Work Text:
In a forgotten corner of your personal library, an old textbook rests, curiously gathering far less dust than its neighbours. If you were of a mind to peruse the fundamentals of conjury, (you wouldn’t), you may find its contents erased, replaced with a curious journal written in a slightly clumsier hand than your own.
You may remember that day in Ishgard, and the weeks that followed it. You may remember the voice in the abyss, a zealous man who spoke of justice felling knights sworn to a disgusting oath of false ideals. A man who guided you into the dark in search of the sleeping flame within. You may remember--
Your breathing. My voice. Our heartbeat.
You may remember the day we drew steel on one another. You may remember my anger on your behalf, or the clumsy parting shots I managed as our dialogue faded, becoming little more than an easily-ignored ache in the back of your head. You may remember your fear. The way they all looked at us, as if we had simply gone mad. Perhaps we did. The shame that engendered, sealing the way back to one another with insincere platitudes that it is just not the right time for this. You may remember turning your gaze to the great abyss between the stars, rather than the one within yourself. Most likely, you remember none of these things.
That’s fine.
I’m fine with that.
I wouldn’t be proud of the person I was then, either.
In that tome, mixed in along with many other strange writings, among them a long circuitous path for a certain letter to follow, you may find an account of our time on the First. Just before we confronted Emet-Selch. After he saved G’raha Tia from his own foolishness and invited us to the simulacrum of his home in the Tempest, to safely realize our destiny as the final lightwarden. He offered us succor before we eventually visited the pain of death and betrayal upon all the world.
And you said yes. You accepted his offer and dove into the depths alone, before any of your friends could find a chance to display their cloying resolve; declare their willingness to die for you. With a trick that would later be picked up by our mutual sibling, I split the soulstone you hadn’t held in years, and set about to correcting the abdication I used to beg you for.
---
In the faded memory of a long-dead city, beneath miles and miles of roiling water, I faced you again. Weeping and raging, a scared child in the guise of a beast. I couldn’t tell if you recognized me, but I saw a flash of pain in your eyes, and knew at once that I never should have left. For what it’s worth, friend, that form didn’t suit you at all. I much prefer the one you built for yourself. For us.
You towered over me a terrible lizard, an ardent creature clad in cracking alabaster. Countless blades and arrows marred the brittle hide of your back, cracks mending themselves with poultice brewed from the tears you never learned to let go of. Each wound a makers’ mark from every hurt you’d ever endured, every time a man sought to break us, threatened something we loved, and you said no. They were a symbol of our power, wielded by hands not our own. You lowered your stance warily, and the weight of all your certainty fell upon my shoulders. Though the shape of your face was quite different than the one I have grown accustomed to wearing, I knew the very same feeling as everyone unfortunate enough to fall into our blade’s shadow feels. The Warrior of Light, singularly poised to bar my path wherever where it may lead. Her very presence writing the end of my story in agony and despair.
This terrible visage of claws and teeth, soaked in the blood of our own comrades, was the very picture of inevitability. How could anyone have looked on such a thing with joy? How many people have thanked it? How many earnest expressions of gratitude have you received, for breaking those already broken by the world, in the name of keeping them safe? How many have died by our hand, and how many more from our failure? What catharsis do the gods seek to elicit, forcing us to watch the same hand that drives us into the jaws of terrible foes, take hold of the things that we love and dash them against the rocks in “brave” sacrifice?
What would Yasyle think of the things we have now done, without her? How can we ever sleep knowing, knowing, that there must have been something we could have done, anything to keep her from having to shelter us from the death we invited upon ourselves? What fairness is there for her? For Haurchefant? Papalymo? None of them are happier for this; our actions have ensured they can never know joy again. Not even Raha could bear to show his face to us, so committed was he to preventing a pain we ultimately deserved. The true curse of our station is the knowledge that no misstep will ever bring us down, for those we love will always be there to destroy themselves in our stead.
You and I both know, friend:
In the presence of the Weapon of Light, not one man is safe.
And now it was my turn upon that chopping block. You sounded a shrill roar and coiled yourself to pounce. So, as in Whitebrim, I drew cold steel against myself for a second time. We clashed, repeating history just like every other fool who thinks themself better than the telling of their story.
...We’ve learned nothing, haven’t we.