A Flower, Clutched And Crushing In Her Hands, The Blue-white Staining And Eating Her Fingertips— A

Oh there is so so much to say about the ending of Burrow’s End but Tula’s lined up a shot right into the core of my being so;

She’s back in the fields where she found her husband, dead, lifeless, cold. It’s winter and the snow has piled up so high and she runs around after the terrifying sounds of lightning in a clear nights sky.

It’s Blue and icy when she falls asleep, oh so tired and she hadn’t even begun to process the grief. Her mother’s response: “Where were you?” to a “Geoffrey’s dead”. She‘s a mother of two. She gives into her exhaustion. She sleeps. Everything is so quiet in the cold, the Blue.

And a few years later, neither dead nor alive but with a renewed sense of hope and peace, things Tula has never given herself space to feel after her husband’s death, she walks to his resting place and talks about their children. She talks about accomplishments, hopes, about dreams.

“I can’t wait to find out what’s gonna happen tomorrow”, she says. She means it.

(and Brennan as the player breaks just the tiniest bit)

Tula finds softness, she finds comfort. The cold, the Blue melts under spring’s warmth and the grass below finally drinks. She is happy.

Is there any greater blasphemy than that of an angel who fell in love with a demon?

He came to the earth at the dawn of its creation, his directive to enact God's will. The Archangels stressed upon him that, in so doing, it was imperative that he oppose The Enemy. They told him what he would face: one of the Fallen, a demon.

He thought he understood the nature of this creature of darkness.

But he was wrong.

Where there ought to have been ugliness, he found only beauty.

Where he expected cruelty, he found kindness.

Heaven had prepared him to thwart the wiles of a heart of evil, yet he found one that harbored goodness, gentleness.

A demon who protected the weak, the innocent.

A demon who mourned, who grieved.

How could Heaven have been so utterly mistaken? For he was assured that the demon had the devil in him.

But in this creature's soul, he can see God.

Beautiful. Kind. Gentle. Good.

To say nothing of his cleverness, his wit, his charm, his appeal.

The demon intrigues him. He subverts his every expectation. He is a fascination.

More than all that.

The demon makes him laugh.

Makes him feel.

Listens to him. Challenges him.

Saves him.

And as the centuries pass, he finds that in the demon's presence, an emptiness he didn't know he had is filled; as though the broken edges of their spirits fit together; as though they were made for one another.

He knows the Host of Heaven whisper.

They call it blasphemy. Abomination.

They wonder in horror:

How could an angel fall in love with a demon?

The truth is...

How could he have done anything else.

Amongst a group of a queen, a powerful bishop, a skilled spy and a to be chief, only Colin Provolone, a Dairy Island runaway, really escaped Saprophus.

He whose secret forced him to escape his homeland, stay undercover, speak nothing, want nothing. He whose morality throws his sword at the feet of his good friend, a devotion severed by the burden of death, and to think that war was all he was good for.

And yet, he makes it out of the rot-filled cave. He saves Deli, half-dead, his body lying still at the mouth of the cave, and still half-dead as he walks over the horizon, never seen again. He protected Amangeaux, one who is forever indebted, her regret buried a thousand miles down a cave non-existent, a life owed to a memory of those lost and now lies dead beneath their feet.

Colin Provolone begins this journey a sword and shield. He protects and devotes and craves belonging. His allies are bloodied and shattered and their purpose lies dead, forgotten to war and revenge, names erased to the world they so desperately etched their nails into.

Yet Colin Provolone survives with a purpose so driven. He is a quiet survivor, a noble protector. He remembers his allies, their hubris, their desperation. He swings his sword so that this world may know peace a little longer, that the war may have served a greater good, that the blood spilled may have been worth it.

In nobility, in morality, in wit and in war, Provolone survives the manipulation, the secrets and the ravening war with greater purpose than he started with and more gained than lost.

Knight takes King.

My little Baron and Fig pins came in!!

