shark vs the universe
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he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
Monterey Bay Aquarium
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@princess-yolena
Housekeeping
Those journeying from distant lands should be advised: certain royal missives may not appear in full upon lesser scrying devices.
(Ie, I confirmed those on mobile devices can’t see some of the blog pages)
It is important to observe the rules when speaking to the Princess.
You can also see records of past visits in the royal archive.
Hiatus Notice
This is an official royal notice that the Princess will not be receiving visitors for the foreseeable future.
--------------------
Hello! Mun here. As many of you probably guessed from the long dormancy, this blog is moving into inactivity. I woke the Princess briefly for a bit of April Fools fun, but otherwise, she’ll be returning to her rest.
I don’t expect to be active here for a long time. I am sorry for those hoping for replies from any on-going threads.
Thank you to everyone who followed, interacted, and spent time in this space—it really did mean a lot to both me and the princess. 💚💙
Help!! @princess-yolena
HUH!? What can I help, Your Highness? Is something wrong?
@princess-yolena
Magister, this is a totally urgent matter!
I need help carrying −2,147,483,648 buckets of paint! You can totally fit −2,147,483,648 buckets of paint in your inventory right?
[ @princess-yolena ]
(Linnie jerks up at the frantic call, whipping his head around trying to locate Yolena. Upon failure to do so, he grumbles, summoning his sword to his side and traces back the magic of the call, teleporting to it's point of origin with a small flash of light,)
"Princess? I'm here, who or what is trying to hurt you?"
(He stands just behind Yolena, holding the crystalline sword in front of her and between whoever she is scared of, summoning a small orb of light to illuminate the dark room.)
(And if looks could kill...the intruder would be dead.)
Oh—! You came immediately.
(Her posture straightens immediately.)
…Magister, this is quite serious.
I have another stuffy noble coming to visit. Father says they're important...so I need your tea expertise! I never know the right one to serve...
Magister, you have to help me!
@princess-yolena
>> @princess-yolena <<
In the Quaint Mystical House of Magister Kafka...
...Magister, this is very serious.
I've totally run out of ideas! I was hoping Kafka could share some more stories...the last one was so real! I had the best dream after.
General! Help! @princess-yolena
"Your Majesty?! Is there any problem? Are you alright?"
"I am right here, tell me what's wrong."
(She leans in slightly, lowering her voice as if sharing something urgent.)
…General, this is quite serious.
I’ve been given totally too many candy options!
I need help figuring out which ones deserve my 'royal approval'… I can only trust you after our last discussion.
Cyran, help me!
@princess-yolena
Yes? Your Highness?
"No need for your usual oh-so-spooky Scary Court Mage routine!"
I just need your help carrying this stack of--
--20 or so old books! You have a spell for that right?
Azurella waited until everyone was gone and teleported into Yolena’s room. She hated trespassing, but she was not dealing with the Court Mage.
“Princess Yolena. Sorry for randomly teleporting into your room…” she said. Her platinum blond hair was messy from her cloak but her blue eyes were full of excitement. However, she made a note to keep her voice down as she spoke. “So… I was wondering if you wanted to take a little girls trip. You can go wherever you want, there are no limits. I will pay for everything and we will do literally everything you want. Don’t say “no you really don’t have to”, I want to! Why am I doing this? Simple, because no one deserves to be locked up for “their own safety”. Not even a princess. Everyone should be able to have fun.
Now grab your clothes that you could get away with looking most common with. Just to sneak out with, and you can change back once we’re at the mystical house. Grab a bag, anything you’ll need to sleep with like pajamas and hairbrush.” She looks to the door, no one has entered yet, “Don’t worry about the Court Mage finding us. I have a magic spell that will prevent him or anyone else from tracking us. Everyone deserves privacy.”
Azurella pauses, “I understand if you don’t wanna go. If you don’t wanna go, that’s fine, but I wanna give you the chance to at least get away from boring court politics and… Snobby snobby people.” she said, making faces and silly hand movements with the word “snobby”. It was quite silly.
