from a great distance.
This sound effect appears to be unique to Otolin, but he has never explained why this occurs.
The following has been observed from the perspective of Otolin’s changing apperance as he unlocks each of his seven shadow-aligned chakra…
SHADOW | I
Solar plexus (wisdom, power)
External aether is projected, takes on an orange-purple color
SHADOW | II
Root (basic trust)
Skin begins to slowly take on a ruddy-red color, almost like damp earth
Orange-purple color of aether deepens in hue
SHADOW | III
Crown
Eye color shifts from brown to purple
Skin is now a deep ruddy-red color
Small trails of smoke begin to billow from both sides of Otolin’s mouth
Aether extends and begins to take on a more opaque consistency
SHADOW | IV
Throat
Orange flecks appear in pupils
Tonality of voice changes: lower, deeper, echoing
Teeth begin to take on the appearance of fangs; unclear if they are fangs, or perhaps a subtle manipulation of Otolin’s aether
SHADOW | V
Heart
Musculature changes; grows taller (somewhere around 7’5”, becomes more broad); unsure if this is an actual change in Otolin’s body or another subtle manipulation of aether
SHADOW | VI
Sacral
Large trails of smoke now billow from both sides of mouth
Fangs begin to expand and contract with breathing patterns
Facial features narrow and tighten
Mouth appears more like a gnarled gash or maw
SHADOW | VII
Third eye (awareness)
Eye color turns entirely purple, orange flecks begin to glare and glow like embers
NOTE: Even at his current level of skill, Otolin cannot remain in this state for too long without beginning to open opposing chakra due to an aetheric imbalance (light v. dark).
cw: this piece contains depiction of violence, blood, and harsh language.
The dark and ancient places of the world.
They were like a second home to you.
The cracked stone,
Crumbling foundations,
Unsteady steps.
You reveled in them.
You appreciated their silence, the way you could take one step
And be both heard and unheard in the same breadth.
Opening the first allowed you freedom.
You could travel to the fringes of your world,
And right as you discovered how big it was?
It’s then they would pull you right back in.
Back to training. To torture.
You remember asking yourself:
“What’s the fucking difference?”
She’d tell you there wasn’t one.
So one day, you scurried off
To one of those places,
Where you too could become dark, ancient, and unbothered.
What a dream.
What a day.
What devastation it all led to.
She tracked you down, intent on bringing you back.
So you did what felt natural.
You fought.
Master and student.
Mother and son.
An unstoppable object, and an immovable force-
No, no, the phrase is the other way around.
Actually, what’s the fucking difference?
Even when she opened one, two, three-
Your one was enough to keep her at bay.
The feeling of levin lancing you through the solar plexus,
As she caught Him, that exalted feeling, in the crown.
But then she opened the fourth,
And the Mother/Master became something else entirely:
Mutilation.
Death by a thousand strikes, like knives darting in and out of the dark.
But she forgot something important.
The dark and ancient places of the world are often the ones defined by conflict.
Whether by blood or book, by thought or torn asunder.
It’s why you still think of them as home to a degree.
It’s why you did then.
So you called upon the energies of such a place in the midst of combat.
The pain of your dozen wounds paled in comparison,
To the feeling at the base of your spine, the way it dragged you down to your knees,
And made you feel the earth.
The rock. The dirt. The gravel. The Stone.
It’s then you learned for the first time how to become both immovable and unstoppable.
Even if your skin still tore, and your bones broke, and your-
(One day, you’d learn to become immovable.)
(Unstoppable.)
(Invincible. But that day wasn’t the one.)
You fought back, and pushed.
Pulled.
Shattered her sternum, and then-
Then you collapsed. His burden is one you couldn’t just bear yet.
But in time, you would. A tale for another day.
It makes sense you opened your second in such a place.
You passed over a long stretch of sand,
In pursuit of something to pick at and chew.
Anything would’ve been fine.
The bark of a dying tree. A few rocks.
The taste wasn’t good, but it’d fill your stomach.
You didn’t move forward with such plans.
You knew better.
Knew better enough that you’d be worse off.
Scrambling on your knees,
Crawling on your elbows,
Shifting through the rocks, the dirt, the sand.
