The peace that formerly reigned in Terra Nova has eroded, now little more than a memory. War ravages the continent. Disputes divide kingdoms; ideals divide families. The quest for power consumes absolutely and indiscriminately. None are immune to its allure.
Who will rise and who will fall? Only time—and ambition—will tell.
UPDATES
05.26.2023
2 month character creation hold for all existing members begins 6/5/2023. Ended 8/5/2023.
10.29.2023
Change in how times flows. Was 4 IC seasons, now only 2 IC seasons per 1 OOC year.
5 whole years of Heir Apparent goodness! When I started the site, I knew I was hunkering down for the long haul, but I never could have predicted the numerous twists and turns this roleplay site has seen. Hundreds of plots, characters, and members have come and gone, all leaving marks on the site. I am so very thankful for those who have invested. Because you keep coming back, keep getting on, and keep writing, Heir Apparent has the legacy it does today. Three cheers to us!
The next Dresmondi stepped forward and stood silently in front of them for what seemed like forever. Adeline was about to tell him to hurry up when he finally set down a chunk of gold on the altar. Adeline raised an eyebrow at it, her head tilting to the side, assessing the size and value of it.
"You could have had something made from this. Surely one of the blacksmiths could have assisted you in this, if you do not know how to do it yourself. Still, I suppose now we can have something custom made." She shrugged, not bothering to move from her seat. "One brand, I suppose."
If she had not been so pleased with the earlier gifts, she may had said no brands. As it was, she was in a fairly good mood at this point.
Both Queens approving of her tribute was a relief, but it could hardly show on her face when she watched the bracers she'd made fall to the ground, ignored by the man who they had been made for. Her eyes followed them when they landed, lips parting in the slightest gasp followed by a swallow of worry when she glanced back up and found him still staring at her. Had she somehow insulted him by offering something to him? Had it seemed like a slight to gift the Queens with a larger tribute than she had to him? As much as she had wanted that mark, it was hardly worth the risk of catching the attention of Hiram Eldouir. Some before her had offered them much less, and she could have used the leather and fur from those bracers to make new winter boots for herself. It was a waste, and had done nothing good for her, it seemed. But it was too late to take it back now.
One more mark, all things considered. She wouldn't hold onto that terrifying, piercing gaze. The Queen's word was all she needed, and Savi was growing increasingly anxious under the gaze of a much stronger predator. He beckoned to her and she bowed her head to the three of the them, retreating somewhere into the back of the crowd to catch some quiet gasps of fresh air in hopes of quelling her sudden onset of nausea. When she felt sufficiently calm again, she began to search the crowd for Embric and Aine.
She could feel @myla’s eyes on her. Watching. Staring. Luka swallowed, keeping her eyes somewhere between the altar and the ground in front of the Dresmondi she couldn’t look at. Not now. She felt naked without her hat, with her hair around her shoulders for anyone—for everyone—to see. It was only when Ninevah’s antlers moved in the crowd that she finally looked up, round eyes jumping to find @kit emerging from the throng of Dresmondi.
Her face bent and her forehead scrunched while he opened his hand over the altar. The gold that spilled out made her stomach twist. He needed that. Not them. It was his. Just like she was.
“Grem, tell him I’m sorry, tell Nin—tell Nin…” Tell her what? This was the part she had refused to imagine. She’d thought it all out right up until the part where she took off her hat and had to live with the consequences. “Just…tell her I’m sorry.”
Shifting on her shoulder, Grem waited until the last gold piece hit the altar before he told Ninevah. That Luka was sorry, that he was sorry. He wanted to say more, but a part of him was too angry to make the words up for himself. This was Luka’s choice, and—even now—he thought it was the wrong one.
Post by Hiram Eldouir on Oct 13, 2022 13:51:56 GMT -5
Hiram, eyes still on @xanthe, moved towards @adeline and bent to whisper in her ear.
"Bring that last woman back. I want her sent to my room." He could have raised his voice and done it himself, of course, but the Eldouirs were playing the game of monarchs and Adeline and Elena were the acting queens.
