#also wood elves are going to be black and brown

[little-red-stiles-hood]

My husband and I just watched all the extended editions of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings movies. We were discussing how excited we were to read the Hobbit to our future kids, and I mentioned how I wanted to add Tauriel to the story even if she isn't in the books maybe even genderswap a dwarf or two just to add more women into the story. This poll sprang from the philosophical debate that that started. I am gonna do what I want but mostly I wanted to see if anyone else would do something similar.

[powdermelonkeg]

Worldbuilding

Made a new fantasy world in my spare time today, populated it with fantasy races.

Premise of the story: An elf chef who runs the best restaurant in the area gets his ingredients by diving into the local dungeon. His restaurant is the best not only because of his fantastic cooking skills and quality ingredients, but also because he can serve anybody that comes through his doors; each of the races has different dietary needs and finds different things poisonous, and he can cook for anyone.

One day, he's in the dungeon, and he falls down into a lower level nobody's been to in AGES. Thing is, though, there's a human living there, a biologist who's been studying the dungeon ecology for centuries, and the last human alive—all others were wiped out centuries ago due to a plague, and she's only alive because she's been living in the dungeon.

Main story arc is this guy trying to figure out not just what she can eat, but what she'd LIKE to eat, without killing her in the process.

Yes this is inspired by Dunmeshi. What of it.

Races are:

Humans (extinct)

Elves

Faunlings

Halflings

Orcs

Dwarves

Brounies

Gnomes

Elves

A camouflage species, their colors depend on the environment they're in. A snow elf would be pale white, a wood elf shades of green and brown, a dark elf (as in, lives underground) stone gray with jet black hair, and so on. Knife-point ears. Average height: 5'8"

Diet: Vegetarian, can't process meat at all, regardless of source.

Faunlings

Deer-like people, ranging visually from elves with horns to satyr-like. They're all one species, despite individual variation.

Diet: Opportunistic carnivores, they CAN eat meat, but mostly eat plants; can't process milk or most sugars past infancy. Average height: 4'10"

Halflings

NOT hobbits. They're small people, deathly pale and young-looking in their base form, with nub horns on their heads. Their appearance changes depending on who they live nearest, from their build to their coloration—a halfling living near wood elves might get taller and coppery with pointed ears, while a halfling near faunlings might have furrier legs, dappled shoulders, and longer horns, etc. Average height: varies wildly

Diet: Obligate ovivores, eat almost exclusively eggs when young and need lots of protein. Depending on who they live near, they'll eventually adapt to local cuisine and build up poison tolerance, but forcing that adaptation to go too quickly can send them into shock.

Orcs

Cat eyes and feline fangs, big and muscular. Like elves, they camouflage based on location, but they tend to be more colorful overall. Average height: 6'10"

Diet: Heavily meat-based diet, they eat most meat raw. Highly lactose intolerant, may occasionally eat plants, but can't process grains.

Dwarves

Short and stocky. Dark blueberry purple-blue by default, will temporarily turn pale on parts of their bodies that are exposed to light for a few hours. Sunlight sends them into temporary hibernation and petrification, making them statue-like. On cloudy days, they're lethargic, and on moonlit nights, their skin gets a little harder, with white patches depending on the strength of the moonlight. Average height: 3'9"

Diet: They have a tolerance for poisons that most races would die over, but they can't stand most acids. Citric acid in particular is poisonous to them. Cavern-based diet.

Brounies

THESE are the hobbits. Short and humanlike, with long, fur-tipped tails. Usually monochrome in color scheme, leaf-point ears. Average height: 3'2"

Diet: Can't process plant fibers properly, all plant matter must be cooked to break it down. Mostly raw pescatarian.

Gnomes

Even smaller than brounies, humanlike, with round-edged pointed ears and generally plump bodies. Average height: 2'4"

Diet: Vegan, with HIGH poison tolerance, they actually need some poisons to live. Mushrooms and fruit make up much more of their diet than leaves do.

[y-rhywbeth2]

Lore: Halflings #1

Link: Disclaimer regarding D&D "canon" & Index [tldr: D&D lore is a giant conflicting mess. Larian's lore is also a conflicting mess. You learn to take what you want and leave the rest]

Overview | Homelands | Culture | Religion -- WIP

AKA; the Hin.

Covering their brief history and an overview of the hin and information on the three halfling cultural groups - Like the fact that Ghostwise generally don't like visitors, but they might make an exception for Gale providing he brings Tara.

This was going to be longer and include a small tangent about halfling opera and architecture, but then I realised that the politics was taking up too much space, so this is a part one, instead.

---

The people known to the rest of the world as "halflings," and to themselves as Hin, meaning 'one of us,' are the most populous of the core non-human race on Faerûn.

When they think of or speak of "their people", a halfling generally means their clan first and foremost, rather than the entire hin race.

The values which all hin typically share, regardless of culture, are family, practicality and the simple pleasures of life. Rather like the hobbits they were originally based on, although they do start to diverge past that initial point.

Which isn't to say that they're doormats or don't have aim: 'The Halfling people have a saying: First there were Dragons, then Dwarves, then Elves, then Men. Then it's our turn! [...] Halflings have a smug, far-sighted attitude that these lumbering giants will eventually leave, destroy themselves, or give themselves up, and that which remains will be theirs.'

They live for an average of 150 years. appearing much the same as a human beinga in range of colouration, and standing at 2'8" - 3'4," with something of an 'athletic build' on average, and have been described as resembling "urchin children" by humans. All hin grow sideburns, regardless of gender, which they traditionally braid. Full beards are less common, and most can't grow them. They are known to 'have brownish skin on the tops of their feet, and tough layers of horn-like skin (akin to inch-thick callouses in texture) covering the bottoms of their feet, so they can comfortably go barefoot even on rough ground and in extremes of temperature.'

On average, hin genetics produce an individual with 'ruddy skin, brown or black eyes, and hair that's black and straight.' Eyes tend to be some shade of yellow (including more orange tones and yellow-green), usually these seem to be some shade of brown, but 'butter yellow' and deep red are seen. Hair can come in 'straw-yellow, deep blue, or even flame-orange hair.' Curling and dying hair may be done for fashion-related reasons.

Outside of the halfling gene pool, halflings - especially Lightfoot - readily mix with other races, and their genetics also enter the pool. Some families are known for blueish-white skin which may suggest moon elven ancestry.

The Hin migrated to the world of Toril around the same time as dwarves, elves and giants, arriving in the untamed wilderness that would come to be known as the Luirwood, in Southern Faerûn. They were socially divided into three peoples: the Lightfoot, the Strongheart and the Ghostwise. The three were prone to feuding, but were mostly forced to get along due to the need to defend themselves from intruders, ranging from neighbouring humans to gnolls.

This cooperation went massively downhill in -100 DR, when a Ghostwise named Desva converted to the worship of Malar (god of hunting, predators, bloodlust, untamed wilderness, etc). Desva and her followers took over the Ghostwise, infected themselves with lycanthropy, drove the wildlife mad with bloodlust and hunted other halflings for sport, turning life in the woods into a bloodbath for 42 years. They were eventually taken down by an alliance between Chand, leader of the Strongheart hin and the unidentified leader of the Lightfoot. What followed was another three years of slaughter, as Chand refused to allow a single Ghostwise to be spared while they rooted out every one of their settlements and put them to the sword in an act of genocide.

What little remained of the Ghostwise consisted of those who had allied themselves with the Strongheart and were permitted to remain, while any other survivors were exiled from the Luirwood. The Ghostwise took an oath never to speak, out of horror at the 45 years of hell that had occurred (referred to as the Ghost Wars), and the fact that the first 42 years of atrocities were committed by their own people. These exiles eventually settled in the Chondalwood in Central Faerûn.

The Lightfoot, horrified by the actions of the Strongheart under Chand's leadership, also renounced the Luirwood and went into voluntary exile as a nomadic people. In the modern day they can be encountered all throughout Faerûn, living comfortably alongside almost any peoples.

The Strongheart remained in the Luirwood, eventually building permanent settlements and clearing the forests for industry and agriculture, developing the Luirwood into the kingdom of Luiren. Some Lightfoot halflings have returned to Luiren over time, but the country is predominantly a Strongheart land.

-

Strongheart hin Also called Luiren halflings, though most of them will refuse to be called "halflings" - the Hin are not "half" of anything, thank you very much. While the hin of Luiren build permanent settlements and clans may own permanent houses and businesses, they are not traditionally a settled people. They live seminomadic lives, travelling between these settlements after staying in one for a time period reaching between a month to a year. Strongheart society is built around the concept, and things like jobs are built so that you can just turn up, pick them up and then drop them and wander off again.

Good housekeeping is important, because in a few months somebody else will be living in this home, and how terribly rude it would be to leave it a broken mess when they arrive - the entire society will fall apart without consideration for who will be here after you leave. You need to know you're moving on to a welcoming, open community and a good home to live in. Between this and the infighting of the Ghost Wars, Strongheart culture values the ability to cooperate with one's fellows as the highest virtue. Responsibility to the community, trust and good nature is paramount.

While they maintain their communal ties, and any group of hin places a strong emphasis on teamwork, groups are not permanent things either, and individuals may join or break from their communities and family/friend units as the mood/need takes them.

The ease at which a seemingly tight knit and organised society simply has members get bored and wander off out of nowhere confuses most outsiders. Even elves and gnomes find their society flighty and confusing. The Stronghearts simply assume those people must get very bored doing the same things and seeing the same people all the time.

The Strongheart are not the most trusting of outsiders, who often seem to think they can take advantage of them. They are raised knowing they may be called to defend their homes at a moment's notice. In terms of religion, Strongheart culture frowns heavily on worshipping non-hin gods, venerating only Yondalla and her children. Of the halfling pantheon, Arvoreen, their warrior god and protector proves the most popular.

They're also very into competitive sports, which are Serious Business.

Lightfoot hin The most commonly encountered of their people. Lightfoot are a flightier, adventurous lot as a stereotype and have a greater focus on individualism than other halflings.

The Lightfoots have made themselves at home pretty much everywhere that people won't attempt to enslave them (or where they they haven't been banned entry, such as the human nation of Halruaa). If there's a human settlement bigger than a village, you can usually find a halfling. in fact they can be found quite comfortably living in most societies outside of their own communities, including elven, gnome or dwarven, even if they are less common there than amongst humans. They are polite and quiet, and tend to be overlooked by their neighbours - which is agreeable to halflings, who enjoy being able to live their lives as they please without others sticking their noses into it.

When living in human communities, halflings will divide a house or apartment of human size into subsections which will be divided between several families. Often one family will buy the building and rent the other divisions to the other families.

Living amongst a people who can easily threaten them (or will start a fight thinking they can, anyway), Lightfoots often keep mastiffs and other large dog breeds as pets.

Having developed amongst a myriad of cultures miles away from one another, all over the continent, there is no "Lightfoot culture" as there is Strongheart/Luiric or Ghostwise culture.

Many Lightfoot families have never given up on the nomadic lifestyle of their ancestors, and tend to pick up their own unique worldviews created from ideas picked up all over the place.

While stationary Lightfoots are less likely to simply wander away from their lives the way Stronghearts are, it isn't unheard of for individuals or entire families to simply pack up and move after a few decades once their current habitation grows monotonous. It's said by some that the restlessness is the result of the Lightfoots having found no homeland for themselves in their wandering, and so they continue to feel the need to wander and search. Some of the hin disagree, but there are those who would like to carve out a place like Luiren for themselves. The latter (especially the young) are often drawn in by followers of the goddess Cyrrollalee, who preach that the halflings should seek to make a place of power and respect for themselves amongst the peoples of Faerûn.

Regarding religion, Lightfoots are the most open to adopting deities from outside their own pantheon, and families often declare one certain deity their household patron god (usually the result of one influential ancestor who was very religious and made it a family thing).

Ghostwise hin The Ghostwise have retreated into the Chondalwood, and desire to be left alone there. Most are fully unaware of their presence, save for the green elves who share the woods with them, and with whom they have a sort of peace; The hin avoid the elves out of fear, and the elves respect the halflings' desire to be left alone (having a similar history, the green elves understand that wish).

Following their vow of silence in their exile, the Ghostwise have developed a natural telepathy, having mostly forsaken speech altogether in favour of mental communication. While the family heads and druids may take the time to learn foreign languages in case of diplomatic need, the average Ghostwise is so used to telepathic communication and lack of contact with non-hin that they don't see a need to learn more than halfling and common.

Their people are divided into family groups. Hin cultures all put emphasis on clan and kin, but the Ghostwise obsession with filial piety seems extreme even to the others. Clans live a nomadic life within the boundaries of the Chondalwood, under the leadership of the family matriarch/patriarch, each claiming a territory ranging in size from less than fifty square miles up to several hundred. There aren't many Ghostwise, and as they have plenty of space to avoid stepping on each other's toes there's little squabbling over claimed territory or hunting grounds. The clans don't shun each other's company, and their leaders maintain ties and hold regular meet ups in order to discuss matters of import and news of anything that might affect their lives in the Chondalwood. Should danger arise, the Ghostwise clans are prepared to band together to defend each other from threats in the name of mutual survival.

These claimed areas span out from a specific natural feature - a designated rock formation, lake, tree or whatever. Each member of the clan carries a part of this feature on their person, usually in the form of something wearable. If it's lost through carelessness, then the halfling must atone for their disrespectful error before they're allowed to replace it. This often involves being sent out on a quest of some sort.

The Ghostwise have formed a bond with the giant owls that live in the Wood, and their best warriors train to become Nightgliders - mounted fighters who patrol the skies and go into battle astride said giant owls. In larger clans, the position of Nightglider is hereditary, and parents who hold the rank train their children from birth. In smaller clans every halfling has a giant owl. Becoming a Nightglider is a position of prestige, and much ceremony is involved in becoming one.

They also enjoy the company of tressym, and many druids and sorcerers (and the occasional wizard) can be found with a tressym companion.

Ghostwise cremate their dead, and in terms of religion they tend to focus on the halfling nature goddess Sheela Peryroyl, seeking to have a positive relationship with the woods that shelter them. The Ghostwise hold cultural shame over the actions of Desva and her followers, and are mistrustful of non-hin druids, whose defence of the natural world against encroachment and hatred of civilisation often sounds dangerously close to the dogma of Malar that led to the Ghost Wars.

They aren't necessarily outright aggressive to outsiders they encounter, and will avoid such encounters if they can, but they won't hide their irritation and distrust if they can't. The halfling tradition of being a good host holds strong, and guests will be protected and treated reasonably well by their Ghostwise hosts - even if they are spending your entire stay hinting that maybe you could hurry up and finish what you came here to do. Don't you have somewhere else to be now? Please?

The typical Ghostwise response to adventurers is "oh gods no." There are many old ruins and such in the Chondalwood, and more than once a party has unleashed things from inside those things that caused chaos for the people trying to live in the woods. The clans are perfectly willing to chase off any adventuring parties they find.

Following their history of banishment, exile is the ultimate crime in Ghostwise society - death is considered more merciful. _

[lec743-my-art]

Merry Christmas Secret Santa @primary-visions

            The day was coming to an end. The sky was painted with bright oranges, light pinks, and stark purples and indigo, just enough light for the three travelers to see by as they made it to their destination. The town was small but thrived on the travelers that must pass through to reach farther lands. There was a comfy inn called Drunk Rats. There was an obvious sign of forgers and black smith smokestacks further in town, but the three travelers were too tired to truly explore the town further than what they could see. Well, the only human of the group was tired. The two automatons traveling with the human could continue for forever if they so choose, but it was time for the two to check if anything needs oiling or if dust needs to be taken out of gears. Staying at an inn was a great place to check for such things.

            “Oh! This place is so cute looking. Do you think I should have my house here?” Soliel asked as he examined the old but sturdy building they were entering. His metal hands touched at the wood gently as he walked with the others.

            The inn wasn’t overwhelmingly loud, but it was noisy with low talking as a dwarf bard near the fireplace strummed on her lute. Candle holders caked with the remains of past candles sat against the support beams of the building as the newly lit candles’ lights danced, giving the whole place a soft golden glow.

