Of Course!

Conflux, Pt. 1

Ana’s eyes were glued shut, her expression pained as she dreamt.

Dreaming, of late, had been a whole new level of fantasy for Anafenza of the Ejinn.  Some nights she was in her own memories, which was nothing out of the ordinary.  Some nights, she was in front of the dark tree and hearing the mournful, enraged notes of the Dragonsong – she’d started having these dreams after she’d killed the elezen Jessika while she was brainwashed (but that is a long story for another day). But now, her dreams began to bleed into the wondrous: she’d dreamt she was flying, calling wind and rain and it obeyed her!  Or that she was commanding a group of people bustling around some sort of control center, the floor shaking beneath them as explosions rocked them and she stared out at an endless sea of night.  She’d even had a few where she and the other two “hers” interacted with one another, before she was jolted awake.

And then the dreams of everlasting light – a field of pink flowers, with child-like giggles floating on the breeze around her.  There was no warmth, no sun in the sky – just light glaring down upon her, and voices.

“Aenc tyr,” they’d say. And another, “Open the gate.”

  But this…this dream was new.  It was a memory, but not her memory.  As Anafenza looked around the small room as she paused her frantic packing, she knew it was not her own.  The simple wood hut; the longbow leaning against the wall by the door; the roiling sky, filled with the great red light of the falling moon...

The falling moon… She quickly went to the window to look up and gasped.  She had seen Dalamud in the sky as it fell years ago when she was still living in Othard, and her people had seen it as an ill omen.

"Quickly, Jessielle, quickly!  Get your bow, come, come!"

Ana turned around, confused, before moving to the satchel of personal effects on the bed, nearly crammed full of trinkets and clothes she was trying to protect.  Her family had finished ensuring the last of the villagers who were seeking shelter were in the catacombs, Anafenza thought, though she wasn’t sure how she knew this.

Once the last few villagers trickled in, the family returned to their own home to prepare.  She assumed it was to gather what they could and hide as well, so she was in her private room, gathering mementos of her life, when her father came barging into her room, shouting her given name.

Anafenza froze, realizing the knowledge she’d just come to know.  Father?  Jessielle? These are Jessika’s memories!  But why…am I in them?

There was a loud crack outside, and Ana and Jessika’s father turned to see, out the window, a plume of fire where a chunk of the moon had fallen.  "Come Jessielle...there is not much time," he said, his crisp and proper Ishgardian words flowing gracefully out, despite the urgency.

"Père, what..."  She heard herself saying, before finally looked at him, noticing the man was clothed in heavy, black leather armor, armored gauntlets with intricate gold and blood-red patterns winding over them.  His legs were clad in armor as well, the same gold and red filigree snaking up the armor like ivy.  "Père, what are you wearing?"

Her father – Jessika’s father – rolled his eyes and, picking up her bow from near the door with one hand, grabbed her arm with the other and pulled her out of the room. "There is no time to explain. Come, come!"

He pulled her through the house and outside, his armored fingers digging deep into Ana’s wrist. She squirmed a little, biting her lip to keep from yelling at him as she stumbled along behind as he guided her to the center of the small village.

"Jacemont, what took you so long?  The time is approaching!"

Jacemont Saphir finally let go of Anafenza’s wrist, approaching the woman waiting for them there. She wore long, flowing robes of dark fabric, completely black except for a blood-red design up the right side.  It wound up from the hem of the robes to the collar - an intricate, winding design like ivy, with leaves and thorns.  She turned her head to look at them, her eyes cold and dark.  "Jessielle, what were you doing?"

Before she knew what she was doing, Anafenza dipped her head in deference. "Mère," she greeted her, realizing this was Jessika’s mother.  "I was gathering my things...why aren't we in the catacombs?  What are you and Père doing out here?"  She motioned to the descending moon, meteorites flying off it and impacting the ground in the distance.  "We need to take shelter!"  Anafenza looked around, realizing she wasn’t in control.  She was watching the memory unfold, taking the role of Jessika in it. Even with the knowledge that she was in a dream, she couldn’t take control and change the course of it.

The mother – Raechelle, Anafenza realized was her name – shook her head ever so slightly and turned back to look at Dalamud.  "We are sheltering.  Jacemont, stand with me.  Jessielle, come here."  She motioned to her left and right sides; Jacemont stood to his wife's left, looking up at the sky.  "Something is happening."

As she said the words, there was a loud crack, and the three of them watched as Dalamud began to fracture. Fire peeked out through the fissures, and enormous wings appeared at the top of the hulk.  The surface of the moon roiled and shook.

