Tagging Forward, with no pressure, to; @sleepyowlwrites, @jasmineinthenight, @tyne-sharrow, @rumeysawrites
@cycleofash, @innocentlymacabre, @aalinaaaaaa, and anyone else who wants to play, consider this an open tag :D
How To Play: I want to know what 1-3 songs you feel best embody a character from your WIP/s, either in general or at this moment in the plot.
Day 3/3 for these, and I'll track down a few songs for Stella Korazon. I have a bit of a twist with Stella, because I enjoy creating music videos with clips, so... I have a couple of her already put together.
Rachel Platten - Fight Song
I found this song for Stella when @faelanvance asked me what Stella's "Soundtrack" would be if Stolen was made into a move or tv series. Couldn't resist making a music video to it after I tracked it down.
Like a small boat on the ocean
Sending big waves into motion
Like how a single word
Can make a heart open
I might only have one match
But I can make an explosion
Demi Lovato - Give Your Heart A Break
This one still feels like a Stella Song to me, but it's a very niche perspective, in relation to how she feels about Reilly as the books progress. Again, a song I couldn't resist making a video to for the characters.
Now here we are so close yet so far
Haven't I passed the test?
When will you realize
Baby I'm not like the rest
Don't wanna break your heart
Wanna give your heart a break
I know your scared it's wrong
Like you might make a mistake
Daughtry - Wild Heart
The only one here I haven't made a music video to (yet). This just gives me such strong Stella Vibes. She's been stifled for a long time, and over the course of the books, she's allowed to grow and blossom into this person with so much live and vivacity in her.
Take me back
To that fire in your eyes
'Cause I know it ain't gone too far
Take me back to you and to your wild heart, yeah
To your wild heart, yeah
You used to be the girl that set the world on fire
And they doused your soul in water, but the flames reached higher
You'll always be the one that keep me crazy inside
And if you got a wild heart, don't you let it die
Can't remember the last time I drew something unrelated to Dragon Age, but @author-a-holmes broke the spell 😆 So here they are, Reilly and Stella from the unpublished "Stolen" novel. They were absolutely delightful to draw and now I love them ❤
Tagging forward, with no pressure, to: @wordsacrossemptypages @amewinterswriting @talesofsorrowandofruin @talesfromaurea @blind-the-winds @faelanvance @ambiguouspuzuma @sleepyowlwrites @authoralexharvey @ashen-crest and @serialephemera -- Also OPEN TAG to anyone who wants to play.
Your Words Are: Wet, Cold, Grey/Gray, Broken, and Tired.
***
My words were Frost, Dust, Burst, and West. I only had 2 of these in Changeling, and only 1 in Darkling, so I've gone back in time a little and done a "Find The Word" tag game for Stolen.
Stella, my beloved, I have missed you...
Taglist for Stolen: @josephinegerardywrite @strangerays @minamoroz @sleepyowlwrites
General Taglist: @noirepersonal @queen-kass-the-writer @athenswrites @bardic-tales @outpost51 @talesfromaurea @minamoroz @faelanvance
Frost Ice
(No frost, only ice)
Stella watched a whirlwind of emotions swirl their way across Indre's features at Nilions words. A splash of confusion, a dash of anger, and a wisp of fear. Frustration, annoyance, nervousness, determination, all vying for a place within her eyes, before she tightened her shoulders and the emotions vanished behind the kind of mask that Stella had seen soldiers wear hundreds of times.
"Then if you're heading for the basement, you'd best be on your way, girl," Indre ordered, a bite of ice in her tone that had Stella backing up another step in spite of herself.
Dust
If she hadn’t already known that the building was a base for a guild, the moment that her booted feet sank into a thick plush carpet would have told Stella something wasn’t right.
No dust rose around her as she stepped across the room, and the bed in the corner had fresh sheets. She paused at the door, listening intently for any movement on the other side, and when all she could make out was silence, Stella slipped out of the room and into a wide hallway with various doors scattered along both sides and a flight of stairs at the far end.
