#FFXIVWrite2022 30 Day Challenge

[wordsworn]

Master post for all my entries into the FFXIVWrite challenge over on twitter/tumblr!

(Anything explicit or requiring cw: will be marked as such; everything else should be SFW.)



Prompt #1: Cross | ✧ Sizhu Jakkya (WoL) + G'raha Tia ✧ | ShB spoilers
[Just a snapshot of my wholesome catship LOL]

Prompt #2: Bolt | ✧ Sizhu Jakkya (WoL) + Emet-Selch + Hermes (+ mention of Hythlodaeus) ✧ | EW spoilers
[Total crack, written in an hour-long flurry of feverish writing, as usual if I don't feel super inspired by the prompt things get dumb, fight me, but it's still fun/funny to ME, CATTE IS CATTE, KNOCKING THINGS OFF TABLES, SIZHU GETS THE ZOOMIES LMAO, I might want to expand this one later idk LOL]

Prompt #3: Temper | ✧ Warrior of Light + Minfilia + Thancred ✧ | EARLY ARR spoilers and maybe hints at some other spoilers but nothing obvious unless you Know Things already
[What if Thancred hadn't been late to the fight when you faced down Ifrit for the first time? AU, written to make Phase scream. CW: Tempering, brief violence, implied impending major character death]

Prompt #4: Free Prompt - θάρρος (Thárros); Courage | ✧ Sizhu Jakkya (WoL) x G'raha Tia ✧ | Spoilers up through 6.1
[More wholesome catship; on her return from another trip to Aglaia, G'raha is taken by surprise at Sizhu's attire.]

Prompt #5: Cutting Corners | ✧ Hades + Hythlodaeus (implied Hades -> Azem) ✧ | EW spoilers
[After assisting Azem with saving that island and its grapes, Hades confronts Hythlodaeus about the indisputable part he'd played in the whole fiasco--but their conversation does not go at all the way Hades had planned.]

Prompt #6: Onerous | ✧ Mikh'a Jakkya (non-WoL adventurer, WoL's twin brother) ✧ | SB spoilers
[What happened to Sizhu's twin brother when she was snatched away to the First? Mikh'a tells of it in his own words.]

Prompt #7: Pawn | ✧ Emet-Selch (Hades) -> WoL (& Azem) ✧ | ShB spoilers
[Emet-Selch always plays the long game. Musings on chess pieces and the Warrior of Light.]

Prompt #8: Tepid | ✧ Cres Shatterheart (non-WoL adventurer) ✧ | ...no spoilers really? stuff from a minor sidequest is mentioned
[The reasons vary from person to person, but most adventurers are somewhat the same, deep down. No matter how arduous or tedious, sometimes the task itself is its own reward.]

Prompt #9: Yawn | ✧ Talys Shatterheart (WoL) ✧ | EW Spoilers
[In this timeline, the WoL is a f!Viera Sharlayan scholar with zero battle experience, who is doing a Forum-funded field study about adventurers for her thesis...and who is pulled into being Very Personally Involved in everything when she realizes two facts: 1) she's actually pretty badass at this fighting stuff, and 2) somehow, the whole world needs her.]

Prompt #10: Channel | ✧ Hermes -> f(Miqo'te)!WoL ✧ | EW SPOILERS ALL THE WAY DOWN
[He wants her, even though he knows that he should not. But she’s the only one he’s ever met who truly understands how he feels...and his emotions have always proven difficult for him to tame. Why should these sorts of feelings be any different? EW spoilers, takes place during the Elpis questline. CW: depression (it's Hermes), slight dom contemplations/mild sexuality (no actual sex tho)]

Prompt #11: Free Prompt - Embrace | ✧ Hermes -> f(Miqo'te)!WoL ✧ | EW SPOILERS FOR DAYS, YO
[I enjoyed that last drabble so much, I picked up right where that one left off and did another. c:]

Prompt #12: Miss the Boat | ✧ Sarhnai Dotharl + Koharu Sumeragi (WoLs) + Scions ✧ | EW spoilers OF COURSE
[FINALLY wrote some Dargon Girls AU! In which there are TWO WoLs who are both shards of Azem, who both ended up on the Source--soul-sisters, if you will. c: Koharu is mine and Sarhnai belongs to my friend, the wonderful incontrast. <3]

Prompt #13: Confluence | ✧ Sizhu Jakkya (WoL) + Ardbert ✧ | ShB Spoilers
[Phase gave me this idea, so these feels are her fault.]

