#v; default

a light drizzle meets thorndil, skies above the city awash with streaks of green and blue. the day has been quieter than most as of late, the excitment of conflict to the east of which her parents had saved the lady myra from imprisonment having finally passed. though worrying talk had still plagued her mind. images of dark armies morphing into a kind of dark plague washing over the land in her dreams. myra's talk of things she had seen had had brought forth hushed tones among court of a time foretold even if many did not give such credence. they had always believed such a threat would come from the unknown reaches to the north not the east. lyliana wished her brother was there, for at least she'd have him to speak with for as rash as he could be at times he always seemed able to quell her fears and chase her nightmares away if only just by providing a comforting embrace. of course she could have spoken to sir ben but.. despite how silly such a thought was she didn't want him to think her weak for having such fears. he'd always been her most loyal friend and it had usually been her thrusting them into danger-- even if said danger was merely mingling secretly with the peoples of the city or venturing into the darhk forest when young. she'd always appeared the princess she was supposed to be, strong and brave. not a silly girl with nightmares of a time that perhaps would never come to pass in the first place.

darkness begins to meet the sky awhile later, the sun lowering as the twin moons appear just past the rings and she wonders what the sky might look like far way as she stands near the window of her chambers. she's heard tales the planets rings look different elsewhere, altering the whole look of the sky. <we could go there one day, i've seen it, i can show you.> the thought is projected into her mind from apo, blue hues washing over the city as she sees the dragon, his morph first dark and then turning golden as he soared above buildings and toward the dragon pits to rest. <maybe one day but not today. i think sir poe is still recovering from my last unexpected excursion. maybe sir ben is too.> she projects back, smiling. the tension in her shoulders eases and she decides to go in search of her youngest brother. one of her guard outside her door acknowledges her and she frowns slightly at the unexpectedness of who it is. wasn't sir ramsey supposed to be her guard for the evening? she had made a point to know of such things, determined that she was kind and friendly to all her guards and not just the one she'd grown up with. lyliana questions such being informed sir ramsey had been ill and required a healer, perhaps having eaten something which had not agreed with him. she has no reason to question it, further stating that she should visit him in the infirmary following finding prince cormac.

her door remains open still when strange sounds begin to emit through the palace. there's a scream that causes her pause, then metal clanking far down the corridor. alarm creases her features as sir edris moves closer to her, seemingly to usher her back inside her room, however he grabs her arm instead all pretense lost and a strange darkness covering his eyes like black glass. she questions what he's doing, shoving at him as he begins to unsheathe his sword. there's a loud crashing sound somewhere outside the palace, shaking the floor for a moment as if something large has attempted to break into the space. it gives her an opening to yank herself away from sir edris, the large vines outside her window directed toward him as she falls to the floor and he after her. he swings his sword at the vines before attempting to stab at her. he nearly succeeds, a large cut to her arm spilling blood on the floor of her chambers before she rolls away. her vines falter for a moment before she redirects them back toward him and when he attempts to stab her again she sends them through his neck though she's not entirely sure such was what she intended. lyliana doesn't have time to allow herself to comprehend what's just happened or what she's just done, her grabbing at his sword before moving out of her chambers. she's in kind of daze, apo sending her flashes gates opening and a dark army moving into the city though she can not quite muster actual words to send to him or understand fully what he's trying to communicate to her other than there was no means for a dragon to enter the castle so a dragon wasn't going to save her from whatever was happening.

another person, a knight for twins sake charges at her, the same look in his features, and she raises the sword against him. she may not be as skilled as jayson or ben when it comes to swordplay but she knows enough. she needs to get to her brother. to her mother and her father. but first her brother. he'd be the least able to defend himself. she manages to shove the knight down the stairs before she's moving again. but what she finds when she gets to cormac's chambers sends a chill through her body. his guards are dead outside the ajar door and she nearly drops the sword then and there despite the sounds of conflict coming from all directions now. her footfalls are slow, too slow, as she pushes the door open and it's then the worst and most blood-curling shrill scream escapes her. she moves into the space, nearly falling onto the queen and prince's bodies on the floor, her mother's lifeless body protectively over her brothers. blood, too much blood littering them. the sword falls as she shakes her mother first and then her brother but.. there was no life left in them. she can't breathe. she can't think. they have to come back. they have to. this wasn't real. it couldn't be.

her scream, or was it screams? not even she knows have attracted attention, two men who she recognizes as having seemingly been imprisoned with myra before her parents saved her appearing in the doorway. they don't have the same darkness washing over their eyes but they do have hate and malice in them. they move into her brother's chambers and she scrambles for the sword trying to protect her mother and brother unable to accept them truly fallen. but they are larger than her, quicker, and their sight is not clouded by tears. she tries to strike out at them but the sword is knocked from her, one of them, the one without a sword so that his hands were free grabs her as the other with his back toward the door seeks to stab her too. in the distance her dragon screeches violently over the city, sound booming given his size and age as he like the now fallen dragon of her brother's tries to break through a palace wall with fire and sheer force of his body.

