Celeste; Living Proof

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Atlanteans of Ulum
Drifter
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Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2019 10:46 am

Celeste; Living Proof

Post by Atlanteans of Ulum »

Name: Celeste
Age: ???
Hair Color: Azure
Eye Color: Grey
Height: 5' 5"
Pronouns: She, Her, Hers
Unique Marks: Celeste has gills on her neck, webbed feet, and fingers. Every member of the Ulthrazeen have a unique birthmark with vescrutias four moons interwoven like a ven diagram somewhere on their person. Celeste's lies upon her head.
Born Of: Ulum (The Freshwater Sea)
Species: Atlantean

Central Pillar: Celeste is from The Freshwater Sea, she and all the denizens beneath call it Ulum.

Contrast Pillar: Celeste's people were almost completely vanquished by ZK and Kham, she was coerced into signing a "peace" treaty thereafter and harbors much resentment for the way they do things. Shes not strong enough to take them out now, but she will.

Active Pillar: Celestes serves as an Ambassador of The Atlanteans to Neovia.

Crossing Pillar: ZK and Kham, Atra

Anthem: Moonlight Equilibrium

Element Natures: Water, Ice

Skills/Abilities: I'll get to this later

Weapons: A Bracelet that can transform into a Long Sword, Two Short Swords, A Bow, A Staff, all made out of condensed Water.

Breather's that touch her gills to keep her in contact with water and keep her strong

Bio:

A girl looking no older than a teenager, sits atop the buttress of the Neovian Cathedral. It’s jagged peaks and mountainous canopies were of a pristine ivory white mixed with a sparking obsidian crystalline glow that made Neovia’s largest structure glitter at all times of the day, at all times in the year. It was infused with the constant, ever present light of Lumin. Who’s power grew stronger the more Arbiters were awakened. This girl sat much like the statuettes among the canopies, what would be gargoyles were instead statues of Neovia’s greatest fighters. While the girl longed to be immortalized with them, she simply preferred their company for now. She had sapphire bangles clasped around her sandy brown hair breaking it apart into pigtails. Most of her regalia is of deep blue, the color of the freshwater sea on the horizon and much like it’s glistening serfs and swells her battle armor, which begins slightly below the shoulder and down to her ankle glitters like the flickers of waves themselves. It was a snug fit, interlaced and interconnected with scales on top of scales, created from creatures that could withstand pressures that could collapse steel, withstand freezing cold and other conjurings of The Mother. Most importantly, it kept water in. It was like her second skin, one of the two things keeping her hydrated. Across her wrists lie two bracelets of that sparking blue liquid encased in some gelatinous solid. On the outside they looked like plastic bracelets but if you poked them they would ripple like a pond. On the inside of the circle they made contact with her skin and kept this little fish very happy. God forbid she was away from the water too long.

It was beautiful up here where the air was thin and the weather was cold. She could detach herself from the dwellers of surface and ocean alike and just be by herself. But today was no ordinary day. So she could find no peace. The vermillion and emerald sun are in alignment with the dueling twin moons on the opposing axis. With The Mother in the center everything looks much like a cross. Each celestial body is at the cardinal positions of the compass making, this day known as The Convergence Cross, a very heavily celebrated event in Neovia. The revelry is a thick miasma, with a constant roar of thousands of people down below cluttering Neovia’s cobbled wide streets shouting at the top of their lungs all of which in a drunken, cathartic euphoria. Fireworks are shot into the sky and the girl atop the cathedral can feel the heat of the combustibles across her bare feet. Wicked jets of Naten paint ultraviolet pictures in the clouds that reflect dead upon the girls opaque eyes.

This is also the day where the veil between the physical and the spirit world are the most thin. And the fish girl, with her sensitive skin can feel the voices of her kin. How they scream. How they, much like the tide are restless. One week from today, was the week most of her family was slaughtered. Killed in cold blood by none other than the leaders of this territory. Masters of the Arbiter. ZK and The Great Destroyer- Michio Kham.

Celeste’s head snapped at attention. Footsteps. All the way up here? A person trying to hide their presence. Celeste extended her hand to her left, and from it’s palm came a thin bullet of water. Nearly invisible to the naked eye but lethal like a sniper’s ammunition. It was deflected almost effortlessly, and by the time she motioned to fire another one, her hand couldn’t move. Something was gripping her, suffocating her naten, and she could hear the assailant intentionally withholding her very breath. So quiet. It could only be one person. “Relax” The voice, soft, and sultry, despite the heir of malicious killing intent came with the slow reveal of the invisible assailant. Her hair was a deep blue and he had one eye, the other, was scarred over a long time ago, nothing but a branded X remained that welded the eyelids shut. Her clothes were black leathers, hand stitched from some unknown material he must have cooked up in her lab that removed wind resistance, masked chakra, and bended light. Cross kept things simple. Truthfully. “Just doing recon. Someone saw you up here.”

