#miraculous mage

[elytra404]

so.... we've had a while to think about it. whats the consensus?

[blueberry-bubbles130]

So after I’ve finished the Chloe comparison post, I do want to draw some more. But I’m not sure what to do, therefore I decided to let you choose what you want to see next:

[animezinglife]

"Despite the dream, is it still a good morning?" "It's perfect."

[microsoftoutlook]

smiling peacefully

[miraculousfanworks]

Writing Prompt: She's been here the whole time

Thousands of years ago, a Chinese mage created the first Miraculous, followed not long after by the first Miracle Box. She founded the Order of the Guardians, taught them the secrets of creating the Miraculous, and led the experiments in learning how to use and expand the kwamis' powers.

But tales of the Miraculous and the Miracle Mage spread, and before long a selfish soul came seeking the power of the Miraculous. They managed to steal the Rabbit Miraculous and cause havoc throughout the timeline. When the Mage finally caught them and reclaimed the Miraculous, she realized that the selfish and greedy would always seek her out. So she transferred the guardianship of the box to her best student, and had them place her amnesiac self in the distant future where no one could find her.

Wang Cheng hurried through the back alleys of Shanghai. The alleys were risky, but he needed the shortcut if he was going to make it to his job on time. The skies were so dark he almost tripped over the young woman leaned up against the wall. He hesitated, then carefully approached and asked her if she was okay. The woman moaned and held her head. "Where... am I? How did I get here?" Concerned, Wang offered her a hand up and asked if she knew her home address. "No, I don't remember anything other than my name... Xia Bing."

(Take the fanon theory that Marinette is the descendant of the Mage, but make it so it's a much more immediate descendant than you'd think. Xia Bing "Sabine" Cheng is the time-lost Mage.)

Prompt by: tempestsoul343

[imthepunchlord]

You know, the idea of the kwami's true forms being mythical creatures is actually a really cool and clever idea.

It's one that makes the most sense. Across various cultures, everyone has mythology relating to animals. Some range from common animal but it's big, like Fenrir is a big wolf.

Others are same animal but there's something mystical about it. Like the phoenix is usually portrayed as an eagle but it's also been vague bird that's fiery and is always reborn through flames. Unicorn and Pegasus are horse but with horn and wings respectively (though some unicorns do have hooves of goat and at ail of a lion). Or the kitsune which is a fox but has many tails, and there's the Finnish firefox that create the Aurora Borealis.

While others are a mix of various animals. Iconic dragons often boil down to snake/lizard with bat wings. And it happens to be tied to elemental power.

And this idea can play into creative flexibility for kwamis and their origins. Cause I don't know how canon the comics are or if they even should be counted as canon, I know a lot accept it as so as that's the only origins on kwamis and Miraculous thus far; but if people are up for more creative/different origins, you could do that kwamis did exist as mythical creatures. Playing into the idea that humans were endangered by what was magical and magic was rare for them, one of the best ways to combat magic is with magic. East to west, often a lot of stories about combating a magical threat is to have something or someone magical too.

It could be a mage or mages approached these fantastical creatures and offered them a deal: immortality and power for servitude and assistance of humanity. Cause Miraculous are meant to be used for good, and Origins implies it was against threats that humanity couldn't face as they were.

So kwamis existing not as cosmic beings but actual powerful creatures that lived on earth for eons and accepted the offer for immortality and power for servitude, can work well. And they take on a more "humble" form, not just as these little beings that you can easily carry around and hide in public as needed, but also could back them appearing as common animals. And this way, if kwamis really let their power lose, you're shaken seeing some big kaiju/mythical creature ready to let it all lose.

It could work off kwamis being all over the place morally or how they interact with humans. Some eagerly accepted because they wanted that immortality and power, some wanted to genuinely help humans, and some could've been tricked and thus would slower to warm up to humans.

Only thing is that this may not roll well with kwamis being embodiment of concepts, though arguably that could be for the better.

[zenjestrr]

I've been on an Elder Scrolls binge lately, I'm literally doing like 9 concurrent playthroughs across 6 games and idk what kind of virus I got where I'm this adhd/autistic about a series that won't get a sequel for another decade (and will likely be mid as hell if Starfield is anything to go by)

[mymiraclebox]

The Mage’s name is Qua Mei, and the kwamis named themselves after him as kwamis.

