#tumet

[keeperesque]

just got to solution nine tonight.

[losttranslator]

(toujours dans mon habitude de creuser le symbolisme biblique chez arthur, j'aimerais mentionner que c'est interdit dans la loi de moïse de prendre deux sœurs comme épouses/concubines, pcq ça crée une rivalité entre elles et tu mets la discorde dans leur famille. on peut ajouter ça à la liste des fautes d'arthur - ou en tout cas des preuves que si il y a bel et bien des dieux qui cautionnent son comportement jusqu'à un certain point, c'est les dieux païens et certainement pas Dieu)

[kaantt]

Kaamelott incorrect quotes:

Azilis : So did you sing Demetra a love song like I told you?

Aelis : Yeah.

Tumet : And what did she say?

Aelis : That she'd rather listen to Yvain's singing on repeat than go out with me.

[ishgard]

the smell of rain & wisteria

--

(aka "ma! there's this weird lizard outside!")

[areslovechild]

this took forever due to me forgetting how to render lmao

some closeups of eki cuz im loving this piece atm ☝️

[paintedscales]

AuRaugust 2023 - Day 30 - Dawn & Dusk

"I was raised for ten summers without a name. Such is the way of the Tumet."

"In my tenth summer, I was tied to a sacred tree and made to free myself from it. In your tongue, you call them dawn pines. In essence, freeing yourself from these 'dawn pines' is like starting the dawn of a new day. A dawn of having proved yourself worthy of the tribe -- of a name."

"I was always worthy. Even without that trial."

"My name is Nomin tal Kheeriin. In your tongue: Lapis of the Steppe. I gave myself that name, and decided I would not be part of a tribe. For I am of the Steppe -- all the experiences and lessons of the people of the land having shaped me."

"Never did I think I would see myself here, though. Never did I think I would see this kind of dusk; the end of a long chapter in my life. A chapter fraught with so much strife, but also so much growth."

"But here I am despite it all. And I'm surrounded by so much more than I imagined I would be. For that, I am grateful and look forward to a new dawn together."

[crimsontroupe]

you are just gonna scroll by... without saying... yeehaw...

[hexmachina]

[scarred-but-still-smiling]

Llewellyn was a broken man.

As he watched Ysale's lifeless body plummet through the air amidst a cloud of ice crystals, he fell to his knees and screamed, clutching his head, his heart burning.

First he lost the Scions; one by one falling to buy him time to escape Ul'dah. Then Haurchefant; taking an enchanted lance through the chest that was meant for him after being his one ally in all of Eorzia after he was framed for assassinating the sultana.

And now Ysale; the great and noble Lady Iceheart, taking imperial fire so The Enterprise could escape.

The world around him pulsed, the dull thudding of imperial fire echoing dully in the air around Azys Lla. His chest heaving and tears pooling in the lenses of his glasses as he curled tightly in on himself.

He could vaguely hear the voices of his friends around him, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. All he could think about was how many friends had died for him. Him! Of all people!

He wasn't anyone special! He was just a craftsman! Just a stupid leatherworker from the middle of bumfuck nowhere who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now people are dying for him!

Suddenly, Llewellyn felt the pressure of a hand on his arm, and he looked up to see the concerned face of Y'shtola, the lovely Y'shtola, the first Scion they had found, moons after they had lost her.

"Llewellyn?" She asked softly, "Llewellyn, are you okay?"

He wordlessly shook his head, he hadn't been okay in a long time, not since the massacre at the Waking Sands all that time ago.

Y'shtola gently sat him back up and removed his headpiece, kissing him on the forehead and pulling him into a hug.

The hug was so warm, so wonderfully warm and gentle, and Llewellyn fell apart all over again; clutching Y'shtola tightly and sobbing into her shoulder like a child.

He just wanted to go home, wanted for this to all be over. He'd give up anything and everything for this pain and death to end.

