#drew him like this cause i always remembered him being wreathed in this pitch black smoke that sparkled like stars

[angelofcrazyfandoms42]

Got bit by the art bug and decided to give form to one of the monsters from my reoccurring nightmares

[luminescentlyricist]

∞ Regency ø

Hello! The lovely Atoren Rhopai (and the malefactor, in a cameo) actually belongs to one of my good friends Aaron. He doesn't have a Tumblr account, but you can find him on Wattpad at ClosetChronicles.

~

Cirlun was lost in her own head. She never had anyone to talk to except for Astril, and even then life began to get a little boring as the sweeps went by. She knew that she wasn't supposed to talk to any of the royal guards, as they were busy enough doing their jobs, and she had no siblings, ancestor or dancestor to speak of. The only time she socialised with any other trolls was when she went to royal meetings or visited her Advisor in the throne room. There was very little in the way of outside communication for her, so she found it in the most dangerous way she could.

Of course, Trollian was hardly a viable option for someone like her. Even though she trusted Lamiac - the small, jovial oliveblood who was an employee of Skaianet and a communications officer of sorts for the palace - there were things about the company that she didn't. In particular, one employee got on her nerves, and she didn't even know his name yet. she just knew that Lamiac was always speaking forcibly high-pitched and happier than normal when she was corresponding with him. Regardless, due to all the encryptions the palace's network had to go through, she often had to filter through Skaianet itself.

The young troll found her lips curving downwards as her thoughts reeled. It was so lonely...

Lamiac was one of the few other trolls she had felt that she could trust to some degree. Apart from her lusus, she didn't really have much social experience beyond that which she read in the palace library, and the weight of having to act like such a highbrow highblood in public all the time was utterly draining. She was positively - or as Lamiac would put it, 'pawsitively' - bouncing on the balls of her feet whenever she had escaped from her room and ran down to the catlike troll's office, which doubled as her lodgings, but was a renovated ballroom. As such, it was enormous.

Cirlun didn't even know if trolls held balls. She thought that was more of a human culture, but her mother seemed to take pieces from many different timelines and planets. Sometimes, the violetblood was called into stressful half-sweep diplomatic meetings, and she'd leave in a fleet ship, coming back with new ideas. Many of these were incredibly unorthodox, and frowned upon by society. That was why the Heiress was scared of her mother: only they saw what was going on in the dark, and she was the one who made it all happen. Even though her own maternal figure was a caste below her, Cirlun felt humbled and weak.

Her dulled fuchsia gaze flickered around for a moment, then she closed her eyes again. There was nothing for her to see. It was all the same to her.

She had been young, naive, and wished for excitement that the world had never given her on its own. However dangerous her actions were, she hadn't cared, for it had been change. Cirlun had been given everything she ever wanted, but she focused too much on what she didn't have instead of what was there. It was one of her biggest flaws, and she had acknowledged it far too late. The ex-royal knew now, surrounded in darkness, that she was flawed. Her maternal figure had only been attempting to show her the truth, and she had pushed it away in favour of idealistic views. Those that had bought her life crashing down piece by piece.

She had sought out the discs again, of course.

The lost heiress looked down at the garb she wore, the soft material tearing and stitching repeatedly in black and white. She ran her fingers down it, a soft sigh barely audible in the emptiness. Out here, colours were dissolved, even the soft, ink-like blue tones that she had once taken such pride and comfort in. Cirlun wasn't even sure why the clothing moved in such ways, and doubted that it was supposed to. Last time she checked, there had been no one around to create time loops... the fabrics were thin, she thought. That was the only explanation she could draw up in her fading psyche. Space-time held little significance where she was.

Now, everything was dark, and it was her fault. Everything had ended. Nothing seemed to want to start again. She was a Maid of Void, gifted only in creating and bringing forth darkness and confusion. Sure, she had been able to wrestle through the session, finding her own way to God Tier and mastering it. Despite that, all of her efforts seemed futile, because there was no one to share her happiness with. Companionship was what she had been searching for all of her life, and it never seemed to stay, however much she herself was willing to.

It had been hard, so, so hard. She had wandered for aeons through the broken session that was presented to her, training and training for her fated fight. Death had kept her on her toes, and now she had no ground to stand on at all. Her eyes flickered around the emptiness, searching for anything to break the monotony. Her claws raked at her palms, twitching with black energy. She remembered nothing of the fight with Gl'bgolyb at all. Just that she had been left in this endless Void, presumably of her own creation, for aeons longer than she could keep track.

There was a light.

