#brightwingedbat

May I interest you in some cats...

GAIUS, OBERON (THATS ME), CORVUS

KUDO, RUGAN, GARRUS

Coloured Sketch commission for @brightwingedbat of their charr Tantalus Locksmith, thankyou so much for commissioning me!

5. Is the relationship living up to their initial expectations?

Kinda???.....mostly bc I dont think their expectations were really that grand to begin with due to the nature of legion charr relationships. Theyre still together though, so in that sense their expectation of being together is there LMAO.

9. How do they feel about each other's exes and people who flirt with them? Is jealousy an issue in general?

Ill start with the jucier one.

Rytlock does get jealous, noticably, if he and Leo are at a bar and Leo gets hit on. This happened a lot earlier in their relationship when nothing was official so he had less of an actual horse in that race but usually could give the pursuer some sort of Look to drive them away. At its Worse it was during PoF where they like didnt breakup but were pretty seperated...Especially bc Leo made it a point to seek company elsewhere and the jealousy stemmed from both the idea And the fact he was losing Leo. Losing his partner and realizing he had fucked up Yet Again with someone and it was a mixture of self disdain, jealousy, anger, sadness, all in one extremely angsty package. And not even in the sexual/romantic aspect, even just Leo going off and talking about the war effort with other people when usually it wouldve been with Rytlock.During the less intense times I do think Rytlock experiences maybe a slightly above normal amount of jealousy when it comes to the romantic/sexual admirers, bc I think that kind of fits someone who had struggled with low self-esteem n has a whole thing about Proving others wrong and having a sort of machismo mask bc of it. But its not something thats Overt or an actual serious issue. Leo doesnt have any actual exes so thats another thing.

Leo, on the other hand, doesnt experience jealousy when it comes to pursuers of Rytlock at all. He knows the culture he comes from, he knows Rytlock's high status, of there would be people seeking him, especially given Rytlock has multiple kids, its just whatever to him. The jealousy he does experience is in regard to those kids and having that shared experience of parenthood. He just cant provide any real solace that in the way others can, and he cannot even bring himself to ever want biological children bc of charr culture anyway. So the jealousy comes from partially wanting to help but not being able to, and knowing having a biological cub in the legions is something he wouldnt be able to handle.

How does Leo get along with Crecia? Great! I mean, Leo doesnt care for the entire exes thing, he just genuinely gets along with Crecia exceptionally well bc theyre similar in drive + are both very business first. Its actually a little funny. Maybe rytlock has a type idk. But any other possible ex it really just is on an individual level, leo doesnt have any problem with the ex part. Also very funny considering Rytlock was nervous about leo and crecia interacting bc of that but then like, they just teamed up and he now had 2 wives yelling in his ears about everything or leo having them Both bicker in HIS ears while trying to do work. Extremely amusing times in ibs

THANK YOU FOR THE ASK

Thanks a bunch!! :D

📂 - Casca has absolutely stabbed at least one person in a bar before because they were flirting with her and didn't stop when she said she wasn't interested, and she then fully proceeded to pull a Han Solo and tip the barkeep for the mess while walking out. (Notably, she wasn't aiming to kill them, but she really doesn't know what happened to them after she left.)

📂 - There are aurora-borealis-like phenomena in several different parts of Tyria. Some are caused by the same thing those in our world are caused by (particle collisions in the atmosphere), while some of them have more to do with the ley lines and the inherent magic flow in the world. All the changes relating to said magic flow in the last decade have absolutely impacted those phenomena's color, location, and frequency. There's a whole host of scientific papers on the subject and half of them are badly out of date.

📂 - Technically in game, as far as I know, Tyria has no ambient squirrels running around (though someone references them in dialogue at least once). However, as far as I'm concerned, Tyria absolutely has squirrels, and they have an absolutely huge range of color variation. There's a huge range of squirrel types even in the average suburban neighborhood in our world (grays and browns and reds), and there's different types that live in the rocks by the ocean--child!me was fascinated by the spotted squirrels I saw. And even in our world, we have squirrels that look like this:

Casca runs a hand through her hair, pushing it back where it'd flopped forward a bit, and smiles, a little off-kilter. "How'd it feel? Like I'd ended up in a good dream for once. Weird."

