Summary: Luna runs a bookstore, and needs a new fortune teller after her current one leaves. Gentiana comes in looking for a job, and their fates collide.
Notes: thank you to @aliatori for being my beta-san! written for the XV holiday exchange!
The midday lull could be downright tedious, Luna mused. She clicked her nails against the countertop, watching her amethyst painted fingertips idly as they drummed along with the music piped over the speakers.
But, slow or not, she loved running The Oracle, and she wouldn’t trade it for anything.
“Hey, I’m gonna go on break.” Crowe Altius, Luna’s assistant manager and best barista tapped her shoulder with a smile. “You want anything?”
“I’m good. Enjoy your break.” Luna smiled as her friend wandered off, having already seen the silver-white updo of Crowe’s girlfriend, Aranea, and hoping that they enjoyed the interlude together. And maybe locked the store room door this time. Iris might be a teenager, but the poor girl did not need to walk in on that again.
“I restocked all the shelves!” The girl in question piped up from Luna’s other side excitedly. Iris Amicitia had gotten a job here to replace her older brother, Gladio, when he left for university. Their family was comprised of the most loyal bookworms you could ever hope to meet, and Luna enjoyed Iris’s cheerful disposition.
“Good job. Why don’t you update the end caps?” Luna suggested. “We haven’t rotated them in a couple weeks and I’m sure you have new suggestions to display for our customers.”
“On it, boss!” Iris saluted with a cheeky grin before heading back to the shelves.
In 2018, I wrote 166,124 words that I posted on AO3, plus another 27,941 that I've written but not posted yet! I did an earlier post of my fics with the most kudos, but I'm going to love up some of my own favorites too. List under the cut!
Thank you if you read any of these, offered comments or kudos or flailed with me on how to write the damn words! Fellow creators, I would love to see your own most-loved works of 2018 - tag me if you make a post!
Lucis Military Academy (Aranea/Crowe, ratings from G to E). This series is special to me for a lot of reasons. It kicked off my adoration for Aranea/Crowe as a pairing, it helped me develop a backstory for Aranea, and I got to create and flesh out sort of a canon-adjacent AU 10 years before game events - I still love it a lot (and yes, I do intend to finish it, I promise!).
Disarmed (Ignis/Nyx, ratings from T to E). Another series favorite (because 2018 was also about learning how to plan/write something other than oneshots!). Ignyx quickly became a top-tier beloved pairing for me and this was another chance to play with pre-canon events. I love these boys a whole lot and I hope it shows.
Flare (Prompto/Aranea, E). 2018's rarepair week inspired some fics I love, like this one, a short World of Ruin Promnea featuring BAMF!Prompto.
Détente (Ignis/Ravus, E). Rarepair week also inspired my first try at Fleurentia, and, well - I ended up loving them a lot! ("trade deals are sexy I promise" - classic tag).
Conspire Against the Odds (Fleurentia, ratings from T to E). I loved Fleurentia so much I ended up collaborating with the wonderful @tinyconfectionary on this ongoing college AU with many other fun rarepairs too.
until the last note fades (Gladio/Ignis, Crownyx, T for now). I dove into another AU with several of my stalwart favorite things: Gladnis, slow burn, guitars, and more rarepairs (eventually). This is a rockband AU, ongoing, and I love the title because I stole it from myself.
A Delicate Balance (Ravus/Aranea, E). Kinktober turned into Ravneatober with this very NSFW, multi-kink three-parter. I had a lot of fun with this one and it just solidified my love for both characters and for this pairing.
Pure Morning (Aranea/Ignis/boots, E). I'll always love Highspecs, and though my current longfic for them is still unpublished, I can't help but write oneshots here and there.
Lemonade Kisses (Gladio/Luna/Noctis, E). Farm AU oneshot where my eternal thirst and love for Luna and Gladio thrived and Noctis entered the scene as dangerously sexy (hasn't left, really).
Equal and Opposite (Cor/Aranea, M). Cornea turned out to be a REALLY fun dynamic and I loved writing this.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
High Speed, Low Drag
Fandom: FFXV
Rating: T (for some very mild language)
Pairing: Aranea Highwind/Crowe Altius
Summary: Aranea Highwind is a regular and high-paying customer of Crowe's humble detailing and customization shop. How long can she resist her client's flirtations? (Hint: Not that long.)
