𝕴N DER FREMDE .

a writing blog for multiple muses from a variety of canon and original sources, by byleth (they / them, 21+) . mutuals only, iconless, private and heavily plot-based. formerly known as @stelegy.

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the mists have an appetite of their own. in the years that they have been both servant and jailer, he still cannot predict the measure of their unique hunger. perhaps it’s a symbiosis ; barovia is a stomach, and he is meant to digest what they swallow. here is a god’s signpost, but the signpost of a dark god, not those pompous braggarts of garish lathander or of riotous pelor. here is something the shadowfell knows as a daughter. look, the night clings to her like a shawl.

a feast is set for a party that will not come. if not a morsel, then she must be a messenger. or another pawn of the dark powers and their tricks. lest this is another dream, the subconscious making another desperate play for a creature howling at his own despairing loneliness. he pours himself another bottle of … wine, stares at her from over the rim and over the far stretch of the table.

sunrise once meant comfort to the people of gondor, but instead of being heralded by fresh faces and new beginnings, it arrives in sombre ceremony, crawling across the horizon to perform its duty. the war - scarred of minas tirith saw only the dull slumber of unconsciousness through the days that followed, while their healers saw none at all. what he could lend of his hands made them work tirelessly, until they had turned raw and calloused. it had been worth it, however, to save what he could, and to put at peace those he could not.

he will depart with them again to check the pelennor fields for more of their dead, to put at peace the families of the city, if peace could be offered at all. already from the windows of the houses of healing he could see small clusters of soldiers making their way across the fallen. they are collecting what they can, like funerary carrion birds.

but he feels her behind him, a warm spot in the dawn dark. she had been the best to recover of the wounded he oversaw. perhaps it is the spirit of her uncle that lives on in her now that had given her such strength, or the vengeance of her cousin who could not live to see his promises through. he turns ; slivers of the daybreak latch desperately onto strands of her gold hair, becoming something of a lamp he could see her face with. she cradles in her wounded arms the woolen cloak that had also acted as her blanket in her sickbed. he could not smother the determination within her then, he is foolish to think he can do so now. it is difficult for him to take a full breath, he is so terrified, terrified. he has already lost so much, and so has she. there is no poetry to make more palatable a feeling like that.

he takes the cloak gently from her ; his hands scrape with difficulty over its texture, as if they are still accustoming themselves to soft fabrics after too long a time apart from them. his knuckles tenderly brush the bruises that purple her skin and it unfurls with a muted susurrus. the length of his arms reach behind her head and he fastens the cloak over her shoulders, pulling it closed at her breastbone. as if he had been tending to her wounds, his eyes follow every gesture that he makes and … why do his fingers linger where the latch is ? he is mesmerised by the tenacity of the skin at her neck, still unwounded, unblemished. a bare column of flesh. for a moment, his fortitude falters and he is shockingly, sickeningly dizzy with an emotion like fear, not wholly fear.

noxus does not do anything by halves ; that is where it differs from demacia, a country basking in its own complacency and lies of justice and dignity. but the effort is undoubtedly valiant. perhaps they will hear tale of this protector in the delverhold —— or even as far as uwendale —— and cry out against their shelter. the northern territories possess only fledgeling loyalty, but it is to be expected. what is subjugation without its thorns ?

too belatedly he realises he has brought an anomaly to the immortal bastion ; it has fought against and caged worse. because noxus is a tenacious and united front ; that is where it differs from ionia, a land uneasy with its magics, too divided to stand even on two feet. he inclines his head, less to bow and more to shift his expression into something tolerable enough to pass as a dismissive gesture. still his voice rings with the cadence of a general, even though he holds no loyalty to him. ❛❛ you are not a noxian soldier, and i command of you nothing. after all, you will continue to do exactly as you please, in service to the people of naljaäg, with or without my orders. ❜❜ he steps down, at first uneasy in his footing, then he steps again until he is able to establish an easy cadence down the dais. the pain in his right leg creeps up then dampers down with the sway, like the ebb and flow of a constant tide. ❛❛ i did not summon you to make a mockery of the deaths of my men, nor to insist like a petulant child that you cease your efforts. i am not so foolish as that. ❜❜

something inside him — is eager and hungry, ready to lap up the first spill of blood. but he keeps his left hand tucked behind his back, assisted by the shadow of his long overcoat.

a silent, soft thud. her coat billows around her restlessly like a curtain. she had hoped it would have been a dark colour sufficient enough to help her blend into the shadows, even if @veilmotel ( as felicia ) renders it pointless, quickly plucking her singular figure from the skyline and right into her playful, bemused attention. no rest for the wicked, right ?

he stands next to @vivrez where, introspective as they are, they gravitate to the walls in the hopes they blend in. he reminds her of his foregone knowledge and she scoffs, practiced in hiding her distaste for his coarseness. why ? because it’s personal and it’s painful. and it’s none of your business.

it is not omnipotence. she had begun to miss the faculties of a body, namely the solidity it had once afforded her, its ability to effortlessly carve a tangible place in the world, a place that was ranni. but she persists always, always —— stubborn in ways her father would not be, clever in a way her mother never was. in her state she forgoes the automatic processes of the flesh : a heart pumping, blood and sinew calculating every sensation from her fingertips to her spine, the very act of breathing. such efficiency, which once operated these mechanisms in her body, finds itself idle. thus, the puppet itself is now a mind stored : the spirit and her words of pure calculus and introspection.

so she does not see him when he enters the highest room of the rise, nor does she hear the footsteps on the cobblestone. no, she senses him, the way one foretells rain through subtle shifts in the air. it is a kind of soothsaying, like she has brought him here through merely wishing it. he is difficult to look at ; staring directly at his eyes is like counting birds as they fly over the sun. ( the sun ! was there ever such a brilliant, deadly thing ? ) but she crouches behind the shaded brim of her hat, though not out of fear. a tremor echoes ; she knows he has placed his hands on the legs of her chair and is pulling it towards him. the books under her legs rattle like an animal threatened, her doll shakes with the shifting. she is only as tangible as he can perceive. the hem of her dress begins to brush his breastplate hesitantly, as if in fear of a texture that is not itself. she will not fall upon him.

until @yharnum ( as galadriel ) emerges. she easily carries the grace and light of her mother but the even coolness of her father. but the sneer is hers alone, as she tests her own strength against what she would claim is his heirship fashioned into fetters. how long should i wait for you to drown your pride ?

❛❛ pride … ? ❜❜ he takes the steel of her anger, smelts it in the slow fire of his tongue, then reforges them into curled, sharp things. the run - on of his rage, new daggers all. ❛❛ until you are called by duty to destroy the greatest joy in all your life and all your lives thereafter … until your father, who is beloved to you and who beloves you also, is cruelly slain under the greed of a foe the valar turn so blind an eye toward … until you have lost everything and are called to debase yourself asunder and refuse … until you have felt this pain, artanis, speak not to me of pride. ❜❜