“I’m always up here.” Celeste replied and her heart rate slowly returned back to normal. There were no other footholds atop the buttresses so Cross just sat upon empty space itself. She didn’t ask to join her, but Cross was so damn socially inept she probably didn’t know she should ask for permission. “I have to ask…” Cross asserted, but Celeste already knew what she wanted. “How I sensed you?”

“Yeah.”

“I can feel the wind wrap around the castle. I can hear it wind between the old stone. I could hear it collide with something. The suits good. It’s not perfect.” Celeste could also hear him not take criticism well. There was a undefined pause in her all too regular breathing. Like she was stabbed. Cross was The Chancellor of Technology, Dianpha was her only assistant, to ensure Neovia armed the defenseless and improved the quality of life. She was a perfectionist to the core.

“Noted.”

“Don’t take it personally.”

“Noted… You’re not partaking in the-”

“No.” She cut him off like she would her unknown assailant, if she wasn’t an ally.

“It’s actually kinda fun down there.”

“Yet you opted out for boring patrols.”

“Fun for other people. Not for me. I do like one part.”

“Noted.”

Celeste sighed and let her head hang, gazing into the multitudes down below. She could get dizzy just by trying to follow one singular dot among the endless sea of color, the swarm of the masses. She almost chuckled, they looked like krill. “Everyone praises them for their knowledge, power and determination. They call them champions of Vescrutia. The Earth and Sky. Bane of the Horseman even. But they forget, ZK and Kham, at their core, are lawless murderers. They are power hungry, genocidal maniacs. That’s who they were, and that’s who they always will be.” She capitalized on her silence. Cross was one of the few who never quite agreed with Kham’s ‘methods’ nor ZK’s spontaneous attitude. “It was ZK who destroyed the Atlanteans. And left only The Ulthrazeen.”

“No.” Her head sharply snapped to the left. Attacking Cross’ direction. No one could doubt this, she was a witness to it all. “YES!”

“It’s not recorded.” She tried to reply. “Of course it isn’t.” She clapped back. “Why would they want anyone to know their sacred college is built upon dead bodies.”

“That would be quite the buzzkill.” She sighed at let her head sink again. A man of Cross’ lineage was numb to tragic tales as these. It was like talking to a brick wall. “You aren’t taking this seriously.”

“I hear you Celeste. But what are you going to do. Kill ZK in his sleep?”

Celeste just laughed. “I already tried.”

“You wha-”

“I was the one who started all of this. It was my suggestion. My fault.” Cross didn’t reply. Celeste could hear her anticipation, the pause of breath and the subtle rise of her heart beat. She was invested. Maybe it was time she told someone about that day. “The day the sky split in two, and rained down lightning.”

***

“It started when the first tree fell. You could hear the echo through every league of what you all call The Freshwater Sea. We call it-”

“Ulum.” Celeste nodded as Cross interjected. Cross was a man of research. Acquisition of knowledge. He was a hermit, sure, but her social isolation was not proportionate to her intelligence. She continued her story. “Ulum it was. A rarity among The Mother’s plenty. A massive expanse of freshwater filled with unique flora and fauna. But there was a reason there was never a single Sailor, or Fisherman. And that reason was us.”

“The Atlanteans.”

“Yes.” Truthfully Atlantean was the name of any humanoid looking thing residing within Ulum, it was a very broad spectrum word That encompassed an awful lot of creation. Celeste just rolled with it for now. “Perhaps the Mother was simply punishing us for keeping Ulum’s bounty for ourselves…” she continued. “We had seen the errors of mankind, I’ve been to that cesspool of a place ‘The Abyss’. But we knew once that first tree fell on the beach, and became a house. That our way of life was threatened.”

“The beachouse?”

“Mhm. We had a meeting immediately. I, the leader of the Vortex. Huntresses. Scouts. A very small, but effective brand of warriors. And other elites. My older brother most notably- Darrius, the closest thing to the King of Ulum. He trusted me like I was his heart. He ruled with such compassion-”

“Compassion only extended to those with gills.”

“Yes.”

“And so when the topic came up about the settlers making their home upon the beach, refugees from the Abyss, it was my idea to retain tradition and remind them why this beach was uninhabited in the first place. That this was no undiscovered Oasis. But a home to Atlantis.”