            “You say that about every village or town we walk into,” Hati stated, ribbing his follow automat with playfulness and annoyance.

            “There are so many good places to live at!” Soliel said, getting defensive. “I want to live at the perfect place.”

            The human companion, the artificer of the group, sighed at their bickering. They left Hati and Soliel to bicker like siblings that have been together for far too long as they approached the owner of the inn at the front desk.

            “Hi. Do you have room for the three of us? We’ll just take one room.”

            The human woman looked like she was nearing her golden age. Maybe in her fifties if the gray in her blond hair told them anything. The front desk woman had on a very low-cut dress that was brown and blue in color. It looked nice on her. She looked at the artificer and then at their bickering companions behind them. “Are those things yours?”

            The human companion sighed in disappointment at that. “They’re my friends.”

            There was a pause as the older woman looked at the artificer with one cocked eyebrow. They didn’t elaborate to the woman, so she shrugged then said, “It’ll be two gold pieces per night stay. Do you have any horses or livestock with you?”

            “No, it’s just the three of us,” they said as they dug out ten gold pieces. Then they placed them on the counter and the woman took the money and placed a key in its place.

            “Your room will be upstairs, on the right, at the end of the hallway.”

            “Thank you.”

            They went back to their automaton buddies. They overheard them fighting over hypotheticals about how they would handle fighting a bugbear. Hati was proudly saying he’d demolish the bugbear with the perfect strike while Soliel gave him the most leveling look an automaton could give when his face is only a mask of an artistic sun.

            “Okay. Let’s go boys. I hear a bath calling my name.”

            “Coming,” they both cheered as they followed the artificer up the stairs.

            The next day, as the sun rose, Soliel was the first to rise and he went to explore the little town. It was full of people. Mostly humans, as he’s accustomed to seeing, but he has also noticed there’s another thriving population of lizardfolk as well, along with a small, odd population of dwarves, elves and half-orcs. It really did seem like a nice town, with old but well-kept buildings, a flower shop, a sizable food market, two smith shops, a ceramic shop and a stone and wood cutter shop. Soliel circled back to the food market to buy a little snack for his sunshine friend but as he browsed what the food stalls had to offer, he noticed that there really wasn’t much to see. The portions were much too small for what size they should have been, or they were so old that they were starting to rot a bit, which isn’t a good sign.

            Soliel looked to the current food stall owner, who’s stall that he was browsing, and it was a young lizardfolk man sitting behind the cart. He was maybe in his late twenties or early thirties. His scales looked dull, and his face looked gaunt, like he hasn’t had a good meal in a while. He was wearing a simple tunic shirt and it hung off him loosely.

            “Excuse me my good man.”

            The lizardfolk man blinked a bit, like he was taken out of his thoughts and then he turned his snout towards the automaton. He blinked some more before his eyebrow ridges raised higher on his face as he regarded Soliel. “Yes?”

            “I was just wondering, is your town coming across hard times recently.” The bardic automaton motioned towards the lizardfolk’s wares for emphases.

            The lizardfolk man sighed as he leaned back into his chair. “No. It is not recently. It’s been four years.”

            “Oh my! What’s wrong?”

            “Look. I don’t have time for your curiosity, stranger. Either buy something or leave.” He didn’t say it with any power. He sounded like a man who’s extremely tired.

# # #

            “What do you mean he won’t tell me more! I rolled high on my charisma! I persuaded the heck out of him!” Sun whined to you, the Dungeon Master.

            “Look Sun, that’s just all he’s willing to answer. He doesn’t see you as a threat but you’re just an automaton to him. He doesn’t know your backstory, so he doesn’t think you’d understand anything more than what he said.”

            Sun slouched in the kitchen chair as he crossed his arms with a huff.

            Moon chuckled playfully as he rolled a twenty-sided die between his fingers. “You should have threatened him if you wanted more information.”

            Sun sighed, his voice box glitching to give it a gravelly affect. “That’s not the point of my character.”

            From across the kitchen table, Moon shrugged with little remorse at him.

            “So are you going to leave the lizard man alone, Sun,” you asked.

            “I’ll buy those carrots and leave,” he said in defeat as he leaned his flat face up to the ceiling in another show of pouting.

            You nod and then turn back to Moon. “Okay. What is Hati up to then as this is going on, Moon?”

            Moon gave a thoughtful hum as he considered his choices.

# # #

            Hati snuck through the gray alleyways of the town in the early morning. Having left his little artificer to sleep alone as soon as Sun left. He was scouting out the town for the richest people he can steal from. Some small part of Hati could practically hear Soliel say how he shouldn’t steal from people or how wrong it is. His long-time friend and assumed brother isn’t wrong, but Hati doesn’t care. He likes the thrill of stealing from the rich and using it for himself to buy whatever he wants. He sometimes even gives what he steals to the poor kids they encounter on their travels and that usually shuts up Soliel.

            Eventually he came across a government building that was just starting to wake up. At least that’s what it seemed to Hati from his observations. The automaton snuck into the building through a locked back door. The few people he crossed as he snuck through the government building were some general staff that were talking about how hard it’s been to feed their kids and when they are going to be able to farm properly again. Hati shrugged at that as he continued his way to where he deduced the mayor’s coffers to be.

            He narrowly avoided being caught by the mayor’s secretary as he was trying to unlock the door that led to the mayor’s office and therefor to their coffers. The secretary was running out of the office after getting news of some kind. Hati didn’t care for what for, he just wanted money and to get out of there. He inspected the mayor’s office to find it looking drab. Usually, a head of office has a luxurious setting with unnecessary gold-plated items. Hati mentally shrugs at the lack of finery. Relegating it to the town being too small for the mayor to get away with. He found the safe and unlocked it with ease. All that was in the safe was a pouch of thirty silver pieces.

# # #

            “Ah! What!” Moon complained over Sun’s laughter.

            “That’s all you find Moon,” you repeat.

            “Noooo! My character isn’t interested in stealing if it’s not gold. How does a government office not have gold!” Moon ranted.

            “Well, obviously this town isn’t doing so well,” Sun stated with smug satisfaction.

            Moon could only grouch some more against Sun and you.

            “Will you now check to see if there are any papers or documents for why this town is falling on such hard times?” Sun pleaded.

            Moon mechanically sighed, then said, “Fine… What do I roll for again DM?”

            “Investigation.”

            Moon took his twenty-sided die and tossed it on the table. It made little clacking noises before settling. “What does a 12 get me?”

            You cleared your throat. “You’ve been in plenty of offices before. You easily spot that there is a locked filing cabinet in the back right corner of the room, behind the mayor’s desk.”

            “Alright. Let me just roll for Slight of Hand and unlock this sucker.” Moon rolled his twenty-sided die again. “Yes! An eighteen! So all together that’s a twenty-seven.”

            “Tell me again why you chose to be a ranger and not a rouge,” you asked.

            “It’s too on the nose,” Moon said with a shrug.

            “Sometimes, being on the nose isn’t so bad,” Sun stated.

            Moon gave his sunny counterpart the best dead pan look that a robot can when their face is frozen in a permanent smile.

# # #

            Hati muttered to himself as he looked through the papers. Documents of the dead. Documents of newborns. Documents of housing. Reports on farms. Hati decided to look through those a bit more closely. From his quick scanning of the texts, Hati found that the town is having a bit of a bear problem. He would have looked more into it now that his curiosity has been piqued, but then he heard someone running down the halls towards the office he was in, and he had to bail out of the nearest window. He initially tried to jump through the window while it was closed, but he wasn’t strong enough to break it and instead had to open it and then jump out the window. He jumped with the grace of an egg falling out of a nest and hurting himself as he landed on the ground. He quickly ran back to The Drunk Rats Inn.

            The Artificer was drinking water-down beer for breakfast as it seemed that was all the Inn Keeper and Cook were able to provide as food, when Hati and Soliel came back from their exploring. Hati was walking like his ass was broken and Soliel was holding the sadist bundle of carrots the Artificer has ever seen.

            “What have you two been up to?”

            “Something is wrong here,” they both said. Then in sync both automatons turned to each other and pointed at each other at the same time, saying, “You too?”

            “Slow down. Why don’t you two sit down with me and then tell me what’s going on,” The Artificer stated.

            “Uh… Soliel, do you mind giving me a hand?”

            The sunshine robot rolled his head as he let out a mechanical sigh. He sat the carrots on the table in front of their human friend then he pulled out his ukulele and sang a little song to heal the broken machinery of Hati’s ass.

            “Thank you,” the moon themed robot said cheerfully.

            Soliel only grumbled a bit in response as he sat down with him and the Artificer. Hati went first telling the group about what he found, and he rolled his head as they told him how much they disapproved of him trying to steal from people… again. Then Soliel talked about his little romp through town and how lovely it is here but also how everyone doesn’t seem to be all that well fed.

            “You think that has anything to do with those bear problem reports you found, Hati,” the Artificer asked.

            “I don’t know how a bear or even a group of bears could make things go so wrong around here. I would think the local rangers would have taken them down by now.”

            “Maybe they don’t have rangers in this area,” Soliel suggested.

            The Artificer stood up and took the carrots with them and said, “Welp, there’s only one way to find out. Let’s go talk to some elderly.” The Artificer took the carrots with them, taking a bite out of them as the three of them walked, unfazed by the bad taste of the old carrots.

            The three of them found the town square. There were young children gathered together talking or napping under the shade of the buildings and trees. A few young adults were cleaning the town square, making sure it’s clear of dirt and leaves. The elderly was in their own corner sitting around tables and playing boardgames of some kind. The three adventurers approached the elderly. Only one acknowledged their approached as he looked at them suspiciously.

            “What do you strangers want?” The old man had a long gray beard, and the sun shined on his bald head, as if he somehow took the hair on his head and decided to place it on his face to shake up the last years of his life. He was rail thin, but he still had a fire in his eyes, like he’d use his skeleton-like hands to cut you open with just his fingernails.

            “Well, my friends and I have noticed that your town seems to be having a hard time,” the Artificer started, “and we’re trying to figure out what’s wrong so we can help if we can. So what’s going on?”

            “No! That’s none of your concern!” The old man stated as the other elderly nodded in agreement. Except for one lady who was hidden by the crowd saying, “Uh, we could use the help actually.” The old man turned towards the old woman’s voice and yelled, “Ah, shut up, Linda, they weren’t asking you!”

            Hati took a step forward and lend towards the old man, then said, “Well now we are.”

            Soliel was already walking towards Linda, “Pardon us.”

            The old lady was bald, and you could obviously see that she didn’t have any teeth, but she still had a smile on her face that made the initial hostility surrounding them, seem dimmer.

            “So what is going on, Madam,” Soliel asked politely.

            “There’s this monstrous bear out in the woods that has three heads—”

            “Bah! Your eyes are bad! It was a normal bear!” The old man stated.

            “We weren’t asking you, now shut up,” Hati told off the old man. He was officially cowed by the moon themed automatons’ words.

            “Please continue,” Soliel gently coxed Linda to continue.

            “There’s this three-headed bear in the woods. It’s been giving us trouble ever since it’s been here. We’ve sent out so many rangers after it, who have never come back, that it’s felt useless to even ask for help anymore.”

            “Well, we’re willing to help. We can take care of it for you,” Soliel said.

            The old man spoke up with a shake to his voice, “Pah! What makes you three so special? I bet you’ll be asking for money for this service you are wanting to do.”

            The Artificer quickly spoke up, “Of course. It’s only just enough money to support us to the next town we travel to. We need to eat and survive as well.”

            The old man grumbled to himself as the other old folk nodded to that sound logic. The three of them get as much information as they can out of the towns folk and they bargained that if they succeed in killing the supposed three headed bear, they would be paid thirty gold pieces. Once everything was settled, the three adventures gathered their things and made their way into the nearby forest.

            As the three of them walked through the forest, Soliel decided to softly strum on his ukulele to pass the time. Their human friend was lost in their own thoughts thinking about what new magical buffs they can add to their automaton friends. Hati took the lead as the ranger of the group and was trying to find bear tracks. After an hour of walking, Hati had suddenly stopped, and the other two-party members ran into him as a result.

            “Dang it, Hati, what was that for. I was on a rhythm,” Soliel complained.

            Hati put a finger to his face mask and made a shushing noise. Then in a whisper he asked, “Do you hear that?”

            The three of them stood silently in the softly lit forest. All that was heard was the slight rustling of the breeze through the trees.

            “I don’t hear anything,” the Artificer whispered. Soliel nodded in agreement with them.

            “That’s right. There’s nothing. Not the sound of birds. Not the sound of wolves. Or dear or ferrets or any other animal that belongs to this forest. It’s too quiet. It’s like not even the insects are here.”

            The Artificer felt goosebumps prickle their skin and Soliel huddled closer to them as they gripped their ukulele a little tighter.

            “Did this bear just eat everything that’s in this forest?” The Artificer asked as they seriously took in their surroundings.

            Hati took out two arrows from his quiver for him to grip in each hand. “I would bet good money on that being the case. Let’s keep moving. I know we’re getting closer to it.”

            After that, the three of them got lost in the woods for an undetermined amount of time, because Hati was too proud to say he got lost after saying something that he thought made him sound cool. Eventually, the three of them got back on track. At a clearing in the woods, the party then found a big, dark cave with dried blood splattering its entrance and bones scattered everywhere.

            “I think it would be nice if one of us knew necromancy,” the Artificer whispered.

            “Yah, we could raise a whole skeleton army here,” Soliel whimpered.

            “Welp, no time like the present to get this done,” Hati said. Then he ran screaming into the cave making his friends jump at the sudden noise.

            Exasperated, Soliel yelled, “Hati why!”

            The lunar automaton moved too fast for them to react and all they could do was watch him disappear as his voice echoed inside the cave. The two of them stood quietly as it got quiet in the cave.

            “Oh good. It seems the bear isn’t in it’s cave right now,” the Artificer sighed.

            Soliel felt a hot, wet breath on the back of his scrawny neck. The solar automaton whipped around so fast it made the human jump and the two of them came face to face with a bear. Its head is so large it was as long as Soliel was tall. Its eyes were blood shot, and drool dripped down its fuzzy maw. Then something moved around the neck of the giant bear, almost hidden and blended into its long, dark brown shaggy fur. It was two more heads, smaller than the head in the middle, but still just as dangerous looking. For the longest moment, the two of them stared down the massive creature as it sniffed at them. All six eyes then shifted to the Artificer.

            “Oh, no…” They said as they started to back up from the encroaching bear.

            In a panic Soliel cast Confusion on the three headed bear, music filled the air making the world seem wobbly and weak. His human friend shook their head against the music, resisting the magic the solar automaton cast. The three headed bear wasn’t so lucky as it recoiled and stood on its hind legs, looking as tall as a two-story tall building.

            “Sorry!” Soliel yelled.

            “It’s good! I’m good!”

            An arrow shot forward and then hundreds more followed suit. The bear cried in pain, but only attached a near by tree. The two heroes turned to see Hati standing at the entrance of the cave, his bow smoking from using the spell Conjure Volley.

            “So, the cave is empty.”

            “Oh, you don’t say,” Soliel snapped back.

            “Now’s not the time to argue,” their human friend yelled as they took special manacles out of their bags and placed them on their arms. Then like angel wings, four giant olden mechanical arms appeared on their back, having casted Bionic Arms on themselves. “I’m going to try and pin its heads.” They climbed up the bear, using the arrows lodged into its hide as leverage to climb up faster. The human managed to get on top of the middle head of the bear, but just as they were about to grapple the jaws shut, clarity came back to the bears eyes, and it immediately tried to shake the Artificer off. “Aaaaa! Heeeeelp!!!”

            Soliel strummed on his ukulele and sang a song called Hold Monster. Immediately the three headed bear was still, but its body trembled as it tried to fight off the magical hold it was under. The human sighs in relief.

            Hati shot two arrows from his bow at the bear, both striking true. The second arrow caused thick spiney vines to spout out of the ground and wrap around the three headed bear’s hind legs. Even though it couldn’t open its mouth as it was still being held down by Soliel’s magic, they heard it cry viciously from the pain.

