SPECIES: Fext
OCCUPATION: Blacksmith
AGE: 323 Years Old (Looks to be in her early 30s)
PLAYED BY: Alyssa
FC: Anya Chalotra
BIOGRAPHY:
Before the armor and the borrowed magic, Casimira was a sorceress and alchemist, a keeper of knowledge and secrets, a guardian of life’s delicate balance. She was someone’s mother, someone’s hope. She belonged to a village, a quiet life built on human joys and simple truths. She believed in protection: of her home, of her child, in the way a blade trusts the hands that wield it. When darkness came, it tore everything away. In a desperate attempt to shield her family from destruction, Casimira sought a power she barely understood, an alchemy of ancient magic and sorcery, a last stand born from love and fear. But it wasn’t enough. She couldn’t save the village, her family, nor herself. She failed and lost everything. She only wished she was taken with them.
Shattered and haunted by unbearable grief, Casimira slipped away from the life she once cherished. The weight of loss twisted her soul and beneath the surface of her once gentle and nurturing nature a fierce burning grief took root. Desperate and broken she turned on other spellcasters in nearby lands draining their magic in a futile hope to resurrect what was lost, to bring back her child, to undo the devastation. But instead of salvation her actions only twisted her further into something feared and monstrous. It was then the Knights of the Bloodless Tableau found her. They were warriors, bound by an ancient and sacred oath. They did not promise redemption nor absolution for the darkness she had unleashed. Yet they offered her something rare, a purpose, a path to bind her pain to a cause greater than herself.
She may not have been able to save her home, but they weren’t the only ones in danger.
In that moment, she chose to leave it all behind and become Casimira of Ashvaren. For centuries, she stood among the knights, a sentinel in armor, her magic a careful blend of ritual, sigils, and borrowed power. She repressed the agony and loss she carried, burying the mother, the woman, beneath layers of duty and armor. She swore her vow and indoctrinated new recruits, inspiring them to believe that walking in darkness didn’t mean they could not find the light.
But now, as magic in the town has grown erratic and the Knights’ numbers dwindle, like so many orders before them, Casimira feels the weight of years pressing heavier on her. Determined not to let the Knights fade into oblivion, she has begun to modernize herself, reaching out to the town and its people in ways she never dared to before. To some, she has become a protector cloaked in steel. To others, she is nothing more than a predator in knight’s armor, a reminder of the shadows lurking just beneath the surface.
As the magic dims, so too does the veil over her true self. She has begun to wrestle with the fear of letting go and the yearning to feel beyond the endless cycle of duty. If her strength continues to falter, will she finally surrender to the woman beneath the knight, embracing love, vulnerability, and all she has long denied? Or will she rise one last time, fierce and unyielding, to defend the fragile peace she swore to protect, even if, like before, she fails — only this time she won’t come back?
She has named every one of her horses Karma, regardless of breed or gender, and each has shared an uncanny bond with her. While her horse familiar is long gone, the connection still lingers in every Karma she’s owned. The current Karma is a dark bay Belgian draft, a gentle giant. Casimira sometimes brings her into town, letting curious hands pet her. People often catch her murmuring to Karma like an old friend.
She is the Knights' blacksmith and often forges armor for newly knighted recruits. She frequently carves sigils into the armor or swords, which do little when her magic is low but when she is freshly fed and full, the undead Knights can be aided by an enchantment as long as they wear their armor. This ability is not often used because it is incredibly draining, and requires an immediate source of alchemy magic. Occasionally she forges for those outside the Knights but rarely for someone she doesn’t know.
A set of armor is bound to a gauntlet she always wears, summoned when she’s properly fed. In the past, it would encase her fully in moments of need, but with magic growing unstable, it now forms imperfectly, sometimes without a helm, sometimes little more than the gauntlet itself. Her shield suffers the same flaw, flickering or collapsing mid-strike. Even when they fail, both still draw deeply from her, leaving her drained, exposed, and running out of strength.
