Cactus' Art & Stories

HI YES I’M SORRY I’m very bad at getting my muse up. RIP me.

The metal of the cuffs burned around Lilly’s wrist, heated from the fire in the building. Panicked as she was, Lilly couldn’t focus her magic on the metal without it violently lashing out at the crowd around her. She could feel the flames lapping at her back, dangerously close to her oily sigils. Sweat beat down her face. Tears welled in her eyes, and she fought harder to snap the metal chaining her to the wall. Lilly could here the cries of Cass and Dari, chained to the same pole. Lilly struggled harder. She couldn’t let her friends burn alive here with her! 

She felt the fire creep up her leg. The searing pain only made her yank harder. 

Yank. Yank. Pause. Yank. And then, snap!

It was Lilly’s wrist, breaking against the thick metal cuffs. The pain sharp, and more centralized than the burns, now to her knees. Even still, the pain made her vision swim. The room spun from the smoke and fire, and Lilly went dark.

Everything screamed and disrupted his sight, this wasn’t real. But the fire and heat had to be, the warmth and building that collapsed around his friend was very much felt on his skin and the floor under him creaked from his weight, he hoped this wasn’t real. The metal screeched at his ears and he looked up to see his friend, chained in the inferno and exposed to the harsh elements. He’d rush to the feet of his friend and pull and pull at the metal chains but nothing he did would change what has already happened.

The snapping bones only reinforced his belief that his efforts were futile, he’d slam against the walls but he wasnt there when this happened. His instincts and what he knew would fail him and he would kneel down to the memory of his friend struggling and just repeat the words he knew to say before everything went dark and the world blurred like a melting oil painting. “You’re going to live, you’re strong and you’ll make it out of this.”

The Seraph reared itself upright, movements jerky. It scanned the room with its milky eye. All seemed calm, despite the fire. Suddenly, an ear-splitting screech echoed through the room. Then, another. And another, coming from all around. The figures rushing past Broken started melting. Some became other angels, timidly hovering, while others doubled over and melded with the ground. The Lily Witch Seraph paused, before letting out another scream.

Opposing angels rushed at it frantically. The Seraph lunged, before tearing at them with it’s bare hands. It savagely ripped the others apart, using teeth and nails alike. It grew quick and ferocious, wings beating with every fatal attack. Every spurt of blood only fanned the flames higher and higher. Beside Broken, Lilly’s friends screamed and shouted frantically, struggling even harder to get away. Once all of it’s opponents were slaughtered, it turned its holy gaze on those two. With a flick of its wrist, the entire room filled with blinding light. A beat of silence, then a deafening rush of yelling and crying.

                       hate to break it to you, but…

Small

And

Sad

And

wip introduction ; the last lorinean

“I’m not running away from something. I’m running to something.”

“Is that so?” There was a twinkle in the woman’s eyes. “And what would you happen to be running to?”

“Answers.”

title: The Last Lorinean

genre: Fantasy

status: Second draft

ao3 tags: Found family, sapphic love, self discovery, road trips, too much worldbuilding, strong female characters, immortal lesbians with swords, pirates for some reason

summary: No one on the continent Aronia has had a dream in 200 years. It is an accepted fact, a reality of the small empire and all its inhabitants; the side-effects of a curse cast thousands of years ago. Lorineans could temporarily cure the dream sickness, but all were killed or exiled at the end of the Lorinean Crisis.

When Lilli Karington wakes up with a dream of her own fresh in her memory, she realizes the time has come to leave the sleepy town of Oakalla and head to the north in search of answers. What she doesn’t count on is being entangled in 200 years worth of the deadliest lie to have been told in Aronia– and a plot against the Emperor.

main characters:

Lilliana Karington, 17. An orphan raised in the small town of Oakalla, Lilli runs away from Judith Jean’s Home for Wayward Girls after she starts having dreams– a feat impossible in an empire cursed with dream sickness. She makes a deal with the Lorinean in her mind, and with her own curse of poor decision making and bad timing, Lilli journeys to the Northern Kingdoms in search of answers.

Illizian, 1,961. A Lorinean who once served– and loved– the Emperor’s daughter, Illizian is now a fugitive under Aronian law. She escaped the massacre and exile of her people only though hiding her soul in the bloodline of a unwitting maid, and now must rely on the help of her current host: a young orphan with more power than she knows.

Sadene Amoraz, 20. A runaway from the prestigious Faerien Academy, Sadene only wants one thing: freedom to chose. After being thrown into a terse alliance with a scrappy Human girl, she faces the unraveling relationship with her twin brother.

Addien Amoraz, 20. A Faerie with unbridled ambitions, Addien never wanted to leave the Faerien Academy. Having made the choice to stay by his sister’s side, he regrets the life he left behind. All he can do now is continue onward to the Northern Kingdoms in the company of his twin sister and an untrustworthy orphan.

side characters:

Lythinia Kaeleki, 229. The daughter of the Emperor of Aronia, and Princess of Iremor. Granted immortality alongside her father, she lives in hope that Illizian managed to survive the Lorinean Crisis, and will return to her one day.

Ausma Kaeleki, 252. The Emperor of Aronia, and King of Iremor. He led the fight against the Lorineans, driving their people into exile. For his deeds, he was deemed worthy of immortality by the elves.

Bethanius Guore, 31. A pirate who spends as much time of possible away from water. They have business with the Pirate Queen, and they find themselves entangled in the lives of three runaways.

tags: #the+last+lorinean ; #illizian+wip

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