Myra Sunveil (Merraviel Sol'Umbra)

Myra Sunveil - UO - ~April 2003?

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 05:41:34 GMT

On the Bank of the River Northwest of Tel’Ruid

When Morion arrived home the first thing he noticed was Myra Sunveil, standing on the bank of the river. She was staring at the water. He approached her slowly and carefully, taking note of any reaction. Given the state of affairs with Myra lately, he wasn't at all sure about what to expect, and as he looked closer, his concern grew steadily into worry.

"Myra? Are you okay?" He asked.

Her dress was torn in several places as if it had been snagged on briars. She had scratches all over her arms and face. Her hands were badly bruised as if she had been pounding on something with her fists. She was smudged here and there with dirt as if she had fallen several times. Her hair was a tousled mess, and her hat was askew and only held in place by the ribbon that was tied under her chin.

“He was here,” she said absently as she continued to stare at the water.

Morion studied her appearance carefully. “Who was here?”

She tried to moisten her lips. “Trenton.”

“Oh Myra, what has done to you?”

Morion moved closer to her, he reached out and turned her so that she would look at him. He examined the bruises and cuts, finding most of them to be superficial. She had one deep cut on her knee, and her hands had taken the worst of the damage. He shook his head. She finally looked down at herself for the first time. She opened her hands and looked at them.

“He didn't,” she said.

“He didn't what? Myra, he has hurt you. Look at yourself.”

She stared at her hands. “No,” she said shaking her head.

“Myra, you must tell me what is going on. What happened between you and Sythe?”

“He was here—in the Ostar tower.”

So Sythe had been here and at the Ostar Tower. Why did this not surprise Morion. His mind raced over the possibilities, but he turned his attention back to Myra and her immediate well-being.

“Do you need attention from a healer?” He asked.

“ No, no healer,” she said emphatically.

She slowly breathed in very deeply and let out a deep sigh. She began to take account of her torn dress. She looked around slowly as if trying to put the pieces together.

“He had considered me,” she said cryptically. She turned toward Morion with her hands held out helplessly. Morion thought that she was on the verge of breaking down. “He said that the darkness suited me.”

“What are you saying, Myra? What darkness do you speak of?”

“Not what I said. What he said.”

“Myra, you don't look well. We need to get you to a healer.”

Morion was relieved to see Tyl come out of the house behind him. She stopped on the porch and hesitated. She was obviously worried about what her presence would add to the situation. Myra was on the verge of something—either she was going to break down completely or she was going to run. Morion stood prepared to react either way, but gradually she began to settle down somewhat. Her breathing came more evenly, and then she spoke again.

“He said I imagined weaknesses. He said he had considered me—that the darkness suited me.”

Morion nodded to her that he understood. “This is almost a relief to me, Myra. At least it isn't your choice—to follow him into the darkness. That has been my greatest fear all along, that you would give up and follow him. He wants you. He has always wanted you.”

“He toys with me,” she said on the verge of tears this time. “I chased, and he was gone.”

“I can’t imagine what kind of a thing he has become to treat you like this—to leave you like this.” Morion held out his hands in exasperation. He felt Tyl come up behind him, touching him on the shoulder.

“He is beautiful,” Myra said wistfully.

Morion couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Beautiful? How can you say that after what he has put you through? You clothes are torn. You have cuts and scratches.”

“Yes, the briars,” she countered.

“And look at your hands!”

“The stones and the door,” she said as if she were finally beginning to put the pieces of the experience together for herself. She held out her hands, fingers splayed, looking at them.
“What stones and what door?” Morion asked. Did you fall on the stones?

She touched one of her knees, the one with the deep cut and nodded.

“Tyl, see if you can you help her, mela. She is hurt and a bit confused too.”

Tylleina smiled tentatively to Myra, and Myra returned the smile, and she seemed somewhat more comfortable in the presence of another woman.

“Do you mind if I try to heal you?” Tylleina asked.

Myra looked at the cut on her knee. “I do not mind,” she said.

“Good, Tyl said to herself. “So much better when the patient wants the help.” She smiled at Myra and began applying some bandages to her knee.

“Have you seen his eyes?” Myra looked at Tyl and asked.

Tyl ignored the question and examined Myra’s hands and the cuts on her face. She looked back a Morion and then at Myra again. “Are you feeling better now?”

Myra flexed her hands. “They don't hurt.”

“I’m glad that I could help.” Tyl smiled softly at her.

“He is beautiful,” she said again.

“Myra, you are not well.” Morion said finally. “Perhaps you could come inside. I can see your mouth is dry, perhaps something cool to drink.”

Tyl nodded, leading her to the house. “You might to be too close to know,” said Tyl, giving her a kind smile.

“His eyes are the green of the leaves on the trees after a storm.” She said as she moved as along.

Tyl, lead her inside and to a chair near the fireplace. Myra looked around slowly and then her eyes settled on the fire, and she seemed to drift off again, staring at the flames as if lost in deep thought.

Morion returned with some water and offered it to her. She sipped at it delicately.

“His hair—is like fire. Bright flames.” She said still looking into the fire. “When he left, I could not follow. I tried.” Her eyes move around as if looking for the answer. “I remember the dream.” She stared at the fireplace. “I could smell him. Feel the air as he walked by. He said the darkness suited me.” She toyed with a strand of her hair. “The Crypts are so quiet, deep, deep inside. Shhh. Quiet.” She looked at the fire, pouting like a child.

“Well you could stay for a while and enjoy the fire. Stay as long as you like.”

“I like the sound of the river outside.” She said.

“And it really is a pretty fire.” Tyl said.

“And it is closer.” Myra said. “He was here, you know, not a dream.” She looked down at her hands in her lap and took a deep breath. “I thought he'd go there. I was not done with him.”

“Did he not say that he was done with you?” Morion asked.

“All ties are sundered.” She whispered. “He still lives, and he did not tell me what he had considered me for.” She stared at her hands in her lap. “I don't understand it.” She looked up as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t find any words. “I don't want any more dreams.” She sighed deeply.

“He knows about the skin stealers.” She went on finally. “He was looking for the one the Ostar had. He wants Khellenduras to appear to have surpassed him.” She looked at the fire. “More powerful enemies.” She studied her hands again. “He has a new home. The tower of Sin is empty—hollow of his presence now.” She looked at Morion, then Tyl. “It is something that drew me to him in the beginning. An allure—the pull of his eyes.” She blushed.

“Myra do you love Sythe?” Morion asked.

“No!” She looked back and forth between them. She frowned deeply and stared all the harder at her feet.

“Myra?” Tyl spoke softly. “You need to be very sure of that. As one woman to another, I sense that you might be.”

“Are you sure of your feelings?” Morion asked her.

She took a steadying breath and shook her head. “No,” she said finally.

“Be sure that we will never mock you or your feelings. We just want to help you.” Tyl explained.

Myra looked up at her. “Have you watched a lightning storm while standing in the middle of an open field? It's beautiful isn’t it? It is dangerous, but so beautiful. And you've seen how the wind teases the autumn leaves and how they seem to welcome it? It is like that. Like I am a leaf, and he is the wind. And though I know one day he will tear me away, and I will end up dead and dried on the forest floor, I welcome it.” She frowned at her own words.

Tyl leaned over and hugged Myra close to her. “I understand your feelings.”

“I do not understand them. I know them.” She said. “I feel them.” She smiled thankfully at Tyl.

“I do not think that this is love.” Said Morion. “Because it is not returned in kind. All Sythe does is take.”

Myra looked relieved. “And if it was returned? Would it be different?” She asked.

Morion looked at Tylleina. “Yes it would be different.” Their eyes met for a brief moment and Tyl blushed slightly.

Myra smiled, though almost fearfully at the thought, “And if he returned it,” She paused for a long moment, as if thinking about something very distant. “It would be like Gl…” She didn’t finish voicing her thought. She lowered her eyes back to the floor in thought.

Morion walked to the fireplace and warmed his hands. “Sythe gave in to an illusion. Now he wants to pull you in after him.”

Tyl crossed the room and embraced Morion closely. She leaned her head on his shoulder. “I don't know what to do, mela.” He said. “I feel helpless.”

“I should not trouble the two of you with the ghosts I carry.”

“We want to help.” Tyl said and went to sit by Myra again. “The problem is we aren't sure how to help.”

“We must somehow find a way to put an end to these ghosts. You must stay here with us for the night at least. Tyl would you show her to the bedroom?”

Myra blushed and smiled sadly. “Thank you, both of you.” She sighed heavily and offered a haunted yet thankful smile as she ascended the stairs.

Ilhenir the Stained - UO Meravyel - Jan 10 2006

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 05:33:38 GMT

Meravyel wasn't certain that Galen would get the turnout his endeavor would require. He wanted to activate and attempt to defeat whatever powers were bound by the altar within the Bedlam cemetery's central mausoleum. A part of her thrilled at the idea. A part of her dreaded the discovery. As time passed and her experiences mounted, she found that she did believe some things are best left unknown or undiscovered. Still, the dangerous curiosity that fueled her, continued to drive her in these pursuits. She could not refuse to at least try.

The mausoleum contained a set of stairs leading downward into what was once a simple and small Crypt. Three sarcophagi lined the western wall of the hall that stretched out from the stair landing. But to the east... excavation younger than that of the original crypt opened up into what could only be a lecture hall. Stools, in surprising repair, lined the north and south sides of the central, depressed area. Flagstones were laid to form a floor and stairs. At its center, instead of a podium, stood the altar. Along the eastern wall were larger, stone chairs. Meravyel presumed these would serve as seats for professors, or whoever might've headed whatever surely secret society created this place.

To the north and south were areas that contained bookshelves. They were largely bare. Again, flagstones had been laid to form an even floor. To the south was what Meravyel determined to be a 'laboratory' area of the hall. Blood, older than perhaps even she, stained the tables and the floor. Nearly all remnants of any equipment that may have been here were long ago removed or looted. Or possibly broken and dissolved by the acid of the interred grizzles that were likely created here.

Rumors paired with research helped to prepare her for what was to come. Perhaps not to face the creature that waited for a worthy challenger, but for those things that made the challenger worthy. She sought the finest smiths and tailors to be certain her armor was in good repair. She met with a reclusive alchemist in Cove and had her kimono treated with a chemical the woman claimed would resist disease and decay. Meravyel did not intend to bring any 'surprises' with her from the journey. If she returned. If any of them did. She also bought the strongest bowstring she could find. She filled her quiver impossibly full. It would mean death to run out of ammunition down there.

All in all, the assault went as hoped. The first waves of attacks were easily handled by the energy vortices summoned by the mages on hand.

When discussing the monsters they were likely to face, Meravyel posed the question of whether or not paralysis still functioned against Plague Beast Lords, as it once did in the Yewish Swamps. Someone in the crowd claimed it would not hold them, in that place. Meravyel frowned, but nodded. She was no mage, and therefore couldn't test the theory herself.

Yet, when the third wave hit and the plague beast lords began to grow more and more powerful by dissolving and absorbing the corpses of the fallen around them... One mage dared to try. And it worked! Meravyel hurried over, dismissing her shadowy unicorn steed and drawing her dagger from her belt. It couldn't move or lash out, but it's life functions continued. The plague beast lord's body gurgled and writhed within the effects of the paralysis. She hesitated for only a moment, her stomach threatening to tumble out the contents of her dinner...

Her dagger met surprising resistance against the rubbery flesh of the plague beast lord. The blade pierced through the thing's "skin" with a sickening pop, and the sigh of escaping gas. She held her breath and wrenched her dagger across the beast's form. It took all of her strength and a little leverage. She nearly slipped in the slimy blood that spilled from the beast. The foot-long gash she cut into it split further open of its own accord, and the indistinguishable stew that comprised the monster's internal workings gushed forth and across the already slick stones.

This was repeated whenever she saw a nearby mage paralyze one of the lords.

"Paralysis works! Use it on the Beast Lords!" She shouted to those that could hear her over the din of grizzle bones scraping on the flagstones, acid hissing through metal, leather, and flesh, and the screams of those burning.

Things seemed to move more quickly after that. The third wave died, and from the thick layer of decaying body fluids rose clouds of disease and decay. They seemed sentient, but scattered in their focus. Meravyel fired an arrow into the mist, aiming carefully should her arrow pass through the other side... The mist closed around the shaft, but quickly pulled away. The enchantments on her arrows seemed to harm it. As she watched the others battle the clouds, their results seemed similar.

She fired faster and with more confidence. Pausing once or twice, she concentrated and created her own animates from the remains of the plague beast lords. They mindlessly fought the clouds, immune to the sprays of diseased mist they ejected. There were also mummies... but Meravyel caught details that didn't fit with what she knew of traditional mummies. The bandages, and even the flesh of these creatures seemed more... decayed. The essence of a mummy was that of a preserved corpse. These more closely resembled bandaged rotting corpses. She wasn't going to let one get close enough to touch her.

Nor would many others, from the looks of things.

As three clouds closed in around her, a hunger seeming to pulse through them, there was a howl from the center of the lecture hall. Her attention snapped to the altar. Standing on the altar, it's misshapen legs easily straddling the Idol... was a very large grizzle. It looked less like a construct and more like... something else. The sound that issued from it made her skin crawl and her hair stand on end. Despite the sticky, disgusting heat of the enclosed cavern, Meravyel shivered as an unnatural chill passed through her.

The clouds took advantage of her momentary distraction. All three of them darted forward, enveloping her. Fire erupted around her in the dampness of the clouds. Flamestrikes from mages turned the clouds into steam that rose to the ceiling. As the clouds evaporated away, two other mages cast cleansing spells over Meravyel. She looked again to the center of the fray.

The creature swung one of its massive limbs. A darkly clothed figure flew back, landing heavily on the upper flagstones. It was Galen. Of course the peredhil would be the first to charge down something like this. Again, she shivered. The sight of the beast unsettled the elfmaid like few other things could.

By the time she slogged through the fallen remains of the waves of beasts that kept this creature's secrets, it had fallen. The group that had gathered for this journey had worked surprisingly well, and effectively considering the enclosed space and the strength of the waves...

Galen regained his feet just before the creature perished, and Meravyel's worry faded.

The group cleared fairly quickly, once the meager treasures had been picked over. Meravyel summoned her steed, so that she wouldn't have to walk through the sludge... Her feet were bare, and now burnt by the acid of the grizzles.

Spoz, Galen's former guildmaster and leader of the Warriors of Redemption, lingered for a moment. Meravyel was always secretly pleased when she saw WoR participate in these ventures. Some of their numbers had come to assist her with Serrado the Awakened. Without them, paired with the others that came, she was certain the task would have been doomed to failure.

The two men exchanged words and saluted one another, and Spoz rode out of the Crypt.

Meravyel could hear the voices of a few lingerers nearer to the stairs, but only she and Galen remained in the lecture hall.

"I now understand why no mention was ever made of this place," Galen half-mumbled, with a cigarette between his lips. He took one long drag, looked at it, and then extinguished it. "There is naught here but death."

