greetings from a fellow skeleton cultist i mean mourn watcher! i'm (very slowly) watching your DAV archive as time allows, but i'm so eager to learn more about your crypt baby. how did Kata end up in the necropolis as a baby? did she have a special area of study or particular passion? how did being a non-mage in a necromancer order impact her? i'm just making all the grabby hands, basically, i love learning about peoples' Ingellvars.
—girlwonderers
Do you know, I had no idea that it was weird to play a non-mage Mourn Watcher until @jadesabre301 was watching me do character creation, and she was like, "a rogue Mourn Watcher? What—how does that even work?" And then it became a personal challenge to figure that out, nyeh. (I also have sooo many screenshots of Kata I need to share, but that'll be separate!) Just one for now!
I also (because this is the way I play RPGs) am only just now getting her into a coherent shape now that I've finished the game. My PCs are always such blank blocks of marble when they start; I don't really know who they are until the details of the narrative shape them, and then I work backwards from there to figure out what kind of person would have made this or that choice, and then what events in their past might have contributed to that personality. Here's what I know so far!
Kata is short for Katakombe, which is where they found her
bright and bouncy personality, very cavalier, very lighthearted
I like to think she made a joke when she met Varric that reminded him so much of Hawke that he just had to take her under his wing
always a little sleepy (got them heavy-lidded eyes)
have also just had the thought that she cat-naps everywhere and anywhere she can as a result, which I think is another cute contrast to Lucanis, I'm running with this
the word I leaned into during CC was "gaunt," though she fills out a little in armor
by complete accident, she is also max height for a human female, so.....a real string bean I guess
pretty blase about threats to her life but deeply intimidated by powerful women (Adahla, Ghilan'nain, Myrna, Taash in that first "smell" cutscene before they come out)
comes off as pretty dumb & spacey on first impression, had a hard time making friends as a kid
does think everyone thinks she's dumb, questions it herself occasionally (she's not dumb though! she just doesn't know it!!)
is convinced Myrna hates her as a result, though Myrna actually likes her just fine & has pleasant chats about her with Vorgoth after she leaves
was devastated to leave the Mourn Watch but adored Varric; she really thrived with him & blossomed from a competent rogue to an excellent one
I think Varric was the first person in her life to really see who she was & could be, and she loved him for that
I think she was found a little older than a baby (maybe early toddler? don't ask me how she stayed alive between baby>then, I don't know yet) and Vorgoth basically raised her; even when she had that "roaming the streets of Nevarra" phase, Vorgoth was Dad
navigated the Necropolis very easily all her life as a result, and was recognized for that skill early on; when she didn't end up a mage, she was still useful in their protection/potential combat situations, so would often go out as a bodyguard-type detail once she got through school—I think this is why she stuck around as long as she did
(gets lost constantly in Lucanis's mansions as a result; she's not used to the labyrinth not helping her)
still didn't have many deep friendships, though—while she wasn't bullied, she never quite made the same connections as everyone else, so she also spent a LOT of time in the gardens & with wisps & became quite good at those
has some musical knowledge and was in the Necropolis orphaned children's choir, which was guest-conducted once by Emmrich
had a handful of flings, all pretty superficial summer romances
I think she's actually quite good at meditation/rituals/forcefully clearing her mind when she wants to, even though she's otherwise impatient and restless. I think she initially clung to rituals as a method of ensuring social acceptance (if I'm doing this ritual right & with all the other kids, then I'm not doing Something Wrong and I won't be shunned), and over time she grew to enjoy them for their own sake
Andrastian but weird about it (no burning, freakishly into reliquaries, looooves the old High Church stuff where all the architecture is made out of a million bones), idolizes Divine Cassandra
has never asked "why" in her life—has absolutely zero interest in wondering why things are the way they are (a major and hilarious source of friction with Solas)
may or may not be a trifle clumsy when she's not paying attention
has a very high tolerance for the monstrous, which is why she likes Solas (sometimes)
my gosh this list got long when I wasn't looking, I know more than I thought!
Now, for your actual questions—these I'm not as sure of, tragically! I don't know anything about her parents yet (aside from the fact she's extremely jealous of Emmrich), but I'm toying with the idea of one of them being an elf. I originally thought she was pretty mundane and nonmagical, but a few of the banters/lines she gave throughout the game (I suspect with the writers anticipating the MW would be a mage) make me think she might have a tiny ounce of latent magic somewhere. Not enough to do anything deliberate, but maybe enough to make the Necropolis like her and the undead's bones hang together a bit better when she's around. That kind of thing!
(I also have an image in my head of her gently kissing the forehead of an upset undead child in the Necropolis, so maybe she worked some with them? Does the Necropolis have undead after-school programs?)
I do think she was quite good at her schoolwork, mostly; she's excellent when she's set to a task & she has a high tolerance for tedium if she's convinced it's worth the effort. I do think there were some history classes she absolutely blew off & flunked, but then later meeting some of those people in the Necropolis spurred her interest & she went back and learned EVERYTHING about them, which really annoyed her professors. "I tried to tell you this was important the first time? Why didn't you listen?? No, 'because I didn't care about it then' isn't a good answer!"
That said, I do think excellence in its own right is important to her (within a narrow scope), and she really treasured her time with Varric teaching her how to be a better rogue. His approval was super important, and the endgame sequence ran her over like a truck.
Anyway, this has already run away from me again; I'll have to make a separate post about my musings on her relationship with Lucanis and how it ends up where it does. Thank you SO MUCH for letting me talk about my girl—I'm incredibly fond of her, and I'm so excited to dig into the rest of her on this next run! <3 <3 <3
HELLO DT, a question occurred to me and i couldn't remember if you'd answered it before: what were synnove's carbuncles' reactions to getting dragged to the First by the exarch?
