serazyth

[serazyth]

Second Hallow’s End art raffle prize, this one for @vynixnostra 

[serazyth]

Blood(lines)

He was a learned man and yet was consistently shocked by the real world application of things that occurred beyond the pages of his texts. Scientific studies came so naturally to him that when he wasn’t pondering and puzzling over it, an ache formed in his core that was both unpleasant and anciently familiar.

As the Nightfallen stood in the shower within the safety of his own home, he was still conscious of the fact that he was not alone. The large bathroom was indeed vacant aside from him, thankfully, given his usual state of hermetic bliss - but the sounds of movement throughout the innards of his house kept him on edge as he washed himself thoroughly from the evening’s affair.

He surmised that Gigi was past the point of awkward discomfort at him having been the one to birth her child, something profound and intimate having to be shared there that neither party had expected to be the case. Not since Suramar and ages past, that was certain.

Brushing clung hair from his gaunt face, he blinked away droplets to stare at his spidery fingers. Not even an hour prior, they had been saturated in all manner of bodily fluids, having internally marveled as Ghislaine’s offspring took its first gulping breath and let out a cry that pierced and warmed all in attendance. Even Sera, though it was not something he’d be willing to process or even consider beyond noting it as fact.

He had to hastily prepare a room for Gigi, the guest room largely unused and just across the small hall from his own resting chambers. It had been a chaotic whirlwind of linens, loud voices and hot water that came from the time they entered and Meli ushered the worried manservant Philippe in to assist and comfort his Lady.

Twisting the knobs to cease the waterfall of warmth, he stepped out of the large open showering area and began toweling himself down with flitting glances to the door for fear someone would see his emaciated form. Old habits died hard, after all.

Mireille. A fitting name, he supposed. The subject of naming had never truly occurred to him and it was far too mundane a thing to judge. The thought flashed through his brain of the well-known paternal figure who was very prominently missing and he scoffed to himself. At least that was something constant in this sea of bizarre happenings. There was a nagging somewhere in the recesses of his mind that he wasn’t about to let surface, a discomfort and sorrow which was foreign and altogether too distracting to allow.

Forgoing tying back his long damp hair, he threw on his nightly dressing gown and touched his hand to the door knob. A pause. Nothing was as it should be...and yet everything was seemingly falling into place.

#Gigi is a mom! #Sera has some feels

[serazyth]

@gigi-etoileur / @audemus-dawnspark for reasons

[serazyth]

There’s a Humming in the Restless Summer Air

Quiet now. Her unexpected visit had come to its unexpected end, strange and sweet and scarring in ways she had yet to understand. Her eyes stung, bare feet cold while everything else ran hot. Heart pounding, pounding, like frantic knocks at the door.

A collection of pretty, pink camellias, tender flesh bruised and torn, petals damp beneath her feet. She somehow found her way into the kitchen through Audemus’ wake. Her porcelain sink, silver faucet, dripping… she could feel it down her cheeks. Salty like sea air. Like the rim of a favourite drink.

Goddess help her, she could use one now.

Trembling fingers plucked crystal from the shelf, smoothing, searching along its stem. An airy Cabernet, droplets of red hitting the counter, but she couldn’t be bothered to care. Just a sip, maybe another… and she was shaking. Not with fear, but not entirely without. Not with laughter, though she could almost feel it bubbling up inside her, peals of it… vicious, vaunted…

“Why wouldn’t you tell me first?” he’d asked.

And she felt every ounce of control wrenched from her fingers, like air from her lungs.

No, not laughter, in the end, but a keening wail. A wounded animal’s wretched cry, tearing through her own bruised flesh. She would fill every inch of that quiet, until the serpent-tongues that yet surrounded her didn’t stand a chance.

“But Melisande, of all people?”

There was hurt there, in all that anger. She could see it, even as her own had risen in the back of her throat, the curl of her fists.

Glass shattered against polished stone. A small stack of her evening’s dishes set atop the counter. One after the other, they exploded in pale splinters on the floor. She was a tempest, descending next upon a rack of her favourite vintages. The array of colour, aroma and taste were meant for entertaining friends she had been foolish enough to believe in this side of Suramar. They all swept easily from the table, dashed like ships against a rocky shore.  

She’d told no one. But she should have seen it coming. A bit of smugness in that freckled smile, and a knowing look she should have caught. Had she been among her ‘sisters’, she might have. But she was a long way away from the nest of gauzy corridors and gossamer whispers. Who’d have thought that snakes could thrive just as easily in barren fields?

