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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!
In the days after That Night, as Casimir had avoided calling it in his head, Thorn's absence hit him like a blade extracted from a bleeding and wounded gut. He had dragged himself out of bed the next day prepared to have to evade Thorn, outrun and outfight his own feelings of horrible guilt and disgust with himself and still hold strong against the onslaught that would the gentle look in his eyes and the downset curve of his mouth. Thorn hadn't been there, though, hadn't been lounging on the bar like he's so like to do or poking fun at the other courtesans or using his wiles to allow a patron to fall in love with him and follow his beckoning finger up the stairs.
Casimir's glower in the following days had been more poisonous than usual, eyes flinty and hard and communicating less than it was somehow even possible to do. Everyone gave him a wide berth, and when a customer ordered a drink, it would land brusquely and silently in front of them accompanied by the least friendly-looking bartender they have the misfortune of encountering. The going rumor was that he had killed someone, and the second-most-whispered theory being that his underground fighting ring (which he totally, definitely had) had been broken up by Sunjata.
None of it mattered. With Thorn gone, he didn't have to worry about fleeing, and if the man did return, he'd shift into a spider and skitter the hell away for good.
It's another dark, freezing day in King's End, the warm lights of the House of Midnight providing the only warmth around for miles. The night was busy and bustling, the fireplace roaring, and Casimir stood his typical post behind the bar. He really was trying not to look "murderously unapproachable," as one of the other bartenders cracked before retreating a safe distance, and likely not succeeding, as everyone who ordered a drink from him collected it and moved elsewhere for their conversation. There were no courtesans in sheer clothing and dappled in twisting shackled vines hanging on his bar, poking the stony bartender for any kind of reaction. There were no sounds of laughter, no heads thrown back in delight, no seafoam eyes looking at him.
It was for the best. Thorn had figured out what he was and he had left. It is for the best. Casimir's hands mechanically dry off a set of glasses while his mind wanders into the blissful nothing that came from hours of mindlessly working his job.
It was such unfortunate timing that the herding adventure had to happen the next day from That Night. He hasn’t wanted to vanish on Casimir the way he had, but he’d also found himself relieved to an extent that he didn’t have to face the consequences of it so quickly after it had occurred.
It’s been days by the time the courtesan returns to the House. He isn’t dressed in his sheer and nice clothing, he isn’t wearing his easy smiles and bright eyes. He wears a coat of exhaustion, made of wool that hangs along his shoulders, a hat that’s absolutely fucked up his hair in the process, dark jeans that had given him room to move and not get stuck to things like his leather pants would have.
A bag hangs from his shoulders with the items from the trip, dark smudges on his cheeks because he hasn’t had a chance to shower yet. It calls to him, though, the siren song of his bed as opposed to the hard ground of the tents, the shower that promises warmth and heat to chase the bone deep cold away.
But he doesn’t head there first, sure that it’s late enough (what is time, anyway?) that he might be able to miss a specific, still handsome bartender. He doesn't even care to look as he makes his way through the entry, guided on familiar feet to the bar to the space that’s open, a yawning divide between the ends of the bar. He should know or at least assume there’s something fucky with it, but he’s too tired to care. Instead, the bag thunks underneath the edge of the bar by the stool and the courtesan hops up onto the seat, shrugging aimlessly out of his coat to let it pool down by his boots and bag. It’s a rather modest shirt underneath, form fitting and buttons up with designs of little cactuses intermixed in the light green fabric. But Thorn pays it all little mind as he starts to take his hat off.
“Can I get an’ old fashioned or somethin’? Extra strong?” He asks, expecting it to be one of the other bartenders that harbored far less snark. But as the courtesan sets the hat down next to him on the bar and his gaze flits up, they widen with surprise. They’re not surrounded in the kohl liner of before, the sparkle of his attire and energy decidedly gone, but his lips do quirk into a small smile.
Relief, in a way. “Nice seein’ you again.” He says rather than what comes to mind — I’m sorry I drove you away and just vanished right after.
At the sound of the familiar drawl, Casimir freezes, breath hitching in his chest. He tries to avoid the source of it, half-convinced it’s some awful hallucination his horrible mind has concocted, but his eyes can’t help but flick upwards in that same instinct that draws horrified gazes to life-ending wounds. To any other patron, Casimir would have appeared the picture of collected coolness, gaze steady where it met Thorn’s exhausted eyes. Only the most practiced in the art of reading the slight changes of his face would notice the way his eyes widen just slightly and his hands begin to tremble as he makes the old-fashioned (extra strong).
