through the manor window

I thought I'd come back for a prompt or two for #FFxivWrite2023 (though I'm sort of cheating in taking a free day pick to start on).

It rotted flesh but not the mind. He had returned from Dravania towed behind the plume of chocobo feather and the stink of unwashed men of the wilds–trappers from the lowlands where the canopied boughs protected them from skyborne predators. It had struck a chord of terror in her heart to see him this way. He had ever been radiant, brimming with life and promise and the hope of a man who had yet to face any difficulties in life. To call Regnier optimistic would be to undersell his disposition. His heart and mind were bright as Coerthan noon, and yet his return had diminished the flame within his breast and the hope of a family for the Retondeur’s youngest son.

She recalls the gruffness of the men who had returned him to the demesne, the crudeness of them. Regnier’s life was little more than a reward to be earned, his weakened form cast sideways into the hay they’d lain below him, streaks of blood and vomit and shit around him like macabre mummer’s paint. It had felt surreal, some hellish nightmare from which she’d wake to see him smiling, reborn as the man she remembered him as when he’d left a turn ago.

Chirurgeons were called upon in the beginning, back when there was yet hope to cure him of his malady. They puzzled over him by candlelight whispering their suspicions; he would not survive the winter, he would not see another turn, he would not feast on his thirtieth nameday. And yet he had clung to life like the vaporous mist that settled over the demesne’s feeding pond, eerie in how he was present and yet transparent—a husk of a man. 

The affliction was a cruel one. It spurred his bones, fevered his mind on the worst of suns, and by the moon’s cycle, sloughed his skin in great, reddened sores akin to the scale of dragonkind that left cicatrices in their wake. And so his condition remained an anomaly, a gruesome unknown that resided in the estate’s farthest wing, shambling like a ghost of the past that all but Marion had forgotten. 

OC: Genevieve Chastellain

It is easy to feel confident when someone is at your side, to catch you if you fall, to soothe bruised emotion and twine their fingers through your own. But she can no longer afford these luxuries, and the world feels much larger now. She reaches for her favorite blouse, a delicate coral pink that looks feminine, almost childish in its softness. It’s laid at the foot of a bed only she sleeps in now, that unwelcome, yawning emptiness felt beside her when she extinguishes the bedside candle. She stares at it, the pearl buttons that run up its front to the lace-hemmed neck, the trim of the narrow waist, stitches aligned in perfect array. She thinks it would be grand to feel so neat, everything in order.

White stockings are draped over the blouse, then a petticoat of the same color. This order is her realm, a kingdom she reigns over. After everything she knew had disappeared, this remained. She looks into the depths of her wardrobe and she can still smell him among the suits and linens. He’s there, somewhere, if in memory alone, telling her she looks beautiful. 

Shoes are selected next, placed on the floorboards with pointed toes aimed outward toward the bookshelf at the end of the room. She pauses with hands on her hips and wonders if the girl, Sylvie, might like pink herself. Her overcoat is chosen last, placed tidily atop the other garments so its sleeves stretch across the width of the comforter. Her work is finished. 

Prompt #23: Pitch OC: Evilie Voutellievre

Tell a man that his song is grand and he will wear the compliment with pride. He is content. Tell a woman the same and she will ask how she can better herself. ‘Grand’ is not good enough, for we are held to a higher standard. 

She feels the words of her former governess seep into her skin, the flesh beneath, into her lungs that hold the very air that will be made into song. They have shaped her, in some perverse manner, into something abhorrent, monstrous yet beautiful to behold, like conflagration that consumes and ruins, impossible to avert one’s eyes from. She, the flame, the eyes feasting upon her the kindling.

She remembers the evening before her first performance, the discomfort of the director’s hand upon her back as he steers her about the room, crooked and yellowed teeth like birds of prey with carrion in their beaks. Introductions, words of praise, the attention of every Vicomte and Baron upon her like she were a prize that they themselves had made, earned and toiled over for turns. They stake ownership in the eventuality that she will be a commodity to trade in, a name that will be known, and they want this for themselves.

