#structural management assignment services

Every time LDS kids come to my neighborhood I am so so nice to them. I hope they remember the blue haired lady who was kind, when people try to convince them the outside world is bad and scary. (Also they are always so young! I want to feed them cookies and give them Diana Wynne Jones books or something)

Thank you! Honestly, this sort of kindness can go a really long way, even if it doesn't seem like it at the time.

LDS children and missionaries (and the majority of the latter are barely of age) are often the people who interact the most with non-Mormons on a daily basis, and thus are kind of the "face" of the Church to non-Mormons a lot of the time. As a result, they're frequently the ones who actually experience the brunt of antagonism towards the Church, which only reinforces the distrust they've already been taught to feel towards the rest of the world.

summary: Riddle is delighted when you finally join Night Raven College, and even more so when the Dark Mirror assigns you to Heartslabyul. To him, it feels like everything has fallen perfectly into place. Yet as the days pass, he can't ignore the growing distance and your closed off behaviour. Riddle struggles to understand what changed, convinced he has treated you no differently than he always has.

It isn't until his overblot and after reading a little note, that he finally begins to realise where and how horribly he went wrong.

pairing: riddle rosehearts x gn!reader (siblings)

warnings: controlling behaviour, unstable sibling relationship, talk of attempted murder, talk about death. tell me if i missed any warning.

word count: 6.8k

thought i could write this in about 3k words, but that didn't happen. this is mostly a self indulgent fic. i need more sibling fics with the twst characters, so i made one myself. a big thank you to @celesteelysia for proofreading this!

"OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!!"

Riddle Rosehearts did not believe himself to be a cruel person unlike one of the many rumours about him that said otherwise—and those who participated in these falsehoods, intent on the malicious vilification of his character, were swiftly collared.

Im not gonna promise I'm back from my haitus. Though maybe I am and I just gotta accept I'm not writing every week. But thanks @tomatojellyfish for their blurbs which had "You had loved before him, but now your love is dead"

And well knowing me I love Perty boy

@bispecsual @egrets-not-regrets @moodymisty @bleedingichorhearts @liar-anubiass-blog

@thevoidscreams @barn-anon @gallifreyianrosearkytiorsusan @ms--lobotomy @nekotaetae

@sleepyfan-blog @remembrancer-of-heresy @felinisnoctis @solspina @the-californicationist

@beckyninja @superunkn0wn @bookandyarndragon @saintsylestine @legionsofthehungry

@ladyoflucky @theonceunknown

The Hidden Variable

Y/N spent her entire life trying to escape her father's shadow. A prodigy civil engineer, she wanted nothing to do with his work—until his involvement in illegal bioweapon experiments was exposed after his death.

Accused of crimes she never committed and imprisoned as a high-risk threat, Y/N escapes custody to find her missing brother and uncover the truth. Now one of the country's most wanted fugitives, she is being hunted by Leon S. Kennedy, the agent assigned to bring her in.

As dangerous secrets surrounding her family begin to surface, the line between hunter and fugitive starts to blur. With trust becoming increasingly difficult—and increasingly impossible to ignore—Y/N and Leon may discover that the truth isn't the only thing drawing them together.

Leon S. Kennedy x Reader

Chapter 4: Structures 10k words

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter / Masterlist / ao3

The notes on your arm were the first thing you read when you woke up.

Not because you'd forgotten them — you hadn't forgotten them, you never forgot anything, the information was as present and accessible in your memory as it had been when you'd written it down. But reading them was a ritual, the same way running load calculations twice before signing off on a structural assessment was a ritual — not because the first pass was wrong but because the second pass confirmed it, and confirmation was worth the thirty seconds it cost. You unrolled the bandaging carefully, starting from the wrist, and read what was underneath in the grey morning light coming through the apartment's single east-facing window.

Yuen — M. Facility: decommissioned, outside D.C. / Fairfax County direction / partially funded — secondary shell (Voss). Biology. Mutation. Daniel — connected.

And below that, smaller, written in the cramped script you used when space was limited and the information was dense: a partial address, reconstructed from the fragments the voice on the phone had let slip between the too-precise questions and the careful withholding. Not a complete address. Enough of one. Enough to locate the general area on a map and, from the map, identify the only decommissioned research facility in that zone that matched the description — partially funded, university-connected in its operational years, now sitting empty in the way that places sat empty when the thing that had made them necessary had ended badly and nobody wanted to be associated with the cleanup.

You had found it at two in the morning before sleep finally took you. A property records search, cross-referenced with the shell company name from Hale's documents, cross-referenced again with a county planning database that listed the facility's zoning classification as research — inactive and its last registered inspection as 2007, four years ago. The facility sat on twelve acres of land outside Fairfax, accessed by a service road off a state route that Google Maps showed as a thin grey line terminating at a gate.

You re-wrapped your arm. Sat up.

The hip announced itself immediately — the deep, percussive ache of a bruise that had had a night to develop its full opinion of the situation. You moved through it with the focused, deliberate intention of someone who had decided the injury was a variable to be managed rather than a reason to stop, pressing carefully to your feet, testing the weight, adjusting your gait until you found the configuration that distributed the load acceptably. Acceptable was not comfortable. Acceptable was functional, and functional was what the day required.

You showered. Ate — properly this time, not the distracted standing-over-the-sink version of eating but actual food, because you were going somewhere that would require more of you than the past two days had, and going somewhere that required more of you on an empty stomach was the kind of avoidable mistake that you did not make. You dressed in the darkest, most practical clothes the apartment had to offer — the same black jeans from two nights ago, a long-sleeve thermal under a dark jacket, the work boots. You tied your hair back tight and low. Checked yourself in the bathroom mirror with the same dispassionate, assessing gaze you gave to everything.

You looked like someone who was going somewhere they weren't supposed to be and had dressed for it with intention.

Accurate.

You packed what you needed into the jacket's interior pockets — the burner phone, the modified pin, the small flashlight you'd found in the apartment's utility drawer and checked the batteries on. The toy gun was gone, somewhere in the streets of Northern Virginia where Leon Kennedy had presumably picked it up and was presumably, you thought with the involuntary ghost of a smile, not particularly pleased about. You had nothing to replace it. That was fine. You hadn't needed a real weapon in your life so far, because the thing you had instead of a weapon was an understanding of how spaces worked, and you had never yet been in a space that didn't have a logic you could learn and use.

You looked at the apartment one more time before you left — the kitchen table with the closed laptop, the sofa with the throw still rumpled from last night's sleep, the ceiling with its ordinary water stain. A space that had served its function. You might not come back to it, depending on how today went, and you held that possibility with the same level-headed practicality with which you held all the possibilities that required holding.

Then you picked up the car keys and walked out.

The drive out of the city took forty minutes in the early morning traffic, the kind of traffic that was dense but moving, the particular rhythm of a working day beginning to assert itself — commuters, delivery trucks, the ordinary choreography of people going to ordinary places for ordinary reasons. You moved through it without urgency, staying with the flow, taking the route you'd mapped the night before which used secondary roads where possible and avoided the areas where the pedestrian sighting reports from yesterday had placed your supposed movements.

Three conflicting directions. You had generated two of them — a deliberate text message from the burner to a contact that would register as a location ping in the wrong area, and a carefully timed appearance near a security camera in a zone that would pull investigators toward the western route. The third conflicting report — the one claiming you'd never left D.C. — you hadn't generated. That one had appeared organically, which told you that someone in the investigation was thinking more carefully than the others and had arrived at the correct general conclusion by reasoning rather than evidence.

You thought about who that might be.

You thought about it briefly and then set it aside.

The city thinned as you moved south and west, the density of the urban grid giving way to the looser, more provisional architecture of the suburbs and then the further loosening of the outer counties, where the developments had space between them and the trees were real and old and the road signs referred to places that didn't appear on the kind of maps people used in the city. The morning was grey-skied and still, the light flat and even, the kind of morning that didn't commit to weather in either direction and left the day uncertain of itself.

You turned off the state route onto the service road.

The tarmac ended almost immediately, giving way to compacted gravel that had been gravel for long enough that the edges had started to blur into the vegetation encroaching from both sides. The tree line closed in overhead in the way of roads that hadn't been used regularly in years, the branches meeting above and creating the tunnel quality of something that was returning to the forest that had been cleared for it. Your headlights caught the reflective eyes of something small in the undergrowth on the left side, watching the car pass without alarm.

You left the car in a cleared area off the service road, far enough from the facility's gate that it wouldn't be immediately visible to someone approaching from the main road but close enough that you could reach it quickly if quickly became necessary. You checked the position of it — the angle, the exit route, the sight lines. Then you got out and started walking.

The gate came into view around a bend in the service road, and you stopped.

It was taller than you'd expected — eight feet of rusted chain-link topped with wire that had lost most of its tension, sagging in places, a few strands trailing down the face of the fence like something that had given up the fight. The padlock on the gate was old, the body of it pitted with surface rust, the shackle seized in the locked position not by active security but by years of oxidation that had done the lock's job for it. A sign on the gate, white paint on metal, the paint flaking at the edges: VOSS BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. The logo below it — the angular V that your father had commissioned from a graphic designer in the early nineties and used on everything, every document, every building plaque, every letterhead — was still legible despite the weathering.

You looked at it for a long moment.

You had not seen that logo since your arrest. Before your arrest, the last time had been on the paperwork from the West Virginia facility, the documents you'd photographed as evidence of what your father was doing in the last months before the fire. Before that, on the letters he'd sent you in your first year at university — formal letters, headed with the logo, which was its own specific kind of statement about the way he communicated, the transformation of personal correspondence into official documentation, the insistence that even private things between a father and his daughter be conducted on institutional terms.

You looked at the logo until it was just a shape. Then you looked at the fence.

The rusted wire at the upper right corner of the gate had detached from the frame and hung in a loose loop, creating a gap of approximately eighteen inches between the top of the gate and the wire that was supposed to be there. The chain-link on the right side of the gate had separated from the post at the base, a gap of about eight inches wide at ground level that widened as it went up — not wide enough to walk through but wide enough, if you worked the fence, to widen further.

You worked the fence. The metal was cold and rough under your hands, the rust coming off on your palms in orange-brown dust, and the hip complained about the crouching position required and you managed it around the complaint and came through into the facility grounds with a tear in the left knee of your jeans that you noted without particular interest.

You straightened up on the other side of the gate and looked at what was in front of you.

The facility had been, once, a serious place. You could see that in the bones of it — the main building was substantial, three stories of poured concrete and steel-framed glass that spoke of institutional investment, of a point in time when what happened here was considered important enough to warrant permanence. Flanking it were two lower structures, single-story, the kind of auxiliary buildings that housed equipment and support functions, and between them a courtyard area that had been paved in the way of outdoor spaces designed for professional use and that was now cracked through in a dozen places by the patient, incremental work of plant life finding purchase in the fissures.

The vegetation was everywhere. It had started at the perimeter, the natural growth of land that had been cleared and then left to its own devices, and worked its way in over four years with the steady, unhurried determination of things that had no reason to hurry. Ivy on the concrete walls, dark green and dense, obscuring the lower windows of the main building completely. Ground cover across the courtyard, moss and small plants exploiting every crack, softening the angular geometry of the paving into something organic. Trees at the edges of the property that had grown taller and wider and begun to extend their canopy over the buildings, so that the whole facility had the quality of something being slowly reclaimed.

The windows that weren't covered by ivy were broken. Most of them — not all, but enough that the pattern was consistent, the particular pattern of breakage that accumulated over years of small impacts and weather and the occasional deliberate act of someone who had found the building and found the windows irresistible in the way that intact windows in abandoned buildings tended to be. The glass that remained in the frames was milky with dirt and the grey morning light gave it the quality of eyes that weren't seeing anything anymore.

It was very quiet.

Not the quiet of emptiness — you had been in enough buildings to know the difference between the silence of a space that had never been occupied and the silence of one that had been occupied and wasn't anymore. This was the latter. The silence here had a history in it, a residual density that came from years of human activity that had stopped abruptly, like a sentence broken off in the middle. The kind of silence that sat heavier than ordinary silence because it was made partly of what used to be there and wasn't now.

