lrdvyke

[lrdvyke]

officially on my 2 week winter break from work

[lrdvyke]

a part of me wants vyke to experience the abyssal woods. but that'd be mean. however—

[lrdvyke]

ABYSSAL WOODS

[lrdvyke]

Fifty

[lrdvyke]

I live my life in a constant state of grief of what I did, what I didn’t do, and what I can never do.

[lrdvyke]

Grief holds him as surely as Darian does. Even the words uttered cave their way inside his mind, whispering of the false that underlies it all. But still … Vyke's eye closes, the weight of Darian resting against him is a comfort he gluts himself upon. He does not argue the truth of the statement, but holds fast to the rest of what is said. To the relief that creeps along with each syllable, to every letter, light upon the heavy tone that scratches at the night chill.

❛ It is … it is my wish. I want you to promise me, Darian, ❜ Vyke takes up the call towards their future. ( To him it is a when, never an if. ) His hand raises, hooking fingers around Darian's hand, ( they tighten and tighten ) all as his eye opens once more. Staring at the man above him; the well worn, well-loved face. He knows the weight this will put upon his shoulders, to prepare for a possibility that he must not fail in. ❛ Look at me, Darian, and remember my words—when that day comes … do not hesitate; keep your blade steady and true and pierce my heart. It is only then you must burn me. Do not bury me, do not leave me to the winds … burn me until I am naught but ash. My spirit has been eaten by the Frenzy, you need not care for it. Do not let me become a vessel. ❜ A pause, dreaded and suffocating, before Vyke says in a quieter voice. ❛ Look at me and promise me that. ❜

VYKE SPEAKS THE UNSPOKEN. once upon a time, darian would have thought him fearless. even knowing it untrue, to hear him speak his fear only drives it deeper. to see it in his eye that is not yet covered for slumber. yes, this fear darian shares. selfishly, he fears having to watch it, again. a man becomin a shell before his very eyes, again. could he brave mercy this time? shall he fail twice? there is no turning away this time; he could not if he tried.

in the dark, he leans closer again, resting his forehead against vyke. his fingers touch gently against the other man's cheek, fearful not of the scar there, but some strange and sudden thought of the flesh dissolving right beneath his touch. he closes his eyes again. ❛ i have never known a spirit more resilient than yours. ❜ they are not empty words of failing comfort, but true faith held. it is not enough, he knows. he breathes and speaks again. ❛ if a day comes— ❜ if, he says, not when. as if one syllable might hold up the impossible. ❛ a day when the flame has taken all of you ... i failed once, i know, but i would not keep you a shell of yourself—i would release you. if that was your wish. ❜

[lrdvyke]

[lrdvyke]

there's this theme of stray comments i see every now and again that annoy me which say something like "being touched by the three fingers should make you immune to madness build up" or "stronger against fire" etc. as if that's like .... the point, that you're not immune. in fact, lore accurate lord of frenzy flame playthru should make you MORE susceptible to madness build up tbh

[lrdvyke]

Grief coils around his stomach and constricts. Tight. Nauseatingly. There are many other things Vyke should feel, eclipsed by the presence before him. Tales of woe, of horror, take shape all too easily in it. But grief is far too heavy a shadow to allow anything else through it. Like an abyss in its suffocation. Thus, Vyke stares at the Witch King, and tries to catch a glimpse of something, anything, to make him turn away.

But he remains still, with nary a shift of his feet.

❛ Many things, ❜ Vyke answers then with a short shake of his head. Black words should only be taken so lightly and never heeded—decades of such commandments echo now … around and around. Yet no one quite knows what a desperate man is capable of. Of what he has already done in light of it, where words from a rotted tongue begin to sound so pretty to ears such as Vyke's own.

❛ A great … many things, ❜ he repeats, his thoughts churn. His eyes lose their focus as a result, a clouded blue that barely catch the light. ❛ Betrayal of a people … a murder of a—of a woman. Dragons hold their trust so tightly, I thought … I thought I had it all. ❜ A blink, his gaze sharpens and slides back to the wraith. ❛ I want to fix things. You must believe me. ❜

do you understand forgiveness ?

"Aye," the wraith answers without a flicker of a doubt. If one were to blink they would miss the glint of light from where an eye would peek out beneath the helm, but those eyes have long rotted away, leaving the sockets empty. Without them his stare is somehow harder.

His head raises in a manner one might call proud as he straightens, his stature reminiscent of the Sea-Lords of old, ancestors of the Northmen who once populated Arnor... Vyke's folk. Even if he weren't aware of the connection he would smell it on him: the blood of Númenor, stinking in its persistence, almost taunting him.

"I forgive. My Lord forgives. There is hardly any offense that is unforgivable," he says, "And you..."

He does not hate them, despite centuries of trying to exterminate them like vermin.

Deep in his chest where a heart would be, he respects the idea of a people who refuse to be stamped out, even despite his efforts which razed kingdoms to the ground and slaughtered men, women, and children alike. He recalls the smell of blood on the steel of his blade with a familiar sense of nostalgia.

