#Resolute Blades

[houseildanan]

Argents Lost - Summer Winds (part 3)

The former Ebon he’d met on the trail still hadn’t given him her name, but she’d told him enough to win enough wary trust for him to return to the outpost with her.  The enterprise had been aided by a sudden ache that began somewhere deep inside his knee and a shift in the wind.  He’d lived in Northrend long enough to know what those two things together heralded.

Stormclouds swept down onto K3 as they reached the inn, led by biting wind that stung his face and made his eyes water.  The inn at K3 was decidedly worn, weather-beaten, but in good repair.  The windows looked like they’d been replaced recently and the floors and tables in the common room were decidedly clean, though they still carried a timeworn, hard-used charm, battered and scuffed as they were. Its warmth and shelter—and the smell of venison stew and cider—were a welcome comfort after so narrowly dodging the storm.

The table his newfound companion led him toward was tucked into a shadowed corner and was already occupied by a figure tall enough that he guessed it must be another Kaldorei.  The figure had both hands wrapped around a mug of something steaming, beringed—and there was something else, something he didn’t quite see until the figure lifted the mug to drink, a glint of silver.

His heart slammed into his throat and he stopped in his tracks.  His companion put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently.

“She won’t harm you,” she said softly.  “You have nothing to fear from her.”

“There are—”

“Yes,” she said.  “But something tells me your face will strike her familiar.”

“I’m not—”

“It has nothing to do with your resemblance to Ildanan Sunstar.”

He swallowed bile, but started walking again.  The figure—a woman, and unless he missed his guess, the woman called the Mistwraith—was looking at them now, argent eyes gleaming in the shadows of a drawn hood. He swallowed again as he carefully drew one of the chairs out from the table and sank into it, glancing back over his shoulder to see where his companion was going to sit—and found her gone.

“She’ll be getting you something bracing,” the hooded woman said.  There was a faint rasp to her voice but the familiarity was unmistakable. He nearly swallowed his tongue.

“I—”

“You’ll be needing it, Lord Kyvare.”

He rocked back, eyes widening.  In the shadows of her hood, there was a flash of a smile, almost but not quite feral.

“Yes.  I’m aware of who you are.  I’m also aware of what you were taught.”

“How—”

“I’m not certain the answer to your question matters overmuch, but if you really want an answer, I’ll give you one in exchange for an answer to a question of my own, first.” She leaned back and he could feel the weight of her gaze hanging heavy upon him.  “Why are you, of all people, seeking them when you have a family and responsibilities that should preclude a mission like this—one, I might add, that has been forbidden by the organization that saw you bound to them? Of all the sorts seeking those lost, you were among the last I would have imagined to see here.”

“What of you?” he blurted. “Why are you two looking for them?”

“Because she is my mother,” she said.  “And they are her family and I should think, with all that’s happened, I should owe her that much.  And you?”

“Because I didn’t think anyone else was and I wasn’t about to ask my family to come unless—unless I knew.”

“Whatever goes into that gully doesn’t come out,” she said.  “But they’re not dead.”

“No,” he confirmed.  “No, they’re not.”

“You’re certain?”

“Your cousin is.”

She fell silent.  The former Ebon returned to the table, setting a mug slowly down in front of him as she looked between him and the hooded woman.

“Well,” she said dryly. “I see you’ve gotten started without me. I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t do that anymore.”

The hooded woman reached up to push back her hood, smiling up at the Ebon.  “One time.”

“Near unmitigated disaster one time,” the Ebon said, seating herself.  “And a lesson learned.  What have you told him?”

“Likely no more than whatever you did to get him to come back with you.”

He coughed politely and wrapped his hands around the mug, letting the warmth bleed into his fingers. “My apologies, ladies, but I think we’ve missed a few things.”

“You already know who I am, Lord Kyvare, and I know who you are,” Mistwraith said, studying him.  “Unless it’s not pleasantries you’re getting at.”

“I—well, it was, yes, but also no.  How—how long have you been looking?”

“Long enough to know there are two sites of interest,” the Ebon said.  “You stumbled across one.  The other is a frozen waterfall and a river that don’t seem quite right.”

The mug between his hands shattered.

#Tyrvarden Kindaer Grimstryke #Argent Crusade #Isryael #Mistwraith #Kaede Silverstag #WoW #cross-faction #World of Warcraft #fiction #WrA #Wyrmrest Accord #Resolute Blades #Age of Blood #Wanderers #RoA #Retribution of Arathor

[wynilthyrii]

Whisper in the Void

The sun painted the very tops of the trees and the slate roof tiles pink and orange as she walked down the overgrown path to the wrought iron gates.  The lock was undisturbed.  The old wards thrummed slightly at her approach, warming, the chill that had once lingered now faded with the passage of time and the end of a war.  Still, she was glad that she’d portaged a distance away, leaving herself to walk the track that had narrowed from years of disuse through the trees and up the hill to the manor where she’d been born, had spent the first sixteen years of her life.