But her song is not for others to claim. The discomfort melts when the curtain rises and it is her and the fuel she consumes, for what blaze can wax without great lungfuls of air and tinder. Their applause, their adoration, all swallowed and made to keep this ever-burning fire stoked, their existence forgotten in the swelling grandiosity of her inwardly turned mind. Does fire have memory? Does it recall the timbers it burns, the footprints of destruction left in its wake? The lives it ruins? 

You were magnificent this evening. Perfection.  

Prompt #19: Turn a Blind Eye OC: Evilie Voutellievre

I wake from a nightmare of crimson rivulets staining porcelain, a scalpel, a face suspended in the dark that remains silent no matter how much I plead and beg for it to answer me. I have many questions, some spoken, others that have never left my tongue and may never be heard. The waking world is far from a nightmare, but the lingering haunt clings to my mind. She is gone when my eyes open, the disarray of her pillow the only trace of her presence when I had drifted into sleep the night before. 

Morning light suits the manor. Its dourness is gone, replaced with the soft inhale, exhale of life that rouses weary bones. I too am changed, remodeled and remade in a different image than before. Like the manor itself more light filters through the windows of my soul, darkened recesses scattered. It is what I wanted all along, is it not, to live a life of my choosing? And I chose her. 

I chose her, and so too do I choose to ignore the obvious. My questions go unasked more often than not. It’s a morbid curiosity, I think, within me, this desire to both know and yet fear the answer. Where have you been? What have you been doing? You can tell me. If an answer was ever truly given I may not know what to do with it, and yet I still desire to know. Would it be so terrible as to shatter the world we’ve made? Reduce the manor we reside in to rubble, like fragile glass we had erected? I think not. Nothing, save something truly terrible, will make me desire the emptiness of not having her at my side. 

But there are times I want to ask more, to dig and uncover whatever truth lies hidden; a maid that was offered work at the manor. A night in Ul’dah that births nightmares when I allow myself to dwell on its terrors. A mention of things not going to plan, things that needed fixing and yet without detail. And so many others. I wonder if a day will come when I no longer worry over these things, either resigned to their presence or perhaps better yet, they no longer occur.

In a way I’m well suited to this life with her, my wife. It was never my place to ask too many questions. I was made to acquiesce in my youth, and now I live no differently even if circumstance dictates a better outcome for me. I avert my eyes, I pretend everything is well, and perhaps that is for the best. 

But I am a curious woman.

Prompt #13: Confluence OC: Evilie Voutellievre

From the sealed letters delivered to the future heir of the Voutellievre name in advance of their birth.

To my sister’s child,

I am of the mind that one should come into the ownership of responsibility with their eyes wide open. My own were shut when the title of Vicomtesse was awarded me, and I endeavor to ensure you are given every advantage I was not. My father, your grandfather, did not share this ideal. I was ill-prepared, perhaps borne from the idea that he would have found a suitable match for me by the time I came of age and I would be far from the halls of the manor and the duties therein. But fate, I have learned, often has other plans for us. 

You will not get to meet your grandfather, nor your grandmother, but I hope you and I will have the chance to form a bond in their stead when you are born. You will have a good mother, and one that will love you in a way she and I were not. But that is a story for when you are older. 

The role you inherit is not an easy one, nor one that you might wish for. There will likely be times you will desire other paths, or to live another life entirely, and for that I am sorry. I know the pain that sits deep in one’s chest at the thought of unfulfilled potential and the yearning for an unbound life. Though this calling has its own rewards as well. You have the power to enact change in this nation, and that is something you and I both might revel in together.

When my time on this star comes to an end my hope is that you see me both as family and a Vicomtesse who gave you the knowledge to not only survive this responsibility, but to bear its weight with dignity and pride. So from your birth until your coming of age I will continue to write these letters to you so that I might share my thoughts. I think, at least selfishly, that they are worth hearing.

With my love,

Prompt #9: Yawn OC: Evilie Voutellievre

She’d tried to stifle it, small as it was, but the telltale stiffening of chorded restraint in her neck had given her away. 