Even this former Ranger has that air about him that is unmistakable despite the diluted blood. A black gauntlet reaches forward to Vyke, carrying no gesture of malice.

"What do you search forgiveness for? Tell me. I can help you."

[lrdvyke]

I think you carry the people you’ve loved with you forever, not in a ‘you can never get over them’ way but more like loving them changed you and it meant something and you have to make peace with that

[lrdvyke]

I don't have much but I DO have an open wound #OPENWOUND

[lrdvyke]

i want everyone to know vyke's frenzied eyes have hearts in them

see. do u see it? it's bc he's so full of love and nothing else😌

[lrdvyke]

An accident. It is all an accident. Never has Vyke meant it, but it happened anyway. It is happening. Right before his eyes, the same surprise he feels is painted upon the curve of Darian's features. Darian … an old friend, an old—no, it was another life. One he left, that left him, in the world of the Lands Between. Here is a new stone to turn over, to live as if nothing was amiss. But that is the wrong of it. To run away, a coward in the lap of another god who promises him sweetly with wide, too-welcoming smiles. And as if to spit upon his face for thinking such is a success, reunions are brought upon him in dawning horror.

The slip of steel into flesh … he would laugh at the metaphor of it had he the heart.

Still, Darian looks nothing like himself. ( Is it the blight? It must, but how? ) He barely recognized the man at first—there was no familiar signs about his person; no golden sword, no bright golden armor with the impassive face, but it was him. It is him. It is. Vyke's eyes widen behind his helm the more he stares, far too close to the other. ( A coveted distance, reserved for closed doors and shadowed corners. He feels a sob in his throat of what he has missed, of what he has given up. ) He feels the slick of the blood before he sees it. His head falling, seeing the pooling blood cover the gold of his gauntlet, mixing and marring.

It is not all red. It is not all smooth. It comes out rotted, and slow.

Confusion grabs him tightly. He looks from blood to man, hearing his name on the voice he so cherishes. There is a want to move, to pull back, to mend, but Darian does not let him go. Vyke merely swallows the panic. Has he killed him? Has he? After all these years thinking all he loved were safe behind high walls and warm beds, has he ended that well and truly? ❛ Me? After all this time— ❜ He gasps out, tone barely escapes from behind the helm that feels all too suffocating right about now. He cannot register the question just yet, finding it at odds against his mind. As if he is not the one who should be asked that, but the man pinned.

So he pulls the sword. Vyke's other arm wraps around Darian's waist and pulls upon the blade, careful not to do any more damage than has been done. But the blood … the blood is more blackened on the tip of the blade where it was deepest in the body. Vyke stares at it, wondering if touching it will do him harm. ( The Death Blight pervades, he does not trust it. ) So he tosses it away instead, letting it clatter to the dusty ground beneath them.

❛ Please, just sit. Just sit for me. I will try to mend this. I have to mend this. ❜ But as he lowers Darian, the blood does not flow as it did. Vyke takes off his helmet, and then his gloves, to pull the man's hand forth from his cloak. His own clasping it, cold and clammy as it feels against his own warmth. He stares upon the wound with a shuddering breath. And then the man himself. Pale, Darian has always been, but now greying as if a sickly pallor stole over him. The blackened bits crawling up his limbs from the bottom up, the clouded stare as if … as if …

❛ You're one of the dead, ❜ Vyke says quietly, echoing thoughts that did not make sense until now. ❛ Darian … how? ❜

( STAB ) standing against to mine, still with your (sender) weapon (example: dagger, sword) in mine's body. ( eheheh )

THIS SHADED LAND SEEMS NEVERENDING. sometimes he feels as if he were one of them. the groaning shades that stick to shattered places, or follow pilgrimages he cannot understand. at first he had thought they might have come here in the same manner as he. washed up in a coffin, remnants of a life that could not return to the erdtree. he has learned, since, in whispers and echoes, that they are something else entirely. that a crusade of flame swept these lands in the holy name of his revered queen, and the embers are still burning. he stepped in one once, melting his shoe, singing his flesh.

his faith is upended, strung up with the corpses that hang by the wayside, so long dead nobody remembers their names. darian, hunter of the dead, stumbles his way through the nightmare, one half of a whole, severed. the blight lives on in him. it isn't enough that it banished his soul from golden, promised rebirth, no. it writhes within him, thorns pressing forth, his mind addled. the gold and silver is lost. he wears now pieces of armour pieced together from soldiers and wanderers alike. by now, he's grown used to the sword he found. how it's slightly longer and thinner than his old one, balancing differently in his hand. his face is bare to the winds. and they see it. darian did not live for so long under the golden order to forget the recognition in even undead eyes. you are but a fraction of a whole, a shattered piece that should not be. marika's name, here, is a curse. and in the absence of her golden light, he too is cursed again.

so he stumbles, then wanders, watching, searching. for a way out, but also ... if the tides of death brought him here, would not rogier, too, have washed up?

he finds a familiar face, but not the one expected.

vyke looks different. he has never been so golden before, not even in the days where they both were under one faith, before the betrayal. he is almost radiant. had he not spoken his name, darian would never have known it to be him, clad in white and gold, familiar and yet changed. a new crest upon him, a new faith, again. not frenzied, as people whispered. alive and sane and here to touch—

it tears open an old wound barely healed. raw skin bare to the putrid, ever-burning air. in the erdtree's shadow, they meet again, and clash.

