#akasyr

Sketch of Akasyr.

I don’t mind this one so much. Different style than usual. Mostly I just wanted to share that I changed His weapon. It’s a Kampilan now instead of a machete. More refined. I’m also still working on developing a writing system. Lots of kinks to work out in that area.

Anyway, my posts continue to flop dramatically on here and Blvesky, for some fucking reason. I guess it can’t be helped.

A short tale from the drift people of the eastern delta.

In the beginning, all the world was dry land. There were no rivers, no lakes, no oceans. There was only land, and all mortals lived together. They survived off the rain which the goddess Akasyr poured out for them from the pot She carried as She walked the earth every day and night. There was plenty to go around, and the people did not suffer greatly, as the goddess was generous.

Still, there were those who were not content with what they were given, who wanted more. “Why should we receive the rain only at Her discretion?” They asked. “Why do we not deserve it all? Have we not done all we can to please the goddess?”

There were those who chided these mischievous folk, saying, “You should be grateful for what you have. Nothing good comes of going against gods.” But these voices were overpowered. The people were envious of the goddess, of how She held so much in abundance while only giving them a little.

They had long known the goddess liked to dance. And so it was that they devised a plan to trick Her into giving them the water from the rain pot. The cleverest of them spoke to the most talented of them, and together they created music so beautiful that any mortal who heard it would be unable to stop themself from dancing. So powerful, it could reach the ears of the goddess and do the same to Her.

As the goddess approached on Her daily walk to deliver the rain, they began to play their music. At first She paid it no mind, so dedicated to Her task was She. But as She drew nearer, the depth of the notes and the steady beat moved Her, in body and in soul. The goddess began to dance.

At first, however, it seemed the plan would not work. The mortals watched as the goddess twirled and rolled Her hips, long hair swirling around Her in the wind, only a few stray droplets of water ever meeting the ground. They had underestimated Her gracefulness, it seemed, and no matter how She danced, the water in the pot would not spill over.

But the most clever of them had accounted for this, and as the song progressed, so did the tempo. She danced faster, forgetting Herself, and the more She danced, the more agitated became the water in Her pot.

The mortals gathered around to watch, some in awe, others in horror, as the goddess finally turned the pot over in Her frenzy.

Water fell to the ground in a great rushing wave, decimating everything in its path as it surged in all directions. The mortals fled, but they had learned the error of their ways too late. The musicians were swept up in the swirling water. Those who came to watch were quickly drawn under as well.

The more cautious of them were able to run to high ground, and avoid the worst of the great flood. These people never did come down from the ground, and with time diverged from all other mortals to become humans.

In the absence of the beautiful song, the goddess stopped Her dance, but the damage was done. She could not gather all the water back into Her pot, and could only scoop up small portions at a time to distribute over the remaining land, but in Her benevolence could not bear to watch the mortals in the water die, no matter how angry She was that they had tricked Her. She dove into the tumult of the newly made ocean, as violent and tempestuous as any great storm has ever been, and gathered as many mortals as She could. Unto them She bestowed gifts, allowing them to breathe and swim so that they might survive, but at the cost of never being able to stray beyond the many beaches that now bordered the land. These blessed survivors became the drifts.

The surviving musicians were filled with remorse and begged the goddess for mercy, entreating Her to allow them to repay Her kindness in spite of their deceitful ways.

The goddess asked for little. She only asked that they continue to play their beautiful song from time to time, so that She might be able to dance to it again.

So the song was passed down from generation to generation, from musician to musician, becoming greater with each set of hands that performs it. This is the song we play to appease Her.

Oh, this is an exciting question. Thank you for asking!

Akasyr is actually something of a romance fan. His favorite story about Himself, therefore, is the one mortals tell of Him and His husband, Sharisa. The drifts traditionally tell this story through dance, and He especially likes how they characterize the gestures and movement of the humans’ dancing style to show that Sharisa is a god of a different people.

In the times leading up to TFE, the story of Him and Sharisa had been suppressed by nobility and priests/esses were not permitted to perform it for many years due to rules about monotheism and separation from human culture. Thus He took to listening to the way humans told the story, and other stories like it.

Akasyr and Sharisa. I’ve drawn them before but this encapsulates their personalities a bit better than before. Sharisa is mischievous, and rather energetic and almost too happy. Many others find Him a bit silly. Akasyr, in contrast, is too serious for the taste of others, stern and cold. No one quite knows why, therefore, they chose to become partners.

For pride this month, I’m going to share some of the queer characters in my stories. As a queer person myself, I feel it’s important to have casual representation in media, and I want to do my part to add to it. So, every weekend you’ll get to meet one or two characters who would identify as something other than cisgender and heterosexual if those kinds of labels mattered in their world.

Our third character this month is Akasyr, the monotheistic deity of the drifts, and also Sharisa’s partner (in life and in crime). While never explicitly stated in the books, He is canonically asexual.

Another very interesting fact about Him is that He would likely also identify as transmasculine. Gods do not experience gender as mortals do (gods don’t really have assigned sex. Just gender), but Akasyr identified as feminine for a large portion of pre- and recorded history before realizing He was more comfortable presenting as masculine. As a result, He is generally regarded as a patron deity of trans people in the polytheistic cultures in which He is included.

For pride this month, I’m going to share some of the queer characters in my stories. As a queer person myself, I feel it’s important to have casual representation in media, and I want to do my part to add to it. So, every weekend you’ll get to meet one or two characters who would identify as something other than cisgender and heterosexual if those kinds of labels mattered in their world.

Sharisa plays a small role in part two of Ga’avan the Mighty, and His relationship with Akasyr is paralleled to that of Kyall and Fastar in The First Emperor. He would most closely identify with the designation of gay.

Kyall.

He is the main character of my second work-in-progress, The First Emperor. This is a redraw of a piece I did almost exactly 3 years ago (see below). You may recognize the scarf and the earrings. The scarf, in this case, has no alternative meaning other than that pattern ate on Akasyr and it’s eating here. The earrings, however, have an insane story attached to them.