As far as the hierarchy of Locks go, he's second to none outside of Jarovin. Whereas the other Locks are varying tiers of plane sweepers (inklings, lesser wills, greater wills), Leothal is a plane eater. Ie. when Jarovin is into recycling vast swaths of the cosmos, Red gets fed. This obviously doesn't happen very often, and it's somewhat a point of contention for Red... but he is patient. He'll wait eons for his day.
He has his place at North Cliff and all Locks give him wide berth. He has no love for the other wills.
Hons fucks around and finds out at some point.
In the past I'd framed the relationship between Red and Jarovin as rather antagonistic, but it's not really that. They operate on an understanding in maintaining a certain balance/shared goal and that if Red steps a toe too far out of line Jarovin will correct him. This doesn't necessarily stop toes from testing boundaries, but Leothal is generally respectful of that fact. He's opportunistic, not an idiot; he doesn't delight in needling Jarovin, and he's not about to mutiny.
If you happen to catch Jarovin outside of Lock form, and uncovered, he's got some gnarly scars. No one knows what they're from and he will not explain them.
Wyrd66 - Wait I got distracted by my man Jarovin. Tell me about his scars.
Generally, Lockian scars translate to physical form in some way, regardless of the form. Like Vrax, who was blitzed by Hons - all his Lockian forms, and any other forms he takes, are a bit buggered. They come out a little weird in the manifesting. And like Jeih, who also got blitzed by Hons; he rebounded gold and a little scrambled, and rolled with it.
Marks are a little different; they may not show up in Lockian form but may appear in other forms (like Ary’s mark, or Jura’s mark). Marks tend to be intentional, and purposeful, and at least between Locks mutually and gracefully received.
No one knew about Jarovin’s scars because they don’t appear on his Lockian form. It wasn’t until Scott shows up and Jarovin randomly pops into human guise around North Cliff are they really revealed. Generally he’s clothed such that they’re not seen, he almost always has his vest on at the very least. The scars stretch the length of his torso front and back and down one leg. If they affect him in any way, he doesn’t let on.
So there’s some debate among Locks if they’re scars or marks.
No one knows where they came from; in the Locks’ long memory no one ever remembers Jarovin fighting anyone, or anything. He’s different to the rest of them as well, they know, both in nature and in scale; he’s not an entity one fights. So they’re puzzled. Who would try? And who/what would even be able to do that kind of damage to an entity like that?
Although his song was the first to be heard his origins are also obscure so the Locks are split; some believe he acquired them at his beginning somehow, some believe something went down between him and another creature like him, and then some theorize that at some point there was beef between him and Red at the beginning and it somehow escaped the notice of… everyone. And this beef was either settled in a mutual agreement. Or blood.
To be fair, the Locks only vaguely remember when Red showed up on the scene, although Red himself maintains he was late second generation/early hierarchy-born (third generation). A lot was going on at the time, and no one wants to be the one to share memories with him to verify.
Scott wandered the halls. He was lost, the corridors kept changing, and he was no longer sure which direction he was supposed to be headed. He crouched down at an intersection and put fingers to the bridge of his nose. Think. Where was he last? He couldn’t remember. He watched the snow fall outside, watched the big flakes settle softly in the dark. Some of them drifted into the hall through the gaping holes in the rock walls, which should’ve been shielded but… they weren’t. He shivered, involuntarily. He hadn’t anticipated that the Locks wouldn’t keep North Cliff entirely insulated. The cold and the dark crept into his bones. He wondered if the unlit halls had an end, and if he could make it another 40 hours until the sun rose.
“Lost, are we?” Warmth blossomed unexpectedly inside his chest, tied to the words. He stood up abruptly, startled, and spun around to see a red robed, orange haired man. Green eyes met his own.
“I suppose I am.” Scott answered, somewhat taken aback.
“This is a dangerous place to wander.” The man folded hands into the wide sleeves of his robes and watched him attentively. Scott noted the graceful flick of a black tail from somewhere behind him.
“I couldn’t sleep.” Scott responded, somewhat gruffly. The man spared him a look of knowing, followed by one of gentleness.
“Come on, then.” The man moved away, and Scott felt the heat go with him.