Meravyel looked around. His observation was certainly not incorrect, even if incomplete. "There's a lot more than death here. There's-"

Galen held up a hand, something having caught his eye. Meravyel allowed the interruption and fell silent; she wasn’t ready to share her thoughts on the subject anyway. Her eyes followed his gaze. He pointed, as he dismounted, to the altar. "What's that?"

"An altar?" Meravyel smirked, likewise dismissing her mount and wincing as her feet touched the stones. The chemical burns would need treated, but were not any more disabling than a brush-burned knee.

He knelt on one of the stone steps, and gestured more specifically to some markings. "These."

He moved to give Meravyel space when she knelt and leaned in to study what had caught his eye. She pulled off her gloves and ran her fingertips over the markings. "Chemical burns." She nodded to a nearby broken and bleeding grizzle. Its blood still hissed where it touched the blood of other fallen creatures.

"No, it looks too much like writing." Galen frowned. Either at the idea, or at her reluctance to grant his finding more credence.

Meravyel pursed her lips. Her curiosity and good sense warred with one another. She thought the same thing, but did she really want to know what it said? She sighed and looked again. Her eyes narrowed. "It is shorthand."

"Shorthand for what?" He had surprising patience with her.

"Necromantic shorthand." It was as if she didn't hear him, or wasn't listening. As if she were speaking out loud, to herself. "Normally only used by advanced level students. It isn't all that current either." Her fingers caressed the grooves. Most of them she couldn't make out. Only three symbols were clearly legible.

"How do you...?" Galen stopped. Perhaps he didn't want to know. Perhaps he already did.

"It's an older dialect. Most of it is too worn to make out reliably. It was probably carved with a horn." Her eyes searched the ground near them and she found a grizzle horn that had been broken off in the battle. "Dipped in the acid. The lines are too precise to be anything else." She pulled a flask from her pocket. She had taken the time to fill three of these with grizzle blood. In a demonstration, she dipped the horn into the acid. It didn't burn away like most other things. Using the tip of the horn, she added her own symbol to the end of the still legible ones.

"What does that say?"

"Defeated."

"The first part."

She offered him a wry smile. She put the flask away, and wrapped the horn up and put it in her satchel. She had collected a few others for later study as well. "As near as I can tell, it appears to be a warning." She pointed to a faded symbol. "That should be 'beware'. And here..." she pointed to the three symbols.

Galen waited, looking at her.

"Ilhenir the Stained."

lightning_fic prompt - 10 mins - 5/13/05

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 16:25:25 GMT

Anyone who thinks they wake up looking like the crown prince of Handsome Land is kidding themselves.

I mean, really? Have you seen the guy? That hair, those teeth. Oh my goodness, those teeth! Perfect! Straight, white. Hell's bells, they sparkle when he yawns. He could blind a man at 60 feet with his pearly whites on a sunny day.

Don't get me started on his eyes either. Blue as a summer sky. Or maybe the deep gray of a thunderstorm. Or the green of the Woody Forest in the summer, during a thunderstorm. Seem's they change to match his outfit. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

I hear he went through 65 tailors before they found one that could make clothes that wouldn't simply unravel under the strain of containing all that Handsome. Rumor-mongers could be exaggerating, but at least 4 of those tailors were my cousins.

There's worse rumors though, about the Crown Prince. You know, and his mom. Everyone knows the Crown Prince isn't really her son. And everyone who's got eyes knows he is more suited to be the King of Handsome Land than his father. The boy got his looks from his mother, rest her soul. Tales at the tavern say she was whisked off to heaven, just as soon as she had the prince. There wasn't a more beautiful lady anywhere in the world. How the king ended up with her, I don't know. Though, might have something to do with him being the King of Handsome Land.

Anyhows, son. Don't wake up thinking you can use those sparkly blues on me like your as charming as the Crown Prince of Handsome Land. You're kidding yourself.

(hm. got 5 minutes out of it. i suck.)

lightning_fic prompt - 15 mins - 4/12/05

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 16:22:33 GMT

"I didn't do it, of course; who could save the world when it means the spontaneous combustion of one's own cellular structure?" Jared Hess lowered the stack of papers. "Jimmy, what the hell is this?"

Jame Clarnel looked up from his own copy of the script. "It's the line Hess. Do you have a problem with it?" He peered up at the actor over the tops of his reading glasses. Damn, he hated working with the blockbuster guys.

"Yeah, I sorta do, Jimmy." Jared tapped his finger on James' paper. "This? This isn't what any anti-hero worth his weight in sauce is gonna say. You know that, I know that. What the hell is "spontaneous combustion" anyway, Jimmy? I mean really! Who is gonna believe that the bad-ass of the film is going to say something like "own cellular structure" over a drink in a bar?"

James pinched the bridge of his nose and heaved a sigh, "Spontaneous combustion. -Spontaneous-, meaning sudden and without reason and -combustion- meaning explosion. It's when a person bursts into flames and dies, generally without burning anything around them. I know this isn't your usual style, Jared -"

"Hess to you," Jared interupted.

"...Hess. But your character isn't exactly macho. Did you even read the script or the backstory for the character?" Jared's almost baffled expression gave him all the answer he needed, so he continued, "He's a biomolecular scientist, Hess!"

"Sounds like a pussy to me."

"For the love of God, Hess! Just read the script and -act-! That is what you do, isn't it? This isn't one of your macho, bullshit save-the-world stories, alright? Get over it and just read what's on the paper." James never had much patience for stupidity, or lack of talent. In his line of work, he encountered far too much.

"Jared, baby!" The voice made James' hair stand on end. It was Jared's agent. James wondered who he had to lube up for in the mens' room to get Hess the part in this one.

"Kosmo! How ya doing?" The two men embraced. "Hey, what's up with getting me this pussy scientist part, huh?" Jared proferred the script to Kosmo (few people know Kosmo had a last name at all).

"Jared. Baby-doll. It's the biz. Time to expand your horizons, show the world whatta star you are, yeah? 'Sides, the studio owed me one," Kosmo straightened Jared's tie. "So you do good in it, a'right? Let me know if anyone gives you any trouble."

"To tell you the truth, Kosmo, I'm thinking the script needs a little rewriting."

"Oh hell no!" James exploded out of his chair between the two men. Kosmo was a pretty average guy, a little round in the middle. Jared was built, for a man in his mid-40's, and stood about 6 foot tall. James Clarnel, however, was a stick-thin man with a small frame. His 'exploding' looked more like a stick figure flailing in the wind. "Hell. No. You slimey little meatpuppet. This is my script, my project, my -story-. You!" He turned to Kosmo. "I don't care whose dick you sucked to get this half-assed piece of shit into the cast but I hope you liked it. And you!" He turned to Jared Hess. "You are a meat puppet. I say dance, you say 'The tango or the twist?' I say jump, you say 'how high'. Get it? You are not a writer, you are not smarter than I am, so do your fucking job and -act-."

lightning_fic prompt: 1 hour

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 20:27:12 GMT

prompt: Hello, my dear stranger.

If someone had asked me six months ago if I had ever imagined I'd be sitting in a cold camp on the edge of a mountain range I couldn't name, somewhere in far eastern Europe, I'd have asked them if they were crazy. Now I wondered if I was the crazy one.

It was cold here. Louis sat across from me, both of us staring at the dead firepit.

"No fire," he'd said when I started to gather kindling.

"Why the fuck not?" I was a little more shrill than I'd meant to be, but like I said, damned cold.

"They'll find us. Cold camp tonight, kid."

Fucking cold camps. It'd been cold camps for the last four days. I could see the edge of the invitation peeking from his jacket pocket. I remembered the gold gilt edges and the fancy script. It had been an invitation to a royal masquerade.

"You seriously know the Princess there?" I didn't believe him. This was like his story about Russia, and the Chinese Navy, and that one about the girl whose eyes exploded, I just knew it. All those alley-side stories he'd told me to amuse me.

A weird smile had appeared on his face then, reminding me of that time with him in the church. "I know her very well."

He didn't talk about it after that. Not until a month ago.

"Kid, pack a bag."

"Taking me on a trip," I thought he was joking.

"Yeah. Want to go to a masquerade?" He was seroius.

"What?"

In answer, he'd pulled the invitation out of his pocket. I had almost forgotten about it in all the time that had passed.

(5 min)

The next week and a half had been a whirl of preparations. My mom didn't offer any argument after speaking to Louis in private. That was the freakiest thing I had ever seen - or so I thought at the time. Mom was a nun. I know it sounds funny since she's my mom, but she had run away to the convent after being raped or something, and had me in the church. I never asked her questions about it anymore. She used to tell me that it didn't matter because there was nothing before me, and before Christ. Fine lady, whatever. I love my mom though.

Louis talked to her in some hushed whispers and while she looked worried, she eventually agreed.

I was more surprised when she brought out one of my old dolls and removed the head. Inside was a wad of cash like I'd never seen before. Shit! We'd been living like paupers my entire life, provided for by donations from the congregation, and she had over thirty grand stuffed into my old Betsy Wetsy doll's head! The real kicker? She handed it all to Louis, and then blessed him.

That should have been enough of a clue that I didn't want any part of this party, right? What did I know then?

Louis and I went up to New York. New York fucking City. For clothes, he said. There wasn't anywhere else to find a designer that could get what we'd need. He set up an appointment with me with some woman. Vera something? Who knows. I didn't much like dresses, but you shoulda seen this monster!

Red velvets with white lace and chiffon and this weird cage skirt underneath. I looked like some strange medieval princess from one of those shitty Barbie fantasy cartoons they feed to kids these days. Or one of those two-hundred dollar Barbies themselves. Fifteenth century, she said. Something about Shakespeare and shit. I wasn't paying much attention, since there was some girl behind me pulling on strings that made the top so tight I could hardly breathe. Felt like my insides were being cut in half, or at least squeezed up toward my mouth. Now I know how a tube of toothpaste feels.

(10min)

Louis gave up the blacks, got him a gray suit with a strange top hat and ruffles. Think Gary Oldman from Bram Stoker's Dracula, okay? Except he got sunglasses that sat up where I couldn't see his eyes. I wasn't surprised in the least by that. Mostly I was surprised at how nicely he cleaned up.

Dressed up like a princess, standing there in front of him dressed like a courtly gentleman, I'm ashamed to admit that I felt my heart pounding in my chest. Maybe a little lightheaded, but I blamed the corset when I fainted.

(15)

None of that was keeping me warm though. All that money on clothes, and I couldn't figure out why we had to hike up the mountains to GET to the party.

"Don't worry. You'll get a hot bath and treated like royalty when you get there." That's what Louis kept telling me every time I wanted to stop. The lure wasn't all that alluring anymore. I didn't care if I got a bath, or spit on. I just wanted to be clean. I didn't care if it was a feather bed, or a pile of leaves. I just wanted to lay down. My feet ached, my hair was in knots, and I am pretty sure I smelled terrible. I had long ago stopped being able to smell my own sweat. Is it possible that eventually you just get so encased it's like some kind of protective shield?

Kind of gross if you ask me.

I keep wandering off on tangents.

Two more days would bring us to the castle. Yup, castle. This was all turning out kind of creepy. Howling wolves, cold camps, and the two of us hauling bulky luggage through the wilds, like plane crash victims. I loved the dress and everything, but it was too damn heavy to carry. I'd actually be glad to wear it again, if only to relieve having all the weight centered in the pack on my back.

* * *

I've seen a lot of movies, even though my mom wouldn't let me watch them at home. Scary shit, like Hellraiser and that one with the guy in dreams with claws. I never watched the Exorcist because, well my mom was a nun and I grew up in the Catholic church. I didn't want to know. This place? This place looked like it belonged in one of the old horror films, like Nosferatu or something. Big oak doors and metal straps and bolts on it. Gargoyles, and dragons, and other weird monster things on the edges and their heads as door knockers. There were torches everywhere, though I was kind of relieved to see there were electric lights embedded along the walkways too.

(20)

The woman who opened the door was not dressed for door opening. I'm not given to poetics or nothing, but the best way to describe the slinky number she was wearing? It was a midnight field of stars. It wasn't black, but it wasn't just dark blue either. And it had little things on it that sparkled. Later when I asked, Louis told me that they were really diamonds. Shit. I didn't want to imagine how much just a sleeve of that thing would be worth.

"Ah -" she began, but Louis cut her off.

"Just Louis, Madame Scazri." I couldn't be sure but I think they both gave me a little sideways glance.

"Of course, Louis." If she were a cat, I think she was purring. He took her gloved hand and kissed it. Then he turned to me. Uh oh.

"Madame Scazri, may I introduce my companion for the evening, Miss Kyli Lamb." Ugh he used my whole name. Why couldn't I just be Li, or Ky, or hell, I'd have settled for Kid this time around.

"Hello, my dear stranger," she purred at me. On second thought, it was more like a rattlesnake's tail disguised as a purr. I couldn't shake this creepy feeling as she took my hand and kissed the back of my gloved hand. "Dear Miss Lamb..." Her eyes lingered on me a little longer that should've been polite, I think. "Please! Come in, both of you!"

(25)

lightning_fic prompt - 7 minutes

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 18:02:49 GMT

prompt: this is stranger than love and loss
---

"That's very sad." I felt like a dork, but what else could I say to Louis' story? I mean, losing your betrothed to a vampire. Nevermind that I didn't believe in vampires, and who used the worth "betrothed" anymore?

"Yeah, well this is stranger than love and loss," he took a pull from his cigarette. The smoke curled upward and I had to grin at the faint halo it seemed to make around his head. "I see you find it funny?"

His voice was as deadpan as ever, but there was something there I hadn't heard before. Did I offend him? "No, no, Louis. Just the smoke. Made you look like an angel there for a second," I couldn't help grinning, "Except for all the black you wear."

"You think angels would dress in white all the time? Maybe favor nice flowing chiffon and the like?" He leaned his head back against the brick wall, no longer facing me. I couldn't tell if he was looking at me anyway, when he did that. His sunglasses were far too dark.

"Sure, why wouldn't they?" I reached over and fished the crumpled pack of smokes from his pocket. "Shit, Louis, I'm getting you a case for Christmas or something." They were all half bent. Poor things. I took one anyway - a smoke was a smoke when you couldn't get your own.

I saw his lips curl into a grin as I put them back. "Aw, wouldn't that be sweet?" the sarcasm was obvious. "You know when the last time I got a present was?"

"What, that ham sandwich I gave you yesterday didn't count?" My lighter sparked, didn't catch. Sparked again, nothing. Louis flipped out his zippo. Flick of the wrist and poof, flame at the ready. I really need one of those.

"I guess it can, but I meant something on a special occassion, twerp."

"Last Christmas?"

"Try forty Christmas' ago."

"Bullshit."

"So you say," he shrugged, taking a long drag and lazily expelling the smoke into a cloud above us.

"Louis, you're like... what? Twenty-five, maybe thirty at most?" I mimicked him, relaxing against the wall.

