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L'morne had always known the forests of the Twelveswood as a place of peace. They could be dangerous, yes, if one ventured into crumbling ruins or bramble patches that ought not to be ventured into alone—but L'morne was never alone. She had no family, technically speaking, both her parents having passed so long ago she could not even bring to mind their faces. But she was always surrounded by love. She could feel it like a warm cocoon, and the small miqo'te girl knew that would one day she would become a butterfly.
She had a talent for conjuring. That much had been apparent from the beginning. When she called to nature, it answered in a gentle, hair-raising whisper. She had first been gifted a wand at a young age, but it quickly became a part of her, as natural and as necessary as a limb. Stone and wind answered her quiet beckonings with ease, though she was not quite a conjurer yet, according to her stern-faced but kindly guardian. There would be no mucking about on adventures until she had reached a mature age. Until then, she was to practice and hone her craft under supervision, lest she be caught unawares and gobbled up by beasts.
So until then, L'morne soaked up E-Sumi-Yan's wise words like sunlight on her face, bright and eager to learn. When she wasn't doing that, she was busy making herself useful around the city. She assisted those in need of assistance, whether it be carrying messages or making deliveries or sorting through herbs with Fufucha, who told her all about their properties and uses. L'morne liked to be useful. Perhaps a little part of her was always afraid she was a burden on those around her, a kitten getting underfoot, and she did her best to alleviate that by helping them out where she could.
She heard many stories during that time, but there was one that stuck out among the rest: the tragic tale of Hollow Victory.
It was a tradition amongst adventurers to rename themselves after concepts that described some lesson they had learned in their journeys. Hollow Victory had named herself so after a portal opened near her village, and a horde of voidspawn poured out. As the last alive, she felled the final beast, only to find that there was no one left with whom she might share her victory. And so, it was hollow. And so she was Hollow.
Hollow Victory had gone on to lead many legendary adventures, and she had many victories after, but she never quite healed from her first. It was a somber tale, not the type L'morne was usually drawn to. But something about it stuck with her. What would it be like, she wondered, to be hollowed out inside, an empty chest cavity that once held a beating heart? L'morne wouldn't have the faintest idea, but suffering fascinated her the way a firefly in a glass jar might. She was merely an observer, and the pain never touched her.
L'morne's guardian, an elezen lancer of middling age called Syvonne, was often kept occupied by her work with the Twin Adder. Whenever she was too busy to sit down and have a meal, L'morne would take her food over to the Conjurer's Guild and find someone who would let her talk their ear off about their adventures while she ate. She was a fixture there, absorbing tales of heroism and good deeds. She wanted so badly to be like them. She didn't care if she ever became someone important—she would be satisfied with a quiet life spent in the forest, righting wrongs and healing hurts—but she did want to be someone great. She wanted people to hear her name and think, Yes, we could rely upon her. She'd be happy to help.
Because she was. Happy, that is. Yes, for a time, she was quite happy. When she looked back on those days, L'morne would remember the warm and carefree nature she once possessed, and she would feel the urge to turn back the clock and rip it from herself. Perhaps if she had never been so deeply content and satisfied, she would not have fallen apart when it was taken from her. Years later L'morne would resent her own happiness, because if she hadn't been so blissful, she wouldn't have understood the depth of the loss that came after.
Her early days as an adventurer were everything she had dreamed. She showed much promise, and she delighted in advancing her skills as a conjurer. When she received the wonderful gift of A-Towa-Cant's soul stone, she was radiant with joy. It seemed she could only grow to heights ever higher, stretching closer and closer to the sun.
And then she entered the Aurum Vale.
Her companions were a capable if disparate bunch. Amaya the White-Horn had been a friend of hers for some years. She was a talented archer that had declined to join the Gods' Quiver in favor of seeking out adventure far and wide. She made no secret of the fact she was after wealth and fame, which L'morne often teased her for, but Amaya gave as good as she got. Their relationship was one of easy camaraderie and frequent laughter.
Accompanying them was a gladiator called Jiji, whose diminutive stature belied his strength, as well as Viellefeur, a scatterbrained but deadly arcanist out of Limsa Lominsa. L'morne had worked with both of them before, and she felt as confident in their abilities as she did her own. Not that she expected it to be easy—she always appreciated the chance to hone her craft, and she couldn't do that if she didn't challenge herself—but she certainly didn't expect this adventure to set off a chain reaction that would destroy her from within.
