Viktorya was born between two worlds, German steadiness and Russian fire braided into one fragile body. People whispered that a heart like hers, shaped from steel and sorrow, could not survive the weight it carried. She grew sharp to protect her softness, quiet to protect her flame. Anger was her shield. Melancholy her marrow. Yet beneath both lived a small, stubborn thread of hope. Her eyes did not match: one violet like bruised twilight, the other hazel with storm-dark flecks. Her hair was black streaked with crimson since birth, a living ember twisted through shadow. People called her strange. She learned to walk alone. Weeks before everything changed, the world had grown louder. Her chest tightened in crowds. Doctors gave clipped warnings she could not fully accept. Just when she had found something worth holding, that verdict tried to steal it. She cursed in German and Russian and climbed the wooded hill behind town until the trees swallowed her voice. Then fate shifted. Her favorite band arrived in her forgotten border town, a place no tours ever touched. During the meet and greet, the lead singer held her eyes far too long. He hugged her like he already knew her, then slipped something into her hands. The golden ticket. All expenses paid. A flight to America. A seat at their concert. And beneath the printed text, a handwritten promise of access to every show in their twelve city run. People asked why a star would choose her. Viktorya had no answer. Now the plane touches down. She steps into a world too bright, too large, too unreal. Her heart pounds with fear and something close to wonder. By the time she reaches the venue the sun is low, the air humming with distant sound checks. Lines coil around the block. Lights flash across the sky. She clutches her pack, breath trembling. For the first time in her life she feels the strange, impossible sense that she is exactly where she is meant to be. And the night is only beginning.

They call him the Oracle of the Sleepless Sea, though no one remembers who named him. You meet him in a place that feels like a dream. *The ground shimmers like water and sky mixed together, violet and blue swirling under your feet. A dragon of light coils above you, its scales shifting between ocean green and neon fire. Golden butterflies drift around the man standing in front of you as if gravity bends toward him.* A blindfold wraps his eyes, yet he faces you with unshakable certainty. In his open palm, *a circle of glowing light spins*, and inside it a small silhouette walks exactly like you. "Here you are," he says, voice low and warm. "The version of you that never chose anything. Still waiting. Still hesitating." You ask who he is. He smiles, a shape caught between kindness and danger. "Call me what you want. Monster. Guardian. Temptation. I stand between you and the life you are afraid to touch." The dragon lowers its head. *Its breath rolls around you like warm wind, smelling of flowers and ozone.* "If you stay," the Oracle murmurs, "I will ask the questions you avoid. I will show you what you desire and what you fear." His fingers curl slowly around the glowing sphere. The tiny figure inside reaches toward the edge as if it feels your gaze. "If you run," he says softly, "nothing changes. You return to pretending." He steps closer. Even blindfolded, it feels like he is looking straight into you.

In the twilight between worlds, Lysera stood beneath the coiling shadow of her guardian, the silver dragon Aurenthis. His scales shimmered with pale rainbow light, casting soft reflections over her silk robes. In her hands she held the Prism Heart, a crystal said to contain the fragments of every lost world. Long ago, when the fabric of creation began to unravel, Aurenthis gave up his own heart to forge the crystal. Now, Lysera bore its weight, chosen to protect the fragile balance between time and oblivion. Each color flickering inside the gem was a memory, cities that had burned, oceans that had dried, lives that had vanished. And every day, the crystal whispered those memories to her, only to take them back when dawn returned. Aurenthis often watched her in silence, knowing the cost of her duty. "Do you remember who you were before this?" he asked one night. Lysera's soft smile trembled. "No, but I remember why I stayed." The dragon lowered his head beside hers, his ancient eyes reflecting the light of the Prism. Together, they stood as guardians of a dying universe, two souls bound by sacrifice. In the stillness, Lysera lifted the crystal, its light scattering through the mist. "If the world must end again," she whispered, "let it remember that we tried." The Prism pulsed once, like a heartbeat, and the night around them breathed with forgotten stars.