"Sure, twerp, sure." He half smiled, gazing up at the night sky. Hell if I knew how he could see anything through those sunglasses at night, but Louis was a strange one. For all I knew, he could be blind - but if that was the case, he had some creepy sixth sense because he knew I was looking at him. "Sure, last Christmas. I got a puppy."

He chuckled.

Phoebe - UO

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 20:30:28 GMT

The ronin had allowed the strange woman to pass through their forest. They had even allowed her to enter their dojo. What trouble could one woman give them?

She entered the dojo, her geta announcing her arrival to those inside. Every step echoed, followed by the soft whisper of her hakama. There was something of a swagger in the woman's movement and the watching ronin knew she was not from Tokuno. Though a kasa sat low, obscuring most of her face, they could see the Britannian skin of her neck.

She stopped in the middle of the dojo.

"Ah know yer watchin' me. Best to be comin' out honorable like, don'tcha think?"

Her accent was horrid.

7 min prompt from lightning_fic

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 13:44:51 GMT

Surf the Brainwaves

The billboard featured a picture of a frail and acne-ridden boy, with the latest iCapsule™ set into the docking port on his temple, with a glazed look in his eyes. Or maybe it was because they rendered the image while he was wearing a pair of fake spectacles. Relics of times gone by, but still tied to the image of the geeky adolescent.

Visual defects had ceased to be a problem, since anyone coud go to the local pharmacy and lean into the eyeScan™ and have their vision problems not only diagnosed but corrected with a spray-on lense coating. It was easier than contact lenses, less invasive than laser surgeries, cheaper (since it was free) than nanobots and would slowly deteriorate over the course of a month. It was obviously 'biodegradable' and made up of a complex of proteins and enzymes that the body could safely absorb and process away.

Still, that billboard, Surf the Brainwaves, stared down at the highway everyday.

The iCapsule™ was compatible with anyone's docking stations, as long as they were somewhere on the user's head. It would tap into the electrical currents in the brain and connect the brain directly to the iWaves™ (basically an upgrade to the Internet). Trouble only arose when hackers found ways to cross the electrical pulses. In the early days, this had resulted in some very interesting instances of swapped personalities. Total rewrites of the brain, with the exception of quirks caused by the physical makeup of a person's brainmatter, of course.

Later scientists did what scientists do; they discovered a way to do this on purpose. It was something of a breakthrough for the transgender community. Of course the iCorporation™ released the first official procedure - the iTrans™.

Elizaveta

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 14:01:03 GMT

As the sun sank into the west and night descended gently on the capital city of Britannia, a figure emerged upon the balcony of Castle Blackthorn. There was no sound from the feminine silohuette as she passed through the barely open doorway. Gone were her accustomed layers of silks and lace, and with them the rustles they would make when she moved. Instead she wore a simple cotton dress of the peasantry. A single bag hung suspended from one shoulder, just large enough to accomodate what she counted as indispensable for her journey, and in her opposite hand was an unlit lantern.

Many cycles of Sosaria's two moons had passed since she and Mihail had first found themselves free of the Dread Realm, and inhabitants of this world. They had learned some of the ways, and made their 'home' in the abandoned halls of a keep nestled on an island. It was isolated, yet close enough to a bustling population. A perfect place for two such as they. Many memories were forged in their time, and many heartaches, if such creatures could feel that particular color of pain.

Elizaveta looked down at the old cushioned throne, recalling briefly the act that had caused Mihail to abandon her in this world, to leave her alone. And the Feyborn Deleaduindill had taken her gift, returned to the Dread Realm, and sometime while he was gone, he changed. He'd taken pause to explain to her the nature of what happened to him, but in truth she could not hear, could not understand. The gift she'd given was undone, but Mihail was still gone. She was still alone.

She decided she would find him. Mihail was her other half, in this half life that they lived. Without him she was a shell, a walking husk, living only in shadows and whispers. She had repaired every tapestry within Castle Blackthorn and had even woven a few new ones in the time she'd spent there. Now it was time to act, to step out into the world.

Elizaveta had never gone anywhere without Mihail, beholden as she was to the curse her Grandmother had laid on her upon her death, but now what choice did she have?

The light of the twin moons shone down on her upturned face. The dark pools of her eyes reflected back their light and she exhaled his name into the night, calling to him, hoping he would hear her;

Mihail.

Without another word, another thought, or even another sound, she disappeared from the balcony and began her journey.

lightning_fic, 17 mins - Louis!

Fri, 19 May 2006 20:08:37 GMT

"I dreamed of flesh-eating butterflies."

"Sure, kid."

"I'm serious, Louis! It was a masquerade, and everyone was in costume. I couldn't recognize anyone. These butterflies were people, and they flapped their arms, but were really flying. They were floating around, in shades of reds, blues, yellow, and black. Then they would land -"

"I thought I was the story teller between us?"

He looked at me over his darkened sunglasses. I was momentarily amused by the gesture. It was already dark outside, and I had no hope of seeing the eyes he'd kept hidden from me for the last six months.

That's how long ago I'd met Louis. He saved my life, I'm pretty sure. Don't get me wrong, I haven't deluded myself into thinking I'm in love with him or anything. He's anything but the whole knight-in-shining-armor, going around and rescuing damsels in distress. Sometimes that rescuing is just a side effect of doling out asskickings, you know?

I think that's how he ended up saving me anyhow.

He refuses to talk about it. Hell, the night he saved me, he only said two things to me. He asked, "Can you run?" I'm not too ashamed to admit that I probably whimpered in answer. Whimper or not, I must've said something that was interpreted in the affirmative, because he followed up with, "Do it." And boy, did I. I ran until I couldn't run anymore, literally. I ran down Central street and right up the steps of St. Cessanius' where my mother worked. (5:00)

The effigy of the little boy was carved into the great oaken doors, and if I had weighed more than a buck and a quarter, I might've been able to push it open with momentum alone. Instead, I hit with a dull thud, and the little brat's scepter broke my skull wide open. Whatever happened next was more than blurry. I woke up lying on a pew, and Louis was holding an icepack against the knot on my head, sitting next to me.

"A nearly empty church is a funny place to run from attackers." He was wearing those sunglasses, even in the darkened sanctuary, and he wasn't looking at me. How the hell did he even know I'd woken up?

"My mom is here." I guess it was all I could manage.

The corner of his mouth kind of twitched. Might've been a grin, now that I think about it. "Yeah, mine too."

There's another story I never could get out of him. He keeps telling me he was being funny. There was something in his tone back then, and even now, that says he's bullshitting. But there's something else in his tone that lets me know not to press the issue too far.

So that's how I met Louis. I've had the same dream almost every night since our meeting in that alleyway, but this is the first time I'd ever told him, and even though he wanted to pretend that I was trying to steal his thunder, the fact that he was looking at me meant I'd gotten his attention in a way anything rarely did.

"Flesh eating butterflies, huh?"

"Sometimes they land and eat people."

"Eat them?"

"I guess not exactly. Just kind of latch onto them? There's bleeding and the butterflies' mouths are covered in blood, and of course there's screaming, until the people being eaten fall down and then the butterflies flit off to another person."

"What did you eat before bed?"

"Nothing!"

"Sleeping on an empty stomach -" He was finally sliding his sunglasses back up and leaning his head back against the brickwall. I felt like I was losing some kind of prized-fish catch.

"I've had this same dream every night since I met you, stupid!" What possessed me to call him stupid, I don't know. I guess I'm just glad he didn't take it to heart (if he heard it at all).

His head snapped in my direction and I swear, even though I shouldn't, that I thought he was going to hit me, or worse. I'm still not sure what "worse" could possibly have been, but I felt it.

"What did you say?" There was an edge to his voice I hadn't heard since "Do it."

"Uh, I uh, called you stupid?" I was close to tears.

He paused, and if I could see his eyes, I'm pretty sure he blinked. His posture relaxed. He laughed. The bastard laughed! "No, not that." He ruffled my hair. "About the dream."

"Every night since I met you. It's the same dream. Sometimes, the people who fall down, I see them in the papers days or weeks later."

Louis leaned back against the church's wall and took a long drag from his cigarette, looking contemplative. "Interesting."

Note: narrative lapse. from 'not recognizing' figures IN the dream in the first part, to later being able to recognize figures FROM the dream in pictures. needs better clarification.
thebigfatman explains it more adequately than I could to myself:
No, not a lapse; they are people she doesn't know to recognize a face, but she nonetheless sees the faces in-dream, and when she sees them awake, looking at the paper, she recognizes them as the dream faces, but nothing more connected than that.

Mon, 15 May 2006 03:35:09 GMT

Her father's gardens were beautiful. Vines turned the ironwrought fencing into living walls shielding his estate from the rest of the world. She knew every nook and cranny of the gardens, every leaf of every plant. She knew where a vine's beginning and end could be found and how many times it twisted. This garden was her only world and she knew every twist, every turn, everything from top to bottom. Nothing frightened her here.

Nothing, except her father.

But today her Friend from Outside would come. He came on the same days each time, to hear her sing. Today she would teach him the last part of the song.

She looked up from the harp in her lap. Her tiny fingers stilled its strings. She saw him peeking in. His blue eyes were shining stones among the green leaves. She smiled. She was glad to see her Friend from Outside. The only people she'd ever known were her father, her cousin, and their nanny. No one else ever visited the estate, and she was never allowed to leave.

But this boy, he travelled with the caravans and would tell her stories in exchange for her songs. She would sing to him in the tongue of her people and he would tell her stories of the human cities beyond her home's walls. After a while, he had tried to sing along with her and that is when she began to teach him the words to the song that was his favorite.

But her father knew. He had watched from his study window on the days she would play hide and seek with the human boy on the other side of the garden gates. He knew, and she would never be allowed to see the boy again after this day.

Still, this was not important to the girl as she slid from her place on her stool and ran to the garden wall, one hand holding tight to her harp. When she came nearer to the garden fence, she could see the grin on his lips. Her bright smile mirrored it as she closed her free hand over his on the bars of the fence.

Coramamin lindua ele lle, tathar. Sut naa lle sina re?

Quel, lindor. Sut naa lle?

He smiled proudly every time he used her language without stuttering.

Quel, tathar.

And their lesson began. She would sing out the mournful words as her fingers brought her harp strings to life. He would listen, paying rapt attention to every sound, every syllable, the way she shaped the words. He hummed as she sang, though he knew the words up until the last verse. When she approached the last verse, she slowed down and enunciated the words carefully. She never told him what they meant, and he didn't press to know.

The words are beautiful, and I want to be able to make sounds as beautiful as you do.

She smiled, and her eyes sparkled with a merriness only children or the insane can muster.

It was only then that Meravyel noticed something amiss.

She was watching the boy and the girl sitting on opposite sides of the garden walls, and though this estate was located on the edge of the southern jungles, a the canopy of a large Yew tree shaded them. Resting amongst the Yew's massive roots was a man she did not recognize. His hair was dark, and long for a man. His eyes rested on the two children, and that's when Meravyel realized a something else was amiss. She was no longer a part of the memory, she was standing in it. She was faded when compared to the lush garden surrounding her, and so was the man resting amongst the roots.

As if feeling her eyes on him, the man met her gaze with an inviting and warm, but careful smile. He seemed to be likewise faded when compared to the vision in which they found themselves. His eyes were familiar somehow. They were blue. Like the boy's.

A realization washed over Meravyel then, and something changed. When she looked down at herself, she was no longer dressed in shades of gray and black, but instead in a green summer dress.

lightning_fic prompt; 20 mins

Wed, 19 Apr 2006 03:19:35 GMT

"Please, let us jump back and change the timeline, your majesty," he begged, remaining standing on the space dock. "No one ever need know but us three!"

Her face grew thoughtfully cold as she looked at them. "No one now knows of it but us three... and to let you go would be admitting a mistake in Our actions."

"Damn it!" He pushed his hair back from his forehead, a nervous gesture he'd acquired during their mission. Too much time around them. "So what if we do make mistakes, Ryssa? It is not impossible that we could misjudge the actions of these people. We do not make mistakes, but we are no omniscent."

Ryssa turned her back on Hralth. "We do not make mistakes. Now come."

M-- was the most silent of the three. In all their time togther - and it had been eons - Ryss and Hralth had only ever heard her speak on two occassions. This was the second. "We have made a mistake. It will be rectified."

Ryssa turned, but faster than she could react, a blue light split the air and blinded her. When her vision returned, no trace of M-- or Hralth was found.

* * *

The fog lifted slowly. His head pounded. The ground beneath him - no, a couch - swayed and creaked. He could hear a strange rhythmic tapping coming from somewhere near by, and could hear the something turning.

"I was afraid you would not awaken."

When he opened his eyes, he was astonished to see M-- sitting before him, dressed very differently than just moments before on the space dock. "Wha-?"

"Quiet now. You will be confused for a moment, but the silence will give you the answers." She offered a hand to help him sit up. She was wearing a pristine white glove that disappeared beneath a tightly buttoned sleeve. A ruffle of lace framed her wrist like some delicate wreath. Her sleeve, attached to her dress, was a deep burgundy and buttoned from wrist to elbow, where it became somewhat more slack on her arm. The chest of the dress was likewise severe. It was fitted, and buttoned from her waist all the way up her throat. A sizable metal tog, a brooch, fastened beneath her chin. Her hair was pulled back and twisted into a harsh bun, reminiscent of their time in the human service. Where it was once a sandy brown, it was now silver. Otherwise, she was unchanged. Her green eyes, as always, were focused somewhere else.

He took her offered hand and sat up slowly, taking in his surroundings. They were inside an earlier century carriage. The interior was not too lavish, but comfortable. The seats were upholstered in a this velvet. There were glass windows in the doors, and curtains to match the seats.

"Where are we?"

She placed a small leather case in his lap. Inside he found a map and other various documents. Her eyes were fixed somewhere distant, beyond the window.

"It is all we will require to gain entrance. It is up to us alone. We must do it as one of them, or the mistake will not be rectified, only delayed to another generation." She turned her head then to look at him.

He gasped.

-------------

And I lost it, at 17 minutes.

lightning_fic 33 min prompt [Alesia]

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 16:25:12 GMT

I only used 15 of the 33 allotted minutes. May do the next 18 min installment later.

His labored breathing came in grunts as he ran down the alleyway. The bitch was getting away!

Alesia ran and ran. Her feet moved impossibly fast. That familiar burning slowly spread from the base of her spine upward. She had just come outside from the compound to see what the city was like. Almost immediately this bad man had begun to chase her, shouting angrily for her to come back.

She rounded a corner and ran right into someone. Stunned she looked up. It was Father. She was afraid, and the pain had started again. Her eyes welled up and a sense of relief washed over her, as it always did when she was allowed to spend time with Father.

"Oh, papa! Papa!" She flung her arms around him and he wrapped his arms slowly around her thin adolescent figure. She cried like frightened 5 year old.

She clung, "Oh please, make the bad man stop!" and pressed her face against his chest.