You felt like a pebble, and less a Stone.
No ripples would resonate from you,
Being dropped in the waters of death.
(What a somewhat foreign concept.)
(Water.)
(You and your kind knew it there, but barely.)
A last gasp.
Crawling, catching up, they had left you behind.
The weakling, the last one in the world, you, a woeful sort.
You yelled. Hollered. Screamed.
Nothing, from a parched throat incapable of producing sound.
So you did what came naturally.
You used your fists.
You slammed them over and over into the sands.
A rhythm caught in the rage,
Of wanting them all to hear you, to feel you, to think of you,
Rhalgr, where are You? From where do you see me? From on high, will you guide me with your levin and your light?
Over and over, your fists hit the sand. The dirt. The stone.
A bloodied mess of bludgeoning,
Intent on calling upon caustic and mystic energies.
You were all alone.
At the lowest.
Carrion without a crown, soon to be forgotten.
And then it happened.
Something caught in your solar plexus,
Like a bolt of levin that lanced. It hurt. No, it was worse. It felt like the end.
Is this death?
No, it was life.
No, no, it felt like something entirely new. It feels…
Felt like both.
The cycle contained within a single creature.
It burned. And burned.
And burned some more,
And the idea of quenching it with water never waded into your mind.
You embraced it.
Gave over to your loneliness with confidence,
Became the only person in existence in that moment.
(You learned later others existed.)
(You learned later that others mattered more…)
(… than you. Or that’s what you believe.)
So you swayed up to your feet,
A scratched and bloody body swinging in a desert wind.
Swinging back and forth, almost like a dance to some demon.
Power to combat feeling parched.
Power to cover the distance between yourself and the rest of them.
Power to feel something.
You ran.
No, you sprinted. It felt like nothing, like no energy was wasted.
You could go on and on and on and on and on and-
They found you a day later,
On your deathbed, face-down and laughing
Languishing by a small oasis.
And it was then they embraced you.
Called you one of their own.
It’s in the most unexpected of times,
That we somehow find ourselves rising to the occasion.
But it’s why you barely speak of it either.
But for all the power Otolin possesses in this moment, he can’t shake them.
Can’t release them from a soul ready to ravage.
As his chakra pop open one by one, he realizes he’s given into-
What.
Will unlocking a few chakra put the fear of Him into these risen forms?
Don’t stand there.
Move.
Right foot, left-
Too late.
Pomp and circumstance leads to punishment. He forgets himself in the midst of drawing upon inner might, and so his eyes widen, almost bulging from his head. No movement, arms and legs and thoughts caught within a field of stasis.
It’s not the first time he’s been in chains.
It probably won’t be the last.
But these are the kind that shake and shatter the soul. They tear apart and put it back together like an angry child might with a jigsaw puzzle.
And for Otolin?
It feels like…
Time doesn’t matter. Didn’t matter.
They didn’t have names.
Numbers.
They didn’t have ages.
…
They didn’t have-
They were the cycle.
Destruction leads to destruction leads to death leads to-
Perversion of ages-old doctrine leading into a cycle of punishment.
In the here and now, the battle between his friends and the pair of voidsent, Otolin collapses in the cavern.
In the mind’s eye, he finds himself with his face against hard rock and rough sand.
He feels himself bloodied and bruised, barely able to stand.
There’s tears in his eyes.
He can hear the voice that haunted him for a period of time he can put no number to.
“Up. Open. Show us.”
That hurts more than any wound might.
He doesn’t want to get up.
Doesn’t want to move.
Just wants to lay there and waste away, let the sand eat and be merry to the point where he would join the legions of dead here.
He’ll be carrion, just like all those who desired the crown.
“Up.”
Again.
“Open.”
No, please.
“Show us, Otolin.”
They keep asking.
Keep buzzing.
An angry swarm that he just can’t swat away.
Louder and louder, their voices never go. It mixes with the pitched battle around him in the here and now, an almost inseparable thing.
Body and mind come together, and he slams back into reality.
He needs to get up.
He needs to open a few more.
He needs to show these voidsent he’s…
That he’s just not to be fucked with.
Herky-jerky movements. His body tosses and turns as he rises.