Despite no longer needing to eat for sustenance, Casimira has a deep love for warm meals and never turns down an invitation to share one. The comfort of food grounds her in a way magic never has, and the simple act of breaking bread with others is one of the few moments she lets her guard down. She enjoys cooking, but unfortunately is unaware if she’s still good at it.
That's alright. Too many people tend to be focused on the destination and don't really enjoy the journey. It's alright to keep walking unknown territories until you find somewhere you want to stay. Or, just keep wandering.
So let me get this straight... Of all the words in the English language we could root from, someone came up with the word "dongle" for a computer accessory? And I'm supposed to take it seriously??
Language has a curious way of lending gravity to the absurd. 'Dongle,' 'widget,' even 'cache' and 'bit', all these small things, yet somehow treated with great importance in the world of technology.
My writing workshop is being held at UMWR and will be starting in the next few days. There's still just a few spots left but they are going fast. If you're interested now is the time to register!
[user attaches link to her website where interested parties are able to register online]
Have you ever wanted to own an original painting by an award winning local artist? Now you can! I'm selling a few pieces to make space for new pieces and pay my half of the rent. They're very reasonably priced, considering I was just awarded first place in a prestigious art competition. Sandcastles are an artform, aren't they?
I have to admit, it's definitely one of your talents.
[pm] If my words sound like philosophy, perhaps you're listening too closely. In which case, I'm flattered you're listening at all. I'm getting through to you.
[pm] Adaptable, you say… and willing to risk everything for those who need it. I see. But how do you know when what you risk is worth the cost? Or when someone truly needs your protection?
Do you trust you're capable of making those decisions in a moment's notice?
I honestly wish I were talking about actual worms that are candied because that would be easier to wrap my head around. No, there are apparently very real worms that closely resemble gummy worms. They're attracted to places that "emit a sweet smell", and have supposedly been found in the packaged baked goods!
If I found a worm in my slice of cake I'm not sure that I'd ever be able to eat again.
Oh, that's... interesting. Well, thankfully I'm not a fan of sweet baked goods. It sounds like packaging plants need to have better pest prevention.
I think that would turn anyone away from whatever they're eating. I'd hope just keeping workstations clean and products fresh would help prevent any bugs from creeping in.
Ah, I didn't mean to be mysterious. I grew up in around the woods in Montana. I guess I'm still pretty much a thing in the forest, most days...
Oh, that's so cool! Do you make plate armor or chainmail stuff? And a horse? You are the real deal. Okay. Okay, what's your favorite kind of weapon to work on? Or the most unusual one you've done?
I imagine the forest knows you as well as you know it. What is it you find there, most days?
Mostly plate armor, though I've done chainmail when it's needed. Favorite weapons to work on? Ones with a story, swords that have seen battle, or blades with intricate designs. The most unusual… a sigil-etched dagger once commissioned by a particularly… particular client. Each piece has its own personality.
[left at Casimira's unwrapped with a note rolled inside]
"For your tools or any other items you wish to store. Made from a thick hide and double stitched to last you a lifetime.
Thank you for being good company.
-Metzli"
-
Casimira lifted the package with measured care, her eyes tracing the edges of the thick hide and the double stitching as if assessing its strength. She unrolled the note, reading the words slowly, and allowed herself a small, almost imperceptible nod. Setting the note aside, she ran a finger along the seams, testing the craft, before tucking the pouch onto a shelf where it would remain both visible and ready for use.
SUMMARY: Finding themself lonely, Metzli finds their way to Casimira, and the two spend the evening enjoying a final night together.
WARNINGS: None
At times of stress, silence was a home, the only place that Metzli could find for shelter. With the rest of the world rolled back into an idle echo, they were left with only the quiet ring that never left their ears. Darkness embraced them, the door to their room left wide open, as if their destiny for solitude were only a guest visiting for a quick meal. Metzli looked to the entrance from their seat, biting at the inside of their lip while Fluffy rested at their side.
