𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒏 𝒃𝒆𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒅 「ᴋᴏᴜʀᴀ ✧ ꜱᴛᴀʀ」

[starshine]

​

 

[starshine]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ❝𝕱𝖆𝖙𝖊 𝖎𝖘 𝖗𝖊𝖜𝖗𝖎𝖙𝖙𝖊𝖓 𝖇𝖞 𝖙𝖍𝖔𝖘𝖊 𝖇𝖗𝖆𝖛𝖊 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖗𝖊𝖘𝖎𝖑𝖎𝖊𝖓𝖙 𝖊𝖓𝖔𝖚𝖌𝖍.❞

So it was true then. All of it. What she had managed to overhear from the elders preparing for tonight's festivities was no mistake. No lie. The peace and prosperity of Shimori was maintained through systematic trade. Not the sort that saw to them bartering their renowned craftsmanship for a cut of bounteous orchards from their neighbors to the south or fresh sea catches from their neighbors to the east. What they traded with their nearest neighbors, the very forest which had always been depicted on maps to surround their village in cupped-hand embrace, was infinitely more jarring. They traded fair beauties for fair crops. They traded innocent lives for the right to hunt game, and to draw a proverbial line between themselves and them in the hopes that they would take no more. What was worse... Believing that young women in their village just sometimes vanished into thin air and suffered an unknown fate? Or knowing how and why they disappeared, but that they suffered an unknown fate regardless? Celyna did not know. Eyes rimmed with red. Knees hugged to chest. Perched at the end of Grandmother's bed, her initial upset had since quieted. Now she only absently watched her polish the ceremonial mask. Warmth from the hearth seemingly did not reach the girl this evening, but its dancing flickers made the golden swirls of the mask's embellished surface glint. Impressive how Grandmother's withered hands never ceased even when comforting her. With graven reverence, the elderly woman made certain the mask her granddaughter had dropped and scuffed looked good as new. While Celyna, clad in Shimori's traditional robes, cared little to resume her post in the mid-summer festivities to perform a dance with other maidens. "Sylvie was so lovely. So gentle and kind... And that man, the one from Goldenfield? I remember how she fancied him. She could have one day been his bride." Not some monstrous unknown's. Celyna couldn't help it. Grief was a feeling that went dormant, but never truly disappeared. People acquired losses in their lifetime like invisible scars and marched on while bearing them. Yet the truths unveiled tonight rendered those old scars into fresh wounds anew. Just as a scab might form, anguish would tear it open. Sylvia had disappeared when she was only eight. Far too young and naive to understand the intricacies of their co-existing worlds. Oh, how her heart ached for her big sister... "She was a wise and good girl." Grandmother nodded. "Sylvia understood the impact of the sacrifice she'd make. Going to live in the forest meant many others, including you, Little Mushroom, would be spared. It meant we would be allowed to safely flourish." She had winced at the childhood nickname. That, along with Grandmother's endless composure in the face of her lament made Celyna feel childish indeed. Complacency and understanding, was it something which only deepened with age? She pried her cheek away from folded arms and sat up in sudden disgust. She continued to argue against the injustice of this "deal" forged in blood and deceit. Continued to argue for the ones who could not argue for themselves. "What 'flourish'? Grandmother. In the year following her absence, were we not plagued with heavy snows in winter? With record rains and flooding in spring? Only then to suffer a drought during summer? That to me does not seem a proper 'trade'." Minor setbacks, but setbacks nonetheless. "People disappear beyond the veil every so often anyway. That to me does not seem like proper 'respect'. Are the wicked spirits not satisfied with only stealing a bride every ten years? How is it that we are expected to keep our end of the bargain when they do not do the same." "Furthermore, you say she is alive out there. They may have dined on her heart and flesh as our legends say them capable of. Or perhaps she has suffered some crueler fate in which death was preferable. Forest brides have never returned before. We have no way of truly knowing, do we? Those horrible beings will go on stringing us along and