Veseniya

tempus edax rerum

[theonxepialos]

Theon is quiet, often he's reticent in the sake of self preservation, but there's the nagging reminder that he's never fond of looking inward; the incubus knew what ugly beliefs of his that he stowed away and preferred to live in this distant land of harsh sarcasm. Recognizing any beliefs or hopes.... - he'd given up on that a long time ago, though the incubus had been known to teeter one way to give an inch to something, to show someone something beneath the surface. It helped that this one seemed affected by something terminal, accosted and scorned by the Fates, he was never surprised at that. "Well, they never stick around long," a tchh which resembled something of disappointment escaped him, but Theon tried not to frown so heavily.

His soul was tied to the Dark, all those years ago when he'd made a deal he didn't quite understand; when he still had the vestiges of an adolescents mind propelling his decisions, deluded by grief. Thus, he knew of costs, of darkness, and trouble; but Old Gods? He tried very hard to alienate himself from even the idea of them and as such, Theon very visibly stilled as Veseniya mentioned Dumat. "Oh, you're in deep shit," he couldn't help the laugh which bubbled forth, something more of disbelief; but any creature, unassuming or otherwise, could be tangled with darkness and he'd never make an assumption as to what threshold of Dark someone could handle.

As Veseniya wrestled with the bracelet and wrenched it from her wrist, Theon wanted to repeat the sentiment, but that same lacquer of self preservation reared it's head and Theon settled for something more aligned with vacuous sarcasm. "She is death," he snorted as though that would make the idea of Ereshkigal any easier to swallow, "Once she has even a pinky on your soul, she's not keen on letting go." This was more venomous and truthful, and is face of disgust was clear, "Whatever set up you have with her, don't count on her to salvage you from this." Theon's hand moved as though to encompass Veseniya's wilting life force.

[veseniya-tqd]

“They tend to be cruel. It is best if they are brief,” Veseniya finally said. It seemed Theon hed an unspoken disdain for Fate, but his feeling was present in the way he carried himself and the frown on his face. “And they do not bring gifts for the likes of us.” The druid could not name what threads bound the two, what parallel paths they walked. But she was confident there was a likeness–something like a curse or corruption. Perhaps that was why she did not dig her nails into this now-fleeting life of hers and beg that it be prolonged. It had been plentiful in its cruelty, and thus its brevity felt cruelly plentiful. 

Her head fell to the side slightly, cocked as if confused. Though there was a hazy, fevered look in her eyes she carried with her a certain sort of clarity of the big picture as well. “I am already dead,” she responded with a tone so flat it might be questionable whether she meant literally or figuratively. However, based on her understanding they were one in the same now. “And Dumat is no more. I suppose we must wait for our next turn to trail one another down for retribution.” But Veseniya felt she had had enough of the gods for a dozen lifetimes and then some.

Veseniya’s arm stretched forward, the tendons aching as she held the brace as far from herself and as close to Theon as she could. “Then the sands will have it.” She dropped it a moment later, the sands threatening to swallow it whole if neither retrieved it in the next few moments. “I did not yield to her then,” Veseniya said, vague in her reference to the time spent as a heretic amongst the cultists to Ereshkigal. Through starvation and punishment, through whispers and lashings, she had never yielded even the furthest corners of her heart to the gardens. “She will not hold me now.” Hold like a trap, hold like a comfort. “No one has come to save me in this life.” She seemed more confused as she responded to his assertion than she did fearful.

[theonxepialos]

“You wanna blame it on the Fates be my guest," that was rather typical of Theon, dodging questions, filling them with non-answers and not giving much of a damn if the person receiving such non-answers was satiated. Whatever wisdom he'd gathered over the years had been granted on the cusp of survival being tossed haphazardly into situations - contracts he'd accepted - and hoping to survive the onslaught. Theon had made it this far, a war waged within himself, a brand of self-loathing forged with the bonds of a deity that had kept him in this state of undeath for refusing their initial request. 

Theon crossed his arms, eyes sweeping over the addled druid with something a mild, disappointed sigh. Either this desert was torturing her again as it had to their little motley group when they'd last wandered here, or she was ailed with something far worse; either way, it seemed she was to be called home soon enough. “So who'd you piss off?" He preferred to word the question this way, some careful tiptoe to the possible truth of her condition. 