Prompt #14: Attrition | ✧ Crystal Exarch (-> WoL) ✧ | Shadowbringers Spoilers LIKE WHOA man

Prompt #15: Row | ✧ Emet-Selch (Hades) + Azem (Persephone) ✧ | All The Endwalker Spoilers

Prompt #16: Deiform | ✧ Koharu (WoL) x Hien ✧ | EW role quest spoilers
[My soft dargon-girl has dokis for Hien pretty bad, and finds a way to show him a very small bit of just how badly. I still think it's kinda "eh" but Phase likes it, so it can't be terrible.]

Prompt #17: Novel | ✧ Koharu (WoL) x Hien (continued from previous prompt) ✧ | Spoilers for a Stormblood Dungeon, I Guess?
[Continued from the previous drabble, very short but my head is killing me, so. This will do. :c]

Prompt #18: Free Prompt - Fruit | ✧ Hermes -> f(Miqo'te)!WoL ✧ | Endwalker Spoilers OBVIOUSLY
[I wanted to keep writing more for that same Hermes idea...and it's a free prompt, so I did.]

Prompt #19: Turn a Blind Eye | ✧ Elidibus (Themis) + Azem ✧ | All The Spoilers, Especially for Pandæmonium
[Themis is concerned about Azem's censure, only to find that he needn't be. Pandæmonium spoilers, plus a hint of my own predictions about where that questline might go...]

Prompt #20: Anon | ✧ Aymeric x/+ unnamed F!WoL ✧ | ARR Spoilers, oh noes
[...Yeah, I hate this one. But, sucky prompt, sucky drabble. Only makes sense.]

Prompt #21: Solution | ✧ Talys Shatterheart (WoL) ✧ | No Spoilers, Lots of Anti-Garlean Feels

Prompt #22: Veracity | ✧ Sizhu Jakkya (WoL) + Emet-Selch (Hades) ✧ | ShB & EW Spoilers
[I don't much like this one either, but it's there.]

Prompt #23: Pitch | ✧ Fandaniel (+ hints of current one-sided and possible future-life Fandaniel/WoL) ✧ | Endwalker Spoilers FOREVER
[Get ready for a feels-punch, that is all]

Prompt #24: Vicissitudes | ✧ Thancred + Urianger + CATBABIES ✧ | No Spoilers, Just Headcanons
[This is really bad and really dumb, but these two catbabies are headcanon for me now...]

Prompt #25: Free Prompt - Halcyon | ✧ Hermes -> f(Miqo'te)!WoL ✧ | Endwalker Spoilers
[Con't from the previous free prompt~]

Prompt #26: Break A Leg | ✧ Koharu Sumeragi (WoL) + Sarhnai Dotharl (WoL) vs Zenos yae Galvus ✧ | SB spoilers
[COLLAB WITH PHASE \o/]

Prompt #27: Hail | ✧ Koharu Sumeragi (WoL) + Sarhnai Dotharl (WoL) ✧ | SB spoilers
[Con't from yesterday's. Koharu has a mad, and Zenos is 100% it.]

Prompt #28: Vainglory | ✧ Emet-Selch (Hades) i.e. "Solus zos Galvus" ✧ | All Spoilers, All The Time
[PHASE AND I PLAY CATCH WITH THE GARLEAN HATE BALL AGAIN. Uhhhh, I mean...Emet musings RE: building the stupid bull$h!t that is the Garlean Empire.]

Prompt #29: Fuse | ✧ Hythlodaeus (-> Azem) ✧ | Endwalker Spoilers
[Mehhhh this one is so unfocused...but oh well, it's done. Might revisit and turn it into something else later.]

Prompt #30: Sojourn | ✧ Sizhu Jakkya (WoL) + Venat ✧ | Endwalker Spoilers ;_;
[A good place to end. :c]

Comments

Prompt #6: Onerous | ✧ Mikh'a Jakkya ✧ | SB spoilers

[wordsworn]

“...What do you mean, ‘gone’?”

