#in an endless eventide

[marshalcharge]

dreams that dog through every past.

ava du mortain/natalie sewell / ~2.6 words / rated M

Ava and Nat both have their nightmares. No one helps them weather the tempest of their minds better than each other.

(on ao3)

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Endless Horizons

Artist: Joshua Hagler TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[rubywraith]

Hallo ruby!

Got any metal recommendations?

I always recommend all 3 of Seven Spires albums - Emerald Seas is my baby and I love it, Gods of Debauchery is objectively extremely well written, and while Solveig can be a bit hit and miss with the sound, I still think it’s very good.

All 3 share a contiguous story (chronologically emerald seas comes first) following an adventurer turned Davy Jones-esque immortal shepherd of souls lost at sea that goes through love, loss, and broken dreams while learning what it truly means to live.

I would describe it as “Disney pirate theater metal” so if any or all of those words sound interesting you should definitely give it a go.

Some personal stand out songs for me:

Every Crest

Silvery Moon

Choices

Burn

Shadow on an Endless Sea

This God is Dead

Through Lifetimes

Another set of Story having albums I love are Apex and Abyss by Unleash the Archers

These follow Immortal, a powerful ancient spirit forced to obey whoever awakes him, and his struggles with both coming to terms with his actions and attaining his freedom

These are more standard power metal, but Brittney Hayes sounds absolutely amazing

Personal song recs:

Cleanse the Bloodlines

Ten Thousand Against One

Apex

Abyss

Soulbound

If you want a more 80s/90s sounding band, Battle Beast is a lot of fun

Their first few albums are awesome, and I think their most recent album Circus of Doom is worth a listen as well - it’s headbanging, big hair, and high energy all the way

Personal song recs:

Kingdom

Bringer of Pain

Justice and metal

Russian Roulette

Let it Roar

A personal treasure of mine, and probably not for everyone, is Empress

Im not even sure what it is about them specifically, but I just find myself gravitating towards Fateweaver and every song on it. It’s more operatic, and the production could use some work, but I love the writing to pieces. Monarch in particular I cannot stress enough is one of my favorite songs

Personal song recs:

Everything Legion

Chimera

Fall of Kingdoms

Monarch

Eventide

Finally before this gets too out of hand I want to briefly list some other albums I like:

Starkill - Gravity - Idk what those two words conjure in your head but it’s probably a good representation of how awesome this is

Beyond the Black - Lost in Forever - said a friend, “Serves so much cunt”

Brothers of Metal - Prophecy of Ragnarok - grab your bearded axes, equip your strength potions, and go punch a god in the face

Phantom Elite - Blue Blood - for when you want to cry and scream claw at the very walls of reality itself

Ad Infinitum - Monarchy / Legacy / Downfall - is it fantasy? Is it history? Who cares! It’s awesome!

Ignea - Dreams of Lands Unseen - white sands, rolling seas, and glowing horizons

Eluveitie - Ategnatos - performing blood sacrifices under full moons to resurrect pagan gods (tm)

Cold Kingdom - The Moon and the Fool - the singer’s accent is a bit noticeable but it’s still very worth the listen

Helion Prime - Helion Prime - Sci-Fi and Metal go perfectly together and more people need to do it like this

[witchfall]

mastermind

[Fallen Hero series. Set post-Retribution, after an innocent MC crash ending. Chargestep; River Basri and Ricardo Ortega. 1236 words.]

Sometimes love is just an admittance of weakness.

Charge.

Meet me alone. 21:00. I have information the Rangers need to know but I trust no one else.

But please note, I have collateral to ensure you follow directions.

Two letters: RB.

Eventide.

—

Eventide waits. 

She thinks of herself as the sliver of the sun right before the sky turns dark and leans into that blue until her thoughts stop seething. She ignores the twisting of her gut and the shaking of her hands. She is the darkening horizon. She is the sign that their day has come to an end.

Remember this, before you shatter everything that came before.

Her phone rings, shrill and treacly. No. It’s River Basri’s phone. After tonight, River Basri may no longer exist, and it is better to start that separation now than tumble into it, smarting from loss. “Sparkles” is calling. The chessboard is set. Will Ortega sit at the table and play?

She flicks open the phone with one hand. “Oh, good,” she says, voice twisted into shadow. “You got my message.”

The staticky pause is heavy enough to weaken her knees.

