#Philipa Eilhart | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

imnotusedtobeingloved · 3 years

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LIST OF FANDOMS

HERE YOU CAN FIND ALL FANDOMS I AM IN AND...

WHAT KIND OF REQUESTS I ACCEPT FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL ONE OF THEM.

THE CHARACTERS BELOW ARE JUST THOSE I AM MOST FAMILIAR WITH.

THE WITCHER

headcanon, ships, ask game, character alphabet

geralt of rivia, yennefer of vengerberg, cirilla of cintra, triss merigold, dandelion, keira metz, philippa eilhart.

DRAGON AGE

headcanon, ships, ask game, character alphabet, scenario alphabet

alistair, morrigan, leliana, sten, oghren, wynne, zevran.

varric, isabela, merril, carver, bethany, anders, fenris, aveline.

cassandra, josephine, cullen, iron bull, blackwall, sera, cole, dorian, vivienne, solas.

THE HOBBIT

platonic!ships, ask game

thranduil, legolas, tauriel, bard, smaug, gandalf, gollum, bilbo, thorin, kili, fili, balin.

LORD OF THE RINGS

platonic!ships, ask game

frodo, sam, pippin, merry, aragorn, gimli, legolas, gandalf, gollum, galadriel, arwen, boromir, faramir, elrond.

ASSASSINS CREED

ask game

jacob frye, evie frye.

DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN

ships, ask game, character alphabet

connor, markus, kara, alice, luther, north.

FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE

ships, ask game, character alphabet

cloud strife, aerith gainsborough, tifa lockhart.

AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

headcanon, platonic!ships, character alphabet, scenario alphabet

zuko, aang, sokka, katara, toph, suki, azula, mai, ty lee.

MARVEL

ask game

loki odinson, thor odinson, hela, heimdall, tony stark, natasha romanoff, wanda maximoff, bruce banner, stephen strange, vision, peter parker, steve rogers, bucky barnes, peter quill, mantis, gamora, nebula, t'challa.

GAME OF THRONES

ships, ask game, character alphabet

cersei lannister, jamie lannister, tyrion lannister, tywin lannister, jon snow, sansa stark, arya stark, bran stark, rickon stark, catelyn stark, eddard stark, robert baratheon, joffrey baratheon, margaery tyrell, loras tyrell, daenerys targaryen, viserys targaryen, missandei, grey worm, daario naharis, khal drogo, yara greyjoy, theon greyjoy, brienne of tarth, tormund.

VIKINGS

ships, ask game, character alphabet, oneshots, scenario alphabet

ivar ragnarsson, ubbe ragnarsson, hvitserk ragnarsson, bjorn ragnarsson, sigurd ragnarsson, aslaug, helga, torvi, floki, ragnar, lagertha, gyda, rollo, siggy, gisla, judith, alfred, aethelred, athelstan, ecbert.

MODERN FAMILY

ask game

jay pritchett, gloria delgado-pritchett, manny delgado-pritchett, fulgencio pritchett, claire dunphy, phil dunphy, haley dunphy, alex dunphy, luke dunphy, mitchell pritchett, cameron tucker, lily tucker-pritchett.

BROOKLYN 99

ask game

jake peralta, amy santiago, rosa diaz, charles boyle, gina linetti, terry jeffords, raymond holt, kevin cozner.

QUEENS GAMBIT

ask game

beth harmon, alma wheatley.

BRIDGERTON

ask game, platonic!ships

violet bridgerton, anthony bridgerton, benedict bridgerton, colin bridgerton, daphne bridgerton, eloise bridgerton, fancesca bridgerton, gregory bridgerton, hyacinth briderton, simon basset, sienna rosso, prince friedrich, lady danbury, genevieve delacroix, queen charlotte, marina thompson, lord featherington, portia featherington, prudence featherington, philipa featherington, penelope featherington.

UMBRELLA ACADEMY

ask game, platonic!ships

vanya hargreeves, klaus hargreeves, diego hargreeves, ben hargreeves, alisson hargreeves, five hargreeves.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN

ask game, platonic!ships

jack sparrow, will turner, elizabeth swann, hector barbossa.

GOOD OMENS

ask game

crowley, aziraphale, gabriel, anathema device, newton pulsifer, adam young.

THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS

ask game, platonic!ships

jace herondale, isabelle lightwood, max lightwood, alec lightwood, magnus bane, clarissa fairchild, simon lewis, sebastian morgenstern, jocelyn fray, maryse lightwood, robert lightwood, maia roberts, luke garroway.

