Once known as the Butcher of Whitebrim, 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 new role as security for the Dusklight. 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.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
Whether I'm gonna curse you out or Take you back to my house
"No harm in that." The Doubletake agrees crookedly, shrugging against Sunjata. Maybe it was because Ronin wasn't actually her father and had in fact avoided her for nearly the entirety of her upbringing, but Flora hadn't inherited any of the Knight's more virtuous characteristics when it came to fighting. Instead, she certainly took after her mother in that regard, and she very much doubted if Hotaru would think twice about taking a cheap shot every now and then.
"You know, I was thinking that. Or, just to be an asshole, making it so that I could hear Jack's thoughts. Just so he knows how it feels." And, in the spirit of taking cheap shots, would Flora waste a valuable magical item just on making the captain's life as difficult as he'd made hers? You fucking bet she would.
Just as she knew it might, Sunjata's words have her belly clenching into a cramp that reaches up the back of her throat with fingers made of ice to grasp at her tongue and keep her from speaking. We DiD SlEeP toGeTheR OnCe. Flora can't blame either of them, hells, she probably hadn't even been alive at the time, and while it was perfectly within both of their natures gods but she wanted to scream. Instead, all she could do was pull away from Sunjata under the guise of wanting to warm her hands against the fire and hope he wouldn't see the shimmer of tears as they traitorously began to build.
"Yeah." Flora agrees, her voice tight. Yeah if that's all she wanted then it wouldn't be a problem. Just like if all she'd wanted with Koa with a summer fling, it wouldn't have been a problem that he'd chosen Sohalia over her.
Oh her mother certainly knew how to fight dirty, that was one thing Sunjata learned ages ago. It’s also what helps to keep him on the Valkyrie’s good side, these days. But she brings up a potentially even better idea and Sunjata snorts in response, shoulder rising along with a whistled sound as he nods. “If you do you gotta wait a bit to tell him so he gets the same feeling you had.” He comments, waggling his brow as if they were co conspirators in this.
And so long as he stayed far away from Jack it couldn’t land back on him, either, which should be easy enough given how he’d ruined King’s End’s shores for the Captain. Apparently.
It takes a shift though, as Sunjata’s inspecting the bowl of fire again, and he hears how quiet her voice is which has his head snapping up immediately, dark brows pinched in concern. “Hey, hey,” he starts to say, trying to step up beside her but still giving her enough space. “It didn’t mean anything. It was how I coped back then. I had a habit of sleeping with pretty much everyone.” His nose wrinkles a little. “Now it’s just for the House of Midnight, so, if there’s anyone you’ve got your eye on I’ll make sure they’re off limits if they ever show. How’s that?” Unbeknownst to him are the lists she sends to her mother.
“Your mother and Nate had me on a short leash after the whole thing with Kamaria and Safrin, when we got together. So it’s not really that different.” He shrugs as if it might help, trying to watch in his peripherals to see if it helps.
the flood
// looking at a new point of view //
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
Whether I'm gonna curse you out or Take you back to my house
"Ooooooooooh, smart." Running her tongue across her teeth as she smiled up at him, Flora committed the idea to memory. That would show Jack; it wasn't the ability, it was the not knowing.
Sighing softly, the queen glances over her shoulder and smiles up at the Flood. "No, I know...it's just...I mean, it's weird. You're not supposed to have fucked the same people as your parents and this isn't even the first time." She complains sullenly. Between the people she was either related to or who had been intimate with her grouping of parents, that left basically no one. "I appreciate that." She murmured softly, her lip pushed out in a pout despite the way her eyes smiled up at him.
"Is it ever weird for you? Like, knowing my mom and dad were together once even if it wasn't...well, not really their choice, but...I dunno." Not really knowing what it was she was asking, especially because as Frey demigods there weren't really any parallels she could easily draw, Flora just sighed and shook her head.