"Why do I doubt there will be any tempting loot in this swamp?" Amaya asked no one in particular as they picked their way through puddles of golden goop.
"It's always loot with you, isn't it?" said L'morne. "Think you nothing of the safety of those who live nearby or travel through?"
Amaya snorted. "Oh, I think of them. I think of just how grateful they'll be, and more importantly, how they'll show it."
"You are an honorless cad," Jiji declared.
The au ra gasped, placing a hand to her chest. "Why, I never."
"You always," L'morne corrected.
They bickered good-naturedly until the landscape opened up before them, revealing an impressive swath of monsters. Jiji whistled lowly as he looked them over. "Taking all these at once might be beyond even my considerable skill."
L'morne bent at the waist to place a hand on his pauldron. "We'll go at your pace, Jiji. I can handle whatever you can."
"Ooh, someone's confident," Amaya remarked.
"L'morne is the best battle healer I've ever seen," Viellefeur declared, adjusting her spectacles. "We're in good hands."
"Thank you, Viellefeur."
"Also, I've been training my carbuncle to be more aggressive." Her eyes gleamed, a manic smile on her face as she gripped her grimoire tightly with both hands. "He will rip them limb from limb."
"I… doubt that will be necessary," said L'morne, "but I commend your enthusiasm."
"Are we ready?" asked Jiji, looking back at them.
Amaya bowed. "By your leave, Sir Jiji the Mighty."
Grumbling, Jiji started forward. He drew the attention of several nearby monsters, pulling them in so that Amaya could pelt them with arrows and Viellefeur fire her spells across a wide area. L'morne kept up with little effort, minding her mana as she tended to Jiji from afar. She called on stone and wind to assist her other party members, and everything was going well until a stray arrow caught a plant creature that had wandered too close. This alerted several other monsters to their battle, who immediately went for Amaya.
"Jiji, pull them off!" L'morne directed to their gladiator, who quickly broke for the pack, swinging his weapon in a wide arc.
She shifted her attention to Amaya for a moment, the archer doing her best to slow them down and keep firing from a distance. She took a few hits, but L'morne patched her up. She immediately had to turn her attention back to Jiji, though, who was being battered under the weight of the small horde of enemies upon him. By the time the fight was over, L'morne was leaning on her cane for support. The rest of the group also took a moment to catch their breath.
"That was bracing," Jiji commented. "Thank you for your efforts, L'morne."
"Of course. I'll require a moment to recharge."
They didn't have a moment, though, because Viellefeur's carbuncle chose that inopportune time to leap further into the fray. "Carbuncle, no!" she shouted after her summon, but it was too late.
Jiji, not waiting for the command this time, charged forward after it and put himself in their line of fire. Viellefeur's carbuncle dissipated quickly, and she summoned him again.
"Training him to be aggressive, are you?" Amaya raised her voice over the din of the battle as her arrows sunk into flesh. "Perhaps that wasn't as brilliant an idea as it seemed?"
"My calculations did not account for this!" Viellefeur shouted back. "Sorry, terribly sorry!"
"Focus!" L'morne ordered. "Just kill them as quickly as you can."
But it wasn't long before L'morne was scraping the bottom of her mana pool. She exhausted her resources just trying to keep Jiji alive, and he was flagging. L'morne whispered a supplication to the elementals, casting as much as she was able and doing her best to stay on her feet.
They had nearly made it through when a large toad began to approach the fight from afar. L'morne saw what would happen and called out to Jiji, but the fight had gone on too long, and his reaction was too slow. The toad pulled Amaya in with its tongue and then leapt upon her. L'morne was forced to turn her attention away from Jiji in order to heal her friend once more.
Amaya, though injured, managed to run from the toad. She didn't notice—nor did any of them, until it was too late—that her flight had drawn in a massive ochu. It managed to poison them all in one swipe of its flailing vines, and L'morne cried out as she sunk to her knees. She cast the first Esuna from the ground and managed to pull herself up, throwing the second at Jiji, but in doing so, she made a mistake. She hadn't seen that Amaya had gotten herself stuck in one of the puddles and collapsed.
