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contrastparadoxx · 6 months

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Typical Girls Sleepover

Summary: Soliel and Daseos have a sleepover! Collab Drabble between myself and @byrdstrolls Art by Byrdstrolls Word Count: 2651

As soon as she saw the car pull up Soliel went flying down the steps, pulling her jacket fully on as she went. She skidded to a halt next to the already beginning to roll down the driver’s side window. The conversation inside did not halt, so the rust was able to catch the back end of it.

“-ake sure you have everyone’s phone numbers Daseos”

“I do! G-d!!! I lived on the streets for MONTHS, remember?” She insists.

“The streets are one thing, a fucking, highblood neighborhood is another-” Hanagi mutters, and then jumps several figurative feet in the air out of startlement as she notices she’s been cursing and talking about hemophobia in front of a child that’s not Daseos. “Hi Soliel” She says, leaning an elbow on the side of the car, so naturally. Nice save.

Soliel chimed in, chirping in the manner often found with her “The closest neighbors are preeeetty far away no worries Doc” she beamed as the driver finally turned to look at her with a worried look etched into her face.

“Well thanks” The rustblood replies. “You seem particularly chipper”

“I get to spend the day with my best friend in all the universe! Of course I’m excited! Wanna see my horns I’ve been following your instructions to the letter I literally can not feel them right now totally numb” She tilted her head so the other could see the flat top of her horns, then reached up and tapped them “It’s weird actually knowing I should be able to feel them but can’t!” By this point, Daseos had gotten out of the car, holding her overnight bag carefully.

“Good, Das is gonna help you get the prosthetics on, not being able to feel your horns will make that easier. Be safe, both of you, and try to make sure you get SOME sleep.”

“You’re not my lusus!” Daseos insists, running over to hug her friend.

“I’ll keep an eye on her doc” Soliel salutes over the hug to the adult. “I’ll make sure she sleeps”

“You better” Hanagi mutters, sighing as she watches Daseos go, before finally driving off. Daseos turns to her, grinning.

“I got everything we need” She says, pat patting her bag.

Soliel grinned back “Great! I have things set up inside, we should wait till daybreak so everyone’s asleep, so uh… what do you want to do until then?” She started to lead her best friend into the massive mansion via a side door closer to her portion of it. “Maybe we can do my horn thing, and then hang out in the ball pit, uhm, if you want”

“YOU HAVE A BALL PIT‽”

“Uhm, yeah! Erik got it for me after I lamented that they don’t make them big enough once you’re no longer a wriggler and also they’re disgusting and full of germs” she held the door open. “Once you help get my caps on I’ll show it to you! I also got us matching bathrobes and they’re made from this fabric that originates off-planet, the softest thing you’ve ever felt I promise.”

“Thanks” Daseos replies, feeling a persistent ever so slight guilt inside her, that of a girl not used to having rich friends and being given luxurious things.

The two fell into chatter that jumped topics several times, weaving through everything but aliens to empire politics though neither ever seemed lost by the flow. They headed into Soliel’s bathroom, where the rust settled down on the edge of her bathtub so Daseos could easily reach the top of her head.

“Hanagi says normally this would hurt a lot which I guess makes sense especially for you since your horns are weird-“ She starts.

“Hey!” Soliel retorts.

“It’s true! Weird is cool!! I wish MY horns could glow! Anyway hopefully they’re actually as numb as they seem you know because it would suck if you ended up in pain”

“Yeah true we have waaaaay too much going on later” Soliel giggled until a small bonk from Das reminded her to hold still. She went rigid, even her chest barely moving as she breathed in and out.

“Okay-” Daseos says, bracing herself. “This should be easy, but you might get a headache later as the extra weight settles in. Buuuuuuut” Das’ tongue stuck out a bit from the corner of her mouth as she messed with the horn caps “that should do it!” She grins holding up her friend's head to face the mirror.

“Get the light!!” Soliel requests, kicking her feet in excitement.

“RIGHT” Daseos says, flicking off the bathroom’s light switch, and then eyes widening in wonder as she looks at her friend’s prosthetics glowing faintly in the block. “Yooooooooo” The jadeblood whispers in an unexpected moment of barely contained excitement.

Her friend sits up from the chair, laughing in child-like glee and spinning in circles, watching her horns in the mirror.

