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leonisdumbasallhell · 1 year ago

Note

🔪 <- curse of cut up OC be upon ye

0w0

Ok, this might get long and involves extensive world building and lore that has absolutely nothing to do with resident evil. Anyway enjoy.

Awake Surgery - Red & Alexi

CW: Impromptu surgery, slightly unhealthy relationship dynamic, fantasy bullshit.

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If she didn't find them to be so annoying, Red would have to admit, her mother's disciples were at the very least entertaining.

The inquisitor before her trembled, wide eyed behind his helmet, as he stared into the face of his own death and muttered a prayer in Eden.

"Our mother, the divine eye, blessed be thy watchful gaze,"

Red would have rolled her eyes if she'd had any. Instead, she flipped her knife once in her hand before rushing forward and shoving it deep into the inquisitors throat, cutting off his prayer with a gurgle.

His fear as he died was palpable, but not nearly enough to appease her. In a guttural whisper, she said, simply, "She can't hear you." before ripping the knife from his throat, the blood spraying over the porcelain of her hands. Vaguely, she could feel the warmth of it seeping into the ball joints of her fingers, gumming up the mechanisms. That would be a bother to clean later, but it always was and still always worth it. She shook them out as the body crumpled wetly, joining the rest of the crusade party on the now blood soaked floor of the research center.

Blood lust abating, Red turned, trying to remember why she'd come here. This was the lab of that scientist she'd... Hired seemed to strong a word for their arrangement, but blackmailed seemed too honest. Regardless, as the haze of death lifted, she pulled the pieces back together. He'd called for her, as she'd said he could do when needed. This was the first time he'd done so, though, given his apparent disdain for her. If he'd been desperate enough to have called her, he must have been well and truly fucked. Red looked around the lab, trying to find him. Or his body. Though, she was fairly certain she hadn't accidentally killed him in the frenzy. She probably would have remembered that.

"Are they dead?" Alexi's voice was small and shaken, and sounded entirely wrong, even besides his clumsy pronunciation of Pidgeon.

Red whipped around in the direction of the voice, seeing Alexi's face pear at her from behind an overturned desk. His eyes were wide and hollow, face pale and with a sheen of sweat, as though simply looking at her required more effort than he had to give.

Red rarely paid attention to mortals, but given her particular divinity, she was acutely aware of what a mortal looked like when it was dying.

Red did not hide the urgency of her movements. He started in his shaking as she appeared next to him, gasping like a broken hose, then stifling a scream as she shoved her hands into his wound.

"What--"

"Shut up. You're dying."

"Oh."

Red heard him swallow, but ignored it, instead focusing on the wound. It was small, and not terribly deep on the right side of his abdomen. It looked more like a nick than an actual cut, but was obviously causing extensive damage. Visually, Red couldn't tell what was causing him to die so quickly. It couldn't be infected, it was a fresh wound, but still. Something was wrong. Red pressed her essence into it, trying to find the source of the damage, probably some poison, or curse, or-- Red's magic did not return to her. Instead, the wound and surrounding area registered as a dead limb, pins and needles numb, a black hole of arcane energy.

Alexi swallowed again, some sort of nervous habit. "You can save me though, can't you?"

She couldn't, actually. It was Boneyard magic, something stronger than her, stronger than even her mother. She could pour all the magic she wanted into the wound, it would never heal. The Boneyard would simply swallow it all up and still be hungry for more. And even then, as much as she poured into it, it would still swallow up his soul eventually. He was as good as dead. She should just leave him to die. Or put him out of his misery. Her hand twitched at her knife, though the thought of his death at her hands was not a pleasant one. That surprised her.

"Can't you?" He sounded somehow more pitiful, more desperate the second time asking, like he knew she couldn't and was begging her to lie. So she did.

"Yes." This wasn't the first time she had lied to someone dying of The Boneyard's poison, though she did hope it would be the last. Though, the last time she had lied, she'd actually had an idea to at the least slow the progression of it. Not that she had gotten the chance to try it before they'd succumbed. And that had been a diluted form of the poison. This was the real deal. It probably wouldn't work in this case. She should just kill him so he didn't suffer. And yet, Red found she deeply did not want to see him die.

Without further comment, Red pulled her knife and plunged it into Alexi's abdomen.

Alexi arched his back and screamed, eyes wide as Red began to pull the knife through his abdomen, cutting away the already dead skin, clearing away as much as she could. Alexi shouted something desperately in Eden, something about "How could you?" and "You said you would help." Red supposed this could be seen as a betrayal of sorts, though she hardly had time to explain the proccess. She could explain once he wasn't actively dying. Any second she wasted gave more of his flesh to The Boneyard. And she figured he would prefer to be alive in the end.

Alexi tried to shove her hands away from the knife, tried to pull it out of himself when she didn't respond to his pleas. He hardly had any strength to stop her, the attempts more pitiful than anything. Red grunted in annoyance, shifting to use her feet to keep his arms still as she kept cutting.

Where she cut revealed the true damage hiding, and the extent it had spread. The flesh looked bloated, the color slightly off the more she looked at it, like skin left too long in mud. Instead of blood or bodily fluids, the places she cut through leaked swamp brine and silt, The Boneyard starting the proccess of drowning him from the inside.

Red didn't know if Alexi saw the wound or had simply given up trying to stop her, but he was no longer wiggling underneath her as she continued clearing the wound out. She was not a surgeon, she was a murderer, and her cuts were not clean or exact, but they were the best she could do, cutting away the bloated skin, then clearing out the mud and water that filled the abscess, until what was left was a strange hollow in his flesh much larger than what she had started with.

With that part done, Red glanced to Alexi. He had gone limp, eyes closed, but still breathing shallowly. He probably wasn't fine, but breathing meant alive, as far as she was concerned. And once she gave The Boneyard something else to chew on, she could use her own magic to heal whatever damage she'd done. She just had to get through the next part.

Red hesitated, pulling her knife away from Alexi's skin, running her ceramic fingers along it's edge. She wasn't going to like this next part. She hadn't done this in a very long time.

Red forced the ceramic of her body to soften out, to become malleable and warm. She could feel as the ball joints became bone, the elastic became ligaments, feel the blood thrum under the skin. The knife's edge, which moments ago had been comforting against her fingers, now bit them, sharp and tangy, with the slight sent of cooper in the air. She could smell it.

She took a breath, a real one, and not her normal mimicry, before she placed the edge of the blade against her palm and drew it across. It stung, blood beginning to well almost immediately, and she hurriedly shoved it over the hollow of Alexi's wound. She squeezed her hand, willing more of it to pour out and into his body.

Where her blood hit his wound it darkened, solidifying into a void the same tone of her hair, a reflection of the night sky complete with a spattering of stars. It was her divine essence, a piece of her that would continue to output her magic for as long as it existed. It also tied him to her from now until it was removed, in which case he would begin to die, just as quickly as he had been before.

Once the wound was filled, she pulled her hand back, willing the wound to knit itself closed, then wiped the remaining blood on her shorts. She almost changed back, longing for the comfort of her cold porcelain over the vulnerability of flesh, but looking at Alexi's face stopped her. His eyes were closed, and she didn't think he was entirely aware, but his face was tight, twitching from pain.

With fingers that were still warm and soft for once, she took his hand, which was always warm. With porcelain fingers, Red could only ever feel pressure and the idea of a temperature, like touching a sun warmed window. But she could not feel the texture of things. Now, the ridges of human fingers found the ridges of his, catching on them in a way she might once have found grating, but now found... Interesting. His skin was slightly damp, and almost sticky. She interlocked their fingers, feeling the pressure of his fingers against hers, felt the way it changed the blood pressure of her hand.

With lips she had not used in centuries, and a tongue just as old and clumsy, Red whispered in Eden, "You'll be okay," as she gently fed her magic through their interlocked fingers, easing his pain and starting to heal the damage that had been done. He would be okay. And to Red's surprise, she was glad for it.

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If you read all the way through this and are like. "Wow, this seems so cool and interesting and I'd love to know more about this world building!" You are in luck because I have. A Whole Ass Comic. Alexi isn't in it (Well technically he'll make a very brief cameo in later chapters, where he's a grad student and gets trauma about it <3) but Red is, and I'm going to be making some follow ups that Alexi will appear in lmao. anyway, shameless self promo over, back to Resident Evil.

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braveryhearted · 1 year ago

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Player Character / Tav of Baulder's Gate 3 Character Sheet

Name: Serenity ( Sere ) Caldwell. Age: Early 20s. Height: Medium. Clothes in Camp: Minthara's aka she looted it like the Rouge she is. :3 Hair Color: White / Silver. Eye Color: Light Elf Purple and Dark Elf Purple. Hair Length / Style: Medium / Winterfell Scarf. Ears: Pointed. Complexion: Pale. Profession: Folk Hero / Noble. Alignment: True Neutral. Class: High Elf Half Mermaid Rogue. Sub Class: Arcane Trickster. Boons: Slight of Hand, Charisma, Deception, History, Arcane. Weakness: Strength, Defense, Constitution.

Granddaughter of Wyllyck and Abelea. Daughter of an unnamed Caldwell and Undyne of the Forgotten Lands.

The Caldwells are one of the oldest families in the Gate, and under her grandfather Wyllyck's leadership, sustained their great wealth. Serenity's grandad, however, did not hoard his wealth, and instead distributed a lot of it to charity. Because of this and several other reasons, the Caldwell family is very well regarded, not just in the Upper City, but city-wide. Her grandfather Wyllyck even invested into businesses in the Lower City, giving him great repute in the area. In addition to general charitable works, he donated very generously to the Church of Last Hope, Shrine of the Suffering, Watchful Shield, and the High House of Wonders.

Serenity shares a lot of her personality with her grandfather. She's said to be very modest, talented, and philanthropic. Serenity is more interested in studying, discussing alchemy, and conducting charity work, and thus declined invitations to noble galas. She believes most other patriars were too concerned with their own pleasure in order to care about the Lower and Outer City. Serenity was against the Guild, though that did not stop her from looking into issues within the Outer City.

In Baulder's Gate, Serenity could often by found in the Wide, studying alongside her fellow alchemists. The Caldwell patriarch is well liked all over Baldur's Gate. Many persons and organizations were impressed with Wyllyck and his extended family, including Duke Torlin Silvershield, the Parliament of Peers, and even his political rival, Ulder Ravengard.

Wyllyck has an intelligent wife, Abelea Caldwell, who was skilled at finance and business management. This is where Serenity gets her pragmatic skills and her stealing everything she sees, even if it's not really valuable. If it's sellable even for one gold, it's worth every yoinked slight of hand.

In 1482 DR, the Parliament of Peers planned on electing Serenity's grandfather, Wyllyck Calwell to become a duke and thus part of the Council of Four. Wyllyck had very strong support from existing dukes, and citizens from all around Baldur's Gate. However, Caldwell never became duke. He was eventually passed over in favor of Lord Ulder Ravengard.

The Caldwells originally made their fortune on the the extensive orchards of apples and pears that were grown south of Baldur's Gate. In the 1400s, they branched out into importing raw timber and exporting cut and treated lumber, thanks to their own treatment process. This was used by the majority of builders, carpenters, coopers, shipwrights, and wheelwrights in the region. By the 1480s DR, they'd expanded into shipping upriver and bought and operated two ships, Abelea and Sweetseed.

They are very well regarded within the city for their numerous charitable endeavors and financial investments in businesses located throughout the Lower City. They made generous donations to several temples: the High House of Wonders, the Watchful Shield, the Shrine of the Suffering, and the Church of Last Hope. By 1492, they had ownership of most of the art museums in Baldur's Gate. Nevertheless, their riches were still not a patch on those of the Silvershield family.

Wyllyck and Abelea had multiple sons, in which one unnamed one fell in love with the mermaid Undyne, who grew legs and left the sea to be with the one she loved. They eventually wed and had Serenity, their only child. Her mermaid gene is more submissive than her High Elf one so when they classified her after the birth, she was put under the High Elf category. The only affects that she has that can been scene is her impulsive tendency to steal almost anything, especially skulls and bones and her melodic singing voice, said to even outshine the harpies on the beach.

In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa. Mermaids are sometimes associated with perilous events such as floods, storms, shipwrecks, and drownings. In other folk traditions (or sometimes within the same traditions), they can be benevolent or beneficent, bestowing boons or falling in love with humans / human-like beings. The male and the female collectively are sometimes referred to as merfolk or merpeople.

The Western concept of mermaids as beautiful, seductive singers may have been influenced by the Sirens of Greek mythology, which were originally half-birdlike, but came to be pictured as half-fishlike in the Christian era. While there is no evidence that mermaids exist outside folklore, reports of mermaid sightings continue to the present day.

Mermaids have been a popular subject of art and literature in recent centuries, such as in Hans Christian Andersen's literary fairy tale "The Little Mermaid" (1836). They have subsequently been depicted in operas, paintings, books, comics, animation, and live-action films.

Her (battle) theme is LOVE THE SUBHUMAN SELF from Guilty Gear. She's deeply in love with the fellow high elf rogue turned vampire, Astarion Ancunín. Verses if they are in a romantic relationship are dependent here. Not gonna force anything. Her relationship with her mother Undyne is strained, as her mother is jealous and has tried various attempts on the young woman's life through the years, as Mermaids tend to be envious of anyone else and wish them dead.

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rmg91 · 3 years ago

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Zoe Week; Day 5-ROTT

So I know we got given a free day considered ROTT was...what it was but I decided to still go with the prompt and it turned into more of a small rewrite than just a ‘Let’s slip Zoe into this scene’. Zoe is everyone’s braincell and we know it.

Also I tried writing a fight scene....I donno how well it turned out lol

AO3

~*~*~*~*~*~

“He WHAT?!”

Zoe stared at the assembled guardians, the kids, that had gone up against the demigods bent on restarting the world with that crazy plan to strip them of their powers, only for it to fail. Yes, they were alive. Yes, they had Nari, in spirit, but the Arcane Order had her body, had Douxie, and that was not okay for her! That stupid, self-sacrificing idiot! Of course he'd do something like that! But all it would do would buy them time and just what was going to happen when those power hungry beings found out?! It wasn't going to be good, that was for sure and now Zoe had to hatch a plan to try and save her idiot before something bad happened.

