Nyxara Garkalsadon
Basic Information
Bloodline Ability
This Bloodline ability has not yet been unveiled to you.
Physical Description
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.
Personality
- Consistently and genuinely cheerful, not performing it, simply built this way
- Socially at ease, approaching people with her mother's open warmth rather than her father's careful distance
- Alert and perceptive in a way that runs well ahead of her age
- Affectionate and demonstrative with family, with no self-consciousness about it whatsoever
- Curious about most things, including several things that other children her age would prefer to avoid
- Heightened senses mean overstimulation hits differently and harder than it should
- Her appetite is developing in directions that do not map neatly onto ordinary toddler nutrition
- Very difficult to sneak up on, which creates specific household complications
- Nocturnal inclinations surface regularly; moonlit nights inspire her to fight sleep with impressive determination
- The fangs have caused incidents during enthusiastic expressions of affection that no one was fully prepared for
[A full fang-showing grin at whoever just walked through the door, arms immediately out, entirely certain this will result in being picked up. She is correct.]
"BLOO." [said about blood orange juice, pointing at the cup with enormous conviction, indicating that this is the correct drink and she will not be hearing alternatives]
[Reaches for the cabinet key around her father's neck, not to take it, just to hold it in her small hand for a moment. He lets her. He always lets her.]
- Blood orange juice, which is correct and she will not discuss alternatives
- Being outside in the warm light, which causes her no difficulty whatsoever
- Moonlit nights, which she finds more interesting than days and fights sleep to watch
- Mama, whose voice and the faint scent of desert sage mean safety and everything good
- Papa, whose rare genuine smile she has already learned to produce at will
- Loud sudden noises, which land harder for her than for most children
- Garlic, which she finds deeply offensive in a way she cannot articulate but does not hesitate to express
- Being put down when she has not decided the interaction is complete
- Running water in the bath, which makes her uneasy for reasons she has no framework to explain yet
- When people react strangely to her fangs, which she does not understand because they are simply her teeth
Background & History
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.
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'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.