Soup instead of tea, heading from Revenant's Toll instead of ultimately towards it, and in simple transit rather than frantic escape from a seemingly compromised position. While the circumstances were quite different for his return to this little tavern in the Observatorium - which Gogonji recalled was egregiously named the Full Ewer only yalms away from the establishment - it all still brought a flood of memories to the fore. Of the Miqo'te who knew far too much, of his wary doubts on the unreadable Annunu, and of a time where he was swiftly moving the pieces into place to carve that bloody swath of vengeance in the name of his fallen family and homeland. Memories of a time before the confrontation, the conflict, the collapse, and - most alliteratively appropriate, desired or not - the consequences.
It could have been worse, all things considered. The elder Gegenji brother could have perished in that battle; wholly vanquished while still clinging to the misguided belief that he was bringing divine retribution for the believed loss of his family. His tale could have been brought abruptly to an end there in the Castrum, finding the vengeful Lalafell from Doma in a coffin rather than a medical cot. A fall followed by a - likely sparsely attended, he noted dourly as he spooned another helping of soup into his mouth - funeral instead of a lengthy recovery.
Conversely, Gogonji could have succeeded, making his way into the heart of Garlemald and razing its capital in karmic retaliation for Doma. Again, his story could have ended there - in a blaze of glory rather than a hollow defeat in the Castrum - or he could have returned to Annunu and Khamja, ready to continue bringing the long-needed punishment to the Garlean people that the "Eorzean Alliance" refused to bring. The organization would have forced them into having to retreat as refugees, as they had to both to Gogonji's own people. And the Lalafell would have remained blissfully unaware of the the complete and utter terror it was to watch one's body be overtaken and puppeted against their will.
Even just recalling that moment sent a horrified shiver down the Doman's spine, forcing him to return his spoon to the bowl lest he drop it. It would be far from exaggeration to describe it as the source of the majority of his current troubles: the lengthy time spent bedridden to keep the wailing fragments at bay, the inability to have played a larger role in An's plans to deal with the fallout of Khamja, and the time wasted seeking to somehow appease these phantom remnants so that he could return to some degree of normalcy. Even Gogonji's current journey to Ishgard, though originally for other reasons, had also been tainted by the all-consuming issue of the soul fragments.
Everything seemed to have been going well enough - his postulated hypothesis being that the Summoner fragment would be roused from the whirling pool of madness by seeing their ancient Allagan art being used for glorified arcane slap-fights at the brutish display known as the Runestone. The first visit had proved fruitless at first - with not a single practitioner of Summoning participating - but the elder Gegenji brother had fallen into conversation with one who had been merely spectating. Not only was he able to garner some valuable information on the true origin of modern day Arcanima, the meeting of this Jana led to a seemingly chance encounter with the wielder of the Leviathan-egi Shoshopu Shopu. And from that, a chance to see two Summoners face off against each other for simple bloodsport - a scene most certainly to rouse the Summoner fragment from its blind fury.
And it was almost all for naught - only one of them, Jana, was present in the lineup for the following Runestone. Yet Nymeia seemed to also desire a Summoner's duel, bringing to the competition a fledgling Summoner out to prove her worth with little more than her Ifrit-egi and her stalwart Carbuncle. The Spinner's wishes continued to align with the elder Gegenji brother as both defeated their opponents in the first round, leading to the two of them paired against each other. Even the arrival of a self-proscribed pioneer and "fellow connoisseur of Allagan history" to watch and provide unneeded commentary on the match failed to hinder the progress of the experiment. Even better, Jana's mighty Titan-egi was ultimately trumped by the twice-degraded echo of egi-summons: the lowly Carbuncle.
A little jostling - both outward and inward - was enough to see the experiment bear fruit, and the Summoner fragment stirring itself from the whirlpool of hate within his being. However, rather than some ancient Allagan practitioner insulted by the devolution of their art to arcane cockfighting, Gogonji found himself dealing with a much more recent phantom - one he remembered far too well. In the mental plane, the Lalafell was forced to trade words with the Elezen woman slain by his own hand - the Ishgardian Summoner, Andienna.
"You," Gogonji had hissed silently as Jana discussed the art of Summoning to two eager spectators out in the land of the living, his astral form crossing its arms across his chest. "I should have known."