“Just precisely that. Your sister, Sizhu Jakkya, Serpent Captain of the Order of the Twin Adder--otherwise widely known as the Warrior of Light--is gone.”


...Ah. That’s likely not the best place for me to begin this story, is it. I would extend an apology, but I wouldn’t mean it and you aren’t really deserving of it, since I haven’t done anything wrong, so instead, I’ll backtrack a bit.

My name is Mikh’a Jakkya. Twin brother to Sizhu Jakkya--I’m sure you know who that is already, if you paid attention to what I’ve already written. We came to Eorzea together, looking for adventure and a new start--that’s why she came here, anyway.

Me, I’m just here for the food.

As you can probably already tell, we’re really nothing alike. While she always wants to wander and explore, to get involved and help people, I think all of that stuff is just too troublesome. Most people probably don’t want to be saved, even if they need it, and why should I stop nature from taking its due course? Life flows into death flows into life, an endless wheel. Shoving a stick through the spokes is only going to cause problems, and probably get you a hand stuck full of splinters for your trouble.


...Ah, that isn’t really relevant to what I was first telling you about, is it. All you need to know about me and my sister is that we’re all the family we have left--having left behind the rest of our family, particularly our mother, for personal reasons. We care about each other--enough to respect that we want different things, and to accept that the paths we walk lie at angles that are practically perpendicular to each other.

I care about my sister. Don’t ever doubt that.

Just like I haven’t ever doubted that she cares about me--which is why she’s left me alone to live my own life.

Most of the time, anyway.


...Ah, but now I’m getting ahead of myself again. I’ll try once more, starting at a point in time that would make more sense.

Limsa Lominsa is my home port of choice. That makes sense, if you know anything about the crafting guilds--like I told you, I’m here for the food. It was the only choice for me, really. The food in Ul’dah is savory and spicy, but there’s sand everywhere, and I don’t much relish the idea of finding a knife in my ribs in the middle of a meal, just because someone felt like helping themselves to the contents of my coin purse. Anyway, all that ‘for coin and country’ nonsense is too fiery for my blood. Exhausting, just thinking about it. And as for Gridania, the food is comfortingly homey but entirely lacking any sort of spice with heat to it. As for the people, the ones dedicated to their grand company are just a little too earnest for me--serpentSWORN is no joke--and I don’t much care for the general population’s view on outsiders and Miqo’te alike. Sizhu started her journey in Gridania, and she told me how they said at near every turn that she wasn’t ‘forestborn’--but they’re wrong. We are. We just weren’t born in their forest, which makes us somehow less in their eyes. Then again, those same individuals also consider the Miqo’te who’ve lived there in that forest for generations to be poachers and thieves, so maybe their opinions really just aren’t worth gobbue spit. And by maybe I mean definitely. Limsa, on the other hand, despite all its cutpurses and pirates, was just the sort of place where I felt at home--maybe because of that, really. Everyone there is out for themselves, but not on the same level as the people of Ul’dah, who--as the saying goes, would sell their granny for a handful of copper coins. Rather, it’s more that everyone wants to be free to follow their own path, which is something that certainly resonates strongly with me.


...Ah, that’s another outward-spiraling circle of thought. My sister tells me my mind works like wheels within wheels, and that it’s hard for most people to understand how the things I say and think connect, that I’ll jump back to something we were speaking about before and they’ll wonder how I got back to that point they thought was settled and done with. But it’s all connected for me, the here and now and then and later.

Anyway, I spend most of my time in Limsa Lominsa. You would think that, much as I love food, I would be a member of the Culinarians’ guild, but no. I like to eat food, not prepare it. Following a recipe step by step, word by word, is just way too onerous. Combine that with having to worry about side dishes at the same time, not to mention sauces and the actual plating…what a pain. If I have to do all that, by the end I’ll be too tired to properly enjoy the meal. Instead, I craft things like armor and weapons to earn my gil, though I do moonlight as an adventurer if the pay is good and the job doesn’t seem like anything too troublesome. Full member of the Arcanists’ guild, though I pay respects to the Dutiful Sisters of the Edelweiss from time to time as well.

