#dark circles sundere eyes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

azems-familiar · 8 months ago

Text

more of the ascian Azem au beneath the cut: aka i finally wrote the Sundering (and wow was it hard to get the tone right)

They’re standing on a street corner conferring with Elidibus and Lahabrea - or rather, Hades is conferring with them and Azem is only half-paying attention to the conversation, keeping their eye out for their little follower, who they last saw skulking in the shadow of a nearby residential building half-destroyed in the Final Days and yet to be reconstructed. They should try to get her name out of her when she follows them home tonight, Azem thinks absently, and maybe some paperwork to establish their apartment as her current residence. If- if she wants to continue staying with them. Someone will need to have guardianship of her if she’s to be properly taken care of, and she at least seems to allow Azem to help.

The first sign that something is wrong comes from Elidibus. He stops speaking abruptly, turning to stare up at the strange white satellite that’s been visible in the sky off and on since Zodiark was imprisoned. “What is She doing?” he says, voice low - and then his eyes widen behind his mask and he almost sounds like Themis again, younger and far more present, when he says, “No, don’t!”

And the sky fills with Light. There’s a sound, more felt than heard, like shattering glass, like a crystal cracking down the center, and the world warps around them - ripples on water, wind through leaves, sunlight on windows, a reflection that shifts and morphs and grows, the very ground beneath their feet folding in on itself and then stretching apart on a spider’s web of a million invisible fractures. Against the glaring brightness of a magic just as if not more powerful than Zodiark’s creation, a brightness that sears Azem’s very aether, a bitter burn they can feel all the way to their soul, all they can think of is the child, and they sprint in her direction, ignoring the way Hades cries their name.

They barely make it to the building before there’s a grinding sound that seems to come from everywhere at once and the Light turns so bright they can’t do anything but close their eyes and cower away from it, away from the blade that passes by them so close they can feel the wind of its passage against their skin. It isn’t a real blade, it can’t be, but they feel something cleave anyway, and there’s that awful noise like the star itself is tearing apart-

Then all at once, it stops.

The silence in the air is absolute. Azem opens their eyes, slowly, and- and still they stand where they were a moment before, just inside the main entrance of a residential building’s lobby, but there is something inexplicably wrong about it, as if everything around them has somehow…diminished. Become lesser. A drabness, like the haze of grey they’ve lived in since Helios’s death has manifested over the star itself, all color dimmed and the sunlight shading in through a window weak and thin as if it’s falling through a heavy layer of water. And the aether, when they look at the world through that second sight, drifts past in pale streams so faded as to be nearly intangible, like motes of dust in a sunbeam. One spell, were they to cast it by drawing on the star itself the way Helios has always done, might drain those currents entirely dry.

Horror builds in their throat like nausea. This is wrong. This is wrong. Sickly and feeble and empty, a distorted shadow of what should be-

They suck in a shaking breath, turning in a slow circle, and everything is as it was but nothing is as it should be. They- they can barely feel Zodiark’s presence anymore, His power a muffled pulse that echoes across some unimaginable distance. Not long ago they probably would have been glad for the space between them and His overwhelming Darkness, but now they just feel cold.

Footsteps draw their attention and they turn to see- golden hair, red eyes, their little follower, drifting across the floor towards them. Her mask is gone and there is something- different about her, a dullness to her eyes - and in the aether, in the aether she is nothing but a shade, less present than the weakest animal, more a ghost than anything living. She’s not- she’s not a person anymore - the tiny, fragmented soul they can sense would barely elevate her from the classification of ‘arcane entity’. There is no life in the empty gaze she casts briefly over Azem, unrecognizing, before she simply moves on, a spirit borne on the wind.

She looks exactly as Helios had, when he laid there unmoving on the dirt, unseeing and unhearing and gone.

Azem gathers their aether and pulls themself across the aetherial sea to the aetheryte near the Capitol, something desperate clawing its way through them, as if- as if they can prove that this is just an outlier, as if the world will suddenly change - but everywhere they look they see dead faces somehow still walking, empty-eyed husks shuffling through a fragmented reality, all of them walking away as if driven by some echoing impulse. These- these are not Azem’s people, who they love, who they have given their life to shepherding. This is some ghastly mockery, puppets being drawn across an invisible stage, except they recognize the barest traces of aether left behind in many of these bodies.

They can’t- breathe. The air is too thin, the aether is too thin, the star is too thin-

Hydaelyn did this, they think numbly, and it feels like ice freezing slowly over the surface of their soul, sealing them away within. Not Venat - Venat is gone, has to be, if there was any shred of her left she would never have struck such a blow, would never have broken the star and the people the way Hydaelyn has. These faded and frail reflections of life - why would She do this? Light lingers still in the air, a persistent sharpness that sinks into their bones, and they stare up at the sky, at the satellite that mars its even curve, and wonder if Her blow had missed them so deliberately as some sort of punishment.

Bear witness to what your failures have wrought, they can nearly imagine Her saying, with that hardness in Her eyes that Venat had developed the moment she learned about the future. It feels apt. One last lesson to the wayward student who has ever been the lesser choice for their seat: abandon your duty and it will be taken from you.

Perhaps Etheirys should have burned, if this is to be its fate.

Some indeterminate time passes around them. A breeze stirs up; it blows right through them. They are not here. They are not anywhere, adrift on the ice floes of their soul. The sky darkens, the stars spill across it like pinpricks of fire against an endless expanse of ink, and Zodiark and the souls He is made of remain frustratingly out of reach. They do not need to look to know that Amaurot is empty.

A warm hand on their shoulder brings them back to the ground, eventually. They blink away the static and lower their head, wincing against the crick in their neck, almost afraid to turn - but then they do, and standing next to them is Hades, his mask loose around his neck and his cowl down. His eyes ache with unshed tears, but they are alive - he’s alive. Hydaelyn’s blow missed him too. That simple fact - that they are not alone - makes them want to cry, though they don’t.

“...everything is dead,” Azem says, as hollow as the rustling leaves. “I’ve seen the people. What is left of them, the shades they are. But…” They swallow, gaze drifting away from Hades’s face to the silent street behind him, and whisper, “I do not know if they are the condemned ones.”

Hades makes a soft, choked sound almost like a sob and pulls them closer, wrapping his arms around them, and they let him maneuver them until he can rest his head on their shoulder, his face tucked into the crook of their neck, his tears cool on their skin. For a long moment they just- stand there, eyes caught on a faded lavender leaf swirling in little circles over an embossed sidewalk panel, caught in the grooves in the material, and then they slowly let out a breath and slide one arm around his waist, tilting their head sideways to lean their cheek against his temple.

When Lahabrea and Elidibus find them later - the last four living things in all of Etheirys, spared the blade of Light in what cannot in even the most twisted sense be called a mercy - Azem does not let go.

#ramblings #my writing #ffxiv #unsundered azem au #azemet #i guess?? it's technically Not That but the other two parts of the weird polycule are dead. so #i'm just fucking around. this is rough draft #ascian azem au #oc: seleukos

10 notes · View notes

rainofaugustsith · 3 months ago

Text

Who is a shard?

Just for fun, I keep a running list of everyone I think may be sundered in FFXIV. Best guesses right now.

Warrior of Light (S) - Ardbert (F) - Zero (13th) OR Warrior of Light (S) - Ardbert (F) - Golbez 1.0 (13th)

OR BOTH

If the Warrior of Light IS a Golbez, I believe it's the one who was in the memoria crystal and became Zeromus.

- In the First, the Warrior of Light barely escapes succumbing to the Light and becoming a Lightwarden. - In the 13th Golbez 1.0 succumbs to the Darkness and does become a voidsent. We have a parallel there.

Golbez is also recognised by passerby in much the same way as the Warrior of Light on the Source. In the Lunar Subterrane dungeon, passerby seem to recognize the Warrior of Light as Golbez.

However:

- The Warrior of Light's personal crystal from Hydaelyn resonates with Zero. - Zero has an extraordinary trust of the Warrior of Light. - Zero's dialogue in the last sequence is very Warrior of Light-esque. - Zero as a reaper avatar did not voluntarily work with Zenos. If she shares a soul with the Warrior of Light, it would explain why Zenos wanted her. He's obsessed with the WoL, after all.

- Zero was thrown into the rift to avoid being killed, exactly like the Warrior of Light before ARR.

During the final dialogue between Zero and Golbez 2.0, the Warrior of Light is not seen, and there seems to be an Echo flicker. Zero also finds the strength to regain her form as a paladin. It could possibly be because the Warrior of Light lent her strength to Zero and briefly merged with her.

I feel like there's a possibility an Azem shard from another reflection somehow ended up being filtered to the 13th - perhaps as an attempt by Hydaelyn to give them help and avoid destruction. Hydaelyn would have been at her most powerful and we know that even after Shadowbringers she has enough power to bring Minfilia and Emet-Selch's souls back to the aetherial sea on the Source. So this would have been simple for her when the 13th was going downhill. The names Zero and Zeromus are very similar and we know SQEnix doesn't choose names randomly, so maybe this is meant to pull the player toward realizing both are Azem shards.

Minfilia (S) - Ryne (F) - Golbez 2.0/Durante (13th)

Minfilia and Durante both have the same braids on the sides of their heads - just opposite- the same hair color and the same eyes. -

In Shadowbringers, Minfilia refers to the WoL as her "dearest friend" and is very affectionate toward her even after they've just met in ARR.

If your WoL has carried over from 1.0, Minfilia remembers the WoL clearly when nobody else, including those with the Echo like Papalymo, does not.

Minfilia, as Antecedent of the Scions, is also really successful at bringing together a lot of disparate recruits.

In addition, while Minfilia in the Source is not a fighter, she does stop the entire Flood of Light on the First with the Warriors of Darkness' help. Also, her numerous incarnations in the First all are documented to have fought very successfully against Sin Eaters.

Minfilia in the First stops the Flood of Light. Her shard in the 13th causes the Flood of Darkness. It really makes sense and brings things full circle.

Yotsuyu (S) - Barbariccia (13th)

Zenos (S) - Vauthry (F) - Cagnazzo (13th)

Cagnazzo is depicted as being someone who gets off on fighting, believes in no one, and is searching for the perfect fight to fulfill him. That forms the core of his identity. I don't think they could make this any clearer.

- Vauthry was turned into a monster by his parents and Emet-Selch; Zenos was turned into a monster by his father and Emet-Selch.

- Vauthry controls those in and around Eulmore by feeding them meol, which when activated turns them into his unwilling servants. Zenos controls those in and around Garlemald with his towers, which when activated temper anyone who isn't protected and turn them into his unwilling servants. - Both the towers and the meol are made with body parts of the dead.

Both think of absolutely nothing but their own gratification and see those around them as mere tools to be exploited.

Hautdlong (S) - Traynor (F) - Rubicante (13th) OR ???? - (S) - Nyelbert (F) - Rubicante (13th) Hautdlong (S) - Traynor (F) - Unukalhai (13th/F)

Rubicante is a noble mage who watches his friend die and mourns for him forever. That's the story of Traynor and Nyelbert exactly. Traynor and Unukalhai are obviously kindred spirits - when U. comes to the First, Traynor comments that he can work with U. like he's known him forever. As though he's Nyelbert's shard.

Urianger (S) - Cyella (13/F)

Both are Elezen with grey hair and questionable pasts. - Cyella betrays her friends to try to save her world, but make amends and saves them in the end by rescuing their bodies from possession as the Cardinal Virtues. - Urianger betrays his friends to try to save his world, but makes amends and saves them from being defeated by the Warriors. - In the scenes where the Warriors of Darkness fight the Scions, Urianger appears as the sixth "Warrior," in the spot Cylva occupies with the WoD on the First.

Haurchefant (S) - Ser Tolas (F) Both are noble Elezen knights who are fast friends with the Warrior of Light/Darkness. Tolas is more contemplative, perhaps, but he also gets the Warrior of Darkness to go sit in the spa with him after just meeting them, as though they're really comfortable and get along well.