Small at first, but it grew. Slowly, but her eyes drifted towards it. It was enough to give her hope for the world. A billion empty, nameless and insignificant sweeps of waiting were pushed behind her. The troll's hands curled into fists, the seething heat of her Void energy receding into a simmer around them. She felt it pop and crackle, fighting her suppression, but she couldn't ket it out, as she had been doing ceaselessly for too long. Maybe she had been contributing to the darkness more than she realised.

It was time for her to settle down. It had been an age, but the tension in her shoulders was finally releasing. Cirlun allowed the energy around her hands to expand, swallowing her whole body, letting the warm darkness run through her skin and consuming her. Drifting forwards, she went entirely limp, focusing only on the speck of white. Worry melted away, along with the rest of her swarming pan's thoughts. She had been forgetting an awful lot, but she was sure she would remember this for the rest of her days.

Soon, the Void faded around Cirlun, and she was nearer to the light. She had forgotten how time worked in her vast darkness, but it had evidently been too long. Instead of the light, there was a planet. Small, destined to become better, a well of potential. Unfinished, but existent in the first place. She felt drawn to it. So, she went closer. There was something more there, she was sure. It wasn't just a dwarf planet. Her head was swimming badly, but she forced herself to go closer and enter the atmosphere.

This was the Land of Glow and Spires.

Blindingly white, thrumming so harshly it threatened to burn out her vision tenfold, like the most brutal days under the Alternian sun. Wreathing herself in the black mist crackling about her body, a soft sigh parted her lips. They had been dry, cracked and bleeding for many a sweep. She looked at the tall spires, the buildings made of a towering substance too ethereal to name. It seemed like a society had been built there, but she found no one. Desolation caused her power to flare, feeding off her own loneliness.

Someone else was there, and they were watching her. But they were benevolent. Amidst the tallest structures, there was one floating above them all. It seemed almost prismatic. Although it was completely clear, motes of light in all of the colours of the rainbow joined it in the air, shifting and moving constantly. It looked like a sphere, split in half by a diagonal line. Somehow, Cirlun knew that she should go there, for the better or worse.

"))((e)(... I guess t)(is... t)(is is it."

Her voice was atonal, scratchy and quiet as if she hadn't had cause to speak in a long time, which was true. It made her double back, coughing. Her God Tier wings stirred no air behind her,  their greyed tones blurring in and out of focus. She was so tired, so unbelievably tired. Lethargy made her limbs heavy as bricks, but she had slumbered for sweeps enough. There was nothing else she could do but continue, and so she made her way up to the towers, the ones that seemed to burn themselves into her retinas.

Her eyes never seemed to still, looking around in awe of the light that greeted her every turn. She had found it. Her new start was here, even though she felt alone again. Surely there was someone else? Who had built these luminous buildings? She knew that she would meet them, however long it took to get there. It just so happened that they were resting in the sphere, though, and it split open as soon as Cirlun drew near, along the slash in the middle.

"Hello? Is αnyone there? It would be much αppreciated if you could stop hiding from me."

The voice came as a surprise to Cirlun, who froze on the spot for a few moments before clearing her throat awkwardly. She stepped forwards, letting the shield of dark smoke dissipate from where it had been sheltering her from the harsh light.

"))((ello... I come wit)( no ill intent. My name is Cirlun."

And it was true. The stranger's similarly fuchsia gaze swept over her once, as if scanning her methodically for any threat. The smile they gave seemed forced, but Cirlun relaxed slightly upon seeing it.

"I know. You hαve trαvelled α long wαy, hαven't you? I αm Atoren, αnd thαt is αll you need to know for the time being."

Atoren Rhopai was not surprised. She had known about the coming of the other for a long time, from the moment she had found the Land in seemingly barren darkness. After the Session had reset upon Gl'bgolyb's death, there had been numerous changes. One allowed a tear in the fabric of space-time, the Cataclysm, that had in turn introduced new hope. Atoren had been able to enter the session's void-space, though it was still unknown why or how she had chosen to enter the environment. The simplest explanation was the Land.

The mystical space that the two seadwellers occupied seemed to be Atoren's own Land. As far as the Heiress was concerned, it couldn't be anyone else's.

Cirlun sat in the air, her wings seeming to glitch in and out every so often. Her voice was slightly louder, but she still felt incredibly nervous about Atoren. Clearly, she had also considered the session completely barren, and was shocked to find a guide ready and waiting for her. Never had a space so light seemed so ominous and disorienting.

"Yes, I suppose I )(ave been aimlessly drifting a lot lately."

