Attached to this private letter is, of course, the usual veneer of business reports. I don't think they're of any use. During times of crisis -- or at 'the end of the world' as your father says -- I don't think people will want to purchase fine garments. Well, maybe you would.
And perhaps I should as well? Perhaps if every life on the world is going to be snuffed out, who's to be blamed for enjoying a vice? It's the time to break out the cigars, pour wine, go to a theatre, eat endless cake. I think there's more fulfilling things than such, but life is all about those little joys we pluck away from base survival, no?
What would I do if I believed in the end of days?
I would to ease you from your thorny garden and cherish you as a singular. The moment might sting, but you'd be my treasure. I would lavish you with water and make sure you spend every day kissed by the sun, and I'd sing little stories at night. As the sky winks its final farewell, I would adore you. I would brush my finger across your stem to feel that pulse of life. I would breathe against your petals, and I would take in your everything to be whisked away to our dream.
It's good to have a fantasy to keep you driven, no? I think my sister-in-law's therapist would agree with that. I finally got to meet him recently during work at the tea house. Well -- he spoke at me for a moment. Tall. Mildly aloof. A fine cut for fashion. Long fuzzy ears that fold down over his temples. Viera, obviously. He looks sad, but in a taunting way that says, "you can't make me happy, but I want to see you try". It's attractive, for certain. I think he knows it.
I hope he makes her happy.
Speaking of happiness, it's been hard to convince her to retreat to your family... or I suppose my family's island? I'll never get used to that. I do sort of dread having to be so secretive about us when it comes to your father. Thankfully, I suppose, your mother was quick to catch on to all of this. Menphina's blessed her with your first half-sister and her uncanny ability to sus out any romantic intentions. But could we not be fully public about this? Even something as subtle as wear our bands together for him to notice. I quite like having a job, it keeps my hands busy, and I suspect I'd be doing the same work regardless of station (and regardless of your protests, you silly spud). So I don't mind keeping to the role of maid for as long as we need. But please, think about it? It's the secrecy that eats me.
May we be in one another's company again soon. I know we look up at the same stars, but I want to gaze at them alongside you.
Eternally Yours,
Anonymous Person Who Frankly Wonders Why She Still Needs Anonymity When Your Father Hasn't Looked At A Business Package In Years
P.S. Nanamo ul Namo to bottom-right. I never was great at Plus rules, and I feel weird putting her there, but I think I get a nice chain off that? Please check for me. Apologies, darling, sometimes the random Chaos pull works out for someone else.
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With half-lidded red eyes, Zazamato stares down at his daughter as she retches aetheric white, doubled over on the ground. "This will pass," he says, bare thumb brushing over the sharp edges of an indigo gem he keeps nestled in his palm. Within its translucent purple is the starry nights of the heavens above, filled with the same endless possibilities "You'll get used to it. Your body will adjust. We are Lalafells. We work doubly hard for the benefits others are gifted." He paces, slow footfalls echoing in the tiny stone chamber.
His daughter smiles through the pain. It's a strange thing to see, someone doing everything in their power to put forth that joy, to draw it from the heart despite all the pins drawing blood. Her eyes, red as his, twinkle with commitment. Short half-breaths pump air into her aching lungs as she staggers to her feet, wiping hot sweat and cold condensation both from her brow with a sticky palm. "Right," she starts. "Right!" she concludes. "I just-"
"Fire. One of the most basic expressions of thaumaturgy. Anyone can grasp it." He eyes her reaction. "I'm shocked you can't." Somehow, the girl doesn't flinch. "You've aetheric might to spare. A boundless bastion of capability that should make fire of all things the simplest expression of your energy. Surely you can expend it towards this?"
"I can!" Zazamato's daughter pleads.
"Then prove it."
He sighs, the same tired process beginning for the twenty-second time. One shouldn't take so much effort to surmount the equivalent of a roadside curb for an obstacle. But no. Somehow, his daughter is going to fail to impress him once again. As he focuses more on the gleaming stone clutched in hand, he's gifted secret visions of her body's magic working. It's normally a beautiful thing to watch, to witness natural energy flowing through all living things, to see it ushered towards any purpose. In the aetheric world, the mere flexing of an arm was as beautiful as the grandest magic, all being catalogued as information before spectacle.
