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
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"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.
#i appreciate how genuine and non-judgemental this comic feels
#like left one is not upset at right one for caring while being powerless
#and right one seems genuinely distraught and not performative
I'm glad the facial expressions are coming across accurately!
It can feel so absurd to say gosh I hope the torment maze removes some fire and rusty nails soon, but alas, sometimes that's all one can do.
so i hauve covid rn and i must say, American cold medicine is the absolute bees knees. You go to a UK pharmacy and they tenderly press like eight (8) paracetamol into the palm of your hand... God FORBID you're sick in France, i had to scour every pharmacy in Paris for something that wasn't HOMEOPATHIC PASTILLES. meanwhile last night i took the last of my stash of Nyquil that expired in 2019 and it was like getting hit by a fucking baseball bat (affectionate). press X to timeskip. LOVE me a cheeky little medically induced coma. you can really feel that it's a precursor to meth. i know that everything is fucking awful over there my friedns and my heart goes out to every one of you but if you need one small bright light of national pride in this time of strife please know that i envy you your cold medicine every day
i once took an american antihistamine pill just a basic one for seasonal allergies and i had to immediately lay down and while doing so i vividly hallucinated that i was a steerage passenger on the titanic resigned to my death as my cabin filled up rapidly with water. then i blacked out and when i woke up again my allergies were gone for the entire season.
i wish everyone following me made enough money to not feel like they were being boiled alive and had the time and energy to clean their room at their own leisure
it's actually sick you get tired of eating the same food over and over when some animals they just eat grass all day mind you. just another pointless challenge mechanic added in by big universe to get you to go to the grocery store
I always try my best to bake something on Albi's nameday, because it's a fun excuse for a treat. This year we have chocolate & pistachio Cactuar tarts! She likes Cactuars, and I like pistachio :) We both win
stormborns
areudirty
theartofmadeline
blakekathryn
gummygunk
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
