Anne and the Apocalypse

Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV
Rating: Mature
Archive Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Haurchefant Greystone/Warrior of Light, Alphinaud Leveilleur & Warrior of Light, Unrequited Minfilia Warde/Warrior of Light, Unrequited Aymeric de Borel/Warrior of Light, Pre-Urianger Augurelt/Warrior of Light, Alisaie Leveilleur & Warrior of Light, Warrior of Light & Thancred Waters, Y'shtola Rhul & Warrior of Light, Midgardsormr & Warrior of Light, Hydaelyn & Warrior of Light, Urianger Augurelt & Warrior of Light, Minfilia Warde & Warrior of Light, Ardbert & Warrior of Light
Characters: Warrior of Light, Haurchefant Greystone, Alphinaud Leveilleur, Urianger Augurelt, Y'shtola Rhul, Thancred Waters, Emmanellain de Fortemps, Artoirel de Fortemps, Edmont de Fortemps, Alisaie Leveilleur, Minfilia Warde, Midgardsormr (Final Fantasy XIV), Tataru Taru, Ardbert (Final Fantasy XIV), Warriors of Darkness (Final Fantasy XIV), Scions of the Seventh Dawn, Unukalhai (Final Fantasy XIV)
Additional Tags: Grief/Mourning, Survivor Guilt, Elezen Warrior of Light, Female Warrior of Light, Healer Warrior of Ligh, Angst, Suicidal Thoughts, Religious Angst, Depression, Patch 3.0: Heavensward Spoilers (Final Fantasy XIV), Patch 3.4: Soul Surrender Spoilers (Final Fantasy XIV), Canon-Typical Violence
Series: With Lilies and With Laurel
Length: 82,000 words
Chapter: 15/15 - COMPLETE!

Summary:

A heartbroken Warrior of Light struggles to come to terms with loss, and the world she has been left to save.

Notes:

If you're new here, please start with Chapter 1!

Final Fantasy XIV is owned by Square Enix. This is a non-commercial work of fanfiction.

( Read on AO3 )

In the days to come, Ariane would dream of a world swallowed by Light.

They were muddled dreams, hazy and imprecise, and upon waking she could recall few details. Impressions constructed, perhaps, from the Light that had overwhelmed all in the Porta Decumana, from the Light that had burst forth from six crystals brought together, from the ache behind her eyes when the Echo split her mind, and from the harsh glimmer of the sun upon fresh snow.

She woke to the gentler light of morning slanting through windows and touching marble floors, filtered through a curtain of falling snow, and she thought of five adventurers so much like herself. Of the pretense falling away from the Hyuran warrior's face, giving way to desperation and deep grief.

Ariane though she should have liked to speak more with him. To know who he really was, who his companions were, beneath the mantles they had donned as Warriors of Darkness. She suspected that what she had thought upon first meeting remained true: that they were, perhaps, very much alike.

She would never know. He had been dead before she ever met him.

Rising from her bed, she thought of Minfilia, ever gentle, ever giving of herself, and of the choice she had made without hesitation: to guide the warrior and his companions home, and to aid them against the tide of Light. Would Hydaelyn guide their journey, intervene directly to keep them safe? Or did Her emissary lead the charge alone, armed only with Her blessing, to face whatever perils awaited on this distant star? Would she succeed?

Ariane might never know.

She had no prayers for Hydaelyn. She had no prayers for anyone. Only a deep and abiding wish that her friend might be safe, that a promise might be kept.

She went more often to the Rising Stones, these days, though she still passed much of her time in Ishgard. The Scions would carry on, such as they were. The loss of Minfilia had hit everyone hard. Of the Archons especially, Ariane wondered whether their minds turned to their lost mentor, their Master Louisoix. To Moenbryda. To others they had lost. She had no doubt their hearts harbored other griefs, hidden though they might be.

There would be no new Antecedent. None remaining had felt it right to step into Minfilia's shoes. Certainly not Ariane, and thank the Twelve no one had asked. It had been Alphinaud who proposed that they simply continue their work, "as individuals driven by individual principles. Provided we all sincerely desire to work towards Eorzea's salvation, I believe the paths we follow to achieve it need not─and should not─be dictated by any single ideal."

It had seemed all were in agreement, or at least none had felt compelled to object. Krile had agreed to stay and assist with research. Unukalhai would stay as well. Even Alisaie had seemed willing to remain.

Urianger had been present, but said little, until Thancred addressed him. "Can we trust you to carry on your investigation of the Ascians as before?"

