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DEAR READER
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@aevitium
✧ ˖ — elysia @ snowswept !
the people's princess is designated to the fight club for the event's duration! she is, however, most prone to being any and everywhere else. feel free to send her prompts from any location, or assume that she just went on ahead and showed up at your muse's!
stamp card: snow plains: kujou sara museum: su fight club: otto apocalpyse robot settlement: flins administrative district: sirin
they hit the yurigon
elymei thread .
the closer Elysia got to Mei , the louder she could hear her own heartbeat , praying Elysia wouldn't make a comment or hear it , eyes wander down to her , head tilting slightly .
" is it that serious ? the look on your face is -- "
she really didn't understand her sometimes , truthfully , Elysia was definitely getting away with it for much longer then she had before , in a moment of a bit of stunned silence , mixed with just how flustered the girl was , watching as she molded her facial expression into something that could maybe resemble a smile , only then did Mei take a step back , a hand raising to gently push the others hands away .
" you know you don't need to force a smile onto my face , right ? "
there's plenty of ways you can do that without it , she'd think to herself , eyes drifting away to avoid eye contact , that shade of red becoming more and more obvious on her face .
A normal person may feel deterred, affections brushed away with a single motion of a hand. Mei has such a grace to her, so profound that it saturates her every action down to even this, such that Elysia could not possibly be upset at the slight that is the newly restored distance between them.
And pair that with the deepening flush in her cheeks, the way her gaze slides away in that sheepish, flustered manner. These are the things that have always made Elysia giddy, the purest display of humanity in expression. All of her life she has hoped to emulate it, her every movement just a touch too animated, always a hair off the mark. On Mei, the flicker of expressiveness is like the lifting of a curtain's corner-- the promise of more behind it and the eager anticipation of what might lay behind the rest.
To glimpse that humanity in a Herrscher-- and a beautiful one, at that-- Elysia could melt.
"I don't?" She plays innocent, flutters her lashes, pouts. "Oh, then how am I ever to see your smile?"
when the moon hits your eye like a predator in the night - that’s amore
It wasn't unusual for her to make fun of him, although in most instances he usually knew what she was making fun for – what was strange was for her not to rub it in, to leave it so ambiguous that Kalpas could only furrow his brow as the boat bobbed along the chugging water of the artificial stream and pulled them further into the treeline.
"I guess," he conceded. Indeed, there was nothing now stopping them from doing something so mundane as a camping trip - if this did not end up what she had envisioned in truth, something that he was slowly coming to suspect was not the case. There was no strong houkai threat, there was no looming Finality -
There were no Flamechasers.
The thought stilled him for a moment, although it was equally likely that it was the shift in the environment that caused his heart to stutter, arrhythmic skipping along still water as he took in the sky and the trees and that smoke, that curling, familiar smoke.
A fist pounded on the side of the boat, swaying them with a hint more violent urgency than the placid chug forward.
"Hey!" he called into the empty wilderness that began to envelope them, watching as the rise of heat grew closer to them, Elysia's fingers fluttering about her face. "Hey, turn the boat, we can't go this way!"
He didn't know how this worked, whether there was anyone guiding the boat down the path it needed to go, or what powered them forward – all he knew was that he didn't need to see the base of the pillar that was cresting over the dark canopy of trees, enough at a distance that it seemed a small thing, but looming with intention all the same.
Kalpas shifted, made to stand, but the bar over his lap tightened, and he sucked in a breath, the feeling of being confined all the more intense for the great open sky.
Elysia knows that something has shifted, but not because it's hard to know. Among their other companions, Kalpas is the often quickest to react and relatively uncontested in that field, so long as the reaction is anger. It isn't quite anger yet, though, just the same angry way with which he takes to every other emotion.
"We can't turn," she answers as though he had asked, as though he had done so out of nothing but genuine curiosity, "the current will keep pushing us forward."
It is, in no small part, like being caged in with an agitated bull. Had Elysia an ounce of fear that Kalpas might harm her, perhaps she'd be more worried. Were it anyone else in her seat, even, she might be more worried. But she isn't, mostly because operating under the belief that she will not come to harm will keep her from behaving as though she might. Something that surely cannot help matters in such a situation as this.
Water smacks into the boat's side, all sorts of displeased by the jerky shift in weight caused by her company's hasty attempt to rise. She might extend a hand to his shoulder, murmur to console him, but such an effort is likely only to turn him even more claustrophobic. She's something of an expert in handling him, after all.
Or, rather, enduring him. If there exists a way to soothe him short of Aponia's mind, that simply is above Elysia's pay grade.
She isn't sure when she blinked long enough for the world to become red, for the trees around them to be suddenly ablaze without cause. This is, naturally, not thrilling news, though if she is particularly worried ( be it for him or herself, or at all ) Elysia leaves little indication. It's written in her own publishings, a bit of advice torn from an old handbook she once dug up from a time where humanity had the luxury of keeping such things as pets. If you don't appear panicked, they won't panic either!
"So much for camping," her voice is steady, conversational, sweet. "It's just part of the dream, like everything else. It won't really hurt us."
✧ ˖ — as i could ever know
crystallize ... honkai beast in belobog
Her entire demeanor so lacking in concern did not bother him as much as it might another – it was not that she wasn't taking it seriously, that she was dismissing it entirely as uninteresting, despite the feint of disinterest in her tone.
