#i also think mountain would really like coven

[gravehags]

GHOULETTES AS PERFUMES I OWN (or have samples of)

~~~

Cirrus - Coven by Andrea Maack

This is a gorgeous forest fragrance with notes of soil, green grass, oak moss, and whiskey. It smells like wandering too deep in the woods one night and stumbling upon something you were not meant to see.

Notes: soil tincture, green grass, oak moss, whiskey, spicy notes, woody notes

Cumulus - Incense Rose by Tauer Perfumes

This is a gorgeous, heady amber scent with the very slightest hint of floral. Lush and dark like fucking in a church surrounded by myrrh, resins, and roses left as offerings. Sacred filth.

Top notes: Bulgarian rose, clementine, cardamom, bergamot

Middle notes: castoreum, orris root

Base notes: incense, myrrh, resins, Texas cedar, vetiver, labdanum, patchouli

Sunshine - Electric Sky by Tory Burch

This is a bright, ozonic scent reminiscent of standing in an herb garden just as it starts sun showering and the drops and beams of light hit your face. Notes of blue sage, violet, lavender are fresh and green while palo santo gives the scent warmth.

Top notes: blue sage, violet

Middle notes: cactus flower, lavender

Base notes: palo santo, vetiver

Aurora - Black Currant Rose by Heretic Parfums

This is a grown up rose scent, a don’t fuck with me even though I’m 4’11” rose scent. A sexy “call me princess one more time I dare you” scent. Bergamot and geranium enrich damask rose and currant leaves, with just a hint of juicy raspberry.

Top notes: bergamot, grapefruit, geranium

Middle notes: damask rose, currant buds

Base notes: raspberry

Mist - Baie 19 by Le Labo

My new fragrance obsession. This smells like a storm on a forested seashore, the ocean spray mixing with the berries and leaves of the wood as clouds churn above you. Patchouli and juniper berries blend with ozonic notes giving that fresh, almost aquatic scent.

Notes: patchouli, ozonic notes, juniper berries, green leaves, musk, ambroxan

[lilia-calderus-pet-goat]

Headcanons for a³'s coven of chaos, part 6, Lilia's history edition:

(previous part of headcanons, here.)

Lilia wasn't born into sicilian aristocracy. She was born in the carpathian mountains. Her parents were romani, victims of persecution, and so she was orphaned & taken in by her maestra.

As a little girl, Lilia was insanely self-conscious, shy and withdrawn.

She used to have a pet goat. Hence my username. Now, she's upset that it's become some sort of satanic-associated stereotype that witches talk to goats.

When she started showing signs of her forgetfulness, her visions, her flashes—people will have treated her as 'defective' and 'faulty.' One of those kids that just 'isn't very bright.'

She hated the texture of those darn dresses. Her Maestra eventually noticed her discomfort and passed down the shirt and coat we see her wear on the road—since the costume designer said they were indeed passed down to her.

Her maestra taught her how to sew, knit—and a great deal of sicilian, Italian and greek recipes. Her maestra enjoyed cooking, and she enjoyed drinking tea.

Her maestra also taught her a little pan flute. It was many years kater that she studied the zills by herself. She had a lot of free time as a hermit, okay?

She'd get easily distracted, she wouldn't pay attention when others spoke. She'd struggle with eye-contact. Her voice would trail off. Once in a while, she'd get really excited about something and go on a long rant, until breathless—which would be met with judgement. She'd space out and others would laugh at her.

But despite the fact she was considered strange, even by her sister witches—her covenmates did love her. Like you live siblings even as you tease them—and she was one of the youngest, if not the youngest.

The maestra was undoubtedly a strict, no-nonsense woman. But she was also the first, perhaps the only person, who sat down to understand Lilia's unique condition. Whenever she'd catch her 'visiting,' which was often, she would focus on guiding & keeping her calm.

She was desperate to toughen Lilia up, seeing how afraid and insecure she was. The maestra worried for her and didn't want her to end uo helpless. So, she taught her everything she knows—like a mother—even if everyone else thought she was wasting time, since Lilia struggled a lot initially. (“tea-leaves, i was bad at tea-leaves...”)

Lilia's Maestra had known about the fever that will wipe out their coven since before little Lilia hot the vision—since on their first lesson, 450 year old Lilia time-slipping from the Witch's Road told her. Despite this, the maestra didn't tell Lilia, because having seen how dark and sad her future is, she wanted her to feel safe and happy for a little while longer.

The first time Lilia met Jen (and afterwards, the rest of them) was exactly then. As adult Lilia was talking to her maestra, little Lilia was in the tunnels, experiencing her life out of sequence as she always had. She simply couldn't remember the flashes of her future coven or make sense of anything.

Lilia tried to warn everyone of the fever despite the fact it was set in stone, because of her own denial. None of her covenmates believed her—'Looney Lilia is at it again'—but her maestra, who already knew it would happen, simply repeated that death comes for us all.

Lilia would see Rio all the time in her full-skull form when she was young, in flashes. Rio's been following her! She thinks they're besties! Lilia is scared shitless!

Lilia's first girlfriend was one of the Doñas de fuera. In the historical folklore of Sicily, Doñas de fuera (Spanish for "Ladies from the Outside"; Sicily was under Spanish rule at the time) were supernatural female beings comparable to the fairies of English folklore. In the 16th to mid-17th centuries, the doñas de fuera also played a role in the witch trials in Sicily. In historical Sicilian folklore, the doñas de fuera} would make contact with humans, mostly women deemed to have “sweet blood”, whom they took to Benevento ("the Blockula of Sicily"), by mounting them on magical, flying goats.

Compared to surrounding countries, the witch trials in Sicily were relatively mild: in most cases, the accused were either freed, sentenced to exile, or jailed, rather than sentenced to death.

In Lilia's case, after the death of her coven, when she was left alone, she was eventually put to trial and exiled from Sicily.

She traveled from medieval village to medieval village across Europe, chased with pitchforks each time. She thought every tragedy was her fault.

She was in Strasbourg, France, to witness the Dancing Plague. She tried to warn everyone, but they called her crazy.

Another old friend of Lilia's, while in France, was Carabosse, based on whom the wicked fairy/Maleficent was created. Lilia watched once more as she turned into a racist caricature after her death. MANY years later, she went and watched Tchaikovsky sleeping beauty ballet—and then proceeded to go and punch him also.

Heinrich Kramer tried to hit on her. If you don't know, he was a German churchman and inquisitor. With his widely distributed book Malleus Maleficarum, which describes witchcraft and endorses detailed processes for the extermination of witches, he was instrumental in establishing the period of witch trials in the early modern period. Professor Malcolm Gaskill has described Kramer as a "superstitious psychopath."

And Lilia, in fact, was good friends (potential fling??) with Helena Scheuberin, an Austrian woman who stood trial accused of witchcraft just because she herself had rejected Henrich Kramer's advances. During the trial, thirteen other people were accused. Lilia was one of them. Luckily, the trial was dismissed.

She stayed in Germany for a while, to live with her good friend (perhaps even girlfriend.) Aka, the witch from Hansel & Gretel. She watched her, later, be put to death in her own over—persecuted for witchcraft. And then, she watched again as her tale was combined with other medieval stereotypes and bastardized into an antisemitic stereotype that painted her as a cannibalist, child-stealing villain. Lilia hates it. She says it's a tale that celebrates the order of the patriarchal home, seen as a haven protected from the dangerous characters that threaten the lives of children outside, while it systematically denigrates the adult female characters, which are seemingly intertwined between each other.

She met Evanora Harkness when she was pregnant and deeply disliked her.

While in Germany, she was subjected to yet another witch trial. She survived, hasn't talked about how, but she has scars from it that she will not show. (Würzburg witch trials. The Würzburg witch trials of 1625–1631, which took place in the self-governing Catholic Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg in the Holy Roman Empire in present-day Germany, formed one of the biggest mass trials and mass executions ever seen in Europe, and one of the largest witch trials in history.)

After Germany, she went to England to escape that mess of trauma. And so she witnessed the Great Plague of London, lasting from 1665 to 1666, was the most recent major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England.

She lived in Styria for quite a few years, where she dated Carmilla, from the lesbian vampire novel. Eventually, they broke up. Lilia had been empathetic at first, but grew tired of being fed off of and punched her.

Out of spite, she spent a decade or two in Transylvania, helping other vampires escape vampire hunting trials. She witnessed a lot of friends be killed.

She lived in Greece for a few years after the Greek War of Independence. Later spent time in Asia Minor, until she had enough of Greek and Turkish witches arguing about who coffee reading belongs to.

She became an opera singer in spain, for a while. One of the many jobs she took over the years. It's when she met Tchaikovsky, in a trip to russia, as mentioned earlier, and bitch-slapped that twink into oblivion.

While in russia, she also met Alexandra Kollontai.

She met Rosa Luxemburg during the First World War. She also met Clara Zetkin.

She went to Argentina for a few years, met Virginia Bolten.

So, America it is... She wasn't happy about it. She went to Massachusetts, like a moth to the flame. Not Salem, no—Boston.

She was friends with Sylvia Plath. Maybe they even kissed a little!! Lilia tried to help her, but couldn't.

Her mental health was so terrible that she couldn't hold jobs for too long. She worked as a seamstress, as a stenographer, a governess, a maid.

She got married to a gay man, one time, for a few years, because people grew suspicious. He died.

She decided she deserved to be alone, because she was a bad omen. A jinx, a habringer of doom. She chose the life of the hermit.

She was at the Women’s Suffrage Parade in 1913 in Washington, D.C.

During the roaring 20's she became a jazz singer. She wasn't able to continue, because she was getting some really bad mental health episodes.

She had to sell a lot of her old sicilian jewellery and good dresses for money after the economy crashed on 1929. The Great depression made her... Greatly depressed.

She was unable to keep paying for a house and started traveling with a caravan. If she'd stayed in Boston at that time, perhaps she could have met Jen. She didn't.

She was attacked & robbed three separate times while in said caravan.

Obviously she's a polyglot, familiar with the language of every country she's lived in. But even as she forgets words and confuses details between languages, she never forgets anything about her native tongue. She hasn't been in Italy for centuries, but all her notes & personal writings are in Sicilian. She really misses speaking it and she feels like she can never truly, genuinely express herself in English.

Before whichever war, due to all the death she was predicting, she'd scream and cry like a banshee. It's one of the reasons she repressed her magic, put it away, ignored it.

She was in The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on 1963.

She was in the stonewall riots in 1969. She made some friends again, non witch folk.

She was also in Woodstock, again, in 1969.

She did activism during the AIDS crisis. She lost the friends she made.

At one point she got bored and got a history degree.

At another point she got bored and got a philosophy degree.

She's taught in schools, once or twice, but was deemed unfit after a few years even though the students loved her.

She moved to New Jersey, opened Madame Calderu's Psychic Readings and Lilia's Leggings, but the money from that is still not enough. I mean, her house is decomposing, her bed is her wall, and her food is scarce enough that she doesn't mind a lapsed expiration date. Girl is dirt poor.

She does a lot of children's parties. She often hates the parents, though.

She has very few clients on the daily, but one of her regulars (in both businesses) is Madisynn King from She-Hulk.

[wangxianficrecs]

Rewind 2024 - Proud Author Spotlights

WangxianFicRecs - Rewind 2024

Here are some recommendations from 2024 sent in by our fandom's authors themselves. Make sure to give them much love. PS: Authors, don't be shy! Submit more Proud Author Spotlights!

~*~

I published the latest extra off my dynasty fic in March 2024, and it might be my favourite so far! Feat a lot of politics in the Wen Sect, wwx being his badass self, some ocs and a lot of Yiling siblings feels.

