Aug. 24th, 2019
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“Aphrodite, the queen of the senses, she, born of the sea-foam, is the luminousness of the gleaming senses, the phosphorescence of the sea, the senses become a conscious aim unto themselves; She is the gleaming darkness, she is the luminous night, she is goddess of destruction,”
-
D. H. Lawrence, from Selected Poems and Writings; “The Lemon Gardens,”
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sparklecryptid
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“Aphrodite, the queen of the senses, she, born of the sea-foam, is the luminousness of the gleaming senses, the phosphorescence of the sea, the senses become a conscious aim unto themselves; She is the gleaming darkness, she is the luminous night, she is goddess of destruction,”
-
D. H. Lawrence, from Selected Poems and Writings; “The Lemon Gardens,”
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sparklecryptid(Your picture was not posted)
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silkpearl:
Oscar Carvallo Couture Spring 2013
“I’ve been inspired by the ocean for a lifetime. When I return to Caracas and I walk on the beach, I am always amazed by the impact of the light. Its intensity varies each time and I love the bright reflections that emerge from the water,”
angelrider13 charlottedabookworm sparklecryptid distressedherbalist
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silkpearl:
Oscar Carvallo Couture Spring 2013
“I’ve been inspired by the ocean for a lifetime. When I return to Caracas and I walk on the beach, I am always amazed by the impact of the light. Its intensity varies each time and I love the bright reflections that emerge from the water,”
angelrider13 charlottedabookworm sparklecryptid distressedherbalist(Your picture was not posted)
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angelrider13
…something Regis says to Thalassa, perhaps?
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angelrider13…something Regis says to Thalassa, perhaps?
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lizahempstock:
Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente
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lizahempstock:
Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente
(Your picture was not posted)
Deus Timens Et Liberi Ignem Faciunt (God
Aug. 24th, 2019 08:28 amvia https://ift.tt/2PdKqDP
please-do-your-research:
So again, instead of doing Honors work, I’ve been writing about my Necromancer!Nyx AU. Finally got a title too, which is sorta taken from lyrics from the Sommus song on the soundtrack. The OC I’ve used is one of the names I always use in online games, including FFXIV. Her name is a mix of Quel (which means High in Thalassian, the language of the Blood Elves in WoW) + Laine, which means wave in Finish (apparently), hence High Wave.
this starting part isn’t finished, I still have a section on how demons work (or more importantly, not work) in Galahd, and i will post that sometime later. I actually have to do this work, not procrastinate. Anyhoo, here’s the start of this ‘Verse.
Deus Timens Et Liberi Ignem Faciunt (God feared, as the children lit a fire)
There’s a reason Galahd never had issues with demons.
(salt and sea, hear my plea, guide us to our storm swept land, and let us hear what Etro sang)
One of Nyx’s earliest memory was of a pale grey shade singing a lullaby to his newborn sister, the twisting lilt of the language he would not learn for several years sliding in one ear and out the other.
“She looks so much like your father when I watched him come into this world,’ Grandmother said, wisps of hair that escaped her braids shifting slowly in a breeze only she could feel. ‘but then again, all babies look the same at this age. Even you, my little coeurl king.”
Nyx stared up at her from where he lay on the bed next to his mother and sister, with all the strange solemnity that only a 3-year-old could hold, the end of his first braid caught in his teeth, bead tapping his lips.
Grandmother reached out to tug the braid from his lips, smoothing the ends down.
“Our family’s gift is rare, little one, and you are even more strong and precious for it. You have to look after your sister with all you are.” She tapped him twice on the nose with the bead and Nyx scrunched it at the chill, eyes crossing as he focused on her fingers, “We guard these lands, with the blessings of storm, stone and sea. Etro guides us, as we guide Galahd. You have to guide and guard your sister too little Nyx.”
Nyx nodded, not quite understanding what she meant, but knowing that his little sister was important. The braid and bead migrated back to his mouth. His mother shifting in her sleep, the birth having been long and arduous. She pulled his sister closer to her chest and Nyx awkwardly patted the blanket back down around his mother’s limbs.