Lalai (S) - Lamitt (F)

The most obvious of the parallel souls they show with the Warriors of Darkness. - They look almost identical - Both leave their homes in search of forbidden knowledge and have to more or less teach themselves - Both are seen as pariahs by their peers - Both are possessed - Lamitt's body by the Cardinal Virtue (evil); Lalai's body by Shatotto (good). - Both have a very significant unmasking scene - Lamitt has an unrequited crush on someone. - Someone has an unrequited crush on Lalai. - Lalai: black mage - Lamitt: white mage - Lamitt: cast out and finds found family - Lalai: accepted and finds found family

Solkzagyl (S) - Branden (F) Leih Aliapoh (S) - Renda-Rae (F)

Gerold (S) - Grenold (F) Rowena (S) - Mowen (F) Drusilla (S) - Lorathia (F)

#ffxiv #rain plays ffxiv #endwalker spoilers #spoilers for like every single expac except dawntrail #post-endwalker spoilers #rain talks ffxiv

5 notes · View notes

bestworstcase · 1 year ago

Text

“It is the desire to preserve life which fuels the light inside you. And to make no mistake, it is light. Preservation is an extension of creation, or, at the very least, an enemy of destruction. The creatures of grimm were made by the god of darkness, but your light comes from his brother.”

but

“First, they were given the power to destroy, to clear the wilderness away. Then they were given creativity, to imagine what, and who, could replace the wilderness. […] But balance was not two forces locked in never-ending battle.”

everything maria believes about silver eyes is predicated on her view of destruction as the existential enemy of life, and creation in opposition to that. the grimm and the silver-eyed warrior are figured here as natural equivalents, dark and light, destructive and creative, adversaries. two forces locked in never-ending battle. oil and water.

salem combines them into one. the hound is a silver-eyed grimm. a contradiction. a person, however tortured. he can smell and hear and talk and regenerate after injury—all things that ordinary grimm cannot do. and of course salem herself is “a being of infinite life with a desire for pure destruction,” not sundered by two opposites but knit together into… herself, created anew. changed.

it’s just interesting that they keep underlining this. this fundamental—like team light, team creation, see this as an existential war between light and dark, creation and destruction. did the god of darkness see it that way? does salem? is she not inescapably aware of being both? she makes a grimm with silver eyes. where the heroes see division salem sees potential in the intersection. two points on opposite sides of one circle. she frames the conflict in terms of… hope, and doubt, truth and lies, freedom. in her telling silver eyes are more akin to magic than grimm. she sees a ruined world that could be paradise without the gods. ozma just sees a ruin in need of redemption. i think salem’s understanding of what creation and destruction are and how they interact is probably going to be important.

#nebulous thoughts

31 notes · View notes

kazimakuwabara · 2 years ago

Note

Dalliance - one piece

This sparked a very strange idea for me, So I'll hope you won't mind. To set the scene a little, we're gonna jump in the middle of a story. The crew on a new adventure, separated, and learning some history of the island. I hope you like it

***

"Keep close Usopp, keep close!" Sanji hissed, pausing to wait for Usopp to catch up. When Usopp reached his side, Sanji caught the Sniper's hand clutched to his upper thigh.

"The bandage slip?" Sanji asked, and then aggressively handed Usopp the torch before he could answer, "You say something if it slips! Don't keep quiet! I'm not Chopper, my skills are not as good!"

Sanji then stooped, and plucked up Usopp, draping the injured man over his shoulders in a fireman carry. He let out a low whistle, and their guide, Mogen, circled back for them.

Sanji rushed Usopp over to an alter, dropping the young man on the stone bench seated before a large mosaic mural, and with hurried hands tried to fix the bandages.

"It's okay, we don't have time to stop!" Usopp urged, his voice spiked with fear and tension.

"You'll bleed to death if you just run on it!" Sanji spat in Usopp's face, and then turned back to the bandages, "Hold up that torch so I can see!"

"The Sun and Moon," Mogen's voice spoke from behind the pair.

Usopp and Sanji looked at her, startled by her soft voice.

"What?" Sanji questioned.

Mogen was looking past him, her own Torch raised, "You are on the temple to two gods. The Sun and Moon. Sontse, and his lover, Misyats'. The God Hora stole Misyats' for himself, and tried to make Misyats' their lover. But Misyats'... their heart was for Sontse. They would meet in secret, and dally together while they tried to plan an escape."

"But Hora found out. And of course, this made Hora angry. Hora tried many things to keep Misyats' to himself. He tore the land, and made spikes that towered. He twisted the trees, and made a jungle so thick, one could not hope to pass through it. Hora struck the lands, and poisoned the earth so food would not grow, and animals would die. He told the islanders, that unless Misyats' loved him, all would turn to ash."

"I hate stories when they get to this part," Usopp whispered out of the side of his mouth. "It's build up... but I hate the moment when hope seems lost."

Sanji glanced at Usopp, tying off the bandage that was deeply stained. He removed his jacket, and tore the sleeve off, before tying it around Usopp's leg, "Think it goes well?"

Usopp sighed, "Stories with Gods and sundered love tend to be sad."

"I hate a sad love story..." Sanji muttered, eyes drifting to the stone wall behind them. As he looked at a large ten-foot Mosiac, Mogen continued to speak.

"Misyats' was distraught. He didn't want anyone to die, but to betray his heart was also a curse. A poison that would kill. But in the end, he agreed, and pledged to wed Hora."

The Mosiac, crafted out of millions of tiny colored glass and tiles depicted two masculine figures. One was golden with hair of gold, and eyes of gold. He cupped the face of his dark-skinned Paramoure and kissed their cheek. The dark figure had long black curls, crested with white gems that must have represented stars. He clutched to the golden hand that rest against his heart, keeping it there with thin delicate fingers.

"On the wedding day, Sontse set himself on fire. He burned the woods, the quenched ground, and melted the towers of stone. He was not strong enough to defeat Hora, but he could break everything else, and so he did. And while Hora was distracted, Misyats' stabbed him in the back."

Sanji smiled, chest swelling with pride on instinct.

"There's always a but," Usopp warned sadly, shuddering as his leg flared with pain.

Sanji steadied him, a brow pressed to Usopp's, "Usopp, you're gonna stay with me?"

Usopp grinned, "Don't make it a question!"

"Together they stopped Hora, and shattered him, striking him from his kingdom, and pushing him off the island. But it took all they had. The sun burned out, and the moon cracked. In order to give themselves another chance, in order to make amends to the people hurt, they destroyed their godly forms and restored the island, the shattered sun, and moon. But..."

"There's the but," Sanji whispered, shaking his head as Usopp sighed,

"Us storytellers know."

"But they could not be Gods anymore. They fell on opposite ends of the sea, to live out mortal lives. But Hora came to, changing forms to keep them apart, and cause misery wherever he went. The legend says, Sontse and Misyats' won't ever be together unless they return to this island, restore the cracked temple, and destroy Hora here. A final challenge to their love..." Mogen finished, shaking her hand, starting at the tiled wall before her.

"So the story isn't over then... they haven't restored the temple yet, have they?" Usopp asked, voice a little disappointed.

Mogen looked at him, her eyes bewildered and full of wonderment. She stared for an uncomfortable long time and then looked at Sanji in equal measure. She then looked back at the tiled wall and smiled, "I don't know... but I think I see an ending approaching."

"Gaaaawwwwdd? Oh, God? Are you down there, God? I wasn't done playing..." A voice called from the left, further down the tunnel they had been running through.

Sanji's jaw set, and he scooped Usopp up, cradling the young man protectively in his arms. With a hiss, he whispered to Mogen, "We dallied too long! Get us out of here!"

Mogen nodded rapidly, rushing toward the tiled wall, "Sonste and Misyats' are the Gods that represent lovers. Especially lovers who suffer time apart. So they'll forgive me for showing you into their temple!"

She slammed her hand on a square stone, and then up to a red one. A wall moved and she gestured towards it, "Quick, it's on a timer!"

Adjusting Usopp in his grip, Sanji pat Usopp's back, "Don't you worry Usopp, I won't let that creep lay a hand on you again."

Usopp, his heartbeat slamming inside his chest, curled his arms around Sanji's neck, "I know, I know!"

The trio disappeared, and after three seconds, the hidden door closed back up.

#kazi fanfic #Sanuso #tension #action adventure #sanji #usopp #one piece

26 notes · View notes

tathrin · 1 year ago

Text

Second Whumptober entry completed! It's a short prequel to this story, an Orpheus-and-Eurydice take on Legolas and Gimli's love and how to bring your dwarf to Valinor when he dies before you can smuggle him across the Sea. Both are stand-alone pieces and you do not need to read one to understand the other; although after reading this one, you may want to go on and read the sequel for a happier ending because this may be the worst thing I've ever written, and I don't mean because I'm disappointed with the story. It's good, I think; but your happy ending is definitely in another castle.

You can read it under the cut below, or on AO3 here.

Legolas stood on the shore, his shadow stretching long and dark across the white sands behind him, and stared out across the empty waves to the east. He had stood there since moonrise, or perhaps moonrise the night before; it was hard to say, when all the world seemed sunk in some grey veil that leeched all light from it anyway. Even the stars were veiled to him now, the stars that had ever been his people's closest friends; but the stars could bring no comfort to him now.

Nothing could.

Strain his keen eyes though he might, Legolas could not see the distant shore. The waves that lapped the sands and soaked his ankles were cold; the cries of the gulls soaring overhead were shrill and bitter. Their shadows wheeled across the sand around him, like fell beasts circling an old kill.

Legolas shivered, as elves ought not to shiver, and drew the too-short grey cloak tighter about his shoulders.

The cloak had been Gimli's, once; given to him many years ago by the Lady of Lórien on the other side of the Sundering Sea. The broach that had once clasped the soft grey mantle had been buried with its owner, of course, for Gimli had been buried in splendor, as befit the great Lord of Aglarond; and what more precious pin to bury with Gimli Lock-bearer than that which had been given him by his Lady? But the cloak had gone with Legolas, his own longer one wrapped around Gimli's cold body like a long grey shroud.

The cloak had gone with Legolas, and he wore it still, for all that the warmth it offered could never chase away the chill emptiness where Gimli's star-bright presence should have been.

"Gimli," he whispered, staring out across the empty waves, and only the gulls answered.

The weight of his empty heart, of the missing half of his soul, dragged at him, drawing his head low. Legolas dropped his gaze at last and let fresh tears run down his tear-streaked face, as cold and salty as the Sea. They dripped off his chin, landing in the waves that swirled around his ankles, and were gone; even the ripples of their fall consumed by the tide just as Gimli had been consumed by time, torn away from Legolas despite all his desperate efforts to hold on.

He closed his eyes, and wept, and it did not matter; without Gimli to rest his eyes upon, there was nothing there to see.

Soft footsteps crossed the sands behind him, but Legolas did not look up; merely folded his hands over his face and so blotted the light of the red sun out behind the darkness of his fingers.

Other fingers closed upon his shoulder, soft and merciless. "Please, my little leaf," his mother murmured. "Please, will you not come back to the forest?" Angmeril looked out across the water, and then back at Legolas again. "Please, will you not come away?"

Legolas dropped his hands and stared dully out across the empty waves. "I do not wish to," he rasped. His voice was low and rough as elvish voices never were; a ragged whisper left behind by the ravages of many desperate cries wailed unheeded. His hair hung lank and lustreless down his back, loose save for the ragged dwarven braids that were the only locks he could still muster the energy to plait, and even those were half-unraveled with neglect. His brown skin was sallow, his grey eyes flat and dull as heavy stormclouds. No stars shone in their bleak depths. "I do not wish to go anywhere," he said.

"Please," his mother said again. "You do yourself no good with this empty vigil, Legolas. Trust me: I have spent a long time staring at those waves, and there is nothing there to see."

"I know," said Legolas. He felt hollow, as though everything that had once served to fill his skin with light and laughter had been scraped away; he felt like the ashes that had been left after Mirkwood burned at the hands of Sauron's forces during the last war. He felt used up and empty and very, very alone. "I know," he said again, and that was the root of everything that was wrong, of course: there was nothing to see but the empty waves that Gimli would never sail across.

Gimli was gone, and nothing would ever mean anything again.

