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!
If she had been making herself lay low before the full moon after the military ball, then after the full moon she had become a shadow. When she had slipped out of her room, a hooded cloak had been worn as she grew to accept her new look. Her skin, while even in most places, was discolored and littered her body. Her hair had been burn in many places, so a pair of shears had been used to cut off the dark curls that usually fell to her shoulders. Now cut short and the cloak hid what patches hadn’t grown in yet.
Her children had asked many questions when they first saw her, curious hands hesitant to touch her until she told them they could. Eventually they grew used to the difference they saw in her, but she was still unsettled. But the cloak remained up over her face, giving her the shadows as she interacted with the others when she did. She knew the curious looks were filled with many questions but her sharp change of subject when one went to pry told them everything: that Alys simply didn’t want to speak of it.
It didn’t change when she stood in the training grounds later at night, letting the moonlight fill the grounds with a few torches along what should’ve been an archery range that now held several axes in a stump at her feet. The cloak still pulled over her head but a sleeveless one as she stood alone and with an almost musical beat, the thud of the axe hitting the target filled the empty training grounds.
Post by Hadrian Usher on Jul 8, 2023 12:33:01 GMT -5
Hadrian assumed that Alys had been avoiding him—though for very different reasons. The current state of the military had left him little time to ponder, save for the hours he lay awake in his bed, the comforting softness of her skin still lingering like a phantom beneath his hands. Though the sting of Kennet’s rejection was still fresh, he was not conflicted about his encounter with Alys. There was familiarity between them; the bond of mutual history and understanding that had simply manifested in another form. It seemed somehow inevitable, like a prophecy fulfilled.
But her absence made him question whether she felt the same.
Hadrian was just leaving his office, taking a detour past the training yard for what reason? He wasn’t sure. The thudding of the axe hitting home on the target caught his attention, and it was the hooded figure that stopped him in his tracks. Even in the low light, he knew the form well enough. After all, he’d studied it well.
Slowly, he approached her—a hesitant but playful smile tugging at his features.
The footsteps were almost muffled out by the shuffle of her clothing, the sinking thunk of the axe as she threw it. Her concentration didn’t help either, as she focused way too much on the center and the dull ache still in her limbs from the tightness of her skin. She hoped that would fade one day, that if she moved enough, ran enough, trained enough, it’d ease and go away.
But the voice was clear, stopping her mid-throw with the axe over head and her body swaying back. She knew the voice, knew it very well, and even knew the breathy bass it could drop to that, surprisingly, made her face heat a little. “Quite an impressive thing, wouldn’t you say?” She glanced back at him, the moonlight casting quite the good lighting across him. Her heart leaping a bit, her chin ticking lower as if she needed to be sure that the moonlight hadn’t given him the right view into the hood of her cape.
“And why are you here so late?” She asked, though turned fully towards him, lowering the axe in her hand to the stump. Remembering where he had just returned from as she looked him over. “Are you…?” She scanned him twice, looking for visible injuries but finding nothing.
Post by Hadrian Usher on Jul 8, 2023 12:57:39 GMT -5
Hadrian chuckled a little when she startled, but his smile slowly drooped into a perplexed expression. It was strange for her to keep her face hidden. Hadrian had know hypothesis as to why she would need to, but that didn’t stop him from moving forward to close the distance between them in the empty training yard.
“Just catching up on correspondence,” Hadrian sighed, “As if one could ever be caught up on the damned thing. I suppose, though, seeing you is an unlikely reward…”
Gently, with a reignited playful smile, Hadrian would reach up and tug at her hood so it would fall backward.
She didn’t back away from his approach, instead she stared at him. The easiness of his face as he complained about his job, in a way that just said clearly this was the part he hadn’t really wanted to sign up for. “They try to not warn you of it before you accept,” a taunt if her own, “wouldn’t want you running for the waves to keep away from the position.”
But his hand lifted, and that’s where she froze, her shoulders tensing and jaw tightening. It was the tug that had her hand flash up to grip his wrist, eyes wide as it fell back and she stared up at him. Only able to look at him for a few moments before her gaze dropped to his chest. “Not quite the reward anymore,” she murmured. The hood settling against her shoulders and exposing her short, cropped hair, the different splotches of skin. No longer red and angry, but an array of dark and light marks across her freckled cheeks.
Alys couldn’t lift her gaze to him as they stood there, her heart beating so loud that it was all she could hear. “Now you know why I’ve disappeared.”
Post by Hadrian Usher on Jul 12, 2023 14:33:48 GMT -5
Though the suddenness of her grip startled him, he did not flinch. Hadrian was entirely unprepared for what came next, unable to contain his surprise at her transformation. At first, his eyes widened in shock before his gaze darkened. If Alys allowed, Hadrian would lay his hand against her cheek, mouth set in a hard line.
The shock was expected but didn’t stop the sting that made her want to rip away. Her jaw feathering as she struggled to raise her gaze back to him once again, and the small wince of her brows as his hand laid against her cheek. She had a feeling that one of those questions were something she wouldn’t need to say who with how she’d answer the other one.
“I let my guard down around someone I should’ve been able to trust.” Alys let out a long breath. Her grip on his wrist loosened as she finally found it in her to drag her dark eyes up to him. “It won’t happen again.” She didn’t know if she was saying it to convince him or as a promise to herself.
Post by Hadrian Usher on Jul 12, 2023 14:34:46 GMT -5
Rage gathered in Hadrian’s eyes like dark thunderheads on a bleak horizon. No, it didn’t take him long to draw the line between the what happened and the who, particularly after learning in was someone close. Cassian was eliminated immediately, and after he was gone there was only one real suspect left: Regan. Regan with her hellhound fire, with her recklessness and selfish indulgence. Hadrian had considered her a disappointment, but she was clearly more than that. She was dangerous. His jaw tightened before he spoke, his gaze on Alys never wavering.
“The king must know,” Hadrian growled, “Surely he will see justice served. Surely she won’t walk free after what she’s done.”
Alys could feel the sudden heat that rolled off of Hadrian, not heat like they had shared the last time they had seen each other, but one that made her inner beast stir. His words fueling her because... clearly... Regan had not had such things. She was off in Cambria... no where to be seen in Nevermere. Which meant she was walking freely, in its own way.
"Hadrian," she said his name lowly, before she took hold of his arm and started moving them away from the center of the training field where anyone who passed would see the two of them. Once they were tucked into a small space, no lingering windows or walkways near by and in the shadows she stopped them, raising her hood as she did so he didn't have to keep staring at the mess that was left behind. "Clearly we will not see whatever sort of justice that we might want," she hissed under her breath. There was a bit of anger in her own voice, because for whatever reason, this cut hurt more than she had ever expected.
She felt betrayed, all these years and yet she could only see the damn arrows and roads and whatever else she might have pulled together pointing back to one.
Post by Hadrian Usher on Jul 12, 2023 14:36:15 GMT -5
Hadrian’s anger was starting to gather its own momentum—Cassian now caught in its path. He had no understanding of the dynamics at play. He had no idea that this was a pack dispute and not—what he assumed—was an unhinged act of violence. Regan was, beyond reasons of his own understanding, valuable to the king. He’d heard the rumors same as anyone else as to the potential why. But surely a woman like Regan would not be enough to cloud the king’s judgement so thoroughly.
“And why not?” Hadrian spoke quietly, his tone a low, dangerous rumble, “Regan is dangerous—clearly. A threat to the kingdom and its leadership. How can the king not see? Does he not wonder if he’s next? Has he no respect for the law? Care for you? I don’t understand.”
Alys wasn’t so sure if it didn’t stretch beyond a pack dispute. Regan had always had an animosity towards Alys, even before Alys knew about it. Which made things turbulent on all ends. His angered words were not so different than ones she had said herself, and yet hearing them from Hadrian made her realize how dangerous this all could become.
“Hadrian,” her voice commanding and yet pleading, even within the hidden shadows of her cloak. “These are things I am aware of, that,” her voice dropped lower as she stepped into him. From an outsider, it definitely looked suspicious in the shadows how close the two were now. “We can’t do this out here.” She reached for him on instinct, to take his hand and pull him towards his office.
“Come,” she didn’t hold him tightly, but with a sureness as if she believed he wouldn’t yank away from her.
Post by Hadrian Usher on Jul 12, 2023 14:37:09 GMT -5
No, he would not pull away. Brow still wrinkled together with lines of barely contained anger, he took her hand firmly in his. As they quickly made for his office, he pulled her closer, hand around her waist as if Regan might emerge from the shadows at any moment and finish what she’d started. He opened the door and held it for Alys, guiding her inside.
Once the door was closed behind them, Hadrian turned to her. With sure and careful movements, he went over to her and took Alys’s face in his hands once again.
“What happened?” It was a quiet question, one that rumbled between them like thunder far on the horizon.
Tucked against him, she wouldn’t admit it out loud, but it was the first time in a while she felt actually protected. Even if it wasn’t to the extent where it could’ve been before, it was how she leaned into him that might’ve said it. The two of them ducked into his office and she couldn’t help it; her eyes ran over the familiar yet unknown space. Logan still lingered in corners for her.
But she was dragged back to the present, his hands sliding into the darkness of her cloak. Callused and warm, she winced slightly at the spots that still ached, but didn’t pull away. “She thought, what happened at the ball, was a threat. That I was not protecting her but being reckless.” A piece of what happened, but she felt like she needed to explain what had brought on the start of the confrontation.
Post by Hadrian Usher on Jul 12, 2023 14:39:09 GMT -5
Hadrian adjusted when Alys winced. Unless he protested, he'd gently push back her hood, keeping his hands on her face, gaze not wavering from hers for a moment. Hadrian was doing his best to keep calm, his concern for Alys able to partially dull the sharp edge of his ire.
"So she attacked you?" Hadrian searched her face with confusion. Looking at Alys now, it seemed attack was an understatement. Attempted murder seemed a more apt description based on Alys's appearance.
She wanted to shrink back, a bit of confidence long gone now as the hood fell back. But her eyes met his and she stilled, a small reflection of herself in them, and how his hands cradled her cheeks. “She did, blindsided me really.” She could still feel the sudden crushing blow that knocked her from the kill she had sprung on that night. “But because I didn’t submit… that’s why this happened.” It didn’t mean she felt it was her fault, but if she had just stopped and gave up… but she didn’t want to. Didn’t know how to because she had never been challenged in such a way.
“I still find her unstable,” she murmured. “I don’t trust her.” Which possibly posed the biggest issue. “I haven’t talked to or been around her since it happened.” Sure, full moons might have happened, but Alys was distant. Not that Hadrian knew the extent of who all ran during those. But was it that hard to believe that Regan’s extra capabilities also were similar to Alys? She didn’t think so. Not anymore.