Hello lovelies! I hope you are healthy, fed and happy! my name is Chrissy, and I'm so glad you've taken an interest in my request thread.
I've a little under a decade in roleplay experience, and I am super excited to be using this platform more! I am a little to interacting on here still, so please forgive any faux pas.
My main interests are original plots, some modern, some fantasy, some period pieces. Some of my plot ideas are directly inspired by fandoms, but I don't tend to roleplay fandoms themselves.
I absolutely love to write, my replies tend to be at least 200 words but can stretch into a range over 2000 per reply if needed or warranted. I love lengthy descriptions, dialogue swimming with inner conflict and inner monologue, and indulgent scene setting, and if you could tell, I'm not afraid of a blatant run-on sentence. I only write in the third person, and I am a bit of a stickler for grammar and spelling when it comes to roleplay (however, if we are just chatting, my replies will be riddled with mistakes haha).
I try my best to reply at least once a day, however as life gets busier, this can stretch to once a week with daily check ins, especially if we are writing with longer reply lengths. If I for any reason cannot reply within those expectations, I will let you know and I would expect the same courtesy in return, however, life happens! So please just try to check in when you can.
In terms of kinks and limits, I prefer to discuss the details in a chat, but generally I prefer to write with a submissive lean, with a max 60:40 plot/smut ratio. I also don't shy away from violence in roleplays, as long as it's not gratuitous.
I am also a sucker for tropes, enemies to lovers being a particular favourite, sunshine x grumpy, etc, it all makes my heart happy!
I've listed my plot ideas below along with a longer writing sample, please feel free to drop me a line if any appeal to you!
More often than not, they came at night.
Lira and her mother eventually came to understand that it was best to take shifts, one watching the moon, the other sleeping. Eventually, she took on the night shift in totality. She would lay awake, and wait for the signs. The sound of running, of approaching horses or carriages. Under cover of fog or frost, when the village road turned to black glass and even the dogs wouldn't bark. With faces half-hidden, words swallowed by fear, and hands that trembled around coins slick with desperation. Never many coins, never any kind words.
That was the nature of working with strangers. It was only during the day, out in in the forgotten forest where they dwelled, that the witches of the house would receive any respect. The local villagers, not so silently loyal to the Old Ways, would visit their home and ask for blessings, tinctures, potions. They would sit and ask for tea, comment on the weather, bring food and flowers as payment. Admittedly, Lira would charge them less than the strangers that would visit them out of desperation. There was some - the old lady who came every week for a soothing balm for her back, the young couple who came for a fertility tincture after months of trying to conceive, and the young boy who was forced to work for the Lord two towns over who would come with his skin rubbed raw from scrubbing floors - some people Lira would not charge at all. What use did they have for gold? They paid their tithe, the baker and the butcher - but everything else was given to them by the forest.
Oh, that forest. Lira would think of that forest as home for the rest of her life. Warm and lush, cold and brutal, the forest was blessed in a way only few could comprehend. She remembered when her mother took her there as a child - showed her the alters built in its depth, hidden and sacred, untouched by anyone who did not know the Ways. She remembered when she first made a sacrifice, slaughtering a rabbit on the moss covered stone, watching the blood settle into a small pool, stuttering through an incantation, as her mother's hand, already wrinkled and aged, rested on her shoulder, guiding her through it.
That was the way of Ysara Veyene. Her mother would guide her through the Ways, at grasping distance, encouraging her to follow the path laid out carefully and lovingly. Praising her at every turn, encouraging her at every failure. It wasn't until Lira was old enough to write her own spells and recipes, until she had fixed a few broken bones, that Ysara told her exactly how their craft was viewed by others. Lira had an inkling of course. She had no friends growing up. No schooling, no talks of marriage or courtship. She would watch children from the village come to their house for bloody noses or sick tummies and listen to them talk of working when they were older, talk of travelling to the city, of the King and the Princes, and how they would get to meet them one day. Lira was under no assumption that this would happen to her. Her life was in that house, bordering between the village and the forest, tucked away from anything else.
What she had not expected was the vitriol in her mother's tongue as she spat the story of their position. How her mother had once been beloved, how their work was revered by worker and nobleman alike. How Ysara even lived in the palace itself, tending to the King and Queen, and every woman in their family had done the same. A witches' chamber, right in the centre of Caer Rhivane. And she was not the only one. Mages and wizards littered the royal court, and lower level practitioners dazzled the streets below. How the tide turned as the Sanctum of Light rose in power. So called clerics and priests whispered vitriol about the Old Ways, labelling them unholy and unnatural. Magic turned from a miracle, a blessing from the Gods, to a sin, even when it sat to the right hand of the throne. Her mother described the day they came for her, banishing her from the castle, from the city of Velgrin, and promised if she ever returned, or if she was caught practicing witchcraft, she would be hanged, as so many others were. The streets that once shined with spells and charms now lay dormant, and the bodies of anyone who did not disavow the Old Ways piled at the gallows.
The body of Lira's father, somewhere in that pile.
Her mother told her of their house, a hidden sanctum built long before either of them, perhaps before the castles and the city, had been in their family for generations. She had ran there, unsure of what fate had in store. Her mother told her that it was a gift, that the gods had built a path back to their roots. Back to their forest, away from the stone and steel of the city. Back to the alters built by their ancestors, that Ysara used to travel for weeks to find and make offerings to, now lay only minutes away from Lira.
