"You are here again," said the phoenix, perched on the branch above you. A flame sparks as it fluffed its feathers.
"You know me?"
The phoenix crowed--or at least you thought it did. The sound failed to register in your ears, swallowed by the stillness of the forest. "Always with the same question. Can you say something different?"
"How do you speak without opening your mouth?"
It looked at you. Beheld your very core with its thousand eyes, blue as the hottest flame.
"Ailing old fool. No one is destined to live this long."
(To be truthful, you do not know how you know this. Or, perhaps, you do. But human minds work in mysterious ways, and they are often as full of drivel and error as they are with wonder. What would they make of you, then? You who possessed a human mind, a human heart, and a human body. Born of human parents and raised to walk amongst them. A human in almost all ways that matter except so inextricably not. What are you?)
Rules: Post an out of context spoiler or Big Climactic Line from your WIP and tag whoever you want. Then, enjoy as people wildly guess what’s going on.
Thanks for giving me an excuse to post this @vitrichor!
Here's a random snippet of dialogue between Fenice and Charles in WCTD
Sola’s eyes scanned the contents of the letter before lifting its corners to the candle in between them The flickering flame caught hold of its feast, devouring the message for the two of them to see. “I think it’s time for me to say goodbye, Lady.”
“Off to see your princess?”
“Oh, yes. It seems she’s gotten herself stuck in another tower.”
THE END, for the no excuses game >:) (either one you wanna do of course)
Here’s the fake ending for The Stars Do Not Bind Us that also spawned an entire worldbuilding concept based around fairy bread and (tw: cannibalism) cannibalism. It’s unpolished and probably not cohesive but I had A LOT of fun. Oh! And trust me, the ending line makes much better sense if you remember that the main POV character’s name is Six.
In the end, you never do fulfill your destiny. You do not die a glorious death on the battlefield, forever immortalized by history as the young hero who gave their all for the divine cause. Fidei Defensor they would call you not. You do not even know what it is they even call you, or if the Temple has managed to bury you away in the very dredges of history as if you’ve never existed.
Instead, you are alive and well , living in a quaint cottage just off the border of The Forest. A place where the forest patters off into rolling meadows, and a lake, and great blue mountains off in the distance. Instead, you are fourteen-years-old and older than you ever thought possible.
“Do you ever regret this?” Aidonus asks. He’s sitting idly on their small, wooden table, cheek resting on his knuckles, and eyes watching the covered bowl just off to the side.
You eye the contents of the cupboard, humming something tuneless. “Regret what?” (’The strawberry jam!’ says Three. ‘Up at the top. Next to the— no, the other thing. It’s behind the— yes. Right there.’)
“Living here, I mean? The cycle of heroes hasn’t broken, and the gods will get what they want if you don’t stop them.”
“I have everything I ever want here— except for that blasted jam. Could you, um,” you gestures to the jar of red strawberry jam at the very top of the cupboard, remaining stubbornly out of her reach no matter how high you jump.
Aidonus stood up. “The great hero, beaten by her own cupboard.” He fetches the jam with ease. Bloody bastard and his tall legs.
“Bold words for someone whose groin is within punching distance.” Aidonus rolled his eyes and handed you the jar, though you could have done without him mussing your hair. You stick your tongue out at him before setting the jar beside the basket of previous bread-making attempts. The rejects weren’t inedible, per se, but they weren’t exactly what you would call tasty either. But bread was bread and you would be damned if you were going to waste all that time and effort. Thus, the jam.
“So you don’t want to get revenge against Dessia?”
“What are you talking about— oh, right.” You break off a chunk of bread and spread jam along its surface. “I could, I guess, if I really wanted to. But I don’t, so I won’t. Besides—” You cover your mouth as you chew and wow this bread is dry but it wasn’t too bad. “—I don’t know about you, but I’m too afraid of the consequences of killing a god. If there aren’t any cosmic disasters that would arise from killing the goddess of Fate, the other gods would surely retaliate. Becoming a god-slayer seems like too much effort.” You frown. “Is killing a god even possible?”
“Well, I killed you.”
“That’s different. I— or, well, One— was one of their creatures, but that doesn’t mean they were a god. You’re close enough to one, I guess, but you aren’t one either.”
Aidonus hums noncommittally and checks the covered bowl. “Proofing is done. I punch it next, right?”
“I’d like to emphasize that you gently punch it, please.”
He deflates the puffy dough with a single, gentle punch and folds its edges into the center to form a ball. You really hope that this attempt is a success or else you’ll end up having to ask Eira for help— and the gods know she’ll try to charm them into baking fairy bread. Morals aside, bones have very little nutritional value. Even if they were fairy bones.
You pop another piece of reject-bread into your mouth, watching him sprinkle some flour on the board they use for kneading and rolling dough. “What brought all this on, anyway?”
“I just remembered that, one day, you are going to die” he plops the ball of dough onto the board, “and I’m not. And you will be reborn as someone else. Someone who never knew me, someone who Dessia and the Temple will be absolutely sure is loyal to them and their cause. Some poor child who I will have to kill— or who knows? Maybe this time, they’ll be able to kill me.”
“Maybe.” You put the piece of bread down. “Or maybe not.”
He scoffed.
“Yes, maybe the next Hero will be subservient enough to follow the script. Maybe they’ll kill the last of the Cursed, maybe they’ll kill you, maybe you’ll kill them.—”
“Where are you going with this?”
“—Or maybe they won’t. The two of us have proven that Dessia isn’t some all-seeing puppet master. ” You look him in the eye. “Destiny, too, is a choice.”
He raises an eyebrow. “When did you get so wise?”
