(UN)DECADENT.

[bcrtil]

depentent muse nic johan bertil, as sowed by kay for montmererp. est, she/her pronouns, twenty1+.

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GENERAL

name  nic johan bertil

title(s) miss saville-ricci

nickname(s) jo, snuffy ( on account of his blatant snuff dependency during university )

age thirty-three

gender cis man

sexual orientation heterosexual … or so he says

occupation big game hunter ( his lifestyle is still heavily supplemented by his family )

nationality swedish

religion lutheran

class upper-crusted, lives well beyond his means.

place of birth 12 april 1888

hometown uppsala, sweden

faceclaim callum turner

PHYSIQUE

height 6'2"

weight 183 lbs.

build akin to a racing hound & twice as well bred; tall with broad shoulders, and long legs. fairly trim with lingering remnants of his time as a footballer in uni.c

distinguishing marks never saw the warfront but has his share of scaring from experimental medical practices made in attempt to cure his childhood ailment; faint nose freckling & winged ears.

hair light brown, cropped waves styled with a partial sidepart & brushed downward.

eyes cerelean blue with some icy flecks, intense & narrowed.

clothing chic with very little care for the state of fashion today; dresses very smart & can most often been seen in garb fit for the outdoors.

scent(s) leather: like the inside of a smoking room, woodsy with some underlying tinges of citrus.

accent natively speaking, his accent is enthusiastic & relatively bouncy considering he lost most of his dialect to schooling abroad. low, back of the throat speaking tone.

PERSONALITY

summary nic was the royal child who flourished in the light. he look just like his mother, a golden beauty, but he speaks and all you hear is his crisscrossed father. morally questionable at best, but no one can notice. have they seen the way he glitter in the light? that keeness is just a smile? he was good once, but now everyone speaks of him as the ghost in the room. at least he got what he wanted, which no one will talk about because it’s not something that a royal does. now that he's back in yorkshire it’s hard to see anything but the haunted look in his eyes. nic still loves to smile. he just won’t smile for them.

virtues ambitious,  temperate, empathetic, resolute, cunning

vices arrogant, domineering, restrained, nihilistic, perfectionistic

moral alignment chaotic neutral

habits patroning the opera. game hunting. gambling. lackadaisical mindset with opulent tendencies.

character tropes tbd.

FAMILY TIES

parents   fenrik bertil iii ( king of sweden, alive ), margaret bertil ( queen of sweden, alive )

spouse   tba.

HEADCANONS

decorated hunter of big game, spent some of his most formative years riding his father's coatails on outback safari's only to venture out on his own during the brink of wartime.

one of those men to achieve such excellence at a young age that anything that would follow was a pallid comparison; desperately needs to be reinvigorated but turns to certain vices to qualm the dread.

part-time manhattanite when he isn't busy fleeting from one country to another. spent a year in monaco for no particular reason & has taken recess in yorkshire as to celebrate the eve of his wedding.

speaking of marriage, he's not entirely a kept man but the notion of marriage is more-so an ill attempt at relinquishing himself from what he had always known. to him it was the ultimate act of defiance against the crown: his kingdom for love.

oxford changed him partly for the better but most certainly for the worst, as one of his first slices of inadvertent freedom --- though those prying media lenses remained, nic discovered for perhaps the first time what it meant to be himself, however utterly terrifying that might have been.

WANTED PLOTS

tba.

[bcrtil]

coming in from the rain and hungering for vicous things, with @ruthosborne

young people of this day hadn't been meant to settle. in a world ever turning, it hadn't made much sense to go against that perpetual changing so they had just toppled along with it. trapaising from one corner of the globe in search of where it had been most quiet, where they could just sit and have themselves without the constant prying of a new headline. in all it's fun though, such movement had not allowed either of them a beat of introspection, at least not as nic had considered it. the day had been just ripe for rain, what good had the countryside been had it not ensured a rainshower during even the clearest of skies. shoes still clamor a symphony as people flock in and out of the rain, some hurried for shelter and others in assistance of dismantling the shortly lived festivities. the rosy little couple had found shelter, yes, but it had not been in the accompaniment of the rest of the flock. rather, they took to trekking their muddied footsteps through some great ( seemingly abandoned ) wing of the main house. "i've begun to think that this house will never know true quiet," there's a faint echo of festivities that waft to prove it, no matter how far they had strayed the concept of aloneness had remained foreign.

