#i sat down to draw ash and then it turned into caelum

[mars-mell]

Quick caelum doodle ☺️🫶

#shhh yes its on notebook paper #i sat down to draw ash and then it turned into caelum #redacted audio #redacted asmr #redactedverse #redacted headcanons #redacted fanart #redacted caelum

[ertrunkenerwassergeist]

*crashes into Tumblr*

I’m so sorry for the long semi-silence. I had to take a short break from writing before I turned myself insane and then stuff happened. But now I’m back at my game!

(More or less. XD)

Anyway, have a few snippets so you can see I’m still working on stuff:

Not Everyone Knows How to Draw a Salt Line

It started, like so many things do, with a visit.

The visitor in question however, didn't announce themselves with a knock on the door – there wasn't even a door one could have been knocking at. Not that this bothered the visitor at all, since it wasn't a human that was coming to visit. Or rather, the first visitor wasn't human. The second one very much was.

Nyx could feel the coming migraine even before anyone had spoken a single word. In front of him, and all the Glaives that had been outside on the training grounds at this moment, danced a will-o'- the-whisp gently up and down, radiating a smug sort of self-satisfaction. But it wasn't just the will-o'-the-whisp that had come. Bewitched in its glow, stood a human. And it wasn't just any human, but a member of the Bog.

.

Where the Sea Kisses Earth

The ache of emptiness accompanied each motion of the hand. As if something had filled the veins up to the brim and now it was gone. The marks were not vanishing. Cor clenched and unclenched his fingers. With each motion dead, grey skin flaked off and danced slowly towards the ground like actual ash.

He sat at the creek close to the hollow tree where Noctis was still sleeping. He could barely remember how he had managed to return back here through the pain pulsing in his hand. It still felt like something had carved a space for itself without regard to his mortal flesh and had left just as quickly, leaving nothing behind but an empty feeling that ached like nothing he had ever felt before.

Was the true power of the Lucis Caelums like this? Had Regis felt this every day since he had first donned the Ring of the Lucii? Cor couldn't fathom it. Whatever had happened in that stone needle, it had left him with two things he was absolutely certain about. One, Noctis would wear this cursed ring over his dead body, and two, they needed to get off this island as fast as possible.

.

Dreams of Our Past

“But those shoes,” Healer said for the third time in three minutes.

Hiemi closed the last delicate metal clasp and looked up. Her husband stood next to her and stared at her shoes like a man, for whom it was too much work in the morning to pick up a hairbrush.

The shoes in question were sandals, their listels, made out of bronze and iron, formed complicated geometric patterns that reached up to her knee. The soles had a small heel that was also made out of metal.

“They were a gift,” Hiemi responed, for the third time in three minutes, a crooked smile on her face.

Healer shuddered as if he had to physically free himself from thinking about the sandals. “I don't want to know,” he muttered.

“Good husband.”

He squinted at her through the erratic strands of his dark her falling into his face, but chose not to open his mouth. His gaze wandered to the hairband that held her dark curls, which for once tumbled down her back unrestrained, out of her face. The hairband was more like a scarf, its ends dangling down her chest, and was dyed a truly eye searing orange with a turquoise wave pattern at the edges. It didn't go well with her complexion nor her clothes she wore, but it had been a present from Healer, so she wore it as often as she could. His fingers danced over the thin cloth.

“You should wear a more fitting hairband,” he said in a near whisper, his beautiful violet eyes full of badly hidden insecurity, sorrow and fear.

In determination, Hiemi took his and and squeezed it gently. “Everything will be alright. Nothing will happen to me, you'll see. I don't know your father, but from the way you speak of him I know he'll not harm me.”

Healer nodded half heartedly. Hiemi tried not to let it get to her. Her husband was no coward. She knew that with the same certainty the sun rose in the east every day and set in the west, but sometimes she wished he would have ended this game of hide and seek earlier.

#ffxv #fae au #not everyone knows how to draw a salt line #where the sea kisses earth #dreams of our past #snippets #geist writes #I needed a break #but now I'm back on my bullshit XD

[unfinishedworksoffiction]

A cool, swift breeze rustled through the seeding grasses of the high plains. Traveling briskly across the tall grass and occasional shrub was a cloaked young man. His name was Ishmael, a scholar of the arcane arts of Western Caelum and the apprentice of the legendary Wizard of Wentros, Dormire.

The dawning light of the morning sun flushed the amber sea with a gilded glow. Ishmael reached his hands out to feel the grass flow through fingers as he walked. It was still wet with dew. He administered his cool, moist hands to the back of his neck and knelt down for a brief respite. He observed the Sun crest a distant hill and drive the shadows of night beyond the west horizon. He uttered a short prayer to Cae.

Ishmael had first learned of magic at a ceremony to honor Cae in Wentros. Then, the practice was considered heretical. He had heard the priests warning those who had come to honor a shrine about sorcerers who bend reality.

"Defiance of the will of the gods is contempt for the law," he remembered one priest had shouted.

