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shadowbringers
shadowbringers |
beneath the stars It's been a week since our newest expansion officially launched! And, I know, I know... some of you already have a lot of feelings that you need to air out. But canon updating in your games is a struggle! And so is finding PSL partners! Luckily, that's what we're here for.This is a post for you to play out all the Shadowbringers-related content you might be dying to write. Behind-the-scenes nonsense? Between-the-scenes angst? It's all welcome here! 1. Toplevel your character. Include any details you might think are relevant. Or don't. As always, we're not the cops. 2. Reply to other people's top levels! 3. Have fun! ⚔ Please clearly mark all spoilers in your thread subject lines. Clearly indicate whatever spoiler preferences you may have. We're only a week into the expansion, officially, and there's no shame if you're not far in it or haven't started it yet. ⚔ You are welcome to play characters who are new to Shadowbringers. However, please try to avoid topleveling with icons and descriptions that convey major plot-related spoilers. If you aren't certain about a character's playability, feel free to PM ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small} parser. |
TEMPLATE CODED BY valoirs
valoirs
Lyna | Crystarium Guard, no-nonsense rabbit with chakrams
Re: Lyna | Crystarium Guard, no-nonsense rabbit with chakrams
So how do you do all the...
[she pantomimes throwing chakrams]
More importantly, how d'you throw them to ensure they come back?
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About fighting. Of course.]
I was trained in the art when I took up with the guard here. You get your preference of weapons, as long as there's a teacher.
she a red mage.
I see. [she laughed.] I imagine it must've been hard at first. Can't tell you how many times I struggled to keep my foci from floating away.
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[She has seen this person fight with a rapier and floating crystal, of course. It's just not at all common anywhere in Norvrandt she's thinking about just now.]
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[something about lying to the Guard felt wrong. Even though it wasn't lying so much as omitting the truth]
Blending Light and Dark magicks together to create something new.
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Something fair destructive enough, if what I've seen tells the whole tale.
[Still, as with most things relating to her dear Exarch, she leaves off questioning deeper into this thing. His mysterious friends get to keep their privacy; she learned her lesson after the first one came through.]
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I know what you're thinking and I can assure you, the Light I use has no adverse affects. I'd be more than happy to demonstrate if you're still uncertain.
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It's about time for another patrol. You can join me, if you've no other business. Perhaps a demonstration won't be necessary.
[The years of walking the roads of Lakeland, chakrams in hand, rest in her eyes to say she knows better than to believe that for an instant.]
Best keep your weapon at the ready.
Get in loser, we're killing sin eaters
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apologies if this is mentioned somewhere and i forgot
It's all good!
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Hen internally: I ship it.
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spoilers, post-msq
In need of just such a reprieve is the Captain of the Crystarium's Guard, a thought that occurs to him as he catches a glimpse of her on his way from the Ocular to the marketplace. Though her contribution may have been met with less fanfare than that of others, she had played no small part in their friend's victory, an effort well worth recognition as well as thanks. He smiles wryly as he adjusts his course to approach, noting that she walks with purpose, as she always does— no rest for any of them, it would seem.]
One wouldst think thou might take a day's reprieve from thy duties, Captain. Thou hast worked and fought harder than is thy due, I am certain.
['Take a day off, and also a nap.']
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One does not pass such a hero in the streets without acknowledgement. On sight of Urianger she stops and salutes at once.]
I appreciate your concern. [In case he somehow thought she might dismiss it.] But we haven’t come this far in idleness, and so I can’t abide it now. I’m sure someone like you understands.
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Of course, he understands. He feels the very same.]
Then I must respect thy dedication. Thy post was not earned passively, I am most certain.
[As Captain of the Guard, she was exemplary. The titled had been well-earned.]
Dost thou sense something else amiss, or is it routine thou seekest?
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Nothing amiss but the Exarch working himself to exhaustion for the sake of his people, though that and routine are one and the same. It is he you might better convince to put aside his duties for an evening.
[It is definitely a smile then, fond and fleeting.]
I should like to be in the room while you try.
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[Even, he supposes, if he might better convince the Exarch, such things are certainly relative. Though he may be easier to persuade than the Captain herself, that doesn't say terribly much, given the present company.
He smiles at her even as he shakes his head.]
Having spoken with him but recently, I think that perhaps mine efforts would be wasted there, as well, though should I find myself of a different mind, I shall most certainly inform thee before all else.
[Of course she should have the chance to watch.]
May I ask what task has thy attention this day, then? Shouldst thou be in need of assistance, thou needst but ask.
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It would be unfair not to say everything has my attention, even when I know that's impossible. But representatives from each of the Facets have been in talks about what, if anything, can be done for Holminster Switch.
[Something shifts in the set of her shoulders, and she nods to Urianger in deference.]
Now that the primary danger has passed and won't return. [In which he played no small part and she doesn't dare let herself forget that.] We feel we must do what we can to reclaim it, if it can be reclaimed at all.
[Her words don't say it, but do they need to? There is so little of our world left as it is.]
