let go ☆ for tonight
hi, i'm reg (she/her), and i'd like to rp with you. here, you'll find a bit of information about me, what i'd hope to see in a partner (terms negotiable tbqh), and some plot ideas. i describe myself as old and crusty but i am also quite chill and approachable. i hope you find something you like in the plots and that we can write fun stories together!
about reg
⊹ comfortably over 30, i am a crusty fossil who's been roleplaying for over 15 years and writing for longer.
⊹ looking for fun writing times, not a second job. i'm more than capable of writing a 1,500 word post, but chances are slim that i will. ideally, we circle 300-500 words and call it done.
⊹ i care much more about giving and receiving hooks in posts than about an arbitrary word count.
⊹ ghost me, idc. i, too, am deeply conflict avoidant. you do you.
⊹ discord only. no other alternatives available.
⊹ samples below.
⊹ writing is my love language. when the day comes that you make a post and, 10 minutes later, i have replied, know that i am telling you that i love what we're writing and please don't feel any pressure about it. this is how i show i care.
about you
⊹ over 21.
⊹ relaxed about word counts and other arbitrary measures of "quality" in a post.
⊹ capable of giving me hooks to work with as well!
⊹ willing to push the plot forward and not afraid to take the story in fun, exciting, and interesting directions.
⊹ happy with discord, but willing to chat with me in DMs to see if we vibe.
⊹ samples required. "aw, reg, must i?" yes. this is your time to shine. wow me.
important!
⊹ if you want to come to me with your own plots, that's great! however, please consider that i am most interested in fantasy (first or second world) and folklore/fairytale vibes. if your plot doesn't fit into that category, i will probably turn you down.
who needs ☆ sleep tonight。 ⊹ *
use the key below to understand my star-ratings on plots, which role i most want to play, and which lines i'm craving. while all my plots are structured as m/f, i have no problem with m//, f//, enby, or trans pairings either. please don't hesitate to ask for your heart's desire!
★★★★★ I'm always in the mood for this and will always say yes to it.
★★★★☆ Yes, in a heartbeat.
★★★☆☆ I'm feeling a little indifferent about this right now.
★★☆☆☆ Why do you want to do this plot? Let your hype get me hype!
★☆☆☆☆ Come to me with a really compelling and motivating character and I'll almost certainly say yes.
text the character i'd like to play. if neither role is bold, i have no preference.
❦ the amount of thirst i have for this plotline cannot be communicated via human language.
Lyravel
Father was dead.
Father was dead, had been dead, and his magic hadn’t returned to the Weave.
Standing in the middle of his workshop cave in a hybrid form, caught between human and dragon, Lyravel lifted one of his clawed hands. The sharp, black tips dragged through the air, through the aether, collecting it until it became a visible, weighty thing. Strands of glowing white-gold aether hung from his clawtips, so powerful he felt the vibrations in his fingers. If he touched that aether with his human-form hands, his skin would melt to the bone. Years of working with the aether made him confident but never careless; he moved with liquid grace, familiar with the motions of his magic, but still careful never to move too quickly, too sharply. Every calculated motion drew more power to hand.
With sure strokes, Lyravel cast the aether into the air. His will burned through him, expanding outward from his own core of magic, billowing into the air with the scent of icefloes and glaciers and crisp, winter mornings. Father’s magic had been water; mother’s was wind; his, naturally, was the combination of both, a frigid, icy power that seeped heat from everyone and everything around him. He inhaled the suddenly frigid air, ignoring the frost crystalizing on his thick leather vest and thinner deerskin breeches.
As the magic coalesced in the air before him, he saw the shape of the Weave, that sprawling, endless pattern of mystical power that connected all things, dragon, animal, plant—even humans. And in that Weave, he read his own family line. Himself. His sister, Nyanarel. Mother was there, a massive mandala of knotted power that connected to every other living dragon. Anavyr overwhelmed the Weave as she overwhelmed everyone and everything else, her raw power magnificent, resplendent. But where Father should have been hung only loose, dangling threads, as if his entire existence had been pulled from the Weave and dragged somewhere far, far distant.
A cold fury rose within him. This was not the natural order of things. This was not good or right. It wasn’t enough that Father was dead, but someone sought to take him from his family, too, sought to erase him.
