[center][font=sylfaen][size=5]ODIUM (n.)[/size]
general or widespread hatred or disgust directed toward someone as a result of their actions
[url=https://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=49822076]
[img]https://flightrising.com/rendern/350/498221/49822076_350.png[/img]
[/url][/center]
[font=sylfaen]Leda’s neighbor must be a complete [i]slob[/i] if the state of their room is anything to go by. In the few seconds it takes her to pass by Room 318, she manages to catch a glimpse of papers scattered haphazardly across the floor, intermingled with a few questionable articles of clothing. The entire room smells of stale air and cheap booze too, which certainly doesn’t serve to benefit their case.
Nonetheless, she huffs and refocuses on unlocking her own dorm room. With every moment that passes, her palms grow slicker with worry; the brass keys seem to slip precariously out of her grasp. How charming. What a picture she must paint–Leda Moineau, the firstborn daughter of House Tian’E, struggling furiously to open a door. An image of her mother suddenly pops into mind, her thin lips curled downward in distaste.
Ah. The keys finally click into place after her sixth attempt, the godless pieces of scrap metal they are.
Leda pushes the door open.
The interior of her room looks harmless enough. The walls are a cream-colored plaster, thin but durable. A few pieces have started to flake off, presumably due to age. The floors are inlaid with polished wooden planks and a simple bed, desk, and chair are the only pieces of furniture included. A single window leads to a view of the academy’s private gardens. Mesmerized, Leda steps closer and presses her face to the glass. If she focuses hard enough, she can almost see a few students strolling along the cobblestone paths and admiring the flowers.
A voice shatters her concentration. “Hey, blondie!”
Leda turns around and immediately sneezes.
“M’name’s Ophelia,” the girl leaning against her door frame says. She has brown skin with a thin smattering of moles, like someone accidentally flicked a few drops of ink onto her face. Her black hair–or rather, her mane–is wrangled back in a half-ponytail, the ends tied off with a satin ribbon. A thin plume of smoke escapes her lips as she speaks; the sickeningly acrid smell has Leda’s eyes watering. “I live right next door. Neighbors shouldn’t be strangers, or whatever.”
“I don’t recall asking,” Leda replies, eyebrows furrowing. She coughs and looks [i]very[/i] intently at the cigarette dangling from the girl’s fingers. “And smoking is prohibited on campus premises.”
Ophelia doesn’t even have the gall to look offended, barking out a laugh that just [i]reeks[/i] of disingenuity. She takes another drag of her cigarette and peers at the infuriated blonde with half-lidded eyes. “That’s real cute, dove. I didn’t know the dean put you in charge of enforcing the rules. You’re doing a splendid job, for the record.”
Of course, she’s absolutely boorish. Leda pointedly decides to ignore her previous comment. She takes a step forward and tilts her chin up, meeting the other girl’s gaze head on. “I’m sure your patron won’t be pleased to find that you’re violating school code before classes even start.”
“And [i]I’m[/i] sure that I didn’t ask for your opinion,” Ophelia smiles lazily. She flicks the remnants of her smoke onto the ground and grinds the ashes into the walnut paneling underneath her foot. Leda resists the urge to grimace–that will most definitely leave some sort of stain on her pristine flooring. “Look at that, two minutes in and we’ve already found something in common! We’re getting along swimmingly.”
Leda scowls. “We are not.”
“Are too.”
“Are not.”
“Are too.”
“Are not.”
“Are t–”
Leda slams the door shut before she can finish speaking.
Goddesses above, this is going to be a long year.
ODIUM (n.)
general or widespread hatred or disgust directed toward someone as a result of their actions
Leda’s neighbor must be a complete slob if the state of their room is anything to go by. In the few seconds it takes her to pass by Room 318, she manages to catch a glimpse of papers scattered haphazardly across the floor, intermingled with a few questionable articles of clothing. The entire room smells of stale air and cheap booze too, which certainly doesn’t serve to benefit their case.
Nonetheless, she huffs and refocuses on unlocking her own dorm room. With every moment that passes, her palms grow slicker with worry; the brass keys seem to slip precariously out of her grasp. How charming. What a picture she must paint–Leda Moineau, the firstborn daughter of House Tian’E, struggling furiously to open a door. An image of her mother suddenly pops into mind, her thin lips curled downward in distaste.