It was quiet except for the wind in the trees.  Nothing seemed amiss.  The smell of woodsmoke drifted on the breeze.  Back in the Everlight, in Quel’thalas, it was eternal spring.  Here, in the marches, winter clung with a tenacity that belied the coming turn of seasons.  Beyond the gate stood the house, the gardens, the old stables and more.

The ghosts of her past haunted this place, even if those ghosts were nothing more than memory.

The key ground quietly in the gate’s lock but twisted and clicked easily despite the disconcerting noise.  The gates themselves shrieked softly, briefly as she parted them just enough that her slender form could slip through the gap.

She closed them behind her, but didn’t lock it.  No, that would come when she left, because she fully intended to leave through those gates when she was finished here.

There should be nothing left to fear, nothing left to threaten.  Not here.  Not with the wards repaired, not with the long absence.

It had been years since the last time they’d dared venture here.  Most who knew were dead—or worse.  Those that remained were scattered, hiding—or should be.

No.  They would not be so foolish, not now.

The blood that had once stained the ground in her mother’s garden was all but scoured away, now, but for a few traces still lingering in the gazebo where she’d died.  Still, stepping into it, the memory was there.  Dessera Ilthyrii’s defiance.  Radiaten’s courage.  Her stubborn determination.

One had died.  Two had lived.  A third, believing all were lost.

It still brought a dull ache to her chest thinking about it.

The gardens themselves were a wild, elegant tangle, still maintaining the barest echo of the shape her mother had woven them into.  Leather-shod fingers brushed along a trellis of rose-vines.

They were still alive.  Come late spring, perhaps not until summer, they would start to bud, to blossom into a riot of color and scent.  Butterflies and bees would haunt these wild gardens, left alone as a memorial to those who once had lived here.  Perhaps she’d come to rescue some more of the plants, to move them to the manor gardens in the Everlight, tucked into the woods just beyond the shore.

If she did, she would come alone, as she did today, or perhaps with one of her brothers.

No one else needed to be haunted by the ghosts of House Ilthyrii.

She stood a few moments in the garden, watching the light from the rising sun creep higher against the trees.

Then, taking a few breaths of bracingly cold air, she crossed the courtyard, past the spot where her mother died, and jogged up the few steps to doors of leaded glass that led inside, into the manor itself.

The air was thick with dust, with the smell of old books and weapons oil, pressed flowers and spell components.  It was the smell of her childhood, of home, and it made her chest ache with memory and longing.

When she and Joros were gone, would their children walk the halls of the manor in the Everlight and feel the same ache?  The same distant sting of unshed tears?

What had her father said?  In a perfect world, their deaths would be many centuries distant.

Perhaps so.  She hoped he was right in that.

Her footsteps carried over across the marble floors of the halls and to the well-worn wood of her mother’s study.  The morning light streamed in through high windows, rainbows painted against the highest of the bookshelves here.  The stained glass had helped protect her mother’s secrets in addition to lending a bit more magic to the place.

At least, it had been magic to the child her daughter had once been.

Wyn sank down on the stool that had always been hers, the spot where she’d so often perched with a book or her sketchpad and colors all those years ago, seated there while her mother worked.

Odd, how things paralleled through time and space.

“Hello, mathair,” Wyn whispered into the silence and stillness of her childhood home.  “I’m sorry I’ve been so long away.  I just…”

The excuses died to nothing on her tongue—and what did they matter, anyway?  Dessera Ilthyrii was long beyond hearing whatever she had to say.

And yet, here she was anyway.

“So much has changed,” she said.  “The war’s long over and yet the embers still stir, still flare.  I wonder, did you see what was to come when you were there all those years ago, when Anavela ascended as the Dragonhawk?  Could you sense it even then?  Was there a hint, a whisper?”

She had always wondered that.  Wondered when her mother had begun to realize, had known.  It was long before the day she’d died, but how long?  Years?  Decades?

Centuries?

Did it truly matter anymore?

“I’ve come to love that place.  Those lands.  I’m sure you understand why.  The Wanderers are my family as much as anyone else could ever be.  And my husband is both Wanderer and Warden.