Lyrval swept from his workshop. The cave was small, fit for a human or a dragon in his hybrid form. He left that space behind, his body melting from hybrid to dragon as he strode down the hallway. As a hybrid, he was a tall human; as a dragon, he was massive but sleek, his form long and thin instead of bulky like Mother and Nyranarel’s. Scales of iridescent blues and silvers lined his body, and great, opalescent horns curled back from his massive muzzle. The hallways weren’t large enough to accommodate his incredible wingspan, and he ached to stretch his wings, to feel wind fill them. But he had to tell Mother what he’d found first.
That conversation went about as well as he expected—which was poorly. Mother didn’t believe him, but Mother so rarely did. She thought he lost himself in books to avoid the realities of the world, thought he imagined what he saw in the Weave, thought he was desperate for Father to be anything other than dead. But Father had been dead for nearly ten years, and the Weave was as empty then as it was now where Father’s presence should be. So when Mother commanded him to ignore what he’d found, when she ordered him to let it go, to remember Father fondly but nothing more, he ignored her. Another dragon ignoring his queen would face certain death, but not so for the queen’s younger son; she might rage at him, but she wouldn’t hurt him. At most, she might try to imprison him for a century or two, but he wouldn’t find that a miserable punishment at all.
He left, flying north from the southern mountains and their myriad waterfalls and then further north still, to a place where snow fell in winter and there were four seasons instead of only three. There, he winged into Father’s old cave, a massive complex built over several hundred years in the side of a gargantuan mountain range. Father had preferred to live alone; if there were other dragons so far north, Lyravel didn’t know of them, and neither did Mother and the southern dragons. Father had been an anomaly.
Idly, Lyravel wondered if the humans missed him or if they still worried he might sweep down from his steep mountains and devour their sheep.
Snorting, Lyravel began wandering through his Father’s old caves. The entry was bare. Dragons often kept their hoards in these front caves, where the gold was easy for humans to see and quick to distract them from the greater treasures deeper within. All dragons enjoyed gold—needed it for their hatchlings—but their truly precious hoards of other, more interesting items they kept hidden deep within their caves where prying eyes might not see. Lyravel collected books. Father, it seemed, had collected magical items.
Lyravel passed from the entry cave through a fake wall, one carefully carved to be hidden from most human vantage points, and moved deeper into the cave system. The first hallway was filled with statues that hummed with the Weave’s power. That hallway opened into a large antechamber, designed to accommodate both a full-grown dragon and a human. The human accoutrements—tables and chairs, soft rugs, sofas—were in disrepair, half destroyed by rodents. Lyravel snagged one fleeing rat and exhaled a small tongue of flame at it. Rats made passable snacks. He popped it in his mouth as he made his way from the main receiving room through the rest of the cave system, finding a number of rooms filled with artefacts that hummed with a dangerous malevolence. He’d need to come back to those later, once he’d had time to investigate the items and disarm the more dangerous ones. His cursory exploration, while interesting, served him little in answering his many questions. There was no sign of foul play here, no obvious mystery, no message from an evil wizard about killing Father and stealing away his magic.
With a gusty sigh, Lyravel returned to the antechamber and changed into his human form. He dropped onto a sofa, sending a cloud of dust dancing into the air as the springs in the sofa screamed in protest of his weight.
He sighed again, tipping his head back and regarding the smooth ceiling of the cave with disdain. “A useless endeavor,” he murmured to himself.
And that’s when he heard a strange sound, the pattern of footsteps where there should be none.
Suddenly alert, he lunged up from the sofa and slid seamlessly into his dragon form once more. Carefully, he crept toward the antechamber’s entrance, listening. Light footsteps. A human. Had someone returned to Father’s cave to cause more trouble? A growl gathered in Lyravel’s throat, but he swallowed it down; one caught more flies with honey.
So when he slid out of the antechamber, it was with all the dignity a young dragon could muster. He arched his back and spread his wings, turning his snout toward a—a human woman.
Blinking in disbelief, he cocked his head to his side as he regarded her in stunned silence. And then, gathering himself, he spoke as kindly as he could, because he had no desire to scare her and bring a platoon of knights down upon himself. “What—” So perhaps he wasn’t as kind in his tone as he was icy and alarmed. “—is a human woman doing in Gorval’s cave?”
