#bxrdmom

[beyondthetemples]

“This isn’t your home…”

She’d called it home again.

Truthfully, Dove had never gotten out of the habit of thinking about Azarath as her home, even when she was so utterly convinced every bit of it was lain to rest in the past. Even when she’d found her life on Earth. Even when she’d adopted just enough of that life to defend the planet like it was her own. Her heart was still with her childhood home, and her spirit longed to be there so achingly, so insistently, that she couldn’t resist visiting this reflection, this parallel world that so closely resembled the world she was raised in.

But Arella was right. This wasn’t her home. This wasn’t her Azarath.

“Sorry,” she admitted, her brow furrowing over eyes downcast with the weight of these thoughts that she didn’t know how to voice. “It just... slipped out.”

[notebookscraps]

@bxrdmom gets random love tbeh

    “Move.  Or I’ll make you move.”  The boy bounced on his heels, eyes narrowing as he could feel his target getting away.  He could still manage to catch the man, but this woman had to get out of his way first.

[raveniings-blog]

@bxrdmom replied to your post: Raven might not be able to get drunk on normal...

arella voice: “raven pls be a responsible adult”

    Time to get drunk and pick up chicks, as the saying goes.

[girl-outta-hell]

Raven definitely wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

Or San Francisco. Or New York City. Or anywhere even remotely close to any Earthen settlement she knew.

She stood-- at least, she thought she stood-- on the glorious golden streets of Azarath. But this wasn’t the Azarath she knew.

This wasn’t the Azarath she’d witnessed the destruction of, where she’d stood amongst the cold, lifeless ruins with her friends in the darkest moment of her life. This wasn’t a picture of death, destruction, and guilt crawling into her and settling like a spike of ice in her heart.

And yet, whispers arose on her arrival, and she found herself standing alone in the center of the circlet path, while other very much alive Azaratheans milled about and tried not to make eye-contact, tension and curiosity springing into their minds, while beyond them the much greater all-pervading sense of peace and beauty caressed her empathic soul so deeply and with such a powerful quietude so relieving compared to the relentless noise of the bustling chaotic city, that she subconsciously released a breath she didn’t know she’d held.

It was too familiar.

This was a dream. This HAD to be a dream...

...but if this was a dream, why did everything feel so completely, vividly, undeniably real? Why was her height the full five-foot-four of her real current 15-year-old self, and why could she feel her father tucked safely away behind the powerful insulating prison of the gem set on her very own forehead? How did he seem even more distant than normal in response to Azarath’s very active, very Anti-Trigonic energies?

How was everyone here still so alive?

The girl stood alone with guilt and a sudden surge of homesickness creeping over her so thoroughly it seemed to curl up in her chest and sleep, heavily; she felts its weight all throughout her body, holding her stock-still with limp uncertainty, and emotions curling within her unbidden. Flexing, and uncurling with her breath.

She was lost, and she was too confused to make any sense of this. So she stood, and she breathed, and she looked around, trying to see through the illusion... to wake from this dream, so cruel in its beautiful promise. She stood, still as a statue, lost like she had never felt, in her very own childhood home.

[fcrscience]

only Quality Content™ can be found here at fcrscience

[beyondthetemples]

@bxrdmom​

continued from [ x ]

--

    Visions were often cryptic and open to interpretation, but this one was different. This time, it was obvious to Arella what was happening. A friend, chased by figments of her own mind. She had bolted up in a cold sweat, nearly screaming. Collecting herself, Arella knew she had to help. This was happening now, and if she did nothing she knew Dove would lose.

    Only, Azar couldn’t interfere with visions. If Arella was found out, it was almost a certainty that she would be exiled. She took a deep, shaky breath, knowing that, personally, she had no choice. Dove was like a daughter to her, and Arella couldn’t abandon family.

    Azar forgive me.

    Placing a magic seal on her door, Arella went to her balcony, sitting cross-legged with her doves. They surrounded her, almost as if they were trying to protect her. Smiling, Arella shut her eyes, falling into a deep meditation. What she was about to do had likely never been done before in Azarath’s history, and extremely illegal, but failure was not an option.

    Arella sent out her soul, a massive, ethereal dove flying through the very fabrics of time and space. The call for help was loud and clear in her mind, giving her a clear path to follow. And soon enough, she’d broken through.

