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Eloras Ghost Banishing 241113
On a stormy night within the eerie confines of Arkwright Cemetery, Elora, a determined and experienced practitioner of the arcane, oversees a ghost banishing ritual with her apprentice, Isolde. The air is thick with supernatural tension, punctuated by the soft, sinister giggles of a fae child's spirit haunting the graveyard. The ritual, fueled by bloodletting and intricate sigil work, aims to confront and banish this playful yet disruptive presence. As midnight cloaks the cemetery, the ritual unfolds under a cloak of rain and lightning, with Elora guiding Isolde through the arcane complexities. The ceremony is deeply personal; it is a test of wills, a teacher's faith in her apprentice, and an apprentice's resolve under the mentorship of her enigmatic guide.
The ritual, however, evolves into something far more intimate and revealing. Amidst the spectral whirlwind and the frenetic dance of will-o'-the-wisps, Elora and Isolde confront not just the ghostly fae but also the depths of their own emotions and desires. In vulnerable admissions, Elora confesses a childhood dream of being seen on the stage, symbolizing a yearning for acknowledgment, while Isolde blurts out a dark secret about enjoying the act of killing—highlighting a deep-seated struggle with morality and identity. The ritual's climax intertwines the supernatural with the raw, human need for connection, redemption, and acceptance. In the end, the line between banishing a ghost and confronting one's own specters blurs, leaving both Elora and Isolde forever intertwined in a dance of mentorship, revelatory truths, and the quest for personal atonement amidst the shadows of Arkwright Cemetery.
(Elora's ghost banishing)
[Tue Nov 12 2024]
On the Sprawling Hillside of Arkwright Cemetery
It is night, about 49F(9C) degrees, and the sky is covered by dark grey stormclouds. It's raining. There is a waxing gibbous moon.
Child-like giggling begins to fill the graveyard, it comes from everywhere, filling the minds of the small gathering here only to suddenly cut off, leaving everything dead silent, not even the wind makes a sound, the distant cars passing the graveyard have been muted. Only local voices can be heard by one another.
The cold makes the blood letting a cool, clinical thing. Isolde bites her lips as she watches the tap drain, pressing into it with her free hand to see how much can spill forth.
A soft giggle echoes in the air, followed by the scent of roses. For a brief moment, the face of a lover or crush you havent seen in years flashes before your eyeswas it real, or just a trick?
Elora stands over her apprentice, the storm's downpour soaking her midnight-black clothing. Rain drips from her pale hair, mixing with the droplets that already cling to the ceremonial dagger she holds. The blade is ornate and cruel, glistening with a silver sheen, etched with arcane patterns that shimmer when lightning streaks across the sky. She looks down with an air of calculated indifference, eyes capturing the cold luminescence of the moon that filters through the restless clouds.
It is also a blade tinged red now. Red with her apprentice's blood. "To your sigil work, apprentice, mine," Elora orders. Elora bites her lip, reveling in the bloodletting.
leaks out into a soft muted spiral to the dirt. Isolde pauses, and then frowns as a face with no features is cut with spectre scalpel into her mind.
Isolde leaks out into a soft muted spiral to the dirt. Isolde pauses, and then frowns as a face with no features is cut with spectre scalpel into her mind.
"These ghosts are not as cruel as some. I believe them to be a friend of Lirael. They will want to play games with us, have us share things with each other. It is not so bad as some." She motions towards monuments. "Typically I would suggest we setup the circle nearer to a monument. These provide cover at times with the more violent specters. Its well that you spend some time not just in doing the working, but in noticing the spirit. Some people wonder how it is that a mancer can accomplish what they do and its believed by me and many others that the method is actually through interaction with spirits. You'll find that most arcanists of any talent have the ability to both hear and see them. Its more obvious in the case of a bound minion that this is such." Elora lectures.
"Ohh.." Isolde shivers as she writes her name in the latin characters, "I hear them. They want to play a game with my mind- but even I don't know it, so how can we decide the rules?"