ONE DAY I AM GOING TO ANSWER MY ASKS IN A TIMELY FASHION. Maybe. Kinda. We'll see.
Anyway this is a great question and not one I've ever gotten, so!
It is very difficult to perturb Tyr. Tyr is made of chill. He didn't particularly like the trip to the First but he wasn't put off and was mostly 'eh.'
Ivar didn't give a single solitary fuck. Can he bite it? Can he set it on fire? No? Then he doesn't care. Ivar is ultimately a very simple creature.
But Galette. Hoooo boy, Galette.
Galette has an olfactory sense and an aether sense that are so sensitive and finely honed as to be actually terrifying if you think about it longer than ten seconds. Merchants the realm over were ecstatic when Synnove was no longer on the assessor rotations, Galette could find evidence of illegal contraband from months ago. This is a carbuncle that could track any person across all three continents and an ocean if you made sure she had a boat.
Galette landed on the First and all she could smell was death. Every breath in was pure, stagnant Light aether in a way that she knew deep in her emerald core was not natural, and it was disgusting. As the Lightwardens were defeated and the night sky returned, some of the aetheric balance made it tolerable, and post-MSQ Galette is perfectly happy to wander around the Crystarium (the exact epicenter of Light-free Norvrandt), but Galette's initial reaction to the First?
The First was hell, and she fucking hated it already.
(Galette's opinion of the Thirteenth is exactly the same.)
This is Collab 08 With #MamaBearArtDoll As she had an Inspired Idea
some time ago, but it's taken forever to finally get going on it.
I'm happy that time is finally here 😁
That idea was The #RainbowBriteLanternCorps which you can see right here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CU-XyTNr7Gw/
& she has let me chibi them :-D
Mads will be doing ALL of the Rings on her Insta & I'll chibi them
as she completes them, but I love this idea of her's so much I'm gonna
keep going with these come back and chibi her's after she's finished.
Keep a close eye on MamaBearDoll's Instagram to see who she will choose for each lantern as she goes through them all 😁
Mads is still working on these and much more On Her Saturday Morning Cartoons Stream 10:30 AM EST Saturdays On Her Channel so Tune In & say hi in the chat 😀
Also, I put lil' Blue & Green Auras Around my "Tag" bcs those are my favorite 2 Lanterns, WILL & HOPE!
Armed with those two you're pretty much unstoppable 😉
SUBSCRIBE TO / FOLLOW @mamabeardoll HERE 🔥👇🏾
https://www.youtube.com/c/MadsMamaBear
https://www.instagram.com/mamabeardoll/
https://twitter.com/MadsMamaBear
She's got great Art, Poetry, Cooking Videos
& delightful posts so Go Click on That SUBSCRBE/FOLLOW!
At last, we come to the end of @blackestnight's commission!
In the wake of the Calamity, Ishgard finds its routine again, if a bit differently for how the frost has gripped it.
And sometimes, an assassination attempt is as routine as attending church. Or your own knighting ceremony, if you're Lucia goe Junius.
Such is the way of things.
word count: 7,084
Prev
~*~
Time passed strangely, after that. Neath a singular moon, and in everlasting, unnatural winter besides, but eventually, Ishgard all but forgot there was ever a time that Lucia did not belong to her. While she was still regarded with some wariness and suspicion by those who had never met her, those who had, had deemed her character beyond reproach—even if Lucia struggled to believe that herself. On some days, Lucia could pretend, almost, that she had always been Ishgardian, down to her marrow. Almost, but never could she forget where she came from, even three years after hobbling away from the Calamity.
Garlemald certainly did not.
So in a way, Lucia had suspected that it would come to this, on a morning as otherwise remarkable as this one, where her past came back, baring its fangs in earnest. That truth had dogged her, from the moment she had turned her coat, and yet, now that it was here, she felt almost disappointed at how over prepared she had been for it.
After all, it’s not every day one catches out their own spymaster.
It had been a near thing, to his credit; were it not for the familiar, hawkish gold of his eyes, she might have passed him on the street entirely, his disguise was so thorough: all the way down to having shaped wax around the shell of his ear to give them the impression of an Elezen point, he had looked like any other middling noble, at a glance. Then, he’d turned his head to look at her, too sharply, and displaced the oddly shaped hat on his head, just a little, just enough to reveal his third eye, glinting in the sunlight that bloomed off of the snow.
Upon realizing it was him, Lucia could only balk at the coat pin he’d worn in place of a House Crest: a snake, eating its own tail. Time and distance had made her forget the sheer pretentiousness that he was prone to, when given the opportunity.
It had startled her into laughter, and that had been enough for the swing of his dagger to falter. Enough for her to catch his blade hand at the wrist, twist it back, and claim the weapon for herself when a strike to his arm made his hand go suddenly lax.
If he had been surprised by her counter, he didn’t show it. The only thing that stayed her hand from retaliating immediately was that he made no move to follow up his strike. On the contrary, he instead leapt back to create distance.
Worried for a trap, Lucia waited, hands itching to claw and tear away this last piece of her life’s discarded tapestry.
The leather on the dagger’s grip creaked when her hold tightened. This wasn’t one of the better knives she remembered him having at his hip; either he didn’t feel safe risking it here, which was unlikely, or he had meant for her to see him.
Mayhap he wasn’t as rusty as she thought—or maybe happenstance was the best smokescreen. With wetwork, the lines between were ever blurry.
