@transprincecaspian @amatres Everyone wants to see my failgirl failing I see!
I've talked about this occasionally on the discord but Faith Plays Dumb is set about a year and change after the events of WOTR. Evaethi Arvanxi, the daughter of Sparrow's former master and the woman Sparrow had to impersonate for years, shows up at Heaven's Edge to see Sparrow again. It features Sparrow confronting the old dynamics she was forced to exist in, confronting the pain of her past, and Daeran and Sparrow's First Big Fight.
Also Evaethi. It definitely features Evaethi supposedly trying her best!
Snippet below the cut:
"It's you!" she keeps saying. "It's you, it's you, it's you--Eva!"
I thought you were gone forever. I thought I failed you. The emotion, full and warm and only slightly thorny, presses into Sparrow's lungs and up her throat, leaving no room for words. She only presses her head against the thick wool of Evaethi's scarf and holds her tighter. Warm, real, alive, and healthy. She never could have hoped for more.
Evaethi is as uninterested in ending the embrace as Sparrow, and happily babbles into Sparrow's ear while she holds onto her. "Gods, you're still light as a feather! And what's with those feathers, huh? You're lookin' half-bird these days! Next thing you know you'll start growing wings and ripping up your fancy dress--that color is so bright! Is that the fashion in Mendev? You'd think they'd like things darker, what with how cold and dreary it is--but you're a lady now for real, aren't you, that's what [name] and [name] were saying when we came up this way, that you were lady of the house--I knew you'd manage it, Eva--"
"My wife's name is Sparrow." Daeran's voice cuts through the never-ending chatter and silences Evaethi. "I'm sure you're aware of that already, are you not? Since you lived with her for many years as she kept you from assassination attempts and having to dance with undesirable nobles at balls?"
Evaethi lets go and steps back, leaving Sparrow cold. "I'm sorry, who're you?" She doesn't sound angry, but then, she's never been the kind to get angry. Daeran, on the other hand, looks glacially furious. Sparrow steps in between them, placing a hand on Daeran's sleeve.
"Evaethi, this is my husband, Count Daeran Arendae. Daeran, this is my--this is Lady Evaethi of House Arvanxi."
"Charmed." Daeran's gaze is cold and sharp as seaglass; he does not even nod to her, a slight of station that would have left anyone of noble birth insulted, but which Evaethi does not seem to notice. He places one hand over Sparrow's on his arm, the touch almost enough to soothe the nerves jangling ever since Evaethi let her go. "And what business do you have at Heaven's Edge?"
"To...to visit?" Evaethi's expression takes on a familiar turn--that of a kicked puppy, who is unsure where the hostility came from or how it connects to her. If it continues, there will be tears, but her voice doesn't have that familiar warble when she responds just yet.
Aaah thank you for the ask Dujour! I saw you already noticed I did already talk about this piece here but I'll share another snippet below the cut!
When she'd told the queen of her plans to run away it had been a test, will you prevent me from leaving, but it had also been a plea: make me want to stay. And her queen had passed the test but failed the entreaty, and Silaena had disappeared into the wilds, remade as Laena the Bard, and even if that freedom was a heady drought it still tasted bitter in her mouth.
It was senseless, of course. Galfrey was only the queen, her entire life dedicated to emulating her own glinting profile seen in the paintings done of her leading the charge against the demons. There was no room for the actual human hidden underneath the horrendous weight of her station, the flashes of woman Silaena had seen, impressions of weak light filtering through a thick canopy of trees.
today was basically just one long drawn out fart noise but at least i went back to my roots (daefic) and finished a scene, even if it is once again a chapter ahead of the place i need to be working on. behold: the back half of dae's shitty birthday party
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Hours after, when the fog of drink has lessened the presence of ghosts, he sits at a table across from Sparrow and tries to maintain eye contact as they continue their interminably long drinking game. Sparrow's not doing well--she's struggling to stay upright, in fact, and should have cried surrender some five glasses of wine ago.
Daeran's own head is floating, his veins thudding with alcohol--he should have ended this three glasses or so ago, but at this point it's a matter of pride. He's going to knock Sparrow out or they'll have to carry him out, and he's not sure he cares which.
