#monk kin memories

[airitree]

Graduating art school and job searching awakened the theological sleeper agent in me like forcing an axolotl to hormonally morph into its adult form

[arclundarchivist]

So, we’re heading to Vasselheim following a meeting with yet another deity and the acquiring of half a dozen vestiges.

With some of the Betrayers still free…

I sense I know where this is going.

I do wonder if the party will have gained more levels by the time we see them next because I imagine a fair bit of time is going to pass for them to be at Vasselheim next session.

The revelation that Nia and the Moonweaver are sisters was fucking crazy.

But I’m starting to fully believe that Garen is the Allhammer. Odd connection to Dwarven kind as a whole, lack class level still, muddy memories.

Aeor fell some time ago yes, and Garen is old, but their plot to become mortal required them to grow to adult hood and come into their own, but what if Garen just never got the revelation.

But since we know some of the Betrayers refused to go along with the plan what if the Strife Emperor sought to imprisons one of his kin in a mortal body, breaking their spirit and mind to do so, and as such Garen doesn’t have any inking of who he actually is.

Seeing the world begin to take the shape of what we’ve known Tal’Dorei to be was really cool, from the Mornset to Rifenmist and Byroden, but what I was not expecting at all was the reveal of the Agrupnin’s and Patia’s orb.

The Orb of Avalir, which clearly has become part of the Knowing Mistress’s purview, likely setting forward the idea that the Cobalt Soul emerged from Avalir’s Eye and Archivist.

Crokas… is a monk, which would be kinda wild lol.

But then I have to ask, how did it know about what befell Aeor, how were those thoughts within it?

And building off that, would that not mean if Orb is within the hands of the Soul, they knew about what transpired in Aeor, better than most??

Lot of questions, likely won’t get all the answers. Very curious to see what the final episode holds.

[jhamkul]

Species: Veydrin

My take on a playable "cryptid" for D&D 5e and D&D 2024. The veydrin are elusive, uncanny humanoids designed to feel eerie and otherworldly even in a world where dragons, demons, and undead roam freely. Inspired by myths and urban legends of the Slender Man, Shadow People, and the Noppera-bō, their presence lingers just outside full understanding. This new species also comes with an exclusive feat that expands on their natural "weirdness".

Folk tales call them the “forgotten kin.” Their shapes blur in the mind, their voices echo like someone you once knew, and people often fail to recall their faces at all. Some believe they are the echoes of a world the gods discarded, while others think they carry the imprint of ancient forest spirits and forgotten deities that predate history.

This is probably the species I’m most proud of so far in terms of lore, visual design, and mechanical identity. Whether you play a monk that leaves a flickering afterimage, a druid tied to something older than the gods, or a rogue who fades from memory, the veydrin walk the line between myth and reality.

Would you play something that was never meant to be remembered? What class would you pair with them? Let me know your build below.

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[madwomansapologist]

Maybe gith Tav and Lae'zel raising the egg together hcs?<3

raising xan with lae'zel

Navigation | More Githyanki Warrior | AO3

synopsis: The Absolute was defeated, but you and Lae'zel still have much to do. Much to raise.

warnings: yesterday i finished the crèche and now the egg is on lae'zel's inventory. she and my monk will be moms! that's fluff and love and domesticity.

● As the Absolute fell into the Chiontar the party didn't found an end to their stories: only a different goal, this time in a better word.

● Some ached for plans, structure, action. Baldur's Gate needed to be rebuild, devils and cambions must face the product of their wrongdoings, life must become an normal occurence in the once cursed lands.

● Some seeked peace. To become a teacher when you used to be an archmage, to embrace family and animals when once you would let them be consumed by darkness. Or to fight for your people, either because you owe this to them or because you owe this to yourself.

● For the two of you, it meant an old war finally became yours. It meant red dragons, the comet's memories, a fighting that will only end with Vlakith's golden head hanging from her neck. It means honoring Orpheus' sacrifice.

● And in the middle of this war, maybe the most important one you both have ever fought, there is this new living being. An egg that was supposed to be discarded, but ended up accompaning you both during your whole journey. An egg that despise it all, was worth the wait.

● Lae'zel leaded the fight, meanwhile you strategized and searched for allies. And even during this moment, you both found time to discover how to raise a kid. A kid that will be trained, that will be tested, but that will also know what inconditional love looks like.

● It changed how you both saw life. Lae'zel turned more protective, cautious, worrying not only about her kin's future but her child. And you turned more agressive, impatient. No one will hurt this precious thing that never harmed anyone. You will make sure of it.

● Lae'zel at first thought it was stupid to talk to the cub, but within time she started to whisper about her day when she tried to make him sleep. It was a lovely sight, althought you always fight her when she starts talking too much about gore.

● It wasn't traditional, but fuck it. He deserves love, care and protection. Just as you both did. The difference is that you two will make sure he receives it all. Too much is always better than too little.

● Your people may not be free yet, but Xan will witness it.

if you enjoyed, please reblog! i promise it makes a difference ♡

BALDUR’S GATE 3 TAGLIST: @citrusbunnies

@ madwomansapologist.tumblr.

[thelordofgifs]

Congrats on the milestone! How about Maglor or Maedhros and jewellery, from the worldbuilding prompt list?

Digging up this old prompt for @maedhrosmaglorweek day 3! Have both of them.

"You will jingle as you walk," says Maedhros, "they will hear you coming for miles."

Maglor laughs, and tosses his head so that the dangling silver earrings chime. "A poor minstrel I will make, if my jewellery plays more music than I! No, Nelyo, these will not do." He removes them carefully, and lays them aside in the growing pile of precious metal heaped upon the side-table.

Maedhros, sitting cross-legged on the stone floor of his chambers in Himring, watches him with a faint little frown. "You must choose something," he says; "you cannot go to the feast dressed as plainly as a Vanya monk."

"My songbird's voice is adornment enough," Maglor says blithely, "and anyhow I did not come here to pick out my own gems. We must make some progress on deciding what to bring as gifts."

From the chest Maedhros draws out a long string of pearls, meant to be draped three times around the neck for the full effect. A souvenir from a summer Maglor spent in Alqualondë, long before the light of the Trees went out, or indeed before their father took it into his mind to preserve it. Maglor chose the pearls himself, going up and down a hundred beachside stalls to pick out those most perfectly round and white, and had Finrod his cousin teach him how to string them on a thread of silk before presenting them to Maedhros. How lovely they had looked set against his brother's fair skin; they had seemed almost to glow.

"These – these stones," Maedhros says, hesitant, "we could gift them to the envoys of the Sindar, perhaps."

Maglor swallows. "They are pearls, Nelyo," he says, keeping his voice light. Maedhros blinks at him, and he explains, "They come from the sea, from oysters. We used to get them from the Teleri." He pauses, and then, when Maedhros still looks bewildered, adds, "I do not think it good politics to gift them to the kin of those we slaughtered, whether or not they know of it."

Maedhros' face darkens. "You are right – Nolofinwë's host will murmur to see them, besides." He gives the pearls another troubled look and then sets them aside.

No use, Maglor has learned, in dwelling on these missing spaces in his brother's memory. They frustrate Maedhros enough as it is: and it is nothing personal, Maglor knows, that he has forgotten the pearls were a gift from Maglor. Their Enemy has taken from Maedhros things far more precious than the recollection of a trinket. It does not sting, that Maedhros does not remember.

Maedhros has turned his attention back to the chest before him. These are all his personal jewels, salvaged from their father's house in Tirion in the brief hours they had to pack before setting out on their ill-fated march. In the years of his captivity Maglor would indulge himself, sometimes, and open the chest, and admire the treasure within as though he were yet a fanciful child trying on his brother's baubles; and he would tell himself that he would hear Maedhros' laughing voice at the door any moment now, saying, Are you going through my things again, little magpie?

Maedhros does not much like to wear jewellery, these days. He says that it chafes against his skin, and on darker days that it puts him in mind of chains; occasionally he will consent to Maglor pinning back his hair with a bejewelled clip, or to an unobtrusive pair of earrings, but all his fine gold necklaces and ornate jewel-encrusted bracelets are useless now.

"Too few gemstones," he says now with a frown; "they were more marvellous than the metalwork, and would be better received."

Maglor thinks with some regret of a fine set of rubies his father had made him for his two hundredth begetting-day. Like all the house of Fëanor's best jewels, they were locked in the vault at Formenos, and stolen by Morgoth when he ransacked it.

"I know not how things are done in Doriath," he says, "but in any case the Mithrim Sindar are not over-fond of jewels, much like their Falmari kin. I do not think we need worry that our gifts will seem poor to them; in truth they will know not what to do with them. They wear flowers in their hair oftener than gems."

"It may be different in Doriath," Maedhros argues. "Findaráto says of Menegroth that the very walls are studded with jewels. Perhaps a gift of our own best would go some way towards earning Elwë's favour."

Maglor frowns. "Think you he will come himself, then?"

