#i think i had a burnout

[cutiegrumpycerym]

An announcement to say that GOH Faith is on a short hiatus ! Episode 4 will come only in a short while for I am drawing fanarts instead ! Indeed, I have been feeling down for a moment, then got sick and I'd prefer to get used to drawing again as to avoid any drop in quality ! 🤗

[tizzymcwizzy]

for anyone that doesn't know, i recently started school again! (that's why ive been so mia) so ill be posting class projects whenever i finish them,,, this was a figure drawing assignment :)

you can get a print of this here!

[cbmagus49]

:D

[petrii-dish]

A piece of home

[fumifooms]

do you happen to have that page that talks about the beauty standards of each race?

Yeah sure. While scavenging pics for this I found this neat reddit compilation & chart & theory talk too. I had um, way more to say than I anticipated (I know you only wanted the one page. I have nothing to say for myself. Like most topics in Dunmeshi things snowball because they’re so interconnected. Mercy…) so, many races and observations are only mentioned near the bottom.

Beauty standards and race in Dungeon Meshi

Not pictured there’s also how elven society is harsh on visibly disabled people, and how the demon took away Mithrun’s silver eyes and ears to take away his pride. There’s also how Senshi might have fit in with the orcs more easily because of the dwarven wide body shape, and how they tend to have more body hair too I suppose. In the extra on orcs we see Senshi living with the orcs and he gets judged because of the hierarchy rather than his looks.

What is fashionable also differs from culture to culture, and there’s how tattoos only seem common with elves, though dwarves and others do also sometimes have some. They seem to not raise much brows, which makes sense since for many essentially they’re for professional (magical) purposes especially with elves. Gender roles also differ in type and importance, but generally they are similar to irl ones for the races we see. Elven society seems to be the least gendered, which would be an unsurprising logical outcome of having lesser sexual dimorphism aka they look more androgynous. Comparing fashions and gender roles and how they affect beauty standards would be a whole other compilation and conversation. Kui has great worldbuilding partially because she’s got such a good grasp on sociopolitics and geopolitics. History affects cultures and beauty standards greatly. Kui’s oneshot Distant Utopia was very eye opening on her way to worldbuild and the consideration she gives these things, I do really recommend reading it.

Out of the big 5, we know the least about gnomes, but their sheet does say both culture and region are similar to dwarves’ and they end up being confused together often, so we can imagine the beauty standards are similar to dwarves’ as well.

I wanted to touch on this in a post eventually, but how one daydream hour page said half-foots tended to be curvaceous like in the artwork below puzzled me for a long time, all the half-foot characters we see during canon are rather slender and lanky after all, Chil’s succubi also being more curvy than plump. Economics are for sure a factor in that I imagine, the half-foots characters we see are all implied to be some flavor of poor or malnourished, as are half-foots depicted as empoverished oppressed minorities in general. Even comparing the artwork with the half-foot sheet’s depicted average half-foot, the ones on the left seem bigger. Wouldn’t it make sense though, if unlike dwarves half-foots don’t have similar naturally wide bodies, yet due to idolizing dwarves they work towards having a similar body shape/type to emulate them?

It’s said half-foots tend to stick to pretty ethnically homogeneous regions (aka half-foots-only communities) unless they move to the big city with ambition to try and make it big (like Chilchuck and his wife & kids did), and that’s interesting imo because then that would mean that in a ton of half-foot communities, they rarely see or interact with dwarves whom they try to emulate. Of course, one thing about beauty standards is that when they get adopted, at one point it stops being "this is how dwarves look and so this is how half-foots should look" and just becomes "this is how half-foots should look", most people feel as though beauty standards aren’t learned but innate, so I figure the half-foots wouldn’t have any problem still seeking dwarvish traits when there are no dwarves around.

There’s also stuff you can glean here and there if you want to extrapolate more. Like how in the race swap artworks, Mickbell is only smiling in the dwarf portrait, and Rin’s elven portrait looks very close to her elven one- Rin who is stated to be beautiful in her profile blurb. Benichidori’s extra does teach us tallmen can definitely have harsh beauty standards, but also since the text portrays her as very dysmorphic that’s likely reflected in her thoughts to a much more intense degree than is common, not an accurate strict baseline to go off. Ah, Kabru’s blue eyes are also why he and his mother lived a rough life in Kabru’s hometown, but that seems to be regional. Good post here on the topic of Kabru’s blue eyes and ties to irl history. There’s a lot to be said about Kabru being a man that in many ways is close to elven beauty standards, and how that might have affected or been affected by his upbringing with elves + his persona as someone that can effortlessly charm most people. Marcille’s section here in this essay also goes into Marcille’s struggles to fit in with the ideal image of an elf.

