PERIL!!!!!! (GOLDEN GUARD OC!!!)

THE OWL HOUSE IF YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT!!!

IF YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT TOH!!! the show is set in the demon realm, a magical dimension that exists alongside the human one. In the demon realm there are these creatures called palismen which are basically witch familiars and this is very important in regards to my daughter.

ALSO ITS RULED BY THE WORST GUY EVER (EMPEROR BELOS) who is actually secretly a centuries old, sustaining himself by Eating Palismen, human who wants to kill all witches (everyone there) (he's a witch hunter) ermmm so. He's also been creating clones of his dead brother (WHO HE MURDERED) and killing them one at a time, over and over and over again. for like a century. These clones (grimwalkers) usually act as the golden guard, which is like the emperor's right hand. AND THIS IS WHAT PERIL IS!!!! so as you can see. shes off to a Great Start. There's nothing fucked up in her life

OKAY SUMMARY OVER I PROMISE THAT WAS RELEVANT!!! peril is like way back from the canon timeline. so the only Big Character to know about is Belos. you will probably still get a bit confused though

MAIN BACKSTORY!!!

tw abuse and dehumaisation (and just anything hunter goes through)

Peril is a grimwalker from before canon, although the kingdom has been established. Because she's one of the earlier grimwalkers, she is a lot more creature-y (hence the wings and stuff) and also has the ability to turn into a palisman (a gyrfalcon to be exact) Because of this, she acts as the golden guard half the time and also as belos' palisman (hes not openly hunting them yet so it helps him fit in better). She also knows that she's a grimwalker from the start.

In her palisman form she acts as the emperor's eyes, doing a lot of intimidating people and gathering infomation, delivering messages. As the golden guard, theres several Very Large rebellions that are around at the time. so she spends a lot of her time. dealing with them. assasinations and such. as well as gathering palisman and general golden guard stuff. I talk more about this somewhere below. Neither of her forms are very well liked.

So at this time, palismen are mostly only being taken off of criminals. And belos wants more. You know, to eat. So he has a little experiment to try to make palismen himself. renewable food source and all. But carving them isn't enough, you need to put hope and dreams and love and care and actually want a palisman to have it wake up. And there's no way he's doing that. He hates them.

I'm thinking maybe a palisman carver gets arrested for something or other, Peril does it. And so a bunch of unawakened ones get taken by the emperor's coven.

Similar to how Belos forced glyph magic out of the Titan, he tries to figure out a way to artificially wake a palisman up. Which works eventually!!! However due to the artifcial magic he ends up creating an Extrememly Strong bond between him in the palisman which basically tangles their minds together in a way that even a normal palisman's and witch's would never be.

Feeling feelings that are definately not his own, Belos panics that he's infected his soul, that the palisman had taken away part of him, and immediately wants to reverse it however for fear of damaging himself further he decides not to break Rue (the owl palisman) immediately and gets Peril to lock her up until he finds out a way to 'get his soul back' or whatever before he kills her.

So Rue is alive suddenly and she feels like she isn't supposed to be, like a part of her is missing. For a moment shes forcibly connected to a man she can immediately tell very much Does Not want her. Belos is angry and rue is scared which makes belos scared and rue angry and their emotions are like an endless feedback loop.

At first Peril a little cautious of Rue because of her link to Belos but also she both feel and hear this small little bird who is very upset who was just Created. Just like she was.

Belos, or peril as I don't think he would want to be near her, locks rue up somewhere (probably the grimwalker labs as its very secure there). He is quite paranoid and gets Peril to check on her occasionally. At first she does as she's ordered, and then she visits more frequently as she starts to care about the wellbeing of this miserable little owl trapped in a tiny cage.

Despite how terrible everything is, Rue gets so happy when she visits which Peril can't understand because literlaly nobody has ever been happy to see her. Rue has seen exactly Two People in her life. Rue's connection with Belos, fades somehow or is broken eventually. although im still trying to figure out exactly how.

Whilst this is happening, Peril starts to question her life more, and starts to hate belos a lot more too. She wants to set Rue free, to find a safe place for her to go, which is how she stumbles across rumors of the Bat Queen through clumsily talking to a few palismen and witches. This is how she meets Ace, a fox palismen who belonged to a previous golden guard, Hope. (sort of reverse with old rue lore... meets them as a bird. Ace has suspicions that shes the golden guard but doesn't say anything, instead subtly trying to convince her to leave)

Eventually, Belos finds out just how frequently she's been visiting Rue and tries to get her to kill her to prove her loyalty to him. Peril panics, unable to do this, and takes Rue and runs from the coven.

