[It seems like the world is always cruelest to girls like Nav and Harrow. Girls with a purpose. Girls with a calling. Girls asked to be something greater than themselves, who embrace notions like one life for one world without ever stopping to consider that they might be someone's entire world, themselves.
He was aware, in strictly academic terms, that Nav had once died for Harrowhark. It's so much more harrowing to see it played out before his eyes — to see the decision she arrives at and know what she's going to do before vision-Harrow does, because Nav always accuses him of being inside her head and, well, he knows what she's decided because it's the same conclusion he'd come to in her place.
I won't have you wasting that newfound resolve on me, he remembers saying once in similar circumstances. Go! Do what you came here to do!
Because that's what the ones like them do, in a situation like this. They buy time. They buy a chance. And they pay whatever coin it takes, on behalf of the ones they can't bear to live without.]
This is it, then.
[He says, sort of quietly, because on its face he knows Gideon will brush off sympathy and concern right now no matter how much she might want it underneath.]
You told me you died for her. This is how you did it.
I had to. [she clarifies, chewing her bottom lip.] That's how being a Lyctor works. It was the only way she was going to be able to kill the lady attacking us.
[...] Harrow was supposed to eat my soul and save her ass, save Hect's ass. It was supposed to work.
[It's almost reflexive, that protest. Sudden. Immediate. Denial born entirely of not wanting to acknowledge a hard truth, however certain it might be in reality.]
Don't say that. Surely something can be done. Some magic. Some — something.
[she looks over at him, from behind her glasses. she's unhappy to say it, but... it feels better than trying to pretend like it might not happen. it's scary. she has to get over that fear.
it actually pains her more to hear him protest. not in a bad way, but in that sort of way that realizing that someone cares about you feels a little like a punch in the chest, sometimes.]
One of the demons called me an optimist, the other day. [she says, finally.] I told them I don't think of myself that way.
[...]
Fucking sucks. I was kind of starting to like... this.
[For a long moment, he doesn't say anything at all. He can't seem to bring himself to, for all that he stands there giving every appearance of being still and unshaken. But he's got his tells, just like anyone else — the way his fingers twist into fists that dig his nails into his palms, the rough exhale of breath as his thoughts war in circles in a tempest that never seems to reach his tongue.
He knows better than anyone how unfair life is, and yet in moments like these, even he can't quite resist the urge to think it anyway. Nav, it isn't fair. Minfilia, it isn't fair!
But what she did — is it really so different than staying behind to hold off an incoming force of Crystal Braves and Brass Blades? Sometimes those are the choices you make, when you're like them. The ones who get in the way to buy others the chance to live.
He still hates that it had to be her.]
...Then. What if this is all you have left to you?
[The words don't even feel like they're his own, for all that he can feel his mouth moving to shape them.]
[she watches his fingers curl, watches him steady and even himself out as much as he can. she wouldn't catch it if she didn't know that sort of language so intimately, if she hadn't grown up speaking it the same.
she pushes off the wall and takes her sunglasses off. if he'll let her, she slides them onto his face.]
Take advantage. [she says, with a little smile. it doesn't quite reach her eyes, but she is trying - and it's not as hard as she thought it might be.] Someone told me to live a little, so that's what I'm going to do.
[What must I do? asks a high, thin voice from the video screen behind them. What pain must I visit upon you to make you surrender to despair?
Eight figures stand in the midst of a withered clearing at the end of all things, surrounded by stars and dead roots and broken fenceposts. Four figures with pointed ears, two tall and two short. Three with tails. One grizzled old bard, still dressed in his gunbreaker whites and looking much like he does in the flesh.
When the elven-eared girl in red walks forward to speak, it's almost like she's speaking directly to Gideon and Thancred, and not to the ink-black bird that hovers in her memory's midst.
No one is unbreakable! What pains one may weather may bring another to tears! But therein lies our strength — for when we fall, our brothers and sisters are there to raise us up. Again and again. Without end!