The thorn bares fruit - her mother had told her. The Gods give wine in cracked bottles.
And so, Lira grew to bless the locals, who she now understood were themselves risking punishment, even death, to grace their door, and she grew to curse the soldiers when they rarely visited the small village of Vairnwood, and to spit on the ground of any Priest baring the symbol of the Sanctum of Light on their robes. She grew to follow her mother's ways, to tend to the sick, even when the sick came as a last resort. She grew into a young woman, her father's eyes - or so she was told, her mother's hair.
By now, she knew the signs: the stuttering knock, the weight of silence outside her door, the way grief smelled like rain and old wool. She had pulled fever from children with her mother's old tinctures, set bones with willow splints, whispered healing charms into the skins of sleeping men returned broken from the King's war. They all left the same way—eyes downcast, payment buried beneath the hearthstone, and mouths zipped shut by shame.
She did not mind. Not anymore.
The wilds had raised her better than the court ever could. Moss and crow and wind—these were truer companions than men in silks and steel. The trees did not fear her. The wind did not judge her name. And the river that now carved its path like a knife between her home and the distant glow of Velgrin carried no sermons on its current. As a child, she would climb trees, a nasty and dangerous habit that she was told off for many times. And yet she would persist, climbing the tallest tree in the forest as high as she could, just so she could get a glimpse of beyond the river. There, glittering like gold against the sky, was the city. On some days she swore she could even see the castle, if she squinted. Before she had known the hearts of those who lived in the city, before she learnt that witch was a dirty, unwanted thing that the world wanted to forger, she would wonder what it was like, what the people there lived like. It was then that the shame of those very people as they were forced to visit her and her mother that stung Lira.
But ever since she came to know what the city dwellers did, what they stood by and watched, she came to ignore their shame, and fix them regardless. She would answer their knocks, wipe away their tears, cure their injuries and ailments, take their gold, and send them on their way.
That night was different was different.
No knock came. No footsteps. Only the hooves of a fine-bred horse, far too clean for village roads, and the flutter of banners in a wind that smelled like war.
They sent a knight to her threshold.
Not a villager. Not a priest. A knight, cloaked in the King's crimson, bearing a seal that hadn't been pressed since the Ash War. He did not dismount. He did not speak right away. Just looked at her like she was something fetched from a tomb, not a cottage.
He didn't speak at first. He simply handed her a letter, pressed with the same royal seal.
She took it, and squinting in the moonlight, read.
Witch of the forest Vairnwood. The Prince has fallen in battle. By order of the King, you will accompany our stead to the castle, you will heal the Prince, and hence return to your banishment. Failure to comply in any of these measures will result in execution. May the Light guide you.
Her following movements were so swift, so sure, that Lira half thought that the Gods had taken control of her body. By the luck of the Ways, particular night, her mother had left to an altar far into the forest, and was not expacted back for at least a tenday. Judging by the Knight's unaffected face at Lira's youth, he had no idea that she was not the witch the letter was surely intended for. Voice low and unkind, she informed the Knight that she had to gather materials. Slamming the door behind her, she left the bastard to the rain as she tore through the cottage, grabbing every tincture she could think of, raw ingredients, her grimoire, her grandmother's grimoire, healing stones and just about everything within her repertoire. She grabbed clothes, food, materials for a small alter, and a dagger. Engraved and encrusted with jewels, beautiful enough that she hoped she could get away with calling it a ritualistic knife, but a dagger nonetheless.
A quick prayer to the Gods, a grounding one, asking for guidance and wisdom and above all safety, and Lira allowed herself to slow. Just enough to write a letter.
My dearest heart—
You always said I'd hear the wind change before others. Tonight, it howled eastward, and echoed by a man with a sword and news of the Prince, fallen in battle, gravely wounded. The wolves have come cloaked in lamb's wool, and speak in the old tongue with new teeth. They ask for salves, and I will carry what I can. But sweet roots grow in poisoned soil, and not all hearths welcome with open flame. If I do not call by frostfall, do not stir the coals. The bramble grows thick for a reason, and paths once crossed may never uncross.
I go not in shame, nor under shadow, but with my eyes wide to what waits beyond the ridge. If the old stories still hold, then the path will test me—but you needn't fear. I've marked the stones and tied the thornstring twice.
The river runs fast, and the Sundering always cuts where it chooses, but even split earth remembers its seed. I'll be careful with names, with fire, and with gold.
When the glass grows warm and the iron ring hums, you'll know it's safe to light the hollow lamp. Until then, walk only the deer path. The one with moss on the west side.
—Your girl, still
(P.S. I left the red thread coiled in the cupboard. If anything comes knocking thrice, don't answer until after the third bell.)
Even for Lira and her mother, the language was heady and warped. Secrets wrapped and vieled by notions of magic, some real, some less so. Warning her mother to stay away, that she would scry when it was safe, that she did not know if more of the King's men would appear, so until then, only use the paths taken by animals.
She tried not to think about how easily paranoia settled into her.
