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Empyrean
Level 75
The Tactician
Joined: 6/1/2023
Threads: 2
Posts: 146
Posted: 11/25/2023 at 7:16 PM
Post #1
...aka, my personal thread. Putting this in the off-topic category because 1), I don't know what tangents I'll go off on later, and 2), it seems like the least-used forum, and I like my peace and quiet.
(By the way: if you're here from the secret link in my bio, then-- congratulations! This is only one of many. If you aren't, well... pretend you never saw anything, yeah?)
Anyways, here's what my username (and the title of this thread, and my avatar) are based on:
The Vision of the Empyrean by Dore, Gustave (1832-83)
I've gone by a lot of names before, but they all seem to circle back to this theme - heaven, fire, light, the sun, etc... maybe the theme will change in time-- or maybe this is the way it will always be.
Vesta
Zenith
Aureole
Empyrean
(and once, long past: Rune, my dearest December.)
Edited By Empyrean on 11/25/2023 at 8:51 PM.
Empyrean
Level 75
The Tactician
Joined: 6/1/2023
Threads: 2
Posts: 146
Posted: 11/25/2023 at 7:25 PM
Post #2
Turning this post into a closet post, actually. (Gods alive I love the sun revenant armors.)
Deity ---------- Angelic
Corrupted ---------- Tempest
Void ---------- Moonlight
Imperial ---------- Rose
Custom: Fortune Fest
Still need: Aspect - Blazing Sunlight Lion; Cloaks - Starseeker (Angelic), Starseeker (Dawn), Starseeker (Sunset). If you have any of these and are willing to sell, PM me.
Edited By Empyrean on 3/15/2024 at 4:19 PM.
Empyrean
Level 75
The Tactician
Joined: 6/1/2023
Threads: 2
Posts: 146
Posted: 11/25/2023 at 8:53 PM
Post #3
Landlocked, eh?
Edited By Empyrean on 1/3/2024 at 10:13 PM.
Empyrean
Level 75
The Tactician
Joined: 6/1/2023
Threads: 2
Posts: 146
Posted: 11/25/2023 at 8:53 PM
Post #4
Hmm.
Edited By Empyrean on 1/3/2024 at 10:12 PM.
Empyrean
Level 75
The Tactician
Joined: 6/1/2023
Threads: 2
Posts: 146
Posted: 11/25/2023 at 8:54 PM
Post #5
Another spacer post, for good measure.
Empyrean
Level 75
The Tactician
Joined: 6/1/2023
Threads: 2
Posts: 146
Posted: 11/25/2023 at 9:29 PM
Post #6
Spacer post.
Edited By Empyrean on 12/5/2023 at 6:23 PM.
Empyrean
Level 75
The Tactician
Joined: 6/1/2023
Threads: 2
Posts: 146
Posted: 11/25/2023 at 9:29 PM
Post #7
Spacer post.
Edited By Empyrean on 12/5/2023 at 6:23 PM.
Empyrean
Level 75
The Tactician
Joined: 6/1/2023
Threads: 2
Posts: 146
Posted: 11/25/2023 at 9:29 PM
Post #8
...and effervescent she rested, intangible on the shrine that once was Wruen's and now was ruined; and quietly did she wait again to hear his heart beat in full timbre, hardly now a ghost's breath in the meek frost-capped waves that lapped at the isle's shoreline; and still to him she spoke in hazy mists, for as his keeper it was her duty to keep him present - alive - awake despite the hollow ribcage and encroaching cold. Pieces of the lake - of Wruen - had frozen over already, none stranger to Wraith's season, that of razor winds and decimating colds and named in hushed whispers as Winter.
And you are oh so cold, I know, I know, says Nymina to the waning tide, and you wish for the wheel to turn faster, turn away, turn 'til the pain can be borne again, I know, I know.
Just a little longer. For me.
And a lone wave reaches a quarter of the way up the northward shore, the one closest to the shrine, the highest since Faerina's autumn fell underneath the ravaging claws of rime without reason-- and in this his response is clear: I am trying. I am trying.