I see, remarks the bird, in a way that suggests it doesn't see at all, and soon the air is filled with a flock of them, swirling and coalescing together as her tone turns menacing: But no matter how much hope exists, ever will there be more despair. Ever will the living curse and lament the future. So shall we sing until life ceases to be!
The flock of birds becomes a swarm, becomes a torrent, becomes a hurricane; as they fly faster and faster in their ever-narrowing orbit, colors flash against the backdrop of the night sky like an aurora. More and more conjoin, until soon there are so many birds that it's impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins, and not long after there ceases to be any means of division, as the avian shapes melt and reduce into oily masses that all bleed together into one.
The Endsinger exists on a scale impossible to comprehend at a glance. Entire planets are her playthings, and two of them begin to form as she spreads her wings wide and shrieks of hatred and malice. The celestial spheres smash together shortly before their impact reaches the clearing where the eight heroes stand, and the shockwave is nearly enough to send them all sprawling as it threatens to blast them back into the empty reaches of space.
The tall elf in armor is the first to attack. He always is. He sees his enemy before him, and his lance is in his hands; what more could he possibly need than that?
He hurtles into the air, and the skies scream with the call of a great wyrm as the Endsinger manifests a new planet to bear the brunt of his attack — strong enough to all but vaporize it when it strikes.
Not far behind, of course, is Thancred. Of course he is; when has he ever been one to shy away from putting himself between an enemy and his friends?
History repeats itself, in variation on a theme; he lunges, and the elf with the tarot cards on his belt raises a shield around him — but this too comes for naught, as his strike shatters the planet in his wake and sends him hurtling back to skid along the ground.
The white-haired mage readies a spell; black-violet oilslick tears pour from the Endsinger's eyes and down her alabaster cheeks, down to the ground below where they turn into trails of roiling aether filled with the grasping hands of the damned. Thancred and the mage stand no chance of avoiding it; the agonized phantoms overtake them in an instant, swarming over them and bringing them to their knees, barely able to withstand the onslaught that threatens to overwhelm them in despair.
We die in pain, the Endsinger snarls. We die in suffering! Who are you to live?! Who are you to hope?!
They are heroes, the eight of them — and it shows in the way they instinctively seek to come to each others' rescue, one by one. The elf that had sought to shield Thancred before moves to deliver them from the writhing hands; when the Endsinger turns her sights on him next, the younger elf boy rushes in to shield him in his turn.
We cannot comprehend. We cannot know. We cannot know!
Just one good strike, the elf girl in red hisses, arming an attack of her own. The Endsinger's venomous tears fall at her feet and subsume her, forcing her to abandon her efforts in convulsions of agony.
We will not suffer alone. All will know our pain!
And now, at last, the Endsinger turns her attention to one of the last figures standing — almost too far from Thancred to make out the specifics of her features, but her importance is highlighted in the emotion saturating the memory itself. He's still trapped in the grasping darkness, she's undefended, he's not there, he's not there —
But someone is.
No you don't! shouts the redheaded mage with the glowing blue staff, his cat ears pinned back in determination as he plants a spectral sword in the ground — draws a shield of aetheric light to his arm — manifests a shield that looks like blue-white angel's wings that spread to cover the girl behind him —
It holds. And the Endsinger takes his defiance as a challenge.
Her second strike is a continuous one — a perpetual blast of force that seeks to overwhelm the young man's resolve as it bears down on his shields again and again and again. But his will holds — and it holds — and it holds — and when his shield finally breaks he stumbles backward and catches his footing and throws up his bare arms, in his determination to keep holding on.
They say that courage is fear that holds on one second longer. How courageous that boy is, to hold on one second more with nothing but his own body to throw in the way in defense.
The winds sweep them all off their feet, swirling them into the air above the clearing like bits of debris ripped free and thrown up into a tornado. The Endsinger continues her song. Their screams of pain and disorientation rock the empty void at the end of all things.
