#mimble-sparklepudding

"Oh, Ariane, it's been far too long! I can't believe this is the first time I've seen your house! And what's all this I hear about an engagement?" "Come in for tea and I'll tell you all about it!"

Lyse and Ariane have a rocky start in ARR and Heavensward and don't really bond until Lyse takes off her mask, but after that they become close friends during Stormblood. Since then their work has largely kept them apart--but that only make the chance to visit one another again all the more joyful.

A friendship-themed shot for @mimble-sparklepudding! Happy birthday! I hope your day is filled with joy.

Bonus:

Happy (belated) birthday, @mimble-sparklepudding ! You put so much out into our fandom, it's only fair to do something for you in return. :D

The tricky part was, of course, choosing which friends to pose Drakyr with. Given the Warrior of Light's travels, she's made quite a few, to say the least! Some make cold places feel that much warmer...

While others keep her skills honed...

And then there's one friendship that's...complicated...

But what they all amount to is this: for all Drakyr's strength, she wouldn't have made it as far as she did without them. She loves them dearly. After all, friendship is a form of love - no lesser or weaker than romance or family.

Original question list here!

Thanks fr the question that gives me a lot to think of, because usually I don't do much planning while creating a story, especially a longer one :D My brain gives me a few fixed points in the story's timeline and then I have to get the characters and the plot from point A to point B to point C in a way that makes sense. The plot may stay relatively the same as I first imagined, but its tone can change. Or the characters' feelings and motivations and relationships.

Like this one loser from the Broken Mirrors (an original story I've been weaving for years, but on paper it's still near the beginning orz) that one loser was so wary of the young heroine's magic that he kept watching her closely until his fear turned into a crush, and now he follows her everywhere. And she was supposed to ignore him, but then had a one night stand with him all of sudden, and kind of took advantage of his feelings, and now they hardly even talk to each other, and at the end they may hate each other and break the kingdom again. I don't know. Or she won't survive and he'll mourn her. That's possible too.

My mind seems to work like a choose your own adventure game, except it's the characters who get to choose, while I'm just sitting there with popcorn.

And fanfic-wise, the story of the Thanalan Tinies tends to surprise me whenever Arianna jumps in and bends the canon a little :D Like when I was going through Shadowbringers and thinking about the bad future, and out of the blue I had a vision of Arianna sticking with the Ironworks after Helvi's death, like "you guys do your work rewriting history, while I'm gonna keep you out of danger". And here I am, scratching my head, like, does she even know them in the present??? And she says, "I don't trust machines," and they say, "Great, then become our test pilot and make sure they're trustworthy". Or that time when she joined the Crystal Braves and for quite a while it was hard to figure out which side she was really on. Fun times :D

Took my mutual, @mimble-sparklepudding 's tag challenge ma bob! It took me a bit, as today was not a fun health day hehhhh.... BUT! I have the link, in case y'all wanna try!! Here's Mimble's post's link! Thanks for tagging me Mimble - you are a sweetie!!

MIMBLE! I am so sorry this took me so long to answer! I think I finally have something to share for this prompt tho! Tumblr will absolutely nuke it from orbit both in terms of flagging it and destroying the lighting though. v.v Throwing a quick edit onto this to say that it looks like bluesky respects my lighting and edits at least so if you want to see what they should look like link here!