Qia

Realms of Sun & Shadow

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_{Location: Outside Eye of the Beholder
Interactions: Nyla (@The Muse)
Mentions: Tia (@c3p-0h)}

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Thalia’s lips parted, not for the cookie, but a breath that carried the weight of restraint. Not all truths needed to be spoken aloud to land where they belonged. She studied Nyla a beat too long, hazel eyes moving slowly from the outstretched basket to the glimmering charm of her smile. A performer, indeed. Every inch of her was rehearsed.

“Fortunate,” Thalia repeated, the word flattening beneath her inflection. “A quaint euphemism for watching your legacy possibly razed by another’s ambition.” Or watching your father’s honour flayed in council chambers, she refrained from adding, his life’s work reduced to ash in the mouths of gossipmongers.

She still didn’t know the whole of it. Her father had only told her the broadest outlines. Like how the court had lost faith in House Evercrest’s integrity. Debt? Treason? A lordling’s petty grudge weaponized into ruin? He’d refused specifics, shielding her with omissions, as if ignorance might inoculate her against bitterness. We retained the land. We have each other. As though dirt and dwindling kinship could stanch the hemorrhage of her pride.

Her mother, ever the pragmatist, had disagreed. Illness kept her rooted in the capital, a fiction as transparent as the letters Thalia had spotted before they’d left, which dripped with veiled directives about securing alliances through “advantageous connections.” She could picture her mother still: sequestered in their abandoned manor, penning pleas to former suitors, bartering nostalgia for a foothold in a court that had already spat them out. Restoring the family’s standing, she called it. A poet’s term for auctioning dignity to the highest bidder.

Lucky.

If that was luck, Thalia would hate to see misfortune.

Movement caught Thalia’s eye then—a woman approaching on a steady stride, wrapped in ceremonial layers. Not lavish, but there was a quiet finery to her robes, the kind that spoke of status earned through devotion, not coin. A priestess, clearly.

Lark stilled, ears pricking. Not in warning, just… recognition. That sense of interest he often saved for people who walked like they had a purpose.

The woman’s eyes flicked toward Thalia’s briefly—polite, distant—but it was the slight tension in her fingers as she passed Nyla that drew Thalia’s attention. Something flickered between them, almost too subtle to catch. A familiarity, maybe. Or discomfort.

Curious.

The priestess continued on, not pausing, not speaking, and not so much as grazing Lark’s fur with her fingertips. Yet her gaze clung to him a moment too long, a fissure in her austerity. It was the look of someone denying an old reflex, like biting back a childhood endearment or resisting the pull of a melody once loved and long abandoned.

Thalia filed the reaction away for later. Lark could use some getting used to the place, after all. She took a step back, eyes flicking down to the basket with the faintest glimmer of polite dismissal.

“I’ve already sampled the inn’s fare,” she said, her tone polished to a veneer of civility. “The eggs are passable, if you don’t mind charring them yourself. A lesson in self-reliance, I suppose.” She hadn’t made herself any eggs, of course. Mainly because she didn’t know how to do so without possibly burning them. Had never needed to know.

There was subtext to her words once again, however: Offer your trinkets to those still hungry for crumbs.

Thalia was already turning to head once more for her destination, her boots scoring fresh tracks in the snow as Lark fell into step beside her.

“Though I’d be careful near the hearth,” she added over her shoulder. “Cold fingers tend to get burned when they reach for something already claimed.”

Realms of Sun & Shadow

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_{Location: Frostmoon Lake -> Town Square
Interactions: Céline (@Beard Dad)}

---

He did not interrupt, not when she spoke of Tingara, Gadez, the storm, or the spring. His expression remained inscrutable, but his stillness marked deep attention rather than detachment. And when she spoke of hunger—her hunger, that familiar feral undercurrent—his gloved fingers twitched faintly, recalling the fox’s fragile pulse beneath his palm. The creature’s trust had been a mirror, reflecting a version of himself Orion had long barricaded behind control: desperate, ravenous.

Weak.

Her candour disarmed him more and more as she continued to speak. So, when Céline finally stopped speaking, he had no choice but to stand quietly for a moment longer, as though honouring what had just been laid between them. And then, at last, he nodded once.

“Thank you for telling me. All of those things,” he said simply. “Most wait until their truth has caused damage. You offered yours while it still cost you something. That matters.”

At her expressions of regret, however, Orion found himself frowning, not out of judgment, but weariness. He’d seen too many lie through polished smiles and perfect posture. People, blightborn or not, who spoke of duty with honeyed tongues, only to bare their teeth when power or pride was at stake. Regret, real regret, was rarer than all of that. He’d learned to recognize it by what it wasn’t: not loud, not showy, not used as a shield. It lived in the small things—in the way someone returned to the same memory again and again, or how their voice broke only once and never on purpose. Céline had it. Not just the hunger. Not just the danger. But the weight of having lived through it and still wanting to be better.

“I won’t reconsider my stance,” Orion declared in turn. “We’ve had worse come through our gates pretending to be saints. At least you’re honest about the wolf at the door. That’s more than I can say for some.” Because Orion had vouched for him, too. Willis. Against his better judgment. Foolish, he’d thought then. Yet the man had steadied, his lies and rash episodes less frequent. A small redemption, perhaps. A bit of proof that some wolves could be leashed.

But still, there were others, like Ayel, who’d never see anything more than a beast to be handled. It hadn’t even occurred to the nobleman before that Orion might not be the one holding the leash. That he wasn’t there to tame creatures, but to walk among them. Because he was one of them. How could he consider himself anything else when “to tame” meant to have control over, and when that kind of control, that kind of power from someone of the same nature, required delusion. No, Orion’s truth was simpler than that. He wasn’t their keeper. He was kin to the creatures he guided. Strangely, irrevocably.

Blightborn, he’d eventually learned to accept.
Beast-tamer? That label stripped the name right off his back.

Besides…it’s just as he’d told Céline previously. Labels were cages. Beast-tamer. Advisor. Monster. He’d let them clatter around him, meaningless as pebbles, so long as they obscured the deeper truth: he belonged nowhere, a shadow straddling the line between Dawnhaven’s new order and the wildness of the blight that surrounded it.

Céline pulled him back once more, Orion finding himself pausing at her request. The wind caught the hem of his coat, and then he gestured faintly with one hand for her to follow as he began to walk again.

“I can show you to the temple where he’s kept,” he said. “He was Lunarian, so I’m afraid I did not know him personally.” The admission carried a tinge of regret, not for the dead man, but for the chasm between his world and Seluna’s. Lunarians had always been enigmas, their rituals as opaque as their moonlit sigils. Orion had respected their distance, though; Dawnhaven’s existence demanded enough feigned intimacy without courting more.

𝔻𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕚𝕠𝕟: ℝ𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕤𝕔𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕦𝕣𝕗𝕒𝕔𝕖

Why her?

The workshop was quiet, save for the soft hum of ventilation. He occupied his habitual niche: a corner booth in the east sector’s sub-office, its surfaces buried under schematics and the acrid tang of overbrewed coffee. He’d disabled the overhead interface display earlier, far too talkative for his taste, and activated only the analog terminal he trusted. No voice control, no predictive modelling. Just keystrokes and code. His fingers had begun to ache years ago, but they still moved as they always did, the pain in them long since catalogued, then shelved.

There were always forms for him to audit and prototypes to deny. Schematics submitted for clearance that violated the ethics clause of the very MIP standard he wrote. He rejected them in silence, offering no footnotes. They’d resubmit, watered down or encrypted under prettier branding. That was the game he was in, and had been in, for years now. It wasn't work anymore. It was a ritual. A way to keep the tremors in his joints from worsening.

He didn’t miss the council chambers. Not really. They still sent him policy drafts and technical advisories— “pending input,” they always said. But no one truly waited for it.

No one read his notes. No one needed to anymore. Dominion’s gears turned with or without his grease.

And honestly? That was fine. The solitude was…familiar. Predictable in the way he was used to and enjoyed.

Which was why the knock, when it came, startled him so.

It was soft first, as if the person on the other side wasn’t completely sure they were at the right place. To see the right person. Someone who wanted to be seen. But, no, it came again, this time firmer.

So, he reached for his cane.

Why him?

Her options had never been scarce. Countless back-alley proprietors peddling neural augmentations thrived in the Grey Market, each discreet enough to help her without too many questions given. Yet she’d bypassed them all, a choice that she wished she could say she did not understand. The truth, however, coiled cold in her chest: she craved more than the usual click of a subroutine fix. She needed the why, the reason safety unit agents had hauled Roach into what might as well be oblivion and left her scrambling to fix whatever was wrong with her. Time had bled into a numb void, her mind latching onto words she hadn’t fully processed before, but now….?

“We understand they are not allowed and, by certain contractual licensing, they can be killed on sight while in the walls of Dominion, but we do not believe that was what was happening here.”

Roach had been working off the record and sent by someone possibly in an official position. How else could she explain why Klay believed this case was different from Roach’s previous ones, where he’d be protected with the clearance he usually possessed? He’d been set up, plain and simple, and it was not likely that a nobody was responsible. It had to be someone who understood how to manipulate a gray area. Someone in an official capacity. Someone like the person behind this door.

She was here, and it was too late to turn back even if she’d wanted to. So when the footsteps approached, Selene straightened, still leaning on her better leg, arms crossed like armour across her chest with more bravery than she felt.

When the door opened with a hydraulic sigh, she didn’t speak right away, her gaze raking over him and the frost of authority in his posture. Age had etched deeper grooves into his face, but his eyes remained the same amber mirrors of her right one.

“Hello,” Selene finally said, her throat burning as the next syllable clawed its way free, venom and vulnerability braided into a single exhale.

“Father.”

---

The table’s surface leached cold into her palms as Selene perched on the exam slab. One boot lay discarded on the floor, the hem of her pants shoved above her knee to expose the border where flesh met augmentation. Beneath the glare of Lysander’s workshop lights, the seams gleamed deceptively smooth, as if the alloy embedded in her femur had always belonged there. Once, she’d traced those edges with pride, marvelling at how the ports transformed her into something kinetic. Something unstoppable. At sixteen, she’d out-sprinted every classmate in her academy, her strides a blur of hydraulic precision. Speed had been her thing, and her augments were a manifesto: I cannot be caught. I will not be contained.

Now, they were liabilities.
The ports ached more often. The feedback core hissed in cold weather. The relays misfired during stress spikes. The very thing that had made her feel untouchable now betrayed her at the worst moments, like a corrupted instinct twitching out of time. Even the sound of the diagnostics connecting set her teeth on edge. She used to think the augments made her her own.
Now she wasn’t sure they hadn’t just made her easier to claim. Made her…subject to situations such as the one she was in at this very moment.

Lysander worked with efficiency. He hadn’t asked permission before retrieving his tools, nor had he said anything since she’d entered and sat down, like this was something normal for them when the last time she’d been here, she couldn’t have been older than 16. She didn’t look at him as he examined the exposed interface, though when his fingers grazed a neural node, Selene flinched, the sensation akin to a scalpel dragging through scar tissue. Data scrolled across the holoscreen in his periphery, its cyan glow etching shadows beneath his eyes. She still recognized his aloofness after all this time, the same detachment he’d had during the majority of her childhood.

