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.
Post by kasimir burovski ✨ on Jun 20, 2018 16:04:39 GMT
blue moon
you saw me standing alone
he stumbles into the night with nothing but the clothes on his back and fear trembling in his shadow, a webwork of red trailing down his torso and betraying their presence through the cuts in his shirt. a cloak cut from the shadows and drawn close like a second skin is his only barrier from the outside world; he can only be grateful that the late hour has banished every last soul from the streets leaving behind just a ghost town to navigate. there is a fine shiver running through his muscles that will not abate, that has nothing to do with the cold and everything to memory of it - and not even lighting himself on fire will dispel it.
there is a dip in the path born of a misaligned cobblestone, so of course fate dictates he must trip over it. kasimir crashes to the ground, too tired too fractured too utterly and deeply weary to even try and catch himself; he shatters across the pavement in a spill of crimson and glass bones, cloak splayed out around him like the imprint of wings fallen and distorted. the wounds from this session are much lighter than they normally would be, but the quiet stoicism he uses to shield himself had been broken; and ere he is so exhausted that he just wants to dig his fingers into the cut slashed across his throat and deepen it till he breathes no more, curl his fingers around his larynx and rip it out in a single swift stroke.
but he does not, because he is too tired to move; does not, because there is still someone waiting for him to come home. someday, perhaps he will fall in battle or spell or as just another body in a ditch in the middle of nowhere, and think, finally, but today is not that day, and today is not that fall. with the last scraps of energy and willpower he possesses, kasimir drags himself up to his knees, then his feet-
then halts, because there is sound, and there are footsteps, and then there is a person.
[attr="class","gearcore"] The crafter's sleep schedule was, at best, unpredictable. Projects that his muse demanded he work on late into the night compounded with the ever-changing hours of his "normal" job as a train mechanic made it common to find Zephyr sleeping right through the day and instead haunting Sundial (or whatever city he happened to be in at the time) at night. Since tonight's odd-houred excursion was caused by late-night mechanics the night prior, the crafter had no plans to meet up with any similarly night-owly friends; instead, he figured he'd go to a junk yard and pick out some new (to him, at least) parts.
He hadn't been expecting to see a familiar mess of red hair dart off into an alley.
At first, he thought it might have been someone else with a similar hairstyle, but, upon following the figure and forcing back the shadows with magical illumination, he found his initial suspicions correct. There stood Sirius, the most injured that Zephyr had seen him since that one time in the southern forests when he'd been rammed off a cliff by a wild dog.
"Sirius..? Ya alright? Do ya need a place t' stay?" His voice is laced with concern, eyes trained on the gash across the assassin's throat. In addition to his spoken questions, he wanted to know what happened. However, life in Leviathan had taught him to ask potentially classified questions like that much later. He has suspicions, of course -- most of which surround the idea of a mission gone wrong. He doesn't ask before beginning to cast an Episkey spell on Sirius's neck. He doesn't ask before striding closer. He didn't think he needed to.
Post by kasimir burovski ✨ on Jul 2, 2018 4:32:37 GMT
blue moon
you saw me standing alone
for a brief, terrifying moment, kasimir is absolutely convinced that the dark figure approaching is xuan jin, his personal nightmare crowned with a vicious smile and ice-cold eyes come to drag him back for more torment. that the uncharacteristically light and short torture session tonight was actually the trap that he had initially suspected it to be, that the alchemist has taken cruel pleasure in providing the glimmer of hope and then tearing it away.
he freezes, a trembling prey-creature being cornered by a predator, unable to even flee.
the voice that calls out to him is not the expected one.
the sight registers slowly: blond hair where he expects black, blue eyes instead of where the abyss should be. zephyr standing there draped in the deep, dark blues of night, and not the ghostly form of his master. "z-zephyr?" he tries, then winces; his voice comes out hoarse and small as if he has spent the entire night screaming, even if that was not entirely the case.
"i- i'm fine-" he starts to say, only to lose the rest of his words with an instinctive, violent flinch back when the blond move towards him without warning. don't, he wants to scream, do not come near me, but his throat refuses to work and the instincts that have been carved into his bones through a decade of painful lessons root him in place to brace for a blow instead of simply turning and running.
