Carel Saeger

𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐋 𝐒𝐀𝐄𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐀𝐑𝐘

safely tucked away in a chest under the bed, carel saeger’s sword was not meant to ever see the light of day again. And yet, from the age of 3, he had been taught how to kill every creature there was in withermore, sentient or not. the investigation on the murder of his wife by vampires has taken him to destarin where he is prepared to spill blood no matter the consequences.

TW: Death, Murder.

Maybe it had been illness. Maybe her heart was not made for this kind of world. Whatever it had been, it took Carel’s mother before he could remember her face or the sound of her voice. His father had been out of the picture before that, and he was raised by his grandparents from the age of three. The Saeger household would be his schoolhouse, his church and his home, which wouldn’t have been so bad had the Saeger family name not been a synonym of death to any creature that could threaten mankind, but more specifically to those who should have stayed dead: draugrs and vampires, zombies and revenants.

By the time he was 10, Carel had become familiar with all the sorts of monsters that went bump in the night. He knew what required arrows, bolts, stakes or blades, when to resort to wood or metal. More importantly, he had become himself a weapon.

Carel started working contracts by the time he was 12. In doing so, he provided for his family, and solidified the Saeger’s reputation in Withermore. Many were those who asked the hunters for help when their crops or their cattle were ravaged by beasts too, but most of the money came from bounties.

Though hunting brutalized the body and the soul, though he nearly lost his life a dozen times before he had even reached the age of eighteen, Carel kept going because it was his duty to protect less fortunate humans from the horrors out there. Hunting eventually hurried both his grand parents’ meeting with death, still he would go out, hunt, receive his paycheck, and go home.

And then came along Hilde.

He met her while she attempted to rescue a Tatzelwurm he had finally managed to trap. Half cat – half snake with a thing for cow milk. The creature had by itself deprived a whole town of its milk supply. Hilde would not let him kill the beast, and she proposed a deal: if she managed to tame the animal, he would have to let it be. He gave her a week; she insisted it be a fortnight. It became a fortnight. And every day, he’d come check on her, to see if she was still alive. And every day, he stayed a while longer with the young woman. The fortnight passed, and he would keep visiting her. They were wed the very same year; once again with a concession: no more hunting.

It was a promise he had made to his wife, who wished her husband to live to see their future children grow up, and the woman he loved grow old. The perspective of starting a family brought him comfort. But, one winter evening as he fed the chicken and brought back some logs for the fireplace, a group of vampires attacked the house. By the time he managed to reach for the nearest weapon, Hilde had left the world of the living.

As he drove a stake through her heart, the heartbroken young man swore he would find those who had done such a thing to his beloved. He travelled through Withermore searching for the monsters that had taken her away, interrogating any vampire that crossed his path, Carel’s investigation has led him to Destarin.

WHAT ARE YOU...?

species: hunter. weaknesses: as a hunter, he burns more energy and will need to sleep for 9 to 10 hours every day, mortality, susceptible to vampire bite and werewolf bite. strengths: night vision and enhanced agility, physically stronger than a regular human, his injuries heal faster than the norm unless caused by magic. physical description: the hunter is often regarded as an anomaly wherever he goes due to standing so tall, however, aside from his physique shaped by hunter training and woodworking, carel thinks of himself as a rather plain man. additional info: as it is the tradition in his parts of withermore, carel will often be seen wearing a kilt, though he sometimes adopts the ways of destarin. generally speaking, you won’t catch him without his sword and at least a handful of knives on his person.

Whatever strategies had been instilled in him through the years had flown right out the window the instant he had picked up on that peculiar scent, the same one that had lingered on his darling Hilde in the hours that had followed her brutal passing.

Rage, like a fire, consumed any trace of common sense he had, leaving room only for vindication.

His own would take a while. Now that he had found him, he would make him pay, he would make him suffer even if nothing could ever compare to how losing her had made him feel for all those months, nothing could ever compare to what she must have been through.

Still, if he could manage to make him go through at least a percent of what they had gone through...

The last fifteen years weren't spent doing any good to the world. Caravans of families, torn apart. Any unlucky somebody who was walking home too late night drained in an instant. A few times they took on bigger communes of peoples, when his master teamed up with his like minded 'siblings' to pillage and grow whatever wealth they could, or even just for fun and quick meals. Alex was puppeteered each time, never wanting any part of it. In another life, the look of blood would have sent him into dizzy spells. But he was 'made for killing', as Harrison used to put it ever so fondly. Nimble enough to wriggle his way out of tough situations, and he seemed to have a knack for self preservation.

