this is Salem, a land filled with magic and maladies. It is a place where witches and their elemental familiars gather, a home to legend and
lore that predates time itself. Yet of all the wicked and wonderful stories the past can tell us of, the most magical are the ones yet to happen.
This is Salem - this is the start of your very own journey. Welcome to starfall
Starfall is an animaga witch roleplay set in mostly modern times. Members play as witches in a world plagued by monsters, where the only safe spots are walled cities. Starfall strives to be a character-driven roleplay with expansive lore and a highly interactive plotline. We want to allow members to
create and look back on a magical journey, and mold the site and its plot as their characters grow.
[attr="class","j1white"]it is a grand occasion. from the tall black-gold cast iron entrance, a winding, flowery path leads one up towards the mansion proper. enter it, and an impeccably dressed butler directs you to a grand ballroom.[break][break]
on the far wall, a tapestry of impossible blue bears the emblem of house pellantaise, and it is below this that their mission’s priority stands: elodie pellantaise smiles soft and exchanges quiet greetings with visitors. she bleeds elegance with the curl of her lips and sharp eyes, finding each of the lins and offering them the most minute of nods from across the room. after all, fellow nobility is not difficult to find, but only if you know how to look.[break][break]
ever the early bird, jiayi lingers at the edge of a crowd, not-quite leaning against a pillar. his pose is far too rigid for that, his shoulders drawn back and bowstring-taut. there is something washed out and clinical about him, pale skin and spotless white robes; then there is that crimson half-cape, a splash of colour draped over his shoulder like scarlet sabotage on a wedding dress. he scans the growing crowd intermittently, noting newcomers with mild interest and making sure to include elodie and her partner in every sweep. their safety is paramount, after all.[break][break]
beside him, his familiar slips into existence, and the ashen-furred fox sidles her way closest to the nearest lin, weaving around their legs in a manner of greeting. “jiayi says the champagne served here really isn’t too bad, if you wish to have a drink,” says the fox lightly. she pauses, before adding more briskly, “mr. du val has yet to make an appearance, we suspect he might arrive fashionably late. till then, do as you wish.”
there are many things meifon lin envies elodie pellantaise for, but chief among them is the young woman standing by her side. not for misplaced desire or unrequited love or anything as such - oh, elodie's girlfriend is unquestionably beautiful, all dark eyes and indigo curls and a soft, kind smile, a midnight eclipse to elodie's summergold sun - but no, meifon is elated for her fellow noble that she has found love in her partner.[break][break]
and therein lies the envy - that elodie pellantaise, with her high-born blood and a pedigree of fifteen generations strong, is allowed choice where she was not. elodie looks happy, even with her quiet grace, happy in a way meifon has never seen any one of her house look so at a celebration like this. this is proof right here, that aristocracy and progressiveness are not fundamentally opposed; there is something bitterly ironic that her traditionalist brother is here too, that he is here and acknowledging her choices, her life, her person - the way he would never of meifon.[break][break]
( she sneaks a glance at her older brother standing stiff and rigid by a pillar. he looks... empty. pale and stark and washed out compared to the soft sweep of skirts and quiet laughter and easy chatter among the guests. he looks like a statue, one carved from marble and ruby and onyx, belonging in the clean, clinical palace inside their jade walls. he does not look alive. )[break][break]
perhaps she is not fair to him - jiayi is here for a mission and not of his own accord, and jiayi is certainly not the summation of everything their house has ruled and valued over the years to make the jade palace what it is. but jiayi is a representation of all those things meifon hates, the enforcer of those restrictions that chain her so; she is still too bitter, still too raw from his attempted betrothal of her and everything else before that to look at him with any calm objectivity. [break][break]
she turns her thoughts away from her brother, scanning the crowd intent on finding her - xinmei's - twin, when xihe winds through the crowd like the river she was named for and brushes against her legs. she stills at the gesture, childhood memories rising to fore alongside the same bitterness-betrayal she feels towards jiayi; she shoves it down because xihe is not her witch, because now is not the time, because she needs to respond with a clear head her emotions will not allow.[break][break]
she takes a moment to orient herself in xinmei's mindset, her behaviours; performativity, she reminds herself, and smiles at her brother's familiar, distant and polite. "thank you, xihe," she says, careful not to let meifon lin slip out through the spaces between her words. "i shall be with my brother."
when he was younger and didn't understand the shapes birthed from sounds that swam in his vision, he hated the parties. he hated the forced laughter, the ribbons tying everyone together in a way that never made sense. so he'd sneak away to the nearest study (most noble houses had at least one), but now he stays quietly on the fringes, watching the murmurs, humming to the music played by the neatly dressed band in the corner of the room.[break][break]
lia had urged him to go along with his brother. he needs the company after all this.[break][break]
but he stands alone, on the other opposite side of the room, gray eyes watching jiayi and their cousin speak. if she were here, he would joke about the grandoise nature of it all, try to make it all the more bearable for the both of them, but his joke dissolves with the rest of the imaginary conversation.[break][break]
he wishes he knew the words to say in the present, to the people that are here in the present, but his fingers itch for the strings of his violin. would jiayi understand what the notes meant?[break][break]
no.
the music shifts; echoes of purple and blue intermingle with the yellows that had permeated the room. a natural berth opens in the center of the room, revealing several couples with hands clasped, feet moving in time with the music. taoyang fiddles with his vest--soft lilac, emblazoned with their family's sigil--and apologizes as he brushes past strangers around the room. more and more people join the waltz and taoyang hesitates, approaches his family.[break][break]
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