#nicholas:ask

[thornsxcrowns]

{ 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩  } —-  describe your character’s first kiss and/or romance.

Kit

It was her old fiancé. The nice merchant boy who had seemed like the correct choice - the one a person like her would marry. He was driven, intelligent and attractive and could promise a life that Kit knew she was supposed to be satisfied with. Their first kiss was good, there was real attraction there, it made her want to kiss him more, but it also felt wrong, like she was trying on an outfit that fit well, but wasn't right for her.

She felt as if she was settling for great when she could be perusing perfect. Tying herself to a life that was defined not by her own ambition and potential, but by someone else's.

Nicholas

Nicholas had his first real romance while he was at Oxford - being away from home was strange for him, and he was aware his family could barely afford the cost of his education and were doing everything they could to ensure their children had all the advantages the family were used to. He had a brief romance with a local woman. It was not love between them - he mostly wanted comfort and companionship, while she was more interested in the study she was excluded from. He would bring her books from the university library, and they would spend time debating and exploring together.

[thornsxcrowns]

{ 😭 } —- what was your saddest childhood memory, and why? (Nicholas)

Nicholas saw one of his family members arrested when he was 9 years old. It was one of the few times he had been separated from his siblings, spending a month with a distant uncle to learn more about his work in the legal profession. A few weeks in a knock came at the door, it turned out his uncle had been distributing revolutionary materials, pressing for an uprising similar to the ones happening in some European nations. He has not seen this uncle since, and despite the fact he did not know the man well, the experience left an impression on Nick.

He still has one of the offending flyers locked in a cabinet in his bedroom.

[thornsxcrowns]

🤱 —-  who was the most important person in your formative years, and why

Nate seems like the easy answer, the one which would be expected from him, but Nicholas is unsure he could say anyone else. Nick wouldn't be himself without Nate, cannot imagine any part of his life without a twin by his side. It is not an easy thing to explain to anyone who does not have a twin - Nicholas doesn't know what it would be like to live without one and struggles to articulate how or why it means so much to who he is.

Talking about his father is both harder and easier. His father raised him to understand duty, spoke often of how to best support the interests of the Bruce legacy, yet he is also the man who took a bad financial situation and made it worse, who left Nicholas, Nathanial and their sister with a mess Nicholas is not sure can be cleaned up. His father is the man he modeled himself of, and the man he is fighting to ensure he does not become.