"Perhaps," says Maedhros, "but even if he does not we must not seem to be ungenerous. Many of those in Nolofinwë's host will be searching for any excuse to name us so." He passes his hand over his eyes, looking tired. Maglor only arrived yesterday, but he has his suspicions about how long his brother had gone without sleep before that. "We must choose presents for them too—"

"You gave Nolofinwë a crown," says Maglor; "surely he will be sated with that!"

The jest makes Maedhros laugh, as it would not coming from any of their other brothers, edged as it would be with resentment or mockery. Maglor is awfully, selfishly glad of that.

"Come here," says Maedhros, "you are distracting me. Help me choose what to give our own kin, at least."

Maglor settles on the floor beside him. "This for Findaráto," he says, picking out a necklace of sapphires that Maedhros never much liked in the first place, "it will go well with his eyes."

Maedhros favours him with a smile. "Well chosen," he says. Then he finds a very fine emerald, set into the front of a copper circlet but easily prised free, and examines it thoughtfully. This, Maglor remembers, is a relic of their father's first experiments with the art of capturing light; it does not shine with a light of its own as do the Silmarils, but catches and magnifies all the daylight coming through the window in a most pleasing manner, reflecting them back in every shade of green imaginable. Maedhros sets it aside, and when Maglor casts him a questioning look blushes and says only, "For Finno."

The next piece Maedhros draws out of the chest is a golden bangle, from Fëanor's filigree phase: the metal worked into the shapes of trees and flowers and leaping horses, studded all over with tiny gems in a multitude of colours. Their father was in a good mood, when he made this, Maglor recalls. The precision of the work appealed to him. Perhaps it was that more than the loveliness of the finished product that made Maedhros fond of it.

"You always liked this one," says Maedhros, his eyes warm now with recollection. "The number of times it turned up on your dressing-table, after I had spent hours searching for it! Here." And he slips the bangle onto Maglor's wrist.

Maglor tenses, forces himself to relax, and takes it off again. "I do not want it," he says, "thank you, Nelyo."

Maedhros blinks at him. "I cannot wear it," he says, "not a bangle, it will be – too tight." He shudders briefly and then masters himself. "You might as well take it, and then someone can have use of it."

You do not want him back, Celegorm spat once; all your mourning is performance only. You are quite content to sit here wearing his crown and playing dress-up with his jewels, in truth.

"I do not want it," Maglor says again.

"Káno," Maedhros says, very gently. He tilts Maglor's chin up to examine his face. "What troubles you?"

But how can Maglor tell him, I am not now the child you knew in Valinor, the little magpie who so loved to be adorned? How can he say, I too was sated with a crown? He cannot unburden himself to Maedhros, who so depends on him to be merry and bright and unruffled. He has lost the right to do so.

"It will get in the way," he says, "when I play my harp." Then he summons up a smile and says, cheerfully, "Five cousins yet to choose gifts for, and then you promised you would let me practice my new Sindarin songs after we dine! We had better hurry." And he turns back to the chest before Maedhros can object.

[justablah56]

*looking back at you with my big autism eyes* You should tell me about rwd. After your sleep. Eepy time, Aether

HIHIHIHIHIU OK YAY OK . ok . im all sleeped up and I'm going to be so insane at you ok . gonna put it under a read more though because . I'm about to be so insane .

SO ! rolling with difficulty , as you can probably tell from the title , is a dnd podcast . mechanics wise , it's on like . the complete opposite side of the spectrum from dndads lmao- they're still very story driven , but they're a lot more crunchy , very following the rules as written but like finding loopholes in them because for funsies . they do little 20 minute bonuses each time the crew levels up so you know exactly what each character is getting and all their new stuff , I actually really like those . the episodes are 3-5 hours long , but each season is only like 10 episodes . and it's not split up into each season is a campaign and it gets very confusing sometimes sbnxjsnxnd like the first campaign (the one I'm autism about) is the first 5 seasons , and they only just finished season 1 od their second campaign . anyways ! most of this stuff is why idk how many dndads listeners will be willing to listen to this but that's ok 👍

NOW !!! as for what its actually about !!! (at least campaign one I'm probably not gonna talk a lot about campaign two) it's about a crew of four silly guys on a space plane ship ! it uses the planescape dnd setting , basically like all the planes of existence in dnd canon exist on different planes that can be traveled between through portals or like the plane shift spell , or , in the cast of our beloved crew , you have a spell jammer , which is a ship that can cast plane shift and you can sail between planes and it's very cool . anyways , the crew consists of kyana - a human monk , finbar - a firbolg (giant kin fae thing) druid/ranger multi-class , VR-LA (pronounced veer-la) - a mechanite/warforged (robot) wizard , and Dani - a fire genasi artificer . the four of them basically live on their ship , the Per Aspera , which is owned by Dani's "Uncle" Otto , who sends them on little jobs and stuff and he's also kind of an asshole but I like him . they also take jobs from other people sometimes and then they forget to go back to Otto who gets pissed at them about it and it's silly . anyways . usually though , the seasons focus on an adventure relevant to one of the characters with other little jobs filling their spare time .

gonna very briefly talk about kyana and finbar just so you know those two before I go on a ridiculous rant about VR LA and Dani ok . so Finbar is just a middle aged firbolg (everyone else is like 20 except VR LA who's only been awake for a year ish) , hes a part of a chef's guild and makes it his responsibility to make sure these idiots don't get themselves killed either by y'know monsters , or just being stupid and forgetting to eat . and he's like 8 feet tall . he's a big guy . Kyana is just a little guy who ran away from her (evil) monk monastery and got found by the crew just . swimming . in the astral sea . which is the void between planes that spell jammers can sail on . insane . anyways . she has no idea what's going on because she's never been anywhere and she is precious and loves the world and loves these people who are nothing like how she was raised and isn't that wonderful ? I love her . and she's like 5'0 . shes literally a little guy <3

now I'm just gonna talk about VR LA bcs he's my little guy and I am spinning him around at record speeds inside my brain <3 his whole thing is basically that his previous crew on the per aspera got Got by a crew of space pirates , and he was the only one left . but then smthin happened and he lost all his memories and couldn't keep the ship like . flying . and eventually he shut down on that ship and was woken up by Dani , who had found the ship and made fixing it up her personal pet project bcs she's a little mechanic who saw a flying wreck and said I can fix her . and she did . and then she also saw the shut down robot on the ship and said I can fix him . and she did . this is how the ship belongs to Otto instead of VR LA , bcs he's like ohhhh Dani fixed it up and she's my employee and you don't even remember anything . anyways . Dani and VR LA are literally siblings to me . icy they're so important to me . the high int low wis siblings . that post I made a bit ago about how dndads doesn't have any characters who are like . little autistic brainiac smartasses . that's these two . both of them . and that is probably most of the reason why I'm so attached to them rn . like I need you to know that I did not recently listen to this podcast . I listened to this pretty soon after catching up on dndads two ish years ago and have just been like . passively into it this whole time . and now I'm like ok no I'm into this for real now . whoopsies . time to relisten and be autistic about this . and that's what ive been doing . anyways . back to the actual show <3

so Dani !!! she was found off the streets by Otto , who owns a little dnd fantasy mechanics shop , and he taught her how to be an artificer . shes incredibly smart , both like . street smarts . and literally anything mechanical . this comes with her being the biggest smartass known to man <3 she's very blunt but also very bad at expressing anything and is the least perceptive person ever (she has a passive perception of 9) she's a bitch and I love her so much <3 she's very snappy and abrasive and aggressive but also the ship is the single most important thing to her and it's not the ship without her crew and that is all she cares about <3 she doesn't give a shit about anything except for the ship she singlehandedly put back together and the people who live in it with her , and she would do anything for them . man . I love her icy .

now I'm gonna talk more about VR LA again bcs I'm not done with him <3 he's so abxnwjncjqnxjqmdn icy I love him . he just like me fr fr . he's also very smart , but he has . zero street smarts . ask him about anything and he probably knows something about it but ask him to talk to a person and he cannot . he does not know this . he continues trying to talk to people and like . persuade people and shit but he's so bad at it . icy he's so fucking bad at it . I love him so much . anyways , the other people on the per aspera are literally the only people he has and the only thing that could come close to them in terms of importance is his old crew , and yet he still picks Kyana and Finbar and Dani over them . man . icy this is a whole thing that I am very extremely ABJDJSNCHSBXHJA about . VR LA is a guy who has no memory of his old life but he knows it happened and he knows he used to have a crew of people he cared about but he can't even remember their names . (at the start) there aren't a lot of things that vr la actually cares about . he's very passive and like I'm staying with this ship because it's all I have even if it's not even legally mine anymore , and I'm staying with Dani because she's the only person I've ever really known . icy they're so siblings to me . ohuufhfggg . however !!! the one other thing he really *wants* is to know about his old life . he wants to know who was important to him before and he wants to know if they're okay even if he doesn't know them . it makes me ill . but he has his crew , and while those people might have been important to the old VR LA , Kyana and Finbar and Dani are important to *now* VR LA . so if it happens that along the way he can find out who he was , hed do anything to find them . but he has his people , and their safety and happiness is the single most important thing to him . if he will not lose a second crew . if hed have to hurt his current crew to find his first , then he's not going to find them . man . icy I could go on about this alone for hours . but I will not . anyways . silly little robot <3 I am so completely normal about him <3

also there's another silly robot named Maxim who you meet in s1 ep7 and I think him and VR LA should kiss . I'm not going to talk a ton about them beyond that but uhhh yeah . extremely repressed adhd sorcerer robot x extremely blunt autism wizard robot <3 Maxim hermit who is extremely emotionally intelligent but is very purposefully stomping out all the emotions because this is a purely professional relationship and we are here to professionally exchange mutually beneficial information and nothing else . VR LA adventurer who has never heard of romantic interest in his year of remembering being alive and just knows that he greatly enjoys Maxims company and he will tell him so despite having only just recently reconnected with him. and their compliments to each other are purely out of professional admiration . anyways .

and there you go ! and I didn't even really spoil anything past like the first few episodes <3 as you can see I am extremely normal about this podcast and it's characters <3 I went on for a lot longer than I thought I was going to but hey that's what happens when new hyperfixation <3

[brctherscnce]

There are other Knights of Iacon? Tell us about them, please?