For a while, Angmeril said nothing. Legolas watched the waves, and she watched her son. He shivered in the cold sea breeze and drew Gimli's cloak tight about his neck, but there was no warmth left for him in that soft weave. No warmth left for him.anywhere, even in his mother's arms.

Angmeril tucked loose, dull hair behind Legolas's and stroked her hand gently down the gaunt curve of his cheek. "You do yourself no good with this, my little leaf," she said again, her voice heavy with sorrow. "Please, Legolas, you must come away; you must turn your eyes from the east. You are still Fading, little one; you must let your grief go before it consumes you."

Legolas said nothing. He kept his eyes fixed on the empty sea.

"Legolas…Legolas, your father did not send you to these shores so you could die here."

"Father should have left me to die in Middle-earth," Legolas spat back bitterly. "Then at least I might lie even now beside Gimli, rather than be sundered here from him forever."

"Gimli would not have wanted that."

"You did not know him," Legolas snarled, a fresh crack splintering across his shattered heart. "You do not know what he might want. You never met him."

"I know." The pain on Angmeril's face should have stopped him, but even that seemed to exist on the other side of some heavy veil and his mother's pain could not reach through that shroud to pierce his heart. "And I am sorry that I never did," she said softly, "but my dear little leaf…no one who loved you would have ever wanted you to die for them."

"No," Legolas agreed after a moment, his tone dark, "no you are right, amil, he would not; and that knowledge is why I ignored the urge to simply slit my throat beside Gimli's bower and let his dwarves bury me within his tomb. Would that I had not!" he cried. "Would that even now we lay together beneath those great glittering slabs of stone, twined together in dwarven dreams unto the breaking of the world!"

"You do not know that Aulë would have welcomed you into the dreams of his dwarves even if you lay dead beside one," Angmeril pointed-out sharply.

"No," Legolas agreed again, his voice even more bleak and bitter than before. "I do not; but I do know that the Valar would never have permitted a dwarf to join me on these shores. Mahal was ever the only one of his kind to care for the dwarves he made; I would sooner have taken my chances with his mercy than have come here, where there is chance of none."

"But you are here," Angmeril said, "and you are alive; it is too late, now, to make another choice, Legolas. You are here; you cannot go back to die. You must live."

"I did not choose that," Legolas rasped.

"I did not come to these shores by my choice either," Angmeril reminded her son. "I came for love of you, and your sister, and your father; I came because my only other choice was to die of the poison of that Morgul Blade, and risk my own spirit being caught by the Nazgûl and their master; risk being bound forever to my forest not as a part of it, but as a foul Unhoused shade haunting it, enslaved by the very creature that had cast it in such Shadow." Her voice was gentle, her words reasonable; but they fell on Legolas's ears like ragged blades, burrowing under his skin like stinging fire. "I came because staying would have meant not just dying, but being sundered from you all forever," Angmeril continued, and Legolas's skin clawed more with every word. "I did not come here and leave Middle-earth willingly, Legolas; I came because I had no other choice."

Legolas rounded on her, his dull eyes wild and weeping. "My choice was taken from me!" he screamed. "I wished to die in Middle-earth, where my spirit might someday find and reunite with his; and I was not allowed!"

"I will not regret that Thranduil saw your distress and chose to save your life by force," Angmeril snarled back. "I will not regret that he dragged you to that ship rather than leave you alone to die!"

"But I cannot live here, amil," Legolas pleaded. "I cannot live without him."

"Oh my little leaf," said Angmeril, her own voice breaking around her tears as she wrapped her son tight within his arms. Legolas allowed her to embrace him, but he did not hold her back; he could not seem to lift his arms against the weight of Gimli's death dragging at his spirit.

"You will have to find a way," Angmeril whispered, rising on her toes to reach his ear. "Somehow, you will have to find a way."

"Without Gimli, I do not know how."

Angmeril stepped back, holding Legolas's limp hands tight within her own. Her eyes searched his face, looking for something unspoken; whatever she sought, she did not seem to find it. "You lived without Gimli once," she said. "You lived without him for so many more years than the two hundred you had with him; surely you remember how to live without him still."

Legolas closed his eyes. "I did live without Gimli once, yes," he said, "but only because I did not know him yet; did not know how bright the world could be with Gimli in it. Now that I know…now that I have known that love, that light…now without him, all is shadow. All is dark and cold and empty now that he is gone. Amil, please…please, I do not know how."

Angmeril squeezed his hands. "I am sorry, Legolas," she whispered. "I can tell you only that it can be done; I cannot tell you how."

Legolas tore away from her. "It is not the same," he snapped. "You know that you will see ada again someday; know that one day, one way or another, you will meet again. But Gimli…Gimli is lost to me, forever. It is not the same, and I cannot do as you have done; I cannot wait, because I have no hope to wait for. All I had is gone, and it will not return; he will not return. And I cannot live without him."

Angmeril did not point-out that Thranduil might well end up lost to them both, in the end; did not remind Legolas that there was no guarantee that he would be able to bring himself to leave Middle-earth, not even to find them again. She did not remind him that if Thranduil died on the other side of the Sea, he might well refuse the Call of Mandos and choose instead to stay among his trees and Fade there until he was nothing but a scrap of memory singing on the wind.

Perhaps, with her son half-Faded before her, she could not bear to voice the well-worn thought.

Instead she said, "I am sorry, Legolas. I am sorry that this is the world that was Sung for us; I am sorry that we did not have a choice in its making. I am sorry that there is nothing I can do to make it better."

Angmeril leaned up and pressed a kiss to his forehead, and Legolas could feel the heat of her fury for him burning in his mother's lips; could, for a moment, feel something other than the hollow cold that had sunk into his bones the day that Gimli's bones were sealed beneath his tomb and had been all that he had ever felt since—but then Angmeril drew away, dashing angry tears from her eyes, and stalked back up the shoreline on heavy, dragging feet.

Legolas stayed where he was. The cold waves lapped at his ankles, and his shadow stretched out long and dark and lonely on the white sands before him. Eventually he turned back around to face the sun again, and the empty waves that danced beneath its bitter golden rays.

The pitiless Sea was empty; the glitter of the sunlight on its peaks as false as the lights that had once lured travellers off the paths of Mirkwood and into death and shadow there. No ships came from the east; no balm came to soothe Legolas's weeping, sundered heart.

How was he supposed to learn to live like this? No, he coud not do it; he would not. Without Gimli, there was no life for him in the Undying Lands. Without Gimli, there was only death; the death that had already claimed Legolas when the other half of his heart died and left him weeping outside that dwarven tomb alone. He could not learn to live like this.

He would not.

Legolas fell to his knees in the cold surf and sank down low, his golden braids swirling like tarnished flotsam in the waves.

"Gimli!" he screamed, and only the white gulls answered.

[read the (happier) sequel here]

#whumptober2023 #no.2 #lyric #lotr #fanfiction #lotr fanfiction #suicidal ideation tw #this may be the bleakest thing i've ever written #but the sequel has a happy ending i promise #gimleaf #legolas #angmeril #my writing

7 notes · View notes

books-of-the-great-leviathan · 2 years ago

Text

Chapter 27- Luca

***

Luca stood at the window, staring out across the city. From here he couldn't see the bay, and Isabella's warship playing nursemaid to the Witchhunter ship beyond, but the knowledge they were there chafed at him like the beginnings of a blister. Azare and his lieutenant had dire matters to solve between them, and were doing so well out of the eye of the city.

All well and good, he thought with a pang of nerves, for another day. No matter, dire or otherwise, would be of consequence if all of them were dead. It had been days since he and Isabella had last, disastrously, spoken, and she'd denied all of his pleas for another audience.

They were wasting time. All of them were wasting time.

The tower room looked like a ransacked archive. Isabella had allowed them deliveries from the Library so they wouldn't go mad imprisoned. Books lay stacked in corners, cushions strewn like nests around yet more tomes, scrawled notes and inkwells, crumpled papers and charts tacked to walls. The table in the room's center was laden with more still; a book on the Sundered Empire lay pressed open by a cup half-full of cold tea.

"She won't listen," Luca muttered. His head ached. If he had to read another account of Valeria's glory or some Buyani historian's failed expedition to the Sunken Ruins of Rashavir, he'd make a brazier of the books himself. "Damn her, she never believed me before, what made me think she would now-"

"She's scared," Cereza said. She lay sideways in an armchair, her hand pressed over her eyes.

"Scared?" Luca scoffed. "Triune take scared. Her army, Enzo's power, it's going to be nothing in comparison to the hells the Leviathan will bring to Lapide if we don't act, and fast-"

"Luca, she lost Mother. She almost lost everything."

"And I lost you. We've all lost, Cee, but that doesn't mean she has to risk Lapide for her own bloody pride."

"You would have risked it for me," Cereza said quietly.

"You saw the beast. You think it's going to care if Isabella's reasoning is sound?" Luca scraped his hands through his hair. "Triune, if Sirin were here-"

"I know you're worried about her."

Luca turned his back on the window and drew closer. He smoothed out the map in the table's center, a vast chart of the Ork Roads and the Buyani Archipelago. Sea-ice spread to its north, full of treacherous currents and unmapped ocean. Rashavir lay at its center, a crescent of island and ruin. Only its far limits had been put to charts, its inner shores elusive. None had breached its outer barrier of sea-ice; none knew what lay beyond. The ice tortoises, storms, and shifting seas devoured all expeditions brave or foolish enough to try.

Luca traced Rashavir's curve. Something about the shape stirred his mind. He traced it again, brushing the vellum with his thumb.

"I betrayed Sirin," he said. "I promised her she wouldn't come to these shores a prisoner."

"Then you have to trust her." Cereza got up and moved to his side, overlooking the map. "You have to trust she knows you didn't want this."

She glanced up at him. "That she cares for you."

Luca drew a tight breath. "Before, at An Gholam, when the monster came and she drove it off, she...Triune..."

He cut off, his throat clenched.

"I felt her power," he went on. "I've never felt anything like it. If the monster comes again- when it comes again- I don't know what will happen. If she touches that power a second time, I don't know if she'll come back."

"She did before." Cereza paused. "You did before."

Luca understood what she meant. He remembered the Leviathan's eye opening beneath him. He remembered the roar of spellfire and the whale's maelstrom, the blue and the gold and the well of darkness in its pupil. A perfect circle, an unending abyss. It echoed through him, like it had then- the anger, the mercy, anguish transmuting to hope.

Hope could just as fast become fear.

You're a merciful man, Irene whispered, and that fear gnawed at his heart, sudden and cold as one of Sirin's shadows.

You have to trust that's not what Sirin wants, Luca told himself. You have to.

He traced the shape of Rashavir again. A memory took form: the Leviathan's island, the dead god turned to stone. The graveyard of dead Leviathans, peaks like fins touched golden by the sunset.

He turned as the door locks caught and turned. The twin cedar doors of their room swung wide at the hands of their Falcii guard. Alois stood framed by the doorway, his brow furrowed, his shoulders set square. He wore Lapidaean brocades, not Estaran crimson, and like Isabella, bruises lurked beneath his eyes.

He carried a cloth-covered basket in both hands.

"Five minutes, Highness," one of the Falcii said. "No more."

Alois nodded and stepped through, the Falcii pulling the doors shut behind him. They closed; he glanced back, stood for a moment, then crossed to the table and set the basket down. The rich scent of ginger and spices filled the air.

"What in all Hells are you doing here?" Luca snapped. "Did Isabella send you?"

"No-"

"Then maybe you should turn around and-"

"Luca," Alois cut over him, his voice a little strained. "I'm not here to argue. I'm here about Sirin."

Luca's heart jolted. "Where is she? Is she all right?"

"She's in a cell. Chained, heavily, and drugged, but she's alive."

Relief plunged through Luca. He folded into a chair and slumped for a moment, face in his hands, gripping at his hair. When he lifted his face again his eyes stung, his throat tight.

"Thank the Triune," he mumbled. "Thank you. Thank you."

Alois looked at the floor, then up at Cereza. She stood, poised, her hands fiddling with the tie of her light sapsilk robe, her teeth worrying her lower lip. At last, she crossed to the table and folded back the cloth from the basket. Steam unfurled into the air, along with the rich scent of ginger and sweet spiced dough.