The jab did not bother him either, wind of the planet they were on whipping about them briefly as though in punctuation to the thought, that no matter what it had endured would still not have been the coldest thing here. He glanced over at her as she moved, toeing at the snow, her true thoughts as indiscernible as they ever were to him.
Without waiting a beat after her statement, as though bidden by the force not present that had always drawn their leads, Kevin drew forth the heat and weight of Judgement to his palm, slamming it down into the ice at his feet. It blinked familiar, behind his eyes for a moment, the endless expanse of white around them stained under a crimson sky until he blinked, and began the arduous motions of clearing away the deep permafrost that had become the houkai's tomb.
His breath fogged the air, not from being chilled but chilling it in turn, and his eyes narrowed as the farther along he dug, the more of its body became exposed to the air and the sunlight, faintly sparkling.
And then, for an instant, glowing, those lines of fuchsia bleeding into the frigid winter around them like a warning, until the blade of Judgement sheared through its foul heart, unbeating.
The wind whistled gently in the stillness, before he tugged the blade back, and knocked the debris of ice away to get in closer.
"Elysia... Come look."
Abrasions, bullet holes, and, several inches to the left of the new gash Judgement had left behind, a clean slice, parting its hide for what lie underneath to the elements.
"Oh, right. How convenient~"
In a simpler era of humanity, this feat may have been something to flavor folktale and legend for decades. The man before her is every inch Deliverance now as he was then, no amount of time or failure to ever truly dampen that which has made him a marvel of a creation. She is bearing witness to the evidence of more than fifty thousand years worth of sheer, unshakable human will. The closest to divinity such a thing could be, the furthest opposite it.
And Elysia heralds this display with a hum, the kind of noise to fill a lull in a conversation, considering her nails, the chips in polish she'll have to fix. As though it is the most pressing matter, the most interesting thing going on in front of her.
"Hmm..?"
The sea in her eyes shifts languidly towards where it has been directed, widens imperceptibly at what it finds. Like an image cut clean from memory, this could be home if it was not so certainly otherwise. Lips press into a line, the kind meant to suppress a smile, biting back something far more grim.
"Ah."
Evidence of a fight, a struggle. Proof that this thing had not predated humanity, but rather existed to be a threat to it. To be of interest to it. To be studied by it.
Uncaring for any potential danger, Elysia picks across chipped ice and frost preserved gore. It's that clean, medical cut that she takes interest in, poking her head up over it to peer beneath. There's no smell, no rot, but her nose wrinkles anyway. Plenty of beasts had been ripped apart in the name of science before her, more than plenty, and it doesn't really bother her. She's not got a stomach to churn, after all. But cute girls cringe at things like this, so she does.
"But it's old enough to be a new discovery." A huff, evidently displeased with the obvious answer. "Maybe it just fell out of our sky and landed here. Weirder things have happened, right?"
✧ ˖ @arboriter asked:
[ SNOWBALL(?) ] Once the snow began to pile higher, Su sought out Elysia. Not out of concern, that despite its difficulties this storm was not enough to weather her, though he would deny any accusations if asked, but out of curiosity- out of any he knew, she would be the most likely to break the spell of fear. It isn’t hard to find her- even amongst the many others; as the snow falls, obscuring vision, she still stands out amongst the flurries, blush against silver; yet not untouched by the crystals that now decorated the world. If he were truly here to only observe, he would remain silent. And he does- for some time, knowing that he would not go truly unnoticed; eventually, patience is awarded, and he greets her, still hiding himself within the storm. “Hi, Elysia," Pleasantly, as if it were any weather but this- as if this was nothing more than a light shower. "How have you been?"
Su is an odd presence now just as he always has been, although there is something admittedly stranger to it now that he is prone to be more or less noticeably translucent. Elysia does her best not to make it so obvious that she is searching for him, to keep her brow from pinching when she decidedly cannot find him.
He has been lingering longer than she has noticed, that much she is certain.
And when he speaks, she shoots a glare in no particular direction. "It's rude to sneak up on unsuspecting girls, Su." Nose upturned in feigned upset, she crosses her arms over her chest.
On the long list of utterly ridiculous interactions they have had, this one certainly places highest. Alone in a blizzard, an entire city of people merely hoping to stay warm enough for the night a few hundred feet away from them, and here they are. Doing whatever this is.
"I've been well," she answers with a hum after a moment. "Nice and warm, isn't it? Oh, sorry. Do you even feel temperature at all anymore, given your whole... deal?" She does not sound very sorry, really.
Her search is inconclusive, she relents. There is no way she'll be finding him in all of this, not the way he is now.
"Alright, enough playing ghost. Lurking is bad for your reputation, y'know."
✧ ˖ @leaderofthemoles asked:
[ FLORIST ] - In a place like Belobog, flowers are a sign of affection reserved for only those who can afford such a delicacy. With the Solwarm festival’s hope for Spring anew, however, the Eversummer Florist is running a once in a lifetime sale. Grab a bouquet as rare as that special somebody, and don’t forget to tip!
