A one-shot story about the Warrior of Light considering a career change. Largely spoiler-free.
[FFXIV] That Time The Warrior Of Light Tried Being The Healer Of Light
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That Time The Warrior Of Light Tried Being The Healer Of Light
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Alphinaud Leveilleur burst into the room, panting heavily.
"I came as soon as I heard!" he said, a fact which his legs and lungs were already causing him to regret.
"Well, you needn't have," said his sister Alisaie, seated in a chair by the bedside. "Healers say she will recover quickly and in full."
"All the same," Alphinaud said, straightening up and smoothing his jacket in a failed attempt not to betray weakness to his sister, "I had to know what transpired."
As he walked up closer to the bed, he froze up at the arresting sight. Mimi Parmentier, the Warrior of Light, slayer of gods, savior of Eorzea, was lying in bed, her face paler than ever and creased with pain and fever. It had been so long since Alphinaud had seen her in such a state he'd almost forgotten she was a Xaela woman and not some invincible engine of salvation and devastation. Even now, the heavy blue-black horns sweeping out from the sides of her head, the thick covering of dark scales over her neck, chin and cheeks, made her look fiercely intimidating.
"I know," Alisaie said, though Alphinaud had been silent. "'Tis a passing strange feeling to see her weak."
"How did it happen..?" he asked, looking to his sister, and she sighed.
"Well…"
***
The Warrior of Light strode into the Conjurers' Guild, clad in darkest steel, her cloak billowing at her back as if moved by its own ominous wind, a wide and jagged blade the color of midnight strapped to her back. Though she wore no helm, her natural horns and scales had all the fearsome appearance of one. She walked up to the counter, planted her fists on her hips, and tilted her head up at the receptionist with all the fierce and bold charisma of the five-fulm savior known to all Eorzea.
"Madelle," she said boldly, "I want to learn magic."
"Y-you remember my name?!" said the Elezen woman, immediately flustered, clasping a hand on her breast. She had thought herself an unremarkable presence, the woman who'd motioned Mimi forward on the few occasions she'd had to talk to the Guildmaster.
"No, the Echo grants me the ability to see people's names floating over their heads," Mimi said, deadpan, and as Madelle made a slightly disappointed 'oh' added, "Of course I remember your name, you dummy! Now will you sign me up to the Arcanists' Guild?"
Madelle stared in confusion. "Warrior of Light, the Arcanists' Guild is in Limsa Lominsa. This is the Conjurers' Guild."
"What?" Mimi frowned. "But to conjure is to make something appear, isn't it? And the guys in Limsa make magic furry rodents appear, whereas you guys do, like, arcane stuff."
"Now that you mention it, you raise a good point," Madelle said.
"Anyway, I want to learn healing magic and I started out this whole thing in Gridania so I figured I'd ask you guys is the point."
"W-we would be honored to welcome the savior of Eorzea into the ranks of the Conjurers!" Madelle said, almost tripping over her words in her enthusiasm. "Please, proceed on, you know the way, ah, talk to Brother E-Sumi-Yan, he will be happy to, ah, induce you into the Guild!"
"You're the best, Madelle," Mimi said, snapping finger-gunblades at Madelle before moving on, leaving the Elezen woman with a warm feeling and the distorted memory of the Xaela knight having been at least five fulm and a half, a common symptom in those who had witnessed the Warrior of Light and could not reconcile her repute and charisma with her actual appearance.
Deep within the wood-carved halls of the Conjurers' Guild, E-Sumi-Yan, holy man of Gridania, the sainted Guildmaster of all Conjurers, the forever child, awaited the woman he'd met only a few times before, whispers of the elementals already speaking of her coming.
"Warrior of Light," he whispered, a whisper carried on the wind as Mimi Parmentier set foot on the raised wooden dais where he stood, and giving her pause. "It brings me great joy to hear your wish of joining us."
"Please," the Warrior of Light said, "just call me Mimi. If everyone I meet insists on calling me Warrior of Light I'll never get anywhere, that name takes forever."
"As you wish, Mimi," E-Sumi-Yan said, the thinnest crack of a smile appearing on his lips as the woman stood before him. "I have known you to be Gridania's best spearwoman, a talent you carried into Ishgard, and of late I hear you have taken up the sword; a peerless warrior to be sure, but one always to lead the charge; might I ask whence come your desire to learn the healing art?"
A shadow passed briefly over Mimi's face as she looked to the side, into the distance.
"Many friends have I lost," she whispered, "whom I might have saved, had I been skilled in the conjuring arts."
"Ah," E-Sumi-Yan said, nodding wisely for this was his domain of greatest knowledge, "but had you not been wielding the sword in defense of others, how many more might have been lost? Were there not healers on your side, at the times of such loss?"
The shadow passed. Mimi shrugged with a distant smile.
"Wish you'd been there when I was dealing with Myste," she said, though E-Sumi-Yan could only guess as to who Myste might be. "But I suppose you're right."
"I would be happy to initiate you into conjury," the Padjal said, "but not if it is guilt that drives you into our arms. Do you still wish to learn?"
"Well, you know, there was that other reason I wanted to learn conjuring, sorry, I mean conjury," Mimi said, scratching a spot on her cheek where scales ended and left place to skin.
"Oh?"