“Is this boring you, Vicomtesse?” He always insisted on referring to her by title when they spoke of business, though in the opera hall she was ever ‘Lady Evilie’. He was a man of codes and rules, most unwritten but some offered for others to abide by. And in that pursuit of oddly borne perfection he had never once missed a single one of her performances. 

“No, of course not, but it’s getting late and I should be returning to the manor soon. Lady Xiaohu is waiting for me.” Her reply was rebuffed by his hand reaching across the table to pour more wine into her glass, the crimson hue growing deeper as it filled. She’d become less fond of the drink in recent moons, the allure of Xiaohu’s skill as a mixologist too easy to rely upon rather than the cellar full of bottles her father had collected in life. 

They sat in silence for a few moments, his hands folding back into his lap. “Your performance last sennight was magnificent, by the way. A marvel. It was clear you enjoyed it. I could see it in your eyes. It was alive. You were alive. Your raison d'être.” He looked at her, unblinking, the intensity of his gaze something she’d grown used to as they had grown closer in work. The compliments he offered were nothing new either, and from most men she might have considered them flirtatious, but Vicomte Larue was not most men.

She nodded her head once, silent in appreciation to his kindness. “But this is not the opera, and in this realm you’re far from the magnificence of the stage,” he continued. Her features soured for a moment, but there were truths in his harsh tutelage, the guidance he offered like that of a mentor to a favored student. She had often wondered why it was he’d taken her under his wing. Certainly his love for her performances hadn’t hurt, but there was always more to him than met the eye. “Vicomte Laferriere has become more difficult to manage, and we need to discuss what we might do to counter his actions.” Of course. She was, despite all her growth, still learning to navigate the strategic battlefield of the meeting table, one Lord pitted against another in matters of politicking and trade. But Laferriere was a bastard, and she was eager to show him she could play as rough as he. 

Strangely she had come to trust the man she shared wine with, born from their mutual distaste of a Lord who had embarrassed her in front of their peers. In the recess of her mind she knew it unwise to trust anyone of Larue’s influence beyond that which was reasonable, but for now she would drink from the cup of his counsel, for that held value and worth. 

“And what do you propose, Vicomte?” She lifted the wine, sipping at it out of politeness more than any desire to taste the sweetened notes. It was a vintage that any sommelier would tout, extravagant beyond measure, but it roiled on her tongue like a perverse promise of trouble to come. 

He reached toward the stack of rolled parchments and scrolls, the largest of which was unfurled in front of them, turned so she could see the inked map that covered its surface. Coerthas, Dravania, routes marked in deep indigo with attention drawn to the borderlands in dotted outline.

It was going to be a long evening. She sipped her wine again and settled back into the chair. 

Prompt 7: Pawn OC: Evilie Voutellievre

Two steps forward, but never back. That is how she sees the world now. And gods, how she had changed in all the years Gregoire had known her since her birth. He remembers the child she was, excuses for every misstep or weakness, never admitting to fault. The Viscount, her father, had made her that way, as much as he could have called himself that title. Gregoire had been there for her first, second, and third recitals but the Viscount had shown himself when it suited him, his attention on the other noblemen and the sound of his own voice, not hers.

Part of him still loathes the man even in death. But the Viscountess is a confident woman now and it fills him with pride. Gone were the shackles of a life not her own, though guilt is a heavy burden on an old heart; so many things he could have done differently. He remembers the day she learned of her first performance at the opera hall, how bright the smile on her face was. And he remembers the way it vanished when she’d learned that she would follow that same performance with a meeting of her father’s arrangement; another nobleman she’d no interest in. 

He thinks of the time she returned home from the ball in tears, dark smudges of makeup running down her cheeks. The sight wasn’t unusual back then, but that time it had been different. There were no reckless dramatics behind the sadness, only hollowness and fear. And in turn he thinks of how the Viscount had told her that no man would want to marry a woman who couldn’t compose herself. There was no comfort in his words, no love from a father to his daughter. It was her duty, he’d said, and Gregoire had never wanted to wrap his hands around the man’s throat more than that moment. 

