Having no empathy for what Thjazi did to Bolaire is so strange to me because we have no idea what Thjazi did to Bolaire. That part of the story has yet to be told. Usually you want to know the context and the details of something before you make a determination about how you feel about it, yes?
"He kills people!" Yes, and so do all the other people in this campaign. There are very few saints in an adventuring party.
"But this is different!" Yes, it is. Because Bolaire was a tool given sentience by people who never gave any thought to what would happen to him or his siblings once they served their purpose. Maybe they were all supposed to be destroyed in the same play that destroyed the halfling shaper? Maybe the people doing the crafting were so desperate that they had neither time nor energy to give a thought to what happened after the death of a god? Maybe they couldn't spend any time considering or discussing it for fear of being discovered? We don't know and we may never know for certain, but that lack of consideration definitely impacts who and what Bolaire is now.
How does a disposable sentient object learn morals? Most creatures are taught that sort of thing in their childhood by their parents. Bolaire and his siblings had no parents and never had a childhood. They knew each other for a day before the play. What they knew of each other, the world, and their personalities was "programmed" into them for one purpose: to get a job done. For decades after that, Bolaire had no sense of self, he was simply a tool of war. He was used by mortals when they needed to destroy and kill, and put away whenever he wasn't needed for those roles. When he began achieving sentience, who were his first teachers about how to treat other beings? The very people who were using him to kill and destroy. Is it really shocking that he treats (some) people as disposable? As means to an end? The traveling play may have given him goals to strive for, but the people who wielded him for decades gave him the roadmap for how to achieve those goals.
How do we gauge how old Bolaire is? Do we date it by his creation or by when he gained sentience? How do you gauge a sentient object's intellectual or emotional age, their level of culpability for their actions? They have no life cycle, no developmental period. Is Bolaire an adult or a child, or do those designations even matter for an entity that never ages? For example, Azune probably killed people as a child soldier but do we give him as a child the same level of culpability for those actions that we expect of him as an adult? Both legally and ethically the answer is usually no.
If Bolaire isn't a person, how can he be culpable for his actions? We don't sentence cars to jail for hitting pedestrians. But unlike cars (as far as we know), Bolaire has thoughts and feelings, so he must be a person. So then why did/do so many people treat him as if he isn't? What is their role in making him what he is now vs his own responsibility for how he shaped himself once he found out he could?
These are delicious, complicated questions, most of which I have no answers for yet because we're still very early in Bolaire's story. Personally, all of these questions are far more interesting to me than deciding whether Bolaire is a good person or a bad person, because to be honest I don't think even Bolaire or Taliesin know that yet. I get people not liking Bolaire, like so many of Taliesin's characters he's abrasive, bitchy, judgemental, cruel, and generally difficult. For some people that's a feature, for others a bug and that's fine. What I don't get is being unwilling to engage with these interesting themes for...what end? To be morally right on the internet? These aren't real people, you're not going to publicly shame Bolaire into being a better person by putting him in the fandom version of stocks in the public square. So why not let the story tell itself before you decide how you feel about it and him?
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What if Marrienne is the runaway wife of Primus Tachonis, and Occtis' mother?
We haven't heard anything about Occtis' mother yet. She could have tried to escape the loveless (and likely abusive) marriage to Primus and start a new life. She joins the rebellion, meets Kattigan starts a new family, then Primus shows up to claim his property.
She escapes either from the hut or from Primus after being brought home for a while. (Unsure what happened to the daughter, maybe she was killed, maybe she's been placed into hiding, maybe she's a prisoner in Obrimus Manor)
But Marrienne becomes Mara, a druid with the ability to cross the veil (y'know, like a Tachonis) who then is captured again and brought to Obrimus Manor.
I know there are probably holes in this theory, but man, the prospect is really intriguing to me, and pulls Kattigan into the story for his own reasons.
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Also, I am looking forward to tonight's episode so it will confirm what I believe happened at the Hallowed Round.
My understanding is that when Thjazi and Mara tried to do the ritual before to build a bridge between The Dying Fields and Faerie, they did not have an anchor as part of the ritual and that missing piece caused Faerie to slam its doors shut when connected to the necromantic energy of an Afterlife.
So they try to do the ritual again, this time with an anchor made from the remains of a psychopomp, a creature whose entire purpose is ferrying souls to an afterlife.
