Wylie Endal - Tumblr Posts
Fitz- Fits
Dex- Def
Keefe- Keene
Biana- Biana
Marella- Marcella
Tam- Tam
Linh- Long
Wylie- Wylie
Stina- Sting
Elwin- Elwin
Cassius- Cassius
Mr. Forkle- Mr. Forked
Huh. I thought there would be more than that.
Kotlc characters as my phone autocorrects them
Fitz- Fits
Dex- See
Keefe- Keefe
Biana- Bana
Marella- Marcella
Tam- Ram
Linh- Long
Wylie- While
Stina- Sting
Elwin- Spain
Cassius- Chassis
Mr. Forkle- Mr. Forums
NO IM SOBBING
Warning: blood, war, death, etc
Sophie forgets that elves are actual living beings sometimes.
She’s been awake for over 36 hours and all she can think about is the possibility of her friends/family dying. She’s the Moonlark, it’s her inherited duty to protect.
So she starts making a plan. Writing down names and marking them with a bright red X. The easiest way to defeat the Neverseen is to eliminate them.
But the plans become increasingly more violent, more blood, more sacrifice.
She picks out the easiest plan, hiding away the rest, and calls Team Valiant.
They step into her room and she begins to explain the plan. She’s far too tired, the kind of tired that settles into your bones and fogs your brain, to notice as the horror appears on their faces.
Stina leaves before Sophie can even finish the plan. This is the first time Stina hasn’t run off yelling but the way the door slams says enough. She wants to be strong enough to be part of this team but not if it means the violence Sophie describes. Stina is rude and ruthless but just a kid. She runs home and curls into a ball by the unicorn pens. She’s too scared to share those plans with her family so she watches the foals chase their mother. She sees so much life, in the unicorns and in the mirror every morning, how could she take that away?
Stina resigns for Team Valiant the next morning.
The slamming door knocks papers onto the floor, all the worst plans finally on display. Dex bends down and collects all of them. He views them with more calm than a child should manage. He can’t hate Sophie for them because he understands the strategy. He’s a technopath, he sees the entire world through science and mathematics. He hates how he agrees with them.
He’ll organize them and set it off to the side. He’ll spend the entire day with Sophie, they don’t talk and she sleeps through most of it. In the many hours when her eyes are closed, he’ll walk over to her desk and read through the worst plans. Again and again and again and again. He tried so hard to find holes in the logic.
He doesn’t cry until he gets home and walks right into a prank the triples planned. They wait for him at the top of the stairs and cover him in glitter. It’s silly and juvenile but Dex just breaks. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, covered in gold, and sobbing. The triplets freeze for a second before running away. They come back with the rest of their glitter and cover themselves in it. It makes a mess, the entire stairway is absolutely covered. It makes Dex laugh through his tears.
As the Dizznee family stands, covered in glitter the color of sunrises on the beach, the color his last invention lit up as, Dex finally finds the flaw in Sophie’s plan. These idiots in front of him cannot be reduced to a single statistic, they are worth so much more.
Biana sobs when she first sees the plan. She can’t even bring herself to move, just waits for the tears to ruin her mascara and turn her eyes bloodshot. In her head she knows this is war and she’s been a good little soldier this whole time. She has learned the commands fight, break, and heal over a hundred times. She can perform them with extreme efficiency. This is the first time she’s heard ‘kill.’
She cries because if Sophie really asked her to, she would. She has learned that Sophie knows what’s best when it comes to these situations and Biana would do anything to protect her family.
She waits for the tears to dry before leaving. Gives Sophie a smile and pleasant goodbye. She light leaps home and sneaks into her brother’s room. He’s not in yet so she waits on his bed. He’s her older brother, surely he can protect her from this.
When he enters the room, he’s covered in blood. He had been outside training with Grizel. It’s a small cut but the red is alarming against his thin white tee shirt. He looks so frail in this moment that Biana can’t bring herself to force this unsettling news upon him. He calls her a loser and tells her to leave. She tells him that his cologne smells like dinosaur poop. They’re both laughing when the door closes behind her.