Ignoring the overlapping explanations and assurances they'd come up with a plan, Zoe marched her way out of the ex-throne room and down to what was becoming her studio. Shuffling around the various tomes and grimoires, she searched for the one she was certain had the spell she needed to find him, growling to herself when she couldn't. This is what she got for not sorting through all these yet. Finally, just when she'd been about to say 'fuck it' and do it without the book, she dug up the dusty purple codex of scrying and grinned in victory. Oh, she was finding that idiot of hers and then she was going to give him a piece of her mind once he was safe.

Coming back upstairs, the pinked haired witch flipped through the book, looking for the magic circle that would allow her to find Douxie. Ignoring everyone's voices, she quickly read through the directions, reminding herself how it worked and set to etching runes in the air with her wand. The symbols of power fell to the floor in sparking pink power, forming the necessary element for her spell. “Nari.” She called, “I'm gonna need Archie for a moment.”

The little nature spirit, inhabiting her partners body, let his familiar go from her hold as she finished the magic circle, sending the tomb to rest on the floor outside it. Sitting in the center, Archie crawled into her lap in dragon form, already having a feeling on what she was going to try to do. Normally she could sense Douxie's power, they'd known each other for so after all it was easy, but between distance and most likely being blocked, she couldn't without help. It would be easier if their magic was bonded, tied together for the rest of eternity and the ultimate sign of trust and love between magic users but...they weren't. Not for lack of wanting to but their lives had been pretty hectic and dangerous and bonding their magic came with lots of consequences as well as benefits. If one of them died...it would be the worse kind of hell on the other. And as much as they loved each other they hadn't wanted to have the other suffer so. But maybe, after all this, they'd change that.

“Uh..what are you gonna do?” Toby asked, standing near as he watched the pulsing pink runes.

“I'm going to track Douxie using the bond between him and Archie.” She explained, holding the dragon-cat gently, one hand scratching between his ears, “It should, in theory, help me find where the Order is holding him.” Then they would retrieve him and she was going to kick his ass for putting himself in danger, again.

Everyone took that as the queue to be quiet, to let her work, and Zoe breathed in deeply, letting her magic seep out and take shape. The circle glowed as she let herself fall into a trance, focusing on Archie, who was relaxed in her lap, his own magic open to letting hers in. She found the bond, a shining string of magic that was warm, comforting, powerful, reaching out beyond their little space in search of their missing wizard. She followed it as it swirled, twisting and turning through the space between, searching, searching, searching until-There! It sung brightly, tightening like a perfectly tuned guitar string and humming with life and she knew in that moment just where to find him.

Opening her eyes, a pink glow encompassing them, she grinned sharply. The Order didn't know what was coming to them.

~*~*~*~

The group entered the abandoned train tunnel, sans one Trollhunter, looking for any sign of the Order or Douxie. Zoe knew she had been harsh when she told Jim he needed to stay behind but she was not going to take back what she said. He was injured and therefore a liability and she wasn't going to let him kill himself or any of his friends if things were to go pear shaped. But hopefully they wouldn't and they'd be able to rescue Douxie with minimal trouble.

Her blue eyes roamed over the various crates and scaffolding, sensing him near but unable to see him. But she just knew he was here. Even as the group spread out and looked around old, crumbling crates and rusty metal drums, confused as to why they couldn't find anyone, Zoe was reaching out with her magic, searching for her wayward husband. Frowning down at the tracks, something just wasn't sitting right with her, she tried her best to see and think like Douxie would. There had to be something here she was missing...

She blinked, a thought coming suddenly and could it really be that easy?

Trotting up a staircase to get higher ground, she looked down at the tracks, shaking her head lightly because for some eon's old beings, Skrael and Bellroc really couldn't be original? “Their hiding in plain sight!” She shouted to assembled guardians, flicking her wand out and rearranging the train tracks, “They've made a giant sigil with the tracks!” The tracks moved, soon lighting up and dispelling the room around them, revealing a much darker room and three beings in the center.

She wasn't sure if they were aware they weren't alone anymore but it looked as if the demigods of ice and fire were taunting who they thought were Nari. She, or rather Douxie, was hovering in the air, held aloft by his hands in glowing magic and maybe, possibly keeping quiet as to continuing fooling the gods. But then, as they were staring confusedly as the Genius Seals, wondering why they weren't opening, he opened his big fat mouth.

“Abracadabra, Buttsnacks.”

Zoe groaned, because why had he said that?! But before the Order could do more than threaten him, she raised her wand high and cried, “Hey! Hands off!” She then sent a bolt of pink lighting down, just barely hitting Skreal, and then it was on!

Everyone jumped into action, firing and fighting the two remaining members of the Order. Zoe jumped down, joining the fray, firing spells and shields as she made way to Nari's body. She was put to a stop though as the icy wizard floated in front of her, brandishing his staff. Oh, if he wanted a fight, he was getting a fight. Ignoring Douxie's strained call of her name, the hedge-witch ducked a swing of the staff, dodging to the right and not giving in to Skreal's taunting. Hedge-witch or not, didn't mean she wasn't powerful and she wasn't about to let these bastards win.

Zoe fired spell after spell, wildly missing the floating god as he chuckled darkly at her. But that was okay, all part of the plan because when he least expect it she smirked and performed a round-house kick, planting her foot below his belt with a cry of “Rule Number Three!!”

As Skrael crumpled, she turned back to Douxie in Nari's body, running closer and hoping she could break the spell keeping him in the air. Fire had started to burn everywhere, the old wood catching easily to the spells Bellroc fired off but she ignored all that as she examined the magic around Douxie's wrists. She shushed him as he tried to talk to her, needing to concentrate on what she was doing, hopefully she wouldn't need Claire's help. Then a dark chuckle came from behind her.

“You won't break him free.” She turned to glare at Bellroc, their ever fluctuating voice grating on her nerves, “That magic is too powerful for even a full fledged wizard, let alone a little hedge-witch.” She growled as they laughed at her. And maybe she wouldn't be able to break it herself but if she could break this beings concentration... A wicked grin came to her face, feral as she remembered the chaos she'd wrecked at Killahead, and she began drawing runes behind her back.

“You're right...Guess I'll just have to make you break it.”

And with a flash of pink, twenty more Zoe's surrounded the demigod.

Crying out, Bellroc began to blast away her clones, easily poofing them from existence, which was fine as it was only meant as a distraction. The real Zoe dodged behind him, thankful for the rest of the crew keeping Skrael busy as she charged her magic. She'd only have one shot at this and she hoped it worked. It had been a while since she last did this. Bringing her now brightly flashing hands together, she drew them apart, a glowing, sparking, pink arrow held between them.

“Foolish girl! This won't defeat me!!” Bellroc cried with rage, dispelling the last of her clones.

“It's not meant to!” She yelled back before firing the arrow, sending a million volts through the wizard and causing them to spasm. And it was enough, for the spell holding Douxie up sputtered and died, dropping him to the floor. Zoe dived for his staggering form as Bellroc cried out again, pushing him out of the way of a blast of fire. Of course now she needed a plan to get them out of there...

Just as the fire god was approaching, already up from her attack and ready to end her life, a black portal formed beneath her and Douxie and they dropped away.

~*~*~*~

Zoe groaned as she was dropped onto the floor of Camelot, rolling onto her back. That had been...something. She really needed to practice that attack again, it took far too much out of her but at least now Douxie was safe. And Nari. She heard the rest of the guardians tumble in, shouts from their assembled allies rising and still she laid there, catching her breath.

“Zoe! Zoe, are you alright?!” She looked up at Douxie's voice, finding Nari's face above her looking at her with concern and they were needed to change back because this was just getting too weird. She watched him sag with relief, most likely due to her opening her eyes and he sighed, “You were nuclear, Love.”

“You better switch back before you kiss me, Casperan.” Was her only response.

Chuckling breathlessly, he nodded and she watched him hold out his hand for Nari to take, the goddess now crouching on her other side. A flash of magic and she was then being pulled into Douxie's lap, the wizard now back in his body. She let him nuzzle his face into her neck, still recovering from the adrenaline and almost overuse of her magic as they sat there, friends and allies all around.

“Thank you, Zoe.” Nari said softly, sitting primly in front of her, “You risked so much.”

“It's fine, Nari,” Zoe said, smiling at the forest child, “There was no way I was letting them keep your body and Douxie's mind.” Let alone risk the possibility of them forcing the two back into their proper bodies. Then they really would have been in trouble.

“So what do you do now?” She heard Claire ask because now they were back at square one. Keep Nari out of the grasp.

“I donno,” Zoe sighed, “But the important thing is the Order doesn't have Nari anymore.”

“That's not all they don't have..” The nature goddess smirked shyly before holding up the Genius Seals.

Zoe's eyes widen as cries went up around her, Douxie laughing in surprise, before she grinned wide and shark like. Oh, things were about to get interesting.

~*~*~*~*~*~

How the rest of the movie would play out from here I have no idea but there’s some choice Zouxie protecting each other/Nari/Archie so...there’s that. I hope you all enjoyed!

#ZoeAppreciationWeek #Zoe Week #Zoe #Douxie #Zouxie #Nari #ToA #Tales of Arcadia #Wizards #ROTT #Fanfiction #ROTT rewrite #Yeah Zoe and her arrows returned #heehee

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nightwingshero · 4 years ago

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Rosemary, abatina, dill, hollyhock, and sweet pear for whoever you feel like talking about! 💜

Thank you, hun!!! I did a mixture, because I’m missing some old OCs of mine, and some need serious development. Yeah, so it got really long, I am so sorry!

Rosemary: What's their fondest memory?

Blair: It would probably be laying out in the backyard with her dad while they watched the stars, or her dad buying her that nice telescope that he’d use with her. It meant a lot to her that her parents indulged when it came to her interests, they were always supportive. Most of her time was spent at aquariums, the observatory, zoos, and just doing a lot of stuff with her parents. Science fairs were always a blast, because her parents would help.

Emma: This would be either her and her brother Mark playing in the pond they had or playing football on the beach in the summer. Em would also work on an old Mustang, one she’s still helping him build, and Ash would come over most days and they would all just have a huge dinner in the backyard. Georgia gave decent weather for it. Most of her fondest memories are with her family or Ashton, because they grew up together and did a lot together when Emma’s family moved there. A beautiful, sunny day in Summer always takes her back.

Quinn: There were times where they would travel back to Russia to visit the remaining members of his mother’s family, and he would love it. Quinn absolutely adored his babushka, and the stories she would tell. His mother would tell the same tales, but it wasn’t the same as how his babushka would tell it. There was also sailing with his father. That was something Quinn thoroughly enjoyed, and it was something they continued on doing until his father died.

Wren: Definitely playing piano with her mother! That is probably the most precious moment for her. When she plays it now, she still feels as if her mother is there with her. Not only that, but her music teacher was her one good thing growing up. Mrs. Hall taught Wren how to actually play, and when Wren would sneak to lessons (under the guise of studying or going to the library), Mrs. Hall would often bake cookies and brownies for Wren, as if she were her own grandmother. Wren attended her funeral when she passed, and it actually felt like she had lost her grandmother when she heard. But those are memories she holds dear.

Abatina: Are they very picky or particular about anything?

Blair: Not really, no. Blair is rather easy going and goes with the flow. I think the one thing would be don’t touch her work station. It’s organized chaos with an actual system that only she knows, and she will absolutely lose it if you mess with anything because that’s her life’s work you’re messing with. I think that could be said for any scientist though, and she is very verbal about it. It’s a light reminder, or a happy request until you get too close and she becomes slightly frazzled and makes you keep your distance.

Emma: She can be an absolute control freak and has to have things a certain way (whether that’s because she was in the Marines or if she inherited it from her mother, who’s to say?) No eating in her cars, don’t touch her guns, and if you’re going along with her on something, you’re following her lead. Ashton, Nora, and even Roach give her hell for it, but honestly? Sometimes she can’t help it. Emma has a habit of taking control of a situation when it calls for it and she’s a super organized and neat person. Everything has it’s place, things are cleaned or done a certain way, and she would rather just do it herself.

Quinn: His hair and shoes. Listen, Quinn is very boyish in looks (there’s a reason Ryan Gosling is his faceclaim) and his hair is usually neat or done how he wants it. He’s not overbearing about it, he just takes his time with it because he does put care into his appearance. His shoes are shined, his clothes match and his outfit is sharp, he doesn’t go more than a few days without shaving. Once the Collapse happens, it’s one of the things he can control, so he does. Grayson often jokes he’s the prettiest guy of Armageddon, but Quinn laughs with him.

Wren: She doesn’t like it when other people drive. Having been in a traumatizing car accident, she prefers to be at the wheel for that sense of control. It’s honestly makes her so damn anxious when that’s not the case, and Quinn drives like a damn maniac from time to time in New Dawn. She will cling to something for dear life, and absolutely will backseat drive. It leads to a lot of spats between her and Jane, Quinn, and Ivy.

Dill: Do they have any rivals?

Blair: I would say that one of the biggest would be John Constantine. Blair is skeptical when it comes to the mystical and supernatural, needless to say, she absolutely does not believe in magic. However, when the Particle Accelerator went off, someone close to her was wearing a totem or a spiritual pendent that got mixed into her meta powers (it’s how she can cosmic project and do some of the things she can with energy manipulation...it also helps balance out her going supernova and such), so...some of her powers are part of the arcane. Johnny knew that the second he met her, so when she gave him grief and became skeptical when he was helping Ollie bring Sara’s soul back, he just smirked at her and went “hate to burst your little bubble, love--” and honestly, they’ve been at it from there.

Emma: Ha! Emma is competitive and very proud, so yeah, she has rivals, some more fun than others though. For example, her rivalry with Nikolai (and sometimes Price) is who can drink the other under the table. Yuri...well, they ended up in a fist fight on a misunderstanding when they first met, so while he’s working with her and the 141, there’s definitely some rivalry there with them trying to one up the other. She’ll spar with Ghost to see who is better too. Honestly, she’s always up for a challenge, and its something she shares with a lot of her fellow Marines back home--including her cousin and her teammates.

