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Post by Shadaras on Oct 13, 2009 15:35:31 GMT -5
...this is going to sound so odd. xD ...so. There's a situation IRL that I'm part of that really feels like it should be a story. And my sense of humour says that this'd be epic fun to write as a story, kinda as a 'what if?' approach to what's happening now and what other paths this might've taken. But. Like. I refuse to write three stories at once. And it's like. I don't know. I'll probably endu just going bah at stuff and writing this during the rest of October. xD ...but it'd be so hilarious! Especially if I turned it fantasy/sci-fi. I don't know which'd work better. But I so want to do this now. Because it'd be really funny to me, at least.
...and all this requires is for me to figure out when I could write this, because if I NaNo it, I'd be dropping Trust. *needs to finish Maestro for NaNo for sure* ..so yeah. This is a silly post because none of you will have any idea what I'm talking about. =D ...but I don't care.
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Post by Rikku on Oct 14, 2009 2:18:08 GMT -5
Aww, don't drop Trust. D= It's fun.
... You can write whatever you want, of course. x3 But, hey, why not try to do all three? =D What's the worst that could happen? Other than giving up and writing one massive, Frankensteinian blend of all three. xD
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Post by Shadaras on Oct 14, 2009 10:02:58 GMT -5
The worst that could happen is that I break my mind. xD ...and doing three wouldn't do justice to any of them. Doing two probably would. But yeah. More likely, I'll write silly based-off-life story after NaNo. Maybe before. Maybe both. xD ...depends on how long it takes me to get the world/characters/base plot fleshed out enough so that I don't mind writing it.
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Post by Shadaras on Oct 16, 2009 22:56:24 GMT -5
This may or may not help you guys make sense of things, but I don't want to forget that this is the only way things make sense: Matthias is voleru. Maestro is elavir. And voleru. Soul-shattered, returned by light and darkness. Which explains why names are so important to him and why he can slip on different identities so easily; his mind is fragmented, the Raven having given him the minds/souls to keep him alive and relatively sane. Matthias... Matthias is in the Light now. All but his body and the parts of his soul that Zu (and maybe possibly Melakh) carries.
Also, I get to write the story of Maestro and Ciel's meeting for a class. =D ...that wins. And I'll write it over the weekend, most likely. But yeah. Their meeting is awesome. ^_^
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Post by Shadaras on Oct 21, 2009 21:50:23 GMT -5
Yell at me if I don't update this tomorrow-ish after editing it. And yes, this makes perfect sense for the two of them, oddly enough. And yes, Ciel is weird and doesn't make sense. She's Light-touched. Of course she's different. Anyway. All around him, natural shadows had disappeared, their places taken by bright torch-shadows. Cathal ignored the torches; he didn’t need them to see, even in the twilight hours. Those around him did, it seemed. He’d forgotten, in the long years spent building the Magistrate, what it was to be normal. The horse he rode on snorted, and Cathal smiled. Animals didn’t care if he was voleru, and twice-returned from death. People did.
Soft music drew his attention to the town’s inn. Cathal smiled, seeing the sign that hung above the inn’s entrance. It didn’t have any words on it, but the pictures were clear enough: mug, harp, and bed, marking this as the place he’d be staying the night. The music alone would have called him, but the promise of food and a night’s lodgings made it a given. Depending on his whims and how good the musician was, he might even stay an extra day or two. Light knew, his horse would be happy for a break.
Cathal stroked the horse’s dark neck, drawing his mount to a stop. He dismounted, glad to feel the ground beneath his feet once more. He looped the horse’s reins around a post and opened the inn’s door. No cacophony of noise greeted him here, unlike the last five or six inns he’d stayed at. Instead, harp music, the same music he’d heard riding in, filled the room. Cathal stepped in, and heard a wrong note in the music, the first he’d heard. The music stopped completely a moment later.
Any noise that had been in the common room stopped as well, and Cathal sighed. Everyone was looking at him. Well and good; he was looking at the harpist.
She could have been his brother. Blue-black hair and pale skin, so like his own. But those eyes, a deep green that most would have called emerald, caught him more than anything else about her. He knew better than to call those eyes emerald green; they were cat-green, wild, fierce, and stained with gold. Like his eyes. Like Zelle’s eyes. Like the eyes of all voleru, if the legends and his experience were true.
He had never discounted the legends; now he wondered how much else was in them that most people never saw.
The crowd was murmuring now, restless now that they’d seen this newcomer who had so discomforted their harpist. Cathal smiled, but didn’t break eye contact. The first one to do so would concede defeat, and he could not do that. She smiled back, beginning to play once more, never looking away from him. Cathal maneuvered through the tables towards her, barely able to pay attention to where he was going. All in all, he was surprised that he only knocked into two or three people.
When he did reach the harpist’s side, he found a stool and sat. “Shall we agree to a truce?” he asked lightly, words soft enough so that only she could hear him.
“Truce, then.” The harpist spoke equally quietly, but she didn’t change her gaze.
Cathal sighed, looking deliberately away. He heard the change in the music as the harpist returned her attention to the strings she played. “Who are you?”
“You came here.” Her voice was tart, and Cathal smiled.
“Cathal Uccello.” He glanced at her again, in time to see her eyes widen slightly. “Zelle Uccello convinced his parents to grant me the name and title in his stead.”
The music changed once more, becoming sharp and quick. “Magister.”
“If you want to talk about that, talk to me outside.” Cathal rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands. “Who are you?”