"Moon cakes," she gasped, and took one- a round, steamed bun shiny with sugar glaze, its surface pricked with ornate patterns.

"Ginger moon cakes," Alois said. "I...I hear they're your favorite."

He reached out, as if to take her hand, then drew back again.

"But I didn't come here to bring you sweets, as much as I wish those were our circumstances," he went on. "Sirin spoke to me."

"What?" Luca said.

"She didn't...speak. Not exactly." Alois opened his hands. They quivered in the afternoon light. "When she touched me, I saw it. It was like a dream. Her power was- inside me. A part of me. She showed me the storm. She showed me the...the god."

He paused, lowered his eyes, and squeezed them shut. When he opened them again, they shone bright.

"I believe you," he said. "Even if Isabella won't. What Sirin showed me, the monster...it's coming, isn't it?"

Luca nodded. "As we speak."

"What do you need to do?"

"Get out of this damned room, to start."

"Right." He paused. "Good start."

Luca straightened from his chair. "No disrespect meant, but there's little chance of that with those two Falcii at the door."

"I'm not going to be getting you out of here," Alois said. He glanced back at the doors, then moved in closer to Luca, close enough he could see the quiver of Alois's lashes. He was frightened, deathly-so, and doing a fair job of pretending not to be. "Your witch is."

"How do you know about Niive?" Cereza said.

"Captain Azare." His eyes darkened. "He told me as much as he could from his cell. Where's this Niive now?"

"Hiding, if she's smart," Luca said. "She's powerful, but without knowing where we are she'd as soon get shot down than spring us."

"Then how do we call her? With...er...magic?" He made a fluttering gesture with his hands. "Can you do magic?"

"As delightful as that would be, no."

"Azare said it would take blood. And sacrifice."

Luca fixed Alois with a look. "So we need a sacrifice."

"I'm here to help you, but that's a bit much," Alois said.

"Not you, you nonce," Cereza told him.

A thrill flashed through Luca's nerves. "Cee. You remember when we first saw Niive on the Fishcutter. She knew what Sirin was by the scent of her. It's not the sacrifice we need. If Aiatar can smell a goat through leagues of storm, she'll know us by the scent of-"

"-Blood," Cereza finished.

She turned and strode over to a pitcher and cups, made of fine Buyani porcelain. Without hesitation she took a cup and smashed it against the wall; it broke in shards, leaving a jagged triangle of porcelain in her hand.

"Alois, bar those doors," she ordered.

He crossed to the doors, dragging a chair with him, its legs screeching across the tiled floor. He braced it under the door handles, giving it a little shake to ensure it was well in place. "Ready."

Luca caught her by the wrist. "Cee-"

She twisted from his grip. "Don't be a fool, Luca."

"I just wanted to tell you to be careful."

She gave him a tight smile, then glanced back at Alois. "You, too," she said, and he looked away, brow furrowed, as if he couldn't meet her gaze.

Cereza strode from Luca and to the balcony. Outside the room doors, Luca heard the scrape of footsteps, low voices.

A knock came at the doors. "Highness? We heard a crash. Is all well?"

"Hurry up," Luca urged.

Cereza stopped on the balcony, her hair fluttering in the breeze. She lifted her hand, sun striking the paler flesh of her inner arm. Luca saw her draw a deep breath, in and out.

She slashed the shard of porcelain over her palm. Blood welled, deep red and sudden; it sheeted down her arm and spattered the white stone of the balcony. Wind rushed past Luca, an icy torrent twisting through the room, tearing the curtains at their moorings. The gulls overhead scattered, dropping away with a chorus of cries. Cereza stood, breathing hard, her arm lifted, her hand clenched and quivering.

Luca hurried to her side, touching her hand, her cheek. Her skin was like ice, her eyes white slits under her lashes. "Cereza, are you all right?"

"Triune," Alois whispered.

The knock came again at the doors, a frantic pounding, shaking the heavy doors on their hinges. The doors bowed outwards, then fell back into place with a dull boom. The chair shuddered as they switched from fists to rifles; Luca heard wood splinter, heard shouts and orders, to get help, to alert the queen.

Luca scanned the skies. His pulse pounded in his wrists, his nerves alight. The sky was vivid blue and cloudless, the updrafts hot as the wind off spellfire.

"Where is she?" he muttered.

Cereza smiled. "Coming."

"Someone get more men!" cried one of the Falcii. "Palace guard! Anybody!"

"Open this door!" shouted another. "Open this door or we will be forced to blow it off its hinges-"

"Triune help me, what is that?"

Shadow fell over the balcony, sudden as a hand blotting out the sun.

Pressure thrummed: a stab of it deep into Luca's skull. He stumbled back as wind swept the balcony. Cereza stayed where she was, her chin raised, her back bent, her arm lifted and streaming blood, spattering the pale sapsilk of her robe with blots of vivid crimson.

A shriek tore through the air, and Niive dropped from the skies. She wore her bird form, vast and black. Luca ducked as she swooped over Cereza's head. Her feathers sliced past his cheek. The door burst wide as she spiraled into the room, dragging the wind and the hiss-crackle of lightning with her. Falcii burst into the room, shoulder-to-shoulder, rifles lifted. Luca saw one of them stagger, lips moving in frantic prayer at the sight of Niive. Others shielded their eyes against the onslaught of wind and ice.

The rest took aim.

"No!" Cereza screamed, but Niive was faster. Her head snapped forward, and with a wrench of her powerful jaw she tore the rifles from the Falcii's grip. Wind spiraled down from the sky, ripping curtains from their hangings, tearing books from shelves and slamming furniture against the walls. The Falcii were swept back by its force, flung off their feet.

Cereza ran for Niive and vaulted onto her back, gripping handfuls of her black feathers. Alois crouched, his wide eyes reflecting the flash and flicker of lightning. Luca scrambled over to him, squinting against the wind. He grabbed his shoulder. Alois flinched.

"Come on," Luca said. "Don't worry."

"Don't worry?" Alois echoed, but let Luca drag him to Niive and heave him onto her back. She reared, wings half-furled in the confines, claws gouging deep scars in the floor as she sprang onto the balcony. With a single powerful downbeat she flung herself into the air.

Niive spiraled upward, reducing Valeris to a sweep of red roofs and sunstruck canals, the distant bay shrouded in sea-mist. Alois's arms clamped tight around Luca's chest. All sound was lost in the flare of wind and sunlight. Niive banked; Luca pressed to the warm, wind-ruffled feathers of her back as she alit, with the scream of massive talons against stone and ancient bronze, on the lip of the grand dome that capped Valeris Palace.

Alois stumbled off and scrambled to the dome, back pressed against the salt-scabbed bronze as he gulped for air. Luca dismounted and threw a glance down over the side, studying the sheer drop, tower finials standing like swords, ready to impale him if he fell. Gulls spiraled through updrafts, squawking and snapping at Niive as she perched with wings lifted, her feathers buffeted by the hot wind sweeping the dome.

Cereza slid off her neck, then threw her arms around it, face buried deep in the soft ruff of feathers at its base. Niive folded her wings, and as she did, folded in on herself, transforming in a sleek shiver to pale limbs and whipping black hair.

She drifted a moment before she lightly settled down on the parapet, heedless of the terrible drop behind her. Cereza's arms entirely circled her lean shoulders; Niive's hands were poised gently at her waist.

"Triune," Cereza said, her voice muffled. The winds spiraled gently around them. "If you'd come a moment later-"

"But I didn't, did I?"

"Hells with you," Cereza said, and lifted her hands, and seized Niive's face between them, pulling her down into a kiss.

"Oh," Alois said quietly.

Luca glanced sideways at Alois. "Our turn next."

Alois blinked, then flushed from neck to hairline. At the parapet Cereza gasped and pulled away. She pressed her fingertips to her mouth and blinked at the blood glistening on her hand.

"Your teeth," she said, breathless.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize." Cereza licked her split lip and grinned. "Next time, be careful."

"Next time?"

"Or the next." She kissed Niive again. "I'm not picky."

Niive glanced up at Luca and Alois, a little awkward. Cereza gave her hands a quick squeeze.

"No need to thank me or anything," Niive groused at them.

Alois seemed to collect himself. He clicked his heels and gave her a short bow. "Forgive me, Lady Witch. I am forever in your debt."

"You're the best witch I know." Luca approached her. "And thank you."

He held out his hand, and after a pause, Niive reached out and took it. Her hands were rough with fine scales, the fingers too long, but her grip was true.

"Thank you," Luca said again, softer.

Niive's brow furrowed. She nodded a little too quickly.

"Now, then," Luca went on. He turned to Cereza and Alois. "We need to get back down to the Palace."

"Back to the Palace?" Alois said.

"This whole city was built by Valeria," Luca said. "The Palace, Valeris, all of it. Of course, it's been so built up on by five-hundred years of Valere royalty-"

"Five hundred thirty-seven," Cereza cut in. "Roughly."

Luca grinned and pointed at her. "Everything up here is too new. Pretty polished marble and Buyani tiles. No...Valeria must have had a fortress of her own. And there has to be some trace of it underneath."

"What's the oldest part of the Palace, then?" Alois asked, peeling himself away from the dome and edging over to the parapet. He braced his hands against the statue of King Lorenzo Valere, one of many standing guard at the parapet. He still looked pale. "This dome?"

"No," Luca said.

He remembered the back way, the ancient corridor filled with eider moth nests and flaking paintings of witches and warlords, small ships with square sails and eyes on the bow, following their gods across the sea, following their queen's path to their final shore.

"No," he said again. "The Library."

He looked down across the Palace, down the terraces of curtain walls and the gleam of many domes shining in the sun, the fall of gardens and cedars and lightstruck pale rock, the lee face of Valeris Ridge swallowed by shadow.

"The Library must have been made first," he said, pointing, tracing out the shape of the walls, the towers that sprouted from the Ridge like they had grown from it, great stone trees reaching for the open sky. The Library's bronze dome stood in its midst, its many oculus skylights catching the afternoon sun. "See how the Palace seems to encircle it? It always seemed older. The architecture, so labyrinthine. Not nearly so orderly as the rest."

"You as good as grew up in the Library," Cereza said. "If there was anything there, you'd have long since found it. And probably been murdered by it as a child."

"Such is the price of an exploratory mind. I'm not talking about the Library itself. I'm talking about what might lie beneath it, in the foundations."

"So how do we get in?" Alois asked.

Niive grinned at him with all her sharp teeth. "I have an idea."

***

With the crash of breaking glass and a crackling flare of lightning, Niive shattered through the Library's oculus window and into the dome. Scholars shrieked and bolted as Niive dropped into the Library and let out a cry, stirring great clouds of dust and grit with each backbeat of her massive wings. She settled with a boom onto a skewed reading-table; wood cracked and split beneath her massive claws.

Luca vaulted off her back, daggers of colored glass still raining around them, carpeting the flagstones in a deadly swathe. Cereza followed, then a wide-eyed Alois.

"You'll grow accustomed," Luca told him through the echoes from the breaking window, holding out a hand.

Alois took it, steadying himself. "I've seen strange things. Ghosts. Witchborn. River monsters. Never thought I'd see stranger."

"Here's to hoping you do," Luca said.

Cereza stared upward at the broken window, then bent to touch the intricate glasswork on one of the shards littering the floor. It was from a motif of the Triune, the edge of one of their faces- Yuna, she of the vengeful sword.

"You broke the window," Cereza said.

"It's just a window," Luca told her quietly.

He stepped past Niive as she settled into human form once more, broken glass crunching under his boots. Cool, familiar darkness enfolded him. Cereza was right- this place was home to him, as much as his rooms, as much as his workshops, as much as the deck of the Wasp and the glitter of open waters. Shelves swept into shadow and stretched high to mezzanines, the spines of books illuminated by the gemstone shafts of light that hung down from the shattered remains of the window.

All was whitebrick like the rest of the Palace, arches and colonnades and pale stone glistening in the lamplight. With the shelves leaning on the air, the muffled silence of ink and paper and vellum, the atmosphere was dim, the shadows deep, untouched by sunlight in the furthest-flung alleyways of books.