I’m so happy I’m going a little bit crazy

There are certain times of the day where the numbers align in perfect harmony and a familiar glow of magic illuminates the world for that singular minute.

It’s 7:21am and you’re running through the sweet spring fields, far away from home with the hand of your twin sister— your half soul held strong and confident in yours. Both of you dream of a life away from the responsibilities neither of you understand. You leave scarecrows in place of yourself in the classroom of your chocolate bunny teacher.

It’s 3:03pm and this is the first time you smell what you have only have heard stories of. The stink of bloodlust, of a tidal wave war, of screams and the clattering of iron, of a mother’s tears and the crackling fires of revenge. You and your people survive. An assassination attempt was made on your father. You feel rusted gears start cranking, slow and threatening, deep underneath the earth as the wails of the fallen fill your ears.

It’s 8:45am and forbidden confessions echo against the walls of the holy. Words you did not know were capable of escaping your father’s mouth, old and dusty secrets pouring out and you realise you do not know him. Your sister’s hand grip yours and your crowns spilt into two, simple metal clattering against god-forsaken grounds as everything you have known now lies at your feet. You narrowly escape the church. You witness the brutal murder of a friend. “The Bulb cares for no one.” You run.

It’s 10:05pm and you embrace your mother for the first time in weeks. You see the way she looks at your father. You see the way she scrambles to find some resemblance in him of an older lost one and fail to do so. Her soft and love swelled eyes that grace you and your sister does not land on your father and you wonder if she deserves the wordless losses she has dealt with. She demands that you and your friend go to rest but you, your father’s child, see too much, hear too much and you run away from the castle to explore as you did before all this.

It’s 12:01am and you draw your last breath. You feel yourself slip into the mist within the warm arms of your friend, your brother. “Tell Ruby that I love her, and tell her that she did the right thing.” You feel yourself loose the tight grip of your sister’s hand, your mother’s, your father’s.

Your dream of fighting for the world has been fulfilled. No longer princess, instead a warrior in war. And you remember the stories of the soldiers— you feel the warmth of your father’s arms around you, of your mother and sister’s tears soaking the earth above you and you sleep, knowing that you have protected what is most important to you and that they still have the breath to even mourn.

It’s 6:33am and you smile a little smile and sleep— a sister, a daughter, a princess and a warrior.

You bury your child. Distant land, unfamiliar territory within your own homeland, and yet so far from home. You stand at the crown of this insignificant hill, unfit for a princess, your heir, your twin, your friend, your child. And the last time you saw her war-stricken face, you didn't even know it would be your last, and the determination lining the ferocity of revenge and exhaustion in the creases of her eyes, her brilliant intelligence and curiosity lighting a torch down the broad and dark path called Death.

You lay her down in the sickeningly sweet earth, your dwindling people by your side, your queen by your side, your now singular daughter by your side.

“You continue to teach me“ —and the Bulb’s light casts dancing shadows through the trees on a gravestone upon a hill too humble for a King and his family.

And then they sail away from that nameless place, their dearly loved one now lying still, and cold, and so so quiet beneath this land of churning blood and gore and the stink of war in which no tears or love can save her anymore.

Surely it has been talked about how Penelope Everpetal and Aelwyn Abernant were definitely, 1000% a thing before she was taken to jail+kidnapped to Fallinel and Penelope died

Something about Adaine saying "Is this justice?" to Ankarna and Crystal saying "What about them? Where's their justice?" to Lilith. Rage as a teenage girl. I don't need your sword. I don't have to believe in a god. You have seven believers right here. You get it.

Emily Axford <3

And the little flower in Brennan’s hair!!

(I started A Court of Frey and Flowers)

Hi! I’m pluto passingnights!! I’m super into Dimension 20, Worlds Beyond Number and Glass Animals :D

I binge a lot of the D20 campaigns and so I write character studies and analyses here!

I’m always going a little bit insane about the current season I’m watching so I might write more on that but I’ll catch up on the ones I’ve watched before eventually :)

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