#xx silent is the call of my ocean and the sirens washed ashore xx Gabriel Corday

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NPC Quick Reference: Carpe Nocta / French Chapter

Mach die Luft in deiner Lunge zu Benzin für die Maschine Den Neid von so vielen zu Öl für das Getriebe

                             Du sagst, du kannst nicht, dann willst du nicht ganz einfach                              Talent ist nur Übung und Übung macht den Meister                              Erfolg ist kein Glück                              Sondern nur das Ergebnis von Blut, Schweiß und Tränen

Der Wille macht das Fleisch auf deinen Knochen zu Beton Nichts ist umsonst, jeden Zentimeter muss man selber gehen

Savannah Compere & Gabriel Corday - Kingdom of Westphalia 1812

"You are dancing with the devil little soldier boy”,  her eyes were locked on his as they spun around the ball room, “and it is not Bonaparte I am speaking off. There is an entire world of magic waiting on the other side of the mist, if you wish to save your heart all you have to do is reach out and take the power you deserve"

Laila Saad & Henri Baudelaire - Lyon 2022

"I will follow you to the ends of the world if I must", he reached for her hand, feeling the sting of ice on his skin, "May it be as cliché as it sounds. But we are friends, you and I. Comrades in arms. And we have been for years now. You want vengeance? You want to turn your back on all of this? Fine. Do it. Fight the gods if you must, but do not dare leave me behind Laila. For I am as much part of your heart as you are of mine. Our souls are made of the same fabric and where I come from that is all that counts"

aka team #can’t hear you over the angry French noise in my head

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And so rebellion becomes revolution once more - Mount Olympus

Denn man erntet nur so viel, wie man auch gibt Und wenn deine Flamme dann erlischt Warst du nur ein kleines Licht Oder ein Feuer hoch wie Häuser Das auch brennt bei starkem Wind?

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Forged in Flames, Forged in Darknes: Gabriel Corday // NPC Bio.

tw: Death, Suicide, Body Horror, War, Blood, Violence, Gabriel Corday is his own trigger warning at this point tbh.

It began with Gabriel Corday, born August 5th 1791 in Saint-Saturnin-des-Ligneries, Écorches, Normandy, France. A young soldier that fought for Napoleon in Waterloo (18th June, 1815) after he spend several years in the Kingdom of Westphalia. 

Coming from a minor aristocratic family not much was known about his parents. It was his aunt Charlotte that made the Corday name immortal when she assassinated Jacobine leader Jean-Paul Marat and died on the guillotine. Gabriel was only two years old when the Revolution ate its children and he has not many memories of his family. He grew up without any roots, being tossed between friends of his grandfather. No one understood why but his grandfather Jaques made sure that Gabriel was raised on the ideals of equality and brotherhood, dreaming of freedom and power for the people, without ever meeting his cousins or any other member of his family. He knew only that his mother Eloise-Marie de Corday handed on her dark hair color onto him and then died shortly after he was born through tragic circumstances. Of his father he knew nothing.

It was in 1809, when Gabriel was eighteen years of age and ready to join the efforts of Napoleon in bringing their French ideals to all of Europe. He was about to join the army when a stranger approached him, a friend of his mother. He told Gabriel to run from the fight and rather go to the Kingdom of Westphalia, were Napoleon's brother was truly changing the world and progressively working on the future. This stranger, a brown haired woman that appeared to be not more than ten years older than he was, also spoke of his mother. She told him, if he wanted to find the truth he needed to look for Isla Le Maingre rather than Eloise-Marie de Corday. 

And so Gabriel left his grandfather and all these well-kept secrets behind to find the truth on the other side of the Rhine. 

In Westphalia he had no trouble mixing with the local aristocrats, ignoring the poverty that swept through the streets outside their grand halls like a ghost whispering of Russian soil and endless winter. There was no sign of the woman that had pointed him in this direction and whenever he spoke of Isla Le Maingre he was met with a wall of silence until he met Savannah during a ball one night. She sensed some spark of ancient magic within his soul and suddenly Gabriel was thrown into the arms of the Nocta and while the Children of Pandora showed him a world he had only dreamed of before, filled with liberal rights and a new-found equality it seemed as if the boundaries of reality became more fleeting with every passing day. 

