Your golden eyes are red rimmed and splotchy with tears. You had cried the entire trip and nothing your brothers did could soothe your tears.
Mama was dead.
DEMO: PROLOGUE (PLAY HERE!)
(08/19/2023)
Word Count: 15,000+ words
After a little over a month of writing and coding, I'm very proud to release the Prologue!
Patch notes (08/19/2023):
Mobile users can now save their progress from the main menu at the top of the screen (look for the downwards arrow) .
Fixed some of the UI so it doesn't look ugly as sin on mobile.
Fixed the bug preventing font-size configuration from the settings menu.
What to expect:
✦ Move to the Imperial City of Nephilim
✦ Celebrate your Birthday! (I hear there's going to be cake!)
✦ Meet your other family members and make some friends.
✦ Do some family bonding and learn some history.
✦ And have a lot fun! :)
CONTENT WARNING: The Sovereign's Ring is intended for an 18+ audience. The Sovereign’s Ring contains disturbing/dark subject matter that is not for everyone, such as graphic depictions of violence, gore, death, trauma, sexism, racism, poverty, misogyny, sexual assault/violence, child abuse/grooming, suicide, depression, alcohol more.
The prologue is short and sweet and will set the tone for the rest of the game. I did intend to make a bit longer- but at some point it felt like it was overstaying welcome. I'll come back to it one day, if I ever want to write about palace life.
Please enjoy! If you come across any bugs/errors shoot a message to my inbox and we can cry together while I try and fix it. :)
✦ Lili ✦
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(soulmates AU: Part 1 | Part 2)
“You know,” says Jonathan. “Nancy’s parents are soulmates.”
Steve hadn’t known that, but he knows it’s supposed to run in families. Even though it’s also pretty normal for soulmarks to crop up for no reason anyone can tell, his own had been a big surprise, because everyone knows that John and Linda Harrington aren’t soulmates.
The night after his soulmark had appeared, he’d woken up around midnight. He couldn’t figure out what had woken him up for a while, but as he lay there in the dark, he could hear his dad’s voice coming up through the floors. His mom and dad must have been in the study, right below Steve’s bedroom, and his dad must’ve been pretty worked up by that point to be that loud.
For god’s sake, John, Steve’s mom had hissed, quieter but still clear enough in the dead suburban night. He’s the spitting image of you. I don’t know what kind of proof you—
John and Linda Harrington aren’t soulmates. They can’t ever really relax around each other, because there’s no guarantee that something better won’t come along for either of them, and they both know it.
Steve had tilted his own wrist so he could see the pretty, confident hand of a girl he’d never met, and felt so glad that he’d never have to worry like that.
“Must be nice,” is all he says to Jonathan, now.
“Sure, maybe,” says Jonathan. “Don’t know if she sees it that way.”
He asks Robin about her parents later. He’s only met Mr. and Mrs. Buckley a couple times, but they seem to get along okay.
Robin makes a face. “God, they’re so weird about it. They never got any real names—like, names never appeared by themselves, but they decided to get tattoos when they got married. The artist had them sign like five million disclaimer forms and still did it in red ink so nobody would get it confused for the real thing, but they don’t even care. It’s embarrassing.”
“Yeah,” Steve says.
He thinks about it later, though, and decides it doesn’t seem all that embarrassing to him. It’s not as good as a real name, of course, but maybe it’s the next best thing. At least it’s some kind of permanent mark, so even if things go south, you’ll always have part of that person as part of you too. The kind of thing that can’t be erased, just covered over.
———
Steve doesn’t ask about the blob on Eddie’s wrist. Not asking basically becomes a hobby for him. Steve drops by after going to see Max two or three times a week, and he doesn’t ask. Steve helps Wayne load Eddie into the car to the brand new Nancy-approved duplex, and he doesn’t ask. Steve stops by with a casserole from the Hendersons, and he stays to help eat it, and he doesn’t ask.
Finally, Eddie chucks a potato chip at the side of Steve’s face and groans, “Just fucking ask, dude.”