“Ciel,” she said shortly.
“Ciel.” He tasted the name, looking at her curiously. “Named for the sky, are you?”
She shrugged, glancing at him. “Few people still know the old tongue.”
“Zelle taught me.”
“Even in the noble lines, only the oldest preserve the tongue of our ancestors.” She took a breath, pausing in the music to look directly at him. “Tell me, then. Téon vo l’eru?”
“Séo vo l’eru,” Cathal answered automatically. A smile spread across his face, and he spoke again in a whisper. “N séo reille.”
“As you say.” Ciel resumed her playing, drowning our words in sweet notes. “I, too, have seen the Light and returned. This Zelle of yours has as well, I take it?”
“You expect to speak of such things here?”
“Why not?”
Cathal paused. The people in the inn seemed entirely caught up in their food and conversations, and those few who were simply sitting in chairs seemed focused on Ciel’s music to the exclusion of all else.
“You see?” Ciel waved a hand at the room, one hand plucking a simple melody before the other returned. “They don’t care about what I’m doing. You, they’ve pegged as just another admirer of mine, but one that I return the feelings of.” She made a face. “They’re going to be teasing me about this, once you leave.”
“You could come with me.”
Ciel stopped again in her music, looking at him with unmasked surprise. Cathal didn’t blame her. He wasn’t sure where the words had come from, but come they had, and he didn’t regret his offer. “You—”
“Keep playing before they comment on it,” Cathal snapped. Flushing, Ciel did as he said. When the quiet murmur of conversation returned, Cathal sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“What would you have me say?” Ciel asked, not looking up from her harp. “That yes, of course I want to come with you?”
“Ciel—”
“Don’t,” she snapped. “Don’t act as if you’ve done me so great a wrong.”
“Can we talk later?” Cathal smiled, but the expression was strained. “I’ve been on the road all day.”
“When I leave, follow.”
Cathal didn’t ask for anything more. He rose, finding the innkeeper and asking for food and lodgings for himself and his horse. The innkeeper nodded, shouting back to the kitchen for someone to bring food. When he turned back, there was a grin on his face. “So you’ve met our Ciel.”
Cathal simply nodded.
“She’s something, isn’t she?” The man grinned, clapping Cathal on the back hard enough to make him stagger. “You’ve caught her eye, too.”
“I’m not sure if I want it,” he mumbled, stepping away from the innkeeper’s hands. “She doesn’t take kindly to having her eye on me.”
The innkeeper laughed freely, the sound belling over the harp music. “She’s a free spirit, she is. I’ve been lucky to have kept her here as long as I have.”
Cathal stayed silent, eyeing the door into the kitchen.
“Ah, but you...” With a wink, the innkeeper turned and left Cathal without another word, leaving the thought unfinished.
A hired hand came out of the kitchen soon after, holding a bowl of soup and a chunk of bread. Cathal took both, thanking the boy. They warmed his hands, and he made his way to the first free table near Ciel he saw. The other voleru watched him. Her cat-eyes kept flicking towards and away from him. Cathal couldn’t help but smile, trying to catch that gaze as he ate. He’d usually been on the receiving end of this game, with Zelle and Zu teaming up against him. He shook his head, trying to hide a shudder.
The music changed. It dropped, becoming darker. Startled, Cathal looked up at Ciel. Her nostrils were flared, ever so slightly. Closing his eyes, Cathal could just barely feel her pull on his life-energy. The humans wouldn’t be able to notice it at all. Ciel was older than she acted, if she had that kind of control. Admittedly, he had never tried feeding from a group, since Zelle had ways to keep them fed without working at it, and he hadn’t been on the road long enough to need to find another source of life.
Cathal didn’t try to mimic her, though he did his best to study and understand how she was feeding. The music wove through him, catching him in its gentle waves, drawing him closer. It took him a few minutes to realize that he, like everyone else in the inn, was losing life to Ciel. Opening his eyes, Cathal pulled back, drawing from Ciel and Ciel alone, taking back what she’d stolen from him. She started, dropping a beat of the music. It lost its soothing spell, and people began leaving.
The lanterns that had once filled the room with light were mostly gone now, with only two flames showing the way up or out of the room. Cathal didn’t move until he and Ciel were the only ones still in the room. Ciel continued playing, her head resting against the spine of her harp, fingers still plucking out simple melodies. Cathal rose, going to stand beside her. Hesitantly, he laid a hand on her shoulder. The music stopped.
“I’ll come with you, Uccello.”
Reflexively, Cathal tightened his grip. “How do you know that name?”
She laughed. “Life isn’t the only thing you can take.”
Cathal stared at the back of Ciel’s head, slowly releasing her shoulder. How much did she know now, then, if she could take memory from him?
“Keep your secrets if you wish, Uccello.” Ciel turned to look at him. “I’m not going to tell anyone.” For a moment, Cathal thought he saw her eyes glimmer, green overtaken by gold. Then Ciel spoke again, and her eyes returned to cat-green. “Nor am I going to give them any explanation of why I’m leaving with you.”
“They assume you’ve finally fallen for a man.” Cathal sighed. “I doubt it.”
“Good for you.” Ciel opened her mouth again, and then looked back at her harp. “I’ll need to leave this behind.”
“I’ll get you another, when we get to Aberon.”
Ciel nodded. “Sleep. You’ll need it.”
