#stormlit (ylfa)

[heartsdefine]

a random starter from eleven for ylfa / @stormlit

        elle isn't stupid; she knows there's a potential for anything coming out of the upside down to be dangerous. that's why she doesn't wake hop when she has the dream she knows is actually real. that's why she grabs a flashlight and heads out into the woods to investigate on her own. because she also knows, somehow, that this being won't be dangerous to her. eleven feels as if there's some invisible thread connecting them, some sameness that she doesn't understand. and that's why she decides she needs to find them.

        so she picks her way through the woods in the drizzling rain, scanning the trees with her flashlight, squinting as the narrow beam of light cuts through the darkness. that's when she hears it; the sound of someone approaching. elle stops, frozen and listening. above the light sound of raindrops on the leaves, she can hear twigs snapping. an irritated growl. she swings around, leveling the flashlight on the space between two trees where she's pretty sure the sound is coming from.

        “hello?” she calls, uncertainly. “i'm here…” she's not sure if the person she saw in her dreams saw her back.

[highaver]

@stormlit.

"What have you done to your hair, child?"

Covered as it was by her hood, Balfour could still see a messy attempt at pigtails sticking out from beneath her cloak. She looked as if she had just been dragged backward through the underbrush behind a speeding horse.

[thiefscant]

starter call — accepting! ↳ @stormlit (ylfa)

        "no one else is gonna save you." anais stands, arms crossed, watching the young warrior practice her skills on a tree. "you'd best get good at saving yourself. and fast."

[dernhelmalso]

"Do you consider us friends?"

@stormlit (ylfa) — prompts / accepting.

Éowyn sits among the women and children of Rohan, sharp grey eyes trained steadily on the cavern ceiling, trapped in the belly of Helm's Deep as they listen to each heavy step of the encroaching army. One small child whose father is fighting overhead—and whose mother perished in one of the initial raids—huddles in close against the White Lady's side, shaking with untold fear.

And she has never felt so helpless.

With her free hand resting on the hilt of her sword beside her, Éowyn does her best not to think about what might be happening above their heads—or how she can do nothing to help them. She turns to Ylfa when she speaks, having not even realize the child was next to her until that moment. And she tries to smile.

"But of course, I consider us friends, dear Ylfa." She lifts a hand from her sword to brush a stray strand of Ylfa's hair back from her face. This one is no more pleased to be stuck in the caverns than Éowyn is herself. A distraction. "Who else could ever be so skilled at helping me pilfer sweets from the kitchens before the dinner bell chimes?"

[avernusdamned]

@stormlit (for ylfa!) / starter call.

" Hey, kid. " Karlach's hand finds Ylfa's shoulder, grasping securely before pulling her into a sudden hug to her side. It only lasts a few moments but the squeeze is warm and joyful nonetheless. When they pull back to get a good look at Ylfa, Karlach's smile is beaming. She adores this kid. (She likes all the kids around here, they remind her of how badly she wishes she was protected when she was their age.) And it's fun to know she's just as scrappy as Karlach. " Was just wondering where you'd run off to. You busy right now? "

[atomiqueen]

        lucy chuckles softly, shaking her head. “keep your coppers. we can play with these. plus it's not really gambling if it's pretend, right?” her eyes crinkle at the corners with a smile as she counts out half of the ball bearings into each of their hands. “best to keep them in a pocket while they're not in use,” she adds while tucking her share into one of the pockets on the front of her leather harness. “they like to roll around and escape.”

        settling in opposite ylfa, lucy listens carefully as the girl explains the rules, nodding along. “sounds simple enough to me. we'll play by those rules. i'll shuffle first.” she takes the cards in her hands and separates them into two piles, fanning them together and then arcing them further into place. “your grandma sounds like a real hoot. i'd have liked to meet her, i think.” after a few shuffles, she offers the cards back to ylfa. “you deal.”