L'morne would never forget the sound of her gurgling scream as she died, nor the sight of Jiji's blood spilling over the earth as one of the monsters at last managed a fatal blow. Her heart cried out for them, cleaved in two in a matter of seconds, but it was not the time or place to grieve. The monsters turned on Viellefeur next, who called out, "L'morne, run!"
Somehow she managed to get her feet under her, and they both dodged puddles as they made for the exit. It killed L'morne to leave their comrades behind, but there was nothing she could do. She and Viellefeur were the only two to survive the experience—or they would've been, had the ochu not delivered another round of poison.
It was L'morne's fault. She cast the Esuna three times before she realized it wasn't working. They were still running, their breathing labored but nearly there, when Viellefeur was overtaken. L'morne stopped to heal her, even though she had nothing left.
"Leave me!" Viellefeur cried. "You're almost there!"
"I won't, Viellefeur!"
She stayed until the last moment she possibly could. Once the monsters had finished her friend, they came for her. And so L'morne ran, choking on air, stumbling through the swamp and into the frozen tundra. She made it to the soldier who had directed them inside, and there she fell at last, hoping as she closed her eyes that they'd never open again.
***
That was the first time, but it was far from the last. Every time she thought, this will be the moment I join them, she yet lived on. She began to think of it as her own personal curse, her divine punishment.
Losing patients was part of healing—as much as L'morne would have liked to, she couldn't save everyone. It was a harsh lesson to learn, and she resisted at first, but eventually she came to accept it and take satisfaction in doing as much as she could. Losing friends on the battlefield was different. It was her job to keep them safe, her job to bring them home. They relied on her, and she failed them over and over again.
This kept on until L'morne had taken as much as she could bear. She told herself it wasn't her fault, in the beginning, but soon even she disagreed with that assurance. It had to be her fault; she was the only constant. The loved ones of those who'd passed weren't always kind. She gave the news in person every time, tracked down any family they had and told them their beloved wife or son wouldn't be coming home. It broke her a little more each time until she was nothing but the jagged edges of a person, wary of allowing anyone close in case they should be cut.
The years leading up to the Calamity were hazy at best. After the fact, L'morne could only remember one thing with any surety: the loss of those she loved most. It was all the more terrible because she couldn't even call their faces to mind, couldn't remember who they had been or why she had loved them.
L'morne had seen many horrors in her time as a healer: magical wounds that wouldn't close, half-petrified limbs that had to be amputated, brain damage so severe it left a person almost dead but still hanging on in some twisted mockery of life. It was sometimes easier to be in the heat of battle because at least she could prevent some of it, but after the great and terrible loss of the Calamity, she resigned herself to healing after the fighting was done and the heroes came home, or didn't. This still didn't stop the tide of patients and friends who passed on.
She could sense there was someone—someone she missed terribly. She could feel the ache in her chest, the weight sinking deeper into her heart every time she drew breath. She didn't know their name, only the heartsick longing she felt whenever she saw lovers entwined together, lost in their own little world. She'd had that very thing and couldn't even remember.
Eventually, the loss became so great that L'morne stopped feeling it altogether. It was strange—she had thought over time the pain would only continue to grow, and yet it seemed her mind could only take so much before it numbed her over, body and soul. It wasn't quite relief. A lack of pain wasn't pleasure, only a hole that never filled.
L'morne continued to live, though it brought her no joy. Perhaps she just didn't know how to stop. Since she couldn't bear to take the field anymore, she devoted herself to scholarly pursuits as a method of distraction. This eventually led her to seek out the way of the arcanist. With her emotions tamped down, it became easy to lose herself in texts. She trained in Limsa Lominsa during those years, though she never ventured beyond the city's walls to test her skills. Her study of the craft was theoretical, grounded in research and precise calculations.
During her studies at the Arcanist's Guild, she came across an Archon called Clarity, whose state was far worse than hers. They seemed to be somewhat alike—they both had no recollection of the years leading up to the Calamity, far more time lost than those in Eorzea who simply couldn't recall the event itself. But then, it seemed Clarity had no recollections of herself at all. L'morne counted herself lucky that her childhood remained clear to her and that she knew her own name.