Cathal started to protest, but the gold-struck glare she turned on him made him think better. Bowing stiffly, Cathal made his way up the stairs, finding his room by scent alone. Lying in his bed, he smiled. The journey to Aberon would be much more interesting with Ciel along. He just hoped she didn’t end up regretting it and biting his head off.
As he drifted off into sleep, Cathal reflected that it was almost equally likely that the biting would be literal as metaphorical. Edited version now. =D All around him, the natural shadows of day had disappeared, their places taken by harsh torch-shadows. Cathal ignored the torches; he didn’t need them to see, even in the twilight hours. Most people did. Normal people did. He’d forgotten, in the long years he’d spent helping to build the Magistrate, what being normal meant. The horse he was riding snorted, distracting him from his thoughts, and Cathal smiled. Animals didn’t care if he was voleru. People did.
Haunting music drew his attention to the town’s inn. Cathal smiled, seeing the sign that hung above the inn’s entrance. It didn’t have any words on it, but the story the pictures told was clear enough: a mug, a harp, and a bed, marking this as the place he’d be staying the night. The music alone would have called him, but the promise of food and a night’s lodgings made it a given. Depending on his whims and how good the musician was, he might even stay an extra day or two. His horse would be happy for a break, Light knew.
Cathal drew his mount to a stop in front of the inn and dismounted, glad to feel the ground beneath his feet once more. He looped the horse’s reins around a post and opened the inn’s door. No cacophony of noise greeted him here, unlike the last five or six inns he’d stayed at. Instead, harp music, the same music he’d heard riding in, filled the room. Cathal stepped in, and heard a wrong note in the music. The music stopped completely a moment later.
All the other noise in the common room stopped as well, and Cathal sighed. Everyone was looking at him. He was looking at the harpist.
She could have been his sister. Her blue-black hair, pale skin, and fine bones were similar enough for that. But those eyes, a deep green that most would have called emerald, were so different from his that nobody could mistake them for siblings. Those eyes caught him more than anything else about her. He knew better than to call their color emerald green; they were cat-green, wild and fierce and stained with gold. Stained in the same way his eyes were, in the same way Zelle’s eyes were. The same way all voleru’s eyes were, if the legends and his experience were true.
He had never discounted the legends, but now he wondered how much else was in them that most people never saw.
The crowd was murmuring, restless now that they’d seen this newcomer who had so discomforted their harpist. Cathal smiled, but didn’t break eye contact with the harpist. Whoever looked away first would concede defeat. She smiled back, beginning to play once more. Cathal maneuvered through the tables towards her, barely able to pay attention to anything in his way. All in all, he was surprised that he only knocked into two or three people.
When he reached the harpist’s side, he found a stool and sat. “Shall we agree to a truce?” he asked lightly, words soft enough so that only she could hear him.
“Truce, then.” The harpist spoke equally quietly, but she didn’t move her gaze.
Cathal sighed, deliberately looking away. He heard the change in the music as the harpist returned her attention to the strings she played. “Who are you?”
“You came here.” Her voice was tart, and Cathal smiled.
“Cathal Uccello.” He glanced at her again and saw her eyes widen slightly. “Zelle Uccello convinced his parents to grant me the name and title in his stead.”
The music changed once more, becoming sharp and quick. “Magister.”
“Not now.” Cathal rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands. “Who are you?”
“Ciel,” she said shortly.
“Ciel.” He tilted his head. “Named for the sky, are you?”
She shrugged. “Few people still know the old tongue.”
“Zelle taught me.”
“Even in the noble lines, only the oldest preserve the tongue of our ancestors.” She took a breath, pausing her music to look directly at him. “Tell me, then. Téon vo l’eru?”
“Séo vo l’eru,” Cathal answered automatically. A smile spread across his face, and he added, “N séo reille.”
“As you say.” Ciel resumed playing, drowning their words in sweet notes. “I, too, have seen the Light and returned. This Zelle of yours has as well, I take it?”
“You expect to speak of such things here?”
“Why not?”
Cathal paused. The people in the inn seemed entirely caught up in their food and conversations, and those few who were simply sitting in chairs seemed focused on Ciel’s music to the exclusion of all else.
“You see?” Ciel waved a hand at the room, her other hand continuing a simple melody line. “They don’t care about what I’m doing. You, they’ve pegged as just another admirer of mine, but one that I return the feelings of.” She made a face, returning both hands to the harp’s strings. “They’re going to be teasing me about this once you leave.”
“You could come with me.”
Ciel stopped again in her music, looking at him with unmasked surprise. Cathal didn’t blame her; he wasn’t sure where the words had come from, but come they had, and he didn’t regret his offer. “You—”
“Keep playing before they comment on it,” Cathal snapped. Flushing, Ciel did as he said. When the quiet murmur of conversation returned, Cathal sighed, dropping his gaze. “I’m sorry.”
“What would you have me say?” Ciel asked, not looking up from her harp. “That yes, of course I want to come with you?”
“Ciel—”
“Don’t,” she said harshly. “Don’t act as if you’ve done me so great a wrong.”
“Can we talk later?” Cathal gave a strained smile. “I’ve been on the road all day.”
“Wait until they all leave, then.”
Cathal couldn’t ask for anything more. He rose, finding the innkeeper and asking for food and lodgings for himself and his horse. The innkeeper nodded, shouting back to the kitchen for someone to bring food. When he turned back, there was a grin on his face. “So you’ve met Ciel.”
Cathal nodded.
“She’s something, isn’t she?” The man grinned, clapping Cathal on the back hard enough to make him stagger. “You’ve caught her eye, too.”
