#julydwc2023

[daily-writing-challenge]

DAILY WRITING CHALLENGE: MINI-MODE IS UPON US

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO USE THE ACTUAL WORD FOR THIS CHALLENGE, YOU MAY SIMPLY BASE YOUR STORY AROUND ONE OF THESE IDEAS!

Choose one or both words/IDEAS and write a story, drabble, poem, or anything else for the weekend! One story for the whole weekend or a story a day is entirely up to you!

Tag @daily-writing-challenge so we can reblog your stories.

Write the number day/challenge somewhere on your story.

LIST CONTENT WARNINGS VISIBLY ABOVE STORY! (Use a ‘read more’ line if content gets too graphic.)

Tags that will be used: #julydwc2023, #dwcminimode2023, #yourtumblrurl

There will be no optional challenges for the weekend DWCs, but please feel free to make up some of your own challenges!

The next weekly writing challenge will be in AUGUST!

CLICK HERE FOR OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION!

Good luck and more importantly, HAVE FUN! Encourage your fellow writers and show them some love and support with likes/reblogs/comments!

We look forward to reading some amazing writing!

Your words for the weekend: Time / Fireworks

[theconstructsworld]

July Daily Writing Challenge - Time

Time is a progression of instants. This movement is ordinarily perceived by mortals as regular and determinant, functioning much like a clockwork; yet perception does not dictate reality: time is chaotic, always in flux, and completely malleable, flowing like the sands of an hourglass.

For The Construct, the progression of time had always been chaotic and unpredictable. At times, days or even months had occurred in the blink of an eye, or events would unfold to him in a nonlinear manner. This was all a normal occurrence for him, at first assuming time was just like that for everyone. He learned better over the years, but chronomancy was still something of a foreign concept to the peculiar man despite possessing some natural ability in it.

The current events of the Dragon Isles presented him with a unique opportunity to explore this magic further, and learning had always been at the root of The Construct’s desires. His first encounter with a time rift had been one of those nonlinear moments in his life. He had already done this what felt like ages ago, yet this was that first time he would ever make contact with the temporal magic. This had been a predetermined moment in his life that he already knew would come to pass.

Pallid fingers extended towards the swirling, bronze light, curling inwards against what felt like fine granules of sand. It happened just as he remembered, or just as he knew it would: A prickly, warm sensation crawled up the length of his arm and spread to his core as both eyes briefly flashed that same bronze color before returning to their icy blue. He removed his hand, curiously looking it over. Nothing looked different, but he felt different in an indescribable way despite knowing exactly what was to come.

Pressing a hand flush against his chest, a pale golden glow sprung from the center of his palm just before the telltale *thump-thump, thump-thump* of a dead heart come to life began beating within his chest - just as it had before prior to The Construct’s arrival within this form. Cheeks flushed pink as blood coursed through unused veins, then just as quickly as it happened, it ceased. A testing of waters, and perhaps one useful trick of many he knew were yet to come, but not one for himself.

There would be more than enough time for that.  For now, he wanted to see the worlds that lay beyond these rifts.

@daily-writing-challenge

[kharrisdawndancer]

DWC 2023 Mini-mode - July - Khaeris

@daily-writing-challenge

Time/Fireworks

Khaeris looked down at the village from the balcony of the smithy with a frown. She was jumpy. Not literally; she wasn’t planning to jump from the precipice, but--“GODS AND GOATS!” She slapped the hand away from where it had touched her arm, a hiss pushing out between her teeth as she whirled to face her attacker.

The young dragon gave her a curious look, now holding up his faintly scaled hands and his head tilting in that reptilian way. He smiled and tried to look reassuring. It set her teeth on edge. “Don’t touch me.” Khaeris bit out, stepping off the edge of the ledge and casting her levitation spell. Perhaps the jumpiness was a little literal, afterall.

In any case the bronze dragon didn’t follow her, though he looked down at her from above and Khaeris felt his eyes heavy on her. She walked toward the inn and hunkered down at her favorite table. A tea ordered to help pass the time until Pyraelia was available, though it did little to settle her nerves. Her mind looped on two thoughts: this was such a bad idea, and this was the only idea that had the possibility for a real solution. If she was ever to get answers, this seemed the most likely place.