Burst
"Time to call the mother hen, then," he grumbled, "get Dara's fussing out of the way sooner rather than later."
"Honestly, you could do with some mother henning," Stella teased, "you look like shit."
He gaped at her for a moment in surprise, until she burst into delighted giggles, and he took a single self indulgent moment to just watch the blonde laugh before he forced a scowl on to his face, despite the ache it sent through his cuts and bruises.
"Thank you, Stella, you really know how to stroke a mans ego," he growled, sending her into fresh peals of laughter as he shook his head...
West
There was a flicker of recognition in his expression before his features settled back into stoic indifference, and Stella snatched her hands away and took a step back, stuttering an apology.
"Ah, you're Reilly's newest project," the elf said, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe, and crossing his arms as he studied her, "I thought he'd have you shut up inside a glass box, protected from even the mere mention of 'Vine'."
Pick one (or a few) ocs and describe a typical outfit. And, of you're feeling fancy, a nicer outfit for some event. Reference photos are optional.
Hello Sleepy, darling <3
How. How did you know that I'm actively working on compiling Artist Reference Sheets for my characters right now? :D
I don't actually have any set up for my Fey Touched project (yet!) but I do have some for Stolen, specifically Stella and Reilly.
And, since I know you've expressed an interest in Stella before, lemme share some of her preferred outfits...
Shoving it below a cut because it's image heavy <3
Stella Korazon (Stolen)
By choice, Stella dresses for simplicity and effectiveness. She dresses in muted browns to help her blend in, and likes clothes with pockets to keep her thief tools easily to hand.Her boots are her most expensive item, because she travels across Moryann. They have to be sturdy, hard wearing, comfortable, and also silent when she’s breaking into people's homes.
Her leather trousers are also well worn with travel. Stella’s pants are laced closed, and also have lacing on the lower half of the leg so they can be adjusted around boots, or for riding.
For shirts, Stella is partial to long tunic style shirts. Usually in linen or wool, and still in muted tones although she sometimes departs from brown to other natural dyed colours such as greys, greens, or blues.
Her tunics are usually long enough to hit the pubic bone/half way down the ass. The sleeves will be narrow, or tight. She can’t have loose sleeves when picking pockets. The reference image below has open sections on the sleeves, but they might also be solid fabric. Her shirts are really the area Stella has a variety of styles.
The neckline could be wide, as in the reference image, or it might be close to the neck, or it might be v-neck and laced.
Stella also wears a thin brown leather belt. It’s long, and wraps around her waist twice, before being tied off in a loop-like knot.
Attached to her belt, usually on the left hand side, is one small brown leather pouch. It’s where she keeps her thieves' tools.
Stella's never really had an opportunity to wear a nice outfit to a special event, until Book Two, Takeover.
I send her and Reilly to a ball and have to put my scrappy little thief into a gown so I may or may not have put my Highschool textiles design class to use and drawn her a dress...
The dragonfly brooch is worn on her hip and can be used to hold back the skirts to give her a larger range of movement. Additionally, hiding beneath it's tail and wing segments, this dragon fly is hiding an intricate set of lockpicks.
The lovely Knutty (@knuttydraws) accepted a commission of Stella (And Reilly) based on these details, so I'm just going to show that picture off at the end, because I never get tired of staring at it...
I was trying to decide who to write for this one. I know who I want to do (Reilly Mosswolf, from Stolen) but is it kind of cheating, because I've actually already written this moment for him?
I could do Stella, also from Stolen, but her moment would be super, super, spoilery...
Then there's Lizzy or Andric, from the Fey Touched trilogy. Both have good potential but it's still early days of writing their relationship so I'm not sure I can do either of them justice just yet.
I could do Krysis or Jack, from A Grim Awakening, but I know even less about them at the moment, than I do about Lizzy and Andric...
So...
All that to say, I'm going to do two. Reilly, because I do love his moment of panicked realisation, but also Andric because I feel like using a moment I've already written is definitely cheating on a tumblr prompt ^_^
Gonna place both snippets under a cut, because Reilly AND Andric's moments of realisation could be considered spoilery, although I'll try and edit them so they don't reveal too much of the plot...
