The gentle weight was barely perceptible atop his head, yet it weighed worlds more than the worth of a dying kingdom's crown. It was not the burden of heavy metal, inlaid with precious gems won from blood spilled across countless battlefields; it was the softness of something finite, of something he had never thought he could hold in his own two hands.
"A crown of blossoms." She said aloud, her eyes shut. There was a satisfied tilt to her lips. "It suits you rather more than any other crown, doesn't it?"
Her smile suited her, the way it bloomed like a flower unfurling as it greeted the sun. He had fallen for her in the blood and dust of battle, but blood and dust could not sustain a love such as theirs. They deserved something that flourished deep in the earth, to grow tall and strong. A place where she could rest, should her wings grow weary.
"You are the only one who'd dare say that to my face," Mydei said, unable to take his eyes off of her.
"Does that insult you, my dear prince?"
"No." He reached up, taking her hand in his. "If you would have me crowned in flowers, then I would wear nothing but this to the end of my days."
She snorted. "Oh? You would wear a silly garland for me to face your foes?"
He would bear this, and more yet. Until this undying body of his finally found its rest beyond the west wind.
"Then they shall face their ends by a prince adorned in your flowers."
If it could bring more smiles like the one she wore on her face today, there was no cost too great.
Art by @yue-chan077! Thank you very much for bringing these characters to life.
Birds of prey spiral around my head
They hiss songs of your birth, they caw visions of death
I’ve watched it happen again and again, haunted by
A thousand kind beginnings and a thousand bloodied ends
I shouldn’t play with fate
But what if once, I could make you safe?
Character Themes: 1 (Leitmotif) and 2 (Boss OST)
Character Details
Behold—Carmitis, the city by the sea where the waves were considered music all on its own, where silence now reigns.
There is no freedom for the erne, whose gaze remains firmly set on the sky, only the sweet embrace of oblivion. Ligeia, Chrysos Heir who seeks nothing, wants nothing, break from the cage and take fate in your own hands.
Traces
☽ Basic Attack: A Siren's Salutations, Bow
Single Target | Deals Quantum DMG equal to 50-110% of Ligeia's ATK to one designated enemy.
☽ Enhanced Basic Attack: Dance of Feathers and Blades, Chassé
Blast | Consumes HP by an amount equal to 10% of Ligeia's current HP. Deals Quantum DMG equal to 100-220% of Ligeia's ATK to one designated enemy and Quantum DMG equal to 60%-180% of Ligeia's ATK to adjacent enemies.
☽ Skill: O Winged Maiden of Battle, Arise
Blast | Consumes HP by an amount equal to 30% of Ligeia's current HP. Deals Quantum DMG equal to 70%-154% of Ligeia's ATK to one enemy and Quantum DMG equal to 48-132% of Ligeia's ATK to adjacent targets. Enters the Hunting Reverie state for three turns. While in Hunting Reverie state, increases ATK equal to 23%-45% of Ligeia's current Max HP and enhances Ligeia's Basic ATK for 3 turns. Leaves Hunter's Mark on first designated enemy to be hit with Enhanced Basic ATK, which lasts for three turns. Enemies afflicted with Hunter's Mark take additional Quantum DMG equal to 64%-144% of Ligeia's current ATK and have reduced DEF by 20%.
☽ Ultimate: Scourge of the Heavens, Descend
Blast | Restores HP by 6% to 15% of Ligeia's max HP. Deals Quantum DMG equal to 303%-588% of Ligeia's current ATK to one designated enemy, and deals Quantum DMG equal to 100%-220% of Ligeia's current ATK to adjacent targets. If Ligeia's current HP is below or equal to 50% of max HP, both the DMG and HP Regeneration are increased.
☽ Talent: Bloodstained Devotion
When Ligeia's current HP is equal to or less than 50% of Ligeia's max HP, CRIT Rate is increased by 20-35%. Regenerates 5% of max HP when Ligeia or ally targets eliminate enemies afflicted with Hunter's Mark.
☽ Technique: The Sky's Lamentations, Listen
After using this Technique, creates a Special Dimension around Ligeia that lasts for 15 seconds. Enemies within this dimension will follow and attack Ligeia while the dimension is active. If actively attacking units strike Ligeia, when entering battle, deals Quantum DMG equal to 150% of Ligeia's ATK to all enemies and advances Ligeia's turn by 20%. If Ligeia strikes attacking units before they can strike her, when entering battle, deals Quantum DMG equal to 120% of Ligeia's ATK to all enemies and regenerates 15 energy. Only 1 Dimension Effect created by allies can exist at the same time.
☽ Bonus Trace
While on-field, ally targets' CRIT Rate increases by 15%. Damage dealt by Quantum ally targets additionally increases by 80%.
☽ Bonus Trace
While in Hunting Reverie state, Ligeia is immune to crowd-control debuffs.
☽ Bonus Trace
Triggers when Ligeia's HP drops below 15%, or when she suffers a lethal strike: Ligeia will not fall as a result of the DMG sustained. Additionally, for the next 10s, Quantum RES shred is increased by 200%, her CRIT Rate is increased by 100%, and she automatically enters Hunting Reverie state while applying Hunter's Mark to the enemy who dealt the lethal strike. Can only occur once per battle.
more complete profile is on toyhouse. dividers by @/firefly-graphics. art commissioned from the amazing @rui-drawsbox and knewxyz (vgen), please check them out!
