#( elgara / himsulem )

[mercysought]

Foi como entrar Foi como arder Para ti nem foi viver Foi mudar o mundo Sem pensar em mim Mas o tempo até passou E és o que ele me ensinou Uma chaga p'ra lembrar que há um fim.

- chaga by ornatos violeta (To enter, to burn. For you, it wasn't even living - it was to change the world without thinking of me. But time passed and you are what it taught me: a disease as a reminder that there is an end.")

[theeternalsun]

just for the fun of it skells, are there any shakespeare quotes (from the plays in the aesthetics meme or others) that you associate with the priestess?

Urgh there’s a few and I’m not sure if you wanted explanation so I’m going to try and not be too rambly. 

“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”I feel that this is obvious, the way that the priestess guides herself in the current age relies a lot on being perceived as trustworthy, to be seen as a motherly figure and one that cares for everyone beneath her. This smile of course hides all of the war crimes she has done in the past, including using children in war as a distraction or weapons.

“When sorrows come, they come not single spies. But in battalions!” In everything, at least in the priestess’ lifetime, when anything horrible happens in her life it’s never in singles. It always comes in large waves. The fall of Arlathan and the Elvhen came with its heralds: wars between the temples which made them weaker, ignoring that the humans could become a real issue especially considering how fast they procreated in comparison, the rebellion, the destruction of the veil. She did the same thing when she invaded cities and temples so it only seems fitting that she gets to pay in the same way as her enemies did.“God hath given you one face, and you make yourself another.” She was born into a mother and a father that followed Elgar’nan, it was believed that he and Mythal would give each of the elvhen their appearance, it was a gift. When joining Falon’din, stripping herself of her past and name she basically became faceless as well. She became one of the many where she is not Elgara but an extension of the God’s will. While in the battlefield, despite being a general, she wore the same uniform as any other soldier. When she was younger she took her face and made it to be what she wanted, later she again chose to make it something else. You could also see this with the changes of her roles through life, first as a runaway, a mercenary, a priestess, a general and what one would call a keeper (or a cult leader, you know, you pick the names).  “Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,Yet Grace must still look so.” I mean I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make this not rambly but I’ll try. What the prietess’ considers the ‘brightest fell’ is definitely not the same as us. She sees those as the Twins, the Gods, her brothers and sisters that have perished be it protecting Arlathan or died at the hands of Tevinter. They all got their images twisted or transformed one way or another, physically as well. The Gods’ image tried to be twisted by those following Fen’harel, later on by those of the current age that mix more fiction than actual History, viewing a lot of their history through a rosy lenses than what actually happened. Basically making the People things of legends and not real people. When she starts working to try and release the Gods she wonders what the prison has done of their Gods, be them physical or mental. They do not stop being Gods, but that doesn’t mean they are what they once were.“And sleep, that sometime shuts up sorrow’s eye, Steal me awhile from mine own company.” The priestess hasn’t been able to sleep a full night’s rest in a very, very long time. Currently, it’s less monsters and demons that afflict her as they did in the past but more very vivid memories of her past. Of Himsulem, of the wars, of her time in Tevinter, of the actual fall of Arlathan and all the invasions that came afterwards. She carries that sorrow and that guilt while awake and sleeping, though with very specific rituals she can find a way to rest, even if it’s for an hour and forget the amount of blood that her hands truly have.

“Though she be but little, she is fierce!” because, you know, the priestess is a five foot elf when everyone else is a fucking giant

[mercysought]

Cuando el amor no te da libertad Es una cárcel, una enfermedad Cuando el amor no te da libertad Hay que matarlo con frialdad

la presa by nathy peluso (when love doesn't give you freedom; when it's a prison, a disease. when love doesn't give you freedom; you must kill it coldly)

[mercysought]

Perguntei por mim Quis saber de nós Mas o mar Não me traz Tua voz. Em silêncio, amor Em tristeza enfim Eu te sinto, em flor Eu te sofro, em mim Eu te lembro, assim Partir é morrer Como amar É ganhar E perder.

— e depois do adeus by paulo de carvalho (I asked for myself / Wanted to know about us / but the sea / doesn't bring me / your voice. // In silence, love / in sadness, well / I feel you, in blooming / I suffer, within myself / I remember you thus / To depart is to die / just like to love / is to win / and to lose.)

