GARDEN OF DESIRE

Garden of Desire is a fantasy comic (very much in development) split into a "side a" and "side b" storyline. It follows many different characters but mainly centers on two--Cairo Nyteblade and Noah Fielder.

Pawns in the newly crowned queens schemes, the assassin and knight find themselves on their own trials--Cairo at the queens side after thwarting a plot against her, and Noah sent off to do his knightly duties at the edges of the Kingdom Prydwen.

With Queen Leo and a mysterious forest creature--or two--pulling invisible strings, their once-straightforward tasks are quickly turned complex, psychedelic, and bloody.

27 yrs old. he/they.

Cairo is an assassin raised by assassins. Their parents were not particularly prolific, mostly taking smaller jobs from smaller royals during the rules of Leo's predecessors. Cairo learned to kill and began taking jobs at a young age, enjoying the practice enough to develop their own weapons for the job. As an adult they lived alone in the shittier part of the city, taking the same sorts of jobs their parents did.

Now employed under Queen Leo after an...incident, they find themselves fascinated more and more by the woman, despite their open promise to keep close watch and kill her if needed--after all, the royal line is well known for it's endlessly corrupt behavior, and Leo herself seems to have some plans of her own brewing...

Not very likeable--they have a grating personality and generally ignore people or purposefully piss them off, finding sadistic entertainment in all aspects of their life. Their work in the castle leaves them with little free time, busy being attached to Leo's hip--upon her request or not. Their motivations are strange, even to Leo, but she seems to be finding her own use for them.

47 yrs old. any/all

Leo (don't call her Leonora) is the latest in the royal line after a long series of "accidents", assassinations, and other timely deaths set upon her past three ancestors to the throne. Leo's rule is widely contested due to her status--formerly a Knight-Commander rather than partaking in the courts as expected of her, her queer habits and attitude have long grated against the court and kept her from the throne--until her late mother's immediate sisters passed, leaving her, her mothers only child, as the only viable heir.

Finding herself with a golden opportunity, Leo recruits Cairo as her personal guard--dismissing the former candidate, Ivor, in the process--and begins the slow process of setting up her...plans. Of course, this isn't enough to distract her fully from her new assassin, or the way he seems to watch her just as intensely as she watches back...

Blessed with a strange natural charm, Leo's outer appearances and behavior betray very little of her internal world. While many find her offputting with her lack of royal grace and the bloody history on her hands and blade, it can't be denied that she is able to carry an air of power and authority, commanding the courts she was once barred from with a natural, almost frightening ease. Of course, what may be more frightening is the unhidden disdain she has for the members.

25 yrs old. he/him

Raised on a farm as the oldest of 7, including himself, Noah left his childhood feeling like he needed to prove himself to be respected as a man. Abandoning--in their eyes--his family for knighthood, Noah restlessly works towards his goal of being in the highest order of knights, despite his creeping feelings of unfulfillment and doubt. An over-worker and a kind man, Noah was quickly made Knight-Captain, and made fast bonds with many recruits with his older-brother nature and sharp intelligence.

As a Captain, part of his test to become Commander is to lead his own squad--a task that ends up getting him sent on a strange mission, looking to eradicate a disease spotted in the animals on the unpopulated edges of the kindgoms islands--a place full of plants and fauna, some overgrown a massive network of dungeons created by Leo's great-great-great grandmother. He chooses Luc to accompany him on this task, and ends up having Ivor "volunteered" as his third before they embark.

Kind and strong, Noah is a quinttisential knight down to his chivalrous habits and skill with a broadsword. Still, no man can be that simple--past his outer appearances, Noah is a man full of doubt and turmoil, with hardly a coping mechanism in sight beyond working himself to the bastard bone. Hopefully he'll get some sense knocked into him before something else gets the chance.

23 yrs old. she/her

Like Noah, Luc was also raised on a farm. An immigrant to the kingdom, she was born on a continent even tinier than the relatively-small kingdom, a good ocean-and-a-half away. As the oldest of two always-working parents she was both often forgotten and given much responsibility over her siblings and the farm, leading to her quick departure at 16. She found herself in knighthood after growing desperate for money on her own, though she can't make herself take it very seriously--not with all the stiff-faced boys she finds herself training alongside. Can't you guys lighten up!

A bright and bubbly personality with a talent for experimental weaponry and blowing things up, Luc made easy friends with Noah, despite the older man continuing to be oblivious to her desperate crush. She jumped at the chance to travel with him--and get out of the castle for a while, clear her head--but she's finding the grumpy third passenger to be a growing distraction...ah well, at least she gets to work on her new projects, and maybe find a way to actually court Noah properly.

25 yrs old. they/them

A tall knight with a mysterious past and even more mysterious tastes--seriously dude, cairo AND leo?

Ivor was selected from their batch of recruitment to be trained as Leo's personal knight--a coveted and honorable position for any knight, and one they took quite seriously. Training was isolated and gruelling, requiring more out of them than any standard knighthood, but they reveled in the task--until it was suddenly taken from them with hardly a look from their beloved Queen, and a blank stare from the smug bastard who took it from them. They are sent off with Noah to "resocialize", at the implied threat of losing their knighthood if they can't play nice.

A stoic person, but feeling betrayed and angry, Ivor's simmering rage comes out in bursts of violence directed towards training dummies and now, under Noah's command, anything dangerous they come across in their travels. One person cannot sustain this sort of anger forever without something breaking, and time only tells what that is going to be for Ivor. Though, they find their nerves strangely settled by their two new companions, despite their internal resistance...

any/all

A strange creature of nature, The Gardener watches over the forests of the kingdom. Already not much more than a rumor among children, and with the forests being left untouched by those who know whats good for them, one wonders if they even truly exist.

Unrelated, locals in the small villages near the forest edges report the distinct sound of someone singing from within, in a language unknown.