Nazri
There were few things better than a plan coming together, Nazri thought to herself as she watched her raiding party return to the camp with an unconscious general bound to a stretcher. Her eyes swept over him, and she winced—she’d instructed her men to do minimal damage, but even from her vantage point, she could see the scarlet blood blossoming against bandages. A sour expression crossed her face, and she strode through the camp toward Vaishti, her captain of the guard, the man she’d sent to lead the ambush.
“I know,” he said grimly, before she could chastise him. “But he fought harder than we expected.” Vaishti gestured to his own arm, wrapped in a sling. “He dislocated my shoulder, almost slit Anhari’s throat—she’ll have a pretty, permanent smile now—and nearly gutted Meuri. So don’t get too pissy about the state he’s in. We did what we had to do.”
Nazri scowled at him. From anyone else, she would’ve taken umbrage to the censure in those words, but not Vaishti. Of all the men and women who served her, Vaisthi was the most trustworthy. He’d proven himself to her over and over again, saving her life, seeing through the lies of her courtiers, protecting her from everything and everyone. When she’d explained her plan to kidnaped Strathenburg’s famed General Glynris Sernaras, Vaishti had been the only person who didn’t outright laugh at her. He’d considered her proposal, picked it apart quietly, and then pointed out the weaker parts of her plan with the goal of making it stronger. He questioned her, certainly, but never in public, and he always operated in a manner than improved upon her ideas instead of undercutting them. If he wasn’t thirty years older than her and hadn’t served her mother, she might have fallen in love with him.
“He needs medical care,” Nazri finally said, gesturing them toward her own tent. “Take him to my tent.” Putting General Sernaras with her own people wouldn’t end well for him.
She went to her war tent, collecting her own generals and listening to their reports of the battlefield. Without their famed general at the lead, Strömhold’s forces had fractured. Good. That would give her own armies a chance to recover. Most of her generals wanted to press Strömhold’s forces, wanted to push forward—and her advisors generally agreed. But Nazri shook her head. “We’re not here for warfare,” she reminded everyone. “We’ll leave a force behind to fortify our border and protect our retreat, but we’re leaving. We won the battle we came here for.”
Ignoring her generals was a gamble. They already lacked faith in her. Her advisors, too, thought she was mad for pulling back. But she didn’t want to crush Strömhold’s army. She didn’t want to war with them at all. Unfortunately, their king had too much pride to accept aide from Muraadh and was too greedy to leave her lands alone; he’d launch another campaign against her soon enough, and they’d likely have to deal with spies and assassins and rescue parties breaching their ranks in the meantime, all to retrieve the general.
Nazri ground her teeth together, took a deep breath, and reminded herself that this was the best course of action. None of her generals had Sernaras’ knowledge or skill. In a prolonged war against Strömhold, they’d lose. And Strömhold would, too, because her people would burn their fields to the ground before giving the land to a foreign king.
The army decamped, beginning the long march back to Muraadh’s capital city. Daradh was the crown jewel of Nazri’s kingdom, a shining symbol of hope and refuge in the midst of a burning, relentless desert. White sandstone walls rose from the river valley, painting curved white lines against the blue horizon. The people emerged from their homes in their thin, colorful linen wraps, crying out with joy to see their queen and her military return home successful. While the Muraadh’s nobility sought to undercut her power at every opportunity, she had the support of the people, and Nazri suspected that only the common people’s support stood between her and a fully realized coup. If she were deposed, the people would revolt. Her advisors had done their jobs too well when she’d ascended the throne at only eight, making her into some kind of messianic figure for the people. Now, they adored her. They were her insurance policy, though she hated to use them.
She ordered the general placed in the smaller suite of rooms attached to her own. Vaishti offered token resistance—he disliked that Sernaras would be so close but agreed that keeping him in the consort’s suite would offer him a greater protection from any of Strömhold’s retrieval forces.
Under Nazri’s supervision, Sernaras was kept drugged with laudanum, as much to ease his pain as to keep him docile, and he began to heal. They’d been home for a week when her chief healer suggested taking him off the laudanum, and Nazri agreed. An excitement coursed through her, an eager anticipation that vibrated through her bones throughout the day they decided not to give him his morning dose of laudanum. She harbored no false hope that he would immediately give himself over to her plans (though she’d entertained the thought briefly), but she was eager to begin coaxing him to come around and see her side of the conflict between Strömhold and Muraadh.