Warning For Spoilery Moments AHEAD!
Stolen Taglist: @josephinegerardywriter @strangerays @whispersintheparchment
General Taglist: @faelanvance @noirepersonal @queen-kass-the-writer
Reilly Mosswolf, Stolen, Book One
Prompt; The moment when one of them knew
"I'm sorry you got caught in the middle of that, Stella... It shouldn't-"
"Reilly," the blonde interrupted him softly, shaking her head and dismissing his apologies with a gentle smile, "I've been caught in the middle of this since Hawk first spotted me steal a handful of coppers in the market... This wasn't your fault."
"We might have found [Redacted] earlier if I'd told you-"
"This wasn't your fault," Stella repeated, her hand settling against his arm and Reilly found his arguments vanishing as he met and held her earnest blue eyes.
Reilly remembered the look of attentive calm in her face as [Redacted] had been backing her out of the room. She'd never taken her eyes off him, trusting him to find her a way out, and Reilly huffed a soft sigh, frowning slightly at the blonde.
"You didn't even look scared," he muttered and Stella's cheeks flushed slightly before she turned her face away, eyes skittering around the room in a way Reilly now knew meant she was nervous.
"I was scared... but you gave me your word," she admitted, and Reilly's hands itched to gently turn her face back to his again. To study every facet of her features, to let the tips of his fingers trail gently along her jaw and guide her closer.
Shit, he thought, breath freezing in his throat. [Redacted] had been right.
'It's not the first time you've been blinded by big eyes and a smile...' they had taunted.
A person would need to be blind not to notice that Stella was physically beautiful, but it wasn't just that. She wasn't the first attractive person he'd worked with, and if it had been nothing more than her looks he knew he could have dismissed or ignored the draw he felt towards her.
He wanted to protect her, Reilly realised. The thought of anyone harming the woman before him sent a sharp pain through his chest that almost eclipsed the pain that was thrumming through the rest of his body, and he swallowed hard. Suddenly, Fahren's comments at the Verdant Hound began to make a dangerous amount of sense.
'Your mistake was being distracted...'
Reilly began running through memories, wondering when it had started. When the small blonde before him had wormed her way in. When his care for her wellbeing had shifted from professional responsibility to genuine feelings and he blew out a huff of disbelief when he realised that everyone had seen the changes except himself, even Dara.
'Stella... you don't use people's names... you're not getting attached to this girl, are you?'
"I... I did promise," Reilly managed to blurt out when he finally spotted the confusion growing on Stella's features at his continued silence, and let his gaze shift down to the blankets covering the bed he'd passed out on, "I promised Vine wouldn't touch you and now..."
"Two weeks and it'll be mostly healed," Stella insisted, shaking her head, but Reilly was barely listening to her as he smothered his growing panic, and frantically tried to figure out how to put some distance between them.
She was a temptation he couldn't afford, especially now that he'd just declared war with Vine.
A weakness that could be exploited, especially if he let his feelings develop any further than they already had. Someone else he could fail to protect, just like his sister.
Stella was a blind spot, and even [Redacted] had tried to warn him.
'You don't even see it, do you? You're too close to the girl, Reilly...'
"You should join the guild."
It slipped past his lips quietly, like a curse and Stella went still. While she hadn't been particularly lively anyway, the blonde froze in such a way that Reilly had to lift his gaze again just to make sure the woman was still there.
"Why?" she asked, eyes sharp and features tensed and Reilly quickly remembered that her ingrained distrust of guilds had been why he'd not invited her earlier. Stella choosing to run, to leave Antillune, wasn't an option however. Even if he could get her past Vine, Reilly already knew he wouldn't be able to watch her walk away and he sighed.
He just needed to convince himself to stay away from the woman until his infatuation passed, he thought to himself and he forced himself to convince the blonde that his suggestion was the safest option for her continued safety...
Andric Roche, Changeling, Fey Touched Book One
Prompt; The moment when one of them knew
Andric sped through the forest as fast as he dared, and not nearly as quickly as he wished to.