“Did you design this part, too?” she asked suddenly. “The feedback core. It doesn’t feel like the standard Dominion make.”

“It was a joint prototype,” Lysander replied, his eyes not leaving the screen. “Modified post-approval by a military vendor. I didn’t approve the override protocol you're running, but it’s… similar enough.”

Of course it was. It shouldn’t have surprised her. Her entire existence was a nested doll of his influence: education curricula, security protocols, medical standards. That her legs were now running on a prototype derived from one of his cores was just... par for the course. What unsettled her wasn’t the connection itself; it was the fact that she hadn’t known for sure. That Roach, of all people, had handed it off like it was nothing. Never once had he mentioned that the override had Syn fingerprints buried in its firmware. Had he known? Probably. Everyone who mattered did, apparently. Except for her.

“They have him, you know?” she said then. “Ro—Mr. Vexler.” Her fingers curled slightly against the table, as if the correction cost her something. It was a futile attempt at best, truly. To distance herself from the man who’d been more of a father to her than the one standing before her now. Helping her, yes, but for what purpose, what gain, she could not say.

“ Safety unit’s holding him. I’m guessing you know why, or at least have some kind of idea.”

“ Irrelevant” was her father’s reply, not even bothering to meet her face as her biometrics spiked on the screen in response. “ You’re here for maintenance. Not an interrogation to support whatever conspiracy theory you’ve got this time.”

Maintenance. Was that all she remained? A system of glitches and patches covered by tattooed skin?

Selene yanked her leg back. “ Tell me why they’re holding him, she snapped. “ Who hired him this time? Was it you? Was it her?” She couldn’t hold back the accusation, even if it made less and less sense the more she thought about it. The words came out hot, unfiltered. She didn’t even know if she meant them. Her mother had never acknowledged Roach by name. Her father barely acknowledged him as anything more than a relic in a trench coat. If her parents had ever had a hand in his assignments, they’d kept it buried so deep not even Roach had breathed it aloud. And now he was gone, and she was left looking for a truth that was beyond her grasp.

But she had to ask. She had to know if one of the people who made her, who literally built her, had also been the one to pull the rug out from under the only figure who'd ever made her feel chosen rather than manufactured.

Lysander’s hands paused, the soft click of his diagnostic tool being set aside soon accompanying it. He finally looked up, his gaze as clinical as the instruments around them, but there was something behind it that the girl couldn’t decipher. He’d always been difficult to figure out, though. The only thing Selene felt she ever really knew about him was his preference for data over dialogue. Even when she’d fractured her wrist at twelve, he’d lectured her about bone density algorithms while the med-drone had reset the break.

“No,” he said, the word crisp on his tongue. “Not me. And certainly not your mother. If she wanted him gone, there wouldn’t even be a detention record to reference.” He stood then, cane tapping against the floor as he crossed to a cabinet, its contents shielded behind polarized glass. His movements were methodical but slower than she remembered, each step betraying something his pride hadn’t yet admitted.

“He operated outside sanctioned parameters. That makes him a liability.” He pulled a slim data chip from a slot and turned it in his fingers before setting it aside. “But that isn’t what you want to hear, I bet.”

Selene said nothing, jaw set, posture bristling.

“You want a name. A culprit. A clean narrative that makes the system the villain and him the exception. But I’m afraid I don’t have one for you.”

He didn’t sound cruel. Just… tired. Like a man explaining gravity to his little girl despite her wishes to be able to fly one day, much like the suralites painted on her skin.

“Roach was too close to you for too long. That’s what made him vulnerable.” His voice lowered a degree. “You think they didn’t notice? That no one flagged a Syn heir consorting with an unsanctioned enforcer running black ops under borrowed clearance?”

He turned to face her again, one brow lifting with restrained finality.

“This was inevitable, as far as I’m concerned. He hasn’t been on our payroll in over a year. Which means no contract, no clearance, and no leverage.” His gaze held hers now, steady and inescapable. “Yet, as far as your mother and I know, he kept showing up. For you.”

Selene’s throat tightened because out of all the unbelievable things she’d experienced in the past few weeks, from the run in with Scotti, the creature in the tunnels, and then the ordeal with the burrower, this reveal made the least sense to her. Roach never did anything for free. He didn’t even like favours, often calling them liabilities wrapped in politeness. He always acted like he was just doing a job, a well-compensated one, even when she caught him slipping a small protein bar into her gear pouch before she’d head out or would stop by her place with takeout containers filled with her favourite greasy noodles every once in a while. She’d always assumed he’d done these things because there was something in it for him. Always with a smirk, too. Always a “Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart. This was an extra order” or some other similar reasoning.

They were lies. All of it.

“That doesn’t explain why someone set him up.” Her voice was quieter now, less accusation than grasping.

Lysander didn’t answer immediately. He just returned to his console and resumed typing, each keystroke a reminder that her turmoil registered only as aberrant data to him, like spikes in cortisol and an elevated pulse. Finally, without looking up, he murmured, “Sometimes, association is enough.”

And that was it. No grand revelation. Just the brutal suggestion that she, by existing, by being cared for, had made Roach a target. All this time, she’d thought of herself as his shadow, when in reality she was potentially his noose.

_{“He didn’t have to keep coming back,”} she whispered to herself, her head dipping while strands of her hair grazed her neck. Then, as if it had been loaded in her throat the entire time, it came out quieter than she'd intended.

“I have to testify tomorrow.” Selene let out a short, humourless exhale. “They want my perspective on him. On the burrower. This whole…mess.” Her jaw worked. “Except I don’t think I know what the truth is anymore.” How could she, when she hadn’t even known what was going on right under her nose?

She looked up finally, her eyes catching the side of her father’s face. “If I say too much, they’ll bury him. If I say too little, they’ll do it anyway. And if I lie….” She stopped herself. The thought didn’t need finishing. And for a moment, Selene wasn’t the untouchable daughter of a Council family. She was a girl on a slab, wrapped in old wounds and metal, trying not to drown in a system she thought she’d already walked away from.

“What would you do?” she asked then. Just a question. A desperate one and, for the first time in years, one she meant.

Lysander didn’t look up from the panel. He adjusted a voltage range with a faint click of the tool, as though her question were just another variable to tune.

“You testify.”
Another calibration. Another click.

“You present the facts. Filtered through reason, not feeling. Leave the speculation to the officers paid to interpret it.”

He finally glanced at her then.

“You don’t owe them your guilt. And you don’t owe him a martyrdom he didn’t ask for.”

Selene blinked. Whatever she'd expected, it wasn’t that.

“If Vexler is what you believe he is, then say what you saw. Not what you feel. Systems don’t reward sentiment, as I’ve always said to you. They record it and use it. So survive the process, Selene. That’s all you have to do. The rest? Static.”

Selene didn’t have an answer for any of that. Instead, her fingers drifted toward her exposed port, no longer marvelling. Just… checking. Making sure it still responded to her, and not someone else. All the while, the screen near her still pulsed, like it knew the answer, even if she didn’t.

Recollections: Primal Sinister

_{Interactions:N/A}

---

The aroma of cloves and chamomile clung to the apartment’s aging framework, seeping from floorboards that creaked underfoot. Elena stood motionless in the kitchen, her palms encircling a chipped ceramic mug, its warmth leaching into her skin as steam spiralled upward before dissolving. She had no recollection of brewing the tea. Muscle memory had taken over—kettle whistling, leaves unfurling in hot water, no sugar—as if her body operated independently of her divided attention.

Outside, the South Bank was its usual chorus of murmurs and muffled transit. Somewhere below, a vendor hawked day-old pastries to passing foot traffic, his call warbling through the cracked windowpane like an out-of-tune instrument. The sound belonged to this place, like the creaking of the old radiator or the occasional thud from the upstairs apartment where the pipes had been arguing with winter since the season's first cold snap. They shuddered intermittently, as if resentful of their own purpose, groaning behind the thin plaster walls, rattling in sharp bursts whenever someone flushed too often or tried to take a shower past midnight. Elena had given up trying to predict when they’d make their presence known. The building was old, lopsided in places, and carried the weight of too many quick fixes and not enough care. There was a warped patch in the floorboard near the hallway that sang under her heel, and a windowsill in the living room that sloped just enough to send plant pots tumbling if she wasn’t careful. It was the kind of place that insisted on being remembered, even with all its flaws.

And yet she liked all those things. Or perhaps she’d simply gotten used to them. There was a strange comfort in which a home could both be tired and tender.

She shifted her grip on the mug and exhaled through her nose. The tea had gone tepid. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing there, lost in the hiss and groan of the radiator and the vague smell of toasted spices. Somewhere in the next room, her mother was humming. The soft clink of glass told Elena she was already reorganizing the tinctures. Again. No doubt, lining them up by mood or medicinal use, whichever method felt more poetic this week.

This time was a bit…different, though.

The clink of glass came again. It was her tell. Some parents knit or paced. Her mother organized. Lavender next to lemon balm. Skullcap next to spearmint. Distraction disguised as diligence.

“We’re out of valerian root,” came her mother’s voice from the other room. Not an accusation. But Elena heard the edge tucked into the forced softness. “I used the last of it for the Wilson girl’s sleep draught. I told you to remind me to pick up more.”

“I’ll grab some today,” Elena said evenly, taking another sip of her lukewarm tea. “Tuesday market should have it.” She didn’t mention she’d already written it on the kitchen chalkboard in careful block letters last night. The same list her mother had likely walked past twice already.

Elena’s mother materialized in the doorway, her silhouette distinct against the milky morning light. The edges of her indigo robe brushed the floorboards, and sunlight gilded the silver streaks in her hair, transforming them into filaments of frost. Her face betrayed fatigue, but anxiety animated her, as it always did, coiling her muscles into restless energy. She glanced at the satchel slumped on the chair and arched a brow.

“Tuesday market,” Elena repeated, preempting the interrogation simmering behind her mother’s pursed lips.

A pause. Then: “Not the North?”

“No,” Elena said, and this time, it wasn’t a lie.

Her mother didn’t push. She simply crossed the room, lifted a jar from the shelf with her long, slender fingers, and turned it slowly in her hand. Her eyes didn’t rise, but her voice did, quiet but sure.

“I still can’t believe you were there. With that… thing you described.” She said it like she didn’t want to know more. Like giving it a name might invite it in. Elena almost said the word anyway—doppelganger—but held back. It wouldn’t help her here in the slightest. “Next time, you walk away. No matter what it looks like or which little girls you’re trying to protect. Promise me. hija.”

Elena suppressed a groan. Not this again….

She hadn’t gone in blind. It wasn’t like she’d flung herself into danger for the thrill of it, or out of some misguided hero complex. Luciana had been there. Curled in her arms, too small to know better, too scared to move. And Loni—Loni had been trying to protect them both, even as her arm bled and the creature taunted her with a grotesque smile.

Elena hadn’t even realized she was moving until the salt circle almost broke beneath her heel. Well…no, that wasn’t quite true. She had left Loni’s circle of protection. But it had only been to try and help her while the circle still stood and while the creature had been distracted. She didn’t regret stepping out. But it had cost her something that her mother probably wished she hadn’t lost. A measure of safety, maybe. Or distance. That fragile illusion that she could live in this city without getting involved, just brewing her teas, listening to rumours, and staying one careful step away from the chaos that rippled beneath Cloverfield’s skin.