“Um… Ummm…” The adults always talk about buying flowers… seems like they’re like gifts for special stuff. Like when two people start getting lovey dovey with each other ( yuck! ), or when someone gets their first job, or when someone says goodbye to another person who leaves their job… Actually, now that Hook thinks about it, she doesn’t know anything about flower giving. Everyone that comes and goes here is always so specific about the types of flowers they want. Aren’t all flowers pretty? Why does it matter? Are there flowers that some people don’t like? Hook looks down at the shields she was given. It’s not much, but maybe it’s enough to buy a flower for Daddy. But the thing is, she forgot to ask him what kind of flower he likes. Wait, what if Daddy doesn’t like flowers at all? But Daddy always says he’s happy with whatever Hook brings back, and she wants to give him something to show that she’s thankful for the dollhouse he bought for her on her birthday. Maybe she can ask one of the grown-ups around here for help. Not that she’d be bad at picking flowers! Only an adult knows what another adult likes, after all! “Um! Excuse me miss!” Hehe, take that, old witch. Hook knows her manners! “Do you know what kind of flower I can give to an old guy? Like a really old looking guy that I wanna say ‘thank you’ to?”
Strands of petal pink fall in her eyes when she blinks down at the young girl. Like a ray of sunshine caught in a bottle and rolled through the green house's door, her voice a single decibel too loud for conversation. Elysia is, without a second thought, charmed.
"An old guy?" Her nose wrinkles when she laughs, index finger coming to tap against her cheek in thought. "Hmmm... Let me think."
The flora here are only alike to those she knows in appearance. Their names, their meanings... flowers may transcend earth, but to every language there will be dialects. And here, where such things are so hard to grow, their meanings must be tenfold the ones that she herself knows. Elysia scans the rows and bundles, from pots of soil to prearranged bouquets, and stops with a decisive hum before a bunch of pale ivory petals.
"How about..." her finger flips the little tag that has been nestled in the twine that gathers the few flowers. Delicate, sweet little things, which she inspects thoroughly before offering them to the girl for her own thoughts. "No... Oh!"
Reaching up on the tip of her toes, Elysia plucks another little bundle. This one is all yellows and oranges, as bright as the little sundrop she offers them to. "Old folks are sentimental, and I'd be willing to bet these will remind him of you every time he sees them. See, look~"
She plucks a stem from the arrangement and stoops to tuck it in the flap of the girl's hat, then raises her finger to her lips and pushes the flowers into her hands.
"Perfect match! Now, go on and say your thanks. I've got you covered. ♪"
✧ ˖ @purerationality asked:
[ SONG ] - nothing raises spirits quite like music, and nowhere could possibly need their spirits raised more. it only takes one person with an instrument and someone to start to dance before a little section of the city becomes just that much brighter. grab a friend or a stranger and take a moment to forget about the worse things in the world.
the chorus of singing voices is far from perfect. some are off-pitch. others are a little too slow, a little too fast. some have forgotten the words. others have skipped ahead to an upcoming verse. still, the people sing and dance and laugh to their hearts' content — starkly alive against the pure white landscape. their unified, cacophonous song — interwoven with the shuffling of whirling feet — is almost magical. watching this, “dr. mei” helplessly remembers scenes of bygone days: the parties that offered increasingly-brief distractions, how with every year the atmosphere grew less and less real, the attendants fewer and fewer in number. but here, no one can say what fate will await them all. the comparison — sentimental, reflexive — is surface-level. a product of nostalgia, not reason. but she remains where she is: at a distance from the living. except — something compels her to turn around. when she does, the figure she sees — that smile, that shade of pink — almost surprises her. what a strange universe. what was it that fu hua had once said to her? all i seem to find at this point are ghosts of the previous era. how are you here? “elysia,” she finds herself saying, as if relieved. stepping aside, turning half-way back toward the crowd of resilient people, “dr. mei” wonders if elysia would find it silly to think of themselves as ghosts. “are you planning to join them?”
She looks just the way that Elysia remembers, the only way that she ever has. There is something to the doctor that is just like that-- sterile, unchanging, like her human existence remains as stubbornly the same as the woman herself. It is like reliving a memory, the background changed but this the same.
And her greeting, as though it has been some days since last they met and not generations, earns from her a quiet laugh.
"I might," she answers as though she had been thinking of exactly that, stepping forward until she's stopped by Mei's side. "It really is so lovely, isn't it? How everyone can still smile, even like this. Reminds you of another time, am I right~?"
The memory comes to her too, of parties each more somber than the last. Celebrations on the same nights as funerals, until the air in the room became too heavy with worry that those nights became silent. Before the world seemed to stop spinning, it was as though they had personally ensured that it did. How odd to remember a time when they were younger, as though either of them look any different.
Elysia reaches for one of the other woman's hands. The sort of touch that is more like a question, lithe fingers curling around her wrist. "I think we've spent long enough on the outside of things like this, don't you?"
The way her eyes glitter, she knows the doctor will understand. Even if the outside looks different for either of them.
A gentle tug, a step backwards towards the crowd.
"Just for a minute, 'kay? I won't tell Kevin he missed it~"
✧ ˖ @imaginarynoumenon asked:
[FIRE]
The fire is a guiding light, they say, a guiding light for the worn and downtrodden. The many lights of history, from the quick life of a makeshift wick to the overexpanded modern electrical circuit, have made the security of civilization something of a comfort. It keeps away the dark, it keeps away the inner thoughts of others out there. Homes may be built and locations of interest may be explored, but once darkness encroaches it is just as insidious as any whisper. In the snow and out in the snow plains, it is customary that people wanting to go out onto the land would need a guide and a person who knew the land above all else. A group of two or three, one a visitor no doubt, to go sightseeing just in case of misfortune in the snow. But it's not always mandatory—a buddy system is a courtesy to him, you see. This far out was a group of three who you would mistake for two at first glance, huddled over a fire and talking to each other while their third stood away from them in the trails of light. It was getting about dusk and the flickers of orange barely illuminated the blonde staring outwards towards the encompassing dark. Anything he planned to do is cut short—he is far too kind for someone who doesn't look back further than the crane of his neck. “Ah, I see the light attracts everyone. It's getting dark. What do we owe the company, miss?” It's all he says in greeting, a burning poison to his smile as he continues to only be licked by the barest of light.
