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“It's gettin’ worse.”

The chamber where the heart of the Mother Crystal once sat is up to the ankles in water now. Crystal clear, but in recent weeks it’s taken on a vaguely green-blue tinge. Mid leans down and trails her fingers through it– or starts to. She pulls back with a hiss as soon as she touches the surface. It leaves her skin red with the beginnings of blisters.

Clive frowns. “The spring is off limits?”

“For as much good as it’s done,” Mid confirms with a snort. Clive refuses to think too hard about why she keeps rolls of thin bandages in her many pockets. Mid’s been inventing new ways to weather the Blight as fast as her hands can manage, and pushing herself faster still. “The people here swear it’s magical.”

And they’re desperate for a panacea. Clive sighs and pulls off his gloves. It’s clear that the water is magical something. When he scoops some in his palm it feels like laying his hand on Ifrit’s side, or Shiva brushing an icy kiss against his skin.

Destroying the Mother Crystals, destroying Ultima, was supposed to remove magic from the world. But Ifrit stayed. Shiva stayed. The Mother Crystals bleed water that burns skin and heals wounds, and the Blight continues to spread.

Clive raises his hand to his mouth and takes a sip.

It burns going down. Like a mouthful of Light, like taking one of Bahamut’s holy flares straight to the face. He goes down to his hands and knees in the water. Like losing Cid all over again, Clive’s heart cleaves right out of his chest. He’s watching Dion fall from the sky again, holding Joshua's cooling body to his chest.

He is staring up at a second Eikon of Fire, the one who killed his little brother, and knowing that it is his own.

Ifrit?

“Clive!”

Mid pulls him out of the water, and Ifrit keens at the loss, scratching and clawing to get back. Stuck in between them Clive staggers, straining against Jill’s arm around his waist as the Hideout crumbles and burns, there are people left behind, there are still people he can save.

Home, lost. No, not just lost– destroyed, battered and bleeding and dying with no way to stop it, no way to stop it, no way to save it. Phoenix Gate burns and the Planet here, it bleeds.

Clive places a hand against his chest, less in comfort and more in an effort to hold Ifrit in, their shared mourning-wailing-grief threatening to rend them in two.

Midadol’s face swims into view. Clive didn’t even realize he was crying.

“What the fuck was that?!”

Clive shakes his head, not trusting himself to speak. The Eikon of Fire roils and thrashes like a dying thing before finally, finally falling still, exhausted, but making small, hurt noises. Clive offers the memories of long nights when the grief and the guilt grew too heavy, Torgal bringing him potions and rolls of bandages, unsure of the damage but helping in the only way he knew how.

It earns him only a worrying silence.

“No one drinks the water,” he rasps, scrubbing his face with the back of his hand. “Not– not until we figure out what the fuck is happening.”

#ff16 #clive rosfield #midadol telamon #ifrit ff16 #final fantasy 16 #final fantasy xvi #hold me close 'til morning #cidclive #and the tragedy thereof #im still deciding how to format this fic #so in the meantime yall get snippets #enjoy

A pair of Final Fantasy XVI shitposts. First is partially inspired by everyone's chat comments in Vinny and Desert's streams about (SPOILERS) Jill getting Clive "knocked up" with her Shiva powers. Second is because of how much running on Titan Lost looks like a 3D Sonic game stage.