tea with Gwyn

"Blood, blood, and yet more blood," murmured the seldom-seen huntress, that old optimism fading as a spark faded among canopies. There could be no peace within these accursed walls, she knew that now. Her thoughts turned toward family; as all of these people have been used up and tossed aside by their rulers, when would they find a reason to scapegoat the Hawksongs? "Need to have a word with the wife. Time's come to not go down with the ship."

The news reached Lya late as she reclined beside the hearth of the Hawksong Manor, cradling her youthful daughter Asula in her arms. The girl had gotten so big, so quickly. Lya knew it would only continue. She had raised a girl before, after all. But it never became any easier. The mirth drained from her pale face as she was informed of her nephew's fate. Lya was not spared the gruesome details, but thankfully she'd had a mind to cover Asula's ears so that she didn't have to hear what had happened. They wept for hours. To Asula, Llokir had been a supportive and fun elder cousin with a lot to say. To Lya, Llokir was a nephew with a golden heart, buried in raging embers and cloaked in indignant flame. She had hoped he would be able to escape to a better life, that he could have been happy, but it was not meant to be. Lya had explained to Asula years ago how death worked and why it happened. But that had been natural death. Impersonal death. A nebulous concept which, for a child, seemed infinitely distant. But now, here she was, struggling to explain why people die when they don't have to, trying to figure out how to describe or even determine where Llokir's soul set off to following his death. It was so hard to think about anything other than the loss; the hole in Lya's heart which had been filled by a nephew with infinite potential, snuffed. Grief, once again, became Lya's closest friend.

"If you did ne wish for more bloodshed," Lya observed, musing quietly beside the bulletin board in Amathea, "then you would ne taunt our orcish foes into further conflict, would not relish in the bloodshed you claim to regret. This is propaganda, disgusting."

The Storm Druid was eager to meet these Musin and planned a trip to Urguan right away, preparing to bring gifts but wary of cheese as a stereotype- she would only bring a little cheese.

It took Lya some time to fully process the news. The Sorvian that acted as a dutiful courier was pat on the head and Lya took to her home on the beaches of the Atoll Grove. She stared up through the window at edge of the plateau, curled up in her bed, eyes puffed and red with iritation. She sipped at a glass of warm tea while her wife comforted her, their child playing innocently in the background. Lya had been commissioned, trusted with something wholly dear to her dearly departed friend. Lya would be there for Eliza, no matter what.

The open missive of demands was met from the Storm Druid by appalled and incredulous laughter. She wiped away her tears with the parchment before tearing it up to build a makeshift nest for a bird whose wing was injured. "Oh, I haven't had a laugh like that in months... as much as I would give to see Evar'tir kiss an orc's feet, they can't seriously believe these demands will all be met. Ahhh.. let them come and bang their clubs on the gate."

