HOUSES

(In order of rank boxes)

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House Le Cerf

House Richt

House James

House Hexley

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House Fuegera

House Zaycas

____________

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House Ripley

House Inkette

House Frostfeld

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HOUSE MAGIC

House Le Cerf:

< electricity; able to tamper with electricity either helpfully or lethally, and there is a powerful lightning variant dating back to the founder that has (or hasn't…) died out already >

(Collective Mana: 1,340)

House Richt:

< blood control; incredible healing by guiding blood but also horrifically able to combust a person from the inside out >

(Collective Mana: 1,223)

House James:

< armory; amazing enhancements that defy the laws of plausibility are imbued inside almost indestructible armor that is made, and capable of being manipulated >

(Collective Mana: 1,058)

House Hexley:

< acid; specializes in poisons and can tamper with a person or creature’s stomach acids to make them gravely ill, wears incredibly strong, puddle-turning reducing armored gloves on their hands that fit like lace made by House James. (Officially ordered to wear them by the monarch or risk treason) >

(Collective Mana: 978)

House Fuegera:

< flames; can burst things or even themselves into flames >

(Collective Mana: 688)

House Zaycas:

< telekinesis; can shift anything without any physical exertion besides the other magical individuals >

(Collective Mana: 700)

House Frostfeld:

< weather manipulation; great water control that can make even the most severe droughts yield, and can turn away storms >

(Collective Mana: 227)

House Inkette:

< mind control; can whisper inside of another person or creatures mind and control them like puppets, but only if they are weak-willed >

(Collective Mana: 901)

House Ripley:

<curses; considered taboo magic and weak. Can imbue curse magic that can affect land, individuals, or even generations, but takes a year off of the caster’s life every time a curse is made. Had secret meetings with the monarch and officials dating back to the first Ripley where they were tasked to curse soldiers during wars and have their blood taint the enemies battlefield. >

(Collective Mana: 1,285)

HOUSE QUALITIES

Le Cerf: a person with the founders power is born with purple eyes and white (?) hair

Richt: typically has sharp green eyes and exceptional skin

James: founders bloodline typically has silver hair or silver-esque hair and taller physiques

Hexley: exceptional eyesight, typically blondes

Fuegera: surprisingly cold skin, long, manicured nails, almost claws

Zaycas: big eyes typically shorter, brown hair, like they just can’t grow any longer

Frostfeld: founders line typically has long, silky dark blue hair

Inkette: founders line has siren eyes and less body fat

>SETH<

–

Name: Seth Ripley // Nicknames: Make your own // Age: 19 // Gender: Male

Sexuality: Heterosexual // Height: 6’4 // Body: Mesomorph // Parentage: Eric Ripley & Samantha Ripley // Birthdate: November 8th

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ADD ONS

House: Ripley (His lineage has always had control over the house) // Role: Young Lord of House Ripley. // Power: Curse Magic

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Appearance:

Where hauntingly dark eyes lay, along with the rest of the firm facets peppered all over his visage, is atop a square-like shape with a jaw that looks as if it were sculpted with diamonds and no less than. Seth has a slightly wider hair line that races almost in a straight line across his forehead - which is tall but not overtly so. His jawline, aside from being a straightaway from either ends of his mistily present sideburns, and above that the very edges of his hairline, is angular and unsurprisingly strong. It slants sharply towards his chin, which is not pointed, but rather broad with a thin, shallow cave in the middle. With just the bottom half of his face, Seth looks like he could slice through titanium if a large piece were chucked at him.

Seth Ripley has an odd sort of beauty to him: hot “black” eyes that can pierce through shadows ironically enough - but his irises don’t need to be bright to flash, to give off that eerie, cold feeling creeping up your spine like a terribly slow insect…Seth has a gaze that looks as if it capsules phantoms, and eyelashes just above that which curl above his cheeks like long, inky threads. His lashes stick close together and look rather thick, like a makeup wand was swept through them less than carefully. His bottom lashes look intense against his skin, a soft, honey-gold, and in simple terms - “light brown.” With Seth's bottom lashes, while a splendid contrast against his flesh, gives him a look of quiet exhaustion - accentuating the shadows beneath his eyes until his, unfortunately usual dark circles seem much more than just muted lines, but unchecked insomnia. But foregoing any illnesses Seth may or may not have, even with his darker facets, there's a sort of tender vision when it comes to Seth Ripley’s face.

