#schollar

[scotianostra]

On 16 March 1914, Sir John Murray, the noted oceanographer, died. 

Born in Coburg, Ontario, the son of a Scottish emigrant, John Murray left Canada for Scotland at the age of 17, attending Stirling High School and Edinburgh University.

His main academic reputation was gained in the field of oceanography, and he took part in several famous scientific expeditions. Between 1872-6 he was on board HMS Challenger in her mapping and examination of the world's oceans, and from 1881 publishing the findings.

Through Murray's efforts the Challenger Office, founded in Edinburgh, became an international centre for marine science as well as the office for the co-ordination of the Bathymetrical Survey. Murray also founded the Granton Marine Station, which went on to research and investigate the Firth of Forth and North Sea.

Further afield, Murray went on to explore the sea bed off Spitzbergen and the Faeroe Islands, and in 1884, he researched the sea lochs on the west coast of Scotland in his own purpose-built yacht, Medusa.

Murray lived at Challenger Lodge, named after the expedition, on Boswall Road in Trinity, Edinburgh with commanding views over the Firth of Forth. He was killed when his car overturned ten miles west of his home on this day 1914 at Kirkliston near Edinburgh at age 73, he is buried at the city’s Dean Cemetery .

Challenger Lodge  was bought by the Edinburgh Cripple and Invalid Children’s Aid Society in 1929 to replace the society’s children’s homes at Nellfield and Viewforth in Edinburgh. St Columba’s Hospice took over the building in 1977 and are still there.  I passed the building on Sunday on a bus and will need to go up to it and grab some pics sometime.

[caracello]

i'm too nervous to read junior's origin comic so i'm just watching a lore video that's essentially a summary of it and it's actually. Killingme i keep hhaving to pause.

[pupuseriazag]

Introduced a friend to DND and Baldur's so we ended up creating our own baby to play together in BG3 :p so hey this is Huitzilin xd

[youaremysunshine-court]

anyone want to bulshit a whole vs. part learning explanation for me where i bullshit that part learning is superior bc my friends with weird memories have fucked me over yet again

[cutup4ngels]

sorry sharing a blunt with someone is so gay. like i can feel your spit on my mouth bro.

[amandacanwrite]

The Violet Thread of Fate Part One:

The Reclusive Wizard and the Cheeky Upstart

Part One || Part Two || Part Three || Part Four || Part Five || Part Six || Part Seven || Part Eight || Join Taglist

POV || Third Person, dual POV Gale Dekarios and Elinna Inklynn (Tav)

Pairing || Elinna Inklynn (Half-drow tav) and Gale Dekarios

Length || 5,500 Words

Scenario || In an alternative timeline for the events of BG3 Elinna Inklynn, an orphan from the Moonshae Islands seeks out the tutelage of accomplished wizard Gale Dekarios of Waterdeep. She has a knack with the Weave, but no money or connections to actually learn how to harness it. She has heard the wizard is a gentleman and a schollar, and hopes she can appeal to him to take her on as his apprentice in exchange for her help around his tower, with his research, and in running errands in Waterdeep. Unfortunately for her, Gale Dekarios does not take on apprentices.

Warnings || Age gap (Perhaps about 10ish years), depiction of depression and heart ache, description of very, very mild body horror.

A/n || I hope you all enjoy this very indulgent little fic I'm starting. I am already having entirely too much fun with it. Please keep in mind that while this fic will have a good amount of characters and scenarios from the canon events of BG3 I am planning on taking a lot of creative liberties and may leave out certain situations/characters for the sake of flow!

If you like this, you may also like my original works! I have a writing taglist that you can sign up for simply by commenting or reblogging and letting me know you'd like to be added. OR you can fill out this form if you'd like to be specific about which works you'd like to be tagged in.

Tag list || @softvampirewhump @horizonstride @thoughts-of-bear @mymybirdie @tiedyedghoulette @drabblesandimagines @madwomansapologist @hijirikaww @tryingtowritestuff24 @laserlope @auroraesmeraldarose @puckprimrose @dont-try-pesticide

A Reclusive Wizard

“Mr. Dekarios, if you would just consider it–” Tara suggested as she fluttered alongside her charge. 

“Tara, no,” Gale said. “We are not dropping the wards and we’re not taking visitors. The orb is too volatile.”

“But, Mr. Dekarios–I’ve told you this isolation of yours–” 

“Tara–enough,” Gale shouted, exasperated. “You are my friend. You’re not my mother. I’m a grown man, who has done quite well for himself, might I add, and I don’t need your–your incessant fussing.”

“Mr. Dekarios!” Tara tutted, her whiskers perking forward with her disapproval. “My incessant fussing is what helped you figure out how to stabilize the orb in the first place, may I remind you. And if you so tire of my incessant fussing, allow me to divest of its burden! I may not be your mother, but your mother is a friend to me and will happily put me up.”

“Tara,” Gale said. “Wait–I didn’t mean you should leave–”

“I know that. But I am also quite aware that my willingness to fetch magical items and act as your little familiar has proven to only enable your reclusive habits,” she retorted. “Perhaps you will not listen to me, but when you run out of biscuits for your tea, perhaps you’ll see the reason in getting a little bit of fresh air…and perhaps a bath…and for the sake of the gods a shave.”

Tara flitted her way up to one of the high windows in the tower, pausing on the sill before leaving.

“Tara, don’t go,” Gale said, his eyes taking on a sort of sorry, piteous quality. “Please, just stay here.”

“Mr. Dekarios, those big glittering eyes won’t work on me any longer,” Tara said. “I’ve known you too long to be bewitched by your pouting. If you so wish me to return, you can come fetch me at your childhood home. The walk will do you well.”

And with that, she soared right out of the window, leaving Gale of Waterdeep entirely and utterly alone. 

Gale scowled up at the window she’d escaped from before sighing and smearing a hand down his face. He cupped his hand over his mouth and heaved out a low grumble, lost in thought as he often was these days. 

Perhaps Tara was right…maybe it was time to leave the tower. To engage in the ease of camaraderie at The Yawning Portal, reach out to the colleagues that had tried to pay him a visit in the year since his relationship with Mystra had come to an end–since this tangle of Netherese magic made a home of his chest cavity. 

But it wasn’t just the volatile nature of the orb that worried him. It wasn’t as if he thought a raucous night with his friends would trigger an explosion to level the city he called home. Even with the constant peril of the orb in his chest being destabilized by a too-strong emotion, there was a deeper fear inspiring the reluctance.

Gale Dekarios was used to being an outlier. Unfortunately, it was the otherside of the coin of being a particularly gifted wizard. As a child, it had been a source of ostracization. As an adolescent it made him the subject of many an ill-begotten rivalry. As a young man he had begun to learn how to minimize the isolation by compensating for the inevitable inferiority complex he inspired in others by learning to be charming and funny–to couch his corrections in complimentary language so that he could have some measure of friendship.

It wasn’t often that he could find people that could keep up with him or converse with him on his level–at least, not where the subject of magic came into play. But he’d learned to accept that and enjoy the company of other wizards–even non-wizards–in different ways. 

A game of lanceboard, the critical analysis of a book, a spirited debate on the merits of the shadow arts when applied to the correct endeavors. Now, as a man in his late 30’s with questionable knees, he felt nicely secure in his ability to play nice with others. 

But this new sense of separation–this insurmountable mountain between himself and the other–had been so very devastating to the life he had carefully cultivated. 

How could he listen to other people lament about their sordid love affairs, the politics at the academy–anything– with any measure of understanding or empathy? How could he confide in the people who he used to call his friends? 

He was alone in the tower, but he wasn’t certain he could face the profound isolation of trying to connect with someone about his condition, only to find them staring back at him in utter befuddlement. Or worse, with soulless platitudes and what he could only describe as foolish optimism.

Who could possibly make him feel better when there was no way he could ever feel better? How could he listen to the woes of friends and earnestly care about them when he had been forsaken by the goddess of the only thing he held sacred in his life?

He couldn’t. That was a the truth of it. And that was why he didn’t want visitors. He didn’t want to subject his friends to the poor quality of his care; didn’t want to expose them to this unique brand of selfishness and bitterness. 

He’d had enough of destroying things. 

But he also knew he needed Tara–not just because of the artifacts, but because she was his oldest and longest standing friendship. And because the tower, in her absence, had already become unbearably quiet.

And he supposed it had been a while since he last saw his mother…

He sighed and turned away from his mess of a study, climbing up the two flights of stairs to his bedchambers. Once there, he conjured himself a bath as he undressed, leaving his house robes in a pile on the floor before stepping into the steaming water. 

It smelled of bay laurel and lavender–an old combination that Mystra loved to use when they’d shared baths together. His mind drifted to the thought of his goddess cradled against his body, how small she felt even with her considerable power, the feeling of her silky hair catching on his skin as he kissed the hollow of her neck and…

“Don’t take that path in your mind, Gale. She’s the last person you should be thinking about right now,” he told himself as he gave his cheek a couple firm, bracing pats with his hand. He let his head drop back in the water and sighed. 

The water filled his ears, quieting the ambient sounds in the room around him and creating an echochamber of his head. He heard the airy sound of his breaths coming and going in and out of his lungs; heard the gentle trickling sounds of his fingers creating tiny currents under the water; heard the sound of his heart still beating in his over-crowded chest. 

He was still alive. 

There could be hope for him yet. 