In Azurella’s eyes, she understood that while the princess may have had fragile health in the past, she might not be so fragile anymore. They shouldn’t keep her locked up in her room all day just because of what-ifs. She wanted to show her friend the sea, the stars, she wanted to make her friend smile and that’s what she was gonna do.
If, Yolena wanted to…
@wrenhasablog2
“Ah—!” (Her posture straightens immediately, composure snapping into place.)
“I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced.”
“And you’ve bypassed several layers of warding to be here.”
(She listens, expression tightening at the rapid explanation—brows knitting faintly.)
“A trip? With someone I’ve just met, who appeared unannounced in my room, and is asking me to leave the castle in secret…”
“You must understand how that sounds...”
“—you would start by telling me your name.”
@wrenhasablog2
-he keeps whispering someone's name in his dreams, even through years. do you think he misses this someone? hope, gifting him a cat with name of this special someone will soothe the separation.
Yolena
-cat meows through Yule's eve, and sometimes his meowing reminds cyran of that special someone, who could never remember him the way he wished to be remembered... cat has theirs name, but it doesn't call man on his name with same softness as this special one did
Oh that's right! Snowball wasn't always Snowball!!
Though...I can't remember what her name was...
Probably something stuffy if Cyran cared so much about it!
The hungry birds are so brazen that they don't even fear Cyran
@magister-cyran It must have been hard to refuse the princess's wish?👀
Oh I remember this!!!
It was really tough, but I totally convinced him go outside with me! He's always cooped up in that stuffy office of his!
...and I got to surprise him with the bird seeds! The birds were so sweet!
He was a grump about it, but...
I think he appreciated me making his chaperone duties a little more fun! Even if he wouldn't admit it.
AfKJ, why is this your only merch strategy...I'm begging you PLEASE at least put out an artbook...
continuing from //here// @magister-cyran
The study is unchanged.
But the study is all wrong.
From the floor, everything is too tall. The legs of the desk loom like pale trunks. The shelves that had always felt neatly within reach now rise into a cliff-face of bindings and scroll-ends. Even the familiar window has become a glowing rectangle far above her head, the light spilling down in strange sheets that catch dust motes into drifting stars.
The air smells different down here, too. Ink is sharper. Wax is sweeter. Leather is a whole landscape. There’s a faint trace of Cyran—cold stone, prickly cologne, that particular bite of his magic—woven through it all like a thread.
Yolena stands in the middle of the rug.
“Mrrr.”
Her ears twitch.
A chair. Her chair.
It sits near the desk, upholstered in deep green, the cushions still holding the faint impression of her weight from a lifetime of lessons. From here the seat is a padded plateau suspended in midair. The armrests are balconies. The back is a wall that promises shelter. Something in her chest tightens at the sight of it.
Yolena pads over, boots replaced by soft paws that barely make a sound.
Each step feels… absurd. The rug is suddenly a field, each thread a grass-blade lazing under her feet. She can feel the pulse of her own little body now: quick heart, quick breath, too much energy for a frame this small. Her tail flicks once, then twice, as she tests the edges of her balance.
She plants her front paws on the leg and hauls herself up with stubborn little scrabbling motions. Her claws catch the fabric. For a humiliating half-second she slides backward—and she hisses, very softly, to herself.
She tries again. This time she manages a clumsy hop to the lower stretcher, then another to the edge of the seat. She settles, turning twice in a tight little circle the way cats do, and then she drops into a loaf.
She lifts her chin. About half an inch.
“…mrr.”
Her ears angle forward, tracking a sound. Her tail freezes mid-flick.
Cyran steps into the room.
He is, infuriatingly, back in his own body.
The change has happened between the alcove and here so cleanly it feels like another insult. One moment he was all teeth and fur and tyranny; the next he is a tall, robed, perfectly composed mage who definitely did not just carry a princess by the scruff through a fungus forest.
His eyes land on her.
There is a pause so brief any normal person might miss it. A slight recalibration. The smallest lift of his eyebrows.
Then his expression goes unreadable again.
