Hi hello and welcome to my lil' corner of Tumblr! Call me Noct, I'll be your host for better and for worse. Beware the AuDHD because it's everywhere.
This blog is a side-blog for @tales-from-nocturnaliss and follows nigh exclusively the Syrilae, a race of elves unique to Aeyuu. They and their guardian trees are closely linked to the Goddess of Life, Aeyin, so this blog will also hold the most global worldbuilding.
⚠️ About My Writing ⚠️
Please note that I write Dark Fantasy, which essentially means I write really dark stuff without batting an eye. I have no taboos (but I do have dislikes), but I also have only a very basic brain filter, which means that I cannot tag my posts appropriately beyond 'dark fantasy' (and NSFW for those rare cases).
This blog may well be least subject to actual dark dark, but most characters do experience grief and traumas so do enter at your own risk.
🌘 My World 🌒
🔵 Tales from Aeyuu 🔵- my main flame, my very own Dark Fantasy world I've been building since 2011. The main themes are Death and Beauty, black and blue, a place of violence and blood that also yields plenty of love and hope as its people strive not merely to survive, but to live.
💠 Character Tags 🌼
(￣▽￣)" Short profiles, available tales, and OC Ask List through here! (°ー°〃)
Let me know if you'd like to be kept in the loop of new posts!
@cicidarkarts - @kathea - @haeresis-tea
👋 Tagging You 👊
To offer some support on Patreon or on Ko-fi (I have one-off donations and feedback comms on the latter <<) if you like what I do and want to gift an old stray some love and support. In the meantime, I shall write on for love, pleasure, and all the lickable traumas! 🤟
Happy Blorbo Blursday from the Creators Club. Does your character miss anyone? Why do they miss this person? What would they be willing to do to see them again?
Oh well I kinda covered this over here without meaning to <<
So to give more context because it's both wholesome but also look away if you have any age gap triggers, Devon has been essentially this... presence in an important bloodline of the world. His first memory was Sorasiehn, whom he spent centuries with, and I discovered over time just how absolutely *core memory* this dysfunctional, never-defined relationship was. To the point that, when she died abruptly (unnatural death), he had to essentially shove all of the memories aside just to survive.
And went back to her home village, where he looked after Sorasiehn's daughter, Nefahtil, once she herself came back home (there's really too much context to give, bear with me that I shorten). Where things got tricky and um spiraled a bit is when Nefahtil had a daughter. A beautiful, gentle little soul with a power of her own, like her ancestors. Hers was a power of manipulation of the mind. A power she ended up not controling, as she didn't realize it essentially leaked from her.
Where it gets iffy and heartbreaking and I decide today I wanna talk about it, is that her power manipulated Devon's emotions. Not intentionally. But, as she grew older, into a young mature woman (I cannot stress her adultness enough), the fatherly feelings he had for her twisted into something wrong born from the buried feelings for Sorasiehn. Leading to Devon just... thinking he was in love, when his love was actually for Sorasiehn.
Before you scream at me in outrage: no, nothing happened. The man has some never-remembered trauma that makes intimacy for him impossible (thank fuck for that I say), and the fact of the matter is that, twisted as his feelings were, they were still nothing like the feelings he had for Sorasiehn (which I have been exploring since it was brought up to me that he sounded like something he's not, which hurt, buuuuuut led me to SO MANY FEELS about he and Sorasiehn that I am grateful for the pain now long gone). As said: twisted.
And it is this twisted nature of feelings that made him miss Selessannea with a blind madness completely unlike himself. That made him pursue necromancers and kill them mercilessly, lost in the grief of having watched her wither and die for a man he believed didn't love her (but, that man did, Devon simply couldn't/wouldn't see it). And all of this is *why* he missed Selessannea like a crazy man... because he was, in essence, crazy.
Now. Obviously, there was nothing he could've given or done to see her again, save to die - and even so. But, centuries later, he does encounter a true lethal creature who plays with his mind, too, and brings out all the actual grief but also anger he held for Selessannea, and twists that withering last image into an image of him killing her. Which I mention because it twisted things back into a sense of growing order. Snapped the twisted feelings back into their righful place, leaving room for different feelings to emerge. Different memories. Memories of Sorasiehn.
