#IC Writing

[askthekirbysquad]

I would like to say hello to everyone!

Ah, another visitor!

Magolor's ears perked up at the sound of the other's voice. Looking up from his desk and the paperwork he was working on, he greeted the newcomer with a smile.

"Hello hello, and welcome to Merry Magoland! Home to the very best theme park games in the universe!"

"I assure you, all of the attractions here are completely safe, with only a 2.285% chance of death!"

The sound of an exploding bomb went off in the distance, coming from one of the attractions.

"Totally harmless!!"

The mage clapped his hands together, his grin (...did it feel this sinister a minute ago?) never faltering in the slightest.

"Go on, now! Check out anything and everything that catches your eye! And if you'd like to purchase some fun masks, talk to the Waddle Dee vendor running that cart on your left!"

Ah, this person had said they wanted to say 'hi' to everyone, right?

"Oh, and if you're looking for any of my friends, I'm sure they're still here having a blast playing my games, hehe!" Perhaps even literally!

[yunessa]

When I dream about the fragmented memories I have about my past they collide with each other to form strange things.I know the dreams aren’t real, but the me in the dream continues  on heedless.

There are no faces but mine in these dreams. No colour to them save for shades of black, white, and grey. No sound either, but I react in the dream as if it was It is a patchy landscape.

In the dream I was sitting atop rubble watching a sea of grass as the wind blew. The grass flowed like water beneath the wind’s gentle caress and I had, for a moment, peace.  The me in the dream heard noise and so I turned to greet a person I could not see. It wa as their very image had been torn out of my dream. Like a piece of paper torn out.

I remember putting a finger to my lips. I am certain I asked if they came to find me. They spoke but the me in the dream just chuckled and asked them not to tell ‘our favourite healer’. I realised then that the me in the dream had bandages wrapped around their abdomen. I could feel the trickle of blood as it creeped between stitches.  What injured me to that point I do not know. A fall? Emergency field surgery?

In the dream I complained I could not sleep  with the medicine the healer had given me- it gave me nightmares and sleeping was difficult. My companion responded and I gave my most charming smile despite the pain. 

I promised them a song and a song I gave, playing my lyre despite the pain. I remember seeing the grass flow like water. The companion that had come up to  turned and further down the hill another companion came up. Their face scratched out but the dream self that was me winced. The healer, I think.

The dream was peaceful enough.  But it wasn’t me. I dreamed another when that one faded away. It was a birthday party. So many excited faces, so many streamers hanging wherever they could be tacked on. There was a conjured animal covered in fur. It felt like it could have been real, and not just a strange dream. Though the memory of that drips through my fingers like water and I have lost most of it.

I write it down now, hoping to find some sort of connection between the scraps of memory. But are any of them real? My mentor was real, but I feel like I’ve still lost a lot of that as the curse had ‘fed’ throughout the decade since we parted.

There’s a scene in  a play called ‘Lost among the Waves’ where the amnesiac character screams to the sky  and demands to know who he was, what he was.

I think about it sometimes. But more often, I think that, to me, it doesn’t matter. I am not dead. Why do I even make room in my mind for such nonsense?  Even if I regained who I was, am I hoping I feel something more? Or less? These notes are nothing more than the notes of a cursed elf who has been far luckier than they deserve to be.

Strange thoughts come with strange dreams, I suppose.

-Yunessa

[dragons-ire]

The Two Brothers

(as told at and for Bel Canto Winery - @wine-xiv)

Before this place was the winery it is today - before it was an opera house, even - it was just a bare expanse of tidepools and sandbar. A little higher up, maybe a few trees and grasses to keep the entire island from washing out with the tide. 

Until one day, a pair of brothers rowed over from the mainland. The eldest was called Merlgeiss, and his younger brother: Keltanth.

They'd heard there was a fortune, you see, buried somewhere on the dunes. And so they'd brought supplies and shovels, and a dream they'd packed for themselves in the bottom of their rucksacks, of becoming wealthy men.

So when they hit ground, they made camp, and got up at first light with their shovels to dig. And dig they did, from sunrise to sunset. For sennights at a time, until their hands were cracked and blistered and their backs stiff and stooped.  And at night, they ate hardtack and the freshwater they caught with the rain, and in the morning they began again.