Marian crossed his path and changed his life forever. They fell in love, helplessly, completely. A love that was greater than the both of them, greater than their mortal lives for it had been foreseen in ancient times. At least that was what they believed. The world could not bring them apart, the war and Napoleon's defeat in Russia could not darken their mood, not even the Kingdom of Westphalia crumbling into dust only six years after it was founded seemed to be worth their attention. It was them against everyone else. 

But Marian was destined to die, a sacrifice for the gods, death giving way to life. It was too late to save her, everyone was sure of it. But in all his life Gabriel had learned about progressive rights, about magic and fate, he had learned about the gods and even came close to finding out the truth about his mother - how one gave up had never been part of his lessons. He finally joined the war, fighting for Napoleon and against the Nocta that refused to help him in his quest against the gods. He and Savannah gathered knowledge, gathered power, their alliances ever shifting and in the end not even Marian understood what was happening. 

She loved Gabriel still, she trusted him. And she allowed Savannah to perform magic on her, to stop the sacrifice from happening. Napoelon was defeated at Waterloo and thousands found their end in blood and mud. But the true tragedy struck a year later. For 1816 was the year without summer, when temperatures dropped and then refused to rise. Spring never came and in the end thousands more died of hunger because crops could not grow and flowers never blossomed. Marian knew it had been Savannah's spell, it had been their love that caused all this. And she wanted to rectify that mistake. But Gabriel was not finished yet and he finally declared war against the gods, an army of ghosts at his heel. 

Now the thing is, gods are not gods for nothing. And if you spend aeons fighting titans and the things that live between the stars one mortal, may his love be ever so strong, is no adversary for you. He dreamed of revolution but it was rebellion he caused, a speck of dust that is nothing in the eye of the mighty. 

So it ended with Gabriel Corday, died December 21st 1816, Verdun, France, aged 25. 

The gods are not known for their kindness, especially not those that were forced into the annals of history and almost forgotten. So death was not enough of a punishment and instead they cast him down into the deepest and darkest pit they could find, the shadows of Tartarus. For a hundred years he was locked up in darkness, with nothing but pain and his own regrets for company. Slowly but surely his mind succumbed to that darkness and then, when he had almost lost all sense of himself, a whisper made it through the haze in his skull. Kronos, the god of time, the titan that had been imprisoned aeons ago spoke to the mortal of vengeance, of rising against the gods once more. If Gabriel was to be freed, if he was to return for the titans and break their chains they would make him one of them when they marched against Mount Olympus. 

Gabriel agreed and when Kronos reached for him to seal their deal with blood the boy used all his rage, all his madness, that ancient spark of fire that his once distant father had given him and forced his own heart to burst. He devoured the shadow of Kronos, he devoured what was left of the mighty titan after aeons of darkness. And he became a titan himself. 

It began again, with Gabriel Corday, clawing his way out of tartarus and onto the blood soaked remains of Verdun, on March 15, 1916. 

Gabriel stumbled into a world of violence and war, he became a soldier once more, spending the better half of a century dying and returning, a Wiedergänger in the trenches of two world wars, wondering what had caused humanity to reach a point of greater madness than he had achieved in the deepest depths of hell. He knew who to blame, the gods that had abandoned all of them, turned their backs on their own creations. He knew which magic he needed to use, he felt it burning through his veins now that he had stolen it from Kronos. And most of all he knew who should fight beside him in the second and final rebellion against the gods. Arise dear Spring, he thought when the battles of mortals had finally ended and we walked away from the fields of slaughter to find her. His love, his heart, his Marian. 

mortal, timeless, nurture, no affiliation but himself, Wiedergänger

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I was about to sit down and write the first interaction between darling Henri and Gabriel and my youtube playlist threw Princess Nokia’s Kitana @ me. Gabe is definitely losing that vibe check.

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Hochfliegen heißt fallen in die Tiefe Doch ohne große Opfer gibt es keine großen Siege Wir hören kein Nein, kein das geht nicht, kein der Weg ist zu weit Denn nur mit Blut, Schweiß und Tränen Bezahlt man die Unendlichkeit

Kingdom of Westphalia, 1813

Da wo sie scheitern, musst du angreifen In einen höheren Gang schalten Und auch wenn der Rest dann aufgibt, heißt es festbeißen Dran bleiben, anspannen und standhalten Glück nicht verwechseln mit Können Aber dein Können niemals anzweifeln

1816, the year without summer, the first rebellion against the gods.

