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.

Crystalline and Sunlit Heart

Her hands tremble. Is that excitement? Or fear? She doesn’t know, and suspects a mix of both. Her face is serene, almost blank in expression, but her eyes betray her. The man across the table takes notice, acknowledging her apprehension with a gentle smile. “You want to go through with this, then? No alternatives? Mayhap you should call on someone stronger. The other doctor, perhaps? The duskwight?”

Her eyes gleam in the firelight. Besides the barman and innkeep behind the counter, they’re alone in the Forgotten Knight. She trusts her conversations go unnoticed and never repeated, with the many secrets she’s entrusted to him over all these years. He’s been her sole confidant since the day he found her in the wilds of Coerthas and brought her to this very tavern, shivering and alone. “If what I know is accurate, this will be the only way.” Her eyes turn down to the kerchief spread over the oak tabletop, appraising the pair of crystals that lay upon it. They’re hot to the touch, like coals pulled from a raging bonfire. One is sizable, at least as large as her palm, smooth on its face like a diamond polished to a perfect shine; on its back, a sharp little spire. It’s exactly the shape she needs. Beside it sits a second crystal, considerably smaller, shaped almost perfectly like a needle, its head a flat impression of a rose. That same rose is engraved as if by the point of the finest chisel into the perfectly faceted face of the larger crystal. The needle is a few ilms long, a finger’s length, and perhaps about as wide as a marble. They’re a pair, it’s clear from the color of the wild sea that undulates within each, but the needle shines with a light like a tiny nova, where it’s brother only gleams like moonlight by comparison.

“The Conduit and the Shield,” he says.

She grins, a wry smile that only flickers in her eyes. “The rose is a nice touch,” she comments, examining the Conduit, turning its heat over in her fingers. She’s used to the burn, now; nothing could burn her quite as thoroughly as the Void, and that pain is nothing now. “I think I’ll call them something else. Truth,” she says, indicating the needle, “and Justice,” with a nod to the faceted crystal. “They’re powerful enough? Where did you find them?”

He waves a hand. “Aye, they’re powerful enough.” He pauses as though measuring his words and their weight, and adds softly, “The coil.”

A little shudder of sudden, unquenchable rage shivers up her spine and she swallows it, inhaling a shuddering breath; it’s sickening and sweet, it makes her stomach turn and her spine tingle. And, despite her utter terror as it sweeps through her, she’s more horrified by the thrilled pounding of her heart. “They’ll do. Time’s up, I’d best return to Molly.” She stands to depart and bows deeply to the weathered old Wildwood, her gaze never dropping. His eyes are just like hers, but gold where silver ought be. “Thank you. Really.”

 

 

 

Her vision is white. The pain is grounding, she can feel the skin of her breast beneath her fingertips, Molly’s steadying hand on her shoulder, the pure fire that floods her chest like a ship capsizing in the sea. Truth went first, it pierced her heart with the ease of a knife splitting water, and it burns. The sun itself is in her chest. She can feel her shuddering breaths, the cold air in her lungs conflicting painfully with the extreme heat radiating out of her heart. Purest aether, it tastes like dappled sunlight in spring, like desert heat. Her heart gives a great shudder, rattling against its bone cage, both protesting and welcoming the foreign presence amongst her flesh and bones.

The incision over her sternum is but a pinprick of mild pressure by comparison. Pure white aether pools around her, courses through her, flowing freely from her fingertips, and from Molly’s, as they battle a tide of blood and tears and the shadow in her veins. Both women have something to lose here, and she isn’t about to lose anything. She doesn’t lose, not anymore, not without cause. Her vision swims between black and white, static fills her ears. She will have to adjust. It will take time. She will prevail.

“Almost there.” A gentle whisper amidst a sea rushing by her ears, the crash of waves against a rocky, jagged shore. Her eyes flash, her teeth clenched, her jaw set. An island is swallowed by the sea and she watches with eyes of dullest slate.

Through her teeth she hisses, “I will not become a monster.” One final push, and Justice slides home.

