#lokeij

"Who?" asked Lokeij.

Aly stared at the little man. Who had not heard of her mother? "The King's Champion of Tortall," she informed him. "The first female knight in over a century. The Lady Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau."

Lokeij shrugged. "A luarin," he said dismissively. "I only pay attention to them when it's a matter of survival or of protecting my lady's girls." He rubbed a hand over his bristled chin thoughtfully. "So she's good, this Lioness?"

"She's never lost a fight as King's Champion!" Aly said, offended by Lokeij's disinterest. This was her mother, a lady acknowledged by all to be poetry with a sword in her hand.

Trickster's Choice by Tamora Pierce

Elibrix Panic: Goes completely nonverbal. Needs to get something solid at their back. They also have an absolute death grip on their weapon, or on their arms, because otherwise their hands will shake quite badly. Enthusiasm: Bouncing on their heels, and just generally getting more bouncy. Will start talking faster and faster. Can become a bit oblivious to their surroundings / hard to redirect to any other topic.

Leoros Sorrow: He gets even more quiet and withdrawn than usual. He will also get kind of lethargic, which is more obviously uncharacteristic for him. He’s also much more likely to argue or snap at someone when sorrowful. Confusion: He actually takes confusion pretty well normally. Not necessarily in Barovia with the stakes being what they are. But usually if confused he’ll slow down, and act very deliberately. He’ll get quite focused, and not take well to interruption, but he’s unlikely to get frustrated at the source of confusion. (I know this one isn’t really how its Expressed but I feel like confusion is a weird one to answer as the prompt is written)

Sharo Frustration: They get physically agitated. Pacing very intensely, weight shifted forwards, doesn’t really put down their heels. If situationally appropriate, they will occasionally stand to check their crossbow. But barring that Nothing can get them to stop moving.

Karisi Monk, Level 5, Order of the Sun Soul Kensei, Fathomless warlock also 🙈, image created using reroll

Chenaol: "Guys" is fine; I don't mind.

Fesgao: No, it's not right. We need to come up with something non-gender specific. How do we feel about "team"?

Lokeij: Fellow Criminals?

Ulasim: The Dodekas?

Nuritin Balitang

Aunt Nuritin, we know a fair bit about in her later years, but what about when she was just a young luarin debutante?

The luarin hold on the isles was pretty strong, and it’s on this side of the family that Mequen is related to the Rittevons, I believe.  

Tbh I think it’s possible that Nuritin is how the Balitangs married in?? It’s a tenuous tie, but if her husband died without them having any children, and Mequen was his heir, then that might give him a claim to the throne.

Let’s think about it, yeah?  Nuritin rules her family like a queen, knows the political game very well, and has little sympathy for those who do not.

In a lot of ways, she’s very similar to Imajane, but they seem to really dislike each other. Given the Rittevon tendency towards usurpage, that’s not surprising.  

This just became my new headcanon whoops

Anyway after she married into the Balitangs, she learned quite a bit more tolerance of the raka, but tbh it’s not until Sarai was born, I think, that she really even started to get over her racism, and obviously even by the end of the series she wasn’t completely there. 

There is probably so much canon reason that Nuritin can’t be a Rittevon and I DON’T CARE RIGHT NOW WHOOPS

Anyway once her husband died, Nuritin basically ruled the family even though Mequen was nominally their heir, and continued to do so.

Idk this probably makes no sense to anyone else but me but Nuritin being a Rittevon is everything to me???

Lokeij

Okay so there’s no way Lokeij just became a slave for the rebellion, that’s way messed up and kinda serves no purpose.  So how does a slave rise to such a position of power (head of the entire stables) and trust in a luarin household?

Short answer: he's good at his job

Longer answer: what if he's a crow? blah blah but crows look different than raka blah don't care maybe it was just nawat that did?

it explains why he's so incredibly good with horses

what if, as a youngster, he turned into a human for fun, then he got caught stealing

it's something a crow would do lbh

boom, slavery forever

kyprioth (who remembers the prophecy) has been channeling crow-people, whenever they turn up, into the haiming (is that right? sarai's mom's family idr) house just in case

really it kinda explains his attitude toward his collar, too. he could escape any time he wanted to, he just chose to stay