“I know you saw them, then.  They were all Dawnroses, selected for Dawnglory scions from birth.  I wonder what you thought of it all.  Perhaps there’s something in a journal that I haven’t scoured yet, haven’t found.  I know you must have had opinions on it all, wondered.  It wouldn’t be like you not to.  Gan survived the lot of them, though I doubt any of us would have expected it.  Did you ever speak to him, I wonder?  What was he like all those years ago?  I never asked if he’d ever met you.  I don’t know why.

“Were you here, you’d tell me to come to the point, since you’d know that none of that is what’s truly eating at the heart of me.  You could always tell with all of us.

“I’m troubled, Mathair.  But of course, you’d know that.  I just don’t know what to do.  It’s not like it was in the old days in the Everlight anymore, when Wardens were always Dawnroses and their charges were always of House Dawnglory.  We lost so many in the war, the Dawnroses began to train volunteers from beyond their blood, beyond their House.  Joros was one of the first volunteers, even before we were married.  I know that he’s always intended to take me as his charge.  But I don’t know if I can do it—I don’t know if I should.  It’s never been done like that.  There’s never been a pairing between—how did athair put it?  Romantic partners.  And perhaps the way things have always been done explain why.  But maybe not.  I just don’t know—none of us know.

“There’s no answer I can find.  Athair said don’t do it unless you’re absolutely certain.  Randhir’s been telling me for years that it—that it would destroy what Joros and I are without the Bond, that neither of us would ever know if his love was the bond or him.  I know we both hope that we would know the difference but I can’t help—it scares me.  It scares me so much that he might be right.  But if I say no, then what will it do to us?  Will he regret it, becoming a Warden?  He says he won’t, he said he was sure when he took that step, but I—”

She stopped, tilting her face up toward the shafts of colored light that filtered through from the stained glass above the high shelves.

“He’ll have to take a charge someday,” she finally said.  “Even if I never take a Warden, he’ll have to take one someday.  I don’t know how I’ll handle it.  My gaze always goes to him unconsciously after a fight.  I look for him unless I actually think about looking elsewhere first.  When I gave him my vows, it wasn’t until death.  It was for as long as love lasts.  I look for him because I can’t imagine my world without him anymore.

“I know part of the reason he wants to be my Warden is because he wants to always know, to sense that I’m all right, that he hasn’t—that something hasn’t happened.  I understand it.  Part of me wants that, too, to always know.  But I don’t need obedience or subservience or magic-fueled devotion.  I don’t want it.

“I just want him.  But how do I tell him?  How do I find the words to tell him that and not shatter us both?  How do I watch as he takes someone else for his charge and know that it wasn’t in his plan?  That now his duty is to someone else, not just us—not Lea, nor Jude, nor me.  And if he tells me that if he must take a charge that he wants me to take a Warden, can I stomach it?  It would feel like a betrayal.

“I’m just so afraid, Mathair.  I don’t know what to do.  If we take the bond and something happens to me, then he won’t survive it.  But I won’t survive losing him, either.  I know that I won’t but I’m sure anyone who hears me say it would think that I’m just being dramatic.  But I know.  It would hollow me out inside until there was nothing left but a shell.

“Would it be fair to take the risk, not knowing what it would do?  I’ve been trying for years to figure out how to modify the spell, to strip out pieces and change them and even it all out but it’s—it’s not so simple.  It’s not that it’s beyond me, I’m just not sure it’s possible.  And not knowing the whole story behind why and how the Wardens came to be—only having pieces of that puzzle—that just makes it harder.  There’s something about all of it that’s planted this fear and doubt deep inside of me that I’ve never quite been able to ease or uproot.  There’s something important that we’re missing.

“Something important that I’m missing.  Maybe that’s also part of my hesitation, why he and I have only talked about it briefly in passing.  I love him with my whole soul and I would want us to be equals in this—to be partners, complimentary, not with one subservient to the other.  But for some reason, that’s the way it’s built and I need to know why.  I need to understand.

“I can’t be the only one who wonders, who it bothers.  But it’s been this way in the Everlight for generations and no one questioned it before now.  No one’s asked except for me that I’ve come across.

“Another question without an answer.  There are just so many.  I have to wonder how it’s all bound together.  The long war.  The caverns, the Everlight, the Vault, the Wanders and the Eye and the Shard and the Keeper and all of it.  Every piece of it.  The threads are there I Just can’t figure out how they’re woven together.  It seems like they should be but maybe they’re just the same color, or a similar pattern, they’re not part of the same tapestry.”

She hunched forward, then, burying her face in her gloved hands.  She was alone here.  There would be no answers, at least not from her mother’s lips.

