#kyuustory
Text
No Agreements With Fire
[ Photo by raquel raclette on Unsplash ]
“There, that should do it.”
Deep within Sor'theril Barrow Den, Ymalius stepped back, kicking aside discarded bandages stained with blood and ashes to examine his handiwork. In front of him, a kaldorei sat on a low stool, stripped to the waist with her back turned to the healer's work. Burns and cuts littered her shoulders, back, and arms, each wound carefully cleaned and even now fading as the green dragon’s potent magic sped the healing process.
“You ought to rest, you know.” He stepped close again to trace a burn along her left arm where the flesh had once been seared to black. It was almost recovered, well ahead of her other wounds, the swirled markings on her skin clearly visible once more. “This healing’s going to take a lot out of you.” He snorted, visage turning to a wry smile. “But you should know that by now”
“What am I supposed to do, hrm?” Kyuusei half-turned, silvered gaze looking sidelong at the dragon. “Rest in the Dream?” Her laugh was humorless. “We’re already here. They’re already here. And I told her I’d protect it. You knew what you were doing when you dragged me out of Val’sharah and asked me to come to the Isles. Don't tell me to rest now.” She leaned forward again to rest her elbows on her knees, long, unruly hair obscuring her face.
“I suppose,” Ymalius mused, “I did.” Of all the healing wounds on Kyuu’s back, one old scar had resisted all attempts at mending. Between her shoulder blades, the skin was warped in a palm-sized circle, twisted like clay beneath the hand of some cruel potter. “What about this?” he asked, lightly touching the disfigurement.
Kyuusei jerked forward as if shocked. She glared over her shoulder, lips pulled back in a fanged snarl, and Ymalius quickly stepped away to raise his hands in placation. The druid reached for her tunic with an abrupt motion and stood to pull it over her head, back still turned as she became engrossed in the act of lacing the leather garment. “There’s nothing about it,” she snapped back. “I don’t have time for this, Ymalius. I need to get back out there.”
“You forget what I am, Kyuu.” Still circumspect, he moved to the opposite side of the small barrow, leaning against the wall with affected nonchalance. “I’m a dreamwarden, and I slumbered in that meadow outside your cottage for years. Long before you arrived there. I knew your dreams while I slept.” Ymalius sighed ruefully. “And I know your nightmares as well. I know how you came by that scar. Are you going to tell anyone before it comes back to burn you?”
With a last tug at the laces of her tunic, Kyuu turned to face him. Her eyes were still set in a glare, but with a slow exhale of breath, her gaze softened and her shoulders drooped. “Tell them what? The Circle already knows about Delyra, knows she went to the Flame, knows I was the one that killed her at Hyjal. I loved her since we were children, Ymalius. What am I supposed to tell the Circle now, that I was so heartbroken when she left that I tried to follow her, and the Druids of the Flame wouldn’t even have me? That they just... marked me and cast me back out? That I slunk back to the Circle to join the assault on the Firelands instead?”
She took a deep breath before squaring her shoulders. “No. That’s the past. I’ve been lost and burned and found myself again since then. This is what matters now. “ Kyuusei gestured to the passage that led out of the barrow and back to the Emerald Dream. “Amirdrassil. That tree, that – hope.”
“You’re not afraid someone will come forward?” The dragon pushed off the wall and gathered the discarded bandages for a waste bin. “That some disciple of Flame will speak up under interrogation? Her!” Yamalius abruptly took on a self-righteous cast as he leveled a taloned finger at Kyuu in mock accusation. “She came to us in the past! You can’t trust her!” He lifted a brow in question.
Kyuusei’s response was flat and sure. “No. The ones who cast me out? They’re dead. I remember that clearly enough. And these... zealots? Cultists? They’re something different. I thought I was the only one left to remember until you opened your mouth. Besides,” a lopsided grin, the expression familiar and comforting, crept across her features, “I was recruited to defend the Dream by a member of the Green Dragonflight. You. That has to be worth something, dora dor.”
Ymalius gave a low chortle. “It might be, a little bit. I’m sorry, Kyuu. I just don’t think there’s room for doubts out there anymore.” He canted his head. “I had to be sure.”
“You say you’ve seen my dreams,” Kyuu snorted, “but you still needed to be sure. So much for the storied wisdom of Dragonkind. Come on, we need to get back out there.”
A few-score paces took them out of the barrow den, followed by the thunder of broad wings striking the air as Ymalius bore them north to the Wellspring of Life, where the fight against Primalists, Djaradin, and Druids of the Flame was fiercest.
And if the torches that lit the barrow den were dimmer, their flame guttering lower with Kyuusei’s departure, there were no eyes remaining in the barrow to notice...
References
Influences – Delyra
A Repressed Memory – The Firelands
A Dream of You
16 notes
·
View notes
Text
A Dream Of You
[ Photo by Jacob Rank on Unsplash ]
"Now remember when I told you that's the last you'll see of me
Remember when I broke you down to tears
I know I took the path that you would never want for me
I gave you hell through all the years"
– I Bet My Life, Imagine Dragons
Four Years Ago, Ardenweald
The Veil that stood between Life and Death was still tenuous, then. No longer torn asunder but gossamer-thin in its renewal. Growing stronger. Healing. Soon enough, they said, few would be able to travel between the mortal realms and the Shadowlands.
Kyuusei didn’t care much about what they had to say.
The Dream remained as close to Ardenweald as a lover. And if she went to the cool depths of Tel’andu and slumbered, Kyuusei could walk those forests again in her waking dreams. See the twilight sky littered with stars strange to her, stretching above the canopy. Feel cool grasses beneath her feet.
Could walk with her again. With Delyra.
Sometimes, her love was a fox, lambent and shimmering in her soul’s shape. But on rare occasions, she walked in the form that Kyuu remembered. Slender like the willow, hair laden with midnight. Secrets in her smile. A form outlined in stars.
They talked of nothing most times. After the tears, and the confessions, and the forgiveness. The mending of what had been broken by fire, all those years ago.