In a life like hers, with a faux heart like hers, it is not infrequent to find familiarity in strangers.
This is, sometimes, a face like one you've nearly forgotten. A shared name, a similar history. The roots of the imaginary tree are interesting, they wind and overlap into similar patterns. It's coincidence, sometimes, and fate others, but it is a fact of life.
Now, however, it is a sensation somewhat different. She does not know his name or face, could not guess at either if she tried. No, there is something in the air around him instead that whispers to her of their proximity in this universe. That this is not the first time they have ever been near, only that near in definition had meant something different than physical proximity. Near in the sense of existence, born of the same branch. Veins on the same leaf.
"Just looking to keep warm. Isn't everyone?" Her smile is polite, saccharine, the watercolor hues in her eyes dancing with the amusement of someone who hears a joke only they understand. She studies him, catalogues him, sees in him the fingerprints of souls that she would know across thousands of years. Ego hums, then, pleasant.
"What an odd place to find yourself at dusk." The cant of her head, the feline curl of her smile. Knowing, unknowing. "Surely the stars shine no brighter this far from the rest of the sky~"
✧ ˖ @second-eruption asked:
[BEAR...?] - Did a blizzard hit while you all were occupied? Your tents are thrashed, your supplies are scattered, and your food is nowhere to be found. Something has clearly gone through your campsite. Something large, clumsy, and utterly destructive. It could be a bear; it could be a Fragmentum monster; or it could be something else entirely. There's really only one way to find out, right?
The destruction at the campsite at the Snow Plains would have been none of Sirin’s business. She could go home whenever she wanted. She had no reason to set up camp. It was a little funny, seeing the humans scramble to figure out what had happened. It was funny seeing their looks of despair. Even so, it really would have nothing to do with her…if it weren’t for the residual honkai energy she sensed. Sirin had long since learned that herrschers these days were not her friends. Honkai beasts themselves were dying out, and what else but a traitor herrscher would be leaving these traces on a planet so far away? Sirin was pretty confident in her ability to at least escape, if it came to a fight, so she decided to indulge her curiosity. The trace didn’t correspond to any authority she was familiar with, and she was always interested in learning more about what GOD had decided to do. She followed the trace through the wrecked campsite, stepping over pieces of tents and overturned bins of supplies. She drowned out the calls of humans. Some were blaming each other. Some thought it was a bear, or one of the frozen figures scattered across the plains. Nobody noticed Sirin, entirely invisible to a human with her shields up. She wouldn’t be so invisible to a herrscher, but she was prepared for that. She found the source of the trace in a woman with long pink hair and eyes like crystals. She was talking to a human, her voice kind and warm. Most certainly a traitor, then. No true herrscher would give so much respect to any of the insects destroying the world. Sirin still wondered if this woman was accidentally responsible for this mess. It wouldn’t be the first time. Sirin lifted her finger and pointed. “Herrscher.” Her voice was bitter and rough, like ice crystals.
"Oh, really? Where?"
The girl's accusatory finger leaves little to the imagination, but Elysia looks around this way and that regardless. And then she laughs, light and airy in her throat. If there is weight in the accusation, it is one that rolls off her shoulders like rainwater.
It's been some long while since that word has been uttered before her with such a tone. Long enough that it is almost bittersweet, and long enough that she has near forgotten its sound. There is no need to ask to whom she speaks, the scars of authority like brands on any human's skin. There is an impossible pity within her for this, and an envy somewhere she has never quite known how to shut out. To have flesh to scar, something genuine to have been ruined in the place of something false to present for salvation.
"I prefer you call me by my name, if we're to be friends. Elysia, or Ellie if you'd rather~"
To that outstretched hand, she levels her own index finger. One eye shut and both brows furrowed, she pushes their fingertips against each other. A triumphant hum, evidently quite pleased with herself, before her hands lace easily behind her back. If she feels threatened, or even concerned, there isn't a single trace of that in her gaze. A young girl bumps into her then, stuttering a hasty apology as she scampers past, and Elysia simply waves after her, smiling.
"It's sweet, how humans band together like this after a disaster. Reminds you of how easy differences are to set aside, don't you think?"
Another child, this one quick to curl fingers in the hem of her sleeve and tug. Elysia laughs.
"I suppose we'll just have to save that conversation for another time, then. Do think on it~"
✧ ˖ — them assess travels
She's not been in Kazdel a long while, but the world hasn't stopped looking like it.
Endless, empty earth. Sun-scorched, starved, withering. It is no place for anything to live, and yet life finds away. It skitters over the toes of her boots, cries out into the night sky, as though determined to remind the world of exactly that. Elysia stoops to giggle at the little gnawbeast that seems to have only just realized that there was something inside of the shoe it had begun scratching at.
"One last sweep before we settle?" A handful of heads turn to her, the rest aren't listening or don't care to prove it. She counts three nods, and hums cheerfully. "Perfect! Quick and easy, then."
