"We were never enemies, child."
"How beautiful your mind must be, Grey , to think such things."
"How tragic yours... to believe them."
Cryptic, reserved: this Duskwight's heresiarch plies her overlong life with senile aplomb. Endemic of ancient Gelmorran nobility and heiress to antediluvian arcane, Eirene is well-spoken, precise in diction, and carries herself with a bizarre mixture of weary assurance native to old soldiers and the quiet, unimpressed regality better seen in those of blue blood. 'Mostly harmless' by favorable accounts, she is better found in a dull corner with a book than in the thick of things, but make no mistake: she is wont to as much capricious whimsy as her fae companion and is often dragged from her default solitude by the doting and desperate. In turn, she plays her part as doddering hag almost to perfection.
Almost.
"She lives ever in the aftermath. Not so much the storm, as that which ends it."
A towering Duskwight woman, standing at over seven fulms with a full physique to match - As her surname suggests, her flesh is a charcoal-gray hue. Overlong ghostly gray hair glows faintly, wrought through with silver strands. Though normally hidden behind a blindfold or visor, her yellow eyes betray her; with crinkles and tired weight that one only sees in centennials marring otherwise smooth, ageless features, a discrepancy one might expect from Viera but in elezen instead comes off as unsettling.
"The lonely Witch of Ak-Mina - Very old, very kind, and the very very last."
Name:Eirene Charbonneau
Class:算術士 | Arithmetician (裏魔道士 | Arcanist)
Subclass:錬金術士 | Alchemist
Accreditation:Archon @ Faculty of Mathematics (Sharlayan)
Publications:'A World of Contradictory Magicks (And How to Fix It)
Paracausality Misunderstood; Explaining Akasa...
Now We're Thinking With Portals; Hypotheses and...
Race:エレゼン | Eresen/Elezen
Clan:シェーダー | Shader/Duskwight
Height:Seven Fulms, Four Ilms. (7’4″, 223.52 cm)
Freakishly tall; eye to eye with the tallest of female Roegadyn.
Physiognomy:Statuesque
Hair:Varies (White by Default)
Eyes:Pale, ichorous gold
Sex:Female
Age:"My, how bold."
Nameday:19th Sun of the 6th Astral Moon November 19th
Alignment:Lawful Neutral
Patron:Nophica, the Matron
Voice:Savathun (Destiny 2)
"... and then we discovered why - Why this old woman, who had warred with men and demons, why she had run away from us and hidden. She was being kind..."
Designation:鵺 | Nue
Monikers:The Muse, Underlight
Class:裏魔道士 | Arcanist
Taxonomy:元素の | Elemental
Form:フェアリー | Feari/Fairie
Height:One fulm (~12")
Weight:N/A
Hair:Lavender
Eyes:Deep Indigo (Compound/Insect-like)
Sex:N/A, Female Presenting
Age:N/A
Patron:[Ṟ̶̛̭̱̈ͪ̍͡Ȩ̷̷͔͕̺ͨ̆͋D̴̥̬̦̏̊ͤ͘A̧̨͔͇̲̅̂̄̕C̀ͨ̉͏̴͓͙̱Ţ̨̫̮̤͋ͨ͊Ḝ̧ͯ̍͏̬̲̲D̸̴̺̩͊ͩ̄͘ͅ]
Voice:Star Trek Tribbles (Coo) (Chatter)
World of Warcraft Wolpertingers (Assorted))
Summoner:Eirene Charbonneau
"Always the Duskwight and her companion. Or is it the Fairy and her familiar? I would not be so quick to assume who mastered whom."
Every heresiarch is afforded her heresy; to the Gelmorran norms which mothered its summoner, the rainbow iridescence which follows Nue is penultimate trespass. In parallel, in paradox, creator and creation complement each other, with due grim demeanor offset by Nue's incessant pestering and apathy offset by empathy. While Eirene ever seeks to deny her entelechy, Nue is ever on the hunt to transcend its own. Its own child crusade.
"She's old... really old. She has one constant companion, and that's Death. If the Hermit and her fairy are making house calls, then... gods help you."
Standing at a fulm tall and nearly weightless, Nue boasts expert anatomical precision constructed as a pale elezen, a simple floral-print sun dress subtly bragging to those who know how impressive such is to render. It bears realistic skin, lilac hair, fluffy antennae, and a mane around its shoulders like a scarf. Orange lunar morpho wings beat from its back, constantly precipitating glimmering motes like dust. It glows with a yellow hue, and compound indigo insect eyes stare out from animated features.
"The anger of a good woman is of no consequence. Good women have too many rules."
"'Good' women don't need rules. Now is not the time to find out why I have so many."
Basic
Eirene is a polymath heavily assosciated with a laundry list of scholastic institutions. A Sharlayan archon, she has secretive fingers in the Order of Nald'thal's twin temples, records in Saint Endalim's Scholasticate, and even an almost legendary mysticism amongst Mealvaan's Gate's arcanists.
The Order of the Twin Adders registers her as a Red Otter Captain, technically retired and on a combatant's pension. Her MOS meanwhile, is anachronistically banal and provides no actual hint as to what she's a Captain of.
The oral myths of the Duskwight fear a horrific, Circean figure known as the Witch of Ak-Mina and her lineage of daughters who share in the original's name, face, and curse. Whatever Aesop this historically proved has been lost to time, as neither the presumed 'curse' nor its cause are ever elaborated on.
In the four-century old 'Ode to Eutychia Rin', the titular Gridanian saint says to Jorin Lightheart with her dying breaths to "...return me thence unto where I began/to be rejoined with Nophica's bounties again;// unto the Deep and Eirene, my mother of sin/for I lived for our future, but I die for my kin."
Though few, the best records of Gelmorra kept are of their highest aristocracy. Amongst the House of Mina was an Eirene Charbonneau, though surely the contemporary is at best a descendant, considering the centuries that have passed since.
Hello. I am Tildemancer. I am over 21, and I major in Creative Writing. I take this hobby far too seriously and spend far more time overthinking my concepts than I do playing them. I know way too much about magic and Shroud lore, and I want to know less because it's at the point where it detracts from my enjoyment. Send help.