[mercysought]

✨ Self-appreciation time~! List five of your favorite works, be it in the form of pieces of writing, graphics, icons, drawings, code, and so on. Then, if you're feeling up to it, pass this on to five more blogs! ✨

@prvtocol L. beloved thank you for doing this even as my presence here is -1 :') I'm going to break the rules and pick more than five because I can ✨

These will be incredibly self indulgent but they have sparked so much joy so I have to shout about them

Writing

I think any of the drabbles I've done for V. have been really successful.

V. and Takemura after meeting Oda,

V. getting tired of Takemura's attitude,

Sparing Oda,

some Takemura feels™

Any drabble I've done for Elgar'nan and Mythal (dragon age) are also things I'm very proud:

retelling of the codex entry: Vir Dirthara: Duel of a Hundred Years,

meme reply of Elgar'nan and Fen'harel interacting,

another meme reply between Elgar'nan and Fen'harel

The black sails drabbles I've done with Émilie (in the shared plot with @immobiliter / @trickstercaptain and @imbricare)

Billy and Émilie meeting on her first arrival to Nassau,

Billy and Émilie having a moment as shit goes down in late s1

Billy and Émilie having a soft moment in s3 because we don't know what "doing what's good for you" means.

The priestess drabbles but specifically

The priestess post trespasser meeting Fen'harel

himsulem and elgara meeting (as adults)

Edits

Elvhenan to the tune of hadestown

Destiny, fate and death

The gentleman to the tune of woodkid

Maxima and mean girls™

The priestess to the tune of troll by shane koyczan

asharen and solas to the tune of agarrate by nathy peluso

Drawings

The priestess post trespasser

Inquisitor Asharen as King of Cups

Émilie de Clair

Maxima Aurum

these are the ones that come to mind immediately but honestly if I sat long enough I'd probably fill this list even more :') in any case, these things spark joy ❤

[mercysought]

And oh, didn't want to believe such a monster in me and I know, I've always known, in the end I'd be sorry and that's all I am now, and it's all I can be Is sorry

sorry by dodie

[mercysought]

The festival was a multi day affair.

The culmination of work, a celebration for those that worshiped the Patron God that overlooked the sharp cliffs that fell straight into a ravenous ocean. 

This place, Himsulem had always thought, had been perfect for Elgar’nan to lay claim as a representation of what he meant to represent. To the West, a loud and violent ocean welcomed all that dared to look deep into its abyss. It was known across the many different generations that had grown so close to them the different paths to climb down the sharp rocks. It was known that no golden sand would truly receive them, not unless the sunlight reached the bottom of the sea floor. A treasure between the sharpened rocks.

Even further West, they would find rolling waves of grains that kept their lands so separated. Bare. A sharp contrast to the stories that he had heard from the City that had risen in the middle of beautiful leaves. Many there wanted to leave, to see what sort of beauty was this that so many dreamt about. Himsulem’s mind didn’t turn to the leaves, to the thick roots that tore through ground, the large spiralling towers made out of gold. Of the Sun itself. 

Himsulem thought that it was more folly than necessarily reality. The wild imagination of those that knew nothing but the work in the fields, the rolling of the waves, the cast shadow of the temple. 

Not many from far West made their way to their small celebration; stories existed of once the celebration in honour of the All Father had been so great and bountiful that he himself had presided over them. 

He remembered no such thing. But Himsulem wasn’t unaware of the fanciful fabrications that the large, looming temple loved to weave. He was perhaps simply less willing to be swayed by them.

That same temple looms in the dying sunlight. Its shadow pools all around the square of his village. The large flames roar louder than the waves at his back and illuminate the sharp and austere stones of the place of worship. 

Children sing of the many songs of worship and Himsulem finds himself humming along with them as they carry around painted wooden dragon masks. From behind them only dark eyes watch on, reflected by the dying Sun or the bright flames of the fire. Laughter cuts the words and his lips curl to see how the air around them turned to form simple shapes. A tail. Small wings. 

The most discombobulated dragons one would ever see.

The festival was a multi day affair. And in these days, night never truly set in. The sun remained at the horizon’s edge painting the ocean and sky alike of a bright vivid red. A blanket that faded to grey the furthest west it went. Clouds, however, were often a common sight, blocking out shapes above them all. The rolling of thunder and the scent of frenetic energy were just as common. 