Khaeris flicked open her comms, both of them, and noted no new messages on the heavily reinforced one from this timeline. The other, however, had one of the infrequent but welcome messages from (Pollux) Hale in the other timeline. It had been easier than ever to contact him here in Eon’s Fringe. Messages in text only, but it had been nice to hear from him again--Oribos had been the last time they’d been able to chat. A little back and forth and she was feeling quite a bit more settled.

When she looked up that peaceful feeling dissolved. The previously empty tables had been filled with dragons and Temporal Investigators who clearly had very-poorly hidden interest in her. Khaeris shrunk a little. This town made her feel like a specimen under a dissecting probe. Normally genial, normally charming, normally magnetic in a wholly other way, Khaeris was not known around the Fringe as ‘good company’. But they kept trying. She was fascinating to them.

“I SAID ‘DON’T TOUCH ME!’”

It wasn’t the first time Pyraelia was going to need vouch for her, though this WAS the first time there had been (minor) violence.

The elven woman stormed out of the inn, her tea cup as shattered as her nerves and a goblin-styled bronze-visage decked out on the ground holding his head, still seeing proverbial fireworks and stars circle his head.

mentions: @pyraelia @polluxhale

[dicenne]

July Mini-Mode DWC

It was nearly five years ago that he had found himself staring into the portal to the Shadowlands, going through the list of ‘what ifs’ in his mind. His family would be there, somewhere; everyone but Kara, at least. He knew it would be an extremely slim chance of ever finding them, yet his eyes constantly searched regardless during his brief time in Oribos.

He found himself in a similar situation today, staring into an open time rift from afar, wondering similar, yet very different questions. Of course within most of these rifts the world had fallen to enemies they had already defeated within their own time, but he had heard stories of other ‘normal’ rifts opening and people suddenly finding themselves face-to-face with another them from a different timeline. 

It was extremely probable that there were various timelines out there where both his wife and son would still be alive and thriving. Kynson would be a grown man by now, and perhaps Dice would find himself to be a grandpa in another life. The possibilities were endless. Surely there was a timeline where Dicenne himself had died and his wife and son survived, and maybe they were thinking the same thing...

What if….

It was a terrible rabbit hole to fall down into, but with all the current events it was impossible not to question everything and envision this bizarre ‘happily ever after’. But that’s what the timewalker wardens and guardians were here to fix and to prevent. Still…

“Dice, you ok?” A tap on his shoulder stirred him from his trance.

He blinked a few times, and turned to look at Felonous, who was now also peering off into the distance. “Yeah, sorry, just…lost in thought.”

“We all think about it too. Hard not to, right? If only we could figure out how to get to that ‘perfect’ timeline that would fix all of our wounds and woes.”

Dicenne nodded in agreement. “But then you still have the memory of all those things happening, and you wouldn’t have had the same experiences with the same people. They wouldn’t share any of those memories. Sounds like it would be a little lonely in many ways, and selfish in others.”

Felon smiled and hooked an arm around his friend’s waist, turning him away from the distant rift. “Smart man. C’mon, it’s too early for an existential crisis. We got some weapons and armor that need to be fixed.”

@daily-writing-challenge​ @felonous

[pyraelia]

July 29 - Day 1  Time 

Eon’s Fringe had been a curious posting. Pyraelia had volunteered to help as a representative of the Kirin Tor, partially because she could — she’d always been skilled with small acts of chronomancy and that was a definite need in the town that had been frozen — but also in part because it was the first time since the time bomb in Suramar that this kind of research opportunity had presented itself. 

She had been tasked with finding the ‘out of place’ objects and adjusting them to fit if they belonged or bring them to the attention of the Bronze dragons in the area to put them back in their correct timeline. Or, in some cases, have their resonance changed to fit the current timeline so they could stay. 

That was her main focus, in truth, and what she had spent many of her more restless nights delving into — cementing something, or someone, out of place to this Azeroth. 

Khaeris was here, too. On edge, understandably, as one of those ‘out of place’ people. Pyra was determined to finally figure out a way to make her best friend permanently part of their timeline, whether through new magic or as a favor from the Bronzes themselves. 

Her tapestry spell had held fast over the last many years. It was a decent enough anchor to keep Khaeris attached to their Azeroth, but it was a little juvenile and clumsy. Especially now, with all the wear on the timeways, there was a risk of it starting to fray — but there was also so much potential benefit in coming up with something entirely new, or at the very least, more magic to weave in to strengthen it further. 

