One of the reasons I think that I’ve been stuck with When Shadows Fall lately, is that there is not a whole lot of interaction between Khira and Silena who are basically my OTP among my OCs.
They are both very dangerous and highly-trained spies/assassins. Khira works for the Triad in Azura and Silena, who goes by an alias, is more of a mercenary, but does a lot of work for the Triad, especially if they don’t want to be linked to the dirty work.
Khira and Silena do not know each other’s identities; they only know of the other by their alias and their reputation. And both think that the other is male.
Now, there is a sequence of interaction between the two in Book 1, but it’s complicated. They start off the story on opposite sides of the coming war. While she and the other prisoners who escape are on the run, Khira goes off on a little side mission thing to get someone important. But she ends being followed and confronted and fought to a standstill by Silena (who is masked and her armor gives no clues as to her identity or gender).
Silena brings Khira back to Azura, fulfilling the terms of her contract with the Triad. Silena does stick around because the Triad has more work for her to do, considering that Khira has turned traitor and the rest of Khira’s special ops unit is now dead.
As Khira is imprisoned and tortured and mistreated, Silena (under her mask and alias), visits her, originally just to talk. But then they start to be more open with each other, Khira is still very cautious b/c she’s in prison, but she’ll tell Silena about missions she ran and share details about her former missions. And Silena starts to bring Khira extra food and water, or medicine after a brutal questioning sequence, or a blanket. And it’s the brutal treatment that Khira is subjected to that begins to change things for Silena, bringing up memories of someone from her past.
When Khira’s friends come to break her out of prison, Silena helps her. The rescue attempt goes awry, but Silena manages to aid Khira and her compatriots without drawing attention to herself, leaving only a note for Khira, saying “I’m so sorry.”
That’s the entirety of their interactions for When Shadows Fall.
In the planned second book, they have another single interaction. It is absolutely crucial to the plot and its point in time is fixed.
Khira is infiltrating a ball in Azura, searching for intel when she’s accosted for a dance by a beautiful woman (Silena). Khira knows that the resistance has a man inside, but didn’t know it was a woman and assumes the woman aiding her is the ‘inside man,’ which technically Silena is, but she feeds information through a middleman. Khira doesn’t suspect, until later, that the woman could be Silena’s true identity, not her alias.
They share a short, heated dance and that’s their interaction in Book 2.
Until the very end of Book 2. Silena has decided to turn her skills to the resistance but was captured by the Triad’s forces. Khira and co find her imprisoned on a Triad base after they destroy the weapons being built there. Khira tenderly removes Silena’s helmet so that they can get her medical help and that’s when she finds that Silena is [ALIAS] and the woman that she danced with.
Understandably, that’s a shock.
Book 3 is when they start to work together and start to fall for each other (slowly).
But I really want to get more interaction with them into the earlier books because I love writing them as a pair. But I can’t think of a way to do so. There’s no way to do that without drastically altering the plot.
Every single interaction between them, from B1 with their fight to their conversations in the prison to B2 and their dance has immense repercussions and is monumentally important to the plot.
So, idk, this was a rant about Khira and Silena, my OTP, and me lamenting my plotting that keeps them from each other for so long.
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One thing that has fascinated me about the way When Shadows Fall is progressing and the backstories relevant to Khira, Luke, and Kayla is how they all have been drastically affected and changed by the Triad, but in such polar opposite fashions.
The Triad is the small ruling council of Azura. There’s no term limit and members will serve basically until one of a few things happen: A) they die, B) they retire (rarely happens), C) or the other two members basically, force them off of the council.
The current iteration of the council, two of the members are bloodthirsty and willing to do whatever to retain their regime of fear. The third member, the oldest, is more of a decent ruler, but his power is being constrained and he is being phased out of the Triad.
Because of these two, Victoria and Anthony, the Dark Shadows unit was created. That’s the unit that Khira ran. And that’s were the Triad start being responsible for messing up all of their lives.
Luke’s mother is related to Victoria, they’re sisters, and his parents are entrenched in the upper levels of the Azuran government. As he grew older (he’s 22/23 in WSF), he found out about the Triad’s atrocities and what they have had units like the Dark Shadows do and quietly started to campaign for change and stuff, hoping to make a difference. Finding out that his parents knew, even though they may not have necessarily condoned the actions, shattered his worldview and has drastically altered his relationship with his parents.
Khira, of course, ran point on the Dark Shadows unit. She was aware of 75% of the things that the Triad had her and her unit do—but they still manipulated her and hid crucial information from her to try and keep her inline. Eventually, she recognizes that the damage she’s done is too much and tries to get away from Azura and the Triad.
Kayla is the one of this trio who was the most directly affected by the Triad’s actions. She comes from a poorer family, from within the city of Azura. They get by, but they don’t have much for extraneous things or emergencies. Eventually, a sequence of events, sparked by the Triad’s orders to the Dark Shadows leads to catastrophe for her family and pushes Kayla into the public eye as a rallying point for protesters and people who want change.
So, Luke knows about the orders and his family gives them. Khira receives the orders and executes them. And Kayla and people like her feel all of the effects. And none of this was explicitly intentional when I started crafting WSF. I did want each of the main characters to come from significantly different backgrounds, but the similarities they have in being messed up by the Triad was unintentional.
How to Know You’re in a shadowfire71-writes Novel:
Thank you @writevevo for tagging me! I enjoyed doing this and thinking about my ideas this way
From this post: It’s called ‘How to Know You’re in a ____ Novel’ (or WIP or short story or etc.) Found it on twitter and it made me find some great writers there! (in whose novels I wish I could indeed be) Let’s see what writeblr’s writers and worlds have to offer!
- the MC (and all the other characters) are confused bisexuals
- there’s a really cool fight scene where just one person sort of confronts a big group of people (I’m a sucker for that)
- there’s at least one good guy (always a male) who’s an asshole too that the MC saves
- The villain and MC have a history together (usually friends-lovers-enemies)
tbh that’s all I got since I really only have my one WIP, When Shadows Fall, plus one more idea that’s sort of in the works
