Return Upon the Silence of the Raven's Wings - Printable Version +- 'Souls IPB Archive (November 2007–October 2012) (https://soulsrpg.com/ipb) +-- Forum: Dead IC (https://soulsrpg.com/ipb/forumdisplay.php?fid=110) +--- Forum: Dead LASKY (https://soulsrpg.com/ipb/forumdisplay.php?fid=52) +--- Thread: Return Upon the Silence of the Raven's Wings (/showthread.php?tid=26055) |
- Cwmfen nic Graine - 03-14-2012 [html] Table by me (Req)
.ascend b {font-weight:bold; color:#000007; letter-spacing:.0px; } .ascend-ooc { font-style:italic; padding:15px; font-family:verdana, sans-serif; font-size:9px; text-align:center; } .ascend p {text-indent:20px; padding:3px 10px; margin:0px;} .ascend {margin:0 auto; width:330px; background-color:#6f6e70; background-image:url(http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee19 ... ble_02.png); background-position:bottom center; background-repeat:no-repeat; border:1px solid #2e2f32; padding: 10px 0px 280px 0px; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size:9px; color:#2e2f32; line-height:10px; letter-spacing:.0px; text-align:justify;} </style> [/html] - Asmodai - 03-15-2012 [html] Wasn't sure which character to use, so I read up on some old threads and decided that this one was a good mix of "never met Cwmfen before" and someone who might have something in common with her. I was going to pick someone she'd known from before, but then was thinking on it and she's already plotted like crazy with Brennt, so there probably wasn't a lot left to write about between them! Near the edge of the vine-ridden ruins, a one-eared wolf sat huddled against a low wall, its cement foundation crumbling from years of neglect and rainy days. It had once stood mighty among the other steel giants, but the elements had stripped away its walls, a gift from the age of mankind's power worn away to reveal the bare skeleton beneath. And so Asmodai stared with hollow eyes at his hands, his claws washed again and again but never clean, the art he had learned to work with them despoiled by its own application. The wind shifted, and brought a new smell gusting through the alleyways. He did not recognize it...no one from Phoenix Valley, no one from Shadowed Sun. His hackles lowered and he looked sadly down the street from which the scent had come. Whoever was coming, he did not think they were coming for him. He did not know how that made him feel. His story had come to its conclusion; he had reached the end of the final chapter, and succeeded in his task. And now there was nothing left. He was broken...broken by the realization of what he had destroyed. A life. A family. His friendship with Iskata, and the trust of a pack which had accepted him with no questions asked, had taken him in when they thought he needed a place to belong. Perhaps worst of all was that he had destroyed his illusions about the righteousness of his cause, destroyed his belief in what his friends had died defending. Skoll had used the art more appropriately than he had...if what Iskata had said was true, he had used it more appropriately than most of its practitioners from GreyClaw, as well. A black she-wolf came into view, and he fixed her with his gaze, wondering what business brought her, if she would stay at all or pass him by like the discarded shell that he was. He saw the strangeness of her eyes, the war paint that shone bright and vibrant upon her ebon coat..the surety of her stride. Was she a spirit? An avatar of war or vengeance, summoned by his vile deed to cleanse the land of this betrayer? He did not know, but whatever her purpose, she seemed to notice him. Without rising from where he sat or moving at all, he watched as she came closer, unsure of what would come next...unsure of what he wanted to come next. - Cwmfen nic Graine - 03-16-2012 [html] Table by me (Req)
.ascend b {font-weight:bold; color:#000007; letter-spacing:.0px; } .ascend-ooc { font-style:italic; padding:15px; font-family:verdana, sans-serif; font-size:9px; text-align:center; } .ascend p {text-indent:20px; padding:3px 10px; margin:0px;} .ascend {margin:0 auto; width:330px; background-color:#6f6e70; background-image:url(http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee19 ... ble_02.png); background-position:bottom center; background-repeat:no-repeat; border:1px solid #2e2f32; padding: 10px 0px 280px 0px; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size:9px; color:#2e2f32; line-height:10px; letter-spacing:.0px; text-align:justify;} </style> [/html] - Asmodai - 03-16-2012 [html] Ah, thanks for the tip about the table! I didn't want to bust this guy back out without showing off Pilot's (now ancient but still wholly awesome) table! The moaning wind went quiet, and when the painted