don't you ever tame your demons

but always keep them on a leash

[marketofstars]

"I intent to drink, I have no doubts that you will be able to keep pace." Her eyes did not shy away and there is a knowing twinkle in her eye, of game recognizing game, she was a born werewolf with the gene lying dormant until she had slaughtered and feasted on the Broodmother but her tether to nature had endured through the generations of the Darkwood clan, if her father and her grandparents had triggered their curse, they did not speak of it. Better to keep it hushed away as the land of Iskaldrik was not safe for those who carried magic in their blood. Although in retrospect, her grandfather would always disappear for three days when the moon was full and when he staggered back to their cabin, mud caked with dark ichor covered the soles of his feet and he would bathe in silence, once he reappeared, the grumpy edge that he had built had dissipated, she never thought much of it -- just old grumpy men behavior.

"I've been parched for too many moons, even the most backwater ale would be an indulgence." They preferred to keep them starved upon the Dreadnaught, when they entered into a state of hunger, it was easier to separate mind from body, for Luna to slip under and for Thaerraka, the wound eater to take possession. Before Thaerraka had taken control, Luna could not detect the scent of blight by smell alone but the forced transformations had allowed her the ability to detect her, it's what led her to Juneau and it's what she can smell now. The corruption thumped in her brain and she tried to drown it out with the ale, everyone had their reasons.

"I don't get out much, I rarely visit taverns. Everything I've ever needed could be found in the woods." She'd rather sleep in a bed of moss than an inn bed, although that's when she had the amulet of the moon to control her change and food she could hunt. Her nose crinkles at her mistake good naturedly and she lets out a small laugh before flicking the coin and hearing the satisfaction of it ringing in the base of the tankard.

[vuldak-ophir]

“If you are quite lucky a drink might be enough to wash that Iskaran accent from your pallet,” Ophir commented rather rudely, but within the same moment he flicked an arm upward and not long after a pint of ale was placed before Luna. It would take more than a tankard or two to unsteady either of them. This was one of very few aspects Ophir would name as a drawback to his species; the slaughter of at least one soul a month moved him very little centuries into his affliction. 

In another context, Ophir might have lectured her against settling for a life and things within that lacked quality. However, he recognized the insignia of the Legionnaires and her Iskaran accent. This, likely, was the best her life would ever be. It felt cruel to remind someone in her lot in life of what awaited the ambitious of their crumbling world. Ophir was no keen on the idea of taking on some ward who foolishly followed in his footsteps in treason of the Legion, thus he did not remind her of what she missed out on. “Will you be requiring another of these brackish brews, or shall I just request they bring the entire cask over?” Ophir asked as he observed how quickly Luna imbibed the ale. 

“Did you find that in the woods?” he questioned as he leaned back in his chair and gave a half-assed gesture toward the Legion’s crest. He highly doubted it. Ophir was fickle and set in his way. He was not genuinely interested in how this young woman came to join the Legion, aside from the potential confirmation bias that it wouldn’t have been by choice. He refused to entertain that idea.

[einolegion]

"Riandur's leash reaches far, you know," there was this rare smirk on his expression indicative of the true meaning of his word; they were all tied to something, why must Ophir paint their threads to the Legion as this hell to be relieved from? "If I believed you to be of the ilk that deserved penance we would not be sitting here chatting, Ophir." There is no threat laced in his words but it painted the picture of his leniency in the moment, of the disgrace of his own oath to cut an oathbreaker such as Ophir down. It did not pain him to refrain from this justice, he was calm within, but if they were to judge on the monsters they truly were biologically, then Eino was never meant to have the chance he had to dispel darkness all this time. His opinion was worth little on the matter of what was decided for Ophir, but Eino still offered grace to someone who would surely cut his throat with ease if the tables were turned.

"You were gifted to darkness, maybe you even walked towards it, but don't mistake my current passivity for rigid morals," Eino was on the side of good but often that did not express he was simply, in totality, a good man; each carried their horde of troubles and darkness, Ophir merely wore his more prominently on the surface. "I suppose resentment is your penance then, for you will suffer and grow darker the longer you carry that with you." Indeed, Eino offered the vuldak a pitied look this time around.

"I know the true taste of ditch-water, having been an orphan, you know," he talked and chattered of his past for it was no secret. Eino of Iskaldrik was told in many circles of the world; a boy with nothing, granted everything and more, wielding the power of a name and a blade because someone had given him a chance. Eino held no emotional attachments to his past and brought it up as humor as though they were old friends and both could relate to the memory. "The water at the Keep is fine," taking it further he stated this, disregarding the coin Ophir had offered without even so much as glancing at it.

[vuldak-ophir]

“Well, he sounds like a real daisy, doesn’t he?” Ophir drawled, his voice dripping with irony. He took another drag of his cigarette and eyed the red embers at the end of it fade to a smoldering gray before exhaling. “But it isn’t Riandur I’m referring to.” The Commander who had provoked Ophir’s joining had been a stalwart on a power trip. Though Ophir wouldn’t claim to have ever been the best of friends with Riandur–and certainly Riandur had never offered to frolic through a field of flowers with Ophir as Eino had–Ophir suspected that given Riandur’s own personal history he might be more sympathetic toward Ophir’s perspective. But sympathy did not mean forgiveness, and with a status like Field Commander to uphold Ophir felt fairly confident Riandur would not welcome him back to the fold with open eyes like some prodigal son. 

“What would we be doing instead? Would it be something more entertaining?” Ophir probed, refusing or perhaps incapable of taking life as seriously as someone with his lot in life perhaps ought to. 

