#yilwran

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The team is ready for TFS. I, however, am not,

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Notes on the Remembered

Festival of the Lost is in full swing, for better or worse (worse, in Immaru’s personal opinion), and there are treats to collect, and tricks to play, and myths to shoot before they shoot back! Plus, you know, the subsurface fear of an impending apocalypse. But we don’t talk about that.

Chapter 1: Customs // Chapter 2: Petals // Chapter 3: Missive // Chapter 4: Pretences

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A Deal’s a Deal

The better part of the last five months Ór has spent refusing to fight. But for a sword to be broken, it must first be bent.

Scene rewrite // Spoilers for last week’s seasonal story // Read on Ao3

Savathûn is monstrous when she draws herself to her full height and spreads her wings wide. Their movement sends strong gusts of air towards the cluster of Guardians as she lifts off to hover over them, the smile in her eyes both delighted and threatening. Ikora sets her jaw and her Light-coated fingers twitch, but she doesn’t move back an inch. Yilwran’s arm loops around Eris to cover her with his shield, already shimmering with Void.

Ór is kneeling next to Eris, propping her up on the other side. Immaru has moved out of the way and is now hovering at the midpoint between his Lightbearer and the Guardians, watching the confrontation with an air of smug curiosity about him.

“Eris may have managed an interesting sword logic stunt, but I have lost none of my power.” Savathûn begins to slowly float towards them, talons dragging across the ground. “You’re in no position to stop me.”

Ór pulls herself up from her knees. She stands straight and cranes her neck, taking in the Witch-Queen’s form looming above her like a spectre.

“I am,” she says.

For a few beats of those enormous wings they just stare at each other. They haven’t faced each other since the Sanctum, blood on marble and the Traveler screaming, and Ór hears it in her head again, its and her own cry as she lurched towards Julianna to stop her from killing Immaru. The fire in Savathûn’s eyes fades from poison green to almost white, and for a moment she looks just like she did sprawled on that marble floor, dying under her helpless god.

Ór doesn’t know where the Hive go after they die, what limbo Savathûn waited for years in for Immaru to bring her back. She doesn’t know if after her head had hit the ground, the Witch-Queen saw the scuffle over her Ghost from some distant, hidden place, or the flash of Light as both he and the Traveler fled. She doesn’t even know if it matters, if Savathûn isn’t still so engrained in her old logic she would only see that mercy as weakness, if she’s just gambled and lost in the exact same way she had in that sunken temple where she'd challenged Xivu. She cannot read the expression on Savathûn’s ossified face, three eyes boring into her and burning white like the stars over the Athenaeum.

And then Savathûn closes her wings and folds back down into a stoop to level with her.

“Well then,” she says, and Ór releases the drawn breath.

Void curls back under the skin of Ikora’s hands, but she is still standing on spread legs, jaws set and eyes watching the Witch-Queen’s every move.

“We both need to stop the Witness, and to that end, I have given you what I promised,” Savathûn continues slowly. “You will find you have it when you are ready. Like Eris said: our bargain is complete. There’s no need for drama.”

Ikora grits her teeth. Yilwran tightens his hold on the shield, the fact he is propping Eris up the only thing stopping him from lunging at the Witch-Queen.

Savathûn shrugs. “Pout all you like, Ikora. It’s not a trick. And you’re quite frankly out alternatives.”

“What guarantee do we have?” Yilwran growls.

The Witch-Queen looks at him, then at Ór. And then she looks at Immaru.

He meets her gaze and for good ten seconds the room is quiet, some silent conversation passing between them. Immaru’s shell clenches, then releases, then clenches again.

“Fine,” he grinds out finally and turns towards Ikora. “Me.”

“You,” Ikora repeats, bewildered.

“Yes,” Savathûn smiles and drops down to one knee in a mockery of supplication. “Take Immaru, my loyal Ghost, my connection to the Light. I leave him with the Vanguard willingly, so if you would rather give me my final death than stop the Witness...” Her face is now close enough Ór can feel her breath, and she is almost certain that when Savathûn glances at her, there’s a knowing spark in her rightmost eye. “Crunch. Capisce?”

“Bĝeštugen,” Ór says, holding her gaze.

“Good. And the rest of you,” she gestures at Ikora, Yilwran, and Eris, who has drawn herself unsteadily to her feet, “don’t mess this up. The Witness wants to sweep our pieces off the board, and we’re having such a lovely time playing.”

