#FFXIVWrite2022 30 Day Challenge

[incontrast]

Master post for all my entries into the FFXIVWrite challenge over on twitter/tumblr!


prompt #1: cross | ✻ | Mauve + Zenos | ✻ | EW spoilers

prompt #2: bolt | ✻ | Mauve + NPCs

prompt #3: temper | ✻ | Mauve + Alphinaud + Alisaie + NPCs | ✻ | EW spoilers

prompt #4: Extra Credit / Free Day | ✻ | Mauve/Thancred | ✻ | EW spoilers

prompt #5: Cutting Corners | ✻ | Sarhnai + Hien | ✻ | SB spoilers

prompt #6: Onerous | ✻ | Mauve + Hien | ✻ | post-EW spoilers

prompt #7: Pawn | ✻ | Mauve/Thancred | ✻ | ARR spoilers

prompt #8: Tepid | ✻ | Zenos + f!WoL

prompt #9: Yawn | ✻ | Thancred + Ryne | ✻ | pre-ShB

prompt #10: Channel | ✻ | Gaius + f!WoL | ✻ | ShB spoilers

prompt #11: Extra Credit / Free Day | ✻ | Mauve/Thancred | ✻ | rated T for talk of mating drives

prompt #12: Miss the Boat | ✻ | Mauve + Lahabrea | ✻ | mild violence

prompt #13: Confluence | ✻ | Mauve + Thancred

prompt #14: Attrition | ✻ | Mauve + Zenos | ✻ | EW spoilers | ✻ | cw: blood + violence

prompt #15: Row | ✻ | Mauve/Thancred | ✻ | post-EW

prompt #16: deiform | ✻ | Lisette + Hraesvelgr

prompt #17: novel | ✻ | Sarhnai + Fandaniel | ✻ | EW spoilers

prompt #18: Extra Credit / Free Day | ✻ | Mauve/Thancred | ✻ | rated T

prompt #19: Turn a Blind Eye | ✻ | Mauve + Hatsuye (non-WoL)

prompt #20: Anon(ymous) | ✻ | Mauve/Thancred | ✻ | rated T | ✻ | if you know, you know

prompt #21: Solution | ✻ | Mauve + Thancred | ✻ | post-SB spoilers

prompt #22: Veracity | ✻ | Mauve + Zenos (and not!Zenos) | ✻ | post-SB spoilers

prompt #23: Pitch | ✻ | Mauve + background NPCs | ✻ | tw listed below

prompt #24: Vicissitudes | ✻ | Mauve/Thancred

prompt #25: Extra Credit / Free Day | ✻ | Mauve + Thancred

prompt #26: Break a Leg | ✻ | Sarhnai + Koharu + Zenos | ✻ | cw: canon-typical violence

prompt #27: Hail | ✻ | Mauve + Ardbert | ✻ | ShB spoilers

prompt #28: Vainglory | ✻ | Mauve + Zenos | ✻ | EW spoilers

prompt #29: Fuse | ✻ | Mauve/Thancred | ✻ | EW spoilers | ✻ | rated T; Mauve/Zenos +dubcon ref

prompt #30: Sojourn | ✻ | Mauve | ✻ | EW spoilers | ✻ | cw: implied character death

Comments

prompt #26: Break a Leg | ✻ | Part 3 | ✻ | more violence/brutality, sorry not sorry

[incontrast]

The mingled tastes of blood and bile are strong on Sarhnai’s tongue, the world still blurred and unsteady at the edges of her dotted vision, pain pumping hot and fierce through her thigh in time with her rapid heartbeat—but she stands. Unsteadily, with difficulty, propping much of her weight on her recovered axe, but standing. She isn’t so arrogant as to think she truly stands a chance at this point, barring a significant stroke of luck, but if she dies today, she’ll die on her feet fighting, as all who call themselves Dotharl seek to do… and hopefully, at the very least, draw this bastard’s attention from Koharu long enough for someone else to drag her away to safety.

“Hm. You yet stand. Mayhap you have potential."

