#lollygagging with lumi

[illumiera]

the boop (edgar allan poe)

once upon an october dreary, while i pondered, weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious tag of forgotten blorbo lore— while i nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of some one gently rapping, rapping at my tumblr door. "'tis some mutual," i muttered, "booping at my tumblr door— only this and nothing more."

[illumiera]

writing TES fanfic in winter, or as i like to call it, "getting the immersive skyrim experience"

[illumiera]

just like having a pet is a constant cycle of asking "what have you got in your mouth now?", modding skyrim is a constant cycle of asking "what are you crashing for now?"

[illumiera]

time to draw miraak and ellie in some ridiculously romantic pose. for my health

[illumiera]

we have barred the gates (snoozed tumblr live) but cannot hold them for long (seven days). the ground shakes... drums, drums in the deep. we cannot get out (turn it off altogether).

[illumiera]

in the tumbler. straight up “booping them”. and by “them”, haha, well. let’s justr say. my mutuals

[illumiera]

Elentari Bellefeuille: a moodboard 🌼🌟

the snowdrop: hope, rebirth, renewal, protection against hostile magic and enchantments

[illumiera]

i love playing around with knight x fair maiden tropes with miraak and elentari. even though elentari is as much dragon as she is fairytale maiden. even though miraak is at once knight, dragon, and maiden in a tower. even though miraak's version of "knight kneeling to pledge himself to his lady" is more like "feral demigod kneeling and asking if he can bring her the heads of her enemies please please please"

[illumiera]

one of my favourite things about elentari/miraak is that each of them independently react to their growing feelings for the other with a frightened, awed, wondering thought along the lines of "what has he/she done to me?" so, in other words, it's that they're both hopeless.

[illumiera]

dragonborn tire slower and heal faster than most, but being still mortal in body if not in soul, it can be hard for them to recognise when they need to stop and rest. elentari's so stubborn about going to bed and waking up at a reasonable time because she knows that the draconic part of her would just keep on going until she physically couldn't, which is when you might find her just curled up somewhere totally unexpected after a particularly tough battle or quest. picturing her coming back from sovngarde after nine days and nine nights that passed like mere hours for her, then exhaustedly dozing in a hidden little alcove of high hrothgar or something...

[illumiera]

@lathez tagged me to help sujamma out by describing some details of my characters' appearances, and anything for sujamma! 💖 i've got a good few OCs, but i thought i'd stick to the two i can describe in the most detail. LOTS of yapping below, but first, i'll tag @kiir-do-faal-rahhe, @hircines-hunter, @sulphuricgrin, @bougainvillea-and-saltwater, and @red-mountain-flower to tell us about their OCs! 🤲

standing at about 4'11/150cm barefoot, elentari is small in stature as well as in frame. she's a breton, as her pointed ears will tell you, but her silver-blonde hair, pale (and somewhat sparse) eyebrows, and equally pale eyelashes hint to some distant snow elf ancestry. her eyes are best described as "intent"—wide, very green, and prone to staring while hardly seeming to blink. her lips are full, most often found in a half-smile (which can appear gentle at rest and downright eerie in combat), and when she properly smiles, she gets little dimples. she has only one scar, a slash right over her heart, and an array of beauty marks including one at the outer corner of her right eye. when she blushes, her ears go red right to the very tips.

as far as clothing goes, ellie was raised a noblewoman and still dresses like it, embroidering most of her clothes with enchanted thread! in particular, her cloak is trimmed in plush white fur and embroidered with the constellations. she's a gown-wearer when at leisure, and though she tends to favour blues, silvers, whites, purples, and greens most of all, she really just likes colour. as far as jewellery goes, she can often be found wearing an amulet of mara and gold or silver cuffs on her ears, but there are two pieces she always wears: a silver ring on her left middle finger and its twin on a silver chain against her heart. though a healer, she can't abide the sight of blood on her bare hands, and she never, ever leaves home without a pair of gloves.

