#kell and conall

[insufficientchill]

Something blooming, even here.

[lavampira]

raid shenanigans in HM DP council prog tonight include:

me getting bored in the lapse between pulling calphy and waiting for him to drop from the throne so I started pelting him with life day snowballs for parcels

one of the melee dps flying into the void and dying a couple times before realizing that the raptus conal is indeed a conal

zoned out while watching calphy's circles on the floor so I accidentally pushed him into burn and wiped the group

our semi-permanent fill-in and his 'need a cleanse now' chants 0.5s before dying despite running away from the healers every single time a death mark went out

the styrak portal simply refused to spawn on one pull so I leapt into the abyss, landed below the platform, died to ??? who even knows, and the timing of the raid lead hopping down and rezzing me aligned with brontes doing That with her lightning right on top of me as I returned for instant death

desync rearing its head while I tried to kite the kell dragon to brontes (and in our after raid shenanigans as well) to remind us why we've called ourselves 'totally bugged and desynced' as a team name

but we got through it and that wrapped up the last of our hm legacies ops tonight, and then we did some impulse pulls on NiM nefra for funsies until we got that clear (with it being my first time in NiM DF let alone tanking it as well), so after a couple weeks off for the holidays, we're starting our hardmares prog :elmofire:

[puntress-aa]

if you would like to be added to this list, either message me or click here. most of these are off the top of my head or have been discussed ooc, so it’s by no means a complete list. as a reminder, i’ll accept up to two mains of any character. this doesn’t mean interactions are off the table, but that mains and the like will get first priority in terms of starters / meme responses / etc.

ruby rose: @bledrose weiss schnee: @dustess blake belladonna: @dupliqombre penny polendina: @androidess jaune arc: @armoredknight sun wukong: @solisaei, @grimmremnants taiyang xiao long: @dadjckes qrow branwen: @gearwing professor ozpin: @gearcane cinder fall: @maidened jason todd: @bikerfetish dick grayson: @firstwonder rey: @graylit noctis lucis caelum: @royalrite literally all of eli’s blogs: @spunstories, @jaigsight, @lothwolfrun, @skullmotif, etc. literally all of nicole’s blogs: @healedlegacy, @eleutheriana, @spectredeux, etc. literally all of kells’ blogs: @madelegacy, @qvake, @collectve, etc. literally all of conal’s blogs: @artisticallydcne, @slainmessiah, @ancientwonder, etc.

[aetherschreiber]

Fic: Hedge Knight (notes)

So there you are! Thanks for reading! I'm under no delusions that this is going to get a lot of attention, being as the fandom is tiny at this point. So please be aware that any feedback you can give is precious as gold and will be greatly treasured.

This was the result of a very old plot bunny of about twenty years of age. So, older than most acutal bunnies. Back in the day, it was not very clearly worked out, which is probably why it didn't get written until now. This actually bears very little resemblance to the original plot bunny, since 20 years ago I was a silly fifteen-year-old girl without a clue. My historical nerding and ability to do research is what finally really brought this thing to light. It just didn't have a chance, back in the day.

And, while working on this, it bred some other plot bunnies that I might try to nuture in the future. Not sure, yet. We'll see if they come together.

Now, excuse me while I nerd this out...

Because I'm a huge nerd, I went digging around in Irish mythology for some stuff. I've made a few assumptions on stuff that was never clearly established in the show itself, so I thought I would make a few notes here.

Regarding Emain Macha...

The show never gave a name for the village that was in the shadow of Kells Castle. I wanted to have one and the Ulster Cycle calls the town that Conchobar mac Nessa rules from Emain Macha. Plus, I liked the story of the way the town got its name. So I stole it and ran like Macha in the horse race. Nothing too ground-breaking here.

I went and got down and nerdy with the characters's names and some side-stories, too. It's always kind of bothered me that none of them had full, period style names (because, like I said, I'm a nerd). Deirdre and Conchobar would certainly have had something more than just a given name, as would Ivar. Rohan and Angus are somewhat more open to interpretation, so I put my own spin on it. Plus, I'm in the SCA, so I just couldn't help myself while digging through medieval Irish names.

Regarding the name Rohan Draganta Ban Ui Meith Macha...

The conceit of Rohan's clan name is that he is descended from the war goddess Macha. This distinction would have come from his father's side of the family, ostensibly a Kellsman. Draganta I threw in there as a sort of "middle name" because it would have been in there somewhere, but I'm just not sure how it would have been lenited, since as far as I can tell it's not actually an Irish name.