*The moment Cyran arrived back in his study, he returned to his own body. And before taking care of the princess, he focuses his powers on the portal, closing it for good. He has all he needs and doesn't plan to return.*
*Then, for a moment, his observes the princess. Her struggle up onto her usual chair and her subsequent little stare.*
(What a bother.)
*He could not leave her like that. Neither in form, nor mind. Unfortunately her knowledge of him being there poses too much threat. Even though Sal'Thorin is still a secret to the world, risking the loss of the Archduke's trust was simply no option.*
*Cyran leaves Yolena on hers, while taking a seat on his own chair. He summons his staff, gently murmuring to himself as he casts a delicate memory-alteration spell. It is best, if her memory was nothing more but a daydream, spun on a hazy afternoon at the end of their magic lesson. He adds a light dose of sedation to the spell, too, to quell the princess's suspicions.*
*And the moment the spell blankets down on her, Yolena finds herself transforming back into a human, too.*
... Your Highness?
Her eyes open slowly.
The study resolves around her in warm, familiar shapes—the shelves, the desk, the window’s glow softened into a late-afternoon haze. She’s in her chair, sitting upright, hands folded primly in her lap as though she’s been that way for some time.
But her heart is racing.
She tries to breathe normally, but the flutter refuses to settle. It feels like waking from a fall—like the world caught her at the last second but her stomach still thinks she’s falling.
“…oh.”
(A soft breath leaves her.)
Her voice sounds small even to herself.
She smooths her skirt, though there’s no real need. The fabric is unwrinkled. Perfectly fine. Her boots are clean—were they always this clean?—and her hair sits neatly behind her shoulders without a single twist out of place.
But her mind feels fogged around the edges, as if she’d been daydreaming too vividly during a long lesson.
Her gaze lifts at last to Cyran.
He sits across from her—oddly composed, even for him. Something unreadable lingers behind his eyes, but his expression is as smooth and precise as ever.
“…Cyran?”
“Did I… fall asleep in the middle of our lesson?”
“I had the strangest…”
She searches the fog again—just for a second, just to see if one clear detail will surface—but the harder she reaches for it, the faster it dissolves. All of it slips away like water through her fingers.
She doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “Nevermind.”
continuing from //here// @magister-cyran
The study is unchanged.
But the study is all wrong.
From the floor, everything is too tall. The legs of the desk loom like pale trunks. The shelves that had always felt neatly within reach now rise into a cliff-face of bindings and scroll-ends. Even the familiar window has become a glowing rectangle far above her head, the light spilling down in strange sheets that catch dust motes into drifting stars.
The air smells different down here, too. Ink is sharper. Wax is sweeter. Leather is a whole landscape. There’s a faint trace of Cyran—cold stone, prickly cologne, that particular bite of his magic—woven through it all like a thread.
Yolena stands in the middle of the rug.
“Mrrr.”
Her ears twitch.
A chair. Her chair.
It sits near the desk, upholstered in deep green, the cushions still holding the faint impression of her weight from a lifetime of lessons. From here the seat is a padded plateau suspended in midair. The armrests are balconies. The back is a wall that promises shelter. Something in her chest tightens at the sight of it.
Yolena pads over, boots replaced by soft paws that barely make a sound.
Each step feels… absurd. The rug is suddenly a field, each thread a grass-blade lazing under her feet. She can feel the pulse of her own little body now: quick heart, quick breath, too much energy for a frame this small. Her tail flicks once, then twice, as she tests the edges of her balance.
She plants her front paws on the leg and hauls herself up with stubborn little scrabbling motions. Her claws catch the fabric. For a humiliating half-second she slides backward—and she hisses, very softly, to herself.
She tries again. This time she manages a clumsy hop to the lower stretcher, then another to the edge of the seat. She settles, turning twice in a tight little circle the way cats do, and then she drops into a loaf.
She lifts her chin. About half an inch.
“…mrr.”
Her ears angle forward, tracking a sound. Her tail freezes mid-flick.
Cyran steps into the room.
He is, infuriatingly, back in his own body.