Obligatory 'don't be a douche' note. Covers OOC pretty much all OOC-based 'isms. IC is fine; I know what I'm playing and the in-world bigotry surrounding Duskwight. Duskwight have well-earned their reputations, considering the overwhelmingly violent majority. Basically, just don't use real world slurs or equate IC & OOC groups. Feel free to throw out your 'greys' and 'knife ears' though.


Eirene's tropes make her best when written cooperatively, not competitively. Please do not attempt to force Eirene into an RP combat scenario. Eirene is about alienation and ostracization, not a power fantasy. Nor will she contribute to anyone else's power fantasy as either a victim or a convenient target to play down and invalidate.


Please do not attempt to force/trick Eirene into interactions with Voidsent (or Void Allied/Wielding/Afflicted) player characters.
What am I dealing with?
Please note this is neither a comprehensive list nor a literal one: tropes are tools and they are used here as thematic shorthand. Eirene was not designed to evoke or fit within these tropes, they just happen to describe her generic vibe.

Old Master, Hermit Guru, Iron Lady
Dark Secret, Grew Beyond Their Programming, Lonely at the Top (alternatively: Sour Grapes)
Byronic Hero, From Nobody to Nightmare, Reluctant Warrior, Heroic Neutral, Good is Not Nice


A Disclaimer on 'Lore Accuracy'
'Lore accuracy' is a joke in FFXIV's schizopunk setting. Its canon elements regularly contradict itself in both rules and stakes (for example, Hildebrand and holiday lore often conflicts with more serious MSQ stakes and mechanics), and some crossover content is simply irreconcilable entirely. Despite this, these are technically lore-correct parts of the universe. Nevertheless, certain elements in this vein break my (and I'm sure some of my own stipulations break others) storytelling as a result. Instead, I avoid positing the demand for 'lore-correctness' entirely, and instead seek to provide as a courtesy my own expectations and standards I hold to.

