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Z'shakka the ex-nunh had garnered two decades worth of experience when it came to trials and challenges - alas, even that hadn’t been enough to prepare him for the carnage that lied ahead of him.

Not the kind that involved fluffy, white stuffing and cloth, along with a pair of tear-filled eyes that pierced straight into his soul.

“…How?”

The Seeker uttered a single word after a heavy, awkwardly long silence, eyes settled onto the stuffed Dodo toy and its pitiful, mostly decapitated state. As always, his youngest kept his timid silence between the quiet sniffles, but the teary eyes turned away, to accusingly glance towards the girl peeking suspiciously behind the corner. If not for the trembling lip, the son’s frown might’ve been as mighty as his fathers.

“N…’s wasn’t m—‘E didn’t let me play with it!”

And, as always, Z'shakka’s eldest was quick to crumble under her father’s stern eyes. She had always been hot-tempered, the kind that often lead into destruction of some kind - but at least she was quick to be honest about her mistakes. Even if they were caused by siblings’ bickering.

Alas, it didn’t make the victim of such a fight any less headless, and Z'naqi any less distraught by his lost plushy companion. And, even when he had some pride of his cooking skills, Z'shakka had no skills in sewing, big clumsy fingers unable to heal a toy-bird’s neck.

“…Naqi. Remember the kind lady who made you feel better? Let’s see if she can heal Mister Dodo as well.”

5.3 (but probably only spoilers up to post-heavensward), 820 words

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commend

/kəˈmend/

verb

3. entrust someone or something to.

"I—I beg your pardon?"

"Did I stutter, girl? Go! Take him and be out from underfoot!"

L'aiha jumped a little; ever was she easy to startle with Master Matoya's harsh words, despite years now of practice. She simply was not as thick-skinned as Y'shtola, and though Matoya took mercy on her, it only lasted as long as her patience.

The Seeker looked from her to the gentleman beside her. L'aiha didn't know how else to describe the polite, proper toad in front of her, standing on two legs and further supporting his weight with a small, gnarled staff. Every minute or so, his slightly-too-big wizard hat needed adjustment so as to not fall over his face.

"I..." L'aiha still didn't know what to say. She feebly asked Matoya, "A-are you sure? I would not want to take away from your, ah—your staff."

She glanced at the other enchanted amphibians around Matoya's cavernous study. Matoya shook a hand, grumbling. "Neither would I. Twas why I set about creating a new poroggo for this occasion."

"He—he is specially enchanted for me?" L'aiha balked.

"He is right here, you know," Matoya said. "Talking about him as if he were a common toad. Show some respect."

"Oh—" It was obviously the case, yet L'aiha found herself mortified. She promptly bowed to the bipedal amphibian. "F-forgive me my rudeness, Master...?"

"Oh no," the poroggo croaked urgently. "No, no, no! Please, I am but a humble toad and servant. No 'master' required. My name is Froddo."

Froddo bowed in turn, steep and proper—at least until his hat fell off his smooth little head. "Ribbit!" He hurriedly picked it back up.

You had a dream last night. 

If I crawled out from the dirt of my own tomb: what then?

If I stood on the edge of a sea-beaten cliff just to feel the salt spray on my skin: what then?

To feel anything besides the fire, or the ash—the way it clings to my hair and the clothes my father buried me in—or the rot that is fated to become of me; to know freedom by my open eyes and my cold hands. To know him by the sellsword’s coat he left behind on the clothesline, even if the smell of him has been overtaken (like moss atop an undisturbed grave) by wind and smoke.

To trace a finger over the soft bumps of the embroidery thread I used to mend his ripped cuff, and to maybe even say: here is where I put a bit of myself on his sleeve, so that he would always have some of me to touch on his heart. I was nearly as skilled with a needle as I was with a sword.

If I walked halfway across the world I once knew, like he walked halfway across broken earth to find me a home, and I found what is left of him: what then?

If I got to hear my name in his mouth, even if only for the last time—mine or his, it does not matter; only the shape he made of Steorra like I was not just one star in the sky but all of them—: what then?

(Then Ala Mhigo would not be free)

(It would always be too late: too late to stop his hand, too late to stop his heart from opening great and wide and empty for something that cannot fill it)

Dictation: At the most recent instance of my lecture series, a gentleman – of Gridania, I assume, considering his bucolic affect – accused me of ‘broad speculation’ in the construction of my theories on nervous response to stress. Speculation, from the Ilsabardian root spekio, is a cousin of the modern High Garlean speculum, referring to a mirror. Studies recently conducted on the commonly observed similarities between our own Eorzean common tongue and those dialects of Ilsabard have revealed archaic borrowing on both sides, indicative either of trade, conquest, or cross migration.

