I haven't posted any writing on Tumblr in a very long time, and I don't know that I will plan to do so again; but we shall see. Please forgive any formatting errors, I haven't done a real post on this app in like three years.
Anyways, 555 words for @the-californicationist 500k #cali’s nameless challenge !
And this one is a Regency! AU!!! We love that.
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Behind Velvet
It is like something out of a fairy tale. Lords and ladies, heirs and debutantes all gracefully waltz over a polished marble floor. The band plays, music swelling as dozens of skirts twirl in unison. People lift little flutes of something sweet to their lips, some lifting their ornate masks away from their faces to peruse the tables of sweets.
You adjust your own mask, and descend the stairs to the floor, hoping to find something enjoyable on the tables for yourself. You do not make it more than a third of the way across the room before someone abandons all propriety, and takes you by your gloved wrist. You startle, whirling around to face—
“Miss, please, forgive me.” The man says, pressing his lips to your gloved pulse. “I wished to speak with you, but I do not believe you could hear me over such a party.”
Your pounding heart evens, and you breathe deeply, brushing off the fright. “You are forgiven.” You reply, and he releases your arm. “It is true, I could not hear you. What is it you wished to discuss, mister. . ?”
He smiles, bright eyes flashing behind his mask. “I must ask your forgiveness again, but is the purpose of a masked ball not to enjoy the delights and pleasures of anonymity?”
“Perhaps. . . Go on, you are forgiven— please, tell me what it is you wish to say.”
He chuckles. “You do not seem eager to speak with me.”
“I am afraid not, and it is your forgiveness I will now ask, but you must understand. Why would I waste my precious time talking with a handsome stranger when the pile of almond cookies I sighted from across the room grows smaller with every passing moment? I implore you to speak quickly.”
He laughs, and offers you his arm. “You are forgiven, and I understand entirely.” He replies. You take his arm, and he speaks in your ear as he guides you through the crowd towards the desserts. “I myself would likely not wish to listen to a handsome stranger prattle on about how beautiful I am, and how greatly he would desire a dance with myself.”
“You jest.”
“Of course. Were I a lady, I doubt I would receive many offers.”
“Perhaps it is simply my charm? I do believe you did call me as such. And, I do believe that in my jest, I asked for a dance with you, Miss.” He says, offering you two of the cookies on a small tray. “My request, I can assure you, was genuine.”
“And, I do not believe I called you handsome! How can I know you are such when I do not know your identity, as it is hidden behind a mask!” You reply, finally reaching the tables.
“Ah.” You reply, slipping one of your gloves off to enjoy the treat. It is. . . disappointing.
“Is it the cookie you are unhappy with, or myself?”
You look at him, his eyes bright, but concerned behind his mask.
“The cookie. Although, I am also displeased with the fact that I do not have a pen.”
“A pen?”
“So that you might sign my dance card, handsome stranger.”
He grins at that, and warmth spreads all over your skin at how he looks at you. “I will have to find one, then.”
you have lived a thousand thousand lives, but at the end you are still the same boy who fell in love with her under the moonlight.
(emet-selch/hades x warrior of light)
[read it here on ao3]
Your name is Hades, and you are just a boy when you fall in love for the first time.
She is standing in the ocean waves, clutching her robes to her chest. Tiny little turtles waddle from the sandy shore into the dark abyss of the sea, floating with the current around her ankles.
“Just think, Hades,” she says, kneeling down to peer at the infant turtles. “So many lives, traveling out to explore the world. Isn’t it exciting?”
“Exciting?” you echo, unsure if you agree. “The world is so big, and we’re just children. Doesn’t the thought of the unknown scare you?” The ocean, pitch black and endless, roars back, as if it hears the trepidation in your voice.
“Of course,” she says, and when she turns to you the moon shines through her eyes, refracting into a hundred shards of light across her cheeks. “Of course I’m scared. But that’s why I want to go and see it all, someday. It’s only unknown if we never seek to know it.”
