the sweet unfolding

of an antique mystery

[honor-among-th1eves]

audio asturias 

[honor-among-th1eves]

naenias​:

☓ location: feivel’s office status: CLOSED ; @honor-among-th1eves​

Haunting has become habit. (Though she would argue that it wasn’t so much haunting as it was others being bothered by her quiet presence.) Waiting for Feivel to return to his office, there is no doubt in her mind that he will be bothered by finding her here. She leans into the discomfort she causes in others, often takes an odd comfort in the predictability of gaining such response; though she wonders if she were anyone else—felt anything more than indifference—if her heart would break by the notion of being feared. 

She doesn’t think too long about it. Instead, she focuses on the old leather spines that her fingers graze as they move along the bookshelf that now belonged to Feivel. She remembers the names of those who came before him, and which books they recommended to her during times that seem more like dreams these days. Just as she goes to pluck a book from the shelf, her attention is pulled by nails against stone. 

The hound finds her before the target of her interest does, and she watches with great enthusiasm as it goes from a placid creature to a snarling beast at the mere sight of her standing there in the office. The animal’s loyalty exists to its man, who may as well be its god— it knows nothing of politics or magic; a noble trait, indeed.

“Hello Feivel,” she coos once the other has followed Gunport’s lead into the room. “Your beast has quite the nose.” 

Any sort of reprieve from time spent in his dusty old library office was welcome to Feivel. His only grief with today’s distraction: it wasn’t long enough. As he passed the towering stacks, Gunport moved ahead clearly indicating that some new interaction awaited him in his office. Even with the indication that someone awaited him in his work space, there was an gut reaction of dread and surprise as he rounded the corner to find Naenia. Years had passed, but the impact of the effortless violence she had enacted against his crew had not. No matter how casual or coincidental the passing, each time Feivel took in the ancient necromancer’s face there was a part of him that was convinced she had finally come to collect his soul as well.

The hound’s hackles were raised defensively as it growled at the body, and Feivel wondered absently if the dog could sense the decay within the woman the same way animals were said to be capable of smelling fear. Rather than greeting Naenia in response to her salutation, he stared back at her coldly. The slow and clumsy smile was nothing short of unnerving, her expression crossing her face in a disjointed manner as if to suggest she had somehow forgotten how to hold her face in anything other than a neutral expression. 

Feivel looked away from the morbid feeling look on the woman’s face and down at Gunport. He took the dog’s muzzle in his hand and shook it a little to break its concentration on the woman. “Go home,” he commanded the dog sternly, watching as Gunport loosened a huff of air before lumbering over to his mat beside Feivel’s desk.

Exhausted by the interaction already, Feivel slid into the chair at his desk and glanced up at Naenia with a lifted brow. “To what do I owe the honor?” he questioned vaguely, half expecting her response to come in the form of a riddle.  

[honor-among-th1eves]

ladyhierophant​:

Kithri was not disillusioned into believing that she created the impression of being the model courtier. She was all too aware of the way that her lips nearly twisted into a scowl when she was paraded before the court, just as she was aware of the way her voice sometimes grew tight with barely-contained anger when forced to speak with the noble people of Castle Tyrholm. Despite this, she had not yet done anything outright treasonous – and nonetheless found herself increasingly shadowed by guards under the Captain’s command. What Captain Andros thought of her, Kithri did not know – the leader of the guard was apparently too much a coward to confront her themselves. It was clear that she was perceived as some kind of threat, or someone to watch. It was a near-constant inconvenience. 

Had the mage not already been humiliated for the entertainment of the King and his brood, she might have been mildly impressed by the boldness of the soldiers who withstood a fire-breathing inferni and held their posts. Instead, she was filled with misplaced wrath. 

A second attack on Kithri’s part was halted when Feivel suddenly appeared, draping a half-cape about her exposed neck and taking a decided stand against the trio of guardsmen. This unexpected development seemed to momentarily bewilder the guards, the closest of which taking a half-step forward as he uttered: “you are interfering with the business of the guard, Asturias –”

“ – the only thing he has interfered with is my burning of your extremities,” Kithri snarled, “though I am happy to still oblige.” When the group still lingered uncomfortably, their hands itching towards their swords, Kithri spat flames at them once more – this time the barrage of fire danced too close, and two of the three panicked to pat out the fire that had caught on the fabric exposed amongst their armor. “Fuck off!” She yelled, obviously pleased when they at last retreated.

Still smarting from her unfortunate evening, Kithri was quick to turn on her unexpected ally, muttering: “I needed no assistance.” 

The second the offending guard so much as budged an inch, Feivel’s already piercing expression grew more grim. He was loathe to allow such blatant harassment over something as trivial as a scar or as dehumanizing as othering inferni--and perhaps a part of him was just looking for an excuse to knife someone. “Business of the court--Don’t threaten me with a good time, Sachal.”