It certainly is the not knowing, and once she’s come to that understanding, his grin broadens slightly with the idea, even if the conversation takes a bit of a turn as he sidles up beside her, trying to smooth it over as best he can. “That’s fair, Flora.” His accented voices starts off. “Usually children don’t grow as quickly as you all did. At least, where I’m from. So by the time you’d be the age you are now, I’d be old and have far more grey hairs.” It helped alleviate the issue mostly, until he thinks on if and his nose wrinkles slightly. “That, of course, didn’t stop proposals. My family focused on arranged marriages. Before my sister married Mel’s father, she was first in line for some creep that was in his seventies.” His face scrunches with the memory. And while it wasn’t exactly the same, it kind of shows the disparity between here and there.
Here, children grew magically quick, something Sunjata hadn’t been expecting or anticipating, and that did certainly complicate things.
Snapping his steel gaze to her with a laugh at the question, the Flood nods and sighs. “Oh, when I found out I was pissed.” He says with a shrug. “I found out a little later than most, though. But fuck, it broke my heart again.” Leaning a little closer to her. “But, you and Enzo came out of it. And she’s never been prouder than of you.” The way Hotaru’s eyes light up when talking about Flora, about the children that had sprung from an unlikely pairing. “So it isn’t so weird now, but I’ve had a lot of time to come to terms with it. And it isn’t like I’m innocent either. I technically did it to her first with Kamaria.” He stares out into the fire as it it holds the answers of all of those sour and bitter thoughts, before he looks up to a starless sky, finding nothing as expected, only to turn his attention back to her with a small shrug.
the flood
// looking at a new point of view //
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
Whether I'm gonna curse you out or Take you back to my house
"EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW." Properly horrified at the idea, the tension previously that had Flora's shoulders up by her ears dissipated with the laughter that bubbled out from beneath her lips. Now, the queen obviously didn't have an issue with older men (lookin' at you, Jack), but seventies? Gods, even she'd probably draw the line at that. "So who'd they have lined up for you? Anyone good?"
It was a strange sort of dissonance for Flora to be on Sunjata's side when it came to having been angry about Remi and Hotaru's strange tryst, but to have hated Ronin for so long for precisely the same reaction. Then again, Sunjata hadn't made her and Enzo live in a separate house because he hadn't been able to stand the sight of her mother.
"I mean, I know Frey was involved or whatever with my mom and dad, but we all know you can't really just turn Safrin down." And, not that she necessarily wanted the details, Flora was also equally sure that while Safrin might not have the same abilities as sex-Frey, that she was probably quite hard to resist when she wanted to be. "Is Kamaria just...up there? Like Seren was?"
Thankfully the admission breaks out of the quiet sorrow that has overcome his step-daughter, and a smile breaks across his face to hear the peal of EWWW that escapes her, chuckling lightly as he winces. “She was nice… But.” His shoulders shrug. “A bit naive, heavily controlled by my father.” And the two wouldn’t have meshed at all had he gone through with it, had he not taken Saar and vanished in the night.
Sighing and wrinkling his nose, he agrees with a hum at her statement regarding Safrin. “No. Safrin has this uncanny way of making it seem like if you choose the wrong answer you’ll be smited on the spot.” Especially if it was your idea to begin with.
But as he looks to the starless night, he tilts his head down to look at Flora with a small and somewhat sad smile. “As far as I know. I wasn’t there when she went… away. We had an argument beforehand and the last I saw her was with Ronin.” He sighs and looks down to the fire in the bowl briefly. “She had aged up to a teenager by then.” And teenagers were ruthless and hated any kind of authority figure, young people that didn’t realize that their fathers were people with feelings and emotions too.
the flood
// looking at a new point of view //
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
Whether I'm gonna curse you out or Take you back to my house
"I think I'd hate anyone picked for me just on principle." If Caido had astrological figures, Flora would certainly have been a virgo. "I can't imagine not being able to pick for yourself, no matter how well matched." It was basically just like having a sibling; someone your parents decided on that you were basically just stuck with.
Except for the sex part.
Grimacing but not necessarily wanting to say anything too heretical out loud, Flora merely nodded her agreement.