Mairidormi, her main contact, had been generous enough in enduring her daily barrage of questions. Initially their relationship had been a bit more tense and transactional, but over the weeks the Bronze dragon had warmed up and was more actively interested in rambling down theoretical arcane routes in the course of conversation, which had only resulted in Pyraelia needing more and more notebooks to fill. 

Bartender Bob slid a coffee to her across the counter on a far too early morning, and Mairi paused for a moment as they were charting out the quadrant of town meant for adjusting. Her furrowed brow and frown gave way to an enigmatic smile, “You have a sister, don’t you, Scholar Sunmote?” 

Pyraelia nodded and slowed her scrawling on her small, pocket map that would inevitably be filled with colored dots for each item encountered and manipulated, “I do, yes. Why?” 

Mairi shrugged and picked up her own ordered tea before answering, “You should invite her to help, I think. You have picked up a few different timelines since you’ve been here, there’s one I like better than the others, where she’s here helping, it’s probably the right one.” 

Fiorenze was a wonderful scryer, and could more easily find the “correct” origin locations of the objects that had found their way here. She’d been able to find Khaeris when she had originally been corrected, and people across the thousands of realms of death. 

It wasn’t a terrible idea. 

Her nose wrinkled enough that it made Mairi laugh, and she sipped her coffee while she mulled it over.  “Are you allowed to tell me things like that, Mairi?” 

“It’s authority I’m granted eventually, and that’s fine enough for me,” the dragon brushed a bit of the silver hair her visage bore back behind a short, pointed ear. 

Pyraelia rolled her eyes and couldn’t help a mirthful smirk. She wasn’t going to turn down the offer of information, knowing full well that was a gift.

@daily-writing-challenge / @kharrisdawndancer

[tristayranambrosio]

"Time" (Writing Challenge)

(Art by Nastovski YCH https://ych.commishes.com/user/Nastovski/ ) There are those who claim that Time is the enemy. That in its long and vigil forward march all things will expire… the flowers will wilt, the streams will run dry, the stories told… People will grow old, and eventually be not but dust… There is one thing that defies that forward march that rather than grow dull as it goes on instead is richer… Us. Specifically people. Our sheer defiance against this ever forward toll manifests art that will outlive us… legacies left in stories and songs, in great works of art, in the children we raise, in the world we try to make a better place for them when we leave it. Time is no enemy but a law we have no choice but to abide by, and it is that defiance that makes us mortal. That knowledge that there will one day be a time we are not in it… but we know it will march onward, whatever we left behind the only vestige of having ever been at all. There are also those who cannot see but the Time they’ve lost… and the time they have yet to gain… those are the ones I hurt for… because time is what I cherish with those I love… With my Midnight, and our perfect children… Time is what I live to waste with all those who have loved me and those I’ll come to love in the future. There are those who would call it wasted, the idle hours I simply lay awake and linger in bed watching Him sleep wrapped round me like a creeping vine. Those who would call the time I spend awaiting him to look like his best self, better spent being productive. Those who would call the quiet moments where we simply rest in silence in each other’s company, better spent doing something ‘meaningful’ that will outlast the present moment. To those I say I’ll never grow tired of doing nothing with my Muse, I will never feel a moment waiting on him is wasted… because each moment now is spent with him in my life, not one second ticks by where I do not love the anticipation, of his reveal, his return, his manifestation. Were I the one to wind the clocks, and turn the hourglasses… my only wish would be to slow the hands for me to worship each subtlety, but to do so would live each infinite lifetime hanging on the way his ear will flick at my voice… the way he fights a grin when he is teasing me, the way he goes still and shivers when my words strike true and awake his own urge to slow down time and savor me. There will never be enough time… but I will cherish all of it now that He is in my life. I’m no good at these sorts of prompts, and here and there I think that I could better apply my hands to work that will outlast me… but it is an excuse to muse about the One I love, and where there’s love, no time is wasted… and by that Logic, no time spent writing about time, or thinking on it, or simply living through it, is ever wasted. Because whoever is reading this, Yes you, know that you are Loved. I may not know you, you may not know me, but this page and space is something that will outlive us, and if I tell anything to those who may stumble on this so many times removed from mine. Its that they, you, are loved, because Love is the only thing that does not abide by time’s laws. It is why we keep living in the face of an inevitable end. And Love is the avenue always to the beginning that follows.  -Trist

[asharinhun]

Time/Fireworks (Writing Challenge)

Arlyn hummed even as the small boat was pushed further from the shore near Bridgeport, her gaze lost amidst the stars. She missed nights like this, she loved stargazing and the sky above Kul Tiras offered quite a spectacle when not marred by clouds.

