#foxrising

[frstraekitty]

I'm not sure how likely it is that Tonghua got Aventine by making a deal with Laurentius for his firstborn because... it just seems like such a Tonghua thing to do, like, "here I'll open the shadows to swallow your inconvenient political enemies in exchange for your firstborn"

and Chai is just like "if you're going to make even insincere deals for babies you could at least take care of them on your own :I"

[centuryrising]

foxrising did you think i wouldnt do it

[centuryrising]

hmm... should i let him keep it?

foxrising imagine tian with a dragon tattoo across his back. imagine tian with a dragon tattoo in red and gold across his back

[centuryrising]

basically brainstorming for how the imperial brothers play chess

Tian -- he tends to play red (the advantage of first move, he takes and uses any advantage he can get), and likes to checkmate with two 車s, not fond of 馬 and 炮 checkmate strategies, however uses them to disable the other player's pieces. usually sacrifices his soldiers to advance his stronger pieces. takes the offensive, rarely defends. he goes for the kill immediately, quick and deadly. his goal is to win as fast as possible, the sacrifices he has to make does not matter

Quan -- likes to suffocate the enemy. showy and dramatic, he kills as many of the opponents pieces as possible before going for the kill, tries to kill everything except the general before finishing the game. his opponents tend to surrender. like Tian, does not care for the sacrifices of his pieces to win, and like Tian, tends to take the offensive. sometimes draws game on for hours attempting to annihilate everything before taking the general. always wins by a landslide

Yun -- arguably the smartest of the brothers, his strategies are as such. every game has a different strategy, he uses every single piece to their full potential, the soldiers included. rarely if ever lets any of his pieces die, and at most one soldier. unlike Quan who likes to be dramatic, and Tian who likes to be deadly, Yun is calm and draws games on for hours at a time. he takes turns both passively and actively playing, and lays out his plans without the opponent even seeing them, and only shows his plan when the enemy is checkmated. usually checkmates opponent over ten moves before actually taking the general

yun is too smart for me to describe properly

Hai -- Hai is fucking dead. if he grew up, he wouldn't often play chess. he's smart enough to rival Yun, but his intelligence is passive. as a child, he only played against Tian and almost always let Tian win, and afterwards offered constructive criticism on Tian's strategies. Hai is the main reason Tian is so exceptional at chess now, Hai taught Tian how to watch his movements and how to be observant. 

[centuryrising]

Quidditch Bets and Lingering Kisses

Characters: Tian, Auguste (who belongs to Fox!), Xuelie Length: 813 words Summary: Tian and Xuelie make a bet. Tian loses. Notes: Companion to this wonderful comic by foxrising!

-----

“What? Of course Slytherin will win the game.” Tian glanced up as Xuelie sat down beside him in the stands, commenting on the quidditch game between Slytherin and Hufflepuff that was about to begin. With a hand propping his head up and his elbows resting on the edge of the stands in front of him, Tian’s posture radiated boredom to all but those who knew him well. Which was to say, Xuelie.

“The puffs have never won against us.” He said with certainty.

Xuelie grinned, and took out a bag of popcorn from under her robes. How the hell did that fit under there?

“Wanna bet?” She challenged with a mouthful of popcorn.

Tian ground his teeth. Xuelie knew he was too proud to back down from a bet, and far too constantly used it against him. “Sure.” He relented at last. “What are we betting?”

Xuelie paused stuffing her face, and looked surprised. It seemed she had not planned that far ahead. Hurriedly, she scanned the field, searching for something to bet on. Just then, the Quaffle from the practice round currently occurring in the field came flying toward their stands, but just as fast, a chaser from the other team swooped in and caught the ball. A chaser with a bright smile and brighter hair, a chaser Tian knew immediately and hoped Xuelie wouldn’t recognize.

Too late, Tian looked over to Xuelie to find her grinning back at him. Shit.

“Hey, that chaser is pretty cute.” She purred, and Tian felt shivers down his spine. “Auguste, was it?”

Oh no.

“If Slytherin loses, you have to kiss him.” Her eyes were almost glowing, and not for the first time, Tian regretted befriending her.

“...Fine.” He ground out, struggling to keep him face blank. “Slytherin won’t lose anyway.”

“Won’t we?” Xuelie’s smile grew wider.

Tian wondered if Xuelie would dare jinx the game.

-----

Half an hour into the game, Slytherin had two hundred twenty points, and Hufflepuff seventy. Tian sat back in his seat, closing his eyes for a moment, confident and at ease. Xuelie was glaring at the field. Tian thought Xuelie must be the first Slytherin to wish for the other team to win.

“The Snitch!” Someone beside him yelled. His eyes flew open.

“The Golden Snitch!” The crowd took up, and Tian analyzed the field in seconds. The Hufflepuff seeker was seconds away from catching the Snitch, Slytherin’s seeker was on the other side of the field. She won’t make it.

Tian’s hands clenched into fists. He took a deep breath. It was okay, one hundred fifty points would only bring Hufflepuff to a tie with Slytherin. It was still not a win. Tian sat back again, calmer, but still nervous.

Tian predicted three seconds until the rival seeker caught the Snitch, two, one--

“The chaser!” Xuelie yelled, and Tian’s eyes snapped to the other side of the field just in time to see Auguste throw the Quaffle through Slytherin’s loop.

The crowd rivalling theirs went up in a roar. The seeker caught the Snitch. One fifty points from the Snitch, ten from the Quaffle, the score was two thirty to two twenty.

Hufflepuff had won.

Xuelie clapped him on the back, laughing, and he wanted to scream in frustration.

-----

Tian couldn’t stop fidgeting. His fingers played with the hems of his sleeves, his gripped them into fists. He began to pace in place, he forced his feet to freeze. Finally, after what seemed like hours, he heard the Hufflepuff team land, cheering and laughing.

Tian took a deep breath, and forced down any emotion he might have felt. All he had to do, was kiss him, and leave. Kiss Auguste. The boy with bright orange hair who he far too often found himself daydreaming about. The one his eyes always watched during quidditch games. The one who didn’t know he existed.

The team rounded the corner into the building, and he had no more time to think. He knew exactly who to head for, even without thinking. It was instinctive, it was what he had dreamt of doing far too many times.

Before the team could react, he was in front of Auguste, who was a lot taller in person than from afar. Auguste might have protested with a “H-hey!” as he grabbed his collar, but Tian wasn’t listening.

He pulled Auguste down to his level, yet he still needed to stand on his toes to reach the chaser’s lips. Without thinking, without letting any number of excuses muddle his mind, he kissed Auguste.

Maybe it went on a little longer than a second, maybe it wasn’t the fastest kiss in the world, but after a mumbled “Congratulations on winning,” Tian was surely the fastest to stride out of sight.

His face was red, his stomach was dancing with butterflies, and he was going to kill Xuelie.

[centuryrising]

"That's him," Min whispered to Auguste, "The Ice Prince."

"Ice?" Auguste asked, looking to the direction Min pointed in to see a prince dressed in blue. "Why's he called that?" 

"Because," Min leaned in, as if to prevent anyone else from hearing her. "Rumours say that his heart is so cold, it dyed his hair the colour of ice."

Indeed, the prince did have hair the shade of a brilliant light blue. It wasn't common to have hair so light, yet it wasn't rare.

However, Strange, Auguste thought. His hair looks more like the colour of the sky.

Auguste belongs to Fox

[centuryrising]

[ III ] Maren

Characters: Mictecacihuatl, Fenris, Maque Length: 1 330 words Warnings: Extreme gore, death, seriously don't read this if you're squeamish in the slightest Notes: Teca’s drabbles, 3/17

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Teca was woken by the pain of being dragged out of bed by his hair. With a jolt, he was wide awake in seconds, just in time to prevent hitting the stone ground with his face as he braced his arm in front of him. He winced. That was going to bruise.