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[Holminster Switch had suffered greatly, as had many other places in the First, and being right on the Crystarium's doorstep, it comes as no surprise that those who had the means to lend their aid would wish to do so. The people of the Crystarium were a hard-working, industrious sort, and Urianger had come to know them to be quite generous.
He nods his understanding, crooking a finger as he brings his hand to rest against his chin, thoughtful.
She's right. She doesn't need to say it. They must salvage what they can.]
It may be no easy task, but I believeth it can be done. Look at all that hath been accomplished in the Crystarium alone by dedicated hands. Holminster is far from a lost cause.
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Though we must first discuss it with the Exarch, I'm all but certain he wouldn't turn the suggestion aside.
[Though they have no plans to ask for his assistance, as such. He has done enough for them all already, and created in them a remarkable self-sufficiency besides. It would be more of a meeting to inform him of the plan and take suggestions.]
I have several men and women stationed around Lakeland who would like very much to return to their homes one day. [Lyna's eyes meet his, for now, very serious again.] A sentiment I trust you understand.
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hope this is okay! lemme know if I need to change anything
[The truth of the thing was that the First had become as much of a home to him as the Source itself. Oh, he could still smell the breeze coming off the rivers in Dravania when he let his mind wander; he could still feel the weight of the bow in his hand, the grip of the quiver's belt across his chest. But those memories dulled with time and too much distance, the bow lighter than it should have been, the belt looser than it needed to be, nudged aside and away by the real and firm weight of the staff at his back.]
[The Crystal Exarch was what he was now, an identity given to him in the First after those first few protective and primitive structures rose in what would one day be called the Crystarium. That he had not been erased completely once the match set to spark the Eighth Umbral Calamity had been extinguished stood as testament to that. He wondered, not for the first time, if in his effort to save the First and the Source, he had not accidentally somehow established himself as a part of this world forever.]
[It made sense, in a strange way. His own reflection here on the First had not survived the Flood. Of that, he was fairly certain, though he kept the cowl on anyway until very recently, just in case. His soul would never replace that man, whoever he had been, just as it could not replace a younger G'raha Tia still slumbering in the Crystal Tower on the Source.]
[The thought did not bother him as much as he imagined it might, not until the exhaustion finally caught up with him late into the true night after everything that had happened and he made his polite excuses and parted from the crowd to retreat to the Tower and a moment of lonely meditation. It worked well enough - they were all impossibly weary and sorely needed rest that more than enough sleep couldn't provide. For him, it was different. Physically, he was fully recovered, the strength of the Tower reaching out to him to replenish what he lacked the closer he was to it. It would always be that way, now that he was a part of it. Before he ever set foot in the Crystarium proper, he felt right again, in body.]
[In soul and in mind, he could sleep forever and never know peace. Days later, now noted by the passing of night to the return of the sun and back again, after the Warrior of Darkness was returned to the Source and the Scions parted ways to tend to matters of their own on the First and life had returned to some semblance of normalcy with a renewed sense of hope, he felt it wearing on him. With or without the Tower's energy, his own sense of purpose had refreshed itself. His people sensed it, let it bleed over into their interactions with him as he let theirs catch onto him. Their joy, their relief. To them, he was the Crystal Exarch still, ever firm in his resolve to see the Crystarium and the First healed and her people well and truly happy. He was their leader, their protector, their voice with other nations, keeper of the Crystal Tower.]
[Inside the Tower, within the Ocular, where he stood alone, watching over his new home and his friends from afar while he yet had to remain or risk becoming a burden when his strength was too far sapped, he was one man pushed under a heavy mantle that had only been easier to wear in time - cruel and necessary time. And somehow, it was all exactly as it should have been. He needed only to see the smiles on his people's faces, to hear the laugh in their voices to know it.]
This is great! Also end of 5.0 spoilers alert
She’s spent the past days attendant, at times outright fussing, though the physicians at Spagyrics declared him well enough as did his healer friends from beyond the stars, and the Exarch himself only repeated that he was well, he was fine, the blood washed off clean enough and his tattered robes found replacement. What injuries he might have carried back to the Crystarium remain only upon his heart, and those are mending.
And when he looked upon his people, his ears twitched. It was such a remarkably ordinary mystel expression of pleasure she found it then so odd - and continues to do so as it happens throughout the celebration and the walks he takes in these new days, hood lowered, a tentative smile bringing blessed shadow to his crimson gaze. Lyna returns to her post by day - and walks the road to the city at twilight, eyes ever on the first blossoming stars.
This night those steps bring her to his Ocular door. There is no report. No emergency. No crisis or unwelcome guests. Yet here she is, ready and waiting to serve under his distant, considerate command.
Lyna lifts one fist and knocks gently.]
aaaa! spoilers!
[He hasn't, of course - these books are his comfort as much as his colleagues. He reads them anyway, glad for the chance to do so, keeping carefully separate the ones from his origins and the ones borrowed from the rather extensive libraries in the Crystarium though such care was hardly necessary. Their feel, their scent, the weight of their pages set one world's tomes apart from the other. At a glance, it might not seem obvious without knowing which authors existed where, but to his gaze, made familiar over the years, he needed no second guess.]
