Ah, my baby. This is Lyrissa. She's at the end of her life, and it's breaking my heart. I've had her for nearly 12 years, and I love her so much I'm drowning in it. We will bring her in on Saturday, to ensure that she doesn't suffer (it's cancer, which we've known about for a year, but the steroids have stopped working). We've had the past month to love her as much as we can. She's had a good life, and I'm so happy I was part of it. What a gift she has been.
Anyway, @unforth wrote a poem, maybe last year, about your old cat, sitting next to you on the couch, and knowing it was time for them to go. Could you dig that up for me? I've been thinking a lot about it lately.
Here is @mikkeneko's poem. It's so sad and lovely.
My son dropped by very briefly yesterday to pick up his car registration decal (he’s at college and not allowed to come home until the end of the semester b/c Covid... unless he’ll be illegal without his paperwork, apparently). We had dinner outside, and he sat inside for a bit, all of us in masks and 6′ apart, so he could pet his cat.
When he left, she went up and nestled in the top of his closet and looked pathetic and abandoned. (She’s my cat, too, the drama kitty, she’s not all alone!)
maya and lyrissa are both vibing it the hell up in the “morally apprehensible women who when faced with what seemed to be the end of the world at the time just straight up grabbed it by the middle finger and martial arts twisted it to their will and now theyre tangibility is questionable but their impact is large and ominous and also they have the unwavering devotion of a man that would do literally anything to make their pursuit of The Bullshit that much less work for them” trope and im happy and terrified for them
wow guess who hasnt written any solo fic in for FUCKING ever and guess who isn’t even REMOTELY surprised the thing that kicked my ass back in gear was my fucking nightborne. of course. of course it was
anyway hello here’s something that happened way back when suramar was first being breached, and in fact probably even before it, because the eclipsion is just that many steps ahead
"This is it? I don't see anyone."
Soleiltrois glances back and forth just to be sure, then crosses her arms and pouts just slightly at the demon inquisitor beside her. His face is as expressionless as always—but then, hers is hidden in a veil across her nose. She, however, is chilly this far from Suramar's heart; the night wind takes swipes at her, defenseless in her dancing clothes.
She leans on a slippered heel and taps her other foot, and eyes the wilderness beyond the city's edge. She's never seen the world just behind a now-shattered barrier, and if she were to be honest, she used to imagine it as a wasteland, burned away in emerald fire...
And now Elisande brings those monsters into the city they've protected so long? Soleiltrois casts the demon beside her a wary scowl. This one claims himself a deserter, and though she doubts him, she too is disloyal.
She nods at him. "Show me."
Wordless, the inquisitor floats forward, right to the edge of the cobble street severing the city from the woods. The moonlight casts his shadow over the stones, until the end of it is swallowed by the wilderness, where he stops. Silence consumes, save for that whistling breeze and the rhythmic, waiting tap of Soleiltrois's foot.
Then the wind gets colder; the elf even flinches. Brief fear takes her features, arms quickly unwinding as she steps back—there is a wicked energy in the air and she feels it on her skin like static. The demon does not move.
"Zil'ruun," she whispers in a hiss, eyes darting around, but nothing reveals itself to her. "What is this?"
"The doctor," Zil'ruun rasps, his voice a ragged, breathy sound, as if he speaks on his inhales instead of the exhales; "is in."
"What in blithering tarnation does that—"
Her mouth snaps shut, silent, as Zil'ruun's shadow flickers and then bursts to life. A yawning, breathing void rises from the shaded cobblestones, darkening as it coalesces, until it appears black as the night sky, with white splotches in its featureless form that Soleiltrois, slowly, realizes are multiple eyes and one long maw of razor sharp teeth. The horror places two limbs on the ground, grotesque with claws longer than broadswords, jagged horns that protrude from what the elf must assume is its skull. Its form flickers unendingly, shadows rippling deep within it, or peeling off like motes of smoke.
The horror lunges, its face stopping within a hairsbreadth's of Soleiltrois. She feels a scream in her lungs that never makes it to her throat, the urgent want to flee simply caught and paralyzed like a rabbit by its hunter. She stares, wide-eyed, into something deeper than she can comprehend, very nearly pained just by trying.
And it... laughs at her. Giggles at her. Soleiltrois breathes just a little bit.
"Doctor," rasps Zil'ruun's ghastly voice. The horror (doctor?) doesn't look at him, studying Soleiltrois, but one long earlike appendage bends curiously in the inquisitor's direction. "This is the arcanist we spoke of."
The ghoulish monstrosity speaks, and Soleiltrois wheezes. "Arcanist Sageveil," it greets, a gnarled and echoing voice of its own, as if dozens speak at once; it's feminine and strangely singsong in cadence. It giggles again.