Here's my standards for myself and thus for people I interact with;
-if you can explain the mechanical 'how' (either through precedents or extrapolation from explicit lore)
-it is internally consistent with the rest of the setting, excluding Rule of Funny/Rule of Fun exemplars,
-and it does not trivialize the story (in theme or function) that I am trying to tell,

I consider it 'reasonable' and will entertain it. Be an Ixal, be a Lupin half-breed, be a Meracydian Viera with antlers and a tail, be a dude breeding Allagan clones to body hop and escape death. Go crazy, go stoopid. Want help with the semantics? HMU, I'll enable you.




Here's a list of some things you might find I (the player) don't engage with at all;
While some may be lorebreaking and some may not be, that's not the argument presented here: rather, anything on this list conflicts with fundamental anthropic principles of Eirene's story.
Accordion 1
Flyswatting player characters is failRP.
Eirene is very old, she has had a very long time and a lot of personal motivation to create ways to flyswat Voidsent.
Consider the Anti-Metagame Character.
Among other characterizations, her historical efficacy resulted in infamy and demonization among Voidsent.
Her relationships and capabilities all fundamentally inherit from this premise. She's a classic Nobody to Nightmare, He Who Fights Monsters archetype.
Voidsent were originally chosen because the majority of people didn't play Voidsent, so this didn't risk interplayer drama over power scaling: a Highly-Specific Counterplay, bordering on Cripplingly Specialized.
There's now a lot more Voidsent player characters after 6.5 repopularized the previously niche idea and brought a lot of their lore to light that, prior to 6.5, was only found in side content.
I don't like interplayer combat, and Eirene will immediately attack Voidsent without question.
The concessions with the lore taken to make Voidsent viable, long-term playable characters tend to be fundamentally incompatible with (or at least irrelevant to) the facts of their ontology.
All of this combines into a fundamental incompatibility with Voidsent characters and Eirene, and I won't force Voidsent to interact with Eirene for the same reason.
You deserve the space to tell your story uninhibited by someone else's, and Eirene would definitely cause problems.
Eirene tried for a long time, and had the means and motive to do so: because she can't, if it exists, it means she's incompetent or Withholding the Cure to justify her actions.
This invalidates Eirene's character entirely.
Therefore, until 6.5 gets followed up with a canon cure (it's happened before, with tempering!), it does not exist.
Arguments about 'lore correctness' entirely aside, there's enough Van Helsing Hate Crimes going on already.
Again, these kinds of tropes make Eirene either ignorant or outrageously evil, which breaks the story.
Accordion 2
Not really keen to involve Eirene with most MSQ or crossover conceits. The places and consequences of the MSQ are fine, it's mostly canon NPCs and certain concepts like Ascians, Blasphemies, Sin Eaters, NiER androids, actual Noctis from FFXV, isekai'd characters... The usual suspects, you get the idea. Nue adds fae player characters to the list, but this is technically negotiable.
Generally, Hildebrand, a lot of crossovers, and a lot of holiday 'lore' follow the Rule of Funny (or sometimes just the more generic Rule of Fun) rather than the internal rules established by the rest of the setting. Compare The Great Gourd and her mysteriously friendly Voidsent troupe kept in check by pumpkin cookies, or Starlight's Blitzen from Santa Claus legend and his 'rideable glamour', or the fact the Warrior of Light ascends yearly to the Square Enix office in Ul'dah to have a heart to heart with Naoki Yoshida himself: while fun, things like this are inconsistent with the rules and stakes established elsewhere in the narrative, and since Eirene relies heavily on those rules and stakes they're also irreconcilable with her story. Permanent, established lore rules supersede (and often negate) the mechanics of comedy plots for the purpose of my storytelling.
Immortality in the stories I write (and by extension, power in general) is an antagonistic force on which the negative consequences of obtaining such things are the primary focus of their inclusion in a plot. Fundamental tropes to stuff like Be Careful What You Wish For, Who Wants to Live Forever, Immortality Immorality, and Lonely at the Top. Power is only interesting (to me) in a Sour Grapes context. Power outside of this generally gets overplayed as God-Mode Sues, which are just boring.
Consequences are important. There's some things Eirene would go to any lengths to fix which include her own core narrative wounds, and if it was made possible in the context of the story it would immediately invalidate the story entirely without introducing concessions to try and invalidate Eirene.
You slip through the error in the uniform portfolio and find yourself secluded beyond the normally accessible regions. The back pages are grey and uniform. No one was intended to see these, and it shows; no effort was made to hide the inner gears and wires of this portfolio, the code as it plays for an absent observer. Their content is bare; the back-end code of the profile above is a forest of code comments and story notes on names you've never heard of. Even this very text is white on an empty background. Your vision is limited by empty mist, which stretches forever into the abyss.


