#crystal tower

yifei.song.5201

Exarch feelings whiplash like wholesome FILTHY wholesome FILTHY wholesome sobbing FILTHY

me: I don’t like this ride I wanna get off
the fandom: we all wanna get off. if u kno what I mean

wink wonk

if Aymeric is a peerless gourmet dinner and Estinien a back-alley food truck cryptid, G'raha is that one legendary ancestral heirloom recipe handed down through generations that only one great aunt or second-cousin-once-removed knew how to correctly assemble. you’ve roped half your family and friends into the ambition, but no matter how many times you individually or as a collective attempt to recreate this mythical dish, it’s never quite how you remember. too sweet. too soft. too crunchy. too bitter. you will be striving all your life to find a balance that might not exist. your journey will never end

(”T,” named fWoL/G’raha.  Nights in Mor Dhona during CT.  Feelings, nostalgia, mildly abstract.)

- - - - - - - - - -

His chuckle was warm summer sunset tasting of autumn, rich and rustling and crisp around the edges.  “Take my hand,” he laughed.  “I want to show you something.”

A smile tickled her lips but she opted, again, to pretend—to play-act that her interest was dim. And it was an effort to lie to him; to imply she spent her precious stolen respites daydreaming of anything other than him—G’raha’s eyes, his smile, the wish of his hands thumbing and trawling every riddle of her skin.  

From the way he buffed his clawed nails to blunt tips, she wondered if he dared imagine the same; if perhaps in some quiet corner of his raucous, rambling mind, he hoped he might also have the chance, yet, to cross that line.

She half-shuttered dark eyes and cocked a tense brow.  “Where are we going?”

His grin bent at the corner like the happy shepherd’s-crook of his tail.  His soft mouth hid mischief and pleasure.  “Do you trust me?”

It was a dare.

Rather than surrender, she wove them fingers to fingers and held his puckish stare.

- ☽ ✧ ☾ -

The Tangle was wild at night, full of hazards; patrols of guards from the Castrum, monsters and morbols and mercenaries alike.  “Where are you taking me, exactly?”  

G’raha was smaller and faster, dragging her along behind.  “Trust me,” came the echo.  

Dusk fell in phases around them, the haze of the Fogfens crowding her nose.  Though Samantha Rosalyn Floravale was hailed by her blessing of Light—eikon slayer—she shivered and was frightened.  She was budding, a still-nascent hero; thorns and brambles cut just barely on Baelsar and Ultima and the Ascian, Lahabrea—

The Warrior was dawning, while Eorzea expected her to shine.  

G’raha gripped her hand tight.  The press of his calluses felt like a kiss.  A bark escaped her lips, the knit of their fingers a ladder stitch.  “Tell me again why I bother to listen?”

“Because I think you might likeme,” he quipped—and it was something she said, some days prior.  He tossed back bright red hair to grin up into her face, and his warmth prickled through her, hot like high noon.

She stared down, dumbfounded. 

 Instead of saying something milder, she scoffed and scowled.  “Insufferable.”

His mirth was spicy, heady as liquor—his purr far more potent.  “My pleasure.”

- ☽ ✧ ☾ -

“Rathefrost,” he said, yanking her down by the hand.

Her long skirts were damp with mud and muck from the hike, her blood filled with wanderlust. G’raha had a habit of accidentally making her ecstatic.  Her thighs ached and strained and something astral licked up her backbone as she squatted.  “Is that what they call it?”

Amid the dim gleam of omnipresent crystal, the thrumming of ambient aether, the witch and the knave-kit crouched at the edge of one cliff in Mor Dhona and gazed at the shell of the Agrius, the Keeper.  “As you know,” G’raha began, and the velvet curl of his voice suggested a story, “Among the Twelve, Althyk was warden of time—keeper of past and of future.”  Cool stone bit her palms as she leaned back to listen; let the sultry smoothness of Sharlayan jargon envelop her as wholly as the night that veiled the stars.  “His sister Nymeia was spinner of Fate—master of water and watcher of skies—” he paused until she glanced at him and chuckled, “—and she, along with Brother Time, saw the Falls for their ultimate nature—”

“A font of unspeakable power,” she whispered, tracing constellations.  Her stare flicked back to meet his.

The bluffs and crags of crystal all around them reflected in his eyes.  “Aether,” he agreed.  “The center of all that was, and all that ever would be.”  His words were filled with weight and whimsy.  “The Falls desired a keeper, and Time and Fate conspired—begged the king of wyrmkings to play custodian, to guard them.”

She let her gaze linger on his features; traced, too-long, the lush curve of his mouth.  “Althyk was the father of Azeyma,” she said quietly. “Goddess of Truth and of Fire.”

“And Menphina.” A grin crept forth and she looked away before he could gesture with his brows.

“Honestly, Raha.” She huffed a sigh through her nose; ignored the way her cheeks prickled.  “If you end the story with some bawdy joke—”

“I did nothing of the sort,” he insisted, scooting closer to her on the ledge.  His body heat was radiant.  “Merely connected Love and Truth in much the same vein as a bloodline.”

“Love and Truth,” she muttered, watching him from the side of her eye.  “And ice and fire.  If love is ice and truth is fire—”

He elbowed her in the ribs.  “One could simply transpose them.”

She rolled her eyes and huffed again.  “Turn love to truth?”

“Or vice versa.”

She dared another glance at him and found his eyes glittering, teal and scarlet, late daybreak, early twilight.  Afraid of the way her heart stuttered to devour, she sighed.  “Ridiculous.”

The corners of his lips twisted into a grin.  “Or brilliant.”

She pouted.  “Ridiculously brilliant,” she grumbled, completely in earnest.

A bright laugh bubbled from his throat and his tail thumped the ground.  “Glad you trusted me?”

The bones of Midgardsormr rose from the Lake, a ghost of eras long departed.  

“I’m always glad to trust you, Raha,” she said, ice and fire in her chest.

- ☽ ✧ ☾ -

When the fire of midsummer faded, ice misting over the horizon, a single leaf turned a shade bright and brash as his hair.  Perhaps they both knew it was ending.  Something changed, much the same.  In hindsight, far more than the season—the flourishing harvest before the decay.

Transposition.

Paths of life combine for brief seasons of change, some with the wicks to blend into twin flames. Still more remain sparks never coaxed to kindle ablaze.  They were wrought of the same holy matter that summer—two soul-flecks of stardust chipped from primordial night.  Drawn together for the matching shards and facets in their hearts—

Unfair,unfair,to be thrust apart—

- ☽ ✧ ☾ -

His knuckles stroked her backbone.

She woke to the cool of her own naked skin; stiffened at the instinct to escape his scalding touch. She was an ember, and he, tempted into ignition; raw, dazzling impulse incarnate.

Was the truth—the love—not better left unsaid?

Dare she look beyond the hourglass that loomed above the bed?

- ☽ ✧ ☾ -

Moss Agate Tower with a HUGE Druze ✨

I never post on witchblr anymore but I just wanted to share this beauty that arrived the other day

A small but cute and cheap selenite tower

Selenite Tower Crystal