i am but a girl with a passion for viddy games, literature and fantasy. naturally that combined into this blog, mainly used for IFs and ffxiv.
this is a sideblog; my main and guild wars 2 blog is @i-mybrunettelady.
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nero
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It's so sad to see something that used to be so human be made using an engine that's basically a mockery of us.
If you read old poems, diaries and books you'd know that none of them were made using perfect grammar or even perfect imageries and languages. And the reason is simply because it's human, it's not supposed to be perfect, their flaws are what draws us in. Authors would pour their whole emotions, as convoluted as they may be, into their work and that used to be the main selling point;
We read to feel something. We write to feel something. We draw to feel something.
Why must we always seek perfection, so much so that we are willing to use an emotionless machine that would rearrange our work into a rigid "perfection" using a rigid rule, when the imperfections itself are what made it ours in the first place?
pwotr. mc/sosiel, with mc/daeran if you squint. 1k words, gen. set at the end of act 3.
the demons (pun intended) would not leave me alone until i wrote this.
It happens in a flash.
One moment, he's standing over demon Drazzand's dead body, bathed in blood of his own and his enemies alike. His face burns with with tears of flame, his skin burns from inside out; Leonor had dared to touch what the gods made out of his reach and now he's paying the price. It hasn't been this bad in a long time. His eyes hurt. He can't feel the tears anymore. Holding his crossbow is becoming too tiresome.
One look at his party tells him they're all feeling the same way too. Daeran's hair, normally golden and perfect, is now decorated with a crown of cultist guts and blood. Woljif looks well and ready to fall down, holding onto Lann with all his strength. Seelah has dropped her weapons. Her hands are shaking profusely.
It happens in a flash.
There's Queen Galfrey, flanked by the Hand of the Inheritor. Can angels look tired? Leonor's vision blurs. He has to close his eyes, breathing harshly. Sosiel takes a step closer, lingering by Leonor's side. He looks beaten and bloodied too, and yet.. Between the flashes of pain and heat, he hears Sosiel speak to him. He doesn't know what he's saying. He hopes it sounds better than he feels.
There's blood on Galfrey's armor, lines of exhaustion and dogged determination on her face. When she speaks, her voice doesn't sound like that of a warrior who's spent the last few hours fighting relentless demon armies.
It happens in a flash.
The last few months of Leonor's life, erased by Galfrey's command. He's watched his innocence die in Drezen, buried it with the rest of the dead crusaders with his own hands. He's charted the lines of a new life that this crusade calls for him to take on.
And now it's gone. It's gone, because Galfrey willed it so. Not a thank you, not a congratulations. Demotion. Anger builds in Leonor's throat. He's shaking like a branch, and it spills out. His eyes are blurry, his head spins.
It happens in a flash.
His knees give out. Strong hands catch him before he can hit the ground. Sosiel's face is there, as are empty words that mean nothing to him right now, and broken whispers of Leonor's name.
He closes his eyes. The crusader army is watching.
Leonor cries out.
***
Sosiel catches Leonor before he falls. Even with all his armor, even with Sosiel's tired hands, he's light as a feather. There's smoke coming out of his nostrils and his ears. What little skin Sosiel can touch feels red hot. His crossbow clatters to the ground, out of arrows, out of use.
Light crossbow of oracle's misery, the name comes to him. It's not important.
The crossbow fell. The oracle's misery did not.
"Can we continue this conversation after he's had a moment to stop being on fire?" Sosiel asks, voice strained. He looks between the Hand and the Queen, then at his companions, his eyes seeking help.
He tries to summon a spell. It comes slowly to his hands, his brain tired and his head achy. Finally, finally, Leonor's wounds close in a bright light, but he's still aflame. Sosiel cannot heal his lover's curse. If he could, he would take Leonor's pain on himself.
Daeran stands there, petrified.
Leonor cries out, holding onto Sosiel's arms for dear life. Fire falls from his red, swollen, bloodshot eyes and falls to the stone. His face is contorted in a wail, and Sosiel holds his head gently against his body, uncaring for the fire.
If he gets burnt, he gets burnt.
Leonor is a weight he'll carry as long as Leonor himself needs him to. Now and forevermore.
***
Daeran swears he tries to move. Or he would have sworn, had someone asked. The silence that falls feels so weighted it could pierce through his leather armor and down to the bone. Daeran likes his bones all safe and sound, thank you very much!