"See," Mimi said, growing more agitated by the second, "next time Ishgard is in danger and I have to team up with the Temple Knights, I can be like, 'Oh Sir Aymeric, I am a healer now, I am so frail and demure, please my valiant shield and I will give you the strength to fight, you can be the hero today, oh we are victorious but you are the victor, I owe you my life!' and then he'll sweep me up in his arms and-"
Brother E-Yumi-San stared blankly.
"That would be Ser Aymeric de Borel," he said, "lord commander of the Temple Knights, hero of Ishgard."
"I want to smash that man through seven bedframes," the Warrior of light helpfully elucidated.
"And you have quite a sophisticated plan to achieve such an end," E-Sumi-Yan noted.
"It's foolproof."
"We're talking about the same Aymeric de Borel," the Padjal sage asked, "whose second-in-command, bodyguard and confidente is a seven-fulm tall warrior woman who never takes off her armor and whom I suspect is either a Garlean in disguise or the first half-roegadyn half-hyur woman I've ever met?"
"I don't see your point," Mimi said, glaring.
"Have you considered just asking him on a date?"
"I don't have to take relationship advice from a horned child!" Mimi blurted out.
"Mimi," E-Sumi-Yan said, "I'm seventy years old."
"And have you ever asked anyone on a date?"
"Every day I wake up," E-Sumi-Yan said, rolling his eyes to the sky, "and I thank the gods that I was born without the compulsions of the flesh."
"Does that mean you're not going to teach me conjury?"
"No," he sighed, "nothing would bring me more pleasure than to initiate the Warrior of Light into the healers' arts. Please pick a staff from the racks. There are robes in the room on your right, you cannot practice conjury in armor."
"Sweet," Mimi said, pumping a fist in the air and walking over to a rack of wooden canes and taking one at random.
"The first thing you must embrace as you learn conjury," E-Sumi-Yan said, watching as the Xaela came back newly dressed in a white robe which she tugged at with a dubious expression, "is the feeling of weakness. Not because the white arts are weak, but because you start anew on a path you've never walked before."
"Eh," Mimi said, twirling her cane, "I've done magic before, it's how I get my shadow mojo."
"That is manipulation of your internal reserves of aether," E-Sumi-Yan said, "a skill that comes naturally to most warriors; but conjury requires calling upon external aether, that aether which flows through the world around us."
Mimi frowned. "Why can't I just use my internal aether for conjury? I got, like, oodles. I'm basically a walking aether tank. I won a staring contest with Nidhogg's eyeball. If you poked me with an aether needle it'd be the Fifth Calamity all over again."
"Sixth," E-Sumi-Yan said with a sigh, rubbing his forehead. "The Sixth Calamity was the flood. The Fifth was the ice age."
"Dammit, I can never get those right."
"In any event," E-Sumi-Yan said, trying as best as he could to get the conversation back on track, "elemental manipulation requires the use of elemental aether, and while it is possible to produce aspected aether from one's own body, the quantities of water-aspected aether required in healing magicks are much more easily drawn from the environment. Which is why, if you are serious about learning conjury, you must think of yourself as a novice, a young adventurer, to whom the Twelveswood present both opportunity and dire threat. Your sheer power will not avail you until you have mastered the fundamentals of our art."
"Coolio," Mimi said, tossing the cane in the air, picking it up and whirling it about with what E-Sumi-Yan had to grudgingly accept were actually pretty impressive juggling skills.
"Now, let me guide you through the first steps…" E-Sumi-Yan said, gently putting a hand on her staff, and proceeded to show her through the basic physical and mental gestures required to call upon the most basic spells of the white art.
"You're a natural at this," E-Sumi-Yan said, impressed at Mimi's first displays of true magick.
"I'm a natural at everything, Sumi," she said, grinning widely as wind and dust billowed around her softly-glowing form. "That's why I'm the Warrior of Light."
"Under no circumstances are you to ever call me 'Sumi,'" the guildmaster said. "I will beseech the elementals to strike you down if you do it again."
"Yeah?" Mimi said. "Bring it on! Killing gods is my day job!"
"The elementals are beings of pure aether without a physical body," E-Sumi-Yan noted, "and as a result cannot be stabbed."
"Oh." Mimi's grin fell, and the dust whirlwind around her faded. "There goes my plan for everything."
"Anyroad," E-Sumi-Yan said, "one cannot learn conjury without actually walking the wilds and confronting the sublime majesty of our world's natural elements. Following the Calamity, the Twelveswood have been out of balance. An infestation of rodents in the East Shroud has been severely damaging to the local trees; your first mission is to go there, use water magick to heal the trees, and earth and wind magick to cull the rodent population."
"That is so nostalgic," Mimi said. "It's like I'm a fresh-faced young guild recruit all over again."
"That is literally what you are," E-Sumi-Yan said wearily, "please be mindful of your current limitations."
"Got it, chief," Mimi said, snapping finger-gunblades at him again, before turning around and walking off.
"Will of the gods," E-Sumi-Yan muttered in the gloom, "what have I done?"
***
At first things went well.
Mimi walked the Shroud, examining the trees, and after a few initial mishaps in which she misjudged the amount of water-aspected aether she was wielding led to some very soaked trees, she managed her first healing spells, closing wounds in the bark, restoring sap to dry branches, revivifying leaves. It was peaceful, meditative work, which was interrupted when the first fifty-ponze squirrel emerged out of a bush and attempted to gnaw her face off, only to be met with a boulder the size of its head darting out of the ground.
