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aminiatureworld · 3 years

Text

In My Dreams IV

Characters: Xiao, fm!reader

Word Count: 3,167

Warnings: Brief depiction of violence, nightmares

Premise: The past is many things. Something to admire, something to learn from, something to hold dear. And yet how unreliable it can be, especially in the hands of ghosts.

In which the reader dreams of the past.

Author’s Note: Translation notes and historical references will come after the fic. This one was a little sketchy/ooc, prolly because I’m tired.

Xiao

If there was one thing that you appreciated most about your relationship with Xiao it was the fact that he never attempted to cage your independence.

Though the adeptus had a penchant for clinginess – something he’d never actually admit to – the circumstances of both his and your past had set a standard for a level of separation that you greatly appreciated. You were never pressured to tell Xiao about things you weren’t comfortable sharing and in return you never pressed your partner in regards to topics or events that made him somewhat uncomfortable.

And yet there was something very isolating about such a freedom.

It was an ordinary enough commission, laughably so in fact, the kind that you could knock back in ten minutes flat if you put a little effort into it. Treasure Hoarders were once more encroaching on Liyue, this time gathering at the vicinity of Dunyu Ruins, something that would surely be a hazard to the archaeologists who gathered to study the lost jade monument. The act of chasing out the Treasure Hoarders was indeed easy enough, and it was only until you started rifling through their loot that you found yourself uneasy.

The lid was an innocuous enough item. Though the box that it once covered was nowhere to be found it must’ve been a work of art, as the smooth tortoiseshell lid was clearly the result of patience and love. Painted a deep blue it depicted a snowy scene, with a castle or cathedral at the front and center. The building itself was of a unique design; a tall turret stuck out at the top while small onion domes sat a little lower, each painted a more outlandish color than the last. The architecture was completely unlike what one might see in either Liyue or Mondstadt, and really there should’ve been nothing to it except the odd design of the building. Yet the moment you set your eyes upon the building you felt something harden in the pit of your stomach.

You never thought about what you couldn’t remember; after all, what was the point of it? Why mourn something you weren’t even sure was good or bad? Yet in that moment you felt that you would give very little to not remember just a little bit. At least enough to know why the image of a cathedral in the snow made you wish deeply for something you couldn’t remember, and frightened you just as much.

“Something’s wrong with you face.”

“Xiao!” You sputtered, surprised by the sudden bluntness of your partner. “My face is just fine, a little dirt won’t kill me.”

“That’s not it.” Xiao scowled. “Your face is harder than usual. Did something happen?”

“Nothing happened! Sometimes I just don’t smile, okay?” You instinctively moved the corners of your mouth upwards, trying to ignore the sudden jump in your heart rate. “I’m fine.”

Xiao looked supremely unimpressed at your efforts, sighing and flying up to the balcony of the Inn. You sighed, letting your expression once more droop. It was easy sometimes to forget how in tune Xiao was. You wouldn’t expect it from an adeptus who had spent thousands of years mostly secluded from humans, but your partner was impressively good at reading your mood. Usually you didn’t mind the ability of his, even welcoming the fact that he so bluntly brought up the question of your feelings. But today you wished despite yourself that he was a little less aware. After all, how could you explain to your partner what you didn’t even understand yourself?

The rest of the night was oddly tense. Though Xiao said nothing you could tell from the way he stared intently at your face that he hadn’t given up his suspicions. For your part you tried to ignore his gaze, talking about trivial matters such as the question of replacing the Guild roof and the fact that you had managed to gather a few Qingxin during your commissions. All the while you felt the roiling of your heart; and all the while you kept rubbing your fingers along the smooth finish of the lid in your pocket as if in doing so you might suddenly be struck with what you currently missed and currently, desperately, needed.

The next day you walked up to Katherine utterly exhausted. Though you’d made a concerted effort to sleep, knowing that if not you’d just arouse more worry in Xiao, most of the night had been spent tossing and turning, your eyelids feeling paper thin as you attempted to drag yourself down into the depths of sleep. Of course now that the sun was shining you felt like even a stone bench would be a soft enough mattress. Blinking heavily you smiled awkwardly at Katheryne.

