#mourning sero

- Huevember 2022 -

Mourning is nine. Cold pavement under his quick feet, moonlight guiding him further into shadow. Running from a guard who has nothing better to do than chase after urchins with nowhere to sleep. It's cold and dark and all he wants is to feel safe.

The city streets keep him on his feet. They keep his stomach empty and the only purse he carries is one he stole. His hands are quick but his mouth is quicker, a good story told to a baker gets him a hand pie and a sharp whistle thrown around a corner gets him a purse cleanly cut. As long as he doesn't get caught.

It's only at night, when he finally finds that safe place to sleep, can he dream of somewhere, anywhere, else. Somewhere warm with laughter that doesn't fade and meals that aren't eaten on the run.

Mourning is twelve. His smiles are faster than ever now and they show more teeth but the streets are still cold and Mourning knows now he'll never have the magic to warm them.

But it doesn't matter when he can still swipe a purse better than the older boys who glower at him from the rooftops. They've been egging him on, trying to get him caught, and Mourning knows soon they'll ask him to join or finish their game. When he tries to steal from the gnarled old dwarf he's surprised when his hand is grabbed and when the dwarf pulls him close Mourning can only smile in fear.

Except the old dwarf offers him a dream. Tells him there's no time to waste they need to leave and Mourning, Mourning rides in the back of a wagon away from the streets of a city that wanted to consume him and looks up at the stars. Falls asleep under their light and dreams of nothing but a different future.

Mourning is twenty. Metal sings against metal even dulled for practice and Mourning meets Sero blow for block. Their mentor is fast and Mourning is gaining the speed to match them but he's still not quite there. Sero's trap catches Mourning's blade and he laughs while Sero gives him pointers.

As if Mourning wouldn't take anything Sero gave them. Sero's smile is stretching across their face and Mourning's own is growing. Maybe not every day, maybe not every time, but Mourning no longer smiles to cover up an empty hunger.

When he dreams in the Spire they're always about home. A friend who doesn't try to use him, a family he is growing into. Magic's lack is no hindrance here and Mourning's nights are warm.

Mourning is twenty-seven. This time the streets are on fire and the orphans are running but Mourning doesn't cower anymore. His back is straight and he ushers the kids behind him and his sword. Smiles in the smoke.

A letter came. It came too late and from too far away and when Mourning gets the second he wonders how much faster he could have been. If lives could have been traded for lives. But his smile stays fixed and his back stays straight and Mourning keeps his sword at his hip.

When he dreams it's of fire and Alassar steel. It's stained glass crunching under his feet as he runs from the pungent smoke to the center of the Spire. He's alone surrounded by family. And his smile aches on his face.

Mourning is thirty-two. He wanders a mud filled alley with the last member of his family at his side. Jokes with him to see his smile and tries to forget the way it used to feel. Neither of them are who they used to be and they're the last. The last things Mourning can hold onto in cold streets.

His feet are numb, his stomach is empty. Skies so dark and blue Mourning could mistake them for the sea overhead and it matters only because the horizion is so hard to see. Mourning keeps walking and he keeps smiling and he hopes his family can appreciate his good humor.

15 What is a common misconception about your OC? (Alternatively, what do people assume about them which is either incorrect or misconstrued?) HMM this is an interesting one tbh 🤔 mourning probably has a reputation among the wayfarers of being. or well. of never being serious. because he's always got some quip or some joke or some laugh to ease the tension but mourning *is* serious. he's extremely dedicated to doing the task at hand he's just going to do it in a way thats trying to make everyone else around him comfortable enought to giggle

WAAAAAH MY COMPUTER DIED so this gonna be short but its so good 😭

If your OC were to imagine their idyllic life (realistically or otherwise) what would it be like?

i love the whats in my bag picrew so!

day 2 of the 30 day oc challenge!

Twisting a locket in his hands Mourning sits on the edge of his rented bed and wonders. It’s always been easy for him, too easy by half, to fall in and out of love. Stranger by day and shared secrets at night. Loving and leaving, never forgetting but never coming back.

_

Mourning cocks his hip against the bar, his finger twisting a small section of his hair. Expensive wine lingers on the back of tongue sweetening the words dripping from his lips. Lips curved into a smile. Another’s hand covers his own getting tangled together in his hair. Mourning would have been annoyed by this two drinks ago, might have been annoyed by it now if he hadn’t already removed her rings.

Cherry wine whispers in his ear. Mourning follows the hand in his hair as it draws him close. He’ll follow her upstairs back to her room when it draws him closer. And in the morning he’ll make sure she can’t follow him.

_

Bright afternoon sunlight lights the forest in dappled pools. Mourning holds back a yawn and nearly cracks his jaw. Tracking really never has been his strong suit, the long hours whittle away his patience until he’s more concerned with finding a scrap of paper to piece out a new poem than he is actively looking for his prey. Not that he really minds being out of the city, not much anyway, but it does get a trite tedious doesn’t it.

Fingers trace down his bare thigh and Mourning tilts his head down back towards the nest of furs he shared well into the night. Smile sitting smugly on his lips as their fingers begin to connect his freckles. Camping always has been better with two in his opinion. Makes the stars seem lighter when he counts them one by one with someone else’s hand.

Or, at least, Mourning shifts back down in the fur and lets the afternoon sun paint leaf shaped constellations on his lover’s skin, at least it makes waking enjoyable.

_

He opens the locket and brushes the golden curl trapped inside it. Once he had tucked those golden curls behind ears to whisper sweet nothings. There had been a time when he thought maybe he could write letter after letter and never get it right.

_

There’s a man standing by his side. Double daggers in his hands and Mourning knows just how dangerous his grip is. Fighting side by side for months now, a civil war breeding pain and hardship and kisses tasting of sulfur. Every encounter might be their last, and he isn’t sure if he means the fighting kind or the kind shared in smoke filled alleys.

One dagger sinks into seared flesh and Mourning cuts off his accomplises’s revenge fueled scream with his sword before it can do more than echo once off the cobblestones. They’re still outnumbered three to one but Mourning shoots his handsome companion a blood splattered grin and gets one in return.

_

for science you say... WELL i'll always help a fellow scientist <3 mourning's eyes are black! very very dark with large pupils (like Huge Pupils), probably most people are unable to tell where his iris ends and his pupil begins unless they are super duper close.