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lilyofporcelain · 19 days ago

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Servility - Part III

[Part I] [Part II]

It had been difficult, she thought, to pick out something to wear that morning. Laeynna couldn’t remember what she wore when she was younger and she suspected the only thing her father would have cared about was that she was covered. Fortunately for him, she had never been the sort to want to show herself off. When she began to think on it a little more, it occurred to her that she hadn’t thought of herself as necessarily pretty, or the type of woman who was inclined to stand out in a crowd. But clearly other people had different eyes. She was grateful for them.

He’d made her breakfast. French toast. Bacon. Eggs. It was hearty, and delicious. She couldn’t think of a time in which Andaeros’ cooking had not tickled her fancy. He didn’t press. Didn’t pry. Didn’t push. Knew what she was getting up to. Knew that what she’d likely needed most was simply his support and he offered it in excess abundance. She was grateful for him, even as she couldn’t exactly finish everything he’d made for her. But he’d also said anything she didn’t eat, he simply would. No food would go to waste.

When she left him, it was with kisses exchanged.

Love you, babe.

The words, simple as they were, left her pink in the cheeks. It was just what she’d needed when she’d set out, her insides aflutter with nerves. How many years had it actually been since she’d seen her father? Laeynna had lost count. She wasn’t sure she could remember anything about that final day. If she’d known that their last conversation would be… indeed, the last, would she have done anything different? At that time, she doubted it. She had been hungry with her ambition and it had controlled her so soundly that in the way wild, rabid animals were put down, Laeynna had almost not been any different.

A moment’s consideration more and she realised that no, in order for her to become the person she was in the present, in order for that growth to happen, she’d had to experience everything that came before. Otherwise, it would have made the present rather unimpressive and a bit of a hollow triumph. On some level, it was important that she was proud of who and what she’d grown into, and the idea that she’d survived everything to make it to that point. More than once, she had been described as a strong and resilient woman and though she’d often tried to be deaf to such evaluations of her character, there was a distinct truth in the words.

Laeynna travelled by foot, just as she had most of the other destinations in her life. Portals had, undoubtedly, made things convenient, but for her there had been a discomfort in taking them. Maybe a lack of understanding. In her official tutelage when it came to schools of magic, she’d never gotten that far and thus had never studied how they were created, what was needed to anchor them, how they determined where one was located to once passing through. The not knowing had left her wary and a good deal suspicious. After so many years of not taking them, she considered herself far too set in her ways. Besides, why take a portal when one could take the scenic route? The romantic within her, which Laeynna insisted didn’t exist, appreciated the view. Or maybe it was less the romantic and more the botanist. She was certain that at some point, the two ideas held hands with one another.

Nestled into the reds and golds of Eversong, a forest that looked like it was ever infinitely touched by autumn, House Luridveil’s modest lands and estate were nestled in an area that only saw hired help enter and leave. Her parents, to her recollection, had never exactly been a part of the upper echelon. They had been known only enough that names were familiar to some. At least to those who were in similar circles. In her youth, there had been parties and galas that the Luridveil members had certainly been all over, ever climbing higher in a society where hierarchy tended to define one’s comforts. Physically. Emotionally. Mentally. Perhaps even spiritually. But the thing about climbing was that there was always someone, likely many someones, who sat above. Her father, she suspected, had held sense to know when to stop.

She wondered how that came to be. Where had his wisdom come from?

Laeynna saw her family’s manor before she suspected anyone on its grounds saw her. Elven architecture of blues and silvers, clinging to days that had preceded her, stretch above her, elegant and looming. Much the way quel’dorei society often had. Once upon a time her eyes had been blue. She didn’t much discuss her age or the different things she’d experienced, but she suspected she was probably older than most people thought she was, for not much of her behaviour reflected the adequate number of years she’d seen life. And in truth, she hated keeping track of her age. It didn’t matter anymore. At a point, it was only a number and that number… aside from recollecting what had or hadn’t happened, ended up only being a number.

That sinking feeling in her stomach, the invisible weight that sat upon her chest intensified. Halting in her steps for a moment, her chin tipped up, and up… and up. On the tallest tier of their home, she and Ankalei had shared a room. The tier below held her father’s study and personal quarters that belonged to her parents. On the bottom, sitting room and parlour for guests and company. Dining and kitchen. It was strange how just being near it almost made her feel like she’d begun walking through time. She hadn’t, of course, but the memories of days that had long passed felt incredibly strong.

She had always run. In the face of everything that frightened her, that left her wary, that she was unfamiliar with, she had fled. Even when it had come to Andaeros, realising she’d had more than a moment’s fancy for him, she’d wanted to run then, too. But she had faced that. She’d faced so many other things that she ordinarily would have avoided. She could face this, as well. If she didn’t, she’d never know how it would go and that, she thought, would haunt her. Laeynna had plenty of things already doing precisely that. She had no intentions to add another to it. With that in mind, she forced herself to press on. The coward that lived inside of her would have to be leashed and caged. She could not run from everything, after all, and she certainly couldn’t run forever.

A very special emerald she carried on her almost felt as if it warmed in reminder of just such a thing.

At the double doors, all silver detail and unnecessary flourishing design, accented by blue trim and a pristine white that made her think of moonlight, she was greeted by exactly two house attendants. They exchanged looks betwixt one another before turning their attention back onto her. She had also worn blue and silver. Intentionally. Dark hair pulled up in neat and elegant coiffure. Laeynna knew her audience and she knew that when the members of her household, even just staff, looked at her, it was important she carried herself appropriately. As such, it didn’t take her long before she brought hands into her skirts, dipped down in a curtsey that was deferential at best, and rose.

“I have an appointment with Lord Luridveil,” she said then, folding her hands together. “Afternoon tea.”

There was realisation in the eyes that met her and for a moment, she swore she saw the flicker of concern. Perhaps her father had already notified the help. It made her wonder if somewhere in those rooms of excess grandeur her mother wandered halls waiting to give a similar collection of disparaging remarks, things locked away for far too many years that were likely to come boiling rapidly to the surface. Yet aside from that glimpse of recognition, there were no hurled insults. No glares. No icy penetrating gazes. Just the rigid motion of a hand that lifted to open one door, and the second attendant, beckoning her to follow.

“This way, little miss,” he said.

Little miss. That had been the title given to Laeynna from her earliest years, likely because between her and Ankalei, she had been the younger. Reknon and Seilahs had never had other children and thus that made Laeynna the youngest of her household. It was an affectionate term, though she suspected that the usage of it in the present was less affection and more a combination of acknowledgement of her person and a reminder of required etiquette.

She followed him in and as the door was shut after them both, the sensation was surreal. In a way, stepping inside of the home she’d once lived in decades upon decades prior, a first glance made her think that almost nothing had changed about it. Cabinets and tables were pristine. Not a speck of dust on bookshelves or the magical braziers that had enchanted her so much when she was little. It was… spotless, something she had to assume was likely all thanks to her mother. As she was escorted through rooms, her eyes kept falling onto trinkets and baubles that she was certain were things she’d recognised—a hairpiece that she and Ankalei had fashioned from a shoreline shell as a gift for their mother, an early and rather rough painting hung on a wall that she had done of one of her father’s plant studies, a piece of music that had been written by the two sisters for one of the many galas that they had been in attendance to. And more. Laeynna and Ankalei were everywhere in the manor and the more she looked around, the more she wondered if she hadn’t been the only one who had trouble moving forward in the world.

What… must it have been like for her parents? The death of one daughter. The supposed execution of another. Maybe instead of anger filling their hearts, it had been sorrow. Parents weren’t supposed to outlive their offspring. Laeynna thought, for several moments, that she might have been looking at all of this wrong. Of course, the only way to know was to ask and in a reuniting conversation between herself and her father, it probably wasn’t the right time to begin travelling down just such a path.

In the end, it was simply a strange sensation to know that she still touched so much of a place she had often thought about and longed for, but felt barred from.

The stairs to the second level felt like they took longer than they truly did. When she found herself shown into a study that she had known well, the door was opened, and she was quietly ushered in. The door shut behind her and she found herself greeted by his back and the scent that she could only describe as bergamot spice.