Feivel quieted himself when he heard Kithri’s voice again, glancing at her for a fraction of a second before allowing her to take the lead. It was her conflict, after all, and no one had invited his intervention. He knew his reputation as a dirty scoundrel, even if that now felt like a past life, would always overshadow any attempt to become some white knight--which was the furthest thing from what he wanted, anyway. 

Feivel released a sort of huff of air in place of a laugh when Kithri once again spat flames at th group of intrusive guards. Their retreat was amusing, their spirits as wounded as dogs slinking away with their tails between their legs. Perhaps Kithri was a bit of a wildcard within the court, but she certainly wasn’t a fool and she’d made no obvious strikes against the king. As Feivel understood it, the business of the guard must have been to treat members of the court as animals if they were fulfilling some sort of official business as they had claimed. 

“Of course you didn’t, but you can’t expect one to sit back and allow you to monopolize all the fun of fucking with Andros’ men,” Feivel responded coolly, not particularly bothered by her insistence that his involvement was unnecessary. She was right, no amount of arguing or insisting he deserved her thanks--which he neither expected nor wanted--was going to change that. 

A slight twinge in Feivel’s shoulder quickly prompted him to the next order of business. “Now, would you like a moment to collect yourself? Because frankly my arms are growing tired.” 

[honor-among-th1eves]

bardglory​:

date: eight of ten. location: the library. status: closed to @honor-among-th1eves

The library – as a concept, really – has always fascinated him. Endless spines of books and towers of novels and bits and pieces of history, all crammed into what one might otherwise consider a small space. The shelves make it look vast, to say the very least, and when he walks from section to section it’s easy for him to feel as though he is treading across the grassy terrain of a thick forest, tree trunks on all sides, branches overhead in place of lights. It is here that he finds himself most often caught in his imagination, and if he is really feeling down on his luck in terms of writer’s block, he comes and finds a quiet spot, prays that no one will come close enough to bother him.

Usually, he’s successful. Not always, but usually. There’s an errant pair of lovers, occasionally, or gossips in the shape of nobles, never anything worth eavesdropping on – even if he eavesdrop anyways. 

His Majesty is known to visit, apparently, from time to time. Not to educate himself, obviously, or read up on the lore of the very world he resides in, but instead to bother the antiquarian and look at the baubles he’s collected over time. Armel can’t say he blames him; he’s done much the same thing. Far less directly, of course, from afar, but there’s undoubtedly something alluring in artifacts shaped from steel or blown from glass. It’s why he’s here today: he has nothing better to do right now than bother Feivel and see what the man has to say about the most recent turn of events; maybe, if he’s lucky, he’ll get a story out of it. He enters without even the most remote of attempts to announce himself.

The room is filled with things to look at. Some colorful, some not, some extravagant, others simple. In a way, he thinks it might be like a smaller version of the entrance hall, with all its grand displays and pieces put out and polished. It makes sense to have the trinkets that are in here… here. They must be more valuable. His eyes search the room for Feivel – the man just seems to blend right in. Armel clears his throat. “Do you have a moment?”

Any other day, it was almost a certainty that Armel would have found Feivel had either fallen asleep at his post or abandoned it to find some other member of the court to spend his time with. Typically, he pretended to assume some of the younger members of court tasked with different services needed assistance and that he had simply wrapped up his work early. It was certainly an easier excuse than stating he viewed his office like an ornate prison cell and had nothing to fill his days with because he was illiterate. The books might have provided some sort of comfort if he’d been capable of reading them.

All in all, unless visited by the king or some other soul in the court, Feivel felt as useless as the trinkets and finery around his office tucked out of sight and mind. Perhaps if he was capable of magic he might feel more like the larger, more renowned items that lined the entrance hall and other corners of the castle, but the library was just a further reminder of how irrelevant his once exciting life had become.

It wasn’t terribly often that Armel popped into Feivel’s office, but then again what might the court bard want to do with an antiquarian anyway. Armel’s presence was a welcome reprieve to the silent, stillness of the day, but even so Feivel didn’t bother to lift his head from where he’d propped it on one of his rough, balled up fists. “For the love of the old gods, I wish you would before I beg one of those necromancers to come suck the life right out of me to spare me from another hour of boredom,” he commented, gesturing to the seat across from him at his large desk. 

[honor-among-th1eves]

Status: Closed to @maidenhoods Location: Castle Greenhouse Date: Fifth Day of the Tenth Month

There wasn’t a fiber of Feivel’s being that could honestly cite excitement as the feeling toward the tournament slated to take place the following day, but he was at least glad the incessant noise of building the arena would finally cease. Besides, like many things in life it felt like a relief that time to swallow the bitter swill of having to sit through yet another sybaritic affair had arrived and would soon be over. Like many of the things the court found so amusing, Feivel was left wondering what the allure, let alone the point, of such trappings were. In this case, with the threat of another harsh winter looming, he felt especially critically of the use of time and resources. This was, however, an opinion he kept wholly to himself.

