believer (chao li)

[Amaris Silvershade]

believer

[attr="class","box1a"] Amaris was taking advantage of the moon to move camp. This was one of the few days that she felt like her usual self before her strength started to ebb away, so she was going to travel as far as she could in an attempt to reach the South Court's border. They'd be expecting her to stay here in the West, the court where she would best blend in, but Amaris experienced enough change in her life. She didn't need to spend any more time in the Court of transition, especially not during the turn of the seasons.  Spring was coming, which would make being on the run easier. She stubbed out the morning's cookfire. At least she wouldn't need to build fires to keep warm anymore. It had been easier when she'd had a pack of sorts to run with, but now they would be in too much danger from her. This was her fight to take alone.  She hadn't been able to carry much, so it was easy enough to pack what little she needed and start off, deeper into the spindly birchwood. Hopefully she'd find a river that she could follow. Otherwise she was stuck wandering vaguely south through the wilds.  @moonflower [newclass=.box1a]margin:0px auto; width:300px; height:425px; background: transparent; overflow:auto; padding:8px;[/newclass] [newclass=.box1a::-webkit-scrollbar]width:5px;[/newclass] [newclass=.box1a::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb]background: #4d221a;[/newclass]

Music Word count: 204 Notes: 

credit to Laura of Adox + SeaJem

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Amaris Silvershade

379 words

Music

n/a

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It's all innocence [break]
Innocence lost

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Chao Li knew that the first rule of finding was to look. Look where other people didn't, or wouldn't, or found uncomfortable. The trail of the deviant was the trial of the righteous, but they both led to the same place. In this case, it was a camp in the woods. Whatever it was, it was never particularly tasteful. [break][break]



He was comfortable in the wilds. On the edges of society. Deep in the woods, pine in the air. He had grown up on the edges of a castle that was his whole world until it all burned down. His mother would take him into the woods, press a compass into his hands, and say "Don't look. Just find north." [break][break]



It was hard at first. It was all squinting at the moss on trees and tracking the sun. She was a mortal girl, but she didn't act like it at all. She knew the land better than any fae he had met. No wanderer's spirit had she, but the surety of an explorer. She said his family back in the mortal world had crossed oceans. She said that they had built empires. She said that there was a wall in her country that was built thousands of years ago and still standing. He had believed her as a child. [break][break]



Now he could find North without looking. Truth was not so easy to discern. But he had her consistency, and her conviction. North, true, false, right, left, just, wrong. It was all feeling. It was all searching. It was all guessing. He had guessed right. [break][break]



He could see her ahead of him. Red hair, like a flame. Like a forest fire. That wasn't his concern at all. Nor was it the woman she had killed. It was how she did it. It was why. It was the rustling in their land that he could feel without looking, just like anything else. It was change, in the air, in the wind, chasing his steps. It was time for something to shift. This was the era when continents formed, and he was following it. He didn't know how it was all connected yet, but he knew it was. He was part fae. This was his land, his home, and he knew that too. [break][break]

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[Amaris Silvershade]

believer

[attr="class","box1a"]It didn't take long to forget how to be human.  Amaris crouched back on her hands and feet as soon as she saw the man, her muscles coiled, teeth automatically bared. His face was familiar, but she'd tear it off if she had to. She had spent too much time surviving for it to end like this.  "What do you want?" she demanded, her voice low, rough, crackling with disuse. She swept a hand back to the jagged-bladed dagger at her hip. Along with forsaking her Court came forsaking its brand of magic, and the kind she could command now was as feral and authority-challenged as Amaris herself, a force with claws and teeth. It would bite her too if she wasn't careful, so she saved it as a last resort.  This was the price of anarchy. Not being under control meant giving up control, too. She could live with that; if everything about her was chaos, out of her hands, she didn't have to take the blame. She could surround herself with a safe radius of damage. And if this man didn't know that yet, he was about to find out.  @moonflower [newclass=.box1a]margin:0px auto; width:300px; height:425px; background: transparent; overflow:auto; padding:8px;[/newclass] [newclass=.box1a::-webkit-scrollbar]width:5px;[/newclass] [newclass=.box1a::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb]background: #4d221a;[/newclass]