THE INFERNAL DEVICES

ask game, platonic!ships

tessa grey, will herondale, jem carstairs, gabriel lightwood, cecily herondale, gideon lightwood, charlotte branwell, sophie collins, jessamine lovelace.

THE DARK ARTIFICIES

ask game, platonic!ships

emma carstairs, julian blackthorn, mark blackthorn, helen blackthorn, livia blackthorn, tiberius blackthorn, drusilla blackthorn, octavian blackthorn, cristina mendoza rosales, diego rocío rosales, kieran, diana wrayburn.

THE CRUEL PRINCE

ask game, platonic!ships

cardan greenbriar, jude duarte, taryn duarte, vivianne duarte, nicasia, valerian, locke.

PEAKY BLINDERS

ask game, platonic!ships, character alphabet

thomas shelby, arthur shelby, jon shelby, finn shelby, ada shelby, polly gray, michael gray, alfie solomons.

ARCANE

ask game, platonic!ships

jinx, vi, viktor, heimerdinger, caitlyn, ekko, mel, jayce, silco.

FRIENDS

ask game, platonic!ships

monica geller, ross geller, rachel green, chandler bing, joey tribbiani, phoebe buffay.

ASK GAME

send me a character and i’ll answer the following things about them:

#game of thrones imagine #avatar imagine #dragon age imagine #vikings imagine #ivar imagine #the mortal instruments

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warsofasoiaf · 4 years

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I've got a video game suggestion-you've mentioned that your favorite quest in Witcher 3 is Reason of State, and I would like to hear your analysis of that quest.

This is truly a god-tier quest, a very good example of well-done quest design, that culminates a world’s worth of quest-building and features some exceptional character work. Since we’re going to be up to our necks in spoilers, there’s a cut here.

Reason of State might be the grand climax and resolution of the quest arc, but context in this is critical and that goes. The northern wars between Nilfgaard and the Northern Kingdoms is all over the games. Nilfgaard’s plan to assassinate Northern kings using Letho of Gulet is the entire plot of Witcher 2, and the war between Radovid and Emhyr forms the backdrop for Witcher 3. The Northern Kingdoms are almost all broken by the time of the Witcher 3. Temeria is occupied, Foltest was murdered in the Witcher 2. Natalis missing from the Witcher 3, and Vernon Roche forced to fight a guerilla war in caves. Velen is a broken land thanks to this war and under the absentee rule of the Bloody Baron. Aedirn is a non-entity, Stennis is absent no matter what happened in Witcher 2. Kaedwyn is gone, Henselt either being killed by Roche or Radovid and forcibly integrated into Redania. Only Redania remains, forcibly integrating Kaedwyn, but it is run by Radovid V. By the third game, Radovid is a cruel, psychotic king, but has a solid understanding of tactics enough to fight the Nilfgaardians to a stalemate (and he will win, without player intervention). Nilfgaard is responsible for a lot of Northern disorder, their campaign to use Letho to kill Northern kings successfully rid themselves of Demavend III and Foltest, the first of whom was able to successfully predict Emhyr’s movements while the latter is the leader of the most powerful kingdom and successfully defeats Nilfgaard’s invasion. But it’s not all Nilfgaard, Philipa Eilhart murdered King Vizimir II, Radovid’s father and one of the chief architects of the First Northern War victory, largely out of a bid for personal power. This paragraph shows that things are bad all around. Emhyr is a blatant expansionist responsible for a great deal of suffering, and the only man capable of resisting him is an open sadist relentlessly persecuting mages, which might be the only hope for the North to remain independent (it won’t be, but you have no way of knowing that at present)

