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#ah. twas an act of hubris
linelpisffxiv · 4 years
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Happier Ending
Hydaelyn promises her so much as the Exarch -- Raha -- shatters in her arms. The ability to find peace, to no longer love so strong.
It is your greatest strength, but also your greatest curse. Woe betide those who stand with the Weapon of Light.
“For death shall be their reward. Death for them and their kin and all they shall hold dear.”
She hasn’t heard Hydaelyn’s voice since that stunt Elidibus held in the Exedra, and she’s not certain it was more than an illusion. Before that? She can’t even remember. She was silent through her journeys in Ala Mhigo and Doma. Through her time in Coerthas and Dravania. The last time she knew Hydaelyn spoke to any was Midgardsormr.
How odd she chose to speak to her again now.
Might we have a pact, my champion? No more pain, for your--
“No!”
Lin stands up. “We do not have a pact. You haven’t spoken to me in years. Why now?”
Why after she knows the truth. Hydaelyn must sense she’s aware the crystal is little more than a primal.
This pain will consume you. I can tell. I shall ask again in three suns.
There was something G’raha wanted her to do. She has the eye. Neither of them found out how it was transferred by chance, but her right eye and the sanguine crystal should be enough.
She only has three days. Three days until Hydaelyn returns. And she doubts she’d listen unless she can prove everything.
She steps through the portal, sensing it would be the last time. She can follow her aether, but the portal is an easier, shorter, less painful trip. She can sense Haurchefant following her, but it feels like there’s another. She won’t turn. She’s been an avid reader of stories since she woke up in this body that wasn’t hers, became someone more than either of them.
As a bard she learned more. She has a chance this time, defy the reincarnation, bring someone back from the dead. She hopes that’s the case.
One tale Jehantel told her was of a bard who had tried this before, but Thal had a rule, the bard could not look back on their journey. They failed, whether due to silent steps, or thinking they passed when their love had yet to pass the threshold.
This is not her hubris, not yet.
She’s close to the gates. Perhaps she has all she needs on her, but perhaps not.
Lin wastes a day teleporting to Ala Mhigo and asking for the assistance of the Ironworks.
The Sons of Saint Coinach are are their excavation site still. She looks over Rammbroes’s records, trying to see if she missed something.
The records on G’raha’s last words before he sealed the tower spark something in her mind, in the hand. She runs through the outer gates, across the Eight Sentinels, up to the door. It takes her five tries and four bells until her eye and the crystal resonate with the tower.
Another two until she finds G’raha. Just as handsome before as he was after three hundred years of pain. If she hadn’t been in a relationship, perhaps she would have noticed this before, remembered his voice longer.
Waking him and the tower takes half the time remaining. Wedge gets her coffee, the tech he tried to make doing little even with the crystal. Early on she tries a classic kiss, waking a sleeping beau as in stories, only for that to fail
She isn’t even certain what did work in the end. But he wakes, and the crystal in her hand changes from Sanguine to the color of the oceans around Vylbrand.
“Lin,” G’raha says, still asleep. “There is a thing I ask--”
She did it, she gave the crystal to him, but is this worth it. Did she destroy the G’raha she knew before? Was it--
His eyes open. “This isn’t right, I have to do one more thing.”
G’raha stands up and runs.Her head aches.
Not yet. She won’t give in yet. The others try and help her, but she manages to get to a wall to keep her standing. No one can know this fight.
Only to feel the tower around her. She doesn’t quite know what it is, but she can sense everyone around. Why now? What did she succeed in doing? But the tower in her mind is clouded, only places she’s been. G’raha passed that threshold before she found this.
Still, there’s one way to be able to sense him. Learn the Tower.
Lin walks along the steps, hand pressed tight against the tower, sensing the walls around her. Her head hurts too much to open her eyes. This isn’t Hydaelyn, the Crystal keeps her promise. This is the tower. Is this how those born with the Eye felt? Allagan royalty? This constant pain with all the information the tower had.
She keeps heading down, beyond the entry. The basement that was more than the Labyrinth, the Syrcus Twinning back in Norvrandt.