[shootingstarwritings]

Body-a-Day #1: Smoke

There existed a certain forbidden ritual allowed mortals to open up a portal to Hell and use its unholy flames to burn one particular target. The flames of Hell were unique, being much harder to douse than a normal inferno. This quality assured the caster that their target would be eliminated. But opening up a portal to Hell was a price that nobody could pay the cost.

On a certain day in a certain city, a particularly bold businessman who happened to be an amateur mage had used such a ritual to set the home of a rival co-worker ablaze. While the home itself had been miraculously empty at the time, firefighters still struggled to combat the otherworldly fire. After a horrifying hour of hard work and exhaustion with little progress made, the flames almost seemed to… give up.

While some believed that a miracle had happened, it couldn’t be further from the truth. A demon, Asmodeus, had slipped through the crack between the realms and commanded the flames to surrender. He needed the firefighters to end it quickly and raise any suspicion.

With the flames finally put out, a few firefighters inspected the razed remains of the home to see what could be salvaged. One of them, a volunteer by the name of Hank Sutherland, walked just the tiniest bit away from his fellow firefighters. Asmodeus had his target, now he just needed to take him.

~o~

A cold chill ran up Hank’s spine as he looked around. It felt as though something was watching him. Nervous, he called out, “H-Hello…?” Yet his only response was a column of smoke rising from beneath the burst wreckage and forcing itself into his mouth. “MMRGH! MMM…!” Hank gasped and choked as the demon flowed inside of him, filling his lungs and effectively silencing his cries from the ears of the other firefighters.

Strength failing, Hank fell backwards as the last of Asmodeus’ smoky essence filled his body. He groaned and writhed on the ashy floor before his eyes turned the same shady of darkened gray as Asmodeus. Then, his body grew stiff and he fell unconscious.

Hank awoke to an unfamiliar white ceiling and several cables attached to him. Cleared from duty for the rest of the week to rest, Hank eventually made his way back to his apartment. As soon as front door shut, Asmodeus groaned and cracked his neck. He let out a guttural groan as he adjusted himself properly inside his new flesh—as though he was stretching out a new pair of shoes.

Hands ran up against the man chest and stomach as the new Hank moaned as he experienced the pleasures of the flesh. He walked over to the bathroom with a swagger than the real Hank never had.

“Now then,” he said to his own reflection. “Let’s find the mortal who summoned me here. I haven’t eaten a soul in what feels like centuries.” Hank bellowed in laughter as a new playground was now in his grasp.

[ab121500]

I tagged this as spoilers, but its really not. Theres no mention of anything that happens in veilguard but just in case lol

This is such a stupid idea, but it keeps making me making me go "👀👀 wait actually-"

The idea of my mage elf rook (her name is Aylewin) also being an abomination, but being possessed by a spirit of Righteousness and unlike Spite she's pretty chill but she fucking hates, and i mean HATES, Spite with a passion.

So while Rook and Lucanis end up having their wholesome slow burn romance, the two extra passengers are doing an enemies to lovers romance. But heres the thing, Spite likes Rook and Righteousness likes Lucanis, so its literally a miraculous ladybug love square, except its actually 4 people they just share bodies.

Anyway i made a visual for it to show my (extremely tired of my shit) friend if anyone else would like to see it.

I'm sorry my handwriting is awful

ideas I thought up involving this:

Aylewin did not summon Righteousness.

Righteousness was originally a Rage demon, but she changed upon seeing the lengths Aylewin went to in order to do the morally right thing (I.E. sacrificing herself by stabbing herself so that she killed the demon at the cost of her own life.)

No one knows of Righteousness' existence until Spite, living up to his fucking name, exposes her. And even then, no one believes him until Taash/Emmrich mentions the other spirit.

Righteousness calls Spite "Little Demon" this angers him deeply.

Spite tries to find a nickname that pisses Righteousness off as much as Little Demon does him. He doesn't succeed.

Righteousness knows that her name is long and not easy to spit out in danger, so she insists on being called Ria by friends (so all the veilguard except Spite.)

Much like how Spite is essentially Lucanis but purple, Righteousness is Aylewin but orange-y red.

