Heya, I know I am an Internet rando but I wanted to say you aren't alone. I've been out of words for awhile, feel trapped by the things I can't do. Your worth isn't in the art, you are wonderful-- and it's possible to heal the places where the art is injured, and it's possible to grow around it too. I don't know if it helps, but you're one of the people I most enjoy seeing on my dash, and I am sending you so much positivity. I hope this passes, I hope you heal, I hope you find joy.
Thank you my friend ;; even from an internet stranger this means a lot. Much love. 💕
Hello! I really like your OM art, I was wondering what program you use and/or your line art brushes? Your stuff is gorgeous and the wips you share always inspire me to try my hand at something!
I use Clip Studio Paint at the moment, and my lineart brush is just the G-Pen Default brush set to 90% Opacity, and 80% Brush Opacity (and max brush stability but that's more a personal thing)
🥀 - a complaint / 🌹 - a confession, both for Avenai and Leina!
🥀
Avenai
“You do what Oosra does. You... restrain. When you’re angry with me, when you have things and feeling you want to say, and spit, and get off of your chest about what’s happened. I wish you would just say it. I want you to say it. I want to deny you no freedoms when you’re with me; you are not my fucking subordinate.”
Leina
“You’re fake in the way I can see through without even thinking about it. I’m not upset by that or offended, but you should do a better job. The bratty sweetness only works for so long while you put your talents into the spotlight like that. You can’t hide... whatever... the fuck that is if you’re parading it everywhere now.”
🌹
Avenai
“I’ve missed you. I was gone and even before that, I felt... so distracted trying to keep up with everything new I have been learning in this world. I’m glad others have been with you, but letting everyone else do the ‘work’ is... lazy, wrong. I want to see you more as I readjust to things, and I want to just hug you like I used to be able to.”
Leina
“Anything big between us, I’d tell you to your face. Or it’s just... obvious. There. Transparent. Maybe that’s just what happens when you have two very loudmouthed girls in one room. What could I confess? I guess I read your romance novels one time when you fell asleep at the bar.
...I will stick to my classical literature.”
@stormandozone @cynfuldax
(Warning: Violence, blood, and death after the cut)
Thanks for the prompt, @stormandozone!
The clank of chains echoed down the hall as Vander was half-marched, half-dragged from his cell. The guards on either side of him had taunted him for days, making bets on how long he would last if he got the noose, or if the first round would do him in if he was put up on the wall, or if the court would decide that a more unusual sentence fit his crimes. One leaned in with a sneer. “Sentence’s in, pirate. Would ya like a hint of ‘ow yer gonna go?” Vander lifted his head to meet the guard’s eyes with a smile. “Oh, I heard. Your mother should get a medal, the way she gives everyone in the block a last-” He was cut off as the guard slammed his fist in Vander’s face, and his partner clubbed the Duskwight to the floor.
Vander tried his best to curl up, but the manacles chaining his hands and feet together impeded his movement, so the guards’ boots found every soft spot possible. After what felt like an eternity, they hauled him to his feet, and the first guard backhanded him before snarling, “Gag ‘im! I don’t wanna hear ‘is smart mouth no more!” The Elezen struggled in vain, snapping at fingers and getting another cuff or two about the ears for his trouble. Finally silenced, Vander glared as the first guard grabbed him by the chin. “You’ll see what’s comin’ soon enough, pirate.”
Minutes passed like hours before they finally arrived in the tribunal’s chambers, Maelstrom banners hanging in every corner and over each table. The panel of officers sat on a riser, ceremonial robes spotless as the records they boasted. The one chairing the panel cleared his throat and began reading from the scroll, not even deigning to lay eyes on the prisoner. “Vander Thuun, you have been found guilty of arson, unlawful piracy, murder, and treason. For your crimes, you are sentenced to die by firing squad. Your name will be expunged from our rolls, and your deeds lost to history. May the Navigator guide you unto the deepest depths to be forgotten and damned forever.” With that, the officer rolled up the scroll, and the members of the panel rose and filed out of the room.
As the guards dragged him out to the courtyard, Vander wondered how it had all happened. He’d gotten too comfortable, complacent, and he’d paid with his freedom. Someone must have sold him out. Someone he’d trusted. He hoped the reward was worth it, because if there was anything out there listening, he’d linger on after death and terrorize the backstabbing bastard to an early grave of their own. Suddenly, he was pushed up against the wall, and a thick bag was pulled over his head as his manacles were hooked up to a post to hold him still. It didn’t seem real anymore. This was beginning to move too quickly for him.
“MAKE READY!”
The roll of boots stepping into position, the rustling of cloth and leather as the soldiers raised their muskets - in this moment, all sounds rang sharper in his ear. He pulled at the post with all his might, but to no avail. There wasn’t enough time.
“TAKE AIM!”
No, he wasn’t ready yet. There was still so much to see, to do, to say. A tide was swelling inside him, giving voice to an unearthly roar as he strained with every fiber of his being. He wasn’t going to go like -
“FIRE!”
He heard the thunder, the rattle of chains, his body dropping limply to the ground, but he felt none of it. All he felt was fire, then nothing.
Pushing through the crowd Regulus ignores the shouts of protest, the hands that grab for him. Rage pulsates through them all as they realize who he is, what he is; to all of these people he is synonymous with the end of their known world and his name has become an insult. He hates the way they say his name but he cannot blame them.
Regulus has done terrible things in the name of himself, and there is only one that he truly, honestly regrets.
Most of the faces he has never seen before, and so he pays them no mind. The ones he does he cannot bring himself to look at. Cannot bring himself to see their rage, their hatred, their sorrow. Their pity. All the emotions that he had fought so hard to keep out of his life have come together to paint a perfect picture of irony.
