#bean's excerpts

[writeblrfantasy]

EXCERPT FROM AN EMPIRE OF GILDED SAND: a willing soul

an excerpt, from me? why i never

have some angst from this little found family <3

Rigging up all the cables and alloys is second nature to them now, as well as preparing the spare mirror Alier rolls out from his quarters. They all hold their breath the same as Alier and Velle did during every attempt, they did everything the exact same as they did to summon Hathur, and yet—

Nothing happens.

A few beats of silence pass, and then Velle is thrown into action. “Why—why isn’t it working?” She’s frantic, fiddling with the metal knobs and making sure the energy cables lie there without kinks, testing every possible variable that could’ve caused the summoning to fail. Alier lets her; she won’t burn herself. “What went wrong?”

“Velle,” Alier begins, possibility dawning on him.

“No, Professor, I’m sure I did something wrong. Just give me a minute and I’ll figure out what it is.” She continues running sporadically around the mirror cabinet like if she stands still she’ll be snatched away from it all.

“Velle—”

“Just—Professor, just give me a chance—hey!”

“Velle.” At last, just like the first night when she saw his experiments amateurly left out, he corrals her and gathers her in his arms. Alier can feel Hathur watching them as he wraps his arms around Velle’s back. She struggles for a moment as he says over the sound of her protests, “Velle, I think you know what went wrong.”

She finally gives in, clinging to him and quietly sobbing. She nods into Alier’s chest.

It hurts Alier to say, a sharp ache in his chest, a piercing sadness that he can’t do anything more about this. “The soul has to be willing. For all the variables we can test on this end, for all our theories and our metals and our energy equations, the last piece is the incoming soul itself. It has to want to come down and submit itself. Nothing will happen otherwise.”

“I know,” Velle sobs out, repeating it over and over. “I know. He doesn’t want to see me. He never did.”

Alier squeezes his eyes shut as tears threaten to prick him too. Maybe so, but you have me and Hath now, he thinks, not daring to make such an assumption yet. You will never be alone again.

empire of gilded sand: @faithfire @magic-is-something-we-create @47crayons @wolven-writer @imaginarymen @worldbuildng

[writeblrfantasy]

JACK OF FOOLS: PROLOGUE

He did not start out starbright.

He got his origins here, in this very bloody alleyway—though it’s not so bloody now. Everything’s been cleaned, washed away. This alleyway, for all appearances, is like any other in this city at night. Dark, cloaked in shadow where monsters of endless kinds lurk, dangerous to the wrong folk who get lost wandering. The ones who should never have been allowed to wander so freely in the first place. He was one of those, once. That night that led him here.

This alleyway fades and yet he has never forgotten its location, even after the buildings on either side changed and burned and built back up again, replaced with new owners and new memories. Only he remembers the old days, undoubtedly.

If he closes his eyes, he can breathe in the long ago bloodsoaked stench on his hands, his nails, the cobblestones, the glinting knife in his shaking grip. His blue coat. That blue coat got sliced to shreds quickly, the last of its kind.

It was here in these shadows, here that he said, I will never be powerless again. Here that he said, not another living soul will go a day without recognizing my name, even after I am cold and gone. Here where he grew his famous smile.

Here that his faded old name became lost to time, banished to the darkest hallways of his mind, and he became starbright instead. Glittering. Effervescent. Unforgettable.

Eternal.

Many in his position would say they do not remember the before times, the era where they scrounged for scraps of bread and groveled in the filth for a copper. They claim they were born draped in silks and velvets, never bathed in anything cold and dirty. They laugh. They sparkle with their eyes, their jewels, their coin, just as he does every night.

They all lie.

The memories so crystal clear grip Jacke with a cold hand, a tight hold around the throat that chokes and cloys even after all this time. He does not need to stand in this alley to summon the fear, bitter and sour. It has not forgotten him.

Footsteps make his eyes fly open, an instinct born from these before times. What worry, after all, would someone of his status and wealth have for his own safety when he could hire out a whole battalion of the city’s most talented protectors? He should sleep like a baby each night in his plush mattress and satin sheets, unwitting to the assassins lurking outside, forever waiting for their moment. Instead, he lies wide eyed most nights, frozen stiff with anticipation of attacks that he has not suffered since this alleyway.

The footsteps are not coming his way, a drunken stumbling he is well familiar with hearing. However, they are a stark reminder that he is not at home, and he’d best get going. He has indulged himself in humbling memories long enough. No matter where he goes, it seems he’s never alone for long, even if the passersby don’t know who he is standing in the shadows, his hat tipped low to hide his eyes. He doesn’t need to see much here, not that the dark would be agreeable. His feet know the way.