"Thank you Tymest, this far out is enough."

Her water elemental - well, a large part of ice now too since the incident - bobbed his head and vanished under the waves.

She offered to dismiss him for now and call again when it was time to return to the shore, but he was content to stay. Who was Arlyn to disagree, especially after the suffering he went through thanks to his link to her.

"And there goes my mood..." The singer huffed with furrowed brows at the intruding thoughts. The pulsing of the magic permanently bound in her tattoos grew stronger to match her emotions. She had them for a little over day now, the sensation still alien - and it would remain so for a while.

The singer sat up and sighed, running a hand over the wrappings covering the still-senstitive skin.

"If only the damn things didn't itch so badly..."

The waves tattooed over her right arm went from wrist to her elbow, with runes carefully inscribed and partially blending into the swirling tides. The singer wasn't as luncky with her left side, here her whole arm was inked all the way up to her shoulder, with an anchor above the waves on her forearm with an extra set of glowing runes.

She refused to scratch at either arm by sheer force of will, but it was a lot harder to avoid the pad covering her left eye and part of her cheek.

The singer was warned that it would be painful and annoying, but the icicles now decorating the lower corner of her eye were necessary to subdue the glow of the optic.

The redness and swelling currently sealing her eye closed from the inflammation she could deal with just fine, but Tides, the prickling sensation was almost unbearable.

"C'mon Arlyn, think positively. Your magic is yours to control again, ice or not... Yeah, right."

Her thoughts turned even darker, but a popping sound interrupted her downward spiral.

"Oh, the fireworks...!"

How could the singer almost forget the main reason she came to this part of Tiragarde Sound this night? It was the final eve of the Midsummer Fire Festival, and it was to be celebrated accordingly.

Arlyn allowed herself a small chuckle, her mood brightening. Even after all those trials and tribulations, she was still here, able to watch the event despite everything. And unlike the festival, her story far from over.

"Just deal with one day at a time, huh? Worth a try."

The kul tiran settled back down with her hands behind her head - mindful of the wrappings -, her uncovered eye focusing once again on the unfolding spectacle in the sky.

((This is how her tattoos look like after they've healed completely.))

@daily-writing-challenge

[fio-renze]

July 30 - Day 2 Fireworks

There was a satisfactory pleasantness in the purpose. Not necessarily in the task itself, scrying would always be one of the easier forms of divination so long as you were provided an object that linked back to what you were meant to find — and the Bronzes had given her a diverse pile of things — but in being asked to help, and trusted to problem solve for certain conundrums. 

Some of these things, after all, were from this timeline but the past— or future. Some were from a separate timeline entirely, with the same previous caveats. Scrying in the present was a very direct point-a to point-b, but with the right amplifiers that view could be warped and magnified. 

Pyraelia had been generous with her compliments about her ability. Brilliant, she’d said. One of the best. 

Thankfully the Bronzes had already come up with their own cataloging system, making it much easier to know which items were from where and when. 

It was always going to be more efficient to start with the items from this Azeroth. 

A pile of fireworks that, when properly observed with a pinch of hourglass sand, were missing from a larger stock on the Uldum docks on a sweltering summer’s day. The pink banners with a white masquerade mask made her smile — Fiorenze heard it had been the best year for fireworks yet. 

An agitated moth trapped in one of the Everywhere Inn glasses with a saucer as the lid was from the present — more or less, within the week — but had somehow found its way here from Darkshore in Kalimdor. 

The last of the “easy” items was a crystalline inkwell, this one was from a near future and needed a cast bronze tuning fork to be rung against her bowl of water drawn from the waterfalls around the enclave. An office in Silvermoon reflected on the surface, the style of desk and chair overly familiar. She’d seen it time and time again in the myriad Magistry offices. It wasn’t an office she had ever been in that she could recall, but the name on the stationary stacked neatly on the corner of the desk, next to where this inkwell was meant to go, gave her the briefest pause. 