💙 Hope is a discipline (Something you choose)

by One_eyed_God (@oneeyedoctogod)

T, 15k, Wangxian | Kay's Rec

Summary: Under the harsh and merciless sun of Nightless City, Wen Ruohan falls. But even with its leader is dead, the Wen Sect must live on, to avoid the dreaded future Wei Wuxian has already lived once. And though he never expected to be the one to lead them, he will carry this duty without fail. Or: The aftermath of Wen Ruohan's death.

~*~

Hello! ☺️ First of all, thank you for running this wonderful blog!!

This is for Rewind 2024 Proud Author Spotlight. It is a 29k story I recently finished translating (I'm also the author of the original version) and I'm really glad to have been able to do this within less than a year.

It will not please everyone as it is mostly CQL-based (CQL post-canon) but it is first person Wei Ying POV and I haven't read a lot of that in this fandom, so I hope maybe some people would enjoy it!

Thank you again for everything!

Léli.

The Unsung

by Leilwen (@leilwe)

E, 29k, Wangxian

Summary: Lan Zhan... would you come over the mountain with me one day? … … I would have liked for him to give me a real answer and I cursed the Lans' nocturnal almost-hibernation. … … … When Yunshen Buzhichu no longer needs me, you will be my only horizon. When I returned and lay down beside him, the crescent moon no longer looked so sickly pale.

~*~

Hi ! This is for the remind 2024, I don't know if authors can boosted their own work. But I wrote this fic for my very first RBB, and even if it ins't perfect I am very proud of it.

Convergence

by Czeriahx (@czeriah) & Sirendipity (@lwjsbedtime)

M, 77k, Wangxian

Part of Yuyu Respectarium's Reverse Big Bang!

Summary: In a world governed by the Wen Empire, the Wei Coven's Oracle prophesize the coming of a new sun. Together with its moon counterpart, they are to bring back balance to the world. That is, until the Wen Emperor send assassins to take care of the threat against their rule. [Art by Siren, Embedded in the fic !!]

~*~

My submission to the TopXian RBB event that was boosted here a few months ago. I got a wonderful prompt and art piece to write for. Links in my fic!

An AU Canon Divergence where after the betrothal with JZX is broken off, JYL becomes betrothed to WWX. The plotline is retold with this twist, leading to events both familiar and not. JYL is the pov character, navigating her new life after devastation and war, with WWX at her side. But let no one forget LWJ - WWX and JYL certainly can't, though for very different reasons.

Come along for character study fix-it fic, with a happy ending for all the main characters!

Not Unwilling

by somevariationofgay (@somevariationofgay)

E, 48k, Wangxian & Xianli

Part of the TopXian RBB

Summary: The young mistress of Yunmeng Jiang clan, raised to marry out for the benefit of her family, dutifully waits for her parents to arrange another match after her troth with the young master of Lanling Jin clan is broken. When her father decides the new betrothal will be to their sect's head disciple, she finds herself not unwilling. But the ambitions of Qishan Wen clan surge and a bloody flood overtakes Lotus Pier, changing the course of her life forever.

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for these hard-working authors if you like – or think others might like – these stories.)

[panlight]

What do you think the Denali Coven were like as humans, their interests or hobbies, or maybe do as a career? (Kate probably does martial arts or self-defense, Tanya could work in art, Eleazar in business, etc etc. They got that big mountain home somehow)

I'm skeptical of them having careers in the present day, given that they seem to have been staying in the same place since at least the 1930s. I guess now they could be doing some sort of remote work? Maybe in the past they wrote books or articles under pseudonyms, or just picked up odd jobs here and there. Or the sisters just had their boyfriends buy them things and pay for stuff?

(And I DO wonder about their house because Denali is a national park. Are they paying the government off to let them keep staying there? Is it so remote the government doesn't know about it? SM seems to suggest they live literally ON the mountain.)

As a human Kate seemed to be into martial arts and physical fitness, having served as a bodyguard of sorts to what amounted to a princess. I think she and Emmett would have had fun over the years testing the limits of vampire abilities. Maybe she does workout videos online.

Irina was from a small farming community, I imagine she had a quieter, more peaceful human life than Kate. Maybe she still likes to grow things? An Alaskan mountain cabin is not like, the most ideal place for a garden. Maybe she keeps an indoor herb garden? Or they are hiding a big greenhouse on the mountain too, lol.

I've imagined that Tanya was possibly from a more well-to-do background; Sasha was her great-aunt and had been watching over the family which makes me think the family was prosperous in some way. Maybe they were skilled craftspeople or involved in local government. We don't really get a sense of what Tanya's hobbies are (other than romantic pursuits), but she seems cultured and sophisticated, while still also fun. Keep thinking of her cannonball into the snow. Maybe becoming a vampire gave her freedom from the expectations of her family/society and that's part of the reason she so was so devoted to Sasha. She didn't feel like she robbed her of her human life, but that she gave her freedom from it. But I do like to think she is maybe into some sort of craft; maybe she remembers ancient weaving or ceramic techniques and sells them at craft fairs and on Etsy.

Eleazar seems like a scholarly sort, and Carmen gives musical vibes, although that might be because of the actress who played her in the movies. In my mind she sings, plays several instruments, dances. Eleazar enjoys these things too, but he is the harmony to her melody; he supports her, but it's her passion. Maybe she was a street musician when they met. Her siren song lured him away from the Volturi. I think Eleazar is like Aro and Carlisle, very curious, wants to learn and study, but perhaps more about history and culture than Carlisle's science/medicine angle.

[lovelyladyabsinthewrites]

Love Song for a Vampire Pt 27

Pairing(s): Edward Cullen x Wolf!Reader

Warnings: a splash of jealousy from tanya but don’t worry, irina wants to rip the head off of any and all wolves

Words: 2155

Part 1    Part 2    Part 3    Part 4  Part 5  Part 6  Part 7  Part 8  Part 9  Part 10  Part 11  Part 12  Part 13  Part 14  Part 15  Part 16  Part 17  Part 18  Part 19  Part 20  Part 21  Part 22  Part 23  Part 24  Part 25  Part 26  Part 28  Part 29  Part 30  Part 31  Part 32  Part 33  Part 34  Part 35  Part 36  Part 37  Part 38  Part 39  Part 40(series finale) 

You thought your mother would never relinquish you from her bear-like hug. This was the first time you were leaving your parents to go somewhere with people who were complete strangers to them.

They were putting a lot of trust in Sam’s words reassuring them that you would be able to handle anything.

Being the people that they were, they agreed knowing it would ultimately be for the best. Sam revealed everything to them except for you imprinting on Edward.

That would be for you to tell on a day of your choosing.

Hastily you pack essentials into a backpack. You were initially surprised when Edward told you the drive wouldn’t take too long.

Now you understood.

His car must have been a blip on the road from how fast he was driving. Carmen and Eleazar didn’t reciprocate your shock, in fact they seemed to be used to it and were chatting casually with you.

Eleazar sat up front with Edward while you were in the back with Carmen, your arms wound securely around your backpack to keep yourself anchored against the velocity. Eleazar mentioned something as out being uncomfortable out in the daytime but that timing was imperative

They hardly encountered anyone on the road by some miracle which also helped to reduce travel time.

“You can really do that?” Astonishment lilting in your voice.

Eleazar chuckles and nods. “Yes, much like Alice and Edward, Kate and I have special abilities.”

“Which leads me to some important tips.” Carmen nods, her gold eyes flicking toward you. “Do not let Kate touch you. Her power can only harm you if she is able to get into contact. I don’t think she’ll try to hurt you, she’s the more level-headed sister. But on the off chance she does, just keep out of reach of her hands.”

“Don’t scare her before we even reach home.” Her mate teases.

She laughs and bumps her arm against your’s. “(Y/n)’s tough. This isn’t going to scare her off.”

“I have seen her decapitate many newborns during our fight with Victoria’s army.” Edward knowingly chimes in.

“Impressive.” Eleazar cocks an eyebrow and looks to the rear view mirror at you. He truly meant it for going up against newborns was no easy task to take on. Working in the Volturi, Eleazar had to tel with many unruly newborns. How he survived for so long in a hostile environment, you had no idea. The Eleazar you had met was kind and docile, speaking in a tender tone constantly. You couldn’t imagine him living in a dangerous coven like the Volturi. He found his way out though and decided to lead his life peacefully with no more violence. 

“Of course avoiding conflict never works.” He finishes off. “There will always be others who want to destroy tranquility.”

Carmen reaches her hand out to rub her husband’s shoulder. “We will fight when the time comes. Be assure of that. We love Edward and the Cullens. They are our extended family and we’ll protect that extended family even if Kate and Tanya side with Irina.”

You didn’t want there to be inner conflict in their coven. Didn’t want them to divide because of this. Allies were needed though and you’d have to take whoever was willing.

*

By the time you reach the border to Alaska, the sky was already pitch black with a multitude of stars. Having dozed off at some point, you check the time on your phone. It was a little past midnight. 

The dirt road that wound up the mountain was beautiful even in the dark. Large expanse of the land easily viewed from the window of the car.

“You and your pack would have a marvelous time running around here.” Carmen hums delightfully, happy to finally be home. 

The wolf in you shivers in agreement, your limbs suddenly getting an itch to run. To toss aside your human skin and jump into your furs. Only then would you truly be able to immerse yourself with the nature around you. Inhaling large gulps of burning cold air that would be even fresher than back home. Even less humans populated this part of the state as it was basically wilderness. In your fur you’d even be able to somewhat understand the songs that came twittering from birds. 

Sam’s pack would most likely never venture this far away from Forks. Their purpose was there, to protect and watch over everyone, not to frolic around. It was nice to think about though. The younger wolves would especially have a fun time in Alaska.

When the car reached the Denali house, there were already three figures waiting. Three blonde haired women, each more beautiful than the next. 

Piercing eyes follow your movement as you get out of the car; Edward heaves your bag onto his shoulder and carries it for you.

Carmen goes to hug each sister and give them kisses on the cheek. Their smiles are strained as they return her affection. Bodies rigid at your unwanted presence.

“Be nice girls, this is (y/n). She’s part of the Uley pack and has come here to personally get to know you and show her pack means no harm.” Carmen brings you closer by gently leading you by your shoulders. “(y/n), this is Tanya, Kate and Irina.”

You muster your best friendly smile. “It’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much from Carmen and Edward. I hope. . . I hope I can help mend things between your coven and our pack.”

“Only because you need us.” The vampire Carmen had introduced as Irina points out haughtily. 

Not wanting to argue, you nod because you did in fact need them. “Yes. Yes we do. My pack my be large and strong but we still lack numbers necessary to fight off the Volturi.”

You notice Tanya flicking her eyes behind Carmen to Edward who stood silently watching the exchange. Whatever thoughts going through her head made Edward scowl slightly, his grip tightening around the strap of your backpack. 

Kate coaxes Irina back and offers you an apologetic gaze. “Welcome (y/n). We’re excited to get to know you. You must be tired. Our guestroom has been prepped and is ready for you. We’ve also prepared some food too if you’re hungry.”

You quizzically raise a brow. From your expression, Kate laughs. “Don’t worry, it’s human food. We may not need it for nourishment but that didn’t stop us from learning how to cook for human guests.”

Part of you wonders what happened to those human guests. From the looks of their eyes, the Denali coven appeared to be vegetarians like the Cullens. Varying shades of gold dusted the trio of blondes’ irises.

“I can show her to the guest room.” Edward makes his way forward, taking a protective stance next to you. His face challenges Tanya who almost opened her mouth to say something but it was Carmen who saved the day. 

“Of course. Go show your mate where she’ll be staying.”

A furious blush claims you at Carmen calling you Edward’s mate in front of everyone. You were pretty sure even Edward would have blushed if his cheeks were capable of it from the way he ducked his head with bashfulness.