“Uppity uppity!” A voice caught in an eternal growl called. Fenris. Teca looked up from his position on the ground to sharp teeth and red eyes, a monster in human form. What was Fenris doing in his room? The most powerful, and most deadly dragon in their clan was not one to pay friendly visits.

“‘Got orders from the boss.” Ah. So that was why. Maque sent him.

She only had need for him when she wanted to test his skills, and Teca expected this to be the same.

“Apparently, you needa...revive this? ‘S that the word? Yeah anyway, ‘got a dead fishy for ya.”

It seemed, Teca was not as awake as he had previously thought. He hadn’t noticed smell of rotting fish, or the body behind Fenris, until the dragon hauled it up and dropped it in front of him. Too close to him, he scrambled up as Fenris dropped the dead Maren, but his bed behind him prevented him from backing away, as the familiar dropped half into his lap. 

One hand covered his nose in vain, trying to block the stench of decomposing body, as he pushed it back with his other hand. The body turned over. Teca was going to be sick. Across it--no, her chest, her flesh was pulled back until her bones were exposed. Her face was a mess of blood and crushed bone, and her head was barely attached to her body. He could only tell it was a she by the lumps of mutilated fat hanging off her body that he assumed to be breasts. There was a gaping hole in her torso, and Teca had half the mind to wonder where her organs were when Fenris dropped a mess of bloody tissue on her body.

“Boss said you’d need all of ‘er.” Fenris’ hand were soaked with red, and he seemed to notice, because he began to lick the blood off. It was Fenris’ kill, Teca could tell immediately. Only he could deliver such gruesome bodies.

Teca might cry.

He couldn’t speak, his voice was caught in his throat. He wanted to yell at Fenris, to ask why this--this horror was necessary, what was he supposed to do with it. Instead, he just gaped. Fenris gave him a strange look, and left.

“Ya got five hours, boss said.” He called as he flew out the exit.

Teca stayed there, unmoving, trying to breath through the stench for a couple silent minutes, before he began to choke on the reek. Closing his eyes, he fought back tears. He needed to calm down, he needed to get a grip. He was a necromancer. His trade was death and life. It was just a body, worse than he had ever seen before, but it was just a body.

It was a familiar, one from a kind who could speak the language of dragons. It had a family somewhere, it came from a social structure not much different from their own. It was, socially, no different from a dragon. And it was dead. He was a necromancer. He had a job to do.

Teca stood up, and took a deep breath. He shoved his panic and nausea down for later, the faster he acter, the higher the chances of success. A chance that was already low, considering the state of the body. His mind focused, and he quickly ran through the calculations of the materials he would need for a spell so large. He had never revived anything much bigger than a storm seeker before, but he would have to succeed.

The first thing he would need, was a lot of blood.

-----

One hour later, his body was at it’s limit. There was only so much blood he could lose, and so much blood he could regenerate in such a short span of time, but there was no more time to lose. Seven bowls would have to do. It was a close call, and he prayed to any god who might be listening.

Teca got to work, dipping his fingers into the blood and beginning to draw a circle on the ground. The basic structure was completed in minutes, and then, he had to think. Magic was an essence, magic was soul, there was no textbook method to use magic. To apply magic, he had to command it with his words, written or spoken. And those commands were situational. He had to pray that his knowledge of necromancy was enough to formulate a successful spell.

He sketched runes highlighting all his knowledge of Maren, of their structure, composition. He wished he had studied Maren beforehand.  

For three hours, be built command upon command, expanding the spell wider and wider to span over the entire room. At some point, he ran out of blood, and resorted to taking more of his own. He was growing light-headed from blood loss.