The incubus had spent his initial years of his own condemnation being rather pissed off at the deity who'd placed him in this sense of stasis, a being of undeath, but in truth he understood why this deity had once mocked him so. Ereshkigal was rather simple in her principles and passions - death was an inevitable, final, preserved under the cosmic order of the world no matter how many others willed it to be otherwise. “Even gods can't escape death," gentler this time, but there was something about Veseniya, learned in their brief former journey, where Theon figured she was not at all afraid of what was to come. 

[veseniya-tqd]

“The Fates,” she repeated, the word line tin to her palate. “The Fates have been here. Come, gone, forgotten.” Veseniya was not necessarily bitter on account of her death, but she was not happy about it, or rather the way it presented itself as a slow crawl to the end. Exhaustion made his indirectness grating, but she was not truly angry with him. 

“Toth,” she responded simply, the exhaustion that clung to her bones making it too much of an ask of her to so much as consider fabricating some sort of lie. Lysara would spin legends out of what the Legion had done. Maybe they should, especially out of those braver than herself. Veseniya would not be around long enough to hear them–they could depict her however they pleased. 

Her eyes narrowed at him, his cryptic message. Perhaps the next time they were granted access to the world by the Wheel he would make a fine druid of himself in his lack of directness and strange words. “There are no gods between us,” she muttered, a hand lifting to her ribcage as if she was suddenly breathless or wounded. Her bracelet caught some lingering vestige of life and called her attention to it. She pulled at it until the clasp snapped open and held it out between them. “Her?”

[haelimthewatcher]

"Before my connection to the Weave was taken, and my body rid of poisons, I knew my long age defined every breath I took as precious - they were sorely limited. Perhaps they still are. I had made peace with it before, but I knew, deep down, there was still some fear left in me... fear that my death would not be good. That I would hurt other's, or endanger the ones I love before my soul returned to the Weave." Haelim murmured. He could sense Veseniya had a similar fear, though any person who knew the honor in the druid's soul would be able to tell that she held these worries in her final moments. They were natural, likely even more natural for her than it had been for him. But Haelim, perhaps, understood them more intimately than a person who did not preemptively await death on a daily basis.

"But you have nothing left to fear. We come to you in your final moments as a choice that we have made on our own. We know your heart, Veseniya, and we know that the Blight is not a part of it. Should you act differently from yourself, none would ever recognize that as the Legionnaire we know..." Their relationship had been built on comfortable silences, graceful co-fighting and unspoken understandings. It had been so easy to find peace with Veseniya, and to communicate with her without the societal pressures of small talk and gossip. But if it hadn't been for business or for teaching, Haelim had rarely said so much to her at once. "The woman, druid and Legionnaire that we love as a sister-in-arms."

He sighed quietly. "... Yet I know these moments are difficult nonetheless, perhaps even more so, in a way, with our presence. So, I thank you, sister, for this gift of letting us accompany you."

[veseniya-tqd]

Haelim spoke at length, longer than he usually did. But still, Veseniya found it fitting that he said so much. He was who she had learned so much of the Common tongue from–quickly, but each word was earned and required effort during their early scouting missions. “There is no good death. No bad death. Only death,” she stated. Veseniya did not spend much time worrying whether she would be considered a hero in death, if her decision had been brave or worthy of the Legion to tell her story. It helped guarantee the success of their cause and another turn of the Wheel. To her, this was a worthy bargain. “It is not our souls that commit those wrongs. It is Him. And his every action and decision is corrupt.” Even so, she was afraid of what her body would be capable of with influence of the Dark One at the helm, or twisted into the shape of a Darkspawn. 

Were it not for Celaya and a few other significant farewells, Veseniya likely would have taken herself to the most remote end of the earth she could find and have welcomed the blade the same day her decision was made. In silence, she considered how she remained these final weeks more for the closure of others than for herself. “I am glad it is me. And not one of you,” she said of her reputation and status in the Legion. She had been a charlatan in the cult where she grew up, a nuisance to be dealt with rather than a member to be loved or appreciated. Veseniya was no better at expressing a sense of kinship now she she had experienced it than she had been years ago when it was withheld from her. But she appreciated what Haelim said regardless. 

