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Alma received the letter with a smile, having paused from making new friends to do so. Her smile faded quick. Another person gone from her life without so much as a final word to her. Another, right after a fight. Maybe that's why he never wrote her back. However guilty it made Alma all she could think was truly how foolish her grandfather was. What should have been grief was hollow, and bitter. Perhaps she was cursed.

The Wedding Dress by Frederick William Elwell, 1911 "Alexandre was murdered ... a sword stuck through his back, a dagger slicing his neck." A letter had flown across a continent and back for that statement, the final verdict from the leg of a bird. For days Alma had wondered if their disagreement had made him disappear, if he'd chosen to leave before Tuvmas even came. The tavernkeeper told her of an abduction, but surely the captors knew by now the reason was a misunderstanding when even she knew of his pardon. All it came to was a sentence, in the end. Rage met Alma before grief, tearing through her like a fire and hollowing out her insides to nothing. The letter was torn, venom spat, curses upon houses and killers wished to the air with no care of who heard. What did it matter who did, now? There'd be no first painting on their walls, no hunts, no cottage perfectly centered in the patch of azalea wilderness. Every promise was dead with Alexandre, leaving Alma to mourn it alone.

A sickly beast of a woman hardly cares of the news. Never did, for Sahan, who she met exactly once. Who went onto a metaphorical list as a possible enemy. Was forgotten... But she knew well grief. However short the stay in her innards. The normal thing to do was to give condolences. How does one do that though, she wonders, poxed claws drumming wet stone. Her makeshift isolated throne. She supposed she'd simply figure it out.

Somewhere in Petra a young lady hopes her friend hasn't been wounded again. As usual this hope is in vain.

Metal fingers grip the letter sent to her. It is a while before Yuki, once Grae, understands what it means. She'd lost the ability to cry long, long ago. Her ability to emotionally respond was starting to wane too. All the now-machine could do was look upwards to nothing and think, eyes glass and empty. She'd never agreed with her adoptive brother's choices. But she had loved him like her own family. What was love to her now, though. Was that ache something wrong in her innards or was it something emotional, struggling to effect her? It didn't matter either way when whoever it was for was too dead to know about it. She'd have to write home. She'd have to attend a funeral and pretend it hurt her much more than it did. God, she wishes it hurts her more than it does.

Alma can only hope and pray that the mantle of Emperor would not be taken by a fool, and that her home of Idunia would continue to live in peace. Though, the girl had learned to never rely too greatly on hope.

Alma Reinhold could only hope the fires and calamity didn't spread to her family keep, which was concerningly close to Haelun'or. So close she could clearly see the destruction from the structure's back balcony. It wasn't as celebratory a sight to her as to others, but despite the proximity it was a relief. Maybe now the cultists wandering the road nearby would go somewhere else.

A prince of the hells, in one of their rare hibernative slumbers, jolts awake. Another vision infesting their mind, another annoyance to decipher except .. this one needed no deciphering. It was almost painfully easy to understand for once, but that wasn't a comfort in any sense. The gore and violence does little to move them, but the purpose of it does. The sick-ridden thing reaches out, clawing into the light from whatever hold they'd found themselves in to rest, and starts down the nearest road. No more time to rot and rest, there was work to do, clearly.

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.

A young Reinhold reads the missive with worry, looking from her grandparent's balcony to the silver spires that imposingly loom over Dùn Mòindamh. She hadn't felt threatened by them until now, having visited so often to see the library, told even she could study in their halls... Perhaps her friends were right to distrust the elves, if they'd been hiding this all this time. The girl retreats inside, as if the spires might know she was watching. For all she knew now, they might.

A strange white crow flits in the wind, wheezing and cackling as it careens across the sky. A well-read letter is clutched in beak, probably stolen from another's pocket or window, and is dropped into an awaiting hand. The recipients eyes flit over the letter from 'Zetsu', as she knew him. Was it pity? Perhaps it was annoyance, or disappointment. Yes, disappointment was part of the mix.... But it certainly wasn't grief. A small drop of nothing into more nothing. Her frail hand tosses the letter back onto the table where the crow awaits, eager. "Take it to whoever else you think of in your whims, but don't bring me trash. It's useless." With that the letter passes on.