Ikora’s eyes burn Void again and Yilwran looks like he’s about to spontaneously breach class divides and smite the Hive god with a nova bomb, but Eris puts a hand on the Warlock’s shoulder. Don’t.

Savathûn turns around, her wings trailing like a gown, and begins to saunter off toward the door.

“Take care of yourself, Eris,” she calls over her shoulder. “It was such fun seeing your mask slip.”

She vanishes behind the corner of the long hallway, her delighted laughter echoing through the ritual chamber.

——

Much later, when Ór sits in the back of Yilwran’s jumpship and watches Eris’ sleeping form curled on the seat row in front of her, she asks:

“Was this one of the contingencies?”

Immaru turns from the porthole he has been staring through, his shell less bristled now that he isn’t in the crosshairs of Yilwran and Ikora’s searing glares, but still pulled tight against his core. The green swirls around his optic are moving in languid patterns, indicating some expression Ór struggles to interpret.

“No,” he says.

“Then why?”

“Dunno, and why do you keep running around puttin’ out fires and preaching ‘bout the Light every time your jerk friends tryna fuck something up?” he growls, exasperated. “Get your nose back into your own business.”

She shakes her head and scoffs, but only slightly, almost a tiny laugh. Immaru turns back towards the porthole. Eris stirs in her sleep, the blanket laid over her slipping down a little, and Ór reaches to pull it back over her shoulder.

She should ask Eva to teach her to sew, sometime. She doubts Runi will want to share his pillow.

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awoken and cabal and eliksni ships in the city sky, in the place of the traveler!!!! i’m. hh. ór is going to be handling this season and yilwran the stuff in neomuna, and there’s something so profound about her entire story being turned from the outer system towards the city while his is about protecting the city from the distant frontlines... i am thinking. and i am enjoying this season and expansion so much!

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Doctrine of the Passions

However eager he is to help his friend with restoring the Warmind, Yilwran would like it required less of a Golden Age engineer's wounded ego, and less Clovis Bray in general. Julianna isn't happy about it either — still reeling after her quest against the Witch-Queen, Clovis' presence only adds more questions and doubts on top of her existing ones.

On the other side of the barricade, a Deathsinger apprentice fights for her position in Xivu Arath's ranks. Her dream initially shattered after the slaughter of the Hellmouth Choir, she is now resolved to do whatever it takes to gain the remaining power she needs to morph into a Wizard and enter the last stage of her training.

The baton is raised. The breath drawn. The symphony is due to begin.

Chapter One: Hounds of War

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Doctrine of the Passions — Chapter 2

“Let the old ways shape the new.” —Seventh Seraph Vector

Chapter 2: Double Stop

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Wanna see something dreadful?

RULES: post the names of all the files in your WIP list, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it. And then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

And yep, these are my wips. Ask me about them I beg you there’s so fucking many

@siyurikspakvariisis tagged me some time ago, & I was also tagged by @eri-223 yesterday. Since I took these screenshots in November(?), Captive Research, final shapes zine and A Deal’s A Deal have already been posted. Oh also these do not include ongoing (but already posted) stories.

The screenshots are of my OneDrive folder, but I have quite the collection in my phone notes and Scrivener as well:

- Sav's court AU / Wonderland

- Eversion Day

- Kuldax

- 10 - righteous

- Immaru ficlet

- Yilwran and Mara

- Xivu grief song

- Barons - the first dinner after the prison break

- Alak-Hul and Sav brawling

- Ór losing it cathartic fic

- Love and Death

- Long one-shot about Ór and Beyond Light

- Plunder fic

- Savmaru because I have no self control nor preservation skills

- Shadowkeep!

- Post-WQ Drifter calls Ór

- Some eris/toland apparently????

- Shattered Glass

- Faction leaders fic

- Oathbearers(?)

- Taeko and Aunor

- Clovis’ funeral

- Another eris/toland??

- Smoke

- aisha & shayura

- ‘Where it hurts’ tete a yut

- Orbits part 2

- Asher and Ikora Red War

- Zaiatl X as encouragement

- Amrita

- ada and namrask

- Dornuk meets Mandy

- Investigator wizard licking a fucking wall

I'm not even ATTEMPTING to tag however many people that would be, but @savyir-genesizz-the-wizard @hi-crawler @pawnshopsouls @xazz @shalalalalaw @imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese I'm tagging you!