[The mirror on the wall stood in silence, its crystalline surface dotted with the white and pink and blue and orange of a thousand stars against a sea of darkness as he sat with the pages of the First's literature splayed over his lap. He paid the scene no need, set at ease merely to have the view there to behold if he wanted to turn his head and see it again, as if to reassure himself that it really was there, but words held his attention.]
[At least, until the knock at the door startled him from his preoccupation. Who could it be at this hour, he wondered? A soft sigh to release his tension and he set the book down on the stairs beside him, slipping a fold of blank paper between the pages to keep his place. Then he pushed himself slowly to his feet, prepared to greet his visitor.]
Enter.
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My apologies for any interruption, my lord. [For once, he seems to have not known her very presence almost before her knock announced it; she rather relishes the open surprise for a moment on his face, the way he looks without the cowl to cast his eyes in darkness. In return he might catch a brief fondness flashing across her features.]
I only came to ask if there is anything you need.
[As she has done often in the days since his return. Since he found himself “alone” again in his rooms of crystal - though none of his people would ever let him believe it if they knew.]
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[Until the one time it had become too much and he hadn't returned. How it concerned his Captain to have him hand over the key to his most private chambers, the one room in the entire Crystal Tower he forbid anyone but himself and those he invited to visit. After so long working so closely together for the good of their city, she must have known he saw something terrible in his very near future when he made the journey to Mt. Gulg alone if he'd passed that crucial item along. Looking her in the eye from beneath the hood was no easy feat, but they were going through the old, familiar motions. The habit made it easier.]
[But now they knew he could be felled. They knew he had his weaknesses; he was not invincible. Though he returned in triumph with a victory behind him, thanks in every part to the Warrior of Darkness and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, a part of him worried he had failed them as a leader, having kept his plans from his own people all this time. People who looked up to him, people whose very lives depended on the guidance he offered. His tattered robes and broken ornaments and wounds still healing, blemishes on what of his body remained flesh and blood though the blood itself had washed away in the long and arduous swim back to shore, stood as a tangible reminder of that fact.]
[The smile he offered her, clear as the night that shrouded the land beyond the confines of the Tower, reached his eyes, now visible with the cowl draped over his shoulders and down his back. He turned and retrieved the tome, held it in his hand - first up to her view, then there against his side as if she needed proof.]
I see. I thank you for your concern, but I assure you, my friend, I am well. [There is no need for the book now, though its familiar weight is a comfort to him.] 'Tis nothing but a long day's reading and a longer day of it still. There are only so many words one can take in in a day.
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By the gods, can that truly be possible? That the Exarch summoned them a savior from beyond, from the place he calls home, and they walked but one terrible path through the damnable Light, leaving darkness and peace in their wake? Yet the stars wink and glimmer above the Crystarium, Lakeland, all that remains of Norvrandt - maybe even the Empty - as a testament to how very real it is. In the morning, an unobjectionable sun will rise. She felt rain on her face for the first time in her entire life. Stood cold and still in the Exedra with her head turned upward, staring at the full bellies of clouds, only just managing not to let her mouth gape open while rain soaked through her uniform and threatened rust to her chakrams. And it was set in motion by all his hard work and the hands of those in whom he placed his trust.
-she'll ask if they could ferry a book or two from the homeland. No doubt the Exarch longs for something new to read.
Lyna shakes herself from the memory of rain and looks over the Exarch once, rather obviously tilting her head down and then up to take in the manner of him. He seems well enough. Not running himself ragged to the point she must go to Spagyrics for a restorative for him...at least.]
Have you...a moment to spare in your reading? [This is an unusual request coming from Lyna and it's apparent in the slight uncertainty in her voice.] For a walk?
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[It was a circle of checks and balances between them, a comforting routine and, by now, what made them friends when their roles slipped away from superior and Captain of the guard. He looked after her, and she looked after him.]
[The request comes as somewhat of a surprise, but not an unpleasant one. In fact, by the light shift of his ears, it is even a welcome change in his pace for the night. Having spent so many sleepless nights reviewing the pages of his library, much as he loved everything about it, it still wore on him. Her timing was impeccable, as always. The nature of her request though, in the tone in which it was delivered, spoke of something quite unlike his Captain, and he wondered at the reason behind it. In due time, he thought to himself. She would tell him when she was good and ready, and now that they had time to breathe, the wait would be worth it.]
Of course, Captain. Pray, allow me to put this away and I will join you anon.
[It took but a few moments for him to cross the room and pass through the threshold to his private chambers, across the room from the Umbilicus, and set his tome on the soft down bed that rarely saw any use. By now, it was covered in loose pages and books of its own, much like nearly every other surface in the room. That done, he vacated the space to return to Lyna and awaited her lead.]
Thank you. When you are ready.
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Then he is there, looking up at her with just that hint of friendly curiosity that for so long she knew only in his voice and not his features.]
Of course.
[It's a matter of a few steps and one gesture to hold open the door for him.]
As long as I am not disturbing your work. [Yet...she can't help a glance out that door, and up at the brilliant dark sky.] I...prefer walks in the clear night like this.
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