bladecalling-blog

[bladecalling-blog]

mischiefburned‌:

    Nevermind the subtlest upward jerk on the end of his lips.

    “Coincidence from my world to yours,” Loki replied, taking her hand to shake with a firm but not so committal motion. “Seems fair that names may be passed from one slice of the Multiverse to another with little correlation to either. Hel, I’ve seen it myself.”

    (And somewhere out there, in a realm he has never seen, while they were speaking, someone lamented a Loki. Perhaps he was truly the great equalizer after all. What that said about the future of this particular realm, well, that remained to be seen.)

    “You mentioned a chaining of magic.” Loki let go of her to start to trudge through the brush, remembering what it was like to do this with his brother so many eons ago. Hunting with Thor was worse than pulling teeth. A bull painted red with lights flashing on it would have had better stealth than he ever did. Loki learned from an early age to use Thor as a glorified distraction in that regard. Maybe one night out of five or so they returned back to the palace with a kill better than a blind boar.

    Hnh. He was getting caught up in his thoughts again. That thunder god wasn’t even so much as present here–Loki could afford himself a day without having the name in his mouth, right?

    Back to Xayah. “I agree that humans have a peculiar, shall we say, relationship with magic. Even on my world. Most are scarce to so much as believe in it, condemning those that do, while treating the gridiron of technology as a second god in of itself. I find it appreciably… bizarre.” Not to say that the gods didn’t in many ways treat technology with a similar puritanical hatred as mortals did magic, but Loki played no sides. He’d have his Starkphone in his back pocket had it not been stolen from him as well as his power.

    He was climbing a jagged boulder, standing on its lid to get a better surveil of the surroundings. The forest in outer Eidolon was large enough for what it was, but contained nothing interesting as far as Loki was concerned. His eyes were searching for the barrier edge. He pointed north.

    “Barrier’s up ahead, should that be where you’re headed. I should tell you, though, the wastes are harsh even for myself when I’ve lived in the tundra for… quite the long time.” Then he slid back down to the earth, smiling casually at her. “Judging by that expression, my word of caution is entirely meaningless. Onward, then?”

The man’s words flowed like so much babble, the tools of someone with much to say and even more to hide. Xayah flitted along behind the man, talons dancing over the cold earth, the chill of the snow a dull roar outside of her cloak and wrappings. She shivered, despite the thick woolen cloth around her body. These woods were so devoid of life, so empty of magic, nothing like the humid jungles she was familiar with and knew like the back of her wing. Bare branches, drifts of snow, pointy evergreens - it was enough to make any vastayan sick.

“Humans,” she spat, both literally and verbally, her disgust obvious.��“Take what they want, go where they please, and then claim it was their ‘rightful duty’ when staring down a dagger. When a metal war machine’s carved down an entire region of your homeland, you get a little tired of running into ‘technomancy - erm, technology, you said?.” Words, differences in tones, speaking in this tongue was rough enough on a good day, but now new vocabulary? She’d have to start taking notes. 

The man had made his way atop a large rock with surprising ease and now was peering around. Following the direction of his gesture, Xayah peered into the distance. A faint shimmer on the horizon, something vaguely glowing like the sun - a quick glance skyward showed that familiar star still hung high - and she shrugged her shoulders, feathers rippling. “I mean, I’m game if you are. I don’t think I’ll freeze, at least, not like this. Shouldn’t take more than a few hours to make it to the barrier and back, if that’s what you feel up to doing.” 

[bladecalling-blog]

mischiefburned‌:

    Not only a being related to ever almighty chaos–made by it. For her, it came as capital C. Loki understood what she meant perfectly. With a hook like that, she commanded his complete attention; either an outcome to like or be horrified, and which depended entirely on where you were standing.

    “If you’ll let me, I find the notion fascinating,” Loki told her. “On my world, chaos and entropy are synonymous with one another. I haven’t ever encountered life necessitating it though it were as important as the air in our lungs.” Beside himself, naturally, but his was a special case–Loki’s more a well in which discord was drawn from than an end result. Such was the way of gods.

