Illarion Albireo (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
unsheathedfromreality) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
deercountry2022-01-05 09:31 pm
unsheathedfromreality) wrote in deercountry2022-01-05 09:31 pm
Entry tags:
I don't wish to evade the world | OTA
Who: Illarion, Ives, and anyone else sucked into the chaos vortex
What: A yurtwarming party + memories and misadventures (in comments)
When: Whenever
Where: Wherever
Shakira: Shakira
Content Warnings: Will warn per prompt!
November had been a cruel month for all Trench, mired in corruption and sacrifice; December had opened no better with its piercing chill and Sleepers pit one against the other by an ancient and echoing folly. Darkbloods in particular had been afflicted with the compounding feeling of control slipping through their fingers, and even Illarion--whose dead heart was beyond most emotions (so he thought)--couldn't escape the sense that everything was about to go horribly, irrevocably wrong if he didn't rein it in.
So he'd vanished into Trenchwood to get control of hislife existence and somehow ended up building a couple of yurts with Ives. Funny, how that worked out.
Forever my home (OTA-ish, with Ives, early January, Trenchwood)
With the start of the year and the advent of the Egg Moon, life (and undeath) is suddenly looking a lot more positive. Once they'd finished their house-building, Illarion noted (and Ives agreed) that there were certain forms to be upheld: They should invite other Sleepers over to visit. Invitations trickled out over Omni and Omen to people they know, informing them of a new Lamp location and offering an opportunity for food, camaraderie, and conversation away from the heated and busy confines of the Snake Den.
The square for their odd little village of two (sometimes three) is where all the action's at, for any who come looking in response to the invitation. The fire pit is the center of attention: Large enough to contain a bonfire, lined with hand-laid stone, and often host to a simmering stewpot with food enough to share. Several logs surround it at a comfortable distance from the heat, allowing ease and conversation. Ives' yurt stands nearby, just large enough to give the Giant a sheltered place to sleep, and a small covered well with attendant pail offers fresh water. The Lamp, and its Lamp Friends (decorated with ribbon for the season), are opposite the fire from the yurt and a little ways into the trees. Discreet incense burners ring the clearing in a faint pall of smoke, with scents of pine and wet moss that pleasantly smooth Trenchwood's harsher odors--and more importantly, keep the beasts away.
A path leads away from the fire, off toward the distant mirror of the Salt Lake, permanently red this month thanks to Moon Presence's... presence. Sleepers with very sharp eyes might make out the mounded shadow of another yurt in that direction.
One or both of the Giant and the shrike might be found hanging around the place if expecting guests. Ives may be tending to a fine vegetable stew, attending to various little maintenance tasks, or simply sitting at his ease by the fire. He's also acquired a pan flute at some point and is looking for any excuse to play it. Illarion's often keeping incense lit, mending gear and cleaning weapons, or when he's in the mood--and that's often, this month--holding forth in story or song to anyone around to listen.
((OOC: Let us know if you want onefurry, the other, or both on your tag in!))
What: A yurtwarming party + memories and misadventures (in comments)
When: Whenever
Where: Wherever
Content Warnings: Will warn per prompt!
November had been a cruel month for all Trench, mired in corruption and sacrifice; December had opened no better with its piercing chill and Sleepers pit one against the other by an ancient and echoing folly. Darkbloods in particular had been afflicted with the compounding feeling of control slipping through their fingers, and even Illarion--whose dead heart was beyond most emotions (so he thought)--couldn't escape the sense that everything was about to go horribly, irrevocably wrong if he didn't rein it in.
So he'd vanished into Trenchwood to get control of his
Forever my home (OTA-ish, with Ives, early January, Trenchwood)
With the start of the year and the advent of the Egg Moon, life (and undeath) is suddenly looking a lot more positive. Once they'd finished their house-building, Illarion noted (and Ives agreed) that there were certain forms to be upheld: They should invite other Sleepers over to visit. Invitations trickled out over Omni and Omen to people they know, informing them of a new Lamp location and offering an opportunity for food, camaraderie, and conversation away from the heated and busy confines of the Snake Den.
The square for their odd little village of two (sometimes three) is where all the action's at, for any who come looking in response to the invitation. The fire pit is the center of attention: Large enough to contain a bonfire, lined with hand-laid stone, and often host to a simmering stewpot with food enough to share. Several logs surround it at a comfortable distance from the heat, allowing ease and conversation. Ives' yurt stands nearby, just large enough to give the Giant a sheltered place to sleep, and a small covered well with attendant pail offers fresh water. The Lamp, and its Lamp Friends (decorated with ribbon for the season), are opposite the fire from the yurt and a little ways into the trees. Discreet incense burners ring the clearing in a faint pall of smoke, with scents of pine and wet moss that pleasantly smooth Trenchwood's harsher odors--and more importantly, keep the beasts away.