"Remember not to look," she says each time he turns his back to her. Hands as cold as the waters around them skim along the curve of his spine, lingering at his tenth thoracic vertebrae in a caress that leaves a sharp pain in his chest and the taste of blood in his mouth.
The Sea of Souls has its way of... clinging.
He has always known that. Countless times he's encountered the strangest figures as he made his way from Styxia, the viscera of his past deaths still clinging to his form and slowly sluicing off, remaking his body anew. Cleansed by the death-touched waters, he tries to ignore the whispers that tickle at the nape of his neck.
Mydei has always been good at ignoring them. His people need him, Amphoreus needs him, he needs to be Strife incarnate, the lance of fury that pierces through the black tide. There is no room for his grief to drag him deep into the waters.
And then she started appearing to him: smile as inscrutable as the darkened skies of her ancestor's domain, eyes like gems glinting off-set against the endless dreary blue that spans for what feels like an eternity around them.
She holds out her hand, each and every time. There's a question in her eyes; the answer is always no, and there's no resentment in the crescent of her smile. Only understanding, and the understanding cuts between them like a gash.
"Remember not to look," she says each time he turns his back to her. Hands as cold as the waters around them skim along the curve of his spine, lingering at his tenth thoracic vertebrae in a caress that leaves a sharp pain in his chest and the taste of blood in his mouth.
Don't look back. Don't look back. Don't look back.
She always, always tells him this in that unhurried voice of hers. It digs in deep each time, as if she has used her power on him, when he has never known her to turn it against him. It slithers down his spine like a lover's caress, a pale imitation of the touches they used to exchange. The blows they used to trade in the heat of battle, now embers left cold in the hearth.
Her lips linger at his ear as he forces his way through the monsters, tearing them asunder with hands that don't tremble. Even in death he has never known peace, but this is the closest it will ever come for him - as long as he doesn't look back.
He can have her, for as long as he could remain in the Sea without it taking him; she will let him have her, for as long as he does not turn and look. He is only allowed that one gilmpse of her upon each death.
It is only when they reach the boundary that he feels the light touch of her fingers entangling with his. "May victory always be yours, Mydeimos. Until your last death... I will always wait for you at the shores of the dead."
"And I will always turn from you," Mydei says. "Until the last death."
She laughs. It is the hardest trial he has ever known, to never turn and look. "Very good, Mydeimos."
He leaves behind more and more pieces of himself in the Sea of Souls; each and every one of them remain in her hands. There is so much she could do to destroy him, but it is her smile that always comes the closest.
This is the silliest thing I've ever commissioned. It's almost funny to attach a somewhat serious ficlet to it.
Feathers of Paradise Lost
Increase the wearer's Max HP by 30%. Additionally provides additional ATK based on 6.7% of the wearer's Max HP. When the wielder's current HP is less than 50%, this ATK bonus is increased by an additional 3.3% of Max HP.
The breeze whipped past her, carrying with it the song of her people, now forever silenced like a candle snuffed out in the dark with the pinch of a finger. She could taste the sea-salt in her mouth, bittersweet as the memories that lurked under the idle surface of a tranquil sea, and smiled as she readied her trident.
In the fallen citystate, its white pillars stained with the dredge of the black tide, the streets whispered with memory. Abandoned homes waited for owners who would never return, pictures of a life interrupted. Lamps lit up to guide people who would never follow them. The flowers bloomed without sunlight to embrace them, sweet as a blushing maiden for an errant lover.
Silence lay steadily amidst the marble and filigree of Carmitis, and whoever walked there, walked alone.
'Sky sirens are capable of neither fear nor tears. Does that make our Maiden strong or weak?'
She had learned to fall gracefully before she had even learned how to pick a pen and write.
As did all Aquilian sirens.
She remembered long, idle summers spent swimming and catching fish, learning how to dry them under the heat of the Sky Titan's myriad eyes, memorizing the trill of her father's whistling when he made his rounds to the fishmonger. The days had stretched out, endless as the heavens forbidden to breach, and her youth had seemed boundless in its potential as the stars that winked out of existence day by day.
'Aquila had graced them with unparalleled mastery over the spirit, but They forgot to give them human hearts.'
If her father had taught her music, her mother had taught her silence — how to limn your disquiet with pleasure, to show a smile instead of cower, to cover your scent before you became the hunted. Her mother had taught her fear out of love. Love and fear were intertwined, born of a wish to bury a hatchling in the nest before the world found it and taught it cruelty. And unlike her father's song, it had kept her alive.
Ligeia had never been good at the silence, but she learned to coexist with it, if not befriend it. It seemed fitting that silence became her only companion, the last to remain by her side where all had since departed.
'She could be considered Their magnum opus if for but one flaw, and how her folly has ruined us all!'
She was not afraid. Her mind was an empty sky where nothing remained but the weightlessness of someone who had already accepted the inevitability of descent; if nothing else, she knew how to make it graceful.
She knew how to make it beautiful.
'Are you watching, Aquila?'
And she was going to drag down with her as many as she could of the corrupted who had already relinquished themselves to the tide.
Wasn't it the responsibility, after all, of the Holy Maiden to guide the lost?
'If you really want to, you don't have to feel anymore.'