The days pass slowly. Morning to day to evening to night; morning to day to evening to night; morning to day to evening to night-- the heat seeps away into the earth or is devoured by the air, until eventually, inevitably, the lake is wholly encased in a layer of ice thick enough to dampen Wruen's murmurs entirely. And yet does Nymina keep Wruen awake - alive - present as much as she is able; even here, in the ice groaning; even here, in the morning gloaming.
Even here.
Even here.
Even here, notes Nymina, air pierced by children's screams intoning. And oh do they scream: raucous calls, sailing high into the ether, joyous and competitive and disruptive and all the same perfectly natural. They are simply another spoke in the wheel - this is not the first winter they have braved Wruen's frost-bitten shoulders, nor will it be the last, nor will there be a last.
But it is Wruen's first winter without his heart, and under these new strains it is only a matter of time until his spine buckles.
And it does, all too soon, buckle.
A new scream echoes over the ice, frantic for half of one jarring moment and silent for two. Then the same scream, again, now in a different voice, now sustained-- and now joined by another, and another-- and now the whole population of the town on the bank is herding the children back inland, all except for one lone man, fallen to his knees at the site of the entrance wound and utterly inconsolable.
Nymina is there, too, now.
She inspects the hole in the ice. The edges are jagged. Where the rest of the ice is a clear blue, this patch has been tainted white, interspersed with silt greys - a clear sign of Wraith's influence. There is a stray mitten clinging to the edge, handmade, knitted with cheery yellow wool. And beneath the ice, Wruen's newly-made watery eye gazes up at her; a ripple slips up onto the ice sheet and towards the man, but falls away before it can reach him. I tried. I tried.
I know. I know.
Then, she to the man: May I?
He does not respond. She tries again, corporeal now: "May I?"
The man starts violently, staring at her aghast, and behind her a collective whisper rolls through the crowd. She does not break her gaze away from Wruen. She does not say anything more.
"Please," the man sobs, water dripping from his eyes into Wruen's.
She kneels down next to him, slowly, gently, careful not to agitate the wound further. She takes the mitten from its perch and again, slowly, gently, drops it into the water.
The ice beneath her cracks once. The man scrambles backwards.
It cracks a second time. He is on his feet now, terror in his steps as he retreats to the safety of land.
It cracks a third time.
And then ever so slowly-- ever so gently-- a girl rises up from the water, one woolen yellow mitten clinging to the edge of the hole for purchase as she is pushed upwards from the depths; and with Wruen's help, she pulls the sodden girl up and out and back, the small thing trembling like a leaf in the wind and coughing for air; and before she delivers daughter to father she says to Wruen, You did so well. You did so well.
I tried my best, murmurs the water inset into the ice, still shaking, still trembling, just as the girl did in Nymina's arms. I tried my best.
Nymina rises to seek out the man, but he is back again, reaching out like castaway to lifeline to the child in her arms. Neither protest when he bundles her away to the safety of the bank, fading away into a net of bodies and movement and shouts of "Healer, healer!"
And favor finally finished, she breaks her gaze to look back at Wruen, as she always does, as she always will - she is his keeper after all, and the one to whom she is bound by duty and by soul, as it has always been, as it always will be - and says to him in a hazy mist one last time before they both rest, before they both fail to be present - alive - awake: I know.
I know.
Outline:
Setting and character intros
children in the morning gloaming
and then--
a scream, aloft
and she observes
and appears
and makes a request
(and, ever so quietly)
(the request is granted)
there is some damage,
of course.
but she did her part.
(more than, actually.)
and she has a charge to watch.
Edited By Empyrean on 1/3/2024 at 11:26 PM.
Empyrean
Level 75
The Tactician
Joined: 6/1/2023
Threads: 2
Posts: 146
Posted: 11/25/2023 at 9:29 PM
Post #9
Lightning round of pet links code.
(Lightning round, go! All pictures are clickable, though some of them might be aged up, since a few are hatchlings still.)