There was nothing else he could think of to add. It was basic, amateur at best. But it would have to do. The hope Teca felt at the beginning of the procedure was beginning to waver, but he had to try. He had to pray.

Teca looked to the body still by his bed, and steeled himself. He had cast a small spell earlier to restrict the stench to a certain radius, and to freeze the decomposition. It was still as bloody and gory as that morning. He picked the body up, as carefully as he could. It was heavier than him, but he managed to reach the center of the circle before he dropped it. Her. It was a her, Teca had to remember that. If he started treating creatures as objects, he would be no different from the rest of his clan.

He took a deep breath, and began the spell. It was a long spell, and if he missed a single word, slipped a single time, it would fail. His hands shook, his body was weary from exhaustion, but his voice did not falter.

Even as the blood seeped from the circle into the body, as the mess of flesh and tissue began to rearrange itself, Teca did not react. Broken bones fused back together, wounds began to close, the circle glowed.

And he finished the spell.

Nothing happened.

Teca waited, sometimes spells took time to complete.

Nothing happened.

He began to panic. The body was completely healed, the body was alive. But it did not move. Teca kneeled down by the Maren. Her heart was beating, there was blood flowing through her veins. Her eyes looked blankly up, colourless and unmoving.

No.

No, no, Teca did everything right, he should have done everything right, she should be alive. The spell worked as he planned, her body was alive.

But where was her soul?

“No, no...” Teca mumbled, running over spell in his head. It should have worked.

“I see you failed.” Maque’s voice rang out behind him. Teca flinched back.

“No, I… It…” He began, but he had no excuse.

“I...I just need to try again, I’ll get it right, it’s just--”

“I gave you five hours.” Maque cut him off.

“No,” Teca was desperate. He almost saved her, he was so close, “Please. Let me try again. I can save her.”

“No.” Maque replied, and she shifted into a dragon. Faster than Teca could react, her claw came down in front of him, and tore the body to shreds.

“No!” He cried.

But it was too late.

He couldn’t save her. Her body was restored, but her soul did not come back. Teca knew that, yet he didn’t want to admit it.

He had failed.

[centuryrising]

[ II ] Find

Characters: Mictecacihuatl Length: 1 188 words Warnings: None Notes: Teca’s drabbles, 2/17

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Of the clan, Mictecacihuatl had the highest rank, just below the leader and her guardian. It was only a decorative rank, he had none of the authority or power, only the title, but none of it mattered to him. It put him above Israfel. In theory, though he was only decorative, he still had the ability to command all those below him. He only wish he had known that earlier.

“Mictecacihuatl, focus.” Maque’s voice rang throughout the cave, alerting the entire clan gathered there of his temporary lack of attention. He was not fazed, he would show no weakness when Israfel was watching. Instead, he held his head high, and his posture as regal as the shimmering white fur-lined robes he wore. Decorative or not, he was the highest of the clan. Higher than even Ophelia, who held the rank of prince. And he was going to act like it.

Mictecacihuatl met Maque’s eyes, and held her stare. Maque was not vicious to him, yet she was not kind. Only he, of the clan, could meet her eyes in such disobedience and live. Some claimed she loved him, in her own twisted, sick affection, some claimed she cared for him. He knew it was not true. She held no emotions toward him, yet he did not understand the pardon she held for him.

After a few, tense seconds, it was he who looked away first. Any longer, and even he would not have left that room unscathed.

“Continue, Regalia.” Maque commanded.

“Yes.” Regalia complied.

It was, by definition, Maque’s birthday celebration, and the entire clan was obliged to attend. However it was only such by name, for it was no celebration. On her date of birth, every year, Maque had her guardian recite all the deeds she had done that year to protect and support the clan. She needed no such words to ensure the clan’s obedience, it was only for show. Everyone listened intently, none dared oppose the “celebration.”