The change has happened between the alcove and here so cleanly it feels like another insult. One moment he was all teeth and fur and tyranny; the next he is a tall, robed, perfectly composed mage who definitely did not just carry a princess by the scruff through a fungus forest.
His eyes land on her.
There is a pause so brief any normal person might miss it. A slight recalibration. The smallest lift of his eyebrows.
Then his expression goes unreadable again.
// Continuation from here and here. @princess-yolena / @highpriest-feli
*After a few turns, over roots, twigs and under low growing mushrooms, Cyran finally reaches a small clearing. The noise coming from the other side announces the arrival of whom he was looking for.*
*Within a second he composes himself and just as if nothing had happened, he awaits the princess. He chooses to ignore the presence of the High Priest for the time being.*
Ah. Your Highness. What a surprise. I did not expect to run into you.
*He then gently gestures to their surroundings, his eyes fixed upon her.*
Here.
"C-Cyran!"
(She straightens instinctively, brushing a stray bit of moss from her sleeve as though that might make her look less caught.)
“I—ah—was just…” (her gaze darts between him and Feli, the brightness in her tone wobbling) “—on a totally normal walk.”
"...investigating." (Behind the practiced calm of her posture, her fingers twist in the hem of her skirt.) “You weren’t… looking for me, were you?”
...
I am not in the habit of casually passing through hidden portals and roaming about dangerous habitats like you, Your Highness.
You have gravely overstepped your privileges today. We will return immediately and I highly recommend that you do not stray even a single step from my side.
As for you, Priest, I suggest you do not interfere...
...
Glory to the Queen.
It's not my intention to be involved in this.
(Feli immediately thinks of something, his own practiced demeanor present.)
While being around the area, I happened to spot her. She got lost during her... investigation, so I accompanied her. I needed to keep an eye on her as well, since she isn't from around here.
I see it's you who has been looking for her. While I don't recognize you, I'd recommend that she shouldn't linger here much longer than needed.
Most of us Essail don't treat people outside kindly, so thank you for looking out for her.
[If Yolena was expecting help from Feli, those hopes were dashed against the Glory to the Queen—said in the same cadence a guard would use when reporting in. He remains a priest after all…]
(Yolena swallows.) “Well—but you -are- here. Aren’t you!”
“And in disguise!”
[There’s no squirming out of this now…but maybe she doesn’t have to be the only one in trouble, if she can just spin this back on Cyran a smidge.]
*Cyran gives the High Priest a very faint nod. Then his attentions returns to the run-away princess.*
Do you really consider it wise, trying to negotiate here and now?
Do not entertain even a sliver of hope that you'd be free of the consequences.
*Cyran summons his staff and a magic circle appears on the ground.*
Step close. Now. This will take us back instantly to the portal.
[Yolena takes a half step back from the circle, the faint hum of its magic rippling through the moss beneath her boots. Her expression flickers—somewhere between chastened and stubborn—and the familiar royal composure slips just enough for the spark underneath to show.
[She plants her feet.]
“No.”
[It feels like the closer she is to Cyran’s teleportation circle, the fewer options she has in this ‘negotiation’.]
(She exhales, chin tilting up, a waver in her voice quickly steadied by will.)
“I mean—not yet. You can’t just appear and whisk me away like I’m some parcel to be delivered back to the castle the moment I step somewhere new! I’m totally fine, Cyran.”
(She gestures around, a sweep of her arm toward the glowing mushrooms, the forest’s hush, the faintly curious creatures peeking from behind roots.)
“This is his work! He built this place with his own hands—and magic. It’s safe, and beautiful, and—”
Y—
(Feli internally jumps the moment Yolena starts gesturing around the place. He himself has so many questions, but he knows not to raise any right here and now.)
Your Highness... Please. Time is of the essence.
!!
*Cyran's breath comes to a halt as Yolena resists. Even the priest is taken aback.*
...
..
.
You... have the audacity to refuse?!
Then so be it.
