Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light
Characters: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch, Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Original Final Fantasy XIV Characters
Additional Tags: POV G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch, One-Sided Pining, Pining, toxic pining, People Watching, Mentioned One Night Stands, Jealous G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch, Touch-Starved G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch, Unnamed Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Male Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Elezen Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Angst, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers (Final Fantasy XIV), Angst with No Happy Ending, One-Sided G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light, WoLGraha Week 2026
Series: Part 1 of wolgraha week 2026
Summary:
Finally his plans had worked, finally he had done what he'd set out to do a hundred years ago when he first arrived from the Source. Finally the Warrior of Light, the First's new Warrior of Darkness, stood in the flesh on the First and finally the Exarch felt like maybe things would go according to his plan.
But it wasn't only that – it wasn't only that he knew finally there would be a chance to save the home that he'd built here and save the Source in turn. The Exarch knew there was something else gnawing at him, burning a hole deep down in his crystallized heart. The young man he'd once been was awakened by seeing the Warrior again and there was no putting him back to sleep.
And so, shameful as it was, the Exarch let himself watch.
Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Family member death
Relationships: Warrior of Light & Gridania, Warrior of Light & Miounne
Characters: Warrior of Light, Miounne
Additional Tags: Gridania, Elezen Warrior of Light, Rejection, Call to Adventure, XIV Heatwave Festival 2026
Series: With Lilies and With Laurel
Length: 1692 words
Summary: An Elezen wanderer finds her way to Gridania in hopes of finding family.
Notes:
For the FFXIV Heatwave Festival 2026, for the prompt "wander," and with many thanks to @fourteenthz for hosting this lovely event with writer-friendly prompts and timeframes!
Many thanks to @farfromdaylight for beta reading. All remaining mistakes are mine.
The song Ariane's mother used to sing is inspired by "The Jug of Punch," specifically Altan's version, which also inspired Ariane's nameday! and which you can listen to here!
This is a work of fiction created for entertainment purposes and is not intended to be instructional with regard to grief and mourning, travel, survival skills, locating distant relatives, or anything else.
AO3 | dreamwidth
---
"Do you perchance know anyone by the name of Clairière?"
The prospect of asking questions of strangers was far and away the worst thing about coming to Gridania… and mayhap one reason Ariane Clairière had avoided it for nigh on five winters.
She ought to have come sooner. What if, after all, the answer was Yes, of course, they live just down the hill or over the brook? Suppose she did have relations here, as Mother had always said, and she had kept them waiting, all this time?
Each time she screwed up her courage and asked, however, the answer would be No.
-
"I do know the name," Mother Miounne said thoughtfully. The Wood Wailer at the Blue Badger Gate by which she'd come had directed her first to the Carline Canopy, and Ariane was not one to disobey an order. "Yes, of course, a very Gridanian name—I've seen it in the old census records. I haven't known of any living Clairières, though, since before my time. And you say it's your mother's name?"
"It was," Ariane agreed, and saw Miounne's face soften at that. "Annette was her given name. But she was born in Mor Dhona. As was I."
"Not forestborn, then."
Forestborn. Mother had used the term, now and again. We're Gridanian, you know—my parents were forestborn, and you girls are of their lineage, children of the Glade. Ariane had known little of her grandparents—both had passed when she was very young. Mother had taken great pride, however, in that lineage, and taught Ariane and her sister in the ways of the forest: respect for nature, and for the elementals, the spirits of pure aether that dwelt therein. As the children of Nophica the Matron, the elementals were strongest and most numerous in Her holy forest, the Twelveswood.
Ariane was not forestborn. Of this, the people of Gridania would be swift to remind her.
-
We've family in Gridania, Mother had always said. One day, we'll take you girls to see them and the city. Such remarks had been commonplace, when Ariane and her sister Gratienne were small, in their home by the shores of Silvertear Lake. What family precisely, they did not know, only that Mother's parents had come from there, and others yet remained, so far as she knew.
