Endure

Enambris was always the first to wake, quietly slipping out of bed before the dawn’s light could even begin to paint the horizon. She would bathe in total silence, scrubbing lavender and honeysuckle soap over curiously unscarred, porcelain skin and through long tresses of deep red hair, rinsing away dirt and blood from her previous day’s endeavors. She would often rinse off briefly before going to bed, but she left the hard scrubbing and exfoliating for the morning. The moonlight-gleaming crystal in her chest was too bright to leave uncovered, so she had fashioned a thick cloth to hide the thing, if only so that she wouldn’t wholly illuminate the room and wake the sleepers nearby. She would dry and dress, equally silent, though she would save the donning of her heavy plate for when she had left the room and closed the door behind her, often finishing dressing in the hallway before departing for the day.

Today had begun much the same as any other day, but there is something very, very different. Something wrong. She’s endured one nightmare too many, Alvild’s eyes taunting her in her dreams, burning them with his flames of smoke and pitch, the screams that pierced her ears. Enough is enough. The rage is here far too soon.

She had still been rattled when she went to bed last night, hands trembling and breath coming in unsteady gasps and sharp exhales. She had seen his shadow. Or perhaps she had unearthed the memories she would prefer to have left buried, and now the glass was feeding on the quiet wrath that was blooming in their wake. She wasn’t sure. When asked about her sudden change in demeanor, the calmness having given way to sharpness and a shortness of temper, she waved it away as having had poor sleep and a difficult day, which wasn’t untrue. It HAD been a trying day, she was still no closer to finding the au ra traitor, and her sleep had been poor for weeks now.

When asked if it had anything to do with the glass, she would only reply with a sharp, irritated glare, but no words. It probably did, and while she wasn’t willing to admit it, she was certainly not willing to lie about it.

She banishes the memories. Her bathing complete, she dries off rapidly and dons her form-fitting undershirt and leggings, tugs on her chainmail over top, and pulls up her thigh-length boots, slipping out the door to finish her morning ritual in the hallway. Skirt, tassets, plate, pauldrons, all in order, all buckled and fastened and tested to make sure they were tight and secure. She rakes her wet hair into a haphazard bun, twisting it back at her crown and securing it with a ribbon. Satisfied, she slips into the empty tavern beneath the inn and out into the streets of Ul’dah.

It’s quiet as usual, save her strained breaths and the occasional fizzle of static that rolls off of her, something that draws curious stares from brass blades as she passes through the gates and out of the city, but they make no move to hinder her progress. She strides along the dirt road, rivets carved in the earth from the wooden wheels of chocobo-drawn carriages that were too poor to afford the bloated bags of air that would keep many of the more-expensive carriages afloat. She veers off the trail as she passes the Coffer, climbing the steep hill into which the bar is carved, past the high cliff where she had lost Kara’s trail, past a certain boulder with bleached grass at its base and memories of a sensation on her lips as she walks by it, and finally back to the rear side of the hill, obscured from view, the earth burned black.

Despite all the ceremony of donning her armor in the morning, now she rips it off. Pauldrons, plate, tassets, skirt, chainmail and boots, all strike the ground in rapid succession and as soon as her body is free of the hundreds of ponze of metal and leather, she drops to her knees, right hand slamming against the stone in her chest and she screams. She screams until there is no scream left in her lungs, and once it’s gone, she throws her head back to pant and stare angrily at the deep night sky. Truth illuminates, lighting up her heart and its calcium cage, an eerie display of flesh and bone and a brilliant light secreted within; a wide arc around the edge of the light tells of something dark, glittering, fragmented and numerous waiting on the periphery of Truth’s light. Justice pulses sternly, and the blackness in her body draws back.

She can feel that glass, the bled rage in her soul. It’s kept at bay, it stays far from her heart, but it’s still there, and she can still feel the intoxicating wrath that tries to slither through her mind. This has become a ritual to her, sitting out in the desert, letting untempered anger coalesce into something physical, something tangible and real. In a wash of wildfire she screams again, letting all of her pain, anger, angst and unvoiced frustration become her fire’s song. The fire explodes into the air, a nova that lights up the desert around her, that blackens the sand and rocks beneath her. They’re already scorched, and she’s done this many times.

Never quite this hard, though.

Another eruption washes the back of the hill in sunlight. The fire shreds her knuckles and sears the skin of her hands, it burns her face and the exposed flesh of her chest and arms. Invisible bands, remnants of void burns, purr excitedly and she burns harder to banish them. The fire pillars high into the air and comes crashing back down like a waterfall, and for just a moment, she becomes the sun itself.

Then the moment passes, the fire becomes white smoke and dissipates into the air, the glowing heat in the ground beginning to cool. She pants heavily, fingers grasping at sand, waiting for the remaining heat to fade. Her chest heaves, and finally she lets herself cool; awash in gentle white aether, the wounds close, the skin of her knuckles seals, the burns fade and dissipate on her arms and chest. She rubs the renewed flesh of her right cheek, where the tattoo-like scar mars otherwise unscarred flesh, and her eyes remain fixed on the sky. If the rift dragon of the Far Reach has returned, she will deal with him. Permanently. She will endure his fire, this time, and she will win.