Unlikely, sure, but there could be. 

After washing up with some simple soap, he got out of the bath and toweled off. 

He walked over to the small wardrobe where he kept his things and slapped a couple lazy splashes of a fragranced suspension he’d made onto his neck, favoring his pulse points as he used to when he’d go out for a night at The Yawning Portal. He trimmed his beard as a small concession to Tara (he would not be shaving it completely, thank you very much,) and got dressed. 

He decided he would wear one of his nicer sets of robes. It’d been a while since he’d properly dressed himself in something other than simple tunics and roughspun practice robes. He started with some leather trousers and his under shirt, layering the criss-crossed front with car and fastening it with the ties at his waist to create a slender, tapered silhouette. Then he slipped the robe on, and paused as he caught a glance of himself in the mirror. 

He’d not really been thinking when he selected the robe, but this was one of Mystra’s favorites on him. Various shades of violet with a wine-colored sash. 

Violet, of course, was the color of the weave. Mystra’s color. 

Would she want him to eliminate the color from his wardrobe altogether? Now that she’d left him to his devices? Surely a goddess couldn’t bar him from wearing a color. Hopefully not, considering more than half of his wardrobe was some shade of lilac, lavender or morning glory.

Whatever the case, he fastened the buckles and straightened the sash the wine colored sash, trying once again to put Mystra out of his mind. He did a flick of his hands to lace up the sleeves and then slid on some leather bracers for good measure. 

It wasn’t as if he had any intention of doing any fighting or shooting any arrows, but he liked how they looked. And it had been so long since he’d looked in the mirror and thought to himself my, look at that handsome devil.

Finally he looked at the mop of his hair. It’d also been too long since he’d gotten a cut…now his messy curls fell past his shoulders when he usually preferred to keep it short enough to comb back with a bit of emollient or pomade. He was certain his mother would gripe about it and then he would have to deal with incessant fussing two fold between his mother and Tara. Still, it was dark outside–long past the time any salons would be open, so he gathered half of it up, bundling it as neatly as he could manage around his two forefingers and secured it with a two-pronged hairpin. 

He looked at the earring on his wardrobe and hedged for a moment. 

He’d been given the earring as a gift from Mystra when he’d first encountered her as a boy. He’d only stopped wearing it in the last year. Something had felt off about keeping it on–like a widower still wearing his wedding band. But it also felt wrong to leave his tower without it. It felt like a part of his identity. 

“You’re ridiculous,” he said to himself in the mirror before turning from it and striding out of his bedroom. 

…He returned not two seconds later and slipped the earring into his left ear. Damn it all. He couldn’t help what he was. A sentimental, heartbroken fool.

On his way out the door, he grabbed a hooded cloak and draped it over his shoulders. He lifted the hood, obscuring his face in shadow, hoping it would be enough to keep him from having to interact with anyone who wasn’t Tara of his mother. He considered, for a moment, casting an invisibility charm on himself…alas the concentration such a thing would require left him feeling exhausted at the thought of it. The cloak had worked for rogues and criminals for centuries. Suely it could work for him as well. 

Finally, he left the safety and control his tower afforded him and walked out into the cold, Waterdhavian night. 

A Cheeky Upstart

“Okay Elinna. Just…ring the doorbell. You’ve traveled all the way here. So just ring it,” a young woman told herself as she stood outside the wrought iron gates. “You sailed all the way from the Moonshae Islands, left every book behind, dealt with some of the worst sea sickness in all of the realms just to be here.”

Despite telling herself this, she had to shake out some of the numbness in her fingers from clenching her fists too tight. Or maybe it was just the nip in the air from the coastal evening. She couldn’t truly be sure. 

As she stood there, her green eyes caught a streak of movement in the sky–some winged creature departing from a high window of the tower. She couldn’t quite make out what it was. Maybe a gargoyle? Or a mephit? An imp?

Something churned in her gut at the thought of Gale of Waterdeep cavorting with the infernal. Perhaps that was why no one had seen him in such a long time–maybe he’d made a pact with a devil and lost some of his humanity in the exchange. Maybe she ought to just turn on her shabby heels and book passage back home. 

“You can’t do that, Elinna,” she told herself. “You already spent everything you have just to get here. You’re all in, now.”

But that was precisely why she couldn’t bring herself to tug on the chain to ring the doorbell. Who was she to show up at the door of one of the best wizards–a proper prodigy of composing strings of the weave; the apprentice of the famous Elminster, no less?

Well she knew the answer to that. 

She was desperate. That’s what she was. 

She’d been left at the Scribe’s Nest by her mother with nothing but a note and an old locket she couldn’t get open; drow craftsmanship. The note detailed her lineage as a half-drow, but begged the clerics of the temple to take her in and raise her. According to the note left in her swaddle, Elinna would be shunned and excluded by because of her impure blood. 

A shame for both her mother and Elinna herself that the Scribe’s Nest had simply moved into an old Temple of Ilmater. The inhabitants inside were nothing but glorified librarians. They may have had access to all of the books in the world, but not a single one of her guardians actually knew how to use the information inside. 

No. Instead, they tried to raise her to love cataloging the written word, but deny herself the joy of actually using anything she learned from the old dusty tomes in the temple. Even when she’d shown a natural knack for small magics, she had been discouraged from using them, leaving her with no choice but to practice in the wee hours of the night. 

She knew she hadn’t much to use as a benchmark for her growth as a burgeoning young wizard, but she thought for all of the effort she’d put in she made a half-decent self-taught magician. All she needed was some proper tutelage to become something truly magnificent. Something worthy of the tales of great wizards that she’d read. 

Which brought her here–to the first and only plan she had to seek out that higher learning. And now her future hung in the balance of whether or not her knock at the door–or rather the ring of the doorbell–would be answered. 

Her heart pounded in her chest, at her temples. He leather fingerless gloves squeaked as she flexed and clenched her fists. 

“Gah!” she cried, turning away from the gate, pacing across the narrow cobbled street, then pacing right back. She gasped in a few preparatory breaths and hopped from one soft-soled foot to the other. “Just do it, just DO it, Elinna. Just–”

The door of the tower opened, it’s underutilized hinges creaking as the man opening the door grunted. 

“Damnable–old door–why did I make you out of iron,” grumbled the voice. 

Elinna went entirely still, eyes going wide. 

Perhaps it was habit from how many times she’d had to sneak tomes away from the restricted areas of the Scribe’s Nest, but she ducked behind the stone columns holding up the wrought iron gate and watched as the cloaked figure made his way to the gate and slipped outside of it with a wave of his hand. 

She remained hidden as he looked down the road in her direction, his eyes looking too distantly to catch her small frame tucked away in the dark. 

She’d seen sketches of the Gale Dekarios before, but she couldn’t help but feel they did him no justice. The etchings seemed to have emphasized the wizened qualities of his features; the lines around his eyes, the creases around his lips. They made him look sagely and–well–old. 

But the real man, the one now standing in the flesh just a few feet from her was something different entirely. 

He showed signs of age, of course. He was a middle-aged man, after all. But his lips were fuller, his beard a little more tidy, and his eyes…

His eyes were what made him look the most youthful. There was a sort of shimmer to them that she couldn’t quite describe, a sort of weight to his brow that made him look as if he was always curious, always observing.

She watched as he pulled his cloak a little tighter around him and turned the opposite direction, walking down the narrow street. 

Wait, she thought. What am I doing?!

She hesitated for only one more moment before quickly hurrying after him. She searched her mind for all of the speeches she’d practiced for this introduction, but she was left wanting. She should have written it down so that she wouldn’t forget–or would it have been even more strange for read her introduction off the pages of a notebook? 

It was all strange, of course; a girl crossing the ocean to show up on the doorstep of a stranger several years her senior. Asking for an apprenticeship when she hadn’t so much as sent him a letter of introduction or even had anything to offer in exchange except for chores, errands and meal preparations. Seeking tutelage from one of the most accomplished young wizards when she was still struggling with even the most basic of incantations…

But what else could she do? 

The life of a Scribe Nest Archiver was not a luxurious one. She’d had to sneak out of the old Nest to sing songs at the local tavern to scrape what little money she could together to book passage to even get here. 

Blackstaff wasn’t exactly inexpensive–and even if it was, she couldn’t hope to get in. Not with how poorly she handled the weave. 

But Gale–she had read transcripts of his lectures, heard tales of how magnanimous and warm he could be. She even once met one of his friends at the tavern who was visiting the islands for this or that purpose–she couldn’t remember. She only remembered the tales of his kindness and generosity. Of his gentleman’s nature. 

He seemed like her only real chance at ever mastering this art that sang to her like a harpy at roost in the bay.

God’s he was walking fast though. Perhaps it was just because she was so short in comparison to him, but she was almost having to run to catch up to him. 

“E-excuse me,” she finally said when she was within earshot.

She saw the briefest glance back at her, the quickest flash of a startled expression, before he focused forward and quickened his pace.  

“No, thank you,” Dekarios replied. “I’ve already a subscription to the Waterdhavian times.”

“Uhm, no–that’s not–” she stammered. “Wait, could you please stop walking so fast!”

“I’m in a dreadful hurry, good night to you,” he said dismissively, walking even faster as he pulled his cloak further to guard his face. 