"Please do stop that," Soleiltrois says, struggling to keep her voice firm, yet still it shakes.
The horror blinks its five(?) eyes at her, as if bewildered, then jumps in a startle. "Oh," its hideous voice rasps; suddenly the shadows collapse, like gravity-defying water pulled to the earth at last. They splash around the feet of a woman, short and olive-skinned, her bouncy waves of hair like the sunrise sure to chase her nightmarish visage away. She waves her fingers at Soleiltrois, smiling cheerily. "Excuse me! Is that better?"
The arcanist is stunned. She blinks stupidly at the smaller woman—her ears are long and pointed like an elf's, but her eyes are an unsettling fel color—finally, helplessly confused, Soleiltrois shoots Zil'ruun a balking look.
"Inquisitor," she says politely, "what the fuck."
She flinches when one of the smaller elf's hands shoots out in a gesture of further greeting. "Dr. Lyrissa Solsong," she says, a hint of professionalism touching her darling voice. "The shal'dorei have hid away in their city for many millennia. Tell me, arcanist, have you heard of the sin'dorei?"
"Children of the blood," Soleiltrois observes, skeptical. She shakes Lyrissa's hand. "No. Are all of your people, your Eclipsion these... sin'dorei?"
"Nope!" Lyrissa nods back at Zil'ruun. Soleiltrois lets out a small 'ah'.
The arcanist clears her throat, resists a shiver—it's more at the last few moments than the cold at this point—and musters a professional smile. "Doctor," she says, "I do—I do recall your leader's name being... Embereye? I confess I still don't quite believe it."
"Understandable," Lyrissa chirps. "But I assure you, the arch magistrix is just as she claims. Zil'ruun tells me you can discern this?"
"Yes," Soleiltrois says with a glint of pride. "My magic is undeceivable. I have thorough means to make certain this arch magistrix of yours is just as she says she is."
"Good!" The doctor claps her hands once. "Then our coming appointment will be brief. But that is for another time—Lady Embereye sent me ahead to make sure we're all on the same page."
"Oh?" Despite her efforts, Soleiltrois can't help but sound a little nervous. "Rumors of your activity within Suramar Province have spread through my city. Elisande and all of her people know you have the potential to be a great pain in her side."
"How complimentary of her," Lyrissa says. Soleiltrois gives a dry laugh. "Then you as well must know what the Eclipsion is capable of if you are, how did you put it, deceiving us. Yes?"
Now she understands. The smallest sweat breaks on Soleiltrois's brow. "You have my attention, doctor. Our rebellion failed, and the survivors were exiled to the wilds for their bodies and minds to starve. I know those stragglers outside the city will only fail again. But you—"
And her eyes glance across at Zil'ruun. He is unreadable by nature, by the very wicked energies he was forged from, but he stands silent and loyal at Lyrissa Solsong's side. Soleiltrois knows what power the inquisitors hold, how quickly he could leave the both of them as stains on these moonlit cobbles.
Except now Soleiltrois has seen what Zil'ruun saw. Could it have been this doctor that turned his loyalty away from the Legion? And if she is only an underling of an alleged Embereye descendant...
"You," she continues, meeting Lyrissa's eye again, "give me hope."
Lyrissa's laugh and smile are so nonchalant it feels like the weight of Soleiltrois's sentiments go right through her. "I'm happy to hear it, arcanist. You don't mind if I make certain? For my commander, of course."
Soleiltrois squints. "I want to be of service, but—"
"Splendid."
She opens her mouth to protest, but Lyrissa raises her hand to the arcanist first, and Soleiltrois feels her words, her thoughts, perhaps her mind utterly stolen from her. She feels the sin'dorei's gaze, suddenly piercing, hollow white, injected like needles into her very self and drawing up—something. Everything. She lays bare Soleiltrois's whole being through the glass of a syringe she doesn't hold.
It's over in a second, but it feels like a century. Soleiltrois gasps, gags, turns away to promptly vomit. Lyrissa is still all smiles, her fingernails folded toward herself as if to look over her handiwork. Is she? Has she taken something? Soleiltrois doesn't know.
"Arcanist," the doctor says, when she hears Soleiltrois's wheezing turn a little more to breathing. Something has softened about Lyrissa's voice. "Your love and loyalty to Suramar colors every thought in your mind. Truly—sincerely—there is nothing you wouldn't do for this city.
"And nothing you wouldn't give to purge the demons from it." Lyrissa's eyes look up at the arcanist, green again, but dazzled. It scares Soleiltrois, who only composes herself and swallows thickly. Lyrissa beams. It's frightening. "My lady Embereye is going to like you, Soleiltrois."
to be honest it would also make lots of sense to make lyrissa a void elf but the thing is she’s better than all you normies so she gets to keep her 100% corporal form And command the expanses of the twisting nether
