(“T,” maybe gently “M."  G'raha/WoL reminiscence and brief WoL/Aymeric.  WoL POV.) 

- - - - - - - - - - 

-  ✧ ☄ ☽ -

She stopped counting time by autumns after the Tower.

To worsen the bite—to make that evanescent season impossible to forget—Samantha was born near that border, her name day cast just before that liminal gasp.  She was a late summer blossom that craved for cool air, and it pained her, after G’raha, to remember.

- - - - - - - - - - 

The front end of dusk was beginning, the spire on the horizon aglow.

Another day, ordinary but for the circumstances. But that, she supposed, was the fodder for stories—mundane moments, supernormal per perspective.  One hand crept to her chest and took her aethermist necklace in hand; toyed with the crystal and wondered—were the Scions at the Stones, sharing tea and fables and banalities their own?  In her weeks spent afield mapping pathways, maiming monsters, scaling the echelons of the Tower—had her absence been felt?  

Minfilia’s smile was warmer than sunshine and Samantha let herself bask for the briefest of breaths; felt the cool press of gemstone in her hand.  “For your protection,” the Antecedent told her, and the Warrior turned the mother-shard gift between her fingers—watched it sparkle and shimmer.

Now it was warmed; imbued with heat from her skin, through her layers of chemise, blouse, and bodice.  She thumbed the crystal and thought of Warde, of Waters—Tataru Taru serving tea—Papalymo preaching to Yda, Y’shtola scoffing fondly—Urianger pontificating while the Leveilleur twins attended—

A body a head-and-some smaller slammed into her back, strong arms grappling her into a bear hug.  

“You sly old thing!”

The wind was knocked from her lungs, her imaginings scattered, as G’raha Tia all but wrestled her up off the ground.  Senseless afresh at the show of his strength, she coughed.  “Gods and hells.”  It was difficult to remember the last time someone, in no uncertain terms, swept her off her feet.  “What in the—Raha—put me down—”

“Why did you not tell me?”

He was audibly pouting.  

She used the callused heels of both palms to wrestle the cinching clinch of his forearms, but his vise grip was unbending.  She glared at his freckled, sunburnt skin, her voice strained.  “Tell you what?”

“That today was your name day,” he sulked, rattling her body minutely.  “I would have foraged for gifts.”

She huffed hard.  Her cheeks prickled.  Leave it to G’raha to winkle out her secrets.

But who told him? 

…

She would kill Cid bloody Garlond.  

Her body collapsed into deadweight.  As usual, in defense against her sentiments—to tamp down the way her heart raced and fluttered, simply to know G’raha cared—

She reached for insipid banter.  “Why did you not tell me you were so godsdamned brawny?”

“Aha,” he laughed.  “You mean to imply you never noticed?”

There was a wink in his voice.  She coughed, indignant—because of course she had, but— “Your ego would never survive how much I’ve noticed,” she wheezed, surprised by her own frankness.  She could veritably feel the heat of his massive grin as he eased her back to earth.  

His voice was a rumble, thrilled and satisfied. “Fabulous.”  One last squeeze like a cincher at her waist, and then she was released.  “Remind me to show you my trump cards more often.”

“Numpty,” she grumbled, pushing away.  

She spun to scowl down and G’raha’s smile was wide as imagined, dry Mor Dhonan dust stirred up by the delighted lash of his tail. The tip curled and hooked like the side of his mouth.  “Right,” he said, all candor and merriment and crisp bits of mischief.  “How shall we celebrate?”

She spluttered.  “I had no intention to—”

But his hand was shoved in hers and she was being dragged—a fond, familiar hauling she was furtively glad to call common.  “Revenant’s Toll,” he said, hitched with excitement. “Our research can wait—”

“But Xande—”

“Is trapped,” said G’raha.  “And I, for one, will not allow the horrors of Allag to interfere with your birthday.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Supper hung warm in her belly as they scaled the path to the greenery just past the Splendors.

The omnipresent chatter of settlers and workers faded into static as G’raha’s hand crept again to find hers.  “This way,” he murmured, his palm pulsing her fingers with a gentle, affectionate wring.

Heaviness shunted her chest.  For a breath, she feared she might burst open—might collapse and dissolve into hot surging butterflies, like those that crowded her stomach.

They moved beyond the dull commotion, and music distantly warbled, the melody stronger and stronger.  G’raha’s ears flicked, overfocused in her vision, and when he turned to flash a grin, she felt sunshine again.  “A troubadour,” he laughed—summer sunset, rich and rustling—and as they rounded the corner, she saw the minstrel in question, perched and playing her lyre on a half-mortared ledge.

The small square was under construction but G’raha Tia hardly cared.  He towed her right up to the bard and threw down a handful of gil.  The Warrior of Light watched in awe as the Baldesion Scholar listed songs by titles unfamiliar, stopping only when the bemused musician grinned.

“That one,” she said, flexing her hands.  “I well know it.”

“Perfect,” G’raha breathed.  He whirled to face Samantha.  “Dance with me.”

It was not a request.

His hands snatched her wrists, then her fingers, and they were woven callus to callus.  He brought his strength to bear again as she gasped his name—Raha—and they were spinning.

An ugly laugh tore from her throat, and she was dizzy—anchored by the bright sight of his smile.  Her bearings were lost, her wits scattered.  She watched the movement of his soft and beautiful mouth, and it took her too many heartbeats to realize he was singing.

The curl of his timbre plucked something far inside her.  Ilsabardian, she realized.  He was singing in that language—

Like Cassius—

Tears pricked her eyes.

“Your voice.”  Hers was hoarse and husky.  “It’s magnificent.”

The pitch on his lips spiraled off into a rich vibrato. “Another card to your liking, then?”

Her pulse filled her ears.  She nodded, and at the way he dazzled, incandescent, reality beyond him was gone.

G’raha Tia was a riddle, hard and charming and delightful; so bizarre he left her petrified, more frightening, somehow, than a Garlean legatus.  His smile stirred her aether, something quiet and arcane, and a swift, relentless pressure thumped like wingbeats in her chest.

I—

He twirled her into a spin.  She bent along after; stumbled under his arms and snagged herself, boot tip to boot tip.  A shout left her lips as she fell—the clinch of his arms snared her waist as he dove to catch her—and the two of them crumpled, gasping, to the ground.

One leg sprawled beneath him.  One knee cocked against his hip.  She giggled helplessly as his body shuddered overhead, laughter rolling from his chest.  His ears were perked straight forward, his stare so warm.

“Some pair we make,” he murmured past the mirth, and he used one scuffed hand to push her tangled hair behind her ear; to stroke the pads of his fingers, very slowly, down her face.

They locked eyes.  Both went still.  With the weight of his body above her, cradled hips to cautious hips, a whisper of hunger burned inside her to realize how well they might actually fit.

He wet his lips.  His pupils widened, then thinned back to slits.  

Slowly, he disentangled them—stepped up and away and reached one hand down.  Palm to palm, she was lifted, and— “Follow me,” he said.  Again they were stitched at the fingers, her heart become the butterfly flutter, her blood alive with wild anticipation.