"Oh this is great," Mimi said, finding another squirrel and summoning blast after blast of pressurized wind to pummel it from afar, "it's like I can punch them but without having to walk all the way over to them first! This is so much more efficient!"
Efficiency, unfortunately, had its own drawbacks. In this case the drawback was that after dutifully carving her way through much of Gridania's excess squirrel population and healing as many trees as she could, Mimi was growing dreadfully bored. 'Growing bored and getting ideas' was known by her friends to be one of the most dangerous things to happen to the Warrior of Light, and this proved no exception. Mimi was mid-yawn when she noticed that one of the trees wasn't behaving as it should - it was moving.
A slumbering treant had just awoken. The elder treekin moved with slow purpose, its carved face glaring balefully, its branch-arms pushing aside the vegetation as every ponderous step shook the ground around it. It was a fierce creature, and one look at it told Mimi that it was an aggressive one as well, a spirit grown bitter and wrathful in its age, which would smite any adventurer that had the misfortune to cross its path.
As she stared at this frightful and fascinating foe, Mimi felt herself torn. On the left side of her, her inner Alphinaud, as it often did, counseled caution. You are only a novice conjurer, he said, annoyingly, you have barely mastered your first spells. You must learn to walk because you can run. Leave this creature alone, and return to the Guild. But on the right side of her, her inner Alisaie was pumping her fist and shouting, do it though, this is gonna be siiiiick! And really, it was no contest.
"AERO!" Mimi shouted, which was unnecessary but felt really cool, brandishing her staff as a gust of wind twisted into a spiraling blast that hit the treant from behind like a hammer blow, cracking its bark.
Slowly, the ancient fiend turned around, its eyes glowing brighter now. It let out a low, guttural sound, and lunged towards Mimi with surprising speed. The Warrior of Light grinned, welcoming her foe's wrath, and with sweeping gestures of her staff and hand tore chunks of earth and whole rocks out of the ground, hurling them at the enormous treant with wild force, conjuring ribbons of wind to surround the treekin and batter it relentlessly.
It could slow the treant's advance - it could not stop it. Within moments it loomed over Mimi, and one of its deceptively slender branch-arms swept the air, hitting her in the face with tremendous strength, tossing her spinning into the air, her vision suddenly blurry. She hit the ground on her shoulder, causing a new flare of pain, and hastily got back up, only to find the treant already on her and striking again, a full-force lunge at her stomach sending her rolling across the forest floor a good ten yalms.
"Right," she mumbled from the ground where she lay prone, "no armor. Crazy how quickly you grow used to wearing twenty ponzes of magically-infused metal."
The thunderous steps of the treant were nearing; this time Mimi struck before she even got up, a sweeping gesture of her hand tearing a handful of rocks out of the ground and battering the foe with them. This gave her enough time to roll away out of the way of its next vicious lunge, and finally to get up, panting, a long gash bleeding across the length of her cheek, clutching her bruised torso, dirt and leaves strewn over her once-beautiful white robe, now torn in several places. The treant was there again, bringing two of its many arms down, and Mimi did the only thing she could think of - she held her staff up with strength that had no reliance on the mastery of external aether, and took the blows upon her cane, driving her feet an inch into the forest soil. She grit her teeth as two more spindly limbs came down, buckling her knees.
Then she had a revelation.
"Wait," she said, eyes suddenly wide staring into the treant's carved face, as if it could understand her, "if my healing spells are using an external supply of power, is there any reason I can't use them on myself?"
The treant's eloquent answer was to hit her from below her high guard, knocking her back again. Mimi slammed into a tree back-first, letting out a yelp of pain, and fell to her shaky legs, swaying in place as the monster approached. Her head down, black hair dangling in front of her sace, she seemed frozen in place - then her body started glowing with soft blue light. The treant, perhaps sensing something amiss, paused briefly.
As Mimi raised her head, a mad grin came over her face, eyes shining evilly. The bleeding cut on her cheek was closing up, fading to a thin line within seconds, the bruises on her face were resorbing, her body straightened up with renewed strength.
The elder treekin understood the need to put an end to this now, and when he lunged again it was not to pummel its foe or knock her about the forest, but with a wooden hand outstretched like a spear. There was a dull, wet thump and a tearing sound, and Mimi looked down at her torso - and the spear-like branch struck clean through it.
Slowly, almost gently, she put her own hand on the wooden finger. Then with inevitable strength, she pulled it out of her gut, even as the treant put his other hands on his arm to hold it back. She raised the hand slowly, twisting it as one might the wrist of a captive, and her grin widened as the blue light intensified and the wound in her torso stopped bleeding and skin started to roll back over the opening.
"Bitch, I'm immortal."
Then she slammed her cane into the treant's face.
"Cure! Cure! Cure! Cure!" she shouted triumphantly, all thoughts of Stone and Aero forgotten as she alternated between smacking the treant with her staff and weaving healing spells to undo the damage it did striking back, slowly, inexorably tearing through its defenses, to the treekin's increasing horror and sense of doom.
"White magic," the Warrior of Light shouted, "is awesome!"
***
"...and then what happened?" Alphinaud asked, staring in bafflement at Mimi's unconscious form.