[attr="class","gearcore"] Sirius's flinch is enough to freeze Zephyr in his tracks. He'd never known the assassin to be a particularly fearful person -- he was wary, certainly, but this reaction went beyond mere cautiousness. The realization strikes him that Sirius's wounds run deeper than flesh, and they are likely much older than these fresh cuts which mar his skin.
"Mate, if you're fine, then I'm th' head of th' Helios Knights," he says quietly. He still isn't entirely clear on the situation -- was the assassin being watched right now? Or hunted? -- but he was familiar enough with this type of panic to know that Sirius probably wasn't in the right state of mind to clearly tell him all the details. "Here... Your shirt's in shreds," he says, taking off his jacket and reaching forward to offer it to the assassin.
"So, where're we headed to? I don't want ya gettin' hurt... more hurt." His planned excursion to the junkyard now forgotten, Zephyr has decided he's going to see this through, whether Sirius wants him to or not. He's aware that he might be offering himself to some sort of dark and tangled web, but, no matter the situation, he's convinced that his coven -- his family -- has more dangerous spiders.
Post by kasimir burovski ✨ on Aug 26, 2018 12:58:37 GMT
blue moon
you saw me standing alone
there is realisation dawning like a death knell in zephyr's eyes, a herald of kasimir's doom ringing through the dissipating fog of deception he has wrapped himself in for protection. how much zephyr knows, what conclusions he has drawn, kasimir knows not, but even the smallest realisations are the first step to knowing everything else. he drops his gaze, draws in on himself in a ball of fear and tension and self-loathing and waits for the conclusion to begin. sometimes, it is less painful not to see until he must.
for a brief moment, a jest hovers on the tip of his tongue - 'perhaps you are, in secret from the rest of the world' - but he knows it would fall flat before the first syllable even left his lips, and there is no part of him that is currently capable of levity; but still, he needs to allay any suspicions, downplay everything, say something-
"j-just surface wounds," he says quietly, and tries to subtly adjust his shirt so that the cuts are less evident. "superficial. t-they are n-nothing serious." and they truly are not, not compared to everything else in his master's repertoire, not compared to what could have been. what is a few more scars to the hundreds he has already? all he wants to do is go home, curl up in his bed and pretend he does not exist, pretend that the world does not exist-
he flinches again at further movement, the offering of the jacket, and how stupid is it that he cannot even keep these base instincts under control? this is zephyr, he knows this is zephyr and not xuan jin, knows that whatever the blond decides to do cannot be worse than what guerra and his master have already done, but he cannot stop the fear that quivers in his veins like ice and ichor, and he hates it, he hates it.
kasimir denies the jacket with a minute shake of head, avoiding the blond's gaze for the cobblestones beneath their feet. "i'm- i will be f-fine," he repeats, and takes a small half-step back. "p-please do not trouble yourself for me." he cannot deal with the acquisition of more debts now, he really, really, cannot.
[attr="class","gearcore"] Although Zephyr doesn't fully believe Sirius's assurances, a few stray doubts begin to creep in. Maybe he shouldn't be pushing his presence on the assassin like this. After all, he had said lies like those himself, years ago when he'd watch Aeris work the forge. His lips would form a smile and his tongue would promise that he'd be okay, but the rest of his body wouldn't stop shaking at the sight of those leaping flames. Logically, he knew it was irrational, since Aeris could control the fire to keep him safe. Fear wasn't something that obeyed the words of logic, however.
He hesitates, critically eyeing the assassin as if he could simply read the explanation of what was happening from the redhead's mind. He can't be sure, but judging from the other's reactions, Zephyr realizes he is the fire.
Ah, but that isn't quite right, is it? Fire is a force of nature, an energy which consumes without discrimination. Even with all of its passion, it couldn't help the child who'd feared it.
The crafter lowers his offered arm to his side, but doesn't make a motion to leave. In fact, he takes a slow step forward. "You're not a burden, Siri. Sometimes a reckless bastard, sure, but so're the rest o' my friends." Sprocket climbs up his arm and perches herself back on her witch's shoulder just as it raises briefly in a shrug, "Just... humor me. Please. I haven't got anywhere else t' be, an' it can be dangerous out here at night. I wont force ya t' tell me anythin' you don't want to, and I'll be out o' your hair soon as ya get someplace safe. Deal?" He offers a smile that he hopes is reassuring.