But in this dream, Delyra was quiet. She walked silently on two legs next to Kyuusei, their hands entwined, Delyra’s feet leaving no trace in the soft grasses.
“We can’t do this much longer,” she finally said.
Kyuusei looked across. “I know what they said, but we’ll find a way. I’ll go deeper into the Dream. I can make it w-”
Delyra put a finger against Kyuu’s lips, the touch a spark against her skin.
“Shhh. Listen to me, Sei-sei. The Winter Queen’s preparing a gift for Tyrande, for all the kaldorei. A seed made from Elune’s tear. And she’s made an offer to all the souls that suffered. To be part of it, part of something that’ll grow and bring hope to the places it was lost.”
“But… that’s not where you died,” the one still living protested. “I - you died before all that, in the Firelands.”
“You think I didn’t suffer?” Delyra suppressed a quiet laugh. “Sei-sei, I was so angry. Angry at the Horde’s incursions, angry that Tyrande and Malfurion didn’t seem to be doing anything, angry at all of it, so much that I let myself fall under Fandral’s spell. Under his madness. But even in that madness, you were the one I sought out when they came to the Firelands. Beneath all of it, I knew what the Flame had made me. In the end, I realized how wrong I was.”
She looked upwards, midnight hair falling back as Delyra regarded the lights beyond Ardenweald’s canopy.
“When I woke up here, I suffered. Not just because of what I did but because I knew how much you’d suffer. How much you’d blame yourself, hate yourself.” Delyra's soul looked down again, her eyes finding Kyuusei. “And you, you silly thing, you wallowed in it for the longest time.”
Abashed, Kyuusei looked to the grasses at her feet. “I suppose I did.”
“You suppose? If you didn’t have a little bit of Ashamane watching over you, if you hadn’t had me watching over you, you probably would’ve ended up here yourself. And it’s Not. Your. Time.” Del smirked, drawing a finger beneath Kyuu’s chin. “Not yet. I have it on excellent authority.”
Kyuu grasped her lover's star-limned hand, a lopsided grin stealing across her face. “Are you keeping secrets from me, Del?””
“Spoilers, sweetie,” she drawled. “Let the dead keep their secrets. But listen to me. I want, I need you to promise me something.
“Dora dor. Just tell me what.”
“Always leaping in before you know where you’re landing." A soft smile eased Delyra's words. "I’m going to be part of this gift, this hope. And when the time comes, I want to know you’ll be there to guard and protect it. That you’ll watch over it, watch over me, like I’ve been watching you.” She drew in Kyuu’s hand, brushed her lips across sharp-tipped fingers. “Will you promise me that?”
“Of course I will, Del. After everything? Of course. But how will I know? It’s not like I’m someone Tyrande Whisperwind speaks to. I doubt she even knows who I am.”
“You’ll know. Ardenweald’s so close to the Dream they almost touch; they’re part of the same cycle. You know this. Trust me.” She held Kyuu’s hand between both of her own, encasing it in faded stars. “You’ll know. Now promise me, promise you'll watch.”
Kyuusei brought up her other hand, clasping Delyra’s fervently. “I promise to you. Whatever it is, I’ll watch it. I’ll protect it. I’ll protect you.”
“Thank you.”
Delyra’s soul stood still for a moment, then tugged at Kyuu’s hand as she began to walk again beneath the forest’s canopy.
“Now… tell me more about this other druid. What’s her name, Alania? And a druid of the branch, too.” Delyra suppressed a grin, her eyes dancing. “Isn’t she a little young for you?
“She’s a hundred and twelve!” It wasn’t clear if Kyuu’s outrage was genuine or feigned.
“Robbing the creche!” Del’s laughter echoed among the trees, sending shimmermoths fluttering from their perches. “You’ll be a millennia before she’s two hundred. Really, Sei-sei, you and some fresh-faced fledgling who doesn’t even have her tattoos…”
“Hey! You know she does! Lani earned them at…”
A squeeze of Delyra’s hand silenced Kyuu’s protests. “So long as she makes you happy, Sei-sei.” Her tone was softer, reassuring. “That’s all I want, is for you to be happy.””
“I will be,” Kyuu murmured, though doubt belied her words.
“I promise.”
[Reference: Influences - Delyra]
#kyuustory#flashback#delyra#walking with the dead#all apologies to Neil Gaiman for borrowing his title
12 notes
·
View notes
Text
ToA Day Two: The Rose
“I have something for you.”
After wandering the booths and the performances and the dueling, Kyuusei’d made her way up the hill to the same cooking competition as opening day. It might have been the so-called Tournament of Ages, but nothing said it all had to be a competition of martial strength, dora dor. The crowd held many of the same faces as the previous night of competitive appetizers, for this night’s contest of main dishes.
Mozelle was among them and, despite the human doctor’s dry and ascerbic wit and detached manner, Kyuu considered her something of a friend. Mozelle’s knowledge and appreciation of nature and life bore unusual depth, more than enough to endear her to the druid. Besides, Isha spoke well of her. The regard of birds wasn’t easily granted.
It didn’t make it any less of a surprise when the good doctor drew a single orange rose from a small bundle of flowers and presented it to Kyuusei.
“It was the only one I could find that matched your skirt,” Mozelle explained matter-of-factly. “A Helena’s Feather rose from the Ashes of Al’ar booth. They’re supposed to make a good incense as well.”
The bundle of flowers Mozelle carried, obviously intended for other gifts, assuaged a brief moment of unreasoned concern, and Kyuusei inclined her head in thanks.
“Shaha lor’mar. Thats so thoughtful of you.”
A nod of acknowledgement and both turned their attention went back to the competition to see what could be made of salmon, yak cheese, and cabbage. Kyuu absently tucked the rose into the vines that entangled her staff, a few newly sprouted tendrils twining about the rose’s stem to hold it firm among the pale leaves and small white blooms.