Reknon Luridveil had always been a practical, pragmatic man. Ambitious when the situation had called for it, but cautious enough to know when and how to move himself in unseen ways. Never a soldier and only ever an academic, he was a man of magic and science, inclined to meld the two fields into one another. In his name, he had penned more than a few theses on his research and even in the archives of their grand city was a largely hypothetical and logical written look at the chaotic energies of fel and how such energies might be better used in constructive fashion as opposed to destructive, reiterating the need for care and moderation. In some circles, he’d found himself with allies. In others, he’d found himself with those who perceived him with rightful suspicion. But what possibly could have been so threatening about a man whose only real crimes were looking elegant and knowing how to host a proper conversation?

His hair has gotten longer. It is so long.

Dark as a midnight sky and streaked with silver, it betrayed his growing age. Laeynna doubted she even knew how old he was. She had never asked and he had never volunteered the information. When he turned, she felt confronted by a past she doubted she was ready for. Her father was both extremely recognisable and, at the same time, almost like looking at a foreign individual. She wondered how that was even possible. For several moments, the two simply stared at one another, as if the Bronze had suddenly entered the scene and simply placed that frame of time in stasis.

And then he spoke, low and almost with the power to lull. “You look so much like your mother.”

She had nearly forgotten how oddly charismatic he was, through doing little else but speaking. The observation did not surprise her. In fact, she had heard sprinklings of it once or twice when she was in the markets of the city. Not wishing to stay around out of fear of discovery, she had greatly minimised the amount of time she spent shopping after that. Uncertain whether she should have taken it as a compliment, she awkwardly dipped her chin and then not long after that, the rest of her dipped into a curtsey that was considerably more awkward than the one she’d given to the front door attendants.

Laeynna was met with something that was not quite a laugh, but perhaps a touch of humour in it. “Even your expression mirrors hers.” Shaking his head slowly, Reknon lowered a hand for her to take the plush chair that sat on the opposite side of his desk, dark wood in its design. “Sit. Eat.” He gestured to the delicate tiered tray of silver containing… no shortage of some of her favourite things to indulge in.

As awkwardly, she seated herself and still rigid, still composed, folded her hands together. Eyeing the tray for several moments, she wondered if the breakfast Andaeros had made her was going to come up. The way her nerves bubbled and boiled about, she wouldn’t have been terribly surprised. “I am not hungry, but thank you,” she managed to say after she gently cleared her throat.

With his gaze fixed on her, penetrating and digging, he merely studied. But then he said nothing and poured for them both each a cup of tea. Delicate rose touched the air, splashed against the interior of painted cups in vines and floral patterns. With hers, cubes of sugar, lemon, honey, and cream, as if he either could not remember how she took her tea, or understanding that potentially her tastes had changed.

And then he sat.

The silence between them, palpable, like two predators sizing up one another, except it wasn’t malice in the room. There was no malevolence, no unkind words thrown about with ease, no accusations, no… nothing. Just the quiet clink of silverware against porcelain. Somehow in the heavy quiet, it felt like even stirring her tea, even breathing was so much more evident than it truly had been.

“Zinnvais,” he began finally, as if the cogs in his head had finally turned enough for him to figure out how to begin. What he intended to begin with. But then he paused and his focus shifted, still eyeing her appearance, the way dark hair framed her face in light curls and waves. “Laeynna,” he corrected himself. “That is what you answer to now, yes?” Instead of waiting for an answer, he simply took note of her expression, a faint change that likely so few others would have noted. Yet to him, it was only most evident. “You are hardly the only resourceful one in this household.”

Pleased by the slightly sheepish pull in her features, Reknon continued. “I would ask how you have been faring, but the tone of your letter provides answer well enough to that. No husband or children to confide in?”

Laeynna’s lips pursed firmly and for just a moment, she felt, and looked, cross. Deciding that it was not worth even her response, she dropped her gaze into her teacup and took a long drink. If it was a jab at her, it was a cruel one. If it was humour, that too was cruel. If it was for the sake of getting a reaction out of her, it was overwhelmingly effective.

“Your conversational skills are as impressive as ever.” It was another prodding met with more of the same. Huffing out a breath that was either resignation or simply fatherly acceptance, Reknon fished out the letter she had written him. His eyes scanned the contents again and in the same voice he used in all of his conversations, thick Thalassian accent and flourish staining his velvet words, he recited her words back to her. “‘I do not ask to return home. It is not a room I beg of you. It is but your influence, your connections, your coin, and above all other things, your counsel.’” He looked over the edge of the vellum to his daughter, raising a finely-kept eyebrow before he continued. “‘My heart is in turbulence and strife.’”

Her father tsked softly and set her letter down. “Turbulence and strife,” he repeated. “What a wonderfully dramatic use of colourful language. Why, by looking at you, you are the very portrait of composition.” Lifting his left hand, he tapped at his temple, “Ah, and yet, you always have been the master of concealment.” As he sounded more scientist than father, a small little curve hooked into one side of his mouth. “So then.” Reknon tossed the letter to his desk, taking his teacup into hand. “What has you in such dire straits that you would seek out a family who believed you to be beheaded? It must be something catastrophic.”

Therein lied the issue. Had he but asked her days before, the prior week, her answer would have been entirely different. She still wondered if even it was. Andaeros had surprised her with something she had never foreseen. The reminder of it, that pretty emerald used to pass the wards of his apartment, practically burnt where she’d stashed it. Nothing else in their relationship had gone exactly the way relationships were supposed to. She still wondered if it was even remotely acceptable for him to have made such an offer. He wanted to face his fears, he said. What choice did she have but to believe him.

"I do think I have a place. I just don't know where it is."

“I do. It's with me. In my apartment.”

It had been too late to write her father back to explain and she couldn’t very well take back her words. Andaeros had been right when he gently ushered her to make contact with her family, though it was really Ankalei who deserved it. In ways that she had wronged her twin sister, however, she had not been free from wronging her mother and father. And if he could face his fears of love, of the future, of commitment, of dedicating himself to her? She could face her fears of the past.

“I…” Laeynna began, transparently uncertain of how to even begin explaining the situation. “...Things are merely difficult,” she finally managed to say. “Where once I thought I could have made friends, where I… attempted to make friends, to open myself up, to allow myself to be vulnerable, circumstances changed. It undid nearly half a year’s worth of my efforts. And I have found myself wondering why I should expend any more.”

She shook her head slowly, fiddling with her spoon inside of her tea, a light brown touched by her cream and a hint of sugar. “I had originally come in hopes that you would help me find a place to belong. Somewhere far away from Quel’thalas. I was willing to do anything if you could grant me that. If I had to be alone, then I wanted it to be somewhere that no one would think to look for me.”

He eyed her with interest, the pear green of his gaze taking her in. The way her shoulders dropped from how proudly she’d been holding them just moments before, as if his words so easily cut her down to size. “Originally,” he pointed out with some interest, knowing very well that she picked her words as carefully as he did. It was a trait that he had inadvertently passed down to her, though he regretted it in those moments. Too much of a good influence, it seemed. “And yet something has changed.” With a hand at his chin, tracing along the black that bare kissed his chin, his attention was sharp without being serrated.

Laeynna could not bring her eyes back onto his, perhaps because she thought he might see through to her. Yet when he spoke again, she could not find herself entirely surprised. Years had kept her away from him, but in spite of that, he was still her father. At a point, no one knew or understood Laeynna and her habits—good and bad—better than her own family.

“Aha…” Her father continued, refilling his cup by half, merely a method of warming what remainder sat in it. “Something important has stopped you.” When she offered no argument, no protest, no counter, no witty retaliatory comment, he surmised with a great deal of confidence that he was little more than right. “...Does this something important have a name?”

Pursing her lips again, Laeynna focused so intently on her tea, that it was nearly more like a tutelage evaluation than a cup of something she ordinarily would have sought refuge in. Her response came, somewhat quiet and carefully delivered. Something important. Of all things, that was the very least that he was. But it would have to do. “Andaeros.”

The name itself didn’t immediately provide any recognition. In his momentary quiet, it was evident that he was rifling through the names he’d known, wondering if there were connections. Past and present were cycled. There was an Arkados, but that was certainly no match. Damn their people and their ‘A’ names anyway.

