Darveth never was a kind city. It was a city that forgot its dead by morning but remembered every unpaid debt like a prayer. A city of old bones. The gods had long abandoned Darveth, but magic hadn't. Not entirely. Not where Tavian walked.
The alleys stank of iron, ash, and stale wine and stones remembered more rain than blood. It was the kind of place where secrets were currency and silence was an armor. Tavian never cried as a babe, just looked at you, the kind of look that made grown men clear their throats and women cross the street. The city didn’t raise him so much as test him, over and over, until he stopped flinching at the taste of blood. Tavian soaked it up before his voice had broken. No coin. No title. No future. Just a boy with sharp eyes and a too still face for a child.
And then there was she. She had no right to be there. High house daughter, heir to an ancient blood line, all velvet and dresses. A girl who slipped past guards to touch something real and got him instead. He didn't say much. She never quit talking. She'd sit on broken stairs beside him and tell him strange things about her dreams, deaths that hadn’t happened yet.
"You never laugh," she once told him. "You talk too much," he replied. But he never pushed her away. And she never stopped coming, until she was walled off by court, her talent called divine, her life written and decided for her before she could say a word.
He wasn't given that kind of story. He was given war. The kingdom started to shatter like a glass. Four old allies raised banners and came for the crown. Tavian was swept up in the army when he was fifteen, not that he wanted to fight, but that boys without names don't get a choice. When he was seventeen, he was a killer. When he was twenty, a commander. When he was twenty five, Marshal Tavian of Darveth, youngest in the kingdom's history, and a walking legend among commoners.
They had nicknamed him the Blade of the Kingdom. If the king needed something done without noise, it was Tavian they summoned. He didn’t climb ranks through charm or speeches. He rose because when missions failed, he returned alone, boots soaked in blood, eyes colder than steel. He carried blood magic in him - old, unspoken, feral. The nobles hated him, he was lowborn, unreadable. But his silence made them sweat and soldiers bow down. The Church called him touched. Commoners whispered blessings to him as though he was a saint. He was not. He did not have faith in gods. He had faith in weight, action, precision. A knife doesn't need faith only a target. He never attended court balls. He never courted. He avoided the palace as if it was rotten. But politics had claws, and yet he was always pulled back in, a sword having to sit with quills.
And her? Her prophecies came true, one after another, until even the Crown shuddered at them. Everybody wanted her sight, nobody wanted her. The nobles gazed at her usefulness, then whispered "madness" behind ther back. She was around courtiers yet utterly alone. Except… she dreamed of a boy who never smiled. Who listened. Who did not avert his gaze when she told him of the impossible.
She never forgot him. He had lost her face and name.
Decade passed. Wars took new shapes. The kingdom held on barely. Their paths cross once more, in a city that recalls both of them, though neither is quite the same. She dreams of him: taller, colder, exhausted. A man forged by war, wounded in ways no magic can heal.
Kingdoms exist on knife's edges. There are those who have magic debts to repay, monsters made kings, and lies older than each of them rising to the surface. And at the centre of it all are two children who once found some kind of peace in each other, now are standing before a storm that neither of them asked for.
Hello! I'm a 20 something European writer, neck-deep in law school these days, which means most of my conscious existence is spent reviewing court cases, haunting coffee machines, and wondering why on earth Latin is still around. Instead of studying torts or constitutional theory like a sane student, however, I spend far too much time writing emotionally devastating character arcs. Equilibrium. When I'm not being smushed under academic workload or scheming to escape to be a traveling bard, I'm writing. Writing, always. I'm a advanced literate/novella style roleplayer, and what that means is that I don't so much one-liners. Fore me roleplaying is a storytelling, descriptive proses, deep world-building, and characters you can actually sink your teeth into.
I live for:
Morally complex characters who do terrible things for painfully relatable reasons. Slow burn romances so charged you could power a small city off the unresolved tension alone. Gritty fantasy worlds full of curses, secret histories, blood offerings, forgotten gods, and not a whiff of modern slang to be found. Emotional tension, gut wrenching betrayals, characters who say "I'm fine" when they're so clearly not fine, and moments of silence that are more revealing than any amount of dialogue ever could be. Sword combat, politics, ancient prophecies, supernatural horror, and very badly flawed people trying to survive in a world that never so much as promised to be just.
My characters? They brood. They screw up. They do melodramatic things like stand and gaze at the rain for too long. They're not sunshine babies, they're emotionally constipated stormclouds who every now and again fall in love by accident.
I'm usually fairly laid back OOC, like to chat about plot, make memes regarding our characters' trauma, and toss Pinterest boards at you at 2am.
So here's the deal
You're 20+, pleas! Both for the sake of maturity, and so I can make jokes about back pain and questionable life choices without sounding like a cryptkeeper. You write literate to novella level. Depth of character? Yes. Emotional scarring? Oh, absolutely. Metaphors as pretty as a punch to the stomach? Yup. You're good at writing dark fantasy, the kind with morally challenged protagonists, muddied loyalties, battle-scarred realms, cults, hexes, mysterious artifacts which are absolutely too volatile to handle. We're building here, not parachuting down into a set. It's gritty, demonic, filled with shady bargains. You're a fan of slow burn. The one where they bicker, save each other, accidentally touch hands, then glare at each other. Enemies-to-lovers? Stranger-turned-childhood-friends-to-lost-strangers-to-what-are-we? Soulmates-who-can't-trust-each-other-but-keep-rescuing-each-other-anyway? You're willing to co-create on world-building and side characters. That means detailing noble houses, tavern masters, rogue mages. You enjoy tossing ideas around, creating as you go, and muttering "okay but what if—" over and over again. You're in it for the long haul. You're a writer who creates playlists, pinboards on Pinterest, and sends the occasional "I can't stop thinking about our characters" message..I want our characters to grow, break, rebuild, and maybe kiss amidst the rubble.
If any of this made you laugh, nod violently, or stare off into the distance thinking about your 2016 tragic OC, we are already best friends.
The alleys stank of iron, ash, and stale wine and stones remembered more rain than blood. It was the kind of place where secrets were currency and silence was an armor. Tavian never cried as a babe, just looked at you, the kind of look that made grown men clear their throats and women cross the street. The city didn’t raise him so much as test him, over and over, until he stopped flinching at the taste of blood. Tavian soaked it up before his voice had broken. No coin. No title. No future. Just a boy with sharp eyes and a too still face for a child.
And then there was she. She had no right to be there. High house daughter, heir to an ancient blood line, all velvet and dresses. A girl who slipped past guards to touch something real and got him instead. He didn't say much. She never quit talking. She'd sit on broken stairs beside him and tell him strange things about her dreams, deaths that hadn’t happened yet.
"You never laugh," she once told him. "You talk too much," he replied. But he never pushed her away. And she never stopped coming, until she was walled off by court, her talent called divine, her life written and decided for her before she could say a word.
He wasn't given that kind of story. He was given war. The kingdom started to shatter like a glass. Four old allies raised banners and came for the crown. Tavian was swept up in the army when he was fifteen, not that he wanted to fight, but that boys without names don't get a choice. When he was seventeen, he was a killer. When he was twenty, a commander. When he was twenty five, Marshal Tavian of Darveth, youngest in the kingdom's history, and a walking legend among commoners.
They had nicknamed him the Blade of the Kingdom. If the king needed something done without noise, it was Tavian they summoned. He didn’t climb ranks through charm or speeches. He rose because when missions failed, he returned alone, boots soaked in blood, eyes colder than steel. He carried blood magic in him - old, unspoken, feral. The nobles hated him, he was lowborn, unreadable. But his silence made them sweat and soldiers bow down. The Church called him touched. Commoners whispered blessings to him as though he was a saint. He was not. He did not have faith in gods. He had faith in weight, action, precision. A knife doesn't need faith only a target. He never attended court balls. He never courted. He avoided the palace as if it was rotten. But politics had claws, and yet he was always pulled back in, a sword having to sit with quills.