The darkness this, the darkness that. Legionnaires often seemed to be of a one track mind, and Ophir might have mocked this if he was not equally concerned with the darkness, albeit for more selfish purposes. “I believe my resentments have always been quite charitable toward me. I’m still alive, aren’t I? And decades longer than the reaper would allow if he had the final say on the matter. A man learns to be grateful for such petty miracles.” Was living the same as chronically evading death, though? It seemed in these recent years there was little time to savor the nectar of living between scheming to ensure greeting another day. 

“I do apologize for the unintended slight,” Ophir smarted, his hand resting over his dormant heart. He wasn’t sorry, not really. Sob stories of orphans and other miserable wretches had never truly moved him, and they wouldn’t start now. “The water in the Keep tastes of the very decay it carries downstream.” On this, Ophir would not be swayed. “But you may spend it on whatever calls to you.” And if Eino did not pick it up the coin would remain discarded on the ground between them until some other traveler was lucky enough to find it by chance.

[einolegion]

"We all bleed for your choice; even if we are meant now to cut you down where you stand, such shifting of the sands does not make this easy. Whoever strikes you where you stands will bleed with what they have done - it is you who has betrayed this duty, betrayed your oath, I feel no compassion for the wanton you feel currently, Ophir. Regret does not dissuade the duty you had consigned yourself to." Eino is in staunch belief of everything he has just touted, but the blademaster still frowns at Ophir; not quite pity, but not quite disappointment either. Eino could not wholly commiserate with the idea of regrets but he could understand that there was no glamour to what they'd signed up for and could figure many of the weak mind could visit this decision with many regrets towards it.

Ophir was weak of mind not because he lacked cleverness, but because he was lacking any selflessness, and that alone conflicted heavily with everything the Legion stood for. They could not choose themselves above the duty they were aligned with, portraying selfishness dissolved any true valor for their cause. "You live a very long life though, several more than I will ever get to see, so perhaps I can understand why you wish to divert your path, even if I cannot agree with it." A passing comment, something he did not wish to focus on completely; if he was the one who needed to end Ophir's walk within this world, he could do so, but it would not be here. Tonight, this former legionnaire would have the floor to speak freely, even if it meant Eino swayed, even slightly, from his own duties.

"You misunderstand me," often Eino had mastered an expressionless face, but the blademaster quirked his lips into the faintest smile for his former comrade, "I just can't imagine there are many nobles left who will let you into their homes so willingly to pilfer coin from their bare hands." Many had refused to budge and would not open their doors to even the Legion, and many others in equal measure had abandoned their homes in droves to steer clear of this contaminated border. "And you would have the time of your life skipping with me, too," Eino mocked freely, though he appreciated the candor of the other even if it was polluted with such cloak of darkness now.

[vuldak-ophir]

“I find that preposterous coming from a blademaster like yourself,” Ophir mumbled, releasing a puff of smoke into the night air before lifting his cigarette back to his lips. The smooth, golden surface of his cigarette tin glinted in the firelight as he offered it out to Eino, four cigarettes still inside. “What would you have me do as penance? Return to Caer Glas or Amun Sul or whatever condemned tower they have tied you all to and beg to be leashed again?” Ophir suspected the only thing that would satisfy the “crime” of his departure would be indulging the Commander’s elicit glee in publicly stringing him up like an example–like the tales he heard of the savage Kossith in their dreadnaught. “Regret, my former comrade, suggests a choice. I assure you the Joining was anything but that. Resentment–that’s the word that sits better with my history than regret.”

“I am fully convinced that someone of your upright ethical standing believes I have fully squandered each and every breath I have drawn,” Ophir mumbled. Eino, if they truly felt that way, would not be incorrect. Ophir conducted himself as something as a black hole, ever consuming, never sated, wasteful and dissatisfied in all moments. “At least I am nothing if not consistent in my moral failings.” 

And yet, he clung to this empty and lacking life, because the only thing less fulfilling that his vacuous self interest would be the abyss that awaited him. No Legion could save him from such a fate, no moral compass, nothing–nothing save finding pathways to extend his years longer and longer. This desire to evade death was the true reason he had left the Legion. Perhaps if they could promise him eternal life he would have remained dutiful in perpetuity, but they could not. Ophir would need to find such pathways to prolong his life on his own, independent of the distraction of duty. 

“There is always a fool with purse strings dangling if one knows where to look. Plenty, in fact, lately. Say now, why don’t you take this and purchase yourself a drink finger than that ditch-water they pour at the Keep,” Ophir drawled. He flipped a large golden coin in Eino’s direction. The way Ophir saw things, Legionnaires were just short of taking a vow of poverty. Eino could spend the funds on good ale or a fine meal–not watered down plonk and unpalatable slop. “I just might–that world hasn’t been much of a lark as of late.”

[ruyaceres]

It wasn’t uncommon for the Vanguard to travel in flocks. For the briefest moment, Rüya braced for an ambush. She spun, the motion lifting a cloud of dust that briefly hung in the air before floating back to the scorched earth. Her breath came fast, like an animal caught in the open, but the visions didn’t return. Not this time. Her gaze darted from the weapon lying beside the corpse to the stranger’s face.

The Tower didn't teach witches to leash their power, but to breathe with it. Now magic raged through her veins, untamed and lethal. Precision had always been her creed. Ever since control had been torn from her fingers as a child, she’d clung to it. It was her tether, and the Kossith had ripped it from her—just as they had from everyone aboard their cursed ship.