It was in Limsa that they found me. I’m not particularly hard to find, I suppose, but I don’t exactly make it easy either. Supposing I don’t want to be found, you likely won’t. But they caught me while I was enjoying my fourth plate of grilled dodo--I told you, I’m here for the food--and you don’t skip out on a bill at the Bismarck. Not if you want to be a return customer, and I assure you, I do.

“Are you Mikh’a Jakkya?”

It was a momentary lapse, though not an usual one. When I’m eating something delicious, that’s where the entirety of my attention is turned. And I defy you to find anything prepared by Guildmaster Lyngsath Doesfalksyn, or one of his people, that isn’t delicious. That said, it took me a moment to draw my consciousness back from that world full of light char and tender meat and savory juiciness. Once I had, I found myself looking at…some member of the Twin Adders, by the look of her.

I have no business with the Adders. I’ve visited the Twelveswood a few times to try my hand at Leatherworking and Carpentry, and also to eat at the Carline Canopy. But I’ve never lingered, never gone out into their precious woodlands any further than necessary to obtain whatever crafting materials I was told to fetch, never so much as traded words with any Adders aside from my sister. And at that moment, I was perfectly content for things to remain that way. Except this uniformed woman was speaking directly to me, asking for me by name. There’s a fair number of Miqo’te males around the city, bustling port that it is; someone must have sent her my way, if she found me so easily.

What a pain, I thought, then immediately after, all those wheels in my head spun rapidly, and one certainty locked into place.

“This is about my sister.” It wasn’t a question, because I was certain. The Adder woman looked slightly startled though, so even though it was a bother to explain how I knew, I added, “There’s no other possible reason for a member of another Grand Company to show up inside another’s jurisdiction. If I’d committed some crime in Gridania, you’d doubtless work with the Maelstrom, since this is their city and I’ve been inducted into their ranks. Not sure what the procedure is for extraditing Maelstrom officers, but that’s a moot point, because you’re not here for that.” I paused to take a drink, savoring the wine only briefly before continuing, now without looking at her, “...There’s mud on your boots, blood on your uniform, and gunpowder on your face. You’ve come from the frontlines, the recent clash with Garlemald--straight from there, judging by the circles under your eyes and the weary pallor to your skin, not to mention the visible windburn on your cheeks from riding in an airship traveling at high speed.”

I still had a quarter of my grilled dodo left, but I knew anything I put in my mouth now would taste only of ash and blood, the bitter salt of tears and sweat.

What a waste.

The woman was silent, perhaps trying to understand me, but having my meals interrupted puts me in a foul mood, and I had no patience to spare for this stranger. I leveled a flat stare at her, and I saw the way she flinched in surprise--which only made me all the more certain that this was about my sister. That’s the one thing we share, after all: our eyes are the exact same color, a pale but striking silvery violet. Not the most common color, and more than a little memorable.

“Stop wasting my time and tell me what’s happened to Sizhu,” I said--more of a hiss, actually. I’m normally calm to a fault, or so Sizhu says. Though the word she uses is ‘taciturn,’ mostly. Sometimes ‘bland.’

Not particularly kind, but also not incorrect.

Even so, my temper slipped slightly in that moment--the first time it had done so since I’d come to Eorzea. The Adder-woman showed another flicker of surprise--and maybe a flash of fear, too--then composed herself and said gravely, “I am Serpent Lieutenant Scarlet of the Twin Adders, and I need you to accompany me to the Adder’s Nest. As you say, it is a matter concerning your sister, and it is not something that should be spoken of publicly...or by myself.”

I sat there for a long moment, looking down at my unfinished meal. When was the last time I hadn’t finished a meal? Not since the night Sizhu and I left home, I think. Since then, my appetite has been more than healthy, making up for all those missed meals throughout our childhood.

More important than that, I wanted to know what was wrong. Something was, certainly, or this Serpent Lieutenant wouldn’t have come all the way here. But it couldn’t be something as serious as my sister being dead. I think if that happened, I’d probably just get a letter. Or maybe not. Maybe they wouldn’t want anyone to know. Maybe they’d be afraid that it might cause widespread panic, if the Champion of Eorzea had been killed. Maybe they’d try to cover it up-

My face back in its usual bland mask, I blinked placidly up at Scarlet, and said in my usual deadpan tone, “All right, I’ll come with you. But only if you buy me an eel pie from the Carline Canopy once we get there.”


