Seungcheol gazes at the white granite pillars, the startlingly honest paintings on the walls, the arches and statues and glassless windows. He thinks of Rome and Greece and the Würzburg Residence in Germany. There are beautiful women walking around in gossamer dresses, relaxed and smiling, chatting and laughing with each-other. Men lounge on windowsills in loose cotton shirts and pants.
Everything is picturesque in this Territory, Seungcheol thinks. If Enjora were here, she would be itching to paint the temples. Seungcheol walks out of the temple and into the bustling town square, searching for a place to get directions. He looks startling in contrast to locals. His upturned eyes, dark tunic and pale skin-dark hair-light eyes combination are stark against the brown, smooth skinned, dark eyed, breezily dressed locals.
He could have stopped earlier in the day to get some clothing appropriate for both the climate and culture of the Aruité Territory, but desperation had curbed his desire to try and blend in. Desperation to find a way to contact Enjora and Akatsuki, however that may be.
Directions are important, he thinks distractedly. His eyes skate over stalls with food and trinkets and clothes and jewelry. Maybe clothes should take priority for a moment. Seungcheol pulls his pouch of money out of his rucksack, hands shaking slightly, and starts to look for a stall that would sell clothes he would be comfortable in.
“You, boy! You look lost, hungry, ravaged, foreign. Come here, and let a bored woman help you.” Seungcheol’s head whips up to meet the eyes of an elegant lady. She’s tall, taller than he is, with soft looking skin, tumbling curls and sharp green eyes. On her brow rests a diadem of silver and what Seungcheol can only assume is moonstone. Sheer white fabric covers her broad shoulders, forming a V over her chest and cinching at her waist before flowing out down to her bare feet. She looks likes royalty, though he doesn’t entertain that thought as possible.
“Who, me?” His voice cracks on the last word from misuse.
The woman smiles breezily at him. “Of course, you’re the only one that looks lost around here.”
Seungcheol narrows his eyes at her. “What’s the catch, miss? Am I selling my soul to Deiri if I accept your help?” His hand moves to his hip, where a dagger sits at his belt.
She hums. “Deiri? So you’re from the North, hmm? We can work with your manners, I suppose.” Seungcheol shuffles uncomfortably. Of course, having spent two years in the northern Territory of Keimari had rubbed off on him. “I’m Asheeva. And I’m going to clean you right up.”
Asheeva’s eyes glint in the war sunlight. Seungcheol gives her another once over, deeming her safe for the moment, and nods. “Lee Seungcheol.” Asheeva smiles brightly, grabbing for Seungcheol’s hand. He deftly moves away from her reach, and looks at her pointedly. No touching. Asheeva’s brow furrows, and her diadem shifts minutely. Seungcheol keeps his face carefully blank as he watches her watch him. The staring contest continues for a minute before Asheeva sighs and gestures for him to follow her. They begin walking towards the richer part of the city, and Seungcheol tries to focus on his surroundings instead of the slapping of Asheeva’s bare feet on the marble ground of the city square.
The colors and sounds distract and overwhelm Seungcheol fairly quickly, making him jumpy and irritated. Autism and ADHD put together, he thinks, is surely the worst thing to ever happen to him when it comes to loud, busy places.
“Hurry, hurry, Seungcheol! We have places to be, people to impress, clothes to fix!” Asheeva’s airy voice cracks Seungcheol’s thought process, and he realizes he’s stopped moving. He shakes his head, counts to 10 in Korean and back, before nodding to his companion and moving forward. She seems concerned but doesn’t push.
She leads him out of the bustling city center and out into the wealthy streets. The whole city is wealthy, and no one lives in poverty from what he’s seen and heard about Aruité, but this part of the city is decidedly wealthier than the rest. The buildings are tall and wide, made from pale colored stones interspersed with bright windows. Accents of gold and bronze and silver adorn windowsills and doorways and walls.
