Hello friends! KER IS FINALLY MOVING OUT! I'm getting my own apartment and I have family support with moving out and I have a good feeling this is going to stick :) At the moment I need some help covering some expenses during the moving process as money is tight right now and I am waiting on some employment! Soon after getting moved and settled I will also post an Amazon wishlist with some things for the new apartment & link that here as well. Thank you friends for your help! I hope this works out for me and I appreciate any and all help with finances at the moment
Hey friends I have some good news! I am finally able to move out soon (VERY SOON) but money is a little tight rn and I could use some extra funds to help me with some other expenses in the meantime. I don’t really need a lot but any contribution helps!!! Even if you can’t help, pls pass along to someone who might be able to. And, if you can’t help now, when I do get settled in my new apartment I will post an Amazon wishlist with some things I will need for the apartment :) thank you to anyone who is able to help! I’m excited that my life is finally moving forward
thinking about werewolves and the concept of becoming a monster and discovering that something savage and uncontrollable exists within you and the potential that has to be a liberating narrative about growth and change and courage rather than a story about controlling and concealing it
Being a werewolf is about shame. I think it’s also about anger, trauma, not belonging, and the fear that you might be unlovable.
The shame of being a werewolf has to be that you were bitten by the wolf, and you survived. You survived because you became the wolf yourself. You are this terrible, monstrous thing, and the terrible, monstrous thing is you. It’s the part of you that survives the attack, and it’s terrifying that this is you.
I feel like werewolves are people who are very hurt. Not only that, they’ve spent their lives up to this point trying as hard as they can being whatever the opposite of a werewolf is—something tame, something yielding, something that’s not angry and unpredictable and bestial. But the Wolf is also them. Because no matter how much you don’t believe it, you want to make it. You want to survive, and you will fight so that you will live.
Or werewolves are people who are incredibly afraid. It’s about the inevitability of not being lovable; being a monster is unforgivable. It’s about the inability to withstand anything that will happen to you. It’s about your body betraying you. It’s about carrying a terrible and ugly you inside you, locked up where no one can see it, because the thought of anyone else seeing that you is unbearable. It’s about all of those things and more.
I think the Wolf is the part of you that loves you, unconditionally. It’s the part of you that bites when something tries to hurt you. When something tries to put you back in the place you’re supposed to be. Of course it’s scary. It’s scary to find that you are impossibly strong and maybe selfish, and that your self-hatred isn’t enough to save you from the savage, stubborn knot of self-love you carry in your chest. But it’s also the answer to that question: What if I am awful? What if I am terrible, too terrible to look at, too terrible to love? What if you are a monster? Well, what then?
COVID-19 remains the bane of our lives as my generation remains unvaccinated for another few months, which is regrettably not time we have.
We have to move out of here by June 25th, but due to repeated lockdowns and the fact that my Mother and I are relatively high risk (but not enough for priority vaccination! haha! god.) we’ve had to forgo temp work, which would at least have kept us above-water.
COVID has managed to steal my future from me and over 60% of our savings. One horrifically governmentally-mishandled year on I now no longer have the money to return to University to complete my degree, go to therapy, or even learn how to drive. In my attempts to at least have some sort of income I’ve been attempting to find online work copywriting since then, to no or very very little avail, and have taken to studying 3D product design software in the hopes of eventually being able to sell my services.
Thanks to COVID the lack of income has completely crushed our prospects of staying here long term, so we’re having to move somewhere else. With a spate of inexplicable landlord cancellations for viewings and surge testing in our area for various new COVID variants, time is ticking away faster and faster.
I’ve already had to spend £3000 on keeping us here another two months OVER when we were supposed to leave due to lockdowns, and it’s looking like we might be here for another two months before we can find anywhere that we’re not beaten to the punch about.
Unfortunately, I currently have about £2100 in savings left from my inheritance. This is…decidedly less than the £3000 needed, and not even counting the money needed to actually move. Once I’m vaccinated and we’re moved to a cheaper place I can finally start work, but I cannot stress enough that we just currently don’t have the luxury of waiting.