It was her own. 

That was something she could worry about later. The Grand Magister was eventually going to place her in some new post; that was always an inevitable next step once her petition to resign had been declined, but he’d kept his thoughts about her next office close to his chest. 

She frowned and moved the inkwell aside with a note about the proper place so one of the other helpers could take it where it was meant to go. There were bigger problems to deal with now than what was yet to come, and they were all objects that were going to require very complicated scrying techniques.

@daily-writing-challenge

[luminashdawnwing]

DWC July 2023 Mini-Mode Time

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Luminash held a bronze-inlaid pocketwatch in his hand, its face blank but for a single hand, ticking rhythmically along. The magister counted each tick carefully, every second accounted for. That was good enough.

While others at Eon's Fringe worked with the Timewalkers to repair what damage was left behind by the rifts, Luminash, with Andantenormu's watchful eye, had come to the reservoir to observe their formation.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The clock had been his own idea. While the bronze dragons and their mortal helpers focused on temporal resonance - useful, and especially creative when paired with music, Luminash mused - his own observations led him here.

------------

"The way I conceive of it," Luminash had asserted to his mentor, the dragon in tauren visage nodding a shaggy and bespectacled head, "Time and space are inextricably linked." The magister clasped his hands together, fingers laced, "If one plucks the first set of strings, the other resonantes as well. You see?" The magister leaned forward at the able the pair shared at the Everywhen Inn while they discussed their work, and gently, slowly, slid his goblet towards the edge of the table. A tap, and it tumbled off, hurtling towards the stone floor.

Halfway through its fall, sure to shatter and draw the attention of other patrons, and with a twitch of Luminash's fingers, it slowed, the splash of wine lapping against the side and up over the lip a wave in slow motion.

"What did I do to the glass, Dante?" Luminash asked, as if he were instructing an apprentice.

"A slow fall spell, isn't it?" Dante rumbled in reply. The dragon appeared curious as to where this instruction was going, peering over his glasses at the elf, responding in the manner of a parent indulging a child.

Luminash shook his head, "Something of the sort. But what does such a spell do?"

"It slows a fall, magister, by altering the space around an object or person. Transmutation, I believe is the term you mortals prefer for its school, correct?"

The magister shook his head again, motioning to the slowly falling glass. Its base was about to strike the stone, "Look more closely. Feel the magic there, do not simply think about it."

The dragon canted his horned head to the side just as the goblet stopped entirely, its base so close to the floor it was a wonder it had not struck. As he replied, it rose back up just as slowly, spilling wine drawn back in as it neared the table from where it had fallen, "You slowed its timeline, not its travel through space."

Luminash beamed, nodding vigorously, "But what, in the end, was the difference? At any point in time, an object must be somewhere in space, and vice versa. If one alters one, they must alter the other. Time and space must be considered together."

Andantenormu rumbled thoughtfully, finally nodding, "You will need to bring this to the more theoretically minded of our flight. I think they would be glad to hear from you." A slight smirk spread across his tauren visage, "I get the feeling they will be, actually."

------------

Tick. Tick. Ticktick.

The mechanism within the watch was growing faster. Luminash's breath caught for a moment as he concentrated on the flow of time. Yes, it was growing erratic, certainly, like wading in still pond and feeling the sudden tug of an undertow, and its pull tugged at the delicate clockwork, dragging it faster through space, later in the object's own timeline.

Tickticktick. Tick. Tick... Tick...

"Dante!" Luminash called to the dragon whose shadow had just passed over in his patrol of the reservoir, "Alert Soridormi! A tear is imminent, I am certain of it!" He held up the watch, its ticking continuing to swing from slow to fast and back.

The dragon's shadow sweeping across the ground suddenly grew still. The wind that had been tossing about escaped strands of the magister's hair ceased. The air grew heavy, grass frozen in ripples where once it waved. This was not how the tears normally began.

Some - only a circle - of grass stirred, bronze-cast sands swirling up in a whorl, a figure materializing within. An elf, by his bearing and silhouette, but shrouded too deeply in sand to make out any features of face or clothing.

Why do you labor here, magister, for these tyrants?

