It's 7:15 Am And I'm Already Being Judged.

it's 7:15 am and I'm already being judged.

FFXIV Writes 2024 - Prompt #4: Reticent

Spoilers for the end of Dawntrail and the Arcadion Raids lie below. You have been warned.

Xander closed his eyes, foot tapping an uneasy rhythm against the floor as the blaring techno beats that defined the music surrounding Solution 9’s continuation in mankind’s ‘grandest’ universal tradition of blood sport echoed in his skull.

Twenty-one souls. All you have to do is succeed in this contest, and twenty-one trapped souls will be freed.

So he’d been promised by that shifty Lalafell- or, Milala, he supposed- Metem, who seemed responsible for announcements in this ‘Arcadion’. A promise that had damned well better be upheld if the bastard hoped to secure his continued cooperation in this nonsense bread and circus designed to placate the grief of the despairing people of Alexandria.

Then again. It wasn’t just Metem to whose expectations he had to rise. The thought of Celeste and M’hana’s eager eyes watching from the crowd filled his mind. Iori would bear witness, too, though he had considerably less interest in sport-fighting than they did.

Gods, I wish I had them watching my back instead of watching me compete right now. Xander thought with a shudder.

He’d never felt this nervous before taking the field of battle. Not in all his five years at the Bloodsands as The Golden Warg. Not in all the battles he’d fought with the fate of the world hanging above his shoulders.

Though he’d shelved his greatsword and tucked away his copied crystal of the Dark Knight, Xander could swear he heard the whispers of his shadow from deep within his soul over the roar of the crowd outside.

You seem reticent, my friend. Do not tell me that you, who stood in the face of Despair itself and won, now balk at so simple a contest. I doubt any foe here is worthy of gracing your blade with their blood.

He sighed. To the voice of his friend, his enemy within himself, he replied, “I’m reticent because I know the cost paid for the crowd’s entertainment here. I’ve fought beasts in the ring before, but something about using beastkin souls as fuel and fighting until I’ve actually slain my foe here sits ill.”

Though it was called ‘the Bloodsands’, in truth, actual deaths in the arena were rare. Waste of valuable fighters. Killing in the ring could easily merit execution in turn. Fights were supposed to be to the point of death, not to the death. Not unless some ungodly sums of coin had changed hands to change it from a fight to an assassination. (Or an ‘unfortunate accident’ had been arranged.)

And here, not only was he expected to slay his foes, he was encouraged to do so, to allow them to use their godsdamned Regulators to drag themselves back to live. Death here, not so much an ending as an inconvenience, so long as one had cleansed souls remaining in reserve.

A multitude of candles of life to burn. And burn them, these fighters did. Wastefully. As if the loss of whoever’s soul they used as fuel mattered not.

Hah. Those who fight without the certainty of death will never know the true meaning of life, the time between the seconds. If you wish to give the lie to their culture of deathlessness, then show them the capabilities of one willing to burn his one candle of life to its very dregs.

Spurred on by the words of his shadow, Xander’s eyes snapped open. “Oh believe me, I will.”

He drew his sword and shield from his back, laying the blade of his sword against his head as an age-old prayer passed his lips. “We who walk in Thal’s halls, for the glory and blessings of Nald, request the blessing of the twin gods. Grant the victor your gilded boons, and the loser safe passage.”

Though the twin gods to whom he prayed had been sent on their way to the Aetherial Sea by his own hand, murmuring the words brought Xander a vague sense of comfort. He could swear he heard Nald’Thal’s approving chuckle at his back as he readied his sword and shield for combat and stepped out into the blinding lights of the Arcadion.

He would show them. He would show them all that their abuse of the souls of man and beast was not only cruel, but pointless. And maybe then, he could finally begin to dismantle this corrupted system in full.

The worst trick a childhood anxiety disorder pulls is, you spend your early years being applauded for being so much more mature than your peers, because you aren’t disruptive, you don’t want any kind of attention, you don’t express yourself, you keep yourself to yourself - this makes you a pleasure to have in class, etc etc - and you start to believe it’s virtue. But you’re actually way behind your peers in normal social development, and who knows if you can ever catch up.

Meridia's beacon on clearance at the home goods if anyone wants to start a quest

directors using colorful or "impossible" lighting to convey mood and meaning and beauty my beloved. directors making night scenes impossible to see for the sake of realism my beloathed.