[keeperesque]

cool teen with a big axe

[chief-mourner]

9. Fair

Jyhun was not enjoying the fair. Not in the least. Wait, that wasn't quite right. They didn't call it a 'fair' here. It was a 'festival'.

Despite the pedantic difference in word choice the effect was very much the same. The narrow street was packed with stalls, each laden with brightly colored trinkets for purchase or prizes to win with games of skill and chance or treats to eat ranging from strong-smelling meats to sickly-sweet candies. Each one manned with vendors hawking their wares as they tried to out-shout the din of the crowd as well as their neighboring competition. The crowd was just as loud, bright, strong-smelling and noisy as the stalls themselves… and they were packed so close he couldn't even move. Jostling him from every direction as he stood stone-still in the center of it. An immovable boulder the incessant flow of a river of spoken. An island of black fabric in the midst of the tide.

He couldn't move. He couldn't reach his staff. The one who had dragged him here had disappeared somewhere into that rushing river of fabric and bodies. He could barely lift his arms to grasp the brim of his large hat, pulling it down over his face and horns to try and drown out some of the chaos. It was too loud, but still he could hear his pulse pounding in his horns. It was too bright, even with his hat lowered he had to shut his eyes against the bleeding watercolors of aether auras spilling into one another. It was too warm. The summer evening was cool and a pleasant breeze passed through the streets but still the au ra was sweating. Not because of the layers upon layers of ill-chosen clothing but because of the aether that burned astral through his veins in his rising panic. The temperature around him rising far enough that those who bumped into him quickly pulled away again. He was sweating, his skin was flushed a sickly violet where hat and robes didn't cover him, dark lips parted to pant quietly.

The realization only panicked him further alongside the dawning realization that he was going to immolate right then and there in the midst of the festival. How much damage would that cause… how many brightly colored fans and pinwheels incinerated in flash. How many revelers injured if he couldn't regain control of the liquid fire that felt as if it flowed through him instead of blood at the moment. Oh great, now even his eyes were sweating. No, that wasn't quite it. Stinging tears gathered, leaving trails of smudged paint in miserable gray trails down his pale cheeks.

"There you are! Lucky thing your hat is so big! I could see it from a malm away!" Chirped a cheerful voice, a round face framed with black horns and decorated across the nose with freckles declared as it appeared under the shadow of his hat. Peering up at the mage's face with mismatched eyes. "You can't just stop walking like that! You're gonna get trampled…" She chastised before noticing the streaked paint and the trembling of a dark lip. "You're crying! Who hit you?" She demanded, looking around as though expecting to find a culprit nearby awaiting her divine judgment.

Jyhun shook his head firmly to indicate he hadn't been struck. "No… one…" He assured her, his voice barely a whisper to ensure it wouldn't crack when he spoke. His hands lowered from the brim of his hat to slip his arms around her, leaning down to draw the freckled xaela close. She was tall for a female au ra yet still Jyhun folded over her to envelop her in the shroud of his shadow. Clinging tightly to the woman half his height. "I looked away and you were… gone… I can't… trace you…"

The shorter xaela's arms wrapped around him, holding tightly for a few moments before she slipped away. Trailing her hand along Jyhun's arm until she pressed her palm into his. The brush of skin against skin immediately diffusing the excess of astral aether. Draining it away into nothingness with a strangely pleasant tingle along his skin that sent a shiver up his spine. "If you hold onto me you won't have to. Let's go, I found what you're going to buy me for dinner!"

The thaumaturge didn't protest as he was led along, darknailed fingers curling tightly around her slender hand. Watching with unabashed admiration as she split the crowd in front of them with ease… and a liberally applied elbow. The corners of his grim-set lips twitched slightly in an attempt to smile. Maybe he hadn't been entirely fair to festivals…

[dravania]

May you ever walk in the light of the Crystal...

There’s a new addition to my Warrior of Light club! ...I was resisting the urge to make my own take on Meteor for the longest time and finally gave in.