“You’re gonna be the coolest medium in the world, you know that?” Daseos says. “She’s gonna come straight out of the afterlife and say those caps are SICK”

After twisting in the mirror a moment, the joy from seeing her horns complete for the first time since The Incident caused the rest of them begin to glow to match the caps. Soliel wiped the forming tears away, and turned to Daseos. “Okay I know I said we should wait until sunrise BUT no one bothers me over here and Erik’s probably busy anyway so what if we went and set up now.” She bounced on her toes a bit, then grabs her friend's arm and pulls her out the room and down the hall. “Come on, if it goes well we can put our robes on and watch a movie after!”

“What if it doesn’t go well?” Daseos jokes. “Can we still do that?”

Her personal room had most things on the sides, with a lot of clear space in the middle other than a rug, which she pulled off to the side. “Of course we can but obviously how well it goes will dictate our movie choice, trust me I’m an expert” with the floor now clear, Soliel quickly got to work drawing on it.

“Right” Daseos says, nodding solemnly, she goes over and sets down her bag, pouring several items out of it.

“Okay hand me everything you got to bring her here, based on what you’ve told me about her I uh-“ the rust took a moment to pull something out from behind a pillow on the nearby couch. It was a stuffed octopus “I finished fixing this guy up for her. Look! One of its tentacles even had to be patched with another color on the end because it was missing.” She gently set that in the circle.

“Yeah,” Daseos says. “She loved uh, sea animals” She says, honestly knowing close to nothing about Twitch. “And Ghost energy drinks” The jade says, referring to the brand and not the fact Twitch would be a ghost, setting a few inside the circle, “Mondes says her apartment was covered in them- and I got her five caegers” Daseos continues, dropping the bill in the circle, making a strange collection of sparse offerings.

“She loved five caegers?” Soliel questions.

“She was an evil fleet lady, of course she loved money!” Das insists. “And this stuff was all I could find in my hive” She adds, sheepishly.

“That makes sense” Sol nods in agreement. “If it doesn’t work the first time we’ll go dig in the cushions of the BIG couch and see if we can find anything extra” as she settled comfortably. “Now, did you bring-“ a vague hand gesture to indicate what she meant was given.

“Th-thony” Daseos grins, setting down the money object in the center of the circle, the thing they were most sure Twitch had at least something of an emotional connection too. “I told Hanagi I needed him for a science project eheheh. She can’t say no to science.”

That got a laugh. “Okay yeah that’s fair. Sorry Th-thony, I got some plant food for you as an apology for once this is over, that works for a plant right? Also that wasn’t a TOTAL lie this is kind of a science project, the project is uhm” she paused, trying to figure out how to word it.

“Necromancy” Daseos replies. “Ecology. Whatever”

“Psychology maybe” she nods, then giggles

“Definitely psychology!” Daseos laughs. “It’s Twitch.”

“Alright, I’m ready when you are”

The jadeblood inhales, staring at the pile of assorted items. It was enough- it had to be. Strange that Twitch could have had such a lasting impact on every single one of them, yet when searching for material proof of who she was, what she even wanted, what she stood for- the tangible results are so depressingly meager. Newly determined to do her due diligence as a necromancer following Ailzea’s ask-first model, she looks her friend in the eye.

“I’m ready,” She says. The tone of the night shifts ever so slightly, the girls taking on a somber air as the blinds moved just a bit in the wind.

Soliel nodded in solemn understanding, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath, putting her hands flat on the ground in front of her. Breath in, breath out, the room seems to fall colder. In, out, the very shadows start to shift and twist around her. In, out, the glow from her horns fades, but then she opens her eyes and the glow from them more than makes up for it. The uncovered one glows red, and purple light seeps out from under the eyepatch over the other.

A thin pink line dances above Th-thony’s steam like a seam, slipping in and out of existence like a trail of smoke. Daseos watches it with wary trepidation and anticipation, glancing back and forth from Soliel to the plant.

When the rust speaks, there’s an almost musical quality to it. “We want to speak to you, so please come forth.”

The pine line sparks suddenly, as if lashing out in a burst of emotion. And suddenly, the specter is there, flicking in the moonlight, seeming more star than girl in many ways, her tangible form volatile, but her mouth seems to find the grace to form words, the first thing to fall from her mouth is predictably bitter

“Ha Ha” The ghost of Twitch Monark says, staring down Daseos as if Soliel were not even there. “Why would you wanna talk to me?” She says.