A vase, wrought in delicate crystal, bearing another elegant arrangement in the softest hues, sat perched on the window sill. Its perfect sphere collided in pieces with a finely framed watercolour she’d bought on auction in Silvermoon, and both rained down in angry shards.

She’d told that Lothis. Sought to threaten Audemus with it- and her by extension. As though Melisande would somehow find herself responsible for her child.

How many others were there? Who else had been looking on, listening in, when this woman- this friend, she thought- had seen fit to serve up her secrets like another round at the bar? And how many things had she failed to consider- had Gigi herself failed to consider- before the matter was ripped from her hands?

She could lose herself in this destruction, a brief taste of catharsis that was anything but meticulous, as Audemus’ had been.

But the storm passed. Her knees soon felt wet where slivered glass pierced the skin as she curled into herself among the pieces. Hiccoughing breaths tapered off as her violence ebbed, until she once more found herself contending with the quiet.

(( @audemus-dawnspark, @melisandemeadowshine, @lothishighwind for mentions! ))

[serazyth]

[serazyth]

(( ❤️GL gurlllll ))

Fathoms Deep

For the whole of Ghislaine’s life she’d been surrounded by the sea. It was, truthfully, one of only a handful of things she could rely on, even within the static world of her people’s own creation. There were more than enough sharp edges and shadowy corners within those glittering halls, after all; it was a place where your closest friends played parlour games with your darkest secrets, and the social hierarchy was a revolving door. Impermanence was a way of life, perhaps to make up for so little change within the confines of their world, from platters of decaying fruit to yet another torrid affair reduced to ashes.

But the sea never cared much for these triflings. Unspoken consort to the Moon, it stood apart in its wildness while its city and her people burned. Some might call it cruel, like faithless whispers on the lips of the fearful. Elune had truly abandoned them to their fate. And perhaps there always would be an element of that in something so vast and unknowable, like the undeniable accord between their Goddess and the roiling waves. For her part, Ghislaine had always found comfort in even the most heartless tides, more than any parent’s presence had ever offered her.

Perhaps it was what drew her most of all towards the grey shores of Tol Barad, when she and much of the remaining Resistance sought something new in a world even more scarred than the one they’d for which they’d fought.

It was certainly what brought her there now, beneath a heavy wool blanket she’d fashioned into a shawl, barefoot and desolate at the edge of the docks. Where else could she go with this, the newest secret in a long line of others… and one with the potential for far more change than she could even fathom?

High tide lapped lightly at the edges of the worn wooden structure, wholly free and gently rocking in its subtle to and fro. Around her, the cries of the gulls faded away like the last of the day’s sun behind the clouds, never quite as present as her beautiful Sister in similar circumstances. Even the scent of the day’s catch and weathered nets stretched out to dry scarcely reached her- a considerable feat, given how little else escaped her nose.

A teacup steeped in specialized herbs was curled in her palm, gripped tight within paled knuckles and utter stillness. Shade had been quick to offer her kindness and discretion, which she would remember, going forward. But it wasn’t without a quiet aside, that barely-there question that had taken up residence in her head long before she’d paid the alchemist an impromptu visit.

“Gigi, are you sure?”

Of course she was- or so it was easy to snap back, and how dare anyone question her resolve and ability to handle herself? It wasn’t as though she was the first person to ever find herself in such a situation. In Suramar she’d personally helped several of her friends quietly deal with ‘situations’ of their own in like manner. It was always for the best, not to mention expected, in a great many cases.

And really, she was ever that vain and wicked girl, making trouble for her beleaguered governess. Called a ‘goddess’ herself on more than one occasion of late, and basking in misplaced worship like it was actually owed her, she swallowed survivors’ guilt and self-loathing with mouthfuls of arcwine and rows of pretty, powdered pleasures. She took the company of friends, turned something-like-lovers, and any number of strangers besides, just to feel her own unworth that much sharper.

