age of empires

this could be a story from the bible, if it wasn't already a story about the stars.

[sceyth]

rp sideblog run by kat  /  about + rules  /  muses + wanted  /  currently looking for  :

the acolyte . mae/qimir , osha/qimir , mae/osha as siblings !

[sceyth]

sorry for going awol. went through a really tough/huge life change. still going through it but slowly trying to do fun things again. miss u all :) to anyone i was writing with, i 100% get it if you'd like to drop our threads/plots. no react to this post in a week, i'll consider it dropped. if you'd like me to reply to an ongoing thread or a prompt you sent, like this post & i'll very happily do so. i'll also be closing down this sideblog & moving all rp stuff over to utapau ~ i'll follow everyone there. my discord is the same, if you'd prefer to contact me there. have a fun and safe rest of the year, beautiful people in my computer x

[sceyth]

margaret atwood, songs for murdered sisters (7. rage), dearly (2020)

[jack-abbot]

— MANNY JACINTO as QIMIR in The Acolyte, 1x06, "Teach / Corrupt" (2024)

[myfakeplasticlove13]

I guess some things you can never leave behind, they don’t belong to the past. They belong to you :,)

[sceyth]

➖ @under-the-bunta-tree ,

it was peaceful here on the island, but Verosha Aniseya was never at peace. not really, anyway. her master had taught her not to seek it out. peace is a lie, he would say, there is only passion. she had been his acolyte for nearly eight months now. some days were more difficult than others, be it a test of her physical strength or mental acuity, but she could feel herself becoming stronger—and, importantly, more intimately connected to the Force than she had ever been, as a Jedi. it was the nights that were the hardest. the same nightmare, every time: the corridors of the Jedi Temple, each corner burned within her memory. a chase ensuing for an entity she could never quite reach. —Mae. always waking with a cold start and her name on her lips, reaching for her sister—her lifeblood that she had lost. if the fates would allow it, Osha might find solace in a dreamless sleep. on nights like tonight, though, she was left to her own devices, crawling out of the cave as quietly as the skura that burrowed in the sands here, her practiced pilgrimage to the bathing pools designed not to disturb her master from his slumber—or. . . .so she thought. his presence clouded her senses, drifted her consciousness away from anything concrete in favor of the idea of him. it was nauseating—no, intoxicating, andshe knew that if she allowed herself to linger in it that it would eventually consume her. her voice cut through the tension. "Would it kill you to announce your arrival, Master?" the word felt heavy on her tongue, like it didn't belong to him. "I can feel your stare. It taunts me."

most nights, osha woke with a start. sometimes gasping, often a name in her mouth. some nights spoken, some nights whispered. it made no difference. each and every time, he heard her. felt her. the name screaming the sky into a storm. the shaking of her breath blowing the breeze into hurricanes, the quivering of her voice causing earthquakes. terrible tremors only he could feel. all his life, he had felt terrible things only he could feel. he had to feel her.

the force of her was so strong, the world shrunk around him. nothing but him and her and her pulse pounding in his ear. all the world finally as dark and deep as it was in his helmet. but he had to feel her, though her calamities devastated him. though when she left, there was little of him left in her wake besides rubble. the cave empty, there was nothing to do but pick up his pieces and sweep the debris.

most nights, he followed her with his ear, listening for her breathing, her footsteps, waiting for the sound of gentle waves to coalesce. tonight, he followed her.

a moonlit figure, he drew into the shadow. soundless steps traced the shapes of her feet in the sand. sharp eyes traced the shape of her in the dark. a pleased grin graced his mouth at her feeling him. when he breathed, the air was thick and heavy—that weary air, still worn from calamity. "sorry," he melted his grin down into a smile. he walked closer, claiming the space beside her with the same sureness he used to take lives. "you dream of her," he said, not a question but a fact. he knew all her nights, her nightmares. he sat on the sand and touched the tips of his fingers to hers, inviting her to sit beside him.

qimir picked up a rock and threw it at the water. it skipped six times then tried to drown, but he held his palm up, and called the rock back into his hand. "osha," he said, silently, and sweetly, and always, he spoke her name with some deep, unknowable reverence, as if the privilege of it in his mouth was taste and texture he couldn't quite get himself used to, "what's on your mind?"