His old friend, hooded once more, had shaken his head. "Regardless of mine own desires, I am undeserving of your trust, having so villainously deceived you all."

But Thancred had given him a sharp look. "Now, now, I'll hear no more of that. 'Twould be disrespectful of Minfilia's wishes. She entrusted matters here to us, that we might protect this star and understand the truth which hides at Her heart. Mayhap I can handle the former, but I think you far better suited to the latter, no?"

After a startled pause, Urianger had bowed his head. "Very well. Then out of love for my lady Minfilia and Moenbryda both, this shall be my solemn charge."

Soon after their meeting had adjourned, he had set out alone once again for the Waking Sands. Ariane had made a mental note to stop by Vesper Bay sometime soon, or at least call. Someone ought to be looking in on him.

Y'shtola, too, had remarked upon returning to her research, seeming to have little desire for conversation. A few moons ago, Ariane would have made no further overtures, presuming anything she might say to be inadequate and undesired. Even now, it had been difficult to know what words might offer comfort to someone like Y'shtola. Still, she had not forgotten the kindness the Miqo'te woman had shown her, in her own way.

And so before departing, she had approached her. So unsure had she felt of herself that she had nearly turned and walked away—but no. She'd chosen her course. Actions, she had thought, would mean more to Y'shtola than words.

"If there's anything I can do to help," she’d said, "please let me know."

Y'shtola had paused, ears twitching forward at Ariane's voice, and returned a small smile. "Thank you, Ariane. I may yet have occasion to call upon you."

"And what of you?" Alphinaud had asked. "What now for the Warrior of Light?"

What indeed? Ariane had meant what she said to Y'shtola. When they called upon her, she would be there. For those they had lost, and for those they could yet save.

Yet that answer still felt incomplete. Once she had known only the safety of home and the charge of keeping it. Once she had wandered, lost and alone and without purpose. Once she had been driven by faith in a purpose outside herself.

Now, it was as though she held the pieces of each of those disparate lives in her hands. Like the fragments of Master Louisoix's broken staff, there was a power there, but to what end, she did not know. Perhaps she could yet find some kind of meaning in her shattered life, in the fragments of herself she kept trying to put back together. She did not know the shape of it yet. And she would not pretend.

"I'm not certain," she had said. "But I mean to find out."

With her free hand Ariane fished the key from her pocket, still rough along the seam of its mould, and turned it in the lock. She was huffing a bit from the load on her shoulder, after so many stairs. Thancred had once remarked that as adept as she was at magic, it wouldn't hurt her to undertake some physical training now and again, and at the moment she thought with some chagrin that he might be correct.

The door opened into a single-room apartment, smelling powerfully of newly-cut stone and chestnut lumber and floor wax. Pushing the door closed behind her, Ariane hauled her burden to the far corner and stooped to let the futon mattress fall from her shoulder and flop open on the hardwood floor, spilling the pillows and covers she had carefully rolled within.

Beside it, the knapsack holding the few things she had had with her at Fortemps Manor. At the bottom of that knapsack lay the clothes she had worn, the day Haurchefant died. She was still unsure of what to do with them. Burn them, perhaps? Was she ready to do such a thing?

Well, she need not decide now.

For now, she stood and looked about the empty space, already thinking of how she might arrange it. The merchant in the lobby could furnish her with some other basic items. She would be returning to the Forgotten Knight for meals until she could get a basic kitchen set up here. She ought to see to that first. Luxuriant as the fare at Fortemps Manor had been, it would be nice to cook for herself again. And she would need a table, some chairs, a rug, some shelves for books…

It would take some time to get settled in, though after many days spent offering her labor to the restoration efforts, the thought of building some things for herself was rather appealing.

She was not Ishgardian. It was not home.

But it was a place to lay her head that was her own.

“He would have loved this,” said Lord Francel, one day, as they stood overlooking the Firmament’s progress. Where once the whole district had rung with the sounds of hammers on steel and stone, now the structural work was largely complete. Long winding streets and squares and stairways, once ravaged by dragonfire and battle, now restored like new. Most importantly, homes. Stout stone houses with peaked roofs for the snow, and multi-storied buildings of apartments, offering low-cost shelter to those once confined to the harsh austerities of the Brume.

Francel had been one of Haurchefant’s closest friends; in fact it was to clear his name of false accusations of heresy that Haurchefant had first enlisted her help. Ariane could only imagine he had been just as devastated by his friend’s death. But it was only in recent days, as she had lent her efforts to the restoration, that she had gotten to know him, enough to call him a friend.