She nodded, though she did not think this was something that required her gratitude. “We know what we have done was worth the price with Dumat… but the rest of it,” she muttered quietly, staring at the far away pin-pricks of starlight as sunlight slowly swallowed them. “Do you think it will be enough to win the world? I am not afraid to die, I am afraid of another life haunted by so much Darkness. Do you think the next time we are born, it will be into a time where the Weave dreams easily?”

[celayawitcher]

It does not take long into reading the letter to comprehend what Death stains its pages. Celaya's current reaction is tempered, stern and resolute considering what losses she has faced - yet those are tangible, not entirely marred by Death, but something that promises a return. What Veseniya spoke of here, it reeked of permanence and Celaya knew time was waning thin for her beloved friend.

Ankhuria was some place she'd never been, peaks and valleys shrouded with the deafening silence of a desert; it was a place that was unkind to any, but would be especially unkind to one born of frost and antimagic. Still, Celaya made haste after the letter had been read; there were no loose ends to tie up, no one to wonder where she would be gone to. Perhaps once before that would make her feel so harrowingly empty, but on the fringes of this letter, such loneliness comes with acceptance. Not everyone could face their fate, whatever muddled and fractured version said Fates granted to them, but Celaya was vexed by fighting against it any longer. She was a warrior, a brave woman, and sometimes - often times - that came with the realization that she was to bear such cross alone.

Celaya held the letter close as though she could smell the faint familiarity of her friend as Veseniya had been writing it - as though she would be hugging her one last time if the witcher could not locate her in time. It was said that those who fought at Amon-Sûl were already conscribed as living heroes, but it seemed her friend had paid the ultimate price for their heroic missive and Celaya did not fault her for that.

The transition from Lysaran borders to Ankurkian realms was stark, the cooler air transitioned quickly to the remnants of stifling heat. The sun was looming on the horizon and Celaya did not know what would await her in the darkness but she did not fear. She walked forward, a woman with a mission, a friend with a favor. She came with no armor bogging her down, just her respected equipment - her sword and shield, the ingredients of a potion tucked away in her rucksack. Her hair was wound tightly, intricate braids telling of what reverence was found for her friend, what respect and dignity Veseniya would be met with when the end came to pass.

Celaya mustered a smile of relief as a fire seemed to breech the horizon, off on the other side of the dune. Based on the map Veseniya had provided, the location was correct, but the smile faded as quickly as it was conjured. There was no telling if the vestiges of her friend would greet her or the strong embrace of it. She would not let memory delude her into hope. Celaya let out a whistle, the sound may have been slightly deafened by the wind but Veseniya was always perceptive enough where - if lucidity granted her this - she would hear Celaya's hint of arrival.

Such call was also given on the wonder if there were any others hiding within the crevices and dips of the dunes; Celaya would not let them stifle her mission, but she would end any who came to cross her before it was complete. After several moments pause, Celaya finally drifted towards the source of the fire to see what awaited her next.

[veseniya-tqd]

The days crawled by and within a week became indistinguishable from one another. Veseniya often lost time, leaving herself in the middle of a battle against a small horde of darkspawn at the side of one of her allies in the Legion and then coming back to center like she had been splashed with a shock of cold water in another time or place. No one reported her actions as violent, but violence would not be the only sign that her final hour of selfhood approached. Her dreams grew wilder, the spans of time she lost longer, and her quiet muttering more and more fevered. It became daily and then nearly hourly that she forgot the name of one of her companions. Occasionally, she forget her own.

Her time was running out, but it wasn’t gone yet. 

There was a whistle that carried across the desert wind. At first, she questioned whether or not she had heard it at all. Prudently, some members of the Legion had started to announce their presence from afar, a litmus test to see if they would meet back up with Veseniya, or a monster that took her same shape. And sometimes, she emerged from the tent to find no one at all. Other times, it seemed the stars whispered to her in pitchy tones from overhead. More than once, she had seen a cloaked figure or Ereskhigal herself on the crest of a dune.

When she pushed back the flap of her tent, she did not immediately recognize Celaya despite her familiar face or signature braids. Or maybe she did–but she did not realize this was someone she knew. But Veseniya sensed a sort of importance, a tranquility that came only from dreams calming her nerves and reminding her that this was someone who brought comfort with her. Then she realized it was Celaya. 