Add in the powerful emotions and energy created by Kotherai and you are really cooking with gas this time around.
So I am pretty sure that the doors to Faerie have reopened now. The tragedy is that the Royce family, which is the whole reason there even was a door to Faerie like this, have been largely eliminated. The only confirmed Royce alive right now is Aranessa (and technically we have no clue what happened after she left for the Golden Orchard).
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Occtis is dying again. He has always been dying, probably; time has collapsed to the bright point of pain that is his body. He cannot remember ever being whole. They have him on the table like before, and there is a hand inside his ribs, but this time when Occtis forces his eyes to focus it is Thaisha standing over him. It's like being split open all over again. Please, he wants to say, I'm sorry, I know I've ruined things. I can fix it, please. But he can't say anything, because the wire around his throat is crushing his trachea. Breathing feels like a half-remembered dream. He claws at his neck, and he was wrong, the wire is not a wire but roots, grown to strangle him. Then it is thick chains, then a silver gauntlet, then flowering vines smelling of jasmine. Distantly, someone is laughing. Thaisha shoves her hand another inch into the carnage of his torso, and gods, he can feel her nails scrape every rib. He shouldn't even be able to feel that, the scientist in him says, but it's as if every inch of him is a raw nerve. Thaisha grasps his heart.
"You are a dead thing, Occtis. I should have put you down a long time ago."
Please, Occtis tries to beg.
And Thaisha rips him apart.
Occtis wakes choking. The world is a smudge of light and shadow. He's insensate to anything beyond the ringing in his ears and the awful, animal noises coming from his own throat--is he dying, still? Surely not, surely it's over, but then why can he still not fucking breathe?
There is a flash of red, a movement, and the hindbrain in him jerks away before the figure can make contact. They're speaking, hands held up, but Occtis can't--he can't--
"Hey. Focus on me. Hey, breathe out, you're okay. I got you."
It's Thaisha. The fact cuts through his panic like a scalpel, and Occtis feels his stomach drop. He scrambles back, a keener terror taking hold of him, and holds out his arms in a plea. He tries to croak something, maybe don't or I'm sorry, but his lungs are still doing their level best to reanimate without the rest of him. It comes out as a hitched wheeze.
Thaisha just keeps speaking, her face drawn, and Occtis can't make sense of her warm voice and the echoing--dream? But he doesn't dream, and there were--chains, and vines, there were--
His mind stalls out. Squeezing his eyes shut, Occtis tangles his hands in his own hair, puts his head between his knees, and tries to remember how not to breathe.
Slowly, reality filters back in. It is dark, but the dark of moonlight and campfire, not of Palazzo halls. He isn't breathing because he doesn't need to, not because there is garotte wire around his throat. Thaisha is speaking softly. Occtis lifts his head.
"Hey," Thaisha's brows are furrowed, but she doesn't--look angry? "You with me?"
Occtis manages a nod. "I don't--" His throat is drier even than usual. "What happened? Was I--sleeping?" At this, Thaisha's eyes harden, glancing up, and Occtis becomes aware of a presence at his back. He jerks around, startled, only to draw up short with the tip of a blade below his chin.
"Julien," Thaisha says warningly, but Julien's dark eyes are fixed on Occtis. Any amount of camaraderie he had begun to extend is gone from his face. Occtis recognizes his expression from battle: it is the cold, disgusted sneer Julien wears to dispatch the undead.
"Start talking, Tachonis. Whatever explanation you have to offer, do it now, or it won't just be sleep waiting for you."
Occtis reels back. "What? I don't--what are you talking about. Why was I asleep?"
Julien's face twists. "Stop playing dumb, boy." He tilts the rapier up so it just grazes the underside of Occtis' jaw. Occtis is still dazed from sleep--and what a novel feeling--but he puts up his palms in confused fear.
"That's--yes, okay, we can talk. I'm not--" He glances at Thaisha, "I'm not a threat to anyone. I swear." Julien's blade doesn't move, and Thaisha's expression is the carefully guarded facade she puts on to hide disapproval. His phantom heart seizes. "Julien. I don't. I don't know exactly what happened. Can we please, just--?" Occtis carefully nudges the tip of the sword away from his throat. Julien's jaw clenches, but he lets his blade be pushed aside, though he doesn't sheathe it.