Truthfully, he really wants an explanation for what's happening, and he isn't entirely sure that leaving Sirius in this state, even in a safe building, is such a good idea. Even so, he was willing to say just about anything to get the redhead to calm down and not run away like a frightened animal, even if the promises were empty.
Post by kasimir burovski ✨ on Dec 15, 2018 12:11:27 GMT
blue moon
you saw me standing alone
fear is a monster that lives inside his chest. it slides tendrils of ice up his oesophagus and trachea, branches out from his lungs, rides his bloodstream down to burrow into his soft-tissue stomach. it refuses reason, it refuses logic, it refuses to be dispelled by the intellectual understanding of safety.
'breathe,' says kirjava, and he blinks back to the present, a full-body shiver running down his nerves before he heeds her words with a shuddering gasp. zephyr swims back into focus, zephyr and his concern, zephyr and his coat. zephyr and his unconvinced expression, zephyr who is too observant, too intelligent by far.
he needs to do something, say something, to divert the blond. allay any suspicion, no no, these are not the droids you are looking for; he needs to stop, to stand straight, square his shoulders, pull his gaze up off the ground, steady himself and his racing heart. he is not a victim, not a target, not prey beneath the gleeful claws of a predator; he is not kasimir burovski here with zephyr, he is sirius and he needs to be as such. press the mask against his face, layer upon layer upon layer until he can distance himself from his own body enough that he stops shaking.
do not flinch do not flinch do not run- he does not flinch when the blond takes a step forth, he stands his ground and does not flee like his muscles scream out for. kasimir watches the crafter carefully, green eyes darting between spock and zephyr intent on catching each movement. face blank, body still, feet planted in place; cage the fear-monster between his ribs and burn the key.
( and yet, zephyr still manages to surprise him. friends? the word and everything it implies strikes him with a flash, a jolt through his electrosynaptic wiring enough to animate the stone. friends? where, when, how? )
he wants to decline. wants to assure that he is fully capable of getting home safely, wants to duck out from underneath zephyr's too-sharp gaze and vanish into the night, alone enough to buckle and crack, free to wallow in selfish regret. but he cannot leave zephyr with this scene as the lingering impression, not with the suspicion he can almost see brewing in the blond's mind, ( and there is an echo in his chest, of something warm; friends- ); he swallows, and jerks a nod. "a-alright," he says quietly, catching his stutter between his teeth and crushing it there, forces his tongue to forget the imprint of terror and his throat the echo of screams. "deal."
'relax,' kirjava advises, and he obeys, forcibly loosening his posture to something less rigid, less stiff. "sorry," he says to zephyr, attempting a smile to offer back. "i am- was- a little on edge. a mission went wrong," he lies.
[attr="class","gearcore"] Fane would have scolded him if she'd seen him acting critical, he realizes. Merely solving the puzzle wasn't the path to winning, she'd always told him; both this, and making the opponent drop their guard by thinking they've won were both necessary.
And though Siri wasn't an opponent in the traditional sense of the word, Zephyr supposed he could classify the assassin's fear under that category. If Sirius keeping his secrets was what winning meant to him, then Zephyr had to at least pretend that he believed his excuses (even if he wasn't entirely sure what to believe right now).
He grins when Sirius says they have a deal, genuinely relieved that he had agreed to any of his suggestions. "No worries, mate -- I've been there," he replies with his smile gaining just a touch sympathy as he waves away any further need for apology.
"Ya have a place in mind?" he asks tentatively, glancing down the alleyway, as he mentally flips through his catalogue of safe (or at least mostly safe) places to crash. Spock also has enough sense to casually watch Zephyr's back instead of boring through the wounded Silvertongue with her gaze. Though Sirius was letting them tag along, Zephyr didn't want to assume the assassin would simply lead him to a safe house. "I know a couple inns where you could stay the night. They don't take names n' don't ask questions. Never had issues with magical spyin' there either."