"Then she ran out of mana," Alisaie said, "which apparently wasn't something she was aware could happen. She was briefly confused, and then the treant knocked her out. The conjurer E-Sumi-Yan had sent to follow her and make sure she didn't do anything stupid intervened and rescued her, and took her back here."
Alphinaud felt like he really needed to sit down and let out a deep sigh, but Alisaie had taken the only chair in the room, which was typical of her.
"That…" came a voice that startled him, "is… such… bullshit."
"Mimi!" he exclaimed, clasping a hand on his heart. "You're awake."
The Xaela woman groaned, pulling a hand out of her bedsheets to rub her head, and slowly sat up.
"It's external aether," she mumbled angrily. "How could I possibly 'run out' of it? It's, like, everywhere. "
"Not aether, Mimi," Alisaie said, "mana. Your body's own ability to harness and channel aether. Think of it like… running out of breath."
"Right," Mimi said, "that's what I mean. You can't run out of breath, there's air everywhere around you. Why isn't aether the same way?"
There was an awkward silence at this statement. Alisaie and Alphinaud gave each other a side glance, and Alphinaud looked again at Mimi, saying slowly:
"People do run out of breath, Mimi."
"What?" The Warrior of Light furrowed her brow. "No they don't. You made that up."
"...have you literally never been out of breath before?" Alisaie asked, staggered.
"I mean there was that time that guy flooded an entire cave system with poison gas and I had to fight my way out," Mimi said.
"Mimi," Alisaie said, frowning. "I remember one time you complained that when you were still a novice adventurer, you were always spending too much gil on food and new equipment, and that you were always short on transport money to use aetherytes and ride chocobos."
"Yeah?"
"That was when you were first being sent by the Scions out on missions, right?" Alisaie added, seeming almost to dread her own question. "So how did you get around?"
Mimi shrugged. "I ran."
"You ran," Alphinaud repeated, his words sounding hollow. "From Ul'dah to Gridania. And back."
"Yeah," Mimi said with a smile, "it's good exercise."
"Seven hells," Alisaie whispered, "what do they feed children on the Azim Steppe?"
"Stuff you should try, clearly," Mimi said, "you Eorzeans are made of paper. That's what happens when you eat too many vegetables and not enough meat."
As she said this, she pulled the covers away from her and dangled her legs from the bed, rubbing them and stretching her arms.
"Mimi, you've been seriously hurt," Alphinaud said, "you should rest."
"Rest? Hells to that. I have a treant to cut down!"
"...you're going back out there?" Alphinaud asked with horror.
"Yeah, I'm going to practice my magic on it again. Now that I know you can run out of mana I'll watch for it and-"
There was a bonk. Mimi stared forward for a second, as if in surprise, and then slumped over.
Next to her, Alisaie guiltily held up her brother's heavy, metal-bound grimoire.
"Sorry," she said sheepishly.
"You know what?" Alphinaud asked. "Don't apologize, that was the right move. Now let me get her back into bed."
As Alisaie grabbed Mimi by the ankles and Alphinaud by the shoulders and the two teenagers hefted the tiny woman and put her back into bed, the wise Leveilleur son said:
"Sometimes we have to save the Warrior of Light from herself."
"I came as soon as I heard!" he said, a fact which his legs and lungs were already causing him to regret.
"Well, you needn't have," said his sister Alisaie, seated in a chair by the bedside. "Healers say she will recover quickly and in full."
"All the same," Alphinaud said, straightening up and smoothing his jacket in a failed attempt not to betray weakness to his sister, "I had to know what transpired."
As he walked up closer to the bed, he froze up at the arresting sight. Mimi Parmentier, the Warrior of Light, slayer of gods, savior of Eorzea, was lying in bed, her face paler than ever and creased with pain and fever. It had been so long since Alphinaud had seen her in such a state he'd almost forgotten she was a Xaela woman and not some invincible engine of salvation and devastation. Even now, the heavy blue-black horns sweeping out from the sides of her head, the thick covering of dark scales over her neck, chin and cheeks, made her look fiercely intimidating.
"I know," Alisaie said, though Alphinaud had been silent. "'Tis a passing strange feeling to see her weak."
"How did it happen..?" he asked, looking to his sister, and she sighed.
"Well…"
***
The Warrior of Light strode into the Conjurers' Guild, clad in darkest steel, her cloak billowing at her back as if moved by its own ominous wind, a wide and jagged blade the color of midnight strapped to her back. Though she wore no helm, her natural horns and scales had all the fearsome appearance of one. She walked up to the counter, planted her fists on her hips, and tilted her head up at the receptionist with all the fierce and bold charisma of the five-fulm savior known to all Eorzea.
"Madelle," she said boldly, "I want to learn magic."
"Y-you remember my name?!" said the Elezen woman, immediately flustered, clasping a hand on her breast. She had thought herself an unremarkable presence, the woman who'd motioned Mimi forward on the few occasions she'd had to talk to the Guildmaster.
"No, the Echo grants me the ability to see people's names floating over their heads," Mimi said, deadpan, and as Madelle made a slightly disappointed 'oh' added, "Of course I remember your name, you dummy! Now will you sign me up to the Arcanists' Guild?"
Madelle stared in confusion. "Warrior of Light, the Arcanists' Guild is in Limsa Lominsa. This is the Conjurers' Guild."
"What?" Mimi frowned. "But to conjure is to make something appear, isn't it? And the guys in Limsa make magic furry rodents appear, whereas you guys do, like, arcane stuff."