She paused for a moment as she felt heat on the high points of her face, finally gazing up at the merciless blue sky overheard, the sun a point of radiance that refused to be gazed upon. Day. She swallowed hard for a moment. The smell of the fire, the slight of a distant cloud, the taste of bitter herbs in the tea meant to keep her mind steady a little longer, the sensation of scorching heat upon her skin, and the sound of the whistle from a distance. All five senses. She was herself. She was awake. 

“We turn into Darkspawn, not to dogs,” Veseniya reminded her for a short distance. Then she whistled back at her. “See? Do you like it?”

[veseniya-tqd]

who: @xhakonx where: Amon-Sûl when: After they kicked Dumat's booty notes: don't look at me, I know it took me forever to get to this

No one made it out of the ritual that struck Dumat unscathed, each choosing something else to sacrifice for the greater good. Veseniya’s time now ran through Fate’s hour glass much more quickly than it had before. As things were now, the Calling not making itself as painfully apparent as it would become yet, Veseniya was still secure in her decision. She hoped those who gave up senses or abilities would be as well, not the least of all Hakon who had sacrificed his sight. 

Not long ago, she had led a blinded Elvhen through the dunes of Ankhuria, and so she would guide her blinded comrade back to them. Her voice was quiet as usual as she guided Hakon through the winding steps from the chamber deep in the earth and toward the surface. The warmth of the sun and low whistle of the wind through the dunes made their exit from Amon-Sûl apparent, even without one’s ability to see their surroundings. “Who will help you back to the Keep?” she asked, referring to Caer Glas. “I will not return.” But she would not allow the blinded Legionnaire to fight his way back alone, either.

[agnesisolda]

Agnes nodded solemnly at this, she appreciated this one's cryptic ways for it felt like a language only the two of them could understand. Candidly, void of any shared cryptic energy, Agnes stated, “I'm pleased to finally meet you, ” it had been quite some time since their shared and erratic dreamscape together. 

“There is a tremble of something, a whisper - in Iskaldrik. Have you ever set foot there?” Her eyes studied Veseniya carefully, for any tell of how the dream druid could feel of such place and if there was some recognition in what stones and runes Agnes mentioned. “Many druids utter of something that is yet to come, but Iskaldrik is still inaccessible and these things cry out to us with no solution.” Partly why Agnes had come to bother the dream druid; there had been something mesmerizing about the other, a similar flavor of determination and strife which lent to her talents. Agnes was invested in the others mind and what thoughts she could lend as solution; all of this sounded selfish, but Agnes had felt the other had a giving spirit, too, at the detriment to her very self. 

[veseniya-tqd]

“Are we not the same in dreams?” Veseniya asked, coming to stand near Agnes. The question was perhaps more philosophical than the dream druid meant for it to be, depending on how literally Agnes determined she ought to answer, if she were to answer at all. 

Veseniya shook her head no. “I was raised in Ankhuria, and have only barely seen this side of the border,” she responded, bound to honesty. “I have heard of their laws–cruel and harsh.” She suspected there was more to the story. Iskaldrik sounded as unwelcome a place for druids as the cult of the harbingers has been. She was quiet for a moment, contemplative and somewhat absent as she considered Agnes’ words. “Is there anyone left within to dream?” If the walls were impenetrable in the waking world, it might not be so in dreams.

[haelimthewatcher]

Date: After all that craziness... Location: *Dune theme song* Characters: @veseniya-tqd & @haelimthewatcher Notes: Goodbye friend :(

If there were any other Legionnaires accompanying Veseniya on her final journey, they were scouting or making camp. This was the first time since Caer Glas that he had had a moment alone with his friend, a friend whose time ticked away faster now than Haelim's ever had. Only a few days prior, the Witcher knew his life would likely be far shorter than any of his comrades. Now? His heart ached for Aradia, and it broke for Veseniya, for they were dead-women walking. Haelim was losing comrades; he would remember them and miss them until his head was full of grey-hairs, should Fate allow him that honor. A human now, no longer a Witcher with a body full of poison. He never thought he would outlive Aradia and Veseniya.

