03-08-2020, 02:15 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-09-2020, 05:50 PM by kahzie.
Edit Reason: html
)
<center><link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Amiri" rel="stylesheet"><link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Simonetta&display=swap" rel="stylesheet"><div style="width: 690px; background-image:url('https://dl.dropbox.com/s/flxzmjqjq4txcrq/Untitled-87%20copy.png?dl=0'); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-color: #8d82bc; background-size: 100%; background-position: center bottom; padding-top: 60px; padding-bottom: 370px;"> <div style="padding-bottom: 15px; text-align: center; font-family: 'Simonetta'; font-size: 45px; letter-spacing: 15px; line-height: 17px; color: #fff; font-variant: small-caps; text-shadow: 0px 0px 10px #5a5e62;">L E P I S</div> <div style="text-align: center; font-family: 'Amiri'; font-size: 17px; letter-spacing: 7px; line-height: 12px; color: #fff; font-variant: small-caps; text-shadow: 0px 0px 10px #5a5e62;"><b>i hear the voice of rage and ruin</b></div> <div style="margin: 55px; padding-left: 35px; padding-right: 35px; background-image:url('https://dl.dropbox.com/s/wircb22z85rsv2g/purp40.png?dl=0'); background-repeat: repeat; border-radius: 5px;"> <div style="padding-top: 45px; padding-bottom: 35px; padding-left: 50px; padding-right: 50px; text-align: justify; color: #fff; font-family: 'Amiri'; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: .5px; line-height: 17px; text-shadow: 1px 1px 3px #707070;">The world around her feels real, and yet she senses it is not. It is bright, multifaceted, and well-crafted, but there is just enough strangeness to know that it is manufactured. The pied Magician had made this world out of nothing, Lepis knows. Now it is the pegasus’ turn, her turn to make something of it. Lepis’ eagerness to finally enact all her well-crafted plans outweighs caution in the face of the arcane and unknown in this. Accepting the command is one of the fastest decisions she’s made in her life.
Taking in a breath of the almost-real air, Lepis begins.
She seeks peace, but it rarely comes without conflict. The desire to avoid physical violence in the past has limited her ambition, but the moral tradeoff had always been sufficient. That remains true even in this magical world, though she is undoubtedly liberal with the use of her own magic is this false place. Inspiring a deep sense of <u><i>loyalty</u></i> in her subjects is easy enough, and keeping her projection to a single emotion ensures her reserves are never drained. Caution when wielding her projections has been her default, but there is less to lose here. She sends a battle-hardened force to take the North once and for all; they will bend the knee or they will be banished. Avoid bloodshed, she tells them, knowing that it is a command unlikely to be followed.
Lepis tried though, and rests easy with that knowledge.
A foray is made into Pangea, to initiate contact with the aggressive place and to return the glittering black creature that had been hunting Loess for weeks. Those who object to her plans find themselves on the no-longer-frozen Isle, guarded and kept falsely <u><i>content</u></i> and unharmed by watchful eyes. Every world needs a place to send the degenerates and the dangerous, and the world Lepis would make is no different. It’s better than killing them, she reasons with herself.
Pangea eventually fights back, untrustworthy at heart as she has always suspected. The battle to subdue them is hard-fought, with many casualties on either side. The evening when Lepis finally address all eight of her territories, she is favoring a hind leg, wearing a scar across her face, and one of her blue-grey eyes is clouded.
But she needs only one good eye.
One good eye to survey Beqanna, and to watch as the East submits without quarrel to the impossible force of her Empire. One good eye to see clearly, to met out justice and judgement. Lepis considers herself a benevolent, allowing the individual lands most of the same freedoms they’d had before her reign. The vows of fealty she makes them swear are binding but surely not uncomfortable. On a smaller scale, her family comes back together as well. She must keep their paternal cornerstone locked and raving on the northern Isle, but such are the sacrifices that must be made. They all understand with enough magical persuasion - even stubborn Celina! – and as Lepis’ empire grows so does her family, welcoming children and grandchildren to their fold, binding the formerly independent kingdoms and territories first by marriage and then by blood.