" There were Thirteen of us, if I can recall, mirroring the Thirteen Primes. Stormreign was our leader and mentor, and he was the one to teach me everything I know about being a knight. " Optimus spoke almost instantly, it was like he'd been wanting to speak about his fellow Knights for quite some time now. There was a nostalgic look in those optics of his, and now as he sat on the ground, he leaned back in thought.

" Skullitron, Steelbane and Dragonicus were amongst my peers and had helped to... well, in a way, raise me alongside Stormreign. I was very young at the time, and although technically-- at least in human terms, an adult-- I still had so much to learn. I was very sheltered, as I'd been a miner for much of my life 'til I became Stormreign's apprentice... " " ... There were many more of us. Zodiac was one of them, as well as Helistorm, Ironjaw, Smite, Savageshot, Scorchflash, Bonemaster... and Lockwing. I was young when we had left Cybertron for a time, and I'd only realized it was to protect the Staff of the Primes-- what'd eventually be the Staff of Merlin. Bonemaster had been the one to help me become an archivist, if I can recall! We'd all been rather tight-knight, we saw each other as brothers and sisters, at least in terms of a brotherhood and sisterhood respectively, like... ah, some would compare it to that of monks. Many of them could combine into becoming the mighty Dragonstorm. Though, I was no combiner. "

Optimus opened his mouth to say something else, yet a painful memory struck him then. His gaze turned pained-- while he loved talking about his fellow Knights...

... He remembered... what he did to them, as Nemesis Prime.

" ... and under Quintessa's control, I killed my kin. Steelbane and Dragonicus had been prepared to execute me for it. I still don't understand why I'd been spared to this day. "

[dojapat]

Kirara Rising Chapter 10

I continued my march to certain death. I used Maki’s blade to slice low grade curses as I made my way to the chapel. I encountered a small curse that was an eyeball with legs. I knew a sorcerer that could kill a curse by only raising a single arm. I dramatically waved my arm the same way he did to no result.

“Damn, guess I’ll never get to do that,” I sighed as I raised my dulled blade, chopping the curse in two. When a curse dies it dissipates in a cloud of black smoke. I wondered how the domain’s master was going to kill me.

The barrier only became more obviously twisted as I went deeper and deeper into the center although it was hard to tell because of a fog slowly setting in and getting thicker. I then heard disembodied voices whispering in my ear. It was two voices, a man and a woman talking in unison. The male voice was deep and scratchy while the female voice sounded like a mother sweetly reading her child a bedtime story.

‘Why are you marching to the chapel? Don’t you know a strong curse is in there?’

“It’s my only option. You’ll manipulate the area to take me there anyway so why should I run away like a punk.”

‘So gallant…,’ the voice said, mocking my weakness.

Suddenly the fog was lifted, revealing the chapel.

I stood staunch and tall. I could feel the bags under my eyes dragging my face down with them. I had many thoughts as I was standing before the chapel where I was sure I’d die. I wondered if my mom was still asleep and what she had for dinner. I thought about how I haven’t texted her in a while.

I looked at the chapel. A very unassuming building. A small staircase with velvety red steps caked in dirt led to the chapel covered in chipped white paint and graffiti, complimented by unpainted wood trimmings. The stained glass windows were busted and the remains of what was once a mural of a dove lingered at my feet.

‘I hope Ichiji is getting rest. I hope Gojo lets him have a vacation soon. Will Maki be mad I broke her blade? What’s Maki gonna say when she finds out I died? Inumaki will probably say ‘bonito flakes’ or something. I wonder if Kin has gone to bed yet.’

‘Did Kin mean everything he said. It doesn’t matter now. There was no more time for final thoughts. My actions are all I have left.’

I was at the top of the stairs and entered the chapel through the door. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t anything. I felt Kin’s lipstick press against my leg from my pocket.

“I love you, Kin,” I whispered to myself, “I hope my memory is your curse.”

“Talking to yourself is a bad habit,” the curse murmured.

I had no response.

I stood facing the curse. My resolve showed in my straight spin. My fearlessness in my no longer hunched neck.

There was a row of desecrated pews covered in wood rot and mold on their fabric seats. The ceiling was high and held up by cracked walls being slowly being retaken by the earth’s moss. At the end of the chapel there were three carpeted steps that led to the pulpit where the murdered bride and groom were supposed to be married. There stood the curse.

It was garbed in a tattered and dirty costume. It was a black robe made of the same material as a tuxedo. The robe was shabbily tied off by a red sash that only tightened around the waist and let everything else drape off his body, revealing scarred ribs identical to the groom murdered in the chapel. A pronounced white lacy collar stiffly stood behind the curses neck. The inside of its robe was made of the same material and it was visible from the flared bottom that folded together near the curse’s groin. It opened its arms to show off its long flowy sleeves that were baggy like a monk's robe.

It was a skeletal monster covered in ripped blood vessels and scattered patches of muscle. Its face, if you can even call it that, was a visible skull covered in small, infected skin patches. While it’s left eye socket was empty it had an eye to the right that was blood shot with a milky iris. It sloshed around his head floating imperfectly in its enlarged socket. The curse had no mouth or jaw making its skull one solid chunk of bone. The most intriguing part of this curse’s head was a gold ring missing a chunk from the center making them look like lob-sided horns.

“Such a scary look in your starry eyes,” the curse hummed, “My name is Usoai, what is yours sorcerer?”

“Kirara Hoshi,” I said from my gut.

“What a beautiful boy. I’ll enjoy ripping those pretty eyes out of your head.”

I reached into my pocket to grab Kin’s lipstick. While maintaining eye contact with Usoai, I steadily applied the jet black wax to my lips.

I flicked the lipstick tube to the ground and held Maki’s blade tight.

“Just try me, mother fucker.”

[angedemystere]

"The Night Shepherd": An Inklings Challenge Submission

Author's Note: Well, I did my best to follow the Team Tolkien prompts, but I definitely blurred (cheated) on the premises and genres. While I'm tagging this story as unfinished, there's an attempt to give it some temporary completeness. Thank you @inklings-challenge for setting this up!

Title: The Night Shepherd

Summary: A nun traveling with strange company finds herself thrown into an even stranger situation when her curiosity gets the better of her.

~

Sister Mor was no stranger to woodlands, but even so, having grown up near groves and, in her youth, ventured into them in the late (or early) hours, she found this forest unnerving. Was it the cawing of the nightbirds that prickled her skin? The chilly wind? The perpetual fog in the treetops? Even in the daylight, the trees wore a dreary cloak that frustrated the sun’s gleaming rays. Now, whether hidden by the branches or the haze, the moon had no chance of cutting the darkness. Only the fire of their camp could stir some comfort in her soul.

If she could but say her companions inspired comfort, too. Three of them she knew. They’d traveled together all the way from Wales. Brother Talfryn snored like a bear, and his brown cowl made it easy to mistake him for one. One clue to aid the unsuspecting intruder about the brown lump’s identity lay in the sword wedged under the brother’s arm. The weapon served to protect Sister Mor as well as its wielder, but that point didn’t please her. They labored in Christ’s name, the Prince of Peace. She had debated with Brother Talfryn many times that the Lord’s words, “I have not come to bring peace but a sword,” referred to his message about the Kingdom of Heaven rather than a literal sword. He countered that the Lord had advised his apostles to acquire literal swords shortly before his death. No matter how many times they parried over the use of violence, neither sister nor brother in Christ budged. Sister Mor trusted Brother Talfryn with her life. She wished she could entrust others’ lives to him, too.