Steve eats the potato chip, even though it’s sour cream and onion, and says unconvincingly: “Ask what?”
Eddie tips his head back over the arm of the couch and levels an unimpressed stare at Steve.
“Okay, fine,” Steve relents. “Tell me about your stupid name, I guess. Do I know her?”
Eddie shrugs. “Don’t know. Doesn’t matter. I knew pretty early on that I didn’t want anything to do with that shit, so I covered it up the day I got it. If I could’ve stopped myself from seeing anything at all, I would’ve.”
“Wait, you covered it up? Like, did the tattoo yourself?”
“Sure. I mean, I had to fix it up later, it was my first stick-and-poke and it was pretty rough. For a while, you could still kinda make out most of the letters. Hurt like a bitch, though.”
“Jesus.” Steve leans back on his elbows, sprawling out over the rug. “I don’t get you at all, man.”
Eddie hums a little, drums his fingertips over his own jaw.
“What do you want?” he says abruptly. “Like, in life. Generally. What is it that Steve Harrington actually wants from the future?”
Steve puts another gross sour cream potato chip on his tongue and crunches down.
“Shit, I dunno. What does anyone want? A house, a family. The usual stuff.”
Eddie taps his nose with one bony index finger and jabs the other at Steve. “Bullseye, right there. The difference between you and me.”
“What, you don’t want any of that? Too normal for you?” Steve snorts.
Eddie groans and rolls sideways off the couch, landing on the rug next to Steve. He props himself up on his elbows. “It’s not about the actual stuff, Harrington. House and family doesn’t…” He hesitates, ducking his head so his hair tumbles over his face a little. “It doesn’t actually sound so bad to me, y’know? But I’d throw myself off a fucking cliff before I answered a question like that with what does anyone want.”
“Okay, if you’re so super-evolved or whatever, what does Eddie Munson want?”
Eddie grins up at Steve. It’s a little lopsided because of the shiny pink scar on his cheek. It’ll probably be lopsided for the rest of his life. Even back when they’d been making plans to buy guns and steal an RV, Steve remembers Eddie’s smile looking just plain happy, like a kid. Now it’ll always look like he’s got a secret he isn’t telling you.
“So, so many things,” says Eddie. “Most of all, though, Eddie Munson wants the freedom to make his own mistakes.”
Steve still doesn’t get it, but he’s starting to think there’s a lot of things he doesn’t really get about how other people see soulmarks. Most people seem to think just like Steve does, of course; there wouldn’t be so many songs and movies and stuff about it otherwise.
Talking to Eddie like this, though, is starting to make Steve feel like he's staring out into the dark, knowing there's something else beyond the porchlights but not even being able to see the shape of it.
He leans back, closing his eyes. Some guitar is wailing away from the boombox under the kind of vocals that always set Steve on edge; they’re too yelping and strained, like you can hear the singer’s vocal cords getting wrecked in real time as he yowls: man you’re dying—for what you’ve lost but never had—
It’s annoying, that’s all.
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i. we live in the shadow of a many-cut gem. a hundred faces gleam hidden for each that we find and fog with awe. no one can see every beauty. no one is made for every thing. Where the fox turns its tail white and whistles through the winter, the bear knows best for himself-- simply closes his eyes.
ii. beauty is best as a berry, surprise and sweet and bursting with its short-spark fullness as it slips past the lip. the size of desire, bloated, outstrips. do not mistake these two, or worse, duty-- you will find yourself choking on that hollow thing, mass without meaning and grimacing in prescribed delight.
iii. we hear the song better when we know the words. mine starts so. salt glittering on the pavement, calling back to their days in the dancing sea. The shock- clarity- of a single breath, like lightning in the lungs. The sun on the snow- beauty in contrast. Snow knitting its hands together into something softer- beauty in itself. Beauty in self-certainty, howling down the blizzard-gray sky-- I will lay myself upon this crawling earth until the frozen overflows. I will render ice before I melt. I will sing this cold-grown world to rest, and in the albedo, I will glow.
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