Evander

Evander was not born into power that needed to be announced—he was born into the kind that had already taken root long before him. His family, an ancient Spring Court lineage, had never worn the crown, but they had ensured it. Endured, generation after generation, their influence woven quietly through the land itself. They were the keepers of growth, the unseen architects behind thriving harvests, rare and coveted flora, and the delicate balance that allowed Spring to flourish as more than just a title. Trade, agriculture, and the living pulse of the Court had long rested in their hands, their estates producing not only wealth but stability, the kind that rulers relied upon whether they acknowledged it or not.

There were whispers. Old ones of distant ties to a previous High Lord’s line, diluted over time but never entirely forgotten, resurfacing whenever the Court found itself in need of something steadier than a crown alone could provide.

Evander was raised with that understanding pressed into him as surely as breath. His mother shaped how he was seen, teaching him that perception could be cultivated just as carefully as any garden. That influence did not need to be seized if it was offered willingly. His father grounded him in something older, quieter, instilling a devotion for the land and the patience to listen when it spoke back. Together, his parents did not tell him he would rule—they ensured he would be ready if the moment ever came. And so Evander grew into it, into the expectation that had always hovered just beneath the surface, until it no longer felt like ambition at all, but inevitability.

By the time the Court began to refer to him as the Seedling of Spring, it was not a challenge, nor even a hope—it was recognition. Because seedlings do not ask permission to grow, and Evander had already begun to grow into exactly what the Spring Court needed.

Evander never claimed the title—he cultivated it. From the moment he stepped into his role as Court Advisor on Trade and Agriculture, prosperity began to follow in his wake with a precision too consistent to ignore. Harvests improved, rare flora thrived under his oversight, and lands once thought stubborn or depleted softened beneath his hand, as though the Court itself were quietly bending toward him.

At first, it was dismissed as skill, then praised as talent—but over time, something subtler took root. The land did not merely respond to his knowledge; it recognized him. He ensured that recognition spread, positioning himself not as a contender, but as a necessity. Someone the Court already relied upon before it realized it had chosen him. Then came Calanmai.

In the height of the Rite, when magic should have belonged wholly to the High Lord, something shifted—brief, undeniable, and deeply unsettling. The energy faltered, turned… and for a single breath, leaned toward Evander instead. It was not enough to challenge authority, but it was enough to be seen. Enough for sentinels to fall silent. Enough for whispers to take root. And whispers, in the Spring Court, grow faster than any vine. No proclamation followed, no bold claim to power. Evander did not need one. The Court began to speak for him, quietly at first, then with certainty—of his lineage, his capability, his inevitability.

The Seedling of Spring, they called him. Not as a challenge to the throne, but as an understanding.

In the strict hierarchy of the Spring Court, High Fae nobles rarely interact with Lesser Faeries as equals, often viewing them merely as a servant class. However, Evander's deep, magical connection to nature has allowed him to bridge that social divide and endear him to the everyday High Fae of the Spring Court and the Lesser Fae, making him the one the "common" Fae turn to for guidance and answers.

How he won their favor... began decades ago, when there was unrest in Prythian. When a dark queen from a small island called Hybern came to their lands and took control using magic and trickery. She cast a dark wave of the deadly Naga over the Spring Court, and they began sweeping through the estates, villages, and fields threatening to poison the ancient, towering rose briars that fueled the land's magic. While other nobles, the High Lord of the Spring Court included, demanded that the infected plants simply be burned and replaced, Evander refused to destroy the centuries-old ecosystem. Burning down the briars and replacing them could change the face of the Spring Court's magic forever.

Evander sought out the common Fae and the lesser fairies and brought a collective group together to fight the Naga. A Urisk groundskeeper, recognizing that her species possessed an innate, ancient understanding of the earth that surpassed all High Fae magic. Together, every species that wished to help had a place at Evander's side. They spent weeks working side-by-side in the dirt. Evander used his florakinesis to keep the plants alive and pulsing with energy, while the other Fae used their specialized knowledge of roots and soil to craft a natural antidote.

By curing the blight, they saved the Spring Court, which forged an unspoken, fiercely loyal friendship between them all that defied court etiquette. Now, while Evander maintains his polished, aristocratic persona in front of High Lord or visiting emissaries, the common High Fae and Lesser Faeries view Evander as the true savor of the Spring Court and are carefully campaigning for an overthrowing of the current High Lord and having Evander replace him.

Under the unmerciful rule of Amarantha

Wearing the permanent mask during Amarantha’s forty-nine-year curse inflicted a heavy psychological toll on Evander, attacking his vanity, his senses, and his core identity. As a high-ranking noble in the Spring Court who prided himself on his sharp, aristocratic features and cultured presence, the mask served as a literal cage that reduced him to a faceless prisoner of Amarantha’s whims. Because his magic was so deeply rooted in the physical environment, having the cold, unyielding bronze pressed against his face for decades created a claustrophobic barrier between him and the natural world he loved to breathe in. The mask acted as a continuous, physical muzzle, preventing him or any of his kin from speaking openly about the nature of the spell or the weight of their despair. For someone with heightened, predatory Fae senses, waking up every single morning with metal fused to his skin was a maddening ordeal that required immense mental fortitude to keep from clawing at his own flesh. He channeled this quiet, festering rage into his training, moving with an even sharper, more desperate feline precision in the courtyard, using his dual daggers to shred his targets as a silent outlet for his helplessness.