I cannot properly express how much I hate doing this again, because I thought we were finally free of it, but if you or anyone seeing this has anything to spare I would be eternally grateful for your help.
Or, frankly, just send nice words and thoughts because I am so stressed and tired with this, viewings, and monitoring my Mother’s side effects.
I am so tired.
You can give HERE, if you’re so inclined. If not, then just a reblog would help signal boost it. Thank you for reading.
Alethia grapples with grief in fractured fits-and-starts, moments of rage and mourning breaking through a haze of delirium, dissociation, and vacancy. Thia’s grasp on reality has always been a bit tenuous. She drifts in and out of echo visions that are clearly not her own, memories that are hers but so vivid and jarring as to distort her sense of time, and some scenes that are unknown but so familiar as to bring rib-aching pangs of longing. So she careens back and forth between a dreamlike, distant state of curious confusion... and a sharp, vivid return to those moments of abject loss. It’s a warped and jagged experience of reality.
There are times where she seems almost apathetic, behaving as normal while others tiptoe around the obvious wounds. And there are other moments where her feelings crystalize in a rare, concise, visceral way:
Morrigaunt Givre
Prompt 2 answered here!
11.) What’s your character’s family like (found, blood, or both)? Are they still in contact?
Marcelain Reverine was an only child, though his parents once hoped for a large, boisterous family. His father, Gaël Reverine, was a kind hearted carpenter from the Western Highlands; his soft-spoken humor and joyful service to others shaped Lain’s understanding of love and devotion. He died far from home during a commission to repair the fortifications at Camp Dragonhead. When Nidhogg’s aevis assaulted the structure, none of the tradesmen survived. Young Lain was 11 years old at the time.
His mother, Thècle Sambin, was a Brume-rat turned enlisted soldier. During the course of her career, she lost both parents and three siblings to dragon fire. Her service ended when her legs were permanently impared during combat; she retired with a pension to marry Gaël in Hemlock, leaving her old life behind. Their marriage drew the fierce and frigid soldier out of her shell and into a brief time of hope, gentleness, and joy. His death plunged her into a bitter, rancorous despair from which she never attempted to recover. Unable to remain in Hemlock on only her modest pension, she took her son back to the Brume - familiar dangers to her, but a terrifying and forbidding new landscape for him. She was the lifeline that he clung to in desperation even as he watched her fray further and further.
To Thècle’s dismay, Lain met and fell for the young Adrien de Toursainte, fourth son of a vassal house of Dzemael. Marcelain saved the little lordling from a beating after an ill-advised venture into the Brume, and the two struck up a bond over their hunger for knowledge of their separate worlds. Adrien, usually timid and gentle, wanted to see the world outside his family’s estate before he was consigned to obscurity in the priesthood. In exchange for Loup’s insight, protection, and companionship, Adrien smuggled books, paintings, and trinkets out for Loup to study - tiny glimpses of another reality that only deepened Loup’s curiosity.
Their friendship was certain to end badly, possibly in Lain’s death. Fortunately, they were discovered by the kindest of Adrien’s brothers, Clement de Toursainte, a dutiful astrologian-in-training with a wry sense of humor and an indulgent streak for his youngest brother. Since the boys refused to be parted, Clement offered to pull strings and recommend Lain as their eldest brother’s squire - a pathway toward knighthood and a way out of the Brume. Lain was overjoyed. But when he brought the news to his mother, her terror and fury turned his hopes to ashes in his mouth. Thècle berated her son for his naivete, certain that all his dreams would merely be kindling on the altar for the noble houses of Ishgard. She forbade her son from ever seeing Adrien again. When he disobeyed, she gave him an ultimatum: certain this path would end in his death, she declared that if he joined House Toursainte, he could never return home again. It would be simpler to lose her son now than to wait years for the final blow to fall.
