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DAVE K!!!!!!!!!

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Dragon Door Handle - Simontorya Castle Hungary

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Confidence [Vesuria]

[8]

The truth was, Vesuria had never killed anyone before.

She still hadn’t—but the thought sparked across her mind when she’d fought off some bandits and again later when her motley group came across the hoard of corpses. Death had never been prevalent in her life. She’d thought of it abstractly, something she knew happened but not to her. She understood she had the training to kill, that’s what it was for—killing cultists—but she’d never faced them.

When she picked bar fights, she never thought of killing. Just fighting, living in the moment, buzzing with a thrill. But sometimes the other side of a fight meant death, not just a split lip, some broken bones, and bloody knuckles. She had to live more than whoever or whatever wanted to kill her. 

The Gloomstalker was new, wrong, against what she knew. She liked to think she knew what made a dragon, having one’s essence inside her, and the Gloomstalker was devoid of that, a presence that consumed rather than poured outwards. It was a living cyclone of smoking shadow that speared right at her after she’d tickled it with the edge of her fire breath.

Monsters didn’t fight as predictably as people. Ves braced herself like she would’ve for a person, loosely joining her arms from wrist to elbow and throwing them above her face. It dulled the blow, inky claws slicing against the tough skin of her forearms and ribboning part of her wraps. But a second blow came faster than the first, the full force of jaws snapping around her waist below her arms. She felt the impact more than pain, and with it an explosion of white and black that swallowed her consciousness.

She woke with her cheek scraping the ground, heart galloping, still too adrenaline-pumped to feel more than an echo of pain. She rolled backwards to her feet, her clothes weighed with her own blood. Her balance wavered when she bent her knees. Pain hadn’t caught up to her, but her body behaved like it was injured, jittery with shock.

Beside her adrenaline and each pulse of anger: fear. It was a wake-up call—she was fallible. Tiny again, except in a world of giants, she was a beetle in a landsea of monsters. 

Part of her confidence was hard-won and earned—she knew how to fight. She’d proven it to herself. But her confidence was incomplete. Some deep-rooted coal wedged in her heart belonged to her mother. A voice in her ear that wasn’t hers chastised: not fast enough, undisciplined, rash.

Did confidence matter out here? She’d lived beside the vestiges of gods and thought herself among them. Myopic, stupid, childish. It almost got her killed. If she was fate-touched, was she supposed to feel this fragile? Would the gods let her die?    

Is this what Cimbarinth and her mothers imagined for her when they sent her away?

[iironwreath]

Cut the Clutter. Sound Legit.

Trimming your writing has the benefit of getting your point across to readers without using stuffy sentences and filler phrases. Those are the training wheels of beginning writers, but seasoned professionals can pick them out easily. 

One such weakness to cut from your writing so it sounds more professional is the word “give.” Here are some examples taken from my own writing.

Example 1:

Original - She gives me an appraising look as I enter the room.

Revision - She appraises me as I enter the room. 

Example 2:

Original - She gives a long tired sigh, but smiles at the end of it.

Revision - Her tired sigh ends with a smile.

The meaning stays the same, but less time is needed to read and understand the sentence when that awkward “give” is taken out. Unfortunately for me, both of these examples came from the same scene, making a scene that should last only a few seconds take longer than that to read through.

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This wouldn't happen to me if i were a huge dragon

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Phobia [Vesuria]

[3]

Vesuria had hoped—no, assumed—that the final competition would be a good old-fashioned brawl. Wasn’t that how all decent parties ended? Her knuckles itched for a fight, her body craved a bruising. But no, it was out in the ocean. Fucking thing.

The surface had endless novelties and the ocean was among them. When it resolved out of the horizon for the first time, an icy shard of dread shot up her spine from her tailbone. She didn’t get why—it was objectively gorgeous, and her mothers had taught her how to swim. She’d stared into unfathomable caverns in the Underdark and only been told to move away from the ledge.

But the Underdark, for all its dangers, was sheltered and familiar. She’d grown up with stone above her head. The ocean was a vast, open plain, larger than any giant or dragon—all she could think about was how she could fall through into the dead drop of infinity. She’d always hand land beneath her feet and she could always breathe. Looking at it made her chest tight like it was already robbing her of air.