They go to the Bat Queen, which Peril does mostly for Rue's benefit, wanting to give her a chance to make friends and experience the world because she's literally never Seen Grass Before. A life on the run would not do that.

Despite her plans of giving Rue a nice and peaceful life, there is no way Peril can just sit and stay still. She needs a purpose and so she makes it her mission to see Belos dead.So she starts to get involved with various rebel movements, feeding them information. She is Very Against Rue coming, but the little owl ends up following her anyway so shes like Okay Fine. (definately does not regret this later...)

All good things come to an end when Rue, desperate to help more, ends up making a mistake and getting found and tailed, resulting the the deaths of a bunch of palisman from Bat Queen’s sanctuary and Rue herself, who's left as a lovely!!!nice!!! warning for peril. Through this, The Bat Queen finds out who she is and exiles her, believing that she betrayed them.

Peril is. Not doing well. Even if bat queen hadn't exiled her, I don't think she could have brought herself to stay. All she can focus on is seeing Belos dead, because if she stops to think about her fear and grief for more than one second, she's scared she'll never get up again.

She finds out theres an infiltration planned on the castle from a group of wild witches.. or something similar and volunteers to be the distraction (she knows she'll probably die but she wants to go on a revenge quest and End Belos Forever) obviously this does not succeed!!! yeah he murders her. but the rebellion accomplishes the mission they were trying to do.

AND THATS MY DAUGHTER EVERYPONY!!! her backstory changes so often this gets updated like every week!!! if none of that made sense here are two helpful diamgrams that sum it up quicker!!!

A little bit on palismen in this au!!

Palismen sense emotion and intent (strongest from their witches but from others too!) which help them understand speech. They talk using a mix of scattered words and feelings which witches only pick up if theyre bonded to them. When a witch and palisman are bonded together, they become very connected with eachother, sharing feelings and intentions. Despite this, bonds can be broken and a palisman and a witch can drift apart over time.

Peril cannot pick up emotions and intentions of witches as easily as a normal palisman, but she does subconsciously do it (even if she doesnt notice this ability herself) This is one of the reasons she's so good at reading people and allowed her to more easily see through belos.

With palismen, she is able to understand them and pick up on any feelings they choose to show her. This is very fun when she has to watch belos eat them!!!! Similarly, in their wooden forms, she's can get vague feelings from them, but its a lot more muted. This stacks up when she walks into palismen storage and theres like 50 dormant palismen who don't know where they are, are really scared and probably mourning their witches!!

Peril is able to talk as a palisman but doesn't really know how to project her feelings on purpose (until rue she didnt really have anyone she could talk to as a falcon. even if belos wanted her to talk, he certainly can't understand her).

Despite her bond with palismen, it doesn't mean Peril likes them. In all honesty, they scare her, not because of wild magic, but because of the whole emotions and abstract feelings thing. Its very easy for them to see through her and Thats Scary!! Especially for someone who has built up of so many half lies and layers of anger.

Palismen see peril as being very odd. shes one of them but something feels strange about both her (and not just the shame, guilt and burning anger following her around) Likewise, no matter how much peril wants to fit in with them, she's not quite a palismen. and they struggle to understand her.

Another thing I think happens is that, because Peril can understand palismen, belos tries to get her to interogate the ones she takes of wild witches and criminals. You know, before he eats them. This is largely unsucessful. Sure Peril can understand them, but its not that easily communicatable, escpecially when the palismen are once again very lost, very scared and mourning their witches. They say words, but a lot of it is just feelings and stuff. Very desperate feelings directed at her because they can't understand why she'd be working with Him, she's one of them. She hardly gets anything useful and it makes her Feel Very Bad. This also kind of reinforces Belos' views that palismen are very simple creatures, no souls there. They're made of magic so he'd still think this either way (like how he justifies Killing All Witches) but its an easy way to justify. Eating Them. And this also leads him into creating Rue. Which he very qucikly regrets.

Rue the owl house!!!

RUE THE OWL HOUSE. Okay important thing to know about Rue is she isn't just like Peril's pet, she's family. Peril is older to the point that she's more like Rue's parent, but Peril does not like thinking about it that way, and they were both created by Belos so. Sisters. This is more to do with modern au, but their relatitionship is a mirror of phillip and caleb and this makes me ill.

Rue's whole thing with Belos is that she was bound to him artifically and he wants her dead and they have nothing in common and its kind of miserable. But (we know veryyy little about this but) Rue is kind of how I imagine Phillip was as a child and. Urghh. Yeah. I will yap about this in more detail in modern au section but yeah.

