just posted Diverging Paths of Heart chapter 4, my elden ring yura/eleonora fic! putting a teeny snippet of the beginning under the cut, and you can read the rest on ao3.
“Hello there - I see you’re a new face in our church.” A woman practically swimming in a sea of faded pink robes sat down next to Eleonora, who glanced up from what she’d been reading. A large headband-looking hat, in conjunction with the long, dingy veil secured beneath it, obscured the whole of her hair. It gave her a youthful if not overly innocent appearance, emphasizing the childlike roundness of her face.
Eleonora mustered a smile - she’d been wholly engrossed in a scroll depicting the origins of grace and didn’t particularly want to be disturbed. Corhyn had already talked her ear off about the workings of the church once she’d found him after Yura had left, and she feared this would be a repeat of everything she’d already heard. “I came here very late last night. Cohryn very kindly allowed me to stay here.”
“Ahh, of course,” the woman clasped her hands together with glee, “You’re the dear Eleonora he spoke of. He seems very fond of you - he thinks you could be a grand addition to our congregation.”
Eleonora swallowed, unsure of how to break the news that she harbored no such plans. The woman seemed so excited, yet it still struck her as the kind of plastic smile you see on thieves just before they gutted you like a fish. “That’s nice of him to say,” was the best she could come up with.
chapter 6 of my elden ring fic Diverging Paths of Heart is live on my ao3! Yura and Eleonora, after some tough beats trying to get a job in Stormveil, set their sights on something new.
a teeny snippet from the beginning of it~
“So,” Rom began, drink in hand and behind firmly planted in a seat, “tell me about yourself, Eleonora.”
He’d taken them to a small tavern situated within the outskirts of the castle grounds - Eleonora hoped that Yura had paid enough attention to the route given that she had little clue where they were.
“There’s not too much to tell, really.” She took a sip from her glass of water. “I grew up in the Land of Reeds, like Yura. Not too long ago I was…”
Eleonora bit her lip. She had been exiled, though that wasn’t something she wanted to readily admit to strangers, any allegiance to Yura notwithstanding.
“Eleonora’s been having trouble remembering the time before her arrival. The fog seems to have interfered greatly,” Yura cut in.
Rom eyed each of them in turn with an inquisitive tilt of the head. After taking a lengthy swig he pursed his lips before addressing Eleonora. “All well, though it’s fine if you’re just being humble. Let me tell you,” he pointed at Yura, “the things I’ve seen him-“
decided to continue my chaptered elden ring yura/eleonora fic! a small snippet from the beginning of chapter two is below the cut, and you can read the whole thing on ao3. it's been live for a bit while I debated putting it here, but from now on I'll post brief updates like this on tumblr once they're live on ao3.
by the way, content related to this fic will be tagged #dpoh. enjoy!
synopsis if you're unfamiliar for Diverging Paths of Heart:
Eleonora wakes in the Lands Between, half-drugged and borderline amnesic, her beloved weapon having vanished. Once she gathers her bearings, she roams the Erdtree's domain to seek out a new beginning. Yura, a gruff loner with a mysterious past, soon befriends her as a traveling companion.
But there are sinister, alluring forces writhing in the underbelly of this foreign land, and it is oft told that the temptation of a dragon's heart can prove deadly.
___
In which Eleonora and Yura become a dragon hunting (and heart-eating) duo.
Eleonora bitterly, spitefully, denied the tears brimming her eyelids the satisfaction of release. It did not matter that there was nobody there to witness them - what mattered was that she’d already gone soft after barely a day in this foreign landscape.
“It is a miracle you have survived this long, Eleonora.” I bite back tears, my teeth gritted with the pain of my broken finger. I can’t wield my weapon as precisely with just one hand, but even a tentative grip on the hilt with my left hand sends starbursts of pain through my closed eyes.
“Get up. Those born of this land do not cry in the face of adversity. Did your years of training not yet mold you into my image?”
No, she was already soft. She’d always been far too sensitive, far too concerned with delicate matters. In the Land of Reeds, broken blades of grass were a liability to be razed away in favor of budding growth. That’s why she was here, right? It was still difficult to put it all into place, but flashes kept rousing from her consciousness, triggered by the most mundane of sights. Still, ruminating on things long past would not grant her food and shelter.
She needed to press on. Eleonora’s throat burned with thirst. It had started a few hours ago as a craving for cool droplets on her tongue, only to grow into a pervasive dryness that consumed her thoughts. She’d begun to stare longingly at the vast expanse of the ocean, frustrated that it taunted her alongside the few stagnant pools of water she’d happened upon. It had taken everything in her to carry on, to find sustenance that wouldn’t threaten to give her sickness.