Yet somehow his daughter's body manages to be ugly here.
Clogged. It's the best word he can come up for it. Aether burns in her body as any normal mage would command, but it does not breathe out. It cannot exhale, cannot burn. There was a hope that through enough practice -- frankly, enough suffering -- that it would find (or create) a way out of her unusual walls. She'd be better for it. She'd be whole if she could just push past being only his child.
No, though. Attempt twenty-two fails. And as he watches her collapse, the simple truth sets in that twenty-three, twenty-four, and twenty-whatever will fail too. He'd have more luck setting a hound in the same room as a fresh kill and commanding it to starve. His spawn wouldn't suffice for this.
"Enough."
"D-Dad," she groans back at him, swallowing. "Father. It's not-"
"We're done."
He watches the disappointment in her eyes for as long as he can bear, then pushes down the paternal instinct once he feels it tighten a fist so firm his skin might cut on his rock's edges.
"All right," she says, staggering up again. She shoves her pale bangs back, so wet with effort they naturally stick to the top of her head. Well, matching her repeat failures, some traitors fall back down to be as a torn curtain for her brow. "... Tomorrow, then?"
Zazamato turns from her altogether, gaze falling down to the pebble. As he glides it into a pocket, he shakes his head. "Are you busy tomorrow?" his daughter asks. "We can..."
Her words fade into nothing as he walks away.
“Do you think Halone and Nophica are rivals in a, well, more-than-rivals way?”
“Theuchet, I'd expect that from our fellows, but yourself? Come on. You're supposed to be as docile as they come.”
Two younger members of Ishgard's vaunted military body, the temple knights, sit across from one another for a meal. Their chainmail, shiny and new, glistens in the faint flames of nearby lanterns. The aroma of smoked meat joins with well-seasoned vegetables. The faint grinding of silver on stone hums underneath the chorus of voices in the eatery, as one of the pair slides salt from their shared pillar.
“I'm simply stating an errant thought, and I figured you'd be equipped to dispel it. I've met... passionately combative women in the past. Men and more too, of course, but I suppose my mind falls upon one singular person.” Theuchet swallows a well-cut cube of rare meat, garlic butter making the tender flesh sing. “Are we certain they're enemies? They share a pantheon. Would we not be at arms with Gridania if we were to take their rivalry in a seriously bitter fashion?”
“Do you want to go wood wailing?”
“I could. I might.” The man hadn't been to Gridania. He hadn't even left the borders of his native nation. Still, there was an image in his mind of the folks from there. Soft of heart, filled with sage wisdom, and probably carrying a basket predominantly of squash. Why... why squash? “And what if I did?”
“You'd be a shame to your family, of course.” His companion says this with a slight chuckle, elbows on the counter as he leans on his food. Already, the barely-older man's gaze drifts to their server, and he scratches at his stubble.
“Are you going to educate me on shameful conduct, Leoix?”
“You've dogged at my heels since you first signed up for the order. I'm sure you picked up a thing or two.”
“Well, let me turn your question back on you. Would you wed a woodly waif?”
“... I would not marry, Theu.”
“Date? Woo? Pursue?”
“Well, yes, of course.”
“But you wouldn't...”
“No.” Leoix sighs. “There'd be too much trouble for it.”
“But the idea of the trouble, there's something... fun about that, no?” The younger man leans forward, fork idly jabbing at the neck of an asparagus stalk.
“Theu. No. It's not about that.”
“Then what?”
“I like attractive people. I take them into my life for a night. I discard them.”
“So, what if Halone and Nophica feel that way about one another, and theirs is a dance of on-and-off again? And that's why they're rivals? They both entice and shun the other, again and again.”
“They're gods. Holy figures. They don't... I-”
“You're taking my line of thought too quickly. This is just dinner chatter, Leoix.”
“I apologize for taking your blasphemy seriously.”
Theuchet smiles. “Appreciated.”
“Maybe you can ask your family to find you a woodlander so you can stop dodging your other 'courtly duties'.”
“I'd put in a good word for you if I did.”
“Pfeh. A bachelor's life is for me.”