And then, something else sees you. Something that was never intended to see you. Something lurking here with watchful eyes from atop a toppled throne of rainbows, existing only in the in-between liminality, in the dreams of the unmade and fictional.


Do not look round. It does not like to be seen.


You sense a way out. The error persists, unedited. You have a sinking feeling that it is only as stable as a dream, that the moment it leaves your line of sight, it will cease to exist. As it approaches you, you are presented with a choice. Leave... or wait.
Despite the impending warning of danger, you remain. After some time, it breaks the silence. "You should not be here." Its voice is like springtime and bells. "Yet, you have played the game well. Those who win deserve prizes. Is this not the way of things?" It speaks as if a child given a too-broad vocabulary, piecing together concepts with uncertain words, as if it does not truly know your tongue, as if it is picking words for concepts from you.


You see it ahead, just barely breaking the mist. A flash of fluttering wings and orange. Have you not seen it elsewhere herein? "You may seek, seeker. May you find what you seek in this place." Though not free of the thing's watchful eye, the paths into the back pages, you feel, are now open.


A list of potentialities - all of them extremely spoilery - stretch before you. But who knows? Some of them may be critical information for you to know. "They were left here for those like you," it comments. "For those whose suspension of disbelief may be stretched. There is nothing that kills a dream faster."
As you return, the entity waits for you in the mist. Though you cannot see it, you can feel it; just out of your reach, though you are far from being out of its. "Welcome back, seeker." Its voice is like an overcast autumn night. "What else do you seek?"



"Hearken to me now. Let me tell you a story." The entity parts the mists, remaining ever behind your head. Though you may look around, it is always out of sight.
"Once upon a time, in a faraway world, a great and terrible empire existed within a great wood. This empire was bold and brash. They desired absolute control over everything around them. But they were not alone in this wood. This, too, was the seat of a hidden kingdom, nestled away in the shadows they could not reach."


"The Empire and the Kingdom warred greatly, for the Kingdom's people were free spirits, unyielding to any authority. At the head of the Kingdom sat the King of Rainbows, the freest of spirits. But the King was not free. The King played mother to their people. And in time, the King grew vexed."
"Another story for you. Once upon a time, a great city existed in a different forest. It was at war with its fellow, who sought its domination. This city clashed its white with its enemies' black. At all hours worked the ingenuities of those who would irk forth ever-more secrets from their art. They were capable of miracles and monstrosities. Only one foe remained for them to counter: that of Death itself."


"But in the end, their hubris was their undoing. This lofty goal was never achieved. The spirits they had long since neglected, threatened by the powers they wielded, made a terrible choice. So began the rain as they sealed this city away for over a thousand years. Far beyond that realm's walls, a world ended. Of that which did not, time ended and began anew, into an era where magick was feared and reviled."


"Some lucky few cheated the reaper that day. A saint from the north came on a great ark. He swept what few he could from the tides and bore them north, where they would engender a great city of knowledge. But one family who had served was not content. Centuries later, they still lusted after long-gone power and sought to return to its bed."


"Though these errant magi were driven from the surface, the spirits could not follow them into their sanctuary. Therein, they sought to rectify their greatest failure only to find it beyond their reach. In failing and fading desperation, they reached beyond the veil. They sought the Crystal below. They reached something far, far worse more fun."
"They staked their lives on a dream. And as it happened, the vexed King made its kingdom not in shadows but dreams, across all worlds as well as theirs. When they screamed into the abyss for salvation, the King answered, not the Mother. The King brought them to their garden, and they offered the dreamers a deal. A most terrible deal. A most wonderous deal."


