You spy an elegantly dressed blue-skinned woman in the Plaza of Lights and blurt out in relief: "Please tell me you are going to the gala? I am horribly lost!" and late.
She is perturbed at first and a wave of embarrasment threats you but then a bright smile lights up the woman's face and crinkles her gold-tinged amber eyes.
"Oh I know that feeling," she says with a bright tone, hopefully chasing away your approaching social anxiety. "No need to worry - I know where precisely where it is. I was simply enjoying the scenery. Follow me."
Asterra' Glamtober / the Prompt List
Location, DT Zone 6: Canal Town
Weapon, Samurai: Katana of Althyk, Sky Blue
Tigerskin Tricorne of Striking, Wine Red
Rinascita Jacket of Striking, Wine Red
Velveteen Halfgloves, Kobold Brown
Aug. Lunar Envoy's Trousers of Striking, Wine Red
Pagos Boots, Kobold Brown
I was gonna do this in sky blue once upon a time but... that wouldn't work with Hazusa obviously. she is blue lol
Fic Author: 'tis I. themirage-prismatic/asterra @ twelvesblades
Characters: Suzune, Ardbert, R'hyasta
Continuation of this: [fic] [pics]
This is what gets me to write. Not my big, plotty, worldbuildy, canon-divergent, catering to me fic but new hair mods and plot bunnies about romance novels being written about my cast in-universe
"Seeing a woman without her face," R'hyasta stared at him mock disapproval over her drink. "how scandalous."
Ardbert squinted at them.. "How did... her face is fine?"
Suzune flicked a peanut at him. "I didn't have my paints on one day and you said 'who are you'? in my own cottage."
"Aye. She hadn't put on her face yet!"
"... Weird way to put that but I guess? that happened? I was surprised! I thought it was just - there! forever!"
Suzune laughed. "The ink's pretty comfortable and durable - "
"I don't think 'durable' is the right word for ink -"
She ignored him " - but not that permanent."
"Just say 'hadn't put on her make-up." he grumbled. "weird."
R'hyasta was not convinced. "But she wears it so much it is her face. Why else would you yelp: 'who are you?'" she giggled.
Ardbert sighed. "You're never gonna let this go."
"It's funny!" R'hyasta turned to Suzune. "Hey, why don't you get it tattooed?"
"I didn't want the inking tools by my eyes. Saza says I'm coward. I poked him in the eyes."
R'hyasta cackled. "Fair enough. You do have your body tattoos anyway."
"Exactly. I could get the cheek markings tattooed but why only do it half way? Easier to just paint it all. I'm fairly practiced at it."
Tessellation'verse - Summary: There was a carbuncle on Merlwyb's desk. and it spoke it's summoner's voice. Ah carbuncle linkpearl. one of those days
.
There was a carbuncle on Merlwyb's desk.
This in itself was not alarming. Carbuncles were regulars around Limsa as were the dutiful ratcatching cats, the fisher dogs or even the birds. (there had been a boom in personal pets after the Calamity actually)
Carbuncles were also regulars in the Coral Tower, usually delivering messages or sniffing after something.
This one however was white and belonged to the Quartermaster of the Decks. Nasreen was pawing at the paperwork.
"Nasreen," the admiral greeted, stritching the opal carbuncle around the ears.
"Heeeey, Admiral." said the carbuncle in Quartermaster Tidequeller's drawling voice.
Oh. This was gonna be one of those days.
Merlwyb remembers the Calamity vividly. The march home had been a misery. The tides were wild. The aetherytes were down. It was near impossible to pull back and relocate the troops to Vesper Bay.
She'd fear the worst. She imagined - she had dreamed of going back to a bay full of corpses, ships turned to matchwood and the seastacks - so fragile seeming in the face of a calamitous tidal wave reduced to stubs, dangling with the broken bridges and walkways like necklaces or worse - garottes.
Instead, though the banners were torn and then piers roughed up and the people limping... Limsa had been - mostly - in one piece.