Just like last time.
Three more pops, echoing across the cavern.
Just like last time.
The trail of smoke from each corner of his lips, the way his shadow looms within the darkness of the cavern itself, how his skin turns just a little more red, like the color of the sand he laid down in long ago.
Just like last time.
Maybe he can go-
No.
Not yet.
There’s only one person here who’s seen that.
She heard him speak His word and it was-
Even now, he’ll hold back.
It’ll make the day that he doesn’t…
Maybe it’ll make it easier to handle.
(Or maybe it won’t.)
No more pomp and circumstance.
He’s been in chains before.
No more pride.
Only punishment in the purple that overtakes his irises.
So,
my son/slaughterer
are you going to tell them?
are you going to answer the question?
no, not like that.
Originally, he had just been “One”.
No, not even the name.
Just the number.
( 1 )
It was how they all referred to themselves, for it was easier.
Efficient.
Anything to keep sentences short on the battlefield.
He had been a tall youth, a little gangly and perhaps awkward in some spots. More of a striker, somebody who could hit you a dozen times in the blink of an eye. Long hair, black, and his skin was tan. To say that he was handsome was an understatement.
Otolin had spent most of his youth alongside him.
No, he hadn’t been…
That hadn’t been his-
“Zero”.
No, not even the name.
Just the number.
( 0 )
“One”- no, Marcus had left before him. Refuge sought in the dead of the night. The commune had been sent into quite the rage over his escape. That was the word he had used later when Otolin had run into him.
And he had said it with such a smile. A big one. Free from the burden, from the expectations, from having to-
To do the thing they had been made so good at.
Crafted. Conjured. Whatever word they would use.
Created.
Right.
After Otolin left, they had met years later at a tavern in Ul’dah. Two souls brought together by mere coincidence. Marcus still had worn his hair long, and was sporting a beard that framed his features well. Oh, too well.
And he had earned good money too, the result of good work spent in Thanalan’s mines working over the rock and stone.
“Good, honest, and… easy work, One.”
“Otolin.”
“Oh, I’m-”
“It’s… it’s alright, Marcus. You… you don’t need to… apologize.”
“I feel as though that’s… that’s my life now though. An apology for what I did.”
The feeling was still there.
It is now.
He receives word through a contact: an accident in Bourneholm. But Otolin… has that feeling, knows better. It’s never just that. Never an accident. He had warned him to even not go, a meeting that had taken place months prior.
But it had been good work, wanting to…
To rebuild home.
Marcus had the courage to return home where Otolin hadn’t. He had always been the first to try new things, to make an attempt at something more than the legacy that had been entrusted to them.
“No, Otolin, it was forced upon us.”
He was right, of course.
He always had been.
His name had been “One”.
But he was so much more than that.
He was a friend.
And his name was Marcus.
Oh,
how
guilt
drives
our
failed
son/slaughterer
back
toward
the
place/home
he
fears/hates
most.
(I just ate breakfast, but I could go for- no, I’m just kidding.)
Before I go forward with this wrap-up post, I wanted to give @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast a quick shoutout for organizing and putting together the site write. There’s so much to do, to organize, and to communicate throughout this challenge and I think Moen did a stellar job. Thank you again!
I also wanted to thank everyone who took the time to read, like, and reblog my work throughout the challenge. It means a lot to see and hear the feedback from folks on my writing, and I’m excited for where I can go with some of the threads I’ve put together next.
2020 has been a little wild for obvious reasons, but I’m fortunate to be working from home and was able to carve out time each day to write and flex my creative muscle. Last year was my first attempt at the site write, but I was unable to keep up with things due to changes in my work schedule along with some travel.
However, this year, I was able to write each day and submit all entries before their respective deadlines. I’m really proud of this accomplishment, but even more proud that I was able to expand upon formats of writing I’ve been playing around with for a while.
Alright, without further ado, here’s a list of all entries I wrote for this year’s site write. You can see these, and a few fun statistics below the cut...