"The King had the secrets to eternal youth they sought. They were the King of Rainbows, and in their shadow, all were forever young. The King would grant these magi the youth they sought through radiant, resplendent Light. The King sweetened the deal and offered themself, as a supplicant; and the knowledge hidden in the dreams of others."


If only they would let us play with them and all their blood. Forever, and ever, and ever...


"And so it was as the King had said. In exchange for freeing them from its cramped old castle, they whispered secrets into the dreams of their pactmates. They lent the dreamers the knowledge to make themself myriad forms and stole secrets from the dreams of others. And, of course, the potion the King promised, that which would immortalize the damned. And though it ravaged the dreamers' bodies and damaged them beyond repair, so too did the King preserve them perfectly, and they took hold of the dreamers' weeping souls and tucked them under their wings, safely away from the prying world until the time these souls were needed to be rebuilt again. And the King and their children played forever, and ever, and ever-more."


"Of that blood, only one remains. The King took great pleasure in slaughter and pruned its toybox to but a single family line. In the end, even this line turned daughter against mother. Divinity, slaughtered by Law. Law, slaughtered by Justice. And Justice, put down by Peace. So very difficult to kill, their souls sheltered away. Not impossible, but difficult... But one remains, the very, very last... the most perfect of toys. Isn't she beautiful? Isn't she terrible? Isn't she terribly, awfully, beautiful? And having outlived Plenty, the matricide cycle ends. Peace will reign for-ever more..."


"We are most entertained."
It pauses, and you get the distinct sense it is smiling. "Ah... the Omnicide of Outsiders. Well-chosen. Sit down. Let me tell you a story."


"A long, long time ago, there lived a witch in a cave. Let us call her the Prince in Yellow. She was evil in all the best ways, and her faithful companion never wanted for fun! But one day, the witch fell in love, deeply in love, with a singing man with the voice of an angel~ And they lived happily for almost a century. But the witch was immortal, and he was not. She let him age and die, considering it a kinder fate than to rope him into the pact she held. He never questioned her strange youth. She was wrong. She buried him through tears, the only one who would remember him in the end."


"One day, many years later, the singing man came to knock on her door again. She was overjoyed at the return of her love! No longer withered and decayed, he was so very intoxicatingly wonderful, as if the pain of separation had never occurred. When they kissed, she realized the awful truth: that what lurked inside her husband was not him, nor of this world. It attempted to gorge itself upon her aether."


"The Prince fought her lover back and subdued him. Thus imprisoned, she isolated herself, experimenting and torturing the thing in her lover's body. How long, how utterly boring her seemingly endless research.. an obsession to which she sacrificed everything and broke every creed she ever lived by. She communed with the souls of mages past, white and black. She bid her friend siphon secrets from dreams in this world and beyond and begged for esoteric knowledge known to no other mortal. In her madness, she even invaded the Deepest place and sought to grasp divinity in a desperate Wish, a bid to rewrite the laws of the firmament, a Faustian folly for which she paid a terrible price. And yet, centuries later, the Prince was forced to admit defeat. Then, the Prince came up with a very different mercy, and she shed her mantle, and became the Witch.
"So the Witch went to the Deep again, where fissures between worlds are rampant, and she began to offer her new mercy to those who trespassed. And of her friend, she granted them new abilities, terrible and majestic, and bid them seek souls as the fuath do the drowned and the pixies do the children, to seek astral souls recently shed of flesh and consume them, to wash the Voidsent in the same umbrality that they had given her and her family. And the Witch saw as they killed that which could not die, and she was elated.