            The Artificer placed a pair of hands on each head, then used Taser. A charge of deadly electricity raced through the bear, causing its fur to smoke. Then the bear managed to break free of Soliel’s magic and one of the smaller bear heads managed to grab the Artificer by their boot. The bear shook them around before releasing them. The human flew through the sky and hit their back against a thick tree trunk and flopped to the forest floor.

            Soliel reactively ran towards their human friend but as he tried to get to them, the bear managed to catch him with its paws and sent the automaton flying backwards, making him disappear into the bushes of the forest. The bear then got to work on biting the spiney vines off of its body.

            Hati let loose another spell of Conjure Volley. Hitting the bear mostly in its back as it was in pain but still focused on getting itself free from the vines. The lunar automaton pulled out two arrows from his quiver and then charged at the bear with the arrows held high above his head.

            The Artificer struggled to get back on to their feet, even when using their extra limbs as crutches. They looked up in time to see Hati flinging himself at the three headed bear. “Hati! It’s not even restrained anymore!” Their friend ignored them as the ranger robot continued to stab the now free bear with his arrows. The bear set its eyes on the human and growled hungerly at them as they started to lumber towards the only flesh and blood being within a hundred-foot radius. The Artificer pulled out a disk from their bag and as the bear got closer and opened its jaw towards them, the human threw the disk into their mouth. The bear retracted a bit, finding the odd disk tasting funny, then the human magically set it off and the disk blew up like a bomb in the bear’s mouth. The middle head gurgled in pain as the other two heads howled in pain with the middle head.

            Soliel managed to finally drag himself out of the bush and came back into the clearing seeing that Hati was hanging on to the bear’s chest hair, and that his human friend was essentially cornered by a bloody mouthed bear. The bardic robot shook the leaves out of his ukulele and then started to strum Vicious Mockery, telling the bear how stupid it is and how weak and pathetic it is and how it doesn’t belong in the forest. It shook the three headed bear to its core. Hati barely managed to get out of the way as the bear fell to its stomach.

            Hati aimed an arrow into the sky and as the arrow fell towards the downed bear, he cast Conjure Barrage and hundreds of arrows rained on the bears back. The bear let out a weak roar.

            The Artificer kept their distance from the bear as they pointed with three hands at the creature. Then they let loose another Taser spell at the bear’s head. With one last weak gargle, the bear died before the three of them. The three of them sighed in relief.

            “That was rough,” the human stated as they wiped sweat off their brow.

            “That was an invasive species if I’ve ever seen one,” Hati remarked as he put away his bow and arrows.

            “Yah, and maybe next time, don’t just run headfirst into a problem,” Soliel scolded his fellow automaton.

            “It’s dead, isn’t it?”

            “Guys, let’s cut its head off so we have proof we did the job. Soliel, do you have any juice left to heal me. I’m not feeling too good.”

            The solar robot got it’s ukulele in position, “Of course.

# # #

            “And then the three of you managed to drag the heads to the town and the towns folk rejoiced and had a big celebration in your honor for actually defeating the monster that has been terrorizing them for years. You were given your thirty gold pieces like you were promised and extra travel supplies as an extra thank you for what you three did. The end.” You said, finishing the campaign.

            “Yay! Happy ending,” Sun said as he clapped.

            “Thank you for this. We really enjoyed playing this with you,” Moon stated.

            “Of course. I’m happy you two were interested in trying it with me.”

            Sun nodded with a giddy mechanical hum and Moon held your hand. Then the three of you cleaned up your dnd mess and continued your day doing chores and personal hobbies.

[theriu]

River Reads Midnight Sun

Chapter 2: Open Book

In which Edward faces his fears and spends an agonizing amount of time hyperfixating on Bella.

<-Chapter 1

So we jump into chapter two AND next week, as it has been six days since Edward (shockingly) succeeded in leaving town forever (citation needed)! He is chilling (ha) in a snowbank, staring up at the stars, which are truly magnificent. Or he knows they would be, except he can't quite see anything except Bella's face. Yes, the girl has haunted him straight to (checks location on a map) oh he's in ALASKA, okay! I wasn't sure where Denali was, but I was PRETTY sure even Edward couldn't drive a car to Russia. (You'll see why I considered Russia in a minute.)

Anyway, the "unremarkable" face of this girl he's literally never spoken to directly has been haunting him for six days, which is indeed troubling. While he is brooding on this, the thoughts of a new character come leaping towards him. This is where we meet Tanya, a vampire with silver skin, blonde-but-almost-pink curly hair, amber eyes, and full lips. Mary Sue Tanya is stunning and exquisite, at least from Ed's memory, since he still can't see past the face permanently branded on his eyeballs.

So anyway, Mary Sue Tanya does a cannonball into Ed's snowbank, burying him alive with snow but not burying the image of Bella. It becomes clear that she has been crushing on Ed and is sad he will be leaving soon and doesn't return her affections, although he is very polite and gentlemanly about it.

(Honestly, I liked her well enough until we got to the "I'm not used to rejection" line, and then she starts sifting through the memories of all her human male conquests next to the actual mind reader who she is attracted to, to which I say WOMAN REALLY??? I don't think making the guy you like EVEN MORE UNCOMFORTABLE than he's already admitted you kinda make him is an effective way to gain his affections?!)

ANYWAY, thankfully they get off THAT subject quickly and have a really quite nice conversation, wherein Ed apologizes for getting her hopes up by coming to her home territory and Tanya tries to be a good friend. We see a mention of her "long-lost Russian accent," thus my uncertainty about location, and she tells him she knows he won't keep running from his mystery problem because he's the type who faces things head-on. Mary Sue TANYA then runs away across the snow, so light and fast she doesn't even leave footprints, suggesting a connection between vampires and wood elves.

Encouraged by this pep talk, Gary Stu Edward also gets up and runs footprintless across the snow, determined to be brave and go back and face those "bewildered chocolate-brown eyes," and hopefully not eat the girl attached to them.

SCENE CHANGE!

Edward's back in town, and his three vampire siblings/classmates are huddled around him as they head into the lunchroom, being quite adorably protective, honestly. Alice is trying to foresee any problematic eventualities, Jasper thinks it's funny that EDWARD is the one everyone's fretting over instead of him, Emmett is acting like a bodyguard, and Ed is just exasperated with all of them.

To his surprise, nobody at school is thinking about them, suggesting that Bella didn’t blab about his black murderstare from last chapter. After all, a normal human would have asked around about it, because humans and especially teens all like to feel NORMAL and FIT IN and be a "featureless flock of sheep" and WOW, should I be more annoyed at Ed or the author for this intense bias against high schoolers?! But of course Bella isn't like those OTHER kids, she doesn't do things like talk to people when something weird happens!

About this time, Bella walks in and Alice is all, "Act human!" To which Emmett responds by taking out the snowball he compressed into an ice chunk with his superstrength and chucking it at Alice, who casually deflects it across the room at superspeed, where it cracks a brick. This does, ironically, draw attention away from them. Everyone is annoyed at Emmett, which is fair, but also, ALICE COULDN'T YOU HAVE JUST CAUGHT IT INSTEAD OF POTENTIALLY SHOOTING SOMEONE?

Ahem. So Bella's in the lunch line, and Mike Newton, Regular High School Guy And Insignificant Human Rival, is worried about her. Ed starts also worrying about if she might be sickly, what with her translucent skin. (Are we 100% sure BELLA is human?!) The vampires do a slightly better job of acting natural, and Edward decides to refer to Bella as “Bella” and not just "the girl,” "as if she were the only girl in the world," which is HILARIOUS considering where we all know this is going!

After eavesdropping on Bella and Jessica whispering about him looking at her (Bella thinks he's mad at her, after the whole murderstare incident), Bella hunkers under her hair and avoids eye contact, although Ed thinks she keeps twitching like she WANTS to look at him. Then, at long last, lunch ends and everyone starts going to class. There is another internal struggle while Ed reviews what all of his vampire family members have advised about this situation. (Emmett sounding the least helpful, as he has apparently encountered two such delicious-smelling-people incidents that... uh... sound like they did NOT go well?) But Ed is determined to prove to himself that he has the self-control to sit through biology without murdering Bella, so off he goes.

(By the way, Rosalie complains she doesn't want to have to move because they're almost finally out of high school. Again, why are you pretending to be high school students?! It's not like you'll age whether you're there or not?! HOW DOES THIS HELP YOUR COVER??)

Edward gets to Biology to find Bella at their table, doodling randomly. He decides to introduce himself. He gets briefly lost in gratuitously detailed descriptions of her eyeballs and how they are simultaneously like chocolate and strong tea, and how could anyone so frail be deserving of his unwarranted hatred last week? He's also holding his breath, but has enough air in his longs for a reasonably lengthy conversation AND a short laugh, during which Bella is... surprised/startled that he called her Bella? Because her dad introduced her to everyone as Isabella? But she's apparently told multiple people since she got here that she prefers Bella? So he probably could have learned that even without his super vampire eavesdropping powers? WHY is this weird enough to be suspicious, and HOW does it indicate she is intuitive?

Well, the book and Ed believe she is insightful and intuitive, so I guess we should just go with it. Ed does eventually needs to breath so he can talk, and even though just breathing through his mouth is like tasting the FIERY COALS of her deliciousness, and their brief moment of making skin contact is like an ELECTRIC SHOCK, he manages to continue acting normal.

By the way, along with being unconventionally if lopsidedly pretty and smelling delicious, Bella was also in advanced-placement biology at her previous school and Knows Science! Edward realizes this must mean she is ESPECIALLY intelligent for a human, which of course makes perfect sense. After all, she was the first student in two years to look him in the eye long enough to notice they'd changed from the Murderstare Incident's I'm-going-to-eat-you black to today's calmer I'm-probably-not-going-to-eat-you-except-by-accident amber/gold! My friends, may I remind you this man previously admitted he has two medical degrees, a thing that probably required some amount of physically attending college. I really wonder if Ed's standards would be more realistic if he ever once SOCIALIZED WITH HIS HUMAN CLASSMATES.

In an effort to maintain normalcy, they talk about the weather. Bella does not like the cold and wet of Forks. She clearly does not like being in Forks at all. She is vague and grumpy about why she came here, and Edward is so obsessed curious that he may implode (this is the actual word used). We learn (agonizingly slowly) that her mom remarried—and no, Edward, Bella DOES like the guy, he's nice and a minor-league baseball player; and no, Edward, her mom DIDN'T send her here, SHE sent HERSELF here so her mom could happily travel with her step-dad rather than unhappily stay home with her! Ed is certain by now that Bella "isn't like other humans" because he keeps guessing her story arcs wrong and she's just so CONFUSING and UNPREDICTABLE, and this can't possibly be because he's about 100 years out of practice having a normal conversation without a cheat code into the other person's brain.

(Okay, to be fair, there are at LEAST two moments of self-awareness where Ed wonders if he'd be this bad at reading everybody without his mindreading powers. We should give him points for that.)

But despite his difficulties, he DOES figure out that Bella is unhappy, mostly by her sending out signals that a rhino could decipher. When he confronts her with this observation, her response is, "So?" And after meditating on this for an unusually brief paragraph, Ed realizes THE ANSWER:

"She was selfless."

I'm sorry, guys, I need to break for a second, that's the first part that made me laugh out loud. Can someone lend me a combine to harvest all this corn.

(Side Note: As previously stated, I have not read the books or watched the movies, so I could be biased by the negative side of the fanbase. But my general impression of Bella has not lent itself to "selflessness." BUT, it is only chapter two and I am only going off of general hearsay! The amount of poorly concealed disgruntlement is not impressing me, though.)

Anyway, Ed guesses that she doesn't really like her situation but doesn't want people to KNOW she doesn't like it. He continues to marvel at how positively he feels towards this girl, how discerning she is, how *cough* selfless she is, not like an "average martyr" who would actually tell someone she's not 100% happy with her SACRIFICE. Bella gets annoyed, which Ed finds amusing, so there's another adjective for the list. But then she says she's annoyed because she's so easy to read, and Edward can't believe this, because he's never had to work so hard to read someone before! Again, this couldn't possibly be because she's the first person in 100+ years whose mind he can't read!

By the way, Bella also seems to be oblivious immune to the usual red flags normal humans feel around vampires! Ed tries smiling dangerously at her, but the teacher breaks up their conversation with actual classtime, so he gets to angst for a few paragraphs about why he shouldn't find this girl interesting and how dangerous this is for her and yet how MUCH he wants to know more about her. And also trying not to kill her when her thick, black hair flips in his direction and drives his vampire nose bananas.

He books it as soon as the bell rings, having survived the encounter without murdering anyone but with so many new questions about this unremarkable, shy, frail, unmindreadable-yet-highly-face-readable, delicious-smelling, selfless, quietly disgruntled human girl.

(Side Note: I have learned a new word!

"Attar—a fragrant essential oil, typically made from rose petals."

Ex: "Again, I gasped at the clean, wet air outside as though it was a healing attar."

*loud sighing noises*)

So after that brief break, he goes to class with Emmett. Emmett, IMMENSELY HELPFUL EMMETT, asks how it went, questions if it wouldn't be easier to just get it over with, reassures Ed that everyone would understand if he messed up (GIVING IN IS NOT THE SAME AS "MESSING UP," EMMETT), and then vividly visualizes a time he experienced a really good-smelling woman and ate her. Between his earlier blasé-ness about not "wallowing in guilt" over past mistakes and this section's lack of anything indicating regret about that incident, I take back any nice things I might have said about this guy. Emmett, YOU. ARE. THE WORST.

It's so bad that Ed has to bolt out of class AGAIN, although it doesn't help that Emmett follows him and continues to suggest maybe Ed should just get it over with if it's so bad, can Alice or somebody please come punch him. Ed finally gets him to leave and hides in his car. Then, "like an addict" (his own words), he searches the whole school for thoughts about Bella. From his car. My GUY, just how UNREASONABLY powerful ARE your mind radar skills???

He finally locates Bella in gym class, because Mike, who is mad about Ed talking to her, is thinking in logical, complete sentences (as one does) about how satisfied he is that Bella doesn't seem interested in Edward. He also conveniently remembers her asking "what was with" Edward last Monday (after the Deathstare Incident). So apparently Bella isn't QUITE abnormal unique enough to stay totally silent when she encounters a weird thing (not that Edward notices). Ed's response to his annoyance over Mike's satisfaction is to blast "violent music," which seems the opposite of helpful to me.

We end the chapter with Bella coming out of school and heading to her rusty old truck while Ed watches her creepily from his car. She almost hits another student's car when she locks eyes with him, and Ed has to laugh at her sudden increased driving vigilance, as if she might be DANGEROUS! Because of course it's RIDICULOUS to think that BELLA could be dangerous to ANYONE in ANY vehicle, as if the driver's physical frailty has any bearing on the damage a truck can do when crashing into cars or non-vampires at speed.

AND SCENE!

I'm gonna be honest, guys, that one was a couple degrees more agonizing than the first chapter. I dread how much more I'm going to hear about Ed's conflicting desires to eat Bella and be attracted to her simultaneously average yet fascinating allure. She's just so unusually unique and smart and intuitive and selfless and shy and frail and inspires protective instincts, you see, and she's not like ANY OTHER human he's ever encountered, even though we have evidence now that sometimes certain vampires just find certain humans irresistibly delicious, and we can probably extrapolate that those humans were somehow immune to vampire powers, too.

I also highly question Bella's above-average "martyrdom," considering she dropped her guard pretty fast around the cute stranger and basically broadcasted how unhappy she is with her decision, which makes it feel a bit like she did what she did so she could feel good about herself rather than because it was the best thing to do? Being selfless doesn't mean COMPLETELY ignoring your own needs, or justify using your good deed as an excuse to have a poor attitude. Of course, considering that half her traits that Ed notices and marvels over are actually fairly normal, I don't think any of us feel a strong need to trust his assessments of her character.

Next up is CHAPTER THREE: RISK. I'm sure it will feature Edward being very level-headed and undramatic. I think I need to build my endurance back up for this one. (And thanks for the likes and comments so far, they really help keep me motivated! =D)

Chapter 3->

[zacksfairest]

Vaela 🦋 🎁🎈 🧨, Lehala 🧿 🦝 🎀 🍇, Ayala 🐁 🦴 🍷 🐹

♡~OC Asks~♡

Vaela

🦋What is their favorite season?