Looking human

Also notable are beastkins and demihumans: Demihumans are all dehumanized which makes people treat them worse. So if you differ from the visual idea of "human" (an in-world subjective categorization just as much as demihuman is) most people do judge you negatively. Elves and dwarves get to fight about which type of human is considered the prettiest, but demihumans are below tallmen and half-foots, they are considered as simply below the beauty contest, incompatible with it.

Onis are perhaps the demihuman people we know of with the least cultural influence on the dunmeshi world, and with the least intensely different appearance than other demihumans—they seem to be technically categorized as human to people not from the eastern archipelago?— but even them are treated as lesser than human, treated as beasts to slain for reputation points or useful strength to have around and command. It’s said their "magnificient horns" and fangs are often shaven off when the oni lives in tallman towns, so you could easily make the argument that onis are denied the right to have their own beauty standards, having to conform to other people’s and going through mutilation to take away features they might otherwise have taken pride in. Inutade was bought by the Nakamotos from a dangerous sumo fighting ring that got one of Inutade’s tooth broken on her first and only fight, and kept as a low ranking servant ever since. Remember when I said different fashions existed in dunmeshi and how those could also affect beauty standards? Like the elves, if you look at the portraits pages which include a lot of characters that aren’t in the story you can see distinct cultures within the same races, for example one young elf is bald which is in sharp contrast with the usual elven long luscious hairstyles, and that’s especially true for onis I think. Maybe not only from different regions but different eras as well… They have a bit of population in the very north of the western continent, so I like to think some of the ogres live in very cold, maybe even subarctic or arctic conditions. The point I’m getting at here is that within a race, culture/ethnicity like with Kabru will also influence them it isn’t just tallmen as a whole, different communities will have differing beauty standards. The oni history blurb and third row first collumn portrait remind me of Mongolia (which historically was a lot of different nomadic communities with different cultural identities as well. Something something, the oni empire experienced a decline and then tallmen overpowered them, and now they’re governed and split apart by stronger social classes & slavers and the richness of culture was hurt for it especially if they have no real community left of their own), but obviously many of them are dressed and look rather japanese, makes sense considering living in/close to Wa, and first row second collumn portrait reminds me of ainus which again would be logical considering geographical placement, though I’m far from an expert. Interestingly, ainus are indigenous people both in Japan and Russia- Perhaps the northern western continent ogres are meant to be closer to Russia than Canada like I imagined? Ok tangent over.

The kobold sheet says they’re especially sought after as slaves because they’re "adorable", but locally in the western continent they’re repeatedly said to be seen more as ferocious and dangerous. The dehumanization is most apparent in the first comic below. The language barrier and conflicts no doubt worsen this by a lot, but I think it’d be hard to deny that their canine appearance makes the dehumanization worse. "They’re ferocious beasts, they’re demihumans, they can’t be communicated with". Most characters in Dungeon Meshi’s world are desensitized to slavery and most characters are prejudiced one way or another. Point being, kobolds are fully removed from human beauty standards, but no doubt for kobolds, other kobolds are more beautiful than humans are. They’re assumed to be an uncivilized bunch, but just like any other people they like to adorn themselves with nice clothes and jewelry and keep themselves clean and groomed; they too take care of their appearance and take pride in it.

And the orcs! This one we have the most contact with in canon, with not only there being foreigner characters from the ethnicity or hearsay of their homelands and culture but full on contact with a community. We get to see up close what they’re like and what they think, and of course in turn they’re our introduction to how demihumans are harshly looked down upon and seen as inferior, less human and thus less worth valuing and less dignified. It’s text that orcs are ugly to most humans and humans are ugly to most orcs. Since I judged they didn’t need accompanying explanation the pictures showing this are in the pictures dump at the top.

God forbid you sell vegetables to orcs my god- but then again they do basically mandate adventurers to kill any orcs they come across so yeah the world isn’t above that even a little bit.

So yes, my main point here is simply that orcs are yet another evidence of the physical ideal of "human" being an important beauty standard for human societies globally.

Izutsumi is our glimpse at how beastkins are treated in the world, and in Wa at least that’s ending up being caged and mistreated as part of a freak show. Izutsumi hates her appearance and wishes she could leave the feline part of herself behind to only be human. Interestingly, not that we have a lot of info on them so this is very much a take with a grain of salt situation, but there seems to be less stigma around artificial beastmen, those who can shapeshift at will. The main difference is of course appearance, that most of the time they simply look like average tattooed humans. Artificially creating humans is an illegal practice, and no doubt it’s not well regarded, but being able to hide that makes them less likely to be discriminated at any moment, or even just discriminated less intensely. Again, looking human is important, not only for belonging but for safety’s sake. Beauty standards rule the world with harsh hands.

Mermaids and fishmen

Ok we’re done now right? Right-! But wait… Wait…! Mermaids and fishmen are said to be demihumans too, special separate cases to the main three demihuman species however, which is also represented by how mermaids and fishmen both are in the Adventurer’s Bible chapter Monsters meanwhile ogres, kobolds and orcs are in the chapter World. They’re an interesting topic because they directly tackle this topic, not only in a meta way for the readers but also making characters themselves struggle to quantify their humanity with the goal of knowing wether they should be eaten or not, especially Chilchuck. Chilchuck’s "is it really just a matter of feelings?" mini arc.