“... Aye. Maybe that's for the best.”
The lads smile at one another, and promptly get back to their food. Mead is slammed, meat is gorged, and the Moon glowers her frustration at them both.
"Cactusflower, does this dress say 'I'm both elegant and a cold-blooded killer?"
So says Yoki Yokiki as she shows off a newly acquired azure gown, swishing it around her knees. It catches the sun's light with a reflective twinkle, glistening with pride. Her boots are soft black affairs, the soles painted a vibrant red. Legs clad in tights, a subdued tone to bridge the gap from paradise to abyss. Here and there are accents of gold and ruby red. She sticks out like a sore thumb.
Cactusflower, chocobo, merely stares at his master. There's no head tilt. There's no 'kweh'. He gave those sounds as a chick before he met the Lalafell, and ceased soon after. He recognizes, because it's impossible not to for a bird, that there is no environment he would not spot her in. There is no practical bend to Yoki, whether in personality or practice. Each day she plays at this new school of magic, she throws herself into the jaws of death, and it's usually him plucking her from them.
Somehow, he wouldn't have it any other way. He'll accept her for all eternity... and the eternity beyond that if he's so lucky.
"Oh, don't be silly," she says, pulling out a pocket mirror to inspect her 'war paint' as she calls it. It's just her usual makeup routine, but with a touch more flare of eyeliner, a bit of glitter on the cheeks. "The point is to be seen. I'm asking if I would be feared, but in a way that says 'I would like to fall into the arms of this striking villainess'.
A villain? This causes his head to tilt.
"It's a character, Cactusflower. I'm working on an identity. It's very in for Blue Mages. I need to convey grace and murderous intent both, preferably with a basic adjective-into-noun name. Like... Murder Grace. Murder Face? No, no, that's stupid. Ugh. Cactusflower!! Help me, please."
Well, he has no intention of coming up with an evil moniker. That goes against his very nature, his beliefs. A dark and brooding 'bo he might be, but it with valor and dignity he serves, not blind obedience. Perhaps she could pull from that, instead?
"I'm hardly a knight or paladin, Cactusflower. I can't really use a name along those lines. Besides, I want to be taken by one, not be one."
Can a savior not be saved themself?
"I've read novels about that sort of thing, where the heroine is somehow simultaneously hyper-competent but also hopeless in ways that break my sense of immersion. The hunt for a persona truly is vexing, isn't it?"
Must it be a persona?
"Must it be a persona?" Yoki pauses now, tapping her index against her chin. "Do I really need to go into an arena with some farcical name? I'm more than just a singular aspect. Do I want to constrain myself to a stage presence? A hero does more beyond a title, and few dictate their own titles."
"Kweh," Cactusflower helps, an ilm more enthused than his norm.
"You're right. We should just go on until someone offers a title."
Cactusflower nods with shallow speed.
"... But it can't hurt to come up with a signature move and phrase first! I'll announce it boldly, and all will know they're to be bested by... by my signature move! Perfect!"
Steam sizzles and rises from Kugane's hot spring waters, casting a fog over eyes and sifting into the mind. There, it occludes worry, pain, doubt, and stress. Its touch is obviously warm, scaldingly so, but in the same way a pressed-upon hug from a trusted friend is. Best to just yield to the good times.
Yoki Yokiki eases into these feelings, a towel wrapped firm around her body, brunette hair pulled up into a purposefully saggy bun. Each shift of her slight body brings little ripples to the waters, tingling her body at its lip, tiny waves sloshing onto her shoulders. Once in a while, she dips down low so that her squinting red eyes can see the spring's horizon. The shimmering light dances on the fluid surface, sparkles as myriad as the evening sky.
Each breath she takes brings her one ilm closer to heaven. She's not too sure what changed in her, but being quiet has been a nice change in her life. Normally she'd feel every urge to go up to the people around her and socialize. Mingle. Bring noise. That's really all it was, wasn't it? The security of sound. Maybe it was a way to drown out her thoughts.
A tastefully sapphire flower floats by on the waters. Yoki coaxes it her way with a foot, and lets the fleeting aroma fill her. The steam of the pool flares her nostrils as that floral scent fills her brain. She's gotten used to fantasizing about someone coming up to her with a bouquet. A suitor arriving to whisk her away from her worries. An anchor for her griefs to weigh against.