Ah. The keys finally click into place after her sixth attempt, the godless pieces of scrap metal they are.
Leda pushes the door open.
The interior of her room looks harmless enough. The walls are a cream-colored plaster, thin but durable. A few pieces have started to flake off, presumably due to age. The floors are inlaid with polished wooden planks and a simple bed, desk, and chair are the only pieces of furniture included. A single window leads to a view of the academy’s private gardens. Mesmerized, Leda steps closer and presses her face to the glass. If she focuses hard enough, she can almost see a few students strolling along the cobblestone paths and admiring the flowers.
A voice shatters her concentration. “Hey, blondie!”
Leda turns around and immediately sneezes.
“M’name’s Ophelia,” the girl leaning against her door frame says. She has brown skin with a thin smattering of moles, like someone accidentally flicked a few drops of ink onto her face. Her black hair–or rather, her mane–is wrangled back in a half-ponytail, the ends tied off with a satin ribbon. A thin plume of smoke escapes her lips as she speaks; the sickeningly acrid smell has Leda’s eyes watering. “I live right next door. Neighbors shouldn’t be strangers, or whatever.”
“I don’t recall asking,” Leda replies, eyebrows furrowing. She coughs and looks very intently at the cigarette dangling from the girl’s fingers. “And smoking is prohibited on campus premises.”
Ophelia doesn’t even have the gall to look offended, barking out a laugh that just reeks of disingenuity. She takes another drag of her cigarette and peers at the infuriated blonde with half-lidded eyes. “That’s real cute, dove. I didn’t know the dean put you in charge of enforcing the rules. You’re doing a splendid job, for the record.”
Of course, she’s absolutely boorish. Leda pointedly decides to ignore her previous comment. She takes a step forward and tilts her chin up, meeting the other girl’s gaze head on. “I’m sure your patron won’t be pleased to find that you’re violating school code before classes even start.”
“And I’m sure that I didn’t ask for your opinion,” Ophelia smiles lazily. She flicks the remnants of her smoke onto the ground and grinds the ashes into the walnut paneling underneath her foot. Leda resists the urge to grimace–that will most definitely leave some sort of stain on her pristine flooring. “Look at that, two minutes in and we’ve already found something in common! We’re getting along swimmingly.”
Leda scowls. “We are not.”
“Are too.”
“Are not.”
“Are too.”
“Are not.”
“Are t–”
Leda slams the door shut before she can finish speaking.
Goddesses above, this is going to be a long year.
@
myriadofstars @
OrigamiCrane @
shanncrafter
Happy NotN everyone, long time no lore! I took a brief semi-hiatus to finish up my college applications, but I'm back now with another update. I got tired of writing sad things so here's something stupid and happy instead.
@
myriadofstars @
OrigamiCrane @
shanncrafter
Happy NotN everyone, long time no lore! I took a brief semi-hiatus to finish up my college applications, but I'm back now with another update. I got tired of writing sad things so here's something stupid and happy instead.
Oh gosh, that was adorable. I sense a deep friendship forming between the two of them!
could i get a ping when you update, your work is amazing!
could i get a ping when you update, your work is amazing!
feed the stone
@
myriadofstars Friendship would be a bit of an overstatement at this point, haha! They actually do form a sort of friendship-rivalry (and eventually rivals-to-lovers) relationship during their time in school but do drift apart by the time the first story starts. I’d say they’d probably be around 17 or 18 in “Odium” and 24 in “Apophenia”.
@
pneumonic Of course, thank you so much!
@
myriadofstars Friendship would be a bit of an overstatement at this point, haha! They actually do form a sort of friendship-rivalry (and eventually rivals-to-lovers) relationship during their time in school but do drift apart by the time the first story starts. I’d say they’d probably be around 17 or 18 in “Odium” and 24 in “Apophenia”.
@
pneumonic Of course, thank you so much!
[center][font=sylfaen][size=5]EPITAPH (n.)[/size]
a phrase written in memory of a person who has died, especially as an inscription on a tombstone
[color=a90000]Warnings: character death, strong language
[url=https://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=51428844]
[img]https://flightrising.com/rendern/350/514289/51428844_350.png[/img]
[/url][/center]
[font=sylfaen]The queen dies when Hyeongwang is eighteen.