It was after blinking, clearing away the ashes, that he caught a glimpse of her. The first one.

The one that he remembers best. The strike of lightning that had both grounded him to the ground and moved him away from the wall of the temple from which he had been observing. Wiped out the smile completely. 

In the sea of so many that had been lined by the All Father’s whip. A sharp gaze that watched them even when the night fell; in the sea of dark eyes, he would always know those. 

He would know those dark eyes anywhere. He would know them even if they both stood in the complete darkness of the sea. The same sea that he had followed her to once, had watched her jump fearlessly into the waves. He would know them despite the time that had passed, the scars that surrounded them or the darkness of the skin that surrounded them. He knew them best for the hunger. The flash of defiance that had nested so deeply into them as to make it their colour.

It was those same eyes that he looked for now, through the flickering of the flames and the people that passed. 

It was a pull that called him to jump after her during those waters when they were both still children. Fear biting at his heels and the wind roaring around his ears, braids swinging wildly in anticipation. It was that same pull that brought him closer to the flames, into the crowd of people. 

When the cold water had fully enveloped him, pulling him down by the waves, he felt his heart beat the fastest it had ever. Faster than when he had ran from his home to the Village Square after missing an offering. There was nothing but darkness and yet he felt watched. 

Elgara had often described it as a tight hug, a single safe space that she could scream until she held nothing more within her.

Himsulem believed that it was that anger that crashed the waves into the cliffs, that tore through rocks and threatened to one day take the temple down with it. He believed that it was that same intense stare that fallen on him then.

It is a familiar sensation now, to stand in the sea of so many faces, so close to the flames and yet feel so throughout watched.

   “AH!” cold thin hands dig into his sides and a scream erupts from behind him.

Himsulem is unsure if it is the icy touch that makes him jump and yell just as equally. If it is that or the hands at his side. His heart beats on his ears, louder than the flames behind him, louder than the music, the laughter. 

She looked so different.  Laughing. Elgara stands before him, curled over herself and dark eyes watching him as the laughing unfolds. There is the same familiar fatigue but her shoulders remain straight, thin lines touch the dark skin, sinking into it. The scars did not surprise him, it would surprise him if she hadn’t earned none since they had last seen each other. Bare faced, she smiles like a wolf in the darkness when the laughter comes to a close. Long dreads rest against bare shoulders, over a simple bright red and yellow flowy robes. Gold necklaces displayed over her chest, her wrists, her fingers.  

So different. Except for the eyes. Tired, hungry. Defiant. 

Happier. Lighter too.

Himsulem takes a breath, inhaling sharply. He could have been holding his breath for the past few years, for all he knew.

Her tongue brushes against sharpened teeth, her hand coming to rest against his chest tapping it gently as she moved past him. A request, a dare to follow “You haven’t learnt a thing!“ 

[mercysought]

Meu amor, meu amor... Minha estrela da tarde, Que o luar te amanheça E o meu corpo te guarde. Meu amor, meu amor... Eu não tenho a certeza Se tu és a alegria ou se és a tristeza.

estrela da tarde by carlos do carmo (My love, my love... My afternoon star, let the moonshine dawn on you and my body keep you. My love, my love... I am not sure if you’re joy or if you’re sadness.)

[mercysought]

Eu sei que o mar não me escolheu Eu sei que o mar fala de ti.

o mar fala de ti by mafalda arnauth (”I know the sea did not pick me. I know he speaks of you.”)

[mercysought]

No se puede amar solo ilusiones Qué agonía este querer Qué oscuridad en este amanecer Hoy la lluvia a mí me está mojando El cielo está arriba quebrando No supiste entender esta lección Y mis besos ahora te piden perdón Por creer que había luz en estas manos Por saber antes de ti que se ha acabado Tengo fe en el comienzo, pero hoy ¡Me estoy muriendo

agarrate by nathy peluso (You can’t love only ilusions / What agony is this want / What darkeness in this sunrise / today the rain drenches me / the sky above me is breaking / You didn’t understand this lesson / and now my kisses are the ones that beg your pardon / for believing that there was light in these hands / for knowing before you that this was over / I have faith in the beginning, but today / I am dying)

[mercysought]

