stygianstories

[stygianstories]

I have no idea how krita works and at this point I’m too afraid to ask

#larkspath #stygians #art

[stygianstories]

Some doodles and quests from the staff appreciation week prompts, featuring Lark both in her old and new forms.

[stygianstories]

[Staff 006] Metamorphosis

Lark knew she was incomplete. It was not a matter of shame, but simply a fact of the world, such as the name of the color green or the mome raths which continued to follow her loyally through her travels. A word would travel through her head -- figment --  and, while not entirely accurate, nor was it wrong. She was a fragment of what she was meant to be, a puzzle, with pieces missing. And it was not a source of shame, either, for she knew that each hoofstep brought her further along the path, closer to what she could be.

And she was changing. She could feel it, buzzing in the back of her mind, and in the occasional glimpses of reflection in the passing pools and lakes. Her vines grew and flourished, taking over more of her body. Her tail thickened and grew, until it was its own independent appendage, the fur parting to reveal jagged teeth. Nubs of horns began to emerge from her head, and still she grew onwards. She was not nearly her full form yet. And still she must journey on.

It was months, maybe years into her travel when she saw the pack. Long legged and fuzzy, and smelling of wonderful herbs and spices, the fluffy creatures moved across the plains, grazing calmly. It was quite a sight to behold, all the colors and smells of the peaceful herd moving through. Her raths raced ahead to greet the creatures but Lark could only stand and watch, taking it all in.

"They're here for you too, you know." A cheery voice startled out of her thoughts, causing her to whirl around. There was a creature there, something like her, with intelligence in its eyes and shaped like her. It was free of the vines which consumed her though, a plain grey color with a small belt of playing cards tied around its neck in a makeshift collar.

She could only stand there, frozen. She was not used to, exactly, the appearance of other beings like her. Not her sure enough to understand what she was and that there could be others like her. But the creature/stranger only smiled warmly and continued on. "Those are teapacas. I think you might learn a thing or two by trying to interact with one." The stranger pointed their grey muzzle towards the closest. "You're reaching an important stage in your journey, and you're almost there. Just don't give up." They smiled warmly. "I'm Figment by the way. Perhaps I'll see you around." By the time it had occurred to her to respond, the creature was gone. Now it was just her, the mome raths, and the teapacas. She turned towards the nearest, the one that Figment had indicated. It looked at her blandly, fur smelling strongly of jasmine and chamomile. Lark hesitantly took a step forward. The teapaca stepped away.

She lost count of the days she spent among the herd, timidly but relentlessly stepping after the teapaca. Whenever she approached, it would step away, but it always remained right in sight, right at the edge of her reach. It frustrated and intrigued her in equal parts. What was this teapaca supposed to teach her? Why was she here? And who was Figment?

Unbeknownst to her, Lark's changes started accelerating. She hardly noticed the morning when she woke up, but her eyes did not open, sealed shut by some heaviness she did not understand. Or the third eye that opened wide in the middle of her forehead, guiding her movements onwards with the same ease her original two eyes had. She did not notice the vines continuing their takeover, curling around her tail and her new-grown horns, and, most worryingly, consuming the flesh of her hind leg until all that moved it was bone, picked clean and shining white. To her, this was simply a transformation, a growth, taking place so slowly as to be commonplace. When the final change took form, the strange wisp-light that rendered her partially there and partially not, the momes grew wary, but Lark knew she had made an important step. Not yet completed, but no longer a....figment.

She pounced at the teapaca this time, legs more muscular and powerful than they were before. It made to move away, but its careful steps would not be fast enough, and before it could run, she was upon it, hooves pinning it to the ground, jagged tail poised against its long fuzzy neck.

And from her mouth, or perhaps the mouth of the jaws that hovered above her, came a voice, rough and hoarse.

Mine.

And she calmly stepped back and allowed the teapaca to run away.

She stood there for a long time, before the sun's rays dimmed in the sky, and then turned to continue on. She was no longer a figment. Her place was not here. And so she left, mome raths trailing behind her.