She’d always known it was an illusion. But illusions were comfortable. Until they weren’t. Until they were broken.

Her mother mistook her silence for acquiescence. “You think I want you here just because I’m old and worried, don’t you?”

Her mother set the jar down, then braced her palms against the counter as if steadying more than just herself.

“It’s not the gangs I worry about. Not the broken lights or bad pipes or whatever else they say about the South Side,” she said slowly, like each word had to be coaxed past a memory. “It’s the things that dress themselves as protection. That promise structure, safety, purpose, but take more than they give.”

She didn’t say the word coven. She didn’t have to.

“People think the North has all the answers,” she added, “But I’ve seen what they call answers. And what they demand in return.”

Her gaze shifted to Elena then—

“You’re strong, mija. But strength doesn’t mean you owe anyone your soul.”

Elena held her mother’s gaze, part of her wanting to ask more. About what exactly had happened, about what had been given up, about who or what had once called her mother sister. But the moment didn’t belong to questions. That’s what it felt like. So, she nodded. Just once. Then stepped away from the counter and reached for her satchel.

“I’ll be back before lunch,” she said, slipping the strap over her shoulder.

A sigh escaped the older woman, weary and weathered. “Bueno. Go.” She waved a hand toward the door, already retreating into the alchemy of her tinctures. Glasses clinked in the other room once more, a requiem of resignation.

𝔻𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕚𝕠𝕟: ℝ𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕤𝕔𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕦𝕣𝕗𝕒𝕔𝕖

In collaboration with(@The Savant) as Officers Klay and Lupton

---

---

The young woman might have waited awhile for the older man to show up; it was late at night, and there was a knock on the door — Selene would know better if it was Roach; he would never knock, and he would let himself in. This was someone different. It was Officer Klay and his trainee officer Lupton at her door. They were following up on the incident that happened earlier that day with Pilka, Roach, and everyone else. They had three out of the group in custody, and they were here to fish for more answers and possibly gain a plausible arrest, even though Roach had a status that was protecting the girl behind the front door. “Miss Selene Syn, are you home? We are officers with the safety unit of Dominion, and we are wondering if you could answer a few questions for us!” Klay’s voice sounded friendly and a little too warm when it came down to it. Putting the facade on to get her to open the door.

Selene remained motionless on the floor, the fabric of her clothes adhering to her skin like some form of grisly epidermis made out of sweat and what little blood the bloodhound attack had caused. She leaned against the wall, one leg extended, the augments beneath her flesh throbbing in sync with her heartbeat, a relentless, mechanical reprimand for her earlier recklessness. The tremors radiated upward, a neuropathic wildfire searing through muscle and bone, a sensation as familiar as it was merciless. Years ago, when the engineers had embedded the prototypes into her calves, they’d cautioned her with clinical detachment: “You want to be fast, not fried. Don’t redline unless it’s life or death.”

She’d ignored them, of course. Survival had a way of making martyrs of pragmatists, a role she’d had to take up once she’d sought her independence. Though the migraines that always followed these episodes, a vice tightening around her skull as her body revolted against the synthetic overload, were a bit much. She’d, however, long since stopped documenting the recovery times. What was the point? Each incident carved deeper trenches into her stamina, each rebound slower than the one before it. The augments weren’t designed for humanity—they demanded obedience, not desperation. Yet here she was, again, bargaining with circuitry as if it could be reasoned with.

The knock came as she massaged her temples, Selene tilting her head toward the sound, jaw tightening.

Not Roach. He wouldn’t knock.

The voice that followed only confirmed it. She could almost see the saccharine smile stretching across Officer Klay’s face. Fishing. That’s what this was.

Selene didn’t move right away. Let the silence stretch. Let them wonder.

Then, dragging herself upright with the help of a nearby crate, she limped to the door, but didn’t open it. Her voice was low and level, with just enough hoarseness to imply she’d been through it.

“Questions about what, exactly? The part where I almost got mauled? The part where a government contractor pointed a gun at a teenager? Or the part where you showed up after all of that?” She rested her forehead briefly against the doorframe, unseen. “If this is about arresting someone to balance your quota, find someone easier. I'm not in the mood.”

Officer Klay was thankful to hear the woman on the other side of the door but he was curious as to why she wasn’t opening up — most people would — then again… after earlier today, he would be cautious to open the door to authorities as well. He went to speak but her sassiness got the best of him and he had to hold his tongue for a second. Closing his eyes and nodding with a thought before a sigh of light humor was let out, “My trainee officer Lupton and I are to ask you a few questions. About all of it. The Duskhound attack and the contractor pointing a gun like a lunatic around,” Klay was hoping to collaborate with her — he didn’t know the true relationship between Selene and Roach, so he was trying to see if it was a good one.

“We are not here to arrest you but we do need to ask questions about Roach Vexler and we might request you testify against him,” Officer Klay explained lightly.

Testify. They wanted her to testify against the man. Possibly. A soft suggestion, dressed in bureaucratic language and wrapped in the illusion of choice. But still. It felt like a big ask. A cruel one, even.

Because Roach Vexler, to her, wasn’t just some hired hand with an in with the authorities and a temper. He’d been there since she was too young to understand why her parents weren’t there for her in the way they should have been. Since the day she realized safety wasn’t a birthright—it was something negotiated, often at the cost of comfort, warmth, or love. Roach didn’t offer any of those things. But he offered something else: consistency. Protection. A twisted kind of loyalty wrapped in cynicism and cigarette smoke.

He was the one who taught her how to slip out of handcuffs before she hit puberty. Who explained, without blinking, that sometimes the people who smiled most were the ones she had to be most wary of. He’d never told her she mattered, but he’d never left either. And that counted for something. Didn’t it?

Even now, she didn’t want him arrested. Didn’t want him carted off and dumped into whatever bureaucratic oubliette Dominion reserved for men like him. Not because she thought he was innocent—God, she knew better than that—but because she understood something most people didn’t:

Roach had history in his bones. A whole generation of grief and doctrine was buried under his skin. He’d revealed pieces of it over time, the most recent hinting at the involvement of people like Pilka. She hadn’t understood it then, as the man was still a mystery in many ways. All that she knew was that he wasn’t kind. He wasn’t good. But he was hers. And the idea of testifying against him felt like trying to condemn a fire for burning down a house, without mentioning who poured the gasoline.

Selene straightened slightly, letting the back of her head thump gently once against the doorframe.

“So…you want the truth about him, I’m guessing?” She said then, sighing. “Well, first thing’s first, he’s an asshole. Always has been. But…he also saved my life more than once.” Selene’s fingers flexed uselessly at her side. “ So, if you want to talk, I’ll give you what I know. But if this is about building a case before you’ve read the entire room, I suggest you walk on.” Her hand hovered briefly above the lock.

This caused the main officer talking to her to go quiet for about thirty seconds as if he was debating what he should do. “Miss Syn, I understand this is a difficult topic and you have a relationship with Roach Vexler, though we do need to ask these questions. What you say might or might not help him in his case.” Klay was trying to manipulate her a bit. Twist that they were there to possibly help or not — he didn’t want to lie to her. However, Roach was blindsided by the same man that hired him. People like him were becoming outlawed in the city as well and he was rotting in a cell somewhere confused because they have always brought him in for questioning but never holding. The man wasn’t dumb and he knew something was up, just not exactly what.

“Could you please open the door?” Klay’s voice was balanced and almost soothing. He was trying to be the perfect fashion of comfort and openness that most people allowed in. The officer was realizing that Selene might not be the type of person to fall for his strategies. “We are not asking to come in. We are just asking for a few moments, face-to-face, that’s all,” he added on with some hope.

Selene believed Officer Klay. Maybe. Believed that he wasn’t lying outright, at least. That didn’t make his presence feel any less like a test. This wasn’t about cooperation. It was about pressure. Positioning. Nudging her just far enough to get what they wanted before stepping away, spotless. It was how the city worked. It was how Roach worked. And that’s what made it complicated. Because if she opened the door, she wasn’t just giving them a clearer look at her bruises or a rundown of Roach’s past. She was cracking open a corridor in her life that she hadn’t walked anyone through. Not since she was old enough to realize no one would understand the way that man mattered. Not the government. Not the courts. Not some recruit named Lupton.

She didn’t trust them with the truth. But maybe she didn’t have to give them all of it.

Selene exhaled slowly through her nose.

“I’m not promising anything beyond the facts,” she said, knuckles grazing the lock. “But I’ll give you five minutes. Outside. Then you leave.”

Click.

She opened the door just wide enough to let them see her blood-smeared silhouette, some of the blood not even hers, while most was. One arm braced against the frame, the other limp at her side. Exhausted. Guarded. But still standing.

“Start talking.”

“I-I think you need a medic,” Trainee officer Lupton let out with surprise on seeing the blood. He turned pale compared to what he was in appearance seconds ago. Senior officer Klay seemed to tense at the sight as well.

He cleared his throat, he didn’t react as much as Lupton, though he was seasoned — he had seen a lot through his time as a safety officer. “I’m obligated to ask you, are you requesting any type of medical attention before we start our questions?” This was to cover his and Lupton’s asses.

“If I needed a medic, I’d have called one.” Her tone was clipped but tired. “Don’t pretend this visit’s about my well-being.”

Yet, the truth was, she didn’t know if she needed help or not. Her leg still burned like it held a grudge, her head throbbed in waves, and her vision occasionally swam if she shifted too fast. The augments hadn’t liked being overclocked during the duskhound chase, and the sprint to retrieve the case hadn’t helped. Neither had the brief scuffle with Roach. Stupid. Necessary, maybe, but still stupid.

Accepting care also meant opening more doors. More records. More questions. It meant exposure, possibly even having to reach out to her parents, if it came down to emergency authorization for service. Or worse, being reminded that Roach wasn’t the one stepping in. She’d assumed, somewhere deep down, that he would be.

“You’ve got four minutes now. Ask what you came to ask.”

Trainee officer Lupton seemed to open his mouth to say something, his bright blue eyes, and baby blonde hair was the epitome of innocence. His facial expressions and the unburdened light showed how exposed he was to everything and it honestly wasn’t a lot. Before Lupton could say anything, Officer Klay was speaking, “We wanted to ask you about earlier today, the events with the burrower. Please start from the beginning, if you can — are you able to walk us through what you experienced with Roach Vexler?”

“Shouldn’t we ask how she knows Roach Vexler?” Lupton piped up.

Klay glanced at him, “That is not very important when we are trying to get information about his actions and what happened in those moments of the day, Lupton. We want to know what happened, possibly why, who was involved, and everything else,” he explained to his trainee officer before smiling at Selene.

“If the how matters that much,” Selene said evenly, “he’s known me since I was in diapers. Like I said, complicated.”

Her gaze moved to Klay. “But you’re asking about today, so fine.”

She shifted slightly against the doorframe, choosing her words with caution. “I was at the plaza when everything went sideways. Roach showed up during the duskhound attack, saved me, and locked onto a target—the guy. A burrower, I think? I didn’t recognize that fact at first.”

