๐ต๐ธ๐ฉ๐ธ๐๐ผ๐๐ฏ ๐ต๐ ๐ผ๐๐ข๐ธ๐ ๐ฏ๐ช๐ฉ T W E N T Y - S E V E N โฐโโฑ โ He's a ๐๐ป๐ฒ๐ญ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฝ๐ธ๐ท who wishes he were a little less a Bridgerton and a little more ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐."
i relate to neutron stars, for i, too, have been crushed beyond recognition by the gravity of my responsibilities, and i will continue to spin wildly for many years
"Yeah, with the busted knee and everything. It was like I weighed nothing." Teddy joked, dipping his head conspiratorially toward the child with a wink. He rose to stand, almost six and a half feet of him. If he'd had a drink there'd have been a spit take, he laughed. "Think she went thattaway bud."
"I would have liked to have seen that." Cassandra mused wryly, imagining the gigantic man perched atop the child brought her amusement, the practical physics of that arrangement even more so. Cass gently plucked the helmet from atop the kid's head. "I'm sure he can find you a sticker to show your friends, you've got to do the training to get the helmet, right? Run along."
status: open / @crestlestart
location: the beach close to the old lighthouse
The small coin was still warm to the touch, even after it had been in her backpack for so long. Thalassa stared at it, turned it in her fingers before allowing her gaze to drift out towards the ocean. The waves crashed onto the shore, the song made her skin tingle and felt her with that sense of freedom and - power. She only wished she had someone, a fellow siren, to talk to about this. About the water, about the coin, about this feeling that the sea had picked her. For something.
Burying her hands, and with them the coin, in her pockets Thalassa continued to walk along the beach, eyes on the horizon. The old lighthouse was not far and the day was only beginning. Yet she had no idea what to do with this - neither with the day nor with that coil in her stomach.
"Good morning", the siren mustered up a smile as soon as she saw someone else on the beach, "Be careful if you go down this way. The winds were strong last night and it seems they dragged in a load of driftwood. Once the tide comes back in it's easy to miss the sandbank."
Dawn rolled nearer and he felt his power depleting slowly, he welcomed the daytime. Though he was still dead he felt almost human, unable to snap a granite countertop with one thoughtless move.
A glint of metal caught his keen eye against the rich tone of their hand before it disappeared entirely. People could be so friendly in the rural places, where the pace of life was slower and your neighbour didn't tend to be a competitor in the rat race. "Thank you. I had meant to look up the tide times." Shen paused, "You must know the shore very well. Are you a sailor perhaps?"
Cleo marched briskly down the deserted late-night streets, not even noticing her bare feet against the cold sidewalk. Her blood pounded in her ears, green eyes combing the world around her, she occasionally did a slow spin to stare into the fog before carrying on. The map was on her phone notes, yes, but worse burned into her brain atop the twisted face of the dead vampire in her yard. Cleo was the mouse, throwing herself straight into the trap and hoping that her efficiency would make whatever cat laid the trap slip.
The soft padding of skin against the street piqued his interest, the wavy clouds of hair swirled around her in the mist like a pre-raphaelite painting. A vision. Then his senses honed in on the rabbiting jump of her pulse where the skin was thinnest, the staccato of it making intoxicating, blooming patterns to his eye in the air: at her throat, her wrist, her thighs. "What are you doing out here alone, little mouse?"
Alistair could not say what had prompted him to climb the hills and make his way towards the old viewpoint. Was it nostalgia? Or something that ran even deeper? This place had been his starting point for many journeys - back in the old days, when white sails still caught the sunlight and the creaking of ships had controlled his every waking thought. Back in the days of Captain Hacke. When he still had a place.
Even now, centuries later and with the view much changed he could feel his heart grow calm and his mind more focused as he searched for the telltale red of the bleeding fields in the distance. A noise behind him made the vampire turn. "Beautiful day for a hike, hu?", he called to the new arrival.
Cassandra's raven curls whipped around her head in the coastal wind, the cold biting her cheeks and nose to a sharp red. A black turtleneck and calf-length wool skirt seemed to be her strange choice of outfit for the walk and yet she appeared perfectly composed, her back ramrod straight in posture as she came to a graceful stop. Black eyes roved him with analytic detail, looking over the interloper who was in her favourite thinking place with slight irritationโ then curiosity. A peculiar cast to the skin? No, needless paranoia filling her head from Dianthe. He must be related to someone from town: Cassandra was recognizing the pattern of familiar features, nothing more.
"Bewitching." She agreed coolly. Though he seemed perfectly at home where they stood, familiar even, she would know if he resided here. "Many prefer the view from the Bleeding Fields."
