lovely, dark, and deep
Open Wood Gathering!
Mabel Occidendum


Age: 23 | Height: 5'7" | Race: Ascended | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#1
MABEL

It’s the same old song and routine; just by the patchwork of moonlight and darkness. Her senses were bright and her mood was high, and she didn’t feel any trepidation from sauntering into the woods she’d known ever since she could walk, paths memorized either by either luminescence or simple instinctual design. Habitual formations caused her to tug their family’s old sled, down snow-laden paths, intertwining and mixing along trails, in and out of heavy, cumbersome boughs.

Mabel didn’t even know where they’d be staying this year – everyone else gone, perished, and dead – not so much the same as when starving bellies begged and yearned, as weakened frames carried on with wayward work. She could always cart this back to the farm, prepare like they’d done year after year, lock the doors, snow moss the splitting timber floorboards, and pray on their knees.

Or she and Evelyn could do something new, something more.

They had time to make the decision, but her mind already churned and brewed, a steady set of machinations brandishing in the back of her skull. Thoughts were given new life now that they had encompassed a change, an alteration in their beings.

The whole world was at their beck and call.

So she sighed, bending down to grab hold of a small piece of wood sticking out of the rime and ice, snatching, and placing it within the hollowed sled, listening to the vivid thunk. Empty now, but not for long.

{Open for anyone - just gathering wood for LN!}
I bare my teeth
and stretch my claws out
Evelyn Occidendum


Age: 23 | Height: 5'5" | Race: Ascended | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#2
EVELYN

It is the same - but then, it is oh so different as well. Old habits would prevail - but they would be completed with new eyes, new strength and vitality. The cold was nothing to them now, the turning of the season less devastating, less terrifying. The cover of night was something that they actively sought out now - though neither of them were foolish enough to expect the LongNight to be any easier to survive.

The perils of LongNight threatened everyone, Ascended or no.

The full potential of their change was yet to be realised by the twins - but now they had all the time in the world to get there, wherever and whatever there was.

Wood gathering was one of those old habits, its necessity driven by the demons of the LongNight. Evelyn had never enjoyed this task before, but as she completed it now with her sister, humming quietly to herself all the while, she clung to the familiar motion, the easy and mundane routine of it all - though now they completed the action now under cover of the moon rather than the pale winter sun.

Evelyn lugged her timber to the old family cart, a generous piece that she tossed into the cart, following Mabel's deep thunk with its own. She sighed, as if the task was quite cumbersome and boring, and the wood should be so honoured to have them handling it.

"So where will we hide from the monsters this year?" she voiced idly to her sister as she bent to collect another piece, dusting off the snow from it before pitching it into the cart.

It was a conversation they had had many time before. But this was the first time where it was just them - a distinction that did not require words to be known between twins.
innocence
is but an illusion
Mabel Occidendum


Age: 23 | Height: 5'7" | Race: Ascended | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#3
MABEL

Perhaps Evelyn could read her thoughts. It wouldn’t be the first instance, not with twin bonds, similar experiences, joined together in their hunger for life, in warding off death for another season. Maybe it was how they’d survived at all; like-minded, eager, and ready to thwart demolition and destruction, to find another way, to not sink into despair, torment, or oblivion. Not yet. There were too many things to do, too many worlds to see.

But the question lingered as she dropped more wood into the sled, and eyes wandered again towards chunks of broken, dispatched timber. “I don’t know. We have options now.” Ones that hadn’t been there before – and it gave her pause, so used to the traditional outset, so used to the inevitable. Ordinarily the youth was a decisive sort, placing her bets on whatever outcome would gain them the most advantage (hence the Ascension, after the rest of their family had succumbed). Her gaze narrowed, speculative, drawn into silence for a moment. “Do you want to stay at the farm again, or go with the rest?” Towards the College, if she’d read the notice board correctly.
I bare my teeth
and stretch my claws out
Evelyn Occidendum


Age: 23 | Height: 5'5" | Race: Ascended | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#4
EVELYN

Options to consider, to discuss and unravel. Many a thought percolated through her mind, wondering at what the future held, where it would lead them - where they would lead it.

They were alive, at least in the sense of what the Voice could give to them. The only one to listen, to respond, to extend their lives beyond what the Old Gods would have them suffer through.