He tries not to stare out the corner of his eyes as he works, but he’s never seen Thorn without his decorations and accoutrements before, and he looks… young. Tired and worn, clearly, the bags under his eyes and dark smears on his cheeks telling a story of a long journey. But, even though his body is devoid of the usual accessories that draw attention to his lithe, supple (no, don’t think that like) form, Casimir can’t stop looking anyway.
He should run, right? He should fake a heart attack and skitter out of there before he could find a way to hurt Thorn worse than he already did. Instead, he slides the old fashioned across the counter wordlessly (as if there was any other way he could do it) and taps the counter twice, like he always does for Thorn. There’s something like apology in the drink’s quiet slide, his shoulders firm and tense in that way that projects a fighter preparing to throw up their guard in any minute.
His head jerks in a tiny nod of greeting instead, eyes both soft and guarded, and he hopes Thorn doesn’t take his silence for rejection. There’s a little strand of his wild hair sticking up at a particularly ogg angle and the bartender resists the urge to smooth it down. Casimir begins to drift away from that spot at the bar under the presence of needing to collect an empty cup at the absolute other end, quiet and still and lifeless as the ghost he swears he is.
Given the night they’d shared, Thorn thinks he’s pretty on top of figuring out the nuances of the bartender’s face. So he sees the way Casimir’s eyes widen just a breath of a fraction, the way his hands twitch ever so slightly with a barely there shake. He averts his gaze, focusing on the hat now that Casimir is making his drink, silent as usual but a touch more flighty than he’s used to. And Thorn, for all of his experience coming to the bar exhausted, doesn’t have the energy this time to poke and prod at Casimir until he bleeds.
So he waits patiently for the drink to be made, smoothing out a fleck of mud on the hat like it might do something to return it to its former glory, when he hears the two taps of the counter. It’s normal, it’s exactly how things had been before, and Thorn exhales a soft sigh of relief – barely there, but there nonetheless. "Thanks." His hand drifts immediately from the hat to the drink, long fingers without all the jewelry clutch it close and bring it up to his lips to take a long, healthy sip from it.
He looks like a mess, still, but the nod of greeting and the soft glint to his gaze now has Thorn warming alongside the fire he swallows down to try and alleviate the aches of horseback riding that his healing hadn’t quite stamped out. But before he can say anything, Casimir is moving to the other end of the bar – opposite of him, as opposite as can be – and collects an empty glass. He looks almost as ragged as Thorn feels (to his professional eyes, at least), and he silences anything that comes to mind immediately with another heavy sip of the liquor.
Licking the sugar from his lips, Thorn is silent as he tries to stretch out, his arms over his head as he feels something in his back pop. A long slow sigh escapes him as he leans forward again, braced on an arm on the bar, head down in the nest he’s made, letting the relief of the stretch pour through his aching bones.
Casimir thinks this is perhaps the most silent he’s ever seen Thorn at his bar, the weary exhaustion radiating in waves off the man’s slumped figure. He sees the way he pours himself onto counter and cushions himself crossed arms, sighing as if he was going to slip right there into sleep, and he wonders where the man has been that drained him so. There’s a stillness imbued in him he didn’t think was even possible for someone as shining and sparkling as Thorn.
It’s only then he realizes too how the stillness, the silence, extends to Thorn’s usual chatter, and though the bar is loud and joyous and raucous as ever, the absence of the one voice that matters fills his ears like flies buzzing over carrion. Had he broken whatever gentle and tenuous thing was between them so irrevocably they couldn’t even return to their easy game of bartender and bar-drinker? He’s not self-centered enough to leap to the conclusion that he’d driven Thorn away into whatever caused this exhaustion — but what if he did?
The bottles of liquor are cool and sticky under his hands as he continues to work, pouring drinks and sliding them across the counter like an automaton, all the while staring Thorn down from the corner of his cool blue eyes. The flickering light of the bar, so warm and cozy just a few moments ago, now presses claustrophobic against the corners of his vision. His mind, so pleasantly drifted away from his body as he worked and ignored all his problems, has now slammed back into consciousness, all too aware of the huddle at the end of the bar.
Too long he’d been making Thorn chase him, cleaning up the blood he trailed behind. It wouldn’t be fair to ask him to do that now, as his head lay buried on the bar and that strange-looking mud-flecked hat told the beginnings of a long and likely sordid tale. Ghosting back to Thorn’s side of the counter, he filled a glass with cold water and slid it towards the exhausted thing that was wearing Thorn’s face. He tapped the counter twice, soft and unobtrusive, and waited, still-faced and eyes dark.