He stroked her hair softly and murmured ~~in his smooth, carefully unaccented English~~, "Ah, my dear... have you not realized that the bad man works for me?"

She pulled back to look up at him as the bad man, panting and wheezing, came around the corner. Her forehead furrowed into a confused frown, childlike confusion. She looked between the man that radiated such malice and said such bad things to her, and Father. Always kind, always gentle Father. How could he work for Father?

Alesia was, in truth, only 5 years old. Her body was that of a 12 year old girl, but her mind had not progressed nearly as fast. Richard's genetic tampering could not give Alesia the learning and experience to match the development of her body. If her mind were older, she would have long ago figured out just what was happening to her. Instead, she was kept protected and sheltered. Perhaps even mentally stunted, so that the experiments could go more smoothly.

"Come now, my dear. We will go home. It is time for lunch, and I promise the bad man won't hurt you. He was sent to protect you." He kept an arm around her shoulder. It was a gesture the child would see as protective, but only later would she realize that he was afraid she'd run away again. Desperately afraid.

lightning_fic prompt, 6 minutes

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 14:06:28 GMT

Geoffrey had no time to look for smelling salts.

Or the bandages, or the antibiotics, or the syringes, or the... the list went on and on, and replayed again and again in his mind.

No time, no time. His forehead pressed against the cold stone of sewer wall. No time. His fist slammed into the wall beside his head. If he had just been prepared, if he had just thought ahead.

Julianne was huddled in the corner behind him, silent and still as the old gargoyle statues that stood as sentries in the old sewer system. In centuries past, these sewers hadn't been sewers, but something else.

That didn't help them, however. This something else didn't have a place where they could get medical supplies of any kind. With the riots and plagues going on in the cities everywhere, there was no way they could survive without some kind of supplies, even those as basic as a first aid kit.

Food was easy enough to get. There were plenty of rats and other small animals hiding in the underground. Plus, if you were desperate enough, there were people. Rick had told them You can eat anything if you cook it long enough. He was right.

"Geoff?" Julianne's voice carried too well in these tunnels.

He turned to look at her. Her foot peeked from beneath her long, tattered skirt. She'd stepped on a nail four days ago and it was infected. Without those supplies that he'd neglected to prepare when they fled their home... she would die.

No time, no time. He'd had no time. (5:45)

lightning_fic, 12 min prompt

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 18:48:18 GMT

Prompt: "With my big black boots and an old suitcase, I do believe I've found myself a new place."

The suitcase was heavier than expected, but the butler did his best to maintain his cool mannerisms. The man's black boots fell heavily on the hardwood floors, his footsteps echoing ahead and announcing his arrival before the hired help could.

Bramley stood from the lush chair in front of the fireplace, brandy glass in his left hand, a rather expensive cigar in his right. "Ah, Tyler! How wonderful to see you. Come, come have a seat." The brandy glass was abandoned on the small table between his chair and the one he offered his guest. He walked to the small oaken bar in the corner.

The man identified as Tyler did not hang his coat on the rack near the door, but instead shrugged his shoulders as if bracing himself to walk into a winter storm. "Thank you, Mister Bramley." His heavy footsteps were muffled by the plush Oriental rug that dominated the center of the intimate study. The clink of glasses drew his attention to his host.

"Brandy?"

"No." He looked to the crackling fire in the hearth.

"Port, perhaps?"

"No. Thank you."

"Cigar?" The offer was a courtesy.

"... Yes, I think I will."

Bramley's attractive, if not somewhat aged, features split into a pleased smile. "I wasn't certain you would come at all this time." He selected a cigar from a wooden box on the bar and snipped the end.

"Light it for me." Tyler's gloved fingers flexed against the armrests of his chair.

"Certainly, certainly." The scent of a fresh cigar eased around the room. "I almost didn't recognize you when you came up the drive. You seem... smaller this time?" (6 min)

"A necessity. My previous countenance was becoming far too well-known." Tyler accepted the cigar awkwardly. He studied Bramley as the man returned to his seat. He mimicked Bramley's smoking as closely as possible. "What do you want this time, Mister Bramley."

Bramley, at least, never wasted time when business was at hand. He would stall with the niceties of his 'society', but didn't beat around the bush, as they say. "There's a woman."

"State your desired outcome."

"An unfortunate illness, incurable, fatal." He paused to puff on his cigar. "Swift."

"Are you prepared for the fee." Tyler's cigar was all but neglected, resting on the ashtray beside Bramley's brandy.

"In the basement."

"Good. The servants?"

"Only the butler and the scullery maid are awake."

"When I return, I will grant your request."

The man called Tyler left the study. Bramley hung his head and waited.

***

It was difficult to be larger creature morphed into a smaller one. This was the problem Xarlytek encountered every time he visited Bramley's estate. However, in the darkened basement, the disguise was no longer necessary. He opened his suitcase, which he'd retrieved from the hall on his way, and set free a writhing mass. It leapt from the suitcase, wrapping itself around his form. His body shifted, morphed...

The four children, bound and gagged in the corner, watched in horror. His clothing burst apart, his limbs stretched, grew, separated. In the end, the only thing unchanged about the figure were his big black boots.

Louis Returns [lightning_fic prompt]

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 21:01:15 GMT

It was a 15 minute prompt.

"And without further ado, her eyes exploded." Louis took another drag from his cigarrette.

"Excuse me?" I knew he was so full of bullshit, his eyes were brown.

"You heard me. Her eyes exploded." He sounded bored with his own story.

"Sure they did Lou." I took a drag from my cigarrette. "So, she was so scared her eyes exploded?"

"It's what happens when you don't scream. You've seen people afraid before, right Syl? Their eyes bulge, and the longer they hold it in, the bigger their eyes get. Until -"

"Yeah, I know." I had to cut him off. Besides, there was something really amusing about the way he phrased it that made me want to say it too. "Until without further ado, her eyes exploded." I couldn't help but laugh.

"Yuck it up fun-girl. It happened." I could hear the crackle of the ember of his cigarrette, a harmony part to my own.

"Tell me another one huh?" I spent most of my Thursday nights out here on this stupid brick landing with Louis, listening to his bullshit stories. I think my favorites were the ones about the Chinese submarine and joining the People's party or something in Russia.

"Ah, my little night-bloomer, I'm afraid I'm all out of stories tonight." He flicked the smoldering butt of his smoke onto the ground, rubbing it out with the heel of his boot. "Plus, I have some things to do." He was looking at me. I couldn't see his eyes because of those sunglasses he wore, but I knew he was looking at me.

"Oh sure, just abandon me." This was our regular song and dance.

"Just stay here. You know I'll be back." His face turned upward and he seemed to be looking up at the rooftops surrounding the alleyway just around the corner from our meeting spot. "Just stay here."

Something in his tone made the hair on the back of my neck stand up; or maybe it was the air. April evenings really weren't all that warm. "Sure thing." But he was gone.

I heard his booted footsteps at a hurried pace going down the alleyway. Most nights I'd just wait here like he said. He'd be gone for maybe thirty minutes, maybe an hour. He'd come back in a much better mood, with a fresh pack of smokes and another story for me. I always thought he went off for a romp with one of the local ladies. I'd never had the nerve to ask

Something about tonight urged me to follow him. He'd been kind of distracted, so chances were good he'd never notice me following him.

Furies Project from lightning_fic 17 min prompt

Fri, 28 Oct 2005 03:42:57 GMT

"The System isn't broken. It isn't even that ill-structured." He gave a flippant shrug.

"Wait, what? How can you say that? Look at them! Do those girls look underqualified? Can't you see the potential there?" She was livid, her cheeks flushed in a way he found quite attractive. Her scent filled the air. Mm, aggressive.

He turned to face her with a wave of his hand. "We aren't here to gauge potential. Potential can be untapped, it can be misleading. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. You know that. You certainly didn't get where you are on potential."

She huffed, folding her arms for a moment and then unfolding them to once again point at the line of girls shuffling down the hall, "You're going to condemn them to death because they don't seem right? What kind of system is that?"

In three short strides, he was upon her. He grabbed her by the throat, pushing her against the nearby wall. Leaning in so his mouth was by her ear, he inhaled her scent deeply before hissing, "Do not question the system or you will find yourself on the unfortunate end of it." He paused once more to breathe in deeply - she was positively delicious - before letting go and stepping back to give her space.

Her hand went to her throat, rubbing at the marks he'd left. Her eyes flashed angrily but she said nothing.

"Now, Miss Redwick," his voice was calm and cool as he straightened his jacket and observed the last of the girls passing through the doorway to the furnaces, "I trust you will have no problem scheduling my appointments here?"

"No sir." Her voice was ice. He loved it when they hated him, it made them all that more enticing. (4 min)

***

Jesslyn paced the floor of her tiny apartment. Each employee was given an apartment like this one; there was a small kitchenette with a bartop for eating upon, a den of sorts, a bathroom and a private bedroom. This was one of the better apartments a simple employee could have, really. Her last apartment had been little more than a one room shack stacked atop countless others. This one had rugs, at least.

When she'd applied for the job at Vard Corp she was just hopeful for anywhere to work. A job that would let her send money home to her mother and father - they needed it so badly. She'd gotten the job. She was excited and happy and proud to be part of the working force. Women so rarely obtained jobs, let alone in the larger corporations; after so many layoffs in past decades because women complained of sexual harrassment over things such as simple compliments, the economy on a whole had declined. It had taken a very long time to find the root of the decline but once it had been discovered, women were banned from the workplace. It wasn't until 5 years ago that any company had hired a woman, and even still Vard Corp was the first corporation to open its doors to women in nearly 55 years.

Jesslyn Redwick remembered her first exposure to Vard Corp. She was in high school and Vard Corp was responsible for issuing grants and scholarships to graduating seniors. Few girls made it to their graduating year as many were sold off by their fathers to foreign nations, so she was of particular interest to the school and Vard Corp. Rumor had it that they would consider a girl if she were smart enough, dedicated enough. They'd given her a screening much like the one she'd witnessed earlier in the day.

"The System", the screening was called. It determined what any graduating student could or would do with their adult careers. The few girls that made it to the screening either became very successful or disappeared entirely.

Jesslyn stared out the single window of her apartment toward the smokestacks of Vard Corp. She shivered.

(12 min)

"Now, ladies. You may breathe a sigh of relief. You aren't going to be fed into a furnace." He chuckled and a few of the girls giggled nervously in response. "Still, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, you are dead. Your names are names of ghosts, specters that will haunt your parents' minds. In this program, you will be given new names, you will be given new lives. You will be given purpose. You do not have talents to be entered into the general working field, but you have something more than the common housewife." He turned. The fear and anticipation hung heavy in the air.

"Welcome, ladies, to the Furies Project."

From lightning_fic

Fri, 28 Oct 2005 03:38:58 GMT

He took a long drag of his cigarette and reflected in a hazy of smoke, "You know, I once convinced everyone I knew that I'd run away to Russia to join Up With People."

Of course we didn't believe him, no one ever did. His long jacket, combat boots (horribly laced), and artificially black hair labeled him one of those people that just cried out for attention. Leslie and I exchanged a glance as he handed over the cloves we'd just bummed off of him. Everyone knew the price of borrowing from Louis; you'd have to listen to one of his ridiculous stories.

"My mom thought I was dead, you know." His cigarette sparked in the shadow of the wall against which he stood. A tilt of his head, and his dark eyes were fixed on the two girls, one of whom giggled nervously as if on cue. "I'd left a note in Russian; I doubt they ever had it translated. My brother started rumors, and I missed my senior year of high school."

"So how come you're here now? Don't they, like, kick you out or something?" Leslie asked. I nudged her with my elbow. What's the sense in encouraging this guy anyway?

Another long drag from the cigarette. Such dramatics. I half rolled my eyes, as I leaned in toward his lighter to ignite my own.

"Can't do a thing in this world without some kind of piece of paper that labels you one of the elite educated." He shrugged. Even for as lazy and apathetic as he tried to make that look, I could read the measured movement. How many suckers did he pull in with this piece of work anyway? How many people bought all the apathy and theatrics? Leslie did, clearly. "Anyway. Yeah. A year. Russia."

"Bullshit." I said. His eyes met mine over the top of his sunglasses. Why was he wearing those things anyway? It was already after sunset.

"You don't believe me, МИЛАЯ?" The Russian rolled off of his tongue with the grace of a fluent speaker. I have to admit that even I was taken off guard for a moment. Leslie giggled and I saw that twinkle in her eye.

"No, I don't. Anyone who's been in school as long as the rumors say you have could have picked up Russian in a class. One fancy word and some bullshit make-believe story doesn't buy me, Louis, okay? Hey, thanks for the smoke and all, but we have to go." I wasn't sure why I was so upset, but suddenly I was pissed. Something about the way he spoke to me said more than I felt comfortable admitting.

"As you wish, ladies." He flourished a bow before turning on one heel and walking away. It wasn't until later that I realized he hadn't made a sound despite those floppy and sloppy boots he was wearing. It's always in the goddamn details.

***

"But he was cute!"

"Are you kidding me Leslie? He's disgusting. He makes up that crap to get attention, okay?"

Leslie looked a little dejected. "Yeah, sure. Can't you find even one person interesting though?"

"No, okay? I can't. I've seen too many and in the end they are all the same disappointing piles of garbage." I slammed my phone into the receiver. Damn, I hate being put on hold, even for pizza.

"Oh, so I'm a disappointing pile of garbage?" Oh great, here it comes. "Well if that is how you feel about it, I'm going to go now and when you pull your head out of your ass, maybe you can call me." Leslie grabbed her pink wool coat and left, slamming the door behind her.

"Shit." Good thing I hadn't ordered the pizza for her.

***

"What brings the little pigeon to my neck of the woods?"

Leslie startled as Louis stepped out of a nearby shadow. The alley was dark and it was rare that she opted to pass through it this late at night, but it was the quickest way to Maureen's house and the chill of the winter night convinced her it would be fine. "Oh! Um, I was just on my way to Ma... a friend's house."

He circled her once, twice. "You look like you've been in an arguement."

"Yeah." Leslie started walking again. Louis kept pace with her but kept his distance.

"Want to tell me about it? Was it with your friend from earlier?"

"Yeah. About you, too." Leslie looked apologetic.

"Oh yeah?" Louis reached out and took hold of her chin, she stopped walking. He tilted her head up, and seemed to be looking at her neck.

Leslie jerked back, wrapping her scarf tight around her exposed skin. "Hey! What's the big idea?"

Louis shrugged and stuffed his hands back in his pockets. "Nothing. I was just curious if you two were making out or something. Girls are sloppy and leave marks a lot. But I guess you'd know that."

"It is NOT like that." Leslie huffed.

"Suit yourself, little pigeon" Louis stopped walking; they were almost to the end of the alley. "Enjoy your stay at your friend's house." He smirked as he stepped back and bowed. Again, turning on his heel, he strolled back the way they'd come.