He said something… light words, a joke maybe. Rüya's brow furrowed. Whoever he was, death didn’t seem to bother him much. Dispatch was a neat word for murder.

"Pretty words wouldn't have prepared his soul for the afterlife," she muttered, crouching to inspect the body. Limp, pallid, mouth parted mid-scream—she didn’t care. She flung a scrap of cape over his face, leaving his milky eyes wide open. Let them stare into the Abyss forever, she thought bitterly. The witch's hatred for zealots had been carved into her long ago. While her lapse in control rattled her, she wouldn't mourn this loss.

While the man before her didn’t immediately strike her as a threat, trust was a fool’s luxury. When Rüya stood, she made no move to bridge the space between them. "Not all who wander are lost," she said, with a vague motion toward the clearing. Wind stirred the loose strands of hair around her face, but she didn't brush them away, "But I am trying to make it back to Eterna without another blade at my throat."

"As for trouble…" Her lips twitched, though it wasn’t quite a smile. "We’ve got history. Where are you headed?"

[vuldak-ophir]

This woman was alert, but no longer elsewhere. The clarity that remained behind her eyes ensured Ophir would not need to resort to any sort of drastic measures to evade an untimely end at her hand, but he was perpetually prepared to shift into the visage of the demonic wolf that rode within him like a passenger. It had gotten him into as much trouble as it had gotten him out of, but he wasn’t afraid some lone woman in the woods would lead to the latter. “I don’t have an ounce of interest in that little toothpick he was swinging around, if that is what you are worrying over,” he stated, tracking the movement of her gaze. 

“Do you not speak the language?” he asked as he saw a sort of consternation take home on her face. He shifted his weight from one foot to another and lifted a hand to rub his jaw. “I can try another one.” He had rudimentary skills in few other tongues, but he was rusty at best at any of them. 

She spoke a moment later and Ophir looked more than mildly entertained. “So you do know the Common tongue,” he observed. Their new little friend, pitifully plucked from the world by the flick of this woman’s wrist, likely didn’t have much hope for breathing another day. But Ophir knew only one thing truly stood between a man and hope for salvation–and that was the Dark One. Were that the woman’s concern, she had selected the wrong mark. The rest of it, Ophir saw, came down to everyone positing themselves as the hero of their own histories. The church of the One God thought it was bringing light and balance to the world–they were conditioned to believe that, just as much as this woman was conditioned to believe the opposite. But Ophir knew the truth–the only real god was the self. 

“Well, I have always known traveling alone to be the safest option to make it from point A to point B with no concern for life and limb,” he responded, an obvious sarcasm in his voice but not a biting one. “Do you travel alone often? I tend to observe that Trouble loves to introduce itself as a most gracious traveling partner in that circumstance--never too busy to join the solo sojourner. There’s much more danger out in these woods than a Vanguard, but I sincerely doubt you need me to tell you as much.”

[theonxepialos]

"That'd be rather impossible, though I know now I've just painted a target on my back," Theon offered an annoyed expression at that, though really it made no difference if a thief thought they could pursue his pockets with ease. The incubus didn't exactly have a reputation simply based on the fact that he was an unknown threat within a crowd, his work done on the basis of anonymity, but he often found great amusement at the thought of someone trying.

Theon laughed, quick and almost bitter, the incubus shaking his head, "Afraid? - no, that was stated as simple fact. I believe it wise enough to save my own pockets from the swindling likes of you." Theon had no official business for sitting across from them, but it was something insistent and typical of him to merely do so. As such, he shrugged, a finger hooking the bowl of peanuts to be pulled in between them. "Set it up then."

[vuldak-ophir]

“Impossible? How so?” If there were some sort of magical artifact or personal barrier that made one an impenetrable fortress against thievery, the Vuldak would surely like to know about it. “Hardly. That would be entirely too predictable. You’d go directly to whatever constable they have overseeing justice in these parts and then it would be curtains on my long and storied career.” Instead, Ophir sat back quietly and slowly considered others within the tavern as his next mark–though no one looked promising. Plenty looked drunk enough that it would take only the slightest of efforts to pilfer from their pockets or coin purses, but he doubted the entire lot of them had enough copper pieces put together to make it worth the effort.

Ophir rolled his shoulders when the man across from him spoke again. With little concern whether or not it was an even share, he pushed an approximation of half of the coppers across the table toward Theon. The tankard was nudged to a more accurate midpoint on the table top, and the Vuldak sent his first coin bouncing against the worn surface of the table. It clattered within the vessel he had aimed it toward, a tinny sound filling the space between the pair of them before it finally halted flat and immobile on the bottom of the tankard. “You don’t seem keen to forfeit any of your coins, so I might settle for a name. They call me Ophir,” he stated, tone rife with boredom. “What do you say we raise the stakes? Instead of your hard-earned wages, whatever shall we use as wagers?”

[vicoya]

Her trips to and from the shore to aid washed up prisoners had taken her through many unfamiliar towns, all varying in size and charm, but each offering the grateful witch a place to rest. A hot meal and a soft bed were all the more appreciated after hearing horrific stories from the Kossith's survivors. She was walking past the local tavern, with no plans to enter, when one of its patrons stormed out, angrily brushing past her in the process. He continued to throw obscenities over his shoulder while Vicoya nursed hers with an annoyed sigh. Berating him for his manners would do neither of them any good, and would likely only add fuel to the fire - though she couldn't deny she was now curious as to what sparked it in the first place.