The party asking themselves "Should we eat this?" is very common, and often they end up playing a little loose on morality, like eating the red dragon’s meat despite it having digested Falin. Not unsimilarly Marcille freaks out a little over the vegetables they harvested having been grown with fertilizer, aka largely human poo. Half of the motivation of "should we eat this perhaps sentient creature" is out of consideration and compassion, but more strongly and more often, the characters struggle with a sense of taboo at eating something too closely related to humans. Even, feel uncomfortable because of the deepseated impression that eating it would dirty them in some way. Cannibalism is an interesting and relevant topic in many ways, but what I want to mention is how there’s the more or less universal belief that committing cannibalism inherently taints you as a person and turns you more monstrous, morally but also literally depending on some myths such as w*ndigos and onis in some cases, like in Touge Oni. Marcille and Izutsumi both express a fear of eating monsters turning them monstrous. Maybe this is part of what Laios was hoping for, honestly. There are two fears here, if eating a demihuman monster constitutes as cannibalism or not, and so, will eating it taint you because it’s a human, or will eating it taint you because it’s a monster? You are what you eat, until it’s a little too literal. You morally are the means by which you get your food, and you physically are the result of your nutrition. Dungeon meshi manages to mix an exploration of humanity with the theme of food because our relationship to food is very deep and complex, psychological as much as physiological.

In the end, the characters sort of shrug and accept that they’ll never quite understand the world of mermaids and fishmen and how they operate, and what that means about them. Laios is the one always challenging these notions other characters take for granted, it’s not obvious to Laios why people are softer on mammals than other animals and plants, it’s not obvious to Laios why people would be afraid of eating a monster just because it’s a monster, it’s not obvious to Laios why some food is gross to Marcille but not fish testicles, it’s not obvious to Laios why you should immediately regard orcs and kobolds badly.

"Cows are probably closer to humans [aka closer to being human] than fishmen, though they’re clearly intelligent", dehumanization to lessen empathy towards them to be able to eat them. Meanwhile, mermaids seemingly have a less noticeable "civilization" or intelligence, they hunt in groups like fishmen, but they don’t use tools and such, they feel more primal and similarly instinct driven, and yet… Do they attract sympathy more? Mammals, humans, is it because of their nature or because of their appearance?

Both the nature and appearance of fish are ones people don’t typically sympathize with. "Fish don’t feel pain", "goldfish only have 5 seconds of memory", "it’s okay to keep fish in completely empty bowls too small for them until they die from it", so many lies and misconceptions exist that make people less considerate of them. The average lifespan of a goldfish is 10-15 years, the record is 43, but they’re not seen as lives that really matter, so a lot of goldfish die in a few weeks of bad aquarium conditions. There’s a lot of research on animals evolving to look cute and appealing to make some predators want to kill them less and parents want to care for them more, including humans. First good google research result gave me this credible short article on the topic. In Chilchuck’s weighing wether a fishman is far enough from being human or not to eat, "face is 100% fish" is his biggest argument for it being more acceptable. The face, the most important thing for empathy and recognition. The face, the decapitated fishman one that falls into his hands next chapter.

To quote @room-surprise: "Chilchuck can't explain why it's wrong to eat the merpeople, even though it's NOT complicated. But the problem is Chilchuck would have to accept and acknowledge that the merpeople might be people? And that's outside of the worldview he passively believes, so he can't just say that, because he doesn't think that's true. But that IS why he "feels" it's wrong. And it's all you'd need to say for Laios to understand! But it would require acknowledging that maybe the way they're treating and talking about the merpeople is wrong."

The idea of Chil not being able to grapple with how maybe some monsters are more humans than they seem, him who had been an advocate of half-foots rights, half-foots who get undermined and treated as inconsequential sacrifices… Grappling with how he could relate to the merpeople’s situation almost, and pulling away because it’s so existentially horrifying. I do not want to see myself into an hostile fish-faced warrior I can’t communicate with. In a way this also relates to Chilchuck being the only party member who doesn’t see Izutsumi as a cat in the relationship chart, the only one to treat her with full human dignity. He knows the struggle to be taken seriously, he knows being infantilized and he knows what it’s like to be treated as less than human.

Below, you will see Chilchuck draws the line of where they become not okay to eat as when "they already look like mermaids". Above, there’s speculation that the algae hair is partly to mimic "the mermaids’ beautiful female form". Is it because mermaids are their enemies and the ambiguity might give them extra seconds to attack or flee? Is it to trick adventurers instead? It’s striking to me that this is what works, with the adventurers. Sure the fishmen are intelligent, but explicitly here, what makes them no longer acceptable prey to Chilchuck is that they look close enough to a mermaid, close enough to human. Mermaids who of course themselves have this form to entice and seduce and charm the adventurers they prey on. Chilchuck considers the intelligence due to the tridents, but most of his internal debate centers around their appearance, and the image of a fishman skewered sickens him. The power of mimicry… Mimic being a beautiful human woman. Mimic being cute, babies being wired to make us feel protective and softened. Half-foots, sometimes pretending to be children for scams or help or avoiding trouble.