She feels like her head is splitting, she doesn’t know if the lifts exists, but she takes the risk as she walks along a corridor and takes one step off the edge.
A controlled fall. A long fall. The aether keeps her descent steady, though now it no longer feels familiar.
But she can almost sense G’raha, his soul. It’s so strong, She tries to find the way.
Hear.
No. She refuses. She will be deaf. G’raha has something to do, and she will at least make sure she can see it through. She forces her eyes open and bursts into a sprint. She bites her way through the pain, trying to not fall and break these relics. They’re precious to him. She can’t rely on them staying for another three hundred years.
She comes to a wall, but the tower senses she has insist otherwise, but it is tight. He’s overwriting her. But she needs to know. Needs to
Feel.
Not feel. See. Know. She puts her hand on the wall and it dissipates this time. She steps through before it closes immediately.
“I need him out of my mind, please, please work with my blood.”
G’raha’s voice is quiet. Younger than the Exarch’s, but still similar. The ages haven’t worn on him.
“No, I like him, but he is not what I want to be. But he’s needed just as much.”
She walks up to G’raha, the room is mostly dark, with the only lights being the sickly crystal glow she knows too well.
“What is this place?”
He turns to her in surprise. “Lin, how could you-- Oh yes, he gave you his blood in two ways. How you kept it, I don’t know.”
“He gave it to me willingly. Unknowingly, but it was through a statement of willingness.”
G’raha clutches his right eye. “I know that. I know too much about you. Nothing you gave to me. These are his memories. His skill.”
She starts to walk to him.
“Stop!”
She does.
“He’s not ready. I may be the carer for this tower, but the Tower hasn’t had time to know me.”
She doesn’t understand at first.
“The Exarch. He won’t do more than give me his memories. What I needed to know. But I think I can give them away. You remember Doga and Unei, correct?”
She nods, Lin doesn’t trust her voice, but certainly G’raha can’t see her. “Y-yes?” Rough. Too rough.
“This is where they were made. The Exarch learned how to make clones, but refused to do so in life.”
So she isn’t past the threshold yet. “I’ll leave you both to this now.” Keep this room safe.”
She puts her hand on the wall and steps out, almost blinded by the light beyond.
She can only hope finding the room didn’t deny her the chance.
Think.
No. She won’t. She clutches her Heart-shaped stone and keeps herself standing with her sword. She won’t think. Won’t look back.
Three days couldn’t have passed, have it?
You cannot believe the youth can do this. Twas not possible to split the consciousness into a clone. Only copy.
“I believe in him. Raha’s had time to learn beyond the Allagan knowledge. And his youth has that same determination.”
She’s the Warrior of Darkness now, not the Warrior of Light. She will never wear that title again.
Lin can feel Hydaelyn pick at her mind, but she fights back. Fears she’s had, the moments of weakness. Haurchefant dead, Raha shot. Raha breaking.
Every time her darkest parts took hold.
She trimphed each time. If this doesn’t work, she can live. She took the chance.
You do remember that clones--
“Cannot have children. So?”
She’s wondered about motherhood, but it’s something she can live without. And if Hydaelyn tries to hint at body, well, she also remembers living without that as well.
Your soul is splintered. I thought I mended it, but last time I saw you, I saw you have embraced the fractures, refusing the healing. You act as if you are not your body’s soul.
“I am, but I’m not. I was born someone I refuse to say the name of, but I became Mneme Enki before the rejoining. A’lin’s memories turned me into something more. I go by Lin now. No clan, no father. I am me.”
Pain shoots through her left shoulder, her mind returns to Myste and Zephirin, the javelin of her own aether piercing her skin.
I can heal the pain, the splinters. You are weaker as sixteen than you are as one.
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts? Are you telling me that?” Her voice is tense.
Zephirin and the pain flash again.
And again.
She will stand still. She won’t look back.
She is stronger as the sum of every memory locked in her. She can learn from others, not just herself.
Hydaelyn chose her. Why, she doesn’t know. Her life in Amaurot, what little she can piece from it, was not on her side. Nor were they for Zodiark. One day she’ll find that fragment, somewhere deep in her soul.
You won’t look back.
“Not until they’re ready.”