Grandmother smiled at him, her pale eyes crinkling at the corners. Beyond the room, he could hear tinkling laughter and quiet murmurs of his family waking up, getting ready to face the day. The pulse of his mothers and sisters’ souls shone bright in his mind, his grandmother’s presence a faded but steady beat. Outside, Nyx could feel the flickering lights of the village pulsate in the ever-growing strength of his power.
“I will be here if you need me, for as long as there are stars in the sky, your family will protect and guide you. Soon you will learn to call on us, and we will answer you, as we did your mother, her father, and his mother all the way back to time immemorial, and just as we will answer your sister when she grows up, and you will answer when your time comes.” She passed her hand over his mother’s brow, then his sisters, murmuring in that same lilting language as before. White light trailed after her hand, pulsing with the words before shattering like star dust. Nyx could feel the magic of the blessing hanging in the air, even if he did not know what it was, and moved closer to his mother to bathe in the lingering warmth. His eyes slipped shut and he reached out to touch one of his sisters’ tiny feet, body shifting slowly towards sleep.
Grandmother smiled down at him again, briefly touching the obsidian bead at the end of his small braid, with its inlays of bloodstone and opal. So strong for one so young.
“Oh you will be the best of us, my little dark godling, and you will command the stars.”
—–
(storm and stone, help guard this land, shield us carefully with Etro’s hand)
“We are lucky you know.”
The one known in the village as the Artisan said, as he continued to spin the pottery wheel and manipulate the pale red clay that shimmered the more he worked it. Around his feet sat a gaggle of children, their parents gifted beads clattering slightly as they moved. Blessings held in hands pressed carefully to hair, love and shelter kissed into foreheads.
“Storm-father blessed us when we came to these lands and allowed us to live here peacefully, to live as one with the earth and sky and all between.” The wheel spun on as his hands moved up the pile of clay, small lumps beginning to form on the surface before sinking back into the mass. A potter from the mainland would have scrapped it as soon as the slag began to show, crying over impure quality clay and failed preparation methods. The Artisan knew better. Soon these children would hold their own blessings moulded from clay, to press stones crafted from their souls into growing hair. One day they would take their first step upon the Walk and receive the blessings of the Fulgurian, but for now, they would learn to give form to their own.
The artisan leaned forward and blew carefully on the clay.
“For this, we give thanks to the Old Man.” The children let out quite sounds of awe as the clay began to shift its colour once again, the shimmer locked in the red clay blooming out and turning the spinning mass silver. Blood and Bone, Sea, Storm and Stone, soon the beads would properly form. From the front of the small crowd, the Artisan could see Nyx and his hearth brother Libertus leaned forward to look at the wheel closer. The usually exuberant children were quiet, Libertus with an almost frustrated crease in his forehead, trying to see exactly what the Artisan was doing. Nyx was a different case, his habitual braid caught in his lips, the Lady’s obsidian, bloodstone and opal bead flashing in the workshops light. The Artisan could see the beginning of understanding in those teenage eyes, eyes that flickered around the Artisans hands as they moulded the clay, watching the play of power as it shifted in the air and was absorbed into the forming beads. He would have made a great crafter, the Artisan thinks, with that power. His beads would have been things of beauty, but alas, he answered to a different calling.
“We are lucky because despite our distance, Stone-father cares for us and gifts us that with what we need to protect ourselves.”
At these words, the Artisan pressed the clay into the shape of a low bowl and reached into the forge beside him with a bare hand, pulling out a well-worn crucible that glowed a bright white yet gave off no heat. Inside, magma bubbled, the black crust bursting and melting back into the red in an ever-rotating cycle. Carefully, with an air of mysticism and the flare of a master at work, the Artisan tipped the crucible above the mass, continuing to push the foot peddle that spun the potter’s wheel as the magma began to pour over the edge.