You walked across the courtyard toward the main building's entrance, scanning as you moved. Security camera above the entrance — housing present, camera gone, the bracket pointing at nothing. A second camera position on the corner of the building, same situation. Whatever had been watching this place had stopped watching years ago.

The main entrance was double doors, heavy steel frames with glass panels, the glass of both long since gone and replaced by nothing. The frames hung slightly open, the magnetic lock that had once held them dead as the facility's power. You pushed through and stepped inside.

The smell hit you first — the smell of a building that had been sealed and unsealed over years, the accumulated atmosphere of concrete and old equipment and the faint, persistent underscent of chemicals that had been used here and that time and ventilation hadn't fully cleared. Formaldehyde, you thought, and something else underneath it, something organic and faintly sweet that you didn't immediately identify and that your body responded to with a low, instinctive alertness before your mind caught up.

You switched on the flashlight.

The beam caught the reception area in sharp relief — a desk, the surface still present but the chair behind it gone, the desktop bare except for a thin layer of settled dust that showed, in the beam of the flashlight, the shallow impressions of objects that had been here and removed. Filing trays. A computer monitor. Things that had been cleared out when the facility was decommissioned, leaving behind the ghost of their shapes in the dust.

The floor was concrete, sealed in the same institutional finish as Hargrove, and the dust on it was thick and undisturbed except for a path of footprints running from the entrance to the corridor beyond the reception desk.

You crouched and looked at the footprints.

Not one set. Multiple — overlapping, different sizes, different tread patterns. Some of them older, the edges softened by dust that had settled back over them. Others sharper. Recent. Very recent — the edges clean, the depth consistent with someone who had passed through within the past forty-eight hours.

Someone had been here. Multiple someones, at multiple times.

You straightened up and followed the corridor.

The building's interior resolved itself, as you moved through it, into the kind of mental map that assembled itself automatically in you whenever you entered a new structure — the layout, the load-bearing elements, the floor plan's logic, the relationships between spaces. Corridor from reception, opening into a T-junction. Left toward the laboratory wing, the equipment still present under dust sheets that had mostly been disturbed and replaced imperfectly, as if someone had been through them and made an attempt at leaving things as they'd found them that hadn't quite succeeded. Right toward the office wing, a series of closed doors along a corridor whose overhead lighting was dead and whose emergency exit signs were unlit.

You went right first.

The offices were in varying states of clearance — some stripped almost completely, the furniture gone, the walls showing the rectangular ghosts of where shelving had been mounted, the floors showing drag marks in the dust where the shelving had been removed. Others were less completely cleared, filing cabinets still present, the kind of heavy four-drawer units that weren't worth the effort of moving, their contents largely removed but not entirely — you found partial folders in three different cabinets, the documents left behind being the kind that were too low-grade to take and too potentially identifying to leave intact, so they'd been partially shredded and the remainder abandoned.

You worked through them quickly, the flashlight propped on the top of the cabinet, both hands moving. Purchase orders. Equipment logs. A partial personnel roster that had been shredded from the top down and stopped partway through, leaving the bottom third of the alphabetical list intact. The names in the remaining section were unfamiliar, the kinds of names that appeared in support staff rosters — maintenance, administrative, the functional infrastructure of a research operation. Nothing in the S-through-Z range that you didn't already know.

You moved on.

The second office from the end was different from the others.

It was different in the way that things were different when someone had been careful about them in a way they hadn't been careful about the surrounding things — the dust on the desk's surface had been partially disturbed and then partially re-settled, suggesting the disturbance was recent but not brand new. The filing cabinet on the far wall was closed, which was consistent with the others, but the bottom drawer had a mark on the face of it that the others didn't — a scuff in the dust, at handle height, the specific mark of a hand that had gripped the handle and pulled. The shape of the grip was still legible.

You pulled the drawer open.

Not empty. The others had been empty or near-empty. This one had a folder in it, sitting in the back of the drawer against the far wall in the way of something that had been put there and not retrieved. You lifted it out and opened it under the flashlight beam.

Research notes. Handwritten, dense, the script small and precise in the way of someone who had learned to write small because the margins of academic papers were insufficient for the annotations they needed to make. Diagrams — molecular structures, process flowcharts, the specific visual vocabulary of biological research that you could read the general shape of without the specialist vocabulary to fully decode it. The diagrams were annotated with arrows and corrections, the kind of working document that was used rather than preserved, a living piece of thinking rather than a finished record.

You turned to the second page.

And stopped.

The handwriting changed on the second page. The main script was the same — small, precise, the same hand as the first page. But in the margin, running down the left side of the page in a different pen, in a slightly different style — the style of someone writing quickly, under pressure, in the kind of moment that didn't allow for the care that the main text had been written with — were notes in a hand that you would have recognised anywhere, because you had grown up watching it, had received birthday cards in it for twenty-three years, had stood in a parking lot fourteen months ago listening to a voice that belonged to the person who wrote like this.

Daniel's handwriting.

Your hand tightened on the folder.

It was current. Not the marginal notation of someone who had worked here years ago — the pen was different from the main text but the ink was fresh, the lines still crisp, without the slight greying that ink developed as it aged. He had been here recently. Days, maybe. Possibly less.

You read what he'd written.

It was fragmentary — the kind of notes that existed as a record of a thinking process rather than a communication, written for himself, not for anyone else. References to research he was cross-checking. A name — Yuen, confirming the connection, Daniel using the man's name in a context that suggested familiarity, someone he was working alongside or had been working alongside. And at the bottom of the margin, squeezed into the last available space in letters smaller than the rest:

Not safe here. Move before Thursday. — D

Not safe here. Move before Thursday.

Today was Thursday.

You stood in the office of the decommissioned facility with the folder in your hands and the flashlight casting its beam over Daniel's handwriting and let the information settle into the structure of what you knew and what you needed and what it meant.

He had been here. He had left. He had left because he knew it wasn't safe — which meant he knew someone was coming, which meant he had intelligence about the people looking for him, which meant he was running actively and not simply missing. He had been alive and thinking and moving four days ago, at the most, and that was more than you had known at any point in the fourteen months since the phone call in the parking lot and you allowed yourself, in the time it took to draw one slow breath, to feel what that meant.

Then you folded the feeling carefully away and kept moving.

The laboratory wing was through the left-hand corridor from the T-junction, and you were halfway down it when you noticed the first inconsistency.

The door to the first laboratory was ajar.

Not open — ajar. The specific, careful positioning of a door that had been closed and then opened and then positioned to look closed from a distance but hadn't fully engaged the latch. It was the kind of thing most people would walk past. You didn't walk past it. You stopped and looked at it and then looked at the door itself — the frame, the hinges, the gap at the latch side — and noted the fresh mark on the frame where something had contacted it recently, the faint gleam of newer metal showing through where the paint had been scratched.

You went back to the T-junction and looked at the corridor floor.

The footprints you'd followed from the entrance were yours, overlaid on the older ones. But the older ones — you crouched, flashlight aimed low, reading the dust with the same attention you gave to ground composition reports on construction sites — the older ones had multiple directions in them. Forward, along the corridor. But also across it, into the laboratory wing, and then back. The pattern of someone who had moved through the building in a search pattern, not a direct route. Someone methodical. Someone looking for something, or someone, in a systematic way.

Daniel's notes had said not safe here. The footprints were saying that whoever had made them not safe had already been.

Every drawer you'd looked through in the offices had been opened and replaced imperfectly. The folder you'd found in the filing cabinet — the one with Daniel's marginal notes — had been placed at the back of the drawer, hidden, but the drawer had been pulled, the scuff mark was evidence of that. Whoever had been through this building had gone through it looking and had missed the folder because they hadn't gone deep enough into the drawer.

Had missed it.

Which meant they'd been looking for Daniel and found enough evidence that he'd been here to confirm it, but not the specific piece that told you what he knew and where he was going.

You straightened up.

The door to laboratory three at the far end of the corridor was open. Not ajar — actually open, wide enough that you could see into the room from where you were standing, the pale natural light from a broken window on the far wall giving the interior a dim, flat illumination. You could see the edge of a workbench, a piece of equipment under a dust sheet that had been partially pulled back.

You took one step toward it and then you heard the engines.

The sound came from outside and slightly muffled by the building's concrete walls, but unmistakably the sound of vehicle engines — more than one, approaching on the gravel service road at a pace that was deliberate rather than urgent. Not racing. Not police sirens, no announcement of authority, no lights cutting through the gap where the window used to be in the office behind you. Just engines, reducing speed as they reached the gate, then continuing.

They had opened the gate or gone through it.

You moved to the nearest window and pressed yourself against the wall beside it, angling your face to see the courtyard without being in the sight line of someone looking at the window from outside.

Three vehicles. Dark, unmarked — not the dark of police vehicles, the darker, more deliberate dark of things that didn't want to be noticed, the kind of vehicles that were chosen specifically for the nothing they communicated at a glance. SUVs, two of them, and a third vehicle slightly smaller. They pulled into the courtyard with the practised ease of vehicles whose drivers knew the space.

The doors opened.

Four people. All male, by build and movement. All wearing the kind of dark, practical clothing that was chosen for function rather than visibility, the clothing of people who moved through spaces without wanting to be seen in them. No insignia. No visible identification. The way they moved — the angles they took from the vehicles to the building entrance, the automatic coverage formation they assembled without apparent communication, the way each of them scanned their section of the courtyard with the specific, systematic movement of trained eyes — told you everything you needed to know about what they were before you'd processed any individual detail.

Professional. Organised. Armed — you could see the holsters, the tactical equipment, the weight distribution of people carrying more than their clothes.

Not federal. Not local. Not anything with an accountability structure.

Private.

Your mind ran back to the phone call with the speed and precision of something that had already been waiting to make this connection. The voice. The too-precise location questions. The delay that had the quality of consultation. The acoustic space that said not alone.

They had traced the call. Or traced you through the call — not the specific location, you'd been careful enough for that, but the call had told them you were looking for Yuen, and Yuen's trail led here, and they had simply come to where the trail led and waited for you to follow it.

The meeting had never been a suggestion.

It had been a trap.

And you had walked into it at seven in the morning with a bruised hip and a flashlight and the firm intention of being somewhere else before anything went wrong.

You stepped back from the window and switched the flashlight off.

The darkness of the corridor settled around you, immediate and complete, the grey light from the broken windows providing the barest minimum of visibility — shapes, not details, the architectural skeleton of the space without its surface. You stood in the dark and let your eyes adjust and let your mind do what it did.

Took inventory.

Four of them. One of you. The building had three floors and two auxiliary structures, multiple entry points, a network of corridors and rooms and spaces that connected and divided in the specific way of research facilities — which were not built like houses or offices but like the thinking that happened in them, with adjacencies that served function rather than convention, spaces that opened into each other in ways that weren't always obvious from the outside.

You had been in this building for twenty minutes. They had not.

That was the variable that mattered.

You thought about the elevated walkway you'd noted in the laboratory wing — a mezzanine level in the main lab space, accessible by a metal staircase at the far end, the kind of elevated platform that allowed researchers to observe large-scale equipment from above. You had walked under it when you came through and noted, automatically, what you always noted: the connection between the walkway's visible condition and its structural state. The handrail on the far left was detached at its lower mount. The decking had visible flex under its own weight, the kind of flex that happened when the support connections had corroded past their design capacity. The walkway was still standing because structures didn't fail the moment they reached their limit — they continued to stand, for a time, in a state of managed insufficiency, until the wrong load applied at the wrong point resolved the question.

The wrong load applied at the right moment was something you could arrange.

You thought about the fire doors you'd seen on the upper floor — the old, heavy kind, connected to emergency release systems that were mechanical rather than electronic, the kind that would still function without building power if the mechanism was intact. The facility had been decommissioned, not demolished. The emergency systems would have been left in place because removing them wasn't required and the facility's owners had apparently done the minimum necessary and nothing beyond it.