Profound words from such a young soul - and the moment is broken by the crash of a wave that sends sea spray into her face. She shrieks in surprised joy, and you watch as she flounders in the water with hearty laughter.
(Your breath catches in your throat, and you’re not sure you understand why your chest feels so tight, but as she laughs in the waves you think that you’ve never heard anything so beautiful.)
--
Your name is Hades, and you have just become a different man.
“Hades!”
You turn away from the Convocation members - your new peers - and try not to smile too big as she floats across the room towards you. “I wondered where you’d drifted off to,” you call out, striding to meet her halfway. Behind you, there are soft whispers, amused chuckles, as the Convocation disperses into the greater crowd - but you pay them no mind.
“I certainly tried to find you, but you were swept up by someone else every time I got close,” she laughs, beaming. She reaches out and takes your hands in hers, and you feel your heart stop. “Congratulations! I told you that you’d make the Convocation one day.”
Ordinarily you’d smirk and agree with her - but as she looks up at you, kaleidoscope eyes peeking through her mask, your arrogance withers and you find yourself content to do nothing more than bask in her praise, her confidence in you.
“I’m thankful to have had your support,” you say stiffly, failing utterly to convey the gratitude you feel. “Someday you’ll be on the Convocation with me, too.”
She snorts, but squeezes your hands gently. “I don’t need to be.”
“You’re still going?” you ask in surprise, unable to hide some of the disappointment in your voice.
“I always said I would,” she tells you, and she squeezes your hands once more. “But you needn’t worry. I’ll come back, and I’ll have so many stories to tell you.”
There are too many things you want to say, and not enough time to say any of them. So you smile and say, “Very well. Safe travels, my friend.”
(It takes all of your willpower to not beg her to stay, and as she slips from your grasp you wish you’d said “I’ll be waiting for you”, too.)
--
Your name is Emet-Selch, and you feel the weight of the world upon your shoulders.
Her steps through the grass rouse you from your thoughts. Though your eyes are closed, you hear her settle beside you on the ground. “Brooding again?”
You crack one eye open and frown. “I’m not brooding. Unless you think the world’s impending doom isn’t worth the extra thought?”
She looks down at you, before slipping off her mask - her new Convocation mask, marking her status as Azem. Her crystalline eyes are full of worry. “You spend too much time alone and upset. No one could solve a problem, much less the fate of the world, in such a way.”
With a sigh, you push yourself up and face her. “Well, what would you have me do?”
Her back straightens, and she leans close to you. “Come with me,” she says earnestly, and you’re lost in her prismatic gaze. “Come travel the world with me. There’s so much to see - there’s bound to be something out there that will help you.”
It’s a touching sentiment - but nothing more. Your place is here, in Amaurot, as the guiding hand of your people. You offer her a tired smile. “Surely if there was a solution in the wider world, you would have found it already.”
“My mind is hardly as acute as yours,” she replies, and she pulls back. You know she’s heard the rejection in your words, and though you find relief in her acquiescence, her withdrawal still stings. “Perhaps if you were to see something with your own eyes, you might find inspiration.”
Her compliment soothes some of the ache in your heart, so you tell her, “Your faith in me is inspiring enough.”
(In another world, you would have said yes, because deep down, you long for her to whisk you away, to show you the world - to set you free.)
--
Your name is Emet-Selch, and you have lost everything there ever was to lose.
As you wander through the rubble of what used to be your home, you’re not sure if it’s possible for a man to lose anything more. Every being, every soul - splintered beyond repair, halved again and again, into pitiful shadows of the majestic creatures they once were.
Every being. Every soul.
Save yourself, of course; yourself, and Lahabrea, and Elidibus. The three of you now comprise the final remnants of what was the greatest people to ever walk the land.
“Architect,” says the Abyssal Celebrant, emerging from the ruins of the Capital. He is pale-faced, haggard, and you see in the lines of his body the same deep, deep horror you feel in your own.
“No one?” you rasp, even though you know the answer. You have known the answer.
He shakes his head; you close your eyes and swallow down a sob, a scream.