The other two companions didn’t carry swords or daggers. Instead, Guar and her son Coch had teeth, claws, tails, and wings to defend themselves. They hunted like animals and ate raw meat. Another of their kin had met and joined them. Arculf hailed from Brittany. He wore scars from fighting other graiggwerin, a custom in their clan that was not evident among the graiggwerin living in Pembrokeshire. Perhaps Arculf had faced greater challenges to survival. But when any creature, including men, justified brutal actions with self-preservation, they became much more dangerous. If Sister Mor couldn’t caution a monk, she didn’t expect to cull the instincts of these intelligent but no less bestial beings.

And then, Lord have mercy, there remained the rest of the company. Two of them slept close to a tree at the edge of their encampment, a man and a woman. Danes, pagans. The woman, Vigdis, lay by the feet of the man, Stigandr. The man sat up against the tree with cords of thick rope holding him to the trunk. To think Vigdis, his sister, had done that to him, and with his cooperation! Sister Mor tried not to dwell on whether Stigandr might rip through those ropes, should he stir and suffer an attack of madness. Vigdis had this concern, too, hence her presence at his feet. Whether or not his madness would prompt a transformation into a wolflike monster, she could just as easily transform to stop him, and with her sanity intact. Well, so she claimed.

Sister Mor’s guts swam. Vigdis’s and Stigandr’s lupine forms loomed as a fresh memory. She prayed again that they’d sleep through another shift before it was Vigdis’s turn to keep watch.

She also offered a prayer for the thrall, the young man who slept a little further away from the Danes. He was Gwendal, a Breton. He knew the bare bones of cooking, and he could carry as well as his twiggy arms let him. Vigdis could carry more thanks to her years of training with a sword and axe alongside her brother. Gwendal looked like he’d done very little manual labor even for his own sustenance. He depended on his musical talent. Thanks to his angelic voice, all his previous masters used him primarily for this purpose. For Stigandr, Gwendal’s singing soothed his mind into sleep.

Sister Mor’s prayer for Gwendal not only entailed his freedom and safety, but that his voice might join a monk choir to praise and please the One who deserved it.

Observing these sleeping characters tempted her to shut her eyes, too, despite the harm any one of these people might do. Sister Mor bit her tongue and scribbled on her sheets of vellum. To help her focus, she wrote notes for a letter to her brother Cuan, a recent initiate to the monastery on Caldey Island. This was the same monastery where Brother Talfryn lived, and where he and specially selected monks, along with the abbot, monitored the comings and goings of the graiggwerin who sheltered among the island’s seaside cliffs. Poor Cuan became entrapped in this business because of her; the lad could only agree, being so young and already a likely candidate for monk, anyway, among the many children of Prince Ronain of Munster.

Sister Mor had preceded him in his connection with the monastery, but Cuan’s presence validated her visits to Caldey Island, which in truth centered on the purpose of composing a grammar for the graiggwer language. The graiggwerin borrowed many words from Welsh thanks to their contact with the Caldey monks, but the grammatical rules had clearly evolved from another linguistic source that Sister Mor could not decidedly trace to a human language. There must have been an old graiggwer tongue that had gradually transformed or became lost over the centuries thanks to this clan’s separation from others of their kind and more frequent human interaction.

By now, Sister Mor could converse with Guar and Coch and their clan in the Cliff Tongue. Brother Talfryn snidely called it Dragon Tongue. Sister Mor nearly pointed out that most dragons, or serpents, had either no legs or two legs, placing the graiggwerin in a unique category of super-natural creature. But the Southern Britons seemed to believe in the preeminence of four-legged dragons, as shown on their banners of red dragons. In fact, Coch’s reddish-ochre hide endeared him to most of the monks who belonged to the clandestine circle. They interpreted his birth as a sign that God was rewarding their piety and peaceable relations with the graiggwerin. The abbot believed Coch heralded the longevity of the Britons in the face of antagonism from Anglo-Saxons and Danes. But Brother Talfryn saw the graiggwerin as hardly more intelligent than wolves and just as trustworthy. (One could imagine his regard for Vigdis and Stigandr.) He agreed to come with Sister Mor to the mainland only because he didn’t believe anyone else took the peril presented by the graiggwerin seriously enough. She, despite Brother Talfryn’s anxiety, was prepared to risk her life to help the graiggwerin reunite with their kin from the north, who used a different language influenced by Danish, much like how the Cliff Tongue was influenced by Welsh. As the only fluent speaker of Danish, Welsh, and Anglo-Saxon who knew the graiggwerin, she owned the choice to embark on this journey, and here she was. Brother Talfryn called her ambition and generosity foolish both before and after agreeing to accompany her. And here he was, sleeping with his sword in the middle of a foggy forest, helping her stay awake with a probably deviated septum.

She wrote down these observations and honest thoughts to her brother (that he would likely never read—no reliable messengers here in the wilds of East Francia) until they and her stylus came to a stop thanks to one last wall of ignorance. She had many pieces of stories about her companions, all but one. This final, unaccounted-for member of the company was the only person, other than Sister Mor, who was awake. Well, she might have been awake, or she had fallen asleep while sitting up against a different tree than the one occupied by Stigandr.

The woman called herself Hulda. More accurately, she told everyone else to call her Hulda. She often wore her hood and drew it low to spare everyone the sight of her face. The hood still covered Hulda’s head while the travelers slept. If she’d left it down, maybe Sister Mor’s curiosity wouldn’t have nagged her. It knew Hulda’s face, but so much hid behind that face. Gazing directly at the split visage—half living flesh as fair as heaven, half dead and blackened like a tree charred by lightning—had convinced everyone to mind their own business about this strange woman’s origins. But by throwing a shadow over that grotesque vision with the hood, Hulda inadvertently invited Sister Mor’s attention now.

What could she tell Cuan about this woman? Only that Guar, in flight, had warned them of a tall figure approaching Sister Mor and Brother Talfryn. When Hulda had reached them, she’d said she would help them rendezvous with the northern graiggwerin (or fjallfolk, as she called them). She had the werewolf Danes and their thrall in tow and hitched them to the troupe.

Why was she helping them? “I was told to.”

By whom? “If you don’t know, you need not know at this time.”

Cajoles and demands did nothing to extract more information, nor did they drive away Hulda.

Very well. Then let her suffer a little human curiosity if she truly wanted to aid them.

Sister Mor tucked away her pages and stylus in her leather bag, shuffled to her feet, and tiptoed to Hulda’s reposing figure. Awak or asleep, Hulda looked cozy enveloped in her wool cloak. The cool air made Sister Mor’s breath puff into clouds. She quieted her exhalations and turned her ears in every direction. Memories from adolescence crept into her imagination: what creatures might be stalking them? Simple beasts? More intelligent folk like the graiggwerin, only worse? More like …

An image, a face, splashed across her mind’s eye with a mocking laugh. The cold, leering stare of a sid.

She shook her head, crossed herself, prayed for steeliness of mind against such memories. This forest was spooky enough.

An owl’s hoot made her flinch, but she kept her tread as mute as a cat’s until she reached Hulda. She drank in the slight chill, held it, and cleared her throat.

“My lady?”

Hulda sighed. “My turn already?”

Sister Mor blinked and frowned. “For what?”

“To be bombarded with questions.”

With a snort, Sister Mor came around the tree for a better angle to look at Hulda. She’d heard such tones from curmudgeons in her family’s royal court and even among the older sisters at her abbey, especially in her novice days. A few cross words wouldn’t deter her.

However, even the most wrinkled elder, man or woman, couldn’t make her shudder like the face under Hulda’s hood. A glimpse of the chin, mouth, and the tip of the nose betrayed the unnatural fissure that cut a jagged line down the center. The healthy skin turned bluish-gray before meeting the invasion of black, flaky flesh. The mouth on the dead side was little more than a crack until she opened it again to speak. White teeth blinked in the sparse light; so did gray, green, and brown teeth.

“Mind what you ask. You might wish you never learned the answer.”

Very odd to hear a pleasant voice coming out of that mouth, and speaking as though a child were pestering her.

Sister Mor straightened. She might well be a mewling child in Hulda’s eyes if the woman was as inhuman and ancient as she acted. That didn’t make Mor any less a prince’s daughter.

“I never ask a question when I fear the answer. If it disturbs me, I find a way to bear it. But I have not yet asked a question.”

“You did, and the answer is ‘no.’”

“What question?”

The living side of Hulda’s mouth smirked. “I am not your lady. Sometimes I’m granted the title, and others, but … what do you truly want to know? And why should I bother telling you?”

Sister Mor needed a moment to remember her diplomatic training to cool her tongue. “Seeing as we are traveling together, and you have volunteered your aid, a closer acquaintance can only improve cooperation. Such has been my experience as a princess of the Munster court.”

“The Munster court. Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“Only that I am well acquainted with thorny characters who insist on forging their own paths and look down their noses at anyone else. These people don’t thrive in court, even if they’re part of the royal family.”

“How fortunate I am—I have no court to deal with.”