Perimeters are set, divided, and engaged. They're an odd group, too big to be convenient and too small to be important, enough to have trouble feeding and yet not quite to justify how much. Elysia watches her shadow for as long as their fire still casts it, until the tips of her horns and ears are swallowed by the rest of her. Until it disappears into the rest of the darkness. She doesn't mind wandering the border by herself, so much so that she has a tendency to wander far past it. Her companions have long since stopped asking why.
Tonight it's the stars, or it starts there. It's how many there are, how there is nothing here to obscure the sky. It's just how endless the nothingness can feel, and just how full it is of the smallest lights.
And then, in a particularly interesting turn of events, it's a body.
A few of them.
Languid footsteps turn hurried, danger a thought entirely secondary to concern. It is apparent immediately that something had happened here-- a vehicle battered and on its side, splintered remains of crates and shreds of what must ave been a tarp sprawled through sand like carnage. When Elysia slows, it is beside the furthest of the bodies. Dark hair, half of her body buried beneath what must have been some considerable chunk of the truck bed's contents before they were thrown to the wind. Unlucky position she must have been in to get caught in such a way, or perhaps the mark of someone who had tried to stand before the inevitable. Judging by what remains of, presumably, her further away companions, Elysia would guess this the more likely alternative.
She looks as quickly as she can think to from the halo half buried in the sand, busies herself instead with digging her fingers underneath upturned supply crates. Her brows pinch and her knees wobble when she lifts, if only so much that the thing thuds back down upon itself at only a slightly different angle, sending up a cloud of sand and, blissfully, without the sound of bone shattering beneath it a second time.
Something shifts, groans even. Her knees sink into the sand, hands all aflutter where they reach for a pulse point.
"What a place to wake up, huh?" The way she exhales is like a laugh. "Can you hear me? How long have you been out here?"
@immovablewill Arknights!
they hit the yurigon
elymei thread .
what was an accident for Elysia caused Mei a ton of worry , worry that she didn't even know the root of , of course she cared for Elysia , but enough to worry this much ? it's so odd .
as the sound of steps comes from behind her , just as Elysia wished for , her face softened with a clear relief , any ounce of worry or panic having faded once laying eyes upon her , she wouldn't even notice it herself , but she took a short step towards her .
" Can you blame me ? you're usually showing up before I've even properly woken up , so when you don't for the first time . . "
she paused , her tone quieting as she admitted . " well , I'd get worried . " after she let that free , her usual , somewhat cold face returned to her , eyes wandering away as Elysia grew closer and closer , but they didn't stay off her for long , it's not surprising Elysia would be the one in the realm to manage to crack a smile out of her .
" fine , fine . . . is this better for you ? "
Evidently pleased with herself, Elysia hums her answer. It takes one step, another, and then she is near enough to Thunder that she can reach upward until the tip of her index finger lands squarely on her chin.
"Hmm, let me see~"
With an expression of utter seriousness, she inspects Mei's face thoroughly. Her thumb hooks her jaw, guides her to look in one direction and then the other. It is an absolutely unnecessary gesture, and half of it is simply for the sake of seeing how long she can get away with it. Countless times has she been swatted away, turned down for all her antics and affections, and yet never once has Ego been properly deterred. It's just part of the charm, the chance to see how Mei might clear her throat and square her shoulders and pretend it isn't working on her.
A moment longer and she shakes her head twice. "Now, I know you can do better than that!"
Both hands now, fingers pressed into the smooth plane of either of the other's cheeks. She pushes upward, snickering to herself at the odd expression it warps into her features. "See! Just like that. No more reason to worry, and so no reason not to smile, right?"
One Koholasaurus, Two Koholasaurus, Red Koholasaurus, Blue Koholasaurus
Commission Board | Baby Koholasaurus Daycare
The eggs of the Koholasaurus are beginning to hatch along the shores of Toyac Springs. Naturally, poachers and mercenaries, all armed with nets and a ridiculous amount of greed, are already sneaking towards the beaches. More people are needed to ensure the safety of these little creatures! If they don’t reach the waters soon after they’re hatched, they’re sure to be captured! Hold the line against the interlopers! Buy the hatchlings time!
Dainsleif holds the small saurian, barely just hatched from its egg but already trying to wiggle away to its freedom in the sea, gently in his large arms, the little Koholasaurus nibbling on his bicep with great abandon. Its teeth cut into his skin, sharp and serrated already, to the point where a passerby glances at him with worry until he turns to them with a shrug, cold eyes uncaring of his current situation.
They quickly run away in the next moment, and Dainsleif turns back to the baby saurian in his arms, feeling exceedingly confused. Perhaps they were scared off by the fact that he seemed entirely unbothered by being bitten? It wasn’t like his wounds wouldn’t heal, and even for someone completely mortal and human, a baby saurian with half its teeth nibbling upon one… surely wasn’t that big of a deal; right?
It had been a very long time since he had been truly worried about any injuries that his body incurred. A mere infant Koholasaurus couldn’t do any more damage than…
His chest aches a little from where his teacher had impaled him, a crime he had already punished the man for two hundred times over. It had been some time already; why was he still allowing himself to linger on that lone betrayal?
He sighs, lifting the Koholasaurus from his arm and holding it in the air above him, not noticing that another had joined the two of them in his distraction.