Notes fell from his lips—he was singing, and panting, and breathless—and she gripped his hand more tightly.  Past the square, past the last hints of construction, past the edge of the Toll and out into Mor Dhona—

They ran into fields strewn with glowing crystals, and before she could catch her air, she was against him; hugged into the hard clutch of his arms like a cincher.  He pressed his face to the edge of her shoulder, conspicuously avoiding her chest. “Samantha.”  Her name was hot on his lips, hot on the skin past her vestments. Her arms curled, careful around him, and her sleeves slouched half-down.  “I—” his voice cracked.  “Have another gift,” he huffed.  “That is—before I lose the courage to give it.”

Her hands crept up his neck; covetously traced the small plait at his nape.  Her body was humming, her pulse racing fast, the precipice between them disappearing in a glimmer.  She forced herself to ask.  “What is it?”

His mouth at the fringe of her sleeve and her skin.  “A kiss.”

Her heart was a stone plunging into her stomach. She froze—leaned back—found his mismatched eyes tilted up to her in gallantry and terror.

Yes, yes, yes—

Her throat was dry, and silence overlingered. He went tense.  She felt him begin to recoil and stopped him, her thumbs by his lips.  When she leaned down, her dark hair curtained around them.  

“Kiss me, then,” she whispered.

Shadowed eyes roved her face.  His hands stroked a path up her backbone.  He tipped up his chin, and his mouth was soft and lush, his taste warm and bitter.  He tried to leave her with a peck but she followed him for something good and proper, drinking the breath from the tip of his tongue, tasting hope and apprehension.

Their noses brushed together.  “Happy name day, Samantha.”

- - - - - - - - - -

After that, winters seemed a better measure.

Winter was, after all, where she found summer again.

His laugh was warm and breathy.  “I was born then, you know,” Borel hummed, voice like velvet and honey and richer than silk.  “On that crisp cusp between greenings and heat.”

“Soft thing of springtime,” she called him.

“Monster of maying,” he whispered.

“Either way,” she kissed his lips.  “You brought me sunshine again.”

-  ☽ ✧ ☾ -

(”G.”  Closeness.  He never allowed it.  Not for himself.  But he would permit himself to relish from a distance.  Thancred POV, WoL & Minfilia, early ARR.  Very soft.)

- - - - - - - - - -

Thancred Waters was proficient at snooping.

It was a cultivated talent, to know how to spy—and as a consequence of prying, he was doomed with many secrets; riddles and enigmas he was cursed, thenceforth, to keep.  It was an omnipresent peril of his chosen occupation; the bane of the scoundrel, to be clandestine and creeping.

The salt of Vesper Bay crowded his nostrils as he sought her—the Warrior of Light, Rosalyn—call me Samantha—and found not one, but two solemn bearers of the Blessing.  The smaller Antecedent draped her arm in a loose cling around the taller, guiding her out into the square.

Waters froze at once and backed into the shadows.

From the way his gut curled and twisted on instinct, he knew he should leave.

Instead, brows down, guilty feet silent, a bizarrely boyish flutter stirred beneath his breastbone and he melted into the scenery, watching the pair with curious, questioning eyes.

Samantha was a stern and scowling person—there was a story behind it, her grimness; it came across like a disguise—but for Warde, she warmed and thawed.  “What about here?”  She gestured to a ledge.

“A wonderful suggestion.”  

The girls perched together on cracked sandstone, encircled by flowering bromeliads, beneath the reaching foliage of a palm. Between them was a basket.  The graven image of Nanarito passed judgment as Warde began to unpack—fruits and finger foods and folded handkerchiefs, a volume tuned for two—one stolen splinter of serenity condensed into a picnic. Minfilia handed a napkin to Samantha, and the lips of the sorceress quirked into an unpracticed grin.  

Her dark stare unnervingly softened, a blush on her skin—

Thancred realized something.

She loves her.

He knew it was true.  Even watching from a distance, his stomach brimmed with butterflies and flipped.  It reminded him of pining; of young and wondering fondness, feelings quite distinct from his personal sentiments.

The bystander made sure he was shrouded—noted that nothing gave him more contentment than Warde’s sheer, unalloyed bliss.  Here, he was able to see it.  Minfilia was laughing, the pure distilled force of her affection focused on the harsh-looking girl peeling an orange—smiling through the juice and pulp of a wedge and allowing, just for a heartbeat, the dour mask to crack.

Thancred felt protective; hungry to grant them this easy, earthly instant.

Closeness.  He never allowed it.  Not for himself.

But he would permit himself to relish from a distance.  Permit that, above the bitters of his self-imposed denials, he felt indulgent to simply bear witness—felt joy and jubilation, that they enjoyed what he would not.  Love, for the girl he adored in every conceivable fashion, and the woman he dared to believe a young legend.

Minfilia turned her face to Samantha like a blossom in the sun; the golden-haired Warde and wild, rambling Warrior.

Roses, blooming in the desert.

- ✧ -

(Heavenly bodies that held her in their influence.  “Let me help you.”  Rating changes to “E.”  Multiple relationships, several snippets from pre-1.0 Calamity to [ShB spoilers] pre-patch 5.3.)

cw: 18+, consensual OCxOC relationship with [in other depictions, unhealthy] BDSM overtones; rough sex, mention of Zenos (scars and injury), Estinien & Samantha being actual animals. Otherwise fluff and feelings.  Many POV shifts, mostly wide third-person POV with eyes belonging to: Raphael, Minfilia, G'raha, Estinien, Aymeric, and Samantha (WoL).

- - - - - - - - - -

- ✧ ☄ ☽ - 

Rain pit-pattered the window.

She swallowed the breath of fragrant mist rising from her teacup—took a scalding, half-steeped sip.  Past the glass, out in the garden, the rosebushes hung their pretty red faces, the downpour making the blossoms gleaming and leaden.

A hum from his desk—that soft, commanding timbre—and she looked up as though summoned or beckoned.

Bewitched, bedazzled, besotted.  

He was thumbing through papers, grim-faced, unsmiling.  

“Come,” he murmured.  He sounded tired.  The word fell from thinned lips like a drop of cool water from storm-laden petals. She rose from the armchair; padded, barefoot, past polished wood floors.  Her long nightgown whispered behind her, a white, frothy slip of a thing—a gift from him.

He stirred at the sound of her subservience.

When Raphael Lemaitre lifted his eyes, Rosalyn Floravale was lost in them.  They were green and golden and haunted with hazel, arcane and enchanting as the aurum of his hair.  He wet his lips and tipped his quill in its stand; pushed his chair from the counter to allow her to perch in his lap.  “Sit.”

Her heart stuttered with butterfly flutters as she climbed astride.  He allowed her one rare moment of abandon, to stroke her hands through his long, flaxen hair.  She pulled it loose of its ribbon.  “You look tired,” she said, timid fingertips tracing his resplendent cheekbones.  She cupped the sharp angle of his jawline; kissed the side of his mouth.  “Let me help.”

He wrapped her wrist in his hand and closed his eyes.  Raphael turned his face to press the hard slash of his mouth against the lines of her palm, the arch of his regal nose caught between her fingers.

“You always do,” he whispered.  It was quiet enough to vanish—to disappear into the grumbling of the rainfall and the wind.  Whether she heard him or not, before he could intercept it, she snatched the bridge of his glasses.  Through his defenses slipped the first flicker of a grin; she cackled as he slipped very cold, very clinical fingertips up the front of her chemise, stiff against her skin.  