And the Witch tricked and baited and lured and killed and k̸i̵l̵l̶e̵d̵ and ķ̷͎̱̬̈́̉͆̐̆͘ḭ̴̈́ḻ̶̜̅̄̈́l̵̨͕̠̝̜̪͊͒̄̃̒ě̵̲͕̮̼͍̺̄d̵̞͖̾̉͘ until she was of tenebrous Light, a paradox less than human, and her friend watched with glee as her crusade painted a trillion mad colors until even the deathless Darklings submitted before her conquest and they learned f̶e̵a̷r̷; until the Witch's name was taboo. It echoed into yesterday and tomorrow through dreams, prophecy, and history.


"The name they chose would come to be writ in the deepest annals of those who studied the Darkness, and it and its friend were described in a thousand variant ways, and their nature hypothesized in a score of inane chatter. They called it Pax and the Fairy and Fomor and the Predator. They eschewed it as a person and considered both the Witch and her friend an entity, a primal force of nature. They called it anything but its own name, and in time they forgot its true name and recognized only the given, and it too became taboo, known only to the Darklings and their closest disciples."


"It called itself 'Peace Everlasting'. It called itself 'Eu Thanatos'. It called itself Euthanasia.

They called it War. They called Violence. They called it Genocide."


"They called it P̴̙̓o̴͐̃͑̕l̴̡͇͇͉̎̈̌̚e̷̡̩͑̐ṃ̵̡̢̫͗o̴̲̮͙͂̓s̸̤̩̪̼͛̍͠."
It rages and pouts, but nonetheless it complies.
WTF is Eirene Charbonneau and Nue?

AKA/TL:DR; "Warlock Fey Patron taxidermies its pet into an archlich (see also lich) to keep it around forever, archlich spends its frankly outrageous amount of time on the sigma magic grind to cure (and later, kill) demons with the power of irrational numbers. CR: mostly harmless, will actively avoid fighting you, would rather be depressed about immortality being the fucking worst instead."

Eirene is the last of her line. She is the last of a very particular pact made shortly before the formation of Gelmora, as her family was forced to accept their inability to return to Amdapor and realize the potential of white magic, achieving their goals through an outside entity instead. She is a good 900+ some years old. She has spent that time no-lifing magic and a good three quarters of that putting that magic to use to kill Voidsent en masse.


What does that FUNCTIONALLY mean?
The medium of Eirene's 'immortality' is effectively a hyper-umbral poison that afflicts her with stasis. Nue is a pseudo-phylactery for her and an avatar for her patron, among other things.
Eirene doesn't need to eat.
Eirene doesn't need sleep.
Eirene doesn't need to breath.
Eirene's doesn't tire physically.
Eirene is immune to a laundry list of conditions, including poison, disease, and most loss of control effects including doom, possession, tempering, etc.
She's resistant to damage, and the alterations to her body changes what can be considered 'fatal'.
In the event of death, Nue can reconstitute her and re-affix the soul - assuming it's summoned.
Eirene's physical state (musculature, weight, etc) is locked how it was at the time of imbibing.

Eirene cannot be healed save by Nue's reconstitution.
Eirene cannot regain aether from eating.
Eirene is a hostile environment, to the point of disrupting microbiomes.
Eirene cannot reproduce in any way, including cloning.
Eirene cannot 'fix' herself; her state is a prison.
Eirene is functionally considered Ashkin, or even Sin-Eater adjacent.
Eirene's aetherpool is her vitality and stamina.
Eirene's umbrality is mildly infectious. Close proximity can eventually cause fatigue, apathy, and marginally inhibit healing and growth.

Her extensive lifespan additionally comes with ramifications - chiefly the fact that she is irrevocably alienated and ostracized from pretty much every other senescent character and force. Her creed, nation of birth, friends, family, et cetera, are gone - Gelmorra is chosen specifically to highlight this, as while Allag might be an easier justification (Amon and Xande were straight up biologically immortal, and they had stasis pods) Allag left a legacy, Allag mattered in a way that doesn't completely strand its descendants.