Ah, well. At least the last few hours have been entertaining. Or were entertaining, at least--the fun has grown a little thin, and certainly their audience, enraptured by the stalwart Knight-Commander letting loose, have grown bored. It's only him and her left in the main hall now, the rest having trickled outside to get some fresh air.
Gods, does he want some fresh air.
Later, he'll wonder if he imagined the conversation, conjured it out of nothing but the buzzing wine and his own strange thoughts about ghosts in the family manor that would not even come out to see him one last time. A drunken vision or truth, he is still surprised when Sparrow, listing to the side, fixes him with a glaze-eyed stare.
"You're allowed, you know. To do whatever you want with it."
"Excuse me?" Words are clumsy in his mouth, but he might not have done much better if he was sober. Sparrow's expression is open, disconcertingly so, naked in a way he'd only ever seen before in minute flashes when her emotions got the better of her. It makes him shift in his seat, uncomfortable, like he's looking at something he shouldn't, or like she is reciprocating an openness he hasn't realized he is giving himself.
"What happened here is yours," she says in the same intense, earnest voice. For someone who seems loathe to string more than five words together, the wine has made Sparrow very verbose. "It happened to you. No one else. And no one else can tell you the right way to feel about it. Throw a party, burn the house to the ground. Cry or laugh or sing or mock it. The only people who can care are the ones who this was done to--you are all that's left. The dead don't give a shit how they are mourned. So don't ever let anyone tell you that you're grieving wrong."
Something bubbles in Daeran's chest--laughter, maybe, but probably something worse. He swallows it down. As if he needs some stranger's permission to do what he likes with this house, with his things, with the memory of his mother. They don't know even a fraction of what he went through, what he endures every day.
He already knows that everyone who criticizes him are bores and upright, pompous, self-righteous sycophants toadying to the queen and Iomadae and good taste. They think they have the right to judge him, and that's their mistake. If he didn't want to be sad about what happened to him then he damn well wouldn't be, and there is nothing they can do about it except sneer; and they will sneer regardless.
He isn't some pathetic, sniveling victim boo-hooing about losing his mommy. He doesn't need pity. But it's not pity that he sees in Sparrow, it's something--something else, something he doesn't want to look at fully in the face. With some amount of shame, like he's lost a game he didn't know he was playing, his gaze slides to the wine glass in his hand, still half-full. His stomach roils. The thought of drinking another drop makes him sick.
I'm not grieving, he wants to say. I don't care what happened here. But the alcohol makes the words burn in his throat. He swallows them and the bile churning in his stomach down, lifting the glass of wine that he won't drink.
"My grandfather...or, maybe it was my great-grandmother, put this bottle in the family cellar. So why did it fail the scion of the illustrious Arendaes in his time of need?"
HI CROW THANK YOU CROW did I ever mention i love Silaena. Well I do!!
This is a companion piece for All the Faces in Her Wake, my daeran centric fic that focuses on his relationsihp with his mother. It's not in the actual fic yet (ch3) but I've posted snippets and another short piece that reveal that in my canon, Silaena was actually as rebellious, if not more so, than Daeran in her youth--she explicitly ran away from home as a young adult for a period of about four years, before returning home and taking up the mantle of Countess Arendae. This fic details her arrival home, what she does in between her homecoming and her marriage to Count Arendae, and why specifically she came back.
I love it a lot but there's a possible chance that I won't post it because it features a very headcanony headcanon about Silaena and Daeran that I'm nearly positive is refuted in game--that Silaena conceived Daeran with someone else and returned home and got quick married to an old friend to legitimize him. But I still love it because I do what I want lol
Snippet under the cut!
"I'm pregnant," she said flatly, the words silencing her father's bluster. His face turned the color of puce, and then bone-white.
"How--who--"
"I have no idea," she cut through his spluttering. She is lying, of course--the man's name had been Kael, he of the sharp tongue and foxlike smile. They had spent months together when he had come to Mendev searching for opportunities to expand his business, free-fallen into the closest thing to love Silaena had ever experienced. When the diseased air of the Worldwound became too much, he had packed his things to go back southeast and offered to take Silaena with him.
She'd refused; Mendev was blighted land riddled with cults and demons and foul air, but it was her air, and her people, and her land. Even when she ran away she had never gone far, and had come to the realization that she never would when she closed the door on their relationship. He'd left before she'd found out the gift he'd left her, and now he will never know, so she does not wonder how he'd react if he found out. What mattered was here, the present, and how she planned to take care of the growing life inside of her.