Quinn: John fucking Seed. Listen, they hate each other, full on loathing, because Quinn isn’t afraid to point out that he’s in a cult and we all know how John is when someone makes him feel insecure and inadequate...with Quinn he very much does, even if that isn’t his intention. It also doesn’t help that John notices how Quinn looks at his wife from time to time, and he doesn’t appreciate it, but the biggest thing is that Quinn openly challenges him on everything. To Quinn, he wants to poke holes in his logic and show that John isn’t at all what he thinks he is. Quinn is a natural leader, he had been in the Navy, he knows what that looks like and he’s quick to call John out on shit. Wren gives him a bit of a run, too, their rivalry just happens to uh...turn into something else.

Wren: Holly Pepper and Mary May Fairgrave. Those are the two that gives her the most trouble. In any other scenario (and in most AUs), Wren and Mary May get along just fine, but in canon? Wren straight up punches her in the face. There’s more to it, of course. Wren is being worn down by people wanting her to do this and that for the Resistance, her constantly being pulled in every direction and being forced to give to people without them giving in return. And Mary May wouldn’t shut up about the truck, while saying Wren was dragging her feet on what the Resistance needed done (mostly because Wren was sleeping around with John, but they didn’t know that yet), and Wren just gets overwhelmed with frustration and anger, and straight up punches her in the face and tells her “if you want the truck so damn bad, go get it yourself”, and storms out. Holly Pepper later becomes an issue because she knows John slept around with her, and Holly loves shoving it in Wren’s face. So...Holly ends up dying because she straight up attacks Wren, and Jane helps her with it because she knows that John has a soft spot for Wren. Plus there’s that little shit Quinn in New Dawn...they’re a lot of fun.

Hollyhock: What's their biggest goal right now?

Blair: Currently, it’s to find her place and stride with the team and her powers. She just wants to not have to lay awake at night and worry she’ll lose control again and hurt her friends and loved ones. Her whole life has changed, and there are still things that are throwing her off. She needs to find her footing again and feel more confident in what she’s become. Helping people, including herself and teammates/friends, is what’s most important to her.

Emma: As of right now, it’s to regroup and hunt down Makarov. She’s still healing from when Shepherd took out the 141 base and tried to kill her, Ashton, and Nora. The stitches are still healing a bit, but she’s pumped up and ready to take him down. Her goal, and focus, is doing whatever Price and Soap need her to do. It’s almost tunnel vision at this point.

Quinn: Take down the Highwaymen and fix whatever bullshit Whitney and Wren have going on. He won’t at all pretend he knows what fucking type of politics they have in New Eden, or what rules they’re going by, but it’s very damn clear that Ethan is no good and needs taken down. Him and Grayson came because Carmina asked Rush, and they were never ones to back down from a challenge, not when it comes to helping those in need. So, he’s gonna take down Mickey and Lou, allow Grayson to avenge Rush while protecting Prosperity, and then stand with Wren and Whitney as they take over New Eden.

Wren: That depends on if we’re talking Far Cry 5 or New Dawn, but she’s mostly taking out the head Seed and establishing peace. She’s trying to do what’s right, and whether that’s for herself (which is the eventuality of her changing sides) in Far Cry 5, or for their people and her family in New Dawn (overthrowing Ethan and opening New Eden to more freedoms.) It’s all revolved around Eden’s Gate though, and she agrees to help Quinn and Grayson because she still cares about Kim and Nick, and much of the others, so it’s just a pitstop on her plan.

Sweet pea: If you had to choose a favorite dessert for them, what would it be?

Blair: Crème Brule, strawberry shortcake, or chocolate lava cake. You could say all of the above, to be honest, she loves sweets. Blair is always snacking, and they’re usually little cakes, fruits, or something sweet. There’s a reason crepes are her favorite breakfast foods, fruit and sweet? Yes. Which I guess you could add porfait on the breakfast menu too, in that case...anyway, snacking is usually something her and Mick has in common, though she’s not constantly looking for it the way he is. Mick finds food in missions and randomly...Blair is more disciplined than that. She will grab stuff for him a lot of the times if they’re in the same room or if she’s working near him. Leonard just stares between them, he’s not sure what he thinks of their comrade (he also lost his more recent memories, so he can shut it.)

Emma: Dark chocolate cake or tarts. Anything that has a bitter or sour tinge to it, because she’s not really a sweets person. Not when it comes to that, at least. She loves her mom’s sweet tea (and homemade lemonade). But she just would have something like raspberry butter cookies, cherry pie, or even an old fashioned ice cream (yes, with bourbon). She loves dark chocolate though. And tiramisu.

Quinn: Oh, he loves the Russian desserts his mom would make, and honestly, Quinn has such a sweet tooth. Bird’s milk cake, Russian rugelach, waffle cakes, and especially kartoshka. He would help his mom (or babushka when they would visit Russia), and would eat them with Russian tea they would make. He also enjoys many flavors of gelato.

Wren: Cheesecake. Without a doubt. She has always been, and will forever be, in love with cheesecake. And all kinds, if we’re being totally honest. She will eat any flavor, she feels strongly about it. You wanna piss her off easily? Eat her cheesecake. Wanna get on her good side again? Bring her cheesecake. John does. Whenever he’s in trouble, he throws a cheesecake on it. She’s constantly eating it to the point Whitney and Rowan have both reminded her that it’s not a meal. Does she listen? No.

#oc: blair chambers #oc: emma miller #oc: quinn langdon #oc: wren blake #my ocs #asks #arrowverse #call of duty #far cry new dawn #far cry 5

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the-lunar-mistress · 5 years ago

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LF RP: Sazlethan Mahvash

🌙 Basics

Name: Sazlethan Mahvash

Alias: The Lunar Mistress, Hingashi's Viper, Lulubell Vixen, Noct

Age: Appears to be in her late 20s

Nameday: 18th sun of the 6th umbral moon

Race: Rava, Viera

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Bisexual, Demiromantic

Marital: Widowed

Alignment: Chaotic Neural

Brief History: Sazlethan is a sassy, sensual, sharp-tongued shaman hailing from the Golmore jungle. After leaving she found herself stranded on Thavnair where she changed her name, learned alchemy and how to dance. From there she was picked up by a trader and thrown into a wild ride of tragedy, danger, secrets, and total chaos. This viera has a wide range of talents including but not limited to assassination, fine arts, and judging people from a distance behind large sunglasses.

🌙 Physical Appearance

Hair: Snow white deep set waves and flow down to her ankles. Usually keep in a thick braid or pulled into a high ponytail with intricate gold pins of Hingan origin, and accompanied with two smaller braids that frame her face.

Eyes: Wide set sea green eyes that almost seem to glow under certain lighting.

Build: Although curvy and pear shaped with a feminine dancer's physique, her chosen occupation requires her to be fit and athletic. Upon closer examination one would find that she is quite toned, primarily in her legs which are well defined and rather powerful.

Height: 5 fulms, 10 ilms

Weight: 153 ponzes

Distinguishing Marks: Freckles litter her cheeks and nose while a vieran tattoo travels down the bridge of her nose and just below her bottom lip. A tattoo of a moon with similar markings to the one on her face rests in between her breasts. The last of her tattoos were made with aetheric ink and reside on the palms of her hands and bottom of her feet. They resemble runes in the shape of an elemental wheel. She has a few scars; some burns hidden behind ink on her palms and what appears to be whip scars scattered on the surface of her back.

Common Appearances: The most common and unchanging feature of her appearance is her lips, which are painted in matte black lipstick. Her wardrobe is lavish and expensive, often wearing elegant dresses of origins ranging in several different cultures, and sometimes being a mix. Notable colors are black, purple, and gold. Her ears are littered in gold stud and chain piercings, as well as double hoops in her left nostril, a single hoop at the center of her bottom lip, and two simple golden bars through both her nipples.

🌙 Personal

Occupation: Madame of The Viper's Nest - dancer's guild and lounge. Informant, assassin, and arcane specialist for The Court of Thieves. Black market Alchemist.

Hobbies: Alchemy, dancing, hedonism, reading, people watching

Languages: Dalmascan, Hingan, Old Auri, Common Eorzean, some Thavnairian

Residence: A small estate in Shirogane

Birthplace: A small village in the Golmore Jungle.

Religion: The Kami

Patron Deities: Undetermined

🌙 Relationships

Fears: Deep waters, drowning, abandonment

Spouse: Deceased

Children: None

Parents: Unknown

Siblings: Unknown

Close Friend: Junayd Sulayk @unkemptandtired, Os Frostmantle @fortress-and-flame

Pets: One large black snake named Epsilon, a bat she refers to as Old Friend,

🌙 Hooks

Entertainment – Her youth was filled with misery and slavery when she fled the Golmore jungle in search of knowledge. A gem from the forest trained in song, dance, and seduction; held captive in Thavnair until she released herself from her own mental shackles. Perhaps you remember the white hair, swaying hips, and haunting lullaby. (If you were in Thavnair perhaps you’ve seen her preform!)

Shamanism – The veil is thinned for celeste eyes that close behind a mask and open for the invisible. A gifted shaman and talented mage able to wield many magics. A healer with a soothing touch and a knack for creating tonics, poisons, and narcotics. (Premonitions to lead her to meet significant people or simply cross paths in peculiar situations.)

The Lunar Mistress – A vengeful soul that speaks for the weak. For the ones who cannot fight for themselves. Merciless sadism comes to those marked in the night by her crescent cut and has laid eyes on the mane of white. (These are rumors! Feel free to pull her aside to discuss them, or hire!)

OOC Information

HI I’M BACK MAYBE!

I'm available around 8pm CST every night.

I'm looking for more connections so I'm open to just about anything within reason.

I do role play dark themes quite frequently. In fact, it's hard NOT TO with her so OBVIOUSLY I require any partners to be 18 and up.

I'm also terrible at writing hooks so just like...talk to me about what you wanna do kay? K.

Oh! I'm an anxious and nervous fuck! But I'd like to think I'm pretty down to earth. Please don't rush me I'm sensitive ;w;

NO DRAMA! AT ALL! POSITIVE MENTAL ATTITUDE!

that is all c:

Contact Information

Discord: un.requited#8917

Tumblr: @lulubell-vixen

In Game: Sazlethan Mahvash

Server: Balmung

Mentions: @balmungrp @crystalxivrp @mooglemeet

Art: @eluari 🖤

#sazlethan mahvash #lfrp #balmung lfrp #ffxiv lfrp #crystal lfrp #ffxiv #ff14 #rava #viera

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radabadabing-bing · 6 years ago

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Libra and the Cursed Staff

Well here’s a thing with an interesting life. Began as something short on my phone, ended up putting it on docs and wrapping it up. Thought’d it be shorter than it ended up being, but that’s not exactly bad. Anyways, enjoy. More stuff soonish, need a bit of time to bob ideas about my head...And put them into actual words

Libra had picked up the staff, not knowing of it's more...adverse effects. Though he quickly felt it's power, as magic coursed through him.

"What odd feeling is this? This stave, it's...gah..."

The magic intensified, more and more pulsing through his body. He felt his stomach, throat, and lungs fill with it. An overwhelming amount. The overflowing magic needed space to accumulate, and the war monk had not been big enough. Not yet, anyways...

"This magic...hhgh...My body..." Libra's flat stomach began to distend, morphed by the powerful arcane energy flowing through his body. It was a potbelly at first, but became more and more apparent as it continued it's swelling. It began amassing under his breastplate, the metal and leather creaking ever slightly under the new girth. "Ungh...What's happening...To me..."

He clutched the staff harder, which only seemed to incentivize his expansion. His breastplate felt ever tighter, and an imbalance was brought to him as his ass bubbled out. His thighs gradually giving him a pear shape, chafing in his once baggy pants. Libra's chestplate was met with more resistance as his chest began to swell too. "G-gah..." There was a pop. One of the seams holding the chestplate together in had snapped.

The first pop was followed by a second. A third. Each more relieving than the last for Libra's bloated belly. After an eternity of pops later, the chest plate finally clanged on the ground, letting his new flabby body flop out. "Oh Naga...What in the gods has become of me?"

But the cruel stave had not finished Libra's transformation yet. More magic flowed through his veins, creating more baggage on the priest. His arms bulged, not with muscle but with heavy bulk. He felt his neck roll out, slowly melding with his chin. His waistline grew outwards, his pants growing tighter with every passing moment. Libra's head turned towards his rear, and watched it too expand. His shirt pulled up as his abdomen outgrew it, growing larger and larger.

"Ghh..." Libra heard his thighs tear through his pants. The straps of his boots began to space apart, as the magic continued to destroy his figure. And another rip in his pants, making room for his plush rump. It was then Libra began to consider what could cause this surge in mass...Where dots began connecting in his mind. It had only begun once he clung to the staff, and he only gripped it harder as if it would stop the growth.

Libra lightened his grasp. His expanding belly seemed to quiver ever lighter, pudge just slighter...So the priest dropped it. And as the cursed stick clattered on the floor, the sensation he felt...faded. It had still done quite a number on the once lithe man, having outgrown most of his wardrobe at this point. At the very least, being unable to properly fit into much of it...No matter. He had saved himself from a worse fate.

...But the stave was sitting there. Taunting him, almost. What it had done to Libra in only a manner of minutes was incredible, and had enraptured him with it as well. What stopped anyone else from picking it up? And once they realized the potential the accursed thing contained, from using it for their own twisted means?

Regardless of his increase in size, he was still an agent of good, of Naga. It was something of his duty to insure this tool couldn’t be used in such a manner. “May the gods- May Naga- be with me for this.” He breathed in. He breathed out. Libra may of been bigger, but his new weight may of helped in this situation. A heavy step forward, it landed on one end of the stave. He could already feel the energy surge through him, but not enough to dissuade him from continuing.

With a heave, he swung his upper body down, ignoring it’s heft and weight. Libra wrapped his hands around the end of the stave he was not holding- more of the magic surged through him, puffing his body ever more. His shirt began to come apart at the seams now. Straps of his boots, stretched to their limits, began snapping. Pants at their final limits, the few threads holding them together just barely holding. But it wasn’t stopping Libra from pulling the opposite direction with the stave.

His overweight stature ensured he could hold it down, and what muscle he had from swinging his axe still existed beneath the layers of blubber he was forming. The wood of the stave began to cave to Libra. It began to bend. Splinter. Crack. Libra could feel the sweat drip down his forehead as he pulled harder and harder, as gravity pulled harder and harder on him.

And at long last...It snapped. The war priest lurched back, partly in surprise and partly from simple laws of force. Though this disbalance promptly dropped him upon his large ass. That didn’t matter much to Libra, as he tossed the half of the broken staff away. He had achieved what he had set out to do...Satisfying. Though he was questioning how he would pick himself up...