"And yet you didn't," the Elezen snapped back just as harshly, her tone as icy as the winds of her homeland. "And here I stand."
"Astute," the Lalafell murmured with a complete and utter lack of amusement or joy. "And again you interject yourself, giving rise to additional problems."
"'Additional problems'?" she echoed, looking aghast. "You killed me."
"You attacked me with your egi and sought to steal my work," Gogonji snapped back. "It was clearly in self-defense. Or is your memory that spotty, fragment?"
"Fragment?" she repeated, a look of confusion crossing her angular features, and garnering a sharp bark of laughter from the Lalafell.
"What, did you think you're some vengeful spirit set to haunt me for my misdeeds?" He waved a hand dismissively in front of his face before lowering it back to rest upon the opposite arm again. "At best, you're merely a slipshod entity wrought of lingering memories wrought from your soul crystal."
"You lie!"
"Do I?" the Doman pressed, giving a nonchalant shrug. "Search your memories... how much of your life can you recall? Do you even remember our delve into the ruins of Amdapor? Our meeting before that? Or anything before that at all?"
"Of course I do!" Andienna snarled back, taking a half-step back on the mental plane. Despite her adamant claim, or perhaps because of it, Gogonji took no small amount of enjoyment in watching the Elezen's furious glare twist into inward reflection and then confusion before settling into a look of dawning horror. "W-what did you do to me!?"
"Which you?" Gogonji asked coyly.
"Pray be frank with me!" she hissed, her tone mixed with both fury and grief. She took a step towards him, gesturing wildly and emphatically. "What have you done!?"
"What reason do I have to explain myself to you?" he snapped back just as darkly, canting his head to the side - a move mirrored by his real self as the conversation between Jana and the "connoisseur" continued apace, oblivious to this second one inside the Lalafell's mind. "You, who betrayed me. You, who sought to take my work from me. You, who tried to silence me for your own ambitions!"
"M-me!?" she scoffed, her fear feeding her anger and righteous indignation like dry wood to a flame. "You were holding a tool that could end a thousand-year war! You were hoarding knowledge that could change things! Not just for me, but for all of Ishgard! All of Eorzea!"
"Perhaps I was," Gogonji responded, his tone starting dangerously low and building as he continued to speak. "Yet I had other purposes for it. A family, a nation to avenge for the atrocities committed upon them. An act that demanded retaliation. You had your war, but I also had mine!"
"Perhaps, but..."
"But nothing!" the Lalafell snapped, cutting off her argument before it could even being. "You can sputter and whine all you want about how 'unfair' things were for you, convince yourself that your treachery was a necessity. And yet! The soul crystals I laboriously gathered, the Awakener and Rousers I bled time and gil into the design and development of, the one-man war against the Garleans who razed my nation to the ground as a mere example to the rest of the world? That..."
Gogonji had unconsciously thrust her back out of his safe zone within his mind, casting her back into the roiling chaos of the other fragments. His words, however, still flowed - over physical lips rather than astral - and interrupted the conversation still being held by the pair of Miqo'te. The capper to an unseen and unheard argument, interjecting itself into a completely unrelated converasion.
"That... was MINE."
The outburst had led to questions and proddings, and Jana blindly assuming she had any clue of what was going on. Meanwhile, the interloper - whose name was never given to the Lalafell - continued his abrasive attempts to endear himself to the both of them. It capped with the male Miqo'te seeking Gogonji's name, blatantly acting as if he was anywhere on the Doman's level. And so he had rejected the Summoner and distanced himself from the noise. He had another nuisance to deal with, and he couldn't manage that with the mindless yapping of a pair of Miqo'te.
And so, overlooking the shallow river - away from the Wash and the Runestone continuing unabated therein - Gogonji sought out the phantom of Andienna within his mind again. Tossed back into the madness, she had been drowning and floundering in it like he had when they first assailed him. The Lalafell entertained the thought of leaving her to brave the chaos for a while longer, before realizing it would hinder his work more than it would help. She could be lost to it again, and he'd have to rouse her from it again - if would even be possible at that point. The risks too heavily outweighed the rewards, and he yanked the Elezen back to the sanctuary in his mind to further match wits with the fragment.
"Wh-what... what was that?" Andienna gasped, her icy temperament thawed by her more cognizant return to the whirling chaos. "Memories... desires... hate... all swirling and crashing like a horrible storm wrought by Halone herself."