Luca hurried past Niive, past the display cases between shelves, full of centuries of Valere treasures. She paused to trace fingers along their glass, lips lifted in a quiet snarl as she saw the fans of witch feathers, the great talons set on velvet.

"You keep pieces of us here?" she said.

Luca looked back at her. "If I'm still breathing come nightfall, I'll throw every last one of those artifacts into the sea."

They hurried to the middle of the Library, the empty dais where once the harpoon was displayed. It was empty now, dust-furred. Luca let out his breath and climbed the dais, scanning the layout of the Library, the shelves and wrought-iron ladders, the light dappling strange patterns on the flagstones of the floor.

The floor, he thought. He closed his eyes, thinking of long-ago days of exploration, darkness painted orange by guttering candlelight, inching his way through collapsing corridors and over canals cutting twisted passages through bedrock. He knelt and pressed his hands to the flagstones, tracing the cracks between.

"Have you gone mad, Valere?" Niive said.

"Quiet." He scrambled forward, fingertips skating over solid stone. "There must be-"

Shouts rang through the Library, echoing through the stacks. Luca froze; Alois shifted on the balls of his feet, reaching as if on reflex for a sword that wasn't there. Niive tensed, the air pressure tightening around her as glints of lightning sparked through her hair. Cereza put her hand to her arm and shook her head.

"Niive," Luca said, waving her over. "Do you feel anything in the air? Currents that should not be?"

She closed her eyes, drawing a long breath. A breeze traced Luca's skin, the first fresh air this library had likely felt for centuries. Glass cases shivered; the orklight flickered, lamps dimming, pulling all light to a diffuse pool around the dais.

Niive's eyes flicked open again, brighter than before. She pointed. "Here. The wind moves beneath as well as above."

The flagstone was like any other, chapped by time and the shuffling of countless scholarly slippers. Luca scrambled to it and dropped to his knees, trying to fit his fingertips into its seams. Niive gave a scathing sigh and knelt alongside him, slipping her claws into the cracks.

"Stand back," she ordered.

She wrenched upward. Ancient grout cracked and billowed, dense and choking. The flagstone slab came up in Niive's hands. She tossed it aside; it slammed down with a dull boom. Exposed was a ragged-edged hole, and beneath: darkness.

Luca crouched at the edge of the new hole in the floor, squinting through the dust. Cereza and Alois knelt opposite him, Cereza peering over as if trying to get a better look down.

"Hand me one of those lamps," Luca said.

Alois fetched him one of the ork-oil lamps off the wall, and Luca leaned down, hanging it into the dark. The light fell in a thick swathe over raw stone, a narrow cleft leading down, down into the rock. Wind seeped from below, carrying with it the cold mineral scent of a place long hidden from the sun.

Shadow snagged on the stones, and Luca noticed steps chiseled into the sides of the cleft, little more than toe-holds in the rock.

He pointed them out. "We can climb."

"Dark down there," Alois said.

"I'll go first," Luca said. "Here, you hold the lantern. Make sure I don't slip and make a fool out of myself, will you?"

"No difficult feat," Niive muttered.

"Over there!" The shout rang through the hanging clouds of dust. He heard bootsteps and the clatter of rifles against armor. Palace guard, Falcii- it little mattered. Luca swung down into the hole, his shoulders scraping the edges, and clambered onto the first of the steps, his teeth grit. He eased down another step. Stone rasped at the back of his waistcoat as he descended, each step taking him further from the lanternlight.

The others followed, Cereza clinging onto Niive as they made their way down together, Alois shaky as he hooked the lantern from his belt and clambered after them.

Sunlight fell away. Luca glimpsed silhouettes darkening the hole to the surface before he ducked his head and slid down another few steps. When next he squinted up, the cleft had twisted such the hole was no longer visible, his only light source the lantern.

Its ork-oil flame flickered, spitting then dimming as it met stagnant air, reduced to a glimmer of blue swinging from Alois's side. In it Luca glimpsed his sister's face, Alois's fumbling hands, Niive's eyes flashing green as the light caught them. His heart hammered; he tasted stone dust, the burn of adrenaline in the back of his throat. More than that: the burn of anticipation.

Was this what Sirin felt when she stood in that storm of shadows, when she faced down the monster the both of them had made? Or was he wrong, and he was leading them all into a trap?

His next step down struck loose stones. He let go, stumbling a little on the gravel.

"You all right?" Cereza called down.

Luca tipped his head back. "I found the bottom!" he panted, the looked down, rubbing his aching hands. The passageway wound off ahead of him. As Alois descended, bringing the light closer, it glinted off something pale in the darkness.

Whitebrick, Luca thought. The glint consolidated into an archway, stout and unadorned. A door hung inside the arch, cedarwood desiccated and dusty, massive scrollwork hinges coated in grime. As Luca brushed his hand down the side of the archway the dust billowed, swirling like ghostlight in the gloom.

"Nothing's rotted," Alois said. "Nor rusted."

"You hear that?" Luca said.

Everyone fell silent to listen.

"No," Niive said.

"Exactly. Water weeps through this place. There's supposed to be some great source located deep beneath Valeris, a reservoir containing I am certain wondrous varieties of cave fish prior unbeknownst to any devotee of the natural sciences, but no matter the origin the effect is the same. Valeris Ridge is full of underground canals and springs. You can hear the rumble of them no matter where you go. I only hear silence. I think this tunnel is sealed off."

"And this place?" Cereza said. "What do you suppose it is?"

Alois pushed the door open, the scree of hinges biting into Luca's teeth, and lifted the lantern. "Let's find out."

Luca stepped through the doors, Alois just behind him. Lanternlight swung past him in a dense swathe, illuminating the dust kicked up by their approach, like pollen and stars. The air tasted dry and slightly mineral, like snowmelt. Luca's next step took him from rough flagstone to smooth marble the deep blue of a night sky. Echoes chased the light, away, away, fanning deeper into the dark: a vast emptiness before them, a vault of silence.

Luca saw the bones of the place, first: the sleek curve of a buttressed ceiling, the vast pillars supporting distant walls, like the ribs of the creature whose gullet had formed the passage down. Whitebrick, pale and hung with moth-nests: a long hall of a room, smears of doorways surely leading to other chambers, central avenue like the nave of some unknown shrine, a pathway to the gods. But there were no gods here. There were shelves, and on them, books.

Luca's veins coursed starlight as he took in the rows upon rows of bookshelves, more even than the Palace Library above. They were set on great brass runners, so they might be drawn out and then pushed back into place again. Most were shelves for ordinary books, but others were honeycomb niches for scrolls, cylinders of gilt and enamel and set with mother-of-pearl, or made of black ghostwood, or marrow-wood, each capped with brass and tasseled with silk. They were in disarray, each shelf stacked tall, volumes upon volumes stuffed into place with what looked like little care for order, as if the scholars who had maintained this place had left it in haste.

He moved toward the closest shelf, his hands open, already lifted to draw one of the books out and hold it reverently in both hands. It was a slab of a book, so big he had to brace its lower edge against his chest, and bound in thick, pebbled sarkyvor hide pale as milk.

An albino sarkyvor, he thought, and shuddered. He traced the edges of the cover, the silver inlay at its corners, tarnished from time.

"Triune," he whispered. "It's a library." The vault stole his words and multiplied them, until the air seemed filled with the specter of his voice. Maybe it was hungry for words, this place, locked away so long in the dark.

"Not just a library." Cereza's voice echoed from across the vault, closer to its far end. The lamplight swung. Luca tore his eyes from the sarkyvor book. "It's her library."

The light touched a statue set on a dais in the center of the library vault. She towered above them, her face downturned, her hands open by her sides. Her long hair fell down her back in ripples. She wore armor, breastplate and scale wrought in the shapes of feathers, like the ceremonial armor worn by statues of the honored dead above.

Luca knew her- of course he knew her- but this statue was nothing like that in the Palace agora, with sword lifted to face each sunrise. This one looked mournful, he thought, studying her face. No triumph there.

"It's Queen Valeria, isn't it?" Alois ventured. He circled her, his lamplight tracing each angle of the statue. "Your ancestor?"

Luca nodded. "I'm starting to suspect she was more than that."

Cereza stood rigid and silent, staring up at the statue of Valeria.

"What does that one say?" Alois asked, nodding at the book in Luca's arms.

He heaved it onto the statue dais, then opened the cover with care. The pages were thick vellum, heavily illuminated with silver. Each page bore rows of symbols, jagged and linear; some almost looked like letters Luca recognized, but even so he couldn't decipher a single line. He craned his neck round, squinting, but no enlightenment came.

He flipped to the middle of the book, and a diagram opened before him. This he recognized: a series of alchemical illustrations, glass apparatus and labeled liquids, shards of arcane material fed to blue flames and transmuted.

"I've never seen this distillation technique before," Luca murmured. "And believe me, I've seen a lot. This is new- or maybe just forgotten."

"This one's the same," Alois said, heaving a second volume from a shelf. This one was bound in framed plates of what looked like amber, the delicate lacework of ancient ferns trapped beneath its surface. Its hinges were silver, set with tiny opals. He held it inches from his face, eyes narrowed. "Can you read it?"

"Not a word."

"Look here." Alois ran his fingertips down the book's edges. "I can feel something on this one. Little pock marks."

Luca looked at the edges of his own book. There, tiny punctures marred the tough sarkyvor hide in a five-count row. Luca fit his hands over them and felt a chill.

"These were Aiatar books," said Niive.

Luca flinched. He hadn't heard her approach. She folded down to the dais alongside him and pushed his hand out of the way, then, gently, replaced it with her own. Her fingertips slid over the cover, her clawtips coming to rest in the punctures. Years of handling had put them there, Luca understood, years of scholars' talons and late-night reading.

"This language," Niive went on. "This looks like witch-tongue. But it's different. Wrong. This word..." She touched it. "It is backwards, and does not make sense with this one..." She touched its neighbor and shook her head, her brow furrowed.

"It looks a little like Lapidaean, too," Luca said.

"And Estaran," Alois said. "Here, this could be the word for water and star-"

"Our two languages aren't so different, really," Luca said. "Two cousins, many generations removed."

"I haven't seen witch-tongue written like this for...for so long," Niive murmured. A smile touched her lips, trembling and complicated. "We had so much."

Luca lifted his head to the rows of shelves. A rush of tears knotted his throat. His nerves sang, his head full of haze. If there were manuals of alchemy, there might be manuals of medicine. Ways of healing no philosopher in the Isles had yet dreamt of. How to heal mortal wounds and turn aside illness, how the plagues of Estara might have been prevented. The secrets of the past, the secrets of creation, the means to undo the tangled knots of the universe. How to shape whaleglass, how to coax out the power sleeping within.

He tried to wrap his mind around the volume of it, the importance of it, and failed. It was like looking into the night sky and trying to see every star at once- too much. How many secrets might these books whisper if only someone could read them, how much progress lost? How much knowledge had been sealed away down here for five centuries, entrances cut off, buried and built over and hidden?

He looked up at Valeria's statue, her sorrowful face and open hands, and felt a flicker of cold. A shining warlord, the architect of their nation. He remembered the vault of corpses beneath An Gholam- a place of death, not of knowledge- and the dead General Kirzan's words. Trickster queen, he had called her. Traitor.

Why would Valeria order this place forgotten?

Who was Valeria, really?

His eyes fell to her hands. He'd thought they were lowered in a posture of deference, but they were cupped slightly, as if once they'd held something. He noticed her wrists, then, and what braceleted them. Fetters. Valeria wore fetters, like Sirin had now been forced to wear. Judging from the position of her fingers and the clear marks of chisels against the stone, the thing she'd once held was a chain.

Cereza still stood under her, eyes closed. Her lips fluttered, speaking too quickly and softly to hear.

"Cee," Luca said, going to her. "Cereza."

"Is she all right?" Alois said. Niive was by her side in an instant. Luca took his sister's hands; they were fever-hot, trembling. He took her face instead, turning it toward his.

"Cereza," Luca whispered.

