The Final-est Fantasy Fic

Enjoy my FFXIV post-6.0 one shot fanfic that no one will understand but it’s fine because it’s from like six months ago and I forgot about it

Nihra’s torpidity was evident as she stood against Ultima Thule’s backdrop of dust and debris. At this moment, she may have been indistinguishable from the floating rubble: a re-creation, some replica of herself. She walked on every day as if she were herself, the version that the Scions had loved, that Eorzea still revered. She thought of those gathered on the Sharlayan ports, squinting their eyes against the Sun. She considered, then, that she was the only organism on the Source, on any of the Reflections, that could save all life. She had always been that. Hydaelyn’s tempering had written her condition. In her death, she felt irrevocably free. Still, her mind waited for Her words. It could not function independently. Her personality, her skills, her ambitions, dreams, relationships, her history, had all been engineered by Venat. She had never taken a step of her own. 

Her life before she Awoke was wholly miserable – a cosmic irony that prevented her from missing when she was briefly herself. She considered that even before she heard Her voice, that she had been born a vessel for it. That, despite reason, the threads of creation had constructed the perfect life to carry all of existence on its back. Nihra figured that if her earlier years had been more tolerable, she might not have been so weak to Her influence.

She loved Hydaelyn as she might love a physical mother. It was under Her light that Nihra had found a small degree of purchase over her life. She had chosen to befriend the Scions and even if this friendship was of Her will, Nihra had still depended upon their comfort. Now, as she freely evaluated these bonds that she held, she noticed her hands were shaking. They had been taken by this wasteland. They – like the millions on the Source would – fell to the Endsinger, to Meteion. Laughably, Meteion’s realization was one she was now having herself. The life that she can remember was a series of steps taken to prevent this, to land her here. A life that was not meant to be lived, but one that was meant to save. 

Nihra, despite countless affirmations and titles, was easily the least important being in the Universe. She was an image of the world, of all that is light and dark. She had fought for all of its people and never once for herself. Any prior act of self-defense on her part was, functionally, an assurance that she would live to this moment. That she might stand on the edge of the Universe, that she might sing a song of the future. And, so, it was a result of all of Nihra’s revelations that she stepped into the end. Finally free to choose, finally unburdened by the beating heart of all the Source’s civilization – past and present – and stripped of her only comfort, Nihra decided that Meteion was right.