woman stepped into the moonlight her eyes came alive with an eldritch glow. A raven soared over the two of them, cackling into the night as her luminous gaze fell upon him. Suddenly, his trepidation fell away. She was beautiful...serene and terrible to behold, and he knew that she was in truth some spirit of war descended onto this mortal plane for him. Discipline reasserted itself in his mind, and Asmodai rose slowly to his full height, leaving his pack and its weapons on the cracked tar by his feet. Nearly eight feet of werewolf stood in silent vigil of her approach, the nicks and scratches of a life lived killing staring back through the moonlit alley, a mass of scar tissue marking his belly where he had once been brutally savaged. He was the larger of the two by far, but he had no thought of opposing this apparition. If she had come for him, then he was blessed that his killer should be so elegant...so awe-inspiring. He met her gaze, never wavering, drawing courage from her ghostly grace, strength from the wraithglow in her eyes. He heard her voice, and its melodic tones echoed in his good ear as she paused, waiting for his answer. "I welcome the intrusion." His voice was gruff, but failed to reclaim the apathetic coldness it had acquired prior to his duel. His thoughts were a plague on his mind, his guilt a corroding poison on his soul. The wolf called Asmodai had been broken by the realization of his deed, and he would need to discover--over the following months as he made his way back to GreyClaw--what new wolf would emerge from the shattered pieces. For now, he was a shell with nothing but his discipline to get him through. Before this spectral glamour, he would show none of the weakness that wormed its way through him. He did not doubt that her eyes saw through him, saw his weakness, but if she was in truth an avatar of battle then he would present her with his strongest side...perhaps as a last send-off to the way that he had lived, a debriefing for a life that he knew he must now turn from, or be destroyed. "You are most welcome here, lady of the night. Whatever tidings or tasks bring you here, I am glad of them. Whether I am graced with your presence by happenstance or in the spirit of vengeance for what I have done, it is enough to see you before I depart." Forever. Whether she killed him here or he made it away, he did not ever plan on returning to Souls lands. The hurt was still fresh within him, and he knew that he would not--could not--ever deserve to visit Soro or Skoll's graves after how he had failed them. His devil's errand was completed for good or ill. When he departed this woman's company, he would be away for good. - Cwmfen nic Graine - 03-17-2012 [html] Table by me (Req)
.ascend b {font-weight:bold; color:#000007; letter-spacing:.0px; } .ascend-ooc { font-style:italic; padding:15px; font-family:verdana, sans-serif; font-size:9px; text-align:center; } .ascend p {text-indent:20px; padding:3px 10px; margin:0px;} .ascend {margin:0 auto; width:330px; background-color:#6f6e70; background-image:url(http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee19 ... ble_02.png); background-position:bottom center; background-repeat:no-repeat; border:1px solid #2e2f32; padding: 10px 0px 280px 0px; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size:9px; color:#2e2f32; line-height:10px; letter-spacing:.0px; text-align:justify;} </style> [/html] - Asmodai - 03-18-2012 [html] Hmm...wondering where we should go with this. We didn't come up with a plot or anything o__o *is out of practice* Ah. He smiled ruefully to himself. Of course. She must think him a fool to think her such, in spite of her ethereal beauty under the light of the moon. He shook his head and looked to the ground once more. "My apologies, then. I suppose I am in a spiritual mood...a long chapter of my life has ended recently, and it did not end happily." He reached up to the mess of his ear and the stab of pain nearly made him wince. Still, it was hard to show such weakness before someone like the woman before him. He got the impression of strength despite her calm manner. If she were mortal, he did not fear for his life: though his confidence in GreyClaw's purpose was shaken, he was still a few days away from finally accepting that they did not have a monopoly on fighting prowess. But fear or not, he was compelled to show her no weakness. To veil his pitiful state with at least a veneer of respectability. "And I did not expect to see someone so beautiful in the epilogue of this years-long misadventure." He shook his head at the foolishness of his words and reached down to pick up his gear. He was vulnerable, the very last place a warrior should ever allow himself to be. If