"Rest for a moment," he said, sidling up to the druid on his desert horse. Daewonsa was still in Caer Glas. "The sun is rising... these hordes are thinning. They will all be scurrying back into their caves soon enough." Haelim recalled his good-bye to Veseniya. He had worried that she would silently vanish into the dunes, a druid destined to disappear into nature's embrace. But here Haelim was, given another chance to look into those large eyes and and memorize that sharp, knowing gaze. Soon they would be near the very caves Haelim spoke of, and he feared the moment Veseniya might insist that she enter them alone.

"You still have strength and mind to conserve."

[veseniya-tqd]

Veseniya had put most thoughts surrounding her ill-gotten fate as far from the front of her mind as she could manage for the past several days. This was difficult as each night she dreamed in more vivid hues of blood and ash than the night before it. That, and the small entourage of her comrades who had insisted on seeing out phases of her march toward an inevitable and swiftly coming death. None of them would allow the Calling to claim her, she knew, and she had already written to Celaya somewhere in Lysara in hopes her friend would arrive with enough time for a lucid farewell. Any of the Legionnaires would afford Veseniya a swift, merciful, and honorable death. But when she had her faculties about her, she hoped it would be Celaya.

The dream druid was somewhere else when Haelim spoke. Occasionally, her face took on the serene and distant expression that had once been common. But more often now she looked to be in a deep sort of consternation, her consciousness somewhere else, but not in a place of peace or dreamlike state. Instead, she often looked to be at war with herself or increasingly suspicious of others. Battle seemed to bring a single-minded sort of clarity to her thought process, but increasingly she struggled at twilight and dawn. 

The transition periods between day and night confused her, twisting her mind as she felt increasingly compelled to follow the hordes of monstrous creatures into the dunes rather than to return to camp with the Legionnaires. More and more Veseniya’s clear minded consciousness worried she might return to camp one night too many and slaughter her allies in a moment of violent black out. More and more her crumbling mind dreamt of it like some sort of depraved, grim fantasy.  She looked to Haelim when he spoke, and it grounded her. Tonight would not be the night. There was still time. “You must be wary. Strength… mind…. But time will run thin. When I find that in between, half me, half monster, that is the time,” Veseniya stated, her eyes drifting out toward all that the sands obscured. “When I could act either this way or that, when I am unpredictable…” Veseniya thought she had made peace with the choice as she made it, and it was a choice she could live with. But she increasingly feared her mind would slip away at some critical moment and the influence of the Calling would puppet her body to commit an act she could not forgive herself for in this lifetime or any hereafter.

[theonxepialos]

starter for @veseniya-tqd.

where: wiggling around ankhuria

when: current timeline

note: so long, farewell, say hello to ereshkigal for me

Theon had made a rather flimsy promise that he wasn't going to return back to Ankhuria anytime soon and yet gold always beckoned to him more than whatever scorn felt within over trivial bygones. The sands of Ankhuria were cruel, especially as nightfall cast upon them, but Theon felt best alone somehow, as though a singular shadow could fit within as opposed to the throng of others once traveling through these lands months prior. A silhouette appeared through the night, faint and obscured in the dim vastness which surrounded them, but Theon knew this was no trick of the eye.

They were direct, walking straight through the dense, vacuous night until Theon was surprised to see a familiar face creeping through, though not one he may have expected; despite any Aknhurian ties she may have. “Returning to your roots? You look like hell has frozen over.” Disheveled, borderline enraptured in her own delirium; Theon did not know her outside of a contract which once bound them but he could tell she was a far cry from the druid he had once seen.

[veseniya-tqd]

Something was after her, lurking beneath the shifting patterns in the wind swept sand and slithering through the shadows. It had been following her for days, and the others refused to see it. But Veseniya knew–she could sense it, she knew when it gazed upon her, could hear its rattling breath, and its vitriolic hatred surrounded, raising the hair on the back of her neck. She had slipped away from the other Legionnaires who took turns accompanying her through these last days in the desert. They watched her as closely as this mysterious, beastly presence did. They insisted there was nothing there, but she knew. It had come to claim her, and it would eviscerate anyone who stood in its way–and they all pretended they were blind to it? How could they not know? 