"Mya?"
Merlwyb blinked away the memories. "What's happened?" she asked.
"A miracle." the Quartermaster led with. "So. There's a Garlean base camped out in Terncliff."
The town was abandoned to the high tides of the Calamity. There were imperials camping in it.
"How long?"
"They're comfy so... awhile."
"You said there was a miracle."
"Oh yeah." Nasreen lifts a paw and stritches under her chin furiously; Merlwyb cannot tell if this is the carbuncle or summoner.
"Ardbert fell out of the aether and wrecked their entire day."
Merlwyb pauses. She strokes Nasreen's ears absently. "Use more words."
"Fineeee. Ardbert Morgezwyn the Landwaker, declared missing five years ago at Carteneau reappeared at Terncliff, specifically teleported to Terncliff."
"You. do not mean Haroun."
"Haroun sensed it; teleported without a bye your leave and promptly exploded their communications hub with one fucking arrow." Suzune sounds annoyed. “Do you know how annoying it is to harmony-jump to the Morgezwynen?”
No, Merlwyb had no idea because she wasn’t bending the rules of teleportation like a mad arcanist.
There were so many holes in this story.
"Ardbert Landwaker - is alive? fell out of the aether?"
Thë carbuncle cleared her throat.
"No." Merlwyb stopped her. "I am coming right now."
"I am at Ostwaent's aetheryte. Morgelyn is crying on them."
An understandable reaction from their mother.
She spins on her heel, shouting. "Enyzahr! I am going to Ostwaent!"
There's a scrambling. "Now?!"
"Yes, now." she said even as Nasreen prepared her teleport. "What are we, Ul'dah?"
She's captain of the great ship that is Limsa Lominsa and they were well accustomed to seeing her on the decks. If she wanted to make an appearance, she did how else was she suppose to do her shopping?
"Nasreen." she said to the carbuncle who chirped and let Merlwyb take her paw. The quiet pop of a teleport was much smoother than the pop and crack that would follow a self-started jump.
I don't really like canon!msq for Suzune but I have. had it my head for eons - aka since Shb - that she uses a combination of arcanima like summoning and soulcryst fuckery to resurrect Ardbert or at least make him less of a drifting spirit.
Jumping off my other headcanons of the soulcrysts manifesting as heroic spirits, Suzune has a Dark Knight soulcryst she's not really interested in using. Claymores are big and unwieldy and she's more of a kenjutsu-ka (samurai sword arts) or fencer than... whatever DRK is doing but she got the soulcryst from Fray - who she plucked from the edge of death in this 'verse.
So, Ardbert isn't really. totally onboard with this idea at first. Well he is interested before he realizes it's direct edat him specifically then he reacts with hostility/self-deprecation to the idea. He either gets onboard during the Battle of Lakeland (the sineater assault) or when Elidibus strides into the Crystarium wearing his body.
Or both. The caveat is that he's no longer a Warrior (or ravager, as i prefer to call that job) because someone had to be the DRK poster job of the expac and it wasn't gonna be Suzune.
He goes back to being a ghost after the Battle of Lakeland but with slightly more confidence (having saved a few people) and maybe tags along as 'totally not Ardbert' DRK heroic spirit with helm (Thancred: ... why? Suzune: we needed another defender.. Thancred: but who - Suzune: heroic soulcryst spirit, next - no more questions). but when Elidibus strides in pretending to him Ardbert's like: ... I change my mind, do that summoning thing for real. and everyone is like: :O holy shit. Elidibus: ... well, fuck.
