lost carcosa ▷ writing storage

[lysander]

 




lysander  // dinais  //  male




"what are you doing here?"

a voice like charcoal from years of inhaling toxic fumes. you step back, once, twice — trip over your own feet. you land — the fall hurts, but nothing can pull your eyes away from the gaze of another.

he is here, whose territory you've trespassed. the swamp-dweller whose rumored walls are dressed with the bones of naive travelers who took one step too many into the polluted marshlands—

—to warn travelers like you.

his face is painted with red clay — or so you think it's red clay. from underneath unkempt hair peeks out eyes, narrow, wolf-like, sharp. in his hand, an obsidian spear — an edge an atom thick. you can only begin to imagine what things it's cut through. he's something all too unnatural — a facsimile of a human, or a shadow — same in shape but something so clearly off.

from here, you're close enough to see the unsettling, clammy grey of his skin.

"you're not supposed to be here."

he's angry. his voice grates on your ears. this time you see the whites of his teeth, twisted and warped more like a shark's than a human's. something paralyzes your body — fear, you think. your limbs refused to move the way your brain demands them to, nerves misfiring and adrenaline rushing through your body.

"you ignored the sign, didn't you? just like everyone else."

the words flash briefly in your confusion: biohazard warning: keep out. it wasn't that bad, they said — seems like the double doggy dare you's of your friends were thousands of miles away behind that metal gate you hopped over an hour ago. cheap thrills paid tenfold in regret.

but something changes about his demeanor. a grimy hand pulls away the bangs in front of his face: his eyes are fully revealed. they're every bit as terrible as you thought they'd be, wrath exposed in the dying light. yet there's something else you didn't notice before. he's sad.

"you're not going to make it out alive," he says. he points his spear at your limbs, and you look.

you find your skin crumbling away like charcoal. you scream but no sound comes out your infected lungs, unused to the fumes rising from the toxic mud. you claw at your arms to scrape away the char but with each second the sickness spreads, climbing up your limbs like poison ivy.

then, you realize something far too late:
he's seen this happen before.

this is the last thing you hear before your vision fades to black:

maybe your bones will save someone else's.


[428]

[lysander]

x

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C A E P H E U S
username; lysander　 | 　name; caepheus 　| 　gender; male
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gazelle twin - changeling / lyrics


every day, he watches his sister up on the throne from the shadows of the grand hall. she glitters like the sun — dressed in golds, radiating power in every word spoken. eyes like daggers with a tongue trained in niceties — the product of her grooming; the hours she spent away from their playroom as children, leaving caepheus there alone amongst forgotten toys.

once, they were castor and pollux.

once, a long time ago, they were inseparable. the palace was a vast one, its stone edifice as cold and barren as the royal court. even as children, the lying eyes of politicians had them pinned like butterflies on a wall — but they were together. eachother's only comfort in a world built on lies and deceit.

now, they were like night and day.
people change so very easily.

before he knew it, their youth was over. the world that'd been his and hers entire vanished like the night — the sun rising on a new era, a new reign, a new queen: his sister, caephea. so rises the iron empress. her words like the careful walk of a predator.
it was as if someone replaced his sister with someone else; a changeling in the playroom. a changeling who could order the execution of hundreds of men without so much as a twitch of the eye.

from the darkness of his tower, he watches the morning ceremony as light pours down through the mountains and valleys of their domain, bathing the palace in warmth. he watches the barons and baronesses pledge their loyalty to the queen with smiles like wolves. today a promise, tomorrow a knife in the back. what would it take to fell she who wears the crown? what would it take to wrench the scepter from her hands, bring back the girl whose smiles were sweet, genuine — gold, like honey. not like the regalia she wears now.

what would it take to make those quiet moments in the night, when they're alone and far beyond the ears of the court, last forever? the moments where, in their brief conversations, he hears traces of the girl he once knew. a girl who was kind, gentle — a girl who disappears at the first sign of the morning star.

a girl who, once, was his sister.

the procession continues. caepheus withdraws back into the darkness of his room, away from the world outside.
he never stays to see the rest.

