the tide pulls, she wavers (not)

An independent Tales of blog (re) est 2016. I play both Shirley here and Alisha on my side blog. ALL FOLLOWS FOR PLEDGEDHEART WILL COME FROM HERE. Please see the sitemap for everything else.

[seaprayer]

Shirley sunk the world in my animal crossing game :pensive: hows everyone esle doing?

[seaprayer]

evasion-finalist‌:

“I would imagine the soul of anyone given form would have great power, but that’s not what I was getting at…” it might bestow great power, but was it really worth the risk? You were weaponizing your soul. Jude didn’t like the sound of that at all, even if it appeared to be so beautiful when formed.

So teriques could even allow one to fly? “How do they resemble monsters?” though ‘zephyr’..? If he remembered correctly, he had read somewhere in Barona that it was related to breezes, or the wind itself. Sighing to himself at the thought, his friends kingdom had a true obsession with the wind element in every way.

“I can’t say I have…” heard of those ruins that is. However..? That might be something to look into if he wanted to obtain more history from this place. Though would spirit artes work as a substitute for eres? Or would these ruins be able to tell the difference? He might need to figure that out first.

Some things, even worlds apart, don’t change. “Mm, I do! It’s well known as a healthy tea to drink. I may have forgot to mention it earlier, but I’m also a doctor. The type of research I do needed me to be a doctor, so as a doctor, it’s something I would recommend to anyone.” it sounds harder to obtain here on the Legacy, but they had certainly achieved it.

The talk of spirits increased his interest tenfold. Spirits being in entirely different worlds were fascinating. With how close Jude worked with spirits, learning more about spirits, even otherworldly spirits, was not something he would pass up for a second.

Jude opened his mouth to inquire further, but caught himself before he continued, falling silent as a result. Six spirits? And Shadow– a spirit he barely knew anything about. He wanted to go into detail, draw the comparisons and yet he knew if he said too much, his cover would be blown. Unfortunately… he’d have to keep his questions simple.

“What six spirits are there? And would that mean Shadow protects this place? Is it possible to meet with this spirit?”

“Some souls are more powerful than others,” Shirley said, staring into her tea, “others resilient. We each learn to train and control them at a young age and only those possessed with the utmost will to survive go into battle with them.”

That was what the zephrys were - the souls of the guards, hardened into a shape not unlike the birdlike garudas and rooks that haunted the highest peaks of the Legacy. For the first time she thought “iron” was not such a bad translation of the erens that used their powers to strengthen their physical abilities for it required a hardness of spirit she could not help but envy and fear in equal measure.

As for the exact details of how they resembled monsters...

“Er, well they have wings for one. Um... not like the wings on my teriques though. These are more leathery, I suppose? Oh, and talons that spread out kind of like -”

Shirley began pantomiming to her best ability the outline of a zephyr only about a head shorter than her. Jude, to his credit, seemed to focus on her clumsy attempts at an explanation with rapt attention but eventually she had to laugh at herself.

“I suppose they are something you have to see for yourself. And even thought the zephyrs our guards summon all have the same shape there are still slight differences in coloration and temperaments since they do each represent a different soul.”

She would have said the same of the spirits she had mentioned but Jude seemed to take to that topic with the same naturalness he had their discussion of Mainland tea. A doctor and a researcher he had said, it certainly showed in his insights.

Still - and she thought this without any malice, he seemed almost overly insightful on this matter.

“Um, the spirits are... let me try and remember.” She had to count each on her hand for while she knew the elements well as a mage it was Will who had met with all of them. “There’s Celsius for ice and Gnome for earth. Efreet and Volt both live underground right now but they’ve been spotted just the same. Then of course, there’s Shadow who I’ve mentioned and his opposite Rem."

Each of the spirits seemed to be made of opposing elements according to Will but none seemed inclined to harm the other. In fact, the Legacy had been very peaceful since they had first come. Of course there were still a few problems here and there.

“Shadow is... well, I’ve only met with him once. The villagers all give him a wide berth as they are unsure what to make of him but he seems friendly enough. He likes riddles.”

He had moved to a cove not to far from the other side of the lake. Often when Shirley was making her rounds at night she could hear him moving about within.

“You... you want to meet him?”

[parusaro]

Some scans of the few color illustrations that were in the ToL comic anthology from DNA Media.

[seaprayer]

@rangctsu

- “you know...”

It came out despite herself. She had just been passing through the training grounds, really. She had seen the same man here before, but never taken notice of him besides recognizing a kindred determination in him as the one in her brother.

But Senel wasn’t the one she was thinking of now as the sworrdsman lashed out at the practice dummy in front of him.