Cutting her court dinner short, she returned to her rooms and stripped off her courtly regalia for a simple linen gown of vibrant violet hemmed with gold. She removed her heavy jewelry, the necklace and the headdress, the rings and the bracelets; she knew better than to go to an enemy wearing anything he could tear from her flesh.
A servant had left a tray of food and a pitcher of mango juice in her sitting room, and she picked up both before entering the suite attached to her own quarters. She brushed through the light fall of translucent fabric that hung in the doorways, offering a facsimile of privacy, and went to where the general lay in his bed. She should have Vaishti with her, but she’d neglected to mention that the general would likely wake today for a reason: she didn’t want him looming over them both when she made her introductions. And regardless, the general wasn’t fully healed. If he wanted to attack her, he’d tear open the wound on his stomach. She doubted he’d try and was confident in her own ability to fend him off, no matter how mediocre she was in comparison to him.
Kneeling beside the bed, she set the tray and pitcher down on a low-standing table. In the bed, the general breathed slow and steady, and she frowned, taking a moment to study him. Handsome, certainly. An exquisitely crafted man, built for war and death. Was he really asleep or only pretending? She snorted softly, deciding it didn’t matter.
“I hope you’re feeling better,” she said conversationally. Perhaps he was still asleep. If he was, no one else was here to laugh at her for speaking to an unconscious man. And if he wasn’t, this was an invitation to open his eyes and engage with her. “You’ve been asleep for quite a long time, healing.” One of the healers had left a basin of water on the same, low-standing table. Nazri picked up a cloth, dipping it into the water and wringing it out. Leaning over him, she draped the cloth across his forehead. Withdrawing, she watched his face, looking for any indication he was awake. “There’s food if you’re hungry.”
Nazri
Scorching winds swept across the desert dunes on the day Nazri an-Avkaya Muraadhi was to meet her groom. The sun blazed in a clear blue sky, bearing down with almost unnatural heat on the desert kingdom, and while she should have been happy, should have been excited, she couldn’t stop thinking about how that sun would cook her people’s crops.
Nazri dragged a hand down her face as her attendants pulled her hair back in an elaborate style of looping braids pinned with gold and green citrine lotus blossoms. They tied her breastband behind her back, laying a golden collar over silken fabric of deep, emerald green. Bridal colors, colors for fertility, for good luck.
She wasn’t going to marry her future husband today—thank all the gods for that—but she understood well the importance of ceremony and presentation. Rahul and her small council had taught her that lesson well if accidentally.
Gentle hands urged her head back, and Nazri relaxed into her attendants’ hands, eyes closing as they dusted her cheeks with golden powder and rimmed her eyes with kohl.
Today, she had to look glorious. Resplendent. Not only did she have to impress the man who would be her husband, but she had to look every inch the Queen of Muraadh instead of the scared, uncertain little girl who’d ruled the country for so long. This was her idea, suing the Aldara for peace between their nations. She needed the gambit to be successful; famine made for unsuccessful war, and she would not see her people consumed by the Sapphire Crown.
“You look lovely.”
Nazri opened her eyes and drew away from her attendants, watching Vaishti, her Captain of the Guard, through her mirror. He looked broader than he actually was when he wore his leather armor, emblazoned with the golden sun of Muraadh, his hand on his scimitar. Something about the uniform gave his soft features a more severe cast, sharpening the angles of his face and bringing out the salt and pepper in his dark hair. But there was a kindness in his eyes as he watched her, and Nazri smiled in spite of herself.
“You don’t think I should wear blue and sapphires instead?” she asked, rising from where she sat and scattering her attendants. She turned to him, carefully adjusting the fall of her sheer wrap. It was too hot in Muraadh to layer clothes as they did in other countries, leaving the fashion somewhere in the category of scandalous as far as most foreigners were concerned. Out of deference to what she anticipated her husband’s sensibilities would be, she wore a pair of trousers beneath her wrap, so loose they resembled a second skirt.
Vaishti shook his head. “No. You’re not bowing to the Sapphire Crown. You’re meeting their spare as an equal.”
Nazri pulled a face. “Please, for the love of the gods, don’t talk about him like that.”
Snorting, Vaishti lifted one brow. “That’s what he is.”