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i just got back from watching Dune in cinemas and people, people, this was soo good. like, the best thing I have seen in forever. and the vibes. the vibes were real.

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This morning, as I was plotting book 1, I was once again unsure if it had been a good idea to make Gabriel Drystan's son. But then I listened to some Crooked Kingdom and realised that Drystan would be against jurda parem neither because of the bad side effects it has on Grisha (his friends and family) nor because of it being bad for Ravka's power. No, he is against it because he does not like the thought of someone (his friends and family) being stronger than him. And if that is not the most Gabriel-thing I ever heard, I don't know what is.

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emerging from my hiatus / writing cave to let you all know that Elo took one long look at Gabe and thought to herself “Wow, he looks like a YA boy, only thing missing is the tragic backstory” This girl is gonna destroy my plot.

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Tag Drop 03 - Characters & ships

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a century in the dark depths of Tartarus

Du musst es wollen, wie deine Lunge die Luft zum Atmen will Denn Flügel wachsen einem nur, wenn man den Mut auch hat und springt Wenn ich stürze, bleib ich liegen? steh ich härter auf und fliege Nur wer Angst hat vor dem Fall, muss ein ganzes Leben kriechen 

and then the fires of Verdun 

Es kommt nur ganz darauf an, was du bist Schatten oder Licht

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Believe in what you say, believe in what you do. I watched almost all of “Wir sind die Welle” in one sitting and there is this one quote I have been thinking of a lot today, especially when it comes to Gabriel and his revolution against the gods and the timeless knights. Who truly believes in what they do? Who only follows along? Your life can change in the blink of an eye. 

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Marian & Gabriel - A Relationship Study Part 2 / Inspo.

Quotes used - People Live Here by Rise Against. 

My gun is bigger than yours So let's arm the masses And see what the bastards do then -  Gabriel is a child of revolution, he was born in 1789 and he grew up with both, the smell of freedom and the blood splattered streets that the French Revolution brought to Paris. He was trained in combat in Napoleon's army and when he falls for Marian, when he realises that they have done this before and shall do this again and again - be born, suffer, love, die - he is filled with an anger so great he can almost not contain it. He wants to save her, even more importantly he wants to keep her save. But his anger is already centuries old, a memory that clings to his soul, and he cannot ignore it. His first and foremost goal is taking down the gods, stopping them from playing with the souls of mortals. He wants vengeance for all the lives he was forced to lead. And he is sure he will be strong enough, more powerful for he has mankind on his side.  Walking tall once set us apart Now we're down on all fours -  In comparison to Marian he is always quicker to remember the old days, for they mean more to him. She is eager to live a new life, she clings to the people and places she explores and makes new connections. With his family dead and their ideals thrown into the dirt all Gabriel has is the past. A past that shines now even brighter, filled with whispers of prosperity and marble columns. He knows that he was brought down low and he knows who to blame for that.  Do you cry my name in the dark Like I do yours? - Speaking of this edit right here. Marian picks the stanzas that show how much she struggles with the memories of Gabriel that are returning to her. She knows she is better off when she forgets him, after all there seems to be no hope for them and she cannot live with herself if she leaves her friends behind for his plan of a revolution, causing the suffering of countless people. Her focus is always on the relationship between them. She fails to see it from his point of view at first and only tries to shove it away, burning the pictures of him, forcing down the memories that he brought up again. The fate trying to get its sticky hands 'round her throat again.  Gabriel focuses on what they can achieve together, he is so set in his believe that they belong together, he does not even consider the possibility of anything else. She is his. He is hers. And together they will bring down the gods once and for all. He is looking for help, for allies and weapons, when we meet him in this story. So he asks Marian, wonders, what might happen if he arms those allies with the powers Chronos has "given" to him. What will the gods do, faced with such treason? He mocks their power, mocks their entrenched ways of thinking. He is determined to bring a new revolution, forgetting to focus on Marian, not realising how much pain he has caused her. He rushes into her life, triggers her memories, but he does not stay to pick up the pieces. So Marian is left with asking herself if he cares as much about her as she cares about him. Is it worth it in the end? All this pain?  The differences in their choices, the fact that they focus on two completely different aspects, is ultimately what dooms their relationship once again.