A flash of light reveals a dancing figure, twirling gracefully through the air. Their voice is sing-songy as they tease, 'He loves me... he loves me not...' Each time they speak, doubt flickers in your heart about your closest relationships.
Isolde draws a particularly harsh series of characters regarding the target. She exalts in the growing frost, indecently so as she folds her legs together- leaving one hand to to be her second pillar as she continues to bleed. She's liberal with it, buy this point. The channels- the currents, are carved like god unto the world's river basins. "How much WOULD you do to me? More than her?"
Elora herself is looking toward the playful fae child's ghost. "It is not here enough to decide on rules. It is a psychic echo of what it once was. The desire to play is still there. Perhaps some measure of compulsion. Ultimately though it can't think through things like the rules that a true game would require. We are not really playing such a game with it. Moreso, we are banishing it, to prevent it from causing problems. This is a good work in that it means the spirits won't be leaving this graveyard to trouble others. The Understanding is better kept dealing with the spirits while they are still well away from the public eye." Elora looks to Isolde, checking over her sigil work to make sure that she is doing the proper ritual. The blood soaked and rain soaked ground keeps her attention even as she continues to talk.
Elora glances at Isolde. "Another thing worth knowing is that it is well known how active this place can be. There are scouts that likely watch us. I abhor this." She looks at nothing in particular, though perhaps, in the direction of one of those scouts. "Abhor them." She glares. "But they will likely report on anything they happen to hear."
Elora watches her apprentice as she continues to spill more and more blood out onto the soggy ground. "You are perhaps too liberal with it. Your goal isn't to lose as much blood as possible. Sure in your first tries, yes, but more and more you need to find the minimum. Less each time until you discover when it starts to feel wrong. Its sloppy to need to kill a full virgin when a thimble of blood would do." Elora lilts in an English accent, her voice lyrical. She looks away now from the growing array of runes toward the dancing green light.
Isolde softens as she dots 'i's that aren't there. The sigil has become a modern art project of 3-4 ugly colors. The rain isn't helping as it tries to find puddle in the furrows she's dug into the ground. "Will they? If you take me with all of the dead to see, will you restrain yourself enough that I will not be loud.." It's hardly a question as she stares down, tracing her fingers in a soft swirl.
Isolde says, with a gallows laugh, "A-am I bad at this?"
Elora nods. "Yes. And in truth I'm not much better. An expert can get by with a thimble of themselves. It takes more from me. Too much, really. I don't devote myself enough to figuring out how little I can use as I ought to. Partly its because a lot of my knowledge was more forced into my mind than learned naturally. I've only recently gotten to the point where I feel confident enough in my Arcana to experiment more. Cordina was not a teacher who encouraged experimentation." She shivers.
A flash of light reveals a dancing figure, twirling gracefully through the air. Their voice is sing-songy as they tease, 'He loves me... he loves me not...' Each time they speak, doubt flickers in your heart about your closest relationships.
Elora swallows nervously and glances at Isolde. "Do you love me?" She wonders aloud. "I know you want to be my apprentice, but..."
Isolde stiffens over her sigil. She inhales the faint frost into herself, her finger stopping as the breath sits like a long drag.
Isolde says "You are, t-to my mind, the only thing I have ever loved- the only thing there is."
Elora moves closer to the runic circle taking shape and kneels down beside Isolde. Casually, she lets her arm bump against the other girl as she moves to grab her hand. Gentle, she guides her hand, helping her to adjust one of the sigils.
Elora has her breath catch as she kneels beside Isolde, the rain soaking through her clothing and tracing icy rivers down her back. She shifts closer, their bodies nearly touching, and her pale hand lingers on Isoldes, guiding the girl's cold fingers to correct the intricate sigil. Her movements are both firm and delicate, each correction etched with purpose. "Focus," she whispers, her voice cutting through the cold with the warmth of a teachers insistence. The energy in the circle intensifies, the runes vibrating subtly under the rainfall, glowing brighter with each adjustment they make. It's not yet a brightness noticeable by human eyes, but to someone with more acute senses, the arcana is starting to come alive.