1. CRUX
2. SWAY
3. MUSTER
4. CLINCH
5. MATTER OF FACT
6. FREE DAY (EVANESCENT)
7. NONAGENARIAN
8. CLAMOR
9. LUSH
10. AVAIL
11. ULTRACREPIDARIAN
12. TOOTH AND NAIL
13. FREE DAY (NUMBERS)
14. PART
15. ACHE
16. LUCUBRATION
17. FADE
18. PANGLOSSIAN
19. WHERE THE HEART IS
20. FREE DAY (CONVICTION)
21. FOIBLES
22. ARGY-BARGY
23. SHUFFLE
24. BEAM
25. WISH
26. WHEN PIGS FLY
27. FREE DAY (OPEN)
28. IRENIC
29. PATERNAL
30. SPLINTER
What’s a wrap-up post without some quick statistics and analysis?
(I’m also one of those “number-crunchers” I mentioned above, so I live for this stuff.)
WORD COUNT: 10,596
AVERAGE WORD COUNT PER ENTRY: 353.2
LONGEST ENTRY: Lucubration (813 words)
SHORTEST ENTRY: Paternal (54 words)
I’ll be posting the full playlist shortly as well. Music played a big part in dictating the mood, and sometimes even the structure, of my entries this year, and I want to give credit where that’s due.
To folks who participated in this year’s challenge, congratulations!
Whether you wrote for one prompt or completed all thirty, know that you did a stellar job. The FFXIV community boasts so much great writing, and I’ve been so stoked to read everyone else’s entries (and have so much more to catch up on throughout October).
Thank you again everyone, and here’s to the rest of 2020!
Stars shine bright in the night sky high above, and what may be winks in and out of existence in the distance.
The cycle of life and death is everywhere.
They both see it.
Teacher and student. Mother and son. Creator and destroyer.
One and the same.
She looks at him tiredly over the flames.
“And you believe them to be gone?”
Not a bit of sadness. Of longing. Just a cold and harsh inquiry.
He looks back at her with the same glance. Tired. His lips purse before unfurling to speak.
“It’s… proven… proven more and more difficult to find them.”
His voice is a whisper with volume, like the sort of thing that ruffles the back of your hair.
“And you believe that to be… the product of what?”
Her voice is like scorched earth, singular, direct, driven with a purpose.
“We banished you.”
That they did.
“You had help.”
Always defiant.
Her master is probably laughing wherever he is.
(For all his curses? The hells probably.)
“And when… when I didn’t?”
Otolin raises a fine point.
They were alone at the end of it all.
Teacher and student.
Predator and prey.
Mother and son.
Killer and soon-to-be killed.
Creator and destroyer.
Her side and the splinter that needles. Burrows.
He is the bane of her existence.
The failure.
But even he has his uses.
“You didn’t kill me.”
He just stares.
Unblinking. Unmoving. The flames flicker and dance about his visage, only making the shadow he casts a little longer. Bigger. To a child, it might even be terrifying.
When he speaks, it’s with… a little something more.
“You learn more by… by scratching by and living through your mistakes.”
Emelyn stares.
Then she opens her mouth.
And laughs.
A howl that might make wolves hunt them down.
(They’d be no threat.)
When she’s done, the smile painted on her features has spread to reveal her teeth.
“You did listen, didn’t you?”
A pause.
“I listened. Whether or not I… I made it part of me is another story.”
Again, he’s right.
A failure.
Maybe it’s more than just using him.
“You wish to know where they are? Our little group? The youth? The old?”
“Yes.”
His answer is quick.
Direct.
Not at all drawn out.
“Why?”
An inquiry again.
“To help… help them get their… their feet back under them.”
Emelyn stares.
Otolin looks back.
Of course he does.
Forgiveness.
Even after all they did to him, even after everything-
He wishes to help.
Who’s really the creator?
The destroyer?
Both.
“Fine.”
Perhaps he can go be a splinter in another’s side instead of hers.
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#FFxivWrite2020 is underway – a daily writing challenge presented to the Final Fantasy xiv writing community for the month of September. You can join any time throughout the challenge with any prompt number!
Entries can be written on any online writing platform (tumblr, Archive of our Own, Google Docs, etc.). Submit the link and be sure that I have reading access.
More about single word prompts here.
Rules & Info || Prompt List || #FFxivWrite2020 || kofi