Seungcheol hasn’t seen anything so lavish and beautiful in so long. Even in his wildest dreams he couldn’t have imagined such beautiful buildings. Lush gardens fill out the front of the houses. Beautiful ladies dressed similarly to Asheeva sit with fruits in their hands in the gardens, children jump around in fountains and run around adults legs. He notes everyone in this peaceful city has the pointed ears of the Fae. He self-consciously ruffles his hair to cover up his plain human ears.
People walk up to Asheeva as they move through the street, smiling widely and chatting amiably. They glance at Seungcheol when hey see him, but don’t make a move to be overly friendly. A polite Hello, Wanderer. Or a pleasant I see Sheeva here has roped you into being one of her little helpers! Lucky you. Seungcheol nods politely at them when they talk to him, but doesn’t engage in conversation.
A little kid tugs on his coat tails lightly, almost too light for him to have felt it. He bends down to the little girls level, and nods at her. “Good morning. Is there something you need, imoto?” She looks around 12, 10 years his junior, so imoto seems like an appropriate title to bestow upon her.
She tilts her head slightly, making her long hair sway and the little woven-in jewels and beads click like chimes. “What does that word mean?”
“Uh, well. Where I’m from, it means little sister. I don’t know your name, so I thought I might call you that. Until you tell me your name, I guess.” Seungcheol scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. While imoto is Japanese, and he is decidedly not that, it’s the only thing he could think of.
The girl’s eyebrows shoot up towards her hairline. “Oh, oh, how do you say big brother in your language? And what’s your language called? Where are you from? Are you from the North?”
Now, he can talk about Korea. “I guess, since you’re a girl, you would say oppa. If you were a boy you would say hyung. Um, my language is called Korean. I’m from Korea. It’s...not in the North. It’s a long way away. I haven’t been back there for a few years.” She looks at him sadly and he smiles at her. “It’s alright, though. Now, what where you tugging on my coat for, imoto? And what is your name?”
The girl suddenly gets shy. “I was wondering if you wanted to come and sit with me, over by the shrine. No one is talking to you, and I thought you looked lonely. And my name is Eva!”
“Well, Eva. My name’s Seungcheol.” Eva grins up at Seungcheol. She grabs for his hand, pulling him up and tugging him towards the shrine.
“This is where I sit during the day. None of the other younglings play with me, so I sit and draw or read or write or, sometimes I practice my magic! Do you have magic, Seungcheol? Can I call you big brother in... Coran?”
Seungcheol laughs. “Korean. But sure, if you want. And I do, actually. I have...a lot of magic. I use it a lot. What about you, hmm? What magic do you have?”
Eva goes bright red, wringing her hands in her lap. “Um, I can manipulate and summon jewels and change things into other things.”
“So can I. Change things, that is.”
“Really? Mama said that there’s no one else who can do that, other than me. People can make things disappear and new things reappear, but that no one else can actually change things like I can…” She runs her fingers through the leaves of a nearby bush, and when her hand comes away, there’s a chunk of moss agate stone between her fingers. “See? And now I can make it moonstone if I want.” Eva runs her fingers over the stone and it starts to shine, taking on a milky white color with iridescent blue marbling.
The stone sits in her palm now, looking much nicer than the already nice moonstones that Seungcheol saw on Asheeva’s diadem. Seungcheol nods at her and picks up a small rock from the ground. He rubs the stone slowly, willing it to become a pretty white rose. Eva makes an excited noise in her throat. “So you can do it!” Seungcheol smiles at her again and leans over, threading the rose behind her ear. She smiles sweetly, as people tend to do when Seungcheol does something sweet.
The hustle and bustle of the street suddenly quiets down. Seungcheol turns to see what the sudden disquiet is about, only to find everyone staring his and Eva’s way. People start whispering to each other without looking away from Seungcheol’s direction. He shifts uncomfortably under the sudden scrutinisation. “Why…” He pauses to swallow bile. “Why are they all staring?” He turns back to Eva.
“Because you’re the saviour the Wise One talked about, years ago, Lee Seungcheol.” Seungcheol looks to his left, where a willowy wisp of a woman sits beside him in Eva’s place. She looks like Eva, if Eva were a grown woman with pale silver hair and a circlet of stars. She’s wearing a gold dress similar to Asheeva’s, though this woman’s dress is much more extravagant.