#Stygian #stygianshade #larkspath

[stygianstories]

To Dust It Returns

Hey world grew, and as it grew, so did she. She learned the meanings of cold and warm and thousands of others besides. Her momes became her friends, some growing and evolving into large furred snakelike beings who could travel alongside her, others remaining small and cute and clinging to her fur. She understood she was a person, a something, in as much as someone could understand something like that, and with time, she chose a name. She was Lark. Each day was a new experience, for one thing she had not solved was her restlessness. She constantly wandered, always seeking out something just beyond her reach. The idea of stopping, except for the short rests her body forced upon her, was not an appealing one: it hardly even occurred to her. But she was learning, and she was recognizing, and one day she understood that her vines wanted to bear seeds again. She followed her instincts down a path she did not know existed before. It twisted and brambled in such a way that felt right, and it was not long until she was in a place that was her own. It shone in the way she did and Lark understood that she was in her nightmare kingdom. Finally, a place that was thoroughly Hers. In time she would explore this place fully, know every nook and cranny and leaf that fell. But now was not that time. Instead, she dug furrows in the ground, stepping backwards with her hind legs while her front hooves dug in deep. Her momes needed no instruction, they seemed to know her well enough by now to guess at her intent, and so they hopped off and swarmed around her, gathering bits of plants and materials for what purpose she did not recognize but fully trusted. Once the rows were furrowed, she stepped over the plot and seeds fell from her vines, embedding themselves in the dirt. Momes swarmed over the plots and began to push dirt over the soil until all were covered. And it was done. The seeds were once again planted, and safely protected until the time would come to sprout. Lark tapped a hoof against the soft soil and momes swarmed up onto her fur again. And then she turned her back on the plot and moved onwards to continue her journey. She still had a long ways to go.

#stygian #stygianstories #arpg #stygian arpg #larkspath

[stygianstories]

An Interlude: Nurture and Tend

She was not often actively aware of her vines. She knew they were there, yes-- hard to not notice something that grows off of and around you-- but hardly paid them any more attention than the tip of her nose, or the fur in her tail. She was distantly aware that they were a part of her and yet not: sometimes moving, shifting of their own accord. She had no cause to consider this odd, and had never once wondered about their origins or meaning, however she was distinctly aware of them now. Or rather, aware of their plight.

It wasn't like feeling her own pain, not really. It was-- uncomfortable, around her hooves and her ears where the vines grew thickest. A distinctly external feeling of distress, but one that twinged uncomfortably in her heart. It made sense, she supposed, that the creatures that lived and grew off of her would share in her discomforts, and she in theirs. In this cold, they did not thrive.

Moving carefully, slowly, as if afraid she would dislodge her own vines, she twisted her neck around to the flower that grew on her foreleg. The colors were dull, a single petal detaching itself and drifting slowly to the ground. She considered the petal for a long moment. It did not -- well, hard to say it looked unusual. After all, she worked mostly off of senses, and had little basis for comparison. But something told her it was no ordinary petal alone.

She stretched her neck out in the other direction, nosing around the cave until she found a small patch that was not rock. Melting snow from the outside world dripped down along the walls of the cave and pooled next to a soft match of girt and moss. Perfect. She reached out and pressed her hoof deep into the patch, breaking up moss and leaving a small indentation. From there, she lipped up the petal-thing and deposited it into the indentation. Detaching itself from her fur with a small plop, one of the momes scurried forward and began to nudge dirt particles back over the indentation. Its movements were weak, groggy as it still was from the cold, but soon its companions began to drop off of the stygian as well and join it. Soon, the little petal was completely covered.

The effort was enough to exhaust her, and she found herself passing into a dreamless sleep once again, momes curled up on and around her. She was distantly aware of the momes movements: they would take turns going over to the pool and gently dipping bits of their own fur into it, using themselves as makeshift sponges to carry over water to the little plant. At times, their chittering grew louder, and then quieted again. But quickly enough, she lost energy and once again would pass into slumber.

Time passed, though by no frame of reference she would be able to give. The momes curled up to sleep once again. And finally, eventually, the stygian opened her eyes once more.

Her gaze was immediately drawn to where she had left the indentation. Now, instead of a small pile of dirt, a plant sprouted up. No petals, for petals would not thrive in a cave such as this, but it was undoubtedly hers, a little vine that was dark green and brilliant, and slowly creeping upwards, growing towards the edge of the cave. And towards light.

She paused. Then she surprised herself-- and smiled. And then she turned to gather up the momes, and to thank them for what they had done.