he might tower above ellie, and he might stand above most nords, but at 6'7/200cm, miraak was on the slightly lower end of average for an atmoran man of his day. his long golden-blond hair is often worn in braids that hold meaning according to atmoran culture, once elaborate and woven with beads to prove him a king, now arranged in a simple style that means "free". his eyelashes are long and golden, and his eyes are a bright, unearthly blue amidst a sea of black—though they were just blue, once, and very prone to staring in silence.

not only has apocrypha robbed him of the tiny, faint freckles scattered over his nose, but his long musician's fingers (which were tipped with sharp claws until elentari inadvertently healed them) have been stained with dark-coloured ink to the knuckles, and the same inky stains run from his eyes like tear-trails. he bears many scars on his body, including one over his heart to match ellie's, but two on his face: one running down a high cheekbone, the other curving around his mouth. his canine teeth are sharp. he likes jewel tones, especially regal purples and grassy greens, and like any self-respecting dragon, he's fond of jewellery, but prefers to wear it in his pierced ears—the golder the better.

a devout worshipper of dibella, miraak has one tattoo, this being a moth designed so that its wings appear shut when his knee is folded and open when his leg is held straight.

[illumiera]

i was tagged by @sulphuricgrin and @sanza-17 (thank you both! 💖), so here's a character sheet for my silly dragon-maiden, elentari!

there wasn't enough space for all of the many nicknames miraak gives her, but "elentari flameheart" or "flameheart" is how she's most often called around skyrim (or "elentari dragonslayer"/"dragonslayer", which is ironic, because she avoids slaying dragons if she can help it). yolzii, meaning "fire-spirit", is a name given to her by dragons allied to her and paarthurnax, and as for "ellie"... well, these days, only lucien calls her ellie. it was her little sister's name for her, once.

i'm leaving the tags open in case anyone wants to do this and show us how good (or not!) their OC is at cooking! template below 👇

[illumiera]

i'm thinking about angry elentari.

angry elentari, whose rage is less like the flames she wields and more cold fire, cold fury, quiet and precise.

angry elentari, who softly smiled as she burned the dark brotherhood sanctuary to the ground and offered no prayers for its dead.

angry elentari, who saw the scars on miraak's back and thought with cold certainty, "tell me who did this to you, and if he still lives, i—i will haunt his dreams. i will tell him of his future, of the precise manner of his death, and i swear to you, i will drive him mad with it."

angry elentari, who stood before daemathir, duke of daenia, and rejected him even when he kept pushing her and pushing her to marry him. who snapped, once, and set him alight and stood there as he burned and told him the future date he'd die with the words, "i curse you with knowledge, o daemathir the deathless, deathless no more." who died for it, and rose again for love—and perhaps a little for revenge, too.

i'm just thinking about her, a healer and a flower-grower but a dragon through and through. 💗

[illumiera]

just murmured "a flawless victory" to myself after finishing a crossword and i've never felt more like miraak in my life

[illumiera]

i have a backlog of fics from assorted friends and mutuals to read, and when i eventually get around to them: beware. i'm one of Those (a commenter, a kudoser, a reblogger, a lover, a cheerleader, a—)

[illumiera]

happy third anniversary, i fear no fate!

as silly as it sounds, i just wanted to take a moment to celebrate that it's been three whole years since i started posting the story of my two silly dragons on AO3!

can you believe that i originally intended this to be a maximum of ten chapters, something to write just to get myself into writing again? i didn't think more than a handful of people would ever read it, much less like it or my elentari herself, but that didn't matter. the spark of inspiration i had for this fic (it was a case of "okay, i like the idea of this ship a lot, but i'm not writing a fic for them. ever. oh, somehow i've written part of an outline? and now i'm really invested? damn it") got me putting hands to my keyboard at a time where i thought all of my creativity had dried up for good, and for that, i'm forever grateful.

i'm also forever grateful that, while working on this story, i decided to stop being a fandom lurker for once in my life. without it, i wouldn't have met my wonderful friends and mutuals who continue to inspire me, so thank you all! thank you, too, to anyone who's ever taken the time to read, kudos, comment, or bookmark this story, and to anyone who's ever enjoyed these characters who've become so beloved to me! i'm so glad to have you along for the ride, and i'm looking forward to sharing what happens next! 💖