“I wouldn’t say we’re mates.” You hastily go to correct her.

“But you have. . . What was the word you used Carmen? Imprinted? Yes, but you’ve imprinted on him which means you’ll ultimately become mates.” Tanya icily says.

Any previous excitement you might have felt was deflated. You still held onto a compliant smile. “Yes. . . That’s true. But we’ve barely started getting to really know each other.”

“How cute. They’re in the puppy love stage.” Says Irina dryly. It makes your spine tingle and you have a quick vision of your wolf snapping Irina in two.

You had great control over anger that triggers your transformations but by no means had you mastered them. You were still a young wolf yourself after all. And you felt that anger bleed into your veins, making your left hand tremble.

“Okay!” Edward cuffs your elbow and steers you to the front door. “I think I should show you to the guest room now.” He sears Tanya and Irina with a glare before turning his face forward. When it’s just you two trudging up the stairs Edward apologizes offer them. “Pay no mind to what they say. They’ve always had sharp tongues toward newcomers.”

You were grateful Edward got you out when you did. Taking a deep breath, you collapse on the bed and put your head between your knees. Ears burned and you were all too aware of the hairs on your arms prickling.

He’s quiet as you calm down. Listening in on your breathing as an indicator.

“I’m sorry.” You finally say.

“Don’t apologize. You showed excellent self control. What they said was out of line.” Edward sits next to you on the bed. “Are you okay? Do you need me to get you anything?”

Your muscles were finally starting to relax and untighten. “No, thank you. I’ll be okay. This just happens sometimes. One of the cons is that wolves are highly emotional.”

“It’s better than feeling nothing at all.” He murmurs. “Many vampires forget their human lives over time. Not just that but they also forget human emotions too.”

That would be scary indeed to not even retain an ounce of your humanity. In your wolf you felt feral so you could understand on a basic level. While you saw it as an inconvenience, you’d make sure to appreciate your humanity more.

Setting your belongings down on the bed, Edward shyly glances at you. “I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”

You offer him a smile. “Thank you. I’ll holler if I need you.”

He chuckles before leaving.

**

Closing the door to the guest room, Edward feels any gentleness on his face he saved for (y/n) turn to stone as he walked back down the stairs to find everyone else in the bar/lounge area fitted with sleek, black leather couches.

Tanya and Kate occupied the couch that faced the bar while Irina, Carmen and Eleazar were speaking in hushed voices at the counter.

Seeing him, Tanya pounced to her feet and stalked over to him. “Are you insane? It was bad enough when you wanted the human girl as your mate but now you’ve switched to a dog?”

“Don’t talk about her like that.” Edward snapped, his body bristling. 

She didn’t back down. Instead Edward’s own rage fueled her’s. “Are you just going out of your way to hurt me?”

“Tanya-” Carmen starts.

Darkening eyes pierce into Carmen who relented with a weary sigh. Tanya goes back to Edward .

“This isn’t about you.” Edward hissed. “You think I asked for any of this? Since Bella arrived in Forks I find myself being constantly blindsided. For someone who can read minds, I’m utterly clueless to the inner workings of fate and matters that are completely out of my control.”

Tanya advanced to Edward’s spot so they were now face to face. “You wouldn’t have had to go through any of this if you. . . If you had just accepted me.” Her anger was fizzling out to the true despair she was experiencing. Pain surfaced in her voice that made Edward calm down. 

The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Tanya. But he had told her so many times that he did not return her feelings. It would have been easier had he accepted her and taken Tanya as his mate. He wouldn’t be going through any of this mess. Early on, Carlisle attempted to push them together much like he tried to push him with Rosalie. 

Decades had been spent trying to win over Edward. Tanya hadn’t even managed to scrape the surface of his walls though. 

Her jealous thoughts bulldoze him in a vicious flood. Jealousy, resentment, regret. . . They all banged against his mind. 

“I’m sorry.” Edward simply told her. “Sometimes, even for creatures like us, life isn’t rational. I didn’t bring (y/n) here to cause you pain, Tanya. She isn’t here for any other reason except to mend the bridge between the wolves and the Denali coven. That is all.”

Pursed lips made Tanya’s face tighten. Kate comes up from behind her and gently coaxed her adoptive sister back to sitting down. Edward met Irina’s burning glare, reading her mind like an open book. Hate and fury were on the forefront of her thoughts. He saw her desire to rip off (y/n)’s head in the same fashion the wolves had done to Laurent.

He’d make sure to keep an eye on her. If Irina decided to go through with her desires, he knew (y/n) wouldn’t just let her harm here so easily. It would become a bloodbath and risk their mission of peace. 

——

TAGLIST: @saltedcoffeescotch , @dangerouslittlefairy , @burn-crash-rqmance , @casedoina , @avadakadabra93 , @daryldixonstorm , @blue-aconite , @xanniestired666 , @esposadomd, @godinho11 , @arin-swear-rose , @alexizodd , @melaninsugarbaby , @lyeatoalinatoheaven  , @ronwownsme , @itsmytimetoodream , @afro-hispwriter , @mutandis-extremis993 , @hxgemxscles , @nightly-polaris , @corrodedcoffins-slut , @ellesalazar , @itgetzweird08 , @crybabyatthediscooffandoms , @sassyandclassyx , @scarlet2007 , @theroyalbrownbarbie , @jennyamanda8 , @stevenandmarcslove , @biancaindaeyo , @loversjoy , @turningtoclown , @vixorell , @xxthackerybinxxx , @daredevilonmyheels , @dumbbitch-juice , @southern-bell-give-hell , @nat-the-gemini , @imdoingathingmom​ , @emmettcullenswife​

[socte-blue]

OKAY LISTEN

I’ve seen a lot of grimwalker ocs and i’ve noticed a fair amount of them are like 30 and younger

I think it is totally your OC and your choice but I don’t think that really lines up;

“I thought he’d last longer then the others”

Belos is talking about Hunter lasting longer the the other grimwalkers, pretty obviously but the way he phrases this seems like it’s an achievement of some kind.

Hunter is sixteen.

And the way Belos’s says that implies he’s on the older side of the grimwalkers.

Which honestly makes a lot of sense, cuz like… living past sixteen or around that age would be a bigger accomplishment, considering the conditions;

Belos probably has very unrealistic standards for his “better version”. Hunter has a full time job and he probably has for really, really long time. The “betrayal” can probably be as much as failing too much or expressing want to leave Belos or their position in the coven at all. I can probably think of a 100 things that would count as “betrayal” to someone like Belos, especially considering how he sees the grimwalkers as objects are easily replaced.

And the fact he’s constantly putting the grimwalkers in danger. The golden guard is soldier.

They go on missions. They have to kill monsters. They’re left on a mountain in basic training! It seems to be shown they’re made as children or infants they probably have to start stuff like that really early. That’s not easy to survive.

It really makes sense they would die from accident’s in the “work” or be killed before they were an adult, even without Belos’s statement.

It’s also my personal headcanon Belos really wouldn’t want them to be adults. He’s been seen manipulating children throughout the series and it’s probably easy for him. Plus that he’d be their legal guardian and it wouldn’t have to be like a thing to get them back if they left.

[vacantgodling]

REN!!!! gimme the oldies!!!!!!!!!!! I need to be not normal about Dave & Estel &c. ~@void-botanist

ROSE!!!!!! god i'm so not normal about estel and dave like good GOD im not normal about them.

so in the spirit of not being normal about them i decided to partially clean up a piece i've had sitting in my notes for a BRICK cuz i was on the bus home and rotating them like crazy. so, for the backdrop: its been about.... 4 or 5 years removed from the end of vdtrt and dave has moved from ny to washington state to be closer to nature and to start taking photos and stuff. darren and olice are both out of the house; darren has been traveling with gabe and spending time with his relatives, friends and the coven tm, and olice has started college but he HAS formally adopted her. so this happens during the semester; dave gets an unexpected visitor that he hasn't seen in about a year :eye emoji: -- i didn't finish rewriting it fully cuz i'm on the bus and i really just wanted to rewrite the beginning part atm, but dave and estel are in a relationship on the DL at this point. darren suspects that he may be seeing someone, olice has no idea, and lizette CERTAINLY doesn't know that her ex is seeing her father-figure PFFFF. when i do get around to finishing this piece i want it to have the two of them talking about making their relationship more concrete, estel spending more time with dave (basically dave asks him to move in even though he knows it won't "tie estel down" and estel makes dave promise that once olice graduates that the two of them travel together because he wants to show dave the WORLD tm and they're also gonna talk about breaking the news to darren, olice and lizzie ehel em ay oh)

BUT IM STALLING ANYWAY HAVE GAYS:

##

An insistent rap to the door of his cabin is what finally roused Dave from his midday siesta on his horribly comfortable couch. He always told himself that he really should make it upstairs whenever he wanted to sleep; it would be better for his back, but he always found himself here around 3pm, watching some show he couldn’t remember the name of, and dozing—sometimes not waking until it was near 9 o’clock and the sun had already bid the jutting mountains and tiny town he called home adieu. And, looking at the clock, whoever knocked had spared him the crick in his neck, since it was only 5:30. Strange however, he wasn’t expecting anyone in particular today, at this time. He rubbed his eyes and located his glasses buried in the fuzzy soft rug just beneath the horrible comfy couch, and dropped his legs down from it to stand, wriggling his bare toes against its softness. 

The rap sounded at the door again.

“Coming!” Dave called, and ambled over to it. He racked his mind to think; had he promised his lovely neighbors Gloria and Darlene that he would come by to play cribbage this evening? Or did Mr. Sawson finally (finally) decide to return his hose—after what, six months of holding it hostage? Dave really should buy another one, Darren said so the last time they’d facetimed, but it was about the principle, dammit. 

But, neither the sweet if pushy elderly lesbian couple nor the misery Mr. Sawson awaited him when he peered out of the peephole. In fact, aside from Darren or Olice, it was probably the person he most looked forward to seeing at any given moment. 

Dave quickly undid the locks and threw open the door. 

“Estel!” 

“Darling!” Before Dave knew it, long arms wound around him and pulled him close, right there in the middle of the threshold. Dave wrapped his arms around the tall vampire’s waist and they swayed there to some invisible song that only Estel could hear. He often talked about how the universe was full of sounds that his human mind couldn’t hear nor comprehend. 

He’d also said that the song of Dave’s happiness was one of his favorite melodies. 

After a long moment, Estel pulled back to see his face. He cupped Dave’s cheeks with long, lithe fingers. “The starlight’s in your beard now!” He cooed sweetly—starlight in this case referring to the streaks of white that were now more often than incidental in Dave’s beard. Dave was honestly surprised it was taking his beard so long to go fully gray; at only 50 his hair was already white like snow, but he could blame his father for that, who started graying at 30. It seemed his beard was only now in the past year getting the memo, and as it was, Dave chuckled softly in his chest, his cheeks growing warm at the praise.  

“Are you going to let me close the door, Es?” He asked teasingly, but it was fond. Estel laughed and it was like wind chimes. But instead of letting go of Dave, he instead let his arms fall down to Dave’s waist, pulled him in tighter and spun them, gently closing the front door of the cabin with one hand while pressing Dave into it with the other. In this position, Dave’s hands slid from Estel’s waist to the planes of his chest—and he’d probably still never get used to looking up at him like this. Estel didn’t waste time and crowded in, looping one finger in the loop of Dave’s jeans to pull him into a mind numbingly deep, thorough kiss—like he was drowning and Dave was the only source of air. 

Dave gasped into his mouth in surprise but easily opened up to his insistent tongue, feeling his knees go weak and suddenly very thankful the door was there to help prop him up. When Estel finally pulled back and gave him a smug, satisfied little smile and Dave couldn’t help but smile back, a bit self conscious, and hit Estel’s chest lightly. The room brightened once more with Estel’s laugh. 