Her mother was long gone, just a memory.  While her presence seemed to linger here, in this place where she’d spent so many hours, it was just her daughter’s imagination that painted that into being.

Still, sitting there in the silence of a winter morning, the legends woven into her mother’s stained glass painting the shelves and the tomes behind her, Wyn let her control slip.

There, in her mother’s study, she cried, sitting on the stool where she’d spent so many hours of her childhood, the green velvet stained with traces of jam and honey and tea and juice left behind by the child she had been.

The answers she sought could not come from here, not her childhood home, nor the ghost of her mother, nor the memories of this place.

The answers lay in the lands where her mother had once witnessed the ascent of a Dragonhawk so many, many years ago.

The lands that were now her last surviving daughter’s home.

The sun had fully crested the horizon by the time she dried her tears and took a deep, slow breath.  Her eyes ached, but she stood, surveying the room for a few moments, letting her heart calm and her breathing even out again, hiccups and hitches fading.  She would need to wash her face before anyone saw her when she returned home.

Home, to the Everlight.  To the family she’d made after she’d buried so much of hers.  Her sisters.  Her brother.  Her father and later her mother.  Tali.  Lexsi.  So many others.

But she had Joros, now.  She had Jude and Lea.  She had the family she’d forged in fire and blood and steel and war.

And she loved them fiercely.

That, in the end, was all that mattered.

#Wyn Ilthyrii #fiction #World of Warcraft #Wyrmrest Accord #Everlight #WoW #Age of Blood #Resolute Blades #Horde #RP #House Ilthyrii #WrA #After the Neverdark War #Everlight Compact #Everlight Accord

[skitty-kirby]

(Laughs in another all-nighter doodle, that's becoming commonplace for this blog huh)

I felt severely burnt out working on my FC revamps and original stuff so here's these two dorks again to save the day. Plus the last drawing I did of these two I didn't use a reference for and it bugged me how wonky they looked hhhh

#kirby #kirby right back at ya #kirby of the stars #hoshi no kaabii #blade knight #sword knight #Kirby anime #why'd I draw this in such low resolution #that's what tumblr's for eh #I promise my work on DA is cleaner hhh

[midna-chavelink]

It’s done, day 5 of purple week. And that concludes Hue Years Resolution. Since I’ve been going back and playing Fire Emblem Heroes a lot again. I forgot how much I adore my girl Fae. It also worked for a redraw I did 2 years ago for Hue years.

Anyways it’s been fun, but I am going to take a much needed break

#drawing #art #art of my imagination #yes #my art #digital art #feh #fae #fire emblem #fire emblem binding blade #fire emblem blazing sword #fire emblem heroes #hue years resolution #hue years 2024 #purple week

[pokesmashorpokepass]

#pokemon #pokémon #smash or pass #Keldeo #resolute form keldeo #tumblr polls #polls #the new blade of the swords of justice #pass

[kaeyaphile]

i love how luocha and jing yuan have customized/patterned phone cases, as most of the playable characters in this game do, meanwhile blade and dan heng are giving us absolutely ✨nothing✨ at least bladie’s is sort of ombré but dan heng’s is just... black 💀

#kayleigh.txt #🎮 kayleigh plays honkai: star rail #honkai: star rail #honkai star rail #hsr #luocha #jing yuan #blade #dan heng #ignore the crappy screenshot quality pls #i took these on my phone while my screen resolution was only 1600×720 (to save battery) and not 3200×1440 🤡

[mattynmarns]

scheduled an appointment with my advisor AND signed up for an extra class to get support on my CS classes basically i WILL survive this next quarter even if it kills me!!!!!!!

#new years resolutions: 1. learn to juggle 2. take back control of my academics YIPPEE #and 3. work out more or whatever ig #ALSO 4. STOP SAYING IT COULD BE WORSE!!! literally have had the worst luck lately and it only continues bc i almost got in a car accident #because my car (that i love so much and just got back today) couldn't get enough traction and wouldnt go when I turned onto a busy road #and 5. read more books or whatever #ok. hockey is back tomorrow i will be SO normal once again #also i got a new nail polish so i am a lilac guy just like auston this is so epic #ALSO!!! i got roller blades AND ice skates for christmas!!! literally so excited i keep putting the roller blades on around the house #and i want to wear them outside SO BAD but its raining :( and dark :((( #hope yall have had a nice week <3 #heckin rants

