The Variant

Sylvia Plath, Ariel; from ‘Death & Co.’

#screenshots #gianna #titania au

Now you're a breath of a butterfly Riding upon the wind by my side

Erica Jong, Becoming Light: New Poems; from ‘Lullaby for a Dybbuk’

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you

T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets; from 'East Coker'

thekashishverse

I wish I could be normal about affection but my love language is merging souls.

#screenshots #gianna #titania au

I will be Always a dreamer

#HER #screenshots #gianna

Mirror, mirror on the wall Show me truth or none at all Break the glass and walk away I'm done with everything

#heacanons #screenshots #gianna #titania au #lore dump lore dump

Gianna

Where did she come from? How did she become Titania? It's a long story, but I won't tell all of it.

Suffice it to say, she was a hero, a savior of the people, aider of all in need. She was a warrior, strong, unyielding, as if capable of carrying the hopes and dreams of all the peoples on her shoulders.

But the truth could not be further from the appearances. Who knows, maybe if someone had paid attention, they would have seen how she suffered and withered under the expectations placed on her, how she lost herself and her hopes and dreams the longer she held everyone else's.

Maybe, if someone had paid attention, it would have not come as a surprise when she one day simply... Disappeared. Without a word, without a single confidant she would have shared her plans to.

Simply gone, as if to thin air. No traces were left, no clues as to her whereabouts.

So the people searched. They still had a need of a hero, and what if something had befallen her and she, for once, needed their help to make it out? Maybe they could pay back even a portion of all their accrued debt.

...And they still had a need of a hero.

Where they eventually found her was the lands of the fae folk. As dangerous as it was to search amongst the mischievous creatures, they had to do it on the chance they would find their savior, and the risk paid off. There she was, if somehow changed even beyond the tattoos she now had on her face.

If anyone had known her, they may have recognized that change as... Happiness.

They pleaded with her as every time before, and as every time before, she didn't say no. Did anyone notice the way she wilted when she agreed to their demands, incapable of bringing herself to say no in spite of the personal cost?

She left with them. She went on to save them, once again, but perhaps she had lost some of her edge during the period she was missing, or maybe this threat was simply greater than anything she had ever faced before. She saved them, but they had to carry her unconscious body back to recuperate under the care of chirurgeons and healers.

When she awoke, confused and in pain, it was to find her body broken almost beyond repair. It was to find her tattooed face scarred in a way even the best of healers had not been able to fully undo.

She didn't say anything. She didn't complain, but neither did she join anyone in rejoicing over her survival. She recuperated, with time, and continued to do what she always did. Help them all, save them all. Over and over.

But all through it all, she barely said a word. Little else came out of her mouth than a softly spoken, "Yes", or "Of course", or "I'll do it".

And she did. She did it, time and time again, always succeeding, always triumphing.

Did anyone notice how she was dying on the inside?

But then... The faerie king had become corrupted. They had to be disposed of, not only for the mortals, but for the sake of the fae folk as well.

Who better for the task than Gianna? The hero of the people, the hero who could already walk among the fae as if one of them, welcomed back into their midst like a long lost friend. Who chanted a joyous, personal, "Anna, Anna!" when she rejoined them.

It was the first time in an age that anyone could remember seeing her smile.

And then she marched right into the maw of death, once again, this time to face Titania. And she triumphed, this time just as every other time.

But there was one thing, one detail no one took into account and that not even she knew at the time: the throne of the fae cannot stay empty. A new king must be crowned when the previous one falls.

It wasn't the first time a mortal had unwittingly become the next king. Perhaps the second or the third in all the history of the world, but not the first. The precedent was there, if long lost to time in the minds and stories of everyone but the fae themselves.

Perhaps the fae knew what would happen. Perhaps they set her up for it. Perhaps they sacrificed their corrupted king for the future of a friend.

The power unleashed by the faerie king upon their death... Oh, there were witnesses. There were witnesses that could testify Gianna did not hesitate, not for a singular moment after she realized the opportunity presented to her. She took it. All the power that belonged to Titania, she took for herself.

And in that moment, the Gianna the masses had known as their hero, she ceased to exist. In her place was someone, something else entirely, a conjoining of who she had been and a fae. She shed her mortality.

She became Titania. Willingly, eagerly.

And the fae folk rejoiced for their new king, for the friend that had taken the throne, for the hero whose first decree was to remove the mortals from their lands. Oh how gleefully that order was followed, and those that had joined Gianna on this excursion were forced to flee from the faerie kingdom. The lucky ones even made it.

Titania has existed from time immemorial, but this Titania, they were once destined to die after a short mortal life. Not anymore, though. If any of those mortals that had known Gianna could recognize the traces of her in the new king, no one would ever know, for under the latest Titania's rule, the fae lands were closed to all mortals. If anyone was foolish enough to try to sneak into the kingdom despite that, they never made it anywhere near the castle they resided in, for the fae guarded their king jealously.

Gianna is gone, and though the people mourned her, the fae know the truth. The fae know Titania's carefree joy, their freely given smile... And yet the haunted look that so often passes their face.

How could they do anything less than make sure they are never haunted again? For the memory of the friend they had, that turned into the present with their new king.

Titania

pjackk

IDrank abunch now im ready to party! Anyone gay

#musings: cecilia

The devil you face will be your own and it will not be gentle.

Frater Ashen Chassan, Passing Through the Void: The Journey To Unite With Your Holy Guardian Angel, published in ‘The Holy Guardian Angel: On the practice and experience of the Holy Guardian Angel’, ed. Michael Cecchetelli

#lmao #musings: gabriella

val-the-princess

The princess is sleepy....knight.... present your lap so I may rest my head upon it.