"Gods preserve," Jacemont whispered, his eyes wide in horror.

Raechelle reached behind her, her hand grasping at the air behind her head.  She raised her arm, and Anafenza watched in awe as woman lifted a large, black sword with gold-filigree into the air, pulling it out of thin air. Shadows and darkness seemed to pour out of it and fall off it, like fog off of an ice crystal.  She spun the blade down and screamed, thrusting the sword into the ground.

There was deafening boom, and Ana fell backward as the moon was blasted apart, fragments flying into the ground with enough force that it shook all around them.  A few homes were ripped apart as fragments slammed into them, fire and debris exploding into the air.  The ground shook, and Ana fully expected to feel fire consume her.  She was going to die, she knew it...

So when, after a few more moments, she was still alive, Ana opened her eyes, feeling the memory of Jessika’s confusion even though she knew what she was going to see.  She looked around and heard herself gasp.

Raechelle was holding the hilt of the sword still, gritting her teeth.  All around them, extending out several meters, was a swirling cloud of black mist and smoke, shadows flying through the cloud around them with such speed that Anafenza couldn't get clear views of them.  The cloud enclosed them and much of the village like a bubble, the outside just barely visible.

Jacemont cursed loudly. "It's a dragon!"

"It's not a dragon, it's a god," Raechelle corrected, gazing in equal horror as her husband.  Ana clambered to her feet, watching as the beast - which took up much of the sky - began to fly quickly around, flares of fire shooting from its body and striking the ground, causing more earthquakes and explosions.  It soared overhead with a scream, releasing a volley of fire at the village below.  Far in Othard, she remembered seeing the moon drift below the horizon, but this…

This is the Calamity everyone speaks of.  Kami, what hell…

"Jacemont! Now!"  Raechelle screamed.  Anfenza turned in time to see the man reach up and behind him.  He clenched his hand and, in the same way as she had seen the woman, pulled a large sword out of nowhere, thrusting it into the ground as well.  There was a pulse of energy that she felt push through her, and the bubble of shadows grew darker.

The beast's fire slammed into the shield, and Jessika's parents shouted in surprise, both of them faltering slightly, as if a great weight just landed on their shoulders, pushing them downward.  They held onto the hilts of their swords, struggling to straighten back up.

Anafenza looked around, the memory of terror rising in her as Jessika watched.  Another memory crept into her thoughts, an earlier time that she’d seen this happen, but she didn’t focus on it.  Anafenza had seen this cloud of shadows before as well – the day she killed Jessika, it had exploded around her, swirling around and subduing Ana, as the curse fell upon the auri girl.

Raechelle shouted, and Ana looked up to see the dragon approaching again, circling back around for another indiscriminate attack on the land below.  "Jessielle, we need you!"

Anafenza blinked in surprise.  "What?! No!  I...I don't know what's happening!"

Jacemont staggered again, falling to one knee but still holding onto his sword.  "Your bow, child!  Your bow!"

Ana shook her head, staring at the wooden longbow in her hands.  "I don't...know what you want from me," she said, still confused, though the hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle.

"Strike the ground!"  He called again, pulling himself back up to standing.  "Strike the ground and defend your home!  Your friends!  Your family! Defend those you love, protect them from this!"  He looked at her, and she noticed his eyes were pitch black, shadowy energy flaring out of them like two dark fires.  "You know what to do, child!  Now, stand with us!"

Anafenza looked at the two elezen, then back at the bow in her hands.  She looked up, seeing fire rain down again.  Panicking, she did what Jacemont told her, lifting the bow in the air and striking the one end of it to the ground.

Ana felt another pulse of energy radiate out, and the shield grew darker still, swirling faster and further out so that it protected most of the village.  She felt as if her feet were rooted to the ground, and her hands locked in place, wrapped around her bow.  Her vision darkened as she heard the fire slam into the shield, felt the impact of the fireballs on the shield as if a heavy hand were shoving her to the ground.  She fell to one knee, her hands unable to release the bow, gasping for breath.  The familiar sensation of being choked by the darkness came to her, the same choking she’d felt when Jessika had died. Her eyes were playing tricks on her: in one moment, she could see the bow clear as day, but in the next the weapon appeared like a great sword, similar to the ones the elezen were wielding.

Similar to the sword I’ve pulled from my aether, she realized, recognizing the weapon she’d come to know as “Bloodthorn.”