Enhanced senses helped him track her scent. Helped him to spot the light imprints of her tracks. Let him follow after Lizzy, but the young woman had hours on him and the rabid kavians had the advantage.
They would be able to hear her fey blood singing to them. Calling out, and drawing them closer like moths to a flame.
Both she and Booker had grown more competant under his tutelage. They might be able to hold off a single kavian now, but the forest outside Speculo School was often riddled with the creatures, as they sought a way into the grounds to hunt down the vampires that had once been their kin.
If the rabids found Lizzy before he did...
Andric stumbled, a hand lifting to brace against a tree as he struggled to draw in a breath, as the air in his lungs burnt with fear for her.
He'd suspected for a while that he was growing fond of Lizzy Hail. Too close, considering she was technically his student, no matter how informal their arrangement.
Her sharp tongue and stubborn determination made him smile, and despite his best efforts the fire in her eyes, and the spark of vitality in every blazing arguement she couldn't seem to help but engage in, drew him in as surely as her blood would summon the kavians.
He kept moving.
That would not be her fate.
Lizzy Hail would not become an exsanguinated corpse left to go cold on the forest floor.
Andric blurred forward, the world merging into a swirl of colour as he pushed his vampiric speed to its limits. Whatever happened when he found her - not if, when - he knew for sure that everything would change.
How, would be up to Lizzy, but Andric knew this fear. Knew the depth and the shape of it too well.
It was still close to the surface, the wound that the loss of his brother had inflicted on his soul was barely beginning to scab over.
And only love left a fear this cold cutting through his heart.
Okay give me the rundown on Stella because I think I'll love her
*vibrates with excitement*
Okay, okay, okay, Stella is my baby, so I'm afraid, since you asked about her, I might end up drowning you in details.
Accidentally.
Stella is my main character for Stolen. She starts off the book as, what's known in world, as a Jack-Thief. This is a freelancer thief, unaffiliated with a guild, who dabbles in all types of thievery.
(Stolen Spoilers beneath the cut...)
Through plot events, she finds herself alone and in a strange city, and is approached by someone who wants her to steal some documents. They claim the documents belong to them, and that they're just reclaiming property that's already been stolen from them. Stella doesn't quite believe them and refuses the job.
She then finds this same person has broken into her room later that night, and realises this wasn't something she actually had a choice in.
The whole starting inspiration for Stella was I wondered what would happen, how things would play out, if an amature thief successfully stole plans from a guild master, in the very heart of their own guild, and then tried to sell those same plans back to him.
And that's what Stella does. She steals the papers, because she doesn't have a choice, and then tries to trade them back to the guild master she took them from in exchange for help escaping the city.
What my poor baby doesn't know is she's just stepped into the middle of a turf war between two guilds, and escaping the city isn't in any way, shape or form, a possibility. The group she's just betrayed has a network across the land, so there's nowhere for her to run.
The guildmaster offers her protection instead, and she takes it, and that's really the foundation of the plot.
Stella's wonderful to write though, she's truly so much fun, because there's so much dichotomy to her character.
She was raised in a very particular manner that gives her an unusual outlook on the world. Some things she's very worldly about, she's not shocked by sexual advances, or open flirting, or lying, or betraying people... and other things she's been kept very sheltered from. Like genuine caring relationships. Support and positive encouragement. Trust based relationships. Murder and violence.
And while it doesn't come up in the first book, until the very, very, end, and Stella herself doesn't become aware of it until Book Two, there's a very specific reason why she was raised in the way she was.
My other MC for Stolen, Reilly Mosswolf, will spend a great deal of time undoing the damage that's been done by her isolation, and when Stella finally realises how she was manipulated, it may or may not break her, just a tiny bit *evil smile*
And have some gorgeous art I had commissioned of Stella and Reilly, just because you asked about her, and I can't stop sharing this piece. It's gorgeous, and it was done by @knuttydraws
Hello! You've tempted my muse with two, so I might have to just... answer both ^_^
Guitar "I didn't know you could-" (insert secret talent/hobby) Answering for Andric/Lizzy from Fey Touched Trilogy.