“What do you think, little guy?” He says, expression completely serious as he speaks to the saurian as if it were as human as he was, “... Ha… what am I saying… you can’t read minds. … I think.”
@aevitium
"I'm sure he thinks you taste delicious~"
Elysia laughs, evidently aware of the fact that she has gone otherwise unnoticed until she speaks. The strange man and his impossibly more strange relationship with the creature in his arms have nearly cleared a mile's radius of others, all much more intently concerned with the situation than this odd pair.
And then there's Ego, distracted from the cause by the impossibly amusing sight of a grown ( and relatively intimidating looking, she would say ) man allowing himself to be made into the personal chew toy of what she can only consider a dinosaur shaped puppy. She should have roped Kalpas into this. It would have been twice as funny to see, and she might have even draped a few more of the little beasts on his arms simply to make the most of it.
Fingers interlaced behind her back, she leans forward to peer up at the stranger. Her eyes are all watercolor mischief, her smile lopsided.
"I'm also sure he's wondering why all of his friends are being herded off to the water without him. ♪"
The way she says it doesn't come off at all corrective, or even urgent. Elysia practically coos the sentence, freeing a hand to flick the little guy's forked tail. It makes a chattering sound at her, then wriggles where it's being held, slapping its fins this way and that. Her gaze doesn't flit back to the man as she speaks next.
"But if you're still looking to test your mind reading abilities, how about on those guys right behind you? Oh! Goodness, such a feisty little thing~"
The guys in question are a small group of pretty glaringly suspiciously dressed individuals, all dark clothes and various facial coverings. They are also, in a manner most incriminating, all equipped with buckets and rickety cages.
Elysia giggles as the Koholasaurus smacks its tail against her company's arm like a pendulum. "Not so eager to be caught, hmm?"
✧ ˖ — (jacob black from twilight voice) survival 101
#GHSnowswept2025 !
“Mm. It’s quite stubborn, this.” There was a hint of defeat in her voice as she admitted in a low murmur, watching wistfully as the last wisp of smoke from her failed attempt crept up into the frigid air.
It had always been impossible for her to get used to the cold. No amount of patrols under the snow could ever inure her to the chill that clung to her skin, not even after a brief time in Dragonspine’s cold, fingers buried into the deep snow as she scooped them into buckets to mould into imitations of the Statue of Her Excellency, the Almighty Narukami Ogosho, God of Thunder with a friend. The tip of her nose had grown rather red from the cold then, and she could still remember the pain that had remained all throughout that afternoon, the embarrassment that settled in her heart for having slipped on ice in front of someone familiar.
Now, alone, the cold clung to her fingers like a phantom. She had dug into the small firepit, swiping away the frost with a determined hand before her attempt with the match, puffing out a white breath as she sat back, wings bristling as the crisp air bites at her cheeks. She gave the match a strike against its box. Once, twice, watching carefully—hopefully—as the tiny flame crawled and spread along the kindling. Unsurprisingly, it did not last, spelled away by the damp and cold in mere seconds.
The stranger’s voice had been the first and only thing to snap Sara out of her singular focus, and for a moment, she simply stared, the surprise evident in the slight part of her lips and the slow, careful blink as she eyed the cup in the woman’s hands before drifting back up to those lavender eyes.
Odd, or so she thought in that brief pause. To find someone all the way here, to the cold and dying fire, when warmth was only a few steps away.
“Thank you,” if she sounded rather stiff, robotic, then Sara hadn’t meant to do so, unsure of what else to offer as she gratefully accepted the warm drink. The heat from the paper cup was a small blessing, seeping through her gloves. “I would still like to try and light this one up, just in case another group should like to use this area…”
It made for a good excuse, what she just said. Her other reason would be that, well, she’d simply much rather be here. Be useful, even if in her lonesome. A glance back at the main camp showed the people that had gathered there, laughing amongst themselves, sharing a meal, a drink, their stories. Things Sara was certain she’d have nothing to add on other than to dampen the cheerful mood there. It had happened before. It often happened, with her.
“You should return where it’s warmer.” She turned her gaze back to Elysia, a small, barely there smile on her lips. “You will catch a cold if you stay here.”
It's meant to be kind, the other's dismissal. Elysia knows the game, knows this move, because she is an expert in countering it.
With a resolute shake of her head, she moves to settle more permanently beside her. There is plenty of space, what with them being the fire's only occupants, but she lingers with a nearness better suited to old friends than strangers. Like it's the most natural thing in the world for her, and truly it may well be.
"Then I'll just have to stay close to you so I don't~" Silver bells of laughter ring in the sighing wind, carried away somewhere distant. The curve of her lips has turned cheeky. "If you won't listen to your own advice, the least someone can do is keep you company."
The motion of her hand is all she offers in the way of asking before the box of matches settles against her palm. She is, by no means, the person to turn to for something like this, but she makes an effort anyway. The toe of her boot to prod around at kindling, nudging and shifting the odd pile until she finds something a little bit lighter.
"The way I see it, either we both stay warm-"
A matchstick, inspected between two pink fingernails, before it's struck. Warmth bursts forth, earning a pleased hum from Elysia before she stoops to hold it against her little dry spot.
"-orrrrrr... You'll have someone to be sick with later!"
It takes, her little spot, and her mouth opens again to celebrate or perhaps make some tease out of it, when the flame finishes gnawing its way through towards what has proven an unwillingness to light. Fire becomes, once again, a barely there crackling sound. Elysia, for her part, closes her mouth in the shape of a pout.