When the player begins to be introduced to the characters, they’re framed as desperate men on the fringe. Roche is waging a crusade with his Blue Stripes, but the Nilfgaardian advance has been stymied largely by Redania and the two sides attempting to compete for the fleets and treasures of Novigrad. He’s forced to working with Radovid, who he openly doesn’t like, out of a practical need to do something. Ves is even throwing herself into suicide missions against Mulbrydale, out of a desire to do something worthwhile, a far cry from the man who was such a major mover of the plot in Witcher 2. King Radovid does not present well, acting psychotic in his introductory scene with the chessmen, and acting poorly toward Geralt, the player character and thus the vector for exploring the game world even if he is an established character (it’s worth noting that one of the best ways to get a player to dislike a character is to have them be rude to the PC, no matter how justified it may be in-universe). His mage hunts are also not likely to endear themselves to the player; the two primary love interests to Geralt and friends to Ciri are mages, and the witch hunters attempt to bilk Geralt of his reward by demanding the megascope crystal in Redania’s Most Wanted. Djikstra is helpful enough to Geralt during his hunt for Dandelion, but the two end on a bad note which isn’t entirely Djikstra’s fault since Geralt did lie to him; he’s notably nicer if you secure him his vault key, but that requires botching a quest and ends up causing Triss to commit torture to progress the storyline. The player character inclined to be friendly to Roche, if only because he tends to be straight and polite with you. Sure enough, Roche and Ves help out during the climatic fight in Kaer Morhen. Radovid isn’t even an option (and will kill Kiera Metz, further engendering hatred from the player since she’s another character Geralt can shack up with and Kiera’s absence means fellow Wolf School witcher Lambert dies). Djikstra doesn’t help you at all if you don’t get his key back, and if you do he gives you gold, which isn’t likely to be very significant since you’re likely swimming in coin by that point in the game.

One of the things I like in this questline is that this is a big and monumental quest, but you will lose it if you don’t take the time to get in good with the plotters, you’ll simply miss this quest. If you don’t get in good with the plotters, they won’t trust you. And if you beat down Djikstra instead of giving him information, he despises you and won’t bring you in on the plot, Geralt’s effectiveness as a Witcher and as a protagonist be damned. That’s something that more games need to be doing, rewarding players for investing themselves in the game with content. A lot of Triple-A games these days are so scared of players missing or cutting themselves out of content that they refuse to do this, which makes a lot of RPG’s feel far more shallow. I’m sympathetic to a point to game developers, content is expensive. Graphics and voice acting are expensive and losing content means spending money on content that’s not going to hit 100% of the audience. Thing is though, the same argument can be made for sidequests, or even for alternative conversation paths, so I don’t consider it a good enough excuse on its own. Avoiding this is as brainless as it is lazy.

When the game circles back after the Isle of the Mists, things are clearly reaching a breaking point. Djikstra has recruited like-minded conspirators to his cause to kill Radovid, each of whom have their own reasons. Djikstra, who worked with Radovid’s father, finds him a poor king unlikely to continue Vizimir’s great reign. Gregor the Redanian guard sees the devastation wrought by Radovid’s lynchings and persecutions and despises it, his loyalty to his country is too high to desert but he feels he needs to do something. Thaler and Roche are devoted to the idea of a free Temeria that they’re willing to back Djikstra’s play to bring an end to the Third Northern War. The player is likely to support the conspirators, Radovid’s support of the witch hunters has led to the deaths of non-humans since you need to complete Now or Never and save the mages; pogroms aren’t a great way to endear a player character to Radovid, especially since Zoltan the dwarf has been nothing but a straight-up pal to Geralt. This is a good tactic in RPG quest design, by making the least appealing result the default, it encourages the player to do the quests. As any GM can tell you, you have to make your players want to do the quests, otherwise they’ll do something else. Games are not able to just make up a new quest off the cuff like an improvisational tabletop GM can (this was one of my strengths as a GM, if you trust my players’ judgment), so they must heavily rely on getting the player to do quests. Some are mechanical, do this quest for XP and loot that makes you better at the game. The Witcher excelled though, at getting people invested in characters.

The conspirators’ play won’t work though, not without help from Phillipa; the hated mage is the bait that they need for the trap to work (and coincidentally, it won’t work without Geralt as well both because Phillipa won’t give her ring to any of the other plotters and by virtue of Geralt as the protagonist in the RPG). The trap is laid for Radovid, and if the player goes through with it, Radovid is executed by Phillipa, who flies off into the night having murdered yet another Redanian king.