The journey was long. It was four days to the city by horse, and they hardly stopped for food or rest. It made Lira dread to learn the state the Prince was in, if they were rushing so fast to the castle.
Her travelling companion - Saer Grant, she had learnt his name was - barely let her out of sight. A young but brutish man, he mostly spoke in grunts and nods, and it wasn't till their second night, in which they slept in two cots at a small in on the edge of the river, that she managed to actually speak to him. She had noticed his limp almost immediately, and out of spite had ignored it.
This quickly bit her in the arse when she had to listen to his sighs and groans as they travelled. She had reached her wits end when he called out in the middle of the night, clutching his leg like a babe.
She begrudgingly tore herself out of bed, lighting the fire as she murmured to herself.
"Let me look." Lira demanded.
The Knight looked at her, half confused, half on his guard. "It's fine." He gruffed, but only clutched it tightly. She rolled her eyes, silently moving towards the man as he relented.
A gash across his calf, festering under old cloth revealed itself to her. "This, Saer Grant, is far from fine." She rose, and grabbed balms and bandages from her bag.
"This will help with the pain eventually, but it needs cleaning badly, which will hurt."
"Yer not going to curse me, are ye?" Lira raised an eyebrow. Partly in his attitude to her, partly in the thickness of his accent.
"You're not from the city." She hummed as she put herself to work.
Relenting, the man shook his head, wincing at the pain as she swiped at the wound. "No, me family lives in Tormund."
"Not many Knights from Tormund." It was a fishing village mostly, close enough to the city to be fully swept up in the Sanctum's lies, but not known for any nobles.
"Eh, that's true. But ashes still grow green, and all that. I was in the right place in the right time. Saved a visiting nobleman from death in a barfight. He had me take the Oath of Light the next day. Me ma' was over the moon. Got shipped off to the city a week later. And here I am, the King's special errand boy. I'm not given much important to do outside the war, and I suppose my lack of lineage is what has ended up with me going to fetch a witch from the woods." His words were stuttered, interrupted by hisses and winces as she tended to his leg.
"I think I'll be the judge of my importance. If I end up saving the Prince, maybe you'll end up with your own castle." She smiled up at him. He was nice enough, and she knew that she was entering a wolf's den. Important to make friends where you can.
"That'll be the day. Nice castle, take my lass somewhere pretty and green. She hates the city" He hummed.
"So, how bad of a way is the Prince in? And which of them is the hurt one? I always get them mixed up." She smirked to herself.
"He's hurt. Badly. Prince Lynx. We were making good headway on the battlefield it's where I got my leg hurt, and he never holds himself back. We still won, in the end, no one noticed how grave the injuries were until after. Halfway through his victory speech he goes tumbling down like a pile of rocks on a windy day. Hasn't stood up since. They tried everything. Court physicians, clerics, priests. He can barely eat by himself. Prince Ambrose was close to executing all of the failed physicians before the King ordered for you to come." Dread settled in Lira's stomach. It was rare, but it was always absolute when she came across things that she couldn't heal.
"Always nice to be the final option."
"Honestly, we thought it was mad. Didn't even know that there was any witches that the King had let leave alive." The knight regarded her. "You're not what I expected."
"I won't be what the King expected either." Lira quipped. Best to get this out of the way. "The letter was intended for my mother."
Saer Grant moved with a start. "Where is she?"
"Dead." The lie left her mouth smoothly and without hesitation. She had been preparing to say it for the past day and a half. "Years ago. Calm down. The King wants a witch, I am his only, and best option. There isn't a thing she didn't teach me."
"I suppose that makes sense. Can't make any promises on your safety once he finds out though. Or Prince Ambrose. Your type aren't well liked."
"I don't need to be liked to do my job." She stepped away from his leg. Her bandage was wrapped tightly around it, and she pressed a balm into his hands. "You're going to want to watch that. And clean it regularly, then use the balm on it. Should be closed up in a tenday."
The man scoffed. "Tenday? The physician said it would take half a month at least to heal properly."
"Your physician is an idiot. That cut was halfway infected, and you would have been dead in a week if I hadn't looked at it."
She watched shock, fear, disbelief, then a tentative relief wash over the man's face. "Oh. Thanks, I s'pose. Light's blessings on ya'"
"Hollow's guide." She returned.
The journey was a little less sour after that. The Knight told her about the state of the city - the aftermath of civil war roiling in the streets, which she only saw echoes of in her cottage, a straggling soldier, a mother who received letters from her children who had moved there. He told her of the people she would meet in the castle. The King, of course, had been mostly bedridden with some mysterious illness. His successor, Crown Prince Ambrose had taken on many of his duties, and thus had been removed from battle. Rather, he tended to court and politics. The politics themselves seemed complicated and ruthless. There was the noblemen and women - Lady Isolde, the left hand to the King and closest friend who had been angling for a leg up in power, the advisor Alric, who had rose up in the ranks after giving fealty to the King during the Ash War, then the Guard, led by High Commander Rorric Vane, a man whose name felt familiar to Lira, till she remembered Rorric Vane as the man who led the executions of magic practitioners over twenty years ago. Then, of course, there was the Church. High Cleric Eylra Maerwen. Head of the Sanctum of Light. Evil incarnate, Lira thought. It was Ambrose who oversaw them, dealt with them on the King's behalf. The younger Prince, Lynx, had continued to fight, leading the charge and keeping a group of Knights with him throughout many victories. That was, of course, till about two weeks ago, when he was struck down by a wayward blade.