Thumbs stained by ink moved directly to her breasts, his feather-light touch nonetheless kindling.  She arched to fill his hands; to beg him, silently, to cast aside pretense.  But Raphael Lemaitre was stern as a statue and nothing could sway him.  As always, he looked up through bronze lashes, knowledge implacable, a stronghold unspeaking, unsmiling, unyielding.  

After long hours lecturing students, he preferred quiet.

She writhed, impatient, in his lap.  He watched a moment in silence.  Hands primed for reading and writing moved, very slowly, down the outline of her body—found her hips and eased into a calculated shift.  Their bodies moved together, and an ugly cry tore from her lips.

“Shh,” he hushed, unlatching his belt.

She held her lip between her teeth to stifle all sound as she watched him.  Unbuckled, unbuttoned, he pushed the immaculate press of his trousers down just low enough to—

Her hot, greedy fingers snatched his length into her fist.  Always so hungry to take him, she hitched herself up, and he hissed to see she was bare beneath the nightdress—completely unhindered.

They were practiced.  So rehearsed, now, she knew the best fits of their bodies; made the frantic struggle of sex into something graceful and efficient.  Her desperation always left him breathless, and in the midst of that rainstorm, his dignified lips fell soundlessly open as she sank to sheathe him inside in one stroke, riding him, unruly and ruthless.

Had her eyes been open in the blinding breath that he filled her—had they been open, not closed for the thrill—she would have seen incomprehensible adoration in his face; the brief, broken instant his chiseled façade collapsed.  But the mask of power clicked back just as quickly—the need to restrain her,outlast her, and conquer.

She clapped her own palm over her own mouth to stifle her ragged cries and he kissed the valleys of her knuckles; let his eyes glitter like sunbeams in springtime.

Good girl.

- ✧ ☄ ✧ -

The Antecedent’s laugh caught, half-through her throat, and she stifled it.  

“What?” Thancred’s scoff was both merry and biting.  He stumbled to a halt, dragging the flabbergasted Hero beside him.

“The two of you look so—” Warde cut herself off.  “Forgive me—” Her sky-pale eyes glittered, filled with bald amusement. The Warrior—Samantha—pushed her dark hair back with both hands, a fiery blush on her swarthy, sun-blemished cheeks.

“Are you laughing at us?”

A giggle escaped the Antecedent’s lips.  She coughed back the cascade that threatened; pinned Waters with a gentle stare.  “My dear Thancred—stand aside, if you please?”

Both of her sentinel’s ash-blond eyebrows rose and he lifted both hands, play-acting a couerl-burglar at knifepoint.  “Fair lady,” he drawled, reversing three paces.

Samantha watched in some blend of horror and unabashed fascination as Minfilia swept into the center of the room, reaching for her with unassuming, outstretched hands. “Allow me,” she offered, keeping her voice soft and tranquil, hoping it offered some solace.  “Our friend here of course is an unrivaled tutor, but—” and she prayed her eyes, then, were soothing.  Floravale was full of fire, but skittish, so much promise, so much wild.  “Ascilia remembers the basics far better.”

From her guardian, she felt the heat of his exasperated affection—stern and probing cross-examination—and passed him a heartening glance.  

Stay. 

Samantha crept forward, still possessed of that caged-animal stare.  “Ascilia?”

“My name,” she said, very quiet.  A tiny smile curled her lips.  “The true one.”

“But,” came the instantaneous mutter from the watcher, “If you so much as breathe an onze beyond this chamber—”

His interruption was disrupted.  “I trust her,” said Minfilia, holding the Warrior in her eyes.  Samantha had a fierce and determined appearance—a woman, to be certain—but despite over two epochs of namedays, the sorceress yet moved with self-doubt; exuded a muted and hushed lack of confidence that Ascilia, for all her abundant misfortunes, comprehended very well.

“That would be the Blessing,” offered Thancred, benevolently unhelpful.  

“No.”  Warde beheld Floravale with tender evaluation. They stood close, now; close enough to twine hands.  “Somehow,” she wove fingertips together; locked eyes, light to dark, “I would trust her regardless.”  Minfilia’s voice came out small and wondering, like a child.  

Samantha responded in kind.  “You would?”

Thancred cocked a resigned hip against the well-worn desk and sighed; watched as two would-be schoolgirls burdened by the weight of the known world swung into silent metronome rhythm, the Antecedent’s surefooted actions rendered clumsy by the Warrior’s ineptness.

Ascilia had been told, from the first of her years—admittedly mostly by Thancred, Twelve bless him—that the shine of her grin held the warmth to melt winters; that, perhaps, if she met all of Coerthas with her gladness, she could thaw even Dalamud’s harshest aetherical chill.

She aimed her finest smile at Samantha.

“I would trust you in twelve thousand lifetimes.”  She used her chin to point to their toes, and Samantha tripped across the floor to follow. “Excepting yon loitering observer,” another admittedly unnecessary glance to reassure him, “Rarely have I met a soul I found—so suddenly familiar.”

Samantha’s complexion was olive, dark-freckled, but not deep enough to obscure the hot red of her blush.  “I feel the same,” she babbled.  “Familiar, I mean—as though I knew you long before we ever met.”

Warde spun the two of them to trace the empty Solar.  “Marvelous,” she said gently, and Thancred’s eyes followed them both, serene and tempered.  “We might make a proper friend of you yet.”

Minfilia pretended not to notice how her partner’s breath stoppered—looked away as Samantha cast a nervous glance to Waters.  Warde was aware of the role he assumed on her arrival in Ul’dah; camouflaged the elation she felt at his aura of pride and protection.  So you adopted her as well, my secret-keeper.

“Scion and associate,” he grunted, feigning indifference—though the look in his eyes was anything but.

The Warrior huffed. “I would love nothing more than your friendship,” she muttered, and the words were rough but honest.  She was catching on to one bar of the dance—Tataru would be delighted.  “But—” She laughed then, nervous.  “How can I presume to join in?”  

Her dark, delving stare flicked to Minfilia’s—smoldering and shy.

“Why,” and the Antecedent lifted both arms to guide her in a pirouette.  “You join in the same as this.”  The Warrior twirled and her uneven skirts whirled in tiers to hug her calves, catching on the buckles of her blonde spinner’s boots, tickling the trims of leather-embellished leggings.

Rosalyn and Ascilia met each other eye-to-eye, the hybrid mage no small margin taller—

And then the woman the Antecedent hoped might fill the old soles of an Archon tripped all over herself and they were entangled, slip to surcote.  With an exaggerated sigh, Thancred bustled over to unravel them. “So much for hoodwinking the Syndicate.”

Above their sudden, wild laughter, Samantha barked.  “I trained in natural magick, not parlor tricks.”

Minfilia was breathless.  “I’ve been cured of misgivings.”

- ☽ ✧ ☾ -

His tail swayed back and forth as he looked at the Tower.

There in the distant yawn of that crystalline throne room, the Void yet stretched—and there beyond, through that rift in time and space and aether,Nero—

G’raha Tia balled his hands into fists and squared his center of gravity; felt the heft of eons past and future ghost to settle on his shoulders.  There was something, something—something he was missing.