Thoughts of romance cross her. Maybe it's worth just waiting for the world to give you flowers. Plant seeds in the mental garden. Water them, love them. Why covet beauty only when taken from another?
She takes a deep suck of air, letting her chest and bully puff out, feeling the pressure against her ribs. Her body ascends from her rocky throne, and she'd drift away were it not for the tether of her hand.
It's going to be a shame when she has to leave this little pocket of paradise. The waking world can be so cruel. But she's content to carry today's joy in her heart, and let it stoke her hearth in the cold of life. When she leaves, she'll be stronger for it. Yes. When she leaves.
...
... That is if she leaves, considering that she's lost track of the day entirely. The only indicator is how flushed red her otherwise fair skin is.
What's another ten minutes of self-love to the timeless?
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Gentle rain should prelude timid times. Melancholy, mirth, mischief, nothing so severe as a storm or as nothing as a clear day. The world itself makes declaration for your mind to wander and be free.
Anything else is a violation of the natural order.
Thus do two sisters do what they do every time they meet one another. They turn the sky black. There's no moon, no stars, no cracks of lightning to break the void. Just black.
Lili had been trying to enjoy her time at her Noscean villa. One of the small perks to marrying Zazamato was having access to his wide array of estates, and this one had become her small heaven. It was an ideal place to wait out the madness striking the rest of the known world, transforming the bereaved into beasts that would devour kin as quickly as claws can take.
Best not to think about such things. Best to just find safety and serenity. The Lalafell would seek joy in the little chores around the home, peppered with long ventures out in the sun, sea breeze blowing her long pale locks. Her husband once described her shining eyes as brilliant as the sea. Water reflects the sky, though, and her sister's surprise visit had brought out the most bleak, vile look she could muster.
"It's worthwhile," her sister says after endless prior platitudes, pacing along behind Lili, "to consider that if my child is ill-content with going to your family's estate, then they should be placed under my protection."
"Your child?" Lili spins on the spot. The identical twins meet eye-to-eye, the mirror broken by the intruder's need for a cane. "Did you raise her? Did you hold her when she cried? Laughed as she did? Did you hold her hand for her first steps? What motherly -- no -- what parental act have you ever committed for her? What makes you think she'd even want to share your company?"
"They are mine by blood, and yours only by Zaza's bizarre want to keep you around after you betrayed him." Her sister drew closer. Lili can't help but notice now her twin's accompaniment in the distance, a pair of linen-clad strongmen. They're far, but she knows from their look how they'd stink. Brine and grog. Dogs were better kept. "You bore his firstborn, true enough. You spurned him for some misbegotten cat from the woods for your second runt. Thus, he picked someone loyal and true to bear his-"
"Shut it," Lili says, jabbing an index. "This marriage was broken by the time I found love elsewhere. I'm not going to shoulder our entire failure just because I'm the one who made a statement."
"The blame has to fall somewhere."
"Twelve, you're tailor-made for him."
"I know. That's why we-."
"What did you come here for, except to antagonize me?"
Her sister takes a slow breath. Ten fingers rap a merry jig on her cane's head, tip pushing hard into the soft earth below. "Well," she starts. "Reminding a shorelocked sea cow how useless she is? I could come here just for that. But no, there's important business. You know the transformations happening elsewhere? The… emotional affliction?"
"Grim way to put it, but yes."
"Then I'll continue the trend. They don't leave bodies, whether their own or their victims. I've seen it. Your husband put out a call to the entire family -- me included, important to his heart as I am -- to retreat to his family's island manor. Pure isolation. Pure… opportunity."
Lili stares into her sister's eyes. Sometimes Lili tries to think back on when they were simple La Noscean children together, and they did smile and play. Adulthood robs people of those skills. The emotions become catalogued, filed away as facts bereft of feeling. She doesn't find humanity in her sibling's eyes. And she could dig as deep as she wants through the annals of her mind to find something to love, but the hate in her hands would shred everything she touched.
"You're serious."