fooling us in such a way." Never had Celyna challenged Grandmother so, been this outspoken. Yet she gesticulated and fired off those sentiments until she was red in the face and out of breath. And in return, Grandmother was... Quiet. Now the shriveled woman propped up by several pillows vaguely appeared like a small child. She regarded her granddaughter with a look the latter couldn't quite comprehend. "Cellie." Then a wan smile with a whisper of tenderness, found similarly in the hand which beckoned her closer to smooth the hair from her brow. "You remind me so much of myself when I was younger..." The surrounding cabins and paths were silent. Eerily so. As expected. Tonight, everyone convened in the market square. If Celyna strained her ears, she might be able to hear traces of their merriment in the distance. In past, reasonable trepidation would've made her hasten to meet them. It was always on the nights of a full moon in which the forest's wicked enchantments loomed especially potent. Eager to snag any wayward soul into its corrupt depths. However, warnings passed onto villagers through tales since youth lingered not at the forefront of her mind for once. It is not the best way, but it is the only way. Grandmother had iterated just before passing the mask onto her and asking Celyna to understand. To forgive and apologize to her aunt who she fled from earlier. No one wanted it to be them. No one wanted it to be their daughters, granddaughters, or nieces. Their sisters. But these were necessary evils to keep the balances of their world and the beyond in check. The more she gazed down upon the held mask, the heavier it grew. The heavier the mask, the heavier her heart. The heavier her heart, the slower her stride. Until the jewels adorning Ceylna's frame clinked in pause. With growing dread, she remembered her friend wished to share some wonderful piece of news during the festival. "But it'll be a secret. You can't tell anyone, okay?" She had made her swear with hooked pinky oath. The girl had met often with the village elders lately. This upcoming autumn would mark another ceremonial exchange. ...Would she become a new bride? Celyna gripped the mask tightly. No! She would not see Eleanor disappear too. But, what could she do? She dug the heel of her palm into her eye and grit her teeth. Hopelessness and anger crested over the young woman in white hot equal measure. She must do something. Oh, how she missed Sylvia. How she wished she could seek her advice just as she had when- ... Wind stirred her hair and clothing in caressing swirl. As it passed through the gaps of trees to make limbs creak and needles rustle, it vaguely sounded like the whisper of her name. It stilled. So did she. In the deep velvet of night, there was the vestige of something abnormally bright and white brushing along the leaf strewn ground. Celyna slowly lifted her head, eyes growing round. "Sylvia..." Maybe. Maybe not. There were enough of her sister's remembered features juxtaposed with this ethereal beauty. But just the same, Celyna acknowledged this could be illusory trick from wicked forest spirits. Cruel mockery of her heart's dearest wishes then. ...Even knowing this, she could not help but tentatively move closer. "Sylvie, is that really you?" Arm curling along her own waist had not been done in self-soothing gesture. From over soft robes, Celyna blindly felt for the length of her mother's knife at her hip. Its shape and heft reassuring. If this truly was her sister, would it be possible to speak with her, to maybe even save her? Or if this was deception, then she would drive the dagger straight through the responsible monster's heart without remorse. The haunting figure turned on heel silently and glided into the forest. Soft, white, round orbs nearly resembling clusters of dahlia bulbs accompanied her. They bounced and hovered loosely from the ground with rattling clicks and it was only when some turned to 'look back' at Celyna as if to see that she followed, did it occur to her that these flowering sprites possessed ghastly faces resembling skulls. Heart pounding, she slid the pale mask onto her features. Supposedly blessed by their temple and imbued with special properties. She prayed it would offer some form of camouflage or protection as she began to wander where no mortal girl should tread. ​

