#ldb oc

Notable Relationships: OH BOY! I’m gonna restrict this to actual Skyrim NPC’s otherwise it’ll be too long lol

Miraak ❤️: well we probably all know this one 💀 I could yap about then forever so I’ll keep it brief! Kayla and Miraak end up doing the Enemies to Allies to Friends to Lovers route 👍❤️ eventuallyyyyyy they get married and have kids and goddamn someone give Kayla some sort of Medal of Honor for having 5 kids with Miraak smh

Vilkas 😬: you KNOW I gotta bring up this one LMAO SO! Kayla and Vilkas were nearlyyyy on the cusp of being an actual couple but that gets hastily interrupted by a cultist attack that leads her to venture to Solstheim for a few months 👀Kayla sets Vilkas in charge while she’s gone and eventually she also leaves the Companions and names him the harbinger in her place YEUP. It’s a whole thing. Vilkas still has feelings for Kayla even after time has passed and they were in fact very good friends for a while before the other stuff comes up. Someone previously mentioned in this post is a DAY ONE NUMBER ONE HATER of Vilkas for more reasons than 1-and it’s great 🙌 gotta love drama

Teldryn Sero 🦀: Kayla hires and then befriends Teldryn as she journeys to Solstheim to figure out ‘who this Miraak asshole is’. The two end up being really good friends and continue their friendship beyond the dragonborn dlc quest. Teldryn is, at least at first, pretty disappointed in her befriending AND then eventually getting romantically involved with Miraak LOL, it’s pretty much the “really? Of all the people in Skyrim or Tamriel….this one?” 😂 Teldryn and Kayla initially connect over the fact Teldryn’s from Blacklight and Kayla’s father originally lived there too!

Teldryn and Kayla are both sassy troublemakers which is a big part of their friendship and they both enjoy teasing / ‘rage baiting’ Miraak. As mentioned, Teldryn and Kayla stay friends throughout everything and even into the future, Kayla and Miraak’s kids call him Uncle Tel 💖

Camilla Valerius 😳: HEHE so Kayla and Camilla became uh friends with benefits / fuck buddies for a while which is one of the funniest random lore I have for Kayla 😂 so while Sven and Faendal bark around at each other and bicker about who should be with Camilla, Kayla’s over here going to freaky town with her without either guys having a clue 😂😂

Serana 💜: Kayla does the dawnguard quest line and definitely becomes friends with Serana. Kayla and Serana bond over a lot of different things and build a deep trust with each other. Serana becomes another lifelong friend and the two remain close and frequently in contact after the main questline and dawnguard questline events.

Lydia 💅: Kayla gets the whole thane of Whiterun title which means Lydia is appointed to her. At first, Kayla is annoyed with the idea of being assigned a bodyguard-I’m the Dragonborn why do I need a bodyguard?? but eventually accepts Lydia’s help with a quest or two and they become very good friends. Lydia is no stranger to Kayla’s antics and isn’t afraid to call her out or lecture her-in a loving bestie kind of way ❤️ Lydia sometimes is the voice of reason Kayla needs 🩷

Strengths:

Speechcraft, in many, many ways (She isn’t exactly one to enjoy or partake in lying and avoids it when she can BUT that gal knows how to put on a performance whatever the occasion may be especially if it’s of a um flirty nature). Smooth talking, gets her way out of trouble, sometimes she amplifies being unassuming, friendly, or ditzy to purposefully fly under peoples radars. And if you’ve seen or read anything about her dad I’ve shared, that’s exactly who she gets it from 😂

Combat and Murder 💀 that’s to be expected at this point 😭 she’s a melee fighter gal through and through and uh well being in the Dark Brotherhood is great for that because she’s skilled at killing people and they DB pays well for her to do it!

One handed / dual wield weapons!!

FAST! She’s small and swift!

Sympathetic / Empathetic / Caring to others (especially those who have mental strife or young). A surprising trait for a fighter assassin lady 😂 Kayla’s kind of an oddity in that she can be her scary warrior Dragonborn self but also is incredibly gentle and soft with those she loves (friends, family, etc) and espeicllay to kids-she’s very protective of them especially given the past she had. That’s how she so quickly agrees to help Aventus Arentino and gets thrown into the whole DB questline. She also used to babysit her two nephews (from oldest brother) alllllll the time back in Cyrodiil. She’s very nurturing, playful, whimsical, and protective which the kids gravitate towards.