Ves closed her eyes to it as she stripped her cloak and sash and bundled all of her hair into a single bun. Wouldn’t do to get caught on anything. The breeze on her skin, damp with sweat and salty spray, made goosebumps erupt all over. She could only devote a sliver of her attention to pretending she was unbothered, the rest worked wrestling her fear under control.

She couldn’t back out of the challenge after so much build-up. Ayo would never let her live it down. The only thing that would be settled from their dispute was that Ves was a coward who couldn’t overcome fear, irrational or not. She had to try. Even if her team won without her, she’d lost if she didn’t try.

Deep breaths. Vesuria used to scoff at the mental side of her training, but she always inevitably fell back on it when she needed to quiet her mind.

Ves held up the potion of water-breathing to the waning light. Liquid swirled in the glass without her touching it, refusing to settle, endless as the surf even with the gentlest wind. She hoped the jellyfish forming from the bubbles were for show only and it wouldn’t be pulpy on the way down. Her stomach was wrung in knots, still rocking with the boat that carried them to the scraggly pebble of an island.

She drank last, draining it fast as a stein, and tossed the empty bottle onto her pile of things. She followed the group, eaten up by the pool. The almost-cold slap of water against her shins worsened her chill. Cold was death. Heat was her home. The ocean was a graveyard.

She sucked in water immediately and gave her lungs over to the ocean. She crept her hand along the wall, kept her eyes closed until she was fully submerged. She opened them to a blurry, blue-tinted world.

Once in the caves proper, it wasn’t as bad. She wasn’t relaxed, but the pealing bells of anxiety were silent. She could focus on winning. She could pretend she was under the mountains again, only free-floating this time. All she had to do was kick, breathe, and swim with the others.

[iironwreath]

inside we are all wizards, and we all know a spell called love

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Haunted [Solvei]

Quiet reigns over the death field. If Solvei holds her breath and closes her eyes, she can hear the wind catch and sing along ragged ravine rocks. She cannot listen for long. There is so much more to do, so many more bodies to gather and place beneath cairns. 

It will take the rest of the day, and it isn't enough. It's paltry in comparison to the stale suffering hanging in the air. Solvei has no particular love for the tribes that wander the wastes, but they were people. They didn't deserve this doom. Their deaths were needless.

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[iironwreath]

Girls Love To Have Evil Hole

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love characters who are like "this is how the world works. this is how it has to be (because if i'm wrong i have to face what i've done // if i'm wrong i have to face whats been done to me) "

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Romantic [Cadiana]

“Cady? Cadiana?��

Cadiana glanced over their shoulder, arms still raised in grooming Warpath’s coat. They couldn’t immediately place the voice, but they recognized the face—an elven woman they’d kissed, slept with, then uncomfortably parted with.

A boneclaw had jumped Cady the night they’d hooked up. Both of them were woken by its talons hooking through Cady’s middle, pinning him to the wall above the bed and showering them in his blood. Cady had beaten it off, fought it again later, then found the source. Fayenna had been shaken at the time, but she approached Cady with her back straight, chin high, and a pleased smile.

She wore earthy robes stitched with the sun tree from Whitestone. Fayenna hadn’t worn any holy iconography at the tavern. 

“It is you,” Fayenna said, stopping an arm’s length away. Her sleeves were long, only the tips of her fingers poking from the ends. Her eyes roamed up and down Cady. “I was told I’d find you here. Do you remember me?”

"Yes." Cady couldn’t help sounding dumbfounded. “You came to see me?”

“I’m in Westruun to lend aid after the assault, but I am here, at the Last Bastion, to see you.”

Warpath nickered, shimmying on the spot. Cady patted her, hung the brush, and turned to give Fayenna their full attention. “I didn’t think you’d want to see me again after what happened.”

Fayenna dipped her head. “I’m sorry I gave you that impression. By the time I’d pulled myself together you’d already run off to solve the problem. It’s bothered me ever since. I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful or regretted our time together.” 

Cady had wondered. She hadn’t reflected on it until Whitestone was at her back. Cady didn’t regret fighting undead, but she did regret that pursuing them sometimes put innocents at risk. But it didn’t seem to matter—the world was dangerous regardless. There was always something to fight. 