ANYWAY. Rue is quite timid yet very very stubborn when she wants to be. She's also quite curious on account for the fact she's never seen anything ever. She's easily scared by things, but not peril, which is very confusing to peril who sees herself as the second worst person alive. Rue knows this and always tries her very best to make peril happy. She likes it when her sister, is happy, peril being happy makes her feel happy (quite literally the emotions bounce back to her) which is very rare in the days when she was trapped in a cage for months.

She gets tired very easily partly maybe because of the way she was made. [figuring this out still. mighttt do some messed up curse stuff]

Peril is Rue's entire world. Even after they escape, Rue struggles to connect with any of the other palisman. Even if lots of them had been through things, she just feels very different and unbalanced, especially when Peril is away. She is both Extremely clingy so Peril won't leave and also trying very hard not to be, so that she won't be a burden.

Peril leaving her is actually. One of her biggest fears. Belos makes her very scared for lots of reasons. but a small part her worries that what if part of her is like Belos (he made her after all) and Peril will find out and hate her and leave her forver. Other thing to mention with this is that because Rue is litterally connected to Belos' Brain she knows a fair bit about her, although she struggles to make sense of it, and can also feel how belos' feels about peril. which is. yeah

Rue so badly wants to be strong like Peril, so that she can help her, yes, but also out of fear of being left behind. She is very Powder arcane coded btw. In theory, she wants to want to take down Belos to make her sister proud and happy and safe but in actualality she is Terrified (honestly much like peril herself). It makes her sick because she knows that she was Made to love him. But he hates her and for so long all she could do was sit in her tiny cage and think about what she could possibly have done to make him love her. But also she didn't want him too, because she can Feel how he makes Peril feel and she doesn't want to be anything like him.

She also copies Peril in other ways, and unintentionly picked up quite a lot of Peril's mannerisms (which peril isn't a fan of). She's very quiet, but not afraid of violence. Peril does't typically like erm. beat people up in front of her, but they are on the run and Rue has been around her enough to be sort of desensitised to violence.

The word Rue means bitter regret and a wish for something to undone. WHICH IS KIND OF MESSED UP. CONSIDERING HER LIFE. Belos wouldn't have named her, and Peril wouldn't have either, or at least not that. I think she overhead Belos saying the word in passing (something something about how he "rues the fact he created such a creature") and then rue named herself that.

Okay I need to talk a bit about how Peril feels Rue. (aside from the. horrible guilt she feels about Rue's existence in the first place, arresting her original carver and then leaving her caged for months). It's so much more dull than Rue's and belos' perception of eachother's feelings (because artificial bond) but peril can still feel rue who is small and scared which makes peril feel small and scared because she looks at rue and she sees a messed up really pathetic version of herself, a caged bird made by belos who can’t do anything but wait to die.. ADND URGH. YEAH. sometimes being around rue is painful.

Another thing is early peril Really Didn't want belos to know she was attached to rue, for both of their sakes. which made her act Very differemt when belos was in the room, like if she picked rue up she'd be Very Rough, or if rue was scared she wouldn't respond, or would respond agressively and. rue can feel her Horrible Guilt but that doesn't stop her being sometimes both scared and excited to see peril at the same time.

Also this is the first time peril has spent a long time around a palisman, who she previously saw as Not really being real and it just makes her think about all the other creatures shes killed and yay. I wrote a oneshot that sort of covers a lot of this stuff here

Various rambly essays I have written about various parts of their characters

A look into belos' mind!!! yay!!

belos' goal with the grimwalkers was to create a brother who wouldn't abandon him, a brother who he could guide and save from the corruption of witches and demons who (in his eyes) killed the original. He was lonely and wanted to rewrite the story so that this time caleb was on his side, and they'd complete the goal they had as kids and eradicate witchkind together. But the grimwalkers are not caleb no matter how hard he tries to pretend. And even worse, when they learn of Belos' plans they betray him again and again. The more grimwalkers he kills, the easier it gets. He's bitter and angry, punishing the grimwalkers for caleb's supposed past sins. He starts to have fun manipulating them, killing them. Like witches, they're just empty vessels, mere shadows of caleb. They don't have a soul for him to save. As years pass, he starts to care for them more for what they represent, they're a reminder of why he's doing this, why the witches have to burn. They're not people to him, they're tools, a position that must be filled in his grand plan of eliminating witch kind. Willingly or not, caleb will help him destroy this evil.

AND THEN WE HAVE PERIL

When Peril first emerged belos was happy as although, yes, she had wings and talons, there were worse features a grimwalker could have (wings can be bound, talons can be hidden. she could be fixed.) So in a moment of, maybe this is the one who will listen to me, tries carve her ears to look more human, the reverse of what he did to his own. I'm not sure entirely why he did this but I don't think he thought it through that well, he wanted some familiarity. The injury effects her vision, making one eye much more blurry.

