Nyxara Garkalsadon

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Nyxara is a bright-faced, round-cheeked toddler who looks unmistakably like both of her parents at once. She has her mother's warm golden-brown skin and her father's dense black hair, which sits close to her head except at the very top where a small tuft curls back on itself in a loop, an architectural achievement she had nothing to do with and is entirely unbothered by. Her eyes are the detail that stops people: a deep, luminous amber-gold, large and expressive and vivid in a way that catches light a little more intensely than it should. They are her father's eyes exactly, worn on her mother's warmth of face.

When she smiles, which is very often, two small fangs are visible at the front, neat and white and entirely matter-of-fact. Jordan has two fangs of his own. She is, in this as in much else, visibly his daughter. She wears embroidered robes of cream brocade with burgundy velvet trim and fine gold chain detailing, clothes made with the same care Nazeera brings to everything and worn with the complete indifference of a child who has not yet learned that beautiful things should be preserved.

Her senses are already noticeably heightened. She turns toward sounds before others in the room have registered them, tracks movement at the edge of vision, and responds to the faint scent of desert sage and oasis flowers that clings to Nazeera's hands from her healing work with immediate recognition, the way children respond to the smell that means home and safety. In complete darkness her eyes carry a very faint luminescence, which she finds no more remarkable than the fact that it gets dark.

She is unbothered by Goodberry's sunlight. The city exists within a dimensional bubble, and the light that falls on it is a projection rather than true stellar radiation. Nyxara walks freely in it and turns her face up to it with uncomplicated pleasure. Her parents watched carefully in her early months for any reaction. There was none. She simply goes outside and enjoys herself, and they have learned to let her.

Nyxara was born on Heatwave 28, 1304, the first child of Jordan and Nazeera Garkalsadon. She is a Trublood Vampire, meaning vampirism is simply what she is, the same way she is a toddler and a Garkalsadon and someone with strong opinions about blood orange juice. She arrived with her amber-gold eyes already bright and her fangs already forming, and she has never known herself to be anything other than what she is.

Jordan had braced himself. He and Nazeera both knew what the baby might be, given his bloodlines. When Nyxara arrived and was, unmistakably, a vampire girl, he looked at her for a long moment. Then he said she was beautiful. Nazeera, whose whole life has been built around seeing beauty in complicated things, agreed completely.

Jordan could have moved with his grandfather Karthos to new lands when that opportunity arose. He chose not to. He chose to stay in Goodberry, close to his work with Tariq through the portals, close to the life he and Nazeera had built. He chose to stay for her. He does not say this directly, because Jordan does not say most things directly, but it is the reason, and Nazeera knows it, and Nyxara will understand it too when she is old enough to grasp that her father rebuilt himself around the fact of her existence.

The small wooden cabinet key he keeps on a leather cord around his neck is the only physical remnant of his mother, the woman who hid him as a child and whispered "Live for both of us" before she was taken from him. He has carried it ever since. He lets Nyxara hold it when she reaches for it, which she does often, with the instinct of a child who senses that something small and worn and precious is being offered every time he allows it.

Nazeera had been treating supernatural patients for years before Nyxara was born, studying hybrid physiology with the systematic care of a woman who believes knowledge is how you protect people. She was not caught unprepared by her daughter's nature. She had already been thinking about it, reading about it, preparing remedies and approaches. The blood orange juice was her idea: a practical and matter-of-fact way to meet a need neither parent wanted to name too directly yet, introduced early and accepted immediately.

Nazeera's healing magic carries the scent of desert sage and oasis flowers from her grandmother's herb garden and her years of work, and Nyxara registered this smell as the foundational smell of safety from her earliest weeks. Nazeera has noticed. She finds it, in the specific way she finds most complicated and moving things, very beautiful.

Goodberry exists within a dimensional bubble, and the sunlight that falls on it is a projection of that bubble rather than true stellar radiation. For Nyxara, the practical result is that she goes outside freely, plays in the light, and turns her face toward it with the pleasure of any other child. Her parents spent her early months watching carefully for any reaction. There was none. They have accepted this with the quiet relief of two people who were not looking forward to the alternative, and Nyxara has accepted it with the complete unconcern of someone who does not know there was ever a question.

Both of her parents love moonlit nights. Jordan has always found the darkness calming in ways he struggles to put into words. Nazeera grew up in Uir where the desert air after sunset is cool and the moonlight falls differently than it does anywhere else. Nyxara was brought outside to look at the moon before she was old enough to focus on it properly, held against her father's shoulder while he stood still and let the quiet settle around them both. The moon was among the first things she learned to pay attention to, and she fights sleep on moonlit nights with the stubborn patience of someone who has decided this is worth staying awake for. Her parents, who also stay up on moonlit nights when they can, find this considerably more endearing than inconvenient.

The sun is out. She can go in it. She would like to do that now. This goal resolves most mornings and she pursues it every time with the same fresh enthusiasm, because this particular gift has not been taken for granted by a child who, on some level she does not yet have words for, knows it is not something all vampires receive. She simply goes outside and is happy, which is enough, and more than enough.

Jordan does not smile easily. His history has made him a man who holds himself carefully, who keeps the most vulnerable parts of himself in reserve, who spent most of his life watching the people he loved get taken from him. Nyxara has identified his rare genuine smile as something worth producing and has developed reliable methods for achieving it. She shows him her fangs. She reaches for the cabinet key. She does a specific thing with her arms when she wants to be picked up that she knows he cannot resist. He knows what she is doing. He does not stop her. This is, by any reasonable measure, the most effective thing that has ever happened to Jordan Garkalsadon.

She will be very quiet. She will wait. If her father is standing at the window looking at it, she will put her arms up, and he will pick her up, and they will watch it together without talking, which is exactly the right amount of talking. This is what nights are for, as far as Nyxara is concerned. She is nearly two years old and she has already decided this, and her father, who has always loved moonlit nights, has not corrected her.