#eilah

[Image description: Eilah, a cat-like humanoid Edeia, lies on the ground in eir Abstraction and reaches for a mote of information. End ID.]

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Birthday gift for my friend @ausp-ice ! Wanted to try something new in terms of angle/perspective. :)

Popped into my head one day and I decided: mine. Also, first Edeia that I’m using only neopronouns for, I think!

Owner: Me TH Profile 

Name: Eilah, will sometimes go by Insight Idea: Insight Pronouns: ei/eim/eir

Once again I found it hard to make a decision, so I used a random number generator to pick the characters.

King Tenotaka: 40 - How does your character treat people in service jobs?

Rather curtly, but not rudely. He expects people to do their job, do it well, and not make any trouble about it. He has little patience with poor performance and poor excuses, however. He can show suitable recognition for good handiwork, even though he’s never one to heap praise or display much appreciation. Impassive approval is the best you can hope for, and it’s not easy to get.

Queen Eilah: 45 - What does your character believe will happen to them after they die? Does this belief scare them?

Eilah has long since made peace with the concept of death. She spent many long years sick and dying, knowing death could come at any moment, sooner more likely than later. When Relonia miraculously used the magic she had torn from the fallen Warlock to heal her, she got a second shot at life, and got busy living it to the fullest.

The Sirn flavour of faith is very inspired by Ancient Egypt - the royals have very large and elaborate tombs for their remains to rest in, filled with art and gifts to ensure a heavenly afterlife. Exactly what happens to one’s spirit after death is in Chima’s hands, the goddess of life, death and judgment. If you’ve lived a good life, you will have a heavenly afterlife, reunited with loved ones in lavish paradise. If you’ve carried sin and guilt with you into death, you will pay for it. And possibly, if you’re still needed, or if you’re too much of a grey area for outright judgment, your spirit may be sent back to live on earth for another lifetime.

Eilah definitely feels she has lived a good life, and with a daughter being a high priest of Chima to send her spirit off when the day comes, she isn’t worried.

In the end, she dies peacefully at old age, falling asleep while reading in her beloved gardens and simply never wakes again. She’s missed by many, hailed a great and wise queen, and thanks to her oldest daughter and odd foreign son-in-law, her tomb blooms richly with her favourite plants and flowers, forever sweet and green in the dark.

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Trickster.

@unluckiest-black-cat designed Trickster, a fusion between Eilah and Mischief, a while back! I love them....

Thank you so much! ♥♥♥

Since you didn't specify any specific characters, I decided to use a random number generator! :D (Anything to avoid having to actually think myself. Brain is mush. )

Akari: 1 - Does your character have siblings or family members in their age group? Which one are they closest with?

Yes! One he knows about, and one he doesn't. His older half-brother Kenji is about a year or two older than him. They have the same mother, but different (absent) fathers. He also has a half-sibling on his unknown father's side who is also about the same age as Kenji.

He and Kenji are close - very different personalities, but they complement each other very well, with Akari's restless ingenious brilliance and Kenji's sensible and thorough long-term plans.

As for the other unknown sibling, they would not get along at all.

Maqaxha: 2 - What is/was your character’s relationship with their mother like?

I... actually don't know. In earlier versions of the story she simply wasn't there (because I was young and full of internalized misogyny and just not very interested in female characters). Lately I've been mulling it over and wondering if she was there all along, just shoved into the background by the patriarchal society of Ku'Ombos itself. Maybe she was still there after everything that went down. I don't even know if Maqaxha and his sister Shaqani have the same mother or not - the king had many wives and many children. It's definitely one of the aspects of the story I need to poke more at!

Meishi: 3 - What is/was your character’s relationship with their father like?

Another one I don't know! I think Meishi came from rather humble beginnings, lower class townspeople of southern Kayalana, and that while life was scarce and dipping into occasional povery, her childhood wasn't particularly bleak or hard.

I do know she has a sister, who chose a very different proper in life and who she clashed on quite bitterly over life choices before making her own way.

It is one of her joys in older days to be able to smugly send lavish gifts to her sister and her family from the royal palace. Who will die disgraced and alone on the streets now, oh so respectable sister?

Shayari: 4 - Has your character ever witnessed something that fundamentally changed them? If so, does anyone else know?