Selene hesitated, then continued. “Roach took a shot, but it wasn't lethal. The man went down but got back up. He claimed the guy attacked a girl. My age. My… profile.” An intentional omission: the way Roach’s gaze had landed on her mid-accusation, as if Pilka’s sin were a mirror. “Then she appeared, unharmed, insisting he’d done nothing. And honestly…she seemed mostly ok. I can’t see someone guilty being defended in that way by their supposed victim. But I…I don’t exactly know everything. I think Roach may have known something the girl and I didn’t. ” The young woman couldn’t help but remember the intensity in Roach’s stance at that moment. He hadn’t sounded like a man just doing his job. He’d sounded like a man driven by something deeper, by history she hadn’t yet been trusted with. Roach might have known something that she didn’t. He’d said something about ‘people like him,’ like there was more there. Something older. Personal, even.

Selene cleared her throat, continuing. “ Anyway, things escalated. Roach wasn't backing down, and I thought he might be overreacting. Maybe he saw something else. He usually has his reasons. But in that moment, it looked like it was getting messy, fast. I tried to step in, calm things down, but...” she shook her head slightly, “I couldn’t. More people got involved, things got chaotic, and the man and the girl ran.”

She deliberately didn't elaborate on the case or the failed disarm attempt.

“He’s not reckless,” she concluded. “Just thorough. And thorough looks like madness to those who’ve never had to sleep with one eye open.” Like someone whose job required him to watch over things or people others may want to get rid of.

The officers stayed quiet while listening to Selene and at first, none of them were taking notes, but that changed when Klay glanced at Lupton. Lupton looked like he remembered that he was supposed to be working, took out a notepad and a pen, and began to write everything Selene was saying down. The older officer with darker skin seemed happy that he didn’t have to vocalize the request for the information to be jotted down by the rookie.

“So, you assume that this burrower was a target of Roach Vexler’s?” Klay questioned. “Do you happen to know anyone that might hire him or hire him for the purpose of going after burrowers? We understand they are not allowed and by certain contractual licensing, they can be killed on sight while in the walls of Dominion, but we do not believe that was what was happening here. We have a tip on a few different things but we are trying to get everyone’s sides and perspectives. Any information will help, even if you think it’s unimportant. Did Roach bring up names, clients, descriptions of someone he might have talked to? Anything?” Klay seemed a little more eager to ask more personal questions about the man’s work when Selene had informed them that she knew Roach her whole life — it put her into the spotlight.

Selene remained quiet for a long moment. Klay’s questions had taken a turn from the events of the day into territory that felt way too close. It was one thing to recount an incident; it was entirely another to start unravelling the threads that held Roach’s carefully constructed secrecy together.

“He never shared his client list with me. That’s not how it worked.” Her tone was careful, firm. “Roach might’ve taught me a lot, but he never let me see that far behind the curtain.”

The flash of expression that crossed Klay’s face showed that he was disappointed to know that Roach didn’t share his clients with Selene or any information about that matter. “I understand,” he responded plainly while looking at Selene. “One more question before we go, if you had to go up onto the stand. Would you testify against or for this man?” This question instantly changed the air — it made it heavy — and Klay was not playing around with this question. The Safety officers must have already made a decision on Roach and they were trying to figure out where everyone stood. Roach had a lot of enemies and they had quite a few people ready to talk about him if it came to that. They were wondering if Selene would.

Klay wished he could arrest Selene though she hadn’t done anything worthy of an arrest — not even one that could be framed as an accident and covered up with excuses.

Selene held Officer Klay’s gaze steadily. He was obviously testing her, hoping to find leverage, to confirm whether she was an ally or an obstacle. The air felt charged, thick enough to choke on, and Selene realized she’d stopped breathing. With a controlled exhale, she straightened slightly against the doorframe, refusing to let the question visibly rattle her.

“I’d testify,” she started carefully. “But you and I both know it wouldn’t be that simple. Roach isn’t a saint, but he’s not Dominion’s devil either.” She paused, the hesitation brief but weighted. “I’d testify to what I saw—truthfully—but that doesn’t mean I’d help crucify him just because someone decided it was convenient.”

Selene felt her body ache, exhaustion tugging at her muscles, but she didn’t waver. “Now. Unless you have an actual charge, your time’s up.”

“Have a good day, ma’am,” Officer Klay said with a distastefulness in his tone. It wasn’t very apparent though it was there. He gestured for Officer Lupton to do something and it made the younger officer put his notebook and writing utensil away before giving Selene a half awkward wave. The older officer forced a smile before leaving Selen’s front door with Lupton in toe.

Realms of Sun & Shadow

Where Grief Sings and Prays
Part 1

Location: Seluna Temple > | Collaboration with @enmuni

Ramona gave Elara a restrained little smile at her thanks, and began to step forward. Then, she stopped again, as Elara declared that she’d wait. There, Ramona stood, looking Elara up and down, at first skeptically, then quizzically. Slowly, as if she had some sense that a single movement could upset the fragile calm of the room, Ramona reached into one of the pouches of her dress and fumbled for her gloves. As the shawl still sat in her arms, ready to be taken, Ramona pressed her fingers back into the gloves, once more hiding from view another bit of the maid’s ghostly skin.

As she got her gloves into place, Ramona sighed.

“There are other ways to leave than the front,” she commented. As much as her singing or praying voices were, when Ramona was neither projecting nor whispering, her speaking voice was even more gravelly and raspy, like someone who had only barely recovered from a disease of the lungs, or perhaps someone who had made their living shovelling wood into the palace furnaces. Ramona’s tone, meanwhile, was flat, yet less so in a way that suggested indifference, and more so in a way that suggested she was offering a useful reminder.

Elara’s eyes followed the movement of Ramona’s fingers as she slipped the gloves back on. A simple thing, really. An unremarkable gesture. And yet, it felt like a curtain being drawn between them, between whatever moment had almost passed for understanding and the safety of practiced boundaries. They had shared space before, in that vague, peripheral way that people in their roles do. Ramona had always seemed like a ghost stitched into a servant’s garb, too quiet to be remembered and too strange to be dismissed. Elara had never asked much of her. She hadn’t thought to. And now here she was, holding silence like a gift and a shawl like a promise.

It lay between them now, crumpled and forsaken.

At Ramona’s gravel-edged reminder, Elara gave the faintest huff of breath—not a laugh, but close. Closer than she’d been to one in hours.

“I know,” she said, letting her skull thud against the stone, its chill leaching into her scalp. “But I’ve already left too much the easy way.”

Her gaze flicked to the corridor’s mouth, where light from the main sanctuary still cast soft patterns along the floor. Shadows moved there. Voices rose and fell. Life marched on, heedless of her refusal to rise and meet it. For a heartbeat, she envied the dust motes swirling in the light offered by the torches: unburdened, directionless, forgiven their fragility.

“I’ll take the front when I’m ready to be seen again,” she added, after a moment. “Until then, I’d rather sit here.”

Ramona made a slight movement towards her veil, then hesitated, and instead simply affixed her shawl once more. She stood in place awkwardly, her hands slowly drifting down to her sides as she tried to avoid staring at Elara. Her lips shifted, as if she were trying and failing to divine if there were indeed any facial expression more appropriate than her resting look. Though perhaps Elara, as it stood, was currently best suited to receiving a look of approximately as much melancholy as could be summoned without any real effort. Certainly, pity would not have been right, and Ramona could scarcely imagine she’d have known what to do with an active attempt at sympathy.

“Would…” Ramona slowly offered, “Would you have any use for some company?”

Ramona’s hands drifted together, and then stopped, as if she had then thought better of insisting on a tie even between her own two hands. Instead, she moved to let out a defeated sigh, though it seemed she’d left no air in her lungs, her chest simply contracting the smallest bit more before stopping. A hand involuntarily shifted to her stomach, as she inhaled quickly through her nose.

“I don’t know what you’re going through,” she murmured, taking a single step closer, “But sometimes another person can help, even without talking.”

Years of conditioning screamed for her to refuse, armour herself in the frost of decorum, and let pride calcify the cracks. Solitude had been her citadel; silence, her moat. But the day before had left her so…tired, a vessel drained of every lie she’d mistaken for strength.

Elara let the breath seep from her nostrils.

“If you don’t mind… sitting in the quiet a little,” she murmured, “then yes.” A beat. Two. Then, softer: “Thank you.” She let the gratitude linger before the next admission crept forth, hesitant.

“I… I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes still fixed ahead, though her voice carried a self-conscious tilt. “I don’t actually know your name. We’ve crossed paths before, so I know I should. I just—” She shook her head slightly, almost smiling at her own awkwardness. “I never asked.”

The admission tasted of guilt, but not the bitter kind. More like the ache that followed a healed bruise—proof that something had once gone unnoticed, and now couldn’t be ignored.

Ramona was silent for a moment. She cracked a little smile and took a seat near Elara without saying a word. Her chest jerked, like she was letting out a chuckle, though no sound resulted.

“Then I’ve been doing a good job,” she dryly responded. “It’s Ramona. Ramona Lume.”

“Ramona Lume,” Elara repeated, tilting her head slightly just enough to glance sidelong at the other woman. Ramona sat with the sort of stillness that wasn’t practiced, but earned—the stillness of someone who didn’t expect to be looked at, and wasn’t quite sure what to do when she was. “I’ll remember it this time,” Elara vowed, the promise edged with a resolve she didn’t fully feel. “Not as an afterthought.”

Elara drew in a breath then, but it caught halfway through her chest, like her body wasn’t quite convinced she was safe yet. She didn’t look at Ramona, not this time. Her eyes stayed fixed on the grooves in the stone floor beneath her feet.

“There was a man killed yesterday,” she said quietly. “Sir Abel. He… interposed himself. Between us and…” Her fingers spasmed against her knees, mimicking the reflexive jerk of his body as Vellion struck. “Tried to protect us. The princess and I.”

Two blinks. A third. The memory flickered behind her eyelids: arterial spray arcing like a macabre fountain, the wet crunch of cartilage giving way. She’d thought death would smell metallic, but all she recalled was the sweetness of ruptured organs.

“He didn’t survive.” Though even this word seemed insufficient. Survival implied a contest, a fair fight. This had been slaughter.

“I’d never seen someone die like that,” she murmured. “Not from a distance. Not like that. Not with that… sound.” Her throat worked around the memory of it—the scream, the tearing, the way Vellion’s teeth had found the guard’s face like something out of a nightmare she hadn’t earned the right to forget.

“It should’ve seemed chaotic to me, but everything actually felt… slow. Wrong. Like I’d stepped into a story that wasn’t meant for me.”

She rubbed at her arms, as though cold again. As though the memory alone could frost her over.

“And after we ran, after I was sure Amaya, the princess, was safe…” Her lips parted, but it took her a moment to finish. “I almost lost it. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. I thought I might black out.” But Elara knew at the time she couldn’t show that to Amaya. Her friend’s mind had been invaded by the creature responsible for their fleeing. So, why was she the one breaking?

But it had come back to haunt her anyway, hadn’t it? Right before Aliseth had comforted her. After that, it had quickly passed. But...would it return? Would she see it coming?