“You know, your fighting style is very much like a friend of mine’s. She uses a blade as well. Although hers is a single long sword.”

“The way you counter the target's movements, I mean,” she went on as the dummy swung back and the swordsman with a flick of his wrist used that momentum to blow the thing away stand and all. Shirley continued to watch, interested, from a respectful difference.

[richea]

An Untold Legendia

This is from Go Tanaka’s (the main scenario writer for Legendia and Graces/f) column in the Tales of Magazine, titled Mabo Curry wo Tabe Nagara. Thanks to @aera-enfys for providing the scans for this particular entry!

Three years prior to the story, in a port city on the mainland… Shirley stood on a wharf alone, gazing at the sea beyond her. She was supposed to come here seeking an answer. But no matter how hard she listened, she couldn’t hear a thing. (This… will end it all…) This thought resided in her heart. Just one more… Just one more step and it’d all be over. She thought this as she lifted her foot, when suddenly, an image of her most important people… of Senel and Stella flashed through her mind…

This is the start of the summary for a Legendia side-story I once wrote, called “The Beginning Days.” It starts with a scene that makes you wonder “Will Shirley throw herself into the sea…?” and from there, goes back to the time when Senel first met Shirley and Stella, showcasing the days they lived in the Ferines Village, what happened during the Rite of Accession, the event with Vaclav’s troops attacking, and how Senel and Shirley lived together after escaping the assault.

Senel is still the protagonist, but it really highlights both Shirley and Stella’s characters, as I aimed to have it be a sort of Character Quest for the two. In my previous column, I wrote that I based the story of Legendia around the idea of “the protagonist’s sister gets kidnapped and he has to save her,” but once I started fleshing things out, Stella’s character came to me early on (though she had a different name at the time). “Don’t think of the character individually, think of how they interact with others and pair them up if need be,” is a common view, and with Senel, I thought of his relationship with Shirley and Stella. There were a lot of flashback scenes I wanted to add that didn’t show up in the game, such as a scene where Stella and Shirley combine their efforts to save Senel, and a scene where Senel and Stella get into a rather heated fight―these were both things included in the aforementioned side-story.

Though both sisters have a deep bond with Senel, with Stella, the hope was that the more you dug into the story, the more obvious it’d be what their relationship really was. I was worried that she wouldn’t stand out at first, or that by the end you’d forget about her, but I’d like to think that since her scenes leave a strong impression with the player, this wasn’t an issue.

I’d love to see “The Beginning Days” published someday. Perhaps not as a game, but as a novel, manga or drama CD, whatever would work best…

[seaprayer]

It’s not something I would have initially realized but upon replying to some asks and rewatching Will’s Character Quest - I think it’s clear that Shirley is actually really good with kids. If she ever had her own children (which is something I do think she would eventually want), she would be terrified as she really sees nurturing as something Stella would be good at, not her.

But her interactions with Harriet prove she’s good with children precisely because she treats them with due respect. She was also able to calm that newborn baby down, which was pretty dang impressive…

[seaprayer]

🌸?

Send ‘🌸’ to hear my muse’s mother or mother-figure talk about the muse

“Shirley, come on now. It’s alright! You can get up!”

Stella knelt down, trying not to let the disappointment show on her face as she surveyed the nuts they’d gathered all strewn about on the forest floor thanks to Shirley’s tumble. She gently lifted her sister’s skirt to over her knees, trying to find the scratch but the sight of blood - no matter how tiny - made her little sister start crying all over again.

“No… it hurts!”

Shirley gripped the leg Stella had tried to steady and drew into herself. Stella sighed, Shirley’s face was a mess and she just knew they wouldn’t bring the provisions back in time for the community dinner.

But this was what she had chosen. If the Elders had their way they would have taken Shirley from her, she knew it. If Stella hadn’t insisted on them living together at least until the birth of her little sister’s wings they would have had her start training to be the Merines even now at four years old if they could.

Stella may have been only six years old herself but she had already grown weary of Ferines society. She wanted to protect Shirley from it for just a bit longer.

As tears continued to stream down Shirley’s face Stella wondered if perhaps she had coddled her too much.

“Come here,” she said but Shirley continued to blubber, holding her scraped knee close. Stella closed her eyes, counted to three, and summoned her teriques. It was still a new feeling - invigorating and frightening at the same time. Shirley’s only reaction was to pout at the firefly-like creature, but Stella needed it for her idea.

Summoning just a bit of energy to her hand, not enough for a real eres technique (Stella hadn’t taken to healing spells) but enough for them to glow with the sunset light of her power she waved a hand over Shirley’s knee.

“Pain, pain, fly far away!”