Maiden had spoken briefly about the need to make a handful of salves and other rudimentary treatments for the injuries that might transpire the other day. There was something about the idea of maiming one another in order to celebrate the slaughtering of those in Koldam that thoroughly put Feivel off. Even so, he found himself making his way to Maiden’s workspace with Gunport that evening. He figured the young woman’s workload had probably doubled, if not tripled, and an extra set of hands was likely welcomed. Besides, rooting around in the soil was more attractive work to him than sitting in his office amongst the books.

Gunport made it to the woman first and gave a loud bark in greeting. The large, black dog’s tail wagged with excitement as it looked from Maiden to its master and back again as if pointing out to Feivel what undeniable luck the pair had had to stumble across the girl exactly where one could expect to find her. The air felt particularly crisp and still, perhaps a calm before the storm that would drum itself up the next day, as Feivel arrived at the doors of the greenhouse. 

Everything in order for the grand pissing contest? That was the question he had wanted to ask. Uneducated and wild as he was, or perhaps had once been, he knew better. “Could you use a hand,” Feivel asked, his eyes settling on Maiden where she was at in her work, “or at least some mediocre company?” 

[honor-among-th1eves]

calliopevalmont​:

Sometimes, Calliope fancied herself one of many ghosts that were amongst the halls of the great Castle Tyrholm, looking through everyone as they, in turn, looked through her, haunting and stealing her way down corridors while no one dared a step within a certain radius of her. It was a pointless, sophomoric thought that served little use but to amuse her from day to day, trapped as she was in her lonely tower of thoughts and duty. But it served its purpose, did it not? It tended, admittedly, a tad morbid for the seventh queen of a man who treated wives as irreverently as clothing (things to shed as soon as he thought them wore) to think of herself as a ghost, but it was a tendency she was ill-equipped to lay aside after 26 years of its companionship.

Now, guided by the light of her candle and her whim, she found herself walking the steps down to the reception hall, driven only by the inability to stop, gentle footsteps echoing in the rare emptiness of her husband’s favored hall, adding to the eerie effect of seeing its usual bustling demeanor muted by night’s melancholy touch.

To say she was surprised to see the gleam of two eyes in the dark was to understate it; had she any modicum of a sort of presentness of mind in the moment, she would’ve startled. Curiosity piqued by this unexpected companion-in-haunting, she turned towards the main portion of the reception hall, feet bringing her closer to let the flickering light of her waning candle wash over Feivel and his hound, large and black and looming.

She watched, then, as he dipped into a smooth bow with all the proper airs and titles, almost surprised that he even knew who she was, so sparse was his presence in court these past few months, and so rarely did her path cross with those who weren’t family or advisors. “Hardly,” she answered softly, a flutter of word in response. “It seems I am the interloper tonight, Master Feivel,” she said, watching his dog bound down the hall, muscles bunching and shifting under his sleek fur. “He’s beautiful,” she noted absently, watching the dog pick up the ball and begin trotting back. “Would you mind terribly if I borrowed your two’s companionship for the time being tonight? I will not fault you if you would prefer not, though. You have my word.”

Queen Calliope presented herself as calm, almost curious as she took Feivel in, a reaction which perplexed the man. For the last handful of months he had kept himself as isolated as possible, but that did not mean his reputation did not get out ahead of him nonetheless. Certainly people about the castle knew about his personal history, servants and nobles alike. He saw their hesitation and distrust as they stopped short of him, averted their eyes, or froze in a state of uncertainty as to whether or not he would lash out at them with the violence characteristic of him in the stories of his misdeeds on the high sea. None of this alarm was present in the queen ass she merely peered at him from across the darkness.

The illumination from the candle danced across the planes of Calliope’s face. Admittedly, Feivel had avoided the court and the company of others unless it was inescapable. He had not been quite so close to the queen since his arrival, generally skulking at the back of the room when his presence was mandatory. She was still impressive, even in her undone state in the middle of the night. Her face was a mix of soft, beautiful features punctuated by a pair of serious, almost stoic eyes. Feivel made an effort not to look upon her face longer than what someone of his lower status should dare to.

“Tell me, how does someone intrude upon their own court?” he questioned, largely abandoning the social graces when the queen responded and becoming more casual in his posture. He leaned against the cool stone ledge of the balcony, the ocean to his back. It was the closest place to home he felt in all of Castle Tyrholm, and that fact left a bitter taste in his mouth--he could not put aside the fact his crew had been murdered only some several yards away nearer to the thrones. He kept his gaze focused on the hound as the memories resurfaced, still excruciatingly vivid, to disguise the shift behind his eyes. “Just Feivel will do,” he insisted, still trying to train himself out of the habit of grimacing whenever someone included an honorific in front of his name.