[sen--kai]

Commission for Turakina being a rock star dragon >:3c It was my first proper Procreate illustration, lots of tinkering, but I think it was a good start!

[paintedscales]

001. Tumet

Every year, the Tumet uphold a tradition that takes place before next they move to their new location for the new year -- just before the Naadam. Children that are of ten summers are tied to trees and are made to break their bonds. It is here that we start our journey alongside the okhin who would see herself free. Who would see herself worthy of a name and life beyond that moment in time.

Word count: 2,543

Steppe by Steppe Chapter List

“You understand what you must do, okhin,” a man spoke, binding the young Xaela child to the tree. The child in question said nothing; she merely nodded to show that she acknowledged what had been said. All the while, the bindings were tightened to ensure that a challenge was there. Xaela must be strong, after all…and if she could not break from her binds…then…

“Remember: when you break free, you rejoin us at our iloh. Only then do you go from ‘okhin’ to having earned your name and your place among the Tumet.”

Another nod came from the young girl.

She was nervous, but there had always been this pit in her stomach each year when she had previously observed the trial. Every year this ritual took place with other nameless children of the Tumet. Once she had been old enough to process what this ritual practice was, it made her sick.

Adults had always explained the ritual thus: if Father Azim saw them worthy to escape their binds, then the tree would represent the new dawn of their lives. In a way, freeing themselves from the trees was a way of rebirth that would welcome them to a world where they would be strong and capable warriors.

This year was her tenth summer and, therefore, it was her turn to earn her name and place. Her turn to be bound to a sacred dawn pine -- to earn her dawn of a new life.

The young Xaela girl looked around at the other Tumet children. There were seventeen total, including herself. None of the children were tied to the same tree. Same as it ever had been in the past. She was told that this was to avoid the children from freeing one another when they did not earn it themselves. To be freed by someone else was a disgrace -- and there were always those that told the elders of such happenings.

Those freed by others were not worthy, and they were disowned by the tribe. If one could not fend for themselves, then the elements should take them.

Pursing her lips, she looked at the man who had bound her to the tree -- the man who claimed to have been her father -- and watched him look over his rope work one last time. Once satisfied, he left and rejoined the other Tumet adults and teens. Many of them were already mounted up on their horses, and supplies for their ger were situated upon the backs and attached wain of the dzo. The moment they started motioning for their horses to venture the steppe to their next location was the moment that the challenge began for the Tumet children bound within their trial.

Summers had gone and passed in this okhin’s life, and she had always known that one day she would be in this position. Just so, she knew that only a handful of the seventeen children there would find themselves worthy of being in the Tumet and of having a proper name.

‘Okhin’ and ‘khüü’ -- or ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ -- were the titles bestowed upon the children of the Tumet at birth pending on what their gender was determined to have been. Sometimes parents would address them as ‘khüükhed’ -- child -- in the instance of multiple children. Such was the case of the last of the Tumet to ride off.

“Khüükhed! We shall await your arrival where the One River departs the Tail Mountains. Do not disappoint us,” the rider spoke with a certain coldness before they turned their horse and urged them into a canter to catch up with the rest of the Tumet.

Though this was an annual tradition for those who had come of age, the ritual never sat well with the girl. Not when there had been kids that she enjoyed playing with that were suddenly no longer there. The pain of loss had been learned early, and even if it was the Tumet way to grow hardened by that loss, this young Xaela seemed to hang her head instead of struggling against her binds like some of the other nameless Tumet children were doing.

She looked at her locks of light blue hair that fell into vision, her mind running through with ideas. There had been something in her pocket, but when she tested the strength of the ropes, she realized just how difficult it was to actually move her arms and hands to actually rummage in her deel’s pocket. Her hand had fruitlessly shifted and wriggled against her side.

A sigh left her lips.