(She had been there, to warn everyone, to warn you - and you turned her away like a fool, bitter and hurt and blind. That is all you will ever be, now and forever: a fool, who missed and missed and missed his chances, and will never have another chance again.)
--
Your name is… you aren’t sure what your name is, anymore.
What life is this, your eighth? Your fifteenth? You can’t keep track anymore. These lives, all too brief and empty, somehow manage to blur together into a mass of nothingness, but you must persist.
Zodiark demands it.
Perhaps you are a lord - perhaps you are a peasant. Perhaps you are ruling an empire, pretending to care about the ants who mill about this world and believe bloodshed to be their birthright.
You tried - heavens know you tried. You tried so very hard, in the beginning, to let go of the past, to live and love and die among the newfound stewards of this star, these stars. You gave it your all, gave them your all, and still they failed you.
You will not be failed again.
So you tread through these broken shards, silent and deadly, seeking your fallen comrades spread thin across fourteen planes. Igeyorhm, Naibrales, Mitron and Loghrif. Viciously as you work to tear down the walls between worlds and return the Source to its true self, just as tenderly do you press each crystal to the hand of its bearer and restore their memories, their minds.
It breaks your heart to see their faces when they begin to understand their reality, what happened to their home. Ten times do you restore an ally, and ten times must you witness that heartbreak - your heartbreak - all over again.
(Alone, you shut your eyes and imagine finding her. When you find her, when you press the crystal you made for her into her palm, you pray that she will take peace in your presence, that you will not have to watch her heart shatter as well.)
--
Your name is about to disappear, and you are there to watch Azem die.
It isn’t her, not really - but you know that color and would know it anywhere, despite being muted and dulled by the Sundering. Millenia since you have seen it, but it is etched into your heart with clarity nonetheless.
You see her color first, in the gaggle of souls who think they will escape the doom of the Third Shard. At first you think it might be a figment of your imagination, a ripple in the magic which makes you invisible to the untrained eye.
But it flashes by again, and again, and you are too weak to resist this chance to finally see her again. Like a moth to a flame, you let yourself be drawn to her color, pushing aside everything in your way to make it to her in time.
Time, after all, is dwindling - if not for you, then for her, and whose fault is that?
When you catch up to her shade, the ground is falling away at her feet, and she clutches to the side of a cliff wall with all the strength left in her body. Slowly, painfully, you let your magics slip away, revealing yourself with silence - a contrast to the howling of the earth around you.
The shade takes you in with wide eyes - eyes that are not right, not like hers. Violet, round, and afraid - not like hers.
Azem’s crystal is heavy in your pocket.
“Do I know you?” says the shard, and you are taken aback. You had expected a plea for help, a prayer for salvation.
You are not ready for the hand the shard reaches out to you, and like always, you miss your chance as the cliff fails her and she falls to her death far below.
(Nobody will ever know, but you search the Lifestream for her after, even though you know it will be in vain. She is gone, and you hate yourself for wishing she wasn’t. You vow that you will never look for her again.)
--
Your name is Solus zos Galvus, and you are bored.
“A toast, to Varis yae Galvus!” rings out through the dining hall, followed by a chorus of voices repeating, “To Varis!”
Boring. So very boring. A wedding for your grandsire, High Legatus Varis. As Emperor, it is your duty to attend such events, put on a show to bolster morale - but you despise it. There is nothing left worth celebrating in this world, you think.
The groom, your grandsire, rises from his seat, tall and imposing, so much like your son. Your pitiful dead son. You watch him lift his own glass, hear his voice booming through the hall, as he mechanically thanks the attendees for their blessings.
“How wretched,” you mutter under your breath, before wheezing as you push yourself into a better sitting position. The body you inhabit has cursed you with old age, feeble and decaying just like the rest of the sad remnants who surround you, and you long for a time when you may finally be free of it, to walk the world in youthful flesh.
At the sound of your fussing, all eyes in the room break from your grandsire and fixate on you, and you take small amusement in watching the bravado slip from your grandsire’s grasp.