Closely above his eyes are black, straight brows that look as if they were colored in with a stencil. “Thickly furred,” they sit almost tightly above his eyes and nearly “overhang” where his forehead extends. Because of this, Seth’s eyes look to be hooded, and yet his bottom halves stretch slightly downwards to where even his pupils don’t meet, but hover inside his scleras like black moons. His nose is slightly crooked and turns down at the tip, but most appearing is the hitch in which it inclines, a bump if you will. His nose is thin but his nostrils are strong and don’t cave into themselves, but open up more like a nice fleshy canvas for piercings or dare say marring. As for lips, the ever so lovely feature most, if fortunate enough, wield like glossy weapons, Seth has a dangerously slim pair. He’s a little more bottom heavy, and should a thumb ever find its way gliding across it, there would actually be ample space for caressing, however it should be carried out. But his top lip, which if not being slid over and over by his busy, busy tongue, will be outshined by his lower half, even in all of its slender glory. The color of Seth’s lips are a sort of dark peach, if not tan with soft, irritated hues - like the skin on his lips had been nibbled on over some serious thought. And inside his tenderly down-set mouth lie small, square shaped teeth; faintly yellow with “ivory blades” for canines.

Seth Ripley, true to his chasmic pair of eyes, his dark brows, and the various black threads of armpit and leg hairs, has equally inky tresses. His hair is thin but not overtly so - easily slicked back, which is his go to, and easily manipulated. His locks reach just a bit past his neck but don’t hang in tendrils around the sides of his face. Seth’s hair stays behind his head whether by wax or water, and serves as a sort of overgrown slick-back if anything, hanging back against his nape like obsidian silk. Unbeknownst to most though, Seth’s hair isn’t very finger-running friendly - not if you want to slide your fingers across his “helmet for hair.”

Seth’s shoulders are broad - like he wouldn’t be able to fit through your average closet door sort of broad. Despite the clean-shaven, almost feminine beauty to him that looks as if a thousand butterflies could land upon his face as if it were made of nectar whole, Seth has an unmistakably muscular body. His biceps bulge against tight-fitting shirts and his forearms are straight with powerful veins. Seth’s hands have more so finger-length than thickness, and his knuckles protrude like they were etched sharply by a careless artist. His pecs are thick and squishy and are not far off from his stomach in comparison. Seth doesn’t have much fat in his abdomen, but he’s not quite thin enough to have an onslaught of abs. At most, nestled beneath his chest lay a faintly present four pack and a just barely skinny waist that just barely lets people know how good he’d look in a skirt, let alone basketball shorts.

Personality:

>Expressive<

Traffic, if it could ever exist on a human face, would be plastered all over Seth’s in the form of blaring lights, tipped over cones, and foggy-worded signs. His eyes light up like street lights - filtering through the obscurity of night like tiny, blinking blazes. And his eyes also do other things, like melt away into chips and harden themselves into cold indifference. Various adjectives could be used to describe the traffic on Seth’s face, the numerous looks that ghost by and tilt his lips or narrow his eyes, or even looks that don’t vanish after a couple of uses, but become a sort of trademark; gliding across his teeth in the shape of a moist, salmon tongue. Despite his frosty bearing, Seth is…a grinner. Not particularly of joy or contentment, but something much more smug - perhaps “sinister.” Seth isn’t a husk within another husk trapped inside of a labyrinth of puzzles and binding shells, he fronts his emotions, any emotions openly, be it faux, real, or some sort of hybrid. The man rarely smiles for happiness, the malformed lumps of joy a person can swallow and digest like a greedless titan…but spite. Cold-eyed, lip-licking spite; a vinous little grin that all but whispers: “Eat me”

Seth isn’t at all difficult to read. Any emotion that passes him, save for desire, will be threaded into his face like a flashy font. But who’s to say that the emotions he’s showing are true? Visage alone, Seth Ripley can be a trustless person, and if he had a fine print, it’d probably be: “Viewer discretion advised.”

>Bratty<

At times…well, all the time, Seth has this sort of faint superiority cast over him like the sheen of dew over supple flowers. On the contrary, he doesn’t outright think that he’s better than any he comes across, but possesses a sort of regality that speaks otherwise. Despite what he emanates; an air of steely indifference, Seth is actually quite the troublesome person. He has expectations that make him seem spoiled, like in all of his years he’s received rubies as flowers and pony rides to summertime villas. If his face doesn’t get him into trouble (Grinning like an unfortunately hot maniac), then his attitude definitely will. He’s demanding, forthright, and bold, unafraid to seize whatever so happens to catch his eye. But he’s also incredibly picky, able to pluck the ire out of even the most patient person around with his inability to let go of the menu even after dinner is served.