The chill in the air carries the scent of old, wet roses, mingling with the metallic tang of blood. Eloras gaze shifts upward for a moment, scanning the cemetery with cautious awareness, and her eyes catch on the flickering shadow of the playful fae spirit, twirling in the storm's glow. Lightning splits the sky, illuminating the cemetery's twisted monuments, and the spectral figure dances mockingly between the headstones, its sing-song taunt echoing: "He loves me he loves me not"
A swarm of beautiful blue winged butterflies sweep into the area and move as one to form the shape of a curvaceous female form, it moves as if to dance whimsically across the grave and as easily as it formed the butterflies scatter into thousands of directions.
Elora exhales, forcing down the shiver that threatens to betray her nerves. She leans in closer to Isolde, their faces inches apart, the icy rain mingling with the soft heat of their shared breath. "You are doing well," she murmurs, her voice both reassuring and commanding, a blend of encouragement and authority. "But remember," she continues, gently brushing a strand of Isoldes wet hair out of her face, "in the future you're going to face harsher ghosts than this. Real challenge. You'll need to be ready to both defend yourself and also complete the ritual -- both at once."
Isolde doesn't, not really. Her arm rather becomes the brush, the tool to the artist. To what end does a brush think? It knows the color it is to paint. "You're here." Isolde responds, swallowing.
Isolde dips her nose into the neck of her educator, following the lesson as well as a dog in a car crash. "Kiss me? Tell me I'm here?"
A flash of light reveals a dancing figure, twirling gracefully through the air. Their voice is sing-songy as they tease, 'He loves me... he loves me not...' Each time they speak, doubt flickers in your heart about your closest relationships.
Eloras arm wraps firmly around Isolde, pulling the smaller woman closer until the warmth of their bodies pushes back against the cold of the relentless rain. Her hand rests gently on Isoldes back, fingers splayed as if to shield her from the chill of the night, offering what comfort she can in this solemn place of memories and spirits. The storm clouds above continue to rumble, their dissonant cries echoing over the cemetery's twisted stones, and the droplets fall in a steady cadence, soaking through their clothes until it feels as though they are standing in a sea of shadows and water.
Her gaze shifts to the distant shadows where the ghostly fae child dances, the spectral figure twirling in and out of the flickering lightning. The storms light paints haunting, fractured images across the landscape, illuminating every rose-draped grave and every crooked monument in stark relief.
Eloras voice softens as she tilts her head down, close enough for her words to reach only Isoldes ears, even with the drumming rain. We are watched," Elora chasites, lightly. "I am not a show for scouts.""
Who can say what tempting fae ghosts think of if doubt seeks love and finds it- answers were close at hand, it seems. In a tunnel of spectral butterflies, a kiler laughs in a soft dead black at the murder she achieved, the future she cemented, the life she has. The white sleeve falls over her arm, "I'm the shooow," Isolde whispers from the dream, "just play me out-"
The sexy smell of salt and potato chips- which, in fairness, can be considered more pleasant than cigarettes, is a single cement of identity. Where something changed, a vulnerability once lost- not forgotten, never known. "Know me, Elora-nim-" Isolde insists, "Make the parts I don't?"
"Lirael is an eidolon. She likes to play with hearts. She would approve of your loss of focus, I think. She would likely wish me too as well." Elora gives Isolde a worried glance. Light from her choker brightens Whisps begin to form.
From that light, tiny orbs of brilliance begin to form, hovering in the air like curious spirits called to witness the ritual. Will o' wisps, each one delicate and luminous, flicker into existence and drift through the rain-soaked night. They dance with a gentle, otherworldly grace, swirling around Elora and Isolde, leaving trails of shimmering blue and silver in their wake. The wisps pulse in time with Eloras heartbeat, brightening and dimming like living stars.
