That's him... The Emporer's (sic) Champion. So tall he does not fit in a doorway, every inch of him carried with the grim dignity of a ceremonial blade--and the room falls to silence around him. Have you heard? — That sword at his hip can cleave armour like it were flesh, and flesh like it were butter. Barehanded, he can tear a man apart like a cooked chicken, and he does so without a hint of mercy nor passion. Neither blade nor bolt nor blow can fell him, they say--his ferocity sustains through injury which would kill most any man. Once, your friend Barry assures, Sir Heron felled three dozen men whilst he had a ballista bolt stuck through his belly like a collector's insect, and only stopped to be healed by his fleshmage once the battle was won. When you look upon this knight, it suddenly seems like the stories could actually be true.
Such a sight will inevitably fill you with either a swell of patriotism or an awed disgust--the same sort of feeling as what might, several hundred years later, be evoked by an incredibly powerful and expensive state-of-the-art military aircraft.
Sir Heron is his majesty's champion/right hand/bodyguard. Unassailable and incorruptible if only you ignore that whole thing he's got going with the emporess (sic).
He's exactly the same as regular Heron except that in this universe he is cool and epic. traded in the dyspraxia for an invincible sword; can and will cleave you in twain if you so much as think one unflattering thought about the empore (sic). Fear is a favorite weapon of his, and he is very good at inspiring it.
Has a four-digit killcount in only five years of tenure, but that's only because every dinnertable scene ends with ~10 bad guys jumping out from various hiding places; Heron sighing heavily. Throwing down his cutlery. Dabbing the corner of his mouth with a napkin, and then getting up and hacking the would-be assassins into giblets while the royal couple continue their meal with jaded dignity.
Spends all the time he's not protecting the emporer (sic) or the forbidden love of his life emporess (--you get the picture by now, that's just how they spell it in Kansia) pursuing The Way Of The Warrior in the Kansian dojo. Practicing Kansian jujitsu with a bunch of other heaving sweating seminaked men on a daily basis has made him 3x saner than prime!heron despite all the murder. Truly he is living his best possible life.
Stronger than an ox, and his matrix-vision makes him seem crazy fast. Nigh-unkillable due to the force of repressed sexuality and sheer rage (and the very well-paid fleshmages employed to keep patching him up).
Babyboy is sooo overpowered and we like it that way. Just like Lancelot <3. Too bad the Horrors we throw at him are not the kind you can make go away by stabbing them in the face.
Look, it doesn't matter. Don't worry about it. Sir Heron is a Knight of the Holy Frig, and nothing else he did in his past life should matter to you or to anyone. So what if he was the bastard son of a whore. So what if he survived the razing of his town, only to be forced under the thumb of said raiders and ground into subservience to them, and so what if he was one of them as a boy of thirteen. So what if he resorted to thieving and backstabbing to fund his alvium The extract from a certain plant, cherished by mages for its magic-enhancing effects. It’s also a painkiller. Unfortunately, it’s cripplingly addictive. It also turns your hair blue if you use it a lot. Of course you have blue hair and a drug habit habit, and they threw him away like the trash he was. None of that matters now.
What matters is that one day he saved the life of a noble boy, and the boy’s father was moved enough by this act of altruism from this scruffy urchin to give him the opportunity to get on his feet, on the condition he would quit the drug habit. Heron, shockingly, obliged. Furthermore, he became friends with the boy he’d rescued, who’s name was Xavier. Zooming forward a bit the two are now fast friends and Xavie’s papa is financing training for him to be Xavie’s basically-bodyguard, since xavie is always getting himself into trouble with his whole wandering bard thing. If Heron swears to look after xavier with his life, Xave’s dad will let him join his house, legitimising him. Heron is more than keen. And he has yet to let Xavier down.
Fast forward a bit more, and after a catastrophic wiping of the previous Dynasty, Kansia needs a new Emporer (sic). It turns out Xavier has the most godblood so he’s emporer now yay Xavier. Heron joins the Order of the Holy Frig soon after, the elite knights who serve the emporer most closely. His proficiency for combat as well as not having any fun really let him shine in that position.