[i]Battle wounds,[/i] he remembers the generals saying. Their faces were crestfallen and armor stained when they returned, the streaks of red maring their bodies shockingly bright against silver. [i]Her Grace died as she lived–stubborn, merciless, and dangerously prideful. Six fractured ribs, a punctured lung, several deep lacerations. She’s missing a few fingers. Her throat was cut. A shame, really, but these things happen in war.[/i]
He’s never been much for theatrics; the sight of the queen’s broken body lying across the altar left him feeling nauseated.
Afterward, Hyeongwang doesn’t think much of it. A funeral is arranged without complaint. The queen’s advisors take ahold of the throne. Plans are made to coronate the eldest princess, and though nobody dares to say it, an immense weight has been lifted. The castle has felt far less suffocating without the weight of her judgement bearing down upon its walls.
[i]Thank the Goddess,[/i] he hears a serving girl whisper. [i]I’m glad she’s gone. My hands couldn’t stop trembling when she ordered me to her table.[/i]
[i]I always knew she was a b*tch,[/i] another guard grunts. [i]Nearly had me whipped halfway to death the other week.
[/i]
“Do you believe I should try to console Emeng?” he asks his sister during a spontaneous trip to her apartment on the outskirts of Bi’anhua. It’s late, the crimson sky beginning to bleed into an inky black. Nobody will come looking for him at this hour, much less in these parts of town. “I know his mother and he had a rocky relationship, but I feel like I should at least pay him a visit. Don’t look at me like that, it’s quite literally part of my job. Goddess knows he’d get into all sorts of trouble without me, you know how poorly he copes with grief…”
Seoya hums thoughtfully and turns back to pouring out some sort of opaque liquid into a glass beaker, heedless to her brother’s mindless rambling. “I don’t know,” she says bluntly, swirling the solution. “I think he just needs time.”
A moon passes, then two. Even with time, servants and soldiers alike are still on edge around the queen’s children, stuttering apologies and scurrying out of their paths when they walk through the halls–always quickly, always cautiously, and always with their eyes cast downward. They’re anticipating some sort of violent reaction, as if waiting for a tightly sealed bottle of acid to inevitably shatter under pressure. Hyeongwang tries to speak to Emeng, but the prince’s doors are locked shut and his windows are drawn in as tightly as ever.
“Leave me alone, Hyeon,” he’d snarl. “And stay out of my business.”
The princess appears slightly more put together. She delivers a speech after the funeral, taking her seat at the head of the table–where the late queen once sat, ruling over her subjects with an iron fist and silver tongue. Her cheeks are gaunt and the deep shadows underneath her lashes only add to her already-fragile disposition, but her eyes burn with an intensity that rivals that of a blazing funeral pyre set alight.
“I vow to find my mother’s killer,” she says, her voice laced with steel. “My first task as queen will be in her name. I will hunt them down and make them suffer as she did; I will deal to them the justice they so rightfully deserve. This is my promise to you.”
Hyeongwang looks away when the noblemen begin to cheer, pounding their fists against the ornate table like drunken commoners and roaring for blood. Emeng has made himself silent at his sister’s side, eyebrows drawn together in thought. He watches the prince bite into a pomegranate, sees the way the juice trickles down his chin and stains his lips and teeth a ruby red.
Emeng catches his eyes across the hall. His gaze is unreadable.
EPITAPH (n.)
a phrase written in memory of a person who has died, especially as an inscription on a tombstone
Warnings: character death, strong language
The queen dies when Hyeongwang is eighteen.
Battle wounds, he remembers the generals saying. Their faces were crestfallen and armor stained when they returned, the streaks of red maring their bodies shockingly bright against silver. Her Grace died as she lived–stubborn, merciless, and dangerously prideful. Six fractured ribs, a punctured lung, several deep lacerations. She’s missing a few fingers. Her throat was cut. A shame, really, but these things happen in war.
He’s never been much for theatrics; the sight of the queen’s broken body lying across the altar left him feeling nauseated.
Afterward, Hyeongwang doesn’t think much of it. A funeral is arranged without complaint. The queen’s advisors take ahold of the throne. Plans are made to coronate the eldest princess, and though nobody dares to say it, an immense weight has been lifted. The castle has felt far less suffocating without the weight of her judgement bearing down upon its walls.