Something he yet needed to finish.

Like Nero, he hungered for Allag.  For all G’raha knew that his colleagues might deride him—the lash of Scaevan sarcasm was, after all, something far harsher than biting—he almost, quite often, relatedto the defector; met cold eyes the color of midwinter mornings and saw something brittle tucked behind them.

Brittle, and bitter—substratum primed to crack.

“Raha?”

The barest sound of her voice pooled to tug at his navel.  He turned before she could see the way the dense hairs along his tailbone stood up; loosed a casual grin like a mockery of an arrow.  “You found me.”

“Of course I—” In the darkness, she almost looked frightened.  The plucking sensation dropped inconveniently lower as she trudged up to glare down at his face, a worry line creased between her brows.  “You—” She pursed her lips and spluttered.  “After all that happened—” She flicked one frustrated hand toward the looming, glittering spire.  “Tell me before you run off like that.”

Oh, she was furious—furious and terrified.

For him.

Pleasure stirred in his heart and down between his legs before he could ignore it.  He raised his eyebrows.  “Worrying after me?”

She scowled harder. “You—” Her hands were balled into fists so tight he could see every ridge of her knuckles and half-gloves. “Of course I worry after you, Raha.”

A tremor itched down his back and he ignored the sudden, feral urge he felt to pounce. “As you see,” he said instead, gesturing to himself.  “Whole and hale.”

“Uncharacteristic,” she muttered.  She thrust out one hand, flexing stiff fingers.

He had the choice, then, to continue to rile her—but he wove them palm to palm instead, following back to the outpost.  A thrill marched up his spine as she all but dragged him to camp, his deepest, most animal instincts ecstatic to be chased and claimed.

He supposed he should have known, somehow, that things would shift—change being the crux of existence, the eternal pendulum swing.  But had he known, even after; even granted the gift of both foresight and hindsight, would he have picked another way?

When he thought of it centuries after, he remembered a mirage.  For what else could it be but delirium imagined, delusions he dreamt in the lifetimes he slept in the Umbilicus, the haze of his waking besides?

But wherever it came from, in no past, present, or future would G’raha rob himself of one memory: Her legs, a cage to bind him as he moved, slowly and carefully, inside.

- ☾ ❅ ☽ -

His growl was furious.  “Let me help you.”

She squirmed away from him like an eel but Estinien chased her; pinned her down with the obstinate weight of his body.  He was scalding hot, the gift he stole from Nidhogg affecting his temperature.

“Letgo of me,” she growled, trying to kick him, but he curled in a way that placed his long frame at the advantage.  His right hand was encrusted with scales of obsidian, vaguely monstrous, and where he touched her a tickling miasma of aether descended.  Warped crimson and violet levin tangled down her body in gossamer cobwebs, and each felt the other flicker within—that strange place they were blended from sharing the Eyes—however swiftly her tenure had ended.

“Let me look at you,” he snarled, and just as the smoke of his eldritch magick found a crack in the light of her blessings, seeping in, he snatched her wrist in his hand and used the secret she taught him against her.

A cry tore from her throat—arse—and she crumpled, limp, to the blankets.  

Then, with the skilled and ruthless fingers of a hunter, he stripped her bare of skirts and bodice and shucked her free of her chemise, much like he might clean an antelope carcass.

It was rare that Estinien was shocked, but his eyes went wide on reflex at the sight of the wounds on her body—fresh tracks and puckered scars, no few left by Ame-no-Habakiri.  His scale-flecked thumb stroked a path by the lines left by the katana and he shuddered with a convulsion, consumed at once by rage.  Again, both could feel it curl within,an actual, aetherical connection.

Death, came the inward rumble, not from her, but from Estinien.

I will kill him.

She coughed out a laugh.  “Who can kill the unkillable,” she croaked, increasingly convinced that the prince was akin to a demon.  “That man defies all rational definition.”

“Slag him,” Estinien spat, physically shaking.  His eyes were frozen on the places stained by Doma, by Galvus—her flawed and magnificent skin— “How could you allow him—”

“I let nothing,” she hissed, the command of her magick returning.  She huffed a breath to transpose the fire building in her chest and it came out an icy mist.  “How could you allow Nidhogg?”

Hard, dark eyes caught her glare.  They were locked for a handful of hot breaths and heartbeats.  Estinien lunged, pulling the blow just before their browbones cracked together; nestling gently instead.  

His voice rarely hitched, rarely fractured.  “He told me to protect you,” he whispered, and in the depths of it she heard something shatter; a glacier’s melting edge.

Aymeric.

“You are,” she rasped, both hands on his face.  “You do. You did.”

Thought evaporated. Tussle turned to whispers turned to snapping and biting.  His clothes were gone, saltwater on his face.  The source of the tears hardly mattered.

Samantha hooked her knee around his haunches, tossed her head back, and howled.  

- ☾ ✧ ☽ -

The canopy of the Twelveswood swayed above.  

He laughed, and a cackle of crowcall escaped her.  “And here I thought,” she rasped, hoarse, “The Lord Commander was not the type to be prevailed upon.”

A crooked grin twisted his lips.  He hooked his elbow to buttress her back; dipped her low so that the gleaming, star-white fringes of her blanched-bright hair swept almost to the ground.  “But you, my Hero,” he exhaled, “Are prevailing.”  He whorled her upright and was gratified to find her grinning, broad and breathless.  “And I of course admit a certain bias in the case of our affairs.”

She unfurled against his arm and tossed her head; barked another wine-drunk chortle at the stars that glittered far above the boughs.  The lamplight cast the stern angles of her face into shadows impossibly softer, framed by the intermittent pinprick-incandescence of fireflies.

Like them, her splendor shone foremost from within.

“Impolitic,” she teased him, “For a statesman to play favorites.”  And then, without warning, she was deadweight in his hands. The Warrior of Light dragged the Speaker of Ishgard down to dewy cushions of moss and leaf-litter; jerked her chin toward the bottle long abandoned.  “And to ply a weary Scion with drink, nonetheless.”  She quirked a brow.  “Are you trying to intoxicate me, Ser Aymeric?”

He was smiling down at her, beguiled—hers, helplessly, always.  “Not on drink,” he murmured, brushing the tips of their noses together.  “Though I concede I misjudged the—vigor of this vintage.”

She snorted and dissolved into guffaws, and he held her, amused and admiring.

His design was elaborate—ambitious and, to his horror, slightly extravagant—from aperitifs with her parents, to the banquet in the ballroom, to this tour of girlhood haunts and havens, he had plans.

But let her this moment, his skipping heart warbled.  This breath of freedom from Norvrandt. 

Your grandiose suggestions can wait.

- ☾ ☄ ✧ -

He held his frame at an angle away from her.

Distant.

“Close the door,” she begged again.  The Exarch met her stare through copper lashes, the side of shrewd, slitted eyes, and the Tower itself seemed to inhale.  There was a long, gravid pause.

Then, very sudden, very quiet, the access to the Ocular clicked shut.

And they were alone.

The Exarch—G’raha—gripped his right arm like it pained him.  She reached for it on impulse.  “Let me help you.”