Application for Interview FULL NAME: Fynn Bassam Al-Jabir Aldor AGE: 72 PRIOR EXPERIENCE: Templar, hunting experience, alchemy experience SIGNED NAME: (Fynlo dy Eayst) METHOD OF CONTACT: Discord - ProcrastinatorProfessional IGN - ProcrastinatePro

A machine finds the paper tucked under her door and reads it once. Then twice. Her frame rattles, bit out of fear, but anticipation. She was still descendant enough to have a fighting spirit, and she was more than ready to fight or die trying. She had much to protect, after all.

This is Alma, a little girl recently adopted into Reinhold. She's shy, as polite and people pleasing as she can be, and has an avid fascination with insects and strange/dangerous flora. She also has a collection of oddly shaped stones she's found. Alma is the kind of girl to dip her feet into the local river with her shoes still on. She is also terrified of undead.

A little Alma peeks at the missive when all her family had left it there, stealing a look. She only recognized one word: Petra. The girl just plucked from ash sneakily tucks the missive away, to ask about later.

Branimar had been trying to hold on, before Lorelei came. Desperate and struggling. Perhaps it was a mercy that he'd been dead before he'd seen the horror on her face, stuck only hearing fleetingly the last moments of life. Lorelei would be welcomed warmly to the skies though. He would see to it.

⪻────𖤓────⪼ ⪻────────𖤓────────⪼ When Haense still had a home, Branimar had arrived in the cold, sent to join his aunt so they might regain some lost regality long since left in the slog of time. Remnants, in little more than name. How he detested that name. Expectation, want, insistence. He was certainly ready to bite his distaste for it all and rise. He’d begun to study the markets, keen on mastering the material. When he’d met Lorelei, it had been with nervous hesitance. He’d been pushed by his aunt to do so, to make friends and connections. So he did. He sat next to that strange blind girl with the twisted leg and said hello, bile in his smiling throat. Then she’d been kind. Branimar had expected the song and dance of nobility, little daggers and hidden prods to prove oneself in a puzzle of a conversation he’d never been good at grasping. Instead, Lorelei was kind. Bile was replaced with a nervous ease, smiles were more genuine. Every prod for him to woo the girl, every whisper that said he should grab at whatever climb he could, did not push Branimar from his refusal to trap Lorelei in some web. While he sold and bartered and subtly wormed into his surroundings he at least had one genuine thing. From the familiar bite of teeth in his throat to the weary recoveries after, to mindless meetings and trainings, she was his friend. Then Caz came. Then the rest. Branimar fell once, before Haense did, in the stressful cold-war that had been boiling into battle between the before-empire and his home. That had always remained blurry to him. Bandits, he thought, horses. Crossbows and daggers, screaming. He’d awoke barely aware of even who he was in some bed in Alba, disfigured and damaged and hardly able to speak a sentence. She was there. Caz was there. People who saw him as more than a legacy to correct. Time flew. It shifted. Lorelei grew from friend, to closest confidante, to love. Branimar chose joy and forgiveness over the anger and gripes over the loss of Haense, he chose to move on, to build something else, and he did. A keep, with bricks set by his own damaged hands. A family, a future with his wife he wouldn’t impose upon, wouldn’t drain, wouldn’t feel disappointed by. Never disappointed, how could he when they were his? It was a good life, one to be long lived surely, rose-tinted and sunny. ⪻────────𖤓────────⪼ A blur passed by Branimar’s eyes, a life well lived and built, wondering where he had gone wrong. If he even had gone wrong. In the swell of panic and of terror he wondered where his wife was. For a moment he almost wondered if Lorelei had known this was going to happen. But surely not. It wasn’t her fault she’d been trusting, and kind enough to give someone a chance. It all swept away in an instant. The sound of crashing bookshelves and breaking glass echoed in his home, a leg long since stalled on recovery had failed him. Time spent clawing for the mobility he’d had before those damned bandits was for nothing. Claws descended, teeth snapped, Branimar did not scream. He accused, he raged. He knew. The beast had declared him a target, howled out at him, taunted. That was all Branimar needed. There was only one person he’d ever known who hated him enough to kill him, and they couldn’t even dirty their own hands with Branimar’s blood. They couldn’t even take his life themself. It enraged him, more than it scared him- and then the rage was gone. His niece, terrified, was the first to find him being torn asunder, living and fighting hopelessly. His wife, the next as he faded. Then his eldest. He could hear the screaming, even as he was made headless and those precious few seconds of life left in his brain struggled. Then he could hear nothing at all. ⪻────𖤓────⪼

Seisho Yuki feels exhausted relief wash over her battered shell. She'd nearly gone down in the skirmish, struggled with the cannons... but they'd made it. Somehow. Pride swells in her mechanical chest at the realization.