“For this, we take what we are gifted by the Stone Speaker, and turn it into something useful.”
The magma hit the well, pouring and soaking into the spinning clay. Not a single drop splashed or splattered the hand still moulding the mass which began to shift its colour again. The children let out shocked sounds as silver turned suddenly turned to black, before pulling inwards and leaching the dark colour out of the clay. Inside the suddenly clearing clay, small ovals of darkness shifted around, pulling more and more of the power that the ritual has created into the small beads. The Artisan placed the crucible back in the forge and slowed the spinning of the wheel as he pulled back his other hand from the now clear sphere. Slowly the wheel span to a stop and inside the sphere, black beads shone in the light.
The Artisan carefully plucked the sphere from the wheel and stood up, bones and beads creaking with age. The children backed away from the man as he walked around to the centre of the room. He turned sharply to the closest child, a young girl near 8 years old, limbs slowly shedding baby fat, and handed the sphere to her. She stared up at him, before reaching for it at his nod with trembling hands and wide eyes, barely understanding what was being handed to her.
“Call it, little one. Call it from blood and bone, sea, storm and stone. Call your bead.”
The girl stared at the sphere, eyes flickering between the Artisan, the sphere and the children around her. The Artisan stared calmly back. He could not offer any words of wisdom here; this was her move and her will and her soul that must be ready. Some years, every child called their first bead. But sometimes, there were children who struggled to know themselves, trapped in the circumstances of their birth and early life, holding their hearts back, or shifted like the wind of their patron, not knowing what they could or would do. His mother spoken often of a young man who did not receive his first soul bead until he was in his 20s, well after his first Walk, for his heart was not settled and demanded his feet roamed Eos first. Only the girl could call her beads, no one else. Only the girl would know if she was ready. There was no censure in being unsure, no punishment for not being ready; better to known oneself properly than to believe in lies of the heart.
The girl continued to flick her eyes around, panic forming at the edges and her hands trembled even more. Shudders began to form in her limbs as she clutched the sphere, her fear of failure pushing through the aura of calm that covered the workshop.
A thin hand touched her shoulder and she jumped, holding the sphere tightly to her chest as she turned to the child beside her.
Nyx grinned at her, all of 10 with coltish limbs and an unending open heart.
“you can do it Quel,” he said, gripping her shoulder.
The girl, Quelaine, blinked at him. For a second she could see a Lady in black standing just behind Nyx, a small smile on pale lips just below the opaque veil that covered her face the only thing that could be seen. Quelaine couldn’t see her eyes but she could tell the Lady was looking at her, the smile widening just a bit. She blinked again and the being was gone. Before her was only Nyx, tilting his head like a curious coeurl.
“come on, you know you can call it.”
Her eyes flickered one last time between Nyx, the empty space behind him, the sphere and the Artisan, who stared calmly back, waiting for her patiently. Slowly, resolve formed on the young girl’s face, before she pulled the sphere and its locked beads closer to her chest and closed her eyes.
Seconds passed, then minutes and still nothing happened. The children began to shift and mutter, yet both the Artisan and Nyx watched calmly as the girl’s lips moved in silence.
Silence. Then.
A gasp.
Quelaine’s eyes flew open as the sphere shimmered slightly, spilling silver light into the air before going dormant again. Slowly she pulled her right hand away from the sphere and stared, stunned, at the small form that lay in it.
“Aquamarine,” the Artisan spoke quietly as he took the sphere from her lax grip. “Onyx and tiger’s eye, for one who will overcome her fears and gain courage and perseverance in the face of the unknown. You are strong little Quelaine, to receive a bead like that from your soul.”
Quelaine raised her eyes from her hand where the black bead shone with stripes of golden brown and blue and resonated with her and glanced at the Artisan. He smiled at her, a small quirk of the lips, before nodding to her blonde hair.
“You are ready to wear it.”
She looked back down at her bead, shining proof she knew herself. Strong, the Artisan said, strong enough to face her fears. She reached slowly for the plaited hair that was prepared for the bead and raised it to the end before freezing.