It was no small thing, however, to visit Gridania. The city lay at the heart of the Black Shroud, surrounded by dense forest, and neither the girls nor Father were attuned to the aetheryte. Passage by carriage was costly, and Ariane's family had their little farm to tend. Going to Gridania glimmered in the far-distant future, a promise of one day, never now.
After Silvertear Skies, after they been driven from their home and forced to start anew, that promise had dwindled. Even on the outskirts of the Black Shroud, Gridania had seemed far away, ever out of reach, passage through the forest more costly and difficult to secure than ever. Even when they had been summoned to Quarrymill to stand before the Hearers, where it had been determined that they would be allow to remain on the outskirts, they had been been barred from moving to the city itself.
And in the moons following the Calamity, the Wood Wailers had forbidden nearly all passage through the Twelveswood, stating that the aetherial shifts had greatly disturbed the elementals, and no outsiders could be permitted beyond the Hedge at this time. When the borders would reopen, none could say.
So Ariane had turned back from the forest, and set out a wanderer with all that remained of her life carried on her back. One day, she would go to Gridania. But not today.
And days had become moons, and winter turned to summer and then to winter again, until near on five years had passed.
-
Mother Miounne bid her register with the guild as an adventurer. Ariane declined, of course. She was no adventurer. A wanderer, certainly; she had known no home since the Calamity had taken it from her, and her family with it. But she was no sellsword, slaying beasts and bandits and seeking fortune and reknown. Just an itinerant herbalist, one who could forage for medicinal plants and craft tonics and tinctures and salves for any who had need. In exchange, she might have a meal, a roof for the night, perhaps a weathered tunic or patched pair of trousers to replace her own threadbare garments. On rare occasion, a coin or two, though few in the rural parts of the realm had gil to spare.
Two personal items had she kept with her since the Calamity: her mother's signet ring, and her round silver spectacles. (Truly a mercy from the gods that she had managed to keep from losing or breaking them these five years, as she could see little without them.) Apart from these, Ariane's prized possession was a green wool cloak only a little worn and stained along the bottom, received as thanks for brewing medicine for a sick child with no promise of payment. Briefly she had thought to refuse—the family was far from wealthy. But the girl's mother had insisted, and Ariane, knowing acutely the pain of cold nights on hard ground, had at last accepted.
She was glad, in hindsight. It would have been foolish to do otherwise. Now if only she could find someone who would trade her a sturdy pair of boots. The ones she wore scarcely had soles left, and the stitching was precarious and let in the wet. What gil she had managed to save, these last five winters, had been much depleted by the carriage-ride through the Black Shroud.
Adventurers carried swords or spears, and clad themselves in bright steel and bold colors. Adventurers boasted of their deeds in taverns, and stood around the aetherytes displaying their shining weapons for all to see. Ariane Clairière was no adventurer.
Just a farm girl from Mor Dhona, whose home was no more.
-
Mother Miounne, at least, was easy enough to talk to—the most welcoming by far that Ariane would meet in the green city. This, perhaps, afforded her a false sense of confidence in commencing her inquiries—a confidence which was quickly shattered.
She asked about for days before finding herself properly exhausted from approaching unfriendly strangers. One or two knew the name. The kindest of them simply directed her back to Mother Miounne. More declared they'd never heard the name, and even more simply waved her off, saying they'd have no truck with adventurers. Ariane's protests that she was not an adventurer fell on deaf ears. In one case, a Wailer outright accused of lying about her family connection in order to seek residence.
"I—it's—it's not a lie, I swear it. It's my name… I-I have this ring that was my mother's—"
"Your name is of no concern to us, nor are your trinkets. You are an outsider. See that you remember it."
Ariane stammered out some manner of apology before hastily retreating. Her eyes stung and her ears burned with a peculiar shame as she fled over the footbridge back toward the aetheryte.