“You always make such funny faces when I kiss you Dave, dear! I can’t help but want to kiss you more.” Estel illustrated his point by leaning in and sucking the soul out of Dave’s lips once more until Dave finally had to push him back to breathe. 

“Es!” He exclaimed with a breathless laugh. “Can’t you tell I’ve missed you dear?” Estel peppered kisses all over Dave’s face and what else could Dave do but let him?

[scarlet--wiccan]

Do you have your own pitch/idea/concept of a new Scarlet Witch villain?

This is not a new character, per se, but I have a lot of ideas for a revived or resurrected version of Hecate, who was killed by the Emerald Warlock in the 2016 Scarlet Witch series. A couple of years later, in Avengers: No Road Home, the gods of Olympus were slaughtered and eventually reborn in new forms. We haven't seen Hecate, but making it so that she was reborn alongside the other Greek gods would be the perfect way to soft-reboot the character with new powers, a design, and new motives.

Overall, I think Hecate has some interesting things in common with Wanda, in terms of her most recent experiences and trauma, and there's already a lot of connective story tissue between them. Hecate would also be the perfect character to do more worldbuilding for witches and witchcraft, and if you lean into the idea that Agatha might be from ancient Greece, you could also tie her into the the history of the Coven of Mount Wundagore. She's one of my favorite mythological figures, and I just really love digging into historical forms of magic and mysticism, so with the right amount research you could do a lot of cool stuff with her in comics-- and the Marvel character is such a blank slate at this point that the possibilities are kind of endless.

Herc #4

The goddess Hecate is sort of a d-list villain in the Marvel universe. All told, she only has eight appearances, but I think she's got a lot of potential. Her main storyline is that she was banished to Earth and robbed of her memories and powers; after being restored to her true self, she eventually settled down to live peacefully amongst mortals, but she was then murdered in cold blood by the Emerald Warlock, who stole her magic.

The basic premise would be for Hecate to come back looking revenge and seeking to reassert herself as the goddess of magic and queen of witches. I would have her begin by consolidating power on the Witches' Road, maybe even scheming to supplant the abstract entity of Witchcraft as the supreme goddess.

From the Witches' Road, she could summon all sorts of mythical creatures; I also really like the idea of her commanding a legion of lampades, which were chthonic nymphs that served her as torchbearers and handmaidens in Greek mythology-- I imagine her sending them out into the world to bring inexperienced or vulnerable magic users under her thrall, which would be great way to incorporate some of Wanda's students from Strange Academy.

I also have this idea that Hecate could be split into three separate aspects, or have the power to be in three places at once. You'll notice in the image above that she has three faces-- in classical sculpture, Hecate was often depicted in triplicate, with each form facing in a different direction, to represent her role as the goddess of crossroads. That's a great way to bring things back to the Witches' Road, and it's a fun way to ramp the story up to a bigger scale. In addition to her quest for revenge and power on Earth, she could also, simultaneously, make a move on Olympus. In GotG (2020), the Guardians of the Galaxy battled with the revived Olympians, several of whom were killed all over again, and eventually the mountain itself was sent through a black hole. Maybe Hecate wants to dig it out and bring Zeus under her heel; maybe she wants to orchestrate another resurrection so she can remake the Olympians in her image.

Herc #5

These are all ideas for, like, a big climactic storyline, at the end of which Hecate would have to be defeated, or maybe even healed, in a way that would probably take her back off the board. Alternatively, if you wanted her to be a more sustainable, recurring villain, I would retroactively make her a part of Agatha's backstory so that you can set her up as an even more cryptic, morally ambiguous rival for Agatha, who would then to be motivated to build a new Coven to oppose her. That's when Wanda would step in and say, "hey, me and my family will help you, but you're not calling the shots and you can't keep secrets from us." It would be a fun way to even the playing field between Wanda and Agatha and resolve some of their more recent beef.

[konoa-t]

Jamie and Dawn - 1, 2, 11, 20, 28, 29, 32, 43, 48, 49

Yumi and Oron - 2, 11, 20, 28, 29, 32, 43, 44, 48, 49

WAA tysm for asking :DD

Jamie and Dawn -

1. Jamie and Dawn’s first date was a little picnic in the mountains! Jamie managed to find a spot that also overlooked a large town at the bottom of the mountain, so it was pretty cool to look at all the glittery lights below as the sun set :D

2. When its not a week day, both Dawn and Jamie wake up late (around noon)

11. Jamie has no opinion on pet names, while Dawn views them favorably! Dawn is usually the one to call Jamie things like “baby” or “darling,” while Jamie tends to refer to Dawn as “Dawnie” or “hon.”

20. They usually try to comfort according to the other’s love language. Dawn’s language is physical touch, so when she is upset, Jamie usually comforts her through cuddles and hugs. On the other hand, Jame’s love language is words of affirmation, so Dawn comforts her by offering encouragement and appreciation.

28. Jamie is the better chef, but mostly because she has more experience with cooking. Dawn and Jamie always cook for eachother when they have the chance!

29. Dawn’s nighttime routine is to take a relaxing bath to unwind, put some skincare stuff on her face, relax and read for a couple hours, etc. Jamie just brushes her teeth and goes to bed LMAO

32. They both drink! Dawn is the lightweight as she’s not quite used to alcohol; whenever she gets drunk, Jamie usually helps her sober up or sleep it off.

43. If they were to pick outfits for eachother: Jamie would probably have some edgy grunge look, while Dawn would have some kind of cottagecore outfit.

48. They have both talked about their future on multiple occasions! They both plan to spend the rest of their lives together, so they usually discuss their future to plan for whats to come.

49. Initially they did, but as they grew closer they eventually told each other everything (and now there isn’t any between them). For example, Dawn didn’t open up to Jamie about why she wanted to leave her coven until several years after they became a couple.

Yumi and Oron -

Disclaimer: Canonically, Yumi and Oron never ended up being a couple (they never got to confess to each other before a certain incident, and romance between two warriors that were of the same colony is considered taboo in their culture). Therefore, these answers are made with the context of, “what if they had actually ended up being together?” In mind.

2. Both wake up early, though Oron would be the one to wake up a little earlier than Yumi.

11. Oron loves using pet names, while Yumi, albeit not opposed to them, finds them to be a bit embarrassing. Oron normally refers to Yumi as “my dear” or “dearest” or “my love” (cheesy lmao), while Yumi… Doesn’t really use pet names.

20. When Oron is upset, Yumi just tries to give him space. When Yumi is upset, Oron often makes tea for her and tries to talk it out.

28. Both of them are on-par with each other in terms of cooking; in terms of baking, however, Oron is a bit better. Oron and Yumi do cook for eachother, though Oron (being the hopeless romantic that he is) often offers to always cook for the both of them.

29. Yumi usually takes a shower and relaxes for a bit (nothing too fancy), while Oron has a cup of tea and maybe takes care of his gear (e.g., polishing sword, armor, etc).

32. Oron can seemingly hold his alcohol better than Yumi can. When Yumi gets drunk, Oron makes sure that she drinks plenty of water and maybe gives her something light to eat.

43. If they had picked out outfits for eachother, I think that Oron would have picked something pretty like a dress with a shawl for Yumi, while Yumi would have picked something more casual for Oron, like a shirt jacket and jeans.

44. Oron and Yumi do cuddle quite a lot when in private. Both of them are actually quite affectionate (Yumi more so than Oron) and enjoy eachother’s warmth, so they will often curl up together on the couch or cuddle in bed when they’re about to fall asleep.

48. The topic of their future will pop up in conversation every now and then. Normally they discuss marriage plans or whether or not they wish to have children. Both Yumi and Oron feel like it is important to discuss, especially when they plan to take a step as big as marriage in the future.

49. Oron is an open book, but Yumi will often try to be secretive about her insecurities. Unfortunately Yumi isn’t that slick, and Oron is quite perceptive when it comes to her. He knows that she is bothered by something, but he decides that he will be patient and wait until she is comfortable enough to discuss it with him.

[audreyhalessaviour]

The simple fact of life is that everybody is born an innocent baby and that you are built off of life experience which is given to you by the people around you. Most mass murderers are subject of abuse and the rest are the abusers. You can have freedom fighters and terrorists which are politically motivated, edgy kids who want to kill because it looks cool in GTA or in online videos. These kids are often abused or really radicalized online which is of course a form of abuse. Often times they just think another rampager is cool and what to emulate them. The most common being Tarrant clones and Columbine copycats because of the massive amounts of glorification they get online. If they survive the murders they will realize what they have done and come to completely regret it like Kip Kinkel, Micheal Ryan, Dimitrios Pagourtzis and Ethan Crumbly. Often they will make up or follow some form of ideology that in part makes them do it like that Tarrant clones. I also believe they do this so they can convince themselves they are the good guy. But the most rare type is an abusive murderer who is a complete piece of psycho shit who have no problems like Thomas Hamiltion and Martin Bryant. They just want to kill for the same reason they fuck kids, to get power. These ones almost always have a long history of ignored abuse they never get punished for as most people don't care about the abuse of someone who isn't them. This is the number one problem with the world and what creates the other murderers. Nobody cares about pedophiles and abusers because it's been so ingrained in our cultures for a long time. The countries where mass murder is the most common are they countries where you are most likely to be abused as a child. Most people don't care about giving their own children something harmful like the mountains of harming content on YouTube. So is it any wonder everyone isn't up in arms over the fact that the feds coverup pedophile stories like Epsteins island and Covenant when they don't even give a fuck about their own kids? We can blame guns or video games or whatever the scapegoat will be in the coming years but the simple, undeniable fact is that abuse creates and abuser. Out of all my time researching mass attacks I can safely say that I believe that 99% of them are sufferers of child abuse. It really makes me wonder why nobody would choose to fix this problem when it would be in everyone's best interests worldwide to do so until I realized why so many shows like South Park exist. They exist to capitalize on and normalize this abuse. Homer Simpson abusing his own son is just a funny gag right? It never leads to Bart killing kids in a school in the show unlike real life where there will be long lasting mental problems so people will be desensitized to this abuse and even begin to find it funny. On top of all this they are completely paranoid and therefore won't leave the house to seek friends all that often. Who can blame them with how crazy many people have gotten? Sure you could go to a therapist who will just exploit you for money and hop you up on pills that don't help. I do believe things have been getting better in society in this regard but we still have much to work on such as empathy for the criminals while also giving them much harsher punishments. We really need to stop scapegoating and focus on these issues. We need to be able to learn from these peoples stories as well and many governments are very unwilling to release the information we need to do our own independent for "some reason". We need to put them in their places for the betterment of mankind.

[magical-mistakes-vm]

8

Things take yet another interesting turn as Vollrath and Mahala keep talking...could something more be at play here?

Somewhere between the kitchen and his bedroom as they had briefly discussed how the next few days would go, they both had started to relax.  She was going to be introduced to his company as his new Assistant.  Only Baldur and Elmar would know who she truly was, and, more than that, what she meant to him. Although, he was already trying to figure out how to explain it to them, since it still wasn’t making much sense to himself.  They had known him since childhood and no doubt would be in shock.

Vollrath had told her more about his friends and Seconds in leading the Coven, about his family, his normal life, and what the Coven was like.  It had then been her turn to tell him about what her life had been like.  He knew that there was something wrong with her childhood and made a mental note to have both Baldur and Elmar look into it.  Her family was as powerful as his, so not to tell her about her gifts and for her mother to have kept her moving around the country as a child made him worry for her.  Now she was under his care, she would be safe, however he wanted to know who or what could be after her.  Bringing her under Coven protection now was even more crucial than ever and he was not going to let her be alone, ever.