He can't swim free of it. He can't get back down there. He can't fight, can't help her, can't make it —
But it seems that for the first time — the only time — she doesn't need him to.
In the split-second before she presses down on the activation switch of the odd device in her hands, Thancred catches a glimpse of her, the last bastion of hope left standing against the Endsinger's despair. She seems to burn so bright he almost can't stand to look at her, even as he hears Alisaie cry wait!
That girl's strength has always, always been in the support of her friends. Of having her comrades at her side. Of having the ability to call for them even from far afield, to rush to her aid and lend their strength to hers.
But here, at the end of all things where logic has no dominion and emotion can be made a weapon stronger than any smith's hands could ever hope to forge, Thancred realizes:
[wow who is that red elf girl she sounds like the best character in ffxiv
anyway - gideon watches the screen, because she can't help but do it, her bright yellow eyes narrowed in her focus. there's so much to take in about this, about what's happening. she's never seen anything like the endsinger. but the area they're in almost feels a little like home.
her eyes are still on the screen, when she speaks.]
[Let's all pause for a moment of silence while Gideon has a big lesbian moment about Alisaie Leveilleur.]
I did. Charming of them to provide this at such a theatrically opportune moment.
[But his expression is softening, even without his realizing it or meaning to, because — gods, there they are. His comrades. His friends. Look at them taking on the impossible, and now here he is languishing in humiliating mediocrity like this.]
Gods, look at G'raha. Too reckless by half, that one.
[A comment that's not particularly helpful when that could describe literally any of them and their behavior on the screen.]
[gideon's expression shifts to something a little softer, too - she doesn't know these people, but if they're friends of his, she imagines they can't be too bad.]
The one who jumped in the way, with the sword and shield of aether.
[But after a few heartbeats, he blinks, like snapping out of a dreamlike stupor, and he turns to look at Gideon, still blinking.]
...Well. I suppose you were wondering about the people I've been making oblique mentions of for the past several weeks. Go on, then. If you've questions, ask.
...I haven't. In a place like this, one never knows what ears might be listening.
[But if they can do this, just take his memories and throw them up onto a projection screen at any moment, then the point of secrecy is really rather moot, isn't it?
He thinks a minute, pondering where to begin.]
I showed you the tarot cards, as you recall? And mentioned they belonged to someone else. The one who sought to shield me as I attacked, they belong to him. That's Urianger. We're old friends — all the way back to the days when I was earning my Archon marks. We often travel — traveled — together, as well. 'Tis a...comfortable comradeship, between us.
I thought the last thing you wanted was to hear me kiss and tell? Urianger and I suit each other well enough. Though I wouldn't say either of us is in much hurry to go about putting labels on our friendship. Though he does keep startlingly close track of my drunken conquests — too close for my liking, personally.
[also you named your mutual daughter after a word in a language he taught you but go off thancred i guess
Regardless, when she asks about the marks, he tilts his head to one side and tugs down his coat collar, exposing it a little more readily.]
They're what I would've offered to you, if you'd said that what you wanted was merely some way of belonging, without specifics of how you obtained it. They're awarded in recognition of exceptional contributions to, and mastery of, some particular field of expertise, by the scholarly enclave where he and I both spent our younger years.
There are scholars, and then there are Archons. One glance at them and anyone in Sharlayan would instantly recognize you as someone uniquely special.
All the more reason to induct you. Finally, I won't be the stupidest one in the ranks.
[He pauses a moment, sobering a bit as he reflects.]
I was a wharf rat as a child, Nav. No mother and certainly no father. I made acquaintances with a guild of rogues and earned my keep thieving, when I wasn't running one sordid errand or another for one black marketeer of ill repute or another. Affluence and advantage didn't earn me the right to wear these marks. Hard work and something to prove by it did.