Weaknesses:

RECKLESS: Especially / specifically with fighting, she’s the type in battle to be like, ‘I don’t care if I die fighting you, you’re going down with me’

Often overly self sacrificing or commits herself to helping others when she is already out of her depth. She tends to also feel the need to prove she’s strong and capable since she’s often overlooked for that and in turn leads to her burning out or getting injured or other unfortunate outcomes

Too comfortable / too detached with enacting violence / killing enemies: well I had a whole spiel for this but I’ll just put this here quickly. Due to Kayla’s past, she can be a bit detached from the foes she kills and sometimes not as detached and more willfully cruel. This definitely stems from her papa, but he’s ultimately worse/more guilty of this, the sadistic fuck lmao

Kayla’s grandmother on her father’s side talking about her to Azarain (Kayla’s dad):

“She is a juvenile serpent that doesn’t realize when and where to seep her venom in a panic. Teach her to wield it accordingly.”

Disorganized and Unstructured

No interest in:

Learning more Magic?!?? She just wants to attack things fast and hard with one handed weapons 💀

Thievery. “I don’t wanna waste time or energy stealing shit, feels weird. If I really need something from someone I’ll ask, talk my way to it, or kill them.” A.K.A: ‘I may be a killer but I’m not a thief!’

Substances beyond the occasional drinks lol save that sort of thing for her brother Julian or as I like to call him SKOOMA BOY

No concept of:

Minimalism (those dovah hoarding tendencies yall)

Staying on task (yep that’s my ADHD girlie right there)

Conformity or fitting into expectations

In battle:

Kayla is mostly dual wielding / using one handed weapons. She knows a few little spells here and there but nothing advanced at all or most intermediate level spells. She likes melee through and through and enjoys close proximity rather than ranged attacks. Because she is smaller/shorter, she’s had to learn to find ways to counter this set back such as being very fast and very aggressive in her attacks. She’s also incredibly unpredictable with battle strategy / movements / attack patterns which also serves as another vantage point to her combat.

Distinguishing marks or notable features?:

Has a few lil scars here and there with one larger one on her back near her ribs that’s about the length of her hand. Other than that, in terms of noticeable physical details: SHORT height! This gal is literally 5’2” or 157.5 cm 😭 the nicknames “Mal Dovah” from Miraak or “Tiny Terror” from Teldryn are in fact very accurate 😭😂😂

Trivia?:

Kayla’s last name Seran stems from her family history with House Redoran and the Seran family-one of the 30 revered families of Vvardenfell that can be traced back to the Chimer! The family has an ancestral tomb in Morrowind TES 3 you can find actually!

Kayla enjoys artsy hobbies like charcoal sketching and painting and enjoy singing a bit too-her mother tried to encourage a lot of hobbies and other varying skills when she was young to balance out the more unsavory and ‘lethal ones.’ Kayla also enjoys hobbies that keep her hands busy usually

Okay so this is relevant for the next lil lore piece but Kayla has pretty rough PTSD prior to TES 5 events and it comes up frequently in her life (I got a whole post explaining those but it’s a bit heavy-it was for the myths of Tamriel disability post so if you wanna know more feel free to look there). She loves animals and eventually ends up with a few including her dog she adopts from the Dawnguard named Winnie. Although the dawnguard dogs are usually husky looking, Winnie resembles more a long haired German Shepherd. Winnie acts as the TES equivalent of a PTSD service dog in many ways such as general comfort /grounding, crowd control / blocking, disrupting SI behaviors, alerting (usually to Miraak) for help, checking surroundings (Kayla can sometimes suffer hallucinations in bad flashbacks and whatnot so Winnie helps to show that the area is safe). Winnie is the best doggy :3 and is able to lend that sort of therapeutic animal duty to Miraak too from time to time ❤️‍🩹 who wouldn’t wanna pet and hug that big fluffy dog?! :3

Even though Kayla’s only half Dunmer, I like to give her some of the aspects usually associated with Dunmer including the ole Morrowind Ancestor Guardian! Kayla’s main ‘guardian’ shows up here and there and is an aunt from of course her dad’s side of the family longggg ago. I’ll have to draw her and post her but her name is Nova Seran or as Kayla calls her Aunt Nova (or Daesma Nova / just Daesma as a sort of Dunmeri translation for aunt- sister: Daeseh and Mother: Alma, thank you to @changelingsandothernonsense for the translation idea help!))

Kayla’s religious associations and practices are all over the place!! Her mother being a priestess of Mara from Cyrodiil, her father worshipping the Reclamations just as his family does back in Morrowind, Kayla also being the listener for the dark brotherhood-it’s scattered to say the least!! It’s easy enough for her to have an appreciation for Aedra but also has no quarrels with appreciating Daedra (mainly just the Reclamations-Azura, Mephala, Boethiah). SO! When Kayla and Miraak do eventually marry, their wedding ceremony is a bit of a mixture that includes little traditions or homages from their cultures (I mean we got a half Dunmer half Imperial with a half Atmoran half Yokudan lol).