The attack continued for what felt like hours, or maybe it was only a few seconds.  The three of them were screaming in defiance and pain as the ground shook around them.

Then, the world went dark.

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“A date? I...well, I mean, I suppose if it’s someone who really liked me, I would hope they would ask me?” Ana fidgets a little, looking perplexed. “I can’t say I’ve ever asked someone else out...or even thought to, really. I like to spend time with my friends, or with close lovers. But just...asking someone else on a ‘date’ isn’t really something I’d do. If they asked me, that’d be wonderful...it would certainly take the guess-work out of knowing if they wanted to spend time alone with me or not.”

((Thanks, @little-purple-thundercloud! <3 ))

Just please...you know...give me a little idea who you are, too. lol

People should reblog this if they are okay with receiving ask memes from people they’ve never rped with before. Mutual or not.

You can’t convince me otherwise now.

Gap closers are just assault glomps.

Conflux, Pt. 9

Anafenza was still gawking in awed silence when the three women stepped off the lift and onto the main control room of the ship – the “bridge,” the Commander had called it – as the other officers sat at their positions, preparing the ship’s systems to send them home.

Ana had since changed into a similar jumpsuit as the Commander, though it was completely black with no special color.  She’d tried to ask for pink, but that wasn’t an actual color for a uniform.  Still, she had the top off, the arms tied around her waist, and was sporting a pink “sports bra” the Commander had decided to compromise on and allow her to wear.  The badge with her linkpearl pressed to the center was pinned on one of the sleeves around her waist.

She moved along one side of the bridge, stopping behind a Miqo’te man seated there.  “This is Lt. M’Ral, my operations officer.  He’s tying our chronometric sensors to the transporter in hopes that we can send you to your appropriate time periods using the residual aether…”

“He’s a Miqo’te!” Anafenza exclaimed in surprise, smiling wide.

The three others looked at her in surprise.  M’Ral looked slightly confused, then shook his head.  “Er, no.  I’m a Caitian…I’m not sure what a Miqo’te is…”

Anafenza bit her lip and shook her head.  “Sorry…it’s a race on my world.  You look…very similar…”

The man nodded.  “That is alright; I’m not offended.”  He pointed on the screen.  “Right now, there is a large flow of this ‘aether’ that we are still able to detect.  It is branching from a central location along three distinct paths.  We’re working out how to use those paths to transport you to those physical locations…”

A woman in a blue-shouldered uniform stepped forward.  She had a pattern of spots that went from her temples down her neck.  “And we’re using this ship’s chronometric navigational scanners to help transport you to your proper times.”

The Commander nodded. “Ladies, this is Nizeri Sano, my science officer.  And…yeah, that’s the plan we’re developing.  It’s nothing we’ve ever tried or even considered trying before…”

“And if it fails?” Stormy asked.

Sano shook her head.  “We would maintain our lock and pull you back to Rafale.  You’d be stranded here most likely…”  She tapped the panel on the wall, bringing up a new display for the women to look at. It showed the aether trails, ending at three distinct dots.  “Right now our present location, Earth, and your world are equidistant from one another…both in space and in time.  This is a phenomenon that just…should not be possible.  That all three of you would also be existing and have these connections, and wander to these specific locations at the same time is…a once in a lifetime experience.  But…” She tapped the display, and it began to move, showing a passage of time.  “We are drifting out of this sync phase.  The longer we go without executing this plan, the greater the risk of you not making it home.  If we don’t do this by tomorrow night…”

“Then we’re stranded in your universe,” Stormy finished.  Her face fell, her excitement now crashing with a reality of not getting home. Anafenza felt a similar pain in her chest at the thought of not making it home.

The Commander must have noticed this.  She smiled a little, then patted them both on the back.  “Well, if we only have till tomorrow night, let’s go celebrate.  C’mon; we’ll go to Hurricane Hal’s.”

Yup! :D Anafenza Ejinn, Susaan Kagon, and Wozzeck Brankasch!

Reblog this if you’re a FFXIV blog on Crystal DC <3

Conflux, Pt. 5

Anafenza stared up at the tree and shivered.  She pulled away from the Commander’s comforting embrace.  “I…I don’t know what else,” she began, shaking her head.

Stormy interrupted.  “You mentioned a curse.  The vines choking out your tree.  They’re red vines, bloodred vines; what is this curse?”

Ana shook her head.  “When I killed her – the other Jessika – I wasn’t in control of myself.  I was under the control of these…other mages that call themselves ‘Nemesis.’  I was trying to parley with them; I didn’t want more of my friends to get hurt, and so I approached them using an amulet of theirs we had confiscated.”

Stormy blinked in disbelief. “Nemesis.”  She shook her head.  “It’s always a Nemesis plot…”

The Commander looked over at her.  “You recognize the name?”

Stormy laughed once, humorless.  “Yeah,” was all she said, and left it at that.

Anafenza continued.  “I just wanted peace…and they rewarded me for my troubles by using magicks to gain control of my mind, convince me the only way to peace was to silence my friends, starting with Lyta.  I was attacking her when Jessika got in my way and I…”  Ana trailed off – they’d heard this part already.  “I was still trying to kill Lyta when Jessika expired; this cloud of dark aether erupted from her body and surrounded me, subduing me and breaking the magicks that were driving me.  I woke up later in the infirmary…I knew what had happened, I was aware of everything.”  She wiped her eyes – she hadn’t noticed she’d started to cry – and continued.  “I woke up with this scar on my body, the same scar Jessika had born.  Her ‘bloodvine,’ as it were.  Since then, I’ve…heard a strange song…I’ve seen her memories…I’ve begun to use strange abilities she could use…and I’d swear I could feel her presence with me.”

The Commander tilted her head.  “What is aether?”

Anafenza nodded towards the tree.  “That dark fog rolling off the tree?  That is aether.  It’s…what everything is made of.  Aether flows through everything, everyone.  It channels to us from the lifestream.”

The older Jessica furrowed her brow.  “That would explain the strange energy readings, then.  This aether, do you have your own signature of it?  A pool of aether that is unique to you?”

Anafenza nodded.  “That’s how I understand it.”

The other woman nodded. “Ana, this strange energy reading everywhere, this ‘aether.’  It is very similar to your own.  That makes sense; you likened the tree to your own life force.”  She pulled out her scanning device, waving it near Ana.  She held it over the girl’s scar; the steady beeping and whistling of the device suddenly increased in frequency.  “And the scar you ‘inherited,’ it’s practically leaking this aether into the chamber.”

Stormy snapped her fingers. “She inherited that bloodvine curse from her world’s Jessika!”

“Exactly.  And with it, it would seem, a very large chunk of that Jessika’s aether pool…which would then help anchor us all to this pocket dimension.”

Anafenza looked stunned. “You mean…I really have had a piece of her with me this entire time?  I thought I was going insane…”

“And it was that piece that allowed you to come here and join us,” Commander St. Peter continued. “Whatever this aether and lifestream are, they must have reached out to similar aetheric signatures and pulled us all together.”

Stormy shook her head. “Like the stars just aligned just right?”

The Commander shrugged. “Maybe?  But now…we know it’s that ambient aether signature that is sustaining this bubble.  Maybe we can use that to lock on to and get out of here…”

“But how do we get out? We’re somewhat limited on the resources available in here,” Stormy pointed out.

“We are, yes.  But I think I know a way.”  She tapped the arrowhead on her chest, and the small brooch chirped.  “St. Peter to Rafale, come in…”

There was static, before the three women began to just barely hear another sound cutting through. “…ter, this…have you…and unread…are you?”

The three women looked at one another, their faces immediately reflecting the same emotion: hope.

Another journal entry...

It’s funny, I think Kiratai told me once, the more you practice something, the easier it becomes.  It was when he was teaching me how to read and write in this tongue - and he was right.  He usually is.  The more I read, the easier it became.  The more I practiced speaking, the easier it came to me.

I haven’t spoken hingan in   kami be good, it’s been a few summers since.  The steppe was different, I could slide into my natural tongue like sliding down a cool riverbank.  Hingan was never my tongue, but I had to learn it with Aruktai.

Anzu introduced me to a visitor, a new friend.  The poor girl was struggling with eorzean     Anzu knew how to speak, and asked if I did, too.  I expected I’d have to knock off a lot of rust

It was like someone else took over.  The first ten minutes I had to concentrate on the words, really think about how to speak again, and then after that?  It was as if it hadn’t been years since I last spoke it.

I wonder, sometimes, how much truth was in Kiratai’s words, and how much that there is something different happening

The dreams have continued - the song sounding so much more desperate as it invades my mind.  Images of a barren world   bathed in light    a great pain to the dark tree I see planted in the center of my thoughts - but what does it all mean?

I need to ask someone if they know what it could mean.  Could I still be suffering from when

Reblog if you RP NSFW

I’m curious, and remember that doesn’t just mean smut. It also means gore, violence, abuse and stuff around those lines