And her? Her prophecies came true, one after another, until even the Crown shuddered at them. Everybody wanted her sight, nobody wanted her. The nobles gazed at her usefulness, then whispered "madness" behind ther back. She was around courtiers yet utterly alone. Except… she dreamed of a boy who never smiled. Who listened. Who did not avert his gaze when she told him of the impossible.
She never forgot him. He had lost her face and name.
Decade passed. Wars took new shapes. The kingdom held on barely. Their paths cross once more, in a city that recalls both of them, though neither is quite the same. She dreams of him: taller, colder, exhausted. A man forged by war, wounded in ways no magic can heal.
Kingdoms exist on knife's edges. There are those who have magic debts to repay, monsters made kings, and lies older than each of them rising to the surface. And at the centre of it all are two children who once found some kind of peace in each other, now are standing before a storm that neither of them asked for.
Hello! I'm a 20 something European writer, neck-deep in law school these days, which means most of my conscious existence is spent reviewing court cases, haunting coffee machines, and wondering why on earth Latin is still around. Instead of studying torts or constitutional theory like a sane student, however, I spend far too much time writing emotionally devastating character arcs. Equilibrium. When I'm not being smushed under academic workload or scheming to escape to be a traveling bard, I'm writing. Writing, always. I'm a advanced literate/novella style roleplayer, and what that means is that I don't so much one-liners. Fore me roleplaying is a storytelling, descriptive proses, deep world-building, and characters you can actually sink your teeth into.
I live for:
Morally complex characters who do terrible things for painfully relatable reasons. Slow burn romances so charged you could power a small city off the unresolved tension alone. Gritty fantasy worlds full of curses, secret histories, blood offerings, forgotten gods, and not a whiff of modern slang to be found. Emotional tension, gut wrenching betrayals, characters who say "I'm fine" when they're so clearly not fine, and moments of silence that are more revealing than any amount of dialogue ever could be. Sword combat, politics, ancient prophecies, supernatural horror, and very badly flawed people trying to survive in a world that never so much as promised to be just.
My characters? They brood. They screw up. They do melodramatic things like stand and gaze at the rain for too long. They're not sunshine babies, they're emotionally constipated stormclouds who every now and again fall in love by accident.
I'm usually fairly laid back OOC, like to chat about plot, make memes regarding our characters' trauma, and toss Pinterest boards at you at 2am.
So here's the deal
You're 20+, pleas! Both for the sake of maturity, and so I can make jokes about back pain and questionable life choices without sounding like a cryptkeeper. You write literate to novella level. Depth of character? Yes. Emotional scarring? Oh, absolutely. Metaphors as pretty as a punch to the stomach? Yup. You're good at writing dark fantasy, the kind with morally challenged protagonists, muddied loyalties, battle-scarred realms, cults, hexes, mysterious artifacts which are absolutely too volatile to handle. We're building here, not parachuting down into a set. It's gritty, demonic, filled with shady bargains. You're a fan of slow burn. The one where they bicker, save each other, accidentally touch hands, then glare at each other. Enemies-to-lovers? Stranger-turned-childhood-friends-to-lost-strangers-to-what-are-we? Soulmates-who-can't-trust-each-other-but-keep-rescuing-each-other-anyway? You're willing to co-create on world-building and side characters. That means detailing noble houses, tavern masters, rogue mages. You enjoy tossing ideas around, creating as you go, and muttering "okay but what if—" over and over again. You're in it for the long haul. You're a writer who creates playlists, pinboards on Pinterest, and sends the occasional "I can't stop thinking about our characters" message..I want our characters to grow, break, rebuild, and maybe kiss amidst the rubble.
If any of this made you laugh, nod violently, or stare off into the distance thinking about your 2016 tragic OC, we are already best friends.
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