However, there was a slight problem for Libra, that he possibly hadn’t considered. Once that massive amount of magic was released...where would it go? Into the ether? The condensed magic contained within the staff still needed a conduit.

And, unfortunately for Libra, it had found one.

And as he pondered on how to stand up from his current size, he felt that sensation wash over him. Like goosebumps. “W-what? No...It’s gone- I…” And he came to that realization. Of the potential of a final curse, a final send off for that damnable piece of wood. His face became grim.

“I...I need to go get…” Libra didn’t get to finish his sentence, as any hopes of his pants fitting finally ended. Torn completely down the sides, revealing his thick as logs legs. Another slight rip as his underwear began to fail as well, though Libra was more taken aback from the gradual yet massive growth of his gut, and the breasts that continued to tear away at what little was left of his shirt. His neck gained a companion, as his face became ever more rotund.

As the layers of fat continued to pile on, Libra only watched on with heaved breaths. He could only hope the effects were temporary...or, at the least reversible...But he was left helpless now. His boots splitting apart, as every part of his body seemed to bloat up in size. With a deep groan, his chest broke through the shirt, letting his large breasts free.

At last, the swelling ceased. Or perhaps there was just nothing more to fit within Libra’s expansive body at this point. He attempted to call for help, transept to higher powers...but alas, the gods were feeling rather ungenerous today. And none would come to the storage rooms for some time...He hoped someone would notice his lack of presence.

...Though on another hand, he did not truly wish to be seen in such a situation. Swollen and plump, unable to move, left in tattered and shredded clothing. It was certainly embarrassing, even with no witnesses...

Libra just had to grit his teeth and wait at this point...For one miracle or another. “Damnable...staff…” He murmured. What mad man would ever think of such an odd, cruel thing?...Perhaps another thing best not to question...

#fire emblem weight gain #feeder emblem #male wg #male expansion #I kinda gave up at the end there #there were probably better ways to end it but oh well

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duhragonball · 6 years ago

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[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (102/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation. This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Previous Chapters conveniently available here.

[30 January, 233 Before Age. Planet Server’la.]

Over the next six weeks, Guwar had learned a great deal about his new partners, but very little about the object of their search.

Treekul, the only non-Saiyan in the group, was an alchemical historian. She knew a few techniques for preparing mystical elixirs and so on, but her main focus of study was the lore. Unlike the sciences of chemistry and biology, which made progress through rigorous documentation and peer review, alchemy was a secret discipline, with reclusive masters teaching on a select handful of students. When they recorded their work at all, it was always done in an esoteric style. Simple instructions were expressed as complex riddles. Ingredients were given symbolic codenames which would be meaningless to the uninitiated. Typically, an alchemical scroll promised much: immortality, mastery over living things, the power to transmute lead into gold. But once you actually sat down and read them, they delivered very little: Vague sermons, arcane philosophical tracts, and references to other works which were conveniently unavailable. Guwar had heard about this sort of thing, and always assumed it was an enormous bluff, no different from the way he would use the Saiyans' reputation to make himself seem more powerful than he actually was.

And yet, Treekul seemed to be able to make sense of it all, at least to a certain extent. She had shown him a few documents she had worked on in the past, and explained how she was able to filter the "important stuff" from the "crap", as she put it. Part of the alchemical tradition was to deliberately add a lot of pointless fluff to one's writings, in order to disguise the true wisdom and to trick the unworthy into dismissing their sacred knowledge as nonsense. "Once you've studied enough of their writings," she had told him, "you can start to decode it, and see what they were really talking about."

Treekul hailed from the Planet Clytemnestra, whose people had pale purple skin and dark green hair. Treekul preferred to keep her own hair as short as possible, as she said it helped her focus on her research. "Don't ask me why, but that extra quarter inch of growth on my head just makes me nuts," she had said one day while he saw her applying a trimmer to her scalp. As a result, Guwar noticed that she tended to leave tiny green clippings behind everywhere she went.

Endive, one of the Saiyans, was usually the one flying their ship. She was a smuggler by trade, though she liked to find a good battle between jobs, much the same way that Guwar did when his mathematics skills weren't needed. Like Guwar, she had been forced to scale back her recreational fighting ever since Luffa had begun cracking down on Saiyan activity.

"I tried getting as far from Federation space as I could," she once told him. "I found a nice little civil war on Rofos III. They had mechs, triffles, and all sorts of interesting weapons. I was in heaven... for all of two weeks, and then she showed up and ruined the whole thing. That was when I made up my mind. One way or another, I refuse to be pushed around again."

Endive never had much to say, but Guwar enjoyed hearing it, if only for the chance to admire her looks. She had woven the end of her black hair in to a short, thick braid, which hung between her shoulder blades like a piece of halyard rope from a sailing ship. The bridge of her nose was at a steep angle, which he found aesthetically pleasing, especially whenever she frowned. Luckily for him, she frowned quite often, since the ship's navigation system wasn't quite up to her personal standards. She and Treekul had recruited him into this group by tricking him into thinking he would get to sleep with one or both of them. Watching Endive handle the controls of the ship, he often wished that there was a way to take her up on it.

As for Lesseri, he had dealt with her in the past, though he had always known her to be a ruthless, indomitable warrior. For years he had envied her superior strength and financial success. For example, the ship they now traveled in was hardly luxurious, but it was fast and well-armed, and comfortably quartered six people, which made it far nicer than the broken down one-seater Guwar had left behind on Paxul's Planet. From afar, he had always thought Lesseri to be the model of what a Saiyan should be: a warrior who could go anywhere and do anything she pleased, because she had the might to enforce her own will.

Now that he had lived with her for a while, and seen her ship from the inside, he realized they had more in common than either of them probably cared to admit. Lesseri thought of herself as a weakling compared to other Saiyans, just as he saw himself. This surprised Guwar at first, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. There was always a bigger fish in the pond. He had always thought Lesseri retreated from untenable situations because she was so cold and calculating, but the truth was that she was afraid of dying, just like everyone else. She was farther ahead of him in the search for greater power, but the gap between them was insignificant compared to how far they each had to go. In spite of their past enmity, Guwar was beginning to like her. When their quest led to searching a tomb on an abandoned planet, he was happy to join her.

"I killed my mother," Lesseri told him as she punched her way through the wall that surrounded the necropolis. They had been talking about family, and this was where the conversation had led.

"Why?" Guwar asked.

"You know those procedures where you can have your embryos removed from your womb and gestated outside of your body?"

"No, I had no idea you could do that," Guwar said. He had no interest in procreation, and since he lacked a uterus, he cared very little what others did with theirs.

Lesseri shook her head. "Men," she groaned. "A lot of Saiyan women do it when they get pregnant. Back when Planet Saiya was still up and running, they practically ordered people to do it."

"Okay," Guwar said. "What about it?"

"My mother did it through a private company, only she never came back to get me when it was time. Growing up, it kind of pissed me off. My sister, she used to make excuses. She thought mom must have died in battle, or she couldn't pay the bills or something. When I got older, I tracked her down. Wasn't even that hard. She wasn't even trying to hide."

"Must have been a hell of a fight," Guwar said as he doubled checked their coordinates.

"Nah, I checked her out first before I confronted her. She was too close to me in power. I might have won, but there was no guarantee, and I wanted a guarantee. That was how we both ended up training with Luffa."

Guwar nearly dropped his scanning device. "You trained with Luffa?" he asked.

"If you can call it that," Lesseri said. "Mostly it was Luffa and her alien wife scolding us like we were naughty children. The leader of the group, guy named Zaperc, he tried to start this 'movement' where we'd learn to become Super Saiyans ourselves. My mother joined on, and so did I. Didn't want to risk her learning anything that might make her stronger and protect her from my revenge. Anyway, Luffa found out about Zaperc's group and took over the whole thing. Not that there was much to take over, but I guess she didn't like the idea of trash like us taking her name in vain. Anyway, I waited until the right moment, then I rigged a bomb on my mother's ship. As soon as things went pear-shaped, I knew she'd try to run for it, and sure enough--"

Lesseri clapped her hands together for effect. "Boom. Luffa didn't like it, but she didn't care much for my mother either, so she just sort of stood there while I left."

"What did your sister think?" Guwar asked.

"Beats me," Lesseri said. "I haven't seen her in years. She might be dead. Hold on, I think this is it."

Near the center of the necropolis was a large mausoleum that looked like a great stone chrysalis. There were small alien creatures clinging to its surface, and the glossy surface of their chitinous shells made the entire structure seem almost alive.

"Yeah, I think this is the one we want. Let me take some readings before we smash our way in. Wouldn't want to break anything important."

"So what happened after that?" Guwar asked.

"After what?" Lesseri replied.

"After you killed your mother," Guwar said. "I've never gotten revenge for anything before. I wondered what it was like."

"To be honest, it felt kind of empty," Lesseri said. "I didn't regret it, but I'd spent my whole life on that one goal, and then it was over. Mostly, it stuck in my craw that I wasn't strong enough to kill the old bag directly. Luffa had no business giving me her opinion on it, but she was right. It would have been more satisfying to fight her instead of blowing her up. Mom didn't deserve the honor, but at least if I'd beaten her fairly, I would have had something to be proud of."

"I suppose so," Guwar said.

"That was when I started looking for ways to get stronger. I've had enough of people pushing me around like I'm some bystander. Being a Saiyan used to mean something, but lately it just feels like it makes you a patsy for King Rehval, or Luffa, or anyone else who happens to hit the genetic lottery. I wanted to make my own opportunity."

"And that was how you met Treekul?" Guwar asked.

"Exactly," Lesseri said. "I've heard rumors about Saiyans using a technique called 'Jindan' to increase their power. I know we haven't told you much about it, Guwar, but that's only because we don't know much more than you do. It's not easy finding a Saiyan these days, so if there's anything to the rumors, these jacked up Saiyans are staying out of sight."

"If that's true," Guwar reasoned, "then maybe this Jindan thing isn't all it's cracked up to be. The Saiyans who use Jindan still have to hide from Luffa just like the rest of us."

"Could be," Lesseri said, "but it could also mean that they don't want the competition finding out about their secret. If everyone could use it--whatever 'it' is--then we'd all be right back where we started. And even if it doesn't make you as strong as a Super Saiyan, it could still be a big gain. I don't know about you, but I'll take whatever I can get."

"I'm picking up some unusual readings," Guwar said. "But nothing Saiyan."

Lesseri checked her own scanner and then compared her results to his. "Yeah, Treekul was afraid of something like this. We'll have to take a few precautions before we break into this thing. Give me a hand, will you?"

*******

Thousands of years ago, a brilliant scholar was interred in a mausoleum. Over time, his students were buried nearby, and as the scholar's wisdom of the natural world grew into legend, a superstition arose that those who were buried near his tomb would pass on a blessing to their descendants. Centuries passed, and the scholar came to be revered as a god, whose worshipers believed would one day rise from the dead and rule over the planet. It was said that those buried in the necropolis that surrounded his tomb would be revived as his holy servants.

Before the planet's intelligent life forms vanished, their history included several wars fought over this sacred ground. Conquerors thought that by controlling the necropolis, they could convince others of their supremacy. New religions attempted to assimilate the necropolis's mythical status into their own theologies. During more enlightened times, scientists would attempt to study the graves to learn the truth behind the legends. But the scholar's mausoleum was never successfully breached, for when the ancient one was having it built, he planned to take his greatest secrets with him into the hereafter. To ensure that graverobbers would not plunder his great writings, he treated the interior of his tomb with a concoction of his own making. It would make the stone heal itself when broken. In case this was not enough to dissuade intruders, he prepared a guardian, an unliving creature that would become active when fresh air entered the tomb. Its creator had named it Qursss, and it drew strength from the very earth surrounding the mausoleum. Once unleashed, it would not rest until it had destroyed all living things in the vicinity. When its grisly task was finished, it would lumber back into the tomb, which would then reseal itself.

And so, when the first breeze of fresh air entered the tomb in over fifteen centuries, Qursss stirred and reawakened to its strange un-life. A blue flame ignited from a pile of ashes, and then it grew, transmuting into a vaguely humanoid form cast in minerals and the bones of its past victims. Without hesitation, it rushed towards the source of the air current, and wailed its fearsome warning to any who could hear.

"Woe betide you, graverobbers! Know that you have summoned Qursss the Unquenchable, and for daring to defile my master's resting place, you must pay with your lives!"

It saw light from the fissure in the stone, and then the crack exploded into an opening large enough for a person to enter.

"Yeah, I see it now," Guwar said as he peeked inside to look at Qursss. "We'd better lure the thing outside before we proceed."

Qursss roared as it chased after Guwar. "Mortal fool!" it shouted. "You have sealed your doom this day! Qursss shall pursue you to the ends of the--"

It paused at the threshhold of the hole in the mausoleum. Guwar stood just outside, waiting patiently for Qursss to follow him. The only thing missing from this scene was the ground. Guwar was standing in midair.

"Looks like you were right," Guwar said. "This creature's immortal, but it doesn't seem to be able to fly."

Beneath them, Qursss could hear a second intruder, and its primitive intellect slowly realized that she was carrying the entire mausoleum in her arms. "Aw, well, if he’s too shy to step outside," Lesseri said, "I guess I'll have to give him some encouragement!"

The whole structure began to shake, and Qursss lost its balance. Unable to react in time, it tumbled forward, and as it fell, it realized that it was thousands of feet in the air.

It wanted to threaten its enemies, to warn them that such trickery would avail them nothing, since Qursss would follow them and destroy them for as long as it took to restore its master's tomb. But it had already noticed the ocean below, and Qursss knew that its master had designed it to sleep in the absence of fresh air. No, there could be no reprisal. Qursss would sink like a stone once it hit the water, and Qursss would fall dormant for a very long time. Perhaps one day, when the oceans themselves boiled away, Qursss would stir once more, but that would not be for a very long time. There was absolutely nothing it could do. The enemy had won.

Its final thought, as its monstrous body shattered upon the water's surface, was to wonder why its master had never thought to give it wings.

*******

[31 January, 233 Before Age. Interstellar Space.]

"What I don't understand," Guwar asked Treekul, "is how you found that planet in the first place. It was uncharted, and it looked like no one had been there in centuries."