    And of trickster giants who’d stolen their status.

    “I suppose you could say it’s a vested interest of mine,” he said afterward, dreadfully vague. “Chaos magic and myself have something of a symbiotic relationship. I can tell you that yours seems to be to be quite unique. Is magic plentiful on your world?” She did have at him rather guarded. (Not that Loki wasn’t used to it, but reasons were different now than before, where being guarded to the God of Mischief got drilled into the heads of everyone who had the misfortune of dealing with him by year two. He figured hers was just instinct.)

    Still, in the middle of his own musing, Loki realized she asked him a question. Ah. A shame if he let that one go without deigning it with a response, right?

    “The more interesting places are the ones beyond the barrier, in my so far limited experience. Has to be some reward for enduring those misbegotten wastes. My, I haven’t introduced myself, have I? I’m Loki. Explorer, mostly a storyteller, and adventurer.” It felt odd having to after countless eons of having your name in the mouths of others even more than your own, often as a curse at that. Here, no-one knew who he was, and without access to magic, introducing himself as a god would be wonderfully tacky even by Loki’s standards.

    He was smiling at her, bowing. “At your service.”

    If nothing else, it meant saving being ran through with feathered quills for later.

“Nature bends towards chaos. Give in, or break.” She quoted, familiar words drifting through a haze of memory. Her mind reached back involuntarily - hooded figures, mystical orbs, eternal battlefields upon which their puppeted strings danced like so much bread and circuses. A flash of insight trailed in from the archives of her mind, a ghost of the past ignited some semblance of recollection - “For humans, magic is like fire. For us, it is water and air.” Another quote, this time from her long-distant partner. If only Rakan could see her now. “

“Xayah,” she added, sticking a hand out to shake. The man was a little odd, to say the least, but he seemed more friendly now that the immediate threat of ‘death in a frozen wasteland’ had ceased. “From a land where they chained magic to their will and broke its free spirit. Runeterra, I think is what they called it.” 

She wrinkled her nose. Human words, thick and clumsy on the tongue. Her eyes looked up, past the bare branches and gnarled trees towards the border that wrapped their haven. The stranger spoke truth, if laced with fanciful words and pretty gestures. Perhaps beyond those walls was the power she sought, or some stranger who could save their homelands. Some lost tribe who had kept the secrets of the vastayan way immortalized in the winter air.

“So you’re... Loki, hmm,” the woman rolled the foreign name around, chimes of familiarity ringing like so many flakes of snow,  “I knew someone, big brute named Olaf, who would often curse the name of Loki. No relation, I presume?” 

[bladecalling-blog]

mischiefburned‌:

    Born of chaos and raw power.

    If that didn’t ring a bell.

   Loki was, admittedly, a bit apprehensive with the accusation of lying–call it instinctual reflex–but held his ground and sure enough, his persons was no longer under the threat of bodily harm… for now. He appreciated the thought, though. Had him hopeful that not everyone here was so docile as to make this unsatisfyingly easy. (Worse for them were he to get bored, after all.)

    “The same that brings the others, I expect,” said Loki. “Wishing, mostly. If you’re speaking to the forest, well, I wanted to clear my mind.”

    He gestured at it vaguely. Trees, shrubs, rocks wet with moss–another world, another nondescript coniferous forest. Loki was almost disappointed that there wasn’t much in the way of wild and unknown, behind the barrier at least.

    “Vastayan… no, I can’t say I’m familiar. Shapechangers aren’t plentiful where I’m from aside from yours truly. There’s my father and, maybe out of shame, even he hasn’t done so in recent memory. Different in yours, I take it.” Recent memory in the gods, that is, ranged anywhere from a generation to several centuries. Loki didn’t feel the need to clarify. (Or that the shame in question had largely to do with him.)

    That’s what he was smelling, then. Chaos had a distinct flavor to it, Loki’s familiarity with it need not be mentioned. Sometimes of brimstone. Sometimes of nothing at all. A fluidity made constant and for some irresistible. Only those of it could really route it.

