echo !!!

They were inspired by the higher power that created them and their siblings, seeing how effortlessly they held power over every creature in their domain without lifting a finger. Illumina adopted a vision of pureness from that, and stuck to it, lecturing whoever did something they considered impure -- even if it was just something that affected their image.

Illumina and Darkheart were incredibly close when they were younger, possibly the closest out of all of their siblings. When Illumina started adopting the image of being "pure", they got into more and more fights. One fight escalated far enough that the higher power that created them bonded the two siblings together with a curse; they will both suffer the consequences of whatever wrongdoing the other does. This curse took a horn from both of them, significantly weakening them for a while. It was quite the injury.

This curse caused Illumina and Darkheart to start resenting eachother.

Illumina believes himself to be above death. Unlike Darkheart, he claims he does not see mortals as less than, but simply as something to protect. This is a lie, even though she refuses to admit this to herself. Her followers, mortals, do all of their bidding; Illumina refuses to kill or even injure anyone unless it is strictly necessary.

Like Darkheart, Illumina is skilled in curses, but she also blesses her followers. He uses a lot less tricks than Darkheart, instead having a tendency to simply leave out the bad parts; what their followers do not know cannot hurt them.

Darkheart, in this AU, is roughly based of a púca. I'm not sticking to exact species / races of faekind, but this fit DH too well to not do it. Púcas can mess around with bringing both good and bad luck -- depending on their moods.

DH (and any of the other sword), due to being a faerie, cannot lie. He works with a lot of elaborate tricks and is incredible at just avoiding the truth. Among that, he is powerful with curses. In this AU, his whole thing with Zuka ended up in him cursing Zuka. The curse got reversed due to the fact that DH was younger and thus less powerful.

Since the Scorch happened, DH messes around a lot with glamour magic, changing his appearance everytime he interacts with mortals (but Sword. Sword is a special case in this AU I'll get back on that in another post). He usually does keep his face relatively the same. A folktale about his eyes is that the reason no one sees them is because it a gateway directly to his soul, and someone's soul is a powerful thing to have control of.

DH is one of the few swords who still willingly makes deal with mortals, offering them what they want in exchange for their true names. They know this is cruel, but they look down on mortals. To them, they are pathetic. The mortal realm is like their own fantasy world where they have enough power that they can watch from a distance as everything goes wrong.

They do not have many -- if any -- close connections outside of direct family. That does not matter to her much, DH cares more about having fun. They are immortal, after all. Plenty of time for connections later, or so he tells himself.

DH refuses to use their bare hands during arguments unless it is absolutely needed -- she finds that he is above that. This refusal runs deep, and unless they are going to die if they do not use their bare hands, she would rather run or lose.

my krita was lagging the entire time i was drawing this and i should probably have taken it as a sign from the gods to stop but i felt the need to finish this. i have a headache now