When Calliope commented on the dog Feivel responded with a half smile, his eyes still trained on the beast. Nearly 60 lbs and still growing, Feivel knew the dog was technically still a pup. Full grown it would be quite the impressive hound. Gunport had been a great comfort, and supposedly a gift from King Septimus. Feivel strongly doubted it was Septimus’ idea and it wouldn’t shock him to hear the king had no idea the gift was even given, but it had been enough to keep Feivel’s bitter feelings at bay and prompt him to cooperate in sharing every last detail he knew about the mirror that had arrived at court in his possession. The amount of energy and attention it took to run the young dog down at the end of the day helped to lighten Feivel’s heavy mind and ease him into rest.

The dog returned the ball, which Feivel bounced against the floor a few times. The soft, hollow sound of the object hitting the marble floor echoed throughout the empty receiving hall and the dog’s muzzle followed its treasured toy up, down, up, down. “I won’t flatter myself to presume either Gunport or myself could stand up to the caliber of conversation you’re accustomed to,” Feivel countered in a casual tone of voice. His wrist snapped forward in an instant, the ball sent sailing through the air across the balcony and into the wide doorways of the hall with Gunport hot on its trail. Feivel turned his body toward the queen, one arm resting on the tall banister beside him, the light from Calliope’s candle illuminating the scar that began above his right brow and trailed along the plane of his face, the point where it ended obscured by graying facial hair. He grinned, the expression crooked and sly, “But that certainly won’t stop us from trying to make our company worth your while.”

[honor-among-th1eves]

A memory that makes them feel angry.  Asked by @shadowrcith and @vasylia Featuring @calliopevalmont

There had been women before, that was to be certain. At random ports and on drunken nights of revelry. There had been many women before, but none who had affected Feivel to the point of any sort of attachment. Perhaps this was because these women understood the temporary nature of the man’s presence at their shores, or maybe it had been because Feivel was a different being all together in those days.

He had felt so strongly the impression that he had been reduced to little more than a caged animal within the walls of Castle Tyrholm when he first arrived stripped of his wealth, his reputation, and forced to watch the slaughter of his men. The sense of deep mourning and dread had followed him like a ball and chain slowing his mind and body the first several months he had occupied his station in King Septimus’ court. He supposed he saw himself much like the relics and treasures displayed in the grand halls of the castle, something to gawk at, an object to display the grandiosity of everything that Septimus had managed to accumulate.

It was a chance encounter with Queen Calliope that felt like the hand that reached out to help pull him from his living grave. No, he would not call himself a sentimental man, but he was one to recognize the resources at his feet. He wouldn’t say he loved her—that felt a step too far, and something he was significantly unfit to ask to be worthy of. However, the pair did offer one another a respite, a physical outlet colored by a sort of mutual understanding.

Even if Feivel was not brave enough to admit it to himself, the fact that love was not on the table did not mean the affair was devoid of feelings altogether.

Calliope stirred something in Feivel, which in and of itself was more than he had ever hoped to feel after his sudden capture and subsequent appointment within the court. He would not say it, but he recognized plainly from the start that Septimus had been the one to marry upward, out of their league and not the other way around. Feivel himself was a significant step downward for Calliope, even in comparison to Septimus, but still he could not discipline himself enough to stop from sneaking into the queen’s private quarters while Septimus was away on some hunting trip or other indulgence.

Feivel entered the queen’s chambers, his footfalls silent and his breath baited as he checked over his shoulder at intervals to make sure the coast was clear and the secret remained between the pair of them. He called her name only when he was convinced it was safe to assume they were truly alone. He didn’t expect her to come to him, but rather wanted only to announce his presence.

She was at her dressing table when he found her, her long hair cascading down her back in turns as she ran a comb through it. It made Feivel envy her comb for a moment; to contribute to that tremendous beauty, to run effortlessly through that ebony hair finer than the richest silks this world had to offer. The rogue approached her from behind, his hand collecting the thick rope of Calliope’s hair before he twisted it around his rough palm to guide her to tilt her head back. He stooped low to meet her where she sat and brushed his lips against hers revelling in their softness before enveloping her in a deep kiss to sate the hunger that had been building within him across the previous few weeks.

“You’ve been busy,” Feivel stated simply, trying not to sound like some angry animal that had been left to lick its wounds. With his free hand, he lazily dragged a finger along the exposed nape of Calliope’s neck to the curve of her jaw and down along her throat. With one deft, nimble hand he loosened the buttons that had fastened her ornate dressing gown. His lips met with the smooth surface of her skin as he dropped a procession of kisses along the curve of her neck down to her shoulder as he pulled the fabric back from her shoulders. He had scarcely reached her collarbone when something in the mirror caught his eye.

It struck him as out of place, as unimaginable as he lifted his head to stare into the looking glass nearly certain his eyes had played a trick on him. His hand loosened from the thick cord of her hair as he stood slightly straighter, his eyes fixated on the purplish brown markings on her bicep. A moment’s more observation and he put together the pattern of a man’s hand. Feivel adopted a grim silence as he crouched before her and gently removed Calliope’s arm from the sleeve and gingerly examined her skin only to find an additional set of bruises closer to her wrist. The discovery felt like a knife in his heart and a lump formed in his throat almost immediately. He was not an educated man, but he was no fool: no one would have been bold enough to lay a hand on a queen except a king.

Heavy moments passed in silence before Feivel managed to lift his eyes to meet Calliope’s gaze, the expression behind his looking pained. How many times had this happened before? How many times might he have overlooked a welt or contusion?

“What is this?” he asked when the tightness in his throat finally allowed.

Calliope brushed her fingers over the discolored skin, skimming over the back of Feivel’s hand where it rested on her forearm nearby. “Occupational hazard,” she responded vaguely.

The casual nature of her response was a twisting of the knife in Feivel’s heart. It brought to the surface a deep rage that he had previously thought had been extinguished from within him. Had Septimus been present in Castle Tyrholm, he wasn’t entirely sure he would have managed to drown that fire out in the moment. He had no honor himself with which to fight for Calliope’s virtue, nor did he have any true power in the court to leverage in any sort of attempt to protect the woman. He was made to feel completely ineffective and useless in protecting those he cared about months prior as he stood witness to the slaughtering of his crew--and now he stood in that same feeble position. His inability to act to protect the ones he cared for shattered something within him.

Feivel turned his head and pressed a long kiss to the dark bruising on Calliope’s wrist, his eyes closed in a silent invocation to whatever old or undying god that could be tasked with hearing his prayer. After a moment, he released a sigh before framing Calliope’s face between the two of his rough, rugged hands. After a moment of stillness, he pressed his forehead to hers and made a silent vow to find a way to intercede and do what the gods either could or would not.

[honor-among-th1eves]

ladyhierophant​:

TIME: roughly three weeks prior to the tourney LOCATION: castle tyrholm; in a corridor nearby the receiving hall   STATUS: closed to @honor-among-th1eves​

With the laughter of the King and his court at her back, Kithri burned with humiliation as she spurned the lingering bard and walked with fast, heavy steps away from the receiving hall. The mage was all too aware of the feeling of the air on her scarcely-exposed skin, and her vision seemed blurred at the edges as she hurried in the direction of her room. She halted her path only when she took note of a trio of guardsmen who had caught her tail along the way – no doubt the dogs of Captain Andros, who had taken to sending his soldiers to linger in her shadow as of late. 

Filled already with rage and robbed of any semblance of privacy after being subjected to degradation for the King’s pleasure, Kithri said nothing as her dark gaze settled on the three: she merely glowered for a silent moment before unleashing a torrent of flames from her gaping mouth in their direction. It was as close to a scream as she would allow herself, and she took some small pleasure in the way the sudden burst of flames forced the soldiers to back away several feet in an effort to avoid burning. Still, she had hoped that they would simply run – and their decision to remain, albeit at a distance, rankled her. Kithri did not like the way that they stared – she thought she could see them eyeing the scars which twisted painfully around her neck and arms.

“Run back to your master!” She yelled at them, “or there’ll be nothing left of you!”

Feivel had narrowly escaped another long evening subject to the court and their self-indulgent sense of entertainment. While he wasn’t exactly a high ranking official but there had been evenings when it seemed King Septimus was keen on having the former rogue in his immediate presence for the duration of the night. Typically, the invitation and attention materialized when Feivel had provided some sort if useful parable or perspective, or when he’d put a name to some long-forgotten relic. This made his presence in the receiving hall on those long nights of revelry seem to him like a reward for a dog who had performed some trick to its master’s satisfaction. Since he had done little but rest his boots on his desk and doze in the afternoon sunlight that filtered into his office in the library for the past few weeks, he was able to excuse himself with little consequence.

The man had nearly made it out of earshot of the receiving hall when the sound of laughter erupted. He paused, briefly, and glanced over his shoulder vaguely wondering what frivolous happening might have entertained the nobles so much. From the corner of his eye he saw the dark-haired fire wielding mage exit, the one with the lashing tongue and cutting eyes. A moment’s more observation revealed to him that she was undone, her neck and forearms exposed. He knew in an instant what the source of the laughter had been. His stomach soured and his temper roiled beneath his flesh, only to be further provoked by the handful of guards trailing behind the woman as if to rub salt in the wound.

The moment the men made their intention to follow and further torment the woman, Feivel was moving across the room in a deliberate path toward the guards and the mage. In one fluid motion, his hands unclasped the half-cape from around his neck and swung it off of his shoulders. She seemed to be pretty well handling herself with the barrage of flames she produced that pushed the soldier’s back a few feet. Feivel’s ire gained a second wind as he saw the trio persisted.

In an instant, he was beside Kithri, his cloak held about her shoulders so as to shield her exposed skin from the view of any onlookers and so that it did not make contact with the blistered, raw skin that threatened such pain. The dagger at his hip was made plainly visible without the need to make some showy attempt to brandish it, his dark eyes narrowed on the trio of guards in a manner just as piercing as any blade.