Righteousness is more powerful than Spite, mainly due to Aylewin being a mage and also due to her having easier access to her body.

In terms of characters, Aylewin's possession is most like Wynne's, except she didn’t actually die. She did get mortally wounded, and Righteousness joining her saved her life.

Righteousness lives up to her namesake and is extremely soapbox-y at times, like every single time Aylewin helps the Crows.

Righteousness and Spite get into arguments all the time. It is especially weird to Aylewin/Lucanis because they only hear one half of the argument.

I just needed to yell this into the void, feel free to ignore lmaooo.

[hellfridge]

Jayce wouldn't have survived the fissure.

The below shots were shown almost back to back. Originally I interpreted this as straight up horror, but what if it's secretly Jayce's unknowing solace? What if the infection isn't meant to harm, but to heal?

This would explain Jayce's miraculous recovery. He FULLY broke that leg, it was severed at the bone and jutting out the side, it was awful and it was bad. But immediately after he sets it and starts a fire, he nearly sees the Mage and immediately after that we see this shot of the wound.

Now, granted, we don't know how much time passes, but this seems intentional. Viktor wouldn't come just to watch Jayce suffer, when has he ever come into any scene to simply watch passively.

Now, what does this mean?

First, it hints at an interesting change within the post-apocalypse Herald that I haven't seen dissected yet.

The return from machine to man

This older version of Viktor literally seems to reside by Jayce's statuesque pseudo-corpse's side on top of the ruined Hexgates, all that's left of their dream, in a beautiful but grotesque garden above the clouds. You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be etc etc but. Here's the ringer. Why the garden? People have speculated it's for comfort and beauty, if not for himself then for what remains of his Jayce.

But if you look closely, it's almost as if the vegetation is eroding the metal of Jayce's body while simultaneously springing from it. What if Viktor is slowly undoing what he's done?

Why does the Herald seem to be made of flesh when he meets Jayce now, and as a child? Because he's not a Machine Herald anymore. Corroding all the metal and returning it to nature is part of the process. The way he wields the arcane now is far more biological, and even here--

--we see that the metal from the bracelet remains, centers the rune, while the majority of added material seems chaotic and biological. In the impact frame it almost looks like a creature, like something living.

I'm willing to bet that his Jayce said the exact same thing to him among the stars and souls. He did show Viktor, and Viktor did become his partner again.

It was just too late by then.

Bonus because it made me suffer :)

Jayce looks forward when Viktor touches him, but when the command comes to give Jayce his hammer, he looks away before moving. I fully believe this is because he knows Jayce will use it to try to kill his own Viktor.

They've assumed it was inevitable, that in every world one of them must kill the other. And they would have been right if not for Ekko.

[blueberry-bubbles130]

I’ve decided for that the mage Chloe au, Chloe’s not the only main character that gets to use mage magic.

Adrien is going to use necromancy. And he does so very intentionally, fully aware it may go completely wrong.

[animezinglife]

"Whatever I fear of magic, I see none of that in you."

[tanoraqui]

Dungeon Meshi Liveblog: Kill a Dragon, Rez a Falin

I just like when they're friends like this :)

This, too, is taken from another post, but truly this dynamic is sooo funny of

Chilchuck: I am not a fighter!

Chilchuck, any time he has any sort of ranged weapon: [aims with pinpoint accuracy]

.

This is just literally that moment in every Miraculous Ladybug episode where everything goes gray and the things Marinette is about to use for a Plan "light up" one by one in red with black spots. Please someone draw fanart of this. And maybe an entire Miraculous Ladybug AU. Yes I think Kabru would have to be Chat Noir - in terms of deuteragonist-ness is SHOULD be Marcille, but she and Laios just doesn't have enough of a bizarre push and pull Dynamic. We need real character foils to pull off that relationship square.

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Raw fucking dialogue.

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THE PERIODIC ADS ON THIS SITE FOR PRINTING OR CLOTHING OR SHOES REALLY ADD TO THE EXPERIENCE.

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Agh agh agh, looking at this, thinking about Namari's explanation of how much body mass you can lose before resurrection gets harder...