❝ oh, they work great! because i don't have any money. well, i have, like, five copper. mostly 'cause i found them on the road. ❞ it's probably a good idea for her to gamble with something that isn't money, anyway; ylfa's only twelve, and she doesn't really care about it anyway. she just wants to play. wants to do something that seems like it might be something close to normal, for a little while, as though she can pretend she's back in grandma's cabin instead of this camp with a bunch of near-strangers. but they're not so bad. lucy's really nice. ylfa likes her a lot.

she sits cross-legged and shuffles the cards. ❝ you're trying to build either groups of the same number, or a sequence in the same suit. each turn you take from either the stock or discard pile and then you gotta discard one of your cards. that's how we played it, anyway. i dunno if it has different rules in other places. sometimes grandma got a bit loosey-goosey with the rules. in general. she'd let me drink caffeine after noon and everything. ❞

[hostiae]

( @stormlit asked: ❛   take down .   forcefully  bring  my  muse  to  the  ground . (ylfa & any of your lotr characters bc it makes me laugh thinking about them dealing with a 12 y/o werewolf barbarian, yell at me if you want more info on her than that) )

the ranger hits the ground with an unceremonious thud, breath knocked out of him. his bearings are gone, reflexes halted as all he can do is lift his upper half from the forest floor, eyes seeking out the culprit.

he's surprised to see a girl ( no older than a child ). the strength behind the tackle has him stunned, much less the why and where she came barreling from. aragorn wipes a hand over his forehead, rather than reach for a weapon ( which would have been his first instinct if had been something more nefarious ).

❝ do you tackle everyone you meet in the woods? ❞

[storystrung]

" I think today's the day. " Timothy approaches with excitement but there is nothing loud or bumbling about it. Timothy's excitement is translated by the width of his smile, the tight clasping of hands after rubbing palms together, and the way he bounces slightly on the heel of his feet as he announces himself to Ylfa. " We are going to master the art of hair braiding. " they've all been through so very much up to this point and a breather is always welcome when it finds them. Plus, there is a very large part of him that wants Ylfa to know she is still a child despite the burden she carries. " What do you say? Willing to let me give it a shot? "

@stormlit requested MOTHER GOOSE for LITTLE RED.

[sthrlnd1]

@stormlit asked: “I trust you.”

ㅤ“ Yeah? ” Balfour smiles at that, some genuine and warm thing. Ylfa is a good kid, if not something of an absolute terror when you put her on the pitch. He'd not really known what he was getting himself into when he agreed to do some coaching at various schools - but if he can help her out at all, in any way, as he seems to be doing, then Balfour reckons it's worth it. “ Well, that means a lot coming from you. ” He watches her face for a moment, and then has to ask: “ Is everything alright? ”

[highaver]

@stormlit.

ㅤ“ Who taught you to fight? ” An innocent enough question, asked in the pouring rain as they hunched under a makeshift shelter. His eyes were on the princess, ever vigilant, but his question was directed to the little girl. A moment later, he turned to look her way. “ Not the old man. ”

[highaver]

@stormlit / continued.

"I got that for you," Balfour says, lightly and simply. His smile is sweet, which it always is with Ylfa, who is too young to not have somebody try and look out for her. Sitting down beside her - on the floor, which his knee did not love - he held a hand out for Scratch, and regretted not asking Elethea for a spare potion of animal speaking. The dog pads over all the same, and Balfour greets him with a pleased "Hello, Scratch!" before giving him some scratches behind the ear.

"You can eat that for yourself, I don't mind. We're going to have some fish later, I heard. Don't want to spoil my appetite." He glances at the cards Ylfa is packing away. "What were you doing?"

[highaver]

"You might not," he offered lightly. Ylfa had seemed fine enough on the boat in the Underdark, though Balfour was well aware that such a thing was quite different to the open sea. There was only one way to find out, though, and frankly, the two of them were in sore need of something to look forward to in the future. They needed a future to look forward to at all.

Highever, then. Home.

"But, if you don't like it, there's plenty more to do. The castle's quite old - so is the town, actually. You could spend the rest of your life exploring and never run out of new things to find." He smiled. Warm and gentle. "Think of all the trouble you could get up to."