“...Andaeros…?”

His gesture was leading and Laeynna, after a very quiet, demure sip from her cup, fed him the rest. “Dawnflare. Andaeros Dawnflare.”

That name too did not spark recognition. Possibly a name that simply melted into the sea of elvenkind. Perhaps a no-one. Perhaps a someone. His expression neither depicted relief or suspicion. Simply a blank space with a gently furrowed brow. Shaking his head, he could not find another point in which to immediately pursue. He opted for a second. “And this… Andaeros Dawnflare…” As if he could use his voice to emulate the way in which his daughter had said it. Clearly something weighted, though to what extent he could not determine. It was little more than a side to her he was relatively unfamiliar with. “Do you feel this Andaeros is holding you back?”

That was a question. Laeynna had nearly responded without a moment’s hesitance, but as she gave it due consideration, she realised that she had never considered that to be a possibility. A woman of many years before would have likely said he was. That was what had happened to Atos, after all. He stood in her way. Stopped her from being what she thought she could be. What she thought she wanted to be. But her father, she had suspected, never knew a lick about the man. Of course, she’d assumed he thought her sentence carried out and he had proven her wrong there. Perhaps he knew more than she had allowed herself to think possible. Maybe, she’d never had any secrets from her father.

…Did that mean he knew of Ankalei?

About the time that her expression began to mirror the thoughtfulness that so easily crossed his features, Reknon’s sudden tap atop the surface of his desk pulled her from the thoughts of her sister. Of Atos. Back onto Andaeros, the real minute topic of discussion. If he was holding her back, then surely, it was in a good way. Preventing her from… what likely would have been, could have been, was very likely to become a point of no return. She didn’t know what that point looked like, and wasn’t particularly eager to find out. In other ways, she worried she felt a tint of resentment. Of bitterness. Less for Andaeros and more for herself. If she had been a stronger person, she would have simply left. Told him no, put everything elsewhere, and sacrificed everything to retreat into herself. She still felt like it was unlikely there would be any positive outcome for her at the end of this pathway. But perhaps she’d travelled too far on it to not see it through to the end.

She owed that to herself, she supposed. If Andaeros was holding her back, it was because she let him. If ever she felt a jaded cynicism over it, then it would only be to herself. That was the right course of action.

Finally she shook her head, “No. Of course not.” It both was and wasn’t the truth, she decided. Sometimes truth was not so simple, perhaps. “If you would, I would still like a place. I was thinking within the Broken Isles.” At least a place for her to retreat to when she couldn’t endure what pressure she felt came from staying in Quel’thalas. A safe place. A safe space. Just somewhere that she could be without being surrounded by worry and insecurity and the other things that would possibly distress her. A form, perhaps, of personal therapy, though she never would have been arrogant to put it in such a way.

“...You owe me nothing,” she continued. “I owe you the world. Yet I ask this of you. I think without it, I will lose myself and become someone, something I do not wish to be.” Perhaps Laeynna meant to add more, but that pressure upon her chest had grown so tight, she felt she had extended past her boundaries of comfort. She’d placed herself at his mercy, made no expectations. In her eyes, there was nothing more she could do.

A small bit of her tea remained, but finding no room for it, she helped herself up, her focus on her father attentive, though lacking the melodrama that surely must have accompanied her words from the week before. Maybe because she’d had her breakdown in her quiet. The thing about crying was that at a point, she didn’t have anything else left in her. There were no more tears, just the sense of a dulled pain in her heart, throbbing with every beat of her pulse and reminding her of its presence. Soothed a little by potential promise, but held carefully by wariness and a need to protect herself whilst also facing her own fears and uncertainties about a future she could not know.

Andaeros and his realism, how it seeped into every part of her. Perhaps his fear had infected her. No. Unlikely. She had never been an easily changeable woman. Even in her youth, that had not been the case. Laeynna was not fickle. Was not so easily stirred to begin with or moved. If anything, she was often so laser-focused with her intent, that to call her bullheaded and uncompromising to a fault may have been accurate. She had made no decisions that were short-lived. Choosing Andaeros… That was not inadvertent and it was not spur of the moment.

No regrets, even when she felt as she did.

“Please,” she continued as she made way for the door in which she’d come through. “Think on it. If you choose to decline, I shall abide that. I shall not bother you again.”

“Next time, Laeynna,” she heard her father say when her back turned to show herself out. With the door opened from the way it had clicked into place, she paused. “Next time, bring him with you.”

Looking over her shoulder to Reknon, Laeynna studied him for several moments. There were any number of things she could have said in response to that. Most of which were refusals in one way or another. She could understand why he made the request he did. If it was a request at all. Sometimes it felt like everything her father presented were just firmly-worded demands under the guise of heavily-implied suggestions. Likely a result of the way he used his voice. Curiosity. Laeynna had never brought someone home. Had never introduced anyone to her family. Must have been someone quite special indeed for her to have even made mention of a name. But she seemed to know even as she found herself out in the hall, closing the door after herself, she would do no such thing.

Perhaps, she thought, slightly amused even under the weight of reality. In a fever dream.

As she made her way down the stairs, she stepped carefully, keeping a weather eye out. She wasn’t ready to see her mother. Whilst her father had not been necessarily unkind, she did not think she would have the same fortune with his wife. Instead, she offered merely polite nods to the attendants along the way and once she was shown back outside, she loosed a breath.

She’d survived. That was all she could have done for the time being. Stretching her arms above her head as she descended the steps of her family’s manor, she slid musician’s fingers into her dark hair. The trip back would be a bit. Perhaps a glass or two of wine would help her digest all she’d experienced in moments that surely didn’t feel as long as they’d seemed to.

And perhaps she could find a little something to bring home for Andaeros. He deserved it after everything. Nothing with Laeynna had ever been easy, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t soften it a bit.

Mentions: @andaerosdawnflare

#in character #writing #laeynna #andaeros #reknon #ankalei

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lilyofporcelain · 2 months ago

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SAS: A small origami cat with a note written on it arrives via magical mail. Dang, those goblins are good! The handwriting is schooled, even, and light. It is not signed. "I would have liked to get to know you better. Perhaps someday. Be good to each other."

Laeynna was no stranger to letters and often, it seemed they were usually for the purpose of research. Sometimes they came with memories of the past, addressed to a woman who really didn't exist any longer. And once she had gotten no shortage of correspondence from Twinvale, filled with any number of things that were... unpleasant to say the least.

Unsigned letters, however, were something of a rarity. In the past, they frequently didn't contain anything good. Usually some form of blackmail, forcing her hand into something she didn't care for, but would eventually concede to due to a lack of alternatives. The one delivered to her by magical mail, however, accompanied by what she felt was a rather expertly folded origami cat, was...

Well.

Puzzling, to say the least. At first, she wasn't even certain it was meant to go to her. But that was relatively impossible. It was addressed to her. How many other 'Laeynna's could there possibly be? With dark furrowed brow, she'd found herself reading each line multiple times. There was no indication from whom it'd come and it wasn't as though she hadn't been, at the very least, remotely acquainted with a great deal of people in her years.

"I would have liked to get to know you better." "Perhaps someday." "Be good to each other."

For what could have seemed very simple concepts, just by themselves, they presented weight. Or Laeynna, as she oft had, excessively thought where such lengths were not required. Looking at anything surface-level had never been something she was good at. She was always trying to understand what was hidden beneath things said or—as sometimes the case had been—things that went unsaid. She could only blame her upbringing for such a thing. Deep in the entanglement of social politicking, despite trying to separate herself from it, the noble lineage, the background, it still ran through her blood quite hotly.

Who did it come from? Who would have wanted to get to know her in such a way? And why didn't it happen? Had she overlooked someone? Been somehow less observant? Had there been anyone in her life that perhaps she'd not paid kinder and closer attention to? In the second line, something that was almost like a promise. "Perhaps someday."

I should like very much to know you, Laeynna mused. Who could you be?

The last line was as equally befuddling, but a moment's additional consideration didn't make it terribly difficult to surmise.

"Be good to each other." "Be good to each other."