The fury is deep and dark. “If she’s hurt, I’ll—”

“Save me the bluster, Charge. Meet me as directed and it will be worth your while.”

Eventide hangs up. Her mouth curves into an unseen smile, mirthless. She can still lie bloodlessly under the mask. That’s good to know. Such smiles may be all she has left, after everything is said and done.

Repentance. Stupidity. It’s the same damn thing.

But god. She can’t live with it anymore.

—

The light comes first, of course. White, simmering brightness. A warning shot, clean, right where her head would have been had she not been searching, searching, searching for his particular kind of static — to the point that perhaps lightning to the face would be better than the migraine building behind her eyes.

“Don’t be an idiot!” she screeches. Her helmet turns her every word into the voice of a shattered black mirror. But this gives him pause, she knows it does, from the way the warehouse falls silent, save the crackling from the crate that had been struck.

His silences always weighed heavy.

“Come out,” she snaps, setting a lure. “I’m not in the mood for this.”

He falls for it, as she knew he would. 

“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” he growls, stalking in from behind a pillar, face exposed (always, always, why could the man never have settled with a mask) and dark with anger.

She throws her hands up. No weapons. Safe. “Don’t,” is the only word she can say fast enough before he—

He is simply there, when he wasn’t before.

Had she forgotten how fast he could be?

Or—

Unprepared. Not ready. She had not planned for this, had not considered how sharply his fury had been honed in the wake of everything he’d lost. She hadn’t been the only one who survived by cradling the fire of anger until it was hot enough to immolate. 

She should fight back, some part of her screams.

Another agrees that perhaps this is what she deserves.

He seizes her by the hood of her cape. “Give me one reason I don’t end you right now.”

The quip sparkles on her tongue. Why Charge, is this what you’re like when there’s no cameras around? How fun. How interesting. So you were a bully all along.

“Wait,” she sputters. She sees her endless reflection in his black eyes. “Ricardo.”

Has he put it together yet? Is that why his hands loosen on the cape? Is he catching up? He’s always been smart; she’s always lied to herself, thinking she could beat him. It was never beating. It was only ever balance — her plans to his acts. Two halves of one fighter.

Molded from broken shards, now.

Her hands slowly move to her head and…

No. He knows. He knows. The way he stumbles back seconds before the helmet comes fully off, the way his eyes widen like she’d just slapped him, the way his limbs tighten inward like all the blood in his body froze.

She lets the helmet fall from her hands. Lets it bounce on the cement, echoing.

Silence lingers and then…

She can’t help it: “Why can’t you ever follow directions?”

“Are you fucking serious right now, River?”

She squints, not quite sure what to do with that tone.

“Why would you use yourself as collateral? Do you have any idea—”

“It made you come alone, didn’t it?”

His hands run through his hair. She’s surprised it doesn’t stand on end. She can feel his static from here. “I was going to kill you.”

“Maybe you still should.”

“Don’t.” Sharper than any weapon. “Don’t.”

She keeps her mouth shut. She licks her teeth.

His gaze smolders but remains unreadable. “Why.” It isn’t a question.��

“Really?” she snaps back. 

“Why don’t you ever—”

“You know fucking why!” She spits the curse at him. The heaviness of it shunts him to silence. He does. He knows. She’d bared all but the very center of her pain to him, while she was healing from the wreck. But even she is a little afraid of Eventide. 

“This whole time,” he says, voice dangerously quiet. “It’s been you. This whole time.”

“What, did I embarrass you?”

“Don’t pick a fight right now.”

“I have to,” she says. “This is reality, Ricardo. This is who I am. What I’ve been doing. It’s been this.”

And as usual, he never does the expected thing.

His stance relaxes. He tilts his head. He stares at her, moving pieces on his board. “Little River the rabble-rouser.”

“Shut up.”

“It makes sense.”

This is what she had hoped for, despite everything, but still the words make her body fall into a fighting stance. “Does it now.”

“Eventide doesn’t kill.” He lists things off on his fingers. “They threaten. They talk big. They make messes, but always with a story behind them. You beat our asses at the gala but then…” A memory, surfacing. “You ran away from me. After the party a week ago. Refused to engage. I thought that was weird. After your penchant for monologuing.” 

She doesn’t miss the change of pronoun, there.

“And after everything you told us…” His eyes flicker to her arms, protected by armor.