Reaching out for him again, her arms twining around his waste, the Doubletake gave him as tight a squeeze as she could through the combined layers of their jackets. "You're a good dad." She murmurs, peeping up at him. "I know I'm not your kid really and that I'm an adult, but...you really are. I'm sure she can see that now, wherever she is." Flora certainly had gone through a period of hating her parents, though to be fair, she did have a good reason for a lot of it. Even so, older and (somewhat) wiser now, even she could look back and see the ways her youthful mind had failed to see the bigger picture of what her parents were trying to do for her.
“Oh it was fucking terrible.” Sunjata agrees woefully, but there’s a spark of amusement there for the idea of trying to pick that can of worms open for Flora. It’s not one he’d ever wish to do, and cannot even fathom where one would begin with such a thing. It had been bad enough in Korofi, where it was solely based on personality and good genetics, both of which Shaju didn’t believe that Sunjata had. And perhaps that’s why he’d been paired with someone far more controlling, nice to look at, but manipulative as could be.
Because everyone here knows just how malleable the Flood can be if given the right push and temptation.
Talk of Kamaria sobers him, however, and he doesn’t expect to feel her arms wrap around him as they do, nor the words that pierce somewhere deep, crumbling those walls he’d built upon year after year. “Thanks, Flora.” He says softly, his accented tone harboring quite a bit of gratitude for the unprompted compliment. His arms wind around her in turn, giving her a gentle squeeze back. “It was my biggest fear, y’know? That I’d end up just like my father. But given everything,” her, Kamaria, the twins when he’d had them, “I think I’d be pretty okay at it.” Not that Hotaru was pregnant or anything, but he’s also not not saying that it may not be a possibility far off in the future.
Sighing lightly, he pulls away from the hug slightly to give her a mischievous look. “So, what if I were to tell you that I was planning somethinggg for your mother around her birthday?” He asks, playfully vague.
the flood
// looking at a new point of view //
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
Whether I'm gonna curse you out or Take you back to my house
"Nah, he seems like he was a straight-up bastard." Flora says dismissively; she might have only just heard Shaju's name for the first time tonight, but it didn't take much to fill in the details of what sort of man he was. "You aren't." No one was perfect, and certainly when it came to choosing between the love of your life and navigating a literal war, mistakes were bound to happen. That said, for all of her dad's pomp about the things Sunjata had done (or not done), she was almost certain they'd have made the same choices if they were in his shoes.
As he pulls away Flora assumes he's going to suggest that they head back to the House of Midnight, so when she spies the twinkle in his eyes, the Doubletake stops short. Her skeptical stare suddenly widens as her lips drop open. "Omg, YES." Duh, obviously.
"Wait. Wait." Reaching up, Flora tries to drag Sunjata down by his collar. Now, she can't even really reach the lapels properly and nor does she have the strength, but whatever. He has to play along after she called him a good dad. Those are the rules (just ask Ronin). "Areyougoingtoproposetoher???"
Relieved to see that she’s doubling down on the fact that he’s anything but his father, it paves the way for his next series of words to take her just as equally off guard, and it’s with that playful glint in his gaze that he spies her skeptical stare until the pieces click and he chuckles a deep laugh, one that has clouds of warmth breaking through the cold as he definitely does follow the rules of being a good dad.
Bending down to meet her so she can shake him by the lapels of his coat should she wish to, her rushed question is met with a knowing glimmer in his gaze. “That’s the idea, yeah. I was wondering if you wanted to help out with it?” Bouncing a brow – a scar bisecting it that Ronin had given him – the Flood’s grin turns more catlike, playful, meeting her eye to eye at her height.
the flood
// looking at a new point of view //
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
Whether I'm gonna curse you out or Take you back to my house
'oh my GOD—" The sound of Flora's voice doesn't echo quite the way it might have had they been somewhere with more than just snow-covered hills to reflect the sound back, but it was still just as satisfying. "Eeeeeeeeee!" Releasing his jacket in order to throw herself against him in a hug, the Doubletake nods fiercly against his chest.
"Absolutely I do!" She adds, just in case it wasn't obvious.