After a few long moments of little more than breathing in the yawning space between them, Ouroboros smiled. Something about the exchange pleased him. Of course it did.
“And here, I’d worried you’d been got.” her mentor laughed, even as his posture did not slacken. “It’s almost like you never left, Little Wolf. Almost.”
Lucia had forgotten; everything about him was quiet; even his voice was closer to smoke than sound. His chortling made the air around her heavier; with how she had to strain to hear him, she felt as though she were leaning toward a smoldering building, aflame only moments before. She fought the urge to cough.
“Had to keep my fangs sharp.” she answered.
“You’ve done well for yourself, pup. Two years past your extraction date, and here you are. Still so wrapped up in your sheepskin, you forgot you were meant to take it off.”
His lip twitched, once. Slight as the motion was, it was still enough for her to see the flash of his teeth in a barely withheld snarl. Slowly, his foot slid against the cobblestone, widening his stance. Though he reached for no weapon, Lucia would be a fool to think he didn’t have several others on him, aside from the knife she’d already taken from him.
“So you would cut it off me.” Lucia snorted.
Widening her stance and bending at the knee to make herself a smaller target was as familiar to her as breathing: on the inhale, she’d shifted her grip on the handle into something more fit for use, and slid into position as she exhaled, ready to strike on the next breath.
Like a snake. Like Ouroboros would expect. Which would be his downfall—she would strike as a dragon.
“Grew tired of waiting for your lackey to return?” she asked.
A headache pinched behind her eye at the deepening of her frown, as she recalled what few Imperials had been sent after her, before now. At first, they had been recon scouts that she’d caught out in the Highlands, before they ever tainted so much as the Arc of the Worthy. Doubtless, they had initially thought she had failed, and was presumed dead. Perhaps it had been reckless to kill them. But then, she knew Garlemald would never stop sending people; even if they had decided she was dead, Ishgard was still a hole in their network that would always need mending.
Thus, the work was never done. No rest for the righteous. Aymeric had shown her that.
“You know how it goes. Or at least, you should: you were one of my best.” Uoroboros said. Even his flattery was drenched in venom. It glinted off his teeth when he snarled, “It’s time you came home.”
“I did.” Lucia replied evenly. “Four years ago.”
Another twitch at the corner of his lip. Not a smile: she’d said something he misliked.
Good.
“How this goes down is up to you, Little Wolf: you come back, nice and quiet, and we help you remember how to behave. Everything goes back to normal.”
He drew another dagger from his boot. When the sun caught the emerald at the pommel, she recognized it as his favorite. It took more energy to not roll her eyes than it was worth. Still, she managed.
“Or I take your pelt.” he finished his threat, as he settled his stance.
Lucia wanted to laugh at the implication that there was a choice involved at all.
The moment she turned her coat, she knew that there was no going back. She had been fine with that. Was still more than fine with it. And her old mentor truly thought she could be convinced, that she wouldn’t be “accidentally” murdered in the middle of her re-education? Did he think her still as bought-in by propaganda and a lack of choice as she was when she knew naught else?
Lucia almost couldn’t recognize herself anymore, compared to that starving, shivering little soldier. She liked who she was now better, now that she remembered what it was to live.
“Let me give you the choice Garlemald won’t: leave, and tell them I’m dead. Or die here.” She counter offered, already loosening her muscles in anticipation for the need to react quickly.
Louder than his speaking voice, he snarled. It rumbled in his throat, rattled the stone beneath their feet. It reminded Lucia of an aevis warning off other predators, when it has caught its next meal.
He said nothing else, but his dash forward to close the distance was answer enough, and the answer she was anticipating. Where he had years of experience on her, she had a broader scope of attacks than he did.
That, and it was clear that despite all of his teachings, his lessons—often quite literally—beaten into her, he was running on sentimentality.
Ouroboros’ knife cut the air with such force that it whistled. The shrill sound was interrupted, by the clang of the knife she stole from him deflecting the attack. Rather than let the blades catch, as was doubtless his intent, she angled the blade, so that his slid off of it in a watershed.
His weight was thrown off balance with the rest of his swing—she’d been right, and he hadn’t anticipated a watershed guard. Seeing the opening for what it was, Lucia got a solid strike to his ribs, the articulated steel guardings on her fingers lending enough additional resistance behind her hit that she felt his rib give, just a bit.
A fracture, if not a break, then. Good. That would make him sloppy.
Hissing like his namesake, Ouroboros staggered back and attempted to right his footing. Jaw flexing under the pressure of clenching it, he braced his injured side, and instead shifted to strafe her.
As though it were as harmless as an apple plucked from a merchant’s stall, Lucia tossed the dagger to her left hand, toward the side he had begun to strafe to, effortlessly. “Advance if you want a quicker death.” When he did not move, she snarled, “Come on, then.”
The downturn of his brow told her that he disliked her casting aside his training so readily. Dare she realize that, perhaps, this was more personal than he would have her believe? Dare he admit that weakness, were she to give word to it?
When Ouroboros took another step to strafe to her left and she did not move, he realized she had meant it, and stopped walking. His eyes were colder than she remembered—or maybe he was doing what he had always done, and took in the surroundings to better blend into them.
In the blink of an eye, he dashed again—but Lucia anticipated it. Despite this, her weapon’s crossguard catching his dagger at her temple was a near thing. Near enough that she felt the sharp edge of his blade clack against her circlet. Sending a silent, thankful prayer to Ophianne, Lucia twisted herself to displace their weight.
“You’re lashing out. You’re homesick.” he said, in a droning tone that steadily grew in volume, as if he were trying to drill down to the core of her with it.