Thank the Goddess, he hears a serving girl whisper. I’m glad she’s gone. My hands couldn’t stop trembling when she ordered me to her table.
I always knew she was a b*tch, another guard grunts. Nearly had me whipped halfway to death the other week.
“Do you believe I should try to console Emeng?” he asks his sister during a spontaneous trip to her apartment on the outskirts of Bi’anhua. It’s late, the crimson sky beginning to bleed into an inky black. Nobody will come looking for him at this hour, much less in these parts of town. “I know his mother and he had a rocky relationship, but I feel like I should at least pay him a visit. Don’t look at me like that, it’s quite literally part of my job. Goddess knows he’d get into all sorts of trouble without me, you know how poorly he copes with grief…”
Seoya hums thoughtfully and turns back to pouring out some sort of opaque liquid into a glass beaker, heedless to her brother’s mindless rambling. “I don’t know,” she says bluntly, swirling the solution. “I think he just needs time.”
A moon passes, then two. Even with time, servants and soldiers alike are still on edge around the queen’s children, stuttering apologies and scurrying out of their paths when they walk through the halls–always quickly, always cautiously, and always with their eyes cast downward. They’re anticipating some sort of violent reaction, as if waiting for a tightly sealed bottle of acid to inevitably shatter under pressure. Hyeongwang tries to speak to Emeng, but the prince’s doors are locked shut and his windows are drawn in as tightly as ever.
“Leave me alone, Hyeon,” he’d snarl. “And stay out of my business.”
The princess appears slightly more put together. She delivers a speech after the funeral, taking her seat at the head of the table–where the late queen once sat, ruling over her subjects with an iron fist and silver tongue. Her cheeks are gaunt and the deep shadows underneath her lashes only add to her already-fragile disposition, but her eyes burn with an intensity that rivals that of a blazing funeral pyre set alight.
“I vow to find my mother’s killer,” she says, her voice laced with steel. “My first task as queen will be in her name. I will hunt them down and make them suffer as she did; I will deal to them the justice they so rightfully deserve. This is my promise to you.”
Hyeongwang looks away when the noblemen begin to cheer, pounding their fists against the ornate table like drunken commoners and roaring for blood. Emeng has made himself silent at his sister’s side, eyebrows drawn together in thought. He watches the prince bite into a pomegranate, sees the way the juice trickles down his chin and stains his lips and teeth a ruby red.
Emeng catches his eyes across the hall. His gaze is unreadable.
@
myriadofstars @
OrigamiCrane @
shanncrafter @
pneumonic
Did you know pomegranates are believed to have exactly 613 seeds, one for each commandment in the Torah? They’re also known to represent death, power, blood, and beauty in multiple cultures, and are referenced to be grown in the Garden of Paradise in the Qur’an.
Just some food for thought.
@
myriadofstars @
OrigamiCrane @
shanncrafter @
pneumonic
Did you know pomegranates are believed to have exactly 613 seeds, one for each commandment in the Torah? They’re also known to represent death, power, blood, and beauty in multiple cultures, and are referenced to be grown in the Garden of Paradise in the Qur’an.
Just some food for thought.
[center][font=sylfaen][size=5]WRAITH (n.)[/size]
a ghost or ghostlike image of someone, especially one seen shortly before or after their death
[url=https://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=45094575]
[img]https://flightrising.com/rendern/350/450946/45094575_350.png[/img]
[/url][/center]
[font=sylfaen]Reyna wouldn’t consider herself to be a particularly troublesome person, but the leather-bound journal she had found underneath the floorboards in some abandoned bedchamber in the castle’s eastern wing was just too interesting for her [i]not[/i] to take. Her curiosity was a strong sort of hunger.
In the safety of her rooms, the priestess ran through the motions of preparing a protective circle. With her knife, she willed drops of liquid red to the surface of her skin. With her blood, she drew a sigil with five points for immunity against spirits. With her candles, she conjured fire to light her portrait. With her salt, she closed off the ring.
Was it sacrilegious for a woman of faith to participate in such practices? She scoffed, never one for enforcing rules. The Goddess could turn her gaze away if Reyna’s actions proved to be so offensive.
With her circle in order, she placed her hands upon the cover of the book, and focused on clearing her mind. Within a few seconds, something hummed beneath her palms. A hex, maybe? Regardless, it would be a rather nasty surprise for whoever attempted to open it without checking for spells first, but it was nothing that someone of her caliber couldn’t undo.
Reyna spoke a few words of enchantment, the syllables dripping from her lips like honey. She raised her finger and a thin strand of silver smoke rose up from the worn leather, twisting and writhing like a serpent before disappearing into thin air. The humming stopped.
She flipped open to the first page.
Her eyes widened immediately. Paragraphs upon paragraphs of magical text lay inscribed in rich, black ink, from simple summoning spells to ones for complex transfiguration. There were words for boiling water and others for setting bones and knitting together skin. There was even an unfinished incantation to manipulate corpses–as long as they were recently deceased, that was.
Whoever this journal had belonged to was certainly ambitious.
The further she read, however, the messier and more disordered the handwriting became. The last few pages were filled entirely with illegible scribbling. Reyna caught a few phrases here and there amidst the disarray, [b][i]wolves wearing their faces[/i][/b] and [b][i]Goddess please spare her[/i][/b] being two that stood out in particular. The last page was essentially useless, consisting of the words [b][i]royalty be damned pitiful children pitiful family[/i][/b] scrawled over and over again in mantra.
A chill traveled up her spine.
[i]“The royal family does breed rather pitiful children, doesn’t it?”[/i] An airy voice called out from a few meters away. [i]“Cursed by birth, weak of spirit, ruled entirely too strongly by their emotions… a stain upon the surface of dragonkind as a whole.” [/i]
Her hands stilled above the journal. Carefully, as if not to alarm the speaker, she placed the book down and grabbed the knife lying at her side, holding it out in front of her with white-knuckled fingers. It was still covered in her drying blood.
“S-stay back.” Reyna willed her voice not to tremble as she felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. There was nothing but darkness beyond her circle. Her eyes swiveled around frantically, looking for any flaws in her arrangement. The ring of salt around her had not been touched, nor had her candles been snuffed to their wicks. The blood smeared on the floor was as fresh as ever. It was impossible for a spirit to move past the defenses she had placed, so why did she still feel so unsettled?
The voice laughed. [i]“Little priestess, please put your weapon down. I bear you no ill will. I think I like you, in fact. You remind me of myself. A bit naive, yes, but with a strong moral compass and a good head on her shoulders.”[/i] A pause. [i]“And far too trusting of strangers.”[/i]
There was a distinctively masculine quality to the voice, and though she wouldn’t go as far as to call it songlike, per se, she might have said its timbre was as smooth and polished as river stones. In other circumstances, it would’ve even been soothing.
Despite the stone-sized lump in her throat, Reyna somehow found the courage to speak. She lowered the knife. “Are you telling me you’re untrustworthy?”
[i]“Untrustworthy?”[/i] It sounded genuinely taken aback for a few seconds before letting out another laugh. [i]“Oh dear, I do like you quite a lot. What valor! Whether or not you decide to perceive my words as truth is entirely up to you.”[/i]
[i]“I think you will find that you and I are not too dissimilar,”[/i] it continued. [i]“There’s a word for people like us… wushi, witcher. Sorcerer is the more common term. I’ll be honest–at the height of my youth, I was quite powerful. I could construct curses so painful my victims would beg on hands and knees for me to end their suffering. I could rip a dragon’s vertebrae straight through their armored breast with nothing but a spoken word if I so wished.” [/i]
The voice sounded wistful.[i] “That’s not to say I was a violent person, oh no–I only wanted to ensure that I could handle my battles as well as the rest of my kin. My family didn’t approve, but magic was my weapon of choice. I think they just feared what I could do to them without even needing to raise a finger.”[/i]
A flicker of surprise stirred in Reyna’s chest. Another sorcerer? Magic wasn’t exactly uncommon in Heima, but it was rare for someone outside the clerical classes to admit outrightly that they wielded it, much less wield it as a tool of destruction. Magic was seen as something almost maternal by most, used only to heal pestilence and protect against war. Heimaen dragons simply preferred to fight tooth and claw.
To hear the opposite… well, it intrigued her immensely.
“What do you want from me?” she asked warily, trying not to sound too suspicious. “There’s no reason for someone to visit me this early in the morning unless they were looking for a favor.” Reyna tugged at her door with her mind. Still locked.
She received a hum, as if the speaker was thinking of a proper response.
