Feel like I’m doing tumblr wrong even though it’s the reblog site and I do reblog but bcos I use this blog as like idk a social media??? Like u will hear about my day and stuff other than anime and self shipping or writing and I don’t feel like a lot of other people use tumblr like that and actually like………post drabbles or horny thoughts or whatever and I’m like hehe I crocheted today :) LMAO
She said her name was Velka, and by her bearing, she was someone important, once upon a time. Now she was a faded shadow of former influence.
As Elani led Velka through the temple hallways, Velka reached out now and then and lightly dragged her fingertips along the wall. Elani watched in discomfort; as if her touch might burn the stone, leave evidence of her presence. She felt more and more strongly with each passing second that Velka should not be here. And yet, it didn’t stop her from leading her further into the depths of the temple, from taking her up the staircase that led to her tiny room, from fetching her tea and apologising for the strangeness of the arrangement, that she wasn’t able to find somewhere more proper. Before long, the priests would rise, and she wasn’t sure how she would explain herself if they found her. So they sat at a table only just big enough for both of them, to the side of the window. Elani lit one or two candles, hardly daring to light the second, much less a third. Velka watched her as she might have watched her servants once, with a sort of passive interest. Elani sat down opposite her, gently placing a candlestick between them, to one side so that she could see her companion. In the light, Velka’s eyes seemed like cut gems and the orange glow of the tiny flame lent some colour back to her skin. Elani had the disorientating impression that she was looking back through time.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“Zanarkand.” Velka replied.
Elani nodded. Something in her knew it. From her clothes, her unfamiliar, unearthly beauty, the way she held herself.
Now that she had someone to question, someone who understood - Elani found that all the things she wanted to ask wouldn’t translate into words. She stared at her fingers as they held her tea cup, and Velka sat in perfectly comfortable silence.
“Who were you?”
“Yu Yevon’s lawkeeper.” Velka said. “And a close friend of his daughter. I suppose he was a father figure to me, when my own passed on.”
Elani looked up in alarm, but Velka smiled gently and shook her head.
“I was not in support of his solution. His... dream. We lost, but... it was never his way to accept defeat.”
“Why did you come back?”
“I felt I had to. Why did you come back?”
Elani shifted uncomfortably and said nothing. Velka watched her closely over the rim of her tea cup.
“You thought your old life would be waiting for you.” she said.
Was it so obvious? Elani fidgeted, embarrassed. She didn’t dwell on it much; but it was true. Of course it was.
“Were you married?” she asked - quickly deflecting any further questions.
She almost regretted asking. Velka’s tea cup lowered, and so did her gaze. She smiled, softly, and seemed unbearably sad for a moment.
“No. Almost. I doubt he would subject himself to the world once more; he had no love for it the first time. I shan’t see him again.”
Her free hand wandered to her neck, and her fingertips toyed with the silver pendant on a choker that lay there. It looked as if a gem might have been set in it once and been stolen, or simply discarded, leaving a discoloured, darkened circle behind. Elani felt her sudden stillness, the burning behind her eyes, the pressure of her teeth as they held together, fighting to keep her expression indifferent - as if, for just a moment, the pyreflies that made them had crossed paths. Elani reached out and laid her hand over Velka’s, the one that still curled around her tea cup. Velka looked up, said nothing, but gave a slight nod.
“You were, though.” she said, “I know who you are. Mother of the High Summoner.”
Elani withdrew her hand in shock. “How?”
“Oh, by no nefarious means. Of course, the first thing one ought to do when returning from the grave is catch up. There were... rumours, that you might be here.”
“Were you looking for me?”
“Not at all. I simply wanted to test the idea that I might be able to walk into the heart of enemy territory. Apparently, I can. There’s a sort of... empty beauty about it. I shall tell my companion. That I might have stood a few feet from their Praetor and be seen as nothing to fear. He’ll like that.”
Her companion. Elani felt a shiver of fear, and pushed it aside.
“Why are you not with your husband now, if I may?” Velka continued, raising her cup once more.
“He... doesn’t need me anymore.” she replied, an edge to her tone that communicated more than her words themselves.
Velka’s eyes narrowed, and Elani felt her judging, counting, passing sentence.
“No! I don’t begrudge him that. I don’t. It was foolish of me to think...” she paused. “Was it foolish?”
“No. I don’t believe so. But, life never happens the way it should, or so I find.”
Elani stared down at her cup, barely noticing that no more steam curled up from it, that it was going cold in her hands.
“How did you...?”
“Die? In the last attack from Bevelle. And you?”
“Sin.”
Velka faltered. “I apologise. His actions were... misled.”
“You said we deserved it.”
“I said they deserved it."
The silence that followed was significantly less comfortable than others that had passed between them.
“Don’t hate him.” Velka said, in a half-whisper that carried a note of guilt. “He tried with every ounce of strength he had to save us. His wife and child were his life, but his city was his beloved, and he laid down his life for her.”
It seemed almost obscene, for someone to sit within a temple and declare its mortal enemy forgiveable. Elani stared at her hard, that earlier anger creeping back in.
“Who should I hate then? For the deaths of me, my husband and the near-death of my daughter?”
“Hate the world.” Velka chuckled. “Hate the spiral. The neverending, tedious, volatile courtship of war and peace. If you hate him for the coming of Sin, hate yourself as well. You were born of a race of weapons, designed to enter our cities and murder us. Bevelle started the war; Zanarkand ended it.”
It wasn’t satisfying, but it was true. Elani still silently raged without direction, desperate to find some reason for their sacrifices, something that carried more weight than a thousand-years-passed war between dead places and people. But there was one more question yet to ask.
Elani looked up and waited until Velka met her eye.
“Your companion...” she began. “He’s here, isn’t he?”
Velka glanced away. “Yes. You needn’t fear him. He’ll do no harm. He does as he always did; he protects Zanarkand.”
Somehow, Elani believed her, and was disgusted with herself at the measure of sympathy she felt for him, isolated in the ruins of his home. It seemed something she could relate to.
“I wonder what will happen to us...” she sighed.
Velka shrugged, a half-smile creeping into her expression. “I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we?”
oh my god i had two zines i was going to apply for forever and i kept putting it off bcos mental illness and they both closed i missed the one i was most interested in by 2 days RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
anyway i already mentioned it on my priv but my migraine has come back suddenly and its debilitating and pain killers arent doing shit i am gonna have to lay in bed not write and hope that i dont have to cancel hanging with friends later lmao