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Carving this tunnel into the dragon and physically walking in emphasizes how big it was much more than anything we saw while it was alive, and it's sooo cool.

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This ad was a great millisecond of cliffhanger, unironically.

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These opening pages of the next chapter are so devastating. After all the movement of the fight, this simple layout and minimal dialogue make the grief and horror and just emptiness, emptiness where Falin should be, where hope for Falin should be, ring like a low and broken bell. Driven in just a little deeper by Laios admitting he doesn't know a monsters fact (warg bones vs human bones) - there is helplessness, too. He's just doing the only thing he can, which is so little, in all this terrible caesura.

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And then this! Marcille and Laois don't have the messy meatiness of relationship to carry and Miraculous Ladybug love square, but they are JOINTLY the parallel to the Mad Mage, and that's fascinating. They're on the same page here: Laios's "No" isn't just the denial of grief, it's a flat "That's not what we'll do." This is Laios - of course he's already thinking about how the red dragon is perfectly functional meat. As is Marcille, at last 100% in-step with him re: monsters = meat, here in the final steps to save Falin. With magic and drive and an absolute determination to save Falin, they're going to walk hand in hand into the darkness, and if something in their devours them (or their party, or the surface world...) - well, it'll have to beat them first, because throughout this world it's eat or be eaten, and those who want it most, win.

(And it IS fascinating that they do this while, so far as I've seen, basically remaining at the relationship tier of "good friends/in-laws." This isn't Found Family, it's Found Really Good Co-Workers; and I LOVE that.)

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THE PARALLEL COMPOSITION AND DIALOGUE TO THE ABOVE SCREENSHOT WHEN LAIOS WENT TO KILL THE DRAGON THOUGH!! I'M FERAL!!!

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Obsessed with the decision to frame this as a monster meal.

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Blood! In! Hair! Blood! In! Hair! Man, when I saw that post saying this wished this show was in the show, I vaguely assumed her hair had gotten messed up in the fight but she didn't bother to fix it for the ritual; but in fact her hair was braided literally 1 panel ago - she undid that and DELIBERATELY (or at least uncaringly) ran her bloody hand through it.

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YOU WISH YOUR GIRLFRIEND WAS AS COOL AS THIS PANEL! Oh fuck yeah, eyes went white. That's when you know the magic is awesome.

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HUNGER AND EATING AS A SIGN, SYMPTOM, STIPULATION AND SYNECDOCHE OF BEING ALIVE!!!

Alas, but with good okay slightly postponed and belated timing I must now go to bed.

[cloudcountry]

attention twisted wonderland fans! ortho has tasked you with an important mission—give his brother the best summer imaginable!

welcome to the introduction post for my new event! i am your host, auburn! you probably know me as azulashengrottospiano, but i've changed urls ^^;

this time, i'm attempting to bring people together instead of doing an event all by myself. you'll have to forgive me if it's confusing, i've never hosted something like this before but i'll do my best and i hope you guys will have fun!

both writers and artists are encouraged to participate!

RUN TIME: this event will run from may 27th to june 10th! but you are more than welcome to post your pieces before then if you are finished or after if something came up! we understand <3

TO SIGN UP: please comment or reblog this post with your name and what you're going to be making! you don't need to have a specific idea yet, you can just whether you're an author or an artist!

when finished, please tag your works with sweet shroud summer 2024 so people can have an overview of the event's wonderful talent!

the event rules . . .

no nsfw content, i want minors to be able to participate as well if they want to.

any content is welcome aside from that! it can be romantic, familial, platonic, it can include yuu or not!

just as long as idia is getting out of his room and having a good time C: make sure you treat him well or ortho will get upset!

the company policy is open to be modified if a customer brings up a question!!

contributors and their pieces will be listed under the cut.

