#the old path

[corrya]

Thinking about the fact that the trapped orcish souls might now get a chance to walk down the old path and live in the shaper-less world they died trying to reach. Like, just how beautiful is that?

[see-arcane]

Just finished rereading this post by @thedesertisjust for the third time and my brain is boiling. I have so much I want to ramble about but I don’t want to add another brick to that immaculate text wall, so I’m setting it here

The closing bit regarding Worst Timelines already lived might slip more into Murray’s wheelhouse of divination, what with being a view of All Possible Timelines. Whatever Azune’s source of impossible perspective/awareness is, it dosed him with a taste of Murray’s kind of vision. Showing a flash of what currently is and dangling a threat-suggestion of the many different results depending on how the interaction with the present goes. Same as that momentous occasion in bringing back Occtis Tachonis with that nigh impossible surgery. There was only one version of reality where that event took place as it did and Murray guided the way onto that version.

With the vision of the Halovar carriage around the corner, which might have caught Azune and Hal unawares and unprepared otherwise, the unknown voice and its boom of Remember was reaching out of its own accord—tugging some spectral leash, moving a piece on a gameboard—to avoid the timelines and threats that would have come about if Azune had not known it was there. Azune is hypervigilant to the point of paranoia; or would be, if he was not a years-long plant in a station of authority working with the resistance who now has even more to worry about for himself and others. But even being on guard during his walk with Hal? During basically all his excursions and every other moment of consciousness? He didn’t reach out of his own accord to try to divine anything. Guy doesn’t even have a paladin’s Divine Sense, let alone any shown habit of trying to reach out with anything other than standard perception, insight and magic detection.

What got airdropped to him was delivered by a separate intelligence.

Now let’s bring it back to the inspiring post. All that tantalizing talk of reincarnation braided into Azune’s fixation on memory. The idea that he has walked the Old Path before and, in a way that goes beyond the simpler reforging of the soul that we see demonstrated with the Hounds of the King, Azune finds himself being prodded by an unknown force to be more than just another life lived post-Path. It wants him to Remember something and is reaching out from wherever it dwells to guide and guard him. What is it that needs remembering as Azune Nayar that was not enough to know in an older life? What is buried there, preserved and waiting, that is so important to this outside entity that it’s pressing down on his brain, insisting upon the route he’s taking, upon his nearness to the Schemers themselves?

Something Else knows him, knows what he was, and knows there is a route it wishes him to follow.

Something Else wants him to go forward on its path, seen from above by it, shown only in flashes to Azune himself, and to Remember, Remember, Remember.

And that has me thinking.

Veer back and away, to a scene with the Soldiers. Thimble giving away a precious memory, selling it for needed intel. Kattigan assures her that he will remember it for her. Remember what?

Further.

Further.

Azune Nayar, the dutiful son. Azune Nayar, the useful thing. Azune Nayar, dedicated to family, by blood or otherwise, to the point of death; his or any others’. Azune Nayar, obsessed with memory, with kin loved and lost. Ever shadowing and worshipping and performing for the sake of his father(s).

 Further.

(Father?)

A boy forgotten in the chaos of the battlefield. Bleeding. Dying. His father’s face…

You begin to stabilize. You see your father's face. There's something.

"It's not. Going. To happen. Here.”

It is not his father’s voice. Yet it lifts him away from death. Lucky to have a second chance, wasn’t it?

Further.

Further.

A priest before his god who is his Shaper who is his—

“We will never be without you. Why would you give us tools to use in an age without you? I cannot understand it. Father, please.”

"Does the sun not vanish with the coming of each and every night? Ages like days, come and go in the long march of time. Know that a day may come where I am gone, but a day will come where I return."

I have been gnawing hard on the idea that Azune has some tie to Tansul, or at least to the old houses of the Obridimian Empire. Obridai stands out as most eligible. All this time I was pondering a connection solely by blood. Sorcery inherited from a Broken and Sundered House. But what if the connection is deeper than heritage?

What if the very framework of Azune’s character, his lived life in the present, is itself an echo of something he has already lived?

 Azune, desperate to be a useful thing to his mentor, his pseudo-father. Yes, Thjazi, he will give up his life in war for you. Yes, Thjazi, he will forfeit his identity and future for the sake of a ruse, planting himself within the enemy force of the Arcane Marshals to better serve the cause. Yes, Thjazi, he will do whatever it takes to make sure he escapes, no matter the cost. Yes, Thjazi, he will carry the banner and the cause, even with the beloved hero now dead.

