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Character of the Season
Once known as the Butcher of Whitebrim, he's now The Butcher of Dygra, stepping forward as the first created demigod of the Ancients. There is no question that Astaroth casts an intimidating silhouette. Tall, domineering and dangerous, if looks could kill you'd be dead already, but to get up close and personal with the Grounds' resident cannibal tells a much different story. Dripping with charm and clad in only the finest attire, Asta is a gentleman monster, as polite as they come and committed to his role as security for the Dusklight and those who have earned his loyalty. Be careful of that smile, though - those teeth are sharp.
Congratulations, Asta!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
OG Skinning provided by Kaons, with functionality and many custom plugins made by Neowulf!
Flora winds her way up the lighthouse’s spiral staircase with Kaisel close beside her, one hand skimming the warm stone wall whenever the curve tightens enough to make the hem of her dress brush against his legs. She’s nearly vibrating by the time they reach the top, though she’s been trying very hard to contain herself for the sake of dignity, reverence, and not ruining the surprise before they’ve even asked for it. None of those efforts are especially successful. Champagne-fizz excitement bubbles brightly through the bond between them, effervescent and impossible to disguise, rising with every step until she can almost feel it sparkling beneath her skin.
Entering the shrine, Flora moves immediately towards the candles. She coaxes one flame to life and uses it to light the next, working her way along the nearest cluster until their soft glow catches in her curls and warms the mother-of-pearl offering cradled carefully in her other hand. Only then does she glance over her shoulder at Kai, her smile girlish and joy-filled, aqua eyes bright with the sheer delight of what they’re about to ask. This is for their grand wedding entrance, after all. Their wedding might already have happened, and the engagement announcement might have followed it rather than preceded it, but Flora sees no reason their delayed celebration should arrive with anything less than spectacle.
Turning back to the shrine, she sets down the ornate hair comb she’s brought for Safrin. Mother-of-pearl curves through its delicate shape, inset with sparkling stones that catch the candlelight and scatter it across the altar in tiny points. Flora adjusts it by the smallest amount until it sits exactly as she wants it, then waits for Kai to place his own offering beside hers. Once he has, her fingers find his. She threads them through his hand and gives it a warm, excited squeeze, grounding herself in the familiar shape of him even as anticipation swells through her chest.
"Safrin?" Flora calls, lifting her gaze towards the shrine. "I know you’ve helped with our actual wedding and the engagement announcement, so hopefully you’re still on board with the whole theme of doing things backwards, because we were hoping you might be able to help with our wedding entrance?"
The more she attempts to tuck it away, the more it leaks through the bond, and Kaisel finds himself internally wading through foam as it bubbles out of her with every step. He's had a similar experience when he's been too generous with his soap while washing, and as then, he now feels each little bubble where it pops against him, ticklish in the same way mint can be. He adores every moment of it.
It should not still be exciting, or so he thought, based on how most marriages seem to unfold into something mundane and even marginally aggravating. Maybe it wouldn't be, once they did it properly, the spike in his pulse perhaps able to be attributed to the secrecy of it all, the reveal, the celebration. Yet, this moment remains private, and still, the giddiness of loving her, especially out loud, is enough to make his cheeks hurt from the smile. He can't help but steal a glance at her as they wrap and rise up the stairs, a pair of shooting stars in reverse, which is good practice.
He picks up one of the candles to feed it from her initial flame, igniting those opposite of where Flora focuses. Setting down his final candle and wiping away the wax from his fingers, he reaches into his pocket for her offering. Gently, he sets down the silver charm bracelet. It jingles faintly with the motion, each charm a star-shaped opal of a different hue, creating a gemstone galaxy for Safrin's wrist.
He steps back beside Flora, shoulder brushing in against hers as he removes the most distance he can in this moment. His hand sinks into hers, fingers tight at first where they fold around her and keep her, wiggling at the wrist with a little burst of excitement as she begins to pray. "Your touch is just what we need to celebrate with everyone," he adds on. "So we'd love to have some of the stars spell out our names, and then shoot down and become us." It's absurd in the best way, and he grins around the ask, too thrilled at the potential of her approval.
Kaisel
I keep acting tough but maybe I'm not good enough
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
Starlight gathers soundlessly through the shrine, first gilding the candle flames and then spilling between them in ribbons of lilac and silver. Safrin steps from their glow as though she’s been waiting just beyond it, her expression touched by a smile meant privately for Flora before her gaze shifts to Kaisel and offers him one of his own. Her attention lowers to the altar. Slender fingers trace the curve of the mother-of-pearl comb without quite touching it, lingering over the stones before moving to the silver bracelet and its tiny galaxy of opals. Pleasure warms her features, unmistakable and radiant, as she looks between them again.
"Many would consider asking a goddess to assist with both an engagement announcement and wedding plans rather gauche," Safrin muses, a catlike grin beginning to curl across her lips. It widens by degrees, all celestial amusement and delighted vanity. "But I approve of the drama." No doubt they’d already known as much. They’d certainly come prepared to ask with enviable confidence.
Safrin considers their request for a moment, her gaze lifting towards the stars beyond the shrine before she inclines her head. "All right," she decides. "Here is what you must do."