[lysander]

 

A  K A L O N   T R Y O U T   B Y   R I D D L E S T Y X   &   L Y S A N D E R
A R T   B Y   R I D D L E S T Y X  /  S T O R Y   B Y   L Y S A N D E R

 

[lysander]

note 2 self u should make this longer or sth or do a polished version ??? maybe transfer to twine or ??? html ?
viewtopic.php?f=57&t=3624773#p113582680

[lysander]

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an empty bliss   |   kalon tryout by lysander

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[lysander]

　






username: lysander　　 //　　 name: faithe　　//　　 gender: femme/nonbinary



don't fade.



she remembers the smell of cardamom in the kitchen.
the way each spoonful of her grandmother's curry tasted rich with the decades of history— a recipe passed down for generations, down to her aching bones, endless love etched into the wrinkles of her skin. she remembers the days she spent by the sink peeling vegetables, her grandmother beside her over a hot stove with a ladle in one hand and curry leaves in the other. she remembers her warmth, her kind eyes— how they crinkled with every laugh and every smile. she remembers all those cold winter days they'd bake bread together, kneading dough on the kitchen table. how she'd always burn her fingertips peeling apart the layers of paratha, sitting at the counter as her grandmother told her stories of her life, her hardships, her triumphs, her love.

she remembers the day she found her collapsed on the vinyl floor, the pot on the stove boiling over as the ambulance arrived.

she's older now. she doesn't cry thinking about it— not anymore.
when the tears threaten to spill over, she closes her eyes. thinks. remembers.
all the little moments spent in that little kitchen in her youth rush back like old memories.

once again, she can smell the scent of cardamom in the kitchen.


[217]


extra ;

faithe's roots are in her culture, shaped by her experiences with her grandmother's cooking. an aspiring chef, her personal cuisine is focused on keeping her grandmother's memory alive through her cooking. despite having no parents, her grandmother's upbringing gave her all the love she needed to last a lifetime. she's a gentle soul, often soft spoken but with the will of a lion hidden underneath her demeanor— the tattoos on her arms prove it. an old soul on young shoulders, she's fiercely loyal and passionate to her art, and her one goal in life is to bring others the same happiness her grandmother once did— through food.

she's proud of who she is.


[117]


　

[lysander]

 




r e f u g i o



lysander   //  kismet  //  genderless   it/he



"they won't find you," comes a voice echoing in the darkness of a cave.
it's a familiar voice— one you've heard on numerous occasions by now. it's sweet, warm with the dulcet tones of security. so strange for someone mortal, like those who've pursued you through the centuries— but this one is different. this boy is different.

"they won't find you. i promise."

underneath your paws is the aging wood of a boat that carries you silently across the water. it's dead silent save the occasional stir of a rod that the boy uses to direct the flow of magic running through the currents beneath you. one of the magi. you're well acquainted with them. perhaps too well— for their history has been inexplicably intertwined with your own as far back as you can remember. those mortals, whose bodies possess the innate ability to manipulate the ambient energy within themselves and the environment, are in ways so similar to you even with your canid appearance— but they're not like you.

these humans— they don't understand. they warp and twist the world in their vision. make it bleed for their own desires. they are not one with the world— no. they think themselves above it, better than the centrifugal force that drives all life.

the balance.


you remember being born thousands of years ago, wrought from turquoise by the hand of a master craftsman. with his chisel he imbued your stone body with the breath of life and said to you— you are my companion. no more, no less. back then, things were simple— you were simple. the only thought that ran through your head was the joy of fulfilling your purpose, following the ends of his saffron sash through the temple and sleeping beside him at night when the crickets in the distance would gently lull you to sleep. it was a simple life with its simple bliss. you were happy.

one day, he did not come back from his rounds.

it was customary for him to descend from your mountainside refuge on occasion to meet the needs of the villagers below. there were indeed times were your master came back days— even weeks late due to extenuating circumstances. so you merely sat there, upon the temple steps, waiting for him to return to your side.

days passed. those days turned into weeks, then weeks into months. months into years.
you would wait a hundred of them before realizing your master was not coming back.

when you finally brought yourself down from the temple steps, you passed by a pool of water. you did not drink from it— a being of stone required no sustenance —but you peered down into its surface, gazing at your own reflection. the details of your canine features were still as sharp as the day they'd been carved, but something changed. your pure turquoise body was no longer such— it was marred, tarnished with the excess of time.

you didn't care anymore.

the golden bangles around your ankles sounded like chimes as you walked for miles through the vast forest at the base of your mountain. you didn't know where you were going, what you were trying to do. the only thing that kept you moving was the perpetual motion of your limbs, unable to stop because if you stopped that meant you had to think. so instead you focused on the feeling of your pads against the litters of leaves on the ground. the sound of running water as you passed by rivers and streams. the birdsong in the spring mornings and the cicadas calling in the summer heat. and in the blink of an eye, you were another hundred years older. the memory of your master was fresh in your mind as always, but the pain of his disappearance aged into something bitter, something sweet— a pastiche of loss and the memories you had of him. for a while, this became your peace— your solitude and the awareness of the life around you.