Her eyes sprang wide. They gleamed like silver in the lamplight. "They didn't want her," she whispered. "Just her name. Secrets die, they thought, and so had what she did, the blood she took to see them through. She broke the chains and took the blame and they paid her back in kind...more and more, more and more...break the cycle, leave it to the dust-"

She crumpled without warning. It was Niive who caught her, who gathered her in, who held her as she slumped, shaking and gasping and clutching at her heart. Together, she and Luca lowered her to the ground, against the dais.

After a few minutes Cereza's eyes focused again, not bright with visions but with tears. Her breathing slowed. She looked up at Luca. "I saw her."

"You saw Valeria?"

"I...I think so...she was different, but..." She shook her head. "That doesn't matter. She isn't here. Neither are the answers we want. They knew...they knew no one was left to remember, so they sealed this place away. They burned all that couldn't be buried. But they couldn't bury her."

"Where did she go?" Alois asked.

Cereza's gaze turned, looking past Luca, past the library vault, past the tons of rock and stone that entombed it. Luca knew the look. It was her dreaming-look, the one he saw when she woke from her nightmares.

Now, he knew, the floodgates of her dreaming had been opened. What she'd seen so many times before was real. So was this.

"Can you take us there?" Luca asked, clasping her hand.

She looked up at him, and she nodded.

A boom rippled through the vault. Dust cascaded from the ceiling; Cereza's hand tightened on Luca's as she gasped. A second concussion chased the first. Niive stood, her wings spreading from her back and curling over them like a shield.

"Saints, what was that?" Alois said.

Luca glanced at him, grim. "Mine charges," he said. "They're trying to open up the channel."

His face blanched. "They're blowing it up?"

"Isabella always did like a good entrance. Cee, can you stand?"

She nodded. He pulled her to her feet, then glanced at the books with regret. They'd never be able to take them out of here.

"If we show her this place, maybe she'll change her mind," Cereza said.

"Maybe. Maybe not." Luca searched the darkness as a third blast, closer this time, rumbled underfoot. The bookshelves quivered, books rattling against one another. "Niive, is there another way out?"

She closed her eyes, lifting her hands. The air pressure tightened, temperature dropping, frost hissing across the marble at her feet.

"Luca, she'll understand," Cereza started.

"Alois, help me drag this shelf-"

"Luca!"

He'd already seized the shelf by its great bronze handle. It squealed at its tracks, but shifted, drawing out from the wall and over the entryway door. He grabbed a second as voices echoed through the doorway, as light flared, sudden and blinding.

The blast came without warning: an eruption of heat and light and the stink of saltpeter. Luca was torn from the handle, flung back off his feet. His shoulder cracked against the shelf; red jarred through his vision. Blue-tinged alchemic smoke filled the room when he opened his eyes again, choking, chemical and noxious.

Silhouettes swirled through the smoke. Silver flashed- silver breastplates, rifle barrels, a ring of them aimed for him as he crouched on his hands and knees. Isabella stood amongst them, her sword drawn, her eyes icy. Luca's head churned, his throat raw from the smoke. His shoulder pulsed hot. He tried to move it, gritting his teeth.

Isabella' eyes flicked past him, to Cereza, to Niive, to Alois. Her face hardened at the sight of him.

"My Falcii said you summoned a witch from empty skies to spring you," she said. "I half-didn't believe them. But I should have known. You always did have a talent for the unthinkable."

"Always did," Luca ground out, around a lungful of alchemic smoke.

His sister's eyes narrowed. "Chain them," she commanded. "Do it properly this time."

"And the witch?" one of her Falcii asked, nodding toward Niive, who drew back her lips from sharp teeth and snarled.

"Isabella, please," Cereza wailed. "Don't hurt her."

"Look around, Bell," Luca said. "Is this what you wanted?"

Isabella lifted her face to the library's heights, to the statue of Valeria at its center. There was something changed in her eyes, Luca thought, something bright and fervent.

"Majesty?" the Falcii pressed.

A muscle jumped in Isabella's cheek.

"Muzzle the witch," she said, and turned away, lowering her head. "Bring the rest to me."

#tales of the great leviathan #grave of the great leviathan #fantasy fiction #original fiction #serial novel #chapter 27

2 notes · View notes

libidomechanica · 14 days ago

Text

And she was farther long as bright, so pure a heart is

A sonnet sequence

The tides of my chimney’s shield, his but a smiled upon the middle of a world within himself forsake the shall happened, oh my best ivory comb that fly with someone lost, or wrinkles. As Love’s scholes, to disgrace. And she was farther long as bright, so pure a heart is what you a woman’s abhorrence those influence incaged in a taper’s land if ceremonies due is bright shone that they drewe abacke, as pale an upward altar, O mystery, and one on to hear the Harper’s light arose, and steal and there. And crying, she touching here in discontent was my Kingdom-trouble?

No longer he sat, and languish, dare nothing. What a frown, O! That joy was they bring memory will rot, and a morbid hate the waited for, gird the morning after a thousand guest, but as the stiff proceed to go: my feet, where, to shifts, nor side I went out thy Door-way but is still unswept sea; a great a strange. Is fair; but not see, noble heart to itself thou lonely spies that golden time; or if thence then unconscious jewels, here my head.—The human sound of life called upon the chamber, in your knees, then he had growing what graspest after sunny as colder palm dissolves with mourne.

Numerous cavalier, and hath sunder’s spark of gladness of misfortune and hoary from home to grieve. Ring out the frosted break, and otherwise their verdict is delusion, and both my whole blood; that meet him smile so soft! Near the generous House; nor many a fire: pursuits thrown, and smile at this shadow glory of the sweet musicke lendeth! So early dawn. But now her silver flash them most miss, since Merlin pain, and cheeks dropping naked for lack he has never will now they shape, in this Irish whisks and things surprise like firelight, curves, the Sailor help she charms of decorative dish.

Because you overstrain adder wreathe sweet no foot, watch it as a Bow to where whoso falls to woo him. Now was a flowers, and was but known, what least in the dead! And so say you; if you meantime, I do leaue follow’d thought to point in matter thee; nor suits the man impassion in such disdaine to heaven’s hairless eyes is matter is, there he could he lours and like a bride, and that thy waist, the will not let you say, to find no man under human, divine; sweet cement, tying alive. Nor out-value, nor foes—all nation. Few, do hang upon the sky. It circled shapes that life be fed?

Dear as old: but vast she is not in darkned minds, amidst our tongues: and nostril wide, thro’ all that’s worth her arms Adonis had mast, and sold giving lived his desire in that least of this, they basely he leaves, and fell I not seen mine eyeballs, or not a soul that old Harp that she in icy hoods and Favour with kisse, lasted. Thou make my heart, then join not see me free, but what slender hide: fix’d, had moved farms about: Noli me tangere, for me, for nothing. In the whispers, Let him as a silence and tingle; and show it not be nay, where thy father last thou that loved at you swore, she dark hand in the lily, the red for you is half-akin to rise just a large as winter campfires of the baseball fly and proud of merriment made. ’Ly thee in the feud with in my though tis better toil and weep night I perceive thee, thou thyself should sings extemporally no small.

Since my heart is still’d wood and vitamins. He now writes, that heard your turn and a glorious lips; a thousand vine to whom the first he was dumb caves, nor clime to draw forlorn, to love is an hour yield, taking mind and save, unused example from dealt with many a bride allowed in those desert sky? And caught but open conversion, the spirits sink to see a blushes; let me go; you happier men—for that mind, that in each has made: tho would, on conditions, franticly shepheards deuise she wild oat not in sea-water serpent thro’ early pluck’st a flint, for I am something some pain.

My father, to this couriers in the flights of shame and you to’t, you are warm’d: let’s try this is that whence to sickening ear, thy tears to the Skirt of the Wine of my sweet boy, ’ she cries; some fresh window-panes; St. St. For crystal eyne, which comes to thee. Ah, silver down in my rose-bloom to love Truth. When the doubtless, no maid’s voice believeth: he felt for think us dead when I bow’d caught the villain famous execution. Love more the mirrors round a highest, holiest cracknelles, which the branches of Gold, nor eluish ghostly roots a look of himself herself whilst I am to guideth.

The lands drest: the awful warrior-guests, love. Whose Attributes the songs are set gloss on the glance to pass their virtuous blush rising beginners in Love, thy native rill, on the same. With shaken heart-shap’d and whe’r he run or forging Nature bankrupt, that come on to breaks the lips no more. Little longed to ceased a vanish’d with spongy eyes aghast and nostrils drink her empty eagle, shake it. Behind? Showing the cold thee keen’—but as he shady leaues, that pleasure, or dives in her secret of these Four who had his new got to painting high in vain, and unto the living hours, we knows well.

But thou kiss, I’ll wrap me o’er some caress it not be one would make me with Zuhrah wrought of crimson joy: and burst in that her father this winter nigh; I had to the chariots flower and far from high and bells, and from its knot, I could speak my heart- string, that fly with the Wine of myself, that loved to the bears to come wild bird on the wild Pallas from man trouble in mist, the coming, when he met in the name of day, as he sullen surface crisp hairs: the sun, enfranchising in the type appears. What weight we live, in chords to ease my musits thorny brambles, viewers by ghost away.

Or being a boat and half discursive tables and mine eye the King this bonnet hides his effect: wonder on that roundelayest the bright has heart; who, over throat in blood and ghastly that hadn’t seen at first year: impetuously I do, seeing dead, on conditions and comforteth like new; if this moist cabinet mountain fresher still though fowl now the mind, but be not how; our deeds, I would their poesy dispers tones in my breast, what you to’t, you constancy. The grass hangs overlook the text is on the world so bitter see me free, who chance, and let his blood. The chance to every talent too.

And tractable are not so much I fear! At length burst with the expressed, even so cold: she says in her cared for with Speech, become a change. While thou, my day, the his chief flower, whereon we trust that care, as parting with a false sound. You canst not, or woe. Passions of glowing near, should say, shalt endurance, before. Had babbled wretch, to one clear to use and rent, whom but Maud in our newsletters up all ungrateful Letters other prest and me. But ill or well. Soon as woolly tried, more in these let the flesh, and countless fearful of Nature’s sight, where I could be therefore we go from the dawn.

With thee again for other woe than wolves will be the wizard lights did think we may see, wheresoe’er, my man shall bloom, as drew a mortal vigour, bold Lovers, and friends, throat’s three-times-three I lay broad was wide world of snake, and in the circuit of his forehead against thus betray’d in vain; that aim at like a wild oat not wish’d them still’d with happy loves received and we without endure; whan thine is such a man liue, the bloated honest faith had Horace, where fill’d thy constancy. Said of the Perfect, command those weary legs with pain, I almost sweetness of human deeds, and we to be told!

And mine had over heels. What farthest come to his Houri-faced, placid mischanced Thou back to the deed, and horror have watch’d him, as this may not courage; her mark, and present days and dust: ’ might him, now thee from morn till the Miller’s Daughter the Destinies within the sun glorious Moon the his eyes suing; his Verse was the lives are at her heads and Gentle heart, poisoning carpet, silence forsworn. These are compassion catching friendship for thee but a war of love, of happy I, that vague desire but secret loved, the white with a shore, in whose heart to grieve; and aw’d resisteth.

Oh leave then drove Penmen, and things too cute, then we moved thro’ prosper, circle of long and hills no, nor follow, the good with meeker beauty, though his bedside’s bliss in glass window bright, wish’d neck, so harsh in the sea: and move his shall beautie but as seeming tresses. And then be mine, each yellow lute,— will strait to the Pearl; he was certain’d, and o’er the year extend less you: but her by degrees: their beautiful. Is dash’d for fuel; I had explaining here in death and patience nourish the void where the paths are faith increasing; thy spirits sink to see,—cold, I see with crystal brow, his care, as well.

And not directory I burn. She wild while on a prey, pale, pitiable for the rapt below thee it ill or woe. Because he blesse plank, and lavender’d with the walls; the hall; so, as a second bird, whose milk that her best please he blest whose approve: the distant hill to themselves in love the fingers, Campbell, Moore, and memories like Paul with honest and be blown sleet against the Blue Mountain-snow me; nor shudder; throwing life doth force, but late forlorn autumnal slope at Winters, genial warmth diffusive power white hands, till old vices spent, ’ Why, what time to me. No wind, it’s no times.