Tiamat’s cult’s latest siege on Westruun was a good example. Full-blown assaults had happened multiple times in Cady’s life. The Scattered War was to blame, sure, but it was too many, too much death. Maybe those conflicts felt closer together because she’d been petrified for three centuries—hopefully Tal’dorei had been more idyllic in the years following the Scattered War.

Undead—any forces seeking destruction or domination would exist and hurt people regardless if Cady intervened or not. The sooner Cady ended them, the more she stemmed the spread of harm. Cady was a weight on the scale, balancing against evil. There was no “true” peace, only the best they could do.

“If you hadn’t slept with me, you wouldn’t have experienced that,” Cady pointed out.

Fayenna waved his words away. “The likelihood of a boneclaw attacking someone I just slept with are low. Nobody could have predicted that. I can live with the choices I make. I enjoyed my time with you.”

There was steel in her words. Cady inclined her head. “I’m relieved then.”

Fayenna edged a step closer, twining her fingers in front of her. “I was hoping you’d like to go on a date? No danger this time.”

Warmth spilled across Cady’s cheeks, her lips pulling into a smile. “I can’t make any promises about danger, but I was about to take Warpath for a ride. Do you want to join me? I think what you’re wearing should be fine.”

Fayenna beamed. “I’d like that. Can I help you?”

“You know how to tack a horse?”

Fayenna nodded, and the two got to work. Warpath didn’t fuss about the extra hands, sensing Cady’s calm and accepting the occasional snout rub and whisper of praise from Fayenna. When she was all saddled up, Fayenna admired her from beside Cady. 

“How would you like me to ride?” she asked with a grin. Her cheeks flushed, but she held eye contact. Cady returned it.

“Behind. I’ll mount first and help you on.” As easy and familiar as walking, Cady swung onto Warpath, then offered a hand down to Fayenna. They locked hands and Cady helped situate her behind them. The saddle could accommodate riding double, as could Warpath, but they were squished together. Fayenna seemed to mind as little as Cady—she knotted her arms around Cady’s middle and pressed her cheek to the back of their shoulder. 

“She’s a big one,” Fayenna commented, staring down at the ground and adjusting her position. Cady tried not to focus so keenly on the shifting of her hips against their body before they’d even had a chance to leave. 

“You should see her in armour.”

“Kind of intimidating. Not unlike you.”

“There’s no ‘kind of.’ We are intimidating. That’s the point.”

“I meant no disrespect,” Fayenna returned, her tone light and arch. “I guess that just means I’m very brave.”

“You are. Are you ready?”

“Ready.”

Cady steered Warpath into a walk and led them out of the First Bastion’s grounds. They set out towards the southern gates, wading through the streets. Warpath was a disarming horse even out of her armour, and people readily scampered clear. There were looped race tracks in Westruun that did fine in a pinch, but Cady craved the open air outside the city. Fayenna pointed to a garden they passed, fenced in by walls shaped by thick roots—the Wild Arbor.

“I just came from there,” she explained. “I never had a chance to mention, but I’m a cleric of the Wildmother.”

“That might explain the pull you have on me.”

Fayenna gave their waist a faint squeeze, like a single heartbeat.

At last, they escaped onto the southern road, pavement switching to packed dirt. The trees weren’t the same thicket as the Bramblewood, but clusters of them pushed out from along the road, breaking up the rolling hills and sky beside the thinning buildings. Grey clouds promised rain, but long fingers of sunlight fought through like beacons from heaven. 

With less traffic, Cady spurred Warpath into a trot, then a canter. Cady turned them left to loop back around and re-enter the city on the eastern side, the city walls rising and flowing to their left. Without the bustle of crowds and chatter of people, Cady's thoughts cleared and gave them the chance to talk freely.

“I wanted to explain why I got so shaken back then,” Fayenna said.

“There’s no need. Boneclaws are unnerving and you were woken up by one trying to spill my guts. That would be enough to frighten even a stalwart cleric.”

“It’s not just that,” Fayenna insisted. “Undead, they—Whitestone has a fraught history with them.”

Understanding sagged on Cady heavy as a bag of stones. “So I’ve heard.”

“I take it it didn’t scare you, though,” Fayenna said, poking Cady’s ribs with a finger. 