❛ you left, ❜ gasps he who was once golden, now ashen with blight and uncertainty. the hurt gushes forth, spilling into the icy pale of his eyes, into the motion that pushes him toward the other man, gripping his armour. he can't decide whether to yank him close or push him away. to kiss or to kill—he can do neither. how fell a beast love makes out of grief. ❛ without a word. as if ... as if i—we ... meant nothing at all ... ❜ they wrestle but he barely feels it. too focused on vyke right in front of him. death roars within him, his own nightmare now sharing his anger. it happens too quickly. everything too fast, a blur of angry tears and relief and ...

it feels, at first, like a punch. the blade lodged in his abdomen is hard and cold, not at all the searing agony of the thorned branches twisting their way through his flesh. it is almost merciful. when he loses his breath, everything stops.

❛ vyke— ❜

darian keeps a white-knuckled grip on the knight, a fist in his cloak, while the other hand holds his own sword limply. he still bleeds red. even in his deathless state, his blood is warm and crimson, soaking the dirty cloth and staining worn metal. he glances down between them, at the blade piercing him, connecting them. an old lover's kiss is cold. his blood spills over vyke's hand. for a moment, they are one.

surprise widens his eyes when he raises them again, seeing vyke's behind the helm clearly for the first time again. pale lashes blink slowly in shock. tongue tastes iron, the smell of his own blood. the blade holds him up. as if pinned to thin air, numb and breathless, darian doesn't even sway. ❛ vyke ... ❜ he repeats, barely a whisper. shall it be this, then? a final betrayal?

❛ what has become of you? ❜

TENSION / @lrdvyke

[lrdvyke]

vyke the dragonspear

[lrdvyke]

trust your heart. it’s a good heart and it’ll never lie to you ( alina )

Whispers. All it is … whispers. They fill his mind like a thin veil thrown over him, slowly, slowly constricting, growing tighter and tighter. Gossamer can only be so sheer enough until the thin thread digs and digs and digs. Flesh can only be so strong until it bleeds, it cracks, it burns. The whispers are like that. They dig. They are thin, but they dig. Oh do they dig. Vyke cannot see the end of it, so filled does it strangle him, to bore a hole into his mind's eye until there is nothing but those whispers.

They croon. They desire. They want. But most of all, they speak of horrors. Horrors that only he can prevent if he simply descends. Beneath the earth, beneath the capital, beneath the grace of gold, where only the faint light in the dark can quench these whispers. So he stares at Alina, his maiden, and there is a desperation within his milky eyes. Bloodshot, tired, he sees her death in every blink—succumbed by fire, surrounded, and falling, falling, falling. But she reaches out to him now, speaking words so soft they almost merge with the whispers that ache and arch around his mind just so.

Wriggling closer … itching the back of his eyes.

❛ Everything lies, dear Alina, ❜ Vyke whispers, unable to tell his voice from the rest. Only for a moment. A blink and his eyes refocus, pulling back some. His tone brings a volume of normalcy with it ❛ I will do as you say. No course is lost as long as our hearts are leading us. ❜

@moonstalk !

[lrdvyke]

we don't talk about finger maidens enough tbh they are perceived as weak, in need of being hidden away by their tarnished, and only know healing spells to be the support. but they are the strongest and largest threat towards tarnished than any other fellow tarnished or demi/god, to be exact. while there is death be had at the hands of the latter ( though it isn't a true death to be exact ), the finger maidens hold a power to deny and that is worse for a tarnished who was sent to the lands between for one purpose and one purpose only. if their maiden never finds them, or if they abandon them, or even deny them that, or worse yet, their maiden dies by the hand of another, no matter how fit that tarnished is, no matter how strong that tarnished is, they can't do anything towards the path to the throne without their maiden. then i wonder, the connection between maiden and tarnished is not to be taken so lightly because i don't think that it can be any maiden to any tarnished. if you don't find your one government assigned maiden then you're out of luck, you can't move past go no matter how much you want, or how much the guidance of grace you see. like it clicks into place why tarnished who do have a maiden, will do whatever it takes to keep said maiden.

[lrdvyke]

— how do you need to be touched? fervently, you crave a hug that cracks your ribs ... the feeling of your wandering soul being crushed back into the bones that can't seem to hold it. you need a hand gripping yours so tightly you almost fear it may leave a bruise, a reminder that you are here. and that you are not alone.

tagged by, @moonstalk ( kisses u ) tagging, @goldhunt @lenfear @shornlight and you 🫵