"Good," Robin Purrs, Content On The Confirmation. Another Piece Falling Into Piece, Another Siren To

who? @chancellorxlaer​

where? summer’s sands

Robin is by far the least experienced of the Chancellors. Born to the stable reign of Fen’harel, having grown with the belief that the Dread Wolf would protect their court and never harm them, only to be proved wrong by the liar’s own lips. Only to be thrown into a position she had never wanted, her freedom restrained and the weight of responsibilities that grew heavier by the day settling on her shoulders. She had done the best she could, but her transition had not come in a time of peace. No matter what, it never seemed like she had done enough. Not for the courts, not for her court. Not while more than half her people suffered at the hands of their most ancient enemy, not while there was nothing she could do, for her expertise laid on subterfuge and not the full frontal attack the drow required. Her task had been solidified once she had become a Chancellor: to watch the Eye’s moves and undermine them as much as they could. And despite that, she had given one of them the entrance to their last refuge, given Wade permission to enter, and invitation. She had been lucky the only one to pay the iron price had been her, lucky that her mistake had not cost any fey life, but even in this luck, she had been unlucky. For she is weakened now, when they need the Chancellor’s strength to be at it’s fullest.

A sigh escapes her lips, as she approaches Laer’s presence. Robin is in dire need of advice, and although she wishes to go to Meryasek or Aurora instead, she cannot overburden her friends on such a crucial time. Laer, however? He has had millennia to learn how to hold the burden of his position, even in war time, and she faithfully believes that although he does not carry all the solutions, talking to him will at least help.

“I am in dire need of advice,” she comments quietly, as she comes to stand next to the other as they survey Laer’s work at shaping his new domain. “And I would prefer if it’s yours, but if you are too overburdened by current events, do let me know, I can find someone else.”

"No need to thank me for the barest of courtesies, Fire Bearer," Robin waves off his thanks as she flips through another page on her book. It had been a while since she had reacquainted herself with Laer's travels, and with the Otherworld in disarray, she thought it better to brush over the possible dangers. "Nor do you owe me anything for wanting to remember and avoid repeating the mistakes you once did." Still, she closes her book and glances at him thoughtfully. "Although, my court will not say no to a few history lessons. Our elders might have survived, but their perspective of the Elvhen Empire likely differs to yours, and it is better to know all sides to the equation."

Time: When things have cooled down Location: Audele Characters: @thegoodfellow & @prometheanpiero Notes: you're a real one

Reliving the memories that he wanted to keep tangible was not enjoyable. But he had asked for this, he had wanted them and the Dusk Chancellor had been kind of enough to let him into Audele. "Thank you, Chancellor," Prometheus murmured, coming out of the room where the elves had helped him collect his memories. "I don't ask for charity; if there's anything I can do to repay you... my mother was a dusk elf. I'd be glad to lend a hand to the new elves here."

title: the hunt continues when: post the tinkerer where: rome, Audelë, more trigger warnings: usual stuff

Agony.

Tamlen’s death had been painful, the drainage that followed a rip on their plan. But Tamlen had come back to them against all odds, and the relief had been overwhelming.

Inan hadn’t.

His death feels like being unraveled, like losing a part of herself that she assumed would always be there. The second heartbeat behind her chest is gone, the thread of devotion and steely determination rotting away as death came to take her warder’s hand. Somewhere, a drow is being born. In Rome, Robin’s warder dies, an unfinished melody, a hunt cut short. 

She hadn’t even been able to convince him to call her by her name. 

Lain’s death had hurt, the growing care she had felt for the lycan, a sharp stab to her chest, but she had not loved the wolf. Not quite, not yet, and now never for he is gone, and she knows that even if Death was the one to collect what was due, she had played a part in that game. It is a tragedy, a story unfinished. 

It was not love. 

Inan was her warder, she had welcomed him in and invited him into her soul. Loving him was not unlike loving a part of herself. She had kept that emotion at bay, well aware that she had done nothing to earn anything from him but his loyalty, suppressing it to prevent any more awkwardness between the two. Inan’s story with Fen’harel is well known, and she would not push through his boundaries after that betrayal. 

Would not have. 

But in the end, it did not matter.

Her warder is dead, decay spreading through Rome as Thanatos collects his due, and all Robin can do within the Titan is sink her thoughts with her fellow Chancellors and fall upon the song of destruction they are weaving until they cannot do so any longer. 

The Titan falls, and with the fall, their end is marked. 