"Now that you mention it, you raise a good point," Madelle said.
"Anyway, I want to learn healing magic and I started out this whole thing in Gridania so I figured I'd ask you guys is the point."
"W-we would be honored to welcome the savior of Eorzea into the ranks of the Conjurers!" Madelle said, almost tripping over her words in her enthusiasm. "Please, proceed on, you know the way, ah, talk to Brother E-Sumi-Yan, he will be happy to, ah, induce you into the Guild!"
"You're the best, Madelle," Mimi said, snapping finger-gunblades at Madelle before moving on, leaving the Elezen woman with a warm feeling and the distorted memory of the Xaela knight having been at least five fulm and a half, a common symptom in those who had witnessed the Warrior of Light and could not reconcile her repute and charisma with her actual appearance.
Deep within the wood-carved halls of the Conjurers' Guild, E-Sumi-Yan, holy man of Gridania, the sainted Guildmaster of all Conjurers, the forever child, awaited the woman he'd met only a few times before, whispers of the elementals already speaking of her coming.
"Warrior of Light," he whispered, a whisper carried on the wind as Mimi Parmentier set foot on the raised wooden dais where he stood, and giving her pause. "It brings me great joy to hear your wish of joining us."
"Please," the Warrior of Light said, "just call me Mimi. If everyone I meet insists on calling me Warrior of Light I'll never get anywhere, that name takes forever."
"As you wish, Mimi," E-Sumi-Yan said, the thinnest crack of a smile appearing on his lips as the woman stood before him. "I have known you to be Gridania's best spearwoman, a talent you carried into Ishgard, and of late I hear you have taken up the sword; a peerless warrior to be sure, but one always to lead the charge; might I ask whence come your desire to learn the healing art?"
A shadow passed briefly over Mimi's face as she looked to the side, into the distance.
"Many friends have I lost," she whispered, "whom I might have saved, had I been skilled in the conjuring arts."
"Ah," E-Sumi-Yan said, nodding wisely for this was his domain of greatest knowledge, "but had you not been wielding the sword in defense of others, how many more might have been lost? Were there not healers on your side, at the times of such loss?"
The shadow passed. Mimi shrugged with a distant smile.
"Wish you'd been there when I was dealing with Myste," she said, though E-Sumi-Yan could only guess as to who Myste might be. "But I suppose you're right."
"I would be happy to initiate you into conjury," the Padjal said, "but not if it is guilt that drives you into our arms. Do you still wish to learn?"
"Well, you know, there was that other reason I wanted to learn conjuring, sorry, I mean conjury," Mimi said, scratching a spot on her cheek where scales ended and left place to skin.
"Oh?"
"See," Mimi said, growing more agitated by the second, "next time Ishgard is in danger and I have to team up with the Temple Knights, I can be like, 'Oh Sir Aymeric, I am a healer now, I am so frail and demure, please my valiant shield and I will give you the strength to fight, you can be the hero today, oh we are victorious but you are the victor, I owe you my life!' and then he'll sweep me up in his arms and-"
Brother E-Yumi-San stared blankly.
"That would be Ser Aymeric de Borel," he said, "lord commander of the Temple Knights, hero of Ishgard."
"I want to smash that man through seven bedframes," the Warrior of light helpfully elucidated.
"And you have quite a sophisticated plan to achieve such an end," E-Sumi-Yan noted.
"It's foolproof."
"We're talking about the same Aymeric de Borel," the Padjal sage asked, "whose second-in-command, bodyguard and confidente is a seven-fulm tall warrior woman who never takes off her armor and whom I suspect is either a Garlean in disguise or the first half-roegadyn half-hyur woman I've ever met?"
"I don't see your point," Mimi said, glaring.
"Have you considered just asking him on a date?"
"I don't have to take relationship advice from a horned child!" Mimi blurted out.
"Mimi," E-Sumi-Yan said, "I'm seventy years old."
"And have you ever asked anyone on a date?"
"Every day I wake up," E-Sumi-Yan said, rolling his eyes to the sky, "and I thank the gods that I was born without the compulsions of the flesh."
"Does that mean you're not going to teach me conjury?"
"No," he sighed, "nothing would bring me more pleasure than to initiate the Warrior of Light into the healers' arts. Please pick a staff from the racks. There are robes in the room on your right, you cannot practice conjury in armor."
"Sweet," Mimi said, pumping a fist in the air and walking over to a rack of wooden canes and taking one at random.
"The first thing you must embrace as you learn conjury," E-Sumi-Yan said, watching as the Xaela came back newly dressed in a white robe which she tugged at with a dubious expression, "is the feeling of weakness. Not because the white arts are weak, but because you start anew on a path you've never walked before."
"Eh," Mimi said, twirling her cane, "I've done magic before, it's how I get my shadow mojo."
"That is manipulation of your internal reserves of aether," E-Sumi-Yan said, "a skill that comes naturally to most warriors; but conjury requires calling upon external aether, that aether which flows through the world around us."
Mimi frowned. "Why can't I just use my internal aether for conjury? I got, like, oodles. I'm basically a walking aether tank. I won a staring contest with Nidhogg's eyeball. If you poked me with an aether needle it'd be the Fifth Calamity all over again."
"Sixth," E-Sumi-Yan said with a sigh, rubbing his forehead. "The Sixth Calamity was the flood. The Fifth was the ice age."