With youth chattering behind her, Lya of House Hawksong gazed down at the woman who had become her mother since she began her dedicancy. More to Lya than a 'druid mom', Liri was her haelun. At one point in time the only woman she could trust; one of the only people she could trust. Lya loved her dearly. "You're sure you want to do this, Lya? There's no backing out after this. You will be bound to your duties forevermore." Liri, ever compassionate, did not wish to see her cub lock herself into a life she would be unhappy with. She offered Lya one last out. Lya did not take it. She wouldn't quit when she was so, so close. "As certain as one can be, haelun. I am ready to embrace the duties." Lya's declaration was met with the golden-honey voice of her wife, Titania, speaking softly, "Sivako, Lya." Titania was the woman that Lya loved in a way she had never loved before. Her rock, her light, her anchor. Her port in a ruthless storm. "Lay down, then, cub. Close your eyes when you're ready," Liri spoke, beginning to call on her Gifts to initiate the process of attunement. Lya submerged her body in the waters, leaving her head to remain above the surface, and taking a deep breath. As the peach mist glided across the placid surface, Lya was pulled from reality and into something deeper and more subjective. There was nothing for a few short milliseconds. Pure blackness and lack of sensation. Unconsciousness, on the most base level. And then, feeling. Grass on her back. Air in her lungs. A breeze lightly billowing along. The sound of rustling canopies. Lya opened her eyes and found herself within a dark forest, surrounded on all sides by trees as far as the eye could see. She reached up, her metal fingers finding purchase against the bark of a dark tree. She hauled herself to her feet, looking around and picking up a sound. A melodic sound, one like a distant band playing the theme of a gentle creek. Lya instinctively moved toward this noise, feeling the grass underfoot, the breeze encouraging her, the music growing louder until... Lya looked upon a peaceful and welcoming scene, as though taken directly from some of her sweetest dreams. How could this be, she wondered, her eyes wide as she took in the sight. There, with a bamboo flute in her hands, sat Nora Winterleaf- Lya's birth mother, the woman who gave her such kindness and love before it was all taken away. Beside Nora, her father, Eitren, slapping his palms against the skin of a thick, tall drum. He looked fulfilled, joyous even, which was not how she remembered him- the reckless and brash man whose carelessness had set the homestead ablaze, dooming him and his wife. There was no animosity between them, and here, now, there was no animosity from Lya. Only love. "Mayilu!" cried a familiar, rich voice. Titania was here too?... "Come join us!" Lya was compelled to glance around, spotting one more familiar face. Taven, a kind human man who had offered to adopt Lya in her earlier years. He, like her blood parents, was long dead; of age or injury, she did not know. His fingers danced across the keys of the piano he sat at, producing the most lovely melodic, resounding sound. There was but one empty chair, and at its feet, Lya's chosen instrument- her harp, constructed by Haegen Silverhand on special commission. A beautiful piece of musical inspiration, one which she was honored to learn to play. Teary-eyed, she took up the seat and the harp both, settling back and beginning to play. Her loved ones picked up the tune behind her, reveling in it, harmonizing and capitalizing on its ebbs and flows to produce a wondrous symphony out of such few players. It was beautiful; Lya wished she could inhabit that moment forever. The faces which joined on the edges of the firelight were all familiar to her with few exception. Lle, her adoptive daughter, a strong and intelligent young woman, stood beside someone who wasn't a stranger, nor was she familiar. Lya's wild, fiery locks, paired with those heart-meltingly regal golden hues. This was her daughter, Asula, but she was grown. Almost a woman. Lya felt a pang of worry, that she had missed out on the girl's youth. Asula held no animosity in her gaze, only love and adoration. Lya felt at ease, and continued to play. As her playing shifted and her goal changed, she decided that those who had gathered here were not people she wished to disappoint. They were here for music, damn it, and she would give them beautiful music. The most beautiful music she knew. She dragged her fingertips across the strings to produce a slowly starting, foot-tapping melody which burst forward into an energetic sprint before calming in a flourish. This was Phoenix Flight, a Hawksong tune, one she had been blessed with. Lya's focus was so wholly given to her playing that she did not, at first, realize that a storm was brewing around her. When she finished playing, she wiped her eyes, feeling a sense of peace and contentment that had, for so many years of her life, been alien. She cried, openly, giving in to the shattered child that still lived inside of her. These people, they were her everything. She wanted nothing more than to thank them, but when she tried, she found herself unable. First she choked on her own breath, and then, as though she had been taken back a hundred and seventy years in time, her voice was like thick black smoke and burning embers. It felt as though the contents of the family firepit had been emptied into her maw and Lya felt suddenly very alone. She rushed to her mother, to Nora, desperate for some way out of this personal purgatory which had been inflicted on her. Lya had hated being a mute, hated being alone, hated being unable to merge with a collective. She just wanted her mama. But from Nora, now, there was animosity. There was contempt and disdain. Lya continued to weep as Nora spoke, "Look at you. Not even a single word for me, after all this time..?" She had to understand, she had to, that Lya never wanted this. There was nothing she wished for more in this moment than to tell her mother how much she loved and missed her, and she didn't see that. She only saw the surface of Lya- she saw only what Lya let everyone else see. She retreated in disbelief, her wide, violet eyes affixed to her mother's as her head shook in despair. This couldn't be how her mother would treat her- this couldn't be what she deserved. This was not what she left behind in the ashes of her home, almost two centuries ago. She turned to her father, hoping beyond hope that this loving, compassionate side to him would not disappear again. But she was wrong. So very, deathly wrong. "Speak, Little Flame. I raised you better than this." His demands were met with more rasped noise and desperate silence, Lya's wide eyes doing the pleading that her voice could not. He had to see, he had to understand- he had to be there for her! It wasn't fair! "Typical," he chided, shaking his head in disapproval and disdain. "Extinguished again." Lya hadn't noticed until now, but she was being slowly submerged by the rainfall which had become relentless and chilling to the core. Lya waded away from her parents, who she had all but betrayed in her inability to speak to them. She turned to the person who she was bonded to for life, her wife, Titania. She begged without words for Titania to be there for her, to understand, and perhaps unsurprisingly, this time she was not so cold and unforgiving. Instead, she showed a characteristic concern for Lya's well-being- for the water was rising rapidly and would swallow her up any moment now. "Mayilu!" she pleaded. "Why aren't you doing anything?" Why indeed? Lya'd had a fear of the deep for years, one she was only still in the process of fully overcoming. Was her fear of rejection so great that she had lost all sense of self-preservation in the face of the rising tide? She would have to speculate and meditate on this point later, because she was swallowed up just like that, and cast into the abyss. She fell. She fell as pebbles fall down wells. She was scattered as jackstones were scattered from a gigantic throw. And now instead of faces there was only darkness. Her lungs emptied in terror as the crushing depths surrounded her, pulling her ever deeper into an impossible abyss. She felt as though she could never escape, that there was nothing left for her but to become victim to the inhospitable and alien world of the sea. There was naught but emptiness around her with one distant exception- the harp, glowing almost like the beacon of a lighthouse casting its rays out to sea. She knew not if it would save her- she knew only that it meant something to her and that she wished to eek out her final moments with some measure of peace and comfort. Something to remind her of the good things that she had been blessed with and by. And then, pain, followed by the heaving sensation of being yanked along like a fish on a hook. She was hauled from the depths and cast to the ground, coughing and spluttering and gasping for breath as her lungs emptied of water. Her rescuer stood above her, staring down dispassionately and sternly. Lya tried to figure out just what she was looking at; something dark, feline, and... lonesome. Like herself. "Giving up so easily, huntress?" the being asked, before Lya was bombarded by a deep and terrible buzzing which permeated her very being. She shook and grasped her head, trying to block out the noise as the Panther Mani addressed her again. "All it takes is a little rain, is it?" She challenged Lya's will, something which gave her the strength through spite to bring herself to her feet. Circling around her, Norra focused on the huntress like a wounded rabbit. But Lya would show her the storm she could unleash. All the things that Lya hated about herself, all the things which held her back, she would make them her weapon. It would work! It had to.. But the storm didn't stop the Mani. No storm ever could. But no Mani could ever kill a storm. At least that is what Norra seemed to suggest when she informed Lya how lucky she was. Why had Lya genuinely thought that her worst traits would be her salvation? "When you are gone, Lya, when you wither away, it is your song that will remain." These words stuck with the harpist huntress, who understood at last. Her song was her legacy. Her music was her being. Her love and her compassion and her joy and her conviction to be the best version of herself she could be- these were the things she would leave behind. Lya gave up on trying to fight or defend from Norra, from the avatar of her fate, and instead embraced it. She leapt into the flowing river of her life and swam with the current, rather than against it. The vision ended momentarily thereafter. Lya surged from the waters, enveloped in the harsh and ever-present songs of the wilds. She was met with the sight of her haelun, her chosen mother, beaming down at her, and welcoming her back to the world. Lya entered the attunement pool an incomplete, immature, broken woman, and emerged whole again. Lya was a storm, and storms were beautiful, tempestuous, dangerous, and unavoidable. She was the Storm Druid. ((This has been a long time coming now. Ever since my first time playing a druid with Raine Winterleaf, I've wanted to do it again, but better. Raine was a shining example of someone immature who thought they were mature whose writing treated them like they were mature without being so. By that I mean to say that I was a dumbass and a kid and I want to give my fellow druids the best writing I can offer now. I want to thank @Kuila @TwilightWolf @cxrley @Rayalia @RachelPotato @DragonofTaters @TimberBuff @NomadGaia @Luciloo, and so many others for making my time on the server recently so enjoyable. Here's to many more angsty, dramatic, or joyful moments to come! ^^))