The voice echoed from the swirling sand, its hiss muffling the words. Luminash's blood ran cold. It was his own voice.

Luminash opened his mouth to speak, but no sound fell forth. His tongue was rooted. His throat caught.

Have you seen them? The other worlds? The figure raised a hand, a vortex of bronze sand swirling about, opening into a window through space and time, half-obscured images flashing by on the other side.

Worlds of "perfection," where the Titan usurpers never relinquished their hold. Worlds of death, where our people, and all others, were reduced to Scourge thralls. Every point that has led us to this moment could have gone differently. Why do we cling to the evils we have endured? Why do you?

Shaking himself from his shock, Luminash shook his head, "You cannot be here. This is not your place. The timelines cannot-"

They cannot? To what end? To preserve the Titans' lies, to hold the people of Azeroth accountable to some distant plan whose architects do not even turn their gaze on what they've done?

"To preserve what is! Surely we understand that you cannot just..." Luminash waved a hand, both a flippant gesture and a motion to dispel the window his shadow had opened, "You cannot simply change a moment and expect all else to remain the same."

Would Theras not be happier with his mother?

Luminash's stomach twisted into a knot. He had scarcely expected such a violent dagger in the back from himself.

"Every action cascades. You are not a foolish man. I am quite aware of this myself, am I not?" Luminash offered his shadow, "Look at my life, my home. Suramar, Jaskian. If Seladra were alive, where would all of this be? You cannot just change a moment to suit a whim!" A pause, laden with grief, a cold stone in the magister's stomach, "Even if it would be for our son."

Not all are so fortunate, are they? Luminash's other voice posited. Whatever had happened to this one, the words were heavy with pain. You have thought of this, though. All of us have, I am certain. But you chose the tyranny of Order.

Luminash straightened his back and stared into the featureless face of his other self, "I chose understanding what is rather than dreaming about what could be."

And what a disappointment it is. We are all dreamers, magister. Why else do we search for answers? We have seen the very source of Death, infused ourselves with Order! Is that not dreaming of what could be?

"There is a difference between wondering what if, and actively pursuing it," the magister replied, carefully approaching, then circling, the whorl of sand, "To the detriment, I might add, of those who may be affected by your daydreams."

Before the other Luminash could speak, the here and now Luminash continued, "You ask me why I chose my path. Why did you choose yours?" No presumption, no judgment in his voice. Whatever could be was not, and could do him no harm.

Choice is meaningless. Those greater than even the Titans or the Eternal Ones saw to it long, long ago. I do what I must, because there were no other options.

"As do I, then, to put it in terms we can understand," Luminash replied, "Keep your secrets, if you must. But you must know you cannot stay."

I am afraid you do not understand why I am here. Why we are here. I have seen you, in flashes and dreams. I know you have seen me.

He was right, of course. Memories both his own and not his own sat in Luminash's mind, of meetings not with Andantenormu, but another dragon, another mentor. And then, searing pain, blackened skin. Shadowflame. He shuddered.

Our timelines are so very, very close, but yours... While you played Timewalker, servant of dragons, Caeridormi showed me the timeways, all those little moments that could have changed my life. And kept seeing you, so close to me, yet so far.

"I know that name, Caeridormi. Another bronze, from what my glimpses have shown me. Who is she?"

A dragon who sees things for the way they should be, not how they are. Who showed me that our accident at Eon's Fringe need not chain me to the vision of the Bronze or the Timewalkers.

Luminash drew his lips into a thin line, "She is Infinite. And you believe her." Once more, no judgment in the magister's voice, only dull realization.

She also showed me the truth. Our truth. The disruptions in time are causing our timelines to converge. Consider this appearance a... Let us call it a warning of what is to come.

"And what is to come?" Luminash crossed his arms, head canting to the side. His counterpart tilted his head the other way and barked out a laugh.

We shall find out together, magister. But know this: I will not be erased.

The whorl of sand began to settle as the time echo of the other Luminash faded from view. First, a rustle of grass, then the beating of draconic wings overhead, all the sound returned in a rush.

Time returned with it, and from the magister's hand, the quiet sound: Tick. Tick. Tick.