Then, after the conspirators escape, the stage is set for Geralt to make a moral choice when Djikstra betrays the conspiracy. It’s a wonderfully set and acted scene, from Djikstra quoting a Macbeth stand-in to the patriots’ giddy excitement at the future. Then, the shoe drops and the conspiracy falls apart. Djikstra plans to become the next Vizimir, taking Radovid’s consolidated northern kingdom of Redania and Kaedwyn and fighting Emhyr to a standstill. Temeria would be subsumed into that, ceasing to exist. Naturally, this enrages the Temerian patriots, who refuse to go along with that scheme. It leaves Geralt with a choice, leave and allow Djikstra to murder Roche, Ves, and Thaler, or stay and defend them, resulting in a fight that will end in Djisktra’s death. This is often the case in partisan movements throughout history, where a power struggle over the shape of the victory to come causes disunity and strife, ending with one faction murdering the other ones, so points for historical and thematic elements being on point for the gritty fantasy. Similarly, by making the choice being the resolution of a conspiracy, it threads the needle between the protagonist doing everything and solely resolving the ending for one faction, which often feels shallow, and giving the player no agency which robs investment in the ending. By allowing the conspirators their machinations and taking advantage of others already in place, it allows the player to feel a meaningful impact that has wide implications. Fallout’s ending slides could be hit or miss, though the small scale of post-apocalyptica does make it more relevant. It hits a nice sweet spot, where it’s probably a bit too much to be realistic in a straight history but works just nicely for the scope of fantasy fiction. By forcing the player to do the quests for these people, not only does it meet the threshold of believability by explaining why they would bring Geralt on the quest save that he’s the protagonist, but it invests the player in the characters. Of course, this can only be done because the game did such wonders with its character work. Even if you don’t play Witcher 2, you see Roche love his country, you see Ves try to defend Mulbrydale, and they both can contribute meaningfully in the Battle at Kaer Morhen. Djikstra does influence the main plot and he can be funny with his sarcastic quips delivered by excellent voice acting. Thaler is less of a presence, but he’s also side-splittingly hilarious when he taught the trolls to swear, the player likes these characters and so likes the quest they’re in, and picking between them does actually cut deep in a way that Telltale Games “pick which character you want” drama can only hope to achieve in its wildest dreams. It’s political game storytelling at it’s best, using character work which is easier for players to identify with as I mentioned in my geopolitics essay.

Backing Djikstra is tough in the short run, because you lose three characters that you probably like. Roche and Ves, after all, did join you in Kaer Morhen and it seems cold for them to help and then betray them, unless of course, you didn’t ask for their help. Djikstra rules and reforms the North on a program of modernization, often contrary to the wishes of his subjects. Plenty might think that to be a path of success for the North, since Djikstra will build a military that will defend them and ensure a general level of prosperity. You just have to turn a blind eye to the Temerian patriots being slaughtered by Djikstra.

The alternative, backing Roche and Thaler isn’t a pure win either. Temeria becomes a province of Nilfgaard, but Emhyr gets Aedirn and Lyria. Emhyr finally wins his war and isn’t likely to stop his expansionist ways unless Ciri becomes Empress. Even then, he’s a senior statesman and can exert influence if he wants, Ciri even says so. We can get Roche’s perspective, and we like Roche. After all, he (probably) helps us out in the grand fight at Kaer Morhen, but he’s not an unbiased observer. He’s a Temerian partisan happy to sell out the other Northern Realms for a dubious pretense at some internal autonomy for Temeria alone. In plenty of ways, the Roche path is a collaborationist success story, selling out the North for Temeria alone.

The choice is yours to take and to make what you will. Plenty of folks might hope for a change in direction if they put Ciri on the Nilfgaardian Throne, but they might instead desire for her to adventure on her own as a de facto Witcher. In that case, Emhyr fails, is killed, and who knows what happens next? Could more provinces break away, might there be further wars in Nilfgaard, or power struggles, or something else. It could go a lot of different ways and it’s up to the player to decide. In a way, that’s amazing in its own right, because it’s actually what the real world is like. The absence of a golden ending is standard fare for grimdark, but that so much is left open shows a level of restraint and trust in the player that I admire in a developer.

Thanks for the question, Anon. Hope you liked it.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

#witcher #witcher 3 #video game reviews

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decadent-hag · 4 years

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On second thought put that blindfold back on Philipa Eilhart

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snarkomancy · 4 years

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Control, Surrendered.

@skadhis

“ my curiosity keeps me confused. ”

“what’s confusing?” she asks, brows furrowing. “do you want me to explain it again?” she offers, smiling slightly. “i promise it’s not really that confusing. it’s just – not everything translates very well into common, i’m sorry.”

What was confusing? Just about everything. This was no way to work, it did not make sense, the method of magic employed here almost counterintuitive to what Philippa was accustomed to.

A dull ache was starting to form just behind her eyes, and her fingers were aching, stiff with both the effort of the unfamiliar gestures and the pervasive cold.

“I understand the principle well enough but how do you get it to flow?” She demonstrated, taking care to pronounce every syllable with perfect inflection, to keep her movements smooth and steady. It was inconsistent, her magic guttering and spluttering like a candle burning low.