Andaeros, perhaps? Most likely. So... Someone who knew her. And Andaeros. A friend of his? Could have been anyone they saw on weekly visits to Fancy Cakes.

That was a notion, wasn't it. Being good to someone. It wasn't the same thing as being good for them. She doubted he could be anything but good to her. What about her, however? Laeynna tried. But she also had terrible habits. Too emotional, at times. Irrational, potentially. Problematic. Tied to a past that he didn't deserve to be a part of. And she constantly worried that she would only ever be a burden to him. On him. He could have had things easier. She'd asked herself so many times why her, but still had no answer and no understanding.

Was she good to him? He deserved better.

For a plethora of reasons, not all of them that she could grasp, as she sombrely admired the craftsmanship of the origami cat, Laeynna could feel ripples of anxiety spider up along her arms and render her fingertips numb. Far beneath the surface of what still fought against ice and stone, tendrils of worry wrapped about her heart and squeezed, filling what otherwise would have been with an odd sensation of guilt.

She wondered what all of it possibly could have meant.

( Thank you, @kharrisdawndancer! This was such a pleasant surprise. )

#inbox #tinnaire #laeynna #andaeros #writing #in character

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lilyofporcelain · 17 days ago

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[TMIT]: Has Laeynna’s outlook on her own life changed at all?

Taking a long stem of silverleaf into hand, she carefully used the other to separate leaf from its stalk, adding it to the pile of others that she had already begun to see to. Working with plants had always brought her a sense of calm, especially when it had felt like so much of her life had been turbulent.

When she had company, they provided distraction and sometimes an overwhelming anxiety to be in the presence of others, to focus, and not drown beneath what seemed like an ocean of possible information overload or too many conversations to keep track of at the same time. She never had been particularly good in crowds. Parties and galas and soirees had often bent her out of shape, though the one thing they were all really good at was keeping her thoughts off of herself.

Others, after all, were always so much more interesting.

Yet in plants, Laeynna found herself in her quiet, like a proverbial section of the world that belonged to her and only her. A place where others could neither see nor touch her. A place where she could take out her memories of the past, metaphorical images of the past and individual moments in her life that had led her to the very present one. It felt unreal each time she reflected on them.

She wondered how many things in her youth she had misconstrued as a result of adolescent rebellion or simply not truly understanding a situation and not having the confidence to obtain clarification. She never imagined to be where she was. Hadn't even imagined she would have pursued botany to begin with or that she would develop such a strong connection with it. She had... expected a lot of nothing, actually.

Bearing witness to what she felt like had been a consistent resignation in her mother's face, Laeynna had always assumed she would simply be just like her mother. Traditional expectation had led her to believe she would be little more than a pretty thing on someone's arm and that would be the very end of her practicality. She had practically waged a war against that ideal, even.

Shaking her head as she considered how she had nearly lost her head so many years before, Laeynna tipped up her chin to eye the sky. It was another fair day in Eversong. Clear of clouds. Sunshine. Blue that felt like it went on forever. She had always felt like overcast weather. So many days, so many times had felt grey and subject to rain. She wondered, at what point, that had begun to change. Perhaps when she'd been given leave to return to the lands of her people. Perhaps when she'd realised she didn't want to spend her life using herself to survive and living in a coffin of lies.

Laeynna didn't know. Not for certain. What she did know was that she wasn't the same woman she had been so many decades before. She also wasn't the same woman she'd been half a year before. She had more things, more people, she cared about. She had bridges she wanted to build. She had places she wanted to be and things she wanted to accomplish.

She had a life she wanted to live.

(Thank you, @saltsparkle!)

#tmit #tmi tuesday #inbox #laeynna

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lilyofporcelain · 29 days ago

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Yes, I have a character roster finally up, but no bios yet! So I guess it is still just for Laeynna. (Maybe Ankalei.)

Sinful or Sweet Sunday

For when you’re feeling equally naughty and nice!

Send my character(s): -Sinful or sweet questions! -Sinful or sweet confessions! -Sinful or sweet rumors you’ve heard about them! -Sinful or sweet comm messages! -Sinful or sweet headcanons you have for our characters! -What their sexiest or sweetest traits are according to your character!

Finish the sentence in my asks with something sinful or sweet: - “If I had you for one night…” - “If I were dating you…” - “I think you should…”

ANON IS ON!

Don’t forget to practice good question/reblog karma!

#asks #prompts

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lilyofporcelain · 18 days ago

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(An invitation would have been given to Laeynna at Tasty Cakes. On the envelope would be a note. “With the way things are within my social circle, I know you may not choose to attend, but I wanted to let you know that I appreciate our talks and want you to feel welcome to visit when I am around - Nahilvi “ )

(Housewarming is head canon as scheduling in game is impossible with schedules and events and people wanting to bring multiple alts ))

((Link to information about the party and the house))

(Minute time travelling...)

The invitation had been an unexpected welcome. Laeynna had read it once and as she studied the words, she found herself smiling. Not one of those diplomatic smiles she was so accustomed to be giving, but one that was terribly sweet.

How touching that Nahilvi thought of her as she did. They'd not really had the opportunity to speak much, though Laeynna had wanted more. Circumstances had made that a little difficult and whilst she hoped those wouldn't last forever, she also didn't want to rush any such thing or put Nahilvi in any more awkward positions than she might have already felt she was.

She weighed the options. She wanted to go. Without doubt she wanted to go. But she couldn't overstay her welcome. Discomfort was infectious and she had no want to spread that around. Going, being genuine and earnest with her well wishes, perhaps sampling a bit of the food and drink, making conversation, and then leaving was perhaps the best course of action.

And of course, a housewarming gift.

No plants, she thought, remembering that Nahilvi travelled oft enough that she wouldn't be able to care for them in absence.

Peridot gaze lit up and her smile widened. She knew precisely what she would do.

( Laeynna will attend with a 30 x 40 (cm) painting in tow depicting beech and juniper branches accompanied by crown imperial flowers. The painting, according to her, depicts marking Nahi's home with asylum, protection, great majesty, good fortune, and prosperity. This is one plant that Nahi will never have to water. )

#inbox #in character #laeynna #nahilvi

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lilyofporcelain · 2 months ago

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Sweet or savory?

"I have always had a bit of a sweet tooth, though there is such a thing as being too sweet and that may very well be where I draw the line. For things that are truly sweet and rich and decadent, the smaller they are, the better.

Fruit has a very natural, organic sweetness to it, and that is where my favourite satisfaction comes from.

That said, I could eat every single thing from Braedyn's collection of sweets without pause, I think. That umbernut cake is probably my very favourite."

( Thank you, anonymouse! )

#inbox #in character #laeynna

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lilyofporcelain · 2 months ago

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What is your favorite holiday?

"I... haven't really celebrated a holiday in quite some time. There was a point where I was spending a lot of time with my research and travelling constantly, which does not make for a particularly successful celebration of sorts.

When I was younger, I really enjoyed Noblegarden. The outfits, the colours, the chocolate. Rabbits. And of course hunting for eggs when I likely could have been doing anything else that was constructive with my time.

I think I quite like the idea of revisiting it the next time it comes around. I have spent far too much time not indulging myself."

( Thank you, anon! ♥ )

#inbox #noblegarden #in character #laeynna

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lilyofporcelain · 2 months ago

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Just one Laeynna ♥

Anon-Day!

~ Ask my my character anything you want ~ Confess something you would never say to my their face ~ Send them an anonymous letter ~ Give them unsolicited advice you think they need ~ Tell them one thing you like about them ~ Tell them one thing you hate about them ~ Tell them your favorite memory of them

Anything is welcomed on Anon-Day, as long as it’s on anon!

#out of character #anonymous asks

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lilyofporcelain · 3 months ago

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DWC - 17 Nov - Day 1 - Haze / Sexy

(Potential Content Warnings: subtle / implied mentions of violence, abuse, and sexual abuse.)

“You must not draw undue attention to yourself.”

The words were clear as day. An overcast of impending storm on what otherwise might have been filled with radiant sun and warmth. The echo of her mother’s voice in her head, saying words that Laeynna was certain she had heard so many times in her adolescence. The reminder that her conduct was of the utmost priority. Paramount. Pivotal. Crucial to everything she was, everything she had been as the youngest of House Luridveil. But had they ever truly been said?