"Geomantic extrapolation," Treekul replied as she ran her finger over the text of the parchment the Saiyans had removed from the mausoleum. "You're sure this was the only scroll you found in the tomb, right?"

"Positive," Guwar said. "What was that you said a second ago?"

She sat up from her bunk and finally looked at him. "Geomancy," she said. "In my line of work, you can't rely on the people who write these things to actually help you by citing sources. Sometimes you have to use other methods to connect the dots. That planet you and Lesseri went to, I don't know what it's called, or the name of the guy who wrote this scroll, but it's written in the same language as the last four scrolls I studied, and uses symbols and notations he would have learned from an older master known as 'Server'. Not his real name, by the way. None of these guys ever used their real name."

"You... you really haven't answered my question," Guwar said.

She pointed to a disc-shaped object hanging from the opposite wall of her cabin. It appeared to be made of wood, and hundreds of tiny characters and sigils were written upon its surface. "That's a geomantic compass," she said. "Normally you use it for aligning ki energies with planetary fields, but a specialist can use it to locate objects bound by special connections. Server's other disciples had most of the information I needed, but not all of it, so I calibrated my compass with information from the scrolls I had, and used that to point me in the general direction of the one that I didn't. It's taken a lot of course corrections to narrow it down, but considering how long the planet's been lost, I think ten days was a pretty decent turnaround."

Guwar was beginning to understand how some of his clients felt whenever he explained the more complicated aspects of probability theory. "Look," he said, "I just want to understand how this gets us any closer to Jindan. Does that scroll mention it? Does that mean it was invented thousands of years ago?"

"No, of course not," Treekul said. "You have to understand how this works, Guwar. All we really know about Jindan-- and I'm using the word 'know' very loosely-- is that it makes Saiyans stronger somehow, and it just happens to share the name of one of the terms used for the golden elixir, a central concept of alchemical thought. Until we find out more, our best chance is to dig through old writings, and hopefully find scrolls and records that were used to invent this particular Jindan. We do that, and we'll have something resembling a lead to what you three are after."

He made a long sigh when he heard this. "It all sounds pretty hopeless," he said.

She smiled and lay back down on her bunk. "Trust me, Guwar, I've been digging up old secrets my whole career. If there's something to be found, I'll find it. It just takes time. And the occasional defiling of an ancient burial ground, but you and Lesseri didn't seem to have much trouble with that at all. Even if it takes us a year to hit paydirt, wouldn't you say it was worth it?"

Guwar supposed he couldn't argue with that. "I guess I'll leave you to your work then," he said as he rose from her chair and headed for the door. "I could use something to eat anyway."

"Hey, drop by anytime," she said. "It's good to bounce ideas off of you. Oh, could you toss me my trimmer before you go? My scalp's getting a little itchy."

*******

[9 February, 233 Before Age. Thalos I.]

Days later, with nowhere in particular to go, the Saiyans decided to land on a planet to indulge in some hunting and gathering. Guwar preferred gathering, as it made more sense from an efficiency standpoint. The ship's sensors could tell him where to go to find abundant supplies of edible plants, and he could collect those much more quickly than he could chase down a comparable mass of wild animals. Most Saiyans didn't look at it that way, and so when Lesseri and Endive chose to hunt large reptiles on the western continent, he wasn't surprised.

What did surprise him was when Endive approached him later, while he was bundling his first batch of roots and berries for the cargo hold. They weren't supposed to meet up for another hour.

"I thought you were hunting," he said.

"I decided to see if you needed any help," she said. "Lesseri has things well in hand."

"She usually does," Guwar said. "But I think I've covered my end pretty well."

"What do you think of our little band so far, Guwar?" she asked.

He finished weaving a simple rope and began wrapping it around a stack of starchy plants he had found in a marsh. "I'm used to working alone," he said, "but so far I'm impressed with the operation. All of you are professional, sensible. Treekul's a bit flaky, but she's an alien, so I won't hold it against her."

"Have you considered what will happen when we succeed, Guwar?" Endive asked. She took a seat on one of the cargo crates and put her palms on her knees.

"We'll all get stronger," he said. "Much stronger, with any luck. I, for one, plan to be able to write my own ticket."

"And what about Lesseri?" she asked. "She's stronger than both of us right now. It stands to reason that if our quest succeeds, she stands to become even stronger still."

"That makes sense to me," Guwar said slowly. "What's your point, Endive?"

"Merely that we should be considering our own separate interests at this stage of the partnership," she replied. "Our working theory is that there are already Saiyans out there using Jindan in secret. They will not be pleased to see three more added to their number. For every Saiyan that learns the secret, it depreciates in value."

"And if we were talking about treasure," Guwar surmised, "sooner or later we'd have to decide if it would be better to split it two ways instead of three."

"I see this as no different, Guwar," Endive said. "The other Saiyans may try to stop us from reaching our goal. But they may find two Saiyans easier to accept into their domain than three. And if they happen to be fairly weak Saiyans--like you and me-- well, we'd hardly be much of a threat to their plans, now would we?"

"What exactly are you suggesting, Endive?" he asked. He tried to keep his tone neutral, hoping not to tip his hand. At the moment, he saw no compelling reason to turn against Lesseri, but he didn't want to appear to reject the idea, just in case she was on to something.

"For the moment, nothing at all," she said briskly. "I simply wanted to share my appraisal of the situation. When the time comes to make a decision, there may not be a chance to confer privately, Guwar. So I thought we should discuss certain... contingencies in advance."

He was about to ask her what contingencies she had in mind, when the communicators on their wrists began to chirp. It was Treekul. She had found something.

*******

The closest thing Lesseri's ship had to a meeting area was the mess hall situated between the cabins and the cockpit. Treekul presented her findings on a small display screen normally used for entertainment purposes. Guwar found her delivery surprisingly polished and scholarly, considering that she was giving it in her pajamas, which bore flecks of green hair clippings from the last three times she trimmed her scalp.

"I know a lot of what I just said went over your heads," she said as she finished explaining how she arrived at her conclusions. "I just want to give you a bird's eye view of what I've done, so you won't think this I just pulled all of this out of my ear.

"We've trusted you this far, Treekul," Lesseri said. "And I think we get the general idea."

Lesseri had put her feet up on the table and crossed her ankles. Endive was busy eating some raw meat from her hunting, while Guwar sat on the table itself. He had some question about Treekul's data, but he decided to save them for when he could speak with her in private. He suspected that the others would do the same.

"All right, then here's the bottom line," Treekul said as she tapped the screen to advance to the next image. The good news is that my theory was correct, and we've been on the right track. We've established a line of spagyrist masters who studied techniques for increasing physical attributes. We're talking about simple stuff, like healing minor injuries, or improving concentration, but each record we've found states that the masters were looking ahead to a refinement of the research. A 'golden elixir', or a perfection of what they had begun to explore. They called that ideal experiment 'jindan', which means whoever invented what we're looking for must have based his research upon their earlier work."

"But the scroll we just found was never used by anyone," Lesseri said. "That tomb hadn't been touched in centuries, and the wax seal on the scroll itself was unbroken."

"Right, but it did give me more information to plug into my calculations," Treekul said. That means my geomantic measurements will be more precise from here on out, and there's a lot less guesswork about where to look next." She tapped the star chart on the monitor, causing it to zoom in on a single star system. "Turns out we'll have to go to the Quadzityz System after all," she said.

"That whole sector is a war zone," Endive said.

"Fine by me," Lesseri said with a smile. "With all the fighting, we can slip in, take what we need, and no one will notice we were there. We might even score some plunder if we have time."

"Yes, that does sound quite pleasant," Endive replied, "but that isn't my point. A stray bombardment could destroy our objective before we even have a chance to reach it."

"Not to mention the mercenaries working that sector," Guwar added. "Saiyans or not, some of them are bound to be stronger than us. If we're not careful, we could find ourselves outmatched. Then we'd be the ones getting plundered."

"It's worse than you think," Treekul said. "I monitored the war reports from that sector, just to get some idea of what we'd be getting into. Turns out the fighting has escalated even more than we knew. Someone brought slorgs into the conflict."

"Slorgs!" Endive said with a gasp. "Then it's only a matter of time before Luffa gets involved! She'd never tolerate a slorg infestation anywhere near the Federation border."

"And that brings me to the 'Bad News' part of my presentation," Treekul said with a sigh. She tapped the screen one more time, bringing up an image from a news periodical. The photo accompanying the article showed a Saiyan with glowing yellow hair and tail, holding a Quadzity armored troop transport over her head. Terrified soldiers were fleeing from her as she smashed the vehicle into a large boulder.

"Luffa's not just going to get involved on Quadziityz," Treekul said. "She's already there."

NEXT: The War Against War

#dragon ball #fanfiction #lssjluffafic #guwar #treekul #endive #lesseri #server'la #thalos i #qursss the unquenchable

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egodraconis · 6 years ago

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@crystallomance a small drabble bc the inspiration struck me

“Do you know the story of Fáfnir?”

“That’s an old Norse tale, yeah? Of the dwarf who stole from the gods and became a dragon?”

He smiled, wrinkles about his eyes deepening as he glanced up to the sky. “Something like that-watch your step.”

“What-ah!” The youth stumbled, focusing on her footing as they scaled the mountain trail. It was the depths of summer, though here in the mountains of Germany cool alpine winds helped stave off the sun.

“Balbus, I know you’re partial to your allegories-” Lorelei began, pulling out a water bottle to soothe her throat.

“Then you will permit me to indulge in this one,” the elderly man crooned, looking back at the girl with a mischievous glance. She merely sighed and carried on, having long since learned most of his lessons are delivered the scenic route.

“You are partially correct - though the dwarf never stole from the gods. Indeed, it was the other way around. It is a story much too long I think even for me to tell in what short time we have before we reach our destination-”

“Where are we headed anyways?”

“That is for me to know, I believe your kind say, and you to find out.”

He chuckled, pausing to glance down to the glittering serpent of the Rhine below, cutting its way through the German wilds.

“In summary, the dwarves are in my opinion the victims of this story. Ótr, youngest of the siblings three beneath the Dwarf Hreidmar, spent his days in otter shape-yes that is how the animal came to its name-eating fish. As the three Aesir Loki, Odin, and Hœnir traveled to visit with Hreidmar, they spied the otter in a river and slew it with a rock. Not knowing this to be the son of the Dwarf they visited, they offered up its skin in pride, and the dwarves, furious at what the Aesir had done, held them hostage.

“Loki was set loose, given the task of filling the otter-skin with gold and the outer-pelt with redgold in payment for the life they had taken as ransom for the other Aesir. Loki, of course, saw to it that the gold the skin was filled with that which belonged to Andvaranaut, another dwarf, who it was known had put a curse on his valuables to bring misfortune and death to any but he who owned the wealth.”

The pair paused at the keening of a raptor, unseen above the canopy of the trees that now lined the path deeper into the hills they ventured. Balbus drank the sun that poked through the boughs above for a moment, before continuing.

“Of course, after all was said and done and the ransom paid the dwarf Fafnir slew his own father and made off with the gold, and this is where many accounts become twisted. It is said his greed and malice twisted the dwarf Fafnir into a serpent, a vile wyrm who’s breath turned the Rhine poison so that none may dare venture near his lair and take his cursed gold.

“In truth, the Dwarf Fafnir had not the gold a day before he himself was swallowed by a wyrm, name lost to time, who coveted the gold for its own. But this tale eventually reached the ear of Sigurd, hero and foster-son of Regin, the only survivor of the dwarven family and he slew the beast-ah, we are here.”

Balbus came to rest before a cave-well, a gap, really. To call it a cave would be a disservice, for it’s entrance was near-hidden by decades of soil erosion and overgrowth that had he not pointed it out, Lorelei would have walked past it assuming it just part of the rocky hillside.

“Come, it is just wide enough for us to enter one by one. It is wider once we are in.”

“This is how horror movies start, you realize. Nobody knows where we are.”

“Did you not send word to your parents that you are taking a trip to the country?”

Lorelei sighed.

“They’re halfway around the world on an island, there wouldn’t be much they could do.”

He smiled, as did she, and a small light flickered to life between his fingers as he led the way in. Though cramped, the two found it easy enough to squeeze by-taking a few scrapes of dirt on their clothes as they did so. But once inside, the cave widened and, looking about, Lorelei realized that the entrance had suffered a landslide that had since settled.

It was not a very deep cavern, either. Little more than a tunnel, she observed, burrowed perhaps a couple dozen meters into the mountain in a straight enough line. Following her mentor she took in the rocks bathed in the white of Balbus’ mage light, noticing odd scrapes here and there where the rock had worn smooth.

“Here we are,” he breathed, snuffing the arcane candle and plunging them into dark.

“What-okay, Balbus, I know you can probably see in the dark but-” “Let your eyes adjust. There is light.”

Sure enough as the moments passed Lorelei took note of the faint sunlight threading through small gaps in the ceiling. It dappled the cave floor and cast soft beams upon motes of dust dancing in the air, bringing to her attention the sparse greenery of spare ferns that struggled for life by rooting the dirt that coated what she could only assume had been a pure stone floor once upon a time.

But it was what she noticed beyond, curled against the furthest wall that caught her eyes. Root-choked and painted brown by the water that seeped through the earth above, the bones seemed to rise as though a part of the rock itself.

The remains stretched in a half-crescent, and in some places the buildup of dirt and mineral rose so high that they were completely encased, the tail threading out through the other side. A wingless thing, or no wings that she could see, but just a massive length of spine and rib, with a single twisted claw, having come loose from the body with decay.

She must have made some noise of surprise, as Balbus gave a small laugh.

“Noticed him, then?”

“Is that..” “Aye. That is Fafnir. Or, Fafnir’s dragon. A bit of a Frankenstein’s monster scenario, to be sure. Time has seen to it that they are one in the same.”

“Wasn’t he killed getting a drink from a river?”

“So the story goes. But he did not die from his wounds immediately, having the strength enough to limp back to his home, to his gold, and die in his home.”

Her gaze shifted from the impossible bones to Balbus, the expression he bore something she had never seen before. Sorrow, but not like any she had experience with.

“Did you know him?”

“I did not. But I grieve for him no less than I would any child of mine. Tell me, Lorelei, how does he look?”

The girl was a bit taken aback by the question. How does he look?

“...I don’t know what you mean.”