A path leads away from the fire, off toward the distant mirror of the Salt Lake, permanently red this month thanks to Moon Presence's... presence. Sleepers with very sharp eyes might make out the mounded shadow of another yurt in that direction.
One or both of the Giant and the shrike might be found hanging around the place if expecting guests. Ives may be tending to a fine vegetable stew, attending to various little maintenance tasks, or simply sitting at his ease by the fire. He's also acquired a pan flute at some point and is looking for any excuse to play it. Illarion's often keeping incense lit, mending gear and cleaning weapons, or when he's in the mood--and that's often, this month--holding forth in story or song to anyone around to listen.
((OOC: Let us know if you want one
Not just a baby....one could even say he's a SMAUL one.....I'll see myself out now.
That is well put. He didn't want an apprentice to train to eventually take his place. All he ever wanted was a weapon, without thoughts my own, as unfeeling as the saberstaff that I wielded.
[The worst part is how well it had worked. Maul had been turned into his master's faithful creature, blindly serving him in the hopes of gaining respect if not love, once he'd learned the painful lesson that Sidious was incapable of loving anyone. But even that had been beyond Maul's grasp. It was only recently he's started to process what he'd gone through as a child and learn how he can move on from that stunted mindset he'd been thrust into after he was kidnapped at age five.]
In the genetic sense? No. I never knew who my biological sire was. Nightkin are entirely matriarchal in structure and males are kept off in the shadows for whatever their mate desires. Usually, that's breeding.
[Maul has never given his biological father much thought. His mother had more than provided enough love and support during his early years, and as with the custom, he'd more than likely been killed after Maul's youngest brother Feral was born and he had served his purpose as mate to the most powerful Nightsister in the clan.
Maul sighs heavily, watching his younger self struggling to connect with the Force through his pain.]
But he is the closest thing to one I ever had and was the only one I ever knew.
no stay here, i appreciate u & smaul
Context could justify or soften an apparent injustice. Here, it only makes it worse.]
My mother did not want a son. [His own sense of fairness required he requite a part of his own past in return for what he saw of others, the more so when it was painful and private.] She wanted a plaything, a puppet. A prize that would make others give her the adoration she craved. She was cruel, when I did not fit this mold.
She was crueler, when I departed it.
Did you escape him? [Then a breath of a pause, and--] A moment, forgive me--
[If this were the sort of memory that permitted outsiders to affect it, he thinks, they'd have been noticed by its two players by now. So there is really no point in Illarion seeing if he can step into it, toward the shelves, but he tries that step forward anyway. He can't not act when there's a child in pain.
Even dead, even hollowed of animating emotion, he can't remain still for that.]
no subject
A child without love will never flourish. They turn out horrible in all sorts of ways.
[He knew that well enough here in Trench, where it seems like half the population has horrible parents.]
Not precisely. I stayed with him until my early twenties. By that point, I had no thoughts of trying to leave any longer. I got into a battle which I lost. After that, most thought I was dead, my master included. He underestimated the monster he'd created. But I survived and after thirteen years of being in my own personal hell, it was enough to break the hold he had on me.
[Probably the only good thing that had come after Maul had been sliced in half by Obi-Wan Kenobi. Maul knows he never would have broken his master's brainwashing otherwise. He had been his master's faithful weapon for so long at that point that there was no thoughts of leaving or betraying him. He would have continued on as his pawn so long as Sidious had needed him.
Alas, there's nothing Illarion can do for the poor boy in the memory. The child version of Maul struggles to stay conscious, let alone connect with the Dark Side of the Force when he's in so much pain. His breathing is shuddering and irregular as he tries to meditate. The emotions coming off the boy are so potent as to nearly be visible. The deep fear of Sidious is the most present one but it's also tempered with anger at being put into this situation at all and that desire all children have to please their parents. Eventually, his breath starts to even out, but by this point he has lost a very large amount of blood for such a little boy. It's not really clear if he's even still conscious or falling into a half-doze as he begins to slump over.
While there's nothing to be done for his child self, the adult version of Maul watches and he does like what he sees. Granted, wanting to help an injured child is something most decent people would have wanted to do, but Maul knows decent people are a lot more rare than they should be.]