“I suggest you listen to the mage,” Feivel commented in a grim tone of voice, ready to snap up his dagger and come to blows with the guards at even the slightest hint of their retaliation. He knew his own skill level, and paired with the mage he had little reason to doubt their odds.  

[ofhotheads-blog]

Send my muse “👀 + a question” and they’ll have to answer with 100% honesty.

No deleting questions, either!

[persephonememes]

𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒 /  𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐒.

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐨𝐫 𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠.

❛ You will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut, just that fast. ❜

❛ You are going to break your promise. ❜

❛ I understand. ❜

❛ And I hold my hands over the ears of my heart, so that I will not hate you. ❜

❛ Oh, I will be cruel to you. ❜

❛ It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be. ❜

❛ But you understand, don’t you? ❜

❛ I am a demanding creature. ❜

❛ I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable. ❜

❛ For you alone I will be weak. ❜

❛ I do not tolerate a world emptied of you. ❜

❛ In the dark, I have pored over the loss of you like pale gold. ❜

❛ I have looked for your face in the patterns of the ice. ❜

❛ I moved the earth and the water for you. ❜

❛ Because my magic is as strong as an arm. ❜

❛ Magic does that. It wastes you away. ❜

❛ Magic does that. It wastes you away. Once it grips you by the ear, the real world gets quieter and quieter, until you can hardly hear it at all. ❜

❛ You will always run away with her. ❜

❛ You will always lose her. ❜

❛ You will always be a fool. ❜

❛ War is not for winning. ❜

❛ But her heart was so cold that she could hold ice in her mouth and it would never melt. ❜

❛ You look like a winter night. ❜

❛ But if you must be clever, then be clever. ❜

❛ Be brave. ❜

❛ Sleep with fists closed and shoot straight. ❜

❛ She is so stubborn, her heart has an argument with her head every time it wants to beat. ❜

❛ How I adore you. ❜

❛ Tell me you want what you want and damn me forever. But don’t leave me. ❜

❛ Oh, quit that. ❜

❛ In his own country, death can be kind. ❜

❛ Bad luck relies on absolutely perfect timing. ❜

❛ Someone ought to write a novel about me. ❜

❛ I savor bitterness - it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived. ❜

❛ What is the world but a boxing ring where fools and devils put up their fists? ❜

❛ After love, no one is what they were before. ❜

❛ In the space of one heartbeat to another I loved you and I was lost to you. ❜

❛ No one is now what they were before the war. There’s just no getting any of it back. ❜

❛ How long your hair has grown. You could strangle a man in it. ❜

❛ I have survived, but I have not been spared. ❜

❛ After all, when all else is gone, you may still have bitterness in abundance. ❜

❛ I’ve a devil of a habit for being right. ❜

❛ Everyone is a criminal! ❜

❛ Naturally, then, humans fall into three categories: the criminal, the not-yet-criminal, and the not-yet-caught. ❜

❛ Forests have secrets. ❜

❛ We are better at this than you are. ❜

❛ We can hold two terrible ideas at once in our hearts. ❜

❛ It’s not so bad, my darling. ❜

❛ I look at you and it is like my throat being cut. ❜

❛ Do you think I am a fool? ❜

❛ Did you never think, even once, that I loved lipstick and rouge for more than their color alone? ❜

❛ I still want to kiss you. ❜

❛ I hate it here. ❜

❛ He’ll burn you down like wax if you let him. ❜

❛ Did I not come to you on my knees with a kingdom in my hand? ❜

❛ I am not a little girl anymore, dazzled by your magic. It is my magic, now, too. ❜

❛ My heart is being cut in two. I cannot bear it. ❜

❛ Nothing ever truly dies. ❜

[honor-among-th1eves]

serpentcrown​:

CHAPTER I – THE BURNING MAN. setting: the Rosewood Maiden dating: the eight of the tenth month, sometime in the evening with: #dishonoredstart / open

The Rosewood Maiden remained a port of revelry, despite the Grand Tourney and the ashes left in its wake. Come here, its cheerful windows seemed to say; wax candles casting merry shadows on the cobblestone outside, as fern frost slowly laced itself across the glass. The somber spirit that laid over Tyrholm could only linger at the door, here – a ghost kept at bay by cups of brandy and the sound of laughter.

A much-loved deck of cards was splayed out across lacquered rosewood, a magpie’s hoard of prizes swept to Zoya’s side of the table. She rarely played for coin: she favoured oddities & trinkets instead, stories & song. The evening’s winnings so far included a silver brooch shaped like a lyre, and six stanzas on the merits of ale against fainting spells – and her personal favourite, a little figurine of an ermine, which its previous owner swore brought good luck. ( ”Can’t be much left in it, then,” Zoya had said as she palmed it, eyes glimmering as she watched them sputter. )

So far, no one had managed to win her own stakes: a set of dice carved from bone, their symbols painted to look like actual eyes, inlaid with a shimmering, deep green pigment. As the last of her would-be opponents scampered off, she finally turned her attention on a familiar face.

