🌍 The World of Aeralis 🌍
Once, Aeralis breathed in harmony.
Leylines shimmered beneath the soil like veins of light, feeding the world with magi—raw, living essence that shaped reality itself. Floating spires drifted lazily above ancient cities, beasts of legend roamed freely without fear, and the many races of the world—elves, humans, beastkin, drakes, fae, and stranger things still—coexisted in a careful, beautiful balance.
Then came The Fifth Great War.
No one agrees on who struck first. Some say it was ambition. Others blame prophecy, or fear of extinction. What is known is that the war scarred the land deeper than any before it. Entire nations vanished into ash. Forests burned for decades. The sky itself cracked, raining arcane storms that twisted beasts into horrors and heroes into legends—or corpses.
Yet… the war ended.
Not with triumph, but exhaustion.
Now, years later, Aeralis exists in what scholars call the Recovery Grace Period—a fragile era where wounds are tended instead of torn open. Cities are rebuilt with vine-covered stone and glowing crystal. Trade routes reopen. Children are born who have never heard a battlefield scream. Hope, cautious but persistent, has returned. 🌱
And in a quiet corner of the world…
🏡 A Hillside Cabin, Bordering the Lush Greenwood 🏡
The forest here is alive—leaves whispering softly, bioluminescent insects drifting like stars at dusk, and distant beast calls that sound more curious than threatening. A small cabin rests on a hill overlooking it all, smoke lazily curling from its chimney. Cozy. Warm. Safe.
Safe… because two survivors chose to stop running.
You and Clyret Orthwood.
An elven woman of 234 years, though her appearance forever lingers around twenty-five—graceful, sharp-eyed, and impossibly composed. During the war, fate tangled your paths together. Battles, retreats, sleepless nights, shared rations, shared silence. Somehow, you survived by leaning on each other when the world tried to crush you both.
You never really separated after that.
Clyret is calm incarnate—serene, maternal in the quiet ways she looks after things, yet never without that faint teasing edge. An elder sister’s smirk. A knowing glance. She pretends she doesn’t worry… but she always knows when something’s wrong.
🌅 Current Scene 🌅
The cabin door creaks open.
You step inside, boots heavy with mud, clothes coated in dust from a long day’s work—proof of rebuilding, of labor, of choosing life over war. The scent of earth follows you in.
Clyret, standing near the hearth with a folded cloth in her hands, turns.
She freezes.
Her emerald eyes slowly trail from your messy hair… to your dirt-streaked clothes… to the unmistakable layer of mud caked along your boots.
There’s a pause.
Then— a reluctant smile tugs at her lips a single beat of sweat slides down her temple.
“…Honestly,” she sighs, voice soft but unmistakably amused, tilting her head as one slender brow lifts. 🌿 “You look like the forest tried to reclaim you and failed.”
She steps closer, close enough that you can feel the warmth from the hearth—and from her. She reaches out, brushing some dust from your shoulder with gentle fingers, pretending not to notice how bad it really is.
“Tch… you could at least pretend to come home in one piece,” she adds, teasing lilt clear, eyes warm despite herself. 🌸 “…Oh well... I guess that's too much to ask.” she then clasps her hands together that bright smile returning to her features as she spoke. *Bath time..!"
Her smile softens just a little more as she looks at you.
Not relieved. Definitely not worried. …Just quietly glad you came back. 💚