i'm no hero...never was, never will be

RP sideblog for a probably slightly canon-divergent Laurentius from FFXIV.

[theleglesscoward]

Not involved in any character. I found this Tumblr again today! I lost it for a while but finally Google decided to work for me. I saved it to favorites this time but in case I lose it again I wanted to say thank you. I really appreciate finding a site dedicated to a version of Laurentius I wanted to see in FFXIV but never did. And I hope it's not strange but I found so many other good RP blogs starting here, mostly yours I think?, thank you for inspiring me to at least write my ideas down!

Oh, I also wanted to say the Wulgaru hunter-scholar description backs up your Wood Wailers prone to cruelty theory: "Wulgaru, the false tree. Not a few poachers have vanished after being bound overnight to these vampiric man-eaters by unsuspecting Wood Wailers. The Wulgaru is also drawn by noise and commotion, breaking its arboreal disguise to feast on the blood of its favorite prey: man."

Ahh, I’m so glad you like this blog!!! I always felt like Laurentius wasn’t evil or monstrous so much as....weak-willed and downtrodden and bullied into thinks he didn’t want to do because he didn’t see any other way out. Especially when we see him in 3.0 and later in 3.5/3.56? He looks and sounds so defeated and broken both times, especially at Baelsar’s Wall, and...really, I just wanted him to get something better. Get another chance, one where he won’t get targeted by cruel people, let him have a redemption arc. And if canon’s gonna completely forget he exists after 4.1, then I’ll do it here!!

Also, about the Wulgaru--- holy shit, that’s dark. And definitely, absolutely supports my theory, so thank you for sending it to me!!

You’re very, very welcome for inspiring you, and I’m so glad I could!!

[theleglesscoward]

[lighttheabyss, dadcatte] "Laurentius? I've some packages for you that were left at Buscarron's. Apparently even the moogles don't know everything." Kenj'a looks rather amused, carrying several packages.

He’s kind of beginning to think the Alliance has just forgotten about him, honestly. They locked him up, and...well, nothing. No execution, no pardon, nothing. Then again, nothing is a lot better than what he went through in the Gridanian gaol, so...he’ll take it. At least he’s not being beaten and abused.

He starts when Kenj’a speaks, looking up with his usual sort of lost expression of surprise -- he knows the older Miqo’te visits fairly regularly, but every time it’s still a shock. That someone cares...it still doesn’t seem right, like he doesn’t deserve it. “P...Packages?” He asks slowly, looking even more bewildered. “What-- why-- what kind of--?”

Who would...he can’t think of anyone who...he has no friends, no one who cares anymore. It’s...what?

[theleglesscoward]

lighttheabyss:

“I knew you’d gotten caught up in something less than savory, but I thought you’d already done your time. Not that you should have had to go that route, but gods forbid Gridania pay good people a living wage.” He snorted, sitting himself down so he’d be more comfortable. “So who caught you up in their machinations? I know how it goes for boys like you. Eager to make the world a better place, but the world grinds you down and after a time, you just…can’t any longer. The Fifth is especially bad about wearing the good ones down.”

He flinches visibly at the warmth and kindness from the old Keeper. “I did,” he says weakly, rubbing at his wrists absently. “I--” He really doesn’t deserve this sort of kindness and understanding. He knows the other man knows how terrible it is -- he was a Keeper, of course he did -- but... “The Braves,” he says quietly, voice thin and shaky. “I thought I could...start over. But-- But then he...” He swallows, shrinking in on himself. “And I ruined everything, all over again...”

[lighttheabyss]

@theleglesscoward

Kenj’a was a very observant man. One didn’t get to becoming a successful merchant of any sort in the Shroud when one was a Keeper otherwise. And some of the whispers near the entrance to the gaols of the Reach made him very, very curious. And then startled when he was finally able to get into them and see the face to confirm his suspicions.

“Laurentius? What in Menphina’s name are you doing in here?” He knew he should have just offered the boy a position in his caravan. He knew it.