Elena, uninterested in the crude metal, shrugged without care. She wouldn't have given the Dresmondi a mark, but Adeline was young and easy. She waved her hand and called,
Taz—who was typically a foul, unwashed creature—had gussied up. She was proof that even a chamber pot could shine if you worked hard enough to scrub the shit off. Her curls bounced as she sauntered in with a toxic smile, her corseted getup clinging to every ample curve, revealing cut spotlighting every rounded muscle. Taz wasn’t a beautiful woman. But with all the trappings of beauty, she was something quite stunning. Shocking, more like. Her most startling accessory was the evidence of the beating Hiram had witnessed. Contusions littered her skin in a tie dye of greens and purples with a few scabbed over places thrown in the mix. But Taz made no effort to hide her wounds. Instead, she wore them proudly and approached, as if they were expensive jewelry.
Taz popped her weight on one hip as she surveyed the other offerings with skepticism. Her eyes lingered for a moment on Luka with something bordering on jealousy, but quickly enough it was put away. What did she have to be jealous of? She might be an Eldouir by blood, but at the end of the day she was a Dresmondi just as they were. And not a particularly impressive looking one at that.
“How fortunate @myla could fetch you so many soldiers,” Taz said with a dismissive glance at Eirwen & Yule , “And some trinkets and a family reunion—how touching.” Taz crossed her arms, looking at Hiram Eldouir now with a lascivious gaze and a playful smirk.
“I offer you a child—one not yet conceived.” Taz’s smirk split into a toothy grin as her eyes remained fixed on Hiram.
“Your child.”
Taz was delusional enough to think such a thing was worth desiring. She was a narcissist to the enth degree, determined to bind herself to greater power and dissociate herself from the Dresmondi scum she’d been forced to mix with.
Rikki, as per usual, was sitting eagerly next to Taz, breathing heavily, his feet dancing with nervous excitement.
Adeline tilted her head towards Hiram to hear him better, then a toothy grin spread across her face as she popped up out of her chair, raising her voice to call out over the crowd.
"The Dresmondi who brought us the capes, return to the altar at once." Her eyes would scan for the woman, and the other Dresmondi would surely turn and look as well until @xanthe was picked out of the crowd. Adeline returned to her seat, assuming the Dresmondi would not be stupid enough to make them actually hunt her down.
Then the next participant stepped forward and Adeline's head tilted yet again, except in a more appreciative way as her eyes traveled up and down the woman's body. And yet her tribute was not offered to the queens, but to Hiram. Raising an eyebrow, Adeline turned to look at Hiram, a look of slight amusement on her face as she awaited his response.
Aine didn’t have to tell Embric when Xan and Savi stepped forward to present their tribute, for he had seen Echo perk up from where he sat quietly at the man’s feet. Peering through the crowd, he glimpsed the familiar maned wolf who had caught his hound’s attention, and as she presented the cloaks and bracers for which she had worked her hands raw, he barely dared to breathe. And then, a wave of relief: one brand. She would be safe.
“It’s over,” Aine told Savi, echoing Embric’s own thoughts as the pair backed away from the altar. For now, he didn’t add, because they deserved to relax tonight and could worry about next year tomorrow. He let out a slow breath and forced his sweaty hand to unclench around the leather lead as a boy presented gold. Clinging to the thought of finding Xan and Savi later, of all four of them returning to Kasni, and then perhaps heading to Ermir’s tavern - if it was open - to try to forget the entire day, he almost managed to control the potent combination of nausea and fear and disgust welling up inside him.
He needn’t have bothered. A moment later, one of the queens caused his heart rate to spike in a single sentence. “No!” Aine gasped, just as Embric, whose head had turned alongside everyone else’s, spotted her. His mind raced, trying and failing to find any flaw with her tribute that might have caused them to her back. She had been deemed worthy of a brand, surely— “Savi—” The gyrfalcon started addressing the maned wolf, but an amalgamation of alarm and utter helplessness overwhelmed the rest of her words. What could she say to Savi anyway? Refusing to return, as she so wanted to urge them to do, would only make it worse, and she wouldn’t do them the disservice of offering painfully empty promises of safety or platitudes that neither of them would believe. The monsters wanted their daughter, and everyone knew all too well how they liked to play with their food before eating it.
Xanthe hadn’t been gone from the altar for long. She’d still been searching the crowd for Embric and Aine as the next Desmondi presented his tribute. Passing familiar face after familiar face. It shouldn’t be so hard to find a near blindingly white bird, but with all of the animals there it was proving to be a little difficult. There was a reason she’d gone all this time without finding him, but now that she had, she didn’t want to lose him again.
So at first she wasn’t quite sure she’d heard it correctly. The Queens words had passed into one ear and out the other, but those in the crowd around her had heard them perfectly, as had Savi. The anxiousness that had plagued him when they first left the altar had only just settled, and returned again now much worse. The two paused in the center of the crowd, looking at one another. ”Stay behind me. Do nothing.” She warned him, and then turned to make her way through the crowd. They parted for her like they were stepping back from disease, but their faces told another story. One she could not begrudge them for.
There was no sense in being slow about it. Making them wait would only hurt her more in the end. She stepped up at the same time as the next Dresmondi to present tribute - another woman, maybe around her age. One she didn’t recognize. But unlike this woman, who presented her tribute confidently by offering herself up to Hiram proudly like some kind of fool, Xanthe had no idea why she was being called back. She’d been granted one mark. The Queens had been happy enough with her tribute. So then, it seemed both women who stood at the altar were now subject to Hiram Eldouirs whims. One voluntarily, and one much less so.
Xanthes bleeding fingers rubbed nervously against the bandages on the inside of her palms. Savi stood behind her, close, his head bowed. They said nothing, just waited.
Post by Hiram Eldouir on Oct 14, 2022 13:59:55 GMT -5
Hiram's eyes were still on @xanthe. Had they left them since she had presented her offerings? It wasn't typical for the Eldouir to appear bewitched, but that was likely the only word that could be used to describe the way his golden gaze stalked the dark-haired woman. He didn't look towards Tazmin, not when she stepped up, not when she started talking, and not even when she finished with the great reveal, offering Hiram something she didn't have and quite possibly couldn't produce. Hiram didn't even look down at Adeline. He simply drank of the Dresmondi as she drew nearer, the intensity of his gaze no doubt as weighty as if he were setting bricks on the woman's head.
"Take her to my room." He said again, and a nearby servant with flaming hair just like his stepped forward, eyes down, to do as their head had bid. Only as he closed the distance between himself and the woman, he realized there were two women, and he didn't know of which Hiram spoke. Not wanting to clarify, not daring to ask, the Eldouir simply took them both, gently wrapping his hands around the upper parts of their biceps, urging them into the estate, assuming neither refused him.
Hiram watched them go, his lips twisting into a sick smirk.
Elena scoffed and rolled her eyes, irritated by the turn of events.
"I guess she can get her brand if she has a baby or whatever." She glanced over her shoulder at Hiram, her expression questioning whether he would care to impregnate someone like that, but Hiram didn't engage in the unspoken conversation. His gaze lazily scanned the crowd, checking to see if there was anything interesting to wait around for. If there wasn't, he'd be taking his exit shortly.
Kit felt numb. They accepted his offering, but as he shuffled away his eyes found Luka and he stared, pleading with her not to go. Not to leave him. Not again.
When the iron brander found his wrist he cried out in pain, quickly gritting his teeth to try to suppress it, but continuing to whimper. Ninevah paced anxiously, feeling the pain as Kit did, but unwilling to cry out. She had to be strong for the both of them. She heard Grem's words, but she did not convey them to Kit. She would protect her human at all costs, even from the ones he loved.
"No." The large beast swung its head towards Grem. "There is nothing to be sorry for. We are all doing what we have to do."
Adeline settled back into her chair with a small roll of her eyes as the two Dresmondi were escorted to Hiram's room. No doubt, he'd be doing untoward things with both of them well into the night. Her eyes scanned the crowd, considering. It might be nice to have her own Dresmondi plaything for the night.
But, they still weren't done with Tribute and she had not been so interested in anyone who had approached. Perhaps there was still a chance to find someone.
Taz, whose chest had been puffed up with self-satisfaction, started to deflate. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. She didn’t care about the mark. Even the most useless, knuckle-dragging Dresmondi could come up with something to check the box for another year. What Taz wanted was attention. Recognition that would put her one step closer to where she belonged: above all the scum she’d been forced to camp with down in the muck. Taz’s smirk soured as she followed Hiram Eldouir ’s gaze, turning unbecomingly acidic as her eyes came to rest on @xanthe .
The girl’s lithe, feminine figure was predictably pretty. Taz looked her up and down—not jealous but repulsed. This was her moment, stolen by the girl’s high cheekbones and doe eyes. Taz wasn’t an idiot: she saw the girl’s appeal. But there wasn’t a drop of insecurity or envy to be found in the grimacing woman. Taz was better — obviously better. Not because she was pretty, but because she ate girls like Xanthe for breakfast.
Taz watched the Eldouir, expecting only the girl to be taken away. But the Eldouir took her by the arm, and Taz’s lips twisted into a grin. She looked at Xanthe like a hungry stray who had just found a most delicious bone.
“Looks like it’s playtime, Rikki.” Taz tossed to the hyena who wheezed and cackled as he trotted behind her.
Ermir had been dreading this for a long time. With the blood man gone part of him wanted to cause a scene. But of the four women that stood above, only one had their head screwed on right. So the odds of death were just as bad, and as he had been told many times this past week, he had worked a little too hard to throw it all out the window out of frustration.
So instead as the women left, a fate he did not envy in the slightest, he knew the timing would be right. Whispering his instruction to the invisible husk of a woman that had been Nikita she would lurch through through the crowd, towards the queens with a knife. The crowd already thinned would be used to the jostling at this point, although one or two might notice. All the same Ermir strode forward on a different path, as if ready for his turn.
Bowing to the queens, he smiled at Adeline. "Many gratitude" but that was as far as he got as Nikita came into view a few feet from him. Quick as a whip, the Dresmondi pulled out his whip, flicking it so that it circled around the woman’s neck. The young woman who had her life stolen, from a man who continued to take and take.
His eyes were wide and shock, well practiced at immersing himself in a lie to the point he believed it himself. Now it was up to Luka to do her part.
Luka watched @kit , round eyes following him as he rolled up his sleeve and held out his arm. When he cried out, she flinched. Without her hat, her hair fell like a curly, burnt-red curtain around her face. It was Grem hissing between her ears that made her finally look away, face contorted in an effort to keep the anger from bubbling up behind her eyes as she forced herself to watch the next Dresmondi step forward.
And offer herself. To Hiram.
Disgust screwed up her nose, but it was nothing compared to the way her eyes went wide at the sound of Hiram’s command. Inside her chest, her heart skipped a stunned, horrified beat. It went on beating a second later, hammering mercilessly in her chest while her eyes searched for anything other than an Eldouir or a Dresmondi to look at.
On her shoulder, Grem shuddered. “Take care of yourselves,” he told Nin. Eventually, he would tell Luka what she said, that she had rejected their apology. That she understood. But not now. Not yet.
Luka had almost managed to drag the horror from her face when Ermir stepped forward and her stomach lurched. She didn’t have to tell Grem to be ready; he already knew what to do. They were expecting this. They’d talked about this. Prepared for it. All they had to do was—
Nikita appeared, dead eyes rolling past the line of Eldouirs as she staggered forward, knife in hand, Ermir’s whip suddenly caught around her neck and—
Luka darted forward, determination and horror twisted on her face as Grem leapt from her shoulder and a rain of fire spilled from his mouth as if he was one of the dragons in the stories Axeon would tell before she had a name. In an instant, Nikita would be little more than a human torch, flesh boiling against her bones while a sickening, withering scream announced her demise and Luka looked on with a hard-faced grimace with her fists clenched at her sides.
Yes, she had felt the weight of his gaze. Heavy. Ominous. For a short time she avoided it. Instead she turned, eyes meeting those of the woman who stood next to her. Xanthe was a hunter. She recognized the gaze of a predator and Tazmin's gaze was no different, but she didn't look away at first. Predator or not, Xanthe was not so weak as to show submission to one of her own kind.
His words rang in her ears and for a split second, she truly thought that Hiram was referring to Tazmin. She'd just offered herself and her womb to him so surely she was the one that would be carried off to bed. For that split second she felt pity for the foolish girl by her side. Pity she should have saved for herself. Her eyes turned in search of her own true purpose for being called back, and once more met golden eyes staring back at her. Not once had he looked away.
So his servant, another of his family, approached and instead took both women by the arm. Taz's grin did nothing to intimidate or frighten Xanthe. How could it when the real danger, the true predator, still stood before them?
She made no effort to resist, her eyes remained locked with Hiram's until the servant pulled her out of his view, and then she turned her head to look back at the crowd of Dresmondi once more. Already someone new was stepping up - was that Ermir? Had Embric not come? For a moment she'd wished he hadn't. Maybe he didn't have to know what was about to happen to her. Maybe then he wouldn't have to worry.
"Stay close, away from those other two. Do not retaliate, no matter what." She reminded Savi as they were pulled further into the estate.