#halfblooded

I never answered such a question, no. And that’s rather a difficult one.

You see, as Darkwood was closed for so long, humans and monsters didn’t have a chance to talk, let alone have children.

And the half-blooded from the past... it’s a difficult case. They are what you would call “nonhumans” in a normal fantasy world. Elves, dwarfs, vampires, werewolves etc.

NAME. Iseult of the Red Hands AGE & BIRTH DATE. 35 & February 11th, 755 CE GENDER & PRONOUNS. Non-binary & He/they RACE & CLASS. Halfblooded ( Regenerative Healing ) OCCUPATION. Sellsword FACE CLAIM. Mahesh Jadu

BIOGRAPHY

( tw: abuse, violence, murder, prostitution ) 

I. THE QUESTION

Iseult, when asked, will say he was born from the sea. If you squint, you can nearly see it—hair like the lapping harbor, eyes lucid as abalone, teeth bared in pearly grin, heart just as blustery and wont to dash ships to pieces. However enigmatic a story it is, the bone of truth to it is this: the sea would not have him, and in her rejection he was born anew.

Their given name was lost to the foam, but they were born to the winter’s frosts. Raised by a hardworking mother in the tall-masted shadows of passing ships, one of which she swore would carry his faceless father back to them in a ritual that repeated each evening: her callused hands tucking the corners of a threadbare quilt beneath him, her voice low and like molasses, and a mythic ship that never came. The stories she parted with were vague. Only that he came from another land. Only that it was no fault of theirs he’d had to leave them behind in this one. When the youth was nine, she settled for a Camelot-bound brigantine. Mother and child stowed away in the merchant’s orlop in search of better prospects, soon to find the impetuous whims of the captain to be the arbiter of their fate. The ship had been set to sea for days by the time their presence was discovered. 

There’d be no turning back to lose them at the nearest dock, a thrown schedule on such a ship was a femoral wound: they’d hemorrhage far more coin than two lives’ worth. Their trial was brief, the Captain’s claim was absolute: “to the sea, or to work for me.” So mother and son become cabin maid and swab—became consort and rat catcher. Became whatever they had to be to survive. They toiled for their safe passage until the long journey ahead fell short for his mother. “Infection came quick,” the surgeon broke the news to the youth before the captain’s cracked door. “At sea, sickness makes mincemeat of even the strongest men,” and while by nine the youth had seen so much, he’d never seen a sickness that purpled the throat.

Without her fearsome hand to guard him, the next slip up before the officers landed him at the ship’s rail again, the Captain’s hand snared in his collar. To the sea, or to work for me, became “to the sea, or your chances with me.” The youth was spared the decision, chance made it for him. The Captain produced a coin and flipped it, and he watched as it turned in the air between them, revolving thrice in those breathless, fear-strung moments, before turning up a Pendragon’s face. A benign, gilded face that imprints his memories still. But for now, the odds were not in his favor, no matter how he willed them to be. Maybe it was always up to the whims of chance and fate. Or maybe only this Captain, with his kingdom of groaning timbers. There was the brigantine, and now there was only the sea, the open sea. 

Years later, a knife in his neck, Iseult would wonder if this survival was the first evidence of his halfblooded nature. Another one of fortune’s many jests. But back then, the longshoremen of the harbor that hauled him up in their net that day, dripping the salt of Camelot’s coast, chalked it up to impossible luck. To one of fortune’s many blessings.

II. THE ECHO

When he stopped retching seaweed, the harbormen brought the youth (of all places) to the town square’s brothel. The very nearest place with a spare bed, hot bowl of soup, and hosts willing to take in another mouth to feed. Through them, Iseult came to know the nooks and crannies of the world oft took shape around a certain closeness. The grand dame of the house turned out a far more hospitable guardian, and far more reluctant to have him swallowed by the sea. It was there, in the hearth-warmed corners of the kingdom’s underbelly, in the arms of their loud and vibrant leaning buildings, that the youth earned his keep. Earned a name, too. Iseult. “It means icy battle, for that chill in his eye!” The elder cook had argued. “No, it’s one who watches,” volleyed the counter girl, “for that owlish look he’s always got.” “Or iron ruler!” for the wise counsel he provided the women as he swept the brothel floors: “no, that colour pales you terribly. Yes,  I think the lace is nice.” In the end, the only thing they could agree on was that the youth be named for a beauty: “noble in heart as in hair!” cackled the madame as she braided theirs back.

