Breandan wasted no time in asking the question and listened to her reply with a patient sincerity that he did not afford everyone. Didn’t wheedle or tease her, at least not too hard
“He came to me a few days ago. And, ah. well. he asked my permission. To court you.”
Apparently, there was something Breandan was supposed to do here. With this. Some kind of arbitration or supervision or something. Unfortunately, he’d stopped caring about learning all the intricacies of noble etiquette after a certain age of his life. Had focused instead of being a good soldier, a good dragoon.
So he was handling it the way he might handle any other unfamiliar thing. Feeling his way through on instinct. What he believed might be the right thing to do (not always the same as the correct one)
Brighid made a remark about a debt that Silvestre had promised to repay after she had done something for him, but something about it didn’t read quite right. So he sighed, and ran his fingers through his pale hair.
“Look, I know you’re not planning on staying longer than you have to.” He went on with a sigh. “Just…if we have to let him down, can we at least do it gently?”
“I’ve only ever been gentle with him. I…see no reason why it shouldn’t proceed.” Brighid finished her answer with a proud tilt of her chin.
Just like Silvestre’s question, her answer caught him off guard. But mercifully, he hadn’t been drinking this time. He looked at her, but in the uncertain look on her face, he found his answer. Didn’t have to look very hard at all.
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To master the Dragon Within is ever to be in danger of succumbing to it.
Somewhere in the desert night, a wreath of coiling blue aether spiralled around his arm and wound down his lance as he spun it behind his back. Shifting and shimmering like a wyrm’s coils. He could feel it in the pit of his soul, driving him relentlessly forward. Pulse tight in his throat, eyes snapped forward.
But he held it. It held.
He kicked himself backwards in the air, holding his lance horizontally for counter-balance. When he righted himself, he planted his feet in the gravelly sand. His arms drove the lance forward: the aether congealed and flared and shot forward like a brilliant beacon in the dark, cold and azure blue. Dissipated when it found no target, but scintillated a moment. Something about it was beautiful to his sight.
The spreading pattern of it not dissimilar to an attack of dragon’s breath.
Somewhere, in one of those crumbling ancient texts that Dyalani had found and he and Silvestre had helped her recover, it was illustrated in ancient ink and yellowing paper, given a form and a name: Geir-skogul. The Spear-Shaker.
i love when characters get angry when they're frightened. shelter dog characters. i love when they bite, not able to tell the difference between a hand that feeds and a hand that strikes. there is no difference. a hand is a hand is a fist. i love characters that are deemed unadoptable. unlovable.
and i love when someone loves them. i love when someone sits with them, patient. they don't flinch at the snarling and snapping. they're not trying to fix it—there's nothing to be fixed. this is you, all of you, and ill wait. because one day, one day you'll take the treat. go on, draw my blood. spit and curse and rage. you're safe with me. one day, you'll feel safe with me.
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"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain."
-Ursula K. LeGuin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
"Evil is boring. Right? I kinda believe in the banality and mundaneness of evil. Evil is just selfish impulses, which at the end of the day are really easy to understand. It’s easy to understand why people do bad things. It’s like “yeah, ok, you’re selfish and scared and cruel, I get it”. Being good is complex and beautiful and hard." - Brennan Lee Mulligan
we all know how this story goes. when it began, you were almost the perfect hero, but almost is never enough. you lacked introspection, or you were too stubborn or vengeful or reckless - as reckless as the world that helped to ruin you. you were not perfect, and that's okay. we knew the story ended in blood and we watched it anyway. we knew you would die in the end and we still couldn't help but love you, just a little bit. at the very least, you are more human than a hero could ever be.
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I think most stories could benefit from having two characters whose relationship is just "those two guys" (gender neutral). Most of the time if you look for one of them you'll find both of them. They can hate each other or be the best of friends or something in-between but they just can't find that same spark with anyone else. Their relationship is best described as "do not separate them". They are fully fleshed out characters individually but if either of them are left alone without the other for any reason it feels so wrong.
Gold from Galvanth's Hoard - The Legend of the Dullahan
Howard Shore - The Doors of Durin
A long time ago, in a place long since forgotten, there was a king who ruled over a vast kingdom.
His demesne stretched for malms around, twisting beneath the earth, out of sight from the sun and the forest above. For in those days, mortals still lived in fear of the elements that held dominion of the worlds above, and hid their faces and lived beneath their sight.
Still, buried as it was, the kingdom did well. They grew foods that thrived with little light, and they flourished in the dark and prospered there.
