#worldless oc: Aziel/the hunter

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Some Random Worldless: Eclipsed Headcanons

Just... eclectic ideas.

Starfolk don't really have accents in the same way we do, but if they did, Summum would have a Scottish brogue.

Aziel can rock the dancefloor. The Electric Slide? Smooth as silver. Contradancing? He's everyone's favorite dance partner. Swing? Hold on tight!

He also gives me some vaguely Irish vibes.

I can also see him as a bartender.

He would 100% learn how to make mead in his free time, just for kicks and giggles.

Oh also there's little Lucerni that are very like bees. They make sweet goop and some spin little crystal formations that are also sweet.

In other news Aziel is a beekeeper now.

The Training Room (Reminiscence) is the ultimate safe and chill space. It's also basically the closest thing the Duo have to a home/living room at first.

And it doubles as a gym-

Side note the Duo is basically homeless for a good chunk of New Eden's impetus. They uh... don't have a proper home.

They take up residence with Summum or Throne in the meantime. Sometimes they crash at Archi's when they need to.

Aven is really flexible. Mans can turn himself into a pretzel.

Edda is jealous. However, she can swing a sword properly and will forever hold that over him (affectionately)

(Side note, Aven can't wield a sword or shield to save his life. Edda finds this endlessly hilarious.)

Because he sinks like an absolute rock, he's great at diving games! Just... not so good at bringing the dive fetch back up.

The General's all-time favorite piece of clothing is this sleeveless black turtleneck she has. She just... she loves it. She's not even really sure why.

She also discovered via Throne that she can in fact rock a halter top.

The General has like... one, maybe two dresses in her wardrobe - a stunningly elegant formal and maybe an evening-wear semiformal-cocktail dress... thingy.

She's...never really had a reason to wear them.

Willow is very determined to change this.

Speaking of Willow, her combat skills haven't gotten rusty in the slightest. She and Athena still spar sometimes. Willow can win about 20% of the time.

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

After...way too long.... here's this-

Also, here's that answer I mentioned ages ago, @octahedral-chaos

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Aziel, The Hunter

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Silly thingy but, does the duo have any artistic talent? What about Eden?

In fact, does any one of the Eclipsed Wanderers have any cool talents/ skills?

Hrmmmmm.

Well, now they do!

Aven has most of the skill for traditional art - sketching, painting, he loves it and can do some very impressive work. Post-Eden especially he gets a chance to really hone that skill, and sometimes runs a little booth at markets with some paintings and sketches. He's also quite a talented dancer, given the opportunity. (Put this man in a festival dance and he is a sight to behold, and also one of the best dance partners in existence.)

Edda is fairly good at sketching, since she loves observing and taking field notes on an area, but not as good at full rendering. Her talent lies more in music. She has a beautiful voice and excellent pitch and rang to boot (excellent in terms of Starfolk, mind, who already have very good pitch). Eventually, Aven coaxes her into doing some duets with an instrumentalist or two (*cough* instrumentalists below). Edda also enjoys writing quite a bit - helps her get her thoughts in order, and sometimes she writes little short stories.

Eden has a combination of both skillsets, amped up a little in some respects. Their voice in particular is gorgeous given that they are quite literally dueting themselves with their three to five layers of voice, which - as they discovered on accident when they sneezed - they can manipulate independently.

As for the other Wanderers, Aziel and The General are both very good with instruments!

The General is better with stringed instruments, and can actually create a harp analog by morphing her weapons (as a tidbit of lore: that harp was the original form of her summon. They only became her war scythe after the conflict started). The General can sing too, but she's pretty shy about it. If you can get her to sing, her voice is in the high tenor/dramatic contralto range and very smooth, but good luck getting her to do more than hum. Her other talents lie more in athletics and sports - acrobatics and competitive archery are her favorites. She's also a very good swimmer, and also absolutely whoops everyone in the triathlon, followed closely by Dark Paladin. The two have a friendly rivalry over sports events. (Dark Starfolk triathlons consist of swimming, running, and a grappling segment. Light Starfolk switch the swimming out for a hefty platforming section. I now have the strongest urge to write our quartet trying a wipeout course.)

Aziel has figured out how to morph his atlatl into a bowed instrument equivalent (sort of an upright bass), and also has a little... effectively a small theremin, that it can fold into, powered by channeling small amounts of lightning into it. Aziel also enjoys carving, something he got good at over time. He's best with wood, but he can do some good work with stone too, given time. His "magnum opus" so to speak is a malachite bracelet that turns into an armillary sphere. He also made a pair of twin pendants that send little pings to each other over distance - a simple "I miss you"/"I love you" for whatever occasion may demand it.

As a side note, all of the wanderers group together to sing little quartets, and quintets if they can convince Summum to join them. At one point Aziel got Edda, Angel, and Gabriel together for a quartet and the result was the second most beautiful thing anyone had heard since the fall of the Old World.

Another thought: After the initial Rebirth of Eden and the dust settled, the Starfolk all gathered to mourn the losses that happened during the Conflict. They all - every last one - began a Requiem for the Fallen as they constructed a monument. In tandem with the song, a new group of luminescent flowers sprung from the ground and twined themselves around the monument. Starfolk call it "Falling Star" for that reason, and they bloom every year beginning on that same day - one bloom for every fallen star.

The monument appears like a glowing spire, heavy with flowers.

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Also I kind of like throwing my ocs at your ocs... so have a thingy!

Aster meeting the Wanderer group, including Eden!

First things first, I am so sorry this took so long- I had some trouble figuring out what to actually do and how to write Aster, lol.

Cast: Eden, Aziel, The General, Aster, and brief mention of Nereo, Dareia, and Nakoa.

Aster’s Accidental Adventures: Eclipsed Edition

Aster gazed around this strange realm – his arrival was an utter accident, but here he was, and he found it fascinating. The flora defied physics, the terrain too, and it was beautiful! And little white creatures flitted to and fro through the deep blue trees. He wandered forward, driven by curiosity, until he heard voices nearby. In a small clearing, three humanoid creatures were… speaking? To each other? At any rate, they were making sounds at each other in what sure looked like a conversation. They also seemed… oddly familiar.

Well, that was an understatement. One in particular looked quite similar to himself, it a lot of ways.

Maybe he could go say hello??

----------------------------------

Of the strange things Eden had encountered since the New Beginning, the being that had just emerged from the foliage had to be near the top of the list.

Stranger yet, they looked for all the world like some sort of Wanderer. Just… also a bit different? They had wings, which was unusual for Wanderers, but perhaps they were a different starfolk? And they had a curious blue wreath of some sort on their head. And there was something eerily familiar about them – at least, to Aven there was. Hm…

Before Eden found their voice again, Aziel was waving and shouting hello, and the General was actively trying to shush him, sending worried looks at the newcomer.

“General it’s fine, he’s clearly another starfolk–”

“And he isn’t one we’ve seen before, what if he’s still hostile–?”

“That’s not how that works–”

“Shush you two,” Eden chuckled. “If he were hostile, he’d have attacked already. Hello friend!”

The stranger waved back, everything in his posture suggesting surprise. “H-hello!”

Eden paused. That… that wasn’t sonar… his speech was stretched out…? Interesting. “What’s your name, friend? And what brings you here?”

“Oh, I’m Aster! I…don’t really know how I got here though….”

“Pleasure to meet you, Aster!” Aziel chirped. “I’m Aziel, this here is the General, and that’s E…den…. You okay Eden?”

“Yeah, Edda’s being territorial again.”

“See, she gets it.”

“Athena…”

“Az–”

Eden turned back to Aster. “Sorry about that. Welcome to the Midnight Forest! We have…trees.” Eden waved vaguely to their surroundings. “You showed up at the right time too – there’s a small market opening over that-a-way in a bit. Want to come with?”

“O-oh! Yes please!”

“Let’s get going, then,” the General chirped.

The quartet began making their way east, Aster following Eden closely, and occasionally glancing nervously at the General. “Um, excuse me, Eden?”

“Hmm?”

“Who’s Edda? Is that… you as well?”

“Oh, yeah. Edda is part of me. I’m two people, sorta. Still one person though, most of the time.”

“…Got it. I think. Who’s the other one?”

“Aven.”

“Aven…? Aven….” Aster murmured to himself. That name sounded weirdly familiar. Huh.

“And what about you, Aster? Where do you hail from? I haven’t seen you around here.”

“Oh, I come from Skyworld! Been there all my life. Not sure where it is in relation to here, though. Never heard of the Midnight Forest before.”

“…Skyworld?”

“Yeah! …I suppose you’ve not heard of it either?”

“Nope. I don’t even know how we’d get there from here, it doesn’t sound like any of our constellations. Who are some of the people there?”

“Well, I’m a guard for Lady Palutena, maybe you’ve heard of her?”

Eden shook their head. “Can’t say I have.”

“Aw… I think you’d like her, she’s awesome. I wonder if I can get you guys to Skyworld with me….”

The General cut in, uncharacteristically quiet, “Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t think Skyworld is connected to this place. I think you ended up here on accident – I doubt Skyworld is part of our world.”

“…Oh. What…makes you say that?”