But this opportunity promised everything Loup had ever wanted: a chance for service, training, three meals a day, and an expensive education on a noble house’s dime. He left, and the rift formed that day between mother and son would never fully close.
The Toursainte household became his second family, filled with as much deep affection, gentle hope, and bitter partings as the first.
Lord and Lady de Toursainte were well suited to each other - but that should not be confused with a love match. They had equal levels of paranoia, skittishness, and determination to ingratiate themselves to their betters. To speak kindly of them, they were careful players of the Game of Houses, certain to avoid scandal, quick to follow orders, and resolved to position their sons to the house’s best advantage. Less generously, they could be likened to carrion birds: scavenging the corpses left behind by House Dzemael and vomiting rumor and accusation at anyone who approached their spoils. Though he served them with distinction, the Lord and Lady never saw Lain as much more than a piece on the board, to be played and pawned away at will.
Barthegoire de Toursainte, the eldest and heir, begrudgingly took this brume-rat under his wing and nurtured his prodigious talent for combat and tactics. Carrying the weight of the house’s hopes on his broad shoulders, Barthegoire was an unflinching traditionalist: harsh, commanding, dutiful, and as strict with his siblings and squire as he was with himself. Lain saved Bartie’s life on several occasions, earning the nickname of “Toothpick” when he killed his first dragon by diving past Bartie into the creature’s mouth and driving his lance upward. Barthegoire eventually endorsed Marcelain as a candidate for the order of Dragoons, despite the boy’s low birth and lack of connections. Though brusque and exacting, Barthegoire did everything he could to shield Lain and his brothers from their parents, the eyes of the Holy See, and the cruelty of the Houses’ games.
Clement de Toursainte was as conciliatory as his eldest brother was harsh. A frail constitution in his youth thwarted knightly training, but he found another path through academics at the Athenaeum Astrologicum. His talent for heavens-reading earned him the opportunity to study in Sharlayan for a time, despite the fact that both nations were wary of outsiders. He returned with a reputation as an unorthodox thinker, and avoided accusations of heresy through a mix of devout faith, genial theological debate, and a penchant for flattery. The peacekeeper and diplomat of the family, he ran interference between the brothers, their parents, the house staff, temple knights, offended suitors, his acidic-witted ward, and anyone else who came to him with a problem.
Said ward was none other than Alianora Cross, a clever and gifted mage who was Clement’s classmate in Sharlayan. Though she kept much of her personal history close to the vest, she was a clear ally to Marcelain in the halls of the higher houses; her wisdom and biting commentary kept him grounded and wary in the vipers’ nest of house games. She did much to encourage his thirst for knowledge and desire to see more of the world, giving him confidence that he could be more than just another low-born body thrown on the pyre of the Dragonsong War. Though she quarreled endlessly with Barthegoire (too much in common, though they would both hate to hear it said), Lain spent many warm nights with Nora and the brothers, singing, dancing, bantering, bickering. Both carefully avoided mentioning their obvious doomed attachments to their respective Toursaintes.
The third son, D’Angustiel de Toursainte, made a sport out of giving the rest of the family ulcers. Pugnacious and iconoclastic, with a mouth as quick as his trigger finger, Goose sought out fights with the same bright-eyed fervor that he had for machina and schematics for the Haillenart’s Manufactory. His frequent liaisons with a rival house and his flat refusal to play courtly games caused his parents and brothers no end of misery. The Lord and Lady threatened disinheritance so often that Goose considered it a morning greeting. Even Lain was not spared his needling remarks and biting questions - though he handled the rest of House Toursainte with careful courtesy and strict boundaries, that etiquette only infuriated D’Angustiel. The third son dreamed of an Ishgard freed of its maundering fetters, but his disdain for orthodoxy earned him the enmity of his patrons. Without Barthegoire’s protective interference, his goose would have been cooked long ago.