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where were you when the guardians pushed back against the witness’ assault on the traveler

(ór was a hawk, her fireteam close behind, shooting stuff and narrowly avoiding crashing into debris when the laserbeam happened and she was flashed with five hundred synaesthetic visions in the span of half a second. julianna and evie were on comms, on earth and in the helm respectively. yilwran was in his jumpship. alsafina got resonance’d and fell from orbit. the seeker was sleeping under a pile of books somewhere, probably.)

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Attempting to write when running on less than 4 hours of sleep is such a strange experience, I can feel the roadblocks on my neural pathways and my cognitive functions are just. nonexistent. The words and concepts are there but I can't seem to access them. What am I even writing about? There's a hole in the paragraph here and I must make some shit up to fill it, but I can't tell what would fit, so the story wriggles out of my hands and rolls off in a different direction. This fic is gonna turn out horrible!!!11 Who Are My Characters, Even. Discount Mara Sov talking with this Target version of Yilwran about fuck all, completely out of character. I need to ask someone to beta this chapter because at this point I'm not sure if any new sentence relates to the previous one.

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14, 23, 25 for the fic asks!!

14. a fic you didn’t expect to write

The Aftermath! I just sat down in a coffee shop on a very stressful day and wrote it in the span of an afternoon. I guess I needed to let out some steam after the season's Cathartic (sic) But Disturbing finale, and sinking into my lil fantasies in my lil brain is my prime coping mechanism, so I suppose gushing out over 2k words without really stopping until it was done was a stress response.

23. fics you wanted to write but didn’t

Well, most of these I count into the "current wips" category, plus I hardly ever truly abandon an idea and instead leave it hanging as a work in progress for eternity... But here are some that budded over the year but never really got past a few lines' worth of writing:

Savathun tracking down and rallying Ir Anuk to her cause upon being resurrected (I've got like five lines of dialogue written for that)

long one-shot about Ór and the Beyond Light campaign

last thoughts of Quria, Blade Transform (this one has been SITTING THERE since we killed Quria almost 2 years ago...)

the Scorned Barons and Uldren's first supper after escaping the Prison

Immaru dealing with the mess that is the Lucent Brood rn, and searching for Sav (this one I'm thinking very intensely about but still can't seem to really take off with the writing process, iykwim)

Season of the Lost ficlet about Yilwran and Mara (I've got like... two paragraphs so far)

Sav posing as Enina and spying on Eris during Season of Arrivals

Crow & Amanda reconciliation (but way waaaayyy back in Season of the Risen)

Hawthorne and Ikora talking politics after the Vex incursion in Splicer (I've got the opening written)

Kabr ficlet to last year's Destcember prompt "Shattered Glass"

faction leaders celebrating the Dawning in the FWC hq back in the good old times

Aunor reacting to Taeko's death post-Savathun's Song strike (another veeery old idea)

Aunor getting emotionally caught up in hunting all the Corrupted Guardians and ending up drinking on a rooftop with Drifter and Shin

Ór meeting Misraaks in person for the first time

25. a fic you read this year you would recommend everyone read

Oh there are So Many, but one I squeaked my whole way through was customary by @moonbottles (motorboats). It's just !!!!!!!!!! I must as well mention @intrepiddreamx's Diplomatic Ties again, because Meren is literally the best protagonist I have ever seen in a fic and I want to kiss her. The fic is super funny and well written, and you'll love her.

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Non-armour casual wear headcanons!

Ór — once I read somewhere that Hunters should be Hoodie People because, well, hoods (as well as the tummy pocket to hide knives in), and I haven’t known peace since. She is a hoodie person, bonus points if it’s an oversized, comfy hoodie she has fonds memories attached to, thick enough that she can sleep in it in her hideout in the rafters without a blanket. She likes to be tucked in from all sides generally, so turtlenecks are her casual go-to basically through entire winter, something she woefully had to give up for the period of her neck wound healing. Doesn’t really wear dresses or skirts (hard to climb vertical surfaces in them) but for more *fancy* excursions she has a few nice jackets. If she’s wearing her hoodie, the hood is on 90% of the time, and Runi resides in the tummy pocket (next to a set of knives). The only shoes she ever wears are thigh-high laced up boots, but she does walk around the Tower barefoot or in socks a lot.

Julianna — dresses! boho shirts with puffy sleeves! floor-length woollen skirts! cardigans! basically anything as far removed from Combat Gear as possible. she’s made a home on the bridge between indie and dark academia aesthetically speaking.