(@mozelledeliond for mentions)
#kyuustory#toa2023#drabble#flowers are always good#and Mozelle had sushi#how can you beat flowers and sushi?
10 notes
·
View notes
Text
ToA Day One: The Mark
The Dreamwarden looked down at Kyuusei, calmness in Alythsera's voice as she posed her first question.
"In the darkest night, in the deepest dream - what do you see?”
Kyuusei considered for a moment, her expression briefly solemn. "The past. Flames and pain, written three times."
"So it is that your dreams bring to mind the anguish you have suffered - but as Fate will test you, know that darkest night brings brightest day. Let the mark remind you to never forget what you have lost - for what you have endured grants you strength. But what awakens you from these tormented dreams?"
She inclined her head and slowly exhaled, the earlier darkness breathed out. "Small white blooms, growing on vines with leaves of pale green." Almost absently, she reached over her own shoulder, plucking a small leaf from the living staff slung across her back.
"Ah, the sight of flowers. Let these brilliant blooms remind you that no matter how tall the walls may be, one will cherish the sight of your bloom to climb them. And at last, my final question - what do you hope will remain, after you are gone?"
"Given enough time, no things remain." Kyuu's expression turned wry as she looked up at the green dragon's visage "You know that better than I, hrm? But - stories, those endure, yes? I'd like to hope they still tell stories, fondly, once I'm gone."
"As the cycle draws from seed to bloom, as flame endures within a lantern, know this: Long after the cycle of nature has come for you, decay will never touch the spoken word of your legacy."
The Dreamwarden cupped her hands briefly - a verdant light shining between them, before offering a dream mark to Kyuusei.
"Here. May this serve you well in the times to come."
Kyuu accepted the mark with both hands, offering a shallow bow in return.
The mark seemed a strange thing, weightier than its size as Kyuu carefully tucked it away. The green dragon in her visage, Alythsera, excused herself into the Tournament's crowd moments later, proclaiming a need to find rest after having seen into so many dreams
* * *
Many hours later, as she drifted off to her own rest after an eventful night, Kyuu mused over the Dream Warden's words
"...decay will never touch the spoken word of your legacy."
"I'll settle for that," she muttered, sleep finally claiming her.
7 notes
·
View notes
Text
Transplant
[ Photo by Blake Weyland on Unsplash ]
Roots stirred in the dark earth. A quiet awakening. Awareness.
I have grown here. Yet this is not my soil.
Tendrils recoiled. With awareness came will, with will came choice.
This is not my soil. Broken masks and shattered mirrors reside, though there exists an echo (taste) of birth. An echo brought here of hope, yet never has that hope found purchase in this soil.
A shift of growth, of intent. Slow, perhaps, for those with hearts that pulsed with red blood, that breathed the air created by kin. But urgent among the children of the green.
Some tricks take longer to bloom.
V A L ‘ S H A R AH
Kyuusei woke, gasping for breath, her fingers grasping for purchase in the bedsheets.
“‘Sei-sei?” Lani’s voice was querulous, muddled with sleep from the other side of the bed. Her hand rested, cool and calming, on Kyuu’s back. Drifted lightly across old scars that were the last remnants of wounds long since healed. “Another bad dream?”
“No, not bad. But...”
She lingered a moment. The draw of the bed, their bed, was difficult to resist. A place of comfort made within the cottage in Val’sharah, no matter the demands and responsibilities that so often drew them apart. Darkshore, Astranaar, fledgling druids, the healing and rebuilding and vigilance of recovery. This was their place, their haven, their hard-won respite from... everything.
With a reluctant sigh, Kyuusei slipped from beneath the sheets and padded barefoot across the floor.
“Kyuusei?”
Alania rose up in the bed to watch, drawing the sheets around her as Kyuu knelt down to open a worn iron-bound chest. Inside, the chest was filled with the mementos of a life spanning almost a millennia. And on top of scrolls and trinkets and books rested the fragments of a staff shattered into three parts. A gift bearing Cenarius’ blessing, ever-blooming, crafted from an Ancient’s branch - yet broken almost two years past in the assault that ended in the Blightcaller’s welcomed demise.
Three green fragments, each of which bore the green leaves of new growth for the first time since their shattering, extended tendrils towards each other to draw again into a single whole.
“It woke up.” Kyuu lifted the tenuously-joined fragments and held them - it - aloft for Alania to see. She pushed ivy-laden hair out of her eyes with one long-fingered hand, a sharp-toothed smile upon her features.
“And I think,” the druidess mused, “I know what awakened it.” She settled on the floor, the green-leafed staff cradled to her chest.
Alania exhaled a sigh with all the dramatics of the long-suffering.
“And where, surfal,” she asked, “should I tell the captain you’re going this time?”
Kyuu grinned. “Pandaria. But I don’t think I’ll come back alone.”
“So long,” Lani offered a knowing smile as she pushed the sheets aside, “as you return to me.”
“Always.”
P A N D A R I A
A stormcrow flew high above the Jade Forest, dark eyes set upon the grounds far below. The manor was all but enveloped in growth and neglect, the few caretakers fallen far behind the green’s advance. But there, behind the long-uninhabited residence, was a small clearing surrounded by thick stands of bamboo, a familiar sight to the one who flew above.
Lazy circles brought the stormcrow lower and closer until the winged form resolved into a kaldorei’s shape, long and lean. Kyuusei set foot lightly in the clearing, looking about with a well-acquainted gaze.
The grasses were familiar if overgrown. And there was the stone memorial to the mentor of another, etched with Pandaren characters again grown thick with moss.
But where the teldorei had once taken root to the memorial’s side, there was only a disturbance in the earth - thick loam cracked and broken as if something had pulled itself out of the rich soil.
Kyuu looked from one side to the other, then drew the reborn staff from her back.
“Ande’thoras’ethil, teldorei,” she murmured, placing the staff into the broken earth where a small sapling had once grown. “Bandu belore a’Kalimdor?”
