#catalexis

And where her glances fall, there cities burn

For @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast’s FFXIVWrite 2019. [Title] [AO3 mirror]

Amaurot was far behind him now, and the Convocation with it. Menelaus had heard the reports—so too had they all—but it had not prepared him for the reality. Of all cities, his was the greatest, but he had come across the sea for love of a woman, and found only parched earth and burning spires.

My needle to your north abruptly swerved

For @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast’s FFXIVWrite 2019. [Title] [AO3 mirror]

X’shasi is no scholar, unlearned in matters of aether but for the practical knowledge she’s gleaned. To attune to an aetheryte, though, feels like exchanging some small piece of herself with the crystal. She has strung crumbs of her being across two worlds, aethertrails like tethers leading her back to wherever she cares to go.

returned, to your place of dreaming

For @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast‘s FFXIVWrite 2019. [Title] [AO3 mirror]

You leave the wood and they never tell your story again. Of all the things you could do, that is the transgression that will obliterate you from history. That is the sin that parts you from your family, the one that has been with you since before you were born.

What becomes of them? Of your mate, whom you loved and saw but rarely? What becomes of your murdered son? There are things, too, that you cannot forgive. You cannot forgive the Empire for killing him. You cannot forgive yourself for failing to save him.

You’re gone away, and I’m in desert

For @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast’s FFXIVWrite 2019. [Title] [AO3 mirror]

Already the hand of spring had seized Ala Mhigo by the throat, dragging it onward into the heat which would elsewhere be called “summer.” Beneath a cage of glass, neglected flowers gave up their breath, perfuming the air with petals and stagnation.

Him too. It was exactly as she had said: death waited all around him, unworthy and afraid. He hated her for consigning him to this place, and more still for taking her leave of him thereafter, but to hate her was at least to feel something.

16. Who would be able to spend centuries in misery waiting for the other to be reborn.

The Beloved

It was much easierto find Velodyna Cosmos flowers than it had been when he was young.Young—the thought made him laugh, almost, despite the gravity ofthe day and of his task. Youth was a distant shore that he wouldnever visit again.

He should have died.A hundred times over, he should have died—of wounds; of heartbreak;of age. It was not right that he be in a world without her. But therehe was, laying flowers at a grave whose inscriptions time had erased.

8. Who would stand up at the other’s wedding and say they object.

The Prodigal

What an effort itmust have been, to keep the news of the Lord-Commander’s nuptialsfrom her. A dozen letters she had had from home with no mention, andher twin, too, had been kept by necessity in the dark. Thus she wasfar away at the appointed hour.

Thancred goe Marinus

He remembered her.Even without his inculcated Echo, he remembered her—as theKilntreader. A friend. A confidante. His killer.

She had not becomethat by choice; that much he still recalled. He—not he—had takenher eye in the struggle, and she had lost more since. He could seethat, when he looked. Could see why she made him; why she made himthis. Why she had made herself the Viceroy of Eorzea. The Prince’sbride.

People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die.

— Haruki Murakami

Prompt #28: Echo