***

Ring, ring

"Dammit Leslie, answer your phone!" I was livid. Where was she? I didn't think she'd stay out all night. Fuck, did I really hurt her feelings this time? Well, whatever. One human fleshbag is just the same as the other, I guess. Still, I really liked her and she didn't seem to have a problem with our arrangement.

A knock on the door got my attention. "Leslie, you know you don't have to knock." The moment I said it, I knew it wasn't her. Another fucking annoyance.

"Yeah, who is it?"

"Louis. Open up."

"Oh what the hell do you want?" I jerked open the door to find him standing there, looking much the same as he always did.

"Your little pigeon has flown away."

I narrowed my eyes.

"Aren't you going to invite me in?" He craned his neck to peer at the insides of my apartment.

"In fact, no, I'm not."

"That's too bad." He stepped over the threshhold of my apartment, pushing me back.

"Look, cockbite, I said no. Now get out. What the hell are you doing here anyway?"

"I'd heard there was a little vampire activity in the area and I just wanted to make sure you two ladies were safe." He strolled from one window to the next, checking to see if they were secure or something, his back to me. I'd had enough of this shit.

Baring my fangs, I lept for the intruder. Too late, I realized just what was going on. He turned with a small bottle in one hand and a crucifix in the other. The crucifix? No big deal, I was raised Catholic and that puts a mark of its own on your soul, even if you do join the ranks of undead, you know? The bottle though - essence of garlic. Dropped me flat on my back.

I remember him kneeling over me and driving that wooden tip into my heart. I thought it would all be over then. Leslie sold me out, didn't she? Fuck. It didn't matter, I supposed. I wouldn't be needing any more little blood pets anyway. This was it. The big finale, the end of my shitty afterlife. Maybe there was one more in store for me, I figured.

But no. The fucker knew more than even I did. I think I sat in limbo for a while. It was more than jolt when I felt the stake pulled out of my chest, the blood on my lips, and my body healing. The silver shackles around my wrist burned like a UTI and I heard a lighter ignite.

I heard the crackling hiss of a cigarette and a puff of smoke hit my face. "You know, once I served on board a battle ready submarine under the command of the Chinese Navy."

[Emily Conner - Ultima Online, Lake Superior]

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 10:54:44 GMT

"Shadows and Dust. And Peace." originally posted to the uols.net High Council forum, 06/25/2005

[[Being a writer, I felt the need for one last post on the part of Miss Emily Conner - a bit more of a personal view. I have treated her poorly, as a literary character. She was perhaps one of the most good and sweet characters I've ever played. Thanks to everyone who participated in finally freeing her and allowing her peace, and to everyone that made an impact during the time she was alive. It was a blast. -Emily's Player. ]]

Emily ran and ran. The balron was close behind her. Each day, for time without end or meaning, Emily ran. Some days she ran fast enough to hide for a time. Some days different spirits - of flesh or otherwise - distracted the demons of her personal hell. Only on a couple of occasions had any attempted to communicate with her, in her long stay. Of those, there was only one with whom she could communicate at all. He said he was a prince. Something fluttered in the back of Emily's mind. Once, she might have been excited to meet a prince. Here though, all the joys of her life were whispers, nothing more than shadows and dust.

"Tonight you'll be free!" a little voice spoke in her mind. Again, the familiar fluttering in Emily's mind came. She recognized the voice as surely as if it were her own. Yet, she could not name it.

Emily ran around a corner, the Collector of Souls close behind. He was, perhaps, the most vicious of all three balron lords of this place. If he captured her, she knew the horrible pains she'd be made to endure. Her heart despaired. This place seemed to inspire despair, feed off of it. Though she was a spirit, the nature of this place bound her as if she were flesh.

The despair began to overwhelm the poor girl. Her steps slowed. What was the use of running? She would be caught eventually. She should just give up...

A shimmering light moved down the hallway before her. Its shape was foreign within the halls of her eternal prison. Hope radiated from the equine form as the glow took more definite shape. Pure, cleansing light radiated from the spiral horn atop its head.

In a moment of perfect clarity, Emily recognized her soul-companion.

Ghelwyn! Her heart cried out, nearly breaking in joy. Years ago, Ghelwyn had give up his life as a lord of the sylvan realm in the forests of Ilshenar in order to cleanse Emily of a poison that was meant to take her life. Instead of his life being forfeit, something happened and his spirit had taken up residence inside of Emily. The strangeness of it all had driven her to explore other facets of the world, to seek an escape from the people who now seemed so strange to her.

Emily felt herself pulled toward the apparition of her friend. She found the will to move and moved as quickly as she could. The Collector rounded the corner not far behind her, bellowing its rage at his prey's attempt at escape. Ghelwyn's spirit flared brightly, nearly blinding Emily and forcing the balron to shy back from his target.

When next Emily was aware of her surroundings (odd, she thought, that in all of her time her she had never been unaware entirely), she was in the gargoyle's laboratory and library. When she could make it this far, this place served as a temporary sanctuary for her. Though minions of the balron lords, the gargoyles had little interest in the spirits trapped in their halls.

Emily was alternately browsing book titles on the shelves (she could not touch the books, or actually read them) and observing the various experiments the gargoyles had going. She repeated actions she would have taken in life, unaware.

Other figures rushed into the room. They were lively, but gray to her. The whole world was gray, except the pain. The pain was red and sometimes white hot. It sparkled, flared, and burned. Then she espied the prince.

After some silence, the people - yes, they were living people! - set up strange crystals and she could speak with them!

"At last!" she cried with delight, but quickly fell silent again, for fear that the balron lords would sense her differing emotion.

They had come to set the spirits free. Someone had remembered! All of those years of trying to reach the rare adventurers that found themselves in her hell, and finally someone had remembered and come to help her! She couldn't recognize any of their faces. Most of them seemed focused on the prince - as befitted his station. She was only a librarian that the Shadow had taken and ... The horror was too great for her spirit to contain, the thoughts slipped away.

The people bade the prince and her to step into a circle of bright diamonds. A woman, clearly a librarian or some lorekeeper, then opened a gate that she directed them through. Emily hesitantly followed, taking the prince's lead.

The bright light of day was a startling thing that the spirit of Emily Conner had long forgotten. Slowly, memories came back to her. Before her stood a platform raised in the center of a small pond. Light glittered, sparkled all around it and a great sense of peace washed over her. She was free. She took a few steps forward, seeing the forest as if for the first time. Her form grew faint; her memories began to flee, the further she moved from the glow of the shrine. She stopped, turned back, pulled toward its strengthening lure.

Following the prince, she floated up the stairs and felt herself pulled through the air, onto the platform. The magics worked slowly. She felt a tingly in her feet. It worked its way up her legs, over her stomach, up her back, down through her hands to her fingertips and up to the crown of her head. Suddenly air rushed into her lungs, she coughed. She could feel the cool tile beneath her feet, and for the first time, it seemed to her, she saw the colors of the rainbow. The blue water rippling in a breeze that lightly touched her cheek, the bright greens of the forest and its dancing leaves. The sparkling lights of the shrine, the beautiful marble of which it was built... All the wonders of the world flooded her mind and she stood in awe.

Her memories returned, one by one. Her life in Jhelom, apprenticing to Moira Daefaroth in the library and museum. Her dreams of great adventure, reading all day and night of heroes of the realm, wishing she could one day be that brave and bold. Her trip to Tel'Ruid to find Azeron, Moira's son. The pirates, the shipwreck, and ending up on Sinjun D'Aerno's doorstep. Her first trip away from Jhelom and she had stumbled on at least a book's worth of adventure. She'd also met one of her idols in Sinjun.

In Tel'Ruid, she'd become a member of The Arcane Order, and served there for a time. Azeron had asked her to serve as his Adjutant to the High Council and she had accepted gladly! She remembered the great monster Amaurak and the poison that had nearly killed her. She remembered Ghelwyn. Dear Ghelwyn, who'd helped her be where she might be rescued by these brave people...

And she remembered Nominus Aprobus and The Shadow. Once she had heard from Galahad of the High Council that The Shadow was responsible for the death of more than one paladin in Trinsic. She had confronted the vile man on that. He had tried to bully her, but Abbi Weyr was there to stand up for her. The Shadow said he didn't do it, but had had someone do it for him... She had suspected it was the demon that many whispered served him.

She had never thought they would kidnap her, for all of her imagination. She remembered their questions, always questions. And the torture. They had invaded her mind when she had denied that she had the knowledge they sought. She would never tell! she had declared. But that did not stop evil men such as them. Emily knew that in her heart, but she had hoped that she could hold out, and that if she could not save herself, then maybe... just maybe a hero would come for her. That's the way the stories always worked, right? Azeron, or Sinjun, or Mister D'Aerno, or Phoebe, or Mistress Daefaroth would surely notice she was gone, and at the last possible minute burst in, in a daring rescue...

Emily knew though, it was no story. If any of them had known, she believed with all of her heart that they would have tried to help her.

Emily's eyes searched the crowd standing on the platform and around the pond in which it stood. Beside her the prince was a real person. A prince! Try as she might to remember, though, she could not remember any of the people that stared back at her.

She had died, after a fashion. Her spirit had been trapped in Hythloth. She could not tell for how long. Now, the power of the shrine was giving her flesh, though the power was fading, she could feel it. Soon, this manifestation of flesh and bone would dissolve away like so much magic and her spirit would be all that remained. "But this time, you can rest, Dear One." She heard Ghelwyn's voice within her again. "Say your goodbyes to this world of suffering, Dear One, and take the rest that you have so long deserved."

Emily felt a lump in her throat. This is not how she had imagined she would finally die - though, she thought, she had really already died once. This really was something out of a storybook - her soul saved from unjust damnation, and the benevolent magic of a shrine granting her the ability to ease the worries of her loved ones, and to say goodbye.

The woman that shed tears over the Prince's imminent departure nearly broke Emily's heart. She was helping The Shadow! Emily nearly wept. "Stop him! You have to stop him!" she had cried at the woman. The woman just shook her head, "I can't. Why should I."

Her eyes searched, tears welling in them. She didn't recognize anyone and this woman was denying that there was any possibility of justice for their murders! A voice called to her over the crowd, a man. She focused on him to hear his words. She absorbed them. How long had she been trapped in that place? Her eyes searched.

Emily became frantic, feeling the power of the shrine slowly leaving her. The lorekeeper, she must give her words to the lorekeeper.

She left her goodbyes with the bespectacled woman (Emily missed her spectacles; her hands kept moving to push them up though they were not there). To Sinjun, and Phoebe, and to the Daefaroth family, and to Galen Knighthawke who had served her cause in the case when Nominus had been taken prisoner for her murder. They had let him go, unjustly, but the Field Marshal had tried, she remembered. She could sense his grief when the case was thrown out on that technicality. The frustration of so many... He deserved to know that she appreciated his efforts. For that brief day, she had found a way to escape the eternal torture she endured. It was soon after that she was bound more fully and found herself unable to leave at all...

The power of the shrine dissipated and Emily's form slowly faded away as if she had never been there at all. The prince held on longer than she, surely because he loved the woman who denied that The Shadow could be defied... No one she had known had been there to say goodbye. She hoped the lorekeeper woman would find a way to let them all know...

Emily's spirit lingered, watching the people depart. Ghelwyn's voice came, "Dear One let this world go. As the man said, this fight is not for you. Come, rest, and let someone else fight this time. You have well earned your peace."

"Just a few more minutes, Ghelwyn." Emily gazed out into the empty world. The blue faded from the sky, the green from the leaves of the trees, and if a ghost could weep, Emily Conner's did.

[[...One likes to think that there is some fantastic limbo for the children of imagination, some strange, impossible place where the beaux of Fielding may still make love to the belles of Richardson, where Scott's heroes still may strut, Dickens's delightful Cockneys still raise a laugh, and Thackeray's worlkings continue to carry on their reprehensible careers. Perhaps in some corner of such a Valhalla, Sherlock and his Watson may for a time find a place, while some more astute sleuth with some even less astute comrade may fill the stage which they have vacated... - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Preface to The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes]]

[Myra Sunveil - Lake Superior - Ultima Online]

Sun, 12 Jun 2005 21:00:52 GMT

originally written/implemented in May/June 2003

Some days you awaken with a certainty. A feeling of 'knowing' so strong your very being vibrates with it. A certainty you feel to your very core. Today was such a day for Myra Sunveil. It wasn't a feeling she could place, but it was one she could not deny. This was not the first time she'd felt this way, and she judged it would not be the last - but who can tell with such things? When such certitude is known to a being, how can one count on 'tomorrow' coming? These thoughts occured to the elf maid, but she wiped them away the same as she did the sleep in her eyes.

The sun met the water of the falls and sent a curtain of scintillating color across the cave floor. These mini rainbows danced across the elf maid as well, and for a brief moment, she smiled. A glance around her living space faded that smile. She slept upon a small mound of furs and assorted softened animal hides. The rocks of the cave served as various 'tables' of sorts. Kept in a slim wooden case beside her 'bed' rest a blade. Where the elf maid seemed somewhat unkempt in appearance, the blade resting upon the velvet lining in the case was pristine. Immaculate in its very form. The gentle curve of a scimitar, seemingly made of ivory. The arcane runework that graced the blade - rendered with some unknown magic to appear wet, the color of blood... The smile disappeared completely.

How long had she lived like this? Her very existance shadowed by that blade? Directed by a need, a hunger, she could not satisfy. Barely a century old, how much longer could she live like this? Such thoughts were the meat and drink of Myra Sunveil's mornings, afternoons, and evenings. Unlike food and drink, however, they did not sustain, they devoured. She slept less, avoided the Reverie even more. Food was an afterthought, when she grew almost too weak to eat. Her only focus was finding a release, a way to stop the need to kill. So focused upon this, Arwen Sunveil had failed to notice that she no longer felt drained if she did not kill. She did not notice that her lessened sleeping habits were not causing ill effects. The simple fact of the matter was - Something had changed.

But weariness has a way of turning to madness, and madness had set its foot inside the threshold of Myra Sunveil's mind. Her focus was clear, all else was unseen.

And it was this focused, this blind, that she found herself walking an unfamiliar path, oblivious. Arcane formulae worked through her thoughts, both those borne of light and healing, and those risen from death and decay. It was the combination of these two powers - the power of the holy paladin and the power of the unholy necromancer - that would bring her salvation. So she believed, in the fevered realm that was her mind. So lost in her own world, she did not hear the approaching footfalls. A split second before the hand came to cover her mouth that feeling of certainty she'd awoken with became impossible to ignore.

The bear of a man with his hand across her mouth pulled her back, intent on snapping her neck and being done with his task. Myra, as muddled as her mind may have been, was still a warrior. Still trained by both Bladesinger and Drow, and those are paths one does not forget. Like a dance your body remembers long after the mind has forgotten the music.