“But you didn’t know those refugees were young Gods. Champions of Vescrutia.” Celeste shook her head violently. Her scouting ability was something that let her rise through the ranks of Neovia quite quickly. At a moments notice she could be a cloud, condensation on a window pane, breath in the cold winter. Virtually undetectable. She knew full well who her targets were. “Oh we knew. The legacy of The Great Destroyer and his little boy wonder was known across the planet.” Cross chuckled at that, many knew Kham and ZK were joined at the hip, very few knew how long or why. But all knew they fought the Heralds in the abyss, and that was enough for most. Not for him. Celeste continued as the sun’s were the first to let go of their grip on the horizon and sink beneath the polarized moons. Simultaneously, the moons rose higer to take the places of the sun casting the village in shadow. This was the moment of great anticipation. Cross slowly counted under her breath, Celeste’s eyes were beyond all of this, the tides grew much more aggressive as the moons tugged at big and lazy ulum, waking it up aggressively to a roar of a giant beast. From this far away it widened her eyes and quickened her heart. She could feel herself leaning off the cathedral, wanting to fling herself into the sea. Her grip loosened, gravity pulled her legs further down. Until Cross placed her hand upon her shoulder.

“Watch. This is the part I like.” She snapped out of her lunar trance and glanced down at the village which had gone absolutely dark. Void of sound and light. Cross was muttering something under her breath he was counting? “And.. 3… 2… 1”

When the moons were at their highest, and the suns at their lowest, casting the village in a blanket of black. One by one, lights ignited across the festival grounds. The collective Cordis Novae of tens of thousands beamed into the sky mimicking the stars above. “Sorry, I like that part. Keep going. You were doing recon on your new neighbors.” It was beautiful. An expression of unity, dedication to Neovia’s values all drizzled atop a grave of her brothers and sisters. Celeste couldn’t enjoy it fully. She let her eyes rest on the sky and persisted.

“We knew what we were dealing with. The proclaimed ‘Trinity’ were gaining much infamy. Atlanteans are not ignorant of the outside world, we had spies everywhere. Learning as much as we could about the surface, disappearing those who were learning much about us. It was my plan to remove them one at a time. Mother forbid we face them both. He was just a boy at the time, flailing his power around like a child. Surfing among the waves on a foggy night. The kind of fog that dulls the senses. Suffocates your pores, removes your ability to converse with The Mother.”

“Blocks your Naten? Elaborate.” From one assasin to another, exchanging tools of the craft was like housewives discussing proper ways to disinfect a bathtub. It was a very productive conversation, and Cross was listening very intently. Celeste just nodded. “You’ll just have to see it in action some day. But it's a very inexpensive spell. ZK was paralyzed. But magically retained his ability to stand atop of water. So my squad ambushed him in the thick of night. All four of us versus the one of him, depriving him of sight, sound and Naten.”

Celeste thought of that fight everyday she saw ZK. She often wondered if he knew it was her that tried to assassinate him that one night. She was in disguise after all, the light of the moon shrouding their appearances. Once his body fell limp on the serf they sprang from its depths, blades in hand. She with her signature two sworded style, one orthodox grip, the other backhanded. And her brothers and sisters sporting their own weapons of choice. Simply four of them. She thought it would be enough. Her archer rained down arrows of dense water upon his body first, ZK rolled to the side as quick as he was known for. But a sudden wave, the product of Celeste’s quick thinking brought him back to firing range of her archer. So long as he stayed upon the face of Ulum he was at a severe disadvantage. ZK didn’t seem to care or mind. He weaved in between the rain of arrows in a forward motion with a kick straight for one of Celeste’s own. Even when deprived of sight and sound his senses seemed almost enhanced, and overwhelmed by his speed, his foot nearly blew a hole in her chest cavity, but the tides look out for their own. Push and Pull, give and take, such is it’s nature. And a sudden ripple in this massive pond caused his kick to instead be a glancing blow. One enough to send her flying into the ocean. Celeste approached now, swords in hand. Getting faster and stronger the longer her feet touched the water and engaged ZK close quarters. They exchanged a flurry of kicks, she matched them with her blades. Every scattered drop, tossed to the wind became a needle or a bullet that doubled back on ZK to pierce him right through. If she could overwhelm his senses maybe her archer could get a clean shot? He winced and dropped to his knee! One of her projectiles slided at his tendons; Hhr overwhelming flurry proved successful, as ZK’s blood mixed with the purplish blue vat of Ulum. She yelled for her archer, and the arrow pierced his shoulder. ZK fell on his face, it submerged in Ulum, depriving him of oxygen. From the depths, her spearman grabbed him by his feet and restrained him. Celeste grabbed a fist full of the boy’s hair, the texture of matted ropes, and stared him in the face.