There is no opportunity to fight, no magic to summon, no song capable of stopping the Great Old Ones as they fall upon them like predators upon their prey.  

The next fifteen years are spent in the ground, all thought lost beneath the agony of the song of decay and rot, of the end and the beginning. 

The darkness is a familiar call, the pain an old comfort, akin to the ritual that had seen her confirmed into her role as Fall Chancellor. A legacy of the Dusk Elves that they once were, the ritual recalled costumes of old, and it is now the only reason Robin does not lose her mind to the slow movement of rot, slowly spreading through her body but keeping her alive to keep their nutrients. It’s a song of fungi, beautiful on its ugliness, on its destruction. She doesn’t lose herself to it, doesn’t break down and lose hope, but it comes close. Were it not for the familiarity of the torture, she might have.

She doesn’t. 

She awakens to the astral bombs falling and to freedom that tastes as sickly sweet as the rot that had settled on the back of her throat over the last decade. There is no hesitation when she joins the other Chancellors into a song and they come together to become the Titan once more. 

For one last time in this timeline. 

Robin dies in the battlefield, only to awaken in a Rome that has not yet been Forsaken. 

The battle is set aside, more pressing matters coming into the forefront as they find themselves changed. The Chancellors’ retreat, the war pushed back and with it their destruction of Rome, far more important things to do than to deal with the mortals that destroyed them and saved them alike. The world changed one more time, and Robin changed with it, working with the four other chancellors to create Audelë, a new home, alike the Courts that sheltered them for so long, but something new altogether in the same breath.  As the dust settles, she finds Inan, brings him forth into a hug despite his arguments against it and laughs before letting go, polite distance that he is so fond of falling upon the two once more. 

Peace fell upon their kind once more, a deal with the dark elves set in place. And the Courts? The Courts protected once more.

It’s not enough. 

It will never be enough, but her people deserve the rest. Dusk has fallen upon them, and with it comes a new world they need to learn for themselves. Ignoring it all in reckless rage would be foolish, and the tricksters that hide in the shade are anything but that. 

They will wait, they will watch, and they will be ready.

The hunt is eternal, and so are they.

who? @wintersaurora where? outside the tower of the white flame, winter's mountains

Robin stands before the Tower of the White Flame, admiring the work of Aurora's recovered song, as well as the bright shining light emitting from within. It is a marvel, to see something from legends made reality, and in a way, she does envy the Chancellor. She had traveled the Otherworld for 300 years, but never made it as far as they had, had not witnessed the marvels than that troupe had. In a way, though, she had been lucky to avoid the dangers that they had accomplished. Deep upon her musings as she is, it is not enough to erase her awareness of her surroundings, and she senses the presence of the Winter Chancellor's before she sees it.

"Impressive," Robin says with a hum as she keeps her eyes on the building, rather than on the newly minted lunar elf. "How does it feel? The change?"

“Look at what we have here, a traitor amidst friends, hello Judas Iscariot,” Robin croons as she moves closer to the spot where Wade had hidden away, anger sitting on her chest as she looks coolly at Wade. She hopes he apologizes, hopes he is sorry enough to do so. Because if he is here to enjoy the fruits of his labors, she will gut him and feed her to the lycan’s herself. But if he is here to apologize? Well, she can use that for her advantage, use him as a more solid link within the Eye so she can open the way for Lupo to raze it to the ground. With that in mind, she creates a sound barrier around them, to ensure no one else can hear them.  “Do tell me, why would I go anywhere alone with you? I cannot trust you do not carry an iron blade, as I cannot trust you are here to mourn and not to survey for your next victim while enjoying the pain and destruction you have caused.”

          a gift for @thegoodfellow​,

note: we’re backdatin’ a little to the funeral stuff

          Wade had been mostly sulking in the corner, the funeral became a place to settle irreparable differences between conflicting species and the Archer was adept enough to figure violence was a banished principle. It still hadn’t brought him any comfort and for the first time, Wade allows the inquietude that rises within to consume him, slinks back upon himself, the Archer hoping he’d disappear into the ether. He’d always been a boisterous and domineering personality, rendered silent by the guilt which remains. Robin had told him to go and he had, so why was it such a cowardly affliction that plagued him now? Regardless, he recognizes the fall Chancellor, feels a pit settle in his stomach as his mouth nearly goes dry, “Robin,” Wade understands that Robin would filter towards her name as this inevitable calling, wringing his hands together, “We need to talk.”