What could she even offer a child beyond her inexperience and the means to live in another world on fire? Pain, the likes of which was etched on worn faces as they poured in from the refugee ships. Suffering, and so much more to come… it was a world made up of loss, where life was concerned. And she, the sum of others’ expectations and over-wrought fantasies entwined. She would take that sip. She would-

Night fell, gradually and then suddenly, as it was wont to do, and soon she could see Her, reflecting quietly on the gentling waters. And the thing was, though Ghislaine couldn’t really imagine where her life might go from here, she was living well beyond the reach of the expectations she’d known. What Sera would think- what Audemus or anyone else would say- was inconsequential. In the end, she had only herself to contend with when it came to what she should or shouldn’t be. There was value in that. Just as there was value in relying on oneself above all else, in one’s ability to shape the life she wants, in spite of what her life has been.

Her heart started to pound, and though parts of her were tender and uncertain, carrying a strange heaviness with which she was unfamiliar, she could not deny that this thing that had happened- while a situation indeed- was also an opportunity. In a world full of loss, she now had a chance to create a life. Two, if she could count her own.

They never were abandoned, she knew. And this, more than anything, stayed her lips.

Her teacup made nary a sound as it fell from her fingers, bobbing a moment or two on the moonlit surface until the rush of saltwater began to pull it under. Eyes closed, and breath hitched, she didn’t need to see to know she was going to be okay… one way or another, she could count on her bare instincts in this matter, just like any other. And of course, she still had the sea.

(( @waterborne-shade, @serazyth, @audemus-dawnspark for mentions! ))

[serazyth]

Under the Weather

The dismal morning drizzled outside her windows, gently rocking the runed framework of her Rustberg manse on reckless, seafaring winds. Rain-spattered portals to the grey beyond, they afforded a blurry look into another dreary attempt at dockside daybreak- fitting for how Ghislaine’s world swayed around her even before she lifted her head.

Silk bed sheets pooled at her feet as she rolled bitterly from their warmth, spilling onto the marbled flooring as though its smooth, cool surface might ground the disquiet in her belly. She had never been prone to sickness- had rarely suffered much more than a rueful morning, with an herbal draught and a splash of arcwine in her orange juice to get her through. But a a few days had passed with this tiresome bug and thoughts of breakfast were about as welcome as the swirling patterns of bathroom tiles pressing into her knees.

Her appointments had been cancelled, of course, a last-ditch effort to grant herself plenty of opportunity for rest, in hopes that she’d finally get the better of this thing that plagued her. She was not in the business of entertaining the nagging worry that occasionally clenched icy fingers in her breast, either. A simple chill, of the kind that often emerged with a bout of flu, and nothing more. Presently, she slumped into the yielding comfort of her favourite chair, cradled within plush, velvet arms with the faint taste of mint on her tongue. The pleasant magefire crackling in the alabaster fireplace granted a welcome warmth, reminiscent of her girlhood Suramar, all lavender tendrils of light playing about the faded stars of her complexion. She’d ventured far from Suramar by choice, of course. And she was content with what she’d found beyond the bastille, no matter the attention to fine detail her people favoured. Rustberg itself was far from aesthetically pleasing, though she’d been granted glimpses here and there, peeks into an ageless beauty caught in the collision of silvery waves and moonlit mist drifting across speckled, wet sand. There was far more there than the worn, wooden buildings and weary forests could ever show, she knew.

But it was the people here she enjoyed most of all. With her brethren in the ranks of the Duskwatch and the grand halls they fought so hard to ‘protect’, she had easily been swept up in the strict social hierarchy upon which their enchanted existence was built. A vain, wicked little thing from the start, or so her devout nursemaid had been fond of saying, it came easy to her, the act of reigning over others. She even liked it, most of the time, and arguably so did they. Grand entrances and gossamer gowns were easy fodder for the grapevines, and Goddess knew they did so enjoy their wine.

Here, though, she’d found herself surrounded by so much freedom, so few tethers to the status quo. She’d found tatters of a generous spirit in the wake of the Resistance, washed up on the rocky shore with dented armour and a dulled blade. She’d found a friend in Melisande, the effervescent keeper of hearth and home at the local tavern. She’d reunited with family, what threads remained at least- her cousins, Isa and the disgraced ‘Serazyth’ as he was now called, slowly finding grace again in the grey. His sympathetic companion, ‘Shade’- surely not the name she was born to either- seemed a strangely fitting complement to his more severe nature. More than that- more than the home she’d built for herself, and the opportunities that yet lay ahead- she had found a great deal to be thankful for in Audemus. Worldly, witty- and wily to a fault- they’d gravitated towards one another’s company, by turns frivolous and every bit the vain children they both were. She’d found in her friend an equal, rather than simply another servant to the structure, and she treasured the hours they spent with one another, trading all manner of conquests like playing cards. She sighed to think she’d had to cancel his appointment as well; they did so enjoy a chat, as much as a bit of after-hours fun, when he came for his weekly session at the salon-

Oh.. no. All at once, her stomach lurched, sitting her upright and ready to run. Pallid complexion paling all the more, she managed to ease through the worst of it all the same, swallowing air with a palm soothing over the flat of her belly while the other began fumbling about the coffee table. Elegant fingers, caught in a tremor, swept past a plate of plain toast, sending an empty teacup spiralling towards the floor as she sought out the baby blue book that kept her dates.

