#tryphon|character

New York might not have been the bustling home of the most famous ballets, or the dancers who were most well-known; the Royal Ballet, and the Bolshoi were far, far more likely to claim those titles, but New York was home, and it almost always came with new things; new ballets, new roles, new auditions. The announcement of the opening of Apollo had come at a good time. He’d finished the year, Julliard’s strict  training schedule a familiar one after three years, and the exams had finished early last week.

Now, he was at the theatre, dance bag resting beside him, as he tied the first pointe shoes. They were starting to wear thin, and he’d need to replace them, probably sooner rather than later (he’d learned the value of not letting them wear out on him after the soles came loose mid jump, and he’d landed and sprawled half way across the room). He tied off the shoe, the ribbon tight behind his ankle as he crossed his legs, and began with the second foot.

There wasn’t an overwhelming number of people; most of them were ones he’s seen before- a few he’d been going to classes with since they were both small enough to not realize they wanted to do this as a career. Even then, there had never been an overwhelming number of men in the ballet, and he’d had more than a few years where he was the only one he saw outside competitions. 

A few of them might even be stiff competition for the titular role, but... across the room, was someone he hadn’t seen at an audition before, but did remember seeing in the paper a handful of weeks back. At the time, he hadn’t payed much attention, too caught up in the distraction of practice and the approaching finals. Now, he’d have to see what the other man was like, and what sort of rivalry there would be.

Icarus || Old Guard

There’s some debate over if the thing that killed Icarus was the fall or the drowning. In truth, he doesn’t remember. He remembers the fall in detail: feathers trailing past his grasping hands, hot wax making paths down his skin, the hollow wishing sound of the air as he fell through it at terminal velocity. He remembers that.

But then there was pain, and water, and then he was waking in the shallows of sand bar, not dead but impossibly alive. He noticed he stopped ageing, and then there were wounds he should have died from that healed in minutes, and it was easy to realize that there was something wrong. Humans could not survive such lethal things, much less walk away from them in minutes. 

The dreams came after that, or before that maybe. The millennia have made those first few days fuzzy. But in his dreams, there were others like him, in cities unlike the one he was in, but not so much that he could not find them. Icarus started to walk.

Megumi || Member of the Zodiac

The curse of the zodiac doesn’t care for names, it cares for blood. Megumi, even if he doesn’t know it, is a Sohma in blood. Saki had already been born strange, with too wide eyes, and an ability to watch people that unnerved those who weren’t used to it. And then there was Megumi- whole and healthy until his mother held him, and he turned into a rat, small enough to be cupped int he palm of her hand. 

There was alarm of course, how could there not be? But she passed the small rat off to her husband, and when the doctor’s turned back around, it was easy to quickly answer that in her exhaustion, she’d passed her son off to her husband. They quickly learned that if she held him, he would turn into a rat, but if his father did, he was fine. They adapted: if they went out, Saki would hold onto their mother, and their father would hold Megumi. 

He was cautious, and he learned fast to avoid physical contact, and when he was sick, to avoid going in to school, for fear of a sudden transformation. 

Megumi grew up outside the stranglehold the Sohma held over the zodiac. And if there’s an empty place at New Years? A simple strange turn of events, perhaps a breaking of the curse. 

*Megumi’s spirit can be changed if writing with other zodiac members.

Trypon || Yuri!!! On ICE

Tryphon remembers very clearly, the first ice show he ever got to see. It was late February, and one of the classes at the local rink were holding one to showcase their years talent. The costumes were transfixing, and the sound of the skates over the music settled under his skin comfortingly. He begged his mother for lessons, and at the next year he was one of the kids skating out over the ice to the claps of the parents in the audience.

When he was a little bit older, and there was a bit more money to spare, he took ballet lessons, and for a few brief months, he contemplated taking those instead, but you could not glide in ballet the way you could on ice, and the satisfaction from a dance never seemed to have the same feeling as it did on ice, but it did keep him more flexible, and during the half of the year where there was no ice, it was useful.

