Aura's Study

My writings go here.

[avengardian-archive]

Pipari’s First Feather

    Pipari stirs from sleep as the faint sounds of his waking tribe begin to reach his ears, and shields his eyes from an errant ray of late morning light shining upon him through a tear in the communal tent. He stretches his wings with a muted groan and rubs at his sore neck, he really has to stop sleeping in such bizarre positions. Dangling his legs past the edge of his bunk-nest, he leans down past them to see if his friend in the bottom bunk got up before him. Unsurprisingly the bunk is empty and has likely been so for a few hours already, Cress has always been a fan of early morning lessons, the opposite of which applies to Pip.     Hopping down to the well-walked ground of the great tent, he makes his way past the empty nests, idly picking at the edges of his drowsy eyes with a talon. A few guys are chattering and loafing at the clay wash basins, obviously shirking responsibilities in favor of continuing their idle morning gossip. They quiet down a little with looks of vague surprise as Pip walks past them, smiling as they dip down and flare out their striking tails.     Pip reciprocates… to the best of his ability, lacking the feathers to make a spectacularly flamboyant impact like the others. He wonders why they’d even use such a ceremonial form of greeting on a regular morning. Was it to try and be inclusive? Were they mocking him? Are they just that fabulous? He steps to the basins to wash the thoughts from his mind with a refreshing, cool scoop of water, letting it rinse his face and drown out the others’ continued chitchat.

    “Pip, are you quite finished with your morning routine yet?” the familiar fussing tone of Cress takes Pip by surprise. He spots his friend close by, approaching from the direction of the tent’s entrance, wings crossed and beak high in a dangerous display of snootiness. Pip can’t help but crack a smile as the dignified kaeri lightly swats him on the head with a rolled up parchment, which he is quick to take. Cress has given him his notes from missed lessons like this since forever as a way to mildly scold him, but he just thinks it’s silly.

    “Apologies, oh great junior scribe!” Pip exclaims with a theatrical bow, fanning at his face with the notes. “The Nightraven kept me under a veil of dreams far into the morn, you know how it is for us dreamers, Cress.”

    “No but I know how it will be for you if you keep slacking like this. I thought you were serious about becoming a songbird, yet I feel like I carry you these papers every other morning. Do you even read them?” Cress huffs, there’s an additional layer of irritation to his voice which makes Pip think something else is bothering him, besides his tardiness.

    “You sound a bit tense, Cress. A few missed lessons here and there only add to my character! A songbird has to be free to flourish and grow!” Pip accentuates his words by spreading his wings and puffing up his chest, which only draws an unamused sigh from the young scribe-in-training.

    “Listen, Pip... There’s nothing wrong with wanting for freedom but our mentor is seriously re-considering having you under her wing. I’m the one who recommended you to her so your behavior reflects poorly on how she views me as well. I just don’t think that’s very fair on me or my ambitions”, Cress says, his voice tinted with anxiety. A twinge of guilt swiftly jabs Pip in the gut and he rubs at the back of his neck, dropping his usual theatrics.

    “Guess I never thought of it like that, geez I sound like a chump now… Uh, anything I can make it up for you with?” Pip’s genuine tone seems to put Cress more at ease, and he sighs quietly.

    “Personal hygiene would be a good start. You look like you got caught in a sandstorm, do you ever preen after you get up?” he assails Pip with more friendly nagging, pausing to tilt his head and scan over his disheveled plumage.     “And… as flattering as it is, I thought I told you to take out the feathers I gave you before you sleep. They might get bent or even snap, and I only have so many of them you know.”     Pip stares at his friend with a confused look before turning his head to check his tail. There in the middle juts out a singular, short decorative feather, staring back at him with it’s unblinking eye. Equally unblinking as Pip himself, his eyes growing wider before he quickly attempts to pluck the new addition to his coat, only to pull his talons back with a surprised hoot.     “It… it’s not one of yours, yours are way bigger and more lustrous, and I’d never risk damaging the ones you gave me, so…” Pip stammers, a bit bewildered and out of his usual character.

    “So it must be one of yours”, Cress says matter-of-factly, a benevolent smirk on his face. Pip alternates between staring at Cress and glancing at his feather, a look of pure wonder slowly spreading on his face, accompanied by a healthy flush of red. He grins and tackles his friend with a hug, nearly knocking Cress down with the impact and burying his face against his feathers.