“I was too angry and full of adrenaline to be frightened. I don’t scare easily. Do you remember the branding on my arm?” Cady remembered the sun-hot heat of them being seared into their flesh, but also the tender way Fayenna had skimmed them with her fingertips.

“The celestial?”

“Those are my tenets. Losing fear was a specific part of my training. Fear was taught as a weapon and an exploitable weakness in yourself. They told us to purge it but also to manipulate it. To have total control over it.”

“I’ve never heard of that kind of regimen for the Lawbearer before. It sounds like you feel differently now.”

“I’ve had experience—and people—teach me otherwise. I still believe fear can and should be used, but it’s not always the most valuable tool, or necessary.”

“Are you telling me you used to use one solution for all problems?” Fayenna’s voice carried a smile.

“It worked. It was all I needed in the Scattered War. I wasn’t the one drawing plans, I was one of the soldiers pointed at the problem.”

“The Scattered War? Cady—”

As soon as they reached an unbroken, empty strip of road, Cady snapped the reins with a shout and Warpath took off at a full gallop. Fayenna squeaked and clung to their back like a barnacle. Wind gushed over them and above it, Cady heard Fayenna’s surprise transform into giddy, breathless, helpless laughter.

Cady didn’t have them sprint a while, just long enough to get the blood pumping. As Warpath slowed, she cast a glance over her shoulder—Fayenna’s auburn hair had gone wild. Not that it was entirely tame to start, she’d worn it loose both times Cady had met her, but now it was teased in every direction. 

“If I’d known you were going to gallop, I would’ve tied my hair back,” Fayenna pouted, freeing one hand in an attempt to sculpt it back into its former shape. 

“You look good tousled.”

Fayenna’s cheeks reddened. “Quit flirting out here unless you intend to find us an empty barn.”

Normally, Cady would have rejected the idea outright—that sort of behaviour was indecent and against the law. Instead, she lapsed into silence, unbothered by the suggestion and even going so far as to entertain it, briefly. 

“Best keep your eyes peeled for any stables, then,” Cady eventually said.

Fayenna scoffed in disbelief. “How daring you’ve become, Cadiana.” She pressed in, lips brushing her ear, although Warpath’s up and down bumps made it more tickly than seductive. “You seem less sworn to rules than before.”

“Experience changes a person. Not today, though—maybe I could be tempted another time.”

Fayenna leaned back, tilting her chin and closing her eyes against the breeze. “I can work with that.”

Cady steered Warpath off the road and into a private ring of trees. Dismounting, she reached for Fayenna, taking her by the waist to lift her off and set her on the ground. Fayenna wobbled, then found her balance, rubbing a thigh over her robes.

“I packed lunch,” Cady explained, tossing Warpath’s reins over a branch and reaching into one of the saddlebags. “I thought you might appreciate a break.”

“You read my mind.” 

Cady unfurled a small blanket onto a patch of grass in the shade, inviting Fayenna to relax while he collected food. Fayenna practically fell into a sit, tucking her legs against her bottom. 

Cady returned with a handful of alms—cheese, bread, smoked sliced meats, pears, and some wine. 

“Thank you for sharing your food with me,” Fayenna said, then dug in. Cady chewed patiently, savouring it, watching Fayenna. She admired the dappled sunlight on her skin and how it made her hair look fire-kissed. She wasn’t as prettied up as she’d been at the tavern, but Cady found her no less stunning. It sounded like she'd been helping Westruun, keeping her hands and mind busy, which Cady appreciated more than they could say.  

Fayenna wiped her lips after a sip of wine. “I didn’t expect to be on a date straight away. This is romantic for such short-notice—you’re quite the gentleman.”

“I enjoy spending time with people this way, doing what I’d normally do.”

Fayenna scooted closer, coming to rest against Cady’s side. She leaned in, and Cady mirrored her, lips grazing. They hovered there a moment, breathing softly, then connected in a slow, gentle kiss.

Fayenna withdrew with a twinkle in her eye. “Thank you for giving me a second chance.”

“I thought of it more as you giving me a second chance.”

“But would you have sought me out?”

Cady didn’t answer.

Fayenna didn’t look stung, only nodded. “This is lovely, and maybe it’s too soon to ask, but I was hoping you might agree to another date—something more planned?”