"Dammit, I can never get those right."
"In any event," E-Sumi-Yan said, trying as best as he could to get the conversation back on track, "elemental manipulation requires the use of elemental aether, and while it is possible to produce aspected aether from one's own body, the quantities of water-aspected aether required in healing magicks are much more easily drawn from the environment. Which is why, if you are serious about learning conjury, you must think of yourself as a novice, a young adventurer, to whom the Twelveswood present both opportunity and dire threat. Your sheer power will not avail you until you have mastered the fundamentals of our art."
"Coolio," Mimi said, tossing the cane in the air, picking it up and whirling it about with what E-Sumi-Yan had to grudgingly accept were actually pretty impressive juggling skills.
"Now, let me guide you through the first steps…" E-Sumi-Yan said, gently putting a hand on her staff, and proceeded to show her through the basic physical and mental gestures required to call upon the most basic spells of the white art.
"You're a natural at this," E-Sumi-Yan said, impressed at Mimi's first displays of true magick.
"I'm a natural at everything, Sumi," she said, grinning widely as wind and dust billowed around her softly-glowing form. "That's why I'm the Warrior of Light."
"Under no circumstances are you to ever call me 'Sumi,'" the guildmaster said. "I will beseech the elementals to strike you down if you do it again."
"Yeah?" Mimi said. "Bring it on! Killing gods is my day job!"
"The elementals are beings of pure aether without a physical body," E-Sumi-Yan noted, "and as a result cannot be stabbed."
"Oh." Mimi's grin fell, and the dust whirlwind around her faded. "There goes my plan for everything."
"Anyroad," E-Sumi-Yan said, "one cannot learn conjury without actually walking the wilds and confronting the sublime majesty of our world's natural elements. Following the Calamity, the Twelveswood have been out of balance. An infestation of rodents in the East Shroud has been severely damaging to the local trees; your first mission is to go there, use water magick to heal the trees, and earth and wind magick to cull the rodent population."
"That is so nostalgic," Mimi said. "It's like I'm a fresh-faced young guild recruit all over again."
"That is literally what you are," E-Sumi-Yan said wearily, "please be mindful of your current limitations."
"Got it, chief," Mimi said, snapping finger-gunblades at him again, before turning around and walking off.
"Will of the gods," E-Sumi-Yan muttered in the gloom, "what have I done?"
***
At first things went well.
Mimi walked the Shroud, examining the trees, and after a few initial mishaps in which she misjudged the amount of water-aspected aether she was wielding led to some very soaked trees, she managed her first healing spells, closing wounds in the bark, restoring sap to dry branches, revivifying leaves. It was peaceful, meditative work, which was interrupted when the first fifty-ponze squirrel emerged out of a bush and attempted to gnaw her face off, only to be met with a boulder the size of its head darting out of the ground.
"Oh this is great," Mimi said, finding another squirrel and summoning blast after blast of pressurized wind to pummel it from afar, "it's like I can punch them but without having to walk all the way over to them first! This is so much more efficient!"
Efficiency, unfortunately, had its own drawbacks. In this case the drawback was that after dutifully carving her way through much of Gridania's excess squirrel population and healing as many trees as she could, Mimi was growing dreadfully bored. 'Growing bored and getting ideas' was known by her friends to be one of the most dangerous things to happen to the Warrior of Light, and this proved no exception. Mimi was mid-yawn when she noticed that one of the trees wasn't behaving as it should - it was moving.
A slumbering treant had just awoken. The elder treekin moved with slow purpose, its carved face glaring balefully, its branch-arms pushing aside the vegetation as every ponderous step shook the ground around it. It was a fierce creature, and one look at it told Mimi that it was an aggressive one as well, a spirit grown bitter and wrathful in its age, which would smite any adventurer that had the misfortune to cross its path.
As she stared at this frightful and fascinating foe, Mimi felt herself torn. On the left side of her, her inner Alphinaud, as it often did, counseled caution. You are only a novice conjurer, he said, annoyingly, you have barely mastered your first spells. You must learn to walk because you can run. Leave this creature alone, and return to the Guild. But on the right side of her, her inner Alisaie was pumping her fist and shouting, do it though, this is gonna be siiiiick! And really, it was no contest.
"AERO!" Mimi shouted, which was unnecessary but felt really cool, brandishing her staff as a gust of wind twisted into a spiraling blast that hit the treant from behind like a hammer blow, cracking its bark.
Slowly, the ancient fiend turned around, its eyes glowing brighter now. It let out a low, guttural sound, and lunged towards Mimi with surprising speed. The Warrior of Light grinned, welcoming her foe's wrath, and with sweeping gestures of her staff and hand tore chunks of earth and whole rocks out of the ground, hurling them at the enormous treant with wild force, conjuring ribbons of wind to surround the treekin and batter it relentlessly.
It could slow the treant's advance - it could not stop it. Within moments it loomed over Mimi, and one of its deceptively slender branch-arms swept the air, hitting her in the face with tremendous strength, tossing her spinning into the air, her vision suddenly blurry. She hit the ground on her shoulder, causing a new flare of pain, and hastily got back up, only to find the treant already on her and striking again, a full-force lunge at her stomach sending her rolling across the forest floor a good ten yalms.
