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.
I press the button and[break]it bursts into life[break]This time nothing will escape my sight
She's excited, she's grinning, she's elated; she is a ray of sunshine forged into child shape racing down Sundial streets with the clouds beneath her feet and stars going supernova in her eyes; she is a newborn butterfly draped in reds and heliotrope-whites flitting through the skies with hummingbird wings; she is pure breathless joy, she is childish laughter like silver bells; she is pride, she is smiling, she is a novice now racing towards the shop and home of he who is all but her adoptive father.
She bursts through the front door like nothing less than a miniature hurricane, all gangly limbs and dark hair and a smile like her teeth are pearls. "Mr Tay, My Tay!" she yells, bouncing up to the man and seizing him in a hug, before letting go to beam up at him bright as the sun. Ling pays absolutely no mind to the few customers in the shop staring at her like she's a lunatic. "Guess what! Guess what just happened to me!"
All but vibrating in place, she can barely restrain herself from just blurting the news out, the words just barely staying on the tip of her tongue. There's... probably no way Mr Tay can guess - even a coven known to be much laxer like Jester's Den usually wouldn't promote a sixteen-year-old to novice, heck she didn't expect to be promoted anytime soon - but hey, she's got to build some suspense, right?
“you’ll probably want to make sure these get plenty of sun, and--” through the window, he spots a small figure racing towards the flower shop. “please excuse me for a second.” he barely has time to get the words out and wave his familiar over to take care of this customer before the door bursts open with all the strength that a teenage girl can presumably muster. it gets a couple of curious stares from other browsing customers, and most definitely succeeds in grabbing his attention.
bracing for the hug does not lessen its impact in the least. ling barrels into him and traps him in a hug, smile brighter than the sun itself and taylan wonders briefly if anyone has ever been blinded by the sheer force of cheerfulness alone. still, he ruffles her hair in a display of fatherly affection against his better judgement, the barest hints of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
“you...saved a pigeon? a cat? met another runescripter?” he doesn’t ever remember ling being this excited before, so whatever events had transpired must have been good.
iris chimes in from a few feet away, her voice bell-like and sing-song with merriment. “found a stash of ancient scrolls in the library? someone made too many cupcakes and gave you some?”
Her teeth are fragments of stars captured by the force of her joy, luminous and dazzling even within the constraints of her mortal skin; she beams up at he who is her father in all but name when he ruffles her hair, leaning into the gesture, her chest tightening with something more than pride. She... wants to indulge in a hug again; so she does, then spins around to greet his familiar.
"Iris!! Hi!!" Ling waves enthusiastically at the colourful dolphin, and bounces over to hug her too. ( She also waves at the gaping customers for good measure. ) Giggling at their guesses, she shakes her head rapidly, physically clapping a hand over her mouth to stop herself from going too far out of control ( and also to stop her from blabbing in her elation. ) "Nope! Nothing like that - though ancient scrolls would be awesome. And cupcakes. Cupcakes are always awesome..."
Only momentarily distracted - her news is a little bit too exciting to go off on a tangent just like that - Ling holds out for a few more seconds before her ( admittedly not-brilliant ) self-control is pushed to limits it can't contain and breaks like sunlight through an overcast sky. "I'm a novice!" she announces, proud and gleeful and so, so happy. She beams, does a twirl, points at herself. "They made me a novice! Me! Can you believe it??!"
hugging a dolphin, magical familiar or not, is an awkward gesture. nonetheless, iris and ling somehow persevere, the familiar sliding an iridescent flipper around the girl’s shoulder to give a cetacean version of a friendly shoulder pat. taylan and the customers look on with faint amusement, though for the latter mild confusion still persists.
for a moment, ling threatens to veer off onto a tangent -- and frankly, he wouldn’t be surprised if she did -- but taylan is patient, accustomed to the ramblings of this teenage genius, and he waits silently. there’s an encouraging quality to his wordlessness, something that becomes possible to discern only after prolonged exposure to his taciturn habits.
“i’m a novice!” she says, sunshine through grey clouds, and despite himself, he smiles. it is a genuine smile, too, one of those paternal grins that settles over his features in an unfamiliar way. how can he not? ling is standing before him, infinite possibilities confined within such a small frame, shining brighter than the sun. he is proud, so proud.
“look how far you’ve come,” he says, voice warm and eyes bright. he reaches down, one arm light across her shoulders in some semblance of a hug. iris trills her delight in the background, doing a victorious somersault that narrowly avoids sweeping an entire row of potted plants onto the ground. “i’m so happy for you.”
Mr Tay smiles, small and quiet and understated, and Ling honestly doesn’t think it’s possible for her to feel any happier, any prouder, than this very moment. Having that expression directed at her… she’s reminded of all the parent-kid interactions she’s seen and secretly wished for, all times she’s woken up with memories of warmth and love and protection rapidly fading from her waking recollection, all the time she’s spent wondering and wishing and dreaming for someone ( her dad, her dad - she knows she had one that loved her, she knows ) to look at her like that.