You thought about the storage wing off the main laboratory, which you'd passed through quickly on your initial circuit — the ceiling-mounted shelving racks, heavy gauge steel, loaded with equipment that had been left behind when the facility closed because it was too old or too specialised to be worth the cost of moving. The racks were still bolted to the overhead structure. The bolts were visible from below and were, in your estimation, suffering from the same oxidation that affected every metal surface in this building.

Oxidised bolts in ceiling-mounted racks loaded with heavy equipment.

You had already known what that meant when you'd seen it. You had catalogued it the way you catalogued everything — noted, filed, available.

Available.

From below, through the building, came the sound of the entrance doors being pushed wider. Footsteps, multiple, on concrete — they were inside.

You began to move.

The first thing you did was noise.

Deliberate, targeted, calibrated noise — the kind that would travel through the building's corridor system and arrive at multiple points simultaneously, creating the acoustic illusion of movement in more than one place. You found what you needed in the first laboratory: a metal trolley, the kind used for transporting equipment, still on its wheels despite years of disuse. You positioned it at the top of the slight grade in the corridor floor — the settling you'd noted, the floor's almost imperceptible slope — and gave it a controlled push and moved immediately to a doorway and pressed flat against the wall.

The trolley moved slowly at first and then faster as the grade steepened, covering the length of the corridor in approximately eight seconds and then hitting the far wall with a crash that was significantly louder than the corridor's enclosed space suggested it should be — the concrete amplifying the impact, sending it bouncing through the building's acoustic structure, arriving at the entrance as something that sounded like a body falling.

You heard the response below. Movement. Voices, brief, the clipped exchange of people coordinating. Then the sound of footsteps splitting — some toward the laboratory wing, some toward the stairs, the formation dividing to cover multiple directions.

Exactly what you wanted.

You were already moving upstairs.

The elevated walkway in the main laboratory was accessed from the mezzanine level, which was reached by a staircase at the far end of the space. You took the stairs quickly and quietly, one hand on the rail, weight distributed carefully to minimise sound, the bad hip absorbing what it had to absorb without being given the option of complaining about it.

The mezzanine was a platform of grated metal, approximately three metres wide and ten metres long, running along the upper section of the laboratory's long wall. The view from it was useful — you could see the full length of the laboratory floor below, the equipment stations still in their positions under disturbed dust sheets, the corridor entrance at the far end where the footsteps would come from.

You moved to the far left side of the walkway and crouched beside the detached handrail mount. The mount had been secured by four bolts into the walkway's edge beam, and three of the four had sheared at some point — corrosion failure, probably accelerated by the temperature cycling of a building that was no longer climate-controlled — leaving the fourth bolt as the sole connection point. The fourth bolt was still intact but its engagement was shallow, the thread visibly stripped on the exposed portion.

The mechanism of the walkway's decking to its support structure was what interested you most. The decking panels sat on top of a system of cross-beams that connected to the main support frame at three points on the left side — the points you were crouching beside. Two of the three connection points were intact. The third was not. The third had failed at the weld, a fracture line visible in the steel where the two surfaces had separated, leaving the left side of the walkway's middle section supported at one point instead of three.

One point instead of three. Loaded with the weight of a person in the wrong position.

You looked at the rope-like length of old electrical conduit that ran along the walkway's outside edge, attached loosely to the grating. You tested it — stiff, but intact. Long enough.

You took up a position in the doorway of the mezzanine-level storage room and waited.

He came within four minutes.

One of the four — a large man, broad through the shoulders, moving with the careful, systematic thoroughness of someone conducting a search rather than a pursuit. He had a flashlight in one hand and his other hand was at his holster. He entered the laboratory from the ground-floor corridor and swept the space methodically, the flashlight beam moving in the regular arcs of someone who had done this before and had a procedure for it.

He saw the staircase. Moved toward it.

You waited until his foot hit the third step. Then you made the sound — not loud, just enough, the specific quality of a sound that suggested someone moving in a specific location. You moved the conduit against the grating in a short, sharp scrape and then went immediately still.

He came up the stairs.

You moved to the far end of the walkway — the left side, the compromised side — and made yourself briefly visible in the light from the broken window at the end of the space before stepping back into shadow.

He saw you. Or saw enough of you. The flashlight beam swung toward the left end of the walkway and he followed it, crossing from the staircase end, moving along the decking with the weight and pace of someone who had not assessed what he was walking on.

He was six feet from the compromised section when you released the conduit.

The conduit swung from where you'd looped it through the grating at the support point — a simple mechanical lever, the kind of mechanism that required nothing sophisticated, only the understanding of where to apply force and in which direction. The loop you'd formed pulled at the weld-fractured connection point as the conduit swung outward, adding lateral load to a joint that was already at its limit.

The walkway section gave.

Not catastrophically — not the dramatic, cinematic collapse of the entire structure, because structures didn't fail that way, they failed incrementally, the weakest point first and then the redistribution of load to the next weakest, and so on. The left side of the middle section dropped approximately sixty centimetres before the remaining connection points caught the load, and the drop was enough — enough to throw the man's balance entirely, enough to send him sideways against the handrail that was attached at one bolt, which could not hold that load and didn't try to, and he went over the edge with the specific, involuntary quality of a body that has been removed from its centre of gravity before it could compensate.

He fell to the laboratory floor below. Approximately four metres. He hit the edge of a workbench on the way down, which was not something you'd planned but was not a surprise given the spatial configuration, and the sound of his landing was the sound of a body sustaining enough impact to remove it from the situation for the immediate future.

You waited. Listened.

Breathing — audible from below, which meant alive. Not moving.

Three left.

You came down from the mezzanine by the emergency stair at the corridor end — a narrow metal staircase, enclosed, connecting the mezzanine level to the ground floor through a door that you'd confirmed was functional on your initial sweep. The door opened onto the side corridor, away from the main laboratory, away from wherever the fallen man's colleagues were currently converging in response to the sound of his impact.

You moved fast and quiet toward the upper-floor corridor where you'd noted the fire doors.

The upper floor of the main building was office-and-conference level — a series of spaces that had been used for meetings, analysis, the administrative function of the research operation. The corridor ran the full length of the building, with offices on both sides, and at the midpoint — visible from the far end, the heavy rectangular form of it distinct even in the low light — was the fire door.

It was a Class A fire door from approximately 1990, by the look of it. Steel frame, solid core, mounted on three heavy hinges with a mechanical release arm on the left side connected to a fusible link in the ceiling above — a heat-activated release designed to allow the door to swing closed automatically in the event of a fire, a passive protection system that required no power and no intervention to function, only the appropriate trigger.

The fusible link was still present. The release arm was still connected.

The appropriate trigger was a sufficient heat source applied to the link, which was a bismuth alloy calibrated to melt at a specific temperature, which would release the door's retaining mechanism and allow the spring tension in the arm to close it.

You looked at the lighter you'd taken from the apartment's kitchen drawer and put in your jacket pocket as an afterthought.

Afterthoughts, in your experience, frequently turned out to be the most useful things you took with you.

You propped the fire door open to its full extent — the stop mechanism engaging with a click, holding it wide — and moved to the corridor's far end and waited.

One of them found the upper floor corridor within three minutes. You heard him before you saw him — the footsteps, heavier on the right foot than the left, the pattern of someone who was moving carefully and whose caution made their weight distribution uneven. He came into the corridor from the stairwell at the main-building end, flashlight beam preceding him.

You moved before he came far enough to see you. Slipped through the office door on your left, into the dark of the room, pressed against the wall beside the door frame, and made the sound — a deliberate shift of weight against the old floor, a creak that was absolutely authentic and absolutely placed, the sound of someone in this room.

The footsteps stopped. Redirected. Moved toward the office door.

You moved through the darkness of the office to the window on the far side — broken, like most of them, open to the outside air — and scraped your boot against the floor in the deliberate simulation of someone climbing through a window, and then went completely still.

He entered the room. Crossed it. Went to the window.

You went through the door behind him, back into the corridor, and ran for the fire door's fusible link.

The lighter took four seconds to reach operating temperature and the link took approximately twelve more. You held it steady, the flame in contact with the bismuth alloy, counting. At fourteen seconds the link released — a small, clean mechanical event, the alloy losing its structural integrity under heat — and the spring-loaded arm drove the fire door across the corridor with a force that the old mechanism had been storing for two decades and released in a single motion.

The door closed.

The electronic strike plate was dead but the mechanical latch was not, and the latch engaged with the same authority it had been manufactured with in 1990 and had been waiting to demonstrate ever since.

He would have the tools to get through it, eventually. Eventually was not now.

Two left.

The two that remained had regrouped — you could tell by the sound of them, the way two sets of footsteps moving through a building had a different acoustic pattern from one, a synchronisation that emerged from people who were trained to move together and who had reverted to that training when the situation had begun going wrong. They were in the main building's ground floor, moving through the laboratory wing, and they were no longer separating.

Two together was harder than two apart. You had known it would come to this.

You were in the storage wing, which connected to the laboratory wing through a wide doorway that had been designed for equipment access rather than personnel traffic. The storage wing was a single large space, its ceiling higher than the corridors and laboratories, and the ceiling-mounted racks ran its full length in rows — steel uprights bolted to the overhead structure, horizontal shelving suspended between them, loaded with the abandoned equipment of a research programme that had ended without a plan for its physical inventory.

You had been looking at these racks since you first came through here.

The fourth row from the left had three uprights that you'd assessed, in your first pass through, as being in a significantly worse state than the others — the corrosion was more advanced, the base plates where the uprights bolted to the ceiling structure were visibly distorted by rust expansion, the bolts themselves exhibiting the characteristic swelling that preceded thread failure in corroded fasteners. The shelving on that row was loaded with the heaviest equipment in the storage space — centrifuges, large analysis units, the equipment that had been left behind specifically because it was too heavy to move conveniently.

Heavy equipment on compromised uprights with failed or failing bolts.

You had looked at it on the way in and known exactly what it was.

You went through the storage space now in the near-dark, the flashlight off, moving by memory and the faint natural light from the single intact window on the east wall, and you positioned yourself at the end of the fourth row. The release mechanism you'd identified was not mechanical in this case — there was no lever, no trigger. What there was, was a base plate bolt that had corroded to the point where its connection was maintained by friction rather than thread engagement, the rust expansion having effectively stripped the thread while simultaneously jamming the bolt in place with enough force that it hadn't fallen through on its own but wouldn't resist applied lateral force.

You needed a distraction first. Something that would bring one of them through the doorway while the other stayed back — a sound positioned to read as you, in the laboratory wing, drawing one away from the other.

You had three minutes before they reached the storage wing doorway.

You found what you needed in the rack nearest the doorway — a ceramic analysis dish, heavy, the kind that broke loudly. You threw it through the doorway into the laboratory wing at an angle that would place its impact point twenty feet from the doorway, in the direction of the far exit.

Both of them moved toward the impact.

But then one stopped. Reversed. Came back toward the storage wing.

One.

He came through the doorway with his flashlight and the beam caught the racks and he swept it systematically, moving along the first row, then the second.

You moved to the fourth upright's base plate and applied lateral force to the bolt with the modified pin — not direct pressure, which wouldn't work, but a rotational force in the direction opposite to the thread's engagement, which in a bolt this corroded was simply the direction that the friction was weakest. You felt the resistance in the pin and you pressed steadily and the bolt moved — a fraction, then another fraction, the thread engagement collapsing under the lateral force as the corrosion had been promising it would for years.

The flashlight beam reached the third row.

The bolt released.

The upright lost its ceiling connection on the north side. The south side connection, also corroded, couldn't take the redistributed load alone. The failure propagated in the way structural failures propagated — quickly, the energy seeking the next weakest point, and finding it, and the row of equipment-laden shelving came down not all at once but in a cascade that took approximately two seconds from the first connection failure to the last, the heavy equipment following gravity with the enthusiasm of things that had been suspended for years and had been waiting for permission to fall.

He was at the edge of the debris radius. Not under it — not where you'd needed him, the position had been imperfect, the flashlight beam's approach had been faster than you'd calculated for. The equipment came down in front of him rather than on him, the leading edge of the debris catching his legs and dropping him hard but not pinning him the way you'd intended.