"The aftermath," Gogonji stated curtly. "Of my crusade. Of the Wakener."
"That..." The Elezen caught herself, her icy wall rebuilding itself before she spoke again. "Well, serves you right. Hoarding all that knowledge for yourself, now you seek shelter from it."
"I can always throw you back."
"You wouldn't," she snapped, though there was a nervous tone there. "You need me. Otherwise you would have left me there to drown."
"Perhaps I should have," the Lalafell scoffed. "I do not 'need' you. I simply want that chaos out there gone. And since I cannot simply eject you since that would - while immensely enjoyable - be unnecessarily wasteful, I am forced to... negotiate."
"Negotiate?" Andienna repeated, a wry curl rising on her lip. Gogonji didn't like the looks of it, and his expression made that apparent. Which only seemed to further elate her.
"None of the fragments have been... overly willing... to give themselves up to me and be properly... melded."
"Gee, I wonder why."
"However," Gogonji continued, emphasizing the word to show his disdain for her unneeded commentary. "After some... discussion... I have managed to get them to agree. In return for... compensation." He paused momentarily, waiting for more snarky asides or useless parroting of the last word before continuing with a circular wave of his hand. "Usually a promise of some sort... or a task."
"And you follow through on them?" the Elezen asked skeptically, blurring her grin somewhat behind a long-fingered hand. "I can't see you of all people taking orders."
That garnered a dry, rasping sort of laugh from the Lalafell. "It's usually... things I would do anyway. Or minor nuisances." He began counting off on his fingers, as if he were reciting a grocery list rather than vows given to the coalesced remnants of ancient warriors. "Take care of my Fairy, avenge Doma, help a pugilist, and ensure a too-big-for-his-smallclothes Sultansworn gets knocked down a few pegs."
"And then you... 'meld'?"
"Essentially," Gogonji shrugged. "I gain bits of your knowledge... and memories... and you cease to exist." He waved a hand dismissively. "All that remains is fuzzy memories and vague knowledge, as if you were little more than a book I read once. Nowhere near the level of... synchronicity I had with the Rousers... but I suppose that's to be expected."
"Now hold on," Andienna interjected, motioning to herself. "So by 'melding' I... die?"
"You were never alive to begin with," the Doman corrected coldly, discussing such a grim matter as if he were teaching a math class. "The Awakener provided a sort of... artificial jolt to the crystallized aether in the soul crystals that provided a mere semblance of consciousness. Enough for me to utilize the knowledge and skill, and resulting in you..." He paused, making a wandering motion with his hand. "... Fragments, afterward."
"I would still, by your words, 'cease to exist'!" the Elezen refuted angrily. "Why would I want to even consider something like that?"
"Because the 'actual' you is gone; returned to the aether," Gogon stated matter-of-factually as he leaned forward, clasping his hands behind his back - a motion again mirrored in the land of the living. "All that's left of you is in here." He tapped on his head lightly with a finger. "If I die, or lose myself to the madness beyond these walls, then that is lost - permanently. By joining with me, you at least ensure something of you endures, since the soul crystals themselves are drained and dead."
"And what's to keep me from just overcoming you here?" Andienna sneered, motioning widely to the astral space. "Within the 'safety' of your walls?"
"If you could manage it, considering I held ten of you fragments at bay..." the Lalafell intoned as he leaned back again, "what would you have at the end of it? A body that is not yours, and only what few choice memories that made up the soul crystal you were birthed from." He shook his head, as if this should all be obvious. "Not to mention, then it would be you who would have to hold off that chaos out there. Do you think you could handle it?"
"W-who's to say I can't?"
"I can throw you back out there and we could see."
"No!" she snapped immediately, before catching herself and seeking to regain her haughty demeanor. "I mean... I have nothing to prove here. You're trying to convince me, are you not?"
"Have I not?"
"Not... not fully, no," the Elezen stated. For a moment, her icy glare melted into something more... forlorn. "I'm... all that's left, then?"
"Other than what frozen bits remain in what you left of my shack."
Andienna winced at the Lalafell's terse frankness, but continued. "And my family... knows naught? I... I think I kept my arts a secret from them. I can't recall. I know I... failed them in seeking to become a Dragoon, so I sought other methods."