She likely had at least another full day before things would become dire. If only she could stumble upon a river, a town, a settlement, something. At this rate she had started to doubt that anyone else even inhabited this beautiful landscape.
Dredging this up from my google docs graveyard in hopes it will inspire me to work on it again - I don’t typically write fanfiction these days but it looks like when I do it’s about elden ring!
The first “chapter” (if 900 words is long enough to count) of a Yura/Eleonora canon-ish fic is under the cut. It explores how Eleonora came to the Lands Between, her and Yura’s slow burn meeting -> friendship -> relationship, and their adventures in dragon slaying and subsequent heart-eating. Plan for this was originally to be a long-ish chaptered fic, with typical chapters somewhere around 2-3k words.
No content warnings for this piece so far. And if it’s something that seems interesting, that you’d think of reading, let me know! I’ll go ahead and put it on my ao3 if I end up continuing it.
Eleonora woke to a faint, cool breeze and the distant sound of crashing waves. Prickly grass brushed her cheek as she rolled onto her back and groaned with the soreness that emanated throughout her body. Faint displeasure tugged at the back of her mind, meticulously clawing its way through the depths of her consciousness until its raging ferocity shocked memory and life back into her body. Eleonora shot upwards into a sitting position, her hands digging into the loose dirt and pebbles around her for purchase.
Blindfolded and bound with stinging rope. Constant, erratic lurching of a wooden transportation device. Rough hands and muffled voices. Her body, limp with drugged half-slumber, thrown into the dirt.
Eleonora clasped her hands to either side of her head in frustration with eyes squeezed shut. How had she gotten here, wherever here was? Why could she not remember anything beyond faded, fuzzy shapes and drowned-out voices?
My name is Eleonora. I live in the Land of Reeds. I wield a twinned blade of my family’s design. I’m here because…
Nothing. The thoughts sputtered to a halt.
A sigh. Her hands lowered; her eyes slowly forced themselves open.
The grassy hill Eleonora sat upon was clearly not of her homeland, nor was the ocean’s roar from beyond her vision. And the towering, glistening golden tree obscuring the sky was certainly not a typical sight, though it stirred something dormant within her.
An aged book folds shut in my hands. I look at the tall figure in front of me; their face is gray, garbled, and obscured. The book is taken impatiently and placed back on the shelf. “The Lands Between, Eleonora, is not a place of concern to you. It is for exiles, or those foolish enough to believe in the lies of grace. Here, we fight to the bitter end, as is our destiny.”
Wind caressed Eleonora’s cheek, gently stirring her from the flash of memory. Slowly, on unsteady limbs, she rose to a standing position, allowing a hand to brace itself on a nearby tree. So she had made it then, however unconventionally, to the place that she had sought. Though now that she had arrived, she could not fathom what it was she had aspired to do.
Eleonora shook her head, dispersing the uneasiness that clouded her. Her warrior’s training had kicked in: she meticulously inspected her iron-and-leather armor for damage or missing pieces. All clear; now she needed to check the state of her poleblade…
Panic. The cursory glance she’d made in her immediate vicinity did not reveal its location, nor did a more thorough inspection of the nearby foliage. With increasing urgency she stalked in an outwards spiral from where she woke, yet despite her best efforts it became all too obvious that it had vanished.
It took far too long to still the shakiness in her hands and the frantic pace of her heart’s beating, but Eleonora forced herself into a false calm. This, then, would be the first order of business: locate her missing weapon. Though her memories were still clouded and faint, the one thing she distinctly recalled was the feel of its hilt as she desperately kept it close to her body as best she could. Whoever was with her must have tossed it to the side along the journey. Eleonora refused to consider that it was truly lost.
The wheels from the cart she’d come on had left faint impressions on the grass and soil before her, and so Eleonora inhaled deeply before beginning the long journey of retracing where they had gone.
The beauty of the grass-and-ocean scenery accompanying Eleonora began to fade around the second hour of her trek, and was completely gone by the fourth. Still, she carried on, sharply inhaling her breath with each coming moment of disappointment. The search for her poleblade was not as simple as merely following the divots the cart’s wheels had made into the ground - every bush, ditch, or cave needed to be meticulously searched. Eleonora trudged forth with each coming minute only bringing more disappointment, until at last her lifeline of tracks began to fade, and soon after were no more.
No. Please. I haven’t found anything.
Yet clear as day -though the moon’s ascent was nigh- the wheels’ imprints were gone, lost amidst the solid, rocky ground Eleonora’s boots now stood upon.