The mermaids are only concerned by their differences and not their similarities, and have no trouble treating the fishmen as food rather than peers. To an outside perspective like us, the audience, all these categorization of "more human" and "less human" between onis and orcs and elves and tallmen etc seem stupid and unfounded, but to the people living in Dungeon Meshi’s world, elves may as well be mermaids while onis are fishmen, not alike at all, unworthy of empathy and thus fine to eat.

Ultimately, Dungeon Meshi promotes unity. It’s about seeking to understand the unknown and the misunderstood, the dehumanized and the inhuman. It shows the good that comes from seeking to understand what you do not, even when that’s one another.

[peachybunana]

🩸 BLOODBATH

[mayf1owers]

In their own words

-> Quotes aren’t strictly in chronological order

-> All those people in those old photographs I've seen are dead, and in the end, I'd do it all again, I think you're my best friend. - Fall Out Boy

[leciraofthewilderness]

So, despite some faults, I really enjoyed totk, and on its anniversary I want to say something about it. Other people have said similar things before but it’s really important to me and actually a big part of why the story of totk was meaningful to me, so I want to also say it:

Zelda needed to come back from draconification. The story needed that. It wasn’t lazy and just ignoring “consequences” because (imo) that was the *point*

The point is to feel like there are going to be terrible consequences and then say actually, no. You can come back from this, with the help of other people.

To me at least, that was the theme of the whole story.

If botw was about how the world goes on past loss and grief and starts to heal (how flowers grow in the ruins and the world can be beautiful again, be worth saving, even if it has changed)…then totk was about a more personal kind of healing.

The weight of the world should not be on your shoulders alone…you, alone, should not have to fix everything…you should not have to sacrifice yourself, but when you do, someone will be there to save you from it.

This turned into a really long ramble so:

You (Link) gained so much and now it’s gone. It feels like you’re back to where you started and yet you know you have to do it all again…you were weak and you failed and you’re weaker now���but

You go down to the surface. Monsters swarm across it once again. Other people are fighting them too though. You help, but it’s not just you…

You go to the Rito, the Gorons, the Zora, the Gerudo…just like with the divine beasts, there are friends who help you save each region. But this time, part of them comes along with you when you leave. It’s nice, you realize, the first time one of them protects you from a monster you weren’t prepared for. You’re still weaker than you were before, but someone has your back…

When you go up to the sky you see a strange new dragon there. There’s something about them that feels familiar. You try not to think about it.

You go down to the depths too. It’s terrifying at first. You hate it. You only want to get what you came for and get out of the dark….but slowly, the light grows. You get stronger. The dark feels like a challenge you can face (and someone has your back).

There are spirits down there. You don’t know when they’re from, but some part of you wonders…are these all the people you let die in the Calamity? (You help them find rest from their wandering. The weight on your shoulders feels a little less heavy).

There’s so much gloom. The first few times the sky turns red and hands chase you (a reminder of what you’ve lost, how you failed) you just run. Eventually though, you have to fight. It feels like the (second) worst day of your life again. But you manage to get free of the grasping gloom and stand and fight, as wild and desperate as it is. Beneath the manifestation of your worst fears, there’s another thing to fight, but this time it has a face (a voice in the back of your head says…you know this isn’t all on you and your failure…it’s really Ganon’s fault right?). You get through it.

At every turn in your travels, it seems like something reminds you of Zelda. Her passion, her curiosity, her kindness. You miss her.

At first, the tears you find reassure you. She may be in the past, but she’s safe. She’ll come back somehow…but then you hear the word draconification for the first time. You want to believe she wouldn’t do it but you know her and the fear sits cold inside you. (Zelda is a lot of things. She’s been allowed to be more of them, since she was freed from her hundred year battle, without her father holding her back. But deep down inside her, there’s a vein of self-sacrifice that still runs strong. It’s what saved the world before, after all).

She did it. She really did it. She’s gone from you (from Hyrule) forever, and it’s all your fault. If only you hadn’t failed so utterly in the battle (you can hardly even call it that) under the castle. If only you’d caught her. If only you hadn’t let the sword break. You should have protected her you should have been better it’s all your fault and now she has to live with the consequences, forever. Everything really is on you, you should have been better.

