“Hey, Boss!”, one of the bar maids gasped out as she stumbled into the small, dingy room where Bolim was currently bent over a scrap of parchment and deciphering the code sigils. He growled.
“What?”
“There's--There's this guy in the front- a fatebinder he says! -- accusing ol’ El of illicit trade”, she answered, her tongue tripping over itself trying to get the words out as fast as she could. Bolim grimaced. Shit. What had the fool done to bring a motherless fatebinder here?
He pushed past the woman through the short hallway and all but stormed into the front room of his bar. The fatebinder was easy to spot -- while neither especially tall nor broadly built, the heavy black cloak he was wrapped in and the fine clothes peeking out from beneath were more than enough to stand out in this place.
“Lord Binder!”, Bolim called out, arms outstretched in an approximation of a welcome. “What brings someone of your standing to our establishment?”
“Certainly not your radiant company”, the man said coolly as he turned to face Bolim.
Bolim froze. Surely it couldn't be- but no. It was him. It had been years since he'd last seen Levan; then a scrawny kid, hair a greasy mess, skin always marked with bruises where it wasn’t covered by coarse, worn fabric. Now he stood before a well groomed young man, long hair tied back in a neat braid, the elegant embroidery on his dark clothes marking him clearly as one of the court’s servants.
He twisted his face into a bright grin. “Levan! Didn't expect to see you again! How’ve you been?” Shit, shit, shit. He'd hoped the damn brat had managed to get himself killed by Tunon after all, especially after all the trouble his capture and subsequent conscription into the accursed Archon’s service had caused. But of course even that would have been too fucking useful for the kid to do.
Levan gave him a thin and mirthless smile in return. “Quite well. You'd be surprised what a difference not being surrounded by degenerates makes, uncle.” He spat out the last word like one might a bitter piece of fruit and Bolim felt his blood boil. He growled and took a step forward, but Levan was unfazed, not even a flicker of worry in his green eyes and face fixed in an expression of utter disdain.
“Since you're still here, I take it you somehow convinced the court to leave you be. But El here”, he gestured dismissively to the drunk old man at the table behind him who stared at Bolim with a look of pleading terror. “Has been accused of being involved in illicit trade recently -- and I already have proof of it -- so I suggest you stay out of this.”
Bolim balled his hands into fists but forced himself to stay put. He wasn’t gonna get himself the headsman's axe by striking a binder.
“Now, El, I fear you will have to come with me”, Levan said, unperturbed by the drunk’s shaking. “But do not worry. The court is not without mercy. Especially towards those that… show the proper amount of contrition for their misdeeds.”
“Wha-?”, El slurred as Levan guided him to his feet. Fuck. If El talked -- and he would, the moment he understood what the brat meant by showing contrition -- they'd be in deep shit. The old fool had been around too long not to have anything a court lackey could tie the noose around Bolim’s neck with.
“Look, Levan… nephew. Surely there's some misunderstanding here-”
Levan snorted. “Doubtful. But if there is, the court shall notice.”
Bolim was really starting to wish he'd wrung the boy’s neck before the guards had ever had a chance to drag him in front of the Adjudicator.
The next moment was sudden chaos when one of his especially stupid lackeys hurled himself at Levan, knife gripped tightly in one meaty hand, only for the brat to sidestep the attack without missing a beat and drawing something in the air. The large man screamed and crumpled, lying twitching on the ground.
Magic. They'd taught the brat fucking magic. The entire room had fallen dead silent.
Levan hummed as he eyed the dying man on the floor, then smiled in a way that sent terror down Bolim’s spine. He reached for El again and pulled the old man towards the door with ease. “Be seeing you, uncle.”
Fatebinder Kyriake Age Sheet + Point-form Biography
(Please view full-size image for best quality here!)
Here’s the Character Age Sheet I did for my Fatebinder, (From the left, at 7, 16, and 27 years).