And finally, gentle-hearted and painfully-honest Adrien de Toursainte, the boy for whom Lain’s star fell from the sky. Ill suited to plotting and manipulation, Adrien knew that his consignment to the clergy was equal parts sanctuary and life-sentence. His heart was quick to delight in the frail and fleeting beauty of the world; he never failed to laugh at the worst of jokes, to wonder over the most flippant of observations, and to shatter over a stranger’s tears. From their first meeting in the Brume, Lain was his protector, his confidant, and his dearest friend. Adrien’s open heart dragged Marcelain’s mistrustful soul into sunlight, and Lain’s cautious nature tempered Adri’s eager earnestness. They were both too desperately lonely, too starved for affection, too ready to trade their hearts away, and too young to know any better. Their grand ambition was to live quiet lives in a forgotten corner of Coerthas, with Adrien as parish priest and Marcelain as knight-in-residence, till dragons or old age ended them. They asked Halone for so little, and still she gave them even less.
One by one, every member of house Toursainte met their end by dragons or treachery, until only Adrien was left as the heir of his house. When he was framed for heresy, Marcelain took the fall in his place, tumbling down Witchdrop and crawling out again as Morrigaunt Givre.
16.) What does your character do for fun or during downtime? Do they have hobbies or side projects?
Morr is a talented carpenter and desperately wishes more people asked for those skills, rather than the murder ones. He dedicates much of his downtime to Francel and the reconstruction of the Firmament or assisting with expansion and repairs in Ok’Gundu Nakki and Bahrr Lehs. He also loves hiking and the great outdoors, content to spend hours or days alone with a fishing pole, a botanist’s hatchet, and his chocobo. He’s a gifted chef, a skill forged in desperation to make meals vaguely palatable on deployment in Dravania. He enjoys cooking with close companions and is known for bringing food around to sick, injured, or otherwise under-the-weather friends the moment he hears something’s troubling them.
Though he’s a bit embarrassed about it, Morr also loves libraries and houses of learning. There’s something sacred to him in the smell of old tomes, the gentle murmuring of turning pages and scratching quills, the infinite possibilities of new minds pouring over ancient words. The fondest memories of his youth were spent in stolen moments between bookstacks with the boy he loved. Despite this, he always feels like an interloper in academic settings - expecting to be ejected at any moment.
In typical dragoon fashion, he also loves high and lofty vistas. If anyone’s wondering where he disappeared to, they can usually just check the highest point on the surrounding map.
Manami Bansho
4.) What was your character doing during the Seventh Umbral Calamity? Do they still think/talk about that time, or do they try to avoid it now?
At the time, she was serving in the XIV Legion as Mana jen Bansho, warmachina technician, field medic, and engineering specialist under Tribunus Rhitahtyn sas Arvina. Stationed in Ala Mhigo, she watched the moon descend from the sky and explode over the horizon, followed by the terrifying devastation of Bahamut’s rage. It was impossible to tear her gaze from the distant calamity while extrapolating the casualties on both sides.
5.) What does your character think of the Echo? What was it like when they first experienced it?
Manami first experienced the echo when she went spearfishing with her mother in the Ruby Sea. Glancing up at the shifting, shimmering sunlight streaming through the surface of the sea like the light of falling stars, she heard the voice of Hydaelyn call her for the first time. After that, she felt her vision sharpen, as though the light of the crystal always glinted off the most pressing, most dangerous, or most valuable target within her view.
To be fair, she didn’t know it as the Echo until many, many years later. Her mother called it the Dragon’s Eye, and explained that she and many others of their line had been blessed with this special gift. Both women were frighteningly accurate archers - a useful talent when hunting for supper on the roads of Doma. Since they tended to receive the same visions together while traveling, Manami had the opportunity to sit with her mother and discuss what Setsuko called “insight from the kami.”
Manami knew better than to mention this gift to anyone during her conscription. At best, her Garlean commanders would dismiss it as Doman superstition; at worst, she would end up on mal Asina’s dissection table.
6.) Did your character always want to be an adventurer, or did unexpected circumstances bring them into it? Do they wish for any of their old life back at all?