Starting on Saturday they were going to take a trip into the mountains to his cabin.  There, away from people and the noise of the city, they would start to do training on all aspects of her abilities and magic in general.  They’d spend at least a week up there, Baldur and Elmar could hold everything for his company and the Coven down that long without having to contact him.  They might come back the next weekend to handle issues if they needed to, or they might just stay up there.  How things went would all depend on how good of a student she was.  He didn’t mention it, but it would also depend on how things were going between them. 

“See, much more comfortable up here.” Vollrath kissed the top of her head as he adjusted the throw that was covering both of them as they reclined on the sectional in his master suite.  Only one lamp in the room was on and it cast a soft golden glow over them that added to a warm amber glow from the gas log fireplace that Vollrath had lit up to take the chill out of the air.  Currently they were sitting in the corner of the sectional, Vollrath leaning back against one side, legs outstretched with Mahala between them, her head just tucked under his chin. “I already admitted you had a point.” A slight chuckle followed, but he already knew she was teasing from the sound of her voice.  “Don’t make me elbow you again, I’ve got both our mugs and I don’t think you want me to spill hot coffee on you.”

“I don’t know.”  He teased back as he gently retrieved his mug from her, making sure that he, in fact, did not spill it on himself or, worse, her.  “Having you play nurse on a burn on my upper thigh might not be so bad.”  His other arm held her a bit tighter against him as he anticipated getting smacked for that comment, playfully of course.

“VOLLRATH  NACHTNEBEL!”  Now Mahayla laughed outright.  “Do you always make such innuendos on the first date?” Leaning slightly to the side, she looked up at him, fighting a laugh and trying to look offended.

“Already with the full name, my dearest little witch!  Was that really necessary?”  Now he was laughing and pretending to be offended as well.  Both were failing miserably, mostly due to not being able to contain their laughter.  “And no, I do not make such innuendos on the first date, ever.  I am a perfect gentleman, which you will see on our first date.  As it is Wednesday, it means in two days.  However, this is not our first date, this is just your first time in my home, therefore the rules are different.”  He’d already kissed her, he’d already wiped away tears, he’d already held her in his arms to help calm her nerves over being overwhelmed.  Assuming she’d agree to a first date seemed like a foregone conclusion at this point.

“You seem pretty assured I want to go on a date with you.  I mean, I guess I could lower my standards….” Mahala shrugged her shoulders, tipping her head to the side, and slightly rolling her eyes before taking a drink of her coffee so she didn’t laugh.  

“Das Lionessa Der Nachtnebel, you do go for the jugular, my dear.  I believe my pride is not only wounded, but completely dead.” Vollrath chuckled and shook his head.  He absolutely adored her ability to snark back at him.

“I’m sure it will recover with the flattery of some female at some point.  With your good looks it won’t take you long to find one to throw herself at you I’m sure.”  She kept her voice dismissive, but the thought of another woman in his arms like she was at that moment made her heart hurt, and she had no reason why.  They had just met and she didn’t know if there was anyone else he was seeing.  She only assumed not after what he’d said in the kitchen.

“No…no…I believe only one female at this point is going to work.  A devastatingly beautiful little witch I found practicing forbidden rituals in my woods this evening.” A kiss was dropped at the juncture of her neck and shoulder.  “And it is absolutely going to have to be Friday, delivered in a beautiful dress, over a fine dinner with wine.  No other way will it be resurrected.” 

“Fine…I can’t have the Master Warlock of the area walking around with his pride in the grave at my expense.  You shall get your first date, Vollrath.  However, I can’t guarantee that there will be a second.”  She tipped her head to look back at him.  “You best be on your good behavior.”

“Only my best, and I can guarantee there will.” He grinned at her and kissed the tip of her nose.  He could already hear Baldur and Elam insisting he’d lost his mind.  Maybe he had, but he was enjoying it.

“Why does that make me think that you’re still not guaranteed to be a good boy.” Mahala laughed, the sound making Vollrath’s heart do something funny.  Yes, he had lost his mind.  Tomorrow at the office would be confirmation, he was sure of it. “Darling, I am a warlock, I’m rarely a good boy.  When there is a beautiful woman in my arms who I am attracted to, I’m even less of one.”  He grinned and held her even tighter against him.  If he could convince her not to go into the other room to sleep that night or go home, he would be the best boy ever.  

“I feel like I’m being warned.”  She laughed and then her face grew a little more serious.  “What did you call me a minute ago?  Das lionessa…?” Mahala couldn’t remember the rest of it.

So she had caught it, Vollrath had wondered when she hadn’t immediately asked.  “Promise to not try to run screaming, I would hate to have to chase you.”  He had said it without thinking, almost as if it flowed naturally.  Now, now he was nervous.  

“Why?  Did you insult me in some foreign language? Vollrath, you’re kind of scaring me again.” Her eyes narrowed at him, wondering what he had really said and why he was nervous.  It sounded like he’d called her a lioness, but she wasn’t sure why he’d want a reassurance she wasn’t going to run if that was the case.

“Mahala, please just promise.” Now his voice was serious, those hazel eyes holding a silent imploring as well.  While he waited for Mahala to respond, Vollrath felt like he was holding his breath, not sure if she would agree.  So, when she finally nodded, he sighed heavily.  “My grandmother was a powerful witch, much like you.  My grandfather, her husband, called me the Lion of the family.  She gave a prophecy that one day I would find my equal, das lionessa der Nachtnebel.  And further, das Lionessa der Nachtnebel will rip out their throats and take their heads.  Don’t ask what that means, I have no clue, other than I took it to mean that when she stood by my side that she would rule as my equal, since my grandfather always said I was more vicious than he’d seen in generations.”  He swallowed, waiting for her response.  How bad had he just fucked things up with a woman that seemed to cause him to take two steps forward and one back all night, and was he going to have to chase her down?  There was no doubt he’d lost his mind to even be thinking the things he was about her, let alone how he kept feeling, but he wasn't’ letting her go or losing her.

Mahala turned to look away from him, not saying a thing.  Her eyes darted about as she absorbed what he was saying.  All night they’d been doing a back and forth dance, a push and pull with one another.  It had started in the forest, and had not stopped.  This revelation was something more though, it felt like all the air had been sucked from her lungs.  Her mother had always said she was “her little lioness” because of how feisty and headstrong she’d been as a child. More than once she’d been told her viscous temper had no equal, and that she was more likely to take someone’s head off than make a friend.  There was no way that Vollrath could have known any of that, and this seemed one more thing in a weird set that had been going on all night.

“So, you think?  You think that’s me?” Finally she asked, still feeling like there was a weight on her chest.  She was still facing away from him, needing that tiny bit of disconnect to handle things.  

“I didn’t think.  It just came out as if that was your name, who you are.  Like it was right.”  There was an uncertainty in his voice, and the fact she wasn’t looking at him was not helping him any.  He kept his hold on her, praying she wouldn’t try to run.  They had gotten so relaxed with one another somehow from how things had gone down in the mudroom just a few short hours earlier.  Why could they not have just a few calm hours?

“I told you I don’t believe in fairytales, but after tonight I’m beginning to wonder.” Mahala said after  a moment to think. “My mother called me her little lioness.”  Her voice stuttered and she leaned over to set her mug on the tray table. “Said that I was likely to take someone’s head off because of my temper. So either you’re reading my mind, or….”  She let her voice trail off, and she felt his arms tighten around her as she leaned back, closing her eyes to try and calm her nerves and racing heart.  “Now we just need the villain, or maybe that is what I’m going to find when I go through that mansion I inherited.  It seems that would fit with my mother running away and never coming back, an evil king?”  She took a deep breath, still trying to fit everything right in her head. Opening her eyes, she once more tipped it to look up at him.  His lips thinned, brows drawn together, forehead lined, and eyes tight, his expression hit her heart, causing her hand to rise to rest against his cheek.  “You can see I’m not walking away even if it is like a fairytale and I’m in the center of it somehow.”  

Vollrath felt like something had hit him in the middle of his chest and his breath came out in one rushed huff, leaving his lungs burning.  His words from the kitchen, the one thing he’d asked her, she’d not thrown those words back at him the way some had in the past but instead used them to sooth his nerves that few ever knew he had.  “You could completely destroy me, Mahala Codona.  You know that?”

“I won’t.  You trusted that when you told me how to do it.”  She closed her eyes as she rested fully back against him.  “And I trusted you when you told me I was safe with you after you scared the shit out of me when we came in your house.” Mahala moved her head so her forehead rested against the side of his neck.  “You and I, we hold power over one another, and yet we already trust.  I won’t claim to understand it either, Vollrath.  This whole night has been….”

“A constant contradiction?” He finished for her, for the second time in an evening.  She nodded softly, and it made him smile.  He couldn’t argue with her.  The whole night seemed like a continual and constant contradiction.  They’d go from almost fighting to being soft with one another.  Him wanting to throttle her to wanting to kiss her till she was dizzy from being breathless.  There was a message from the ancients in there somewhere.  

After a few minutes of silence, Vollrath asked the one question that he needed for that night. “Please, stay with me tonight. We can stay right here.  I don’t want you leaving me.”  With all they had talked about, with all the back and forth, with it feeling like the ground was shifting under his feet, he didn’t want to be alone and the only person he wanted with him was her.  He wouldn’t force her to stay, but he might beg.  Baldur and Elmar were going ot have him fucking committed to the closest mental institution.

“I thought you’d never ask.” Mahala’s voice was soft, relaxed, and calm.  She didn’t know what the next few days would hold, but at the moment, she just wanted to stay right where she was. 

[amaiguri]

Ririkya is the Many-Colored City

This is one of the cities I built for New City November! Ririkya is an Afto-Svanihk City built on the back of eleftegos, potters, and witch knowledge, shaped by their rivalry with Kivihkya, and truly, at its heart, it's a city of quietly proud survivors. They have survived the Sundering, they survived their war with Kivihkya, and their culture survived being subsumed by the Aftokratoria.

Overview

Location: The South Coast

Environment: Wet, hot, jungle with hot/dry season and monsoon season, rainbow mountains and rainbow eucalyptus trees

History: Ririkya was an eleftherios-wandering village until the Sundering--the Upper Continent split and water, mud, and clay poured down where the Goddess Dyeus and Goddess Eris were fighting. Eris stabbed and bled her sister, Dyeus. Where this happened, there the wanderers settled and were named the Ririhk. They have always been led by a divine Witch-Tsar who bathes in the muds of many colored soil. The Witch Tsar's job to prevent a second sundering and they have guarded this sacred place every since.

Aesthetic: Red deserty, vaguely Arabesque with colored yurts and tents on and/or near carved cliffsides

Governance

Today: Govenor and City-Senate but usually, Witches either are on it or the City-Senate are just expected to listen to the local Witches

Historically: The Witch-Tsar and her coven of Witches ran the city

Important Figures

Veneriza is the purported name of the Witch Tsar who settled Ririkya where it is today. Veneriza was known for being a beautiful, powerful old woman who was friends with Dyeus Herself. Veneriza is depicted in imagery has having a square jaw and square-ish body, rainbow-colored skin, and wild hair behind a rainbow koroshnihk.

In more recent history, think 10 years ago, they had Galina. One of their mines collapsed while they were installing the tram system and everyone would have died if it weren't for her--she froze everything in place for it could collapse more until help arrived. She is hailed as a local hero.

Core Values

Strength, victory with minimal harm, women, connectedness, categorizing but with lots of subtlety--like the mixing of paint dyes. They see conflict as inevitable but healthy--you should seek conflict to understand each other better and to grow, not destroy each other.

Transportation

There are two automaton-run tram systems--they're both fairly new. One of them goes into the mines, and the other leads around the city. They also rely on horses a lot, but they use Eleftegos even more.