Rynlan's seen me exercise my unique area of expertise — by some definitions of "seen", that is. Mayhap once we're out of this hole, I'll give you a demonstration as well.
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He was aware, in strictly academic terms, that Nav had once died for Harrowhark. It's so much more harrowing to see it played out before his eyes — to see the decision she arrives at and know what she's going to do before vision-Harrow does, because Nav always accuses him of being inside her head and, well, he knows what she's decided because it's the same conclusion he'd come to in her place.
I won't have you wasting that newfound resolve on me, he remembers saying once in similar circumstances. Go! Do what you came here to do!
Because that's what the ones like them do, in a situation like this. They buy time. They buy a chance. And they pay whatever coin it takes, on behalf of the ones they can't bear to live without.]
This is it, then.
[He says, sort of quietly, because on its face he knows Gideon will brush off sympathy and concern right now no matter how much she might want it underneath.]
You told me you died for her. This is how you did it.
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I had to. [she clarifies, chewing her bottom lip.] That's how being a Lyctor works. It was the only way she was going to be able to kill the lady attacking us.
[...] Harrow was supposed to eat my soul and save her ass, save Hect's ass. It was supposed to work.
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[The ambiguity in the possibility makes something in his stomach twist.]
But — you said you remember more than Harrow does. So she doesn't remember this. And that means you have no way of knowing...is that it?
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[she leans against the wall of the hole.]
So it's either she didn't want it, didn't do it right, or I fucked up - or I've made this all up, somehow.
I don't know what happened. But I didn't expect to be conscious.
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[Consume her soul, take on her power. Not the sort of thing he's thrilled to hear repeated across two more girls he cares about.]
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gideon absently rubs at her chest, between her lungs. where a scar might be, if she hadn't healed when she got here.]
There won't be anything left of me.
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[It's almost reflexive, that protest. Sudden. Immediate. Denial born entirely of not wanting to acknowledge a hard truth, however certain it might be in reality.]
Don't say that. Surely something can be done. Some magic. Some — something.
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it actually pains her more to hear him protest. not in a bad way, but in that sort of way that realizing that someone cares about you feels a little like a punch in the chest, sometimes.]
One of the demons called me an optimist, the other day. [she says, finally.] I told them I don't think of myself that way.
[...]
Fucking sucks. I was kind of starting to like... this.
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He knows better than anyone how unfair life is, and yet in moments like these, even he can't quite resist the urge to think it anyway. Nav, it isn't fair. Minfilia, it isn't fair!
But what she did — is it really so different than staying behind to hold off an incoming force of Crystal Braves and Brass Blades? Sometimes those are the choices you make, when you're like them. The ones who get in the way to buy others the chance to live.
He still hates that it had to be her.]
...Then. What if this is all you have left to you?
[The words don't even feel like they're his own, for all that he can feel his mouth moving to shape them.]
What will you do with the time you have left?
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she pushes off the wall and takes her sunglasses off. if he'll let her, she slides them onto his face.]
Take advantage. [she says, with a little smile. it doesn't quite reach her eyes, but she is trying - and it's not as hard as she thought it might be.] Someone told me to live a little, so that's what I'm going to do.
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Eight figures stand in the midst of a withered clearing at the end of all things, surrounded by stars and dead roots and broken fenceposts. Four figures with pointed ears, two tall and two short. Three with tails. One grizzled old bard, still dressed in his gunbreaker whites and looking much like he does in the flesh.
When the elven-eared girl in red walks forward to speak, it's almost like she's speaking directly to Gideon and Thancred, and not to the ink-black bird that hovers in her memory's midst.
No one is unbreakable! What pains one may weather may bring another to tears! But therein lies our strength — for when we fall, our brothers and sisters are there to raise us up. Again and again. Without end!
I see, remarks the bird, in a way that suggests it doesn't see at all, and soon the air is filled with a flock of them, swirling and coalescing together as her tone turns menacing: But no matter how much hope exists, ever will there be more despair. Ever will the living curse and lament the future. So shall we sing until life ceases to be!
