#keademon

[tomeofwrath]

Fire in the jungle, Fire in the ruins.

[thornedembers]

Don't kno if this has been answered before, but how did Villais and Keademon first met?

((Hello! I forwarded this question to @tomeofwrath and- this is the full result- the question made us super happy, ty <3 related posts: x x x ))

Keademon’s standing there in Camp Resolve, having a smoke break. He’s got gun oil on his fingers and smeared on the front breast pocket of his coat. All he can smell is the smoke belching out of the war machines and the ozone scent of asura tech.

He lights up his hand-rolled cigarette and breathes in the smoke until his throat hurts. It’s a good feeling, reminds him he’s alive. The tobacco is all that was left of Warmaster Fjord and Keademon had every intention to honor him by finishing it. After all they’d drank their ale and sung songs to him already, told the stories and ascertained his legend.

Taking another heady drag, he looked up as more new arrivals poured into the camp. Through the heat haze and sand his eyes landed on a pair of sylvari and he stopped, cigarette caught slack between his lips.

Pale as moonlight on a dune, white like snow in mountains he’d never seen, and as dainty looking as any rare desert flower–he was a pretty one, that sylvari and Keademon was never one to be unappreciative.

Pushing off the wall he dropped his cig and ground it into the sand, mourning and honor forgotten for the moment. He might as well go and say hello, hadn’t he?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“It’s here, I’m sure! … somewhere.”

“Somewhere.”

Sàdron doesn’t sound overly enthusiastic, in Villais’ opinion. They are about to find the replica of an artifact for Pale Tree’s sake! And it had been here all along in the Wastes, if his calculations are exact. And they are, he is 78% sure they won’t come back empty-handed. Not that he has much of a choice… otherwise he’ll have a LOT of explaining to do on why he’s missing Priory lectures to go bake his bark out in the Maguuma wastes. His teacher will not keep it from Magister Etaire either… he can almost feel a chill run down his spine as he pictures the older sylvari’s striding down the hall towards him, shirt done up with a tie and scowl in place. A chill indeed, despite the baking desert temperatures and clingy dark clothes Sàdron and him doned for this escapade.

“Yes, we just need to find wherever it is they saw golden ruins around here.” He folds his scrolls, glancing around. “We should try asking-”

Up ahead, a tall, coal-dark sylvari pushes off a wall and drops his smoke. Not a remarkable motion among the busybody late afternoon atmosphere. There’s Vigil soldiers reinforcing barricades, materials being transported, supplies being handled, weapons, crates- but he- Villais feels his eyes dead set on him. They’re a fiery amber, just like his glow, blooming from within his bark like a kindling fire. Plain as his work clothes are, they fit him like glove, and every step he takes closer is a step worth taking in whole, confident, steady.

There’s a fire that starts deep inside of him as their eyes lock. A fire he puts out quickly, as soon as the first smokey thoughts rush through him. But he had been burned. And deny it as he might, he’ll look again, till he catches fire.

[thornedembers]

May It Be written by @tomeofwrath | drawn by @thornedembers

This captive is heedlessly charming. A roughshod peasant with dark skin, half his chest on display and, arms bare and heavily muscled from work in the fields and hunting game.  He wears beads in his hair and looks half wild; a nose that looks twice broken and dark eyes that are sharp as an eagle’s, perched over a wide, mobile mouth.  There is mischief well hidden behind a dry expression at every solemn turn.

And he, he is stricken on meeting this peasant who ought to be plain as dirt, but here...here is a man with wicked quiet humor.  A fire is kindled and he can't help but talk though he shouldn't. His job is to escort him to the Bloodstone, to the rite, to the unloving embrace of their Gilded masters! Not to care, not to fear that fire extinguished!

He recites his vows and tries to quiet his heart but what is done cannot be undone.

And so...and so, when the Shining Blade come crawling out of the dark to take these captives he takes his chance.  He slips to His Captive and grabs his arm and whispers 'We must go. Now.' and they run.  They run, they get lost in the jungle but not for long: His Captive is clever with deft calloused hands and keen eagle eyes.  He picks a trail left by game and follows it, leading them south through the wind and peril of the wasteland where he draws off his hood for the ache of heat and tries to offer it to his Captive turned Companion.

'Some protection against the sun,' he offers, but he's smiled at and rebuffed so he ties it about his waist as a sash to hold the gourds made waterskins as they walk.

When beasts appear to rip them asunder he uses his magic to confound them, and his Companion uses a sword stolen in their hasty fleeing. It's a gilded thing, pretty but unwieldy by his reckoning, but then he was always more for the thin rapier.  His Companion though, wields it with ease and brutality and plucks a dried wood shield from a snapped tree to protect himself.