Where I'm at currently, he's not remembering Sorasiehn clearly yet, but he also doesn't miss Selessannea as he used to. The feelings have stabilized, righted themselves enough that I can feel relief. But ohhhh once he remembers her? Well, as I've seen in an AU with a close friend, the memory of Sorasiehn will be like death. It will be terrible. Devastating. Shred his heart to pieces and leave nothing standing.
And her, he will miss because he truly, genuinely, did love her, as she loved him, though neither of them ever defined these feelings, nor accepted them, nor acknowledged them. They lived side by side, vampire man and warrior elf, he proudly devoted and she fierce and cold, but oh how they cared about one another. For her, he would be willing to give anything to hold her again, just one more time.
I think I reblogged to @of-grief-and-vampires, but it's important enough to reblog here as well, in this nest where the syrilae now live.
Devon and Sorasiehn remain for me this huge(ly important) situationship that never could have had a happy ending, yet is in a way... positive. Despite all the bad feelings that live within it.
But that's not something I can get into with how woozy my brain is lol let me just say I love them and hope to one day start rewriting their story in a format that I like.
Nope not me not having caught up with Tumblr yet but posting another snippet of tragic fluff this time <<
---
"So I… am stuck," she said, breathless, a terrible emptiness taking her over. "My life ends if I stay… and ends if I leave."
His hand upon her chest, Daeron apologized. Selessannea, however, shook her head.
"I can never blame you," she said, a smile on her face. "You have given me more than ever I expected to find. If my life must end here, then so be it. I will have known you, at least."
I could say so many things about Selessannea and Daeron and how wrong and how right they were for each other... but with my head being very woozy and me wanting to finish all the reblogs, I'm only gonna say:
The tale of Selessannea, Daeron, and Devon, is how I discovered that everybody carries a piece of truth, but never the entire truth, because we are creatures biased by perception and emotion.
(( @drawnecromancy I'll take french translations of those words, too 😛))
Here come the snips!
Dust - from Kristofa and Niskania's story (hasn't got a real title yet)
Through his soil-based abilities, Kristofa easily found his way to the nearest Human settlement, a small and cozy town called Farren. Kristofa was awed by the abrupt change in scenery: a sea of trees and nature turning to rectangular tall homes made of stacked rocks or bark shaped to boards. A cold surface the Humans called glass covered the windows, dead grass or hard panes served as a structure called roofs. Not a single home arched into a dome. Not a single edifice was covered in vines and light. Here, what they called the moons shone down through the night, a vast expanse of darkness speckled with dust that they called stars.
For an instant that obstructed his throat, Kristofa remembered a story Niskania had told him when they were children. Something about 'little lights' and the 'bright eyes of the dark, one small and one large'. He knew that he was supposed to understand something; but Kristofa merely knew to keep staring, dumbfounded. Mesmerized.
---
Glower - from Ario's story part 5, From the Depths
"Are you alright, Yosen boy? You look awful."
"I'm dying."
The person chuckled. Ario immediately recognized him. "You must be fine if you can joke like that," Triku said. His laughter turned abruptly to a pained gasp, but he carried on, "Soba, however, won't be. Not like this. Whatever happened to him,…" Triku paused, his heart pounding with concern and regret. "This is no longer your place."
Your place? No: our place; the place, Ario thought about and he ardently wished he wasn't, his eyes transfixed on the top bunk, that Soba had but days ago befouled with his disgustingly wrong feelings. He needed to remind Soba of his wrongness; of the only way in which he was allowed to be wrong. Ario gritted his teeth and sniffled. Memories stared and smiled and glowered at him, collided with each other, jumbled, fragmented;
---
Night - from Fragments of Selessannea's memories
For the first time in my life, when Devon reached out to me, I pulled away.
"Leave me be," I remember blubbering at him.
"Selessannea," he replied, and hearing my name spoken with such kindness after hearing him yell out with such ferocity made me feel sick. "This place isn't safe for you—"
"Of course it isn't! You're here!"
I did not regret my words right away. In that moment, a terrible disgust had taken over me, as well as the realization that malia had been right all along. I did not see my palo – I did not see the tears in his eyes, nor the shock on his face. All I saw was the blood coating his clothes, and the monstrous fangs protruding between trembling lips. The smell of him – something unnatural that defied description – made me feel sick. In that terrible moment, I wanted but one thing: for Devon to get out of my life, forever.
