#indiauthor

Tanais (original name Eusebia, “pious”, extremely on the nose) was at first a much more negative and narrow character. Akantha was always intended to be a rebel, and her mother embodied everything she wanted to resist – family expectations, cultural boundaries, and most of all religious strictures. That tension is still there in the novel, but Eusebia was going to be an anxious, constricting presence, full of warnings and outright anger against her defiant daughter.

But time went on and Eusebia started to change, grow more sympathetic. I started to dig into her backstory. And (I know I keep saying this, but it's still true) I did research into the lives of women in Greek culture, women under Roman rule. And there's so much we don't know about them, but one thing we do know in fair detail – because men were interested in it and thus wrote about it – is midwifery. Not all of their medical know-how holds up today, but midwifery was a profession where women displayed skill, intelligence, and authority. And unlike in the stateroom or in the temples or just in marriage, period, this was a place where their power wasn't seen as threatening to men. They were allowed to flourish; even enslaved midwives were seen as notably valuable, which sounds dark (because it is), but it still represents stature, importance.

So while Tanais (she stopped being Eusebia) in many ways chains herself to convention, largely out of fear and uncertainty, she has a means of supporting herself, of dealing with men on a somewhat more equal level, and of helping other women. She wouldn't see herself as a champion of women, as Kokkonas does, and many of the things Akantha does appall her. Some people like to smugly interpret that “Well behaved women rarely make history” line, as if the only value in a woman's life comes from defying norms. Tanais doesn't defy norms, she doesn't make history, but she really does help people.

And her having that role might be why her character ended up softening, becoming more sympathetic to the reader. She and Akantha still are in conflict, Akantha's still angry with her at times, Tanais still does things that might shock the reader, but hopefully there's a stronger bond of sympathy between her and her daughter. Hopefully the reader gets an understanding of why Tanais is the way she is, the sort of pressures she's faced. If Kokkonas has partially defied convention, Tanais has protected herself within it. I'm sure the reader won't agree with all of her decisions, but hopefully they can understand her.

So, keeping things vague: Galana's direct inspiration comes from Lucian, and while some readers might find her inclusion a bit jarring, I think she adds a welcome, refreshing note to the novel.

She was another hard character to name. I wanted something nature related, particularly water related. A significant number of Greek names include the suffix -rhoe (“river” or “current”). I also wanted something that highlighted her unusual accent. (Which is linguistically inconsistent and not very deep, but involves me using vowel and consonant substitutions that you see across different dialects of Ancient Greek.) So Kallirrhoe (“beautiful stream”), or Qallirrhoe in her case, would have been a good choice, and I think I did consider it. But it's another tricky name, and I didn't go for it. I also considered Rhanis, I think for no other reason that I liked the way it sounded.

And then one day I was flipping through my lexicon, looking for good words. And I found galana, which is the Doric form of the word galene, “the stillness of wind and wave”, or, more simply, “calm, tranquility”. Which hit every note – it's a nature name, it's a name that fits the character's (sometimes off-putting) serenity, it allows for a vowel shift from galene into the more obscure galana, and I think it just sounds beautiful. Really happy I landed on that one.

I've talked a lot about how my research ended up shaping the book's setting and placing realistic limitations on the characters. But the Dog Heads? They were a chance to let loose and have fun, so that made Lykedon a fun character to write. I think he's intriguing, a character I've only scratched the surface of. He's very confident and secure, but not at all loud about it. He'll let people insult him, but he almost always retains the upper hand. That can't have always been true. Where did he start in life? Why did he leave his homeland behind? What about his voracious passion for literature? Even as the author, I don't know the answers to all these questions. I think any crucial information about Lykedon would only come drip by drip, and largely by his own choice.

His name is pretty straightforward – Lykedon, “wolf-like”; Dog Heads love incorporating dogs and wolves and foxes and their different attributes into their names. In my write-up about Dog Heads, I talked about how the Greeks and Romans of the time would have had stories of dog-headed men. Though Dog Heads aren't werewolves by any means, they believe they're descended from Artemis' hunting pack, who were honored and turned into humans. The Greeks and Romans had werewolves in their myths, at least humans who were changed into wolves. As far as I know, the myths themselves don't link werewolves to the Moon, but the Greek language does link wolves and nighttime – an ancient Greek word for “twilight” is lykophos, literally “wolf light”. Also, Lucian situates his own “dog-faced men” on the Moon.

As for Lykedon's design, I wanted to incorporate the flame-haired men Lucian writes of. Probably not all Dog Head men dye their hair in fire colors, especially once they leave their homeland. I never give a reason for it, but it probably relates to something in their mythology. One of my sources discussed a (quite cruel) Roman religious ceremony involving tying firebrands to foxes' tails and releasing them to run around. No one really knows why this custom came about. (It reminds me of things like foxfire and kitsune, so I wonder if there's some deeper, very basic symbol at play.) The point is, I think it's fair, when world-building, to include things that exist without explanation. Similarly, Lykedon's silver facial tattoos are mysterious, as the designs are used all across the Moon in Artemis worship, but they're so old no one's entirely sure what they originally meant. Their design is made up, but one of my sources talked about how some Thracians in ancient Greece had silver facial tattoos. (Sadly, no word on what they depicted.)

I like having these things unexplained. If I ever write more about the Dog Heads, it gives me room to experiment and develop their customs more – or leave them open and mysterious.

Through his smarts and excellent people skills, Lykedon has very successfully made his way into Kynthian-Roman culture, but he's proud of his heritage and still does the whole Dog Head thing: fiery hair and a dog-shaped headdress. More often he wears his casual headdress, which includes a small dog skull with false inset eyes. His fancy one is painted wood with dog's teeth and tassels along the back. Its design was inspired by two ancient Greek drinking cups.