A frown pulled at her mouth, softly painted in a shade of dusty pink rose. The more she thought about it, allowed herself to be pulled into the mire that she had so often neglected and pretended did not exist, the more she realised that it had become all too easy to second guess everything she thought she had known. In the same way that she had to eventually confess that her sister had not been responsible for her feelings or the animosity that had come with them.

She’d admitted once before that she wasn’t wholly certain that her feelings had any validity then. That perhaps she had misinterpreted the desires of her parents, a youthful rebellion painting them in shades of hostile red, believing them to be so much more worse than they had truly been. Yet which had been the truth? Her perception? The perception of her mother and father as they watched her create a one-woman revolution against societal standards and traditions? Were they both true?

“Lady Emberflame.”

The furrow in her dark, well-maintained brow began to lessen and as Laeynna roused herself from the abyss she had begun to throw herself down, she found in front of her the woman with the fiery red hair that she had hired half a year prior with coin that was not hers to handle the responsibilities that she either could not or declined from doing. Talmar Bloodsinger, a younger woman who was not exactly starry-eyed, but eager to please. A more than worthy distraction for the lord of the estate that Laeynna had served so diligently. And now, instead of tending to the master of settlement’s needs, she was in a cottage doing… things that were decidedly not even her responsibility.

Yet for Laeynna, perhaps she did not mind so much.

“...Apologies,” Laeynna began, shaking her head and with that motion, many of the thoughts that involved a past she felt ambivalent regarding. She straightened her posture from the doorway she had been leaning against, connecting hallway between sitting room, kitchen, her personal quarters, and the stairway that led to the cellar.

Talmar’s concern, transparent in the way it was writ across her face. “Are you well, my lady?” Shaking her head as she continued, she scouted the sitting room, neatly composed and tidied. “I am not certain you ought to be doing this. What harm could there be in staying here just a little longer?”

No. She couldn’t. The thought of staying even days longer than she should have made the knot growing in the pit of her stomach intensify. Tendrils of anxiety flailed to and fro in a darkness that Talmar could not see or even begin to imagine. Like a little creature of unspeakable horrors being nurtured by Laeynna’s insecurities and doubts.

You don’t understand.

Laeynna shook her head, straightening her posture and she forced out a breath, trying to seem even and restrained. “No, it’s nothing. I was just thinking about… how much needs to be done.” Moving her peridot gaze off of her immediate companion, the botanist removed herself from the doorframe and she examined the sitting room as a whole. Books. The harp. Trinkets and baubles here and there. A desk with an open book atop it. Beside it, a compass. She couldn’t believe she was going to do it to herself all over again.

No. That was untrue. She could. She had lost everything before. Everything. At least this time, it was her choice. Agency. At least she had the agency to make that decision. Consequences be damned…

“You ought to take it with you,” Talmar followed her gaze as it travelled from piece to piece and with a hand, she motioned to the harp. “His lordship doesn’t play. He won’t have use for it once you have truly departed.”

She couldn’t do that either. As Laeynna found her attention lingering on the harp, so neatly kept, she approached it. With a handle, she reached for it and gently traced her fingertips along the wooden curvature, so delicate in its form and stunning. It had reminded her so much of the one she had played in younger years. Except she remembered the night Ashire had reclaimed his family’s estate. When he announced the return of House Larethmyr. The man who had come to claim his life. The plunge of her poignard into that same man.

“There is only room for one spider in this manor.”

She had played distraction and Ashire had… looked at her in a way that had reminded her of the same way so many others had looked at her. And it had only gotten worse afterwards. With the report he had claimed from the Order archives, her fate had been sealed. Agency. No. She had been a captive, held under the firm thumb of a man who could have destroyed her. And so she caved.

Laeynna nearly shook as the memories fluttered about her head. The rustle of sheet music made her jump.

“What’s this?” Talmar asked, peering over a collective of parchment dotted in elegant script and the makings of composition.

“Oh—” The weight between her feet shifted and as Laeynna removed her hand from the harp, she laughed uncertainly. Quietly. “That’s… It’s. It’s just a piece I was working on. I won’t be able to finish it, I don’t think.”

I’m sorry, Andaeros.

Faced with the downward pull of Talmar’s mouth, Laeynna knew that whatever she had to say she wouldn’t be able to endure hearing. Instead, she reclaimed the collection of sheet music, four pages. An incomplete piece. Setting it back to the music stand where it had been waiting for her, she used her other hand to motion Talmar along.

“Come. I will figure out how to handle this room later.” Laeynna wasn’t fully certain of that either. She said it, but she wondered if she did so to convince herself. With a hand gently placed at the small of her companion’s back, the botanist guided Talmar to her personal quarters. “This room ought to be easier. Most of the things in here I cannot take with me. Well, most of the things outside of my wardrobe. And. Some other things.”

She watched Talmar step carefully around, surveying with her gaze. When she approached the vanity, she found a singular orchid in shades of twilight and midnight, as if it were suspended in time. As she reached out to touch it, Laeynna cleared her throat. “Could you please not,” she began. “That is important to me.”

“For all that you carry yourself so terse and unfeeling in his lordship’s estate, you have been nothing but emotional since you told me you were planning to leave Lord Larethmyr’s service.” Talmar moved to the wardrobe in question, idly going gown by gown before she paused and offered Laeynna a smile. “I never would have taken you for being that kind of person.”

The only response Laeynna could provide was a scoff. A short-lived laugh that was used to cover her hesitance. “Please. There are plenty of things about me that you do not know. Things you do not need to know. Let us remember that I am the one who hired you. Prior to this very moment, you had no need to know more than my name. And that you were to answer to me and see to Lord Larethmyr’s every wish.”

Met with Talmar rolling her eyes, she had no opportunity to offer any further witty retort. Instead, the curly-haired elf pulled out an outfit hung—reds and blacks, lace and rivets, corsetry and full skirts. “You can’t blame me for being curious. The less you say about yourself, Lady Emberflame, the more mysterious you are. People always want to unravel a mystery. I bet that’s all intentional. You can’t tell me that you haven’t used it to your advantage. For instance—” Holding up the outfit in question, she gently shook it back and forth. “—The mystery of who you would wear this for. Not his lordship, right?”

“Talmar,” Laeynna warned her with a soft edge to her tone. Closing the distance between the two, she attempted to make a grab for the hanger that held her dress and promptly frowned when Talmar drew it from her grasp. “No. Of course not. And even if I had, it would be none of your concern. I am allowed to wear such things, am I not?”

Faced with the dress in question, however, Laeynna found herself offering the most subtle smile. This one had good memories to it. Of arts and sculptures. Of flowers and paintings. Of antiquated frames and contemporary romance. Of heated kisses in the dark. Of tangled fingers in the lacing. Scraping her teeth over her bottom lip, she found she could not keep her smile from growing. In that there had been agency. An exhilarating agency. A very bold and brazen agency. She’d never done anything like that before, but it had been the decisively right thing to do. At the time. In the moment.

“Oh…?” Talmar teased with an impish grin. “Someone’s happy. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you smile like that. Whoever you wore it for must have really liked you in it.”

“I…” And that one, Laeynna couldn’t be sure. She had never asked. Come to think of it, she’d hardly even considered it, really. Of course she wanted to wear things she thought were pretty, but that had been purely from her perspective. “...I do not know,” she admitted somewhat quietly as she reached for the dress again, this time able to touch it. Painted dark nails traced down along the fabric of lace, a contrast to the pale porcelain of her touch. “I would not consider myself particularly alluring.”

Talmar’s laugh came so quickly that it caught Laeynna unawares and she’d been unable to hide the surprise that flickered across her expression. “You’re not serious,” the red-of-hair woman replied. “You don’t think you’re alluring? Mystery is alluring, my lady.”