Further.

Imagine.

Tansul, at the edge of death. His last loyal member of a divine house teetering with him. An Obridai? A champion? A priest? A soldier? Someone who looked upon the Shaper of the Sun the way Vaelus and her siblings looked upon Sylandri. Not just their god, but their deific parent. About to die, to leave, to set like the sun and bring Eternal Night.

And a plan is devised in those last moments.

The faithful son of the Sun will forsake his own place in Tansul’s afterlife for the sake of the god and his divine cause. For him, for Father, he will turn to the loathed druids’ practice and walk the Old Path. However many times it takes. However many lives must be lived. Someday, he will be born as something useful. A weapon to wield on Tansul’s behalf. A plant among the humans yet to come, that he might forge the way for the Shaper to return as promised.

He will forget himself, he knows. But he will make the gamble regardless. He will do all he can to remember himself, his fallen kin, his dying empire, his Father, for a thing remembered is not gone.

Tansul, dying, about to pull down endless dark and restless dead in all their worst forms upon the land, meets his eyes. Suns seeing suns.

(Far ahead, in a Faerie glade. A ranger speaks to a pixie, her memory fresh-sold.

“I promise you, I won’t let you forget.”

“Forget what?”)  

But a god is not a man and there is more weight to divine oaths. Tansul’s falls upon his loyal soldier-creation-child like a brand, seared into the soul.

You will remember.

God and mortal, Father and son, die.

The Old Path is walked. Perhaps more than once in the space of seventy godless years. Here is a soaring falcon with the sun against its back, rending some predator too near its nest of eggs. Here is a loyal dog tearing the throats of a master’s foes. Here is some swimming seaside creature who dies mauling a fisherman seeking to make trophies of its fellows. Whatever small lives they are, they are not the right one yet. But they all have the same eyes.

Eventually, a boy is born with that same perplexing gaze. The sunset in miniature—a perpetual dusk, never quite lost to night.

Right now, Azune Nayar walks the world only as himself. Knowing he must do right by his father(s), knowing he must make his life useful for it to have any meaning, knowing he will kill and die and lie and place himself wherever and however he must for those he loves and their great cause, knowing he has to Remember.

All while something past mortal Aramán is pulling strings to guide him along a very specific path.

One of Azune’s remarks in the closing of the Overture is running laps in my head:

“The past has a very interesting way of coming back to the present. It never goes away. But I'm learning that we shouldn't always be held prisoner by it.”

This, in a universe where we just saw Bolaire tidily box away a mortal soul in a spectral prison for the sake of riding its body.

A universe in parallel to famous Exandria, and the nightmare of Lucien Tavelle taking back his place over poor Mollymauk Tealeaf.

One has to wonder.

If an old soul remembers what it was—who it was—too well, and the agenda it took to the grave? What exactly does that mean for the soul’s present?

[abysskeeper]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Rating: Gen

Character: Hannan & Vaelus

Summary: Hannan is greeted by the oldest friend he can remember, and in return reminded of the newest friend he made and the promise that entwines them.

(Post c4e31)

There was no time, and thus, there was never any chance.

Death had never been an enemy, not something to hunt nor something from which to hide. In the beginning of his youth and immortality, he rarely gave it more than a passing glance. The opportunity was always there for it to come knocking, effective immortality was not total immortality, but it was a shadow that always lingered over others, not him. Never him.

In his years as a druid, turning away from that promised eternal life and all the chains it carried, he learned he was remiss to never consider death for the force it was. Not a fear, but a necessity. Not an end, but a renewal. Not a villain, but one part of a larger cycle he found enough beauty in which to dedicate his never-ending life.

Not a weapon, but a promise against She who held such sweet power and taut chains. She who would deny them all the fullness of the life she promised.

In the past few years, death had become a companion. It was every bit the claws extending out from his hands as he was its dutiful talons. It was the mask he slipped on like a second skin as he was every bit its vengeance against those who slipped its grasp. And it was, regrettably, a bit of a courtship. His wish for death to claim him was not large, nor was it one that he would rush, but it was a thought entertained more than once. To finally be claimed by the only true friend he felt remained while fighting in its very name? It was a compelling wish for someone with as many years as him.