For women forged of mettle and iron and a youth brined by the sea, it was a home. They say it takes a village, and this would have to do: with heaping servings of stew, a bed, and plenty of work to earn his bowl, Iseult grew and grew quickly. Their broom was traded for bruised knuckles, as was the street’s way. Their familiarity to its denizens and the grand dame’s word their ticket, they made quick work of establishing a name as a sellsword. A quick study, bruiser work for the brothel evolved into contracts throughout Camelot’s underbelly. The grand dame only needed to point them in a direction: Iseult would be their own star to steer by. No captain nor deity could sway him (but a melodic pouch of coin never hurt). As for the bloodier bounty hunting, Iseult fell into it the way one falls asleep. One evening the grand dame called them back for another turn ‘round the home front. A Captain on shore leave had overstepped his place in her establishment, and so invited the madam’s merciless grudge. In Iseult’s pursuit, the trail grew warm then searing. It was none other than the man from their memories once more come home to harbor. It would be his last time. Iseult would make sure of that. 

The encounter unfolded in the earliest hours, on a balcony by the shipyard. Iseult, the youth he once was stirred to a fury within, drew it out. In his wont to make the man suffer he became careless and was run through the throat with a dagger: pitched half over the rail and eyes affixed to the waters below as he bled. Only, he would not stay that way. The marionette and the invisible hand, Iseult wound back upright and sprang upon the captain, switching their places and forcing his back to the railing. The sellsword reeled a single, gilded coin from a breast pocket, its weight tantalizing in his palm. “To the sea,” he rasped, “or your chances with me.” The coin turned thrice, and a Pendragon’s gilded face turned heavenward. 

Iseult cleaned the knife that’d struck his neck, sheathed it in the tyrant’s, and watched as the sea swallowed the last of him whole.

III. THE ANSWER.

When blood stains you it leaves an imprint long after the wash. There was no going back, and where remorse might live, Iseult found only hunger. Found only the outline of the brothel slouching in the city’s dark, windows yellow with warmth. Found only the underbelly, and the comfort in its litany of lives. He would make a name for himself there. And, turning the mystery of that night on the balcony over and over in his mind, fingers ghosting his own throat for imagined scars, he’d take it on faith that wounds would not find him here for long. Not yet. While the heavens, while whatever magic protected him, may well have something to say for it, he put his faith in something lower: the hand with which he wields his blade. It’s all the thrill of profiteering, when the bottom falls out and you’ve not even your skin to lose. The ‘why’ of it he buried deep for the duration. Drowned in debauchery, drowned in drink, drowned in card games and bets on losing dogs (for certainty is a comfort seldom afforded). In his youth, Camelot was an elusive land of promise, the way his mother’s words had painted it. A gilded expanse whose gates were long closed to them. Now it would be his lion’s den, and its underbelly would bestow him a fitting title. A name passed ‘round in fascinated whispers: Iseult of the Red Hands.

It would be such for some time, and each flirtation with Death would only deepen the affair. In the ensuing blur, Iseult would come to know how fish felt on the fillet block. Would come to recognize the subtle notes of poison by taste. Would come to know the thundering of hooves not just by their percussive roar but by the imprint of their shoes. He’s sure he can die as any mortal when the sword swings swift and true, but there’s no denying the extent of punishment his body can take. The speed with which it stitches itself back together. Where his line of work is concerned: such a talent is worth much more than his weight in gold. He keeps it close to his chest. God knows what the more enterprising would do with it.

Where life had sharpened his senses on its cruel and comic whetstone; the countless brushes with death would start to dull them, would whittle his edges until he barely recognized them at all. The magic that keeps him upright had a whittler’s touch too: the why of it, in time, would hollow him. He’d only ever thought himself human, and his mothers tales of the Otherworld just that: wishful thinking for the sort of journeys only the worthy have. Now, he thinks of it at the brothel’s corner table, taking supper with the aging cook. He thinks of it in line at the Bakery to buy his bread. While dealing in coin in the Town Square. He thinks of it in all the places where time marches forward. Is he human? Is he something less, or more?