#stygianshade #stygians #arpg #original art #original writing #larkspath

[stygianstories]

[M-005] Oh the Weather Outside is frightful

Whatever she is, she does not know the concept of hunger or tiredness. Perhaps they exist somewhere in the back of her mind, for her to be aware of a lack of them, but they are not concepts that exist to her now. She simply travels, wandering growing ever slower, and she continues on in her search for-- she's not sure what. She's almost there though. She knows it.

But eventually she learns the concept of cold. Green surroundings turn white, and then grey, as the sky begins to petal down with the softest of white -- snow, that's what it is. Dots turn to crunches of snowfall beneath her hooves, and before long each hoofstep is a battle as she trudges through piles that begin to rise almost as high as her knees. The momes no longer chirp, but cling grimly on to her fur, her legs, anything they can get a hold of. They are still, almost too still. And yet, she wanders on.

Eventually, the chill of the snow bites into her very bones. The sensations become cold and then freezing and then tired and then comes need for something she also did not know of before. Rest.

She casts her gaze about for anything that might not be this-- piles and piles of snow. In the distance, a gap in the white: stone. Forming a cave. Good enough. She redirects and pushes onwards, though by now each hoofstep takes the energy of ten. Whatever lends way to this snow, she does not think she likes it.

She finally makes her way into the cave, and there at last is blessed respite. The cold is still numbing, but it does not sink through her fur with the sensation of cold and wet, not the way the snow does. Though the stone under her hooves make her teeth chatter, it is just that: stone. Which means she can walk around, not battle through each step as if she is drowning. Here, finally, she can rest.

And so she does. The creature, whatever type of creature she may be, curls up on the ground, and simply sits there, letting the snow flake and melt off of her, listening idly to the howling roars of the wind against the outside world. The creatures that clung to her coat fall off in tired clumps, plomping to the ground before tiredly beginning their crawl back to her, curling up in the fur of her belly. Of its own accord, her body begins to shake, and then settles to an idle shiver, but she does eventually find comfort, and her eyes lower. The momes in her fur sigh and snuggle closer, and all at one the group settles into idle stillness.

And Lark for the first time sleeps.  

#wc 464 #stygian shade #arpg #larkspath

[stygianstories]

The ocean was not her home, or rather it was not Hers, and neither was the shore, and neither was the mountains. Rather, she let her instincts guide her, wandering where her hooves took her, letting something deep inside her guide her towards the place that was hers, or more properly, the place that was Her. She wandered and over time, the landscapes began to change, until they reflected outside what she was on the inside. The place of her being, the place that was Her Kingdom. And when she found her kingdom, when her hooves started to take those first few familiar steps, what surrounded her was growth. Growth, in the purest most untamed sense of the word. For this world had not always been so wild, there had been cities, castles and statues, but they had fallen and given way to a new sort of ruler: the everlasting monarch that is time. Stones and rubble were all that was left of these monuments, now here to serve as pillars for their new master: The Wild.  Vines and thorns and leaves all straining, struggling, choking one another for space and for sun. Where the ruins were grey and muted and empty, the plants were greens and reds and yellows, all bursting with life and the need for dominance and to just. Keep. Growing. And all around them, these thousands of ruins and vines the trees stood tall. Enormous enough to stretch up into the heavens, and farther beyond. Their canopy was a mass of branches and leaves fighting for dominance, and in the gaps of those branches where spackled beams of sunlight shone through to the ground, there vines and plants strained upwards, eager for a taste of what those older trees so freely claimed. And perhaps it was just the nature of these trees, to dwarf all that surrounded, but as the trees grew larger, she too seemed to grow smaller, until she was but a figment of what she thought she might have been, wandering those ruins. Cobblestones stretched until each was a wall to block her path, vines became rolling logs that twisted and blocked her path. The most minuscule leaf was a veiny wall that stretched over her head, and each pebble a rolling tribute to what once had been. And still she ventured on, for her journey was not, could not, be over. She was not sure how long she traveled, for who could say what time was here. How many thousands of eons had passed since this place had told its final stories, before the towers crumbled and the ruins were ruined. But as she traveled, she began to take in more of her Kingdom, more of Herself, in a way she had not understood before. She understood innately that this place was as much her as her own hooves, that the vines that curled around her legs and into her fur were one and the same with the vines that claimed dominance over the stone. Thankfully hers, at least, seemed to have shrunk down to size with her, and so did not crush and impede her movements, as the other vines clearly would have. She understood that she was to wander this world until she understood it, and by extension herself, and gained some knowledge of who she was. And if that meant being small in a world that was oh so large, then that was what would happen. And in her newfound minuscule form, she wandered on. The creatures, the momes, that had clung to her fur and been her squeaky fuzzy companions through this journey, began to change too. Perhaps it was her growing smaller, but they too seemed to grow larger, detaching from her fur and writhing and stretching, growing on some signal from her that she could not begin to comprehend. The grey one first, drawing from her, draining from her, as it stretched into a large writing creature with stripes of grey and white, the fuzz and squeaks still a firm reminder of what it once had been. And then the yellow, growing into a monster that dwarfed her minuscule state, and slithered silently along her. Whatever her odd companions were, determined to follow her through to the end. The others, for their part, remained their rounded fuzzy selves, but she had a feeling that it was only a matter of time. And time was all she had. But soon, it gave way to understanding. Her footsteps more assured, her movements more confident. And she stepped onwards through her kingdom, to continue her journey.        