They never found the pirate's buried hoard that had brought them there. Not in gold and jewels, at least. But they dug in the earth, and they turned over the sand all through the winter until the loam underneath began to show. 

And in the spring, they readied their shovels again, only to stop as they saw something winding through the soil that wasn't seagrass or the roots of a tree. 

Just a wild La Noscean grape vine, struggling for the sun. The seeds washed in by the sea, or carried there by some bird.

They knew then that, with some work, they'd found something just as good as gold.

It was several more long seasons of toiling before anything came of it. One single vine that turned into two, and three, and at last rows of them, green and purple in the sunlight. The first harvest, pressed and crushed and storedin the first barrel that's said to have been fashioned from the planks of the rowboat that had first carried them to the shore.

And when they decanted that first bottle, they knew that this had to be the treasure they had come seeking.

In the years before the Calamity, the two brothers' vintages were widely known up and down the coast. Pirate lords and rich merchants alike paid well to have bottles in their larders. The famous culinarians in the city competed to invent dishes to pair with them. And the brothers' made enough fortune that they could bring in workers to till the fields, and builders to build casks as well as buildings to house everyone. Before long, they had more money than they could count by themselves.

But as their fortune and fame grew, it seemed to eat away at the simple camaraderie that had brought them here in the first place. That which had seen them through all those days and nights of hardship eroded just as a seacoast will if it has nothing planted in it to keep it fast.

The workers would say, later, how they'd heard the pair quarreling late at night. Their raised voices constantly bickering about something - about the money, the business and what to do with it. The most anyone could report was that they disagreed about the place's future. One of them wanted to sell it and settle to an easy life. The other thought they were only at the beginning of what they could gain.

Unfortunately, the argument never resolved itself. One morning, the workers who rose early found the body of the eldest brother, Merlgeiss, lying on the sand, half-carried out by the tide. His body bore the marks of a violent struggle. The crabs and the gulls had already started to move in.

Not a day later, the Yellowjackets picked up Kelthanth, the younger brother, wearing his elder brother's jacket, trying to book passage out of Wineport with nothing but gil in his luggage. Whatever happened, he refused to say, but his guilt was plain to anyone looking. He went to the hangman without breathing a word as to why.

It wasn't so long after that that the Calamity washed the entire place out to sea. The rich earth was re-settled in the years afterwards. An opera house, and then, by some grand coincidence, another vineyard broke ground.

But it's said still that Merlgeiss' spirit is restless still, and wanders up and down the coast and in through the grapevines. And sometimes, even into the house itself, as if ceaselessly searching for that treasure he'd had and lost. Or at the very least, a glass of wine for his parched soul.

So: if you happen to wander through the winery late at night and find something out of place - let’s say a wine glass that someone seems to have forgotten. The staff seem to have neglected to pick it up. 

You should leave it alone. 

The guest will be by for it in his own time.

[kailani-ffxiv]

Prompt #1: A step forward

Clear waves sloshed against the wooden hull. A cool breeze swirl in raven hair twisting up to into the canvas. Feet dangled in the open air rotating with the movement of the sea.

Fresh start. At least a new beginning, a direction. She had been lost in thought and indecision for many moons she wondered if she'd ever find a way out. Perhaps cautiously optimistic that she wouldn't need to watch her back as closely... He had her back, even if she hadn't asked she knew he would know if anything changed.

New contract, new face, new trust... regardless of where this led her it was rolling her forward. Back where she felt at peace, doing what she was good at. It's exactly where she was suppose to be, except... No it was good but... it's the present not forever. Ride the surf until she's called to the shore once more.

[cljordan-imperium]

[Muse Monday!] Hi, Mahala! Not to dig up potential drama and pain, but let’s say the ritual you were planning way back when you first came to your family’s estate worked. Would you have found the answers you were looking for, do you think? Or is what happened instead far more . . . enlightening? 8)

It seems I will get some of the answers I was looking for, albeit from a different route. Instead of gaining clarity from my mother, who I'm learning lied quite a bit while she was alive, I'm discovering that family is more than blood. I'm not sure she would have been honest had I summoned her. She'd had 25 years to tell me the truth, but hadn't. I'm not sure death would have helped her loosen her tongue.

