veraltwin | Entries tagged with memshare

Eight-thousand, eight-hundred and seventy-two malms. That's how far beneath the surface you are, according to the instruments you've borrowed for your excursion, and you step out into the main bridge of what remains of the ruins of Dalamud to find a massive husk of a dragon in the midst of regenerating. Gods, he's regenerated so much since the last you were here, and you steel yourself because he cannot be permitted to be reborn, no matter what that means you must do.

You step toward the control panel so that you can shut it down--but before you get any further than a handful of steps, a figure steps out of the air in front of you, stopping you in your tracks.

"Grandfather?"

No. Your grandsire is dead, having sacrificed himself five years ago to save Eorzea. You know this to be true--you were taking your turn at the lens of the telescope at the Studium when Dalamud was shattered, led by your grandsire and the combined forces of the continent. This man before you is but a twisted memory of who he once was, his mind twisted by his proximity to the dragon and become the primal's thrall.

"You were foolish to disregard my warning, child. Are you so convinced of your own righteousness?"

His words cut in a way they never would have when he was alive. Your grandfather has always been proud of everything you are--he has never begrudged you your emotions, strong as they are, nor your inability to measure them. Instead, he was proud of that, proud of how strongly you believed in every cause you took up. It hurts to have this thrown back at you, and you find you can't summon up the words to answer.

But Alphinaud is behind you, and he steps in to respond when you cannot.

Your memory is less clear here, an amalgamation of knowledge and emotion and vision: The dragons of Meracydia, summoning Bahamut to save them. Your grandsire, summoning Eorzea's Twelve in a similar gamble. The tirade of words that cannot be your grandfather's, because they run so contrary to everything he's believed.

He cuts you again: "Even you, twins whose veins run with the same blood, struggle to fathom each other's reasoning. You hide your differing agendas behind the convenient banner of Eorzea's salvation. ...And though I hoped they might bring you closer, 'twould seem that the twin grimoires I bestowed upon you were a wasted gesture." You look away, unable to respond for the lump in your throat at his reproach, but Alphinaud steps forward once more.

"Tell me--do you champion the cause of dragons because Bahamut compels you as his thrall? Or is it because you yourself have transcended the limits of man's existence?"

Your head whips toward your brother--no. Surely he can't mean--

Light begins to glow blue around your grandsire, and an unpleasant smile comes to his face. "Ah, so the possibility did not escape your notice? What I prayed for, and what I have become... these are the keys that unlock the truth behind Eorzea's rebirth. If you would have them, then you must needs take them by force. Come, rend this divine form asunder and claim your answers!"

Emotion sweeps you as he transforms, becomes something more than man--becomes Phoenix, his plumage glowing blue and deep red as he sweeps down in front of you. First you'd thought him dead--next enthralled, a mindless slave to Bahamut--but now he is become a primal? Your heart hurts, that he is become that which he worked so hard to prevent; that after all his work to protect the land he is something that would drain it of its life.

"'Tis difficult, I know," Alphinaud says, turning to meet your eyes. "But you must accept it: That entity is no phantom or impostor--it is our beloved grandsire!"

Your heart is shattering, but you know the truth of his words. Steeling yourself anew to what is about to happen, you turn back to the Warrior of Light--your friend.

Your grandfather must be slain. The three of you must do it together.

-0:40-1:20; 4:30-7:20-

You're standing in the Inn at Journey's Head, but unlike the last time you were here, your heart feels light. What you seek to do today has the potential to change so many lives, to save those not only here in the First but in your own world too. If you can truly master the magicks that Beq Lugg has been teaching you... how many lives will be saved from senseless death?

Your first task is to sculpt a porxie, the shape for the familiar to take. Art has never been your finest pursuit, but you're determined to see this through, to do the best you can and when you've completed your work...

Well. You don't need your brother's laughter to tell you how bad your sculpting attempt has proven. "Yes, yes, I'm not artist. Very funny!" you snap at him, arms folded self-consciously. Certainly he could have done better; Alphinaud took his art very seriously when you both studied at the Studium, but this must needs come from your own hands.