A shrug was all she received, earning Gogonji another icy glare.
"The memories I still have... would you bring that to them?" she asked, surprisingly earnestly. "Along with what remains of my body? I... would wish to be properly remembered... an interred."
"Is that what you ask of me?"
There was a brief silence between them. Andienna stood silently, eyes closed in thought as she weighed her answer. Gogonji remained gruffly steadfast, waiting for the response he felt he knew was coming.
"... Yes."
"Then I shall do it," the Lalafell assured her in his own, indifferent way, holding out a hand expectantly. Andienna looked at the hand, then up at him, eyebrow raised. The two stood awkwardly like that in the astral landscape before Gogonji irritably murmured: "Well?"
"Well what?"
"I have agreed to your task, now give yourself unto me."
"What? No!" the Elezen snapped. "Not until you've done the task! Do you expect me to just fade into nothingness on a simple promise that you'll do what I've asked? Once you've seen my body to my House in Ishgard, then you will have my... err... me...-ness."
"That is not how this works."
"Well, this is how it's going to work if you want this!" She tapped at her head in a mockery of Gogon's own motion earlier. "Now, let's get going, already. Unless you have more self-righteous banter to fling my way."
"FINE," Gogonji snapped - his words again crossing the gap from astral landscape to the real world. It was then that he had stormed his way back through the Runestone, running across Jana and the others again. His brief query on the fastest route to Ishgard led into a most obnoxious of conversations as Artemis - another Elezen, which failed to be a shock to the Lalafell - sought to capitalize on this to garner his services again. Annoyingly persistent, she had still made the almost-valid point of having a guardian to protect him on his journey. While he did not feel he needed such things, at the very least he could use it as impetus to gain access to some of Andienna's promised knowledge and silence the living Elezen at the same time.
"I thought you didn't need my help," the fragment had commented with a wry grin, much to Gogonji's frustration. However, she relented, giving him enough knowledge to summon the Garuda-egi with the aid of the proper formula. Bringing forth the echo of the wind primal had only brought more questions - and the attentions - leading to talks of a full group gathering up to head on out on a trip north. A trip Gogonji would have rather made alone, and further irritated by how much Andienna seemed to be enjoying it.
In the end, he had whittled the group down to just himself, Jana, and the overly insistent Artemis. Fortunately, the former only desired to go as far as the Toll and the eldest Gegenji child lost the latter in the hustle and bustle of the fledgling city. Alone he had escaped out the gate and towards the snowy fields of Coerthas. Which brought him here to the Full Ewer, seeking to enjoy his soup as the other patrons nervously eyes the Garuda-egi sitting boredly on the other side of the table.
That was another problem - Andienna had somehow managed to taint the egi summoning, imprinting herself on the wind-elemented summon itself. So, the Lalafell was stuck dealing with the impatient fragment within and the impatient egi without. He would have just unsummoned it, as he had threatened back at the Runestone, but the assault by the pack of wolves that saw Annelace as a rather sizable meal had cemented the necessity of its presence. So, it was just something Gogonji would have to deal with for the time being.
... Not that he had to enjoy it.
"Hey," he called out, waving down one of the servers of the Ewer. "Do you... know where I could... obtain a small... wagon or such... that I could lash to... my chocobo?"
The glare from the Garuda-egi was withering, as was the outcry from the Summoner fragment in his head. To have her corporeal form lugged around like a merchant's wares - it was inexcusable! At least, until Gogonji offered the alternative of just lashing the body with corpse with rope and dragging it bodily all the way to Ishgard. After all, neither he nor Annelace were of enough physical strength to carry the body of an adult Elezen woman otherwise. Unless, of course, she wanted to wait for whatever red tape would be involved to send out someone to fetch her remains.
In the end, after another angry look from the egi, Andienna acquiesced to the original plan and a tiny, battered vegetable wagon was obtained and tied to Annelace. The barest of thanks given for the meal and the wagon, along with the proper coinage, and Gogonji set off again to complete this task set upon him. First to the ruins of his shack, then on to Ishgard. Both to be done with this nagging fragment, and to await the start of a much more interesting venture - to seek the knowledge of the Great Gubal Library, as offered by one Sasha Rochester and her supposed band of bodyguards.
Perhaps things would end up enjoyable after all.
~