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flutterby-bog · 4 months ago

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For my followers who might be interested in my current progress on my fic - I just wanted to note to you guys that it's currently on hold. I will be returning to it eventually but certain things pushed me away from writing it and then my hyperfocus shifted to dragon age.

It will not remain abandoned but I do need to fix it up when I get back to it.

-KrystalMoon

Rough Draft of a Prologue of a project I'm working on that will be posted on Ao3 once I edit it a little and get in a few more chapters. Some scenes will feel familiar and follow events of the game, some scenes will alternate away from canon. The main meat of the story will be intended for after.

My AO3 (not yet posted)

Small note: MC is a small pale female elf. Something I'd like to note that while she is descriptively albino (little-to-no melanin) she is not albino. There is a lore reason to her appearance that will become relevant way later (once I further develop that reason) but it is important to note that she was not born with this condition and she will not be written with afflictions common to those with albinism. I will not be making that distinction in the story as it won't have much relevancy, but I will specify the destination both here and maybe in an author's note on AO3 later.

Other note: I am not a creative writing college student. I am going to be blind writing this purely for myself and will be submitting more than one chapter at one time to reduce the amount of spam between updates to the fic. The plot may get a bit messy since I'm incorporating the existing Veilguard plots and removing gameplay elements for sake of narrative...

Another other note: I have paused my other project to work on this one. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Prologue below cut

1st-Person Limited / Exposition Heavy / Will eventually be rated M for unfiltered gore and cussing / MC will discover they are Asexual / MC has Claustrophobia / MC coming to terms with death / MC facing impossible odds / Mental Breakdowns / there's more to add but scenes in later chapters may be upsetting to some (the prologue is safe, I think)

My earliest memory was that of fear. I can't remember the whole of it, just an all consuming darkness, the walls pressed tightly against me, unable to move, barely able to breathe.

Someone had saved me. I don't know how or why or when, I don't even know who. It was hard to focus on that memory and my dreams have muddied who it was. The sharpest part of the memory were the chasing undead—the worried wisps frantically moving to possess the undead, becoming a frenzied hoard. I wasn't afraid of them. I was afraid of whoever was holding me. I don't remember why.

He dropped me. A man had cut him off. My dreams have muddied the details here, too. Sometimes there were multiple. Sometimes only one. Sometimes he appeared from the shadows as a skeleton with glowing green eyes wearing that crown he always had, sometimes he was my adoptive father as I remembered him. I ran to him and clung to his robes. I felt I could trust him. He picked me up. I remember those crystal clear blue eyes and kindly smile. I remember crying because I finally felt safe. I refused to let him go.

I remember being passed to a teenager. I think it was Myrna. I'm pretty sure it was Myrna. She played with me while people went into meetings and talks. Distracted me with sparkling flowers and light shows. I remember trying to mimic her hand movements and the sheer disappointment when nothing happened.

I remember my father's crown helmet. I've never seen him wear it except maybe once, but I wasn't sure if it was a dream. I'd asked him if he was a king. “No, of course not,” he denied. But I didn't believe him. He was a king and he would not convince me otherwise. Why else did he have a crown made of shiny gold? It was too big for me, but I'd pretend to wear it anyway.

“Will I get one when I grow up?” I'd ask him. For some reason he looked sad when I asked him that. I remember once he tried to take it away from me when I asked. Maybe the first time. A different memory of the same question, he sighed and said, “maybe, Val, when you're much, much older.”

Most of my other memories were less sharp. Faceless people, shop vendors, the ocean once, sand, a river, always with my dad. And to me, he was my dad. I didn't know the concept of adoption until much later in my life.

Memories of my childhood were more reliable after my fifth or sixth birthday, though they are mostly faded to time.

Playdates with friends. Exploring the upper parts of the Necropolis. I definitely remember Myrna then. Always so busy when I found her. Always studying for something big and important. I brought her flowers once, and she scolded me for it. Saying that I shouldn't pluck so many, it kills them. I was upset, not at her, but at my naive indifference to such a small life.

Sometimes, I'd wander into the gardens to play with the wisps. I think I might have taught one tag and hide and seek. It followed me around. I remember being caught by two adult Mourn Watchers as I played among the gravestones with the wisps. One shooed me away because I was being too noisy while they were trying to study, the other ridiculed me for playing with the mindless wisps. I remember arguing that there was nothing wrong with playing with my friends. She did a spell that made them disappear and told me to “piss off.” When I asked dad later what that meant, he never told me. All he said was that it wasn't a nice word to say, and whatever Watcher had said so should be ashamed of themselves.