The flock of birds becomes a swarm, becomes a torrent, becomes a hurricane; as they fly faster and faster in their ever-narrowing orbit, colors flash against the backdrop of the night sky like an aurora. More and more conjoin, until soon there are so many birds that it's impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins, and not long after there ceases to be any means of division, as the avian shapes melt and reduce into oily masses that all bleed together into one.
The Endsinger exists on a scale impossible to comprehend at a glance. Entire planets are her playthings, and two of them begin to form as she spreads her wings wide and shrieks of hatred and malice. The celestial spheres smash together shortly before their impact reaches the clearing where the eight heroes stand, and the shockwave is nearly enough to send them all sprawling as it threatens to blast them back into the empty reaches of space.
The tall elf in armor is the first to attack. He always is. He sees his enemy before him, and his lance is in his hands; what more could he possibly need than that?
He hurtles into the air, and the skies scream with the call of a great wyrm as the Endsinger manifests a new planet to bear the brunt of his attack — strong enough to all but vaporize it when it strikes.
Not far behind, of course, is Thancred. Of course he is; when has he ever been one to shy away from putting himself between an enemy and his friends?
History repeats itself, in variation on a theme; he lunges, and the elf with the tarot cards on his belt raises a shield around him — but this too comes for naught, as his strike shatters the planet in his wake and sends him hurtling back to skid along the ground.
The white-haired mage readies a spell; black-violet oilslick tears pour from the Endsinger's eyes and down her alabaster cheeks, down to the ground below where they turn into trails of roiling aether filled with the grasping hands of the damned. Thancred and the mage stand no chance of avoiding it; the agonized phantoms overtake them in an instant, swarming over them and bringing them to their knees, barely able to withstand the onslaught that threatens to overwhelm them in despair.
We die in pain, the Endsinger snarls. We die in suffering! Who are you to live?! Who are you to hope?!
They are heroes, the eight of them — and it shows in the way they instinctively seek to come to each others' rescue, one by one. The elf that had sought to shield Thancred before moves to deliver them from the writhing hands; when the Endsinger turns her sights on him next, the younger elf boy rushes in to shield him in his turn.
We cannot comprehend. We cannot know. We cannot know!
Just one good strike, the elf girl in red hisses, arming an attack of her own. The Endsinger's venomous tears fall at her feet and subsume her, forcing her to abandon her efforts in convulsions of agony.
We will not suffer alone. All will know our pain!
And now, at last, the Endsinger turns her attention to one of the last figures standing — almost too far from Thancred to make out the specifics of her features, but her importance is highlighted in the emotion saturating the memory itself. He's still trapped in the grasping darkness, she's undefended, he's not there, he's not there —
But someone is.
No you don't! shouts the redheaded mage with the glowing blue staff, his cat ears pinned back in determination as he plants a spectral sword in the ground — draws a shield of aetheric light to his arm — manifests a shield that looks like blue-white angel's wings that spread to cover the girl behind him —
It holds. And the Endsinger takes his defiance as a challenge.
Her second strike is a continuous one — a perpetual blast of force that seeks to overwhelm the young man's resolve as it bears down on his shields again and again and again. But his will holds — and it holds — and it holds — and when his shield finally breaks he stumbles backward and catches his footing and throws up his bare arms, in his determination to keep holding on.
They say that courage is fear that holds on one second longer. How courageous that boy is, to hold on one second more with nothing but his own body to throw in the way in defense.
The winds sweep them all off their feet, swirling them into the air above the clearing like bits of debris ripped free and thrown up into a tornado. The Endsinger continues her song. Their screams of pain and disorientation rock the empty void at the end of all things.
He can't swim free of it. He can't get back down there. He can't fight, can't help her, can't make it —
But it seems that for the first time — the only time — she doesn't need him to.