[sceyth]

      ➖ for @under-the-bunta-tree ,

she had to believe what was in front of her. it was easier said than done. anything she could feel with her hands, hold in her palms, touch with her fingers, had the look of something that had never existed. always, she was in a half-asleep and half-awake state. reality and dreams were easy enough to separate back when she didn't dream. but more and more nights, she saw a face in the darkness behind her eyes. it was her own face, but not quite. the same shade of brown as her eyes, but not quite. the way the light glinted off those eyes gave them a peculiar shine. red, yellow, black. she couldn't begin to know the colors, could hardly remember their names.

does the name 'osha' mean anything?

she could hardly remember the name of anything. some days, she could feel herself forgetting her own name. the sound of it slipping off the tip of her tongue, trying to escape, trying to be gone forever. so much of her mind was that—trying to hide from her, run from her.

brendok. at least she remembered the name of her home. where she was, the halls she ran. the pristine but empty halls. the clean floors and scrubbed walls. the unburnt wires. it all looked so wrong. and there was supposed to be writing on those walls. osha. osha. osha. she looked for the word, the letters. she had the feeling it had to be here somewhere. she followed the cleanness of the walls to an old, familiar corridor.

she pressed a button and the door wouldn't open. she waited for the whir of machine, the slide of mechanism, but nothing happened, and no one came. mae held a hand in front of her, and the thread that connected all things in the universe pulled the door open for her. she stepped past the threshold, looking around. there was someone there. there had to be. mae had to tell them something.

[sceyth]

➖ @nightmarefuele ,

she doesn't want him on his knees. he should be under her a deeper way, where it's dark, and things become a singular totality.

qimir is right. even the ocean murmurs against the story of where she is inside, and it did long before she took herself out along the sand. but tugging happens ungently. he has been too gentle with her. she had asked. she has always been something leveled off too soon, but that, too, was a story. maybe she's really just something baying. he looks at her, and knows. osha watches his eyes until she can't. his skin calls. she calls from somewhere inside it. while osha's fingers spread cool warmth over the backs of his knuckles, her body's axis is shifting, and her feet unbind themselves, bare in the sand, and her legs begin to move for her. there's something there, behind her eyelids where she held her mothers. now it holds his palm. she'll do this the way she sees in their skin; whispers, without saying, come with me to the sea. living rills pool between and muddle their sinking knees. her pulse clogs into his buzzing, they're near the same density. her thumb massages their sacrifical slate, and—careful—caring—she pushes its tongue into one of his creases. he spills. osha views a sensation across their shortening way⸺her, collecting into his palm. there, she's the wet harvest licking his skin. she parts her lips, breathing, and presses deeper.

he called her forth the same way she'd summoned him, by blade, by breath. already, he felt closer. to her, to the core of the planet, to the heart of darkness. he pressed his palm to hers and curled his fingers, called a red cloth to hand—torn from something bigger, but sewn with care at the edges—and bound his hand to her hand. called the cup in the same way, held it below their coming together and tightened his hold. bones, blood, veins. flesh, skin, fate.

his eyes flickered black, yellow, red, brown. warm again once the blood stopped flowing. he sipped his fill and gave the cup to her, the edges of the cloth turned wet and black. it was cold, warm, searing, all the world and all of time frozen. it was a familiar sensation. that deep, infinite darkness. he'd felt it once before, back when she disappeared behind his helmet and took him with her.

blood sizzled and settled in the cracks within his lips. the seas stopped roaring to listen, and even the sun stilled to watch.