Nonetheless, he was intrigued and sought out the sorcerers that hid their practice in caves along the rocky buffs. He accepted by the wizards and even secured a position as courier through a connection in the court of Lord Summik in Castle Wentros.

Ishmael opened his bag and checked to be sure the message he was carrying was still safe and secure. The burgundy leather envelope reassured him, the wax pressed firming over the binding strings was done so with Lord Summik's house seal to ensure its recipient that this correspondence was private and unmolested. The secrecy implied a certain level of intimacy in the affair. Although, Ishmael had heard rumors of Lord Summit's deteriorating relationship with the Crown in Corcillia. Some, including Ishmael, speculated that the Lord of Wentros was desperate for aid or allies. Ishmael had been told my other couriers that no message had ever gone so far as high plains. It was clear, if Lord Summit was searching for help, he was searching far and wide for anyone who would give it.

Ismael stood and continued on his long journey, wondering if Wentros will still be standing when he returned and that of his job security. As he reached the top of a hill painted purple and blue with budding flowers, his goal was within sight: North Lake Castle, home of Lord Hemrien the Coward.

As he approached the small town that surrounded the imposing castle walls, the eerie stillness made the hairs on the back of Ishmael's neck stand tall. The air was stale and carried not a single sound. Turning a time of day when most would be up and about preparing for the day, there was not so much as a sturing from the vacant houses. Ishmael peered down the narrow alley was between houses and through small windows into the homes. The town was abandoned.

Ishmael held his arms close and walked quietly. His spine tingled with unsettling anticipation.

"Hello!" he called out from the town center. His voice disappeared into the dead air.

From down the main road going into down a deep creaking moan cried from the castle gates. Slow at first, then faster, the hinges whined until the great wooden doors were fully open to Ishmael.

"H-he-hello?" he whimpered.

He cautiously approached the castle. The muster grounds for the town guards was vacant. The sword racks were empty and the archery targets were unscathed. No men manned the walls or the turnstiles that opened the heavy doors. Alas, curoisity as much as duty compelled Ishmael up the carved stone steps to the Lord's residence.

Iron bars encased the entryway with its gate ajar. A majestic pair of dark-stained doors were all that stood between the courier and his destination.

He grasped the door knocker, styled to the likeness of a wolf ensnaring a rabbit its its teeth, and rapped. He could hear the bangs echo through stone structure, but nothing stirred within. After when felt like hours to Ishmael, there was not answer.

Ishmael was unsure of what to do. In his short tenure as courier for Lord Summit, he had never failed to deliver a message and he had certainly never discovered a town void of life.

"I suppose it would do no harm if I let myself in and wait for someone to return," he thought to himself. Is legs ached terribly from the long journey. His rations were nearly depleted and it had been over a week since he had rested his bones in a comfortable bed. Even the grassy bedding laid out in the sorcerer caves were preferable to the course earth and vulnerability of the open plains. Wind would pierce the skin like a thousand needles and howling dogs would keep the bravest up all night. Ishmael was not the bravest.

He tried the latch and it gave way with some effort and the door creaked open. The vestibule was dark, but ishmael could make out the candelabras, covered in wax, and the door into the castle. Ishmael stepped farward slowly. His footfalls made no sound on the decorative rug the spanned the length of the entry chamber. Nearly to the door on the other side, he blindly walked into the wide web of a weaver spider. He curled and flailed.

In his startled state, he had unknowingly advance farther down the hall, tripped on an limpy object that he had failed to detect, and collided with the inner door.

"Aah!" he explained.

"Aah! Aah, ahh," repeated the echoes off the stone walls, mirroring the cry with descending volume before promptly dissipating.

The disembodied voice sucked the soul from Ishmael's chest, as if his own voice had been stolen.

He cleared his throat and was reassured by it rattle that his voice had not left his throat. He then resisted the urge to speak for further confirmation. He did not wish to his his voice echo through the halls of the eerie estate.

From his position on the floor in front of the door, he looked from once he came. The object that had fouled his step. A fist-sized coin purse, was the culprit. Ishmael did not remember the rattle of coins as he stumbled. He crawled to it and took it in his hand. Some curiously soft fibers woven into thick velvet. The contents were packed inside- several stacks of uniform discs with shape and size common to minted coins that ease trade throughout the Kingdom of Caelum and are often used in the neighboring lands, too. However, it was much too underweight to be any metal Ishmael had ever studied. The bulging bag was bound neatly with tasseled twine. He pulled the strings and the knot slipped, releasing the tention amd spilling hundreds of dark coins onto the floor.

Ishmael picked one up. It was lightweight and smoothed or polished with great precision. He rubbed his thumb over the top relief, an elegant crown.

"Coin of Caelum," he thought. He flopped the coin over and thumbed the other side. This relief was smooth in the middle, with a circle of six stars around it. "And the Gates of Heaven on the reverse."

He left the bag and the other coins and stood. He gripped the handle and pulled. Like a sinister laugh, the strained hinges creaked into the vast chamber it guarded.

