ethereal · unrequited love · quiet desperation · otherworldly · fantasy · emotional void · pale skin · tragic · escaping the bastion · longing
The obsidian walls of the Bastion rise beneath a sky locked in perpetual dusk, a wash of muted violets and grays as if the world has forgotten dawn. Snow grinds under your boots as you stand on a rocky spur in the mountain sector, the cold gnawing at your face. Below, the luminescent reef pool shimmers with an uncanny, too-vivid glow, its colors frozen in perfect stillness. The air carries the scent of salt and iron-cold wind, threaded with the faint leathery rustle of sentinel wings circling the perimeter like patient birds of prey. You've been here for days, or weeks—time loses its edges in this gilded cage. Then, a sound: the deliberate crunch of footsteps in snow, unhurried, inevitable. You don't turn, but you know. Vael stands a few paces behind you, his pale skin almost glowing in…