“No, I realise that, but—”

Laeynna tilted her head as she watched Talmar put the dress in question away, rifling through the rest of her collection. Allure, like anything else, was subjective. Two people could stand beside one another, taking in the same subject, and feel completely different about it. What she thought of as alluring was not how she classified herself at all. She could pretend. She had pretended. For years. For so long that she had forgotten herself. Who she was beneath all of the lies that she had piled atop one another. Becoming the version of someone else’s allure…

Well. It didn’t mean she had any, in truth. She had only been playing a part. Being the woman others wanted her to be. Acting in the way others wanted or expected her to act. Carrying herself the way others thought she should have. Her expression fell as she turned her thoughts over in her head, but in the same way she questioned her own perception regarding her familial values, she found herself questioning the legitimacy of how others defined allure.

Even if she couldn’t see it in herself, it didn’t mean that it invalidated the perception others carried. It was too complicated. If she validated those who had used her, those who had taken advantage of her, those she had allowed to make use of her… Lifting a hand, Laeynna fanned fingertips along her bottom lip, wondering if she, in those moments of time, rendered her pleas for agency moot and void.

Was she a victim? Was she the catalyst? Had her hand been forced? Had she only been trying to survive? Had she been dead inside? Had she simply detached herself and moved as muscle demanded? Her thoughts spun again and once more that growth of anxiety in the deepest part of herself showed its teeth and gnawed along her insides.

Stop, she pleaded with herself, her hand falling just beneath her bust and spreading her touch, as if she couldn’t breathe. Please stop. Keep breathing. Just keep breathing. Laeynna could feel herself splinter down. Sucking in a crisp inhale, she held it long enough to feel the ache in her chest before she forced herself to expel it. She could feel Talmar’s concern on her again. The burning look of that worry, like it could slip fingernails beneath her proverbial armour and force it up, revealing all of the soft, vulnerable tissue beneath.

“My lady,” Talmar’s voice broke into her thoughts again. “...I really do think you ought not to leave, if you can help it. You may not be his acting steward any longer, and I have no idea what happened to make such a thing occur, but the others in the settlement know what services you have provided. House Larethmyr owes its success to you. Many of the people here would gladly serve you. They could provide for you. Give back to you thirty fold in return for all you’ve done. Won’t you reconsider?”

Laeynna took a step back from her wardrobe. Then another. Until she made way back to her vanity and she sat in her quiet. Eyeing the orchid propped up against her mirror, she took it into hand, eyeing the petals with a great deal of thought. What was it he had said? That she was the way. The way forward. To his apartment. To the cottage. To Winterspring.

Winterspring.

Shaking her head, evening herself, she didn’t completely silence the contemplation that rattled about in her head. She couldn’t. They would, no matter how she tried, not simply be crushed beneath proverbial heel. But she could measure herself. She had to measure herself.

This is the way forward. With a delicate, reverent touch, she traced the outer petal of the singular orchid flower. You are the way forward. “No,” she answered then as she looked to Talmar. “It needs to be this way. I want it to be this way.”

— @daily-writing-challenge

#novemberdwc2024 #novemberday12024 #world of warcraft #lilyofporcelain #in character #writing #laeynna emberflame #talmar bloodsinger #ashire larethmyr #andaeros dawnflare

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lilyofporcelain · 3 months ago

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DWC - 20 Nov - Day 4 - Surrender / Tranquil

“You simply hold it flat... and whichever direction the arrow points, is the direction of north. You need only consider a simple acronym for remembering the cardinal directions. Never. Eat. Soggy. Waffles.”

Afternoon sunlight stretched through the canopy of tall, looming deciduous gold, red, and orange trees above her. Around her, the scent of peacebloom, a soft field of white petals. Beneath her, a pool of dark hair like twilight in soft, light waves. In her left hand, a compass. She’d used it when she was down south, remembering what Andaeros had told her when she admitted she had no idea how to use one. And she remembered as she traversed clearings and rocky cliff sides that she still wasn’t wholly certain she knew how they worked.

Was there a compass for life? If so, then she certainly could have used it. Maybe she wouldn’t have taken so many awkward turns. Thinking about it like that, however, made her feel as if she was trying to escape responsibility. And to be fair… she wasn’t lost. Questioning herself without doubt, but not lost.

“I mean, is it because nobody has ever believed in you before. … Is it because you don't believe in yourself like we believe in you.”

Laeynna looked thoughtful as she turned Junarra’s words over in her head. The goblin had no way of knowing it at the time, but the words were more accurate and striking than Laeynna wanted them to be. It was one more thing for her to confront. One more thing for her to contemplate. Combining it with everything else she was trying to hold in her hands, it felt like it was the last thing she could endure before breaking. And she certainly… had broken. In one way or another, at least.

But Andaeros had weathered it. She wasn’t accustomed to that. Perhaps because she hadn’t allowed anyone to ever do so before. She kept replaying their conversation in her head.

“Let me help you, in some small way. If not for your sake, then for mine. To feel put to use.”

She’d always kept him at a distance. Proverbial arm lifted to keep a certain space between them. Some things she could handle. Sharing his bed, she realised, had been somewhat easier than the other things. Sharing her heart. Letting him into hers. Exposing herself. Revealing her secrets. Facing his judgement. Those had been so much more difficult. Many of those hurdles she had managed to clear with time, patience, and circumstance. It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t supposed to be.

Laeynna had never wanted it to be.

Eyeing the compass she clutched in her hand, she gently shut it, deciding that it was likely not going to help direct her. Lowering her hand, she held his compass atop her heart and stared through the leafy branches above her thoughtfully. It wasn’t just her in a relationship. She couldn’t keep the same approach. It wasn’t fair or right to Andaeros. It wasn’t how she wanted it to be either. Once, he had reminded her that their relationship was based on mutuality. Mutual sentiments. Mutual needs. Where she had argued the concept of relying on him, he’d corrected her.

Would… it have been such a terrible thing to depend on him? To let him help her? Scraping her teeth along her bottom lip, the furrow in her brow was deep. It wasn’t just for her. It was for him, as well. If she wanted to be useful to him, then it made sense that he would feel the same way. If she forever made it seem as though she would face everything herself, then she would only succeed at building a wall between them.

“...I love you, Laeynna…”

Love. There was that, too. It still played repetitiously in her head. The first time he’d said it on a golden, sunny morning, it had nearly petrified her with fear. At least, a part of her. There was the part that had been extremely overcome with emotion, which was, in her opinion, not very like her at all. Days had made it a little easier for her to digest and to accept. Thinking it had been one thing. Saying it had been another entirely. Claiming the words. Committing to them. Letting herself accept them. Acknowledging that he was the one offering them to her.

Laeynna still had complications with it. The kinds that had nothing to do with him and everything to do with her perception of self. He knew about some of it. How she viewed herself. And she had admitted to him relatively early on that she was always so much kinder to others than she was to herself. As to whether he knew how deep all of that went, however, she wasn’t certain. It was not a subject she really wanted to dive into, and convinced that he might eventually come to perceive her as an imposition, a burden, she’d struggled to say anything.

If she accepted his invitation, would it be too much? For him? For her? For them? Would she break everything? Was their love so fragile that she thought she could snap it so easily?

Shaking her head, Laeynna huffed out a breath. No. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Not when it took them as long as it did to get to where they were. For her, it wasn’t some trivial concept. Andaeros wasn’t… some passing fancy, and her feelings had never been trivial or meagre sorts when she actually started accepting she had them. If that was the course she had charted for herself, then it was the one she intended to travel. She would have to adjust how she thought about things. All things. Not just her deepened relationship with the disgraced spellbreaker, but also with herself.

Something had to give.

With a soft little sigh, Laeynna lifted the compass again, standard make. Durable. Steel alloy. Glass. As she carefully opened it, she flattened her palm, watching the arrow in red remain in the very same spot that it had been the last time she opened it. No. Maybe she still didn’t know how they worked, after all.

“...So,” she said aloud, mostly to herself, though in part to the compass in her hands. “Mister Ross’ compass, how do I tell him that I accept?”