(Zelda POV: you couldn’t call upon Hylia’s power in time, you were too content to let it wither and fade away from you, ready to be free of it. You shouldn’t have. He got hurt, the sword got hurt, it’s your fault…Sonia and Rauru help you channel it again, Sonia helps you learn how to turn back time…but you don’t save her. She dies because you couldn’t save her. Rauru dies not long after. There is no one left to guide you, once again. You could spend years trying to figure it out on your own. But you did that last time. It didn’t work. Self-sacrifice, stepping in front of someone you love, that worked. (You do what you can, to call upon the sages, to help Link in the future, first). And then you swallow the stone. You’ve come a long way, in the past five years, allowing yourself to exist. But in the end, self-sacrifice worked last time. It’ll work this time too.)

You (Link) go down beneath the castle. You were supposed to bring the sages but you didn’t. It’s nice, for someone to have your back. But no one else should get hurt to fix your mistakes.

They follow you anyway. They fight with you, against the hordes, against the greatest enemies you defeated together, along the way. They’ll have your back, even if you don’t think you deserve it.

You fight Ganondorf, and then the demon king, in the hardest battle of your life. You think it’s over and then the demon king decides it’s better to lose himself completely than let you win. You’re exhausted and afraid of yet another battle, but up there in the sky, when you’re falling, the Light Dragon catches you (you wonder why she changed her path to catch you, you wonder if there’s still something of Zelda left in there to save). With her help, you win.

And then you’re in some other realm. The spirits of Sonia and Rauru are there. You remember how the two of them and Zelda channeled such incredible power together. You think about Recall. Turning something back to the memory of what it was before, like Sonia said. You stand with them and you allow yourself to hope. Maybe the Light Dragon can remember the form she took so long ago, the person that she was.

And then you’re falling, and Zelda is falling, but this time you catch her. You catch her. She’s back home with you, finally, finally.

And maybe, one mistake doesn’t have to be the end of the world. You don’t have to be perfect. Sometimes, someone else can stand with you, and it’ll all turn out alright. (You can put the weight of the world on your shoulders, you can sacrifice yourself, but someone will be there to catch you, someone will be there to pull you back to yourself, when all is said and done).

[sad-leon]

Part 2!

hmmm i wonder how this interaction is gonna go 👀

Masterpost || Next

[tokkigwii]

Happy birthday dr xeno🥰

World domination talk over the sunset

[nmoroder]

Meursault askblog post #3: what do you feel when you think about your Mother?

Askblog tag: #nmoroder meursault ask Please see pinned blog post before asking questions!

Ooh boy here we go. i've had several thoughts abt Meur's mother just off the top of my head when i was new to the characters and overall lore, but time passed and my knowledge grew and now those theories suck and im excited to know what its really all about. Nevertheless i feel like its something not so pleasant to think about for him, and since we've got like endless time before his canto comes up, i am free to do whatever i please. sorry man!

[kylominis]

𝐒𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐞 𝐈𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬... [♡]

[wisecrackingeric-2]

SUPER DUPER QUICK BEFORE I FORGET I HAVE A COUPLE QUESTIONS FOR YOU GUYS

1. Last year for the whole month of November I posted a piece every single day and I’m curious would anyone be interested if I did that again this year??? :00

And 2. Would anyone be interested if I did an art raffle kind of thang????? Cuz I hit a Number of followers and I’ve always wanted to do one but I’m never had the chance to!!!!

[candyheartedchy]

First | Previous | Next

[acourtofquestions]

Kingdom of Ash Chapter 61

Chapter; Highlights (okay the entire chapter is a highlight)🤣

As requested @mysterylilycheeta I NEED TO SQUEAL IN WYVERN FANGIRL WITH YOU NOW CAUSE OH M GOODNESS THIS CHAPTER ON SO MANY LEVELS I JUST AHAKWIHUHFEJLZXBKEKA

Agony was a song in Lorcan's blood, his bones, his breath.

Every step of the horse, every leap she made over body and debris, sent it ringing afresh. There was no end, no mercy from it. It was all he could do to keep in the saddle, to cling to consciousness.

To keep his arm around Elide.

She had come for him. Had found him, somehow, on this endless battlefield.

His name on her lips had been a summons he could never deny, even when death had held him so gently, nestled beneath all those he'd felled, I, and waited for his last breaths.

And now, charging toward that too-distant keep, so far behind the droves of soldiers and riders racing for the gates, he wondered if these minutes would be his last. Her last.

She had come for him.

Lorcan managed to glance toward the dam on their right. Toward the ruk rider signaling that it was only a matter of minutes until it unleashed hell over the plain.

He didn't know how it had become weakened. Didn't care.

Still Elide kept urging the horse onward, kept them on as straight a path toward the distant keep as possible.

No ruk would come to sweep them up. No, his luck had been spent in surviving this long, in her finding him. His power would do nothing against that water.

The farthest lines of panicked soldiers appeared, and Farasha charged past them.

Elide let out a sob, and he followed the line of her sight.

To the keep gate, still open.

"Faster, Farasha!" She didn't hide the raw terror in her voice, the desperation.