He was on the floor. Not incapacitated.

One left effectively active, plus this one who was down but not out.

You were already through the doorway on the far side of the storage wing, the door that opened onto the east-side corridor and, beyond that, the building's secondary exit.

You moved through the east corridor with everything you had left, which was less than you would have needed and more than you had any right to. The hip had stopped registering as a discrete complaint and become instead a general condition, a background frequency of damage that coloured everything without specifically interrupting anything, the way a structural crack didn't stop a building from standing but changed the calculation of what it could bear.

The secondary exit was a fire-door at the end of the east corridor — external, facing the side of the facility that looked toward the overgrown perimeter rather than the courtyard. You had found it on your initial survey and confirmed it was openable from the inside. You reached it and pushed the bar.

Cold air. Grey morning. The vegetation outside the building was dense, the ground uneven, the specific topography of land that had been manicured and then released to itself for four years.

You went through.

But you had been thinking about the file. About Daniel's notes. About the most important thing you'd found in the building and that you had to take with you.

You went back. Thirty seconds — no more. In through the secondary entrance, along the east corridor, left at the T-junction, right office from the end, filing cabinet, bottom drawer.

The folder was there. You grabbed it. Tucked it inside your jacket against your body.

Then you turned and ran.

The discovery you'd made in the offices, while the building was still quiet — before the vehicles, before the situation had become what it became — was not just Daniel's marginal notes.

It was the document those notes were written on.

The main text of the research paper in the folder was Marcus Yuen's — his name was on the first page, in the formal header of a working document, the kind of internal research record that was never intended for publication but was kept for institutional purposes. The research was dated 2008, three years ago, and its subject was the continuation of the mutation work that your father's programme had begun — the next phase of it, the application of what the primary research had developed to a specific biological vector that the paper described in technical language you could read the edges of well enough to understand the general shape.

The general shape was not good.

Not in the way that your father's work had not been good — not just ethically troubling, the way all of this had been ethically troubling from the beginning. This was something further along. The primary research had been developmental, the establishment of a mechanism. This was applied. This was the mechanism in deployment.

And Daniel's marginal notes, written in those cramped, urgent letters in the left margin, were not annotations on the science. They were a record of what he had understood the science to mean, after years of working alongside the people who had created it, and what he had understood it to mean was something that had clearly, from the quality of the writing — the controlled urgency of it, the same controlled urgency you managed in your own voice when the situation required it and you were managing it imperfectly — changed everything for him.

This isn't what I was told. This was never about treatment. — D

This isn't what I was told.

He had believed your father was trying to help people. He had believed it with the earnest, brilliant, dangerously good faith of someone who needed something to believe in badly enough to believe what he was told. And at some point — recently, based on the freshness of the ink — he had stopped believing it.

And the people in the dark vehicles in the courtyard were the people whose work he had stopped believing in, and they were looking for him, and they had not found him, which meant he had gotten out before they arrived, which meant he was alive and running and he had chosen to run rather than comply, which meant—

He got away, the voice had said, filtering through from outside. Don't let the sister do the same.

Which meant they hadn't found him. Which meant he was ahead of them. Which meant wherever Daniel was, he was there of his own choice, running from the same people who were now behind you, and that changed everything, that restructured everything you thought you knew about the past fourteen months, the hypothesis of Daniel as compromised, as complicit, as unreachable — all of it required revision, complete revision, because the new data pointed somewhere different entirely.

He was trying to get out.

He had been trying to get out.

You pressed the folder tighter against your body and kept running.

The east side of the facility's perimeter was where the fence was oldest, the wire most corroded, the posts most deeply affected by the frost-heave cycles of four Virginia winters. You found a section thirty metres from the building's corner where two consecutive fence panels had separated from their shared post, the wire pulling away on both sides and creating a gap that, widened by a few seconds of work, was sufficient.

You were through it and into the tree line and moving along the edge of the service road in the cover of the vegetation when you heard the fourth one.

He stepped out from behind a tree to your left.

He had positioned himself between you and the direction of the car. The gap in the plan that you hadn't planned for — the one that existed outside the building, in the external approach, accounting for the possibility that they had positioned someone at the perimeter rather than bringing all four inside.

A fifth variable. Or perhaps the same four and a fifth you hadn't known about.

He was tall, heavier than the others by build, and he moved toward you with the specific quality of someone who was not trying to subdue you from a distance but intended to close the space between you and do it here, in the tree line, where there was no building to use and no structure to think with and nothing but the two of you and the overgrown ground and the grey morning sky.

You had a modified pin and a folder of research notes and a bruised hip.

You ran.

He was faster.

He caught you twelve metres into the tree line, one hand on the back of your jacket, the momentum of the contact pulling you off-balance — you were already compensating for the hip and the off-balance hit the compensation and took your feet from under you entirely, and you went down into the leaf litter and dead vegetation of the forest floor with a force that drove the breath from you for the second time in three days.

You rolled. Got your elbow up. Made contact with something — his midsection, not where you'd aimed, the trajectory compromised by the position. He grabbed your jacket and pulled and you twisted out of it, leaving the jacket in his hand and coming up onto your feet with the folder still clutched against your body under the thermal layer, which was now your outermost layer, and the hip making its loudest argument yet which you did not have the resources to ignore as completely as before.

He threw the jacket aside. Came at you again.

This time you didn't run. No point — he'd covered the distance once and would cover it again and the tree line ahead was thicker, less navigable, the advantage would shift further toward physical capability rather than agility and his physical capability significantly exceeded yours. You waited until he was close enough and then you moved sideways instead of back, using the momentum of his approach against the direction he expected, getting outside his line of movement and pushing — not a push designed to knock him down but one designed to redirect, to use his forward momentum to take him past you.

It worked for approximately one second. He adjusted faster than you needed him not to, got a hand on your arm, and this time the grip was the kind that didn't let go — the specific quality of a grip from someone who had trained to hold people who didn't want to be held.

He pulled you into him and then drove you sideways into the nearest tree.

The impact was full and solid and the bark was rough and the shoulder that had already been complaining from the ventilation shaft took the full force of it and went beyond complaining into something louder and more insistent that you were not in a position to listen to.

You tried to find his grip on your arm. He anticipated it. Shifted the grip, got both hands on you, and took you to the ground — controlled, practiced, the specific technique of someone who did this for a profession. The ground came up hard through the leaves and dead matter and the hip, upon meeting it, stopped making arguments and simply became a condition of the world.

He had your wrists. Weight over your hips, bearing down on the injury with the indifferent cruelty of someone who didn't know about it or didn't care. You tried to bridge — the hip overrode the attempt with a white flash of pain that was impressive even by the standards of the past several days. You tried to turn and the grip on your wrists didn't give.

You kept moving anyway. Because stopping was the alternative and stopping was not something you did.

He let go of one wrist and reached for his weapon.

The pistol came up fast — not aimed, not in the way of someone intending to shoot, but reversed, the grip turned outward, the butt of it raised. You understood what was coming in the half-second before it arrived and you turned your head and the movement saved you from the worst of it and didn't save you from enough of it.

The gun butt connected with your forehead just above the right temple.

The world stopped.

Not gradually — immediately, the way a load-bearing element failed, no warning, no transition, just the before and then the after. The after was white first and then dark at the edges and then a ringing that seemed to come from inside the bone of your skull rather than from anywhere in the external world. You were on the ground and you hadn't felt yourself go down because the going down and the impact had been the same moment and your body had simply renegotiated its relationship with vertical without consulting you.

Something warm.

Running.

You brought your hand up — the freed one, the one he'd released to go for the weapon — and pressed it against your forehead and your fingers came away dark in the grey morning light. The warmth was moving faster now, tracing the line of your brow, finding the edge of your eye socket, dripping from your jaw onto the leaf litter below with a sound that was very small and very clear in the sudden quiet of the tree line.

You tried to get up.

Your arms pushed and the world tilted at an angle that had nothing to do with the ground's actual orientation and everything to do with what had just happened to the right side of your head. You got as far as your hands and knees. Stayed there. The blood dripped steadily from your forehead onto the dead leaves and the sight of it was information — useful, clinical, the part of your mind that catalogued everything cataloguing this too, this is a head wound, head wounds bleed heavily, the volume is not a reliable indicator of severity, assess function not output.

Function.

You were conscious. You could see, though the right side of your vision had a quality to it that the left side didn't, a slight film, a pressure. You could move your hands, both of them. You could feel the ground under your palms and the cold air on the wet side of your face and the hip and the shoulder and all the other things that were competing for your attention and that you were refusing to prioritise over staying upright.

He stood over you.

"Stay down," he said. Not unkindly. The tone of someone who had done this before and found it cleaner when the other person cooperated.

You looked up at him through the blood running into your right eye and said nothing.

Then you got up.

Not cleanly — not the way you'd gotten up from the other falls, the managed recoveries of a body that was damaged but functional. This was different, this was an argument between your legs and the ground and the spinning quality the world had acquired, but you won the argument through the specific application of refusing to lose it, and you were on your feet with your hand pressed against your forehead and the blood running down your wrist and soaking into the bandaging there.

He stared at you.

You could see, in his expression, the specific recalibration of someone who had expected the hit to end the situation and was processing the fact that it hadn't.

He raised the gun again.

You threw the empty folder.

Not a weapon — it was an empty folder, it couldn't be a weapon, but it was an interruption, the flat impact of it against his chest in the half-second before the gun came down forcing a flinch that was involuntary and that bought you the half-second you needed to move sideways out of his direct line.

He caught your arm.

You got the car door.

The door swung out and caught him in the shoulder and the grip broke and you were inside and the lock was down before his hand hit the window, his face close to the glass, and you could see through the blood in your eye and the swimming quality of the world the expression of someone who had not expected this to end this way.

You reversed out onto the service road.

And drove.

Your hand was still pressed against your forehead. The bleeding had slowed but not stopped, the warmth of it spreading into your palm and along your wrist in a way that was less alarming than the initial flow but present enough to remind you persistently of itself. Every time the car moved over a rough section of the service road the impact traveled up through the seat and into your skull and the skull reported its current condition in terms that were difficult to ignore.

You ignored them anyway.

The notes where on the passenger seat. Daniel's handwriting was in it. He was alive and running and they hadn't found him and you had driven out of that facility with the blood drying on your face and the research notes beside you and the specific, battered, undeniable fact of still being in motion.

Platonic, any pronouns, no TW, fluff

My first fanfic that I’ve ever posted… Pls be nice 👉👈

Credit to @rex-maniac for the idea!

Edit: It is on Ao3! It’s called The Ghost From the Alleyway, feel free to check it out! I have no ideas for part three though so it’ll be a while until I update it 😅

The Rehabilitation Centre

ཧོ‿︵𓆩⭑♱⋆｡°࿔✧˖°₊ ⊹๋࣭ ⭑✧๋࣭ ⭑♱⋆｡°࿔✧˖°₊ཧོ🪽ཧོ₊°˖✧｡⭑♱⭑✧๋࣭ ⭑⊹๋࣭ ₊°✧࿔°｡⭑♱⭑𓆪︵‿ཧོ

date: april 4, 2026.

started: 9:25am finished: 10:42am

yayyy dr self intro. lowkey didn't know what nation i wanted my mom to be from so. i did make myself OP but i made my s/o op so it balances out.