When she was young, Manami dreamed she would take over her parents’ work as a traveling doctor and apothecary. That dream was deferred by her conscription under the Garlean Occupation.
For the first few years, she still hoped to survive her service and return to that life someday. After her aptitude for alchemy and armorcraft earned her technician training, she distinguished herself in the repair and design of warmachina. Her love for the intricacy and limitless potential of the technology was constantly undermined by the harsh reality - and body count - of her work. In her comparatively safe new line of work, she still dreamed of returning home… when she wasn’t hounded by nightmares of the devastation caused by her streamlined designs.
Her post in Gyr Abania with the XIVth legion allowed her to climb through the ranks despite being both Doman and au ra. She received particular encouragement from her direct superior, Rhitahtyn sas Arvina. He dreamed of a world united under Garlemald - safe, secure, and full of promising souls like Mana jen Bansho, who could flourish to their full potential. Manami saw their effect on Ala Mhigo very differently.
When she received news of her father’s Garlean conscription and death at the hands of the Bozjan resistance, she stopped dreaming much at all. During a naval battle off the coast of Vylbrand, she opened a storage hangar, flushing herself and her latest prototype machina out to sea. When she was miraculously saved by the pirate beauties of Limsa Lominsa, she gradually built up a new, unfettered life with dreams of paying that favor forward. Eventually, adventuring seemed like a good way to repay that kindness.
COVID-19 has obliterated our finances, and now we’re forced to move.
At the beginning of 2020 my Mother and I, finally escaping a highly abusive family situation that we’d been under for nearly a decade and still grieving my then-recent Grandmother’s passing, moved out and into a decent place for the first time in our lives. For once we didn’t have to grit our teeth and clean up mouse shit or caked on dust and oil from every surface before my Grandmother we were caring for came into contact with it. I still recoil when entering a bathroom in preparation for human faeces on the floor, but I’m relearning every day what it’s like to live in a normal household without an exceptionally dirty and violently abusive person in it. I even shared out a portion of my inheritance to my friends and others who had helped me survive in that situation, because I was finally in a position to pay people back, literally and figuratively.
Unfortunately, COVID has managed to steal my future from me, and over 60% of our savings. As both my Mother and I are high-risk due to varying medical issues between us, we took the difficult decision to shield in London in March 2020, which meant we’d be confined to our homes for as long as it took. One horrifically governmentally-mishandled year on I now no longer have the money to return to University to complete my degree, go to therapy, or even learn how to drive. In my attempts to at least have some sort of income I’ve been attempting to find online work copywriting since then, to no or very very little avail, and have taken to studying 3D product design software in the hopes of eventually being able to sell my services.
This changes nothing when it comes to our current savings, or situation. Our lease is up in July, and thanks to COVID the lack of income has completely crushed our prospects of staying here long term, so we’re having to move somewhere else. This costs….a lot, and while my Mother has finally gotten her first vaccine, I’m only on the cards for being fully vaccinated in November. This means I’m still not going to be able to find any temp work until November, which is, of course, after July.
I’m, frankly speaking, at my wits end and am consistently having to hold myself back from remembering the hope and security I felt briefly back in February of 2020 before this hit us hard or else I’ll spiral.
Though we’re in the process of selling our things including a handful of heirlooms and setting up stores for our handmade pieces, we need literally any income to keep us ticking over. Though we’re good money-managers, COVID has wrung us out emotionally, physically, and financially.
I cannot properly express how much I hate doing this again, because I thought we were finally free of it, but if you or anyone seeing this has anything to spare, I would be eternally grateful for the help in affording a moving van and general necessities.
You can give HERE, and hopefully in another month or so I should also be able to open a ko-fi shop where I can sell my 3D clothing for various game engines.
update 23rd april: among my mother being laid out by the covid vaccine, a new variant found in my area, and me still not being vaccinated, i’ve just had to put down £3000 in two extra months of rent on the place we’re currently in due to moving during this pandemic being an absolute shitshow.
every little helps at this point, even just well wishes because i’m truly at the end of my tether.