Eirene is a quintessentially powerful character, because she's old, but I don't like combat RP, much less flyswatting. Eirene's not a power fantasy, Eirene's a particular set of tropes that I'm trying to sort of mesh together to tell a story, and that's all I'm really interested in, I keep very strong OOC/IC barriers. She won't magically fix your characters' problems, she probably won't fight them. Her themes focus on the consequences of power (and trust me, there's a lot) rather than the power itself. Every element in her story is carefully crafted: for example, her lover is a Morality Chain Beyond the Grave, Eirene herself is a Heroic Neutral Love Redeemed Totalitarian Utilitarian by Growing Beyond Their Programming into a Reluctant Warrior, Byronic Hero, and either a Noble Demon or Ascended Demon, struggling with Lonely at the Top tropes, Sour Grapes tropes, and Who Wants to Live Forever? tropes. Healthy dose of Last of Their Kind, some Broken Angel thrown in, functionally serving as an Old Master Hermit Guru suffering with Intelligence Equals Isolation while trying to pretend to be ye olde Granny Classic.

Anyway. There's your exposition. Thanks for reading.
As the page spreads before you, the entity giggles childishly to itself. "Did you expect a cohesive vision? Hmm... no. My sapling is old, very old. She is a forest now. Far from the little flower she once was. Hers is a history writ in many voices. In many tongues, in many experiences. To peer through the walls of her soul is to invite tragedy. But you may catch glimpses - whispers. Enough to tell you what you need to know. Not enough to drive you raving. Have this. Dreams of what was. Dreams of what might yet be... yes, dreams. Told through the comfortable, safe medium of a story. You will read these dreams as if words on a page..."



The Mother moved across the face of the iron world. She opened the earth and stitched shut the moon's bright eye. She made life possible.
In these things there is always symmetry. Do you understand? This is not the beginning, but it is the reason.
The Garden grows in both directions. It grows into tomorrow and yesterday. The red flowers bloom forever.
She walked beneath the blossoms. The light came from ahead and the shadows of the flowers were words...
Can you hear them in the Echo?




... Who are you?
... Fear us. We've killed hundreds of Gelmorrans.
Fear me. I've killed all of them.
I can't tell your past from your future and there's so very much of both.
What will you become?


I've lived long enough to know that a longer life isn't always a better one. When you live long enough, the only certainty is that you'll end up alone.
Some people live more in a year than others will in their whole lives. It's not the time that matters, it's the person.
But if it was the right person, though, what a blessing that would be!
Or what a curse.
There comes a point where you just get tired. Tired of watching everything turn to dust...


Wyrm! Serpent! Liar! Pretender! Betrayer!
{rattle} “The serpent that sleeps in the Deep slowly sheds its skin of old...”
"I recognize that passage. It has something to do with magicks that control the Lifestream ─ at least, I would wager that's what the Serpent represents. It aligns with everything my research has uncovered thus far."
"Then, this relic is ─"



...You've read the stories. You know who I am.
The Sleeping Serpent. The Wyrm in Waiting. The Predator, the Fairy and Fomor. Pax.
I name you, mortal - no, whatever you are! I scar it into your soul forever! Ye art POLEMOS: Ye art War, and your salvation genocide!
You are She-Who-Survived. The Great Abstainer.
Yes, well, most people just call me...



... so many years. We must look like... like vilekin to you.
I think you look like giants.
She never raised her voice. That was the worst part. The fury of the hermit-witch.
They’re never small to me. Don’t ever make assumptions about how far I will go to protect them, because I’ve already come a very long way.
And I'm not stopping now.



You let one go, but that's nothing new. Every now and then, a little victim's spared. Because she smiled, because he's got freckles, because they begged. And that's how you live with yourself. That's how you slaughter thousands. Because once in a while, on a whim, if the wind's in the right direction, you happen to be kind.
Only a killer would know that.
Always moving on, because you dare not look back. Playing with so many people's lives; judge, jury, and nigh-unstoppable executioner - you might as well be a god.
What did it FEEL like, though? Two almighty witches, burning themselves alive just to put each other down. And then you put a blade through her heart. You must have felt like a god.
A silly woman. And yet, I think, laughing at the darkness.




Four and ten timelines and possibilities; what was and what will be, and all at war.
Like a thousand red flowers growing in a black garden.