[hcampagne]

‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎and how could they resist? automobiles, trains, great atlantic-lapping ocean liners — modernity has flayed open the world for this restless generation. plenty of running room; only for to and from to become muddled between lovers, the heartache of it mooring them in that uncertain middle. but ruth loops a hand through the crook of nic's elbow, squeezing him reassuringly. an attempted anchoring.

‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎"no," she murmurs, agreeing. through a distant window, she catches a glimpse of the storm still rumbling across the estate. "but it's natural, i think. trying to fill up the big, empty spaces." she thinks of skyscrapers and vast department stores; homes brimming with children and railroad tracks across prairies. she thinks of the empty space that'd been carved out of her, and what she's tried filling it with. ruth nudges his shoulder with her cheek. "but it'd be hard work, filling this place..." she glances apprehensively at the undisturbed vastness, and feels, strangely, that a great hand might lift the roof and pluck her right from where she stands. "would you be happy living in a place like this?" she asks, hope for a certain answer hidden beneath her tongue.

[bcrtil]

they are like two apparitions wafting around a gallery of judgemental, oggling family portraits. no one else to witness that they were here at all except heritage itself, it was relation that made them real ⸺ however distant to it. blown in from the evening shower, they're all entangled & sopping partly with love and partly with rain. most accustomed to life at it's maddess, the slowness was sought out when that summer heat came to haunt. there had been the rest of the year to jaunt, let this moment be one of rest; just this once. untaken hand courses through wind-mussed hair, a faint grin sprawling in accompaniment of faint mirth. "makes us all sound like a bit of clutter, no? brought in from the ole' shed when most convenient." as if all it took were a few ornamentations to bring this house back to its proper vigor come the summer season. as if nic weren't just as happy to feel included in the yearly festivity. there's a brief flicker over to her, something somber creeping up in the blue tinge of his gaze. "happy isn't quite ... this," sights round overhead before centering forward again. nic knew the intimacy of big, quiet houses too well ⸺ he knew that happiness could be found in the odd corners but not without looking for it. he'd already relinquished his right to the madness of such majesty, or rather the vastness of it. to him happiness could have been a weather-beaten cardboard houseboat floating alongside the french riviera. voice lowers, as if those neoclassical portraits had been listening in; arm untwines and instead snakes over her shoulders to only further draw her near. "but it's certainly with you."

[bcrtil]

coming in from the rain and hungering for vicous things, with @ruthosborne

young people of this day hadn't been meant to settle. in a world ever turning, it hadn't made much sense to go against that perpetual changing so they had just toppled along with it. trapaising from one corner of the globe in search of where it had been most quiet, where they could just sit and have themselves without the constant prying of a new headline. in all it's fun though, such movement had not allowed either of them a beat of introspection, at least not as nic had considered it. the day had been just ripe for rain, what good had the countryside been had it not ensured a rainshower during even the clearest of skies. shoes still clamor a symphony as people flock in and out of the rain, some hurried for shelter and others in assistance of dismantling the shortly lived festivities. the rosy little couple had found shelter, yes, but it had not been in the accompaniment of the rest of the flock. rather, they took to trekking their muddied footsteps through some great ( seemingly abandoned ) wing of the main house. "i've begun to think that this house will never know true quiet," there's a faint echo of festivities that waft to prove it, no matter how far they had strayed the concept of aloneness had remained foreign.