@lalalian @starrydotcom @reverieshifts @wyldeshifts

ཧོ‿︵𓆩⭑♱⋆｡°࿔✧˖°₊ ⊹๋࣭ ⭑✧๋࣭ ⭑♱⋆｡°࿔✧˖°₊ཧོ🪽ཧོ₊°˖✧｡⭑♱⭑✧๋࣭ ⭑⊹๋࣭ ₊°✧࿔°｡⭑♱⭑𓆪︵‿ཧོ

✧˖*°࿐𝑩𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒈𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅

Aurenya Rhaenyras Thyraen was born in Solareth, Eryndor, in the heart of autumn when the leaves turned gold and the air carried the first bite of winter. the city is a mid-sized urban center known for its couriers, trade networks, and proximity to major leyline convergence points. her birth was not easy. her mother labored for over twenty hours, and there were moments when the healers feared they would lose both mother and child. but Aurenya arrived—small, pale, and strangely quiet—with one eye green-jade and one eye pale blue-purple, and the midwife who delivered her would later say that the child looked at her with more awareness than any newborn should possess.

her father, Kaelis Thyraen, is Eryndorian nobility—not the highest rank, but respected. his family has produced dragon riders for generations, and he himself was a rider in his youth, bonded to a dragon who died in service during a leyline stabilization crisis. his family is well-established, respected, and deeply embedded in Eryndor's social and political networks. Kaelis is a man of duty, structure, and expectation. he loves his daughter, but he also sees her as a continuation of legacy. he wants her to succeed. he wants her to honor the family name. he wants her to be extraordinary.

her mother, Seriva, is from Nifo'nwey. she met Kaelis during a diplomatic exchange—she was part of a delegation sent to Eryndor to study leyline management techniques, and he was assigned as liaison. they should not have fallen in love. their cultures were too different. but they did. and when Seriva became pregnant, she chose to stay in Eryndor rather than return home, a decision her family did not fully understand but ultimately respected.

Seriva is a geomancer and knowledge keeper, someone who reads stone and earth the way others read books. she is quiet, grounded, and fiercely independent. she taught Aurenya to listen—to the land, to silence, to the things people do not say. she taught her that strength is not loudness, that power is not force, and that understanding comes from stillness.

Aurenya grew up between two worlds, and she never fully belonged to either. in Eryndor, she was raised with privilege and expectation. she attended the best schools, trained with elite instructors, and moved in circles where lineage mattered. but she was always slightly other—her features too angular, her demeanor too serious, her instincts too Nifo'nweyan. people respected her, but they also kept distance.

every summer, from childhood through adolescence, she traveled to Nifo'nwey to stay with her mother's family—her grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins who lived in a settlement built into the cliffs, where stone and sky met and the wind carried voices across impossible distances. Aurenya spent months in Nifo'nwey with her mother's family. those summers shaped her in ways Eryndorian education never could.

she learned to track weather patterns by reading stone and wind, not instruments. she learned to move silently through rough terrain, to track, to survive in terrain that would kill most Eryndorians within days. to climb without hesitation, to survive without relying on magitech. she learned the philosophy of Veleth Kiron—the Weight of Place—not as an abstract concept but as a lived practice. every location carries history. every action has consequence. you are part of a continuum, and your choices ripple forward.

she learned Kiro'veth not from textbooks but from elders who corrected her phrasing and pronunciation with patience and expectation. she learned the difference between Eryndorian politeness (which values grace and indirectness) and Nifo'nweyan respect (which values honesty and directness). she learned that in Nifo'nwey, lying to spare someone's feelings is insulting—it treats them like they cannot handle truth. she learned to read the weight of places, to understand that every location carries history and consequence.

but even there, she was slightly other—raised in Eryndor, speaking Kiro'veth with an accent, understanding philosophy but not fully living it. her cousins accepted her, but they also saw her as different. she was family, but she was not entirely of them.

she learned that her father's family, for all their respect and affection, would never fully understand her mother's family. and her mother's family, for all their acceptance, would never fully embrace Eryndorian values. she would never fully belong anywhere. and instead of breaking her, it made her adaptable.

this created a constant internal negotiation. in Eryndor, she learned to filter—to soften her directness, to frame honesty in ways that felt less blunt, to perform the kind of refined social navigation expected of someone with her background. in Nifo'nwey, she learned to release—to speak plainly, to trust that truth would not be taken as attack, to stop performing and simply be.

she learned when to be Eryndorian—graceful, measured, refined—and when to be Nifo'nweyan—direct, grounded, honest. she learned that identity is not fixed but performed, and that she could choose which version of herself to present depending on what the situation required.

the result is someone who can code-switch effortlessly but who never fully relaxes in either context. she is always aware of which version of herself is appropriate, and that awareness is exhausting.

at fifteen, she enrolled in Stormwing Academy—the premier dragon rider training institution in Eryndor, known for producing some of the most skilled riders in the Pyres Confederation. she excelled. she was faster than most, more precise, more adaptable. she absorbed techniques quickly, retained information effortlessly, and moved through training with the kind of quiet competence that made instructors take notice.

but she was also distant. she did not form close friendships. she did not seek attention. she trained, studied, and kept to herself. people assumed she was cold. she was not cold. she was simply guarded.

at seventeen, she bonded with Serynth. the bond was not planned. most bonds happen during structured bonding ceremonies, where young dragons are introduced to potential riders in controlled environments. Aurenya's bond happened mid-flight, in a storm that should not have formed where it did.

she was on a solo training flight, practicing navigation through turbulent airspace, when the storm appeared—massive, violent, and utterly unpredictable. most riders would have turned back. Aurenya adjusted. she moved through the storm, reading wind patterns, anticipating shifts, and for a brief moment, she felt something else in the storm with her. not hostile. not threatening. just… aware.

Serynth had been watching her for months. observing her flight patterns, her decisions, the way she moved through chaos without panic. and in that moment, in the heart of the storm, Serynth reached out. the bond formed instantly. completely. overwhelmingly. Aurenya's Aether flow and Serynth's Essence threaded together so quickly, so intensely, that it burned itself into her skin, creating the lightning scars that would mark her forever.

when she landed, hours later, she was different. not just bonded. changed. her hair had shifted, the white streaks now carrying faint blue-purple light. her eyes seemed sharper, more aware. her presence felt… heavier.

she graduated from Stormwing at eighteen—top of her class in technical skill, though not in social standing. She received her Guild certification, her Flight Rank (Stormbound, though those who trained with her suspected she was stronger), and her courier license.

for a year, she worked as a legal courier, transporting high-value cargo, diplomatic messages, and rare magical components across the Pyres Confederation. she was good at it. she was reliable. she built a reputation for being fast, precise, and utterly professional.

but she also began to see the cracks in the system. the things the Guild refused to transport. the people the Guild refused to help. the situations where policy created harm rather than preventing it. and so, slowly, carefully, she began taking other jobs. Smoke Runner work. moving things the Guild would not. helping people the system had failed. flying routes that were illegal because they were necessary.

she justified it as corrective action. as restoring balance that the Guild had failed to maintain. and she believed it. now, at nineteen, she lives a double life. publicly, she is a Guild courier—respected, professional, reliable. privately, she is a Smoke Runner—operating in the margins, breaking rules she believes are unjust, and risking everything to do what she thinks is right.

✧˖*°࿐𝑵𝒂𝒎𝒆

AURENYA (pronounced; ah-rean-yah, origin; Eryndorian in structure—soft, melodic, with that characteristic rise-and-fall rhythm common in Eryndorian names. meaning; golden light and breath-bound radiance. light and storm.) RHAENYRAS (pronounced; rhae-neer-as, origin; Welsh-rooted name connected to Nerissa and the Greek Nereids. meaning; lady of the sea, sea spirit, or daughter of the water.) THYRAEN (pronounced; th-raeyn, origin; sounds Eryndorian but carries Nifo'nweyan roots. meaning; motion and stillness, rootedness that stabilizes.)

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ Nicknames: Ren — used by close friends, family, and Serynth when being affectionate (which is rare). Renya — used by her mother's family in Nifo'nwey, a softer, more intimate version of her name. Wisp — what Serynth calls her when teasing, referencing how quietly she moves.

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ Aliases (smokerunners): Threadwalker — for the way she navigates storms, weaving through turbulence like she can see the threads of wind before they form. Silent Lightning — for her combat style: precise, fast, and utterly quiet until the moment of strike. Veilkin — a term used by those who know about her spiritual sensitivity, acknowledging that she exists slightly closer to the threshold between physical and astral than most.

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ Titles (nobles & formal circles): she is sometimes referred to as "the Thyraen daughter"—a phrase that sounds respectful but is actually reductive. it marks her as daughter of rather than individual. it emphasizes lineage over capability. she hates it. she never says so.

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ Guild Registry: within the Guild, she is registered as Courier Aurenya Thyraen, Flight Rank: Stormbound (B Tier), though those who have worked with her suspect she is closer to Ascendant or Paragon- in capability and simply underreported during evaluation.

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ Rider: officially, she holds the title Cadet Rider until graduation, after which she becomes a fully certified Rider with all associated privileges and responsibilities.

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ More Name Information:

her name is itself a cultural hybrid, carefully chosen to honor both sides of her heritage while creating something that belongs to her alone.

Aurenya is Eryndorian in structure—soft, melodic, with that characteristic rise-and-fall rhythm common in Eryndorian names. the meaning is layered: golden light and breath-bound radiance. it invokes both illumination and life force, the idea that she carries light within her and shares it through her presence. it is aspirational, the kind of name Eryndorian nobles give children they hope will be extraordinary.

Rhaenyras is her middle name, and it is where Nifo'nweyan influence becomes visible. the hard consonants, the sharp rhythm, the way it demands pronunciation rather than inviting it—all of this is Nifo'nweyan. the meaning shifts depending on context: power that endures or legacy bound by restraint. it is not about dominance. it is about lasting. about being strong enough to continue, disciplined enough not to break under pressure, resilient enough to carry weight without complaint.

Thyraen is her family name, and it is the compromise. it sounds Eryndorian but carries Nifo'nweyan roots. the meaning is motion and stillness, rootedness that stabilizes. it reflects the philosophy her parents tried to embody: that strength comes not from rigidity or chaos, but from the ability to be both grounded and adaptable.

her name is beautiful and heavy. people stumble over the middle name. they shorten it to "Aurenya Thyraen" in casual contexts, erasing the Nifo'nweyan component entirely. she notices. she always notices.

✧˖*°࿐𝑩𝒂𝒔𝒊𝒄𝒔

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ age. 20 (first shift) 𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ date of birth. november 17 დ࿐ ‎˗ˋ zodiac. scorpio♏︎ (sun), taurus♉︎ (moon), scorpio♍︎ (rising) ·˚๑ 𓂃 › birthstone. yellow topaz, citrine ·˚๑ 𓂃 › birthflower. chrysanthemum, peony ·˚๑ 𓂃 › birthsymbol. snake, pig, tree, ash tree, claret red, yellow, dark blue

დ࿐ ‎˗ˋ citizenship. Eryndor ·˚๑ 𓂃 › nationality. Eryndorian ·˚๑ 𓂃 › ethnicity. Eryndorian-Nifo'nweyan ·˚๑ 𓂃 › race. stormborn / dragon rider ·˚๑ 𓂃 › birthplace. Solareth, Eryndor ·˚๑ 𓂃 › current residence. Solareth, Eryndor

დ࿐ ‎˗ˋ height. 5'9 (177cm) ·˚๑ 𓂃 › weight. 110lbs (50kg) ·˚๑ 𓂃 › blood type. o-

დ࿐ ‎˗ˋ sexuality. omni ·˚๑ 𓂃 › pronouns. she/they ·˚๑ 𓂃 › gender. demigirl

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ occupation. legal courier for the Dragon Rider's Guild. ·˚๑ 𓂃 › on paper, Aurenya is a legal courier for the Dragon Rider's Guild, transporting high-value cargo, diplomatic messages, and rare magical components across the Pyres Confederation. this is legitimate work. it pays well. it is respected. it aligns with her training and capabilities.

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ occupation. Smokerunner ·˚๑ 𓂃 › Aurenya is also a Smoke Runner—someone who operates outside Guild regulation, who flies routes that are not approved, who transports cargo that would be confiscated if discovered. this is not a side project. it is not occasional. it is significant work that she has been doing for over a year, ever since she graduated from Stormwing Academy and realized that the Guild's rules, while logical, are not always just.

she does not smuggle weapons. she does not move dangerous substances for profit. what she moves are things the system refuses to acknowledge as necessary: dragon eggs that would be seized and processed for Essence extraction, refugees who cannot cross borders legally without being detained or returned to danger, restricted texts and knowledge that governments have banned for political rather than safety reasons, and medicinal supplies to regions under embargo or blockade

she justifies this to herself as corrective action—not rebellion, but restoration of balance that the Guild has failed to maintain. and she believes it. because if the system is meant to protect people and dragons, but in practice harms them, then the system is wrong. and Aurenya has never been good at pretending things are fine when they are not.

the risk is enormous. if discovered, she would lose her Guild certification, face imprisonment, and potentially exile. her family would be disgraced. her future as a Rider would end. she does it anyway. because some things matter more than safety.

