Finan, Uhtred, Sihtric // The Last Kingdom // S4E1
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if i look back, i am lost
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
One Nice Bug Per Day
wallacepolsom
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Peter Solarz

pixel skylines

Kiana Khansmith

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祝日 / Permanent Vacation
Not today Justin

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blake kathryn
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
Xuebing Du
occasionally subtle

★
trying on a metaphor
Cosimo Galluzzi
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seen from Poland
seen from Poland

seen from Poland

seen from Türkiye

seen from Indonesia
seen from Malaysia
seen from United Kingdom
seen from France

seen from France

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@nightingalearkyn
Finan, Uhtred, Sihtric // The Last Kingdom // S4E1
Uhtred - The Last Kingdom
Uhtred - The Last Kingdom
Uhtred - The Last Kingdom
Alexander Dreymon as Uhtred of Bebbanburg
The Last Kingdom (2015– )
open starter notes: i know theres a bath house somewhere in this place and dont take this as arkyn not bathing for WEEKS, we are setting this just as the refugees are allowed in ok get away from me
It was only when Arkyn was sure the bath house was empty, that he deigned to enter the establishment. It wasn't that he was in any such way, humbled about the idea of anyone else being around rather - he simply didn't wish to spend his entire time soaking looking over his shoulder. A habit that would follow him from the streets of Iskaldrik as a child, no doubt. Very rarely, did he ever feel as though he could relax, unless he was alone. Years of torment and cruelty was a difficult scar to heal, and even in Lysara - a place where the magical were not persecuted, he was wary. The trust he'd once held in the woman who'd given him coin, hadn't yet extended this far east, it would take time. Discarding the robe he'd been offered - a refugee of the far off realm granted many of them welcome without question once they were allowed through the barriers, Arkyn almost hissed at the feel of properly heated water as he descended the steps into the pool and felt every tension within his shoulders release. A momentary venture, as the sound of another clearing their voice broke his moment of supposed solitude. Almost immediately, the water parted around him as he backed into the edge of the bath, already aware of exactly what lay behind him. "I was told nobody else was here."
What’s their posture like when they walk? Are they a slow, fast, or moderate walker?
Arkyn's posture very much reflects the fact that he doesn't like attention. He doesn't stand straight, and he does what he can to take up as little room as possible - so he can disappear when need be. It's more of a "lingering" posture, enough to wrap himself around the shadows and become unseen. He walks neither slow, nor fast as generally speaking, he's paying more attention to what's happening around him, than where he's headed to. It's all about survival
☾ What (if any) birthmarks does your character have?
Arkyn has a mark just beneath his lower left ribs, almost in the shape of a blade of wheat. One of the women from the brothel he was raised in once told him it was didn't look like anything more than a scar but it's not raised, and he doesn't ever remember being hurt there. A woman married to a man of the Iskaran court once told him that it would be the place he was run through and left for dead.
@ormir notes: were just out here okay
Out of sight, out of mind. A place in which, Arkyn had never been able to hide Ormir. Were it the thought of returning home to him and entwining limb and lips until the sun brought the following day - or the ache that festered until the organ within his chest all but withered, the lord hand, was a fixture. A constant, in all the ways he'd never hoped for. Memory struck of a fleeting glance between them. Caught somewhere between the rush of those leaving the safety of the ground they held and those that sought to follow the King. Knowing, that Ormir would undoubtedly follow drew the withered organ to life until it beat with an echoing, thunderous beat that had barely been drowned out by the storm building overhead - had he heard? Had Ormir heard the screaming? Those of which pleaded, silently with him, to stay. To turn away from the path the King led him - to the certain death that the mountain range promised. It had been fleeting, and yet now, as he moved throughout the street and noted the man leaving the stone cropping, a far nobler lodging than the one he'd found himself, he felt only fury burn through him. "I have nothing to say to you," he bit out, as he passed by. As if Ormir had begged the question of a word at all in the first place.
