#lightslung

DND GROUP + CLASS/NAME/RACE AESTHETIC

           “cowboy musical– the hell d’you take me for? i am a very serious man, with a very serious line of work.” fate’s laughing, hardly taking this seriously. but he follows instructions dutifully, if only for lucian’s guiding hands. he focuses on the leftmost bottle, and – this time without closing his eye – shoots. 

          he’s a little off, still. the recoil gets him again. but he gets the top of the bottle off with a satisfying shatter, sending the shards scattering over the other side of the fence. triumphant, fate turns back to lucian, letting the pistol go slack in his hand. 

ahahha oh man. oh man. 

I think my unpopular opinion is that I believe that Kled had a ton of potential to be great. At least lore-wise, but instead Riot opted to make him needlessly obnoxious for the sake of “comedy”. Another thing I disagree with is how surprised people get when muns make yordle muses serious. 

Lucian felt the shadows at his throat, claws piercing his skin and trading his breath with a fog that settled in his head. He couldn’t even be sure Zed was touching him, he could see the masked man a few feet away from him, hands clasped behind his back. But if not him, what held him pinned to the wall by his throat, squeezing his life from his very lips? His heels scrabbled to gain purchase against the pillar behind him, but it was a struggle, and he hadn’t much strength left to spare.

Lucian’s light could swallow the shadow that kept him bound, that he knew so little about, and in his haze he finds a reflection, Zed’s pacing only distorting the image further. Both men were up against a foe they had never seen before, both intent to destroy before they intended to learn. Instinct, perhaps, but he had a weapon in that reflection alone. His arm twitched, closer to his chest, where the locket remained. He had power in that too.

The lightcasters lay on the ground four feet from him. They had been the tide that turned this fight in his favour in the beginning, now out of reach and useless.

      “You gonna kill me or serenade me?” Lucian spat, his voice grating with the pressure something corporeal shouldn’t be able to press against his vocal chords. “Course, there’s only so much you can learn from a dead man.”

     There was fury in Zed’s eyes and rage in his throat, but he kept both contained, barely, barely. Lucian was a mystery, an unknown, and a dangerous one, too. The light shot out by his guns burned. Fighting him was agony.

     Zed halted his pacing, turning to face Lucian. Keeping him against this pillar took far more energy than most of Zed’s little tricks, but though his breath grew ragged, it was safer this way. There was no rope at hand, after all, and restraining Lucian’s arms manually would still give him a chance to escape with that same speed that made it so impossible to catch him in the first place. 

     Behind his back, Zed tightened his fist, increasing the shadows’ hold on Lucian’s throat. 

     He could kill Lucian here and now. He should, but the damned lightwielder was right: Dead men made poor sources of knowledge. The longer Lucian lived, the greater the chance he’d escape, latch onto his guns and pierce through Zed’s blackened heart, but if he died, all of their dancing around one another would be for naught. 

     Zed took a step forwards, stopping next to the guns and kicking them further away from Lucian. If Zed’s strength died, he would be close enough for his blades to be a threat, and the guns far enough to make leaping for them impractical.

Valentina quirked a brow at him, a smile playing at her lips. She knew this customer well enough; he had come to the establishment a few times now, taking whatever girl suited his fancy for the evening. Among her clients, he was of the most respectful, and that enough had earned him a place in her good graces. Still, the Queen kept on her disappointed-façade as she brought her arms to fold over her chest. 

“That is only because last time, I did not have to suffer through the absolute heartache one of my girls had over you. Something or other about how you did not send her letters or visit more often. And I do not think she would be too pleased to hear that you have come again but asked for someone else.”

The redhead clicked her tongue at him, but it was clear she was amused by the ordeal. It wasn’t strange for her girls - or even herself - to feel some sense of attachment to good customers, considering that the vast majority of their patrons were of the less favourable sort. Lucian was among the ones she knew her girls liked very much, and in this case, some more than others.

bouquet. || accepting.

… a compliment.

            fate laughs. jovial, slightly less empty than usual. his eyes glitter with amusement. "you've got an intense face. very ... serious. strong." he leans forward slightly. "stoic."

…. a complaint.

           "but you're so quiet, lucian." the lean goes into his hand, resting his chin there and playfully looking crestfallen. his gaze falls to his hand, where he taps the edges of the table. "gives me so little to work with, you know? what're you hiding, under all that angry?"

… a confession.

           his eyes rise to lucian's again, this time a glow of challenge radiating forth. "i want to know more."

… a secret.

           "more about what happened. we both have things we're hiding. but i think they're best kept that way, sometimes. families get lost all the time."

… a curious fact.

           he leans away again, seemingly ready to change the subject. a fickle, odd man. a fickle, odd mood he's in. "i used to know a thing or two about pistols, by the by. don't use 'em much, though."

… a suggestion.

           "you should teach me how to handle a pistol, sometime."

… a story about the past.

smash or pass? || accepting.

        a man almost straight out of a happy marriage’s tragic end, tormented by both inner and outer demons. knows his way around a fight and is quite the tough cookie to deal with. a man of trouble and wit, of cold eyes like steel and quick, fast, hungry needs, and a festering starvation for what may not be his anymore--