 

 

Fire; FFXIV

 

Profit Margin

A man watched, impassive, as the cascade of fire and havoc slowly quieted, a cacophony of world-shattering magnitudes, both cataclysmic and beautiful. The great eikon’s death knells were sure to be heard from Ul’dah to Ishgard, the most incredible song heard by mortal kind. Their comprehension of it was so lacking, so very limited, that all would either refute it, or force themselves to forget its majesty. They knew not what they had felled, and what inspired and beauteous havoc could come of it, how that havoc would be in their favor. The glimmer of a smile reached the man’s lips, but not his eyes. Cold and nigh on dead, there had not been a smile there for decades, and now would be no different. He watched the site for days, weeks, the tumultuous fallout of the battle having rocked the land to its very core. A war on three fronts, and losses for all. Senseless deaths, the lot of them. This would not happen again, he would see to it.

When much of the fire had become but embers, he dared chance a foray into the field. Most of what remained was but ash, charred corpses and bones in the bloody sand, remnants of the great crystals shattered to naught but dust. The smile grew. He found what he’d been looking for. How long had he waited for such glorious opportunity? It was a gift from Nymeia herself, surely. With the care one might show a newborn infant he stooped to a crouch, gently brushing and dusting away debris, leaving behind only sands and a man filled with glee. This was it, the true answer. This would save them all.

It took him at least four hours to fill each of the large stone containers he had carted in with him. Despite their weight, each at least a dozen ponze or more, they would hold surprisingly little compared with what was needed for the craft. Dreadfully difficult to make and even more so to harvest, he could only imagine how much wasted material he would have, how much effort would be required for simply one piece. Such a carefully guarded secret, one he would trust to no other living soul. That anyone even knew the item by name brought him a measure of violent disdain. They were too easily abused by those only looking at their baseline and never the wider picture; these merchants of death found no quandary with the implications of their grim market. He grinned again as he carefully filled a fourth pot with the bloodied, sand-like remains of the battle. Their margins of profit were far too small. He would show them what that meant, every last one of them. And they will thank him.

Observation of Mages

She never really understood why, but she’s always hated dolls. Unnatural interlocked joints, cold porcelain faces, dead, ever-staring eyes. It’s especially true now, as she stares with unwavering determination at a doll named Calcabrina, more a mountain than a plaything, all eerie giggles, horrific screams and heavy, sundering strikes that vibrate Enambris’ bruised arm through her shield. It’s a temporary replacement, the kite shield strapped to her injured left arm, made of iron and tempered well enough. But it’s not her shield, and so it feels alien.

Another monstrous swing strikes the flat of the kite and she skids back at least nine fulms, limbs buzzing from the impact. The heavy thwack and crack of a lance is just audible over haunted giggling, and beneath the unclothed horror that is Calcabrina she can just glimpse the practiced footwork of Molly Harlan, thrusting and stabbing and striking with such force that any normal doll would crack and splinter to pieces. There’s another awful shriek that splits the air, and the explosive force of fire paints the doll black; the void magic that calls the fire forth makes Enambris’ skin crawl from the reaction of faded burns that wind their way up her arms beneath her chain shirt and plated coat, a sickly sweet sensation that makes her stomach turn. Beside Mara she catches a glimpse of Serea, all concentration behind a staff glowing white.

The doll swipes again and Enambris misses the block. She feels the skin of her right cheek split wide open, a gash that shreds muscle and slices down her jaw and neck. Before her blood can begin to pour though, she feels the skin rejoin, stitching itself back together as though it had never been apart. As Serea’s white magic courses over and through her, she ignores the burns that ignite and protest the healing flow of aether. The thing is almost dead, just a little more punishment must she endure.

She misses what happens next in the tumult of battle. Enambris sets off a spark of her own aether, blinding the horror, but Molly hits the ground hard; the doll swings around hard and sends her skidding back again. Confusion, some panic, and the doll turns away from her, awful red eyes locked on Serea. She’s powerless to stop what happens next.

Another gut-wrenching scream rips the air and a flash of red washes over the pair of mages, standing steadfast side-by-side. Enambris tries to scream out in warning, but it’s too late, and the women’s eyes both turn faded and glossy. She pools her aether around her and watches, helpless to interfere. The doll’s attention is back on her once more but her gaze is fixed on the pair as they turn to face one another, staffs brandished. The hard, aetheric metal of her shelltron shield flares into being and Enambris throws her head back to laugh wildly as Mara and Serea strike each other with the blunts of their staffs, wholly but temporarily lost to reason.

