[♟] false idols [♙]

[76heart]

━ｏｎｃｅ ｔａｌｌ ａｎｄ ｐｒｏｕｄ ━━━━

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━━━━━━ａ  ｗｉｔｃｈ  ｋｉｎｇｄｏｍ━━

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❝ what is their relationship to
the masks? ❞


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[76heart]

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kalons #1589 & #1590 ● made by hiraeth + hound ● our post on the thread
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┏ｔｈｅ ｌａｓｔ━━━━━━━━━━┓
1590 - black masquerade

idyll ● killian ● he/him
❝ i stayed because i love you,
and for you, there is nothing i
wouldn't do ❞
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┏━━━━━━━━ｔｈｅ ｌａｓｔ━━┓
1589 - white masquerade

76heart ● ithilie ● she/her

❝ you didn't have to stay,
and yet, you did anyway ❞
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ＴＨＥＩＲ  ＴＡＬＥ  ＡＮＤ  ＴＨＥＩＲ  ＤＥＢＴＳ
playlist
promise
puppets
credits

[76heart]

━ｏｆ  ａ  ｐｅｏｐｌｅ  ｃｕｒｓｅｄ ━━━━

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━━ｌｅｔ ｍｅ  ｔｅｌｌ ｙｏｕ  ｏｆ ｔａｌｅ

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ｏｆ ａ ｄａｒｋｎｅｓｓ
ｔｈａｔ  ｐｒｅｖａｉｌｅｄ


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song of the witch kingdom - victoria carbol ● the enemy - mumford and sons ● the lakes - RHODES ● fall - dotan
willow tree march - the paper kites ● till i see you again - UNSECRET ft. the powder room ● fallout - UNSECRET ft. neoni
where's my love (piano and viola version) - SYML ● trøllabundin - eivør ● fire in the rain - måns zelmerlöw ● home - dotan
nothing else matters - marlisa ● silhouette - aquilo ● find you - ruelle ● everybody knows - sigrid ● where is your rider - the oh hellos
dear wormwood - the oh hellos
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[76heart]

━━━━ｂｌｏｏｄ  ｐａｙｍｅｎｔ  ｍａｄｅ━

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━ ｂｌｏｏｄ  ｕｎｉｆｉｅｄ ━━━━━━━━

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1,018
words


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Masks.

Some hide behind them to protect themselves from whispered words and venomous eyes.

But not us.

For us, they mark a deal not yet fulfilled, and a promise twice broken.

An ancient debt long owed, now on us to complete.


❝ Once we were just a boy, and just a girl, a pair in love.

Until the day my family's duty became our burden to bear, because we were the only two souls left who could bear it.

He didn't have to share the burden with me, but he did, out of love, and it is now on us to set the
c
h
a
i
n
e
d
spirits free. ❞


❝ In our world, there is no magic without spirits, and in a world without magic, there is nothing but empty, hollow life, wilting away on borrowed time.

Every day the spirits they imprisoned grow weaker, and the blood of my love is the only one who can free them.

Long ago, her family made a deal with them; a member of the Elesthene family- one of the few families capable of using magic, like my own-, would always be within the hidden realms of spirits, to take care of them, and light the lanterns to light their paths and renew their strength, and so long as they did that, they would have magic powerful enough to perform their task, and the help and protection of the spirits in their rule of the kingdom.
It wasn't a very fair deal; but then when were deals with spirits fair? They could not lie, but they could sell half truths, or hide the meaning behind the deal entirely. Deals with them always came with a price, and they had paid it, and now we are too. Ours is all the more heavier, because with us, it was twice broken.

Unfortunately, a selfish soul within the kingdom did not understand how needed the deal was, and how it would break if their blood fell from the throne, and he began an uprising against us.

He wished to rid the world of magic, magic he wanted to destroy because he could not posses it himself, not realizing without magic, he would slowly wither and die, like a flower with no water.

He raised an army, and tricked the family into thinking he was a friend. When they trusted him most, he stabbed the queen in the back, and called for his army to destroy the spirits. He and his army shattered their masks, scattering magic to hidden corners of the land where it had a hope of surviving, broke into their worlds and killed the soul looking after them, breaking the deal, and casting the land into dark shadow when he sat upon their throne, feet in the blood he had spilled.

The shadow he cast was dark, and      l  o   n   g, and one no light could break through.

At least until the magic was back. ❞


❝ His rise heralded the death of the world's magic, snuffing it out from a roaring flame to a flicker that threatened to go out at the faintest breath.

Our kingdom reduced to a mere broken jewel in another tyrant's crown, brought to their knees by a fool.

A fool who was going to kill them all before they even realized he had
i f
we can't set all of the spirits free.

We lived because we were away from the castle when they destroyed it all, we lived because we had unknowingly ran away.

When we returned, we saw what had happened, all the lives that had been destroyed, and the masks of the spirits who would never be seen again.

My sister was dead, my mother and father were dead, and the brother that had been chosen by the spirits to watch over them was dead.

I was the only one left, so they extended the deal to me; I take my brother's place, and help the spirits and magic slowly find their feet again. I accepted, I had no choice, and my selfless love joined me, so I would not be alone in my prison to drown in my guilt.

For a few years the magic was safe, and the spirits had begun to heal, until some disturbance forced us unwillingly out, and the deal was broken again.

The spirits didn't have enough energy to bring us back in; whatever had forced us out made their masks bleed, so they gave us a new task.

Free the spirits the tyrant had taken as safeguards and trophies, hidden all throughout the land in every spring of magic he could find to sustain them just enough to keep them alive, and find the spirits hiding away, and my families debt, one we broke twice, will be considered paid. ❞


❝ They gave us two masks, masks to mark the new deal we had made, and to allow us to see the places of magic that could be seen only by spirits, where they were kept.

Without them, we are blind to it's entrances, it's portals, and until the spirits are set free and magic is returned to the land, and my love's ruling seat restored to the only line of blood who could keep it, they are bound to us, to our souls, and keep us from straying on our path. It didn't matter that we hadn't been the ones to break it, the deals were specific and left only us to take the blame and pay the price, and they could not let this deal be broken.

We cannot be who we truly are, or together in any way but presence until the debt has been paid, and the spirits make sure of that.

Their leader took the form of a bird to protect the little energy and power they had left, and to watch over us, through it's eyes, as we took it on our journey. ❞


That is our relationship to the masks, and why our debt must be paid.

[idyll]

please view full image
time taken: about 10 hours

[76heart]

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beautiful art piece by
idyll <3

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coding and writing by
76heart

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story and concept created/planned by
us both, and playlist agreed upon by
both of us

ideas heavily inspired by the
webcomic blindsprings, which i highly
recommend checking out! i've only
gotten to the third chapter but it's an
absolutely glorious story and the
world building and hidden things are
so fun to discover
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anyway, thank you so much to anyone
who's taken the time to look over our
form! thank you to hound as well, for
creating these two beauties and for
the opportunity!
i also so hope it's okay i went a little
bit out with the index's coding, since
the table of contents isn't exactly
part of the entry ahhh

the gifs were also made by me, so
please don't use them without
asking me first! <33

if the coding is messed up or the
colors are hard to see click here
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