“I wasn’t lying,” she says. Her voice feels too small. “I have information. Hollow Ground. San Francisco. You can arrest me if you want but you know where I’ll go if you do.”

His mouth twists. “There it is.”

And her fury makes its triumphant return.

“Yes, idiot,” she seethes. “I’ve used you and your sympathy. Welcome. I’m sure it must be very painful to hear this, how someone who loves you has a crusade she can’t let go.”

He stares at her openly. She throws herself against the static of his mind, half-hoping she breaks it.

“You couldn’t stop,” he says.

Understanding?

“I thought I would like it.” Sweat slips from her brow. Her scalp is pulled tight by her hair in a bun, worsening her migraine. “I thought I would. I really did. Once upon a time.”

“What changed?”

Something in her crumples, then. Her eyes burn. She bares her teeth. “I think you know.”

“...I found you.”

See. He can play when he wants. “You found me,” she whispers. 

“The diner.”

“Yes.” Her hands fall to her sides. “And everything changed.”

[contrappostoes]

but there is another who is a little older when I broke my bone he carried me up from the riverside to spend my life in spitting-distance of the love that I have known I must stay here in an endless eventide and if you come and see me you will upset the order you cannot come and see me for I set myself apart but when you come and see me in california you cross the border of my heart

[glyphreader]

Rugged Prairie (Eventide No. 178, Illus. Fred Fields)

One of the more fascinating aspects of the plane Lorwyn/Shadowmoor is it's size. In the official material, it is portrayed as a rather small world in contrast to bigger planes like Dominaria (which is canonically around 1.5 times the size of Earth). All the important locations that are mentioned on cards and in the story are a few days from each other on foot (or at least on springjack/cervin, I guess), making it feel like it's roughly the size of a big-ish county, or maybe Wales if you want to be generous.

However, paradoxically, despite being relatively small in size, Lorwyn/Shadowmoor also never really ends. The plane is surrounded by a mountain range, which is literally endless, going on and on no matter how far one travels. The specifics are never explained, but it can be assumed that behind the barrier between the physical and the metaphysical (represented by the mountains) lies the Primal Beyond, the place where all things come from.

I've already speculated in earlier entries about the origins of creatures like selkies, angels, or noggles on Shadowmoor. The hobgoblins are another group of creatures that fall under this category. They don't seem to be transformed versions of Lorwyn's boggarts. They lack the horns and more animalistic elements and are much too human-like for that. Plus, despite not all that much time passing after the Great Aurora in the official story, the cards show hobgoblins as having an established society, with agriculture and what appears to be some kind of loose military system.

In reality, this discrepancy is probably due to disconnects in the creative process. Certain card art is already commissioned by the time the story teams starts figuring out the details of the plot, other teams are not communicating with each other, etc. This still happens in more recent sets (Golden Demise, Inspiring Overseer), and can be a bit frustrating from a Vorthos perspective. But it's also kind of interesting how real-world processes lead to the creation of these "liminal spaces" in the lore and worldbuilding, where elements or plot beats exist and don't exist at the same time, or seem to contradict each other. Often, it's not possible to reconcile the contradicting elements ... but for Shadowmoor, it might be possible to work them into the setting.

To me, Rugged Prairie shows a liminal space in a twofold sense. It's liminal in the traditional, anthropological sense - a space where the dead are lead to rest and are expected to pass on into the afterlife (those cairns in the art are hobgoblin graves, as explained in the flavor text). And then, it may also be a liminal space in the in-universe physical sense: Existing on the edge between the real and the not-yet-real in the world on Shadowmoor, as a pocket of land close to the endless mountain range. Maybe the hobgoblins (and selkies, noggles, etc.) came from there, having emerged from the Great Beyond maybe even before Lorwyn turned into Shadowmoor.

[heytherecentaurs]

Of a joy eternal

Venus was a bronze-skinned woman, baked in aestival sunshine, brunette hair like the dark waves from which she emerged, a face set in an expression of intelligent beauty, a freckled starscape stretching across her high cheeks and nose, and her garnet-dark-eyed gaze possessing me with an intentional sensitivity. She wore grains of beach sand on her skin, the diamond-glinting water droplets adorning her chest, small unhurried Tyrrhenian rivulets dripping between her breasts. As she spun to face the fawning sun its rays coruscated in the crystal sea-drops beaded in the dark wisps garlanding her mons Veneris and underarms, and with the sun as a golden halo behind her like a Renaissance saint, her affectionate smile fermented revolution in my blood against lifelong repression.