Finally, the apparition showed itself, materializing between two towering dunes in the shape of a man. She summoned the dreamscape, its presence swirling and crackling between her fingers like static electricity. Wide eyed and ready, she would face it head on. In her own mind, Veseniya was painted as the very picture of resilience and bravery, but before Theon she was a wisp of a woman, rocking slowly on her feat, her head bobbing as she refused the nightmarish sleep that wished the pull her under in these last days of lucidity. Though, to call her lucid in this moment might be a falsehood. 

The voice, which she processed much more quickly than that face under the glow of the nearly full Ankhurian moon, pulled at the strings of her delusions and pushed the Calling further at bay. Her bracelet of Ereshkigal hung around a thinning, wilting wrist and flashed a reflection of the moon’s glow for a moment. She wore another, too, of simple woven rope. A moment later, as he came close enough for his features to become more clear, her features became awash in recognition. Then, realization. She glanced around, no sign of the camp she had been sharing with whichever Legionnaire was saddled with supervising before Celaya arrived. “Why have you come?” she questioned. The impact of the Calling she could not overcome instilled a sense of suspicion in her voice.

[einolegion]

Dreams and infernal nightmares were a rite of passage for the cambion, they'd taunted him since his youth and had simply become this cruel, albeit distant, background noise for him to tune out. Dreams could not wound him if he did not allow them such power over him, but this one with the dragon of silence, skulking in the shadows of twisted memories, was far too palpable and clear to ignore. This was something in similar cadence to the Calling, it felt like an End, and Eino could only wonder what they were to face when the sands of Amon Sûl inevitably welcomed them within.

"I am unfamiliar with this deity of yours," but he was of no simple mind and could place the context clues of why she would insert such name into their chatter revolving around Death and her many faces. Eino's head bowed, he understood the lack of warmth when it came to the word home. "I never imagined Ankhuria as somewhere kind; just like my glacial home, the blazing sun can scour just as much as the ice of Iskaldrik." Eino appreciated her candor, there was much to be discovered within her words.

[veseniya-tqd]

“Her domain, vast as it is small,” Veseniya responded, her eyes closing again, though the bright Ankhurian sun overhead burnt through the lids, illuminating the veins and radiating what to some was likely an unbearable warmth. For her, it had been once. A common punishment for her lack of faith was to stand in the high sun of the afternoon, her every sense ablaze with the stillness beneath the uninterrupted heat of the relentless sun--no water, no shade, no reprieve. In her mind’s eye she saw the face of the goddess carved from obsidian–a life size statue that her people had dragged across the continent until finally they took refuge in the remote stretches of sand and red rock. It was a placid face, unkind, unfeeling, and disquieting. “Ereshkigal, queen of the Underworld, below the sands, below the earth, the Great Below… Death, in the palm of her hand, permanence… darkness… a sorrowful trap.” 

She opened her eyes to look back at Eino. “Deity of the cult… not of mine.” It seemed important to the druid that Eino detach the idea of Veseniya from Ereshkigal. The most faithful and fanatical acolytes of the goddess would have slain Veseniya the moment she returned from the Arches had they not kept her so long and regurgitated her somewhere in the Silverlands. “A bite from frost… the scouring of the sun… Pain is pain.” Lucky were those who knew comfort and all things temperate in their youths, she thought.

[veseniya-tqd]

who: @celayawitcher where: by courier, then in Ankhuria when: Arriving to Celaya roughly a week after The Living Prison notes: letter as your starter, but if you want me to do more and set the scene just let me know and I'll do so.

Celaya,

By the time this letter reaches you, someone will have told you of all that passed at Amon-Sûl. Life has given you many reasons to question news so lifting as the dead of a god. I would not believe it if I did not witness it. It is true. Like all things, it comes with a price.

I would like you to meet me in Ankhuria. Please see the marked spot on the map enclosed. It is critical you come within a fortnight. Please come armed. If I am not there when you arrive, please wait. I will come when I regain lucidity. If your instincts alert you that something is wrong when we find one another, you must trust them. You must act on them. If I never come, speak to any member of the Legion. They will confirm what you already suspect this far into this letter.

If you are able, please bring with you a sleeping potion and a sharpened blade. The blade alone will do.

If the Weave wills, I will see you soon.