>Quiet<

Seth isn’t all that chatty. In fact, he’s a borderline wallflower, melting into the background during cacophonous crowds and only revealing himself when there's wine to be drunk. On a different, intersecting plane, Seth is a serious person. Yes he’s hard to please like a tyrant, and he’ll blow a raspberry at you for no apparent reason, but there's an almost appalling amount of firmness toning him beneath the wraps. Like the way a skeleton supports the rest of the body from the inside, hidden beneath the flesh, but still evident in the hardness of knees and shins, or the way a person's spine shows like crocodile ridges. It may not be completely obvious, but it's definitely there, the toughest quality of all. Seth takes things seriously whether it be an unsavory reaction or a goofy proposal, he’s a man who’ll intensely consider things for no good reason. It's a type of logic that surpasses all logic, and bleeds away into obliviousness. And because of that fact, it may not be best to favor jokes in his presence, not if you want a reaction of nothing but hard, unamused eyes.

>Preserving<

In terms of basic human compassion, he has very little. He’s a man driven by his own personal cravings, and can be considered a glutton when life is his sweet. Seth values himself above all else, and has very little space in his “I Want” index for any others. But when something or someone actually does manage to catch his attention, surprisingly enough, he keeps his distance, observing from blind spots, taming himself at their side without them even knowing it. In other words, he’s not the shadow, but the person watching said shadow from afar, simply content with tinkering in from…not the sidelines, but from up above. That is after all where puppetry takes place - where the strings fall down and guide any and all limbs that the master can command on a whim. Seth is the type of person to carve whatever path he personally thinks is best for the person of his affections, whether they want it or not. And sometimes his decisions aren't all that selfless either. The path he carves could be entirely for himself, and he’d be deluded enough to think that it’d be beneficial to the other party as much as it was beneficial for him too. And with that said, Seth can be a delusional person - in a way that he thinks he can achieve the impossible all on his own or in a way that he believes that his judgment alone is the greater good. He wholeheartedly believes that he’s the lesser of two evils in almost every scenario, and it can be damaging to those involved.

>Impractical<

Seth has a more than non traditional approach to things. He runs through life and chases adrenaline like a monster, forgetting all else, even the laws of plausibility. He can appear sort of manic at times, not entirely so, but his lust for adventure and the many unconventional harvests of life beckon him - tight against his throat like a dog on a leash. One thing about Seth Ripley is that he’ll never stop chasing the pointless things in life, the meaningless, and he’ll always take a look at things from a rose tinted point of view. Don’t get me wrong, the man can be and is a realistic person, but he goes about things in an entirely different manner that can make a person's mind go up in smoke.

>Angry<

A person's temperament is their nature, write hotheaded in their genetic code and that's how they’ll be. Seth has that written in his code…in permanent ink. He’s not necessarily a snappy person, in fact, he tolerates a lot. And there’s no describable limit to just how much he tolerates. But there's certain instances where he doesn’t want to listen or talk. He just wants to sever heads. Seth doesn’t go from zero to one hundred, he’s already there; laying elbows back on top of the hill, waiting for that one moment that just blows shit up.

>Flustered<

There may never be a day where Seth is caught off guard, only in the vicissitudes of love. He doesn’t make a habit of teasing, that is unless his toothy, vampiric smiles could ever be enough to do the job, but Seth does have his moments. It's not the fun, playful type of teasing either, but the type that makes a person question if somethings wrong with them, and not because their heart is fluttering. While Seth may not at all be the best flirt, and neither cares much for it, surprisingly enough he’s a three-legged deer when the roles are reversed. He doesn’t process flirtatious advancements well, and can either come off as arrogant or devoid if faced with flirt monsters. Seth is the type of person to detach himself using rude words in an all too clever attempt to conceal his flaming hot hide. If (but rarely) he does have the urge to reciprocate, he’ll come on either way too strong, albeit cluelessly, or callous. He’ll place scorching kisses on the skin of his conquest, or fucked up words that, funnily enough, will leave some wanting more. It all depends on how much interest he takes…or how little.

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Scent: He frequently wears a heady cologne that smells of some sort of smoky sweet.. // Voice: Deep and smooth, kinda like the feeling you get after biting into chocolate and swallowing a cold glass of water.// Preferences: Wintry days, dark hair, felines, hot soup, long legs, sleeping // Accessories: He likes to wear black eyeliner and smokey eyes, and on some occasions, black lipstick. Seth also has studs in his earlobes and sometimes sports silver or gold bands on his fingers. // Tattoos: None // Relationship Status: Super single, how he likes it. // Love Language: Acts of service // Thinks about: No one

Theme Songs:

Meddle About

Magnolia Park - "Misfits" (feat. Taylor Acorn)

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ADD ONS

(c) Hera_ @ Picrew.me

(Not 100% accuarate)

(c) Elena Illustrations @ picrew.me

(Not 100% accurate)