The staff twisted, the tendrils that drew its fragments together twining closer as small white flowers blossomed along its length. A faint rustling sound grew at the edge of the clearing before, tentatively, a small shape emerged from the encircling bamboo.
The shape of a sapling tree, but one that... moved. Roots worked across the grass, branches moving in the approximation of limbs, and a pair of bright green eyes blinked as if looking upon the world for the first time. And, perhaps, it was the first.
A sense of an uncertain question. The creak of wood, of green growth, raised as if it were a questioning voice. Clear enough to the druid’s ears.
“This was home enough as you grew,” Kyuusei offered reassuringly. “But it’s time to come with me. It’s time to rejoin your kin. Come to Kalimdor.”
The fledgling Ancient crept forward on uncertain roots, branches reaching out to twine with the green growth of Kyuu’s staff.
“Let me take you home.”
19 notes
·
View notes
Note
A voice deeper than the dark wood echoes in a dream; a thicket of brambles made into words, humming with a resonant laughter too dark and cold. A crowd of wood, eyes brilliant and blue and smoke. Gnarled hands reaching for her throat. A door with no handle. A window closed. A wreath of vines. "Let me in."
[ Photo by Suyash Agrawal on Unsplash ]
Kyuusei startled awake, her long limbs tangled in the bedsheets, dark laughter still ringing in her ears. The kaldorei sat up abruptly and pulled tangled locks of hair away from her throat, then rubbed at the skin as if to erase the fading sensation of gnarled hands. It took a few more calming breaths and the coolness of sweat evaporating from her skin before she was fully present... only to question for a moment where she was.
The light streaming through the window was at the wrong angle, the room’s scent dusky with an echo of tea and old incense on air that had been long stale. But it was the room’s decor - terminally uncluttered and painstakingly ordered save for Kyuu’s duffle tossed at the foot of the bed - that reminded her where she’d slept.
“Dora dor. Thal na teldorei, rae kal-ethil’re,” she muttered to herself in lilting Darnassian, running sharp fingers through her hair.
The Jade Forest. Pandaria. The old manor.
* * *
A morning bath - a benefit of staying here rather than with the others on the Dancing Dolphin - and a few moments in a familiar kitchen found Kyuusei padding out of the house with a cup of warm tea cradled in her hands, making her way to a small clearing in the back.
The house had been empty when she flew from Krasarang last night. But the key was still hidden in the same place, the grounds still marginally maintained by the pair of Forsaken groundskeepers that Kyuu carefully avoided. And in all truth, the druidess hadn’t expected the owner to be here.
And if she had been?
Some questions were easier set aside, hrm?
Surrounded by thick stands of bamboo, the clearing was green with low grasses and moss still damp in the morning air. Near the center rested a large stone with Pandaren characters etched into it; a few paces to the left of the graven marker grew a small lopsided tree adorned with pale green leaves and tiny white blossoms.
“It’s been too long,” Kyuu said as she moved closer, running one hand gently through the small tree’s foliage, its branches still not taller than the druidess herself. “And here I hoped I wouldn’t have to worry about dreams near you, hrm? But I know,” sharp-tipped fingers cradled a small cluster of blossoms. “I need to go back soon. Let shal’nar Kyuusei tend to you first.”
Her morning spent in the small grove was almost a moving meditation, Kyuusei clearing away leaves and debris with detail and care that the groundskeepers obviously didn’t have time to grant this small corner of the estate. The lopsided tree and the pale green ivy that surrounded it were given most of the druidess’ attentions, but Kyuu still took time to brush leaves from the graven marker and pick out bits of moss from the etchings that had been worked into the stone.
The sun was near mid-day by the time she finished her unhurried work, her final labor spent polishing a lone brass bell hanging from a branch by a weathered ribbon.
“There,” Kyuu murmured, empty teacup in her hand. “Shaha lor’ma, teldorei,” she bowed, “Tordu kal-ethil’re... ishnu ano’naldu.”
A flick of her finger set the bell to ringing, its bright tone echoing through the clearing. Kyuu smiled as she bowed to the clearing, then sauntered inside to clean up. The others were meeting in the Arboretum soon, and it wouldn’t do to leave even the slightest mess behind for her absent hostess...
11 notes
·
View notes
Text
The Trappings of Home
Kyuusei stepped away from the crush of the Masquerade after the last performance ended, melded into shadows on the edge of Ashamane's Fall and padded on four legs towards the Gate. When the music was a distant echo, she rose up on two legs and walked the High Road south - back towards Sundersong Glade.
Towards home, or at least what bore its trappings.
She stripped out of the loose cream and gold robe she'd worn, took a moment to lave her face and rinse off at the edge of the well before entering the small cottage.
Inside, there was dust on too many surfaces; accusations of how long she'd been gone. Darkshore and Drustvar. Stormwind and Boralus. Ardenweald. So many places, pulling the druidess this way and that. This place, where she'd been so happy for a time, was allowed to languish in the shadow of the others that called her.
Her leathers, worn and comfortable, waited on a corner of the bed. She tugged them back on, binding the tunic about her chest, wrapping her feet once more, fastening the heavy leather gauntlets on her wrist. But it wasn't until Kyuu put the pair of curved daggers back at her hips she breathed an unconscious sigh of relief. The fangs of the old nightsaber patriarch, a gift to her from the company at Bashal'aran, now edged with the glint of silver she'd helped Merellia recover.
Too many places that called to her...
She could return to Stormwind through the Twilight Grove, walk the camps, check on her friends and ensure they weren't being set upon again by whatever criminal elements seemed fixated on accosting them. Basha'aran, and Alania, weren't far when one could walk the Dream, and she might find some comfort there. Or to the Station in the Wetlands, to see what she could make of the shrine, and whether she could make good on her promise to bring Merellia and Alexandria to Ardenweald. Where the silver and rowan would find their use. Where Delyra's spirit still roamed.
