caressaharand

[caressaharand]

—Torrin A. Greathouse, from Medusa with the Head of Perseus

[caressaharand]

aressa kid

As with the Seblina kid, this comes w so many potentials, but I’m saying that, in this verse, Ressa escaped Aram while still pregnant.  However, Aram def wasn’t about to just cool his heels while his kid lived on the run - so he pursued them across the universe.  Jaren has probs met his dad and been declared his heir, etc, at least once, but he’s mostly grown up w his mom and aunts.  He’s been raised more by Dex than by Aram, when it comes right down to it tbqh.

Name: Jaren Quasar IX Whatever-we-named-King-Harand-probs

Gender: Male

General Appearance: Lithe and intelligent-looking w soulful eyes - this poor kid has seen way too much!

Personality: Thoughtful and earnest!!  Jaren just wants to make the world a better place, esp knowing that its his own Quasar relations who have spread this sorrow and desperation over the galaxy.  He probs bears some feelings of guilt about that!! and 100% wants to put things to rights!!  He’s super giving and kind and sharp as a tack!!  Being a Quasar, he ~does have a bit of a temper when pushed to it, but being a Harand, as well, he’s full of compassion and always tries to make up for his wrongs!!  He’s a literal genius!!

Special Talents: Having grown up around so many languages, he has a gift for them and can crack codes quicker than you can make them up! ;D  He is also a bit of a math whizz which he mostly uses for navigational and speed calculations in flying!!

Who they like better:  Ressa, hands down!!  He actively hates his dad and House Quasar!!

Who they take after more:  Also Ressa!!!

Personal Head canon: He doesn’t want to be the Emperor or a Quasar and loves Vaane most of all!!  But he also knows that these things aren’t up to him :/

Face Claim: Noah Schnapp

[caressaharand]

aramquasar‌:

There was a battle in her.  Aram was not so blind as to ignore it entirely, yet he feared no words of his could assuage these feelings.  There was a part of her heart, a piece of her mind, forever closed off to him.  Aram did not like to accept this, but he could not deny it.  He prayed that in time this might change, but he knew - were their situations reversed - he could not so easily forgive the family who had seen his own cast down.

“Perhaps-” Aram glanced away, sweeping a swift gaze over the dotted lights of Arvor.  “Perhaps other arrangements could still be made to make you more comfortable.  This palace should be the birth place of the next Emperor - the Hall of the Ancestors should be the spot - but I know that is not where you are comfortable.  Perhaps your own palace on Arvor might be a better place.  I could have more plants and other items brought in from Vaane to make whichever chamber - or all of them - there you might choose more suitable to your sensibilities.  Your sisters could all be with you, your Vaanish friends, whomsoever you might like…There are more guards I could put around you to keep you safe…I am certain we can reach an arrangement, Caressa, that will suit us all.”  

Aram did not realize that, to her ears, any part of this suggestion might sound like an assassination attempt.  His true aim was a compromise.  He imagined facing down something so momentous as a birth had to be trying under the best of circumstances and these, he well knew, were hardly the best of circumstances.

“I’m certain it would set your sisters’ weary minds at ease to be with you, wherever the birth might take place.  If you like, I will invite them first thing tomorrow.  And they need see but little of me, if they so wish.  There are rooms enough to accommodate an empress, a queen, and a princess there, I am sure, for however long you might wish them with you.  There is nothing so urgent on Vaane that it cannot be administered to from Arvor.”

There was a pregnant pause between her words as she spoke of Vaane.  It seemed to cloy in the air between them and then there was that familiar flicker in her face, perhaps some longing, something left unsaid.  Aram felt a grateful swell, at times like these, that she forbore.  He knew that creeping assurance that it would have been something he did not like.

It was not conviction in her tone when she accepted his terms, however, but resignation.  He would make it up to her, now.  He had his chance, by her own admission, to prove to her now how things could be different.  This time, he would take every precaution: he would not fail her or their child.  

Drawing close to her, Aram Quasar took her face in his hands.  Her cheeks were soft, her throat tender under his calloused hands.  Caressa’s face tilted up towards him, and the heat of the torches cast its warm glow across her luminous face.  He longed to bend and kiss her, his lips to hers.  His wife was beautiful and warm and so close within his reach he could almost call her his own.  Her blue eyes, tinged with green, were fixed on his, her hair soft curls that brushed his fingertips.  He could steal her kiss now, he knew.  But she was free: she had never belonged to anyone, and never less so to anyone than to him.  Aram touched his lips briefly to her brow and released her.  He turned back to his city and rested his hands on the balcony’s rails.  Caressa would never want him.

