#I have the soul of an ancient seafarer ok

[plaguedocboi]

you give have a lot of scared-of-the-ocean posts, I'm not complaining but I love the ocean and I just felt obligated to do some ocean love posting for contrast sake. the ocean is full of lovely things, like:

-water! -Fish! -crabs! -squid! -whales! -turtles! -coral! -shipwrecks! -hydrothermal vents!

once I was in Florida walkin' on the beach after nightfall and I saw a little crab and ran after it because I love the little man.

also I think we can both agree that adding the Bermuda Triangle to Civ 6 as a natural wonder was a awful choice and I hate it.

I think you misunderstand me; I love the ocean. It is like a deity to me. I’m strongly considering going into marine biology. I need to live by the ocean because it is the only place where I truly feel happy and at peace. Also every ocean creature is Great and funky and if I could spend every day roaming around on the beach looking for Little Beasts I think that would be my ideal life.

However, none of this changes the fact that the ocean is a uncaring and terrifying force of nature that is fundamentally inhospitable to humans, and she wants nothing more than to swallow me up into her cold abyssal embrace and someday she likely will. These two opposing facts about the ocean are what makes it so excellent.

[regina-del-cielo]

“The Old Guard” Daemon AU: Nicky and the Italian wolf

(Guess who decided to jump on the Daemon AU wagon? Yeah)

I am very very Fond of the idea of Nicky’s daemon being a wolf, and here are all the reasons why

Nicky’s whole Life Philosophy is that the immortals are meant to find each other, and wolves are the Quintessential Pack Animal – and the packs are literal families. 🎶 ~ Found Family Vibes, babe ~ 🎶

Wolves are also one of the (very few) mammals that are monogamous and mate for life – if we were to listen to Rucka, Nicky went from priesthood to THEE Romantic Relationship of The Ages, if that’s not monogamy, I don’t know what is

Wolves’ hunting methods are collaborative, efficient and they either kill immediately or tire the prey out – Nicky is ruthless in hand-to-hand combat, but is also a sniper, which requires a LOT of patience. Sniping is a one-man work, but he also can fight flawlessly within a group – just like a wolf is deadly by itself, but also functions well in a pack hunt

Nicky and a wolf have the same ‘unsettlingly intense stare’ routine going on – those super light eyes zeroing in on you and apparently judging you… yeah.

(that’s the most Nicky face I’ve ever seen on an animal, istg)

Being social animals, wolves rely on a complex array of body language expressions, and Nicky may not be particularly loquacious (except when he wants to Diss a Bad Guy), but his face speaks VOLUMES (yes, this is very much an Ode to Luca Marinelli’s micro-expressions)

The whole Vibe is Nicky being ‘looks like a cinnamon roll but could actually kill you’ and his daemon being ‘looks like they could kill you but is actually a cinnamon roll’

(no one would suspect Nicky to be an Efficient Killer if they saw him at the grocery store, and most people would be Scared by the wolf daemon, but she is Very Much a Dork)

Like, LOOK AT HER

Wolves are the (unofficial) national animal of Italy, and until the eradication programs of the 19th century, they were common in all woods and mountains of the peninsula. Nicky’s daemon would look like the Italian endemic subspecies of the Eurasian grey wolf, Canis lupus italicus: they’re smaller and ‘scruffier’ than wolves from the other side of the Alps, and their fur is generally a mix of grey and reddish

Also, considering the reputation of wolves from the Middle Ages up to the 20th (and, damn it, 21st too) century, imagine THE D R A M A of Nicky with a she-wolf daemon. Let me paint a scenario for you:

Christianity in the Middle Ages constantly assigned symbology to animals, and in a Daemon AU this would be even MORE amped up – a world in which a person’s soul takes the shape of an animal, and using the interpretations of the Scriptures you can Clock immediately on who’s a good or bad guy? THEY WOULD JUMP ON THAT

While in the ancient Roman society wolves were, if not venerated, at least hugely tolerated and liked (they were sacred to Mars, the founding god of Rome), Christianity viewed them in an extremely negative light. Most animals in Christian symbology possess both positive and negative interpretations, but the wolf? Oh boy – they represented greed and destruction, the false prophets from which Christ, the shepherd, must protect the faithful (the sheep); and Dante, in the Inferno, used a she-wolf as a metaphor for greed and lust (even in Latin lupa, the she-wolf, was the figurative term to refer to prostitutes)

So here is Nicolò, second son of a family of Good Standing (Genova didn’t have the kind of landed aristocracy that comes to mind when thinking of Middle Ages noblemen; even the vicecomites, the noble families that descended from the vassals of the Holy Roman Emperor, had a good foot and a half into seafaring trade, and by then Genova was largely self-governing and independent from the Empire, even if not a Republic yet; so don’t imagine a Marquis or a Duke, ok?), intended for the clergy since a young age, instructed to be a priest, going through the whole process – and everyone assumes that his daemon will take a Proper Shape for a shepherd of souls. A heron (referred in the Bible as ‘the guide of sparrows’, was a symbol of St. Peter), a chicken (Christ was a mama chick caring for her babies), or a dog – dogs are obedient, dogs are protectors of the community, DOGS ARE GREAT DAEMONS FOR PRIESTS

And then, a couple of years before he’s set to become a deacon (the necessary step before becoming a priest), his daemon settles. And she’s undeniably a wolf.

(do I headcanon that Nicky saw wolves while sneaking out of the monastery school to wander the woods? Maybe. Even if he studied in the abbey of Santo Stefano, which is now almost in the city centre of Genova, we must remember that Nico’s Genova was tiny, with possibly 10k inhabitants max. Wilderness was probably much closer to home then than we could imagine now)

The reaction in the diocese is… not nice. Nicolò at first is kinda defensive about it, because ‘what the fuck, it feels right’ and 'is it really that bad? It’s not like she’s a snake, for Heaven’s sake!'

(note that while in Germany and France wolf hunting had already started at a systematic level, in Italy nothing on the sort was happening in that timeframe. Also, Genova and its surroundings relied much more on sea trade and piracy than on agriculture and livestock, so wolves had much less impact on human activities than in other regions of Europe)        

(also, the Church may have been spreading negative views about wolves, aided by Lombard invasions in which the Lombards themselves described their raids as ‘wolf packs ravaging the lands’, in true Germanic fashion, but you can’t wipe out more than a millennium of positive cultural association from ancient Greek, Sabinian, Etruscan and Roman times with a snap of fingers)

But he’s been taught since he was a child that Christ is a shepherd and wolves are the Enemy, so he has to think that maybe, maybe, something’s gone wrong? (especially when the freaking bishop of Genova takes him aside to ask him if he has some unconfessed sin that may have influenced the settling of his daemon)

He’s not been ordained yet (apparently in Ye Olde Days you had to be at least 25 to be a deacon, and at least 30 to be eligible for priesthood), and since he’s always been ‘such a good young man’, they allow him to stay for a while. They urge him to repent and confess, to pray and ask the Lord for counsel. Maybe, just maybe, if he repents properly, the evil will leave his soul and his daemon’s form will settle differently

(no daemon in history has ever changed form after settling; but the ways of the Lord are infinite, and He has done weirder miracles than that. You never know.)

By the time Nicolò is of age for deaconate, his daemon is still a wolf. She insists that the form fits her, them, perfectly, and she has no need to change into something else. Nico can pray all he wants, there’s nothing wrong with them

At this point, the only thing he can do is go back home. Now, he’s the second son. His older brother is set to inherit the family fortune (personally I’m digging the idea of his father being a land administrator for one of the Big Abbeys. Nicolò becoming a priest would have been great for the family business, just saying); knighthood is out of the question – it’s expensive as fuck, and it requires training since the age of seven. Nicolò is simply too old for that

also, before the First Crusade the attitude of the Church towards soldiers and fighters was… lukewarm at best. Killing was wrong, and even if one couldn’t avoid going to war if the legitimate king asked for it, if a soldier killed in battle, they had to repent publicly and abstain from Mass and Communion for a proper period of time. Monks were even more adamant against the use of violence – and that’s the cultural imprint that Nico, with his priest training, has received

But damn it, his daemon is a wolf. Every nosy neighbour looks at her and shakes their head, saying that they never would have expected mild, even-tempered Nicolò to have a warrior’s soul. “If this attitude had shown up when you were younger”, his father repeats every day, “I would have invested in a sword and a horse and we wouldn’t be in this mess now”

(the fact that wolves rarely become aggressive without good reason, like hunting food or defending their territory and pups, and would rather run away than attack a human if at all possible, is completely lost on them, so Nicolò being even-tempered and having a predator daemon doesn’t click in their minds. It doesn’t click in his mind for a while, either)  

So Nicolò joins the only military body available in Genova that doesn’t require him to be a knight – the crossbowmen. His aim is excellent (he did like hitting targets with a slingshot as a child,thank you very much), and nobody bats an eye at his daemon. He never meets someone else with a wolf daemon, but now he’s surrounded by falcons and hunting dogs, and even a lynx, so he doesn’t stand out as much

Since the crossbowmen participated only at the Siege of Jerusalem, Nicolò doesn’t leave with the first wave of Genoans that went to aid the siege of Antioch – and then came back, while leaving a few merchants inside the city to establish a fondaco for their commerce (maybe his brother does, who knows)

The words of the bishop and every other member of the clergy have been stewing inside Nicolò for a while – he’s been relatively able to ignore them while surrounded by laymen who were weirded out but not too much by her shape, but the promise of the redemption of sins if he fights to free the Holy Land (and apparently, fighting is what he’s destined for, isn’t it?) does appeal to him

Spoiler alert: war sucks Big Time. Especially in Palestine in July, with scarce food, no drinking water, carrying wood while being on the lookout for enemies, and then holding siege in front of a city who has only one side potentially vulnerable to attack

They fight, and fight well – and they also die. Which, fine, it’s a calculated risk. Waking up again is… very much not

(especially when one of the guys you brought down with you wakes up too, what the fuck)

Nicolò and Yusuf keep killing each other for a while, but the sounds coming from inside the walls become impossible to ignore, and they both go inside

Now, let’s be clear. Back in the day, and until the 16th century, unless a city capitulated on its own, when a siege ended it was kinda expected that pillaging would happen. Men of fighting age would be killed, and women and children would be made slaves, unless someone could ransom them. But nothing of the sort was happening in Jerusalem  

I said that dogs make great daemons for priests because they’re also obedient (and HDM Lore assigns dog daemons to servants for that same reason). Wolves may be strongly related to dogs, but they’re not dogs – tamed wolves can be trained to obey commands, but they will decide on their own whether to follow them

Nico’s daemon very much relies on those Critical Thinking Skills when they see what’s going on in Jerusalem. Remember, wolves are hardly the bloodthirsty creatures they’re described as. Senseless killing makes no sense for them

She looks at her human and, in no uncertain terms, she says: “No sin is so bad that only the blood of innocents can redeem it. You wanted to come because they told you my shape came from sin, and I obliged you; now that you’ve seen that it’s bullshit, can we leave this misery?”    

Nicolò, who’s barely holding up and has gone grey on the face (killing sucks, huh?), just nods and makes to turn around and go out – until he sees his enemy-that-won’t-die-either go in the opposite direction, trying to stop what he can of the carnage

Again, it’s his daemon that urges him to go get him. Not that Nico requires too much of an urge: one man alone, even undying, going against an army in full killing frenzy is pure idiocy, also it’s personal now, that guy is his adversary, thank you very much

(they beat each other up some more after Nico extracts Yusuf from Jerusalem, but outside, where no one can see them. When they’re exhausted, they walk away together. It’s not like they have any alternative. And the rest is history)

Re: Nico’s daemon name – in HDM it’s the child’s parents/guardians that name the daemon; I think that in Christian countries in the Middle Ages, most daemons would be named after an esteemed ancestor (if you were rich enough to have one) or a saint (the city’s patron, the saint of the day the baby was born, or someone the family has recently done an ex-voto to). It’s not that different from actual naming practices still in use today in some parts of Italy

Now, Genova has only male patron saints, with the exception of the Virgin Mary, which is ubiquitous and shouldn’t be counted. As a shout out to Luca Marinelli (whose birthday is the 22nd of October, fellow Libra my beloved) I looked up the day saints for the month of October (with prejudice, obviously. Most of the saints in the calendar are posterior to Nicky’s timeline)

This is how I stumbled on Santa Reparata of Caesarea (Palestine), day saint of the 8th October, whose cult started around the 9th century and rapidly spread through Europe. She is the patron saint of Nice, which in that time period belonged to the Duchy of Liguria in the Holy Roman Empire, and was allied with Genova

(Catch me creating the headcanon that Nicolò’s mother came from Nice and wanted to bestow the protection of her hometown’s patron saint on the child that was meant for the church)

(also, Caesarea of Palestine was conquered by Baldwin I in 1101 with the help of the Genoans, and the so-called Sacro Catino that now resides inside San Lorenzo in Genova was looted from there)

So yeah, I think Nicky’s daemon is called Reparata (it literally means the repaired, which considering Nicky’s history… it fits, imo) – think it’s a weird name? Welcome to the Middle Ages, people.

References (excluding the sources linked directly in the text; a couple of them are in Italian, sorry):

Alessandro Barbero (2009): Benedette Guerre: crociate e jihad. Collana Tascabili, Laterza;

Luigi Boitani (1995): “Ecological and cultural diversities in the evolution of wolf-human relationships”, in Ecology and conservation of wolves in a changing world. Carbyn, L. N., Fritts, S. H., and Seip, D. R. (Eds.). Edmonton: Canadian Circumpolar Institute, pages 3-12;

Franco Cardini (2011): “1097. Genova e la prima crociata”, in Gli Anni di Genova, Cardini F., Luzzatto S., Assereto G., Balard M., Felloni G., Pacini A., Bitossi C., Montale B., Gibelli A. (Eds.), Laterza;

Steven A. Epstein (1996): Genoa and the Genoese: 958 – 1528. University of Carolina Press.