Fey Touched Trilogy Taglist: @jezifster
Rose: "You smell like-" ("eww take a shower", if that fits them better) Answering for Stella/Reilly from Stolen Stories.
Stolen Stories Taglist: @josephinegerardywriter @strangerays
General Taglist: @faelanvance @noirepersonal @queen-kass-the-writer
Prompt Response One - Guitar
"Lizzy!" Andric called, his voice sharp with warning, but she could hear the underlying concern too. It was the only think that stopped her from snapping back at the vampire.
It didn't stop her shooting him a dark scowl as he approached, and she saw his lips tighten with instant regret.
It soothed her temper, but she didn't let her scowl waver.
"You scared me," he muttered as he came to a stop at her side, and the concern in his eyes as he ran them over her, seeking out injuries, finally had her releasing her irritation.
"I was just walking—"
"You can't. You know that. Outside the clan's walls—"
"Kavians stalk the forests shadows, just waiting for an unsuspecting fey to stumble into their jaws. I know. You've mentioned. Repeatedly."
Her voice was bitter, and she shoved her hands into her pockets, glaring out at the woods and trying to ignore the slowly growing grin she could see on Andric's face from the corner of her eye.
"Oh! I didn't know you could actually listen," he teased and Lizzy snickered a soft laugh.
He could always do that. Make her laugh. No matter how irritated she was, and no matter how annoying she found his ability.
Even now, she was frustrated that she wasn't able to maintain her anger in the face of his teasing, but Andric's arm curling around her waist washed the last of her temper away.
"I always listen," she promised, and he hummed, part agreement in the sound and part disbelief.
"I always listen to you," she corrected, and his fingers tightened on her hip, pulling her into a hug as she let her head rest against his shoulder.
She might be temporarily caged, but at least she wasn't caged alone.
Prompt Response Two - Rose
For all that the Cedae desert ran along Moryann's western coast it was still blistering desert sands as far as the eye could see.
And Stella hated it.
It was constantly too hot, and no amount of refreshing ocean breeze could cut through the sweltering temperatures.
With Reilly at her side, she could ignore the near constant discomfort. He was a pleasant distraction from the reality of the situation, but he'd been gone for a week.
Busy tracking down a guide who could lead them across the next stretch of desert without them succumbing to the scorching wastes and lack of water. Stella hadn't realised just how much she would miss him until he wasn't by her side every time she turned around.
She didn't hear the horse in the cortyard of the safehouse, but she did hear the footsteps on the stairs. Recognising Reilly's steps just in time to turn to the door with a smile.
He didn't stop in the doorway, just came into the room and moved towards her, wrapping her in a hug, and leaning down to press a kiss to her lips before so much as a 'hello' had time to escape her.
He'd missed her, she could taste it in every touch, and in the way he sighed against her skin. Lips moving from hers to trail across her jaw until he could lay his head against her shoulder.
It was a soft tenderness that Stella didn't quite know how to handle. It was unexpected and new and she felt her hands flutter uncertainly, before gently resting against his shoulders.
Quiet words of affection flittered through her mind, but as her fingers shifted up to stroke through his hair, reality crashed into her and she wrinkled her nose, stiffening in his arms.
"Reilly..." she growled, and she could feel his shoulder shake with quietly supressed mirth before she shoved against him, separating their bodies.
"You're soaked with sweat!" Stella hissed, eyes narrowing when he simply tightened his hold around her waist.
"This is worse than after a training session!" she complained, shoving at him ineffectively, and her voice taking on a slight whine "Urgh! You're sticky! You're sticking to me! Go and take a bath, spirits damn you!"
Reilly only let her escape after she started squirming in his hold, and his laughter was loud and as irritating as the sparkle in his deep black eyes.
He submitted to her demands, but only after tugging her into the bathroom after him, and despite her many varied complaints, by the time the pair sank into cool water, washing away the desert sand from each others forms, Stella couldn't find it in herself to truly mind.