The inquisitive legionnaire stepped inside the dark tavern, eyes immediately drawn to the chairs, tankards, cards, and ale strewn about the floor. Yet seated right beside it was a man, calm and composed, seemingly unphased and unbothered by the mess. Instinctively, she kneeled down to begin cleaning it up, healing hands busy using the now-empty tankards to house soggy playing cards. "All this over a game?" She wondered aloud, currently struggling to put herself in the angered man's shoes.

"I'll spare my own dignity by admitting I've no skill for tavern games. I know a lost battle when I see one." Vicoya craned her head upwards to address the seated patron from her position on the floor, the polished metal of her griffon ensignia glinting in the light as she straightened to do so.

[vuldak-ophir]

One body out, a new one in. This was the way of taverns, always one grifter ready to replace the last. Except the woman who entered barely seemed the type. The rest of the patronage in the tavern this evening was primarily rough necks and sell swords, just the same as Ophir though he did make a rather earnest effort to stand out from them by taking a much higher level of pride and care in how he dressed himself and spoke. That, and he still had all of his teeth. But their coin all spent the same whether he earned it via formal contract or cheating at cards. 

He nearly snorted out a laugh as the flame-haired woman began to collect the discarded items from the floor. Any attempt to right what had been toppled from the table was a moot point; places like this were never really clean. “Over a bad hand of cards and the loss of a small fortune,” Ophir stated as he toyed with a small stack of gold coins that clinked and clinked as he fidgeted with them. “Leave that mess there for the bar maid, it’s what they pay her for. Take a seat over here before you get caught up and two of these fools trying to knock one another’s heads off, and then yours for simply existing in the same space as them,” Ophir advised. 

Ophir’s gaze did not linger on the Legion’s insignia. He had been able to smell the blight in her veins the same as she’d be able to sense it in his. This woman did not look familiar to him, but the events of the last year would have demanded a resurgence in recruitment to bolster the Legion’s ever-dwindling army. “Your kind has been crawling through Southreach and all stretches of the earth lately,” he stated idly, but his eye was transfixed on an unfolding argument across the dim room.

[einolegion]

Eino did not often wear a mask of cruelty, but he felt he had understood Ophir's choice perfectly; the Witcher had offered Eino the same illusion and though he had taken it in a similar fashion of perturbed stride but had warmed to the lifelong duty he had pledged when taking the Joining. It had been an avoidance of certain death, sure, but Eino had always looked upon the Joining with the intent of aligning a duty that was personal of himself with that of the Legion. "Such illusion of choice does not change what I have said. If you're to fear death, you can just admit it; but it will all come for us soon enough." Indeed, he did not fear death the same way, but when the Witcher had offered death or a life at Nornwatch Tower, Eino had felt his path was not yet finished for the dark was more rampant than ever. "You believe I skipped towards the Joining with great wonder and duty towards the cause? No, we are more alike than you think when it comes to the fabrication of choice," but with Eino it had not been the Legion who had force fed him the chalice.

"Coin?" There was this humored tilt at the question, finding Ophir's antics truly preposterous currently. Even before the vuldak had truly lost his head, he'd always been an oddity, but Eino did not welcome the biting edge of his words nor the darkness in his eyes. Eino was born with the very same darkness, polluting his blood, taunting him from the shadows; he could understand Ophir more than the vuldak would like to believe. "I am no conversationalist, that you know." Still, Eino made no move nor protest to Ophir's agenda.

[vuldak-ophir]

“No, I suppose it does not. What man doesn’t fear death, or at least find the notion particularly unappealing? I have never been accused of being an honorable man–accurately, I’m sure you would say–but I assure you no one bled for it when I abandoned the Legion. I could have left a much bigger mess, slain everyone in that Keep, faked my own demise and framed some poor bastard’s corpse as my own. I merely want to dictate where I am when the reaper finds me.” He had never been an honorable or honest man, but this was what most of his decision making truly came down to. “Then I can be hacked up or burnt to ash and scattered in some potter’s field, makes no difference to me, but I want a say in all that happens between now and then.” 

He shrugged his shoulders at Eino. Some members of the Legion did have the luxury of choice and squandered their free will by drinking from the Legion’s cup. Ophir would never understand that instinct, not because he had lived the life of a roguish criminal, devoid of honor, but because the Dark One could never be vanquished, and in this current age He could not even be suppressed. “It paints a rather entertaining mental image, you skipping,” he grinned rather than answering. “I gave it an honest attempt the first few years. Most of you folks forget that.”

“Not your coin, no. But I’ve made a rather handsome fortune separating frightened nobles from their own. And then double my income off piss poor card players with a poker face only their mothers could love,” Ophir corrected. There were few things Ophir denied himself. As a skilled mercenary and card player, there was little that was outside of his reach. He would amass a fortune, spend it all, and repeat the cycle some three or four times a year. His presence in Southreach indicated this was a time of famine rather than feast. “I have no idea why you would say such a thing. I am having the time of my life talking with you,” he mumbled around his cigarette, one hand wielding a lighter and the other cupped protectively around its flame.

[theonxepialos]

Theon often did his best to commit many faces to memory; names were superficial, hardly painting a necessary picture, but a face said enough. Like this one, as Theon rounded the corner as the other stormed off, he was rather surprised to find some faint inkling of recognition. The environment helped; tankards of ale, the shadowy feeling of the bar, and he tried not to roll his eyes as they prattled off, unnecessarily verbose. Theon had to figure, much like himself, this was some scorned noble in hiding, but he'd never been able to prove that nor had he ever been within the Cisterns for more than five minutes with the guy. Still, a familiar face was a familiar face and Theon helped himself to sitting across from him in a dry spot.