There’s a certain small amount of awareness that the courtesan has in this state – the raucous laughter billowing through the bar, the voices and chattering, the way the air seemed to feel warm and whole and it should be a boon for the courtesan. He should sink into it like a comfortable bed, wrapping himself in it until all the aches and pains went away. He doesn’t, though, just lets the warmth from the alcohol bloom in his chest, in his stomach, lets his head grow heavier on his arm where he’s propped it on the bar.
Fuck, he should’ve gone and showered first then came here. Maybe then it’d look a little less sad if he fell asleep here.
The din of voices and movement are a backdrop to a slowly growing drowsier Thorn, at least until it’s broken up by the double tap he’d know blindfolded. He lifts his head, propping his chin on his arm and looks up to see the glass of cold water – something that would at least keep him awake, hopefully, and he starts to unfold himself to reach for it. “Thanks.” He says again, taking a long slow sip before realizing that Casimir wasn’t running away just yet – instead, quiet and waiting for whatever the courtesan had to offer. “We had t’herd the unicorns for the healin’ river.” He explains, flashing a tired smile as his fingers draw lines in the condensation starting to sweat on the glass.
“I’ve never rode a horse that much before. I’m so fuckin’ tired.” He laughs lightly at himself, dropping his gaze to the glass like it’s a little too much to keep his eyes up high toward Casimir to see his reaction. He’s not sure he wants to see the response yet anyway.
Casimir's eyes spark in ever-so-slight relief, eyebrows twitching just a touch. It's not that he's thrilled Thorn went on a grueling adventure leaving him exhausted and clearly in at least some measure of pain, but he does feel a guilty modicum of some weight departing his shoulders. At least it wasn't him that sent Thorn fleeing from the House and forcing him to run through the ringer before returning tored and aching. And then the guilt instantly clamors back on because he feels guilty for letting some of that guilt leave him, because after what he did to Thorn he should feel guilty and he's just relieved Thorn still deigns to talk to him, even if it's just to tell him why he was squashed like a slug on Casimir's bar.
All that flashes through his head behind an imperceptible stone-faced pokerface, but he does let out a very very quiet hm of acknowledgement which he hopes conveys the intended meaning of that sounds hard. He doesn't know much about unicorns or healing rivers or anything but guilt and blood under his fingernails, but he knows the bone-deep tired that comes after wringing yourself out for days.
He pretends he doesn't notice the way Thorn doesn't lift his eyes to look at him. Casimir makes a start to go to the other side of the bar again, equipping his trusty move of running the hell away, but the other bartender on duty makes eyes at him that looks like don't you fucking dare and flicks his gaze to where Thorn's fingers trace unintelligible doodles on the countertop. Casimir knew he should've killed that damn bartender when he let him leave his shift early on That Night because really it was his fault this all happened (no, no it wasn't, it was Casimir's fault, always his) but it's too late to do it now without causing a fuss so his feet stay anchored to the ground, the straight rod of his spine extending and burying itself beneath him so he has no choice but to stay propped up to face his guilt.
His eyes stay trained on Thorn, watching the swirl of water under his finger. His hands looked so delicate without the rings that near-constantly adorn them.
"Do you want me to help you to your room?" He murmurs, his first words spoken in days and intended for one recipient only.
The hm does convey the meaning Casimir intends it to – probably because they’d been dancing this tango of understanding between them. Casimir says very little and Thorn puts the pieces together by reading between the lines. He does the same here, nodding his agreement to the decidedly nonanswer that the handsome bartender gives. Thorn wants to look up at him, to see the shift in his gaze and the way those eyes harbor so much hidden that he wants to uncover. He wants to be an archeologist.. Only maybe not today.
His seafoam eyes drop to the glass, drawing unknown designs into the sides of it before he takes the glass with the strong old fashioned and downs the rest of it, letting it warm him and hopefully drag him into a restful slumber once he finds his way off this barstool.
He doesn’t have to wait long, though, because he hears Casimir’s voice – as lovely as ever, and a good enough indicator for him to give him his attention. The offer is one of surprise, but his smile tugs on his face – soft and tired, but still there and honestly just as vibrant in the underlining of it as it had been That Night. “That’d be nice.” He agrees, downing half the water before he forces himself back into standing, collecting the hat and crushing it against his chest as he stifles a yawn, waiting for Casimir to join him.
He’s not sure if he knows where his room is – but it’s perhaps the most decorated door in the hallway some of the courtesan’s lived in. Third door in on the right, adorned with glittering décor and flowy feathers like a bouquet of greeting. Casimir would know without a doubt which one was Thorn’s, but he’s still happy for the help getting there anyway.