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ heritage. Aurenya's heritage is not simple, and that complexity shapes her in ways both visible and invisible. she is not fully one thing or another—she exists in the space between, and that position has defined much of her experience.

her father's lineage is pure Eryndorian nobility—old bloodlines that trace back to the founding clans, families who have produced dragon riders for generations. this side of her heritage carries weight: expectations, scrutiny, and the assumption that she will uphold standards set centuries before her birth. it is the side that grants her access to formal events, that places her name in registries, that opens doors before she even speaks.

but her mother's lineage is different. her mother is from Nifo'nwey—a nation that does not bow, does not compromise, and does not forget. Nifo'nweyan blood carries its own kind of gravity: resilience, groundedness, and a fierce independence that does not translate neatly into Eryndorian aristocratic culture. her mother's family are not nobles. they are respected—artisans, geomancers, knowledge keepers—but they do not operate within the same social structures Eryndor values.

this creates a duality Aurenya has never fully resolved. in Eryndor, she is seen as almost fully one of them—close enough to be accepted, but always subtly marked as different. people notice the angular sharpness of her features, the way she holds herself with a stillness that feels more Nifo'nweyan than Eryndorian. they notice her natural affinity for geomantic awareness, the way she reads spaces and environments with a precision that most Eryndorian riders have to train for years to achieve.

in Nifo'nwey, when she visits, she is seen as almost one of them—but always marked by the fact that she was raised in Eryndor, that she speaks Kiro'veth fluently but with a slight Eryndorian cadence, that she understands their philosophy but did not grow up fully immersed in it.

she belongs to both. she belongs to neither. and she has learned to navigate that space with the same precision she navigates storms.

დ࿐ ‎˗ˋ known languages. ·˚๑ 𓂃 › english 𓂃 welsh accent ·˚๑ 𓂃 › eryndrian common ❪ Eryndor ❫ 𓂃 native fluency, neutral accent ·˚๑ 𓂃 › kanthrel ❪ Pyresian ❫ 𓂃 conversational fluency, enough to navigate trade and diplomacy but not academic discourse ·˚๑ 𓂃 › luminari ❪ Ambrilune ❫ 𓂃 reading fluency, limited spoken ability; she understands complex texts but struggles with spontaneous conversation. ·˚๑ 𓂃 › pyrthic ❪ Calthrasian ❫ 𓂃 highly fluent, learned through trade contact and necessity; she appreciates its directness ·˚๑ 𓂃 › kiro'veth ❪ Nifo'nweyan ❫ 𓂃 fully fluent, slight Eryndorian cadence that native speakers notice but do not consider incorrect ·˚๑ 𓂃 › veyrithic ❪ ancient scholarly language ❫ 𓂃 reading fluency only, used for accessing old texts and historical research ·˚๑ 𓂃 › navasori ❪ navasoi ❫ 𓂃 basic conversational ability, learned through ecological study and interest in cyclical philosophy

her multilingualism is not just practical—it reflects her belief that language shapes thought, and understanding multiple linguistic frameworks makes you more adaptable, more perceptive, and less likely to mistake one culture's assumptions for universal truth.

she code-switches naturally depending on context, and people who speak multiple languages with her often notice that her personality shifts slightly depending on which language she uses. in Kiro'veth, she is more direct. in Eryndrian Common, she is more measured. in Pyrthic, she is more efficient.

✧˖*°࿐𝑳𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒔

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ appearance.

her mixed heritage is visible in her face, though not in ways that are immediately obvious. it is subtle—a combination of features that don't quite align with either parent culture individually.

her bone structure is distinctly Nifo'nweyan: high, angular cheekbones, a strong jawline, and a face that holds composure naturally. this is the structure that makes her look older than she is, that gives her an air of authority even when she says nothing. it is the foundation her mother gave her. this structure gives her an air of authority and maturity beyond her nineteen years. she looks like someone who has already made difficult decisions and will make more. her nose a Nifo'nweyan shape; a straight nose without a bump but the tip is slightly rounded. it is elegant without being delicate, strong without being overpowering.

her lips are well-defined with a pronounced cupid's bow, the upper lip slightly thinner than the lower, both naturally a soft pinkish-red that deepens when she is cold or has been flying. her mouth is expressive in small, controlled ways—the slightest curl at one corner when she is amused, a tightness when she is holding something back, a softness when she speaks to someone she trusts.

her teeth are straight and white, but her canines are sharp, fang-like, longer and more pronounced than human standard. this is another Stormborn trait, one that becomes more noticeable when she smiles fully—which is rare. when she does smile, it is often a slight smirk, playful and knowing, like she has just thought of something clever she will not share.

her skin is naturally honey-golden, a warm undertone that tans easily and holds color well. this is her Eryndorian heritage showing through—sun-warmed, healthy, with a natural glow that does not require enhancement. when she tans (which happens quickly during summer flights or time spent outdoors), her skin deepens to a rich golden-bronze. her skin blushes visibly, especially at the joints—knuckles, elbows, knees—and across her cheeks when she is cold, exerted, or embarrassed (though the last is rare). the contrast between her natural warmth and the flush of color is subtle but noticeable.

Aurenya's hair is naturally ash brown, a color that shifts between cool-toned brown and almost-black depending on lighting. but what makes it distinctive are the white streaks—not highlights, not dyed, but natural. they have always been there, even before she bonded with Serynth, threading through her hair in irregular patterns like lightning frozen mid-strike.

after bonding with Serynth, some of those white streaks began to take on a faint blue-purple luminescence, especially visible in dim light or when she is using magic. the effect is subtle—not glowing, but catching light in ways that shouldn't be possible. it looks like her hair has been struck by lightning and the charge never fully dissipated.

in the future, her hair will shift further—predominantly white with ash brown streaks, as if the lightning has fully claimed it. the blue-purple luminescence will remain, spreading into a more striated pattern, like veins of electricity running through pale silk.

her hair is 2c-3a texture—loose, defined waves that fall naturally without much styling, with enough body to hold shape but enough movement to feel alive. it reaches just past her chest when loose, longer in some sections where it has been left to grow without trimming. she rarely wears it fully down unless she is resting or in private. for practicality, she keeps it in braids—single, double, or intricate patterns depending on the situation—or pulled back in a low ponytail secured with leather cord or metal clasps. when flying or in combat, it is always restrained. loose hair is a liability.

her height and build reflect both sides. she is taller than most Eryndorian women, a trait inherited from her mother's side, where height is common and valued. but her frame is slender, long-limbed, with the kind of controlled strength that comes from Eryndorian rider training rather than Nifo'nweyan physical labor.

she moves like someone who has been trained to move efficiently—no wasted motion, no unnecessary display. her abdomen is flat and firm, with subtle abdominal definition—not a six-pack, but enough core strength to be visible when she stretches or moves. core strength is essential for riding; without it, she would be thrown from Serynth within minutes.

her arms are toned, with visible muscle definition along her shoulders, biceps, and forearms. she is not heavily muscled, but she is clearly capable—arms built for drawing bowstrings, holding swords, gripping dragon harnesses during turbulent flight. her legs are long, slim, and strong, with well-defined thighs and calves from years of riding, climbing, running, and combat training. she moves with a kind of controlled grace that comes from body awareness, not performance. she knows where her body is in space at all times.

her eyes are the first thing people notice and the last thing they forget. heterochromatic and deeply unsettling in their clarity—her right eye is a complex forest green-jade, layered with flecks of brown near the pupil that darken depending on lighting, and a thin ring of deep blue around the outer edge. it is earthy, grounded, the color of ancient forests and moss-covered stone.

her left eye is pale, almost luminous light blue-purple—more purple in dim light, more blue in brightness—that darkens to a deeper indigo around the outer rim. this eye feels wrong in the way that makes people look twice, not because it is unnatural but because it is too aware. like it sees more than it should.

both eyes are almond-shaped with a subtle downturn at the outer corners, giving her a perpetually thoughtful, almost tired expression even when she is calm. her pupils are slightly slit-shaped, almost feline, a trait that becomes more pronounced in low light or when she is using magic.

this is a result of her Stormborn heritage and her bond with Serynth—her body has adapted, shifted, become something not quite entirely human anymore. her eyelashes are long, dark, and thick, casting shadows on her cheeks when she looks down. she does not wear cosmetics often, but when she does, it is minimal—just enough to emphasize what is already there. a touch of dark liner to sharpen her gaze. nothing more.

her hands tell their own story. longer fingers, slightly rough calluses from weapons and dragon harnesses, but also from stone and craft—remnants of summers spent with her mother's family, learning to shape and read materials the way Nifo'nweyans do. her left pinkie is crooked, broken years ago and never set quite right. she never bothered to have it corrected. it's a small imperfection she finds grounding.

დ࿐ ‎˗ˋ hair color. ash brown with white streaks. some of these white streaks almost seem like a lightning blue-purple, especially after bonding to Serynth. ·˚๑ 𓂃 › type. 2c-3a

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ hair styles. in everyday settings, her hair is practical. a single braid down her back, a low ponytail, or a half-up style secured with leather cord or a metal clasp. she does not spend time on elaborate styles. function over form.

for formal events, her hair is styled with intention: half-up, half-down with intricate braids woven through the upper section, the rest left loose in soft waves. full updo—braided, twisted, or pinned into an elegant structure with a few loose strands framing her face. single elaborate braid down her back, woven with ribbon, thread, or small metallic accents.

in combat and flight, her hair is secured tightly: single tight braid down her back, secured at multiple points to prevent loosening. double braids pinned close to her head. low bun secured with multiple pins and wrapped with leather cord. loose hair is a liability. it obscures vision, tangles in harnesses, and provides a grab point for enemies. she eliminates the risk entirely.

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ eye color. her right eye is a complex forest green-jade, layered with flecks of brown near the pupil that darken depending on lighting, and a thin ring of deep blue around the outer edge. her left eye is pale, almost luminous light blue-purple—more purple in dim light, more blue in brightness—that darkens to a deeper indigo around the outer rim.

დ࿐ ‎˗ˋ skin. honey-golden warmth when she tans, often blushed at the cheeks, shoulders, and knees. 𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ birthmarks. ⚔︎ ˚ — beneath her left eye: two small dots nearly symmetrical, often mistaken for beauty marks. they are slightly darker than her natural skin tone and could be mistaken for beauty marks or intentional adornment. ⚔︎ ˚ — right hip and thigh: four distinct clusters of café-au-lait spots, each cluster contains 5-8 light brown marks varying in size from 2mm to 1cm. ⚔︎ ˚ — base of her spine: a small crescent-shaped mark, faint but distinct. this one is Nifo'nweyan in cultural interpretation—marks at the base of the spine—marks at the base of the spine are considered signs of strong grounding and connection to earth. ⚔︎ ˚ — scalp: small round birthmark hidden by hairline at nape of neck

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ scars. ⚔︎ ˚ — three parallel claw-like marks slash across her left shoulder blade: from a training accident at thirteen. a dragon (not Serynth—this was before bonding) reacted unexpectedly during a handling exercise, and she was too slow to move. the scars are pale, raised slightly, and visible through thin fabric. she does not hide them. ⚔︎ ˚ — a thin, precise line traces her right collarbone: deliberate and clean. this is from a blade—not combat, but a controlled cut during a blood-binding ritual she participated in with her mother's family in Nifo'nwey. it is a mark of acceptance, of being recognized as one of them despite her mixed heritage. ⚔︎ ˚ — several smaller nicks scatter her forearms: accumulated over years of weapons training, close-quarters sparring, and the occasional miscalculation with a blade. none are deep. none are significant individually. ⚔︎ ˚ — a jagged scar runs along her right ribcage: half-hidden unless she stretches or twists. this one is from a fall during a storm run—she miscalculated a descent, Serynth compensated too sharply, and Aurenya was thrown against the harness restraints hard enough to tear skin. it healed, but not cleanly.