Always to do the man's bidding. And, when he was feeling especially cruel, leaving a victim barely clinging onto life and telling a starved Alex to feed. The blood, and the life, was on his hands. It sickened him, over the years.

And now, that seemed to come back to bite him. Alex didn't have time to react when he was tackled to the ground. The first problem was the blade at his throat, and from the slight sting he felt, it was safe to say that it was silver - already not good. The second, he didn't have to be a genius to figure out. The classic stake-to-the-heart trick. It was too risky to try to bite his way out, and while he was strong, someone this trained would be an issue. His hands had found the other's wrists in the scuffle, but as he looked into the man's eyes, he saw nothing but malice and anger. What could he possibly say that would keep him alive?

So he laid down his hands, on either side of his head, as if to surrender. Hopefully his youthful features could score him some extra pity. "Unfortunately for the both of us, you'll have to be more specific," he mumbled, the fear in his eyes obvious, hoping against hope the other would give him the opportunity to explain.

He pressed the blade further against the other's throat.

This was not how he pictured his wife's murderer. They had been methodical. She had suffered and there was nothing he could do besides make sure that she wouldn't come back from the dead. He owed it to her, he had told himself. A part of him had thought that he could live with her even if she was changed into a monster. In the end, he wasn't sure if it was for her or for himself that he sank a stake through her still warm chest.

But this scent... If it had not been him who killed her, he had been here when she died.

Alex had now been on his own for a month in the city, and it'd been nearly 5 since Harrison had abandoned him. Back in the man's huge estate, there were plenty of vials and bottles of blood to get him through, but what was reserved for him was always smaller amounts than his master. Alex had to go through his master's stash - needing to jump over the hurdle of guilt was difficult, even when he was starving - and when that was done, that was the biggest driver to get out of that house. Besides, those stashes weren't at all big - they only lasted a few weeks.

Now, he hadn't been super keen on feeding off of people yet. His hypnosis wasn't that strong, and years of watching Harrison massacre people and Alex being forced to play along left a bad taste in his mouth. He'd get over it eventually... but today was not that day. Or night, rather.

He had a little bag with freshly caught fish - his reflexes and sight were good enough for him to go out into the water and catch them with his bare hands after sundown - and each one was slowly sipped through as he walked back home. He had every intention to keep one to cook, but he sucked through the last one's blood before he realized his bag was empty. So, bag and carcass were chucked into the nearest trash barrel, and he was ready to be on his way when he saw in the dark, another man further up the street.

Realizing too late he had blood all over his chin and lips, he swallowed instead of wiping it off, like he probably should have. "Well, don't look so disgusted," he blurted. "It's only fish. Trout, I think, which I'm pretty sure nobody likes anyway."

Whatever strategies had been instilled in him through the years had flown right out the window the instant he had picked up on that peculiar scent, the same one that had lingered on his darling Hilde in the hours that had followed her brutal passing.

Rage, like a fire, consumed any trace of common sense he had, leaving room only for vindication.

His own would take a while. Now that he had found him, he would make him pay, he would make him suffer even if nothing could ever compare to how losing her had made him feel for all those months, nothing could ever compare to what she must have been through.

Still, if he could manage to make him go through at least a percent of what they had gone through...

"Do they? I've never cared much for religion. It can make....fanatics out of people." What was she going to do here? Could she let him pass? Should she? It wasn't her business but at the same time, she didn't like the way this felt. A hunter? In Destarin? Not on her watch. She couldn't risk him getting close to her sisters. "So what are we going to do here? Because it seems like we are at a stalemate. I don't want to ignore that you have a dead body and if I walk away knowing it...who's to say you won't come after me, next?"

If he died, it would change nothing, and the Saeger line would die out. If he lived, he was too heartbroken to think about the future, and it would be a matter of days, weeks or months if the gods were feeling particularly cruel with him.

"Now? I'll go get my bounty." Because he wasn't doing this for nothing. He didn't need much, but a room, food, weapons and armor weren't exactly cheap. "I'm a bounty hunter. I'm not supposed to be carrying flowers and confections around. If you don't like it, move along. I'm not after you," but with the way she was being defensive, he had no doubt that there was someone offering a nice sum to see her head on a platter. "If you have reasons to think I should come after you however..."

"Further insult to imagine you do know what happened to me," Bellamy responded, because knowing she must have been turned into a vampire and knowing what happened to her that she was now at this point were not the same. Bella couldn't fathom what he assumed but to Bella monsters were not the beasts that lurked in the forest, monsters were people, the same as the pair of them, conscious of their horrid acts.