Especially now, because the alcohol – extra strong – hits right as he stands and waits, and he grips the edge of the bar to keep from swaying too hard.
The bartender doesn’t know where Thorn’s room is, and was hoping to reply on the courtesan’s steady lead to bring them both there safely, but as Thorn lurches up from the bar and nearly swings over onto the ground, Casimir feels he has little luck for that. Perhaps he’d made a mistake in making Thorn’s drink as strong as requested, but he was too loyal and too practiced as a bartender to avoid a steady pour. Thorn’s hands grip the edge of the counter, knuckles looking nearly white, and Casimir instinctively steps in closer in case he were to collapse. He offered the escort as a precaution, an excuse to get the man to the bed his body so badly craved, but it seemed like his assistance would provide necessary.
Hesitantly, he offered a strong arm out to Thorn’s swaying body, like a gentleman may offer their companion. His bartending duties were always closer to chasing away drunks, his bedside manner declared too harsh by the other bartenders to do the chivalric escorting to beds and lodgings, so he has no clue if what he’s doing is right or helpful or anything at all, really. An eye stays trained on Thorn even as they walk, a deliberately slower pace than his typical long strides cover, aware of both the shorter man’s shorter legs and his drunken, exhausted sway. He hopes to the Gods Thorn doesn’t fall over or collapse. Casimir would catch him, of course he would, but this simple contact is enough for the heat of it through the fabric of his shirt to send screaming tendrils up his arm and the back of his neck flaming.
He holds on like he’s at sea and the only thing keeping him from sliding on the suddenly unforgiving ground is the bar counter. At least, until his savior appears. A strong arm offered out, the courtesan tucks himself easily into Casimir’s side, hat crushing between his arms as he latches onto a steady point of contact. He waits for a second, as if wondering if he can trust his betraying legs, but it’s enough to give him a sense of how the world has slowly stopped spiraling out of control.
Thorn begins to walk, his arms glued to Casimir’s and his side tucked in against the bartender’s strong body – one he can remember from That Night, all heat and perfection. But this time, the alcohol makes his tongue a little looser than it had been, lets the thoughts spill from his mind in a way that he hopes doesn’t come off as too much, but honestly finds he doesn’t care just how it lands.
“Y’smell nice.” He says, tilting his head up a little to look up at Casimir. He smells like bourbon and cinnamon, leather and saffron, all wrapped up in an alluring mix of the mysterious bartender who’s voice reached him with the gravelly undertones of disuse, but was still somehow perfectly everything. He doesn’t smell like a husk of a man draped in blood, the tinge of iron that had seeped so far below the surface that it doesn’t ever wash out. It’s a smell that’s lovely, one that has him leaning a touch more into the supporting body beside him, trying not to think about how it had felt to be in his lap, how it had felt to have those lips pressed to his own.
He guides him, slowly but diligently to the hallway where the courtesans lived, and it’s right up and until they reach the barrier of his door that Thorn trips on his own two shoes, lurching forward and snagging Casimir’s arm with a surprisingly strong death grip.
Casimir doesn’t know what he expected at Thorn’s door, but he was thoroughly unsurprised at the decadent floral decorations adorning the frame. It’s sparkling and glittering and so extravagant it practically glows, and it’s so unequivocally Thorn it makes his heart ache with something he can’t quite place. He’s about to reach out and coax it open with a gentle push of his hand, worried it may blow away like dandelion fuzz upon the touch of his hand, when Thorn suddenly lurches-
Casimir sees Thorn tumbling forward like time has slowed, pitching him towards him, and just as he’s about to panic and throw himself bodily under the man to catch him when Thorn’s surprisingly strong fingers wrap around his arms and catch him before he can pitch forward. It’s a surprisingly graceful move for someone as swaying as he is, and Casimir will be impressed if he wasn’t panicking. His hands, firm and steady and utterly gripped onto Casimir’s arms, seem to burn once again through his fabric.
He stands there for a moment, Thorn clutching onto him and Casimir frozen under him, a statue cursed to be petrified by human touch. Thorn’s eyes are cloudy and slightly fogged from that haze of exhaustion and tipsiness that enclose him, but still sparkling and bright and just as vibrant as they were on That Night—
In Casimir’s defense, he pulls away gently this time, ensuring Thorn is well and truly steady before pulling his arms back, already missing the heat of contact. His jaw clenches, taut and tense, eyes defensive and cold, and leans back to open the door.