    “Is your magic not completely depleted, then? Do tell me your secrets. Myself, I’ve barely eeked out a spark since I first woke up.”

    As though that weren’t a good thing for everyone else involved.

The barrage of words, question and fact and explanation, blurred through the air. Clouds hung frostily as Xayah breathed her answers to the man’s queries. “I’m not a shapeshifter, but some of our kind are pretty much chameleons. There’s this one girl, Neeko --” 

She trailed off. Was revealing so much of her own story wise? Stranger though he might be, it wasn’t out of the question that they would eventually work at cross purposes. In any event, perhaps discretion was the better avenue. But the man had revealed that he had some degree of magical prowess? Something about the man intrigued her, more than the passing familiarity to her partner.

She held up a hand, a feather perched between her index and middle finger. The power that did in fact flow through her was a riotous mix of nature spirits and ancestral animal magic - wild and untamed, like a hungry river, scarcely able to be understood, much less controlled. “I wish I could tell you how this worked,” she continued, flipping the quill over her palm and then over the back of her hand, “but something tells me if I didn’t have my magic, I wouldn’t be standing here before you.” 

A flick of the wrist, and the barb vanished back into her sleeve. A bit of sleight of hand, a bit of primal energy, who could tell? “I haven’t seen anything of interest in these woods yet, just snow, wet, and more snow. Yourself?”

[bladecalling-blog]

battledanced‌:

    It hadn’t taken him long to find the tavern after he’d arrived. It was way too cold here! He’d practically danced to the warmest looking building he could see, snow under talons freezing him to the bone. He knew there were bunkhouses waiting, likely with something warmer to wear, but that would require walking in the cold even longer! So naturally, he’d taken up a seat in the warmth of The Crystal Tavern. If Xayah were here, she’d have probably talked some sense into him and told him to fetch something warmer, but she wasn’t, and that fact was something that was worrying him.

    Unfortunately, he had nowhere he could look. It was freezing outside and she was just as ill-prepared for the cold as he was. And there’s no guarantee she was even here! That didn’t stop him from worrying, but it did stop him from walking around aimlessly in the snow looking for her. Instead, he gathered the attention of all in the tavern– as he usually does– and starts telling stories, complete with reenactments of a few of his battle dances. He cleared out enough space for him to move, and now Rakan was boasting of his and Xayah’s victories throughout Ionia.

    Then he heard it. That voice, and everyone else disappeared. He was a romantic like that. The vastayan abandoned his story, ears perking up as he nearly sprinted across the tavern to the source of the voice. “You’re okay!” He exclaimed, arms wrapping around Xayah in a nearly crushing hug, stealing one of his partner’s blankets in the process and wrapping it around himself. “It’s so cold here, Xayah. So cold. Y’know, if I had known that when I agreed to this whole thing, I– actually, how are you here, too? Did you get that weird dream?”

You bastard, she wanted to say, and beat his chest with her hands and strangle him and throw him into the snow. How the hell are you here, why did you follow me, what have you done -- all the words dried up in her throat, and all she could squeak out beneath the thunderous wrap of his wingcloak was: “Y-Yeah. So cold.”

Her voice snapped back with a vengeance as the man snuck one of the blankets from her makeshift coat. Xayah’s fist snapped out, quick as a flash, and gently popped the vastayan in the chest. “Hey. Stupid. Get your own wrappings.” She cracked a small smile, reaching up to caress Rakan’s cheek.

“It is good to see you though. Maybe the magic that pulled us here didn’t want us to be apart. I know you would have gone crazy back at home, looking for me.” She leaned in close, pulling her flashy partner in by his collar, and said lovingly, sotto voce, “And if you ever leave me again, I will kill you.” 

Letting go of the man, she pretended to dust her hands off and pushed Rakan towards his prior audience. The citizenry had been staring at the pair of them (mostly the golden gleaming one, not the girl in the shadows, as it should be) - “Finish your story, Rakan. Is it the one about the tubebow again? Because you know they’re called guns, right?”