Perhaps that’s why Camelot is where it must come to a head — laden with human and fey tension, Iseult swears it must be the one place where time’s march stops. This place that remade him, that sits so closely to the doors to the Otherworld, feels like an undeath in itself; and a recent summons from the knights of the round, to serve as a liaison and informant from the kingdom’s underbelly, even more so. Not to mention, the long, listless hours working contracts for nobles shying from their own dirty work. It’s been years since a coin flip could decide his fate, and years since his own hand could. So here, yes here, he turns the coin of his thoughts just as feverishly as the one in his hands. Here, he’ll swear on whatever life he must to find his answer: what am I? And if the answer is a creature of scorn, then why, Titania, why?

PERSONALITY

+ versatile, inquisitive, droll – insatiable, capricious, vindictive

Commission Cover for Faolan half-blood of Erika Sans (only french version). 

Faolan sang-mêlé © Erika Sans Art © Mokolat  

NAME. Liliwen Flint AGE & BIRTH DATE. 31 & November 12th, 759 CE GENDER & PRONOUNS. Female & She/her RACE & CLASS. Halfblooded ( Fire Manipulation ) OCCUPATION. Courtesan FACE CLAIM. Adelaide Kane

BIOGRAPHY

(tw: child birth, abandonment, persecution, death, sex) Liliwen came into this world, unwanted and unloved. Her father was a human who had laid with her fey mother after a chance encounter and fled early in the morning, they had met during a Samhain festival thirty-two years ago when the veil between the worlds were the thinnest. Her mother carried her to full-term only to have any affection she kept for the newborn child completely diminished when the child was birthed and their half-fey identity was discovered. Titania the queen of the fey court cast the child out and her mother was only too happy to comply, leaving Liliwen behind in the forest on a stump of an old growth tree, believing that either the wolves or the frost would kill the baby before the new year.

As luck would have it,  the Mathanachs came upon the baby that had been left to fend for its own and as was their ways, they took the child into their home and raised Liliwen as one of the adopted children. She grew and so did her beauty, Casper was a great friend to her throughout her years and her loyalty to her mischievous brother never faltered. In fact they often got into trouble together but using Liliwen’s charm and Casper’s nature for storytelling, they got out of most situations and managed to settle any adult’s temperament that was raised against them. Liliwen transitioned from youth to adulthood and her hair that was black as a winter’s night tumbled down her back, her lips were a natural ruby red and she turned heads wherever she went.

When she discovered that she could conjure fire in her own hand, it was from a night where she had taken a stray path and became lost far in the woods in which she was once abandoned. Believing her death would come for her that night, she shivered within the cold and felt the frost begin to creep into her bones. A desperate desire to become warm overtook her and when she closed her eyes, she put all her power into imagining the roar of a rich fire burning in the hearth. Looking over those that gathered around and burning anyone that dared to touch. When she opened her eyes, it was to herself becoming flame. She burned as if she was a wick and she refused to let it go out that night, the moon passed in the sky and still she burned.

Even in an era of magic users and humans living in peace, could the history of those that were halfblooded not be covered up. She poured over books, read the horrors that had happened to people like her, how they were persecuted and burned alive in village squares. She took a deep vow to keep her secrets, even from those she trusted the most. Each day that passes, she dreams of sharing with Casper but fears persecution and the fear is what keeps her from feeling as if she truly belongs. Knowing that no opportunities will be given freely to her despite the Matanach’s kindness, she will protect herself and survive until the end. Promising that she will burn those to the ground that come for her long before they are allowed to touch her, she keeps herself warm.

Wishing for a better station in life, to experience riches and glory but to never promise herself to anyone completely so she can keep herself protected, she enjoys the life of a Courtesan. Getting to live life in the castle and to keep the company of nobles, she has no problem warming their beds when it is desired as the fire is within herself and can never be extinguished.