Without a further sound, he creeps back down the shadows the way he came, leaving any who might’ve seen a red coated figure scratching their heads as to his whereabouts.

general taglist (if you'd like to be on a taglist for jack of fools let me know) @magic-is-something-we-create @muddshadow @47crayons @worldbuildng @nicola-writes @twoseeds

[writeblrfantasy]

excerpt from the lover's spell: great king recor

Darrow is let through, and the doors shut like thunder behind him, trapping him in with a red carpet and dim burning candles in their sconces on the wall.

He is given his first glance of his god, his guiding star, the one who has propelled him forward through life for the last eight years. At every dark turn, every difficulty, every mind numbing pain and moment of fear trapped in the nymphs’ realm, every soul he has had to kill, every coin spent—all of it has been soothed with a thought of his end goal, the prize.

Recor.

He is not like Darrow remembers, not like those visions, but still, there is no mistaking him. Glossy black hair is wrapped into a myriad of braids at the back of his head, shining under his silver crown, carved with images of his people and his city. His skin, pale as the moon with a pinkish tint, forever caught in a blush, now glows slightly with the chandelier light above.

Dark blue eyes find Darrow’s brown across the room and lock on, taking each other in long enough to make Darrow shiver. The biggest change of Recor’s is his face—when Darrow left, there was not a blemish, not a speck of discoloration, not a line out of place in the perfection.

Now, it is covered in scars, ‘x’s slashing across his cheeks and partly over his right eye. His nose, as well, is crooked, as if broken and improperly healed. What could have a king have gotten into where he couldn’t properly heal? Darrow stows his questions. There is no changing Recor’s beauty and wicked allure—that has not changed in eight years. It never will, not for Darrow.

Recor leans forward in his throne, his black robes falling and slithering to move with him. Every gesture of his long fingers, adorned in rings, every tilt of his head and cast of his gaze, reminds Darrow of a hunting snake. He fights the urge to fall to his knees before Recor’s throne already. “Hello, humble supplicant,” Recor, Great King of Magic, purrs. “Welcome to my home, and to my hearth. How may I serve thee?”

tagging @magic-is-something-we-create @nicola-writes @muddshadow @worldbuildng

[writeblrfantasy]

EXCERPTS FROM AN EMPIRE OF GILDED SAND: dumb mostly because of sora

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aka a bunch of instances of stenid being a himbo except he's often too mean to be a true himbo

raw text under the cut

Sora actually looks taken by surprise for a moment before breaking into soft, warm laughter. “Are you done? I wasn’t aware you were given to rambling when you’re nervous.”

“I—I’m not. At least I didn’t think I was.” By the Ghosts, what’s happening to him, the general who spends so many hours on the field strategizing and fighting with legions upon legions of soldiers under his wing? Does one pretty Island prince render him truly that dumb?

~

Sora cuts him off with a gentle kiss that evaporates every thought in Stenid’s head. “If I wanted you to shut up,” Sora whispers, pulling back while Stenid is still rendered dumb, “I have a much faster means of doing so than just asking you to. Now, in answer to your question about the hair. How would you feel,” he asks, pushing Stenid’s falling hairs back from his forehead, “if you weren’t a general? If suddenly everything was taken from you? If you were left without that career? Who would you be?”

“What? What the hell does that have to do with your hair?” Stenid stutters out as Sora’s fingers still run over his face, over his cheekbone, up into his hair. It’s terribly distracting, which is undoubtedly why he’s doing it. Keep Stenid from questioning anything too closely.

~

“Maybe so,” Sora concedes. “I am telling you now: I want to see you again. I like you for you, not just your body and general lack of intelligence, because you have quite a bit of that. You wouldn’t be a prince who survived the skin trials and turned out to be a general if you were truly dumb.”

“Thank you?” Stenid murmurs, smiling.

~

“Mhm.” Sora dives beneath the water again before can get another word in, an infuriating defense mechanism. Stenid sits there, looking like an idiot with his mouth open, and can do nothing but wait for Sora to come back up. Is this Sora’s way of making him want to swim? Being so infuriating that Stenid one day will have no choice but to say fuck it and jump in after him? The way this is going, it’s pretty damn effective so far. Unfortunately.

~

“You infuriating foreign bastard of a prince,” Sora murmurs. “I don’t think you realize how terribly attractive you are. I’ve been trying to ignore you, get you out of my head, but you’ve been a vexing little bug in my mind. I can’t forget about your stupid face.”