When he was 13, he was spotted by one of the actual coaches, and not just one of the trainers like he had during his childhood. I would mean he could train himself, and not just as part of a group. The offer was impossible to refuse. He left behind the skating classes, and started competing. 

Who is a night owl: Claude

Who is a morning person: they both wake up quite early, though Tryphon probably. Years of early-morning dance classes have made it second nature.

Are they cuddlers: That’s up for debate. Claude isn’t, but he’s been roped into more affection because Tryphon is. So yes,

Who is the big spoon: Claude

Who is the little spoon: Tryphon

What is their favourite sleeping position: Claude tends to lie flat, and Tryphon attaches himself like an octopus.

Who steals all the blankets: Tryphon

What they wear to bed: Claude wear a stripped down version of his suit, and Tryphon wears sweat-pants.

Who likes seeing the other wearing their t-shirt: I don’t think Claude even owns such a thing, much less wears one. Tryphon can be found in Claude’s clothing sometimes though.

Who falls asleep mid-conversation: Tryphon, but they tend to stay up in bed talking.

Who wakes up in the middle of the night with nightmares: neither of them really.

Who accidentally punched the other in their sleep: Tryphon, though it was an accident from when he rolled over in the night.

Who can’t keep their hands to themself: They’re both quite reserved

Who said “I love you” first: Tryphon

Who would have the other’s picture as their phone background: Claude does, because Tryphon did it. The lock-screen is plain though. 

Who leaves notes written in fog on the bathroom mirror: Tryphon

Who buys the other cheesy gifts: Claude gets them from wherever Tryphon is performing, along with some more respectable things.

Who initiated the first kiss: Claude

Who kisses the other awake in the morning: Tryphon

Who starts tickle fights: A Trancy Butler would never be seen doing something so uncouth. (This is a lie.)

Who asks who if they can join the other in the shower: Claude tends to join Tryphon

Who surprises the other in the middle of the day at work with lunch: On days when Tryphon is at the theatre, Claude does. On days when he isn’t, Tryphon brings Claude lunch.

Who was nervous and shy on the first date: Tryphon!

Who kills/takes out the spiders: Take out the spiders? Now why would they ever do that? Tryphon does, though this is more so he’s not living somewhere that’s infested by so many of them. Any fear he once had of spiders is now, long, long gone.

Name: Ariel de Grace

Gender: male

General Appearance: Tryphon is just superstitious enough to not entirely discount the idea that his child is one of the changelings spoken about in folklore, though he also thinks it may just be the result of a few weird recessive traits. Ariel has Aziraphale’s hair from birth, and his nose, though Tryphon’s more angular features.

Personality: There are stories about children with the thousand yard stares, and eyes that see more than is there, and some of the time, that’s accurate for Ariel. Others, he looks like any other person who’s spent a lifetime in and around the theatre in various capacities. Ariel is a cheerful person, and a bit mischievous most of the time. But there are moments when Tryphon swears his son is something not human. 

Special Talents: Ariel isn’t entirely human, or even for that matter, mostly human. And it’s because of that that he seems to see things that no one else does, except for his parents. He, like Tryphon adhere to the traditions of the theatre. (And if the reason he hadn’t attracted more than his fair share of monsters, is because he’s spent a lifetime being passed between his angelic father in London, and travelling the world to go wherever Tryphon’s newest performance is, well, no body needs to know.)

Who they like better: Ariel loves both of his parents equally, but if he had to pick one, he probably likes Aziraphale a bit more.

Who they take after more: Tryphon

Personal Head canon: Tryphon doesn’t really expect to end up in bed with the handsome older man who attends his performance, but high on the excitement from his second performance with the Royal Ballet, he does. And it’s one of the best night he can remember; between the performance and being taken to dine at the Ritz. After Ariel comes into existence, he spends his childhood being passed between his parents, spending most of the year with Aziraphale, and the summers with Tryphon. He ends up doing costume design.