[selene-ella]

Character Aesthetic: Master Qimir

[sceyth]

➖ @ver0sha ,

Osha felt like she was in an ocean when the helmet was on. No, that she was the ocean. Drowning, but how could she drown when she was the water filling her lungs, her ears, her mouth, her head? The Force was everything; the Darkness in it was consuming, consuming, consuming. She was consuming. Osha trembled, the ragged noises escaping her becoming a murky robotic echo of her vulnerability through the mask. It was just her and the Force. The Force that she had hidden away from. Like the tide it swept towards her like she'd disappear again. And beneath the wild of it all, she saw h i m. It had to be him. It felt like him. Not quite a light, but certainly not the dark of everything. Her hand outstretched, her already mask-blind eyes scrunching close until the darkness behind her eyelids burst into dancing stars of color and the world around her shifted... no, the world around them shifted. Melted into existence, an existence she demanded as she breathed out an icy breath. The world became a cool blue, a mimicry of the cave they lived in but different. She breathed and the walls shuddered with her. "Qimir," her master's name left her as she looked at him. She had power here. Here she felt everything. And she embraced it. "Are you here?" she queried, the tone doubtful as she stared at him. It felt real as she manipulated the Force to her own will like it was nothing but a weaving of a basket, tugging and rethreading it to form this place of consciousness for herself - for them, while she still sat, masked in front of him elsewhere.

"osha."

this time the words made it past his teeth. often, his throat constricted in this cold. sometimes, his skin flayed in this heat. this time he pressed his jaw hard enough to keep all of his teeth in place. his hands lay useless at his sides, his legs more stilt than flesh. he had no power here. here, there was only surrender. here, a dark thing hid at every corner, waiting to be remembered.

all he could hear was his own heart and his trying to slow it. all he could feel was her. the fear for her, the desire of her. this was... risky. a fast but very dangerous way for her to reach the deepest depths of the dark side. there was no guarantee that he would come out of this alive.

"good, osha." every letter was a molten spike driven with painstaking slowness through his flesh. he grit his teeth to weather it. "feel." he focused on her face, his eyes melting away, turning to deep red and bright yellow irises, blood vessels exploding like fireworks in that white sky. "what do you feel?"

[sceyth]

➖ @kinomorebi ,

There's something familiar mingling with the air, dissolving on the breeze to burrow it's way deep into the belly of her lungs. The muscles there expand to make room for him. Something safe. Something that feels like home. She can feel it on the flat of her tongue, coating her senses in his presence with a subtlety that allows him to go unnoticed to her. He slips under her radar. Until he doesn't. “What the–” words are forcibly swallowed down, palm pressed to lips in silencing demand. Fear seeps into her bloodstream, a white hot branding to scorch. She whirls around to take her aggressor head on but pauses at the sight, the familiarity of his visage quick to melt her hardening features into something more pliable. Something soft. Something inviting.

"Qimir." Hands no longer lift in preparation to defend, but to make gentle contact with his outstretched arm, stepping forward to melt into him. A smile. Laughter washes over the momentary panic to dull it into safety, hands coming to rest on the flat of his chest to steady herself. She can feel the relief taking over as her gaze lifts to meet his. "You scared me."

listening, he heard it. the flow, the rush, the red in her veins. beneath her skin. that place below. below the surface of consciousness...fear...desire. he mirrored her smile. her hands touched someplace deeper than his robes, his chest, his skin. trusting instinct, his own hand fell to her waist. his palm pressed to cloth and leather, skin. for all of a moment, his thumb brushed her bones, sweeping across the marrow of her rib. she couldn't feel him coming—did she feel him then?

it was heady being like that, but it felt like the most natural thing in the world. moving in shadows, even in broad daylight, sinking into flesh like so much teeth.

and it was a second. only a second before he withdrew his hand. but time bent itself all around him, turning into oceans. she was smiling at him, and it was only a second, but he must have looked at her forever.