Thankfully, your words have the desired effect. Alphinaud schools his face, very carefully looking away from you and your sculpture. Beq Lugg beside you bids you pay no mind, which would be helpful if their next words weren't to describe your work as "a grotesque parody of reality."

"You're not helping," you grumble, though you feel your frustration transitioning into what is almost a pout. But they continue speaking, assuring you that the quality of your sculpture isn't what matters so long as you can believe it to have a porxie's shape in your mind's eye.

Belief is a little easier to come by. At Beq Lugg's urging, you close your eyes take a deep breath, holding both hands out before you and touching the reserves of aether that flow through your body. As you speak the words of the incantation, you let it flow down your arms, focusing on your goal with every fiber of your being as you painstakingly fill the porxie sculpture with your aether.

"With flesh of clay I bid thee rise
On wings of dreams to touch the skies.
What once was idle fantasy
I call forth to reality."

The aether you've infused into the clay comes to its full saturation, and the glow that surrounded your hands as you worked grows to a blinding light. From the light there's a burst of air, and when everything clears the clay you'd so carefully turned and prepared and molded is gone--and in its place is a living, breathing porxie. It bounds up into the air, spiraling back down to eye-level before beginning to hover, flapping its ears to stay aloft.

You've done it--this is but the first step to save those who might be lost, but it's the most important step of them all. You're nearly giddy with the rush of magic and promise; if this works, this will change everything.

-21:18 - 24:15-

You're standing in a land of bright colors and rainbows, the sky a sea of light that undulates and shifts. Instinctively, you know that this is Il Mheg, the kingdom of fae. It's a beautiful place, despite the way the light in the sky never gives way to night, despite how the light hangs like a ceiling over everything with its silent promise that one day, this kingdom will be swallowed by light as well. But you have little time to pay attention to your surroundings, because right now you're staring at a squadron of men in purple uniforms, led by an old man you know to be a fierce, powerful fighter. Can you beat him without the Warrior of Light--no, of Darkness--beside you? You aren't sure, but you have the pixies of Il Mheg on your side, and you, your brother, and the others just need to hold them off long enough...

He's hunting for you. You're all of you invisible, warded by the pixies, but somehow--somehow--he reaches out and grabs one of them from the air, squeezing them tight. You know it in your soul that he won't hesitate to kill this pixie in order to force your hand, and you grit your teeth hard as you watch Alphinaud, Urianger, and Minfilia stepping out to meet him, their bodies becoming visible as the spell is dropped.

He's here for Minfilia. He's here to stop the Warrior of Darkness from returning the night sky to Il Mheg. He wants to halt everything you and your friends are trying to accomplish, and no matter what you do you cannot let him win.

"We'll free them together," Thancred whispers in your ear. "Follow my lead."

"No," you disagree--you're their first line of offense, a quick lead to surprise your foes while the others make ready to fight. Thancred is strength, the force behind his gunblade heavy and distracting. While both of you can start a fight, you can take him by surprise. "Follow my lead. Unshield me!" you hiss to the pixie beside you both, and you run.

The enchantment unfolds as you sprint toward Ranjit, pink smoke puffing around you. You thrust your crystal forward, seizing your aether and slinging yourself after it, the combined power sending what would be a controlled lunge into a sliding one--intentional, as he twists around your blade; your momentum carries you safely past and he cannot counterattack without leaving himself blind. Perhaps he might try to, but Thancred has followed you; he bursts out of the sky with his gunblade high and Ranjit has to let go of the pixie finally to stop him. But this wasn't a fight either of you intended to win; Thancred kicks away from him while you use your aether to leap backward, blade and crystal held high as you back the the last few paces to join the others.

Thancred and Ranjit exchange words--the two of them bickering over Minfilia, as though she shouldn't be allowed to make her own choices and choose her own destiny!--but it's you who notices it first.

"Look--the sky!"

You step out of your stance as the sky begins to flicker, the everlasting light beginning to twist and roil as though an entire day's sky is passing within seconds. It dissipates before you all, and in the distance the wings of Lyhe Ghiah are glowing, luminescent in the new darkness that sweeps the land.

"They've done it!" Alphinaud, of course, telling you all what you already know but projecting his voice to ensure the Eulmorans know what they're witnessing. "The Warrior of Darkness has triumphed!"