[citrusce]

i am so ill

#cat carrier #honkai star rail #but art <3 #jing NYUAN and NYANGXING #aint no fucking man safe from my beams #i think mihoyo actively hates fanartists because what is that hair #put me in there i will shave everyone bald #i wish jing yuan a very divorce resolution he is going through it #think about nyanqing. im not drawing that thoguh #I DIDNT REALIZE BLADE HAS ANIME GIRL VENTS UNTIL DRAWING THIS #i wish i could practice my labs with the same urgency i have with drawing catboys #i love my little girlfriends #my pretty boy #i believe in blade wrongs actually FUCK dan heng #thank you kam for the gif #jing yuan #hsr blade #viddies

[elminsterbignaturals]

what the hell was that

#(SPOILERS IN TAGS #bg3 has really great character writing so im not sure how they fucked up wyll’s ending so bad #what did any of that have to do with his character??? his backstory?? his arc???? #im rly not sure what the point of making the emperor balduran was. #i’ve heard wyll got rewritten after early access which might make sense of the way it feels #kinda haphazard and gutted?? like there was more there but they took it out. #extremely frustrating. standby for a post where i come up with an actually satisfying character arc resolution #bg3 #baldur’s gate 3 #another tuesday for the blade

[houseildanan]

Argents Lost - Summer Winds (part 2)

The trees thickened as he followed the game trail up into the foothills, a trail that doubled back on itself twice to take a more easy grade.  That was enough to make him begin to wonder if perhaps it wasn’t a game trail at all but an old patrol route or a hunting trail.  The ground was hard, though there was little snow on the path as the trees grew thicker, blotting out the light as much as the weather as he climbed higher into the foothills.

His leg ached, though ignoring it was easier than usual.  Perhaps it was his level of focus, or knowing that perhaps he was on the right path.

Perhaps it was the knowledge that no one back home knew he’d come here, that the Crusade didn’t know he was here, that if something were to happen to him, it could be days or longer before someone managed to sort it out if Arius didn’t find the note amongst the bottles on his workbench.

But he trusted that Arius would find it soon enough if it came to that.

Wind worried the treetops above him, setting needles and branches rustling.  He exhaled slowly, squinting upward for a moment, then into the gloom of the path that continued onward, upward, for at least a hundred yards before it curved again.  Somehow, the mile described by the trapper seemed longer than any mile he’d walked before.

But they, too, would have come on foot.  The trees were too thick and they would not have risked missing anything by attempting to teleport or fly.  Perhaps they would have deployed some aerial patrols later—or had scouted from the air before starting their trek—but looking at the branches above him, even with the change of seasons, he couldn’t imagine that they would have been able to see much from above the treetops.

No.  No, they would have walked this same trail.   He was sure of it.

There was a small clearing beyond the bend in the trail, one where he could see the sky.  A few rocks jutted up from the snow and he sat down on one of them, stretching his bad leg for a few seconds and taking a water bottle out of his satchel.  He watched a few fair weather clouds drift through the blue sky as he drank, taking slow, deep breaths of the cold, clean mountain air.

It was so, so quiet.

“About two hundred more meters down that way, there’s a switchback.  Beyond it is a gully and anything that goes in doesn’t come back out.  I can’t let you go any farther.”

It was a woman’s voice, her Thalassian carrying a slight accent and the weight of age.  He twisted toward it, saw her emerging from the trees behind him, far enough from the mouth of the trail that he knew she hadn’t followed him along it.

“Why’s that?” he asked softly, studying her for a few seconds.  A kaldorei dressed in armor reminiscent of the Watchers and Wardens of old, complete with the glaives strapped against her back.  Her hair hung long and loose but for a pair of thin braids that kept it back from her face and there was a pallor to her flesh that he recognized. A Death Knight—or a former one.

“I won’t have the death of one of Sunstar’s brood on my conscience,” she answered, resting her wrist on the hilt of the blade at her hip.  “No matter how many generations removed.”

He stood slowly, capping his water and putting the bottle away.  “You knew him.”

“Not as well as some,” she said.  “But yes. I knew him.”

“I came looking for the Argents—”

“—that vanished along this trail.  We thought perhaps you had.  Come. We’ll go back to K3 and tell you everything we know.”

“We?” he echoed.

She smiled.  “Yes.  We.”

#Tyrvarden Kindaer Grimstryke #Resolute Blades #RoA #Isryael #Age of Blood #wanderers #Argent Crusade #Northrend #WrA #WoW #Wyrmrest Accord #World of Warcraft #cross-faction

[wynilthyrii]

A Strand of Pearls

“Joros, will you meet me at home?  I have a wound that needs cleaning.”

I have a soul that needs mending.  I need your touch and your warmth and to hear the sound of your heartbeat against my hand, I need—

“Yes, sweetheart.  On my way.”

