i don’t know. i’m barely a person. i just want to be kind and hold someone’s hand. eat an ice cream cone. stare at the lake. feel the sun on my skin. lay in the grass. run through a sprinkler. it’s so easy to forget life is supposed to feel like a deep breath and not a gasp
My body needs it—the hot baths, the care, the soft water, the perfume, the warmth. I take on the colors of the flowers, the bloom, the delicacy. It becomes me.
Anaïs Nin, Mirages: The Unexpurgated Diaries of Anaïs Nin 1939-1947
The clinic lay wrapped in the hush that only came in the quiet hours of night. No boots pacing outside in the corridor, no groans rose from behind curtained cots. The beds stood neatly made and untouched, their soft linens ghostly in the low lamplight. It had been some time since Heartwood had mounted a company-wide mission and the stillness felt like a reprieve, proof that their mercenaries were, for once, keeping clear of the kind of trouble that led to broken bones. Or worse.
Firelight pooled warmly in the hearth, lending the room its amber glow. By it, Gentle Fist had fallen asleep. The Roegadyn’s immense frame overflowed the chair he occupied, his feet, broad as bear paws, propped up on an ottoman. A book lay open across his chest, its pages fluttering faintly with each thunderous snore.
At the alchemical stove, Aislinn stirred a simmering potion, copper pot gleaming in the glow. When the door clicked shut behind Maijah, the Hyur lifted her head.
She had a way of looking at people that felt less like being seen and more like being dissected. Her gaze slid over Maijah from top to bottom, sharp as a scalpel, missing nothing. It was the look of a woman who catalogued and inventoried the world around her.
“Something you’re needing, Maijah?” Aislinn asked, already turning back to her brew. The ladle clinked softly against copper. “And thank you for the foxglove you dropped off the other sun.”
Maijah stepped carefully around Gentle Fist, placing each footfall with deliberate silence so as not to wake him. “Of course.” she replied. She paused. “Though, an odd thing for a medic to request.”
One red brow arched from Aislinn in an unspoken question.
“To my knowledge, it’s poisonous.” Maijah continued, studying the smaller woman.
Aislinn huffed, a sound that might have been amusement. “In certain dosages, yes. In smaller ones, it revives a weak heart.” She glanced over her spectacles, eyes glinting. “Alchemy is funny that way.”
Maijah inclined her head, though unease prickled beneath her skin. Aislinn had given no cause for mistrust, but somehow the viera wouldn’t have been surprised to find out the medic had indeed made a poison with the foxglove she requested. “It’s an art with a multitude of purposes.” she said carefully.
Aislinn hummed in agreement and stirred once more before setting the ladle aside. “But I doubt you’ve come to discuss my hobbies.” She stepped back, plucked a square of baklava from a waiting plate, and took a bite. “So. Out with it.”
The clinic felt smaller somehow in the dark of night with Maijah facing Aislinn. Too quiet. Her ears flicked back, betraying her uncertainty. “Suppose there were two people.” she began, voice hesitant.
Aislinn made a low noise of disapproval at the word ‘suppose’ but waved for her to continue.
“And there was an…event. In which one unleashed a great deal of aether to save the other.” Maijah swallowed. “Could that have ill effects? Make the one who was saved think or feel things they do not truly feel?”
“That’s not much to go on.” Aislinn replied dryly. “You’re describing magical transference. I think.”
Maijah shifted, fingers knotting together.
“I don’t deal in hypotheticals.” Aislinn went on. “If you want accuracy, I need facts.”
“I can’t.” The words were strained, almost pained.
Aislinn shrugged, as if the problem was merely a misplaced tool rather than a forced confession and neither was here nor there for the hyur in any event. “Then I can’t help you.”
“But you can.” Maijah insisted softly. “First impressions, at least.”
Aislinn studied her then. Something weighed behind her eyes as a look of thoughtful consideration crossed her features. “Are we talking about you and Rujara?” she asked bluntly. “Is that what I interrupted in the hallway?”
Color rose along Maijah’s cheekbones. “What? Why would you --”
“Seven hells.” Aislinn groaned, tipping her head back. “Can we skip past all the faff where you deny it, I argue, and we waste ten minutes dancing around the truth until eventually you come around and finally tell me what I need to know to help you with…whatever this is?” She said with exasperation. “Let’s pretend we did that.”
Silence.
“Whatever you’re hiding, hide it from the others if you want. I don’t care.” Aislinn said more quietly. “Not from me. Not if you want medical advice. Which I assume you do.”
Maijah sighed. “My use of aether…isn’t something that’s common in Eorzea.”
Aislinn waited.