“Lin, where are you?” She can hear voices she knows well.
Very well.
Ah, so Hydaelyn tries another tale. Blind her with rage as she had been when Haurchefant died.
Make her beg atonement like a fallen Warrior of Light of the Fourth Astral Era.
Have her kill loved ones in her rage.
“Don’t come near,” she says. “I’ll attack.”
Monsters come towards her. She can’t tell if something woke up in the tower or ir this is the madness in that tale. She won’t attack, she’d sooner pass, endure every hit.
She steels herself with every technique she remembers of the sword. She hasn’t needed it for a long time, only bringing the stone to the front on the rare occasions she wanted to talk to herself. But she puts it in front of her, blocking the swipe.
Defend, don’t attack. This could be Biggs in front of her, not a Zhagnol.
Another swipe, but she doesn’t block. Pain.
So much, but this could be games with her mind. She will not give up. Not unless G’raha is lost, and he’s safe behind her.
One being tries to get past her. She flashes an abyssal drain near it. Don’t get too close. Just enough to grab attention. She won’t fight.
She tosses skill after skill in her head to prevent damage, even her damaging skills she keeps at range. Defend, attract.
She could heal, but that would require her to give in to the anger, fight what she’s facing. Until she can trust her eyes, she won’t.
Shadow Wall. When the violet light dies down, she changes.
Dark mind.
Rampart.
Reprisal.
Every step of the way she keeps defending. The wall is up behind her, she knows that much.
It’s only when she can’t find the will for any others she finally gives in.
“Give me the strength, Fray, A’lin.”
Living Dead. It’s not the best shield, and she can’t get her stamina back alone.
It gives her five minutes though Five minutes of not feeling the attacks.
Still, the time is lost on her without touch.Hearing, seeing. She parries what she can as more beasts come to her.
She takes a deep breath, prepared to lose awareness, and with it, whatever Hydaelyn wants her to.
“Your tale will not end here.”
Two voices echo together. The slightest difference between the two G’rahas.
A’lin stands up, and her vision clears. The beasts are still there, but she can also see Biggs, Wedge, and Cid on the rear.
“I’ve been trying to get you to fight this thing for half a bell.”
“Couldn’t hear you. Was in too much pain.”
Two hands rest on her shoulders.
“How did--”
“You did it, I think,” G’raha says. The younger one. “You hit something that woke them from their slumber.”
Lin grins. “I see. Well, I should finish what I started then.” She takes a pose and wraps herself in the shell of Grit.
She can’t find Hydaelyn in her mind, but she can still feel the blessing. Hydaelyn may want to take it from her, but she’ll fight every second of it.
She and the Older G’raha swap between their skills with ease, as the younger focuses on healing them. Biggs and Cid keep the creations from fleeing. A dance she hasn’t had since Nidhogg possessed Estinien. A dance she missed.
Their strikes are like music in and of itself, his flames with her diving plunge. His Glare with her Verthunder. He throws up the shield as she releases a cascade of refulgent golden arrows.
But once the enemies fall and she’s at Biggs and Cid, she puts her weapons away and find herself back in her Red Mage dress.
G’raha kisses her. The older one she loved. She smiles and kisses him back.
She pulls away for a second, turns to the young one and kisses him too. A few seconds. She pulls away and smiles as a blush cover his cheeks.
“Sorry,” she says. “I made a powerful enemy today. I’m glad I’m alive. if you--”
The younger one silences her with a kiss.
She can share them, learn their similarities and differences, both be willing.
“I destroyed my copy of most of his memories after waking up,” G’raha says. “At least, what I could. He insisted I keep his control over the tower, his ability to cast and defend. I can’t do much, yet.”
She’s passed the threshold, and let her love do the same. She avoided the rage of Halone upon a hero.
But she’s no longer a champion of the Mother. She can only hope the Blessing will never be taken away, She needs to use it, only three more times.
“Let us head to Seventh Heaven,” Cid says. “And the Rising stones beyond. You three have had a trying day.”
