Tolkien Was Amazing.

Tolkien was amazing.

That’s it, the Professor is truly the King of Sass

Just so everyone is aware, steam will also set off a fire alarm. And when I find out who’s design put a fire alarm right next to a bathroom with a nice shower with the best water pressure, I will discuss this design flaw with them. Possibly with a baseball bat.

So, everyone is aware of East of the Sun, West of the Moon. No? Really? What did you people do in childhood if not devour every old fairytale you could pry from the back of the shelves? Do you know it as The Polar Bear Prince? The basic plot of Eros and Psyche? The basic premise being we have someone cursed to be one scary way during the day, and another form at night. And then the second person lives with them for a year and a day (very traditional that) and never sees them at night but must sleep beside them. All very creepy and yet people complain about Stockholm Syndrome in Beauty and the Beast. Which, debatable. But that’s a different tangent. The salient point is that the person not laboring under a curse of unsought for intimacy gets to visit home, has a concerned relative push a light into their hands, and they spy on their bedmate. This activates the clause in the curse, whisks away the cursed party, and we have a quest to get them back. (Incidentally, this is a Really Cool example of Ladies Going On Quests to Save Their Beloved. Because the old stories are all about women going out to save their beloved from, most often, trolls. It’s pretty cool.)

But this is a more advanced time! Even if Badass Ladies going on quests is still Awesome, and the definite role reversal of who’s rescuing who, we can have our cake and eat it too. So.

Leah trailed her fingers along the page in front of her, feeling the bumps and dips of hand made paper under her sensitive fingertips. Warm sunlight danced across her face as the leaves rustled in the light breeze. The rich scent of cardamom and turmeric filled her nose and she tilted her head slightly. She closed her eyes as she heard a scuffing along the floor as her only company brought her a tray of food.

Her hand moved unerringly as she started to clean up her table. The frames of her glasses embraced her face and snugged down behind the shell of her ears, a way to remind herself that even though she was currently living a fairy tale, the real world still waited for her. A secret smile curled her lips up in welcome as a clawed hand deposited a cup in her outstretched hand. The puppeteer of this fairy tale obviously didn’t count on the spread of information that came with the internet and a reader’s appetite. She could recognize the story she was in. And even as she thought about the candle and lighter hidden away in her bedside table, she knew she would win. She could feel the compulsion to use them press upon her mind. And she would. And she would still win.

A blind woman would not see her sleeping companion, no matter what light she used after all.

Meet Unda Nox Invigilo! This isn’t her normal outfit, or weapon, but pretty close to her actual face. I spent a lot of quality time with a Latin dictionary to pick out a suitable name. I wanted something that would be a contrast to Ingis, without be so very obvious about that.

Her maternal family tree has a Nox Flueret bastard in it, in part because of my head canon that for every Lucis Caelum there’s a NF. Ardyn had his, Regis had his, but Nox gave up his to Noctis. So, my brain started giggling about a bastard for a bastard and there we were.

Her dad was a self-exiled Furia almost as soon as Unda mentioned Leviathan‘s blessing on their family. He still won’t tell me why, but I’m thinking it’s one of those family arguments that get wildly out of hand unless/until someone does something dramatic. His self-exile was it. Do I know more? No, not really. He really hated drama though.

Ironically, Unda being part NF and part Galahdian is plot relevant. Her NF blood was heavily diluted, but with the influx of Galahdian blood from her dad and a lucky roll in the recessive gene lottery, she’s the closest thing Eos has seen in generations to a true Tidesinger. So of course, she needed some heavy water/ocean related trauma to keep her as far away from her power source as she could manage. Both sides of her heritage play a role in her being a Tidesinger.

I figure in canon she‘s probably dead, probably on this Hunt, but even if not definitely before the Long Night. So long as there were any of Oracle blood, I don’t think the Long Night could really kick off. But having a sudden blaze in what had previously been a minor gift coming fully online and suddenly dealing with the massive drain of fighting off the Long Night would have been deadly. Also! Unda got a minor power boost and a more awakened gift during the cave scene, which is why she passes out all of a sudden. Ardyn and Nox definitely are the reason, no none of them realize it. It’s pretty useless, because Unda is still going to be avoiding the sea as much as she can.

And dear [deity of choice] was it a pain to get them out of the damn cave. They were seriously just, never getting out of there. So when I finally, finally, dragged them out they all started clamming up on me, without even singing the song that was the whole point of this. Unda laughing over the three of them ending up in yet another cave was me doing that so I didn’t cry.

@secret-engima In case you were curious/wanted to know what she looks like.

also consider: LOTR but hobbits have Tapeta Lucidum

Boromir gets the fright of his life their first night on the road

Haven’t tried yet, and the owner of my kitchen just became diabetic. May have to decamp to my sister’s to makes these.