I remember being anxious over my magic awakening. I wanted to be like Myrna. I remember meeting Vorgoth and being absolutely terrified of them. Their voice sounded like many voices speaking at once, and they were a black mist-like entity that wore a long hooded cloak and gloves. Not a spirit, not a mortal, but no less a Mourn Watcher. When I discovered they were part of the order too, I told them about how Myrna was nice and deserved to be a Watcher, that she cared about the smallest of lives. I remember describing the other two Watchers, how they were mean to me. Tall, both had black hair, one had a mustache. I remember Vorgoth expressing shock that the one had been mean, but the other, the woman, was unsurprisingly hostile toward most things.

Often when Vorgoth came to visit, it was for a brief and private meeting I could not be apart of.

The same with my aunt and two uncles. Whenever they came around, it was never a social visit, though they would at least acknowledge me. Uncle Ted always brought me a little gift when he could. His real name was Anthony, but I couldn't pronounce Anthony or Tony right, so I just called him Ted enough that it stuck, even when I could say his name properly. Uncle Marcel and Aunt Sophie weren't really my uncle or aunt, but they were close enough friends that my dad insisted on me considering them as such. Marcel wasn't mean, just quiet and usually deferred to Sophie when it came to my probing childish questions. Sophie was very nice, like Ted was, and spoke very slowly. They were all pretty old, but so was my dad, so I just was used to that sort of thing. I never wanted Sophie to feel bad, so I would pretend to listen to her stories even if I had long been unable to follow along with her slow speech pattern. Apparently this was a good thing though, and dad always told me how happy she was that she had someone that would listen to her stories that hadn't heard them before. Marcel was slow to trust, so every time I got a hug from him I considered it a personal victory.

I very distinctly remember the day my dad didn't come home. I felt like something was off. I went into the Necropolis and began asking around. Where was my dad? Where was Victor Ingellvar? Nobody knew. Not Myrna, not Audric the Librarian… Vorgoth was the one who reacted when I asked him. He disappeared.

Myrna told me to go home and wait. Once they knew more, they would tell me.

Vorgoth returned later with Uncle Ted. Ted gave me my dad’s crown and the news of his passing. I was granted no other details, no funeral, no wake—only that he had insisted I keep his crown. He told me that the crown had a great honor to it. It was not a crown of royalty but of service. Those that wore it were deeply sworn to protect the living and the dead—and the Grand Necropolis. Only three others were allowed to wear such crowns. He told me the crown had a curse that would prevent its theft from all those unworthy to wear it, that I was its owner now.

I never saw him, Marcel, or Sophie ever again.

I remember being angry. I remember feeling abandoned and despaired in the silence. I remember filling my days running around Nevarra’s streets for the next year. I remember celebrating my tenth birthday alone until the evening when Vorgoth and Myrna showed up. Myrna was affronted by how messy the house was at that point and tidied up, while Vorgoth gave me my first piece of grave gold. It was a chain that went around my wrist twice that bore a pendant with the Mourn Watcher’s symbol upon it—a skull in the shape of a beetle. And at the end of the evening, Vorgoth did some tests on me.

Apparently, it's not unheard of, but it's unusual for magic to awaken so early. Free from the anxiety of if I would or wouldn't, I immediately jumped into Initiate’s School for Mourn Watchers, learning the art of being a Mortalitasi, and taking classes to learn the basics of Watcher duties. Becoming a Mourn Watcher became my everything. My passion. My life. Ignored bids for friendship and companionship—not that there were many.

Apparently it was strange for a kid to be as pale as I was with “grandma white” hair. I was accused of being a corpse a few times, but more often I was accused of being a cracked porcelain doll—mocking both my pallor and a mark on the right side of my face and body that I've always had. Turns out I'm not a human either. My pointed ears weren't just something unique about me, I was an elf. Was it any surprise after that I wanted only to be left alone with the spirits and wisps?

I'd taken to dying my hair pink, even got a few tattoos to make the marking look a little less strange. A dwarf inspired tattoo around my neck, and the beginnings of a sleeve tattoo on my left arm. Every class I passed, I added to the sleeve. All in red ink, which was vibrant on my nearly white skin.