Had this all been a mistake, after all?
Now she sat in the Carline Canopy, a cup of tea before her as she attempted to clear her head. The tea was sweet with wildflower honey, and the afternoon sunlight slanting through the tall windows was bright and warm. It was a lovely day, really, with summer coming upon the Twelveswood. She could just hear the great waterwheel ever-turning, and the sound of it was soothing.
It was also Ariane's nameday. Seven and twenty summers she was. The twenty-third day of the Third Umbral Moon, O as I sat down to weave at my loom… An old song Mother used to sing, that happened to name the day of Ariane's birth.
How her heart ached for the little cottage with its thatched roof, the scent of herbs drying high in the rafters, Mother's voice singing, Ariane joining in as she tended the hearth and set the kettle to boil, Gratienne's complaints about chores, and the scratch of Father's quill at his desk.
It had been a slim hope from the first. If Mother Miounne said no Clairières yet lived here… it was safe to say none did. Bothering anyone further seemed a futile exercise, one more like to see her turned out of the city than welcomed at some distant relative's hearth.
She was just thinking of retiring to her inn room for a good cry when she was startled out of her miseries by a familiar voice.
"The offer stands, you know." It was Mother Miounne, teapot in hand, who refilled her cup without Ariane's asking. "Adventurers are the very salve Gridania needs."
"I'm no adventurer."
"You needn't fight with a sword to be one, you know. Any skill with a bow?"
"A little," said Ariane without confidence. She had had skill enough to scare beasts away from the family farm, once, but it had been years since she drew an arrow.
Miounne regarded her thoughtfully. "You're more the healer type, aren’t you? You ought at least to stop by the Botanists' Guild. And, if you've a mind, the Conjurers' Guild at Stillglade Fane."
A conjurer? Ariane thought. Me?
But if she wasn't to make herself useful here, she would have to move on, or find other work. Here in the city, she might earn some real coin. Two nights at the inn had already drained most of her gil. (She suspected the innkeeper was overcharging her, but there was naught to be done for it). And she could really stand to get that new pair of boots. Perhaps even buy a pair, if no one would trade…
What was the harm in it, after all? It wasn't as though putting her name down in the book would force her to stay, or to take any job she didn't fancy. Adventurers were free agents.
"All right," she said, and she rose from her seat, and took up the quill, and signed her name in the ledger.
Yes, still working at this... although given how laughably overdue I am (and considering there is another WoLianger challenge starting, I think, tomorrow?) I'm going to bow out of using the tag, at the very least.
Reversed prompts four and five so I can share the scenes they fit in chronological order. The teasing is here, briefly, I promise, but (as in all things when it comes to Aeryn) it takes a while to get there.
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The air is dusty and dry, and the wind blows somehow hotter despite the elevation near the aetheryte. Yet in spite of the heat, there's no lethargy to be found about the encampment. Soldiers sporting coats of all colors—and some with no colors at all—move everywhere with purpose. The sound of boots and shouts and the metal clank of armor and weapons in motion all fill the air.
They prepare for the battle to come—for still another fight.
A small group of them loiter beneath the blue glow of the aetheryte, chattering, laughing amiably. The laughter fades as Aeryn nears. They straighten their backs. One in Adder yellow salutes.
She wishes they wouldn't.
She offers them a quiet nod as she passes and resists the urge to hunch her shoulders against the whispers in her wake.
The sun has begun to ilm its way behind Mount Yorn, casting stark shadows that offer some meager relief from the heat. Those shadows stretch toward her feet and overtake the makeshift war room she now approaches: a draped canopy over a large table, behind which Raubahn stands. Some few of her friends have already gathered there with him: Alphinaud, of course. Krile, however, is a surprise. Lyse seems to be shaking her head at something Urianger has said or done.
Aeryn's step falters only briefly.
She's uneasy.
Though their mission was a success by all accounts, something sits ill within, and as she joins them, she finds herself with little time to contemplate why.