Everything was going swimmingly until Xavier sent him to retrieve a godblooded woman on the other side of the country to be his emporess. It had to be done quickly and discreetly, you see, so he didnt send a whole contingent of guards, only his best guy: Heron. The girl, who’s name was Susan, was a complete freak and weirdo, just like Heron. Not to mention, a massive nerd. They fall in mega autism love in short order—and the journey was *not* a short one. Alas, they are too goody-two-shoes to do anything about it, so she ends up marrying the Emporer without any treasonous event. Heron knows Xavier is a good man and that he will treat her correctly, so it’s all going to go well for her, right?
Wrong. The whole point of having a godblooded wife is that she might produce a godblooded heir. Susan is not very good at this. In fact all her god blood just keeps leaking out of her along with miscarriage after miscarriage. The Emporer and Emporess both insist on trying again and again. In a few years, she’s dying. None of the court fleshwizards can save her.
Heron is starting to feel a itty little bit of resentment towards his bro now, seeing all the vitality bled from those eyes which once held such genius. But his feelings don’t matter he’s a knight after all it’s his duty to just stand by and watch. Increasingly desperate, the Emporer employs the best physicians, even ones from across the seas… and even (gasp) elfs. Eventually they’re onto a bit of a winner and they listen to some halfway decent medical advice enough that she stops dying. So that’s nice. Since if she dies, Heron’s heart shall die with her. Not that it matters at all.
Oh yeah, also finds out Why (Sue's bastard brother and also imporeal (sic) treasurer) has been committing embezzlement and brings him in for justice. instead of executing him, which would be mean, offers to try and MK Ultra him instead, which is totally way nicer. It doesn't work, it only fucks Why up pretty bad. And honestly, Heron too.
Right now, he and the Emporer and the Emporess and the Emporess’s bastard (yet very godblooded) brother are on a quest to go placate the upheaval of the literal earth by making the pilgrimage to the Tomb of God. It’s a whole thing.
Haven't typed this up niceys yet, but here are some places he goes in his campaign:
The Emporer has armed him (and his other best knights) with an invincible sword made of a magic white metal, and he weilds it with monsterous strength. It chimes like a massive temple bell when struck. It also obeys his telekinesis. Yeah, he’s got that too, but it only works on silver, gold, and ashsteel.
As a mage, Heron can see enchantment on objects. As a specifically-telekinetic mage of elite training, he can also see the momentum of all objects. A kick, a thrust from a weapon, or the arc of a thrown ball will follow a trace Heron can see before it happens. This makes him very hard to hit, and also very apt to wreck you in combat.
Sir Heron has formidable command of telekinesis. Unfortunately, it only works on noble metals. Fortunately, the emporer supplies him with hundreds of silveryes we know silver is too soft irl but do you really want to stop suspending your desbelief this late in the game? Yeah I thought not razors to help him make people die. He can rain these down on a battlefield, or form a sheild from archers. Even more: Being uniform playing-card-sized kite-shaped bits of coin silver, each one is actually legal tender—they're stamped on one side with a portrait of the Emporer, sword in hand; on the obverse, a heron killing a snake, and an ominous motto in Old Kansian. He'll pay for stuff with them on a regular basis (politely blunting them first if he likes you) so there's actually a few of them in circulation (either that scavenged from battlefields). Some may consider killing enemies of the state with literal (albeit oddly shaped) money to be a little on the nose, but they're still a numismatist's wet dream.
Everybody :) by Roqi. From left to right: Emporer Xavier Tan, Emporess Susan Tan, Lord Wayne White, Sir Heron, Ryn the jester, Iroro "Ida Noe" Medekhgui the physician.
If the emperor says to kill some guy right in the middle of the conference heron's on it no questions 🫡
Styling some Kansian menswear.
Styling some Kansian athletic nudity. after that bit where he got healed by god I suppose, since otherwise he should be one big chunk of scar tissue
Level 100 chivalry enablest thee to play the lute while wearing gauntlets.
Fancy.
I made a razorcoin irl.... turns out my silver paint is fucked so you get the archeological dig version instead. sorry xave for making you look like a star trek alien in your portrait
Me trying and failing to make him not look like the horrible lovechild of Rowan Atkinson and Kylo Ren.
In the dungeon depths, by the hellish light of the military issue Orb™, Sir Heron administers a little sippie to his prisoner Why. Ruinous image by Roqi.
The good thing about having all your blorboes be AUs of the same guy is that this one portrait can do it all.
See also: This 5-page canon-divergent comic.
Looks more like Adrien Brody now. Don't think about how much it would suck to sit in a saddle whilst wearing such a metal skirt.
Epic Artfight art by quiggloo.