A wolf's den indeed. Not a single kind eye toward magic or witches in the lot of them.
"They're really not that bad." They were close to the city now, and Lira knew that the fear on her face must have been obvious as the high turrets of Caer Rhivane loomed over them. It was kind of Saer Grant to try and ease the fear away. "Just remember your curtsies and your majesties' and you'll be reet."
It wasn't all bad. He had also told her of the laughter in the city. The food and the dancing, and the strange travellers that visited. The night before, after a few too many glasses of mead, he told her of his sweetheart. Lady Rowen of the Fen. Daughter of a mostly insignificant Lord who had caught his eye at a feast. And after many more glasses, he told her that the Fens, like many other lands, still secretly practiced a few rituals. "It's all very hush hush, but they still do their summer solstice feast. She took me last year. Light forgive me, it was one of the best nights of my life."
So there was still hope. Still pockets of the Old Ways hidden but alive, under the boot of the clergy.
However, as they approached the castle, Lira felt anything but hidden. That morning, she changed into her "best" clothing, a green and black assortment of clothes that resembled a dress. Took an extra moment to carefully layer her jewellery - stones of protection, abundance and success layered across her neck, tied with twine. And, in a rare moment of privacy from her travelling companion, Lira tossed chicken bones onto the wooden floor of the inn, muttering a divination spell as she did. Danger, they warned. Opportunity, they said.
Nothing that brought her comfort as they trotted over the moat. There was very little ceremony as she arrived. Saer Grant tugged her through the walkways and passages of the castle, clearly avoiding the main chamber. It would be an outrage to have a witch wander through the court, she supposed.
Instead, she was led up a turret, to a corridor outside the much smaller chamber, secluded from the rest of the castle.
There, two stern looking women, one fair with blue eyes, the other greying with jade catlike vision, and a wisened man who was taller and wider than any other person she had met were awaiting her. They stopped in their tracks as they approached.
"Is this her?" The fair woman asked, not even regarding her. The other woman, who wore a dress with the symbol of the Sanctum of Light - three radiant yellow lines leading to a circle on a dark blue background - was staring daggers into Lira.
"She's too young." The elder woman spoke. "You've brought the wrong one."
"She's the only one left, High Cleric." Saer Grant said, his head deep in a bow. He rose again. "The witch the King spoke of is dead, this is her daughter."
"You've brought the wrong one." Lira understood the woman to be Cleric Maerwen. She seemed about as unpleasant as Lira anticipated. "If what you say is true, and the woman has died, then his Majesty's request is impossible to fulfil." The woman hadn't taken her eyes off Lira. "What you have delivered, Saer Grant, is a woman who happens to practice witchcraft, which therefore makes her treasonous to the Sanctum, and by extension, the Crown. You've just delivered the next attendant of the gallows. Fetch the guards."
Before the only friendly face Lira had seen for the past few days whisked her off to her death, the fairer woman held a hand up.
"And if Prince Ambrose learns that you executed his brother's only hope before he even spoke to her, Eylra?"
She was met with nothing but silence and a sour face from the High Cleric.
"What's your name?" The blue eyed woman asked.
"Lira Veyene." She attempted a curtsey, which was met by nothing but an eyeroll.
"No need for all of that. I am Lady Isolde. It was me who sent Saer Grant on this fantastical hunt for you. What I need from you, Lira, is the truth." The Lady was calm, but Lira could sense the desperation in her tone. Desperation in fact haunted the entire corridor. "How good are you?"
"There's very little I can't heal." Lira answered honestly. "But what I can't heal, I can't heal."
"You understand the weight and importance of your task?" Lira nodded again. "Good."
Lady Isolde leaned in close. "Because if you fail, if you harm the young Prince in any way, I shall ensure that you do not go to the gallows. I shall ensure that your death will be much, much slower."
Lira gulped.
"The Crown Prince is inside. Ultimately, it'll be his decision what to do with you. I suggest for all of our sakes that you can convince him to let you help."
And without ceremony, nor warning, the door was opened, and Lira was shoved into the heart of the wolf's den.
Lira and her mother eventually came to understand that it was best to take shifts, one watching the moon, the other sleeping. Eventually, she took on the night shift in totality. She would lay awake, and wait for the signs. The sound of running, of approaching horses or carriages. Under cover of fog or frost, when the village road turned to black glass and even the dogs wouldn't bark. With faces half-hidden, words swallowed by fear, and hands that trembled around coins slick with desperation. Never many coins, never any kind words.
That was the nature of working with strangers. It was only during the day, out in in the forgotten forest where they dwelled, that the witches of the house would receive any respect. The local villagers, not so silently loyal to the Old Ways, would visit their home and ask for blessings, tinctures, potions. They would sit and ask for tea, comment on the weather, bring food and flowers as payment. Admittedly, Lira would charge them less than the strangers that would visit them out of desperation. There was some - the old lady who came every week for a soothing balm for her back, the young couple who came for a fertility tincture after months of trying to conceive, and the young boy who was forced to work for the Lord two towns over who would come with his skin rubbed raw from scrubbing floors - some people Lira would not charge at all. What use did they have for gold? They paid their tithe, the baker and the butcher - but everything else was given to them by the forest.