[i]“You’re a smart girl,”[/i] it praised after a moment of silence. [i]“Here’s the truth–I’ve been searching for someone for a long, long time now. My tracking skills aren't what they used to be, anyway; I’ve had no luck finding her. That’s where you come in. You will find this person for me, and in return, I’ll teach you more about sorcery than that pathetic journal ever could. Sounds simple, correct? What do you say?[/i]”
The offer was tempting, Reyna had to admit. With the numerous laws and restrictions set in place against her preferred method of magic, it was beyond difficult for her to fabricate any spells or curses strong enough to have significant effects. Power was not something that came naturally to her–could you blame her for wanting to get a taste? Still, there was still something unnerving about this voice’s presence that made her unwilling to accept, regardless of however enticing the deal appeared to be.
“What’s your name?” she said. “I must thank whoever is offering this humble priestess such a generous proposal.”
Another pause.
[i]“My apologies,”[/i] the voice replied gently. [i]“It was rude of me to forgo an introduction. Four centuries of… [/i]rest[i] does make one rather forgetful, I suppose. Still, I am surprised that you weren’t able to foresee our meeting. I must be an anomaly.”[/i]
At the speaker’s last word, the candles suddenly went out and the room was plunged into complete darkness. Reyna’s heart nearly stopped.
A footstep sounded near her, and then another.
Icy hands settled on her shoulders. A few drops of something wet and metallic-smelling slid beneath the collar of her gown.
[i]“My name is Luoying Wang,”[/i] the voice purred in her ear. [i]“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”[/i]
WRAITH (n.)
a ghost or ghostlike image of someone, especially one seen shortly before or after their death
Reyna wouldn’t consider herself to be a particularly troublesome person, but the leather-bound journal she had found underneath the floorboards in some abandoned bedchamber in the castle’s eastern wing was just too interesting for her not to take. Her curiosity was a strong sort of hunger.
In the safety of her rooms, the priestess ran through the motions of preparing a protective circle. With her knife, she willed drops of liquid red to the surface of her skin. With her blood, she drew a sigil with five points for immunity against spirits. With her candles, she conjured fire to light her portrait. With her salt, she closed off the ring.
Was it sacrilegious for a woman of faith to participate in such practices? She scoffed, never one for enforcing rules. The Goddess could turn her gaze away if Reyna’s actions proved to be so offensive.
With her circle in order, she placed her hands upon the cover of the book, and focused on clearing her mind. Within a few seconds, something hummed beneath her palms. A hex, maybe? Regardless, it would be a rather nasty surprise for whoever attempted to open it without checking for spells first, but it was nothing that someone of her caliber couldn’t undo.
Reyna spoke a few words of enchantment, the syllables dripping from her lips like honey. She raised her finger and a thin strand of silver smoke rose up from the worn leather, twisting and writhing like a serpent before disappearing into thin air. The humming stopped.
She flipped open to the first page.
Her eyes widened immediately. Paragraphs upon paragraphs of magical text lay inscribed in rich, black ink, from simple summoning spells to ones for complex transfiguration. There were words for boiling water and others for setting bones and knitting together skin. There was even an unfinished incantation to manipulate corpses–as long as they were recently deceased, that was.
Whoever this journal had belonged to was certainly ambitious.
The further she read, however, the messier and more disordered the handwriting became. The last few pages were filled entirely with illegible scribbling. Reyna caught a few phrases here and there amidst the disarray, wolves wearing their faces and Goddess please spare her being two that stood out in particular. The last page was essentially useless, consisting of the words royalty be damned pitiful children pitiful family scrawled over and over again in mantra.
A chill traveled up her spine.
“The royal family does breed rather pitiful children, doesn’t it?” An airy voice called out from a few meters away. “Cursed by birth, weak of spirit, ruled entirely too strongly by their emotions… a stain upon the surface of dragonkind as a whole.”
Her hands stilled above the journal. Carefully, as if not to alarm the speaker, she placed the book down and grabbed the knife lying at her side, holding it out in front of her with white-knuckled fingers. It was still covered in her drying blood.
“S-stay back.” Reyna willed her voice not to tremble as she felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. There was nothing but darkness beyond her circle. Her eyes swiveled around frantically, looking for any flaws in her arrangement. The ring of salt around her had not been touched, nor had her candles been snuffed to their wicks. The blood smeared on the floor was as fresh as ever. It was impossible for a spirit to move past the defenses she had placed, so why did she still feel so unsettled?