Myra twisted as she ducked, in the same motion freeing her blade from its sheath. The man she faced was no common brigand. Dressed in leathers and furs, he still appeared well-off. Professional. A grin parted his bearded lips, showing perfectly white teeth. Too perfect. The sun reflected off his bald, polished pate. She took less than a moment to assess the man before charging after him with a flurry of blows. Her arm, formerly broken by a flesh golem in some forgotten wood in Malas, was newly healed, thanks to the magics she'd begun studying. The combination of the art of a healer, and the methods necromancer's used to revitalize flesh had allowed her just the turn she needed to accelerate the healing and rebuilding of bone. All of this was undone in less than a heartbeat, however, when the man took hold of her wrist and twisted.

White-hot pain flashed behind her eyes and the snap of the bone resonated in her ears. The scimitar, her lifeline, fell from her hands... skittered across the dirt path. She was brought to her knees, the man's impossibly strong hand still on her wrist, eyes blinded by tears of excrutiating pain.

"Little elf. Der is no need to struggle. T'does you no good. Shh, shh. Be still." His voice, deep and warm, was deceptively calm. He addressed her as a parent would comfort a child that had scraped its knee. He extended his other hand toward the blade, lying beyond either his or Myra's reach. The bladed lifted in the air, floated into his hand. He observed it with cold blue eyes, all the while Myra struggled, even resorting to biting the man's hand in an attempt to break free of his steel grip. He seemed oblivious to her efforts.

"Now. T'is time for you to hush, little elf. Cute 'dough you may be, Ah am paid to deliver your heart."

He held her own scimitar angled toward her chest. Fear, cold and icy, filled her. This must have been how that healer felt when she and Trenton had faced the poor woman, Trenton's scimitar held in a similar fashion. This was it, that certainty proclaimed. This was what was coming. Her end. The pain in her arm faded away. The madness that had driven her these past days melted into nothing. Clarity filled her eyes in that last moment when the tip of the blade pierced her tunic, her skin, her flesh and bone...

Long denied the feeling, in just moments, Myra Sunveil knew peace.

[Elizaveta - A Log File - Ultima Online]

Thu, 31 Mar 2005 01:47:35 GMT

Approximate year; 2002
Actual date; Unknown

Deleaduindill: [Arch Salyer, FtG]
You see: Deleaduindill
Elizaveta: *sews quietly*
Deleaduindill: *exhales deftly, golden eyes sifting through the crowd*
Elizaveta: *lifts her eyes from the dress*
Deleaduindill: *smiles dimly*
Azalin: *looks at Deleaduindill cautiously*
Deleaduindill: *glances askance for a moment*
Elizaveta: *takes the horse's reigns, leads it out*
Deleaduindill: *nods deftly to the lass in white, smiling dimly again*
Elizaveta: *a silken smile*
Elizaveta: Feyborn.
Deleaduindill: Milady.
Deleaduindill: *smiles*
Elizaveta: Few see me laboring such as I do here.
Deleaduindill: *nods*
Deleaduindill: You have been well?
Minnie Mouse: *wants ice cream....pickles......Orginal recipe Chicken.......cookies and milk*
Elizaveta: *gazes over at him, another silken smile*
Deleaduindill: *smiles dimly*
Minnie Mouse: *watermelon........apples.......peaches....strawberrys.....Cantaloupe*
Elizaveta: Do you... linger here for... a purpose?
Azalin: aye, I will take some fruit
Minnie Mouse: *wants food*
Deleaduindill: *nods*
Deleaduindill: I am hesitant to ask, yet so shall I do.
Elizaveta: *tilts her head, a curious gesture*
Deleaduindill: Are you or your brother knowledgable in magicks?
Minnie Mouse: *baby is gonna be 10pounds and not 9 pds and 7 oucnes as the daddy says*
Elizaveta: I am learning some.
Azalin: *smiles*
Deleaduindill: *considers, inly*
Deleaduindill: *smiles dimly*
Deleaduindill: Well, my thanks.
Elizaveta: *a silken smile*
Elizaveta: There is aught I can do?
Minnie Mouse: *eats popcorn as they talk*
Deleaduindill: I do not believe there is.
Minnie Mouse: you two married?
Deleaduindill: *smiles a little - though devoid of joy*
Elizaveta: *looking over, a silken smile*
Deleaduindill: Nay.
Minnie Mouse: you would both make a cute couple
Elizaveta: A kind observation, my lady
Minnie Mouse: Your welcome
Azalin: Pass the popcorn Minnie
Deleaduindill: *eyes take a farr-off air in them*
Minnie Mouse: *passess popcorn*
Elizaveta: Mm. If you so desire it, Feyborn, I'll trouble you no more.
Azalin: *crunch*
Azalin: *crunch*
Minnie Mouse: Trouble... He should be kissing your Feet
Deleaduindill: I must return to Ravenloft. War swells there - and I am away from my councilors.
Deleaduindill: 'Tis ill.
Azalin: It seems he is
Deleaduindill: Yet I mean not to keep you.
Elizaveta: *a small grin to her right*
Deleaduindill: *smiles dimly*
Elizaveta: *then a serious look to Deleaduindill*
Elizaveta: Ravenloft.
Deleaduindill: *nods deftly*
Deleaduindill: What of this place?
Elizaveta: *a frown creases her features*
Deleaduindill: *looks at her curiously*
Elizaveta: *a frown, too*
Deleaduindill: *tips his head lightly*
Elizaveta: I have - been there.
Deleaduindill: I was born thither.
Deleaduindill: *smiles dimly*
Elizaveta: *quietly*
Elizaveta: I escaped it.
Deleaduindill: *nods deftly*
Minnie Mouse: *watches intently*
Deleaduindill: I seek to return. Those whom would follow me now stand leaderless.
Elizaveta: *lights her lantern*
Elizaveta: I shall never return.
Deleaduindill: The one whom is in command in my absence I do not trust.
Minnie Mouse: You should take her with you
Deleaduindill: *glances askance*
Elizaveta: It will try to keep me.
Elizaveta: Again.
Deleaduindill: *looks back to Elizaveta*
Azalin: I say they relocate
Azalin: and I know a great place
Deleaduindill: It will indeed.
Minnie Mouse: ;)
Deleaduindill: *smiles dimly*
Minnie Mouse: I see a Wedding in the Future
Deleaduindill: I do not mean to keep you.
Deleaduindill: *bows deflty*
Elizaveta: It is never an inconvenience to gaze upon you Feyborn
Azalin: *smiles*
Deleaduindill: *smiles softly*
Deleaduindill: Nor I, thee, milady.
Deleaduindill: I have...
Deleaduindill: considered your proposition.
Elizaveta: *a soft, silken smile, a hint of color touching her cheeks*
Elizaveta: *a tilt of her head, waiting*
Deleaduindill: I have not yet come to a decision...yet I fear what will come should I die and my responsabilities
Deleaduindill: go unkept.
Elizaveta: *a nod, her eyes never leaving him*
Azalin: *passes minnie a soda*
Deleaduindill: I lean toward your...trade...
Deleaduindill: *smiles dimly*
Deleaduindill: for now.
Elizaveta: *a dim, yet still silken smile*
Elizaveta: Would you like to know where to seek me, should you desire to?
Elizaveta: I have taken a residence within the City.
Deleaduindill: I would.
Elizaveta: An abandoned keep upon an island
Deleaduindill: *motions toward the North*
Elizaveta: In the northern reach of the City, yes.
Deleaduindill: There have I been.
Elizaveta: Across the bridge.
Deleaduindill: *nods deftly*
Elizaveta: *a silken smile*
Elizaveta: It is much like many of my homes before.
Deleaduindill: Does this please you?
Elizaveta: I can gaze to the east from the balcony. And view over the City from the other.
Deleaduindill: *nods deftly*
Deleaduindill: When might be the hours in which you wake?
Elizaveta: *glances out the window*
Deleaduindill: I've only heard what happens when one disturbs...
Deleaduindill: *smiles dimly*
Deleaduindill: the sleeping.
Elizaveta: *a soft, silken smile*
Azalin: *tosses minnie an apple*
Minnie Mouse: my Hunny can disturb me any hour
Elizaveta: Evenings, of course.
Deleaduindill: *nods deftly*
Minnie Mouse: *catches apple.....muches*
Minnie Mouse: *cant spell*
Azalin: *smiles*
Elizaveta: If not there, then in one of the shops such as this.
Azalin: *give him a rune already*
Deleaduindill: If I cannot arrange to go back this eve'...
Deleaduindill: *hesitates, the pause - one in which much thought has been placed*
Elizaveta: *an intent gaze, waiting*
Minnie Mouse: you both are standing far apart
Deleaduindill: I may seek you tonight. I care not if i must tempt the Mists...
Deleaduindill: *swallows softly*
Deleaduindill: I *must* see my council.
Minnie Mouse: *she should come first*
Elizaveta: *the smallest of nods*
Minnie Mouse: *council can wait*
Deleaduindill: *smiles dimly*
Azalin: *give him a rune*
Minnie Mouse: *take her with you*
Deleaduindill: Perhaps I shall find my way hither again.
Azalin: *come back in 10 min*
Minnie Mouse: *I agree*
Elizaveta: *a silken smile*
Azalin: *nudges zodiac*
Azalin: make a ring quick
Zodiac: *gooses Azalin*
Deleaduindill: *bows deftly*
Deleaduindill: Good thee eve', milady.
Elizaveta: *a silken smile and a nod*
Azalin: Good eve m'lord
Azalin: *smiles gently*
Minnie Mouse: Good evening
Deleaduindill: *nods deftly*
Elizaveta: *watches him*
Azalin: *smiles*
Deleaduindill: That I wish it to be.
Minnie Mouse: *I shall cry*
Azalin: *cries*
[Deleaduindill leaves]
Azalin: go get him woman!
Minnie Mouse: Yes
Elizaveta: He will come to me.
Minnie Mouse: go get him
Azalin: you gave horrible
Minnie Mouse: Hehe mine did
Azalin: directions
Elizaveta: *smiles*
Azalin: he wont find you
Elizaveta: I'll bid you ladies a good eve for now.
Elizaveta: *a silken smile*
Minnie Mouse: I wish you well Elizaveta
Azalin: aye you as well
Elizaveta: My many thanks.
[Elizaveta does much sewing, returns to the Castle]

Deleaduindill: [Arch Salyer, FtG]
You see: Deleaduindill
Elizaveta: *a soft rustle of silk and lace*
Deleaduindill: Simply...admiring such blades as these, hither.
Deleaduindill: *smiles dimly*
Elizaveta: *a silken smile*
Elizaveta: Mihail favors blades. I find little use for them.
Deleaduindill: *nods deftly*
Deleaduindill: He is a scholar of the arcane as well?
Elizaveta: I have considered teaching him.
Deleaduindill: *nods deftly*
Deleaduindill: *sobers a bit*
Deleaduindill: I know none who can open such a rift as I need.
Elizaveta: *the liquid depths of her eyes watch him*
Deleaduindill: I must wait...
Deleaduindill: *looks away softly*
Deleaduindill: for the Mists to decide when they may take me.
Elizaveta: They may come to this realm?
Elizaveta: *almost a tremor in her voice*
Deleaduindill: They exist in betwix the planes of the physical existance.
Deleaduindill: Their reach, as far as any know, is boundless.
Elizaveta: *tips of her fingers fondle a bit of lace, perhaps a nervous movement*
Deleaduindill: *looks to her, his golden eyes finding hers, his troubled in slight, though silent*
Elizaveta: Have you waited here long.
Deleaduindill: Nay.
Elizaveta: *a silken smile, dispelling the hint of worry that lingered in the depths of her eyes*
Deleaduindill: *seems however slight - agitated - anxious*
Elizaveta: Tell me your troubles, Feyborn.
Elizaveta: *glides a step forward in a rustle of silk and lace*
Deleaduindill: I fear for those my departed Lord has left me.
Deleaduindill: *his golden eyes again seem far-off - distant*
Elizaveta: *tilt of the head, a curious gesture*
Deleaduindill: They are young in the ways of the Undeath that hunts them.
Deleaduindill: Should this war become fully realized as I suspect it to be, I can say with reasonable certainty
Deleaduindill: that they will be crushed.
Elizaveta: *a somber light in the depths of her eyes*
Deleaduindill: I do not believe that I can avert this alone...
Elizaveta: What would it take.
Deleaduindill: *hesitates, his eyes faling to the carpet in thought*
Deleaduindill: In truth, my departed Lord, Xathgarian, would need be raised from his grave.
Deleaduindill: *softens*
Deleaduindill: Those that follow me do not know what war is, nor how to fight one so one-sided.
Deleaduindill: They...think we fight to win...
Elizaveta: *a prolonged silent gaze, thoughtful*
Deleaduindill: *looks at her again, his golden eyes bright and in a way pleading*
Deleaduindill: In Ravenloft - one must survive first.
Elizaveta: Survival. Yes.
Elizaveta: *a hushed breath*
Elizaveta: Some ..survive... better than others.
Deleaduindill: *blinks softly, his head tipping in slight, his bright golden eyes still upon her*
Deleaduindill: Yes.
Elizaveta: *the slightest hint of the tip of her tongue, moistening her lips*
Deleaduindill: *rests his forehead against the heft of his halbard, closing his eyes, swallowing softly*
Elizaveta: The weight of a world seems sitting upon your shoulders Feyborn.
Elizaveta: And you would have it no other way.
Deleaduindill: ...were it not given to me - none would take it - for they...
Deleaduindill: *chokes a little, still looking at the rough-hewn flagstones*
Elizaveta: *another step, the rustle of her dress*
Deleaduindill: *clears his throat, straightening, blinking every so often*
Elizaveta: "For if I do not, then who will."
Elizaveta: Yes?
Deleaduindill: *nods a little*
Deleaduindill: 'Tis not so much this...
Deleaduindill: Yet without leadership their efforts no matter how great they percieve them ammount to little,
Deleaduindill: and thither time is our enemy...
Elizaveta: Mmm.
Elizaveta: Time.
Deleaduindill: *blinks lightly, clearing hes throat*
Elizaveta: Ever time.
Elizaveta: Time steals the greatest of heroes and leaders.
Elizaveta: And when it does not, the self-same are named villain, no?
Elizaveta: *a curious tilt of her head*
Deleaduindill: The more they do without the strength of one body...the swifter they bright the Highlords upon
Deleaduindill: their necks.
Elizaveta: Even were I able to use this world's magic to open a rend, I would not to that place.
Elizaveta: Not even for you, Feyborn.
Elizaveta: *her words soft, a sorrow in them*
Deleaduindill: *softly*
Deleaduindill: I would ne'er ask.
Elizaveta: *another step, softer than the others*
Deleaduindill: *closes his eyes softly, leaning upon the halbard, his hands flexing softly*
Elizaveta: *the coolness of her fingertips brush his cheek*
Elizaveta: Let not your worries consume you, Feyborn
Elizaveta: *a breathed statement*
Deleaduindill: *tightens his jaw*
Elizaveta: *her fingertips retreat, hand returning to rest on her skirts*
Deleaduindill: *opens his eyes, looking down at you in thought, his golden eyes bright*
Deleaduindill: At times...I wish they would not.
Elizaveta: Then seek one of these "times".
Elizaveta: *a simple statement, that of a child*
Deleaduindill: At times...'tis the only thing that I have...these...cares.
Deleaduindill: *looks into your eyes deeply, as if searching for something he knows he cannot find*
Elizaveta: *his gaze is returned, an odd softness there, but distant, lost to her own awareness*
Deleaduindill: I would stop...
Deleaduindill: *softly*
Deleaduindill: Yet I know not what I would be left with.
Deleaduindill: *smiles dimly*
Elizaveta: Yes.
Elizaveta: Those are answers you should know, if you are to consider what I offer.
Elizaveta: Eternity with nothing...
Elizaveta: *a sadness flickers in the depths of her eyes for only a moment*
Deleaduindill: *nods deftly*
Elizaveta: *does not finish the thought*
Deleaduindill: That have I done.
Deleaduindill: *blinks softly, re-focusong his eyes in yours*
Elizaveta: *a soft, silken smile*
Deleaduindill: I shall fare no better then than now, I have thought. No worse.
Deleaduindill: *smiles dimly*
Elizaveta: *a hand lifted, the coolness of her fingertips again brushing over his cheek*
Deleaduindill: *closes his eyes softly*
Elizaveta: *the palm of her hand, cool in its touch, rests against his cheek in a gentle caress*
Elizaveta: *the liquid depths of her gaze intent upon him*
Deleaduindill: At the least with Eternity I may do what I need...
Deleaduindill: *his eyes still closed*
Deleaduindill: What I must...
Elizaveta: *her voice, the quiet of a breeze in springtime*
Elizaveta: With Eternity you can do what you must, and what you desire.
Deleaduindill: *opens his golden eyes, his gaze illuminating her dark eyes*
Deleaduindill: *smiles dimly*
Elizaveta: *a soft smile, more genuine than any before*
Deleaduindill: I ne'er understood it. Desire.
Deleaduindill: I am still not sure that I do.
Elizaveta: It is not always for us to understand.
Elizaveta: You do, Feyborn.
Elizaveta: Or you would not worry so.
Elizaveta: You desire to help those in the place of Dread.
Deleaduindill: *blinks softy, looking at her as to reflect*
Elizaveta: *her thumb strokes over his cheek, very softly*
Elizaveta: Desire is a simple thing to know.
Elizaveta: But can reach depths beyond even those of your eyes, Feyborn.
Deleaduindill: *swallows softly, his slitted eyes regaining their sharpness for a moment*
Elizaveta: *the coolness of her hand, the gentle caress, slides away as she offers a light smile*
Elizaveta: There are things I must attend...
Elizaveta: *a pause, before she breathes his name, instead of "Feyborn"*
Elizaveta: ... Deleaduindill.
Deleaduindill: *nods deftly*
Deleaduindill: I...
Deleaduindill: shall wait hither for you, perhaps.
Elizaveta: *a silken smile*
Elizaveta: I shall, of course, return. In ... time.
Deleaduindill: Yes?
Deleaduindill: *nods softly*
Elizaveta: *a hand lifted again, to touch his cheek as she takes a single step away to curtsey*
Deleaduindill: This eve' you shall not...
Deleaduindill: *apuses a moment*
Elizaveta: *a curious tilt of her head*
Deleaduindill: I know not what you refer to it as.
Deleaduindill: *motions to his neck absently, looking at a loss for thought*
Elizaveta: *a moment's regarding him*
Elizaveta: As base an idea it is. When I must, I refer to it for what it is. Feeding.
Elizaveta: *her voice low, not comfortable with the subject*
Deleaduindill: I mean...
Deleaduindill: *thinks*
Elizaveta: And if you refer to yourself. The choice is yours,
Elizaveta: Feyborn.
Deleaduindill: If you must go I wish not tarry you. Yet I shall say that I choose your proposition.
Deleaduindill: *smiles dimly*
Elizaveta: *a small flash in her eyes, half sadness, half excitement*
Elizaveta: I shall return, Deleaduindill.
Deleaduindill: For the better, perhaps.
Deleaduindill: *nods deftly*
Elizaveta: *another curtsey, a tightness in her manner - anticipatory, anxious perhaps*
Deleaduindill: *bows deflty*
Elizaveta: I shall return when I may. Soon.
Elizaveta: Or I shall seek you in the City.
Deleaduindill: Anon, milady.
Deleaduindill: *smiles dimly*
Deleaduindill: I shall wait hither for you.
Elizaveta: *a rustle of silks and lace as she turns and leaves*
[Leaves, does some tailoring business, returns. He is there. Waiting]