"Nevis and I have already agreed that this will be a chaste marriage; my child will be claimed as his, and since the marriage will be legal before the child draws breath it will be legal heir. You give me the title and the estate, and you can keep all the other homes and riches and make everyone miserable in Nerosyan if you like, and you never speak to me again--and I will take the responsibilities of Countess Arendae, and pass them to my son."
Tagged by both @knight-commander and @dragonologist-phd, thank you so much for thinking of me! My creative energy has been pretty low lately but this was very inspiring tbh!
Tagging (and im so sorry im nearly certain i will tag people already tagged by accident, and obv no pressure) @dmagedgoods @the-raging-tempest @undyingembers @spyridonya @rollofleaf @archduke-enver-gortash @thesolemnhour
Snips below the cut! Just from various things I am sloooooowly working on.
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1.
"The boats on the shore will take you anywhere, if you've got the coin for it," Eva says instead. "And you've got the right pass." She pins Evaethi down with a golden stare and then moves the map slightly, just enough to show a flash of the paper underneath, the grooves where a stamp had pressed into the paper.
Evaethi is still connecting the dots between Eva's words and the stamp when Eva places a careful hand on Evaethi's wrist. The skin is cool, slightly clammy and unpleasant. "Wouldn't it be nice," she whispers, "If we never had to see Master again? If we could go do whatever we wanted?"
--
2.
"She was a child," Sparrow repeats. "One desperate for her father's love, and who never received it. Her greatest crime was thoughtlessness, not malice." She draws herself up and gives Daeran a smile she hopes looks genuine. "And if she hadn't run away, I likely never would have gone to Kenabres. So in a way, she is responsible for our meeting."
Daeran lets out a beleaguered sigh, but the frigid lines of anger have finally melted. "Yes, well. I don't enjoy this woman in our house, but it's certainly not my place to forgive her. I do hope she has grown up since your last meeting."
--
3.
"It is my pleasure," he says, and turns his wizened gaze to Daeran. Daeran has to suppress a shiver from its intensity. His eyes are the clear blue of a cloudless day, shining ever so slightly with a light Daeran instinctively understands as divine--years channeling god-given power lingers even if he likely no longer wields a sword--and the gaze seems to peer right through him, to the rotten core infested with worms.
But he must not be using it, or he's attributing to the shadowy mass of hunger that watches Daeran to the shadows of grief: Sir Lant's expression holds nothing but cloying pity. "I never had the pleasure of meeting your mother," he tells Daeran, "but everyone in Mendev knew that a truer heart and a kinder soul didn't exist. Her contributions to the Crusade's cause and the church cannot be overstated. The world is poorer for her loss--but I hope I can help guide you to growing into the kind of man who would do her memory proud."
--
4.
Sparrow's eyes widen and then--it's like watching a turtle retreat into its shell. The bright fury pulls back, closes down, her face smoothing into complete neutrality. If he hadn't just been watching her, Daeran would have sworn the emotion had never been there at all. It really is quite a feat; he can't think of anyone, noble or common born, who can seal away such passionate expressions so completely.
"I should go," Sparrow says, turning away and truncating the conversation. She directs her next words to the group as a whole. "We have a long day ahead of us, and we need our rest. Lann, I'll take second watch if you take first." And she walks away, stiff and lifeless once more, leaving Daeran with the fading electricity and the still-dirty pots.
Daeran sighs and returns his attention back to the dishes. The woman he was arguing with is gone--the emotionless, lackluster leader has made her unwelcome return.
He wonders what he can do to make her become that person again.
--
5. (very mildly nsfw)
The skin on Sparrow's stomach was deeply sensitive, and Daeran's hand pressed against it was a shock of sensation that flashed through her body, settling between her legs. She could barely breathe; she felt like a half-feral animal dragged into the light, skinless and exposed, flinching at every movement. It was so much already, overwhelming in a way she'd never experienced before. If this was how she was going to react something as simple as a palm under her ribcage, how was she going to handle anything when she finished undressing?
Daeran sensed it too, she could tell. The warmth at her back receded as Daeran pulled away, his touch lifting; before he could fully retreat, she grabbed his hand, pressing it back to her torso.