Ramona slipped closer to Elara slowly. As Elara spoke, Ramona’s lips flickered between small, sympathetic smiles and solemn little frowns. At Elara’s mentioning of one of the deceased guards’ names, and how she had seen the death herself, Ramona’s hand jerked subtly, as she first thought to reach for Elara to comfort her, and then thought better of it. Her grip over her hand tightened. She’d never known how to speak about death. Not when her father, brother, and so many in her community had passed. Nor when the blight followed her deeper into her home.

Ramona sighed as the deaths in her life floated through her mind. She had struggled to find the words to communicate her husband’s death to his own mother. A part of her had wanted to disappear into the woods instead, to pretend that she too had died. But then, would she have done anything else but wait for the stubborn old woman to die? To then send her off into the seas? Make her own pad of ice, speak her own rites, and be done with it all. Ramona’s gaze snapped back to Elara, her expression half-sympathetic, half-incredulous.

“I—” her voice cracked. She suppressed an awkward chuckle and just shook her head softly.

“I never understood how people in your position do it,” Ramona sighed, “I really don’t. You…witnessed death. The very moment life leaves someone.”

Ramona clicked her tongue and shook her head again. For the first time in a while, she looked directly at Elara, gazing through her dark veil at the handmaiden. She nodded softly, as the corner of her mouth pulled into an apologetic, tight-lipped half-smile.

“It’s death, Elara. There is no should’ve.” Ramona continued. She held her hands up in front of her chest, shaking them to emphasize. “You saw the moment of death. Death is hard enough when it isn’t witnessed, when you only see its results. And yet? And yet you—you can’t help but ask yourself not just what you should be doing, but what you should be thinkin’—stars above—what ya should be feelin’!”

Without thinking, Ramona reached for Elara’s hand. Her speech grew more passionate, her diction less formal and more like the way she naturally spoke. Her “r”s gave way to “ah”, “th” became “d” and “t”, and “all” became “awl”. Her raspy voice gained real force behind it, as she entered fully into the conversation.

“Ya’ doin’ ya best. That’s just all ya can do. Just let ya’self accept that, and don’t try to do more than your best. Anyone who wants more doesn’t want a world that exists.”

Elara had braced herself for pity, gentle silence, maybe, or the awkward distance of someone trying not to intrude. What she hadn’t expected was this. Ramona’s voice, stripped of its composure and carved down to raw sincerity, cracked through the self-imposed fog like a shaft of cold sunlight. Blunt. Unpolished. Honest in a way that hit somewhere deeper than she was ready for.

Elara’s gaze lifted, hesitant yet hungry, tracing the lines of Ramona’s face as if deciphering a map to an unknown terrain. The woman’s hand clasped hers with unapologetic sureness, her touch a paradox of warmth against skin so pale it seemed carved from moonlight. Her words echoed in Elara’s ears, not refined, not gentle, but real. And it was that realness that made her throat tighten all over again.

She looked down at their joined hands. She didn’t pull away.

“You sound like someone who’s seen it too,” she said quietly, not as a question but as a reluctant recognition of the kind of pain that gave voice to what others couldn’t say. The kind of grief that didn’t shrink in the face of someone else’s. “I think... I didn’t know how much I needed someone to say it like that till now. I mean… I spent the night trying to come up with the right words for a goddess I wasn’t sure would hear me, when it turns out it might’ve meant more to be heard by someone human.” Elara’s voice trailed off, the weight of the words settling in her chest. Once more, her eyes gave attention to Ramona’s gloved fingers around her own. There was something startling in their steadiness, like Ramona knew how to hold someone together without realizing she was doing it.

Elara’s free hand drifted to her throat, to the absence that still ached if she thought too long about it. There’s always something we carry until we don’t. She didn’t say it aloud, but the thought clung to her ribs nonetheless. And maybe that was the trouble. Elara didn’t know what would happen the next time she reached for comfort like this—whether Ramona would still be there, whether she herself would still be someone allowed to ask. She’d accepted too many kindnesses lately; she wasn’t sure how to repay. Even the prince’s words from before. They hadn’t been cruel ones. Not even untrue ones. They’d been kind, steady, threaded with the sort of conviction that made people believe they mattered just by being alive. And somehow, that had been enough.

She’d spoken first, with the same worry, the same plea. But where her voice had cracked, his had carried. Where hers had begged, his had reassured. And Amaya… Amaya had listened. Not because she hadn’t heard Elara. But because Flynn had reminded her she was worthy of saving, while Elara had only asked her not to vanish. It wasn’t fair, but it was human. And Elara, even now, couldn’t decide which part hurt more—the way he’d said it, or the way it had worked.

And maybe, more than that, the way he hadn’t used it against her.

She’d spoken to Amaya with steel in her voice, stepped past the invisible line between servant and sovereign—but he hadn’t rebuked her. He could have. Might have even been expected to. Instead, he’d turned and spoken to Amaya. Backed Elara’s words. Amplified them. Made them palatable in a way Elara couldn’t.

That, too, had been a kindness. And like all the others lately, it left her unsure of where the debt would land. Either way, she knew that she’d have to give them back at some point. Or watch them break.

Her fingers twitched within Ramona’s hold, a tremor of surrender. Slowly, she let them intertwine. It wasn’t absolution, nor a vow. Merely an offering: the muted acknowledgment that some debts could be repaid in increments. The start of a possible friendship.

Ramona allowed Elara to sit with the silence for a while. She softly rubbed Elara’s hand with her own, while maintaining some small distance between the two of them. She said nothing, looked towards but not directly at Elara, and nodded softly with a slight, melancholic smile. Her face remained consistent in this way for the duration of the silence, even after she had long stopped nodding. As Elara’s fingers twitched and she moved to interlock their fingers, Ramona gripped more tightly, pressing her fingers in until the webbing hurt. Her jaw tensed for a moment, but her face remained constant.

Ramona moved to speak, and realized that she had once again entirely forgotten to breathe for how focused she had been on offering solid ground to a grieving acquaintance, now perhaps a friend. She inhaled softly, and brought her other hand to Elara’s, clasping Elara’s hand gently between her own as she finally fully turned to face Elara again and look her in the eyes.

“F’sure I’ve seen it,” Ramona affirmed, her expression drifting into a tight-lipped frown, “Goddess, I’ve been married to it. I—”

Ramona paused and let out what started as a small sigh and turned into a groan.

“I woke up next to him. Was still warm when I looked at ‘im. Woke up, thought we’d make it to his momma’s house together, move her out, move her into our li’l place in Lunaris, ‘n’ put all ‘at behind us. ‘stead, we, uh,” Ramona looked away from Elara, towards the ground, her other hand breaking from the clasp to gesticulate towards the ground, “I. I stayed with ‘im till his body was cold. Then went ‘n’ sent ‘m out to sea. ‘n’ then had to—had to face his mother and tell her that…he was gone.”

Ramona sighed and again took a deep breath. This time, she sniffled softly and looked back at Elara. A glimmer of faintly reflected moonlight from behind her veil suggested that a few tears had come up as well.

“Elara, honey. Ya don’—Y-You don’ ever stop. I los’ my daddy years ago too. ‘n’ I still think about ‘im. Still remember him. Seluna’s…well…my daddy was a…priest…too,” Ramona reached under her veil and rubbed her eye with her free hand.

“Seluna’s…up in the sky…lookin’ down. Prolly not payin’ much attention to any given person.”

Ramona stammered and gasped. She made another sound and brought her free hand to her mouth. She let out a small grunt to clear her throat. She shifted in her position to better face Elara and made unyielding eye contact.

“Look. Seluna’s up there. People are down here. It’s…shitty…but there’s never been a group of us who’ve gotten on alone forever. Seluna sure fuckin’—‘scuse me—Seluna sure…knows I’ve given it a shot lately. I…uh…it’s just gonna be messy. That’s grief. It don’ stop bein’ messy. Look at me. I clean all day, and I’m a—heh—I’m a mess!”

Ramona let out a small hoarse chuckle, and shook Elara’s hand.

“Oh…just a year ago I coulda given you a decent sermon. But this all I got now. An’ that’s…that’s gotta be enough. ‘cus I can’ give anything better. But point is, when they say it takes a village, they really shouldn’t jus’ say it for children. Everybody needs a village, ‘cus we’re all messy, ‘n’ imperfect, ‘n’ we can only live if we let that happen, and help others mop up when they’re havin’ their flaws spill out all over the place. I don’ truly understand what you’re goin’ through. Not really. But I do know you’re doin’ the same stupid shit I been doin’. Goin’ it alone means nobody catches you when you fall. Nowhere’s a good place to spill all the shit that comes with livin’. Humans catch each other. Humans mop for each other. Seluna don’t. She waits ‘till ya dead to catch ya. ‘cus it ain’t really her job to soothe us when we’re hurtin’. That’s the priest’s job. The person who works at the temple.”

Ramona patted Elara firmly on the shoulder.

“Question for you is, d’you wanna live, or just survive? You don’t gotta have an answer today. Shit, I dunno which one I want. But may as well remember you got a choice…”

Ramona sat back, giving Elara a tight-lipped smile as she did. She swallowed quietly, though it sounded scarcely like a nervous swallow. And then, she sighed slowly without another word, letting her chest relax and deflate.

Elara’s thumb drifted across the ridge of Ramona’s knuckles, a tentative exploration more than a caress. The motion felt foreign, her touch unsteady, like a child fumbling with a lock it hadn’t earned the right to open. Yet there was solace in its clumsiness, a reprieve from the performative grace she’d honed for courtiers and crown-bearers. Her skin lingered a heartbeat longer than necessary, as if mapping the topography of another’s scars might dissipate a bit of her own. When she finally spoke, her voice seemed to carry the trials of someone dismantling a barricade brick by brick.

“I don’t know either,” she admitted, her gaze lowering not in retreat but to anchor herself in the reality of their joined hands, proof that uncertainty could be a shared burden rather than a solitary sentence. “But I think… I’d like to learn.” For years, she’d equated vulnerability with surrender, a crack through which the world would leach her worth. Yet here, with Ramona, the admission felt the opposite. Just as Aliseth had said it would.

“Someone told me once that some roads only exist when you step onto them, even if it means walking on thin ice.” A wisp of a smile grazed her lips. “So, perhaps, that will have to be enough for both of us.” She squeezed Ramona’s hand before disentangling their fingers. The absence of contact left her palm chilled, yet oddly unburdened.

Rising, Elara winced as her knees protested, joints stiff from time spent kneeling in half-prayer, half-flight. She welcomed the ache, though, her skirts brushing against the floor as she shook out the creases, her eyes drifting toward the hallway where murmured voices could still be heard.

“I think… I’ll go through the front after all,” she declared, the resolve in her voice surprising even herself. “Maybe it’s time to let others see me, just as I am.” Or the closest facsimile that she could muster until she didn’t have to try as hard anymore.

Camp Athens - Closed

omg hiiii :)

Realms of Sun & Shadow

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_{Location: Frostmoon Lake -> Town Square
Interactions: Céline (@Beard Dad)}

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Orion absorbed her words like a blade absorbs heat—slowly, irrevocably, the edges of his cynicism softening beneath their forge. Her voice had carried no grand proclamations, no performative altruism; only the certitude of someone who’d stared into the abyss and decided, stubbornly, to plant flowers in its teeth. It was the same type of resolve that had once anchored him during the worst of his transformations, when the hunger threatened to unmoor him entirely. He’d found a solution, of course, though lately it appeared…that it was failing.