(Ardbert wears the Heavensward DRK armor except the purple cape piece is red instead. but in-game that set dyes horrifically)
the Ying Clan of the Dragon Throne and the Rijin Clan of the Tiger Throne have long jointly ruled over the country named after the imposing Doma Castle. The Yanxian Ying Clan (raen au ra) formed an alliance with Rijin Clan (kuravet hyur), formerly of Hingashi, gathered allies and crushed all opposition before them. The Ying and Rijin fortified their joint fortress, Doma-jo which grew into a mighty city of three great rings loomed over by an imposing Tenshukaku
The current heirs to the Thrones are Ying Zhuhai and Rijin noh Hien
FFXIVWrite 2020 - organized by @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast
Prompt 8/ Entry 7 - Clamour
Notes: Tessellation AU - the Garlean Empire is nerfed in strength and Doma has some buffs. Elements of Shb merged into the main world including places. Dalmasca does not exist and mothers have more presence.
Characters: Hien, Hien’s Mother (Mina), mentions of Kaein
I am disregarding the deadline and I wrote this on… 9/10/2020 but was too tired to post it.
Hien remembers the quiet, the tension and waiting for it to break.
A cessation of hostilities Garlemald had proposed - both sides had had something to lose. Hien had barely been born but the evidence of the brief conflict haven’t been cleaned up, even now.
As Nabaath Areng’s strength in the south and west wanes, his father Kaein’s hair takes more gray and his face more wrinkles. In contrast, his mother Minami’s form - clad in silk - gains more and more iron. She ceases wilting, her back becomes straighter, her eyes more hard. She sheds her elegant peacock robe.
Hien grows up aware of the delicate dance - of treating their Garlean visitors with respect befitting guests dancing around their rudeness and their blatant disgust for Doman culture. For the most part, they stay away and some of the civilians are polite if bigoted - they’re better than the soldiers.
Hien finds his mother rigorously practicing with a polearm too heavy to be a naginata, in loose quan and white yukata with black stripes with bold lotus patterns.
Wars do not have to be waged on battlefields, Hien learns through watching his father and his advisors worry over documents and trade agreements - of the losing ground, the concessions, the demands.
He learns how to be quiet. But on especially good days his mother will take him to a high point of the castle - a city in it’s own right, his mother had laughed one day - and they will practice under the sky, breathing in the fresh air brought by the roiling storm.
They will spar as the rain descends; sometimes his father will have time to join them and they will sprawl on the roof, laughing as the storm rumbles above them and makes their hair a tangle.
“Never be afraid of the storm.” his mother would say after they were inside and dry. “I feel so refreshed after; like it’s washing everything away.”
They have spent so much time fending off Garlemald in the quiet, through distractions and compromises it is no wonder that the clamour unbalances him. Unbalances them.
“I will get them myself!” his mother’s voice booms in the war room. “They cannot take your people - our people; I will get them myself!”
His mother’s voice has always been the drum to him - the voice that cuts through the quiet that interrupts the careful deliberations, the voice that commands actions when the time for thinking, for planning for talk has past.
The Empire stole into villages on the western shore in the Kashaun Plains and ripped away whole families; leaving children orphaned.
It was their due as a vassal state, the Empire had claimed when the transgression was discovered.
The Empire was without Emperor, Solus yae Galvus dead and the legions were frantic to see any cannon fodder to support their side of choice.
Doma roared.
They chipped bits of Doma away and Doma had conceded those bits but jealously guarded their heart. The Garleans dared to taunt the sleeping dragon.
The day Minami - his mother - leaves, so does her clan.
His maternal uncles and aunts - big stout men and women from the mountains - they act like this has been merely an extended vacation; they are laughing and grim-faced in equal measure, teeth bare in violence, anticipation - thirst for reprisal.
The storm rolls, down the river, across the plains.
“They chased us,” Minami said, staring into the breeze, nothing looking at him but with a hand firm on his shoulder. “But we’re done running.”
He wants to ask why he cannot go with her but he knows; swallows are too small to fly through storms. He wants to know where they were chased from but he feels like it was farther than from the Fanged Crescent.
And when his father packs him and other vulnerable peoples up in a ship as hostilities and the tenuous treaty of years breaks, Hien does not mind.
The storm rolled down the river and her voice was the gong to war.
