Discover Top Posts Tagged with #duncan(?)

Duncan(?) and Ashton - Irenic (28)

Ashton came to visit me on my last night at the Groves’ orchard. I knew him by his footsteps even before he broke the ring of shadow drawn by the dim lantern around my hay bed; apart from this small dome of orange light, the rest of the barn was vast and dark, and presumably beyond its wooden slats the stars shone above the canopy of the forest. I was a small thing, blanketed within many other, much larger strata of vacancy layered over life, and so on, and so on. At the core of this cell was I, and the man who came to confess to me.

I won’t share what he told me, not even with you, dearest friend; I hope you can forgive me. It’s too fantastical to repeat, and there’s only so far that I can ask you to stretch your belief. Know that when I looked in his eyes, he believed every word of what he intimated to me. A man burdened beyond belief; humbled, humiliated, shackled.

It is my nature to hold as many realities within myself as I can. Every voice of the Twelve speaks in different facets of my soul, as it does in all people, but seeking harmony among the chorus of voices is, at times, nigh insurmountable. Conflict, even impasse, can lead to a deadlock of wills that traps me in paralyzed inaction if I don’t weave exactly the right path between the oft opposing demands of the gods.

For the problem that Ashton brought to me with shaking hands and a posture that made him small, for once aware of his Spoken fragility, I could not find an easy path through the forest of sacred pillars. It doesn’t happen often, my beloved friend, but sometimes I come... untethered, is the word. The thread of divine wisdom slips between my fingers, drawn in too many directions to hold. It unravels in my hands, yanked out of my palm quick enough to burn. The gods leave me behind, and I am filled with the unbearable lightness of their absence; a barn full of shadows and only a mote of light.

I was made to face Ashton alone, as only myself. The person who would for now call himself Duncan, born of Thanalan clay, forged in the belly of a beast and reborn as a vessel for celestial voices. A sanctuary empty of a choir, I am still only dust. I am dirt, meat. A crisp filler like the pale flesh of an apple. Featureless but sweet and grainy, heavy on the bough.

Weak, is what I am. Without an anchor, I let him put me on my back. I couldn’t solve his greater problem, couldn’t even find a consensus in the congregation of the gods, so instead I allowed Ashton to mold my clay into whatever would be a balm for now. A cheap fix, a cloth bandage over a festering wound.

Sometimes, I cannot help them.

#ffxivwrite2020 #IC post #duncan(?)#the wanderer #ashton grove #this has been in my drafts for like three weeks #and i dont know why i never posted it #i think i wasnt sure where to go with it next but imo it ends just fine right there #take it and go #alin gale

Duncan(?) and Caora - Fade (17)

(cw: brief sexual mention. additional note: caora/brienne and stories about her involve pregnancy as a theme of horror (in varying ways, but most specifically as a tool of control over women and as a trigger for dysphoria -- the ways that these are in play are subtle, and i’m unlikely to ever spell them out explicitly), so if you’re sensitive to such topics, you may wish to avoid reading. art credit: detail from the bacchante by jean-leon gerome.)

Ticks are opportunistic feeders. What this means is that if a tick gets its mandibles deep enough into a hound that the dog is unable to shake it off, the parasite will feed, and feed, and feed until it begins to swell beyond the bounds of its chitinous shell. Its very nature is to gorge itself on another being’s lifesblood until it grows so large that it ruptures, hemorrhaging from the inside until it snuffs itself out, still working in vain to suck down more.

One might believe that the sin at work here is gluttony, or greed, but these are overly simplistic assessments. The true failing in this regard is apathy.

I thought to myself of the tick -- round as a child’s marble, so big that its black shell stretches and warps until it turns thin and pale green -- when Caora showed herself to me. My mind was drawn to her like a body rolling toward a dip in a mattress, a vacant spot in the background hum of the Twelveswood, only notable for what it lacked or obscured. Something that should not be.

#ffxivwrite2020 #IC post #caora #brienne fallow #duncan(?)#the wanderer #cw: pregnancy horror #thats gonna be the tag to block if you wanna avoid this stuff #i wrote this in an hour #juuust over an hour actually #alin gale

Duncan(?) - Lucubration (16)

(art credit: vestige, rob mulholland)

The dusty streets of Thanalan were my first home. I am not forestborn, and as such, I am no Hearer. The elementals don’t speak to me, but there are still answers to be found among the trees, if you ask apt questions in the correct manner. It’s all about tailoring your approach to appease the right authority, and the elementals are not the only guardians of the Shroud.

Yes, I speak of the Matron.

I warned Melody and Ashton to leave me to my work, but in truth, they were ill-inclined to disturb me. The rot that began in the apples we’d harvested had begun to spread to the trees as well, opening moldy pits in some of the fruit still hanging from the boughs, threatening the entire grove. Could it be isolated and contained? Could any of the crops be salvaged, or were they about to face a winter with no windfall at all? These were the questions that concerned them, and understandably so.

With other matters to attend, I faded into the Twelveswood without protest from either of my benefactors. A full waterskin, a handful of ethers in a pouch, and my cane etched with scripture were all I took with me. It would have to last two suns. Maybe three.

Deep enough into the forest that I could no longer see Melody’s farmhouse, yet still close enough that I could feel the living beat of the orchard, I sought a place to sit. A patch of mossy earth, cradled between two roots, where I could lean my back against the trunk of a old tree and allow my heartbeat to sync to the sluggish flow of its veins. Trees contain a lifesblood much like our own, but sticky and sweet; time is not the same to them. I slowed myself down to meet them in the middle. My breath all but stilled. My heart became a whisper.

Two suns, maybe three. My lips would begin to crack at the corners. My ankles would develop deep sores where they crossed under my legs, pressed against the tree roots. Ants would explore my body, tracking through my hair and up my sleeves before ultimately deciding I carried nothing of interest, but I paid them no mind. I was not there for them.

As time went on, each new throb of pain began to melt into the others. The dull thud of my tailbone harmonized with the sharp discomfort in my feet. The pangs of hunger set a bass note for the others to follow. This was a tide that I could find myself in, lose myself to, follow in blissful nonexistence until something arose from the noise both within me and without, until the barrier between the two became indistinct. My spine sang with the same frequency as the crickets. What was the difference? There was no difference.

If I cease to exist, so does the pain. After the self is dissolved like powdered ash in a light breeze, all that remains in its wake is the song of Hydaelyn, a euphonious humming without beginning or end.

And in that nothing that is still everything all at once, I felt it.

I felt her.

No, not Hydaelyn. Not the Matron.

I later came to know her as Caora. But in the moment, all that spoke to me was the icy frost of fear crusting over my heart.

#ffxivwrite2020 #was feeling very smallbrains today so this is all im capable of #duncan(?)#the wanderer #IC post #caora #slides this just under the wire without editing it #alin gale

Duncan(?) and Caora - Fade (17)

One might believe that the sin at work here is gluttony, or greed, but these are overly simplistic assessments. The true failing in this regard is apathy.

#duncan(?)

Trending Tags

Recently Viewed Tags

#duncan(?)