#illiadde

CONS:

- You would die

- You will be severely hurt along the way

- You may not even get to actually smashing before you die

PROS:

- Hot giant woman with a huge kill body-count

Enter: the court. They decided once to steal pods directly, to disconnect them from the Dream and raise them in nightmare. While they got away with a fair number of pods, only two survived the disconnect and transition. (Think really badly repotting your plants in worse soil and letting them fend for themselves, whoops!) Those pods were Illiadde and Kvold!

The way this affected them each was different, but for Illiadde she had been fighting the shadow of the dragon and an influx of nightmare hounds alongside Wrelia. Now she was suddenly isolated and fighting even more hounds and husks alone as her body tried to survive the transition. She came out tough, hardened and big and a chip on her shoulder when it comes to people abandoning her to fight on her own. The court would further foster this strength, training her as a tool loyal to nightmare, it will never fail her so long as she stays strong.

Just the same as Laighe, a secondborn valiant destined to fell the elder dragons, born strong and sturdy, was raised by the wardens of the grove to respect and honor her wyld hunt. She's destined to save the world from so much pain and suffering, so long as she stays on track.

Illiaddes raising into the court and full dedication to it makes her an easy choice as a double agent. If she can worm her way into the grove and close enough to the tree, she could bury a dagger seeded with a deadly toxin. It would be so quick and easy...so she's sent in, playing at soundless wanting to find a new love and understanding for the dream.

Laighe in her warden years volunteers to mentor her, anyone deserves a chance to find a reason to come home if they want. And while Illiadde is a little standoffish and quiet, she takes it as awkwardness and earnestly tries to teach and train Illiadde. It feels...right. Natural. But once Laighe trusts her enough to be within reach of the tree herself, Illiadde takes her shot.

It's a tough fight, Laighe catches her just in time that the dagger barely scratches the trunk. And Illiadde barely escapes to go back to the court.

This, naturally, sets up an immediate hatred between the two. It's on sight now. And Illiadde is being trained in her attempts just as much as Laighe is being trained in keeping the tree safe.

Now, eventually trying the same thing to failure verges on insanity, so the court takes on a different angle. Illiadde is sturdy, she can perhaps endure things other softer sylvari can't. And while the court hates the inquest, there can be favorable partnerships if the ends justify the means.

As Laighe starts working through personal story, Illiadde is outfitted with magic. It's painful, having someone try and inject leyline magic directly into you. It would kill a lot of people just from the magic poisoning. It nearly kills Illiadde...but it doesn't. It's painful, too much to handle it but she can't die from it now that it's a part of her. She hits even harder, got even bigger, she's impossibly fast. And the court uses her to very efficiently clear out many soundless villages and warden outposts.

Now, Illiadde want alone when she emerged, the other pod that survived contained a much frailer sylvari named Kvold. He quickly attached himself to her, much to her distaste. But she didn't stop him, he wasn't doing any harm to her work anyways.

Meanwhile Laighe,one dragon under her belt and feeling very much the prodigal hero, meets this deathly-looking sapling her friend Odollumn brought to her attention, a little wisp of a necromancer, Wrelia. She's been on her own since she emerged from her pod which was thought to be dead it was so late. Likely took damage from that court attack years ago. She's a talented necromancer and Odollumn vouches for that, Laighe welcoming her to the growing team. She's practically glued to Laighes side from then on.

Heart of Thorns is a very big moment for them both.

Laighe, losing her dearheart to the dragon and chasing him deeper and deeper...finding a new calling through the egg she and Caithe bring to Tarir, then having to kill the one she loves to end the dragon. Not long after, she leaves everyone including Wrelia behind. She's broken and devastated, she needs time. She wanders alone, avoiding populated areas, trying to figure out her own reason to keep following her Hunt.

The court hears of this new threat, a dragon that created sylvari. And the pact is in shambles, they will send their own champion in. Problem is, Illiadde doesn't have enough loyalty to want to do this. The first time she's close enough to the jungle to hear that voice in her mind, she kills her team and runs. The court had given her nothing but pain, she will not do this any more. She leaves everything behind including Kvold. She has no purpose, but she's not really sure if she ever did. She becomes a threat to any courtiers she comes across, she will never go back. Just an impossibly powerful magic-laden criminal with no purpose.

Over time she finds some jobs, the only person she has a connection to is Strair, an OOW agent who is also close friends with Laighe who does not know they also are in contact with Illiadde. They find her jobs with some powerful criminals, money she continuously flushes into drinking until she's numb.

Laighe continues through the plot of course, she finds her purpose and healing in reforging Caladbolg. A project she takes to Wrelia to rebuild their bond together as they sort through the tragedy of loss. She becomes whole with her family again, though throws herself far too hard into her role as hero now. She has to keep this tragedy from happening to anyone else...

Laighe as she continues on gathers more magic herself, it's inevitable. She grows both in size and ability as each dragon is felled. Her only purpose is this and she can not stop.

But unlike her, Illiadde was not built for this. She was meant to aide the champion, not be one. And her magic is not innate to her body. As the world becomes more saturated with magic, her body becomes less and less able to contain its own. The saturation in the air almost pushes more into her, pushing and pushing until...

When Laighe destroys Kralkatorrik, it's devastating. An explosion from someone who was warped by the other dragons deaths, who understood what had to be done and asked for death. She doesn't want to do this now but she must, and Aurenes family grows smaller. Laighes body was made to hold magic but not this close range, not from within. Parts of her shatter along old wounds. The earlier blast that nearly killed aurene, her own devastation that came from that, her body is a fractured mess held together by magic. This is all she is now.

When Kralkatorrik dies, it's devastating. One too many magic releases and Aurene filters it but can not possibly hold it all. It floods the world a little more. And Illiaddes body hits the breaking point. An explosion from within, smaller by far than any elder dragon but devastating nonetheless. She's left tattered and broken, her body barely clinging to life when Strair finds her.

They don't know many places they could take her that could properly keep her contained for healing, she wouldn't want to be healed. But Strair can't let her die like this. So they take her to the Pact, to Laighe, revealing their connections and begging her to have the medics just heal Illiadde and let her go.

It's a big fight, everyone is aware of what's happening. But Laighe also knows that things aren't as black and white as she thought when she was close to the Dream. She agrees to have Illiadde saved, but contained so she can't keep hurting people. Strair agrees. Their relationship with Laighe is irreparably damaged for the years of lies.

Illiadde is carefully drained of much of her magic, her body so accustomed to it that she naturally produces a level of it too. Bloodstone helps, embedding small contained shards in her to help channel the magic away from her body. It could keep her more stable in the long run, and also soften her hits to a more manageable level again.

She's not happy when she wakes up, again strapped down and being worked on much like the agonizing years she spent under inquest experiments. She nearly kills her main mender and is quickly sedated. She's scared, a cornered animal.

Laighe doesn't like any of this, but Illiadde is beyond help. She doesn't want help anyways. She warns Wrelia to stay away from Illiadde, any potential her daughter had with this other sylvari in the Dream is long gone from her years of abuse.

But Wrelia can't help her curiosity, and can't help wanting to give her some amount of kindness. While Illiadde won't interact with her, she helps Illiadde break out one night to run off. Laighe...pretends she doesn't know Wrelia did this. At least Illiadde is out of her hands again.