In her mind, she could hear the whispering words of her auntie, spinning her a story as she curled up in bed.
‘No tree is a forest all on their own darling, no wave a sea, no breeze a storm. You can be strong and steadfast by yourself, but only when you let those around you help, do you become who you are meant to be.’
Quelaine lowered hand, a questioning noise coming from Nyx beside her. The Artisan’s eyes showed understanding and at the slow nod he gave her, she turned to Nyx and held the bead out to him.
“Will you place it for me?” she asked him, hand unwavering, fear gone in the face of her people beside her.
Behind the shocked boy stood the Lady again, veil shifting in an unfelt breeze. Lips turned up, the being nodded at Quelaine as Nyx raised the bead to her hair and threaded the plait through the hole.
At the close of the braids clasp, a voice echoed through her mind.
“well chosen High Wave. You will be strong.”
(Your picture was not posted)
please-do-your-research:
So again, instead of doing Honors work, I’ve been writing about my Necromancer!Nyx AU. Finally got a title too, which is sorta taken from lyrics from the Sommus song on the soundtrack. The OC I’ve used is one of the names I always use in online games, including FFXIV. Her name is a mix of Quel (which means High in Thalassian, the language of the Blood Elves in WoW) + Laine, which means wave in Finish (apparently), hence High Wave.
this starting part isn’t finished, I still have a section on how demons work (or more importantly, not work) in Galahd, and i will post that sometime later. I actually have to do this work, not procrastinate. Anyhoo, here’s the start of this ‘Verse.
Deus Timens Et Liberi Ignem Faciunt (God feared, as the children lit a fire)
There’s a reason Galahd never had issues with demons.
(salt and sea, hear my plea, guide us to our storm swept land, and let us hear what Etro sang)
One of Nyx’s earliest memory was of a pale grey shade singing a lullaby to his newborn sister, the twisting lilt of the language he would not learn for several years sliding in one ear and out the other.
“She looks so much like your father when I watched him come into this world,’ Grandmother said, wisps of hair that escaped her braids shifting slowly in a breeze only she could feel. ‘but then again, all babies look the same at this age. Even you, my little coeurl king.”
Nyx stared up at her from where he lay on the bed next to his mother and sister, with all the strange solemnity that only a 3-year-old could hold, the end of his first braid caught in his teeth, bead tapping his lips.
Grandmother reached out to tug the braid from his lips, smoothing the ends down.
“Our family’s gift is rare, little one, and you are even more strong and precious for it. You have to look after your sister with all you are.” She tapped him twice on the nose with the bead and Nyx scrunched it at the chill, eyes crossing as he focused on her fingers, “We guard these lands, with the blessings of storm, stone and sea. Etro guides us, as we guide Galahd. You have to guide and guard your sister too little Nyx.”
Nyx nodded, not quite understanding what she meant, but knowing that his little sister was important. The braid and bead migrated back to his mouth. His mother shifting in her sleep, the birth having been long and arduous. She pulled his sister closer to her chest and Nyx awkwardly patted the blanket back down around his mother’s limbs.
Grandmother smiled at him, her pale eyes crinkling at the corners. Beyond the room, he could hear tinkling laughter and quiet murmurs of his family waking up, getting ready to face the day. The pulse of his mothers and sisters’ souls shone bright in his mind, his grandmother’s presence a faded but steady beat. Outside, Nyx could feel the flickering lights of the village pulsate in the ever-growing strength of his power.
“I will be here if you need me, for as long as there are stars in the sky, your family will protect and guide you. Soon you will learn to call on us, and we will answer you, as we did your mother, her father, and his mother all the way back to time immemorial, and just as we will answer your sister when she grows up, and you will answer when your time comes.” She passed her hand over his mother’s brow, then his sisters, murmuring in that same lilting language as before. White light trailed after her hand, pulsing with the words before shattering like star dust. Nyx could feel the magic of the blessing hanging in the air, even if he did not know what it was, and moved closer to his mother to bathe in the lingering warmth. His eyes slipped shut and he reached out to touch one of his sisters’ tiny feet, body shifting slowly towards sleep.