he kept talking to this woman, there was no telling what he would let slip, where he'd come from and why...what he'd done. He would have one more enemy in the Souls' lands before this was all said and done, he was sure. Yet the thought of a sympathetic soul being the only one to have observed his departure was oddly comforting. The idea that perhaps someone might think better of him than his former packmates in Phoenix Valley, think him more than a treacherous murderer who had reached in and plucked one of the land's protectors away. Still, in spite of everything, he had his training to consider. There were so many things to sort out now...so many questions he would need to answer if he heeded that inner voice which had implored him to stop...which had convinced him that his duty was monstrous and that he was wrong for pursuing it. But he had stayed true to his objective, and now his next step was to report the mission a success. To go back to the world that had set him down this road in the first place, only to--he now suspected--advocate the very views that had gotten Gronnor and all of his students killed. He made as if to walk away from her before revealing anything more of himself, but the cawing raven drew his gaze, and he wondered. Were there such things as omens? Would that carrion bird be the symbol of his stay here, a harbinger of death who fed on the wickedness of the world? How could he ever make up for what he had done...how should he try? He turned his troubled eyes toward the woman--he was much closer to her now--and met her cold eyes. He did not know the answers. He might never know them. But one way or the other, he was not dead, and in one direction or the other life had to go on. - Cwmfen nic Graine - 03-23-2012 [html] Table by me (Req)
.ascend b {font-weight:bold; color:#000007; letter-spacing:.0px; } .ascend-ooc { font-style:italic; padding:15px; font-family:verdana, sans-serif; font-size:9px; text-align:center; } .ascend p {text-indent:20px; padding:3px 10px; margin:0px;} .ascend {margin:0 auto; width:330px; background-color:#6f6e70; background-image:url(http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee19 ... ble_02.png); background-position:bottom center; background-repeat:no-repeat; border:1px solid #2e2f32; padding: 10px 0px 280px 0px; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size:9px; color:#2e2f32; line-height:10px; letter-spacing:.0px; text-align:justify;} </style> [/html] - Asmodai - 03-23-2012 [html] If you want to change the direction this (seems to be?) going, that's fine. I'm just kind of rolling with it/playing by ear for now! Her words took him by surprise, and he found himself astonished in spite of himself. He had dismissed his initial trance as a trick of the moonlight on her midnight fur, on the exotic paint and otherworldly eyes, and yet she stood before him as more than a mirage of light and circumstance. She took his compliment at face value and seemed...unfazed, but not untouched. When he found her hand so near, his muscles began to tense and his heart sped up, but then she withdrew, and his combat reflex relaxed. It took another moment for him to realize that his heart did not slow down with it. "Stop making a fool of myself, for starters," he muttered inaudibly under his breath. While not a great charmer of women even when at his best, he was accustomed to at least having mastery over himself in their presence. To be flustered now, in light of his training and the harrowing situations which had always failed to break his composure before, he must have been more badly shaken than he'd believed. Or perhaps it was simply the effect of finding softness...acceptance...in a place where he had never expected any welcome again. "Perhaps I could," he intoned, following slowly behind her, finding the measure of his steps and regaining himself once more. He saw her as she approached the woods, her curves silhouetted by the light of the moon, and found that he was once again entranced by the ethereal allure of her form and motion. It was little wonder he had seen something more than just another wolf when he had first seen her. "What kind of peace does the forest hold for two souls such as ours?" Swallowed by the shade under the trees, he found they afforded a sense of privacy that he had been denying himself beneath the open sky, among man's decaying monuments. Perhaps he had been depriving himself of a feeling of security he had not felt he deserved. Perhaps he did not have the power to forgive himself, or at least, would not until he had sorted out the warring voices in his head. Whatever the reason, he found the forest an infinitely better place to find the peace that the she-wolf spoke of. He