It should have been easier, to look and see a friend.  But it was hard to reconcile—to dissect him from her trials in Norvrandt—to blend the ardent young scholar with the venerable, cryptic old man.  Even as he turned and opened his posture to her—even as she took him by the shoulder, the shape so familiar—he was something slightly else. “Samantha—” The richness of his very timbre was darkened, subtly altered, the Exarch ancient in ways that G’raha Tia only wished to understand.

“No.”  Her low voice echoed hoarsely in the room.  “Don’t dispute it.  Don’t speak to me of debts or death or some other damnation imagined.” His right shoulder was hard as granite. She dug in her fingertips.  “You don’t deserve to suffer, Raha,” she muttered. “You never did.”

His face was serene and impassive.  But as she watched—as she poured healing aether through his fractures, letting it slip between the tectonics of him and the Tower—something cracked.

Strong arms hooked the small of her back, his stature humble but packed, dense and deceptive, with power.  He crumpled with a breath and turned to crush his face against her shoulder.

“Say it again.”

Shocked from focus, her spell fizzled—but her grip on him tightened.  She hugged him, hard.  “You never deserved it,” she rasped, one hand cradling his neck.  “Not one bit.”

The hard tips of his crystallized fingers caught between the layers of her bodice.  The breath he took rattled his body.

How long they stood and swayed there was unknown.

- ☄ -

The spell to shield her aether was proving easier to weave, but whether it was effective was a question only Estinien could answer.

It was late by the time she reached the Manor.  Snow fell in flurries, all but stopped, and she took her time shedding her layers, sneaking into the foyer so as not to wake the—

A breathy laugh, far down the hallway.

She froze and craned her neck.  A dim glow from the direction of the parlor.  Sweeping back her hair, now damp with melted snowflakes, she tiptoed down the vaulted corridor, ears peeled for—

“Fury bless it.”

Aymeric’s laugh, again.  “You keep too much tension in your shoulders.”

A grin curled her lips in a reflex like breathing and she picked up her pace, keeping quiet. The heirlooms and artifacts stored on the walls seemed to watch and adjudicate as she crept to the archway, peeking in.

There in the parlor, limned by firelight, the two most eminent figures of her Ishgard were dancing.

Estinien swayed away from his partner, long torso bared to the hips, garbed in ash-colored slacks that hugged his thighs too tightly—a pair nicked from Aymeric, no doubt.  And the lender himself was dressed all in black, the high neck of his collar offering only the barest glimpse of alabaster throat.

Quiet and clandestine, she leaned against the frame, watching as the two of them simpered.

“Poor form,” crooned the lord of the house.

“My arse,” came the clapback.  

With lupine grace, Estinien slunk back, snatching Aymeric’s wrist.  A wicked smirk curved Borel’s beautiful mouth as he followed. “That, I assure you, is formed quite correctly.”

And then Estinien laughed.  It was a raw, candid sound—wide and rambling as the grin on his lips.  At the gleam of his teeth, a wild, uninhibited rapture surged through her, and she realized with a start—

It did not belong only to her.

Before she could think to escape, a hard, towering body barreled for impact.  “You little rat,” Estinien growled—and she caught a glittering wink in his right earlobe as she was lifted from the floor, hefted easily over his shoulder.

She slumped and twisted to find Aymeric watching, smiling bright.  “Ignore me,” she insisted.  “Keep bonding.  I have a mind to go to the—”

But Estinien was already carrying her up the stairs.  “You smell like—” She could hearhis nose wrinkle.  “Too much of those damned Lakeland lilacs and not enough like me.”

She huffed. “Last I checked, the world was not, in fact, compelled to smell Wyrmbloodian.”

Trailing behind by several paces, Aymeric followed, laughter lighting the ice of his stare. He pushed the rook-black curl from his eyes and fixed her with earnest attention.  “Welcome home again, beloved.”

Home, again, to stay.

- ☾ ☄ ✧ -

(”T,” named fWoL/G’raha.  Nights in Mor Dhona during CT.  Feelings, nostalgia, mildly abstract.)

- - - - - - - - - -

His chuckle was warm summer sunset tasting of autumn, rich and rustling and crisp around the edges.  “Take my hand,” he laughed.  “I want to show you something.”

A smile tickled her lips but she opted, again, to pretend—to play-act that her interest was dim. And it was an effort to lie to him; to imply she spent her precious stolen respites daydreaming of anything other than him—G’raha’s eyes, his smile, the wish of his hands thumbing and trawling every riddle of her skin.  

From the way he buffed his clawed nails to blunt tips, she wondered if he dared imagine the same; if perhaps in some quiet corner of his raucous, rambling mind, he hoped he might also have the chance, yet, to cross that line.

She half-shuttered dark eyes and cocked a tense brow.  “Where are we going?”

His grin bent at the corner like the happy shepherd’s-crook of his tail.  His soft mouth hid mischief and pleasure.  “Do you trust me?”

It was a dare.

Rather than surrender, she wove them fingers to fingers and held his puckish stare.

- ☽ ✧ ☾ -

The Tangle was wild at night, full of hazards; patrols of guards from the Castrum, monsters and morbols and mercenaries alike.  “Where are you taking me, exactly?”  

G’raha was smaller and faster, dragging her along behind.  “Trust me,” came the echo.  

Dusk fell in phases around them, the haze of the Fogfens crowding her nose.  Though Samantha Rosalyn Floravale was hailed by her blessing of Light—eikon slayer—she shivered and was frightened.  She was budding, a still-nascent hero; thorns and brambles cut just barely on Baelsar and Ultima and the Ascian, Lahabrea—

The Warrior was dawning, while Eorzea expected her to shine.  

G’raha gripped her hand tight.  The press of his calluses felt like a kiss.  A bark escaped her lips, the knit of their fingers a ladder stitch.  “Tell me again why I bother to listen?”

“Because I think you might likeme,” he quipped—and it was something she said, some days prior.  He tossed back bright red hair to grin up into her face, and his warmth prickled through her, hot like high noon.

She stared down, dumbfounded. 

 Instead of saying something milder, she scoffed and scowled.  “Insufferable.”

His mirth was spicy, heady as liquor—his purr far more potent.  “My pleasure.”

- ☽ ✧ ☾ -

“Rathefrost,” he said, yanking her down by the hand.

Her long skirts were damp with mud and muck from the hike, her blood filled with wanderlust. G’raha had a habit of accidentally making her ecstatic.  Her thighs ached and strained and something astral licked up her backbone as she squatted.  “Is that what they call it?”

Amid the dim gleam of omnipresent crystal, the thrumming of ambient aether, the witch and the knave-kit crouched at the edge of one cliff in Mor Dhona and gazed at the shell of the Agrius, the Keeper.  “As you know,” G’raha began, and the velvet curl of his voice suggested a story, “Among the Twelve, Althyk was warden of time—keeper of past and of future.”  Cool stone bit her palms as she leaned back to listen; let the sultry smoothness of Sharlayan jargon envelop her as wholly as the night that veiled the stars.  “His sister Nymeia was spinner of Fate—master of water and watcher of skies—” he paused until she glanced at him and chuckled, “—and she, along with Brother Time, saw the Falls for their ultimate nature—”

“A font of unspeakable power,” she whispered, tracing constellations.  Her stare flicked back to meet his.