In the split-second before she presses down on the activation switch of the odd device in her hands, Thancred catches a glimpse of her, the last bastion of hope left standing against the Endsinger's despair. She seems to burn so bright he almost can't stand to look at her, even as he hears Alisaie cry wait!
That girl's strength has always, always been in the support of her friends. Of having her comrades at her side. Of having the ability to call for them even from far afield, to rush to her aid and lend their strength to hers.
But here, at the end of all things where logic has no dominion and emotion can be made a weapon stronger than any smith's hands could ever hope to forge, Thancred realizes:
She's going to do it.
She's going to save them all.]
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anyway - gideon watches the screen, because she can't help but do it, her bright yellow eyes narrowed in her focus. there's so much to take in about this, about what's happening. she's never seen anything like the endsinger. but the area they're in almost feels a little like home.
her eyes are still on the screen, when she speaks.]
You talked about this. Fighting despair.
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I did. Charming of them to provide this at such a theatrically opportune moment.
[But his expression is softening, even without his realizing it or meaning to, because — gods, there they are. His comrades. His friends. Look at them taking on the impossible, and now here he is languishing in humiliating mediocrity like this.]
Gods, look at G'raha. Too reckless by half, that one.
[A comment that's not particularly helpful when that could describe literally any of them and their behavior on the screen.]
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Which one is that?
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[But after a few heartbeats, he blinks, like snapping out of a dreamlike stupor, and he turns to look at Gideon, still blinking.]
...Well. I suppose you were wondering about the people I've been making oblique mentions of for the past several weeks. Go on, then. If you've questions, ask.
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[yeah that one ig.
she reaches to push the sunglasses up his nose, and then thinks it over.]
Who is who? I don't know if you've named any of them - I remember you talking about the woman that would call me an idiot.
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[But if they can do this, just take his memories and throw them up onto a projection screen at any moment, then the point of secrecy is really rather moot, isn't it?
He thinks a minute, pondering where to begin.]
I showed you the tarot cards, as you recall? And mentioned they belonged to someone else. The one who sought to shield me as I attacked, they belong to him. That's Urianger. We're old friends — all the way back to the days when I was earning my Archon marks. We often travel — traveled — together, as well. 'Tis a...comfortable comradeship, between us.
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and then something seems to occur to her, and she looks at him, and then at his neck, and then raises her eyebrows.
don't let her bully you like this, thancred]
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Yes, those marks. He has one as well; wears his on his cheek.
[THAT'S DEFINITELY WHAT SHE WAS REFERRING TO, RIGHT. RIGHT.]
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Uh huh. Into pointy ears, that's fine. Everybody's got a thing. What's an Archon mark?
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[also you named your mutual daughter after a word in a language he taught you but go off thancred i guess
Regardless, when she asks about the marks, he tilts his head to one side and tugs down his coat collar, exposing it a little more readily.]
They're what I would've offered to you, if you'd said that what you wanted was merely some way of belonging, without specifics of how you obtained it. They're awarded in recognition of exceptional contributions to, and mastery of, some particular field of expertise, by the scholarly enclave where he and I both spent our younger years.
There are scholars, and then there are Archons. One glance at them and anyone in Sharlayan would instantly recognize you as someone uniquely special.
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... For what, though, I haven't done anything that's notable. I'm sure as fuck not a scholar.
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And you think I am, do you?
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[He pauses a moment, sobering a bit as he reflects.]
I was a wharf rat as a child, Nav. No mother and certainly no father. I made acquaintances with a guild of rogues and earned my keep thieving, when I wasn't running one sordid errand or another for one black marketeer of ill repute or another. Affluence and advantage didn't earn me the right to wear these marks. Hard work and something to prove by it did.
Rynlan's seen me exercise my unique area of expertise — by some definitions of "seen", that is. Mayhap once we're out of this hole, I'll give you a demonstration as well.
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