#catalexis

[starcunning]

23. Parched

And where her glances fall, there cities burn

For @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast’s FFXIVWrite 2019. [Title] [AO3 mirror]

Amaurot was far behind him now, and the Convocation with it. Menelaus had heard the reports—so too had they all—but it had not prepared him for the reality. Of all cities, his was the greatest, but he had come across the sea for love of a woman, and found only parched earth and burning spires.

A terrible keening filled the air, a sound that disrupted creation itself. Its discordant note stoked the unease in his heart. Whether or not the companion he had come for followed him home, this sight surely would—in memory first, and then in truth.

[starcunning]

28. Attune

My needle to your north abruptly swerved

For @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast’s FFXIVWrite 2019. [Title] [AO3 mirror]

X’shasi is no scholar, unlearned in matters of aether but for the practical knowledge she’s gleaned. To attune to an aetheryte, though, feels like exchanging some small piece of herself with the crystal. She has strung crumbs of her being across two worlds, aethertrails like tethers leading her back to wherever she cares to go.

There is a small one in his garden, and she casts herself back to it perhaps more often than any other place—certainly more often than her own home, of late. A piece of her belongs in Ul’dah; another in Ishgard, and Amaurot. And here, perhaps.

[starcunning]

7. Forgiven

returned, to your place of dreaming

For @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast‘s FFXIVWrite 2019. [Title] [AO3 mirror]

You leave the wood and they never tell your story again. Of all the things you could do, that is the transgression that will obliterate you from history. That is the sin that parts you from your family, the one that has been with you since before you were born.

What becomes of them? Of your mate, whom you loved and saw but rarely? What becomes of your murdered son? There are things, too, that you cannot forgive. You cannot forgive the Empire for killing him. You cannot forgive yourself for failing to save him.

You will never see him again.

[starcunning]

18. Wilt

You’re gone away, and I’m in desert

For @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast’s FFXIVWrite 2019. [Title] [AO3 mirror]

Already the hand of spring had seized Ala Mhigo by the throat, dragging it onward into the heat which would elsewhere be called “summer.” Beneath a cage of glass, neglected flowers gave up their breath, perfuming the air with petals and stagnation.

Him too. It was exactly as she had said: death waited all around him, unworthy and afraid. He hated her for consigning him to this place, and more still for taking her leave of him thereafter, but to hate her was at least to feel something.

Zenos held his breath like a tree in winter, waiting to live again.

[starcunning]

I KNOW THE ANSWER TO ALL OF THEM but the last one is the question I would ask of X'shasi Kilntreader.

16. Who would be able to spend centuries in misery waiting for the other to be reborn.

The Beloved

It was much easierto find Velodyna Cosmos flowers than it had been when he was young.Young—the thought made him laugh, almost, despite the gravity ofthe day and of his task. Youth was a distant shore that he wouldnever visit again.

He should have died.A hundred times over, he should have died—of wounds; of heartbreak;of age. It was not right that he be in a world without her. But therehe was, laying flowers at a grave whose inscriptions time had erased.

She was coming back,Haurchefant thought. She had to be coming back.

[starcunning]

I want 8 and i want a pair that will obliterate my existence in material space

8. Who would stand up at the other’s wedding and say they object.

The Prodigal

What an effort itmust have been, to keep the news of the Lord-Commander’s nuptialsfrom her. A dozen letters she had had from home with no mention, andher twin, too, had been kept by necessity in the dark. Thus she wasfar away at the appointed hour.

But her soul knewthe way home; she could cast herself back, to the frost-rimed spiresand the gaze of the Fury. To him. How wild she must have looked inthe doorway, windblown and wide-eyed, knowing at last and almost toolate what she wanted—if she could but dare speak.

[starcunning]

10. Who would love the other no matter how evil the other became. (Shasi-related pls?)

Thancred goe Marinus

He remembered her.Even without his inculcated Echo, he remembered her—as theKilntreader. A friend. A confidante. His killer.

She had not becomethat by choice; that much he still recalled. He—not he—had takenher eye in the struggle, and she had lost more since. He could seethat, when he looked. Could see why she made him; why she made himthis. Why she had made herself the Viceroy of Eorzea. The Prince’sbride.

He loved her. Heloved her, and she loved him, and she had killed him. And he wouldhave to kill her, too.

[starcunning]

Orghana

People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die.

— Haruki Murakami

Prompt #28: Echo

“How do they move? Why?” Shasi asked. Her xaela companion only smiled, tugging at the vambraces that hid the old scars upon his wrists. “Do they have nothing like this in Eorzea?” he wondered. “We have golems, but they are fragile and temporary. You can see their soulstones. The chuluu are different.” Dzhambul laughed: “True,” he said. “They endure as long as memory. This one tells the deeds of Gergei, and has his strength. If we beat it, then …” “Then?” she echoed. “Then perhaps Orghana Himaa will turn his eye upon us. He deserves a fitting end to his story.”