There are nights where he wonders what she might have achieved had she been happy in her youth, if she’d had a real father, and a mother who had offered her love. But it does little good, with so few turns remaining, to dwell in the past. Let the anger go, old man. She is married now, happy and with a life ahead of her. That is more than you had ever hoped for her. 

Prompt #3: Temper OC: Clairette Ecrivierre

It is the color that tells her, that igneous, molten hue like the steady pulse of a fabled titan’s heart. Long-handled tongs retrieve the metal from embers so sweltering they had long since removed the small hairs of her arms. And then into oil it goes, ichorous and quenching that drinks and drinks of the metal’s lifeblood, acrid smoke filling her lungs as if borne of dormant caldera. 

The mixture is her former master’s, its recipe bequeathed and honored: the oils of animal and vegetation brined in Ishgardian rock salt, one fist of crushed clary sage soaked in lamb’s blood and allowed to cool after steeping. It writes its legacy across steel in darkened brand; armours that ward with words of protection and safeguarding. And once the metal has had its fill it emerges, igniting in the stifle of forge-air. 

She lets the steel rest, momentary respite earned to wipe the sweat from her brow and allow the metal’s heart to renew its silent beating, reborn in gulping lungfuls. The armour is polished, a crepuscular mirror that reflects the blonde of her braid onto its surface, then into the embers once more. Again it is the color that tells her; bronzed and beryl, blue like the veins of Sister Caterine’s hands. The oil drinks the metal’s fever away, healer and midwife of all things rebirthed and unfinished. 

Prompt #2: Bolt OC: Clairette Ecrivierre

She didn’t remember much in the beginning, time passing in half-lucid haze like a repeating fever dream, never quite there but all too real in its own malevolent way. Amidst that cycle of wake, eat, bathe, and the change of bandages was a face with no voice. It flitted in and out of view, silent as the beat of butterfly’s wings lifting her up from the bloodied snow on strands of invisible silk. 

She’d tried to speak to her in the beginning, throat hoarse from screaming so that the words came out as torn parchment with no ink upon them. In time she grew to learn that there was no voice to pair with her smaller caretaker and any speech would go unanswered. That was well enough, for what would they talk of anyway? What could they possibly have in common other than being in the same miserable place, their roles dictating the act to come? A patient and her healer; a sight all too common in a thousand year war. 

There were moments of clarity though, later when the pain had died to an ebbing throb rather than sharp staccato. She didn’t feel any shame at being seen like that, motionless and void of clothing so that the healer could wrap her round in those swaths of linen. The trivialities melted away, as did any memory of what her life before had been like. Routine became commonplace and the sight of the silent woman was the only detail worth recalling. It was a comfort to see the face that had slowly become known to her, each winding loop of the bandage around her hip like the hands of a clock reversing time, carrying her off the front and back home. 

Years later, her life spared at the cost of a limping gait, she’d finally hear the voice of her silent savior, and it sounded as comforting as she'd imagined it.

Prompt #1: Cross OC: Clairette Ecrivierre

She had been a good daughter, and was still all these turns later, though fear forces us to say things we come to regret. Her mother and her father had worried for her, prayed for her safety, and what more could they do for their only remaining child? Yet still she’d yelled at them on the eve of her departure, those words returning to haunt her, ringing in her ears as dragon’s claw rent her flesh. They played again and again in her mind as she lay bleeding into the snow, and the last thing she recalled, her body bent and broken, was calling out for her mother. Yes, she was a good daughter.

But she had survived, in no small part thanks to the efforts of an unlikely healer, and so the words she had regretted had been forgiven; she was offered another chance to see the faces of her mother and father. Now she works the bellows and hammers iron and steel by day. At night she sweeps, makes their meals, sees them to bed. They’re aged now, a privilege offered to few in a nation embroiled in constant war, their usefulness spent and their burdens many. Still she tends to them and will to the last, for she was given a second chance at more than just life–she was given the chance to make her last words to them ones of love.