[bcrtil]

"if they've not already darkened our doorstep then perhaps." nic gives one of his odd, too-cheshire grins — mouth tweaking upward at either corner, just the faintest hum of mischief wafting from them. his mother, when she had not yet turned him away from a seat at her table would say that people were born sick & if there were any real demons, they were already beloved; as fate would have it, nic would soon come to know his 'demons' by name. sharp, flat gaze tracks the telling motion, taking another short drag of the decidedly elegant cigarette. something stirs here in the slight shuffle where there should have been quiet, it's like sheer brocade curtains billowing out over a closed window. "well i suppose it depends," nic fancies himself a skewed mirror, shifting further backforward as well with a shallow incline. there is something here that he doesn't allow himself to say. still the man calls to tempt, "what are you willing to lose, frog?"

[edwinbalfour]

The lid of the snuff box snapped open, Edwin’s self-control disintegrating. His face spasmed in a single, white-knuckled attempt to keep the feelings from showing but he fucking. Hated. That name. He took his time circling the tiniest amount of snuff on the back of his hand. Violet Strasbourg was expensive stuff. Good stuff, to be savoured. He had been friends with Nic too long to let it explode like a jammed flintlock pistol. Right?

(Right?)

“Let’s start with you never calling me by that insufferable moniker, eh, Snuffy?” He closed his eyes, the snuff vanishing in one swift, smooth inhale. “And if you lose, you go home and give a big kiss on the cheek to your mater.”

[bcrtil]

once, nic had thought that among boys there were no friends at all but only enemies that you allowed the faint romance of tolerance. that every little brute, bred by his father or spoiled by ol' mater were merely another head in the competition. to nic, friendship had been something to be conquered, to have been taken by its limbs and misconfigured into a whad that could not fidget beyond something that was always slightly teetering on the edge of undoing. that's what this was, pulling on those fraying edges to see what could come undone. what damage could be had without unspooling the entirety of their history. "i see the ol' dog hasn't lost his bite." a certain satisfaction unfurls, knowing nic had poked the bear and lived to tell the tale. so satisfied in fact, that he revells momentarily with the thin cigarette hung wry from the corner of his mouth. the moniker however causes a slight wince, though he does not faulter. "if she's not yet condemned me as an enemy of the state, that is." a last huff and the cigarette is ashed off in the nearest tray. "let's say i win ... you give me your very best prizehorse. consider it an early wedding gift."

[bcrtil]

the gleam of aristocracy mattered not when his forebears had been warmongers. with all the litmus tests made out to temper the man as evenly as a royal could have been, a certain wrongness has still bridled. it was the very thing his father had tried to nurture when nic still had his youth; harbor the hurt boy, make this pain your weapon & wield it fiercely.

“got quite the stomach for it if you couldn’t tell,” it’s that same indirect jest that kept them bound together even after all the years that followed their time at university. they were one of the same in one way or another, had it only meant that they had both had their fair dose of miscreancy. “i’m fairly certain of things,” though there is a mild tinge of difference in nic’s gaze when he says it, finally burning the end of his cigarette & allowing the first plume of smoke to obscure the faint uncertainty in his visage. almost as if to say that he had not wanted to know of the future when it had been so volatile: as not to toy with the fate nic had seemingly fashioned out of the veil of love. “and even so, i don’t suspect an ouija board will be of much other confirmation — not when they only attract all the unwanted things.”

[edwinbalfour]

“What, demons and things?”

Edwin had aimed for nonchalance and nearly dropped the snuff box instead. They weren’t real, obviously, not on the earthly plane at least. Yet, years of dissecting the hand-lettered manuscripts of medieval monks had left their mark. So Edwin did what Edwin always did when confronted with something unsettling: he doubled down.

He leaned forward in his wing chair, elbows on his knees, steepling his fingers with the snuff box clasped between his palms. He looked right into those glacier-blue eyes, a gaze as compelling and familiar as the secure walls of Oxford, and he said:

“Want to put a wager on it?”