Winter winds billowed large, scarlet fronds overhead and coated twisted, massive trunks. On horseback, racing through the flakes of floating frost felt like hoards of pelting shards. But one hand was peeled away from the reins, coalescing glowing, sapphire liquid that congealed into a dark, glossy sword and brushed the sylvan treetops. The weight of ten was held in one, and the muscles in his right converged against his sleeves like they were just short of bursting and revealing his strained, sweaty bicep. He held the sword higher with a low grunt until a spiral of flames shot from around the hilt and his reddened knuckles, coiling around the blade until the dark blues bled away into a hellish red; not quite like blood, but a vibrant carmine like winsome carnations. The air surrounding felt like spice in his lungs, choking him like an invisible pair of burning hands. In his left hand, the great steed’s reigns were clasped like stars were trapped against his palms, and he was too greedy to let go. The clothing around his right arm disintegrated against the blaze, sizzling his own flesh with a horrible hiss.

As the fiery sword crackled above, dwindling the snowy leaves overhead until cold, mottled sludge scattered everywhere like thick rain drops, the heavy thudding of hooves ran on like a haunting record, and the thunderous screams echoing off of gnarled trunks and empty hills couldn’t light a candle to it. Not to him. As he faced the rogue beast with two, furry heads and snappy, salivating jaws, all Seth heard was the horses beating hooves, the nervous chittering above, and the wet, wintry air raking past his ears. As his skin burned against the fluttering flames, Seth gritted his teeth, intaking more of the air that felt like it was burning him from the inside out. The giant white steed, its pelt as pure as the snow frosting the once sparkling, emerald green undergrowth, reared up into the air with flinging hooves and a whipping white mane. With the massive beast just right in his path, so close that its hot, sticky breath was panted onto his face like an unwelcome sauna, and its angry red eyes flickered to the side of its head, piercing into him like two, foreshadowing pairs of jaws. Time seemed to freeze, at least to Seth. And for a moment the fire stopped hurting, the world of mythical forest stopped melting around him, and their eyes met; the raging red eyes encompassed by spiky obsidian fur, with snowfall glittering in between, for a moment Seth enjoyed those eyes.

The monster tossed its head to the side and overtook its own shoulder, the rest of its stumpy body, almost like a lizard in comparison, was flung behind its two heads as easily as a person would flick their wrist. With his horse still at a stand, roaring its ardent dismay and tottering dangerously on its back legs, Seth released the reins and unhooked himself from the giant brown saddle, with the intensely searing sword clenched in his right hand, no matter how fierce his grasp was, he could feel his wrist bending backwards, and he could see the blade diving straight towards his head. Forgetting all else, with an enormous heave and a furious grunt, Seth grabbed the flaring blade with his left hand and plunged it into the lunging beast’s skull, its drooling fangs just inches away from his stomach - his entrails. The monster, its vaulting body with no conscience, no life to control it, collapsed to the ground with the sound of two, thundering heads falling after it. Green, slushy blood poured out of its wound, and its eyes glazed over with a ghastly, matte sheen.

Seth, with a sharp, slightly foaming hiss, tore his hands away from the flaming weapon and allowed his body’s toppling descent into the tall, cold feathery grasses. His steed shot off with a lily-livered scream, eyes white with scleras and round with fear. The spiky ferns nearby shifted like flicking fingers, and the wind blew some of its snow onto his face. For a moment Seth laid there with white, almost iridescent crystals powdering his lashes, hanging above his tipped-up, onyx eyes and covering the view of pretty violet dawn. After crunching his hands, first palms, and then tightly held fists into the snowy terrain beneath, Seth rose the most agonizing parts of his body up above his eyes, and drank in what looked like boiled skin, angry red flesh surging up his bare arm in stripes and still hot to the touch. A whimsical, almost orange breeze raced past Seth with a force that’d blow a twiggier person into a canopy of trees, and with a low groan, he forced himself up onto his elbows and watched the fire sword, still planted into the thick depths of one of the beast’s heads, wither away into a smoldering pile of ash that the forceful orange breeze took with it further into the forest, surging past the trunks of trees and east - back to its owner probably soaking in a rose petal bath inside the Fuegera mansion.

With a smirk, a scoff, and a stifled curse, Seth rose to his feet like a jointless corpse, like a dracula tilting out of his coffin. One of the beast’s heads groaned weakly, the one without the monstrous slash in its skull, and it panted faintly from its open, oozing jaws, staring straight through him with its beady scarlet eyes, like its other head was a ghost, dancing around Seth’s shoulders. Overcome with disgust for the pitiful creature, Seth pulled an average dagger out of the unburned side of his cloak, advanced upon the dreadful head, and sliced its throat. Viridescent blood ebbed into the ground beneath, and all was silent. The slurred growls and groans were no more. And so was Seth. No more.