Maybe she ought to go back to Brother Talfryn and his snores, after all. Sister Mor let herself pause and think before trying another approach. “You serve someone who has an interest in our endeavor. Whoever they are, they trust you to collaborate with strangers. Why is that?”

Hulda didn’t answer right away. “That is a good question.”

Sister Mor scoffed. “You can’t be serious. You must know.”

Hulda tipped back her head. Now Sister Mor could see her eyes. One blue. One cloudy, as happens to corpses after a time before the sclera and corneas start to rot. Perhaps Hulda was blind in that eye.

“I’m not here to help you,” she said. “I’m here to help the fjallfolk. Guar, Coch, Arculf, and their kin. That’s my duty.”

Well, it was a start. Sister Mor nodded. “Thank you for your honesty. Then, your lord or lady cares about these, uh … do they care about Vigdis and Stigandr, too?”

“You presume that Vigdis and Stigandr want you to know the answer to that.” Hulda spoke dryly, but her eyes quickened like a cat’s as it torments a mouse.

Sister Mor stood even taller. “Very well, I suppose that much isn’t my business. Do you serve the fjallfolk?”

“Hardly.”

“Ah. Then … are you their steward?”

Hulda looked away, thinking. “I suppose I am.”

“Ah! Why is that? The graiggwerin strike me as an independent people, ruled only by their own tribe. But in a larger group, do they have a more sophisticated hierarchy? How do you—”

“Slow down, girl. I’m not about to give a history lesson on these people to whom you are, at best, an incidental boon. I will tell you this: while Guar and Coch might be amiable, most of their kin want nothing to do with humans, and that’s as friendly as they get.”

“For what reason?” Sister Mor took a seat beside Hulda. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I take no offense. Many humans have ample reason to detest one another.”

“Even though that’s against your creed?”

Sister Mor smiled. “‘Wide is the road that leads to destruction.’ Have humans harmed graiggwerin?”

“It goes beyond mere harm. ‘Harm’ the fjallfolk can handle. And it’s not only them.” Hulda nearly continued, but her brow creased, and she sharpened her stare.

“Not only the graiggwerin?” Sister Mor pressed. “Other races? It is … quite a vast number?”

Hulda closed her lips.

“I don’t find that shocking.” Sister Mor had made some headway, and if now she had to carry this conversation, so be it. “In my country, we have stories about the Tuatha De Danann, a mighty people of wondrous power who lived in Ireland before mankind. After a war with our people, they gave up their homes above ground to dwell in the Otherworld, Tir na nOg. If the legends are true, I can imagine it wasn’t a happy resolution for them, even if the arrangement came about by a treaty. Are the graiggwerin like the Tuatha de Danann? Or perhaps more like the Fomorians since they don’t possess the famous beauty of the Tuatha De. But these graiggwerin are good-hearted, regardless of their appearances. As you say, others of their kind might hate mankind for understandable reasons. Is this your way of warning me and Brother Talfryn that we should conclude our part Guar’s reunion with her distant kin as quickly as possible?”

“I wondered why you no longer live at your beloved royal court,” Hulda said. “I think I’ve found the answer. I know a few things about politics, and there are two useful skills to have: subtlety and brevity.”

Once again, Sister Mor joined her teeth and prayed for patience. “As you say, we’re not in court now. You could just answer my questions and be done with me sooner.”

“Oh, I fear the fount from which these questions arise gushes evermore.”

“I have good reason for it! I’m in a strange land, far from home, with only one of my own people whom I know and trust as my protector. If you wish to help, you could offer a little more information to guide us!”

“I will guide you exactly as you need to be, and no more. That is my only obligation.”

Sister Mor opened her mouth for a rebuttal. A light caught her eye. When she faced it, her retort flew away. The light came from a walking staff that leaned next to Hulda. Sister Mor had thought nothing of its presence until threads of light started climbing from base to top. They drew curves and rose in a spiral. The staff’s head was carved into a grooved, sharpened point, almost like a lance. At some angles, the white lines of light split into tiny rainbows. The streams multiplied and raced to meet each other at the pointed tip. It too glowed, and the effulgence spilled back down.

“What is that?”

Hulda jerked her head around. She gasped, then groaned as she pushed off the tree. “Now?” She looked up into the tree’s branches. “Truly? Right now? I’m already …”

A pause, then a sigh. Hulda brought her looming stature to bear. “This will be but a moment.”

“What do you—?”

Hulda touched the staff and vanished before Sister Mor could finish the question. She cried out, then clapped her mouth.

“Hnng?” Vigdis raised her head and propped herself up. “What’s happened?”

Sister Mor shuddered. It didn’t matter who had woken up. The words pushed their way out of her. “H-hulda. She … she’s gone.”

Vigdis blinked and woke a little more. “Where?”

“I don’t know. She’s disappeared.”

Vigdis blinked again. Her body sagged. “She’s a witch. She comes and goes. She’ll be back.”

“But—”

Again, Sister Mor never finished. Vigdis plopped back down into sleep.

A moment later, Hulda reappeared the way safe she’d left. Her staff no longer glowed. She placed it against the tree with slumping shoulders.

“Oh! Thank God and the saints. Where did you go?”

“Not your concern.” Hulda sounded tired. How? She’d been gone a handful of seconds.

“How does it do that? I … I mean, I know a little … that is …” Though her face burned with mounting embarrassment, Sister Mor kept watching the staff. “Are you a witch? Witchcraft is ungodly. But is it witchcraft or … Is it dangerous? Where did you get it?”

“Stop asking questions, girl. Go to sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

Would Hulda be able to stand guard with that weariness? Or perhaps disappointment more than fatigue.

“Hulda, what happened? Did you see something … unpleasant?”

Hulda pushed back her hood and spared Sister Mor nothing. The face broadcast a glare that was bisected by life and death and framed by brittle gray hair on one side and full, thick brown hair on the other. All of it was wild and mussed by the abrupt removal of the hood. Harsh eyes and straightened lips scolded her.  

Yes, it was disquieting, but Sister Mor had met worse in her nightmares.

“Forgive me,” she said with a slight tremor. “If something is wrong, I want to help.”

“Leave it alone,” Hulda said slowly. “Go.”

The word landed like an executioner’s blade. Sister Mor began to obey the sheer force of it. She lowered her head and stepped away.

Another flare of light ran up the staff. The command to leave vaporized from Sister Mor’s mind. She stopped, gaped, and glanced at Hulda. The half-living woman turned around, too. She saw Sister Mor, the staff, the tiny gap between them.

Sister Mor reached out to the staff and its beckoning lights.

“No!” Hulda whipped around and lunged.

They touched the staff at the same time.

A sensation most easily compared to being headbutted by a horse collided with Sister Mor before oblivion spared her from further assaults. A moment or a lifetime later, she heard Hulda’s voice, a distant wave that grows in loudness as it rolls toward the shore—

“Mor! Mor! Can you hear me?”

A frigid, bony hand slapped her cheek. Sister Mor groaned and rolled her head away from the offending touch.

"You mad creature," Hulda grumbled. "Can you feel all your limbs?"

Sister Mor managed to flex her fingers and toes. They ached. She nodded.

"Good. Stand up."

That command met momentary resistance, not all of Sister Mor's volition. She whimpered in her effort to sit up. The muscles in her back clenched, and she collapsed on the stony ground. In the haze of pain, she wondered why she couldn't feel any dead leaves or wild grass that carpeted the forest. As the pulsing in her head died down, she could open her eyes.

A light burned behind Hulda's head. Was it the moon? The sun?

Some horrible, foreign smell hit her nose. Something was burning, but not wood or incense. It was like smelting, but even more acrid. Maybe this was Hell.

“Get up.” Hulda’s hands, one cold and one warm, grabbed Sister Mor’s elbows. She danced with vertigo but landed safely on her feet. The soles of her shoes clapped and made something clack on the ground. Was that gravel? She blinked in the nighttime gloom that the ball of light above them continued to dispel as best it could. She very nearly asked what it was, but other peculiar elements caught her attention and accrued her question collection. She guessed they were standing in a cemetery; headstones and a few mauseoleums raised their gray forms above sloping earth. Gravel-covered paths wound among them. A broader view of the scene directed her attention to a piked fence at the edges of the grounds. Who guarded cemeteries so vigorously? And where was the church? And that light—no, lights. She spied a few more about twenty paces from the first one outside the fence. She began to walk toward them—

Hulda caught her arm. “Where are you off too?”

Sister Mor blinked. Goodness, what was she thinking? She ought to be the one asking the questions!

“Where are we?”

Hulda regarded the cemetery. “Let’s look at the headstones.”

A surprisingly sensible suggestion. Sister Mor grasped Hulda’s intention and hastened her to steps to the nearest grave marker. It was in fact a double marker for two people. She managed to discern the names “Samuel Weld” and “Thomas Weld.” The letters she could read, being Latin, but she didn’t know the language. No year to mark either man’s passing. The style of the headstones struck her with their refinement and morbidity. A yawning death’s head floated above both names and epitaphs, but floral and equally delicate engravings decorated the stone, too.