Neither porcelain shattering on polished marble, nor the spatter of rainfall heedlessly knocking on her windows had anything to do with the way she froze, the grip of frigid fear that stole across her features as she flipped the inky pages, faster and faster, all but tearing through the past few weeks and into the previous month. Nothing… there was nothing. No telltale red ‘X’ scratched into the boxes. A vain and wicked girl from the start… but how could she be so stupid?

She knew, just as she knew when she was being spoken of seconds before entering a room, the same way she knew the range of a man’s tastes in a single glance across a smoky tavern, or that the Moon was clearer here, close enough to touch even behind the thick cloud covering. And now this. Her vision swam, a blurry look into pristine white and arcane glow that was every bit a part of her as her love of beauty and the kind of party ruled by extravagant textures, discreet lines of shimmering  powder and a succession of strangers in her bed.

The date book crackled and hissed in protest as it sank into the violet flames, and Ghislaine herself sank down beside it.

(( @melisandemeadowshine​, @serazyth​, @waterborne-shade​, @audemus-dawnspark​ for mentions! ))

#you can't be serious #girlplzno

[serazyth]

@waterborne-shade

Tienne…

Yours…

[serazyth]

( Reblogging because it's TONIGHT) @theredmoon

@waterborne-shade

(( & @theredmoon <3 ))

[serazyth]

little things

Shade lingered briefly in the doorway, looking back at her mother hesitantly.

Rey looked up from the ledgers that were spread out over the table. Mismatched hues gave her a pointed stare before she jut her chin toward the door.

This was different from the time she was nearly married. Rey approved. She knew and liked Serazyth, saw in him the things that Shade needed. They’d spoken exhaustively – for them – about this new adventure.

Shade had found the rest of herself in the shape of a grumpy Nightfallen, and Rey gently reminded her that houses didn’t make homes. People did. Pack was pack, and he was part of it after a fashion. Moving in with him changed nothing between mother and daughter.

But Shade still lingered on the threshold, clutching the bag of her belongings, black-stained violet eyes on her mother. There was an unsubtle nudge, and Shade blew out a breath.

She made her way through the shop and out the door of her.. the cottage that now belonged to Rey. They’d run the shop together, and Rey would take over the house (not that the old wolf had any more belongings than Shade did and was certainly baffled by all of the open space to fill).

Not much would change.

She looked up at the house he lived in, taking a deep breath of the heady scents of the garden she built him. Her touch was already imprinted on the wards, on the space within. Like she’d been there all along.

He opened the door, having clearly gotten impatient of her stillness on the walkway. There was no smile on his lips, but a brightness to his gaze, something warm and private and only for her as he stepped back.

She walked through the door and he shut it behind her, a hand falling to her hair. She looked up at him, something tangible between them as they shared a look. Hands found each other and entwined.

“Welcome home.”

Houses didn’t make homes. People did.

And he was hers.

( @serazyth )

[serazyth]

Divergent

Shade going for an evening run was a habitual process that Sera had become accustomed to since their time being together. Shade running away altogether, however, he had not.

It was usual for him to get lost in something, be it an experiment or a tome, and tonight had been no different when she had come over to the sofa to kiss him before departing. He had barely looked up from the large book on dangerous flora across Azeroth (aptly named Temptations of Nature which, at first glance, he had been dubious of its content). Rubbing at his text-weary eyes some hours later, it dawned on him that not only was it entirely dark outside but Shade had not yet returned. He made to move and then stopped himself, adorned ears twitching as luminescent eyes scanned the floor unseeingly while he listened for sounds of her inside his home. There was nothing. He wasn’t often one to dread or even be discomfited, but this was a very specific change in a pattern he was now well attuned to. When in scientific terms, he always understood far more easily, and that realization of a variant had his stomach pit with concern.