“Mr. Dekarios! I’ve come here to talk to you!” She shouted, a little crack of desperation coming out with it. “Mr. Dekarios I–”

He whirled on her, suddenly encroaching into her space. He was so quick that she almost stumbled backward and fell. Before she could, though, he seized her arm with one strong hand, stablizing her quickly before clasping his other hand over her mouth.

She stared up at him with wide eyes, bright irises flicking around his face as if she were prey caught in his snare.

“Shhhh,” he hissed before looking around, as if to see if anyone heard her. “Mystra’s Elbow, you’d think my reputation as a newly initiated recluse would have gotten around by now.”

Elinna swallowed dryly, critically aware of the feeling of his calloused fingertips on the soft swells of her freckled cheeks. She blinked up at him, unsure what to do. His hand felt warm through the roughspun, puffed sleeves of her Scribe’s Nest garments.  Her feet were sort of turned in awkwardly after he’s caught her mid fall. 

She wondered if it would have looked like she was being accosted by a thief to a wandering bystander. She supposed it didn’t matter because no one else was here. She knew she should have been afraid. That she was a young woman alone with an older man; that he’d rendered her silent and could easily do much worse. But she also knew that was likely the experiences at the tavern thinking for her. 

Gale was supposed to be a gentleman. That’s what she’d always heard. And…

And his hands smelled like…like tea and old parchment and sage. There was a somewhat sharp quality to the fragrance–perhaps a suspension alchemized in alcohol of some sort. He must have made it himself. 

“Now. This behavior of mine, admittedly, is abhorrent for a gentleman with a young lady. I will have to ask you to forgive my bad manners and to give me the grace of your understanding because I simply did not want to be greeted by anyone aside from my mother and my cat. Now. I am going to take my hand away from your mouth; apologies again for the rough handling. But I’m going to then need you to let me walk away. And perhaps most importantly, I need you to leave me alone,” Gale said quietly. “Do we have an accord?”

Elinna’s pale ginger brow furrowed and he tutted quietly. 

“No, no. No crinkles of the brow, no narrowing of the eyes, miss,” he scolded. “It is by mere coincidence you’ve even caught me out of my tower. By all accounts this is an anomaly of the highest order and therefore…uhm…does not count. You should just forget this ever happened. In fact, I could help you do so if you like!”

Doesn’t count? What kind of logic–that was school-boy logic! And what did he mean help her forget?! She jerked her arm away from him and, perhaps in a moment of panic he tightened his grip.

“Alright, alright! I’m going to let you go–just– remember our deal, please,” he said, releasing her arm.

He winced slightly as he hesitated to remove his other hand from her mouth. She thought he had the same expression one might have if they were about to remove a cork from a vial of smelling salts.

He released his other hand, drawing it away from her mouth. 

“Mr. Dekarios, I’ve come to ask you to take me on as an apprentice,” Elinna blurted out. “I know you have never met me, and that you have no notion of my ability or skill. And that showing up outside of a strangers house and asking them for a place to live–”

“I’m sorry, a place to live?” He interjected with an incredulous tone

“--and a comprehensive education in the arcane arts–” she continued.

“I assure you I do not have the time, and it certainly wouldn’t be proper for an older man to bring a young woman into his home to–” he interjected again. 

“ But I have nowhere else to turn and…And I’m afraid I can’t take no for an answer.”

His brows shot up as she finally stopped speaking. She didn’t know what to make of that expression, nor the silence that followed. Elinna could feel her face beginning to warm and she knew from  that her face was already starting to color with her own nerves. It felt the same way it did when a tavern patron made a bawdy joke at her expense–or about her body. 

The silence was the most unbearable part, though. So she started to fill it, her face getting warmer by the moment.

“You’re silent,” she said. “Uh–right. Names. I’m Elinna Inklyn. I hail from the Moonshae Islands. I grew up under the care of the Scribe’s Nest Archivists and–”

“Elinna. Elinna,” he said, his tone almost pitying. “I’m going to stop you right there.”

She felt her heart sink as he pinched the bridge of his nose and tilted his head back, looking toward the sky. “Look, Miss Inklyn. I’m sorry that you came all this way, but. I am afraid you must take no as an answer. I cannot take on an apprentice, even if I wanted to.” He winced and almost half shrugged. “And frankly, I really do not want to. Even if I could do it, I wouldn’t want to do it.”

“But–if you’d let me explain–” she protested. 

“No–no buts. Again, I am dreadfully sorry for the trouble you went through to get here. But…considering that you sought me out and addressed me by name, you must know who I am.” he said. 

“Yes,” she answered. 

“So, then you know that I am particularly gifted with manipulating the weave,” he said. “That’s why you’ve sought me out.”

“Yes,” she said yet again. “Well part of the reason but also because–”

“So, then I’m sure you could understand why I find the inadequacies of unskilled wizards irksome, correct? That if I were to take on an apprentice, it would be someone with a certain level of innate talent?”

Her brow furrowed again and she inhaled to speak, but before another word could fall out of her mouth a huge boom of sound tore out from the sky above them. She clapped her gloved hands over her ears and yelped.

“What was that?” she shouted. 

The two looked up at the source of the sound only to see the sky split open like it’d been torn by a dull blade. Out of the opening flew a giant aircraft with writhing tentacles slicing through the air as if it were a squid traversing deep sea waters. The two wizards–one novice and one adept–balked at the appearance of the spelljammer, the size of it practically the size of Gale’s tower if you laid it on its side.

“A nautiloid?” They both said at the same time. 

They met eyes briefly before Gale gritted his teeth and grasped onto her arm, almost flinging her away from him

“Get out of here, Elinna. And whatever you do don’t let the tentacles touch you,” he shouted. 

She stumbled, almost falling on her face, looking back at him. 

“What about you?!” she cried. 

“I’m a wizard,” he said before turning and casting a bolts of ice at two of the tentacles that swatted out toward them. 

“It’s a spelljammer!”

“I’m a very, very good wizard!” he said. 

Elinna’s sense of self preservation won out over her worry for the man she’d come here to meet. If he thought he could take on a nautiloid, who was she to deny that? She turned and sprinted down the narrow street before dodging down an alleyway in hopes of getting cover from the massive tentacles that now swept down toward the ground like great, giant whips. 

She chanced a single look back to see Gale running just behind her, and the spelljammer that was traveling far too quickly and far too low to the ground for comfort. He followed her down the alleyway, calling ahead. “Not that way! To the east–”

“I don’t know which way east is!” she shouted back. 

“Are you kiddi–Eugh–LEFT,” he said. “LEFT, LEFT! Go LEFT!”

“Alright, I heard you!” she said. “No need to shout!”

“I will shout if I want to, now–Elinna, look out!”

She looked ahead just in time to see a brick wall and slipped on her worn soles as she tried to come to a screeching halt. 

She slammed into the wall, but thankfully not with enough force to knock her out.  She managed to clumsily tumble toward the left, dropping onto her fingertips just a moment before lurching back upright. Gale caught up to her and cast some spell–gust, she assumed– because a strong wind caught in the fabric of her clothes like a breeze in the sails of a galeon and made her feel like she was running on air. 

He fought off another tentacle and she screamed as one almost tagged her, but smashed an old fish barrel to bits instead.

“Keep going. We’ll lose it on the main road,” Gale yelled.  

They spilled out onto a wider street and she immediately regretted listening to the Waterdhavian native. It’d seemed a sound plan at first. But only if the goal of the ship was to find them specifically. When they made it to the street, Elinna realized that was not the drive of the nautiloid at all. 

The main road was chaos. There were carts toppled over and people lying trampled on the ground. People ran and screamed, some of them were swatted by the terrifying power of the tentacles only to vanish into dust before they could make impact with the wall of a building or the floor below them.

Elinna froze in terror, realizing finally that her plight had gone from one of trying to secure a teacher of her own to one of simply trying to survive her first night on the mainland. It suddenly dawned on her that she might actually die here. She might die within moments. 

She couldn’t think. Couldn’t move.

It was a mistake to stop, but she realized it too late. A horse cried out desperately and tore away from the frightening vessel. It tore straight toward her, its eyes wild, his nose gusting tufts of steam into the air like a machine. It pulled a market cart along with it, full of heavy barrels of meat and wine. She braced herself, squeezing her eyes shut and thinking about the magic she’d read about. Misty step–misty step, what was the incantation for misty step?

“I-Inveniam Viam!!” she shouted, the words sailing on waves of the weave and almost…echoing. There was the sweet taste of something on her tongue–the after effect of using the weave if her reading was any indication. She’d only tasted that once or twice before, but chasing that sweet, comforting experience was what brought her here. It’s what made her so desperately want to learn how to wield this magic.

When she opened her eyes, the horse was gone.

Unfortunately for her, so was the ground beneath her feet. 

She’d somehow teleported into midair and, as if the weave was just as shocked as she was, she’d wound up suspended there for just the briefest moment, cradled by the strands of the weave she’d managed to manipulate. Seconds felt like minutes as he copper hair floate away from her face as she experienced true weightlessness for just moments. Then she felt the sickening churn in her stomach as she started to fall. 

The floor just far enough to be lethal but not far enough to give her adequate time to figure out another spell. Her mind went blank with terror. In a moment of desperation, she found Gale in the crowd, a stationary man in a sea of fleeing people. 

He looked at her in abject horror as she dropped like a dagger out of the sky. He looked utterly, woefully helpless.

She screamed, wrapping her arms around her as if she could brace her own fall, as if holding herself would hold her together.