She meets your eyes and says in a very conversational tone, "I thought I'd died, actually. Wasn't much like Brook had described the Mists, but it was the only thing that made sense. They'd been dead for years, or so I thought. Where the hell else would I find them?"

She pauses and clears her throat. "But. You know. Not a dream, actually. The best thing that ever happened to me, but not a dream.

Absolutely, sure sure!! :D

If Efram were in almost any other position, Casca would like the guy and respect him. He reminds her of Ari a bit. As it is, she's almost more wary of him because she'd otherwise be inclined to trust him.

Casca got herself out of imprisonment/captivity with Flame after three years. Didn't have any help from anyone, just made plans and had a decent dose of luck. She knows others suffered like she did (Brook, for one, though it was in a different manner), but she has no reason to have any faith that there's been meaningful change made. Sure, maybe Efram's better than Gaheron on a first glance, but that's about all she's confident of, and that's a low-ass bar to clear.

3, 6, 11

Gladly!! Tyty! Casca hours :D

3. What person impacted them the most?

There's several people who've impacted her immensely, but for this question? Brook. The two of them bonded incredibly quickly after coming to the fahrar and are best friends to the point of near-codependence as they grow up. They eventually end up mates as well. Brook is--and as far back as she can remember, always has been--pretty much the most important person in Casca's life.

Brook's fascination with human spirituality and religious belief is why Casca doesn't shun or scorn it, even if she doesn't believe in it herself. Brook's constant presence in her life--and the fact that they also use magic, though they're not the only other 'bandmate of hers to do so--is a not-insignificant part of the reason that Casca is so incredibly determined not to hide or be ashamed of her own magic. Brook was captured by the Flame Legion along with her, and the hope of getting out and saving them was her main reason for not giving up.

On the flip side of that, Casca spent a good eight years or so after she finally managed to escape the Flame Legion thinking that she'd been too late and that Brook was dead, and it was incredibly devastating. She managed, eventually, to rebuild something from the pieces of her life and take on mercenary work (for sketchier third parties at first, then later down the line for the Pact). She made some friends. She, interestingly enough, fully avoided dealing with her feelings towards the Flame Legion and didn't try to seek out revenge solo, which might not be what you'd guess if you'd known her before everything went down. She knew Brook wouldn't want her dead (and neither would Ari or Pol, who she was also pretty certain she'd lost), and her anger was so intrinsically tied to her grief that if she did let herself focus on it, she wouldn't have been able to even kind of handle either one. It was this weird kind of limbo where she wasn't okay and she knew it, but also thought this would be as good as it ever got.

Finding Brook with the Olmakhan in the Sandswept Isles was the best thing that could ever have happened to her, as far as she's concerned. She loves them fiercely and entirely. But it also released that hold she had on her anger. She's not big on second or third chances anyways, never has been, and that was the nail in the coffin. Any interaction with Weylon--who had betrayed their warband to Flame in the first place--that she had from that point forward was going to go immediately and violently south.

6. They're now a heart NPC/part of a string of quests. What does that involve?

As a renown heart NPC, I think you'd get baby!Casca and the rest of the Storm Warband running investigative trips into the Flame Legion in the Iron Marches. Ari would be nearby Casca and you could talk to both of them. Casca would complain about being asked to make a more solid map of the territory and Flame presence for the higher-ups, and you'd be able to help either by reading documents and bringing her information or by dealing with some of the nearby Flame Legion yourself. You'd be able to find the rest of their 'bandmates scattered throughout the area doing their own thing, and they'd all come back every once in a while and have ambient conversations with her and Ari.

11. How accurate is their reputation/image compared to how they really are?