But, that was not the truth. Arkyn made it a further four steps before his better judgement drew him to an immediate halt. The transcendent feel that prickled within the tips of his fingers begged to tear into his own chest, rip his heart from beneath the safety of it's skeletal cage, and hand it to the Lord Hand. With or without the silver platter. He turned, rounding upon Ormir with a certain ferocity in his step that had kept him quiet ever since he felt the man slipping from his grasp. "You would follow him to certain death." Statement. He doesn't need to beg the question. "Were the King dancing the precipice of the edge of the world, you would be right beside him. Blind to the fact that he draws you ever closer to your end." The slack of his jaw tightens, muscle flexing against grit teeth as he surveys his lost love - because that is what he is, lost. A step closer, "He would offer you the world and only give you the smallest window with which to see it, and you would still love him for it, wouldn't you?"
@witchertorsten notes: honestly i owe u something shirtless but i cant find what i wanted so you get this instead kiss kiss
Familiarity began to bleed into his peripherals, the longer he remained. It was a feeling that he wished to let go of when he'd reached the Lake of Sighs, and sworn the oath that might mold him into something more than a street urchin but perhaps even a different life couldn't scourge the memory of like for like. He'd changed, indefinitely, just as the younger man before him had. It was only now, beyond the realms of the road they'd taken, that Arkyn's mind formed the memory of where he'd seen the other. It wasn't obvious, nor nearly clear enough - too caught up in the survival and protection of all those who walked the path, but now, as he watched the man move, attempting some stretch of training, that Arkyn recognized the movement. He'd been little more than a boy, barely able to take care of himself and yet, if his memory served him rightly and this was indeed the boy he'd seen arrested, he'd survived all this time. Twenty years and one missing limb later, "Have you always favored your right knee?" Arkyn was nothing even close to a warrior - a soldier, but he'd mastered the art of observation, even before becoming a Nightingale. He remembered the boy balking in the face of soldiers, his right knee holding is weight in a way that did him a disservice. It would twist, leave him incapacitated for a short moment before it would offer any resilience or speed.
@princessxaytac
The flash of dark hair is telling, despite how many sport tresses so similar - there are few that hold the same shine and regality as Aytac, and unfortunately for him, he knows this head of hair all too well. Undoubtedly, it's unintentional. The fact that she seems to be heading in his direction - there is nothing she could want of him. Those of higher power, the woven pattern must deem it imperative to force him towards discomfort at every crossroad. The space around them clears, as if offering the chance for them to speak without interruption - or perhaps, merely offering the princess a wide berth. Arkyn tips his head towards her, the slight twitch within his upper lip one that does not convey anything other than reproach. "It's an improvement." It's up to her, to decide whether he means the city, or her features. The disfigurement is surely a learning curve for her, though - he doesn't wish to know much of. "however small."
where?: tower of olympia library when?: sometime between the iskaran arrival and neptunalia who?: open to all
Calla may not have been an instructor at the Tower, but when her senior Scholars call on her mind to help guide the next generation of witches, she always answers the call. Teaching or holding demonstrations for the Novices was always fulfilling, and even though Calla's ability to cast was far beyond anything they could hope to achieve, their applause after seeing her weave a mini cloudburst before their very eyes was enough to make her bashful. "Please, that was hardly anything to write home about. Honestly, on my own, I'm nothing special..." But saying so out loud sparked a new idea for her. The girl with mist swirling at her feet hurried to the library's threshold, sensing the perfect addition to her small seminar. "I knew it, you're the perfect one to help," she says wistfully, her eyes visibly lighting up as her fingers interlock. "Would you be willing to help with this demonstration? I know the Novices would appreciate the knowledge we can provide them together."
Arkyn hadn't been searching for anything in particular, but it had been years since he'd laid eyes upon any intellect that didn't revolve almost entirely upon sneaking those in and out of Iskaldrik. The mind desired something more, now that he too, was in Lysara. Something to curb the boredom and maneuver his drive to something more he could offer the Nightingales. However much the human could feel the surge of gratitude towards the woman inlaid with magic that had once found him within the streets - there was still so much unease he felt, now being in a place that did not vilify the magical and rather, celebrated it. "Oh no," he muttered, a polite nod as he drew backwards after emitting a slight applause from the towering shelves of scrolls, "I can assure you, there's nothing I can provide your novices with." And truthfully, he believed he was already too near one of magical standing.