When Devon left, I did not cry. He was already long gone when a strange, uncharacteristic thought crossed my mind: that if he were to take his life that night to atone for all of his wrongdoings, I wouldn't even care. He'd have gotten what he deserved.
---
Pierce - from The Life in your arms
The girl’s gaze pierced the darkness. He could not see her, but he felt:
She was reaching out. Attempting – and, this time, the term was correct – to communicate with him. She desired something. Something beyond his comprehension; but, he thought, not out of the realm of his abilities.
Lan lifted his head and looked around – at the impenetrable darkness that surrounded him. An idea crossed his mind.
He held out his arms towards the girl – towards where she had last sat, at least – and closed his eyes. Lan took a deep breath, and gathered within himself all the tingling moisture flooding the air itself. Air turned liquid in his breath; power coursed through his veins like rivers unleashed. Through his eyelids, he saw light. With his mind, he saw a large globe of glowing water, spinning and swirling before him - and then he was the water, and he was spinning and swirling and diving and dancing, joyous, unimpeded.
He was water; and he was everything.
But the girl was not. As her shaking fingers grazed the orb – grazed him – Lan perceived. There was a depth of liquidity within her, without a doubt… but it lied deep. Exceedingly deep. Engulfed by thick, viscous blackness that quivered at his touch, peeling away.
There is a certain pleasure in revisiting stories after a few months of inactivity.
For one, you see more clearly what exactly is wrong with them, allowing for a good rewrite.
For two, you get to rediscover your own story and enjoy all the parts that were good the first time around.
And three, you get the satisfaction of finishing the Thing if, like me, you tended to flitter about a lot and, life aiding, you evolved towards needing to complete all the WIPs you left in your AuDHD-ish wake.
(this story was originally called Assault, but then it evolved. And its core changed. Thus, its name followed suit)
---
"You know the truth," Aneskia's lookalike said, unfazed. "It belongs to your veins now. There is no point in fighting what you know to be foreordained. Lay your head and sleep now—"
"No…"
"—for there is nothing more that a child such as you ought to do. The advent of silence has begun. Do you not yearn for peace? Do you not yearn for your suffering to end?"
Aneskia fought back her tears. She hesitated before responding, a quiet "no" that her lookalike dismissed with ease.
"It is life that is wrong," the lookalike stated. "It is life that brings misery and sorrow to the world, for it is in life that the soul accrues undeserved pain. You who have lost all whom you loved, do you not agree? Had none of you lived, would you not know peace?"
if life is suffering and death is peace, why would you reject death at all?
Death is one of my Core Topics. Explored in many ways, whether literal or figurative. Death and rebirth, reconstruction, as the Death card in Tarot signifies. Destruction preceeding renewal.
But what if destruction IS the renewal? What if nothing lies beyond destruction? What if the quiet of that is preferable?
I was tagged by @duckingwriting over a week back (their post here). Yes, it took me a while to get to this, simply because it took me this long to get back to writing in itself.
Rules: share the 9 last lines of your WIP and tag 9 people.
The lines (taken from a dreamscape scene):
"Nalyn," the quiet boy repeated, "You still haven't learned. Violence doesn't solve everything."
"Shut up! You don't have the right to tell me that!"
The quiet boy's sigh filled the room, yet the boy himself was still nowhere to be seen. As though he existed in the darkness that crept along the wall, within the pulse of blood.
When next the quiet boy spoke, he was no longer a boy, but a soft-spoken man whose tone carried a hidden hardness. "No one has the right to tell you that you're wrong, do they?" the man said. "And yet you are. You're wrong. You have been wrong your entire life. Your life itself is wrong—"
"That is not true!" Aneskia cut in.
"—and that it has not ended yet is only testament to your stubbornness. But mark my words."
The tags:
Since people don't seem to respond to my tags, I'm tagging no one :3 feel free to join and tage me if you join from here. If you do, I guarantee you a comment on your lines.
I shared this one in @warrior-hearts as well, but considering it's in Aneskia's pov, it belongs here too. Mostly here, for this is her mind, her soul, getting assaulted by the Necrolore.
I still love the idea of the young elvin girl who's lost everything meeting the old weary elvin warrior of a different race and what ties them together is this grief and loss and trying to make the best out of shitty situations. Aneskia needs a strong sidekick to keep her upright, while Nalyn needs a gentle compassionnate protag to keep walking at all. The day I relized I could match them, something clicked, and it still does, and I need to do something with these feelings.