*Cyran swings his staff and stomps the tip back down onto the ground, into the centre of the magic circle. It instantly changes to a purple colour and its glow reaches and engulfs Yolena. Before she can do anything, her form flickers and begins to change. It shrinks down to the floor and as it retreats, it reveals a small ginger kitten.*
*Behind Cyran, faint but alarmed voices announce the arrival of unpleasant company.*
Ack!
*Not wanting to lose any time, Cyran himself disappears in the purple light, emerging from it as a grown, black cat. The magic circle beneath his paws vanishes and he jumps straight at the disoriented Yolena, bites down on her scruff and picks her up.*
*He then instantly moves under the leaves and shrubs back onto the path which led him here, right past the feet of the arriving priests and guards and out of their sight.*
.
*Only High Priest Feli remains.*
Everything happens too fast. One breath she’s drawing herself up in protest, the next she’s drowning in light—purple, swallowing, swallowing, swallowing—until her words collapse into a startled, high-pitched— “Mrrrp?!” [translation: what?! I was not done!!!] Her tiny paws flail uselessly as he hoists her off the ground. And as he bolts into the underbrush, carrying her effortlessly, her final wide-eyed glance through the foliage lands on Feli. Her ears flatten in a mixture of apology and mortification.
“…mrrr…” [translation: this is so unfair...]
Cyran carries her through the foliage like he’s had four paws all his life—silent, surefooted, annoyingly competent. Each bound is smooth, controlled, making her light little body sway with every step...which makes makes the touch of each low frond and dangling mushroom cap indignantly pointed. A bioluminescent fern brushes right over her nose. A drooping mushroom cap flops against her cheek. A stray vine flicks her whiskers. Each time, her paws flail in the air, tail puffed in mounting outrage.
Eventually he slows, tail flicking once with restrained irritation before he pads into a shadowed alcove of the cavern—somewhere just shy of where she remembers the portal is. Only then does he stop. And only then does he lower her, deliberately, but without granting her a single ounce of dignity in the process. Her tiny paws touch the mossy ground; her fur is a fluffed mess. “Mrrrp!” [(translation: at least put me down properly!!)]
// Continuation from here and here. @princess-yolena / @highpriest-feli
*After a few turns, over roots, twigs and under low growing mushrooms, Cyran finally reaches a small clearing. The noise coming from the other side announces the arrival of whom he was looking for.*
*Within a second he composes himself and just as if nothing had happened, he awaits the princess. He chooses to ignore the presence of the High Priest for the time being.*
Ah. Your Highness. What a surprise. I did not expect to run into you.
*He then gently gestures to their surroundings, his eyes fixed upon her.*
Here.
"C-Cyran!"
(She straightens instinctively, brushing a stray bit of moss from her sleeve as though that might make her look less caught.)
“I—ah—was just…” (her gaze darts between him and Feli, the brightness in her tone wobbling) “—on a totally normal walk.”
"...investigating." (Behind the practiced calm of her posture, her fingers twist in the hem of her skirt.) “You weren’t… looking for me, were you?”
...
I am not in the habit of casually passing through hidden portals and roaming about dangerous habitats like you, Your Highness.
You have gravely overstepped your privileges today. We will return immediately and I highly recommend that you do not stray even a single step from my side.
As for you, Priest, I suggest you do not interfere...
...
Glory to the Queen.
It's not my intention to be involved in this.
(Feli immediately thinks of something, his own practiced demeanor present.)
While being around the area, I happened to spot her. She got lost during her... investigation, so I accompanied her. I needed to keep an eye on her as well, since she isn't from around here.
I see it's you who has been looking for her. While I don't recognize you, I'd recommend that she shouldn't linger here much longer than needed.
Most of us Essail don't treat people outside kindly, so thank you for looking out for her.
[If Yolena was expecting help from Feli, those hopes were dashed against the Glory to the Queen—said in the same cadence a guard would use when reporting in. He remains a priest after all…]
(Yolena swallows.) “Well—but you -are- here. Aren’t you!”
“And in disguise!”
[There’s no squirming out of this now…but maybe she doesn’t have to be the only one in trouble, if she can just spin this back on Cyran a smidge.]
