Red Arrows

Hello, neighbor.

.

(c) Beth Little

Chalk pastels, 7x10 inch sketchbook page

it's just - you needed a village, is all. you needed your parents to actually just cool it for a second, because for one minute if you were very still, in the middle of the act of being roadkill: you could feel it. the edges of that sharp thing, the other-world, the promised land, the bird that was supposed to be born in your throat.

if you'd just - if any one person had just - noticed. maybe that would have been enough. you could have convinced your body to do a strange form of necromancy: you could have come back with the rope ladder. you were an emergency flare. you were morse code.

it's okay. come home again. us do-it-yourself undead, those of us who broke the book and still found our way out of the grave again. we never got the return flight. we never got the party. we just got up. we got up and then we kept going, because nobody else was gonna clean the mess. we might as well. we just... exist here, half-ghosts, barely-made it kids. no medals, except the strange serene rush of spreading jam on perfect toast. of moving a paintbrush. the silence that knows about the danger of sparks. the little candle of our heart not a stormbreaker or earthshaker. just the persistent lick of hope.

it is a quiet reward. we will not get the barn, but we do get each other. a night sky of little lights made from the gruesome survival of blood and bone. the life we made in the dark. a little somber radiance. a spellwork that's all our own.

Siildore,

I apologise but I cannot grant that request. With the war concluded, my purpose here is complete and I have no intentions to linger here longer than I need to. I have appreciated all you have done for me and the guidance you gave, and perhaps we will meet again on the other side.

Live well,

Lirelle Dawnbrook

The letter was neatly folded on it’s creases, placed back in it’s envelope, and tucked away into her current notebook.  

“Well? What did she say? Is our merry partnership about to become a merry band?” Gloomweaver’s deadpan grin was audible.

The blue-haired Ebon did not answer as she closed the notebook, turning to face the crackling fire.  

Neither of them ever moved when camped like this; there was no need to.  No living to appease or comfort with errant movements - a shift of the foot, moving her weight from one side to the other, blinking, breathing, things that living did and comforted them to see in other living things.  To be alive was to move; to be dead was to be still.  

Why then did Siildore’s thumb worry the second digit of her index finger?

“The fire is running low.  I will fetch more wood.”

The blue-haired Ebon rose without a sound, fading into the no-moon night.

❛  you’re a weapon and weapons don’t weep.  ❜

❛  hurt me once, I’ll kill you twice.  ❜

❛  never trust a survivor until you learn what they did to stay alive.  ❜

❛  death is the only god that comes when you call.  ❜

❛  I am teeth. I am royal. you are nothing to me.  ❜

❛  the sun will rise and we will try again.  ❜

❛  we’re just kids. we aren’t supposed to be heroes.  ❜

❛  I like my women like I like my Absinthe: bitter and intoxicating.  ❜

❛  what doesn’t kill me better run.  ❜

❛  she wasn’t looking for a knight. she was looking for a sword.  ❜

❛  don’t dehumanize bad people, because it’s their humanity which makes what they’ve done so terrifying.  ❜

❛  she isn’t just pretty. she is otherworldly and vaguely threatening.  ❜

❛  magic is not good or evil. is a knife evil? only if the wielder is.  ❜

❛  I don’t want your crown. see, I’ve come to burn your kingdom down.  ❜

❛  they broke my wings. they forgot I have claws.  ❜

❛  all that blood was never beautiful, it was just red.  ❜

❛  what do you do when there’s no hero in the story? simple. you kill the monster and crown yourself.  ❜

❛  how terrible it is, to love something that death can touch.  ❜

❛  you may not be interested in war, but it is interested in you.  ❜

❛  I feel divinity in my bones like aching. like fire.  ❜

❛  you make me feel and I don’t like it. I want it to stop. now.  ❜

❛  you are losing my interest and that is very dangerous.  ❜

❛  she will burn your kingdoms down, herself with it, if it means your ruin.  ❜

❛  it’s okay to be scared. it means your about to do something brave.  ❜

❛  she looks like divine absolution.  ❜

❛  I will not be another flower, picked for my beauty and left to die. I will be wild, difficult to find and impossible to forget.  ❜

❛  be careful with words. they can be forgive, but never forgotten.  ❜

❛  you not wanting me was the beginning of me wanting myself.  ❜

❛  I’m tired of fighting. for once, I want to be fought for.  ❜

❛  never run back to what broke you.  ❜

❛  I was quite, but not blind.  ❜

❛  your gut knows what’s up. trust that bitch.  ❜

❛  we all eat lies when our hearts are hungry.  ❜

❛  do not judge my story by the chapter you walked in on.  ❜

❛  I’m just a girl, standing in front of a salad, wishing it was a donut.  ❜

❛  you can miss something but not want it back.  ❜

❛  you can’t save people, you can only love them.  ❜

❛  I came, I saw, I made it awkward.  ❜

❛  we buy shite we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like.  ❜

❛  you’re always one decision away from a different life.  ❜

❛  my brain has too many tabs open.  ❜

❛  I’m not saying I hate you, just that you’re like the Monday of people.  ❜

❛  there’s no ‘we’ in fries.  ❜

❛  apology accepted, trust denied.  ❜

❛  death and I have been scandalously intimate for some time now.  ❜

❛  life happens. coffee helps.  ❜

❛  I am mine before I am ever anyone else’s.  ❜

❛  I rely a bit too heavily on alcohol and irony.  ❜

❛  very early in my life it was already too late.  ❜

❛  is that a threat or are you flirting with me.  ❜

❛  was the use of force necessary in completing your objectives?  ❜

❛  I’ll let you drag me to hell if it means you’ll hold my hand.  ❜

❛  I do bad things, and I do them very well.  ❜

❛  you drink too much, you cuss too much and you have questionable morals. you’re everything I ever wanted.  ❜