With the 15th monster slain guarding the path to the Ripley Estate, most would consider the job done and well done. But as a jet black bird, as massive as an eagle but with the intelligence of a raven, flew down onto his outstretched arm in a cascade of luminescent feathers, Seth knew that his duty wasn’t over. My bride… He mused, and in an instant he was lost in his memories, if only for a second, he was back inside the summoning room where shadows swirled where sunlight should have been and great big pillars were stamped in looming rows like trees and attached themselves to the ceiling. His grandfather sat in the first chair as if it were a throne, and Seth stood just before him, hands in his pockets and a bratty smile sewed onto his face; all things that were good until the news dropped down on him like a sack of one ton marbles. Now as he unrolled the parchment paper previously closed inside of the bird's long talons, the disappointment from all those days ago came swimming back inside of him like a fish too big for its tank. The travel guide had perished, a common, but trusted peasant who’s death sent something prickly rippling up the backs of all of the lords and lady’s of House Ripley by the magical emblem burned into their chest. Seth felt it hours ago. And hours ago he knew that the travel guide was dead…and he would be taking his place.

After surfing through waist-length thickets and pools of giant green fronds, Seth recaptured his stallion and galloped pointedly north, sheathing his hands, his telltale fingers with slick, leather gloves out of the saddle pocket sticky with black tipped thorns and honey colored sap. His once pure white stallion with a mane that glowed like luster was now reduced to mud stripes and tangled twigs. And as for Seth, half of his clothes were blown off, sizzled, brimstone still wrinkled the edges with a scent that inflated inside of his lungs like a sulfur balloon. The cold whipped against his skin as he rode to a destination he wasn’t even certain of, just the fact that his fiance was from one of the high horse houses that had to look so far down, their shadow could eclipse half the empire. The ride was insanely short, only an hour and a half in and Seth could see three, very expensive looking carriages rolling past the awning of leaves and long, outstretched trunks that Seth stood behind on top of his steed, watching the heavily embellished caravan and the paso fino horses with a particularly hefty look in his eyes that bore a resemblance to a brooding, half-lit sky.

The dawn hues trickled away into something much more cyanic, and a spittle of sunlight candled the sky with a sparkle. The snow heavy trees roofing overhead in various blues, reds, and sage greens glimmered like bubbles floated between the branches. This part of the forest was breath-taking, that much could be said; far off from his own fiefdom where cold, barren mountains were the back screen and the land was brown and sloppy. While Seth knew that his wife-to-be was from an extremely powerful house, he had more than enough trouble discerning which one. All he could hope for was that the woman’s last name was Richt and that she could heal his tender, un-licked wounds.

The massive bird, property of House Ripley, no longer sat on his shoulder with its claws that could turn gravestones. It flapped off into the sky with a new letter clenched inside its talons: I understand, it read. And Seth crumpled the old one into a spiky little ball and chucked it further into the trees with newfound, albeit troublesome resolve. After watching the moving carriages for a few more seconds, until the horses almost clopped out of sight, Seth whisked himself ahead on horseback and thundered out of the tree line just in front of the first coachman and the train of soldiers that whipped their guns and swords at him with agility that surpassed his own in his current state. He knew he’d have to be careful if he wanted to keep his head where it was.

Vivid discomfort raked through the air like thick, whipping tendrils, and if feelings could ever be vines, he’d be swallowed up within the masses and surfed up towards the stars. His stallion tapped the ground with a hoof and shook out his mane, and Seth could feel his muscles rippling beneath his fingers like insects were racing beneath his pelt. “My horse needs water.” He stated, disregarding the soldier’s words that were about as serious as a hummingbird’s wings and dismounting his fidgety steed. He could hear the sound of guns cocking at his head as soon as his boots thumped against the ground, and inhaled the crisp, morning air; crunching more softly through the snow in a way that the toe of his shoes kicked up more frost than it stepped over. “I’m nothing but a servant of House Ripley.” Seth spoke placidly, holding a particularly dark stare with the ceaseless soldier. With a sort of finality, he plunged his left fist inside of his scarcely stitched pants pocket and fished out a broken blue sapling that twisted like a white flag in the wind. “See here?” He held up the infant plant and waved it around like a wand. The roots were webbed in leftover soil that dribbled down onto the ground like tiny black spiders and sprayed carelessly onto some of the soldiers the more Seth flung it around. “This is a cerulean Majesto sapling that only grows inside of the Ripley fiefdom.”