OUR LOVELY CONTRIBUTORS!

auburn / cloudcountry - writer.

if you let me.

dove / da-birb-writes-sometimes - writer.

mess in chat >w^. mess at con.

edie / edith-is-a-cat - artist (mainly.)

art piece. written work. kitty. platinum jacket. idia & tsum. rainbow idia.

cookie / cookiesandbiscuits - artist.

at the beach art piece. hot day.

irene / officialdaydreamer00 - writer & artist.

flowers of a summer day. part 1.5. aimless outing. marionette on a string. board game club shenanigans.

cyath / cyath - artist.

identity / identity-theft-101 - artist.

he dropped his ice cream :( art piece.

mochimus / thatsadguymochi - artist.

at the lake art piece.

phrog / phrowog - artist.

gamer touches the ocean art piece.

sapphy / shinysparklesapphires - artist.

gamer touches grass art piece.

em / musicalhistorical - writer.

zell / z3llous - artist.

getting milkshakes. catching pokemon.

silver / rxttenbxnes - artist.

sosa / miraculous-pacer55 - artist.

monimich / monimichbeingsilly - artist.

pop up cafe.

kei / keii-starz - writer.

garden.

fruity / fruity-arts - artist.

moon / moon-mage - artist.

rubia / twistedchatterbox - writer & artist.

emily / walkingoneliner37 - artist.

idia and ortho at disneyworld!

ryker / ryker-writes - writer.

firefly.

mayuu / justyoureverydaytwstsimp - writer.

dani / xol-io - writer & artist.

arius / ariusthething - writer & artist.

a short visit!

daffodil / chocodaffodil - artist.

idia at the beach.

loser / loser-jpg - artist.

getting boba.

manoo / pop-sparkle - artist.

tropical idia!

yourfbiagen1 - artist.

idia meets hatsune miku

octahyde - artist.

she just got to the prince mush boss...

comingyourlugubriousness / artist.

fireflies.

[jiubilant]

ao3 (2800 words)

In Betony, she had flown goshawks with eyes like coins of fire. In the frozen north, she flies stranger birds. When the enormous sea-eagle beats its beak thrice against her windowpane, insistent as a door-to-door peddler, she stands calmly from her desk to let it in.

“Well?” she asks, unsmiling.

The barbarian of air wings in on a gust of wind and snow that whips through her papers, scattering some Synod tract and an adept’s treatise on runestones. Its talons clack on the back of her chair. Beneath the fierce, hoary brows of old men and birds of prey, its mismatched eyes—one brown, the other bluish-green—flash with a question of their own.

She gestures, eyebrows raised, to the cloak hung by the door. Then she turns to close the window. When the click of claws on tile becomes the slap of bare feet, she repeats herself. “Well?”

“He’s as stubborn as ever,” a querulous voice grumbles at her back. Cloth rustles. Her spare chair scrapes across the floor, then creaks. “Heard me out and sent me off. It can’t be done, Mirabelle.”

“If it couldn’t be done, Tolfdir, I wouldn’t ask it of you.” Mirabelle Ervine, Master Wizard of the College of Winterhold, thumbs a smudge from the stained glass. It squeaks. “I would do it myself.”

She would have harsh words, under any other circumstances, for a mage foolish enough to alter his own shape—but her Master of Alteration has walked the world as wolf and otter, elk and wild boar, since she was a child struggling to cast colored lights. When she turns from the window, she almost smiles to see him hunched hawkish in the cloak: a frail old man who, in three days, has flown a journey that would take her several sennights.

“You ought to have gone yourself,” he says anyway, patting his windswept beard back into place. He seldom looks weary after his adventures. The light in his eyes—one brown, the other bluish-green—is the light of one who has outraced clouds. “He never listened to old men. But to old friends, my dear, he may yet unbar his door.”

Mirabelle waves a hand. The sheafs of strewn paper stack themselves on her desk, probably out of order. “I’m needed here. I can’t be long away.”

“Phinis could.” Tolfdir helps himself to her tea. Miraculous, she thinks, that all his flapping hadn’t sent the cup skidding to Atmora. “I remember the three of you knocking about as prentices. Couldn’t separate you.”

Mirabelle tries to picture poor Phinis, who pales when asked to venture into town, on the next karve to the Hjaal. When she surfaces from the fancy, less plausible by far than the Synod’s treasure-maps, the old man’s welkin eyes are watching her.

“Why now, Master Wizard?” he asks, not ungently.

His tea, now, Mirabelle thinks. She goes to the shelf for another cup. “Pardon?”

“Falion left us years ago.” The eagle looks out at her from Tolfdir’s face. “You let him go. Why ask him back now?”