(Pardon the wonky formatting since I'm sharing this via the app! I'm really very excited to post my first fic for 2019. Yay!)
One of the first things that Crowe realized about Aranea Highwind -- Eos-renowned motorcycle enthusiast and one of her most frequent and highest-paying clients -- was that the woman didn't know how to walk. Aranea Highwind strode, each sweep of her boot-clad feet sure and strong and laced with her own brand of powerful grace. It made her seem taller than her five feet and five inches.
It made everyone take notice. And Crowe definitely took notice.
When she entered Crowe's workshop that day, Aranea strode in with her usual alluring boldness. Her footsteps were drowned slightly by the whir of the airbrush but her voice floated clearly over the din. “How's my girl?”
Crowe looked up from the bike she was currently working on, gave Aranea a cursory nod in greeting, then jerked her head toward the gleaming black-and-silver motorcycle behind her. “See for yourself,” Crowe said. She let her eyes linger on the sleek lines of Aranea's back and leather-encased legs before returning her attention to painting.
“Yeah, I know my baby's in good hands. Always is. But I was talking about you.”
Crowe's eyebrows shot up at that. “Excuse me?” She clicked the airbrush off, then pushed up her goggles and turned to face Aranea.
The silver-haired woman was leaning casually on her bike, a grin playing on her lips. It honestly shouldn't have been as attractive as it was, but Crowe is biased so the pose was undeniably, unfairly attractive.
how about for a prompt, crownea, with #42, "his ego is so big..." maybe with crowe and aranea bonding over judging some men having a pissing contest over who's stronger, then aranea steps in, deadlifts either one of the guys or crowe, and singlehandedly wins the argument.
omg, i love aracrowe. need more of it. c:
so here we go with some kinda cute kinda funny shit. thanks for the prompt @makkthree
“His ego is so big; I can almost see it growing,” the comment comes from Aranea’s right, the other woman is sitting on the bench next to her. She’s got dark hair in a messy bun, chin in the palm of her hand as she leans forward on her knees. Aranea feels her heart stop when the other woman smiles at her. “Boys are so ridiculous, huh?”
“Yeah, they’re insufferable,” Aranea agrees without stuttering because she was Aranea Highwind and Aranea Highwind did not stutter her words in the vicinity of really cute girls. Her heart on the other hand, was a lot like a jackrabbit. The woman smiles at Aranea and giggles just lightly enough that Aranea can hear.
“They’re trying to figure out who’s stronger,” a roll of her eyes. “Men only think with their dicks it seems. Pissing contests like these get so tiring when you listen to it all the time.”
“Oh, are they friends of yours?” Aranea glances through her hair and watches the woman sigh with a wry smile.
“Sadly… I’m Crowe, by the way.” She sticks a hand out to shake and Aranea suddenly is aware of how sweaty her palms are. She shakes Crowe’s hand anyways.
“Aranea,” short and sweet, to the point. No stuttering, thank the Astrals. “Hey, you wanna-”
“Crowe! Seriously, you need to judge who’s stronger!” one of the men interrupt Aranea and Crowe sends a glare to the man. “Stop flirting and help us out.”
“Nyx, oh my astrals, you don’t need me to judge between you and Gladio… Just deadlift something…” Crowe pinches the bridge of her nose and Aranea can feel a scoff/laugh working its way through her. “Sorry about him.”
“Oh, no. It’s-” Aranea can feel a blush on her ears as she looks at the embarrassed look on Crowe’s pretty features. It’s really adorable.
“Crrroooooowwwwweee.” Aranea looks over to the men, both of them acting like children as they stand by the free weights. “Whoever is stronger will take you to dinner..?” Nyx is baiting her now and Aranea gets an idea. She stands, walks over to the men and looks at the weights.
“How much are you going to?” they look at her with surprise and Aranea crosses her arms with an unimpressed look on her face. “The weight. How much are you lifting?”
“Oh, we were gonna keep adding until one of us couldn’t lift…” The other male speaks and scoffs lightly. “We deadlift about 500lbs.”
“Easy,” Aranea smirks at them as they look at each other for a moment. “Rack em up, boys.”
“Wait, you… you’re going to try and lift that?” Nyx looks a bit shocked and Aranea scoffs.
“No trying needed,” Aranea pulls her hair back into a messy ponytail and stretches her shoulders a bit. “Come on, boys. Rack em up.”