She laughed nervously, though her throat ached from that simple, joyless sound. Finally, her eyes settled on something. She was looking at the medals, shining still, on the woman's coat. It looked like a military sort of outfit, a long coat-dress with fuchsia lining and golden buttons. Most notable, however, was the fact that she wore long black gloves and boots, covering the majority of her skin.

"You know, Cirlun, I hαve no one else to converse with. This Land lαcks αny Consorts, αnd my lusus fαded long αgo. You hαve not been αble to preserve your own lusus, hαve you?"

Atoren had very little social filter, in Cirlun's opinion, but she knew she had to keep quiet about her thoughts of their misdemeanours so as to get on this stranger's good side. Besides, to complain on that subject would be to blatantly display her own hypocrisy. So she grit her teeth and smiled through her objections.

"))((mm? O)(, no, I was not able to. Usually, s)(e slept in one of my specibus bubbles, but s)(e was refusing to be trapped. It was as if s)(e knew about w)(ere I was going."

There was an edge of sorrow in Cirlun's tone, but she couldn't help but feel guilty about her sadness, so she also suppressed that as much as she could.

Atoren clapped her hands together, the sound echoing around the space and making Cirlun look directly into the other's eyes. The smile that the other had donned made Cirlun slightly fear for her life, though it was a normal reaction for anyone met with a stranger grinning at them like a shark. It was almost too jovial, given the information that Cirlun had just provided.

"Brilliαnt! You hαve no one else, then... perhαps we cαn bond over our mutuαl loneliness? Or, well..."

She pursed her lips, her claws tapping a rhythm akin to morse code out on the arm of the plush chair she sat in. Her back was straight as a rod, and she was tense. Wary of the small, traumatised troll in front of her. She leaned forward conspiratorially.

"Our mutuαl thirst for αn Empire?"

Instantly, Cirlun straightened her own posture, but it was more of a fearful thing, as if the fuchsiablood in front of her had threatened her in some way. Her eyes drifted down to her feet, and she refused to utter any reply for a few minutes. Again, time passed differently, so she really had no way to tell how long it was, but Atoren's grin dropped, and it made her fear rekindle.

"A)(... at t)(is point, it would be f∞lis)( of me to decline, I believe..."

Her throat burst with pain as she swallowed, nerves making her hands flex and curl again. She had spoken the truth, but perhaps it would have been advantageous  for her to craft some lie, however simple.

Atoren barely seemed phased by her hesitance.

"I know you αre lonely, Cirlun. There is nothing else for you here, αnd I hαve known your yeαrning in my own sweeps. You αnd I αre not αs dissimilαr as we mαy seem, however much you mαy deny it. I hαve suffered, too. Mαges are fαted to suffer for whαt they believe in, whαt they control. My words to you αre not empty. They αre simply offering you the only choice you will ever hαve."

Cirlun shifted in her place, feeling a shiver run down her spine at these words. This one knew too much. Of course she was lonely. Some of it was blatant common sense, like that, because she had floated through a Void of her own creation for so long. But something was inherently... wrong about this. It was as if there was something more behind the other's knowledge.

What had she called herself? A Mage?

It was likely some kind of auditory hallucination, having been bombarded with noise after so long in emptiness, but the ticking of a clock began in the heiress' ears. Her voice felt too small, as if she was being swallowed up by the light around her. Her hands flared with ominous black, expelling whatever things she was making herself see. Paranoia was eating at her, and she could do nothing to stop it.

"I... I )(ave no c)(oice. You are rig)(t... But )(ow will we do it? Surely we cannot rule toget)(er?"

The glaring issue went unspoken: the fact that they had nobody to rule over in the first place.

Atoren had once been told something by someone - the very same someone who Lamiac was routinely tormented by - using shifting black, white and green text. This mysterious malefactor had said that she would find her place with another, whether she liked it or not. That someone had something that would be very important to her, and make her feel as if she had fulfilled her 'Skaian duty', whatever that was.

"Cirlun, I believe you... hαve something for me, do you not?"

The woman nodded, then, to this cryptic statement. There was no denying what Atoren wanted, and what needed to be done. Before the Session, she had explored a lot, and had found something so small and insignificant that she almost threw it away. Astril has scolded her for it later on, of course, but she couldn't quite remember why.

She still had it in a small pouch sewn into her outfit, nearest to her heart so that she would never forget it. She had the feeling it was smaller than it was supposed to be, but they could figure that out later. They had all of the time in the world.

"I... I do."

She reached into the pouch, rolling the small marble-like object in her palm and waiting for Atoren to hold her hand out for it. She didn't know why it was so significant, but she didn't know a lot of things.

Cirlun gave Atoren the Matriorb.