She kept packing wood into the sled, finding comfort in the old familiar sound, but still revelling in all that was new about the task this year too. Her head tilted as she gave consideration to her sister's question, her hand coming to rest a finger on her chin, tapping it thoughtfully.

Then a smile lit up her face as she settled on an idea that appealed to her. "I think it's time to try something different," her words were delivered with a hint of excitement, but not too much - it was better left unsaid, unexplained, the full reasoning why she wanted to venture to new grounds, to avoid the farm unless absolutely necessary, at least for a time.

It was how she Evelyn was coping with it all.

"We might meet others, like us," she supplied with a shrug, not elaborately on whether she meant other Ascended, or other refugees, seeking out safety in numbers against the demons of the Longnight.
innocence
is but an illusion
Mabel Occidendum


Age: 23 | Height: 5'7" | Race: Ascended | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#5
MABEL

Mabel watched her sister go through a series of emotions, not smiling just yet. Trying something different could either be wonderful or disastrous. Their latest conquest over death had been something genius and ravenous, but there was the rigid contortions to all the years they’d spent in the farm, tucked away from the hazardous wake outside. She remained silent in her contemplations, with only the dulling sounds of the wood filling the void, and the slide of the sled over snow as she dragged it along. “I heard the idiot Outlanders opened up the doors last year.” Which could be beneficial at this point – because perhaps less would be around yet again, or it was merely something else to weight out. Is that what they wanted to endure? More death? More hardships?

Or had they become numb to it?

“Maybe I’d rather meet the monsters,” she sulked for a second, a generous pout and frown extended, but only in her sister’s presence. Everything else was a guarded sanction. It was half a joke and half a comment lightly skimming over reality.

“But if you want, we can try it.” Extend their help, or pretend to anyway; Mabel wasn’t certain how to consider the rest of the void when they’d been relegated to their own for so long. Was this a chance to breathe, to sink, to swim, or to traverse down ignited, enlightened paths?
I bare my teeth
and stretch my claws out
Evelyn Occidendum


Age: 23 | Height: 5'5" | Race: Ascended | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#6
EVELYN

A steady rhythm was forming, as each piece of wood fell into the sled, Evelyn helping to pull it along as it slowly but surely filled. She considered her sister closely, concern blossoming as she worried she had overstepped, offered a path that neither of them were ready for. But then, why else had they gone to the Shrine, to accept the change that the Voice offered, the lifeline, the chance to keep living, to grow and experience the life their siblings and parents no longer could?

A short snort of laughter huffed through her nostrils at her sibling's words. "Monsters could be fun too," she offered in reply, a sly smirk tugging at her lips, before it softened at Mabel's own expression. "I think.. I think I do want to, but only if you are with me." She reached out to place her hand upon her sister's shoulder a moment, a token of appreciation, of support.

"Maybe we could try Torchline?" But even as she said it she realised it was a bad idea, a frown crinkling her brow as the realisation swiftly followed her words. "I'm not sure if the monsters or the sun would be the worst thing to meet, though."
innocence
is but an illusion
Mabel Occidendum


Age: 23 | Height: 5'7" | Race: Ascended | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 3 - Strg: 16 - Dext: 16 - Endr: 16 - Luck: 16 - Int:
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#7
MABEL

She wanted to rankle and spit with derision, but not to anyone in particular – just the vast unknown, the world set before them that they had no time to truly chase down. “I heard they tried to talk to them.” The monsters, the demons, the infidels of the night, eternally at play in the wind, in the twilight, in the void – coming to them in knocks and lures, in serpentine sounds of trickery and deceit. No one needed to make up stories of terror and treachery to frighten their children – winter’s reality had always done enough. “They cannot be so different.” She shrugged, the uncertainty weighing her down, the bridges and gaps laden in between, uncertain which to pick, which to goad, which to terrorize, which to admire.

Evelyn’s hand on her shoulder was followed through with her own, and she squeezed her sister’s fingers. Even if they couldn’t feel, they would always know anyway, imparting, casting bonds. “Torchline,” she murmured to herself, face scrunched up in thought. “How much would we be able to enjoy?” Was the call of the ocean so different from the siren song of the woods? Were the fathoms deep and luxurious, far wider, far greater, than the Oasis? Could wolves wander there too, under the clarity of the moon, to bask in the embrace of the current and tides?

Or did it matter, when one had lost all sensation?