Then, just as she was about to splat on the cobblestones into a puddle of bone and blood, a searing heat bloomed from the center of her back. She screamed again as she felt herself dissolve from the inside out, her innards liquifying into a primordial soup. 

Her body went miserably hot, and then impossibly cold. No. Not cold–she realized–absent. She was vanishing from the center of her body. She watched in uncomprehending horror as her middle vanished, watched as her body evaporated like steam off a teacup. 

Her guttural scream sounded from her and died in the air. 

The last thing she saw before her vision went black was Gale still staring at her as he too succumbed to the nautiloid’s attack.

[tare-anime]

Hmmm....

So at Eden, after you achieved 8 stellas, you become an Imperial Schollar. And then you're expected to always gain more stella, without extra reward.

But when you fails. After 8 tonitrus, you'll be expelled.

Hmmmmm 👀

Such a complicated system.

What if a student has gain 10 stellas, but then also gain 8 tornitrus?

Can a stella be used as a bargain chip to nullify the tornitrus??

[izzymarksthespot]

A bit of siliness on its way: OFMD Dracula au, except at sea, where young schollar Stede (engaged to Ed) is invited aboard a grand, ominously looking ship called The Queen Anne's Revenge to teach it's owner some... manners before his journey to Europe. The ship belongs to Count Israel Hands, and his crew is a bunch of most peculiar individuals Stede has ever seen.

Idk, I just can't help picturing Stede at breakfast after spending his first night on the ship, feeling a bit faint (yk why) and then even more so when the count makes his appearance, the hot leather daddy that he is and Stede's paniced "Oh no, he's hot" expression.

Oh, and there are a lot of lessons going on, just not the way they were supposed to go. (Izzy teaches Stede how to fuck. That's it. That's where this was headed lol)

[realcatalina]

This is interesting info about languages Elizabeth of York spoke

This is excerpt from Most pleasant song of lady Bessy, and it is the part where Bessy(Elizabeth of York) manages to convince Lord Stanley to betray Richard and to contact Henry Tudor.

But he is scared, he thinks he cannot trust any scribe to write essentially treason. But Elizabeth turns around and says-oh I can write the letter. My father had me and my sister Cecily taught by a man from London. I can write well, in both English and French, and SPANISH!

(It is bit strange that the poem doesnt mention Latin, though correspondence from late 1490s strongly suggest Elizabeth knew Latin grammar too. But, we cannot rule out she learnt later than 1484/5. Or maybe she wasnt very good yet in that time and later gained confidence. )

However Bessy knowing Old Spanish/Castilian would make sense if she was intended to wed to Iberian peninsula. But we only ever hear about Richard III intending to wed her to Portuguese royal family. His reign is too short time for her to learn the languaeg.

I never heard that there were any plans to marry her to Spain specifically. But maybe as with Catherine of Aragon learning French to use at English court, maybe Elizabeth of York was learning Spanish to use at Portuguese court. Because it would make things easier for her at least a bit.

If it was true it might have indicate Edward IV already intended her for Portugal.

It is bit weird that the matter(her spanish) didnt get brought up later. If Elizabeth of York was confident enough to write in Spanish, why not write to spanish royals in her own hand in Spanish? Why not converse with Catherine of Aragon in Spanish? Could it simply not get into records?

It is but strange that only spanish wikipedia mentions Elizabeth's education. As source there is book Elizabeth of York by Arlene Okerlund.

But this what it says on their wiki:

When she was bethrohed to dauphin, her father arranged her to have language tutors from France, Italy and Spain.

Although she spoke French, it was not fluently.

(-yeah, in comparison to Henry VII probably not. He was master level.)

Schollars from Oxford taught her classics and experts in calligraphy(handwritting) from Scriptoria at Westminster Abbey instructed her. In other words she had greater education than most men in 15th century(except those ment for church), let alone a woman.

She was also instructed to read and write in English, learnt math, household management, embroidery or sewing, horse-riding, music, and dancing.

You know on first glance it looks overexagerated, but it would make sense given how educated Henry VIII was and his upbringing was mostly dedided by his mother.

If she was so well-educated as woman, it would make sense her son got even better education.

I know the poem might be propaganda. Just sneaking out to meet Stanley in private, would be very difficult. Although if both were at court...maybe. Elizabeth seems to have been given greater deal of freedom by Richard at court, than you would expect. Considering the man had her mother proclaimed whore, Elizabeth and her siblings bastards, and her brothers "dissappeared" in his "care".

But still it was originally written in late 15th century, likely after 1487/8 when Cecily became lady Welles. (First surviving written versions are from c.1600, it was passed on orally it seems-it was a song.) But i dont think we can just throw it away.

But we aware that part of the poem is Elizabeth pleading is her telling Stanley her uncle was making plans to poison his own wife and son.(Which if true, would mean he was starking mad.)

-But it might be that part of the poem is true and part is propaganda.

But the poem is wonderfully written and the dialogs are so logical.

Elizabeth keeps trying to remind Stanley that his titles, lands were given to him by her father and that Richard had no right to the throne, that her brothers disappeared and were not even buried in any sacred ground, that Richard got rid of his original supporters and he might well get rid of Stanley after his usefullness expires.

And he keeps telling her no, there is no real support for anybody else and thinks overthrowing him are foolish dreams etc.

But she keeps going. And revealing more. And big part of it is her saying her uncle wants her to come to his chamber and be his love and wife. And she is extremely oposed to the idea. I mean she lists all the suffering she would rather endure...than to come to her uncle's chamber.

Towards end of her pleading, when Stanley keeps rejecting to help her and wants her to leave, she starts crying, she throws away her headwear and says they will find her body in Thames, where she will drown, her bones shall lay on sand, fishes will feed upon her and that will be her destiny.

And that is what breaks Stanley.

There is of course more-it is very long poem. But I get why currently with the Ricardians trying to restore Richards image this is not being spread around. Because this was probbaly major inspiration source behind Shakespear's Richard III.

-of course it is entirely possible this part of poem is overexagerating/lying. Perhaps other parts too.

Tell me what you think, do you think it is possible she spoke Spanish?

[spicylove4ever]

GBA's Magic of the Heart Random Headcanons.

Mazzul just ADORED all her kids. Especially the youngest ones. She was a kids person. Would have gotten along with Zed since he's a total puppy and would have considerated him "her little Schollar".

Makkaro's parents actually were kind of sappy with each other and Makkaro was a little weirded out by that as a kid but totally gets it as an adult.

There are many nerds on the Mistwood family. Maybe because they preffer to learn things and/or have a more quiet life after what happened to their mother.

As the Everest, the Crete Mountain has a "Death Zone" in which most of the ones who tried to climb found their demise, but most are completely covered in snow..... so Zed passed nearby his mother's half-rotten, frozen corpse without realising (or he probably was too focused in not dying himself).

Zed is the one who kept the Archangel-plushie. He basically adopted it and it's Zed's comfort toy after Raze dissapeared.

Makkaro has stopped ordering sparkling wine or cider on restaurants because he can't stand anymore the sound of the cork pomping out. He can take it if he's the one opening it and has in his eyesight the source of the sound, though, but any strong pomping sound he isn't aware of where it comes from makes him jump.

Frank and Gienne don't reach the level of besties, but they bonded quite much on a axe-throwing exercise with a picture of Kayble as the target.

Mirrin looks the part of respectable yarl when he has to, but with his staff and crew he's a closer guy and a total prankster.

Gienne's first attempt on cooking started with a "can't be too different from brewing a potion" and ended on a decent soup, but it was supposed to be a stew LOL.

Frank found hilarious how Makkaro is the bossy one in a relationship with a royal. After a while, that became old news since it also affected him as well and he settled into just teasing on how sappy or active they are.

The first and only time Makkaro asked the Franks to brew coffee, they used half actual coffee and half gravedirt something else none of the couple wanted to know about and refused to drink that concoction with skull shaped smoke.

A slightly sadistic small part of Raze that is expressed through the Maggreos allucination would love to watch Gienne's reaction to the "let's make a baby" thing.

Zed has a plushie of the mascot of his favourite wing-ball team. He also has a t-shirt, glasses, and figurines.

The Undead actually followed Makkaro's orders about not killing the Senator, but he died accidentally tripping and breaking his nose by landing on his face while running for his life.

Mirrin doesn't like much the Piscis Royal family because he thinks they are snobby, self-centered and "maybe not the best option for the Royal Family of Manas", but found Gienne a kind of promising black sheep of the family, but then saw her on Cimitaria and went back to not like her.

Zed is a walking encyclopedia and sometimes he spends long minutes blurting data. Mirrin finds it annoying, Raze thinks it's pretty useful, Gienne could find it useful too, and Makkaro could go from finding him an inconvenience to a mild threat, which would flatter Zed's self-worth. (Zed: you think I'm a threat? Makkaro: obviously I don't like the idea of some kid annalysing and exposing every potential weakness I might- Zed: can I hug you? Makkaro: ..... what?).

One of the firsts Maggreos' victims is a coffee shop employee who always got his name and order wrong. That is of course if there was that kind of coffee shops back then.

Makkaro bought Gienne's new music-box while giving the Undead a full earful on how the Senator was dead before he had the chance to kill him in person. I imagine a pissed off beyond imagination Makkaro venting his frustration to an army of skeletons and stops every few minutes to listen to the melodies or to ask the terrified owner with more frustrated yelling how much it costs.