"I just need a moment." Her voice was low, raspy, intimate in the heavy half-dark of the room.
--
6.
It worked for Isore's purposes in this case. Depending on how good the intel of the incoming Hellknights was, they would arrive anywhere from the next few hours to dusk, and Isore needed to not be present when they arrived. He dipped the encoded notice into the brazier, letting the smolders of last night's fires catch it alight before he dropped it among the coals. Then he grabbed a piece of scratch paper only half-full of equations that were useful days ago and penned a quick missive: Gone to market. Don't expect me until nightfall.
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7.
Silaena won, her queen grabbing the checkmate, but she could tell he had let her. When he finally placed his king sideways, he spoke again. "It will be difficult to convince your father."
"He never actually disowned me," Silaena pointed out, the statement sticking a little in her throat. It had been a nasty surprise, even if it had worked in her favor; like he had known she would come crawling back one way or the other. "And I think once he knows what I am bringing to the table, he will eventually back down. There's nothing he wants more than for his direct line to keep Heaven's Edge. I'll give him that even if I give him not one other thing as long as I live."
Galfrey is a very special character to me, I love writing in her pov. This one is still in more nebulous stages, but it is basically her learning to acclimate to postwar life after the events of the Crusade. It follows WOTR events, so she's still queen, but she's leading a trouble country that feels like it's leaving her behind, and she needs to learn how to grow again. It also touches on her ttrpg canon ending, where she ends up Iomadae's herald!
I forgot to mention it in the meme but the tentative title for this will be "The Leaves Still Die"
Snippet below the cut!
The [sun orchid elixir] was as close to eternal youth without consequences as one could get without flirting with actual godhood. And yet, Galfrey could almost feel herself change, disconnected and unmoored from the people around her. Or, perhaps, that was simply the effect of age.
Whenever she caught herself wandering down that path of thought, she would pull back, chide herself for dramatics. She wasn't that old, in the grand scheme of things. There were plenty who had lived longer than Iomadae had been the Inheritor, who remembered Old Cheliax and when the Age of Lost Omens was meant to be the Age of Glory; when there was no Worldwound, and no Crusades, and Galfrey's greatest concern was how she was meant to fill the crown her father left behind. She was not alone in her age, and only had to seek out the nearest adult elf to speak to someone who was her contemporary, or even older.
And yet. When she was around others--speaking to advisors, rallying troops, leading ceremonies, presenting in parades, negotiating with diplomats from allies and enemies alike--she never could shake the ever-present sense that she didn't actually belong there. That while everyone around her was a thinking feeling being, a person of flesh and blood and passion, she was a frozen relic, trapped in amber, separated from them all by an impenetrable wall that kept her in perfect stasis, forever matching the minted coins that showed her profile from the moment of her coronation.
Could that be an effect of the elixir? In some ways, she felt ancient, as implacable as the mountains. In other ways, on very bad days, she felt like the same scared paladin who had just had her god die, who had to become the figurehead of a new religion seemingly overnight, and then had to become the face of a war against an existential crisis that never, ever ended. But the bad days were the days that she focused the most on being Queen Galfrey, not just Galfrey--Queen Galfrey was the shining sun, the face of the Crusades, the leader of the fight who never backed down, never faltered. Who was never tired, who never cried or grieved or missed anyone who grew up and then grew old without her. Queen Galfrey didn't mind being frozen in amber. She didn't care about anything except making sure her country was safe, of being a good queen, and of closing the Worldwound.
Aaaah thank you so much Romeo! I did talk about it here but I will share another snippet under the cut:
The room glows golden, partially from the ever-glittering presence of the veil around Rene's summoning and partially from actual gold, which coats the stately walls of the hall she is peering into. It glimmers in sunlight that streams through a large arched window--Sarkorin influence there, her mind supplies, the very sort of curl and cue that she's come to recognize as common in older-generation buildings in northern Mendev that have either somehow survived the last four Crusades or have been adequately replicated to appear older than they are. This one, obviously, is a replication, as would be the entire hall--a mimic, a mirror into the world she exists in and possibly her own architecture-drenched mind, to obfuscate what dimension she'd dragged to her backdoor.