Yilwran — smart, but not too fancy as to be impractical. Probably some nice jeans and a plaid shirt, hair washed and neatly brushed. Strong cologne. Julianna is The little sister, so she constantly tries to convince him to let her play around with his hair, and on the rare instances that he does assent he ends up with some crazy coiffure including at least four braids.

Evie — she resides in the Tower for most of her time now, but she still sticks with something armour-resembling. It’s usually some light Hunter chestpiece and leather leggins, combat boots and a cloak because of Hunterz Master Class pride, particularly for Consensus meetings. On the rare days off she hops into tracksuit pants and some comfortable t-shirt or whatever, probably with some meme about being the Young Wolf printed on it.

The Seeker — I’m sorry but he just wears his ragged, ugly robes that smell like dirt 365 days round.

Shinon — high heels, always, sometimes knee-length suede boots. A coat (suede, long). Smart casual suit that makes her look like a Sexy Businesswoman. White collared shirts. Broches and bracelets. Unconfirmed but highly probable she goes out for patrol in the same outfit.

Cyle — these loose white plain t-shirts and not so terribly worn tracksuit pants, sneakers. She just likes to dress comfortably and be ready for anything the weather might throw at her. Always with a tourist backpack pack with essential items, including a torch burner.

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Are Mara and Yilwran technically related if their siblings-from-before-Ghost are dating??

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I’ve been thinking about how my characters deal with the whole Stasis thing (what with the booklet lore dropping and whatnot) and decided to break it down to make this idea somewhat coherent for myself.

Ór: Thanks to her unfortunate connections to Variks she was the one to ‘‘‘‘defeat Eramis’’’’ (a fic about it is brewing.....) so she got it as a necessity. Very conflicted. Afraid she will do something terrible, afraid this shatters everything she thought she was. Doesn’t really pay attention to what the Vanguard thinks about it (though she fears they would be resentful towards her). Will protect Elsie & co. with her life, will kick Aunor in the teeth. Learns to control and somewhat accept it around the time of the Endless Night.

Yilwran: Hard and decisive no; stands by the Vanguard’s decision to ban it. At first would probably throw hands with everyone he saw using it in Crucible (Darkness is not a toy to be abused for your amusement), grew resentful-tired over time. Still vocally against it when someone wants to debate him.

Julianna-2: Finding out about her pre-Exo backstory was horrifying enough and she didn’t need the extra terror of taming Stasis. Doesn’t take a side just yet (though is inclined towards Yilwran’s stance), actively avoids any scholarly drama about it in her researching circles.

Evie: Realises forbidding it will only make Guardians want it more. Not sure whether it’s ‘corruption’ or ‘evil’, not quite buying Dark Vanguard’s philosophy either. Has some degree of trust in Elsie, though. Not actively pondering it (she has way, way too many other problems rn), but would probably acquiesce if she made sure it was truly the most sensible way.

The Seeker: A bad idea. Compels him, though. (Probably tried it in secret.)

Shinon-11: Will not, ever, use it herself after a terrifying experience in SoArrivals when the Darkness possessed her in a similar way it possesses Ghosts and uses them to speak. 100% chill with other people using it, just keep it away from her.

Cyle: Nope, because the Vanguard says so. Won’t be hunting down folks who choose to use it but disproves of it as a rule. Doesn’t make a fuss about Ór using it (duh, friends disagree on things), though she was upset at the very first moment. Doesn’t mind being Stasis-frozen in the Crucible.

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For the OC ask: 2 (in the guardian sense of the term if you wish), 5, 10, 21 and 28 (can swap "kinderguardian" for "child" here ofc) for any of your guardians

Kudos to tumblr for eating up half notifications but pushing weird posts that are supposedly ‘in my orbit’ up my dash ;/ Thank you for the ask Synnth!! <3

I’ll just throw random characters I see fitting for each question bc at this point I have 5 Guardian ocs and while I’d love to write about each one, this post would get insufferably long.

2. What’s their opinion on ghosts and magic?

Ór believes in the afterlife as ‘becoming one with the Light’ (a bit Star Wars style). She did have one strange experience of encountering what she strongly believes to have been a spirit of a dead person, so you could say she believes in ghosts as willful manifestations of the deceased now being one with Light. As of magic, I don’t think she believes there’s anything more than what we’re shown in-game (though she racks her brains over how Petra can levitate her knife).