...Ah, I suppose I should let you know that I have a terrible sense of humor, too. Twisted, some might say, but considering our upbringing, who could blame me.

Also, those eel pies are damn delicious. And since I wasn’t finishing this meal, I’d doubtless be hungry by the time we reached Gridania. Maybe my appetite would have returned by then. Maybe not. Bad news makes for poor digestion, and impending bad news is even worse.

Maybe I’d make Scarlet buy me the pie after this meeting or whatever it was that she wanted me to attend. I hadn’t pressed her on that point, on who exactly wanted to see me, because it didn’t really matter to me. Whoever it was, they’d give me the news. And if they didn’t, I’d drag and twist it out of them, one way or another.

I’m not the fighter that my sister is, but I can look after myself. And when I do decide that a fight is worth the trouble, I fight nasty. The ends justify the means, at least for me. Casualties are to be weighed carefully, but are often acceptable. You don’t win without losing something, and anyone who thinks you can is a fool or an idealist, and either way, they’re wrong.


...Ah, that probably sounds cynical, doesn’t it. That’s because it is, but it’s also not untrue. Even easy victories cost something--effort, if nothing else, which is still something. And not something that everyone is willing to give. Not something that I’m willing to give, most of the time.

But in case, that brings us back where this started, more or less. To make a long story short, Scarlet brought me to Gridania, and I met with the Elder Seedseer, a higher-ranking Adder than Scarlet whose name I didn’t bother to remember, a Bowlord Some-such, and the head of the Conjurer’s guild, another of those Padjals, Brother E-something. Sizhu mentioned him, but it’s been a while, and I wasn’t really paying attention to all the names she mentioned back then. Once all of those people as well as a few more were assembled at the Lotus Stand, they gave me the news, which was more or less what I’d expected. Which was when I said:

Prompt #6: Onerous [con't]

[wordsworn]

“...What do you mean, ‘gone’?”

“Just precisely that. Your sister, Sizhu Jakkya, Serpent Captain of the Order of the Twin Adder--otherwise widely known as the Warrior of Light--is gone.”

I blinked at them all for a moment, reading each of their faces in turn, then focused my attention on the Elder Seedseer.

“ ‘Gone,’ you say. Not dead, then?”

Her hands tightened on her staff, and her lips went thin--with worry, she was clearly concerned about my sister on a personal level, perhaps even thought of her as a friend--before she spoke. “We do not believe so, no.”

“There was no body, then.”


...Ah, perhaps I should have warned you that I can be very straightforward at times, almost to the point of abrasiveness. And perhaps far beyond it, at other times. Then was one of those times. I wanted the truth, plain and simple, with no games or nonsense. If they wouldn’t give that to me, I would demand it of them on my own terms.

“No,” the Elder Seedseer admitted quietly. “We found no body. She simply seems to have disappeared entirely.”

The rest of that conversation was a blur. I absorbed all the information, but I didn’t say anything more. They were searching for her, still combing the battlefield as well as sending agents into Garlemald, on the off chance she’d been captured. (Unlikely--as if any of those bastards could stand up to my sister.) There was a messenger enroute to Mor Dhona and the Scions’ headquarters there, to see if they’d had any news, and countless other avenues of inquiry were being pursued as well, but at that moment, they had no further intelligence to share. All they could do was offer me a linkpearl, with the promise of contacting me as soon as they heard anything.

But that wasn’t the only purpose of that meeting. If that had been all it was, again, a simple letter likely would have sufficed. But no. They wanted something from me. Something else other than my thoughts about where my sister might have gone. I could tell. I’m good at reading that sort of thing--I’ve dealt with it my whole life, so why wouldn’t I be--and I could read it in them there at that moment.

And with a little thought, it was obvious, really.

They wanted me to step into her role. To become their steadfast defender, someone they could all hide behind. A weapon they could point at their enemies, a protective charm whose simple existence could help keep the peace…out of fear, or something like it.

But I am not my sister. I do not possess her strength. Not in combat, or otherwise.

I cannot do this thing for them.