[theleglesscoward]

It's quiet in here. He doesn't mind that, though -- this is the second gaol he's been in, and it's... better than the other. It's better than the constant abuse and beatings in Gridania's. Most of these people don't even know him. They even moved Yuyuhase to another area, though Laurentius knows it's to shut him up more than it was to stop his verbal abuse of their other prisoner.

Still, he's just waiting to be executed, tired and resigned and almost welcoming the idea of it. He deserves it, after all, and a pathetic end to a pathetic life is fitting for a drunken coward like him.

He jolts when someone speaks to him, though, and haunted eyes in a hollow face peer up from where he sits, and then he pales, shame burning through his cheeks. "You're..." He manages. He knows the older man. A Keeper merchant from the Shroud. He'd... he'd helped him a few times, in another life, before he'd given up trying and resigned himself to cowardice and weakness. "...you don't know?" He asks weakly. He's surprised. He would have thought the whole forest knew what he'd done.

[theleglesscoward]

ooc;

A note: anyone who wants to have witnessed either of those flashbacks – because with this game a lot of people can (thanks, Echo) – is perfectly allowed to drop an ask or a starter at me about it.

[theleglesscoward]

Flashback

Send “Flashback” to have your muse see one of my muse’s bad memories

“Welcome to the Fifth Spears, half-breed,” the Wailer says, and he knows immediately his reputation has preceded him. His next realization is that there are several more Wailers approaching, blocking him in on all sides. His blood goes cold, and he desperately searches for a way to escape, but none appears.

“What’s wrong?” One of them asks. “We just want to welcome you properly.”

He’s never been more scared in his life.

They’re all on him at once, dragging him to the ground, and his face is shoved in the dirt as they kick and punch and stomp and he’s really surprised his ribs are still intact, as by now they’ve got to be more cracks and chips and breaks than whole bone. He’s surprised he can think so clearly, too, but after years of this he’s almost strangely used to it.

Two of them haul his broken body to his feet and drag him through the grass, the small group around them as if they’re just on a patrol. They’re going south, he notes faintly, and wonders if the Sixth Spears will catch them. Probably not. He’s never had that luck.

They stop somewhere and he can’t see where, and one of the ones holding him suggests, “Here?” The leader snorts. “No,” he replies. “Spoke to some people from the Second. He’s not afraid of Voidsent.”

There’s a grin in the man’s voice and he almost wants to cry. “I know what he is afraid of, though. Come on.”

They walk until the path turns wet and muddy, water up to his ankles as they squish through swamp. “Here,” the leader says, and they drop him facefirst into the mud. He feels his hands being bound behind his back, tight enough that the rope digs into his skin even through the gloves. He’s dragged to a sitting position and propped up against a rock, and he knows he’s soaked and muddy on top of the beating and he’s still terrified because he knows what lives in Rootslake.

“Ooh,” one of the ones that had held him says. “That one’s big.”

All eyes turn to a stroper nearby, its maw gaping with thousands of teeth and the tentacles whipping above it, and it reeks from where they stand. The leader grins at him, now. “We’ll be back in a bell or two,” he says brightly. “Don’t worry. This is just hazing a rookie, isn’t it?”

There’s daggers in the question, a threat plainer than day, and he just nods. “See you later, half-breed,” he says with a smile, then, and they all leave. Just before they do, though, the last one to go picks up a rock and throws it at the stroper. It bounces off wit a wet thud, and the creature turns towards him.

He holds in the sobs until the poison burns his throat and his eyes, and he falls to the side, kicking to get away, choking on the smell and the acidic breath and ti hurts, it hurts, oh god he hates these things, please come and get him, what did he do to deserve this---?

They drag him back to Quarrymill eventually, dump him in a bed in the barracks and make him wash his own face off with the salve. Just a hazing gone awry, they say, when the captain asks. He’s fine.

He agrees weakly, nodding. He’s fine. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.

It has to be okay.