Both Makkaro and Gienne changed their hair-styles from when they lived in Mana City, and Gienne had him pick her style (Gienne: which one of these hair fringes look better? Makkaro: you look perfect in every way, my love. Gienne: that is very sweet, but seriously, I'm asking because you know more about undercover looks; I have to change my hair to not be recognized. Makkaro: oh, right, let me see).

Part of Makkaro's problem with what's on his veins is having more coffeeine than blood.

[motsimages]

I read this post about how pregnancy has its risk and possible permanent damage and was reminded of a Spanish book about private churchs in the middle ages of Navarra.

The schollar, Isabel Mellén, researched churchs in this region that had been paid for by noble women, and she wrote this book to offer a different interpretation of the symbols in many of them. Because usually, the interpretation was that men paid for these churches and so the messages in them were towards women to tell them how to be or women just were not a possibility in the symbols represented in those churches.

Related to births, what I remembered is that she speaks of one church, Nuestra Señora de la Asunción in Alaiza, that has decorated walls with different scenes. Many are battles, but there is one woman giving birth. She says how many people have interpreted this wrong, even though by the drawing it is clear that she is giving birth.

Part of her interpretation is that, the same way war for men was noble, expected, sign of status, and also risky, birth was noble, expected, sign of status and also risky. The women who paid for churchs wanted to show what they did for the lineage, because giving birth is making sure to maintain the lineage, with all the risks it had. To her, it is clear that women, and more in those times, were very much aware of what a birth could entail.

[creamsicle-art]

Exiting vim isn't even hard, if you have the schollar's soul

[genderwoods]

this is a long post talking about my ocs and my wip. feel free to skip!! i just want to get over my embarrassment of talking about them

ok so. to talk about my ocs first i need to talk about the world theyre in. this is still a nameless wip but for now im calling it 'through the mist' while i decide on a better name.

brief explanation about the world: its the modern world as we know, maybe a few years into the future, but its not very important because society and technology are still pretty much the same. the difference is that in this story, the earth was enveloped by a dark and mysterious mist that is invisible to most people. the origins of this mist is still unknown, but what is known is that: 1) it affects peoples health in the areas that the mist is the most dense, and the number of lung diseases and cancer has incresead ever since it appeared. 2) it has some type of dark magic to it. its essence creates demon-like creatures called spectrums (i still want to find a cooler name) that are unknown by most people, but they bring chaos to the world. you can read more about spectrums and understand them better here (please mind any grammar mistakes, it is still a rough draft!)

but there are special people in the world known as the Enlighted that not only can see the mist, but they are aware of the existence of the spectrums and are given special powers to fight them. most of these people are born like normal humans, and only when they grow up they start to realize that they are different and that theres something wrong in the world they live in. once they find out about their own powers, they are located by a institution called Lux Mundi, and they are recruited either to be a scientist and schollar that studies the mist and the spectrums, or to be a warrior and fight the spectrums.

there are three types of enlighted: the lumen (those who are born with paranormal abilities to help them fight the spectrums), the saltium (those who are born with advanced intellect and are able to understand the complexities behind the magic of the mist and the spectrums) and the granum (those who are both lumen and saltium at the same time. they are very rare.)

this is all you need to know to understand the ocs!! i wont say a lot abt their backstories here so to not make the post even longer but if you want to ask me anything about them, feel free!

btw all of these characters are brazilian and the story takes place in brazil bc well. im brazilian and it was easier this way.

also im not an artist so all i have are picrews 💔 sorry for the low quality of some pictures, for some reason tumblr wont show the album i have them saved in when i open the gallery so i had to screenshot.

1. Kaiki Vitorino, 17

she's our main girl! Kaiki was born Salvador, Bahia but moved to São Paulo with her mom when she was a kid. she and her mom were very close, but due to complications caused by a lung disease, she passed away three years prior to the story, and Kaiki had to move in with her aunt (who also lived in São Paulo). Kaiki is very kind and empathetic, she would never hurt a fly and puts other peoples feelings above her own (sometimes a little too much). she loves geology and has a cool rock collection. Kaiki is a lumen, and her powers are called 'Blessed be The Light', which is basically light manipulation. i won't dive in too deep about their powers here, but you can ask me if you want to!

2. Ayla Rodrigues, 17

Kaiki's best friend since childhood (and secretly love interest)! Ayla was born in São Paulo and met Kaiki in school. she has a very complicated family, which includes divorced parents and a dead younger sister, who died in a car accident with her dad when he was drunk driving. she doesn't speak to him anymore, and grief they dont know how to deal with has led her and her mom to a complicated relationship. Ayla is closed off, aloof and even arrogant to most people. When someone wins her heart however, she shows her more vulnerable side: she's a nerd, loves literature, music and cult movies, likes anime, and will do anything for her loved ones, especially Kaiki, who she is so in loved with is embarrassing. she is a lumen, and her powers are called 'Blesed be the Gravity', which is, you guessed! gravity manipulation.

3. Dandara Carvalho, 20

Born and raised at Lux Mundi, Dandara is the Head Trainer of the Lumen's division. Daughter of Eva Carvalho, supreme leader of Lux Mundi's instalations in Brazil, and Isaac Carvalho, Vice-Supreme and Head Counselour for the Saltium's division, Dara is the real deal: strong, disciplined, determined. she has been training since she was a kid, and her mom has always been very strict when it comes to this. Dara was trained by the old Head Trainer before her, an old man called Kaluanã. He was wise beyond this world, but after his passing at the old age of 80yo, Dara took over his functions. Eva wants Dara to be the next Supreme Leader, but all that she wants is to keep training and teaching other Lumens. They have a very strained relationship, but she gets along very well with her dad. Dara may seem intimidating, but she actually has a heart of gold: she's a dork who loves her friends to death and has a loud and weird laugh. she wont stand for injustice and is extremely reliable. shes also extremely, totally down bad for her girlfriend Yasmin. her powers are called 'Blessed be The Fire', but she also knows a lot of different martial arts.

4. Yasmin Senna

Yasmin may not be very impressive at first, but those who know her know that she is, in fact, a genius. Born and raised in São Paulo, Yasmin has always been the pride and joy of her family: as a kid, she was mostly quiet and kept to herself, didnt talk to other kids a lot and prefered to spend the day cracking her toys open to see how they worked. Her bad social skills and reclusion made her an easy target for bullying in elementary school – kids would take her toys away and mess with her all day long. this lead to a fatidic accident where one day she had a meltdown and unleashed her powers, 'Blessed be the Sound', a type of soundwave manipulation, and left everyone in the scene, including her, deaf. nowadays, yasmin uses hearing aids, but she has long ago gotten used to being deaf, and she doesnt mind her disability, but feels extremely guilt for the accident. she's the grandaughter of kaluanã, daras old mentor, but she had only know him as a kid before he moved to Lux Mundi. this is what made dara want to get closer to her at first, but then they feel in love. yasmin is extremely smart – in fact, she is a granum, but she refuses to use her powers, so she only works in the Saltium division.

5. Eric Senna, 19

Yasmin's twin brother, Eric is probably the only out of the Lux Squad that has decent social skills. He's charming, charismatic, funny, smart and has the world's biggest ego. Eric carries a lot of guilt over the bullying that happened with Yasmin, because he feels like he was too weak to protect his sister, so he has kind of become overprotective over her, even this kind of pisses Yasmin off (and Dandara too). he's one of those people that always act like they're the best, but deep down are their own worst enemy. he's talented, has a hundred different hobbies and speaks three languages. eric is always down for challenges and he loves to prank people. he has a cat and dog relationship with Dandara: they're always fighting and bickering, but they truly care for each other a lot. Eric is a lumen and extremely insecure about his powers – 'Blessed be the Thunder', electricity/lightining manipulation – because no matter how much he trains, his powers doesn't seem to get stronger.

These are the 5 main characters kf my wip! WOW ok this was. a lot. If someone has actually read untill now. thanks a lot, and let me know if you have any questions about anything in my wip or about my ocs! I love to talk about them!! :D

[l1zriil]

I feel like mages in fantasy are often just schollars but i like the idea of a blacksmith with fire magic to heat the metal to the perfect temperature or a tavernkeeper using golems as servers. If you wanna be macabre, a necromancer that gives grief counceling.

A druid working in construction to strengthen the foundation or just asking a rat family to please leave etc.

[fruit-salad-ship]

In the Witcher au does Peach’s green thumb come into play? Is she especially good at growing ingredients for tonics, maybe ones that most witchers think can’t be domesticated?

Who’s the best alchemist (I don’t know if there’s a different word for witchers) of the three?

It does come into play but not conventionally with the growing aspect so much. Shes always on the move so sticking around and gardening isnt an option. She finds it very calming, but never gets to do it so much. When its late and the trio talk about their lives, the ones they missed out on, the choices they never got to make, peach always says she'd have enjoyed being a herbalist of some kind, build a little shack away from people, grow a bunch of things in her garden, go hunting, live the simple life. The other two laugh at her for it, not in a mean way, just that its hard to picture her not carrying a sword and shouting abuse at people. They imagine her yelling at the plants to "grow better" and all laugh about it, but honestly she's well fitted to that kind of work.