Haurchefant had told Francel about them, of course. Though he had never pried, she thought Francel had likely been the first to know.

“He would have,” Ariane agreed. “He loved this city so… though it did not love him as it ought.”

“No,” said Francel solemnly, “no, it did not. But we who loved him will keep and honor his memory.”

They went out to his grave together, one day. Ariane had mentioned that she meant to go, and Francel had said oh, he was meaning to as well. Would it be presuming upon her to offer his company? Not at all, she had said. She would welcome it.

And so they made the journey together into the highlands, on a day that was cloudy but fair. Two black chocobos alighted upon the snow, as a hesitant sunlight nudged the clouds apart.

Together they approached the stone. Ariane knelt to brush the snow from the rent shield which still leaned against it, while Francel laid his hand upon the stone and said quietly, "Hello again, old friend." He looked to Ariane with a sorrowful smile, and said, "Thank you. I am glad we came together. He would be glad…" His voice broke. “He would be glad. Forgive me. I…”

“He would not begrudge us our tears,” said Ariane, rising. “The wind might, but not he.”

“No,” Francel said quietly. “I suppose he would not.”

And they stood side by side, and Francel wept, and Ariane put a hand on his shoulder and wept beside him.

Mor Dhona was mostly crystal now.

Ariane's memories were fuzzy, the edges long-softened by time and by what had come after. But the land remembered, perfectly imperfectly.

It was difficult even to pinpoint where their house had once stood. Ariane had now spent considerable time in North Silvertear during the expedition to the Crystal Tower, and always she had been strangely aware that she was not far from where she had lived as a child—where once had stood their first family home, with the herb beds and hothouse, the little shop up front where Mother had sold their yield, the tiny office in the back where Father kept the books, pushing his spectacles absently up his long nose as he bent over the ledger by lamplight. Next door, the dairy, and the girl with whom Ariane would one day share her first kiss.

All this she could still see, somewhat, in her mind's eye, but to map it precisely onto the crystallized landscape of the present was all but impossible. Even the shoreline no longer matched the one she remembered. It may as well have been a different place. Only the wreck of the Agrius, rising from the lake as a spire entwined with the dragon's husk, stood as proof, pinning past to present.

She knelt to place a single lily upon the crystal, and when she arose, there was a now-familiar flutter of leathery wings at her ear.

"I remember you," Ariane said, not turning to face him at her shoulder, but nodding toward the sky. "From that day…"

"Thou art a child of the lake. Aye. Thinkest thou I did not know?"

"Why would you?" She remembered, now, that he had called her that before. Child of the Lake. At the time, she had been in too much turmoil to think on it. "I was one child in the crowd. The sight of you in the sky was rather more memorable, I should think."

In typical fashion, Midgardsormr did not explain himself. Gods rarely did, nor dragons either. "Thou hast come home, then, mortal child?"

"No," Ariane said, gesturing at the crystallized landscape. "What home? There's naught left of it to come back to. There never was."

"Thou speakest true," the dragon mused. "Then why hast thou come?"

"To remember, I suppose," Ariane said. "Just for a moment. To remember why I can't go back."

The dragon uttered a thoughtful rumble. "Aye, child. Full well do I know of what thou speakest."

She was quiet for a moment. "I suppose you would." It was a sobering thought. Ravaged though it was by battle and by aether, still Lake Silvertear lay where it always had, even if its shorelines had shifted. Neither the great dragon nor any of his brood would alight upon the star of his birth again.

"I didn't understand," Ariane admitted. "Not at the time… I was as terrified of you as I was of the Garleans, even knowing you were meant to be our protector." She turned to look at Midgardsormr at last. "I should… I've never thanked you for that. For my life, for my family's. We'd never have had those years we had in the Respite, if not for you. Thank you."

The rumble from the dragonet at her shoulder sounded suspiciously like a chuckle. "And is that not what thou hast become, Child of the Lake? A terror who doth protect? Many would tremble at the power thou dost wield, and yet do they call upon thee, time and again."

"Yes," Ariane said, and sighed. "I suppose they do. Nonetheless, I daresay I cut a less impressive figure against the sky."

Another chuckle. "This I shall not deny… diminished as my present form may be."