"Right," she mumbled from the ground where she lay prone, "no armor. Crazy how quickly you grow used to wearing twenty ponzes of magically-infused metal."
The thunderous steps of the treant were nearing; this time Mimi struck before she even got up, a sweeping gesture of her hand tearing a handful of rocks out of the ground and battering the foe with them. This gave her enough time to roll away out of the way of its next vicious lunge, and finally to get up, panting, a long gash bleeding across the length of her cheek, clutching her bruised torso, dirt and leaves strewn over her once-beautiful white robe, now torn in several places. The treant was there again, bringing two of its many arms down, and Mimi did the only thing she could think of - she held her staff up with strength that had no reliance on the mastery of external aether, and took the blows upon her cane, driving her feet an inch into the forest soil. She grit her teeth as two more spindly limbs came down, buckling her knees.
Then she had a revelation.
"Wait," she said, eyes suddenly wide staring into the treant's carved face, as if it could understand her, "if my healing spells are using an external supply of power, is there any reason I can't use them on myself?"
The treant's eloquent answer was to hit her from below her high guard, knocking her back again. Mimi slammed into a tree back-first, letting out a yelp of pain, and fell to her shaky legs, swaying in place as the monster approached. Her head down, black hair dangling in front of her sace, she seemed frozen in place - then her body started glowing with soft blue light. The treant, perhaps sensing something amiss, paused briefly.
As Mimi raised her head, a mad grin came over her face, eyes shining evilly. The bleeding cut on her cheek was closing up, fading to a thin line within seconds, the bruises on her face were resorbing, her body straightened up with renewed strength.
The elder treekin understood the need to put an end to this now, and when he lunged again it was not to pummel its foe or knock her about the forest, but with a wooden hand outstretched like a spear. There was a dull, wet thump and a tearing sound, and Mimi looked down at her torso - and the spear-like branch struck clean through it.
Slowly, almost gently, she put her own hand on the wooden finger. Then with inevitable strength, she pulled it out of her gut, even as the treant put his other hands on his arm to hold it back. She raised the hand slowly, twisting it as one might the wrist of a captive, and her grin widened as the blue light intensified and the wound in her torso stopped bleeding and skin started to roll back over the opening.
"Bitch, I'm immortal."
Then she slammed her cane into the treant's face.
"Cure! Cure! Cure! Cure!" she shouted triumphantly, all thoughts of Stone and Aero forgotten as she alternated between smacking the treant with her staff and weaving healing spells to undo the damage it did striking back, slowly, inexorably tearing through its defenses, to the treekin's increasing horror and sense of doom.
"White magic," the Warrior of Light shouted, "is awesome!"
***
"...and then what happened?" Alphinaud asked, staring in bafflement at Mimi's unconscious form.
"Then she ran out of mana," Alisaie said, "which apparently wasn't something she was aware could happen. She was briefly confused, and then the treant knocked her out. The conjurer E-Sumi-Yan had sent to follow her and make sure she didn't do anything stupid intervened and rescued her, and took her back here."
Alphinaud felt like he really needed to sit down and let out a deep sigh, but Alisaie had taken the only chair in the room, which was typical of her.
"That…" came a voice that startled him, "is… such… bullshit."
"Mimi!" he exclaimed, clasping a hand on his heart. "You're awake."
The Xaela woman groaned, pulling a hand out of her bedsheets to rub her head, and slowly sat up.
"It's external aether," she mumbled angrily. "How could I possibly 'run out' of it? It's, like, everywhere. "
"Not aether, Mimi," Alisaie said, "mana. Your body's own ability to harness and channel aether. Think of it like… running out of breath."
"Right," Mimi said, "that's what I mean. You can't run out of breath, there's air everywhere around you. Why isn't aether the same way?"
There was an awkward silence at this statement. Alisaie and Alphinaud gave each other a side glance, and Alphinaud looked again at Mimi, saying slowly:
"People do run out of breath, Mimi."
"What?" The Warrior of Light furrowed her brow. "No they don't. You made that up."
"...have you literally never been out of breath before?" Alisaie asked, staggered.
"I mean there was that time that guy flooded an entire cave system with poison gas and I had to fight my way out," Mimi said.
"Mimi," Alisaie said, frowning. "I remember one time you complained that when you were still a novice adventurer, you were always spending too much gil on food and new equipment, and that you were always short on transport money to use aetherytes and ride chocobos."
"Yeah?"
"That was when you were first being sent by the Scions out on missions, right?" Alisaie added, seeming almost to dread her own question. "So how did you get around?"
Mimi shrugged. "I ran."
"You ran," Alphinaud repeated, his words sounding hollow. "From Ul'dah to Gridania. And back."
"Yeah," Mimi said with a smile, "it's good exercise."
"Seven hells," Alisaie whispered, "what do they feed children on the Azim Steppe?"
"Stuff you should try, clearly," Mimi said, "you Eorzeans are made of paper. That's what happens when you eat too many vegetables and not enough meat."
As she said this, she pulled the covers away from her and dangled her legs from the bed, rubbing them and stretching her arms.
"Mimi, you've been seriously hurt," Alphinaud said, "you should rest."
"Rest? Hells to that. I have a treant to cut down!"
"...you're going back out there?" Alphinaud asked with horror.
"Yeah, I'm going to practice my magic on it again. Now that I know you can run out of mana I'll watch for it and-"
There was a bonk. Mimi stared forward for a second, as if in surprise, and then slumped over.