"I can't say I really believe you there, this place is about three steps above what the Cisterns is when it comes to clientele," an amused expression was found on Theon's face however, holding up a hand to decline any betting match. "You better look around this place for some sorry individual to go against you, I don't meddle with my own kind," Theon was clever enough to figure he could outmatch the other in some trivial game or cards or coppers, but indeed he often avoided going to bat with any seasoned conman and with where he often saw this one crawling out of, Theon would guarantee - was it Owen? Orion? whatever, - that whatever-his-name-was would surely go down swinging.

[vuldak-ophir]

“I am sinless as a babe,” Ophir vowed, a calloused finger sketching the shape of a cross over his callous heart in response to what he initially interpreted as an accusation of cheating. “Or did you mean to suggest I’ve seen more decorum from a wild boar? In that event, you may be correct.” He examined the face of the man across from him and felt a similar phenomenon of vague recognition. His eyes narrowed and he made no attempt to hide that there was a flicker of familiarity there. “Say, you look familiar. Have I robbed you?” Of course, he hadn’t, but one in Ophir’s line of work robbed just as many poor souls as that elbow to elbow at a tavern with. 

“Whatever do you mean by that?” Ophir chuckled knowing precisely what Theon meant by that. His expression of false offense cracked into an entertained smirk and he was glad to find himself in company worth its while for the first time in weeks. “Well, if you’re so afraid I’m a glad-hand what do you say we just play for peanuts? Call it practice?” It seemed like a fair bargain in his mind. “Unless you have affixed yourself at my table for some alternative purpose? In that case, color me curious.”

[marketofstars]

The nightmare where the great seductress had visited peered inside her mind, did a high rolling insight check into her heart and had echoed what her greatest fear was which was to see the Earth desolate and void of any life, even the wind had died and only ash remained, when she awoke from the nightmare, she could taste it in her mouth. The Wolves were held back from crossing the dreamscape as when she often dreamed, she dreamed that her dirty paws ran across hollowed ground and her howl sang in a chorus with her pack. Since her transformation into a werewolf, her yearning of a pack had never quieter and yet it continued to escape her grasp.

Still with the feeling of unease in her heart, she wanted to take the long way, to make camp in the wilds and to feel her tether to the natural world. Being away from the city reminded her what she fought for, she didn't want to see any more forests fall and she felt more renewed sleeping in the grove of trees than in any bed at the inn. Luna was always alert, her magic never allowed for her to be surprised and she had noticed him. She could always detect blight but after being the Wound-Eater on the Dreadnaught, she had been trained to hunt the blight in a way she hadn't before and although she had reclaimed her body, her mind hadn't forgotten the Kossith's training.

"It doesn't matter if I have one or three, it takes a lot of ale to get me drunk." Knowing eyes hold his gaze and she knows there was once a time where he held a werewolf constitution. She does wave down a barmaid and orders two drinks, one for her and one for him. Her lips quirk at the word underdog, "Life hasn't been easy?" Her voice colored in casual and the question is light, although there are undertones of true curiosity, she took the coins in hand "I've spent too many evenings sleeping in the dirt to be a lady." She was a wolf and it kept the summer heat from stifling "Tales." and released her hand, two out of five. A low whistle. "Rough start."

[vuldak-ophir]

“If your aim is to attempt to drink me under the table then we have entered another sort of content entirely,” Ophir commented dryly as Luna approached the table. The blonde stared at him across the table like she held a secret, but Ophir had known she would be able to sniff him out as easily as he sensed her. If it were possible that his unknown Legionnaire would be able to sort through the notes of his own Blighted Ichor and the lingering stench of the Joining he might have considered being worried. But as it were, he felt there was little to fear. 

Ophir leaned back in his chair and noncommittally raised his shoulders and hands in an exaggerated gesture. “Easy or not, none of us make it out clean. No getting out of it alive.” He did not see life as some unending string of tragedies and difficulties, however. Most suffering fell away when one focused singularly on themselves as Ophir was inclined to do. “Ale helps it all wash down easier though, doesn’t it?” he commented lifting the tankard she had purchased for him and draining it of half of its contents. 

“I’ll forgive your lack of refinement so long as you’re not half as sore  loser as that sod you just saw storm out,” Ophir bargained. He watched as Luna flipped the coin calling tales and had to bite the inside of his cheek to refrain from barking out a laugh. “Wrong game, sister.” One of his long fingers dragged a coin closer to him, the copper making a scraping sound against the grain of the table before he collected it between two fingers. “Like this.” He lifted his hand and with a deft flick of the wrist flung the copper at the surface of the table. It bounced from the surface of the table just high and far enough to catch the lip of an emptied metal tankard at the center of the table. There was a clattering noise as the coin came to rest within the vessel. “Always had a preference for skill over luck,” he explained, gesturing toward her pile of coins to signal she should take her turn, “Luck rarely has the decency to stay loyal.”

[theegonurcan]

The instinct to fall back to old patterns is there, the urge to roll her eyes fondly at his theatrics and call him infuriating by virtue of his actions sitting in the tarmac of her tongue. But she refrains, lips pressed together to hold back the fondness that seeped out of her chest like an infection she couldn’t quite get rid of. Once upon a time, she had quite liked the man, after all, and for as much as she was angry and betrayed, the amusement from his antics did not disappear overnight. 