That would be his father's slow decay after his mother died. Tenotaka had always been a bit distant, if loving, both occupied with kingly duties but also his own melancholy thoughts. But after the queen died, he became more distant still, often absent even though physically present.

Shayari was only ten when he lost his mother, and in a way he lost his father that day, too. He did everything he could to try and reach out, to spark some life back into him, to impress and inspire him, with little success.

It was these attempts that finally grew the dream in him to reach out to the mythical golden people beyond the heavenly mountains, hoping to bring back wonders miraculous enough to awaken his heartbroken father from his waking slumber at last.

Whether anyone else guessed at the reason for his ambition, I rather doubt. He probably told Islinn, his wife, and Tenotaka's first servant Jiaka probably guessed it, too. It was never the official reason for his fateful journey, but the reason always burning in his heart.

Eilah: 5 - On an average day, what can be found in your character’s pockets?

String for tying up and supporting plants, and small gardening scissors to nip the occasional unruly leaf or branch in passing. A blessed Chima-amulet for good health. Possibly some small memento of Hanyohl, her deceased husband, and Relonia, the daughter who moved so far away.

“I’m sorry, brother. I heard father refused you military aid this time, too. I know he’s scared to provoke the Warlock to fall on Sirn next, but me? I’m tired of looking to the North with fear. That Ititshi has kept your throne warm for you long enough. Between you and me, your Carrysh retinue and my private guard...? I think we should go take it back.”

Relonia is great. She started out a typical cliché “arrogant, not-like-other-girls spoiled princess” but I love where her character growth has taken her! She’s still headstrong and rash and arrogant, but there is so much heart there. ♥

Sirn is one of those places I’d really need to stroll around in with notepad out; there’s a lot I still don’t know about it! Lots of inspiration from ancient Egypt, yes, and north Africa/near east in general. A harsh and unforgiving desert kingdom for the most part, although there are grasslands to the north-east (Where Relonia’s mother Eilah hails from) and south, down against the Ku’Ombos border.

In central Sirn, the great river Cal traces a green thread of life through the desert, to finally empty into the great inner sea that I haven’t named yet. The royal family have a summer palace there.

When we first see Sirn, it’s ruled by Relonia’s father, Hanyohl, but I’m 99% sure he dies some time during the time Rion is a prisoner in At-ni Cal - exactly how is something I’ve changed so many times I’ve lost track. (Rion vehemently assures he’s blameless this one time)

It hits Relonia hard since he was practically the one to raise her - her mother has been very sick and bed-bound for a very long time. One good aspect of claiming the medallion, though, is that she finally learns to control its power enough to heal her, and Eilah steps up as de-facto ruler after Hanoyhl’s death. I’m fairly certain Relonia has siblings, at least one younger sister, but while I know I even named her once, long ago, I can’t remember anything about her. (She will have to pick up the crown-princess title once Relonia dallies off to marry the King of Kayalana, though, so I need to go through my old piles of art and notes and see if I can revive her a bit. I... do think she kind of adopts Ziradess as her heir, though? I’m sure there’s some really good reason why.)

Aside from the royal family, there are four exalted tribal Lords who hold great influence in Sirn, and their advice is often requested in manners of politics, if only to keep their egos stroked and their fierce pride placated.

Here’s an old sketch I made of some of them way back - the woman to the left is Medreth of the Nehren region, Eilah’s older sister, Relonia’s aunt. She’s made of steel, a very strongly opinionated woman, and not one in favour of Relonia’s future marriage to an Ititshi. (I seem to recall Relonia jokingly suggesting to Rion when he came on that state visit to Sirn to make their engagement official that if that fell through, they should totally marry Medreth to Rannon instead and see who killed whom first.)

Middly guy is Lexandir. He doesn’t like Ititshi either.

I think right guy’s name is Sajid, although I could remember wrong. While another strongly opinionated character, he doesn’t particularly dislike the idea of Relonia’s marriage - he knows what the princess is made of, and if any Ititshi would try to take advantage of her politically or domestically against her will, you’d better start planning the poor sod’s funeral.

And yes! All of Pangaea worship the five goddesses, subtle proof that there has been contact between the peoples before - either that, or the goddesses are very much real and have manifested on both sides of the mountains, sparking the same religion separately in multiple places.

The details differ though, and I have no doubt there will be all sorts of clashes once the people come in closer contact with each other.