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ lightning crest. these markings were created from an incident when she first bonded with Serynth.

they are not from an attack. they are from the bonding itself—the moment Serynth's Essence threaded into her Aether flow. when Aurenya bonded with Serynth, the connection was not gentle. Serynth's Essence threaded into Aurenya's Aether flow with such intensity that it burned itself into her skin, creating Lichtenberg figures—fractal, branching patterns that resemble lightning caught mid-strike.

they run along her shoulders, down her arms, across her back, and along her ribs, spreading from her spine outward like tree roots or river deltas. the patterns are asymmetrical—denser on her left side, sparser on her right—and each branch is unique, never repeating.

in their dormant state, the scars are pale, silvery-white, slightly raised, and faintly warm to the touch. they look almost like tattoos, delicate and intentional.

but when she flies, when she uses magic, when she and Serynth synchronize fully, the scars glow blue-purple, the same color as the luminescent streaks in her hair and Serynth's bioluminescence. the glow is not bright—it is subtle, like light moving beneath the surface of water—but it is unmistakable.

the lightning scars are proof of bond. most riders do not scar from bonding. Aurenya did. because her bond with Serynth was not gentle. it was immediate, overwhelming, and absolute.

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ soulmark. a faint glowing sigil on her back and collarbone shaped like intersecting wings and storm lines.

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ normal attire. Aurenya's everyday fashion is functional first, aesthetic second—but that does not mean she does not care about appearance. she simply refuses to prioritize aesthetics over practicality. every piece she wears serves a purpose. if it does not, it is not worn.

her color palette is earthy and muted: deep browns, charcoal grays, dark purples, olive greens, rust reds, black, cream, and weathered leather tones. she avoids bright colors. they draw attention. they show dirt. they are impractical.

her clothing is layered, always. not for fashion, but for adaptability. layers can be removed if she gets too warm, added if she gets cold, and adjusted depending on activity. she dresses for change, because conditions shift constantly when you live the way she does.

a fitted linen or cotton shirt in cream, white, or pale gray, with long sleeves that can be rolled up or pushed back. the neckline is usually high or modest—she does not expose skin unnecessarily. the fabric is breathable, easy to wash, and does not restrict movement.

a leather or reinforced fabric vest in dark brown, black, or charcoal. sometimes it is simple and unadorned. sometimes it has buckles, straps, or subtle embossing. the vest provides structure, protects her torso, and creates a silhouette that is both practical and intentionally androgynous. she is not trying to look feminine or masculine. she is trying to look capable.

a long coat, cloak, or layered tunic in deep red, forest green, charcoal, or black. the coat is often asymmetrical, with one side longer than the other, or it has slits for movement. it is made from durable fabric—wool blends, heavy linen, or treated canvas—and it has pockets. many pockets. hidden pockets. she carries things. she needs places to put them. if she is wearing a cloak, it is hooded, secured with a simple clasp or leather cord, and designed to be removed quickly if it becomes a liability.

fitted trousers in black, dark brown, or charcoal, made from durable fabric with reinforced knees and thighs. sometimes they have laces up the sides for adjustability. sometimes they are tucked into boots. always, they allow full range of motion. occasionally, she wears a layered skirt. sometimes over trousers—practical, not decorative. the skirt is split for movement, often asymmetrical, and made from lighter fabric that flows without tangling.

her footwear consists of tall leather boots, always. knee-high or just below, in black or dark brown, with sturdy soles, reinforced toes, and straps or buckles. the boots are broken in, comfortable, and designed for walking long distances, climbing, and riding. she does not wear anything she cannot run in. will also walk barefoot any chance she gets.

accessories are minimal but intentional. leather bracers on her forearms, sometimes plain, sometimes with small metal studs or engraved patterns. a wide leather belt with pouches, knife sheaths, and attachment points for rope or tools. leather gloves with reinforced palms, fingerless or full depending on weather. simple jewelry—a single leather cord necklace with a small stone or metal pendant, maybe a ring or two, never anything that dangles or makes noise. a knife or two, always. one at her belt, one strapped to her thigh, one tucked into her boot. she is never unarmed.

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ formal attire. Aurenya's formal wear is a calculated performance. she does not enjoy formal events. she does not naturally gravitate toward gowns and ceremony. but she understands that appearance matters in these contexts, that her presentation reflects not just on her but on her family, her dragon, and the Guild.

so when formality is required, she delivers. not with enthusiasm, but with precision. her formal aesthetic is soft, ethereal, and layered, drawing on Eryndorian elegance while incorporating subtle Nifo'nweyan elements—grounded colors, deliberate structure, and an underlying sense of weight. she does not dress to be pretty. she dresses to be memorable.

her formal gowns are empire-waist or natural-waist, with flowing skirts that reach the floor and often have trains. the bodices are structured but not restrictive, providing support without limiting breathing or movement. she refuses to wear anything she cannot move in, even at formal events.

the sleeves are long and dramatic—often bell sleeves, flowing angel sleeves, or layered sleeves that create movement and visual interest. Sometimes they are sheer, sometimes embroidered, always elegant. she prefers matte finishes over high shine, except for small accents—metallic embroidery, a shimmer of thread, a hint of iridescence.

her color palette is usually deep blues (indigo, midnight, sapphire), purples (lavender, violet, plum), silvers, whites, creams, and blacks. she avoids reds and golds—those are too bold, too attention-seeking. her gowns often incorporate gradient effects—fabrics that shift from deep color at the hem to pale at the bodice, creating an ombre effect that mimics sky, water, or light.

fabric & texture are usually silk, satin, chiffon, tulle, velvet—soft, flowing fabrics that catch light and move beautifully. her gowns are layered, often with sheer overlays, delicate embroidery, and subtle metallic threading that catches light without being garish.

embellishments are minimal but intentional. embroidery in silver, white, or pale blue thread, creating patterns that mimic stars, constellations, or abstract wind currents. metallic accents—a silver belt, a delicate chain, a clasp at the shoulder. beading along the bodice or sleeves—small, delicate, catching light subtly. sheer overlays that add depth and movement without overwhelming the base gown.

when attending outdoor events or traveling to formal gatherings, she wears a flowing cloak or cape in a complementary color—often deep blue, silver, or black. the cloak is secured with a decorative clasp (often a dragon motif or geometric design) and lined with softer fabric for warmth. low heels or flat embroidered slippers. she refuses to wear anything that limits mobility. if she cannot walk comfortably, she will not wear it.

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ riding & combat attire. Aurenya's riding and combat gear is purely functional. there is no decoration for decoration's sake. every strap, buckle, pouch, and piece of armor serves a purpose. this is not fashion. this is survival equipment.

her color palette is dark and non-reflective: black, charcoal gray, deep brown. she avoids anything that catches light or makes noise. stealth matters. visibility is a liability.

her gear is modular and adaptable—pieces can be added or removed depending on mission type, weather, and threat level. she does not wear the same configuration every time. she adjusts. fitted, moisture-wicking shirt in black or dark gray, with long sleeves and a high collar. the fabric is breathable, flexible, and designed to move with her body without chafing or restricting.

a reinforced leather chest piece that covers her torso from collarbone to hips, with articulated panels that allow bending and twisting. the armor is lightweight but durable, designed to absorb impact without adding bulk. the chest piece has built-in attachment points—straps, loops, buckles—for adding pouches, sheaths, or additional protective elements.

leather bracers on both forearms, reinforced with metal strips along the outer edge. the bracers are adjustable, with multiple straps and buckles, and they protect against blade strikes, rope burn, and impact. sometimes she adds shoulder guards—small, articulated pieces that protect the joint without limiting range of motion.

reinforced trousers in black or charcoal, with armored plates sewn into the thighs and shins. the plates are thin, flexible, and made from layered leather or lightweight metal. they protect without restricting movement. she wears a tactical harness around her hips and thighs—a system of straps and pouches that holds knives, rope, tools, and small supplies. the harness is adjustable and can be reconfigured depending on mission needs.

combat boots—knee-high, black, with reinforced toes, steel-toed soles, and multiple straps for support. the boots have hidden sheaths for small blades and are designed for climbing, running, and long periods of wear.

full-fingered tactical gloves in black leather, with reinforced knuckles, padded palms, and textured grip. she can draw a bow, hold a sword, or grip dragon harnesses without slipping. also hexed them so she don’t sweat and they match the weather she’s in so her hands don’t freeze.

a short, hooded cloak in black or charcoal, designed to break up her silhouette and provide camouflage in low light. the cloak is secured with a quick-release clasp so it can be dropped instantly if it becomes a liability.

the most critical piece. her dragon rider harness is custom-fitted, made from reinforced leather and metal, with attachment points that secure her to Serynth during flight. the harness distributes weight evenly, prevents slipping during sharp maneuvers, and includes emergency release mechanisms in case she needs to detach mid-flight. the harness is decorated with personal symbols—small, engraved metal plates, embroidered patches, or runic etchings. these are not decorative. they are markers of identity. other riders recognize them.

✧˖*°࿐𝑷𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍

დ࿐ ‎˗ˋ personality. ·˚๑ 𓂃 › Aurenya is deeply observant in a way that borders on invasive—not intentionally, but naturally. she does not look at people and see what they present. she sees what they imply. the hesitation in their voice. the tension in their posture. the things they don’t say.

this makes her incredibly perceptive, but also distant. because once you start seeing people that clearly, it becomes difficult to engage with them at a surface level. she is emotionally intelligent, but not emotionally available—at least not at first. she understands feelings with precision, but she does not offer her own easily. there is a layer of control there, not because she is cold, but because she is careful.

underneath that control is intensity. she feels deeply—more deeply than she allows most people to realize. but she processes those feelings internally, turning them into thought, into strategy, into something useful rather than something visible.

she is also quietly humorous. not in a loud or obvious way, but in the way she delivers cutting observations with a soft smile, or says something brutally honest in a tone that makes it sound almost polite. her humor isn’t meant to entertain—it’s meant to reveal.

there is also a sharp edge to her honesty. she knows how to lie when necessary, and she is good at it, but she prefers not to. the truth, to her, is cleaner. more efficient. the only reason she filters herself is because she understands the consequences of not doing so.

and then there is the part of her that is relentlessly hard on herself. nothing she does ever feels like enough. no success settles. no achievement sticks. there is always something she could have done better, faster, more precisely. this isn’t insecurity in the traditional sense—it’s a constant internal pressure to refine, to improve, to be more. it drives her. it also exhausts her.

Aurenya does not chase attention, but attention tends to settle on her anyway. in formal settings, she is composed, controlled, and unexpectedly refined. she understands etiquette not as performance, but as structure—another system to read and navigate. she knows exactly how much to say, when to speak, when to remain silent, and how to carry herself in a way that commands respect without demanding it.

but she does not tolerate disrespect. there is a limit to her patience, and when it is crossed, she does not explode—she withdraws, sharpens, and responds with precision. her anger is quiet, which makes it far more intimidating than something loud.

with people she trusts, she is different. still composed, still observant—but softer in ways that are subtle rather than obvious. she allows closeness in controlled amounts. physical contact, quiet presence, shared silence. she doesn’t always say what she feels, but she shows it in small, deliberate ways.

with children and animals, she becomes unexpectedly steady. not overly gentle, not indulgent—but clear. she doesn’t talk down to them. she doesn’t coddle. she meets them where they are, and they respond to that.