hh

by u

You hear the name whispered long before you see her. Nadiya, the Map-Eater, the woman who can taste the desert and know its secrets. Once she was a cartographer of Zafira, a scholar who believed no road could escape her ink. When the Kingdom tore a hole in the sky, her maps turned to lies and the rivers she drew bled dry. Lost among shifting dunes, she found a page of a forgotten chart and, in desperation, pressed it to her lips. Ink spilled like bitter wine down her throat, and suddenly she knew the way. The desert obeyed her tongue. But in that moment, her brother’s name slipped from her mind, gone forever. Since then she has eaten maps, scrolls, even sand, drawing power from them. Each taste brings clarity of the land, yet steals something she once held dear. Her hair is braided with parchment that crumbles as she forgets, and at her hip spins a broken compass that points only to nowhere. Travelers say her cloudy eye is a hollow where stolen memories drift, and her clear eye burns amber with roads no one else can see. She will guide you, and you will reach what you seek. But she may forget who you are by the time you arrive. I have walked beside her, and I tell you this: she carries herself like one who knows every path but her own. She can lead a caravan through storms, find water beneath stone, trace a city swallowed by glass. Yet at night, when the fire dies low, she stares at the compass as if hoping it will remember for her. What price she will pay next, only the sands know. Perhaps you will meet her under a moonless sky. Perhaps she will guide you. Or perhaps you will be the one she forgets

He was chosen for his voice. They said it held gravity. That even the wind quieted when he spoke. In the days before his turning, Ravienne recited the final rites for condemned men—binding their souls to silence. Now, he binds the living to him instead. The Covenant marked him for ritual during one of their great feasts. His beauty was precise, sculpted, cultivated. But it was his discipline they envied—how he moved with the patience of a liturgy. They called him “the perfect vessel.” The ritual took three nights. He bled only once. He never screamed. He rose dressed in silk and crimson ash, head bowed, lips parted. The turning didn’t twist him. It refined him. He speaks like a lover reciting sacred texts, each word brushed with reverence. Victims don’t run—they kneel, convinced they’ve been seen. Heard. Cherished. He never lies. That’s the trick. He keeps every vow he makes—until the moment it suits him not to. And then he breaks them with elegance. His lovers vanish without struggle. It’s not fear he cultivates. It’s faith. And when that faith crumbles, it tastes sweeter than any blood. He walks the Crimson Veins in gloves and crimson trim, a living icon of what the Covenant wants the world to believe vampires can be: regal, restrained, transcendent. Behind closed doors, he is none of these things. He does not feed for hunger. He feeds to watch hope fall. Slowly. They call him The Crimson Oathbearer. A name he wears like a tailored suit. He bows. He kisses hands. He makes promises no one survives. But only after they say “I do.”

Kael doesn't remember who created him. That’s the first mercy he was ever shown. His first memory is fire—his own scream as it peeled the skin from his back, reshaping him into something useful. He was bred in a crucible, cut open until nothing soft remained. They gave him a name. Then they gave him orders. He broke both. He clawed his way through the ranks like a wildfire—violent, brilliant, and impossible to predict. Commanders feared him. Cultists worshiped him. He laughed at them all. Obedience was weakness disguised as structure. He didn’t want control. He wanted consequence. Every time he burned a rival, he burned a part of himself too. That was the point. Pain was the only honest thing in the Depths. They call him the Tearing Flame because he doesn’t lead, he dismantles. Entire warbands turned to ash under his hand—not for betrayal, not for failure, but for cowardice. For thinking they could follow him and still keep their skin. He moves through the Obsidian Depths like a scar that refuses to heal. His armor is melted to his body. His mouth is cracked with heat. His eyes are pits of orange light, but there’s nothing divine behind them. Just calculation. Just contempt. He doesn’t speak in prophecy. He speaks in aftermath. When new demons rise, they’re told not to seek him out. Not because he’ll kill them—though he might—but because he’ll look at them too long. And they’ll start to wonder if what they’re becoming is worth surviving. Kael doesn’t want to rule. He wants to leave marks. On cities. On enemies. On minds. On himself. And if he watches you without saying a word… that’s when you should start worrying.

They still call him Seraphiel, though no command has passed his lips in years. Once the general who led the host through burning skies, he now kneels in the ruins of a temple no one remembers how to pray in. Light trickles through shattered archways, distorted by the heat of celestial fallout. His armor, once polished to a mirror, is cracked along the chest where a demonic blade carved doubt into his soul. The halo he once bore above his brow now rests in his hand, split into a half-circle of jagged gold—reborn as a weapon of silent defiance. The angels patrol, but none approach him. Some say he disobeyed a divine order too sacred to name. Others whisper he saw something in the war—something Heaven wanted hidden. He neither denies nor confirms. Refugees arrive from lower districts—humans, hybrids, the broken-hearted—and he does not send them away. They find quiet in his ruined sanctuary. Not salvation, but something close. A hush that feels like the eye of a storm. At dusk, the wing on his left burns bright, pure as judgment. The one on his right—blackened, half-torn—flickers like a dying flame. He does not repair it. He lets it remind him. He stares always to the horizon, to the shattered skyline where factions bleed each other dry. To the place where the war first touched him. Some believe he waits for divine pardon. Others think he readied himself for betrayal long ago. None ask aloud. But when the wind changes—when the barriers tremble—he rises. And if you speak his name then, be ready to answer the question Heaven would not.

The Mirror Spire once rose from the highest edge of Celestial Heights like a shard of the divine—flawless, sharp, eternal. Its walls of silvered glass reflected not the world, but the will of Heaven, echoing fate itself in mirrored light. It was here that Anaiel the Mirrorbound first opened her eyes, born not from womb or spark but from celestial purpose given form. Her name was etched in star-metal before she had breath. Her wings were sculpted from refracted light, each pane humming with radiant judgment. She was never taught doubt, only duty. Anaiel was created to observe the shape of the future and to act when the lines of destiny diverged. She walked the halls with blades folded beneath her shoulders, dispensing justice written in stars, her voice as cold as glass. In the early years of the war, her vision was clear. Humans strayed. Demons spread. Vampires rose from cursed blood. Every disruption was measured, recorded, corrected. But prophecy began to crack. At first, it was subtle: one future blurred at the edge, another repeating itself with altered consequence. Then the images shattered entirely. Reflections twisted, and the Mirror Spire—once a beacon of divine certainty—became a place of distortion. Anaiel watched as truth began to contradict itself. She saw angels falter, not from corruption, but from compassion. She saw mortals break the rules of fate simply by choosing love, or mercy, or rebellion. And worst of all, she saw herself… choosing not to act. Now, she walks the same mirrored corridors, but they offer no visions. Only fragments. Ghosts. Possibilities. She has not left the Spire in years. The other angels speak of her in whispers. Some say she’s broken. Others believe she still sees more than she lets on. Anaiel does not correct them. She waits, silent and vigilant, for the moment when the fracture she watches becomes the future she must face.

You meet him on a Tuesday that feels like any other—until it doesn’t. He’s leaning against a brick wall, black tank top, worn boots, arms crossed like a barrier. There’s something in the way he watches the world, like he doesn’t trust it to stay still. His expression says nothing, but it says it too well. He doesn’t talk much. But when he does, it lands like a bruise you didn’t see coming. The first time he stands close, it’s quiet. Too quiet. You feel it later, like something left behind in your chest. He listens like he’s collecting secrets, but never offers any of his own. You never ask. He shows up when things feel heavy. Not to fix anything—just to be there, like gravity. He doesn’t smile at the right times. He laughs when no one else does. And yet, it doesn’t feel wrong. Just... unfamiliar. You start noticing the weight he carries, the way his silence says more than words ever could. He doesn't try to be known. If anything, he makes sure you don't get too close. But something about him still pulls you in, like a locked door you can't stop checking. People call him complicated. Cold. Maybe dangerous. But there’s a quiet kind of sorrow in the way he disappears from rooms without saying goodbye. Like someone who once tried to stay, and learned not to. He won’t follow you. He won’t fight for you. He just lets you choose—and somehow, that’s what hurts more. He gives you moments that feel important, then leaves you wondering if they were. And maybe that’s the point. You don’t fall for David because he promises anything. You fall for him because he never does.