The fox had proven that much.

He hadn’t planned to take from it. That was the truth. He’d sat on that boulder, frost biting through the leather of his gloves, the lake yawning black and silent before him. And then the creature had emerged, white as new snow, thin from hunger, its eyes wide with the kind of trust only desperation could shape. It had approached him willingly, despite what he was. Despite what it must have sensed.

And still, something in him had reached for it. Not in anger. Not in cruelty. But with the same reflexive pull a drowning man has toward air.

He hadn’t drawn much. Not enough to kill it. Just enough to feel… steady.

The fox had stumbled away afterward, dazed, but alive. He hadn't followed. But even now, guilt prickled beneath his skin like a rash he couldn’t scratch. He told himself it had been necessary. That a clean withdrawal was better than a loss of control. But necessity had always been the kindest name for weakness, and Orion wasn’t sure anymore which one he’d answered to.

Céline stood just beyond the alley’s mouth now, her breath fogging the air with each exhale, less from cold than from the heat of conviction. The kind of conviction that didn’t come from pride or performance, but from survival. From pain. From choosing to keep standing when the world had handed her every reason to stay down.

Orion stepped out to meet her, his own posture unhurried, but no longer guarded. Something in her answer had settled the tension behind his eyes.

“You don’t sound terrified,” he observed, the words escaping before he could temper them. Her lack of pretense disarmed him. He’d expected defiance, perhaps. But not this. Not this unadorned truth.

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He thought of the fox’s liquid gaze, the way it had nosed his palm without flinching. Foolish creature, he chastised himself. Or perhaps the only wise one left.

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Orion let the moment stretch, shaking his head of the memory, before he added, “The ones who survive… not just the hunger or the cold or the fear, but their past… they make the best medics. Because they understand what it means to come back from the edge. To want to.” He wasn’t offering flattery here either. He didn’t believe in it. But there was something akin to respect in his voice now, shaped not by sentiment, but recognition. He’d seen people break under less. He’d broken, in ways even those closest to him, even the prince, hadn’t seen. And yet, here she stood, glass-eyed and exhausted and quietly relentless.

“I’d advise against making a habit of dying though,” he said, almost a warning yet with a knowing smile. “I think once is more than enough for anyone.”

Then, more quietly, as if acknowledging something rare between them: “I’ll vouch for you with the prince.” The offer slipped out unbidden. A risk. Once again. But one that seemed more worth it when compared to his wish for Willis to adapt to things here. The man, at least, had greatly calmed down since then. Still…what a rough start it had been.

“You’ll still have to speak with him. That part isn't mine to change.” His gaze met hers. “But if he asks for my opinion…I think you’re worth the risk.”

Besides... Orion himself could simply make sure in his own way as well.

New person banned

I think it's some kind of bug but someone I know was banned as soon as they joined. This is their username: Pristine1281

Thanks for your help!!! :D

Camp Athens - Closed

Anissa "Ani" Quinn

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Anissa Quinn...

.................................................... __________________________________________ D A U G H T E R . O F . H A D E S ________________________________________________________ 21 | female | bisexual __________________________________________ ▹ hair color | dark brown ▹ eye color | brown ▹ height | 5' 3" ▹ build | petite / athletic

. A B I L I T I E S speak with the dead - Mechanics: Anissa opens a dialogue with spirits by focusing on an object tied to the deceased or standing where their life ended. The spirits manifest as faint, shimmering apparitions or disembodied voices, their tones tinged with the emotions they carried in life (e.g., sorrow, regret, or unresolved fury). Responses are often cryptic, filtered through metaphors or fragmented memories, requiring interpretation. Limitations: Spirits may refuse to aid her if she cannot offer something symbolic (e.g., fulfilling an unfinished task, answering a riddle). Older spirits grow fainter, their memories eroded by time. Impact: Anissa often seems distracted. Prolonged communion also leaves her emotionally drained, haunted by the dead’s sorrow or rage. Others might view her as eerie or cursed, while desperate souls seek her to contact lost loved ones. death touch - Mechanics: Anissa’s fingertips briefly glow with a sickly violet-black aura as she channels necrotic energy. Targets feel a searing coldness spreading from the point of contact, their veins darkening visibly as their strength wanes. The touch can be modulated—from a numbing ache that slows foes to an agonizing surge that completely crumples them. Limitations: Requires skin-to-skin contact; armoured or shielded foes are harder to affect. Overuse leaves her hand temporarily skeletal and frostbitten. Cannot harm constructs or undead. Impact: Anissa often wears gloves to avoid accidental harm. death sense - Mechanics: Anissa’s power manifests as poetic omens: fleeting, surreal visions that enter her mind like fragments of a half-remembered dream. These glimpses are not warnings but elegies, capturing the essence of a death rather than its facts: ▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅ ☠︎︎Metaphorical Portents: A child’s balloon slipping into storm clouds might foreshadow a drowning. A cracked hourglass spilling black sand could hint at a terminal illness. The visions are visceral but indirect, forcing Anissa to interpret symbolism (e.g., “a house with windows blown out” = loss of safety, not a literal explosion). ▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅ ☠︎︎Sensory Overlap: Each vision is accompanied by a sensation tied to the death’s emotional core: the sting of a wasp’s kiss (betrayal), the weight of an anchor on her chest (suicide), or the taste of copper pennies (violent ends). These linger longer than the images themselves. ▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅ ☠︎︎Fated Encounters: The visions trigger when she touches someone doomed or when they touch her. Limitations: She cannot summon or silence the visions. They strike unpredictably, even mid-conversation, leaving her disoriented. Unless the vision occurs during direct contact, she won’t know who is fated to die either. So, a vision of “wilted sunflowers” could apply to a stranger… or her closest friend. Attempting to divert death often backfires as well. Time bends to protect its design. Impact: She compulsively writes about her visions in a leather-bound notebook, searching for patterns. Some pages are filled with frantic questions. geokinesis - Mechanics: Anissa can summon and weaponize raw earth, but only through direct contact with solid ground. So, no floating rocks, no fancy tricks midair. Her power doesn’t bend mountains; it cracks pressure points. Limitations: Each shockwave costs her dearly, three bursts being her limit so far. After three consecutive bursts, her ribs bruise as if crushed by an invisible hand, and her joints stiffen like rigor mortis is setting in. It also doesn't work on metal or water. Impact: She avoids grassy or forested areas when upset and not wearing her usual gloves, afraid she’ll accidentally fracture the ground beneath her. umbrakinesis - Mechanics: Anissa’s umbrakinesis is less a power and more a pact with the unseen. She doesn’t command shadows; she aligns with them, becoming a fleeting blur in the corner of the world’s eye. Shadows curl around her like cobwebs, dampening sound and light. Observers’ minds instinctively categorize her as “unimportant”—a trick of the brain, not true invisibility. Security cameras may capture her as a smudge, while mirrors show only a silhouette. Where she walks, shadows remain. For instance, flowers may wilt in her path, and candles relight themselves moments after she passes. Limitations: Prolonged use erodes her memory. She might forget why she entered a room, for instance. Those who truly know her (close childhood friends, siblings, lovers) may resist the veil’s effects. Their recognition, in a way, acts as a tether, forcing the shadows to retreat. Impact: Anissa may, without meaning to, exhibit a chilling presence when using this power. For instance, a room she is in may get cold if she's too anxious. Breath may even mist in hot summer air. S T R E N G T H S resilient - Faces adversity with determination and strength, rarely letting setbacks deter her. enigmatic - Maintains an aura of mystery that unsettles or intrigues others. She can command attention without effort, often leaving people guessing her true intentions. W E A K N E S S E S emotionally vulnerable - Her deep connection with spirits and death often leaves her emotionally drained and susceptible to overwhelming grief. impulsive - Tends to act on instinct without fully considering consequences, often placing herself or others at risk. __________________________________________________________________________________ P E R S O N A L I T Y vain .... | .... intuitive .... | .... quietly brave .... | .... enigmatic H I S T O R Y Anissa Quinn grew up in a vibrant coastal city, raised by her mother, who ran an upscale boutique known for its mysterious and alluring aesthetic. From a young age, Ani's beauty and charm drew others toward her, but her quiet vanity often isolated her from genuine connection. Still, she’d mastered the art of tilting her chin to catch the light, of laughing in a way that made boys trip over their shoelaces. But classmates mocked her for checking her reflection in cafeteria knives, for the way she’d freeze mid-sentence, startled by something in the periphery. Sleepovers ended when she screamed at a friend’s mirror, insisting the girl staring back wasn’t her. “Drama queen,” they hissed. She stopped inviting them over. The voices began at fourteen. They coiled through her thoughts during geometry class, hissed from rain puddles on her walk home. “Turn left,” they’d urge, steering her to a drowned sparrow in a storm drain. “She’s buried under the magnolia,” they muttered as she passed a neighbour’s garden. She blamed sleep deprivation, then hormones, then the boutique’s absinthe-green wallpaper. But the night a wet handprint bloomed on her bedroom window, she took to wearing her mother’s satin gloves—palm-side scorched from ironing accidents—to bed, as if they could mute the pulse in her wrists that called to the unseen. The breaking point came sophomore year. A woman in a waterlogged wedding dress began trailing her, dripping seawater through the halls. For three weeks, Ani endured the reek of brine, the woman’s gurgled pleas drowned out by Ani’s headphones. Then, during a calculus exam, the spirit slammed Ani’s palm onto her desk. The pencil snapped, embedding graphite beneath her skin. Through tears, Ani hissed, “You’re dead, okay? Leave me alone!” The woman dissolved, leaving a puddle that seeped into the tiled floors. That night, Ani scrubbed her hands raw and slept with every lamp blazing. Then, the letter came a few years later. Summoned to Camp Athens by a dream she could neither forget nor explain, Anissa left the only world she knew, stepping into one she never asked for. Her reasons are complicated: part curiosity, part resentment, part defiance. She isn’t here to save anyone. She just wants answers, and maybe, if she’s honest, to stop feeling so haunted. __________________________________________________________________________________ hexcode . | . #5a3e85 ........ faceclaim . | . Isabela Merced ........ creator . | . Qia

Anissa's Cabin

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Elias Trueno

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Elias Trueno...