დ࿐ ‎˗ˋ skills. ·˚๑ 𓂃 › Aurenya learns through pattern recognition and repetition. she doesn’t just practice something—she internalizes it, breaks it down, rebuilds it until it becomes instinct.

her combat style reflects this. she is not the strongest physically, but she is fast, precise, and difficult to predict. she reads movement before it fully happens, reacts before most people realize they need to.

archery suits her perfectly because it aligns with her perception. distance, timing, trajectory—she understands all of it intuitively. a bow in her hands is less a weapon and more an extension of her awareness. her swordsmanship is controlled rather than aggressive. efficient movements. minimal wasted energy. she doesn’t fight to overwhelm—she fights to end things quickly.

outside of combat, her intelligence is broad and layered. she retains information quickly, often to the point where it feels like she never forgets anything. history, magic theory, cultural systems, languages—she absorbs knowledge easily, especially when it connects to something larger.

her spiritual sensitivity adds another dimension entirely. she doesn’t just perceive the physical world—she reads what lingers beneath it. residual energy, emotional imprints, subtle disturbances. this makes her exceptionally good at understanding situations without direct involvement. it also means she is rarely ever truly “off.”

დ࿐ ‎˗ˋ hobbies. ·˚๑ 𓂃 › she builds spaces for herself—reading nests, quiet corners, places layered with blankets, soft textures, dim lighting. these are not just for comfort. they are controlled environments where her mind can finally slow down.

her love for rare books and historical weaponry reflects her fascination with the past—not in a nostalgic way, but in an analytical one. she wants to understand how things worked, how people thought, how systems evolved.

there is also something deeply personal in her collection of ritual knives. not for violence, but for meaning. each one represents a culture, a practice, a belief system. she treats them with respect.

her creative outlets—drawing, writing, music—are quieter expressions of things she doesn’t say out loud. singing especially is something she does when she thinks no one is listening. it’s one of the few times she allows herself to be unguarded.

and then there’s movement. late-night rides, both on horseback and with Serynth, are less about travel and more about release. motion is where she processes. where everything settles into place.

დ࿐ ‎˗ˋ habits. ·˚๑ 𓂃 › she taps her fingers when thinking, especially when processing something complex. it’s not restless—it’s rhythmic, like she’s aligning her thoughts physically.

she clenches her fists when she’s holding something back, whether it’s words or emotion. it’s one of the few visible tells she has.

she hums under her breath when she’s comfortable or focused, usually without noticing she’s doing it. when she listens to music, her foot taps almost constantly, like she’s syncing herself to the rhythm.

she adjusts her jewelry when she’s thinking or slightly anxious, grounding herself through touch. when she laughs—really laughs—she covers her mouth, not out of insecurity, but out of habit, like it’s something she’s not used to doing openly.

დ࿐ ‎˗ˋ quirks. ·˚๑ 𓂃 › Aurenya has a tendency to startle people simply because they don’t hear her approaching. she moves quietly without trying, and it creates an almost ghost-like effect.

she smiles when she insults someone—not mockingly, but calmly, which somehow makes it worse. her eyes and nose twitch slightly when she’s irritated, one of the few cracks in her composure.

she has a habit of licking her lips when thinking or focusing, a small, absent-minded motion that becomes noticeable once someone sees it.

she hates harsh lighting. overhead lights feel wrong to her—too exposed, too artificial. she prefers lamps, candles, softer illumination that doesn’t overwhelm her senses.

when she’s truly upset or angry, she goes quiet. not cold—just absent. like she’s pulled inward completely. and when she does cry, which is rare in front of others, it’s not subtle. it’s overwhelming, like something held back for too long finally breaking through.

she is also surprisingly tactile with people she trusts—holding hands, leaning slightly closer than expected—but only in controlled, intentional ways.

✧˖*°࿐𝑨𝒃𝒊𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒆𝒔

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ Aura: blue-purple-and slight white, Wavering Haze — Irregular Variant with a light to iridescent tone.

in the future it will be a blue-purple-white Irregular Aurora — Stormwoven Variant with an Iridescent tone with emerging Adularescence traces.

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ Aura Abilites : water control, lighting control and resistance, runic languages. ⚔︎ ˚ — blue. precise targeting, area control, and environmental manipulation. she can sense distortions in Aether flow, making her exceptional at detecting hidden threats and navigating storms. ⚔︎ ˚ — purple. read residual memory from spaces, access short fragments of others’ experiences, and interpret emotional echoes. extend memory duration, reconstruct events more clearly, and disrupt perception by interfering with cognitive processing. ⚔︎ ˚ — white. attract astral entities more easily, form contracts faster, and interact with spiritual planes without as much resistance.

ཧོ٠࣪˚࿔ 𝑰𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒂𝒍 𝑪𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 (𝑷𝒐𝒔𝒕-𝑩𝒐𝒏𝒅, 𝑬𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒚 𝑹𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑷𝒉𝒂𝒔𝒆)

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ Field Type: Wavering Haze — Irregular Variant

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ Resonance Colors: Blue / Purple (primary) with faint White undertone

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ Tone: Light–Iridescent

when Aurenya first bonds with Serynth, her Resonance Field doesn’t stabilize into a clean category. it resembles a Wavering Haze, but it behaves… wrong.

instead of smooth, predictable wave patterns, her field moves like overlapping tides—layers of motion that don’t fully sync, yet never clash. it feels like watching multiple currents pass through the same space without disturbing each other.

her Blue alignment manifests immediately. she becomes hyper-aware of positioning, distance, and environmental flow—especially in the air. not just spatial awareness, but situational reading. she doesn’t just see where things are—she understands where they will be.

her Purple begins quieter but deeper. she starts picking up residual impressions without trying. not full memories—just fragments. Emotions left behind in places. the “afterimage” of events. this blends dangerously well with her natural perceptiveness.

and then there’s the White undertone. it’s faint. most people wouldn’t notice it. but things notice her. not aggressively. not in a haunting way. just… awareness. as if she exists slightly closer to the edge of the astral than most Riders.

her tone being Light–Iridescent means she adapts quickly. her control develops fast—but there are moments, especially under stress, where her output exceeds what she should be capable of.

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ How Her Abilities Manifest. her magic doesn’t come out as raw force. it comes out as interaction. lightning doesn’t strike—it threads. water doesn’t crash—it flows around intent.

she doesn’t overpower environments. she moves with them, subtly redirecting. storms, especially, respond to her in strange ways. not obedience—but cooperation. this is where Serynth’s influence begins to show.

ཧོ٠࣪˚࿔ 𝑬𝒗𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆𝒅 𝑪𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 (𝑬𝒙𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒅 𝑹𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒓 / 𝑨𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝑺𝒎𝒐𝒌𝒆 𝑹𝒖𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒓)

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ Field Type: Irregular Aurora — Stormwoven Variant

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ Resonance Colors: Blue / Purple / White (fully realized)

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ Secondary Expression: Electric Cyan / Deep Violet flares

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ Tone: Iridescent with emerging Adularescence traces

at this stage, Aurenya stops fitting into any stable classification. her field becomes an Irregular Aurora, but unlike typical ones, hers doesn’t just shift—it responds to external stimuli.

storm nearby? her field sharpens, becoming more electric. residual energy present? it softens, deepens, becomes more perceptive. it’s not just adapting to her emotions. it’s adapting to the world around her.

⚔︎ ˚ — Blue Evolves → Spatial Awareness → Flow Mapping. she no longer just understands space. she understands movement within space over time. air currents, shifting pressure, storm rotations—she reads them instinctively. on flight, this makes her almost impossible to predict.

this is why she excels as a Smoke Runner. not because she’s fast. because she’s always exactly where she needs to be.

⚔︎ ˚ — Purple Evolves → Memory Sighting → Residual Echoing. this becomes one of her most defining traits. she can now: read emotional imprints from environments in detail, reconstruct fragments of past events, and sense disturbances in natural flow (like something wrong happened there)

but more importantly? she can do it without direct contact. it just… happens. spaces talk to her.

⚔︎ ˚ — White Evolves → Astral Affinity → Threshold Sensitivity. Aurenya doesn’t summon entities like traditional White-aligned Riders. she doesn’t need to. she exists in a state where the boundary between physical and astral is thinner around her.

she can feel presences, yes—but more importantly, she can refuse them. her rules? they hold. because her field doesn’t invite. it defines terms.

ཧོ٠࣪˚࿔ 𝑬𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝑬𝒙𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏

her elements don’t feel separate. they feel like states of the same system. lightning is her precision. water is her adaptation.

when combined, they create something unique: Stormthreading. she doesn’t throw lightning. she guides it. she doesn’t control water. she lets it carry her intent.

in combat or flight, this looks like: lightning bending along her movement path, mist forming around her to obscure presence, rain shifting direction subtly as she moves. it’s not flashy destruction. it’s controlled inevitability.

ཧོ٠࣪˚࿔ 𝑯𝒆𝒓 𝑻𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝑬𝒗𝒐𝒍𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ࣪𖤝.ִֶָ٠࣪ Iridescent → Partial Adularescence

at some point—likely through a major emotional threshold—her Resonance Field begins to show adularescent qualities. not fully. but enough. she doesn’t “learn” complex techniques. she arrives at them.

Honestly the two of them saved that content and Yeosang really shined. It's just a shame because when you contrast the sort of calm and easiness that Minsang achieved, with the vibes the rest gave off, it does not make Ateez as a whole particularly appealing. Which is... Not Great, especially since variety content plays a big part in what gets viral/included in short form content that has big potential to draw more fans in.

That being said, I'm so excited to see how Yeosang and Mingi develop, both individually and as a friendship duo. It would just be nice if they were able to shine without being sidelined or disregarded by the rest :/ nonetheless! i hope they continue to stand their own.

(Thank you for that write up about them, it was really enjoyable to read.)

I enjoyed making that post, so I'm glad you liked reading it!

This was the character set up that they were supposed to enact, and as you point out, they dropped very quickly and didn't much bother with.

I'm sure there's a translation on the video itself, but basically the 'characters' they set up for the Ateez Family Cousins Personalities were all crap, and demonstrate a reductive view of these guys that's reminiscent of some of the most unfortunate and clumsy ways that KQ itself has played with the Idol personas of its star group.

Hongjoong is the "controlling" cousin, but this only highlights Hongjoong's unfortunate tendency to kill 'bits' by naysaying them in the service of bringing order. Seonghwa is supposed to be "the immature one that knows a lot of memes," but Seonghwa is 4th dimensional, not childish, and his face doesn't allow for that sort of mood without great effort. Yunho is the "successful" cousin - because I guess he's the most conventionally handsome? But like, that's why a lot of Atiny find him boring, this 'good boy' cover thing he does. And he's trying to break out of this. Yeosang is the 4th Dimensional cousin (i.e. weirdo) - this is so dismissive. San is the one "addicted to" trends. Mingi "says only facts" which in a Korean context is insulting- it implies that he lacks situational awareness, social charm and empathy. Wooyoung is "loving, despite his rough tongue" - why does the scriptwriter sound like a verbally abused partner making excuses for their abuser?!? Is this meant as a warning to Wooyoung to mind his tongue?!? And Jongho is "the youngest but is the most like an elder brother" - again, another dead-on-arrival character, in the vein of Hongjoong's 'character' which gives Jongho no opportunity to let his cuteness, fierceness or sense of humor shine.

Does anyone who is a stan of this group, or biases any of these members or has them in a bias line, find this inspiring?? This looks lazy as fuck to me and moreover, slapped together by someone who doesn't actually know or care about any of the following: (1) what persona their stars are actually trying to cultivate, currently OR (2) what the public, however you define it, want from that star OR (3) what's been the most memorable, likeable or funny moments of the side-content they've put out OR (4) what the particular Idol might actually be good at OR (5) what is actually possible to express in this format where they're all trying to cook a tricky dessert without a proper kitchen available.

Going a bit deeper purely from a Yunho bias pov - "a successful" cousin, implying the one that is the most conventionally successful and makes the most money gives Yunho absolutely nothing to do. In his budding-actor way, Yunho tries on a condescending stick-in-mud character, in broad strokes, but like, who wants to see Yunho do this? He usually uses these KQ productions to get really really offbeat (the bizarre KQ song, the self-ass slapping that destroyed everyone, dancing Troublemaker with Mingi).

Come ON KQ. Do betterrrrrr. Surely- ABSOLUTELY- Ateez is more important to KQ than Enhypen is to Hybe (you know, that also has BTS and Cortis to look after) and yet Enhypen content doesn't make its guys look lost or inaccurately present them as assholes.