[bcrtil]

"if they've not already darkened our doorstep then perhaps." nic gives one of his odd, too-cheshire grins — mouth tweaking upward at either corner, just the faintest hum of mischief wafting from them. his mother, when she had not yet turned him away from a seat at her table would say that people were born sick & if there were any real demons, they were already beloved; as fate would have it, nic would soon come to know his 'demons' by name. sharp, flat gaze tracks the telling motion, taking another short drag of the decidedly elegant cigarette. something stirs here in the slight shuffle where there should have been quiet, it's like sheer brocade curtains billowing out over a closed window. "well i suppose it depends," nic fancies himself a skewed mirror, shifting further backforward as well with a shallow incline. there is something here that he doesn't allow himself to say. still the man calls to tempt, "what are you willing to lose, frog?"

[bcrtil]

an abuzz afternoon on the sprawls of the montmere estate, open!

nic's presence at the montmere house was made to be a card kept close to the chest, all whom were inquired expected to maintain that he & the blushing bride-to-be had perhaps tuckered off to one of the farther corners of europe ⸻ or took an early retirement on another one of those mid-summer outback excursions. rather, the eve of matrimony was meant to be spent clinging to what little memory of this great, good place that had still gone untarnished. unlike those boundless mornings when nic had just hardly been an oxford man, well beyond his wits and often stupid with alcohol before lunch ⸻ time over the past few weeks had been better spent reconditioning himself for batting. nic had been most content watching as the festivities ramped up. overly zealous in any act concerning an opponent, he had only now been summoned as a fill-in for one missing mr. amberly out of desperation alone. even so, it should be questioned as how to he would see the ball after all the champagne he put away the night prior. still, amid the proceedings of the ongoing matches, it seemed that there was still alotted time for gossip or something of the like as nic accompanied a sparse gaggle of fellow inhabitants of montmere. tall willow bat is hitched at his side, leaning upon it with partial weight; speaking to no one in particular. "i do hope they're good sports, i'm not particularly keen on losing."

[edwinbalfour]

WHERE: The smoking room adjacent to the library

WHEN: 04 June 1923

WITH: Nic Bertil (@bcrtil)

Waiting for the dinner gong was the most useless way to pass the time. It wasn’t long enough to enjoy a Peter Warlock record, or not worth it to start getting into a book. Having Snuffy in the house, however, changed things. Brightened the day immeasurably, even if what Edwin had to impart was going to bring the clouds on pretty quick.

“Your timing couldn’t be better,” he said, clapping Nic on the shoulder as they sailed into the smoking room. It had been vacated recently, if the ashes in one of the trays were anything to go by. The important thing was that it was empty, and also that Nic was here. “If a chap’s got to get into a tiff with his family, why not do it while there’s a Spiritualist in the house? Ask how long the exalted mater and pater have got. Ask if the guillotine are coming for that brother of yours.”

This was punctuated with the complacent chuckle of a peer of the British empire, naturally.

[bcrtil]

the montmere house was ripe with mystery, the must from those rooms left locked ⸻ knobs unturned permeates even here, in the stale draft between smokes in the newly inhabited parlour. nic used to like to think that was the entire charm of it, all lush & overgrown in the summer months, this house was a living thing & it's inhabitants were the ones who had come to haunt, only a matter of time until truths simmered up. when he was younger, perusing these halls was only akin to carving ones way out of a labrynth, and carve he had. ensured that his very name would become a mar on the stately property each summer, god will it. nic was hardly a day's rested by the time they got up to their first bout of deviltry. when they were young men who had not yet seen the world for all it's horror things like this ⸻ smoking stale cigarettes into the dark of a waningly lit smoking room was a treasure, it's glimmer had been replaced with something else now. nic doesn't chance suspecting whether it was for better or worse but instead pricks the medicated gasper from his coat pocket. "don't you know, sport?" said as it were the most obvious thing, a brow taking a perch on his forehead. nic lazes in an armchair, fiddling himself into the familiar countours as if it had always belonged to him and him alone. cigarette hangs limp from the corner of his mouth, a sideways grin tweaking around it. "we swedes take our heads by the axe, not by the barber." well, not since the autumn of nineteen-ten, but part of nic had conspiricized that there was a sum of truth he had been left out on. "spiritualists ... a load of bollocks if you ask me. if i fancied revisiting a polterguist i'd take the ol' squeeze to meet my parents. a surefire scare, that one."

[edwinbalfour]

The barbarism of the viking imagery was so at odds with Nic’s dinner dress that Edwin couldn’t hold back the smile. Sometimes, he forgot that his friend had been royalty. So much easier to remember him as he was: not.

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Patting down his jacket, he fished out the silver snuff box, flipping the lid open and closed just to have something to do. His whole hand trembled in with the urge, but there was something more important that needed getting out. “Don’t you ever want to have your future told? The new life you’re leading sounds like it could do with some certainty.”

[bcrtil]

the gleam of aristocracy mattered not when his forebears had been warmongers. with all the litmus tests made out to temper the man as evenly as a royal could have been, a certain wrongness has still bridled. it was the very thing his father had tried to nurture when nic still had his youth; harbor the hurt boy, make this pain your weapon & wield it fiercely.

“got quite the stomach for it if you couldn’t tell,” it’s that same indirect jest that kept them bound together even after all the years that followed their time at university. they were one of the same in one way or another, had it only meant that they had both had their fair dose of miscreancy. “i’m fairly certain of things,” though there is a mild tinge of difference in nic’s gaze when he says it, finally burning the end of his cigarette & allowing the first plume of smoke to obscure the faint uncertainty in his visage. almost as if to say that he had not wanted to know of the future when it had been so volatile: as not to toy with the fate nic had seemingly fashioned out of the veil of love. “and even so, i don’t suspect an ouija board will be of much other confirmation — not when they only attract all the unwanted things.”

[edwinbalfour]

WHERE: The smoking room adjacent to the library

WHEN: 04 June 1923

WITH: Nic Bertil (@bcrtil)

Waiting for the dinner gong was the most useless way to pass the time. It wasn’t long enough to enjoy a Peter Warlock record, or not worth it to start getting into a book. Having Snuffy in the house, however, changed things. Brightened the day immeasurably, even if what Edwin had to impart was going to bring the clouds on pretty quick.

“Your timing couldn’t be better,” he said, clapping Nic on the shoulder as they sailed into the smoking room. It had been vacated recently, if the ashes in one of the trays were anything to go by. The important thing was that it was empty, and also that Nic was here. “If a chap’s got to get into a tiff with his family, why not do it while there’s a Spiritualist in the house? Ask how long the exalted mater and pater have got. Ask if the guillotine are coming for that brother of yours.”

This was punctuated with the complacent chuckle of a peer of the British empire, naturally.

[bcrtil]

the montmere house was ripe with mystery, the must from those rooms left locked ⸻ knobs unturned permeates even here, in the stale draft between smokes in the newly inhabited parlour. nic used to like to think that was the entire charm of it, all lush & overgrown in the summer months, this house was a living thing & it's inhabitants were the ones who had come to haunt, only a matter of time until truths simmered up. when he was younger, perusing these halls was only akin to carving ones way out of a labrynth, and carve he had. ensured that his very name would become a mar on the stately property each summer, god will it. nic was hardly a day's rested by the time they got up to their first bout of deviltry. when they were young men who had not yet seen the world for all it's horror things like this ⸻ smoking stale cigarettes into the dark of a waningly lit smoking room was a treasure, it's glimmer had been replaced with something else now. nic doesn't chance suspecting whether it was for better or worse but instead pricks the medicated gasper from his coat pocket. "don't you know, sport?" said as it were the most obvious thing, a brow taking a perch on his forehead. nic lazes in an armchair, fiddling himself into the familiar countours as if it had always belonged to him and him alone. cigarette hangs limp from the corner of his mouth, a sideways grin tweaking around it. "we swedes take our heads by the axe, not by the barber." well, not since the autumn of nineteen-ten, but part of nic had conspiricized that there was a sum of truth he had been left out on. "spiritualists ... a load of bollocks if you ask me. if i fancied revisiting a polterguist i'd take the ol' squeeze to meet my parents. a surefire scare, that one."

[hithewalls]