The creature she's summoned has further hidden itself by presenting as--her. Rene stares at the stranger standing in the center of the hall, the being watching her with a still, wide-eyed expression of mild surprise. It's a good likeness, if hodge-podge--the creature can't hide the divine light that seems to pour from their skin, even if they've arranged their features to mirror Rene's. Their outfit does the image no favors for authenticity, their walking dress a typical Mendevian fashion except for the bright orange color of their blouse, nothing like the Garundi styles that Rene clings to even in the backwater arctic circles she's forced to occupy.
And, of course, the wings, white edged in golden brown, folded against the entity's back are a bit of a giveaway that Rene's peering into a pocket of Heaven, or perhaps Nirvana.
The entity seems perfectly happy to just stare at Rene through her portal into eternity, her expression never moving from that initial barely-there surprise. Well, Rene is the one knocking, so she might as well be polite. "Greetings," she bows. "I call for aid. May you help me?"
"Who are you?" The entity speaks with Rene's voice, even. It trembles at the end, the same way Rene's does when she's absolutely terrified and trying not to show it. It's a little rude, really, to mock Rene's own trepidation about the encounter.
"A traveler," Rene answers. Best as always not to give names, just in case she's snagged some kind of fey. "The sister of an architect and encounterer of many strange creatures and peoples. I know a man who is in need, but I do not know how to aid him. I would like assistance with this, and am willing to pay."
Aaaah thank you so much Arrow!! Sparrow Happy AU is so fun <3
This story details an adventure in Mendev featuring Passerene Cygnarus, a young woman who used to be called Sparrow in her youth and who was never captured by slavers. She grew up with her brother Isore in Dehrukani, before Isore finally started his years-long ambition of carving footholds in positions of power to help steer the general cultural and sociopolitical atmosphere of Avistan as a whole. Big plans, and Rene is mildly wary of the fact that her brother has major Evil Guy vibes, but he's her brother and she owes him for the years he sacrificed raising her, so she plays assistant.
Their latest project is to help rebuild a "fuck you mansion" for one Count Daeran Arendae, after his home was destroyed in the demon attack on Kenabres. He was briefly conscripted to the Crusade, before the newly minted knight commander booted him out, so now he's lavishing in Kenabres employing architects to build him a new home.
The story mainly follows Rene following a long an adapted version of Daeran's companion quest, where she figures out he's got a head full of ghosts, befriends him (and maybe more) and saves him anyway <3
See a snippet below the cut!
"And after?"
The count gives an elegant shrug. "It was good fun while it lasted, but camping in the cold rain in the armpit of the Worldwound? I can spend my time better in a privy."
Rene had done her research on the count long before they accepted the commission, and knows that he's not quite telling the truth. He had been in Kenabres during the demon attack that had incited the current Crusade, though whether he actually helped or not isn't verified. What is verified is that his honorable cousin, Queen Galfrey of Mendev, appointed him to the Crusade as an attache to the newly minted Knight Commander, possibly in response to the alleged heroic actions he took in Kenabres. It didn't matter either way why she did it, because the brand new leader of her armies took one look at Count Arendae and informed him his services were not welcome.
Rene winces just thinking about it, the slight and all it implied. Though looking at him now, she understands why a military commander decided against dragging him on a campaign to retake the lost city of Drezen. The young noble hardly seems like the kind of man who would stand mud up his trousers or sleeping on hard ground for weeks at a time. The embarrassment of the rejection might not sting so much when the kind of job he was turned down for was trying to fend off the encroaching demon scourge.
But it might also be why he's building this fuck-you mansion to begin with--it would be a way to distract from the recent shame by pointing attention to some new outrageous thing, and also make it clear that the social stumble was not something that bothers Count Arendae one bit.
And a second one, mainly because i like this one a lot but it feels too short to put on its own:
"That was the most haunted man I've ever met in my life."
Isore gives her a placid stare. "I found him rather irreverent, personally."
Rene snorts. "Come off it, you know what I meant. That man's got a ghost, or a curse, or both. You could feel its fingers on your neck."
"And it likely will not kill him until after we are finished building his ridiculous house. Let it go, Passerene. He is not our concern."
Isore always had the final say on such things, but then he usually is the one who points them out. "Isn't it strange though? Aren't you the least bit curious?"