elena did not like being forced to do anything. even if the anything in question was taking out an old one who had plagued her past and killed her high school classmates. alright, perhaps she would have accepted such a mission either way but the guardians hadn't known that and had they killed damon she wasn't sure if she would have cared. they'd known her well enough over the years to realize elena had a mind of her own. oh they'd attempted to make her a blank slate once, a doll in their own image and how well that had worked for them? a week. a week it had taken her to regain her full memories, elena's will, her stubbornness, her capacity to love her friends had overcome any form of control the angelic beings sought to have upon her. she could have refused and faced the consequences of such. let the world burn, let klaus play his games with humans if it had meant she could save stefan or damon. nevermind the fact he'd certainly come for her next anyway.

god, had she wanted to use her advantage to try to get stefan back. what did it make her that she hadn't saved her husband? would they have listened or completely stripped her of her wings of power?

but damon's life had been in the balance and no matter how selfish she wanted to be or how much she wanted to kill damon herself sometimes, no matter how much she wanted stefan back, she couldn't let them kill damon for helping her wreak vengeance upon the man who had killed the love of her life-- his brother. the fact the celestial court couldn't see that henrik was still a vampire even if not in the traditional sense was an outrage. but stefan would never have forgiven her had she saved him at his brother's expense. oh he would have tired but.. he would have been consumed with guilt, with resentment, with a lack of peace that would be no real way to live.

had it been anyone else, she's sure she would have. perhaps that made her a monster too. that elena would have allowed an innocent to burn to save him. but it had not been how things had played out and elena had to deal with the ramifications of it. perhaps one day, in peace she'd find stefan again. perhaps one day she'd find a way to bring him back to her. though she knows, what that road could lead to. she's seen it play out, or at least heard about it from the boys who's bunker she's in right now.

A small wave of white crashed against the ground in front of him just like on that day; only this time, there was no grumpy black wolf, so old his fur was graying under the chin buried under an inch of snow and growling.

The city had been his home, but the streets were no place for his wolf. Even the forest with his shades of greens and brown, or covered in the dark shawl of night, would not welcome a wolf so white. Here he could run, he could play. He could lay down and hide, waiting in the snow, a blanket of endless white until Alec can along, and he could pounce.

Fresh blood marred the front of his coat, along his snout, and Scott had to lick at the warm meat between his teeth to force it down his throat. The body of his kill, the prize of his hunt, a white-tailed deer laid behind him. The belly had been torn open, hot blood bathing the scene as Scott lifted his head and howled a gleeful song into the morning sky.

“YO REPO, LEARN HOW TO BE A GOOD ROOMIE!”

-

The intruder, upon a second glance, looked rather different from the entity. The way the shadow flickered with a life of its own as it left was certainly rather curious, but now wasn’t the time for that.

“Oh, I’m just an Author. I’m doing some research while looking for someone and I happened to catch wind of pieces of your story. Tell me, do you happen to know a man who goes by the name of ‘Dark’? I suppose you might know him as ‘Dante’. He has a scar on his face that makes a somewhat insignificant character memorable.”

Fuck, his awareness passed too quick in his mind for her to catch that. Madison sheepishly poked her head out of the rock. "...Ever wanted to be internet famous?" she joked.

Gazing up at the dark clouds with a furrowed brow, Ritsu absently bit his bottom gently. The smart thing to do would be to call a driver, get someone from the Main House to pick him up, and thus minimize the risk of any...unfortunate accidents. 

Just as he came to his decision, reaching into his pants pocket and grateful for the last minute choice not to wear one of his more elaborate kimonos for this little outing to the city, the Monkey pulled out the device and before he could unlock it, that’s when the gods decided to have a joke at his expense.

There’s a clap of thunder and then it was suddenly pouring. 

People, a small horde of them it looked like, all suddenly came rushing in his general direction. For a second, Ritsu stood and stared like a deer in headlights and then his fight or flight instincts kicked in. Agiley stepping aside, he still ended up being slightly shoulder checked by a hurrying businessman and his phone fell out of his loose hold. He didn’t even have time to attempt to retrieve it before more people started rushing by, and he swiftly abandoned any attempt to try and cut through. 

Instead, he made a beeline directly for the nearest form of shelter, which turned out to be a flower shop, the ‘CLOSED’ sign dashing any hopes of going inside. Pressed up against the brick walls of the shop, the little tented flap draped overhead offering only the slightest of relief. 

Lifting a hand to his hair, he smooths his fingers through the long, wet tendrils, brushing it out of sight, and Ritsu nearly jumped out of his skin when he realizes that he’s not alone in his hiding spot. 

“A-Ah, s-sorry! I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there!”