Smoke. The sheets of breath that obscured their faces in the dark. That was all the materiality that Arkyn’s answers took. Ormir brushed it away rather than waste their time trying to catch it. He knew better than to act like he was owed the full truth. What did hold meaning was that Arkyn was here now, barricaded in with the rest of them, and that made the fear worse. Fear of losing what wasn’t his, or reliving the loss of what was all over again. Unlike with Orhan, there was no wealth of jealousy or resentment he held for this man that would withstand the grief. Ormir felt the dread set to grating like a whetstone against an old wound. His gaze followed the movement on the ground, where ivory poked through the snow. You survived me, didn’t you? Ormir almost asked with the intent to soothe. His partners’ morbidity rate was admittedly higher than most.
‘Highness.’ The title was ill-fitting on him, but somehow nauseatingly close to the truth. It was perhaps the first time he’d heard Arkyn speak that word without the joking distaste they’d once shared for it. The sincerity made visible how deep and wide a rift he’d muscled between them, how close he was to becoming someone that Arkyn could only revile. It felt as though every word echoed through that rift now, landing hollow and distorted on the other side. “Just my name, please.” Ormir’s ask fit somewhere between a request and a plea. He would not order, as hard as that old resentment fought to expose itself in this moment. But would it be worse to act as if time hadn’t passed at all? Jaw set, Ormir amended: “Or ‘Lord Hand,’ if you’d prefer formalities with me.” The crown was not his to claim, as much as he tended to pageant otherwise.
“I’ll go. I’m not here to torment you. It’s only that I…” The words withered, and he swallowed the bitter remnants of them. What, ‘missed you?’ Couldn’t sleep properly for months without the weight of your body and the sound of your infuriating snoring? Let the strawberry bushes die? Envisioned you were dead, because the wound was left cleaner that way? Mourn the man that I was with you? Another gust of ice-laden air whipped against skin, sinking its barbs deeper. The Iskaran spoke through clenched teeth so they wouldn’t vibrate out of his skull. “Only that I’m surprised that you came,” Ormir’s lip tightened then, and his cadence lurched. The rest was forced out, unpolished. “And I’m grateful.” His heart thrashed, but it was true in spite of his fear. That kind of vulnerability used to come easy to them. Whoever Arkyn’s new patron was, they must have many ears spread far to have known to dispatch assistance here, of all places. Unless Arkyn had been living in Iskaldrik to begin with, a thought disrupted. Ormir decided against delving further.
Rather the taste of blood upon his tongue. The metallic one he could perhaps muster the strength to live with, rather than the bile that settled within the thick of his throat now. Regardless the circumstances, the itch within his fingertips to reach out was irritable, to say the least - all the while, the voice within the back of his head gasped out orders to turn his back. Just as Ormir had. He'd lived a life haunted by the prospect of magic - a child born of abnormality, the curse his mother left behind as the whole world turned their back on him. Shunned - hunted, a mere boy to earn the moniker of creature, monster - freak. Little more than a human boy, cast aside to allow the world roll over him, again and again, until all that remained were skin and bones; the hope drained from his very fingertips. The only kindness ever offered to him - that of the touch that had condemned him. Magic. It was a scar he'd never allowed to heal. Never wanted to heal; purely out of fear that he'd become complacent in the treatment of those actually gifted - cursed to bear the brunt of violence and cruelty. A scar re-opened, as the man before him now sought out the comfort and companionship of those who outwardly damned him. "I did not come here for you." As if it's not already obvious - the likelihood of seeking him out in such a way, and finding him, as grim as the wreckage left behind. And yet, the gods clearly weren't finished torturing him yet. "This is where I'm needed." He knew the lands, the paths beneath the mountains - every nook and cranny that he'd sent refugees through. Paths he'd walked two years prior, as he sought the Lake of Sighs - and survived it. "I know the lands, and what lives within these mountains." And lingering - even at the outpost, would be a mistake before long. He would need to send word, through the birds before nightfall. "I appreciate your candor, but I do not wish for it, nor do I require your gratitude," he starts with a slight bow to his stature, " Lord Hand." Gone was the warmth he might have once offered, the rigid chill in the air, no doubt more welcoming than the look he cast to his once lover, before striding off into the skeletal woods.
/end
♥‿♥
ALEXANDER DREYMON as UHTRED The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die (2023) dir. Edward Bazalgette
I know there is a plan for me, yet I do not know what it is. Only that it leads me to you.