She remembers The Incarnadine.

She remembers the ritual she carried out in many hands, together as two, splintered from bloodshed forevermore.

She remembers something before separation, before bleeding together.

And she remembers the debt owed to the miracle that followed.

#dyskrasias

There is none other in Abyssal Plains so blasphemous as the Ichor longing to reunite with the holy bones of the Shade, free from the affliction of blood.

It is Svellere’s memory, the knowledge of the fate of her god, and the lingering taste of sacrifice, that drives her ferocity.

#dyskrasias

It is Svellere, ultimately, who holds Castrel at bay.

Svellere, rewarded with death for her innumerable victories, remains vigilant at her post before the Hollow Cathedral.

Lanio has died to Castrel several fold, but the Tenebral Servant has not once met defeat.

#dyskrasias

Yualis never lived and so too will not die to the mundanity of steel.

She is the water under Castrel’s feet, the shadow fastened to her heels. The moon is hung back in its firmament as she retreats to somewhere darker, lonelier, and more peaceful than the turbulent Plains above.

#dyskrasias

Castrel’s will would not be broken by something as fleeting as a god.

She defines herself, over and over, in persistence and execution.

The Queen of the Aves is a mockery of everything Castrel is, everything she does not know, trailing her like a nightmare through the Plains.

#dyskrasias

To bleed together with the moon, with a god, with a shadow, would be to come apart.

So, she does not bleed together with Yualis, for their blood has already mixed, decanted, and been newly bottled in violent vessels, but Castrel can feel her, as steady blood pounding in her veins.

#dyskrasias

Hollowed Yualis, whose heart bequeathed to the earth its tides, Hollowed Yualis who in her mercy absolved the sanguine of their tellurian burden, so too watches Castrel in this strange land.

Castrel, who does not know the name Yualis, but heard from Keeper Tajsa of one called Valke.

#dyskrasias

In another place, at another time, a dark feathered beast, kin of the Aves, crosses the Abyssal Plains.

Where her footsteps–handprints–fall, light is called forth like full moons from the night denied eternally to these skies.

Above and below are not so different in her Plains.

#dyskrasias

As the darkness clears, they find themselves no longer in Mare Oblivium, but in a luminous, frigid plain of ice and barren trees.

This is Dove’s firmament, Lacus Khion, where footsteps echo against the frozen lake’s surface.

A safe, bitter place that the Harbinger calls her own.

#dyskrasias

Castrel, weary from battle, does not anticipate any hand offered open and kind.

It is not uncommon for the Umbral Aves to triumph over Castrel, and were it not for this serendipitous meeting, she could have given in to the lure of the depths, the mockery of slumber they call death.

#dyskrasias

This is the lantern kept by Dove, Halcyon Harbinger, of Lacus Khion. She and her birdcage alike gleam amid the gloam.

Shadows seem to slip from her robes, banished with the Aves from this murmuration, unable to sink their talons into the comfort she bears in the crescent of her lips.

#dyskrasias

When shadows blacken the firmaments of the Abyssal Plains, a soft, warm light sometimes follows, as if to soothe the darkness’ fear of itself.

#dyskrasias

The flare might have been caused by toothpaste of all things which is just silly I think. Then I got a cold. But I seem to be bouncing back ok for the past couple weeks so I’m optimistic!

This is the way of the Abyssal Plains.

You rise, you fight, you sink, you rise. Waxing, waning. Ebbing, flowing. This cycle is only broken when Castrel delivers the fatal blow. The others perish alongside her, but only the Ichor moves ever toward the Shade. To Valke the Exsanguinated.
#dyskrasias

As fresh as her first awakening, she is reborn.

No wounds mark her body, open, closed, or scarred. No proof of red, gold, or black upon her.

All she finds on her skin are droplets of water from the tranquil surface beneath.

#dyskrasias

Castrel wakes up in Mare Oblivium.

#dyskrasias

Then, her own blood pours from the unopened wound of the fatal strike landed on another woman’s body.

As the Ichor falls to rise again in her own firmament, so too does this fleeting champion, rewarded only by bearing witness to her adversary’s failure.

#dyskrasias

The battle has ended.

Castrel lies dead on the ground.

The victors regard their success for a single, still moment.

#dyskrasias

Castrel could prevail neither over Lanio nor Svellere. Whether by claws rending flesh and organ, or needlepoint-spear deftly piercing the hollow of her throat, the blood eagerly betrays her veins by spilling to the ground, mixing with the salt of the endless sea beneath a callous moon. #dyskrasias