And now- and now Mr Tay is smiling at her, and her chest feels like someone has squeezed it tight and her heart feels too big for her ribcage and she almost, almost wants to cry. Happy tears, of course, the happiest- but she doesn’t, because she wants to smile and laugh and dance too ( and she really doesn’t want to potentially alarm Mr Tay with gross sobbing ).
Then he reaches over and gently pulls her close, voice warm and fond and so, so much like what she imagines a parent ( her parent ) would say that Ling forgets her resolve entirely. Her entire face wobbles and she sniffs, trying to hold the tears back to no avail; she turns around to hug Mr Tay again, though not before a hasty declaration that “these are happy tears, okay?”
Burying her face in his shirt, Ling sniffs again, then mumbles, “I’m so happy that you’re proud of me.”
In the room behind the main flower shop, Desmond could overhear the conversation between the store's owner and the young Jester. He hadn't intended to snoop -- he hadn't even moved from his position on the couch, where he had been carving into bits of bone as he slowly shaped them in to divining dice.
Lù-xī sounded happy, and she had every right to be. She had every right to be proud, and every right to want to share her accomplishment with those she cared about. She had the same drive and talent as her mother -- maybe even more, considering she was still merely in her teens. He was glad she had found a good life for herself... but...
"It hurts..."
The hushed thought from Grendel from within their shared mindspace interrupts the seer's isolation, and draws his focus to the gnawing in his chest.
As he had no solution to offer, and no proper response, the witch settles for a silent, but demanding retort: "Shut up."
he’s not sure what he expected. sure, he’s had experience raising kids, but cecilia had always been the quieter sort, more reserved about her emotions; she wouldn’t have been caught dead doing this in public. ling, on the other hand, has about her a certain air, one that is delightful and carefree and really, he is at a terrible loss of what to do because you simply do not come into much contact with souls like this in his line of work.
so when ling starts crying -- despite her declaration that they are happy tears, which he does not doubt her about -- he finds himself stuck with awkwardly patting her on the back, murmuring softly, “there, there.” iris, ever the absolute godsend, floats over gently to the counter to fetch a tissue, and hovers quietly by the girl’s shoulder, the tissue held in a silent offer.
“i’m just happy that you’re happy,” he ends up saying, his words feeling impossibly clumsy despite his best efforts. iris trills out a wordless but similar sentiment. “any plans to celebrate?” he asks lightly. “going out with your friends?”
a pause, thoughtful. “do you have a favourite type of cake? i might be in the baking sort of mood today.”
She's pretty sure she's ruining My Tay's shirt with ugly tear splotches ( and she's pretty sure her face doesn't look much better ), but honestly she doesn't care one bit at this point, she's just so happy. Of course, she knows Mr Tay isn't the best equipped to dealing with emotional outbursts ( like Ling is prone to, whoops ), but hey, that's why she's around!
And Iris is a blessing like always; she takes the tissue and soaks it almost immediately, then unlatches from her dad to hug the dolphin too. "You're the best, Iris."
The tears, thankfully, finally start to go away - she's not ashamed of her emotions, but they are a bit of a pain to deal with sometimes - she shakes her head. "I wanted to tell you first," she says, attaching herself back to his side. "And uh, they kinda don't know yet," she mumbles. "I might have maybe just a little ran here as soon as they told me."
But of course, the magic words follow. "Cake?" She brightens, looking up at him like a sunflower seeks the sun. "I love cake! Any kind, really. Can I help?" Another thought strikes her, and she looks around the room, searching for the very familiar figure of the other man that's always bumming around. "Is Mr Des here today? I wanna tell him too."
The softly scratching tip of Desmond's carving knife ceases the moment Ling mentions that she wants to tell the news to him. He shouldn't be so highly prioritized on her list of people to tell -- before her friends and the rest of her Coven, even if it was a matter of convenience due to his usual proximity to the flower shop. The kind of thinking that gave him that level of favor was backwards. Wrong. He'd given up the right to feel the light from her life years ago. He shouldn't be allowed to share that light now.
(And, she is naive to think that he's someone worth trusting, naive to think that he isn't a patchwork of every vile person who'd raised him and every bloody portent he'd followed. And, he is naive to wish, even for an instant, that he could be anything else.)
The seer exhales through his nose in an expression which was not quite a sigh despite bearing a similar sentiment, and brushes off the bone dust speckling his thigh onto the floor. (He has no intent of cleaning it later.) After long ago taking note of every creaking section of floor, drawer, and door hinge in the building, silently slipping to the place where he keeps things that he doesn't want found feels like second nature. Desmond plucks up a trinket long neglected (but not forgotten, never that) and pockets it. He hadn't intended to offer gifts in person (and knows he shouldn't -- absence is less messy than this in-between), but she's already here, and so is he, and so is the gift, and, really, what kind of lousy seer would he be if he didn't believe in signs?
He slinks back to where Taylan and Lù-xī were talking (or hugging, or crying, or discussing the merits of cake) and taps lightly on the entryway to the adjoining room to announce himself. "Congratulations," is all he says, with a slight smile that sneaks its way into his eyes.