The ethereal glow transforms the cemetery into a surreal tableau, where each gravestone and monument casts long, wavering shadows. The roses that have sprung around several graves seem to ignite with spectral beauty, their petals glowing faintly under the will o' wisps' light. The rain, still pouring relentlessly from the storm-laden sky, catches the blue and white radiance, each droplet glistening like a jewel as it falls to the ground. The once-dark and foreboding hillside now seems caught between worlds, a place suspended in the balance between the living and the dead.
Elora bites her lip, looking at the woman who keeps trying to tempt her in the rain.
Elora blushes.
Elora clears her throat, the sound almost lost in the steady drumming of the rain, and her gaze shifts away from Isolde, settling on the blazing runic circle at their feet. The light from the circle pulses in harmony with the will o' wisps, creating a symphony of blue and white brilliance that dances through the storm. Shadows flicker and shift, caught between the rhythmic illumination of the circle and the ghostly glow of the floating orbs.
A soft, melodic voice fills the air, teasing, 'I know something you dont... but what if you already knew? Go on, tell them... or I will!' Suddenly, the urge to spill a long-hidden secret burns in your chest.
"I used to love plays. I wanted to be an actor when I grew up. I wanted to be seen," Elora lilts out. The words come abruptly. Then they halt. And she shivers, staring down into the bloody mess of a circle, blazing with a color so opposite to it.
"I /liked/ it" Isolde blurts out, the inhales frost yanked out by an ethereal chord.
Elora looks at Isolde. Her eyes widen ever so slightly. Teal pools, shocked. She doesn't, however, shy away from her apprentice.
clings to one of Elora's arms like a post, "I /liked/ killing her. I-" Isolde 's lips quiver, "I didn't care what I was taking. I thought it was mine- but- I didn't /care/ if it wasn't."
Isolde says "A-and she just.. GAVE it to me.. It- I.. I couldn't- I don't understand why-"
"I failed her completely. I promised her better than she got," Elora lilts.
Isolde's face scrunches, "How you could CARE for someone like that?"
Elora shakes her head. "Its not about her."
Isolde pushes her face forward. Her fingers are weak garrots. So: shoelaces. "It's about giving back? The first lesson, the deal?"
"And I am moving on, I suppose. I have a better apprentice now," Elora admits.
Elora nods to Isolde.
Isolde's eyebrows delight. The last tangible, visible evidence before she trails up her teacher's neck with a series of, admittedly, virgin kisses.
Elora holds Isolde back from her, angling her head away.
The ritual, however, evolves into something far more intimate and revealing. Amidst the spectral whirlwind and the frenetic dance of will-o'-the-wisps, Elora and Isolde confront not just the ghostly fae but also the depths of their own emotions and desires. In vulnerable admissions, Elora confesses a childhood dream of being seen on the stage, symbolizing a yearning for acknowledgment, while Isolde blurts out a dark secret about enjoying the act of killing—highlighting a deep-seated struggle with morality and identity. The ritual's climax intertwines the supernatural with the raw, human need for connection, redemption, and acceptance. In the end, the line between banishing a ghost and confronting one's own specters blurs, leaving both Elora and Isolde forever intertwined in a dance of mentorship, revelatory truths, and the quest for personal atonement amidst the shadows of Arkwright Cemetery.
(Elora's ghost banishing)
[Tue Nov 12 2024]
On the Sprawling Hillside of Arkwright Cemetery
It is night, about 49F(9C) degrees, and the sky is covered by dark grey stormclouds. It's raining. There is a waxing gibbous moon.
Child-like giggling begins to fill the graveyard, it comes from everywhere, filling the minds of the small gathering here only to suddenly cut off, leaving everything dead silent, not even the wind makes a sound, the distant cars passing the graveyard have been muted. Only local voices can be heard by one another.
The cold makes the blood letting a cool, clinical thing. Isolde bites her lips as she watches the tap drain, pressing into it with her free hand to see how much can spill forth.
A soft giggle echoes in the air, followed by the scent of roses. For a brief moment, the face of a lover or crush you havent seen in years flashes before your eyeswas it real, or just a trick?
