wordsworn | #FFXIVWrite2022 30 Day Challenge

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]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Talys gave a low groan as she stretched her arms over her head. She’d lost track of time here in the Noumenon again, and considering how many levels down she was, no natural light filtered its way this far even when the sun was blazingly high outside. A glance at a nearby wall chronometer gave her the information she sought, however, and she blinked at it owlishly for a moment, freezing mid-stretch as she processed said information.

...Wait. Surely that isn’t right...?

Had she really missed dinner by three bells already? But it had still been well over one before the appointed time when last she’d looked-

Hastily she dropped her arms back to her sides and shoved herself to her feet, frantically scooping up the minor avalanche of tomes she’d accumulated during her study session. Under normal circumstances, she was neither messy or absent-minded, but when she focused in on academics, the Viera student’s attention tunneled rather dreadfully--she’d snapped out of reading particularly interesting passages dozens of times before to find someone red-faced from quite literally yelling at her in a bid to wrest her mind away from her current preoccupation. During those times, she was even prone to unknowingly walk about as she read, gathering books with similar topics to cross-reference her sources, moving as if in a dream.

Like many Sharlayan scholars, Talys didn’t generally mind about being late to meals, or even missing them entirely. But tonight was special. Her adoptive guardian, none other than Scholarch Montichaigne himself (though she simply called him ‘grandfather’, as per his request a score and a half years ago when she’d first been brought to Sharlayan as a wide-eyed foundling who was little more than a babe--a habit she’d never outgrown), had requested that she join him for a meal, and she’d happily agreed. They’d eaten together often, close to always when she’d still been a child, but once he’d become scholarch and she’d gotten into the Studium and delved deep into her studies, their traditional breakfasts and suppers had grown increasingly infrequent; over the last year in particular, she could’ve counted the number of meals they’d shared on two hands.

Thinking of that sent a sharp pang of guilt lancing through her, a sickening twist in her gut that was only worsened by the going-on-eleven hours it had been since she’d last eaten. Cursing herself silently, she doubled her efforts to quickly return books to their proper locations on nearby shelves, packing up the rest to borrow and return later--more than she was usually wont to take from the libraries at one time, but it was faster to check them out than put them all away, and she was already late enough.

Too late, most likely. Montichaigne had a busy schedule, of course, and as scholarch, his days started early. By this time of night, he was likely already abed, or at least well on his way there. Even so, Talys raced down the winding pathways, skidding over paving stones and leaping down stairways, arriving at the sizable yet modest (especially compared to the Leveilleur estate) Montichaigne house.

It was dark, both outside and in, though it was clear that they’d kept the lamps lit for her--not that she hadn’t spent entire nights buried in the stacks, unintentionally or no; but still, it both warmed her heart and sent another jab of remorse through her, that even after missing this agreed-upon shared meal, her guardian--grandfather, even--didn’t hold it against her.

Still out of breath from her run, Talys closed the grand front doors behind her and, with a sigh that segued smoothly into a yawn, made her weary way towards the dining room.

I’m certain he’s gone to bed by now, as have the servants, but perhaps they left me a plate at least-

That thought cut itself off as she stepped into the stately but tasteful dining room…only to find Scholarch Montichaigne seated at the table, dressed in an elegant, fur-trimmed house coat and calmly reading by the light of an admirably-bright lantern. A closed luncheon coffer sat on the table beside him, pushed a little off to the side to make room for the oversized book he was perusing, but as Talys came to a stunned stop in the doorway, he looked up from his reading with a welcoming smile.

“Ah, well now. Not so late as I had thought, after all.”

Talys was so started that the strap of her satchel slipped off her shoulder, the bulging bag dropping to the marble floor with an ungraceful thump--testament to just how taken aback she was. Normally, she never would’ve treated books so roughly, but at the moment, the entirety of her attention was focused on the elderly Elezen man beaming down the long table at her.

“I’m so sorry,” she blurted, dropping her head and hunching her shoulders, almost feeling tempted to grovel on the floor. The fact that he wasn’t angry, that he didn’t seem the least bit upset at her only made her guilt increase tenfold, until it was so heavy she wasn’t certain she could bear it-

“There’s a luncheon coffer here for you as well, Talys. Fantastic invention, that--our dinners should still be perfectly warm. Come now, sit and eat. If I know my granddaughter, you haven’t eaten since this morning.”

Talys nodded on reflex, her feet moving obediently almost without her say-so to bring her to the seat at Montichaigne’s right hand, her usual place, where there was indeed a second luncheon coffer waiting for her.

“Grandfather...it’s so late,” she murmured as she sank into her chair; Montichaigne didn’t look up from calmly pouring her a cup of aromatic-smelling tea, then shifting a nearby jar of honey into easier reach. “Is this...really all right?”

At that, he did look up, a mischievous smile on his face that belied his septuagenarian status. “Well, am I scholarch, or am I scholarch? I can be a bit late in the morning if need be. It’s not as though they have me giving lectures any more, you know.”

“Their loss,” Talys couldn’t help but quip as she hungrily dug into her meal--some sort of savory onion soup with crispy cheese on top, paired with a nice crusty bread and a light salad, with a little peach tart for dessert. After swallowing down the first few welcomingly warm mouthfuls, however, the Viera student suddenly found her eyes brimming with tears. “I didn’t mean to be so late,” she murmured, struggling not to blubber into her soup. “I’m really sorry, Grandfather...” She sniffed hard, fighting back those tears, then gave him a watery smile. “I was so pleased that you wanted to have dinner with me again...it’s been so long...too long.”

“Yes indeed,” he agreed, expression sad, “far too long. For that, you have my apologies as well. We’ve both allowed our busy schedules to take us away from these family meals--a mistake, in my opinion.” Though she didn’t speak up, Talys was nodding in adamant agreement, and he continued on. “In any case, I’ve decided that I should very much like to enjoy a meal with my granddaughter at least once a week. Busy schedules notwithstanding, do you think we could manage that, perhaps?”

The tears were still lingering, blurring her vision just slightly, but now it was happiness, not shame or sadness that was behind them as Talys gave another emphatic nod. “Yes, of course! I should like that very much as well.”

Montichaigne gave a warm chuckle at that, tucking into his own meal with a nod of both approval and appreciation. For a time, the only sound was the clink of their silverware and the hiss and crackle of the fire in the room’s large fireplace; then the scholarch spoke again, lifting his glass and punctuating his words with a drink as he spoke:

“So now, tell me, my dear...what’s this I hear about your thesis proposal? Something about a field study, which you hope to fund with backing from the Forum?”

Edited 2022-09-10 16:47 (UTC)