The voice laughed. “Little priestess, please put your weapon down. I bear you no ill will. I think I like you, in fact. You remind me of myself. A bit naive, yes, but with a strong moral compass and a good head on her shoulders.” A pause. “And far too trusting of strangers.”
There was a distinctively masculine quality to the voice, and though she wouldn’t go as far as to call it songlike, per se, she might have said its timbre was as smooth and polished as river stones. In other circumstances, it would’ve even been soothing.
Despite the stone-sized lump in her throat, Reyna somehow found the courage to speak. She lowered the knife. “Are you telling me you’re untrustworthy?”
“Untrustworthy?” It sounded genuinely taken aback for a few seconds before letting out another laugh. “Oh dear, I do like you quite a lot. What valor! Whether or not you decide to perceive my words as truth is entirely up to you.”
“I think you will find that you and I are not too dissimilar,” it continued. “There’s a word for people like us… wushi, witcher. Sorcerer is the more common term. I’ll be honest–at the height of my youth, I was quite powerful. I could construct curses so painful my victims would beg on hands and knees for me to end their suffering. I could rip a dragon’s vertebrae straight through their armored breast with nothing but a spoken word if I so wished.”
The voice sounded wistful. “That’s not to say I was a violent person, oh no–I only wanted to ensure that I could handle my battles as well as the rest of my kin. My family didn’t approve, but magic was my weapon of choice. I think they just feared what I could do to them without even needing to raise a finger.”
A flicker of surprise stirred in Reyna’s chest. Another sorcerer? Magic wasn’t exactly uncommon in Heima, but it was rare for someone outside the clerical classes to admit outrightly that they wielded it, much less wield it as a tool of destruction. Magic was seen as something almost maternal by most, used only to heal pestilence and protect against war. Heimaen dragons simply preferred to fight tooth and claw.
To hear the opposite… well, it intrigued her immensely.
“What do you want from me?” she asked warily, trying not to sound too suspicious. “There’s no reason for someone to visit me this early in the morning unless they were looking for a favor.” Reyna tugged at her door with her mind. Still locked.
She received a hum, as if the speaker was thinking of a proper response.
“You’re a smart girl,” it praised after a moment of silence. “Here’s the truth–I’ve been searching for someone for a long, long time now. My tracking skills aren't what they used to be, anyway; I’ve had no luck finding her. That’s where you come in. You will find this person for me, and in return, I’ll teach you more about sorcery than that pathetic journal ever could. Sounds simple, correct? What do you say?”
The offer was tempting, Reyna had to admit. With the numerous laws and restrictions set in place against her preferred method of magic, it was beyond difficult for her to fabricate any spells or curses strong enough to have significant effects. Power was not something that came naturally to her–could you blame her for wanting to get a taste? Still, there was still something unnerving about this voice’s presence that made her unwilling to accept, regardless of however enticing the deal appeared to be.
“What’s your name?” she said. “I must thank whoever is offering this humble priestess such a generous proposal.”
Another pause.
“My apologies,” the voice replied gently. “It was rude of me to forgo an introduction. Four centuries of… rest does make one rather forgetful, I suppose. Still, I am surprised that you weren’t able to foresee our meeting. I must be an anomaly.”
At the speaker’s last word, the candles suddenly went out and the room was plunged into complete darkness. Reyna’s heart nearly stopped.
A footstep sounded near her, and then another.
Icy hands settled on her shoulders. A few drops of something wet and metallic-smelling slid beneath the collar of her gown.
“My name is Luoying Wang,” the voice purred in her ear. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
@
myriadofstars @
OrigamiCrane @
shanncrafter @
pneumonic
School's absolutely kicking my butt, but 1.3k words and several coffees later, I've cranked out this monstrosity. Enjoy.
INTERMISSION I
Warnings: strong language
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
What.
What who?
“What the f*ck do you want?” a feminine voice asked impatiently from behind the closed door. The speaker pounded their fist a few times against the splintering wooden doorframe. “For the last time Adrian, I didn’t steal your goddamn rings! They’re hardly anything worth getting p*ssed over anyway. Get over it!”