As it stands she's the best at identifying and harvesting ingredients, and creating tonics, she always had an eye for it, spending countless hours wandering the nearby grounds to her school's keep, learning what she could about the local flora from books or travelling schollars, along side her old teachers. She lacks in the people skills, and is less than suited for book reading, but thats what plum and grey are better suited too. She's proficient in her own ways, and usually makes more than she needs of any potions or tonics to hand to her fellow witchers, give them the edge in battle. Even if she gets things wrong when identifying, her tolerance for poisons means she doesnt die when she makes a bad batch, just...sometimes the others wait to see if she survives her creations before drinking them. just in case. If Peach's toxicity spikes they KNOW she's misbalanced this one and it may actually kill them, she never has the tell tale marks others succum to when ingesting too many potions.

[amandacanwrite]

The Violet Thread of Fate Part Three:

The Scribe's Guild and the Acolyte Errant

Part One || Part Two || Part Three || Part Four || Part Five || Part Six || Part Seven || Part Eight || Join Taglist

Pairing || Elinna Inklynn (Half-drow tav) and Gale Dekarios

Length || 5,400 Words

Scenario || In an alternative timeline for the events of BG3 Elinna Inklynn, an orphan from the Moonshae Islands seeks out the tutelage of accomplished wizard Gale Dekarios of Waterdeep. She has a knack with the Weave, but no money or connections to actually learn how to harness it. She has heard the wizard is a gentleman and a schollar, and hopes she can appeal to him to take her on as his apprentice in exchange for her help around his tower, with his research, and in running errands in Waterdeep. Unfortunately for her, Gale Dekarios does not take on apprentices.

Warnings || Age gap (Perhaps about 10ish years), depiction of depression and heart ache, description of very, very mild body horror. Description of scarring from corporal punishment. Slightly mature themes.

A/n || In the interest of full disclosure: I didn't edit this one. I was too eager to get it out, so please forgive any strange pacing or verbiage. I may edit it tomorrow or sometime soon, but I also primarily write this for fun so I may also not. I actually really enjoyed writing Gale softening up to Elinna a bit, and Elinna sort of losing some of her rose tinted vision for Gale. Perhaps soon they will meet somewhere in the middle. :))

If you like this, you may also like my original works! I have a writing taglist that you can sign up for simply by commenting or reblogging and letting me know you'd like to be added. OR you can fill out this form if you'd like to be specific about which works you'd like to be tagged in.

Tag list || @softvampirewhump @horizonstride @thoughts-of-bear @mymybirdie @tiedyedghoulette @drabblesandimagines @madwomansapologist @hijirikaww @tryingtowritestuff24 @laserlope @auroraesmeraldarose @puckprimrose @dont-try-pesticide @cherifrog @circusofthelastdays  @nourangul

The Scribe’s Guild

Elinna cupped her hands above her eyes, trying to reduce the urge to squint as she looked out over the edge of one of the craggy cliffside peaks. 

“Are you certain you’re alright up there?” Gale asked from the ground. “Not to be a pain, but you haven’t had the greatest track record with heights as of late.”

“I climbed up here–as long as I don’t try to magic my way down, I should be fine,” she called back. “I’m trying to figure out where we are.”

“Any luck?” he called back. 

“You’re distracting me!” she said. 

“Are you one of those people who can only do one mental process at a time?” he asked. “Do you go blind when your ears are in use?”

“I’m one of those people who needs to think to recall the details of all the maps I’ve cataloged at the Nest,” she griped looking down at him. “Now be quiet so I can think.”

She saw him lift a hand and rub the back of his neck before he turned around and sat down to have a pout. She rolled her eyes looking out over the coastline again, trying to cross reference what she could see from her view with the overhead details of maps she’d looked at before.

Gale Dekarios was certainly a…strange archmage. 

Reading transcripts of conversations, reading his treatises–she’d always pictured this stately, almost dry sort of fellow. Someone who would sniff before correcting her about something–or stand perpetually with his nose pointed at the ceiling so you always knew he was looking down at you past it. 

But he was just…well–a sort of awkward, somewhat humorous man. 

They’d been wandering for some time–Gale had a good sense for what was north, south, east and west, but there was only so much that one could do when unaware of where the starting point was.

The shame of things was that they were in some random locale with very few cities about. She’d learned much about Baldur’s Gate, Amn, Waterdeep–places she wished to visit. If there was Gale’s tower nearby–or perhaps Sorcerous Sundries–she could have been able to pluck it out of the landscape with ease. 

Instead, as she looked out off the cliff, she only saw shoreline give way to worn out cobbled roads. Some sort of village obscured the haze of distance and…well nothing familiar. She pursed her lips before chewing slightly on the bottom one; a nervous habit that often left her with metallic-tasting patches on the inside of her lip. 

“Well?” Gale said a bit impatiently. 

She was just about to give him the bad news–that she found nothing of note and had no idea which way to go–when a shadow darkened the ground from somewhere overhead. She looked up to find a black blot against the light blue of the sky–a dire raven with a wingspan of about 10 feet, armored in the colors of a the Scribe’s Guild; pale tan leathers, brass metal and mist green canvas. 

She found herself smiling despite the fact that she’d told herself she’d never look at a Scribe’s Guild after leaving The Nest. She watched for a while longer as the large avian swooped through the sky and then landed on the parapet of a distant stone structure. 

“We’re in luck!” she called down to Gale.

“Are we?” he asked. “You didn’t happen to have found a cleric of legendary skill up there did you?”

“Not that much luck,” she said as she started to climb down the rocky face of the cliff.

“Are you sure you ought to be doing that?” he asked. “It seems awfully dangerous.”

“As we just covered, I’ll be fine so long as I don’t use magic,” she responded. “I’m used to climbs.”

Looking down to find her perch, she carefully lighted her foot on the boulder where she started her climb, and turned to find Gale waiting for her, a single hand offered up to her to assist her down from the small height. 

“You don’t have to do that,” she said. “It’s not that high up.”

“Best not to risk it,” he said. “The twist of an ankle could mean the difference between humanity and ceremorphosis, considering our plight.”

Elinna nibbled on her lower lip and nodded, placing her hand in his. His calloused fingers closed around her hand and he lifted his other hand to grasp her waist. She stepped off the stone and he supported her weight easily, lowering her to the ground smoothly. 

“So,” he said, not taking his hands away yet. “You’ve kept me in suspense, Elinna. Why are we in luck?”

“I just saw a Dire Raven,” she said. “One of the ones we use to transport records between different chapters of the Scribe’s Guild.”

“The what?” he asked. 

“The Scribe’s guild,” she said. “I told you, I was their ward in the Moonshae Islands.”

“Did you?” he asked. 

She sighed and gave him a disappointed look. “You really didn’t listen to me at all back in Waterdeep.”

His hand twitched on her waist as his brow furrowed. “Well that’s hardly fair,” he said. “You were a stranger standing right outside of my home. Why should I have?”

“Courtesy,” she said sourly as she turned away from him and started to walk down the pathway in the direction she watched the dire raven fly. 

She tried to ignore the tingling feeling in the tips of her fingers as her hand left his; the feeling of absence at her waist as she lost the weight of his hand. 

“Oh, come now–” he said, his face screwing with offense and hurrying after her. “Don’t imply that I was being discourteous when you were the one showing up at a strange man’s home unannounced!”

“It’s not as if I let myself in!” she said back. 

“Wait, you still haven’t told me what the Scribe’s Guild is,” he said, finally catching up to her.

“I assumed you would know what it is,” she said looking sidelong and up at him.

“I confess I’ve not heard of it,” he said. 

She sighed and looked ahead. Maybe she didn’t want to tell him if he didn’t already know, she thought. She wasn’t sure she was ready to reveal just how sheltered her life was before heading to Waterdeep. 

But they were now headed for the local archive and he was going to find out either way so…

“The scribe’s guild is a redundancy,” she said. “It’s one of the realm’s most extensive collections of information. If you’re looking for a book, a scroll, a record of some obscure property dispute… you can find it there. I was raised in one.”

“So, you’re a scribe?” he asked her. “You write books–collect this information and dole it out to those who need it?”

She pursed her lips. “I wasn’t a scribe myself,” she said. “I was a clerk.”

“So you were in training,” he said. “Assisting the scribes so that you could take on the task.”

She felt her skin pinken with warmth, afraid to disclose the truth–afraid of what it would look like. “Not quite,” she said. “The ArchLibrarian thought I wasn’t suited to the work.”

“Why not?” he asked. 

“Because I was too fun,” she said, her walls going up a little higher. “If you must know.”

“My,” he said. “Did I hit a nerve?”

“It seems like you’re looking for reasons to think poorly of me,” she said. 

“It seems like you’re hiding reasons to think poorly of you,” he said. “So, what was it? Sleeping on the job? Theft? Did you try to cast a cantrip and  Did you come looking for me because they turned you out and cut you off?”

“Gods,” she said looking up at him, a little line forming between her brows and her face getting even warmer with embarrassment. “You really do think I’m a wastrel, don’t you?”

“No I don’t!” he said. 

“What happened to you being worried about seeming an ill-mannered man?” she asked.

“Elinna–you’re young–youth is made for mistakes. You think I was always an upstanding young man while in attendance at Blackstaff?” he said. “I slept through most of my Calashite lessons.”

“Don’t lie to me to try and get dirt on me,” Elinna said as she walked faster.. “Don’t mock me like that.”

“Elinna–Elinna, would you slow down?” he said. 