Once the dam broke, it would take less than a minute for the tidal wave to reach them.

She had come for him. She had found him.

The world went quiet. The pain in his body faded into nothing. Into something secondary.

Lorcan slid his other arm around Elide, bringing his mouth close to her ear as he said, "You have to let me go."

Each word was gravelly, his voice strained nearly to the point of uselessness.

Elide didn't shift her focus from the keep ahead. "No."

That gentle quiet flowed around him, clearing the fog of pain and battle. "You have to. You have to, Elide. I'm too heavy-and without my weight, you might make it to the keep in time."

"No." The salt of her tears filled his nose.

Lorcan brushed his mouth over her damp cheek, ignoring the roaring pain in his body. The horse galloped and galloped, as if she might outrace death itself.

"I love you," he whispered in Elide's ear. "I have loved you from the moment you picked up that axe to slay the ilken." Her tears flowed past him in the wind. "And I will be with you ..." His voice broke, but he made himself say the words, the truth in his heart. "I will be with you always."

He was not frightened of what would come for him once he tumbled off the horse. He was not frightened at all, if it meant her reaching the keep.

So Lorcan kissed Elide's cheek again, allowed himself to breathe in her scent one last time. "I love you," he repeated, and began to withdraw his arms from around her waist.

Elide slapped a hand onto his forearm. Dug in her nails, right into his skin, fierce as any ruk.

"No."

There were no tears in her voice. Nothing but solid, unwavering steel.

"No," she said again. The voice of the Lady of Perranth.

Lorcan tried to move his arm, but her grip would not be dislodged.

If he tumbled off the horse, she would go with him.

Together. They would either outrun this or die together.

"Elide-"

But Elide slammed her heels into the horse's sides.

Slammed her heels into the dark flank and screamed, "FLY, FARASHA." She cracked the reins. "FLY, FLY, FLY!"

And gods help her, that horse did.

As if the god that had crafted her filled the mare's lungs with his own breath, Farasha gave a surge of speed.

Faster than the wind. Faster than death.

Farasha cleared the first of the fleeing Darghan cavalry. Passed desperate horses and riders at an all-out gallop for the gates.

Her mighty heart did not falter, even when Lorcan knew it was raging to the point of bursting.

Less than a mile stood between them and the keep.

But a thunderous, groaning crack cleaved the world, echoing off the lake, the mountains.

There was nothing he could do, nothing that brave, unfaltering horse could do, as the dam ruptured.

Rowan made himself stand there, to watch the last moments of the Lady of Perranth and his former commander. It was all he could offer: witnessing their deaths, so he might tell the story to those he encountered. So they would not be forgotten.

The roaring of the oncoming wave became deafening, even from miles away.

Still Elide and Lorcan raced, Farasha passing horse after horse after horse.

Even up here, would they escape the wave's reach? Rowan dared to survey the battlements, to assess if he needed to get the others, needed to get Aelin, to higher ground.

But Aelin was not at his side.

She was not on the battlement at all.

Rowan's heart halted. Simply stopped beating as a ruddy-brown ruk dropped from the skies, spearing for the center of the plain.

Arcas, Borte's ruk. A golden-haired woman dangling from his talons.

Aelin. Aelin was—

Arcas neared the earth, talons splaying.

Aelin hit the ground, rolling, rolling, until she uncoiled to her feet.

Right in the path of that wave.

"Oh gods," Fenrys breathed, seeing her, too.

They all saw her.

The queen on the plain.

The endless wall of water surging for her.

The keep stones began shuddering. Rowan threw out a hand to brace himself, fear like nothing he had known ripping through him as Aelin lifted her arms above her head.

A pillar of fire shot up around her, lifting her hair with it.

The wave roared and roared for her, for the army behind her.

The shaking in the keep was not from the wave.

It was not from that wall of water at all.

Cracks formed in the earth, splintering across it. Spiderwebbing from Aelin.

"The hot springs," Chaol breathed. "The valley floor is full of veins into the earth itself."

Into the burning heart of the world.

The keep shook, more violently this time.

The pillar of fire sucked back into Aelin.

She held out a hand before her, her fist closed.

As if it would halt the wave in its tracks.

He knew then. Either as her mate or carranam, he knew.

"Three months," Rowan breathed.

The others stilled.

"Three months," he said again, his knees wobbling. "She's been making the descent into her power for three months."

Every day she had been with Maeve, bound in iron, she had gone deeper. And she had not tapped too far into that power since they'd freed her because she had kept making the plunge.

To gather up the full might of her magic.

Not for the Lock, not for Erawan.

But for Maeve's death blow.

A few weeks of descent had taken her powers to devastating levels. Three months of it

…

Holy gods. Holy rutting gods.

And when her fire hit the wall of water now towering over her, when they collided —

"GET DOWN!" Rowan bellowed, over the screaming waters. "GET DOWN NOW!"

His companions dropped to the stones, any within earshot doing the same.

