pspsps I know I should be working on my longer WIPs but have a little snippet from a Ruthari Meeting one-shot that I had to write, specifically For This Moment.
For timeline notes: Runaan is approximately 19 here. Ethari is at least 25, with his horns at full adult size to Runaan's young adult. Runaan is a full-fledged assassin and has been for four years, and Ethari has been a smith for at least a decade, since Moonshadow appear to reach majority at around 15.
The last figure through the door was taller than the others, even Radnaal. Most Moonshadow were slight and lean, even the taller men barely rising to Ethari's shoulders or jaw, but this man was nearly of a height with him. His horns were relatively small, betraying his youth, but arched and twisted proudly up and back like a dragon's, a gentle curve at odds with the severe lines cut by the tattoos across his delicate nose. He had a soft jaw, hair nearly to his trim waist, and his eyes -
Oh, his eyes. A pretty, piercing turquoise that caught Ethari's entire attention immediately when they lit upon him, widening at the sight of him. Framed with kohl that highlighted his long lashes, brought to a point that only highlighted how large and soft those eyes were, angled slightly in his youthful, delicate face, sparking with something and widening further as he realized Ethari was watching him move.
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"Welcome in," he said cheerfully. "As Radnaal already said, I'm Ethari. Good to have a few more known faces in town, honestly." Pulling up his own chair, Ethari turned it around to sit backwards in it, leaning his arms on the back to observe them lightly. "I understand most of ye don't need much more than maintenance right now, but one of you's lookin' for a new weapon?"
"That would be Runaan," Pyxis said blandly, leaning back in his own chair and crossing an ankle over his other knee. He cast the younger assassin a bland look. "Hasn't figured out yet how to manage that ridiculous warbow with something else."
A Ruthari First Meeting fic because I wanted to write Ethari waxing poetic in his own head about Runaan's eyes and flirting outrageously the first time they talk.
Neat, I have this one! Though it's not one of my Dragon Prince works, it's the Final Fantasy XV AU I've been fiddling with. This clip is from one of Ravus' chapters, during a talk with his sister, Lunafreya.
Her hand opened, and he took a step back at the sight of the Ring of the Lucii. His mind couldn't help flashing to the unimaginable pain of having his arm, his shoulder, his magic ripped away, the flames licking up and down the side of his body. She must have snatched it from the floor in his agony, and had to flee while he screamed.
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Shockingly, I don't actually have 'create' in my current wips. Baffling to me too. Have another clip from Harrow's next chapter of Long Live The Kings.
His heart sank a little at the implications. He had been glad to hear that his boys had some level of protection in their new Xadian friends, though he was endlessly vexed they'd gotten so far, but now he had to wonder . . . was it any safer for them to be traveling with Moonshadow children than it was to be traveling alone? Did he dare question it, and risk these two turning against him?
I had nothing for Shrimp, so I got back around to fiddling with the Long Live The Kings AU for a bit XD Here's your three sentences.
"The Sunfire Kingdom is largely unfond of the Moonshadow." Runaan said without looking up from the road, and Harrow couldn't quite parse his tone. "But Lieutenant Ayuret is well-respected enough that her village keeps their tongues still about her husband."
"For the most part, at least," Ethari sighed.
I sat down to write a FFXV AU or work on Karim's story and somehow ended up with this instead. Grenvus fic, anyone?
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Also, there's no western ridges in Katolis. Ignore that. I tried So Fucking Hard to change it to Westshore to reflect the river border, and I could not make my brain respect it. Just pretend it's an old name from when Del Bar held more of the west and Katolis had a western border in the mountains or something. Gren's family name is Westridge now.
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Rayla sighed contentedly, staring at her parents’ backs. From the sofa in the living area she had a clear view of her two fathers washing dishes together, like they used to when she was young. Every so often they’d bump hips with each other, or lean their shoulders into one another; just small affectionate gestures to remind them that they were together again.
Rayla smiled and looked over at her boyfriend. Callum was sitting on the other side of the sofa, leaving a generous space between them, with his sketchbook and charcoal out. She admired him while he drew. Sometimes he was so concentrated on what he was drawing that his face would scrunch up, while other times he barely looked like he was trying. Like this was just second nature to him.
She looked back up at her parents, who were passing plates wordlessly between them. They were so accustomed to each other that, even after two full years apart, they hardly needed to communicate. They just worked with the rhythm of two people so in love. Would her and Callum be like this, someday? Doing dishes and laundry quietly, their love filling in the silence? Would they have a child, sitting and watching them work, wondering these same thoughts? She hoped so. She watched Runaan gently grab Ethari’s elbow.
“I’m going to get some fresh air quick,” the former assassin said softly, “I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t worry, my heart, I’m not going anywhere,” Ethari replied.