"The defenseless did not have to die... the barbarism is palpable. Time to check if this is real."

Lya Hawksong discovered a copy of this missive somewhere in Elvenesse for some reason and while she didn't tear it down, she did laugh. "I don't know of a single Canonist elf... oh well, I suppose no one deserves to be killed for their faith."

"This... has to be a joke." Lya Hawksong, grimacing deeply, tore the poster she found in the elven city of Amathea from the sculpture it'd been posted on, crumpling it up before flinging it into the nearest fire. "A sixteen year old seeking a spouse... limiting herself in her dawning years to a wealthy man of high stature. What happens when, in fifty years, this girl is a sagging hag and her husband has slept with ten other women that week alone?"

Nobody is arguing to never commission an artist for a customized piece. I think it's incredibly rude of you to come into a thread meant to promote positivity and come down on us for using a free resource rather than spending the money on something we may just not be able to afford. You don't know anything about our income, disposable or not, so don't assume we can all just save up to buy art. Maybe you aren't satisfied by picrews, but don't push that onto other people. Thank you and good day.

https://imgur.com/a/ZcGBSU0 Compiled all of mine here because of the forums' weird restriction on attachments. Enjoy!

"We're finally doing this. No obstacles can stand in our way this time! I love you, Titania," spoke theViolet Lady.