Her brows furrowed, and a breath followed, features returning to normal. “You pick. And we’ll get stronger before then.”
I bare my teeth
and stretch my claws out
Evelyn Occidendum


Age: 23 | Height: 5'5" | Race: Ascended | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#8
EVELYN

Evelyn's face scrunched at her sister's words, mild disgust expressed at the foolishness of those who would tempt the monsters inside, who would try to engage with them. They were monsters, unable to be reasoned with, their ability to listen and change and otherwise cause nothing but harm non-existent. They knew this - they had survived previous years by closing the doors, by hiding and hoping and praying that they would all survive.
They had survived that trial, only to be faced with another, that the rest of their family could not survive.

"Maybe," she conceded, nodding as she thought about the monsters, about the way they seemed so normal, so enticing and comforting. But it was all an illusion, a trick that invited danger and death - maybe one day they would unravel that mystery, but Evelyn would only ever admit to her sister that such a thought scared her, at least until they got stronger.

"Hmm," she hummed thoughtfully, mind wandering between the options. "Probably not a lot," she acknowledged of Torchline. It would have to be something they did another time, when their strength had improved, when they were less newly rebirthed.

"I don't want to stay at the farm. I think we see what the college is all about this year." She said decisively, her voice far more certain than her actual feelings would ever be.
innocence
is but an illusion
Mabel Occidendum


Age: 23 | Height: 5'7" | Race: Ascended | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 3 - Strg: 16 - Dext: 16 - Endr: 16 - Luck: 16 - Int:
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#9
MABEL

Maybe her compassion for the monsters was borne out of newfound loyalty to the Voice, and because she pondered over the livelihood of beasts experimented upon, only to be discarded. Amongst and amidst the first beasts unraveled from the Bright One’s contortions, deemed failures, despite their continued aspects of life, despite the ripple of talons and claws through the LongNight void. And what would it be like, to be so potent, powerful, and forgotten, left out to wander? To merely take and take and take as they saw fit? To trick and deceive? The things they once feared as little children, and now, amongst and amidst the same contortions and bloodlines?

Evelyn’s maybe likely meant no; but Mabel would keep it in the back of her mind, for safekeeping in the harsh revolutions breathing outside closed doors. More wood to place within the sled, the creeping hollowness becoming lighter and lighter as the vacant corners were filled, gloved hands digging through the snow for hidden boughs and limbs, while her twin hummed and mulled, made a decision for them.

The certainty thereafter made her arch a brow, dropping another log. “Okay. I don’t want to stay at the farm either.” Enough years, months, days, and hours spent there, and something about it crept into her blackened heart, rooted it to her chest; as if the creaking floorboards, the vestiges of their family’s decay, hung there like a noose. They’d made sure not to walk those same gallows. “Then we’ll go to the College.” An affirmation, a nod, the decision cast about in the snow.
I bare my teeth
and stretch my claws out
Evelyn Occidendum


Age: 23 | Height: 5'5" | Race: Ascended | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: N/A - Strg: 10 - Dext: 10 - Endr: 10 - Luck: 5 - Int:
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#10
EVELYN

Maybe Evelyn's compassion had diminished since their transformation, or maybe it didn't exist before either. But that was why she had her sister, to challenge her view on the world, to offer an alternative, to push back and cause her to re-evaluate, to improve and thrive where she might otherwise only live. Love for her sister was all that kept her 'maybe' from not expanding into something more defiant, more determined to deny the chance to think about these monsters as anything but.

If the monsters were created by the Voice, what did that make them?

It wasn't something she wanted to think about, though perhaps she ought to.

The sled was slowly filling, as the girls moved in the snowy terrain with ease, fatigue hardly a problem for them. Evelyn revelled at her newfound increased speed, darting from the sled to another piece of wood with an extra blur to her limbs that wasn't there before.