The relief made my knees weak and I slumped against the cold stone of the keep.  Vyas had seen me in the hall when I’d made my escape.  I just hoped he hadn’t noticed the tears on my face.

No one needed to see those right now.  They were birthed of an ache and a fear that I couldn’t dare voice because it might make them real, might put them out into the universe.

“Thank you.”

There were a thousand things I should be doing instead of retreating.  I was more than half certain there were a thousand things that he should be doing, too, instead of coming home to tend to me.  The Everlight was a powder keg fit to explode, and what was I doing?

Running home to lick my wounds and dragging a Warden that wasn’t mine—that wasn’t anyone’s, not yet, but would be soon enough—with me.  Two fewer blades on watch in a realm balancing on a razor’s edge, enemies within and without baying for blood.

I could have just as easily asked one of the others to clean it—Vyas, Amaris, Tess, even athair, if only to give him something to focus on other than what had driven him to drinking so early—but I hadn’t.  No.  No, after what we’d done and seen at Deatholme, after the beach yesterday, after Lum’s anger and hurt in the kitchen, the words that crystallized into something else, something different and driven a spike into my heart, I couldn’t.

What I was doing was a luxury I shouldn’t allow myself.  It wasn’t something that was sustainable.

But right then, at that second?  All the strength that it would have taken to stop myself had ebbed away.  Maybe it had been the effort to hold the shield back in Deathholme, or the sting of an authirus-laced wound, one that very well could have been deeper than I realized, one that would add another scar to the collection on my back.

The portal home was one I was able to manage almost without thinking.  It spat me out in the mudroom off the gardens, and I sank down onto one of the benches that ran the length of the room.  With shaking hands, I took off my boots, stacking them in one of the cubbies beneath the bench.

One breath.  Another.  Steady.

Adrenaline was wearing off.  It was only a matter of time before I got the shakes.

It felt wrong.  It had been so long.

Steady.

I heard him calling my name from the foyer.  Swallowing hard, blinking back tears I didn’t remember welling up, I lurched to my feet.  Out of the mudroom, through the kitchen, the sitting room.

His face was the only thing I saw as I stepped into the foyer, and it was enough.  Concern contorted his expression and my breath caught, rasping.

He didn’t say anything when I threw myself into his arms, not giving a damn that I’d just thrown myself against plate and that the clasp of his cloak, his Warden insignia, was digging into my cheek.  I didn’t care because his arms closed around me and his fingers laced through my hair and that was all it took to calm my racing heart, to ease the panicked fear that had welled up inside.

It’s okay.  It’s okay.  You’re okay.  He’s here.  Everyone’s safe.  It’s okay.

The litany kept going through my head as he guided me back to our bedroom and we helped each other out of armor—though he tried to stop me from helping him, protesting that I was still bleeding, what are you doing, I can handle it myself—

But I needed to do it.  I needed it, and he relented.

Cleaning the wound stung, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, wasn’t as bad as he’d clearly feared when he laid eyes on it.  I probably could have saved the effort, had someone back at the Keep stitch it instead of using the Light to speed the healing after it was cleaned.

I hadn’t even dared to figure out how bad it was until after he’d cleaned it.  Not knowing what authirus did.  That was a horror neither of us needed, one that would throw us both back into another time.  What I’d seen was bad enough.  He didn’t need it, too.

Of course, I would tell him.  He wouldn’t ask, but I’d tell him, but not yet.  Not yet.

His fingers were soft and warm against my back, the touch gentle as he smoothed a rag over the wound after it was cleaned, after I’d started it knitting back together.  His breath stirred the hairs on the back of my neck as he pressed a kiss to my spine.

I shivered a little and his arms closed around me, his chest against my back and his breath warm against my cheek and ear.  I closed my eyes, letting go of the tension by inches and fractions.  My pulse slowed and I turned my face just enough to look at him, managing to smile.  He pressed a kiss to my forehead and murmured the words that even after almost five years made my heart stutter in my chest.

It was half an hour later when he managed to get me into the shower.  I don’t remember if it was trying to convince me or if it was just getting me to move from where we knelt on the bed that was the problem, but it took longer than it should have for us to end up under a steaming stream of water.

I don’t remember if I cried.  I think I must have.  The water drew the words from me—Corey, athair, Deathholme, Dazen, the kitchen after.  I recall the trace of pain that washed through his expression, the determined set to his jaw, the tenderness of his touch and his voice when he told me that somehow, it would be all right, that I didn’t need to worry.

It would be okay.

I let the fear out, the one I knew that he already knew full well.  We both carried it for each other, and the promise between us was unspoken.