Grandmother smiled down at him again, briefly touching the obsidian bead at the end of his small braid, with its inlays of bloodstone and opal. So strong for one so young.
“Oh you will be the best of us, my little dark godling, and you will command the stars.”
—–
(storm and stone, help guard this land, shield us carefully with Etro’s hand)
“We are lucky you know.”
The one known in the village as the Artisan said, as he continued to spin the pottery wheel and manipulate the pale red clay that shimmered the more he worked it. Around his feet sat a gaggle of children, their parents gifted beads clattering slightly as they moved. Blessings held in hands pressed carefully to hair, love and shelter kissed into foreheads.
“Storm-father blessed us when we came to these lands and allowed us to live here peacefully, to live as one with the earth and sky and all between.” The wheel spun on as his hands moved up the pile of clay, small lumps beginning to form on the surface before sinking back into the mass. A potter from the mainland would have scrapped it as soon as the slag began to show, crying over impure quality clay and failed preparation methods. The Artisan knew better. Soon these children would hold their own blessings moulded from clay, to press stones crafted from their souls into growing hair. One day they would take their first step upon the Walk and receive the blessings of the Fulgurian, but for now, they would learn to give form to their own.
The artisan leaned forward and blew carefully on the clay.
“For this, we give thanks to the Old Man.” The children let out quite sounds of awe as the clay began to shift its colour once again, the shimmer locked in the red clay blooming out and turning the spinning mass silver. Blood and Bone, Sea, Storm and Stone, soon the beads would properly form. From the front of the small crowd, the Artisan could see Nyx and his hearth brother Libertus leaned forward to look at the wheel closer. The usually exuberant children were quiet, Libertus with an almost frustrated crease in his forehead, trying to see exactly what the Artisan was doing. Nyx was a different case, his habitual braid caught in his lips, the Lady’s obsidian, bloodstone and opal bead flashing in the workshops light. The Artisan could see the beginning of understanding in those teenage eyes, eyes that flickered around the Artisans hands as they moulded the clay, watching the play of power as it shifted in the air and was absorbed into the forming beads. He would have made a great crafter, the Artisan thinks, with that power. His beads would have been things of beauty, but alas, he answered to a different calling.
“We are lucky because despite our distance, Stone-father cares for us and gifts us that with what we need to protect ourselves.”
At these words, the Artisan pressed the clay into the shape of a low bowl and reached into the forge beside him with a bare hand, pulling out a well-worn crucible that glowed a bright white yet gave off no heat. Inside, magma bubbled, the black crust bursting and melting back into the red in an ever-rotating cycle. Carefully, with an air of mysticism and the flare of a master at work, the Artisan tipped the crucible above the mass, continuing to push the foot peddle that spun the potter’s wheel as the magma began to pour over the edge.
“For this, we take what we are gifted by the Stone Speaker, and turn it into something useful.”
The magma hit the well, pouring and soaking into the spinning clay. Not a single drop splashed or splattered the hand still moulding the mass which began to shift its colour again. The children let out shocked sounds as silver turned suddenly turned to black, before pulling inwards and leaching the dark colour out of the clay. Inside the suddenly clearing clay, small ovals of darkness shifted around, pulling more and more of the power that the ritual has created into the small beads. The Artisan placed the crucible back in the forge and slowed the spinning of the wheel as he pulled back his other hand from the now clear sphere. Slowly the wheel span to a stop and inside the sphere, black beads shone in the light.
The Artisan carefully plucked the sphere from the wheel and stood up, bones and beads creaking with age. The children backed away from the man as he walked around to the centre of the room. He turned sharply to the closest child, a young girl near 8 years old, limbs slowly shedding baby fat, and handed the sphere to her. She stared up at him, before reaching for it at his nod with trembling hands and wide eyes, barely understanding what was being handed to her.