"Fine. But if--"
"Is he awake?" Vaelus' voice comes from the treeline, her luminous eyes catching the firelight as she emerges. Dame Seremai follows. "Everyone alive?"
"We're good here," Thaisha says, at the same time that Julien mutters,
"For now," and Occtis nervously laughs,
"No more than usual." That gets him a glower from Julien. Vaelus' gaze is as impenetrable as ever as she settles next to Thaisha. Dame Seremai doesn't sit, and neither does Julien, keeping their stony gazes on each other and Occtis in equal measure. Vaelus is the first to speak.
"Occtis. What do you remember." It's not so much a question as it is a command, and the echo of--hands on his face, Vaelus saying sleep in that same tone--swims to the surface. Other memories trip over themselves, piecemeal, but Occtis can't place them together in time. He knows the route they've been traveling, knows that he spoke and journeyed and fought with the people around him, but he can't construct a narrative of the last few days. It's like trying to remember a dream.
"I...it's fuzzy. I remember...a fight? I'm not sure...what we were fighting, though. Is everything--what's going on?"
Julien scoffs. "You don't know what we fought. We fought a crazy fucking undead wizard who is, maybe, a lot more undead than we thought. You remember that?"
It's like a slap to the face. Occtis can't answer. The light glints off Julien's gauntlet, and he remembers it crushing his diaphragm, remembers screaming. "Look at Vaelus. You remember that?" Julien gestures toward her, and Occtis notices for the first time a bandage around her shoulder, spotted with the infection that only weeping necrosis wounds cause.
And then--images appear in flashes. Dame Seremai's face, drawn in confused fear. Thaisha bellowing across a clearing. Green flame leaping from his own hand, and the rush of twisted joy that followed. Feeling powerful. Feeling angry. Seeing Julien's face, and the notches on his belt, and wanting nothing more than to hurt. Knowing exactly what to say in order to do so. And all of it muffled by a strange, distant horror, like he had been outside of his own body. Powerless, terrified, and terrifying. Oh, his father would have been so proud.
Fuck. Occtis' lungs rebel against him again, forcing a gasp. "Yes," he chokes. "Yes, I--I don't know why--I, Vaelus, are you okay?"
She waves a hand. "I'm fine. I don't think you were even trying to hit me. But." Her gaze hardens. "You don't know why you did that? You weren't being influenced in any way?" She looks at him intensely, expectant, and Occtis once again cannot reply. He's sorting through his disparate memories to find some kind of answer when Thaisha makes a sharp, frustrated noise, and leans forward.
"Occtis, when was the last time you rested before Vaelus made you?"
He--oh. Oh, shit. He had not accounted for this result.
His silence seems to be answer enough, because Vaelus runs a hand over her face and Thaisha looks downright murderous.
"Damnit, Occtis, how long?"
He tries to remember. Days are a slippery concept, but: "A week ago? Maybe a little less. I didn't--think this would happen."
"Oh, you didn't think--" Thaisha starts, furious, but Julien cuts her off.
"Why?" His face is unreadable.
"It was--" Occtis clenches his jaw. "Testing a theory."
Julien's face twists into a sneer. Thaisha stands, hands in her hair.
"Oh my gods, you idiot. Why the fuck did you think it was a good idea to--"
"Thaisha--" Occtis tries, but she is thunderous.
"No, I don't care about your wizard bullshit, you're not at the Pentevral anymore!"
"It was gathering information, I have to--" Occtis tries to say--they don't understand, of course they don't--
"Oh, yes? And what information did this get you, ah? That you're a fucking powderkeg?" Julien is snarling.
"If I don't--"
"That you're a danger to all of us? That you should've stayed dead like my goddamn family?"
"No, because I knew that already!" Occtis doesn't remember standing up, but he's shouting now. That burning in his chest is back, that rage, but he doesn't know who it's directed at.
"An experiment," Occtis says, chest heaving, "on the effects of prolonged wakefulness on the sentient undead." He's shaking now, though from fear or anger he doesn't know. They won't forgive him this time. They're going to realize what he already has, they're going to put him down. "To determine the limits of animating magic. To determine the differences between the subject and its living counterpart. To determine if I can fucking sleep if I just--keep going until I collapse--" Occtis' voice breaks. He can't look at them, not when he'll see Julien's disdain and Vaelus' scrutiny and the disgust that he never thought Thaisha would direct at him. A hysterical laugh escapes his chest. "At least I have one answer."