From his words she imagined while he had grown - and grown quite tall in fact, towering over the short woman - she did not hear a notion of his world expanding.

"I reside here, I have for some time, perhaps your father noticed my absence when I became injured, soon after turned, and no longer competition in your enterprise," she responded, because without someone to calm the creatures and help keep people safe in their travels or in their homes, they had likely ended up needing a more aggressive approach. "I doubt he wondered what had become of me," she mused, sure only her parents did, worried on how they might hold their positions at court without their blessed daughter.

"It wasn't my father you met, but my grand father. He's dead." And Carel had been too busy keeping Withermore safe to keep an eye on who was around or not to help (or pretend that they did). "You hardly ever were competition. People have always favored a more definite solution to their problem," calming an animal could only last for so long. And yet.. His sweet Hilde had tamed a wild beast once, just to one up him and well... he had not been one bit annoyed with that.

"I know what's bothering her, I said we weren't family," he pulled his lower lip in, sucking on it for a moment. She obviously wasn't his family technically but even though he'd only been back in town a few months. "But it's not like I can do anything to show her we are."

While the spider succubus did truly consider the Rochielles district of Destarin home, it did remind her most of her mother's own home. And that was the entire reason why Raelothstra had decided to place her own home on its outskirts; though it was made to resemble more traditional drow architecture.

But it was not to her home that she was heading. Instead, she was making her way to Scourge House, for a small meeting with a few of the guild members. And as the horned woman made her way through wide cobblestone streets, she was aware of eyes on her. This was not a new phenomenon for the succubus, she had had over a hundred years to adapt to stares.

But this set of eyes had been on the Scourge sister for entirely too long. And though lavender eyes stared straight ahead, face a cool expression, she only felt herself become more agitated. Her temper flared ever higher as cobblestone streets bled into the trade district; with she stopping her walk some streets away from Scourge House to turn about face on her heel.

The face is new, but one that she's heard plenty of whispers about. A monster hunter, according to the spiraling rumors. Neither the first nor the last the horned woman would meet in what would likely be her very long life. "If you were hoping for my attention, there are better ways to get it." She nearly spits the words out, temper barely held in check.

"Oh yeah? And what exactly did he do to get what's coming to him?" Her eyes narrowed. A hunter. Her arms came down and landed at her sides, hands balling into fists. "Dare to be a creature like me?" She was gearing up to turn into a scorpion and scuttle out of the situation, hoping to poison him on her way, but needed to wait for the right moment.

Her head tilted. Age was hard to determine with anyone - she herself was well over what she appeared to be - but this young man seemed to be far too serious for what his age should allow. Why, did he even have any laugh lines? Assuming he was human, that is. "Oh, is that so?" she asked, ever so polite, and only ever wanting to help. "She and I are good friends, is there something I can pass along?" She had known Evelyn for long enough to understand sometimes there were others who had... not so great intentions in mind, concerning the woman or her guild. But Zelda had proven before she could handle herself, and was curious if this was an innocent request, or something to pass along later as a warning.

“What brings,” he paused for a moment, wanting to use his words wisely.  “May I ask as to the reason why a member of the Saeger family has honored the city?”  Now, that sounded better he thought and he went back to being quiet as he watched the other man.

"Honored, huh? I have personal matters to deal with." Matters which were none of anyone's business, but it wasn't like Sir Dawson would be able to stop him if he tried. "Surely you must have heard of my wife's passing," though he didn't wish for a big funeral, his wife had been well appreciated within their community, and many showed.

In truth, Taurus did care the way Carel could, it was just not easy for him to show because caring about people did not fit with his desire for freedom, caring chained you down. Still, Carel had surely seen the way he tried to do better with his daughter now, he would take her out into the woods on walks, entertain her with Maeve's stray animals and do what he could to distract her from her mother's illness.

‘And you figured she'd appreciate having her friendship redeemed by offerings?’ He imagined he had apologised verbally too, but still… Although he himself could be rather clumsy at times, he had understood that it wasn't so easy to make amends with a woman, provided she was independent enough to know her own worth. Hilde had been like that. He would have found it hard to charm her with words or gifts. It was what he did that swept her off her feet.

Pursing his lips to keep from laughing, he looked at the chandelier above them before replying. ‘I think she already knew you were an dick, that's not what's bothering her.’

The woman had not see his face in some time, he had been a young boy, trained by his father to kill the beasts she loved within their home kingdom of Withmore, when the Aasimar had first crossed paths. While towns contracted the boy and his father to kill, she was contracted to calm. Justification for killing monsters was far harder for townsfolk and dignitaries alike when Bella could calm them and appearances clearly made a difference.