Her breaths increased in depth and frequency and try as she might Eleonora could not stop the sobs from overcoming her body. With great effort she at least stifled her wailing and curled up on the hardened earth, which greedily took in the wetness of her tears. Eleonora allowed herself a few desperate moments of grief before gritting her teeth and once again rising to her feet. The loss of her weapon could be mourned at a later time, as soon as she located food and shelter for the night.
There were no caves nearby that Eleonora could find from her survey of the landscape; in one direction lay rocky ground that gave way to sheer cliff faces, and opposite was the vast grassy hilled expanse she had spent so long walking through. Scaling one of the cliffs to check the sandy beaches below didn’t seem like a practical idea, so she opted instead to wander amongst the green hillsides. Perhaps one of the fractured structures she’d seen would be enough to function as a temporary shelter.
Tonight, all she could do was shut her eyes and hope.
chapter 5 of my yura/eleonora fic Diverging Paths of Heart is now live on my ao3! a little snippet of it is below the cut, and I'm excited because we're now about to really get into the meat of what I've got planned. enjoy!
The dragon, its appendages in constant motion, twitched its head every which way as it assessed the two figures that stood in spite of it. It reminded Eleonora of a bird in the way it moved, though instead of using one eye at a time to look at them it settled on a honed, predatory gaze.
“Have you done this before?” Yura tightened his grip on his blade. Neither of them had yet moved.
“No. But I am no stranger to taming large beasts.”
Yura chuckled. “I assumed as much.” He took a few steps to his left, katana still extended outwards. “Lead it away from the town. Stay in front of it but not too close to me - we must keep its attention moving between us.”
He’d moved in the direction of a gap between two large buildings, beyond which lay more of the endless rolling fields Eleonora had already found herself sick of trudging through. The dragon’s head jerked as its attention zeroed in on Yura’s movement. It let loose a curious screech, tentatively moving a step in his direction. More movement from Yura yielded more responses from the dragon, though it seemed as though it was gaining confidence with each second it remained unharmed. At this distance Eleonora could tell that it was a juvenile - there was almost a playful curiosity in its motions, in the way it looked at them.
new chapter just dropped for Diverging Paths of Heart, my chaptered eleonora/yura fic exploring them as dragon hunters. small snippet of chapter 3 is under the cut, and you can read the whole thing on my ao3. thanks for reading! :)
Perhaps we will cross paths again, should the grace will it to be.
That word, grace, had wormed its way into Eleonora’s thoughts. It burrowed, a near-constant presence reverberating throughout her mind as she finally set sight on the distant light of a settlement glistening within the darkened horizon.
“You tread on ever-thinning ground, Eleonora. The Land of Reeds is your lifeblood. Do not tarnish the years honing your razor’s edge. This is your life, your eternity. We bloom from blood-soaked soil and one day water it with our own.”
“But I don’t want to-”
“There is no want. We do what we need to reclaim what we have lost. Such speak is the language of exiles.”
Her memory still felt as though a thick layer of fog lingered above everything, obscuring more than the bits and pieces that dared stick through. Eleonora knew deep in her bones that she’d been sent here as an outcast, and there was something about grace involved, but she still struggled to glean anything beyond that.
That mystery could continue as such until another time, when she had food in her stomach and a roof over her head.
It took another hour of travel but Eleonora finally found herself approaching the entrance to the town. It wasn’t anything particularly grand, and had a meager excuse of a boundary consisting of not much more than a row of tall wooden logs. They stood rather haphazardly, many of their pointed tips having broken off or otherwise wrecked, and a loud minority of them had fallen over completely. Looking past the sorry border, she glimpsed that the road she had been walking along continued straight through the town and made a sharp right turn once it hit grassy fields.
The town’s main road hosted a variety of small, rickety-looking stores with signs flaunting a variety of wares, weapons, armor, and food. It seemed that the residents’ homes all branched off of the main road, spread out within the confines of the town. There were very few souls roaming at this hour, though that was to be expected - it looked to be just before dawn.
A tall, pointed building caught Eleonora’s eye as she crossed the town’s threshold. Its facade was fashioned from a truly ridiculous amount of concrete and cobblestone, and an abundance of twisting vines creeping across it betrayed its old age. At the very top of its spire lay a hollowed-out section housing a large bell.
As she approached the building she was greeted by large, wooden doors fastened shut and a huge sculpture of a woman looking down upon her. It seemed as though she’d been crucified, but Eleonora noted the distinct lack of a cross behind her body. Two long braids framed her elegant face, which assessed her with what she hoped to be a warm smile.
