keeptober

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Keeptober Day 2: Exile

This is definitely one of my favourite Sophie outfits!

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Day 30, you as an elf

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Keeptober 2023 #30 — You As An Elf

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The elf lives in a secluded tower on a hill, near enough to the seaside that the waves can be easily heard. 

   She potters about the tower with slow steps, murmuring to herself in old tongues that she has managed to coax her ability into speaking despite them being dead. Sometimes Ancients come to her to request a copy of some old thing they wish to have written down. At other times it’s a mathematician at her door, with some formulae for a clever little security illusion. She helps out with the light. 

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Keeptober 2023 #29 — Plot Twist

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I have to get out. I have to get out. I have to get. Out. 

   That’s all Sophie can think of. 

   The block that Elysian has placed on her is heavy, so heavy, worse than her short time wearing her ability. It’s a weight pressing down on her, a cage enveloping her, a gag smothering her. She feels it on all the others — even Gisela. 

   She has to get them all out. 

   So she strains and strains and strains. Remembers that she does not want to become the same splatter of elf-blood that Vespera has become. Thinks of Amy and Grady and Edaline and Alden and Della. Remembers that all of them need to go home. 

   The block, which has been cracking under the force of her mind, shatters at last. And with it shatters another lock, buried so deep within her that it can only be found by those that set it there. 

   All the others suddenly start to breathe again. 

   And Sophie’s hands come alive with a jet of flame. 

   It pours from her, and she feels so relieved that she doesn’t even wonder why it’s there. Marella seems to join her after a moment, though she looks very confused. The heat rises and rises and rises and rises and—

   The glass shatters. 

   They all take hands, and Sophie runs with them into and out of the Void. 

   It is only when they are back in Havenfield, panting and confused and still a bit scared, that she registers that the flames are still at her fingers. 

   And her hands have no burns on them. 

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Keeptober 2023 #28 — Ability Swap

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He feels and feels and feels, and his heart aches. 

   It’s so hard, holding Oralie back. The anger and the grief and the pain, all of it pent up within her after Kenric’s death, threatens to spill. To inflict upon hundreds the scope of its fierceness. To reveal the full scope of the seemingly kindly Councillor’s power, and fury, and hurt. 

   Bronte’s heart aches for Oralie’s sake. 

   He remembers Kenric’s righteous rage, and his protective shield. He remembers the pain behind his screams that haunt him, as they do Oralie, in his dreams. He remembers Fintan’s mindless, senseless agony. 

   Bronte remembers feeling it all, and his heart aches. 

   But when he wakes up in the morning to face the world, his countenance remains grim and emotionless. 

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Keeptober 2023 #27 — Talentless

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A Sanctuary job is bad, everyone says to Jurek. It’s usually followed by the thoughtless addendum that he’s bound to end up there. 

   When he does end up there, he finds it isn’t that bad at all. 

   Sure, he’s usually shin-deep in all kinds of animal filth, and there’s little civilisation save for the few delinquents doing Sanctuary service that get sent his way. There’s also the other Sanctuary workers, but they’re a quiet bunch — prefer talking to the animals over the other elves, apparently. 

   Jurek picks the habit up from them. 

   “You’re a fine mare, aren’t you?” He doesn’t believe, still, that he’s looking after an alicorn. Yes, a rather distressed alicorn at present, but still. The Timeline-Resetting Alicorn is in the Sanctuary, and he, dumb, Talentless Jurek, is looking after it rather than any stupid, pretentious, Talented elf. 

   “Very fine,” he says, and waves a long stem of swizzlespice under Silveny’s nose. She takes it from his hand. “Magnificent, love. Your wing’s on the mend, too, and your friend is coming to see you. Soon enough. Don’t fret love, you’ll be fine…”

   It’s at times like this that he feels being Talentless and talking more to animals than to elves isn’t very bad at all. 

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Day 29- plot twist!

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Made for day 28- ability swap!

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For day 27

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made for day 26

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Keeptober 2023 #26 — Healing

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I mean, Healing had always been the thing I was going to choose.

   Yes, I was a Flasher. But the time of illusions was long gone, and I wanted to do something! Help people! Be involved in research! Maybe try to restore the elven science and academic community? 

   Kesler and I did a lot of work on that front, and it’s helped, I think. But there’s still more to do — I’d best get to work. 

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[keeptober]

it is done.

AAAAH this took forever (tho it technically only took a month) (tho technically less because i took a few weeks away from it) (for no other reason than to procrastinate)

i drew this originally for @keeptober day 4, but then i didn't do it in time and someone suggested i save it for day 25, which is escape. It's the 26th for me right now, but i hope it still counts!!

proud to say i drew everything in this picture, including the background :D it was painful

some process below the cut

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[keeptober]

Keeptober 2023 #25 — Escape

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Fintan hadn’t heard her voice in, well. Since she’d been locked up. 

   Since I locked her up, he couldn’t help but think, with a twinge of guilt. Had what Vespera done been wrong enough to warrant imprisonment for an entire existence in cold light? In the element that should have been foreign to her, but one which she had long before claimed for her own and stamped her sigil on? 

It did not matter so much now. He was going to make it right again. He was going to hear her again (at last!) and he was going to free her.

If she wants it...

Fintan shut that thought down. Surely she wanted it. Surely!

   “Are you ready?” He said to Gethen. It was fortunate that the other elf had done some study of older elven customs before joining the Neverseen — Fintan had found he’d slipped into a near-incomprehensible, old accent. It must have been the stress. 

   Gethen nodded. 

   “Alright.” Gethen's thought tapped against Fintan’s mind, and he opened his mind up to him — communication via medium, Council-style, old hat, as the human expression went…

   I feel someone, Gethen thought. I’ll speak privately first. Fintan gave assent. 

   Some quiet moments passed. They felt almost like eternity. And then, finally…Gethen again. I’m opening the space up. She wants proof. Talk or whatever, I suppose. 

   Fintan sensed Gethen's mind widen as it opened him up to —

   Cold and frost and stars. Velvet dresses, delicate jewels, silken hair. Hard ambition, dark smiles, laughs like liquor. Vespera.

   It was her. Her! At last! 

   Would she hate him still? Would she shun him? Tell him that he had no right to offer her freedom after taking it away?

Would he lose his will to live if she did? Would he sit here forever, captured and lonely, with her just some walls beyond?

   There was only one way he could be certain.

   Fintan took a breath and poised his mind to speak. Then he thought: Vespera? It’s me. 

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keeptober day 25- escape

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Made for day 24 on day 25- darkness

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[keeptober]

Keeptober 2023 #24 — Darkness

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   You should try to be nicer, Zillah. 

   The shadows scare people — keep them in check. 

   No one will ever like you if you don’t stop being so weird about your abilities. 

   I hate it. So much. 

   Did I ask to manifest as a Shade? No. Am I a Shade nonetheless? Also yes. In that case, do I love my ability? More than anything. 

   Shades might be the next to go. I wasn’t even born when the Pyrokinetic ban was passed — and I don’t think I know any of them. But I can imagine it. The stares, for the ones who are known. 

   I get those stares too, when a patch of darkness follows me. But if a Flasher lights themself up, no one bats an eye. 

   What is this elven obsession with light?! It isn’t the only thing in the world — far from it. 

   After all, when all the stars have burned out, only darkness will remain. 

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[keeptober]

@keeptober day 24: darkness

this is just smth from a fanfic (I put it on wattpad) so it might not make much sense lol

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