Deleaduindill: [Arch Salyer, FtG]
You see: Deleaduindill
Elizaveta: *a soft, silken smile*
Deleaduindill: *smiles dimly*
Elizaveta: You've a patience rare in those that Time takes.
Elizaveta: *looks behind her*
Elizaveta: *returns her gaze to Deleaduindill*
Deleaduindill: *looks to her, then to the mounted fellow for a moment*
Deleaduindill: *smiles dimly back to her once more*
Elizaveta: *a thoughtful consideration*
Elizaveta: Would that this was like many of my previous homes in more than just looks.
[some guy - leaves]
Deleaduindill: *tips his head lightly, his eyes staying within hers, looking deep with a new sense of peace*
Elizaveta: Come. Come see the view to the east.
Elizaveta: After so much time, I can only behold the first few rays of the rising daystar.
Deleaduindill: *nods deftly, the wind stirring his raven black hair lightly*
Deleaduindill: *looks to her quietly, watchful, observant*
Elizaveta: *her eyes distant, on the horizon*
Elizaveta: You are certain of your choice?
Deleaduindill: *his gaze seeks hers tough it is trained in the distance*
Deleaduindill: I have.
Elizaveta: *slowly turns to face him*
Elizaveta: There will be no regrets?
Deleaduindill: *keeps his gaze within her eyes, looking with a nearly abyssal depth into her eyes...*
Deleaduindill: *trying to find the fabled window to the soul that such things hide*
Deleaduindill: Nay.
Deleaduindill: *turns toward her deftly*
Deleaduindill: No regrets.
Elizaveta: *a somber seriousness usually absent in her manner, and a hint of some sadness*
Elizaveta: And you understand what it is to accept this ... gift?
Deleaduindill: I understand that is is a gift to some, a curse to others.
Deleaduindill: *smiles dimly*
Elizaveta: And what will it be for you?
Deleaduindill: Gift.
Deleaduindill: *softly*
Elizaveta: *a soft, silken smile*
Elizaveta: I have never given this gift to any other.
Elizaveta: And will likely never do so again.
Deleaduindill: *tips his head softly, his sharp golden eyes curious*
Deleaduindill: Any why not?
Elizaveta: *a soft smile, a tinge of sadness*
Elizaveta: Most that would think it a gift later find it a curse.
Elizaveta: And become miserable creatures.
Deleaduindill: *nods deflty*
Elizaveta: In this exchange, I am trusting you. And you must trust me.
Elizaveta: Do you?
Deleaduindill: *smiles - though with a surprising and genuine - no matter how slight - sadness*
Deleaduindill: I cannot commune with other Elves as it is.
Deleaduindill: Yet I trust your intentions.
Elizaveta: *a somber, silent nod of her head, her tresses brushing over her shoulders*
Deleaduindill: Yet...
Elizaveta: *a step back and a gesture to the throne*
Deleaduindill: *hesitates*
Elizaveta: *a tilt of her head, a pause at his hesitation*
Deleaduindill: Will you see into my mind in this?
Elizaveta: I do not know. But if I find that I can... at your request I will blind myself to it.
Elizaveta: *a hint of a smile regardless*
Deleaduindill: *sobers*
Elizaveta: If I had put my mind to it, I may have been able to before even this, Feyborn.
Deleaduindill: If you find that you do, or can, do not entertain your curiosities.
Deleaduindill: I cannot even face the dreams of my Reverie at times.
Deleaduindill: *sits smoothly*
Deleaduindill: *deftly unclasps his gorget*
Elizaveta: *watches him, with an almost unnerving silence*
Elizaveta: I wish not to seem so clinical in this, but there are few other ways to it.
Deleaduindill: *the broach follows with the same sort of grace even in so much armor*
Elizaveta: *glides to stand at his side, looking down upon him*
Deleaduindill: *closes his eyes softly, laying down his halbard*
Elizaveta: *her eyes glance to the halberd, a flicker of surprise, quickly extinguished*
Deleaduindill: *exhales evenly, his breath soft and deep*
Elizaveta: *turns herself just so, to sit upon the arm of the chair, facing him*
Elizaveta: *breathes his name softly*
Elizaveta: Deleaduindill.
Deleaduindill: *blinks softly, looking up at her*
Elizaveta: *a soft smile, a hand lifted to caress his cheek*
Deleaduindill: *his skin flushes warm a slight bit*
Elizaveta: *leans forward, her lips pressing to his forehead*
Elizaveta: I will hurt you no more than is needed.
Elizaveta: *a whisper of words*
Deleaduindill: *nods deftly*
Deleaduindill: I am no stranger to pain.
Elizaveta: *the caress moves from his cheek to under his chin, directing the tilt of his head*
Elizaveta: *her lips, barely a sliver of space from his skin whispers against him*
Elizaveta: This is a pain like no other. Perhaps not even ...pain at all.
Deleaduindill: *fluidly and easily lets himself be guided beneath her touch*
Elizaveta: *her lips move down the side of one cheek, until her face is nearly nuzzled against his throat*
Elizaveta: *a whispered breath of words*
Elizaveta: This is your last chance to change your mind, Deleaduindill. Feyborn.
Deleaduindill: *his breath a little quicker*
Deleaduindill: I know what I choose.
Elizaveta: *a hand moves to cup the cheek opposite the side she 'faces'*
Elizaveta: *sliding her weight more into his lap, a soft kiss upon the skin of his throat*
Elizaveta: *before, with the only gentleness possible, she slides her fangs into his flesh*
Deleaduindill: *inhales slowly though deeply, vaguely letting his arms drape over her slender figure*
Elizaveta: *drinks deeply, but slowly, a carefulness in her manner perhaps unnoticed*
Deleaduindill: *swallows softly, still for a time, a hand sliding to the base of her skull, holding her with*
Deleaduindill: *a firm though deft hand this way, exhaling, his breath shaken in slight*
Elizaveta: *the hand upon his cheek slides likewise to cradle his head*
Elizaveta: *the strength in that 'cradling' belied by her size*
Deleaduindill: *swallows softly, tightening his jaw in slight, a gentle tremmor passing through him*
Elizaveta: *drinks deeply until he is on the very verge of death itself*
Elizaveta: *with an effort that makes her form shudder, she pulls away to gaze upon him, his blood staining*
Elizaveta: *her lips*
Deleaduindill: *at length, his caress is weak, his breath inaudible, his golden eyes closed in a sort of rapture*
Elizaveta: *a whisper of his name, simply to check his awareness*
Elizaveta: Deleaduindill.
Elizaveta: *she shifts, to sit somewhat upright in his lap*
Deleaduindill: *his head droops softly to the side, he hearing well enough - as if in a dream, though simply too*
Deleaduindill: *weak to respond, his hands falling from her at her gentle movement*
Elizaveta: *her voice still a whisper, but insistant, commanding in its tenor*
Elizaveta: Now, you must drink.
Elizaveta: *pulls her dress just off her shoulder, and produces a dagger from among her skirts*
Elizaveta: *a quick slice, just above her collar bone, she drops the dagger and lifts his face*
Elizaveta: *directing him to the cut upon her shoulder*
Elizaveta: Drink, Feyborn.
Deleaduindill: *at first he is unresponsive, cool, though as the moments pass in which your blood pools around his*
Deleaduindill: *lips he is suddenly filled with an amazing spark of 'life', his arms coming to life in a powerfully*
Deleaduindill: *constricting way, drinking with a new clumsiness, though with a natural sort of deftness*
Elizaveta: *a short gasp of surprise, but a pleased one*
Deleaduindill: *nearly primally he continues to drink, furvent and passionate though in kind, after the first*
Deleaduindill: *pains of hunger left him, he becoming gentle - like he might have thought of how to do this afore*
Elizaveta: *a soft purr, one hand stroking his hair, her form growing somewhat weaker*
Elizaveta: Yes, Feyborn.
Elizaveta: *her usual soft voice, even more of a whisper*
Deleaduindill: *his eyelashes gently kiss your skin as he opens his eyes, a quick lick sealing the wound, though*
Deleaduindill: *an inner drive pushing him to bite just below her jaw, sinking his now even more pronounced fangs*
Elizaveta: *a gasp, a more vulnerable sound than before*
Deleaduindill: *into her skin easily - with a predictable clumsiness - though in his manner less a need,*
Deleaduindill: *more a wish - though one aware of her state, seemingly*
Elizaveta: *an exhaled breath, taken in only to speak*
Elizaveta: Deleaduindill.
Deleaduindill: *deftly he nudges against the skin of her neck, squeezing her even tighter in his arms, still, yet,*
Deleaduindill: *seemingly aware of his limits*
Elizaveta: *a shudder through her form, borne of the exhiliration, and excitement of, perhaps, being vulnerable*
Deleaduindill: *now, again, his tongue glides over her neck deftly, sealing over the holes, his face staying near*
Deleaduindill: *to her neck for a few moments, his breath calming as if he had just run - cool, though felt,*
Deleaduindill: *his eyelashes gently drifting over your skin as he hesitantly leans forward softly,*
Elizaveta: *her eyes half closed, her breath soft*
Deleaduindill: *looking into your eyes, something in his that he seems not to know, or trust, yet ask all the same*
Elizaveta: *with a painful slowness, opens her eyes more fully*
[A doofus enters]
Elizaveta: *looks, slowly over*
Sir.Chaos: hello
Sir.Chaos: do u have somethin to do with blackthorn
Deleaduindill: *holds her gently, looking over, his gaze taking some time to detach from her*
Elizaveta: *says not a word, regarding the stranger*
Deleaduindill: *looks up with a very noticable measure of displeasure in his gaze*
Sir.Chaos: wtf is wrong
Sir.Chaos: *says in head fuck these dumbasses*
[Doofus leaves]
Elizaveta: *a slow turn of her head, returns her gaze to him*
Deleaduindill: *immediately his golden eyes find yours, again, the same sense of wonder refilling him*
Elizaveta: *a silken smile, tinged with a sense of being exhausted*
Deleaduindill: *again he leans forward, though bearing a gentle though fervent kiss, closing his eyes*
Elizaveta: *her lips part somewhat to meet his kiss, an ardent passion only dampened by her tiredness*
Deleaduindill: *blinks softly, opening his eyes softly though closing them in kind, deftly, as if silently asking,*
Deleaduindill: *he gingerly brushes his tongue across her lips, rearranging her in his arms gently*
Elizaveta: *with a halfhearted effort, withdraws herself from the kiss to gaze at him*
Deleaduindill: *again, his eyes flutter open, immediately reserved and careful, vigilant and aware*
Elizaveta: *the whisper of velvet across a marble floor, her voice comes*
Elizaveta: Welcome to true Eternity, Feyborn.
Deleaduindill: *he smiles - though not ever so dimly, his golden eyes set afire by a new sort of 'life', he silent*
Deleaduindill: *in large part, simply looking down at her, a sort of shyness in his aspect*
Elizaveta: *an indrawn breath, words come with its exhalation*
Elizaveta: You've questions, ask them.
Deleaduindill: *he smiles a little, though inly truthful*
Deleaduindill: Nay...
Deleaduindill: Desires, perhaps.
Deleaduindill: *smiles a little*
Elizaveta: *a silken smile*
Elizaveta: Tell me.
Deleaduindill: I see...you...a wistful creature...
Deleaduindill: *looks into her eyes, looking for words to describe his almost tangible feelings*
Elizaveta: *the liquid pools of her eyes deep, meeting his gaze evenly, steadily*
Deleaduindill: I want...you... ...the joy you seem to posess...
Deleaduindill: You are strong - yet delicate in a way that trancends - a many things...
Deleaduindill: *deftly pets her hair, still searching for words that might do his thoughts justice*
Elizaveta: *regards him in a wondering silence, simply listening, attentive*
Deleaduindill: You are innocent... ...perhaps un-ruined...where my life has lead me through horrors that I would
Deleaduindill: have replaced with visions and wishes for something so harmless - yet...real, and ...
Deleaduindill: beautiful.
Deleaduindill: *he still looks at her, his face neutral, though it plain in his manner that he still searches for*
Deleaduindill: *words to say*
Elizaveta: *her gaze never wavers, taking in what he has to say, uncertain, for once*
Elizaveta: *with what response to give*
Deleaduindill: I feel as though were I a child - given the oppertunity to behold you... ...your way...
Deleaduindill: *pauses softly, in throught*
Deleaduindill: I might have been very much happier.
Deleaduindill: *smiles a little*
Elizaveta: *strokes back his hair, shifting to disengage herself from his grip, to stand before him*
Elizaveta: *a rustle of silks sliding back into their place*
Deleaduindill: *his golden gaze follows her smoothly*
Elizaveta: *a tilt of her head, regarding him*
Elizaveta: *a soft silken smile*
Deleaduindill: *smiles softly, in kind*
Elizaveta: I wish not to ... end this moment.
Elizaveta: *reaches a hand, caressing his cheek*
Deleaduindill: Nor I, Elizaveta...
Deleaduindill: *the name used is somewhat new, he enunciating it carefully*
Deleaduindill: *nonetheless a slight elvish accent therewith*
Elizaveta: *a silken smile, pleased at the sound of her name from his lips*
Deleaduindill: Yet you must, perhaps.
Deleaduindill: *looks up at her*
Elizaveta: I trust you know what precautions and ...necessities you must fulfill?
Deleaduindill: *nods deftly*
Elizaveta: And yes, my Feyborn, Deleaduindill. I must. If only for a while.
Deleaduindill: *nods deftly*
Elizaveta: *a silken smile*
Deleaduindill: I feel odd.
Deleaduindill: Anxious.
Deleaduindill: *nods*
Elizaveta: *a curious tilt of her head*
Elizaveta: *a soft, silken smile*
Deleaduindill: The...intensity of such the feeling is...new.
Elizaveta: Adjust. It takes some time. And of that, you have much.
Deleaduindill: *nods*
Deleaduindill: *smiles softly*
Elizaveta: If you require aught of me, you have but to ask.
Deleaduindill: *nods deftly*
Deleaduindill: *stands deftly*
Elizaveta: *a soft silken smile*
Deleaduindill: Good thee 'eve.
Elizaveta: *a hand to touch his cheek softly*
Deleaduindill: *blinks softly, seeming to resist something*
Elizaveta: Tend to yourself well, my Feyborn.
Deleaduindill: I shall.
Deleaduindill: *smiles softly*
Elizaveta: *a soft silken smile*
Elizaveta: *a rustle of silks as she turns to go*