She smelled of sea-spray and bergamot. Her kiss tasted of limoncello and felt like a eureka as though all my life I had been climbing the Alps and every day before her soft lips touched mine tumbled away, left behind, and in that moment I had reached the pinnacle of what it meant to be alive. She spoke with an accent from a village I had never heard of, but she promised to show it to me. It was a half-day’s drive, she said as she slipped on a chiffon robe, her body a silhouette beneath the sheer fabric when the sun shone through it.

Holding her was already like muscle memory, her body heat branding me, and I smouldered beneath the sublime weight of her, my nerves tenderly burning at her subtlest caress—when I breathed in my body reached out for her in desperate yearning and when I exhaled I shuttered in my chest, despairing my skin leaving hers for even a breath-length. By eventide half-dried sweat stuck us together and pulling away felt too much like betrayal to risk it.

I thought not of Elysium when Venus embraced me. In the dreamland of our summer when we drank wine at every meal and sweetened absinthe on lazy afternoons, I wrote in leather-bound journals of discovering two women—her and myself—of feeling like a woman whole for the first time, and when the sun set at the end of another languid day, we stayed awake in conversation about her chapbooks and my doctoral thesis and our plans for tomorrow and the next day, where we’d sit at the café and sip espresso as the day commenced on the narrow streets. By the dim scarf-draped lamplight she told me of Italian cinema, how filming was creating a language and editing was using it to compose poetry.

And when the air cooled we fell into each other as we plunged into sleep. I dove into the depths of love, filling my lungs with gasps of her affection and intimacy and drowned in the abundance of simple happiness I had known nowhere else but in her embrace. It wasn’t in the Bible but she said the way we sinned praised God; I never believed in Him but if He existed I hope He enjoyed the show. She glorified the womanhood that had set me apart from my colleagues, and in our romance I knew it was right to love her the way I did, to pine in the briefest absences of her touch, to crave her with the absolutism of hungry sexuality like a cultist of her temple desirous for epiphanic ecstasy.

We were more than a summer intermezzo. I had drank the sacrament of her chalice and in this great transmutation tasted wine. I had received revelation divine. I thought soberly of my life though love was a drunken pursuit of happiness, and in the rapture of this most holiest love I found Venus donned my future like an aureole, and in such gilt euphoria I wept; coveting neither endless youth nor riches, I had found the divine god-spring of a joy eternal.

by ro crown

[voidic3ntity]

shanties, sung under violet moonlight, phosphorescent bliss, upon eventide lightness, the likeness of something forgotten, something great & something profound, threefold reflection: etched within elegance, above an inner illumination of such, the various ideals of an incandescent shimmer, oppressive, & those long winters, cold & bitter, burning with auscultation, such cyclical seasons, reasons for being, motions & notions, brought forth by the vast viridian hue, glimmering with light, the darkness, so poignant, my mind, forevermore depressive, & these days, half lit connections, an opal starlight symmetry, synthesized within such hallways, passageways of creation, ragdolls of retribution, the vessels of conflicted corruption, another frail form, brought forth by endless disintegration, trailing starlit smouldering, great gelatinous iron migrations, distances of dissociative depth, another candid notation, celestial celebrations, anything to bring forth suchness, dimly lit tidal moonshine, imbued with nimbus meaning; preservation of suchness, another distasteful reaction.

[ruknowhere]

Twilight Hours

Sadakichi Hartmann - 1867-1944

The colors of the rainbow are fading in the silent

and distant West, and the heartache of

twilight trembles within my aching breast.

For the light of my love has faded like sunbeams

in the West, and the color of twilight will

tremble forever in my breast.

II

I think of thy kindness often, when lonesome I feel

and cold, I have not forgotten our childhood,

nor your loving words of old.

And still my sweetest songs of life are floating

in dreams to thee, like whisperings at eventide,

across a clouded sea.

III

We two are sitting in the bark, and listen to the

wavelets’play, the shore is melting in the

dark, day’s echoes silently decay.

Oh life, with all thy hopes so fair, wilt thou

too float away, like visions rising in the

air that greet the parting day!

IV

She stands amidst the roses, and tears dart from her

eyes that like the fragrant roses her soul

must fade and die.