He struck again, as she leapt back, as he added, “And you’re so deep in your cover, you don’t know which way is up. You’re not the first lost little lamb I’ve brought back to the flock. You won’t be the last.”
How many of those “confused” spies had actually turned their coat, only to lack the strength to keep themselves safe, and succumb to the reintroduction program? How many of Lucia’s own colleagues had she seen return from stints where they were gone for months, sometimes over a year, where they never quite seemed the same, after they had tasted the air beyond Garlemald’s smog? Too many. She’d looked away, then, because she hadn’t had the strength, either.
But that was then.
“You think I’d just go back quietly? After everything I have learned?” Lucia asked in a low snarl.
Nerves shook her hands, shook the dagger in her grip. Rolling her shoulders, she willed her hands to be steady: she yet had need of them.
“Oh no, Little Wolf.” He grinned then, slowly, in contrast to the swiftness of his dash, as he moved to strike again. “I expect you to howl.”
He was nothing, if not fast. When he pushed off his toes into a dash to close the distance again, and aimed to stab her in the gut, Lucia sucked in a quick breath, and darted to the side, taking a quick swipe at his neck with her dagger.
In time with the feeling of the blade connecting with his skin, Uoroboros grunted, as he bent his body away from the blow, and tucked himself into a roll, to give himself some distance.
When he scrambled to recover, he pressed quick fingers to the wound, and tested it. What he found clearly did not concern him—it had, admittedly, been but a glancing blow. The wound was likely superficial.
A pity.
“Do you know how many other deep cover agents I’ve had to bring back, shell shocked and barely knowing who they were anymore, after Carteneau? You are but another in a long list I have to work through.”
He was trying to dance between kind and callous, as he always had done.
Before, it had been an artful balance, teetering on the knife’s edge, one that had always left Lucia’s vision tunneled until all she could focus on was keeping her superiors placated—as if they were hungry lions, circling her in their den. She had thought, at the time, that she was an unaffected, calculating jackboot. She’d thought that she felt nothing, just like she’d been taught. It was protection.
But those lessons had not kept her safe—they were never meant to. They kept her afraid.
“You could write them off as dead.” Lucia quipped, unimpressed with his goading.
She took the momentary lapse in fighting to check her wrist—a twinge of pain rippled along the muscles there, but it was otherwise intact.
Not bad news at all; it confirmed, at least, what she’d noticed in defending from his blows; he wasn’t so discomposed that he had lost his form, but he had now opted for brute strength, over the more dexterous flourishes that such attacks often demanded, to avoid damage to the attacker.
Which meant that she needed to rattle him even more.
“Do you know why I knew you would try something today?” Lucia asked with a cruel, toothy grin.
“The day had no significance. Only the opportunity.” he dismissed sharply—sharp enough that she would almost suspect that she had cut too close to the heart of the matter.
“A knighthood ceremony always has increased security. If there was to be an opportunity, it would have been well before now, or well after.” she parried, in word and deed, as she easily let his dagger shed off her blade like water. “’Tis not I that is emotional and confused, methinks.”
“Listen to yourself!” he snarled, and closed the distance almost too quickly for Lucia to guard against, but when he aimed to catch their blades together at the cross guards, she realized that he was trying to get close, but not committing to a lethal strike just yet; if he had been, he would have had a perfect opening for her heart, right in that moment. Gruffly, he demanded to know, “Do you even recognize yourself anymore?”
The force of him putting his entire weight on their crossed blades was enough to make her wrists twinge in warning. Twisting to let him stumble out of their lock, she used her momentum to swing her knee into his sternum. The impact was enough that she felt the way his lungs sunk into themselves, atop her knee, as she forced the air from them.
“A little more every day. No thanks to you.” Lucia grunted.
Ouroboros managed to get a petty swipe of his blade at her leg, though she managed to bolt back quickly enough that it was a shallow cut, just above her knee. It had only cut through cloth, and had not even glanced her mail, for a blessing.
“Ingrate!” he howled, indignant. “I will remind you of all you owe to me!”
Knowing that the snake had every sense coiled around her movements, she made sure he watched her lower her head, ever so slightly, and held his gaze as she prayed, half into her pommel as she brought it back up, “Blessed Halone, guide my blade.”
Not quite so eloquent as Bishop Egrant’s guided prayers, but graceful enough to incite a snarling, vicious lunge out of Ouroboros, his enraged offense bleeding him of his technique.
His knife caught in the sleeve of her mail—a loose fold, that only just grazed her skin. A price she gladly paid, in exchange for the attempt at embedding her knife in his chest.
Alas, from the angle he had her, most of the strength of her upward swing connected too soon, caught by his arm. Though her blade pierced the leather of his vest, and bled him, it was not a lethal wound—it was not even enough to impede him, from leaping backward with a flourish of his blades, to discourage her pursuit.
But Lucia knew better than to look for an opening; even if he left himself one, he would obfuscate it with a flurry of attacks, were she to attempt taking advantage of it. No, if she wanted to guarantee he would slip up, she would have to behave the way he thought she would—
When Ouroboros lashed out with his dagger again, and aimed for her throat, she leapt back with a wide sweep of her arm to knock the blade away. As she skittered across the cobblestone, she made a show of flinching with her whole body, enough that the knife she’d taken from him faltered in her grip. She even managed a strained noise from the back of her throat, and an accompanying wince as though she were in pain, as she let the dagger fall through her fingers.
An opening.
Ever the opportunist, her old master lunged for her, even before her weapon had hit the ground. Mid-leap, with both of his daggers poised overhead to strike, Lucia couldn’t help but find his serpentine name more fitting than it had ever been before.
