Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy XIV

A/N: Happy September everyone! Ironically enough, pre-Grad School nerves actually made me more productive – but only in generating a ton of oneshot WIPs (*cries in neglected long-term projects*). I did finish some of those little WIPs though, so I figured I'd post some of them to make up for the uh… long-term writing dry spell I was going through.

Anyways! I'm still in FFXIV hell, so we're welcoming back my WoL Oir (as seen in Deus Ex Manderville), but this fic is actually part of the "canon" of her lore, if that makes sense. Oircanon, if you will. Maybe I'll make a series on Ao3 to collect these fics, if I ever make enough of them.

Now, on with the fic!

"Hermes?"

The man in question looked up. Azem's familiar - Oir - stood in the doorway of his office, hand raised as if to knock despite it being open.

"Can we talk?"

He blinked.

"Sure," he said, if a bit nervously, and gestured for her to sit down. "Please, come in - what troubles you?"

"You do," she said as she sat, a faraway look in her eyes. His stomach dropped in horror as she snapped back to the present, seeming to realize just what she had said. "I am so sorry - that came out terribly wrong. A thousand pardons, please. It's just— I meant— Earlier, with the elpis flower…"

Hermes's stomach, somehow, managed to sink further. She thought him an aberration. It mustn't have shown on his face, however, for Oir plowed on.

"…Are you okay?"

What?

"Are you okay." A statement this time, accompanied with a small smile, and whoops, he must've said that aloud— "Your grief… it torments you, does it not? It concerns me."

"I beg your pardon?" He knew he was being irrational, but it hurt. He'd thought she'd understood. "I understand that I am an aberration, but what right do you have to come here and question me—"

Something flashed in her eyes - indignant, fierce, terrifying; like she had every right to judge - but it disappeared as quickly as it came. It was replaced with a look of concern so profound he could practically feel it.

"I think there has been a miscommunication," she began slowly, "The fault is mine, I know. I do not come here to judge you - to do quite the opposite, rather. I was wondering if you needed someone to talk to."

"To talk to?" He echoed - and wasn't that ironic: echoing to Echo's own familiar. Oir, for her part, nodded.

"It's not healthy to bottle all that up, you know." She gave him a sad little smile. "More than that, you don't have to deal with it alone. Such burdens are easier shared, after all."

To his absolute horror, Hermes answered her with a sob. Panic flashed across Oir's face, and in an instant, she'd rounded his desk and drawn him into a hug, of all things. Then, he was weeping into the shoulder of a stranger with less shame than he would've liked.

"It's alright, my friend," she soothed, tightening her grip on him a bit. "A storm can be weathered, so long as we bend instead of breaking."

Hermes wondered what Azem had been teaching her familiar, for Oir to know nothing of Elpis or creation magicks but so much about the drowning well that was sadness. Then again, maybe it wasn't surprising at all; if rumors were to be believed, long before she had taken the seat of Azem, Echo had been considered an aberration herself.

Unbeknownst to Hermes, Oir wept too.

(She knew the man he'd become.)

A/N: This was significantly inspired by a conversation I was having with some friends about how Eorzea (and arguably the unsundered world especially) really needs therapy – and another conversation with a different friend about how Oir ends up as the unofficial Scion therapist.

Hermes might be one of my favorite ancients, but boy if he doesn't screw up on a spectacular scale. It would've been great if he had, you know, dealt with his depression in basically any other way instead of taking it out on literally the entire planet, or if he'd submitted any of the required ethical pre-research documents before creating the Meteia, but alas. In any case, here he gets to actually have a talk and a good cry about his emotions; unfortunately, just one of those (and similarly, just one therapy session) isn't enough to make any real progress.

Anyways, don't be like Hermes. Learn and use healthy emotional management practices. Therapy and mindfulness are good.

(Also yes, Oir's Azem is named Echo)