Youth Fostering Youth

[truelarper 593]

 

Spoiler

pages dont ******* work, its over.
btw titles have music, heh. 

ʏᴏᴜᴛʜ ꜰᴏꜱᴛᴇʀɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜᴛʜ

 

 

[ᴀ ʙʀᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴜɴᴍᴀᴅᴇ]

 

                It was nothing unexpected; Vursilas had ever been drawn to mischief, to rot, to the shadowed things that stalked just beyond the reach of light. A boy may tempt the flame only so long before he finds himself nothing but a blistered remnant of his own folly. And the flame had claimed him at last. So thoroughly that whispers spread – that even GOD had turned his gaze away, leaving him wretched and luckless, faith ground to mere ash and dust. Left, as all could plainly see, for the wolves to finish.

 

Sorrow turned into rage at the sheer idiocy of his path. 

 

               It was a grief that burned the heart of Alexandre, for it was laced with anger – anger that his brother’s downfall had been carved not by fate or foe, but by his own mindless descent into shadow. Was it his fault, he wondered, that his brother had been forged by mistake rather than absolution? Would it be just to lay blame upon his Father, to curse him for leaving such a bastard of a child in his wake?

 

No. He knew it would be a false burden to perch.

 

              It was his duty – not only as a brother, but as Patriarch – to counsel the youth. To foster him. To steer him from ruin. To see him rise rather than rot; to shape what he might become. Yet such was a difficult path to thread, for Alexandre was but a boy himself – only six years the elder of Vursilas. Fifteen years of age. Youthful and already burdened. 

 

He had grown tired. 

 

              The road behind him felt long, and the road ahead longer still. Lost in thought, Alexandre stood upon the ferry’s deck, feeling the slow rock of the boat beneath his boots. His gaze wandered to Alma – his friend and quiet anchor – and then to the rest of the company. It was not his first crossing; he had made this journey once before, at his father’s side. Yet it felt no less than now. The ride over had left his back stiff, his legs aching, his bones still arguing with the cold. 

 

Still, he stood. Still, he wished for his brother’s return. 

 

[ʀᴇᴛʀɪʙᴜᴛɪᴏɴ]

 

“Petrans…”  that word rolled across the mountain peaks like a distant thunder.

 

              She sat there – venemous, maleficent – atop her chestnut steed. Behind her loomed the tall, dark tower; the seat of the very power that had begun to pillage Azura. At her back lay Vursilas, broken and unconscious, his body numb from the distant cold that howled across the isle’s clawed ridges. Alexandre lifted his eyes to her, breath catching in his throat. He did not expect to find her here – yet here she stood. 

 

The Black Dame.

 

              He rode forth, with his company at his flanks – Alma, Ardeth, Finch, Rhae’lin – closing in, forcing the Dame to halt her flee. “You’ll hand me my brother,” Alexandre said as her steed stamped to a stop. His gaze climbed the terrible height of the Darkstalker before him – a beastly silhouette in blackened armour, her cape dancing in the wind like a shadow unbound. 

 

              “No...” She placed not only herself, but Vursilas in peril, holding him out over the cliff’s jagged edge. “Do you wish to meet your Father,” her voice coiled through the wind. “The Black Sun’s lord is buried here.”

 

              A lingering pause stretched thin, the wind shrieking across the peak. Alma dropped from Alexandre’s steed, her boots scraping against the rock, sliding into a low stance – arms at the ready, prepared to seize. Alexandre answered the silence with fury, “His ashes hang upon me like a curse,” Iron shoes struck stone, sparks spitting like a growing ember as the beast reared and plunged forward. The mountain trembled in anticipation. “his title may rot beneath your grave, but his spirit claws the sevens skies!” 

 

D R A - K O O M !

 

              Volatite clapped like thunder, it split the air and shattered the Dame’s flank. The blast tore her from the saddle, flinging her sideways with Vursilas as her steed screamed and toppled over the cliff, its fall swallowed by the clouds below.  

 

A cackle slithered through the fading echo. “Wrong move.”

 

              Alma, spirited and unyielding, hurled herself from the rocks – arms outstretched, fingers clawing for Vursilas as he spun in the air. She caught Vursilas mid-fall, her grip ironclad and slammed them both against the jagged face of the mountain, stone biting into her back. And the Darkstalker tumbled into the abyss, her devilish cackle swallowed by the wind.