Rowan plummeted into his power. Plummeted into it fast and hard, ripping out any remaining shred of magic.

Elide and Lorcan were still too far from the gates. Thousands of soldiers were still too far from the gates as the wave crested above them.

As Aelin opened her hand toward it.

Fire erupted.

Cobalt fire. The raging soul of a flame.

A tidal wave of it.

Taller than the raging waters, it blasted from her, flaring wide.

The wave slammed into it. And where water met a wall of fire, where a thousand years of confinement met three months of it, the world exploded.

Blistering steam, capable of melting flesh from bone, shot across the plain.

With a roar, Rowan threw all that remained of his magic toward the onslaught of steam, a wall of wind that shoved it toward the lake, the mountains.

Still the waters came, breaking against the flames that did not so much as yield an inch.

Maeve's death blow. Spent here, to save the army that might mean Terrasen's salvation. To spare the lives on the plain.

Rowan gritted his teeth, panting against his fraying power. A burnout lurked, deadly close.

The raging wave threw itself over and over and over into the wall of flame.

Rowan didn't see if Elide and Lorcan made it into the keep. If the other soldiers and riders on the plain stopped to gape.

Princess Hasar said, rising beside him, "That power is no blessing."

"Tell that to your soldiers," Fenrys snarled, standing, too.

"I did not mean it that way," Hasar snipped, and awe was indeed stark on her face.

Rowan leaned against the battlements, panting hard as he fought to keep the lethal steam from flowing toward the army. As he cooled and sent it whisking away.

Solid hands slid under his arms, and then Fenrys and Gavriel were there, propping him up between them.

A minute passed. Then another.

The wave began to lower. Still the fire burned.

Rowan's head pounded, his mouth going dry.

Time slipped from him. A coppery tang filled his mouth.

The wave lowered farther, raging waters quieting. Then roaring turned to lapping, rapids into eddies.

Until the wall of flame began to lower, too. Tracking the waters down and down and down. Letting them seep into the cracks of the earth.

Rowan's knees buckled, but he held on to his magic long enough for the steam to lessen.

For it, too, to be calmed.

It filled the plain, turning the world into drifting mist. Blocking the view of the queen in its center.

Then silence. Utter silence.

Fire flickered through the mist, blue turning to gold and red. A muted, throbbing glow.

Rowan spat blood onto the battlement stones, his breath like shards of glass in his throat.

The glowing flames shrank, steam rippling past. Until there was only a slim pillar of fire, veiled in the mist-shrouded plain.

Not a pillar of fire.

But Aelin.

Glowing white-hot. As if she had given herself so wholly to the flame that she had become fire herself.

The Fire-Bringer someone whispered down the battlements.

The mist rippled and billowed, casting her into nothing but a glowing effigy.

The silence turned reverent.

A gentle wind from the north swept down. The veil of mist pulled back, and there she was.

She glowed from within. Glowed golden, tendrils of her hair floating on a phantom wind.

"Mala's Heir," Yrene breathed.

Down on the plain, Elide and Lorcan had halted.

The wind pushed away more of the drifting mist, clearing the land beyond Aelin.

And where that mighty, lethal wave had loomed, where death had charged toward them, nothing remained at all.

For three months, she had sung to the darkness and the flame, and they had sung back.

For three months, she had burrowed so deep inside her power that she had plundered undiscovered depths. While Maeve and Cairn had worked on her, she had delved. Never letting them know what she mined, what she gathered to her, day by day by day.

A death blow. One to wipe a dark queen from the earth forever.

She'd kept that power coiled in herself even after she'd been freed from the irons. Had struggled to keep it down these weeks, the strain enormous. Some days, it had been easier to barely speak. Some days, swaggering arrogance had been her key to ignoring it.

Yet when she had seen that wave, when she had seen Elide and Lorcan choosing death together, when she had seen the army that might save Terrasen, she'd known. She'd felt the fire sleeping under this city, and knew they had come here for a reason.

She had come here for this reason.

A river still flowed from the dam, harmless and small, wending toward the lake.

Nothing more.

Aelin lifted a glowing hand before her as blessed, cooling emptiness filled her at last.

Slowly, starting from her fingertips, the glow faded.

As if she were forged anew, forged back into her body.

Back into Aelin.

Clarity, sharp and crystal clear, filled its wake. As if she could see again, breathe again.

Inch by inch, the golden glow faded into skin and bone. Into a woman once more.

Already, a white-tailed hawk launched skyward.

But as the last of the glow faded, disappearing out through her toes, Aelin fell to her knees.

Fell to her knees in the utter silence of the world, and curled onto her side.

She had the vague sense of strong, familiar arms scooping her up. Of being carried onto a broad feathery back, still in those arms.

Of soaring through the skies, the last of the mist rippling away into the afternoon sun.

And then sweet darkness.

