#delyra

[ Photo by Jacob Rank on Unsplash ]

"Now remember when I told you that's the last you'll see of me Remember when I broke you down to tears I know I took the path that you would never want for me I gave you hell through all the years"

– I Bet My Life, Imagine Dragons

Four Years Ago, Ardenweald

The Veil that stood between Life and Death was still tenuous, then. No longer torn asunder but gossamer-thin in its renewal. Growing stronger. Healing. Soon enough, they said, few would be able to travel between the mortal realms and the Shadowlands.

Kyuusei didn’t care much about what they had to say.

The Dream remained as close to Ardenweald as a lover. And if she went to the cool depths of Tel’andu and slumbered, Kyuusei could walk those forests again in her waking dreams. See the twilight sky littered with stars strange to her, stretching above the canopy. Feel cool grasses beneath her feet.

Could walk with her again. With Delyra.

Sometimes, her love was a fox, lambent and shimmering in her soul’s shape. But on rare occasions, she walked in the form that Kyuu remembered. Slender like the willow, hair laden with midnight. Secrets in her smile. A form outlined in stars.

They talked of nothing most times. After the tears, and the confessions, and the forgiveness. The mending of what had been broken by fire, all those years ago.

But in this dream, Delyra was quiet. She walked silently on two legs next to Kyuusei, their hands entwined, Delyra’s feet leaving no trace in the soft grasses.

“We can’t do this much longer,” she finally said.

D&D SOMNIS - Delyra Illustraverat

One of the people in our group asked if I could draw her character, to help hash out some design elements, so was all too happy to oblige~

Feat. Delyra, our resident Knowledge Cleric, who is basically a perpetually pissed off librarian with holy fire on stand-by.

D&D SOMNIS - A Particular Set of Skills

[ Photo by Joshua Rondeau on Unsplash ]

Ameth'aran

“What are you doing up there?!?”

Tucked away in the high branches, the two young kaldorei’s giggling conversation fell to silence at the strident voice from the ground below. Delyra covered her mouth with her hands, eyes wide in mirthful mock-alarm, while Kyuusei’s expression immediately fell. Her mother’s tone was unmistakable.

“Kyuusei! Come down here at once!”

“Min’daaaa, we’re fine up here.”

“You are perched in the branches of an Ancient!”

“He doesn’t mind,” Kyuu protested, patting a branch, “do you?” The Ancient of Lore’s boughs shifted gently, a low, creaking rumble the only response.

“It is disrespectful, child. Come down here immediately.”

The edge in her mother’s tone had grown sharp; Kyuusei was fully aware that either lengthy prayers to Elune’s grace or exhausting training under a watchful, unforgiving eye were to follow. Likely both. Her grimace at her fate, fortunately, was hidden from below by the Ancient’s branches. Hidden to her mother, but not to the other girl sharing their perch.

Delyra leaned forward, her eyes dancing as she placed a quick kiss on Kyuusei’s cheek. “It’s okay Sei-sei, I’ll see you in Nighthaven. You better go.”

A blush gave way to a smile. “Ah... okay.”

“KYUUSEI!”

“Coming!”

Reference: Influences - Delyra

The Firelands

“Hold her down.”

Hands gripped Kyuusei’s shoulders, too strong for her to resist, and she was pushed face-down to the stone slab with her arms pulled cruelly behind her.

“I came to join you!” The kaldorei’s voice rang out even as the stone pressed against her face - hot enough to redden her skin. “I offered myself!”

“You offered nothing.” More than the harsh sound of his voice, she felt the blaze of his nearness - the slab beneath her cool by comparison. “You hoped to find her, to quench her Flame rather than embrace your own. There is no place for you here.”

“She doesn’t belong with you!”

An abrupt movement behind her, caught only in the edge of her sight, as claws shredded the leather tunic from her back and left bloody runnels in her skin.

“It’s you who do not belong, who are not devoted to his service,” the voice said, the scent of sulfur and soot overwhelming as he leaned close. “The Flame casts you out. But first you will be marked. You will remember, druid.”

Kyuusei felt his fingers press high into her back, hotter than any brand, the stench of her skin burning at his touch. The hot tang of blood on her tongue as she bit through her lip, trying desperately to defy him in her silence.

The canopy of leaves above was familiar to Kyuusei from centuries of remembrances. Nighthaven, Ameth’aren, Val’ sharah. Teldrassil. Arms wrapped about her knees, she sat in a field of blood-red flowers, their blooms freckled with yellow, bold faces raised toward the stars. She knew what danger the brazen colors and sharp-edged leaves threatened.