Fall, for sure. The trees are such pretty colors, there is a crisp bite to the air. And everything is reds and browns! Perfect color combination for her

🎁What is something they keep like: a souvenir, a keepsake, or a family heirloom; that means a lot to them? Why is it so important to them?

Hmmm. I think that once all is said and done and she's off doing Her Thing and makes it clear to her family that this is her life now, her dad would gift her with an old quiver of his. It's actually his dad's quiver, and it's fairly simple, but it harkens back to the days of when they were true Wood Elves—likely from back Aeranth at some point in their lineage. He would have given her the bow that goes with it, but the bows she uses are so much better and his girl deserves the best. But at least she can have a piece of them on her little adventures with her, holding the ammo that keeps her safe. And of course this means a lot to her. It's nothing fancy, which goes contrary to her need for pretty things, but the thought there is overwhelming. It's a blessing to go out into the world and live the life she's made for herself, while also a prayer to keep her safe in a way that her family still feels they have failed to do (which of course they are wrong).

🎈If they could travel anywhere, where would they go?

Well, she pretty much does go everywhere now, doesn't she? What with the work she does for Aeranth. But I suppose she wishes she could spend more time on the shores and ocean. She is so familiar with the woods and forests now, but not so much the sea. She'd love to get a taste of it.

🧨If they could screw anyone without any consequences, who would they choose?

Delethil hate fuck let's go. I kid, I kid. (Or do I?) But I honestly don't really know. She remains skittish in my head until further development can be had for her. And she never really met anyone on their travels that she felt that kind of desire for. Not even Cobalt.

Lehala

🧿Do they have a superstition or belief? Such as "black cats bring bad luck", belief in ghosts, tarot, crystals, meditation, etc.

No one can touch her weapons. Only those she trusts most can handle them, and even then it makes her twitchy. This is definitely stemming from a fear of outsiders to her clan, on top of the idea that it leaves too much of an opportunity for sabotoge—even unintentional damage! But she fully believes that she will die or get seriously hurt if someone else handles her weapons. It'd need to go through rigorous tests first before she used them in battle after that. And even then she'd still be leery.

🦝What do they smell like?

Filed under: things I never consider when creating characters. But I imagine she smells kind of earthy. Fresh cut grass. Likely stemming from the grass and dirt stains on her armor after sparring.

🎀Do they have something they collect? {Stamps, rocks, stickers, etc}

Back home she definitely collects little trinkets from successful skirmishes. An arrowhead. A dagger. A broken blade. Things that remind her that she survived and is still here. She's a much more simple lady than Vaela. Pretty things don't tempt her.

🍇What is their sexuality? And what is their "type"?

She's always felt more fluid to me. Pan or bi. Definitely demi-sexual, though. She does not trust anyone to be intimate with her that she does not trust implicitly. She is a warrior and is keenly aware of how vulnerable sex makes a person. There is no desire where there isn't absolute trust for her.

🐁Do they find a creature cute, that normal people don't? Such as spiders, rats, snakes, sharks, etc?

She is a Star Wars lady, and a Mandalorian besides. There have undoubtedly been strange creatures she's come across that most would have found repulsive that she cooed over. Thinking of strills at the moment. It is absolutely not uncommon for Mandos to look at a disgusting creature and go "Oh! A baby!"

🦴Have they ever broken a bone or had any sort of major injuries before? If so, what was their ailment?

OH, MANY. MANY AILMENTS AND INJURIES. Her lekku are scarred to hell, which means those injuries were painful and near debilitating. Lekku are extremely sensitive and major damage to them can even mean death. But not my girl. She's built different. Her lekku have definitely endured a good bit of injury, but she's always managed to recover. She's been in countless battles and skirmishes and sparring sessions. She's cracked rips, broken wrists, and been stabbed and slashed. Ayala has so many scars from the life she's lived as a Mandalorian, but none in particular really stand out. The physical injuries are easy, if you ask her. It's the injuries she bears in her soul that really weigh her down the most.

🍷What is their drink of choice? Both alcoholic and non-alcoholic?

Ugh. Star Wars drinks. Anything with a kick. She isn't picky. Sometimes you need a stiff drink to knock you on your ass after a particularly rough day in the field or on the hunt. When she needs to stay sharp, however, she drinks the strongest caf she can get her hands on. The squad yells at her that she needs to drink more water. But what good is that gonna do? Caf has water in it. And now she's awake for another 12 hours. What's water gonna do other than make her need to pee? Vys'kydir absolutely has put her in a chokehold until she agrees to drain her canteen.

🐹What "pet" names do they like being used for them? {Babe, Kitten, Puppy, Mutt, etc.}

You know what's coming: cyar'ika. ner cyare. alor (but sexy. you know.). (any chiss pet names there might be lmao)

[semi-imaginary-place]

ffxiv rak'tika 2, fannow

bunnies! I was just thinking this whole forbidden forest thing seemed like a mix of shroud and the greenwood. I might be remembering this wrong but those guarding yx'maja are the descendants of the ronka empire? the seal identifies us as allies to ronka. side note: if the ronka really are maya/central american inspired then is yx'maja pronounced ish maia (the jp voiceover pronounces the j is like y/i anyways). oh wait this was viera/vii introduction in ffxiv. I was wondering why they were shilling money on animation.

whats interesting is that for most races the npcs tend to have realistic hair colors. like most of the hyur in eorzea have brown hair with some black, blond, or red. only the rare hyur will have like blue hair which makes me think it's dyed. but the vii in fannow have cotton candy hair colors. also they seem to mostly be using the veena models

oh yikes fannow is the last vii village in the greatwood

didn't elves/elezen live slightly longer than most races

the one male vii reference

we don't know all that much about viera on the source. but as with all things it'd interesting what changes and what stays the same. For example on the first the ban on returning viera/vii seems to be less than in other iterations (ivalice), the vii also seem in general more tolerant of outsiders. across all iterations viera society seem to heavily focus around duty. what's interesting is that for vii that duty is external, like I remember some dialogue said viis aren't native to raktika, something like "when they came to the forest the ronkan king enlisted them as palace guards" where as on the source and in other games viera duty to the Wood is internally derived from their culture and spirituality as natives. the ronkan gods were also likely adopted when the viera integrated into ronkan society which is very different from their isolationist culture in other games.

Going through the fannow section was pretty interesting while playing a male viera. (The ONE singular male vii reference ina side quest). I found the twins sidequest chain to be particularly interesting because fannow is less prohibitive and strict than viera in other games (ff tactics, ffxii, etc.). Where fannow is neither kill on sight for any who step into the forest, and seems more lenient about returning vii. And also vii arent native to raktika like they are to their forests in other series. Vii immigrated to ronka were assigned as royal guards and adopted ronkan gods. Whereas in every other series that duty in internally derived (as opposed to vii's externally derived) from their own indigenous spirituality. Up until this point i had mostly been thinking of Source viera in terms of the ivallice games but because vii are comparatively so different I wonder which the golmorre viera are more similar to. I wonder how much of fannow is because of the whole apocalypse thing.

[kayhusky]

tbf, i'm not sure if rain was supposed to be desi coded either..? i'm just guessing by the name, it'd be weird to give a non desi character a name from sanskrit origin. also this is unrelated but god it kinda annoys me that all the main toh cast is like. all witches. like. elves. the demon designs are SO CREATIVE but they never utilized them?? or they're just like. scary or evil like kikimora and boscha

it's still super odd to me to see them just... leave raine as racially ambiguous to me. Like for sure toh has an issue with it's characters of color (Luz only getting curlier hair in her titan form, Willow's curly hair getting straight in s3 and her not having any black features despite being blasain, gus' hair relaxing in the wind and the only character to get one haircut change as everyone had at least two) but at least they tried to give them a concrete race/ethnicity to them. And Raine is just... brown. I've heard people saying they were originally supposed to be white, and i think this is a good reason to why people believe that because they just do NOT try with Raine.

ALSO I HARDCORE AGREE WITH THE MAIN CAST. I've seen a lot of fan artists give the cast with more animalistic features because all of them are just witches (aka humans with pointy ears). Like, why not give Amity a nonhuman skin tone? Give Willow little deer antlers? Give Gus chameleon eyes? Hell why not make Hunter, the boy made out of wood, have subtle wood markings on him? It would've been so interesting if they were just a little less human looking with subtle designs like that but they just didn't go with it for whatever reason?

[oh-no-a-new-hiperfocus-hit-me]

We officially have a revised first chapter!!

A War of The Weak, chapter 1 : Burned Birdie

It was late at night and it was dark. A starless sky watched as mere mortals tried and failed to find purpose, dying in their never ending search. Dabi hummed a soft melody while walking, her hair brushing her burned shoulders ever so lightly. She wore an old black cape that had seen better days, and a  plain brown shirt and pants. She played mindlessly with the pieces of metal in her face, not only holding her skin together but also adorning her ears and nose.

  The town was quiet, most were asleep. Much like Dabi's cape, the houses and cabins in the street had seen better. They were dirty and had an abandoned air to them, almost like ghosts were their only inhabitants. She could relate to that, she'd always felt too empty, too old, too useless. Unlike her though, the houses, the streets, the village were all filled with fierce life inside, the desolated outside nothing but a facade to trick strangers.

  That became clear once more when Dabi finally decided to end her walk, entering a dark alley; there, a dark door of enchanted wood waited for her. She opened it, the door's handle shining under long fingers. As she stepped inside, she was immediately overwhelmed by the amount of light and noise. The bar roared with vivacity, all kinds of beings drinking and chatting, kissing and even fighting.

  They were all citizens of the great kingdom of Akarui, where blood was spilled in the shadows and people were burned at stakes. Not quite people actually — at least not all of them; all mortals perhaps, but all different from each other. For in the world they lived in, everyone was different, looked different, behaved differently…

  And had unique powers.

  Elves, vampires, dwarves, fairies. Every kind of magical being you can imagine, all under the rule of one King, and of course the almighty  Security Council. Groups of knights and warriors were formed, and entrusted  to maintain peace; to assure the safety of the people. Well, not all people. The loud, weird, "dangerous" ones never got any protection. Really, as Dabi saw it, they rarely got anything at all.

  Ignoring the crowd as well as the thoughts concerning her old grudge, she went straight to the back. Dabi opened a little hidden curtain, and it lead her to a long corridor. She walked to the last door, and kicked it three times. A blue face opened it, eyes filled with rage.

  "You're fucking late as shit!"

  "No shit, bitch"

  She entered the room without ceremony, throwing herself in her own bed. Her roommate, Shigaraki, looked at her like she had just killed his puppy.

  "We have a band to commit to! You can't just do whatever you want!"

  "Actually the last time I checked I was my own person who can do whatever the fuck she wants."

  "You're insufferable!"

  "You're an ass."

  "Well, you are-"

  "Dabi!" The door that connected their room to an adjoining one opened with a loud noise and a girl with blond hair and sharp fangs threw herself into Dabi's arms.

  "Hey kid," She got up, Toga still clinging to her. "How was your day ?"

  "It was awesome! Twice taught me how to make pie and big sister Magne is teaching me archery!"

  "Nice."

  Dabi was a woman of few words, yet that didn't seem to diminish Toga's excitement in the least.

  "Can we focus on what's important here? We have a show guys!"

  "Is shigaraki whining about us being late to the show again? 'Cause I don't really think the customers are gonna care. They're pretty drunk, you know. Oh, hey Dabi." Compress was standing in the doorway, and she could see Magne and Twice behind him.  "How'd your walk around town go?

  "Went well. Nothing interesting. Nothing new."

  The man nodded. He was tall, with sun-kissed skin under orange clothes and a black mask he never took off.

  "Hey-o you guys! Shigaraki's kind of right! We better get going!" A tall man with another black mask and an energy Dabi didn't know how he had, Twice loomed over Compress, wearing all black and gray, though she could see some of his blonde hair scaping the mask.

  "Someone here's gotta have a half a brain enough to listen to me." Shigaraki murmured under his breath.

  Dabi rolled her eyes but didn't ague. They did need the money from tonight's gig. A couple more days and they would have enough to go to the next town. The owner's husband had been kind enough to let them stay here. 

  As they headed to the stage, Shigaraki and Spinner tuning their guitars while Himiko sat by the piano, Dabi thought she would miss this place. They'd been there for nearly a month, playing in every bar and every party that would have them. It was a small town in the countryside of the kingdom, but unlike others, it was a refuge for outcasts. You could find every kind of being there, from mages to vampires; from nymphs to elves. Rumor had it the town was protected by one of Akarui's most powerful crime families, and so no bigoted people dared to attack it. It was nice.

  The woman had many reasons to want to be in this town, away from the spotlights of the capital. A cold breeze came in through an open window, and with her eyes closed, letting darkness and coldness embrace her, she stepped onto the stage.

 

▪︎▪︎▪︎

  Burned Birdie stay true

  Her lungs stung like they were being filled with a fierce acid, the tissue lined with cuts that were rubbed with salt.

  Burned Birdie stay here

  Her lips were dry, and her throat hurt as if at any moment her voice might fail her.

   Burned Birdie don't you prey on me, prey on me

  "And as she sang, her mind couldn't help but imagine her as the burned birdie. The scars on her shoulders ached as those painful memories reminded her exactly why she'd written this song - and exactly why she wanted to leave it all behind."

  Burned Birdie stay true

The little crowd erupted in applause when the song ended. They'd been there for three hours already, in a short while  dawn would be coming, and they were all tired as fuck.

  The bartender paid them what the owner owed, not much, but enough. It had to be.

  Dabi went back to the room she shared with Shigaraki while Toga, Twice and Magne went to the room next door, and Compress and Spinner to their own. 

  "Holy fuck, I think I'm gonna die of thirst." The woman threw herself on the floor, but trying to rival Tomura's dramatics never worked. Motherfucker was a class A drama king.

  "Not if I die first," He hit his head against a wall, got a bottle she knew he'd been hiding from everyone in his dirty clothes, and half stumbling, fell, lying next to her.

  "Wanna cure your thirst?" He waved the bottle in her direction.

  She caught it from his hand, laughing. She would feel more thristy afterwards, her throat hurting even more, her lips even drier; she knew it.  But hell if she cared.

                           ▪︎▪︎▪︎

"So you're saying Himiko's new hobby is… writing?"

  "Writing love stories, Shiggy."

  "Don't fucking call me that. So she was talking to Spinner and Compress, and?"

  "And she wanted to know how to write a… spicy scene with an elf."

  "What the fuck, an elf?"

"I think she's writing about her crushes." Dabi took another sip. "Do you remember that dancer who was said to have performed at the prince's birthday? She said she can tell he's hot from a painting she saw. So she's writing about that."

"Okay, but what do they have to do with that?"

  "Well she approached Compress and my man Spinny and told them about her story. And the… and then…" Dabi was already  bending in laughter from remembering the mens' faces when they'd told her. "Then Toga asked Spinner if he'd ever had a lover who was an elf. She asked for details, Shiggy. Can you imagine their faces?"

  "Elves suck." Shigaraki was frowing but seemed to have found the story amusing. 

  "Yeah, kinda. They're hot, though."

  Shigaraki made a disagreeing noise, but didn't answer. He looked lost in thought.

  At times like this, Dabi's thoughts could run free through her mind. The memories she kept in a small locked chest when she was sober came to her like an ocean wave, but she didn't care. Couldn't bring herself to. For once those tiny, happy children in her memory were distant, not her, not her siblings, but something else entirely.

  Shigaraki was looking at the ceiling next to her, clearly almost asleep. She could hear Magne and Compress snoring. They would have to leave, sure, and she liked the little town of outcasts, but as long as she had these freaks with her she'd be okay. No one else was looking after them, no one else would. Tomura was like a brother (a bratty, annoying one, but still). They had met ten long years ago, and build something like siblinhood on friendship, music and friendly fighting, something she wouldn't trade for the world.

  Yeah, Dabi had a brother.

  More than one, actually, she thought, as a bird entered through the broken window and delivered her a letter.

  She had no energy to get up, but she didn't need it; she'd read it tomorrow, the words would wait for her. She fell asleep with the letter in one hand and Shigaraki's empty bottle in the other. She dreamt of crowns she no longer had to wear and whispered stories of the lost princess of Akarui.

