I believe in the sanctity of dreams.

"S-Save me, please!"
"These hands no longer know how to heal."
"You'll doom me?!"
"Your suffering provides me with further survival. Carrion for others to feast upon before they find my walking corpse."
"Don't leave me here to die!"

She leaves him, stepping over the body, sluggish in her movements. She's tired and she doesn't know the last time she's truly rested. She doesn't know when she's last seen her sister, either. They were supposed to meet up at the last waypoint, but Serket waited for days and her sister never showed. She has to keep moving; they're survivalists first and family second these days.

Serket's forgotten what a friendly face looks like. She's seen faces covered in grime. Faces mad with desperation. Faces soaked in blood from her own hands around their necks. Friendly faces. It's like a myth, ticking along behind her in time with the bodies she's dropped.

"Friendly faces" are supposed to be at her final destination, but maybe like her sister they won't be there.

Myths.

Maybe the Twilight Vale itself is a myth.

"I know you. You're one of those Severed Sun sisters, right? Don't look like a sun to me."
"You shouldn't be looking so hard. It's damaging to look too long at the sun."

She smirks. Her grip on her Power burns a little, thrumming along her thirst for vengeance. She looks back down at the patch of life and it takes her seconds too long to remember why she had to spill blood this time. She palms a small vial from a pocket into her hand, crouching down and getting to work.


"I've toiled through this rot of a world. Born with the fallen. Lifted out of flame. Carried on this far. Severed those in my way. Do you really think I'm not going to make it to the Vale? Why should I bring you with me? What strength do you have for the future?"
"You can't be a judge in this kind of world."
"It doesn't matter. You're the distraction to keep my foes from touching me."

Some of the elders say that she shouldn't leave the Glade, that even if they live near a settlement, they don't have to interact with it. The Glade was there first, after all. Still, she picks her herbs and makes her salves and brings both into the settlement to trade, chattering happily with the locals and coming home to the Glade with her haul.

She travels further, sometimes. On these travels, she comes back with more frivolous items than what might help the Glade.

She gives her sister those sweets she likes and she gives Edmund a tie that a Haberdasher had made, after the Haberdasher tried to teach her to sew. She's a bad student, but she keeps going back, anyway. The distance doesn't bother her.

They will take advantage of you, the elders would say. She'd laugh, amused. No one takes advantage of me.

"Helene--"
"That is not my name. Never call me by that name."

There's a lingering mist near their home, stalking much like a predator, coming for them.

There's pain and dying and chaos.

There's fire and their Glade is calling to them.

Their Glade is calling to them and they answer.

"Do you think we could ever restore it?"
"No."
"Do you want to?"
"It doesn't matter what I want."

The Power isn't enough and they're left to be picked off, one by one. No one from the settlement comes. They're on their own and the stench of death is strong and Helene watches as Edmund second-guesses the touch of Power, twisting like he wants to crawl out of his own skin, until he spills his own blood across the forest floor to escape it.

---

Helene Broughan was a salvemixer and herbalist that lived in her Glade, among an area known as Cedarwood Hills, not far off from a small, struggling settlement. Despite the discouragement of her elders, her and some of the others would go into the settlement to trade, coming back with various goods that overall helped the Glade. Alone, Helene would also take trips to more distant locations.

When the Wrathborn Empire reared their heads, they remained protected, unnoticed, the Glade fortifying itself. Sometimes it was harder for Helene to leave, like the Glade wanted her to stay.

Still, like with all places, the Empire found them. The plague rolled into the hills, slowly bringing its attack, with the Wrathborn on its heels. It hit the settlement first, though Helene believes that it first struck her Glade and that the settlement let them be destroyed, not knowing that the settlement had it's own damn problems.

The Glade, having been trying to prepare itself for this, reached out to its residents. Symbiosis. Power. Stay home. Don't leave. Protect each other.

That relationship didn't last long. There was only so long they could stave off the attacking Wrathborn. Helene fought side by side with her sister, wielding their newly acquired Power, desperately trying to protect their home to the last blade of grass still intact.