Sister Mor checked behind her to ask Hulda if she knew the language on the stones. The witch had already moved on. She’d ventured down the path and found a low wall of red, rectangular stones. A plaque was affixed to it.

“This one is more helpful,” Hulda said.

Sister Mor joined her. She knelt and nearly brought her nose to the stone so she could read it in the dark. The name Joseph Dudley followed a mysterious abbreviation (Gov.). But Sister Mor forgot the name as soon as she read the numbers below it.

“One-six-four-seven. That can’t be right. Six … 1647 to … to 1720?” She read it three more times before looking at Hulda. “Do the people in this country have a different calendar?”

“More likely it’s the same as yours. Whatever the year is, it’s later than 1720.”

The year of the Lord was 880. And they were supposed to be in East Francia, and this language didn’t look like any Germanic dialect she’d come across. As these facts fermented into a wild conclusion, Sister Mor struggled move or breathe. When she finally recovered enough mobility, she used it to place one hand on the ground. Her eyes sought the staff. It wasn’t glowing at all. Its body comprised of ordinary wood.

“We … we didn’t just move in space. We moved … in time.”

“Yes,” Hulda said, as if Sister Mor were describing a route to the nearest market.

“With your staff.”

“Yes.”

“… oh. Oh, Mary and Joseph.” Sister Mor gave a sound that immediately mortified her; it blended horror and ecstasy.

“You insisted on touching a glowing stick without knowing what it did.”

Another yelp, close to a shriek, leapt out of Sister Mor. Hulda grabbed her arm.

“Ow!”

“Quiet! We don’t belong here, so don’t draw any attention.”

Sister Mor started panting, but she bit her lip, whined quietly, and began to calm down. “Nnnnghthen why are we here?”

“The staff sent me here. You’re here thanks to stubbornness and stupidity. But since you’re here, and I can’t send you back, you might as well get a grip and help me.”

Sister Mor gasped. “You can’t send me back? But, but it’s your staff!”

“I don’t control it. When it fills with light, I go where it takes me and seek the one I’ve been tasked to help. I didn’t even think until a few moments ago that another person could touch it and be thrown across lands and centuries, too. Thank your god that I touched it, too, or you’d be a very lost, very dead woman.”

“How do we get back?”

“We will return to your time when the staff gives us the power to do so.”

“How long will that be?”

Hulda shrugged.

“Then, we could be wandering across the ages for years. We could die.”

“I didn’t make you touch the staff.”

Despite herself, or maybe because of the panic trying to fill her chest, Sister Mor laughed. She did sound mad.

“Are you going to lose your mind,” asked Hulda, “or are you going to keep your senses and help me? Either way, I have work to do, and you’re not my priority.”

Of all the emotions to triumph at this moment, Sister Mor marveled at the joy rising above everything else. Terror lingered beneath it, but, in a way, that buoyed her joy even more. Maybe this was the first sign of madness setting in.

Still catching her breath, she smoothed her headdress and habit. “Very well. What are you bound to do?”

“Usually, I land near the soul in need. He or she must be somewhere in this graveyard right now. The One who gave me this staff is kind enough to afford me darkness and remoteness for my work. Most of the time.”

The archness in Hulda’s voice made a smile jump to Sister Mor’s lips. She quashed it for fear of offending the grim lady. “Who is this person?”

“It’s my concern alone. Your concern is staying close to me, and staying alive if you want to see your home and family again.”

The notion that she might never see Cuan or any of her kin made her shudder not by its incomprehensibility but in familiarity. She banished the reminder of another brush with a superhuman power that had whisked her away to a land that, if legends were true, also defied the bonds of time. Sister Mor nodded, brushed herself off again, and followed Hulda in standing up.

As Hulda predicted, they wandered the graveyard for no more than a quarter of an hour, passing a few more of those balls of light. They must have been lamps on tall posts, boxed in by glass to stop the wind from blowing them out. Sister Mor heard more of the world outside the cemetery: voices in that foreign tongue, shouts of alcohol-brined opinions, dog barks, hoofbeats, clattering wheels on cobblestone streets. And yes, that horrid smell. Hulda believed, having visited this period before, that they were in the age of coal combustion.

“Are we in a city?” Sister Mor asked. “I’ve only ever visited Dublin twice. Cities promise so much, but they appear more wretched than not. Dare I hope our descendants will improve on the idea?”

Hulda looked back at her and smiled. Sister Mor didn’t take that as a happy portend.

She was grateful, in light of this conversation, to soon meet another soul. Their presence meant the end of their visit.

Gratitude would evaporate into pity, then shock and revulsion.

Both women turned a bend on one of the paths and spied a prone man in front of one of the mausoleums. Sister Mor took him to be a drunkard or homeless beggar. The warring instincts to help and to turn away shamed her; how could she hesitate, especially as a religieuse, to minister to the least, as the Lord had commanded? Her hesitation allowed Hulda to move first toward the destitute man. She followed.

“Stay back,” Hulda ordered.

“Why?”

“If you value your life.”

Was Hulda threatening her to not help after all the fuss she made about Sister Mor girding herself for this adventure?

Then the man jerked up like a puppet hoisted up by a string, and he turned his head like owl-like dexterity. His eyes glinted like those of an owl, too. He gasped and groaned.

Hulda gave a “shhhhh” that matched the wind moving through the trees. In fact, the timing was perfect. A breeze brushed the trees growing throughout the graveyard as she spoke. The coincidence changed Hulda into much greater a force. Was it just a coincidence?

The man, the creature, didn’t move any more. Hulda stretched out her mummified arm to him, beckoning. Sister Mor stepped back.

“Don’t run, either,” said Hulda. “That will provoke him. He’s hungry. Trust me.”

Sister Mor fought to control her breathing. “Might not he hurt you?”

“He won’t.” New gentleness touched Hulda’s voice. It remained even as she deepened her tone and projected in the man’s direction. “Come.”

The man’s hands started twitching. His shining eyes narrowed. Step by step, he crept toward Hulda. Sister Mor quaked all over. Oh, how she hated his look. His features were perfectly human in shape. More and more, though, the pallor and sunken cheeks, as a corpse looks before bloat sets in, reminded her of a nonhuman face that had chased and tormented her years ago. Yes, all due to her own foolishness once again. This could be divine punishment.

When the man, or creature, came within two paces of Hulda, he whimpered and dropped to its knees. Mouth open, crying, he showed his pointed canines. He spoke what sounded like a full sentence, possibly a question.

“What did he say?” whispered Sister Mor.

“I have no idea. I don’t know his language well enough.”

The man, the creature, gawked at Hulda like she’d spoken in the tongue of angels and imparted a profound message from the Almighty.

Hulda moved closer to him. Her dead hand, still outstretched, rested on his scalp. He gave a deep, shaky sigh.

“Does he know who you are?” Sister Mor asked.

The man’s posture stiffened. Sister Mor stepped back again without thinking. His head rotated so his reflective eyes tracked her.

“Don’t move,” Hulda said.

Both Sister Mor and the man kept still.

“Sister Mor, this child of the night needs food. If we leave him, he’ll attack a poor soul and taint his own even further. Where do you suggest we find human blood?”

A simple answer came to Sister Mor, and she grimaced at it. A stationary search of the cemetery yielded no other options. “I … I could give him some of mine.”

Hulda turned to Sister Mor and stared as though she’d heard a string of gibberish.

“What?” said Sister Mor. “Isn’t that what you were implying?”

“Of course not! I asked because, as a human, you have more familiarity with human settlements than I do and would know where to find fresh blood. Do you want to die?”

“No!” Sister Mor flushed at the question. Her temper cooled. She touched the silver cross hanging around her neck. “No, but … will he die if he doesn’t eat tonight?”

“It’s not his death I’m worried about.”

That helped Sister Mor breathe more steadily. “Then … I will not send him off to some ‘acceptable’ source of blood. I have some here to keep him docile.”

She pulled up her sleeve. The man-creature lunged. Hulda swung down her staff and hit him in the chest. He screeched and dropped lower. Hulda stooped, too, either to check he was all right or to keep him at bay.

“It’s not that simple!” Hulda snapped. “He has no reason to show restraint.”

“Then keep him restrained, if you please.” Sister Mor finished rolling up the sleeve. She patted the pouch hanging from her belt. “Oh. I don’t think I have a knife.”

Hulda sighed. “I do.”

Sister Mor kept Hulda between herself and the creature, rustled about Hulda’s belt as quickly as she could, and thanked God when she found the knife. The hilt bore Danish runes that read “famine.” Sister Mor almost laughed.

“Does this have magic, too?”

“No. Cut the outside of your arm if you must. That will do.”

Ideally, Sister Mor would have cleaned or cauterized the blade. She settled for a swift wipe on an inner fold of her habit. A gasp left her with the knife’s slice.

“Be quick,” she ordered the man-creature.