This was supposed to accompany the finished full-length biography I’m writing for her, but we all know what my track record is with getting that done. :’D
So instead, there’s an “abbreviated” point-form biography under the read-more because of my failure to write the full bio in a timely manner. DX (I swear, at some point it will be FINISHED AND DONE)
(If you read it and are still interested in more, Kyriake’s in some of my past drawings, meme challenges, and some of my friends’ art, which you can find here (x), which might express more of her personality than my potentially bad bio-writing >.>)
Spyris Kyriake (who has the Diplomat background) was born in the Northern Empire to Spyris Straton and Argyros Aspasia, who respectively work as part of a family of administrators and as an Imperial Alchemist.
She’s actually her mother’s bastard, conceived during her parent’s secretive service to the Empire. Her illegitimacy is something of an open secret in the family, as she has a different skin colour than either of her parents and developed some physical features not found in her parent’s families.
Due to her status as unacknowledged family bastard, she was mostly ignored or treated with derision by her family, with the exception of her older half-brother. His twin, on the other hand, used this as justification to violently bully and harass her younger half-sibling.
At the age of 6 she was sent on an Empire-wide schooling/fostering trip with her older half-siblings, funded by some of the wealth their family was rewarded with for their parent’s service.
5 years into the schooling tour, her siblings left to return home to prepare for the assigning of their skeins. However, leaving a 12 year old alone with disinterested teachers uninterested in chaperoning is a recipe for disaster, as she would wander off alone to watch or sometimes participate in public debates, enthralled by knowledge being shouted and argued.
Unfortunately, while participating in a debate, she defeated a local figure with some influence, who did not take kindly to being humiliated by being beat by a 12-year old. He promptly accused her of Theft of Forbidden Knowledge (how could a mere child beat him unless she cheated?) and Misuse of the Overlord’s Name- pettily claiming her name was too similar to Kyros’ to be legal.
Brought before Tunon’s Court and forced to defend her own innocence, she successfully argued against the charges levied against her, pointing out her accuser’s dangerously thin reasoning for the accusations, turning the Court’s punishment on him for wasting the Adjudicator’s time.
Tunon, impressed by her oratory skills and logic for someone her age, recruited Kyriake into the Court as a pupil and ward immediately after the trial.
Despite it’s competitive atmosphere, Kyriake found the Court to be the kind of “family” and provide the acknowledgement she’d always desired, and came to love the Court as if they were her actual family.
Eventually she gave up her family name, both to distance herself from them and as a slight for their treatment of her.
Fatebinder Calio gave her a surprise nomination to take part in Bleden Mark’s “advanced survival classes”, which ended with Kyriake as the last one left (barely) standing out of the 5 Court pupils to become Mark’s student. (I went over this event a bit more in this drawing)
During the Conquest she infiltrated the Bastard City and conducted a spree of murders and assassinations, served as the Governor of Lethian’s Crossing, and accompanied the Azure campaign as a military advisor- ultimately proclaiming the Edict of Stone.
During the confrontation against Cairn, she was grievously injured by the Archon’s magic in an attempt to kill her before she finished the proclamation. As a result she spent most of the latter part of 430 TR and early 431 TR in convalescence to recover from the physical and arcane injuries she sustained from both Cairn and the Edict.
A silly (and messy) little comic about my thoughts on a particular bit of Bleden Mark’s dialogue.
Mark skulking around, trying to figure out which side of Tunon’s bread is buttered was the first thing I thought of when I saw this line of dialogue. XD
(Anyways I kind of gave up with this one, since I took too long of a break from it because of finals, and then came back sort of resenting it for being “old”.)
i love the idea of archons becoming more monstrous over time...and i keep envisioning cait sprouting multiple eyes...among other features.
(she’s probably mocking sirin by willingly wearing huge gold collars for the #aesthetic)
(Please view on my blog or click it to see full-size if it's blurry for you)
Daily drawing! @those-strange-trees pointed out to me when discussing character heights that my poor Fatebinder Kyriake is around the right height to be a good chin-rest for Bleden Mark. So, of course I have draw it because I have to torture my Fatebinder whenever possible (also it’s 100% in-character for Mark to tease the living hell out of his student). :p