Tagging these lovely folks (no pressure to post) (and also if I forgot to tag it wasn’t intentional and feel free to tag me in yours if you want :3 ) and YOU READING IF YOU WANT :3 🫶❤️

🩵Kayla (LDB OC):

Ah shit, my poor gal (and she’s got an easier time as her updated TES 5 version- don’t get me STARTED on the old TES 3 one 🥲)

PTSD:

Kayla is definitely traumatized and has PTSD as I’m sure many LDB OC’s experience- countless battles, near death experiences, injuries, even just arriving at Helgen and all that can fall into a traumatic experience you know! Sadly for Kayla, her traumas didn’t even begin with the events of TES 5. Kayla experienced prolonged CSA trauma early in life over the span of several years (age 8-14 ish). The person who inflicted this became the first person she killed which was at age 15-to which her father finds her mid attack and helps her finish the kill—it’s a whole thing….so lots of heavy trauma surrounding that entire ordeal. She definitely develops a very warped and often dissociated perception with death and murder due to this.

This trauma of course manifests into all kinds of other symptoms as one might imagine such as night terrors, panic attacks, flashbacks, hallucinations, sleep issues (very light sleeper, frequently disrupted sleep), depression, anxiety, suicidality, dissociation, and so on. Prior to the start of TES 5, her trauma (trauma coping) began to manifest into hypersexuality as means to gain / reclaim control in that way which put her into situations or connections with people she maybe wouldn’t otherwise engage with. As she's able to sort of heal or cope with things more along the way (especially being away from her hometown), she relies on things like having animals around-especially when she adopts a dog from the Dawnguard (almost acts as a service dog), keeping herself or hands busy (this usually manifests as artsyish hobbies), having tactile things to ground her (a hug, a hand squeeze, something soft to hold, etc), does better with company around be it people or animals.

Once her and Miraak become friends and then a couple, he’s able to support her through circumstances related to this. Sometimes it’s holding hands and squeezing each other’s hand as a grounding reassurance, sometimes it’s redirection, grounding exercises, sometimes it’s holding her through very intense flashbacks and breakdowns, sometimes it’s just sitting together and naming things they see around them. Since she tends to suffer intense flashbacks or night terrors that pull her away from reality, the best way to remedy this usually is by directing her back towards it. Giving her tactile things to latch onto, sounds, smells, etc that bring her back to the present moment.

Neurodivergence:

Kayla is definitely ADHD coded in more ways than one. I see her having some autistic coding but even that I think might be overshadowed often by the blatant ADHD adjacent traits: disorganized, easily distracted, forgetful, restless / fidgeting / sensory seeking, impulsive, flight of ideas and focus, etc etc.

💚Miraak:

PTSD:

The way I have my version of Miraak written is that he’s taken into the dragon cult at around the age of 10 when it’s discovered he’s dovahkiin. This causes immense tension within the order especially given he’s just recruited in based on ‘some bloodtite’ rather than the skilled and accomplished warriors, scholars, and so on who had to earn their place and their Dovahzul name. Miraak faces verbal and physical abuse from those around him right away being there and eventually psychologically he begins to develop that arrogant, cruel, and inflated ego as a defense mechanism / response to this. His PTSD often manifests as depression, anxiety, panic attacks, isolation, withdrawing from people, flashbacks, hypervigilance, etc. Ways he learns to cope with this include having his own sort of safe space to retreat to when needed, writing, reassurance from loved ones, spending time outside and in calm quieter environments, etc. Once him and Kayla become friends and eventually lovers, she's able to help support him through tougher times even if that's just sitting next to one another without speaking or touching in a way-assuring him he isn't alone with these challenges, eventually overtime he begins to favor physical touch as a form of affection and appreciates the sort of quiet gentle affection Kayla and him are able to share.

Gotta love gentle love that that springs from horrid beginnings.

That tends to be a big theme for the two of them is that they both have their own PTSD and while it may be caused by different circumstances, they understand having said challenges with it and are open and supportive to each other’s needs with that.

Scarring:

Miraak definitely has all kinds of scars, wayyyy more than Kayla. I haven’t properly mapped out or decided what that looks like and entails-hence why I haven’t drawn them much but they definitely exist for him. Most are different fight / battle scars.

Neurodivergence: