#varali

[memoryshard]

🌸 They’re girlfriends 🌸

Ones a naga and the other a deer-centaur uwu. Trying out a new style

[solarine]

Baby blue - Would you consider having children? If so, how many?

Solarine beamed. “Yes, absolutely! I’m rather hoping for two more, but I would settle for one. Not any time soon, either way, as I would like for Varali to be attending school or being tutored by the time the next one comes along. Old enough, at least, that I will not be dealing with any more toilet-training accidents from more than one young child at a time.” The beaming smile was marred by a slight shudder. Clearly, there was a story there. 

“Two is better. That way, if...well, if something happened to one of them...” She left the rest of the statement unsaid. “Well, neither myself nor Illapa have any other family to our names, not by blood, and...I think both of us are of the mind that we would rather not be the last of our lines, nor risk them immediately ending with our next generation either.”

[solarine]

It was the first day of the Midsummer Fire Festival, which would mark the second year that Illapa and Solarine had been together. Their two-year anniversary would come later in the month, but a gift had already been made and left for the elder Priest. 

Solarine and Varali were already fast asleep by the time he arrived at their shared apartment that evening, but the distinct scents of Midsummer incense and gingerbread still filled the air. A plate of freshly baked gingerbread cookies greeted him on the dining room table, along with a second surprise. 

Next to a box of crayons - Varali's new favourite thing - were several papers marked in a toddler's distinctively crude and messy drawings. Atop the pile, clearly set apart from the others as being special, was a drawing of Illapa. Labeling the drawing was Solarine's handwriting, which had carefully been copied down in the first word Varali had spoken, a year earlier, and now the first whole word she had written. 

He knew she had been practicing her letters already, a rather precocious child in some respects, but now, the fruits of her practice stared up from next to a crude drawing of his own smiling face. 

Papa, it read. ---- @illapa-greybane

[solarine]

❈ - ideal birthday

“I haven’t had a real birthday celebration in so many years that I’ve largely forgotten the customs,” Solarine admitted, grinning to herself. “Varali is now old enough to enjoy cakes and songs, of course, and I’ve rather enjoyed showering her with such things for her own.”

“I suppose having a whole day off to spend with Illapa and Varali might be a nice way to celebrate. Breakfast in bed...no, in the bedchamber, but not in bed, as there could be spills or crumbs. Breakfast, then a trip to a menagerie or a museum, and then we’ll leave Varali in the hands of a caretaker before we get the rest of the night to attend a candelit dinner and then...’dessert.’” Solarine grinned wider, leaving it at that.

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Lovely pallavi in Varali on the violin by Akkarai Subbalakshmi.

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Didn’t know the lovely singer S Sowmya could also play the veena! Soothing rendition of “Eti Janmanu” in Varali.

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Another beautiful interpretation of "Mamava Meenakshi" by the Priya Sisters.

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Can't seem to get enough of this beautiful Dikshitar composition in Varali rendered flawlessly by Bombay Jayashri.