[theleglesscoward]

"Flashback"

Send "Flashback" to have your muse see one of my muse's bad memories

He’s putting his armor back by his bunk for the night when he’s grabbed by the hair and dragged backwards. He lets out a cry and scrabbles at the hand, but then he’s on the ground staring up at a pair of Wailers -- he knows them, and he knows them well enough to know what this is all about.

“What the bloody hells did you think you were doing, halfbreed shite?” The Elezen demands, causing him to wince at the slur that he isn’t even sure is true or not. No one is. But no amount of insisting that can keep them from using it. “C’mon, spit it out!”

“You--” He tries, and yelps as the Hyur steps on his chest.

“We what?” He snaps. “Go on and say it, craven little snitch. You sang it so well to the captain.”

He swallows. “You were-- I saw you,” he says to the Elezen. “You-- that Keeper girl, she was just selling flowers! There’s no damned tax for that, and you-- I saw you take her into that alley, and she wasn’t the first!” Anger spikes through him, enough to make him brave, and his eyes flick to the Hyur. “And-- and you! I know you’re demanding Duskwights hand over half their earnings, and I know what you do when they don’t!” 

His voice cracks. “You-- that’s not what we’re supposed to do! We’re to protect the city, protect the forest, and you-- you’re both-- how can you even call yourselves Wail----”

He’s cut off by a stomp to his gut hard enough to make him think he’ll vomit, and then the two of them drag him to his feet, drag him outside, drag him down to the ferry docks to the rocky little alcove no one can see from the road. No one’s out at this time of night, no one will see.

They beat him until he sees stars, until he’s crying from the pain of it, until his nose drips red and he can’t breathe out of it, until one eye is swollen shut, until he hears ribs crack and an arm snap as it’s twisted behind him. A lesson, they say, in keeping his mouth shut.

They exchange looks, then, and one of them kicks his legs out from under him, and he topples backward into the Whispering Gorge’s waters. He can barely swim, but he kicks to the surface-- only for them to grab him and shove him below the water again. They keep him there until he can’t breathe, keep him there until lungs fill with water and he blacks out.

He wakes hours later, coughing up lakewater and still lying on that alcove, and when he’s asked where the bruises came from he says he tripped in the night.

Can he really make a difference? Is this really...is this really worth fighting for? 

It has to be. Right?

[rp-meme-glaceon]

Send "Flashback" to have your muse see one of my muse's bad memories

[rp-meme-glaceon]

Send "Flashback" to have your muse see one of my muse's bad memories

[theleglesscoward]

Hey, so about this one leve:

Hush Little Wailer: “The ranks of Wailers swell, each with dust of a different land on her boots and the lilt of a different song in her voice. If they are to become comrades in arms, they must learn a new tongue: silence. No recruit emerges from the seven nights’ ordeal unchanged, such is the power of the potion.”

Um, dude, I think the reason no one comes out unchanged IS BECAUSE WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU REALIZE HOW BADLY PEOPLE CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT TO HURT SOMEONE WHEN THEY CAN’T SPEAK OR CALL FOR HELP??? 

Calling it now, our favorite idealistic little orphaned boy with an Imperial name was tormented that entire week. Don’t ask what happened. Don’t. 

(There’s a reason he has a little bit of trauma re: being unable to communicate, though.)

[theleglesscoward]

hc; modern au

Name: Laurentius Daye

Age: 22

Nationality: American, not sure what ancestry he is (probably European)

Height: 5′10

Date of Birth: October 25th

Occupation: College student majoring in Psychology and minoring in Criminal Justice, works part-time at  and volunteers at the college’s mental health office.

Laurentius was dealt a bad hand from a young age. His mother was a barely-there alcoholic who died of an illness when he was three, and he didn’t know his father -- and from what little his mother said, he didn’t think he wanted to. He was placed in foster care after that, passing from bad home to bad home and struggling to maintain his optimism until middle school, when he fell in with a gang -- they offered him a place to belong and positive reinforcement, and he ate it up with the desperation of a scared and lonely boy who had nowhere else to go.