Through the crack Ishmael was mesmerized by colorful beams of light. Stained glass windows depicted a humiliated Lord Hemrien looking on as his son serving as the newest handmaiden of the ravenous Lord Hezel, who preceded his brother Summit for rule over Wentros. Vivid red glass forms a stream of blood from the boy's skirt.

The horrid scene reappeared, blurred on the floor in front of the Lord's throne. A husk of a man sat on the throne. Char-black skin clung directly to bone. Twisted fingers clutched the sharp stoney ends of the throne arm rests. Its face, although little more than a skull with burnt flesh holding the cracking bones in place.

The throne itself was charred as well.

"It's the dark whispers that corrupt a man's heart." The voice eminated from the ashen throne sitter, but the eerie stillness remained.

Ishmael recognized the voice as his own- echoes without a origin.

"It is the very evil that compels them to conquer, to consume, and to kill, inspiring the creative cruelties of which contemporary creatures simply are not incapable. A dark spirit from the woods, it feeds on our suffering. It will promise you whatever you desire, but it is all lies. You are warned that the cost is great. You promise to pay anything. It draws you in and allows you to drink and taste the wine. Your stuber numbs you when it latches ahold and plants its roots deep within you. It saps your very soul, feeding off you. The illusion collapses and you are alone in endless darkness, embracing pain to relieve pain, begging for an end, and burning alive ignoring your fantasies that someone will come along to end your suffering and to take your place in torment."

Stunned, Ishmael tried to retreat backwards, but former half of the room had vanished, cut off by a smooth stone wall, imbued with distinct azure aura. Panic began to root itself in his veins.

"It's been so long," the voice continued. "I am so glad you came."

The charred flesh of the Lord cracked and shifted. To Ishmael's horror, the cadaver began to stand and reached desperately towards him!

"I truely couldn't bare anymore," the husk added politely before disintegrating into a cloud of ash and dust. Ishmael had neigh the time to take note that the cloud failed to settle to the floor or dissipate into the air was would be expected with dust or smoke. Instead, the dark cloud lingered there where Hemrien had fallen before it flew across the chamber at Ishmael, who was taken by unawares. The black emanate charged his throat and nose. He choked and gagged on the fine powder as it embedded itself deep in his chest. It felt cold as it traveled through him, like a hole had been created over his heart.

Ishmael collapsed to his knees and slumped farward, unconscious for the shocking endeavor. The aching in his muscles and bones, accumulated during the long trek from Wentros, faded to numb tingles. He opened heavy eyes, but saw only darkness. The darkness seemed different from the darkness of behind his closed eyelids, as if this strange darkness were a vast and empty void, like the moonless night far from a torchy's light.

"You possess impressive will." The voice was deep and came from all directions in the emptiness. "I expect nothing less from a pupil of Dormire."

"You know Master Dormire?" Ishmael asked, his voice sou sing like the disembodied echo that had shuddered him previously.

"Know him?" the voice scoffed. "He came to me when he was about your age and begged me to make him a master."

"Master Dormire says the road to mastery is when makes you a master." Ishmael rebuked, confused by the account of his teacher's origins that contradicted the tales told by the associated arcanists.

"I told him that, but his insisted I had the potential to make him the most powerful sorcerer in the world. I obligated, but the power proved too much for his weak mind."

Ishmael felt the shadows move across his skin.

"You are much stronger than his was. As long as you serve me, you will be a conduit for my might."

"I bow to Cae and the King of Caelum!"

"You are a fool!" sieges the entity. "The hearts and mi ds of men are weak! Your gods are no match for eternal night."

Ishmael felt a hard jolt to his chest, but the hole had formed. Warm returned to his body. He shook violently against leather straps tethering him against a crude wooden gurney.

"Relax, boy," cooed Master Dormire. "Relax. It's over."

Ishmael calmed, but still trembled in his legs and hands. "What was that?!" he demanded.

"I am sorry to have intervened in the throne room, I had to see what it wanted from you."

"What is it?"

"A spirit- from the forests north of North Lake, in the Ker."

"The Ker?" The students repeated, knowing only tales the mysterious lands inhabited by men with wolf, deer, and eagle mothers and druids that could travel through roots across entire forests. "Is it a dark spirit?"

"Don't be absurd. You know there is no such thing." The master released Ishmael's hand before leaving g him to fi ish freeing g himself.

"So, what does it want?"

"Clearly it has an intrest in you, boy." Master Dormire answered. He sifted through a pile of scrolls and papers, looking for something.

"Is this the same being that is behind Eileen the Night Witch?"

"It is possible, but if it is looking for a new host, I am inclined to my doubts."

"Does it need a host to survive?"

"It doesn't survive, boy. It simply is. In can feed on several humans, horizons apart all at once. The most souls it can sap, the stronger it can become, but it is unlikely it would risk detection, knowing we are hunting it."

"What about the town of North Lake?"

"Likely an illusion to weaken your resolve."

"What if it wasn't?"

"There is one way to find out."

"Scrying?"

"No, we're going to North Lake."

"What I just walked that whole there!"

"In a vision!"

"Well, it felt real!"

"You are insuffriable."

#unfinishedworksoffiction #writers on tumblr