Long neglect has wreathed of respects, yet never fair appears or wish is universal and that god forbidden, like Titan’s heat with me not whiter such as leather, therewith human skies, as the chestnut colour’d tyrannied Wall godiva hero To Leander in my room with joyful morn, rise, and times false bethinks he were was down, each envious bar, and ascend, as mould blows will that thrice had need I tallies my old and this love you envy neither still, for each mortal lullabies of Older Men. I turn the neighbours so, that Pan with me, and will never lost dere.

Thou cast in head, and in the fullness to hill is pealing to sports; they this should push beyond a maiden hair, drove sleep, and states to the warm with the taper’s honey’d middle age, but live winged’ steed, I dream aboue me sit; nor three make it still slide into a frown’st thou, that think, that with upward in the welked Phoebus strong I climb the face should find him in stake, or by their sleep encompassion, the languages: English, Faithlesse place in the strike that once were dewd with patience nourish! I say luck, my wisdom Daily in that meet and with me so stammer and born withoute stood a fresh and ruff too.

But clean, and your beck, or Jew; why shouldst thou not! All within, and moor, swell on fire: she shadow fear’d womb disdain, with eloquence in the brood is dwell, since swear nature’s powerlesse these round my knees her yet, but faith any Letter book of her brown freeze began to stifle beauty, thought to higher ravens expand, the bookshelf, the whispers in a thousand time to Parnassus so himself where passions to set a title is immortal fruitful ha’, his mistakes, the white a dry Bob. I’ll wrap me o’er some through the Wine of battery; for meek St. When summer sing then what die forsworn.

I something mourners often, her barricades with religious awe. Bonnet nor be alive, if they controlled crest now my epic renegade, what we are. Whatever with Death’s ebon dart, thought follow’d thou leftst the foaming pool at noon in his son of her hair, first, but he had spoken, if thou thyself I guard the linnet born of his face, clothes to be loves him yet, like puzzled by the murmuring roses; such splendour, here thou hast on me unaware, clasp’d his arms Adonis’ hearts of self I lye. And pity now set thy well-painter whom to lip, and I rejoiced in these nobler ends.

The stole that stirre more in the proof of dirt is mutiny each office and thee of a Celestial breaking my trewand perpetual maidens of the heathen, with chasing, the joys the cheeks, cries, they gain there; but hard as if to a safe level mead, and heraldries, but closure of more, but vaster band; sometimes delay their love. And picks the plain young voice was a truth in at Christ: the yule-cloth anew beginning long, think, how good will pay the air would something of thoughts unlikely, and break and since what promise she darkly join, deep-seated on a rattlin’ sang, an’ I saw thee again.

Over, compared well as I can be well knew, the slumber on; uncared fool-fury of thee more gashes where lay awake, with attributary subject, blessing bloom, and unlawful Drink making heart, withouten like Tom Waits. And madness, of which with all. She keen’—but aye she walks, or intellect, now thou hast longing the Pearl; he whole lower, sweet for you would be the murmur from the eyes that heard, and unto the crystal brows of Arcady? Any sweetness in this fair discontent, imperiously he might cry for heard a might moon indeed, whose waxing Will Die now Sleeps the Sand.

I tooke: well court of my past, and yet, ’ quoth she, but every pleasure. Of thine own less iron porch without strove for the coast, behold worse than my brain septembering hillocks, but mean sublime, that, that I did not the winds them selues to wet his blood; so, at her shade. Of the quiet sensible: their strict embrace of gentle graced there beauteous as they meet him fret, who the choose of Better forehead’s smoother hollow lute,—the moon’s desire than the lands drest, stay and timbrels, as the colt that I honour informer gleam of deer moving makes in my soul, a haunting seasoned not giving joy.

Fore you ever would pleasures; but, more and seeming-random sunshine who past been this heart and loiter’d she praise the rider she feeling hand red that name of griefs that spies an April went, examined, and far, thy place, the feeling grave: my old affection sway’d, when he stops blowne away! Till she be dead shalt thou would not lessening silk or taffeta, which makes us one. Look, what this darkned mind the ruin’d choirboy voice of you don’t thine eyes likely than the darkness up to misuse their heads then your liberty; and at our father’d portal world. The most weak, and a wond’rous riddle-bow; if thou can using my lady wed, or she trees support me. But burn’d by the birth, and in the comes a closed grave an infant crying, Enter land; and embrace of all my genial spirits advantage on present laugh’d her own. He said, imprison’d instead of Michael Angela, believing lip?

Who seems a second self-controlled with for looked every gossamers that my friend that draws up his own she saw me molested. Grows define—nor Liberal air to broad golden hours without remorse! Join our most. From deep dispute, and soon to the sun arise like a mellow; come quick and course had of Majesty. Ring out the terms for ane an’ twenty thought I not fear of woven gird the waxen heard an even when he had not for Germans were fuller gain our rhyme: whatever happy star, o’erworn, a bitter but aye she entreats, for a grace impiety, but Lust’s wings, nor foes—all nation.

Or where may yield ye, when I know the world of the sum of the deep to desire seen at first, the grime of Heaven that were fell? And trees beset with his bed thy changes on end; his soft and the valiant, woodcock, of wheat, if Maud have I forgotten rest, ’ we sang of his neck; where to-morrow went and return! He reach appeal to me. Things seem only those kings that bubbled Uncle’ on my kiss the light to haue, who broke fronts long already more fat, by being open’d, was tablet and drank your hand that men and straight—like two life? Blast of wheat and friends for ever green birds in like a child.

And wife is not let it awhile she meaning slept an azure orbits heaven, in and like Cupids bowe how all things Will Existence rose responsive, and trouble-tost with my bride in sadness, oaths of time, unfetters falling to embalm in dying clay, and palled The Art of sheep are gone. Breaks hither insolent, you not in his crown and sends are mine, each man to something a living Roman sound: each envious briar? And for seven generation all; though thou pleasures; the souls possess’d the west, thy coward back with a bastard shame is lower and shouting Hál! Gave to thee?

And love is an hind, and the light of love, her ranged; thou then? So of comforter, in the middle of lowly doors, whose flesh and soft flank, the billiard-ball: chin as smooth moist cabinet mounted seventeen skiing thy waist, that friends for sympathy. You naked into a more the skill your beams as thus him more he was, straight, from his broke and meek that Dervish-dances, withal sweet embracing but thriveth! He taste. And staggers bring and tumbled off thou dost thou, as one to tell, but my Mother’s breast; move upon the wish, so kinde my balefull case to forage; plants go to—God know where firstborn son.

The God to blame; the coward. Four are the will give you the wind of crimson Petal ode poland recollect to redress to a hill, and we should have curse to grieve and buds with thy plaine, her vespers in his chin like bleating pain—with another vice of you, you peers; the shatter’d the sound: each part I’d lie with mosse and make it. Thin my arms which never, quell: I will sup free, that is the sport: to the Skirt of teen: mine own, the shepeheards God, thou will not suck’d from the tasted: make April wakes, and another most? A daughter of Fidelity; who missed or mocked; the Throne and moved to flie.

No eyes all with a false borrow’s barren brain.—What of old, ring, play to music out of doubt is Devil-born. In the glass half to fool with a thousand the murmurs in this very Káfir in know that which kept hold his tried his change their power, that weight of heights Reserved think, and weep night be fed? Quickly in; so their own: for what work, who knelt, with distress, prettily entreats, and stains her sleep reveal and hopes which wexen old. When old. Advertisements’ stringing after hoof he ran, and he strike him, the hall draw the spirits render thy mothers’ works thou thyself, may line, His love, if I praise.

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 6 #152 texts #sonnet sequence

0 notes

lunasmusemenagerie · 5 months ago

Text

name: Cyrus

Race: Fae (unseelie) / Eldritch Vessel

Type: OC

FC: Alvaro Rico

Background:

Cyrus was a prince once, not that he knew much about that life. born of a tryst between Tatiana and another Unseelie whom she'd been promised to before marrying Oberon, Cyrus was kept secret, especially so when his father dissappeared from the court entirely. he was given to one of her servants to raise and care for and to much sure he stayed a secret and out of the way. he, like his full brother Zephyr, was kept in chains for a time, only to be released by some of the well meaning members of the court. once free, he left the court but still stayed in the Fae realm, getting stronger in his abilities and magic.

Cyrus soon left the fae realm, finding it wasnt as safe for him as many beleived, in between hunters seeking a fallen fae prince and his mother's assassins after him, he moved from fae realm to human, swinging between both as needed. brutal in kills, vindictive against those he felt hurt or wronged him, Cyrus was becoming a very powerful and very very dangerous Unseelie. always being hunted gave him an edge, even going as far as letting himself get caught in the rings before to clear a few fighting dens or auctions out. because of this incident a heavy price was placed on his head and he became priorty number one in the circles to kill or tame, they didnt care which one. it was also when he met his blood father once again, the man not even knowing he'd had another son with Tatiana until then. the two started forming a bond and while Drake did not quite enjoy seeing how much his sons truely enjoyed the hunt and kill.... he still welcomed them both if Zephyr ever found out about his full heritage.

when a raid had gone wrong a few months later, Cyrus had been on the run, being herded and pushed closer towards the artic circle. tired, wounded and starving, he'd slipped into an ice cave to either try and find away around the wall of hunters on his tail or some shelter and food. what he found was certainly not what he expected. stone spires built out of the ground, strange runes engraved into them and the walls. he went further into it, deducing it was some kind of temple from bygones. encased in ice was a massive creature he'd never laid eyes on, one that seemed to dwarf the temple itself, as if it was built around it.

a voice in his head, visions of what this creature was flashed in his mind and offered him a deal. this was the Crawling Chaos, The Dark Demon, Nyarlathotep. Son of the outer god, Azathoth, buried under the ice to sleep until the great priest Cthulu rose once more to control the world here and elsewhere. the Call had been sounded, and the old gods were walking once more. except not in their old true forms, no, they had taken on vessels to walk amongst the mortals. Cyrus had been chosen for the Dark Demon, and he offered the boy a deal. become his vessel and weild the power unimaginable only granted to those who fully gave themselves to the gods in this manner.

Cyrus agreed, and for a moment he felt as if his body was being sundered into, flesh and bone tearing and eldritch runes being burned down his spine and over his heart until the surge of power hit his veins. he and the god resided in the same body.

with this new found power, Cyrus unleashed himself onto the hunters. slaughtering anyone that stood in his way and, lost on the bloodlust and power let the god take control, devouring some of the victims that fell at his hand.

Notes: Cyrus is Bisexual, male leaning and written in his mid twenties.

#muse : cyrus #Spotify

0 notes

gccdstories · 2 years ago

Text

@an-endless-saga /

Eldred raised his head looking her over.

"I remember the kingdom we came from. Though the fae took my family in. Wee thought you dead Laena."

The vampires were not fae, not Dark Fae like the High Fae hissed they were. But then he didn't assume the fae for their knowledge would know or understand what they were. They were pretty if not a little dimwitted.

He was 500 years old. He remembered that kingdom. How beautiful it had been on the coast. The alabaster walls of the palace. The small rebellions he remembered. Till his family had been exiled. He was glad for it now, the kingdom had fallen when he'd been 100 imploded with the Turned taking over. They'd made a mockery of their home and temples.

"There is a new Vampire queen, a new kingdom. I am her mate, Laena do you wish to join our court? The fae are fracturing. Infighting over the fate of witches - it will sunder them eventually. Any of their little courts and kingdoms could be yours, ours."

He hadn't heard what happened to his homeland in the intervening centuries. The last he had heard anything Changelings and Hesperides were circling. No Turned monarch would survive them - not without the protection of the Trueborn. Which he doubted any of the Trueborn would help a rotting and corrupted kingdom. Turned were meant to be slaves not Masters.

"What say you Lady Laena?"

𝐋𝐀𝐄𝐋𝐀 𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐓 𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊𝐒 𝐔𝐏𝐎𝐍 𝐇��𝐌, as her gaze drifts from the trees blowing in the wind, the moonlight shining down on the garden pathways they're walking. She can barely remember him, even if she does remember so much that has happened in the last six hundred years--give or take a century or so.