For a moment, it seems as though the Eulmorans won't be swayed. But as they make ready to attack... chaos unfolds.

You've spent more time than you've cared to with the pixies here; you know their penchant for collecting friends. But for once you're not the one that has to worry about the pixies of Lydha Lran, the Fuath of Dohn Mheg, the Nu Mou of Pla Enni--no, their chosen playmates are the Eulmorans, and they're turned into shrubberies, dragged into the depths to drown, and dangled midair by joyous fae.

And in the middle of it all, you spy them flying from the castle: Your friend on the back of an amaro, with a pixie of enormous size beside them. It looks like a pixie you met earlier, but you know from what the fae have said who this must be.

The fae folk of Il Mheg have a new King.

-3:13:02 - 3:17:40-

By the time you come out of the mines, it's already over.

You know what happened while you were down in the mines though; you've seen it thrice now and it's magical--the sky, a curtain of light that undulates gently, the burning everlasting day that has plagued this land for a century. The sudden burst of light from your friend's hand, purer white than the yellow of the everlasting day. The way it pulses upward, bright and burning and breaking through that sky finally, ripping the heavens open so that beyond in the distance you might see the night sky full of stars. You can visualize the way the curtains parted, light trailing up into the newly revealed sky like an aurora of their own, beautiful in that one moment for their horrifying truth.

For a moment, the heavens looking down on the First, their glory revealed as the curtains of light are furled.

And then the curtains begin to fade away, the light dissipating without the presence of a Lightwarden to anchor it to the realm.

You've seen it before, and you'll see it again. Climbing from Malikah's Well, you feel no sadness as you look up to the night skies of Amh Araeng--only peace. For the first time you can think of her, the blonde woman from the Inn at Journey's Head, and your heart only remembers; it doesn't ache with sudden grief at remembering her death beneath these blazing skies only a scant few weeks before. You look at the night sky and your heart is full; you only wish she could be here to see it too.

We'll save this broken world yet, Tesleen. You see if we don't...

You stand in a fantastic place--a terrifying place. The sky above you is black and busy with stars, but flaming comets streaking from the heavens take the serenity from their softly glowing light. The ground beneath your feet is stable--perhaps--but there's only so much of it; to all four sides there is nothing but an endless abyss, the emptiness of space between this small land you stand on and the planet's surfce malms below. Its curve glows blue in the blackness of space, a breathtaking sight if the world were not in the midst of its own destruction, fires burning so tall and so bright that you can see how they ravage the land even from space.

These are the Final Days. This is the death of Amaurot.

A man steps out of a portal, seemingly displeased that you're still here--that you're still alive. He sweeps his arm across his body, an almost idle motion, and a gust of darkness bursts forth from him, so potent it seems to suck the light out of the very air around it. You bring your arms up to protect yourself, brace and lower your center of gravity--it makes no difference. You withstand it for a moment, but it's too much; you're sent tumbling backward and for an instant, your entire world goes dark, body shutting down after being flooded with pure aether.

Your eyes blink open a moment later. You're lying on the ground, Alphinaud's unconscious body almost close enough to touch. But Emet-Selch is still speaking, his voice as calm as if he'd done nothing more than swat a bug from the air. It sends a rage coursing through your veins, especially as he continues; he thinks that if he were to bring his full strength to bear, you would all be as leaves in the wind!

And perhaps he's right. Emet-Selch is far more powerful than he has any right to be, able to do things no man should be able to do. He's an Ascian, an ancient being, and he's had thousands of years to watch over mankind. Perhaps you are as gnats to him.

But even so, who is he to decide your world and all its peoples are so meaningless?!

You've dragged yourself to your knees, and now you press up from the ground, putting every single ounce of your fury into your legs as you explode out of your kneel and sprint toward him, rapier at the ready and crystal floating above your free hand. With a shout you lunge, and the tip of your blade sinks into a sudden field that shines around him--good, that he's afraid to feel the force of your blade! His barrier threatens to force you back, but you only grunt and lean into your lunge a little further, determined to pierce through.

Mayhap you are as a leaf to him. Mayhap you are weak.