 

[Koura]

❝ 𝕱𝖔𝖑𝖑𝖔𝖜 𝖒𝖊, 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖘𝖍𝖆𝖑𝖑 𝖙𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖚𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖒𝖙 𝖏𝖔𝖞𝖘 𝖙𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖑𝖎𝖊 𝖇𝖊𝖞𝖔𝖓𝖉 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖇𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖉𝖘 𝖔𝖋 𝖒𝖔𝖗𝖙𝖆𝖑 𝖘𝖊𝖓𝖘𝖊𝖘. ❞​

From the gods, men were born. The gods were delighted, for the creatures of flesh and sinew were much like themselves. The gods watched men grow and prosper, pleased with their creation. Yet there was one thing the gods had not been able to predict: men spawned nightmares and monsters, their feeble minds conjuring into being things that had no right to exist. The gods fought these beings—spirits made from the fears and hopes of men. The gods slew them with contemptuous ease. And yet, for each spirit the gods banished to protect their creation, men dreamed of another monster. Knowing that humans could not contend with the nightmares of their own making, the gods placed a veil to protect the world they had granted to men—a veil woven from time and space, meant to keep them safe. Beyond the veil, the laws that governed mortals worked differently, space and time as malleable as copper and tin. As the gods grew old and weary, the veil began to fray. Little by little, spirits as old as mankind slipped free, reveling among humans. Some fought the spirits; others bargained with them. Given a morsel, the capricious spirits grew ever hungrier. Their insatiable appetite was but a dark reflection of the desires and urges that gripped every heart. The elders of Shimori understood this all too well. The ancient traditions governing the relationship between the village and its guardian spirits—meant to sate the hunger of the wicked—were also meant to guard the hearts of the villagers. They knew that hell would break loose if the villagers came to resent the spirits—a hell that would devour and corrupt everything Shimori stood for. And so it was that the elders offered a maiden to the spirits every ten years. A single life was a small price to pay for peace and prosperity. Denied access to the mortal realm and left to their devices, the spirits bickered and fought among themselves. Feuds became wars, primordial entities clawing at each other with abandon. As years passed, untold thousands perished in the endless maelstrom that engulfed the spirit realms. From millennia of chaos, an order emerged. The weakest of the spirits lay dead, their essence consumed by others. Those cunning and wicked enough to subjugate others clung to power, claiming titles reminiscent of those used by the humans who had dreamed them into existence. Lord Embertail was one such noble spirit. His realm stretched from the Harrowed Hills to the Soulscorn Woods, where the veil was thin. This had allowed the wicked spirit to forge a pact with humans, Embertail offering them protection in exchange for their fairest maidens. The arrangement pleased him greatly—he knew many of his kith were envious of him for the power the humans granted him. He could sense their envy and resentment, the ancient spirit drinking deeply of the anguish of others. As the lesser spirits cowered before Lord Embertail, he grew in power, slowly draining his followers of their essence. The mana he gleaned from his feeble kin allowed him to reach past the veil, to play with the humans as they played with stones on their wooden boards. Lord Embertail loved games as much as he loved power, his labyrinthine mind filled with a skein of possibilities. The ephemeral figure resembling Celyna's sister kept slipping away from her, her ghastly gown glimmering in the pale moonlight. Try as the young woman might, she could not catch the apparition. The image of her sister slowly drifted through the dark woods, her movements unhindered by the limb-like branches that clung to Celyna as if the trees were alive. The white orbs covering the ground followed the young woman as she passed them, their stems bending gently in the windless night. Celyna could hear the ethereal flowers click and clatter softly, their eerie voices echoing all around her. Ghastly butterflies fluttered among the soulweed, their diaphanous wings shimmering with eldritch blues and greens. Celyna lost sight of the ethereal figure for a moment before stepping into a small glade. A gentle stream ran across the clearing, water splashing softly against the round stones. In the distance, something or someone howled, the mournful cry ringing with unbated hunger. The eerie flowers grew sparse around the young woman, the ground covered with soft fluorescent moss that glowed softly in all impossible hues. She could see colors that had no name, the impossible vista leaving her eyes aching. No man had been meant to tread the Soulscorn Woods, and Celyna was caught in a trap years in the making. Dark clouds drifted across the sky, covering the wrong stars. On this side of the veil, the night sky was different—the wreath of twinkling stars running above Celyna brighter and wider than the wispy tendrils she had grown used to. A gentle breath of wind picked up, misshapen leaves rustling in the breeze. The wind carried a faint yet pleasant scent of burning wood. She could hear something heavy move behind her, branches cracking in the woods. When the young woman turned, she saw two embers glowing in the dark—embers that slowly crept toward her. Clouds drifted to cover the starlit sky, leaving the large figure shrouded in darkness. Celyna could hear a low growl, the sound deep enough to make the ground tremble beneath her feet. "Who dares to tread through these woods?" a mellow voice asked, a handsome man stepping out of the darkness, his eyes glowing softly. "Who comes unbidden to my realm?" The willowly, tall man was clad in exquisite red robes reminiscent of something Celyna might have seen in old paintings, the gold thread used to decorate the cloth glimmering in the moonlight. "Who might you be?" Tilting his head to the side, Lord Embertail stepped closer, motes of fire flickering in his charcoal grey eyes. The stranger raised his hand as if to pause himself. "Please forgive my manners, traveler. I am Lord Tomokaya Embertail," the achingly handsome man introduced himself, his eyes keen on the young woman. The self-proclaimed was at ease despite bearing no arms, his long curls fluttering in the breeze, the scent of smoke lingering around him. "We don't see many of your kind here." Lord Embertail offered Celyna a soul-rending smile, curiosity gleaming in his eyes. ​