vesuvian nights

Studio Ghibli + The Arcana ✨

I actually finished this before midnight so it counts.

Happy birthday, Nadia!

Modern AU Nadia

I had so many outfits planned for Nadia in modern settings and i finally did (kinda)!

Quickie

I love asra sm I just /clenches fist/ love angst

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Going back to digital drawing and practicing with Nopal Asra ^^

Inktober Day 5 - For this one I switched momentarily to the Arcana Inktober’s list by Sybilmarlowe and Oreyuki_sumiko (on Instagram) : “Drew your fav character with their Masquerade outfit” - couldn’t resist to that prompt ^^

☁Main 6 x Reader - Cupid!MC

I don’t know if you’re looking for Classical Roman Cupid or Christianized Twink Angel Cupid, but I’m going with the former. suffice to say MC is not a chubby winged baby. fluff, a little angst.

💘 💘 💘 💘

You’re supposed to watch the mortals from afar, but it’s hard to get to know them that way, so you’ve mastered the art of disguise. You’re the wind in the grass, the sunlight on their window, the hummingbird buzzing around the flowers that hang from the ceiling of his shop. If they looked closely enough, they might get a feeling about you, a sense of awe, or recognize the pattern of stripes from your wings that seems to repeat in odd places - the images painted on their pottery, the ripples in a fountain, the strange stray cat that circles the block. But mortals don’t have time to look closely at anything, leaving you free to observe, to listen, to learn their heart and point them to what it needs. 

Sometimes.

Asra - the magician

He’s brilliant, but flaky, sweet, but guarded, and you’re running yourself ragged trying to find him a match. Too grounded, and they’ll tie him down–too wild, and they’ll never see each other.

So you get tired. A little sloppy. You use the same disguise too many times. And as it turns out, there is one mortal who looks closer than most. One day, you’re sitting oh-so-innocently on his windowsill, in the shape of a bleeding-heart dove (Venus thinks it’s hilarious), while he mixes up potions and hums to himself. The breeze kicks up, blowing some of his herbs right out the window. 

“Damn.” And he looks right at you, so casual, but that unmistakable spark of mischief in his eye. “Could you get that for me?” 

Sure, you could pretend, feign innocence by reason of bird, but the jig is up, and you know Asra won’t let you off the hook that easy. You pick up the herbs, close his window, and manifest right there in his kitchen.  

He is fascinated by you, asking you thousands of questions and even taking notes. You have to remind him to sleep, or he’ll stay up all night marveling at your wings, begging you for stories and gossip about the other gods. 

You show him your bow. He examines your arrows, holds a hand over them to feel their power, carefully, carefully picks one up - you don’t have to tell him how potent their magic is. The arrowheads are like precious stones, but they don’t even look sharp. They don’t have to be.

“What if you’re wrong?” he asks. “What if they aren’t a good match?”

“Then the arrow won’t stick,” you tell him. 

He grins. “So there’s no danger if I do…this?” 

The arrowhead just nips at your wrist, a prick like a hot needle followed by a tiny bubble of golden ichor, and a warmth stirring in your chest. Asra stares.

Oops.

Julian - the physician

is driving you crazy. You can’t count how many matches you’ve sent him - sexy, smart, charming people with invisible arrows in their backs, all primed and ready to fall in love - and he never bites. They chat, they flirt, they even fuck, but if he feels the spark of your magic, he never follows up on it. 

He has an air about him. It’s not just the “healing touch”, as he so calls it, with a crooked smile and the waggle of an eyebrow. He can make people smile on the worst days of their life, make them laugh when they’ve lost more than they ever thought they had. 

And yet he spends most nights scribbling incomprehensibly in his journals, drawing diagrams, and talking to his pet raven. 

You try to reach out, but he hardly ever sleeps, so you have to hatch a deal with a friend to send him sleep, then you can send him a dream. A single dinghy on a peaceful sea. You know he likes the ocean. The gentle breeze whispers, Love will find you soon. Open your arms, and your heart will follow suit. 

A little too obvious? Maybe. You’re not the god of prophecy. 

In the dream, his face falls. His shoulders slump. He looks out over the endless water and whispers, I’m not ready.

Oh, no.

In the dream, he sighs. I haven’t done enough.

Well, how in Pluto’s cold dark pits are you supposed to fix that?

You call in more favors. Keep sending him sleep (insomnia doesn’t help anyone), but others, too. Mars gives you some soldiers he stitched up, and you nudge them back to him. Some of them thank him, some of them fix up his house or drop off a loaf of bread. No charge for the good doctor.

It saps your energy, running all over the worlds–it’ll all be worth it if it works–and you can barely keep up your disguise. It slips when you’re stopping to rest after a trip to Apollo’s temple, searching for more patients he’s saved. You can’t keep up the shape of the neighbor’s cat anymore–you have to duck behind the clinic and hope for the best. 

“Holy–” 

A crate of medicines crashes to the ground. He stares at you, awestruck. 

You’re too tired for decorum. You tell him, flat-out, what you’ve been trying to do, how it’ll be so easy to find him a match when he’s so kind and funny and good, if he could just get through his thick skull that he’s worth it–

What comes out is, “I’m right here! Aren’t you ready yet?”

He blushes. 