@theharellan​​​ . "Tell me about her," he says, though it is a gentle prompting. In times of war it is a precarious subject to discuss loved ones, doubly so when one's enemies are their countrymen. Fen'Harel risks it regardless, for there is no overlooking the mark she's left upon Himsulem. Her memory is alive in the air around him, as real as the soldier he sits beside. "This woman you love. How did you meet?" . thank you so much for sending this ♥️

Only the sound of the small chisel against the small wooden block on the man’s hands is heard. His head tilts up to face the leader of this rebellion. Himsulem, for all his distance and for the calm expression on his face, is still surprised to be allowed to be there. Perhaps, perhaps there was still hope that this could actually work. Perhaps. But many that had seen him spoke to him under the assumption that he was there to have his vallaslin removed. When his people understood that Himsulem wasn’t one of them, then some were far too eager to convert them to their cause, while others distanced themselves with distrust in their eyes.

Himsulem chose instead to sit by the healers and those that were recovering from the last squirmish. It wasn’t peaceful, but it was a place that he could stay for the moment before departing.

In the cold light of an extremely early morning, surrounded by wounded and the near dying. Their groans and calls to names, not of the Gods, but names that Himsulem didn’t know. The leader of this rebellion, a once god, sits beside him on a ledge, watching his dark hands work a rough shape out of a piece of wood. Himsulem smiles, tight lipped, dark eyes falling to it from Fen’Harel. A name that even now, despite the small smidges of hope that this camp and what he knows has allowed him to have... Himsulem did not like to use “That’s a hard question to answer.“  

   “I first met Elgara when we were both children. We grew up in a small village to the East. I caught her doing something that would have really got her into trouble. She uh...” his voice wanders, disappearing into the curves of a smile that grows as he focuses on the corner of his work. Deep dark eyes look up to the other, glancing for the moment and taking him in. Measuring him. She had been a child and felt wrong to be telling such things considering how serious they would have been had she been caught. Somehow, he feels he would understand. Despite the smile, the brightness of the memories did not come from the circumstances they had grew up in.

They came from the earliest glimpses of the woman that she was, that she would become. The root of his hopes, the starting point that had lead him to sit there.

   “She was stealing the food offerings from the Elgar’nan temple, and a few gold coins from the alms plate.” the only place of importance, one would say if they were to visit from Arlathan. The only building made out of light stone among the smaller houses crafted from the local woods. Large. So large that where it had been build — right at the eastern edge of the village, overlooking the expansive ocean, at the edge of a sharp cliff that bordered the whole village — it blocked the view of the ocean from the main square. So large that the first notice of sunlight in the morning came when the sunlight kissed the corners of its form. The top most section of its dome ceiling.

Only then did the light spill to the rest of them.

They were all hungry then. All with only the shirt that they had on their backs. But they were content. Elgara was the smallest among them, the skinniest. Her family living the furthest from town. Himsulem would later find out that her mother starved the family, giving almost all of their produce to the temple. Behind those deep-set dark eyes he could see it even then: the mischief. The anger. The ‘fuck you’ attitude.

That look had never left them, only emboldened with age and experience.

   “She told me to mind my own business...” the wooden block is turned on his hands. The chipping of wood “And that she would throw me off the edge of the cliff if I told anyone.”

And he believed her.

Many would think it charming perhaps. That perhaps Himsulem had fallen in love with her then and there at that brash and aggressive attitude. Many could believe it: the beginnings of a fairy-tail. And yet it was not the truth.

She had seen this small girl — that many had taken to call her spider like or other not so kind names break the nose of a boy twice her size. Blinded him first with dirt and then with her fingers in his eyes. She had seen tree adults struggling to pull this small girl from the boy that had enraged her.

He had been afraid of that little girl.

   “She... uh, she left the village not long after that.” she had never told him why though she had not been the only one to leave at around the same time. Many children had disappeared at around the same time. There were whispers as to what that might be. Many of the children that disappeared were meant to be initiated.

And yet a few days before they were meant to walk into the halls to become followers of the All Father, they disappeared.

He blows over the chips, careful to be away from the wind, away from the wounded. That was the first time they had met, but not truly.  