“Call it, little one. Call it from blood and bone, sea, storm and stone. Call your bead.”
The girl stared at the sphere, eyes flickering between the Artisan, the sphere and the children around her. The Artisan stared calmly back. He could not offer any words of wisdom here; this was her move and her will and her soul that must be ready. Some years, every child called their first bead. But sometimes, there were children who struggled to know themselves, trapped in the circumstances of their birth and early life, holding their hearts back, or shifted like the wind of their patron, not knowing what they could or would do. His mother spoken often of a young man who did not receive his first soul bead until he was in his 20s, well after his first Walk, for his heart was not settled and demanded his feet roamed Eos first. Only the girl could call her beads, no one else. Only the girl would know if she was ready. There was no censure in being unsure, no punishment for not being ready; better to known oneself properly than to believe in lies of the heart.
The girl continued to flick her eyes around, panic forming at the edges and her hands trembled even more. Shudders began to form in her limbs as she clutched the sphere, her fear of failure pushing through the aura of calm that covered the workshop.
A thin hand touched her shoulder and she jumped, holding the sphere tightly to her chest as she turned to the child beside her.
Nyx grinned at her, all of 10 with coltish limbs and an unending open heart.
“you can do it Quel,” he said, gripping her shoulder.
The girl, Quelaine, blinked at him. For a second she could see a Lady in black standing just behind Nyx, a small smile on pale lips just below the opaque veil that covered her face the only thing that could be seen. Quelaine couldn’t see her eyes but she could tell the Lady was looking at her, the smile widening just a bit. She blinked again and the being was gone. Before her was only Nyx, tilting his head like a curious coeurl.
“come on, you know you can call it.”
Her eyes flickered one last time between Nyx, the empty space behind him, the sphere and the Artisan, who stared calmly back, waiting for her patiently. Slowly, resolve formed on the young girl’s face, before she pulled the sphere and its locked beads closer to her chest and closed her eyes.
Seconds passed, then minutes and still nothing happened. The children began to shift and mutter, yet both the Artisan and Nyx watched calmly as the girl’s lips moved in silence.
Silence. Then.
A gasp.
Quelaine’s eyes flew open as the sphere shimmered slightly, spilling silver light into the air before going dormant again. Slowly she pulled her right hand away from the sphere and stared, stunned, at the small form that lay in it.
“Aquamarine,” the Artisan spoke quietly as he took the sphere from her lax grip. “Onyx and tiger’s eye, for one who will overcome her fears and gain courage and perseverance in the face of the unknown. You are strong little Quelaine, to receive a bead like that from your soul.”
Quelaine raised her eyes from her hand where the black bead shone with stripes of golden brown and blue and resonated with her and glanced at the Artisan. He smiled at her, a small quirk of the lips, before nodding to her blonde hair.
“You are ready to wear it.”
She looked back down at her bead, shining proof she knew herself. Strong, the Artisan said, strong enough to face her fears. She reached slowly for the plaited hair that was prepared for the bead and raised it to the end before freezing.
In her mind, she could hear the whispering words of her auntie, spinning her a story as she curled up in bed.
‘No tree is a forest all on their own darling, no wave a sea, no breeze a storm. You can be strong and steadfast by yourself, but only when you let those around you help, do you become who you are meant to be.’
Quelaine lowered hand, a questioning noise coming from Nyx beside her. The Artisan’s eyes showed understanding and at the slow nod he gave her, she turned to Nyx and held the bead out to him.
“Will you place it for me?” she asked him, hand unwavering, fear gone in the face of her people beside her.
Behind the shocked boy stood the Lady again, veil shifting in an unfelt breeze. Lips turned up, the being nodded at Quelaine as Nyx raised the bead to her hair and threaded the plait through the hole.
At the close of the braids clasp, a voice echoed through her mind.
“well chosen High Wave. You will be strong.”
(Your picture was not posted)