  Whispered stories about her. 

____

This is literally all due to @arson-n-barf and @scott-is-hyperfixating Thank you!!!!

Here is the draft for chapter 2

Would also be helpful if anyone could take a look. But please only do so if you have space and energy! And if you want, of course. You are super important. :) I just really love this story and love to share it with other people.

Speaking of which-

I made a map!!!

[moonchildr-n]

Half-elementals are pretty self-explanatory: they're the offspring of a union between a mortal and that of pure elemental energy. Usually an accident, the children are often left near communities more well-suited to take care of them, such as Abyssal being left with merfolk. This often leaves half-elementals feeling, among other things, abandoned and unable to find a place in the world. Dark elves, or Sko'Neray'dah in Elvish, mostly live underground in the Depths, the main city being called Dökk. The dark elves are the original survivors of the Cataclysm that split the Sundered Lands, forced to go below the surface to escape the mayhem, or so their creator, Geð, claimed. They are the original archivists, and they look to the Dark Daughter, their goddess, for answers to the darkness' riddles. Their skin tones are monotone, from a light gray to a deep obsidian. Their hair tends to also be black, with gray or yellow glowing eyes.

The wood elves, or Da'Neray'dah in Elvish, of the Forest of Oisín are a superstitious folk, to say the least, especially when it comes to the Tribe of the Moon. They look to the stars and He of the Moon for answers, to the Earthmother and her wilds for questions, and to the Sunfather for just about everything in between. Devoutly religious, the Tribe of the Moon believes that life is as the ebb and flow of the moon's phases. Many monsters also call the forest home. Sometimes, wood elves sport antlers from their temples. They have greenish-copper skin, with hair ranging from blond to red to brown to a mossy green. Moon elves, or Lleu'Neray'dah in Elvish, tend to live on the Cogs of the World, specifically around the foothills of Xanarah Khai. So named because of their reverence for the god, He of the Moon, Lleune, as well as the satellite that kisses the tip of the mountain day-and-night-round. Many folk religions have popped up here, and they co-exist rather peacefully with the dwarves of the mountains. Their skins tend to be black like the dark elves, but with white or silver hair. They have purple eyes. The dwarves, or the svartheur in their language, tend to stay in the mountains or down in their mines in the Depths. Created by the Earthmother, Ki-ya, at the dawn of time, they are among the longest lived races, only beat out by the elves. They tend to have dusky skin tones, with red or brown hair. Sun elves, or Sol'Neray'dah in Elvish, can find themselves everywhere from the Desert of Mös to the Splinters, by far the most widespread subrace of elvenkind. Among the oldest kind of elf, the ancients were said to have been made from the shed blood of the Dark Daughter as a sign of goodwill. Why she actually created the elves is a mystery, but the answers and the reasons for the subsequent upheaval differ between surface elves and dark elves. Upon rebellion against the society of servitude that the elves soon found themselves in, the Dark Daughter, Geð, and her followers forced the rebels out into the newly sundered lands. In defiance, her daughter, the Blademaiden, Eike, remained with the surface elves. Sun elves are often free spirits, taking great pride in their heritage. Their skin tones tend to be sun-kissed, tanned, with blond or black hair. Demigods are rare, but they do happen. They are the children of gods/holyfolk like angels and mortals, usually humans. They can have wings, halos; there is always a sign of divinity apparent with them. Hellions are those of infernal bloodlines, either from the union of someone of the hells and a mortal or the birth is the result of a curse of unknown origin. Also rare, though not as rare as demigods, they are usually outcasts and adventurers. Their eyes glow like wildcats in the dark, horns jutting from their temples. They have forked tails and sharpened teeth, claws instead of fingernails, and hooves instead of feet. Their skin is more often than not a shade of red. The Mösi are the first humans, said to have been birthed by the Sunfather, having spread all across the Sundered Lands. The nomadic traditions of old are beginning to fade as industry begins to pervade the earth. They tend to revere the Sunfather, Hjeli, above all else. Halflings, or hauflin in Halfling, are often found in the sequestered communities in the wilds of Lleumont. They tend to build their homes into the foots of hills, creating elaborate homes. They were created by Fortunius' need for actors in his plays, and are fond of pipeweed and a good meal. They are usually very lucky. Halflings are often pale, be-freckled people, with a wide array of hair colors.

[subiysu-chan]

Redoing Drows, Ice Elves, Wood Elves and High Elves

Drows:

My Drows mostly live in cave-based city-states, surviving on fungiculture. In the Monde des Ténèbre, only two settlements have survived: the Pyroxene City and the Emrald City, quite geographically far appart and quite culturally different.

The matriarcal culture of the Emrald city has the most colorful male elves in terms of eye color, although the Pyroxene Drows are not that far behind.

They tend to be extremely pale of complexion, have dark hair and low-melanine eyes that can be blue, grey, green, purple, pink and red. Both sexes are quite gracile with big round eyes, short nose and big ears, like, very large elf ears, insuring a very neotenous appearence, somewhat reminicent of a bengal kitten. Their wings are completely transparent. They often present intense dark circles.

Ice Elves:

They would be more "Tundra elves" and they have: "Septentrional wet tundra elves", "Septentrional dry tundra elves" and "alpine tundra elves"

Ice elves tend to be blond with slanted brown, black or hazel eyes. Despite this, their eyelashes tend to be dark, and their eyelids tend to be darker than the rest of their complexion. Their skin color is medium in terms of darkness, ranging from fairly dark to medium light. Alpine elves tend to have darker complexions, while those in costal tundra tend to be quite fair. Because my elves, females tend to have ashier skin and hair, while male elves have more vibrant coloration and iridescent eyes with coppery undertones. They are mostly semi-nomadic. They are the bulkier types of elves, but still pretty gracile to human stardards, they are also the tallest elves, and tend to be somewhat less androgynous, and their ears are the most human-like, with only a slight point. Their wings present brown spots that are composed of microscopic symbiotic algea.

Those in coastal tundra tend to use crabs as livestock, while those in central tundra raise geese for their eggs. Those in alpine tundra do not tend to livestock but practice fungiculture.

In the "Monde des Ténèbres", they are the most thriving type of elves, simply because nobody wants to inhabit their frozen tundras, but they must still face active competition from Dwarves and Humans, creating more war-like cultures. They would also be the elven cultures that practice ritual branding and tatooing.

Forest Elves:

In the current Monde des Ténèbres, they are extinct, but they were historically quite powerful.

Forest elves tended to be brown-haired (ranging from a light caramel color to almost black) with a very beige complexion. Their slented eyes tended to very between brown, black, hazel and green, with some shades of these colors not entirely possible for humans, such as golden-brown, black cherry and lime green. Ear size tends to be something in between the enormous Drow ears and the Ice Elves ears, while their wings also present brown spots with algea. They show similar sexual dimorphism to other elves, meaning ashier females and brighter-colored males.

These elves had three major cultures: the beach tree culture, the birch culture and the pine culture. Their cultures tended to be monarchic.

Their cuisine flavors subtle and floral flavors, and they have a taboo against eating meat of any kind.

River, swamp Elves:

My river elves tended to be be cadaverous with a greenish undertone to their skin and red hair. Very secretive and allusive, with a dark reputation. Mostly hazel or green eyed, sometimes beautiful shades not entirely possible for humans.

Now, remaking the High Elves, because I can:

Now, high elves are portrayed as these haughty and grand. However, "High" is a vague term, so how about it means: "inhabit the highlands" in colder climates, but never go beyond the tree line.

To be true to the scandanavian and germanic origins of the elf myth, I'll let high elves be more of more North European pigmentations, with skin colors more typical of Scots and Norvegians than anyone else, but sometimes featuring shades of brown or blue in their eye color that isn't really typical for humans, such as copper or lavender. They would also be the tallest elves, and would be gracile, but not as extreme as the Drows. They also tend to be a lot less neotenous than Drows, and their ears are pointier and narrower, and of more reasonable sizes.

Their wings do actually have spots that are mat, and not composed of algea, but of pigments other than chlorophill.

In terms of culture, they have a taboo against body modification, that they find barbaric as a practice. They are most compatible with the forest elves. Their cuisine is famously spicy and bitter due to the heavy use of mushrooms that are very hot or bitter to deter people from eating them, as well as the heavy use virburnum, sea hawthorn and rowan as condiments, and lactic-acid fermented moss a common base for their meal. Many of them have cultures based on vegetarianism, although, some, due to the severity of the cold, are forced to consume meat due to the caloric requirements of the heavy cold and the need for animal skins to stay warm. When they do require meat, what they do eat tends to be oysters, mussles, krill, sea-arthropods they can catch and fish, although maggots, lemmings and rabbits might find themselves on the menue. They also have a bird-eating taboo.

Also, none of my elves can eat a human diet...

-They cannot digest starch, to begin with. It can go through their digestive system, but they cannot extract calories from it. So, any starchy thing would go in one end to the other of their digestive track.

-They are obligate fungivores who need at least 50% of their diet to be composed of fungies of all sorts, although lichens might need to be processed to make them more bioavailable.

-Most molds is perfectly healthy to their gut microbiom, and consuming only non-moldy food would make them gravely ill long-term and severely hinder their ability to digest their food, eventually leading to starvation.

-They might experience trouble digesting more than 20g of fat per day, of all kinds. However, their ideal amount of fat per day is closer to 10 g.

-Caffeine is a deadly poison to elves, and an average-sized square of milk choclate is enough to kill an adult elf with no prior medical condition.

-Many anesthetics do not work on elves.

-Alcoloid-based chemotherapy would not work on them, as both they and their cancer cells would be immune to the effects of such a concoction, and you might as well inject them with water.

[marcusoseman99]

Songs of the isle pt. 12

*Vick is sitting at the edge of the forest with a book that has paper and post it notes hanging out of it, he flips through the book as he mutters to himself*

Vick: This is the day.....the day he won’t escape my questions I’ve got him now.

*Vick picks up a backpack throwing his book into it and the backpack has water, sandwiches, and other books the only one visible book title is, “survival guide for dummies” he throws the backpack around his shoulders and he heads into the forest.

He is wearing a green waterproof jacket that is far too big for him with brown cargo pants that are tucked into his boots he marches through the trees, and small hills of the forest like he was walking through his own home ignoring the fact he nearly killed him months early.

He comes to the lake his hands trembling as flashes of his encounter with the Kappa run circles around his mind, he quickly leaves back into the forest until he reaches a tree that has burn marks on it he places his hand onto the tree*

Vick: Still warm....Apollo will be onto whatever made these marks by now.

*Vick follows a trail of claw marks and burned trees and grass till he happens upon an old man in a clearing, he is dressed in a dirty white shirt the type that was seen hardens of years ago with equally or more dirty leather trousers, with bare feet as Vick gets closer he can see that the man was short about half of Vicks height.

Vick reaches the man he turns to face Vick his skin is black but unnatural black, like ink and to contrast his skin is his white hair that has strange affect, Vicks eyes have trouble seeing the induvial strands of hair*

Vick: his skin it looks like I could put my hand through it, like a void without end trippy.

Vick: Hi, I’m Vick....sorry but have you by chance seen a redish wolf wondering around he’s a friend.....kind of.

Short man: no I haven’t.... I’m sorry child.

*His voice is rough and aged but overall not threating, speaking in a strong Icelandic ascent *

Vick: Hmmm.....did you see what made those scorch marks.

Short man: Again I regret to say I didn’t..... also my name is Stefán.

Vick: Nice to meet you I'm Vick and can I ask why you are in the forest?

Stefán: I could ask the same thing, young man.

Vick: Yeah.....good point.

Stefán: *laughs* Well I am here..... for something to help me....I have an illness and I hope there is something here to help.

Vick: Why do you think that?

Stefán: I heard a rumour going around about something..... something that could help in this place and at this point *laughs* I am desperate.

Vick: Well good luck with your search...... I really hope you find what you are looking for.

*Vick starts walking away till Stefán voice calls out *

Stefán: Wait Vick the thing that made those marks is still out there is it ok if I travel with you......strength in numbers.

Vick: Sure that is a good idea.

*The pair walk through the forest together side by side*

Stefán: May I ask why you are traversing these woods?

Vick: Well.....that wolf is a friend of sorts I guess but more importantly he can lead me to answers.....I hope.

Stefán: Then my young friend I hope you find your elusive companion and fortune favours you.

Vick: Thank you, Stefán.

*The pair walk further till they reach a large opening in the forest*

Vick: I don’t remember seeing this on the map I have.

Stefán: This area isn’t natural; this space was made.

Vick: how do you know that?

Stefán: The area it isn’t uneven or jagged its almost symmetrical, couldn’t have happened naturally...... I was a crafts man I’ve worked on hundreds on things over the years simpler to these spaces.

Vick: Sounds like a nice Job.

Stefán: It was me and my brothers’ crafting special items from the caves and mines of our home they *inhales* brought the attention of man, elves, even the gods came to see.

Vick: I guess that answers the questions of if you are human then.

Stefán: but?

Vick: It raises another..... what are you then if that’s ok to ask I don’t know if that is rude or not.

Stefán: *chuckles* not at all, child.

*Stefán sits down on the grass then he looks to Vick, Vick sits next to him while they look at the expanse of the manmade space in the forest’s trees, like a scar from years ago that has healed but still remains regardless*

Stefán: I miss the days where I could craft.....yknow create something anything but those times feel so different like I have the memories of someone else......someone better.

Vick: why did you stop.

Stefán: I didn’t want to however my illness it made me hurt my family so they...... banished me to Midgard.

Vick: What did you do?

Stefán: Things that I wish I was able to forget that thing I am looking for can offer that..... a new life without these burdens.

Vick: That sounds like a real gift.

Stefán: Guessing there is something you wish to change.

Vick: I wish I could look in the mirror and see who I am on the inside or that I smelled right and people see what should be there..... I wish that my mind would stop attacking me.

Stefán: Gods all these things and it seems as though the world owns us both a new start in life, my friend.

Vick: I guess it does.

*Vick hands Stefán one of the sandwiches from his bag and they eat together*

*It turns to dusk as they pair are still sitting and talking, they both stand up*

Vick: ill need to go back.....my grandparents will freak if I am not home soon.

Stefán: Good they dont deserve that..... I am glad that you have someone to go back to I’ll be in the forest when you return and if you what I’ll still help you.

Vick: Thank you.

*Apollo runs out from the trees covered in ash with cuts and bruises*

Apollo: Vick back away from him.

[jimothy-g-brooks]

My D&Derivative [Elves]

Elves, The People Of The Forest

The knife ears, for when anyone thinks of that slur, they think of elves. Like goblins, they are very good climbers, the whole lot of them, and no sense of vertigo. They have a racial preference for plant-life or at least plant-like and arboreal environments, trees that they can climb. These are fairly minor traits compared to the most famous, the agelessness of the elves.

Elves age at the same rate as humans, up to a point. Then, usually between fifteen and twenty-five, their aging comes to a screeching halt. Intuitively, each elf understands when this has happened to themselves and may somehow pick out small details on other elves that mark the difference between those have and have not had that happen to them.

Once this process begins, every elf operates under a clock. They will live for a century, exactly one hundred years, to the minute, from the moment they stop aging. Once the time runs out, the beautiful young looking adult will keel over dead. Elves nearing the scheduled end of their lives are well-known to become erratic.

Each of the elven breeds are largely matriarchal in their societies, though the exact form this female dominance takes varies from kind to kind.

Eladrin, the People Of The Tall Trees

The most well-known of the elves, the high elves seek out high up places to roost. They prefer to live in forests with big ass trees, like giant redwoods, roosting near the top. They also find living at the top of towers or on jutting mountain peaks to be acceptable, anything with a sharp drop to the bottom. They tend to be pale skinned, from peach to an unearthly snowy white, with hair that is either blonde to silver to stark black. Eye color can range all over the rainbow but almost never brown, gray or black.

Eladrin matriarchy is the most subtle, many of their culturally assigned gender roles fit the standard norm: men are warriors and manual laborers, women are homemakers and caretakers of children. However, high elves associate political and social power with the latter; they believe that the wisdom to keep ones own house is the same wisdom to maintain society, the skills to rear ones own children to translate to the skills of running a government. The idealized eladrin queen is a motherly figure, surrounded by doting courtiers and children alike.