“Ah! Care to join me for a game of Fox’s Gambit?”

“–– Or are you here for something else?” Idly – and yet with surprising grace despite it – she waved to the chair across from her, not a command but an invitation: come, sit.

The Rosewood Maiden had always struck Feivel as a place he would have found more than his fair share of trouble in his former life. Perhaps if he had found himself an unwilling prisoner in Castle Tyrholm just a few years younger than his current state he might have made a whole new reputation for himself amongst the tavern-goers. When he had first joined the court, he had found himself in some heated, ale-fueled situation where he lost his temper on occasion. Usually those occasions led to bruised knuckles for him and a twisted nose for his opponent, both of them looking at each other sorely as they parted ways, the argument settled and the both of them ejected from whatever establishment was unfortunate enough to host them in the first place. But that was a few years ago now, and he was no longer lodged quite so deeply beneath feelings of loss and despair. Feivel had found things other than spirits and brawls to soothe his troubled mind.

After the string of recent carnage, he found himself in the tavern in the hopes he might have a drink in peace, left alone to sort out his thoughts on the recent developments of what had happened in Koldam and more recently during the inane little tournament Septimus had decided everyone needed to suffer through; trotting the court out to watch a pissing contest between one Valmont and another. It certainly wasn’t the gore that got to him. Feivel had gutted men with a keener sense of savagery than what was put on display as of late. There was a part of Feivel that was frustrated the king would misappropriate resources and time on a jousting arena when the incoming winter storms threatened to ruin his subjects with floods and heavy snow fall collapsing roofs. Then again, Feivel had learned pretty quickly that he was never going to understand the pomp and circumstance the monarchy enjoyed busying themselves with and generally kept mute about the topic.

Zoya caught Feivel’s attention halfway through his first drink, and he tried not to let the annoyance show in his face. He knew running into the owner was a likelihood he put himself in the direct pathway of, but it still disappointed him that he shouldn’t get to enjoy his drink in solitude. He could have chosen to ignore her, which would have been obvious, not that he cared much about manners, but he figured everyone had their fill of unkindness in the past few weeks. He could stomach a conversation with Zoya.

He dropped himself into the chair opposite the tavern owner, his body half slumped with his legs stretched out lazily and one arm draped over the back of the chair. With the other, he lifted his tankard of ale to his lips suddenly wishing he’d ordered something stronger. “I don’t have anything of value for you today,” he commented rather than really greeting Zoya. “Nor do I have the energy to play your little games.” He glanced off across the tavern, though his gaze landed on nothing in particular. “I’m here for a drink, what else?” The man braced himself for a barrage of Zoya’s homespun platitudes. 

[ofthebreach]

dragon age inquisition sentence starter

“ Bad things should happen to bad people. “  ” Rich tits always try for more than they deserve “ " Whatever the truth is, that belief gives you power. ” “ Can’t you see why I want nothing to do with that life? ” “ I have seen the throne of the gods, and it was empty. ” “ I will not suffer even an unknowing rival. You must die! ” “ Tell me… where is your Maker now? Call him, call down his wrath upon me! You cannot. For he does not exist! ” “ Common ground is the start of all negotiations. ” “ Though darkness closes, I am shielded by flame. ” “ It spoke of judgement instead of acceptance. It should encourage the good in everyone, rather than rebuke us for our sins. No one should be turned away from our doors. No one is without worth. Whoever you are, whatever your mistakes, you are loved. Unconditionally. ” “ If we’re going to change it, why not change the whole thing? ” “ I’ve known mages. Some of them were better people than me. And yet I’m free and they’re not. It’s not right. ” “ Sometimes you have to figure out for yourself what the pledge to protect others really means. ” “ You are who you choose to follow. ” “ Took me years to understand what he meant. ” “ But wars are won by men. ” “ You inspire them. ” “ Build on that foundation, and you will have an army that makes nations tremble. ” “ We all need to believe there are such men in the world. ” “ I needed to believe I could be one of them. ” “ We could make the world better. ” “ It’s just easier to shut our eyes. ” “ It’s not right… to want to do good, to be good, and have that turned against you. ” “ At this moment, you are the only threat I see. ” “ How seldom does reality match the ideal. ” “ We must do so with open hearts and open hands. ” “ I see what must be done, and I do it! I see no point in running around in circles like a dog chasing its tail. ” “ At some point, power becomes its own master. ” “ They will stand in the fire and complain that it is hot. "  " I want to help. ” “ I used to be like you. I’m not anymore. You shouldn’t be either. ” “ They forgot about him. ” “ I came through to help… and I couldn’t. ” “ Isn’t it wonderful? ” “ Living a lie… it festers inside you, like poison. You have to fight for what’s in your heart. ” “ It’s my duty to stand with you. ” “ I’m here to set things right. Also? To look dashing. That part’s less difficult. ” “ We’re a lot more fragile than we’d like to believe. ” “ Life isn’t about personal freedom. ” “ People don’t always tell the truth when you’re polite. ” “ We pick the ones willing to make the hard decisions… and live with the consequences. ” “ Every great war has its heroes. I’m just curious what kind you’ll be. ” “ No real god need prove himself. Anyone who tries is mad or lying. ” “ I would not trade it for anything. ” “ I hope there’s a damn good punchline coming. ” “ The truly great ones can keep their distance. They don’t get attached to their people. ” “ I always wind up babysitting my informants and worrying about their families. ” “  Heroes are everywhere. I’ve seen that.” “ That’s beyond heroes. We’re going to need a miracle. ” “ For those who value survival, sentimentality is not an option. ” “ I’m never truly out of my element. ”