    Cress ignores his heart missing a beat and clears his throat, casting a murderous glance at the other giggling and whispering kaeri at the basins. He knows full well he’ll have to deflect rumors regarding Pip and him for the entirety of next week due to those annoying eavesdroppers. But feeling his dear friend, and the nest of his heart’s yearning latch onto him in glee and nuzzle at his chest with his attractive, very pointy beak… makes it not feel like such a bad thing really.

    Just before he can wrap his wings around Pip in return the young songbird has already sprung back and become preoccupied with excitedly chasing his tail, spinning around and trying to inspect it from every angle he can. Cress exhales slowly once he realizes he’s been holding his breath, brushing the ruffled feathers on his chest into place. He can’t help but feel a wave of shame drift over him as he thinks of how he felt most happy due to Pip hugging him, not for Pip and this clearly important moment to him...

    “Lost in thought, how very Cress!” the songbird chimes, drawing his attention back to the moment. “We should get going before the midday lesson starts!”

    “I appreciate your sudden interest in punctuality, but there’s still plenty of time until then”, Cress says, reaching into his satchel and offering Pip a well wrapped parcel that carries the unmistakably delicious scent of freshly fried fish. A wordless offer that he eagerly takes, nabbing his breakfast from Cress’s hand and replacing it with his.

    “Then you wouldn’t mind helping me with that preening either, would you? A songbird can hardly be called one if he looks like a living tumbleweed”, Pip is quick to return to his usual playful self, complemented by an eye-scrunching smile. He tugs at Cress lightly and the two walk together, one heart swelling with newfound pride, the other divided by the joy of being with the first and a longing for something more.

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Kael and Sin Soma

The caravan slowly travels across the mighty Ahmati. The desert winds are quiet for now, and the crew may converse freely.

In the corner of a covered wagon, in the light of a single oil lamp, Kael obsessively pores over his grimoire taken from the Temple’s sacred archives. His intense concentration is broken by a quiet whistle, and he jerks his attention away from the tome, eyes wide as he scans the wagon. The silhouette of Sin Soma leans back against the opposite wall from Kael, avoiding most of the lamp’s dim light.

“I swear, if you’re here to try to spy on me and my work I will drain the life out of you quicker than you can slink back into the shadows where you came from,” Kael spits out, quickly regaining his usual composure, and keeping his eyes on the intruder. Soma stays put, their vulpine mask concealing their amusement of having caught the sour mage unaware.

“If my intent was to spy, you’d still be nose-deep between the pages of that book, scratching and tearing it apart with your cold, sickly hands for every little morsel of knowledge it might be hiding from you. And I’d be comfortably nestled in my shadows, where your small, tired eyes could never spot me,” they say, a playful shade on their quiet, usually stark voice. Kael pretends to focus his attention back on the book, adjusting his crimson robes in discomfort.

“Then what is it you want with me? I’ve no secrets for you to devour, pry and sup on the thoughts of someone else. Someone who cares for your company,” he says, followed by a short silence. Soma raises their hands to their mask, running their fingers down the cheeks as if caressing them before they slowly unveil their face, with a quiet sigh of relief. They remain in the shadow, staring right at Kael and speaking with no humor left in their tone.

“A secret for you, then. Look at this face of mine, even in the dark you can tell it is not right. Something twists and distorts it, like a spiral, and tomorrow you wouldn’t recognize it. I bear a curse, and it was not hard for me to see that you do as well, priest. I propose a trade of information…”

What faint color had been on Kael’s face is now gone, replaced by an expression of uneasy curiosity as he studies Soma’s uncanny features. He begins to stroke his long mustache, as he often does when pondering.

“You are not ignorant. You know the magic I use does not come from the teachings of the Temple, as I claim. No, I am no true priest or necromancer… Very well, I will indulge you, in exchange for knowledge of curses, of blood and body,” he says, swallowing. “What is it you want in return?”

“You speak like you already know what I am after. Don’t worry, I’m not interested in your curse or the magic it trickles into your hands. I want to find a secret… Something nefarious, an atrocious deed hidden for ages, a pact broken and betrayed beyond repair, something powerful! The longer a secret remains hidden and is let stagnate the more potent and viscous it can become, the Temple must have secrets like that. I must have them as well, and you’d have a significantly easier time to access them,” they secure the mask back in place, turning to leave the wagon. And before Kael can summon a reply they’re already gone, just as silently and suddenly as they appeared. Kael attempts to shrug away the encounter and return to his studies, but a foreign thought lingers in his head as he reads. “Think on it carefully. I will contact you again soon.”

[avengardian-archive]

Profile of Varshj

  General Information

The person known as Varshj is a perfect fusion of a Vivarian and their incuflora. The mind of who once was only Varshj and the mind of his flora were so compatible, they eventually fused completely to become one individual. Although they don’t consider themselves as Varshj anymore, they continue to use the name for convenience and recognition. Varshj was an adult Vivarian born under the Moon of Unity, currently 25 years of age. Their youth in the hatchery was mostly spent in solitude, as the Vivarian and the incuflora much preferred the company of each other instead. After much time living in quiet introspection, Varshj and the incuflora began to develop intimate feelings, and grew closer day by day. This practice is uncommon but not unheard of for Vivarians, but Varshj  took this to the extreme. Their bond eventually grew so deep that they discarded their individual identities completely, and announced themselves as one being, their love for each other always present, now only solidifying. Though born in a city underwater, they moved to Celleron, the only half-submerged capital of the Freedom of Vivaria and began life on the surface, to accentuate their eccentricity.

  Traits of Voice

Varshj speaks as if they were acting every moment, and enjoying every conversation to its fullest. They tend to rhyme without even noticing, and speak freely of anything. Often they become too engrossed in monologue or dialogue, and their volume control diminishes. They tend to speak loudly and theatrically in general, drama being a part of their persona.

  Physical Appearance

They stand quite tall but are also very skinny, due to their general disregard of food or sleep in favor of creative pursuits. Physically being a Vivarian, their pale blue-gray skin is covered in places by more vibrant fish-like scales, their eyes are a hazy light blue, their nose is flattened with nostril-slits and their mouth is filled with a clean row of shark-like teeth. They have large flared ear-fins, and a lure dangling from their forehead they like to set behind one of which. Unlike most Vivarians they have lush verdant hair due to the incuflora seed planted in the back of their head, near the cerebellum and hippocampus. The flora has spread to cover the majority of the right side of their brain, and sprouts from there as a long flow of various blue and violet flowers covering that half of their sharp featured face and most of their head, as well as cascading behind them in a long ponytail. The remaining left side of their head is ‘shaved’, but a tangle of delicate vines wrap around it to form beautiful patterns. They always stand with exaggerated posture, most often with their right arm tucked behind their back and their left free to gesture.

  Personality

Varshj is a well of inspiration and positivity, almost never ceasing their boundless creative maelstrom. They’re a compassionate soul but often very self-centered and easily distracted. A long conversation with them may leave you feeling like you’ve learned things you could never have dreamed of, but at the same time you don’t remember anything of what you just learned. Their joy for life and art, as well as their eccentric and exaggerated personality have made them a public figure for the people of Celleron, and they often gather a sizeable audience during their public poetry and discussion nights. Very few attempt to understand them, and even fewer actually do, and this is just fine with them. They relish their strangeness and value individuality over all else, in their view every last flower should be able to blossom. Their most deepest fear is being alone.

  Health

Though it tends to hardly show in their energetic way of life, Varshj often neglects basic necessities like eating or sleeping in favor of creative pursuits. This leads to them periodically burning out and having to recuperate to regain their usual vim. They have some significant issues with their short and long term memory due to long lasting use of a psychedelic, but they say they honestly prefer life this way, for memories are nice but making more is endlessly more exciting. Their special art of ‘mind-painting’ requires the use of traces from souls, and these masterpieces are gathered in a gallery in their head that is independent of normal memory. It is like a pocket-plane made reality by their connection with their flora. Mind-paintings, although not corporeal, can be shared as visions through pollen secreted by their ponytail.

  History

Varshj was born far from shore, in a fairly deep-water hatchery. Like all Vivarians, they were born from a clutch of eggs deposited by their parents and then grew up in the hatchery, watched over and taught by the caretakers. Due to their reclusive and quiet nature as well as their physical frailty as a child, they were chosen to receive an incuflora seed into their cranium, so they could focus on the talents that were seen in them. Varshj and the incuflora quickly began their bonding, and succeeded in it better than any other child from their hatchery ever had. Once they came of age and left the hatchery, they joined a group of other young Vivarians with similarly placed incuflora, but found that they didn’t fit in with the mostly coolly intelligent and serious mages. They set off on their own towards a city known for oddities and out-of-placers, the half-surfaced capital on the coast, Celleron. In Celleron they quickly found more like-minded friends in a group of actors, and began to truly live their life as they wanted to. Sometime during this period they discovered a unique property they had when using a psychedelic substance popular in creative circles, soul-traces allowed them to paint vivid, living scenes in their mind from the fractured memories stored within the traces, and they knew they had found their calling.