COVID-19 has obliterated our finances, and now we’re forced to move.
At the beginning of 2020 my Mother and I, finally escaping a highly abusive family situation that we’d been under for nearly a decade and still grieving my then-recent Grandmother’s passing, moved out and into a decent place for the first time in our lives. For once we didn’t have to grit our teeth and clean up mouse shit or caked on dust and oil from every surface before my Grandmother we were caring for came into contact with it. I still recoil when entering a bathroom in preparation for human faeces on the floor, but I’m relearning every day what it’s like to live in a normal household without an exceptionally dirty and violently abusive person in it. I even shared out a portion of my inheritance to my friends and others who had helped me survive in that situation, because I was finally in a position to pay people back, literally and figuratively.
Unfortunately, COVID has managed to steal my future from me, and over 60% of our savings. As both my Mother and I are high-risk due to varying medical issues between us, we took the difficult decision to shield in London in March 2020, which meant we’d be confined to our homes for as long as it took. One horrifically governmentally-mishandled year on I now no longer have the money to return to University to complete my degree, go to therapy, or even learn how to drive. In my attempts to at least have some sort of income I’ve been attempting to find online work copywriting since then, to no or very very little avail, and have taken to studying 3D product design software in the hopes of eventually being able to sell my services.
This changes nothing when it comes to our current savings, or situation. Our lease is up in July, and thanks to COVID the lack of income has completely crushed our prospects of staying here long term, so we’re having to move somewhere else. This costs….a lot, and while my Mother has finally gotten her first vaccine, I’m only on the cards for being fully vaccinated in November. This means I’m still not going to be able to find any temp work until November, which is, of course, after July.
I’m, frankly speaking, at my wits end and am consistently having to hold myself back from remembering the hope and security I felt briefly back in February of 2020 before this hit us hard or else I’ll spiral.
Though we’re in the process of selling our things including a handful of heirlooms and setting up stores for our handmade pieces, we need literally any income to keep us ticking over. Though we’re good money-managers, COVID has wrung us out emotionally, physically, and financially.
I cannot properly express how much I hate doing this again, because I thought we were finally free of it, but if you or anyone seeing this has anything to spare, I would be eternally grateful for the help in affording a moving van and general necessities.
You can give HERE, and hopefully in another month or so I should also be able to open a ko-fi shop where I can sell my 3D clothing for various game engines.
COVID-19 has obliterated our finances, and now we’re forced to move.
At the beginning of 2020 my Mother and I, finally escaping a highly abusive family situation that we’d been under for nearly a decade and still grieving my then-recent Grandmother’s passing, moved out and into a decent place for the first time in our lives. For once we didn’t have to grit our teeth and clean up mouse shit or caked on dust and oil from every surface before my Grandmother we were caring for came into contact with it. I still recoil when entering a bathroom in preparation for human faeces on the floor, but I’m relearning every day what it’s like to live in a normal household without an exceptionally dirty and violently abusive person in it. I even shared out a portion of my inheritance to my friends and others who had helped me survive in that situation, because I was finally in a position to pay people back, literally and figuratively.
Unfortunately, COVID has managed to steal my future from me, and over 60% of our savings. As both my Mother and I are high-risk due to varying medical issues between us, we took the difficult decision to shield in London in March 2020, which meant we’d be confined to our homes for as long as it took. One horrifically governmentally-mishandled year on I now no longer have the money to return to University to complete my degree, go to therapy, or even learn how to drive. In my attempts to at least have some sort of income I’ve been attempting to find online work copywriting since then, to no or very very little avail, and have taken to studying 3D product design software in the hopes of eventually being able to sell my services.
This changes nothing when it comes to our current savings, or situation. Our lease is up in July, and thanks to COVID the lack of income has completely crushed our prospects of staying here long term, so we’re having to move somewhere else. This costs….a lot, and while my Mother has finally gotten her first vaccine, I’m only on the cards for being fully vaccinated in November. This means I’m still not going to be able to find any temp work until November, which is, of course, after July.