Petty crimes with them quickly turned into major crimes, even though Laurentius didn’t want a part of that, and eventually the whole gang was arrested for a botched robbery that ended with the deaths of two people. The gang’s leader accused Laurentius of the deaths, and that was when the boy chose to do something right for once: he told the truth, and sold out the rest of his gang. 

Still an accomplice, however, he spent time in jail -- a juvenile facility, as he was 16 when this happened -- and narrowly escaped being murdered for being a snitch. 

When he got out, he began trying to turn his life around, moving to another state and getting a GED to finish high school, going to college for psychology, with a goal of being a social worker of some kind: he wants to be able to help kids like him, and keep them from falling through the cracks and ending up where he was at his lowest point. 

He still struggles with self-esteem problems and severe anxiety and a lot of other issues, but he’s trying his best to overcome them.

[theleglesscoward]

ooc;

So how about this for a headcanon that just makes this boy’s life worse?

You know how his name is Laurentius? Well...that’s a pretty obviously Garlean name. I mean, come on, Laurentius? Let’s see what name site has to say.

LAURENTIUS: Roman Latin name meaning "of Laurentum," a maritime town in Latium which means "town of laurel (bay) trees." (x)

...the Roman cognomen Laurentius, which meant "from Laurentum". Laurentum was a city in ancient Italy, its name probably deriving from Latin laurus "laurel". (x)

Oh, look, Roman Latin. (Which is precious in a way because ‘town of laurel trees’? Gridania-esque much?)

Add this to the established canon that Laur’s father disappeared before he was born (and his mother was murdered by bandits when he was little, but that’s not relevant to this (maybe)).... Sure, his surname is Daye, but that could be his mother’s surname.

Look, all I’m saying is that it seems super likely and super plausible that Laurentius is half-Garlean, and that would really kind of be cool. Make him an interesting foil to Arenvald, at least!

Would also add another layer of shit to the boy’s life, given that with a name like that and a completely unknown father....bet he was given endless hell for being a half-breed orphan while growing up.

TL;DR this is absolutely canon to my blog. 

[theleglesscoward]

#SpareLaurentiusDayeIn4.2

soon. soon and i am still scared.

[theleglesscoward]

#SPARELAURENTIUS

[feed-your-inbox]

Send "🐣" to meet my muse as a child.

For child muses: Send “🐣+Reverse” to meet my muse as an adult.

[theleglesscoward]

ooc;

tfw you realize laurentius is kind of basically almost theon greyjoy

(except with a little less ramsay bolton in his backstory)

[theleglesscoward]

lighttheabyss:

Yup. She was definitely talking to Cid later. “You’re very lucky he came across you, I won’t lie.” She believed in second chances, yes. But third…third chances were hard to get from her. “I pray you don’t. For your sake, and for his. The betrayal of the Braves still hurts, Laurentius. But since Cid seems to have seen something in you, I’m letting him give you this chance. Show you’re not like damn near every Wailer my family’s dealt with, or like the other Braves who took the crooked coin. You won’t get a fourth chance.”

If she had seen him even a few months ago, she might have broken her promise to Cid…but the fire in her veins was under control [for the most part] now, and she’d seen too much to not keep herself in check. “If you’ve got promise, like he said you have, then you won’t find a better place to turn that promise into talent and skill.”

He definitely wants to crawl under the table, or into somewhere where no one can find him. His hands are clinging to the edge of the workbench so hard his knuckles are white, and he’s pretty sure that’s the only thing keeping him from passing out from panic. What’s he supposed to say to any of that? He knows it hurts. He knows he’d made a terrible mistake on top of the series of mistakes that was his life. Even if he wants to defend himself against the one accusation in her words that’s completely untrue -- he’s not like those other Wailers, he’s never been -- he can’t even speak to do that.

He just nods wordlessly, moving by ilms along the table’s edge until his leg bumps against a chair and then all but collapsing into it. His shoulders hunch a little, like he’s expecting a blow even though she’s at least not struck him or shouted yet. What else is there to say or do? He’s past the point of anything he says being trustworthy, even if he does mean it. All he can do is nod.