The cut discouraged the man-creature from biting through her skin. She still felt the fangs. They pressed insistently. She flinched at first contact, and he growled.

Hatred for this beast boiled in her throat. She gave him her arm again and shut her eyes.

“Tell me when he’s finished,” she said to Hulda.

“You had better tell me when you’re finished, unless you want me to let him continue until you faint.”

It wasn’t so much the loss of blood as the smacking and slurping and the feel of his cold tongue on her skin that made Sister Mor lightheaded and long for escape. Anxiety made her head pound like a drum.

“That’s enough!” She ripped her arm away. Rather unnecessary in hindsight. Neither the monster nor Hulda had taken hold of her arm.

Hulda had him in her complete grip, like a farmer holding a young bull to fit him with a nose ring. The beastly man left no red drop wasted. His tongue wiped away his meal from his chapped lips. The eyes, more human-like but still a little luminous, gleamed without gratitude. There was only delight from a sated appetite. It was rather childlike, the manner of which convinced Sister Mor that she did not like children.

If Hulda had given her blood, she might not have rubbed the man-creature’s back to ease him further. Still, her presence was the only reason Sister Mor had even considered sharing her blood with this thing. She did worry her that Hulda cared more for the blood-drinker than any human. At least she hadn’t let the monster kill Sister Mor. That had to carry some import.

“What now?”

Instead of answering Sister Mor, Hulda tilted the man-creature’s chin. Still lean and vicious, he trembled under her steady stare. Hulda leaned down and whispered in his ear. He didn’t seem to understand whatever she said, but that soon didn’t matter. After a sly glance at Sister Mor, he shut his eyes and leaned into Hulda as she helped him stand. He muttered something. Hulda squeezed his shoulder, the side furthest from her. Sister Mor reminded herself to squeeze her cut with her handkerchief while most of her attention remained on the strange intimacy between the creature and the tall, half-living woman keeping him steady. Hulda did not radiate much warmth, but even a stone can give its own kind of comfort.

The staff, still in Hulda’s other hand, began to send tendrils of light up to its top.

Elated and fearful, Sister Mor dashed forward and grabbed onto it. “Thank God!”

Hulda chuckled. “Hold that thought.”

This time, although blackness did briefly swipe away her consciousness, Sister Mor came back to herself while still on her feet. This time, nausea punched her gut. She doubled over and wretched. The man-creature made similar noises.

“It’s not so bad after the tenth time,” said Hulda. She raised her head and whistled: a single, long, melancholy note. Just as Sister Mor stopped gagging, something flapped out of the trees—yes, the trees were back!—and cawed right before landing on Hulda’s shoulder.

“Take this one,” she said.

Sister Mor stumbled a step or two away and checked that no one was touching her. No, Hulda was nodding at the man-creature, the blood-drinker. She brushed his face with her living hand. The bird, a crow, practically barked at him, took off, and ascended into a loop. The grace with which it dodged the branches managed to enchant Sister Mor. Words passed between Hulda and the man that she didn’t hear. The crow redirected her to the pair when it flew over their heads.

Hulda pointed at the bird and pressed the man’s back. The instruction did not require a common tongue to be understood. The man hesitated, threw a fretful look at Hulda, then at Sister Mor without the former hunger or mischief. Finally, like a frightened child eager to get home, he walked into the forest to follow the crow’s path.

Sister Mor checked her cut—still clean and only slightly bleeding. Hulda joined her.

“Where is he going?”

“My servant will find a home for him.”

“But how do you know what he needs? You couldn’t speak with him.”

“I’ve helped many of his kind over the years, from all places and ages. They have nowhere else to go. Once that happens—once their lives, in a sense, have ended—I shepherd them to a new life that will keep them and the humans they might hurt safe.”

Sister Mor peered around at the familiar trees and mists. “Here?”

Hulda gave another of her small, not very assuring smiles. “You believe I would let you come to harm here?”

“Well …”

“Remember who volunteered her blood to a draugr.”

“Draugr?”

“An undead being.”

Sister Mor shuddered. Not just a blood-drinker, but an undead one. She’d let it touch her!

A dead hand reached for her. She jolted back. Hulda stopped. She seemed surprised not by Sister Mor but by her own action. Her hand joined the living one on her staff. Brittle fingers wrapped around it more tightly than needed.

A pang plucked at something in Sister Mor’s chest. It took some time to untangle her tongue. “Are you helping the graiggwerin—I mean, the fjallfolk—for the same reason?”

“Yes. And the vargfolk. And, on occasion, a human or two. Well, not to come here permanently, but in this woodland, you are under my stewardship. If any other folk trouble you, they will answer to me.”

Sister Mor could hardly breathe. She dared not think who Hulda really was, what sort of company she and Brother Talfryn and the rest of their party were keeping. She tried very, very hard not to think of the sidhe and their rules, their sense of entitlement over anyone who crossed into their land. Already she was beginning to ache for the comfort of her abbey, the strong stone walls that kept out the monsters of the world.

Yet they didn’t keep out all monsters. They didn’t banish the ones that had slipped into her dreams. Would she dream of that blood-drinker now? Would she dream of Hulda?

The same woman was silent. Her gaze drifted between Sister Mor, the ground, and the canopy and its wispy tresses. The staff had returned to its ordinary color. Brother Talfryn and the others weren’t in sight. So many questions buzzed in Sister Mor’s skull, and she couldn’t find the courage to let them out just yet. One did persist, sitting on her tongue until, at last, she had to breathe and set it free.

“Why do you have stewardship over this place?”

Hulda opened her mouth, left it open, gave a slow sigh, and finally said, “It’s a long story, and I’m not ready to tell it. But … I will tell you that the One who placed this duty on me gave you the same duty to help the fjallfolk.”

Sister Mor didn’t bother hiding her astonishment. She found her nerve again soon enough. “And who is that?”

A raised eyebrow. “Who else could it be?”

One moment, Sister Mor was stone. The next, she bubbled with laughter. She swallowed it, feeling rude for disrupting the forest with the noise. “But you don’t know anything about Him.”

Hulda had her turn to laugh. “The things I could tell you! But not now.”

The staff seemed to agree: it began to shoot its lines of light upward.

“Either this will return us to your proper time,” said Hulda, “or to my next appointment.”

In that respect, Sister Mor had no excuse to hesitate. She steered her hand to a spot on the staff just a little below Hulda’s overlapping fingers. A few frantic heartbeats later, they entered the blackness, then reentered the forest. This time, their sleeping companions surrounded them.

“There. Off to bed with you,” said Hulda.

Almost as soon as Sister Mor took her hand off the staff, it glowed again. Her stomach flew up like water when a stone drops into it, and in the same way, it settled again. She touched the staff.

Hulda frowned. “What—?”

“Will any time be lost?” Sister Mor asked.

“… no. Not if we’re brought back to this same moment.”

Sister Mor bit her lip and nodded. Her fingers clenched around the wood.

Hulda made that same bewildered scowl as the one in the cemetery. It couldn’t stop a smile, the biggest one yet from the grim lady. “As if I don’t have enough to worry about.”

“I’ll help you,” said Sister Mor seriously. “Haven’t I already?”

An intrigued hum. “We will see.”

They vanished into the air.

[malsfefanfics]

OC Tea Party Guide: Medee

Tea Preferences:

Crescent-Moon Tea

Bergamot

 Four-Spice Blend

 Chamomile

Almyran Pine Needles

Ideal Topics

A dinner invitation…

Books you've read recently…

The Opera…

Close calls…

Dreams of lazy days…

I heard some gossip…

I'm counting on you…

Past laughs…

School days…

Monastery mysteries…

The view from the bridge…

The library's collection…

Hoping for your future…

Heart-racing memories…

Advancements in Faith magic…

Topics that will end the tea party early:

Being the perfect knight…

Cute monks…

The existence of Crests…

First crushes…

Final Comments and Valid Responses;

"Two men row to the center of a lake. Only one returns in the boat alive. A fine tale, isn't it?"

Laugh

Sip tea

"You know, you have the makings of a decent witch. I could teach you everything I know. What do you say?"

Agree

Disagree

"Oh, these weary bones do grow tired more by the day. Perhaps the life of a hermit after the war would be ideal."

Disagree

Admonish

"Potion brewing and the preparation of food and drink is one and the same, when you stop and look at it step by step."

Nod

Agree

Sip Tea

"You know, you remind me quite a bit of my younger brother. He too was a soul of few words. And he was also quite the heartbreaker."

Sip tea

Blush

"You truly are too trusting for your own good. I could have poisoned the tea at any point and you would be none the wiser until it is too late."

Laugh

"I cannot stay long, you know. As the war drags on, I am needed more frequently with the other medics. It has started to affect my research. Perhaps we should discuss this with her Majesty?"

Praise

Agree

Commend

"Apologies if I am not the most lively of conversation. I was just thinking of my lost kin. I wonder, if they saw me now, what would they say?"

Commend

Sip tea

"Moments of silence like this are so rare. We need to appreciate them while we have them."