Mictecacihuatl laughed bitterly in his mind. Celebration? This was no celebration. He grew up in the clan, and had never known otherwise. But years ago, he had met someone. Someone who had taught him what happiness was, what festivals and competitions were, what a celebration actually was. And it was not this.

His mind was wavering. The thought surfaced memories of lavender and feathers, marbles and glowing Dayglo Threshes. And then, blood and torn muscle and flesh, cracked bones and feathers dyed red, pain, so much pain spreading through his arm.

He was far too aware of Israfel standing behind him. Hands balling into fists, hidden under his cape, Mictecacihuatl took a deep breath and maintained his composure. He would not snap before Israfel, would not allow the commander to look down on him like before.

Somehow, he made it through the celebration. He was sick and tired as he stumbled back to his lair, the barrage of memories had taken a toll on his psyche. It was pointless remembering him now. There was no way Mictecacihuatl could find him again, the world was too large for one mage to search. He promised himself to give up weeks ago.

Unclipping the heavy cape from his shoulders, he considered whether he should burn it as he walked back into his room, it was a gift from Israfel, after all.

It was tiring, it was painful, how his mind always wandered back to lavender. But the memories came back in full force when he turned into his room, and saw it awash in golden light.

The cape dropped from his hands.

The light originated from a small alchemy circle the width of two hands carved into his stone table, and it’s radiance was a brilliance that rivalled the Temple of Light, the accumulation of his feelings. Qiao sat in the center of it, cooing pleasantly.

He couldn’t believe it.

He wouldn’t allow himself to believe it.

He had given up hope long ago.

Yet the circle had never glowed so bright before, never even close.

In his rush to get to his desk, Mictecacihuatl almost tripped over his robes, but he didn’t care. He could feel something rising in his throat, something familiar and impossible and overwhelming. Qiao quietly moved out of the way, her job here done.

A single name chanted a mantra in his head, as he quickly, efficiently worked the spell with shaking hands, the same spell he had performed countless times before, to the point of instinct. His breath caught in his throat, as he froze right before the last step in the spell.

What if was another flux, like countless times before? Times where he, with hope and anticipation finished the spell, only to be met with darkness, someone that wasn’t him, a failed search. What would he do if he failed again? If he just walked away now, left the spell, he wouldn’t have to face the pain that came with failure.

But what if it didn’t fail?

What if this time, it succeeded? What if he found him?

Mictecacihuatl couldn’t seem to breathe, his head was getting dizzy, but with tentative, fearful hands, he finished the spell.

For a moment, nothing happened. There was only darkness. And the bone crushing despair threatened to overcome him, but then--

A flicker, like a flame, danced above the circle. It expanded, wider and wider, until it was the size of the circle. It glowed, a flat plane of light hovering in the air, before it exploded outward in a light so bright Mictecacihuatl had to close his eyes.

And when he opened them again, he cried.

Tears fell from his eyes, and he raised one hand to cover the choked sobs spilling from his throat. Yan, Yan, Yan. The mantra in his head had a name.

“...Yan.” He whispered, soft and breathless and unsure.

Before him, in the light from the searching spell, was the image of a boy, the same age as him. A boy with lavender hair and lavender wings, and eyes that shone. The boy stood on a field of green, green that he could only assume was grass. To his sides stood two others, one with hair the colour of midnight, the other the colour of snow. The boy was laughing. And it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.

“Yan!” Mictececi--no, Teca called. He knew the image could not hear him, but it didn’t matter.

He found Yan.

He found him again.

Teca’s knees gave out, and he slid to the cold floor. He sobbed into his sleeves, and buried his head into his arms resting on the table. He missed the moment the boy looked into the direction of the search mirror, as if he could see him. But that was impossible.

Relief choked up his throat, and Teca stayed there for what seemed like hours, letting emotion after emotion wash over him.

He was smiling.

He didn’t know how he would get a letter to Yan, explaining his disappearance, why he didn’t write for a year, but it didn’t matter.

He found Yan.

He would figure something out.