But the pale wine she'd had at the Masquerade plied at her thoughts, sapped her purpose, and drew forth a quiet melancholy. Making her way out of the cottage, she took a seat on the stones next to the moonwell and idly drew her fingers through its pale, luminous waters.
A moment taken to indulge her melancholy. To wonder if any of these places that called to her were truly home.
15 notes
·
View notes
Text
The Huntress’ Horn
[ image by Ninjatic ]
The trail led Kyuusei and the rest of the small scouting party along the length of Darkshore, following in murder’s wake. Finally, though, their quarry had been run to ground. The Dark Iron dwarf Gharnholm and his band of mercenaries, huddled along the shoreline just beyond a few dunes covered in grasses, grousing about the loss of their prize to the betrayal of some rogue druid. Likely the same druid Kyuusei had spied much earlier, flying low over the trees in a storm crow’s shape.
While the rest of the scouting party, members of Ingmarus’ Stormbolt Militia and Lane’s Foxrun Hall both, discussed reinforcements and exacting vengeance, Kyuu slowly drifted away. Not truly a part of either group, she’d come more to see the finish of what had started with Gharnholm’s treachery and threats - and to ensure certain people close to her didn’t come to harm.
Both of those goals now all but ensured, there were other matters left in the small band’s wake. Something it seemed only Kyuu found of concern. Then again, none of the others were kaldorei, no others beholden of Cenarius. Certainly none that were reverent of Ashamane.
It took her over an hour to retrace her steps, even in a nightsaber’s shape.
The trap’s scent still lingered in the grasses when Kyuusei finally arrived - a pungent, musky scent that marked a young nightsaber’s challenge to an established range. Fight me!, it screamed to whatever male might claim the territory as his own, I challenge you!
That had been the nature of the trap laid by Gharnholm’s mercenaries, a spray of musk that brought the nightsaber patriarch who ranged in this area between foothills and river, thinking his territory under threat. Drawing him to attack the scouting party as they pursued their quarry through Darkshore.
Kyuu stood upright on two legs as she walked the remaining few yards to where the great nightsaber’s corpse lay, facing away from the trap’s fading stink. The ice that had trapped him was all but melted, but cruel wounds pierced his flank and back, left his skull shattered.
“You tried to flee,” the druidess spoke in Darnassian, dropping to her knees at the great cat’s side, heedless of the crimson mud near the feline corpse. “You knew the challenge was lost. But my compatriots refused to relent. I am sorry.”
Kyuusei rested one hand on the nightsaber’s cold flank, fingers twining in frost-dampened fur. Then, almost reluctantly, she gave her voice to a soft, lilting song:
The huntress’ horn has sounded!
To battle, it calls us now,
To the defense of all we hold dear
This city,
This well of the moon,
This soft song of the evening breeze.
It calls us,
And we answer.
There was a moment’s silence in the twilight, even the wildlife seeming to be briefly reverent.
“I will see that Bashal’aran knows you have fallen,” Kyuusei finally murmured, “you shall not waste here on the forest’s floor.”
Shifting to a nightsaber’s shape, Kyuusei nosed the patriarch’s corpse once, gently, before loping off to the south.
22 notes
·
View notes
Note
✈ - an eye-opening memory
“The experiences of each druid are as varied as nature itself. Most learn at the side of a Shan’do, while others find the Dream or commune with the wild. But there are those few, touched by the spirits themselves...”
— Navas Sageheart, Druid of the Branch.
200 Years Ago
It started as a presence on the fringe of Kyuusei’s senses, a pricking at the back of her neck as she patrolled the woodlands of Ashenvale. Something beyond the trails, hidden in the moonlit shadows cast by the Elune’s light, lingering only for a moment before receding.
At first, she thought nothing of it. Wisps were common in these forests, drifting between the massive boughs even this far from Ameth’aran. And none of her sisters had reported disturbances in their patrols, the Sentinels speaking only of calm in the Long Vigil.
But for Kyuusei, it didn’t pass; the presence grew more frequent, bolder, as Mother Moon waxed brighter each passing night. The young kaldorei, not even 700 years old, grew ever more sure. Something was stalking her.
Elune was radiant and full, joined by the Blue Child in the night sky as Kyuusei made her wary patrol among the ancient trees. There. Her long ears twitched, skin raising at the back of her neck, but this time there was a glimpse, something at the edge of her vision. Waiting beyond the trees, taunting her.
Kyuusei turned to leap from the trail, rushing into the trees and after the apparition without hesitation. The chase was on.
She wasn’t sure how long the pursuit went; all her attention focused on the shape that moved ahead of her, flowing between the trees and moving from shadow to shadow even in the brilliant moonlight. Always just beyond her reach, but never escaping her. But at some point, the forest around her changed. Elune’s harsh brightness grew softer, the branches and leaves gained their own faint luminance.
No longer in the Ashenvale she knew, the night elf pushed through the underbrush and stumbled to a halt in a small clearing.
The grasses were soft beneath her feet, a shallow moonwell filling the clearing with its gentle light. Slender trees ringed its edges, their supple branches decorated with pale green leaves and delicate white blooms. Kyuu only had a moment to take in the quiet beauty before a shadow beyond the moonwell drew her gaze.
A great cat, a nightsaber that dwarfed even the ones her sister Sentinels rode, stalked into the moonwell’s light. Her sleek shape limned in glowing starlight, the feline watched the night elf with a lambent predator’s gaze. But rather than fear, Kyuusei only felt a strange calm that bordered on quiet elation.
“There you are,” she muttered. “I found you.”
The enormous feline rumbled in response.
No. I have found you.
The nightsaber leaped at Kyuusei with a speed that seemed impossible for her size. She threw up her arms in a vain attempt to shield herself, turning her head and closing her eyes as she waited for claws to rend her flesh, for teeth to close around her neck. Waited for an end that didn’t come.
She felt rather than heard the same rumbled voice, this time tinged with amusement.
Look about you, child of starlight.