that peace was irrevocably broken the day you crossed paths with the magi.

along with the life the monk gave you came certain qualities, for he was no ordinary monk but a magus in his own right, and perhaps not even human— after all, humans did not live past a hundred years yet you spent at least five-hundred by your master's side. and in those five-hundred years, he'd caught you a few tricks— to avoid being seen by mortals. spells of evasion, invisibility. things to allow a creature such as yourself exist in a world where magic was no norm.

it seemed as if humans finally caught on. hot in pursuit were no normal humans at all. they saw through your spells and illusions, gazed upon your stone skin and thought to themselves, this relic belongs to me. you could feel the greed in the way their eyes sparkled at you.

but you had no master now. the only one you'd ever accept was long, long gone.
so you did what any dog would do without a home:
you ran.

you haven't stopped running. not once in a thousand years.


"we're almost through," comes the boy's voice again.
it breaks you out of your reverie, ears alert. you feel his magic running through the water, pulling the boat forward. this isn't the first time he's helped you— no. just one of many strange displays of kindness throughout the years. his brown skin and the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles reminds you of your master in ways you don't want to admit, choose not to admit— because you know that this boy, in time, will soon disappear along with all the others that aided you in your journey. humans were such fragile creatures after all— unlike stone, bodies made of flesh never lasted long.

sometimes you wish you, too, were made of flesh.

but the scene changes. the boat exits the cave, and your thoughts are whisked away by the expanse of sky reaching far above you. and in the distance, you see the faint light of distant stars illuminating the night with their eternal luminescence— the one thing that's been constant in your long, long life.

within minutes, the boy docks the vessel in a hidden cove, eyes cast back in the direction of his village miles and miles away. he can go no further with you.

this is where you part.

the boy stands there, watching you get off the boat. he's silent, but you can feel the words caught in his throat, tangled with emotions his youth prevents him from articulating. in the last few months you've spent with him, he's always been achatter with whatever's on his mind— so the difference in his behavior does not go unnoticed. yet at last, after a few minutes, he seems to make up his mind:

"you won't forget me, will you?"

you cannot reply, for you are a dog, and dogs do not speak— but there are some things that require no words to convey.
taking a step towards the boy, you do what any dog would do when in the presence of a friend: you lick his outstretched hand, rub your stone muzzle against it, and the boy smiles. you let the joy in you well up again, breaking into a run— baiting him to chase after you on the shoreline. he laughs, and you let him catch you, tumbling down onto the sand in unison as he breaks into a peal of laughter.

bittersweet. that's the word that runs through your mind.
bittersweet. like every good bye you've endured through the ages.

when you finally break free of his embrace, you know he's tearing up but too proud to show it. instead, he shows you his best side— the one he wishes you to remember him by, his face aglow with a smile as bright as the stars themselves. and before you leave, you offers you his final parting words:

"don't get caught, okay?"

you don't need to say anything anymore, one thought lingering in your head:

i won't.






// i might add sth else to this later if i have time

 

[lysander]

 

Y A Z U / D R E A M - H O P P E R / M A L E / A G E  U N K N O W N  ( M I D - L A T E  T E E N S )

𝗬  𝗔  𝗭  𝗨  !
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❝ why d r e a m another d r e a m
if every dream is here with me? ❞
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theme. lullaby lyrics. we're beautiful

[ entry ]

 

[lysander]

 




▌  ▷ DAY ONE  :  untitled
▌  ▷ Tell about a time your kalon had to use a creative solution to solve a problem.
▌  ▷ feat. cosette, kale (pov)  : 173 / 150
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  "no offense," cosette starts. "but this story reads like a middle schooler wrote it."
you grimace, brows furrowing a little in response. "yikes. you must sure be popular with the kids."
  "i'm just saying, i know you're capable of doing better than this."
  "i dunno 'bout that. writing's never been my strong suite."
  "it's easy. all you have to do is tell a story the way you'd want to hear it."
  "easy for you to say. you're a natural at it."
  "fine, here. let me give you an example..."

cosette sits up in her chair, takes a deep breath. you can almost hear her collecting her thoughts in it, gathering the words to string together into sentences from which to weave her tale with. she's done this so many times before, but each time is just as magical as the last.

in her voice there's a song, and in the song is a story.
so, you grab your pen, ready to write just as she begins to speak.

  "once upon a time..."


 

[lysander]

 




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the distance between   |   kalon tryout by lysander

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