The bluffs and crags of crystal all around them reflected in his eyes.  “Aether,” he agreed.  “The center of all that was, and all that ever would be.”  His words were filled with weight and whimsy.  “The Falls desired a keeper, and Time and Fate conspired—begged the king of wyrmkings to play custodian, to guard them.”

She let her gaze linger on his features; traced, too-long, the lush curve of his mouth.  “Althyk was the father of Azeyma,” she said quietly. “Goddess of Truth and of Fire.”

“And Menphina.” A grin crept forth and she looked away before he could gesture with his brows.

“Honestly, Raha.” She huffed a sigh through her nose; ignored the way her cheeks prickled.  “If you end the story with some bawdy joke—”

“I did nothing of the sort,” he insisted, scooting closer to her on the ledge.  His body heat was radiant.  “Merely connected Love and Truth in much the same vein as a bloodline.”

“Love and Truth,” she muttered, watching him from the side of her eye.  “And ice and fire.  If love is ice and truth is fire—”

He elbowed her in the ribs.  “One could simply transpose them.”

She rolled her eyes and huffed again.  “Turn love to truth?”

“Or vice versa.”

She dared another glance at him and found his eyes glittering, teal and scarlet, late daybreak, early twilight.  Afraid of the way her heart stuttered to devour, she sighed.  “Ridiculous.”

The corners of his lips twisted into a grin.  “Or brilliant.”

She pouted.  “Ridiculously brilliant,” she grumbled, completely in earnest.

A bright laugh bubbled from his throat and his tail thumped the ground.  “Glad you trusted me?”

The bones of Midgardsormr rose from the Lake, a ghost of eras long departed.  

“I’m always glad to trust you, Raha,” she said, ice and fire in her chest.

- ☽ ✧ ☾ -

When the fire of midsummer faded, ice misting over the horizon, a single leaf turned a shade bright and brash as his hair.  Perhaps they both knew it was ending.  Something changed, much the same.  In hindsight, far more than the season—the flourishing harvest before the decay.

Transposition.

Paths of life combine for brief seasons of change, some with the wicks to blend into twin flames. Still more remain sparks never coaxed to kindle ablaze.  They were wrought of the same holy matter that summer—two soul-flecks of stardust chipped from primordial night.  Drawn together for the matching shards and facets in their hearts—

Unfair,unfair,to be thrust apart—

- ☽ ✧ ☾ -

His knuckles stroked her backbone.

She woke to the cool of her own naked skin; stiffened at the instinct to escape his scalding touch. She was an ember, and he, tempted into ignition; raw, dazzling impulse incarnate.

Was the truth—the love—not better left unsaid?

Dare she look beyond the hourglass that loomed above the bed?

- ☽ ✧ ☾ -

Master and apprentice faced each other in resolute silence. The student,  young but talented for his age, furrowed his brow and opened his mind to the infinite possible moves. Which would his opponent be expecting? Which would allow for the greater defense against his older, wiser mentor? He cautioned a glance into his grandfather’s eyes who returned his gaze with a smirk that etched deeper the creases at their corners.

“Make your move, boy, before I die of old age,” said Gerart.

Raven huffed and set his jaw. Quite right, he thought. It was time to decide. His hand darted forward but he hesitated at the last moment, cursing himself for both his indecision and for giving away his train of thought. Maybe his grandfather hadn’t picked up on it though, maybe he-

“Bringing the bishop into the fray, huh?” Gerart said, dashing Raven’s hope. “ Bold move, little bird, bold move.” He nodded his approval, clearly impressed. “Here I thought you’d tip toe around the board with the knight,” he said pointing at the obsidian chess piece. “Seems more your style. Slow, predictable, timid…”

“I’m trying to concentrate,” Raven said. He was studying the board, drawing the paths with his mind for as many moves as he could manage, his hand still hovering over the bishop. He couldn’t see what was so dangerous about the move, though, and it worried him. “You’re trying to distract me because you know I’m winning,” he bluffed. Raven had never beaten his grandfather at chess. Not once. Where Raven studied the board, took his time, attempted to predict the course of the game, Gerart picked moves seemingly at random. No sooner will Raven finish his turn than his grandfather would spare a quick glance at the board and shift a piece. It was infuriating.

“I’m serious, the Roshenko gambit is a ballsy maneuver. Shows you been doing your reading, I’m impressed. But, hey, don’t let me sway you, boy.  ”

Raven, who had never once picked up a book on chess strategies and hadn’t the single, foggiest idea who the fuck Roshenko was nor what his gambit involved, suddenly felt out of his depth. He looked to his knight and quickly traced its available paths. All but one was blocked but the remaining move showed promise. Perhaps victory would be his after all if he could wear his grandfather down through attrition. Defense being the best offense and all that.

He shifted to the knight and placed it safely out of reach and grinned at his grandfather. “I think I’ll wear you down instead, old m…”

Gerart’s hand was on his queen the very moment Raven had finished his move. “Check and mate,” he said, standing up with a groan and stretching his back.

“Wha….n-no,” said Raven staring at the board, his defeat laid bare. “That's…you shyster! You said the knight was the safe move!”

Gerart pulled the pipe from his waistcoat pocket and began to pack it with his thumb. “Yup. Lied. Shoulda moved the Bishop. You'da still lost but you’d have lasted longer.” He struck a match with his thumbnail and brought the pipe to life.

“But I don’t know the Roshenko gambit,” Raven said, still sitting at the table.

His grandfather shrugged as he blew out a voluminous plume of fragrant smoke. “Made that up too. Shouldn’t listen to the people trying to beat you Raven. Your enemy seldom has your best interest in mind.”

Prompt 1: Crux

***** A few years back *****

The magistrate pinched the bridge of his nose and sagged backward in his seat as his Chamber hung in anticipatory silence. The two Serpents, the captain of the guard and the arresting officer, stood at regimental attention, in contrast to the drunken Ishgardian slumped in the seat before them in a heap. At the podium stood the witness, the unfortunate carriage driver who took pity on the sharp dressed, if disheveled, elezen who had stumbled into the street once the bars of the Lavender Beds had shut their doors for the night.

“Let us try this one more time WITHOUT INTERUPTION,” The magistrate said in a slow, measured tone. “You,” he pointed at the carriage driver who straightened immediately and wrung his hat, “picked up this…gentleman, who directed you to drive him to the Carline Canopy….”

“Well, that is, in a manner of speakin’ your honor, if ye beg my pardon,” said the driver. “See, he - that is, the gentleman here - didn’t know of the Canopy by name, no sir. He gets in, see, and he goes ‘hotel’ and then I go 'which hotel?’ but by that time he was sawin logs - that is, he’s asleep, see…”

The magistrate sighed heavily, “Yes, fine….”

“..But I ain’t no slouch, see,” continued the driver tapping his temple with a finger, “I see’s the way he’s dressed and all, fancy suit, good shoes, and I say to myself, 'take 'em to the Canopy! Ain’t no finer establishment for a gentleman, says I, let Miounne take care of him.”

“The picture is painted, dried, and hung on the wall, thank you” said the magistrate. “Suffice it to say, however, you did not reach your destination.”

The Ishgardian snorted. “Sort that out yourself?”

“Again, I remind the defendant to seize hold of his obstinate tongue,” said the magistrate, more tired than angry. “Continue,” he said to the witness.