Elora stands over her apprentice, the storm's downpour soaking her midnight-black clothing. Rain drips from her pale hair, mixing with the droplets that already cling to the ceremonial dagger she holds. The blade is ornate and cruel, glistening with a silver sheen, etched with arcane patterns that shimmer when lightning streaks across the sky. She looks down with an air of calculated indifference, eyes capturing the cold luminescence of the moon that filters through the restless clouds.
It is also a blade tinged red now. Red with her apprentice's blood. "To your sigil work, apprentice, mine," Elora orders. Elora bites her lip, reveling in the bloodletting.
leaks out into a soft muted spiral to the dirt. Isolde pauses, and then frowns as a face with no features is cut with spectre scalpel into her mind.
Isolde leaks out into a soft muted spiral to the dirt. Isolde pauses, and then frowns as a face with no features is cut with spectre scalpel into her mind.
"These ghosts are not as cruel as some. I believe them to be a friend of Lirael. They will want to play games with us, have us share things with each other. It is not so bad as some." She motions towards monuments. "Typically I would suggest we setup the circle nearer to a monument. These provide cover at times with the more violent specters. Its well that you spend some time not just in doing the working, but in noticing the spirit. Some people wonder how it is that a mancer can accomplish what they do and its believed by me and many others that the method is actually through interaction with spirits. You'll find that most arcanists of any talent have the ability to both hear and see them. Its more obvious in the case of a bound minion that this is such." Elora lectures.
"Ohh.." Isolde shivers as she writes her name in the latin characters, "I hear them. They want to play a game with my mind- but even I don't know it, so how can we decide the rules?"
A flash of light reveals a dancing figure, twirling gracefully through the air. Their voice is sing-songy as they tease, 'He loves me... he loves me not...' Each time they speak, doubt flickers in your heart about your closest relationships.
Isolde draws a particularly harsh series of characters regarding the target. She exalts in the growing frost, indecently so as she folds her legs together- leaving one hand to to be her second pillar as she continues to bleed. She's liberal with it, buy this point. The channels- the currents, are carved like god unto the world's river basins. "How much WOULD you do to me? More than her?"
Elora herself is looking toward the playful fae child's ghost. "It is not here enough to decide on rules. It is a psychic echo of what it once was. The desire to play is still there. Perhaps some measure of compulsion. Ultimately though it can't think through things like the rules that a true game would require. We are not really playing such a game with it. Moreso, we are banishing it, to prevent it from causing problems. This is a good work in that it means the spirits won't be leaving this graveyard to trouble others. The Understanding is better kept dealing with the spirits while they are still well away from the public eye." Elora looks to Isolde, checking over her sigil work to make sure that she is doing the proper ritual. The blood soaked and rain soaked ground keeps her attention even as she continues to talk.
Elora glances at Isolde. "Another thing worth knowing is that it is well known how active this place can be. There are scouts that likely watch us. I abhor this." She looks at nothing in particular, though perhaps, in the direction of one of those scouts. "Abhor them." She glares. "But they will likely report on anything they happen to hear."
Elora watches her apprentice as she continues to spill more and more blood out onto the soggy ground. "You are perhaps too liberal with it. Your goal isn't to lose as much blood as possible. Sure in your first tries, yes, but more and more you need to find the minimum. Less each time until you discover when it starts to feel wrong. Its sloppy to need to kill a full virgin when a thimble of blood would do." Elora lilts in an English accent, her voice lyrical. She looks away now from the growing array of runes toward the dancing green light.
Isolde softens as she dots 'i's that aren't there. The sigil has become a modern art project of 3-4 ugly colors. The rain isn't helping as it tries to find puddle in the furrows she's dug into the ground. "Will they? If you take me with all of the dead to see, will you restrain yourself enough that I will not be loud.." It's hardly a question as she stares down, tracing her fingers in a soft swirl.
Isolde says, with a gallows laugh, "A-am I bad at this?"