Perhaps it was foolish of him to think his dear friend would—could be able to grant him such a thing. Hannan always figured his death would come at the hands of too many undead, or when a mark finally proved to be more wily and made of more mettle than himself. Something noble, at the least, befitting of a member of the Circle of the Hunt. The middle of Obrimus Manor was not where he was meant to die, least of all from a simple word spoken by that damnable man.

Well, Amadah had always harped on him for having little tact. He knew it to be true, but even he believed the Sundered Houses were in no position to openly attack any follower of the Old Path. That was his true foolishness—an assumption of safety, an underestimation of his quarry.

It wasn’t really all that upsetting though. It granted him a definitive end to the compelling nature of those too oft thoughts. And death greeted him as the old friend he was; there was no scar on his body compelling him to rise again, nor any voice demanding it from a place beyond his comprehension. A small blessing, considering where he died. All that remained around him were a star-dappled sky and an old forest whose path he had tread hundreds of times in life.

It was finally time for one last walk down the Path, one as its target and not its guide.

He didn’t need anyone from the circles to guide him through the forest, he knew the steps intimately well. Still, the yearning for companionship—one aside from death, one of life…proof…hope—for this final trek became stronger than he ever anticipated once he was staring down the tall trees alone.

It could not be helped, he was not so impractical as to not understand that.

So, he set off on his own towards the entrance of the ancient forest where he knew his dearest friend resided. The stars glittered overhead and the wind gently billowed around him as he began his walk, calm, confident, assured with each next step. His fight was over, his old friend was finally inviting him home, his feet tread the Path thousands had walked before him and thousands would walk after him, were he so lucky to believe in those he left behind. And it was not quite so lonely when he considered it that way.

It was a scent on the breeze that halted his footsteps.

Vines of jasmine curled in the trees at the entrance of the Old Path. Just before the shadows at the entrance of the forest, Hannan stood frozen, staring at the white flowers dotting the leaves like the stars pricking the inky sky above. In the distance, faint cries shattered the silence, unreal in all but memory and yet heart-wrenching all the same.

So many had come and gone before him. So many of his own people—no matter how long he denied it—had been trapped in the chaos after the Shapers fell. How many more cried out the same way he heard in those fleeting moments before hope was proven true?

Unconscious, his hand reached out, a claw delicately brushing over a white petal hanging low in the branches. Another scream rang out, still only memory but just as raw and powerful and beautifully broken as it was when it was real and occurring. It shook like the loudest thunderclap at the peak of a storm, and Hannan could only close his eyes while his fingers wrapped lightly around the vine.

She had sacrificed so much and he had promised.

Two weeks ago and that would have meant nothing. A promise in life was nothing in death. Duty bade him forward, and true, even as he hesitated he could feel something deep and innate in his marrow urging him to walk into the comfort of the shadows, but it was fascinating how quickly a stranger could root herself so firmly in his heart. Even more so to be a Sister whom he did not trust, but proved to ultimately share far too little with her kin and far too much with him.

And in one of the last acts he witnessed on the mortal plane, she had given the world—given him a hope he dared never consider, in the face of a sacrifice he knew the cost.

He had promised. Though he wavered, feigning the process of a hard decision as his eyes peered into the dark of the woods and his hands clung to the tree, he already knew his answer. Something deep and old and innate demanded he walk forward. Something in his heart bucked at the very notion.

He had promised. His fight was not over.

The jasmine vine snapped in his closed fist, a portion of it coming with him as he pushed himself straight from the tree. Into the echoing dark, he affirmed what his heart already knew. “A belief for a belief.”

It seemed fair. Vaelus had given up her belief in Sylandri, her desire to save her family, and all the meaning of those two things in between in order to give rise to one of the most beautiful acts of sacrifice and hope he ever had the privilege of witnessing. The least he could do in return was uphold his promise. It was not even a forsaking of his beliefs; he would return to the Old Path once the time was right, with many more in his tow when Vaelus and her company succeeded.

There was no ‘if’ to question.

His gaze slid from the darkness of the Old Path down to the vine in his hand. He opened his fist slowly and whispered a request to the greenery in his palm. The broken vine snaked around his claws in response and made its way down his hand, settling around his wrist in a tight circlet. And if the nature of Aramán—even in death, even after his choice—was still responding to him, then there was nothing else to question.

“I will return.”