"Hmm, and here I had thought I may have just lost my excuse to keep you company." A sigh, wistful, and already difficult to believe without the way she winks just after it. "Surely you're not just some campfire mastermind such that you'd enjoy sitting all this ways away for this of all things."
The matchbox closes in her hand, she offers it between her fingers back to the other.
"So what is it, then? Not fond of crowds? Don't worry, I'll keep it between us~"
✧ ˖ @jxrmngxndr asked:
It was difficult on a good day to get a reaction out of him, and yet as Kevin stood beside his wife while she called and cheered for her Trotter in the race, there was the cast of something gentle and soft on him as he leaned one hand against the railing, as though to curb anyone else from witnessing her be so truly happy. Even when it did not win, he took the moment of selfishness for himself. The raucous calls of other races were not something that he paid much mind to, nor many of the other Trotters, let alone their handlers, faces in a sea of endless nothing that would pass by in the same blink of his eye as the previous era, as the current -
Is it Kevin? IS IT KEVIN?(...)Alternatively, this is also what happens when you name your Trotter Kevin! What kind of Trotter name is Kevin, anyway?
The space between his brow creased, infinitesimally, and he tapped his fingers against the railing once as he excused himself quietly from Mei's side, slipping through the milling crowd to find the source of the commotion - as it would always be, condensed within the form of a girl, radiant and shining, the tips of her ears gently rosy from sun and cold. His eyes narrowed, seeking out the motion of her slender fingers curling inward to fists. Kevin cast his gaze outward, finding the form of the Trotter, slumped and exhausted, beside another - clearly a defeat, torn from the grip of victory by the barest tips of its little Trotter feet. A pause, silent as his approach, until he was less than a few feet away, certainly close enough for her to hear him, even without him raising his voice; "Maybe you should have named it Elysia. If you had wanted it to win."
It's not really about winning, not to Elysia.
Or, well, somewhat. No grand prize means much to her, little to be found in the celebration of such victory other than its memory. And though memory is, to her, the greatest of gifts, it would be lacking something.
Because it isn't that she did it just for his attention, no. She didn't think to herself" "Yes, this will surely get a reaction!" It's just that, well, it should have gotten one. Or at least been noticed. Even if she was going to do it anyway. And that it should have, and that it didn't, well...
She hasn't quite realized her own frustration until the very cause of it is before her, near enough that she should have certainly noticed him well before he speaks. The irony is not lost on her, but rather instantly snuffed out as though it could be. It's payback, sort of.
"Now why would I have done that?" Arms fold over her chest, nose upturned. "Obviously I chose the name for a number of sentimental reasons and only after heavy deliberation! There's no sense choosing an ill fitting name."
It's half true, somewhat. The little trotter had been white, and holed up in a corner all by itself when she had made her selection. Both aspects to remind a girl of Kevin, certainly, but it may stand to reason that she's overplaying just how much consideration went into the name.
"You two are kindred spirits, you know! Meeting her, I truly never have felt so close to you as I did in that moment. It was the only name she could have possibly had."
Where both of her eyes had been a moment ago shut, she cracks one open just to check and see if she's gotten anywhere with the wall of ice in question. A loud, absolutely theatrical sigh.
"And yet you hardly even noticed her out there. How cold, even for you! If only she had the support of her other half..."
hachimi hachimi hachimi
IPC ★ Finale: Interastral Derby! | Qualifiers: Race 4
The other Trotters were doing really well, Kaveh couldn't deny that. But he had faith in One Mora short. (And a lot of money but that's between him and that random guy.) So it had to win, it just had to. Right?
"Come on. Please go a little faster."
Turn 2: Run! [Roll 1]
As if hearing Kaveh, the Trotter seemed to go... slower. No. No, no no. Speed up. Please just speed up. He was going to lose all his mora, wasn't he. Kaveh sighed deeply. "Alright, someone hand me a fucking drink."
Kaveh hated Belobog. Truly deeply hated it.
"Animals can be just as contrary as humans," Wriothesley remarked good-naturedly. The despondent sigh, the defeated posture, the weary look in the eye - there was no shortage of Kavehs in the Pankration ring stands, banking so much on one outcome that anything less was devastating. Wriothesley had brushed elbows with plenty of them. He'd even been one a few times, early on.
Crossing his arms, he flicked his chin toward Ororon.
"Maybe you should follow his example--"
Suddenly Owlbert's voice screeched over the intercom in a panic, and a dark chocolate mosaic trotter came squealing across the field out of its own lane. Down below, Champ startled and leapt forward, murmuring his own nervous sounds as he skittered past One Mora Short and Big First Snow.
Turn 2: Sprint! Moves 4 spaces Stamina: 2
Wriothesley rushed toward the rail and leaned over it.
"There you go, buddy," he shouted, and the little trotter's frenzied scramble started to even out. Snout to the ground, he charged ahead with sharp, abrupt focus until his hooves crossed the black and white finish line.
The energy of the crowd, of the squawking announcer and the scrambling trotters, is impossibly infectious. It's utter chaos, the little creatures skidding into rails and snowbanks and each other, bursting past barricades, but it's impossible to peel her gaze away from. Elysia finds a hum of laughter constant in her throat, absolutely elated by the display before her. A smile to the younger boy, for all his eager shouting, and a laugh at the remark from the darker haired man.