There's blood and sweat on his brow, his hair is tangled in the sticky fluid that decidedly does not belong there. His arms hurt as if someone had languidly spread them on the rack, his legs almost ready to give up as well.
The calves are, unfortunately, sometimes largely decorative.
Then Leonor collapses and Daeran's heart sinks to his heels and he wants to move. He wants to, he years to with all his might, but his body just doesn't cooperate. His head spins like he's been hit by a particularly strong fellow and looking up from the floor seems like a stupidly good idea. It all smells like smoke in his nostrils.
A pained cry pierces his ears.
By the time he comes about, Sosiel's arms are around Leonor, holding him against his body and guiding him towards the fire. Daeran's heart threatens to beat out of his chest, the naughty thing, and he cannot utter a word. His throat, closed up by a force unseen, promises to burst in embarrassment and shame.
He knows a thing or two about oracle curses. They are the most inopportune, trite and frankly unnecessary addition to this one path to magic. They come in various forms, some less flashy than others. All equally inane, if you asked Daeran. There is no need to set oneself on fire for a spell. There is no need to get dizzy and unable to act before an enemy's line of sight.
Daeran doesn't follow any of the gods, but they must be playing a really cruel joke on the oracles.
He looks at Leonor, as much as he can between everyone blocking his view. He's tending to a fire. Daeran's chest constricts and aches, and he wishes to tear his heart out.
He should have been the one to catch him. He should have guided him to the fire - oracle to oracle, curse to curse - and he should have stood vigilant in front of their angelic leader as he gathered his wits. Galfrey really did go about her little decision in the worst possible way after all.
But Daeran didn't move. He now stands on the outside, closer to Galfrey than to Leonor, while Sosiel rubs Leonor's shoulders.
It shouldn't bother him still. He doesn't know why it bothers him still.
Beat Midnight Fane last night and I'm now severely tempted to redo the Galfrey interaction because like.
Leonor does not go to his oracle spells lightly. They are useful yes but they also HURT. And Fane was difficult enough for him to bring them out, over and over again, pushing himself, mechanically speaking, to cursebound 2 or 3 condition/status.
That means he's no longer simply steaming, he's burning hot to the touch, he's crying fire. He's in a lot of pain from that alone and all he wants to do is rest for 10 minutes and get that sorted out first.
But here comes Miss Galfrey with taking away his title as KC. And the visuals of Leonor's face, contorted with pain and anger, eyes red and bloodshot, barely standing from exhaustion, asking if this is how she repays him from all he's done for the crusade?
so uuhhhh HI. I AM IN LITERAL HELL. I HAVE THOUGHTS BUT LIKE
daeranposting first and foremost. you should all know that he says this when exhausted to the fucking bone leonor, who's leaning against HIS BOYFRIEND SOSIEL, and is standing nearby looking at him like 🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨 (bloody)
so uuhhhh HI. I AM IN LITERAL HELL. I HAVE THOUGHTS BUT LIKE
daeranposting first and foremost. you should all know that he says this when exhausted to the fucking bone leonor, who's leaning against HIS BOYFRIEND SOSIEL, and is standing nearby looking at him like 🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨 (bloody)
She’s pinned an old map to a scrap of wood, and marked with a bit of charcoal the jagged edges of the rift Deskari left upon the city.
As if mapping it makes it any easier to grasp the enormity of the damage. And maybe for her it does; maybe seeing it in miniature allows her to plan, to think of a solution, or at least, to understand the problem. Truth be told, Nereo does not want to understand it. He doesn’t even want to get near it. He shudders as the chasm grows on paper, a facsimile of the wound. It makes his chest hurt.
There’s a chasm in the center of Kenabres. Seelah’s mapped it with care.
“How far across?” she asks, and Lann winds a length of rope around his shoulder, calculating.
“According to that last shot, about 23 meters.”
“It’s wider towards the center,” Seelah notes, gently adding another charcoal mark. “Tapers at the edges, like cut flesh. But there’s gotta be somewhere we can cross… we can’t keep going around, we don’t have time.”
“Could we find a safe spot to climb down, then climb back up the other side?” Lann asks.
“Not likely,” Seelah says, “especially if we’re holding off demons or carrying supplies.”
“Well how ‘bout a zipline?” Woljif chimes in. “Set one up with some sturdy rope and you’ll be flyin’ across in no time at all!”