Standing, he quickly made his way to the door and threw it open, peering first at the road and then up to the moon to gauge the time of night. It was well past midnight now. Had she gone to her house, too lethargic from her jog? Certainly Rey’s nightly activities wouldn’t hinder Shade from staying (it was her place, after all) but it seemed unlikely given the usual routine. Sera had never actively had someone living with him by such certain terms, but it was the unspoken bit between them that kept Shade far more often in his two story house than her own rented space.

A fast circular gesture and very intent frame of mind had a portal opening up just in front of him that he rushed into right at the apex of its stability, forgetting to close his door in his haste which was highly unnatural for the private and sequestered researcher. It did not cross his mind. He felt rather out of his element, being fearful for another person’s safety, a queer tension against his sternum as long legs got him to the front door of the darkened house. A tight fist was pounding on the wooden surface of the front door before he had time to second-guess himself, the sound growing more rapid the longer it took someone to arrive.

When the snarling face of Rey was what he saw as the barrier flew open, his heart sank in his chest and emotion (for perhaps one of the first times in his life) threatened to overcome him. He could see in her mismatched hues that something was entirely wrong. If anyone knew that, it was this woman… and it was the most utterly frustrating expression to be met with when all he needed were answers. “Where IS she?!” (( @waterborne-shade ))

[serazyth]

what the water demands

( Shade’s POV and pt 2 of the story; the first part is HERE. )

It had been a nighttime run, just to excise the restless energy she felt. An inexplicable itch had come to live under her skin since the week she realized she was being watched. It wasn’t a malignant feeling of being stalked, but unsettling all the same. She’d left Serazyth with a kiss and an ‘I’ll be back in a bit’ then found herself running through the woods in a meditative way.

But that feeling of being watched returned, like fingertips dancing along her spine.

And she’d turned abruptly, to find herself nose to nose with a ghastly facsimile of a woman, and a fist through her chest. She coughed up blood, the spray of it across the woman’s face clearing the haze from her violet eyes, the nightmarish shadows that enshrouded her falling away like a discarded robe.

Keep reading

#Friend writing #Tick tock

[serazyth]

what the water gives us

This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

I look down at the blood on my hands, the ichorous black weeping from my feet in a thick puddle on the forest floor. The air is thick with that heavy scent of green – the kind that looms and aches in each breath as the forest readies itself for a storm.

The susurrus of leaves with their bellies turned upward, the groan and creak of branch and trunk. The drip, drip of thickening blood down my arms. A tempest is brewing. I can feel the lightning on the back of my neck.

This was not how I was meant to meet you. I meet your gaze, eyes wide and so like my own now that the glamour has been shattered like a mirror on a marble staircase. I can’t tell if you’re scared or shocked. Or both. I lick my lips.

A finger trails down my spine, ice blooming in its wake.

“What have you done, sweet starfall?” His voice burns like the velvety fire of a good scotch in the back of my throat.

I don’t know. What have I done, little sister?

Wind bites at my skin, tugging on my clothes. Battering me as if in anger on your behalf.

You look strange, laying there with moonlight dappled across your skin like you were some fawn I had chanced across in the forest. A child’s discarded doll.

What were you doing out so late?

Why were you running?

“She is going to die if you don’t do something,” he whispers against my throat.

He’s right. But.. also not. I see it now. The way you cling to the heartlines of energy that pulse in the tangled web of the roots of the trees. I see you fumbling for it.

But you can’t feed yourself when you’re so weak, can you sister?

No. I can fix this.

The blackness that lives beneath my skin reaches out and snatches you away, I watch as you sink, clawing weakly at the mossy forest floor before you’re swallowed.

There is, suddenly, the high pitched howl of a wolf distressed.

I have run out of time.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

I don’t know what I’ve done. But… I can fix it.

His chuckle is soft and insidious against my cheek, his lips leaving bruising frostbite in their wake.

Hello, Gael. I’m your sister.

( @waterborne-shade | soft mention @reyshadowstriderwra )

#um excuse #that's mine #watch your back

[serazyth]

via weheartit

[serazyth]

@waterborne-shade

(( & @theredmoon <3 ))

#Wyrmrest roleplay #red moon #moodboard #enchantment #WRA RP #horde rp

[serazyth]

Thought Bubble - Sera

“I do sometimes wonder what that might have been like.”((Lol thanks, @serazyth!

[serazyth]