FULL NAME: Shen Prower Ingen Ryuki
SPECIES: Vampire
AGE: 645 35
BIRTHDAY: October 25th
GENDER & PRONOUNS: Cis-man he & him
FACECLAIM: Manny Jacinto
OCCUPATION: Pharmaceutical Investor
CHARACTER INSPIRATION:ย Fenris (Dragon Age II), Damon Salvatore (TVD), Artagan/The Traveller (Critical Role C2), Loki (Marvel), Rumpelstiltskin (OUAT), Villanelle (Killing Eve), King George (Queen Charlotte), Magnus Bane (The Mortal Instruments), William Pratt/Spike (BTVS)
Shen makes you think ofโฆย blood pooling in the valley of your collarbone, the tang of ozone before a lightning strike, righteous anger, divine violence, black cashmere caressing your skin, a firm handshake sealing your fate, a calm facade concealing the tempest beneath, the burn of vintage bourbon in your throat, a teasing scrape of fangs against the soft skin of your neck, muttering to yourself by candlelight.
You pray it all away but it continues to grow.
Shen has been alive a long time, too long. Well, Ingen has, Shen has only existed for the last fifteen years or so. Ingen was born during the Ming Dynasty, which makes him a priceless antique, he'll have you know, if any of the surviving pottery is anything to go by.
A ruthlessness and a mind for politics is what the constantly changing political landscape brought for young Ingen, thrust into a world of shifting alliances that swelled and ebbed like the tide. Trade boomed; the entire face of the world shifted permanently by the ingenuity of his people.
And yet, the poor suffered underfoot of those with money, status. Ingen realized quickly that if he climbed the ladder, he'd have to block everything out as the ladder was made of people.
To this day Shen believes that the greatest compliment is an attempt on one's life. Unfortunately for his political rival, Shen had been spending much of his own resources attempting to find a way to not have to worry about assassination attempts, which was deemed mostly a fruitless fancy at the time. Humanity had been chasing the fountain of youth since the dawn of time, this foolish young man would hardly find the antidote for death.
Ingen was an adventurer, journeying across the mountains to speak to tucked-away pockets of those who lived there. After three years, on his final expedition, he found what he was looking for.
They knocked Ingen out and trapped him for a month below ground in the subterranean caves, down a shaft with an impossibly small exit tunnel. The preparation for the ritual took that entire moon cycle but by the time they performed it he was too sensorily deprived to retain any of it. Some chanting, a horrible fleshy sound, a sharp pain, hazy nothing, and then something warm dripped over his lips.
Shen came to alone and has been mostly alone since. He spent the rest of his natural lifespan learning just what he was capable of and what would kill him, he'd given up everything for a chance at ensured power and then forgot completely about his human life. He chased wive's tales across the continent trying to hunt down those who had turned him into the sun-fearing wretch, even though he'd asked.
I want to hold you close, soft breath, beating heart.
Shen has walked as a doctor, a sailor, a teacher, a poet, a philosopher, a shepherd, worked in rice fields, courtrooms, and countless other places. He is fluent in many languages, too many to list. Shen believes that as a soulless parasite leeching off the world for eternity that he needs some sort of key duty to center himself, he sees himself as an archivist or scholar. He preserves information, knowledge, and objects he believes are important in a world that so callously discards everything in his personal collection.
People always responded well to Ingen, his beauty was a tool he wielded like a blade in his human life as well as he does now. It was just skimming the surface at first, the odd word or a flash of an image when his bare skin touched that of another but as the years rolled by it solidified and grew as he pushed the boundaries of what he could do. Shen is a touch telepath, though by now he is sickened by the thought of hearing another being think about going home to have sex, shit or eat so he is almost always entirely covered when in public. Few have ever seen him without gloves, a high collar, always wrapped up.
The years have not always entirely been kind to him, though for someone so old he works hard to maintain his mind. Sometimes this becomes more difficult, when he is under intense duress he can seem quite mad. He realized some three hundred years ago that he'd never wanted to be a vampire but a full-blooded fae.
Missed out on Brant Hacke last time, arrived eight months after the war had concluded by ship after hearing a rumour at a dock. Shen returned to town to see what happens this time around and record an 'unbiased' history, maybe offer some help to certain parties if, and only if, it amuses him.
As I whisper in your ear, "I want to fucking tear you apart."
"you're being real brave for me, bud." teddy smiled easily at the kid who just ate shit outside the fire station moments before, majorly skinning one tiny knee, "just take good care of my helmet there while we fix ya' up." unbeknownst to either of them, as teddy smoothed a paw patrol themed band-aid down over it, his touch healed the cut beneath as though it had never even been there. "whaddaya think? the helmet fits already and everything." he gently rapped his knuckles against the brim of it, as he ruefully asked the newcomer.
"You're lucky this nice firefighter found you, did he have to carry you over his shoulder?" Cassandra attempted to soften the sharp edges of herself around the child, turning to him gently before addressing the tall man crouched there. "Perfect! When do we learn how to use the pole?" She shot him a smile, looking back to their small companion. "Is your mom around, fire deputy?"