The high elves believe themselves to be the chosen of Heaven, the goodly gods personal representatives on the mortal plane. In practice, this means they are constantly trying to impart wisdom onto others, perform acts of charity and contort themselves as if they were nobility, whether or not an individual has the power and prestige to actually back it up.

What this never has lead to is any attempts at outright imperialism, one fueled by self-righteous certainty of their holy crusade. Instead, eladrin communities tends to be rather insular, adopting isolationist policies whenever and wherever they can build little ghettos of their own. It's individuals who go out into the world, proselytizing the superior way to live and patronizingly chiding others with elven aesops or little tests.

They haven't done anything wrong, they're just annoying.

They aren't without flaw, some operate under the credo that only another elf or eladrin is worth dealing with fairly, or so insular and xenophobic they refuse to deal with anybody, though that may well be reticence and defensive posturing. But many rumors abound about them, that their knowledge and wisdom stretch back far deeper than anyone else, that they have a hand in many if not all the ancient forces of the world, that their hubris lost them the favor of the goodly and was responsible for unleashing the evil.

No proof of any of this, of course, just like the eladrin have no proof for their purported loftiness, but it's always a good excuse to burn down their homes.

Sylvani, the People Of The Misty Woods

The least-known of elves, spiritual cousins to tunnel goblins. Mist elves live wherever it is foggy and obscure, inside of dense, humid jungles or in sparse but equally humid swamps. They like it moist and they cannot stand dry climes, suffering from chapping rather quickly. They tend to have darker skin colors, ranging from tan to dark brown and the very occasional green, with hair and eyes the color of leaves, green, red, brown or yellow.

The form of matriarchy that the sylvani practice is one they barely deign to acknowledge. Gender roles appear non-existant among the mist elves, men and women perform the same tasks short of childbirth, but it's the women who seem to rise to positions of power. No comment is given on this.

They exaggerate the insularity of their eladrin cousins, living in the definition of Hidden Elf Villages tucked away in between trees and fog. They protect their little ethnostates fiercely, either through misdirection or violence at the end of a well-hidden marksbow. There are some tribes of mist elves that sell their services to the highest bidder as assassin, thieves and saboteurs.

Some sylvani kingdoms have even carried out expansionist policies, magically extending out the fog of their homes to cover their non-sylvani neighbors. They seed rumors of elven figures ghosting into towns to slaughter its inhabitants, encouraging the next folk who get magically swathed to simply clear out and let the sylvani take the land for themselves.

This fearsome reputation isn't true for all or even most sylvani communities, which are just as happy to be left alone to their own internal devices. However, this cloak of formidable mystery benefits them all, unlike the eladrin, as people inundated in the stories will give them a wide berth of respectful distance. Drow, the People Of The Mushroom Forests

The most gregarious of all the elves, and they live in the Underdark. Dark elves can see into the pitchest black but have sensitivity to bright light, preferring to walk under the starry-night sky or among their bioluminescent mushroom forests. Their skin colors can range from dark brown, coal black, shades of gray, blue and purple, with contrasting light colored hair of snow white, silvery gray, platinum blonde and the occasional shade of red, which can be a dark scarlet or the very odd pink. Most of them have red eyes, with purple or yellow showing up, sometimes other colors.

The particular form of elvish matriarchy the drow take is the simplest, an outright inversion of all expected gender roles, save the most biologically necessary.

Centuries ago, long enough ago to be out of living memory but not so long as to be a mere archaeological curiosity, a primarily drowish culture got really into imperialism and really into diablery and demonology. They thought themselves the masters of fiends and through that sought to become the masters of the world. Pouring out from the depths besides all the forces of Hell was a bad look, right up until their empire dramatically and spectacularly collapsed. That was when they learned they were not the masters after all. Nowadays, the drow live far more peaceful lives, tending to their mushroom crops and their herds of giant moles, acting as the primary merchants of the Underdark atop their giant spider mounts, between the other subterranean civilizations and between the surface. They are one of the primary sources of firedust and firedust weapons, and one of the most avid users, a holdover from their imperial days. Infamous drowish desperados skulk the shadowy tunnels with a dustwand at their hips.

Another imperial holdover are the fates of the surface-bound governor houses that once occupied the surface. Stripped of their legitimate power, they have since shifted over to something less legitimate, forming the various families of the Drowish Mafia. They have a strong association with another holdover of the Drowish Empire, the flesh-crafted warrior-race of the drider, now acting as enforcers for the various godmothers, if not running the show themselves.

The last imperial holdover is the sense of wary respect that drow are afforded. People mutter darkly about the Hellriding spider-jockeys but they also remember how those coal-skinned bastards almost ruled the world once. Some of them still dream of past glories, all of them operate under its shadow, almost a protective cloak more than a burden.

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Prologue

Previous /// Next

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16 years ago…

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Nysa woke up in a cold sweat. Her vision was blurry and she had no idea where she was. It took one bump in the road for her to fully gain consciousness. Where was she? She knew she was in a moving vehicle by its feels and could now tell she was lying on a hard, cold wooden floor.

She looked around at her surroundings, taking everything in. Everything looked dusty and creaky. There was even a bit of mould forming in the corner of the carriage…

As she tried to get a closer look at the mould, she noticed a small boy shivering in the opposite corner. He looked weak and frail as if he hadn’t been fed in weeks… Maybe that was the case. After all, Nysa had already pieced together what had happened to her.

The Traders…

Now not to get confused with your usual food or cloth traders… No, these people were so much worse. Poor average, non-child snatching traders were losing their businesses due to the confusion.

The Traders were a new prominent problem in Betnia City though they had been a huge problem in other cities as well.

They were kidnappers, and child snatchers, they were just despicable people who would do anything for a few gold pieces. Children of certain races and ethnic backgrounds were in high demand in the black market, often being sold off as slaves.

By far the most popular to The Traders were Elves. This is why Nysa didn’t understand. She was a Cerulean, a merfolk, an aquatic humanoid or as her sisters liked to call her ‘a fish for brains’

She didn’t know much about The Traders or their racial preferences but she never thought her kind would be on the list. She never really thought she'd be a victim on their list either...

Another thing that Nysa failed to grasp was that she wasn’t from a big city and she had never been to one in her entire life… How did the traders find her? She was meant to run away and become a badass pirate by joining the notorious Camilla Carlisle's or most known as 'The Kraken' crew of misfits. Now that she thought about it, Kangri Island was a pretty shady place with pirates and outlaws scattered around everywhere.

She wouldn't be surprised if there was a child trade going on while she was waiting on Camilla and one of those degenerates saw her and thought she'd catch a good price on the black market for being considered 'exotic'.

Nysa was pulled out of her thoughts when she heard a small sneeze come from the shivering boy.

“Are you okay?” She asked quietly. Not like her usual loudness at all.

The boy sniffled and rubbed at his reddened nose before glaring at the lanky girl “I’m fine” 

Nysa huffed, turning away from the boy. She had suddenly found a way to somewhat see where she was headed, through a medium-sized crack in the walls of the wooden carriage. 

She squinted a golden eye through the hole and watched as a bunch of snowy trees passed by. So they were already somewhere woodsy… Crap, they are definitely far away from Kangri Island... and she was at least three miles away when she got snatched... Oh well, it wouldn't matter if she did find a way home, Camilla had probably already left with her crew and Nysa was NOT going back to the hell hole she was forced to call home.

She moved away from the cracked wall and began searching for something long and solid, a piece of wood covered in tons of splinters perhaps?

“What are you doing?” The cold boy asked as Nysa rummaged through a random brown sack.

“I’m finding a weapon” 

The boy snorted at the girl's answer.

“That won’t help, I’ve already tried. They just decided to chain me up so I couldn’t move” 

Nysa ceased her rummaging for a few seconds to stare at the boy who revealed both of his ankles which were chained up tightly, stopping him from moving altogether, never mind attempting to escape. 

Nysa also took notice of the red, irritated skin on his legs. Most likely from putting up a fight. 

Now that she looked at him. Like, really looked at him, she noticed how rough he looked. He was a small, scrawny boy around 4 feet tall, a foot shorter than Nysa herself who stood at 5'1 which was unusual for a ten-year-old (Human standards anyway). He had dark brown eyes that looked duller than they should've and he was covered in cuts, bruises and dried blood in his shaggy, dirty blond hair.

"What happened to you?" Nysa asked him in a tone that sounded insincere but she was genuinely concerned. The traders didn't even rough her up much, all she had was a lump at the back of her head from being hit. This boy looked like he had just lost a fight with an adult Werewolf. 

"That's none of your business" the boy snapped as Nysa rolled her eyes.

"Fine," she said "I was just trying to be friendly"

"Friendly?" The boy asked sarcastically "You don't have any people skills do you?" 

Nysa ignored him and his hypocrisy before continuing to rummage around in the carriage in search of a weapon to fight with because she was so convinced she could take on three adults who have no problem harming children at all. 

That was when, as if fate was against her, she found exactly what she was looking for. 

A crowbar.

The Elven boy felt his stomach drop as he looked at the way Nysa's face lit up and her eyes practically sparkled with glee. Now he was never one for believing in the gods, much to his family's dismay, but at that very moment, he began praying to Mother Nature, Nikini, Aelius, Helios, Helene and whatever other deities people believed in, in his mind. 

The Elf's dread thickened as Nysa began screaming insults at the traders who were driving and banging the crowbar against the rickety walls. 

Of course, this was bound to anger the traders and that is exactly what she wanted, she wanted to make them angry, and she wanted to be an inconvenience to them. She was going to make them pay for making her miss her opportunity to get away from her family and she was going to make it hurt. 

Hells, she had already taken one of the guy's eyes out with her claw-like nails when he grabbed her. She would absolutely do it again if it meant she could get away.

The carriage came to an abrupt halt which caused both Nysa and the Elven boy to fall forward with Nysa dropping her crowbar. 

A human woman who looked to be in her mid-forties angrily unlocked the carriage door and grabbed Nysa by her throat. There was nothing in her eyes but pure anger and Nysa tried to return the woman's energy but she couldn't. She wriggled and writhed in the trader woman's grip and scratched at her calloused hands all while the Elf boy watched in horror.

"You, you little brat, are going to shut up, sit still and do what you're told. If you refuse to obey me, I will do worse than grab you by the throat. Do you understand me?" 

Nysa glared at the woman with tears in her eyes but didn't answer which only seemed to anger her further. She tightened her grip around the child's neck and her face darkened.

"Don't think we won't get rid of you because you're our only Cerulean to sell. You are replaceable. If you cause any more problems, you'll be rid of. Now, I'll ask you again, do you understand me?" 

Nysa could only whimper in response as the woman scoffed and dropped her to the floor harshly.

The carriage door was slammed and locked once again. The Elven boy waited until the carriage started moving again to check on Nysa who was letting out choked, repressed sobs in her new designated corner. 

"I... I told you" was all the boy could say. Of course, Nysa didn't respond to him, only recoiling into herself. 

The boy had no idea what to do other than sit in silence but that's when it came to him. When he was upset, his aunt would ask him questions to distract him from his negative feelings and it honestly worked for him. Maybe he could do the same with the loud Cerulean girl?

He took a deep breath and prepared himself to speak.

"W-Where are you from?" He whispered.

Nysa rubbed at her darkened turquoise nose and sniffled. 

"What?" She croaked in response.

"I said where are you from?"

Nysa frowned in confusion. What kind of question was that? 

"Kangri Island... Why? Where are you from?" Nysa turned her body to face the frail boy and looked at him with curiosity.

He nodded and said "Oh, that's the place with all the pirates right? I remember my father telling me about it. He said something about it being infested with scurvy..." 

Nysa glared at the boy for that.

"Well, he's a big fat liar then"

The boy nodded as if agreeing with her statement. Huh... maybe his parents were horrible too...

"I'm from a city called Daewynn. I don't think you've heard of it though" 

Nysa shook her head.

"No. Sounds fancy"

Her deadpan tone actually got a small giggle out of the Elf. 

"I guess it is. Everyone there is so obsessed with status and appearances. That's what my aunt says... she calls them greedy pigs" 

"So you're rich?" 

The boys shrugged at Nysa's accusation. 

"My father says I can't ever become an heir to house Rennyn. I think it's because I don't believe in Mother Nature... but I should be the heir since I'm the oldest" 

Nysa frowned at that.

"That's dumb"

The boy giggled again.

"Maybe it is... I didn't want to be responsible for my house anyway..."

Nysa watched the boy for a few seconds as he poked at a random puddle of sand with a small twig he had picked up. 

"What did you want to be?" She asked suddenly and the boy shrugged.

"I don't know..." He said "I never really thought about it"

He lifted his head to look Nysa in the eyes. 

"What did you want to be?"

Nysa suddenly grinned, showing off her pointed teeth and stood up optimistically.

"I was gonna be a pirate! I'd join The Krakens pirate crew and become as famous and deadly as her! I'd be one of the most well-known pirates to ever live! They'll sing songs about me and I'd go down in history!" 

The glimmer in Nysa's golden eyes made the boy feel a feeling he could only describe as admiration.

A comfortable silence fell upon the two and Nysa flopped back down on the floor cross-legged but the Elven boy couldn't look away. They had known each other all of one hour and they still didn't know each other's names but he already seemed to view her as some sort of hero from the storybooks his grandmother would read to him at night.

"I still will you know"

The boy frowned in confusion.

Nysa senses his puzzlement and decided to elaborate. 

"Become a pirate, I mean. Maybe I won't get the chance to be The Kraken's first mate but maybe I'd do something better. Maybe I'd make my own crew instead and I'd be the captain" 

There was something solemn in Nysa's wording before she perked up once again.

"You can come with me if you want! I'd let you be my first mate!" 

Shock covered the boy's soft facial features at Nysa's words.

"You... You'd let me?" 

Nysa's nod was filled with enthusiasm.

"Yeah! As long as you don't stab me in the back, that would be the ultimate betrayal. It would be a tragic backstory and I don't want to have a tragic backstory!" 

This girl... she was so... confident. She knew exactly what she wanted and she was going to get it. She truly believed that she could do it... The Elven boy was so in awe, she was 100% his hero now.

"Um... I guess I will then" The boy said shyly causing Nysa to squeal in excitement and grip his twig-like arm. 

"Yay! You'll be the best first mate ever and I'll be the best captain ever!" 

Nysa let go of him after a while and smiled warmly at him.

"I'm Nysa by the way"

The boy perked up at that.

"I'm Khiiral..." He introduced back.

Nysa's bright toothy grin appeared back on her white freckled face.

"Sounds fancy" She pointed out and giggled. Khiiral giggled right back at her with a small rosy blush covering his cheeks.

Nysa and Khiiral had been getting along so well together that they had almost forgotten where they were and what kind of situation they were in. All of their good feelings had come to an abrupt stop, almost as abrupt as the carriage stopping... again.

Khiiral's breath had hitched, becoming more terrified as he heard those harsh footsteps of the trader woman coming towards them once again. He was certain that this was it. He and Nysa had been talking for too long and too loud and now they were done for. Nysa noticed how Khiiral had spaced out. It was scary to look at honestly, it was like he wasn't even conscious, he was just trapped inside his head. 

An overwhelming need to protect the small boy washed over Nysa. Maybe it was because he was technically the first real friend she had ever made. She at least considered him a friend already and anyway, he looked so pitiful. He was so scared, injured and... alone. At this point, it didn't matter how little she knew about Khiiral, she knew she was going to try and protect him with an inch of her life.

The carriage door was once again ripped open and Nysa was met with the furious face of the trader woman. She looked rabid, feral almost with the burning anger that had contorted her face. 

Nysa was ready to fight back this time. She refused to roll over and submit to these pathetic people. She was determined to rip these people apart.

The woman grabbed Nysa's thin arm and spat in her face as she began talking.

"What the fuck did I tell you little miscreants about behaving until you were sold off!? You really got a death wish, don't you?" 

Nysa snarled at the woman in anger and a little bit of fear she had pushed right back into the bottomless pits of her gut. 

