Unlocking the Secrets of the Lion's Gate: A Cosmic Portal to Higher Consciousness
Unlock the secrets of the Lion's Gate and elevate your spiritual journey. Discover how to tap into its powerful energies for personal growth, manifestation, and higher consciousness. Explore the mysteries of the universe and awaken to your true potential.
Activating the Lion’s Gate: A Guide to Unlocking Higher Consciousness and Spiritual Growth
As we navigate the vast expanse of the universe, there exist certain portals that hold the key to unlocking our highest potential. One such portal is the Lion’s Gate, a celestial gateway that has captivated the imagination of spiritual seekers, astrologers, and quantum physicists alike. In this article,…
“We’ve all got monsters inside of us and we’re all responsible for what happens when we let it out.”
CW: Depictions of blood and violence
On his way home from the after-party - a funny word for that gathering, Jaaster thought, since there wasn’t much in the way of a party - he made it out into Pearl Lane proper and made his way to a space empty of occupants and too much debris. Glancing about to make sure no one he knew was around, he slumped against the wall, shut his eyes tight, and remembered the fights scant bells ago.
The first one had been fine - he’d been outfoxed, but that was fine. There were plenty of people smarter than him. Odds were good that some of them were fighters, too. No real harm done, so that was that.
The second fight, though...
He’d felt the fire bubbling up in his belly, after he’d been cut. It wasn’t even a bad one. The leather of his coat had caught most of the slash, after all. Maybe that first loss had gotten to him, after all. Maybe the blade reminded him of another fight that had laid him up in the clinic for what felt like an age. Maybe Jaaster had just been looking for an excuse. Whatever the reason, blood called to fire, and it roared in answer. Jaaster won that fight, and he’d almost taken the other man’s head off to do it.
It had felt good, then. How could that be when he felt sick now?
The fire kept surging with the next fight, and it spurred him to greater speeds, greater violence. The other fighter was wily and used that eagerness to his advantage, turned the momentum in his favor, and won, knocking Jaaster silly to do so. In the wake of it, he’d thought the fire gone, fled with his senses only for those to return alone.
As the night progressed, however, he felt it simmering again, stoked with bits of fuel throughout the evening. The rich girl’s poking and prodding comments to his friends. The strange man and his fascination with bones - his bones in particular, it seemed. The flyer and its promise to ruin the lives of hundreds. All of it, feeding a fire that had never truly gone out.
A fire he couldn’t yet control.
That’s why he’d left the party. He’d wanted to find ways to help his friend and her neighbors, but his thoughts continued returning to one violent solution. He wouldn’t have been helping. Better to leave and let smarter people handle that.
“Oi, you! Drunk in public, eh?”
Jaaster picked his head up and looked back over his shoulder, finally noticing the three Brass Blades approaching from behind, all Hyuran. The one in the middle nudged his compatriots. “Can’t have that, can we, boys?”
The lefthand Blade shook his head severely. “Not at all, 'specially when they’re wearin’ what looks like stolen goods.” The righthand Blade squinted in the dim moonlight, then recoiled, a parody of shock upon his face. “Right you are! Probably knocked over some upstandin’ shopkeep but a tick ago!”
The first Blade stepped forward, drawing a heavy club from his belt. “Well, then, we’d better bring him in! Don’t be too gentle, either, boys. After all, he was puttin’ up a hell of a fight, wasn’t he?” The other Blades hefted their own clubs with eager grins and advanced.
They made it all of three steps before flames burst forth and wreathed Jaaster’s wrists, the Coerthan turning to face them with a snarling grin of his own.
...
Morning came, and a Brass Blade patrol finally came upon three of their own, each in a different part of the Lane. One of them was laying near the mouth of the Lane, left after a failed escape attempt. Battered, bleeding, and broken, none of them would ever wield a weapon again, and two would require the best that Frondale’s Phrontistery could offer to even walk.
Outside Ul’dah, Jaaster was on his knees behind a cluster of bushes, still retching even after anything had stopped coming up. The fire was cold, now, its fuel spent in that furious blaze. He still felt sick, though. He could still feel their armor, then their bodies breaking against his fists. He could still hear their cries of anger and panic, and the moment when those cries turned to pleas for mercy before silence finally fell.
That moment sounded a lot like another moment, back in Coerthas. He’d left home after that.
That moment was almost identical to another moment, this one in Gyr Abania. He’d left his training with the Fist after that.
Tears came unbidden to reddened eyes even as he shook his head. It was different this time. No one had seen him. He’d have noticed someone else there...right? Had someone else been there? What if they told the Blades about him? What if they were looking for him right now? What if -
He didn’t realize he’d stood and started running until he felt the wind on his face, and he skidded to a halt, gulping air like he’d already run for malms. As he fought to calm his breathing, he also fought to calm his mind. Nothing would be gained from panicking over wild guesses. Nothing would be gained by running away from this, either. In fact, he stood to lose quite a bit from running. More than he could live without.
Jaaster straightened up, dusted off his jacket, and began walking toward the Goblet. If someone knew what he’d done to those Blades, and they came for him, so be it. He’d deal with the consequences of his actions. He wasn’t leaving this time, no matter what.
“I love how much of a protector I see in you. Sometimes it feels inherent to you in your being, to be there for the meek and the unspeaking. I wonder what Kami blessed you when you grew in your mother, how you were raised, who you modeled after. I feel jealous of your attributes sometimes - in a good way. Like if I tried...”