The two shared a brief kiss, and Runaan slipped out the front door. Rayla frowned.
“Why don’t we do that?” she asked, turning to face Callum again.
“Hm?” Callum looked up from his work, then glanced at Ethari, confused. “You mean the dishes? I thought your dads requested it, so that they could spend some time together.”
“Not the dishes,” Rayla corrected, “The names.”
Callum frowned. “Names?”
“Yeah, y’know, like pet-names.”
“You…want to call me your pet?” Callum’s face turned amusingly pink.
Rayla shot him a sidelong glance, tucking that reaction into her brain for later.
“Nicknames, Callum. Why don’t we have nicknames for each other?”
He tapped his charcoal against his chin thoughtfully. Rayla smirked as she noticed that he was holding the wrong end of it, leaving a black mark behind on his skin. She didn’t say anything. It was cute.
“There was that one time you called me ‘Mr. Mage,’” he offered up unhelpfully.
“I don’t mean platonic nicknames, Callum, I mean like… cute, romantic ones.”
“Hm. You’re right, we don’t really have any of those.” He thought about it for a moment longer, then smiled at her. “Do you want to…try some?”
“Sure. Um, what are you drawing, babe?”
Callum winced.
“Yeah, that wasn’t it,” Rayla agreed. “How about… what are you drawing, love?”
Callum blushed a little bit, smiling.
“I like that one.”
“Me too.” Rayla raised her eyebrows at him. “Are you… going to tell me what you’re drawing?”
“Oh! Right,” Callum held up his sketchbook.
It was a beautiful sketch of his younger brother, standing proud and tall. Rayla frowned, concern knitting its way into her eyebrows.
“Are you alright, love?”
“Yeah,” he shrugged to brush her off, turning back to his work. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
She kept her eyes on him, but stayed quiet. She knew that sometimes talking about things took time. Callum smiled.
“I think you were right about nicknames,” he said, eyes still on his sketchbook, “That felt… nice.”
She smiled. “I’m glad. It’s your turn now, though.”
He looked up, surprised.
“What, I can’t just call you ‘love’ too?”
“Well you could, and I won’t stop you if you do, but this way you’ll have options.”
He nodded. He face scrunched up in concentrated thought. Rayla grinned. It was always adorable when he did that. A few seconds later his expression softened. He looked up at her; eyes bright, but melancholy.
“My stepdad used to call my mom his light,” he said softly.
Rayla stilled. Callum rarely talked about his parents. Whenever he did, his voice was filled with such reverence. It felt intimate to Rayla. The details he held were sacred to him; hearing them was like being invited to the most special place of worship.
“Would you like that, my light?”
Rayla blushed. She had thought it would feel cheesy or over the top, but it actually made her feel tingly inside. Like he was all hers. Callum grinned.
“You liked that one, didn’t you?”
“Maybe…” Rayla admitted.
Callum set his sketchbook and charcoal down on the table in front of the couch.
“My light,”
He slid across the sofa, closing the gap between them. Rayla felt her cheeks grow redder.
“My truth,”
He grabbed her hand, lifting it to his face and planting a kiss inside her palm.
“My world,”
He wrapped his other hand around her waist, pulling her closer. The tingly sensation grew, the way it always did when he was this close.
“My everything,” he whispered, inches away from her face now.
Rayla let her eyes flutter closed, anticipating the kiss and the rush of warmth that always accompanied it. She leaned forward slowly.
Someone cleared their throat.
Callum immediately jumped back, returning to his earlier position farther away from her. Rayla glared fiercely at her dad. Runaan turned slightly to address Callum.
“You have charcoal on your chin.”
Runaan walked away. Callum’s eyes went wide and his cheeks turned red. He quickly raised his hands to his chin, then groaned as his fingers pulled away with black smudged on them. He threw his head back against the couch in defeat and looked over at her across the distance between them.
“Your dads probably think I’m a loser, huh?”
“Maybe,” Rayla giggled, “but you’re my loser.”
Callum’s mouth opened, then shut wordlessly.
“I’m… not sure how I feel about that one,” he admitted after a moment.
“You’ll get used to it.” Rayla reached over and grabbed his hand, grazing his knuckles with her lips.
“Love,” she added, mumbling it against his fingers.
His cheeks went delightfully red again, and Rayla smiled.