Carel and his father were hunter in name and appearance, even as a boy he had a deadly look to him so far as the Aasimar Bellamy could tell, but Bella looked sent from above. Her mother always dressing her as such, in long conservative black gowns, embroidered in gold with prayers to the celestial of beasts Vembrasyn. Her wings would drag behind her, and her golden gaze would settled softly on these creatures and they would calm. It made the hunters and the Aasimar immediate enemies, though Bella was unsure how the young boy saw her specifically. Despite being an Aasimar to the Withermore Celestial of Beasts, Bella was not one herself, she was a cleric of sorts, a priestess, who would gift blessings of safe passage to those she was with, in truth she would have even been willing to bless the hunters if they had not been so opposed.

Fifteen years the boys senior she would not have recognised him if not for his jawline. He was far taller than he had been as a boy but his jawline had been cut by something beyond himself, defined and strong. He had grown up, into a strong man, a handsome man, but a hunter still it seemed. Perhaps he wouldn't even recognise her now, lace dress stained at the bottom from puddles on the docks, her once golden eyes now a peridotite green, but most noteably...her wings gone. The most precious thing she had ever lost, her heart still longed for them yearned to fly above the trees and engulf herself in protection. What gave him some advantage was that she had not aged since he was just a boy, she still looked as young as when he had last encountered her.

"Carel," she uttered as she approached him within the safe confines of the leatherwork house - Deri Dovme. She was sure he had sensed her presence even if he had not looked to her, a hunters instincts would not allow a vampire to approach without being clocked but she hoped his eyes would settle on her long enough that they need not cause a scene in the establishment. "It has been a long time."

He didn't recognize her at first glance, even though it was clear she knew him. On a first-name basis. From long ago.

He was suspicious, of course. A long time didn't necessarily mean the same thing to everyone. For him, 10 years was a long time; for others, it meant a tiny fraction of a lifetime. He was convinced that this was the case, because her face was familiar, albeit distant, and he could have sworn that she hadn't changed in the slightest : not a single wrinkle.

But while he had no doubt that the average person would have found her beautiful, he gave a spiteful sneer and his eyes darkened as it became increasingly clear that she did not want to be noticed by the rest of the clientele.

It was then that he managed to put her face into another context. He hadn't liked her then, but the boy in him had wondered why such a beautiful creature persisted in saving such ghastly ones. So, in an ironic twist of fate, she too had been turned into a monster. He imagined it was more logical than tragic. By dabbling with monsters, she had ended up becoming one.

So she turned from the residence and nearly ran into a man rounding the corner in the opposite direction.  “Oh!”  The shout of surprise was almost on a delay, and it caused her to laugh.  “I’m so sorry, you startled me,” she told him.  Zelda wasn’t short, but even she had to look up at him to properly look him in the eye.  “If you were looking for Evelyn, she isn’t home.  I don’t think she’s home, at least, but you’re welcome to try your luck.”

The hunter's eyebrows furrowed and he took a look at his surroundings. Of course, his target must have had been alerted by the outburst of joy this caused her because they were now nowhere to be seen. "At least, one of us is laughing," he remarked.

A long sigh escaped his pursed lips, and he placed his hand on the pommel of his sword, looking disappointed. "Evelyn isn't home?" He wasn't looking for the succubus, but one of her guild. Perhaps was it where his target was hiding now. Coward, running to their mother's petticoat for safety. "I think I will try my luck, thank you very much. She has something I want."

"I mean, she is fucking pissed," Taurus said of Veda, in her own bar. He should have perhaps held his tongue but she was not around that evening from what he could tell and neither was her friend Cookie who would readily defend her, it seemed mostly that evening Blood, Sweat and Beers was filled with staff that either was newer or simply were not half as invested in Vee as some of the others could be, no one seemed to pay him much mind. "She's not behaving like it, but I can feel it," he insisted.

He doubted Carel would have much sympathy for him admittedly. Between the pair of them it was obvious who the dirtbag was and who was the man of good moral standing. Yet, for all the ways Taurus was a dirtbag, he did also care. He cared about Vee specifically because she was akin to family for the old wolf. "I know I have to apologise properly, I just...I don't know how to make it up to her. I was such a fucking dick at the faire."

Taurus picked up his pint, bringing the edge of the glass to his lower lip before taking a sip, some of the froth spilling from the corners of his lips and touching his facial hair, wiped away when the glass was lowered. "What would you do?"