#Vivifriend grumbles

[vivifriend]

Murphy is laughing at me.

Finally got one of my Skyrim profiles rebuilt on my PC. (wanted to switch out a few patch heavy mods which required rebuilding about a quarter of the list). And today I wake up and my body tells me that using stairs is a bad idea.

Which means I am now in 'upstairs exile'. On my laptop. Which I have not even downloaded Skyrim on yet.

I had a fleeting thought that I should backup my Skyrim modlist now that it was complete. Or at least my character presets. But alas. Twas too fleet a thought to catch.

[dirty-bosmer]

WIP Wednesday

I haven't done one of these in a hot minute because I haven't been writing a whole lot, BUT I scrounged something up today. I was tagged over the past few weeks by my dear friends @skyrim-forever @thequeenofthewinter @bostoniangirl21 @throughtrialbyfire thank you all! I'm looking forward to catching up on everyone's art and writing :))

tagging forward: @elavoria @sheirukitriesfandom @ladytanithia @saltymaplesyrup @vivifriend @miraakulous-cloud-district <3

From Slither and Writhe Chapter 7 (in which we finally get to Whiterun)

“Four fingers.” Sylawen looked at her raised fist and frowned. “Not quite.” “Three! Three fingers then. Wait, no, wait. Two. There, that’s my final answer.” “You don’t get a prize for guessing the correct amount, Thrynn. Can you count them or not? The whole point of this exercise is to assess the damage and determine whether or not you can see anything.” “I can see just fine,” Thrynn grumbled, lowering the hand shielding his left eye to glare at her through its swollen, purple lids. Sylawen hesitated to call it his ‘good’ eye. It was more so his ‘least terrible’ eye. Even ‘better eye’ seemed too generous. “Vision’s always been shit from afar, that’s all.” Sylawen could feel her lips twisting into an even deeper grimace the longer she stared at Thyrnn’s unfortunate face. She’d done what she could for the eye she’d stabbed, which, given their limited resources and her still depleted magicka, was not very much at all. “Well, you can detect shifts in light, at least. That’s promising. I’ll try another healing spell when I—” “Uh-uh.” Thrynn gave his head a small shake as he slipped the dirty bandage back over his eye. “No offense, lady, but I’m not letting you touch me again.”  Sylawen grit her teeth. There was an annoying stab of guilt whittling at the inside of her ribs. How was she supposed to know that Thrynn hadn’t really meant to kill her, that when he’d tried to stick her with his knife it was for the verisimilitude and nothing else?

[changelingsandothernonsense]

Wips for wips

I was tagged by @rosette-dragonborn for a wip extract. Thank you so much for tagging me!

tagging @throughtrialbyfire, @viss-and-pinegar, @vivifriend, @saltymaplesyrup, @archangelsunited @thequeenofthewinter and anyone else who wants to post stuff.

Gonna post an extract from a murder mystery thing i'm writing that centres around Ashlanders. Mostly inspired by this quest.

POV characters are Teldryn and Erra respectively, with this snippet being from Teldryn's POV. Warning for descriptions of a murder scene.

The hand had been severed. Teldryn felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as his eyes followed the trail of blood to what he assumed was once Airan-Ahhe. By the gods, it was a sorry sight! The mer was lying on his back, his head rolled to the side and facing away from him. What hair wasn’t plastered to his skin with coagulating blood was knotted and matted out like a nest of grass along the yurt’s floor. He noticed the mer had the sides of his head shaved, much as he did and there was a large, deep gash along the side of his scalp, clearly visible through the ash-brown stubble. He felt Erra take his hand. “Etana was not lying when he said this was quite the sight,” Erra whispered, his thumb brushing against the tick wool of Teldryn’s gloves. Another gift Erra had given him before he left for Kogoruhn. They had an enchantment weaved into the fabric that emitted warmth so that his hands wouldn’t freeze up if he needed to fight in the cold, barren ashwastes. “It looks like quite the brutal fight,” Teldryn muttered as he tore his eyes away from the carnage and looked back at Erra, who was still staring at the scene before them. “If it was a fight then it may not be murder,” Erra stated, his voice cracking a little, “Both Airan-Ahhe and Zallay Subaddamael hail from Erabenimsun, like your father. Their honour challenges are known to end in such carnage.” “What makes you think this is an honour challenge?” Teldryn asked, squeezing Erra’s hand. He knew his father’s clan had a reputation for violence and brutality, even amongst the Ashlanders. There was an honour rite that his mother had told him about when he was recovering from Corprus. An offended party would challenge an opponent in a fight to the death. It was why his father had left them in the first place. He jumped as Erra squeezed his hand, pulling him back to Nirn again. “I am only assuming because of the evidence of a fight,” Erra pointed at the severed hand on the floor, “I do not recall Airan having three hands.” Teldryn sighed and shook his head, “If it’s a fight born from a challenge then there’s not really anything I can do about it, is there?” Erra shook his head, ���No, if there was a formal challenge, then there is no crime. But, if Airan was indeed, murdered as Kurapli believes then he certainly had a chance to defend himself. I am afraid this is looking a little more complicated than I initially assumed.” “You saying that this could all be just a grizzly misunderstanding,” Teldryn grumbled, his hands on his hips, “We were dragged all the damn way here for nothing?” Erra shrugged, “It is unusual for challenges to occur when there is a Harrowing celebration happening. It is meant to be a joyous time, not a time to air out disagreements.” “So, someone’s done something egregious enough to warrant this?” Teldryn mused, taking a step forward towards the body sprawled out before them, “It’s a little unusual then?” Erra nodded, following him as he moved to get a better look at the body. It was not particularly pleasant, and he wasn’t a fan of the dead at any stage of decomposition but this he could at least stomach… well not exactly, he just feared decay more than he feared fresh viscera. Not that this was particularly pleasant, the gaping wound along Airan’s neck showing the meat and bone that was inside. Teldryn took his gloves off and carefully reached for the mer’s head, hoping to turn it towards him. He let go almost as quickly and stumbled back, nausea twisting his guts as he threw up on the yurt’s floor. Gods this was a fucking shit show!