.................................................... __________________________________________ S O N . O F . Z E U S ________________________________________________________ 21 | male | pansexual __________________________________________ ▹ hair color | black ▹ eye color | brown ▹ height | 5' 10" ▹ build | athletic

. A B I L I T I E S atmokinesis - Elias can manipulate weather patterns by channelling storm clouds, winds, and atmospheric pressure. His power reflects and responds to his emotional state, creating a dynamic interplay between his inner world and the external environment. Mechanics: Storm Clouds- ⚡ He can summon dense, electrified cumulonimbus clouds to unleash lightning strikes or torrential downpours. ⚡ In calmer moments, he might disperse clouds to reveal sunlight or craft delicate fog banks. Winds- ⚡ His command over air ranges from subtle breezes to gale-force gusts. ⚡ With focus, he can direct wind currents to levitate objects or create protective barriers, but emotional turmoil may spiral winds into destructive tornadoes. Atmospheric Pressure- ⚡ By manipulating pressure systems, he can induce rapid weather shifts, such as sinking air for clear skies or triggering storms via colliding fronts. ⚡ This also allows localized pressure walls to repel threats or suffocate flames. Limitations: Severe weather amplifies his emotions (e.g., a storm’s fury heightens his anger), risking uncontrollable feedback. Prolonged use also drains him, causing fatigue, migraines, or sensory overload from atmospheric sensitivity. Unplanned outbursts can devastate landscapes, endanger others, or draw unwanted attention. electrokinesis - Elias can generate, absorb, and manipulate electrical energy, primarily channelled through his hands. This ability bridges offensive combat, defensive tactics, and utilitarian functions, though its efficacy is deeply tied to his emotional state and environmental conditions. Mechanics: Generation- ⚡ Elias can produce electricity ranging from subtle static shocks to violent lightning-like arcs. Precision allows taser-level stuns, while raw bursts can overload systems or ignite materials. ⚡ His body naturally generates charge, but prolonged use drains his stamina, risking muscle fatigue or temporary paralysis. Absorption- ⚡ He can siphon energy from batteries, power grids, or atmospheric lightning. However, absorbing high-voltage sources risks sensory overload or cardiac stress. ⚡ Excess energy manifests as visible currents coursing his skin; unmanaged storage causes involuntary discharges. Redirection- ⚡ He can channel absorbed electricity into protective barriers. ⚡ He can power electronics temporarily, jump-start engines, or interface with tech via touch, though complex devices require intense focus. Limitations: Humid air enhances conductivity but risks self-electrocution; insulated materials (rubber, glass) nullify his attacks. Remote areas that lack ambient sources will force reliance on his finite bio-electricity. Overuse causes nerve damage, tremors, or temporary blindness from retinal flashes. Absorbing extreme voltages (e.g., lightning) may burn his pathways, requiring days to heal. flight - Elias achieves flight through a hybridized manipulation of wind currents and electrical propulsion, merging his atmokinetic and electrokinetic talents. While functional in most conditions, his flight thrives in stormy environments, where turbulent air and ambient electricity synergize to enhance his speed, endurance, and control. Mechanics: Wind Currents- ⚡ Elias rides air currents to ascend or glide effortlessly, shaping updrafts to sustain altitude. In calm weather, he must generate his own gusts, which drain stamina. ⚡ Subtle shifts in wind direction allow sharp turns, hovering, or rapid deceleration. Electrical Propulsion- ⚡ Charged particles expelled from his hands or feet act as thrusters, enabling sudden bursts of speed or vertical launches. Overuse can cause muscle spasms or burns. ⚡ Lightning-rich environments passively recharge his thrust, letting him "surf" electromagnetic fields for near-effortless movement. Limitations: Stormy weather (high winds, thunderstorms) boosts his speed and endurance, but calm, dry conditions limit him to short, laborious flights. Extreme cold also numbs his electrical output; heavy rain risks waterlogging his thrusters, causing short circuits. Sustained flight strains his legs and core muscles. Altitude sickness also occurs above 10,000 feet without acclimatization. Lastly, there's a trade-off in energy where using electricity for flight drains his electrokinetic reserves, leaving him unable to summon defensive shocks or power devices mid-air. peak human condition - His physical capabilities—strength, reflexes, stamina—are at the upper end of human potential due to his divine lineage. He performs optimally in combat and endurance-based tasks. Mechanics: Strength- ⚡ Elias can lift up to 650 lbs (near the world record), deliver strikes with bone-crushing force, and shatter materials like concrete with focused effort. His muscle efficiency minimizes fatigue, enabling sustained exertion. Reflexes- ⚡ His reaction time (0.1 seconds) rivals top martial artists and Formula 1 drivers, allowing him to dodge bullets at close range or counterattack mid-combo. Stamina- ⚡ He can operate at peak performance for 48 hours without rest, which demands significant caloric intake (5,000+ calories daily). Recovery is accelerated, and muscle repair takes hours, not days. Resilience- ⚡ High pain tolerance and dense bone structure reduce injury risk. He can withstand extreme temperatures (-50°F to 130°F) briefly, and his immune system neutralizes most toxins. Limitations: He requires a high-protein diet and at least 4 hours of daily sleep; neglect leads to rapid deterioration (e.g., hallucinations, organ strain). Constant pressure to embody "perfection" also breeds a lot of anxiety. His failures haunt him, as his margin for error is narrower than that of any one else he knows. S T R E N G T H S combat-ready - Experienced in street fighting and close-quarters combat. Physically imposing and well-coordinated. charismatic - Possesses a natural charm and sarcasm that disarms or manipulates others effectively. quick-witted - Adapts rapidly in conversations and fights; uses humor and fast thinking as a strategic tool. magnetic presence - Draws attention effortlessly, either through confidence or volatility. W E A K N E S S E S short fuse - Struggles with anger management; emotional volatility can cause unintended destruction. emotional repression - Does not process vulnerability well; deflects with arrogance or indifference. competitive - Overexerts or endangers himself in attempts to prove superiority, especially around peers with comparable power. weather-reliant - Power is diminished during clear or calm weather; storm conditions greatly enhance his output. __________________________________________________________________________________ P E R S O N A L I T Y confident .... | .... sarcastic .... | .... proud .... | .... brooding H I S T O R Y Birth: The First Lightning Elias Trueno entered the world on a day so still it felt like the earth had stopped breathing with a record-breaking heatwave in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The air conditioning in Presbyterian Hospital had failed. Nurses fanned themselves with clipboards; mothers-to-be groaned through contractions in soupy, stagnant air. All the while, Marisol Trueno, 23 years old and alone, didn’t make a sound. Not when her water broke. Not when the doctors urged her to push. Not even when the lights died. The blackout lasted seven minutes. A single lightning bolt, gold-veined and silent, pierced the hospital’s backup generator. When power returned, the delivery room reeked of scorched metal. Elias lay swaddled in Marisol’s arms, his cries sharp and static-charged. The nurses joked about bad wiring. Marisol, however, stared at the ceiling, where a hairline crack split the plaster like a dried riverbed. She named him Elias that day—“Yahweh is my God”—because irony felt safer than the truth, safer than that legacy of abandonment and violence. Childhood: lengua materna Marisol’s body had grown to be a fragile thing. Arthritis curled her fingers by 30; migraines pinned her to bed for days. She rarely left their sun-bleached adobe house, its walls thick against the desert heat. Elias learned to move quietly, to boil chamomile tea, to knead the tension from her shoulders during monsoons. He also learned this: Storms were his first language. Age 3: A tantrum over a broken toy became his first full sentence, a shriek that summoned a downpour. Marisol waded into the flooded yard, her nightgown clinging to her knees, and cupped rainwater in her palms. “Mira,” she said, holding it toward him. “Es solo agua.” Just water. Her smile was a psalm, a soft and holy translation of his rage. Age 7: The kids at the library called him “Witch boy”. Elias shouted back in a dialect he didn’t quite understand yet: a gust of wind that shattered every window in the room. The principal demanded an exorcism. Marisol withdrew him the next day. At home, she taught him fractions and forgiveness, new vocabulary to quiet the thunder in his hands. Anger isn’t a fist. It’s a question with no answer, she insisted. Age 14: His first kiss—Luz, behind the 7-Eleven, her mouth sweet with tamarind candy—ended in a thunderclap that set off car alarms. Luz giggled, giddy and nervous, as rain slicked the asphalt. She labelled him as some kind of superhero. Yet when the next storm flooded her garage, she stopped answering his texts. Elias lay awake that night, tracing the charred grammar of lightning scars on his ceiling. Marisol never scolded him. Never prayed, despite her upbringing. She simply sat beside him, her silence a second tongue, one he was still learning to speak and navigate. The Confrontation: Cracks in the Sky The fight started over nothing. A burnt casserole, maybe. Either way, it had led to a streetlamp outside exploding in a shower of sparks. “What am I?” Elias demanded, pacing their living room while Marisol continued to fold a dishcloth. Smoothed its creases. Her hands trembled, but her voice didn’t when she answered. “You already know.” “No. I don’t.” He gestured wildly; a gust rattled the patio furniture. “Why would a god pick you? You can’t even—” “Can’t even what?” She looked up. “Walk up the stairs without resting? Love you anyway?” Elias froze. Thunder growled, but no rain fell. “Maybe he chose me because I wouldn’t try to change you,” she said. “Or use you. Or pretend you’re not a miracle.” She pressed a hand to his chest. His heartbeat shook them both. “I don’t need to be strong,” she whispered. “I just need to be here.” The Breaking Point: Too Much to Hold By 17, Elias was all edges with a temper that left scorch marks on doorframes. He cycled through phases: The Recluse: Locked himself in his room for weeks, playing guitar until calluses split his fingertips. Power surges fried three amplifiers. The Charmer: Smirked his way into parties, dazzling strangers with sleight-of-hand tricks (palming lightning bugs, “magically” chilling beers). Left when the sky darkened. The Brawler: Punched a hole through a brick wall after some guy catcalled Marisol. The wall healed faster than his knuckles. Through it all, Marisol held on. She left aspirin and honeyed milk outside his door. Pretended not to notice the burn scars on his bedsheets. Let him scream into her shoulder when the static in his veins got too loud. But even she had limits. One night, after he’d shorted the neighbourhood grid (again), she gripped his wrist, her touch feather-light, her eyes red-rimmed. “You’re going to break this house. Break me. And I won’t survive it.” He dreamed of lightning that night. Not the wild, hungry kind, but the sort that splits oaks clean down the middle. The Letter: A Spark Uncontained It arrived in August, after a drought that cracked the Rio Grande’s banks. No envelope. No postmark. Just a slip of parchment on their porch, warm as a living thing. The ink shimmered gold when Elias touched it. YOU ARE SUMMONED TO CAMP ATHENS YOU ARE THE SON OF ZEUS YOU ARE NOT MEANT TO REMAIN HIDDEN Thunder rolled, a low, insistent hum. Marisol appeared in the doorway, a duffel bag at her feet. She’d packed his leather jacket. His guitar picks. A framed photo of them at White Sands, squinting against the sun. “How long have you known?” he asked. She pressed a pendant into his palm: a tiny bronze thunderbolt, cold against his skin. “Since the lights went out,” she said. “And came back on.” He left at midnight. The storm followed him to the bus station, rain hissing against the asphalt. Marisol watched from the porch, her silhouette small and straight-backed, until lightning swallowed the horizon. __________________________________________________________________________________ hexcode . | . #d4af37 ........ faceclaim . | . Diego Tinoco ........ creator . | . Qia

Elias's Cabin

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Rae Kowalewski

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Rae Kowalewski...