    Arella came to a sudden stop, nearly losing her balance even though she was suspended in midair. Dove’s mind looked similar to how she pictured what Raven’s looked like: dark, covered in ruins and shadows. There would have been an eerie beauty to it, if it weren’t for the nearly endless shadows crowding Dove. Arella didn’t even hesitate, flying down in front of her and changing her form to look more like herself. She held out an arm in front of her, making her authority known.

“Leave her alone.”

Dove watched the stir of energies re-aligning, felt her own world responding with dissonance at the display of power, and both confusion and worry crowded her thoughts as her brow folded hard the moment she recognized the figure.

“A- Arella? How-- You can’t be...”

Her mindscape had formed falsified presences before, and for a moment she was convinced this must be another forgery. But there was too much power cycling through her form. Entirely too opposed to the chaotic energy currents twisting around them, pressing in on her own awareness.

Energies which were gathered around her, circling them. Shadows that were shifting at the edges in restless anticipation.

‘Leave her alone?’ ‘We cannot leave her alone.’ ‘She is nothing without her power.’ ‘She knows it.’

And against Dove’s will, a stream of that power lashed towards them defiantly.

[royalcaretaker]

[[ @bxrdmom liked my starter call!]]

“Ah. It is good to see a familiar -” Galfore had approached the other because of recognizing the style of a long cloak with a hood, but when he talked to her and now saw more than the hood, it was quickly obvious that it wasn’t Starfire’s friend that he had spoken here too. For maybe a second he just stared, confused how similar she seemed to Raven and yet not the same person - cloaks like that didn’t seem too common on earth, but seems like there were others with such cloaks as well -  but then he quickly took a step back in order to not... scare, or perhaps surprise, the other more than he might already have. “I apologize. I mistook you for a friend of the girl I am here to visit.”

He wasn’t quite sure if it was more proper to leave her be again now or to keep up a talk after already having approached her, but for the sake of the similarities to Raven he could see in the woman, he decided to not abort the talk. “You are knowing of Raven, perhaps? Of the Teen Titans? Your clothing much resembles what she is wearing often. I am Galfore of Tamaran, and I want to visit Koriand’r, or Starfire.”

[beyondthetemples]

note bc i also like to suffer

My muse has died. Send ‘note’ for a goodbye letter my muse wrote to yours as a precaution, in case something, like it has, should happen

{ {{ Alright, so canonically, Dove lives to be, about, 260 or 280 years old, because Resilience and Supernatural +pseudo-meta genealogy. (Is there such thing as astral telomerase?) In order for this prompt to work, I have to take canon and twist it sideways….

i could say she’s writing it after arella already passed, but that’s not angsty enough

We’re going to say Dove died of unnatural (…supernatural?) causes. }} }

–

Deep, rich, dark purple ink traces a name in Azarathean letters, neatly centered on the front of the envelope folded around scratch-paper-turned letter. And the translation:

Arella

(The writing inside is a much duller black pen, with Dove’s usually-neat and round letters strewn across each line, tilting almost drunkenly into the margins.)

My friend, my favorite Azar, my family,

Sorry for rushing. I have to write this when I can still hold the pen. I’m really sorry to reach you with this, but: I’m not going to be around much longer. I don’t know if I’ll make it through the night.

Raven is trying everything she can think of. But she said, my soul is rejecting magic now. All magic. Even my own. She’s still trying to find a way around it… but she doesn’t feel the way life fades from me, every hour. Or maybe she does. But she doesn’t show it. Maybe she won’t accept it.

But I have to. And I’m ready, ready to go, ready for the struggle to be over. Isn’t it funny? I always thought death would be loud, terrifying. Struggling. But she’s so quiet. So patient. It’s peaceful.

So please, don’t worry if you find me on the other side. I’m finally going to see my mother again… and maybe someday I’ll see you, too.

Thank you for being there through all these years. Thank you for reaching out, for helping me, accepting me, in a world where I was never supposed to exist. You were a beacon of hope and light for a lost soul. No wonder you were named Azar. You helped protect my peace and happiness in ways I never dreamed possible.

Keep me in your prayers and your heart. Even in the next world, you’ll still be close to mine.

Thank you so, so much,infinitely grateful for your love,

Dove’s name is signed in the arcing flow of Azarathean script, with a little painstakingly drawn heart at the end, and the letter carefully, painstakingly folded before it’s tucked in the envelope and sent away.