In his hall beneath the earth, the king prospered as well above his subjects. His riches and treasure were numerous - a vast trove of coin and jewels and other things pulled from the depths of the ground.
To keep his wealth safe from the larcenous and the ambitious alive, he appointed his most faithful knights to keep watch over his treasure hoard and to keep it safe from those who might seek to plunder or corrupt it.
The king’s knights knelt to swear a powerful oath to their liege, and they took up their vigil. No one got in to look upon the king’s magnificent treasure, and none who had seen it in those times spoke of it to the outside.
But - as all things do - the world began to change. The king grew old and eventually died. His people, bereft of his leadership that had kept them united, began to scatter. Eventually, some of them began to venture towards the surface and the sunlight, to make peace with the elements and bright world above.
Others followed, and the ones that remained swindled until they no longer had the numbered to keep up the great domain they’d once flourished in.
Eventually, it fell to ruin.
As for the knights who were sword to protect their king’s riches, the, too, fell to the passage of time. But it’s said the power of their oath was such that their spirits did not pass to the next life in their final moments. Instead, they remained behind, bound by duty to the armor and weapons they had borne in life.
It was bound such they continued to keep silent vigil even as their kingdom crumbled around them. Their king passed into the next world, and they could do naught. The people left and their home abandoned - at least, until legends of the riches that had been left behind reached the ears of treasure hunters on the surface. They came in small bands here and there to plunder what they could by the handful.
It’s easy to imagine the first of them surprised when a costly suit of armor in the middle of the hoard first roused of its own accord to strike out with a weapon. But a surprise is not always a deterrent. The dead are slow, after all, and the living are quick.
Slow as they were, however, they were yet strong - fueled by the unholy strength of the unliving, a single placed strike could easily cleave a foolhardy adventurer in twain. And their duty, in death as in in life, would not go unfulfilled. Pursuing thieves in the ruins turned to hunting anyone who ventured too close, or wandered too far into the remains of the old kingdom.
The dullahan, as they came to be called, came to herald the doom of any who crossed them.
Clever travelers in the Black Shroud know to avoid the old places where the haunted armor still wanders in search of thieves long dead and treasure long scattered.
Or, if they must brave those places, might carry a bit of wealth out of superstition.
A coin, a bit of jewelry or some other precious thing.
Perhaps if offered to a dullahan - if they should be unlucky enough to encounter one - it will be enough for it to be mistaken for a bit of royal treasure returned.
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We are seeking STORYTELLERS! We would love to hear your scariest All Saints' story! You're free to sign up in advance - if you get inspired at the event, we will open the stage for you to share as well!
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The activity in the Congregation waxed and waned like the remaining moon. Like the invisible pulses of the Dragonstar by which the astrologians guided the blades of the knights under this roof.
Nights, though, were often still save for the changing of the watch. Soldiers bunked down as closely squeezed together as they could. Resting a little easier here than the field, behind the Holy See’s stone walls and the impenetrable barriers of Daniffen’s Collar that kept the city from harm with its powerful magics.
Somewhere close to midnight, the unmistakable keening sound of someone sobbing pierced the air from the lower levels. The upper barracks was full of half-awake chatter.
Furys mercy, again?!
Better him than me,eh?
Listen to the fresh meat.
..perfumed little lordling misses his mummy, I bet.
Bet he’d run crying for his nurse at the sight of a dragonfly.
“...be wyrm food in a sennight.” Breandan murmured to chime in, turning to press his other shoulder to the bare planks of his bunk in an effort to drown out the sound. The thought passed easily from his mind a moment later as it had a dozen or more times before.
Sometimes, people just couldn’t hack it.
They cracked up, forgot discipline, broke ranks. They watched enough of their comrades perish to the fangs and claws of the Dravanians and they lost the will to continue. Sometimes, it made their last moments burn with bravery like a song, and sometimes, it ended like this.
It seemed to be better here in the barracks than on the field where it mattered more.
“Should we….go down there.”
From the bunk below, Vigneaux’ slow, deep voice drifted through the air. Breandan was midway through picking up his pillow to throw down, the no quick on his sharp tongue before he caught himself. Sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.
“...do you want to go down there?” He asked. Already knowing what the answer was. Already dragging himself up to come along.
“Don’t get so distracted you sleep through muster, you two.” From a row over, the voice of their Lothaire, their officer pierced the night - sharp and annoyed at his rest continuing to be disturbed.
“Piss off, milord!” Breandan grumbled as he sat up, legs dangling off the edge. He reached one arm across to give the other bunk as much of a shake as he could.
His feet his the floor lightly, and he waited for Vigneaux to join him before they went down into the dark.