With that she threw her hand into the air and her teriques sped away. Shirley stared, first at Stella’s hand, then the sky, and again back at her. She rubbed her nose on her sleeve and Stella bit her tongue so as not to chastise her.

“Wh-what was that?”

Stella smiled.

“It’s a charm Mother taught me for when you need to stop hurting.”

“Mother?”Shirley now had the expression on her face she always did when Stella brought up their parents, and as relieved as she was to see it instead of her tears it still brought with it a fresh wave of guilt. Shirley had always been so curious, and that only increased with age so Stella had to occasionally lie when Shirley inevitably demanded stories of their parents. What could Stella tell her? She had only been three herself when Shirley was born, and her parents taken to another Ferines enclave.

(It hadn’t saved them.)There were only a few things she knew for sure about them. She once told Shirley about a song that had come to her in a dream, explaining it had once been a lullaby they’d sang, but deep down Stella knew that was untrue. The only thing she knew for sure was how they died - for the elders had described it to her, sprawled out on a battlefield with their wings shredded and their bodies worse, whispering the name of their second daughter like a prayer and nothing (no one) else.That was the truth. But so was this. She had fallen down like this too, once. The scratches on her hand had seemed so large and ugly she had cried and cried until her mother convinced her of the charm and bandaged her hand there and then.

Now, she knew the specifics of a cut artery or how to tell how much someone had left to bleed before they would faint.

She never wanted Shirley to learn those things.

“Yes,” she said, tearing some of her own garb to clean and bandage Shirley. Her tears had dried on her cheeks now and she regarded Stella bravely.

“I-it worked. I feel better now.”

Stella stood. The stew would be fine without the nuts tonight, she and Shirley could come back later that evening and keep them for their own snack if the squirrels hadn’t come by then. Gently, she offered Shirley her hand and taking it the two sisters made their way back home.

“I knew it would. I’ll teach you how to do it tonight, okay? Promise.”

Stella made another promise to herself then in the light of the darkening woods with the slightest weight of her little sister’s hand in her own. If it came down to the world and Shirley, she would fight the world.

[starlitmemes]

Send ‘🌷’ to hear my muse talk about their mother, or a mother figure. Send ‘🌸’ to hear my muse’s mother or mother-figure talk about the muse.

[refined-silva]

@seaprayer

Silver blue watched the woman for a moment before he looked away. Did she not know what a malak was? “…”

[seaprayer]

“Um, a-are you alright?”

Shirley had been so excited to find a seemingly empty field of flowers that, bending down to take in one’s smell she had hardly noticed the boy a few heads smaller than her sitting there. He was merely staring at her now and it made her nervous.

Nervous, but not threatened; something about this boy was different but she did not think it was in a bad way.

The flowers before her were on conical stalks and came in any number of colors. Shirley plucked a pale blue one and held it out to the boy. “It matches your eyes,” she explained a bit bashfully.

[seaprayer]

okay time to finally start some threads in the berseria ‘verse!

[seaprayer]

feel free to like for a starter call in this verse or otherwise btw!

[windvowed]

@seaprayer encounters the wind!

“And that takes care of you!” One last hard kick and the monster was sent flying into the nearest tree. “A girl just can’t take a decent walk, can she? Huh…” As Theo turned to continue down the path, she noticed a blonde girl nearby. Had she…..had she been watching the whole time? 

Walking over, she smiled to the girl before speaking. “Hey, uh you wouldn’t happen to know where I am would you? Or if there’s a town nearby?” 

[seaprayer]

@lunarvowed

It was difficult for Shirley to track how far she had come since sneaking out of the village. Her nerves were frayed and so much unfamiliar open space was only part of that reason. She had stayed by the sea, finding her way to a tributary for loss of any other means of navigation. The FelNes maps were severally outdated and the repeated shifts in Earthpulse activity certainly hadn’t helped that.

She should have kept her guard up, but that had always been Walter’s job. She found that travelling and finding a way to be sage were tasks far more difficult than she had first assumed especially when done together.

And as if to prove her point, suddenly -

The pack of wolves had seemed to materialize from the corner of her eye. Whether their destination was the river for a drink or her for something far more sinister, she did not know. Shirley tried to hide beneath the foliage but there was so little there. Two of the monsters advanced and Shirley’s breath stopped - unsure whether to continue staying still or to rise from her crouch into a run.

That was when the green-haired woman arrived along with the strangely comforting scent of flowers on the breeze. Her kick knocked one of the larger wolves off guard and the others backed away, snapping their jaws. Shirley rose slowly with a look of utter amazement on her face.