Music Word count: 193 Notes:

credit to Laura of Adox + SeaJem

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[attr="class","Lost"]

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Amaris Silvershade

258 words

Music

n/a

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It's all innocence [break]
Innocence lost

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Chao Li found himself faced with her much faster than he expected to be. [break][break]


He didn’t expect her to see him this early– if he was honest, he wasn’t ready to speak with her. As a knight, he had a duty; to dignity, to integrity, to justice. But as his mother’s son, he had an entirely different duty, and he knew that someone that good at destruction might be able to help him. [break][break]


But the duty weighed him down, and the conflicting ideas of responsibility had no yet been sorted out by his mind. He expected the wilderness to soothe him– he hoped that finding north would give him direction. It hadn’t. He was faced with a decision. [break][break]


Was the life of the woman she killed worth nothing? Did it even matter? He didn’t know her and she wasn’t from his court. He had no responsibility to her, unless he decided it was his job to protect all life. [break][break]


He hadn't. Some people didn’t deserve saving. [break][break]


”I fought you once already.” he said. ”I don’t want to do it again.”



Not a real answer, and he was surprising himself by saying it. He technically didn’t want to fight her, no, but he had expected he had to. And his answer was all in the negative. He couldn’t tell her what he wanted. He could only tell her what he didn’t. He had never before considered what he wanted, only what needed to be done. [break][break]


That was probably what she was asking. [break][break]


That was really what everyone was asking. [break][break]

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[Amaris Silvershade]

believer

[attr="class","box1a"] Amaris forced her breath to deepen as if carving trenches into the earth, her fingers flexing around the handle of her blade. She had a flash, for a moment, of how the animals felt that she hunted to survive; she was staring down death in an alien form, making herself look stronger if only so that she wouldn't die feeling helpless. Maybe she and this man were from the same world once, but now she was as feral as the land itself, all rust and weathering and mud and stone. She looked at him like a creature whose only language was survival.  "Then don't," she said, her voice still abrasive. "Forget your invented honor and leave me alone." How couldn't he see that the system he served was invasive, unnatural, something ineffective and falsely introduced? At least the dirt beneath her nails was real. The blackthorn throne chose nothing but a chief bystander to whom the mindless swore fealty. "Of course you can't tell me what you want. You don't know because you don't think for yourself." Wolfsbane was the closest thing to a community that she had been willing to claim—a place of mutual aid and mutual anger, no hierarchy. When she became a danger to them, she hadn't been like the broken systems that clung to their comfort while leeching out harm. She left. She knew how to be alone. That was the one thing she always did well, no matter what phase the moon was in.  @moonflower [newclass=.box1a]margin:0px auto; width:300px; height:425px; background: transparent; overflow:auto; padding:8px;[/newclass] [newclass=.box1a::-webkit-scrollbar]width:5px;[/newclass] [newclass=.box1a::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb]background: #4d221a;[/newclass]

Music Word count: 253 Notes:

credit to Laura of Adox + SeaJem

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[attr="class","Lost"]

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Amaris Silvershade

323 words

Music

我儿子我儿子= my son

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It's all innocence [break]
Innocence lost

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Chao Li felt every breath like he was inhaling glass. He didn't understand why he had to be so unsure now, why the ground felt so precarious, why everything felt like a threat. But it hurt to breathe in this air, so close. Something was wrong her. He could feel the magic in the air like smoke from a fire. Dark magic. A curse or a ward. He was on edge. He almost wanted to listen to her, to leave. But he couldn't. His honor wasn't invented. [break][break]

"Not invented." he said, and his voice was rough like he really had been breathing in smoke. "Earned." Forcing out the last word really did hurt. What was it his mother said? "Love is the death of duty. Duty is the death of love. 我儿子, you can only have one." [break][break]