Face Claim: Kriss Balch

AESTHETIC     HEADCANON     MUSIC     CHARACTER

• QUICK STATS •

NAME :: Tryphon de Grace NICKNAME :: Try, Phon, the papers call him Triumph FANDOM :: generic urban fantasy GENDER :: male ORIENTATION :: queer, polyamorous BIRTHDAY :: April 6th, 2000 ZODIAC :: Aries SHIPS :: chemistry

• BIOGRAPHY •

They had never been rich, but they’d been happy. His mother took him to her dance classes every Wednesday night, and the year end shows were free, so she brought him, and Tryphon can’t remember the first time he decided that he wanted to do that, and jump like gravity would just fall away. He wanted the grace and beauty that he saw. He wanted to be a ballerina.

The first year classes were meant for kids a little bit older than he was, meant for 5 year olds, not three and a half, so for the first year and a half, he used a plastic barre and a DVD with the steps on it. The cashier at the stores only looked at them oddly the first two times because they were buying the pink, girly ballerina barre, and not the hockey pads or football. Tryphon never cared though, he watched the DVD until he could recite it, and used the pink and white plastic tube barre until it was too short, and he could use the one at the actual studio instead.

Initially, he took ballet, and then when his mother got a slightly better job, and they moved to another part of the city with cheaper lessons, he took skating, and gymnastics, and anything that meant he could fly. And he was really good, but more than the talent, he really did seem to fly. When he was in his teens, he dropped a decent number of figure skating, and the gymnastics classes for more dancing ones when he realized that it was ballet that he really loved. 

 He could jump and all the reviews of the showcases and the competitions always mentioned how he seemed to ignore the rules of physics and soar through the air. And miraculously, he never seemed to get hurt, for all those potentially career ending before it ever really started falls, he always stood up again, none the worse for wear, except maybe a bruise or two. When he was 7, he fell and skid partway over the ice during one of his figure-skating classes, and he remembered the hush that fell over the rink, and the fear he’d never be able to dance, or skate ever again in the capacity he was. He was perfectly fine.

And if things were a little strange around him? Well, the arts were already full superstitions; the theatres kept the witch light on (and the lights kept things away, but it wasn’t like any of them ever really knew that fact). It was all like how the Scottish Play was never mentioned by name.

He dreamed of being whisked away to the Bolshoi, or the Royal Ballet in London and it never seemed to come, but during the summers, and the school years, and every other break he could get, he was at the studio, or doing an intensive program, or practicing for the most recent performance. 

The dream to be one of the principal dancers at the Bolshoi or the Royal Ballet remains. Tryphon dances, and most of the time, doesn’t even notice the strange things at the periphery of his vision.

• PHYSICAL •

FACE CLAIM :: Julian Mackay HEIGHT :: 5′8″ BUILD :: slim, muscular, a dancers build VISUAL AGE :: 20 || until 25, he will continue to visibly age ACTUAL AGE :: 20 HAIR :: blonde/brown EYES :: blue SPECIES :: Nephilim (half human, half angel) HAND :: right GLASSES :: yes, but not when he’s performing IDENTIFYING :: Tryphon’s feet are… well they’re not pretty. The toes are relatively flat lengths, and more often than not, they’re covered in bandaids from where his shoes were starting to wear, and while not an appearance, they bend in ways that the vast majority of people would call unnatural. 

• MENTAL •

FAITH :: Complicated... Tryphon doesn’t really believe in God, he’d probably describe himself as agnostic, but then there’s the fact that his father is an angel... (he doesn’t know that fact though). MARITAL STATUS :: single OCCUPATION :: ballet dancer EDUCATION :: A highschool diploma, and a decade and half of dance/gymnastics/figure skating lessons (supplemented with theatre), and a Juilliard degree in dance.  QUIRKS :: Tryphon is a dancer, and even when not on stage, he has a tendency to treat his life like a performance. Tables, and the backs of couches and chairs became makeshift barres, and during the spring, when half the sidewalks flooded with the winter thaw, he would jump across the puddles with a leap that looked like it would belong on a stage. 

• VERSES •