Loneliness was a constant passenger, but it never felt like good company. Only like the single option. No one ever walked through their door, no one ever looked for them. Anyone who did was either gone or a dream, musings of a life that Metzli had always watched like a television show, but it was never reality. Still, they continued to watch the empty entrance. They weren’t sure what they were waiting for, but their body acted on instinct and they exited hastily. If no one walked through theirs, then Metzli knew they'd have to do as they'd always done, and made their way to someone else’s.
After a short drive through familiar roads, Metzli found themself knocking on Casimira’s door. They were withdrawn and quiet, even as their knuckles rasped against the wood. By the time they realized they hadn’t even notified Casimira that they’d be visiting, the door was opening just as they turned to return to their car.
My home has returned. After all this time, he looked for me, they wanted to say. But when they opened their mouth to speak, they were left with only a shuddered breath and a quiet, monotone request for respite. “Are you working right now?” It pained them to feel the need for a place when they should be looking for their home. For Eloy.
Casimira moved quietly through her home, letting her eyes trace the familiar shapes of tools and furniture. The forge had cooled for the evening, and the shadows shifted gently across the walls. There was a rhythm to this quiet, a kind of order she had come to trust.cvIt was still, and she found it neither empty nor lacking. There was space here, space for thought, for work, for the unspoken weight of things that required no voice. She did not need to fill it, nor did she demand it be filled.
Time passed this way often, and she had learned to move with it rather than against it. Each quiet hour was its own sort of certainty, each deliberate action a small measure of control. When the knock came at the door, sudden and uneven, she did not startle. Casimira stepped out the door, the cool evening brushing against her face. She spotted Metzli hesitating at the path and inclined her head in greeting.
“I was finished for the day, but it won’t take long.” Her eyes were on Metzli as she gestured for them to follow. She led the way around the side of the house, past Karma in the stable, whose soft nicker greeted them. The small forge shack sat tucked beside the stable, warm light spilling from the doorway. Casimira waved a hand over the coals, and a faint shimmer of magic coaxed them to life without the usual labor. The scent of metal and fire rose immediately.
On the anvil lay a gauntlet, its hinges delicate and sigils faintly flickering. Casimira tapped a joint, considering the balance of heat, metal, and magic. “This one’s been tricky,” she murmured, tapping a hinge. “But it’ll hold.” She glanced at Metzli, her tone soft but steady. “Quiet work today. But… is something on your mind?” She returned her attention to the gauntlet, welcoming whatever words might come, or none at all.
While the two walked toward the forge, the vampire remained quiet, eyes downcasted at Casimira's feet. They walked in tandem, only falling out of step when they landed in front of Karma. Offering a small wave in return, Metzli returned to Casimira, watching as the fire began its dance. The embers and smoke brought a certain comfort to them, its warmth coaxing them to take their seat near the forge.
“Do you need more hands to help?” Metzli looked at their half limb, shrugging. “Well, one more hand?” They smirked, but it fell as quickly as it formed. Their arm ached and itched as the march of the fire ants began, and they sighed uncomfortably as they tried to message the sensation away.
“My…sire has returned.” They said quietly, “I will be returning to him soon to accept the fate he gives me.” Metzli kept their gaze focused on the forge, breathing shakily. “This…this may be our last visit. Either I will die or I will leave. Regardless…I will be gone.”
The hammer paused mid-swing, the ring dull and off-center. Casimira let the sound fade, her grip tightening once on the tongs before she set them aside. She reached across the bench, pulling forward a shallow wooden tray piled with small washers and pins, loose fittings for gauntlets, needing to be checked for cracks or warping.
Without lifting her gaze from the anvil, she slid the tray within Metzli’s reach. “Check those edges,” she murmured. “If one’s worn thin, set it aside. If it’s sound, stack it. No rush.” It wasn’t much, busywork, perhaps. But it could be done with one hand, and it had enough weight to keep the mind anchored while the forge filled the silence.