Just as Ouroboros committed his entire life to that strike, Lucia committed to hers, letting her muscles go lax as she dropped to a crouch. When the discarded, stolen knife clattered to the ground, she ignored it altogether. Instead, she reached toward her boot, her fingers brushing a familiar leather latch—
Always good to have a spare knife in your boot, she heard Ophianne in her head, and in a flash, she pictured the delicate, flower painted porcelain on the handle of Ophianne’s boot knife, as she used it to cut the yarn she had been knitting with. What sort of knife that is, depends on the job it’s doing, I suppose.
Ouroboros’ shadow eclipsed her, as he made to land his feet on the stone, and his daggers in her spine. Quick as lightning, Ophianne’s floral painted hunting knife slotted itself neatly in the hollow made between two of his ribs, and his sternum. Neat enough, in fact, that he seemed not to realize that he had been struck, until she used her other hand to catch the weight of his torso, as he started to land. Instead, she vaulted him over her shoulder, and used his momentum to throw him away from her.
The moment she threw Uoroboros with her free hand, the other twisted Ophianne’s knife out of him. It was not his to keep—she was not his to keep; he, and the Empire that had made them both into this, had taken enough from her.
No more. No more.
As he sailed some few fulms, their eyes met. For a moment, Lucia almost didn’t recognize him, for the expression on his face; she isn’t certain that even he knows the last time that he felt fear, before this moment. His back connecting with the brick ledge guarding him from the abyss below jarred him from that shocked horror, and he yelped on impact, before crumpling in on himself.
Lucia never knew his real name. In a sense, she supposed she never truly knew him at all. But she knew how he worked; she knew, were the roles reversed, he would draw it out. Make her hurt. Make her suffer. Because she had gone and ran from the pack, like a bad, little wolf.
I am choosing to be better, Lucia reminded herself, as she did every day, and stepped forward.
For all his rambling to try and knock her off kilter, it wasn’t Lucia that had let sentiment steal her focus, this day. For all his insistence that none of them would ever be better than him, here he sat. Broken. Bitter, too, she realized, as he tried to spit venomous words at her, and only managed blood, for his trouble.
When she hauled him up by the straps on his leathers, and held him high enough that the toes of his boots only just brushed the cobblestone, she made a point to hold him there with one hand, as she held her mother’s knife in the other.
“The Black Wolf does not rear weak pups.” Lucia reminded him, just before she shoved him over the stone railing.
Ouroboros, her mentor, her spymaster, the man she had tried to look up to, for the better part of her life, lived up to his namesake to the last: undone by his own protégé, undone by his own arrogance and ambition, slithering away with nary a noise, as he fell into the mists below.
When she could no longer see his form through the fog, Lucia reminded herself, with a prim brush of her coat shoulder to straighten it: “He did not start with me.”
As she bent and returned her knife to her boot, she wondered at just how much of her past would ultimately wind up down there, beneath the swirling wind and ice aether.
Whether she would join them, in the end.
As the clouds shifted above her, the overcast light glinted off of something that caught her eye; lying on the stone floor, some ilms away, was Ouroboros’ prized possession: that godforsaken dagger.
The emerald embedded in the pommel stared up at her, familiarly unfeeling.
He’d often described his weapons as extensions of himself: “If I am a snake, then I suppose these are my fangs.” He had shrugged off someone’s offensive comment about his wetname.
If the rest of him disappeared without a trace, so too, should this—but perhaps, with more precise purpose.
Hunting trophies sent messages all their own, after all. It would be nothing, to get this back to the Capital. They would know what it meant.
But that was for later, once she’d tracked down the last of her old contacts that she knew had begun to creep closer to Coerthas. For now, she wrapped the dagger and tucked it within her coat, turned on her heel, and made straight for the Vault; Ishgard so loved Her itineraries, of course, and it wouldn’t do for Lucia to be late to her own knighting, after all.
Least of all, because Aymeric was the one knighting her, as was his duty, as Lord Commander.
~*~
The ceremony itself was every but as painfully stiff, and overly long, as any other formal gathering that the Holy See was directly responsible for. It was less the procession, than the meaning behind it, that made such rituals so sacrosanct, for Lucia: every step she moved through, was another affirmation: every action, a choice. Her choice.
When she returned home—in her new apartment, no less, as a citizen of Ishgard, paid for by her own salary, no less!—Lucia marked the date down in her journal. It was important not because of the ceremony that earned her, at long last, her own Templar chainmail, but because of the celebration that was had, as a housewarming party, and celebration both, wherein Aymeric insisted on cooking and serving the lot of them, Margelyne and Grafant gave her pointers on how best to store her dishes, and how to dry her clothes when it got too cold to hang them outside, and they all drank entirely too much wine, all the while.
She ultimately decided to present Aymeric with the dagger she had taken as a trophy, from Ouroboros. He was the newly minted Lord Commander, of some few months, after all. If there was anyone, in any position of power, that she trusted not to twist this offering into some morbid confession of her turning traitor twofold, it would be him.
Once the wine had made her jaw too loose to clench, when she thought back on it, she told him all of what had happened, as she had gifted it to him. As she pressed the handle into his palm, she said that she trusted him, and his judgement. In turn, she asked him to trust her, when she said that it was no one’s choice but hers, to give it to him.
“Thank you for telling me, and for your trust, Lucia,” Aymeric told her, when she was done. “I will do my utmost to honor this.”
But he always said things like that. Thus, she thought naught of it, and so, they returned to their merriment for the evening, without sparing that dagger another thought.