"Maybe you should bribe your friend out there with a drink instead~'
And then there is Kevin.
As the competition without the stamina to maintain such starting speeds begins to lag, she breaks easily past. It's quite impressive, even, the determination with which she disregards every single thing occurring around her as though it simply isn't. So very apt to her namesake, Little Kevin looks nowhere but forward.
Turn 2: Sprint! (Roll: 3 + 2) Moved 5 positions (1 stamina left!)
She is a smudge of white across the finish line, and Elysia bursts into a round of giddy applause. Her eyes are roaming the crowd on instinct, out for a head of white hair, as if she expects him to be looking. He probably isn't. She gives up after a moment.
"Goodness, where do these little things get all of that energy?"
hachimi hachimi hachimi
IPC ★ Finale: Interastral Derby! | Qualifiers: Race 4
"Really, they expect us to stand out in this wind?" She fakes a shiver and adjusts her coat, just to really sell it, as if her cheerful smile doesn't negate all credibility.
Fake complaint made, Elysia extends a handshake to each of the others who have been seated in the little roped off section designated Trainers Only. They make for quite the crowd, a head of bouncing pink curls to rival her own, a blond, and two of deeper, almost inky hues in exact contrast. "Nice to meet you all! Feel free to call me El- Oh!"
Her introduction is swept away in the blaring of a horn and the subsequent chaos of noise that erupts from the starting gates swinging open. For a mere five creatures, none bigger than a dog, the things sound far closer to a herd of dozens. The latest coat of snow, freshly fallen since the track was last cleared, churns beneath twenty five blurry hooves. It makes for quite the view.
Turn 1: Sprint! (Roll: 2 + 2) Moved 4 positions (3 stamina left!)
And at the front of them, wasting absolutely no time at all, is none other than her very own. It hadn't been difficult at all to choose her contestant, as Elysia had breezed easily past any opportunity for research into her decision and settled quickly on the prettiest one she could find. A white splattered young female with something of an attitude.
Naturally, she had named her Kevin.
And Kevin is, as Kevin does, scrambling towards the finish line without question or care. Absolutely brazen. Elysia claps her hands together, pleased. "There goes my fearless leader~"
Now if only the real Kevin were quite so cute.
@dukemeropide @gardenvampyr @twilighthealer @empyrean-reflections
✧ ˖ @aarnivalkie asked:
[MEMORY] The sun had already sunk low behind the mountains, burning the last remnants of light across the settlement to dark umber. All around the pit fire dug out at the center of the assembly of tents and folding chairs, little pinpricks of light dotted the snowy banks nearly like fireflies on a summer night. For Flins, this tapestry of lamplight in the dark was almost nostalgic, and from his perch on a brick wall far from the other festivities, he watched all those lights dart and dash, extinguish, and reignite again with a wistful smile. The children were having the most fun with it, with some all but shouting their wishes to the heavens before dropping them into their lamps, but the adults who, by day, doubted a spring they had never seen before, warmed their hands around their own private wisps of hope, too. Flins held his own assembly of wires and dented aluminum in his lap, its top still unsealed, the connections yet to be made to light it up, and puzzled over what to close up inside of it when a young woman bounded right up and dropped down on the wall next to him like a longtime friend. “These often-overlooked places offer such magnificent views, don’t they?” he asked, cutting her a look from the side in implicit welcome. “Stand close to a painting for its details, but it’s only from a distance that one sees its myriad colors.” His eyes swept out across the camp again, which, by now, had added a few more lamps to its shadowy procession. “Although they may only be lights in the dark now, what I see in this panorama is a people braving winter for a symbol of hope." Just like every Ratnik who picked up their lamp and stepped bravely out into the long night. "… What lengths we go to manifest tomorrow.”
One might say it is the nature of Human Ego, that sense for a soul within which she might find a like mind. Another might say that is simply Elysia's eye for someone a little different, and her lack of general boundaries when it comes to approaching a stranger.
A chickadee to his shoulder, she peers at the disassembled lantern in his lap. When he speaks, her eyes flit up to meet his. They're soft at the corners, her smile never far, nearer still as his words wax easy verse. It is her favorite language, and as his gaze turns outwards hers remains upon his profile. As though from here, from this, she might could glean exactly the story that has led him to speaking it, to believing as he does.
"What lengths indeed," his words echo in her own crystalline laughter. Brick scratches at her palms where she holds to the wall, support for how she leans forward to meet the wind with her cheeks, sighing into it as one might an embrace. "There's nothing more beautiful, I think. To be able to see hope like that, like this."
From afar, from where it is only just out of reach. To view humanity and all its love and to conceptualize how something so impossibly large can appear so, so small.
Her eyes shut, her smile something faraway. The expression of a girl recalling a dream, a distant moment in a lifetime long past. Intangible and all consuming, the memory of a feeling. How it can exist so clearly as an idea and yet never burn quite the same, the sort of emotion people spend their entire lives chasing to experience just once more.
"And yet it's lonely like this, don't you think?" A palm outstretched, such that she might reach just a bit further and pluck one of those pale lights from the canvas for herself. Elysia tilts her head, hums a quiet note. "So far from all of the details, you forget just how much work goes into each. How special they are, how none are at all the same."
To him, she turns a suddenly cheeky smile.
"Then again, I suppose we are a part of that painting ourselves~"