"We're pirate-born, Lili. Not the costumed tarts of the Admiral. We take. You took from Zazamato when you married him." She looks around, smiling ever so slightly. "You're still taking from him now. Or did you pay for this with your shares from twenty-so years ago?"
"It was a call to the whole family. Zaza's a bastard, but I loved him once. My children could be there. The woman you claim your daughter-"
"Child."
"Twelve willing, you will call her by her truth if you're going to talk about my girl."
"I know what I bore."
Lili raises her hand, palm open, fingers splayed so hard the whole arm shakes. Her sister smirks as she realizes the reason for hesitation, her two men drawing closer at the sign of uncoming violence. She opens her mouth, pulling the tiniest breath of victory through barely pursed lips. "I'm gla-"
Lili strikes true anyway.
"I'm done with you," Lili says, her sister still taking in the sting, learning that a properly received slap is a whole-body experience. "I'm done with him too. You're right. I'm done with this house. I'm done with this entire family drama. I will not be his scapegoat. I won't be your… your accomplice to murder. There isn't enough gil in the world for me to put up with this anymore." With footfalls strong enough to crack stone, she marches sidelong enough to point at her sister's accomplices. "You come closer, I swear I'll be a saint of Halone when I'm done with you."
Her attention shifts back to her sibling. "This is ending. If there's anything to be gained from a divorce, I'll give you whatever it takes to get you out of my life. Out of Yoki's life. Do you understand?" The air in her chest is hot enough a dragon would be put to shame. Those breaths come in shakes and rumbles. There's no quivering to be done here.
Lili's twin, rubbing her cheek after retrieving her cane, slowly retreats to her guards once she sees her opportunity. She nods. "Of course," she starts. She spits the pain out between the pair of sisters. "Do as you will." The two lock eyes for long enough that the guards start to shift, unsure if they should be looking at their employer or elsewhere. "I wish you luck."
When the two finally split, the true daughter of the sea between them looks up to the clouds above, and she smiles. "Fifty percent of a divorce? Lili. You really are shore-brained." A breath. "Pirates don't loot half a ship and leave the rest. No."
She giggles. "They take all they can and sink whatever's left."
Zazamato Gogomato, inheritor of the Gogomato fortune, sits quiet in his study. His son had recently retired for the evening, eager to sleep until the End of Days, well, ended. If only the young Totolili saw what his father did. He would know that doom was coming. Beyond mortal vision, the aetheric hues of the world, once so beautiful and pure in their information, were tainted by... something. Zaza imagines that if he had unlimited time, he'd decipher... something about this fog of horror that occludes reason. No, worse than a fog. It's a predator veiled in want, waiting for the moment Zaza lets his mind drift enough towards questioning before pouncing with the answer of demise.
What cruelty, to force me to still my thoughts. Perhaps I deserve this.
There hadn't been much point in pursuing life. The end was coming. His children were relatively estranged. His wife, in the headstone fashion he loved, went off to relax her own way. His sister-in-law... well. Best not to dwell on that.
What a horrible, spiteful mistake.
He turns to look at his father's portrait, bold and imperial, perched high within this chamber. The late Gogomato's smile shone as keenly as his blades. They never got along. The shy, curious son who pondered too deeply could never relate to a man who thrust his heart into the face of all who crossed his path. Zaza would never be that man.
“... But I am you, aren't I?” he asks the effigy of his progenitor.
His connections are mirrors, even if the reasons are wrong. His children want to be as him, but cannot. His partners are left broken behind him. The unifying reason, as it was for Zaza's father, is the masculine element. That need to be superior, and to constantly march forward, even if others are discarded.
Is it worth it to shine so brilliantly if it means snuffing other lights?
His hand strikes barren his table, sending book upon book tumbling to the ground, worn pages creasing in a way that his inner archivist would do the same to his neck if it had hands. But he silences it. No. In this moment, he must finally raise a voice silenced too long, chained within his heart. The voice of the father. The husband. The mortal soul. That which simply loves.
A free parchment is ripped from his drawer. A quill stabs into pot with the jut of a dagger. It's here that his motion hesitates. Not for fear of what he is to pen – for what fear is there when you're certain the heavens or hells will claim you soon – but for the wondering of where to start.