who? @wardercloud

where? summer’s sands

“How are you doing?” She asks, once she finally finds them amidst Laer’s Summer Sands. The Pilgrim had gone above and beyond designing the Summer Court’s new refuge, but despite everything, it is a pale comparison of the home that had once belonged to them. It’s impossible to compare less than a month of work to the countless years and centuries that had been spent on the creation of the Courts. Young and old had come together to create a home, and now it is all lost to the Drow Queen’s domain. It would make her furious, it does make her furious, but she is weighted too much by the grief of betrayal for that anger to manifest. Not yet, at least. It had been the same with her brother’s death, first grief came and overwhelmed her, then anger and the desire for revenge. Her time would come, but for now, she would follow her grief and ensure those she loves are as well as possible with all the circumstances. “The last few weeks have not been easy on any of us, but they might have hit you harder.”

Tati Gabrielle for Mood Magazine

"Well, that does complicate things," she admits slowly, yet reluctantly, eyebrows raising until they almost reach her hair. It's a rather scandalous bit of information, frankly, and she is aware that it will draw a great deal of negative attention towards Inan. Yet, for her the matter is simpler. The warder bond it's a great means to monitor a warder and wardee, and she has sensed the worry behind his words: Inan does not mean to betray her, and until that changes, she will not treat him any different. "For you, more than anything. We are both aware that public opinion is a fickle mistress, but I will not forbid you from meeting him if you desire."

"It's my brother, he's a drow. I think he might be the Court's spymaster: Somniar." Inan had brushed against him only briefly, but the man had not been far from the warder's thoughts since. "We haven't been in contact, save for one brief altercation before the war began, but I couldn't in good conscience continue on without telling you about the association." Many elves knew drow by virtue of their life cycle, but few were connected to those who'd ascended as far as the Court.

TATI GABRIELLE Dazed Korea (October 2020)  

wadecalhoun​:

          A low whistle leaves Wade, drumming his hands on the table as if it would aid him in formulating any response or retort of comfort. He’s at a loss, he’s not entirely familiar with fey business, never really had to concern himself with them before. Robin had dished out all he needed to know, how they were capricious but relatively harmless at the end of the day and merely, much like everyone, solely out for their own kinds survival. From what Wade had gathered, it seemed the fey simply wanted to be left to their own devices, but he knew such sentiment could not encompass the entirety of the species and that was where betrayal and shit became a dark and slippery slope. “Robin, you ain’t gonna have some target on your back for bein’ forced to take some chick’s job, are you?” Well, a larger target then the one she inherently created considering her own age and ability to meddle. “And how come you didn’t come to me about all that?” Being hunted, it allows him to recall the moment they first met when he’d almost jabbed her with his fucking iron switchblade under the false pretense that she was a demon. How far they’d come since then and though this was no time to condemn her when she appeared so emotionally wounded and fragile, Wade had felt almost offended at the idea that she would have rather faced such problem by herself. He can be a bit thick headed and even through his concern for Robin and his mild offense he still can’t rouse the obvious fact that she was trying to poke at the elephant in the room, his affiliations with a certain group that hunted all supernaturals.

...

“Wade, dearest, I have had a target on my back for years, my new role has merely increased other parties’ interest,” she begins, voice slow and deliberate as she reaches for the warmth of her drink and raises it to her lips to take a long and silent sip. There is an eternity of legends and stories behind her worries, the fear of the dark that her kind carries woven into her very essence with the knowledge of the drows that will never stop hunting them. Worry circles her chest, weights her tongue as she speaks, even as fondness shines through. Even as she wants to reach and bring him closer, even as she wants to reach out and hope. He is worried, before all, he is concerned. And yet,  Robin knows Wade. Has known him since he attempted to kill her, believing her a demon and nothing else. Dearest as he is to her, she knows him enough of his faults to know that he had not caught her indirect. The desire to reach out, the hope, does not fade, but her loyalty to her people prevails and tentative thoughts turn into tentative words. It’s like walking up to the precipice, the knowledge that if she pushes she might not get an answer that she wants. Robin doesn’t know if she can handle the truth for herself, doesn’t know if she can handle another betrayal. If it were for her and her alone, she would not continue. But the truth is not for her satisfaction, not for her peace of mind: the truth is to protect those she has sworn to defend. “If it’s not the Eye, it’s the drows, shadow creatures wearing the faces of those we once loved. My kind’s very existence is in danger, and I do not know who to trust. I cannot bring anyone I care for into this, I cannot bring you into this Wade, not when my kinds protection is not your cross to bear.”