FULL NAME: Cassandra Rosalind Hawthorne
SPECIES: Witch
AGE: 39
BIRTHDAY: December 12th
GENDER & PRONOUNS: Cis-woman she & her
FACECLAIM: Janet Montgomery
OCCUPATION: Head Librarian at the James Family Library (Coven Elder in training)
CHARACTER INSPIRATION: Morrigan (Dragon Age Origins), Prince Zuko (ATLA) Rosa Diaz (Brooklynn 99), Yennefer of Vengerberg (The Witcher), Tasha Ozera (The Vampire Diaries), Morgana (Merlin), Claudia (Dragon Prince)
Cassandra makes you think of... black lace laid with tiny pearls, lilac & gooseberry perfume lingering in a hallway, biting your tongue so hard it bleeds, elderberry wine, a frosted over window pane, the scent of old parchment and the leafing of pages, the long night of the winter solstice, eyes rolling back in your head, a silver pendant against a racing pulse, hatred sewn in every line of your brow, warm wild berry pie on samhain morning, chant-casting for so long you lose your voice, walking barefoot into a lake at midnight, feeling so hungry you could devour the world whole.
And it's my whole heart weighed and measured inside, and it's an old scar trying to bleach it out.
The old house up on Hawthorne hill has a folklore all its own. The elements-stained stone statues seem to be weeping in the sprawling garden, ravens sit vigil atop the lilting stone walls behind the vast metal gates. A historic house, fallen somewhat into disrepair, perches atop the hill like a gnarled beast daring human teenagers to wander up its winding path to touch the terrifying brass hobgoblin doorknocker, fangs and serpentine tongue included.
A witch lives there, they say, it's a witches house. Wryly to herself Casssandra thinks: The witch's house. The Hawthornes have been in town as long as anyone can remember, including the first rise and fall of Brant Hacke, they have several relics from the war that are in prized cases in dark woods giving the air of a museum, deep in the bowels of the house that eats you up in its labyrinthine corridors.
The matriarch resides in the West Wing, ground floor, as the stairs are a thing long past for her. Dianthe, a guardian, 96 years old and blind... in the scientific sense. Though Cassandra would swear her grandmother were lying The Hawthornes were said to be descended from the Brahan Seer, there sits a hagstone pendant around Cassandra's neck. Dianthe can see people as clear as day, or what she says are their auras, though she goes tight-lipped when Cassandra asks what hers looks like.
Dianthe never has a kind word to say about her granddaughter and orders her around like a servant.
Unbenkownst to those bar the most unfortunate of intruders upon the house Dianthe is quite paranoid and there are magical and non-magical traps all around. The portraits will snitch on you and doors will jam you inside of rooms, plus the literal pitfalls of the areas where the floorboards have rotted away in spots.
There is a large greenhouse vivarium at the very centre of the house where the family keeps poisonous and venomous animals whilst also growing exotic plants for spells.
The vampires have their version of events and the Hawthornes keep theirs. A huge tome, inset with an eye with a trap set to immolate any vampire it sees. She loathes and is drawn to vampires in equal measure, absolutely fascinated by them as she has been conditioned to respond with disgust. Almost the entire family was decimated during the war aside from two survivors, though local legend reports they made an equally devastating blow to the vampire ranks.
Three days ago in the family crypt, Cassandra discovered books of blood magic, hundreds of years old and kept by her family to this day. Every spell requiring a devastating cost on a sole caster... or a proxy. Then it clicked, that's why the family had been suffering so much in recent years, they'd been doing sacrifices to ensure prosperity and Dianthe was too ill to carry it on without involving other coven members. Or Cassandra. Is that what awaited her in a few short months when she became an elder?
To be burdened with such a curse, even by a guardian who had the secrets of the universe and as such, knew better and were always above reproach.
She couldn't... could she?
And it's my whole heart: deemed and delivered a crime. I'm on trial, waiting 'til the beat comes out.
Cassandra was an only child to a mother who left the Cove to teach History at Oxford, causing a bristling scandal amongst the coven ranks and besmirching the Hawthorne name forever. Cassandra is still paying for this of course. Her father was a very minor noble in England who never had a job or an interest in her but a bottomless wallet in exchange.
Cassandra herself taught History at Crestle Cove High for six years. Age 25-31. Known to be stern and sometimes cold, she had a reputation for being extremely fair.
Raised by her slightly unhinged grandmother in the middle of the woods, her grandfather lived until she was fifteen but all he ever did was read the newspaper and mind his own business or give her a slightly linty toffee candy now and then.
A bit of a revolutionary in the coven, caused some problems by having ideas 15 years ago when she was young and naรฏve about how things should be done and that tradition sometimes had to evolve. Cassandra has nary spoken up once since.
She isn't actively planning a coup but...
In recent months Cassandra has started dreamwalking. She can't control it at all and it feels akin to sleep paralysis yet as tiring as being awake, she feels as though she never sleeps. All she does is very slowly float on random paths around the town with no direction or pattern in the dark, confirmed when she saw a tourist's car had dented a lamppost during the night and it was damaged in the same way when she walked down there that morning. It's probably just vivid deja vu... deja vu that gives her nosebleeds every time she wakes up.
Who's a heretic, child? Can you make it stick, now?
I played the weakling and batted my eyelashes at the captain of the guard. Childโs play. The point being that I was able to move through human lands fairly easily. Whatever humans think a Witch of the Wild looks like, โtis not I.
blakekathryn
ellievsbear
stormborns
snowghoul
pixelskylines
dailybridgerton