The clearing goes quiet for a long moment.
When Vaelus' hands land on his shoulders, he flinches, but she only squeezes gently. "Elves do sleep," she says, voice low and even, "when we are children. We grow out of it, and then we forget how." She ducks to catch his eye. "I miss it too, sometimes."
It knocks the wind out of him, impossible though it is.
"Oh." he whispers. He chances a glance at Thaisha. A mistake--he immediately feels like he's been sucker punched. Her face is an open wound of grief. Anger, too, in the set of her shoulders, but it's the righteous, motherly kind that she holds like a shield in front of the people she loves. Occtis had thought he might never see her look like that on his behalf again.
Julien makes a noise in between a groan and a shout and sits down heavily, running a hand over his face. "You're still a fucking idiot," He says, then shakes his head. "But. If I couldn't sleep--or, ha, drown my sorrows..." Julien meets Occtis' gaze, then, and he looks nearly as tired as Occtis feels. "I can't say I wouldn't do the same."
Occtis can only nod. He startles, though, when Dame Seremai speaks, breaking her silent vigil.
"My lord. I don't wish to presume, but. Do you know, then, what caused the...episode?" Occtis feels a stab of guilt at her guarded expression. He was cruel to her, too, so casually it makes his stomach hurt to remember. He nods, turning to find his bedroll.
"I have a theory. My hypothesis was partially correct," Occtis retrieves his research notebook, "though obviously, ah," returning, he kneels to spread out his notes, "I didn't account for everything."
"No shit." Julien offers, helpfully.
Occtis ignores him. "Around the third day, I began to feel significant negative effects. Disorganized thought, slower reflexes, et. cetera."
Thaisha sighs wearily, sinking to the ground. "And you didn't think that might be a sign to stop playing mad scientist on the extremely dangerous road trip?"
"It wasn't just--" Occtis runs his tongue over his teeth. "I knew it was dangerous. That's why I developed the idea in the first place--if I didn't need rest, or I could go longer without it, then that's just one more person who can be on alert. Vaelus could rest for longer, and you all could be. More safe." He looks down. "Clearly, that backfired."
Vaelus crouches next to him. "Yeah," she says, bluntly, "but it was sweet of you to try. Even though it was very stupid." It startles a half laugh out of him. Vaelus is peering at his notes, and she notices it at nearly the same time Occtis does: a sudden stop in his careful recordings, dated a few days ago. "What's this?" She says, pointing.
"Ah. Yes, that's where my hypothesis failed. I didn't anticipate the...stronger psychological effects."
"By which you mean going fucking insane?" Julien drawls. Occtis forces himself not to glare.
"After the third night, I had planned to let the experiment go for one more day and then stop--I was afraid I'd become useless in a fight." Occtis fixes his gaze on his notes. Forces himself to be clinical: he is just recounting facts. "But. After the fourth night, I. No longer wanted to rest."
Thaisha shakes her head in confusion. "What, you weren't tired?"
"No, not--not exactly. It was more that I. Stopped caring? I didn't feel exactly, ah. In control of my body. I stopped taking notes. I was...very much not myself." Occtis does not try to meet anyone's gaze. "A feeling that only intensified in the days following. I still don't--I can't exactly remember what happened before you," He looks at Vaelus, "knocked me out. It's like I was just watching myself, ah, 'go fucking insane'. As Julien put it."
Julien rubs at his brow. "Sure. Yes, good to know. The dead boy needs his beauty sleep, or we all end up meeting his father on the wrong side of the veil. Why the fuck not."
The dark, angry thing where Occtis' heart used to be rears its head, tries to meet violence for violence. Occtis grits his teeth, pushing it down. He forces himself to meet Julien's eyes.
"I'm sorry," Occtis says, as soft as he can manage, "I know this is. I know I'm. Difficult. I understand if you--" The breath that drags itself haltingly into his lungs is unnecessary, but grounding. "I was terrible to you. I--think. I can't really remember what I said, but..." Occtis can no longer meet Julien's eyes. "I know I was trying to hurt you. I understand if you. Want to do the same."
In the corner of his eye, Thaisha tenses. Julien narrows his eyes. "What are you trying to say, boy?"
"Yeah, I would love an explanation on that one, too." Thaisha bites out.