“Oh, no you don’t. A saviour? What do you mean saviour? I just want to find my sister, man. I don’t have time to be a saviour!” He’s whining, and not reacting the way he thinks he should be reacting, but at this point in time Seungcheol honestly just wants a break from all the things that digress from finding his damn sister on this damn continent in this damn world he knows too little about.
1 note
·
View note
What do ur ocs look like and what time period is it in (if u would compare to earth's timeline) 🍙
lets go w fancasts bc those r fun and easy!!! so cheol looks either like my boy kim kibum or my dude yoo kihyun (i cant decide…hmm), nikolai looks like nam joo hyuk, akatsuki looks like fernanda ly, hyuna looks like lee sung kyung, jamie looks like matt ardell, asheeva looks like nyane lebajoa and? idk about anyone else tbh!!!! and timeline, huh? it depends where on the continent u are! every territory is super different (i spoke abt it here!!)
i think i highlight the most of it in this snippit here:
Some Territories arelike, say, 2016 Korea, some are like 1546 Europe, some are like early 19thcentury China, some are like 90’s Los Angeles, some are like 1920’s New York,some are cities, some are Empires, some are made up of villages, some are forested,some are deserts, some are seaside towns even if they’re smack bang in themiddle of the continent.
1 note
·
View note
It doesn’t feel right. It feels empty, hollow, wrong, to be back. To be back in this place, the place that never felt like home before and doesn’t feel like home now. His body is fragile again, back to being 19, back to being in the wrong body. Back to being soft. Back to being so completely, utterly, human.
And it sucks major dick.
Seoul suddenly seems so much smaller now. Infinitely smaller than the Otherside, almost stifling in it’s size. Walking down the stairs of his college dorm and through the streets of Seoul after roaming over open land for several years feels too fake, too mundane. Nothing feels real anymore. Seungcheol finds himself often climbing up to the roof of the dorm, limbs heavy and soul empty after being in classes he has no passion for anymore.
All he wants, truly, is to be back in the house, with Nikolai sitting by his side, and Emarie hunting outside, Asheeva pulling him through the city, and Enjora chucking assorted trinkets into his lap. He misses his family.
And he really hates Hyuna for for pulling him back.
“Seungcheol-hyung… are you alright? You’re doing it again, spacing out…” Seungcheol looks over to his roommate quickly. Jaeyun is a weedy guy, thin and light on his feet. His hair is always tied back, and he never wears anything other than baggy shirts and loose pants.
“Yeah, I’m all right, Jaeyun-ah. Just thinking.” Jaeyun looks apprehensive, but nods and turns back to his business homework. Seungcheol does the same, looking down at the Literature text sitting on his desk, mouth set in a grim line. Getting back into a college routine, he’s found, is increasingly difficult after not being a college student for 6 years.
Crickets are chattering outside the dorm window and Seungcheol can just hear Jaeyun’s music. It’s too loud, too much, too soon. There should only be the sound of laughing and turning pages and the ocean, he thinks. Not the sounds of this dorm that he hates.
1 note
·
View note
do you have any new ocs?
I DO!!! i have three (3)!! their names are asheeva, emarie and lemia.
asheeva: she’s a princess, of sorts, of the aruité territory. if she were to be equated to an ethnicity here, she’s african. she’s really bright and airy, but she’s a really capable leader. her hair is a really pretty lavender colour and contrasts against her dark skin. when seungcheol makes his way into her territory looking for enjora, she kind of adopts him as her own little personal guard so his being around is less suspicious.
emarie: she’s asheeva’s mate, and is captain of the guard. she’d also be african. her relationship with asheeva is based on respect and maturity and love. she’s an ace swordsman, and she spars with seungcheol often. those two are, like, the best of friends.
lemia: she’s a siren/mermaid. she asheeva and emarie’s other mate. those three are really close, and since lemia can’t really leave the ocean, asheeva and emarie live down on the beach in a really beautiful open villa. lemia sings a lot and she loves teasing seungcheol and giving seungcheol water realted things (pretty stones, glass etc.)
2 notes
·
View notes