“It’s a gift from Golmore.” She continued, voice lowering. “Meant to keep my people prosperous. But when I was taken from the forest…I found another use.” Her hands twisted together, knuckles paling. “I can…compel people through song. I can make them feel anything they wish to feel. Or anything I wish them to feel. I can weave it into them so well they will think the emotion, the feeling, the suggestion, is their own.”
Aislinn’s expression shifted, curious and calculated. “Bardic magic?”
“Bards can…amplify what is already there.” Maijah allowed with a nod. “And yes, my songweaving is also easier if I am dealing with what is already there but I can, let’s say, convince a brilliant strategic mind to make enough foolish mistakes that cause him to lose men and resources until he finally gives up on ever taking Golmore. I can do it for cycles. And he will remain so blinded and obsessed with thinking he is in love with me that he never knows I am the fly in the ointment.”
Aislinn straightened sharply. “Nymeia’s breath.” She hissed out. Aislinn was smart so it didn’t take her long at all to figure out what Maijah had been dreading. “That song you sang for me and Stark Oak. You compelled us to bring you out of that swamp.” Aislinn muttered, rubbing her face. “Gods.”
“You were already halfway there.” Maijah insisted, though she did not deny it.
Aislinn inhaled slowly. “And now?”
“When the group of us set out to save Rujara, he was out of his mind when we found him.” She told Aislinn. “He didn’t know us. Not even Nyscera. He would have killed us without hesitation.” Her voice wavered at the memory. “So I sang. I wove a different reality back into him. But I fear I poured too much of myself into it.” She closed her eyes briefly. “My magic is not stable. Not since I twisted it for so long.”
“And you fear it cost him something now.”
“Yes.” Maijah’s eyes opened, bright with worry. “There are moments I feel his emotions here.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “And I believe it works both ways. Tonight he ran from his quarters because he felt my fear. There is no other explanation.”
Aislinn’s mind flicked briefly to the moment she passed them in the hall. That explained the wet hair and the chocobo pajamas, she wryly realized.
“The way he looks at me.” Maijah glanced away.
Aislinn waved that aside, almost impatiently. “He’s looked at you that way since before he broke apart. Like an antelope in the path of a runaway train.” Her gaze swept over the statuesque viera pointedly. “You’re the train.”
Maijah stared at her, taken aback.
“It’s a look I recognize.” Aislinn added. “Worn it myself.” The jest faded. “You think you ensnared him like the others.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t know how to unweave it.”
“I can’t. The weave is what restored him. If I undo it --”
“He could fracture again.” Aislinn finished, wincing. “That would be bad.”
She turned to the stove and lifted the copper pot from the flame, setting it aside to cool. Then she moved toward the clinic’s book shelves, fingers skimming well-worn and cracked spines before selecting a particular volume and passing it to Maijah. The viera looked down at the cover. ‘Tethers and Aetheric Bonds.’
“You said you’re linked.” Aislinn explained. “That’s not an injury. Not one Lewra or I could heal anyroads. It’s a connection. You poured so much energy into him your signatures may have threaded together.” A spark of humor lit her eyes. “Oh. Threaded. Weave. See that?”
Maijah did not smile.
Aislinn sobered. “We’ve learned there is more than aether. Dynamis, emotion. I think that’s what you shape the way an arcanist like Lewra and I shape aether. The trouble is, aether and dynamis are often entangled.”
Maijah’s pulse quickened. “What kind of trouble?”
Aislinn tipped her head from side to side as if to say ‘depends’. “It’s not as if I have any case studies I can reference. I’ve never heard of this particular form of it but I have heard of aetheric bonds.” She paused, considering the problem from as many angles as she could. “There are records of the tethered sensing each other’s location. Sharing dreams. Even physical sensation.” She paused. “Hurt one to hurt the other.”
The color drained from Maijah’s face.
“These connections can change with time and distance.” Aislinn added quickly. “And yours is unique. If you can’t undo it, maybe it settles into something manageable. Emotional bleed-through, nothing more.”
Nothing more. As if that wasn't an invasion enough. Maijah stared down at the heavy book in her hands as though it might bite.
“I’ll study it further.” Aislinn said, more gently now. “Try and find something concrete.”
The viera nodded and forced a smile onto her face. “Please. In the meantime, I suppose I have some reading ahead of me.” She dipped her head. “Thank you. For this. I hope the evening is a quiet one for you.”
She turned away, already opening the book as she stepped out into the dim corridor. Behind her, the fire crackled softly. Gentle Fist snored on. And in the copper pot, the potion cooled. Poison or cure, depending on the hand that wielded it.
romaincrisis
pixelskylines
janainaart
yousharknotpass
kaledo-art
baratheonpilled
stormborns
izzy806