"Our worlds may not live up to your lofty standards..."

But you'll be damned if you give up and fall before him! You'll fight, fight until your dying breath, because these worlds are beautiful even as they are wretched and you, like your grandsire before you, would give all that you are to see them endure. Your arm shakes with the power of his magic, and you push even harder to counter its charge.

"But they are our worlds! Our homes! Full of life and love and hope!"

The barrier finally repels you, but you're prepared for that inevitability. You leap back as your rapier falters, landing in a crouch and continuing without breaking stride.

"And we won't stand by and let you destroy them!"

You lunge again, this time attacking his barrier with a barrage of slashing cuts. Even if you can't get through, you'll do as much as you can--you'll force him to use his power to counter, to protect, so that those who come after you won't face an Emet-Selch at full strength. You've thrown yourself at him knowing you wouldn't win, knowing your life would be the forfeit, but what else is there to do when so much is at stake? You've found your place within the Scions here, the first offensive, your rapier's blade swift and precise and forcing your enemies to quickly shift to defense while your friends draw on the magicks that each of them wield. And even they may fall, their powers exhausted in the face of the Ascian's millennia, but even so--

Even so, you have faith in the Warrior of Light. For what you've begun, the others will continue--and the Warrior will finish it. They'll wipe Emet-Selch's stinking, smirking face from the fabric of this reality and you pray you'll be alive to see it.

Emet-Selch's face twists into irritation. He raises his hand in the same motion as he initially had.

But this time when the magic strikes, its entire might is focused on you.

You're knocked from your feet and feel the air rushing by you; you've no sense left of your body in space and so you don't know how far you've been thrown before you land, hard and limp as your rapier strikes the ground behind you--

But you don't know that part. As your body strikes the ground, the wind knocked out of you, your entire world goes black.

-x-

Your heart hurts.

You've felt this pain before, but not this potent, not this painful since word of your grandsire's sacrifice reached you back in Sharlayan. Then was bad enough, but this might be worse, because you're standing here before the Warrior of Light with no idea what you can do to help.

You've lived in the First for a year now--you're familiar with the sin eaters, the Lightwardens, the way in which the light they release can never be destroyed--only contained. You have an all-too-intimate familiarity with how a man becomes a sin eater; you've seen it happen before your very eyes, your friend turned because of just a hint of light forcibly placed within her. And yet, you've stood by this entire time and watched as the Warrior of Li--no, the Warrior of Darkness here, bringing night back to a world trapped in light--absorbed every bit of that light... and yet, you'd thought that they would prevail.

This is your friend, one of your best friends, one of those you care about most in the world. The Warrior is as important to you as Alphinaud and you'd be just as lost without them by your side. And now they're turning into a sin eater right before your eyes, their corruption held in check only by Ryne's magic.

And yet, Ryne is claiming that together you'll find a way to cure them of it, that your friend ought not to make one final decision for themselves while they still have the dignity to do so. No, she's promising--as if that promise won't immediately be broken, as if your friend won't be lost to your very eyes, as if some miracle will occur and suddenly 100 years of the domination of light will suddenly give up just because you wish to save a loved one--

"How can you make promises?!" you snap. "We don't even know where to start!"

You can't look at them--any of them--you're the one who should know the most about this, having remained at the Inn at Journey's Head for nearly a year. But you've spent a year there watching patients poisoned before they finally turned, shunned by the world, written off once their aether was unbalanced. How can you do what a full century of study has yet to achieve?!

"Alisaie, please." Alphinaud's voice comes from behind you, lightly scolding. "You know Ryne was only trying to help."

He understands, you know, but he's able to bury his sadness beneath a calm exterior, something you've never been able to do. You don't know how he can bear it; is he so numb to the pain that aches through every ilm of your body?

"Of course I know!" you cry, your hands clenching into fists at your side. "I know only too well! But making promises you have no way of keeping is not a kindness--it's a lie, plain and simple! We've all searched high and low for an answer!" Your voice is breaking now, breaking with the sheer pain of admitting your failure. "And every one of us came back empty-handed!"

With a struggle, you force your voice even again, pushing on: "I am not about to stand in their way now--not after failing them in their hour of need! No, the least we can do is..."