“Were we ever friends? What, with you leaving, I assumed we were partners at best,” she says, voice still full of simmering anger but falling back from the snarl that had escaped her at the surprise of his presence. It was her duty to hunt the man to the ends of the earth and put him down like the rabid beast he was likely to become, yet they were surrounded by far too many people. Nurcan has no doubt that Ophir would not mind bringing collateral damage into any fight they get into, and for as much as she itches to set him on fire to wipe his smug, self-serving attitude, she would rather not catch others in friendly fire. Not when people are already tense and preparing to face the Kossith in combat. It would do far too much harm, as satisfying as it could be. 

“Ah, mercenary work,” she says, making a noise of understanding as it finally dawns on her the why behind his presence. Then she pauses, brow raised as she looks at Ophir. “I was not aware that the Queen of Feronia had offered to pay for fighters.”

Perhaps she had been too focused on the happenings in the border with Astoria, but she had not heard of a reward nearly high enough that she would think it worthy of tempting Ophir. Especially when one considered that Haven was filled by wolves. Considering Ophir’s own status as a Vuldak, she would have thought that he would avoid wolves and their keen sense of smell as much as possible. But she supposes that if he still carried the legion’s insignia, she could pass as a legionnaire and not for what he was. Clever. Shame that she will have to make sure to mention his status as a deserter to Queen Aurea, and press that any payment meant for Ophir would surely be more useful if given as a donation to the Legion. 

As Ophir approaches her, Nurcan tenses, taking a step back as his knuckles meet the jar she carries, and she sends him a flinty look. 

“A jar is too good for what will remain of you once I am done,” she tells him coldly and pulls her jar closer.

[vuldak-ophir]

“Now that was almost a smile, I am sure of it,” Ophir pointed out, lifting a finger and pointing to her. He offered her the small courtesy of avoiding pointing directly in her face or too closely. She might have been skittish since he last saw her in the Legion’s high and lonely tower, and he understood that she would have orders to kill him on sight. It was best not to provoke her, even if he was over-confident in his ability to win such a fight. “Don’t slip, now, your Commander won’t like that. Might start rumors that one of his loyal little soldiers is capable of joy, and he would not take kindly to such a notion.” 

“If that’s how you want to paint it, well, far be it from me to stand in the way of a good fiction. But what you will never convince me of is that those old men and women that haunted the halls of Caer Glas like premature ghosts were better company than I was,” Ophir insisted, his posture becoming lopsided as his overly casual grin. “Oh, sunrise, sunset. But hells, I was there for five years, give or take. I’ve only been gone for one. That body of evidence points to the potential I’ll return more than it does that I won’t.” He wasn’t coming back, and they both knew it. But reality would not deter him from twisting half-truths into entire lies. 

Ophir lifted both brows when she repeated the phrase after him. “I’m not sure your nose was quite upturned enough as you said that. Would you like to try again?” he countered. Of course, he did not seek her approval nor did her lack thereof do so to any degree. 

“The Queen of Feronia? She doesn’t pay, which is likely the reason all these rubes are likely to die here, poor but principled. Bless their souls.” He shook his head as if he truly cared. “Charity is a rarity these days and the salt of the earth sort of folk who would do this for free tend to be the first to perish in war. And we’re short of the salt of the earth type and drowning in war these days.” It was an ugly truth, but not one he hesitated to speak of. “But the nobles just beyond her borders are happy to pay, they’re wise enough to know they’re next if this place crumbles to ash.” “A fine quip, truly. May I offer you my condolences that you were forced to waste it on the likes of me?” Ophir retorted, unbothered as usual. “Then again, I implore you, what is it for?”

[einolegion]

Ophir loved to talk and prattle on, loquacious and borderline irreverent, Eino remained quiet though unyielding as the vuldak yapped on. Carefully, sternly, he allowed Ophir the floor before warranting his own dramatic sigh as though deeply disturbed by Ophir's train of thought; he could be an actor, too! "You had made such decision, allotted that very line in the sand before you were even warranted to take the Joining. Your mistake was to make this lightly, selfishly even," Eino had little time for games, eyes remaining on Ophir.

"You try to incite me to respond to your incessant need for conflict," but Eino was never so easily rattled; his own training under another Blademaster often guaranteed his serenity through any difficult scenario. "The darkspawn are relentless, but indeed manageable." A brow was quirked at Ophir, "You know these grounds are teeming with both Legion and darkspawn alike so tell me, what purpose brings you here? I know you will not fight alongside us, but if you fight against us, I will not make any escape for you easy."

[vuldak-ophir]

Ophir was a man of many vices, and he denied none of them, including a perpetual verbosity. Many who took sacrifice from the Blighted chalice of the Legion’s most hallowed halls did not share that same sense of long-windedness. He liked to believe it made him special though he would not flatter himself aloud in front of Eino. He doubted it would be tolerated. “I was a desperate man when they handed me that bloodstained cup. They didn’t offer a choice, only the illusion of one,” Ophir stated. There was a slight bite to his words, but he kept his temper at bay. As it were, Eino was not the one who had crossed him and he had enough of a shred of civility left within him to at least endeavor not to punish the sword master for something he was not guilty of. “if I am selfish for clawing my way out of a grave they dug for me when the Darkspawn made it clear my time would be scarce if I stuck around, then so is Legion for asking us to stand around rotting one and all. We’re just twins dressed for different funerals.” The way Ophir saw things, altruism and heroics were just hubris and naive idealism clad in armor with a sword in hand. 