"Get off me you creep!" She screamed with her teeth bared as the scoffed at her with her eyebrow raised.

"You think you're tough, do you? Think you could take me on? Heh, I can't tell if you're brave or a complete dunce. You're most likely the latter" The woman continued to taunt her and Nysa felt nothing but rage.

No one. Absolutely no one could talk to her like that. Yeah, she was forced to endure it from her sisters otherwise she would've been left to fend for herself but no one else could ever talk to her like that.

Nysa took one hate-filled glance at the woman's built bicep and chomped down as hard as she possibly could. The woman screamed and smacked Nysa in the face, forcing her to let go. 

Through the searing pain in her now bruised face, Nysa felt a rush of satisfaction at causing the trader woman at least some pain. The best thing for her was the fact that she didn't even cry this time!

She scrambled over to Khiiral while the woman was distracted with her injured arm and attempted to unlock Khiiral's chains with her clawed hands. It was impractical and not very likely to work but Nysa couldn't think of anything else at that moment. She just needed to free Khiiral and get the hell out of the carriage.

The trader wasn't so keen on letting her valuables go so despite the pain she was in, she grabbed Nysa by her ankles and dragged her back towards her.

"You feral little shit! I'm going to kill you!" The woman roared in Nysa's face. She knew that the woman was in fact ready to end her life and she would've if it wasn't for the distracting and pained screams of her partners. Both Nysa and the woman froze and stared at the area where the screams came from.

The woman moved to harshly grip Nysa's face between her bulky fingers.

"You move from here, and I will shoot you" 

It was a straight-up threat that Nysa knew the trader would uphold. She wasn't going to move until she had freed Khiiral anyway so that wouldn't be a problem.

She finally let Nysa go and stomped away to check out what was going on.

Nysa made a beeline to Khiiral, who still seemed to be spaced out. She didn't say a word to him but still tried to use her nails to unlock his chains. She was becoming increasingly frustrated as she failed again and again. She even snapped one of her nails right down to its nailbed. She cursed under her breath as she soothed the sore area before returning her attention to Khiiral's chains.

The only reason why Nysa stopped was because of the sudden horrified screams of the trader woman and the liquidy sound that followed. Nysa felt her heart race as she screamed internally because is the universe serious right now!? More danger!?

Nysa positioned herself defensively as she listened in on what was happening outside of the carriage. Just in case she or Khiiral were attacked again. 

"Ilya, check the back. I have a feeling they've snatched a couple of kids already" A soft feminine voice commanded. Nysa perked up, ready to attack before she was attacked as she listened to the heavy footsteps approaching. 

The carriage door opened and Nysa made eye contact with an intimidating-looking Elven man with pale grey skin and dark black hair. He didn't react much to seeing Nysa, he only inhaled and yelled for another person to come over. 

"There's two of them. An Elf and a Cerulean" 

The other person rushed to the intimidating man's side and took a look at the damage the traders had left. She was also Elven but she had the opposite colour scheme as the taller man next to her. She had dark brown skin along with short golden blonde hair.

Her gaze softened as she looked at the scene in front of her. To her, it was obvious that Nysa was being protective of Khiiral who still hadn't come back to mental consciousness.

To the man, Nysa looked like a rabid dog who was threatening someone who got too close to her food. He swore to Nikini that the Cerulean was foaming at the mouth as well. 

"Hi, sweetheart" The Elven woman started "Listen, I'm going to unlock your friend's chains so I'm going to have to get closer" 

She slowly moved closer to Khiiral as Nysa was watching like a hawk through small, slitted pupils. She didn't lose her nerve for one minute but she must've moved too fast for Nysa's liking because just as she was about to insert the key into the lock, Nysa attacked.

She bit down on the Elven woman's hand and positioned herself in front of Khiiral protectively. 

"Don't touch him!" She snarled at the woman who was more shocked than anything. The Elven woman sighed as she realised Nysa would have to be restrained so she could help the poor boy who was curled up in fear.

She made eye contact with the intimidating Elf, nonverbally signalling him to grab Nysa so that she could do what she needed to do. The man did exactly what he was told and grabbed Nysa who had begun screaming and kicking. The man wasn't the gentlest with her but then again, she was attempting to mangle his arms so...

No matter how much Nysa kicked, screamed, bit or scratched, the man would not let her go. His grip remained tight around Nysa's arms without him saying so much as a word to make the situation better.

The woman had freed Khiiral from his chains but he made no effort to move so she went to touch his arm as gently as she could. That must've set him off as he finally moved and pushed the woman away with a resentful glint in his brown eyes.

"Get away from me!" He yelled and curled back into himself.

The woman sighed in pity.

"I'm not going to hurt you, honey, I'm just here to help..." The woman glanced at Nysa and her partner before turning her attention back to Khiiral. 

"I'm going to unlock those chains now but I'm going to need to get close to do that. Is that okay?" 

Khiiral stared at the woman in uncertainty. He looked to Nysa who was still resisting the hold of the Elven man, just not to the point where she was mangling his arms. They communicated with just a look for a little while, probably debating whether they should trust these people or not but as they weighed their options, they came to the conclusion that they'd let these strangers help, at a safe distance of course.

So with a small nod from Nysa, Khiiral relaxed slightly and let the Elven woman get near.

As she finally got rid of the chains around Khiiral's ankles, the woman inspected his injuries. She frowned in contempt at his irritated skin and held her hand out to her partner.

"I've got some ointment in my bag, can you get it for me?" She asked the man who only huffed in reply. She knew exactly what he was complaining about immediately. 

"Just let her go, she's not going to bite anymore. She just wants her friend to be safe" 

And with that, Nysa was finally let go and of course, she rushed right back to Khiiral's side. She circled around him and asked a bunch of questions like she was a worried mother. Khiiral appreciated it but it was pretty annoying which is something he would never tell Nysa ever. He would take it to his grave.

The Elven woman watched the kids interact with a soft smile gracing her lips. She looked at her partner who had already grabbed the ointment and gauze from her bag and she just burst out with laughter.

"Looks like you'll be needing healing too huh, Ilya" 

The Elven man, Ilya, was not impressed by his partner's teasing at all. 

"Next time, Tiaelia, you deal with the savage beast"

As if knowing that he was talking about her, Nysa's webbed ears twitched before she turned to glare at the man. He huffed as he met Nysa's stare, not willing to back down from a child. 

The woman saw what was going on and rolled her eyes.

"Please don't start fights with children... Not again" 

The man narrowed his eyes and averted his gaze.

Nysa sat beside Khiiral, watching carefully and closely at everything that the woman was doing. She spread the jelly-textured ointment all over Khiiral's ankles, being as careful as she could, and then she rubbed the gauze over some of his dried-up cuts.

"Who are you creepers anyway?" Nysa asked after a while, apparently being funny enough to get a laugh out of the gruff man. 

The woman sighed.

"My name is Tiaelia Ellarian and this is my partner, Ilya Vokial. We're both members of The Rabideyes" Tiaelia explained "We just completed a job by finally killing off these traders"

Curiosity filled Nysa's eyes. 

"Were they the last?" Khiiral asked quietly.

Tiaelia shook her head.

"No. There's still plenty more out there. We've just cleared out the last group in Murkora"

Oh, so that's where they had ended up. Camilla Carlisle told Nysa stories about Murkora as it was where she grew up. She did remember Camilla talking about an assassin organisation being operated right in the middle of Murkora but she never really elaborated on that.

"Are you assassins?" Nysa asked with sudden interest. Ilya and Tiaelia made eye contact, both with conflicted expressions. 

"Uh, well... You could say that I guess... We're more like mercenaries?" 

"So you are assassins?" Nysa's head tilted.

Tiaelia was struggling. How was she supposed to explain this to a kid?

"Um... I mean- Ugh... Ilya? Help?"

Tiaelia felt a surge of irritation at the little snort that came from Ilya as she tried to explain exactly what they were but he eventually stepped in.

"Yes, we're assassins and we get paid to kill people. It doesn't matter who they are, we are paid to do something and we do it" 

Nysa stared at Ilya was stars in her eyes. Yeah, she attacked him and almost clawed his arms off but right now, she thought he was the coolest man she had ever seen. His sleek long black hair was quite literally swaying in the wind, he was so tall and the coolest thing about him was that huge scar on his face going from his left cheek trailing down to his adams apple. 

Tiaelia softly hit Ilya's arm in annoyance.

"Will you stop? They're just kids who have been through way too much. We just need to get them back home to their parents, where they'll be safe"

Both kids deplored the idea.

"I'm not going back" 

Khiiral's voice was shaky but his tone was low and honestly kind of terrifying. It shocked Nysa to her core that he was the first one to say something. 

"Why's that, sweetheart? Did something happen to you?" 

There was something about Tiaelia's gentle voice that made Khiiral want to open up to her but he couldn't say anything, he just nodded at her and she seemed to get the message.

"Right, well what about your friend? Wouldn't you want her to go back to her family?" 

Khiiral hadn't thought about that... He didn't think to consider that Nysa probably had a family to go home to as well.

The heartbroken look Khiiral gave her was enough to make her crumble. It wasn't like she was planning to go home anyway. 

"I'm not going back either" 

Nysa didn't notice the sigh of relief that escaped Khiiral.

Tiaelia rubbed her temples.

"But what about your parents? Don't you think they'll miss you?" 

Nysa was embarrassed about the fact that her parents didn't want her in the first place and she didn't want anyone to know that they most certainly would not miss her presence in the slightest so she did the only thing she could think of at the moment. 

Lie.

"They're dead so no" 

Nysa said in a blunt tone that made Ilya suspicious but he didn't say anything, Tiaelia was already stressing enough as is. 

"Ugh... Ilya!" She looked at him in desperation "What do we do?" 

Ilya just shrugged, completely stumped.

Tiaelia groaned in exasperation "We can't just leave them here! They'll never survive!"

Nysa found it hard not to take offence to that. What does this weird Sun Elf mean they'll never survive!? She was perfectly capable of looking after herself! She had done it for most of her life anyway and she wouldn't care about needing to look after Khiiral either, she could do it! She could provide for both of them and they'd definitely survive--

"We could always take them back to Bohalro...?" 

Even though he suggested it, Ilya wasn't so keen on bringing children around the biggest assassins guild in Pamphylia and judging by the look on Tiaelia's face, she wasn't too keen either. Maye even less so.

"We can't do that. I don't care what Rhuidhen says or orders, little kids don't belong there--"

"You mean we could become assassins!?"

Tiaelia sighed at Nysa's interruption.

"Honey, I know that being an assassin sounds exciting and cool to you but trust me when I say this, it is not the life you want for yourself..." 

Nysa didn't want to listen to Tiaelia's warning and went to argue but Khiiral cut in.

"We don't have a choice though do we? I remember my father talking about The Rabideyes looking for young new recruits and we are exactly what they want. It's either this or we live out on the streets or we get a place to stay at the cost of killing people..."

"The kid makes a good point, Tia" Ilya started "They have nowhere else to go. Their best bet is Bohalro"

Tiaelia wanted to protest but she knew Ilya and Khiiral were right. What chance would these kids have if they were just left to fend for themselves?

The Elven woman nodded in defeat. 

"... Okay. We'll take them with us. If that's okay with you two, of course?" 

Nysa and Khiiral gave each other a look before nodding.

Ilya exhaled. 

"Well, great. Now we're babysitters"

[frodo-with-glasses]

Frodo with Glasses timeline

Googling “Frodo with glasses” will mostly get you a bunch of joke images of Elijah Wood and Harry Potter photoshopped together but listen, guys—GUYS—you’re sleeping on a huge opportunity for ANGST.

So here’s the timeline, as I envision it. There’s a tendency for poor eyesight in the Baggins line. Bilbo wore eyeglasses constantly by the time he adopted Frodo. Though he didn’t necessarily need them yet when Bilbo made his dramatic disappearance, a few more decades of studying and reading by candlelight turned Frodo soundly nearsighted by the time he had to leave the Shire.

It's raining on the nighttime road to Bree. Rainwater turns Frodo's glasses all wet and fogged and streaky, and he valiantly tries to keep them clean with his handkerchief, but either when he's startled by the Black Rider or just in a slip of hand he drops his handkerchief in the mud and ruins it and that's the end of that. Frodo, being a BabyTM, thinks to himself, “This is terrible. I can’t see. I’m walking blind in the rain, I’m cold, I’m tired, it can’t possibly get any worse than this.”

It does.

Those glasses receive a hairline fracture in one lens at Weathertop. Sam becomes their keeper, tucking them safely into his pocket, as Glorfindel bundles the half-conscious Frodo onto a horse and rushes him to Rivendell. When Aragorn and the other hobbits arrive, Frodo is in bed, pale and deathly still, tended under the careful watch of Elrond. Sam slips his glasses onto the bedside table.

By the time Frodo has fully recovered, the elves have replaced the broken lens; though they have no need of corrective eyewear themselves, Bilbo lives in Rivendell and still needs his glasses—and come on, they’re elves. They can figure it out.

But every now and then, while Frodo is still convalescing, he’ll look over at his spectacles on the nightstand…and seeing that small crack, split right through the lens, makes his shoulder feel ice-cold and crackle with pain, and he’ll shudder.

They’re broken far more severely in the fight in Moria. Knocked off his face and trampled underfoot, probably, or got under him somehow when the cave troll skewered him. Either way, after Gandalf falls, Frodo and the rest of the Fellowship barely escape with their lives, and as they stop outside the cave mouth to recover, he stands on the mountainside, clutching his spectacles with one crushed lens and the nose-bridge snapped in half.

Gimli repairs them for him during their stay in Lothlorien. Dwarves are known for their skill in masonry, of course, but someone as learned as Gimli is also skilled in glass-blowing, and after a little trial and error, he replicates the prescription right down to the smallest margin of error. It’s not quite the same—maybe it never will be—but it works well enough to keep going.

Still, Frodo wonders if he hadn’t lost half of himself, too, like the shards of glass lying somewhere in the dark of Moria.

The Fellowship breaks. Sam is his only companion now. Somewhere on the road before Gondor, one of the hinge screws begins to get loose. They’re stopped for their midday meal in a field one day, and Sam is busy cooking, when Frodo attempts to twist the screw back in with his fingernails and teeth. He fumbles it, and the screw drops right out and disappears into the grass. He sighs, lamenting that he forgot to bring his repair kit from home in Bag End.

"Repair kit?" says Sam. “Well, bless me, Mr. Frodo, I’d almost forgotten!” He throws open his pack and buries his entire arm into it, all the way up to his shoulder and almost to his neck, rummaging around until he cries "ah-ha!" and drags himself to the surface.

In his hand, held high over his head, is a little brown case.

Frodo—overwhelmed with equal parts delight, relief, and annoyance—cries, "My dear Sam! You might have mentioned that earlier!"

"Slipped my mind, sir, begging your pardon," Sam answers as Frodo takes it from him. "But we also had the help of elves and dwarves and other such folk who'd repair 'em better than the both of us." He has the good grace to look a little embarrassed, but still peacocking with pride on his foresight saving the day.

Frodo has opened the case on his knee and pulled out one of the little screwdrivers, but he looks up, and seeing the look on Sam's face—desperately hoping for praise, but too polite to ask for it—he smiles.

"What would I ever do without you, Sam?"

Sam puffs up like a pleased rooster, and his smile widens until it nearly overtakes his face. Frodo can hardly hold himself back from laughing.

"Help me find that missing screw, won't you? It fell into the grass somewhere around here."

That instance ends happily, but their good luck doesn't last forever. At some point, one of the temples snaps at the hinge, and none of Frodo's tools can help him restore it. He keeps his spectacles in his pocket from then on, only taking them out when they’re necessary.

Mordor grows—a distant, shapeless, black-grey blob on the edge of his vision, lit by fire.

It’s in Cirith Ungol that he loses them for good. Somehow, they manage to stay on him in Shelob’s lair, scrambling though he does through the putrid bones and filth and web-laced crevasses in the rock; but when she poisons him, and the orcs find and strip him, they take the glasses as a prize.

Far away, at the Black Gate, though he doesn't know it until later, the Mouth of Sauron will present his trophies: a cloak, a staff, a mithril shirt, and a broken pair of glasses.