“N-no sir, we never did. See, we was -waylaid-,” the driver said pronouncing the word carefully. He’d just learned it that evening and was proud he got to use it himself. “Waylaid,” he repeated, “by the 'ood.”

The magistrate looked toward the captain of the guard with tired eyes. “I assume you’re more familiar with the vernacular than I, Captain, care to translate?”

“The *Hood*, your honor,” said the captain sternly, “Alas: 'The Black Hood’, real name: Jerrik Gantry. Deceased. ”

“You have his sheet?” inquired the magistrate.

“Sheets,” the captain corrected, presenting the stack of papers before him. “Wanted for arson, assault, murder….name the crime, your honor, he’s committed it.”

“Dangerous then.”

The captain stiffened his jaw and stood straighter. “Killed four of my own, your honor. Good men.”

“Right,” said the magistrate, whose eyes drifted over the drunk nobleman with curious wonder. “And *he* killed him?”

The room turned their eyes toward Raven who had started to snore.

The captain turned to his officer who answered after a hard swallow. “Never saw the like,” he said in a near whisper, regarding the hunched over Ishgardian with wide eyes. “With the Hood’s own knife even…Fast as a blink, like it were easy.”

“Any clue as to his identity?” asked the magistrate.

Instead of answering, the captain gathered up the large envelope of personal effects and placed them on the magistrate’s bench and returned to his spot.

The magistrate tipped the envelope and emptied the contents in front of him. An empty flask, a pocket watch, voucher for an obscene amount of cash, and what appeared to be a passport. The cover was deep blue leather, embossed and filigreed in tarnished silver with the image of an ornate shield. He peered at the credentials within and raised his brows, glancing toward the captain who only nodded slowly.

“What should we do, your honor?” asked the captain. “Can we hold him?”

“Hm.” He tented his fingers beneath his chin and watched the snoring knight. He had been a soldier himself long ago but was fortunate enough not to know the horrors of real war. Not like what was transpiring in the mountains northward where the Ishgardians battled not soldiers but beasts that towered like buildings and breathed ice and fire. Endless hordes of beating wings, razor sharp teeth, claws the size of canoes. What must that do to a man? And how does one wake from such nightmarish misfortune.

“Therein lies the rub,” the magistrate said under his breath.

“Your honor?” asked the captain.

“Captain, take this…” he peered again at the Ishgardian’s credentials, “Ser Raven Alderscorn to the barracks. In the morning throw a bucket of water over him and inform him of his sentence: He is bound to community service as a servant of Gridania. Give him to Luciane,” he snorted. “She’s got a troublemaker of her own. Maybe they can sort one another out.”

With his judgement final, the magistrate stood, stretched and yawned. Stepping from the bench he noticed the worried expression on the captain’s face. “There’s a problem, captain?”

“Ah, well…potentially,” he said glancing nervously at the sleeping knight. “How…can we make him do that? If he chooses not too, that is?”

“Officer,” the magistrate said, addressing the subordinate who snapped to attention out of habit and nerves. “How did you place him under arrest in the first place? Dangerous man that he is,” he asked, knowing the answer already.

“W-well…I just…said 'you’re under arrest’. He said…'fair enough’”

The magistrate nodded and walked off. “There you go. Drunk or not, the man’s a Temple Knight. Evening, gentleman.”

You are used to the monotony of solitude, spending your suns in silence and your nights whispering sweet nothings to the stars and spirits who would listen. Prayer was your constant companion, then. You spent years with the smell of incense clinging to your lungs as voices indistinguishable from your own echoed in the fathomless depths of your mind. Years passed, and you lost the line that divided you from Them. 

You’ve heard others speak of apotheosis as though it is some grand and horrible ritual. You, however, know better. This practice of resurrection — of pulling your frayed edges apart only to weave them anew, erasing the scars and imperfections that made you so beautiful a tapestry — is nothing of the sort.

It begins with a quiet death.

You are a young man when you no longer recognize your own reflection. The eyes that stare back at you when you look into the sacred pools you were bound to are not your own, but they are also no one else’s. A kaleidoscopic shift of color and light belong to an amorphous face, the features too blurry for your mortal mind to parse. Even now, you catch yourself holding your breath when you pass by a mirror.

It’s the night of your bonding when you realize that your voice is no longer your own. The whispers at the back of your mind have bled into the forefront, and when your mother comes to ask if you’re ready for the ceremony, it takes you too long to recognize your own name.

You become people other than yourself. You begin to slip and crumble and break apart, and when only a scarcity of your soul remains, you must choose whether or not you wish to go quietly. It is your destiny to fall.

Unfortunate, then, how easily the red string of fate is cut.

You are older now, living in a small apartment a world away from the specters that once haunted you. You are a father; a doctor; a friend. You are many things, but the heart in your chest is your own, and when you speak, it is with certainty. Admittedly, you pray from time to time, sometimes for the soul of the weathered ronin whose body would receive no burial and sometimes for those who may soon join him. Old habits die hard. 

You’ve learned to afford yourself that much.

I was excited for this year’s FFXIVWrite during the months leading up to it. My goal for ffxivwrite has been to try to get as many prompts in for the day they are released then hit the missed ones over the next year as inspiration hits me. Then work got chaotic and I started working lots of overtime. I didn’t even remember to check for prompts until the 5th or 6th. Work’s still chaotic, but I might have a more stable job lined up in the near future. So I guess I’ll work on my FFXIVWrite20 prompts over the next year. After I finish my missed FFXIVWrite19 prompts. Eh. Please look forward to it.

“Freshen up your coffee, hon?”

The waitress’ words shook Jude out of the daydream he hadn’t realized he’d fallen into. That had a tendency to happen, this time of the year. You’d think he’d be used to it, after all this time, and yet it always caught him by surprise just the same.

“No, thank you.” Jude answered, looking up at the waitress with kind, patient eyes. The waitress had been keeping her eye on his table all morning with the sort of businesslike concern a food service employee might reserve for an out-of-towner with no idea what to order. She’d seen this miqo’te youth come in and sit at a table all by his lonesome, ordering nothing but cup after cup of plain black coffee, and had resolved to save him from his indecision.

She did not recognize who he was, and so she had no way of knowing this, but unfamiliarity with the restaurant’s fare was not the issue giving the miqo’te pause. Jude had in fact been coming to this eatery for longer than the waitress had been alive. He had even personally known the proprietor… But that was years ago, before the proprietor died and the new owner changed the name of the establishment. 

The restaurant hadn’t been called the Drowning Wench for almost twenty years now.

“Can I bring you something else, then? You’ve barely touched your eggs and bacon… Something wrong with it?” The waitress asked, nodding toward Jude’s heavily laden plate.

“No, no, nothing’s wrong with it… Nothing at all.” Jude insisted with another warm smile and a wave of the hand. “I’m, ah… Just a slow eater.”

“At least let me warm it up for you, it must be cold by now.”

“I like cold eggs, if you can believe it.” Jude replied. The waitress smiled as though she thought the miqo’te was pulling her leg. Jude picked up on this and raised his coffee cup in her direction. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Believe me, it’s better than it sounds.” The waitress laughed.