Forever.  Because we’d asked.  Because we’d vowed it under a summer sky.  Forever.

Steam and water were cleansing for the soul as much as the body.  Exhaustion washed over and through me like waves against the shore, where craggy rocks weathered away and the sand was long gone.

I’d forgotten what a bitch adrenaline and fear could be, coupled with magic and pain.  How much of that was because of the authirus that had been the wound, I wasn’t sure.

He carried me to bed and stretched out beside me, propped against our pillows.  I curled against his side as he pulled the covers up over me and I pressed my cheek against his shoulder.  The book we’d been reading filled his hands, and the sound of his voice filled my ears as I closed my eyes, fingers tracing the old scars on his shoulder and collarbone.  His cheek rested against my damp hair and I exhaled a quiet, shaky sigh.

Centuries, athair had said that night in the war room after the others had made their strategic escapes once they’d realized what I was talking about.  Light and fate willing, we’d have centuries.

I clung to that, especially now.  Especially the way things seemed to be turning out.  It would be hard work, but we’d done that before.  Fought hard.  Won.  The fight to keep him was one I was willing to wage, so long as we came out of it together in the end.

Forever.

He drew the blanket a little closer and kissed me once, then again.  I kissed him back and settled, closing my eyes again as he wrapped his arm around me, its weight comforting, protecting.  He probably wouldn’t sleep tonight, but I would.  The cadence of his voice was as familiar to me now as breathing and the steady beat of his heart matched my own.

The last of the tension drained away as sleep closed in.  It was too early, of course, but it was coming just the same, and I had no choice but to welcome it.  I could only hope, as I drifted off into the gray, that the dreams that came would be good ones—or none at all.

The last thing I felt before sleep claimed me was the touch of his fingers lifting hair away from my face before he pulled me a little closer, held me a little tighter, before he started the next chapter.

#Wyn Ilthyrii #RP #World of Warcraft #Age of Blood #Resolute Blades #Wanderers #WoW #Wyrmrest Accord #WrA

[lafcadiosadventures]

Mariage à la Mode cycle, scene: The murder of the count, 1744, William Hogarth

#william hogarth #look at the details #i inow the resolution isn’t the best but. the legs from the fresco behind the framed painting #a master storyteller/humorist #the use of red on the blade #and shirt #the swords as lines of action #the reduced palette #the light etc etc #*mwa!* chef’s kiss

[thelocalsalt]

#blade runner #blade runner 2049 #click for better resolution #digital art #fanart #harrison ford #ryan gosling #illustration #poster #movie poster

[soaricarus]

OMG ANCIENT OCS!! TELL ME EVERYTHING NEOW!!!!!

i dont even remember what ive said about eclipse, i know i've said a bunch about her - should be a few links to posts where i've talked about her. a basic tl;dr-

purposed organism turned ancient in a very unethical bio-engineering experiment, lead by limit upon a silent vigil and a few other higher circle members. nobody really knows of eclipse's origins other than those higher circle members- she was introduced to the rest as "some weird child we found on the ground left alone". she's very not okay and i love her actually. she's really fucking creature because self-modding. look at her. my favorite little bastard. they use any pronouns hehe

uh five embers is a bastard please hate him he neglected and abused the iterator he was adminstrator to and does everything to keep the control, he even modded himself to have a king vulture harpoon he can shoot at will. i hate him actually

limit upon a silent vigil is uh. yeah he was somewhat the had of the experiment eclipse was involved in. violent negative reinforcement to get her to listen. he tried to force ascend her but got uno reversed because eclipse reacted quicker than he could and he got echoed. L

pearls is a pretty young kid who got echoed but stayed- relatively the same other than an echo aura and some echo scales here 'n there. they kinda vibe post-mass ascension and doesnt have any recollection of ascension, but if they go near void fluid they can see they will freak out and get the fuck away from it. they wear a carved vulture mask adorned with parts of shattered pearls. they've got a tail w some pearls on it too

seven leaves was the mechanic's kid. they were left behind after the mass ascension and doesn't know where everyone went, but stayed with the iterator they lived on, which is helpless binary, and ended up becoming close friends with them. helpless bianry's systems kept degrading and at some point ended up beyond fixing, so seven leaves, with the knowledge of bio-engineering and the like they've been taught by binary, offered to make them an organic vessel using their own genome (with lots of modifications of course, to have binary be comfortable) so binary wouldn't have to feel the pain of their own inevitable collapse. seven leaves is also very fond of the wildlife and spends forever stargazing with binary