also found her company infinitely preferable to the solitude he had endured before. Beneath the shadow of the forest, he stepped closer to her and searched her eyes for an answer to his query, though he did not know what he would find there. Despite her assertion, she looked more and more like an angel of war as he walked with her in the lunar shadows. Something greater than what she claimed, something grander and more breathtaking. Perhaps it was just because everything he knew was now in question, or perhaps she truly was just that awe-inspiring, but he was drawn to her in this moment, hidden from the moon, spied only by the stars between the branches of the canopy overhead. He did not know if the same was true for her, and did not wish to press her lest this meeting end and he find himself alone once more, left to his thoughts without her melodic voice or even the cackling raven to take his mind from recent events. - Cwmfen nic Graine - 03-28-2012 [html] Table by me (Req)
.ascend b {font-weight:bold; color:#000007; letter-spacing:.0px; } .ascend-ooc { font-style:italic; padding:15px; font-family:verdana, sans-serif; font-size:9px; text-align:center; } .ascend p {text-indent:20px; padding:3px 10px; margin:0px;} .ascend {margin:0 auto; width:330px; background-color:#6f6e70; background-image:url(http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee19 ... ble_02.png); background-position:bottom center; background-repeat:no-repeat; border:1px solid #2e2f32; padding: 10px 0px 280px 0px; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size:9px; color:#2e2f32; line-height:10px; letter-spacing:.0px; text-align:justify;} </style> [/html] - Asmodai - 04-02-2012 [html] A little bit more to work with this time. Took some liberties with physical contact, please let me know if I need to revise. He followed close, entranced by her voice, her eyes, her form as she led him deeper into the shadowed wood. When at last they reached their destination, he found himself surprised that it could take his eyes away from her at all, but the clearing had a serene beauty of its own, which would not be denied by any earthly fixation. The raven descended upon a low-lying branch, and the decorated skull which that branch held aloft dipped into the waters of a still pool. A faint ripple carried to the edge of the water, where Asmodai stood next to the woad-painted woman. "It may be they will," he answered softly, drinking in the details of this secret place, this sacred place, bathed in the light of the moon. It all seemed like a dream, but if so it was one he hoped he would not wake soon. A wry smile twisted his mouth as he knelt before the water. "But those shadows are many and strong. I come victorious from battle, alone among my comrades...both in survival and the foregone conclusion that our mission was...in error." He looked up from the placid pool and gazed into the woman's ghostly eyes. "But too many were dead by the time I realized that. Too many had given their lives for me to turn back." So we continued on with our farce anyway, pursuing duties absent desire, exacting vengeance for the crimes of others. All to settle an argument started before we were born, between a wolf named Gronnor and his brothers in arms. "It is the task of a warrior to do things which others will not...which others cannot...things which will have permanent and often regrettable consequences. Still, I welcome the tranquility of this pool." He looked up at the falling moon and slid his hand over the young woman's. A genuine smile came over his features, the first of what he hoped would be many more once this was all behind him. "Thank you for bringing me here. This peace...I did not think I could feel it's like again. My name is Asmodai. I am a warrior from Greyclaw, and my task in this place is done." He turned back to face her, this ethereal spirit-woman come real at the foot of the pool. "In the morning, I think, after resting in this sanctuary, I will depart." He squeezed her hand, glad of her presence but fearing that she would leave, every bit the ghost she claimed not to be, having delivered him to this holy place where a warrior--marked by the weight of his deeds or no--could recover from his injuries. Tomorrow, he would be solitary again. Come the dawn, he would be the lying, calculating, self-reliant warrior he needed to be to get himself back to GreyClaw in one piece. That was what he must be, if anyone from the Souls' lands gave chase. But for tonight, for right now, he was not ashamed to want her presence. He was not ashamed...because beside this pool under the light of the moon it did not feel like weakness. It felt like release. It felt like a promise of what might come tomorrow. |