Okay but forget about Anders. You know who Gale would love? Merrill.

A highly talented mage who figured out how to safely use a forbidden art to a positive end, to restore something magical and wonderful, and actually succeeded in doing so? Gale would LOVE to talk shop with Merrill. He'd be asking her all sorts of questions about how blood magic works and the inherent risks and how she avoids them. He's not a Thedosian mage raised in the Circle, he has none of the inherent biases against blood magic. He'd be fascinated by the practice- wary of its darker utilities, but fascinated all the same.

And you can't tell me that he wouldn't be willing to talk through the restoration process with her in order to figure out why the mirror wasn't working. He'd get to be her rubber duck, he'd sit and take notes while she talks and ask questions. And however self-conscious and anxious Merrill might be at first, her fears are quickly put to rest because he's so genuinely enthusiastic about magic and he doesn't think she's stupid or dangerous, he clearly thinks she's utterly brilliant. They end up having an earnest discussion about blood magic and demons and the Weave and how integral magic is to their lives. Gale would never regard Merrill as a stupid idiot fool who doesn't know what she's doing - she's the only person in her friend group who's actually Qualified to talk about it and if the others don't stop being mean to her, he will be there to back her up because holy shit, they do not appreciate the genius in their midst.

Gale 🤝 Merrill

ok i know you didn't open magic anons but esme-mun i NEED esquared clumsy attempts at flirting in your vampire verse pleasssseeee

you caught me at a good time, nonnie. last episode got me thinking...what if enoch really did have murderous penetrative intent towards esme? tw mild violence, blood drinking/mention, innuendos out the window

Taran never liked to call it "hunting" - it made them sound uncivilised, he'd said, as brutish as the ones who hunted them and unappreciative of the pleasure and sublimity that came with being chosen by the night.

Esme relishes the hunt.

She never feels so powerful as when the promise of satisfaction overtakes her hunger, the perpetual gnaw that goes deeper than her gut - it's a rush of lightning through dead channels, echoing like a phantom pulse - and when Esme takes the first swallow of a victory, the ripple of slick heat through her veins is unspeakably sweet.

Esme takes pleasure in the methods behind monstrosity: every step of a hunt, from watching from the shadows to selecting a target and lure to the swift satisfaction of its conclusion, is a choice. Her choices bring her power with no one to blame or thank but herself, and if they stain her hands with blood, Esme can at least lose herself in licking it off: a hunt is more than one kind of sustenance.

Her ambition leads her to skate a hand along sunlight, skimming the edge of safety like a lover's cheek - but this too is a choice. Esme is always hungry, always craving something she will never truly know the taste of again - but being hungry and ambitious is not the same as being ravenous, and it is the latter that has Esme sacrificing a few steps of caution in her beloved hunt.

She shuts the empty prey's eyes with two surprisingly gentle fingers and stands to lick her fingertips clean. The greedy gold of her eyes is fully saturated, luminous in the darkness as Esme stares at the mouth of the alleyway, crimson lips curved up. Her tongue laps up a drip from the corner of her mouth before she calls, "Is that a stake in your hand, or are you indecent and very happy to see me?"

Enoch doesn't answer, but he does move his hand very quickly from plow to high guard, fingers clenched around an aspen stake whose wickedly pointed tip glints silver in the moonlight.

Esme gasps in mock flattery. "Oh, sanctified the tip, just for me? You shouldn't have." She weaves around Enoch as he rushes her and adds, "Really, I mean it - I look much better in gold."

Her laugh is high, sweet, and a mistake: Enoch's free hand closes around Esme's leg as she leaps up to use the alley wall as a springboard to evade him - there's a moment where she scrabbles, wide-eyed at the stone, before he yanks her down, wintergreen swirling potent around them both. A cloud passes over the moon and bathes the alley in darkness - a snarl and grunt collide - moonlight gilds Esme and Enoch with cold silver, shadows made lush by contrast, limbs shaking as the point of the stake inches closer to Esme's chest, the edges of her hands touching Enoch's where they've both seized the wood.

"Everyone says you don't hit women. You should really correct them," Esme grits out, grinning despite herself, eyes flicking up from the stake to Enoch's stormy face.