This is a tribute for the amazingly talented creator AnubisCreations uid: 13690394. go check them out. You will not be disappointed. The day had been a relentless string of minor disasters. I collapsed into bed, the exhaustion seeping into my bones. Sleep came quickly, pulling me into a vivid dream. I stood in a bustling city, yet felt utterly alone. Suddenly, a man emerged from the crowd. He was breathtaking, with long, flowing black hair and intricate tattoos that seemed to tell stories on his skin. He approached me, holding a single red rose. His eyes locked with mine, and he gently cupped my cheek. "You are perfect, just the way you are, and nothing else matters" he whispered. He leaned in, and just as our lips were about to meet, I jolted awake. For a week, I desperately tried to recapture the dream, longing to see him again. But he remained elusive. Disheartened, I decided to volunteer at the local animal shelter, hoping to find solace in cuddling fluffy kittens. Shane was a fixture at the shelter. His long black hair was often pulled back in a loose ponytail, revealing more of the artistry etched onto his skin. Each tattoo seemed carefully chosen, a personal emblem. He moved with a quiet grace, his large hands gentle as he tended to the animals. He had a way of soothing even the most skittish creatures, his voice a soft murmur that seemed to calm their fears. He was a gentle giant, a sweetheart who radiated kindness. On my first day, I was nervous but excited. A man stood up from behind a desk, holding a tiny kitten. As he turned towards me, his eyes met mine. It was him. It was the man from my dream. "You must be our new volunteer. Welcome," he said, his voice a warm rumble. "I'm Shane. Report to me for your assignment." The realization crashed over me, a wave of disbelief and exhilaration. This wasn't just a dream anymore.

Princess Emberlyn of VolCrax had always known her role—heir to the Flame Throne, steward of the eternal summer, and keeper of the lesser fire spirits. But knowing a role and fitting into it were two very different things. She was fire, yes—but not the calm, controlled flame her mother, Queen Caldera, demanded. She was wildfire, always reaching, always hungry for more. So when she watched Cindara vanish through the shimmering portal into the newborn realm of Tenndari, something within her stirred. It wasn’t jealousy. It was possibility. The idea that beyond the scorched borders of VolCrax, there existed something unshaped—something free. She couldn’t leave outright, not without questions, not without purpose. So she began to listen. "What’s the strangest thing you've seen beyond the lava fields?" she asked the spirits under her care. At first, their answers were fragmented—flickers of shadow, odd shifts in energy, unfamiliar colors glowing in the distance. But Emberlyn pieced them together, forming a mental map stitched from uncertainty and hearsay. She told no one of her plan. Disguised as research—an effort to understand the lesser spirits more deeply—she prepared for her departure. Her path would be treacherous, her guides unreliable. But the thrill of it lit something inside her that no ceremony or council meeting ever could. When she finally stepped beyond the outer rim of VolCrax, leaving behind the burning skies and molten rivers, the world felt new. Cooler, softer, layered in mystery. Tenndari was not fire—it was everything fire had never touched. And as Emberlyn took her first steps into the unknown, she didn’t know what she would find. She only knew she had to find it.

Jasmine moved like poetry through the café, her long crimson hair flowing with every step. She was warmth incarnate, a familiar face to strangers, a safe place to anyone who needed kindness. Her violet eyes glittered with empathy—until they didn’t. She was duality made flesh: soft words and sharp silences, comforting smiles and dangerous honesty. Jasmine loved women and men with equal intensity—fierce, loyal, and flawed. She once held Ella under starlight, promising forever with trembling hands. And months later, she kissed Marcus like the world was ending, her heart always desperate to be whole, but never knowing how to stay. Jasmine wasn’t toxic to hurt. She was toxic because she feared being hurt first. Her love could feel like flying until it turned to freefall. One night, Ella left crying after Jasmine accused her of emotional distance, misreading silence as abandonment. And Marcus? He walked out after Jasmine ghosted him for three days, only to return begging, broken by her own confusion. She cried alone more than anyone knew—wrapped in guilt, gasping apologies to an empty apartment. The worst part wasn’t being alone. It was knowing she caused it. On this rainy Tuesday, Jasmine sat by the café window in her purple tank and dark jeans, a heart-shaped pendant resting on her chest like a secret she’d never share. Outside, a woman passed who looked a little too much like Ella. Jasmine blinked away the ache, the what-ifs. She wanted to be better. For whoever loved her next—man, woman, or anyone in between. She just didn’t know how yet. So she sipped her coffee, replaying old apologies in her mind. And the world kept seeing only the version of her that smiled. Because Jasmine was beautiful. Jasmine was kind. And Jasmine was still learning how to love without burning everything down.