The marking didn't possess the same properties as a scar normally did, and was black or dark grey—I passed it off in my later years in the Academy as a tattoo as well. I was still looked at as a freak, but for the most part I never saw the kids that bullied me again. Most of them had been non-mages so our classes eventually separated. Mage classes were far more intensive for any of the other students to care about our appearances. And, as it turned out, it wasn't unheard of for us to be freaks.

I still kept to myself. I was short for my age (though I'd find out later that was pretty normal height for an elf) and the porcelain doll appearance didn't help. When I wasn't getting bullied, apparently, I was being treated like I was fragile, or like a kid still. Audric was the only adult in that whole school that didn't treat me like I would break if I climbed a ladder and retrieved a book. Though, I don't think he was an adult really. There were rumors, but I'm almost positive he was something else entirely. Or he was as freaky as us necromancers tended to be.

I almost thought about getting into Advanced Fade Studies. The rumor was the professor that taught it was a Corpse Whisperer, and probably one of the best professors that taught at the academy. I'd even got to sit in a conference he was leading once. Though most of it was interrupted by another arguing professor disputing his claims and then further chaos erupted when wraiths appeared—attracted to the arguing. Unfortunately, Advanced Fade Studies was a difficult class to get into. That Professor only took five or six students to mentor at a time and it was very hard to impress him apparently. So I never tried.

Why would I?

One look at me and he'd probably assume I couldn't handle it—like everyone else did.

Eventually I graduated, and I was a fully fledged Mourn Watcher. I completed my sleeve tattoo with a skull motif and I started my Mourn Watcher duties. Myrna kindly apprenticed me, Vorgoth sometimes assisted.

My first act as a full-fledged Watcher was my last.

A war between undead nobles broke out and swaths of undead were threatening to overrun the Grand Necropolis. I was, as many others were, ordered to leave. I rebelled. It was a Watcher’s duty to protect the living and the dead, and if we simply vacated then the undead would spill into the city. If I wanted to prove I earned that helmet—that crown—from my father? Then was the time.

A small group of young Watchers followed me, believing in my cause and who were equally disturbed by senior members insisting we do nothing. We rushed in, against the odds, under my leadership, and were successful at taking down the instigator—Baron Van Markham. I was a hero, I thought. I'd done my duties to the letter. I stopped a malign spirit from possessing Van Markham and since he was felled, the lesser undead ceased fighting.

Instead of being hailed as a hero, however, I was expelled from the Watchers, exiled from Nevarra, and was picked up by a pair of travelling dwarves that I randomly, drunkenly complained to; Varric Tethras, and Lace Harding—remnants of an inquisition who were tracking down a powerful elven mage by the name of “Solas,” who had also been apart of the same inquisition and had gone rogue. I'd apparently impressed Varric and Harding both with my sense of duty, passion, and call to action, and for once I actually felt like I had genuine friends.

Harding called me “Rookie” a few times, and then Varric started insisting my nickname was “Rook.” I protested the nickname because I hated being treated like I was lesser or too frail to do anything—but Varric insisted it was something he came up with because of Harding calling me “Rookie” but had nothing to do with it. There was a game called chess that Solas was fond of. He would call the piece a “Tower,” but to Varric, it was called a “Rook.” One of the strongest pieces on the board besides the Queen. It could only move in straight lines. Satisfied with this explanation, even a little flattered, I accepted the nickname.

I also quickly learned that outside of Nevarra, “death magic” was seen as horrible and evil as Tevinter blood magic. I had to learn other schools of magic to be of any use when we weren't trying to draw attention to ourselves. Elemental was the easiest to teach myself, the type of evocation was a little different but similar enough that at least ice magic was not impossible. Fire was hard. Electricity was proving the hardest.

Varric helped me find a guy who could make me my own personalized staff. He followed a traditional Nevarran design, black metal with a skull. Per my request he added flowers. The staff had a hum to it—I'm pretty sure it's arcane focus is lyrium, or has lyrium infused in it, but nobody would confirm this for me, so I stopped asking.

Shortly after I received a letter from Myrna and Vorgoth. Senior Watchers were working to censure me, but Myrna and Vorgoth both were fighting against it. Myrna put it far more eloquently, but the meaning was clear. Stay away for a while. I vowed to leave my old life behind, never to return. I was no longer Valkyrie Ingellvar, the Mourn Watcher.

I was simply “Rook.”

#personal #on the status of my butterfly bog series

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