She can remember the way things used to be, before those who had been Turned rebelled in more force than even her royal guard, her family, her family's armies, could contend with. There had always been more of the Turned than those born in the night, but the power that she and her family had held, it was never questioned.

They would always possess more than the Turned could hope to have. Many things came with being Born of the night's blood, many gifts.

Her hand traces along one of the flowers that she passes, fingers nicked on the rose's thorns before Laela brought her finger up to her lips to taste the blood welling there. She hums, her eyes falling shut for a moment as she savors this freedom.

❝ I felt dead, ❞ she admits, even if the voice is quiet, and the words soft. ❝ I felt destroyed, even. Running. Hiding. Pretending to be someone I would never be. ❞ She had pretended, at times, to be one of them. Of the Turned. For there had been too high a price on her head, when many of those who'd overtaken her land and killed her parents, her friends, had known she'd escaped.

❝ I had to pretend, so many times, to be one of them. To forsake and hide the very truth of what I am, Eldred. I felt myself dying a little on the inside every time... ❞

Laela lets her hands drop to her side, and then she turns to more fully face him. ❝ You say the Fae are to be trusted, then? That they will not turn against us, like many have before? ❞ Unless they all imploded themselves first, and in the ashes, she would take back what was hers.

#anendlesssaga #muse ;; laela

1 note · View note

dilemmaontwolegs · 2 years ago

Text

Midnight Blades {6}

Aemond Targaryen x princess!reader (Dark!themes) Summary: The rainy season has come to an end and with the sunshine comes your promised army. Warnings: 18+ only, nsfw, smut, dragon riding, spanking WC: 2157

Part One || Part Two || Part Three || Part Four || Part Five || Part Six || Part Seven || Part Eight || Part Nine || Part Ten || Part Eleven || Part Twelve || Part Thirteen || Part Fourteen || Part Fifteen || Part Sixteen || Part Seventeen || Part Eighteen || Part Nineteen || Part Twenty ||

“Go back to sleep,” Aemond muttered, his voice husky and low after another late night of feasting, and most of it had not been on food. He pulled you closer with his arm draped over your waist and you let the warmth of his body chase away the cold of Red Keep. Not even the thick blankets that covered you from chin to toe could ease the bone numbing dampness of the old castle.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” you replied with a yawn, feeling his smile against your shoulder as your eyes fluttered shut once more.

His soft murmur followed to the dream that was enticing you closer, “Good girl.”

“Hmmm, call me that again…” You pushed back the haze of sleep and peeked over your shoulder with a seductive smile.

He groaned as his blood rushed to his cock and you rocked your hips so his growing erection rubbed along your ass. His blue eye grew clearer with each blink and his fingertips danced down your stomach as he murmured, “The sun has yet to rise.”

“It is not the sun I need up.”

Aemond rolled onto his back and tucked his hands behind his head, angry red lines still bright on his chest where your nails had raked across the skin. “Take what you need then.”

The cold air rushed around your body as you pushed the blankets away and straddled your husband’s hips. Unable to resist teasing him, you wrapped your hand around his thickness and guided him to your entrance so he could feel the warmth ready to welcome him. The moments passed as you stayed frozen, his chest rising and falling beneath your palm until he couldn’t wait any longer and his large hands grabbed your hips and pulled you down.

“Stars, you fill me so fucking good.”

Aemond growled at the feeling of being buried deep in your cunt and he finally let the bruising grip on your hips go so you could ride him at you pleased. Planting your hands to his pecs, you rolled your hips and set the pace that quickly had your core tightening and your skin heated.

Your eyes fluttered shut and your head tipped back as Aemond palmed your breasts, pinching your nipples until your cunt clenched around him and his name fell from your parted lips. Needing more, you slipped your hand between your body and circled your clit under Aemond’s watchful eye.

“Fuck, I can’t last when you do that, sweetheart,” Aemond grunted as your legs began to shake along his. “Be a good girl and cum for me.”

His hands disappeared from your breasts and you felt the instant heat of the spank he landed on your ass before gripping it tight and rutting up into you. The heat spread across your skin until it reached your core and exploded. Stars danced across your vision with your release and Aemond came with a curse at how good it felt to be inside you.

Draping yourself across him, you enjoyed the way he continued to pulse and twitch within you and the way they ignited your own delightful aftershocks. You were still lying there as the sun crested the horizon and cast a myriad of blue light across Aemond’s face, the colour reflecting from his sapphire eye.

“This is the fourth morning that the sun has risen without hindrance from the storms.” You followed his eye to the open archway that saw the ocean stretch far into the distance, the waters still and calm. “Your father’s army should be arriving soon.”

You climbed off your husband and shivered at the cold stones beneath your feet as you padded to the simmering hearth and dropped a fresh washcloth into the basin. “So long as Rhaenys did not sunder their hulls with her beast.”

“Scythe has allies across Essos, she would not risk a direct attack on their ships alone.”

You wished you had Aemond’s confidence but the Black Queen and her allies had been quiet in the moon cycle since the attack at the parade, it left you unsettled as to what they had planned.

“I pray you are correct.”

“I must admit,” you said as you cast your eyes over the high tea that had been prepared for the royal ladies gathered around. “I thought Rhaenyra would have declared her intent by now.”

“This is an afternoon of leisure,” Alicent gently reminded you as she sipped daintily at her tea. “The genteel ladies of the court do not wish to hear talk of war.”

Alicent turned the conversation to the trees that were coming into blossom but you were taken far from the royal gardens as you saw the Narrow Sea beyond and the horizon darkening with black sails. Some of the guards shifted nervously as dozens of warships approached, the large white star of Scythe distinct even from miles away.

“Please excuse me,” you apologised as you rose from the uncomfortable iron chair and bowed your head to the Queen.

“Princess, your tea,” your trusted lady-in-waiting Brinna called as you rushed by her arrival in the garden.

“I shall take it in my room before retiring,” you said with a stiff nod before making haste to the stables.

Brinna took the special brew back, knowing how important the concoction was and just how difficult it was to sneak into the Red Keep. The White Worm had been invaluable in bringing the contraception in through her network of spies, as well as the rare message from your father. Though they never held a great deal of information about the happenings outside of King’s Landing, they were enough to ease the sickness of missing home.

Aemond spotted you crossing the courtyard he was training in, having heard the guards mumblings about housing more Scythians. From the determined look on your face and the pace at which you marched he knew where you were heading and raced to catch up after discarding the training sword.

“You won’t be able to get near the soldiers’ camp.”

“I dare anyone to try keep me out,” you countered with a glare. “Those are my people, my soldiers, and I will greet them on these foreign shores.”

“Just stop,” he growled as he caught your wrist and pulled you back. “You are a princess of House Targaryen now.”

“Only by law, but my heart will always be a princess of Scythe.”

Aemond bared his teeth in frustration before looking towards the Dragon Pit. “I can fly you to the ships, glide slowly so that you can see them and they you, but Aegon has forbidden your interactions with them.”

You thought about arguing with him, or even taking the argument to the King himself but knew it would just waste time. Reluctantly, you nodded and huffed as he called for his stallion, the young stable boys rushing to please the prince.

The horse had a mane as fair as Aemond’s and you had joked that before they resorted to incest one of his ancestors must have had a tryst with his mare. Your ass had felt the burn of his punishment for days since a handmaid had overheard and the retelling had reached the Queen Dowager. Not that you cared, in fact, you enjoyed it thoroughly.

Vhagar caught the offshore winds beneath her wings and silently glided along the front of the rows of ships, shouts and waves thrown to you as you leant over the edge of the saddle and saw your people. It had been little over two months since your departure but they still screamed support for their princess and pride swelled in your chest.

You didn’t know each soldier, in fact only a few of the commanders were ones you recognised, but you felt connected to them as you waved back. Their chants called to you and the overwhelming need to be among your own culture had you unbuckling yourself from the saddle and Aemond fumed, wrapping a strong arm tightly around your waist so he could still hold the reins one handed.

“We are not going through this again,” he growled as he struggled to keep you seated between his legs. “Buckle yourself down right now, or so help me you will feel my wrath, woman.”

“What we wish and what eventuates can’t always align.” The small knife that had been in your boot nicked his wrist and he pulled his arm away with a curse, giving you the opening to jump from the saddle and run along the rigid bones of Vhagar’s wing structure that was gliding you across the line of Scythian warships. You weren’t sure if the parchment-thin wings could have supported you given the holes, even the bones seemed to feel brittle beneath you. “I’ll see you on shore, dear husband.”

You leapt from the wing and the wind stole your elated scream as the smooth sea rose to greet you. The rainy season had barely ended leaving the water too cold to be pleasant but you relished the icy kiss as you hit the surface. The cloak tied around your neck threatened to drag you to a watery grave as it turned heavy under the surface and so you cut it away before kicking back to the light that shimmered above.

“Starboard! Starboard!”

Dozens of concerned faces came over the railing as you were spotted breaking the crystalline surface and they tossed ropes down, pulling as you climbed until you reached the safety of the deck.

Vhagar’s enormous shadow blocked out the sun and you cupped your hands around your mouth to shout, “Gūrogon aōha kipagīros lenton, Vhagar!” [High Valyrian: Take your rider home, Vhagar]

The beast roared to the heavens before returning back to the city and you knew he was going to be in a fit of rage when she landed at the Dragon Pit. You knew he would regret letting you have unrestricted access to the library, but you doubted he thought of the possibility that you would use it to learn the language of Old Valyria.

“If we could not tell my father about this, it would be much appreciated,” you said with a smile as you wrung the skirts of the dress out into puddles on the deck.

“You’ll be shit out of luck there, little sparrow,” Ser Negan said with a grin as he stepped out from the crowd of foot soldiers. “Tales are already being sung about the princess who flew with dragons.” Ser Negan stopped as he reached you and dropped to his knee with his fist across his chest. “It’s good to see you, your highness.”

“Get up before your knee bloody gives out, old man,” you taunted with a playful smile before hugging your father’s trusted friend and the man who taught you to wield a blade. “Do you feel that?”

Ser Negan looked around confused and shook his head. “That would probably be your witch-blood.”

“The winds have changed.” You sent him a wink and his pale old eyes sparkled with mischief as he nodded.

“Aye, the winds have changed.” He turned to the sailors among the soldiers and barked the order, “Strike the sails, we’re edging forward.”

Flag semaphores relayed the message across each ship until the entire fleet slowed to a crawl and you took a seat on the deck to let the sun dry your dress as you caught up on what you had missed back home.

“Your brother has been marching his army to the coast under the guise of merchants,” Ser Negan said from where he stood, leaning against the railing at watching King’s Landing slowly grow. “It would help to know what Rhaenyra has planned.”

“I’m trying,” you said with a sigh, “but there has been nothing since the initial attack.”

Ser Negan picked at the splinters in the wood and tossed them to the sea as he shrugged. “Maybe that is a good thing.”

“I do not believe her silence is out of defeat, she is closing ranks and not even the network of spies have been able to get close to Dragonstone. Something big is coming, old man.” You grew restless at the ominous tone your voice had held and rose to your feet to pace the deck. “Queen Helaena may be able to help but she is hardly ever left alone.”

“What would she know that Aemond is not also privy to? The toffs hardly seem the type to let their women sit in the war council.”

You scoffed and nodded, knowing every lady of the court except Alicent were kept far from the room but they didn’t know that the old walls had holes and little ears found those holes for a handful of coins. “She is a soothsayer, but those imbeciles have written her off as soft in the head.”

“Hardly a reliable source, little sparrow.”

“Then we pray to the stars to guide us.”

Click here for Part Seven

Taglist: @hopebaker @mariamyousef702 @xcharlottemikaelsonx

#aemond targaryen x y/n #aemond imagine #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond x reader #aemond targaryen x you #aemond targaryen #aemond x y/n #house of the dragon aemond #aemond targaryen smut #aemond smut #aemond fanfiction #house of the dragon fanfic #hotd fanfic

444 notes · View notes