Well, it's nice!
It's okay, interested me more, about the contest, so they need to work from the beginning again, owow, long journey again, or maybe not.
Uh, i wanted to know more!!

wonderful! lovely! so very nice =DDD

oh by the way.

daeva_agas.

you know the daevas much, much better than I do.
assuming that Elini can summon all of them (as opposed to assuming she can summon their elemental energies or whatnot) how do they interact with her?

Great description, as always. Ahh, we authors and artists always find our own work to be extremely dissastisfying when others find it otherwise.

d_a

did you see my post right about yours.

Sorry, didn't see it

Everyone has their own interpretation of the daeva summon, actually. Some have the daevas physically there attacking people when summoned, some have the daevas as spirit or ghost-like being that you can't touch, etc. I myself have two versions of daeva summon. For my cracky stuff, I go with the daevas physically there attacking people. They retain their personalities, just that they obey Elini's commands. For my serious stuff, it's the spirit/ghost one. Or rather, a mix of the ghost thing and the one you talked about, Elini just summoning their elemental energies. They still have their forms, but ghost-like and looks like they're made of whatever element they have, they have no mind of their own, and are almost like slaves or robots.

So how woudl they interact with Elini? what's their opinion of her?

Like I said: it's up to you. Everyone has their own interpretation. This is my take of their interaction. That was the cracky one, where the daevas are physically there and retains their personality. In my cracky version the daevas basically don't care that they're trapped in the summoning place and just obey whatever Elini tells them to do when they're summoned. It's all lulzy in that particular snippet because that's just the way my Agas acts.

So, do you want the daevas to be completely enslaved or not? Never mind their physical forms, if they're completely enslaved it means that they no longer have a mind on their own and there would be no interaction beyond them receiving commands and performing them, just like when they're still serving Ahriman. If they still have minds on their own, that would depend on your take of the daevas' personalities. Most people who actually deal with the daevas have them hate the fact that they're trapped in wherever it is they're summoned from (many chose to have them sent back to the Demon Realm), though those fics usually end up with the daevas breaking free and attacking people.

It depends on what you want the daeva summoning scenes for, and what's your take of the daevas' personalities. Can't help you much unless I know what you have in mind... And then again, everything's up to you.

It was absurd, her idea. He argued with her about it all the way out the building, but then Neya intercepted them and led Rhen back with her to the school-supplied apartments.

Seeing Neya reminded him. But he had gotten sufficiently worked up about this stupid notion of Rhen’s that the cold hard knot in his stomach had managed to dissolve, leaving him defenseless.

His apartment, as usual, was dark when he arrived. Absently he reached for the spark-flint and lit the hallway lamp. It shone, disconsolately, on the carpeted hallway leading into the apartment, with its single mahogany bookcase ensconced in the corner, books neatly laid out in rows on its gleaming shelves.

He turned and slammed the door shut. It caught on the rug and slid to a slow, gentle stop, closing with a click. Furious, he re-opened it, and this time slammed it with both palms, throwing himself against it, to no avail. The door slid smugly, softly, to a dignified stop.

Something black and bitter and twisting rose inside him.

He kicked the door, viciously, and then limped towards the book case and threw every single book on the floor, so that they lay splayed all over the hallway.

He took a deep breath and stood there, hands clenched into fists.

And then, with a sigh, he knelt to pick up the books.

----

KNOCK-KNOCK.

Lars groaned and rolled over in bed, burying his head into his pillows.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCKITTY-KNOCK.

Dammit all to hell. Who was it at this ungodly hour?

He rolled blearily out of bed. He’d slept terribly that night, struggling fitfully amidst uneasy dreams.

“What.” He said, shortly, when he opened the door.

The doorman, in a uniform so polished it shone, handed him an envelope before saluting and walking away.

Still half-asleep, he sat down at his kitchen table to open it.

Lars Tenobor
71 Spiffy Upper-Class Street
Veldarah, Eastern Continent

Said the address, in curly script, and in the left-hand corner was written a return address-

Te’ijal Ravenfoot
Somewhere or other, ask the nearest raven
Ends of the World, The World.


The envelope itself was battered, crumpled, and stained with something suspiciously like blood. The letter inside was not in much better shape.

Dear Lars, he read.

I was climbing up a tree yesterday evening. It was an interesting experience, particularly when Galahad started throwing rocks. He is so very cute, I fall more in love with him by the day.

In any case I was climbing up a tree yesterday when Galahad asked me if I didn’t have anything better to do than insist on preventing him from his multiple silly suicide attempts. (Although he phrased it more in terms of escaping from the hellish torment I had bestowed upon him. Isn’t he incredible? He has such a way with words. I haven’t half the talent for compliments that he has.)

I considered the question and realized that in fact I did not. I told him as much, and reassured him that he needn’t worry, because climbing up trees and swimming across piranha-infested rivers and escaping from violent mobs just to protect him and be with him forever and ever is more than enough entertainment for me.

