#forever afk

[laceandhalos]

I might be logged into WoW but most of the time I am afk chasing a kid or doing some chore like folding laundry.  I sneak back do a quest and afk forever again.

[starcunning]

Soly and Vaelrin

[12:15 PM] starcunning: do you just want to see a wall of emoji hearts because that’s what you’re about to get

VISUAL ATTRACTIVENESS: ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️“It’s the hair. Or maybe the mouth. Or the smudges of black upon his lids, and the way it feathers by morning after too long a night? Or else it is his hands. Or perhaps…”

FRIENDSHIP LEVEL: ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️“There are things we each keep back. I’ve come to realize that this is perhaps not the worst thing—what we need the other to know, we are not shy of saying.”

SEXUAL DESIRE: ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️“I assure you, things in that aspect are quite healthy.”

ROMANTIC INTENT: ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️“I suppose mentioning that we’re married is not truly enough said—that was for politics. The rest of it, though. The rest is for love.”

[starcunning]

She was going to be pregnant forever.

Solyaris had done the math, and that was the conclusion she had arrived at. She had her best guess as to when her child was conceived, on the last night before Vaelrin’s initiation. His back had burned in the sunlight, and she had eased his pain with her hands. Her back was burning now—now and always. She had half a dozen salves to use, some more effective than others, but no hands but her own to ease her pain.

That sun-drenched day had been the last, for a while. Solyaris had given him to the sea and to darkness and she had done the same with herself. She had filled herself swollen with seawater and chased the truth. Her thoughts had been hazy then, but she could remember what it had felt like. All her being, pressed up against the inside of her skin. This was like that: too vast for a single self.

She’d counted, and she should have been ready a week ago. She had been ready well before that, in truth, but Solyaris’ child was as stubborn as her husband. The magistrix’s plans to absent herself from the Ivory Spire each day turned into grudging afternoons spent behind her desk.

There had been false starts, each one as bright and sharp as sunlight, piercing like pain and evaporating like seafoam. When she adjourned herself to the clinic to check it was never time. There was a curious irony in that, given how long she’d made time stand still for her womb.

Surely, the magistrix thought, this was one of those false alarms. In a few moments it would pass, and she would dress and go about her day. She would read reports as her husband did the same, far, far to the north.

It was late morning already, but her nights seemed half-lost to her. They passed in the press of swollen feet to cold tile, wandering from balcony to library to conservatory. The pain subsided; she had known it would, but she could never mistake it for a reprieve. She was still slow to rise. Soft fingers rubbed at the knots in her back.

She was dressing a short while later when the next lanced through her: a hard-edged ray of hope. It felt like the gut wound she’d taken defending the city, two names and a lifetime ago. Solyaris remembered to breathe, and then she remembered everything else she’d made herself a student of.

She was not going to the Ivory Spire today. She was going to be a mother.

[starcunning]

§

“He asked me once where I should be, a year on. My answer was ‘where I am now, but with more bars on my epaulets.’ I suppose if you look at it from a certain perspective, I had the right of it: I am still with the Sunguard; I am still at his side, and I’ve earned at least one laurel since then.

“Of course, I also told him then—as I did on other occasions—that I had no desire to be the Lady Firestorm. ‘Twas true, when I said it, least of all because ‘twould mean taking that from another. I have asked for little, but he has offered much. That is where it began, I think, for I am unused to generosity.

He has let me see him with eyes unclouded, and in the beginning I did not know how rare a thing that was. I have endeavored to repay him as best I could—with understanding.

And with devotion, too, though I know there are those who would gainsay it. I remain at his side, a year later, because I have sought to, and shall always. He is my husband and my beloved, and that should say more than enough.”

[starcunning]

A Morning Ballad

[in collaboration with @forever-afk]

Morning.

Or at least just the crisp of it still in its waking moments.

He had timed this out carefully so that darkness still filled the room while the birds that chirped from out the windows informed him of its pending arrival. The silken sheets made only the barest rustle as he slipped from out the oversized bed. A silken robe was quickly thrown over his bare body and tied to cover all the necessary essentials. His ranger training was perfectly utilized here as he quietly tiptoed his way toward the exit. A quick check was given over his shoulder, and once he confirmed his wife was still at rest, parted the door open and kept it ajar as he left.

And the room fell hush.

The manse was eerily silent, not even the maids or cooks had risen. The stillness of the room was a silence suddenly broken as a few tranquil notes from the keys of a piano began to pour through the doorway. Not by any means loud or overbearing to rouse her like an alarm,  just a quiet prologue—a sweet overture—of something more to come.

Her dreams were sweet. Perhaps that was the softness of her pillow, compared to the cots of the infirmary, though the lulling sound of a heartbeat in her ears had made it all worth it. Perhaps also it was the evening’s sport, its strenuous resolution. Perhaps it was merely because those words so long withheld had returned to his lips.

I love you. Not that she had doubted. The tumult of weeks previous had been difficult to bear for them both, but those words had been her anchor—when they had come from him, anyway. The same oath from another tongue still hung like shards in her heart.

Music filled her ears, lacing through her dream and drawing her to the surface, through memories of lamp-lit cabins and music sheets. She reaches across the bed for her lover, and finds him absent, the sheets still warm from his skin, and blinks herself to waking.

The music continued to lilt and swerve, a gentle melody that told stories of morning light. Its golden embers that peaked across the horizon. And when she rose so too did his spirits. That beginnings were always a welcomed sight like fresh buds to a blossom.

The carried notes were not melancholy like some of his previous compositions. No show of regret, pain, or fear—he seemed well aware of what he had here. Nor was there any angry undertones to the key strokes. Softly plucked did each finger find the key he had set to memory for so long.

At some point he figured the music would reach her ears. Whether it took an hour, perhaps two, or even a few minutes. The purpose was to play alongside the slow rise of the sun. When light filled the room completely only then would he feel he was done.

The manse was still save for this gentle music. It called and summoned for its listener as there was only one place it could come from.

Solyaris remains stretched across the master bed a long moment, luxuriating in warmth and security and that gentle sound filling the near-dark. She is slow to rise, but somewhat quicker to dress—her diaphanous dressing gown waits for her, but she remembers after a moment their guests and chooses a slightly more modest sheath of navy silk, as though pulling on the shadows of the room itself. Her bare feet are silent upon the cold parquet as she approaches the conservatory.

She lingers for a moment at the threshold of the doorway, looking upon him a while, the rise and fall of his breathing, the slight shift of muscles as arms rose and fell, reaching to pick out each note in sequence. She catches a snatch of melody—one she had heard in darkness that carried with it memories of light; and seen later smeared in ink, given into her keeping by hands too injured to craft the music they signified. The song from the gardens.

The song for her.

When last he pursued this ritual it was done more in mourning for another one. A promise did on a timely basis well into death and beyond. He stopped when the piano was no longer of use, and for a time he believed such things carried no purpose. It was only on that night when he made note of his feelings did the new song come to life—a reprisal for a new beloved.

For weeks he tinkered at its creation, for months he debated whether it was right. But it took a few words of wisdom to tell him it was time to try. It was not all bad, he thought, as his fingers rattled the keys so delicately. It was almost as if he was giving a second chance, and the reward came in the sight of the very woman who now crept through the open doorway of his personal domain.

His eyes watched her for only a second before falling back to his playing. Should she wait there or join him, it didn’t matter. It had reached and grabbed her, so that task was completed.

Solyaris leans upon the doorjamb, pressing her cheek to cool stone. Her eyes close, allowing herself to dream awake. She exists, for the moment, in the space between notes. The room is cool when she steps into it, and with a gesture she kindles the hearth and a half-dozen candles to bathe them both in golden light. A pale echo of sunlight to come; an eternal return.

Her hand finds his back, settling at the nape of his neck beneath the spill of his dark hair. She watches her shadow dance over his back, and steps in, her thigh pressing gently to the side of his back.

He tries his best to both acknowledge yet ignore her presence. She was a necessary and welcomed distraction, but his music needed his full attention so that no key was missed or note wrongly played. What he could gather from the few times his eyes did wander was that the selection pleased her greatly and his work had paid off.

Several weeks in the cold tundra of Northrend did he listen to this melody. A time where no one was unhappy, a period he thought could stay this way forever. Through rough roads and broken arrangements, his wife weathered his stormy clouds. There were so many ways he could give his thanks, but it was this path he felt was best. A promise he made when his body was not torn asunder. Even if the burns still ached and bandages were highly visible, he could thank the mender who oversaw his care for allowing his fingers to still work its magic.

She is content to linger on the periphery of his performance—willing to be an accent and never an impediment. His presence is dear to her, though not enough to make of herself a distraction. This gentle awakening is the fulfillment of a promise made many months ago, before the first of his injuries.

After a moment she withdraws; the rising of the sun demands its own homage from her and she sheds the silk of her dressing gown. Her salutations become a dance—as measured and gentle as the melody that wells up in her. There is a softness to her long, long shadow that echoes the changes motherhood has wrought in her. There is a precision to her movements that remains at the core of her. Her movements are meant to kindle focus, awareness; in this moment she is yet more aware of him and his music than herself. She looks upon him, backlit by morning.

The insight in watching him play was precious. It was true enough that the man said little, and little more could she guess, not least in such times of tumult. As much as this morning was a promise made good, it was also a question answered—not by her oracles, which she had sought once to ask, but by his actions. Even a Keeper needs keeping, and he needs you too. A truth as essential as ever. It warms her like sunlight.