He stares at the twilight ocean on the shore of a

foreign land, a faded rose is trembling

within his soft white hand.

V

The rushes whisper softly, the sounds of silence wake,

large flowers like sad remembrance float

on the dark green lake.

Were life but like the waters, so bright and calm

and deep, and love like floating flowers

that on the surface meet.

VI

The naked trees of autumn grope shivering through

twilight’s gloom, athwart the whispering branches

its dying embers loom.

I dream of life’s defoliation, as I watch with

silent dread, leaf after leaf departing, like

hopes long withered and dead.

VII

In haunting hours of twilight dreams restless the

turbulent sea, and heaves her white wanton

bosom in endless mystery.

Dream on, dream on, titanic queen, beloved sea, at

thy wanton breast, I would find rest

in endless mystery.

From Drifting Flowers of the Sea and Other Poems (1904) by Sadakichi Hartmann. This poem is in the public domain.

[sanguivor]

Okay. I can't take it any longer. I NEED to ask you to tell us more about Velthryn, if you'd like to just. Dump anything about her, her backstory, campaign, art, what she looks like, whatever. I wanna KNOW.

I am so incredibly happy for this ask because Velthryn is my pride and joy, she's the best thing I've ever done, and she breaks my heart.

she's my very first d&d character and I played her for over three years in a campaign with my friends, we finished it last year actually and I'm still thinking about it. everything about the campaign was homebrewed, from the setting to the lore and the history of the people that live there, and it's so incredibly rich and detailed it's incredibly impressive considering that was the first time my friend dmed anything, so the story and the plot are entirely him but everything Velthryn was like the weirdest love letter between the two of us. I'm so incredibly proud of how her personal story played out.

I've talked a bit about her before (I have a tag for our campaign here) but never went into detail because I managed to keep her backstory a secret for THREE YEARS for plot reasons so this is the first time I'm going in depth about her like this I'm excited.

Velthryn is an assassin rogue moon elf from the far north, a land constantly blanketed in snow and ice even in the summer months, and under near constant night for most of the year. she's specifically from the Black Cathedral (Astaeran in Mavel'en, the archaic language moon elves speak) which is one of only two places inhabited in the far north, the other being the city Leirion, and both are inhabited solely by moon elves - the rest of the continent is separated by mountains, superstition, and sometimes the moon elves blades.

the Black Cathedral is a cult where generations of moon elves are raised in isolation to make offerings and prayers in blood for the Night Father so he might usher in what moon elves call the eventide, endless night and sleep not just for them but everything and everyone. a gentle end of the world. Velthryn was one of five moon elves called Nightdaughters, who are chosen every half a century to bring death to what the Cathedral call the five fated to die on the continent. just before the start of the campaign she and her sisters (Maevan, Ylaria, Helle, Honoria) found the first of the five; a farmer and his children still asleep in the early hours of the morning, and their deaths were not gentle. Velthryn, raised with the belief that death was a gentle mercy, could not reconcile the bloodlust she shared with her sisters so she did what no Nightdaughter should ever do or has ever done. She fled, and by sheer luck or fate ended in the company of the three others who should have been her sworn enemies but ended up being her greatest and only friends.

knowing full well a Nightdaughter who abandons her pilgrimage and her sisters should take her own life or be hunted by her sisters Velthryn stayed with what became our d&d party not because she thought the Cathedral was wrong but because she thought she could fix what she and her sisters had done. She was going to give a proper end to the five fated to die, give a proper prayer to the Night Father.

and for the next three real life years I got to figure out how Velthryn would navigate a strange world without the safety and familiarity of her sisters and their pilgrimage, how she would come to terms with the knowledge everything her Cathedral taught her was a lie, from the pilgrimage's purpose to the very existence of her gods, I got to make the heartbreaking decision in session where she sacrifices herself in place of one of the five fated to die in an attempt to save them and to atone for leaving her sisters, her pilgrimage, her god and her belief, only to come back from the gentle peace of death by the very god she died for who wanted more from her. she watched and felt most of her sisters die, dealt the killing blow for Maevan, she and Ylaria spared one another but went their separate ways, and Velthryn returned to the Cathedral alone. the campaign ended with Velthryn realizing the only mercy she could give the Night Father was the gentle peace of death, and as his last Nightdaughter she was the one who held the blade that brought the end to the old gods, whether they are or ever were gods no longer mattering.

