Charakter

I had an interesting dream that i thought was surprisingly well composed, possibly worth sharing. I have been dreaming about the world of FFXIV for almost 9 years now, and its evolved into a story about me and Y'shtola being good friends since childhood. In short, in 1562 during the Sharlayan exodus me and my mother were shipwrecked in a freak accident, and she was murdered by wild beasts once we got to shore. I was rescued (kidnapped) by pirates. I was forced to work on the ship but not a year later did Piracy become illegal in limsa, allowing me to gain a footing on a ship of privateers. I became a mean and horrible person and rose through the ranks, but after roughly 8 years i realized how id gone astray from my goals, and thats when the events of FFXIV 1.0 begin and a chance encounter with Y'shtola after all those years only cemented my need to change.

Also, My mother was a Keeper of the Moon who married into a Seeker family. I look like a Keeper but my original name was R'noha. to stop the confusion i simplified to Rinoa while a privateer and adopted the last name leonhart from a pirate who protected me (i'm sorry i chose my character name so poorly back in 2010, its the best i can do with the corner ive painted myself in!)
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I dreamt that me and Y‘shtola were looking through some books we recently acquired, and evaluating them for new information or if they were just redundant. Many were of low importance but a few had some good new information in them. Some were quite rare though, and covered magicks relating to soul manipulation and that got our attention fairly quickly. I'm not sure who brought it up first, but the possibility of body swapping became the focus of our conversation

It was a bad idea, a terrible reckless idea. But curiosity killed the cat

Also, Y‘shtola had nearly killed me when we were foolish children playing with advanced magicks, so its not like we were afraid of trying new things.

Anyroad, it took us a while to gather the right supplies and enough aether to fuel the process. it actually worked surprisingly well. first thing i heard was Shtola in my body say „i can see!“ and i replied in her body „well i cant, let me fix my vision“ now, my sensitivity to aether wasnt nearly as strong as hers so my sight was far more limited but it worked.

Our colleagues knew something was amiss by our strange behavior. because we were so giddy with excitement as to be acting uncharacteristically for either of us. not the normal calm relaxed Miqo‘tes.

We explained what we did and they just froze staring at us like „why?“ and „you two are insane...“

Urianger was a little surprised but he at least saw it for the amazing experiment it was and ran off to read the books we‘d sourced our information from.

Krile scolded us for being so wreckless, upset that we would try such an experiment.

Alphinaud and Alisaie were speechless, so one of us said to them jokingly „ya know, we have enough supplies to also swap you two“ and their reactions were hilarious. nay, beyond hilarious. It was a genuinely funny part of the dream to see how uncomfortable they were at such an idea.

We had to go tell Master Matoya, because behind all the elation from a successful experiment was a sea of worries, and a desire to share our findings.

We completely failed at pretending we were our normal selves in front of her. She immediately knew something was up, Or more accurately, that the two of us were up to some shenanigans.

in my view of the story, me and Shtola arent very different. except in a few key regards

1: Shtola half-resents Matoya while i am jealous she got to be her student. So much so that after Ishgard, i went out of my way to visit Master Matoya frequently. She even allowed me to start helping her in my free time. I almost got to have the mentorship i wanted since childhood. However Shtola was forced into that by her parents. If i hadnt been kidnapped by pirates i most likely would have been forced into a mentorship and half-resent it as well. but, so is life.

2: I tend to be the one initiating the more personal interactions. like for instance giving her a hug or suggesting we should take a break and grab a bite to eat. Perhaps you could say im the friend who is less introverted while she is slightly more.

3: Shtola has less stamina when it comes to battle. although we have the same endurance when it comes to exegesis and research.

4: Shtola is more willing to be harsh, including to Matoya in a loving way. After seeing how horrible of a person i became whilst in the company of Lominsan privateers on my transition into adulthood, my world crumbled slowly. i couldn't stand myself and who id become. I still feel a tinge of that guilt when even jokingly being mean sometimes. So at first i was afraid Matoya was genuinely upset at me when she is just her normal abrasive friendly self, and i still find it difficult to play along and snap back.

5: Shtola is totally in her element, while i still feel like i havent stopped being that horrible mean person i was as a pirate because my job requires me to fight and kill. its just now its in the name of the scions and not piracy. At the end of the day, i hate killing and it gives me nightmares ill not soon forget. If i could give my abilities to someone else id be glad. i feel at home reading books, and hunting for lost relics and discovering ancient ruins...

With that being said, back to the story

We told Master Matoya, and she took it very well. She said we were asking for a lot of trouble however she lightened the tone by saying she couldnt wait to hear how it goes wrong. She was hiding worry about it all, truth be told.

we stayed for tea and visited for a few hours. Shtola was really hit hard by being able to see all those she loved again. That by itself made this adventure worth it.

I was glad she could take a break from manipulating her aether so as to see whilst blind. Although now doing that very thing in her body, i saw that it wasn't as taxing as id feared.


however the dream took a strange turn...


A few weeks after the soul transfer, we were going to switch back. However me and Shtola noticed simultaneously that we were forgetting our original memories and gaining those of the other. It started slowly but gradually kept happening

our colleagues knew to ask Shtola something when they needed to speak with Noha (R‘noha->Rinoa) but to talk to Shtola when they wished to speak with Noha. Before too long we had to consult the other to see if they now had their memory.

It was a complicated mess of emotions. The curiosity had never felt stronger, yet we both were questioning who we really were, what was happening. There was fear, excitement, and fascination all in one.

I started acting like Shtola and she started acting like Noha. we went to visit Matoya again and told her everything that had transpired.

Like Shtola‘s sister Y'mhitra needed to ask her sister for the name of someone they'd known years ago, so she asked Noha, who had Shtola‘s mind, and she couldn't remember at all. Noha (Shtola) pointed Y'mhitra to me and i happened to remember as if i were actually her sister Shtola. it was surprising and stressful to say the least.

Master Matoya was very concerned and mentioned that she looked into it. The body could possibly retain a latent soul of its original owner, or at least latent characteristics when manipulated as we did. It made sense, and we‘d had the same discussion about latent soul theory before visiting so at least we were on the same page. Urianger had come to a similar conclusion as well.

The final moments of the dream were of me and Noha and Matoya finishing our tea, and quietly contemplating what to do. I remember i was holding my empty glass and rolling it between my hands while staring at it while Noha was thinking out loud.

Master Matoya challenged us to recount memories only the other person would remember. I recalled a memory of young Shtola distraught because her favorite frog had died, and Matoya was there to comfort me. Matoya said it was definitely a true memory, that she didn't even think Shtola would recall it let alone me.

Noha recalled something of my life i no longer remembered about an elderly merchant in Limsa who would give me a discount on oranges because he liked her, but that she was still upset that he also died in the calamity.

The dream concluded with us deciding that we were already becoming the other person, and it would be so much more painful to also try to go back. I was worried all the time we‘d waste since we had already spent a moon and a half on this experiment, whilst our duties and tasks lay neglected until just recently. So we decided to learn from our experience and continue on, lest we fuck it all up even more trying to reverse it.

Shtola seemed to really fit better with doing my job before too long. She said my body and abilities were really liberating, that she could just run into a challenge and fight for hours on end without tiring. Now i don't exactly remember being able to do that, but i do miss the ability to breath under water.

She had also taken a liking to constantly reminding me how much taller she is to me now. but i deserved it. I played that card countless times to annoy her before, and yes, now that the tables have turned it really annoys me to no end.

so it seemed to be a good dream almost nightmarish, but at least i wasn't alone. makes real-life seem like a nightmare in comparison just for that fact.

any thoughts?

-Rinoa