“Any commissions today?”

“Two ordinary sweeps and one request.” Katheryne tilted her head slightly. “Are you sure you don’t need rest?”

“I’m perfectly fine Katheryne, thank you for worrying. You said there was a request?”

“Yes. It seems that the citizen who noticed the Treasure Hoarders for us claims to have been robbed by them. He says to meet you at Dunyu Ruins so you can hand over the item.”

“And what item is that?”

“He said it was some sort of box lid. He didn’t give many details I’m sorry. If you’re uncomfortable though of course we could send someone with you.”

“I’ll be fine, thanks for worrying.”

“Of course! Good luck!”

“Thanks.”

You turned around, trying to stem the ice that flooded your veins. Who was this man to whom the cathedral belonged? How did he come across such an odd item, was he from one of the other nations of Teyvat you hadn’t visited? Most of all you wondered if he held some connection to your past. The idea thrilled you in some way, though dread also lingered. You weren’t entirely sure you wanted to meet this mysterious person. Commissions were commissions however; you wouldn’t betray the Guild. No matter how much you wanted to; you couldn’t.

The Dunyu Ruins were still, no monsters seemed to linger at the gates and no other adventurers peeked out from behind old walls. The air was utterly still, something which worried you greatly. Walking at an increased rate you sought out your mysterious commissioner. The more you thought about it the more you wished the whole thing to be over as soon as possible. Turning the corner you stopped in your tracks, gazing in awe at the person a few meters in front of you.

The first thing you thought was how oddly he was dressed. The second thing was that he was much younger than you had expected. The third thing was that you felt an odd sense of familiarity from him.

“Ah yes, the adventurer who accepted my commission. Have you brought what I asked of you?”

Though a response was certainly in order you found the words stuck in your mouth. Staring at him you felt the ground shift between your feet slightly. He was familiar, this young man in front of you, and yet he was also a perfect stranger. He seemed more like an apparition than anything, a spirit who had yet to cross to the far side. You stepped closer, reaching out your arm slightly. If you went to touch his shoulder, would your fingers go right through him?

“You really must think it’s odd that I’ve returned.” The man chuckled. “I assure you I’m completely real. You weren’t the only one to survive sister, though I know that information might be too little too late?”

“Sister?” You snapped out of your trance. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Surely you aren’t pretending not to recognize me? I think that’s beneath even you. Come now, was I such a brat as that?” Reaching out the young man went to grab your hand. Instinctively you pulled away, feeling discomfort shoot through you.

“I don’t know what you mean? And you certainly aren’t my brother! I’ve never had a brother!”

“Then who was the kid you lived with your whole life before the incident?”

“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know about any incident or any brother. You asked me here to return something so I’m returning it.” Reaching for the lid you thrust the little work of art in front of you. “Here. Take it.”

“So you really don’t know who I am?” The young man reached out to take the lid. “How is that possible? Have they gone so far as to erase me from your memories? Have I been taken out of your family?”

“They?”

“The gods.” The young man’s eyes seemed incredibly harsh all of a sudden. “Their presumptiveness holds no bounds.”

“Don’t speak of the archons that way.”

“Answer me this,” the young man ignored your protest, “where are you from.”

“Why should I tell you that?”

“Humor me.”

“I…” You stood there for a moment, wondering whether or not you should tell this strange figure the truth. Morbid curiosity floated in your mind, and you took a sharp breath. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

“So I really have been erased from your mind.”

“Nothing’s been erased! I just don’t remember, should that surprise you so much?”

“Yes, it does. I see my plans will have to be changed.” The young man took a deep breath. “Very well then, we shall see what we shall see. I have an offer for you.”

“And what is that?” You felt suspicion wash over you.

“Join the Abyss.”

“Over my dead body!” Instinctively stepping away you drew your polearm. So that’s what this was about.

“I figured you might say that. However, let me tell you this. Our family was torn apart by the cruel whims of faraway gods. Teyvat suffered the same fate, still suffers it. You may not remember what happened to us, but I know it is buried in you somewhere. If you wish to avenge our family, then you’ll join us.”

“I have no petty thoughts of revenge against the gods.”

