Fandom 𝒂 𝒅𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒑𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒖𝒊𝒕. [lore]

[fraxiom]

lore thread for a divine pursuit.

prophecy:

Spoiler: PROPHECY

A message from the world beneath:
Come wind, and sea, and fire;
Thunder’s tongue and lightning teeth;
Heaven’s Hell, and Hell’s ire.

Before the stone tremble heaven and earth
As the forgotten make their claim;
An ancient blade from dirt will birth,
And seek new bodies to maim.

The fade will pause, no pantheon lost
Should the weapon be retrieved;
The children will fight to field the cost
Of gods, no longer believed

Seven shall ride through night and day,
Though one shall be revealed,
Under the moon, the protégé
Shall cross the battlefield.

A trio of swords, a scabbard, a horn;
And combining cauldron and bow,
The gods crowned kings by their spawn
Bring desolation to those below.

renegade origins:

Spoiler: RENEGADES

TEILO GRIFFITHS

His face is pressed against a sheet of gravel that's come to rest on the roof of the Hilton he's found himself on. There's blood in a pool surrounding him, all his own, mixed with the oil that spurted from the demonic bird that took it upon itself to tear pieces out of his face until he gathered up the instinct to finally, finally fight back.

"C'mon, Taffy. Get up. Get up, man," the apparition that's standing over him may not be real, but its voice is drenched with concern. This ghost appeared to him only a few days ago, and has been bothering him ever since: Clive, he calls himself. If what he says is true, he's a victim of an epidemic, who seeks only to look after the only teenager in the world who's ever been able to see him.

He's dying. He knows death. He's felt it on other people, and he can smell it on himself like stale body odour. It's layered with the metallic smell of his own blood and underscored by the scent of oil. All of these stinks come to attack his olfactory senses and he retches pathetically. Other people in this situation would call for their mother, he figures. He can't think of a worse way to waste his last words.

It comes to him then, the silence, but it's not what he's come to expect. As his vision grows ever darker, the blobs of blindness join up to form the figure of a man. It might be a man, anyway. If he looks closely, focuses a little too hard on the details of this stranger, he's confronted with visions of vicious hounds, of a great and powerful stag, of a man whose face is half skeleton and half flesh.

Fy mab, says the being's voice to Teilo. Automatically, he translates the words of his mother tongue to 'my son'.

You were born of death, he is told.

You began life as a corpse. You are closer to death than any other, he is told.

Therefore, you will escape it, he is told.

Energy returns to him in a rush. He gasps, suddenly aware of the pain he's in, and looks his father in the eyes so similar to his own.

There is a sword that continues to fight for justice, even though its wielder has perished, he is told. There is a cauldron that grants rebirth and a scabbard that infects all those it touches with eternity.

Find them, fy mab, he is told.

"How?"

Find the others like you. The shadow people, the forgotten children. The path will lay itself out to you, but you must make your allies quickly.

Without warning, his father leaves.

But all of a sudden, Teilo is not alone in the world.

***​

Berlin is by no means his favourite city, but he finds it the easiest to get lost in. With its bustling crowds of locals and tourists, its alleyway mazes, underground passageways, and shadows cast by looming buildings, he considers it a suitable city to hide in plain sight, and figure out his next steps.

The city’s history would have made things difficult in the past, but he's learnt how to stop letting the ghosts chip at the calcified rock around his beating heart. Instead, he sees the fraught and frightened spectres as things of great use. Once he's wiped their tears and calmed their nerves, he finds that these spirits are more than happy to do what he asks, if only because they haven't been told what to do for decades. People yearn order, a task to do; this does not change when they are dead.

With broken German (always best to make an attempt in another’s mother tongue, he thinks), he spreads the word: Finde die anderen Leute wie mich, die Schattenmenschen, die Vergessenen.

And they do. His network of ghosts spread out across the globe, asking questions of the others in their positions, requesting information about the living that they so envy. After only a few days, news returns to him of children in cities across the globe who share his disposition, left to rot in spite of all of that power, all of that history. With maps, phone books and social media photos, he can do the rest. Names and addresses are sourced, and contact is made through anonymous letters and shielded phone calls.

He's not sure about what kind of war it is he's fighting, but he's certain he's going to win it. With this army, loss is impossible.

***​

A trough between his teeth, his fingernails saturated with dirt, Teilo finds their retribution.

Under the bright Ioaninnan moon, he looks deathly pale. Cast against the backdrop of the mountains, he’s tiny. Meaningless. Infinitesimal.

When the skin that covers his aching fingers touches ancient metal, his soul expands. A thready heartbeat grows rapid with a sudden rush of exuberant adrenaline, and in spite of himself, Teilo laughs. The sound bounces off the rocky crests and returns to his ears just in time to score the scene of him, unearthing the sword.

This, he thinks to himself as he brandishes the time-wrought weapon, is where everything begins.

Up above, the gods sense a shift in fate. The clouds shudder.

blood like lemonade

coded by hanthesunbeam