“This world is inhabited mostly by Starfolk – does Lady Palutena look anything like you or us?”

“Well, no, but–”

“Then chances are she’s a different species entirely, and one we haven’t met. Also, Eden doesn’t recognize you. And you don’t talk normally.”

“What do you mean by that?” Aster bristled.

“Your speech is all stretched out. Have you not noticed?”

“…No? This is how people talk, isn’t it?”

“Not how we talk. Hear that?”

“I…guess I hadn’t noticed that…. So you think I’m from a completely different universe or somethin’?”

“Something like that.”

“…Funky. Oh, random question, but are you Athena? I heard him–” Aster pointed to Aziel “–call you that earlier.”  

The General sighed, shooting Aziel a pointed side-eye. “Yes, technically. I don’t use it very often.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s fine kid, don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not a kid!”

“Compared to us you are. Well, you’re about Edda and Aven’s age, but that’s still younger than Az and I.”

“I am a grown adult–”

“Aaaaand we’re here!” Aziel cut in, gesturing to the assembling market with a grand sweep of his arm.

“Whoa! Are…are those all Starfolk?”

“Yep!” Eden scanned over the crowd. “Oo, Dareia’s here, we’ll have to check her stand out. But yes, everyone here is Starfolk.”

“And…I’m also Starfolk?”

“From the looks of it, yeah.”

“That’s… huh. I wonder why.”

Eden shrugged. “Might be coincidence? Hard to say. I don’t know how your world works.”

“Oo, look, Nakoa’s here this time! Heh, looks like he’s setting up a food stall.” Aziel nudged the General. “Maybe he’s doing sushi?”

“I doubt it.”

Aziel looked at her cheekily.

“But maybe we should check…. Oh, there's Nereo.”

“That’s the spirit!”

And just like that, Aziel took off into the market proper, the General in tow. Eden chuckled before following, waving Aster to join them perusing the stalls. Aster may or may not have ended up in possession of a Moth plush by the time they were done.  

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Okay so technically I've already discussed what instruments our wanderers play, but.

But what if human instruments, what then? Orchestra headcanons be upon ye:

Edda mostly sings, really - solos are her forte hehe. However, she does also play violin because... yeah. It's not her favorite though. she can also cover as a percussionist, so you'll see her on timpani and bells sometimes. (These, of course, belong to the college, not her.)

Aven plays cello, because cello is a gorgeous instrument. He has also played a lute before (belongs to the college), and once got to try his hand at the theorbo (belonged to someone at the music festival). He's actually pretty good at guitar, but that doesn't fit too solidly in the orchestra most times (his own is acoustic).

The General plays the harp, and also the hammered dulcimer when necessary (dulcimer is the college's). She had the pleasure of attempting the theremin one time at a festival and had a lot of fun with it.

Aziel plays the double bass, and can play the viola (he's not as good at that though...). Also, because this is Aziel, he plays the alto saxophone. He tried clarinet at one point and was bored out of his mind, but that was in middle school (have I mentioned that this is basically a weird high school/college au setting?). (Also the clarinet was rented, saxophone was rent to own so he owns it now.)

Willow plays the trumpet. Everyone is confused. She also plays trombone, but that she borrows from the college.

Summum plays the bassoon and bass clarinet. On occasion the director recruits him to clarinet.

Throne plays the oboe, and for some reason can also play the French horn. She's very good at both.

Archi plays flute and piccolo. She doesn't use the piccolo often, and will come for your kneecaps if you dare put "piano" or "pianissimo" in the piccolo part. She also kinda despises ledger lines, because they are exceedingly annoying to sight-read. (Hi hello I'm projecting my flute struggles on Archi-)

Bonus: Ceren (Demon) can play the kazoo and the triangle.

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Also imagine:

Human-starfolk oc trying to talk, or just trying to comfort themselves in general.

And on a happier note: The Duo, General and Aziel gets thrown into Starblood Valley. Cue chaos-

Awwww..... *teary eyes* (please please please can i just give them a hug-)

Oh boy. Yep, cue absolute chaos. Also known as: Aziel being the only chill one, the General very nearly stabbing a guy, and the Duo trying to wrangle to abruptly encountered strangers plus the new environment.

Oh, and the abject (and vaguely existential) horror of discovering exactly what went on in Starblood Valley. Small detail there.

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Also what if.

Aziel gets yeeted into the Modern world... how well does he cope with it?

Hm.... well, once again, he's pretty friendly, and sticks to the "don't want none don't start none" philosophy. He's also a rather curious individual, so he'd be more curious to learn about this strange new place than anything else. I imagine that once he gets past the initial shock of being Somewhere Else, he'd be a very curious and friendly fellow, but also... cautious of the locals.

Now, if we smoosh him into the previous Modern World scenario and the Trio becomes the Quartet, things go a touch differently.

In that case, he's easily the most social of the group, and functions as a bit of a liaison between the humans and the trio, who's a bit...skittish. However, he's also at a slight disadvantage with sign language, since he's confined to one hand, but he gets the point across. Either way, he's easily the first to adjust, and the most level headed about everything. That said, he's a little bit too trusting sometimes, and the General has to check him a bit.

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Oh and silly Starblood Valleys thingy...

Imagine General and Aziel meeting Endling... hope this goes well I guess?

Hmmmm.

Well, Aziel is pretty friendly, and avoids confrontation where he can (cuz...arm...), so he's not gonna start anything if Endling doesn't.

The General... depends on when the General is, at this point. If we assume best case, she's pretty wary of potential threats, but if it's something she doesn't recognize (and quite frankly, is bigger than her,) she's going to wait until they show signs of aggression to act.

With that in mind, we've got two wary but non-aggressive starfolk, one of whom is much friendlier than the other. Both are even more wary because this critter is most definitely starfolk adjacent, but also definitively not simply a starfolk. So... wary and curious sonar pings.

Assuming Endling is being friendly and curious, the three probably get along just fine as soon as our two resident Wanderers get over the initial scare of "WHO AND WHAT ARE YOU-"

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Alright!

*Hands Aziel a plushie of his choice*

Hope you like it!

Aziel chirps happily, then purrs, hugging the plushie and squishing it a few times before securing it to one of his tassets, safely tucked on the inside and out of harms way.

(...It's little willow wisp plushie)

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Also Aziel seems pretty cool! Got any lore for them?

Ah yes, Aziel.

Aziel is another Wanderer that managed to escape the initial massacre at the Conflict's onset, though not without a hefty price. He was overtaken by a heron and fenced in by a crawler. The heron pinned him down and the crawler consumed. Fortunately, the heron was sloppy in its pinning and Aziel threw it off before it could kill him, then fled deeper into the Silver Peaks.

At the time, the passage between the Silver Peaks and the Twilight Tundra hadn't sealed off yet, and he made it through about a day before it collapsed, leaving him quarantined in the Tundra and Azure Islands. The bridge between the Islands and Tundra got burned down shortly after as well.

Like the rest of his kin, Aziel also lost his sapience in the Conflict. However, with his isolation from the primary warzones and the comparative lack of enemy starfolk in the Tundra, he had more time with his own head.

You see, Worldless took away the starfolks' sapience, but another way to think of it would be free will. Many starfolk - such as the Wanderers, Angel, Demon, Paladin, and Lightning Nightmare - still retained a shadow of "sapience". They appeared sapient. They appeared as though they had a semblance of interpersonal interaction. It was just...void of any true meaning. There was no will behind it. No conscious ability to decide. They were neither able to nor at liberty to act outside of their Polarity's urges, even though a shadowy pretense of sapience still lingered.

Therein lies Worldless' mistake. As long as the demands of Polarity were strong, that held up. Of course, we know that transcendence can carve right past this barrier like a knife through butter. But, there's another solution as well: if removed from the warzone for long enough, the barrier between apparent sapience and free will gets thinner and thinner, until it can be torn.

And so, Aziel woke up.

As a result, the rest of the world opened up to him as well. Like our duo, with the return of sapience he gained access to the In-between, and could travel again. That said, he still has to fight past Dark Starfolk to make much progress, and without an arm that proves difficult. He tries to avoid direct confrontation, given that he can't absorb, and until he finds a solution to the missing limb issue he's not in top combat condition. His fights are either an ambush sprung on him, or something he carefully calculated to handle from afar with his ranged attacks. He's not much of a close quarters fighter for the time being. Before the Conflict, that was a different story. Now, not so much. He was already skilled at evasive fighting and using the terrain to his advantage. Losing a limb has only sharpened that skill.

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

The Wanderers Quartet meeting Endling! Especially if it's early on in being stuck at Starblood Valleys...

Oh and imagine them encountering an Archive-

Hoo boy. That's gonna be interesting.

With how on edge the General would be, I suspect she'd darn near jump them if they startled her, but Aziel would probably keep her from actually doing damage. As for the duo, their cautious but not hostile, given that this starfolk looking fellow isn't attacking them immediately.

I think the majority of their survival there would be Aven going "Aziel please don't wander off- wait Edda come back, no we shouldn't go that way, yes I know there's water there- General NO don't attack without consULTING-!"

And then Endling shows up and Aziel is detaining General from throwing hands with an entirely innocent lad while the duo attempt to negotiate. Once everyone is sufficiently chill, they are Friends.

Now, encountering the history of this place? They'd be absolutely mortified.

Encountering an archive would be interesting.... and probably involve Edda and General being very wary of whatever This Thing is, meanwhile Aven's curious but worried and Aziel is cautious but more enthusiastically curious and does the investigating.

If Archives store anything resembling a map of the area, you can bet the General is going to spend as much time as she can poring over them and memorizing them for strategies (meanwhile Aziel has a much better memory for geography already), as well as finding out as much about the predators there as she can. Aziel would be more interested in the history, as would Aven, while Edda is a little more interested in just the potential enemies.

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Oh and is Aziel missing a finger? I noticed one of their fingers seem to be covered with a metal piece

Nope! Not a missing finger (though my bad on the lack of clarity), it's just a claw piece. He doesn't have natural claws, so he has that as a sort of... "equipable" claw. It serves both as a functional claw and as a sorta showpiece/decoration.

Although, to briefly run with the missing finger, now I'm also trying to envision what on earth this lad would be doing that he got his middle finger bitten off or otherwise removed.

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Also some more silly Eden stuff,

What was Summum's reaction to them when they resurrected them!

Would Eden like a plushie?

Also Eden interacting with other starfolks, especially wanderers!

Summum's reaction was an interesting mix of surprise, terror, tentative relief, and fondness (and this got long, so putting all this under the cut).

The first thing Summum felt was panicked fear, because to his knowledge, he shouldn't be alive. He should be gone for good. For a brief moment, he felt utter, unadulterated panic and fear that something may have gone wrong. Then he got glomped by Eden, and quickly concluded that no, everything is fine, Eden just...has the power of a god now.... So that shifted to surprise for a moment, then unbridled fondness and a certain amount of concern for Eden (and a lot of mother-hening).

I also have a bit of an angst idea that is going either here, or in the New Management AU, wherein Summum is absolutely convinced that he must be in some kind of dream or illusion, and is struggling to come to grips with the idea that this new paradise is real. He's terrified to trust and let himself believe this is real, because he doesn't know if he can handle having that shattered if it isn't. If that happens in Eclipsed, then Eden is the one who works him through it. If it happens in New Management, then it's Delta who mostly helps him, with a hefty dose of Edda and Aven.

In other news, Eden would love a plushie! They are nodding enthusiastically-

Heehee, yeah, Eden has some fun interactions with the other Starfolk. Partly because post-TOFA, all the Starfolk intuitively know that this is the one who basically consumed a god, and partly because they are Green™ and That's New (for them). However, the general disposition is friendly and grateful, with a great deal of "thank you for restoring our sapience and not just nuking everything to restart or somethin'." There's a lot of check-in visits on Eden's part - sensing where everyone is at, checking up on people and making sure no one is distressed, rescuing anyone who is in an imminently bad spot, etc. There's also some rescue missions from the various quarantined zones, both of the stranded, and of Starfolk that got trapped indefinitely by the environment itself. ...There's approximately a week or two spend just...disinterring Starfolk from the bottom of the Diopside Marina...

Stuff with the wanderers in particular gets interesting, especially between Aziel, The General, and Willow (the Fairy, who I've been referring to as the Willow Wisp. She's not a wanderer, but still). Namely, Eden straight up brings Willow back, and that makes for an interesting little dynamic.

The abrupt absence of TOFA and the return of sanity also did a great deal to remove some physical strain and pain from the Wanderers, and also saw the sudden emergence of several Wanderers who'd been hiding in the shadows or hibernating somewhere inaccessible (Nereo and Dareia being such examples).

Aziel just runs straight up to Eden and starts shaking their hand and chattering excitedly, and Eden is immediately thrown by the fact that there's another Wanderer, and they actually get to talk to him. Then the General shows up and they start questioning just how many Wanderers there are that survived the massacre.

The General is... a little cagier, but Aziel makes relatively quick work of that, and she's too relieved to be too terribly prickly about anything. Eden - particularly Edda from within - is absolutely overjoyed to discover Another Gal who's also a Wanderer, and who in all honesty shares some of her same tendencies, so they hit it off pretty well.

Eden also immediately starts fretting over Aziel's missing arm and asks if he'd like them to fix it. He's...undecided, as of yet. He's got no objections, per se, but he's been enjoying the temporary fix for it...

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Also Aziel... would you like a plushie?

(AKA I am giving all the Wanderers plushies because they all deserve it!)

He pauses, clearly mildly confused but pleasantly surprised, and then nods.