Mirabelle’s fingers pause in midair. Most of her clayware is chipped. Ancano, when she’d interviewed him last, had lifted the cup she’d set out for him with near-imperceptible amusement—as if, she’d thought then, he were indulging thoughts of dropping it.

“It seems to me,” she says, her voice hard for all its softness, “that we have invited enemies into our house, and shut friends outside.”

“Ah.” Tolfdir’s cup clinks on her desk. “I saw a knarr sailing this way, you know, while I was up.” He pauses, then clears his throat. “East Empire Company, I thought.”

* * *

When she takes the stairs of the Archmage’s tower two by two, wound tight with the news, Ancano is already in yarak. Perhaps he has his own eyes in the air.

“No good will come of a Haafing ship testing these waters,” he’s saying when she slips into the Archmage’s study. She’s come to know Ancano better than she’d like; whenever he’s pressing a point, as he’s doing now, his voice takes on the high, humming urgency of a kite’s whistle. “We must signal at once for it to turn about.”

“Turn about?” Savos Aren’s hand is already tangled in his beard. The bewildered crease in his brow unbends when he sees Mirabelle, but does not disappear. “The College of Winterhold is not a port authority, Emissary. Nor is it a lighthouse.”

“Indeed,” says Mirabelle crisply, taking a stand beside his chair, “I should think that much good will come of a merchant ship, under the circumstances—this is the first,” she points out, “since the leads opened in spring.” They’d lasted the winter, as usual, on lutefisk. Even she is beginning to tire. “Our stores are running low.”

Savos, heartened, tries weakly for a joke. “Much goods?”

Ancano’s golden eyes glint up at Mirabelle. He and the Archmage are at table, lit blue by the drifting magelights: Ancano leaning forward, Savos huddled in his robe of office like an old man in his shawl. He never drinks anything stronger than the watered-milk tea favored so far north, where vegetal life is scant. His cup sits untouched. Ancano has supplied, from some shelf of his own stores, a jug of wine.

“Mistress Ervine,” he says with a courteous smile. The magelights chase a shadow across his narrow face. “You must sit.”

She must do nothing. She holds her face immobile.

“I was sharing my concerns with the Archmage.” If Ancano sees the pack-ice in her eyes, he gives no sign of it. He waves a black-gloved hand. His servant, an ancient elf with a blotch like a winestain on his cheek, hastens forward to fill a third cup. “I fear that this vessel, if it persists in its course, will be seized by the Jarl as a prize for the Stormcloak fleet.”

Mirabelle ignores both the wine and the servant, who always smiles in terror when acknowledged. “Korir lacks the men.”

“Then the ship will blunder into Ulfric’s blockade.” Ancano’s smiling again, close-lipped and motionless as an Aldmeri bust. “That it hasn’t already is miraculous.”

“The College is not party to the recent—rising tensions, shall we say, between Haafingar and Eastmarch,” says Savos, who has as many euphemisms for civil war as a skald has kennings. “I fail to see how the requisition of a knarr—by either fleet, Emissary—is a matter in which we have any right to intervene.”

Ancano’s face falls into a prim, prudent frown. “You must see, Archmage, how a disturbance in Winterhold’s waters would endanger the College’s neutral position—”

* * *

“—and on it went, like that,” Mirabelle finishes, stoic. “The Archmage remains undecided.”

“Of course he does,” says Faralda, reaching for the pitcher. “More blaand?”

She’d come to Faralda’s gatehouse to compare admission records—and, she admits, to cool a headache in the courtyard’s frigid wind. She’s stayed for supper. Her Master of Destruction is the terror and delight of the village’s braver children, who rattle her gate and barter foodstuffs for feats of witchery: fountains of sparks, sky-whales shaped of smoke, magefires juggled from hand to hand. One small petitioner had traded a fat square of blubber, now cubed and salted in Faralda’s only bowl, for a field of ice on which she and her siblings could play stickball.

Faralda refills their cups with the Vetrings’ creamy whey-wine, then takes another morsel from the bowl—with finger and thumb, as the villagers do. Her elbows brace the table like an old salt’s. “Company knarr, Tolfdir said?”

“Yes.” Faralda had been a ship’s mage, once. Mirabelle studies her for a moment—her hair that musses in all weather, the rigging-lines of laughter in her face—then rubs her forehead, resolving to drink no more blaand. “This ship. Why would it—”

Faralda, looking pained, says, “She.”

“—why would she sail into Stormcloak waters?”

A pause.

“You seek counsel,” says Faralda, a slow smile sharpening her face, “from your future Master Wizard—”

“Faralda.”

“East Empire Company,” says Faralda, as if that explains everything. She waves a hand that shines with grease in the firelight. “The Imperial Fleet can fit in a puddle. Mede could float out his toy ships to be rammed to flinders by Ulfric’s drekar—or,” she says, longships burning in her eyes, “he could let Cousin Vici and her mercenaries defend their searoads.”

Mirabelle frowns. “With one knarr?”

“A maiden to lure out the dragons, perhaps.”

Always evocative, Faralda’s fancies. Mirabelle pictures a line of dragon-headed longships gliding to the knarr, their oars churning, their painted snarls crusted with ice—and their hulls splintering, brittle as kindling, beneath the bolts and prows of a host of Company ships.

“Let us not speak of dragons,” she says, reaching wearily into the bowl. Since the recent news from Helgen, she’s caught herself eyeing the sky every time she crosses the quadrangle. “Ancano has the right of it, then, that this ship is likely to stir trouble.”

Faralda sniffs. “You ought to do the very opposite of whatever he suggests.”

“His counsel is often sound. That’s the trouble. If it weren’t, Savos—the Archmage,” Mirabelle corrects herself, “would not entertain him.” She thinks of dragons settling on the ramparts, crushing the crenels between their toes. “What can he want with us?”

“Remember how he tried to cram that monstrous desk up the stairwell? The one he brought out of Valenwood?”

“Solid graht-oak.” Enthir, pacing her office, had almost wept with rage. She can’t laugh, now, recalling how the thing had rained drawers on several Aldmeri attachés.

“He wants what that knarr wants.” Faralda’s smile is thin and taut. “Something costly to bring home.”

* * *

Evening creeps early, on misty feet, into the lumber-town of Morthal. The watchmen have been jumpy, of late, as well they should; their torchlights bob past the wizard’s window in twos, like great eyes gleaming in the dark, as they creak up and down the bridge. The fog muffles their steps. The wizard, going about his evening chores, smiles and listens.

“Is he in there?” asks one of the watchmen.

“Aye,” says another, and spits.

If he were out, they’d spit at that, too. The wizard raises his eyebrows, nonplussed, and scrubs a crust of pottage from a pewter plate—

Falion.

The plate clatters to the floor. When the wizard whirls with a spell on his lips and a washrag in his hand—anticipating fiends, fire, fool neighbors with pitchforks—he finds his hearthroom empty.

He stares about him at what his sister, with twinkling eyes, calls his instruments of sorcery: the great cookpot, the garlic-strings, the besom and staff by the door. Then he sighs and flicks the rag aside. “You would bespeak me while I’m scouring dishes.”

The voice, cool and familiar, rises in his mind like a wry notion of his own. I trust I did not catch you unawares.

“I will tell you what I told Tolfdir, and no more.” Things stranger than Mirabelle Ervine have spoken into Falion’s mind. He stoops for the plate. “My talents are much needed here. Much maligned, as well, but no matter—I have found in the marshes of Morthal my masters, my mystic tomes, my métier.” His own stern, seamed face frowns back at him from the pewter. “If Aren himself groveled at my feet, I would not return.”

Apprentices had been awed, once, by his dire proclamations: heed my words, and meddle not with each other's summoning-circles, and so. Never Mirabelle. Perhaps I wished only to speak to you.

“Speak to me, then, of the sorcery of Winterhold.” The face reflected in the plate would make a bitter meal. He sets it aside. “Of the marvels its mages have wrought. Of Mirabelle Ervine”—his voice gentles, then—“and her miracles.”

He can almost see her desk, cluttered with distractions of all description, and her terse smile. She strikes back. How is Agni?

“My young ward,” says Falion, after a pause, “shows some promise.”