Oh, that forest. Lira would think of that forest as home for the rest of her life. Warm and lush, cold and brutal, the forest was blessed in a way only few could comprehend. She remembered when her mother took her there as a child - showed her the alters built in its depth, hidden and sacred, untouched by anyone who did not know the Ways. She remembered when she first made a sacrifice, slaughtering a rabbit on the moss covered stone, watching the blood settle into a small pool, stuttering through an incantation, as her mother's hand, already wrinkled and aged, rested on her shoulder, guiding her through it.
That was the way of Ysara Veyene. Her mother would guide her through the Ways, at grasping distance, encouraging her to follow the path laid out carefully and lovingly. Praising her at every turn, encouraging her at every failure. It wasn't until Lira was old enough to write her own spells and recipes, until she had fixed a few broken bones, that Ysara told her exactly how their craft was viewed by others. Lira had an inkling of course. She had no friends growing up. No schooling, no talks of marriage or courtship. She would watch children from the village come to their house for bloody noses or sick tummies and listen to them talk of working when they were older, talk of travelling to the city, of the King and the Princes, and how they would get to meet them one day. Lira was under no assumption that this would happen to her. Her life was in that house, bordering between the village and the forest, tucked away from anything else.
What she had not expected was the vitriol in her mother's tongue as she spat the story of their position. How her mother had once been beloved, how their work was revered by worker and nobleman alike. How Ysara even lived in the palace itself, tending to the King and Queen, and every woman in their family had done the same. A witches' chamber, right in the centre of Caer Rhivane. And she was not the only one. Mages and wizards littered the royal court, and lower level practitioners dazzled the streets below. How the tide turned as the Sanctum of Light rose in power. So called clerics and priests whispered vitriol about the Old Ways, labelling them unholy and unnatural. Magic turned from a miracle, a blessing from the Gods, to a sin, even when it sat to the right hand of the throne. Her mother described the day they came for her, banishing her from the castle, from the city of Velgrin, and promised if she ever returned, or if she was caught practicing witchcraft, she would be hanged, as so many others were. The streets that once shined with spells and charms now lay dormant, and the bodies of anyone who did not disavow the Old Ways piled at the gallows.
The body of Lira's father, somewhere in that pile.
Her mother told her of their house, a hidden sanctum built long before either of them, perhaps before the castles and the city, had been in their family for generations. She had ran there, unsure of what fate had in store. Her mother told her that it was a gift, that the gods had built a path back to their roots. Back to their forest, away from the stone and steel of the city. Back to the alters built by their ancestors, that Ysara used to travel for weeks to find and make offerings to, now lay only minutes away from Lira.
The thorn bares fruit - her mother had told her. The Gods give wine in cracked bottles.
And so, Lira grew to bless the locals, who she now understood were themselves risking punishment, even death, to grace their door, and she grew to curse the soldiers when they rarely visited the small village of Vairnwood, and to spit on the ground of any Priest baring the symbol of the Sanctum of Light on their robes. She grew to follow her mother's ways, to tend to the sick, even when the sick came as a last resort. She grew into a young woman, her father's eyes - or so she was told, her mother's hair.
By now, she knew the signs: the stuttering knock, the weight of silence outside her door, the way grief smelled like rain and old wool. She had pulled fever from children with her mother's old tinctures, set bones with willow splints, whispered healing charms into the skins of sleeping men returned broken from the King's war. They all left the same way—eyes downcast, payment buried beneath the hearthstone, and mouths zipped shut by shame.
She did not mind. Not anymore.
The wilds had raised her better than the court ever could. Moss and crow and wind—these were truer companions than men in silks and steel. The trees did not fear her. The wind did not judge her name. And the river that now carved its path like a knife between her home and the distant glow of Velgrin carried no sermons on its current. As a child, she would climb trees, a nasty and dangerous habit that she was told off for many times. And yet she would persist, climbing the tallest tree in the forest as high as she could, just so she could get a glimpse of beyond the river. There, glittering like gold against the sky, was the city. On some days she swore she could even see the castle, if she squinted. Before she had known the hearts of those who lived in the city, before she learnt that witch was a dirty, unwanted thing that the world wanted to forger, she would wonder what it was like, what the people there lived like. It was then that the shame of those very people as they were forced to visit her and her mother that stung Lira.
But ever since she came to know what the city dwellers did, what they stood by and watched, she came to ignore their shame, and fix them regardless. She would answer their knocks, wipe away their tears, cure their injuries and ailments, take their gold, and send them on their way.
That night was different was different.
No knock came. No footsteps. Only the hooves of a fine-bred horse, far too clean for village roads, and the flutter of banners in a wind that smelled like war.
They sent a knight to her threshold.
Not a villager. Not a priest. A knight, cloaked in the King's crimson, bearing a seal that hadn't been pressed since the Ash War. He did not dismount. He did not speak right away. Just looked at her like she was something fetched from a tomb, not a cottage.