🌸
“If I could beat you in anything in the realm of archery, I bet I could run you through a mean game of Toko. My knack was ~legendary~ when we’d play the game with guests or just amongst the women as we drank during nights we were closed.”
Tulip: Has your character ever been in romantic love with someone? Are they still?
Flower And Tree Language Prompts!
Etienne lays their hand over their heart and says, “Yes. And that’s all will I will say.”
Adi shakes his head no. “It’s horrible, I know. Despite dating someone who really cared for me... It just never felt like I think it’s supposed to feel. I felt like a fraud.”
Houmei goes quiet. “I’m not sure if I would call it romance. I’ve loved people, but rarely for very long. It’s difficult, in wartime.”
He feels the eyes boring into his back as he eats. Just as he’d felt them boring into him while he’d prepped the food. The same as when he’d cooked it. He’d spent some time now avoiding those eyes, pretending he didn’t feel them.
Ambaghai stares into the hearth, determined to fight the urge to tear his eyes away from it and turn to meet the ones he can sense behind on his back. He sips at the broth of his soup, lets the flavours play over his tongue for a second before swallowing, ignoring the high-pitched keening that sounds at length from the other side of the room. And the clicking. So much clicking.
He sighs as he finishes his bowl, and hums lowly to himself as he spoon more into if from the pot. He is used to the cat watching him as he eats, but most days she is a silent observer, staring down at him from her perch on the counter.
But this...
A sad yip sounds behind him, interrupting the quiet keening. The yip inspires the noisy one to let out a small howl, and a few of its siblings follow suit.
Eight dogs. Eight sets of eyes staring at eagerly at his back, longing to join him in his meal. He’d had to pen them in behind the couch but that didn’t keep them from peeking over its edge and watching.
Another sigh, and he finishes off his second bowl. “[Do dogs even drink soup?]” he muses at the animals, though he still doesn’t turn to face them.
He rises to his feet and the action is greeted with a new chorus of excited yips, followed by the hectic clicking and clacking of claws on the floor as the pups pace excitedly in their space.
He sets his bowl on the counter and pulls out a small bowl in which he deposits some prepped food. Then he pulls out a few larger dishes and deposits some food into those as well.
He places the bowl in front of the the cat, who flicks her tail, and he could swear she gives him a look of disapproval as though she finds it unfair that the amount of food in her bowl is not equal to that in the dishes he’s about to set out on the floor. But she accepts her paltry meal (which is, in fact, a perfectly sufficient amount of food for a cat her size. An amount that she’d never had a problem with - and sometimes didn’t even finish the entirety of - up until now).
Amba sets the other dishes out on the floor before turning to the couch. The mother - the only one of the dogs not currently confined to the makeshift pen - hops off the couch and makes for the food with a lazy gait, and Amba moves for the chair that keeps the pups penned in.
His approaches in greeted with a flurry of fur and a cacophony of excited yipping, and as he pulls the chair away form the couch there is a moment where the dogs seem infinitely numerous as they cascade out from the opening.
The pups all settle in to their meal in no time and Amba slumps onto the couch, rolling his head back toward the ceiling. He closes his eyes and as he listens to the chomping of nine different mouths he sends a silent prayer that Ayla and Esen aren’t the only ones who want a dog.
Seven pairs of eyes watching him eat is better than nine, but it’s still quite a few eyes too many.
[ panic ] for your muse to grab mine’s arm or get behind them in a moment of danger
Walking through the markets of Ul’dah, Grant held a bag of groceries after having collected some quality wheat and spices only sold on Ul’dahn markets. Satisfied with his purchase, he had intended to find the airships to make his way back to his bakery, wading through the busy crowd before pausing as he spotted a somewhat familiar figure, someone he had seen from the Enclave.
“...Is that Miss Ayla?”
He asked himself as he saw the Hyuran woman walked through the crowds and the markets, presumably going about her own business. Grant surmised he should greet her politely as he then waded through the crowd as well to get closer to her before he noted something rather pressing - there was someone trailing her and soon they had pulled out what appeared to be a pistol.
“Watch out!”
Widening his one eye for a moment, Grant immediately broke off into a sprint, dropping his bag of groceries and letting them fall to the ground as he quickly grabbed Ayla’s arm to pull her out of the way as the bullet was fired, with himself getting hit instead of the Hyuran woman, the bullet lodging itself on his left arm.
The assailant looked surprised for a moment before quickly making their getaway. Grant thought to chase but decided to look to Ayla to make sure she was safe, with the Hyur only wincing slightly as he mostly desensitized himself ti to the presumed pain he was feeling from his injury.
10. If they had to pick to one song to listen to for ten hours straight, what would it be?
Oh gracious. Um. I had to think about this for some time; Cat has a lot of pain she plasters over with cheer, in a ‘fake it til you feel it’ sort of way. She feels like she was betrayed by loved ones in the past, and tangled with that anguish and anger, she feels guilt at the same time. In her mind, it was her fault they didn’t love her enough. It’s part of my personal plot for her that she’ll finally confront those demons and realize her perspective was terribly limited and what she thought was Truth... wasn’t what happened at all.
So if I had to pick a song... Snuff, by Slipknot.
12. What is their pain threshold like? Will a stubbed toe take them down, or does it take something much more drastic?
For physical pain, her body pretty much has to shut down and say enough before she’ll stop.
Emotional pain, on the other hand -- she takes as confirmation that she actually is the literal worst, and will flee the situation and try and avoid making herself vulnerable to that person/scenario again if she can. (I do welcome anyone RPing with me to call her on her bullshit.)
