#nox the apprentice

[thehatmage]

JUST SO ANYONE WHO CARES KNOWS

All my Arcana content is gonna be on my new blog @apprentice-nox including my tarot learning journey. I'll also be open to doing HC's and fanfics, though right now, I have the best grasp of the main 3. (haven't done everyone's full content yet, working on it)

[hypnostouched]

Redrawing all my Apprentices 

First is Nox! They are the apprentice for Julian’s route and they very much love their shitty boyfriend but they also kind of want to choke him.

[galpalaven]

“I like to think I’m brave, playing with fire and chasing adventure where I can, but I think most other people would just call it idiotic. Can’t say I blame them.”

thank you sO MUCH @kissingagrumpygiant for this Nox looks perfect and I love her and I love you!!

edit: @hachidori-e made an updated version of the bio page, so I updated this!

[hypnostouched]

I died? Aramis and Nox finding out their past in the new update. They were such different situations so I wanted to draw them. Super sketchy cause somehow ive lost my ability to line Backgrounds from the Arcana

[galpalaven]

a vision in red

Nox knew there was something wrong the second she woke.

Curled up under the silken sheets of her quarters in the palace, she took a deep, slow breath—trying to remember what had woken her. A sound? No, said a voice in her head as she tried to open her eyes, only to be greeted with stabbing pain in her head. Pain.

Groaning, she rolled until her face was pressed into the pillow, only to pull back immediately when the silk was—wet.

...No.

Frantic then, Nox forced her eyes open, refusing to acknowledge how very little she could see clearly, nearly falling out of bed and onto her face as the sheets stayed tangled around her in her haste to get to the vanity by the balcony.

No. No no no. Not me. Not like this.

Trembling, she paused to throw the curtains open, bathing the room in the pale light of dawn. She barely felt the winter chill as it breezed past her bare legs, stumbling back to the vanity with shaky knees.

Her eyes caught only briefly on the bloodied bandage on the side of her face, the claw marks she’d gotten because Lucio had been in a bad mood. She noticed reddening around the edge of it, but then she met her own gaze in the mirror and everything stilled.

Red.

Everything was red.

Red anger, red heat, red eyes. Red dress, red bandages, red glasses, red scarf to keep the red in. Red sunrise, red haze—

Red hair.

“Nox? What are you wearing that ghastly thing for?”

She hadn’t planned to let anyone stop her on her way to the Count’s chambers. She’d planned to fight tooth and nail to get to him, but one look at the concern on the doctor’s face, and she felt herself deflate.

“...cold,” was what she thought she said. His hand was on her shoulder, another reaching towards where he knew her bandages were.

“Why don’t you let me—?”

“I️ have to talk to Lucio.”

“Hah, you know he doesn’t get up before noon,” came another familiar voice. She turned her gaze to Asra then, hesitantly.

Red cheeks, red roses in her room by the window. Red eyes as Faust peeked at her from his shoulder.

He frowned, reaching for her sunglasses, only to stop when she jerked away, shoving Ilya and continuing down the hallway.

“I️ know,” she replied darkly, muffled through the fabric around her mouth.

“Nox!” It was Ilya’s voice then, his hand coming up to grab at her elbow, making her stumble.

Red glass on the marble.

“Let me see—“

She couldn’t think of anything else to do but look calmly back up at him. Something wet was falling down her cheeks, his thumb wiping at it as he pulled gently at the makeshift mask she’d pulled over her mouth. Hands on her cheeks were cold compared to the heat in her skin.

She saw his jaw drop, registered the gasp that Asra gave, just barely through the sudden rushing in her ears. More heat in her eyes as she sucked in a breath and tried to push past the doctor, only to find herself held fast in strong arms. She was so much smaller than him, weak from the fever pumping through her blood.

“He did this,” she growled, and she felt Asra’s arms come up around her then. “He did this! It’s his fault—he did this to me!! Let me go!”

And then she collapsed, knees giving out as her adrenaline failed to keep her steady. Asra caught her, sliding to the floor as she turned into his shoulder, sobbing.

Red tears on his white shirt.

Red Death.

A little something quick and dirty straight from the notes app on my iPhone with zero editing at 5:30 in the morning

[galpalaven]

17 year old Nox, having been homeless for over a year, sitting down in her new, nice clothes trying to show that she’s got potential as a magician to her father who she hasn’t seen since she was a baby. He’s not saying much, even as she tells him about the familiar she picked up trying to find him, and the spirits in the woods behind her old house. He just blinks when she shows him how good she’s gotten at producing fire without a rune and she’s trying so hard to impress him and then

“I’m so proud of you, Pippa.”