Just read the Radiance series by Tavia Lark (full recommend, absolutely delightful gay pseudo-medieval romantasy trilogy, I wish they had a larger fandom) and I fear it's influencing how I write TDP spellwork. I'm making it more complicated because they didn't explain enough about how the runes actually work separate from the spell words (it's not even by Primal, because Callum uses different runes for Ventus Spiralis and Fulminis. WHAT DECIDES THE RUNE), so I'm theorizing that's "tv shorthand", and what happens in-universe is the runes are derived from elven writing of the draconic words. Common spells (like Fulminis) are just one rune, but more complicated spells (Karim's firebending shit) require several runes to be combined into one and practiced. It doesn't have to necessarily be drawn out every time, but the mage casting REALLY needs to know what it looks like, or it'll go awry. A super complicated spell with a bunch of runes might look like the rune-laden floors at the Moon Nexus - a circular array with the runes laid out along the edges.
there should be a term for characters you personally don't care about but you defend them anyways because the way people treat them is really uncomfortable. like ok this is a very middle-of-the-road character for me but the fandom's either been super misogynistic, racist, etc. about them or harassed innocent people who try to genuinely explore that character warts and all, and i find that more annoying than the actual character.
the term should by 'my client', like you're a lawyer defending your client that you are completely indifferent to but you are obligated by your job (or your morals) to defend
The Dragon Guard from Long Live The Kings fic by @dragon-susceptible
From left to right (top): Vyxen, Hendyr, Aeolus, Jacia (the Skywings)|
From left to right (bottom): Sahkr (Sunfire), Lain, Tiadrin (Moonshadows), Akari (Sunfire)
Lol I was such a liar about how long this would take. But, fun fact, it got done quicker... cause my neighborhood lost power for over 15 HOURS. So I couldn't do any sewing, or get any art ref images for Artfight, or even access my new modules till the power came back...which left, this.
So Hey! I at least finished 1 of the multiple projects I had in mind. And the power is back now which means the other stuff can get attention now too!! Yay!!!
The background adds so much depth to them, that's awesome! I can imagine this is at the base of the Storm Spire. I love how they all look so Ready for something here.
More brief info for those who haven't seen my posts about them:
Vyxen is short for Vyx'aren Teleri, a former Celestial who left the cult on a moonless night and was cursed for it, leaving him with a blackened eye that sometimes sees through things rather than registering them. He's transmasc and dating Hendyr. He lived in the mountains near the Storm Spire, impressing Avizandum and Zubeia with his grasp of their primal, before being recruited to the Dragonguard.
Aeolus was a caravan guard for the northern reaches caravan that used to assist the Celestials, and was also the first Skywing elf to offer the cursed Sarai from the fic Long Live The Kings a place to stay. He's fairly well-known in Xadia for his skills, drawing the attention of Avizandum as a warrior worthy of protecting the dragon's egg. He was Jacia's mentor with the caravan.
Jacia was a much younger warrior working with Aeolus in the northern reaches caravan. She's a bubbly, friendly sort who also took a liking to Sarai immediately. When Avizandum tapped Aeolus for the Dragonguard, she argued with him, dismayed at losing her mentor, and Zubeia was so delighted by her audacity that she was chosen by the Dragon Queen as well.
Sakhr is an old-timer who worked with the elves who trained Janai, though he was not one of her trainers. He served under her for a decade or so before he considered retirement. Avizandum requested two warriors from Queen Khessa, and she left the choice up to Janai, who tapped Sakhr for it knowing he was ready to get off the front lines. He accepted it readily as a form of semi-retirement.
Akari was several decades behind, as Sakhr's niece, but had taken a more magical tactic to her career. She's a Sun mage who was rapidly rising through the ranks when Janai tapped her for the Dragonguard instead, recognizing a protector's heart in her and deeming her more fit to guard than wage wars. She accepted it as a badge of honor (and was surprised and delighted to find her uncle would be joining her).
I'm glad your power came back on, Lithuiwen! There's a heat wave where I'm at that makes being without power a bit dicey, so I'm glad you're all right. Can't deny I'm delighted with the results of the blackout, though! Thank you! Your art always brings a smile to my face. Good luck with your other projects!
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Soren was wearing plate armor with likely heavy padding beneath it to keep the plate off his skin, and the arrow didn't penetrate enough to draw blood - I actually don't recall if he ripped it out himself or if it fell out, but in the latter case, it wasn't even embedded far enough to stay stuck (it should have been, at that range, with a damn metal warbow loosing it), or he would have known better than to pull it out if it penetrated skin. While those arrowheads aren't barbed, they do have blades in the rear as well, and will widen any wound they've made when pulled back out, along with letting the blood spill out after them. If shot by an arrow, the best course of action is really to leave it there if you can until you get medical attention, because it basically holds your blood in. Soren being a soldier, I'm sure he knows that.
All that to say, he was probably fine because he's a soldier with good armor and Runaan was giving him a warning shot, not shooting to kill, so the blade of the arrow never touched his skin.