He didn't speak at first. He simply handed her a letter, pressed with the same royal seal.
She took it, and squinting in the moonlight, read.
Witch of the forest Vairnwood. The Prince has fallen in battle. By order of the King, you will accompany our stead to the castle, you will heal the Prince, and hence return to your banishment. Failure to comply in any of these measures will result in execution. May the Light guide you.
Her following movements were so swift, so sure, that Lira half thought that the Gods had taken control of her body. By the luck of the Ways, particular night, her mother had left to an altar far into the forest, and was not expacted back for at least a tenday. Judging by the Knight's unaffected face at Lira's youth, he had no idea that she was not the witch the letter was surely intended for. Voice low and unkind, she informed the Knight that she had to gather materials. Slamming the door behind her, she left the bastard to the rain as she tore through the cottage, grabbing every tincture she could think of, raw ingredients, her grimoire, her grandmother's grimoire, healing stones and just about everything within her repertoire. She grabbed clothes, food, materials for a small alter, and a dagger. Engraved and encrusted with jewels, beautiful enough that she hoped she could get away with calling it a ritualistic knife, but a dagger nonetheless.
A quick prayer to the Gods, a grounding one, asking for guidance and wisdom and above all safety, and Lira allowed herself to slow. Just enough to write a letter.
My dearest heart—
You always said I'd hear the wind change before others. Tonight, it howled eastward, and echoed by a man with a sword and news of the Prince, fallen in battle, gravely wounded. The wolves have come cloaked in lamb's wool, and speak in the old tongue with new teeth. They ask for salves, and I will carry what I can. But sweet roots grow in poisoned soil, and not all hearths welcome with open flame. If I do not call by frostfall, do not stir the coals. The bramble grows thick for a reason, and paths once crossed may never uncross.
I go not in shame, nor under shadow, but with my eyes wide to what waits beyond the ridge. If the old stories still hold, then the path will test me—but you needn't fear. I've marked the stones and tied the thornstring twice.
The river runs fast, and the Sundering always cuts where it chooses, but even split earth remembers its seed. I'll be careful with names, with fire, and with gold.
When the glass grows warm and the iron ring hums, you'll know it's safe to light the hollow lamp. Until then, walk only the deer path. The one with moss on the west side.
—Your girl, still
(P.S. I left the red thread coiled in the cupboard. If anything comes knocking thrice, don't answer until after the third bell.)
Even for Lira and her mother, the language was heady and warped. Secrets wrapped and vieled by notions of magic, some real, some less so. Warning her mother to stay away, that she would scry when it was safe, that she did not know if more of the King's men would appear, so until then, only use the paths taken by animals.
She tried not to think about how easily paranoia settled into her.
The journey was long. It was four days to the city by horse, and they hardly stopped for food or rest. It made Lira dread to learn the state the Prince was in, if they were rushing so fast to the castle.
Her travelling companion - Saer Grant, she had learnt his name was - barely let her out of sight. A young but brutish man, he mostly spoke in grunts and nods, and it wasn't till their second night, in which they slept in two cots at a small in on the edge of the river, that she managed to actually speak to him. She had noticed his limp almost immediately, and out of spite had ignored it.
This quickly bit her in the arse when she had to listen to his sighs and groans as they travelled. She had reached her wits end when he called out in the middle of the night, clutching his leg like a babe.
She begrudgingly tore herself out of bed, lighting the fire as she murmured to herself.
"Let me look." Lira demanded.
The Knight looked at her, half confused, half on his guard. "It's fine." He gruffed, but only clutched it tightly. She rolled her eyes, silently moving towards the man as he relented.
A gash across his calf, festering under old cloth revealed itself to her. "This, Saer Grant, is far from fine." She rose, and grabbed balms and bandages from her bag.
"This will help with the pain eventually, but it needs cleaning badly, which will hurt."
"Yer not going to curse me, are ye?" Lira raised an eyebrow. Partly in his attitude to her, partly in the thickness of his accent.
"You're not from the city." She hummed as she put herself to work.
Relenting, the man shook his head, wincing at the pain as she swiped at the wound. "No, me family lives in Tormund."
"Not many Knights from Tormund." It was a fishing village mostly, close enough to the city to be fully swept up in the Sanctum's lies, but not known for any nobles.
"Eh, that's true. But ashes still grow green, and all that. I was in the right place in the right time. Saved a visiting nobleman from death in a barfight. He had me take the Oath of Light the next day. Me ma' was over the moon. Got shipped off to the city a week later. And here I am, the King's special errand boy. I'm not given much important to do outside the war, and I suppose my lack of lineage is what has ended up with me going to fetch a witch from the woods." His words were stuttered, interrupted by hisses and winces as she tended to his leg.
"I think I'll be the judge of my importance. If I end up saving the Prince, maybe you'll end up with your own castle." She smiled up at him. He was nice enough, and she knew that she was entering a wolf's den. Important to make friends where you can.
"That'll be the day. Nice castle, take my lass somewhere pretty and green. She hates the city" He hummed.
"So, how bad of a way is the Prince in? And which of them is the hurt one? I always get them mixed up." She smirked to herself.