“But surely there are other ways of being entertained,” he insisted. “Don’t you ever read? Study politics? Write letters?”

I haven’t the slightest interest in reading, and I do not need to waste time on politics. But writing letters sounded like fun and I have decided to try it in my spare time. I’ve already written three to Mad Marge, but she keeps responding with big angry drawings done entirely in black. The last one gave Galahad nightmares when he read it by accident, and nearly killed the servant who stumbled across it while cleaning our room, so I’m writing to you instead.

Please say hello to Rhen for me, and ask her to write- I would have written her myself, but I don’t know her address since she ran away from that wedding. Tell her that I’d love to hear the details, as I only got to see what happened in the hall, before the angry mob broke out.

Love,
Te’ijal

P.S. Galahad would send his regards, but he is currently too busy sulking about being handcuffed to the bed.

P.P.S. Don’t bother pretending that you don’t know where Rhen is, either.

P.P.P.S. How is Rhen? Have you managed to steal her soul and get her to marry you, yet? Except that Galahad keeps telling me human marriages don’t work like that. Pity, it would be so romantic if you did (I would know).

He stared at the last postscript and laughed, the sort of half-mad laugh you had when you’d been woken early from a terrible sleep the morning after finding out your long-time crush considered you the one person in the universe she would never be attracted to, to be confronted with a letter from a vampire who ranked second only to Elini in terms of sheer derangement, in which said vampire managed to not only traumatize you for life but to also casually reveal that she knew about aforementioned crush, at which point you started wondering how many other people had noticed said crush, at which point you started wanting to bash your head against something extremely hard.

A special laugh.

He laughed and then he choked and then he got up to get a glass of water.

----

The thing was. The thing was that at this point it didn’t matter anymore, that she didn’t see him that way.

Somewhere all along he’d known, that it couldn’t work out. He’d been resigned to it. It was the Goddess’s little bit of karmic justice, that he’d fallen in love with the girl he’d treated so horribly when he was a kid. It was the perfect punishment, if only because he knew his misery had been caused entirely by himself.

So maybe two, three months ago he could have taken her complete lack of interest as the impetus to give up on her. He’d tried and succeeded- sort of- when she’d gotten engaged to Dameon. He’d tried again, when they had that fight.

But then they’d gotten over it. And something had changed. Maybe because they’d spent so much time together. On the quest, by the time he’d started liking her they were already traveling with a group of people, and Rhen found it easy to avoid him- which she did a lot, back then. And after that…

It wasn’t like he’d gotten to know her better. It was hard to spend a good year traveling under some of the most ridiculous conditions and not get to know her, her kindness and her strength and her courage and…

It was just that he’d…. well, gotten to know her. In the course of all the conversations that they’d had, that they never could have had before, he had discovered all the little stupid annoying things about her, the convoluted ways she thought sometimes, her insecurities, her problems. He discovered he could actually relate to her, not in a cautious arms-length way but in a relaxed, comfortable, utterly enjoyable way instead. And he discovered she could do the same.

And last night he’d realized- as he’d been so resolutely focused on ignoring her and then without even realizing it, automatically he’d caught her as she fell, because still somewhere he couldn’t help but be aware, always, of where she was in a room in relation to him- last night he’d realized it was hopeless.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t live without her. It was just that he didn’t want to. That he truly didn’t want to, all the way down to his bones. And so he’d just pretend that nothing had changed and maybe nothing had really changed and maybe he had known it would be like this all along, but he’d gone along because-.

Hypothetically it would be easier to live without her. He just couldn’t imagine how it would be possible, anymore.




-----



P.S. BY THE WAY. Have I mentioned that I love love love constructive criticism? Especially when I hate how certain parts came out and like suggestions on how to fix them?

...I would criticize you... but I can't think of anything wrong with it. It was truly wonderful =)

Te'ijal is always fun. Everyone seemed to manage pulling off that biting snark that I find myself having trouble dealing with.

There's not much to criticize here. My English or literary skills aren't that great either. I can only say that some of the sentences felt awkward, although I can't pinpoint which sentences or why... Sorry I can't be too much of a help.

Say, have you sorted out your problem with the daevas yet? I'm not sure what you want them for so... Let me know if you still need help.

Hm. I can't remember why I asked, actually. I think I was just curious.

(seriously. big blank in my memory)

LOL, you were just curious? Sorry for spamming the page with an excessively long and pointless rant about daevas, then I thought you needed it for the story, so I went into that long rant about how people usually have them in fics.

No no, I liked the long rant you don't need to apologize. And seeing as it was barely three posts it wasn't spamming O_O

<3 Great job as usual Looking forward to another update soon as usual

AWESOME! why didnt i see this sooner?! yeesh...

wow awesum ^_^
♥ the messange for te'ijal

'kay... Glad it wasn't a bother. I always feel bad when I rant on and on forever. I didn't mention this before, but the addresses were hilarious. Te'ijal is "Somewhere or other, ask the nearest raven" in the world. Very funny indeed

(Will be away for a few weeks.)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!