Stenid blinks, barely processing any of that. “I—”

~

am i making up for months of not providing a ton of excerpts and generally just ghosting everyone on writeblr by posting a ton of snippets in a few days? perhaps

empire of gilded sand: @faithfire @magic-is-something-we-create @47crayons @wolven-writer @imaginarymen

[writeblrfantasy]

EXCERPT FROM EMPIRE OF GILDED SAND: the story of albright and sen

this has some spins on romeo and juliet, it is a tragedy so if you're not in the mood for that then maybe skip this. enjoy :)

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Stenid says, "Albright had the same severe allergy to all materials but silk as I do, and they put off marrying for many years into their reign because they did not want to place the burden and the danger upon their spouse. Not even royalty, money, and ease could be worth the price of completely changing their life for Albright, in their opinion. So, they waited, not eager to find a perfect spouse anyway. They had all the power they could need in their country without needing a spouse on their arm to win the people over and manage the prettier parts of running an empire.”

“Who was it that finally captured their heart beyond hope?”

“A woman named Sen.” Stenid smiles, picturing this story as told to him by his nurses and attendants when he was a child, fresh out of the Silkskin trials and still terrified. It took him a while to realize how fucked up the story they’d told to him truly was.

“Sen was mythical and beautiful and wise, and her smile was kind and bewitching. Albright was obsessed with her, and found they had to have her no matter what it took, no matter the price. And so they set out to court her, and they were successful. Sen was open to their advances and their kindness from the beginning, drawn to how humble of a ruler they were.

“It did not take them long to schedule a wedding date. They were happy as could be for years, and all thought they had the perfect marriage figured out. Who wouldn’t want to marry a Silkskin, many foolish people thought, when it meant you got to wear silk all the time and have a good excuse for it? You would live an extravagant life behind simple royalty. Many envied Sen, and many worshipped Albright as a holy living ghost. Their kingdom flourished.

“But all good things must come to an end, and Albright began to take too seriously the comments their wife made about her old life. Sen had grown up with none of the noble things Albright enjoyed easily, and she had to struggle everything. She said something like, she was nostalgic for the simple things and fabrics she’d been raised in. Albright had all the wrong impressions.”

Vaius frowns.

“Albright grew heavy with guilt, and heavier than ever with love for their wife. They wanted to give her the world and the moon and the sun, so they settled on a surprise one night. They asked her to come into their bedchamber with the candles all doused, and so she did. When she inquired about where they were, what was going on, what kind of game they were playing, Albright simply coaxed her to come and join them on their bed. And so she did so.

“She gasped at what she felt when she finally located them on that bed, in the dark. They were wearing a linen nightshirt, and they presented one to her to change into. Of course, she immediately demanded they take it off, pointing out the obvious, but Albright was insistent. They’d made their choice, they knew what they were doing, they were not inebriated, and they had resigned themself to it. They told Sen they were giving her a gift, bringing up what she’d said earlier about her upbringing.

“Sen was horrified and remorseful and tried to explain that when she said that, she meant nothing like this to come about because of it. She began crying, but Albright soothed her, insisting that they spend the night together indulging in the simplicity of linen. Albright confessed that they’d never felt more alive, more thrilled than when they were wearing the linen, even as hives rose all over their body.

“In the dark, Sen could not see how bad it truly was, and Albright wanted only to indulge in her. By morning’s first light, Albright lay dead in their bed, slowly going cold, all because Sen didn’t know how fast the allergy could truly take a Silkskin. She cried and cried over the body.

“Sen couldn’t bear to live without her spouse, so she took her lover’s hand and used it to grip the hilt of the knife that she kept stashed under pillow in case of assassins. She brought it gently to her heart and ended her life by their hand.” Stenid sighs. “It is a heavy tale, ne often used for caution against Silkskins or their spouses who get big ideas about flouting around the circumstances of their royalty.”

empire of gilded sand: @faithfire @magic-is-something-we-create @47crayons @wolven-writer

[writeblrfantasy]

EXCERPT FROM SHE WHO KILLED THE ELF QUEEN: daiki's recovery

As soon as the door has shut behind them, Daiki wonders why he didn’t even attempt to attack them. Disoriented though he is, his wounds are no further than bruises, so therefore he has the strength to face them. If he’s not bleeding out, there is no excuse.

His Master Tadaka’s voice creeps back into his conscience. A Kimozi is always independent, vigilant, and resilient, but should they accept from another, they should only repay that generosity with honor. Always be grateful and respectful to your hosts, your caretakers, and your teachers in every form.

Does that same logic apply to elves? An elf, specifically, who took him in and is now nursing him back to health?

When he wakes, the elf is there again, smiling and checking him, feeding him, offering him a gradually lessening dose of the herbs. They grin like they’re proud of him and speak to him, probably telling him that he’s doing better. Daiki is permitted to get up and walk around the room, though he firmly rejects their proffered arm.

Still, he winces and bites back his gasps as the bruises twinge with every step. Perhaps there was something deeper there, he’s finally ready to admit, like a cracked rib. No one would bandage simple bruises as vigorously as this elf has.

