Title: FFXIV Write 2023 - 22. Fulsome Characters: Zoissette Vauban Rating: Teen Summary: Sometimes you just need another perspective Notes: None
Zoissette wandered the streets of Ul'dah as the Rising remembrance ceremonies occurred around her, as lost as ever. It had been over a moon since she had returned from her unfortunate voyage through the rift, and it was only now that she felt up for travel alone. She wanted to visit the merchants, browse the shops, and remind herself of where she had once been.
The Rising seemed an oddly apt time to do so. The time when the realm came together, to remember. Now a time for her to pull herself together and try to do the same.
Everything seemed so distant, now. She was no longer certain she had a place to belong.
Everyone had been helpful since she had come back. More than she deserved.
And these days it seemed she could not help but be open with them, emotions spilling out of the cracks of her soul, free flowing and beyond her control. It scared her, a bit. She did not know how to be like that. But everyone had been kind and understanding of their newly awkward friend. Letting her stumble over her words and stammer her apologies and they were all pretending to be understanding.
How could they though. She did not understand herself.
She stared up into the sky as the fireworks went off loud overhead, showing spectacular shapes in the sky, their light flickering along the walls. She watched, transfixed for a while, before she wandered to someplace away from the noise.
The place she found herself had been decorated in a most unusual way. Strings zig zagged back and forth from pillar to fountain, along the walls, from every high point. And on those strings dangled envelopes like leaves, each marked in a unique manner.
Zoissette frowned and was studying the envelopes intently when a Miqo'te dressed in a manner that suggested they were one of the attendants of the celebration came up to her.
"Can I help you?" asked Zoissette, and the Miqo'te smiled up at them, and Zoissette could look straight into her purple eyes and see the cataracts there. An older woman, then.
Something tugged at her memory but did not quite come forward.
"Why, I think that's what I'm supposed to ask you. Are you lost, adventurer?"
"I think I am. I mean. Uhm. Sorry. I am sure I meant to say, I am lost in thought."
It seemed she could not keep herself from blurting the dumbest things these days.
The Miqo'te turned slightly, and gestured all around.
"This is the letter forest. Letters from around the realm. Gratitude. Encouragement. Sympathy. I think you should read a few. They'll help you find your way."
Zoissette looked at her curiously, but after a moment, she looked up at one of the letters, and reached up, and gently removed it from its line, and flipped it over in her hands.
It was just an envelope. Nothing remarkable. None of the usual stamps or addresses on it, just a single picture, drawn by an experienced hand, of lamp posts of all things.
She opened it. A message, from someone unknown, as they had not signed it. But they were apparently someone who had a hand in the design and placement of lighting posts throughout the realm. A job they found joy in, knowing they were helping light the way for their fellow citizens. In the letter, they hoped that in particular, that adventurers might see the lights that would help guide them home.
Zoissette smiled. It was a sweet sentiment, clearly felt, honestly expressed. She tucked the letter back into the envelope and put it back where it came from, and looked around to ask the attendant a question, but they had vanished.
Odd. She was usually more observant than that.
She looked around to try to seek them out, but it seemed they had well and truly left the area. There was another attendant not so far away, standing more central to the area, but they were talking to others, and anyroad, Zoissette did not wish to be a nuisance.
She was curious, though. And apparently the purpose of the letter forest was that anyone could read any letter they liked. Reading them all would take too long, but curiosity compelled her to at least read one more.
This one had a picture of a chocobo. Judging from its contents, it was a porter, pleased to take care of their birds, and pleased to be a help to the realm. A lower cost alternative to aetherytes, and an imminently more accessible one as well, for those who could not well dip into deep anima wells. In particular, the porter expressed joy at meeting adventurers just starting their journeys, knowing that by providing them with such an easy start, they would have the opportunity to do great things.
She stared at the letter for a bit, and read it again before putting it back. Almost without thinking, she reached for another one, with a picture of a bill board. They spoke of how the first ones had been placed out almost on a whim, but the locals took to them with vim, as adventurers stopped to read them. They recounted how they had become a lodestone of sorts, a way for people to find and speak with one another, to reach out, connections made and carried forward. Connections made between strangers. And now the practice had spread through the realm, and they tended their most diligently, seeing what good had come of the practice.
Connections. Just like the letters in this letter forest. Connections between strangers. Well wishes sent out into a seeming uncaring void, but found by those who did and could care.
Eagerly now, Zoissette found others, and she found the story always much the same. Fulsome praise and joy and just plain hope were full on display. She had always treated praise with light suspicion, always felt that anyone expressing gratitude to her was just being polite. After all, that was what one was supposed to do. If someone did something nice, and you benefitted from it, you thanked them. Even if it was their job, even if it was expected due to a difference in station.
It was a lesson her mother had instilled in her. Always be polite. Even if she had always felt genuine when she did the same, it was difficult for her to read it in others when she received it. After all, why would they be? She was a noble woman, then an officer, then an assessor, then an adventurer. She was just doing what was expected of her, nothing more, nothing less, and kind words given to her were as empty expectations, even as her care for the star always compelled her to act.
But here.
None of these people knew her, but they all knew her. Here, these were all strangers, but they were so full of love and care for their fellow, that they sat and wrote and drew and delivered a message they would never see received. Messages spun out, leaves in a tree, adrift in the serendipitous wheel, certain to be lost to history.
Every message sent in the hope it would be read, and nothing more.
Every message sent, meaning to deliver hope to those who read it.
Every message said what Zoissette had always felt, I love you, I love you, I love you.
Zoissette had always believed in her heart of hearts that the inherent state of person was good. That each strove for it, in their own way. Peaceful lives, tomorrow to be much like today, but maybe just a little brighter if they had a say. And that was what the letter forest was trying to say, in every picture, in every pen whorl.
She hung one last letter up delicately, and became aware that her breathing had become shaky and unsteady. She put her hand in her mouth to stop from making noise, and wiped her face with the back of her other hand, and it came away wet, with tears.
How had she not seen it, all of these years?
They were not strangers. They were her friends. They were her family. They had always been right there, all around.
Weakly, she stumbled her way back out, to sit heavily on the stairs. High in the sky above, the fireworks continued, exploding, leaving their mark in the heavens and spreading their light to whoever could see.
Zoissette looked up and watched them, a smile on her face, as her tears continued to flow, free.