#stormsiris

@stormsiris ❝ Are you on a journey of self-discovery? ❞

Dakara was not so put off by the voice intruding upon his silence than he was annoyed. Light pale orb peeking out from behind a heavy lid as he glanced over at the half-elf. Either the ranger had now settled far enough away from a possible crowd or the other went out of their way to approach him. A scowl threatening to crawl across his aged features, though he bites it back. Simply closing his eye once more and exhaling slowly through his nostrils.

"Are you familiar with the practice of minding your own damned business?" He quipped back in a similar manner, a tight smile given with effort. Dakara stood again, dusting himself off out of habit as he faced the younger man. “You should try it sometime. Save a poor stranger a throbbing headache and you a waste of breath.”

Soft laughter ceases the moment he hears knocking on the door. That's the high elf's cue to get off Brail's body, and lie next to him instead.

"Come in," and before they see too much: "Please leave it by the door."

Three trays with various foods are left on the floor as instructed, pushed discreetly inside the room not to disturb its occupants. As soon as the door closes again, the bard sits up and extends a hand, creating a spectral projection of it to carefully pick up the trays, one by one, and leave them on the mattress where both of them can reach them.

Dim light seeps through the window, the pale blue it casts over the room has started to redden already. If it wasn't for that, the elf would not be able to tell how long they've been laying there, legs tangled and a hand resting on Brail's waist. Keeping track of time has never been a talent of his, and the crackling of the fireplace, added to the calming warmth of Brail's body under a heavy blanket, makes him let lethargic. He has even slipped into his own mind at some point, only to find the half-elf in the same position he was before he closed his eyes. Still awake, he senses, at least from the unchanging cadence of his breathing.

Still unmoving.

He could blame it on the storm outside; the rhythmic patter of rain against the window, and rumble of thunder in the distance, calling on the younger man's attention in intimate whispers, in a tongue incomprehensible to anyone else. But he wouldn't be misled by wrong causality, and naively assume the weather was the real culprit for Brail's quiet.

And the storm, soothing as its whispers may be, doesn't care about Brail. Fallahan, on the contrary, does.

He moves closer, and presses a chaste kiss against the back of his neck.

She’s tired. It’s in the way she stands, the way she thinks of tossing the sword and giving up. She doesn’t, of course. Her pride won’t allow it ( too stubborn, it’ll be her downfall ). Continuing the mock battle leaves her with a dilemma: how does someone fight a tempest? Strength means nothing if she can’t even touch him.

Oh. It hits her like a wall. There is a way to reach the storm’s eye.

She doesn’t consider it cheating – how can it be when rules were never established? – but is it fighting dirty? Yes, but this doesn’t bother her ( as long as she wins ). The sword is dropped, and a dagger is drawn.

These are new powers. Tested once ( a mess ) and she’s inexperienced, but she remembers the feeling of stepping through mist and shadow. It’s thrilling, and dizzying. She reappears to his right, using momentum and brute force to tackle the half-elf. The blade hovers above his neck and Florence, bright-eyed and grinning, says, “ Gods, you’re a pain in the ass. Do you know this? ”

❝ sorry, don’t mind me. ❞   elsie nods to the only conscious patron in the taproom as she steps over the other, not conscious patrons. her head is pounding and she’s got a wicked craving for something greasy. good thing she knows the owner of this place; he’s letting her stay, get her feet back under her, figure herself out. finally she’s somewhere familiar. finally she’s got a change at getting back home.   ❝ reckon you’ve got a hangover too. can i make you anything? ❞

@stormsiris​  gets a one-line starter

THE  MAIDEN  GRINS  OVER  THE  ALE  IN  HER  GRASP,  thrilled  by  the  prospect  of  connection  in  an  unfamiliar  place.   she  doesn’t  dare  take  another  sip  of  the  drink,  even  at  risk  of  appearing  rude  ;  it’s  long  gone  warm  between  clammy  palms,  and  even  in  the  dim  tavern  light  she  can  spy  a  single  gnat  floating  along  the  surface.   the  newfound  company  has  left  her  just  as  warm  as  any  alcohol,  and  she  listens  with  rapt  attention.

🔥 gimme something on the portrayal of villainous/morally questionable characters ➛   𝔖𝔢𝔫𝔡 𝔪𝔢 𝔞 “ 🔥 “ 𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔞𝔫 𝔲𝔫𝔭𝔬𝔭𝔲𝔩𝔞𝔯 𝔬𝔭𝔦𝔫𝔦𝔬𝔫.     delivered by @stormsiris​

ooc.     hooooooo boooooooi. i had that discussion with someone recently. i think it was with @hauntscreation​ maybe? anyway! my longest running muse was a book based version of captain hook and even before that i had played sebastian moran. cause i find morally questionable characters interesting. not because i condone their actions - obviously - but because they are so different from myself. and i like exploring how they became the way they are. that’s why most of us like dark fiction etc.

BUT to get to the point. there were either those people who wanted to get into these characters pants and then sorta try to force ship and basically woobiefy them too. OR you had these hero type characters or the snarky edgy ones who basically went up to these powerful villain type characters and bad mouthed them and were being all snark and bark. and honestly, that sucked. a lot. cause i couldn’t really react the way my muse would react in that moment - which would be to just kill the character, you know? like go up to captain hook out of the blue and try to badmouth him and see if you’d survive, you know? but that would also be forcing the other person into it and they were mostly power tripping anyway and if you’d write a fight, they’d obviously always dodge everything and never get hit, which also not how that would go. so i eventually just stopped replying to stuff like that, made an announcement that i won’t reply to starters of that sort and either prefer to plot or not write together at all.

now, idk how things have changed nowadays but i have seen a trend around where people think that just because you write a villain that you condone and approve of the stuff. and while there admittedly are people who use the grey morality or questionable motives of their character for getting their own rocks off - most aren’t like that. i will admit that there is a line and that some villains imo shouldn’t be written. but i also think that line is very subjective and changes from person to person. there will be some who out of personal reasons won’t write with certain characters and that should be respected. which is why i think a trigger warning is something that especially “darker characters” should have. so that people know, “okay this isn’t my thing, i won’t follow”, you know?