deliverance

Lian · 3 hours ago

backdated to the 14th to immediately follow the BWP conclusion | welcome to any, but pings for Mike Yuèzhuō and Rìhé

Tianlong's lotus watches the reunion centuries in the making with tears, and then magic's glittering aftereffects, shining within golden irises. The burning chains, the writhing mass of bodies clamoring to free and to kill and to sabotage, the bitter blizzard that had condensed on the chained one: they were all gone, once everything took its place in the world once more. The chained wolf, reunited. The Isle had fallen still and into slumber, and the land itself opened the skies and finally gave way to the welcome of spring.

Lian dared, at last, cheeks damp, to blink.

And when she opened her eyes once more, the honeysuckle and the sweetgrass on the warm wind had stayed. The sky greeted her with a watercolor spill of orange and pink and yellow fading into hints of blue. A riot of sunlight crawled over a sprawling horizon, and Lian breathed relief. Joy. Gratitude. Harmony settled into the world around her, and settled her worrisome heart. She thought of crying a little more with no one to witness it, but a bird streaked across the now-unchained sky and Lian felt a smile crack her porcelain visage.

When the shock of her survival and success give her room to breathe, the space is filled immediately by duty. The princess startled, then flung herself to the earth to press her crown to the soft, sweet-smelling grass. The reverent bow is repeated thrice, muttered prayers of gratitude and praise to the Crystal Dragon for its wisdom and lending of its power to its chosen people to heal this world.

Only once her prayers are uttered, her lack of incense or offering lamented, and the daybreak still holds steady does Lian sit up and take stock of her surroundings. A foreign landscape, rolling hills and sagebrush and dryer air than she is used to. Persimmon and rich, rainforest loam does brush her nose as it twitches. Nor do the scents of her kin.

Strange.

In the distance, rising from the shadows of the dawn like bone jutting from a carcass: a structure loomed. It looked not unlike the temple of home, but jagged and worse in every way. Even so, Lian gathered herself up and began toward the structure with her chin high.

Welcome Back!

Greetings Stranger!

Eastborne

princess of the tianlong