   “The next time we met we were both adults. Our village had a large celebration in Elgar’nan’s honour and there she was...” grown and yet still skin and bones. Well, skin, bones and muscle. Neither of them really were the same children that they had been when they had met. She looked beautiful "She looked different. She was different. I don’t think she was expecting anyone to really recognise her. Or maybe was just hoping that’d be the case...”

Gold rings with teal jewels around her fingers and chest. Dark Hair loosely held in the back of her head. Many scars over her beautiful black skin. She carried them like the jewels in her hair, in her rings, in her wrists. Her voice no longer a growl but smooth, confident. So confident. She never told him where she went, what she did. Not with much detail despite his attempts. But she looked happier “Later Elgara told me that she had been coming back each year for the festival for a while because it was the easiest time to stress out the priests and priestesses.” he snorts. How many times had it taken until he recognised her? Saw her? Even now, after centuries after her leaving, millenia after they had met, he still wondered: how long had she taken to recognise him, to see him until she had approached him?

The chisel is held up, mid motion before Himsulem allows himself to continue “We danced the whole night away.“

Which made her leaving all the hardest. They repeated this for years, for decades and centuries. She would back one day, two days, then weeks at a time. Then turned into months, until Himsulem asked her to stay and be his wife. Not in the eyes of Gods, but for them. In their hearts, in their minds. In their own eyes.

Himsulem knew that Elgara was sick. That she had been sick for a very long time.

At first he had thought that she had grown out of it, but as the years stretched and she remained with him for longer he knew. He caught glimpses, more and more. Elgara was sick and she was growing worse. They both knew.

   “Elgara was constantly reinventing herself.”

Was. Himsulem stops the wood carving as he realises what he has said.

Elgara is constantly reinventing herself.

A sigh leaves his nose and dark eyes close. They sting. From fatigue, from emotion, from sadness, from being tired to fight. From the memories of a life that grows dimmer and unlikely as times went on.

Elgara, his wife, his beautiful wife, was sick. By the time that she left for the last time she was the worst she had been for a long time. They knew, and Himsulem believed Falon’din did too. Himsulem wondered how long the monster had known that, how long he had been picking her apart. Another sigh. Himsulem puts the chisel and wooden block aside, cleaning his hands lightly “If what I’ve heard is true, I am... afraid for who I might meet next time we come across each other.”

Their village had been one of the first to be decimated when the wave of terror started. After so many years one could barely distinguish, but he knew now that they did. And that it hadn’t been an accident for them to be one of the first. 

He was still living there, among the crowd when the priests of Elgar’nan announced to all that they had good source from the capital that told them one of the people that helmed an attack at a different Elgar’nan temple had been from this village.

A good source was all that was needed for the parents of all the children that had escaped during the early period of their childhood to be hanged on the the trees that separated their home town to the outside area. A warning for all that should hear and come across it.

Many left after that. Himsulem had been among them, driven deeper into the wilderness and as far away from the village, or any point with many other people as he could.

It was later he leaned that the Twin’s army had rolled into the area, decimated the village. He had heard the stories from those that had managed to survive and escape. How the priests had been rounded and locked in the large, beautiful temple. How a woman among the soldiers had raised the building, each of the stones held together, the screams of the people inside. How she had walked towards the edge of the cliff and allowed it all to crumble into the dark and violent waters beneath.

He had known then.

And yet, sitting among the sick and the dying, in a refugee camp surrounded by rebels, sitting beside a man responsible for so much blood being spilled: he felt hope. He felt hope that when he found Elgara again that she would come with him.

[mercysought]

I've been feeling old, I've been feeling cold You're the heat that I know Listen, you are my sun.

drop the game by flume & chet faker

[mercysought]

I knew a girl once With fire in her eyes A face like painted glass And a knife strapped to her thigh We played it fast and young But our love was strong And I made up my mind 'Til she whispered, "Don't fear my dear All will be clear in time."

femme fatale by coyote kid

[mercysought]

I came to break the wall that rose around you To see the land of all I will fall for you.

land of all by woodkid

[mercysought]

Ouvi dizer que o nosso amor acabou. Pois eu não tive a noção do seu fim.

ouvi dizer by ornatos violeta

I heard that our love was over. I wasn’t aware of its end.

[mercysought]

even where the bricks are stacked / love is blooming through the cracks / even when the light is gone / love is reaching for the sun / it was love that spun the world / when i was a young girl.

chant (reprise) by hadestown (the play)