Flora/Kai have been given a quest! They must
1. Decide what will be written in the stars
2. Capture starlight (interpretation up to you)
3. Capture 2 shooting stars (interpretation up to you)
07-17-2026, 07:30 PM (This post was last modified: 07-17-2026, 07:30 PM by Flora.)
flora
Flora’s fingers tighten around Kai’s the moment the light begins to gather, her squeeze falling into the same quick rhythm as her heartbeat and sending the pulse of it through the bond between them. No matter how many times Safrin appears for her, the first sight of the goddess still catches somewhere beneath Flora’s ribs and makes her heart flutter like it’s trying to become something winged. Their history has been kind, indulgent even, but she’s never mistaken that for certainty. Familiarity with a goddess is still familiarity with a goddess, and Flora knows better than to treat any moment of grace as though it belongs to her by right.
She catches the inside of her cheek between her teeth while Safrin speaks, trying and failing to keep her anticipation from climbing all over her face. By the time approval curls through the goddess’s words, Flora’s smile has gone bright and mischievous, all pleased delight and barely contained triumph. She’d thought Safrin would understand the appeal, obviously, because who else could be trusted with an entrance dramatic enough to justify doing the entire wedding backwards, but hearing it still sends tiny fireworks bursting through the bond. Flora glances at Kai over one shoulder, aqua eyes shining with a look that says she knew it even as excitement fizzes too brightly through her to make the expression remotely smug.
"Absolutely. We’re on it," she agrees at once, nodding with enough enthusiasm to make a few curls bounce around her face.
Then she turns into Kai before she can do anything more dignified, rising onto her toes and catching his mouth in a bright, energetic kiss. It lands slightly crooked from the force of her joy, more celebration than finesse, but Flora doesn’t care in the slightest. Her free hand catches against his chest to steady herself as she kisses him again for good measure, laughter already threatening at the edges of her smile.
Shell fragments click against one another within its body. Splintered sticks jut out at uneven angles, some polished smooth by salt or wind, others hooked and sharp. The bones woven through its centre are similarly weathered, though not all of them look as though they belonged to small creatures. Beneath the shifting sand, its limbs remain tightly coiled. A sudden roll sends shells and bone fragments skittering in its wake; when its branches open, they move like a living trap made from every hard, sharp thing the shore or desert has discarded.
You've encountered a Tangleweed Variant
Tangleweed
Areas Found: Hollowed Grounds, King's End, Hak Etme — Common
Appearing like nothing more than an amalgamation of sticks, the Tangleweed is actually an arguably sentient creature. For the most part it appears spherical in nature, keeping its many limbs tightly pulled against itself to form a round shape. It moves as if blown by the wind, suddenly rolling forward on the hard packed earth and then stopping just as suddenly. Having almost no natural predators, these creatures are found in great numbers especially along large, flat areas. It is often impossible to tell if a Tangleweed is dead or alive unless they are touched. If interacted with, the branch-like limbs will lash out and close quickly on whatever they can grasp, at which point a poison is released which causes the skin to numb. Then, quite like other species of carnivorous plants, the Tangleweed slowly begins to digest its prey.
Challenge Rating: Easy
HP: 30 | To Hit: 2 | Dmg: 14 Movement: Roll 20 ft.; Lurch 10 ft. (limb-propelled); Creep 5 ft. (against wind)
SPECIAL SKILLS
Lash & Latch: branch-like limbs whip out and close quickly and effectively on anything they can grasp; Numbing Poison: contact venom causes skin to go numb where seized; Slow Digestion: like other carnivorous plants, it digests prey over time once secured; Grip Net: multiple limbs interlace into a living snare that tightens with struggle
TRAITS
Stick Camouflage: looks like an ordinary tumble of twigs and branches; Spherical Compact: limbs tuck tight to form a rolling, round body; Wind-Feign Locomotion: advances in sudden windlike rolls, then freezes; Dormant Deception: impossible to tell alive from dead until touched; Field Congregation: commonly accumulates in large, flat areas; Few Predators: little in the wild bothers a tangleweed’s dry, woody mass
ACTIONS
Sudden Roll: bursts forward in a short, windlike tumble to collide with a target; Limb Lash: snaps out hooked twigs to seize wrists, ankles, or gear; Numbing Seep: exudes the numbing toxin along gripping limbs to deaden sensation and resistance; Enfold & Digest: wraps prey into its core and begins a slow digestive process
Where Flora pops and fizzes beside him, the approach of Safrin pulls Kaisel into a deeper stillness, soaking in each burst of excitement that sprinkles over him through the bond, a glass to her champagne. It is not that he lacks the same current of energy, but all the proper stiffness of someone facing a higher rank is what naturally settles on his shoulders in the presence of the goddess, especially this one, the cusp of anticipation like a held breath as he awaits her approval.
She is lovely in the same way that things too vast and distant to fully contain are. The things that make you feel small, not with a crippling sense of insignificance, but with a humbling understanding that the world is so much larger than yourself. It's not a single color, or feeling, or thought that explains her, but rather the recognition of something familiar that's never meant to be known.
He pops his mouth back together, lower jaw having come open at some point in her visit. His grin gathers more fully on his face as Safrin underwrites another way for them to love big and out loud. "Thank you Safrin, you're the best." His excitement pops off now in equal return, shooting off like little plinks of wetted pop rocks over the bond as he turns in the wake of the goddess' departure and pulls Flora to him. He places all the eagerness between their lips with a kiss that bows her back over the candles, his other hand supporting the back of her as he leans down.
'Let's get to it!" he says with a breathless flush as he pulls away, as if she'd already been the one delaying them rather than him. Descending the stairs multiples at a time, the shore outside waits with the Sugartide ready to cart them off on this next adventure. Nearby, a stranger tangleweed than most clatters and clanks where it rolls past along the shore, far enough not to be minded aside from the glance Kaisel affords it's eerie clacks.
[FIN]
Kaisel
I keep acting tough but maybe I'm not good enough
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