They bounced ideas off each other, theorizing over their deteriorated conditions for hours. Clarity's firm grasp of medicine managed to improve their ailments somewhat, and L'morne was certain that without each other, they would both be far worse off. They immersed themselves in research, yet still, any firm answers eluded them.
The phrase 'Warrior of Light' was tossed around. Clarity denied ever having heard a voice or seen a crystal, as L'morne had in the sudden fugue states she'd been afflicted with, but she did seem to know things about people she had no business knowing. She was far more patient than L'morne in their search for the truth about themselves, even though they never quite bore fruit regardless.
Sometimes, L'morne could feel a stirring of the soul. She couldn't quite put a name to it, not until that day they both sat cross-legged on the floor of the training arena, L'morne's class having ended hours ago. They might've been the only two left in the building this late at night, but both were loathe to leave the other's company, and so there the stayed.
Clarity was brushing a lock of short, white hair behind ear, her pale fingers lingering on the aetherial tattoo across her neck, when the thought suddenly came to L'morne, I wonder what it would be like to kiss her there. She startled badly, flinching back, and Clarity noticed.
"Something amiss?" she asked.
L'morne shook her head vigorously. "Nothing at all."
Clarity raised a knowing eyebrow. "An idea occurred to you?"
"A terrible idea," she whispered.
"What was it?"
L'morne cleared her throat. "It's nothing. I- must be overtired. Perhaps we should call it a night."
The Archon crossed her arms over her chest, not budging. "Are you keeping secrets from me now?"
"Just the one," she replied, standing from her position. "And trust me, it's better that I do."
"Very well. I won't press you." Clarity accepted the proffered hand, rising swiftly to her feet. "But if it becomes relevant, you must tell me."
"I swear," said L'morne. "If it ever becomes relevant, I shall give you a full account. And until then, I- bid you goodnight." She quickly slipped her hand out of Clarity's and rushed up the steps and back to her room, heart pounding in a way it hadn't for years.
Every time she had a similar thought thereafter, there would be a brief moment of warmth before the crushing ice settled in. How could she pursue another when she had forgotten her greatest love? For it had been great, of that she was sure. She had loved that person the way she had never loved anything, and perhaps that made it her greatest loss as well.
L'morne said nothing of this to Clarity, even when she began to suspect that the notion might not be unwelcome. Though L'morne continued to think and wonder, she did not act. She could not, for she had nothing to offer a lover. The stirrings were easily cast aside, as everything was in those days. L'morne could hold to nothing for long before it slipped out of her grasp, crowded out by the emptiness of her soul.
***
The letter from E-Sumi-Yan came one afternoon as L'morne was teaching a group of younger arcanists to summon Ruby. She recognized the seal of the Conjurer's Guild, and her heart skipped a beat. In a way, her time there seemed like a past life. There was before the Aurum Vale, and after. She used to be a capable adventurer, one who set out to exceed every expectation set before her. She had retired to a much quieter life, within the limitations of her many scars.
As L'morne's eyes scanned the letter, her full lips pressed together into a line that became thinner and thinner. It was a plea for aid. The Twelveswood was in trouble, and her talents were needed. She would not have to return to battle, the guildmaster bargained. If she would only heal those who did. She could remain in Gridania. There would be no need to put her life on the line. Funny, that he thought that was a concern.
In the end, L'morne felt as though she had little choice. The Twelveswood was her home, and she would do what she could to protect it. She bid goodbye to Clarity, promising to visit again and continue their research once her homeland was safe. Upon her return, she said to herself, she would gather her courage and try her best to move forward, whatever that looked like.
Going back home was bittersweet. The people of Gridania loved her well, and she loved them in turn, but she couldn't help feeling as though she had let them down by failing to reach her full potential. She was much changed. Gone were her easy smiles, her earnest need to help anyone she could. L'morne went through the motions, but she didn't feel any of it. If someone had pried her chest open, they wouldn't have found a heart—only the crushed remains of a sad little lump which no amount of healing could salvage.