“I’m not sure if I want it,” he mumbled, stepping away from the innkeeper’s hands. They struck hard almost hard enough to bruise. “She doesn’t take kindly to having her eye on me.”
The innkeeper laughed freely, the sound belling over the harp music. “She’s a free spirit, she is. I’ve been lucky to have kept her here as long as I have.”
Cathal stayed silent, eyeing the door into the kitchen.
“Ah, but you...” With a wink, the innkeeper turned and left Cathal, leaving the thought unfinished.
A hired hand came out of the kitchen soon after, holding a bowl of soup and a chunk of bread. Cathal took both, thanking the boy. They warmed his hands, and he made his way to the first free table near Ciel he saw. The other voleru watched him. Her cat-eyes kept flicking towards and away from him. Cathal couldn’t help but smile, trying to catch that gaze as he ate. He’d usually been on the receiving end of this game, with Zelle and Zu teaming up against him. He shook his head, trying to hide a shudder.
The music shifted. It dropped, becoming darker. Startled, Cathal looked up at Ciel. Her nostrils were flared, ever so slightly. Closing his eyes, Cathal could just barely feel her pull on the room’s life-energy. The humans wouldn’t be able to notice it at all. Ciel was older than she acted, if she had that kind of control. Admittedly, he had never tried feeding from a group, since Zelle had ways to keep them fed without working at it, and he hadn’t been on the road long enough to need to find another source of life.
Cathal didn’t try to mimic her, though he did his best to study and understand how she was feeding. The music wove through him, catching him in its gentle waves, drawing him closer. It took him a few minutes to realize that he, like everyone else in the inn, was losing life to Ciel. Opening his eyes, Cathal pulled back, drawing from Ciel and Ciel alone, taking back what she’d stolen from him. She started, dropping a beat of the music. It lost its soothing spell, and people soon began leaving.
The lanterns that had once filled the room with light were mostly gone now, with only two flames showing the way up or out of the room. Uneasily, Cathal realized that he hadn’t noticed the room growing darker. What else had he missed while under Ciel’s spell? As people left, Cathal kept watch for any unusual behavior, but everyone else seemed to have been as entangled in the spell as he had been.
Even so, Cathal didn’t move until he and Ciel were the only ones still in the room. Ciel continued playing, her head resting against the spine of her harp, fingers plucking out simple melodies. Cathal rose, quietly walking over to stand beside her. Hesitantly, he laid a hand on her shoulder. The music stopped.
“I’ll come with you, Cat.”
Reflexively, Cathal tightened his grip. “Why call me that?”
She laughed. “Life isn’t the only thing you can take.”
Cathal stared at the back of Ciel’s head, slowly releasing her shoulder. How much did she know now, then, if she could take memory from him?
“Keep your secrets if you wish.” Ciel turned to look at him. “I’m not going to tell anyone.” For a moment, Cathal thought he saw her eyes glimmer, green overtaken by gold. Then Ciel spoke again, and her eyes returned to cat-green. “Nor am I going to give them any explanation of why I’m leaving with you.”
“They assume you’ve finally fallen for a man.” Cathal sighed. “I doubt it.”
“Good for you.” Ciel opened her mouth again, and then looked back at her harp. “I’ll need to leave this behind.”
“I’ll get you another, when we get to Aberon.”
Ciel nodded. “Sleep. You need it.”
Cathal started to protest, but the gold-struck glare she turned on him made him change his mind. Bowing stiffly, Cathal made his way up the stairs, finding his room by scent alone. Lying in the darkness, he smiled. The journey to Aberon would be much more interesting with Ciel along. He just hoped she didn’t end up regretting it and biting his head off.
As he drifted off into sleep, Cathal reflected that it was almost equally likely that the biting would be literal as metaphorical. |
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Post by Shadaras on Oct 28, 2009 19:17:27 GMT -5
This is my way of procrastinating. The Host -- In the beginning, they were just angels. Now, the Host is the catch-all term for angels, demons, and devils. The Fallen -- Technically, the Fallen are part of the Host. They're angels fallen from glory. Angels -- Your typical winged people. Oh, and their natural forms glow. Devils -- A half-breed angel and demon. Typically formed out of a fallen and a demon. Demons -- The angels who fell with Lucifer. ((though Lucifer himself is Fallen, not demon)) The closer a demon or devil is to angelic, godly, blood, the more powerful they are. Succubi and incubi do their best to force angels to fall for them because of this. Devils born out of falling angels are powerful. They're also rare and have more of a sense of honor than lesser devils and demons, much to their annoyance. But their power is typically considered worth it. And sometime before tomorrow evening, I'll give you the story explaining Seth's birth. *is writing that for a class* ...and ignoring that it doesn't exactly follow the assignment given. ^_^ Edit: Mods, take the story away if you think it goes past what the forum allows. I don't much mind. *took out a few of the worse bits for posting this here* 'tis about a succubi and an angel, essentially. Seth's parents. And the ending sucks because it's not really an ending; it's a beginning. I couldn’t help but notice him. Giant white wings, a sort of glow that lit only his statuesque body – and an utter obliviousness to there being any chance of another member of the Host being in the crowd. I closed my eyes for a moment, forcing myself to stop looking at the angel like he was anything special. When I looked at him again, he was just another guy in the crowd. Still looked nice, but the ripped jeans and subtly stained shirt made him look approachable in a way that immaculate white robes and what had looked like a sword did not.