"…that would mean these Resonant have been granted the power of the Echo via artificial means."
Krile's voice is small. She likely shouldn't be up at all, let alone speaking of her ordeal, though they none of them have the courage to say it to her face. And they can't afford to go in blind, not after Fordola's ominous words. The fact that Krile won't meet Aeryn's gaze gives her suspicion that the other woman knows it.
"It's a sobering thought to say the least," Krile continues, "and one which makes me wonder what else Zenos has in store."
So Zenos has some facsimile of the Echo. He might be able to predict her every move, as Fordola had. He'll have a greater advantage over her than ever before. Aeryn reaches up to touch her hair.
"Whatever the viceroy's newfound powers, I know of none better equipped to face him." Raubahn's voice is steady and sure. He has no doubts when he greets her eyes, gaze stern. "And face him you must. For there is now but one path forward, and it leads straight to Ala Mhigo."
Aeryn's lips part. Is he truly not concerned-?
"And it's not as if we came unprepared," Lyse says, moving forward with a nudge to Aeryn's shoulder and a wink. "We've got all our friends and allies fighting for the same thing. Honestly, right now, I feel like we could take on anyone and win. And I mean anyone!"
Not one of them seems to doubt the inevitable fight to come, though she herself is filled with apprehension. Zenos defeated her not once, but twice—and abominably so. And he's stronger, now, with abilities that might easily surpass her own gifts. What if she can't-?
There's motion behind her. A familiar scent wafts through the dusty air to her nose. It takes Aeryn a moment to understand that it's come from Urianger—that he's moved nearer to her—and the realization draws her attention back to the voices of their companions.
They prepare for tomorrow, each of them discussing their next course.
None ask for hers, but that hardly matters. She's certain she'll be told.
"One hour before dawn," Raubahn says. His eyes travel across the war table, pausing on each and every one of the others before alighting on her with a tight nod. "Find what rest you might in these fleeting hours, for on the morrow, we march for Ala Mhigo. We march home."
She reaches back just enough that her fingertips brush Urianger's sleeve. She could curl her hand in the soft material, if she wanted, but-
He shifts again, and she pulls her hand away, curling her arm across her middle. Before she can consider why she has withdrawn, Raubahn approaches.
"Naught remains but to notify the Alliance commanders of the hour to commence assault," he says. "If you've no objections, I should be glad to have you do the honors."
She tries to smile and finds she can't, and so she simply nods.
Would that it was enough to agree to her given task, but Raubahn—the general—has more words. Horrid, unbearable words, that make her wish to shrink, to vanish, to fly away headlong into the sharp, hot gusts of air:
"You were instrumental to the success of Operation Archon. You helped bring an end to the Dragonsong War. You are a hero to the people and a symbol of hope."
Her throat is so dry.
"Some might judge it an empty gesture, or worse a waste of your talents, but I know it would mean much to everyone here. After all," Raubahn smirks, planting a heavy hand upon her shoulder, "'tis one thing to hear the tales, and another entirely to look upon the woman herself."
"A fine point, General," says Alphinaud, folding his arms with a half-concealed smile of his own. "The Warrior of Light's worth may be measured not only by what she does, but by what she inspires others to do."
My worth?
"Aye, and now, more than ever, is the time to remind our comrades that they are not alone in this fight."
Finally, finally, she manages to swallow, to wet her sandpaper throat. She nods again, and it's enough to elicit a true smile from Raubahn, who claps her shoulder once.
"My thanks, as ever, Aeryn. And get some rest when you've finished. You, more than any here, are long overdue for it."
She turns and leaves behind the familiar scent and comfort of a tall elezen whose gaze she can't quite meet. She sets about her task, as she has set about everything that came before: resigned to do as she's been told without question.
Just as she will do tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.
Regardless of what is asked of her.
Fight after endless fight.
She's- she's so very uneasy.