Exports & Imports

EXPORTS: Ivory, Ceramics, Metals, Salt, other minerals, Eleftegos hide/leather, Grains, Rice, Wheat, sometimes Armor, cinnamon

Eucalyptus salt is made by taking strips of of their rainbow eucalyptus, wrapping salt in it--either mined salt or salt from above the sub-oceanic kilns. The kiln's temperature burns away the eucalyptus but the oils (and poison) seep into the salt. Repeat this 7 times and the salt will ward against against Demons. One can consume it to purge against Demons, but the black salt can also be used as magic charms, as smelling salts or bath salts, and also to ward against slugs or demons in lines.

(Note: This actually does nothing but make the salt slightly toxic. It may make Demons' tails less effective but that's because their toxins are generally less effective if you're sick anyway because your immune system is already active.)

IMPORTS: Tools, manufactured things and machinery, textiles

Arts:

The Aftokratorian Army's Official Armor was designed here

Painting

Pottery

Sculpture

Incense

Technology

This city is not on the cutting edge of industrial technology in Yssaia but it has a number of techniques that make mining easier and safer, transportation of objects more efficient, and a lot of medical, navigational, teaching, traditions that have worked really well in this area for years. They've been sharing this knowledge with the Telethenians.

Common Professions:

Miner

Engineer

Potter

Witch

Eleftegos-farmer

Tram-operator/maintainer

Tanners

Papermakers

Population Distribution

The tsars here are significantly more wealthy than the average person. Miners and potters are often very poor. Dying young is not uncommon from working in the mines--though if you live to be old, the community will go out of its way to provide for you--and old miners have it pretty nice, regardless of how rich they were for the rest of their lives. Age is celebrated. While joining the Aftokratoria certainly benefited the lower class so they aren't regularly starving to death and mining has gotten safer with automatons helping, the lower class definitely has it worse than the very extravagant upper class--who dress in very fancy armor and brightly dyed clothes and have giant castles carved and maintained by top-engineers and so forth. All the tsars and tsarinavi in this region are historically witches.

Current Major Issues

The current major issue is that the last Witch Tsar (the Blind Witch Tsar) died in a mining accident and her husband was murdered by his brother (a mine-owning Tsar), locking her daughter, Perislava, inside the castle. He wanted to end the brewing civil war with Kivihkya. However, the Acting Tsar is bad at governance and has made really bad trade deals with Kivihkya--dedicating large percentages of metals to them at prices which aren't even sustainable, just in return for not-going-to-war.

Attitudes Towards Others

Ririkya common folk are typically fine with the Telethenians and the Aftokratoria--though only when they respect their version of Dyeusism. The Witch Tsars tend to be quite proud and see outsiders as only worthwhile if they can hold their own in a debate.

Others' Attitudes Towards Them

The Telethenians tend to think they're amicable and quite intelligent. They enjoy working with them a great deal. However, they find their feud with Kivihkya troublesome and wish they'd drop it.

Kivihki consider the Ririkihki to be ridiculous, ignorant of the true nature of the world, and untrustworthy and traitorous. Those less inclined to debate can find them to be sassy, sarcastic, and potentially rude BUT they tend to appreciate this when it comes to artisanship.

But, Kivihk's unequal trade deals are gonna sink the economy in the next 5 years here and Demons are gonna take it over if no one does anything XD

Languages

Svanihk, and the Tsars and Tsarinavi speak Telethenian but others only do rarely. Their Telethenian accent is known for being harsh with lots of "broken speech" but in a "mysterious, primal way," not in a "they're stupid" way 🙄

Most Famous Places

The Giriglofa (aka. the Light Shop) is a shop of handmade Witchlights. Owned by the witch Nosvina, a Svanihk lady with dwarfism who has worked with the miners for years. She started making the Ysse-powered lanterns for miners after her third husband died in the mines. No one with one of her lanterns has died since, but she is considered to be very auspicious and dangerous. People often avoid her unless they need a Witchlight or have no other choice. She's perfectly happy to quietly help whoever she can, and often sings as she works. Yuletide is the one time of year where she has many many guests, as everyone comes for lantern repairs and brings her food and nuts and sings with her.

The Witch Tsars of Ririkya have long been leaders in the community and are well respected, even with their hypothetically lessened influence today. Their home, built beneath a crack in the Upper Continent--at the side of a waterfall and riverhead--is a grand fortress made of warm, red tiles and bright, ancient eucalyptus beams. The ceilings are gilded with the blackened, purplish Eucalyptus salt. The faces of the previous Witch Tsars are are carved into the cornerstones of the fortress. The fortress is two stories tall on average--with two towers reaching up another 3 smaller floors--and then two floors below ground. The gateway and main hall is large enough that two eleftegos can walks shoulder to shoulder with riders atop, and that ivory decorates the chandeliers and the koroshnihks of the Ririhki Witch Tsars.

Iratsovihk Zavlyai (the "Ysse"): The Ririkya has a very hot, natural hot spring which pours down from the pillars of the Upper Continent out into a small field of Ysse crystals. Steam fills the air here and strange, glass-like flowers and fungi grow around the crystals. The water ends up being a perfect temperature for bathing, but the ysse crystals are dangerous--as such, elaborate teacup-like bathtubs and scaffolding are erected to enable bathers, particularly witches and seeresses, to purify themselves in these waters. Bathing is communal and tubs are organized for clealiness and temperature--so you gradually increase your temperature and cleanliness as you both closer to the origin of the water. There are intermittent sand and mud baths--it's a whole process. Though individual tubs aren't technically separated by gender, because mining is has more men, the tubs for dirtier folks tend to have more men and the more ceremonial tubs tend to have more women, because more witches are women.

While I don't have any official art, here's some vibe checks and glimpses into Ririkihk culture!

[trucbiduleschouettes]

For the ask game have a bunch!! Valley: 🌹,🧡 / Darias: 💛,🌀 / Niquis: 💜, 🌷

Thank you for the ask!

Though Darias isn't my OC but @sessenaa' s so I'll let him answer those if he'd like ahah!

Valley:

🌹 How easy is it for them to connect with others and make friends? On the flip side how easy is it for them to make an enemy of someone? Are they the kind of person who hangs around the food table at a party and never talks to anyone or are they the type who can talk to anyone?

Funnily enough, Valley was raised aside from the rest of the world in a way due to being raised in the forest/mountains by her coven, so the campaign is the first time she's been surrounded by "others". If you put aside her very haggy sense of humour, I think she's actually connecting well with others! She's genuinely kind/ willing to help others, so if you get past the fact she looks quite intimidating, she connect relatively easy. Especially if you're a funny weirdo or a fun / cute lady-

They are the one who made the food at the party and definitely hang around the table to make sure everyone is eating/enjoying the food, but I think she'd definitely talk to the people she likes; she wouldn't bother pretending to enjoy the party if she doesn't tho, or if she doesn't like you.

🧡 Who is your OC’s favourite person? Why is this person the top of their list and have they actually met them (an idol or rolemodel or celeb can be someone’s favourite after all!).

Her favourite is definitely her dad! She loves all her haggy parents, but her dad is still her favourite person. He's always been extremely quiet, but willing to let Valley hang around him when he works or show her things. She also like the rare occasion he speaks because it feels quite cryptic and doesn't make sense on the moment. She also enjoy his fashion sense and keep trying to get people to wear facial veils like he does- Her second favourite is her hoarding mum. She finds her fun and she likes to collect trash when she can to gift it to her-

Niquis:

💜 Music or Silence? Swords or Spells? Cities or Nature?

Definitely music! She really likes it (she can't sing to save her life, but in modern AU she actually plays the drums). She is a warlock, so spells for the win, though she finds swords cool! Just not for her. And depends of the city, but definitely a nature girl!

🌷 In what ways would your OC alter their body if they could? How would they do it using mundane means (hair dye, surgery, make-up?). What is their ideal look for themself?

So fun fact, Niquis already does that a lot since she can disguise self at will! The most common is for her to pretend to look like a goliath to look a bit more like her adoptive dads' daughter. Otherwise, she does it to annoy the party by pretending to look like their daughter.

She genuinely likes how she looks though, I don't think surgery especially would ever cross her mind! She would probably try hair dye for funsies a few times, but she also like her natural hair. She do wears nailpolish and lipstick, usually black!

Ideal look for herself is just to feel nice in her skin, which she does already!

[mistypurplespark]

Chapter 31: First Snow

Chapter 31: First Snow

“Shut up! Che Luofeng! He saved your life!”

Translator(s): Elestrea

Editor(s): juurensha

It was barely half a day into the Autumn Close Festival, and trouble already came. A state of bitter enmity grew between Xiang Shu and Che Luofeng. Chen Xing didn’t expect the news of Tuoba Yan’s arrival in Chi Le Chuan would spread so quickly like this. Perhaps that group of Rouran cavalry went back and reported it right away to Che Luofeng.

Xiang Shu said in a deep voice, “That man has left. In Chi Le Chuan, fighting is forbidden. This has been the rule for over the last 400 years.”

Che Luofeng refused to yield at all, saying in a clear voice, “Xianbei’s Tuoba clan screwed my Rourans’ people and also captured my Rourans’ old and young! It doesn’t matter if he is your friend, Divine Doctor! We cannot live under the same sky! It’s a grave offense!” Speaking so, he prepared to lead the troops to give chase.

But Xiang Shu shouted angrily: “Who dares to kill!”

That sound was like a blossoming thunderstorm, jolting Chen Xing, his ears throbbing with sharp pain, his eyes going dark, and he nearly fainted. Xiang Shu was enraged. The Rouran cavalry members’ hearts immediately felt dread, and simultaneously retreat half a step.

“Che Luofeng,” Xiang Shu coldly said, “if you do take revenge, if you kill Tuoba Yan, you and your tribe need to scram out of the Yin Mountains, and throughout the rest of your life, you may never step into Chi Le Chuan ever again. The Great Chanyu always keeps his word.”

Che Luofeng, who was in a daze, gasped for breath. He was shouting so hard he had nearly sobered up. When Chen Xing was about to open his mouth to ease the tension, Xiang Shu raised his hand, prohibiting him from

speaking, then he swept his eyes across the cavalry, his eyes carrying an imposing aura.

Many years ago, on behalf of the country, Tuoba Yan’s paternal grandfather, Tuoba Shiyijian, along with the rest of Tuoba clan, tried to set up an independent political division in the Northeast, which was later stopped by Fu Jian. Chasing the descendant to take revenge for that at risk of offending the Great Chanyu was clearly not worth it. The cavalry sobered up soon, one after another, they gave Che Luofeng a meaningful look, hinting for him to forget about it.

“Shulü Kong, you... you...” Che Luofeng laughed in anger, then angrily said: “You really think the Rourans are seriously afraid of you!”

“Try me,” Xiang Shu said, “you will leave before sunrise tomorrow morning.”

The number of Rourans in the Ancient Chi Le Covenant almost reached 60,000, and if they were really driven out of the Covenant, it would be no small matter. Many people around the plain heard their quarrel, and they came out one by one and formed a circle. Still, Xiang Shu didn’t stop there, he raised his hand, pointing at the venue, and continued: “This is your choice. I will count to three, and either you raise your soldiers and take your revenge, or you go back and celebrate the festival. Three.”

Che Luofeng ruthlessly threw his weapons down on the ground and using his horse, he galloped out of the crowd. The Hu people busily tried to part, making an exit path for him. A moment later, the Rouran cavalry cleanly and clearly withdrew.

Even though he saw Che Luofeng go north, Chen Xing was still anxious. After the crowd had dispersed, Xiang Shu once again called over a Tiele man and whispered an order that Chen Xing roughly understood. Basically it was to get a group of cavalry to catch up with Tuoba Yan and escort him until he reached the Great Wall to avoid being chased for revenge by Che Luofeng.

Chen Xing breathed a sigh of relief and said: “Thank you.”

However, Xiang Shu didn’t say a word, and with a gloomy face, he turned around and walked away. Chen Xing remained standing in melancholy for a moment, and he suddenly felt that under the lively and flourishing scene of the Autumn Close Festival, there was a sense of emptiness and solitude. He then dragged his heavy legs back to the tent.