Dungeon 691 for MYO 519, Lark

#stygian #stygianshade #arpg #larkspath

[stygianstories]

Baby’s First Foe + Rising Up (ADV-001 D-002, MYO-519)

[SS] [ADV-001] Baby's First Foe  (the image)

[SS] [D-002] (the writing)

Lark part 2/???

And so she floated and so it was. The world around her was empty, save for the warm waters that enveloped her and the flashes of light and color that danced at the edges of her vision. And for a while, she was content, for to be malcontent would imply that there was something she felt she was missing. And how could one feel missing if one did not know what to miss?

But eventually, the tides stirred and some unknown force whispered. Come it whispered and Aren’t you missing something? And with time, with its urges and pleas and threats, she eventually learned to move again, to kick her legs and to twist her body until, all abruptly, she was moving. And then-- she rose.

The first breathe of air was like none she had known before, unfamiliar and yet right in a way the water had not been. She breathed,  and then suddenly it was all she knew to do, and she coughed and thrashed in the water until finally she won her battle with it. And she was swimming.

A meep told her that the creatures -- the momes, something inside her said -- were still there, clinging onto her back for purposes yet unknown to her. Out of the water, they looked bedraggled, half of their original size, and still they clung stubbornly on. She ignored them, for now, the way one might ignore a strand of hair in their face, and for the first time in her existence, properly looked around her.

Above was clear to her in a way that below had never been. The shapes coalesced into objects, trees and mountains in words that felt utterly foreign to her and yet came with a certainty, as if she had always known them. Herein was a world she understood, or at least come to understand, and with that knowledge and certainty she turned and began swimming towards shore, the mome on her back cheeping all the while. There was something there she needed to see, something she needed to find. And finding herself faced for the first time with direction, on she went.

Stygians: https://www.deviantart.com/stygian-shade

#stygian #stygianshade #larkspath

[stygianstories]

A First Stirring (B-001, MYO-519)

Lark’s story. 1/???

She did not know where she was. She did not know what she was. The memories were there, but slipping just out of reach, like water at the edges of her mind. And the moment water came into mind, so too did it come into being. 

And from dry land, and from nothingness, suddenly she was floating. And the world around her was alive with the colors and feelings of it all.

Movement whispered past her: the currents, the tides, the buzz of a thousand different colors and shapes circling around her at once. From blurs, shapes began to form. Beings with tendrils and with form circling and swimming around her in a burst of activity. More activity than she had ever known in....had she ever known at all?

A beep was the first noise to make itself clear to her. A small fuzzy creature clinging onto her fur, fighting against the currents that threatened to pull it away. Another one, this one clinging onto her leg. Odd beings, and yet harmless, for now. She looked past them and experimentally kicked her legs, and just like that, the world around her moved.

Another creature swam into view, this one other in the way the fuzzy creatures -- momes? -- that clung to her were not. Orange and rounded, white-grey fins flaring out behind it, it regarded her for only a moment before darting away. In a sudden confusion, a flurry of movement, she swam after it. So small, so uninteresting-- but it was different. It was other. And perhaps something that was not she, or not like her, might lend insight to this strange new world.

So she swam, kicking out legs she did not know she had. And the little orange dot stayed, ever ahead of her, ever swimming. At one point, the little fuzzy creatures lost their grips, and drifted away, meeping. At another, she tired, and the orange creature swam away and out of sight.

And so, again she drifted, alone. And she closed her eyes, and once again slept.

#stygian #stygianshade #arpg #larkspath