@chaospirals sent : "So many colours trail after you. I could paint for a lifetime and not capture all that you are. What's it like to hold so much life within you?"

so much life within her, he says . . . but he does not see the wells of death she has consumed in order to get to where she is now. thousands of souls, the very essence of what makes a living being alive, devoured as if they were nothing, all in gluttonous greed until one day the burgeoning floodgates began to crack from the swelling tides surging deep within. eventually, the pressure became far too much, and ahri was encumbered by the overwhelming emotions, every memory, and it dawned upon her that, perhaps, she could not live as she had been, stealing soul after soul, life after life, without thought or remorse.

ahri smiles at hwei, now, though she doesn't quite meet his eyes. it's a broken little thing, crooked and eerie and weak, a worn down door thick with the scent of rot hanging pitifully by its hinges, and even then, that untouchable air of otherworldly beauty doesn't falter. her bundled tails rustle, soft and slow with the gently rolling breeze, and she stretches an arm out to catch them, carefully drawing the plumage of thick, white fur into her lap.

her gaze remains distant, as though she's silently pondering the capsizing seas of void and darkness grasping for her limbs to drag her down into depths she cannot escape in penance for the sins she has wrought upon this earth. " what colors do you see? " she asks, at long last. ahri absentmindedly strokes the fur of her tails, dragging her clawed fingers through the fine hairs and between the tails. her breath stills in the pit of her lungs for but a moment as she considers her answer.

ahri releases her tails and sets them loose behind her, and once more they sway with the wind in tandem with the branches and leaves. " when you live as long as i do, you learn the lessons the centuries bring. the lessons of life in its sweetest moments, and the lessons in the mistakes you make in all of their tragedy and loss. " a melancholic note cuts into her voice, clinging thick with a heaviness that digs its claws in deep. " you learn to appreciate life for what it is, live in respect to the world around, let go of the things that burden you, like petty revenge. and it helps, you know, that i'm not the same cold - blooded killer mothers used to tell their children horrific bedtime stories about. "

BLOOD RELATED PROMPTS | @chaospirals

The sound of Sett's ragged breathing fills the air, his chest heaving with every exhale. This was one hell of a way to start an introduction-- No thanks? No... here's some gold for the trouble?

Lips curl into a sneer as he lands a solid right hook on the thug he held by the collar; the punch sending him stumbling backwards and tripping over the bodies of the other two unfortunate souls to have been found by the vastayan. Thick crimson pools over the dips of his knuckles dripping silently to stain the ground below. Seems like these days he's always caught in intervening scum from gutting the unsuspecting like fish.

It pissed him off.

His tail flicks from side to side as he exhales sharply. Sett's wild gaze shifting from the crumpled bodies and landing on Hwei. He hadn't made it out unscathed (unfortunate for him): a rather large cut on his left cheek streams red steadily down the side of his chin, the rivulet following the curve of the muscles in his neck. Though, for the most part.... the blood that stained his hands and the front of his coat. Perhaps in a different moment, different upbringing Sett could appreciate the beauty in it. But for now? He was just worried about getting the stain out.

There is a warm smile on the marai's face as she listens to the artist. His soft words and polite manners were a welcome change from many other landwalker encounters the Tidecaller had began. And moreso, he spoke to her has another person, and not a strange oddity from the depths.

"Ah, you speak as if you have been underwater yourself." The laugh in Nami's words does not make it past her lips, her crimson gaze finding purchase away from both of them. "Everything reflects where it's home lies. Whether it covets light's familiar glow, or hides away from it's alien harshness." Nails dig absentmindedly beneath a barnacle that had found purchase too far away from the surf; crumbling at her picking.

"Refractions on the surface are beautiful, but it does not reveal the true heat of the sun. The light of my home is soft and welcoming, but if you were to ever lay eyes on it, it may seem dull to you." As she muses, Nami's tail had grown bored of laying still. Idly it moved across the rocks, scales scraping as fins flexed up and down.

"By which, I mean; it is important to consider the perspective you are from, and the different origins of others. The most well meaning shark is still a ferocious thing that swims deep below to a gull wishing to rest its wings." Lips purse at the metaphor she had landed on, wishing it had been a little less frightening of an example. But it isn't long until Nami pushes on, trying to make a point of her ramblings.