“But we’d still need to get across to build that.”
“Yeah, I’ll have to say ‘no’ on the zipline,” Lann adds. “I’m not afraid of heights or anything, it’s just not very practical. How long would it take to build a simple bridge?”
“Too long.” Seelah shakes her head. The impossibility of their task seems to weigh on her, but only for a moment. She glances at Nereo.
“Let’s keep moving.”
The chasm defies rational explanation. It meanders. It’s shallow in some parts, and opens straight into Kenabres’ catacombs in others. In its creation it swallowed homes and people, entire streets disappearing into the earth without warning, tremendous in its violence.
There are times when Nereo can feel the dead in the chasm, a great many of them in that narrow cleft. Stacked each over the other. Never to receive proper rites.
If only he could sense life instead of death. Then he could be useful, finding survivors in this broken city, pinpointing them under the rubble. It’s the first time he’s ever wished for the inverse of his powers. But it is a futile wish, so he pushes it aside in favor of walking those dead streets.
“Let’s measure here!” Seelah declares after they’ve walked further. “Look how much narrower it is! Maybe we can find a way to cross.”
Lann nods and readies another arrow. Coil of rope attached, he fires it over the chasm.
It strikes a wooden signpost, hanging on hinges over what used to be a shop door. The force of the arrow knocks one of the hinges loose, and the sign falls, hanging from one corner.
“Shoot,” Lann laughs. “Looks like we’re going fishing.” He tugs hard at the rope, and the sign comes off its rusted hinge, then falls, arrow still attached, into the pile of rubble below. It catches on the debris there and doesn’t budge further, trapped between two beams. With a frustrated hum Lann pulls harder, and on the third try he wrenches the sign loose, breaking through the already splintered wood.
With a loud creak, the whole ruined shop shifts and begins to move.
“Oh, fuck,” Lann says.
“Nice, Lann! I was just thinkin’ it was lookin’ too tidy ‘round here.”
“Back up,” Seelah calls out. “Back up!”
They back away from the chasm as layers of brick and wood slide into its depths, throwing up dust, pulling down interconnected walls, and flattening nearby structures. It goes on for longer than Nereo expects, his senses alert to every creak and crash of the destruction.
As it continues, he gives Lann an appraising look, brow raised.
“What?” Lann exclaims.
“Can’t take you anywhere,” Nereo says dryly, then another beam snaps, sending roof tiles into the open earth. They crash with a ceramic staccato, one after the other.
Woljif laughs, his tail betraying his nerves.
“I think it’s stopped,” Seelah says, looking truly stressed now. She rubs hard at a spot on her forehead as silence slowly reintroduces itself.
“What a joke. People are dying and here we’re just adding to the mess. I don’t know why I thought mapping this thing was a good idea… messed up again, Seelah.”
She’s talking to herself quietly now. Nereo looks at her, surprised.
When the dust clears, they carefully approach the edge of the chasm. The shop is entirely below ground; all that remains is the rooftop, resting atop the chasm, none the worse for wear.
“Look at that,” Nereo says, eyeing the structure. “Do you think-?”
“Absolutely not,” Seelah says, no longer so optimistic. “It’s still too far.”
Nereo holds up a thumb, tilting his head, measuring the angle of the chasm.
“Maybe leave the measurin’ to people with depth perception, chief,” Woljif advises with a little laugh.
“But there’s a big cart on the other side,” Lann observes. “Maybe we can use it to bridge the gap?”
“Guys, we have no way to get to the cart in the first place!” Seelah holds back a frustrated groan. “Let’s just head back. We’re getting nothing accomplished, and the Defender’s Heart needs us-”
Nereo retreats enough to take a running start. Hooves striking the street in long strides, he dashes past the others and jumps across, easily clearing the space between the edge of the chasm and the now exposed rooftop.
Under their stunned watch, he sticks the landing, sliding only a little and settling into a graceful crouch.
He holds his breath—only enough to know for certain that the structure is done shifting. Several seconds tick by, and it doesn’t budge. The rubble is sturdy below his weight. But it had to collapse for this to even be possible.
Woljif whistles, low and admiring, as Lann cackles and jumps excitedly beside him.
“Nereo!” Seelah shouts, delighted despite herself. “What the hell are you thinking?”
To his own surprise, Nereo laughs as he answers, “I’m thinking we just found a way across!”