“That may very well change.” The young man smirked. “I’ll be back in a week. I expect your answers then.”

He was gone before you could say anything, carried away by a blanket of purple stars. You stared at the empty ruins, confused and empty, feeling far worse than you had felt when you arrived here.

“You look worse.”

“Thanks Xiao.” You let out a sigh, unsure how to respond.

You’d spent the rest of the walk back to the Wangshu Inn in agony, thoughts darting back and forth as you tried to reason with yourself about the veracity of the young man’s claims. There was no proof he was who he said he was after all, no proof that he wasn’t simply insane, or trying to convince you to join him by lying. Yet there was something about him, his demeanor, his anger, something that spoke to a truth about him. Not that the idea made you any happier. After all truth or not, he was still an Abyss member, or at least an advocate. You could never side with him, even if he was your long lost family. And yet what if he was your family? What then? Would it truly be a betrayal then to simply send him packing?

Xiao’s hand enveloped your own, the soft warmth drawing you out of your confused thoughts. Looking up you found him leaning into you, the tips of his hair lightly brushing your cheeks. His eyes bored into you ask he scanned your face. You stood perfectly still. You knew what Xiao was doing, knew that he was trying to figure out the depths of your discomfort. It was valiant of him, even if you hoped that he turned up empty handed. How could you tell Xiao, an adeptus who served directly under Rex Lapis, about the man who blasphemed the gods.

“You should sleep.” Xiao finally pulled away.

“It’s still early evening.”

“You didn’t sleep well last night, I could tell. You should sleep now; maybe you’ll feel better.”

“Maybe.” You replied, knowing that even if you slept better than you had ever before nothing would change when you woke up.

Still your eyelids were heavy and your feet aching. Sleep beckoned you with open arms, and you were quick to fall into its depths. Pressing a soft kiss on Xiao’s cheek you made your way up the stairs. Collapsing onto your bed you let out a sigh of relief. Sleep was coming on fast, and you quickly found the outside world swirling away. The last thing you were aware of was a dent in your mattress, and a set of familiar eyes staring down at you, filled with affection and worry.

It was dreadfully hot. That was the first thing you were aware of. The second was how loud everything was. There was a terrible sound swirling around you, inhuman shrieks seemed to rise up from the ground beneath you, accompanied with a banging that cracked through the air, echoing oddly in a night that was all too quiet. The third thing was that you had no idea where you were. Looking around you found yourself reeling at the scene that met your eyes. The house in front of you must’ve been nice at some point, but now had fallen into ruin and disrepair. Smoke was drifting up from a door that led into the ground, and bottles lay in pieces on the ground. A wall seemed to separate the house from the outside world, so tall that you had no idea what lay beyond it. Trembling slightly you felt yourself move towards the source of the noise, feet moving despite the rising dread that you felt. Making your way down a set of stairs a few lines came to you all of a sudden.

A ceiling of amber, a pavement of pearl

The smoke was thicker now, filling your lungs, leaving you short of breath. Little bits of orange blurred your vision, wielded by strange men in strange uniforms. They seemed distorted in the smoke, made into ghosts that might haunt a child’s nightmares.

Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still

You didn’t move your head towards the back of the room, somehow you couldn’t. Your very soul fought against it. Instead you closed your eyes, overwhelmed with how hot it was.

“You’ve come so far and you can’t even look?”

The voice was mocking, familiar, full of scorn. Opening your eyes you stared at the men in front of you, the men with fire at the tips of their hands. Why did he want you to look? You knew what you’d see. Somehow you knew.

We climb’d on the graves, on the stone worn with rains

You couldn’t make it out among the smoke. All you knew was that it was red.

You screwed your eyes shut, even as sudden clarity danced before you. Someone was calling your name.

There was a hand on your shoulder.

And alone dwell forever

The smoke cleared, and with it the dream.

The scream ripped through your throat before you could even process it. You knew that you should stop, knew that you were no longer dreaming, knew that the hand on your shoulder belonged to your terrified partner. Still you screamed. You screamed and screamed and screamed.

“Hey. Hey!” Xiao’s voice was frantic. Shifting your gaze towards him you felt yourself begin to tremble.