[bladecalling-blog]

mischiefburned‌:

    “Not particularly. Could be part magpie, if you’d like to pursue technicalities.”

    Which, where a particular mischief god was concerned, ought to be the right thing to do. Loki had his arms up as though it’d placate her that he didn’t come here for a fight–although a voice quipped in the back of his mind that he could be dead to rights and she’d still be waving those feathers around–watching her with those cool green eyes of his, lightly sniffing.

    “Hm. You ordinarily would have a glamor, right? Pardon me, but, you don’t look very fae.”

    Or like a damn elf, but that went without saying. Loki wouldn’t be so polite for one of those. Hopefully he’d see neither hide nor hair of Malekith while stranded here in the middle of an icy waste.

    Glad to see he wasn’t the only one lacking something in the magic department, at least. “As for a feather collection, it’d be redundant when I could supply my own. And I’m far from the poaching type.” The fur on his coat was ethically conjured from thin air, of course. (Not that anyone beside Loki knew that.)

     Somewhat aggressive for run of the mill forest creature from another world, though… so Loki wanted to think she was more than that. He pushed his luck, as he would always.

    “That said, which are you? Corvid? Raven?” A little fox, too, maybe. “I’m just an explorer.”

    And a criminal understater.

Golden eyes narrowed in suspicion. Years of interrogating humans and just being around the flashy charmer Rakan had left her senses keen to misdirection and distraction. “Fae? No, vastayan. Animal magic. Born of chaos and raw power.” Her feathers bristled as she spoke, typically a threat, or a show of magical prowess, but here simply her more base nature shining through the layers of magic and humanity she usually clothed herself with. No, no raw magic to tap into to guise herself, so it had to be clothing.

She inhaled sharply, the cold air making her wince, but the scent of magic was heavy on the other humanoid. She padded closer to the -- man? Her eyes said man but her instincts told her something else was present. His aura prickled at her more primal nerves, keeping her on edge, on her tiptoes.

“He lies,” the spark of chaos within her growled, “Rip his throat out. Pin him to the forest and leave him to rot.” She put a hand on her hip and let a smile grace her lips instead. Flourishing her feathered blade one last time, she tucked it back into her sleeve, sealing it with a spark of chaos. “Raven, mostly, mix of a few things. What brings you out here, then, explorer?” 

[bladecalling-blog]

When everything’s as lethal as can be in your homeland, a simple walk in the woods can lead to some interesting encounters. Whether it was the heavy crunch of a boot in the snow, the sound of birdsong quieting, or the scent of steel, something was closer to the vastayan than she was comfortable with.

“Everyone’s got something for the bird girl, huh. What, you want to start a feather collection or something?” Xayah turned around and punctuated her question with the brandish of a quilldart, leveling the tip towards the stranger who approached her. The hood of her cloak fell back, the thin dusting of snow from her walk drifting to its brethren on the ground. Her ears perked up, despite the cold, the fur twitching with anticipation.

Huh. Weird. That grin, eerily familiar. She’s reminded of her partner, Rakan, whose cocky smile and confident nature made it easy for her to blend in, sneak around. Another trickster-type then, just a pretty boy with a pretty smile and even prettier words - boring, really, no one was as good as Rakan. “Nice, uh, horns? Are you part cow or something?” 

@mischiefburned 

[bladecalling-blog]

The bunkhouse was packed - full of folks milling about, introducing themselves, making friends, ugh. Xayah kept to herself, as per usual, wary of strangers and even warier of those who would approach her. Her feathered ears perked up - someone was staring at her. She flipped her hood down, her eyes narrowed and scanning the room for the mysterious individual. A quill slid into her fingers, its jagged edge weighing lightly against her fingertips beneath the sweep of her wingcloak.