  Relationships

Like the majority of Vivarians, Varshj’s views on romance and relationships is very freeform. Though unlike most Vivarians, they have devoted most their lives for a single partner, themselves. They still regularly indulge in casual romance and sex with other Vivarians they find particularly interesting, but perhaps they have found a way to love that is different from the love other Vivarians feel. Though others have had romantic relations with their (or even others) incuflora, Varshj feels they have discovered something much deeper, and much more beautiful, and they’d rather die than lose either half of their complete self. Varshj is known as a socialite and a public figure, and regularly attends gatherings and groups, while also hosting many themselves.

  Combat

Like all Vivarians with cranial incuflora, Varshj could use their exceptional mind-link to cast tremendously powerful psychic spells, but as a pacifistic soul they have vowed to not use such destructive powers unless absolutely necessary. Physically they are very frail and share the largest weakness of all Vivarian mages, the vulnerability of having their hair rooted amidst their delicate brain. A strong individual could, if they wished, cause heavy damage to the brain by pulling at their hair.

  Miscellaneous

Varshj enjoys food and drink for their taste, and can appreciate them for what they are, but they rarely feel hunger or thirst. They dabble in alchemy in order to perfect a mixture for purifying soul-traces, but often forget the formulas they’ve already tested and instead simply enjoy the act of making matter change forms. They can never seem to stay still, always motioning with their hands and act very outwardly expressively. They enjoy practicing music but never seem to have the patience to truly learn an instrument. They have a distaste for stubbornness, and believe everything in life should have the freedom to learn and change.

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Adaskan

Adaskan was born to a poor couple living in the slums of the great Bazaar. Despite being frail and sickly, born to poverty and to neglectful parents, he survived his early years and learned early the meaning of survival no matter what. That is why he understood when his parents had to flee Bazaar due to an impossible debt they’d accumulated, and why he understood when he one day woke up in a house empty of all but himself, no more than a loveless husk of what might once have been. He understood, but he never forgave.

As a young teen Adaskan took to the streets, he knew no-one would grant him shelter in return for nothing, so he created his own. The slums of Bazaar did not lack for children like him, and with a quiet but fervent fire slowly growing from meek embers in his heart, he brought many of them together. Soon he was known as the lead of a pack of children forgotten or forsaken by the world, this Jackal Pack valued survival over all else, and in it everyone was given a place to call their own, a place that was stolen from each of them when they needed it most.

The Jackals name eventually proved to be their undoing. It was not the fat, uncaring authorities of Bazaar that would bring about their fall, they could always be bribed. The threat came from shady figures in red who whispered and lied, and promised Adaskan’s pack things they’d never dreamed of, inducting them into a new gang as spies, little ears and eyes in the crowd. This new group called themselves the Crimson Jackals, and claimed the Pack’s name an insult to them, and so the Jackal Pack was the first of Bazaar’s gangs to disappear and be replaced by more clad in crimson.

Adaskan himself disappeared, the remains of his Pack also vanishing or joining those in red. Most thought they simply gave up and fled, but the sinister truth in the undercrofts of Bazaar was far crueler. Adaskan and his loyal were taken to a Crimson Jackal prison complex deep within the crypts under the city, a place with little hope, and little light. The only light Adaskan saw in the coming year was fire, and the brand of his captors, and the only words in his ears were those same lies and promises that his Pack had heard and followed.

However the flame within him never left. As it sputtered, almost cinders, fate gave it a breath of sweet air, and like a phoenix reborn it roused into an inferno. One day just as his tormentor was finishing up his twisted work, he stumbled and the brand poked into Adaskan’s binds. The rope caught fire and spread to him, blood like oil as it ate the fiber and flesh with ravenous hunger, joined by the hunger for survival glimmering in Adaskan’s eyes as he broke free and embraced the man in front of him. As his foe screamed and burned, Adaskan felt little pain, he had been burned plenty and he knew the fire in him was much stronger, much brighter. Once it was over, Adaskan walked, every step took his everything, but like a living torch he clawed his way out of the complex, and no one dared touch him.

Once he was outside, the flames flickered and slowly died. He fell to his knees and though his body was charred and broken, his soul and spirit were more alive than ever. A year after his escape, few even among the Crimson Jackals remember his name, most believing no-one could survive such a thing. But when bodies in red begin to appear in the desert, bearing the mark of one of their own brands shaped into the letter A, rumors begin to spread of a vengeful wraith clad in rags and the furs of jackals who hunts the now-prominent Crimsons on a vendetta for a life he had lost.