Nadia - the senator

She’s elegant, radiant, smart as a whip. Plenty of people would be a wonderful match for her, and they’d be better for it–but they’re intimidated by her status, and even your arrows can’t help them get over that hump. Plenty of people think they’d be a good match for her, “cut her down to size”, and that’s a recipe for disaster. You’re prepared to fend them off. With a domain like love, it’s not often you get to unleash some good old-fashioned divine retribution. 

She’s waving off a marriage proposal from some soldier who can’t take a hint, leering and trying to touch her. She tells him in no uncertain terms that she is not interested, and never will be. His expression darkens–

Eekeeekeekeekee.

His next words come out as a dolphin’s chatter. He tries again–keekeekeekee. Nadia covers her mouth, trying not to laugh. Onlookers are not so polite. Drifting by on the breeze, you smile, and the stubborn soldier runs out on a chorus of laughter. 

As the courtyard clears, she looks around, brilliant red eyes sparkling like rubies, and smiles. “Thank you.”

Smart as a whip.

She starts talking to you, when she’s alone. You don’t think she can sense you, not at first, but over time, she can pick up on your mood, though she doesn’t know it’s you rustling through the trees, listening under the oil of the painting on the wall. You bristle with annoyance when she talks about her overprotective sisters, and she rolls her eyes. “I know, I know…”

She confides in you, when she’s alone. She spends an awful lot of time alone, and she knows it. “I should be out in the town, in the baths, shopping, seeing plays…but it all feels…empty.”

Whispering on the breeze, for the first time, you talk back. Lonely?

She smiles, closing her eyes, laying a hand over her heart as your voice wraps around her. “Not anymore.” 

Muriel - the outlander

The former fighter who lives at the edge of town is, unsurprisingly, a tough nut to crack. You know he isn’t the type to fall for a mysterious stranger - he needs someone familiar, someone he knows. 

The problem is, he doesn’t know anyone.

You decide to level with him. You appear to him, in a clearing in the forest, tell him who you are–although he could’ve guessed–and why he’s seeing you. He just stares, over the initial shock, but frozen in disbelief. It’s a long, long time before he says anything, but that’s not unusual. 

“In love? …Me?”

It’ll be wonderful, you promise, if he just takes the time to meet someone new–and that’s where he shuts down. Ugh. You follow him back to his little cabin. His dog–is that a wolf?–growls at you as you try to explain how humans aren’t all bad, the city isn’t so scary, there’s so much beauty in town if he’s willing to–

“Do you…want some eggs?” 

Eggs? 

He has a fire going on the hearth, heating a flat stone, and a cloth-lined basket of brown eggs. He has the god of love in his cabin, and he is offering you breakfast.

They’re good eggs. 

Portia - the baker

She lives above a tavern, she makes phenomenal bread, and she really, really, really wants to fall in love. 

There’s more bread in your own home than you know what to do with–sweet, sticky raisin buns, spicy braided loaves, cheesy bread studded with roasted garlic–because she has her own personal shrine in her kitchen, and every batch she makes, she breaks off a hunk for you. On her day off, you get wine. 

“Even gods get thirsty,” she says to herself with a wink, lighting a homemade candle. 

The flowers are your favorite. She likes sweet peas the best, but she lays all kinds on your altar, primroses and daffodils and hyacinths. “I don’t need that kind of love story,” she promises when she sends you the last one. “I just think they’re pretty.” Their sweet, springy scent lingers on you. 

You ask Venus when you can start looking for Portia’s match, and she shakes her head. “Not yet.”

Then the letters start. She lights them with the candle and lets them burn in a little glass chalice, and the words appear in shimmering letters before you wherever you are. 

Will I know the right one when I see them? Or do I just have to guess?

I suppose I have to have faith, right? 

It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that I’m kind of a catch, so don’t slack, okay? 

You laugh. You keep the letters and read them over and over, to make yourself smile when your current assignments are stressful, or just because. 

You bring Venus a basket of rolls, golden-brown and flavored with cardamom. Before you can ask, she nods. “Go get her.”

“I can start looking?” 

She smiles. “I don’t think you have to.”

Lucio - the soldier

“Are you sure about this one?” Venus asks. She’s not buying it, but she doesn’t understand mortals until they’re in love. You’re the one who has to get them there. “Does he actually…have a heart?” 

You think so. When you hang around his camp as a dove, you see him leaving crumbs for the real birds, baby-talking the sight hounds. But with other humans…that remains to be seen.

Plenty of people are interested in him, fawning over the armor, the battle scars, the smirk, but none of them are a match. And he doesn’t really seem to mind - he likes the attention, drinks it up like a snake in the sunshine, but he barely remembers half their names. 

Birds and cats don’t always fare so well in the military quarters, so you’ve taken to disguising yourself as a fellow soldier, low-ranking, nondescript so as not to draw attention. One day, he’s missing from the barracks, and you go out to the dog run to look for him. Before you know it, there’s a shortsword at your throat.

“Thought I wouldn’t notice you following me, didn’t you?”

How did he sneak up on you? 

You tell him. Everything. He laughs and sheaths his sword. You try to tell him how hard it’s been, and he seems to enjoy it. 

“I could’a told you–it won’t be easy to find someone worthy of me.”

You roll your eyes. “There may be no one so…fortunate…on earth.”

He looks you up and down, one stenciled brow cocked. “Who said you’d find ‘em on earth?” 

What?