Yilwran is certain the Awoken are somewhat magical, especially the Reefborn/those still in the Distributary, and the Earthborn may have rejected their ‘magic’ when coming to Earth / being reborn as Guardians. He has some very very vague memories from his old life, just scents and feelings really; he remembers the name of his mother (who had stayed in the Distributary) and is 99% sure it’s due to Awoken Magic.

5. Do they like any mythologies?

Ór is a surprisingly bookish for a Hunter (lol) and she likes a good story, so when she discovered that people back before the Golden Age had had their myths and stories about what life had been like evenearlier, she was just. a lost cause from there. She loves African and Asian myths, especially Mesopotamian, Hindu and Chinese. Her favourite myths book is still the one she found on Drifter’s bookshelf one eventful nighta story I will, maybe, one day be brave enough to post, both for the contents and the fondness of the memory.

10. What’s their favourite piece of clothing?

To Shinon? High heels. She may have or may have not set the record for the longest run in high heels across a Crucible map; she has metal feet, anyway.

Ór loves turtlenecks! They’re the epitome of cosiness for her. Oh and also these light hoodies with a front pocket to anxiously tuck your hands in. She is a Hunter, she feels odd without a hood.

21. What flowers do you associate with them?

Shinon-11 - tiger lily

Cyle - alpine violet

Ór - glory of the snow (they have self-sown themselves in the middle of my garden many years ago and each spring we have to mow the grass very carefully not to disrupt these gentle beauties)

Yilwran - violet stargazer clematis

Julianna-2 (my new Exo Warlock!) - yellow ranunculus or lily of the valley

28. Is there a place that reminds them of their childhood? Is that good or bad or bittersweet?

As a kinderguardian Ór used to spent most of her time in the tower hiding in the rafters or vents. There is one hideout she used to stay in most of the time and kept some of her clutter there; she doesn’t really come there often now, not to disrupt the memories of her first weeks as a confused and frightened Guardian, but she often thinks fondly of it, like of a childhood room.

Ylwrain was rezzed in one of the Awoken cities of the Reef and absolutely hates that place. It reminds him of the fear and confusion of awakening, as well as everything from his old life he has lost. He is pulled to the Reef like moths to a flame but carefully avoids that particular spot. Deep down, he’s thinking of taking Julianna there some day, in a way to reconnect his past and present and maybe find some peace. (They had been siblings in their old lives, before Julianna got exofied and Yilwran and his mother left on Yang Liweimostly because Julianna got exofied and didn’t remember them.)

OC asks

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Hello, dear! You've been visited by the random character question fairy! :D ~☆

Does your character's name have any meaning? Is there a reason why they were named this? How much significance does your character's name have to them?

Oh, the mythical random character question fairy! I didn’t think I’d live to see them with my own eyes! :0

The only OC here with a deep meaning to their name is Ór, I remember researching dictionaries for weeks to find what I had in mind. It’s the phonetic reading of אוֹר, Hebrew for ‘light’. Even before I settled on this particular name, I’d had this idea of her being very insecure about all the confusion and amnesia-emptiness that came with being a newly risen Guardian; she didn’t remember anything, didn’t know who she was, and looked out for others to tell her what they saw her as. It was like collecting a mental scrapbook of names and descriptions to navigate and see what fits. Ór was her Ghost’s idea, when she asked him to name her after what he thought she was--and she wasn’t much besides the Light back then, on that earliest day.

She is a pain to befriend, because she won’t ever answer when you ask what’s her name. Sometimes she goes by Blue, a nickname for her that emerged in the Crucible (where she met her future fireteam, they know her by this name also), and whatever anyone calls her, she never corrects them. Petra calls her Spark (because she’s tiny and hopeful and y’know, all that Arc energy). She only ever introduced herself as Blue to a little Last City girl she once befriended (long story), and told Drifter her real name because she felt something about his I-have-no-name thing resonate with her. She is less self-conscious about all this the older she gets, but it has been her core characteristic in the beginning, and something she felt very insecure and confused about.

As for other characters, most of them have names I just felt were cool and fitted. The two exceptions are Mórrigan - taken from Irish mythology, just... really corresponds with the character’s personality - and Erènn. The latter simply sounded cool and has no literal meaning, but the story behind it is that the name was the only thing Yilwran remembered after resurrection and it felt vaguely comforting, so he named his Ghost this way. He later found it had been the name of his mother.

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Mourning the fact our guardian can’t have a Ceres Galliot/Hildian in D2 by story-only having Petra give Ór one