...Ah, but maybe I should tell you something they don’t know. I said before that my sister respected my choices enough to leave me alone, to let me live my own life, “most of the time”. I said that because there have been times that she’s come to me to ask for help. The time she stormed Castrum Meridianum, for example. A few other dungeons here and there. But after she was forced to flee to Ishgard after being accused of a crime she didn’t commit, she largely stopped doing that. She would still come to visit me (twice a month like clockwork, she knows I’m more comfortable with a steady routine), but she wouldn’t ask for my help. We had grown apart--and it had begun long before her exile to Coerthas. Perhaps it should have been obvious, but I hadn’t thought to put forth the effort to look for it, so I hadn’t noticed. But ever since she found so many of the Scions dead in the Waking Sands, she had kept things from me in a way that she never had before. Without me even knowing, she had held me at a careful distance--her way of protecting me, I know, and it’s easy to understand why. If I had been more involved, if we hadn’t followed our own paths, maybe I would have been one of the bodies she found in the Waking Sands.

“Maybe” doesn’t matter for much, though. It’s all projected possibilities of things that have already happened--and unless you find some manner of bending time to your very will, things that you cannot change. Nothing but another waste of time.


...Ah, you might remember that I said that I could not do what the Adders--indeed, likely all of the leaders of Eorzea--wanted me to do. And I meant it. Unlike my sister, a skilled all-rounder who can fill any role necessary, my own combat prowess is decidedly more limited. I prefer to stand back and observe, to cast from afar; any sort of rough-and-tumble melee-oriented combat, with the brunt of the force being directed my way, would certainly end with me on the ground in a heap.

Still, my refusal to fulfill that role was heavy on my mind as I wandered through Gridania afterwards, and I lay the blame for what followed on my distracted mind:

I accepted a quest from one of the God’s Quiver.

It was straightforward-sounding enough, something about bandits accosting travelers in the Twelveswood, and I told myself that had accepted the job because I was frustrated at my sister’s disappearance, that I simply wanted to work out my anger and aggression by unleashing it on those deserving of it, though part of me knew that was untrue. For I was angry, yes, but I was angry at myself most of all.


...Ah, I told you that she used to ask me for help. That she’d stopped doing it. That wasn’t entirely true. Really, she’d come to me again just days ago, before the battle in the Ghimlyt Dark, asking for my help once again at long last. Telling me of a deathless prince whose only thoughts were of combat and slaughter, of the measured but inexorable loss of her fellow Scions, of her concerns about what might happen here were she to be the next to succumb. Telling me that she didn’t want to ask, but she didn’t have anywhere left to turn. Telling me that it was time for me to take action. To put down knife and fork, and to fight for this world that we loved--at her side or on my own, in my own way, either was all right, so long as I acted. So long as I didn’t continue to sit idly by while the world burned.

I turned her down. I was angry, though I didn’t show it outwardly, and I’m more than certain she knew it. The words I leveled at her were nothing short of a slap in the face, and I had no call to say them--Sizhu is nothing like our mother, and has never wished for me to be what she wants. She did nothing but speak a heavy truth which she knew I did not want to hear, but that I still needed to, and I lashed out at her in return. I refused to aid her…perhaps when she needed it most.

Perhaps, had I been there, she might not have vanished.

But now, she’s gone. And I have no way of knowing if I’ll see her again. If I’ll be able to apologize. If I’ll be able to even attempt to make it up to her. I can’t take those words back, and I know she’ll carry their heavy memory for the rest of her life; and for further burdening a brave woman who already carries so much pain, so much grief, the weight of so many expectations...of that sin, I am undeniably guilty. And I must atone for my crime.

Which is why, when I found the bandits, and saved two travelers in the process, I accepted the offer one of them made to me. I have no interest in being a bodyguard, but…they do possess a set of skills of which I could certainly make use.

That way, if--when, I should like to say, but there is no place in these writings for baselessly hopeful conjecture--my sister returns to us some day, I can stand by her side, instead of allowing her to forge ahead alone.


...Ah, you likely don’t know it, but that’s how we used to be. Growing up, hunting together, we always watched each other’s backs.

A return to something like the harmony we shared during those simpler childhood days, a renewal of the trust that bound us together so tightly...yes. I should very much enjoy that...no matter how troublesome it might be.