But still, she reached out in concern, a wrongness drawing her hand until a careless motion drew blood. She watched as the leaf drank her blood, its flowers blooming vibrant and innumerable even as others withered and dulled. Mold gnawed at their roots and wilted their blooms despite their beauty, and Kyuusei reached out again to allow their sharp-edged leaves to cut into her flesh, to drink and become vibrant once again.

The want, the need, was insistent upon her senses. Great trees died in their time, new growth rising where the mighty had once flourished. The rich loam that nourished the woodland floor had once been living things brought low to the cycle by rot and decay. Of every vibrant forest that lived and grew, death was its equal measure. The quiet, persistent call implored Kyuusei to give in her own turn.

It was so easy to spread her arms wide, simple to fall back into the insatiable field of red and freckled yellow blooms. The cycle awaited. How could she give less than all?

Kyuusei.

She grew cold in the dream, warmth leaching from her flesh with each cut, the field of flowers blooming thick and hungry around her. The sting of their thirst slowly grew distant, the pain belonging to some other body. Not her.

You can’t feed them all, Kyuu. Come back.

“...they need this.” Her voice was weak, the canopy fading from sight as she closed her silvered eyes.

I need you, Sei-sei. Come home.

She drew in the scent of mageroyal with her next shallow breath, felt a warming touch take her hand. And from that touch, warmth spread, grew until it was more. No longer just warmth, more than heat.

Fire.

It kindled inside her, a blaze that wreathed her body in reds and yellows more brilliant than any poisoned bloom. The flowers drinking from her shied away, the leaves of the closest withering even as the more distant basked in her radiance. Crusted blood burned away to ash, her rent skin whole once more.

Fire did not only burn, it also brought life. The fire of the sun gave warmth. The trees of the great forests needed fire to toughen their bark, to crack the hulls of their seeds. Breath itself fed the life-fire in every living thing.

Kyuusei carefully raised herself up, eyes bright once more, the ash of her wounds and blood falling away, a cacophony of red freckled with yellow swaying with gentle calm in the evening breeze. The flames that limned her body wavered and slowly faded, lingering on her hand before that, too, dimmed. Leaving only warmth...

* * *

“Land ho!”

Kyuusei blinked her eyes awake at the calling voice, taking a moment to orient herself. A small cabin little more than an oversized storage closet, sunlight blazing through the single porthole to rest warmly upon her hand.

“...Del?” She looked around her, emerging empty from the dream.

The ship’s rolling motion set her hammock rocking, but she extricated herself and found her feet with effortless grace, looking out the porthole before pulling on a vest and leather breeches. Opening the door and padding out to the deck, the druidess’ gaze found a familiar shore off coming into view through the ocean mists.

The lookout raised his voice again, words echoing down from the crow’s nest.

“Jade Forest, off the starboard bow!”

The kaldorei smiled with the recognition of it, running sharp-tipped fingers through her pale green hair. Ironshield had been right; foolish name or no, the Pale Cabbage was a fast ship - they’d made the voyage a half-day faster than the last time she’d sailed aboard Moonlight’s Folly. She was here.

[ Photo by Almos Bechtold on Unsplash ]

(A revised vignette from Nov 2018, originally written for a prompt about Keepsakes. “prompt 1313″ posted by  @selisekinsolving​ made me decide to go back and edit it.)

Setting: Fireside Anchors, Boralus

* * *

“This?”

Kyuusei leaned back in the loose assemblage of pillows at Fireside Anchors, light from the nearby firepit flickering over her features in the twilight, and lifted her right hand. Carefully twined strands of silver were looped several times around her wrist, bearing four silver charms. Each one was engraved with the same rune, the silver tarnished, with black soot worked deeply into the engraving.

“There was a gnome.” The night elf frowned sharply for a moment, then smiled without humor. “I paid him to make these for me. He was an expert at crafting wards, among other things, and these were supposed to protect me from the fires of Teldrassil.”

She shook her head before the obvious question could be asked. “No, this was after. But the flames still smoldered - Teldrassil was a World Tree, after all. And there was something I had to retrieve...”

The druid ran a hand along her left arm, over flesh that was covered not in burn scars, but in discolorations that twisted and swirled across her skin. She briefly lifted her tunic to expose similar markings, running down her left side and vanishing into her leather breeches.

“Things didn’t go as planned,” Kyuu snorted as she reached for her glass of pale green liquor, taking a lingering sip.

“Three times I’ve been afflicted by fire. Those I once loved embraced it and were lost to it. For all that it brings light and warmth, fire has consumed hearth and heart and home.”

“This,” Kyuu flicked at one of the charms with a sharp fingernail, the sliver clattering dully, “is a reminder.”

“There are no agreements with fire.”