 

This actually happened last night. I died laughing.

Conversations with Ghosts

The repair work on her armor is just visible in the flickering light of the slowly-dying fire, a seam of melded metals so fine that it almost appears to be the work of a shadow. She sits upon the hearth, heat washing over her in small, shiver-inducing waves, fingers gently tracing the place where the axe had shorn through heavy adamantite and stopped just shy of smashing its way through the chainmail underneath. She still has the remnants of bruises from the blow, once sickly purple-green and now mostly faded.

Gently she rubs the bandages wrapped tightly around her waist; they, and the gauze, have been freshly changed, the stitches and wound beneath cleaned and dressed anew. It will be an ugly, agonizing recovery process. Magic can only go so far when the damage is so severe, and whatever blade had lodged itself there must have had some magic of its own, with the difficulty she’d had in getting the wound to stitch, let alone close. She presses her back against the chair behind her, choosing to sit on the ground instead of upon the uncomfortable, petrified wood that made up the ancient piece of furniture. She’s lived out of this room since her arrival in Ishgard, and by now, it feels more like a tiny apartment than an inn room. Her shield is leaned up against the wall, blankets draped unceremoniously across the feather bed and uncomfortable chair, the curtains only opened by the barest effort. The large rug on the floor is well-worn, the stone beneath it equally traveled. The remnants of a white silk dress, colored by coral lace and bloodstains, is in a crumpled heap beside the wardrobe that stands open, various cotton tunics, skirts, and breaches haphazardly piled into the bottom of its wooden floor.

Her fingers trace the repaired metal again, and drift idly up to the breast of the armor, running along the grooves and notches and rivets; even in the dim firelight, the metal almost glows a pale, dusky white.

“You think you could have avoided this?” a voice, almost a whisper, brushes past her ear. She sets her lips to a hard line.

“Why would I?” she asks the room, the darkness, the whisper, the flickering shadows. They seem to dance on the wall, reflected in the plate of the armor. It seems to smile.

“Because you always think that whenever things go awry. You’re always quick to assume responsibility.”

“Aye, and must do so again.” Her reply is short, a little bitter. Eyes of brewing thunder-heads seem to ask the shadow, dare it, to oppose her.

“You shoulder far too much responsibility. Did your mother teach you that?” The voice sounds innocent, almost. But she glares, eyes narrowed irritably.

“No one learned anything from Ana D’mira the Ruthless except for how to destroy a strong nation and die.” The bitterness is so thick on her voice it could choke a full-grown man. “She took a great nation and turned it to ruin in just my lifetime, a place that stood proud and strong for almost a thousand years. No, I learned nothing from her, except to be grateful that she didn’t raise me.”

The flickering shadow undulates a moment, before stretching back across the floor to settle before her knees. “Did you kill her, then?”

“Of course not.” She rubs her temples and closes her eyes, but the shadow persists.

“But you ran.”

“That I ran has no bearing whether or not I committed the act. And I didn’t run. I was made to leave, and even now, have no desire to return.”

The pregnant silence hovers in the air for a moment as the fire withdraws an inch. “What of your people?”

Her response is the heavy thud of metal striking the floor. “I don’t know,” she admits irritably. “I’ve only just learned of the fate that befalls the people who defy the empire’s wishes. My uncle bade me leave until it was safe. The nobles demand I marry to save the land. The people wish for us to fight back. The men and women of Eorzea need protecting, too. They ask us to be the guardians at the gate.” She sighs heavily and lets her hair fall in front of her eyes like a thick red curtain.

The shadow doesn’t respond at first. It hangs on the air, a mist more than a shadow now, and expands as though it inhales deeply. “Why does it matter what they want? You are strong enough to forge your own path, are you not?”

Her shoulders sink just a fraction. “I’m not sure anymore.”

“Fear not that which one learns from. It is only the sunlight by which the briars grow and the new rose blooms.”

 

Enambris’ eyes snap open. The fire in the hearth has extinguished, and the first rays of the dawn peek through the frost upon the window panes.

 

FFXIV; Balmung; Embers