"He's hurt. Badly. Prince Lynx. We were making good headway on the battlefield it's where I got my leg hurt, and he never holds himself back. We still won, in the end, no one noticed how grave the injuries were until after. Halfway through his victory speech he goes tumbling down like a pile of rocks on a windy day. Hasn't stood up since. They tried everything. Court physicians, clerics, priests. He can barely eat by himself. Prince Ambrose was close to executing all of the failed physicians before the King ordered for you to come." Dread settled in Lira's stomach. It was rare, but it was always absolute when she came across things that she couldn't heal.
"Always nice to be the final option."
"Honestly, we thought it was mad. Didn't even know that there was any witches that the King had let leave alive." The knight regarded her. "You're not what I expected."
"I won't be what the King expected either." Lira quipped. Best to get this out of the way. "The letter was intended for my mother."
Saer Grant moved with a start. "Where is she?"
"Dead." The lie left her mouth smoothly and without hesitation. She had been preparing to say it for the past day and a half. "Years ago. Calm down. The King wants a witch, I am his only, and best option. There isn't a thing she didn't teach me."
"I suppose that makes sense. Can't make any promises on your safety once he finds out though. Or Prince Ambrose. Your type aren't well liked."
"I don't need to be liked to do my job." She stepped away from his leg. Her bandage was wrapped tightly around it, and she pressed a balm into his hands. "You're going to want to watch that. And clean it regularly, then use the balm on it. Should be closed up in a tenday."
The man scoffed. "Tenday? The physician said it would take half a month at least to heal properly."
"Your physician is an idiot. That cut was halfway infected, and you would have been dead in a week if I hadn't looked at it."
She watched shock, fear, disbelief, then a tentative relief wash over the man's face. "Oh. Thanks, I s'pose. Light's blessings on ya'"
"Hollow's guide." She returned.
The journey was a little less sour after that. The Knight told her about the state of the city - the aftermath of civil war roiling in the streets, which she only saw echoes of in her cottage, a straggling soldier, a mother who received letters from her children who had moved there. He told her of the people she would meet in the castle. The King, of course, had been mostly bedridden with some mysterious illness. His successor, Crown Prince Ambrose had taken on many of his duties, and thus had been removed from battle. Rather, he tended to court and politics. The politics themselves seemed complicated and ruthless. There was the noblemen and women - Lady Isolde, the left hand to the King and closest friend who had been angling for a leg up in power, the advisor Alric, who had rose up in the ranks after giving fealty to the King during the Ash War, then the Guard, led by High Commander Rorric Vane, a man whose name felt familiar to Lira, till she remembered Rorric Vane as the man who led the executions of magic practitioners over twenty years ago. Then, of course, there was the Church. High Cleric Eylra Maerwen. Head of the Sanctum of Light. Evil incarnate, Lira thought. It was Ambrose who oversaw them, dealt with them on the King's behalf. The younger Prince, Lynx, had continued to fight, leading the charge and keeping a group of Knights with him throughout many victories. That was, of course, till about two weeks ago, when he was struck down by a wayward blade.
A wolf's den indeed. Not a single kind eye toward magic or witches in the lot of them.
"They're really not that bad." They were close to the city now, and Lira knew that the fear on her face must have been obvious as the high turrets of Caer Rhivane loomed over them. It was kind of Saer Grant to try and ease the fear away. "Just remember your curtsies and your majesties' and you'll be reet."
It wasn't all bad. He had also told her of the laughter in the city. The food and the dancing, and the strange travellers that visited. The night before, after a few too many glasses of mead, he told her of his sweetheart. Lady Rowen of the Fen. Daughter of a mostly insignificant Lord who had caught his eye at a feast. And after many more glasses, he told her that the Fens, like many other lands, still secretly practiced a few rituals. "It's all very hush hush, but they still do their summer solstice feast. She took me last year. Light forgive me, it was one of the best nights of my life."
So there was still hope. Still pockets of the Old Ways hidden but alive, under the boot of the clergy.
However, as they approached the castle, Lira felt anything but hidden. That morning, she changed into her "best" clothing, a green and black assortment of clothes that resembled a dress. Took an extra moment to carefully layer her jewellery - stones of protection, abundance and success layered across her neck, tied with twine. And, in a rare moment of privacy from her travelling companion, Lira tossed chicken bones onto the wooden floor of the inn, muttering a divination spell as she did. Danger, they warned. Opportunity, they said.
Nothing that brought her comfort as they trotted over the moat. There was very little ceremony as she arrived. Saer Grant tugged her through the walkways and passages of the castle, clearly avoiding the main chamber. It would be an outrage to have a witch wander through the court, she supposed.
Instead, she was led up a turret, to a corridor outside the much smaller chamber, secluded from the rest of the castle.
There, two stern looking women, one fair with blue eyes, the other greying with jade catlike vision, and a wisened man who was taller and wider than any other person she had met were awaiting her. They stopped in their tracks as they approached.
"Is this her?" The fair woman asked, not even regarding her. The other woman, who wore a dress with the symbol of the Sanctum of Light - three radiant yellow lines leading to a circle on a dark blue background - was staring daggers into Lira.
"She's too young." The elder woman spoke. "You've brought the wrong one."
"She's the only one left, High Cleric." Saer Grant said, his head deep in a bow. He rose again. "The witch the King spoke of is dead, this is her daughter."