"you didn't feel me?" the words lilted up into a joke, but there was a shine of genuine curiosity in his eyes; the corner of his mouth tilted into a slight grin, almost smirking. "in 'the force'?" he snickered, walking past her to the water's edge.

his warmth never lingered anymore. these days, when he left a place, he took everything with him, as if he had no intention of returning. he sat on the rocks by the water, knees pulled up. he didn't ask her to come, but he had that way about him—that endless patience in his expectation, like he'd seen into the future, and would wait however long he needed to see it come to pass. she would sit next to him. he would wait. and if she didn't...there weren't too many ways this could go. qimir picked up a rock and threw it at the water. it skipped six times then tried to drown, but he held his palm up, and called the rock back into his hand. then, again.

[sceyth]

url change ! wintrmelon > sceyth only writing for canons / ocs from the acolyte

[sceyth]

yo..............

[sceyth]

➖ @nightmarefuele ,

if only you can find it. can't you find it? you already have. a liminal space on the other side of his brow is where he gathers up all the breadcrumbs mae leaves. the stitch in her mouth looks as unsure of itself as the day he brought her out there with him — a liminal space and an open nowhere. he tells her as much now as then. expecting poison? i'd tell you if there were. he doesn't tell her anything. it's not hard to hole up in the roof of his mouth. he frustrates anyway. ‘ you need a better block. ’ his hands. he's still holding hers. he stops by way of pocketing them into each other. his dented knuckle chasing an itch off his nose. he talks with movement out of curiosity. deep down, he's trying to engage hers. ‘ haven't you bragged about that before? am i misremembering? ’ he remembers more. seeing more, sensing more. he thinks back, sometimes, just to entertain whether she found him half on her own. if she reached out now, would she go the rest of the way?

the wood stool lilts a little noise as he goes and swaggers down before the liquor cabinet. ‘ maybe, if you spent less time justifying yourself ... ’ plucks out a pair of unlabeled bottles, stands. a capsule from a top shelf. he's more fluid than the alcohol sounds. ‘ ... you wouldn't need to. ’

and then there were times when whatever world they were on tilted back on its axis, and qimir was nothing more than the parts of him. not a mystery larger than life, nothing more than his old clothes, messy hair, and the faint stench of something she'd scrape off the bottom of her shoe. there were these times, when he saw all the way through her, he ended up on the other side of her, and she was left feeling unseen. misunderstood. that was how it was supposed to be, mae salved the thought over the injury of his unseeing. how could someone like him ever understand someone like her?

his lecturing made her indignant, flared flames in her chest, curled her brows. how could someone like him ever presume to give advice to someone like her? but she was too injured and tired to fight. there was no winning with him, anyway. she heaved a heavy exhale, putting her eyes and her mind to the motions of his hands. she didn't want to look at him and risk him convincing her of something.

"my block is fine," she said, her voice hard. her obvious injury protested the claim. mae drowned out the noise. "what is it like, then, qimir..." she began, with derision, but also, some rare curiosity. (she couldn't know it, but he was the one to pull it out of her.)

"doing everything for no reason?" she made the mistake of looking at him. his eyes were familiar, but she didn't know him. you've seen these eyes—only, you were looking into something you couldn't see into.

[lokislady17]

[sceyth]

  ➖ for @kinomorebi ,

his steps were quiet, quieter as she came into view, quieter as he neared. all of him almost darkness, black boots almost as black as his shadow, his body almost lost to the absence of light he left in his wake. it bloomed in his chest the closer she was. desire. a flower that festered like fungus and fed on his marrow. the more of himself he gave to that feeling, the more it gave back. had he walked the few inches left to reach her, or crossed it through air?

some sudden fear flashed hot in his mind. a fear that seared so intensely, it cauterized itself. a sudden ache in his temple, as if the place of a flesh wound forced close. 

he put a hand on her shoulder—"boo."

[flowerytale]

Emily Dickinson, from a letter to Dr. and Mrs. J.G. Holland (1858)