dance in flames.

Each day the sun comes to rise high in the sky, and each night as the moon returns to place its gentle kiss softly upon her skin and with it the quiet murmur of every star strung in the veil around it, she reminds herself of the new resolve she has promised upon the ashes of her village in ruins, upon the ashes of all those who burned beneath the rubble and debris, and upon the corpses of her own family buried in untimely graves far more shallow than what they deserved. She promised to avenge them, to pluck ripened revenge into her blood-stained palms until a sea of red flowed from betwixt her fingers in a cascade from those felled by the serrated-edged talons razorsharp at her fingertips. The imperials did not look upon her people, nor the homes they have built for centuries with warmth and love deep in the pit of the hearth, with a lick of compassion, and they did not regard them even as things deserving of life. When she takes her blades upon them, it will be cold, without compassion nor sympathy, nor any care for what lives they led once their bodies have been shed of the shells they call armor.

Even now, with all the moons that have passed her by and through the seasons’ changes, the mark of every river of blood and harrowing cut torn through the bed of earth and stone remains ever present in the forefront of her mind. A punishment, perhaps, for being one of few survivors (if there were any others at all — she certainly did not come across anyone) of such a tragedy, or for not being enough, for not being in her place.

From the day she uttered her first words to the day she could crawl, walk, run, Cherry has been a rebellious spirit. It isn’t to say she rebelled in spite of the life she lived, nor the people in her life or where she lived, but that she lived in ways of her own without care for the opinions of others, finding her own methods to accomplish something in ways she felt best suited her and her goals, even if it went against tradition. It is more efficient, she would say. Or, perhaps easier, more lucrative, or sometimes, even more challenging if she felt something to be insultingly simple. Stubborn, most would call her. A tempest unlike any other whose flames could engulf the sun itself, perhaps even the waters of the sea until they fizzled into nothing. She has always been fiery, larger-than-life, living in her own world whilst everyone lived within. It was the arrogance in her ambitions that kept her farther from her village than she normally should have been on her hunt that eve, and she will regret it for as long as she lives.

She could smell the unmistakable scent of smoke carrying with the wind down her way, and it was not long after that the guttural, piercing screams and screeches of metal and gunfire and explosions shattered the earth and its atmosphere. No matter how fast her legs ran, with all the desperation and panic in her body, they couldn’t carry her fast enough — all was in ruin by the time she made her return. Her legs were frozen in place, feet cemented in the earth — her entire body was petrified into stone. Already the scent of decay hung heavy in the air with the unmistakable odor of burning flesh, leather, and metal.

Villagers around her were still fleeing, and those who remained fought back as valiantly as they could, but their efforts were all for naught. Cherry eventually gathered the strength to move, and thankfully, her family was still alive and attempting to evade the collapsing structures and rings of fires enclosing them within like rats in a cage. Even the men had returned home, and amongst them was her father. As much of a blur as these events were, she’ll never forget them. When she saw her parents, they were fighting together, and she swears she only left for a moment to find her siblings. The next time she saw her parents, they were collapsed on top of one another, bloody and lifeless with soot and the stains of dirt on their skin. She did not want to leave them, not as they were, but she needed to find her siblings. It felt like forever before they were reunited, and she sent them off to safety before running off for her parents’ remains, bringing their bodies to where she left her siblings, one by one. on her final trip back, her sister and brother were lying face down in the muddied river bank, trickles of blood flowing into the water.

In an instant, she’d lost everything.

Deep down, after a year had passed her by, she still blamed herself, even if realistically there was nothing she could have possibly done to prevent the tragedy that befell her village, home, and family. At the very least, perhaps she could have saved her family if she had only been there. Or, perhaps she, too, would have perished in the Garleans’ onslaught upon her home in their bloodthirsty conquest.

It’s in moments of silence, much like this one, where she finds herself pondering the past and feeling awash with inescapable waves of guilt, regret, and agony. These sensations tear throughout her insides, hot and cold and like twisting hands gripping her entrails with icy fingers and tar-coated nails. Her entire heart sinks into the depths of her stomach, her lungs collapse, and she feels the panic settle into the marrow of her bones. 

Cherry embraces chaos so that she is never left alone in silence in order to keep her mind from derailing off its tracks. What others may call peace is her personal hell; she will never allow herself to relax, not in a thousand summers. Her journey across the endless seas was difficult, more arduous than even the trips she’s taken climbing and scouring the most perilous mountains and ravines, simply because she could not trust her own consciousness to not destroy her.

The ship comes to what feels like a sudden, jolting halt as the waves around the vessel lurched while the anchor sinks down towards the seafloor. The smell of the sea is different, here, compared to the scent of the Ruby Sea. It isn’t particularly bad, but — certainly different. Sitting up at long last, the viera peers over the edge of the deck, then stands fully upright when she feels the seabreeze roll in to tousle her deep, burgundy locks filled with as many waves as the churning waters below, kissed with ripples of rich, sunburnt orange. Dark, thick eyelashes turn aflutter as her eyelids lower, and she takes just this brief moment of respite to relish in the fresh air upon her skin. That moment, however, is short-lived when she runs lithe fingers through her hair, and frowns. Already, she feels the salty moisture clinging to her hair and the beads of sweat forming upon her forehead, just above her brow.

If Thanalan was to speak to the rest of Eorzea and its climate, she’s beginning to wonder if journeying west was the best course of action, but it’s far too late, now. The journey from Kugane to Horizon was a long one, monotonous and uneventful, dreadfully silent filled with naught but the sounds of the waves lapping at the hull of boat and the creak of the wheel, the fluttering of the sails when the winds blew in their favor. The crew wasn’t much for chatter, but it wasn’t as though she minded; neither was she.

And as though the journey by sea hadn’t been long enough, another awaited by carriage to take passage to Ul’dah. What met her upon her arrival was nothing like she expected, but truthfully, she didn’t know what she had been expecting. It is vastly different from the home she once knew, devoid of lush forests and hidden oases tucked betwixt the undergrowth lying beneath the canopies of deciduous trees blooming bright in the spring and wilting into a beautiful mural of colors in the autumn, and the great evergreens towering above filling the air with the lingering scent of fresh tidings and crisp air. Here, all she smelled was earth and stone; not that that was a bad thing, mind you. It is simply . . . different.

Her home was one of more tempered climates, though its winters could be something of a feat to survive (it had nothing on Coerthas’s eternal snows, though), and just a few minutes in Thanalan drew glistening beads of sweat to the skin of her face, forcing her to tear off loose threads to tie into a makeshift band for her hair. There is no coin left in her pockets — she had none to begin with. Every piece of gil she had to her name likely melted into a pile of metal wrought in the flames of destruction, just as everything else had. Somehow, some way, Cherry would arise from the ashes and make her way. If not for herself, then for those she had lost, for those who would some day be in need of her hand, or perhaps purely out of spite and bitter vengeance.