I avoided him, of course. There was no reason to let him know a demon was around. Especially since I was a succubus, and we were the kind of demon angels hated most. They had good reason, I had to admit. We were the ones who manipulated them into becoming fallen the most often, and the ones who did it best. They also normally knew us at first sight, so it was more than a little odd that I wasn’t being glared at by an angel’s fiery eyes. He wouldn’t kill me here; there were too many humans around, and he had to keep his cover.
I had to keep my cover as well, of course. In this crowd, that was easy enough. I was just another college student to them, pretty new and more social than a lot of newcomers. As I circulated through the room, I kept half an eye on the angel. Eventually, I asked someone who he was. The girl laughed, and asked me if he’d claimed another admirer. I just shrugged. She told me his name. Zechariah Cohen, but he was usually called Zach. I thanked the girl and kept moving, speculating on why there would be an angel here.
It was incredibly unlikely for God’s part of the Host to know that Lucifer had sent me here. I didn’t deny the possibility, but if the angel had been sent to kill me, then he would already know me and probably have killed me. I made a face, wishing that the party would end soon, or that this Zach would decide to leave. Then I could follow him. Then I could get to him.
If he’d seen me, he’d know I was a slut. I couldn’t hide all of what I was. I rarely tried, allowing that aura to pull the most easily tempted men – and no few women – to me. I took them all, given a chance. It wasn’t often I got to hunt out my choice of prey. I still watched the angel. Lucifer would be pleased if I could make an angel fall, especially if I gave him a devil in the bargain. I smiled. This would be a good hunt.
It was hard to tell how much time passed before the angel left. I followed him. A few of the people who thought they knew me called teasing comments after me. I just laughed at them. They were right, but they were also dead wrong. I wanted him for what he was, not because he looked pretty.
I caught up to the angel quickly enough. In the darkness, he shone like a beacon to me, and left a phosphorous trail behind him. I caught his arm and his attention at the same time, and met his eyes before he had a chance to speak. There was an art to catching any member of the Host with a mind-spell. Angels were especially difficult, as they had a direct connection to He who created all of us. I smiled at the angel, reaching up to touch his lips as I whispered a few meaningless words. I could feel his pulse racing, but I couldn’t yet tell if it was because of rage or lust.
I touched his lips as he began to speak. “Wh—”
The rest of the word was cut off in a gasp. I withdrew from him, trailing my fingers over his arm and chest. “Coming?” I asked, turning away. I glanced back over my shoulder. His summer-sky blue eyes were fluttering. I continued, facing forward once more. He was dazed. Perfect. I hadn’t expected that trick to work as well as it did – normally angels just thought I was a particularly forward girl – but this Zechariah was a child. He followed me, taking heavy steps. I wished I hadn’t killed his grace with his ability to sense what I was, but if that was the price to be paid, so be it.
The apartment I rented wasn’t far away, and it was private. I got the angel there without much fuss at all; as much as my apartment-mates disliked my habit of bringing back men more nights than not, they were used to it, and there was nothing in the rules to allow them to kick me out. I led the angel into my room, and then closed and locked the door. When I turned back to the angel, he was looking at me as if I was crazy. I rolled my eyes. “Look, if you’re going to yell at me, save it for later, please?” I pulled off my jacket, tossing it to the side. “You wouldn’t have come here if you didn’t want the same thing I do.”
“How do you know that?” I could see him start to glow, his angelic robes and sword superimposed upon his human clothes.
I raised my eyebrows, refusing to show the fear racing through me. “Experience.”
His throat worked.
I smiled, stepping closer to him and lightly touching his chest. “You’re too honorable to insult a woman, aren’t you?”
The angel stared stiffly ahead, not looking at me or acknowledging my words.
I sighed. “This is much more fun when you help, you know.”
He looked down at me and met my eyes. This time, I seized the moment and kissed him, forcing my way into his mouth. Whether or not he wanted this, I would have him. A succubus’s poison isn’t very harmful. It is, however, a powerful aphrodisiac, and combined with our ability to charm minds...
The angel was mine now. I could tell by the way he began looking more human with each passing moment. I took him then, as quickly as I could. As he fell, I took him, and claimed a child, a little devil for Lucifer. He knew, I thought. Even caught in the spell my body wove for his mind, he knew. And when it was done, and the fallen angel tried to strangle me, I smiled. He could hurt me, but he couldn’t kill me. Even fallen, he had enough power to, but the blood-bond between him and the child beginning to form in my womb would hold him back and keep me safe.
I almost pitied him as he realized why he was powerless against me. Laughing, I took him, again and again, breaking him to my will. Fallen were welcomed in Hell, so long as they submitted to Lucifer and followed his orders. This Zechariah would, I thought. I just had to give him reason.
And when I was done giving him those reasons, I took him to Hell and awaited my lord.
I didn’t need to summon him; he could feel the fallen come to his realm. When he appeared, he took one look at me and smiled. In that smile, I could see all the glory of what he had once been. I basked in his gaze, even as the fallen beside me cowered. Lucifer placed a hand upon my head and bade me to reside within his castle until my child was born. I bowed, and did as he asked.
Nine glorious months later, the child was born. Lucifer named him Setheremus Vaelle D’Horune.
I, and everyone else, simply called him Seth. |
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Post by Shadaras on Oct 28, 2009 23:10:45 GMT -5
Amnei reminded me that I hadn't posted about Maestro's setting yet. xD ..so! Start with Death. A human dies, right? And his body is left for the crows. The crows start to eat the human, talking to him all the while. The human's dead, of course, but he can still feel pain. He can hear the crows talking to him. Maybe he even replies, until the pain gets to him or the crows eat his tongue. The crows keep talking even after that, though. They keep talking until they decide their conversational partner is no fun anymore. Then they fly off and go find someone else.