He learns his Companion is called Kade.  He has no last name, no parents, no family; only his work on the farm planting and sowing and tending and chasing off beasts with a stick or whatever else came to hand. His has been a simple life, he learns, but not bad.  He has known joy and sorrow and regrets little.

When he asks why he took him from his destiny--Chosen by the the Eye of Janthir--all he can do is spill forth the truth.

'Your destiny was to die,' he says, breath cold as the grave in his lungs, 'to bleed out on the Bloodstone to please powers you know not.'

And then his Companion--Kade--clasps his wrist in a peasant's strong way and he is HUMBLED, so humbled, by the ease of forgiveness he is granted.

'You got me away,' he says in that slow accented voice of his. He bows over their clasped hands and offers thus: 'You gave me my life and I give it to you in turn.'  Never before has such genuine fealty been sworn to him.

It isn't starlight and joy in which the two of them travel; it is treacherous and uncertain but Kade is a lively and wry fellow and he takes enjoyment of this fact.  They walk by the sea, getting salt in their clothes and hair and losing bits of his vestments as they go.

Kade haggles like a dog with a bone with the folk of a seaside fishing village and then they sneak past the outer remnants of a White Mantle temple.  They laugh to one another, breathless with relief and flush-drunk with victory when they go undiscovered.

He asks: 'Do you not want to return north?'

and He says: 'To what?'

And that...that is enough.  

The jungle is green and the sea is freedom itself.  They sit in the sun, his pale skin burning red to the amusement of his dark skinned Companion, and it is there that he first kisses him and is kissed in return.  This kiss hides in the corners of their mouths, turned up in smiles, like a secret.  They share knowing looks as they travel at times, among others and then alone again, seeking safe harbor where they can.

He has known no greater joy, and thus, of course, it must come crashing down.

The White Mantle buzz as an angry wasp nest still, though they are faltering now, driven back by the war far off in Kryta.  They come to the south and torment the lands here chasing asura and refugees alike.

And Kade, o noble-fierce-vicious Kade, cannot sit by when some of them attack their caravan, mired in the swamps of the Tarnished Coast. And when he is run through, dressed in his own blood for funerary garb he screams and screams and wails to no avail.  Kade's teeth are painted red with his own blood, his eagle-eyes dull.

This is how they find him:

They see him cradle his body, knees in muck and swamp-water, brought low in grief and covered in his joy’s own blood.

'Traitor,' they hiss.

And he is gone, gone, gone, off to join Him in the distant, far off shores, beyond dreaming, where there will be happiness for them yet.

And yet...and yet, in the dark his Dreaming stirs.  'It is not yet done,' it whispers. 'Come to the Dream of Dreams ere we need your strength, your courage. Come, Dreamer.  Fight anew as is your right to live.'

He thinks he was a coward.

‘No,’ it says with a Mother’s gentle voice with gentler hands at his forehead. ‘Never.’

So he does, and wakes in pod-sap and gasping, naked and confused and remembering none of it but for the hollow yearning beneath his breast that calls for another soul to be at his side.

Ah, he thinks, when he learns a word for it.  So this is sorrow.

And so it goes.

[thornedembers]

“Kiss m-”

@kooriicolada - a late happy holidays <3

[kooriicolada]

"You can't look." It's a demand in tone, of course, but it lacks any kind of sternness. But it's as though he expects it not to be followed, because he hastily brings up both hands to cover Kea's eyes. The last thing left for the ember-like eyes to see, is teeth sinking into one plump white lip, as if to bite back the amused, up-to-no good smile. And there's no darkness, but white-veined twilight left. He almost slips when he tries to sit on Kea's lap- but not quite. And then there's only lips.

Ahhhhh

AHHHHHHH

AHHHHHHHHHHH

MY BOYS

AHHHHH

yes yes this is gOOD

[kooriicolada]

Kea: ☾, ✿ , ☠ ... fuck it, GIVE ME ALL OF THEM. *grabby hands*

OH GOD, THIS IS A LOT UHM….

☾ - sleep headcanon

Keademon has the crazy ability to both sleep like he’s dead, and to sleep REALLY LIGHTLY.  So, like, when he’s conked out he’s fucking out, but if you make the right noise around him he is UP LIKE A SHOT and reaching for a gun, or blade. There’s likely been a number of times when Vill’s gone to sneak off for a snack or something, and the floorboards pop and Keade just bolts upright like he’s about to cut a mordrem’s face tentacles off and Vill’s like BYTHEPALETREEDONTDOTHATAKJNSDAJSDA

★ - sad headcanon

When Keade gets sad, he gets mopey.  He’s like someone kicked a down-trodden scrappy, stray dog really.  And then he gets mad, and the scrappy part comes into play, but it really depends on what’s got him upset.