His starless, intensely insipid eyes trailed almost inconspicuously down the first guard’s waist, contoured with a dark brown tunic, plates of steel, and a wide leather belt cupping a row of knives and a particularly heavy looking canteen. In an instant, Seth advanced upon the upset mare and the man strapped on top of her back, snatching the canteen from his belt loop with a light, silly laugh; tumbling out of him with an eclipse of satisfaction. “Halt!” The men surrounding chorused, and a long, pointed blade dug into the shallows of his back. Seth, deciding to ignore the confrontation of serrated Damascus steel, unscrewed the canteen with one hard twist and let the water topple down his throat in slender, sloppy waves. “Does she need water too?” He questioned, flicking his knuckles half-heartedly in the Paso Fino mare’s direction; churning the ground with interchanging hooves until the carpet of crunchy, powdery white was overthrown with impregnated, crystallized dirt. Meanwhile Seth let the rest of the mildly clear water roll out of its tin confines in sopping, silky cascades, straight into the palm of his hand where his needy white stallion indulged himself until his skin stopped shaking and his legs stopped flicking like he was about to bolt.

“Now,” He spoke, weaving through the outstretched swords and gun barrels like he was walking through a maze of flowers. “Let me see Her Ladyship.” Seth finished after remounting his horse. Then a flash of inky, shiny black hair fluttered into his view like threads of onyx butterflies. “Who’s that?” The woman questioned, and suddenly most, if not all focus was on her. An exchange between the coachman and purple-eyed woman flew out like she was nothing more than a disobedient child, and displaced the hostile, head slicing atmosphere with something much more paltry in comparison - if only for a moment. Seth watched her, his eyes roaring something dark, maybe even curious, but especially dissecting. In the kicked up, frosty descent of confusion, quietly, Seth watched the plum-eyed, crow feather haired princess wrinkle her shoe into the forgotten Majesto sapling, grafted into the snow until icy blue secretion saturated the stamped on ivory like frozen crystal veins.

Without a word, Seth watched the woman retreat back inside of her illustrious carriage where one dark silhouette became two; shifting around like a pair of recreant hatchlings past the gold rimmed windows glazed over with balding patches of rime. He didn’t quite know what was flickering through him at that moment in time. Was it friction? - Zapping through his chest like galvanic ether in ascending storm clouds, or was it something much more infantile…like amusement, however faint; creeping within with a settlement of hotly said mirth gelling his steely eyes and evoking a murmuring from his throat like the motorbike purr of a content feline. If it was some strange contortion of amusement, it must be fancied towards the fact that his perfunctory effort in retrieving the cerulean, now more so crippled plant, wouldn’t just be a half slitted gateway to proving that he could be a trusted character, but a wide open path with a yellow brick road rolled out beneath his feet. His precious rare sapling had been tarnished by no other than one of the esteemed women herself. How could they justly demand any more from him now?

“I come to escort you people through the monster infested roads and mischievous trees after fending off fifteen beasts without my cavalry, and this is how I'm to be treated?” With an unabsorbed look, like he was not in the moment but simply gazing in through a snow globe, Seth crept forward atop his stallion and gestured with a lazily opened hand at the trampled Majesto sapling. “I’ve lost my emblem in the fray of battle, and the only remnant of home that was not burned away by the flames has been destroyed by one of you people,” The cadence in his voice darkened like an unpacified sea; rolling out sucking waves capable of twisting a person to the blackest blues, deep down where not even a skull can be found. Although his legs were draped comfortably against his white steed’s flanks, Seth swiftly dismounted and thudded back against the ground where the cautiously drawn fire squad could extend their gun barrels right between his eyes if they wanted to. He withdrew his hands from his hips and let them ascend half-heartedly towards the skies; one clothed arm and one bare, though now beset with luminous, starry frost. The only thing keeping him from collapsing into the pool of snow beneath his feet and becoming swallowed by thick-set alabastrine was his almost unnatural tolerance of glacial climates. His mornings and evenings spent where the cold could catch him, enjoyably so, would do him good for many more times to come.

“I pose no threat,” Seth continued with a slightly beveled head and the running of his tongue over his frozen bottom lip. “But only the desire to gaze closely at the woman who took from me what was mine.” Then, as swiftly as the winds contested through the big tree leaves; spanking through the twilight blades overhead, Seth drew open the carriage door no one seemed to notice he’d been inching closer to, and looked casually inside of the warmer, crackling vessel. An electrifying current swept through him in an instant, stiffening Seth, if only for a moment, into an indecipherable silence. His stance wasn’t very gentlemanly like, his long, powerful arms were drawn two different ways - his left was snaked in an imposing way over the top of the carriage door way, that appendage alone overshadowing half of the velvety confines in his bulging black sleeves. And his right consisting of naked flesh and the coloration of wind-swept snow, hung almost limply against his dark pants leg and refracted a colorless stream of sunlight from his bicep into the carriage that not only glimmered on his skin, but shone empirically on the two women like they were crafted out of diamonds. With the way half of his torso showed, no, the way half of his clothes were missing, torn off by the sword’s flames, it wouldn’t have been out of character for the two women to pale in his resemblance of a half-naked, lustful bandit - but that was the least of his concerns right now.