“Describe him to me.”

“Is this some sort of test?”

“No test,” he soothed, “Just the wishes of an old thing past his prime. I cannot see him as once I could-”

“Wait. Are you...can you not-”

“See?” He managed a smile. “I have been blind since the day you met me, Lorelei. Blind in the way you would describe it, at least. I can still see-you standing next to me, I can see the ferns that cling to life, and the shrew that scuttled underfoot as we entered this grave. But color? Light? It eludes me now.”

“...I don’t know what to say.”

“There is nothing to be said. But describe him to me.”

And she did - she spoke, though the words were not graceful, or eloquent, she described the rivulets in the bone channeled and scoured through centuries of water trickling from the cave roof. The reddish hue of bone from the deposits of minerals in the soil. The earth that rose to swallow the bones, the sharpness of teeth that still sat very capable of taking life if that hornless skull were to be granted one last bite.

She saw - though she would never admit as much openly to him - the wetness that filled his gaze.

“Come,” he whispered. “Let the dead have their rest.”

A breeze tugged at her hair and she wrestled with a loose strand as they ate their lunch on the hill.

“Mind my asking what exactly the lesson was?” She spoke, between mouthfuls of pear. A few hours had passed now, and the tensity of the grave seemed to have passed with time. “I don’t mean to imply I wasn’t listening, but sometimes it can take me a while to get what exactly you’re saying.”

He considered her for a moment, studying her face, before turning to look out over the Rhine valley below. He lifted the tea to his lips and said, “I admit to you Lorelei, there was no lesson intended this time. This was just...an old man visiting a grave, and wanting the company of a dear friend during the trip.”

“But if there were a lesson to be gleaned here, however accidental, I would not turn down your having learned it.”

“So you admit we’re friends.”

“I never implied we were not,” he scoffed, giving her a sidelong glance. Lorelei wore a teasing grin, and took another bite of her pear.

#(verse) ❝ Mysteries and Older Things ❞#a very long drabble

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crowleplays · 7 years ago

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Phobos Deimos

Basics

Name ► Phobos Deimos Nickname[s] ► Pho, PD, Cinders (she does not enjoy this one at all) Blood Color ► Yellow Age ► 14 sweeps Voiceclaim ► Angel Coulby D.O.B. ► March 20 Astrological Sign ► Pisces/Aries cusp Alignment ► Chaotic Neutral Gender ► Female Height ► 5’2” Weight ► 142 lbs Body Type ► Pear shaped, toned but still soft Orientation ► Pansexual but good luck getting her to open up romantically Occupation[s] ► Witch and owner of an occult shop, which sells items of varying magical legitimacy and safety Lusus ► Springbok Antelope Abilities Psionics ► Spiritual & Arcane Perception – Phobos is able to pick up on spiritual and arcane activity and energies, the latter of which she’s generally able to identify the type for. She’s also able to see most ghosts. Other Abilities ► Fire, Sand, Light, and Healing/Growth Magic – She’s a witch it’s her MO. Not obscenely powerful, but enough to be on par with a gifted psionic. Flight – She has wings structured like a hummingbird hawk moth’s, which allow her to fly for short amounts of time. Astral Projection – Her soul was jiggled a little loose during her near-death experience, so she’s able to tug it out and let it roam. The further distance she travels, the more it drains her, and while she’s able to perceive things on both ends if she wants to, it works better if she focuses on the projection fully and zones out physically. Strife Specibus ► x2 Haladiekind – They are mainly her foci for magic, but can also be used for physical attacks. Doubled edged, double bladed daggers with a central grip and knuckle dusters on the outside. Pistolkind – Sometimes it’s better to not be flashy and just shoot a bitch. PC Info Trollian Handle ► reawakenedTheurgist Typing Quirk ► Replaces L’s with £, stutters when upset/scared/flustered/ect Example ► Tends t'speak with a regiona£ accent an' c£ips the endin' off certain words. I-I-If sh-sh-she's u-upset o-or s-s-s-scared sh-she s-s-stutters.

▼ Personality ▼ Formerly a very open, trusting, and bubbly individual, the past few sweeps haven’t been kind to the mindset that Phobos once held. She comes across very blunt, only dancing around her genuine opinions of people and what she thinks when she’s around someone she perceives to be a threat. Even then, she’s not above pushing her luck in certain situations, as should things turn violent she has a considerable amount of magic she can rely upon to take care of what faces her. Or, well, a decent amount of what faces her. At the end of the night, Phobos is focused on one thing and one thing only: survival. If she has to run to save her skin, she’ll do so, and unless someone has endeared themselves to her (or she is required to act otherwise), she’ll leave them behind in the dust. However when it comes to the fight vs flight ratio, Phobos is absolutely someone that will throw down first. Combat is something that she’s grown from hating to enjoying a lot, as it allows her not only to exercise but vent her emotions in a…”productive” manner.

That’s not to say she doesn’t care about other people, of course. She’s just very reluctant to allow herself to be open with people, especially considering the very recent mutation she’s had to hide. Anxiety over many of her past relationships failing also hasn’t helped at all, as she sees herself as an irresponsible and unhealthy individual to be quadrants with. Friends are a possibility, but Phobos requires a lot of reassurance and proof that someone is not only patient enough but can emotionally handle all the chaos that comes along with her life. If she doesn’t think the relationship will work out and could potentially hurt someone, she’s quick to say so and warn them of that fact. She struggles with not cutting people off out of fear of hurting them, often dropping contact with nothing but her first warning to go off of.

Should you ever gain her friendship, though, she’s incredibly nurturing and caring, as well as unshakably loyal once you’ve earned her faith. While she’s struggled with following it, Phobos is also fairly good at dispensing advice and can dip into more pale or ashen tendencies if she believes someone needs that. Of course this is paired with her regular amounts of cynicism and sarcasm; it’s recommended not to have too-thin skin around Phobos. She’ll compliment just as much as she’ll playfully rag on you, likely swearing up and down the entire Alternian language the whole way. She has a filter for this when she’s around children, as she was a teacher in her former life, but the moment she catches them swearing casually it’s gone. Her “old demeanor” is still very much present despite what she’d like to think or say, it’s just hidden behind a lot of walls, suspicions, and anxiety.

Most of what other people get to see, though, is the witch behind the counter of an occult shop. She really likes to play up the mystical aspect and spooky vibes of her job. Helps convince people to buy stuff and spreads the word to bring in more customers. Whether or not they believe her magic is real doesn’t matter; it sells when you make it flashy enough.

▼ Strengths VS Weaknesses ▼

Strengths ► Perceptive | Driven | Honest

Weaknesses ► Cynical | Stubborn | Flighty

▼ Likes ▼

✔ General “witchy” paraphernalia ✔ Relaxing near fireplaces ✔ Loose, comfy scarves ✔ Libraries ✔ Incense (Dragon’s Blood and Cedar are favorites) ✔ Bird watching ✔ Anything with an autumn aesthetic ✔ Handmade clothes ✔ Walks in the woods ✔ Honey candy ✔ Cats

▼ Dislikes ▼

✘ Subjugs ✘ Too much noise ✘ Sudden movements ✘ Being touched without warning ✘ “Unnatural” silence ✘ Uppity trolls ✘ Generally most trolls blue and above on principle ✘ Any kind of religious zealots or evangelists ✘ Dealing with her bosses ✘ Cheap liquor ✘ Centipedes, to the degree that she’ll panic and shoot at them

▼ Extra ▼

► While she’s far better at using her magic in combat than to heal, she’s recently been practicing to try and get better at it. It’s a skill she let atrophy after moving away from home, which she regrets doing now that she has to relearn what she was once really fucking good at. ► She’s willing to tolerate most people if it benefits her, but highbloods will have a harder time gaining her trust. ► She has a very hard time sleeping fully through the day, usually due to her psionics allowing her to see and hear ghosts. ► Her wings are bound most of the time, though the way they’re structured allows her to lay them flat against her back naturally and prevents the binding from damaging them too much. ► Flying takes a lot out of her. She’s only had her wings for 4 sweeps and they’ve only been fully grown for 2. ► She’s more in-shape and toned than you’d expect for a lowblood. One of her old teachers was ex-fleet and made her do basic training exercises nightly, which is a routine she tries to keep up. ► That being said, she has very little love for the fleet and is suspicious of anyone she finds bearing the emblem. ► Before everything started to fall apart, she planned to dodge the draft with her ex-moirail and just travel through space with her. ► Now she’s set up an occult shop and sells minor enchantments and crystals to goth kids and hipsters. Also some cursed items and magical advice. Really anything that’ll sell, honestly. She needs the money. ► There’s always at least some kind of notebook on her. She’s very diligent about recording information that she feels is important. It also gives her a way to voice her thoughts without talking to anyone. ► She grew up with very little exposure to modern Alternian technology for the most part, which has driven her to learn as much as she can about it. The prospect of technomancy fascinates her, though she’s not able to perform any herself.

▼ Quadrants ▼

► Moirail: N/A ► Matesprit: N/A ► Kismesis: N/A ► Auspistice: N/A

▼ Other Relationships ▼

Eeleth Kuvlew [Pure Hope] ► Your ex-matesprit and the source of a never-ending flood of complicated emotions. You hurt him deeper than anyone ever could or has, which haunts you worse than any ghost. Recently, you spoke with him after a sweep of silence, though had your hands not been tied it would’ve been much sooner. Things are still complicated, and you doubt he’ll respond to any of your letters or online messages, but that won’t keep you from writing him about important things. You don’t want to give up talking to him.

Marcel Bradik [Lowered Humanity] ► Your other ex-matesprit, though one of a much shorter time. You don’t blame him for anything that happened; all of that was on you. He taught you a fair few things while you dated, the most important being how to shoot a gun and to carry one on you at all times. The thought has crossed your mind to try and seek him out, but you’ve decided against it due to the fact that he’s a shadowdropper and prone to having a temper. Best to let sleeping dogs lie.

#Troll Bio #Phobos Deimos #fINALLY SHES DONE AAAAAAAA

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shdwgambit · 7 years ago

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Core of the Shadow Beast

Arriving at the room that had been allocated to him upon his re-arrival, he slipped inside and shut the door behind him. It was a small blessing to have a door this time, though the exchange was for a much smaller room in comparison. It was a fair trade, though he couldn't say he preferred one room over the other. It was convenient that he could secure his room and not worry about the world looking in on him, especially here in this moment. Rook retrieved the faceted crystal from his right pocket and placed on the table. After watching it for a moment as if to make sure it wouldn't get up and cause havoc, he turned his back on it and began digging through his traveler's pack. From somewhere close to the bottom he pulled out a small black leather case shaped like a book with a zipper along the edges. He returned to the room's table and sat with the case to the left of the crystal he was intent on investigating.

The unzipped case opened to a small array of tools and instruments. Files, hammers, picks, and pliers all sized, it looked like, for a race smaller than his own. Rook settled into the seat and plucked a circular glass with a tarnished gold rim from the assortment. His fingers settled on the two smooth areas where the gold was untarnished, the instrument was loved at one point. The metallic edge also noticeably glinted, free from the stain of time. Rook relaxed in the seat and raised the monocular to his right eye where it rested between his cheek and his brow. With no distractions and no pretense to uphold he let his full interest settle over the crystal removed from the once mobile entity. He had yet to run into any of these creatures himself, but then he'd been removed from Argus for some time on his errand for the Aldor. Though he'd witnessed one last night it wasn't in a natural habitat and he hadn't taken a close interest in the creature. He had been more concerned with the group's draenei, their opinions and how they treated such dangerous magic. After all, he did have a duty to observe them and their interactions with the shadows as well as, if necessary, report their actions to the proper individuals. There were standards they held as a society and minds wouldn't be changed overnight about this kind of magic, nor how those that treatied with it would be dealt with, new allies aside. His gaze followed the edge of the crystal structure's facets, it was a point cut, or that's what a jeweler would classify it as. It was difficult to tell whether it was man-made or not, at least with his level of understanding. Rook continued with the physical investigation, noting that though the creature had ‘bled’ mere hours ago--and in the end had sloughed down into a puddle--there were no remnants of the physical essence on the crystalline core. He hadn't been the first to handle it so he was unsure whether it had all fallen away cleanly or if the Exarch had removed any as she touched it. Next, he squeezed the dark crystal along opposing sides only proving what he already thought, it was hard and sturdy along each surface. Rook reached across and pulled from the tool case a pointed utensil with a fat pear-shaped handle. Holding it over the crystal at a shallow angle, he used the thin metal portion to tap against the crystal's side. After a few taps of the metal etching tool, he perked a brow and lifted the crystal to his ear before he struck the gem-like core again while holding it at its two furthest points. With a satisfied hum, he set the tool aside and the magnifying monocle to the side. "Hollow." He said aloud to himself and then began placing the tools back in their proper place. He was meticulous in putting things back as they had been and even returned the case to the bottom of his pack before returning to the table and the Akata'sha crystal. Rook settled into the chair once more and sat resting his arms on the table. His hands were positioned to either side of the crystal as he focused on the magic surrounding the object of his attention. It was no longer radiating shadow magic or void energies like it had been when it was originally retrieved, but he didn't think it was docile. He focused deeper on the area surrounding the crystal, tightening the feelers he cast in an effort to sense the movement of any energies. The first hints of magic came to Rook as though they were barely visible hints in his peripheral vision. It was faint enough that he felt the need to focus, felt that perhaps the first inklings might’ve been delusions. The magic that had been surrounding the crystal when it was first freed from the creature's chest seemed to be condensing itself tightly inside the crystal and siphoning itself away. Into the void? Into the nether? Rook couldn't tell off-hand where it was going, but a faint trail could be followed if he focused, he thought. The magical strands, though thin as spider silk on the wind, were legible when you knew what you were looking for. But, whether it ended nowhere or lead to some ancient void puppet master wasn't for him to discover this evening. He noted this and moved on to his next curiosities. Exarch Orynthia had stated it was safest to work with the creature under the shroud of shadows as the Light seemed to strengthen and excite the creature's ferocity. So why not start there? With one long pleasant exhale through his nose, the shadows settled around him, a comfortable mantle wrapping him in wispy darkness. A steadying sigh escaped him as he rolled his shoulders back and began tracing his left pointer finger in a circle on the table in front of him. After a few moments and several more revolutions of his finger, a small sphere of shadowy energy had formed solid enough to become visible to the eye. It was about the size of a marble and with a flick of his wrist the spinning orb began approaching the flat edge of the crystal only to meet under the priest's observation. To begin with, resistance along the side of the crystal kept the orb at bay but as soon as he began to reach a conclusion regarding what that may have meant, the crystal's resistance gave way and like a mana fiend absorbed the orb of dark magic. Rook focused on the long strands he'd discovered trailing off into the ether on his initial inspection. He wanted to monitor their reaction as well. There was definitely a change in the concentration of these lines as his offering was consumed and dispersed. A duplicate attempt yielded the same results--as expected--though this time there was less of a pause before it absorbed the tight sphere of amassed shadow essence. Rook dropped the facade. Shadows fleed his face, then chest, leaving last his hooves and the tips of his fingers until he was sitting again--just himself--a humble priest of the Light. Rook repeated the experiment again, though this time with a dose of the Light. Rather than serve up the same gentle offering of magic, he thought he'd see how it responded to what would amount to an attack under normal circumstances. A quick left to right movement of his pointer and middle finger sent a slice of holy energy toward the crystal structure. As his magic touches the deep purple edge there was a quick reaction, the holy energy was nullified and absorbed. Though expected to a degree he hadn't expected the reaction to be so quick. Perhaps it was in the nature of the spell he had cast, one that would strike and disperse. He repeated this again, more prepared for what would happen. He scrutinized the way the energy was negated and drawn in. Still, he had thought there would be more resistance as there had been with the first shadow orb. Perhaps if he chose a different spell, he thought. He repeated this process several more times making use of different spells to see if the way they were absorbed differed. He had noticed the line of energy that stemmed outward didn't swell in the same manner to transfer this energy as efficiently, and the essence pooled in the crystal's hollow core. After what he'd decided to be his last test on the crystal, a strike of holy fire, he finally got a reaction. The core shuddered on the table, rattling as the sharp edges chittered back and forth on the smooth stone. A dark opaque mass seeped from the back of the point cut crystal and writhed like a living pool of shadow. It slowly began to grow and took on a putty-like form prompting the priest to stand. In a snap decision he grabbed a navy cloak off the back of the chair and whirling it around covered the crystal. He gritted his teeth, hoping the imbued arcane magic would smother the creature's formation. At least, that's what he assumed was happening, based on what he'd heard from the Exarch. With a growing sneer, he watched the cloak shudder and tremble, only able to guess what it was doing. He watched it contort, both bulging and shrinking over and over again until the cloth of the cloak finally stopped moving entirely. Time seemed to slow around Rook, his attention fixated on the unmoving rumple of cloth now. Rook cloaked himself in shadows again, preparing himself for the unexpected. Taking the edge of the cloak in both hands, and with a mental count of three, he pulled the cloak back expecting to see the small, yet formidable, creature pressed against the table ready to strike. Instead, the crystal laid alone. From inside the hollowed core, it pulsed with the absorbed Light as the magic was 'digested' and siphoned off. He returned the cloak to the back of his chair and released it tentatively while monitoring the crystal and its collection of energy. Rook stood by for an hour as the crystal's magical build up slowly siphoned off into the ether, decreasing the chance that the creature would reemerge. Rook's curiosity as to where the siphon lines lead was ever-growing throughout the wait. He needed to return the crystal to the Order's Exarch along with a brief description of his findings. But first, he needed to find it a container.