Veseniya

[veseniya-tqd]

who: @alucardrakul where: blessin' the rains down in Ankhuria when: 3-4 days after The Living Prison quest notes: Veseniya takes a hard earned break, a psychotic break, but a break! - feel free to shape, shift, direct however you please, and let me know if you need me to make any changes

Veseniya had not expected leaving Amon-Sûl to feel so different than it had felt arriving, even after she had chosen to sacrifice the decades she might have left and to open herself to the Calling for the purpose of cleansing the stones of the Blight and the world of Dumat. There was little in this world that Veseniya cared to witness after the deeply troubling early years of her life, but to have witnessed the revival of the standing stones brought her a sense of fulfillment. Many never witnessed such a miraculous feat no matter how many lifetimes the Weave offered them. To witness it was a gift punctuating an otherwise haunting personal history. The dream druid feared the time that would come when she could no longer see this with clarity or cling to the memory of how she and the other Legionnaires had accomplished what was assumed to be impossible.

These were the earliest days of the few weeks before the Calling broke her mind and reshaped her form. The dreams and intrusive thoughts when the sun set beyond the dunes were already tortuous, but she was lucid for most of the daylight hours. Initially, she had requested her dismissal from returning to Caer Glas in the interest of disappearing amongst the dunes with little more than steeled resolve, a lack of unfinished business, and a true blade. Instead, she found that Alucard was a willing companion amidst the most grim of terrains, circumstances, and tasks.

Together, they had slain whatever darkspawn was foolish or unlucky enough to cross their path in the last four days–more than half a week, perhaps a quarter of her time, maybe less, maybe more. Or had it been five? Six? Fear that she had lost count of the days, that she had mere hours or minutes reverberated through her. Her pulse quickened, her mouth went dry. Veseniya had accepted her death the moment she made her choice, but that didn’t mean she didn’t fear it. She stared down at the slain darkspawn, the sand already catching the wind and sifting over its blackened corpse to ensure it was forgotten forever. Then–suddenly–its eyes flashed open and it wore the visage of her pale and dead face. Veseniya reeled backwards, nearly falling from the shock of the hallucination. As she did more and more often with every passing hour, she looked to Alucard to ground her in reality, to confirm what was real and what was the Calling. 

[uxn]

[yenvengerberg]

ELLA PURNELL as RHIANNON LEWIS Sweetpea, 'Sorry for Your Loss'

[celayawitcher]

Celaya almost withered as Veseniya pointed out the more positive incline where her words were concerned, but Celaya braced it, shrugging after a pause, "There is a lot of bad that turned me into this, but there was a lot of good that came after." She hadn't seen Veseniya to have yet explained this; the aasimar, the celestial tether, and what witchers were supposed to be before they were transitioned into these monster hunters that inflicted more harm than good. "It turns out being a witcher wasn't supposed to be so terrible," but Celaya doesn't elaborate further on that; it would be many lifetimes before a witcher could be painted in a positive light again without being rife with the atrocities their kind once committed and were instilled with.

Celaya snorted, something genuine and borderline happy, nudging Veseniya in retort, "I can agree to that." She had always appreciated the candor of the druid, but Celaya hadn't realized how much she had genuinely missed it while aboard the Kossith ship within her suffering.

[veseniya-tqd]

Veseniya remained quiet as she stood beside Celaya. She was significantly older by comparison, but age provided little clarity given so much of her life had passed within the Arches devoid of the accumulation of any true experience. The world seemed to pass by the dreams druid in a state of consistent neutrality. She had left the hands of a cult and found herself thrust into apocalyptic world conflict. Good existed to her as little more than a concept. 

Her gaze shifted toward Celaya at the sound of her snort. Veseniya was not routinely in the habit of joking and had not meant to make one. “There is still work to do,” Veseniya stated as if to right the course of the conversation. “Have you recovered enough?”

[agnesisolda]

starter for @veseniya-tqd.

where: where my bug eyed girl at

when: current timeline, things have started happenin' but before she gets that legion letter?

note: as discussed

"I've been looking for you," the legion was not often easy to locate, especially one of it's members considering their reach over the entirety of Lysara. Agnes, however, was not a woman who tended to look towards defeat, a restless spirit who would overturn every stone if it led to a desirable objective of hers. "Don't you feel it?" A very druid quality to be so unerringly vague but Agnes had known their fates had crossed for a reason, that their dreams had not been mangled and meshed together simply because.