PERSONALITY

+  resilient, loyal, workstrong –  headstrong, stubborn, insecure

NAME. Emre & Asa Demir AGE & BIRTH DATE. 31 & April 1st, 759 CE GENDER & PRONOUNS. Male & Female / He/him & She/her RACE & CLASS. Halfblooded ( Transmutation ) OCCUPATION. Owners of Grimstone Mines FACE CLAIM. Alp Navruz & Melisa Pamuk

BIOGRAPHY

( tw: child labor, death, violence ) Halfblooded children have no real place in the world, not in this one, or the next. Eriş and Asa Demir were twins that were sired in secret. An eladrin in the queen’s court who fell in love with a simple blacksmith, her age was eternal, she was untouched by the passage of time with hands that had never known labour a day in her life - and he was just a simple human. One who fell in love with her the moment he saw her traversing a path through the moors of Seascann. With handmade trinkets and the promise of a future together he managed to capture her heart as well, when she laid with him she never believed that she would fall pregnant. Over a thousand years had passed and their mother had never succeeded in baring an eladrin child, but she’d always wanted children of her own. A real family. 

When Queen Titania discovered that someone she considered a trusted friend and point of council had lied with a human, she cursed the union. Twins were what were foretold, and so Titania cursed them to never lead a full life. Through blood magic their bodies were bound together, two souls entwined forever. By day Eriş would walk the earth, but at sundown he would undergo a change - his body would transform into that of a woman and Asa’s consciousness would take hold. Neither would ever be aware of the other’s movements and instead slept while the other was awake. 

Forbidden to see her children after their birth, their human father was made to raise them, and Eriş and Asa’s mother was forbidden from leaving the queen’s realm ever again. The halfblooded children were a reminder of the life he’d never had, where Eriş was kind and curious, Asa was mischievous and bright. The formative years of their life were spent by his side, by day Eriş would assist his father in the shop, and by night Asa would watch the man drink himself into a stupor. Both did what they could to hold onto whatever bliss they found, but neither was aware of the other’s efforts. In the end they were alone and could only depend on themselves. Their father grew older, drunker, and crueler. He missed the woman that was supposed to help raise them, and he scorned the Queen who’d torn them apart. 

In the end the children’s love was not enough for their father to keep them, Eriş awoke one morning to the rattling sound of chains as he lay scrunched in the back of a carriage. Left in a cage his body was battered and bruised, he was still a child, but in the seats in front the men laughed as they discovered that it was true; the girl with frightening eyes would in fact turn into a frightened little boy at dawn. Eriş had no idea what had happened but Asa was always getting him into trouble, she was always doing things that angered their father, or picking fights with the other children in Seascann. They hurled jeers and insults at him, but all this paled in comparison for what lay ahead, his father had sold the twins to the mines and it was there where the children were fated to spend the rest of their childhood. 

Eriş was complacent, he worked until his hands broke and bled in the dark, cold caverns of the mines. But Asa was not. Time and time again she tried to escape and was treated brutally as a result. They tried to break her spirit and every morning when Eriş awoke he felt the consequences of her actions. She would leave him hidden notes and messages, tell him to try and escape - to help her to do so. She’d scratch the guard rotations into rock and asked him to do the same, but Eriş never did. Life was already hard, harder than it ever should have been for a child. But she only made it harder. In time he grew to hate her as he was sure that she hated him, why else would Asa have continuously subjected their body to torture?  

Being halfblooded made them an easy target for prejudice, even among the other miners. But it also held the key to their escape, as their powers manifested Asa honed them and perfected them with each passing night. They were barely twelve years old when Eriş awoke one morning beneath the warm press of the rising sun, tears had already dried and stained his cheeks. Eriş did not know how Asa had managed it, but there was blood on his clothes. She had done what she had to do and saved herself, in the process Eriş had also been saved. He didn’t doubt for a moment that his sister had only acted in self-interest, but that night before the sun went down he wrote a note and asked her how- there was no reply. 

All Eriş’ life had been strife, he’d been a nothing, a nobody from the moors. Had he died in those mines there was no one in the world who would have known or cared, Eriş vowed to make something of himself. To rise however he could and become someone of import in the world. Maum was his goal and whenever someone asked he told them that his parents were nobles of a lesser house in the South. Eriş’ childhood had been spent apologizing and convincing people that he was not to blame for Asa’s misdeeds, as it happened, he became a very convincing liar. In Maum he found work as a tailor’s apprentice where he learned the tools of the trade, his hands were never meant to pound iron as his father’s had but Eriş could not deny that there was gratification in working with his hands. As it happened Eriş had a talent for working with textiles, he pricked his fingers a thousand times over and made pincushions out of his hands, but as the years went on he got better and better. 