She wrote Clarity, but she never did hear back. She wondered if her friend had made headway of her own. When the threat to the Twelveswood had passed she returned to Limsa only to find that Clarity was not there, and no one seemed to know where she had gone. She'd been seen in the company of another Archon called Y'shtola. Perhaps she had remembered something of her own life. Perhaps this Y'shtola was someone special to her.
It was some time before L'morne picked up a cane again. This stretch of time, to her, was indeterminate. Years might've passed, or perhaps only weeks. It did not matter. The Twelveswood continued to require her help, and helping people was the only thing she had left. She had to help everyone, no matter how small the task, to make up for not being able to help her loved ones when they needed her most.
Perhaps it was the only thing the kept her going, then. Being useful, helpful, needed. Perhaps without it she'd have drunk herself into oblivion or pitched herself off the treetops. So there was something to be said for that. She may have held nothing in her chest anymore, but she still felt obliged to help. If she was able, then she had to.
So L'morne returned to battle. And although she continued to lose people, she found she simply had no more space for grief. L'morne felt very little, and what she did feel was muted, as if she were underwater and the whole world lay above, beyond reach. When she registered with the Adventurer's Guild—which, she could've sworn she already had been, though they had no record of her—Mother Miounne asked for her name.
She paused a moment. The answer came with surprising ease. "Hollow," she said. "Hollow Hope."
Miounne pursed her lips and gave the miqo'te before her a sympathetic look. "Are you sure, dear?"
"The girl I was is dead," she remarked, and it was only upon speaking it aloud that she knew it to be true. "It is time to stop clinging to the past."
***
So Hollow Hope went forward into the future.
She met Yda and Papalymo, and she saved the Twelveswood yet another time. The Elder Seedseer made her an envoy, and she found herself traveling around Eorzea. Wherever she was needed, she went. The more she learned of the Warriors of Light, the more it seemed she was one herself. This realization caused a faint vibration in her, a reawakening of her thirst for knowledge. If only she knew where Clarity had disappeared to, perhaps they could- But Clarity was gone, or might as well be, just like so many others.
It was during her adventures that Hope came across another who had taken on a similar namesake to hers: Hollow Paramour. The viera bard towered over her, and when they met, he looked her up and down and said, "So this is the little miqo mage with the dead eyes."
Hope peered up at him. "And here I haven't heard a thing about you."
"I like it that way," he said. He reached out to pat her gently on the head. "Don't worry, Dead-eyes. We're birds of a feather, you and I, and you know what they say about those."
"Do I?"
He grinned, and it brightened his face. There was something off, though. Hope couldn't tell what. She cocked her head, observing the freckles across his cheeks and the divots on either side of his smile. Something about him wasn't quite right. Was it because he was Hollow, too?
The viera elbowed her gently, though he was so tall he had to lean down, and even then he could only reach her shoulder. "We stick together, little one. Anything comes for you, and I'll put an arrow through its eye."
"I'm perfectly capable of handling myself."
His lips pulled into a pout. "Well, of course you are," he said in a sweet, high-pitched voice.
Hope rolled her eyes. "Let us be off, then. We're to investigate Quarrymill. There have been reports of demons."
"Ooh, I just love the satisfying splat of demon viscera, don't you? This will be a treat."
Paramour talked quite a lot. He was a bard. Hope found herself appreciating the constant chatter, as it was distracting enough to keep her thoughts from replaying on a loop. Hope was stuck in her own head most of the time, but Paramour relieved some of the worst of it.
They ended up camping out in the South Shroud one night rather than returning to Gridania only to trek all the way back the next morning. Hope offered to take first watch. She leant herself up against a large boulder and curled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. Her black ears were flattened against the top of her head, chin resting on her knees as she listened to the sounds of the forest. They used to soothe her at night. Now she could only hear Amaya's screams as she died.
There was a shuffling noise from the camp, and soon Paramour had sunk down onto the earth beside her. She glanced over at him and said, "I believe you're supposed to be asleep."
He shrugged one bare shoulder. "I don't sleep much, honestly. I see things when I dream—the kinds of things that make you want to stay awake forever."
"I hear things," Hope confessed into the darkness of the night. "All the time, in my head." She huffed. "I haven't had a moment of silence since…"
She didn't continue, but he nodded anyway. "Scars like that have a way of lingering even after they're healed."
