#severingblade

Drabblus Promptus || Always Accepting

It’s routine. A ritual.

The Wolf never did like the taste or smell of conventional cigarettes. Sure, they’ll do in a pinch when the stores run dry until she can restock, but they don’t have the same feel or taste as raw tobacco does.

She remembers when the old silver pipe came floating into her life, something a Zoner or another probably dug up in much the same way a stalker does artifacts. It’s an odd thing, she realizes in affection, staring at it as she pulls it out. 

The wood is hardly worn, a marbled dark red wood with the patina’d silver cap and mouthpiece. Not even real tarnish, just age, mar the intricately molded wolf’s head at the front, with its toothy jaws open to belch the fiery embers lit within. It suits her a little too well. Perhaps it was just waiting for her that day on the merchant’s table with its banged silver case, some inexplicable pull of the cosmos bringing her to it, and in turn pulling it to her.

Yes. It was meant to be hers, she thinks bemusedly as she packs it with the darkened dry tobacco leaves soaked in clove oil.

A ritual, a routine.

The mouthpiece fits almost perfectly between her top canine and incisors, held in place with the slightest pressure of her jaws. The old banged-up lighter she’s had since she was twelve sets the leaves ablaze for a brief second, she stokes the fires with a few good puffs until it smoulders as it should.

A blaze of embers in those quicksilver eyes that continue to scan the markets of Northtown, and she sits up on the boulder that marks the middle of the bustling market town. It’s a moment before she exhales a ring around her head of the sweet-smelling smoke, and her shoulders sag a little to relieve the tension of the journey prior, a shrug of arsenal and equipment off to the side of her.

Inhale, exhale. A ring of smoke reflexively released. A routine, a ritual.

        But she’s not prepared to encounter a creature roughly the same size as a Thunderjaw, covered in large scales like armor. Aloy touches her Focus only to confirm what she already suspects: this is not a machine. And it just noticed her. 

        Seems like instinct’s all she has right now. Aloy draws her bowstring back as the thing turns to get a better look, lets fly an arrow directly into its eye socket. Whatever it is, the beast bellows in pain, shaking its great head, allowing Aloy the time she needs run and dive out of view behind an outcropping of jagged stone. 

        Breathing heavily, Aloy presses a hand to her chest as if that will help to calm her racing heart. “Wha—what is that thing?” She thought she was prepared for anything, but she’s never seen its like before: a creature so large, made of flesh and bone rather than metal. At least if it were a machine, her Focus could tell her what it’s called. Instead, Aloy can only crouch in hiding as the beast blunders around, blinded in one eye, searching for its assailant in the brush. 

Am I doing this instead of facing my student email? You betcha. 

This is a cute RPG picrew! Left-to-right is my darling Ysmay (@ysmay-of-nilfgaard) finally in her green cloak. Me as a knight (plus like, how could I not? It looked like Geralt’s armor from Beyond Hill and Dale + a cape) and I added a spikey shoulder, and mask, of course. And our resident Witcher, Amiria of the Fox school (@thewanderingwitcheress)

» ⑆ ❀ saintg summoned :🔮🌟🌞 🤣 <333333

» ⑆ ❀ severingblade summoned :🌟

» ⑆ ❀ curlybara summoned :🌟🤞🌞

The Positivity Meme 

» ⑆ ❀ ---- OOC ;;

It was her third day on the ride when Ysmay reached Toussiant, and she was desperately in need of a bed. She wanted to be away from Cintra at all costs, and Toussaint, at short notice, was the best she could do. Striding beside her horse, Thumbelina, a black-and-white spotted beauty, is when she was met with the Cockatrice Inn, by her maps, bordering the Marcescent Forest, where it was whispered Kikimores roamed free. She scoffed at the thought.

Tying Thumbelina to a post she turned to her pet. “Now, you be good, understand?” Said she, petting the horse’s neck before it bumped her, something she hoped was a sign of endearment.

Before entering the Inn, Ysmay lifted her hood to veil her features as much as possible, even in sparse villages such as this, she could be recognized--she was royalty after all--and she dared not think of what her mother would do to her if she was found. Stepping into the pub gave her a sense of calm, since the sun was just beginning to sink over the tree tops, the bar was sparsely populated, and most other tennents sat in darkened corners, or hunched over the bar itself.

She moved swiftly, almost as if the air carried her to a seat at the bar, her step never once making a noise louder than a sigh. She kept her voice low, ordering an ale and inquiring about a room for the night--or a few.

 “I trust no Kikimores will break in during the night, will they?” She laughed lightly, giving her best attempt at conversation with the innkeeper, before turning slightly to the left of her, her eyes darting from person to person, something here made her uneasy.

@severingblade​​  ✧ 𝙲𝙾𝙽𝚃𝙸𝙽𝚄𝙴𝙳 𝙵𝚁𝙾𝙼  HERE

            ada watches him, balanced effortlessly over the broken wood rafters from a generous distance, even as he closes in their proximity of one another via eye contact.  he can never get too close.  botched construction works sturdy enough to SUPPORT her lithe weight, but chips whenever her stilettoes dig.  she licks her top lip of raspberry-flavored gloss in a ( purposeful ) rejecting silence during his questioning. with the idea of making him sweat due to the uneasy quiet.  slips a small, spherical robot from her purse & it begins to intently make a beeline toward him via sensor  —— its dark, circular camera lens & frame focused & zeroes in on his face :  scanning. the contraption seems to move on a kind of jet fuel ; the air underneath it distorted like the reflection of a sky on an uncalm water’s surface.

❝ uh-huh, ❞ she says, finally.  & when it reverberates with as much cynical, dismissive amusement, it puts metaphorical distance between them. those pretty lips are sealed.  takes a cursory glance at her cube-like device to rapidly skim through some data.

            but she’s not about to pontificate with a stranger on just how PAINFULLY inaccurate he is. & though, she is never one to shy away from a challenge when it presents itself, it’s been quite a challenge going anywhere out of disguise after the destructive "scorched earth” incident in langshiang & waiyip.  & she’s supposed to be dead.  so is he seeing a ghost?  a poltergeist?  according to science the dead don’t roam the earth.  the undead...?  a different story.

            what she does perceive from the initial data scan is that he is a hostile, sentient demon —— something woven from lovecraft’s web of macabre writings.  perhaps ada can snip a blood sample from him through a carefully-placed shot from one of her hypo guns, or she can always get him on his back & slam her heel straight through his chest to skewer it out of him ;  decisions, decisions.

Netflix premier of ‘Marcescent Forest’! Starring my muse, Ysmay, and @severingblade‘s Griffin Witcher, Emory Clarke, specifically about and from our thread right here.