And she’ll never really know which part of that hit her the hardest--the I’m proud of you or the nickname that she hasn’t heard since she was a baby but still feels so sweet and familiar that it’s like coming home after a long day--but she definitely just started bawling in response.

It wasn’t ever going to make up for all the nights she cried herself to sleep, or the bullying, or any of the other bad stuff from her childhood, but she did feel more loved and wanted and supported in the like. 5 years or so she spent studying there with him in Prakra.

[galpalaven]

7 with nox and julian? :>

7. “Is that blood?” “No?” “That’s not a question you’re supposed to answer with another question.”

This was, unequivocally, a terrible idea.

Never mind that she should have told him to get the hell out when she ran into him, somehow, just barely outside of the edge of the palace grounds, or that she probably should have asked for more of an explanation than the, “Uh… flowers for… Mazelinka?” answer he gave. She’s even willing to ignore the fact that he was skulking around the gardens in the dead of night like some kind of criminal (haha), but stumbling into the abandoned wing of the castle really is just plain stupid of the both of them.

She hadn’t actually been to this part of the building yet, since she’d come to the palace, and had actually been looking for a back entrance into the area, avoiding the weird dogs in the hall. A murder investigation is nothing without a crime scene analysis, after all, right? There had to be clues somewhere in there as to who or what killed the Count.

Nox just… wasn’t expecting one of the clues to be the convicted suspect wandering around like he was looking for something important.

The Count’s wing is dark when they finally manage to get into it–drafty and cold as the chill of death seemed to settle over every corner of the marble hall. Beside her, Julian is tense, drifting a little too close to her as she activates the flame rune on her palm. A little bit of warmth falls over them from the little ball of light, but the fire only pierces a little bit of the oppressive darkness around them. Beyond the circle of light, the dark is thick and almost pulsing, shifting as though there are creatures lurking just past their line of sight, ready to pounce.

“Well,” Nox breathes, pulling her hand away from her face when the flame shivers horribly, threatening to go out. “This is awful.”

“It’s… darker than I remember,” Julian replies just as softly, warm breath washing over her neck.

“That does happen when people stop taking care of parts of a building.” Or when someone has been murdered in cold blood, she thinks dryly.

Carefully, Nox takes a few steps forward, eyes locked on the wall of shadow in front of her, almost expecting something to jump out at her. The atmosphere in this part of the palace is almost alive. 

Alive and hungry. 

Behind her, Julian’s footsteps are nearly silent as they wander towards one side of the hall.

“Oh, god, the eyes.”

Nox turns away from the shadows reluctantly, looking up at Julian for an explanation and following his gaze to a line of portraits on the wall.

Every single one of them has had its eyes gouged out, thick, jagged claw marks on Count Lucio’s pretty face.

“I’m… going to assume that isn’t your handiwork?” Nox asks, and her voice shakes a little as she reaches up to trace her fingers across some of the scratches.

He mimics her movement, trying to match up his longer fingers to the claw marks–but even his hands aren’t big enough to match.

“What could have done this?” he murmurs, glancing down at her like he expects her to have all the answers.

She blinks. “Ohh, I don’t know. Angry poltergeists, restless spirits. A demon?” She lets out a shaky breath, shrugging. “I don’t think his freaky dogs could reach up there. Or make marks like that.”

Julian frowns, opens his mouth like he’s about to make some kind of complaint, and immediately pales when some kind of growling sounds from somewhere down the hall. It’s deep and low, almost moaning in the dark, and Julian and Nox find each other’s hands, panic settling uncomfortably somewhere just under the ribcage.

“Who’s there?” Nox manages to call after a beat, voice much steadier than her heartbeat in her chest. “Show yourself.”

Briefly, she wonders what she’ll do if it’s just some guards messing with her, how she’ll get Julian out and back to safety if they’re caught. Even with their shared memories and newly reformed friendship, Nox doesn’t think she’d be able to talk Nadia into letting him go if she managed to catch them down here.

Luckily, she doesn’t have worry about that, because there are no guards in this hall.

There’s only–a strange puddle of something dark, seeping towards them from the other end of the hall.

