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There is an Auri woman on your chest.
Bare like her nameday, eyes closed shut as she dreams away. Blonde hair swept down her shoulders, let loose from its typical ponytail. Blacken tips, as if dusted in soot, spiked up just a bit in defiance.
It has always been about defiance with her, hasn't it.
You thought it started in Rhalgr's Reach, with the woman standing opposed to you. Clad in tawny brown, a heavy gun in hand. Her hat obscured some of her features, but you remember the dark lips, peeled back to reveal two small fangs. You remember the shape of her horns, facing forward, tips jutting out a little ahead of her chin, sharpened to a fine point.
You remember the pale golden glow of her eye. A fire, simmering.
But what is the point of a fire if it does not blaze and burn? If it does not sear and scorch what laid before it? If it does not leave a carpet of ash and a cape of smoke in its wake?
Your katana rose up, asking the question.
Her gun fired back its answer. The halves of the bullet laid on the ground at your feet.
Better than the others, yes, but it did not satisfy you. Not as though it should take much to be better than the rabble, and yet you find these soliders the same to swathes of wheat. Oh so easily cut down.
At least this one gave you some resistance, stopped your steel for more than a second before you sliced through.
Your arm was about to sheathe the bloody blade when it snaps cleanly in half.
It is dropped to the dirt, as she was.
You thought it started in Rhalgr's Reach, but it actually began before that. Moons ago, when a pilus had given you the report of the events that happened in the Praetorium and of Gaius van Baelsar. Your interest in Eorzea was at the time, effectively non-existant. But even you couldn't stop for a moment, reading about this champion of the land. They called her the Warrior of Light. Eikon Slayer.
Your finger found itself rested on top of her name, if only for a moment.
It does not begin in Rhalgr's Reach, but does it begin in Doma? In that land you left broken, still bleeding from its wounds. They bled, but the wounds needed to fester. Inflamed, the taste of iron laying heavy on tongues as they howled. You had the perfect contagion. A woman of rot, wrought of hatred. A spider lily ready to bloom. You leave her to unfurl.
When you came back, you expected more.
She knows as much. Its in the way she avoided fully looking to your gaze, eyes sliding to the side. Docile, a pet before its master. In the shadow of the hand before it struck down.
There was something in the night air. Someone. As the pilus prattles on, your head turns, facing to the village the solider spoke of. You know there is no sport to be found there. Nothing of interest. You do not need to look at a cowering dog when you can hear its whimpers.
But this though? The oh so subtle jolt in air that you can taste? It is at least, something.
The shinobi is thrown off, but it is the gunshot you hear that has finally, finally fully captured your attention.
The Raen is of no consquence. The Xaela who had stood before him though, now you didn't forget her. Her tricks were better, how she flipped through the air to avoid his strikes. She had earned the right to view Ame-no-Habakiri. Earned the right to die by it.
Earned, yes, but not served it. The broken horn of your helmet, a sharp ting! sounding as it falls, makes the corners of your mouth twitch. She had earned more than just the right to view this sword. It is a simple matter to stow the katana away, and reveal the face. Eye to eye.
How fiery those eyes were indeed. No longer a lowly flame, but a bonfire. Teeth bared to you, sharp canines displayed.
A cattish smile (you? smiling? like this? since when?) fully rests itself onto your lips. To think there would not be sport here, when a real beast with claws and fangs and horns was before you.
Finally. How long have you waited for something like this? Prey finally worth hunting down? She needed some more time, yes, but you can see it. You can see those indigo horns dyed crimson. You can see those claws dug deep into flesh, viscara as decor. Red would go oh so well with those eyes.
She just needed to live.
A simple task for the Warrior of Light, no?
You are still compelled to say it still, make your will known. Every second counted. Even the time between them.
That hollow thing you call a heart beat to the sound of the war drum in your head. Quick, powerful, every beat another strike. You had forgotten how this could feel like. Did you ever even know? How this could feel? How your lungs could work for the sweet air? How the eletricity in your veins could dance to this beat?
There is no vice in this world—no alcohol, no drug—that could make him feel like this.
You can say it started there, at Doma, but does it truly? Does it not begin elsewhere?
Would it not truly begin in Ala Mhigo? Where, finally, the hunt truly commenced? She, the beast of the savages, tracking you down. Sought your scent throughout the realm, all in the name of… this. The rush. The thrill. To think you would find one such as her.
To think, for a time, you thought yourself resigned to this dull druggery of life. Walking down a dried path that cracked below your feet, a desert without end. Every day of every year of every bell. The Crown Prince of the Garlean Empire, one of its shining jewels, left collect dust and nothing more.
You never liked to be wrong. And yet, here, at that moment of time, you would be wrong about everything you have ever known, if it meant keeping this feeling close to your chest. To keep it caged between your ribs, locked away for you and yours alone.
And to higher and higher heights still, you found joy. In every part, how your body sang with the harmony of your blade and her cane. How the white magic fluttered around them, joining in on their dance. What a wonderful partner she was, knowing every step. When to strike, when to fall back, when to bleed. When to shine.
As you looked into her eyes, that fire was no longer a fire. It was a sun, hot enough to burn the air out of your lungs, to blind your eyes to the radiance. Everything before this would burn, if it meant this would never end.
The fuel runs out though. In the high heavens, where the stars themselves witness their dance, it is snuffed out. Or mayhap, it fueled her more than him. It is a lily, rich red like their blood, that is the final blow. The spider lily devours her heart in envy, for she could never have bloomed like her.
They fall, together. Her fingers are claws that dig and dig and yet dig still, clutching onto him. You cannot tell who's blood is who's, only that both of you are painted with it. Red did truly go so well with those eyes.
Their dance was done. And in its finale, you are reminded of the plays that your great-grandsire would bring you to as a small child. He enjoyed those, something you had trouble understanding. On this stage though, in the menagerie made for a king who held familiar beasts for his queen, he could comprehend the appeal. Was this how an actor felt like at the end, as they took their bows?
Iron is a sweet sugar to your tongue. Contentment did not have a definition in your dictionary until now. The two that joined them barely registered to you, as you raised your blade to your neck. You look to your friend, your enemy, as you bid her farewell.
She attempted to stop you. The last thing you remember is the sound of her voice, calling out your name.
And you were happy ending it there. And you were happy.
And then you were awake in somewhere you did not know, in a body that was not yours, in a world that had moved on without you. Or so you thought. How funny, how this all works. Made you chuckle a bit, if only for irony of it all.
There is no Auri woman on your chest.
She does not slumber away with you, as you lay on this harden bed at this inn. She does, however, hunt. Not here, with you, but hunt and find sport and entertainment elsewhere. Or perhaps she does indeed slumber, resting and bidding her time until her next hunt.
She would be oh so disappointed in you if you were not ready for it.
You raise up, onto your feet.
The defiance did not start in Rhalgr's Reach, or Doma, or Ala Mhigo. It started long before either of them met, when a weapon was placed in their hands by their fathers, with a single order to strike.