#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 #27: Hail | ✧ Koharu Sumeragi (WoL) + Sarhnai Dotharl (WoL) ✧ | SB spoilers

[wordsworn]

For Koharu, watching what Zenos does to Sarhnai is even worse than going through what he’d done to Koharu herself.

She is shaking too hard to move, her battered body protesting even the slightest movement, but even so, at her heart she wants to push herself back up onto her feet, wants to do exactly what she did before and place herself between the crown prince and her soul-sister, wants to make a shield of her body if the ones she weaves with her magicks aren’t strong enough.

But she knows that she is too weak for that. That her body would offer even less protection than her shields do, that Zenos could simply smash her out of his way with one casual, backhanded blow. He is unstoppable, implacable.

She hates him.

She has never felt such a dark, strong emotion towards anyone. She has been angry, of course, and she has not faltered while facing down beings like Livia, Thordan, the Heavens’ Ward, and Lahabrea, determined to make certain that they can harm no one else with their cruel, careless actions, even if that means she has to get her hands dirty and wrest the life out of them ilm by ilm.

But what she feels for Zenos is beyond anything so simple and clear-cut as anger. She doesn’t simply want him dead to keep him from harming anyone else; she wants him to suffer as he dies. She wants him to be repaid for every hurt he’s inflicting on Sarhnai right now--repaid tenfold, no, a hundredfold, no, even that might not be enough. She wants to cause him pain. She wants to break every bone in his body then grind her heel down on each one until he’s choking on blood.

She has never felt like this before, never been awash in bloodlust so intense that she finds herself biting her lip so hard that the taste of copper floods her mouth again, fresh and hot.

She wonders if this is what Sarhnai feels like most of the time.

Sarhnai. It’s terrible to watch, the way the other Au Ra is beaten down relentlessly. Up until this point, Koharu had thought that Sarhnai was the unstoppable one, the greatest warrior in any land.

She doesn’t like seeing that disproved.

When Sarhnai charges forward again as best she can, Koharu tries again to cry out to her, to call her back--but in vain. Her throat aches with the effort, despite very little sound being produced, so instead she grits her teeth and forces herself to focus, throwing out a few more spells despite her lack of mana, one more, just one more, surely she can manage that...

She eventually can’t manage it, and while she doesn’t completely black out, her vision goes dim and she finds herself sprawled out on her bruised, throbbing back with no memory of telling herself to lie down again. The dark, smoke-filled sky overhead looks like it’s spinning ever so slightly, the ground beneath her feels as if it’s rising and falling, as if she were in a boat on the sea-

Then Sarhnai letting out a shout grounds Koharu in the present moment again. It takes everything in her simply to turn her head...and then her eyes go wide with unconcealed horror as Zenos lashes out to break another bone and her soul-sister crumples to the ground nearby, so close and yet so far. But even that isn’t enough to stop Sarhnai. Once again she gets back up and hurls herself at him, despite how obviously futile such a thing is, and keeps fighting, struggling and thrashing like a fish in a net, with about as much effect on Garlemald’s savage crown prince.

Within seconds, she’s been smashed down by another blow from one of those swords, and this time, she does not get up.

Koharu lies there, motionless but for her own shallow breathing, wanting more than anything to roll onto her side and crawl towards her soul-sister but knowing on an instinctive level that staying still is the smart play here. She is a rabbit and Zenos is a wolf, already glutted on fresh prey, and so long as she remains still, she can survive this; if she runs, he will give chase and tear out her throat simply on instinct.

It is a different sort of agony, to simply lie there as Sarhnai pushes herself far beyond what she should, clearly attempting not to attack, but to reach Koharu’s side; but only once Zenos has vanished back into the gloom, wreathed and then concealed by licking, snapping flames and thick, acrid smoke, does Koharu follow suit, pushing herself up into a sitting position despite how much her muscles object to it. Then she crawls across the rocky, uneven ground as quickly as she can (something in one of her arms protests this in a way the speaks of a sprain, and there’s a pain in her hip where she’d first hit the ground after being thrown that hampers her efforts to move at all, much less move quickly, and she won’t be surprised later when she learns that her leg is dislocated, the ball joint popped right out of its socket; but right now that pain is shunted aside as, dragging that leg, she finally makes it to Sarhnai’s side.

Koharu reaches out to gently turn her over, to give herself a better view of the many injuries--and she chokes on a sob as she takes in the ruin that is Sarhnai’s once-strong, healthy body. That sob doesn’t come out right--again, it comes out all but silent--but the blue-haired girl is too intent on the far more important matter of healing her soul-sister to notice or care that her voice, always quiet in the first place, isn’t working at all right now.

Settling in for what she knows will be a long job, Koharu carefully hauls the upper part of Sarhnai’s body into her lap, curling herself around the other Au Ra protectively as she gathers up the tattered shreds of her aether and begins to heal the unconscious warrior.

Her legs are already a mottled mass of bruises, and Koharu gives a low scoff of disgust that only a healer could make--how much worse did Sarhnai make her injuries by forcing herself back to her feet? How much longer will she have to simply sit in bed and recover? Koharu is careful in directing her healing magicks--the last thing she wants is for Sarhnai's femur to heal this way--twisted and broken, not at all lined up the way it should be. There’s nothing more she can do for those injuries out here; she needs a splint, and also a pulley system, to use to pull Sarhnai's leg straight and then keep it that way, to ensure that it heals properly. Even so, she can see to the other injuries--the one on her hand, the ragged slash across her upper chest, half a dozen (or is it an actual dozen?) others both internal and external.

It’s only once she’s mended as much as she can, enough to be certain that her soul-sister will live through the night, at least, that Koharu lets her weary head fall back against the ground, the soft glow of healing magicks fading as she thinks back to that last exchange. How Zenos’s blade had snapped after striking Sarhnai down. She can see the broken blade lying there out of the corner of her eye, and as she allows her eyes to drift closed, dozing lightly while waiting for an incoming rescue squad to help them to some sort of medical facilities, she decides that, once someone lifts Sarhnai off of her, she’s going to collect both pieces of that broken sword.

It could be fitting, perhaps even satisfying, to see it reforged. To make use of it, once it has been melted down, tempered, the metal folded countless times until it is stronger than ever it was. She knows of a man in Kugane who could do such a thing, a swordsmith who is an undisputed master of his craft. If she tells him who she truly is, and that she means to quench the blade with the blood of the Garlean crown prince, he might even agree to take the job.

Even if he doesn’t...perhaps it’s time she learned from another school of combat. She will never be able to best Zenos in sheer brute strength; but coupled with her shinobi training…that speed and a high-quality blade in her hands might get her somewhere.

Opening her eyes, Koharu looks down into Sarhnai’s face once again, noting how drawn and pained her expression is even while unconscious...and that hot anger, that seething hatred she’d felt towards Zenos before goes absolutely cold and solidifies, the usual warm, gentle rain in her heart freezing itself into sharp shards of hail.

Whether it gets her somewhere or not, she is most certainly going to try.