It seems that Vollrath *lowers eyes and blushes before clearing throat* for all his dominant and stubborn ways, did save me from more than one thing that night. The world he brought me into isn't a safe one, but I feel completely safe with him. Elmar and Baldur are growing on me too. *chuckles softly with an affectionate smile* Although, next to Vol, the biggest thing I've gained is Balor. Maybe I wasn't the one meant to get healing and closure that night. *soft smile* Maybe I was the one meant to bridge the gap and mend the rift between brothers in a way they couldn't do themselves.

In the end, even with all that is to come because of meeting Vollrath, I prefer this way. I will have my truth. I will have family. And I know that the three who stand at my side will never betray me. That is more than I can say for any that ever resided in the Codona mansion. *warm smile*

@blind-the-winds

[stainedglasstruth]

What does happiness look like to you?

Happiness looks like a massive library full of books just waiting to be read. It looks like a picnic with my roommates, and making my best friend laugh. It looks like cuddling my cat and getting him to purr. It looks like finishing a final draft and connecting dots and getting answers. It looks like a massive cup of coffee. It looks like staying up late and sleeping in, like waking up next to her.

Happiness looks as yellow as a primrose, like sunflowers and dahlias, like a lush garden exploding with different hues of green. It looks like stars and fireflies and the setting sun. It looks like a lake. It looks like a kitchen, like a table full of friends, like a shared drink, a shared meal. It looks like an old photograph, a well-loved book, a familiar face, a bad joke, a smile.

Happiness looks like them.

[gowithplana]

Hope. Hope motivates us all does it not? Optimus wonders sometimes, about the way hope can drive someone. He tips his helm back with his arms crossed over his balcony rail. He extends his wings to let them get a little sun over them.

Closes his optics. Hope. So many species had stories about hope. About what it was. Hope is a thing with Feathers -

Wings, flight, freedom. Hope is always associated with escape, with the ability to fling oneself from the precipice and trust it would catch you.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

Hope gave and gave and gave. But the last line of that poem had never quite felt true. Hope asked so much of you. It asked for Faith. In others, in yourself, in the world. It Asked for patience. Because hope was not over night, better days could not be bought in mere seconds. One had to wait for the better while hope kept you warm with could bes. It could kill. Because Hope also asked you for action. Hope for tomorrow meant you had to work for tomorrow. Doing nothing did nothing. Waiting and silence with hope, it could smother it, or turn it into something that was no longer hope. But was instead complacency and obedience in the worst way. - And then they came for me, because I had no more neighbors.

Optimus flares his stubbed wings. Hope hope hope... It was a prayer. Optimus braces his weight more heavily over his arms on the rail. Bowing his helm down, armor ruffling. It was the last prayer. Hope. . . Such a small word for such a big impact. It could ruin a mech or it could turn them into something out of legend. Optimus wonders... what will they say of him and hope one day? When he rejoins the well, what will they say of Magnate Optimus Prime? What will they say of the things he has done. Will they keep his speeches faithful? Will they embellish his image? Will they too turn him into an image of hope for a struggling society? Will he be a figure of the Temples or a Back Alley Saint? Will he be for the people...or for the Image of the Government? Optimus...Optimus hopes, that the good he has built will be lasting. That the world he is building for his people...will be lasting. Because he does not know the future. So Hope, Hope is what he has. And in the meantime, he will do his best today to secure that hope.

[dreamsofalifeold]

Diary Entry: Date Unknown

I’ve always known there was something wrong with me.

I don’t really know how to describe it, but it’s like...there’s something rotten about me. I do everything I can to hide it, to make sure it stays buried deep under every smile and nice action, but I feel like everyone can tell. They’re nice about it, of course; few people are ever willing to call someone out, even when it’s necessary, but it feels like torture waiting for someone to finally recognize it and bring it to the surface.

I try everything I can to be good, you know? I do the best I can, hoping that someday the scale will tip and I’ll magically transform into a good person like I always wanted. Then it won’t feel so hard to be good, and I’ll stop having to worry about hiding what’s wrong with me. God, it’s getting so hard to pretend...Some days, I feel like I’m not even human; I’m just skin stretched over tar and broken glass. Those are the worst days, because I’m worried that I’ll slip up, and...I don’t even know, really.