To clasp one's mind with the mind of another mage—master, pupil, friend—is to do more than converse. He’s known Mirabelle since she was a prentice; the keen and steady stare that had followed him in his youth passes through him now, insubstantial, searching his mind for the child. The byre in which he’d found her—the reek of damp, the rotting straw. The murrain she’d spelled from Eivor’s cattle. Her first magelight, bright and startled as her smile. His terror that he’ll teach her ill, that she’ll end like his last pupil—

That, says Mirabelle softly, was not your fault.

“I know.” Falion flicks a taut hand. The fire in his hearth bursts up; the dishes, clattering like a draugr’s mail, stack themselves on the shelf. “And you know. And the rest of you, chasing shadows and squabbling over chairs—Mirabelle,” he murmurs with ferocity, sweeping his arm in an arc that rattles every shutter, “how can you stay?”

A pause.

These are tempestuous times. Mirabelle’s voice, to his surprise, is tinged with weary humor. If a dragon lands in the forecourt, who will remind it that we wizards are beyond worldly affairs?

Falion blinks. Then, despite everything, he smiles.

“If you need me,” he says to the empty room, “truly need me, my old friend—I will come.” He shakes his head. “But not before.”

“Falion,” calls a small voice from the doorway, “are you talking to dwarves?”

He turns. The child, picking sprigs of heather from her hair, greets him with a hesitant smile; she’s been in the marshes again, loosing coneys from his snares. The presence in his mind, with mingled frustration and warmth, flickers out.

“Agni.” He’ll scold her later. He raises an eyebrow and plucks a twig from behind her ear. “I was speaking with—a former colleague.”

“A wizard?” Her grin has a gap in it; the loose tooth must have come out. “A College wizard?”

“Were the snares empty again?”

“A College wizard, Falion?”

She’d been baking bread with Jonna when Tolfdir arrived. Small mercies. “Perhaps not for much longer.”

His apprentice still believes, somehow, in wonders: need-fires and marshfires, fish that grant wishes, wizards in the north that make the skylights dance. She frowns as if betrayed. “Why?”

“If you saw the College, child,” says Falion, kneeling to help her with her boots, “you would know.”

* * *

On the deck of the Valravn, the knarr creaking through the ice off the Vetring coast, a man in shabby furs smiles in surprise. His eyes have frozen shut.

“Sten, lad,” he calls to the steersman who’s been kind to him, kinder than he deserves, on the long, careful journey through the leads: a young man, quick to laugh, whose brothers have all gone south to war. They could be in his daughter’s centuria, he thinks, joking with her over a supper of mashed grain. They could be heads on spears. The wind saws his face like a carving-knife. “My pipe’s out.”

“Here you are, then, Master Clerk,” says a good-natured voice by his ear, followed by the mineral clack of struck flint. A hand swathed in fishskin turns his face for inspection. “Kyne caught you a nip, has she?”

“Don’t fuss.” His face is nearly too stiff to force a smile. “It’s only the lashes.”

“Well”—the hand tugs gently at his sleeve—“come away from the side. You’ll have your last cold bath, sir, if we meet a floe and pitch. And I want to watch you sell snow to those Vetrings.”

Lumber, in fact, and gruit, meal, mead. None are why the clerk is here; someone else will get rid of them, in due course. He doesn’t move. “In a moment. I want to see the school.”

Sten brushes the snow from his shoulders—fuss—and bustles off to haul some line or other. The wind that freezes men solid in their sleep closes around the clerk, whirling away the creak of rigging, the grumble of ice, the boatswain’s busy shouts. He’s alone with it again. When he breathes in deep, it burns on the way down like a clean, destroying flame; when he holds his pipe-bowl to his eye and waits for the lashes to thaw, the warmth is no different than the chill.

The dead in their doorways of fire, he thinks, must feel this way: blind, bright, with all that they love behind them. He leans forward a little. Let this sermon be consolation to those—

Something trickles down his face. His eye unsticks.

“Ai, cardehni,” he says, appalled. A great grin cracks the ice of his face. He steps back, leaning on his cane, and cranes his head to better see. “Sten, lad—what happens if a wizard sneezes?”

The boy’s laugh bursts over the ice. High above them, rearing out of a screaming cloud of kittiwakes, towers the wizards’ school: a fortress leaning, on its chunk of frozen rock, as though a sudden noise might knock it over.