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Memories: Shara

You close your eyes and concentrate, pushing through into Shara’s consciousness, and you sense her trying to share a memory with you. You reach forward and feel your thoughts and hers melding. Slowly, you open your eyes and find yourself in a different place, a different time, seeing what she once saw through her eyes, in her body.

You are running, fleeing, your hand grasping another’s. The well painted, opulent walls of your home flit by as you rush down the corridors, heavy footfalls not far behind. You look behind you and see the panicked face of your beloved, her ragged clothes and her broken chains, and you try to smile just to tell her you’ll be fine. You’ll both be fine.

Your family’s guards yell at each other to keep going, their voices closer to you than you thought, they’re catching up. Each and every window you pass is barred, but the bars are inside, not outside the glass. In your hurry, you do not notice the dead end around the corner and soon find yourself trapped, with nowhere to hide. The footsteps steadily get louder, closer… But you don’t need a place to hide. As you turn around you embrace Yeva and try to shush her sobbing, pressing your forehead against hers and looking her straight in her tired eyes.

“Don’t look back Yeva, I’ll keep you safe. They won’t find you, just be quiet my love, please just be quiet”, you try to sound confident, to give her whatever comfort you can offer as the guards draw near. You concentrate and feel a force surround you, veiling you and your beloved in a shadowy cloak, blending your bodies to the surroundings like the desert heat twists the air upon the dunes. The guards come, their voices filled with confusion, then anger, the one you recognize as your father’s chief of security barking orders to his underlings. Soon they leave, the sounds of their departure growing distant, and once they’re nothing but a quiet memory you dispel your illusion and fall to your knees with Yeva. Both of you are crying silently, holding each other, not yet free but at least for now you are safe. Yeva is safe, and you will always keep her safe.

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The illusion of a calm night is betrayed by pillars of smoke rising over the treetops. Faint screams of terror and anguish echo to Dirge’s camp, hidden in the woods a fair distance from the road. He gazes into his campfire and imagines what’s happening in the town he had left barely half a day ago, now being consumed by a raging inferno. It was his fault as it always is, for he is a harbinger, a child of chaos whose progenitor loves him dearly. But he has learned to turn that which most view as a curse into a blessing, albeit in a twisted way that would only make sense to another on a similar crusade as his. With his uncanny ability to draw the worst out of the people he meets, Dirge has mastered the art of taunting and tricking those he condemns to falter and reveal their own sins, hopefully either causing an imprisonment, execution or duel to the death. The town on fire was a worst case scenario, where the townsfolk relished their sins and were beyond his help, and all he could do was make the town consume itself in purifying flames. A crusader not in name but in spirit, Dirge had begun a journey to eradicate evil in his homeland, in any form it might manifest itself. In his eyes, a slobbering goblin and a slave-keeping innkeeper are two sides of the same coin, and neither deserve any quarter.

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Sin Soma

Sin Soma is a servant-knight to a deity of secrets, mysteries and truths. They belong in a sparse order that works in the shadows as spies, information brokers and tacticians either for hire or doing freelance work by themselves. The members of the order have a unique talent bestowed to them by their deity, they are able to manifest knowledge, usually secrets, into a thick liquid that they store in bottles. The liquid, when ingested, allows the imbiber to learn the secret in detail, in turn when the liquid is extracted from a person, they forget it completely.  The methods of the order are guarded by the knights zealously, and giving away any of their trade secrets will result in termination from the order, and in most cases the penalty of death.

Sin Soma is one such outcast knight, though the reason of their banishment is vague and certainly unknown to them. Perhaps another, influential knight took offense to them, or they somehow warranted the anger of their deity. It matters little at the moment however, as they flee to the deserts of Aber from their former allies. In a foreign land with few ways to go, they begin a search for a substantial secret to coax the attention of their deity, in an attempt to gain audience and reveal the truth behind their fate.

Sin Soma is a kitsune from the land of Agiannan, who does not like to define their gender.

They are 175 cm (5′9′’) and weigh around 70 kg (154lbs). They possess a lean, androgynous build that they conceal with royal-purple ceremonial clothing of their order, decorated with subtle patterns of insects. Under these clothes they wear lightweight studded leather armor. Their fur color is an ashen-grey, typical to kitsune originating from veiled city of Shah.

Like most in their order, they wear an intricate insect-mask to conceal their identity. Their mask of choice is made of dark wood with silver etchings, and depicts a locust. Their weapon of choice is a rapier, and they enhance their combat-prowess with illusory and teleportation magic.