“It, it was true. It was true, I saw him. I saw him. I saw me. It was true. I, I, they’re dead. They’re dead.”

“It was a dream. No one’s dead.”

“But Xiao, they’re dead. He was right, they’re gone and dead and somehow I forget them.”

The loneliness slammed into you, mixing with the horror that sent your stomach churning. You dug you nails into your palm, desperately trying to stop shaking. Everything seemed distorted, the light emerging through the window just as menacing as the dark.

“Take my hand.”

Xiao pulled one of your hands on his lap, gently opening it and running his fingers over the marks that now rested in your palms. Unfurling your hand you it was flat against his he covered it with his own. Letting his palm rest gently against yours he looked up at you.

“No one is dead. You were having a nightmare.”

“I was remembering, Xiao. I finally remembered something. And now I wish I never had.” You unfurled your other hand, wiping furiously at the tears that pooled in your eyes. “I’m so alone Xiao, I’m so alone.”

“You aren’t alone.”

“My family, my family is gone. The only one left is an Abyss member. I, I’m so utterly alone.”

You felt Xiao drop your hand slightly. The sudden lost connection made your founder for a moment, but soon the feeling was lost as Xiao wrapped his arms around you. Pressing kisses to your forehead his grip was tight and strong, encasing you utterly in soft comfort. Letting yourself collapse slightly you leaned into his embrace.

“You’ll never be alone. I’ll always be here.”

If promises were conveyed in actions then you had no reason to doubt Xiao’s. Though the air around you was sticky with heat you found yourself pressing into your partner’s chest eyes more, soaking up every bit of connection that you could get. Xiao said nothing more, simply keeping you in his embrace, lips brushing against your cheeks as he kissed away your tears.

You knew that he wouldn’t ask about your brother that night, perhaps not even the morning afterwards, or even tomorrow evening. After all your partner wasn’t one for words, and your relationship wasn’t built upon the expectation of painful transparency. If you weren’t ready to talk he wouldn’t push you.

Eventually your tears slowed, though the pain in your chest still burned like a brand. Bringing your hands to your chest you gazed up at the adeptus who was still wrapped around you.

“Can we stay this way a little longer?”

Xiao’s eyes gleamed catlike in the moonlight. Leaning down he brushed his lips against yours, sighing slightly as you met him with exhausted ardor. Pulling back you rested your head on your partner’s chest. The dulled beat seemed almost musical, a reminder that Xiao was alive, a reminder that he was right next to you.

You had assumed in some way that it meant he didn’t care, or didn’t want to know. Though you would’ve never thought that before, the feeling of loneliness that had threatened to swallow you up had made that perfectly clear. Yet Xiao did care, cared enough not to prod and poke at wounds that were surely bleeding even now. Cared enough to kiss your worries away, cared enough to let you embrace him as long as you needed. Cared enough to show that you weren’t truly alone.

In a week you’d give the young man who had once been your brother an answer. In a week you’d face the fact of your loneliness, of a family that you’d once been a part of. In a week you would let yourself be truly lonely. But until then you would listen to the familiar beat of Xiao’s heart as you remembered that you weren’t truly alone. That you never would be.

-------

The box lid itself was based off nothing in particular. The building painted on it is a reference to Saint Basil’s Cathedral.

The poem I used was “The Forsaken Merman” by Matthew Arnold

The scene in the reader’s dream is a reference to the execution of the last Imperial family of Russia. It took place in the basement of the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg on July 17th/18th 1918.

#genshin impact fanfiction #xiao #xiao x reader #genshin impact #genshin xiao #requested #scenarios #my writing #sorry mistagged as gn out of habit first jme

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myfriendpokey · 6 years

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clearance sale

clearing out some of my backlog of opinions before the new year so i can start anew. in this post I have accumulated some writing scraps on the only three topics: 1. finance 2. mystery 3. location