The tears that have been threatening finally spill over, dropping to the stones below. You can't finish your sentence; you don't have control of your voice any more. All you can do is clench your fists harder, trying not to let the noise of your sobs escape you because crying is bad enough but others knowing you're crying is worse, the pain in your heart threatening to break it clean in two with how damned helpless you feel when it comes to protecting one of the people that matters most.

After a moment, you hear Alphinaud's voice: "...We will go with you as well."

If this is to be the end of your friend, it will be on their terms. And you'll stay with them until the end.

-x-

There's a terror in your entire being as you run, your boots wanting to sink into the packed dirt and dust, the sky an unforgiving curtain of light beating down from above. You pay it no mind, though you know its presence dooms the region to an eventual death, because all of your attention is focused on one boy... and the angel standing before him.

The eater raises its blade to strike--you're too far away; you won't make it in time; you can't protect him like you've sworn to yourself you would do--but before it can strike the final blow, a young blonde woman comes out of nowhere, leaping and slashing through the eater's wing and saving the boy Halric for now.

Thank the Twelve. She's a wonder, Tesleen, and you can't help the warmth in your heart as she goes straight for Halric to pull him away. You're lucky to have met her--

But then there's a sword piercing her from behind, and suddenly everything's gone so horribly, terribly wrong as she speaks her last (no, not Tesleen, not her, not now) and she screams.

Oh, gods, she screams. That scream is written into the fabric of your mind in an instant, unable to ever be forgotten, as her body is seared from the inside out by pure light, dropping her to all fours and vomiting it up like blood, looking up one last time as her eyes glass over white and tears of light fall, coating her cheeks in glistening marble skin. You clap your hands to your mouth, horror like bile in the back of your throat as she disappears into a cocoon of white feathers.

In spite of yourself you break into a sprint--you can't stop it, but this can't be happening to Tesleen. You've been by her side for months now, sharing meals and smiles, helping her with duties around the Inn. You'd thought...

No... no, no, no, no, no--!

Your voice breaks as she emerges from her stasis, no longer a woman but an eater, twisted and wrong in every way, her newly feathered wings spreading wide and white behind her. Her cheeks are patterned by the streaks of her tears, and as the sin eater who changed--who murdered--her flaps away, she flaps her own wings, boosting unsteadily into the air in fledgling flight. But her face turns toward you, and you would swear that even though her brown eyes have gone, replaced by voids of black that will hold no soul forevermore, she sees you.

"Forgive me... Alisaie..."

And she's flying after the sin eater, called by his light, as you crumple to your knees in the deserts of Amh Araeng and sob.

-x-

It's been a slow day at the Inn at Journey's Head, the sky above a living, shifting curtain of light that never gives way to darkness. That's a blessing; active days are sometimes full of heartbreak and worry, but today you've only slain a couple of lesser sin eaters and the day has been peaceful.

But then you notice a few of the caretakers clustered together by the fire, and you feel the dread rise in your heart. Their drawn faces can only mean one thing, and it never gets easier to bear. It was torture the first time you saw it, and while you've grown accustomed to it now, it still is painful to watch.

The carers have obtained a lemon from Mord Souq, and you watch as they halve it and squeeze it into a cup, mixing it into a drink you know one of the patients favors. When they add the poison to the drink, it's in full view of the others--all of you, patients, carers, and guards alike know what this place is for. This place is meant for those who cannot be saved--for those who languish, their lives over from the moment the eater touched their soul but drawn out like a single thread from a yarn. They will slowly become shells of their former selves until one day... they become a sin eater themselves.

The patient is brought to the table and handed the cup. He drinks, expressionless, so far gone that he can't even appreciate that he's been given his favorite treat as one last meal. You watch, your heart hurting and aching and the rest of you numb, because this is the reality of Amh Araeng. This is the reality of all of Norvrandt, the reality you bear witness to because so many people try to ignore it--the reality you hope will one day change when your friend is finally come to this world.

He slumps forward to the table as the poison takes effect. Two of the burlier carers lower their heads, giving him a moment's silence before they begin to lay him on a litter to prepare for the burial that will take place within hours.