( Better late than never! @daily-writing-challenge; and @kharrisdawndancer for Jaskian mention! )

[safrona-shadowsun]

Time/Fireworks

{ Daily Writing Challenge: Mini Mode, July 28-30, prompted by @dailywritingchallenge. }

More than a few contacts had been made at the year’s past Fire Fest, but for once, Safrona had given herself ample time to organize new names into Empyrean Import’s folders, instead of making such tasks a prime directive in her life. Time had been better spent assessing new Porters and attaching to them minor contracts, and to graduating those to an official Courier title that had proven their commitment to the business. Time was also better given to reacquainting herself with the lucrative gem trade, falling into the small obsession of the perfect cut of a gem, finding new masterworks to trade and keep to her own collections. Time was most importantly spent extending her skill in darker arts, observing the evolution of her own demons, or becoming aware of new entities and their dangerous potential.  

So it was with a renewed curiosity that she found the envelope nestled among the few fliers and menus she had collected from the vendors of Firefest, one that stuck out among the many promotional efforts - it had been addressed directly to her: Lady Safrona Shadowsun. It took her a few scattered moments to recall the hand that had given it to her: a young Sin’dorei girl beginning to bloom into a lady, waiting for her on the first day of the Festival as she stepped off the boat into Ramhaken. The daughter of a vendor, Safrona had thought at the time, perhaps sent to greet visitors and urge them to particular stalls. A girl that had no doubt been dismissed before the sinful Tarts would have performed later that evening. Wennefer had nearly ruined the day for her with the polymorph spell shortly after; that Safrona remembered all too clearly, along with developing an intense dislike for rabbits in the short amount of time she had magically become one. Thank the stars for the Kaldorei women that broke her out of the form - they should have been names she remembered better.

Exhaling at the embarrassing first day, Safrona refocused on the envelope in hand and its undiscovered missive. Even the wax seal had managed to remain unbroken, shaped into the rays of a rising sun. The folded parchment inside was thick, the handwriting upon it penned all in an elegant, flowing Thalassian. And with every word further that Safrona read, she felt her heart burn, and plummet into her stomach.

It is finally good to see you, and I hope this letter will find you well. Time has been cruel to the Dawnsinger family, and though I have been told not to seek you, that I should consider you dead to us all, I can’t help but feel different. I am in my 17th year, and I feel like I should begin to make my own decisions. And so here I go with this letter, for you. Auntie has told me a lot about you since you were lost from us. She has told us that you have lost your memory, and she helps you to remember who you were. I hope that I can help. My name is Seranas (Serra) Dawnsinger, and I am your daughter. Your son Quelios (Lio) is younger by 8 minutes - we are twins. We were born to you and our father, Queldis Dawnsinger, on the Isle of Quel’Danas, a Captain of the Farstriders. He gave his life to protect us and secure our escape on that horrible day when the Scourge came. He loved you very much.  Auntie Wenne helped you raised us in a very dark time, I know. Even when we lost you in Dalaran she tried to always be there. The rest of the family left, I don’t think they believe you are alive. Most think Auntie Wenne has went mad, and most of them consider that she has betrayed our nation by joining the Ren’dorei. To be truthful, I think Lio has accepted this as truth too. He hopes to be a Farstrider like father, and serve our people like he did. He won’t listen to me or Auntie about you. But for myself, I trust Auntie and know she has always had our best interest at heart. I will always be grateful for her in our lives, even if no one else here understands. I don’t think I fully understand what happened to you, or why you chose the Void, but I want to try if I am ever able to see you again. Time can do many things to us, but it does not change the fact that I am your daughter. I will always have a love for my mother. And, I hope one day it can be us together on Midsummer, watching the fireworks light the night sky. All my love, -Serra

Emotions collided violently beneath cool composure, and Safrona almost crumpled the letter up to shove it back into its envelope to sever herself from touching it, flinging it onto the counter top of Empyrean Star Trades. Void energies fell over her skin like an entropic veil, scarring the wooden counter with a deep, purple fissure as she sought to calm the anxious rhythm pounding in her chest.

The words written were so very sweet, and felt so very wrong.

[daily-writing-challenge]

Coming soon: Daily Writing Challenge: Mini-Mode! July 29-30.

This is a new two day "mini" challenge to bridge the gap between now and the full August week

The two prompt words will be released the morning of the 29th. It is up to you if you would like to write one story for the challenge weekend or multiple.

Looking forward to writing with you all again soon!