❛  they will kill you, but first they will have to catch you.  ❜

❛  drugs might kill you but they’ll never break your heart.  ❜

❛  good girls are just bad girls that haven’t been caught.  ❜

❛  a pretty face doesn’t guarantee a pretty heart.  ❜

❛  no airbag, we die like men.  ❜

❛  true evil is, above all, seductive.  ❜

❛  it takes more courage to suffer than to die.  ❜

❛  you must be lucky to avoid the wolf every time. but the wolf? he only needs enough luck to catch you once.  ❜

legolas: ??????

aragorn, adjusting his dialect: oh sorry.. howdy how yall doin today

She was a fucking coward. She was a fucking coward and she knew it.

Esme’s legs burned. Her mind felt taught like a string ready to snap. She had been crouched in the shadows for so long, focusing on keeping them up for her own safety.

Her own safety. What a joke.

Defeated.

The rumors came with the retreating troops from the east. But they had seen everything. It was more than just rumor. Another forced retreat.

Death, she heard. Though she was afraid to ask who.

Melori darts through the crowds, looking for familiar banners. The Redarrow banners, the Ridges forces, they had to be somewhere. They had to be. Her face twists into concern.

Dangerous aura

Wands | Guns

Midnight | High Noon

Robes | Ponchos 

Stockings with boots | Chaps with boots

Magic Incantations | Yeehaws and slang

Brews Potions | Brews Alcohol 

Rides brooms at night because horses are sleeping 

Rides horses at day because brooms are recharging

Fire burn and cowboy bootin’

Eye of newt and spicy beans,

Toe of frog and denim jeans,

Whiskey, grits, n’ demon spittle

tossed into my iron griddle

With the tannin’ of our hides,

Proclamation to the Gilded Council,

  I speak to you all with both good news and grim tidings. Our efforts to overthrow the shackles of the ‘Reborn Kingdom’ have been successful. The bulk of their forces have been pushed far north, with only small remnants remaining in our home. Though they will prove a nuisance for some time, the threat they have posed on our way of life is over. A new force has emerged however that has proven a far greater problem.

Aurelian Indaris has informed me of the details, having betrayed the Kingdom as was planned previously during the Battle of Darkwood. Though he succeeded in destabilizing the army, a second traitor revealed themselves, slaying the pretender king and ushering in a horrific army of aberrations known as the ‘Blackbloods’. It is unclear their exact size, but already those provinces north of us burn. This threat, in no uncertain terms, is a calamity upon our people.

Indaris has also informed me the Sunguard army has all but abandoned the south to its fate, travelling north to secure the Isle of Quel’danas in the hopes of utilizing the Sunwell. His troops have been taken from him and he is forced northward. He believes after they reclaim the Isle the full force of Quel’thalas shall march back south, but that will take time. To put it bluntly, we’re alone and outnumbered. Yet now more than ever we cannot let our differences divide us. Panic may grip us, but it must not guide our hearts or thoughts.

In the Tempest Coast Lady Ceana Greyflame has ordered an evacuation of her lands by sea and has offered such recourse to the Gilded Lands and the northern Ridges. The latter is on the brink of collapse and if the Blackbloods turn their attention this far south, so too will the Gilded Lands. With Mistborn Harbor nearly in ruins we have no true port to evacuate in great numbers, and so I believe our only recourse is to send our people to Seahallow, the Coast’s capital.

Yet many of you do not wish to flee. You do not know if there will be a home to return to at the war’s end. You cannot bare the thought of an invader claiming your lands and murdering your people. Never again. Never again will we allow monsters to burn our fields, kill our loved ones and wipe away everything we hold dear. Those who wish to evacuate can make for Seahallow. For now it is safe though such luxury will not last.

Yet my blood boils, and my sword-arm aches. I will not allow my death to be when I am feeble and ancient, rotting in a soft bed. If the Blackbloods dare to make for our home, I will face them on the battlefield. I will die before I let a single monster step foot upon my fields again. Many of you may feel the same, or otherwise seek glory and justice against the wicked. My banner remains in the Coast, for it is there I will hold the Blackbloods.

Those countrymen who feel the fire of war in their heart, stand with me. We will buy the safety of our people, and the future of the Gilded Lands even to our dying breath. We will make our stand in the northern passes of the Coast, and it is there the Blackbloods shall remember always the wrath of the Gilded Lands. 

The South stands strong!