Slowly, Kyuusei opened her eyes. She was lower, close to the ground. The shadows beyond the moonwell were no longer shadowed to her sight, the earlier silence of the clearing now filled with quiet rustlings of leaves and small creatures unseen. Creatures she could smell, their scent causing her claws to twitch at the thought of prey in the grass. Grass that was soft and cool beneath her paws.
You gave chase well. But now? Let me teach you to hunt.
Kyuu tried to smile but only succeeded in baring her fangs. A soft breeze came through the clearing to ruffle her fur, the gentle sensation nudging her into motion. Awkwardly at first, and then with growing confidence, a single feline shape padded from the clearing, moving into the gentle shadows beyond...
(Thank you for the ask, @theparkhurstalchemists )
[artwork by Jade Merien]
7 notes
·
View notes
Note
✍ - a memory of their mother
[ Photo by Joshua Rondeau on Unsplash ]
Ameth'aran
“What are you doing up there?!?”
Tucked away in the high branches, the two young kaldorei’s giggling conversation fell to silence at the strident voice from the ground below. Delyra covered her mouth with her hands, eyes wide in mirthful mock-alarm, while Kyuusei’s expression immediately fell. Her mother’s tone was unmistakable.
“Kyuusei! Come down here at once!”
“Min’daaaa, we’re fine up here.”
“You are perched in the branches of an Ancient!”
“He doesn’t mind,” Kyuu protested, patting a branch, “do you?” The Ancient of Lore’s boughs shifted gently, a low, creaking rumble the only response.
“It is disrespectful, child. Come down here immediately.”
The edge in her mother’s tone had grown sharp; Kyuusei was fully aware that either lengthy prayers to Elune’s grace or exhausting training under a watchful, unforgiving eye were to follow. Likely both. Her grimace at her fate, fortunately, was hidden from below by the Ancient’s branches. Hidden to her mother, but not to the other girl sharing their perch.
Delyra leaned forward, her eyes dancing as she placed a quick kiss on Kyuusei’s cheek. “It’s okay Sei-sei, I’ll see you in Nighthaven. You better go.”
A blush gave way to a smile. “Ah... okay.”
“KYUUSEI!”
“Coming!”
Reference: Influences - Delyra
{ Thank you for the ask, @nzoth-the-corruptor ! }
7 notes
·
View notes
Text
Bells
Your character has just been reminded of a past experience by the sound of a bell. Describe the experience. Was it traumatic? Happy? Surprising? What does the person do now in response to the memory?
The faint sound of a ringing bell, the chime muted by leaves and branches.
Kyuusei knelt in the small clearing surrounded by trees and towering stalks of bamboo. The call of cranes echoed in the distance. A few moss-covered paving stones set in the grass led to a larger stone engraved with several characters in Pandaren, spent incense in a tarnished brass bowl nearby. A few paces to the left, a sapling was freshly-planted in the earth and moss. Small and lopsided, its branches decorated with pale green leaves and tiny blooms. A silken cord was draped loosely around the little tree’s narrow trunk, hung with woven charms and a single, small bell.
Kyuu reached forward to adjust the moss and ivy about the little teldorei’s base, a bittersweet smile on her face as the bell chimed again with the motion. A soft bemusing voice made some remark behind her, graceful steps rustling in the grass just out of sight.
* * Kyuu, don’t be silly. Come home. * *
“Sei-sei! Come on, why are you waiting?”
“We’re gonna get in trouble, Del!”
Kyuusei looked up, the other night elf already well into the lower branches and ascending rapidly. The Ancient, massive and treelike, stood patient guard in the Grove south of Ameth’aran, seemingly unperturbed by the youthful kaldorei in its branches. It shifted only slightly, setting the bells hung throughout its branches to chiming.
“Del...” Kyuu’s voice took on an almost wheedling tone, worry pulling at eyes that were not yet decorated with the Rites of Passage. A bundle of mageroyal in her hand filled the Grove with a green, floral scent.
Delyra paused in her climbing to look where Kyuusei stood on the forest floor. “He’s fine,” she declared, patting the Ancient’s trunk and earning a low rumble for her attentions. “And your Min’da’s not going to find out, the old stick-in-the-mud. Come up here and sit with me, Sei-sei.”
“You know I hate it when you call me that.” Despite her protest, Kyuu’s tone lost its edge. She took a step closer to the Ancient - silvered eyes glancing at a branch within easy reach.
The laughter from the branches above echoed the bells still gently ringing among the Ancient’s branches. “Then come up here,” Del retorted gently, “and see if you can find a way to make me quiet...”
Kyuu dropped the bundle of mageroyal to the grass, a lopsided grin on her face as she pulled herself into the Ancient’s branches to the sound of bells and Delyra’s light laughter. A few moments later, only the sound of bells remained...
* * Kyuu, come home. * *
The faint sound of bells roused Kyuusei, the druidess stirring from garden-side nap. At the doorway of the little house in Val’sharah, a wind chime spun lazily in the late afternoon breeze. She gave a long, feline stretch before rising, padding on bare feet to gently flick at the chimes - her lips pulling to the side in a wistful smile as the sound echoed through the garden...
{ Thank you, @selisekinsolving, for the prompt! }
References: Tending & Influences: Delyra
9 notes
·
View notes
Text
Keepsake: Charms
[ Photo by Almos Bechtold on Unsplash ]
(A revised vignette from Nov 2018, originally written for a prompt about Keepsakes. “prompt 1313″ posted by @selisekinsolving made me decide to go back and edit it.)
Setting: Fireside Anchors, Boralus
* * *
“This?”
Kyuusei leaned back in the loose assemblage of pillows at Fireside Anchors, light from the nearby firepit flickering over her features in the twilight, and lifted her right hand. Carefully twined strands of silver were looped several times around her wrist, bearing four silver charms. Each one was engraved with the same rune, the silver tarnished, with black soot worked deeply into the engraving.
“There was a gnome.” The night elf frowned sharply for a moment, then smiled without humor. “I paid him to make these for me. He was an expert at crafting wards, among other things, and these were supposed to protect me from the fires of Teldrassil.”