Thing is, I don’t really know who I am outside of trying to pretend there’s not something off about me. It’s so lonely, always having to pretend, and I’ve devoted so much time and energy to pretending that I’m afraid there’s not a real version of me that even exists. If I separated myself from the thing that’s wrong with me, would there be anything left?

What scares me more than people seeing me for what I really am is not knowing the answer.

[solstice-souls]

"Your final wishes have been honored, you know.” Who was he even talking to, at this point? The ice? The silence? The gaping void in his heart? The stupid, glamoured walls meant to recreate the day he and his only friend met? Did it even matter? Did anything matter anymore? “Our eldest has taken the throne. It was never to my liking, you know. Far too catered to your tastes. Sure, to the common man it may seem like some regal spectacle, but I hated it. I never told you that, did I?”

Now he never would. Not because he wanted to honor his love’s ideas, no. Now he couldn’t. “What else did I never tell you, hm? What didn’t I say enough, I wonder…”

The pain in his chest was growing. But that didn’t really matter. Nothing mattered anymore. “Did I tell you that I loved you enough? Did I tell you that everything I did was to make you smile? You rarely smiled. I always appreciated how special your smiles were. The way your lips creased, the sound of your laugh..."

[ashamaxxing]

mom come pick me up they’re defending the divine right of kings on asoiaf twitter again

[bebx]

Tragic brothers.

Dexter: Dexter Morgan and Brian Moser. Genesis by Valzhyna Mort † Abel’s Body to Cain by Joseph Fasano

[askthekirbysquad]

"Meta Kniiiiight!!!" Kirby whined, batting at the older puffball with his fists as he leaned against him. "Just let me wiiiiiiiin!"

Meta Knight raised an eyebrow, unbothered by the other's 'attacks'. "And allow you to split yet another one of my masks in half?" He chuckled. "I'm afraid not, Kirby."

The swordsman had already learned that lesson twice by now, after going a little easier on his student and paying the price for it. At this point, with his stash of spare masks dwindling in order to truly challenge Kirby's abilities, he had no intentions of going anything less than all-out.

"You will not get any stronger if you only ever fight against weak foes."

"But it's haaaaard!" Kirby pouted, sinking to the floor. Though he may have been Dream Land's hero and had saved both it and the wider universe on several occasions, Kirby was still a child, and clearly, not one who appreciated losing several times over. "This dumb samurai stuff is different from our usual training!! I can fight really good when it's a normal battle. But this is just waiting... And waiting... And more waiting..." He yawned. Even just talking about all the waiting he had to do was making him tired. "And then when I can actually fight without getting in trouble, I've gotta be really really fast, because I lose if you hit me even once! I don't like it."

"What if you someday face a foe capable of defeating you in one blow?" Given the exceedingly powerful threats Kirby had faced in recent times, such an opponent was not entirely out of the question. So, it was important that, as his mentor, Meta Knight prepared him for the situation before it could arise. "It may be more wise to dodge rather than strike first in such a scenario, that is true, but the point of this exercise is to train your reaction time. Being able to react quickly and intelligently to anything your opponent may throw at you in the heat of battle is a vital skill to learn."

Kirby merely grumbled in response, absentmindedly wondering if there was any copy ability he could use to melt further into the ground. Maybe Meta Knight's lecture made just a teensy tiny little bit of sense, but it didn't make him any less frustrated by the new training regimen.

Meta Knight sighed at the young puff's antics, and produced the Maxim Tomato he had kept safely tucked within his cape. They had been training for a while now, he supposed, and it was good to have small rests every now and then between sessions. ...Even if that was something he himself was notoriously bad at incorporating into his own training. Luckily for the swordsman, Kirby immediately perked up upon seeing his favourite food.

"You will get better with practice, I am sure." Meta Knight said. "You are already quite skilled at spooking Dedede with that party popper, I must say." Handing Kirby the tomato, he added, "Take a break for now, however, and let me know when you are prepared to resume our training."

"Mm-hm! Thank you, Meta Knight!" Kirby gleefully responded, his sour mood forgotten as he held the precious Maxim Tomato in his hands. Good food made everything better! The new type of training was still dumb, in his opinion, and it was gonna be hard to beat Meta Knight with all those extra rules in place, but thanks to his snack, he had a feeling that he could do it!!