“No. I want to get to the Scribe’s Guild.”

“We will get there with plenty enough time before sundown,” he said, grabbing her arm. “Elinna, stop.”

She stopped but didn’t look up at him, she couldn’t make herself do it. She didn’t know what was more embarrassing for her; the fact that she’d hardly seen any of the world, the fact that her guardians felt she was inept and flighty, or the fact that she was quite acting like a petulant child with Gale when she only wished to prove to him that she could be a good student. 

Maybe seeking him out had been a mistake from the start. She’d spent so long reading about Gale and his work–learning about his unique understanding of magic–reading his writings…in some ways she’d convinced herself that he was already a friend. 

She’d never thought about how trying to become his apprentice also meant sharing her qualifications and the more time she spent talking to him the more she realized she had none. 

She could feel him looking at her almost indulgently–like a man speaking to a child. 

She didn;t know why she hated that most of all. 

“Elinna, forgive me for prying,” he said. “I was just trying to get to know you a little better. From what I can tell there is a significant distance between here and Waterdeep and it will be a much more pleasant journey if we get to know one another a little bit as we travel, don’t you think?”

Elinna smoothed her amber hair away from her brow, cupping her hand on her forehead as if checking herself for fever. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, finally. . “I think I’m just tired.”

“I can only imagine…what with going from the islands, to Waterdeep so climbing up cliff sides and now we have to walk even further? We can swap notes later,” he said with a gentle smile. “Let’s focus on getting to this place–maybe they can put us up for an evening or at least point us in the direction of the nearest town.”

Elinna nodded before heaving a great sigh. 

“It shouldn’t be long,” she said. “Maybe just a few hours of walking from here.”

“Excellent,” he said. “Lead on.”

The Acolyte Errant

Elinna was a curious girl. 

She was somehow equal measures breezy and intense; lackadaisical and earnest. He didn’t know what to make of the dichotomy. He knew even less what to do with the strange secrecy she had about her former home. 

Perhaps it was a bit of paranoia–after all, he had his own secrets he was keeping. It was perhaps more than a little hypocritical of him to fault her for hers. 

“So, tell me more about The Scribe’s Nest,” he said, trying to change the subject to something more informative and a little less personal.

“Specifically The Nest? Or the guild in general?” she asked. 

“Mm…if it’s not too personal for you, The Nest. You said that’s where you grew up right?” he said. 

She nodded, wiping sweat off her brow. The day was beginning to get hot, so he had to think they were further down south than Waterdeep and the islands. It was much cooler this time of year–hence the layers both he and Elinna wore. 

“Uhm–The Nest in Moonshae is in an old abandoned temple to Ilmater,” she told him. “My mother left me there thinking that it was a safe place for me to grow up–thinking I’d be cared for by clerics. But The Nest was already there.”

“I see,” Gale said, feeling for the girl but trying not to let it come through in his tone. “I suppose they took you in anyway?”

She nodded again. “They did,” she said. “Still not sure why, if I’m honest–they have a few oaths they had to make in exchange for financial support. Even so, there were other temples in the area that probably could have taken me in. But uh–anyway. The way that the scribes work is they receive funds from the local government and they use those funds to pay a fleet of scouts to get word back to us about the goings on in the world. The scribes record it, make copies of each account and send them to the other branches.”

“Hells,” he said. “That sounds like quite the expensive endeavor.”

“It is–and the scribes outsource the work so that there’s no conflict of interest. No scribes out wandering the world trying to spin tales. They have a motto: ‘We Are The Accuracy In The Indulgent The Composed in the Chaotic.’” She said. “In other words, they try to record everything as plainly and as closely to the facts as possible. In addition to that, they try to have copies of every written work ever produced.”

“How can that even be quantified or verified for that matter?” Gale asked. 

“Like I said–they try,” she said. “It’s all very tedious if you ask me.”

“I’m shocked I haven’t heard of this place–it sounds like a veritable treasure trove of knowledge,” he said. 

“The scribes don’t open the vaults to many,” she said. “They consider their work one of posterity; a record of history, not a resource to be plumbed. They don’t even really indulge in reading the records themselves.”

“That sounds….extraordinarily wasteful,” He said. 

He saw Elinna finally crack a smile at that. “I couldn’t agree more,” she said. “Wasteful, boring, depressing.”

He was itching to ask her if that was why she’d left what she’d had as a home for…well however long she’d been alive. She looked remarkably young, but with half-elves that hardly meant much. For all he knew she was his age. 

“Elinna, do you mind if I ask how old you are?” he asked. 

She looked up at him, her brow quirking. “Uhm–I’ve had twenty-eight summers so far,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

Ah–around ten years younger than he was. No wonder she seemed so restless when she’d come to find him at his tower. Most Wizards were well into their studies at Blackstaff by now, or at least had some reasonable amount of aptitude with the weave. “Just curious,” he said shrugging. “You look young but you’re also not complaining, or panicking, or well–other things I would expect a young person to be doing in this situation.”

He wasn’t sure if he was reading it correctly, but he could have sworn that she pressed her lips a bit to avoid smiling. Was the poor girl such a stranger to praise that the simple pointing out of her maturity could make her have to stop a flustered smile from forming on her lips?”

“I guess I just feel like anything is preferable to being stuck in that dusty old tower,” she said. 

There was a sort of…sadness to her words. A quality he recognized first hand. 

Not sadness, he realized as he saw one of his own feelings mirrored back at him. Regret. 

But that was not a subject he wished to bring up–not when the questions could so easily be turned back onto him.

“Well, Elinna,” he said, changing the subject. “You have Gale of Waterdeep with you–I’m a captive audience as we walk to the guild hall. Anything I can impress you with?” 

It was an olive branch, of sorts. It, of course, wasn’t the first time he’d met some hopeful magician who wanted to pick his brain. Usually he politely shooed them away, but he figured that extending the offer might cheer her up.

“I’m quite well read on the subject,” she answered. 

Wait…had he missed the question while he was patting himself on the back for being open to bragging? “Sorry–which subject is that?” he asked.

Her face flushed and she gave him a furtive look with those pretty green eyes. She cleared her throat and pushed some hair behind her ear. 

“Uhm–you–” she said finally. “I’ve read everything the archive has that even has a tangential mention of your name in it.”

He blinked, feeling glad for the fact that she was looking most pointedly away from him. “Ah,” he said, trying to master his tone. “Well–should we crosscheck the scribe’s records? Tell me what you know and I can correct anything that’s wrong.”

“We’ll be here for hours if I do that…” she mumbled under her breath. 

Now it was his turn to flush–until he realized–

“Wait, I thought you said that the scribes don’t read the records–” he said. 

“I did,” she said, looking over at him with a sheepish little smile. “That’s why they said I’m not suited for the work. It’s why they keep me on shelving duty.”

Ah–that was what she meant when she said she was used to climbing.

Suddenly there was an uncomfortable pressure in his skull as he saw flashes of giant stacks of dusty tomes, heard the squeaking of a half-broken wheel on a cart, felt rawness on his fingertips from shelving books and records; the deep ache of tired muscles.

When he was able to focus again, Elinna was crouched a few feet ahead, her gloved hands pressing on the sides of her head. 

“W-was that a memory?” Gale asked. “Did you just send me a memory?”

“No,” she said weakly. “Gods…that was…I could feel you in my head–”

“I didn’t–it wasn’t something I did on purpose,” he said frantically. 

He felt as embarrassed as a young man might be during his first time with a lover. It’d been years since he’d accidentally used his magic. Not since he was an adolescent. 

“I think it’s the parasite,” she said. “Mindflayers are part of a hive mind–maybe it’s the start of that tether forming to it.”

“I’m loath to face that possibility, but you may be right,” Gale said grimly as he walked over to her and offered a hand. “You alright?”

“Just exhausted, I think,” she said as she took his hand. “It felt like the parasite was pulling at the seams of my mind, extracting those images like thread through the eye of a needle.”

“Aptly put,” he said, finally helping her up. 

“Let’s just hurry to the guild,” she said. 

It was a bit of a grueling trek after that. The pathway mostly uphill and on rocky, uneven pathways. Wherever this guild branch was, it was clear enough to him that the scribes had no interest in being bothered or visited. He wasn’t so worried about himself, though–if anything, he was worried about Elinna. 

Thinking about it–she’d originally mentioned that she was looking for a place to live when he met her and she’d asked him to take her on as a student. He wondered when the last time she’d slept was. It wasn’t uncommon for passengers unused to traveling by ship to sleep poorly on them. The voyage between the Moonshae Islands and Waterdeep was probably close to a tenday, give or take a day or two. 

He felt a little guilty, now, that he had let her climb up the cliffside to help them get their bearings; that he couldn’t be of more assistance with some kind of charm or boon. 

As predicted, it took them about another two hours to make it to the base of a decaying old castle. He didn’t recognize it, and from what he could tell there were no real markings on it to distinguish what lineage or people it could have belonged to at one point. 

He looked up as another dire raven–or perhaps the same one he hadn’t seen before–took flight from one of the crumbling parapets, then he looked over at Elinna. 

She was still damp with sweat, but her exerted flush had given way to an almost sickly sort of pallor. He worried for a moment that she may already be starting the process of ceremorphosis–but if that was the case, why hadn’t the same happened to him? 

“Fucking stairs,” she groaned as she bent over and braced her hands on her knees. “I think I may need to sit for just a moment.”

