Prompt 3: Temper - FFXIV Write 2022
Characters: Sinnan of the Night, Melanthian the Star; mentions of Idristan @roses-and-grimoires, Talia @reddevil-xiv and Fian @dark-revelries.
Eyes as dark as midnight watch the woman walk away. Her red hair sways behind her, casting sparks of twilight in her wake. He’s fairly sure she has no idea. Faerie swallows her up soon enough, taking her back through their Grove to the world she is bound to. The world that birthed her.
A fingertip curls around the sharp points of his teeth and he bites down, tasting the burst of copper sweet ichor. His needs should be fulfilled. Both of his spouses have made their visits recently, both gladdened his heart for the time they were with him. White hair like moonshine and crimson locks like dusk’s glow, their taste has not even faded from his lips.
Yet he turns away from the archway of twisted tree trunks and branches dripping with moss and wide green leaves. The Court of the Night bows to his will and ripples with his thoughts. The forest floor bleeds away, peels back to reveal the dark stone beneath it. A set of stairs spiral into darkness and he follows them. Down…
Down…
Down into the bowels of Faerie, where the plane splits from the constructed realm their wills and magics formed into the nothingness that surrounds every world. So many names for the night and each of them a gloss to cover the void of space. He is nothing more than a romantic thought on the tongues of thousands of mortals. Poetry provides him power, gives him life.
There is nothing that Night doesn’t have. His footsteps halt on the broken ledge of stone, his gaze cast out to reflect the starlight flickering back at him. One hand extends, a single name spoken with soft clarity.
“Melanthian.”
A star shimmers in response, brightening so much as to drown the light from the others nearby. Night’s smile quirks up at the corners of his mouth, and he extends both hands cupped together. The star comes to rest in his hands, shimmering and flickering like a language that only the two of them could understand.
“Does he have the right to mourn you as I do?”
Idristan’s words had not fallen on deaf ears despite Night’s quick refusal. Anger at the audacity of Fian’s Court to ever ask him for such a thing fueled that response and Night recognizes that now. Had he not stood toe to toe with Fian not long ago? Had they not spoken of the past?
“I am no one to deny the heart loves even if the man is rotten to his core. What I am doing, Melanthian? He who has torn us asunder, cast us into this centuries old decay, has sparked something in me. I bear no shame, merely a yearning to place myself in his path once more.”
Night’s cloak spreads around him as he crouches down on the stone edge, shadow smearing from the hem against the floor in whorls. The star flickers and pulses, a heart in his hands forged of belief, light, and love. His smile deepens and a soft huff of a laugh slips free.
“Have faith, you say?” Night shakes his head and releases the star back into the sky with care. “I will try. With the eyes of you and your siblings watching, I know I am not alone. My choices have led me here, cast me down and let me fall. My path is my own. I will rise again.”
Prompt 6: Avatar - FFXIV Write 2021
Character: Sinnan; mentions of Talia @reddevil-xiv, Idristan, @roses-and-grimoires Jayadeva, Fian @houserosaire and the Hunt.
The grove was quiet, not unusual for this particular day. Sleep evaded Sinnan, despite his nocturnal ways and his usual avoidance of his brother’s daylight. He wandered between the tall trunks of the trees that formed the boundaries of his grove. The magic weaving like shadows between boughs and roots quivered with his presence. Normally the boundaries bent and molded to his whims, to the wants of the pair that shared the grove with him, creating the pockets they needed in the moment.
Today, there was something different in the magic’s weaving, a weakness. Sinnan walked the entire perimeter of the grove in search of the right spot. Fian’s luck had it the spot was the last place he came to, where the river ran into starlight and poured into the cosmos beyond the barrier. Teeth marks rendered the barrier tattered, tiny holes allowing time and space to seep into the protected grove. This place that lingered in the inbetween, somewhere between Faerie and the Mortal Realms, The Grove was his safe haven, beyond the sight of his brother and the dragons. It was his fiances’ safe haven.
Sinnan stepped into the river, a soft gasp escaping him at the current’s sudden pull, so much stronger for the rents in the fabric of the barrier. His figure jerked and arms rose to keep his balance in the fast flowing water. One step after another, each carefully placed to ensure the slick rocks underfoot didn’t shift with his weight, slight as he was. The view over the precipice of the waterfall stole his breath from him. Fathomless black eyes swept out over the spattering of stars illuminating the pure black cloak of Night.
Out here, he was eternal. And it is here that he will return when the last of belief fades from the Mortal Realms.
His gaze slid down to his hands. Charcoal black skin quivered then grew cloudy, shifting between opaque and transparent. He turned his hands over and reached out toward the barrier to lay his palms against it. A sharp breath was sucked in when his hands passed through the barrier. Sinnan stumbled, bare feet meeting stone and then rushing water and finally nothing.
Black robes flowed behind him iridescent in the starlight twinkling around him. The hem shattered into a million feathers when his connection to the Grove abruptly ended. He twisted himself fluidly around to watch the spot he had fallen from. Teeth marks.
Teeth marks.
Sinnan smiled just as the last of his physical self faded away into the Night. The Hunt was here.