However, this went wrong as peril panic tranformed part way (for the first time). And now belos has a bird for a brother instead. Part of him is tempted to write her off entirely, but he's in need of a right hand and the next grimwalker isn't ready yet.

So peril becomes his new golden guard. He's very strict on any bird traits she displayed. If she's a witch, then she's a witch. And if she's a bird, then she's silent and still, a palisman and not a wild animal. If his brother can control the wild side of him, then maybe there's hope. He sees the two parts of her as seperate creatures and treats her differently depending on what form she's in. He also has her bind and hide her wings and tail in her witch form.

He also ends up telling her she's a grimwalker, mostly as a fun experiment as he wasn't expecting her to last very long and was curious to see how his brother would react (although he spun it in, not a good way but, a less horrific one). Because of this, she knew she was likely on a bit of a timelimit. The badly made grimwalker trying to prove themselves worthy, being used as an inbetween because no others are ready, works better with hamlet (a friends golden guard oc). However, it also works with peril as, unlike hamlet, she DOES manage to prove her worth to belos and then some. She's loyal, quiet and efficent which was very useful at the time as there was a big rebellion happening. The other reason he keeps her around is as (although he hates it) he discovers her bird form could be useful, helping him blend in better and being a good way to intimidate and spy on traitors. Her bird form was very unique, and would be difficult to replicate in another grimwalker, therefore making her even more useful.

Originally I had it that belos liked her because the grimwalkers around her were quiet creaturey, whilst she looked mostly human. And yeah maybe a little bit. But she isn't that early in the timeline, and the grimwalker after her looks mostly normal. I like her proving that she's a bit too competent better. Overtime he becomes more fond of her (her witch half anyway) and trusts her a fair amount, as she is tasked with partly growing the next grimwalker (also probably has he was busy with rebellion stuff)

um so long story short. He's fond of one part of her, whilst the other proves to be very useful to him. (yay he'll miss her when he. kills her. how kind.) This completely messes up the way peril sees herself. She later really really hates that belos likes or cares about her in the slightest.

Peril (like belos) sees her two forms as seperate things. which isn't great! Not just because thats Bad for her mentally, but also because she has to shift between forms. Not shifting makes her feel awful, and causes her to have less control over her bird instincts (not great when you spend most of your time with belos). Early on, there was a time where he tried to forbid her from ever transforming entirely, which obviously backfired. She was blamed for this of course, she was the incompetent one, but belos gave her permission to transfrom between her forms again. This was also when he decided to have her serve as his fake palisman, after all if his grimwalker has to be a bird then he might as well make use of it.

Her lack of automony over being able to shift defiantely plays a part in her anger issues because she just feels bad. all the time. Early on she hates her bird half, and later her witch half, on top of having gender dysphoria, which also doesn't aid any of this because she refuses to switch forms and. yeah. it's not great. It would take a long time to kill her, not shifting, but its a miserable horrible time.

On top of this, her bird traits and insticts are frequently used against her and she is very much taught to hate that part of herself. She knows she's a grimwalker, and sort of about caleb as sometimes belos mentions him, compares her to him. He gets angry if she ever brings up caleb herself though, so she doesn't and her knowledge is very limited. (I think belos likes having a grimwalker who Knows, peril is mostly silent unless spoken to (or weaving elaborate lies to his enemies) so he just kind of monolouges to her sometimes.)

Belos tells her that she has bird traits because of calebs sinful corrupted soul (something he himself actually believes). and that she inherited that so there must be something Sinful in her too. meaning she has to work extra hard to make up for it. or something. However, as she starts to hate belos, she starts to hate herself as a witch instead.

Peril. Does Not. know how to live for herself.

True, she doesn't listen to many people. cant bring herself to care (other than Belos and sort of bat queen to a much lesser extend for rues sake) but she does not know what to do without a purpose. She lived for Belos, and when she couldn't do that anymore she lived for Rue. And then when Rue died. Well.

After rues death, she did want revenge (the part of her that still felt anything but hatred for belos crumbled along with her sister), but more than that she wanted a purpose again. If she stopped being angry, if she thought more about Rue's death, about how scared she actually was to face Belos again, she thought it would break her forever. So she turned her fear into anger and it consumed her so much that she was scared of what would happen to her if she stopped. Who she would be, what she would do.