Then his bride turns to look at you as well, with crystals glinting in her hair, and they reflect light in a way that makes you say “Pah!” and hobble your way out of the hall.
(Thrice cursed, in one night - to suffer through your own emotional failure, to sit through it all in an ailing body, and to be reminded of a love you will never see again.)
--
Your name is Emet-Selch, and your companions are useless.
Useless, you call them, though you tell yourself it’s well-meant. No matter how much you feud with them or gnash your teeth in frustration at them, deep down you love them. You can never say it, though - it lies in a box which cannot be opened, else other forbidden things come tumbling out.
But of course they would be useless when it comes to Hydaelyn’s champion - and suddenly, as you gaze upon the shard that people hail as “hero”, you are thankful that you locked away your love so long ago.
For who among them could turn on her shade?
Lahabrea tried, and failed twice. Naibrales lost, blinded by righteous fury and hate. Igeyorhm, too, silenced forever.
It’s cruel, but - you note with bitterness - cruelty seems to be your reality forevermore. Hydaelyn has chosen her, has chosen what’s left of her, pitted her remains against you in a grand cosmic match that, were you not utterly dedicated to your cause, is tragic enough that you would lay down your arms to weep.
You hate this shard.
(When you meet the shard for the first time, really meet her, her eyes are white - and they are too close to hers and yet not near enough anyways. White though they may be, they lack the fleeting colors which danced within - and every time you meet the shard after, you tell yourself to look into her eyes to draw strength from what she lacks.)
--
Your name is Hades, and you are finally free.
Though you have died a thousand thousand times, this is the first death that you really feel. It burns, it’s agonizing, and yet you have never felt so at peace.
She faces you - and it feels so good to finally, finally stop denying that it is her. To stop needing it to be her.
Remarkable, you think, that this life of hers is the one which ends yours. Dark hair, and white eyes, passion etched in every line of her face.
She is as beautiful as the day you lost her, and to admit it makes you weep.
“Remember us,” you tell her, at the edge of the world where your heart breaks and heals at the same time. “Remember that we lived.”
Silence, and though you know you are at peace for a moment your soul wrenches in agony. Maybe it is too late - maybe you have pushed her too far. And here, at the end, you must admit that you have.
Irony is ever so cruel - reunited at last, finished at last, and you are going to die in front of the one you love, in a body she hates because you made her hate it.
But she isn’t - she isn’t cruel.
“I will remember,” she says, surprising you like always. “I promise I will remember.”
(You fill your last moments with the memory of her eyes: they are no longer pure white, you realize, but now have the faintest hint of a rainbow at the edges, a gift of her impromptu rejoining. You think back to a night on the beach where the moonlight turned her gaze into diamonds and smile.)
--
Your name doesn’t matter, but she calls it anyway.
“Emet-Selch!” her voice beckons you, and you stir in the Lifestream. “Hades!”
(She needs you, and as you feel yourself pulled towards her warmth, you think that you’ve never heard anything so beautiful.)
happy FFXIVWrite everyone! here is a masterpost for all the pieces I’ve written for this year’s event! right now, everything will link directly to ao3 since my relationship with tumblr formatting is terrible but i hope to transfer them to tumblr when i have some spare time!
best of luck to all the ffxiv writers out there, and happy reading!
1. crux - wol & tataru taru, hinted wol x g’raha tia
2. sway - wol & ryne, wol & thancred waters, ryne & thancred waters
3. muster - wol & fray
4. clinch - wol x aymeric de borel
5. matter of fact - wol & lyse hext
6. scar (free day) - wol x crystal exarch
7. nonagenarian - wol & ardbert
8. clamor - wol & estinien wyrmblood, hinted wol x g’raha tia
9. lush - no pairing, wol backstory centric
10. avail - azem & emet-selch / azem x emet-selch
11. ultracrepidarian - wol & scions, wol x crystal exarch
12. tooth and nail - wol x aymeric de borel
13. pugnacious (free day) - wol & thancred waters, mentioned wol & alphinaud leveilleur
14. part - wol x g’raha tia
15. ache (NSFW) - wol x aymeric de borel x g’raha tia
16. lucubration - wol & alphinaud leveilleur
17. fade - hinted wol x g’raha tia
18. panglossian - no pairing, wol introspection
19. where the heart is - tons of relationships, wol introspection/backstory centric
20. hoe (free day) - wol x aymeric de borel x g’raha tia
21. foibles - aymeric de borel & estinien wyrmblood, mentioned wol x aymeric de borel
22. argy-bargy - wol & cid nan garlond, wol & nero tol scaeva, hinted wol x g’raha tia
23. shuffle - wol & emmanellain de fortemps, wol & artoirel de fortemps, mentioned wol x aymeric de borel
24. beam - no pairing, wol introspection
25. wish (NSFW) - wol x sidurgu orl
26. when pigs fly - no pairing, wol introspection
27. bite the bullet (free day) - wol & ryne, wol & thancred waters, ryne & thancred waters
28. irenic - wol & alisaie leveilleur, wol & yotsuyu goe brutus
tagged by @elveny and @kunstpause for six sentence sunday! (also this maybe makes up for wip wednesday wjfkekg i didn't have any pieces in progress this past wednesday AAAA)
tagging @asscian, @ahlis-xiv, @everybodylivesau, @ancientechos, @fortempsward, and anyone else who wants to give this a try!
here’s a little peek at a project i have in the works about exploring the character of livia sas junius, which is my attempt to take a real female villain and give her more merit than “she’s obsessed with gaius” because frankly anyone as terrible as livia was has to have more substance than that...i’m really tired of men writing sub-par women villains LOL
TW for some unhealthy things! (i’ll leave a dissertation in the tags for some discussion about this piece lol)
--
Love is not meant to be built on terror, you think (you know). Love is supposed to be tender and soft and gentle - love should be forgiving.
And yet you're sure that you love her, even when she digs nails hard enough into your skin that you bleed, when she leaves you gasping on the floor without a word, sets her cold eyes upon you with disdain. She is full of hate, exudes everything ugly in the world despite her pretty face.
Some days you wonder what made you fall for Livia sas Junius, and why you consent to the bruises she leaves on your skin.
Then she comes to you again, in all her spite and fury, and suddenly you're too desperate for her touch to care.
also tagged by @elveny and @kunstpause for WIP wednesday! me frantically checking to see if i made the wednesday deadline LOL i’m sorry for getting back to this late!
here’s a snippet of a piece i’m working on about hallura and her sister, somaya! i’ve been working on it for some time and have yet to be pleased with it, but it’ll probably be posted in full some time after i’m done with ffxivwrite!
“We’ve talked about this before, my heart,” her mother sighs, rubbing Somaya’s back. The younger daughter clings to her mother, face buried in Ranya’s shoulder. “Your sister is much smaller than you - you can’t play the jumping game with her, or she’ll get hurt.”
Hallura’s eyes well up with tears. “I know, Ammi. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt ‘Mayah’s knee.” Her lower lip begins to wobble and she has to swallow back sobs.
Her mother closes her eyes and lets out a long breath through her nose, before opening her eyes to smile gently at Hallura. “I know you didn’t, Hallura. I’m not mad at you - and I know Somaya isn’t either. Come here, habibi.”
Slowly, Hallura shuffles to her mother’s side, eyes fixed on the floor; she wipes her eyes with the back of her sleeve and sniffs.
Ranya kneels so that she is eye level, tucking her free hand under Hallura’s chin. “It’s alright, my love,” she chuckles. “Don’t cry. It was an honest mistake, and I know you meant well.”
Hallura is not consoled. “But ‘Mayah’s hurt now ‘because of me. I’m a bad big sister. What if she doesn’t love me anymore?”
The simplicity of her daughter’s grief makes Ranya chuckle again. “Why don’t we ask her, hmm?” she suggests, before patting Somaya on the back. “What do you think, Somaya? Do you still love Hallura?”