“I once told myself I would never offer this again for another,” he murmurs over the music. “But I have not felt this happy with a woman since her warmth. You are not her replacement, but you will be as equal to her … until my last breath. I do not believe in reincarnation …” But there were times he did wonder.

“I have never sought to replace anyone,” Solyaris assures him softly. “Least of all those you love. I … honor that bond, but I do also cherish the thoughts that fill me whenever I hear you call me your wife.”

A laugh, quiet and low, joins the mellow tempo. “It is curious has time has shaped out where you are no longer the beautiful temptress I intended to nail once or twice before departure … and instead ended up being something much more permanent.” He pauses to grin. “While still nailing, at that.” The playful jest is complimented with a little number he randomly adds to the melody.

“Well it is,” she notes with dry amusement of her own, “that you should continue in such a pursuit. Betimes I do wonder if I should not feel guiltier about the way we fell together, but there is little enough room in my heart for it with all else that now dwells there.”

“You say that as if that was entirely your doing. You forget who pursued who.” he reminds her calmly. The light from the sun quietly begins to fill the windows. Soon the darkness of dawn was turning gently into morning. “They may still hate me for it. After all, events have transpired right after our nuptials.”

“Think not on such sad things for now,” she murmurs, slipping in to sit beside him on the bench, her side pressed to his. “I do not believe this morning was made for it.” She allows her eyes to close once more, turning her face toward the distant sunrise, which paints her skin as gold as her mask has ever been.

“No, it most certainly is not.” he agrees, the melody taking a front seat as it fills the room at a louder volume. It was nearing its end, the sunlight streams that poured through the windows lighting the floors with rays of white gold. It was a piece he felt needed explanation for the purpose of why he played it. Why on this day of all days it was necessary on their return home.

“I want you to hear this song … every morning,” he murmurs lowly, the song taking precedence over his delicate words. “As my wife, as the mother of my new child, and for as long as I am able to play …” Time repeats itself and was certainly said to be a flat circle. As his eyes looked up to trace his wife, it was impossible not to see his first one standing adjacent from where she lingered.

“And I want to hear it,” she says. She is vital in the sunlight, overflowing with life. “Every day for the rest of my life. Nothing should make me happier.”

“I can start again. It is okay to try again? Isn’t it?” He asks. Eyes not to the Magistrix, but to someone. Someone not present, and yet she was.

[starcunning]

Sun and Sea

Affectionate; Holding hands | Cheek kisses | Hugs from behind | Cuddling | Hand kiss | PDA | Spooning | Shared baths | Whispers | Affectionate texts Saucy love letters | Caressing | Stroke hair | No displays of affection

Sex; Shower sex | Wall sex | Neck bites | Oral | Morning sex | Drunk sex | Public sex | Backseat of car | BDSM | And then some | No sex

Dates;Picnic | Cinema | Restaurant | Sports game | Hike | Coffee | Museum | Battle | Club | Bar | Beach | No dates

Would my character…

Marry them? Yes | No Have sex on the first date? Yes | NoConfess their attraction first? Yes | No Have children/adopt? Yes | No Die for your character? Yes | No Cheat on your character? Yes | No Lie to them? Yes | No Cuddle after sex? Yes | No

[starcunning]

Ｓｈａｌｌｏｗｂｒｏｏｋ ❂   Ｈｏｕｓｅ   Ｆｉｒｅｓｔｏｒｍ

Named for the river that separates the outlying forests from the city, Shallowbrook is a southerly region of Quel’thalas carved out from the Great Sea’s coastline. The last known scion of his line, Vaelrin Firestorm presides as Lord of Shallowbrook.

The Firestorm seat of power is in Shallowbrook Manor, which sits on a mountaintop overlooking the coastal city. Below, Passidonia lays claim to a history of magical excellence. Its spires have been host to battlemages of surpassing talent since the city was founded.

South of Passidonia is Havenblaze Port, a trading port widely renowned for its cleanliness and the stricture of its port authorities.

What forests survived the Second War and the coming of the Scourge remain an eldritch shadow of their former selves: an enchantment cast over the woods to light it through the night has dimmed from oranges and golds to sicklier shades. Embertree Court, once the seat of House Silvercrest—sworn knight-protectors of the land—is now held by Knight-Captain Esme Sunshard.

[starcunning]

A Survivor of Doma

"My old man was pretty great," Sheila said. "He set me up with these maps and some money so I could travel."

The skies overhead were clear and blue. Mitsuko thought she might hear the crackling report of fireworks anyway, commemorating the Rising. A funny name for a festival for all those that fell.

The shugenja looked down at her hands. At the soft concern in the Miqo'te's eyes. This was not the life Mitsuko’s father would have set up for her.

The better question, Ashikaga no Mitsuko had to wonder, was whether this was the life she wanted for herself.