“…oh. Hmm. I haven’t thought about it in awhile. Not that I don’t like a good book— I like any story someone has to tell. It’s just I haven’t had the time to sit down and take one in. I’ve been busy and you sort of have to have the mind for it, right? It’s far different than listenin’ to someone sing a tale or tell you what they saw. And to be honest, after all these reports I’ve gotta get myself through, it’s difficult findin’ myself wantin’ to read some more. 

I was a luckier child than most to grow up with access to a library and those willin’ to— remind me of my letters, I think. But my favorite book in that whole place was this little thin thing: had a brown cover with lil’ lovely yellow trimmin’ on the borders and the spine. It made it stand out when it was set on the shelf, and likely why I picked it out in the first place. But you had to be careful with it, I remember the second page bein’ real fragile for some reason. You had to be sure not to tear it.

It was a story about a girl and her dog in some far off village set in… augh, I think it was someplace between Thanalan and the Black Shroud? One of the charmin’ bits was it was set out on the border in the middle of seemingly nowhere, so whenever someone visited it was always an adventure. Near the end of the book she started havin’ feelings for the merchant’s son, which was endearin’, but there was a cliff hanger in the end ‘cause her best friend— the, uh, the dog— went missin’. I was devastated, ‘cause the library didn’t have the sequel. Which made sense, it wasn’t a library meant for keepin’ tales like that, it held more important things, but not knowin’ what happened to the dog ate at me, and I wouldn’t stop thinkin’ about it some nights. 

In times like that you just got to make things up, right? I figure in the end, she’d find her dog waitin’ for her by the creek where she first met the merchant’s son and realize that chasin’ her dreams is a worthy pursuit after all. She’d go off and marry him, move into the city like she wanted to and get another dog to give her friend some more company in her old age, and get all the dresses she’d find herself wantin’ when she saw all the other ladies. She’d meet her father, too, I think it was. Or somethin’. I don’t know, that detail wasn’t really brought up again, I don’t know where the author was goin’ with that. Not that they need to, I guess.

Prompt: Oneirophrenia

Word count: 1230

Her grasp on her soul has always been tenuous, even at the best of times, so it’s no surprise that it starts to slip when she’s dying. Or: if there’s any idiot who would still wall-pull while undergoing light corruption-induced organ failure, it’s probably Hanami.

(Gonna slap a tentative content warning on this one for Shadowbringers-typical levels of body horror re: sin eaters and light corruption.)

Idly, Hanami scraped her fingertips across the rough stone of the ground. Hard to tell if the white lines spiderwebbing across her gauntlets were frost or something worse, in the flickering lights from the falling stars. Or if they were real. Maybe just her imagination. Maybe the stars were all in her head, too. It didn’t seem right, for the sky to be collapsing underneath the ocean.

A voice, muffled. She had to strain to hear it over the sound of crackling glass in her horns. “Up you get, lazybones.” Genial, a strong hand under each of her arms, tugging her back to her knees. “No dozing off here. Ryne, a moment, please.”

Was she sleeping? She didn’t think so. Hadn’t slept in—a while. Days, maybe. If she stopped thinking about breathing she started to choke on glowing ichor. Sometimes she could only close her eyes and think about keeping her skin from splitting apart. Hard. Her thoughts slid out of her grip like wet marble.

Every day this city finds new ways to kill me. Today it’s the children screaming their shrill epithets as they pad down the alleys, and the barkers calling me over to squint down at their sun-bleached crafts in the street. They may as well be putting daggers to my ears, impaling my head from both sides like it’s a rotisserie hock and turning the blades, slowly, until whatever’s inside my skull is rendered to a mushy slurry. That’s an ugly way to think, but everything is hideous here. The faces, the architecture, the flora and the fauna. All of it wants me dead.

There’s a dim part of me that acknowledges this is the least charitable color with which to paint a city that could have executed me but didn’t. I ask that you don’t be so quick to judge me for it. Fairness is a hot commodity in my disposition when the sun itself is sending a railway spike down through my pate for a dozen bells a day. It was never like this before. I was a nice man, fair and pragmatic. I was a good friend, a caring brother and son, a conscientious leader of men and beasts alike. Now all I see are grim, grisly faces, and I know that what makes them ugly is the fact that I’m the one looking at them, but that doesn’t make them any less grotesque. It’s the inside coming out, the dead space left behind in my head from an imperfect excision that throbs with passive and impotent malice, projecting itself onto everything I see. It wasn’t always this way. I don’t know who I am anymore.