This seems to stump Daseos temporarily. She seems caught up in seeing the woman face to face for the first time since she had arrested Mondes outside that motel, trenches of old hurt she thought were long buried digging their way to the surface.

“Because” she stumbles. “Can we bring you back to life?”

“What?” She replies.

“What?” Daseos says.

“We want to bring you back to life!” Soliel says. “Is that okay?”

“Okay?” Twitch says, looking through the pile of offerings. “First of all- not a thing you can do. Death is famously permanent” she mansplains. “Second, why would you do that?”

“Me and my family have discussed it,” Daseos says solemnly. “And we want to give you another chance.”

“Well now I KNOW you’re lying” Twitch replies.

“I’m not!” Daseos insists.

“The Cheongs aren’t idiots,” she says.

“Yes they are!” The kid retorts. “I mean! No they’re not!” She corrects, tripping over her words.

Soliel had to choke back laughter at that, clearing her throat instead.

“Exactly. So even if necromancy was real- big IF- they wouldn’t use it on me.” She says.

“M’am I am literally sitting here glowing and talking to you after dragging you as a ghost to here. Can you not act like necromancy is nothing because like- it’s happening, right now.” Soliel argues.

“Oh I’m ALIVE right now?” Twitch retorts. Poking a hand through her body, turning into a burst of light and back again. “This is how my alive body works?”

“Necromancy has different levels OBVIOUSLY jeez I thought you were supposed to be the fancy smart one.” The six sweep old roasts.

“I shoulda brought Marsie” Daseos muses.

“You what?” Twitch stutters.

“I brought Marsie back to like” She subtlety brags. “I coulda brought him here to show you.”

“Your story grows more ludicrous by the second” Twitch hisses.

“Have you seen him around the afterlife?” The teenager says.

The ghost stares at her, beaten. “Well- no” She says. “Could be unrelated” She mumbles. “Maybe he’s avoiding me. Besides! That’s obviously what you’d say if you were attempting to endear yourself to me” She accuses.

Daseos takes a moment to grab her phone, looking through her photos for an age. Before flipping it over and showing a photo of her and Marsie taken a couple weeks ago.

The seadweller stares at it. Dumbfounded. She inhales.

“Could be doctored,” She says.

“Are you kidding me?” Daseos hisses.

“None of this makes sense” The violetblood complains, “And nobody wants me back alive! She says, throwing up her hands and storming off.

Soliel clears her throat, and simply summons her again, the ghost appearing again in the circle. She glares at them.

“Why wouldn’t they want you back alive?” Soliel asks.

“A hundred billion reasons.” She replies.

“Hanagi misses you,” Daseos says quietly.

The woman inhales, pained. “Hanagi maybe. Maybe once in a blue moon Hanagi misses me but the rest of them? You can’t expect me to believe that.”

“Have you considered that maybe, just maybe, people would be willing to believe you are able to change? That Hanagi’s opinions may have affected others?” She speaks softly now, the rust does, unsure if it’s really her place to speak.

“Sure. Hanagi just walked up to the rest of them and said let's resurrect Monark and they were like "you know what, sure”” She rambles, sarcastically. “They totally just forgot about all the attempted murder I did. They just listen to whatever Hanagi says.”

“You’re such a child” Daseos says, in a disquieted awe of the woman’s immaturity, which even she, the six sweep old, can parse. “Let’s say they did-”

“They didn’t” She retorts.

“Let’s say they did,” Daseos insists. “Wouldn’t you want to do right by them?” She says. “If Hanagi fought them on it- on your behalf”

The ghost pauses, flickering again as she is overcome with emotion.

“Necromancy isn’t real,” She says.

“Uuuuuugh do you want me to send a taxi for Marsie?” Soliel says, exasperated.

“Will you ANSWER THE QUESTION” Daseos says, fed up. “If none of this is real- it doesn’t matter. But if it WERE. play pretend. Do you want to live?”

The ghost flickers so much she nearly vanishes into that unknowable either. Lost and faint as she was when she was alive. This hollowed out trace of a person. Her form falls apart, until it's not even clear it’s a troll anymore. Just shapes and colors, pinks and purples, the nebula thrashes, caught in some silent violence. The air rustles through Th-thony’s leaves.