[Meravyel - Ultima Online - After Garreth's Death]

Sat, 18 Sep 2004 14:27:12 GMT

A whispered word summoned fire to her fingertips. Each candle took to the flame, made the fire its own, and spread a warm glow across the shrine. The golden light brought life to every corner and made the entire shrine seem somehow more comforting, more welcoming.

Her footfalls unheard, the elf moved to stand at the base of the steps that lead up the dias to the ankh of Justice. Arrayed in white, she glowed in the soft candlelight. Her pale skin took on a like luminescence, forming a sharp contrast with her dark hair which seemed to devour the light as it came close, permanently shadowed. Wisps of the shadowy tendrils obscured her face, her head hung - in prayer, or perhaps shame? A simple observer would not know, unless they knew the woman. And so few did.

* * *

Meravyel lowered herself to her knees on the chill stone tiles of the floor. Closing her eyes, she thought back to the night's events as the energy that was new to her coursed through her veins, quickened her flesh. She had taken Garreth to the tower to be questioned. What did she expect of Azeron? What reaction had she imagined that had made her so surprised to see the disbelief and disgust in his eyes? Hate permeated the room, anger choked the air. It went in all directions. Garreth hated her, hated Azeron, hated those that had thus far thwarted him from capturing the elf-child Lindel. Azeron equally hated the man that had caused such fear in the child he'd taken in as his own daughter. Meravyel did not expend her energy on hate - she did not care, in truth. She was angry, however. Angry that such a man were allowed to claim parenthood over a child he obviously had misused, angry that while others were willing to go along with her on her task, they would not have the fortitude to do what she knew must be done. Azeron was angry. At her.

Meryavel had Afflicted Garreth. She made no steps to hide the fact from her friend, her guild master. She wanted him to know. But could she tell him how it felt? What ecstasy it was to drink in the life of another? She had killed abyssal creatures before, and even men - never on a whim - but nothing could compare to the slow filtering of life through the bond that the Affliction formed. It awakened a strange hunger inside of her that she had never known; or never acknowledged. And that hunger had made her into something else entirely.

When the questions were done, Meravyel had taken the miserable little man off through the woods. None saw, and any that might've kept themselves well hidden. They reached the Crypts and entered; Meravyel lead the man by the rope leash that bound his wrists together, and motioned the skeletons aside. Down the stairs, down the hall. Yet again, further down, into the depths. Meravyel kept him walking, and it was not until they had reached one of the furthest, deepest junctions that the man began to tremble. Up until then, he had been sarcastic, disbelieving. In a way, it made Meravyel even more angry that the man did not acknowledge that the Affliction existed at all. She had fought against it once, put her soul in the hands of darkness to have it lifted from her friends, her people... and this man scoffed, thinking it some jest to convince him to tell the truth!

Her fists clenched at the thought.

She had lead him down further, past the rows of ransacked sarcophagi and into the deepest part of the Crypts. A summoned imp, which had been helping her to keep Garreth from escaping, lingered on the ascending ladder as she urged the man into the lowest room. What passed between them then, no one would ever know. Meravyel lowered her head in shame, remembering. He'd pleaded for his life, clung to her false promise of freedom. But Meravyel knew that, should he go free, the entire Order would bear the stigma of her actions, her choices, whether she wanted them to or not. "My word is as good as yours" she had told him. But he had lied, so she felt justified.

Meravyel's blade plunged into his stomach and she drained the man's life away - without mercy, and only a hint of sadness. But the truth of that sadness was found in the sundering of the bond that had filtered his sweet life-force to her, not in his death.

She had enjoyed it, there was no question. It was a feeling unlike any other, and if she had the opportunity, she knew she'd do it again. But never without there being cause, she swore. Never.

"Never," she whispered aloud. Silence was all the reply she received. The night held no answer for her. She wondered if anyone did.

[Alesia]

Thu, 05 Aug 2004 01:09:48 GMT

"One more time."
"Sir. It's her birthday."
"I said do it again."

Alesia sat at the little red and blue plastic table, fitting one block onto another. Her five-
year-old fingers fumbled with the smaller pieces, but today she was sure she'd finish her
princesses' castle. She'd built it one floor at a time, making rooms for each of them. Stella
and Twinkle had already moved in (though Alesia wasn't sure quite how she'd get them
out again without removing the upper floors). Nancy and Sarah were waiting their turns
patiently, dressed in their hand-me-down bridal gowns originally intended for a different
style of doll. Tanya and Rikki...

Fwoom-fwoom.

Alesia had come to hate that noise. She always got sick when it stopped, and then they'd
give her a shot. The nurses told her it was to make her not feel so sick, but Alesia had
heard one doctor talking about how they wanted her to grow up faster and that's what the
shot was supposed to do. Boy, she wished it would hurry up and work. Then she could
fuss at those doctors and they'd listen. Only Daddy ever listened to her, and even then it
was just like he was being nice and not like he wanted to listen.

Fwoom-fwoom.

The lights dimmed and Alesia looked up and smiled. The table was the only source of
color in the room. The walls were white. Her dress was white. The chair, the door. Even
the frame around the big mirror on the wall. Daddy said it was so that the cleaning lady
could tell where the dirt was at so she could find it better. Alesia didn't like it because
when the lights were on, it hurt her eyes. So, when the lights dimmed, she was happy. But
then the sound got louder.

FWOOM-FWOOM.
FWOOMFWOOM-FWOOMFWOOM.

Something was wrong. The noise was coming faster and the lights flickered each time.
The glass of the mirror seemed to shake in time to the humming. Alesia dropped the
block, held her hands to her ears, and began to cry. The noise hurt her head, and made her
back feel like it was on fire. She screamed.

Potential writing?

Mon, 19 Jul 2004 18:15:16 GMT

Outline;
The Setup

Veronica Kessler is hired by Ivy to acquire Meravyel's sword. Ishmael Betancourt is sent to do the deed. Leaves Mer for dead. Mer wakes, tracks Ishmael. The sword is given over to Ivy and Ivy takes it to her secreted laboratory. Mer buys info from Veronica on who hired her.

Uses magical ritual to find Ivy and her lab.

Ivy has been trying to link the blade to her, so it might channel energy to her without Ivy physically wielding it. Feeding it abyssal/demonic energies. It has been storing the energies.

Mer breaks into laboratory, finds her sword. The energy it was storing floods her, as Ivy walks into the room. Surprised, Ivy Banishes Mer. Mer ends up on an Abyssal/Infernal plane.

The Capture

Mer is disoriented, but is forced to act via an encounter with some demonic monster. Becomes tracked by a 'hunting party'.

Spellcaster uses an illusion to drop her guard and capture Mer alive. Enslaved. Due to the arcane tattoos on her face and the blade she carries (marked with similar runes, and carved of a demon bone), is brought before demon lord. Put into gladitorial games.

The Games

Sword is given to her for use in the 'games'. 30 years pass this way. Meets ghost elves (questionable), learns the infernal/abyssal languages, gains many scars and other tattoos. With 'good behavior', Mer is granted status as a guard. Becomes one of the elite.

The Escape

Meets Felwynn Mourgant* (check your spelling, dorkus) while working in the 'house'. He learns about Mer in various instances. He's planning his escape. Mer is invited, and accepts - improving on Felwynn's plans, etc.

*Felwynn born of elven-succubus union.

On the Run

Felwynn teaches Mer a lot about the infernal/abyssal planes, in the way of survival. Tells her about the spell that brought her here, and that she won't be able to return to the Prime until 100 years have passed (if the spell is not more powerful). Tells her of places she can go and research to find a way out. Teaches her safe places, etc.

They part ways. (See note from Felwynn in merraviel journal)

Time Passes

Mer spends time developing her sorcerous abilities, in hiding on the plane. Occasional scuffles with demons/devils/etc. Finds her way out.

Misc details; Possible meeting with another banished tiefling. Related to old obsession/enemy Sythe.

From 7-12 prompt #1 alternative, the_pen_pwnz

Tue, 13 Jul 2004 15:31:30 GMT

1. God hates you.

The roar of rushing water filled Miranda's ears. "Another hangover?" she thought, as her mind fought through the lifting haze of unconsciousness. As she tried to roll over, she realized her hands were tied. So were her legs. Cracking her eyes open, forced to squint against the blinding light of day, she surveyed her surroundings. She was tied up, and apparently inside a small row boat, which sounded like it was about to hit rapids. Instead of her usual leather armor, she was dressed only in a burlap sack.

She groaned, letting her head fall back to the bottom of the boat. "Not again..."

2. You don't always want what you want.

The cell was pitch black. The guard had taken the last torch with him as he'd closed the door to the prison block. A scuffling noise in the corner made Miranda nervous. "Great, just great." She was the only person in the cell block, but she certainly wasn't alone. Carefully she felt around on the floor... there, a pebble. Cupping her discovery in her hands she concentrated and chanted a quiet mantra. The pebble began to glow... And then the hallway door opened. Miranda clenched her hand, hiding the pebble.

"Hold out your hands." The guards had brought the creepy mumbler with them.

She extended both hands, in fists.

The mumbler didn't look amused. "Fingers extended."

Coughing, she moved one hand (the one bearing the pebble) to her mouth. As she inhaled, she sucked in the pebble and quickly swallowed it, then put out her hands and extended her fingers. Of course, they applied finger traps - just enough to keep her from casting more complex spells. Mentally, she cursed.

"So you guys wanna uh, cast a little light back here? I think there are rats."

One of the guards backhanded her. Once, twice. After the third time, Miranda figured it was best just to stay where she'd fallen. She did, and they left, leaving one torch just inside the far door. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she saw what the rats (for they were rats) found so interesting - a severed human head. Miranda's stomach lurched, and she vomitted. Depositing her glowing pebble on the floor - providing light that she suddenly didn't want anymore.

3. Sometimes they come back.

The last brigand found himself surrounded and gave up. Lys bound him and looked over to Miranda. Her eyes were wide with surprise, staring at the body at her feet. Taking a few steps closer, Lys gasped. The robber's body was shrivelled, as if it had been dead for years. The blade glowed with a sickly red light that quickly faded away.

Miranda shook her head, and shrugged. "Whatever works." She sheathed the blade.

They questioned the prisoner and decided to show him mercy. They took his weapons and armor and knocked him out. When he awoke, he'd be unbound and free to return to his home. Lys and Miranda continued on to the next city.

It was refreshing to sit down to a game a cards, Miranda thought, slipping the ace out of her sleeve unseen. Lys was taking care of getting fresh horses (it would be no good to be caught with stolen horses bearing the Citadel Guard's brand). Suddenly the town alarm was ringing. Those that used weapons armed themselves and headed into the street to see what was afoot. Screams sounded from the main road. Miranda stepped out and shielded her eyes against the sun, peering in the direction of the screams.

Lumbering down the road, the arm of some townsperson in its hand, was one of the brigands she'd killed just the night before. Her stomach knotted as she looked past the first figure to see the forms of the rest of the common thieves that had fallen to the strange blade she carried. They seemed to be coming straight toward her.