“If I were looking to fight you, I’d spell it out clear as scripture, believe me,” Ophir countered, and it wasn’t a lie. If he had more self awareness he would realize how confrontational he could come across, and that when he attempted to be friendly his presence likely felt more like a cat toying with a mouse knowing it would not make it out alive. The Calling was around the corner for him, and while he was physically intact, his mind churned with dark clouds of aggression and misapprehension. “I have no intention of spending my last year or two fighting against the Legion, but if it pleases you I’ll put your name at the top of my list when I’m ready to fall on my sword once and for all–or I suppose yours in such a scenario." He plucked a small case from his duster pocket and situated a cigarette he had collected from within between his lips, “Until then, I’m just here for the coin and conversation.” Ophir looked to Eino after he said it, his lips warping into the shape of a crooked grin.

[ruyaceres]

who: @vuldak-ophir when: a couple of weeks after the explosion where: southreach border tw: a tad gory

A week had passed since Eino pulled her from the sea. On the first day, she’d drawn strength from him to mend her internal injuries. By the third, Luna had washed ashore—battered, but breathing, which was more than Rüya had dared hope for. She owed both Legionnaires a great debt for their kindness. Survivors stopped appearing by the fourth day. Only scraps of their flesh littered the rocky tide line. By the seventh day, her body was strong enough to ride.

Though Astoria had given Rüya life, the Tower was her home. She passed through mist and rain, narrowly surviving the treacherous route to Ardentgate. The last thing she expected beyond the border was a zealot clad in the Vanguard's insignia.

He moved too quickly. One blink, and the world shifted. The trees dissolved into steel cages, the sky into iron grates. The scent of brine and blood returned, thick and cloying. Rüya staggered back, her heart thundering. He lunged, weapon raised, and she could feel the a'dam locking around her throat.

The earth split beneath them and magic surged from her palms. Razor-thin threads of light tore through the air, wrapping around the zealot’s vertebrae with surgical precision. She would've hushed him into unconsciousness with a flick of her wrist once, but that witch had drowned in the Gulf.

Her attacker arched violently, suspended somewhere between life and death. With a guttural cry, Rüya pulled, unravelling him from the inside. For a moment, all she could hear was her own breath as smoke curled from his mouth, rising in delicate wisps toward the canopy.

No Kossith uniform. No collar. No leash. Just a man.

As the weight of what she'd done settled in her chest, leaves crunched under foot behind her. Something else was coming.

[vuldak-ophir]

The level of foot traffic in this area of the map was at a peak between the survivors who washed up on unlucky shores before setting their course northward and those who flooded southward to defend against the Darkspawn. Each seemed like an impossible position to be in. Ophir was not an empathetic man, he did not deign to place himself in the shoes of those who had survived the abduction by the Kossith, but he had lent his sword in exchange for coin when the invasion of the Wildlands seemed inevitable the same way he occupied Southreach as a sellsword now. Despite his best intentions, he had learned bits and pieces of the plights of those who had been taken and misused.

Now, unwittingly caught in the snare of this woman and her prey, a Vanguard, he once again found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Clearly this woman was a survivor; why would he be so reactionary otherwise? Silent so as not to give himself away while this witch tore the Vanguard apart with as little consequence as a child battering some doll made of corn husks and twigs, he considered how several lifespans ago he had wished the don that same white armor and cape. Instead, he had found himself clad in the black armor of the Legion until that served him no longer. Ophir wasn’t sure which fate was worse than the other; all he knew was he was glad to be his own man. 

When the smoke thinned and the freshly minted corpse stopped twitching, Ophir approached, convinced that this woman had managed to collect herself once more.  “Now, that was one hell of a party trick you just performed there. I don’t suppose you’re inclined to teach me how to dispatch a man so fast. Poor bastard didn’t even have a chance for last rites,” he said, the expression on his face a hybrid of a cheeky grin and an entertained smirk. “Quite a trigger finger on you, isn’t there?” His hands were buried in the pockets of the leather duster he wore, otherwise he might have gestured his harmlessness to her with raised hands, palms facing her. “Lost in these woods? This is a terribly dangerous stretch of the world these days. And I think it’s just been made one thing perfectly clear to you: even if you weren’t looking for trouble, you surely found it.”

[bisclavret]

fresh off of merlin eoin macken really said i only know how to write/play one character: a depressed alcoholic with daddy issues that abandons his moral code to be there for a loved one. he gets bullied by a brunette irish woman wearing pale green eyeshadow. and tom hopper is also there.

[einolegion]

"It does little good for me to announce what you already know," Eino offered this in curt retort, though he was often a man who said little as it was. He had little interest in the obvious bargains Ophir sought, but even Eino could fall victim to hesitancy; he was meant to strike the other where he stood, but still the blademaster could not bring himself to do so currently. Many more of the legion lingered beyond this tree line, nestled closer to the borders of Southreach rather than the doom of Astoria, but Eino had chosen his encampment for the night carefully; he had expected a fight, but not with this opponent.

Eino was stuck with a rather clumsy predicament; he never had much of anything to hide from the Legion, from their Commander, but if he were to tell of Ophir's sighting, he was certain the question would be simple: why, still, does he walk? Eino would not be able to answer such question and his obedience of the Legion teetered on the precipice of righteousness and a similar plane of duty. He had been forced into a corner, that which brought him to the Joining, and he often felt bound by what was expected of him. Still, currently, he grappled with this and it was clear that Eino was indeed annoyed at his own leniency.