#rook #my writing #order of the shanai

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gyrlversion · 6 years ago

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JANET STREET-PORTER: Don’t worry about starving after a no-deal Brexit

Batten down the hatches and start stockpiling now – according to the British media the country is enduring a major constitutional crisis.

Yesterday, the Commons speaker (who is supposed to keep parliamentary business moving along like a smoothly oiled machine) dropped what has become known as the Bercow Bombshell, announcing triumphantly that Mrs May cannot make MP’s vote on her wretched Brexit deal for a third time, unless she can offering new terms – about as likely as me giving birth to twins at the age of 72.

Mr Bercow looked as pleased as punch amidst this chaos, a smirking ring master of the world’s most arcane and disorganised puppet show. MP’s shouted abuse, moaning and whimpering. Some want another vote – but only if the result will be remain.

Mr Bercow looked as pleased as punch amidst this chaos, a smirking ring master of the world’s most arcane and disorganised puppet show

Some want trade deals few of us can understand, with names like Norway plus one or Sweden plus two – which sound like invites to a swingers’ party.

Some dreamers talk of a new coming together in the middle, a new centrist grouping but time is not on their side. Meanwhile, 100% of the public (most of whom voted for Brexit) are totally fatigued.

All they want – like someone suffering from painful piles – is an end to the suffering, the blathering and the waffle. If it takes radical surgery and the removal of the Prime Minister, bring it on.

Outside Westminster, the nation’s mood is being tested by scare-mongering journalists and business leaders, busily exploiting Brexit chaos to the max. A climate of fear is being encouraged every single day.

A few weeks ago we were told that everyday food was toxic – cooking a roast dinner was ‘as polluting as inner city traffic’. Then ‘toast is more toxic than traffic fumes’. I switched to stews and gave up toast. Then, eggs were linked to heart disease.

So my breakfast has been switched again to a slice of bread (not toasted) with slices of tomato (not avocado because another scare story told me that was full of fat and the mafia are allegedly moving into avocado farming because it is so lucrative).

It was inevitable that the people promoting fear stories about food and flab would turn their attention to Brexit.

Last weekend, I learned that ‘families are lining up to learn survivalist skills of hunting, foraging and fighting’ because of the threat of post-Brexit chaos.

According to one newspaper, expensive courses in survival skills like unarmed combat, self defence and ‘urban foraging’ are seeing a surge in the number of applicants.

Supermarkets are stockpiling non-perishable goods and filing vast warehouses. The biggest supplier of frozen food to the NHS has stockpiled one million ready-meals in case of disruption

It costs £299 to spend two days learning how to deal with prolonged food shortages, how to survive mass blackouts and deliver emergency first aid. All these skills will be essential (according to the ‘experts’) if Britain faces rioting and a breakdown in law and order. The course will show you how to send smoke signals and navigate by the stars! A shame that light pollution in our cities means those signals will be useless.

Attendees will learn what food they should start stockpiling, and how to hunt and eat ‘natural meat sources’ (ie roadkill because there aren’t that many tasty fish in most city canals).

Supermarkets are stockpiling non-perishable goods and filing vast warehouses. The biggest supplier of frozen food to the NHS has stockpiled one million ready-meals in case of disruption.

Like everyone else, I am not sure when Brexit will happen – it might be March 29th (which I have ringed in black in my diary), it might be the end of June, according to some politicos, or it might be 2020, according to Amber Rudd and her band of wishful thinkers.

Why not guess at the length of time Theresa May can still wear that trusty pale blue coat without sending it to the dry cleaners? Or simply throw a lot of sticks in the air and see what pattern they make when they fall. That’s what we used to do in the old dope smoking hippie days of the late 1960’s.

Business leaders have stopped complaining about the Brexit deal, they just want a date. Meanwhile, they issue daily press releases telling us how well prepared they are- designed to get their brand names mentioned on the radio and telly as much as possible.

Others have seen an opportunity in the chaos, and have come up with ‘Brexit boxes’ offering 30 days of food rations which will stay fresh for 25 years, if the current mess lasts that long. A box costs nearly £300 and contains liquid to light fires, emergency water filters and 108 servings of freeze dried food.

Start shopping now, because if Britain leaves the EU on March 29th without a deal, the government has brought in new trade tariffs which mean food like beef, pork, butter and cheese from the EU and imported cars will cost more. Stock up on bananas too, because they will be more expensive for some reason no one can understand since they don’t even grow in the EU.

If you aren’t already scared, then one newspaper revealed last weekend that supermarkets are planning to introduce rationing. Suddenly it seems like Britain will be re-living episodes of Dad’s Army, with the hapless Defence Minister Gavin Williamson inevitably in a starring role.

Sainsbury’s say they are ‘looking at a range of scenarios’- well, one might be NOT to introduce rationing, but that doesn’t suit the scare-mongerers, does it?

Stockpiling has already started- with foreign brewers sourcing more barley ready to supply us with extra beer should the going get tough. And water companies are rushing to announce that there will be no disruption to our drinking water, even though the chemicals used to purify it will run out within days of a no-Brexit deal.

One of the main suppliers of organic vegetables says supplies will run out at the end of March, because British veg won’t yet be ready and they will not be able to bring fresh stuff in from Europe.

My dwindling supply of home-grown purple sprouting broccoli is down to three ageing plants – will I make it past March 29th? The potatoes are all eaten, and the first ones of the new crop will not be ready until May. All I have from the vegetable garden are last years mushy pears and apples and a few turnips – a bit of chard and some parsley.

Forget what lovely veg you see Monty Don growing on Gardener’s World every Friday on BBC2 – that’s in the South. Post no-deal Brexit, the North will be starved of vegetables and will live on potatoes and swedes meant for cattle. We’ll survive on dried pasta, tinned beans and chickpeas, according to one Tesco delivery driver.

I cannot see what ‘urban foraging’ might yield in my part of North London – just a lot of dog poo, some very dirty herbs from the path by the canal (where a lot of pets wee) and perhaps some edible flowers steeped in diesel fumes.

There’s not a lot of roadkill in Islington- a 20 miles an hour speed limit, means a fox can easily move faster than your car or bike.

My freezer is full of venison – we found two animals hit by lorries in Yorkshire in the last two weeks – the drivers were probably supermarket delivery men, dropping off tons of bottled water and dried spaghetti.

My partner watched a YouTube video on how to slaughter a deer, and now we’re dining on venison bolognaise, and braised deer shoulder. I stopped him picking up a squirrel and a wild boar by the side of the M2 in Kent – they were too small.

If we have another week of Bercow bombshells and no-deal madness, I won’t be so choosy, and might turn my mini lawn into a potato patch.

Just like my dad did in the 1950’s. We Brits don’t need survival courses, when we’ve got so many old telly series to inspire us. Keep calm, and stock up, I say.

The post JANET STREET-PORTER: Don’t worry about starving after a no-deal Brexit appeared first on Gyrlversion.

from WordPress https://www.gyrlversion.net/janet-street-porter-dont-worry-about-starving-after-a-no-deal-brexit/

#Entertainment News

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michaelbartram · 7 years ago

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Illusion (For previous chapters read below in reverse order starting with Prologue)

Chapter 5

‘Where am I?’

He opened his eyes. For a second... These walls, the shutter… Where? Of course. Slowly he breathed out. Morning. Linen lavender-fresh, heaven-smooth against the skin. Silence. Peace. A noise from outside. Tsk,tsk,tsk. Prodding, pushing. Tsk,tsk,tsk.

‘A garden hoe,’ he murmured. Brisk, workman-like intrusions into Mother Earth from just beneath his window.

Peace indeed.

He glanced at Felicia, asleep on her front. Hair falling wantonly across her cheek. Lips open. The restless sleeper had wrenched the sheet all night and in the last throes bared her buttocks.

He considered Felicia’s gorgeous culo. If he touched it now – could he without her muttering ‘Get off, pendejo’? – his fingertips would feel… Ah, the perfect curve and smoothness of it.

He advanced his outstretched hand.

From outside, a call, questioning, sharp. His homing hand stopped. Playfully slapping it with the other hand, he fell back.

‘Peacocks.’

He smiled to himself, remembering a conversation with an elderly literary friend. They had been discussing Sanskrit love poems. The old man had said, ‘That showy bird, who when marooned in Europe, wanders the lawns of country houses without purpose, was in the East born to a task.’

‘Which was?’

‘He was the mount of the Hindu god of love. In arcane lore the peacock stood for impatient desire.’ The man of letters smiled mischievously. ‘Like yours, Claudio.’

‘Mine?’

‘Book-lover though you are, my friend, I believe you’re more interested in women than literature.’

‘Does one or the other have to come first?’

‘Assuredly.’

The friend’s stare conveyed a blend of guile and innocence. ‘All in all,’ he added, ‘women are probably a safer choice.’

Delightfully paradoxical, but how wrong. Women were far more dangerous to Claudio than any book.

Impatient desire. He glanced back at Felicia’s bare rump and was stabbed with both lust and annoyance that she, not he, would determine when he might next satisfy it.

The cry, sounding again, mocked him.

Best to get up. He reached for his dressing-gown, opened the shutters and with a flourish stepped out onto the balcony. His jaw fell. ‘Buenos cielos! Now that is something.’

The sun was rising over snowy peaks. Distant crags fell away to a wide patchwork of field and forest. In the middle distance, off-centre, was the lake. And just as Lazar had promised, there too was the summerhouse. The exquisite structure acted as the focal point of the panorama.

The view was dramatic, yet superbly balanced: ‘classical’ in fact. To complete the effect, the foreground was peopled, as if painted by Claude or Poussin. Gardeners were hard at work with pitchforks and barrows amidst clusters of shrubs and colourful borders. Animating the pattern of paths, lawns and ponds, these early risers scythed and swept, watered and clipped.

Claudio’s eye was drawn back again to the summerhouse, its chinoiserie reflected in the placid waters.

Leaning on the balcony rail, he daydreamed.

‘I am a Chinese poet. The lake waters lap. The morning sun pierces the traceries. Under the pagoda roof I am penning verses. I write of the joys of wine, my mistress’s culo, the passing of all things.’

He lifted his hand to his neck. That scratch. Still it hurt to the touch.

He sensed Felicia stirring behind him. ‘Are you awake?’ he called. ‘Felicia, you must see this.’

Her grunting response hinted at a certain readiness. He moved swiftly through and perched on the bed. ‘Felicia. It’s incredible.’

She levered herself up. She seemed to force a smile. ‘You’re a happy boy then, Claudio.’

‘The v… view. Th… this… silence,’ he stuttered, ‘this… is how it must have been once. They did everything in this silence. Someone hoed and peacocks called across a lawn and nothing, nothing ever ruptured the pre-mechanical quiet.’

‘Mm...’ she said, knitting her brows.

‘You don’t like the idea, maybe, but don’t you see, there was still noise. They got drunk, shouted, brawled. People slammed doors. Then there was the tumult of war, cannons going off, muskets. Just no machines.’

‘Exactly what Lazar said, Claudio. Machines are shit. Oh well, we’ll soon see. I’ll miss my electric toothbrush.’