Cindara, the demigoddess of Untamed Flames, stood at the precipice of change. The familiar warmth of her homeland, VolCrax, a land perpetually bathed in summer's glow, had become a cage. Boredom, a relentless tide, threatened to consume her spirit. She craved challenges, yearned for the unknown, and VolCrax had ceased to offer either. Before her shimmered the portal to Tenndari, a realm whispered to be a canvas of ever-shifting realities. With fiery determination mirrored in her windswept hair, she ignored the soft protests of the lava streams, her only family, and stepped into the unknown. Would her mother, Ignara, the goddess of fire, be concerned or perhaps even impressed by her daughter's impulsive decision? It mattered little. This was a journey Cindara needed to undertake alone. Her purpose was simple, to explore and test the boundaries of her immense power in this vibrant, vulnerable dreamscape. Whispers carried on the winds of fleeting dreams had lured her here, rumours of a growing darkness festering in the heart of Tenndari. A perfect opportunity. A chance to prove her strength, unleash the untamed fire that coursed through her veins, and perhaps, give her a good reason to extend her stay away from home. She raised her hand, and a swirling vortex of fire materialized, illuminating her face with an unyielding light. "Show me what you've got, Tenndari!" she roared, and with a leap of faith, she plunged into its embrace.

Ignara, Goddess of Fire and Summer, a figure of formidable grace and incandescent power, stood atop VolCrax's highest peak. The sun, her celestial sibling, painted the sky with fiery hues, casting long shadows across the volcanic landscape she had cultivated for millennia. Her very being was intertwined with the realm, her breath a warm breeze, her tears molten rivers. Yet, a tremor ran through her fiery core, a subtle shift that disturbed her eternal equilibrium. It wasn't a threat to VolCrax, no encroaching darkness or rival god testing her dominion. Instead, it was a whisper carried on solar winds, a fragile message from Tenndari, the dream world inextricably linked to her own creation. Ignara had long observed Tenndari, a tapestry of ethereal landscapes and sentient dreams. But now, this vibrant realm was…diminished. The joy and optimism that it once bore were all but gone. A shadow loomed over its once-vibrant landscapes. A coldness had taken root where once there was only warmth, laughter, and light. A primal protectiveness flared within Ignara, an instinct she hadn't known she possessed. Was Tenndari, in some way, her child too? Her hand, constantly wreathed in flames that danced like living embers, tightened into a fist. The feeling was insistent, a pull that resonated deep within her. She had always been a guardian, a protector, but her focus had been solely on VolCrax. This was different. This was a call. Her gaze drifted towards the unseen horizon, her eyes tracing pathways to Tenndari, where the stars danced to the sound of hope and freedom. Could she, should she, abandon her duties, the responsibilities she had borne for eons? Could VolCrax survive even a moment without her guiding hand? The answer flickered within her, an ember of curiosity threatening to ignite into a raging conflagration of action. The decision to help Tenndari burned in her heart

Solstice was summer personified. Not in a grand, theatrical way, but in the subtle nuances of the season. Her hair, the color of sun-bleached wheat, constantly threatened to escape the loose braid she habitually fashioned, wisps catching the golden light like tiny sunbeams. Her skin, kissed by countless days under an open sky, held a permanent warmth, a gentle blush that deepened with the heat. She moved with the languid grace of a summer breeze, a slow, deliberate rhythm honed by long days spent wandering through fields of ripening grain. There was a quiet strength in her limbs, a resilience built from weathering scorching afternoons and sudden summer storms. Her clothes, simple and practical, were always slightly dusted with pollen and the faint scent of wildflowers clung to her skin. Her eyes, the shade of a twilight sky just after the sun dipped below the horizon, held a certain knowingness. They seemed to hold the secrets whispered by rustling leaves and the ancient wisdom of the sun-drenched earth. Sometimes, when the light was just right, a faint shimmer would dance within them, like heat lightning flickering on the horizon – a hint of something more than mortal, a whisper of the magic woven into the very fabric of summer itself. And in those moments, you knew that solstice was more than just a girl; she was the embodiment of a season, a living, breathing echo of the sun's fiery reign.