#ditd

So, I've already read Dirges In The Dark several months ago, but now I finally have the time to draw it!

Silly guys

Pairing: Feysand Rating: E Words: ~7k Tags: Coffee Shop AU, Secret Baby AU, One Night Stands, Unplanned Pregnancy, Single Parent Feyre, Born Fae Feyre, Feyre x Cassian Friendship, Fucked Up Family Dynamics, Angst, Fluff, Smut Summary: Sometimes, Feyre is vaguely concerned that her immediate fondness for Velaris might be a particularly subtle bit of enchantment—yet another defense to keep the city secret—but, well... She likes the people of the Rainbow, and the ample opportunity she has to paint, and the colorful, cramped flat she found after a few weeks in the inn is rather nice, and she doesn't have to hunt for her food here.

She settled in well, she likes to think.

And all of the settling in she did, of course, brought her to the matter of her babe, who turned out to be a precious and rather obvious bastard of the High Lord of the Night Court.

Not that she plans to tell him.

A scene from chapter seven of @twodiamondhoes‘ Dirges in the Dark that I felt had particular gravity, not to say any other scene lacked it! Ditd has been one of the highlights of my week since chapter 1 came out, I tried to include bunch of little details in the designs and had some fun with the lighting, hence it being extremely dark lol!

A couple of close ups under the cut!

Available as a print and sticker set this month only (November 2023) on my Patreon for Professional Napper patrons and above :)<3

As a warning, this month’s lore deals pretty heavily with death and trauma, and has mentions of war (in the past).

Shadowlings and No Magic Zones lore:

If you find yourself in a place where traces of humans are slowly being reclaimed by nature, marked by a glaringly red and yellow coloured sign that says “NO MAGIC” on it, odds are you’re standing at the site of an old battleground from the Long War.

No matter where you go, if there are humans around, you can likely find a no magic zone there too. And the reason magic is disallowed in such places is because they are the dwellings of the Shadowlings, who are said to be soldiers that fell to a curse in the war, and hence harbour very negative emotions towards those who use it. Fear, anger, grief… And all explosive feelings at that. They aren’t exactly capable of rational thinking anymore, so it’s best not to upset them, especially since they tragically harbour a lot of the Wild Magic they resent so much, and can be incredibly dangerous while emotional.

Because of their experiences that live on inside them, it doesn't matter that magic has now become a good and necessary force in human society, or that magic folks and humans have both done equal amounts of good and bad.

Using magic in their presence truly can only be done at the risk of your life for most people, and the exceptions to that rule can be counted on the fingers of just one hand.

However if you do not provoke them, they are completely harmless and very gentle - loving even.

Being a Shadowling is leading an existence that hovers between life and death, unable to participate in life, but also unable to move on from it. And yet a Shadowling is not quite a ghost either.

As newly turned, most Shadowlings retain an almost human shape, but they slowly begin lose their shape and memories with the passage of time, except for a few exceptions who hold onto them as much as possible for the sake of their loved ones.

Still, they know instinctively that they were once humans and therefore tend to seek them and their warmth out as much as possible. In the absence of humans though, they feel the safest around human-made objects that have been left behind in the zone, and with each other. Shadowling are rarely alone, instead they tend to huddle together in big groups where they do their best to comfort each other and help each other hold onto their memories, and dream of the day they’ll be able to return to humanity.

For quite some time after the end of the war, those who lived on would take care of the Shadowlings and the areas in which magic was forbidden. After all, no matter how unrecognisable they had become, they were still people’s beloved family members, lovers, and friends. And if you look into their eyes, regardless of how much they have lost, you can still see and know who they were in life.

But time is ruthless to us all, and the last living generation who survived the horrors of the war has grown old and started to disappear. For some time, their descendants would take care of the no magic zones instead, but the vast majority of these places would slowly become completely abandoned with the introduction of magic in human society.

And so, the Shadowlings kept getting more and more shapeless and wispy, clinging to the traces of humanity they can find in items that were left behind and the occasional visitor.

Few people visit these days. And even fewer still are visitors who still do not have traces of magic on them or aren’t afraid of the Shadowlings.

But maybe one day, as long as there is hope, maybe one day their curse can be lifted.