“Yeah, okay. I’d like to see this.” Gladio laughs and sets the weights as Crowe walks up to them. She looks slightly worried and Aranea just gives her a smile.
“So if I lift this, I get to take her to dinner, right?” Aranea looks Crowe in the eyes as she says this, watching the reaction.
“You know what, yeah. You lift this and you can have her,” Nyx laughs, not cruel but he definitely doesn’t think that Aranea can lift this.
“Nyx! I am not something you can just give away,” Crowe protests with a blush on her pretty cheeks and arms crossed over her chest. She does peek at Aranea though and smiles.
“I hope you like home cooked food,” Aranea jokes when the weights are set. Bending and grabbing onto the bar, Aranea looks straight into Nyx’s eyes as she lifts the weights. Standing with a smirk and then pulling them above her head before dropping the bar back down.
“Wh- holy-” Nyx is stuttering and Gladio just has his jaw open. Aranea pats Gladio’s cheek with a laugh.
“You’re gonna catch flies like that,” Crowe is laughing at the boys as Aranea walks up to her. “Pick you up at 7?”
“Y-yeah. Oh my astrals. You are amazing, Ara,” Crowe grabs Aranea’s hands in hers and squeezes. Aranea is pretty sure her hands are still sweaty and clammy and her heart is going to beat through her ribcage but oh, what a way to go.
“Alright, 7pm.” Aranea feels like she has to drag herself away from Crowe, she did have errands to run before trying to kick Prompto out of their apartment. “Hope you like pasta,” she takes a moment to whisper this in Crowe’s ear as she passes by. Glances at the woman before sneaking a quick kiss to Crowe’s blushing cheek. “See you later.”
“Ye-yeah, okay. Later,” Crowe is blushing and smiling and Aranea has to walk away to preserve her dignity before she lets herself grin wide.
Bonus Characters: Aranea Highwind and Crowe Altius
Let it be known that Crowe Altius does not like chocobos. They smell, they have to be fed, and they make awful noises. (Libertus says the same thing about her bike, but at least her bike isn’t using the bathroom wherever it likes). So this mission was not at all one she wanted to be a part of, because it would require riding chocobos through most of Duscae and Leide.
Crowe preferred the missions that didn’t require her to leave Insomnia, or at least the ones that let her choose her mode of transportation. This was almost insulting. But it was her job, and if there’s one thing Crowe did well, it was her job.
Of course, all the complaining she did on the way to the outpost didn’t help her case, but she stopped complaining when she got there and met someone she hadn’t expected to.
Aranea Highwind was a name Crowe only really knew from stories. The commodore was fierce (as fierce as she was beautiful, if you asked any of the men) and lethal. She started as a mercenary and eventually worked her way through Niflheim’s ranks (supposedly) killing anyone who stood in her way and making it look like an accident. Crowe had always wanted to see such a woman in person.
She just hadn’t expected to see her for the first time while she was petting a chocobo blacker than the night sky.
First of all, that would definitely be the chocobo Crowe was using, because she was not going to be seen on one of those fluffy yellow chickens.
Second of all, Aranea really was as beautiful as the men had said.
It took Crowe a full minute to come out of the small daze she’d been in, and even then it took her awhile to approach the woman. The men were hanging back, either because they didn’t care or because they were afraid of Aranea, as they should be. But Crowe had always been in the habit of finding trouble.
Aranea grinned at Crowe wickedly as she approached, still lazily petting the chocobo. “This the one you want? She’s a sweetheart. I think you two will get along famously,” Aranea spoke, and maybe Crowe’s knees went a little weak.
“You think so? I’m not the biggest fan of oversized birds,” Crowe said, avoiding Aranea’s eyes as she approached, reaching a hand of her own up to the chocobo. “I feel like I’m gonna fall off every time I ride one.”
“Maybe I’ll just have to teach you how to do it properly.” If Crowe had been looking, she would’ve seen Aranea’s wink.
When the Glaives came back to drop the chocobos off a week later, Aranea was there again. Crowe smirked when she saw her, and told the others to go on ahead.
We’re just 20 days away from the beginning of femslash week! I hope you’re all doing great! Are your works ready? Are you still working on them? Do you plan on improvising for each day?
Let me know what you’re feeling and if you have other questions or desires! I’ll create an AO3 archive in the upcoming days and tell you how to use it, but tell me if there are other adjustments you want to see!
