#lrdvyke

[goldhunt]

( STAB ) standing against to mine, still with your (sender) weapon (example: dagger, sword) in mine's body. ( eheheh )

THIS SHADED LAND SEEMS NEVERENDING. sometimes he feels as if he were one of them. the groaning shades that stick to shattered places, or follow pilgrimages he cannot understand. at first he had thought they might have come here in the same manner as he. washed up in a coffin, remnants of a life that could not return to the erdtree. he has learned, since, in whispers and echoes, that they are something else entirely. that a crusade of flame swept these lands in the holy name of his revered queen, and the embers are still burning. he stepped in one once, melting his shoe, singing his flesh.

his faith is upended, strung up with the corpses that hang by the wayside, so long dead nobody remembers their names. darian, hunter of the dead, stumbles his way through the nightmare, one half of a whole, severed. the blight lives on in him. it isn't enough that it banished his soul from golden, promised rebirth, no. it writhes within him, thorns pressing forth, his mind addled. the gold and silver is lost. he wears now pieces of armour pieced together from soldiers and wanderers alike. by now, he's grown used to the sword he found. how it's slightly longer and thinner than his old one, balancing differently in his hand. his face is bare to the winds. and they see it. darian did not live for so long under the golden order to forget the recognition in even undead eyes. you are but a fraction of a whole, a shattered piece that should not be. marika's name, here, is a curse. and in the absence of her golden light, he too is cursed again.

so he stumbles, then wanders, watching, searching. for a way out, but also ... if the tides of death brought him here, would not rogier, too, have washed up?

he finds a familiar face, but not the one expected.

vyke looks different. he has never been so golden before, not even in the days where they both were under one faith, before the betrayal. he is almost radiant. had he not spoken his name, darian would never have known it to be him, clad in white and gold, familiar and yet changed. a new crest upon him, a new faith, again. not frenzied, as people whispered. alive and sane and here to touch—

it tears open an old wound barely healed. raw skin bare to the putrid, ever-burning air. in the erdtree's shadow, they meet again, and clash.

❛ you left, ❜ gasps he who was once golden, now ashen with blight and uncertainty. the hurt gushes forth, spilling into the icy pale of his eyes, into the motion that pushes him toward the other man, gripping his armour. he can't decide whether to yank him close or push him away. to kiss or to kill—he can do neither. how fell a beast love makes out of grief. ❛ without a word. as if ... as if i—we ... meant nothing at all ... ❜ they wrestle but he barely feels it. too focused on vyke right in front of him. death roars within him, his own nightmare now sharing his anger. it happens too quickly. everything too fast, a blur of angry tears and relief and ...

it feels, at first, like a punch. the blade lodged in his abdomen is hard and cold, not at all the searing agony of the thorned branches twisting their way through his flesh. it is almost merciful. when he loses his breath, everything stops.

❛ vyke— ❜

darian keeps a white-knuckled grip on the knight, a fist in his cloak, while the other hand holds his own sword limply. he still bleeds red. even in his deathless state, his blood is warm and crimson, soaking the dirty cloth and staining worn metal. he glances down between them, at the blade piercing him, connecting them. an old lover's kiss is cold. his blood spills over vyke's hand. for a moment, they are one.

surprise widens his eyes when he raises them again, seeing vyke's behind the helm clearly for the first time again. pale lashes blink slowly in shock. tongue tastes iron, the smell of his own blood. the blade holds him up. as if pinned to thin air, numb and breathless, darian doesn't even sway. ❛ vyke ... ❜ he repeats, barely a whisper. shall it be this, then? a final betrayal?

❛ what has become of you? ❜

TENSION / @lrdvyke

[lyriumwrath]

Is he okay?

@lrdvyke. Sketches.

[dalishborne]

CONTINUED

@lrdvyke

A watcher, letting the events of Thedas pass him by in a comfortable silence. The land chooses a person, places them upon a pedestal to clean the messes of others, before it knocks them down as sure as anything that has grown too big, too fast. Vyke keeps it all in mind, but stays far from it lest he be swept up within the tide of its own change. Ah, but is that not what he is doing now? So close to Skyhold. So close to the very tidal wave, daring it to yank him out to sea ... He stares in that same silence down at the elf ( a Keeper, he thinks to remember ), someone who has been taken within the tides more than he has. There is a faint flicker of amusement that shifts within his pale eyes regardless, as his hands press upon a torn piece of bread until it is flat. ❛ You never asked for it, ❜ he says, a smile to his words despite no smile upon pallid features. A soft voice even if there is no helm now to muffle it. ❛ But I did. See? ❜

Revenelan squinted defiantly at the watcher, meeting his gaze head-on. She held his eyes while she shined a yellow apple against the mossy fabric of her chest, the sunlight catching the moisture on its surface. A sharp crunch echoed through the air as she took a big, hearty bite. The distant flapping of birds dispersing into the sky was the only other sound, creating a moment of suspended silence.

Revenelan eventually relented, breaking the silence. “Fair point,” she nodded, apple chunks bulging in her left cheek. She wagged a finger at the man, as if acknowledging an insightful observation. “I always thought it was more polite to introduce yourself first, you know? It helps establish trust.”

She swallowed the fruit with an audible gulp, wiping her free hand clean on the side of her mossy green robes. Then, with an offering, she extended her hand to the man before her, a Human gesture learned during her time with the Inquisition.

"In any case, my name is Revenelan, of Clan Aravun; I've come to Skyhold with my kinsmen. Well met," she said with a friendly smile and a glint in her honey-brown eyes. She couldn't resist driving her point home. "See? Doesn't that make you feel a little safer?"

[swcrdstellaris]

Lansseax revered the storms, and relished in them. Divine powers of the Great One calls out to her own, lightnings charge her conductive scales, and great currents of gust propel her, far mightier than any wings. Storms remind her of a long-lost home.

But as another one rolled over Altus raining down hails and torrential rain, the ancient dragon found no solace in it. The Order’s power is waning, she could sense it in the very air; extrinsic forces have now bypassed its domain, manifesting as more violent weather even beneath the Erdtree’s shroud. She knows what happens when chaos takes rein, and dreads it more than anything else.

Still, Lansseax could not suppress a mild grin as familiar footsteps approached the hill she was perched on. How could she? The human race has proven time and time again their resilience amid the harshest trials, their ability to remain pure of heart that sometimes puts the beastmen to shame. And this Knight was a testimonial of that belief.

Her voice was like grating stone limned with a deep growl, unfit for human speech in her natural form, but as soft as can be when she replied to his casual remark, pushing her own looming thoughts back. “-And Greetings to you as well, Ser Vyke. Thou art soaking. Come under my wings should your human shell not wish to have a stormy fever on the morrow.”

@lrdvyke

[goldhunt]

❛ his pull to me is so powerful, so terrible, yet my spirit cannot be evil as his. ❜

"it is not." he knows this with absolute certainty. with his whole being, darian believes that there is no evil in vyke. it took longer to understand that what drew him to the flame was not weakness in the face of seduction, not fully. that it was perhaps the very same quality that had assured d, as it did many others, that vyke was destined for the elden throne. that his grace, his valour and kindness, would set right the fractured lands between. he had simply lost his way.

darian kneels, hands carefully cupping the man's face. he says it again, would impress it upon him over and over, as if his one, singular voice could drown out whatever whispers persist in vyke's head. "it is not."

this conviction is unwavering. where darian's faith has crumbled, he still holds it here, in the goodness of vyke's heart.

"you are a good man, vyke." his head dips, tilting to ensure his pale blue gaze meet the other's eye. often does he feel helpless, powerless in the face of a force he cannot see, cannot hear, knows only that it has found a nest within the man he loves. he cannot soothe his pain, cannot heal his wounds or gift him restful slumber. only this he can do, to anchor him, wanting so desperately for vyke to never seek refuge with the frenzy flame again. "do not let him make you believe otherwise."

OLD MEME / @lrdvyke

[goldhunt]

d returns home only to find vyke already there. "finally."

their peace was never going to last forever. they both knew it. vyke, who made darian swear to let him go. darian, who quietly sharpened the blade and kept wood stocked. their bliss would end eventually and they thought to anticipate the recipe of its dissolution, as if it might prepare them for the inevitable.

never once did darian think the end would come this way.

dressed in flowy silks, thinly veiled vitriol in a tone of voice that calls his name as if a mother about to reprimand a child. oh, d... in the middle of the small lake, fia seemed akin to an apparition. a ghost of the past, of an age long gone. he had never seen her outside of the hold and so she seemed misplaced. the sunlight made her hair shine even under the hood, glistening gold more bright here than he remembered from the dimly lit room she commanded for herself. it seemed wrong, for her to be in the light. she had found him unarmed save for a small knife he used to cut through fishing nets and scrape the scale off his catch, or crack open the shells of sweet-water crabs. death came to him standing barefoot in the water, trousers rolled up, his face hot in the sun. (and death brought spirits. the whisling glintblades of an erstwhile lover turned against him.) the shallow water swallowed his scream when the thorns took root. above him, a bleary shimmer of the witch's face. she disappeared then just the same as she came.

the way home feels like an eternity. by the time darian reaches the garden gate, the sun has dropped low behind the horizon. the ascent is a blur, his focus wholly on keeping his insides on the inside, every branching thorn searing agony. they catch on his torn shirt, biting deeper into the flesh from which they sprout. light pours out of their small hut's windows. smoke rises from the chimney. when darian stumbles through the door, it smells of bread and rosemary.

relief falls over him like heavy drapery. vyke is there, unharmed, waiting for him. unharmed. waiting. finally ...

he's left bloody handprints on the door. "vyke..." he tries to take a step toward him, and falls.

