#;auriel

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the empress and her chancellor

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Cornelia and Auriel really love their big sis, Giada.

Sometimes a little too much.

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The Nicator Kids via (x)

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The Nicator Kids - V; Question of Succession

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Auriel Ennius Chancellor of Mistral

Auriel is Empress Lexa Nicator’s chancellor, her second-in-command, effectively the head of the Mistrali government. He’s the one that handles the day-to-day administration of the empire. Quite the heights he’s soared, considering he started out as a farmboy. A farmboy who discovered he was the son of an emperor, but I digress. While the appointment is pretty blatant nepotism, it can’t be said that Auriel isn’t prepared for it.

He was in the running to be chosen as Renatus’ successor, after all.

Young design on the left, adult design on the right.

I decided not to do a wholesale redesign of Auriel’s adult design... because he didn’t have one yet. Seems like kind of an oversight, for him to not have one. So, lucky me, I got to design one from scratch.

As with Cornelia, I decided to double down on the visual references to Blake’s design. Auriel is the one that took the most after her. It’s actually kind of fitting. Auriel was a tall kid that became an even taller man, and combined with the dark beard... It makes him look a lot like Ghira. Which is funny, because they’re not biologically related at all. Blake’s his adoptive mother.

The beard itself is actually a reference to who Auriel is based off of, Marcus Aurelius. Who had the most bitchin’ beard of the ancient world, no small feat. It’s a beard that’s already starting to gray, though, despite the fact that Auriel is only in his 30s by this point.

He’s had a lot of stress in his relatively short life. I say relatively, because it’s felt far longer to him. He feels almost double his age, sometimes.

Oh, and he lost his eye at some point. I won’t say how, but I will say that his brother-in-law was involved. Awfully typical, really.

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Auriel Ennius The Stranger

Twenty years from now in the land of Mistral, I, Aevum, the reality-hopping Master of Time, unleashed my greatest experiment!

But a foolish bastard prince with a problematic semblance stepped forth to oppose me.

Before the final blow was struck, I tore open a portal in time and flung him into the distant past, where no one knows his name!

Now the fool seeks to return to the future, and reclaim his birthright from I, Aevum!

For Auriel’s story I thought, “what if I did Samurai Jack, but instead of throwing a past character into the future, I threw a future character into the past?”

And since Auriel is a next gen character, I don’t mean the current present when I say “the past”. No, I mean way fucking back. The era when Ozma and Salem paraded themselves around like gods. A completely different Remnant, one that hasn’t even begun to transition to the Remnant we know from the show proper. A Remnant still picking itself up out of the mud of extinction.

Stranded in the past with no way of returning home, Auriel hunts down the elusive trickster who trapped him in the first place, Aevum. Along the way, the man out of time befriends several wayward warriors and joins them on their quest to resist the invading forces of the false gods.

Auriel, the Stranger

Amateru, Champion of the Sun

Tsukiyo, Champion of the Moon

Romulus and Remus Lupa, wolf faunus princes of Aeneia

Da Yu, leader of the Huang and the one day 1st Emperor of Mistral

Oralee*, Priestess of the God of Light

This group would become the founding heroes of Mistral. Figures of legend.

*Oralee does not belong to me. She’s a character created by atlas-team-valv.

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The Nicator Kids via DGC

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“I love my mom. She’s… always been there for me. Whenever my semblance would get out of control and I would relive days, sometimes even weeks… She learned the signs, and would always be there to take care of me. People always say that we’re really alike, and I suppose… if that’s true? That would be one of the greatest compliments someone could ever give me. I’d love to be even half the parent my mother is. Even half the person. Though she does hate my cat… well no one’s perfect. I guess… if there’s any regret I had, it’s that… I had to leave her and my sisters. That I found my own calling, and that I had to leave the nest. I know it wasn’t easy on her… but I still make sure to rush over and give her a big hug every time I see her again. I want to make her proud of the man I’ve become.”

“It’s… interesting, growing up knowing that you’re the odd one out. That you’re not the favorite of either parent. Normally that would probably fuck someone else up, right? Giada has Mama Adrastia, Auriel has Mama Blake. I have… myself, I guess. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to make it seem like they did a bad job. I’ve seen other unfavorites out in town. Middle kids like me. Yes, I’m the youngest, technically, but that’s not the point. My moms have always made me feel loved, always made me feel like I have a home. Always making sure I’m not hanging out by myself too much. When I told them that I wanted to become an assassin, they encouraged it! They took an interest, and they trained me. Imagine that… I would do anything for this family. My moms and my siblings both. Gods help whoever tries to take them away.”

“I’ve never made things easy on Blake. I’ve actually tried killing her quite a number of times, did you know that? Even while she brought me into her own home and took care of me. One time, I slipped poison into her tea, she noticed, and she drank it while looking me dead in the eye. She had already made herself immune to most poisons. And yet despite all that, she held my hand throughout my entire pregnancy. She was there cheering me on as I gave birth to my children. They were already hers too, but I don’t think either of us had realized that yet. I… owe her so much. I wouldn’t have been able to do this motherhood thing without her. She’s… such a natural at it. When Blake is with the kids… no, it would be wrong to say that she’s a whole different person, because that wouldn’t be accurate. When Blake is with the kids, it is the purest, most distilled form of Blake you will ever see. That woman, my wife, would do fucking anything for them. In fact, she has, many, many times. She’s such a natural mother.”