“Is that… blood?” Julian asks warily, hand tightening painfully around hers.

Nox takes a hesitant step forward, holding her free hand up to shine the light farther down the hall. The liquid shimmers with the warm light, but it doesn’t really look–red at all.

“…No?”

“That’s really not a question you’re supposed to answer with another question,” Julian hisses.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you!” Nox hisses right back, turning to glare up at him. “It’s–”

“Still making house calls, Jules?”

Whatever Nox had been about to say crumbles to dust in her head, as she and Julian stare at each other, both terrified to turn their heads and look to see who is talking.

Or, what is talking, Nox adds, hesitantly turning towards the sound.

At first, there’s nothing there, and her shoulders relax just a tad. Maybe it was just their imagination?

…Nope.

“Hello there, Nox. Do you remember me?” 

A figure begins to form out of the murky shadow before them, starting from the strange puddle on the floor as though it’s rising straight out of it. In the back of her mind, Nox realizes that maybe that puddle really was blood. The presence fills the hallway, nearly suffocating with its overwhelming aura. It’s something white, she realizes as it becomes clearer.

The creature is hunched at first, its breath ragged and and loud in the quiet hallway. It lifts its head, and great horns swirl into existence from the darkness around it, long and sharp in the flickering orange light from the flame in her hand.

Glowing red eyes lock onto her face, and there’s some kind of laughter shining in those eyes. Stretching a single, clawed arm towards her, the voice speaks again.

“You should remember me. You look at my mark every day in the mirror.”

Her hand flies to her right cheek then, tracing over the long scars there. She’d always assumed that was from–something else, but… since she couldn’t remember…

The creature doesn’t get to get another word in, as Julian snatches her hand back and drags her back up the hallway and out into the night without another word. They barely pause to catch their breath, not even when they have to sneak around patrols, trying to find their way back into the city without getting caught and ending up in chains.

They’re panting when they finally slow to a stop in the slums, hands still intertwined. Nox vaguely recognizes their surroundings, and eying the alley where she knows the Rowdy Raven is in contemplatively, she sighs.

“Well. I think I need a drink.”

Julian laughs quietly at that, nodding in agreement. “Yes, that sounds–like just the thing. I’ll buy?”

“You had better be buying,” she grumbles, drifting closer to his side to bury her face in his jacket.

He’s still grinning when they get to the door, and the sight is so nice in the warm light of the tavern that she can almost pretend that she doesn’t still feel eyes on her back even now. 

She refuses to look back as she lets the door fall shut behind them. Lucio will just have to find someone else to bother.

“You’ll be back. They always come back.”

Nox still hasn’t technically seen Lucio, if we’re going by the One Route Per Apprentice canon. I’m excited to see what they actually do for this in Julian’s route, but this was fun!

Prompt List!

[galpalaven]

SHAKESPEARE  AESTHETICS

Nox

Macbeth:

the howl of wolves. moonless nights. dirt under fingernails. stained silk. chattering teeth. voices hoarse and cracked. rotting fruit. echoing drums. dry heaving. hanging cobwebs. stifling humidity. bloodshot eyes. the roughness of rusted steel. wild rose bushes. muscle cramps. the sound of splintering wood.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

crackling fires. the faint music of running water. dirty, bare feet. tattered clothing. petrichor. thistledown. wilted wildflower crowns. ivy crawling on stone. late evening birdsong. curling leaves. a symphony of croaking frogs. drifting feathers. the eerie sound of wind chimes at night. humming bees. beds of clover.

Romeo and Juliet:

warm golden lamplight. worn shoes. crumbling brick walls. whispered poetry. embroidered satin. cool, hazy mornings. tousled hair. rosewater. flushed cheeks. distant orchestras. unfinished marble statues. cobblestone streets. loose threads. ink smudged on parchment. tapping fingers. dust illuminated by sunlight. poison vials.

Hamlet:

shattered glass. a cluster of fraying ribbons. unanswered knocks on doors. lingering dampness. white noise. inexplicable drafts. migraines. bleeding ears. the taste of metal. reflected mirrors. dry, cracked lips. the sound of tearing paper. fogged windows. memories of dreams. tarnished silver. protruding veins.

tagged by: @saltyoldgrandpa <3

this was neat!!! i’ll tag: @mypunkpansexualtwin @astrasari @the-jade-goblin @humantrampoline85 and anybody else that wants to do it!