“See what I mean?”

skadi watches as phillipa performs the spell. jotunn magic is very hard for outsiders to cast, she knows this. part of the power comes from their bloodline, and without it, it can be extremely difficult to master. “i see,” she says, nodding silently. “when you say the words, can you feel the magic?” skadi asks, tilting her head slightly. “when they first teach us how to do it, they just want us to say the words and feel it in us. that usually helps. it helped me a lot when i first started out,” she offers, smiling encouragingly. “just try to feel it in your bones. let it flow in you and it will tell you how to use it.”

She ceases her spell, dismissing the flow of power with a flick of her wrist. This is embarrassing, she should have been able to replicate the spell almost instantly, yet here she was, struggling like a second year adept.

I have to do better.

“You can’t be serious?!” Philippa is incredulous, this is unheard of! To allow magic to take the lead, to allow it to shape itself? The thought of doing so alone sets her on edge. This is dangerous territory. Has she not been taught from day one that she must be the one in control, the one who shapes, who directs, who channels the wild energy into its desired shape? Everyone knows what happens to mages who surrender their control. She shudders at the thought.

She looks down at her hands, smooth and pale like marble, interlocks her fingers.

“And how can I trust that doing so won’t simply tear me apart? Because based on my considerate knowledge and expertise, it likely would.”

the jotunn lets out a laugh, her head shaking as she considers philipa’s words. they are taught to fear magic in aretuza, to not let it control you. she smiles to herself, unaware of how condescending her upturned lips are in this moment. “jotunn magic is very different,” she explains. “you southerners – you see magic as good and evil. perhaps the magic you all use may be that way, but the magic of the giants? our magic is neither good nor evil. it just simply is,” she says, hoping it makes sense to her. “we are vessels for magic. it works with us. we don’t control magic, and magic doesn’t control us. we become one with magic. when you let that happen, it will work. i promise.”

Is she mocking her? Or is this some kind of elaborate trap she is about to let herself be lured into? A double-cross, a set-up to undo her?

The magician tenses, runs her fingers through her hair with quick, nervous fingers.

No reward without risk, right? This better be worth it.

“I understand the principle”, she replies, an edge to her voice. Impatient.

“To us, magic is a tool. It can destroy or it can create, it can break or it can mend. It can claim a life or save one. But you must control it, if it is to be made useful. A warrior must wield the sword, not the other way around. How will I know what it will actually do, if I do not bend it to my will?”

If she had not witnessed Skadi’s power with her own eyes, she would more than likely walk away without another word. But she has seen, and she has been awed by it, an illusion so perfect, so tangible, almost impossible to penetrate. The pinnacle of perfection.

“And if it does not work? If I was to lose control… I cannot guarantee anything, least of all your safety.”

A warning, in more ways than one.

with phil’s explanation, skadi can begin to understand the apprehension. in jotunheim you are one with magic, you are one with your weapon – it is an extension of who you are, not a tool. skadi nods along as phil speaks. “i think i understand,” she says, her voice carefully measured. “but i consider you a friend philippa. i would not teach you this if i did not think you couldn’t handle it.” she hopes philippa can believe her words, for she speaks them with the utmost honesty. “would it make you feel better if i stepped back a bit, then?”

A friend?

Philippa is dubious, has she not learned that to trust anyone except herself is foolish, stupid, careless, a certain way to ensure one’s own demise? And yet, she can sense no lie here, no intention to betray. This is nothing like what she is used to, and it makes her uncomfortable, puts her on edge.

Time to take a leap of faith.

“No. Stay. I may need you to…”

This is beyond difficult to admit, but as with anything else, there’s a give and a take. Always. Maybe this is the true price to pay for this – her pride.

“If I was to lose control, you must restrain me, and you must do so without delay. I do not want to hurt you, or myself for that matter, but I cannot guarantee that I won’t. There is a reason why we practice our art with such restraint. A reason why we are so loath to relinquish our control.”

she watches as philippa struggles internally, head tilted as she waits for her to decide what to do. “alright,” skadi says, planting her feet firmly in the spot before phil. “if anything happens, i’m right here. you’ll be okay,” she promises, giving philippa an encouraging smile, hoping her friend actually believes her.

skadi readies her hands to cast a protection sphere if she needs to, but she’s confident in phil’s abilities – she’s seen her control herself with some of the most powerful magics there are. the giantess nods slightly, waiting for phil to try again.