Gale looked at the stairs and then back at her. He quirked his lips slightly, weighing the number of stairs against the health of his knees. 

“I know once you sit it will be all the more difficult for you to get up and get going,” he said. “Let me carry you the rest of the way.”

She balked at him, her verdant eyes wide and a bit of her flush returning to her freckled cheeks. He tried not to think about how charming the look of surprise was. “Y-you can’t,” she said. “I’m filthy–and drenched besides. And I’ll be too heavy.”

“Nonsense,” he insisted. “You hardly come up to my shoulder–and it’s not as if I’m a fine example of cleanliness at the moment. You can tell me proper decorum as we make our way up.”

“Gale–”

“I won’t take no for an answer,” he said with a little teasing glimmer in his eyes. 

He kneeled in front of her, back toward her, and patted his shoulder. “Climb on,” he said. 

There was nothing for a moment and he almost looked back to see if she was going to stubbornly refuse. But just as he was going to, he felt tentative fingertips on his right shoulder; then his left. She smoothed her hand toward the front of him, drawing a tingling line along his collarbones. He tried not to flinch as her hands joined right over the spot the orb burned in his chest, but he couldn’t stop it. 

She froze and almost started withdrawing. He reached up and closed a single hand over both of hers. 

“Did I hurt you?” she asked him.

“Not at all,” he said. “Remember–I’ve been a recluse for some time. Just forgot what it felt like to be touched by someone who isn’t a tressym.”

There was one more moment of hesitation and then finally, Elinna put her weight onto him, hitching her legs above his hips. 

“Alright,” he said. “Going up.”

He scooped his hands under her knees and rose to his feet. 

Truth be told, she was a touch heavier than he’d expected. And he realized with a bit of rueful interest that her body was a little…softer…than he’d anticipated. Even through her layers of canvas and leather, he could feel the supple swell of her thighs, her hips, her breasts…

He shook his head and cleared his throat as he started to climb the stairs. 

“So, what’s our story?” he asked. 

“Mmn–story?” she breathed against his ear. 

Gods, she sounded like a freshly roused lover in the morning. 

“You’re not falling asleep back there, are you?” he asked. 

“Trying not to,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Keep talking to me,” he said. “It will help you stay awake.”

And give me something to stop my mind from drifting to what might be beneath your clothes. He thought with no shortage of disgust in himself. 

“Mmh–visitors are prohibited, usually,” she said, her sleepy slurring sending a chill up his spine. “Since you’re carrying me in…maybe tell them you found me unconscious on the ground. They can refuse scholars, but they have an oath to help the needy. Hence…me…”

“The lady deceives,” Gale teased. “I thought you were above such dishonesty.”

She gave a quiet chuckle. “If the guild needs a bit of encouragement to do what is right, who am I to deny it?” Then after a moment. “Thank you…for carrying me. You didn’t have to do that.”

“It’s no bother,” he said. 

And it really wasn’t, aside from his own traitorous thoughts about her. His knees weren’t even tired when he reached the top of the stairs. He looked back at her sidelong. “Hang onto me will you–afraid I’ll need one of these hands.”

He regretted asking her to do that immediately. Her thighs squeezed a little tighter around his middle and he suddenly wished for death. He opened the door as quickly as he could, and went back to holding her knee. 

Inside there was…no one to be found. At least not at first. 

Then came the sound of soft soles scuffing on stone stairs. He gazed to the right, seeing a shadow elongate as it grew further and further away from some torch or sconce further up on the stairs. 

A moment later, a wizened man peered at him through small spectacles on a crooked nose. 

He was dressed somewhat like Elinna, though the embroidery and fastenings on his clothes were finer. On his lapel, he wore a golden dire raven pin with a quill snatched in it’s beak.The pin was connected to a chain from which dangled a single golden key. 

“You’ve reached The Scribe’s Perch,” he said, his voice quiet and willowy, like it had frayed through years of neglect. “I fear we’re not taking visitors.”

In front of Gale’s chest, Elinna’s arms went slack and her body went a little heavier. Her head rested fully on his shoulder, her sleeping breaths gusting warmly on the back of his neck. He supposed it worked better for the tale he had to weave–though he did worry for the poor girl. 

“I’ve found one of your acolytes on the path some way away from here. She seems feverish–likely hungry and dehydrated. She’s gone in and out of consciousness but told me to find you here and ask for you help. Help for both of us.”

The old man merely tilted to get a look at Elinna with a somewhat disinterested expression. “Mnh…there are protocols in place for this, yes,” he said. “An inconvenience to say the least, though. We will have to make arrangements for your supper.”

Gale felt his ire flare and found himself understanding why Elinna seemed so sour about where she’d been reared. It was a wonder she made it out of childhood with her curiosity and her tenacity intact. 

“If it’s too much of a bother, I can see to producing a meal for us,” he said, trying his best to master his tone. 

“No, no,” the man said. “The smells–the oils–they could upset the balance and focus of the archives. Come–I will see you to a lodging for the night. I am afraid I must ask you to stay there and to not wander our halls freely. And you must leave come morning.”

“I thought you had an oath to help the needy,” Gale said. 

“The qualifying criteria which defines who or what is needy is not agreed upon,” he said. “The girl is unconscious, but you stand and walk freely. Surely she is hardly needy if she has you.”

“She’s one of your acolytes,” Gale said. “Surely you can’t be so callous.”

“She’s not an acolyte from The Perch. We do not allow women among our ranks–their scents and scintillations bring focus away from posterity. I allow you to stay only because she still wears our colors and because we’ve received no missive about a disgraced acolyte,” he said. “But there has been a great collision on the shoreline and we work tirelessly to record it.”

“Well you’re in luck–we’re survivors from that crash–we can help you–”

“No. We only accept the accounts of verified scouts,” he said. “Now come–I’ve wasted precious time already. My quill will have started to dry out.”

Gale bit his tongue and simply nodded–worried that if the man showed is rudeness and disinterest again he would snap at the Scribe and lose them a night of rest and the chance to bathe and change. 

Their ungracious host led them up the stairs, past a massive steel door singing with wards, and to a doorway about as tall as Elinna. The Scribe opened the lock with his tiny golden key–a skeleton key it seemed–and gestured him inside. 

Gale bent a bit at the knees, careful to mind Elinna’s head as he ducked into the room. 

“Thank you,” he said. 

“Supper is at seven bells. Porridge, roasted carrots and river fish–you will have to come retrieve it yourself–the kitchens are down the stairs we traveled up and through the small northern wooden door,” their host said. 

And with that, the man simply closed the door and left Gale alone with Elinna. 

Gale looked about the room. 

It was small, about the size of the larder in his tower, and barren. In one corner, a threadbare sheet hung to offer pock-marked privacy should one bathe in the water-swollen, wooden tub there. There was a single desk with a nearly-spent candle perched slantingly in a chamberstick made of brass. Against the far wall stood the bed–

The Bed. 

Singular. 

Only one bed. 

Oh hells, it would be a very long night indeed. 

He carried Elinna over to the bed and carefully cradled her against his back as he pulled back the mildew-smelling covers. Beneath was an old hay mattress. He felt loath to place her on it, but he hadn’t enough energy to conjure something more comfortable for her. 

He supposed it didn’t matter for tonight–the poor girl just needed some sleep. 

He carefully placed her in the bed and hesitated, pondering.

She’d spent so much time during their travels complaining of the feeling of viscera in her clothes; her shoes. He could only imagine how terrible it would feel for her to wake up, warm and damp from feverish sleep, only to still feel soggy boots and garments on your body. 

It wasn’t proper. He wasn’t even sure it would be welcome. But it was a gesture toward her comfort he could actually provide. 

He carefully slipped off her boots, setting them off to the side in a blood-soaked heap. Then he removed her leather gloves, and finally, the waistcoat she wore. 

Beneath her green canvas, she wore a simple muslin dress that fell just slightly off the shoulders. He noted with a bit of curious mirth, that she had a smattering of freckles across the bare skin of her decolletage and arms as well. He wondered how many times she’d had to sneak away from her duties to get those. 

Then he saw something else. 

On the inside of one delicate wrist, he spotted the hint of a violet patch of skin. In a brief panic he turned her arm over to get a better view of it, worried that her transformation may be starting, after all. 

Instead, what he found was scarring. Violet scars forming a ladder of tidy caning marks on the tender skin of the inside of her arm. 

“No wonder you wanted to get out,” he said under his breath as he brushed his thumb against the marks. They were only barely raised. They’d been there a long time then. For some reason it hurt his heart to think of a smaller, squeakier Elinna as her caretakers tried and clearly failed to tame the wonder out of her. 

Perhaps it was because he had also been punished severely for his ambition and thirst for knowledge, but he could no longer bear to see her in the greens, tans and creams of The Scribe’s Guild. Not when there was so much she’d had to fight to keep hold of. 

He thought he could maybe find a pocket somewhere. If he rested he ought to be able to, anyway. Or if not, he could try to look around the grounds and scrounge something up for each of them to change into. And maybe a few supplies for setting up camp, too, since they wouldn’t be granted time to catch their bearings at The Perch. 

He pulled the worn blanket up enough to cover her arms, but not so high that the smell of mildew could wake her. 

He walked over to the tiny door and looked back over his shoulder one more time to make sure she was still quite asleep. 

And then he slipped out of their sorry room to find a place to restore himself.