When Sam arrives to rescue Frodo from the orc prison, he doesn’t have his spectacles.

Only the Ring.

Frodo shambles through Mordor, basically blind, tripping over loose rocks and shale. The visions that swim before his eyes, taunting and just out of reach, are perhaps the effect of this cursed land, perhaps the illusion of his own failing vision…perhaps the trick of the Enemy in his mind.

All is a blur of exhaustion and starvation and acrid, furnace-dry, throat-burn air, until the bitter end.

The Ring is destroyed.

Frodo wakes up in Ithilien, his hand heavily bandaged. Within time, from the artisans of Gondor, he receives a new pair of glasses.

Those are the same he carries with him until the end of his life, when he boards the ship in the Grey Havens.

[elles-writing]

Dragon Sickness

Thorin x reader

Based off on 'Imagine Thorin becoming a dragon after getting gold sickness'

A/N: I really enjoyed writing this one, though I'd be able to make it a whole series with how many ideas I got, but here it is as a one shot. You guessed the character, @iwenttomordor !!

I'll probably translate this fic to Czech, if I will be in a mood for it.

Taglist: @guardianofrivendell @anjhope1

Breathe in, breathe out.

All Thorin could see, was darkness. He had no idea where he was, or what happened. The only thing he knew, was that if he was still able to do something, anything, it would mean he was still fully by his senses.

He felt deep growl coming out of the back of his throat. He opened his eyes, but then blinked. There was brightness everywhere, and he had to groan again. Did Fili and Kili forgot to blow the candles, played another stupid prank on him, and he passed out? Or did he fell asleep, while telling them a bedtime story?

Thorin opened his eyes again, when he seen endless piles of gold, and that it was not cadle light, but the shine of gold inside Erebor, and that Fili and Kili were not dwarflings anymore, but adults. They went on the quest with him and joined the Company, and...

Thorin blinked. Why was he alone?

"Fili, Kili!"

He expected to hear echo of his voice, but instead, he heard only deep growl and royar. He quickly looked around, up and down.

Was Smaug still there?

Thorin carefully looked around, but he couldn't see anything, that would remind of the dragon, who entered the Mountain over sixty years ago.

He decided to carefully look around, to see if his nephews and the rest of the Company was alright, without waking up the dragon, if he was still there.

Thorin made a step, when he noticed a reflection, in a huge mirror, in thick gold frame.

It was a dragon, with dark brown, almost deep black body and wings, long and pointy tail, and icy blue eyes. The light created shadows and pools of light, dancing across the texture of the dragon's body, making it seem rough and yet somehow highly gentle, even delicate, as the fire of candles flickered with the beast's every move.

Thorin looked away, and deep royar shook the walls of Erebor.

I need to find my nephews, he thought. Panic started settling in him, as he realized Kili was mortally wounded, and Fili stayed with him.

I belong with my brother.

He also remembered you. You did got wounded, too - you broke your arm, during the escape from Mirkwood. As a human, your body was much more fragile.

Thorin felt like he was losing his mind. He didn't cared for the gold, or the Mountain, anymore.

And with another wall-shaking royar, the dark coloured, blue-eyed dragon flew up, and left the inner part of Lonely Mountain.

Bilbo looked over at Balin.

"Where-where did that dragon came from? I'm sure there was only-only Smaug before," he said in high-pitched voice, he would be embarrassed about on any other occasion. Balin sighed and looked to the direction, of where did the dragon disappeared.

"I do not know, Bilbo. Now we need to find Thorin, and make a plan what to do. We didn't counted there would be two dragons, instead of one."

As Bilbo was trying to process what happened (the hobbit seen a lot of things on the journey, but this was really something he did not count on), Thorin looked over the Laketown. He noticed the people escaping the burning ruines of their houses. Smell of burned wood, skin, hair, mixed with smell of water and something he recognized as human, dwarf, and elves, got into his nose. He felt the soft breeze, and for a second, he thought dragons perhaps aren't that bad. It was calm up there.

Thorin looked over the town, and noticed a small boat. When he realized there was the rest of the members of the Company (and Bard's children), he let out a relieved breath. He felt like a rock fell off of his heart.

As he wanted to yell out "You are alive!", so they would hear him, a powerful royar escaped him.

You looked up, as Fili nudged you.

"What is it, Fi?"

"There is another...dragon," Fili said. You frowned.

"No way, Fili, that's-" you looked up as Kili pointed towards the sky. At the same moment, a powerful royar shook your whole body. You shivered.

"W-what the-" You whispered, and clutched your injured arm.

"It's flying down!" Bofur yelled out.

"We need to get away-" Someone yelled, but it was far too late.

The dragon flew down, and it seemed like it was observing you. It let out occasional growls, along with watching you by it's huge blue eyes.

He looks like Thorin, you thought. There was the panic, that others gave you, but deep down, you were not afraid.

The creature tilted it's huge head, and it was as if it's eyes saddened. You got up and walked to the front of the boat, so you'd be closer to it. Bofur turned to you.

"I don't think that's a wise idea, lass-" The dragon let out a huff, and you softly pushed Bofur behind you.

"What are you doing here? Where did you came from?" You carefully said. The dragon growled out something, but then turned to Lonely Mountain. You guessed it probably was the direction, where did it came from.

"Are you going to...hurt us?" You whispered. The dragon shook it's head, firmly.

"Alright, um...why are you here?" The dragon's eyes gave you a little stern, but mostly relieved and flustrated look, and then they shifted to Fili and Kili.

"Thorin would be worried about them too," you though aloud, before you could stop it. The dragon huffed, and let out a groan, but his eyes seemed to light up.

"Thorin?" The dragon nodded his head. You looked back, to see if it was truth. There was no way this would be happening.

Kili was pale, as well as Fili. Tilda and Sigrid were eyeing the dragon - Thorin, and the rest of the Company seemed like they were about to faint.

Well, not really. They seemed to be just paler than usual. A lot paler.

"Thorin, you are-you are a dragon...but how?" You stared at him. He looked around, until he pointed towards simple golden necklace he gave you as a courting gift.

"Gold...D-do you mean the...the sickness?" You looked up.

Thorin simply nodded.

When you got safely to Erebor, you noticed the rest of the Company rushing towards you.

"Thank Mahal, you are alive!" Someone said.

"Did you see the dragon?" You nodded.

"Well, yeah. He's not dangerous." You replied in firm voice.

"Lassie, every dragon is dangerous," Balin said, as Oin looked over your injury again.

"This one is not, because...well, the 'dragon sickness'," you quoted,

"The dragon sickness is not really about obsession over gold. It transforms that person into a dragon, who is obsessed with gold," you said, as you looked over your shoulder. You wasn't sure where exactly Thorin was, at the moment.

"I understand, but why would you say that, lassie? We still haven't found Thorin yet," Dwalin looked at you. Before you could answer, small epcheeew made an echo in the hall, and a piece of the wall was covered with frost. You giggled.

"How did you do that?" Thorin dig his eyes into you, as if saying 'Don't ask, please,', and jumped up on your shoulder.

"Well, he found us." You muttered. Everyone stared at the dragon-Thorin in silence for a while.

As the evening approached and most of the Company went to sleep, Thorin, in his regular size, you guessed, was carefully walking on the piles of gold, and you just sat there. You sat there, because you could not sleep, and so that Thorin would not be lonely.

You watched Thorin, as he was walking around the room, in the endless river of gold.

"You know, maybe it's better you still have clear mind, Thorin," you said. Thorin turned to you and set his gaze on you, as if asked you to continue. And so, you did.

"I won't lie, I do not know how to break this...spell, or whatever it is," you said, and Thorin looked away, huffing.

"But at least you are alive, and have clear mind," He looked back at you, and his eyes seemed to soften a little. You got up.

"Well, look, if you'd like to...I got an idea," you offered. Thorin curiously looked at you.

"We could go out, neither of us can sleep anyways," Y/N said, and Thorin looked around.

"Well, you can change into the...more petite form," you said. Thorin huffed out.

I'm not a bird or a cat.

Y/N blinked. Did she just heard Thorin's voice in her head?

It was probably nothing.

"Let's get outside."

As they seated outside, on the top of the Mountain, her eyes were set on the starry sky.

Thorin's eyes slid over the starry sky, then down at Y/N. The breeze brushed her hair in a gentle, delicate motion.

He was glad he has Y/N as his One.

He suddenly felt the urge to fly, which he tried to deny, but then he flew up, and took Y/N with him.

You couldn't even scream at first, but then you felt as if you were falling down - when all of sudden, you fell on something firm, but warm.

You opened your eyes, slowly at first, but then you realized what happened.

Slowly, you looked over the edge of Thorin's dragon body, and your eyes widened.

You flew high, and though you couldn't see a lot, due to the darkness, you recognized some lights. But the real beauty started, when you looked up.

The stars seemed to be close, as if you would just reach up your arm, you would be able to touch them.

The clouds felt soft, but cold and wet. You closed your eyes, and let that feeling to go through your whole body, as Thorin flew through one of the clouds.

When you opened your eyes, you realized the clouds moved away, and so the moon was illuminating the landscape underneath you. You looked down, and watched the scenery in awe.

You had no idea how much time has passed, but honestly, you didn't cared. You felt safe with Thorin, even if he was locked up in the body of dragon.

When the sun started raising, Thorin flew down to the top of the Mountain again. You could barely keep your eyes open.

That was amazing, you thought. You felt like you heard Thorin's soft chuckle in your head.

Indeed, Amrâlime.

Y/N didn't had much time to think about it, before she fell asleep with the sounds of birds' song, lullying her and sending her to the land of dreams.

When she woken up, she realized one thing: warmth. Y/N looked around, and realized that the warmth was coming from Thorin's body, who was protectively lying around her, inside of some room. He seemed to be soundly asleep.

As she moved, a huff escaped Thorin, and Y/N quickly looked back, to see what happened.

You woke me, she heard in her head.

Sorry, I just need to go to-

Before you could finish your thought, he let you go. You felt the shivers running down your body. Well, it's a mountain. It's not like it would be exactly warm here.

When you came back, you sat down, across Thorin, and he set his eyes on you. You started thinking about what was happening.

You can hear me, you thought, and he nodded.

So I, he replied.

But neither of us could do that before, right? You furrowed your brows, and Thorin shook his head.

Is this is permanent? You thought quicker than you could stop it. Thorin's gaze coldened and hardened, and you could feel the confusion, disgust, hurt and sadness.

I'm sorry Thorin, I-

Keep your words.

No, Thorin, listen to me, I'm sorry, it's just- You quickly jumped up, but he was on his way out.

Who from dwarves would want their king to be a dragon? He snapped. At this point, you runned behind him, trying to stop him from flying away.

"THORIN NO, COME BACK-" you yelled out, but it was far too late. Thorin was quickly disappearing on the horizone, and you cried out.

The dragons in Middle-Earth never had a good reputation. You knew someone would try to hurt him, or kill him, eventually.

You sank down on your knees, and started sobbing.

You felt his pain as your own, and he felt yours.

Who from the dwarves would want their king to be a dragon? Thorin thought, as he flew up on the sky. He knew he was right. He felt shame. He was a Durin. But now, he was a dragon, one of the creatures he hated.

You are not the dragon, Thorin. You are good. You are still Thorin we all know.

He let out a royar. He was in this body of a dragon, and he hated every second of it, and he hated himself.

You looked over the tent, and sipped on your tea. It felt wrong and weird, but you didn't exactly complained either.

Thranduil and Bard discussed something, and you wished Thorin would be there with you.

They aren't that bad, Thorin. Nothing.

You told me that Erebor is going to be pulsing with life, again. I know you hate the body you are locked in right now, but we will find a way to turn you into dwarf form again, Thorin. Please, return here.

No answer. Just silence.

You sighed. You felt Thorin was alive - you just knew, so you were not so worried, but still. Bilbo placed his hand on your shoulder.

"He will come back, I'm sure of it. You know Thorin," he muttered, and you nodded. Thorin was really stubborn, even for a dwarf, and once he thought of something, there was almost no chance in convincing him otherwise.

The rest of Company woke up as they heard your screaming. They found you, and took inside of the Mountain, to give you blankets and tea. Then Bilbo came, that Gandalf was there, to warn you about another dragon. You talked for a while, and eventually, you told him what happened to Thorin, and you needed a medication, but he flew away, and since then, he didn't came back.

Bard and Thranduil weren't really fond of Thorin, but because it was you, who was Thorin's One (and Thorin was the rightful king of Erebor, though Thranduil, especially, didn't liked that idea much), they decided to help to you find a way to heal Thorin's sickness.

"I think Smaug got mad, and the sickness consumed him entirely. Thorin actually had clear mind, it's just...his body changed," you muttered. Even Radagast was there.

"Well, maybe...maybe it's not really a sickness," someone piped up. You looked around.

Who said that? You thought.

"Maybe-maybe it's just a spell!" Radagast said and looked excitely around.

"You have a bond between you two," Radagast told you, and you nodded.

"Are you suggesting, that the spell could be broken by...something?" Bilbo looked around for someone to help him finish up his question.

"Well, Thorin is not answering me, but he is alive, somewhere. I think he maybe...he thinks the dwarves wouldn't accept their king, even if he is in the body of a dragon," you said.

"Orcs! Orcs are everywhere!" Elvish soldier runned inside the tent.

"How many?" Thranduil's gaze hardened.

"A lot of them, I've never seen more in my whole life," The soldier answered.

"Azog," you whispered. You realized what that could mean - Azog came here for Thorin.

"We all need to fight together, there is no point nor time for arguing," Gandalf said, and you got up.

"No, you will stay here, lassie. If he finds out Thorin is not there, you will be right next," Bard said. You frowned.

"I won't run from a fight." You gazed at him, but he was out already, along with most of others, to prepare for the battle.

I won't risk anyone I love to be killed, you thought, and went to find some armour.

Thorin felt all those emotions going on - worry, fear, anger, loyalty, and more worry. Something in him was pushing him, to come back, to go back to you. He felt the danger, and that convinced him, without any other thoughts, he needs to protect you, and his kin.

Durin's folk does not flee from fight.

When he heard the sounds of a battle, he tried to find you. He couldn't hear your thoughts anymore - nor fell the feelings you felt. Only soft waves of emotions.

Is this the end of you, or him, when he could not hear your thoughts anymore?

He hoped not.

It didn't took long, when something inside him made him to look into one place. He noticed Azog, and someone he realized was you, though he had no idea how did he knew that.

He flew lower, and lower, until the only thing he heard was the blood in his ears, the royar he let out, and the royar of his biggest enemy.

Thorin fell to the ground on all fours. It felt as if the battle stopped. As if the time stopped, whe whole world paused. He looked up at you, kneeling down and covering your head.

You looked up, as you heard the royar. Thorin! You thought. You felt relief he was okay, and alive.

"Don't shoot!" You heard Thranduil to yell out to his soldiers when they spot Thorin, and you felt thankful to the Elven King.

Azog thought you were Thorin, until the helmet fell down, and disgusting smirk made it's way over his face. You losed strength, you were tired, and wounded - he managed to make you some cuts, over your shoulders and cheek, and you guessed one your arm was not fully okay. He prepared to kill you, but the royar was coming closer, along with the huge shadow. You covered your head and ears and fell on your knees, to protect your body.

The royar Azog let out shook you, but when you heard the silence after, you felt relieved.

The huff close to you made you feel lot safer. You looked up, and you knew your face light up.

"Thorin," you whispered and cried out. You stood up and hugged him.

"Don't go away like this, ever," you whispered, as tears rolled down your cheeks. Then, you felt some movement, but the warmth was still the same, and you thought Thorin was just moving around.

"I won't ever leave your side again, I promise, my One," His smooth voice made way to your ear, and then, you felt his lips pressed against yours. You ran your hands across his back, and felt the tunic he had on, just as he changed into the dragon form.

He rested one of his palms on your cheek, and when you parted, he rested his forehead against yours, while gazing deeply into your eyes by his deep blue orbs.

"Thank you for coming back," you whispered.

"I would never let anyone hurt you," he muttered, and pulled you back for another kiss, as the soft snowflakes danced in your hair, with the breeze.