There. A few beds over. Green cloak, is that the one? She can’t tell if they’re looking at her or just in her general direction. Well, there’s only one way to handle prying eyes. With a flip of her cape, she vaults swiftly to her feet - claws really, and presses her way through the few still moving around the cabin. Her featherknife hidden behind her back, she smiles with venomous sweetness at the mysterious person.

Her words are brief, sharp and clipped, razor-like delivery to ensure first blood. “I’m Xayah. I know, I have feathers, yeah, but I’m not a bird. Like, can I help you with something?”

@guidingwords

[bladecalling-blog]

It’s cold. Too cold. From the steamy jungles of Ionia to this - this  frigid wasteland - it was a shock to the system, to say the least. A rift in the world, a mysterious speaker, a frozen world, torn from the land she knew and fought for - and now she was alone. A high price to pay for the power and strength she craved, of course -  a bargain to destroy those who would not hesitate to carve down her home - but she had not realised the depth to which she would have to stoop.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Wincing with the cold underclaw, she hurried through the town, wind whistling through her earfeathers. Boots would have to be acquired soon, she realised, despite having wrapped herself in a plethora of blankets and cloaks. The bunkhouse was clean and welcoming, sure, but the sheer number of strangers there set her quills aching with tension. She felt too obvious, her dark plumage too stark a contrast on the gleaming ice and snow - she missed the fanciful golden blur that kept eyes and ears off her. Xayah had left as soon as she had dressed for the weather, in her own way - practically a walking ball of cloth and insulation. Truly, the tropical vastayan was out of her element in this world of frost and freeze.

“The Crystal Tavern,” she murmured, breath fogging in the air, face beginning to prickle from the cold - perhaps another place to take stock of her situation, find out just what this place was all about. The door swung open, the heavy knotted wood frosted with ice, and she sighed as the heat of the hearth washed over her. Xayah nodded a cursory greeting towards the bartender and stopped dead in her tracks, all thoughts of a warm drink forgotten.

Surrounded by swooning citizenry, probably mid-story. That cocky laugh. Those feathers. That hair. That goddamn grin. “What the fuck are you doing here?” 

@battledanced 

[bladecalling-blog]

come get y’alls feather JUICE  starter call for xayah! i’ll keep it capped at 2 for now, castmates excluded, ofc. i’ll knock ‘em out over the course of the evening i hope! and you’re always welcome to hmu here or ask for my discord if you’d like to plot something.

[bladecalling-blog]

howdy folks! a pleasure to meet y’all! i’m anda/alex, they/them, 23.

some tidbits about me???

league of legends fan, and god don’t i hate myself for it!

also into nier/drakengard (but mostly automata)

i write and cosplay in my spare time 

winner of the paper plate award ‘most likely to run into a lightpole because reading’

find me on twitter here - i don’t bite! ^__^

*stares into the distance* i’ve been here on tumblr rp for so long. please let me go.

[bladecalling-blog]

watch the feathers!

XAYAH || League of Legends

quiet, reserved, will not hesitate to stab you if needed.

started a rebellion, fell in love, kept on rebelling.

hates the concept of humans spoiling nature/chaos.

vastayan, basically an animal/human magical hybrid.

it’s, like, a raven, okay? not a crow. raven.

got little feathers and clawed feet. 

these quills? right between your eyes. bang. ya dead.

would kill for rakan. like. she’d kill anyways. but especially kill.

[bladecalling-blog]

don’t mind me, just tagging some tags.

[bladecalling-blog]

Xayah, from League of Legends, reporting for duty. Application and stats are under the stars on my page. Here's hoping my feathers can stand the cold...

Welcome to Eidolon, traveler. Wishes have brought you far, and we know they will only bring you further.

You will find your residence in Bunkhouse #4.

You find you can use up to 10 feathers per day… though they’ll break rafter being used, and don’t seem to stock up either.

Search, seek, persist. Take heart in your heart.

May Diaidem bless you.

[bladecalling-blog]

                          “when are we going to do this?”                                              “soon, baby. slow down.”

[bladecalling-blog]

(more lovebirds~)

[bladecalling-blog]

Xayah! she grew on me.