She wants to punch that bored drawl out of his mouth, and then make him eat it and spit it up again for good measure—but as the trickle of healing magic touches and seeps beneath her skin, soothing her smaller bruises and cuts but only bringing her broken leg from unbearable down to excruciating, Sarhnai thinks before she leaps for once. She needs to make each move count.

But she doubts Zenos will wait very long, so she doesn’t chance so much as a glimpse at Koharu despite how much she wants to. She’s equally concerned and angry at her right now, as one can only be at someone who puts themselves at risk like Koharu just did, and Sarhnai isn’t sure she wants either to show on her face at the moment… Although, if she did glance at her soul-sister right then, there might have been some fierce pride in the look, a grim but approving hint of a smile amid the incensed anxiety eating at her: Not bad.

She only commits a few brief seconds to thinking before hoisting her weapon, now unusually heavy in her hands, up and at the ready, glaring daggers at the man towering before her. “We’re not done,” she rasps.

He turns towards her fully to give her his undivided attention. She can feel how utterly unconcerned he is, the disdain coming off him in waves as he takes in her broken state and how expended she is already. It spurs her forward, the fire inside her igniting into a fever pitch that burns hotter than the agony in her leg and helps her limp forward at a staggering trot.

Sarhnai has been insulted plenty of times in her life, directly or otherwise, but none of them come close to the deliberately slow and casual manner in which Zenos sidesteps her, his swordhand snapping out to smash his pommel into her side and shattering what shields Koharu managed to layer in place, which are likely the only reason Sarhnai suffers naught more than a deep bruise later and not broken ribs. She teeters and it puts pressure on her bad leg, but she chokes back her voice and spins, throwing her weight into a blow at the outside of his shoulder—only for him to elbow her axe aside, the motion as mild as swatting a fly, and before she can even process how furious that makes her, his sword moves again. This time the debilitating snap is under her knee—on what was, until now, her good leg. She crumples on the spot, nearly within arm’s reach of Koharu, this time with a shout that’s equal parts pain and rage. A glance down tells her that her leg is still intact, though undoubtedly broken—the bastard really did strike her with the flat side of the blade—

She snatches her tomahawk off her hip and hurls it, more brute force than form, but her aim for his mask is true. Zenos dodges it with a sharp tilt of his head, but the distraction is enough for Sarhnai to lunge forward and catch his sword in her fist, the blade slicing across her palm as she uses the leverage to haul herself up and towards him. She uses his ridiculous bulk to support herself as her legs grind and scream in agony, her left fist driving hard into the crook of his arm as the other pulls sharply in hopes of disarming him. There’s another splatter of blood as he whips his blade free of her feeble grasp, ripping the gash in her hand wider, and suddenly she’s on her back and breathless. Trying to suck in air feels strange, like there’s a weight on her chest, and she’s vaguely aware of a dull throbbing separate from the wound he left across her collar before, something lower and deeper that sends an involuntary shudder through her when she breathes too deeply.

There’s another snap, cleaner than the others, and Sarhnai rolls her swimming head to the side to see Zenos observing her as calmly as he has thus far, his broken blade in hand.

Her vision spins again as the pain hits her in a sickening wave, likely combined with blood loss and her fading adrenaline to leave her head light and her extremities growing numb. The ringing in her ears doesn’t quite mask Zenos’ voice, and his low, almost annoyed remark of “Pathetic” is the final and perhaps worst insult of all. As he withdraws in his slow, unconcerned gait, choosing not to finish her for some unfathomable reason, Sarhnai has to force herself not to watch him go lest she drag her broken body after him again. She turns towards where Koharu lies—where she thinks she is, but the shadows encroaching on her sight make it hard to tell for certain—to crawl that way instead, but with the rush of battle faded and the object of her hatred departed, the last of her strength quickly gives out. She manages to roll over, to pull herself along a couple of ilms before that numbness spreads up to her shoulders, to all of her, mingling with the burn of her injuries until it feels like everything is pulsing sharply, even her eyes, and as they grow darker and heavier still, she closes them to rest… just for a moment.