Hope turned to him, lifting her head. She looked over the skin he bared—and there was quite a lot of it. Hope was dressed in simple, modest robes, her only adornment a brass circlet atop a waterfall of black hair. Paramour, in contrast, wore a fitted top that covered neither midriff nor finely muscled arms, along with a set of leather trousers that left little to the imagination. He was provocative in every gesture and lewd joke. He didn't act like a man with scars, and indeed, she didn't see any. But she could still sense something off about him.
He suddenly gasped as if in pain, clutching his head in both hands. Alarmed, Hope placed a hand on his back. "Paramour?" she asked, but he did not seem to hear her. She sent a thread of healing into his mind, though she could sense nothing amiss there. He remained in this state for several long seconds before coming out of it with Hope's hand rubbing up and down his back. His eyes re-focused, and he observed her with a pained expression.
Though Hope had never observed one of her fugue states from the outside, she recognized it instantly. "What did you see?" she asked him.
He blinked. "You," he replied. "I saw you. I saw… the Aurum Vale."
The pain of grief was only a dull ache, and Hope was focused enough to ignore it. "Were you at Carteneau?" she asked him. He shook his head. "Have you seen things before? Snatches of the past from people you meet?"
"I can't say I have," he murmured. "Not like this." His brow furrowed, head tilting slightly. "I do remember a crystal, though, and a woman's voice saying-"
"Hear, feel, think." Hope's heart thudded hard in her chest. "You're a Warrior of Light."
He seemed amused by this. "I'm sorry- I'm a what now?"
"But you weren't at Carteneau?" she repeated.
He shook his head again. "I was in Thavnair. I came to Gridania after I-" He stopped himself before finishing lamely, "Left. I've been training at the Archer's Guild since then. The first time I heard the voice, it was after I met this man who called himself a bard-"
"Did he give you a soul stone?"
Paramour only looked more and more confused. "How do you know all this, Dead-Eyes? These things mean something to you? Because I admit, I've been a little lost lately. I've sort of just been going with it—not much choice otherwise, I fear—but you mean to say all of this makes me… what, a warrior of some sort?"
"A Warrior of Light," Hope insisted. "I've never met another—well, perhaps I did, only I didn't know it then—but all the signs are there. You have the Echo. You've heard Hydaelyn's voice." She was speaking too quickly, she knew, but she couldn't help it. "You should come with me to meet the Scions of the Seventh Dawn in Thanalan. They're an independent group that operates in Eorzea, a little like the Adventurer's Guild but more select. They'd be interested in another Warrior of Light, I'm sure."
He let out a stuttered laugh of disbelief. "And you'd recommend me? Having known me for a day?"
"You don't understand. This power we have, this Echo—it's greater than you can imagine. We can do so much good with it."
"I've never been much of a do-gooder," he admitted. "Does it pay well?"
"About the same as adventuring, I suppose, but it's steadier work."
He tilted his head and said, "I could give a shot, I think. Why not, right?" He shrugged. "I've nothing better to do, and it seems I've outgrown this place anyway. It's strange, you know. I've never picked up a bow before, yet here I've become a prime sharpshooter in a matter of months. The God's Quiver was quite impressed with me." He rolled his shoulders. "Well, everyone's impressed with me. I'm very impressive."
Hope shook her head. "You don't understand what this means."
"What does it mean?" he asked.
"There are more of us," she breathed. Calculations flitted across her mind rapid-fire. "Know you of any others like you?"
He flipped his hair. "My dear, there's no one like me." Feeling a flash of annoyance, Hope slapped him on the arm. He gasped. "I speak only truths!"
"We both know that is a lie."
"Well, regardless." He rubbed the spot faintly. "This is the first I'm hearing of any Warrior of Light business."
"Mmm. Perhaps the Scions will have an idea. You must accompany me to Vesper Bay, when our task is complete. You can meet them."
A suggestive smile took over his features. "And are these friends of yours as pretty as you?"
Hope slapped him again.
***
And so to the Waking Sands they went. And really, that was where it all started. The rest of her life. How funny, that she'd thought the worst was behind her then. The stakes would only grow higher from there until she found herself standing at the edge of the world alone, thinking, Is this how it was always meant to be?