I’m, frankly speaking, at my wits end and am consistently having to hold myself back from remembering the hope and security I felt briefly back in February of 2020 before this hit us hard or else I’ll spiral.
Though we’re in the process of selling our things including a handful of heirlooms and setting up stores for our handmade pieces, we need literally any income to keep us ticking over. Though we’re good money-managers, COVID has wrung us out emotionally, physically, and financially.
I cannot properly express how much I hate doing this again, because I thought we were finally free of it, but if you or anyone seeing this has anything to spare, I would be eternally grateful for the help in affording a moving van and general necessities.
You can give HERE, and hopefully in another month or so I should also be able to open a ko-fi shop where I can sell my 3D clothing for various game engines.
Vincentia cen Invidia, then simply Vincentia Invidia, rose through the Garlean Republic Academy’s ranks from the ages of sixteen to twenty-six, alongside Vedius Carnae, and the future Emperor Solus himself.
An unerring shot with a pistol, Vincentia saved almost as many lives as she ended on every battlefield and often drew the eye reapplying various cosmetics during firefights, her flippancy and confidence infecting those ranked below her.
Upon her death, shortly before the capture of Ala Mhigo for the Empire, her gun was bequeathed to the elderly Solus, who took it without a word.
“At one point in my life, I studied astrology in Sharlyan. I deeply enjoyed scholarly pursuits,” Elodie passes her hand over a shiny crystal. When she looks up at him, she’s surprised to find him looking at her.
“And yet in spite of this, you abandoned them,” Nero mutters, “what was it that stole your attention?”
“My condition, I suppose,” she snaps. Elodie watches as his lip, curved until that moment into an infuriating smirk, tugs downward in upset.
“What condition?” he asks, sounding personally offended at having been left out of the loop. “You’re in perfect health, are you not?”
“I am, but I am a woman,” comes her cool reply. “And in academia that is a disease for which there is no known remedy.”
“You jest,” Nero scoffs. But he does not turn from her or her gentle amusement at his expense.
“I do not, though I do not agree with my parents for deciding my fate lay as mistress of an estate,” she confirms. He makes a sound like a tea kettle sputtering at a near-boil.
“It’s wasteful,” he doesn’t quite think two words enough to express his true feelings. But they suffice.
“What? Is the Empire so utopian a place that women are free to work alongside men in pursuit of knowledge?” Elodie’s smile turns a bit cruel.
“I would not phrase it in such a way,” Nero rephrases, his stomach twisting in a way that is unfamiliar. She is so very good at making him question why the unknown defaults to unpleasant.
“And yet— you do not share the sentiment,” she eases back on her teasing as a form of mercy.
“I have yet to give you my full opinion, need I remind you. And I may not be in favour,” he tries to reclaim an ounce of control by way of contradicting her. But even as Nero does it, he does not know why.
“You are,” she smiles, “it’s in your eyes.”
“Ridiculous,” he says.
“It isn’t, you have very expressive eyes,” Elodie replies. His head, which had been halfway through turning back to his book swivels up again.
“Now you jest,” he accuses, uncaring for the moment that he sounds offended.
“Whatever is amiss, Nero? Are you unused to being seen without your helmet?” she presses further again.
Elodie has ways of setting her teeth against his jugular from across the room. Her barely-contained giggle makes his face hot.
“You go too far,” he raises a hand, the gesture nevertheless nonthreatening.
“I mean it, teasing and laughter aside— you hold such emotion in so small a place,” she pauses, trying to find words as he did. She settles for a few more. “I have never seen such eyes,”
When she’s ascended to the Seat of Azem he sends her a flower, spun from his mind and magic, just as he did when they attended the Akademia together and began their dance.
A fresh start for her, a new way to lead their people. He has nothing but faith in her abilities, and she is reminded once more of her love. Nothing will ever be better than this, she thinks, a weight off her chest and the comforting knowledge of loving and being loved in return.