Yuki thought she had finally lost the ability to have humor in her metal shell, battered by anxiety and negativity and the world falling apart. But this. This brought a (metaphorical) smile to her face and a grinding laugh to her voice box. And some relief for her norlandic friends she hadn't been able to contact.

Honestly, considering the frequency and possibility of metagaming having a system that forces you more rp out of phylactery destruction past, as someone said, your window being left open seems to be a good idea. Have some rp with your pk forcing yknow +1

Branimar fills with pride and joy - and no small amount of relief - everytime he sees his wife and child, their strength and their survival. He remains near to them for a long while, thinkingHe joins Lorelei Mairi's side in the construction of their home when he's not with his family, determined to create a home worthy of them however long it may take, or however weary the work might get.

⥼───────────────────⥽ ❅ ⥼───────────────────⥽ It was no small thing, to have lost her body. Her skin, once her own - once warm and living - was unyielding. Everything about her was carefully planned, measured, and built into something that could only truly be described as perfection. Curated, molded, a perfection she hadn’t chosen - one of hard lines, precise limits, and exhaustive maintenance. It takes steady hands and a steadier mind to uphold perfection, and she had neither. She let herself rot, let her perfect form grow dirty. Shining, strong Ferrum had grown dull and scratched in the past years. Grae’s joints creaked louder as she ignored them time and again. Her fingers bore deep gouges from a lack of caution. Her dexterity had faded. What good was it for, after all, providing maintenance to a shell she hated? Yet she lived. She lived against her will and couldn’t bring herself to end it. She was stuck in a limbo both imposed on her by another and by herself. “Cowardice” she called it. She reached out for help and rejected it all the same. She clung to her personhood, yet she cast it aside. She’d become a creature of contradictions, of uncontrollable mood and emotionless calculation. Eventually, she met a mentor. She agreed to change her name in time, to start fresh. When Grae’s mentor tasked her with meditation - told her to feel what she once was despite her metal body - She held back laughter. She knew that would merely earn her discipline in the moment. It wasn’t ‘til she’d set onto the road that she’d bothered to criticize the task: how absurd it felt. Her mentor didn’t deserve such, but it was still a ridiculous thing to ask of Grae in her opinion. Asking her to try and delve deep into her soul and mind to try and remember what was long lost and dredge up a reality that she couldn’t get back felt cruel, maybe even torturous. Yet all the same she went travelling North to Ailmere, then beyond. ⥼───────────────────⥽ ❅ ⥼───────────────────⥽ There in the North, Grae found her spot. Closer to the sea than the jagged mountain line that encompassed Ailmere. Near a crumbling Witch’s keep and a distant tower, she sat in the snow. She tied a blindfold about her unblinking eyes and crossed her legs, hands folding into her lap. Frost built slowly over the layers of furs and wools she wore, creeping into the unmaintained joints beneath. Her blood slowed. Still, she remained. She sat and imagined as instructed. Every whistle of the wind, every crack and shift of snow was fuel. She imagined the sting of cold on skin, the way it numbs fingers, burns lungs, turns breath into mist. She remembered the bite of life and the warmth within her that had once resisted it. Then, her memory joined her imagination. She saw her face, or whatever she remembered her face to be. She saw herself running in her old home in Celia’nor as a child. She saw a place that’d never quite left her heart and a version of herself that lived long before her metal shell. She caught crickets and beetles, chased birds, wondered if she could fly too someday. The sun rose, pulling her to reality and back to the present. She couldn’t move at first. For hours she remained frozen, joints locked. Not until midday - when the sun melted the ice crusting over her - did she rise. Gears squealed out into the mountain air. But there was a peace in Grae’s soul she hadn’t felt for a long time. She’d remembered what was lost in her change from flesh to machine, and then willingly let it go. Yet she remembered it was still her, despite her situation. She owed her mentor a silent apology. After she cared for her frozen joints on the journey back home, she owed an apology to herself too. ⥼───────────────────⥽ ❅ ⥼───────────────────⥽