“Okay, I’ll play pretend” Monark says, voice quiet and wavering with no discernible source.

“I want to live,” She says. And Daseos shoulders ease. Her eyes close, in a silent, raw relief.

“Okay” She says. “Thank you” she says, not knowing what she was saying it for. “I’ll see you soon” The child promises.

A pink hand snakes out of the void, grabbing the five dollar bill from the tiny altar.

“I’m keeping this” She says, dragging it to whatever ghost realm, and then she’s gone.

Soliel waits until she is fully sure the spirit is gone before cutting the connection off, the glow within the room fading and the shadows settling unnoticed back to their usual positions. “Well. I think that went well.”

“Yeah” Daseos says, dazed. “I guess that could have gone worse”

#My Writing #Friend Writing #Friend Art #Soliel Laambe

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vampiricsheep · 1 year

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Stinnt's TEd Talk (non-abridged)

If you attended last week's TEd Talk event to the end, you may recall Sheep fumbling to share Stinnt's talk after having accidentally crumpled, smudged, and disorganized the provided notes. Here's how it was supposed to read, for those curious! Under a cut for length. (By the way, if you would like to post your speech and haven't, I would love to share it! Everyone had such fantastic talks to give, and it was a delight to be present for them.

Greetings from afar, dear audience. My name Is Stinnt, and I'm a graduate student of the College of Synergetics. I introduce myself not under the hollow expectation of reputation alone to lend credibility to my claims, but rather to ensure my work is properly credited before disseminated and, inevitably, repurposed.

My work centers on the interrelationship of magic and plants, with a focus on regiospecific plants with highly specialized adaptations. Of particular interest to me are conscious motile plant life; these range from the animalistic jacarandas and ibogas native to Elona to the sentient and social choya (also native to elona) and, as I'm sure was many of you first assumed by description, sylvari and mordrem.

What makes these groups interesting to compare is not only their intelligent capacity but also their independent origins. It is common knowledge that sylvari and mordrem are both the offspring, if not directly, of the late dragon Mordremoth; no doubt it is the dragon's joint domains of plant and mind that led to their sentient nature. Ibogas, jacarandas, and choya, however, not only arose from a continent far enough from Maguuma to make draconic involvement (at least on the part of the relevant dragon - I doubt Kralkatorric had anything to do with them due to the distinct absence of dracoresonant crystalline structures), but lack the empathetic "dream"/"dragon's call" connection to one another or to sylvari and mordrem. Magic may, of course, be involved in choya due to their unusual anatomy - I will spare the details for brevity - but if so it is entirely unrelated and not channeled from any known external source.

What is the significance of this? Well, beyond providing a greater perspective on the workings and biological diversity of life in our world, there is potential medical application to these findings. If none of these Elonian species can connect to the dream, then perhaps further study can reveal a way to provide severance from dragoncall for the Mordrem who seek a reprieve from its lingering echoes. Sylvari that find Soundless techniques too difficult to adapt to but nonetheless seek an escape from the Dream may also be interested in such treatment. It is far too early to do more than speculate on the mechanism of such treatment - particularly by myself, as my education did not incorporate Mending methods out of respect for the sylvari who were uninterested in sharing their secrets - understandable due to the unfortunate history of inquest experimentation...but I digress. My first guess would be grafting, but the mind is a delicate and complex thing, and botanical grafting is not as simple as some would say.

Regardless, I hope my findings may help others in the future, even if I do not patent the mechanisms by which to do so. I would humbly ask that any interested in exploring these avenues do not seek a patent for profit motives, either, and that it is done out of the desire to help, not self-aggrandization.

If any of you among the audience are interested in the finer details of my research or in assisting my field work, I have left contact cards with my communicator frequency to be freely distributed at this event that I sadly cannot myself attend directly. Thank you.

#stinnt #my writing #my characters #gw2 open rp night #ALSO I noticed some people grabbing his cards. if you ever wanna Actually have your character contact him please feel free to do so!#He hasn't had a Krewe to work with in years and it gets disheartening to not have anyone to share his work with that gets what he's saying #like Laamb listens but she doesn't know jack #''here's how it was supposed to read'' in ooc context is that I only had bullet points for him since I was too busy to write something in-#-in full on such short notice

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