There had been no restriction on how to free one’s self from their bonds, just that they had to do it themselves. With this knowledge prior, the young Xaela girl started to move her arms again. She had memories of when she said that she would use her scales to weaken the ropes. The truth was that since she was still a child, her scales were still rather soft and pliant, not hard with useful edges like the adults.

The Xaela girl squirmed against the binds until she could ilm her fingers into one of the pockets of her deel just as she had planned. It had been an uncomfortable process

“Ha ha! I think I’m getting loose already!” one of the children exclaimed excitedly. The girl could hear the smile on his lips.

‘Good for him,’ she thought to herself; her thoughts were not bitter. That was a family that could potentially celebrate the return and naming ceremony of their child. However, they were only in their first bell of their trial. His tune could change at any moment. Whatever hope there was needed a firm grasp.

She continued to struggle with getting her hand into her pocket, only able to get the tips of her fingers in there for the time being. It got to a point she had to stop trying and take a break to regain her strength and stamina. Her father had really tied the ropes tightly. She wondered if the other childrens’ parents secured them just as well.

With a huff, the girl resumed trying to get her hand into her pocket and finally succeeded. She felt around before grasping a broken river clam shell that she had put there after that morning’s breakfast. A small, triumphant smile grew upon her lips.

It was nothing special, and while she would have preferred something a little sharper, the broken shell was going to have to do. It had to. She just had to hope the sharp edge where it was broken could cut through the rope with enough persistence.

Sawing at the ropes as best she could from her awkward position, the Tumet girl did not feel like she was making much progress. Frustration began to set in as her movements became more hurried -- impatient. Making a dissatisfied groan, the girl pushed harder on the shell. The ropes surely had to weaken at some point.

Faster and faster…

SNAP!

A gasp fell from the girl’s lips as tears started to well in her eyes. Her already broken shell had broken further, a majority of it having fallen to the ground. It left her with iridescent splinters between her fingers. She took in a sharp inhale to block out the sobs that wanted to eke their way out, though her shoulders slumped, and she deadweighted into her bindings.

Crying would have only given way to creatures of the steppe coming in to investigate. An unfortunate circumstance. What kept her from wailing had been the fact that there was only one year that the girl remembered where no Tumet children returned to the tribe two years ago. A pack of gedan had come by, taking advantage of the situation of essentially what were meals strung up for the taking.

Children were forbidden from practicing to free themselves from their binds before the ritual, no matter what summer they were in. They had to think of the best way to free themselves based on their parents’ stories, along with their own intelligence and wit. The girl thought she could have utilized her mother’s method of using something sharp to cut the rope.

Against the tree with hope dissipating, she stayed. Her broken tool siphoned the desire to push forward faster than her lost stamina and gained fatigue. Still, she fought back the tears. She refused to cry in front of any of the other Tumet children. Though time passed, and the sun shone down on them, making the trial enter further tedium by heating the lands.

A shaky sigh left the girl’s lips as she tapped the back of her head against the dawn pine a few times. Ilming back up straighter, she looked around the immediate area while blinking away whatever tears had formed so that she could clear her vision. Aside from her broken clam shell, however, there was little that stood out.

She observed the other Tumet children. Some of them had tools of their own. One even had a sharpened rock -- certainly a far better tool than the girl had taken for herself. Another Tumet child seemed to have been resting, their ropes only barely visibly rising and falling with each breath they took. A boy had freed himself using a sharp piece of mondite in his possession.

Shuffling her feet, the clinking of the copper plates on her gutal made her pause. Her eyes widened, and her mouth fell slightly agape with an epiphany.

Shifting herself, she lifted one of her feet and did her best to bring her ankle to her hand -- a bit difficult with her deel in the way, not to mention how strained her leg felt with little room to bring her foot closer to herself. She eventually managed to grab the heel of her gutal and pull the boot off. Exhaling, she did what she could to ensure her grip on the boot before slowly using her fingers to turn it around in her hold so that the copper plating was more accessible.