He’s tactile though, so cuddles tend to make him feel better.

☆ - happy headcanon

He likes making other people smile, and enjoys to sit back and watch because life is good when it’s good and that’s how it is.

☠ - angry/violent headcanon

When he’s in a battle he can be downright brutal.  There’s a reason he favors axes and big ass swords and daggers for close combat.  And there’s a reason he enjoys the sound of a rifle going off, and knowing it’s made a /mark/ when it hits.

When he’s angry, you see it in every tense line of his body and the set of his jaw and the intensity in his eyes that all just scream murder.

✿ - Sex headcanon  

I think Keademon likes strong partners–not necessarily in the physical sense just…people who can take care of themselves and keep up with him.  He likes that he can give up control to them, or that such a strong fucking person will surrender to him: that’s a lot of trust, and stability, not something an amnesiac has a whole lot of at times.

■ -  Bedroom/house/living quarters headcanon

He kinda misses living out of a tent. There was something really…freeing about it, but he does enjoy the comfort of an actual house to some degree.  Still, there was something to be said for his shitty little cot in the Silverwastes and the desert air.

♡ - romantic headcanon

Let’s face it, Keade thinks he’s a romantic GENIUS and Vill isn’t helping disabuse him of that notion. Really, though, when you get down to it Keade’s kind’ve a dork, and you just KNOW if he wasn’t sweeping Vill off his feet Vill would be rolling his eyes at him SO HARD.

I imagine once Vill gets a bit more used to Keade attempting to be a cheeky lothario he will anyway. :D

♥ - family headcanon

In his past, Keademon cared a lot about the Pale Tree and the other sylvari–that’s why he did what he did.  Nowadays he feels so detached from it all that he doesn’t honestly view other sylvari as family per-se.  It’s left him with a bit of an odd place in existence.  He doesn’t really feel like he belongs to any race as such.

☮ - friendship headcanon

If you’re a good friend, there’s a chance he’ll call you some sort of nickname, or be casual about touching you.  Throwing an arm over your shoulders, scuffing your hair, that sorta thing.  He can be really easy going when it comes to friends.

♦ - quirks/hobbies headcanon

The smoking thing he picked up for the grizzled norn who pulled him out of the sand.  He always smoked a pipe, or hand-rolled cigarettes, and Keademon just sorta picked up the habit (half to remember him by.  The norn died during a particularly nasty encounter with mordrem wolves.  He saw him get torn limb from limb.)

☯ - likes/dislikes headcanon

he hates cactus. like, nopales are a common food-thing out in the wastes, as are prickly pear fruits, and he just...HATES THEM BOTH. they’re nasty, he says, they taste like foot leather, and they have /thorns/ what if a thorn gets left in the food and you swallow it what if.

really, it’s probably more like when he was wandering on his own, dazed and confused, he had a run in with one and lost.

▼ - childhood headcanon

i imagine that, as a sapling, Keademon was very frustrating in that he wanted to know the /whys/ of everything. like a stereotypical child he questioned why this why that, and more importantly /why is that a bad thing/. he always wanted to know the reasons, the motives for the reasons. it was important to him.

∇ -. old age/aging headcanon

growing old is such a baffling mystery to him. will he age? do sylvari age? does he count as a sylvari because he’s /real shit at it/? but, i think, as he gets older he’ll only become...more of what he is now.  sharp-eyed, keen of thought, and hell to be reckoned with if you make him mad.  he’s not going to change much, just...grow wiser, learn more, flesh out the black and the white and the grey more.

♒ - cooking/food headcanon

his favorite thing to work with his fruit. he just likes the way it smells, and how juicey it is to cut it up. the explosion of flavor on his tongue when he bites into one, and the way the tastes of fruit can mix and melt together and become something entirely unnameable.

☼ - appearance headcanon

he’s all rough patches and knots and scars at this point, most of which he couldn’t tell you how he got.  he’s not really bothered by that fact--it just is. there are long ones on his back particularly, like something tried to poke and pry and pick at whatever he has that’s like a spine, near the base of the neck mostly.  his hands are rough, calloused, like he fell off the tree with a blade and a gun in his hands, and, of course...that twice broken nose, and those narrow sharp eyes.

he looks more than a bit like a hunting hawk, really.

ൠ - random headcanon

his favorite place to touch on Villais is to set a hand on his hip, or on the small of his back, or the back of his neck. casual intimate touches that tell the world ‘yeah, i’m with him’.

[tomeofwrath]

Frostgorge Sound is definitely my favorite map right now.  It’s so gorgeous.  Particularly the night sky.

[thornedembers]

Villais’ been working very hard on a mantra project to keep Keademon safe and grounded after the happenings in the Wastes. It bore fruit, with a couple side-effects...