Her first shift was not for a few days, after that celebration—in truth, the primary reason that she had reveled unreservedly—so when she returned to the Congregation the following Firesday, Lucia had no frame of reference, for what was considered normal.
Even still, she imagined that there was little precedent for such a commotion, coming from the lift, as it descended to the main floor of the Congregation, just as she had stepped inside its doors.
The muffled cacophony of voices became clear with the crack of the lift doors opening—she spied Aymeric first, at the center of the lift, and saw that, as the doors pulled back fully, he was flanked by a riotous, dissenting member of the clergy, robes fluttering with every jab of his gnarled finger, far too close to Aymeric’s personal space to be considered appropriate..
What they could be dissenting over already, Lucia could only begin to guess; they were so eager to insist that Aymeric was wrong about something, they were yapping inarticulately, like an ill-trained child, yelling just to be heard.
Wordlessly, the newly appointed Lord Commander held up his hand, once they had stepped off the lift. Immediately, a hush fell over the room. The clergyman, as if viscerally reminded of Aymeric’s newfound influence, cowed, in the face of his icy expression.
“I would be hard pressed to find one more informed on affairs beyond our walls—nor one so adept at obtaining information.” Aymeric said slowly, as if this were not the first time he had needed to explain this.
“You have no proof of—!”
“Ah, First Commander!” Aymeric cut off the clergyman’s squawking, as he looked over at Lucia.
First Commander? She thought, taken aback. Granted, her knighting ceremony was already a bit of an uneventful blur, but she was fairly certain that she had not been granted a rank, as of yet. When did that happen?
Lucia looked behind both of her shoulders, searching for someone else he might have been looking for, that she had missed.
There was no one to be seen.
“Lord Commander?” she called, begging without words for some context.
“You have no proof of her loyalty to aught but you!” the clergyman pressed, their face resembling a tomato. “She has not even had a full shift as a knight!”
“I owe Lucia my life, several times over.” Aymeric answered immediately. “As for her record: in truth, she has had years worth of experience, as my family’s squire. And if that is insufficient proof, of her unwavering loyalty...”
He reached into his new, ornate robes, rummaging for something. Somehow, she did not expect to see the glint of the emerald, embedded in the pommel of Ouroboros’ dagger, and yet, when Aymeric held it out in front of him, Lucia found that she could not be surprised, that he had found a way to work this into his mad scheme.
“On the day of her knighting, she defeated Garlemald’s spymaster, when he came on assignment to infiltrate Ishgard.” He held the dagger in his hands, calloused fingertip plucking at the sharpened edge of the blade, as he said, “Upon his death, his dagger was presented to me, by her very hands. Witnesses confirm his death by her hand. How could one question her loyalty, thus? Or her worthiness, to be named First Commander?”
“Over so many others! Many others, who have served for years!” they pressed.
“Would you levy that same complaint against my choice of Second Commander? I have not heard you say such misgivings with regard to Ser Handeloup, and yet, he has served only some two years longer than Ser Lucia.”
“That is not the same—”
“And why is that, Cardinal?” Aymeric whirred on them suddenly, bearing his full attention—and height—to loom over them. “Mine ears are open, to receive thy good word. Enlighten me.”
When it became clear that the Lord Commander was not interested in playing word games until one of them got their tongue tangled, the Cardinal turned toward one of the few other occupants in the room: a kindly looking fellow, with some few scars visible around his face.
“Surely, you must be uncomfortable, sharing your position with—”
“I am not sharing my position with anyone, Cardinal.” The knight—Ser Handeloup, she presumed—answered plainly, not even letting them finish the question. Bowing, he explained, patiently, “I am the Second Commander. Ser Lucia is my superior officer, as First Commander. And I am honored, to serve with her.”
As Lucia struggled between the want to laugh, the impulse to hide her face forever, and the urge to throw something hard at the back of Aymeric’s head, the Cardinal realized that their arguments would go nowhere fast; with one final flail of their arms, they stormed out, into the cold of the morning, muttering angrily even after the doors had swung shut behind them.
“Well! That seems to have settled that, then!” Aymeric said around a sigh, as his posture eased, by some few degrees.
“Wh—wait, Lord Commander.” Lucia ground out, through clenched teeth, as she seized his arm in a way that was not at all professional. “A warning would have been nice!” she hissed through her teeth.
He feigned surprise. “Why, I thought I had made it clear from the first, that you were to be in my inner circle, if we were to work together?”
“I—that is—!” she sputtered, indignant, before she remembered that she was, technically, on her first day of work.
Removing herself from Aymeric’s personal space, and straightening herself, Lucia cleared her throat and forced out her concession, “Though I hardly count it as adequate, you make a point, Lord Commander.”
At the mention of his title, he grimaced. “Oh, that, that, will take some getting used to.” he admitted. “Anyroad, I suspect that you have scarce had a chance to introduce yourselves, the two of you. Do forgive me, for that—I kept meaning to, but—”
“Our patrols kept getting moved!” The Second Commander said, throwing his head back and laughing. “I felt like we kept just barely missing each other.”
“Thank you, for speaking up on my behalf—Ser Handeloup, was it?” Lucia spoke up.
“That I am, Ser Lucia—and you have naught to thank me for.” Ser Handeloup answered, snapping a salute to her. “The journey of your faith has ever seemed genuine, and your conduct, beyond reproach. I look forward to working with you.”
Doubtless, she would have knights saluting to her dozens of times more—and every day, at that, but the sight of Handeloup so effortlessly doing so sent her reeling. In the moment, she snapped a salute back to him, more on reflex than anything.
“I look forward to working with you, as well!” she said, and even to her, her voice sounded too loud.