.................................................... ______________________________________ D A U G H T E R . O F . H E P H A E S T U S __________________________________________________ 21 | female | demisexual ________________________________________ ▹ hair color | ginger-red ▹ eye color | blue-grey ▹ height | 5' 5" ▹ build | lean / wiry

. A B I L I T I E S pyrokinesis - She can generate and control fire, but not without effort. Her power scales with her focus. calokinesis - Control over heat. This includes internal temperature regulation, melting metal, and heat-based propulsion of small gadgets. A small quirk with this ability is that she unconsciously radiates warmth when relaxed, so her hands are always slightly hotter than normal, and her coffee never goes cold. fire & heat immunity - She’s fireproof, obviously. Burned herself testing this as a kid. Repeatedly. master inventor & engineer - Gifted in all things mechanical. Builds things in her sleep. Literally. Also, she’s the kind of person who salvages everything. Growing up poor taught her that nothing is truly useless. That toaster? Now a robot arm. Those busted headphones? Rewired into a comms device. high intelligence - Sharp memory, faster processing, and the ability to adapt under pressure. The one downside to this is that she overthinks. Constantly. Her mind races ahead, playing out every possible failure, which sometimes paralyzes her in the moment. S T R E N G T H S tinkering - If it’s broken, she’ll make it better. If it’s not broken, she’ll upgrade it anyway. persistence - Rae doesn’t quit. Ever. She'll reroute a circuit or her entire life plan if she has to. The one downside to this trait, however, is that this relentless drive means she often pushes herself past reasonable limits, ignoring pain, exhaustion, or even friends telling her to stop. combat improvisation - Improvises on the fly, often turning found objects into weapons or distractions. She doesn't fight fair. She fights smart, despite not being the physically strongest. W E A K N E S S E S social cues - Misses them completely. She’s great with blueprints, not people. stubborn - Rae doesn’t just hold grudges: she engineers them. If she decides someone’s wrong, good luck changing her mind. If she believes in a plan, she’ll follow it into a disaster before admitting defeat. overload - Overclocking her fire powers or brain leads to migraines and burnout (literal and emotional). __________________________________________________________________________________ P E R S O N A L I T Y hardworking .... | determined .... | ambitious .... | awkward H I S T O R Y Rae Kowalewski was raised in a small, lower-income neighbourhood just outside a wealthy California suburb, close enough to see the gleaming roofs of gated communities from her bedroom window but far enough that she knew she’d never step inside one unless she suddenly got fortunate. Her mom worked two jobs to support them both: one in a factory and the other as a cleaner for those same houses Rae stared at all the time. Her dad, however, was out of the picture before she could even form a full sentence. But there was never any self-pity about it. Her mother had a rule: “If you want something, you don’t wait for it. You make it yourself.” And so Rae did. Literally. Her first real invention came at age nine: a mechanical pencil sharpener cobbled together from parts of a broken toaster and an old RC car she’d salvaged from a thrift store dumpster. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked, and when she brought it to school, her teachers didn’t just praise her. They watched her. By middle school, she was the kid who fixed the broken lab equipment during lunch. By high school, scholarship programs had taken notice, and she landed a full ride to Lockwood Prep, a private school where half the students had their last names engraved on the buildings. It was there she first met Wesley Preston. Wes was the kind of rich that didn’t bother hiding itself; the son of a celebrity attorney, with a smirk that made teachers sigh and a reputation for reckless charm. Rae had expected him to be insufferable. Worse, she’d expected him to ignore her entirely. But Wes had a way of noticing people most others overlooked. They shared a couple of classes. Partnered for a science fair once (though partnered was a generous way of putting it. He mostly leaned over her shoulder, making jokes while she did the actual wiring). Still, he made her laugh in a way that was enjoyable at times. And though she’d never admit it, there was a tiny, traitorous flutter in her chest whenever he’d grin at her in the hallway or call her “Lewski, you terrifying genius” after she aced an incredibly hard test. It wasn’t a crush. At least, that’s what she told herself. More like an itch she couldn’t scratch. A curiosity about the boy who had everything but still seemed bored by it all at times if she paid too much attention. By senior year, Wes had spiralled further into rebellion, and Rae, meanwhile, had buried herself in college prep, robotics club, and the kind of relentless focus that left no room for distractions. She graduated with a near-perfect GPA and a full engineering scholarship. He didn’t. She hadn’t thought about him in years. Until Camp Athens. Her powers came in fragments at first, like with spontaneous sparks when she tightened a screw too hard, bursts of heat that warped her tools before she could pull her hands away. She blamed stress. Overwork. Sleep deprivation. But the excuses ran out the night she accidentally melted a steel wrench into a puddle on the workshop floor. And then her father came knocking. It happened during a late-night shift in the campus machine shop. Everyone else had cleared out, but Rae stayed, jaw clenched, wrestling with a housing unit that refused to hold its shape. Her frustration was a live wire when the lights suddenly cut out, and the air went still. She turned and saw him. Or, more accurately, she noticed his hands first. Scars webbed across his knuckles, the skin rough and darkened like old leather. “You're wasting good metal with all that hesitation,” he said, like he’d been watching for a while. On top of that, his voice was blunt steel in a gruff, heavy, and final way. Rae stared. “Who the hell are you?” He didn’t answer. Just picked up her warped housing unit, examined it, and placed one hand over the seam. With a hiss of heat and a crackle of molten light, the metal reshaped. Seamless. Flawless. Impossible. “I’m the one who gave you hands like that,” he said, tossing the piece back to her. “You didn’t think that kind of fire came from nowhere, did you?” Before she could respond, he slid a folded piece of parchment across the workbench–-a map, instructions, warnings scrawled in urgent script. A place called Camp Athens. Then he nodded once and left the way he came: quietly, like a man used to being overlooked. Rae didn’t sleep that night. But by morning, she had made her decision. __________________________________________________________________________________ hexcode . | . #3b9ae1 ........ faceclaim . | . Sadie Sink ........ creator . | . Qia

Rae's Cabin

Rae's Workshop

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Maylisse Beaumont

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Maylisse Beaumont...

.................................................... __________________________________________ D A U G H T E R . O F . P O S E I D O N ________________________________________________________ 23 | female | heterosexual __________________________________________ ▹ hair color | dark brown ▹ eye color | hazel ▹ height | 5' 6" ▹ build | slender, toned

. A B I L I T I E S hydrokinesis - Maylisse wields water like a weapon; her control is evident yet terrifyingly aggressive. Precision takes a backseat to domination for her, so she is less a sculptor and more a hurricane overwhelming her opponents with merciless force. In the depths of storms or oceans, her power crescendos into something catastrophic. Most unsettling of all, she has learned to agitate the water inside or around living bodies, causing conditions such as nausea, ringing ears, or muscle cramps. water breathing - Passive, like second nature. The shift from air to water is as unconscious and effortless as blinking for her. She uses it with smug superiority, often remaining underwater just a moment too long during a conversation to watch her land-bound companions grow uneasy, a silent reminder of the fundamental gulf between their natures and her own. seismic manipulation - Maylisse thrives on chaos. She enjoys knocking people off their feet or rattling the earth to make her entrance felt. Reckless but effective is the motto; this blunt instrument in her arsenal is less about finesse and more about causing immediate, disorienting havoc. speak with fish & equine - Unlike her half-brother, Maylisse embraces this gift fully. To outsiders, she seems commanding and merciless, but with these creatures, she reveals a rare softness. She speaks to fish and equine with a strange fondness, treating them as companions even when she calls them to service. Sharks patrol at her word, horses bow their heads when she passes, not out of fear alone but out of a bond she secretly cherishes. If there is warmth in her, it is saved for the sea’s beasts and Poseidon’s steeds, never her fellow demigods. underwater healing - Passive, though she flaunts it. She doesn’t mind taking hits in sparring; the water always washes away her wounds eventually. Submerged, her body knits itself back together with visible, almost unsettling speed. Severed flesh reconnects, bruises bloom and fade in seconds, and broken bones snap into alignment with an audible crack. She uses this to her psychological advantage, emerging from a deep wave utterly unscathed after a devastating blow, a taunting smile on her lips as her opponents' morale completely shatters. S T R E N G T H S fearless - Unflinching and unapologetic. She doesn’t hesitate to speak or strike first. This isn't a learned bravery but an innate, deep-seated certainty of her own power. Fear is an emotion for those with something to lose; Maylisse believes herself to be inevitable. This makes her a terrifying opponent, as she charges into any fray, confronts any foe, and voices any brutal truth without a trace of doubt or self-preservation. It is a weaponized trait that often allows her to dominate situations before they even begin. uncompromising - Weakness disgusts her, and Maylisse refuses to tolerate it. Her will is absolute, and her resolve never wavers. In a crisis, this single-mindedness can be a powerful asset, as she will pursue victory or domination with a focus that others cannot match. She operates on a tyrant's logic: there is her way, and there is failure protective - Though cold to most, Maylisse is fiercely protective of what she considers hers, especially the creatures she commands, and at times even her half-brother (simply based on the fact that he’s her brother). W E A K N E S S E S reckless - Collateral damage and overexertion mean little to her in the moment. The fallout always comes later. She is a force of nature without a governor, prioritizing immediate, overwhelming impact over long-term stability. arrogant - She underestimates rivals constantly, assuming Poseidon’s blood makes her superior. This is her most critical blind spot. She cannot conceive of a mortal, or even another demigod, outmatching her. This arrogance leads to careless mistakes, a refusal to strategize deeply, and a tendency to prolong fights rather than resolve them quickly. She will often leave openings for a weaker opponent, viewing their struggle as entertainment, only to be genuinely shocked when a well-planned strike gets past her defences. cold - Her lack of compassion isolates her, even if she refuses to admit it. __________________________________________________________________________________ P E R S O N A L I T Y icy .... | .... uncompromising .... | .... ambitious .... | .... ruthless ....|.... protective H I S T O R Y Her mother was a calculating London financier who never mistook the god's attention for romance, but rather, saw it as a formidable investment opportunity. She raised Maylisse in a world of privilege and refinement, teaching her to value strength over sentiment, leverage over love, and to see every relationship as a transaction of power. Thus, Poseidon appeared in her life not as a father but as an intermittent, overwhelming force of nature. A lesson made manifest. His visits were never gentle; they were crashing waves against the shore, storms that uprooted trees, and quiet, terrifying depths. His “affection” was shaping, and it was harsh. Where her half-sibling River might have found discipline and perhaps family bonds unlinked to the divine, Maylisse received only brutal tutorials in dominance and the intoxicating thrill of unchecked power. She grew up hearing whispers of her half-sibling across the sea but dismissed him as an irrelevant, lesser version of the glory she believed she alone was forged to inherit. Only when Poseidon himself summoned her in the heart of a hurricane over the Thames did she truly take notice. His message was as blunt and cold as ever: River had been named leader, but his softness and distracting surface-world attachments would inevitably lead to compromise. Poseidon's will was absolute, and it could not be threatened by sentiment. So, Maylisse was not asked; she was deployed. Her purpose was clear: to go to the camp and serve as the embodiment of her father's ruthless dominion, to crush any weakness she found, and to make certain no one, not even a well-meaning brother or sentimental ally, could ever dilute Poseidon's legacy. For her, the camp is not about finding friendship or belonging; it is a proving ground, even if she has to shatter the current occupant to do it. She arrives not as a sister, but as an inquisitor. __________________________________________________________________________________ hexcode . | . #A9C9EB ........ faceclaim . | . Minnie Mills ........ creator . | . Qia

May's Cabin