"You've brought the wrong one." Lira understood the woman to be Cleric Maerwen. She seemed about as unpleasant as Lira anticipated. "If what you say is true, and the woman has died, then his Majesty's request is impossible to fulfil." The woman hadn't taken her eyes off Lira. "What you have delivered, Saer Grant, is a woman who happens to practice witchcraft, which therefore makes her treasonous to the Sanctum, and by extension, the Crown. You've just delivered the next attendant of the gallows. Fetch the guards."
Before the only friendly face Lira had seen for the past few days whisked her off to her death, the fairer woman held a hand up.
"And if Prince Ambrose learns that you executed his brother's only hope before he even spoke to her, Eylra?"
She was met with nothing but silence and a sour face from the High Cleric.
"What's your name?" The blue eyed woman asked.
"Lira Veyene." She attempted a curtsey, which was met by nothing but an eyeroll.
"No need for all of that. I am Lady Isolde. It was me who sent Saer Grant on this fantastical hunt for you. What I need from you, Lira, is the truth." The Lady was calm, but Lira could sense the desperation in her tone. Desperation in fact haunted the entire corridor. "How good are you?"
"There's very little I can't heal." Lira answered honestly. "But what I can't heal, I can't heal."
"You understand the weight and importance of your task?" Lira nodded again. "Good."
Lady Isolde leaned in close. "Because if you fail, if you harm the young Prince in any way, I shall ensure that you do not go to the gallows. I shall ensure that your death will be much, much slower."
Lira gulped.
"The Crown Prince is inside. Ultimately, it'll be his decision what to do with you. I suggest for all of our sakes that you can convince him to let you help."
And without ceremony, nor warning, the door was opened, and Lira was shoved into the heart of the wolf's den.
The Witch and The Crown. (fantasy, medium magic, medieval) [CLOSED]
In a kingdom gripped by war and superstition, a solitary witch lives at the edge of a small medieval village—feared, whispered about, and cast out from polite society. The daughter of a healer once of renown, the witch and her mother have long since been shunned by the nobility and clergy, blamed for blights, bad harvests, and the illnesses they cannot understand. Her only companions are the wilds, her craft, and the villagers too desperate to care about royal decrees.
The tide forcefully turns when the crown prince returns from a brutal battle—broken, fevered, and dying. No surgeon in the court can save him, and the royal priests claim it is punishment from the gods. In desperation, the king sends a secret envoy to the last person he ever wanted to call upon: the witch.
Reluctantly granted entrance to the royal keep, the witch finds herself in a den of enemies—courtiers, knights, and clerics who would see her burned were it not for the prince's weakening pulse. As she battles to save his life with forbidden knowledge and hidden magic, tensions mount. Old hatreds fester. And something else begins to bloom between healer and patient.
Lots of opportunity for enemies to lovers, political intrigue, secret relationships and a tragic or heart warming end here!
The tide forcefully turns when the crown prince returns from a brutal battle—broken, fevered, and dying. No surgeon in the court can save him, and the royal priests claim it is punishment from the gods. In desperation, the king sends a secret envoy to the last person he ever wanted to call upon: the witch.
Reluctantly granted entrance to the royal keep, the witch finds herself in a den of enemies—courtiers, knights, and clerics who would see her burned were it not for the prince's weakening pulse. As she battles to save his life with forbidden knowledge and hidden magic, tensions mount. Old hatreds fester. And something else begins to bloom between healer and patient.
Lots of opportunity for enemies to lovers, political intrigue, secret relationships and a tragic or heart warming end here!
Grave Lines (Modern, criminal, noir-esque)
The city never sleeps, but it does rot—from the inside out. Crime has always been the heartbeat of the streets, but lately, something new has slithered in. A new dealer. New product. No rules. No loyalties. And now, a new body in the morgue: her brother.
She's not a cop. She's not clean. She's a private investigator who's been scraping by on divorce cases and tail jobs—until her older brother ends up dead with a needle in his arm and fear in his eyes. But he wasn't a junkie. She knows it. And someone's going to answer for it.
What she doesn't expect is who comes knocking.
Smooth-talking. Impeccably dressed. Dangerous as sin. Far too young to be this powerful. The city's most feared crime lord offers her a deal: keep digging, but dig in the direction he wants. The rising dealer who killed her brother? He's been a thorn in his side, too.
It's a devil's bargain. She hates everything he stands for—but she needs what he has: information, muscle, access. He needs her ruthlessness and her grief-driven hunger for truth.
She's not a cop. She's not clean. She's a private investigator who's been scraping by on divorce cases and tail jobs—until her older brother ends up dead with a needle in his arm and fear in his eyes. But he wasn't a junkie. She knows it. And someone's going to answer for it.
What she doesn't expect is who comes knocking.
Smooth-talking. Impeccably dressed. Dangerous as sin. Far too young to be this powerful. The city's most feared crime lord offers her a deal: keep digging, but dig in the direction he wants. The rising dealer who killed her brother? He's been a thorn in his side, too.
It's a devil's bargain. She hates everything he stands for—but she needs what he has: information, muscle, access. He needs her ruthlessness and her grief-driven hunger for truth.
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