He whispered his promise to the Path he knew to tread before turning away and launching himself into the air, wings bursting forth to carry him deeper into the Underworld. Deeper into the unknown and uncertainty that came with abandoning his belief, and for one, brief moment, he understood how she had felt.

But he had promised, and he would be steadfast in that promise. He had a family to find, and stories to share that should make them proud of their daughter and sister.

[chillinglikeashilling]

I see sometimes, what I consider, a misunderstanding of what the Faramh tells us about Azgra, his priests and those who in general stayed loyal to the Shapers until the very end.

In the same way that Thjazi blasphemed against Azgra by turning his blood into paint, it was the intention of that last priest of Azgra to desecrate the honor that was being done for the heroes who killed Azgra when he asked for a blessing.

He was not actually asking or intending to grieve for Azgra- he wanted to make a mockery of the fallen's last rites by either forcing the priest to reject the ask for a blessing or by forcing the blessings of those who had freed the Rungjani to occur side by side with the blessing of the tyrant they had given their lives to kill.

If we are to believe (and I do think it's compelling) that Azgra's Barrowdell is the only good one because he was offered this blessing it has nothing to do with intentions of that on Azgra's or the Priest's parts.

In this last episode the crowd looked up at the hill Azgra once sat on and saw the Sundered Houses flags and realized there were still tyrants lording over their city so let us look at the current day tyrants for some perspective.

Primus Tachonis said

"If I am bested in our little game here by someone in this room, you have my word, I will applaud you and serve as House Tachonis did serve for centuries. But we cannot take our eyes off them out there, or did you not hear the Lady Royce's late husband and what he can still hear?"

If I lose to one of you that's fine but none of us can abide losing to them.

The entire existence of the River Gavzidra was caused by a mortal wound struck against Azgra by his brother Tansul. So this tells us two things:

The Shapers were all planning on killing the Orcs despite the fact that in theory they shared a common enemy with the Rungjani in Azgra. It would be ok for a Shaper to kill Azgra but unacceptable for his subjects to do so.

Azgra having been mortally wounded by his brother, another Shaper, used that wound to punish the Rungjani. He bound their souls to his blood to go to a section of the Pitt where they would be tortured by his Priests for their entire after lives.

I do not believe for a second that Azgra lost to the Rungjani, decided 'Good game' and did not curse the land on his way out.

I might be willing to believe that he had already so cursed the Rungjani that there was no more cursing left to do upon his death, that would make more sense to me and fit the Rungjani's characterization of him as the most honest of the Shapers.

I don't think that the Faithful of the Shapers that do exist are irredeemable or incapable of taking part in the healing of the Barrowdells. But I also don't think that they deserve to have their grief 'honored' in anyway by the rest of the world, and especially not by the Rungjani or the The Old Path.

In the same way that the first Priest of the Old Path acknowledged directly the harms and cruelties of Azgra in his final blessing, and in fact continued to blaspheme against him even while doing so, in the same way that the Priests of Azgra who had been lording over their fellow captives have now been dealt the fitting punishment of guiding all those they subjugated for their master to the Old Path, the Faithful will have to accept that the people they harmed are not obligated to treat them or their grief with kid gloves or niceties. Especially because those people are already doing the work of trying to fix the world.

[eirian-houpe]

The Old Path

Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold Characters: Belle (Once Upon a Time), Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, Red Riding Hood | Ruby, Grumpy | Leroy, Evil Queen | Regina Mills, Blue Fairy | Mother Superior, Baelfire | Neal Cassidy Additional Tags: Winter Solstice, Wild Hunt, rumbelle secret santa 2025, Rumbelle Secret Santa (Once Upon a Time), Mysticism, Magic, AU

Summary: An ancient curse, an unlikely protector, and a remembered shared past all come together to combat a new danger to Storybrooke as sudden onset of winter after a too long summer heralds the arrival of merciless Wild Hunt, and this time, the Fae have a single target in mind. Rumbelle Secret Santa 2025.

Written for @chippedteacupchat for Rumbelle Secret Santa 2025. The prompts were: Forced proximity, Christmas Eve, Baelfire. I took some artistic license with one of those, but only by a day or two. I hope they don't mind.

**

The Old Path.

Mōdraniht

It had been such a long, hot summer that had lingered far too long into fall, that when winter fell like an ax, sudden and brutal, no one was prepared for it, certainly not the smaller towns in Maine, towns like Storybrooke.

Belle pulled the meager cardigan more tightly around her shoulders, making a mental note to speak to Regina about getting the heating in the library maintained. It wasn’t that it didn’t work at all, it was just that it couldn’t keep up to heat the building since the temperature began plummeting.  It was winter, after all.  Almost midwinter in fact, and Belle, like everybody else, had become complacent; lulled into a false sense of security that a sweater was enough, and no one needed to change the thermostat.

“Ah, Ms. French,” Regina’s voice came from nowhere, as if Belle had conjured her by the power of thought alone, “I’m glad I caught you without too many patrons.” Belle’s stomach twisted with a new worry. Whatever was coming, she sensed it wouldn’t be good. “I need to speak with you about an important matter.”

“Madame Mayor, of course,” she said, trying not to let her wariness color her voice. “Would you care to sit—?”

“No need,” Regina answered brusquely, “this won’t take long, and I’ll cut right to the chase.  Effective immediately, the Library will open ten until one—”

“Three hours daily!” Belle said, indignation replacing trepidation. “No, that’s not right. The peop—”

“Ten until one, Thursday through Saturday,” Regina ran right over her objections.

“You can’t do that!” Belle yelped.

“I already have,” Regina said coldly, “And since it’s already two thirty, you’re done for the day. With its current patronage, Storybrooke simply cannot support a full time library, or Librarian.  You can stay in the apartment until the new year, but then after that…”

“This is outrageous!” Belle spat. “How am I supposed to survive on scraps.”

“How you make your living is your own business,” Regina absently examined the fingertips of her gloved hands, “but the reduced hours should give you plenty of time to make… alternative arrangements, don’t you think?”

“The people of Storybrooke won’t stand for this,” Belle warned.

“The people of Storybrooke will do as they’re told,” Regina countered. “As will you,” she added. “Unless you’d like me to fire you, and close the library altogether.”

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Belle growled, gathering her purse from its place beneath the circulation desk, then grabbing, and holding tightly to the library key. “So, I’m damned if I’ll give you that satisfaction.”

“I’m glad we understand one another,” Regina purred, dripping sarcasm with each syllable. “I’ll see myself out.”

The retort Belle conjured never made it past her lips before Storybrooke’s mayor swept out of the library, and had entirely disappeared by the time Belle reached the door and stepped outside.

Read more on AO3

[quarkmaster]

The Old Path

Level from a current personal game project I am working on with Cryengine. Assets were created with Maya and textured with physically accurate atlas from the quixel megascans library. Also includes some mega scans assets. Scene is running in real time at 60fps on a 1070 but am still to setup lods and do some more optimisation on some assets.

leon labyk

[chillinglikeashilling]

Not only are the Druids not some opposite corrupt force to match the Noble Houses but in fact their actual flaw seems to be borne out of a desire to escape even the perception of that.

The Druids wanted to make themselves a neutral force so that people from all sides and walks of life would feel like they could seek their aid but seeking to hold themselves above the politics led to them missing the growing threat of The Sundered Houses.

It's similar to the issue of the Witches in Worlds Beyond Number where all of the people of Umora were under the domain of the Witch of the World's Heart and treated as something to be ignored by the other Witches until they were suddenly forced into the position of opposing the Citadel by declaring war.

Trying to hold people and nature as seperate spheres of influence does not work because people are part of nature.

The Druids as a culture are still trying to rebuild their history, their traditions and re-establish their place in the world and acting as if they are now somehow limiting or oppressing whatever faithful of the Shapers still exist is ridiculous when a Dwarven faithful can look into the eyes of a woman whose people the Shapers were going to completely eradicate and tell her that in a village that can only exist due to the trade coming from Kahad the walls are filled with desperate pleas and apologies to bring back one the Orcs would be murderers.

[docsofaservant]

I invite you all, Reading and Seeing this post to try to Watch & Listen to this Live Bible Study and Exposition. Please Give It A Chance. For your Spiritual Being. You will have answers and understanding by just watching and listening to this exposition and study. Any questions, confusions, doubts, concerns in Life and Faith will Biblically be learned and Answer.

We can catch and watch the lives on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. For more information search The Old Path (Ang Dating Daan, El Camino Antigou) on Social Media platforms.

To God Be The Glory.

(This is just me a Tumblr user trying to share this stuff I got to know that I think is important that we people should know, learn, and consider :-) Knowing What I know now has me agree on Sharing it Here on this outlet as I'm aware a lot of people are on this platform too.)