The elf must recognize his stubbornness, and they just lean against the door with their arms crossed and a smile painting their face while he struggles. They don’t pity him, don’t offer to help again, though Daiki knows they would with just a hint. He doesn’t know what to do with such unabashed kindness from an elf.

trimmed down a bit, but this is from the chapter that's been giving me trouble since i started the draft. glad to be making some headway tonight :)

elf queen taglist (lmk to be added/removed) @magic-is-something-we-create @mel-writes-with-her-dragons @47crayons @concealeddarkness13 @pen-of-roses @imaginationxlost @megarywrites @imaginationxlost @muddshadow @faithfire

[writeblrfantasy]

excerpt: heroes

this is from a novella i started writing on a whim. it has no name just yet. i hope you enjoy it :)

“I’m glad you were there to help when you were,” he says instead, exercising the kindness he longs every day to practice. Change has to start somewhere. “I don’t know how I would’ve gotten the street back in order like this.”

“You would’ve gotten it done,” Arthur says, and Sasha can picture his sound nod. “You would’ve fumbled in the debris remains of that room until you found something that would serve as a cane, and then you would’ve gotten on your feet and made your way out of there, however long it took. You don’t give up. You don’t let your enemies win, especially Alexi. Sasha, believe me, you would’ve been fine.”

A long pause, during which there’s no sound but the crunch of hooves on snow, the whistle of the breeze. Sasha wonders if there’s trees for it to pass through. “But I am also very glad I was around to help you. You would’ve gotten up and helped everyone, but it might’ve been at the cost of your own life, and I would not have liked that.”

Sasha smiles despite himself. “You wouldn’t have been there to see it.”

“I don’t care. The world needs you in it, alive and well.”

“You act like I’m some sort of hero.” Arthur is the one who saved him and Helen is the one who nursed him back to health, Arthur seems to be forgetting.

“You are,” Arthur says quietly. “Helen and I’ve been talking to your friends, the ones you care for. They all thanked us profusely for taking care of you, and threatened us colorfully if we dared mistreat you. With some rather impressive street language. My vocabulary is certainly expanded and primed for the next time I encounter a vexing individual at court.”

Sasha chuckles. Idiots, to say such things about him. Typical, predictable, short tempered idiots. His idiots. “We’re all a little overprotective of each other.”

“No, it was more than that. It—they all looked up to you like a hero. They told us stories of all that you’ve done for them. You undersell yourself, Sasha.”

Sasha shivers at the way Arthur says his name, like it’s something to be treasured and cradled and handled with care. Not like he’ll break if he’s not, but that he deserves to have his name cradled because he’s never had anything precious of his own in his life. Arthur makes him feel like—like he deserves these tendernesses. Foolish, foolish fantasies that he only entertains for a moment, but the thought that he deserves kindness without having to give arm and limb is…good.

Arthur is speaking of him in awe. Sasha has always brushed off people who spoke in awe of him before, and he’s loathe to stop now, but Arthur makes everything he says sound so believable. Is that the charm of being a noble? You believe what comes out of your own mouth as law and others follow suit?

~

general taglist: @chaotic-queer-disaster​ @worldbuildng​ @twoseeds​  @magic-is-something-we-create​

[writeblrfantasy]

SHE WHO KILLED THE ELF QUEEN: david fletching

huntsman✨ allspeaker✨ human passing✨ half elf✨loyal, fair, and trusting✨soulmate of a dragon shifter

“Elves don’t need humans to protect us,” Arlisle says, crossing her arms. “Even ones who aren’t as good at physical fighting. Are you sure this is the true version?”

“Are you sure it’s not possible that not every elf is better in every way than every human?” David counters. “You’re like a child with all your questions. I can already tell you’re not inclined to believe me or like anything I have to say, particularly about humans. If you want me to shut up like the good little huntsman you brought me on as, then just say so, but do not ask something of me only to critique every which way I do it. Pick.”

Arlisle actually looks a little remorseful at that. Sparrow is outright awed, jaw hanging open. “No. Continue.”

elf queen taglist (lmk to be added/removed) @magic-is-something-we-create @mel-writes-with-her-dragons @47crayons @concealeddarkness13 @pen-of-roses @imaginationxlost @megarywrites@imaginationxlost @muddshadow

picrew used:

オキマル産青年メーカー

オキマルが作った青年メーカーです。 雑です、ごめんね！！ ランダムは基本オススメ出来ませんが 時々奇跡的に使えそうなのが生まれて面白いので 残しておきます。 パーツはまだまだ少なめですが使う人が それなりにいたら増えるかもしれないです。 肌の色が5種類あ