Just which one is my bride-to-be? Sat together was the culprit - the woman with arresting, violet eyes and downy silver fur draped across her shoulders and neckline, and another woman with the purest set of saxe blue eyes like lapis lazuli and glamorous red-russet hair. One was dressed decidedly more showy than the other, but still…fashion was supposed to be objective, right? Receding slightly from the carriage, partly because of the shouting of: “Halt!” and the firm, cold clutches of the surrounding men. Within a few seconds, and without any resistance, Seth had his hands pinned behind his back with icy, binding cuffs. “Excuse me for my rudeness. I do not make it a habit to fling open the carriage doors of such fine ladies as yourself,” Seth rumbled, emitting this low, stomach flipping chuckle as he disregarded the soldiers and their weapons teasing against the back of his head. “But, My Lady,” He spoke, falsifying a sincere inflection in his silky tone. “I do not believe my actions warrant the presence of so many swords against my throat..” His eyes were on the woman with outmatching blue eyes and coppery hair. “Call off your men so that I may guide you through this difficult forest as I am meant to. Allow me to be your humble servant, if only for a few days.”

The wintry gale brushed over Seth like flapping cloth - except icy and nipping. The two women gazed up at him with two very different looks. One had terrified blue eyes, and the other an indifferent, dare say cold countenance that sent something rippling up his spine; a ticklish sting if you will that reminded him of the presence of nobility, except now it was in the form of vivid purple eyes and long black hair. Seth was wrong. And as he calmly flicked his dark, mystifying eyes towards the woman, possibly servant with russet colored locks, he knew now that she was not his bride-to-be. For certain. It was the woman with disgust curling her lips and words rolling from her tongue, orders, which to Seth felt like lyrics wading in the profundity of his mind. The absence of those numbing steel binds, crackling off of his wrists and allowing his hands to return vacantly to his sides, was a welcomed paradise; heat curling around his flesh where the carnage from the flames had peeled away. It was a hot, hurtful warmth, but in these winds it was respite.

The men surrounding seemed to withdraw - blades which glimmered beneath the daylight and seemed to sever even the racing, frosty draft with a sharp whistle, ebbed from his throat, receding back into their leathery shafts with a disgruntled huff from some of the guards. From them slipped umber crumbs from the shiny ridges of chest plates and the pads of shoulders, Seth noticed. Of course the men who had been showered by dirt would find their swords best suited in the concaves of his nape. At that, Seth almost laughed - however airy or silent, more so a scoff that blew from his lips, a spell of vapor that waded through the atmosphere for a moment or two before dispersing into the empyrean of heavenly blues above. The clothing thrusted into his arms by a man who, moments before, was rummaging through the trunks of one of the three ribbon-garnished carriages, was a welcome gift - light hued raiment with extended sleeves and a collar which would wrap almost tightly around his throat with pearl-like beads for buttons. It looked to be just around his size, though that presumption might be tested were Seth to curl his biceps in exertion.

Padding through the glistering frost, crumbling beneath his boots in cracks and embedded only further into the powdery terra in large, rigid footprints, Seth sauntered towards the back of the carriages, the back of heads which he was all too experienced with rescinding behind, and tore off the rest of his shirt. It was a black though charred long-sleeved made of cheaper fabric than the fine, alabastrine pelt the Heiress had practically ordered him to wear with but a half flick of her fingers. Seth didn’t fault her detached, chilling hues though. If a man halved in wildly burned garments and a gaze casted like he was merely rolling balls of yarn between cats, had bursted into one of his carriages…well, Seth wouldn’t have just brushed his shoulders of disrespect. He’d have bent himself over the intruder, face planted into the ground, and the heel of his wintry boot dug into the back of their neck, a lazy but tyrant smile showing the tops of his teeth, relatively white until blood would splatter over his opened lips in a color like a lovely damask rose. But, Seth convicted, dismissing my words, all of them, that is something that I cannot allow.

Clothes as dark as coal fell in tatters against the ground, frayed threads evanescing into the snow, and some peeling over the ground like weak black veins. The air space which nearly constructed a tiny little tundra on top of his skin, enveloped him in a mild embrace. As the sun rose, the winds died off against the leaves and sunk down from the clouds in a cold, but peaceful stillness, gracing the flesh of his upper body in a way that could case him slowly in ice…peacefully. Before any appendages could darken like death - like his inherited fingers, Seth took the shirt he had momentarily slung over his shoulder and stretched it over his head and body. The arm holes were a tight but pleasant fit, but the fabric around his pectorals stressed against them, distending tautly and warranting a brief concern that all the strings may give way and fly off of him towards the tree tops. But the quality was of much greater strength than what Seth would usually garb himself in and casually destroy during one of his “villainous” escapades. It was a quality that probably had gold twined in just because…well, just because gold can be twined in. And Seth wouldn’t put it past the Heiress adorned in pricey looking fox fluff to order gold stitched into her garments. For a moment, as he stood behind the row of carriages, only a few suspicious eyes configured of browns and hazels oscillating over him, fearful that he may bolt, attract his white stallion from the forest’s bowels with nothing but two claps, and dissolve amongst the sylvan labyrinth as quick as mist, Seth…well, he did deliberate the maneuver for a second or two - lest he somehow find himself blanketed in chains.

It was a vivid possibility for him. What with his angular tongue and playful defiance that may not bode well when in the presence of an ice queen, Seth still did not know what magic the woman possessed. Was it the fine healing qualities of a Richt? Or perhaps something much more acidic harbored within her? The carriages were dressed in magnificent lavender hues on a snow white background, surely that had to mean something. A house's colors is what they were. And if only Seth had frequented the social gatherings more often, he’d have been able to place the colors to nobility, faces to names, and fame to power. But the Ripley fiefdom kept to their own, almost recluse amongst the mountains and woods which nearly encircled the noble estate like a spiny, emerald ring. The family of curse magic would rather be swallowed up within the castle walls, borne from shadows strung secretly from surface to surface, and rarely saying a word to one another save for: “the capital summons.”

Seth had only been on assignment within the capital once, the very first time an entire year off of his life was stolen from him the the moment he had used his magic to construct an invisible roil of doom over the heads of a disgraced noble family, compulsing anyone near the Ahmsted’s to jerk themselves over a railing, anything in their path, just to get away from them. It was a petty instruction for Seth, even if the Ahmsted’s really did murder that little boy trapped in their basement - a grayed, hollow corpse that still had its fingers stuck inside the cracks of a wall, like the child was trying to scratch his way through the ashen plane out of one last display of desperation. It was a sight Seth had to gaze upon in order to carry out his duties, a sight which had plagued him as grossly as flies for many nights afterwards.

Just as Seth was about to stroll out into the forest, reclaim his annoying, disloyal steed, and circle the roads from ahead in search of a monster’s slobbery appendage, a badge if you will, to truly display his abilities as not only a well- enough travel guide, but a human beast with a skillful blade, the cacophonous thrashing of hooves and jingling of lost reins disturbed the frosty suspension, and seemed to send the entire band in a chaotic, whirling descent. A flash of opportunism struck through him as quickly as lightning may bolt from the sky - it was a good distraction, a great one. Seth could vanish into the viridescent, wooded sea in a matter of moments and not have to suffer through the vexing holler of soldiers who think that they could ever catch up to him. But a woman's familiar voice, shot into the air and laced with hot fury, thrusted all notion of his quickly unfurling plan out of the window. With a slightly annoyed exhale, Seth padded out from behind the last carriage with a leathered-up hand shoveling wet, silky strands draped over his shineless eyes, to the back of his head where his tresses sat against his nape in still straights.

There she was, fiercely protecting the unruly mare, her hands brushing the lustrous snowy mane from around the mare’s neck and resting her palm against the side of her throat like an angel’s gentle touch. But, Seth classed, she is not any divine creature that may descend from the skies… “A disobedient horse must be slaughtered.” Seth commented, lips curling into a small, foxy smile. He had watched her care so much for an animal, and completely disregard his loyal, kiss ass pledge - practically tossing an article of clothing over his face before dispersing towards a horse as tenderly as the clouds may waft through the blue celeste overhead. Now his sharp, conspicuous words were only a testament to his own coarseness, a potent look in his eyes which only intensified when she whipped around to face him and stuck him hard with a stare. Luckily for her, if Seth had truly believed in his words, his own stallion would have been slain long ago.

"I don't know if your business here is what you really say it is, but you can stay. Any funny business and I'll have your head." The soldier closest thundered, making a point by gliding a hand over the tough, dark brown sheath where a silvery weapon could slice through his appendages if need be. Seth nodded slowly, head cocking to the side as he gazed closely at the purple-eyed woman before him. “My duty is to escort you to the Ripley Estate.” Pointedly, he added, “I’ve given the spiel to you before, My Lady, but you did not so much as heed my words. Instead you disregard me. You must share the qualities of a fool if you think it is wise to treat the only man who can guide you and your people safely to the fiefdom, so coldly.” A grin enveloped his face, deliberately as a snake may prowl across the ground. “But I will acknowledge my rudeness in mistaking your servant as the lady in charge.” Seth bowed, though only dipped himself in a small, apathetic descent. “I am wearing the finery you have instructed me to wear. Now allow me to lead the way outside of these haunted lands…unless you’d like to threaten your men some more?”