"I am a loyal blade, but even I would not strike you down with such little honor to your name. Even you, betrayer, and deserter, deserve some decency within this wretched path you've made for yourself." Eino gestured again for the other to sit but knew the decision was likely not easy even for one as troublesome as Ophir.

[vuldak-ophir]

“Well now, that all depends on how you say it, don’t you think?” Ophir challenged Eino’s line of thinking. He saw the blademaster’s logic, but he also thought there was no small sum of fun to be found in semantics and theatrics. It was likely his companion for the evening had another perspective. This assumption, and the peace treaty struck between the two men, as tenuous as it likely was temporary, halted Ophir from pressing the point any further. To compound this need to be safer than sorry, Ophir had no allies to call his own in this corner of the world, but he suspected the borderlands were teeming with Legionnaires given the little issue of the Darkpsawn infestation. “How kind of you to say so.” It was delivered with a cheshire grin. Ophir had never taken much seriously and he did not intend to turn a new leaf now. “Just because I chose a different fork in the road doesn’t mean we have to be enemies. Not every choice has to draw a line in the sand unless we decide so.” But Ophir certainly did not find himself with a long list of those to consider friends, either. He approached and set himself to rest on the ground across the fire from Eino. “Tell me, how fare our chances in Southreach, really? I do hope the Legion picked up a few hard-earned lessons learned from Aventia. That was a grim little chapter in your history books–all smoke and no honor.” 

[marketofstars]

Luna stayed with Ruya for awhile in Astoria, tended to her mental and emotional wounds, the ocean water had healed the bruises and cuts that were inflicted on the Dreadnaught. It was easy to let the days blur together and to give into a sweet life but there was a tug in her chest, a mission that wouldn't quiet in the back of her mind, the earth still needed healing. She packed a knapsack and headed on her way, sleeping in fields and underneath the shelter of trees, taking her time to ramble across the land -- she needed some alone time with just the trees to keep her company. She couldn't shift without the amulet of the moon with her own whim anymore and she missed sleeping in the wolf form, yet she had slept as a maiden many times in the Ironwood forest. The moss was as comfortable as any straw mattresses.

With the stars above her, she stumbled across an Hamlet, spotting the sign for a Tavern, she pushed open the door and entered. She enjoyed the taste of ale and was thirsty for a cool drink after spending so long in the woods. A man passes by her, pissed and rams his shoulder until hers in a fury to leave, he doesn't succeed in pushing her shoulder, only bounces off it. She's a wolf, a legionaries and a woodcutter, she might be petite but she had guns. Luna grabbed a turned over chair, plucks it down and takes her seat. Her lips turn up slightly in a gentle smile. "I'll play you for the next round of ale." She didn't have too much coin on her and had a competitive spirit, no matter the outcome.

[vuldak-ophir]

The roads in the south were teeming with travelers, but it was odd to see one traveling Northward these days. Ophir didn’t often make it his business to trail others, the same way he would have preferred to be left alone himself. And he hadn’t been trailing the road weary looking blonde woman; Fate had stepped in and saw to it that as he travelled in the southern region of Lysara at the behest of his contractors he and Luna called the same town his resting spot for two evenings in a row. If he were not so concerned with keeping a low profile, this would have suited Ophir just fine. But he was, thus it did.

But it was not that circumstance alone. She had garnered his attention because so few bothered travelling the long way during these troubling times. Most preferred to pass through gateways, teleporters, or the stones. She initially gained his attention because he saw her more than twice and in more than two different places. She kept his attention because she smelled of the Blight, she reeked of it, as all Legionnaires did, as he did before and after his Joining. 

And now she sat across the table from him at some anonymous inn in some forgettable town. Would she realize he was Legion–or once had been, he wondered? And what cruel twist of fate had led her Joining? It was Ophir’s opinion that even when one came to the Legion “willingly”, their choices were not entirely unburdened by some compacting factor of desperation and circumstance. “That hardly seems a fair match from where I’m sitting. I have been haunting this corner of the tavern nursing drinks all evening and you have not yet had a spot of ale,” he reasoned aloud. But a moment later, he sat up only slightly straighter. “But then again… I’ve always had a fondness for viewing myself as an underdog.” A quick flick of the wrist sent a few coins clattering across the table toward Luna, “Ladies first, of course.”

[sircolinmorgan]

Eoin Macken for Vestal Magazine, 2025.

[vuldak-ophir]

who: open where: any little hamlet between Astoria and Eterna when: Anywhere in the week to few weeks after the Kossith Vessel exploded and survivors started washin' up notes: capping at 4

Ophir was a gambling man with uncanny sort of luck and a biting resentment for losing. When he travelled as part of a small band of thieves, he often joked about how fortuitous it was that as a vuldak body disposal was built in should some unfortunate cross him. He outgrew those fair weather friends, but never that perspective and his appetite had only increased since. 

There was no small ruckus as some angry (and now destitute) son of a bitch stormed away from the corner table Ophir had been holding court at. Chairs and tankards were overturned in the dramatic exit, the thinned out ale soaking the playing cards that had been thrown down onto the table in anger. This did little to diminish Ophir’s good spirits as he pulled a jingling pile of copper and silver coins toward himself–his hard earned and ill won prize. “In all of my years, I have never seen a man lose with such a surplus of drama and such a deficit in dignity,” Ophir mused aloud. “He may have lost his coin and his composure, but he damn near sure did take the table along with him. I suppose there’s nothing to do about soggy cards and spilled ale but to switch to playing coppers instead.” It was spoken to no one in particular but anyone foolish enough to bet against him at the coin flipping game he’d mastered two centuries prior all at once.