The girl had no idea if this would work, but it was her only option now. The decorative filigree on the copper made the metal sharp, and it started to fray the rope apart when she started sawing the threads. It was slow, but steady work, and the girl had started to work up a sweat. Impatient as she felt, the work was worth it.

Looser and looser, the girl could breathe easier and easier as the bindings released their torturous grip. Each sawing motion of her wrist resulted in ropes being cut apart. With each thread cut, freedom was ever closer.

Once the ropes had fallen from around her and the dawn tree, the girl’s mouth broke into a big smile as she started to laugh both triumphantly and out of relief. She brought one of her hands up and wiped away the tear stains on her face, sniffling slightly as more started to well in her eyes out of relief. Of the seventeen, she was the second -- another Tumet boy had broken his bonds first and started running down the trail the tribe had ridden down.

She held onto her boot and took a couple steps forward to begin her journey in catching up with the rest of the Tumet tribe. However, she recalled all the potential friends she could have made -- could have kept -- and she stopped. Turning her head, she looked at the others that were there.

Some of the children still bound were children she had been friends with. She was torn as she looked at her boot and then the children that seemed to have simply given up.

‘They are worthy, too,’ her heart called out to her.

She walked toward them as if compelled by some other force. Reaffirming her grip upon her cutting utensil, she began sawing at the ropes of the children who had stopped trying. After all, when night fell would be when they were at the most amount of danger. She would not have been able to live with herself if she simply left and did nothing.

“Hey! Hey!!” one of the other bound girls called out to her with the copper plated gutal. “You can’t help them! They will not be worthy of the tribe if you do!”

“If they die, they are already considered unworthy…” the girl responded between grit teeth, continuing to cut the binds. She met little protest from the children who seemed to have given up, though the ones who did she stopped trying to free them from their binds. If they wanted to continue with the trial, that was their choice…but the girl had listened to her heart, and her heart told her that she should live, and so should those who wanted to keep living. They should all have the choice to live as they wished.

After all, her scales upon birth had already dictated her unworthiness of being a true child of Nhaama anyroad. Where Xaela valued their inky black scales of night, the girl who continued to cut the bindings of others had scales tainted with striations of brilliant azure. It was not uncommon among Xaela to have some forms of discoloration, but it certainly was cause for scrutiny from those with pure black scales.

As it stood, however, even this little Xaela girl had been considered freakish by nature. For her striations had been a more extreme mutation that ran through nearly every groove and valley of her still-growing scales.

Words of others rung in her memories already. Was it even worth going back to that? Back to people who treated her both like livestock and like she was not a child of Nhaama? Was it worth getting a name in a ceremony that would mark the tribe’s disdain for her? Worse yet, her birth parents’?

This okhin would rather have not known the name that would have been given to her during the ceremony. Not if it potentially meant being named something born of disdain.

When the last child who did not protest was cut free, the girl finally pulled her gutal back onto her foot and looked to the tree she had been tied to. She collected the rope she was bound with, knowing its uses from observing the Tumeti people up till this point, and left in the opposite direction that the rest of the tribe had gone. Instead, she journeyed in the direction of Reunion -- the markets owned by the Qestir.

She did not know how long it took. By the time the girl had made it to Reunion, dusk had settled on the land. She was tired, she was hungry, sweat had clung to her, but most of all, she was happy. It showed in the smile that remained on her face since she started her journey.

Happy…

Happy she was alive. Happy that she broke her bonds. Happy that she made it at all.

She gazed upon the bustling markets with a wide smile and tired eyes. It was time to fully embrace herself. Her victory. Her realization.

Taking in a breath, the girl yelled out with everything she had in that moment: “My name is Nomin! And I am worthy!”

[littlelordalphinaud]

Made @instantbee a gift of his newest WoL, Khaliun Tumet

[crimsontroupe]