Next to her, Alisaie guiltily held up her brother's heavy, metal-bound grimoire.
"Sorry," she said sheepishly.
"You know what?" Alphinaud asked. "Don't apologize, that was the right move. Now let me get her back into bed."
As Alisaie grabbed Mimi by the ankles and Alphinaud by the shoulders and the two teenagers hefted the tiny woman and put her back into bed, the wise Leveilleur son said:
"Sometimes we have to save the Warrior of Light from herself."
Manic Dogma
This, I can't deny.
- Location
- The far side of tired
- Pronouns
- Whatever
In all shards of our star, one truth remains the same. The greatest threat to the Warrior of Light is their own self destructive habits.
I will never not be envious of your ability to string this many high quality words together in one sitting.
- Location
- Ireland
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This whole thing is hilarious but the punchline about Xaela simply being Built Different obliterated me, top tier content you word criminal
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This is great and I love her
Chaotic gremlin xaela wol probably used to beat up Sadu back on the steppes for fun
Chaotic gremlin xaela wol probably used to beat up Sadu back on the steppes for fun
Sightedjt
Everlasting Flames
If you grow up in a culture with wagon-sized yaks as one of your main herd animals, no roads so you've got to hike everywhere, unless you use your personally wrestled bird, and you decide elections by thunderdome, you'll get that way for sure.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
the healer's art is simply a higher calling, sucks to be u i'm built different
- Location
- America
She is the warrior of light she will be accidentally resurrecting the dead soon enough. There is something delightful about normal people reacting to the monsters MC are.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Sadu: Ahhh.... *Wistful smile*
- Location
- Portugal
"Finger-gunblades", you are good at funny words.
Gosh, the entire thing about how she's never ran out of breath sent me though. Astounding. And E-Sumi-Yan did not sign up for this but he was forced to endure it anyway. Bless him for remembering to send someone after Mimi, and bless Alphi and Alisaie for agreeing to keep her knocked out. Excellent Warrior of Light content.
Gosh, the entire thing about how she's never ran out of breath sent me though. Astounding. And E-Sumi-Yan did not sign up for this but he was forced to endure it anyway. Bless him for remembering to send someone after Mimi, and bless Alphi and Alisaie for agreeing to keep her knocked out. Excellent Warrior of Light content.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
One of my favorite comedy tropes is "person wildly misunderstands, or is ignorant of, a basic fact of life for everyone else, to everyone's shock, confusion, and/or horror."
Hence, this.
God I hadn't even considered that but the idea of Mimi and Sadu having known each other as kids is hilarious in many ways.
If Squeenix won't deliver me the Dating Sim expac I want and desperately need, it is up to me to do it myself
the best kind of healing is red mage healing where you just spam vercure on yourself forever to be immortal
until you forget that vercure actually costs MP and die
- Location
- Somewhere that's on a map
Okay, this exchange alone has made my day. Good stuff.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
very insightful comment tbh
...so does fulm=feet, as in, five and a half feet tall?
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
12 Ilms to a Fulm, 3 Fulms to a Yalm, and 1760 Yalms to a Malm.
(So yes, they decided the exotic fantasy measurement is renamed Imperial. I guess it's weird and arbitrary enough.)
So about 5'6'', Which I think is actually pretty close to the max height a Xaela woman can be?
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- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
small, jealous of tall, mad because small etc etc
- Location
- Somewhere between here and there
Category:Unit of Measure - Gamer Escape's Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV, FF14) wiki
Best part is the lore blurbs they give for how they derived the measurements in the first place
i like how they measured ilm and onze from the length and weight of a hyur's thumb and i wonder how many thumbs they cut off to weigh things
PonKatt
She Who Runs Into Walls
- Location
- US
So, it used to be based on either the seller's or buyer's thumb as agreed upon by the two of them. That is, until one day in Limsa a sailor exclaimed that he was being shorted canvas because the seller was using a smaller thumb. This sparked a bit of a riot that was swiftly put down. Afterwards the Admiral of the time declared the the ilm would be standized using a metal casting of the severed thumb of the sailor that started it.Category:Unit of Measure - Gamer Escape's Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV, FF14) wiki
ffxiv.gamerescape.com
Best part is the lore blurbs they give for how they derived the measurements in the first place
i like how they measured ilm and onze from the length and weight of a hyur's thumb and i wonder how many thumbs they cut off to weigh things
Yes, this is canon. Encyclopedia Eorzean volume one.
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- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And for those of you wondering when said thumb was severed, let me remind you of an old Limsan saying. DON'T FUCK WITH THE ADMIRAL.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Actually, unless my information is lying to me, the maximum height for a female Au Ra is a ridiculous five feet two inches. That's for chargen Au Ra - I'm pretty sure I've seen female Au Ra NPCs who were taller than Mimi despite, I'm pretty sure, maxing out height in chargen.
Auri women are ludicrously short. But they are still an improvement over lalafells, which is the race I originally played Mimi as to hilarious results. (Which is why she's called Mimi Parmentier instead of a proper Xaela name; it was a pun I am sad no one can appreciate after the change.)
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- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
My miqo'te knows all too well the hell of being min height for an already small slider.
thelordofmango
may be stupid
- Location
- under a rock
I also have never played Final Fantasy, but appreciate this nonetheless.