Then the ravens come. The ravens might be worse than the crows, or they might be better. The ravens don't talk. They just laugh. Oh, they could talk to the human if they wanted to, but why? They know how to cause pain. That's all they do. They eat the human's flesh, careful not to destroy any nerves that'd keep the pain from reaching the human. They eat the brain last of all, but the human still lives. Terrified. Insane. Unable to do anything but scream in his mind.
The human forgets what pleasure is, as he is eaten. Each moment of pain is an eternity. He forgets who he is. And when his bones are collected, he doesn't notice. He's too busy screaming. Too busy trying to run away from the pain. But he can't.
Then one of his bones is crushed. A toe-bone or a fingerbone at first, usually. The sensation on not-feeling, of there not being pain, is so odd that the person wants to find out why it stopped. It's pleasurable, to the person. The person looks out through empty eyes at whoever broke their bone. And then they do whatever is asked of them, simply because they're thankful for the pain going away.
The bones are broken in a careful order, making sure that the pain is lessened one bone at a time. No bones are broken that have any non-broken bones further away from the skull. And the skull, when it's crushed, finally kills the person.
And then they go to limbo. They're asked a question. 'Would you rather have pleasure or live without pain?' they're asked. The person is given only a few seconds to decide. They don't need to speak their answer aloud, but they need to decide. Those who want to know pleasure are reborn as humans. Those who wish to live without pain are reborn as ravens. Those who cannot decide become crows.
Humans forget their past lives. Ravens remember, in a vacant way, and that is why they laugh at the humans they eat. They know what it is to suffer. Ravens may be insane, but they die. They die, and are given the same choice as humans. Crows, though. Crows don't understand anything. They live and die and are crows again, forever. Some of you might remember that from my diary. ^_^ ...the Raven Priests follow the Raven (shadow diety, considered evil but more like dark than evil) and use that sort of magic. Soul-sucked. Zombies. Elavir. Seriously, it doesn’t work right. Voleru had soul-life, Light, within them when they died. Obviously. But if all the Light gets sucked out of someone, they die. Then what? If they refuse to die, if they understand what’s going on and want to stop it, what happens?
...oh. Voleru are bodies without souls, right? The Light took their soul when they died. So they steal the souls of others. Elavir are bodies without the capacity for a Light-soul. But they still have their mind, just like voleru. It’s just that their soul... they can’t choose what comes to take their body. So. They’ve got a Raven-soul, usually. Note that the Raven-touched (elavir) are incredibly uncommon. They also act like normal people. Except schizo, due to having two minds, one of which has the body, the other, the soul.
Sometimes they cohabit. Usually, they don’t.
Elavir – from elav-avir (soul-broken)
Voleru – from séo vo l’eru (I have seen the light) ((typically: téon vo l’eru? (have you seen the light?)))
((n séo reille (ray-ye) – and I have returned)) Pretty much my stream-of-consciousness figuring out how those work. Maestro is set in a rather normal medieval fantasy realm, all things considered. The main weirdness factor comes from soul-suckers. Voleru. Anyway, Maestro’s basic plot goes something like this:
A royal investigator is sent to Maestro’s fief to find and exterminate the soul-sucker(s) that have been reported in that region. When the investigator discovers that Maestro himself is a soul-sucker, things get difficult, as few within Maestro’s fief are willing to believe that their benevolent ruler could possibly use souls to survive.
Right. Soul-suckers are just that: People who need to feed off of the souls of others to survive. They become that way when they die. Or rather, when they don’t die. There are some people who, when they see the light of heaven, turn away and choose to return to earth. Their souls are stripped from them, and they rise again. Typically, it’s days later. Typically, they’ve already been burned, and their bodies are reconstructed from ashes. Once they live again, they feel hunger for another person’s soul.
So they hunt. Once they find a person to feed off of, they drink that person’s breath. A lot of soul-suckers do this by kissing. This has led most people to be quite suspicious of kissing anyone they haven’t known for a year or so. There are other ways to get souls, however. Some voleru are skilled enough to steal a person’s breath, a person’s soul, simply by talking to them. But most voleru, if they can’t kiss someone, find someone who’s asleep and steal that person’s breath.
And then there are the voleru who’ve figured out how to transfer soul-energy. It’s all breath-based, of course, so that limits the methods of transfer. And. Yeah.
Maestro Abel Uccello. Male voleru, lord of fief <name>. Charming, dark brown hair, blue eyes with a rim of gold, tall and slender, tends to wear bright colors.
Teresa Uccello. Female voleru, acts as Maestro’s child. Slight build, dark hair that just brushes her neck, with bangs that tend to hang in her hazel-gold eyes. Fey. Like Abel, wears bright colors.
Kass (Cassarah) Chevalier. Female voleru, acts like a male. Maestro’s manservant/butler. Fairly short hair, brown and curly. Gray eyes that seem to absorb color. Wears neutral colors.
‘Huntress’ Ciel. Female voleru, acts like a male. Straight black hair that goes to base of shoulder-blades, kept in a ponytail. Green-gold eyes that seem like a cat’s. Sharp features.
Killian Craig. Male human. Investigator. Close-cut blond hair, sharp blue eyes, pale skin.