She shook her head before the obvious question could be asked. “No, this was after. But the flames still smoldered - Teldrassil was a World Tree, after all. And there was something I had to retrieve...”
The druid ran a hand along her left arm, over flesh that was covered not in burn scars, but in discolorations that twisted and swirled across her skin. She briefly lifted her tunic to expose similar markings, running down her left side and vanishing into her leather breeches.
“Things didn’t go as planned,” Kyuu snorted as she reached for her glass of pale green liquor, taking a lingering sip.
“Three times I’ve been afflicted by fire. Those I once loved embraced it and were lost to it. For all that it brings light and warmth, fire has consumed hearth and heart and home.”
“This,” Kyuu flicked at one of the charms with a sharp fingernail, the sliver clattering dully, “is a reminder.”
“There are no agreements with fire.”
She turned to the firepit and reached over to toss on another log.
11 notes
·
View notes
Text
Duḥkha
[ Photo by Linus Nylund on Unsplash ]
It had been a strange thing for Kyuusei to re-learn Pandaria.
Like so much of what had come after the Firelands, her memories of Pandaria had seemed trapped behind a thick pane of poorly-crafted glass - wavering and indistinct with only a few uncertain glimpses of clarity. So it had been an odd re-learning of paths she’d once stalked, a constant echo of deja vu in her steps. Places new, yet familiar, under every footfall.
But, importantly for Kyuusei, it wasn’t Val’sharah. Val’sharah contained too many memories that were now colored with loss. Pandaria was made of forgotten memories, but one location provided Kyuu with strange contentment.
Over the weeks, Velerodra’s estate in the Jade Forest became a comfort. The pair of Forsaken groundkeepers were simple to avoid, their patterns predictable as the night elf wandered the grounds. The small clearing behind the house was the druidess’ frequent haunt, the little teldorei flourishing under Kyuu’s attentions, the great stone marker carefully tended. And where Kyuusei might have once found concern in the monkette’s absence, the quiet instead seemed... more comfortable. A balm, of sorts.
Still, her wanderings were far from limited to those gardens.
* * *
The monastery at Kun-Lai Summit - the Peak of Serenity - had once been an active, vibrant place, full of trainees and masters of the Pandaren order of monks who had welcomed the races of Azeroth. Students had come from Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms to study with the masters that made the Peak of Serenity their home.
What Kyuu approached, her stormcrow wings buoyed by chill winds, was an echo of what the monastery had once been. The courtyard was dominated by a hulking artifact of unnatural angles, and much of the grounds lay corrupted by the sickly green of fel. The Legion had left its mark upon Kun-Lai and, while several masters and their students remained to tend to the long work of restoration, the Peak of Serenity was no longer the center of the order.
In one area clear of corruption, a sparse group of students practiced morning forms under the watchful eye of a Pandaren master. Strolling among the initiates, she reached out often to adjust a student’s footing or stance with a quick smack of her bo staff and a few sharp words. But it was the avian silhouette, circling high above, that caught her piercing gaze. The students were dismissed with a preemptory motion, and the master took a waiting stance, her face lifted to the sky.
Several moments later the stormcrow fluttered to the ground, Kyuusei setting foot to the cold ground and bowing low.
“Master Kistane.”
“Druid. You return.”
“Every time I tell you I’ll come back, but you keep saying that.”
“I’ve never challenged your intent, child of starlight. Only the spirit.”
With a flourish of her bo staff, Kistane fell back into a ready stance.
Kyuusei offered a feral smile in return, bowing again before holding her own staff at the ready, small white blossoms falling from the verdant wood.
“Begin!”
* * *
“There is no more I can teach you here, not while the monastery remains corrupted.”
Kistane lifted a small iron teapot from the stove. The Pandaren master looked little different than she had in the courtyard; her eyes were perhaps a little brighter, the smile on her face more pronounced, and her robes no longer as immaculately arranged as earlier. She turned to the small table and carefully poured tea into two delicately-painted ceramic cups.
Opposite the Pandaren, Kyuusei was a study in contrast. The kaldorei had stripped down to chest wrappings and a pair of relaxed cloth pants, her face flushed with exertion and green-tinted hair close to escaping a loose ponytail. Her eyes were bright from the recent sparring match, even as they took on a questioning look at the monk’s words.
Kyuu waited until Kistane took her seat and lifted her cup before the druid sampled her own tea, giving a brief nod of appreciation.
“What do you mean? I still have - a lot to learn, you’ve said that yourself.”
An enigmatic smile from the Pandaren as she held her cup in both hands. “The spirit that has nothing to learn no longer belongs in this realm. You would be a welcome student among the masters on the Wandering Isle if you wished to change your path. But that’s not why you came to me. You seek to guide what is inside you and for that - your spirit has grown stronger, druid. Strong enough.”
“What you need to learn,” she continued, “is to measure yourself. And if nine centuries haven’t taught you to bank your fires, child of starlight, I don’t know what this old Pandaren can offer you.”
Kyuusei chortled, dropping her eyes to the table. “You’re not the first to give me that advice, you know. Not by far.”
“But will I be the first you listen to?” Kistane quirked an eyebrow and took a deep drink of her tea.
“We’ll see Master, we’ll see...”
(thanks to @velerodra-valesinger for allowing Kyuusei to stay at the estate)
#kyuustory#pandaria#wra-rp#wyrmrest rp#mists and circles#new chapter#there are no agreements with fire#kyuusei#spirit#teldorei
14 notes
·
View notes
Text
Referrals
[ Photo by udit saptarshi on Unsplash ]
Reference: The Check’s in the Mail (not quite canon)
Annadia was getting cold and impatient as she hunkered in the shadows of Everlook, bundled in lined leather armor the sin’dorei rogue had needed to take from storage in Silvermoon. After all, the snows of Winterspring were a far cry from the more temperate Zanadalari isles.
