xenologue 2 | can you see our brand new start underneath the devil’s heart? [closed]

[hegemonwings]

🧙 WHO: Byleth Eisner and Edelgard von Hresvelg
⚔️️ WHAT: A heart to heart at the ritual and in its aftermath.
🕒 WHEN: The solstice
🗺️ WHERE: Celliwig
⚠️ WARNINGS: Fear, anxiety, mortality, magical self-harm.



It had been an easy enough decision to participate in the ritual alongside Edelgard. This was an unfamiliar place, and after the unpleasantness of the trials she found it difficult to trust the fae. So, they'd do this together. Byleth stares into the lava as they stand beneath the fountain, half-listening to the words of the Celliwig leader. She's seen molten rock before, of course—she's conjured it from beneath the earth—but something so formalized seems strange. She wonders what stone the circle might be made of to resist the heat, or what enchantments are at play here, but...

Right. The offering. She takes a breath, before looking to her partner and managing a small, wry smile as she moves a thick lock of blue hair behind one ear. "Blood or hair seems too impersonal, doesn't it?"

Comments

[flame_emperor]

"True." Edelgard agrees, her voiced hush to listen to the words being spoken by the fae. She's seen magic; Adrestia is famous for the quality of its mages, and even the Emperor knows her way around a few spells. But this is something different; older and more primal. It feels almost uncomfortably close to the Immaculate One and her ilk, the real Children of the Goddess and not the sacraments of the church they'd built to hide behind.

But the presence of the woman next to her makes it easier to bear, and for the sake of Camelot, and Fódlan—all their Fódlans—she would bear it. "But I think I have something suitable." Looking around surreptitiously, Edelgard pulls up her sleeve, revealing old battle scars and signs of older, deeper cuts from cruel men in masks with long knives, long ago. She then draws the blue-handled dagger from the sheath on her back, holding it over her arm. A small cut, and then her magic can take over. She looks towards Byleth, to make sure the other woman is prepared to make her offering as well.

"Shall we?"