When you get right down to it, Rohan is basically CuChullain, who was not born with that name and only was called that after defeating a giant hound (see Tash Hound of Temra, and may other references throughout the show). As a young boy, since no one in the village knew anything about his epic destiny, he was called by the villagers of Emain Macha "Rohan Ban" meaning "Rohan the fair" because of his hair. The moniker stuck, even after he finds out his identity as the Warrior Draganta.

Regarding the name Deirdre inghean Conchobair Ui Rudhraighe...

There isn't a whole lot here that needs to be explained. This is a straight up lineage type of a name. It basically says that she's Conchobar's daughter, who is in turn a male descendant of a man named Rudraige. This clan name is derived from a high-king of Ireland, Rudraige, whose son was a king of Ulster (or in this context, Kells). I never actually got around to actually using the name in the fic, but it's here in the notes for completeness' sake.

In my head, Deirdre's mother was named Eithne. She was killed by Maeve when Deirdre was a little girl. Don't know why that's relevant. But there you are.

The show pretty much tossed out the actual Irish mythology of Deirdre and Conchobar. Trust me, this is a good thing. The Conchobar of myth was a real creeper and what he did to the Deirdre of myth was unsettling and I'm pretty sure illegal in modern life (and no, I don't just mean killing her husband; that's DEFINITELY illegal). So I pretty much tossed out anything of the names of the characters from myth and more or less treated them as new characters with their own backstories.

Regarding the name Angus Dubh o Cumhaill...

Angus effectively equates to Conall Cernach, the best friend of CuChullain.

In my fic, he is a descendant of Cailte mac Ronain, nephew of the last king of the Fianna, through his son Oisin. In actual Irsh myth, Conall and Cailte were not related (in fact, one is from the Ulster Cycle and the other from the Fenian Cycle and here I've even reversed their time periods), but a relating of the two characters is used for story purposes, because what the hell? The show didn't care about that stuff, either.

All of this was on his mother's side of the family. His mother's brother, Cet mac Magach, was told by a druid that the baby would one day kill his uncle. Cet was afraid of this and tried to kill Angus shortly after he was born. This is based on the story of Conall and Cet from Irish myth, but around there is where the similarities end and artistic licence takes over. When Cet did not succeed, he fled to Temra. Angus' mother and father then left him with an old lady named Brighde in Emain Macha to hide him from any further attempts on his life by Cet. This is why he was basically brought up as a street urchin along side Rohan.

The old lady gave him the moniker Dubh because of his dark hair. But Angus never really liked it, so he didn't perpetuate it after Brighde died. The fact that Cet refers to him as such is the result of a very old rumor finally making its way to Cet after many years.

The story Angus tells of besting the soldier Anluan is based on the Tale of Mac Da Tho's Pig. In that, Conall wins the debate by casually tossing Anluan's freshly-severed head to Cet. I uh... toned it down, just a smidge.

Conall kind of has a history of severing heads. I pretty much left that out. It didn't exactly say "Angus" to me...

Regarding the name Ivar ibn Idris Adar as-Salar...

No, you didn't miss this name, either. Again, never got around to using it in the fic. But it was a fun excersise.

The idea for Ivar is that he is a prince in pre-Muslim Syria. He is the son of Idris, a prince, of the clan Salar. In that culture, the title of Prince has a different connotation. Ivar's father is not necessarily a king and Ivar will not necessarily succeed him. In fact, given that it was his task to guard the silver chalice, and that he was sent to retrieve it, and that he was free to pledge help to Rohan and Kells, it seems likely that he is a younger son of a local prince, under a sultan, and not likely to inherit.

Random note, Ivar is NOT a Syrian name and is most likely a derivation of the Scandanavian name Ivor. Why the show didn't go ahead and find an actual name of the type of heritage that Ivar was clearly supposed to have, I really don't know and I was rather disappointed to learn. But Ivar isn't terribly glaring in its ethic displacement, so I ran with it and chose a name sort of like it for his father in order to help it fit in.

Finally, in reference to the title of the fic...

Yes, I am aware that the term "hedge knight" first showed up in the Song of Ice and Fire series. However, that wasn't what inspired the title of this fic. Rather it was a fantastic song I heard around a campfire in the SCA. I know the bard in question as Lady Cobflaith (she's a really awesome person with a lot of talent!). The song itself has very little to do with the plot of the fic at all, but it did introduce me to the idea of a penniless knight and the idea that someone who might not seem to others to be worthy can do great things, even if only in the eyes of the few or the one.

Oh, and one more note. Mace fighting is weird and hard to write. A sword girl like me, who depends on keeping covered and breaking tempos, can't wrap her head around a weapon that works with a rhythm and leaves parts of the wielder open to thrust attacks at regular intervals. So, those bits probably kind of sucked and I'm sorry.

Sláinte!

[insufficientchill]

character arc —

disillusionment arc

it's hard to imagine yourself when you were young. maybe you were meant to be a hero; maybe you could have been, in another world, but this world only made you sad. there seemed to be too many problems to fix and too much cruelty and too many hard lines that you did not know how to soften. the world turns and it is bloody and hard and you sit on your bed, thinking about the blood and the hardness and all you failed to do. i know it feels like you could sleep until the end of time, but i hope you don't. i hope you lift yourself out of bed one day, not to save the world, but to peel an orange and to walk in a forest; to find all the softness you could not create.

all on point except that kell's disillusionment arc happened long before he became arisen & he's over it & back to peeling oranges, because you might as well peel some oranges while you're waiting to die. if he's newly disillusioned at the end of this story it's not about failure, it's about survivor's guilt.

tragic hero arc

we all know how this story goes. when it began, you were almost the perfect hero, but almost is never enough. you lacked introspection, or you were too stubborn or vengeful or reckless - as reckless as the world that helped to ruin you. you were not perfect, and that's okay. we knew the story ended in blood and we watched it anyway. we knew you would die in the end and we still couldn't help but love you, just a little bit. at the very least, you are more human than a hero could ever be.

oh.....yeah. all this happened a long time ago, but it's going to happen again.

i like that for both of them these are less arcs than circles, patterns, cycles they're struggling to escape. feels very very. also that conall gets to be the hero—that this is in some way his story—because of course.

(tagged in by @arisenreborn , thank you! quiz here!)

[insufficientchill]

it was a mistake to entrust me with this (CarryMeSenpai mod)

e: "me," tumblr user insufficientchill, and "this," the mod, but also "me," kell the thief from the checkpoint, and "this," his longsuffering and very sleepy mage

[insufficientchill]

con finally caught kell but i wasn't fast enough on the screenshot so it just looks like he's checking if kell's day-drunk (possible tbh)

[insufficientchill]

Aught catches the light...

[insufficientchill]

how i imagine the Camping situation plays out. incidentally

[insufficientchill]

first shot at drawing my arisen and main pawn—kell's not there yet, but conall's getting close. charming thief / stoic mage is always the right choice

[insufficientchill]

addt'nlly. should really have slapped the game logo on this one

[insufficientchill]

👻🎩🧸 for the miscellaneous symbol headcanons ask game?

Ahh thank you so much! This was fun. <3 Con and Kell in combination, since they go together.

👻 - How does your muse handle feeling scared? Do they enjoy horror? Do they believe in the paranormal? What calms your muse down? Do they have any scary stories?

Conall is extremely good at compartmentalizing and, while he is frequently afraid (of falling, of failing, of not being enough), he remains extremely reserved and collected in most circumstnces. Even when he’s alone he tends to tell himself that he can’t be afraid—can’t in the sense of mustn’t but also can’t in the sense of isn’t able to, because pawns don’t feel. Kell mostly notices this as Conall constantly flexing and stretching his fingers, and, assuming they’re just sore from casting, Kell will catch hold of his hands absentmindedly while talking about something else and massage them the way he’d massage a comrade’s sword-hand after a long day on the road. Fortunately this does in fact help. 

Kell will happily tell you he’s a coward, but what he really means is that he’s not particularly bothered about honour or glory, and he’ll gladly cut a deal to end a fight quicker. Actual in-the-moment fear is something he’s almost desensitized to; he’s had a lot of near-death experiences, and at this point he’s good at laughing them off. He knows some hair-raising ghost stories and tall tales, and he also knows how to string them out as long as someone keeps buying drinks.

They both absolutely believe in the paranormal (how could they not). Conall doesn’t particularly enjoy horror—fiction generally is a luxury he doesn’t allow himself unless he feels it reveals something useful about the world—but Kell likes any rollicking story with twists and turns.

🎩 - What would your muse wear to a formal event? Do they dress more modestly, or do they go all out?

Kell hates looking too pulled together—it kind of undermines his whole easy-lazy-please-underestimate-me thing—so, unless under duress, his preferred formal-wear involves open collars, leather breeches and rag-and-bone-shop velvets. He sort of cultivates an air of decayed luxury, with mismatched jewellery and even more kohl than usual. Might swing for a black silk eyepatch, maybe. There’s probably some cologne going on (smoke, sandalwood, damask rose). 

Conall’s default approach to formalwear is to ask if what he’s wearing now will do, and if not, to find the plainest black robes possible: he’s just a loyal servant, after all. It's not the choosing that bothers him so much as the spotlight on choice; really he's fairly picky about what he wears day-to-day, as long as no one points out that he seems to have a preference. Kell has to cajole him into dressing up—c’mon, people are going to think I don’t treat you right—and even then he’s so unsettled by the process he just ends up telling Kell to pick something for him anyway. (He might, after too long trying on clothes, let his eyes fix on a silver-chain pendant for a moment—moonstone, set it sterling—and Kell might buy it for him, or nick it, depending on whether he likes the seller. Kell also tries to get Con to do “something nice” with “all that hair,” but Conall usually doesn’t got for it.)

🧸 - Does your muse own any sentimental objects from their past? What makes it/them so special?

Kell still has the bootknife that was his first dagger, left to him after its owner—a hard-living “old man” who, in retrospect, can’t have been more than 45 or so—fell in a meaningless little scuffle on the mountain road. It’s not a well-made or elegant thing—a heavy-bladed hunting knife, honed and sharpened down over years into a poorly balanced, oddly narrow blade that happens to fit between the joints of a knight’s full-plate—but it has a wooden handle polished to a shine by many hands, and it still serves its purpose. 

Conall has a pouch on his belt with a few things in it: a smooth river stone, a steel fishhook, a cracked and charred red gem cut for a pommel, a single dried flower, a twist of leather cord. He has no memory of what these things mean, but he takes them out sometimes to look at anyway. 

Miscellaneous Symbol Headcanons <3

[insufficientchill]

(from arisenreborn) ⛄️ for Kell and Conall?

Oh thank you!! This is a lovely one.

⛄️ What would be your muse's ideal weather conditions? Do they prefer being hot or cold? What's their favorite season?

Kell’s a hot weather kid, though truthfully he’s pretty inured to most conditions: hot weather at least means berries on the bushes, less chance of fever or frostbite, a little more space to sleep in. But it never really occurs to him to care or complain about the weather, honestly—unless someone else is clearly thinking it, then he’s happy to take up the slack and lead the charge on their behalf. Late summer, late evening, sitting on a roof somewhere with a bottle of wine and your boots off, no outstanding warrants for your arrest—that’s the ideal. 

Having spent most of the past century in the rift, Conall regards any weather with suspicion and resolute endurance—one of those conditions of the world, like death and library late fees, that one must accept in the pursuit of one's duty. That said, he runs hot by nature, so he prefers colder weather; he’d rather be too warm by a fire than too warm in the sun. He is, as you might expect, prone to sunburn; Kell tries to get him to wear hats in the desert but he mostly refuses because they “impact his field of view” (he thinks they look undignified). He’d be happiest in a warm room with a storm howling outside, with a pot of tea and a stack of books. (And Kell.)

Miscellaneous Symbol Headcanons <3

[insufficientchill]

i wanted to do this lovely DD2 character intro from @arisenreborn but i think details will be up in the air until i get deeper in the plot... but i can do basics, at least!

♛ THE ARISEN:

NAME: Kell (no one remembers what it's short for) AGE: 27 RACE: Human PRONOUNS: He/him PREFERRED VOCATION: Thief FAVORED GIFTS: He'd say "gold," but really it's food and drink FAMILY: None left except maybe some bandits northeast of the Rest Town (Vermund side), sort of, depending on how he feels about them today POSITIVE TRAITS: Egalitarian, easy-going, generous, preternaturally good balance NEGATIVE TRAITS: Unpredictable, doesn’t value his own life, sometimes veers melancholic in his cups LIKES: Sticking it to the bastards, drinking with friends, getting away with it DISLIKES: Noble smugness, the concept of “glory,” paying for inns

♟︎ THE PAWN:

NAME: Conall AGE: Appears to be in his early/mid-30s RACE: Human-looking PRONOUNS: He/him PREFERRED VOCATION: Mage FAVORED GIFTS: Books. INCLINATION: Calm POSITIVE TRAITS: Intelligent, thoughtful, magickally talented, practical NEGATIVE TRAITS: Comes off cold and callous; practical to the point of ruthlessness, especially when it comes to his own safety. Will use magick unsafely if he thinks it will be effective LIKES: Reading, praise, occasionally showing off a little DISLIKES: Failure, crowded places, small talk

Questions to come as part 2 (I have my provisional answers all worked out)!