He shuffled after the other, grateful of the company and relieved at the warmth that seemed to emanate from the other creature. It struck him as odd, in that moment, as he recalled that his prior encounters with the Locks were marked by unrelenting cold. The halls were lit now, too, as if it were a summer’s afternoon – and yet he could see no light source. He honed in on the back of the other’s robes, idly searching for answers. It took him a moment to process the gold, tri-crest insignia emblazoned on the crimson fabric, but he got there. He stopped abruptly.
“You’re Jarovin.” The words tumbled out. The Lock paused and turned.
“I am.”
Scott bowed deeply; his palms held outward.
“I… I’m sorry.” He looked at his hands. “I’m not sure the formalities.” He muttered. He had envisioned meeting Jarovin many, many times; this wasn’t how he’d expected it to happen.
“There’s no need for formality here.” Jarovin spoke, directly… but gently. The words brought with them warmth again, graced him with unexpected consolation. Scott exhaled as he came up, his hands held out and palms up. He still didn’t know what to do with them – it just didn’t seem right to drop them.
“But if you insist.” Jarovin stepped lightly towards him and rested his fingers over Scott’s.
There was a flash of warmth and Scott was catapulted into a space full of searing, blinding light. And then he was falling, flying, through color and brightness. Before him, through the nebulous clouds of the Rift, something with the intensity of a thousand suns filled his mind. Clouds of light streamed by him as he soared, and then the light laden clouds below him parted, revealing Locks in their huge, immeasurable natural states sleeping in an endless expanse of warm sand. As he fell, an enormous black chin split spacetime nearby him and another Lock wound its way across the brilliant sky to settle into the sands below.
He blinked, and he was back at North Cliff, in the cozily lit hall. He was no longer cold. His eyes were locked with Jarovin’s – drawn into a sea of green, he caught the echoes of a roaring torrent of light flicker playfully before they were obscured by the flesh before him.
“Come.” Jarovin let go of his hands. Scott looked at his fingers, dazed, and did as he was told. He did not take much note as they moved from one great hall to the next. The tri-crest insignia filled his vision at every turn – the tapestries, the carved pillars, they adorned every area Jarovin strode. Scott remained fixed in that moment of falling, in the feeling of dwelling in that current of light. It’d reminded him of being swept up into the ocean; against something so vast and overwhelming, he felt very fragile.
They passed into a small room, through a modest entryway, and Scott tried to shake himself free of the feeling. Rocky ledges jutted artfully from the floor, and between the rocks there lay a simple Lockian pad. Jarovin gestured to it.
“You are tired. Please, rest.” Jarovin waited for him to move forward and then leapt nimbly atop one of the rock ledges and lay back upon the flat surface, Lockian feet stretched out. He closed his eyes and left Scott to his own devices.
Scott blinked and looked around. His head still swam with light, and the feeling of summer’s heat ricocheted slowly through his body and around the room. He sat down on the pad, stared out the shielded gap in the mountainside and watched the snow fall harder. His fingers tingled. He looked at them and lost consciousness.
Once more he was in the ocean of light, only this time he was drifting through its eddies, down to the sand where the Locks slept. Decadent heat radiated from the sand. He lay down in it, warm, safe, and whole, and closed his eyes.
It's been awhile but I love seeing Hons... so perhaps more Hons/Jeih interactions (Just in general) or maybe even Hons with Jarovin :O Any interactions with them could prove interesting :3
Posting this to remind myself, especially since I bounced back to thinking about Hons’s stay at North Cliff after his last battle with Aryion. That’s primarily where Hons and Jarovin interact.
I’ve got a few of Jeih’s encounters with Hons bouncing around in my head. Mostly of Jeih being Jeih (aka incredibly bold) and Hons not knowing what to do with that - mostly, because Jeih is under Aryion’s wing and after his defeat he’s not interested in crossing the other greater will, again. It leaves a wide wide window for Jeih to sate his curiosity and mine the white Lock for information.
Which, to his credit, he uses to try and repair the rift between the two greater wills later down the line.
3. what's something A thinks in their head about B that they would NEVER tell them out loud? alternately, what's something they want to say to them but haven't/can't, and why not? (for Ary and Jarovin?)
Ary's transparent with whatever's going on in his head, usually. There aren't any secrets he can keep from Jarovin.
He def would like to skirt some of the emperor's boundaries and know more. Not in a romantic, or any sort of creepy way, but more in a 'how all Locks generally feel about Jarovin' kind of way. Because they all have an innate connection to this thing that both is and is not Lock, and they all want answers in that regard. They can't help but be curious.
But Ary has far too much respect to voice his desires there.