His eyes narrow, voice flat and stony, slightly taut with the effort of slowly but surely gaining ground with the stake. "Misinformation can be deadly."

Even with her most recent feed still warm in her stomach and a few feet away on the ground, the ghostly, glacial storm in Enoch's eyes - focused on her like a strike of lightning, blinding - ignites something in her. Hunger wraps dark, covetous fingers around Esme's stomach and crawls up through her throat. The point of the stake presses into the leather of her jacket and Esme's face twists slightly with effort.

"Not that I don't appreciate that you're good with your hands," she grunts, "but a dinner first would be the least you could do."

"It seems to me you've already had your fill."

"Just an appetizer, really."

Esme shoves the stake upwards and ducks at the same time; the silver-capped aspen slices through her shoulder and screeches against stone before she slips through Enoch's legs, hissing at the laceration. It still doesn't stop her from pausing, once she's crouched atop the wall out of easy reach, and calling, "O-negative! That's what you owe me on the menu next time, hunter!"

Hey i never told Tumblr about TogWeaver and her friend Clarence Lawful the Shoeless so i'm just going to ramble about them under the cut.

First off thats only a small lie i posted TogWeaver here as a joke about how there are so many [soul]weaver classes, but she ended up developing into her own thing and even got lore and stuff.

TogWeaver: 1. She was a experiment made by the Irismancer. He had wanted a companion who was just as smart as him so using the wealth of knowledge he gained that changed him from a flying eyeball into the irismancer, he did a number of experiments on other creatures. the closest to his goal was TogWeaver, who was just a humanoid tog. She is equal to him in every respect from intelligence to power, however she can't talk, only bark. The Irismancer saw her as defective because of this and tossed her aside. She would eventually learn soul weaving and, because there were no hard feelings on her end towards him, named herself TogWeaver in a similar vein to her creator. 2. She is very good friends with Rolith who tried to train her like a normal tog before realizing she was talking under all that barking- which prompted him to swiftly get her to join the pactogal knights. However, due to the difficulty of translating herself to her fellows she eventually left oaklore and the knights. Again, no hard feelings. 3. one of the headcanons someone suggested for her was that she is a Hero of Lore and would therefore gain a dragon at some point. I'm still mulling this over and aren't sure about it, but the idea of her having a dragon is dope. 4. I headcanon that she is BIG. broad shoulders, huge muscles, truly a humanoid tog in every way. I'm still debating if she has a tail, but if she does its a stubby little thing that can be covered up and does not need a tail hole. 5. her main element is metal and her soul ally is the elemental spirit of patience who translates for her. She ends up going back to rejoin the knights but due to her lack of experience she is rejected. 6. idk where in the timeline she is, but she does meet tomix at some point. if its more along the lines of book 3 she gets rejected from the knights because she is obviously a magical creature and couldn't get within a mile of oaklore keep. 7. She is loyal to a fault and goes out of her way to do nice things, however she does tend to lightly bully Clarence because he is so short. however she always checks with him to make sure she isn't crossing a line or being too mean. she loves her short king even if he needs a step stool to get on his throne.

Clarence Lawful 1. Clawkin Paladin! Clawkin Paladin! He embrews his claws with light magic! 2. he is a good natured fellow with a shy but stubborn streak- he wanted to become a paladin and damn it he did! but ummm don't praise him too much. or at all. a thumbs up or a pat on the back is all he would like. 3. I like to think he is one of those clawkin that choose to stay in sulen'eska, but he defiantly learned to be a paladin long before book 3. IDK how that would work timeline rise, but i like to think he went to paladin school and got training by sneaking out of his tribe's territory at night. This is probably why he isn't around when his tribe needs him during the razing of the villages. Feeling guilty, he stays in sulen'eska, seeing it as no longer being a burden to the tribe while also doing them proud by protecting his new home. 4. he meets TogWeaver during paladin training and he sees her bullying as a challenge for him to overcome his shyness and assert himself more. 5. because he doesn't have hands, at one point during paladin training, as friendly hazing they assigned him dish duty. the other paladins didn't realize how difficult the task would be, but clarence is stubborn and tied sponges to his paws. 6. his name can be shortened to C.Lawful. 7. He avoids a paladin's one weakness (shoelaces) by not having shoes. Truly a powerful paladin.