The moment the curse broke, the sensation was less of a violent magical explosion and more of a profound, physical release. As the binding spell shattered, the cold, suffocating weight of the bronze mask simply dissolved from Evander's face, leaving him exposed to the open air. For the first time in nearly fifty years, the unfiltered, intoxicating scent of Petalfield's roses and sweet honeysuckle hit his senses without the lingering metallic tang of the mask's cage. The simple feeling of the warm Spring Court breeze brushing against his bare cheeks and jawline was so overwhelming that it nearly brought the proud, agile noble to his knees. Reaching up with trembling fingers to touch his own skin, tracing the sharp jaw and high cheekbones he had not seen in a mirror for half a century, he was finally anchored back to his true identity, no longer forced to live as a faceless beast in a gilded prison.

Less than half a year later...the Court was imprisoned yet again, only this time by an army and a High Lord that stopped caring.

As a noble fiercely protective of his ancestral lands and the delicate ecosystem of Petalfield Estate and the Spring Court in general, Evander reacted to the High Lord’s alliance with Hybern with a toxic mixture of cold horror, absolute betrayal, and a desperate need to rebel.

Having just endured nearly fifty years under Amarantha's brutal curse, the sight of the High Lord willingly opening the front gates to a foreign tyrant's army felt like the ultimate insult to everything him and his people had suffered to survive. For a male who prided himself on his sensory connection to the land and his swift, lethal combat skills, watching enemy soldiers trample the delicate meadows and lace the court's food with faebane to suppress their magic would have driven him to the edge of absolute madness.

Instead of bowing to the command of a High Lord blinded by possessive desperation, Evander used his mastery over stealth and plant manipulation to wage a quiet, guerilla-style shadow war. He secretly secured the borders of his own Petalfield Estate, inviting in any that could make the trip to him as he weaved impassable walls of reinforced thorns and manipulating the roots of the forest to actively misdirect or eliminate any Hybern scouting parties that dared to encroach upon his land.

He wanted to fight. But to fight an army that size would be to dig his own grave. So, he and the ones he protected hunkered down and came up with plans of what to do when they Hybern army finally left and they would have to start rebuilding their court.

Watching enemy soldiers trample his meadows was painful enough, but seeing them actively scorch the earth or use dark magic to rot the ancient roots of the woods shattered his resolve. This definitive breaking point was triggered when Hybern's commanders and their soldiers burned down the ancient, towering rose briars that anchor Petalfield’s ecosystem to flush him out of hiding. Racing to the High Lord's manor to demand that he intervene, Evander would find a broken, desperate ruler who refused to act because he is terrified that upsetting the King of Hybern will ruin his chances of retrieving his ex.

Standing in the throne room, Evander would realize that this High Lord cares more about possessing a female who has already left him than protecting the literal lifeblood of his court and the people living in it. Seeing no honor left in serving a ruler who actively lets his home rot, Evander would return to Petalfield one last time, gather all the Fae who was under his protection and surviving estate staff, and pack his dual daggers and bow. Using his remaining magic to weave a massive, final wall of thorns to delay Hybern's forces, he would turn his back on the Spring Court and flee across the borders to seek refuge in another territory.

Evander would not seek the throne out of ambition, but out of absolute necessity. As the refugees from the Petalfield Estate and the wider Spring Court huddle in the safety of a neighboring territory, they would completely stop asking for the High Lord's guidance. Instead, in crowded camps and war tents, a quiet consensus would form among the High Fae and Lesser Fae alike. They would kneel before Evander, offering him their swords and their loyalty. Swallowing his pride and his hesitation, Evander would accept their oaths—not as a High Lord by blood or magic yet, but as a general and protector willing to lead them back to reclaim their home.

While the High Lord sat brooding and broken in a manor that he allowed Hybern to occupy, the people saw Evander actively bleeding and fighting for them in the trenches. The High Fae and Lesser Fae would notice that Evander didn't just save himself; he used his own energy to protect the Petalfield Estate, gathered refugees, and secured their survival while their rightful leader abandoned them.

In the eyes of the working class and the smaller spirits of the woods, Evander would become the de facto High Lord long before any magic made it official. They would look to him for orders, protection, and leadership, completely bypassing the current High Lord's authority. However, a High Lord cannot simply be elected by popular vote. The title and the immense, crushing power that comes with it are governed by the magic of the land itself.

Upon the death of a High Lord, the raw power of that court instinctively seeks out the most suitable, powerful vessel. While it usually stays within the family bloodline the magic has chosen to abandoned bloodlines entirely to pick someone else. This was the expectation of Evander and all who stand behind him against the High Lord that abandoned them for greed and vanity.