FINANCE

i enjoyed these recent-ish posts against the idea of indie sustainability, although as someone who already works a day job i always feel a bit ambivalent about the advice to just work a day job to pay for this stuff - - like yes, absolutely, do it, BUT sell your shit too in the knowledge that the type of precarity we associate w/ creative work is already in the process of being implemented everywhere else as well (or has already been - zero hour contracts, sub-living wages etc). like i am fortunate to still have a day job which pays a living wage and leaves me time to work on my own things on the side - but this feels like an anachronism rather than an inevitability right now.. maybe my unsustainable games will help keep me afloat when my job gets automated and i have to go work in an amazon warehouse, unsustainable games for an unsustainable job, ha ha ha. video games are an exploitative bubble but so is the rest of "the market".

it is true that this is a political problem rather than one in the narrow remit of things that can be fixed with the right 10-point sales plan- - nevertheless i think the issue of trying to make even small money off these things will remain kind of pressing as, in turn, regular employment comes more and more to resemble irregularly compensated hobbyist labour.

anyway one point i found really interesting, which i think all the above posts kind of grapple with - - the idea that it's not necessarily more "realistic" to aim at selling 1000 copies rather than 100,000. i think while we make fun of the aspiring millionaires a lot of people have just been banking on the idea of a fertile middle ground between the two extremes of tiny and ludicrous amounts of sales, between boom and bust. i'm sure there are still people working in that space but it seems like it's shrinking.

one question brendan keogh asks in his piece is "why should game makers be any different [from the norm of artists, musicians etc not really making any money]?" i think this can actually be answered a little - because hobbyist game development sort of exploded in tandem with the internet itself becoming more naturalized within everyday life, because the economic basis for indie games was always centered around the internet, which means people working in indie games were always in the vicinity of the massive, startling movements of capital that the internet rendered more visible and immediate. no more were the weird vicissitudes of the market hidden behind closed doors, in boardrooms or stock quotations - now you could log onto any site and see just bewildering amounts of money suddenly funnel into the pockets of this or that individual in real time, frequently to their own surprise as well. and i think this connected to something more general - a sort of ambient awareness of financialization, the way "the financial sector" cannibalized things like industry, the greater visibility of capital not as something embedded in some specific product or set of individual practices but as a kind of weird free-floating aura arbitrarily descending or departing. enormous reservesof "general" wealth became more visible just as the benefits and stability of waged employment became yet more desolate and i think you need to see the draw of one in part as a consequence of the other.

gacha-capitalism, permanent artificial scarcity coupled with the vague, insistent prospect of fantastic gains, as long as you keep playing. which is a rhythm already enshrined in many areas of working life - broke college students and unpaid graduates hustling for eventual employment, waged workers grinding through until retirement. but it's one the enhanced immediacy and swiftness of capital on the internet intensified and extended. fabulous payouts can strike anyone at any time, in exchange for slowly bleeding out the prospect of any other kind of livelihood. much like the austerity following the financial crash which levelled so many basic social services for no particular purpose other than the hope that doing so for long enough would please the gods of prosperity to start tossing money around again. all dues, no pay.

i do think it's worth being cynical about the efforts to domesticate this process, building a fair and sustainable biome within capitalism, by using the tools of that same capitalism etc. but if the format can't be seperated from the wider world then that's something which swings both ways. for me the most interesting critical work around vgames right now is in the effort to move outside of the constant, numbing boom-and-bust cycles of capital, the idiot repetition of exhilaration and depression and exhilaration and it'll all be okay as long as we can hold out one more cycle, particularly when that's a rhythm which has been central to the development of the format from the beginning. i think anyone involved with developing videogames has probably seen multiple generations of cool shit emerge, get abruptly killed off and written out of history in accordance with market diktats, and then replaced with a new wave of cool shit whenever the investors shift gears into "expansion" mode again. a mode of thinking about and preserving what people do that stands in opposition to this is something i can easily imagine being more generally useful in the culture, as ever more areas of life and culture start becoming subject to the same questions.

MYSTERY

there's a mystery in depth and a mystery in shallowness. with depth the habitual glance of recognition goes out and falls through - you can place roughly where something is in relation to the world, but not what it's doing, not where it goes. as a presence it seems to require a new mode of attention to be recognized, which i guess is why it sometimes makes me uneasy - that challenge, the way that challenge can be moralized. are you a bad enough dude to engage with art?? if there are 100 black obelisks in a field which one do you decide to look at? and will it really turn out to be deep, or just dense?

videogames can feel like depth-worship, like the embodiment of an essentially cthonic system of values. how deep did you go and what did you see there? did you find the gold bars in pac-man? (www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/spies.cgi?action=url&type=info&page=pmgoldbar.info.txt) did you see the secret ending? how far did you get into the game mechanics, into the lore? this marks the top 10 deepest players on this game. surpass them... if you dare. an ethos of diligent attention, hierarchial levels of understanding and initiate-dom, a sub-culture. and at best a maguslike dedication to altered states of consciousness that i can respect, an interest in shifting through mangled pieces of debris in search of secret mysteries. at worst the authority cults and tests of true belonging that spring up around those mysteries, whose value is in being hidden and whose guarantee is in the strenuous effort with which they must be located. paranoia about true spiritual meanings being plundered by opportunistic interlopers. stay out. get good.

the videogame has the basic opacity of the computer system and the act of engaging with this curious abyss is allegorized into dungeons, castles, mazes. trapdoors and secret corridors. one pleasure in looking up older games for me is in seeing them recognize and learn how to thematize this basic sense of mystery. in bubble bobble the obscure scoring mechanics and secret endings are cheekily perverse, arcade challenge by another means - another system to game. in king's quest there's something like a crossfertilization between the strange causal voids of the fairy tale and the adventure game: "Exit the gingerbread house and go east and east. There is a large walnut tree here. Take walnut and then open walnut to discover a gold nut. Head east and take bowl . Look bowl to see the words “fill” at the bottom. Fill and the bowl will fill up with a delicious stew." the wizardry games took the connection between mysterious game systems and occult knowledge much further - the "true" ending of wizardry iv means finding a secret chamber and answering a series of riddles based on your knowledge of the kaballah (or at least, kaballah-derived tarot interpretations).

it's easy to moralize depth - lotus eaters, magic islands. you wander through a strange land and then return to find it's 5 hours later and you forgot to eat. there's something creepy to me about depth on an industrial scale, about building huge tunnels with massive teams on forced overtime, and then a team of professional tunnel reviewers cautiously start descending on ropes and come back every so often and say, well, 20 hours in and it all looks ok, and meanwhile everybody else is jumping en masse. maybe that's more of an issue with consumer culture in general. but sometimes it feels like a way to avoid dealing with certain inherent limitations of that culture, or even limitations of art in general, by projecting those limits out to the end of ever-deeper tunnels that fewer and fewer people will ever see, the rest of them straggling back, exhausted, getting jobs. well, i can't tell you if red dead 2 is good or not. i only got 60 hours in, and i never even found all the falcons.

if the mystery of depth is having too much space for speculation to operate coherently within, the mystery of shallowness is having not enough space for speculation to operate at all: something is too manifestly there, limited, closed-off, it's hard to push it away to get some metaphorical breathing room.

i feel this way sometimes reading writers like tove jansson, flannery o'connor - SOMETHING happened, the stories are short and clear and describe some definite event without too much uncertainty, they even have "broader themes" raised - but somehow the themes feel embarrassingly outsize for the stories, and the stories remain too clearly defined to sink back into the murk of a generalized moral or experience. they feel like moral stories when you can't work out what the moral might be.

robbe-grillet on raymond roussel: "Now these chains of elucidations, extraordinarily precise, ingenious, and farfetched, appear so derisory, so disappointing, that it is as if the mystery remained intact. But it is henceforth a mystery that has been washed, emptied out, that has become unnameable. The opacity no longer hides anything. One has the impression of having found a locked drawer, then a key; and this key opens the drawer impeccably... and the drawer is empty."

there's a famous shallowness to videogames as well that's most often caught by people outside the culture - when you see the fake videogames in a comicbook, or on tv, and they're named something like "washing machine simulator 3000" or "municipal tax assailants". and part of this also stems from the computer, the history of the computer as it insinuated its way into everyday life, as a mysteriously elaborate and convoluted way of doing just impossibly banal things, like balancing chequebooks or printing text. the stubborn thingliness of not-quite-functional machines, the way the thingliness glosses and corrodes their own internal fantasies, mirrors of the basic weirdness that is human consciousness as a material fact within the world.

with my friend i used to joke about "e3" just being the dumpster behind an abandoned gamestop - all those needy longform experiences frozen into evocative trinkets. find a nonfunctional disk copy of mario odyssey and it gives you all the same delight as playing mario odyssey, only without having to. i think there's something beautiful about that flatness, that directionless object-hostility, the rejection of the grandoise hero's journey fantasies that it implies – as well as something baleful, a rejection of consciousess in general, the idea that it could take you anywhere not inside your own head.

