The question was along the lines of “if your wol had to pass on the mantle to someone else who would they pick” and it dovetails into drk stuff for me per usual

And previously, I had an ALC/BTN au for Niko based on another wolqotd about “your wol has one month to live what do they do”

And I think about, what would Niko do with his Unending Journey notebooks, this is a journal he writes in nearly every single night

Kind of like the KH Days journal, it starts out plain but over the course of ARR and beyond, gets more detail and embellishments

And Niko not only records what’s in the journal but also starts writing his crafting notes, recipes, etc. in it

And in the alc/btn au, Niko hides that he’s dying but is working that entire month to find a cure for the disease he’s contracted (hereon described as Space Cancer)

So not only does he have the usual Unending Journey and standard journal content, he also has these increasingly frantic notes trying to find the right ingredients (botanical) to formulate a cure for his Space Cancer

(Bc I like to be cheesy, the critical ingredient involves crushed Elpis petals)

AND

Niko’s journal, in drk fashion, has portions that can only be seen while one is holding his drk soul crystal

When not holding the crystal, a spell Niko created makes it look like those lines in the journal are blacked out/scratched out and unreadable

SO

Niko embarks on his final journey to find a cure for himself, but he bequeaths all his stuff including his journals to G’raha

Bc if anyone is gonna wanna see em not just for historical posterity but for emotional reasons, it’s G’raha. And Niko leaves a note behind with his stuff and Unending Journey and soul crystals explaining the spell on the blacked-out portions

Because the blacked out portions are the ones that Fray wrote

But Niko also knows that drk isn’t for everyone. Does G’raha take this up as a way to understand Niko better, or to find where he is and help him?

Does Alisaie take up the crystal so she can punch Niko in the face for running off instead of letting his friends help save him?

Who takes up the mantle of wol and all it entails if Niko isn’t there? Niko makes a short list of candidates (in what Alisaie calls effectively a suicide note) with G’raha, Alisaie, Estinien, and Fordola on it. But just because someone theoretically can doesn’t mean they’d want to, Estinien and Fordola would probably not do this if G’raha or Alisaie will

And how do Niko’s friends react to the fact he’s been keeping Fray, etc a secret this whole time? Does G’raha include that in what he tells the other Scions, or later on, in his historical account of Niko’s time as wol?

If Niko or Scions end up finding a cure, how much is Niko going to get yelled at for running off and hiding to die like a fucking cat? (All the yelling, all of it) Who insists on being formally introduced to Fray lol

Tl;dr I think G’raha could drk if it was for a Reason or to help Niko, but I think Alisaie is better suited to Handling it and taking up Niko’s legacy overall

(And how does Alphinaud feel about all this. Both Alphinaud and Thancred were expressly forbidden from touching the drk crystal in Niko’s note, Thancred bc itd be Bad for him and Alphinaud bc he’s the person Niko took up drk to Protect.)

(And Alisaie can shift into a tank-healer dynamic w/Alphinaud better than G’raha obvs)

Anyway (holds up Niko) this catboy can hold so much mental illness in him