she also once did 144 points of damage in a single attack. I LOVE assassin rogues <3

she's incredibly quiet and soft spoken, a good liar not because she's charismatic (the opposite actually) but because her expression is as unchanging as ice, she's intimately familiar with death and killing but she's not cruel, does not abide needless suffering. the first time she spilled blood on solid ground free of snow she slipped on it. she killed an oni single handed in two turns of combat (my dm is STILL mad at me) before anyone else had a turn. she's so unnerving she spooks horses just by being near them, and she hates them for being foolish and clumsy. she's so unused to sweets she thinks they're gross. she has a passive perception of 24, absolutely nothing got the drop on her. she's a rogue but she can't pick locks or pickpocket to save her life. her party had a paladin and a cleric and she was somehow the most devout of all of them. her fave colour is purple because of the purple in the arctic lights. she's my babygirl she's a murderer she's my everything <3

visually I've always had Vel compared to a ghost, piercing white eyes and hair with unnaturally pale skin in constant contrast to the black garb gifted to Nightdaughter's and her uncanny ability to disappear (+17 stealth by the end of the campaign lmao) she's often likened to a specter in appearance and thematically throughout the campaign. she was fully supposed to die but post campaign she's replaced the previous Elders of the Cathedral who she and the party killed in revenge for what happened to her and her sisters, it's the only time she was never merciful in her killing, and with centuries ahead of her she means to ensure the old gods rest is not disturbed.

I have a tag for her: x

two playlists: x + x

and a pinterest board: x

also a tag for her complicated love and rivalry with maevan: x

and a playlist for them too: x

there are so many different things about her I haven't even touched on, like the fact she and Maevan took the places of the fourth and fifth meant for sacrifice, but soooo much of the lore and campaign plot ties into the other party members and those aren't my stories to tell (though feel free to ask @mismageus about Áine, the little sun elf cleric who's saved Velthryn's life in more ways than one I know she'd love to talk about her)

anyway thank you soooo much for the ask I love talking about Velthryn <3

[telestoapologist]

ok shader wishlist update

oh hell this got long.

sorted in alphabetical order, will place a checkmark by those i've managed to obtain in the future. i may be missing a few. will update as much as i'm able!!

also i know a lot of these probably aren't available anymore, but i'm holding out that one day all shaders will be obtainable aaa

#

3 connections

A

adroit

amaranth atrocity

anyone's game

argent champion

armatura

aquatic iridescence

avalon teal

B

benevolence of the nine

bitterpearl

bold statement

C

calus's elite

calus's preferred

calus's selected

calus's treasured

cayde's duds

carminica

celestia

celestial ties

clouds at sea

cobalt clash

cognition of the nine

crimson passion

crimson valor

crucible alizarin

crucible aspirant

crucible carmine

crucible entrant

crucible lazurite

crucible peppermint

crucible prestige

crucible vermillion

cryptic legacy

D

darkwater froth

devil in the details

distant earth

divinity's caress

dreaming spectrum

E

echoed anger

emerald splash

endless glory

eventide cheer

F

fetid copper

first frost

flowers of io

G

gambit emerald

gambit jadestone

gift of the nine

glacial whisper

golden empire

goldjay

gunmetal marigold

H

hearts of gold

highlander

horizon blush

I

iris gossamer

iron bone

iron lapis

iron mossbone

iron vendetta

L

lichen crown

M

magical transformation

metallic sunrise

metallic sunset

methane explorer

N

night's chill

noble rime

P

peat bog boogie

phosphorescent

praetorian visage

principled porphyry

pyretic clash

R

roseate gleam

S

shared experience (it's kind of really ugly but i wanna try it!!)

shimmerfoil

shrouded stripes

small luminance

T

terrachroma

tetsudo

V

vizier regalia

[killerolives]

eventide.

I can feel it, like an ancient ache,

coiled in the space

underneath my ribs.

Molten glass, red hot.

I recognise it as

the hues I see behind my eyelids

and the feeling of being known.

Man-made lamps and burning embers

Imitate, simulate.

I wait.

The end of the day is inevitable.

Light reflects, bounces

off a seemingly endless mirror,

and stretches across the water

to greet me.

I know it as well

as the smell

of my mother’s perfume.

A familiar embrace;

we are one and the same.