LOCATION

why are there so many videogames about going outside? every time i've played a videogame it's been inside a room, usually a dark one, mostly while still wearing my pajamas. for me it is an internal activity. but not only do all these games take place in fields and plains, they always talk about the wonders of going on a voyage, the beauty of the great outdoors, the superiority of the wandering main characters to the slugs and layabouts who sit at home all day.... it's weird to me, i demand we move past these cloying pseudo-critiques. raymond williams once pointed out that the first pastoral was written from the perspective of a rentier daydreaming of cashing out and moving to a country home. i demand more games with the courage of their implict convictions and that if they require you to sit motionless indoors for hours they should explicitly establish and argue for a value system in which this is the best possible thing that you can do. imagine if movies were all set in dark chambers full of people sitting down - i think i can say they would be much less insipid as an artform. "all of man's problems stem from an inability to stay in his room".

(images: Gakken No O Benkyou Soft Kazu Suuji, Legend of Legaia, a Chinese bootleg cart, and ...Iru!)

#gamechat #room

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maria-zolts · 7 years

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The Fog Rolls In

It was a clear evening in Kugane, and Maria traversed the markets in good cheer. She had made some headway with the research and now had evidence that the prism enchantment worked in the unique fashion that it did due primarily to blood magic. Specifically blood sigils known by the Qayagahara. That was the mix of blood and earth magic, as the sigils took pages out of the art of geomancy, making it a type of fusion magic. That was why she couldn't figure out why only the Qayagahara could utilize the enchantments - it was because they were the only ones who knew the sigils and they were passed down among clan members.

Unfortunately, the sigils were not in the papers that this Torgan had given Maral. Likely, they would have to figure out a way to find the woman, or wait for her to deliver the rest. It wasn't really Maria's call nor did she care one way or the other. The mystery was solved for the most part. It also explained why the prism would crumble if removed from anything they had been attached to - the sigils would become damaged, breaking the structure of the prism down.

She had all of this written in her notes in her bag, which she had planned to give to Maral the moment she returned to the workshop. For now she decided to splurge a bit on some fabrics she had been meaning to purchase for a while, and after tucking her materials away she turned to head back to the office.

The malevolent presence rolled in before that familiar fog did. Maria suddenly recalled Dusk's expression when it was first mentioned, and about how spirits or those with ill intent could track someone through such means. Her sharp gaze spied that no one noticed anything out of the ordinary, and if she attempted to act out she would draw undue and unwanted attention to herself. The last thing she needed was her notes confiscated by the Seisekigumi.

Usually the 'Watcher' had been content to do just that, but the intensity and degree of hatred she sensed around her suggested tonight would be different from usual. She shifted from her usual path, taking the darker alley as her hand moved to the sword at her hip. While she itched to have her staff at her back instead, she would just have to make do with the unmastered skills she had with her untested discipline.

As she continued down the path the fog deepened, until she could barely see in front of her and the buildings had all but disappeared. The spike in aether was strong, and Maria knew the Seisekigumi would not be interrupting whoever was controlling the fog anytime soon. Tossing aside her bag she unsheathed her sword and her lips began to move as she pointed the tip toward where she felt the densest surge of aether...

Only to throw up a manashield as a bolt of lightning arced in her direction. It slammed into her hard, knocking her off her feet, and sending her to her knees. She retaliated by throwing out a ball of fire herself, using the focus in the rapier to channel the spell.

The spell flew wild into the fog, dispersing into nothing. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Scrambling back to her feet she took off running into the direction of where she believed the enemy was, right as a sharp spear of ice slammed into where she had been kneeling. The area immediately grew cooler as the ice began to spread along the ground, but Maria ignored that to pursue her 'target'. Darting to the side she stopped and quickly chanted another spell, throwing a denser ball of fire, before chanting a high speed ice spell immediately after...