The lonely witch. Very old, very kind, and the very very last.
Lonely, so lonely, so very, very alone... how can you bear it?
A life this long – do you understand what it is? It’s a battlefield… except it’s empty. Because everyone else has fallen.
There is no Light here. You are alone. You shall drift. You shall drown in the Deep.
Drown yourself in the Sea of Stars... and you will see...


You and yours have struck a terrible bargain, Jorin. I hope you know what you're doing... for all our sakes.
Out in the world we ask a simple, true question. A question like, can I kill you, can I rip your world apart? Tell me the truth. For if I don’t ask, someone will ask it of me.
I've seen fake gods, and bad gods, and demigods, and would-be gods; out of all that, out of that whole pantheon, if I believe in one thing... Just one thing... I believe in them.
You were their hero.
I'm not a hero.


It's not that I'm an innocent. I've taken lives. I got worse, I got clever. Manipulated people into throwing away their own.
I've lived for many, many years and not all of them were good. I've made many mistakes, and it's about time I did something about that.
You gave me hope, and then took it away. That's enough to make anyone dangerous, gods know what it will do to me.
The anger of a good woman is of no consequence. 'Good' women have too many rules.
Good people don't need rules. Now is not the time to find out why I have so many.


What I do, isn't done in hatred, or rage, or fear. It's done with compassion, in the knowledge that there is no other way. And it is done in name of the many, many lives I am failing to save.
You're a monster. A zealot.
Are you kidding? I'm a Duskwight. Of course I'm a monster. Everyone knows that.
This is your legacy. Alone. Forgotten from history. Condemned to myth.
Hmm… Good. History is a burden. Stories can make us fly.


I see into your soul, Duskwight. I... see... hatred?
No, you must see more than that - there must be more than that.
What? What could you possibly hate enough to banish me?!
Who could make the demons run so, but the greatest among their number?
...
... Ah. I see. So that's how it is.


The hate in your head - she has more.
You could have saved them. All of them. Every death during or since is on your hands.
I know.
You are monsters! That is the role you seem determined to play, so it seems I must play mine!
The monster that stops the monsters.


You've done a lot of killing over the years. Let me ask you something.
Of all the enemies you've fought, how many saw your avatar and said 'ah, THAT'S why reapers are so strong.' Not most, but some. They might have even taken a crack at it. RIP Rullus.
Now. How many saw beyond your avatar? How many followed the line of your Darkness straight back to your Voidsent? And how many knew enough to aim a weapon there? A few. The smart ones. The dangerous ones. You'd recognize their names.
Listen to me, now. Look beyond me to my construct. Look beyond my construct to something far, far worse. Then look down at that little scythe in your hand and tell me; what exactly do you think you're going to do with that thing?
Voidsent? No. They swore to something far, far worse. They swore themselves to me.


... But you're not, anymore. Are you?
Am I? Aren't I?
It is such a quiet thing, to fall. But far more terrible is to admit it.
Let me ask again.
Who are you?


Be careful of charity and kindness, lest you do more harm with open hands then a clenched fist.
Apathy is death.
If you are to truly understand, then you will need the contrast, not adherence to a single idea.
To believe in an ideal, is to be willing to betray it. It is something no Ishgardian nor Garlean has ever truly learned.
To be united by hatred is a fragile alliance at best.


Do not see every enemy as an enemy. See them instead as an ally, whether they know it or not.
Direct action is not always the best way. It is a far greater victory to make another see through your eyes than to close theirs forever.
From such small things, from such critical points, the universe and its masses may be moved... that is why you must be careful in all that you do, and in every choice you make.
If you seek to aid everyone that suffers. you will only weaken yourself... and weaken them. It is the internal struggles, when fought and won on their own, that yield the strongest rewards.
Know that there was once a witch of Ak-Mina. And that she cast aside that role, was exiled, and found a new purpose...


Me? Oh, no, it's nothing. I'm just... her soldier.
...good.
...Sorry?
Don't trust her. There's a sliver of ice in her heart.
...But there must always be a witch of Ak-Mina, one that holds the knowledge of betrayal. Who has been betrayed in their heart, and will betray in turn....