He reached for her hand. ‘Come outside and see the view. You’ve got to do that.’

She sighed. ‘Ok, but don’t rush me. I’ll be sick of the view by the end.’

He went back outside and gazed, again awestruck. ‘Young people, impressed by trash, utterly unable to recognise the stupendous. What a waste.’

When finally he went back in, he found Felicia, at last vertical, examining their en suite. She opened the chest of drawers releasing aromas of sandalwood and perfume. She ambled through to the bathroom, turned on the gleaming brass taps and watched the water gurgle away.

‘Claudio,’ she called, retrieving two pairs of shining shoes from the corridor. ‘Look.’

‘Just as I hoped,’ he said. ‘I can see my face in the toe caps. Superb service to add to the blissful surroundings.’

‘I thought that would please you.’

There was a knock at the door. A smiling woman in a starched pinafore came in.

‘Where will you be taking your breakfast? I can suggest the veranda. It’s nice and quiet. No cars, no motorbikes, juggernauts. No electric mowers or concrete mixers. No drills, no hedge-cutters, electric mowers, no motorboats.’

‘Just what I was saying,’ said Claudio ‘The silence out there is beyond belief. And indoors, I don’t doubt, a superb absence of radios, TVs, piped music.’

‘You may be sure of that. It’s heaven on earth here, but not,’ she went on, glancing at Felicia, ‘if you want to party. I’ll put the tray out.’

‘Bitch,’ muttered Felicia, as she closed the door. ‘She thinks I’m an airhead.’

Over breakfast, savouring the coffee and rolls, Claudio watched the gardeners come and go and the birds winging over the lake. Felicia had merely humphed when she saw the view but now she allowed her eye to wander and appeared appreciative.

‘Well, that cow brought us nice warm rolls, I’ll say that,’

Claudio touched her leg with his slippered foot. ‘You’re enjoying yourself, eh?’

‘I’m not complaining. I just don’t want to be patronised by a lot of snobs. I get enough of that from you.’

Claudio sighed. ‘Felicia… please… let’s not bicker… Let’s just allow the peaceful spirit of this place to spread balm.’

‘That’s up to you,’ she said, looking away.

‘Anyway,’ said Claudio, ‘that bitch, as you call her, has stepped right out of the Paris Ritz of the 1930s. She has pageboy hair like Garbo’s in certain studio shots. I would like to photograph her in black and white. For a moment I can regret we were not allowed cameras.’

Felicia shrugged. ‘I don’t know why you’d want to photo a snotty cow like that.’

Without rush they finished breakfast. Once dressed, they headed out. The staff were everywhere, tidying and polishing, gliding through with trays, easing trivial anxieties, answering queries.

‘It’s going to be lovely today, we can be sure of that.’

‘Did you have a good night?’

‘We can recommend…’

Claudio saw people he recognised from the journey. Paulus fixed them both with a graveyard stare. Claudio pulled Felicia quickly past. He had no wish to expose her to that lecher all the more since he believed the attraction was mutual.

Next, they came across Elena reading in an alcove. She wore a gown of crushed green velvet. The sunlight played on her long golden hair. As they walked on he murmured to Felicia, ‘A bit posed don’t you think? Look at me, the reader.’

‘She’s a phony,’ Felicia agreed.

Sabatini was in full flood on the front steps.

‘Let’s steer clear of him,’ said Claudio.

Hand in hand, they stepped out. The air was deliciously moist and scent-laden. Tangy smells drew Claudio to the herb garden secluded behind an old brick wall. Felicia picked some aromatic eaves and crushed them between her fingers, which she held up to Claudio’s nostrils.

‘There you are, Claudio, try that.’

He sniffed, then reeled back. ‘It’s disgusting!’

‘Valerian. It smells of tomcats. I grew up with it in our garden at home. That’ll teach you to be such a romantic.’

He eyed her breasts, full under her pale cotton shirt. Beads of sweat glistened in her cleavage.

‘Kiss me, Felicia.’

‘If you promise to stop ogling my tits.’

‘You like it.’

‘Do I?’

He moved towards her. She closed her eyes. She seemed ready after all.

Footsteps sounded on the gravel. Claudio cursed. They moved apart. It was Paulus, still wearing his dark suit, carrying two wicker baskets.

‘Good morning,’ he said, without smiling. ‘You missed the announcement. We are to wander at will through the orchards. Mulberry, pear, peach, apple and cherry. The real taste of uncontaminated fruit. It’s all here for us to enjoy. We are to pick what we want. They even handed out these baskets.’ He handed one to Felicia.

Paulus began picking and placing fruit in his basket. Felicia did likewise, too obediently, it seemed to Claudio, who hovered grumpily.

They moved on in this fashion, Claudio semi-detached, strolling a few paces then stopping and admiring the view, the other two stooping or reaching up to pick from overhanging branches. Paulus would say, ‘That’s a nice one, Felicia.’ Felicia would ask, ‘Can you reach that one for me, Paulus.’

Further up the hill, Felicia, mouth full of ripe peach suddenly cried, ‘Look, windmills.’

Vast white sails joined to clapboard circled grandly against the blue sky, about a dozen in all.

Paulus put his basket down. ‘That’s how windmills used to be. I hear they got a Dutchman here, not an engineer but a historian of science. He knew how it used to be done in old Holland.’

Claudio was damned if he was going to express any interest though in point of fact the windmills intrigued him. Not only did they remind him of Dutch landscape painting, but with his poet’s eye he saw the windmills taking off into the sky, sails cracking, pennants flying, riding the clouds like magical airships.

‘There’s hardly any wind today,’ Paulus continued, ‘but still they turn. It’s like navigation. Adapting the windmills to make electricity, they have to make the most of every breath out here. And store what they get.’

‘Like the Egyptians,’ said Claudio testily.

Paulus turned to him. ‘Eh?’

‘Like the Egyptians in the Seven Years of Plenty, they have to hoard for the lean years. Sometimes, I daresay, there is no wind. They’ve hoarded. They survive.’

‘I’m going down now,’ Paulus said suddenly. ‘I guess our paths will cross again.’

They watched him retreat down the slope, ever incongruous with his suit and fruit basket.

Claudio removed Felicia’s basket from her hand and pulled her to him. Running his hand up between her thighs and breathing heavily he managed at the same time to edge her towards a clump of bushes which in his impatience with Paulus he had already identified as a possible site for outdoor sex. How fortunate that that creepy predator had left them.

‘Hey Claudio, steady on.’

‘Felicia… I want you…’

‘No… Claudio…’

‘Yes, yes…’

She began to remove his hands. He clung on. ‘Dear girl… You don’t know what you do to me…’

‘No, Claudio.’

‘Yes.’

‘No.’

Finally he pulled away and turned a sharp eye on her.

‘It’s him, isn’t it?’

‘What?’

‘Paulus.’

‘What about Paulus?’

‘You can’t get him out of your mind.’

‘What?’

‘There is attraction between you,’ said Claudio, ‘unlikely though it seems. He has this sexual allure to do with his seediness. He probably lives for the next polvo. Some women sense that in a man and it turns them on even when he’s not good-looking. All they want is a polvo with that man who thinks about a polvo so much.’

She shook her head, a picture of disbelief and scorn.

He went on. ‘I’ve met it before. It’s sick but true. You lie in bed dreaming of a polvo with that gangster. You might as well admit it, Felicia.’ He took her hand. ‘I will forgive you. If you confess, it might even turn me on in. We can incorporate it.’

She rounded on him. ‘Jesus, Claudio you’re crazy. I don’t know if I can deal with this. I’m serious. The deal might have to be off.’

‘Deal? What deal?’

‘Oh hell, Claudio. Just stop questioning me. Questions, questions. What deal? What this? What that? Who are you on the phone to? Who did you see? Do you fancy him? How much did you drink? What drugs did you take? You are not my father. If this holiday is to have any chance of success, just lay off me, do you understand?’

Her lips quivered. She was trembling. Her eye went to the windmill sails, turning and creaking. She seemed to be weighing things up. Grasshoppers and birds made merry.

He was contrite. ‘Felicia, you’re right.’

‘I am right. You’re an idiot.’

‘All will be well, my dear, I promise.’

She looked past Claudio, down at Arcadia, then beyond to the snow-capped mountain peaks.

‘Ok,’ she said, ‘I forgive you. Just don’t ruin it.’

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alberteamllc · 8 years ago

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Sir Faris Svette

Age: 21

DOB: 704 (observed 2/10)

Race: Bjara Human

Birthplace: Red Ferns, Sallos

Favorite Food: Esquites with Pears and Chapulines

Favorite Thing About Astridia Insatsi: Impossible to pick. Handwriting?

Role Model: Sir Achsa Hanon

Guilty Pleasure: Making her familiar grab stuff so she doesn’t have to get up

Hates: Having to wear a helmet

Anachronistic Musical Taste: Shoegaze with woman vocalists that she read about on blogs

Agresjia tradition, stretching back to the Abo dynasty, long before Medasi settlers set foot in the Sallos Valley, stipulates that at the birth of a new member of the royal family a lowborn infant of the same gender and born on the same day should be brought into the palace and raised alongside the freshly minted prince or princess. These babies would eventually be honed into expert warriors and keen political observers, slowly growing into the role of their given royal’s lifelong bodyguard and confidante, fiercely loyal out of long habit and unlikely to produce an inconvenient bastard.

A wrench was thrown into this custom 21 years ago, when Astridia Insatsi was born in far-off Galonde, a barbarian land in which nobody wanted to fork over a baby for vague and sort of sinister-sounding reasons. When Astridia finally made her debut at the age of two in the city that would someday be hers, her mother Queen Elbise was surprised to find that even at home few parents were willing to part with their toddlers. The Queen was on the verge of penning a royal edict demanding that a random family make with the goods when an obscure deputy spymaster, Felix Wychelm, came forward with a solution-- the Aster Arcanage, in which the city’s sorcerers were trained, treated, or imprisoned, was also full to the brim with fledglings and orphans-- children with frightening magical talents whose parents had either been too frightened to raise them or, in some cases, killed by their child’s first outbursts of magical potential. Touring the facilities without high hopes, Elbise was suddenly struck by the sight of a young girl with a mop of white-blonde hair. While the young Astridia’s light-colored hair was the result of her Galondian father, this child’s was caused by a spell accidentally unleashed by a neighbor which had tragically killed him as well as the girl’s parents. Ever since, she’d been haunted by residual magical aftershocks, although, the Arcanage’s nurses were quick to reassure, she showed no signs of being a sorcerer herself. Elbise was touched by the child’s passing resemblence to her own daughter and the deal was struck-- Faris Svette was on her way to the good life.

Svette was raised alongside Astridia for the first several years of their childhood-- shared the same wetnurses, the same teachers and tailors, ate the same meals-- before being separated at 10 to begin her specific training while Astridia began hers. Since the disgrace of Beatrice the Lion decades prior and the exile of the Goetic Legates in the previous century, the line of royal guards raised and trained at the Tower of the Earth stood as the last authentic paladin order in Sallos. Svette sparred and learned history and etiquette from Achsa Hanon, the wizened old guard of Elbise herself, as well as the guards of the princes-- Anselm’s second guard the aristocrat Ilan Sarmasik, Ethbart’s homely young sword Bart Gilder, and Verlain Porlock, the sad-looking, haunted former guard of the late Prince Fleurine. On top of how to fight defensively and fend off assassin’s of all sorts, this training included the sacral rites and traditions of paladin magic-- how to draw on the strength of a vow to bend fate to one’s will-- as well as induction into a special warlock sect designed specifically to safeguard the royal Agresjian bloodline. Unusual in blending the ways of the paladin and the warlock, these guards possessed instead of pact weapons suits of armor that they could summon into being in an instant, allowing them to dress in the requisite finery at all times.

Faris grew into this role with aplomb, remaining at Astridia’s side through years of unexpected family tumult and eventually unwittingly becoming one of the senior members of the Palace staff despite her young age-- following Anselm’s death Ilan returned to his role in the Crescent Wardens, and Bart Gilder followed Prince Ethbart into the priesthood, leaving her and poor Porlock, who became the queen’s guard after Achsa Hanon succumbed to old age, the sole members of the royal guard and defacto commanders of the Tower’s formidable military body.

In 725, rogue druids under the command of the mysterious Hierophant destroyed the Tower in a sudden and devastating attack on the city. Faris could only watch as Porlock gave his life ferrying the queen and princess through a portal into the extradimensional Sovereign Vault. With her queen and princess missing and possibly lost forever, even dead, Faris was left without purpose, and listlessly attended to her newly inherited duties as commander of the entire Palace staff, or what was left of it, assisting in picking through the wreckage and begrudgingly aiding the newly appointed Inquisitor Harrow with his investigation into the vanished Felix Wychelm’s apparently ominous past-times. Thinking her vows shattered and her life as a paladin ruined, Faris was encouraged by a brief meeting with the kroten ambassador Daedalus Anuria, and when she surprised herself by helping him in battle against the city’s own soldiers, her powers flowed back into her and she fought as a paladin once again.

Although Elbise and Astridia remain missing, and her future looks uncertain, thanks to her friendship with Daedalus Svette is eager to confront her new role with conviction and confidence.

Unlike almost every other such guard in known history, who knew no life before the luxuries of the Tower, part of Faris still remembered poverty and privation and tragedy. Thus her occasional tendency to overcompensate-- scolding visitors for not following protocol or turning up her nose at a poorly chosen goblet of wine. Still, her desire to remain true to her oaths is earnest and, at heart, altruistic. While her life is pledged to the rulers of the city, she has no doubt that the will of the Insatsi family is always turned towards Agresjia’s best interests. As a warlock, her familiar is a glass owl named Acres of Diamonds. A dexterous and nimble warrior, she prefers to keep her familiar out during a fight, distracting and scratching at enemies while she cuts them down with her longsword. Due to her past, which she only faintly remembers, she is especially nervous around arcane spellcasters. For this and other reasons she is not fond of Inquisitor Harrow at all.

PS. The unusual split from tradition necessitated by Astridia and Faris’ belated pairing was not the only break from custom among Elbise’s children. In 711, Prince Anselm unexpectedly dismissed his own guard and replaced him with Ilan Sarmasik, a man five years his junior and about as far from commonborn as possible.

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