What a first impression she was making. Would that she could dissolve through the floor.
When Aymeric turned on his heel to face her, he moved with practiced grace; she made a mental note to tease him when they were off duty, and ask him how many times he had to practice turning with that long, heavy coat.
Fury preserve, and those ridiculous pauldrons…
“Come, let me show you where your office is.” He said.
With a gesture from him, she fell into step at his side, as he led her through the winding corridors.
For a blessing, it was not so many turns to get to her office; fewer she had to memorize, as far as she was concerned.
“I know we took your measurements, as a part of welcoming you into the knighthood,” he said, as he shouldered a heavy, wooden door open, and ushered her inside.
As it turned out, her shield had been brought ahead of her, and was resting on its own armor rack— parallel to a blade that she had never seen before. Its make reminded her of some of the more gilded weaponry of the Theocracy’s more specialized, decorated soldiers. She could imagine that Ser Handeloup was given a sword that was much like this one.
The office was otherwise spartan: a desk with a simple but comfortable looking chair, a trunk for any personal effects, and an ornate heating vent, with a wrought iron grate, that she could open, or shut, to her personal comfort. Light bloomed from the candelabras at the back wall, and the cool sunlight streaming in from the tall, narrow window at the center of it.
Otherwise spartan, save for an armor rack, deliberately placed in the center of the empty space of the room, a distinct suit of platemail draped over top of it. The deep silver of the armor was framed with bands of deep red—the same as the shield Celestinaux had bestowed upon her. What few details there were, in that not-quite gilded koppranickle, were understated, but matched the detailing on the Lord Commander’s attire. The entire ensemble fair gleamed in the sunlight.
“Your chainmail is meant to be worn beneath this plate—the armorer is eager to hear your thoughts on how it fits.” Aymeric continued, as though they were discussing the weather. “Ser Handeloup will be trying on an identical set as we speak, I imagine. When you are finished, pray join us back in the main hall.”
He lingered, when she made a sputtering noise. Realizing she was fit to burst with questions, he sighed, and said, “Alright, let it out.”
“I’m your second?” she gawked.
He arched a brow, and feigned some meager offense. “And here I thought you had faith in me, Lucia. Pray, do not sound so surprised.”
“You managed to get me promoted on my first day. To your second in command.”
“In all fairness, I hardly anticipated being Lord Commander already. If I must needs be unexpectedly elevated beyond my station, I refuse to go alone.” he reasoned. “I regret to inform you, but you made this your problem.”
That, she did. And would do so, again, and again, if the opportunity were presented to her again.
Not that she would tell him that. That would require admitting that he had won.
“You are,” Lucia said, shaking her head in disbelief, even as she smiled. “An absolute bastard.”
“And adopted!” Aymeric chirped, on his way out the door.
~*~
Routine was as familiar to Lucia as it was to any soldier. To some extent, it was something of a comfort.
That her routine had changed, over the course of her life, mattered little—what was important, was that she had one to anchor herself to, that did not harm her for her efforts.
It was a curious thing, how similar her routine looked on the surface, when she compared it to her life before Ishgard: how she would rise with the sun, and take the time to limber her body up, with a few quick stretches. Once her body had woken up a bit more, and her mind had caught up to her, she would then perform her daily cleanliness rituals, dress herself.
Lucia had lived in this armor enough years that she could buckle it on and off without sparing so much as a glance at the buckles and clasps. The motions were as familiar as breathing, the staccato click of a buckle snapping closed a rhythm as familiar to her, as her own heartbeat.
Armor thus adorned, she would present herself for inspection in front of the mirror, for her own approval. Once obtained, she would strap her hard earned blade at her hip, and affix her family’s shield to her back.
Then, and only then, would she remove her circlet, from its delicate, velvet lined case.
Years of wear and tear—and the odd mark of a glancing dagger—had left the once pristine metal dulled from the passage of time, marred by scuffs and marks of her survival alike. The opal, at its center, while still a lustrous focal point, had dimmed, without the patient care of a goldsmith.
Miss Hagane had offered, on more than one occasion, to replace the thing outright. A generous offer, every time, but one that Lucia was reluctant to take, until there was truly no salvaging this one.
The patina of the metal was familiar, smoothed down by her inspecting fingertips, over the years, as she shifted it to settle over her head.
Even once she had donned her boots, she was not quite finished dressing, before she left. Not without her rosary.
Before she would put it on, she would inspect the beads—the precious onyx and star sapphires, interwoven with little gold beads. She could track where her hands had roved over each bead, as she prayed, by the faint chipping of the gold paint, on those dividing beads. Often, she would, in search of any signs of damage.
Only once that rosary was tucked carefully in the front of her armor, where once she had hidden a different sort of beacon, did she step out of her door, toward Saint Raymanaud’s, on her way to the Congregation.
It was only just six in the morning, when Lucia slipped through the massive doors, and closed them behind her as quietly as she could.
The frigid early morning wind howled, and she had to shove the door closed with more force than she had anticipated. Alas, it was more commonplace, in the wake of the Calamity.
While the sun had begun its ascent around the same time that Lucia had left her apartment, there was not yet enough sunlight to be caught up in the stained glass windows of the cathedral. Entire clusters of lit candles, dotted among the shelves and aisles of the church, bathed the muted space in a warm light.
This was her favorite time of day to come here.
The only people around to disturb her were some members of the clergy, ambling about to start their day, and some few shopkeepers, and morning workers, all performing the same comforting routines as her.
There were so few of them at this hour, however, that her footsteps echoed, even muted by the runner of red carpet as they were. Enough that her entrance was of note, for how it disturbed the deep quiet.