THIS IS similar in straybirds (au i have written a lot about further below) in that. she lived for Belos, and then for her siblings and then when she felt they didnt need her anymore she just kinda. spiralled into a deep depression. YAY!!! it's okay cause then she gets better.

Peril also does not see herself as a person, which does not help this. She's a witch, a palisman, a grimwalker (a brother) and her being seen as or physically being in any of these forms is for a purpose, not because she actually wants to be. She doesn't see her forms as part of her (doesnt even have a good sense of who she is really anyway) and so doesnt transform because she doesn't see the point if she doesn't have to. Which is harmful to her health

HOPE THE OWL HOUSE

NICHOLAS belonging to my other good friend broocks (guy who is really normal and fine about shadow the hedgehog btw), was the grimwalker directly after Peril. He was very involved in very unethical basilisk experiments until he and all of his research burnt to death.

Peril (knowing about the grimwalkers) was there whilst he was still growing. She's not very talkative, but sometimes she said things to them, not sure whether to feel proud or hate them or pity them or wish they never exsisted at all.

Although they don't ever properly meet, they are alive at the same time, Nicholas becoming the new golden guard after Peril runs away. Peril feels a kind of distant pity towards them, but doesn't have the time or energy or even want to talk to him (she couldn't save Rue, why would this go any different? Besides she knows where his alligences lie, the things he will do. Telling him about Belos would get him killed, but killing Belos would actually help him. She needs to focus on that.)

CLOVER also belongs to broocks!!! She is the basilisk nicholas was researching. CLOVER AND NICHOLAS MAKE ME. VERY. ILL BTW. you should read their toyhouses.

Peril was the one to capture Clover originally. Clover was fairly young when this happened and her (although not often) meetings with Peril made her suspect things about what was happening with the Golden Guards when she later met Nicholas.

Peril would not have been kind or merciful to Clover, early Peril despised her more wild traits and probably projected this onto Clover whilst later Peril would have pushed away her pity out of self-preservation for herself and Rue. Erm she didn't have time to care. So yeah, Peril defiantely had a part in Clover's hatred towards Nicholas and the Golden Guards in general.

In another life, (STRAYBIRDS AU BELOW YAYYY!!!!) they'd all be friends. Peril has Not A Lot of friends this is saying something.

Peril also has a scar from when clover bit her once yay!!

FUN FACTS!!!

• She was created to be about 16 or 17 (this is around the age sb!peril runs away) and dies in her mid 20s.
  
  
• SHE'S TRANS!!!!1!1!! She exclusively uses she/her pronouns but its hard to place exactly how she sees herself. She's a bird. Her idenity is not defined, like her form. She does not like being seen as a man though, especially when it relates to her being compared to caleb. Rue completely stole peril's prnouns.
  
  
• HER WARRIOR CAT NAME IS GOLDENFLIGHT!!! it used to be Hawkflight. The first part changes instead of the last part because i liked it better but also something about giving up her identity. Giggling and hunter's name is Goldenheart and later when he runs away he changes it to wildheart....
  
  
• She has a resting angry face. Part of this is because it just fits, but also birds of prey always look upset because of the shape of their faces and i think its funny if peril also looks pisssed off too.
  
  
• HUNT/WEB AVATAR. suffocating in cobwebs my daughter :heart:
  
  
• IF SHE WAS A DRAGON (wings of fire) SHE'D BE AN ICEWING!!! she'd like being all spiky and the cold... and the like. super fucked up heirarchy thing the icewing nobility have going on is erm familiar... (crying all the icewings are so miserable) giggling fun fact in the fun facts section she was actually named after peril wof. THEY HAVE SIMILARITIES but i chose it before I made her backstory. I just think its an awesome name for a golden guard.
  
  
• WOLFWALKERS AU. caleb fell in love with eveyln who was a wolfwalker. she turns him into one so he can join her pack and philip Does Not Love This!!! this au isnt set in the boiling isles and philip isnt emperor, he's a witch, or wolfwalker, hunter - travelling around and killing magical creatures. still not sure how peril is related to him, she still might be a clone. but either way in this au belos uses her to hunt down and kill other wolfwalkers. yay!!! ILL PROBABLY WRITE MORE ABOUT THIS AU LATER because i want to fit the rest of stray birds into it maybe...
  
  
• SHE CAN'T SWIM. hates water. Her feathers soak up water like a sponge and it makes her feel trapped. She and Rue are also really claustrophobic not sure if I mentioned that. I THINK sb!peril would like the rain though, but she still can't swim and isn't the biggest water fan in general.
  
  
• If she was a moshi monster moshling she would be White Fang... the moshling that bit Dr Strangeglove's hand off. ALSO THEY JUST LOOK LIKE HER