Saint Joan

| sensuality | flora | costume | prose | women | romance | culture | art |

[ohsaintjoan]

RE: Elain’s seer powers, I really hope these evolve so she can see backwards as well as forwards. Imagine kind, diplomatic, sheltered, observant Elain having insight into character’s pasts. Their secrets. Their pain. Their core memories. Imagine her seeing Rhys UTM. Koschei and his trapped swans. Imagine her seeing the truth of Amren’s origins. Of Mor in battle. Of Jesminda. Imagine her seeing Azriel as a boy…

[effemimaniac]

we are in the midst of a friday ass thursday. keep your wits about you.

[human-pet-they]

when the author describes someone dying and you can just tell they’ve never actually died by the way it’s written

[ohsaintjoan]

You quoted T.A. White in your fic The Pearl of the Night Court. Please tell me if you've read the Broken Lands series by her. And please share your thoughts about it! Also, did any of her books inspire your writings? So, so beautifully written by the way. Saying this an extremely picky reader.

Hello, angel! Thank you so much for this kind and considered ask, and for your very generous comment about my writing. I’m really enjoying penning this fic. It’s taking… a while as it’s turned out a lot longer than I anticipated! You know, I haven’t yet read any T. A White works but now I must! I will take this recommendation to heart, especially if you noted a connection. I’m honoured. Isn’t it awesome how much these two characters and their dynamic speaks to people? How rich it is?

Thank you for reading and for taking the time to send me an ask xxx

[you-can-be-what-you-want-to-be]

"Immature people crave and demand moral certainty: This is bad, this is good. Kids and adolescents struggle to find a sure moral foothold in this bewildering world; they long to feel they’re on the winning side, or at least a member of the team. To them, heroic fantasy may offer a vision of moral clarity. Unfortunately, the pretended Battle Between (unquestioned) Good and (unexamined) Evil obscures instead of clarifying, serving as a mere excuse for violence — as brainless, useless, and base as aggressive war in the real world."

Ursula K Le Guin at it again, being right as always

[ohsaintjoan]

The Pearl of the Night Court

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · · 

The Shadowsinger thinks it a particular kind of horror that she, in this most abominable place, is more radiant than she has ever been.

Heavy, lascivious music vibrates through the carved doors of the Great Hall, the sound of violence and laughter weaving itself beneath. The six of them wait, breath-baited, silent, prepared and ready to strike, yet to Azriel, Elain’s beauty is a thing of such abundance his very senses are overburdened by it.

Elain.

Each freckle glimmers like honey, her skin a soft, constant suffusion of light against the Hewn City’s deep-swallowing obsidian. Azriel feels her attention wander and in this quiet moment allows it, letting her bare her throat to him while she stares up at the gnashing animals that writhe, fucking and fighting around the carved, ebony pillars and up into the darkness above.

Beneath them, two ethereal reflections, pale and dark, shimmer on the black-ice floors. Azriel exhales slowly, face hard as hatred, eyes colder than the sea. Those hazy swirls of breath mingle with his shadows, casting him half-nightmare, half-hope, while beside him, Elain shivers, forcing the diamonds that cascade down her neck and shoulders to glitter in the sultry light.

Azriel knows her fear for he scents it on her, the meadow-sweet notes and beckoning night-jasmine buried beneath.

“Scent,” he orders, feeling her stiffen beside him.

Smooth as slate, Elain lowers her chin to stare ahead, to Feyre and Rhys and to Cassian and to Nesta. Azriel marks the shift in her breathing, knows she has learned enough from him these past weeks to master her feelings, but still he glances over. Not even her thin, milky veil prevents him from catching how the colour of skin alters under his gaze, but to her credit, her features remain set with all the imperious stillness of a holy lake, quiet and alluring, its secrets sunk deep.

Good.

Azriel turns away, the music growing wilder, bass groaning through the floor. A shadow curdles around his shoulder and he angles his hard profile towards a sentry who has discreetly positioned himself to the left of the doors. The sentry nods in acknowledgement but Azriel remains passive, shoulders broadening, jaw tightening. A tower of stone.

A war-like judder glances down his spine, his exquisitely cut jacket too sensual for the power raging within. Too courtly for the fighting-power three shuddering siphons struggle to contain.

Elain’s bare shoulder brushes his arm and he scraps with the urge to broaden his wings, to protect, while his hands ready themselves to claw at any who may dare to encroach.

To touch.

To harm.

Rhys turns then, taking them in, first Azriel and then Elain. They wait, wordless, staring back, while his calculated, violet gaze surges between them. Azriel sees the reticence etched into those too-familiar constellations, but knows Rhys, like them, understands it is too late to change their course.

Wicked screams of pleasure ricochet through the Hall. A knowing flicker darts across Rhys' features and Azriel is once more startled by his brother’s unwavering beauty and the confidence that oozes from him like a second kind of magic. The old rupture between them remains, Azriel’s unhealed rage a blistering fountain with no reprieve, yet in this moment he is calmed by the weight of Rhys’ presence and the dying embers of care that clearly bristle for Elain.

Rhys raises his chin, staring down his kin with that unending, royal spirit, their Night Triumphant, until the light stutters in their chests.

“Do what you must,” he tells them coolly, the steely sanction landing like a spur.

It is permission for what Azriel is about to do.

Forgiveness for all the ways Azriel fears he is about to unleash himself against the Court of Nightmares - against Elain.

Silent, shoulder to shoulder, they nod once in reply, their measured exhales mingling and staining the air white while the final vestiges of the brother slip behind the impregnable wall of their High Lord.

Their King.

Until the almighty energy of his power begins to shake the floor, the walls, the ceiling, the pillars, the polished obsidian, all of it groaning as if its very foundations are awakening.

With eyes unfeeling as jewels, Rhys turns from them, stroking a steady hand up Feyre's naked spine. A low, sultry instrument hails the arrival of the High Court to the Revels, to this putrid carnival, and a violent shudder of anticipation ripples from Elain's shoulders down to her silk-draped thighs. The sudden glance of a knuckle against the back of her hand, so brief it could be accidental, is all it takes to still her, as if she has heard Azriel’s reminder of everything to be gained, and all that stands to be lost.

The doors open. The music fades.

Under a torrent of hushed voices, some sneering, some, Azriel's shadows whisper, notably reverent, Feyre and Rhys commence their broody procession, their General and his warrior-mate stalking in before them like two beautiful, bristling shields.

Elain makes to follow but Azriel’s warm, strong hand grips hard at her wrist. She stills, but does not look down to where he holds her, just like she has been trained.

“We wait,” Azriel states, staring only ahead. “You are everything,” he says, voice dropping lower. “Let them wait.”

Azriel cannot stop the brief trail of his thumb against her inner wrist, and so drops her unfeelingly, letting her slender arm fall to her side.

Too dangerous.

Too high a cost.

The awaiting sentry pushes closed the doors to the High Lord's quarters, and Elain and Azriel are once again alone, the onyx animals sneering at them from on high.

It takes little time for the air to thicken and shift. Then Rhys’ booming voice hums through the stone as he lazily congratulates his courtiers on their latest centenary. Feyre too speaks, her voice sultry, sweet, and the room laughs pleasantly, tightly, falsely, before the revelries resume as if commanded by the gods.

The walls tremor, and that same heady, sensual, unnerving music begins to radiate, its pulse sinking beneath Azriel’s skin.

Minutes past, enough for the flow of celebration to heal - for the spearhead of their entrance to truly land.

Alone, bodies close and on alert, Elain and Azriel’s synchronised breaths are the only conversation amidst the sounds of wildness.

They do not speak. They do not touch.

Until Azriel says in a low, steady voice.

“It is time.”

As if tugged by the sky itself, Elain’s spine straightens, her veil fluttering when she forcibly exhales. She, like Azriel, watches the door, hooded eyes fixed, sensual limbs trembling. Her dress shimmers when she shifts her weight, the anklet of bells singing above the bare feet Azriel knows must burn against the frigid floor.

Like a slow, grinning mouth the doors are slowly dragged apart, the finest slice of light carving the space between them before widening to illuminate their unendingly devastating faces to a startled crowd.

“Don’t...” Azriel whispers, the word escaping, sudden.

“Never,” Elain answers.

Never.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · · 

Read on at AO3 now.

[h0lyshift]

The older i get the more i understand why some people become obsessed with privacy, not because they’re hiding something, but because being constantly perceived starts to feel spiritually exhausting.

[likemonalisa]

Japanese Breakfast, Cultured Magazine, 2025

[mikimeiko]

Velvet Goldmine (Todd Haynes, 1998)

[arieefineart]

All in the Mind series by Ariee

[everybidenjusthavegoodtime]

mark, my words. *mark brings me my dictionary* thank you mark

[angelbabymikaa]

why the fuck is everything labeled mature content now who runs this app? mormons??????

[polkadotmotmot]

Philip Govedare - Anthropocene #4, 2024 - Oil on canvas

[crazysodomite]

If you're younger than 50 years there are termite queens who are older than you

[rifki16]

happy pride to them

[bourtange]

republicans: homeless people should be ground into sausage and fed to schoolchildren

democrats: persons experiencing houselessness should be ground into sausage and fed to schoolchildren

[jareckiworld]

Jiang Miao — Taoist Trinity and the Self (acrylic on board with carving, 2025.10.10)

[charnel-grounds]

William Mortensen (1897–1965), “Salomé”, 1930

photo litho, 2014

source