And in spite of being surrounded by people whose company she likes and who smile when they see her, she feels so, so alone.
She wonders if they can see it. If the unspoken words on Aymeric's lips, Merlwyb's single raised brow, or the gentle touch of Kan-E-Senna's hand upon her elbow are because they have noticed her discontent.
"We march home," Raubahn had said.
She wonders what that means—what "home" is meant to feel like.
Certainly not like the empty weariness she felt standing champion of the Naadam, nor the inexplicable ache she felt watching the Domans weep with both profound loss and bitter joy amidst the rubble of their enclave. Not the aimless agitation she feels, now.
She dredges up from the depths of her the biting sting of what might have been memories, granted her by the lapping waters of the Ruby Sea: a ship and a storm, neither of them known by her, but by some other version of her in a past she can't seem to grasp hold of.
It hurts.
It hurts, like someone has carved out the inside of her where she imagines sensations of home should be, if only she knew what that felt like, if only she knew how to seek it for herself while she fights tooth and nail for the homes of others.
When she completes her rounds, she has no task before her but to wait. Raubahn had bid her rest, and yet she can't fathom how to rest when every ilm of her feels so very restless.
She roams without direction until her feet find their way to the rear alure, where she can hide behind the low parapet and gaze out across the camp—or more often toward the looming silhouette of the castle in the distance, shrouded by the starry sky.
The night has grown long, and chatter around the aetheryte has quieted by the time motion in her peripheral alerts her to someone coming toward her.
It's Urianger, and she's relieved. If it had to be anyone-
She tries to offer him a smile as he approaches but can't maintain it.
"'Twas mine fear I may not yet find thee ere I depart," he begins, drawing to a halt just as his shadow reaches her. "And yet to discover thee, at such an hour as this, still awake… Wouldst thou not take rest on the eve of so momentous an endeavor?"
Aeryn can't think of any place she might seek refuge, here, and she's still so very uneasy; and so she shrugs one shoulder noncommittally. When he moves nearer, she takes his sleeve, the motion as ingrained in her muscles, now, as nocking an arrow in battle. The tactile realness of his soft robe between her fingers is grounding, in a way so sudden as to briefly disorient her. The buzzing of her extremities, the restlessness, the urge to fly away all seem to flee in the wake of that sensation. She exhales and closes her weary eyes.
He touches the stars on her face, and she leans into the touch.
"Thou art uneasy, Aubétoil. Mayhap it might grant thy spirit some ease to divulge the truth of what discontent doth rend thine heart," he says. "Mine ears should most humbly attend to that which troubleth thee, should you wish to share thy burden."
But she doesn't know how to express all the many truths in her heart, so many of which defy naming.
I'm tired, she might say. Though it hardly encompasses all she feels, it's a start. She's tired. Weary. She would wish to sleep for days and days, if only such sleep would remain uninterrupted by forgotten nightmares that leave her more discontent than she feels even now. But in spite of that, she wishes she could stop-
Her eyes spring open.
She blinks at the hazy light and shadow stretched over Urianger's robe before her.
She- she wishes she could stop.
She really wishes she could stop.
She wishes she didn't have to fight anymore. She's tired. She's so tired, so tired she thinks she might stay right here, immobile, for days and days, if only the fighting would stop.
Can I- can I stop? After this, maybe, can I stop?
She looks up with a sharp breath and opens her mouth. It's on the tip of her tongue, the breath in her lungs ready to expel the plea.
But she can't say it. Her throat stays.
Though Urianger waits patiently, as he always has, for her to find purchase for her unspoken words, she simply cannot say it. She exhales along with a small hum and releases the question she can't voice.
"I'm glad you're here," she says instead—because that's true, and because all other words seem to defy speaking. She clutches his sleeve so tight it pulls. "I'm just so glad you're here, Urianger."
As ever, his face remains wreathed in shadows—all but for a faint highlight reflected off the edge of his hood, both red with flickering fire and blue from the soft glow of the aetheryte. But as she peers closer, she detects the slightest note of surprise on his face: his brows seem higher than usual; his lips have parted slightly.
"What is it?"
He clears his throat and looks away.
"F- forgive me," he stammers. "Thou- 'twas merely- that thou shouldst-"
Aeryn has never seen him this way. She doesn't know what to make of it.
Urianger clears his throat again, reaching up to press his fingers to his goggles as if adjusting them.
"P-pray, do forgive me," he says, stumbling only just. "The brevity with which thou most oft address thine compatriots is not unknown to me. Yet 'twas in this very moment that I didst chance to note a truth most unexpected: that thou had not hitherto made use of my name. To hear it spoken thusly…"
Aeryn freezes. Had she-
Had she really never said his name to him before?
Urianger reaches down to again touch her cheek. Even behind his goggles, his gaze is inescapable.
"'Tis passing strange, is it not? That naught but a moniker uttered in thy unique tone shouldst render me so wholly stricken…"
Aeryn's cheeks warm as the rest of her goes cold with a kind of shame she can hardly own or explain. She grips his sleeve tight and stammers silently for a moment, then hums and dips forward to tuck her face against him. She breathes deeply into his robe, working to calm herself.
"Forgive me," Urianger says quietly. He brushes the back of her head. "I meant not-"
"Urianger," she says—hardly whispers—against him.
He goes very still.
"Urianger."
This time his fingers give a slight twitch in her hair.
She smiles, because she unexpectedly finds herself amused, or happy, or some other such pleasant sensation that, like so many others she has discovered for the first time, seems altogether too complex for one word. It's both familiar and unfamiliar, this. Her insides squirm in an odd way that is likewise both pleasant and discomfiting.
She likes this.
She likes saying his name.
She likes the way it disarms him.
She murmurs his name again and is delighted when his quiet chuckle jostles her head against him.
"That thou, above all, wouldst tease in such a manner."
The words are spoken with warmth and affection, and she presses her lips tight, trying to bite back the grin she can't contain.
After that, they are quiet and still. She focuses on the feeling of his robe in her fingers and his respiration softly stirring him where she leans against him. She focuses on the pleasant tingle along her scalp where his fingers rest in her hair.
She can almost pretend the air isn't dripping with the tension that precedes battle. She can almost pretend there's not another battle to be fought at all.
"Urianger?"
He presses her head just a bit nearer.
"Aye, mon aubétoile."
"I, um- l-like it. Saying your name."
He says nothing immediately, then gently clears his throat. "This knowledge doth gladden me most profoundly. Pray, accept my gratitude, gentle warrior."
When she speaks no further, he slides his hand from her head down her neck and shoulders. She can hardly fathom when it was that his nearness and his alone became an exception to her usual preference for a comfortable distance.
But there have been so many exceptions of late, she realizes. Cid's crushing hugs and Tataru's hand on her arm, Lyse bumping their shoulders together after she's made some silly joke. All have become dear and familiar and even, sometimes, comfortable to her.
But the gentle weight of Urianger's hand across her back is somehow unlike the nearness of anyone else, and she melts into it like she would a comfortable cushion on which to rest.
Her weary limbs and muscles and bones, her aches and pains and fears, her doubts, and all the rest she can't define—it all briefly slides away like water in sheets from the sky, running down hills and through streams to meet a great river that will carry it all away to an ocean far, far beyond what she can see.
"Ere thou didst make sport of me in a manner most unprecedented-"
"Hmmm."
"-'twas mine observation that thou didst perhaps endeavor to speak of that which troubles thee. Though I mean not to invite ill feelings upon this moment of quietude, I do yet wish to be of use to thee ere the 'morrow's ventures."
Aeryn tilts her face nearer, breathing in deeply of his soothing nearness.
"Know that you owe me nothing, Aeryn," he whispers. "But if e're there is aught you wish to share, I shall heed thy words with utmost attentiveness."
She releases his sleeve, then raises uncertain arms to wrap them around his middle. He neither jumps nor stirs, and she exhales deeply.
"I'm okay, now," she says—and she is.
Not because her doubts have gone, nor has her discontent settled. But she knows if she fails, Urianger will speak quietly to her while she clutches his sleeve, and her wounds will be soothed.
She knows if she ever asks to stop, he will listen.
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Going to be honest: I got very, very down in my head about failing to do this challenge as planned. Had the negative emotional ick for several weeks (and still do). I thought about just dropping it altogether. But I did far too much mental prep and layout work for this, and I'm really excited about having this series of ficlets to help cement some of the more notable moments of growth in their whatevership whenever I get around to a proper write/rewrite of Aeryn's journey.
So I'm going to keep at it.
I'm hoping that by dropping the tag, I won't upset anyone for continuing this as a more personal challenge inspired by the original prompts? If it's at all irksome to anyone, though, or seems not in keeping with the spirit of the challenge, I can certainly omit references and prompts moving forward!!
SFW
Ship: f!WoL/Elidibus
Characters: f!WoL, Elidibus(Zenos), Varis
CWs: none for this chapter
Summary: Aliara tries to find some common ground with her ladies maid, and Varis shares his plans for the royal tour through Garlean territories.
Read it on AO3
Chapters: 6/?
Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Warrior of Light/Emet-Selch/G'raha Tia, Warrior of Light & G'Raha Tia
Characters: Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Emet-Selch (Final Fantasy XIV), G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch, Thancred Waters, Urianger Augurelt, Y'shtola Rhul, Alphinaud Leveilleur, Alisaie Leveilleur
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Set between 5.3 and 5.4, Minor Urianger Augurelt/Thancred Waters, rewrite of a previous fic, A love letter to FFXII, The Warrior of Light and G'raha Tia are not together, it's a V relationship, Not canon with the Return to Ivalice raids
Summary:
When Hydaelyn plucked Emet-Selch from the Lifestream and threw him in her lap, Chelvav Tholdaz didn't know what to do with him. But the past swiftly approaches them both, and the Scions, as they race against time to find the awakened Espers in the long-forgotten places of faraway Dalmasca.
My thoughts after coming across @/sasslett's post here:
From personal observations, the writing side of the ffxiv community has been very bleak for many years, compared to fanart and gpose; it's also often restricted to a select few writers who are more well-known, and I know of some who pretty much had given up with ffxiv and are now happier writing in other fandoms instead. I'm a writer myself too, so it was quite demoralizing at first, seeing the almost-zero interaction with my fics. It took me a long while to come to terms with it: focusing on just enjoying what I want to do and honing my own writing skill, other people's engagements and unsolicited opinions be damned. I'm currently still experiencing writing blues after a hectic, deadline-peppered June, but I've been recovering quite well and already back to work on some drafts and wips. Original works and poetry are still my main focus with the goal to get more published internationally in print, while fanfics are fun writing exercises cum hobby for me at this point.
That being said, please, please, do your best to support ffxiv writers. Many of us are often overlooked and underappreciated; the attention or engagement level we'd receive have never been on par with artists and gposers in this fandom, and there are obvious statistics to prove that. It's a shame that a lot of really interesting ideas and reimagines of the game's story go unnoticed, especially when these wonders are best represented through the art of writing, giving readers the creative freedom of interpretations, rather than just pure images and not allowing others any room to conjure up their own imagination.
I will also reiterate that fandoms thrive on mutual engagement between fans in the community, both creators and consumers alike, much like a conversation between people in general. When this becomes one sided, eventually more people will choose to walk away and seek connections or opportunities elsewhere. It's already happening to me, where my focus is more on original works and poetry nowadays. It's going to happen to more ffxiv writers who turn to other fandoms where they are better appreciated, or they might even quit writing completely.