❝ has it been yours forever? your family's, i mean, even you're not as old as a castle. ❞ it feels strange, to talk about the future, when none of them are sure they have one. ylfa hasn't let herself think about an after, because what's waiting for her, really? but a castle is. we're family is. maybe she's going to have to stop being so sure that they're all going to either die or become twisted into something new, if she wants to see balfour's castle. at least she already knows elethea; she's not really the kind of girl a fancy family would want to adopt, even if their son or brother had.

and so she has this: family, and promises not to disappear without warning, and a hope that there might be a time to go somewhere new without all the horror following them around. ylfa thinks she can hold onto that.

ylfa nods, her tongue too clumsy to find the words she wants, to tell balfour how much it means, even if he's only offering this to cheer her up, how she feels more like he's her family than the ones she was related to by blood. how she would be devastated to lose him. ❝ i've never been sailing. never really been on a boat, except the one in the underdark. i might get really seasick. ❞

[highaver]

georgie's 5'4, apparently avg for ylfa's age is like 4'7?? from what i can work out????

@stormlit / we're doing height comparisons, besties!

Ylfa basically only just reaches his elbow, I need her to be serious so badly. Both of them are also arm rest height, apologies. He does it lovingly.

[highaver]

@stormlit asked: ❛ did you miss me? ❜

ㅤ“ I always miss you. ” Balfour kissed her forehead, that same fatherly gesture he offered every time it was she came to see him. One day - perhaps even soon, at the rate she was growing - this would become quite a difficult task. She was growing quickly, his Ylfa, and something told Balfour that she would soon be taller than him. For now, at least, her forehead remained at a more or less reachable height.

ㅤNaturally, he had to comment on it.

ㅤ“ My, but you're getting tall. I swear, you were this small, last time you were here. ” He gestures comically short - shorter than she had even been when they first met - and grins. “ What have you been eating? ”

[highaver]

@stormlit asked: ❛ promise me you’ll still be here when i wake up. ❜

It's only Ylfa's words that convince Balfour to look up from his sketchbook. He's been distant this evening, unable to shake Orin and her cruel tricks from his mind. She consumes the pages of his diary like everything else; she is everywhere he turns, even when he should be safe. Hidden under the skin of another, between the once-sacred pages of his journal. When Ylfa's words finally register, Balfour thinks she must have heard him talking to Elethea of his desperation. I will go and end Orin myself if you don't act soon.

He is ever the fool. The look on Ylfa's face makes his heart ache.

"I'm not going anywhere," he promises. Setting his sketchbook down, he makes a little room beside where he sits for Ylfa to come and join him. "And if I was, I would tell you. You know that." He supposes that he can't blame her for not being sure. The smile he offers her is slight but warm. And tired. "What has you so worried, Ylfa?"

[highaver]

"You'd look quite fierce."

He watched Elethea's back as they walked, one of the few sure things he knew to follow in this world, vaguely aware of the conversation happening around him. Camp was such a way away. And they were all exhausted, weren't they? The sheer effort it took to get out of there... Well, Balfour would be glad for the rest once it was they were somewhere safer.

He squeezed Ylfa's hand, when it was they were back outside. Among the trees and fresh air. The breeze bushed across his skin and he thought, for now, that that might do to revive him.

"Go ask Shadowheart to take a look at you." No matter how rotten Balfour might have felt, Ylfa was the priority. "I'll be right here. I need to keep an eye on our backs. But she'll make certain you're well and seen to, aye?"

❝ i didn't know siblings did that. not really. it seemed like a thing that happens in stories. ❞ she has seen, of course, how much balfour cares for elethea, knows how much he cares for her, but there is a difference in looking out for somebody at camp, being someone to spar with or talk to, and braving a dead one's chosen, risking your own life in the process. ylfa could have died here. she thought it was inevitable, didn't know why orin was keeping her alive when she could already impersonate her, be as good an ylfa as the real thing. but balfour could have died, too. he nearly did, by the looks of him.

she's never had a big brother before. never had a family that cared for her, aside from her grandma, and she's gone now. ylfa doesn't want to lose him. certainly not for her sake.

she sniffs, looking over her shoulder at the corpse on the ground before she turns away, walking as slowly as balfour needs her to. ❝ i'm gonna learn how to free myself, ❞ she says, because this can't happen again, won't happen again; she'll talk to astarion about lockpicking, or figure out how to become a bird from halsin, or something. something ylfa can figure out later, when she feels better. ❝ 'cause i'd go to the hells for you, too. and we can't both be stuck in the hells, i don't think horns would go well with my ears. ❞