Keeping to the far back of the pews, Lucia shuffled herself toward the outside corner, and carefully knelt upon the cushioned, retractable hassock, attached to the pew in front of her.
It had taken years of practice, to know how to pray. The act was, in and of itself, not inherently hard, though finding the words, or even knowing where to start, was often the hard part.
As she had learned from the first, however, even before she had understood what faith had even been, she had been gifted a reliable way to begin her prayers, at least:
“O Halone, I give you thanks for this blessed day,” Lucia murmured, and practiced finding the rest of her prayer, along the way.
She never thought her prayers were graceful things. Not in the way that Ophianne’s had been. But she had found a little more of her own grace, every time she tried.
With an oath that she would never stop trying, Lucia left her tithe, and stepped back out into the cold of the morning.
In stark contrast to Saint Reymanaud’s, the Congregation was, as ever, a bustle of activity, knights meandering, and often half asleep, as their bodies tried to remember how to march, before sunrise. The night shift, only just beginning to wane, marching off in a hurry, eager to shower, eat, and sleep.
The more senior knights, who had gotten to know her over her tenure as First Commander, all greeted her with formal familiarity, letting her in on that particular morning’s joke. Something about someone’s partner, something crude, in all likelihood.
Ser Handeloup would often bring coffee that his wife made, and greet Lucia with a tin cup of her own, in lieu of words.
The First Commander of the Temple Knights brooked no favorites, but Ser Handeloup’s wife was exempt. Her coffee was divine.
Once they both had their cups, they would take the lift to the Seat of the Lord Commander together, to report in.
As she expected, Aymeric would greet them each with a pastry—“Margelyne would never forgive me, if I did not share them,” he would say, every time, as if he did not go out of his way, to help her make them.
Handeloup would pour him a cup, in kind, from the thermos, and they would all share breakfast, as they congregated over the day’s itinerary. It never took them long—a quarter of a bell, at the most—to finish, but it was their own, crucial ritual. In a way, the morning did not feel right, without.
It was one last piece of peace, before they were swept up in the demands of their station. That the Theocracy was overthrown did not change this fact, but for how it increased the need for their attentions. Oftentimes, it was all they could do, to buckle down and push through, until they were all back in that same office, pouring over more coffee, and an ever escalating amount of paperwork.
Often, it was thankless. For a certainty, few would even begin to understand, not only the effort it had taken to get there, but the effort it had taken, to keep progressing. Fewer still, would even try to.
And yet, Lucia would greet the next dawn, and the next, with the same routine. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and she would start the same ritual again, to face it, every time.
There was no sense in leaving all the work to god, after all.
slightly altered timeline meme | 11. the timeline in which something very little happened differently, but it changed a lot.
the easy answer is that if allen’s gangmate hadn’t stolen his mammet before he moved to ul’dah, he wouldn’t have had to slum it as intimately with ul’dah’s refugee crowd and would have focused more on empowering and bettering himself instead of this community he just met. it’s a very slippery slope to become a mob boss 😔
the hard answer is that if al didn’t jump off the dresser and land in l’selle’s sink, splashing soap in l’selle’s eye, l’selle wouldnt have run into the table and knocked the teacup to the floor. and if the teacup hadn’t shattered, he wouldn’t have been wearing his shoes in the house, which made him want to go outside because why else would he waste time with shoes. and if he didn’t go outside he wouldn’t have seen that one deer that reminded him of arismont that reminded him of limsa that reminded him of his mom’s fish dip, and he certainly wouldn’t have started walking towards highbridge to see what goods their air ferries brought in. and THEN he wouldn’t have seen rothe visiting alrek. which means he wouldn’t have learned that ala mhigans were into chakra rocks and rothe would have never gotten such a beloved gift from his best friend in the whole word 😔😔😔
#tbt Green Lantern Corps and my first and last covers. I drew scripts written by Johns, Gibbons, Champagne, and Tomasi with a few ideas of my own contributed, like Guy Gardner becoming a Red Lantern, Bzzd’s origin and death and a few others I’m sure I’ve forgotten. I was the artist for 47 issues (52 counting the miniseries) with only a handful of fill-ins over those years. It was an intense schedule. Often going to the line but never shipping late over those years. I shared a studio with @thedougmahnke for much of this run. It was exciting to work alongside him and the writers creating some memorable characters Soranik Natu, Iolande, Sodam Yat etc. Towards the end of my run and throughout Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night we were drawing an ever evolving cast of thousands it seemed. Our editors were stressed I’m sure, but always had faith and our backs and gave us what we needed to get the job done and minimize fill-ins. (Always been thankful for that.) It was hard work by all, inkers colorists, letterers, so many, but for my money it was was well worth it to have this body of work on our shelves. I even got to go to the GL Premire with Doug and Geoff and see a few cameos of characters I co-created on the big screen like , Bzzd, R’amy Holl, and Isamot Kol. When it was time to wrap up my run I asked if I could bookend the last cover with our first and add in new characters to show how the members of Corps grew under our 47/52 issues, and as you can see It was approved, and the rest is Oan history. #greenlanterncorps #greenlantern #guygardner #soraniknatu #bzzd #kylerayner #kilowog #patrickgleason #comics #blackestnight #brightestday https://www.instagram.com/p/B9XRE0BAdKZ/?igshid=1tkjf0udddz01
Other than getting to spend time with my best friend @laughingmecha this evening, today pretty much sucked, so finding this guy was a big boost in morale #funkopop #blackestnightsuperman #blackestnight #greenlantern https://www.instagram.com/p/B9p3SwipEvA/?igshid=4gfi4x3d9i0o