The Power... didn't take well to Helene's love, Edmund Perry. She watched as it drove him to madness. Watched as it wasn't the Wrathborn Empire to kill him, but the Power. She barely recognized him when he killed himself in front of them.

(Much later in life she'll think of her own relationship with her Power with some wry bitterness, as much of it has to do with poison and her trade had always been healing.)

When fire and destruction finally overtakes her Glade, Helene doesn't remember much. She knows that her sister had to pull her from the fires and that they had to abandon their home. She spends a long time not saying a word, too shaken by what had occurred. It jumbles in her head and she replays it back and forth and in the wrong order sometimes. She's angry that the settlement didn't come to their aid, stuck on what her elders thought about the place. She sees Edmund dying again and again.

But eventually (months) she buries it down in a little box in her mind. Her sister says her name often over their time from the Glade, trying to coax her into talking. One day she answers, her voice raw with disuse:

"I don't think I can be that person any longer. That person cared and healed. I don't care anymore, sister. I've tried and I feel like I dumped that part of me on the roadside. People are stepping stones to our survival and all I am now is poison. Both of us can't be as we were."

"Helene" crumbles away with her empathy. "Serket" scrambles over soil and they keep on their way, no destination in mind. Just always moving. They find more and more strife. They find people trying to kill them for what they carry. They kill them, instead. They give themselves a name as though it alone could keep people away from them. Severed Suns.

"It rolls off the tongue."
"It's confusing."
"It's intimidating. Think of all the connotations just those two words invoke, together or standalone."

Their destination turns towards the Twilight Vale, and despite knowing that they are much weaker when they're alone, they split up. Both of the sisters carry with them a vial or two of seeds labeled "home." Whenever they find an untainted patch of land, they plant a seed before moving on. In order to cover more ground on the way to the Vale, they part ways, intending to meet up again.


-Serket is very meticulous and solemn when it comes to planting her seeds.
-She still knows how to make her salves even though it's been a very long time since she mixed them, but she doesn't feel right making them
-Like most landsworn, will give her life to protect untainted land.
-Without her sister around, more likely to manipulate and use people for her own gain, rather than simply killing them. She knows she's at a disadvantage taking someone on by herself.
-Smart enough to sit back and observe people, learning their weaknesses physically and emotionally in case she needs to use them later.
-Doesn't keep track of names/faces of people she's killed in the past.
-Doesn't actually believe she'll live to see a "brighter future." And if she does, she'll probably disappear into a glade never to be seen again.
-Gets upset if people call her by her old name.
-Despite leaving behind that old life, still respects people she knew from that time, and trusts their opinion if they vouch for someone. ...She'll likely still leave them to die if it came down to it, but at least she'll think about it first!
-Not stupid enough to rain on Hospitality.
-Wears a patch of a scorpion wrapped around a dreamcatcher. ((Or something. It's been drawn out, but has yet to migrate to costuming.))

---

scorpion stings lead to paralysis and Serket's name describes this, as it means (she who) tightens the throat, however, Serket's name also can be read as meaning (she who) causes the throat to breathe

landsworn | stalker | greenwitch

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Skills/Attributes
what a biiitch I'm gonna die who needs attributes

Vitality: 2
Body: 4 (9 CP)
Spirit: 2
Mind: 2
Power: 1
Drams: 2

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Traits: Survivor, Landsworn, Green, Greenwitch, Stalker

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Open Skills
Efficient Survivor -- 2 CP
Hard to Kill -- 0 CP

Greenwitch -- 4 CP
Spit Poison (spirit) -- 2 CP
The Land's Malice Manifest (body) -- 2 CP
Curse of the Greenwitch (power) -- 1 CP

Stalker -- 4 CP
Claws of the Wild -- 4 CP
Stalker's Coat (spirit) -- 3 CP
Snare (mind) -- 2 CP
Killing Strike (body) -- 2 CP
Continue the Hunt (body) -- 2 CP
Bleed the Intruder (N/A) -- 2 CP
Hunt Nature's Enemy (power) -- 1 CP

Total: miraculously 40 CP

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visualosities | playlist @ 8tracks | Etsy Inspiration