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

After that shared confection is gone, there’s a perfect halcyon moment that stretches between them, a peace and contentment that wraps around them, soft and comforting and comfortable. Hermes can’t help but wish it could last forever. They are seated so close now, heads leaning together at one corner of the table, and all he need do for one of his knees to bump hers is to shift in his chair ever so slightly.

It’s a temptation that he can’t resist, despite the flicker of guilt mingled with excitement that the very idea precipitates, and he doesn’t quite manage to be either casual or subtle about the way his knee nudges against hers. He can feel heat in his cheeks, and he watches for her reaction in his peripheral vision rather than doing so directly. Even so, he easily notes her blink of surprise when he makes contact, as well as the initial resistance his knee meets as it presses against hers--which then suddenly, abruptly falls away as she relaxes her legs, allowing his to slide between hers. It is in no way truly indecent, as they aren’t seated nearly close enough for his leg to press up against anything too terribly interesting; in truth, he’s only just past the bony part of her leg, his knee resting in the gentle curve directly before the soft flesh of her sleekly lush thighs begins. Even so, it’s clearly permission, of a sort, and judging by the dark wash of sudden color staining her face, paired with a shy smile and her own inability to make eye contact with him...she is not at all unreceptive to any potential advances he might make.

They linger thus for what feels like both an eternity and only a few brief moments, just long enough for Hermes to wonder if he could get away with shifting his leg a bit higher, or perhaps reaching for one of her hands-

Before he can do either, she’s moving away, pushing the chair back to stand up even as she leans in to gather up the pan and both the spoons they’d used. Her expression is flustered, but other than a slight wobble at the start, her words stay calm, composed and companionable.

“I-I should clean up. If I let it sit for too long, it becomes a real mess--and not the sort that’s fun to deal with either.”

He notes the way she turns her back on him fully as she crosses the room, returning to her workstation--a level of trust that flatters him, even as it sends a concerningly dark thrill through him...for she does not truly know him, and cannot know if he is really deserving of that trust. Not after only one short day spent together, no matter how soul-bearing and intimate their talks might have been.

Something about the vulnerable sight of her back, or perhaps the bared nape of her neck that’s visible over the collar of her shirt, has him on his feet and striding after her across the room, for once not allowing himself to think and overthink everything even as he moves towards her with a very definite sort of intent.

She must hear the scuff of the sole of one of his shoes against the flagstones beneath their feet, because she manages to half-turn before he reaches her, her eyes going wide and startled as he leans down, his arms coming up and reaching out to cage her in, his hands grasping at the workstation at her back, the one holding the empty birdcage.

It would be simplicity itself to lean in further and cover those lips with his own. She is gazing up at him, her face tipped up towards him invitingly, and she does not protest her current situation, nor does she attempt any kind of escape from that slight fragment of space between his arms and the workstation behind her. Instead, she blinks slowly, one hand coming up to lightly rest on his arm--and yet, Hermes is suddenly awash with doubt.

After everything that she has already done for him--the reassuring embrace earlier, that tender kiss to the top of his head, this fantastically sweet repast, giving him hope for the first time in ages by showing her understanding and acceptance of him in the first place--is he truly going to be so ungrateful and insatiate as to try to get something more out of her?

His gaze is steady on her mouth, and he ducks his head even further, until he can feel the feather-light sensation of the quick, excited heat of her breath against his face...and yet, still he freezes, lingering perhaps half a handspan away. What he wants, wants so deeply that it burns, is at war with how he knows he should behave--honored guests of Elpis are not to be treated thus, much less familiars, particularly those that belong to a member of the Convocation of Fourteen. He truly is an aberration after all, he must be, far more wanton and shameless than even he himself had realized. What right does he have-

That dark, intensely self-loathing thought stutters to a halt then fades away like mist before the morning sun as she unexpectedly (or perhaps not) makes the next move, her lips light and lingering as they brush against one of his cheekbones. Hermes releases an audibly-shaking breath as she repeats the action on the other side of his face, then dips her head to press her lips against his jawbone. He draws in a breath every bit as unsteady as the one he’d just let out when he feels a brief scrape of teeth against his neck, followed by an equally quick flicker of a warm, wet tongue dragging over the pulse in his throat. Writing such things off as his overactive imagination wouldn’t be difficult, would likely be for the best; but next, she presses her lips to the corner of his mouth--and the Chief Overseer of Elpis abruptly finds his nerve again, pulling away just enough to turn his head, facing her straight-on as he leans in to kiss her properly.

Edited 2022-09-25 22:12 (UTC)