Both of which disappeared...only to come flying back out at her from both sides of her flank! Maria dodges the ice but is unable to dodge the denser fireball. At that point her manashield had nearly been spent and since she had not expected any sort of magical battle within the city, she had not worn clothes able to withstand high magical abuse. Heat is the only thing that consumes her, and then nothing.

When she finally manages to open her eyes, she sees a dark silhouette of a young woman. Pale skin, she looked no older than Maral at best. Cold eyes that reminded her of an abyss stared down at Maria, a book in one hand as the other hovered over her burned and tattered body.

"You've gotten rusty Maria Zolts." the woman says in a sing-song voice. "Or is it soft? If you'd been a lit~tle younger, or a lit~tle colder, maybe you would have fo~und me. Maybe it's because you're happy now? But that won't do. Not for a mur~derer. That's a sin, and sinners have to be punished!"

The world shifts, tilts. Grey fills her vision and taste leaves her tongue. Everything has become a foggy haze, and Maria struggles to maintain consciousness. That woman was...doing something to her. She could feel something slimy and heavy coating her mind.

There's the sound of the heavy tome closing, and then out of her peripheral she sees the woman crouch down, reaching out to stroke what remained of Maria's singed hair. "It took me so long to find you, and then even longer to track you down a~ll the way here. But it's not enough. Doing this won't be enough. You've hurt a lot of people, Maria, and someone like you doesn't get to walk away and live happily ever after." she leans in close to whisper in her ear, all traces of the cheerful sing-song voice gone, turned into a hiss.

"Suffer, you murderous trash."

And then she's gone.

---------------------------------------------

When Maria opens her eyes again, everything hurts, and she can barely move. Nothing seems familiar and even blinking seems a momentous effort. The bedsheets feel wrong, the ceiling was wrong, and the familiar weight of her dagger could not be felt under her pillow.

She hears a door slide (slide?) open and a familiar person walks through the door, but even seeing Maral brings only confusion.

"Maral Qa-" No "Oronir?" Everything feels wrong and she cannot place the why of it, only that she had been about to say her name wrong, and yet...not? She scowls, trying to shift into a position where she could see the au ra woman better, only for her to hurry over to Maria's side, setting down the glass of water she had brought in.

"Ah, Maria, please, do not move around so much." Maral sits down by Maria's bedside, reaching out to take the older woman's bandaged hand. "You were attacked last night and the healers were able to do their work but it will take time."

"Your Eorzean's gotten better, I see." for some reason it felt like a dumb thing to say under the circumstances, but everything felt fragmented and scattered, and it was too difficult for her to keep one thought in place. All she could understand at the moment was that Maral wasn't traveling for some reason, even though she had left her side cycles ago. And that she had been attacked for whatever reason. But when Maria tried to recall the event, there was nothing but fog and pain. Which made sense since that was all her body felt presently.

"Ah...thank you?" Maral blinked owlishly at Maria, tilting her head. "Um, I will not ask how you are feeling as I am sure the answer is 'awful', but, can you remember anything?"

"No, I..." Maria attempts to sit up but Maral shakes her head and gently places her hands on her shoulders.

"You have been burned badly. We have been instructed not to allow you to move around much until another healing session. Would you like for us to call Gilawafe? You are not allowed visitors but I am sure -"

"Who?"

This time Maral just stares at her, as if she couldn't believe Maria just asked that question. But she honestly didn't know who Maral was talking about, even though the name sounded vaguely familiar. Everything was a huge jumble in her head, and the more she tried to think on it the more everything slipped away.

"I'm sorry Maral, I...I'm not sure what's going on. Why are you even here? Aren't you supposed to be traveling Eorzea? Are you stopping by for a visit? What happened last night? Am I in a clinic?"

"Oh..." Maral looks lost for a moment and then leans back in her seat. "...Hm. I think I see. I will attempt to answer your questions, but I think there is a bigger issue on our hands, now. After we speak I will need to contact Voren and speak with him on this..."

#ic

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