“And that may be true, but if you talk about him like that with me, you will slip up one day and say something like that to his face. Remember, I want him to like me.” At least, she wanted him to tolerate her. There were rumors about Callum Ròsach, about his perfect manners and, she assumed, his exacting standards. She was frankly terrified she wouldn’t live up to those standards and that he’d leave, ruining this whole, desperate plan.
With a heavy sigh, Vaishti nodded. “As you will, Your Majesty.”
Shooting him a deep, heavy scowl—she hated when he treated her with such formality in private—Nazri swept by him. She jingled with every step, the heavy bracelets and anklets she wore creating a musical melody that followed her across her massive suite.
She threw open the main doors before Vaishti could, and he fell into step behind her, along with one of her other guards, Anhari. Where Vaishti was tall and lithe, built for speed, Anhari was a stocky woman with hair like midnight she wore in a thick braid down her back. She was built for brawling, for street fighting, and unlike Vaishti, she wore no sword. Her weapons were her fists, and they were armored with spikes.
Nazri moved silently across the pink marble floors of the family wing, glancing at the arched palisades that separated the hallway from her private gardens. She wondered what Callum would think of the wide-limbed acacias with their golden blossoms, or the sticky-sweet scent of the blooming violent jacarandas. Would he detest the unrelenting heat of the desert or discover that warmth felt like a comforting blanket, like she had as a child? Would he appreciate the fountains that spilled water throughout not just the gardens but the palace itself, providing a refreshing drink and a place to wash one’s feet too cool off, or would he think their traditions and practices barbaric?
He might have barbaric traditions, too, she reminded herself as she stepped through the massive double doors that separated the family wing from the rest of the palace. Here, the halls were richly appointed with artwork—tapestries, mostly, that fluttered in the gentle breeze created by all the open windows throughout the palace. The entire building was at times a massive wind tunnel, drawing the breeze down wandering hallways so its occupants remained cool, even in the brutal heat. The floor and walls here were tiled, the tiles easy as wide across as a man, expensive and difficult to install and painted with the stories of the gods. She wondered, too, if Callum would find her gods repulsive or if he’d ever appreciate them the way she did. Not, of course, that she expected him to abandon his gods for her, but she hoped they’d find some mutual respect.
Finally, Nazri reached her throne room, which was more of a wide, open courtyard than a room. Sheer fabrics fluttered in tall archways that led out to pleasure gardens. The floor here was even more elaborately tiled than that of the hallways, and the ceiling above was painted with the story of Muraadh’s founding: the gods imbuing the first Queen of Muraadh with a touch of their divinity, allowing her to speak on behalf of the world’s spirits.
Her court bowed to her as she entered, pulling away from the center of the room so that she could reach her small throne. Like her mother before her, Nazri sat on the floor with a gilded hair-chair at her back, surrounded by pillows and with a low-standing table before her. Everything she needed to review for her day’s work usually rested on that table, but today it was filled with gifts for her groom. Elaborately carved boxes full of blessings, of fine clothes that suited the desert heat, of ornate weapons.
Folding her hands in her lap, Nazri laced her fingers together and shifted her gaze to her court. She’d timed her arrival to match Callum and his entourage’s progress through the capital city of Fariyah Jesir; they should be arriving at any moment. Indeed, no sooner had the thought crossed her mind than the palace guards—not her personal guards, for Vaishti and Anhari stood beside her—pulled open the wooden double doors at the front of the room to admit the party.
Nazri’s court bowed low, though she saw Rahul did not bow as low as he should, and she had to fight a grimace. Forcing a smile back onto her face, she rose from where she sat and spread her arms wide in welcome.
“Prince Callum Ròsach of the Aldara, may you be welcome among the children of the desert.” She turned, and as she did, one of her attendants all but manifested at her side, holding up a tray bearing a pitcher of water and a glass. Carefully, Nazri poured a mouthful of water into the cup and then, cradling it in both hands, she stepped around the table before her throne.
A sudden anxiety squeezed her heart as she surveyed the group before her. But she’d heard descriptions of the prince and knew him to have hair as light as silver—thus his epithet, the Silver Prince—and so she didn’t embarrass herself as she held the cup of water out to him.
“My water is yours,” she told him, invoking that most ancient rite of hospitality between the people of Muraadh’s deserts. “Quench your thirst as my honored guest.”