monochromatic-crow

[monochromatic-crow]

Hecata, a fragment of Selene of Amaurot

-----

Junelezen 13: Ancient Times

[monochromatic-crow]

[monochromatic-crow]

Prompt #7: Familiar Eyes

Prompt 7: Pawn - FFXIV Write 2022  Characters: Selene, Mikaelis Vaux.

“Your move.” Meallaire lifted her gaze to the black haired elezen with the red eyes that sat across from her at the small chess board in one corner of her private study.

Mikaelis Vaux had been someone she had taken on as a butler well over a century ago. He had been with her family for such a long period of time. But like her, he had never aged, though the reasons between the two were each very different.

The voidsent that inhabited his skin watched the elezen woman across from him with critical eyes. There had always been a particular kind of power imbalance between the pair of them. And it had always been tipped in Mór-Ríoghain’s favor, for he was one of her crows.

He reached a hand to the chess board, scooping up a rook to move it further onto the board. They had played games like this for years, and he had never once won. They were using a custom set that the woman herself had crafted, and over time, the pieces had changed. Slowly, one by one, as the people around her passed, the pieces on the board changed. 

Now, the pieces arrayed in front of her were different still. Each individual and purposefully carved piece of the set reminded him of one of the faces he had seen at Seraphim’s Rest. The latest piece on the board was new, a carved king that looked distinctly lapine,  sitting beside the crowlike queen that still stood unmoved on her side of the board. 

Each of the smaller pieces; the pawns, the knights, all had different forms. Each of them animalistic in a different way. He might not have recognized them all, if not for the lettering inscribed on the underside of the wood, into the base of each one. 

She leaned back quietly as she studied the board, looking over the array of pieces and where each one stood. A row of pawns were staggered, presenting her a defense that would lose her a pawn, but result in an almost immediate capture of any piece he made in defense. She eyed the rook that he had earlier moved, one hand lifting to let a finger brush across her lower lip in thought. 

He took the time to study the collection of chess pieces in the cabinet beside them. Years of history stretched out in front of him, arrayed in the cultivated designs. Some of the pieces he knew, some of them he didn’t. There were so many new pieces on the board, so many new pawns for her to move. 

But something in her had changed, hadn’t it? It had been when she had regained the dark coloring that had marked her when they had first met. Some mannerism in her was different. Some gentility curbed, replaced when she thought no one was looking with a calculation in her eyes that reminded him of his time serving under Mor-Rioghain’s wing. 

No. 

At the time her name had been Hecata, hadn’t it? Before their world had fallen to ruin and darkness. Before light had faded, and endless hunger became the only beast they fought against. But she was someone even more different now, wasn’t she? Where Mor-Rioghain’s embrace had been a thing of protection, this woman was at times like ice, and he feared he would never feel warm beneath her gaze.

She flashed a beatific smile, even as her hand lingered along the top of the ears of the king beside the queen on her side of the board. No. Not yet. That piece wasn’t meant to be moved just yet. That would come eventually, if necessary. For she always liked to play her games full of risk and bold strategy. 

He hadn’t, in over a century, ever won a game, and tonight was no different. Her hand passed over the king finally, and came to rest on one of the carved pawns. It was lifted, and set forward on the board as he watched one of the knights fall beneath her touch. Mikaelis swore quietly, even as he slumped back into the chair across from her. 

“Checkmate.” She said simply. When his eyes lifted to meet hers, there was a subtle silver shine in them that hadn’t been there before, and he gave a faint shudder under the intensity of that gaze. 

“Shall we play again, Mistress, or do you wish to sleep?” He asked, even as he pushed himself to stand, his posture once more resembling the dignified manservant he was meant to portray. 

Selene lifted the king from the board again, her thumb brushing across the piece she now held.  She glanced down to the pawn that had won the game for her, and reached to place that one tenderly inside the box that held each of the pieces that had not been retired to the shelving.

“Not tonight, Mikaelis.” The folds of the sheer robe she wore were tucked in more closely around her, over the pale nightgown beneath it. 

“I believe I am going to go and check in on my brother. I understand Endymion spoke with him recently, and I am curious to his well-being.” A hand lifted, a gesture dismissing the man. With dutiful purpose, he set to arranging the various pieces back into each of their places in the box that held the set when it was not in use.