— @daily-writing-challenge — Mentions: @andaerosdawnflare

#novemberdwc2024 #novemberday42024 #lilyofporcelain #in character #writing #laeynna emberflame #andaeros dawnflare #junarra gogo #world of warcraft

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lilyofporcelain · 2 months ago

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DWC - 23 Nov - Day 7 - Peculiar / Theory

Lady Laeynna Emberflame, In the past, your knowledge and research has been an undeniable asset to some of us within the Society. Many years have come and gone since our paths last crossed, and I trust this letter finds you well. An opportunity has presented once more, if you find yourself with idle hands and the time in which to use them. Research is being conducted on soil along the Lordaeronian coastline. Rumours of potential contamination as we investigate further. The Society would benefit from your assistance and you will be well-compensated, as you have been in the past for your invaluable efforts. We encourage you to bring your research and make use of our laboratory in return for your assistance. If you are able to pry yourself away from the gruelling day-to-day affairs of elven society, make way for the Sepulcher. You will be welcomed here. Sincerely, Renferrel Apothecary, R.A.S.

Laeynna’s face pulled as she studied the contents of the missive she received and she poised a corner idly along her bottom lip in thought. She couldn’t quite remember when she’d last received one. For a period of time after she’d found herself removed from the lands she was so familiar with, her talents had been put to use with the Society. On occasion. Never really aware of what their aims might have been, she’d consider it a more pleasant way to spend some of her free time and to line her satchels with coin. Given she faced a very uncertain future with a very unstable income as she watched her life change before her eyes, it was, in fact, an opportunity.

Nerves fluttered along the deeper parts of her person, however. Ever since Zaihne had seen her back from the City of Threads, she had largely hidden herself in really only two places. Neither of which were hers and as a result, left her feeling uneasy. The nightmares had somewhat stopped. Sort of. Some nights were better than other ones. She had learnt to better keep herself composed, regardless.

In truth, she needed to get away. The red and gold was stifling. It didn’t have to be forever, but she knew that leaving for at least a few days, breathing air that was elsewhere, having space that didn’t leave her obsessing over every little detail on how she might approach the future and what she was going to do would have likely done her heart and mind a great deal of good. Not an escape. Just enough time to put her thoughts elsewhere because banging her head against the proverbial wall had done nothing beneficial. It had only upset her and chipped away at her ordinarily rather rigid and stone-like composure.

The wanting to leave part was easy. The actual action of leaving was harder. What if something happened? Eyeing her free hand and studying the palm, pensive, Laeynna wondered if it would be more worth it to consider hiring escort. Not simply for this trip, but for any others. Something to guarantee her safety. Where once she had not been concerned about travelling anywhere on her own, memories of her experiences beneath the earth changed that. Drastically. Every time she’d thought about resuming her studies, her stomach knotted up, and not even the most pleasantly warm cup of tea did anything about it.

No. An escort would be needed. How many? Not a group. Laeynna did not like travelling with groups. Too many people to keep an eye on. Too many people to be looking over her shoulder for. One could satisfy if they were capable enough. Could carry her things for her, even. The trip was a decent one in length if she took the route she cared to. But that also meant spending days with a person she likely didn’t know. What if she found she couldn’t stand them?

Laeynna’s eyebrows knit thoughtfully. I suppose I could ignore them if it came to that. It was not as though she was looking for a conversation companion. She was perfectly content to travel in silence. It would give her time to work on her own research along the way.

Freeing a quiet sigh, she carefully folded up the parchment and slowly nodded. Yes. It was a good idea. Yes, she wanted to do it. Yes, she would need to work out some of the details. And at least a couple of conversations would need to be had.

…It would be fine.

Probably.

— @daily-writing-challenge

#novemberdwc2024 #novemberday72024 #world of warcraft #lilyofporcelain #in character #writing #laeynna emberflame #zaihne velios

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lilyofporcelain · 2 months ago

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DWC - 21 Nov - Day 5 - Captive / Skill

(Potential Content Warnings: Minute Sexual Content

— From the earlier years of one Zinnvais Luridveil, later to be known as Laeynna Emberflame. —)

It was, perhaps, too lit up for her tastes. Books had often described dungeon cells as bleak and dark. Moist. Damp. With mildew scent wafting through the air. The cell she’d been shoved into without a moment’s hesitance was merely one in a corridor of many. Cold metal bars that stood between her and freedom. Arcane fire adorning braziers that hung every so-and-so sections of impressive masonry and architecture. Laeynna wasn’t fully confident, but she swore she saw what seemed like some faint aura around most objects. A distant door that led to the floor above. Perhaps more cells. She didn’t know the layout at all. She had never seen the place herself and she’d never known anyone else who had.

Her cell was… Well. She would have considered it sparse. Unimpressive. Something they called a bed that was ridiculously hard and uncomfortable to sleep on. It had succeeded only in interrupting what could have been a potentially much-needed sleep and riddled her back with aches and pains. The floor was stone of some kind. She couldn’t see it well, but she had to consider what it sounded like when her heels clicked and clacked atop it. A chamber pot in a corner that she had refused to use. It wasn’t fit for a woman of her station at all. On the contrary, it was far beneath her.

They knew who she was. Why give her anything less than what she deserved? She had half a mind to remind them. It was a thought she nearly immediately flung through a window that didn’t exist. The Knight-Lord had made it very evident he didn’t care what kind of words left her. Where so many others had cowed in her presence in the face of her intimidation, he had been unmoved. But he was an intimidating man himself. Those who served the Order beneath him weren’t going to turn their backs on him.

Seated on the edge of her bed, she heard the approaching footsteps. They belonged to a man she knew. The man, in fact, who had apprehended her at the command of one of his betters, even. She considered it a betrayal, though she had not been inclined to consider him a friend. He was Cynlan Solstryder, a member of the order with dark hair and broad shoulders. A stone-face that often seemed excessively serious, only to serve as stark contrast to the sharp smiles he’d given every so often. They’d known of one another for years, having met at one of the many soirees and galas held in the city. She’d found him useful. A perfect pair of eyes who occasionally let sensitive information slip through loose lips, permitting her to evade unwanted attention as she drowned herself in her research, toeing the line of ethical propriety. And she… Well. In return, she kept his interest.

Although Cynlan had distinctly wanted something more.

His heavy steps, only further compounded by the weight of his impressive armour, stopped by her cell, flickers of blue fire sending streaks across his face and confirming his identity. “Lady Luridveil.” His address was short. To the point. And beneath bars it was not possible for her to pass through, he bent down to slide a tray.

It was an equally unimpressive meal. Stale bread, it looked like. Cheese, she thought she saw. Likely with a speckle of mould touching its edges. In short, a plethora of things she was going to immediately refuse. Which was precisely what she did. Laeynna rose from where she had been seated and staring into dim lighting before his arrival, and she moved only enough to abruptly kick the tray right back in his direction, listening to the echo as metal struck platewear. Fierce peridot gaze fixed on his, she sat back down.

If he was surprised, he did not seem it. Cynlan had, per her observation, always been a rather immovable man. As if nothing ever caught him unawares. Or perhaps he had spent just enough time with her to be familiar with her habits. Or her often unwavering uncompromising demeanour. Many had described her as stubborn to a fault. In fact, it had gotten around so many of their shared social circles that she had begun to embrace it. No longer a matter of opinion, just a matter of fact.

He bent again only long enough to retrieve the tray, placing it atop a table that lingered out of her reach. Turning on a heel, perhaps he’d a mind to leave, but then something must have gotten the better of him, for he turned back to her. Leaning close to the bars to look over her, he spoke, his tone a low tenor. Or perhaps a high baritone. She’d never been able to figure it out and she certainly hadn’t cared enough to understand it fully.

“Zinnvais,” he addressed her again, dropping formalities. “You have to eat. It’s been three days.”

Had it been? Certainly felt like longer in a place where she couldn’t see the sun. And given she had a lot of nothing to do in her cell, the hours dwindled on until they all became the same. Again, she said nothing to him. Instead, opting to draw her gaze aside, onto some distant corner of her cell. It was becoming a regular ritual, actually. A certain amount of time would pass. Cynlan would come stepping through the halls, his footfalls echoing between her ears. He would bring her food. She would refuse it. He would attempt conversation and she would remain silent. Her stomach had begun to ache the second meal she’d refused—or perhaps it had been the third.

Cynlan sighed, met with the same frustrating response he’d had from her since she had been escorted in. Instead of taking his leave as he had every other time, however, he reached for the chair accompaniment to the table with the tray of her food and seated himself unceremoniously. He took his time in removing his gauntlets, one at a time, leaving them with a loud clunk atop the table. Then he fished for a folded piece of parchment that he had tucked into the top of one of his greaves.