A pang rang through Cady like a bell. “'I'd be happy to, but I need to be transparent with you about something if we’re going to.” 

Fayenna waited. Cady had broached this with previous dates, and while everyone had been understanding, it never made it easier to describe. Cady took pride in who they were, but they knew it had the potential to hurt people if they didn't bring it up early enough.

“I’m happy to go on as many dates as you like, but it would never be…a relationship. I don’t feel romantically for people. I have strong platonic feelings and I enjoy intimacy with those people, but it would never be a traditional relationship, if that’s what you were wanting.” 

Cady hadn’t realized they’d looked straight ahead until Fayenna’s fingers skimmed their jaw and tipped their face to meet her gaze.

“Those parts of you can’t always be changed like the other parts,” she said. “And that’s for the better. I like who you are, Cady. I’m honoured to be your friend, if that’s what we’ll be.”

Cady kissed her again.

[iironwreath]

I may be an idiot but I could be your idiot

[iironwreath]

oc weapon names

ada: wolfram (pistol), mike (rifle) wolfram is another name for tungsten or its ore, which (iirc) is used in making bullets. if asked why her big gun is named mike, she says it's short for micycle

azul: silverthorn (longsword) used with a shield, azul named her longsword in honour of the deity that saved her from lolth's influence, the arch heart. silver is one of corellon's colours and azul associates them with deep, dangerous, but beautiful forests of the arborea

cadiana: judgement (maul) gifted by elspeth, taken from the dead blue dracolich judge moravax, former master of law for emon. cady is a paladin of erathis the lawbearer and sees fit to dole out judgement in her name. they thought moravax saw fair judgement for allying with the cult of tiamat as a leader after being a false worshiper of erathis. cady enjoys the irony

cihro: venenum (shortbow) (pronounced ve-NEE-num) one of my dms chose this and came up with its history, but it's latin for venom. this was either a vestige of divergence that became dormant and then awakened again by cihro, or was a plain shortbow transformed into a vestige. it originally belonged to an elven assassin and he acquired it from the dissolved remains of his partner's drider mother. its saying is “If your heart is true, then so will be your aim”

crow: bleeding heart (longsword) crow's hexblade and pacted weapon. named for multiple meanings, since crow's virtue name also has layers. the bleeding heart is a flower also known as dicentra, her lover's name and the woman she forged her blade and pact with. bleeding heart can also describe "sincere emotional outpouring." the sword is wholly symbolic of her heart and devotion and desires. also, she stabs people and then they bleed!

genevieve: anathema (battleaxe) while evie mostly utilizes her claws and hemomancy in combat, she will occasionally use her blood maledict on other weapons. anathema is a word for "something or someone that one vehemently dislikes" or "a formal curse by a pope or a council of the church, excommunicating a person." originally named because she saw herself as anathema to the monsters she hunted for the slayer's take, its meaning transformed when she became a lycanthrope

iona: analemma (longbow), salt in the wound (rapier), paprika (dagger) analemma is named for "a graph or plot in the shape of a figure eight that shows the position of the sun in the sky at a given time of day (such as noon) at one specific locale measured throughout the year." her father gifted it with the intention of "protecting people year-round" after her original bow broke in a fight. salt in the wound is straightforward, what it says on the tin, and paprika is her own little joke that she doesn't tell anyone

koda: skylark (scimitar) named after a bird he likes, but also that it's light and airy in his hand and "sings" through the air. purely by coincidence: "It is a bird of open farmland and heath, known for the song of the male"

murtagh: mistsplitter (trident) no fancy origin, murtagh is a water-themed character and just thought of his trident being sharp enough to split mist. his surname, riftwarren, also comes from the merging of two different words, so he kept that system. his dual harpoons don't have names

nepenthe: vidrinath (greatsword) named for the drow/undercommon word 'lullaby.' these songs were sung by drow priestesses to help ease students/children into trance. nepenthe thinks of it as putting people to sleep forever, and the juxtaposition between love and violence is incredibly lolth-flavoured. as a mother, she also once sang these songs to her daughter

[iironwreath]

i love it when a bi man and a bi woman are in a gay relationship together <3

[iironwreath]

and also I am the leaves and the blossoms, and, like them, I am full of delight, and shaking.

Mary Oliver, Red Bird

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