luciferin lights and abyssal knights.
written for arknights's caerula arbor and inspired by omniscient reader's viewpoint's epilogue


Mizuki wiggles his toes into the beach, watching as they sink down in the sand and form footprints a size too big. The sea sways around his legs to a silent melody, and the waves sweep more sand over his feet until they're all but buried.

The Doctor stands beside him, his visor and boots abandoned on the shore. The water lashes at his exposed face with droplets of brine, and the wind rakes his hair back in a billow of black strands. Nevertheless, he remains fixated on the storm brewing on the horizon, flashes of violet dancing between the dark clouds. His eyes glitter with the undertows of a melancholic longing, and Mizuki wonders how anyone could look at the Doctor and call him heartless.

In the distance, thunder booms. Mizuki opens his mouth, about to suggest that they head back before the rain comes and extinguishes their lantern, and stops. Something feels off.

Mizuki takes another look. A spiderweb of cracks runs along the lantern's glass walls, and its wick has already burnt out. He doesn't know when that happened. He remembers a document detailing a bishop's plan to resurrect Ishar'mla and a tree that towered over the heavens, with azure waters that glittered under the moonlight in place of bark. He remembers watching as their light danced and flickered while they forayed into Sacrosanct Cave with Seaborn on their heels, knowing that they were about to be plunged into darkness, but he doesn't know when dread bled into dismay, when the candle died and the monsters sprung to life.

When Mizuki looks back at the Doctor, his distress must be obvious, because the other's brows are drawn together and his mouth is thin. "Sorry," he says, "that I couldn't protect you."

And Mizuki-

Misuki remembers.

The ocean roars.

LIGEIA
thirty-three | female | played by Jie
#train security guard #faction contractor


faceclaim: Faust (Limbus Company)

[ ARC 1: The Catatonic Vessel ]
This time without memories flows like a dream. The chill in her bones and the void in her heart keens something sorrowful, but it is warmed and soothed by the wonder of exploration and the tranquility of enjoying a cup of tea in another's company.

Though these idyllic days may not last under the weight of knowledge, they will always be remembered with the fondest of smiles.

- - -

Ambitions:
Overarching: Enjoy the Natural Beauty of the World
Overarching: Collect Relics
Overarching: Investigate the Origin of Relics

Side: Collect Teas

Personality
An air of stillness surrounds her, bringing the suggestions of neutrality and vacancy with it. It's shattered by a soft sort of easy-goingness, the quirk of a close-lipped smile. For all that she moves, radiating something slow and relaxed, she's efficient by nature, arrogant by trade, and blunt to boot.

Bio
x Wandered the world, exploring and investigating, for a few months after waking up.
x Connected with a recruiter from an unknown organization along the way and was accepted as a freelancer who completes tasks in exchange for rewards or information.
x Took a job as a security guard in a multi-regional train.

Weapon/Tool of Choice
x A hefty iron harpoon, four feet in length. There's sharp barbs crowning its head, and a few meter long rope tied to its end.

Ability & Relic
x A shattered serpent, forged from blue and white porcelain. Only its head and upper body remain, and the indents of scales have worn away with time, while its bejeweled eyes have long since fallen. It gives the possessor the ability to absorb heat from the surroundings before releasing it as plumes of flame.

Attributes
Strength - 2
Intelligence - 3
Constitution - 1
Dexterity - 1
Agility - 1
Observation - 2
Charisma - 0

Other
x I like Jasmine flowers because they make pretty good tea. I drank it in restaurants as a kid, so it's nostalgic too. :>

Written for Larkian's Yonder

cnidarian angels and revelation fables.
written for arknights's caerula arbor

Waves race across the pallid shoreline like strands of white silk, froth broken by the shape of bodies writhing in the water. Seaborn in the process of metamorphosis, tentacles sprouting from shattered chitin and limbs reshaping into wings formed from jellyfish trails.

The Doctor's gaze lingers on a soft blue speck, on the last fragment of Mizuki, watching as it drifts between his cupped hands, the contrast of shimmering teal against black gloves the only sign of its continued existence. Yet he holds on, desperation clear in the hard lines of his fingers, a lover clutching the fading warmth of a cooling body; a believer kneeling forlorn before the statue of an abandoned god.

In the millennia they have shared, Kal'tist has seen him stand straight-backed before both, but it is only now, as the end looms before them, that his grief flows unbidden. She has always known that when he mourned, it would always be for the men who died under his command. It reinforces a truth that she is loath to admit--that for all the ash he has left in his wake, he is only human.