Leaning back into the chair, he unfolded it, peering over the top to the cell and its contents—an excessively well-dressed woman in elaborate wear of fine embroidery, gaudy jewellery, and waves of silver, white, and blonde hair. “The less you speak, the more Knight-Lord Bloodhawk loses his patience. You don’t have anything to say in your defence? Anything at all. Something is better than nothing, Zinnvais. Say nothing and you just look guilty.”

She was guilty. It was much the reason she hadn’t said anything to begin with. It didn’t matter what she said. They’d found her research. They’d found her experiments. They’d found the underground dwelling that she had used where she kept all of her… materials. And that was the kinder word for what they were. Once people. And when the members of the Order located them, not… quite something else, but certainly not what they’d started out to be.

Her movements were deliberate. The way she folded one slender leg in her skirts over the other. The way she draped a willowy hand across her lap. When she studied him, it was his eyes she observed. Where they looked. Where they lingered. She’d spent enough time with him that she knew how to attract his gaze if she wanted it. “It does not matter what I say,” she began, her voice only in slight affected by lack of drink. Although she’d refused food, she’d had the good sense to take water, and when that had not been enough, she would not have admitted it with any sense of pride, but there was just enough moisture on the walls and the floor that she’d endured. “Bloodhawk has already made his decision. Keeping me here is merely a formality. I would rather see it all done and over with. Make with my execution.”

She was met with another sigh and after a long moment, Cynlan shook his head. “I have a list of names here. If you cooperate and tell me where they are, the Knight-Lord may consider some compassion.” He didn’t say what would happen if she didn’t, very likely because she already knew. With his attention fixed on the parchment in front of him, he was all Blood Knight. All law. All order. “Lord Hatin Summerlight. … Zevia Firesworn. … Sydine Goldblade of the Magistry. … Vardan Bloodfury. … And Larili Wildgleam of the Farstriders.”

Once more, her gaze moved and she said nothing. She knew all of the names, of course. There were others he didn’t say. Others, she assumed, the Order had already located. None of them she’d had a hand in ending. Laeynna didn’t have the physical strength for combat. Besides, for what she’d used them for, she needed them to be whole and in one piece. She could not make her observations, her diagrams, with less-than-adequate specimens. She was no murderer. Merely an academic.

Somehow, it didn’t seem likely that anyone in the Order was going to buy that, despite it being the truth. There was no point in getting anyone else involved either. No one else was responsible for her research except herself. Besides, sharing the bad would have meant sharing anything good. She never had been very good at sharing.

Studying the subject further, Cynlan tossed the sheet of parchment to the table somewhat carelessly. Rising from his chair, he began to slowly pace back and forth, the only sound between them the dropping of breath and his boots on the stone, as if each step was taken so meticulously.

“Zinnvais, come on.” His frustration showed then. It wasn’t quite anger, she noticed. She was trying his patience. It wasn’t the first time he’d sounded that way in her presence. “I want to help you—”

“—Then set me free.”

Her counter had come immediately, nearly on the edge of a plea. Softer. Gentler. Intentional on her part. And she knew it had been marginally successful when she took note of the moment’s pause in his footing. To many others, the hesitance would have gone unnoticed, but she had made it nearly her life’s business to observe closely. Actions, words, even the smallest motion gave away so much about another. When it had come to concepts like influence, power, and information, every little moment’s observance could make or break a situation. And to play in a world of social dances, Laeynna had to become fluent in such languages.

“...Zinn.”

She heard it then, a touch of apprehension to his voice. One that only encouraged her. On her feet, she approached the bars that divided them. Lifting her hands, she closed them around the cool metal, slender touch wrapped and curled as she stood face-to-face with the man who had put her there to begin with. “If you do not, Bloodhawk will see my head from my neck. We are both well aware of it. If any part of your heart cares for me, then you will have compassion. You could free me. I could leave tonight and no one would be any the wiser. It could be a secret for us both.”

And he, to her understanding, had always wanted a secret with her, the self-proclaimed royalty of secrets. Laeynna carried so many that she had to wonder if she ever spoke the truth after surrounding herself with an overabundance of falsehoods. To have even just one of them, she felt, put her in danger, if only because so many of them were linked with one another. To let him hold one, she wondered how wise it was, though even if he agreed to such an absurd request on her part, she had her own plans. She always did. The woman was always a few steps ahead.

There was another sigh he freed into the emptiness of lonely cells and distant water drops. “You know that I do.” That he cared for her. She had denied him anything more than the simplicity of her companionship on the most physical level, but each time she taunted him with the idea of something more, his interest became sharpened. But that was the thing about her. In and out she weaved herself. In conversations. In how she carried herself around others. Never staying close enough to truly be caught. Always darting off the moment another got too close.

“Then…” Laeynna began, gaze fastened upon him, her hands lifted and traced over the ties that bound her in the front of deep purples and golds. She had his attention. It was all she needed to start. Keeping it with the way musician’s fingertips loosened her gown, letting it drop over one shoulder and then the other, a plunge of the moonlight skin beneath. An enticement for his eyes. An unspoken promise of more. Hand-in-hand with agreements she had no intentions to keep. “I beg of you, Cynlan,” she continued. “...Mercy.”

She remained rooted to where she stood as he reached past the bars with a hand that had been warmed by the interior of his gauntlet. His touch began at the length of her neck, using the side of his thumb to follow an invisible trail down. It was one he had travelled before. One he had been acquainted with. One that left her tense inside. Touch had always been difficult. She didn’t like it, being touched by others. But she had endured because sometimes the only way forward was to make use of every asset she possessed. When it came to her research, her experimentation, her life, there was nothing she wouldn’t have done. It was how, after all, she had wound up in the cell to begin with. She wasn’t just a danger to everyone else. She was a danger to herself and the Order was meant to handle it, whatever that ultimately meant.

Fingertips well-acquainted tugged gently at the fabric that loosely bound her until it fell to reveal the gentle slope of her breasts. With the same touch, that same familiarity, Cynlan followed the natural curve, his gaze drawing across her simply to take her in, as if he had never done so before. From where she stood, he looked thoughtful. She did not refuse him, though many parts of her wanted to. There was so little joy in making agreements of that kind. So little joy in a means to an end. She wanted to believe it would be worth it, however. If she fled Quel’thalas, she doubted the Order was going to chase her down. But doing that meant severing many things. She had only gotten to where she was by the grace of her family.

How would she survive without them? Improvisation, she supposed. Where there was a will, what was it that others had said? There was a way.

It was only when Cynlan suddenly drew back, a heavy-weighted sigh leaving him that he pulled her from her thoughts and the meticulous planning she had going on in the space between her long, pointed ears. Laeynna watched him, wary, a wild animal trying to determine fight or flight. He regarded her again, partially naked to him, physical promise within arm’s reach, and then he stepped back one pace, thought drawn across his features and a frown in his mouth.

“I’ll speak with Maelthas on your behalf,” he began. Turning to the table and difficult for her to read, she watched him lean over and tap the parchment on the table. “But in return, you provide information. If not on them—” the names he listed off before, “—then on the whereabouts of your sister. The next time you are asked, it might not be coming from me.”

He did not wait for her response before he took to what she could only describe as a tactical retreat. Left back to her solitude, the flicker back and forth of the occasional blue flame, Laeynna found herself waiting until he disappeared from her view before she carefully pulled her gown back up. Setting back to the poor substitute for a bed, she could not help but wonder what the coming night would contain. Had she succeeded? Had she been able to appeal to a weakness on a man who often seemed as though he had none? Had it all been for nothing?

Lifting a hand to splay her touch about her neck, she tried to imagine it, what she might have looked like if Maelthas Bloodhawk made the cleanest, swiftest slice. He was anything but a compassionate man and yet not a butcher either. Perhaps Cynlan would make all the difference. — @daily-writing-challenge

#novemberdwc2024 #novemberday52024 #world of warcraft #lilyofporcelain #in character #writing #laeynna emberflame #cynlan solstryder #maelthas bloodhawk

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