...Meanwhile, in the distance and out of sight of the unsuspecting duo, Magolor snickered to himself as he prepared his legion of mini Scarcutter attacks. It was wonderful to see his friends enjoying the theme park he created, and while he did have some Park Manager work to attend to... Well, who's to say he couldn't have his own fun in Merry Magoland's attractions?

[ping-ski]

shrödinger's plex fic (they are real to me)

EBY eclipse and y/n ref here!! :3

[dragons-ire]

Gold from Galvanth's Hoard - The Legend of the Dullahan

Howard Shore - The Doors of Durin

A long time ago, in a place long since forgotten, there was a king who ruled over a vast kingdom.

His demesne stretched for malms around, twisting beneath the earth, out of sight from the sun and the forest above. For in those days, mortals still lived in fear of the elements that held dominion of the worlds above, and hid their faces and lived beneath their sight.

Still, buried as it was, the kingdom did well. They grew foods that thrived with little light, and they flourished in the dark and prospered there.

In his hall beneath the earth, the king prospered as well above his subjects. His riches and treasure were numerous - a vast trove of coin and jewels and other things pulled from the depths of the ground.

To keep his wealth safe from the larcenous and the ambitious alive, he appointed his most faithful knights to keep watch over his treasure hoard and to keep it safe from those who might seek to plunder or corrupt it.

The king’s knights knelt to swear a powerful oath to their liege, and they took up their vigil. No one got in to look upon the king’s magnificent treasure, and none who had seen it in those times spoke of it to the outside.

But - as all things do - the world began to change. The king grew old and eventually died. His people, bereft of his leadership that had kept them united, began to scatter. Eventually, some of them began to venture towards the surface and the sunlight, to make peace with the elements and bright world above.

Others followed, and the ones that remained swindled until they no longer had the numbered to keep up the great domain they’d once flourished in.

Eventually, it fell to ruin.

As for the knights who were sword to protect their king’s riches, the, too, fell to the passage of time. But it’s said the power of their oath was such that their spirits did not pass to the next life in their final moments. Instead, they remained behind, bound by duty to the armor and weapons they had borne in life.

It was bound such they continued to keep silent vigil even as their kingdom crumbled around them. Their king passed into the next world, and they could do naught. The people left and their home abandoned - at least, until legends of the riches that had been left behind reached the ears of treasure hunters on the surface. They came in small bands here and there to plunder what they could by the handful.

It’s easy to imagine the first of them surprised when a costly suit of armor in the middle of the hoard first roused of its own accord to strike out with a weapon. But a surprise is not always a deterrent. The dead are slow, after all, and the living are quick.

Slow as they were, however, they were yet strong  - fueled by the unholy strength of the unliving, a single placed strike could easily cleave a foolhardy adventurer in twain. And their duty, in death as in in life, would not go unfulfilled. Pursuing thieves in the ruins turned to hunting anyone who ventured too close, or wandered too far into the remains of the old kingdom.

The dullahan, as they came to be called, came to herald the doom of any who crossed them.

Clever travelers in the Black Shroud know to avoid the old places where the haunted armor still wanders in search of thieves long dead and treasure long scattered. 

Or, if they must brave those places, might carry a bit of wealth out of superstition. A coin, a bit of jewelry or some other precious thing.

Perhaps if offered to a dullahan - if they should be unlucky enough to encounter one - it will be enough for it to be mistaken for a bit of royal treasure returned.

At least, long enough for them to pass safely by.

[kailani-ffxiv]

Prompt 4: Unpacking

Alone and boxed up. Put away for another day. Possibly forgotten, or perhaps lost. It wasn’t something she had thought about in many moons, nay years. She hadn’t been back to it or to the place it belonged. She had last put it in a drawer beside a copy of the letter that went rejected the last night she was there. Still unsure how he could disregard the ending of a contract it became a reminder instead. How many pleas for help had gone unanswered, jobs and contracts that they thought she had ignored. It was something she thought a lot about when she first left heading east but those ties unraveled and the reminders.. the guilt drifted with the distance. If they had needed her, they could have asked another who knew. If they had needed her, would she have answered? But they didn’t need her.. Did anyone -need- her? That was a question that hasn’t slipped her mind. It was a question that surfaced as frequently as tides return. When was she last needed? Not because of convenience but truly needed for herself. Maybe those questions belonged in that same box, tucked away gathering dust. Perhaps... she belonged in that box.