Or the Jade Forest of Pandaria or the city of Stormwind, for that matter.
But she stepped out into the open when she spied a large storm crow flying in from the south, gliding down from the distant heights of Mt. Hyjal. The bird circled the goblin outpost once, twice, then spread its wings wide to land in front of the rogue - the stormcrow’s shape shifting at the final moment into that of a lean kaldorei druidess, clad only in light leathers and seemingly unaffected by the cold.
Annadia pulled the mask away from her face, breath wispy in the chill air. “Fucking took you long enough, Cat. Almost gave up - this was supposed to happen a month ago, easy. You’re just lucky Seraa found her own income to tide her over.” Golden eyes shone as she gave the night elf a wicked grin. “Losing Spooky really hit you that hard, or you been having too much fun playing house at your old crush’s place?”
Kyuusei took a step forward, luminous gaze narrowing as she looked down at the blood elf. “Still watching? You know Tallissan wanted to kill you, Thorn. Tie up loose ends after everything else was over, but I told her there had already been enough killing.” Her fingers curled at her side, “Do you really want to make me change my mind?”
Hands raised in a placating gesture, the rogue took a half-step backward, grin still on her face. “Don’t get your fur ruffled, I had to keep tabs. You made a promise, Cat, you still owed me. Maybe you wanted to hole up for a while, but out here? Life goes on and bills need to get paid.” She sighed, “And keeping her in Stormwind isn’t cheap.”
“Yeah, but I know who your sister’s fallen in with.” Kyuu gave Anna one last look, then gestured for her to follow as she made her way across Everlook, leaving footprints in the snow. “We’ve had our ups and downs, but Eilithe takes care of her own,” she said over her shoulder.
“Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t,” Anna’s tone bordered on dismissive as she fell in behind the druidess, “Still better to have a backup, and who said I only wanted this for Seraa?”
Kyuu shrugged, her tone turned airy, “Not me.” She stopped in front of a modest building, a sign above the door read Tamie Slydrive: Financial Services. The placard was unobtrusive and restrained - a rarity among the businesses in the neutral goblin outpost. Kyuu opened the door, then motioned for Annadia to precede her into the small office.
“Kyuusei! Darling!” The greeting that rang out from inside the office was effusive and unmistakably goblin. “It’s been so long, dear, who’s your little friend?”
“Tamie,” Kyuu said as she walked inside, “I brought you a referral. This is Annadia Thorn...”
The door closed soundly behind them.
Mentions: @annadia-thorn, @longveil, @velerodra-valesinger, @eilitheduskbringer
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
200 Words: Emptiness
[ Photo by Frans Hulet on Unsplash ]
Kyuusei laid back on the empty bed with a heavy sigh, but sleep was nowhere to be found.
In time, the Kaldorei left off her contemplation of the ceiling and allowed her luminous gaze to travel the small house for what felt like the millionth time. Always falling upon the same things. A journal by the bedside, left open to a sketch of some wildflower surrounded by Thalassian script. A pair of finely crafted daggers, sheathed, resting on a far table. A masked helm of blue and silver laid haphazardly upon the floor.
Her eyes could not take in the quiet, nor the echo of a days-old scent. But they, too, held a presence her senses couldn’t ignore.
She pushed herself from the bed with a snarl of frustration, falling to four legs and padding out of the warm light and into the evening’s darkness. The great cat’s tail flicked from side to side, agitated.
It was in the garden that Kyuu returned to herself; seated in the grass, surrounded by towering blooms. But there was no solace there, not even when she lifted her gaze.
Clouds spanned the nighttime sky.
“No starlight,” she murmured. “Dora’dor.”
* * *
In response to a 200-word challenge from @singing-over-bones
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
Tending
[ Photo by Masaaki Komori on Unsplash ]
In the southwestern Jade Forest, a house rested amid a large estate. While the house itself wasn’t large, the spaces surrounding it were expansive, some better attended than others. It could hardly be called a home, as its owner was rarely present. Two Forsaken groundskeepers, shambling through the gardens and unkempt spaces, vainly attempting to keep up with the maintenance of the grounds, were the only regular sign of habitation.
A stormcrow flew in low from the coast, gliding through the mists that rose in the early morning sun. Behind the house was a small clearing, and the visitor dove through the trees with folded wings before spreading them wide to halt the steep descent, the bird manifesting into a kaldorei druidess crouched in the grass.
“Ishnu-alah, teldorei,” Kyuusei murmured as she rose to her feet.
The small clearing consisted of low grasses and moss, a large stone with Pandaren characters etched into it and, a few paces to the left of the graven marker, a small lopsided tree - hardly more than a sapling - adorned with pale green leaves and tiny white blossoms.
“It’s been a while.” The druidess offered a lopsided smile and a small bow to the little tree, then rubbed her hands together, “but shal’nar Kyuusei’s here. Let’s clean you up, hrm?”
She spent the better part of the morning in the grove, clearing away fallen debris and the few weeds that had escaped the overworked groundskeepers. The lopsided teldorei and the pale green ivy that surrounded it were given the majority of the druidess’ attentions, but Kyuu still took time to brush leaves from the marker in the center of the clearing, and pick out bits of moss from the etchings that had been worked into the stone.
The grove attended to, Kyuusei knelt down in the center of the clearing. Palms flat on her legs, she closed her eyes and allowed her breath to fall into a slow, steady rhythm.
Shadows moved with the sun.
A heavy exhalation and the kaldorei rose into a languorous, feline stretch.
Kyuu padded the few steps to the little teldorei and gently tapped the bell that hung by a ribbon from one of the lopsided sapling’s branches. A bright tone echoed through the clearing, and it was a stormcrow that exited the small shrine and winged its way towards Kun-Lai...
( @velerodra-valesinger for oblique reference )
7 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
djsilva45
Untitled
inesalexandra1995
Inês Alexandra
deathblood17-blog
•UM MUNDINHO• •CINZENTO•
maayavillage
題名未設定