Reyna quickly withdrew her hand and stepped back, not expecting the sudden outburst. Calm down. She steeled herself. There’s nothing to be worried about. She had foreseen a successful outcome earlier, even if those blasted visions gave her nothing but migraines as of late.
She took a deep breath. “Hello,” she said, her voice as fragile as a butterfly’s wings. “Is this Yunxiang? I’m terribly sorry for intruding, but your father’s been searching for you.”
A drop of cold sweat slid down her temple. Two shameful sentences were all it took before she wanted to put herself out of her misery, preferably with her own knife. How dreadful.
The voice snorted. “That’s funny,” it replied rather humorously. “I didn't have a father the last time I checked. Never actually met my sire, the piece of sh*t he probably was. M’sorry kid, but I think you’ve got the wrong man.”
Reyna noticed how they pointedly ignored the name she‘d spoken. “Um,” the priestess mumbled. She wrung her hands together nervously. Whatever little shred of courage she still possessed immediately evaporated into thin air.
Goddess please help me.
Still, she had already made it this far; there was no point in turning back now. She thought about the deal she’d made with a mad prince, soaked in his own blood and seething with silent anger. She thought about the journal tucked between her bedsheets back home and the immeasurable power it held between crumbling, tea-stained pages. It was so close she could nearly taste its sting against her tongue…
“I found your dam, actually,” she said. “He sent me to find you.”
The voice fell silent. She could imagine the person thinking, rolling her words over in their mind until the implications sank in.
A minute passed before the door finally creaked open with a low whine. Inside the apartment stood a woman dressed in expensive-looking clothes stained so dark they were beyond repair (and if Reyna had to fathom a guess, that silk blouse had been white at some point in its life). Her eyes, a deep red, appeared hardened and cold, but the edges of her lips curled up in a catlike grin nonetheless.
A criminal’s smile, Reyna’s intuition sounded unhelpfully.
“Well?” the woman drawled. “Do you want a written invitation or something? You’re letting the cold air in.”
INTERMISSION I
Warnings: strong language
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
What.
What who?
“What the f*ck do you want?” a feminine voice asked impatiently from behind the closed door. The speaker pounded their fist a few times against the splintering wooden doorframe. “For the last time Adrian, I didn’t steal your goddamn rings! They’re hardly anything worth getting p*ssed over anyway. Get over it!”
Reyna quickly withdrew her hand and stepped back, not expecting the sudden outburst. Calm down. She steeled herself. There’s nothing to be worried about. She had foreseen a successful outcome earlier, even if those blasted visions gave her nothing but migraines as of late.
She took a deep breath. “Hello,” she said, her voice as fragile as a butterfly’s wings. “Is this Yunxiang? I’m terribly sorry for intruding, but your father’s been searching for you.”
A drop of cold sweat slid down her temple. Two shameful sentences were all it took before she wanted to put herself out of her misery, preferably with her own knife. How dreadful.
The voice snorted. “That’s funny,” it replied rather humorously. “I didn't have a father the last time I checked. Never actually met my sire, the piece of sh*t he probably was. M’sorry kid, but I think you’ve got the wrong man.”
Reyna noticed how they pointedly ignored the name she‘d spoken. “Um,” the priestess mumbled. She wrung her hands together nervously. Whatever little shred of courage she still possessed immediately evaporated into thin air.
Goddess please help me.
Still, she had already made it this far; there was no point in turning back now. She thought about the deal she’d made with a mad prince, soaked in his own blood and seething with silent anger. She thought about the journal tucked between her bedsheets back home and the immeasurable power it held between crumbling, tea-stained pages. It was so close she could nearly taste its sting against her tongue…
“I found your dam, actually,” she said. “He sent me to find you.”
The voice fell silent. She could imagine the person thinking, rolling her words over in their mind until the implications sank in.
A minute passed before the door finally creaked open with a low whine. Inside the apartment stood a woman dressed in expensive-looking clothes stained so dark they were beyond repair (and if Reyna had to fathom a guess, that silk blouse had been white at some point in its life). Her eyes, a deep red, appeared hardened and cold, but the edges of her lips curled up in a catlike grin nonetheless.
A criminal’s smile, Reyna’s intuition sounded unhelpfully.
“Well?” the woman drawled. “Do you want a written invitation or something? You’re letting the cold air in.”