#k. tal

[evocatism]

s. writeblr intro ssp. ceyxes

hello all - i am taliesin, though one may call me tal (or ceyx, or ceyxes; i don’t care much of the difference). i am a queer transgender adult (he/they pronouns please) with a full time job and far too little time to write, though i hope that getting involved in the writeblr community will encourage me to be more productive on my projects.

ssp. genres and themes

high fantasy, especially dark fantasy, political and family drama, the exploration of names as intrinsic to identity and magic, the dissection of expectations as set by class and social backgrounds - all of this and more piques my interest greatly.

ssp. current projects

BLOODSWORN -

when the emperor’s throne is left vacant, four opposing forces surrounding it - the mourning princess, her guard the shadewitch, his sister the bloodwitch, and the disowned assassin - clash together in a conflict that may leave none of them alive.

SORROWLING -

in a city of night eternal, lucielle is a seraph - one of the few living beings who can create light. hunted by the city she once called home, she hides in the walls of her best friend’s home by lamp-lit day, and by clouded night she wanders the streets searching for a peace she may never find.

ssp. tags

if any of you i admire would like to boost this introduction, it would be much appreciated, though no pressure is intended, of course: @cheshagirl @sprigofbasil @ortolon @cherryblooms @aethelings

[evocatism]

bloodsworn – a wip by @ceyxes​

genre ➣ high fantasy drama status ➣ planning market ➣ adult themes ➣ balance – loyalty – honesty – the past, weighed against the future – beauty and fragility extra ➣ identity theft – elemental magic – queer cast – twin shenanigans – trauma

« synopsis »

after being declared illegitimate and having a bounty placed on her head, the assassin sheds her name and flees north to the imperial city of lakha.

bound as a child to the royal family, the shadewitch can only watch as a magic rot slowly kills the man he is sworn to serve.

at odds with her bloody heritage and the high magister, the princess would defy death itself to keep her father alive.

concerned with her own well-being first and that of others last, the bloodwitch broke her bindings long ago –

and now, with the emperor’s throne vacant, that may bring the valley to ruin. the magisteria race in to fill the power vacuum as the princess struggles to find her footing, protected only by the forced loyalty of her closest guard. when that’s broken by a southerner with more blood on her hands than in her veins, what is there to save the city – to save the valley – from destruction at the hands of wild magic?

« characters »

nerya ➣ 24 – the assassin – has never said “please” or “sorry” in her life and doesn’t plan on starting now – the estranged daughter of a pirate queen in the city of ships, nerya has been on the run ever since she got on her mother’s bad side; she’s an asshole in self-defense and only cares about others’ well-being if it affects her, too. that is, of course, how she ends up the only thing standing between her new home and decades of war.

hadrian ➣ 28 – the shadewitch – negative self esteem but great customer service – he's convinced he deserves everything bad that's ever happened to him because why else would it happen? he serves authority with a kind of traumatized glee and pretends not to understand thoughts that challenge the way he's been raised. bound by his very blood to serve princess taivan.

taivan ➣ 21 – the princess – leader of the free world even if she doesn’t want to be – she's always worried about how people see her and the first word on her lips is always "please" or "sorry" or "thank you". constantly aware that her attention is a favor and her scorn is not to be taken lightly. all she wants is her father back, and she’ll use every tool at her disposal to achieve that.

riadhna ➣ 28 – the bloodwitch – embraced the curative powers of hatred a long time ago – not her real face and not her real name. most people call her adhna now, so the name she stole from her brother has stuck. she can't stand being forced to serve anyone and ran away from home when they bound her. maybe she's a murderer (she is) but she has a heart of gold (she doesn't).

// ask to be added to a tag list!

[evocatism]

s. bloodsworn ssp. picrews

for my main four:

⊱ princess taivan – the eldest child of lord emperor xerviron and high magister sthino, set to inherit the royal throne of the empire’s central kingdom, and must play the royal game to keep the empire in her family

⊱ hadrian zayshad – a shadewitch, his magic elementally bound to darkness and shadow, who is sworn by blood oath to serve the royal family; he must obey any order set before him by xerviron or taivan, no matter how impossible or reprehensible, or else face magical repercussions

⊱ riadhna zayshad – a bloodwitch, her magic elementally bound to life itself and the living body, who escaped the bonds of her blood oath and lives hunted by the lord emperor, fully embracing the fact that she’s a menace to society (and yes, she rearranged her brother’s name to take for her own – and while she and hadrian are twins, they weren’t identical until she used her magic to mirror his face for her own, too)

⊱ nerya – born tyche the thief to a pirate queen of the sea-elves in the south, she fell on the ill side of her mother’s temper and was forced to shed her identity and flee north; she gets involved with riadhna as she’s trying to reclaim control over some part of her life

taglist: @annlillyjose @artbyeloquent @moon-brew @ninazeniks @rebelcongeriem @ortolon @kahaaniyaa 

[evocatism]

bloodsworn – an excerpt

In years, perhaps, he would go back to the mountains. In years, perhaps, he would not see her face every time he shut his eyes. He would travel far from Lakha and back to the place he had put her in the ground, and he would see what kind of tree she had become, twisted and gnarled with the magic that her bones were made of.

His bones, too, were magic. They would rot away in time. He would die, as his mother died—as his master was dying before his very eyes.

But no one knew about that yet. Only the princess, only her brother, only her mother knew about the black rot that spread up through the emperor’s chest. It had grown far in the months since they returned home, enough that he relied on his wheelchair to move most days, and he could not walk farther than a few stumbling steps on his own. Hadrian was always there to catch the emperor before he fell.

Hadrian was always there to watch death slowly overtake his loyalty.

[evocatism]

sometimes i write good lines

like

? objectively good. mwah. chef’s kiss. perfection.

[evocatism]

i am debating whether or not i would like to rewrite the 10k i have on the old draft of bloodsworn –

or if i’m just going to start completely fresh –

but to be fair it does have a few absolutely killer lines