[sentfromwolves]

📸 3 Photos Tag Game ✨

thanks so much for the tag @pinespittinink & @baroquesse! I had a lot of fun with these hehe!! 💝

👋 rules 👋 find 3 photos/images (they can be anything at all, memes, vintage photographs, quotes, anything) that you feel describe your wip. If you want, you can tell a little bit your story, too.

🌖 CARVE THE STARS ― neo-80′s space opera

“No one believed you when you said it,” Yeongbi said eventually, “but I did. When you said you would find where they went, when you said you would make your way to the stars. Everyone laughed at you, but I knew that it was only a matter of time before it happened. Before you were gone.”

Wren looked over at him. The botanist stared out at the distant ring of canyons at the edge of the flat desert, the dark cobalt stain of midnight and starlight dripping over their crimson spines. Since Wren had seen him last, he had a new bouquet of flowers blooming over his collarbone, mapped down from the black ink of the tattoo wrapped around his throat, straight up to the sharp underside of his jaw. A single citrine stud pierced his ear. 

“One day,” Yeongbi said, “I knew I would turn around, and the places I once found you would be empty. One day, you would vanish, and I’d have to deal with the hole you left inside of me, so I left before it grew so big I wouldn’t know what to do with it when you were gone.”

Something burned inside of Wren’s sternum, not the golden fire they’d inherited inside of Endelion, but something cruder, mortal and sour. Anger, in a word. All that black filth that had filled the hole Yeongbi had torn out of his heart when he’d gone. 

“I wouldn’t have just left you behind,” Wren snapped. They felt like their heart was stinging, riddled with cat scratches. “You know you meant a whole fucking lot to me too, before you up and left!” 

Yeongbi’s expression twisted. 

“Even more than the stars?” he asked.

“Yes,” Wren hissed, “more than the stars and more than anything else on this planet, this galaxy, this whole universe for all it matters anymore. If you think anywhere I would have gone, I would have gone without you, you’re wrong.” 

🌺 ENCHANTED AT EVENTIDE ― soft fantasy romance

Aurora gasps as Atticus hefts her up into his arms, saltwater streaming from her clothes. A gasp tumbles from her lips as her squeezes her once to his chest, a blush creeping across her cheeks at warm breath of laughter tickling against her ear.

Atticus lets her back down with another velvet chuckle, holding her hand so that she does not fall beneath the waves of the ocean they stand upon a second time.

“The spell only works if you stay in contact with me,” he explains, humor and apology twining together through his warm baritone. “I meant to tell you, only I got distracted.”

“By teasing me, you mean,” Aurora replies crossly. “Heir Jupiter, for the ruler of the planetary houses and the court of Galilea, I truly do not know what I expected of you, but certainly not—certainly not this!” 

Atticus lets out another burst of laughter, amusement tucking like shards of diamond into his gaze. 

“You hardly know me, little one,” he says. “Did you expect someone handsome and regal, polite and kind? Am I not all of those things? Am I not more?”

“You are certainly something,” Aurora says, accusation laden into the soft lavender of her voice. 

Atticus grins. It is not entirely polite.

“As are you.”

💢 HIS BODY A BROKEN LAW ― dark urban fantasy

“Show me the way to the heart,” Judge said, “And once I devour it whole, I’ll break your curse and give you back your eternity. With all that power, I could give you anything. I’ll give you everything, Nemesis. You just have to do something for me first.”

Nemesis lifted his chin, defiant. Judge might be the devil that wanted to devour something as close to god as the monsters in this world came, but he didn’t know Nemesis yet. And if his appetite was endless, Nemesis’s was far worse.

“And the world?” Nemesis asked. “What about that?” 

“If that’s what you want.” In the darkness, Judge’s expression burned, devout and deadly. He leaned in just enough that Nemesis felt the brush of his lips as he spoke. “To eat or burn or ruin. Whatever you want, kid. It’s yours. Just get me what I want, and I’ll do it for you. So what do you say?”

🌊 THE TIDE OF YOUR HEART ― low historical fantasy

"My name is Ave,” they said. There was a note of desperation in their tone, sure that this man with his black eyes and brutal gaze did not understand them. “I’m ―I only want to help. I’m only here to help.” 

But how could they? They spoke three languages, and none of them one that this creature of the sea could understand. It was like all those fairytales and bedtime stories that Ave’s brother read to them as a child―those handsome fantasies of mermaids washed into nets, wolves that swam beneath the lip of the sea, turning into men at low tide to lure women to the depths to drown. 