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geneeste · 4 years
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Genie’s SG1 Rewatch: The Nox
Season 1, Episode 8. In which I appreciate that this episode is really about how ridiculous it is that Earthlings make uneducated assumptions and then make poor decisions based on those assumptions, all the while acting paternalistically at a far more advanced and intelligent race. Also SG1 is essentially just made up of hubris, sass, and trauma.
PREVIEW:
11:40 AM What am I doing right now? I’m laughing at Apophis’ gold “armor” bouncing like the vulcanized rubber it is Every time he takes a step the armor quivers like even it wants to slap him in the face Must be why he stands still and yells so much
12:47 PM And now: The Nox! So we open with Sassy Grandpa Hammond showing off the Stargate to the Secretary (of the Air Force or Defense? Not sure yet) And they do that thing where the Secretary asks what the Stargate is, Sam explains it in very reasonable terms, and then the Secretary pretends he doesn’t understand words
12:48 PM They do this so often: set up Sam as an expert and then essentially make fun of her for it and it always REALLY IRRITATES ME Also this is a high ranking officer and you do not get to be a high ranking officer without several post-undergrad degrees and why are they pretending these guys are stupid? Why?!
12:52 PM “Begging the Secretary’s pardon” — is that basically “with all due respect”? Oh what the hell, everyone take a drink
12:55 PM The Secretary is not impressed with what they’ve brought back, huh? The Secretary can go get his ass in some BDUs and join in then (Sorry, apparently I’m feeling cranky)
12:57 PM This dude talking about how the team isn’t acting enough like thieving colonizers is really not endearing him to me “Sir, with respect” THERE IT IS, everyone take a drink
12:58 PM Also someone shut down the gate your power bill is gonna be astronomical Heh I made a funny
1:00 PM Oh Teal’c heard of a place with a thing, yay Teal’c Ooh pretty thunderstorm I always forget how armed they are in the early seasons They really scale down as they go, which isn’t the direction I’d have though they’d go in Oops they lost the Stargate That’s not good
1:06 PM Oh hey, Hart Hanson wrote this ep, I didn’t know he was a writer on this show (he later went on to write for Bones)
1:09 PM “I just hope it becomes visible once we tranq it, otherwise we won’t be able to find it.” Good point, Daniel Why would Apophis himself be on this planet Random aside: why are Sam and Daniel the only ones wearing those ugly helmets
1:11 PM This plan seems I’ll-advised Right, tell them Sam SG1 is really just made up of hubris, sass, and trauma
1:14 PM Sam I thought you were the smart one hon Why are you giving up your position like this Now I expected that from Daniel Oh Teal’c
1:16 PM Daniel death tally: 1
1:18 PM Sam you were dead, Daniel’s not trying to grope you honey Aw Sam finishing Jack’s sentences
1:21 PM I love the Nox, genuinely Nafrayu is adorable and I love him
1:26 PM Ah, the Daniel and Jack Variety Comedy Show, hello sirs I appreciate that this episode is really about how Earthlings make uneducated assumptions and then make poor decisions based on those assumptions, all the while acting paternalistically at a far more advanced and intelligent race
1:33 PM Seriously, so much of SG1’s time is spent trying to convince people they don’t want to kill other people they actually do kinda want to kill 
1:36 PM “And we can’t kill him either...I wasn’t considering it, I was just stating the fact.” See And I don’t know where we as a fandom got the idea that Daniel was less violent than the rest of them, lol
1:40 PM What am I doing right now? I’m laughing at Apophis’ “armor” bouncing like the vulcanized rubber it is Every time he takes a step the armor quivers like even it wants to slap him in the face Must be why he stands still and yells so much Hahahahaha he’s just talking and the armor is flapping up and down Poor costumers
2:04 PM Daniel listen to your elders Jack, maybe consider you don’t know everything 
2:08 PM Oh no TEAL’C Shak’l don’t be a jerk dude
2:13 PM Oh dear, Nafrayu Kids, huh? They really should have gone when the Nox told them to
2:17 PM See, Jack is very smart HA Teal’c ready to swing an entire tree Way to go Daniel
2:21 PM Oh hey floating city THEY TOLD YOU
2:23 PM Well, at least they learning something I really do like that ep, ‘twas a good one
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