“All that dying must have taught me something, you know?”
He lets out a bark of laughter, the small cottage infusing with warmth at the very sound. He kneads the dough for a few more minutes before placing and covering it back in the bowl for the second round of proofing. You wordlessly hand him a slice of bread with a bit of jam—not slathered like how you tend to take yours, dry bread or not.
Aidonus takes a bite. He chews. Slowly. “Gods,” he says, between mouthfuls. “This bites like a rock. We really messed up haven’t we?”
You laugh, sliding the jar over to his side of the table. “Let’s hope we aren’t destined to be awful bakers.”
“With our track record, I wouldn’t get my hopes up. But who knows?” With a grin, he leans over the table and musses up your hair once more. “Maybe sixth time’s the charm.”
I was tagged by @vespatrix a while back and I finally got around to doing them
Her first steps outside the lands of her stately manor were in gray skirts under gray skies, clouds gathering overhead the somber funeral procession as Fenice’s retinue made the long trek to the capital. (When Comes the Dawn)
Six wakes up in the middle of the night, three years younger and her head still intact. (The Stars Do Not Bind Us ver. 1)
It looks like I have a penchant for starting with setting. I could probably go into a deeper analysis but....I can't words today.
tagging (with no pressure) @astralis-elysian @inky-duchess @mayawritesbooks @linariouswrites @nk-writes @myhusbandsasemni @writting-in-blood + anyone else that would like to give this a shot!
ok hi it’s pris im on mobile right now but i demand a charles scene where he’s out an about with no supervision BYE <3
hi @serpentarii!!! [ was sorely tempted to just write the “do you know how to walk on your knees” scene from BBC Merlin 1.01 but I guess not :pensive:
“Hey, Gwyn, is 10 sovereigns enough to buy us some of those sweetmeats over there— oh fuck.” Charles vi Aetier, currently under disguise as the handsome, worldly, and definitely-a-peasant-and-not-the-royal-prince-sneaking-out , turned his head to find Gwyn—his reluctant yet very much insistent supervisor on this excursion—gone.
He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Gwyn? Gwyn!” He called, but in the busy streets of East Vindercrest, where the streets were infused with the sounds of merchants calling out their wares, of street musicians, of children playing, his voice was drowned out. A drop in an ocean of sound. It was fascinating.
“I might as well enjoy this.” Charles had always intended to go on this trip alone, after all, and he’s sure that this felix culpa was a sign from Vithail, the god of fates, themselves. And if Charles was anything, he was very pious.
“Well,” he grinned. “What’s the worse that can happen?”
This was not in Gwyn’s job description. At. All. Four hours after he managed to lose his highness, the heir-to-the-fucking-throne, and had to spend his well earned-day off running haggard around East Vindercrest like a headless chicken, Gwyn was sorely tempted to just give up. Unfortunately the thread of the dungeons— or gods forbid, being sacked— prevented him from doing just that.
He raked his hands through his hair and muttered a plea to the Trinity to end his suffering.
“Lose something? Gwyn looked up to see a tall, dark-haired man. A man with prince Charles’ arm slung over his shoulder. Prince Charles who looked pissed drunk— and were those bruises? Gods give him strength.
“Oh thank you, I swear I’d been looking for him everywhere.” Gwyn quickly took his highness off the stranger’s hands, assessing him for any other injuries.“What happened to him?”
“Well,” the stranger said, hands resting on his hips, “I don’t know the details but it seemed that his frivolous spending attracted a lot of unsavory attention.”
“What?”
“He probably overpaid and spent money like his purse was a never-ending fountain. But then again, he is the prince, so it’s to be expected I guess.”
Gwyn gaped. “How did you know he was—”
“You just confirmed it.” Gwyn blanched and the stranger laughed, waving away Gwyn’s paranoia. “Really, it wasn’t all that hard to put two and two together— especially with eyes like his.” He extended his hand. “Name’s Sola Eidos. I make it my business to know things.”
“Right.” Gwyn shook his hand. “Um, how did his highness get the bruises?”
“Somehow he found his way into one of the seedier taverns and kept being goaded onto buying everyone rounds—”
“I take it you were one of the ones goading him.”
“—which was fine and all, until it came time to pay. He might have gotten robbed while he was rousing everyone into a hearty shanty, I wasn’t really paying attention at the time, but long story short, it ended with him in the middle of a bar fight and I having to heroically save him and drag him out.”
Ok, so now no one can definitely know about today. Gwyn gently set the prince down to the ground and leaned him against a wall of some sort of establishment (honestly Gwyn just really didn’t want to know) and set to work healing the bruises on his face. He spared a glance at the stranger— Sola. “Thank you. You really, honestly, didn’t have to do any of this.”
“It’s no trouble.” Sola grinned.“It just means I’ll have great fun recounting to my lady how prince Charles moped challenged a chair for tripping him when he was trying to get down on his knees and propose to the first pretty girl that lent him a shoulder to cry on.”
“What.”
Sola shook his head and bid his leave. “Want my advice, kid? Your prince is an absolute lightweight and you should never let him near anything stronger than wine.”
“No— wait— what was that about a proposal?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Sola called out from over his shoulder. “The girl’s already in a happy relationship with a baker’s daughter. Just get the poor sap home.”
“Come back! Please!”
Charles suddenly doubled over and vomited on Gwyn’s lap.
Holy, was what they had promised you. Hands that were not hands taking pinches of earth and cosmos and stars and energy, sculpting it-- you-- in their primordial vision.
for every "🌹" received in my inbox i'll post one random sentence of a random WIP i'm currently writing