But this was not a bedtime story, and Ave was not a fisherman with a knife and a heart of gold to cut the ropes of a net, or a stalwart woman with the power to tame wolves. 

They were a child hiding from the truth of their future in the sagging ruins of a church, who had fished a man from the cold spray of the unforgiving sea and washed the salt from his wounds. There was no magic here. Only moonlight and silence, and the dried blood on their hands. 

But then the man looked up at Ave, and in the slice of silver light trickling down from the broken roof, the black of his eyes suddenly gleamed like the inside of a blue crystal, like the open depths of the ocean, unrepentant and divine. 

“Ave,” he said. It was the first thing he had ever spoken to them. His voice crumbled through the empty shadows, rough and low as velvet gouged by stone. “My name is Grey.” 

& BONUS BABY WIP 

🌾PERSEPHONE IN THE GARDEN OF BONES ― loose reverse retelling

It is deep in midsummer when I catch Death in my garden, his boot ensnared in a trap woven of roses and thorns. 

We stare at each other in bewilderment, moonlight drifting across the verdant emerald canopy of ivy trellises surrounding the path and hiding us within, catching the stunning silver of his eyes and the translucent cream of my dress. I nearly drop the wicker basket I carry in my arms, long stems of foxglove and fennel tickling against my arm, sprigs of lemongrass and thyme fragrant and divine. 

“Pardon me,” he says. “I did not mean to intrude. There is a doe in your garden.”

I have never heard him speak before, but I have also never met him face to face. I have only ever known him through my father’s stories and my grandfather’s bedtime tales. I have only ever glimpsed his likeness through the abstractions painted in lyrical poems and the hymns and barrel-chested songs that sometimes roar and ring throughout my family’s halls. I do not know what to make of him in the flesh. I do not know what to think of the matte black labradorite sheen of his hair or how his jaw is more delicate than I ever might have presumed. His fingers are long and black as though he has dipped them to the knuckle in wet ink. He could say he was a musician and I would believe him. 

He could say he was here for me, and I would believe that too.

“A doe in my garden?” My voice shrouds suddenly with suspicion. “And you plan to take her? What has she done wrong?”

“Nothing,” Death says. I can see my pink eyes reflected in the dark swirl of his sclera, not white but blackened as tarry pitch. “It’s just her time to go.” 

I’m going to tag @awritingcaitlin @florraisons​ @botanistweak​ & anyone else who wants to do one!!

[maria-aegyptiaca]

erm. to spend. my life. in spitting distance. from the love that i have known. i must stay here... in an endless eventide

[frostbitepandaaaaa]

In Our Perfect, Secret Keeping — Chapter Two: “An Endless Eventide”

tagging @thezutaratag​

PREVIEW

Chen smiles, handing the reins over but startles upon seeing Katara. “Sire, I am so sorry... I did not know you had a companion. I would have prepared another—“

“It’s quite alright Chen, there’s no way you could’ve known.” He looks his chosen steed up an down, pats it on its head. “You’ve picked wisely, I’m sure she can bear two.”

Chen nods enthusiastically. “Oh, yes, Sire, that she can.”

Zuko nods to him in thanks and before Katara has much time to even process this, much less react, Zuko turns to her, his face betraying nothing of her own inner turmoil... because she is quite certain of what is going to happen next. “Have you ridden an ostrich-horse before?”

She clears her throat, shakes her head. “Ah... no, not necessarily—“

“I’ll help you up.”

Chen steps forward. “Oh, Sire, I can fetch the stairs for you if you desire.”

“No, Chen, that is not necessary.” Zuko turns back to her, leads her closer to said ostrich-horse. “Put your hands on either side of the saddle,” he tells her and she obeys, painfully aware of his heat at her back. “Now, when I lift you up, swing your right leg over, okay?” She nods mutely, afraid of what her voice may sound like if she says anything. “I’m going to grab you by the waist, now. Alright?” She nods again.

His hands encircle her just over her hips, hoisting her easily so that she could swing her leg as instructed. The next thing she knows she is settled in the saddle and Zuko is looking up at her proudly.

“See? Not so hard.”

“Never said it was,” she points out haughtily, now quite enjoying the height advantage she has over him. She takes up the reins pooled on the saddle. “Don’t make me ride off without you, Sire.”

read it on ao3!