[imadhatt3r]

It's a late Friday evening in Midorijima, and that means that it's time for the weekly Benishigure meetup at the Black Needle. It's always a good opportunity to meet new members, get drunk, and have some fun with the other guys you'd usually miss due to conflicting schedules. Today's meeting is a bit more special- Aoba decided to join in, which he doesn't always do. He's the boss' boyfriend, but he's not officially a member himself- he has, however, gotten close to the gang in the time they've been together, so everyone just treats him like an honorary Benishigure, which both makes him happy, in a way, and annoys him to no end, given all the attention he recieves and the fact that he's a subject of never-ending jokes and bits (in a friendly way, of course).

Everyone's a bit drunk by now, laughing and toasting for anything that comes to their heads, no matter how small and insignificant. Koujaku is smoking a cigarette and sipping on his sake, taking it all in and quietly enjoying seeing the people he brought together. Aoba had a bit to drink too; He rarely does, but something tempted him to drink today- perhaps a desire to join in and fully enjoy the atmosphere was stronger than his usual convictions.

The conversation turns to relationships, as it always does at some point when a group of drunks congregates.

"Wait, how long have you two been together? Like, a year?" One of the Benishigures asks as he turns to Aoba and Koujaku. "That's pretty impressive, I gotta admit- it's probably the longest anyone stayed with Koujaku"

He barks a laugh, like he was suprised at how funny he found his own joke. Aoba looks at Koujaku with suspicion, but he only responds with a grin and a sly look in his eye- completely unmoving, cigarette still held in his teeth.

"You thought about tying the knot yet? I'm telling ya, if you managed to keep him around for a year, that means you gotta have something special going on."

"I doubt any shrine would be willing to do the ceremony for two guys." Aoba rolls his eyes. He's mostly trying to convince himself; Both he and Koujaku are respected in their local community, so he has no doubt that their potential union would be honored. He thinks that this whole "being in a relationship with a man" had sunken into his mind by now, but in moments like these, he really worries that he will never internalize it fully.

"Since when do you need a shrine?" The Benishigure snorts dismissively and waves his hand around with no grace at all; His eyes have a spark in them that already tells Aoba that he came up with something only a drunk could make up. "You're already with your friends and family, right...? And everyone's wasted on sake...? All we need now is for the lovebirds to smooch." He grins. "I can even be your official, if you want"

He raises his mug, beer and froth sloshing with his uncoordinated movements and begins to chant "KISS! KISS! KISS!", his yell echoing through the bar. All the other members at the table quickly abandon whatever they were talking about and join in, not knowing what they're cheering for, but knowing that it's paramount to see their leader and his boyfriend make out at the table this instant.

This unrest finally rouses Koujaku. He knows that Aoba doesn't enjoy being the center of attention, and especially not when he's being goaded into doing something by a bunch of rowdy, drunk dudes. He usually trusts his men to know when to cool it when it comes to teasing Aoba, but it seems like alcohol might've clouded their judgement.

He grabs his cigarette between his slender fingers and opens his mouth to speak. Before he manages to make a single sound, Aoba is pressing his lips against his, tasting the smoky flavor of the kiss. The room erupts in cheers, and the clinking of glasses and mugs raised in toast adds to his overwhelmed state.

In a way though, Koujaku is oddly gleeful about it all; He never expected to get married, or at least not like that- when he was younger, he'd probably imagine a serious, grim ceremony where he's forced to marry a girl he never saw before, one that was chosen by his father in order to strenghten their family's position in the criminal underword. Nowdays he has no family he could invite to such a ceremony, but the Benishigure are the closest thing he has, and he loves them like he would his own blood, so getting married while listening to their howls and cheers is probably how he'd like it to go anyway. As for Aoba... Being able to be around him in any capacity was a dream come true; Koujaku knew that he himself is never going anywhere anyway. But thinking about Aoba pledging his loyalty to him with such fervor, and in front of so many other people... He's just happy he's not a crying kind of drunk. Instead, he chooses to cup Aoba's head with his free hand, gently rustling the short, stiff hair right at his hairline.

On the next day, Aoba doesn't talk about the kiss, but when Koujaku tries to talk to him about it, he can see that Aoba remembers it all happening by the way he stammers, badly puts on a facade and downplays the whole event. Koujaku just laughs; He knows that Aoba needs to process it- he knows him well enough to know how he behaves after events like this, and Koujaku is, if nothing, a patient man. Besides, Aoba was always adorable when he was in that part of processing something, so he really doesn't mind.

Benishigure who are "in the know" sometimes call Aoba "bride" to mess with him, or ask Koujaku to say hi to his "wifey" from them. Mizuki finds out from them through rumors that the Black Needle hosted their very first wedding/reception when he happened to have a night off and he can't live that down. As for Aoba and Koujaku, they don't really consider themselves an officially married couple, but the bit is nicer to carry out than they thought- jokingly talking to eachother like an old married couple comes to them more naturally and is more fun than either has expected.