Casimira set the hammer to the metal again, sparks spitting off the anvil. Only after a long moment did she speak, her voice measured. “Then let me ask before he takes that choice from you. Do you want to die, Metzli? Or do you want to leave?” The rhythm of the hammer struck steady as a heartbeat, her shoulders moving with patient force. “I have seen too many walk into their end because they thought it was already written. They were wrong. It never was. Not once.”
Metzli accepted the work gratefully, body relaxing as it became of some use. They shifted in their seat and nodded along to the instructions Casimira gave them. The task was simple enough, and Metzli could already see a few pieces they could organize.
Steadily, they stacked the approved pieces in an organized and clean pile, finding a flow. One by one, Metzli scrutinized the pieces carefully. With the rhythm of Casimira's hammer mixing along with their task, it was easy to let their mind fall back into a quiet buzzing they only got when they found equilibrium.
But it all came to a crash when Casimira asked a question just as they were placing another piece on top of the stack. They were startled and knocked over one of them. The pieces scattered haphazardly, and Metzli blinked, awkwardly collecting them back together while they struggled with an answer.
“What does it matter?” They swallowed, keeping their gaze focused on the work. “Will is betrayal. Desire is a plague.” Metzli's hands began to shake too violently for them to work delicately, leaving them with no other choice than to sit back in their seat. Because they knew they had desires, but the only way to get rid of them was to let Eloy force them out. What use were they in their current condition?
“I should not…I should not want to stay. It is not an option. A life without Eloy is not an option.”
Casimira did not look away when Metzli’s hand began to shake. She had seen it before, in too many others, in herself, that faltering grip between what they wanted and what they swore they could not have. She did not pity them, nor did she scorn them. Her life was full of ghosts who had spoken the same way, and she had long since stopped believing she could carry anyone out of that fire when even she herself did not want to be.
The steel hissed as she set it back to the coals, grounding herself in the work. Her tone, when it came, was even, no judgment, no scolding. “Wanting and refusing is an old war,” she murmured. “One not easily ended.” Solemn and revenant, these confessions all blurred, the same self-condemnations muttered in dim corners. Desire cast as disease, will as curse. Too many had tried to convince her that surrender was the only course left to them. Too many had chosen it, even when she set a path otherwise.
She struck the metal once, the sound ringing through the forge. “Then leave should and should not aside,” Casimira said, her voice low but steady. “That was not the question.” Her eyes lifted to Metzli, unflinching in the firelight. “I asked what you want.” She knew the weight of vows, of belonging to something that left little room for self. Desire was a blade she kept sheathed, her own reckoning carried in silence. But she would not let Metzli twist the question into chains—not here, not now. All she asked was the truth of their want, nothing more.
Metzli wanted to reiterate what they'd already stated, but they knew Casimira's tone left no room for that kind of defiance. They struggled in the silence, listening to the fire crackle and pop dancing to its own song. The yellow and orange painted their features, glowing in their eyes while the light faded within them.
Their brother had betrayed them. Xóchitl had let them go. Siobhan understood and accepted their departure. So, Metzli couldn't help but wonder how long it would be until Casimira would do the same. When they left, how long would it be until they were nothing but an echoing clang in that very forge? The ring eventually dying when she killed the fire for the day. Not long, Metzli didn't think.
They were supposed to want one thing and one thing only. Their desire for anything outside of it had ended in nothing more than pain for those they had attached themself to. But if only for a night, they wanted to be free. What more did they have to lose at that point?
Metzli rose from their seat, hand hovering over Casimira's shoulder. “I want to be present here.” They took a deep breath and carefully closed the short distance. Metzli laid their palm lightly against Casimira, their body relaxing into a mournful goodbye that never left their lips. “I want to be close to my friend.”
Casimira stilled completely, the rhythm of the forge fading as if the world itself had stepped back to give them space. Metzli’s hand lingered on her shoulder—an uncharacteristic boldness, and one that left her uncertain. It was not often someone reached for her, and rarer still that she let them. For a moment, Casimira simply breathed, the firelight painting them both in its steady glow.