“Our son will never be safer anywhere than he is here,” he promised.  His voice had gone low and soft in the quiet as he scanned the river that looped across the horizon.  “And neither will you be, my Empress.”  He turned grey eyes back on her once again.  “I swear it.”

For a moment, he’d managed to surprise her. 

Ressa had never known her husband to be a man who would compromise (certainly not when it came to something so sacred to him as the birth of his son: the future emperor of Velorum Nocate) and yet, here was he was, offering to adjust his plans (the ancestor’s plans!) for her comfort.

“Aram?” She spoke his name softly, wondering if she’d truly heard him ... wondering if it had only been want she’d wanted to hear, “Do you mean that?” 

He’d painted her a lovely picture. The palace he had given her was beautiful and while it was far from being home, it was the closest thing to it that Arvor could ever boast. To be there - away from the chaos and horrors of this place - with her sisters while her child was born would be the next best thing to being on Vaane.

It took her only another moment, to work out what he might have gained from this plan. He would have to give up having his son born in the Hall of the Ancestors, but he could easily wipe out House Harand in a single attempt. They would all be together, out of the way of the public eye where no one would see what really happened. House Harand would no longer pose a threat and Vaane would be his for the taking. 

She felt sick that she had, even more a moment, believed him. That she’d almost blindly agreed to his trap. She took comfort in the fact that Arantha never would have agreed to it: that she would have seen through it from the start. 

Ressa looked away again, away from him, out towards the sprawling city. She did not want him to see her face, “Arantha cannot leave home. She would if I asked her, but ... a Queen’s place is with her people.” Even Aram, she thought, could not object to that. 

She turned back towards him, “But if you meant what you said, I would rather be there ... at my Arvorian palace.” If she must die, she would rather it happen at there, where at least there were whispers of home. 

Young Gods | Aressa

[caressaharand]

Welcome to Arvor (Welcome to Hell) | Ressa & Torul

Torul Molec was a friend and, perhaps more importantly, an ally. In Arvor, Ressa was flanked with enemies on nearly every side. As a result, she knew that there would be no chance of her and Torul having a private audience; no chance to discuss anything important for fear of being overheard, but it was still a small comfort to know that he was, at least, on her side. 

It did no good to dwell on what could have been, but seeing him she couldn’t help but wonder what life would have been like, had they married before the Quasars swooped in to stop them. She didn’t love Torul and she doubted that he loved her, but they respected each other ... they trusted each other. And that would have been more than enough. Torul acted with his head and Ressa with her heart: she knew they would have worked well together; balanced each other. 

She thought they could have been happy. 

It could be so much worse, she reminded herself. She had only to look at her brother-in-law to be thankful that she had married Aram. 

“It is good to see you,” She said. He looked tired and worn since the last time she saw him. She suspected that he might have said the same of her. “Any news from Byssya?” Any news from Arantha? She wanted to ask. Any news from home? 

[caressaharand]

Betrayed | Ressa & Adria

Adria had met Ressa with a warm smile; a smile that had almost disarmed her. It would be so easy, Ressa realized, when they were alone together to revert back to things had been before. Adria had once been one of Ressa’s closest friends; someone she would trust with anything. How bitterly misplaced that trust had been! 

She’d almost smiled back, that morning, but instead Adria’s greeting caused her to tense. You can’t trust her, she reminded herself, You can’t trust any of them. 

Ressa’s greeting was cool in comparison. Some days, her guard dropped more than others, but she’d never admit anything to Adria that she wouldn’t want her husband to know. She had little doubts that Aram would have Adria report to him on anything and everything that Ressa did or said. It was clear to Ressa that he was eager for her to be gone, one way or another. It would be easier for him if Ressa dug her own grave.

She was sitting at her dressing table, unmoving. This afternoon, they would be attending the arena. The thought made her feel ill. How could Adria be so calm? She might be made to watch her own brother die. Was she really so unfeeling as that? 

“I don’t know which to wear.” She said. What did one wear to watch people die? 

[caressaharand]

"We’re free.” 

Even as they had landed here - in the middle of this wasteland, lost and without any certainty of what was to happen to either of them - they both felt it: the crushing weight of the Quasar’s hold was gone. The air was hot and dry, but for the first time since she left home, Ressa felt as though she could breathe. 

“A'nikya'te,” Xia whispered, dropping to the ground, feeling the sand through her fingers. She was home. Ressa couldn’t help but envy her that, but they both knew that Reva was a far safer destination than Vaane. It was easy to hide out here in the nothingness. Even Xia, who knew her homeland as well as any, was lost. They had limited supplies: at this rate, they would only survive a few more days out here. If the desert did not kill them, the locals would. 

It will still be better, Ressa thought, for us both to die here in the sand. 

Death was a better fate than what awaited them both in Arvor. Xia was to be married to Leck and Ressa would be killed as soon as her child was born. And what hope could her child have for the future, if she could not help guide it? It would be better for him, too, to die now than to be raised a Quasar. 

Neither had much hope that they’d be able to make it to the capitol where Xia could find them help, but they kept on. Xia had gotten her bearings enough to know they were, at least, headed in the right direction. But beyond that, she didn’t know. There could be a hundred miles ahead of them, or a thousand. 

Either way, they would not make it on their own. 

They risked a lot by approaching the a broken down ship. Ressa didn’t fear being robbed (they had little enough as it was for them to take) or killed (death was only days away, as it was), but she did fear being recognized. By now the entire empire would be looking for them and she knew that the Quasars would be offering a grand reward for their safe return. 

Whatever happened, she would not let them be sent back. 

The ship itself was small and battered. It did not belong to the Tomaks, but it was not a Quasar ship, either. They hoped that whoever they found would know Xia and want to help her or have been out here for so long, that they wouldn’t know who either of them were, at all.

They were greeted defensively, phaser pointed at them both. She’d expected that, what she hadn’t expected was the man they’d stumbled across. 

She knew him. 

It was hard not to, living in Arvor. His face was everywhere: a wanted man. The Quasars tried to keep it under wraps that they had once captured him, only to let him escape. But she knew him from before all of that. He was Vaanish. 

But was he a friend or foe? She couldn’t say. He had been kind once, another lifetime ago. She was not the little girl she’d been then and she doubted very much that he was the same man then as he was now. She’d been a Quasar prisoner, living in the greatest comfort they knew how to give and she had suffered. He had been down in the depths of the prisons, left to to Leck’s mercy ... what must that have done to him? 

She put her hands up slowly in surrender, “Dex,” she spoke his name softly, hoping not to startle him, “Do you remember me?” She asked. “We need your help.”  

The World Has Gone | Dessa

The engine sputtered and whined.  Grimacing, Dex slowed to a halt.  His ship - really, a generous thing to call it such - had been old when it had come into his hands.  He nursed it to health - such as it was - and kept it alive but there was little to be said of its condition past that.  The desert sand did little to improve its condition.  Stopping, Dex trudged towards the wide door and hurled it open, jumping to the ground. 

His work was absorbing to him.  Dex knew well he would be hard pressed to do much to hinder the Quasars if he had no reliable transportation and so he battled coiled and tubes as relentlessly as once he had battled Leck’s guards.  He did not note the presence of the two queens until they were quite upon him.

The figures were, by that time, near enough to jump him, but Dex was not unarmed.  Phaser in hand, he greeted them with the drawn muzzle as soon as they rounded the bend.  Dex’s heart was clenched but he stood resolute.  The sight of their faces, however, confused him.

Dex recognized them both, though it took him two heartbeats to place where he’d seen those faces.  Xia came to him first, though the sight of her did not strike him as much as they other hand, it was merely a case of their meeting having been so much more recent.  After all, for some time now, Dex had made of Reva a makeshift home.  He’d not met Xia, precisely, but in watching the Quasars, he’d seen her, too.  

Her precise stance wasn’t clear to him - Dex had a natural mistrust of others, enough to make him question both the positive and negative reports he’d heard - but the thing of which he was quite certain was the fact that Xia was marrying Leck.  Fortunately for Xia, Dex couldn’t imagine, no matter how damaged, that anyone would want to marry Leck, which meant she was being forced into it.  This thought made him hesitate.  He did not pull the trigger.  He knew well enough what it was like to be at the mercy of Leck Quasar.

The other woman took him a heartbeat longer to recognize, though she struck him as quite familiar, it was only that she’d been little more than a child when first he’d seen her.  She was a woman, now, and pregnant, but even as a child she had helped his mother.  Dex swallowed hard.  He opened his mouth to speak, but his lips were chapped and bleeding and his throat stiff and sore.  He felt like the desert: bleak and shrieking in wordless rage at all around him.  He held the gun but he did not pull the trigger.  He thought, I know who you are, but he could not say it.

[caressaharand]

Ressa Harand: I Hope My Baby Doesn’t Come Out All Fucked-Up And Shit

[caressaharand]

Still, Arantha was a queen and this was a diplomatic mission, more or less, so she formed a smile.  

[caressaharand]

Jewelry/accessories + Ressa Harand

okay so she’s an actual princess/empress so I’m sure she has a lot of jewelry/accessories, haha, but here are some pieces i can see her owning!! 

hair vines!!! are a big part of her look! like this and this

also does the pearl bobby pin thing 

rings: this, this

earrings: this, this

bracelets: this, this

necklaces: this, this

[caressaharand]

jaeme x ressa

otp / brotp / notp

Ok, so as you know, Dessa is my main ship but as you ALSO know I multi-ship the hell out of everything and so Jaessa/Reme (?????) is another of my VN ships!!!!!!!  But I def see it as a friendship first.  Like, I do think they’re both v much glorified captives in this horrifying world and they have this understanding/comraderie that comes out of that!!!!!  And he is also atp v much a warrior and I think she’s also totally a fighter in her own world (even if she wasn’t forced to fight in a ring for her life for ten years LITERALLY she has been doing exactly that figuratively yknow?????) but they both come from pasts where they had this culture of ~helping ppl~ and fighting against the Quasars for the right thing etc etc etc!!!!!!  And I think a lot of mutual respect and regard comes out of that.

That being said, idk how she feels about him, so it might be totally one-sided, but Jaeme def has a thing for Ressa.  He would like to help her escape along w the ppl in the arena and I mean clearly that hasn’t panned out but he’d see it as one good thing he’s done in all of this.  PLUS, he’s one of my characters who has a thing for Ressa who DoESN’T want to murder her unborn child!!!! *side eyes tor* he hates the Quasars, but he also sees that Ressa is a great person and he def thinks her child could take after her, if given the chance.  It’s not the kid’s fault who it’s father is yknow??????  

Tho he has feelings for Ressa, I also don’t think Jaeme believes anything will ever come out of them.  Like, she’s LITERALLY a princess/empress and he’s literally NOT but I do think he likes to think he could work in her imperial guard or be her friend or something.  That being said, I think he wants more than basically anything to just go home, to go back to Byssya - but even if he ever gets there (and he might never get there bc I’m meaN), it won’t be what he’s imagining or wants at aLL.  But ANYWAY, since that’s a goal he’s had longer than he’s known her, it’s a really, really big one and he’ll literally never feel settled till he achieves it (even if he leaves pr quickly afterward, he has to do it yknow), and he also thinks this is a conflict since obv she needs to get back to vaane.

But this is all pipe dreams and he lowkey despairs of ever escaping.  I mean, he will NEVER stop trying, but he wonders if it can ever succeed so she’ll always be Aram’s wife and he’ll always be his glorified slave, and they’ll be some twisted unrequited Lancelot/Guinevere, Tristan/Isolde forever until the day they day.  That’s kind of what his rational mind says will happen…

[caressaharand]

I bloomed despite the darkness, and I was not alone.

Persephone, Soteira, (Savior), Persephone, Praxidike, (Exacter of Justice)

[caressaharand]

‘ did you have a nightmare? i have nightmares too. ’ dex x ressa

[caressaharand]

house harand + aesthetics

[caressaharand]

ooc: kahrin + ressa

yoooo so these two!!!! i can’t really decide what their relationship would be like b/c I can see lots of different things??? and honestly it mostly depends on kahrin??? 

so okay, so before ~shit went down~ ressa was like bffs with kahrin’s cousin, adria and I think that the tarks/harands/valerians honestly hung out a lot with each other and were really close!! and I can see that potentially extending to kahrin??? but I can also see where they would be isolated from everyone else?? b/c I was talking to kate and she said that jareth basically had a lot of mixed emotions re: them hanging out with that friend group b/c first of all, he HATES his bro so he doesn’t want his kids mixing with the other tark kids, but on the other hand, the valerians are the actual rulers of VN and he kinda would like to marry his kids/himself off to them, but at the same time he doesn’t’ b/c orieth married a distant valerian so he also feels like he and his family are better than all of them haha so .... yeah, I can see it going either way and so can kate haha so thoughts on your end???

[caressaharand]

His words were of little comfort. Did he expect her to so easily believe him? She knew him well enough to know that as long as she carried his child, he had meant what he said, but what after? It was House Harand that had tempted the Valerians to stray from their agreement with the Quasars a hundred years ago: the Quasars had not forgiven the Valerians for ancestor’s slight and she was not so naive as to think that the Sack of Vaane was punishment enough for her and her’s. 

Truthfully, she had been surprised that he’d allowed her to carry his child, at all. She’d expected to die on their wedding night and she’d feared that her sisters’ fate would be the same if they’d been in attendance. She didn’t know why he’d allowed her to live this long, but then again, she’d never been able to understand him or any of his house. 

The Quasars were only ever understood by themselves. 

When he spoke of why their son should be born upon Arvor she knew there was nothing she could say that would change his mind. He was right, in all of his reasonings: the future king of Arvor and Emperor of Velorum Nocate should be born there. Had be been any other man, she never would have questioned this: but he was a Quasar and his promises to keep her safe, too, meant nothing. 

Caressa did not fear death: part of her would welcome it. But she feared leaving her son to him and she feared what her sister would do when that happened and she feared what would happen to Vaane. She feared what would happen to Velorum Nocate. There was some hope still left for revolution, but one false move and it would be snuffed out. 

This much she knew: Aram would never agree. She had pleaded and so had Arantha, but tradition would not allow for him to hear them. If nothing they could say or do would change his mind, then they must relent. If he wished to have her killed: then he would see it done. Even if she gave birth on Vaane, she’d have to return to Arvor as soon as she was strong enough and Vaane would not have the strength to resist him. 

She knew Arantha would never stop fighting for her. She would do the same, were their positions reversed. But for Vaane, for Mira, she must stop. And if the worst should happen, she must promise not to be rash. She must wait until Vaane is strong enough to have a chance. 

She was quiet for a long moment after Aram spoke, her thoughts far away from him. She knew she must concede. Live to die another day. 

“Vaane feels safer, somehow but -- “ it’s home. But she did not say it, and her voice trailed and she said no more. “-- it isn’t.” In terms of assassination attempts, it wasn’t. What had happened here, could have easily have happened anywhere in Velorum Nocate. The Empire has enemies everywhere. Nowhere is safe. In that, at least, she took a strange sort of comfort. 

“You are right,” She said, softly. The words hadn’t wanted to come at all. She let him take her hands; she did not pull away. “His place is here, as is mine.”  

Young Gods | Aressa

[caressaharand]

it’s a date ;DDDD <3333

anyway yeah I CRY b/c ressa would def be wayyy more willing to risk it if it wasn’t for mira?? like I do think she knows that aram wants the best for their kid, at least, and wouldn’t let anything happen to him but yeah proving that ressa is a traitor and getting mira thrown into the arena isn’t something that she’d put past him, even just to test her tbh, so she’d be v reluctant to trust her even after reina tries to prove herself (++ adding all of ressa’s trust issues in general) but the longer she is there/the closer it gets the the leck/xia wedding and the birth, the more determined she is to get away bUT yeah I feel like if/when that happens that probably reina is the reason that they get away/are able to break away from their security b/c i DOUBT THAt they’d be able to do it at all w/o her help!!! 

OOC | The Scorpion & Ressa

[caressaharand]

I’M CRYING B/C HONESTLY THIS IS THE MOST ARAM THING I’VE EVER READ??? #facepalm 

lakjsflaksjdfljasf ugh but sera and adira helping after the sack of vaane ugh you know that that was a thing!!!! and honestly something that ressa will never forget!!!! but yeah it probs does feel kinda tainted now haha and I feel like ressa wonders if adria was wearing a mask her entire life and this is who she really is or what happened  ... but I feel like she’s unsure of exactly the kind of person adira is, b/c I feel like she does still see a lot of genuine kindness from her and part of her hopes it is for real but the truth is she fears it is just adria’s way of getting ressa’s guard down/getting her to trust her so she can spill of her secrets to aram haha 

(Anyway: in regards to your question, I’d always imagined that they’d managed to get that far with the help of Valerian security, but I’d be cool with Orieth somehow helping them too tbh????) 

Okay, so I can’t remember exactly how long we said, but I think it’s been about a year and a half that aressa has been married atp??? and I do think that adria has been with ressa pretty much from day 1 if that’s cool w/ you??? 

HAHAHHA I CRY B/C RESSA HONESTLY HATES HERSELF FOR LETTING THAT EVER HAPPEN HAHA and meanwhile adria is literally in the best position to actually  help her haaha and she’s determined to isolate her #communicationissuess ;DDD  anyway, i don’t think she does know about their secret language tbh??? I feel like they keep it super close to the vest b/c they came up with it after they’d been betrayed by trusted ppl so I feel like they might be the only other person who knows??? perhaps valen does but I can see where even he wouldn’t?? 

OOC | Adria & Ressa