A sharp intake of breath. Eyes closed, feet slightly apart. Solid. Grounded. Hands rising, moving with hesitation, her mind searching for the flow of force, finding it, relishing in that familiar feeling of power. A solemn nod towards Skadi, whose energy is clearly outlined against the swirling chaos that criss-crosses the inside of her eyelids.

Her first instinct is to contain it, to balance the scales, holding everything in perfect balance.

I can’t do this, she thinks. And then: But I am going to.

Philippa relinquishes her control.

It is as if someone had impaled her on a red hot iron spike. The pain is magnificent and at the same time unbearable, a force so strong that she is propelled backwards, almost thrown off her feet. The sorceress stumbles, desperate to find her footing, her balance, her control.

Release it. Become one with it.

“Do what you will”, she whispers to the great primordial force that courses through her, gaining momentum with every beat of her heart.

“Do what you will!”

It starts as a low hum, deep below the ground, a faint sense of vertigo. But the hum rises, rolls, becomes thunder, deafening and terrible and inevitable, as the ground begins to shake and strain, the ancient stones under her feet starting to crack with a sound like breaking bones.

Philippa jumps aside, without knowing how. She no longer controls her body, or any part of herself for that matter, taken by magic, every single nerve set alight with energy.

She’s aware of the great chasm that is opening up before her, a great abyss, so dark and so deep that it surely reaches down all the way to the centre of the very earth.

Magic continues to flow, and she is powerless to stop it.

she watches in awe at first, pleasantly surprised with the success philippa is having. that relief abandons her within mere seconds at the room around them shakes and strains. this is a reaction of jotunn magic she’s never seen before. skadi can feel the power emanating from phil, and it worries her. with a few words she casts the sphere, doing everything she can to contain the energy she releases. “o lord ymir,” she pleads, eyes cast to the heavens, “grant strength and courage. o lady jord, grant me forgiveness. i know she is an outsider, but she is trusted!” she shouts, eyes cast to the earth now. “i, skadi thjazisdottir, ask for your trust, o great mother of earth!” her words are spoken like incantations, commanding the deities of her people to listen, forcing them to understand.

the world stops, all of the energy swirling around skadi and philippa like walls, as though they’re in the centre of a great storm. as though the gods themselves are taking in a breath, the energy is sucked away, throwing skadi against the wall. the earth no longer shakes, the sky no longer rumbles – they are left simply with an eerie calm. it settles over the room like a blanket, and for a moment the giantess swears she can feel the gods around her, telling her they forgive her.

she scrambles to her feet, running over to philippa. “phil, are you okay?” she asks, glacier eyes searching her friend for any hint of injury.

It keeps rising, that great tidal wave of power that floods through her, overwhelms her, threatens to tear her limb from limb. She has to take back control! Philippa tries to centre herself, desperately, hanging on by a thread, her vision is blurring and every bone in her body feels as if it has been shattered like glass. Someone is screaming out in agony, and for a moment she is back at Sodden, fires burning all around her, the bodies of the fallen piling up by her feet, not a single speck of ground that isn’t soiled with spilled blood while the tide of battle surges towards her.

No! Not this!

It is her own voice that she hears, full of terror and rage.

Philippa Eilhart collapses to the ground, her legs simply giving way underneath her, the rough stone tearing her clothing, leaving a bloody scrape against her skin, yet the magic won’t stop flowing.

I can’t stop! It won’t stop!

Only it does.

She’s not sure what hurts more – the surge of power or its sudden absence. The sorceress is left reeling, her breath fast and ragged, and there’s something warm and wet dripping down her face. She wipes it away with the back of her hand, unsurprised when it comes away bloody.

Suddenly, Skadi is there beside her, that cool, calm, immovable presence, her hand upon Philippa’s shoulder endlessly reassuring, an anchor to reality.

Philippa looks up, once more wiping blood from her face.

“I’m going to be. I – I’ve never felt a force like that before. I’m surprised I’m not dead, to be perfectly honest.” Philippa reaches out with her mind, it’s painful to do so in this state, but something needs to be said, something that she’s far too proud to say in any other way.

Thank you. I mean it.

#skadhis #completed threads #i wanted to add a quote as well but haven't been able to find the perfect one rip #anyway here's our finished thread all in one post #ELMOFIRE #thank you for this thread i had a lot of fun with this!#also my apologies for phil #being an agent of chaos and destruction as usual rip

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