 

Victory was theirs, but the shadows of peril lingered.

 

[ᴍᴇʀᴄʏ ᴜᴘᴏɴ ꜰᴏᴏʟꜱ]

 

              Emerging over the peak, a five-eyed warlock loomed, eyes glinting with an unnatural light. She drew upon a crude scroll in one hand, and hefted a hammer in the other. “I do not care what is occurring here. Leave.” The warlock commanded.

 

              The rest of the company rushed to aid Alma and Vursilas, while Alexandre struggled to his feet – still dazed from being thrown by the thunderous strike. His eyes, sharp beneath his helm, locked on the warlock. “That thing said you buried my father here,” he said through a thin breath, voice raw as iron.

 

              “Please,” Alma called from the jagged rock face, scrambling upward, her voice spoken with plead. “Let us lift him first, then we will go.” Ardeth and Finch moved swiftly to aid those struggling upon the cliff, their hands gripping the rough stone to steady their companions. Rhae’lin, standing apart, wove a spell, enwreathed by channels of air. “Let us leave with haste, lest we be assailed by the denizens of this keep.”

 

The Savoyard Prince fell deaf.

 

              “I am the son of Antoine Owyn Ashford de Savoie,” Alexandre declared, pride cutting through the cold as he straddled his horse. His eyes never having left the Warlock.

 

              She descended from the ridge, boots crushing the snow. Her crude hammer returned to her belt. A swarm of bats clinging to her shadow, circling her like flies to a corpse. “Your father was a fool, Leave, ‘less you wish to lie beside him.”

 

              With each step, the snow shattered beneath her like a brittle bone, and their hearts thundered in their chests. One by one, blood welled from their eyes and mouths, the warlock’s presence feasting upon their lifeforce. 

 

Through a breath choked with blood, Alexandre forced his words out. 

 

              “He might’ve been… but I do not thread his path. If you feed on my kin or kith again, the punishment will return on you sevenfold.” The others shouted at him – in both urgency and terror. 

 

“Alexandre – the boy is fine – let us go!” 

 

              Alexandre wretched himself away, his horse stumbling back toward the company, driving with them into the snowfall. Behind them, the warlock’s five eyes glimmered with quiet, patient malice. 

 

“Your kith and kin are weak. Leave… you may call this mercy.” 

 

And so they left the isle – victorious, yes, but only by the fallen Prince’s restraint.

 

 

Edited November 20, 2025 by truelarper

[Frisket 4537]

Within the halls of the Black Temple. In its vast echoes of dammed pleas. Lied a small smoke. Black mist lingered like a flame, and soon from it, she returned.

the black dame arose from it, returning back to the mortal realm saying one waking word.

”All as one….”

 

Etched into her mind, was the mark of the badge, The black sun of Savoy.

[ProcaPro 557]

A young noble of the Petra scrabbled at the rocks, staring down at certain death, but saved only by her companion's speed. Her heartbeat and the wind in her ears drowned out most of the talk around her, and while the thrill was great, the fear was greater. Smothering.

 

It was only when she realized there was another deadly visitor that Alma returned to action. She lifted the unconscious boy first, and helped herself second. As Alexandre had turned his horse she had grabbed the saddle and hauled herself to it, the Dame's fallen weapon tight in her shivering grip.

 

Alma watched that cursed prince as they went, paranoid of their uncertain mercy, and remained so until they'd found safety again.

[Luxury 1081]

The Ashwood Sorceress did not consider her actions heroic. To her this was simply work, executed with the same methodical precision she applied to any operation… Two young humans clung to the cliff face above the valley, their survival dependent on a sustained manifestation of Voidal wind that required neither drama nor flourish. Another threat opposed. Another successful defense of forces targeting her realm.

 

She had been present only by chance, included in the scouting party during a routine visit to Petra to lay flowers at her student’s gravestone. Circumstance, not intention, placed her in position to intervene. But circumstance or not, the work required completion, and so it was completed. She conjured her spellcraft, the humans lived.

 

She moved on to the next task without reflection. This is what competent practitioners do; they solve problems as they arise, with appropriate technique applied at the appropriate moments.