Xiang Shu took the lead in returning to the royal tent. When Chen Xing opened the curtain to enter, he saw that the inside was in a complete mess. Clearly, Che Luofeng had come here, taking with him the things he had used during his stay on Xiang Shu’s tent for the past few days. Xiang Shu saw this scene and was obviously infuriated by it.

Chen Xing didn’t comment on it either, just bending down to clean up the mess, saying: “Tuoba Yan is my friend, I’m sorry for troubling you.”

Xiang Shu spoke, “Che Luofeng has always been like this. Wait a few days for him to think it over, and he’ll come asking for your apology.”

Recalling what had happened at today’s venue, Chen Xing said: “I have purchased a horse and tomorrow, I will trade it for some food with your clansmen again and also for a sufficient amount of clothing to defend against the cold. I will immediately set out north.”

Xiang Shu sat down in the tent silently. Chen Xing had come to a realization that Chi Le Chuan, although beautiful, in the end, it was not his hometown. Xiang Shu’s clansmen, although enthusiastic, at the end of the day, they were also not his clansmen. After staying in Chi Le Chuan for a month, he gradually became aware that perhaps, south of the Yangtze River, with its emerald-green terraces and songbirds cries all over the world, was a place he ought to go.

Xiang Shu took a quick glance at Chen Xing, seemingly seeing through to his inner thoughts.

Chen Xing simply tidied up the tent for Xiang Shu and spoke: “I’ve stayed here for too long, and I’m afraid of making more trouble for you. I’ll get lost at once.”

Xiang Shu: “...”

Chen Xing poured himself a cup of milk tea, sat down, considered it, scratched his head, and said: “The matter of being a Protector, just forget about  it  ba.  You’re  the  Great  Chanyu;  you  also  have  your  own responsibilities and can’t always follow me to wander around all over the place. There are many people that need you. This person’s luck has always been very good, so you also don’t need to worry about me.”

Xiang Shu remained silent. Chen Xing examined his medicine bag and put away his dagger. He looked for the map, read through it carefully for a while, and by comparing the parchment copied by Xiang Shu as well as the terrain of the mountains and rivers beyond the Great Wall, he tried to speculate on the location of the gorge and the Great Lake. Based on the map and the direction of the Big Dipper, he had to go all the way north. Maybe, he could even meet the Akeles. He had learnt a little Xiongnu, and when he met them, he could ask for directions. Although the future was bleak, there was still hope.

He couldn’t afford to delay anymore, only wishing to find the legendary Dinghai Pearl before the start of next year’s spring. He wanted to settle the matter that weighed on his mind as soon as possible so he could go back to the South to wait for death.

Later in the evening, cheers could be heard from outside. Chen Xing went out to look, and it was snowing!

“Xiang Shu! It’s snowing.” Chen Xing said as he returned to the tent and pointed outside.

Xiang Shu frowned and observed Chen Xing, looking completely annoyed.

It was snowing heavier and heavier. The first snow after autumn of this year had finally arrived. The north wind wailed, and the feather-like heavy snow engulfed everything in Chi Le Chuan. The bonfire was moved to the center of the tents, and Chen Xing watched it alone for a while from in front of the royal tent before someone came to deliver supper. After a simple meal, Xiang Shu simply gazed at the tent, lost in thought. Chen Xing just drank some  wine,  already  used  to  Xiang  Shu’s  ‘any-living-person-do-not-

approach’ attitude. Soon, as usual, he lay down on his small couch and slept under a thin wool blanket.

“You won’t be able to go now.” Xiang Shu finally said, “The north road is closed during heavy snow. You can only wait until the beginning of spring.”

Chen Xing didn’t hear that. The wind came leaking into the tent, the blanket was thin, and the cold air blew over the night. He felt Xiang Shu covering him up with two more blankets in the middle of the night.

When he woke up early in the morning the next day, the outside was already wrapped in silver, and yesterday’s unhappiness was immediately swept away.

“Oh my god——!” Chen Xing was shocked.

Mountains, lands, and prairies, everything was blanketed by thick snow, it was as if the entire world was sprinkled with glittering, silver-light sugar. The scorching sun was high, and it shone brightly on the sparkling snow. The stream was frozen overnight and was now covered with a thin layer of ice. The early-riser Hus were breaking the ice on the stream so their horses could drink.

Chen Xing sneezed, his nose felt a little stifled, and Xiang Shu was nowhere to be seen.

“So beautiful!” Chen Xing said to himself. Saying so, he quickly washed up, saw the breakfast on the table, ate it, then wrapped himself in a thick fur. Wandering out while struggling through the snow, he saw that Chi Le Chuan had transformed overnight into something akin to a paradise.

“Xiang Shu!” Chen Xing shouted down from the top of the hillside.

Xiang Shu was dressed in a tiger-fur coat that reached his knees, a belt that lined up his well-defined waist, and a fox-tail hat on his head. He was instructing a group of Tieles. At the same time, the Tiele warriors were stowing the tents and supplies, seemingly wanting to leave for some business. Hearing the shout, he looked at Chen Xing, his lips red and his teeth white under the sunshine, making Chen Xing’s heart moved.

Xiang Shu made a gesture, motioning for Chen Xing to wait up there, then turned around and approached him.

“Let’s go skiing?” Xiang Shu said, “We couldn’t play at yesterday’s festival.”

Chen Xing was in a much better mood after waking up; he laughed and said: “Alright.”

He intended to leave tomorrow. Since today was his last day, he had to keep some memories. As a result, Xiang Shu, leading Chen Xing, carried a cavalry shield up to the slope, and with one foot, he stepped on it.

Cheng Xing: “....”

Xiang Shu: “Come up, and hug me tightly from behind.”

Chen Xing: “How do we do this? We’re gonna fall down, ba! Not even a rope?! One wrong step and we’re going to roll all the way down!”

Xiang Shu said impatiently: “Rubbish! Quick!”

The cavalry shield was not big, Chen Xing tried to step on it, but Xiang Shu grabbed his hands and pushed him back, locked his arms in an instant, dragged him onto his back, and pulled him hard so he ended up hugging Xiang Shu tight. Stepping sideways on the shield, woosh, they slid down!

“AAAH——” Chen Xing was taken along by Xiang Shu and immediately dived down from the top of the cliff, his heart almost jumped out of his throat. Xiang Shu stepped on the shield’s tail, leaped out, and took him flying high up in the sky before finally landing safely.

Chen Xing: “...”

Xiang Shu: “Again?”

Chen Xing still had some lingering fears, but he felt extremely excited. The slope was very steep, and it felt like jumping off an overhanging cliff.

“I didn’t even open my eyes...” Chen Xing said.

“Coward,” Xiang Shu ridiculed. He whistled to summon a horse, flipped over and mounted it, taking Chen Xing to a higher and steeper slope. Chen Xing looked down, it was almost three li, and his feet immediately felt a little soft.

“You’re in the front this time.” Xiang Shu said, “Keep your eyes wide open!”

Chen Xing madly shouted: “WAAAAH——”

Given no time for explanations, he was hugged by Xiang Shu, and they slid down. But just before they reached the end, Chen Xing turned his head around and told Xiang Shu: “Xiang Shu, tomorrow, I’ll...”

As soon as he turned his head, the two men’s lips almost met. Xiang Shu’s foot suddenly slipped, Chen Xing’s foot became unsteady, the shield went out of control, and they fell into the snow.

“Hahahaha——”, Chen Xing, with snow covering his whole face, got up and mocked Xiang Shu, “You, a moment ago, did you just blush?!”

Xiang Shu got up quickly with anger mottling his face, saying: “What are you doing?!”

Chen Xing hurriedly waved his hand to apologize, assuming that Xiang Shu, this sort of man, unexpectedly became very embarrassed when he was so close to other people that he even blushed! The other day, when he was almost kissed by Che Luofeng, Xiang Shu’s reaction had been even more intense than this.

Chen Xing picked up the shield, then said: “One more time?”

Xiang Shu took the shield. As they walked over towards the horse, Che Luofeng came from one side. He stood alone in the open ground and looked at the two men from afar.

Xiang Shu motioned to Chen Xing, as if saying “See? What did I tell you ba?”

Che Luofeng: “Snowball fight?”

Xiang Shu measured Che Luofeng carefully, then asked: “Sobered up?” “Yes! Yes!” Che Luofeng waved his hand, then suddenly laughed again.

Xiang Shu put Chen Xing on the horse, sat behind him while carrying the shield on his back, then put his hands around Chen Xing’s waist. He shook the reins, went up the hill, and took a few steps before looking back.

Only then did Che Luofeng come over and followed him, albeit bitterly. The Tieles, Rourans, and Xiongnus, who had been heavily drunk last night, had also sobered up. With each of them bringing their own shield, they went uphill and followed the Great Chanyu to make up for the ski fights they couldn’t do at the Autumn Close Festival. Thousands of people slid down from the hilltop down to the cliff; it was a magnificent sight. Xiang Shu held Chen Xing, and they slid down ahead. Che Luofeng soon caught up from behind them.

“Che Luofeng!” Chen Xing tried to turn his head, but Xiang Shu grasped his head and forcefully turned it back, saying: “Look ahead!”

From start to finish, Che Luofeng never replied, and they slid again several more times. Soon, more and more people, men and women, arrived. All the people started to have snowball fights at the foot of the hill, shouting and yelling; it was extremely lively.

Chen Xing was hit by Che Luofeng’s snowballs several times in a row and immediately sensed his hostility. When he looked at Che Luofeng, Che Luofeng smiled back provocatively, his meaning quite clear: ‘You have snatched my Anda.’

“I will go back first!” Chen Xing felt unpleasant to say anything, so he said to Xiang Shu: “You guys play!”

Xiang Shu also sensed the hostility. He held a snowball in his hand, weighing it. Chen Xing turned around and left. Xiang Shu glanced at Chen Xing, then looked at Che Luofeng, faintly smiling. Che Luofeng quickly assumed a fighting stance under the sunshine, and facing Xiang Shu, he smiled, like a big boy who lived a carefree life.

But Xiang Shu threw the snowball to the ground, turned around, then walked away.

Cheng Xing returned to the royal tent with his brain spinning with dizziness. He realized he must’ve caught a cold last night, so he ground a medicine pill and drank it down with boiled hot water, before laying down on the couch to rest.

Not long after, Xiang Shu came, bringing over a bowl and sweets cooked by the Tieles. It was a tradition on the first day of snow to drink a black ginger dark-brown sugar drink and stewed rice cakes. He frowned, asking: “Is the air chilly?”

“En...” Chen Xing smelled ginger. Knowing it was a kind of food that repelled cold, he got up with much difficulty to drink it, “Just sweating a bit.”

Xiang Shu said: “Even a doctor still gets sick.”

Chen Xing: “It’s normal if a doctor gets sick, I am not you, even all kinds of poisons dare not to invade your body.”

Xiang Shu sat in the tent and once again taunted him: “Are you still an exorcist? How about the Heart Lamp?"

Chen Xing helplessly said: “The Heart Lamp is merely made of mana; it doesn’t have the ability to protect one’s body and grant immortality. In fact, it’s precisely because of the use of the Heart Lamp’s mana that my body has been weakened. I also want to be as good as you guys, OK? The Han’s military power is not weak.”

‘The Han’s military power is not weak’, this point was indeed not wrong. Even after hundreds of years, all of the Hus outside the border were still very afraid of the formidable army, just like the time when the Wu Emperor was still in power. Chen Xing meant that his constitution was no good, but you shouldn’t generalize from that that all of the Hans were no good as well. Moreover, ever since his childhood, because of the Heart Lamp, he tended to cast magic, which must have somewhat taken a toll on his spirit and physique. He was basically a waste, a trash fish.