"What do you have planned so far? How can I help? Omg she's going to die!" In comes out in a rush that has Flora all but gulping for air. A cheerful pink is now splashed across her cheeks as her mind's-eye imagines the most exquisite and lavish of scenarios within which the Flood gets down on one knee.
It might not echo, but it is quite loud still – enough that Sunjata’s steel gaze winces slightly with the bright chime of it, shifting a little in the snow to embrace her fully as she nods against his chest with all the fierceness of a daughter more than willing to help make the dream a reality. His arms wind around her again, nodding despite himself to her confirmation even though it was obvious enough for Sunjata to understand – even despite how many times he’s suffered some brain damage.
“Die of happiness, I hope.” He laughs, giving her a squeeze before he withdraws enough. “I was hoping to have a little private affair at the Hanged Man…?” Since that’s where they’d rekindled that mutual sorrow of theirs into this spark of new life. Which brings him to the next point as he lifts his left hand between them, showing the wedding ring from Nate that’s still there as he tugs off the glove. “Before Nate and I got married, we were going to ask her to marry us too. We had a ring made to match the both of ours.” The three would slot together into a sun, eclipse, and a moon. And Sunjata, at present, still wearing the moon ring to the matching sun that had disappeared with the rest of his late husband, thought perhaps it was a sentimental gift that might still be perfect. “I still have it.. I don’t know if I should use that or get a new one..? Or perhaps she could have both the old and a new?” But he wouldn’t ever take off Nate’s ring. An understanding Hotaru already has, nor an expectation from her that he ever would.
the flood
// looking at a new point of view //
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
Whether I'm gonna curse you out or Take you back to my house
"Obviously." Flora laughs, rolling her eyes affectionately up at him.
As for it being at her tavern? "Well you're in luck given we've just renovated." She says with a grin. Of course if they were going to host something as monumental as her mother's wedding more would certainly have to be done.
Quite how Flora had never noticed that Sunjata still wore his wedding ring—maybe she'd overlooked it in an effort not to check her step-dad out (because we all know hands are hot)—the queen let her eyes properly take in the shape of the moon and the spaces around it clearly meant to be filled by other shapes. "Of course she'd be an eclipse." The queen whispers softly, a smile curving around her words even as her lips stayed more or less as they had been.
"I mean...I do like the idea of how it all fits together, and it isn't like that part of your life is just gone." Flora says thoughtfully, trying to put herself in her mother's shoes to see if she'd feel at all slighted to be given a hand-me-down-ring, even if it had always been intended for her finger. Of course Hotaru's legacy with Nate and Sunjata was far too complex for her to even fathom how her mother might feel about receiving a ring the pair of them had meant to give her.
"I would probably want something new, something that signifies this new chapter that is just the two of you, but..." Well, Sunjata had literally just heard at length about her relationship woes, stemming at least partially from how immature she often could be; maybe hers wasn't the best advice about this.
“Ooh, I am lucky then.” Sunjata says with a huff of a laugh, before he’s lifting his hand to ask her yet another question, allowing her to inspect the ring and the story behind them all, nodding an agreement – because Hotaru had always been the bright golden light that had eclipsed all of the darkness and shadows Sunjata and Nate held within themselves. It was just a shame things hadn’t gone differently back then.
Her opinion is a valid one, even if Sunjata never intends to take off the ring Nate had given him. But perhaps he could get something new and offer the mix of both, let her decide which to choose rather than trying to choose for her. He’d been there and done that before and it had ended up terribly bad. “Maybe… I’ll get a new one and give her the option to choose.” He decides, meshing both of their ideas together with another cloud of a laugh that leaves him. “I never want to pretend that I know exactly what your mother wants.” He admits with a wince – knowing what kind of disaster that could spell.
So instead, he reaches for Flora’s hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. “I’m fuckin’ cold though. Do you want to head back to the House of Midnight now? We can sneakily draft up some ideas of decorations..?” Bouncing his scarred brow at her playfully, he lets her decide in this moment whether to stay or go.
the flood
// looking at a new point of view //
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
