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

Though it had been a long day, meeting with the Convocation representative and such, when the time comes to retire for the night, Hermes finds himself almost painfully restless. Perhaps it has something to do with what Meteion and Azem’s familiar had shown him...no. No, not perhaps. It is most certainly that. The day’s events had worn on him, particularly his discussions with Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus. Had reminded him in myriad ways just how different he was, how strange. How...broken. For surely he must be, if no one else understood the things he felt.

...But...that was no longer true. There was someone who understood. Who truly understood. Not yet another who gave him the same kind, empty words as everyone else, or who simply presumed to understand when they did not.

It was...a comfort, knowing that he was not alone. A welcome balm for the many hairline fractures that laced their way throughout his weary soul. It didn’t change anything, didn’t lessen his misery, his anguish...but there was still a sort of consolation in learning that his suffering was not entirely unique.

It had invigorated him, somehow. Had made his entire body tremble to think of it, to recall the words she’d spoken (“Oh, I could tell you all about suffering--but let’s have no more brooding, eh? Glad I could be of service”), the way her eyes had widened when he’d taken off his mask and revealed his face. But Meteion had already revealed his true face to her; it was no use attempting to hide anything from Azem’s familiar any longer. He had been stripped bare before her eyes...and she had not turned away. Nay, if anything, she had...

It was those thoughts that had rousted him from his room, that had sent him wandering across the fields of Elpis again, despite the late hour.

Now, as he paces through the soft, aromatic grasses, he finds that he still cannot stop thinking of her, that leaving his bed did not leave the thoughts--the feelings--plaguing him behind at all.

It is dangerous to be out and about this late, what with all the concepts and creatures still roaming about in the darkness, but Hermes can’t bring himself to care, not about that. His only thought is to keep moving, to find a way to occupy his body in an attempt to keep his mind from lingering on her and spinning down paths that are doubtless best left untread.

And yet even in this, he finds himself thwarted, for soon he realizes that there is already another figure gliding through the dusk ahead of him, moving with the sort of unhurried aimlessness that speaks of wandering for its own sake, for the simple joy of the journey itself. It’s her, of course--with that slight figure and those curious features, those ears and that tail, Azem’s familiar is unmistakable. There are no researchers here her size, and no other familiars with her design--if that truly is what she is, complex as her thoughts and emotions clearly are.

She’s following a downwards sweep of the ground and, as would any life-long researcher, Hermes finds himself using his vantage point to pause and study her, taking her in by the warm golden light of the fireflies...and finding himself further shaken by his observations.

She had been wearing the same robes they all did earlier, but now she’s clad in...something else. Garments the like of which he’s never seen. It’s...so form-fitting, all her curves plainly on display, and so much bare, soft-looking skin as well... He finds his gaze lingering on her legs, shapely and graceful and perfect. Her whole frame is much the same, so small and delicate compared to his own lanky, towering figure.

How easy it would be, to encircle both her wrists with one hand. How tempting, to test her strength, to feel her struggle beneath his grip-

No. These are such terrible, twisted thoughts, things he’s never considered before, that he’s never been even slightly tempted to do.

But she brings out something different in him. For here, at last, is someone who understands. Someone who has felt the same sort of pain, the grief and anger, and yet…she bears up under it. She makes it look effortless, but surely that is not the case. The Elpis flowers do not lie; if she did not suffer as he did, they would not be colored so.

Lest you misunderstand, I derive no pleasure from your pain.

He had spoken those words to her before, and at that time, he had thought he’d meant them.

Now, as his imagination presents to him a vision of her face, cheeks flushed and throat straining, those lovely eyes vague and glazed, her expression twisted in a pleasure so intense that it approaches pain, he is not so certain. After all, such a thing would be a mercy for both her and himself, would it not? A brief escape from their suffering, a channeling of all that pain into passion. Temporary as the feelings of pleasure might be, the aftereffects of such actions might yet persist, and could very well linger on far longer. Yes…such a thing could work as an outlet of sorts, a viable way to release a considerable amount of that pent-up frustration. It could very well be a hypothesis worth testing.

The true variable being her. Intercourse did not necessarily equate to intimacy, and without the latter, the former could provide him with no relief...though he supposes that he has no proof that even with the latter, any sort of relief might be found.

...Even so...he simply can’t forget the way that her lips had parted, her mouth falling open to reveal a flash of sharp canines, her already-wide pupils dilating noticeably as she took in his face for the first time...and quite clearly found him attractive. A being worthy of desire, even.

That particular sentiment is mutual as well, though he’s almost certain that it shouldn’t be. To have such...feelings for a familiar...to want to gather her to him, to hold her close enough to feel her warmth, to mark the surging thrum of the blood singing through her veins with his thumb pressed lightly to throat or wrist...

...To hold her down, to press himself against her, fully sink himself into her-

No. He cannot. He shouldn’t even be thinking of such things. It is no matter that she does not behave like any other familiar he’s ever encountered, that she seems so much more independent, as if she’s possessed of her own free will--enough of that for two, truly. She is not his to want, nor can she be. He should stop thinking of this foolishness, abandon these idle flights of fancy, and return to his bed--alone. Tomorrow will be another busy day, and he had spoken in earnest when he’d said that it would not do for the two of them both to be sleep-deprived on the morrow.

...And yet, as Hermes turns to go, something catches at the corner of his eye: another patch of Elpis flowers, blooming very nearly right at his feet...and instead of that dread-inducing darkness, the color their blossoms so proudly shine in the twilight is...red.

Red. The color of passion, love...lust. He cannot deny it, for although he himself might attempt to do so, the Elpis flowers do not lie. And what he feels...what he feels for her is somehow enough to drown out the darkness and suffering that usually cloud his emotions, so thick that they choke out that steady white light, pale and white and pristine.

And so it must be true. He must be in love.

Swallowing hard, he stares down at those tellingly, impossibly scarlet-tinted flowers, and once more he wants to scream, because what is he to do with this knowledge? Surely there is no use for it, no practical application-

“Hermes?”

It’s her voice that wrests him from the whirlwind of his inner thoughts, like an arrow of hope and light piercing through the uncertainty, the fierce shame, the aching longing and the bittersweet happiness and the looming threat of wretched melancholy, for regardless of how attractive she might find him, surely she would not--could not--return his feelings...

And yet, as he shifts his attention from his mental turmoil and the flowers at his feet, gazing down the incline at her instead, Hermes finds that there is another bunch of Elpis flowers there, that she is standing in their midst as she returns his steady regard, her head tipped back to look up at him...and the blossoms clustered around her feet are also glowing a burning, ardent crimson.

Edited 2022-09-11 16:13 (UTC)