Maestro is generally thought to be gay. His guards believe this mostly because of the fact that they’ve never really seen him flirting with a female, he’s never been seen with a mistress, and because he adopted Teresa. Usually, they say that his partner is Kass. Occasionally, someone suggests Hunter. A few have even suggested a threesome, but those theories are quickly rejected. My original plot-thing. ^_^ ...how much of this stayed true? Some. Not all.
*-Maestro (Cahal) – Pride/Charity ((Arrogant, promiscuous, feline))
*Azuraphale (Zu) – Lust/Humility ((Overbearing, prideful, indolent))
*Metazelle (Zelle) – Wrath/Patience ((Vampiric, mesmer))
*+Erasmus – Gluttony/Chastity ((Aesthetic, monk-like))
Kalei – Greed/Kindness ((Child, clingy, Erasmus’s charge))
Melakh – Envy/Diligence ((Punk, Zu’s sidekick, sadist))
Javed – Sloth/Temperance ((Warrior, sand-walker, Zel’s ‘bodyguard’))
And most of what that's used for is my basic impression of each of those an their names. He fought the Ending War. He died in the Ending War. What brought him back? He died on the battlefield. He died with death all around him. He came back because he loved the people he fought with and the country he fought for. He came back because he was afraid of what would happen if he didn’t keep fighting. He came back because he knew that he could make a difference, and he wanted to make it.
Who was he, back then? What name was he born under?
Matthias. He was a peasant. A conscript. He had no last name. He was pulled into the Ending Wars and taught how to fight the bloody way. And he excelled. He taught his comrades, and slowly worked his way up the ranks. The nobles didn’t like this, but they liked the idea of losing their homes less.
Of course, his side still lost the war, but that’s not important. He died, he came back, and nobody noticed. He unconsciously sucked life from those around him, but enough of those died anyway that nobody really noticed until the war ended. Then he got banished for being cursed and somehow made his way to Arathmus and Zelle. |
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Post by Shadaras on Oct 31, 2009 19:50:38 GMT -5
I don't think I ever really figured out whether I was going to write Trust in first or third. xD ...I can see it working either way. The opening lines for it that I have in my head (which only appeared yesterdayish) are in first. But I could likely change to third if I tried. But. In first I don't need to type Christopher as much. That's a bonus. And it'll make seperating Trust and Maestro in my head easier. So. Um. Yeah. xD ..rationalising a choice I'd already unconsciously made and have been arguing against. Isn't that fun?
And. And. NaNo tomorrow. =D ...this is going to be so much fun. ^_^
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Post by Shadaras on Nov 1, 2009 10:54:06 GMT -5
At let the excerpting begin. ^_^ ...I paused in writing at 666 words. I find this far too amusing, so you get to see said words. It wasn’t hard to hear the whispers; they were on everyone’s lips as I walked through St. Francis’s halls. There was a new student at St. Francis, one who was bending all the rules, I heard one of the girls I passed say. This new student apparently had black-brown hair dyed in all the colors of the rainbow, wore clothing that could loosely be considered ‘street’, and was always talking and laughing about something. Two boys were laughing at that, making fun of him. If what I heard was true, I liked him already. He sounded like he was already halfway corrupted,
I turned into my English classroom, shrugging off my backpack. I glanced around the classroom at the seated students. Most people had pale shin, or skin the color of warm bread. This newcomer stood out, with his mud-colored skin. And he was seated next to me. I sat quickly, glancing at him. The rumors had been right about his hair and clothes. His hair was longer than anyone else’s, though he kept it bound close to his head. But nothing could hide the half-way hypnotic streaks of color. He turned and met my eyes, and I couldn’t help but shiver. His eyes were dark, pools of leaf-tainted water. I could see the power in them, and my instincts put a name to that power: Dragon.
He could probably see what I was just as easily. We both looked away, doing our best to ignore each other. All around us, the typical subdued babble went on, harmless rumor and speculation, gossip and planning. I’d never taken part in it, though Damon would like it if I did. It would make it easier on him. I sighed internally, wishing that I really was what I pretended to be: a quiet kid who didn’t act as smart as he was. Christopher wouldn’t have noticed or cared about the dragon. Seth had to.
I couldn’t pay attention to class, even though English was normally one of my favorite classes. Everyone understood the subject well enough that Mrs. Hollingsworth often gave us assignments that were, while complex, fun and interesting. Yet most of my classmates complained about those assignments more than they would about standard essays. Some days I really didn’t understand humans.
I watched the dragon out of the corner of my eye. He seemed more interested in me than in the class. I wasn’t surprised by that. If there was a dragon here, then the dragon already knew enough to deal with school. The question was more about why he was here, and why there was a dragon awake. Of those two questions, I wasn’t sure which was the more difficult to answer. I wasn’t sure which I wanted to know more, but running under the assumption that the dragon would probably kill me if I figured out the answer to either, I also wasn’t even sure if I wanted to know the answers.
“Mr. Drake?”
I glanced up at Mrs. Hollingsworth. Her fine eyebrows were arched and her arms were crossed. I replayed the last thing she had been talking about. “Paradise Lost is just a story,” I said softly. A story that was true in many ways, I had to admit, but still a story. “Its primary value to us is to show us why demons are not to be trusted, and to ask us to beware of the many guises they can take.” I shrugged, trying to ignore the sense that the dragon was laughing at me. “It’s something like the apocryphal sections of the Bible, I guess.”
