#zephrahs

SHE TRULY CANNOT UNDERSTAND HOW ANYONE FINDS A HOME HERE ; THE WINDS ARE CRUEL, and the ice in the very air crueller still, each breath slicing daggers beneath the warmth of her chest. Still, small price to pay with the thought of what may be to come – and as gaze flickers above the stormy clouds of the coming winter, at the disappearing silhouettes of her children taken to the skies ( if only to hunt, while they still might be free ) she’s all too conscious of the approaching figure at her right, the flash of crimson doing little for subtlety when compared to the porcelain of the landscape around them.

Brow quirks as her frame lingers at the edge of the hill – in the distance, Winterfell is visible, and at the stature ever closer now, her chin turns briefly to where she thinks might be North. She’s only been beyond the Wall once, herself, and it had almost cost her everything ; any who might thrive in the wilderness there, who might have been raised within it, is not one to be taken lightly.

        Keyleth screams, and the sky cracks open  ----  a growing roar of thunder twinned to the call of pain that she releases, high and rough-edged and keening, beckoning some pain that he cannot access.  It happens in a split second, three, four  ----  an impossible scythe of lightning that swings downward, arcing from tree to rock to her back, spine alight, the searing glare held within her fingertips, within her palms, and she does not burn.  Caleb had known that Keyleth held power  ----  that much was clear from the very first druidcraft she'd woven, from the blinding daylight she could summon with a word, the fierce animals which stretched her nails into claws, her hands and shoulders to stone and fire  ----  but this is something beyond, something on the edge of belief were he not to have seen it with his own, smarting eyes.

        Rising unsteadily from the ground, half-crouched with caution and an wavering step, an afterimage lingers in Caleb's eyes as he blinks back the watering from the brightness  ----  a globe of energy in her hands now dissipated  ----  and leans down, crouches to be close to the familiar eyes of his friend, finally turning from snowy white to a wide, warm brown.  He's unsure what to do as she reaches up  ----  freezes, a hand coming up nearly to the hair that escapes its binding at the nape of his neck, hanging unevenly about his face  ----  but she stops herself, violently, eyes screwed shut.

        The name that falls from her lips may be unfamiliar  ----  something keen mind keeps for later, waits and holds  ----  but the words that follow hit like a dull blow, the final gasp of an impact.  Even after they're spoken, memory serves, fills in when they'd fallen from his own tongue  ----  repeated, again and again, and he wonders now if he looked this haunted then, Keyleth's gaze wandering both at and through him, at once here, now, and at someone, unseen, just over his shoulder.

        No, no  ----  just in his place, Keyleth's eyes having briefly met his own, before they shut again, with something he's never seen pass between them, foreign and strange.  Gathered to herself, she becomes herself again  ----  and not for the first time, Caleb finds himself near-frozen, unsure what to do and stumbling through it.

intellectuals love both ocs equally but also true mikhail stans know ulrich is secretly #1

ULRICH……..

✘ || Brian David Gilbert Starters || Accepting || @zephrahs

Armir hesitates. He had spun up the beginnings of fire within his open palms turned skyward - her voice stopping him right in his plans.

     @zephrahs​ cast message:   flesh to stone. ~ oh, the drama.   

               the shock of the impact steals away precious seconds before he can get a sense of what is happening to him, stiffness and shift in the hue of his pale skin making a home in the structure of his flesh before he knows to react. he’s too slow, and by the time he realises what he should be doing, it’s just a second too late, and the foot doesn’t lift from the ground---in panic, he starts counting the seconds passing in the back of his head before he’ll be fully stone. he empties his palm’s worth of firebolts into his assailant, but the death doesn’t stop the loss of sense digging up his body  ( there’s a moment when the image of the fire flickering out on the body before him threatens to turn into something else---he stares to the sky and listens to the silence until he’s clearheaded again;  time for that later, he swears he hears ).

                  “  help.  ”     it’s too quiet, too used to making sure he speaks over no one in more of a need dire than his own, so he tries again:     “  help.  ”

                                             @zephrahs​ - tarot meme                                                                    strength

there’s a moment where beau feels like she’s in limbo. something had been cast on her, she knew that much, and she squeezed her eyes shut as a reaction. she felt the effect of whatever it was try to grip at her mind and she squeezed her eyes shut tighter. she forced herself to take a deep breath, though, and try to clear her head, focus on what was going on now, think of the waves at nicodranas and jester in that dress.

she blinked as she felt the effect wash over her, but not hold on as she was able to shrug it off. she took a moment to try to remember what was going on around her. right-- she was fighting some weird ass creature in the woods when some stranger came to help her. she didn’t know who the fuck this person was but, hey, if she was going to help her kill this thing, she wasn’t going to argue.

DDDD: OH NO