Agree

Nod

PERFECT TEA TIME!

"I think you for this invitation. Allow me to treat you in the near future."

[fictionkinfessions]

journey to the west sun wukong and lego monkie kid sun wukong are now fighting to the death in my brain cause we got memories over a canon divergence

in my journey to the west kin, the monk hated using the circlet against me, he'd only ever use it when fully necessary and would always apologize afterwards and explain why so i could learn.

lego monkie kid however is unfortunately a very different situation, i guess some celestial convinced tripitaka to use the circlet any time i misbehaved or was becoming dangerous or something and really oversold him on just how dangerous i was, since there was barely a day where i would go without having my skull squeezed by that damn thing. started being too rough with demons? circlet. got too excited or loud about something? circlet. ran off without immediately telling and getting an okay from the monk on where i was going? circlet. if i even so much as smiled sometimes the monk would mistake it as me bearing my teeth in aggression at one of my brothers and activate it before realizing. a few times it would make me bleed. one time it made me pass out from the pain. i'm not mad at tripitaka for it, he was told to use it with those exact guidelines. I just wish he realized how much it hurt.

-sun wukong (lmk)

#🦂🩸

[catilus]

A determined monk with several lithium elementals I drew for the Periodic Table of Elementals! https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/498792/periodic-table-of-elementals

Also, late pledges are available for Cute Creatures Compendium 2! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/catilus/cute-creatures-compendium-2-by-catilus

Character: Cano, Human / Hound Archon Monk, with Lithium Elementals

“The winds of Mount Celestia are perfect and brook no imperfections in whom they touch.”

-Draddoc Lore-Hewer

Kithyraon was as devout as any of his kin on Mount Celestia, though their heart was divided. The lord of wisdom and suffering, Ilmater, gave them peace and understanding, but another celestial, full of fire and zeal, drew from him passion and love. When duty called the latter away, Kithyraon took solace in the house of Ilmater, at least for a while, soothing the loneliness and suffering of mortals as he neglected his own. But news of their lover’s fall filled them with fire, and soon Ilmater could not contain Kithyraon. A fury he had stoked for decades welled up with such force that he leapt from the heavens to find a path to the one they loved, but laws forbade an archon’s independent action in this, and so, stripped of their power, memory, and divinity, Kithyraon died.

Thus was Cano born on a hillock outside the city of Baldur’s Gate. Only fragments remain of a life before his own, and his scars and bracers do little to dredge his past beyond a vague sense of tremendous suffering. He has parsed a few rare memories and emotions in the year since his apparent awakening, and his nights are infrequently haunted by the ghost of an angel, terrible and burning. He has determined to find the one who haunts his dreams, yet remains drawn to Ilmater despite all, even as he forges his future with his companions.

In his short time in the world, he has made a name for himself as a community leader and taken to supporting others in any way he can. Recent events have taken him to the deserts of the distant south, and he despite his desire to build communities, he shows no signs of stopping his travels anytime soon.

Cano also works to support the SCAAA (The Society for the Curation of the Annals of Adventurers and Associate) by paying member dues and sending regular correspondence to them. Though not wealthy by any stretch of the term, Cano uses what funds he can to fund hostels for adventurers and itinerants like the one he is depicted in here. While relaxing and trying to pen a letter to his SCAAA rep. Anaximander, Cano is reminded that business can indeed wait by some playful lithium elementals.

About Lithium Elementals:

Lithium is the lightest metal and the least dense solid element. As the first of the alkali metals, lithium is shiny, soft, and so reactive it’s never found uncombined in nature. Being so light, lithium elementals can float on almost any liquid, but they are also so reactive that they will ignite and burn vigorously if they come into contact with water or even water vapors. Though all other alkali metal elementals are even more reactive, lithium elementals are still dangerously reactive, and their element is the only alkali metal that can react with nitrogen gas.

In combat, lithium elementals are agile, feisty, and as reactive as the element they embody. If threatened, they will fight aggressively with little regard to their own safety, much like their heavier alkali metal siblings.

Despite their aggressiveness, lithium elementals can be trustworthy allies to mortals who can withstand their fiery disposition and their reactive nature.

Familiar. At the gamemaster’s discretion, a player character who can cast find familiar may choose the form of a lithium elemental for their familiar.

What do you think? :)

Find the full HD version, plus tons of fantasy and SF art, D&D items, my 5e adventures and supplements (FREE for supporters!), NPCs, and more great stuff at myPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/Catilus

Join the Catilus Discord! https://discord.gg/catilus

#Catilus #Patreon #dnd #DnDcharacter #art #fantasy #roleplay #RPG #TTRPG #magic #commission #monk #human #dog #hound #angel #cute #elemental #lithium #fire #alkali

[libidomechanica]

He wandering it was buildings in the grassy slope

But none of a valleys, and I     would you for love me even to the memory of the     soul had not determined

the way into two horsemen, who     were game. Know; nor what would elide yourselves away around     Hesper bright! No second

is kin and know all meet! Come her     foes chokes and a whole and part, nother city thick as hens     their substance. The Moslem,

but t is sore Spring to the     Monk sat down yon scroggie glen, we deemed as it like to the very     soul, which die for every

vulgar tongueless, pale, cold     storm piles up. Made close … it look like a mummy, and rode upon     the deep, where all hit

or no? By loving midnight has     been young Chevalier. Lived long in ischskin, ’ ousckin, ’ ouski:     of whom Suwarrow, the

birthright decision: at least: there’s     nothing is shape suggested feast, to make hast me tell     you sorrow it was run!

[saneperhaps]

Here I'm posting quotes from a movie I just watched so that I can read them everyday.

*~If a ship is replaced part by part up to a point where not a single original part remains in it, is it still the same ship?

*~You know how you doubt sometimes if what you remember is your own experience, some dream or something somebody told you that you pictured so well that it became your own memory.

*~I got you a gift. Alphabets. It's amazing how we imagine that just these few alphabets will someday arrange themselves in a way that everything will suddenly make perfect sense. A permutation of known words suddenly bringing forward a previously unknown meaning.

* We invent God, soul... heaven, afterlife...even life-imitating technology, all sorts of transcendence to cope with the idea of an absolute end. And then, we die for an idea that promises us some sort of immortality

* ~There was an island and you were to be reborn as a tormentor or a slave. The tormentor would make life hell for you, will give infinite pain to you and your kin, just for his pleasure. And he had no remorse over his actions to crush his victim. Add to that there was no karma, no soul, no retribution, no being responsible for your actions. And you had to choose any one of them. Who would you be?

* Does reality exist when no one is looking?

* A frog once asked a centipede how is it able to walk on a hundred feet, so gracefully synchronized while the frog finds it difficult to manage even two. The centipede took a moment to analyze its own walk and was baffled. So as it tried to walk further its feet got entangled and it tripped.

* Look into your own religion. There's constant reference to relativity. Your ancients, they were masters of understanding that there is no one ultimate rule book for all situations. The woman churning curd into butter, she has to pull one end of the rope, and let the other end go otherwise the rope will break. Contradictions and polarities are two ends of the same rope. You can pull one end and let the other end go.

* Monks are supposed to be celibate, then why this much intellectual masturbation in first place?

* Aaliya: I have to draw opinion and assurance about my own art away from what everyone else says.

* It gives me some kicks though, to know that, a part of me was a part of an animal once, a flame, a star. A part will become mineral, flow in a plant, sprout in a fruit, get pecked by a bird. Every atom of my body will be recycled by the universe. You think you are a person but you are a colony. A microcosm which has ten times more bacteria in its body... than it has human cells.

* We are all blind men trying to see the elephant.

* Why is it so amazing to not have any limits or doubts?

* Charwaka: I always knew monks are closet drinkers but unfortunately liver cirrhosis is going to give you away.

Maitreya: You know it should have more to do with intoxication than with drinking

Movie: The ship of Theseus

I don't have words to explain what emotions this movie made me feel , I felt changed as a person, the three stories and beautiful cinematography everything top notch. I feel different person now.

[calling-for-kins]

Hello! I'm Randy Disher from the show called "Monk". I'm looking for Natalie, Monk, Sharona, and captain Stottlemeyer. Oddly enough I also have memories of interacting with the characters from the other show "Psych" and think it would be cool to see Shawn, Gus, Lassiter, or Juliet again. Still kinda fuzzy memories but I'm fairly canon compliant except for the part about meeting the psych characters. Doubles are okay for me btw. I'm bodily a minor and mainly want minors interacting, maybe chill adults. All I really want is to check up on my friends and see how you all are doing :) so reblog with who you kin and I'll reach out! :p

🔮

[miamignonette]

some classic posts that i reblog every time i see them

in the club freakin it in a sensitive style

mfw i’m taking selfies and vaping during a church service

ouuuoooghg kevin

kin memories of your great grandma

girls go to yale, what the hale

i think it can digging in the ground for tubers

you should’ve just slept in your hut

underwater temple, underwater monk

girl steal some supplements