How many have I hurt? How much reconciliation can I yet offer?
The beginning, then. The first.
He thinks of her. Kikiyo. His first love. The woman who he studied with, adventured with, and plunged into the truth of the universe with. Were he not so focused on knowledge, he could have seen her, seen her suffering, prevented it all from turning so, so terribly. But no, don't dwell on those things, Zazamato. This is not your time for self-pitying. This is your time for acknowledging.
I took his arm, and he took my world. Gods, it was supposed to just be a friendly 'haha' thing, not... not this. It was a friends' outing to a bar, not a date, not even that awkward prelude date to a first real date. Out mutuals, waiting for two unwitting lovebirds to develop a single brain cell, would twist their heads sideways trying to figure out how the burning in my chest could come after what was, no subtext, just hanging out.
Maybe that's what made it good, though?
My ears and tail twitch as I keep my hold on him, sepia underscoring his steely sky in the crude painting we're drafting. Maybe at first I was trying to think of how to keep my nails from digging into his skin, but at this stage, I'm thinking too much about every individual ridge of my thumbprints are painting a tiny, indecipherable message onto his body. I measure the exact distance friends can keep their bodies from one another before one needs to back down, but I can't keep the count. Every time we brush close to one another, it scrambles any semblance of math from me, sends me careening from a well-educated scholar into the more primitive thoughts drifting downwards.
I wish I could see his eyes from down here. For starters, trying to look up and stare, see his thoughts reflected in that tiny dance people do with their gazes, would be too much. But a metal visor prevents even that invasion. I keep my grip on him from tightening, my fingers tense from their want to rip apart that mask, throw him to the ground, and stare into his soul until I've drank my fill. And then once I've taken that barrier down, well, what's to stop me from stripping oth-.
My cheeks burn. Does he feel it? I try to think of facts, anything really, to bind me back to reality. The Goblet streets are lit only by the evening sky and sporadic streetlamp. Sounds beyond our footfalls drift in from last words loud enough to drift from homes. Maybe there's an argument I can zero in on, something to cut the fog of the heart and let the shield of cynicism make its stand.
… Does it need to, though?
Does this need to be ruined by that urge? It's just anxiety, right? Worry that, for some strange reason, this man would turn out like the other man I had to drag out of my heart and lock up after. This one isn't going to use me. He's going to say 'good night' to me once he gets me home, and turn in for himself. That's the kind of guy he is. So why am I worrying that he's suddenly going to be the worst thing that'll happen to me? That suddenly I'll just be a dumb teen again, and I'll just 'okay' when he makes me the impact of his calamity. Where will my spine go? Turned to putty the moment his fingers trace down my back, sending it arching from just the touch of his fingernails? When he-
T'orii, stop that. Come on. He's taking you to your apartment. You have a roommate. Nothing is happening.
… But what if something did happen?
Yeah, sure. I can allow it. I'd be the one touching, though. He'd be, I don't know, just there. A body. My index would be much less kind when it traces, claw cutting lines in the thin fabrics of his wear, giving me one morsel after another. When my hands are done with this shaming of his preening, they'd seep into his clothes, feeling his waiting skin underneath. I'll find every spot of his body that makes his soul stand at attention, and squeeze. I would knead him into being mine. I'm not being his this time – well... not his.
Some other guy's.
You know, an important other guy's.
.. One who's not important anymore.
He can't be.
Where was I?
Oh, fuck, my tail. It's swishing so fast I'll be the second death of anyone in an urn on an unfortunately waist-high table. Yeah, that's it, think of dead relatives, that's a buzzkill. Gods, did he notice? Did my tail hit his? Like, ten times? Twenty? I can still feel the soreness in the base of my back from just how hard it was working, but every time I've touched him, it was like falling into clouds. How does he even feel? Is this too much? It seems it. He's walking like it's any other day of the week. I need to know. If I opened his chest, how would his heart beat?
“Hey, Vahri'a?” It's the first thing I've said since taking him. It's the last thing I say too, the need for a question breaking before the realization of 'oh fuck, I asked a question'. I answer it, by reaching up to – I think gently – pluck that damn visor off his face and put it over my own.