He had made his choice and thrown in his lot. He had turned in back on love and chosen duty. Or had he turned his back on duty and chosen love? It was all mixed up and he didn't know anymore. He had a duty to avenge his mother. He had a duty to protect Silas. He loved them both. He could not have both. He had chosen his mother. He had chosen honor. But was it really honor? He looked at this woman with new light, wondering if she had faced something similar or if she was just angry.
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"Earned and chosen." he amended. He would not waver now. He would not show doubt. But he was certainly feeling it.
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"I have a job to do," he said, looking down at her. "You have something I want. Let's make a deal." He had chosen this path, tumbled down it, fallen and landed it. He could not turn back now. Regardless of danger, duty or love, a choice was a choice. Every blow had to land. Every path had an end. Every idea had a consequence. 


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[Amaris Silvershade]

believer

[attr="class","box1a"]Amaris could see it in the knight's face, the wildness of what she was, and it made her blood quicken with rage. She had made herself foreign to the system he served, and somehow he claimed that as the right to look at her like a bone protruding from a broken limb.  Why was it her urge to make herself stranger in answer? To scream, to bite?  "You can't earn something that was never real," she snarled, a cruel bent of cynicism in her tone. She smiles as if her mouth was broken into that shape. "Honor is a reward doled out by kings to their best little soldiers so they don't have to spare the expense of real prizes. No ceremony or shiny pin on your cloak will feed you when your stomach hollows or defend you when the beasts come out at night. You might've had a king's sword tap your shoulders, but you still knelt. No ritual takes the weakness out of that." Amaris did not raise her blade, but she didn't need to. The knight had laid his nobility flat on the table, face-up.  That didn't mean she was trusting him not to trick her, however. That woud be a foolish assumption to make of any fae. And deals were all the more dangerous as a solitary fae with no Court to run home to.  "Now you offer me something that matters." She tilted her head, snaking a step closer to him. "Speak your terms. Unless I'm lucky and you're going to change your mind and leave me alone."  Amaris knew better than to hope, though.  @moonflower [newclass=.box1a]margin:0px auto; width:300px; height:425px; background: transparent; overflow:auto; padding:8px;[/newclass] [newclass=.box1a::-webkit-scrollbar]width:5px;[/newclass] [newclass=.box1a::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb]background: #4d221a;[/newclass]

Music Word count: 274 Notes:

credit to Laura of Adox + SeaJem

[nospaces]

[attr="class","Lost"]

[break]

Amaris Silvershade

323 words

Music

我儿子我儿子= my son

[break][break]

It's all innocence [break]
Innocence lost

[break][break]



Chao Li wanted to scoff at her ignorance, but that would require him to be surprised. So few of them understood it at all. So few of them got it. And of course they didn’t. If they did, honor would be nothing remarkable. If they did, honesty would be no virtue. If they did, the fact that the fae couldn’t lie would be no obstacle at all. It wouldn’t be treated as a game.



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But the fae took nothing seriously, and this woman before him did not seem to be like that. She seemed to take everything seriously. She seemed to see every moment as a battle. He would have respected it if she had any code at all. He would have respected it if it was more than bare survival. As it stood now, he could not respect her. He could only bite back his scoff.
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“Kings do not bestow honor. It does not die with them. It does not die with me. It is a principle. You seem to have none. I would not expect you to understand.” Some said that more flies were caught with honey. Chao Li always found it productive to make someone feel insulted. People never talked so much as when they were defending themselves.
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“I’m afraid not,” he said, and there was no fear in his voice. “Come back with me and you will not be harmed in any way. I will make the vow if you choose. As long as you assist me in finding those who have been starting attacks on the south court. Beyond yours. I think that they might see you as a compatriot. I think you might be valuable.”

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Value was as good as armor in times like these. He could not be valuable. He would have to take the other. But now he was offering her both. He had dropped his hand. The offer hung before them nonetheless. This quiet wood was, for a moment, a bargaining table.





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