Just as she’d always planned.
Lepis still visits Noah in the Brilliant Pampas every spring when the wildflowers are at their most beautiful, even in this false world. That is where she ends this showcase for the magician, with her back to the sun setting over the southern ocean. The continent of Beqanna spreads north of her, hills and then mountains gone hazy with distance. There is <u><i>peace</u></i> in every mind, as bright as the red light that bathes the world around her. A thousand floral scents mix with the tang of the sea, and Lepis breathes a contented sigh. There are lines around her eyes that were not there before, and a constant dull ache in the back of her mind from maintaining a constant projection, but more important: there is peace.
Peace.
</div> </div></div> <div style="text-align: center; color:#cdcdcd; font-family: 'Amiri'; font-size: 8px; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 15px; font-variant: small-caps;"><a href="https://www.deviantart.com/neamrel">n</a> | <a href="https://www.deviantart.com/littlewillow-art">l</a></div></center>
Taking in a breath of the almost-real air, Lepis begins.
She seeks peace, but it rarely comes without conflict. The desire to avoid physical violence in the past has limited her ambition, but the moral tradeoff had always been sufficient. That remains true even in this magical world, though she is undoubtedly liberal with the use of her own magic is this false place. Inspiring a deep sense of <u><i>loyalty</u></i> in her subjects is easy enough, and keeping her projection to a single emotion ensures her reserves are never drained. Caution when wielding her projections has been her default, but there is less to lose here. She sends a battle-hardened force to take the North once and for all; they will bend the knee or they will be banished. Avoid bloodshed, she tells them, knowing that it is a command unlikely to be followed.
Lepis tried though, and rests easy with that knowledge.
A foray is made into Pangea, to initiate contact with the aggressive place and to return the glittering black creature that had been hunting Loess for weeks. Those who object to her plans find themselves on the no-longer-frozen Isle, guarded and kept falsely <u><i>content</u></i> and unharmed by watchful eyes. Every world needs a place to send the degenerates and the dangerous, and the world Lepis would make is no different. It’s better than killing them, she reasons with herself.
Pangea eventually fights back, untrustworthy at heart as she has always suspected. The battle to subdue them is hard-fought, with many casualties on either side. The evening when Lepis finally address all eight of her territories, she is favoring a hind leg, wearing a scar across her face, and one of her blue-grey eyes is clouded.
But she needs only one good eye.
One good eye to survey Beqanna, and to watch as the East submits without quarrel to the impossible force of her Empire. One good eye to see clearly, to met out justice and judgement. Lepis considers herself a benevolent, allowing the individual lands most of the same freedoms they’d had before her reign. The vows of fealty she makes them swear are binding but surely not uncomfortable. On a smaller scale, her family comes back together as well. She must keep their paternal cornerstone locked and raving on the northern Isle, but such are the sacrifices that must be made. They all understand with enough magical persuasion - even stubborn Celina! – and as Lepis’ empire grows so does her family, welcoming children and grandchildren to their fold, binding the formerly independent kingdoms and territories first by marriage and then by blood.
Just as she’d always planned.
Lepis still visits Noah in the Brilliant Pampas every spring when the wildflowers are at their most beautiful, even in this false world. That is where she ends this showcase for the magician, with her back to the sun setting over the southern ocean. The continent of Beqanna spreads north of her, hills and then mountains gone hazy with distance. There is <u><i>peace</u></i> in every mind, as bright as the red light that bathes the world around her. A thousand floral scents mix with the tang of the sea, and Lepis breathes a contented sigh. There are lines around her eyes that were not there before, and a constant dull ache in the back of her mind from maintaining a constant projection, but more important: there is peace.
Peace.
</div> </div></div> <div style="text-align: center; color:#cdcdcd; font-family: 'Amiri'; font-size: 8px; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 15px; font-variant: small-caps;"><a href="https://www.deviantart.com/neamrel">n</a> | <a href="https://www.deviantart.com/littlewillow-art">l</a></div></center>