"Great!" she said happily, tossing another piece of wood into the sled with a broad smile pulling at her plump lips, pleased to have come to a decision, to know she had her sister by her side. "Perhaps we could take the sled to them tomorrow night? Introduce ourselves?" she asked, flitting lightly to another patch, that didn't turn out to be wood at all, but a rock, as she discovered upon wiping the snow away from it. Moving onto the next piece, she kept going with their easy rhythm.
innocence
is but an illusion
Mabel Occidendum


Age: 23 | Height: 5'7" | Race: Ascended | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 3 - Strg: 16 - Dext: 16 - Endr: 16 - Luck: 16 - Int:
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#11
MABEL

Perhaps Mabel wanted nothing more than to be a monster; to stretch her claws into flesh, to dig her fangs into marrow, to flay the world alive with her unsung fury. Maybe it’d be nothing, this ample, ferocious dream, with its blistering ambitions and burning aspirations, with its mettled arrogance and molded abhorrence. Maybe it’d be everything, and they could carve a new wake from demise and desecration.

Her hands flung the snow around her and she felt nothing; dangerous in its own wake. Nothing to stop them. Nothing to cease their efforts. Nothing but the damned sun and weakness. More wood buried, and then not, unearthed and shoved into the sled, filling, filling, filling.

But then she went rigid, over the thoughts of meeting others, Outlander or otherwise. Was it consternation, apprehension, dread, or nothing at all? She couldn’t describe or name it, brows furrowing, growing quiet in the midnight haze, in the stretch and pull of midnight whims. The newness of everything singed in her blood, churning amidst the new lifeforce, a sharp inhale contorted out of habit, and not need any longer. “If you want,” she proffered with a shrug.
I bare my teeth
and stretch my claws out
Evelyn Occidendum


Age: 23 | Height: 5'5" | Race: Ascended | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#12
EVELYN

Had their parents not called the Ascended monsters? Had they not ranted and raved when the throne was taken by royals whose bodies had undergone the Ascension process? Perhaps they were right - maybe the sisters were already monsters, already closer in nature to the nightmares that roam the world during Longnight than they were to the Accepted, Attuned or Abandoned souls that otherwise populate the world.

Maybe she should embrace it. Maybe it was their destiny to do so.

Mabel's reaction disheartened the sense of purpose that had risen within Evelyn, uncertainty tugging at her brows, wrinkling the smooth planes of her forehead, almost matching her twin's consternation. "I wonder if Wessex will be there." She commented softly, to get the conversation flowing, to perhaps obtain insight on her sister's thoughts of the woman, the entity that was the Wraith.
innocence
is but an illusion
Mabel Occidendum


Age: 23 | Height: 5'7" | Race: Ascended | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#13
MABEL

She hadn’t meant for Evelyn to be diminished in her off-handed comment; the uncertainty had just weighed her down, left her listless, languid, and confused. The broad strokes of change had happened all at once, and in between death, revival, renewal, brightness, and now, there’d been a lot to take in. Should she be excited at the prospect of Outlanders, all of them huddled together, while the reign of terror embarked outside?

Or wish to be out in the midst of it, inflicting their own brands of horrors?

Lost in those thoughts and coils, she’d barely caught Evelyn’s inquiry – pausing mid-step as she wandered amongst and amidst the powder, lifting up pieces and pockets of rime in order to snag another log or two. A sigh filtered through, an unnecessary action, one only composed and comprised in habit, the consternation waging its little war in her head again. “What did you think of her?” They couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth; the woman had been willing to take them in, to provide information, to welcome them into the family. And still, maybe because they’d once had their own brethren to worry about, the girl felt wary. Hesitant. Reluctant. Tentative. Skeptical. Her preference would always lie with her own blood-ties, and it was just Evelyn now.
I bare my teeth
and stretch my claws out
Evelyn Occidendum


Age: 23 | Height: 5'5" | Race: Ascended | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#14
EVELYN

Evelyn wanted power, she just wasn't sure in what form she wanted that power. They had achieved their first goal, together, to live beyond that which the Old Gods would have them live, to defy Mort and his greedy hoarding of their souls. Now they had to embark on a new journey, together, sisters against the world.

But first, they had to survive the Longnight.

And they would do that too, Evelyn was confident, though if questioned on why she was so confident she wouldn't be able to give a clear, honest answer. She just knew, and perhaps it was that determination alone that would get them through.

Her sister's question got her thoughts a-stirring again, a soft hmm resounding behind full lips as yet another piece of wood thunks into the ever-filling sled. "I thought she was strong." She commented lightly, emphasising the word that she wanted to focus on in particular.

Wessex was a curious, still mostly unknown entity, that she only wanted to learn more about. "I think she means well - she at least understands why we Ascended." It was more than what she could say about their very own parents.
innocence
is but an illusion


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