Chen Xing spoke incoherently, trying to explain in several sentences, then lay down on his stomach again to sleep, sweating, thinking: Tomorrow should be alright.

Xiang Shu didn’t leave. He got up very early that day, so he decided to mind his own business and lie down to sleep. In the evening, the sky was dusky, the wind was biting cold, and there was a blizzard.

Che Luofeng braved the snow to come, saying outside the tent: “Anda, come and let’s talk.”

Xiang Shu glanced at Chen Xing, got up and went out, afraid of waking him up.

Chen Xing who had been sleeping, without knowing why, suddenly woke up. Perhaps it was the heavens that wanted him to hear this conversation. Moreover, his consciousness was bright and clear. Che Luofeng spoke in Rouran, but Chen Xing had been living in Chi Le Chuan for some time and had studied a little bit, so from the tone of his voice, he could more or less guess that Che Luofeng was a little dissatisfied with him.

“If you want to talk, let’s go outside,” Xiang Shu turned to leave, “or, do you want to fight?”

“This is my own home, yet to talk, I have to hide from that Han man?!” Che Luofeng said.

Xiang Shu: “...”

Xiang Shu’s eyes began showing obvious anger. Che Luofeng continued: “Anda, just how much provocation did you hear from that Han?!”

Xiang Shu angrily said: “Shut up! Che Luofeng! He saved your life!”

Che Luofeng snarled: “Blackmailing me with my ‘life’? Can I return this ‘life’ back to him?” As he said that, he pulled out a dagger, gesturing at his stomach, and shouted: “Get him to scram out of Chi Le Chuan for me!”

Chen Xing inside the tent immediately stood up, thinking that he must go out now and say something, else he, this outsider, would truly incite disharmony between Xiang Shu and Che Luofeng, and he had no interest in doing so.

Xiang Shu was just about to step forward to seize the dagger in Che Luofeng’s hand when he suddenly stopped.

Amidst the violent snowstorm, several Tiele cavalrymen were showing the way for a Hu person, entering the valley.

“The Akele’s messenger wishes to see the Great Chanyu——!” shouted the leader.

Chen Xing immediately pulled open the curtain, coming out from inside the royal tent, looking for Xiang Shu.

“Go in,” Xiang Shu said, “you’re still sick.”

Che Luofeng’s complexion was clearly not good, Xiang Shu saw that Chen Xing had woken up, then motioned everyone to come in.

Translator's Comment:

So happy there are a lot of readers drawing/writing Dinghai stuffs these days!

Lycieratia and Asami from Discord drew some cute sketches of ShuXing!

There’s also a Dinghai Gaming AU fanfic by namio that you can check here! The characters have yet to appear but don’t worry, the only thing you need to know is that THEY ARE A PERFECT COUPLE! It’s spoiler-free too so feel free to check it out!

A post-cannon fic of ShuXing written by Yukinia from AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21702076

[percontaion-points]

TOWB chapters 5-8

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Chapter 5

One guard flinched when she looked at him, and drew a prayer circle on his chest, whispering about the curses of witch-women. 

“Can I copy your homework?”

“Sure, but change some of the answers so that it doesn’t look like you did.”

Ranka turned—and met the eyes of the prince she’d come here to kill.

Chapter 5 summary: At the palace, she meets the captain of the guard, a man who introduces himself as Foldrey. She thinks that if anybody can help her find Yeva, this guy can. She says that since she’s here, that they can release the other witch that they kidnapped. But Foldrey acts like he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Ranka isn’t sure if he’s playing dumb or not, but doesn’t know who else would have taken Yeva. 

They take her across the palace, and for some reason, this takes two fucking pages. They finally go into a dining hall, and Ranka starts to reach for some food. However, somebody stops her, and she mistakes him for Prince Galen. The other guy laughs and then realises that she legit doesn’t know who she is. Ranka is instantly on edge when she realises that this man is a male witch. 

Chapter 6

Pastries and pale-pink wedges of cake were whisked forward. Ranka reached for the nearest and someone made a disapproving tsk to her right. Two silver forks gleamed in front of her, one slightly smaller than the other, their handles carved into the shape of a bird in flight. She hesitated, hand hovering over the forks. They looked the same. Why would anyone in their right mind have rules about forks that looked the same? 

I don’t know why she gives a shit. She’s literally there to murder Galen. 

Ranka knew, because on the way here she’d passed right through Kerth territory, hoping they’d know something about the rotting witch in the woods. Instead she’d found cold firepits, unlocked cabins, and dishes of maggot-infested venison still set out on tables, as though they had vanished midbite. There were no bodies, no bloodshed. They were just gone. 

But why? And how could the palace not know?

This entire time, Ranka has not shut up about how the humans have been literally starving Witchik out of their home. And she’s somehow surprised and baffled that another coven would have packed up and moved on to greener pastures?

She would start, then, with the ones who did seem to have a keen eye fixed on the happenings within the palace walls—the noble boy and the princess. And she would start with winalin.

Chapter 6 summary: Galen and his twin sister, Aramis, come into the room, and we spend nearly a full page describing them. According to the reviews, the only thing of value anybody needs to take away from this is that their skin is “dark”. Aramis was raised from the time she was born to not only become the next queen, but also to be a powerful witch. But the magic never manifested in her, and her parents eventually gave the crown to Galen. Their parents died under mysterious circumstances last year, and Ranka suspects an angry Aramis poisoned them. 

Ranka tries to talk about the weather; she’s from the mountains, where the snow never really goes away, so she’s dressed in a coat and boots. It’s a lot warmer down here, and people are wearing sandals. 

They sit down to eat, where Ranka tries again to make conversation. It’s not going well. Eventually Aramis asks why it is that Ranka took so long to get here, and then scoffs at her answer of “I needed time to adjust to the idea of my new feature.” 

Aramis then starts leading the conversation, and mentions one of the other covens that’s closer to the city. Ranka had passed that way in the hopes of asking them about the weird witch she’d encountered, but found their home abandoned. Literally nobody can put together why they would have left, even though the answer should be quite obvious. 

Eventually, Aramis and the male witch leave, and Ranka is alone with Galen. She realises that Galen might be counting down the days to his coronation, but he’s not actually in charge here. Killing him would be beneficial towards the people, but wouldn’t solve the problems of the witches. 

Chapter 7

And when that happened, there wouldn’t be enough blood-magic in the world to stop him.

Chapter 7 summary: They leave Ranka alone after that. She wanders the palace in search of Yeva, but fails to find her. She’s forced to admit that maybe the guard was telling the truth; there aren’t any other witches there. 

She also hates how her entire role has been fulfilled simply by her showing up. Nobody gives a shit about her. But that leaves her free to explore the palace grounds without anybody stopping her. The only place she can’t go is into the dungeons, which are guarded night and day. 

She’s exploring the stables when Aramis, Galen, and the mysterious male witch show up. He’s finally introduced as Percy, and he’s an ambassador from the Star Isles. This surprises Ranka a lot, since the Star Isles were involved in a war a while ago, and kind of “disappeared off the face of the earth”. At least politically. The fact that there’s representation here, that he’s chummy with the to-be-king, and the fact that they would have sent this glorified soldier is baffling to Ranka. 

Anyway, they came to the stables to work on Galen’s storm magic. Ranka hides and watches. After they leave, she realises that when Galen finally matures and learns to control his magic, he’s going to be a powerful weapon. One that not even she can stop. 

Chapter 8

Ranka opened the hatch and leapt into the dark.

Chapter 8 summary: Some more days pass without event. Ranka is finally awoken by the start of her period. It also coincides with her blood witch hunger; she needs to feed, and it needs to be now. 

She remembers Aramis, Galen, and Percy mentioning tunnels in the stables, so she goes out there in search of them. If she can get out of the palace, she can subsist on rats or literally anything. But she can’t find them.

Then Aramis and Percy show up. They talk about keeping something from Galen. With her blood magic, Ranka can sense anxiety and guilt coming from both of them. Foldrey shows up, and mentions that the witch is dead, and the morgue has been alerted for the next two hours. Aramis and Percy leave via the tunnel Ranka had been searching for, but Foldrey remains for a moment longer.

It’s only after he leaves that Ranka decides that she can’t sit by knowing that Aramis and Percy are going to go look at a dead witch. She hops into the tunnel to follow them. 

[confusedguytoo]

I've never cared for that idea, because it leads to ideas like being addicted to water.

Now as Willow's and power. I've never quite seen Willow the same way as most. Certainly she hated being picked on. But Willow is not actually some extroverted person beaten down, to me. She's an introvert, who's attempt to come out of her shell in BtVS while a noble effort were largely a failure.

We find out Xander approached her to start their friendship, Buffy approached her, Oz approached her, Tara approached her.

The girl relies so much on social scripts that she can't get out of a situation where Cordelia is complaining about her to her, and all Harmony has to do is engage her in a friendly manner for Willow to do so pleasantly, despite the fact she hates Harmony with a fiery passion for making her life hell since second grade.

She was the only Scooby who really had negative reactions to anyone joining the Scooby Gang. Not a fan of Cordy or Faith or Anya. She could have invited Amy, the only female friend she had before Buffy into the group. She didn't, even though Amy could have been traumatized by what Catherine did.

Yeah, she gained confidence enough to get a boyfriend and a girlfriend. The boyfriend was in a band, and is one of the rare band members who is all about the music and in the post show comic is living in the mountains of Tibet. The girlfriend is shyer than her and she plainly admitted they were very private

We find out she does have opinions of things, she's feminist for example, she's left leaning. But the closest she ever gets to doing anything about it is going to a wicca meeting where she finds out it's actually all talk, but it's feminist talk. She could have found some things in common with them, but they weren't about the things she was about so she didn't go back.

In season 7 she has nothing but good things to say about the coven. But Giles has to go out and find her where she's meditating alone.

In the comics she's become the sort of person who will disappear on magical quests

And of course season six, if you'll forgive me for going out of order. When she's at her worst, Amy is the catalyst for her going to the Bronze and going to meet Rack. On her own in both cases Willow stays in. This was likely to show Amy's a bad influence, but WIllow hadn't needed influences to that point

Sorry for going on and on, but I'm arguing a major character trait taken for granted is actually wrong.

Also she's a genius hacker in the 90s. That's potential power. She never used it. You know some fanfic writers who want to show Willow was always waiting to go bad make her responsible for the IRS going after the Chases to show what her hacking could do

So, all that is why I believe Willow is actually an introverted person trying to force herself to be more outgoing because that is what society says people should be, and because it more closely matches the personalities of her friends.

I'm not denying Willow might do questionable things, I just believe that things that happen to people because of Willow's actions would be more likely because she forgot to think about them

Like she treated them like a bunch of NPCs. Now that actually might sound worse than trying to lord power over people, but I actually feel like the Buffyverse was pretty bad about that in general post high school years. BtVS season 4 wasn't terrible, but when Buffy decided she wouldn't sacrifice Dawn to save the world I feel like that is treating the other 6 billion in the world like they aren't real people. Season 6 had the problem of focusing so much on internal Scooby problems. Season 7 tried to fix it but kind of went back and forth on treating the potentials like real people. And the affect of Buffy asking the local girls was undermined by them showing other girls outside of Sunnydale. Meanwhile they did it on Angel by not just dismissing the suggestion Jasmine's mind control was a good thing. And at the end of season 5, triggering an apocalyptic battle to make some point.

I'm always iffy on the whole choosing the time and place of the battle if there's billions of lives on the line

my biggest btvs pet peeve is when people act as if willow doing questionable stuff is out of character... besties, one of the first things we learn about her is that she "accidentally" decripted the city council's security system before she even met buffy, girly will do anything as long as she has built a good enough excuse in her head and thinks she won't get caught!