It's a shame that reality must come now when they need something more.

In the silence, the sea breaks, sending the Seaborn bobbling forward as a pale being reveals itself, dark waters trickling off between trailing spines and a lithe, twisting form, the remains of a horse and rider crashing down from its maw. Ishar'mla rises from the depths, a Leviathan haloed by a crown of kelp and the blood of the Last Knight.

Yet, despite its stature, it bends its head, maw opening to a rush of sea brine. As it begins to speak, Kal'tist finds the remnants of another operator lost, of a woman who tried to suppress the seas only to be forever lost beneath its waves; Skadi's voice echoing in its soft, eerie timbre, in the curiosity left by her memories of kindness.

"Come, Doctor," it says. "Come and follow me to the place that will be your tomb. Come and show me why they consider you to be the creator of our kind."

The man in front of her indulges in his final moment of weakness, letting the speck drift back to Kal'tist as he throws a glance over his shoulder. Behind his visor, she imagines his wry smile, lost since their days in Kazdel.

Then, he hooks a hand underneath his helmet, pulling it off in a hiss of machinery before dropping it to sink below the waves. As he stands exposed in front of the Leviathan, frost forms across the surface of the waters surrounding him, the final protection of Sami, only to shatter under the full-fledged presence of one of the ocean's origins.

"Take care of them for me, will you?" he says. In the absence of Sami's veil, silver-limned Arts glimmer around him like facets of possibility, carrying the gravitas of the Ancients--of the collapse of a sun, of the beginning and end of civilization, of the light of creation and its destined extinguishment.

Ishar'mla stirs in recognition, the breath of the sea rising up to meet the silence of the race that walked Terra's earth long before all others; Arts dancing with Arts in a silent exchange. In the aftermath, the Doctor laughs--soft but sharp, bloodied steel and bone-wreathed sands. "I was always destined to return to the stars."

cnidarian angels and revelation fables.
commentary & rambling

It's almost been a year since I've posted my last snippet, but I'm glad to be back with another for Arknights. I wasn't planning on writing anything more for IS #3/Caerula Arbor, but Isaak released a new Doctor theme song, so I had to write a new Doctor fic haha. Link to the song here.

This doesn't follow my personal headcanon, and it definitely deviates from canon in some way or another since I've come up with a lot of Doctor headcanons over the past year, one of which involves Sami due to some IS #4 inspirations, which I was planning on writing next instead of this haha. Might release something for that eventually, though I'm thinking of working on an original, Project Moon, Magisterium, or ORV fic first.

Alternatively, I might drop my worldbuilding about WoF history and the origin of animus magic or my ideas about WuWa's magic system and the presence of Echoes. Not sure which though, so I'll just have to wait and see, I guess.

Edit: It turns out that my guess was wrong, since I decided to edit the last paragraph of cnidarian angels instead haha. I'm a lot happier with the ending now though, so in the end, it's a win for me I suppose. :D

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eighteen - female - she/her
faceclaim: hecate (path to nowhere)

[ personality | once one child among many, yoonji voices herself with well-spoken charisma and easygoing confidence. its a notion that extends to her movements, her dexterity innate in a way that speaks of a childhood of practice sprinting across fields and scampering up treetops. similarly, she gives of the impression off intelligence, not in the way of the books she admits to being troubled when reading, but in the ways of dirt and natural truths, of the complex nature of people and relationships. from the realization, its possible to see why she embraces the little beauties of nature like perfection, finding blissful satisfaction in the smallest pleasures of life, and why she pursues connections like a moth to flame, undaunted of the possibility of pain; the latter of which, when combined with the occasional sight of her scars interlaced across her stomach, paints a picture of someone who's seen their fair share of pain yet continues to smile in a silent revolution.

[ clan | the beongae clan. in the past, they struck out across their land like the lightning they were named after, content to spend their lives sowing their fields. yet, over the last few centuries, they've been displaced by clan politics, left to clump together in a small, confined community in their now contested homeland. despite the scarcity of their lifestyle, yoonji remembers her childhood fondly, speaking of memories where the entirety of her family by blood and by bonds gathered come nightfall to share their dinner in cheerful unity.

[ backstory | work in progress.

[ other | yoonji carries a small, roughly-carved ukulele. she has trouble digesting tougher meats as a result of her stomach injury and tends to avoid eating them. her thoughts on love leave her open only to close friends, though to ones of any gender.

[ abilities | work in progress.

written for jelliebeanzz's the dragon traveler