Elora nods. "Yes. And in truth I'm not much better. An expert can get by with a thimble of themselves. It takes more from me. Too much, really. I don't devote myself enough to figuring out how little I can use as I ought to. Partly its because a lot of my knowledge was more forced into my mind than learned naturally. I've only recently gotten to the point where I feel confident enough in my Arcana to experiment more. Cordina was not a teacher who encouraged experimentation." She shivers.
A flash of light reveals a dancing figure, twirling gracefully through the air. Their voice is sing-songy as they tease, 'He loves me... he loves me not...' Each time they speak, doubt flickers in your heart about your closest relationships.
Elora swallows nervously and glances at Isolde. "Do you love me?" She wonders aloud. "I know you want to be my apprentice, but..."
Isolde stiffens over her sigil. She inhales the faint frost into herself, her finger stopping as the breath sits like a long drag.
Isolde says "You are, t-to my mind, the only thing I have ever loved- the only thing there is."
Elora moves closer to the runic circle taking shape and kneels down beside Isolde. Casually, she lets her arm bump against the other girl as she moves to grab her hand. Gentle, she guides her hand, helping her to adjust one of the sigils.
Elora has her breath catch as she kneels beside Isolde, the rain soaking through her clothing and tracing icy rivers down her back. She shifts closer, their bodies nearly touching, and her pale hand lingers on Isoldes, guiding the girl's cold fingers to correct the intricate sigil. Her movements are both firm and delicate, each correction etched with purpose. "Focus," she whispers, her voice cutting through the cold with the warmth of a teachers insistence. The energy in the circle intensifies, the runes vibrating subtly under the rainfall, glowing brighter with each adjustment they make. It's not yet a brightness noticeable by human eyes, but to someone with more acute senses, the arcana is starting to come alive.
The chill in the air carries the scent of old, wet roses, mingling with the metallic tang of blood. Eloras gaze shifts upward for a moment, scanning the cemetery with cautious awareness, and her eyes catch on the flickering shadow of the playful fae spirit, twirling in the storm's glow. Lightning splits the sky, illuminating the cemetery's twisted monuments, and the spectral figure dances mockingly between the headstones, its sing-song taunt echoing: "He loves me he loves me not"
A swarm of beautiful blue winged butterflies sweep into the area and move as one to form the shape of a curvaceous female form, it moves as if to dance whimsically across the grave and as easily as it formed the butterflies scatter into thousands of directions.
Elora exhales, forcing down the shiver that threatens to betray her nerves. She leans in closer to Isolde, their faces inches apart, the icy rain mingling with the soft heat of their shared breath. "You are doing well," she murmurs, her voice both reassuring and commanding, a blend of encouragement and authority. "But remember," she continues, gently brushing a strand of Isoldes wet hair out of her face, "in the future you're going to face harsher ghosts than this. Real challenge. You'll need to be ready to both defend yourself and also complete the ritual -- both at once."
Isolde doesn't, not really. Her arm rather becomes the brush, the tool to the artist. To what end does a brush think? It knows the color it is to paint. "You're here." Isolde responds, swallowing.
Isolde dips her nose into the neck of her educator, following the lesson as well as a dog in a car crash. "Kiss me? Tell me I'm here?"
A flash of light reveals a dancing figure, twirling gracefully through the air. Their voice is sing-songy as they tease, 'He loves me... he loves me not...' Each time they speak, doubt flickers in your heart about your closest relationships.
Eloras arm wraps firmly around Isolde, pulling the smaller woman closer until the warmth of their bodies pushes back against the cold of the relentless rain. Her hand rests gently on Isoldes back, fingers splayed as if to shield her from the chill of the night, offering what comfort she can in this solemn place of memories and spirits. The storm clouds above continue to rumble, their dissonant cries echoing over the cemetery's twisted stones, and the droplets fall in a steady cadence, soaking through their clothes until it feels as though they are standing in a sea of shadows and water.
Her gaze shifts to the distant shadows where the ghostly fae child dances, the spectral figure twirling in and out of the flickering lightning. The storms light paints haunting, fractured images across the landscape, illuminating every rose-draped grave and every crooked monument in stark relief.