Mother had hoped they would not have to leave. When they did, she had said, Then we'll go to Gridania; we have family there. Ariane and Gratienne had heard this at intervals throughout their childhood. They had family in Gridania. Their name, Clairière from Mother, was a Gridanian name. Who those family might be, they did not know. Neither Mother nor Father had ever mentioned names. Everyone they knew lived in Mor Dhona, by the lake or nearby. Mother had been born in Mor Dhona, and Father had come from somewhere else (of which he spoke little), but the Clairières had come from Gridania, so they had family in Gridania. Great-aunts or uncles or removed cousins, or whoever they might be.

They had had little time to pack anything, and when they'd reached the dark outskirts of the Twelveswood, it had quickly become apparent that they'd brought nothing they ought to have. A makeshift camp had already sprung up by the time they arrived. There were tents, bedrolls, and people handing out bread and bowls of stew from an enormous pot over a communal fire. In the days to follow, she had understood that these comforts were the gifts of the Little Sisters of Sorrows, an order of devotees to Nymeia, without whose charity they all would likely have starved.

They had not gone to Gridania. The driver who had carried them from Silvertear Falls said this was as far as she went. The roads through the South Shroud were treacherous, and there was already talk of a caravan gone missing in the forest, whispers of the greenwrath taking those who had displeased the elementals by trespassing in the Twelveswood.

Mother had said they would find someone to take them to Gridania, when things were safer, but for now, they must stay on the outskirts.

In the end, they had never left.

The Respite, too, was no more. A tear in the earth at the outskirts of the Black Shroud, where once had stood the little hamlet grown out of the refugee camp from those who stayed, put down roots, built more permanent dwellings. Scarce more than a little circle of thatch-roofed cottages, and the fields at their backs, like the spokes of a wheel, or the petals of a lily.

Nymeia's Respite, they had called it. For the goddess whose tears had filled the lake, whose Sisters had fed and sheltered them here when they had lost everything.

Here, as in North Silvertear, there was little to mark it for the grave it was. In the aftermath of the Calamity, Ariane had heard the explanations, how Bahamut's release from the red moon had caused drastic aetheric shifts, altering the land, weakening the elementals, changing the face not only of the region but of all of Eorzea.

Here, what she remembered was opening her eyes at the edge of a chasm that had not been there before, the massive roots of a great tree rising up on either side of her, and with no memory of how she had come to be there.

Ariane knelt for a moment, and laid a lily on the ground, at the roots of a tree; not the same tree, certainly, but it would do. She could not find that same tree now, and had no wish to. The years since had altered the land yet further. Roots, grasses and underbrush now grew over the edge of the rift, as though the earth even now attempted to heal itself. Though the wound remained, life grew abundantly all around it.

She would never know how Gratienne and Mother and Father had met their end, swallowed up by the earth or—she tried not to think about it. She had been there, in the house with them, when the skies burned above and the earth trembled below. Who or what had plucked her from that edge, kept her from meeting the same end? The elementals, the Matron, Hydaelyn herself? It was a question the Mothercrystal had never seen fit to answer. Gods rarely explained themselves.

Why was she left behind? Why was she, again and again, the one left behind?

Ariane had no answers. Perhaps she never would. Perhaps there were none.

New Gridania, as ever, thrummed with life—both in its verdant arbors, and in the bustle of people ever moving about the green city. Adventurers milled about the aetheryte, awaiting companions or preparing to depart on their next quest. A trio of bards stood upon a nearby bench, the vibrant notes of lute and harp carried on the wind across the brook and beyond.

Ariane had never found the comfort or belonging here that she had once hoped. When she had finally made her way to this fabled city of her mother's heritage, she had found no one related to her still living here, though a few recognized the name. She might be of the glade, as Mother had used to say, but she was not of this city.

Perhaps that was why she had thrown in her lot with Ul'dah instead, found comfort in the beauty of the desert, and joined the Immortal Flames. She was just as much a foreigner in Ul'dah, but there was no disappointment in that, no hopes unrealized. Nothing lost.

Now she stopped by the Conjurer's Guild, long enough to kneel for a moment by Nophica's Altar, paying her respects even if she could not quite manage a prayer.

Gridania had not given her nothing. Though she still could hardly bring herself to pick up her conjurer's cane… she could not deny that it was here her journey as an adventurer, and as a healer, had truly begun. Her apartment in Ishgard, now comfortably furnished, was quickly growing cluttered with tomes of arcanima and astromancy, as well as the writings on the sage's path that Lalah had entrusted to her. But it had all started here.

Once, she had thought she might do her part to heal the world, a world broken by calamity and by myriad sorrows so like her own. Rising from her knees amidst flowers and birdsong and the brilliant glare of the sun, she found in herself something like hope, that she still might.