star-streaks is um. ancient turned iterator because he didn't want to ascend like everybody else, so he offered that instead of programming an iterator that was being built, he could be transferred into it instead so he wouldn't die or have to ascend but instead help solve the problem. he also had the.... unpleasant experience of having to transfer his own brother into an iterator because the higher circles demanded it. his brother doesn't know that they were once an ancient, rather only knows they were an iterator. those memories were long erased or encrypted deep in their memory conflux. before star-streaks became an iterator too, he was one of the 'creators' of the iterator his brother is now, and the head administrator. he kinda vibes as an iterator now though

shrike is after dark's creator. they were both really close and spent a lot of time with eachother. after dark didn't quite feel like their puppet fit them and requested it modified quite a few times, which was granted by shrike. whenever shrike had a problem they usually went to after dark for comfort, and vice versa. shrike didn't want to ascend, but was forced - though narrowly avoided it and died of "natural" causes and got reincarnated into a scavenger that made its way to after dark's chamber and ended up finding their old id drone and reactivating it on themself. and also their mask at some point later

stars is uh. ancient turned slugcat. did not consent to it. their echo is basically tied to the slugcat and when they die their cycle resets to when they were transferred. theyre some fucked up mortal echo and they can spit void fluid and they hate it. theyre fucked up

three clouds was eclipse's creator. they were in the middle circles and just kinda existed on their own, very introverted. made a lil friend and then got fuckign murdered with void fluid

warped aerie is. hooo boy. they were involved in a very..... morally questionable iterator project. that's all i can say on them unless you wanna prompt me for more on them

#words on the wind #[asks] #[oc rambles] #> breaking eclipse within perceived variation #> five embers two blades #> limit upon a silent vigil #> pearls collapsing within stained ground #> seven leaves in an oasis #> seventeen star-streaks across the sky #> solitary shrike on a cracked branch #> stars lost within stars #> three clouds lost skies #> warped aerie bitter resolution

[taito-division]

Blade Maiden New Year's Resolutions

To continue teaching and molding the minds and bodies of my students

To take care of my father and hope that he recovers from his illness soon

To continue to search for whatever happened to my mother

To continue to preserve my family's legacy and our family dojo

To continue holding onto my blade, regardless of what Chuohku says or thinks

To work on not being so easily embarrassed

To control myself whenever I became inebriated

To continue improving my music skills

To work harder on my painting

To continue being a good girlfriend to my boyfriend, Rio

To improve my swordsmanship so I can prove to be a challenge to Kenzaki-san someday

To continue making the Tokyo Museum the best in Japan

To study more on my family's history

To continue living an honorable lifestyle

To continue being the MMA Champion of the World

To work on better controlling my emotions and temper

To be a good mentor to my student, Kanra

To be able to look at myself in a mirror for longer than 10 seconds

To continue being a good older sister to my brother

To follow Azusa's advice and meditate more

To continue being a good spouse to my wife, Kirumi

#hypmic #hypnosis mic #hypmic oc #hypnosis microphone #hypnosis mic oc #taito division #blade maiden #azusa furukawa #fleuret oshiro #eldrid iwasaki #new years resolution #new year 2023

[phntasmgoria]

3/???

#[ if i can stop one heart from breaking // robin ] #[ lullaby of the north wind // firefly ] #[ the dragon returns home // dan heng ] #[ resolution shines as pearls of sweat // luka strongarm ] #[ eternal slave to destiny // blade ] #[ patience is all you need // kafka ] #[ incessant rain // silver wolf ] #[ in the name of the world // welt yang ] #[ echoes of the coffin // luocha ] #[ indelible promise // misha ] #[ destiny's threads forewoven // hanabi ] #[ the pinnacle of hope and innocence // madoka kaname ] #[ pride goeth before the fall // mami tomoe ] #[ only to find i've come alive // kyoko sakura ] #[ my heart beats like a broken melody // sayaka miki ] #[ our hearts will be our guiding key // sora ] #[ don't think twice // kairi ] #[ lost in the shadows' lonely embrace // aqua ] #[ the chained heir // oz vessalius ] #[ villain of my own story // jack vessalius ] #[ in everlasting bloom // lacie baskerville ] #[ a father's love outweighs all evil // levi baskerville ] #[ when i fall on tragedy // alice baskerville ] #[ it meant i wound up losing you // intention of the abyss ] #[ je suis à vous // echo baskerville ] #[ je suis en amour // noise baskerville ] #[ then a mad heart will stain everything // xerxes break ] #[ prophet of the glens // leo baskerville ] #[ tamer of the frumious bandersnatch // lily baskerville ] #[ it's terribly hard to be a lady // lottie baskerville ]