Several of them try to stop them but he finds his way through them, ducking under swords and spears and hands while running full tilt towards his target. He calls her name.
Avenai turns, and Regulus skids to a stop in front of her. For a moment they are the only two in existence. For a moment she is the only thing that matters. In on deft moment Regulus drops to his knees before her, bowing low until his forehead touches the top of her boots. They're old and ratty, so unlike Avenai that it makes his heart break.
Silence falls over the encampment as they watch.
"I'm sorry," Regulus says at last, his voice breaking as his shoulders start to shake with sobs he cannot let out. "Avenai, I am so, so sorry." He'll not beg for her forgiveness, that he does not deserve, but he will apologizes until the end of his days to his cousin. To the person he has only ever truly and wholly loved.
Murmurs in the crowd confirm what he already knew what would happen: people do not want his return, they do not want to fight under the same banner as the Black Eye, the Deadshot of Garlemald. But they do not matter. Only Avenai matters. If she damns him, he will be damned. If she demands his blood in payment for her suffering he will slit his throat and bleed out at her feet.
Regulus jerks when calloused fingers run through his hair, because suddenly he is back at the Palace awaiting the mercy of a man who has none. Will she want to kill him herself? He has never thought of Avenai as a vengeful person but then again maybe she never thought of his as a treacherous one.
Instead those fingers tug lightly as his hair, pulling until Regulus knows he should look at her. For a moment all they can do is stare at one another. And then:
"There is much to forgive, Regulus," Avenai smiles sadly. "And it will take time. Yet, I will have you at my side. If you mean it this time."
"Until my end." Regulus promises. This is one vow he will not break.
fucking--gorgeous replied to your post “hallo my name is fish, and i wrote liora skyheart. i’ve never really...”
reading Liora has definitely been helping me! I don't wanna get too personal, being a stranger, but just know that your work is appreciated ♥
i’m really glad to hear that it helped. :> god do i know what it’s like to just be trying to get through it and i ALSO know how good it is to have something other than... everything else to focus on. hang in there. 💙
stormandozone replied to your post “hallo my name is fish, and i wrote liora skyheart. i’ve never really...”
WHAT I've been following you for ages from a different fandom and now I find this out??? That's fantastic, you're amazing! Thank you for all your hard work!
it’s a small world! fun fact - two fun facts, actually; i was following @lzarts before she started working for voltage and i’m STOKED bc i really enjoy her art, and the second fun fact is that i’ve actually been working for voltage myself for a couple years and liora is actually my second route; my first was duke vale.
“Look at their miserable lives and tell me what you see. They’re just begging for you to end them.”
You can, you know. You have the power. That is why they tremble. That is why they will bow.
Esme’s brows pinched together. Words drifted into her ear as though spoken by a lover. It made her viscerally uncomfortable, but she was compelled to listen. With every syllable, the circlet in her hands felt heavy in such a way that could only be explained with wealth. The spun gold. The chunk of amber, gleaming in the low light.
Look at their miserable lives. They live in mud. They live in squalor. They need to be lead. They need to be killed. They want you to do both.
She looked up. Mlastynans peered at her curiously, surprise on their faces. Whispers traveled between them and children ran to go fetch whomever their mothers or older brothers sent them to get. Spread the news, they told them. She’s back.
They’re begging for it…. They’re begging for you to end or lead them. Kill or rule them. Or both. I can help you. Just place me on your head. What is a queen without a crown?
Esme frowned. Queen. Nobility. It is what she wanted. It is why she went to Sihira in the first place. It is what brought her to Raaja’s forces. It is what brought her to Mlastyna the first time.
It is also why she was running now. Or was she still running? Did she need to keep running? Why had she come back here? There was something in Mlastyna that called to her. Had it been this circlet? It looked so familiar. Merik had something similar on his head when he died. But–
Look at their miserable lives in the mud and shit and dirt. They’re begging for you to end them. Rule them. Put me on. Be a queen with a sword in hand–
Sword.
Esme looked up. That is what they were whispering. They were whispering sword and te shyrara. They were looking from her to the statue she had stood in front of a decade before. A figure with a sword raised to the sky. They had called her sword before. They remembered her. They called her sword now.
She looked at the circlet and pursed her lips.
They’re begging for you–
“I am not a queen,” she hissed to the circlet. She did not know what possessed her, but it felt right to clutch the spun gold and bend.
THEY’RE BEGGING FOR YOU TO END THEM. RULE THEM. PUT ME ON. PUT ME ON. PUT ME ON.
She kept bending and bending and bending until–
PUT–
The circlet snapped. What had felt heavy and rich in her hands felt like tin. The gold looked tarnished now. The amber had to gleam. The circlet was lifeless. It was quiet.
She looked to the now-gathered mlastynans and lifted her chin.
“I have returned,” she said, loud enough for her voice to carry. It was how she spoke on her ships. It was crisp, clear, and it felt right. “I have brought with me those that might follow. Some rayans. Some that used to hail from mlastyna itself. Rayid is no longer safe for us. Will you have us?”
The whispers halted and Esme could only hear the beating of her heart. But then the shouts came.
“Sword!”
“Te Shyrara!”
“Te shyrara, te shyrara, te shyrara!!”
The mlastynans began to chant and their arms reached out. It was a war cry. It was a call home. It was a declaration that she still had their loyalty, regardless of the years between them.
The circlet was right. She was the Sword. She could end them if she wanted. But she didn’t want to end them…and she needed no circlet to lead.