Eloras voice softens as she tilts her head down, close enough for her words to reach only Isoldes ears, even with the drumming rain. We are watched," Elora chasites, lightly. "I am not a show for scouts.""
Who can say what tempting fae ghosts think of if doubt seeks love and finds it- answers were close at hand, it seems. In a tunnel of spectral butterflies, a kiler laughs in a soft dead black at the murder she achieved, the future she cemented, the life she has. The white sleeve falls over her arm, "I'm the shooow," Isolde whispers from the dream, "just play me out-"
The sexy smell of salt and potato chips- which, in fairness, can be considered more pleasant than cigarettes, is a single cement of identity. Where something changed, a vulnerability once lost- not forgotten, never known. "Know me, Elora-nim-" Isolde insists, "Make the parts I don't?"
"Lirael is an eidolon. She likes to play with hearts. She would approve of your loss of focus, I think. She would likely wish me too as well." Elora gives Isolde a worried glance. Light from her choker brightens Whisps begin to form.
From that light, tiny orbs of brilliance begin to form, hovering in the air like curious spirits called to witness the ritual. Will o' wisps, each one delicate and luminous, flicker into existence and drift through the rain-soaked night. They dance with a gentle, otherworldly grace, swirling around Elora and Isolde, leaving trails of shimmering blue and silver in their wake. The wisps pulse in time with Eloras heartbeat, brightening and dimming like living stars.
The ethereal glow transforms the cemetery into a surreal tableau, where each gravestone and monument casts long, wavering shadows. The roses that have sprung around several graves seem to ignite with spectral beauty, their petals glowing faintly under the will o' wisps' light. The rain, still pouring relentlessly from the storm-laden sky, catches the blue and white radiance, each droplet glistening like a jewel as it falls to the ground. The once-dark and foreboding hillside now seems caught between worlds, a place suspended in the balance between the living and the dead.
Elora bites her lip, looking at the woman who keeps trying to tempt her in the rain.
Elora blushes.
Elora clears her throat, the sound almost lost in the steady drumming of the rain, and her gaze shifts away from Isolde, settling on the blazing runic circle at their feet. The light from the circle pulses in harmony with the will o' wisps, creating a symphony of blue and white brilliance that dances through the storm. Shadows flicker and shift, caught between the rhythmic illumination of the circle and the ghostly glow of the floating orbs.
A soft, melodic voice fills the air, teasing, 'I know something you dont... but what if you already knew? Go on, tell them... or I will!' Suddenly, the urge to spill a long-hidden secret burns in your chest.
"I used to love plays. I wanted to be an actor when I grew up. I wanted to be seen," Elora lilts out. The words come abruptly. Then they halt. And she shivers, staring down into the bloody mess of a circle, blazing with a color so opposite to it.
"I /liked/ it" Isolde blurts out, the inhales frost yanked out by an ethereal chord.
Elora looks at Isolde. Her eyes widen ever so slightly. Teal pools, shocked. She doesn't, however, shy away from her apprentice.
clings to one of Elora's arms like a post, "I /liked/ killing her. I-" Isolde 's lips quiver, "I didn't care what I was taking. I thought it was mine- but- I didn't /care/ if it wasn't."
Isolde says "A-and she just.. GAVE it to me.. It- I.. I couldn't- I don't understand why-"
"I failed her completely. I promised her better than she got," Elora lilts.
Isolde's face scrunches, "How you could CARE for someone like that?"
Elora shakes her head. "Its not about her."
Isolde pushes her face forward. Her fingers are weak garrots. So: shoelaces. "It's about giving back? The first lesson, the deal?"
"And I am moving on, I suppose. I have a better apprentice now," Elora admits.
Elora nods to Isolde.
Isolde's eyebrows delight. The last tangible, visible evidence before she trails up her teacher's neck with a series of, admittedly, virgin kisses.
Elora holds Isolde back from her, angling her head away.