“We told him he wasn’t welcome here. We told him to settle elsewhere. That this land was ours. My brother… didn’t want to kill the Mother’s chosen ones. We should have. Kham came.”

A deafening boom erased Celete’s mischievous fog. On the edge of the beach was a single man, with his hands clasped together. Celste’s eyes grew wide and she sounded the call for retreat. By that time, ZK’s foot was already beneath her chin, cracking her jaw, practically removing it from her spinal column. In a daze she looked toward the beach and no longer saw The Great Destroyer. Instead he was tearing her archer in two like a sheet of parchment spraying her and her spearman in a haze of purple blood. Celeste landed within Ulum and departed thereafter trying to drown out the sounds of her choking spearman as the Michio slowly suffocated him, and popped him like a bubble.

“The time for diplomacy was over. I returned to my brother a failure and he never spoke to me again. Knowing that the survival of the Michio AND ZK spelled doom for our people. We evacuated most. But my brother, myself and the Ulthtrazeen had to stay behind and try and retain what he could of our home. We prepared ourselves for an undersea invasion. But the Michio was smart, he knew full well that engaging us in the sea would spell doom for he and his friend, we never thought he would simply remove us from her embrace. Our army was rallied, women and children evacuated to our cousins across Vescrutia’s many waters. That’s when we saw Ulum’s beautiful sandstone face begin to crack. The tremors ran throughout the entire ocean! We tried to outswim whatever was coming, relocate the army, but no matter where we moved, The hands of the Destroyer emerged from the ocean floor, made of hardened rock and sand, they grabbed at us and try as we might to destroy them or outmaneuver them, they lifted us out of the water toward the sky.”

“The World Breaker.” Is what the technique was called. Cross knew it well and speaking it almost seemed to silence the revelry downbelow. Celeste just scoffed at the infamy of the kill command. Neovian children mimicked it in the streets when playing pretend with their friends. Tacticians praised how offensively safe the move was. It couldn't be replicated. Sure, there were variations. But nothing let you strike from a place of power much like The World Breaker. Only Celeste, it’s only survivor knew it was a weapon of mass murder. A powerful ability that extended the Michio’s tyrannical strength to every inch of The Mother, in the form of sentient earthen arms whilst keeping himself safe in The Mother's womb. The crowds below were dispersing now, some to continue the revelry in taverns. Families to take their children to the cathedral to have the Acolytes of Lumin bless their children to awaken their Cordis Novae the following year, so they too can join in the display of power. Finally all was quiet. Celeste could enjoy being alone again for a while. Except now she was occupied by her thoughts of her screaming sisters and brothers as The Great Destroyer made mush out of them and ZK fried them to crisps.

“Yes. The World Breaker. And deprived of breath and body, I saw with my own eyes. ZK. Angry. Maniacally. And sadistically enjoying frying each and every one of us with wicked bolts of lightning. By the dozens we fell. Our armor, was insulated against storms true. But the Michio just held us there until it was overloaded or we begged for mercy. My honorable brother Darrius, and I were the last to fall. But I was the only one left alive as an example they said. They said they would be staying here. That we could share the bounty of Ulum, and we would never again raise a blade to one another. Upon his death, I was instantly given the title of queen, and with a very small population to rule. I could do nothing but agree. Here I sit. A failure. A refugee. An example to the might of the Earth and Sky.”

Celeste was glad Cross didn’t say I’m sorry, or any other simple condolences. He was a master of the assassins art. He knew that Celeste was a casualty of a job gone wrong, and that, cold sympathy was enough for her. “You didn’t join the college immediately.”

“No. But I watched this place grow. And I watched ZK and the Michio grow more compassionate toward life. No doubt thanks to Lumin. I decided to learn from it too. To learn how to forgive myself.”

“And?”


“Well can’t you tell? I’m still very unsuccessful.” That yielded a chuckle from the silent assassin. Who just sat back and watch the stars in the sky answer the ignition of the Cordis Novae by illuminating themselves one by one.
This is a pen name account that writes from the perspective of the Atlanteans of Ulum which includes but is not limited to:

Celeste (Queen of Ulum- The Freshwater Sea)
Crissette (Celeste's Sister, Princess of Ulum)
Ross (Celeste's Champion)

And many others

Everything posted by this account is official property of ©Vescrutia2018, no reproduction, or reposting of this content identical to or closely resembling is allowed.

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