"More stones which speak of trouble," this fact of the matter was not something she was entirely sure of, but Agnes had felt the ebb and flow of this magic calling out to her from a place she was unable to access and she had to figure another druid could feel such palpable energy too.

[veseniya-tqd]

Veseniya had not forgotten the Genasi from her dreams. Given Agnes’ association she should have populated the shared dream like a dark stain, but she had not. Or perhaps it merely did not feel that way given the oppressive presence of the being that lurked in the dreams of all those who had taken the Joining. “The world turns quickly and the Wheel weaves strangely these days,” Veseniya responded vaguely, approaching the woman as she instantly recognized her. The dreamlike haze that kept her eyes perpetually somewhat glassy seemed undisturbed at Agnes’ question. “The ground shakes when I am awake. The dreamscape shutters as I rest.” It was not that Veseniya felt whatever was mounting, but that it demanded to be felt. 

The dreams druid that wandered from the Arches into Caer Glas Keep. A Field Commander awaited her there, not a Keeper. Druids were abominations in accordance with the doctrine of Ereshkigal. There was no guidance afforded Veseniya before or after the Arches, her understanding stunted and limited. “The stones speak?” It might not have been what Veseniya called what she sensed. She perhaps took the work speak a touch too literally. From her experience the stones gave and the stones took. But they did not speak–there was a bleakness to their silence.

[sersh]

ELLA PURNELL Hair styled by Seiji Yamada ahead of the Fallout Pop-Up Event in Toronto, Canada on April 12th 2024

[einolegion]

starter for @veseniya-tqd.

where: secreeeet tunnnelllll ! (not really we just out hea travelin)

when: current timeline, after riandur clapped his yiddies and sent us a note

note: as discussed

Eino had received the message alongside Nurcan but after their excursion had noted, firmly, that it was in the witch's best decision to linger behind even a day or two if she was to survive her travels to Amon Sûl. Death had seemingly been sealed upon the raven and the envelope it had gifted, but that meant they were to arrive at their greatest strength if they were to succeed within this battle.

Veseniya often never said much, similar to Eino, and it only relieved the cambion to thus travel alongside her. The journey, still, was long, and secrets shared and truths revealed only made them stronger to face this darkness. "Something tells me we will face one of Death's many faces, but something also tells me you have witnessed her visage before." He could see the weight of this on her because it bore a similar weight upon him, such cruel truths recognized one another, but he breezed from this comment onto the next as though he was merely chatting about the weather.

"The journey here is not easy, but Ankhuria - it was once your home, no?"

[veseniya-tqd]

Strange dreams had plagued the Legion for some time, but a truly curious entity had made itself known in a detached yet simultaneously shared dream of the Legionnaires. It seemed to Veseniya that things were meant to become stranger yet. For weeks now, Veseniya had silently tinkered with the notion of how hordes of Darkspawn had been observed to operate with a singular path and purpose: a hive mind. She wondered with no proof positive: did this singular presence within the dreams of the Legion posit them as something similar to the Dark One’s army of misinformed, Blighted puppets? 

Veseniya opted to ponder this notion over the message left by their Commander as she followed Eino’s back whilst they wandered the wastes she had once called home. There were wiser Legionaries than she, ones who knew Riandur much better than she could claim to, who would untangle the riddle of his sudden and cryptic instruction far sooner than she might. The druid was pulled from her trance-like internal landscape and she had to repeat the patterns of Eino’s voice to truly engage with what he said to her that shattered the silence between them. “Ereshkigal,” she breathed, the name of the deity mechanical and memorized on her tongue. “Death is not a trap.” That was how Veseniya felt the goddess treated it: a trap, a corner, a cage. “It is not an ending.” Not without some sort of divinity intervening where they were not meant to: Her, Ereshkigal, the Dark One—the name of the deity and its details mattered little to her. The Weave was wiser. 

“Home… Too generous a word,” she said finally. “A cradle, a grave—if there had not been an Arch in between.” She looked down at the small granules of sand that swirled over the dunes that slowed their travel. “The dessert remembers all death.” She stopped low and picked up a fragile bone fragment before she crushed it between her fingers and allowed it to sift away from her palm in the slight breeze. It became homogenous with the sea of sand around them, now part of it.  “It is death that makes up her matter.”