She passes her dad on the way to her own room. He makes some half hearted comment about how important family is. How ‘everything will be alright.’ Biana knows it’s a lie. She’s known for a long time but she can’t tell if her father knows. She refuses to burden him with this new knowledge.
Biana decides that he’s right, it is her job to protect her family. It’s how she will uphold the Vacker legacy. But her hands still shake when she holds a knife. She won’t kill anyone, yet, not while better ways still exists. She’ll call Sophie in the morning, plan something better. She’ll think of her brother’s laugh and father’s doomed optimism and realizes that any death might take these qualities away.
Wylie is the oldest member in the room. This is the first time he notices how much of a difference this can make. Sophie mentions her plan and suddenly they all look so young.
He can’t even blame Sophie for thinking about all this violence, he’s been there. When his mom died he punched the mirror in his room, until his reflection was cut into a million tiny pieces and blood dripped from his knuckles. When his father was exiled, he dreamed about unfortunate things happening to the council. Nothing as violent as Sophie but enough that he isn’t surprised. Trauma and fear can destroy a person.
He doesn’t waste any time lunging across the room and pulling Sophie into his arms. She bursts into tears immediately. He tells her about his family and how much their lives mean to him. About how death destroys so much. He asks her if it’s really worth it. She crying so hard she can’t even utter the word ‘no.’ He know though and that’s all that matters.
He looks over her head at all the other children in the room, Stina running, Dex panicking, and Biana sobbing. For the first time he wonders if this is the reason he was placed on Team Valiant. His coworkers are so young, so full of life. He must make sure they don’t forget that. They have such wonderful futures ahead of them.
Later he’ll visit Stina. He’ll find her a job where she can still help the Black Swan but at a distance that makes her comfortable. He won’t let her feel guilty for leaving. He knows it’s what’s best for her health.
He’ll find Dex and Slurps and Burps, reminds him that there is so much more to him than the technology he creates. He’ll offer real human connection, a way to pull Dex away from the metal objects that consume him.
He’ll pass Biana at the mall. He’ll follow her through a few stores holding her bags. He tries not to notice the delicate way her hands run over fabric, tries not to imagine her using the same elegance when wielding a knife. She’ll talking about what clothes are in, how Wylie should change his hair. He’ll tell her that this is the future she should focus on, following her fashion designing dreams, instead of a future where she wasn’t enough to protect those that matter.
Nobody mentions the plan again. It’s stored in Sophie’s dream journal, a somber reminder of being a broken and terrified child.
They will find another way to best the Neverseen.
There is a future out there for each of them.
Wylie Endal
commission for Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger
Sketches and linearts on my Patreon
So I made some KotLC characters with greetings farm stamps a few years ago and decided to redraw some!
Guess which ones are the redraws! :)
Shannon should do illustrated and Annotated versions of all her books, like imagine seeing her thoughts on Alvar and Keefe's betrayals or what Wylie and Prentice and Cyrah's pain. Like the illustrations in the edited book ate so hard too, I need this again for Neverseen especially.
kotlc ships that I physically need to happen vs what probably will happen part 1
Marelinh is all I am living for right now. They are otp and I love them so much. Like I want them to cuddle with each other, and to love each other PLEASE I NEED THEM SO BADLY FCYDGIUWLKHJDCE UWDJOSKLJEXKDWLS
I have a feeling however that if Linh ends up with anyone it's probably going to be either Wylie or Fitz. I think they just want us to pretend that Wylie isn't an adult and it isn't weird but no
Fitz and Linh ending up together would cause some drama with Sophie but also the way Sophie describes his fascination with her and her ability raises some eyebrows
anyways yeah if Marella and Linh don't end up together I am lobotomizing myself 😜😁😀
Talk about KOTLC characters like your a Facebook mom and your kid just did something boring you think is amazing