FFXIVwrite 2026 Day 2 — Register
Author’s note
Some Dawntrail lore for my very canon-divergent WOL, Nekhii, who was pregnant and in Yyasulani when the dome appeared.
“You want to fight without a feral soul?”
Nekhii nodded. “I would be making use of arcanima instead. Is that a problem?”
“I—I don’t know,” the Arcadion receptionist admitted, stammering. “I’ve never seen anyone request it before. May I ask why?”
“I simply don’t see the need for them. I’ve always battled with mine own two hands.” She didn’t explain the visceral wrongness she felt seeing the feral soul users transform, or even how uneasy she felt seeing the souls dancing around in the receptionist’s own regulator at this very moment. That wouldn’t do her any favors. “Is it at least possible for me to try, to perhaps have a trial match against someone?”
“I guess… I just need to figure out how to put this request through.” The receptionist tapped at her tablet screen. “It won’t let me proceed unless I enter a feral soul type.”
Nekhii frowned in consideration. “Can you put in ‘human’?”
The receptionist tried it, then laughed. “Well, it didn’t stop me! If nothing else, that should trigger a manual review.”
Leaving the building, Nekhii couldn’t help feeling a tad nervous. Why am I doing this? But she knew why. Raising a child in Alexandria was expensive. It was cheaper in the outskirts, but for someone who shunned the trade of souls, had to make do with currency instead, it was still a problem.
Maybe she should take people up on their offers to pay her for her levinsickness treatments. But no, that felt wrong.
And she hadn’t had a good fight for a long time, besides. Not since Zeromus. Not since Zenos if she was excluding existential threats. These days Carbuncle was little more than a glowing pet.
Nekhii was getting antsy; that, she couldn’t deny.
She got a call two days later, while Nergui was in class.
“The president has agreed to let you have a trial match against one of our fighters!” the receptionist informed her. “Can you be here tonight, at fifth bell?”
“…do you have childcare facilities?”
They didn’t, but they assured her that Nergui would be perfectly safe observing from the VIP box, so Nekhii showed up that evening with her daughter in tow.
Her opponent was a Hhetsarro with the ring name Howling Blade. "I won't go easy on you just because you're unenhanced," he warned.
"Good," she shot back.
While she drew her grimoire and summoned Carbuncle, Howling Blade channeled the wolf soul stored in his regulator.
The match bell rang. A man’s voice rang out across the empty stadium. “This trial match between fan-favorite Howling Blade and the unenhanced applicant will now begin! Let’s see if she can truly hold her own!”
Howling Blade immediately lunged. Even at his enhanced size of roughly twice Nekhii’s height, he was agile. She barely had time to scrawl down the equations for a shield, even with the grimoire’s thought-to-page magic.
“You’re fast,” she breathed, then tossed off a spell as she darted around him.
They traded blows until she found herself too winded to go on without healing. But healing took time, and she needed that time to dodge Howling Blade’s attacks. If she only had a stockpile of aether—
Carbuncle shifted to topaz and leapt up to shield her from a gust of wind. Nekhii grinned. Now there’s an idea!
She quickly scrawled an equation. Carbuncle sprang up onto her shoulder, then jumped into the air and dissolved into a shower of sparkles. Nekhii felt a surge of energy. She jumped back to dodge a surge of rocks coming up from the ground and found herself moving far quicker than normal. She was able to heal herself even while she moved. Her balance felt off, though…
“Oho, the unenhanced applicant taunts Howling Blade!” the commentator remarked.
Nekhii felt something twitching on top of her head. She reached up to smooth her hair and felt something tall and fluffy. Only when the billowing Carbuncle tail curled around her waist into her line of sight did she understand exactly what had happened.
Howling Blade laughed. “Oh, that’s a nice move. But can you handle this?”
He seemed to move quickly enough that his image blurred. Copies of Howling Blade stood all around the arena, swords drawn to attack.
Nekhii’s eyes flicked from one shade to the next. She smirked. One of the shades pulled back its blade and lunged at her.
“She’s not moving!” the commentator exclaimed. “Is she that confident that she can see through Howling Blade’s illusions?!”
The shade passed through her, doing nothing more than ruffling her hair (and ears and tail). She turned toward the real Howling Blade, his soul shining bright where the shades had none, and launched a flurry of spells at him.
“His illusions are completely ineffective against the challenger!” So she wasn’t just an applicant anymore, was she? “Her spells have Howling Blade on the back foot. How will he get out of this one?!”
When the dust of battle settled, Howling Blade knelt and panted for breath, his feral soul faded. “You’re something else,” he remarked. “How did you see through me?”
“I’ll tell you another time,” Nekhii teased. “Once I’ve reached the top.”
Maybe she had her issues with the Arcadion, but she had to admit that was thrilling. And maybe this way, she could show them that they didn’t need their feral souls.
Nekhii glanced up at the VIP box. Nergui was cheering and pumping her fist.
Nekhii smiled. If nothing else came of this but making her daughter happy, that would be enough too.