[honor-among-th1eves]

status: closed to @calliopevalmont​ location: receiving hall, castle tyrholm. date: three years prior, seventeenth day of the fourth month.

Another restless night, and Feivel found himself roaming the halls of Castle Tyrholm with the company of his faithful hound, Gunport, at his side. It was the sound of the wind whistling outside his sleeping chamber’s window that kept a good night’s sleep at bay, the sound reminding him of those wind whipped days out at sea that built him into the man he was now.  He lobbed a ball down the corridor lazily and got some mild entertainment watching the hairy beast chase after it with gusto before bounding back to its master’s side and pushing the slobbery toy into his hand. But even the momentary distraction couldn’t hold back the feelings that he was now more a ruin than a man.

His father had died valiantly in battle, though the skirmish itself could have been avoided by better planning. Even so, his father had died with his reputation intact, ruthless to the end. Feivel himself had quickly built his own mythos around himself, even if it was not as cruel as his father’s. He knew the Clan Asturias had gained a measure of renown, enough for King Septimus to know of their accomplishments, and as the captain of the ship Feivel himself was the figurehead of the legend. On nights like this, he would retract his steps and try to pinpoint the exact moment he had gotten too far ahead of himself or too comfortable. He knew what his father would say, that his downfall was the direct result of trusting anyone but himself. Some nights, Feivel felt that conclusion was correct. On other nights, he surmised that his fate was inevitable. For years, he had wondered how legends were brought to their knees. Now he knew he was little more himself than some exotic game King Septimus had cornered and would eventually mount on his wall like the other trophy animals in Castle Tyrholm’s gun room.

The candlelight flickered from further down the hall, and both Feivel and Gunport stood aware, their two sets of wild eyes pointing in the direction of the disturbance. He wondered vaguely if someone else was being kept awake by the ghosts of their past, or if perhaps it might have been the growing sense of restlessness that had been building behind closed doors and in whispered conversations throughout the castle. He had only been a member of the court for a handful of months, but he knew what the early stages of insurrection looked like. This was something he altogether aimed to avoid, more than convinced that the king would be able to put an end to any treason before it truly started.

It surprised him to see the queen passing through the hall, and for a moment he felt his presence was inappropriate. Life in Tyrholm had come with a healthy dose of culture shock, to say the least. He had cleaned up well, this was true, but he knew he was far from noble. His manners had provided ample fodder to mock him in his first months in the court, and the stiff clothing he had been given felt like it choked him. Perhaps it was his station in his office that made him feel most like the butt of a cruel joke, the books that lined the shelves and his pot of ink and paper virtually useless. He had wondered for a while how long King Septimus would humor him after he realized his master of antiquities couldn’t so much as write his own name. Luckily enough, he had proven himself entertaining enough to listen to that when he was called upon it was almost exclusively in person. Whenever the need to write was unavoidable, it was no trouble to intimidate a servant or page into writing it for him. It took little more than a menacing glare and the simple lie that he preferred to dictate his response rather than be saddled with the chore of writing his message himself.

As The Empress approached, Feivel bowed. It was practiced to look natural, as if he’d been bowing to monarchy all his life rather than copying the other members of court over the past few months. He also took grain pains to make the motion as fluid as possible despite the strain it caused his lower back. “Your Majesty,” he greeted, “I apologize for disturbing you this evening.” He tossed the ball away again, figuring someone of her stature had little interest in being near such a creature. The dog took off again after the ball, springing clumsily down the long hall.

[honor-among-th1eves]

( full application / skeleton / biography / para sample / plot ideas )

[honor-among-th1eves]

...normally I consider nostalgia to be a toxic impulse. It is the twinned, yearning delusion that (a) the past was better (it wasn´t) and (b) it can be recaptured (it can´t)...

john hodgman

[strangesilversea]

Stories make sense when so much around us is senseless, and perhaps what makes them most comforting is that while life goes on and pain goes on, stories do us the favor of ending.

John Hodgman (via strangesilversea)

[weltenwellen]

Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath