No offense to all the people saying “Fjord!! Don’t be distracted by a pretty face, Avantika’s dangerous!” but that’s not what I think is going on at all.
Fjord’s not attracted to Avantika – not in a romantic and sexual way. What does Fjord want – what has he wanted every since we’ve met him? He wants to understand what’s going on with his powers, to know he’s not imagining things. After all, he focused on Caleb’s magic until it was clear it wasn’t like his; he persisted in trying to figure out Molly’s swords until Molly explained that his rituals didn’t really mean anything. Fjord has been desperate to figure out his powers, and Avantika’s finally giving him the information he craves.
Then there’s the psychological aspect: being seen, and known, and understood. Canonically, all his life, Fjord has tried to fade into the background. He doesn’t want to seem dangerous or unlikeable, so he deliberately has people underestimate him, he charms them, he flirts and tips his hat and hopes that’s enough for people to see past his heritage and past. Avantika allows him to move beyond that. She’s led him into the spotlight as the leader of the Mighty Nein and one of the chosen of Uk’otoa, but she’s still the captain – he doesn’t have to take full command of the situation. He has a fallback. It’s the perfect dynamic for someone like Fjord.
So of course he gravitates towards her. Of course he tells her about his dream when he can’t get the words out to anyone else. Of course he explains about his falchion, and the words he hears, and his search for the truth, despite the fact that Avantika is patently dangerous, a pirate captain and a cultist who threatened to murder him and all his friends and who has an eye embedded in her palm.
I don’t think Fjord’s attraction to Avantika has anything to do with physical attraction or desire. He sees in her what he’s been looking for for months at the very least, if not his whole life, and he may even see in her what he wishes he could see in himself. He’s probably flattered by her attention, and excited at the possibilities their patron and their connection to each other through their patron suggests. He’s awed by her power and eager to learn from her.
Is he going to regret it? Probably. Will he learn that she isn’t what he’s looking for? I hope so. But I can’t blame him, and not because he’s fallen for a pretty face.
I wanted to finally use some of my leftover paper clippings since I always keep them, just in case, but they usually have weird shapes so they still just lay around or only end up as swatch papers. Motive wise; idk it is Fjord in the water holding something round and sparkly ¯_(ツ)_/¯ I didn’t think about it much, just wanted to draw a male character and cr is like my only joy right now.
Caleb paused. His hand lingered under a line of text as he looked up from his reading and frowned at the man on the log beside him.
“Excuse me?”
Fjord leaned back and ran a hand through his hair. In the darkness of night, illuminated only by the the faint glow of the campfire, his expression was almost unreadable.
“I was just…I was just wonderin’,” Fjord sighed. “Why it is, that…out of everyone in the group, after all the time we’ve spent together, we just can’t get along?”
I think it makes sense that Fjord has a -2 in survival because he has canonically tried to eat multiple swords, which is not a thing that people with above average survival skills tend to do
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