Mrs. Hollingsworth nodded and continued her lecture. I turned to look at the dragon. He was laughing, though he hid it well. I had to acknowledge the irony; I was a devil, and she’d asked me to speak about the demon’s fall from Heaven. But the dragon didn’t need to find it so damnably funny. He glanced at me, white teeth shining against his dark skin. |
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Post by Shadaras on Nov 2, 2009 2:18:17 GMT -5
7,008 words for today. ^_^ The very last bit I wrote and one of my favorite exchanges: “That’s your angel talking,” Cyrus said acerbically. “You’re a devil. You’ve got demon blood in you, and just because your mom was a succubus doesn’t mean that’s all that you’ve got from that side.”
I couldn’t find a reply in me. “What’s a waterhorse?” I asked instead.
Cyrus laughed. “A kind of dragon,” he said. “An Eastern-style dragon, people would say now. You saw my shape, but Eastern means that I’m tied to wind, water, and life. Westerns are tied to fire, earth, and death.”
I leaned back against the wall again. “Why waterhorse, though?”
“Because we’re also known as hippocampi.” At my expression, Cyrus grinned. “Not my line, but those who lived in the Mediterranean. It’s not that much of a stretch, is it?”
Thinking about what he’d looked like in the sky, I had to admit it wasn’t. Especially as they would’ve been seen at sea, and thus their rear legs would’ve been hidden from sight. And I think Amnei wins the 'Person who stayed closest to Shade's wordcount' award. xD ...if you don't pass me tomorrow, I'll be surprised. And if I don't pass you back on Tuesday, I'll be sad. ^_^ |
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Post by Amneiger on Nov 2, 2009 3:22:23 GMT -5
=D *has kept up with Shade, kind of*
Hmm, Tuesday...if it turns out that I manage to keep ahead of Shade anyway, that would make her sad, which would be bad because she would be sad. On the other hand, I would have the glorious honor of having kept up with someone who managed to become famous last year for writing at crazy speed. =D
But I'll have stuff like classes going on on Tuesday that would keep me away from my computer for much of the day, so Shade probably would pull ahead of any gains I'd made on Monday. xD
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Post by Shadaras on Nov 2, 2009 11:03:16 GMT -5
xD ...go for the words, love. It gives me something to challenge myself against, which is so much more fun.
See? xD ...I have that problem on Monday. Classes pretty much all day. Which is why you'll get ahead today.
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Post by Shadaras on Nov 2, 2009 16:49:26 GMT -5
I slept. I hadn’t expected to, not with sunlight streaming in through the now-open windows and a dragon watching me. If Cyrus had used some magic to compel me, I wouldn’t have been surprised, but if he had, I’d accepted it without knowing. It wasn’t too bad, really. I did need rest. Rest in a place where I wasn’t constantly on edge for the sound of footsteps coming for me, or the prickling feeling of a glamour fading. So I slept, and when I woke it was dark.
I could see in the dark, if I made the effort to. I didn’t. I lay still and listened. I heard rustlings from outside, little noises that sounded like animals foraging. I heard wind in the trees, and a soft trickling noise that was probably a nearby creek. No breathing, other than my own. Interesting. Cyrus likely wasn’t around, then. I sighed, pulling sight from the darkness and looking around. Everything seemed to be in exactly the same places as before. I walked over to the icebox quietly, not wanting to break the night-silence if I didn’t need to.
Beside and behind the icebox, where I hadn’t been able to see before, there was a bag that smelled of plants. I knelt and rummaged through it, grabbing a pear. I felt a slight tingle on the back of my neck and turned, expecting Cyrus. Instead, I saw a delicate little girl with a fawn’s legs and tiny curling horns coming from her temples. She wasn’t wearing any clothing but the fur that faded away on her torso. I stared at her for a minute, unsure of what I was seeing. She extended a hand to me, dark eyes questioning and large. I gave her the pear, barely noticing how her fingers ended in claws.
She giggled. I couldn’t tell where the sound came from, but I saw it in her smile. She turned, and disappeared into the shadows. I stared after her, not sure at all what had happened. Cue digression into fey and stuff. Really. Fey were not supposed to be in this world. They fit. My reasoning makes them fit. And I can see a really interesting path for this story to take because of the fey, but even so. Why the fey? Other than because it amuses me. Though the reason why the fey and why the faun (for this scene) is because of a dream I had a couple months ago which I started writing a story off of and then never did. Which is sad, because the Othersight was a cool concept. Anyway. I'm digressing. |
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Post by Rikku on Nov 3, 2009 1:07:57 GMT -5
Fey. <3
And <3 for this story in general. =D Christopher (unless I should call him Seth? I can't decide!) seems an abundance of awesome all on his own, and Cyrus has pretty hair, which endears me to him greatly.
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Post by Shadaras on Nov 3, 2009 2:49:20 GMT -5
xD ..I really think you and Kath have rubbed off on me. Consider this: He laughed. It wasn’t a good laugh, either. It was the sort of laugh I’d expect from a movie super-villain.
That's the most recent thing I've written. And it's like. So much more something one of you would write than me.
And yay that you like Seth (call him whatever you want. I say Seth 'cause it's easier to type.) and Cyrus. ^_^ ..I don't know which of them I like better.
Also! Were you the one who kept mentioning the Dresden Files? Because I'm fairly sure they're influencing how I'm writing this story. This is probably a good thing, in this case.
Anyway, end day II at 9,033 words. I could probably write more, but there's not enough time in the day to really have that be worth it.
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