When she turned to sweep from the room, he lifted the pawn and turned it over in his fingers. No initials. No lettering. Not yet. 

A new piece moving onto her board, not yet cemented. In time, the shape of it would change. He looked forward to seeing what letters would be inscribed upon the bottom of this one. 

“As you wish, Mistress. Have a good evening.”

[monochromatic-crow]

“Missing you comes in waves. Tonight I’m drowning.”

—

[monochromatic-crow]

...there are incantations and ancient songs, there are words to be spoken at midnight, during certain phases of the moon, beside bottomless lakes hidden deep in the woods, or in secret underground chambers, or at any point where three roads meet.

Michael Cunningham, A Wild Swan and Other Tales; from 'Dis. Enchant.'

[monochromatic-crow]

[monochromatic-crow]

Prompt #9: Friable

Prompt 9: Friable - FFXIV Write 2021 Character: Meallaire

Crunch, turn, tap tap. Crunch, turn, tap tap.

The soft sound of the pestle in one pale hand while another supported and turned the mortar beneath it filled the workspace that the elezen woman occupied. Pungent herbs were friable under the persistent stamp and twist of her pestle, crushed to a mixture that crumbled under her touch. She needed a distraction; she needed work.

At first she had planned to write reports, to pen out the myriad things she wanted recorded for her next appointment with whomever she would be seeing soonest.

She had realized her study was unlocked, but did not know why. Had seen the quill on her desk, counted her requisite pieces of parchment paper. Knew no reason for them to number nine, instead of the ten pressed and prepared pages that always sat on the ink blotter that dominated the bulk of her desk. 

To say she was unsettled would be an understatement. She had a perfect memory. Recalled every detail to perfection and accuracy for each of her waking interactions over the last several years, at least. But for this she had nothing.

She let that unsettled feeling crawl around over her skin. Tried to continue to keep her mind from drifting away from the herbs she was crushing. A far, far better place for her focus to remain.

Crunch, turn, tap tap. Crunch, turn, tap tap. 

[monochromatic-crow]

Prompt #5: Family Long Forgotten

Prompt 5: Free Day (Family) - FFXIV Write 2021 Character: Meallaire, Selene

Fingers held a long black feathered quill. The tip of it was set to parchment. The woman who held it had no idea what she was writing. Was unaware that she wasn’t still in her bed, sleeping. Had no memory of wandering down to the study in her home. No memory of fetching paper and quill and rich, silvery ink.

My Brother,

I can feel you. Somewhere, out there in the world. Nearby. Every time someone utters your name in front of the piece of who I am, it sparks some deeper part of my memory. Are you still you, underneath it all? Have you slumbered endlessly, the way I have? Does some part of your soul still weep for home as well? Do you remember me at all? Or have you, in all of these long years, forgotten me? 

I still hear Mother’s voice in my ears like an insistent song. She makes demands that I try my hardest not to bow to. I never asked to be one of her children. To assume this responsibility that I am meant to labor under. You and I stand on opposite sides of a rift that I never chose to be across you from. Too many years have passed since I last saw you. And more than any desire to fight you over the voice of your Father in your ears, more than any inclination to bring you to some notion of justice for the preservation of the many lives around us, I simply miss you. 

I miss our tireless hours of debate as we each worked on our newest creations, over whose theory and concepts would have the most vibrant spark in the matrices of aether we wove. The way your light burned endlessly bright and warm when you came to visit me in the depths of the archives. Your presence brought a joy to me that time and distance, and countless lives have not been able to replicate.

I do not know if you would even want to be the same man I knew so long ago. Time changes all things, does it not? It leaves its mark upon us and works its hands into our souls to shape and mold us even as we mold the world around us. Even those of us who are without end. 

Are you the same, my brother, or has your light been diminished? I worry what might have been robbed from you. Even though I know that I myself am not yet whole.

I do not know when I will see you. I do not even know if I will see you. Will this letter even reach your eyes?

As with change, I suppose only time will tell.

The letter was signed with a delicately written S beside the shape of a crescent moon. And as the woman rose, to return to her bed, to her slumber, it simply vanished as if it had never been. It would find its way to whose eyes it was meant for.

[monochromatic-crow]

[monochromatic-crow]

Not a villain, not a hero, just the architect of her own story.

Tagged by: Nobody

Tagging: Everyone - do the thing, and tag me! What kind of heroes are your muses?