Asa seemed content in this life, though Eriş could never really be sure she did not seem to do anything to sabotage him. Where she went at night he could never be sure, but he would awaken some mornings and find his hands and arms ached and throbbed. The sensation was one he remembered from his youth, from the long mornings he’d spend pounding hot iron into a new form. Asa had ambitions of her own, though she did nothing to jeopardize his dreams. At least not right away. Eriş’ tutor had a steady stream of upper class clients, one of which came from House Epos. Though the man was no paladin, he was even more wealthy than he was charming. Falling in love was still something Eriş was new at, he couldn’t tell when he was moving too quickly with someone, or falling too hard. But Bran was everything that Eriş was looking for, he was someone who could raise the tailor out of obscurity and provide for him in a way that Eriş had always wanted. 

From apprenticing as a tailor in Maum, to the high walls of Caiseal, Eriş’ life changed just about overnight. He knew now that he and his sister possessed the power of transmutation though it was not something that Eriş ever practiced, it was dangerous to reveal himself as a halfblood and it would be even more dangerous if the paladins of the castle learned the truth about him. He wanted a life that was his own, but he couldn’t have that ever, not unless Bran accepted him. So, Eriş lied. He confided in Bran that they’d been cursed, spinning a story about a druid who’d used their magic to scorn their mother before she fled into the woods. Eriş expected the man to be repulsed by the inherent magic and unusual situation, but instead he welcomed it and desperately wanted to meet Asa for himself. While Eriş was not so certain that this was wise, it was difficult to refuse him now. So, that night when Eriş retreated to his quarters as he always did, he invited Bran to join him. 

The next morning Bran was not there and for the first time in years there was a note from Asa. What have you done??? She questioned, though Eriş did not answer. When he found Bran the man told him of how callous Asa had treated the situation, she scorned him, and then she dismissed him. Considering how much Eriş loved Bran it felt like another slight that Asa wouldn’t so much as take the time to get to know him, they’d only been together a few short months but already the human possessed every bit of his heart. For a time he was happy in Caiseal, free. But with Asa his life was never really his own. Eriş awoke one morning as dawn broke to find his hands inside of Bran’s chest, a knife clenched between them. It was obvious that Bran had been fighting for his life and Asa murdered him in his sleep. Eriş knew that his sister hated him, but he never thought that she was capable of going to such lengths. He did the only thing he could in that moment, Eriş ran. 

Eriş ran and never looked back, he adopted a new name and let the old one die forever. Emre Demir, thusly named in honor of the iron that had forged his childhood. In Camelot a person could disappear, the city was large and there was opportunity for a person like him. He refined his previous story as a man who’d come from a noble house in the South, though instead now he was from overseas. With money that he had brought with him from his voyage to begin a series of investments. Money lending could be profitable, and while tailoring would always be his passion he couldn’t risk his craft being recognized, so he set it aside. Ironically, the owner of the mines had fallen on hard times and the crown needed someone of wealth to oversee its operations, it was Emre’s idea to take it for himself, much to Asa’s chagrin. When people asked about the woman they saw about his home at night Emre explained that it was his sister, Asa, and that she’d been born with a rare condition that prevented her from going outside during the day. For this reason she slept, and was awake through the night. The tale was palpable and just sad enough to keep anyone from prying too deep into the story. 

It was here in Camelot that Emre first began to look into ways in which he might be rid of Asa once and for all, a means to break the curse. He worked tirelessly and in secret he sought out the aid of whatever creature might help him. Emre has made a name for himself in Camelot as something of a hedonist, lover, patron of the arts, and gifted entrepreneur. But, his heart has remained broken, Bran’s death has weighed heavy on his shoulders for well over a year, along with the fear that someone from the past might come upon him at any moment. Or worse, that on a whim Asa might see fit to once again set his entire world ablaze. It is for this reason that Emre has longed to be rid of her, justice for Bran, and freedom at long last from this curse. 

PERSONALITY

+ kind, charming, trusting / inquisitive, analytical, precise – aloof, naive, impulsive / reactive, violent, reclusive