And perhaps, in so doing, she might find a way to heal herself.

In Azys Lla, someone had been here before her. At the edge of one walkway lay a single Nymeia lily. Estinien, Ariane thought, if anyone.

She was glad. Ysayle had no grave in the highlands overlooking the city she too had helped to save. She too should be remembered. Lady Iceheart, Ysayle Dangoulain, she who had held both mankind and dragonkind in her heart, who had longed so deeply to heal the rift that lay between. She who had sought to follow the path of Saint Shiva, who had so loved her patron that she had tried to become her.

"You didn't have to do this," Ariane said quietly, kneeling before the blossom and laying beside it a lily of her own. In the acrid clouds of Azys Lla's sky she could almost see, as she had that day, the summoning magic fading away, leaving only her friend, pale hair streaming, eyes closed in a terrible peace—falling, falling, out of sight. "You helped save Ishgard, too. You should be here to see the changes you wrought."

Should her friend's voice whisper to her across the aether, Ariane thought she knew what she would hear: I too made my choice.

So she had. And like so many others, Ariane would never stop wishing that she was here still.

Before departing, she ventured to the center of the flagship, at the entrance to the Aetherochemical Research Facility, wherein lay the containment bays, monuments to Allagan hubris and tomb of the last hopes of a downtrodden people. Ariane would never know the thralls of the fallen eikons, did not even know the names of the demiurges she had slain. Still, they had been people once—people just like herself and the Scions, with loves and family and friends, lives and livelihoods and hopes for the future. But for the gift of Hydaelyn—and it was a gift, for all the burdens that came with it—she might have met the same fate, her life and will consumed in a moment of desperation.

For these, and so many others laid to rest at the Scions' hands, she laid another lily by the doors.

With her last three lilies, she came to the overlook once more.

Today, the skies were clear. Ishgard rose in the distance unobscured by fog or falling snow. The sight of the broken shield and his name carved in stone cut as deeply as ever. The tears still rushed forth, stinging on her face even in a somewhat more forgiving wind. Today, at least, she looked upon the city he had loved without rancor.

She knelt before his gravestone, in the snow, and laid her lilies there.

He would be glad, Lord Francel had said. Ariane was certain he would be. He would be glad for every visit. Haurchefant did so love attention.

The thought of his smile brought one to her lips as well, even as her eyes still streamed.

Did he yet watch over her from the aetherial sea? Or was that but a story told to comfort the grieving? She thought of when she and Alphinaud had labored to prise Nidhogg's eyes from Estinien, what she had seen, what she had felt—as powerfully as if he had yet stood at her side. Her knight, her love, brave and kind and true.

Her knight, who had found his life's calling in service to those he'd loved. Not merely the city, but the people. A knight lives to serve, Father─to aid those in need! There is no greater calling for a knight than to save the life of his fellow man…

Her love, who would have done the same for any of them. For Aymeric, for Francel, for Ysayle, for his brothers… Had any one of them been in mortal danger, she was quite sure he would have made the same choice, without hesitation.

How she loved him for his conviction and courage, and how she hated that the very thing she had so loved in him had taken him from this world, and from her. Yet could she wish that he had been otherwise?

A man who would not make that choice would not be the man she loved. That was it, wasn't it, the terrible paradox of it all, the truth she had railed against with all her being? Of course it had felt easier to blame Hydaelyn for taking him—to believe, even against all evidence to the contrary, that She yet had the power to guide mortal events by Her hand, and had chosen not to. Had chosen to let him die. Easier to believe in a cruel god than one too weak to intervene.

Whether or not her love yet stood watch from somewhere unseen… he had made his choice, and was now beyond her reach.

Haurchefant was gone. And Ariane had to live.

She wept, and did not attempt to stop herself, even as the rising wind stung her cheeks, and then she took out her handkerchief, and wiped her face.

"I will never forget you, my love," Ariane whispered, “or what we had together. How I wish we could have had more time. But I will live no less fully than you would have. This I promise you."

Ariane rose and turned south toward Camp Dragonhead, as the sun rose high in the cloudless sky and the light glittered, blinding, on the snow.

In those last moments, you smiled for me, through your tears. I knew, I know that you are strong, but I saw what you would suffer with my loss.

Forgive me. I never meant to burden you with such grief. I never meant to leave you. But I could not bear the thought of any harm coming to you. Nor to leave the world bereft of such a bright soul as I have so adored.

Ere I depart for Halone's halls, I ask but one thing, my darling: that you live. Live well, live fully, and love deeply, as you always have.

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