Her hand lifted at last, calloused fingers brushing across Metzli’s wrist before settling there, a weight both grounding and permissive. No shame. No judgment. Just a moment given. “You are here,” she said, her tone even, steady, though curiosity threaded her words. “You say you want to be close. So why leave?”
Her eyes found theirs at last, unwavering. Casimira knew better than to demand more than one could give, but she also knew the pull of a bond when everything else was falling apart. She had watched too many sever those ties out of fear or duty and spend centuries regretting it. Metzli’s presence, fleeting as it might be, deserved the dignity of being acknowledged—not hidden or diminished.
“If this is what you want,” she added, softer now, “then let it be enough. At least for this moment.” Her hand remained at Metzli’s wrist, not urging, not clinging, only sharing the stillness, brief and unburdened by anything beyond the truth Metzli had dared to speak aloud.
Metzli's eyes listened with the early remnants of relieved tears, hope leaning cautiously from the settled sparks of the forge. It started a small fire, with enough life in it to last an evening. That was all Metzli needed anyway. That was all they could have.
A short list of goodbyes that would not be mourned once Eloy's punishing grip hardened around their neck. The way it was meant to be. The way it had to be. Because to have a will after everything Eloy had given Metzli was a betrayal, and they were a loyal dog.
“Thank you,” They whispered, a breath escaping them. “For this moment.” Metzli nodded, leaning forward into Casimira's gaze, pausing in the stillness. It was as gentle as it was with Xóchitl, as it was with Siobhan, as it was with Hazel and Cass, and all the people Metzli had grown close to. On purpose or not.
Connecting their forehead to Casimira's, Metzli let the moment go free, greeting it with a sorrow they had expected, but they didn't let it take over. Instead, they kept their voice steady and broke the silence. “This is enough. I hope…it is for you too.”
Casimira went still as Metzli leaned in, their foreheads touching. It was not a closeness she sought, nor one she welcomed easily. Instinct drew her shoulders tight, a reminder of the boundaries she carried like armor. But she did not pull away. She had learned long ago that there are those who carry their tenderness outward, who lean into others not to take, but to steady themselves.
She thought of children who needed reassurance they could not name, reaching blindly for the nearness of another. Metzli was not a child, but still Casimira saw that same searching in them, and her body eased with the recognition. Not indulgence, not invitation, only allowance. She would not shame them for needing this moment.
So she held her ground, gaze lowered into the closeness, letting Metzli rest there. Slowly, her breath evened, and with care she set her hand back against Metzli’s arm, light and steady, nothing binding. Permission to have this much, no more.
“I hear you,” she murmured, voice softened by the forge’s quiet. “If this is enough, let it be enough.” The moment was not hers to extend, nor to end. She let Metzli have it, as they needed. It didn’t matter what Casimira needed or didn’t at this moment.
From childhood, the little gesture they'd done for Casimira had only been reserved for their brother. No one else would get close enough for them to find the safety or comfort to do so. And since their departure from the clan, Metzli wouldn't allow anyone to venture far with them. Of course, until they moved to Wicked's Rest.
Leaning back, Metzli felt warm, though somehow it wasn't due to the neighboring fire. It came from their friend and from the moment she helped stoke. “Thank you for hearing me.”
They knew it very well could be the last time anyone would, and while it ached to think so, Metzli felt at ease knowing it was Casimira that offered them that final kindness. They'd miss her for as long as Eloy would allow, hoping they could tuck something away for them to remember in the stillness. If they were granted the chance to live at least.
“Tell me more about the gauntlet, please.” Metzli returned to their task and watched Casimira from their periphery. Watched the way the fire glowed across her features. They memorized her and every part of that moment, in a quiet and wordless goodbye.
Deserve is such a heavy word when it comes to something like spotlight but maybe these seconds thoughts need to be pushed through. So I can say goodbye properly.
I am not one for celebrating myself. Not even for a birthday. But those are for children. Which I am not.