When a character doesn't understand the meaning of death, but experiences it all the same:
Even as the elf pounced upon him and brought him to the ground, Kristofa tried to understand the situation – to understand what it was he was feeling. Terror, as the elf straddled him and screeched in his face, bearing a set of sharp, bloodied fangs. Dread, as he struggled to pry the elf's crushing hands from his throat; to keep those fangs from nearing his eyes.
(I'm resuming my writing endeavours, of course I'm diving straight into Dark territory. <<)
Nothing surrounded Aneskia but empty walls whose texture she could not quite define. Not a single door in sight. Not a single window.
Not a single point of escape. An intrusive realization, fraught with a fear she did not understand. She set her hand on her pounding heart, swallowed this foreign dread, and took a step forward. Aneskia breathed, and tasted nothing. Her ears wide open, she heard nothing, not even the expected creak of floorboards beneath her bare feet.
This had to be a dream.
Upon realizing she was not awake, Aneskia let out a breath of relief. It should be easy enough for her to create an opening; to will a doorframe into existence.
Yet, not a single door appeared.
Not a single window.
Not a single tear on these empty walls.
The sense of dread magnified, her heart now racing in her chest, her spine tingling with discomfort. A wall stood right in front of her now. The only option she had was to turn around.
She did not want to. She dreaded a sight beyond anything she could ever imagine.
This story actually evolved into something else and changed names to Deaden My Worth, if I recall right.
I really love Aneskia, but I realized she's just too weak to carry a story on her own. She's supposed to be the main protag for The Age of Silence, but she just doesn't have the strength for it.
However, I do recall figuring out how to make her so: by throwing her off the deep end with no option but to swim or die.
One day I'll write that story. It's been nearly 15 years in the making, but I never really let go of it. I love her and the other characters to be involved, namely Kooga (who I shouod snip in the correct side-blog sometime - uh oh I dunno what the right blog is for him XD).
Trying to counter depression (I need to walk more, I swear) with some writing. Especially some writing that is soon gonna turn dark. Muehehehe. >:3
Kristofa's attention returned to the present when he heard a particular, unfamiliar sound. Like a brief metallic jingle upon the click of boots, growing closer with each step. He lifted his head towards the sound and noticed a small group of men, clad in leathers and sheathed swords. The man at the front, black-haired, wearing metal onto leather, stared straight at him.
Bets are open as to what you think'll happen next <<
I really need to continue this story one day. I kinda just... dropped off from it, as I mainly wroite it to get an idea of who Aneskia, Niskania's daughter, was... but hrrrrnnnnnnnnnn the unrequited love tragedy in here.
One day. If I keep working in monthly themes, then i'll get to this one too eventually <<
But one day, Niskania's dreams took Agorae by unpleasant surprise. He listened, bemused and horrified, as his precious daughter detailed with emotive precision the fading of a Syrilae life.
Every day anew, Niskania mentioned this life fading further away, surrounded by sorrow and song.
Eventually, the Syrilae life breathed out its last within Niskania's dreamworld. Sorrow overcame the girl at once; grief so intense she felt it burn through the confines of her heart and twist into an emotion she had no word nor definition for: hate. A force capable of razing entire forests and flatten out the mountains she had grown to cherish. It brought terror into Niskania's dreamworld, which filled with a darkness she could not name or describe.
I legit had to take a second to double over and breathe after writing this.
I have absolutely missed this kind of intensity in my heart.
[Kristofa] was dumbstruck – as was [Niskania] that she was able to unleash such malice. She could not deny it: a part of her, a tiny prickly seed inside her heart, reveled in watching Kristofa's stoic expression crack. A grin stretched her lips as her pain took a will of its own, and she said, "Do you really think I could love someone like you? Someone with a mere Ilvin malia? My parents at least abandoned me for a good reason. Yours simply left. They looked at you, and knew you did not deserve them."
... FEELS.
(she's also totally lying because she's been in pain her entire life and, in this moment, she just wanted to hit him somewhere it might hurt. For context, age-wise he's later teens, she's young adult, and shortly before this he told her that he had feelings for her. There's more bg I won't expand on now, so let me just say: she has a real reason, be it paranoid, to refuse him... and even to seek to turn him away like that. Doesn't change the fact it's monstrous and, one day that may well come soon, she'll regret hurting him so deeply. This is a turning point in his personality.)