“Wh-where we are? Um, no. And I have not seen any towns” (that was what came of actively avoiding them).

The woman (malak, Shirley realized beleatedly,) looked from her to the wolves again. The monsters turned tail and Shirley let out a sigh of relief.

“Are you... looking for somewhere in particular? I have a map but, well, I’m not sure how much use it will be...”

[seaprayer]

Berseria au details (to be edited later, but here’s the whole speel for those interested)

Keep reading

[seaprayer]

okay time to finally start some threads in the berseria ‘verse!

[seaprayer]

baby girl.... baby

(thanks for tagging me @the-king-of-the-wind)

[seaprayer]

the-king-of-the-wind‌:

“Not at all, I assure you,” Richard nods once. They were the sort of people that would even take in a child they did not know, found unconscious on the road with no home or family of his own. There was truly no boundaries to the Lhant’s generosity, Richard owed them more than he could ever fathom repaying. “Lhant has no inn of its own, so they often find themselves host to travelers. No one will mind.” 

The road is not long, few in Lhant were with the community being as small and tight-nit as it was. Greater were the farmers fields and windmills beyond it that gave the village its livelihood. Richard began along the one leading south, waiting for Miss Shirley to fall into step next to him. 

“Bread? That is all?” Richard blinked and couldn’t help a chuckle. “I’m certain there will be some fresh bread, but you need not fear asking for more than that. I seem to recall talk of stew and buns among the maids this morning.”  

They sounded like wonderful people. Shirley could not help but draw closer at Richard’s description. If she could not stay long enough to meet them, at least she could hear about them!

“No, no! Bread is more than enough!”

Shirley trotted after him, adamant in her one request. Still talk of stew made her wonder what ingredients it might have. They often made Sea Food Stew on the Legacy.

Thinking this she noticed the greenery surrounding them as they walked down the path Richard said led tot he manor. On one of the larger structures (trees, that was it - she remembered because of the Crystal Forest) there hung bright red orbs.

The wind blew the branches and one of the orbs broke off, falling into her path. She crouched down to pick it up with the hand not currently carrying her satchel of purchases.

“These smell wonderful,” she told Richard earnestly as she held her find up proudly. It was not just her stomach talking this time either. She was simply amazed and bewitched by her new discovery.

[seaprayer]

zelotae‌:

Senel. Can’t say he had heard a name like that before. Nor could he say he had heard of a Marine Trooper. Though he supposed it didn’t quite matter in this moment. It certainly wouldn’t if he hadn’t made it. When their gazes met, he felt a sense of shame and resisted the urge to look away. It’s not fair of him to show his doubts so easily. At least put on a brave face.

But that was increasingly difficult with the time frame she had given. A lot can happen in a few hours, but a lot of nothing could happen too. The voice in his head kept saying he had to be dead, he couldn’t have survived, the odds were against him. Taken by a roper perhaps, or something worse. She should give up and be grateful she survived-

Her sudden outburst startled him but thankfully silenced the wretched and pessimistic voice. Maybe, maybe there was still a chance. If she got thrown out, he might have too and the tide could have carried him further down the coast. If he was an expert, it’s certainly possible that he had escaped.

“Well… I mean if he’s your brother, don’t people usually feel if something bad happened to their sibling? So you could be right. And if he knew what he was doing, he probably did get out. Still, a few hours is a long time…” He winced, once again thinking of his own sister. The grief, if any, she would feel when all was said and done would pass and she could live her life. “Listen, you could catch a cold waiting here in those clothes. It might be better for you to get to an inn. I can get someone to come have a proper look and wait in case he shows up.”

But she was nervous, and his approach seemed to have spooked her before. “That is… if that’s alright with you. Or I can… wait with you?”

If he’s your brother-

While his words were almost certainly meant as a comfort, Shirley’s face only further contracted in pain with the memories they brought to the forefront of her mind. They had been family. Once. Before the third member of their trio had been so fatally ripped away from them.

Shirley tries not to compare the horror of that day to the anxiety bubbling at her core now. It wasn’t like that. It was just the sea, not soldiers and the sea wouldn’t-

She wobbled almost as if on cue as the red-haired man asked after her health. She felt her head, warm - too warm, but she had weathered worse than this before.

“I... want to wait.”

Having said so, she sat back down and clasped her knees to her chest. Her body was still inclined toward the man and she glanced up at him through her bangs. He wasn’t trying to force her to do anything... so maybe, just maybe this was alright.

“Um, I told you my brother’s name but not mine. I’m Shirley. Wh-what about you?”

[memories]

If the groundhog sees @zelotae, that’s 6 more weeks of winter.

[seaprayer]

@zelotae oh it us