Shit. Someone's going to be angry no matter what he offers. Of course--he never knows what to say to fix what he breaks, he never knows how to make himself small enough to be tolerable. There's no way to keep them all happy. The hopelessness of it breaks over him in a wave.
"I just--you..." He starts, eyes flicking between the group, until the words spill out in a jumble. "You have this whole 'revenge' thing going on and so I thought--if that's how you--you know, 'an eye for an eye', and all that...it, ah, it wouldn't really hurt me, per se, but it would still be uncomfortable? Actually, you could probably get it to hurt if you really tried, so i-if you want--?"
"No. Occtis. We're not doing that." This comes from Vaelus, cutting off his spiral. Occtis' eyes flick between her and Thaisha--both various shades of steadfast and angry--and Julien, who looks somehow both annoyed and vaguely sick.
"The elf is right. I'm not your father. I'm not going to..." Julien huffs. "Hurting you would bring me no joy. I've gotten much worse in friendly spars. And besides," He stands, stretching, and heads towards his bedroll, "I already got my licks in. Now I'm going the fuck to bed."
Occtis' shoulders fall. There is a not insignificant part of his mind that cannot process the fact that he's getting out of this unscathed. He wonders if that ever goes away--the expectation of pain. It had gotten a lot better at the Pentevral and while traveling with Thaisha, but now, with the rising tension, with the evidence of his family's cruelty forever scribed on his skin...
Thaisha breaks him out of his reverie with a gentle hand on his arm.
"Hey. Do you think you can sleep now?" Occtis realizes that at some point, Vaelus had followed Julien to her own bedroll. He and Thaisha sat apart from the group.
"Oh. Uh, yeah. I think so. I'm still...tired? Well, not tired, but--" He cuts himself off with a sigh.
"Yeah, no, I get it." Thaisha says, not unkindly. There is a pregnant pause, and Occtis feels the fearful thing in the back of his mind turn over. He shoves it down. "Hey...you know you don't need to do that, right?" When he doesn't respond, she leans to catch his eye. "Julien is a dick, and you're the smartest idiot I've ever met, but you don't need to let anyone hurt you. No one here wants to." Maybe she senses his disbelief, because she puts a hand on his shoulder so he has to meet her gaze. "Really. We're figuring this out, and Julien...is complicated, but he's not a sadist. And anyway, I wouldn't let him. Neither would Vaelus. And Occtis," Her face contorts, and she has to swallow before she can finish her sentence, "I don't want to hurt you. Ever. You know that, right?"
It's something she's said to him more than a few times during their travels. Mostly, he can say 'yes' and mean it. Today, he nods shakily, and tries on some faith--alien as it is.
Occtis can sense that she's going to offer a hug, and he wants it, he does, if only to chase away the freezing cold, but even this closeness is bordering on too much. The dream, the memories of being wrestled to the ground, are still echoing. He stands before she can say any more.
"Thank you," Occtis murmurs, and means it. It isn't enough, but then, he never is. He can feel Thaisha's eyes on him as he curls up, but he doesn't look back. Her love, her protection, is too much to face head on, sometimes. As the strange lullaby of trancing tugs at his consciousness, Occtis wonders how long it will last.
What if Marrienne is the runaway wife of Primus Tachonis, and Occtis' mother?
We haven't heard anything about Occtis' mother yet. She could have tried to escape the loveless (and likely abusive) marriage to Primus and start a new life. She joins the rebellion, meets Kattigan starts a new family, then Primus shows up to claim his property.
She escapes either from the hut or from Primus after being brought home for a while. (Unsure what happened to the daughter, maybe she was killed, maybe she's been placed into hiding, maybe she's a prisoner in Obrimus Manor)
But Marrienne becomes Mara, a druid with the ability to cross the veil (y'know, like a Tachonis) who then is captured again and brought to Obrimus Manor.
I know there are probably holes in this theory, but man, the prospect is really intriguing to me, and pulls Kattigan into the story for his own reasons.
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guys you have to stop drawing azune white 😭 he is a brown latino man. you people are crazy. you're crazy!!! you HAVE to stop uplifting art of him that is whitewashed!!! It has gotten to the point where some of the most popular Azune art depicts him as a white man!!! Do better!!! Luis so specifically states he has "medium brown" skin and he is CLEARLY brown in his character art!!!