*Cyran gives the High Priest a very faint nod. Then his attentions returns to the run-away princess.*
Do you really consider it wise, trying to negotiate here and now?
Do not entertain even a sliver of hope that you'd be free of the consequences.
*Cyran summons his staff and a magic circle appears on the ground.*
Step close. Now. This will take us back instantly to the portal.
[Yolena takes a half step back from the circle, the faint hum of its magic rippling through the moss beneath her boots. Her expression flickers—somewhere between chastened and stubborn—and the familiar royal composure slips just enough for the spark underneath to show.
[She plants her feet.]
“No.”
[It feels like the closer she is to Cyran’s teleportation circle, the fewer options she has in this ‘negotiation’.]
(She exhales, chin tilting up, a waver in her voice quickly steadied by will.)
“I mean—not yet. You can’t just appear and whisk me away like I’m some parcel to be delivered back to the castle the moment I step somewhere new! I’m totally fine, Cyran.”
(She gestures around, a sweep of her arm toward the glowing mushrooms, the forest’s hush, the faintly curious creatures peeking from behind roots.)
“This is his work! He built this place with his own hands—and magic. It’s safe, and beautiful, and—”
// Continuation from here and here. @princess-yolena / @highpriest-feli
*After a few turns, over roots, twigs and under low growing mushrooms, Cyran finally reaches a small clearing. The noise coming from the other side announces the arrival of whom he was looking for.*
*Within a second he composes himself and just as if nothing had happened, he awaits the princess. He chooses to ignore the presence of the High Priest for the time being.*
Ah. Your Highness. What a surprise. I did not expect to run into you.
*He then gently gestures to their surroundings, his eyes fixed upon her.*
Here.
"C-Cyran!"
(She straightens instinctively, brushing a stray bit of moss from her sleeve as though that might make her look less caught.)
“I—ah—was just…” (her gaze darts between him and Feli, the brightness in her tone wobbling) “—on a totally normal walk.”
"...investigating." (Behind the practiced calm of her posture, her fingers twist in the hem of her skirt.) “You weren’t… looking for me, were you?”
...
I am not in the habit of casually passing through hidden portals and roaming about dangerous habitats like you, Your Highness.
You have gravely overstepped your privileges today. We will return immediately and I highly recommend that you do not stray even a single step from my side.
As for you, Priest, I suggest you do not interfere...
...
Glory to the Queen.
It's not my intention to be involved in this.
(Feli immediately thinks of something, his own practiced demeanor present.)
While being around the area, I happened to spot her. She got lost during her... investigation, so I accompanied her. I needed to keep an eye on her as well, since she isn't from around here.
I see it's you who has been looking for her. While I don't recognize you, I'd recommend that she shouldn't linger here much longer than needed.
Most of us Essail don't treat people outside kindly, so thank you for looking out for her.
[If Yolena was expecting help from Feli, those hopes were dashed against the Glory to the Queen—said in the same cadence a guard would use when reporting in. He remains a priest after all…]
(Yolena swallows.) “Well—but you -are- here. Aren’t you!”
“And in disguise!”
[There’s no squirming out of this now…but maybe she doesn’t have to be the only one in trouble, if she can just spin this back on Cyran a smidge.]
// Continuation from here and here. @princess-yolena / @highpriest-feli
*After a few turns, over roots, twigs and under low growing mushrooms, Cyran finally reaches a small clearing. The noise coming from the other side announces the arrival of whom he was looking for.*
*Within a second he composes himself and just as if nothing had happened, he awaits the princess. He chooses to ignore the presence of the High Priest for the time being.*
Ah. Your Highness. What a surprise. I did not expect to run into you.
*He then gently gestures to their surroundings, his eyes fixed upon her.*
Here.
"C-Cyran!"
(She straightens instinctively, brushing a stray bit of moss from her sleeve as though that might make her look less caught.)
“I—ah—was just…” (her gaze darts between him and Feli, the brightness in her tone wobbling) “—on a totally normal walk.”
"...investigating." (Behind the practiced calm of her posture, her fingers twist in the hem of her skirt.) “You weren’t… looking for me, were you?”