“Well, alright then… I’ll leave you to your cold eggs. Just let me know if I can bring you something hot, okay?” To this, Jude offered a wordless nod that sent the waitress on her way. The excuse he’d given her was a half-truth. He really did like cold eggs, but being a slow eater wasn’t the reason his food had gone untouched. Like the daydream he’d lost himself in earlier, his loss of appetite was just another symptom of the wistfulness that always took him this time of year.

It was his ninety-seventh nameday. That alone didn’t bother him overmuch. It wasn’t even something he would bother to keep track of, if not for the fact that this date on the calendar happened to be shared by his wedding anniversary. This would have been the eighty-ninth.

Slipping back into dreams, Jude thumbed the simple silver band he’d worn for the past eighty-nine years. Enchanted as it was, the inscription it bore was still as legible today as it had been the day he’d first gotten it. The engraving was written in Old Auri, a language that was no longer especially common, though Jude remained fluent. Even if that were not the case, he’d know the inscription by rote, like a memory held deep in his heart:

My Sun, My Azim, My Lion. I will be with you always. From this day, until the end of time.

He could still picture her face in his mind’s eye, clear as a bell. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine Sayoko was here with him. She’d sit next to him, resting her head on his shoulder the way she sometimes did. She’d order fresh juice- not coffee, not this time of morning. And she wouldn’t order a meal of her own, instead satisfying her hunger with a few bites off Jude’s plate. She never ate very much, and even if that were not so, Jude always ordered enough for the both of them anyway. He was always happy to share his plate with her, as she well knew.

He could see it so clearly that it almost felt real… Real enough that he wanted to stay there with her, in that pleasant daydream. But the arrival of his guest, who was presently easing themselves into the chair across from Jude, broke the spell and brought Jude back to reality.

[“I’m glad you came, Martin.”] Jude would say to his guest, speaking in sign language. 

Martin was a miqo’te like Jude, though these days, it was only vaguely clear that this was so. A walking cloud of pink hair, flowers and underbrush, his sibling seemed to drift deeper and deeper into the Twelveswood with each passing year, becoming more wild with every yalm they retreated into the forest. Antlers had begun to sprout where once there had been only miqo’te ears, and atop their head, they wore a crown of razor branches that could only have come from the Thornmarch- a sign of feral royalty, or perhaps something more ominous.

[“I would not miss our nameday.”] They replied, their long, thin fingers moving like brown spiders.

[“I started without you, knew you wouldn’t mind. Would you like to order something? I could call the waitress over.”] Jude asked. Martin shook their head, sending a cascade of leaves fluttering to the ground.

[“Thank you, no. In the free cities, even the water tastes foul. It pains me to be here… Nothing grows in this dreary place.”] They replied with a world-weary sigh. Mismatched green eyes stared out from a mass of pink tangles. [“Are you keeping well, Brother?”]

[“Well enough. I look after the house, check in on the new tenants from time to time… Run my bakery on the weekends… I keep busy.”] Jude replied with a sort of half-shrug. Martin lowered their head and fixed Jude with the kind of searching look that had always unsettled him. Even after ninety-seven years, he had the impression his twin could see right through him. In a way, that was the precise truth.

[“It is good to keep busy… Good to have purpose in life.”] Martin said knowingly. Jude looked down at his coffee, unable to meet his sibling’s eyes. It was quite similar to something his wife used to say, before she passed. At the time, Jude had been fond of suggesting that the two of them retire and become people of leisure, doing nothing but lazing about their cottage reading books and eating sweets.

“You would never be satisfied with that sort of life, my lion,” Sayoko replied, “And for that matter, neither would I.”

“And why not?” Jude asked, grinning. “We’ve worked hard, haven’t we? All those years adventuring to save up and buy a bakery, and now the bakery’s a success! It’s doing well enough that it practically runs itself!”

“Practically.” Sayoko repeated, flicking Jude’s nose lightly. “But you like the work we put into that place every week. Ordering the supplies, kneading the dough, baking the bread-”

“Taste tests…” Jude interrupted, leaning over Sayoko’s shoulder to dip a finger into the mixing bowl she was holding. Before she could stop him, he’d scooped up a bit of chocolate frosting on his finger. The golden-eyed Xaela laughed and grabbed his wrist, bringing his finger to her lips to steal his ill-gotten treat.

“Yes, those too.” She continued. “You like having things to do, Jude. That’s what I mean. We both do. We weren’t made for lives of leisure… We’d just get bored.” To this, Jude’s only immediate reply was wrapping his arms around her waist, sighing happily.

“Nothing about you bores me.” He whispered.

[“Brother.”]

Jude shook his head, the remnants of the dream fading like the last rays of sunlight in late afternoon.

[“You went away again.”] Martin signed.

[“Sorry. It’s this time of year, I suppose I get a little bit nostalgic.”] Jude explained with a sigh. [“I miss her every day, Martin.”]

Martin reached out to place a hand on Jude’s in solidarity before signing their response.

[“I know you do, Brother.”]

[“Couldn’t you… Just do your aether thing to… I don’t know…”] Jude grasped for words he didn’t have. Martin lowered their head again, this time a great air of sadness coming over them.

[“Brother… She has rejoined the Lifestream. No power in this world can bring her back from that. Nor should it.”] Martin spoke with the sort of tired urgency that indicated they had had this conversation before, and Martin was beginning to grow weary of having it. [“ Even if such a thing were within my power… It would not be her. Not really.”]

[“I know.”] Jude replied, his shoulders sagging in defeat. [“I just… I was sort of wondering if there was anything you could do to my aether to help.”]

[“I could take your memories of her… Or make you dream of her every night. But I do not think you would thank me for either of those things.”] Martin answered with a sorrowful shrug.

[“No, I suppose not.”]

There was a pause while Jude chewed a bite of eggs. It tasted like ash in his mouth.

[“You don’t have to stay with the mortals, you know. You could come with me. Back to the Black Shroud. The forest would welcome you.”] Martin said slowly. There was a certain reluctance to their words that suggested they knew what Jude’s answer was going to be. Sure enough, Jude shook his head.

[“I belong with the mortals, my dear sibling. My place is here among them. I know that they are weak, and flawed, and… And they do not live forever.”] He thumbed his ring again. [“But that is why I love them so. Their lives are so brief and fragile… They hold it precious.”]

[“Mortals hold very little precious, Brother, save their hunger for violence. You and I are proof of that.”] Martin sighed, smiling sadly. [“But I admire your faith in them, even if I do not agree.”]

Jude smiled ruefully and raised his coffee cup to his sibling.
“Happy nameday, Martin.”

Martin returned the smile and offered a small nod.

[“Happy nameday, Jude.”]

It was a quiet, dignified sort of moment between the two Allagan nonagenarians… And it only lasted until the sound of approaching clapping reached their ears from the restaurant’s kitchen. The waitstaff was approaching, carrying a large cake and wearing party hats.

It was the nightmare shared by anyone who had ever gone to a restaurant on or around their nameday- the terror of the restaurant staff finding out, and taking the opportunity to sing a nameday song.

Jude’s mismatched eyes shot toward the approaching waitstaff, then back to Martin.

“YOU DID THIS.” He hissed, his voice dark with anger. Martin smiled coyly. They shrugged, pleading innocence. The worst lie of the morning.

And then the singing began.

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