#atotd

[valoisfulcanellideux]

Now that the chapter it was created for has been published, I can finally share this gorgeous illustration by @floweroflaurelin of Nashĭd (the Copper King) and Sha'bĭah (the Phantom Assassin) from my longfic A Tale of Two Devotions.

It's always such a joy working with Sabira, and I'm thrilled beyond belief with how stunning this work is.

If you're interested in reading the fic, it's almost reached its end (what will probably be its final chapter is scheduled to go live on Sunday 17th August) and you can find it here on AO3.

Summary:

There are tales of ghosts that wander the desert with their eyes and mouths sealed shut with wax. Legends tell that this was so they could neither see nor speak of what was done to them in their dying moments. The gilded, adorned, and adored Copper King did not know he had a twin; a freak of nature taken from their mother's childbed and raised to protect the glory of the Vigil, the city, its people, and the king. Denied a name, known only as Phantom, the rooftops and alleys are his haunt as he watches over his brother's devotion to the Vigil; an obedience so deep that none in the city know how chained their king is to keeping their precious monument alive. Nor do they know the price paid by their dead.

[mahvaladara]

Being orphaned as a dragon is actually commonplace. For such powerful creatures, I know of no dragon who has died of old age. But we made up for the dangers of our existence by a tight knit community, where every dragon in the community took place in raising the shills until we were adults and free to fly were we wished.

I was young, I was curious. It was probably this natural curiosity of dragons that lead me, and many others, to departe on my own in seek of knowledge. 

That was another thing I was taught but did not learn. A dragon never flies alone.

[valoisfulcanellideux]

Today in...

...we have a full fic summary.

*facepalms*

Okay, so this is now A Thing™. A Pretty Big Thing, in fact. TDHD is going on the backburner for a while, because this Thing has all-but consumed me, and I'm not passing up story inspiration that's as strong as this.

I'm now deep into the plotting of it, and beginning to pull together a structure. The initials of the working title (which is what I'll now additionally be tagging these posts with) are LNW, and if you know the original fic, you can probably guess what that stands for ;)

So, if you loved (and you miss) Sha'bĭah, Nashĭd, Maq’sha, Q’alĭm, and Imaĭ'yah (plus most of the accompanying side-characters) you're in luck, because you'll be meeting them again.

This time, though, things are different. Nashĭd is still the Rafa (king) and Sha'bĭah is still the Qashashĭn (assassin), but in this fic they are not brothers. Q’alĭm is an adult and has another job, Imaĭ'yah did not die young but instead is also an adult, and Maq’sha is in his 50s instead of an old man. There is no evil!Vigil, and Sha'bĭah is not cursed to look strange and walk only at night.

They're still who they are, but their circumstances are very different. Because...

...in the Court of the Copper King whispers carry far. What is a mask but a second face? And how far will a man go to get what he wants?

[valoisfulcanellideux]

(Image created manually using Scriptorium: Master of Manuscripts)

[valoisfulcanellideux]

And then, as if the gods had heard him, a metal key turned, the cell gate opened, and in walked his brother, moving slowly forward until he could crouch before Sha'bĭah in the middle of the cell. The sunlight behind his back made of him a beautiful spirit or a ghost, haloed as he crouched and watched, a dagger held in his right hand. With his eyes hazed by the drowsiness of daytime and pain and fever, and his heart drowned beneath the waters of despair, Sha'bĭah could not even see his brother’s face. All he could see was the golden halo and the dagger. It had sent him down here, hadn’t it? The unrest of the crowd had spared his life in the plaza, but down here in the cell there was no crowd and there were no hesitant guards. There was only him, his brother, the Vigil, and the dagger. “Come to finish me off, have you?” he rasped, his lips dry and his throat parched. “Nice and quiet, with nobody watching?” He gave a mirthless laugh that came out as barely a wheeze, before adding, “You would make a fine qashashĭn. Walk alone. Strike in shadow. Leave no witness.” He bowed his head in submission, the light above the waves far, far overhead and unreachable now. “Do what you must,” he whispered. And he waited.

The second of two new(ish!) commissions from Sabira ( @floweroflaurelin ) for chapter 26 of A Tale of Two Devotions, this beautiful illustration shows Nashĭd (the Copper King), visiting Sha'bĭah the qashashĭn (Phantom Assassin) in the palace's dungeon cells. Unbeknown to the king, the qashashĭn he had condemned to rot alone in a cell is his twin brother.

Thank you, Sabira, for this gorgeous piece of work! <3

[valoisfulcanellideux]

Today in...

A crowd gathers at the corner of a street, where two wandering bards have set up a hasty stage. The blue-masked taps upon a tambourine as the red-masked prowls the ground, addressing the gathering with a solemn tone...

"Two men, both alike in dignity, In fair Pixandria, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where royal blood makes hidden blades unclean, From forth the fatal pride of these two foes, A pair of star scorned brothers lose their life, Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Do with their death spark their city's strife. The fearful passage of their death-marked oath, And the continuance of their wayward rage, Which, but their own end, nought could remove, Is now the two hours' turning of our page; The which if you with patient minds attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend." — Kĭt'ajh, the wandering bard

In tonight’s play the part of Kǐt’ajh has been played by @the-wandering-wordsmith

[valoisfulcanellideux]

Today in...

... I've been messing around in Canvas of Kings, to try and get a rough idea of the layout of the assassins' hideout.

[valoisfulcanellideux]

This is a thing in the binder of my current Scrivener project...

Just sayin' 👀

I have three ideas right now. One is just a 'deleted scene' from the existing fic, another is flashback stuff that would be pre-fic, and the last is... another complete story altogether. Same characters, different relationship [not brothers] and with a non-evil Vigil.

The first is most likely to be written, as it would be short and rather sweet (older!Sha'bĭah and qashashĭn!Q’alĭm).

The second is earlier in Sha'bĭah's life, before he got involved in the whole Vigil thing. This is probably the least likely to be written, as it would just be a slice of life thing. No real plot to speak of.

The last one... hooboy, I could go places with that, but I don't really have a concrete plot for it yet. I'm thinking about the qashashĭn not being the king's brother and not being the city's protector, but instead being on retainer with the palace as an actual assassin. I was never fully happy with how quickly Nashĭd lost his cold and calculated demeanour that we saw in chapter 1 of AToTD, but I'm honestly not sure if I feel like writing a more political intrigue-type fic, where Sha'bĭah carries out far more dangerous political assassinations at Nashĭd's command.

I'm also very wary of taking away from the impact of the characters in AToTD, because I know how much my readers adore them. But damn it, I adore them as well, and they won't let me go! xD

That said, I've been scribbling down notes and ideas, and if I did write this I might take it in a completely AU direction. (Writing an AU of my own fic, as it were.) But a couple of the ideas I've got are... well, I don't know how well they'd go down with my regular readers 🤔

Anyone fancy discussing this with me via Discord DMs? It would help if you were very familiar with the characters in AToTD and were willing to be perfectly honest with me, as well as being a possible sounding board for ideas going forward - at least for the near future.

Update: Okay, I've edited my private server so it's private-but-joinable with an invite, and it now has more channels than just my own personal ones. Let me know if you'd like to join to discuss my fics and help me brainstorm xD But please note, I need to recognise and know you before I'll send out an invite.

I'm still writing TDHD in the background, but it's slow going because it's a completely different style of writing than my usual, and it takes a lot of braincells; of which I appear to have scant supply most days at the moment.