@lrdvyke / A YELLOW SUNRISE

[goldhunt]

❛ remember how once we were? ❜

IT IS AUTUMN AND THE FOG IS THICKER THAN EVER. seeping in from the great lake, it floods their garden to where, in the fleeting light of the early evening, the eye of yelough shimmers faintly through its haze. darian's eyes are fixated on the almost unnerving orange glow. he has to tear himself away from the window and back to the task in his hand. the needle has stilled, a last stitch to be placed to finish the mending of vyke's shirt. he looks down upon his handiwork. it isn't crude, but no thing of mastery, uneven in places and certainly noticeable. but who will see it but him? whose eyes will catch on it, here in their lonesome? he finishes, weaves in the thread, and puts the precious roll of twine carefully aside.

vyke seems to feel his melancholy, or perhaps they are both afflicted, drawn by the present's silence to the distant past. in the later hours, when darian's fingers trace over the patch of his needlework again and again as he lays against vyke, it finds a voice.

and he thinks back to the roundtable hold, to the journeys through limgrave and beyond. to three impossibly young men, invigorated in their rebirth. he thinks of the feeling of purpose grace gave him. the guidance that pointed him to a life, that he followed alongside his friends. he thinks of quiet nights in the hold, where vyke's hands were the most holy thing he had ever known. how high their hopes had been, then. how great his zeal and unwavering their path, though it had already begun to crumble.

in the dark, darian doesn't look at vyke. his lips ghost over the man's impossibly warm skin when he breathes his reply. "it seems like a lifetime ago. as if i would not recognise myself." indeed, that person seems perhaps even farther away than who he was before his first death. now not even rebirth is a promise. perhaps there is mercy in oblivion.

his laugh is soft and low, cushioned by the night. "we thought we would be young forever." darian turns his face further into the curve of vyke's shoulder. the charm he wears around his neck to protect him from the flame digs into both of their skin at the tightened hold. it takes effort to lift the blanket of melancholy, but a sweet memory makes it easier, though it only holds the light for a second. "remember, bernahl's face when he walked in on us in the hold one night? i don't think i'd ever seen him blush." only d's own flush had rivaled it, pouring from his face to his pale neck and chest. he had not found it quite so amusing then. those years ago, when they lived in the luxury of touching each other without fear.

"no, i don't think i could ever forget ... " he adds, and the humour has faded from his voice. though things fade from memory more than he dares face, the golden glow to his recollection of that time still shines. perhaps it blinds, too. but he says nothing more.

NOSFERATU (2024) / @lrdvyke

[yetarnished]

This exchange mirrors others that have played out in private conversation: Godwyn assuring Vyke of his convictions, while the other questions the reasonableness of them. Still, he is glad his knight challenges him, in spite of how maddening Vyke can at times be. There were many reasons he handpicked Vyke; his perceptiveness to look beyond the petty squabbles and politicking of the royal family, including his own fanciful ideas, have made him invaluable.

❝ Do not speak as if I will not return; I will. Time has been working in my favour. Graces, I am unable to even remember how long it has been, but with my ascent nearing, Messmer will want to witness it himself. He is my blood, Vyke; we are kin, and the hope he carried that I would continue Marika's reign will sway whatever path he is on when he sees that hope will be a reality. I am certain of it. ❞

He reaches to touch his knight, his love; hands coming to rest on his lean shoulders, unaccustomed to the weightlessness of steel armour. ❝ I cherish your devotion, your willingness to follow wherever I go, but do not speak of yourself as if you are a just a tool. Your value to me extends so much further than that, ❞ How torn he is; allow Vyke the space to move within his role as future Elden Lord or to keep him safeguarded, protected. Why can he not do both? ❝ I know Messmer will want to return, but he cannot be so quickly led to it. If any harm should befall you because of mine or mine brother's actions, a misstep on either of our parts, I would detest myself for it. I would like it if you would stay here. ❞

@lrdvyke / cont.