#temaire

i was digging thru my jan files last night and honest to god i dont remember doing this???? what???was i,,,smoking LMAO??

aaa yesss i’m gonna do this one for the temaire books!! 

04. is there a royal family? if so, talk about them a little bit!

there are actually quite a few royal families in the temaire books, and plenty of the characters come from them in some way. however, three countries and their royal families have taken the core seats of power in all of temaire and plenty of them have all sorts of drama with one another. 

the family with the most widespread presence though is the carstairs royal family that has ruled over the ylaissan throne for several centuries and has a long history of striving for peace and unity across the nations. however, they’re also a prideful family full of cover-ups and dark secrets that threaten their rule. due to an incident around ~10 years prior to the start of the first novel, ylaisse nearly caused a war with the other powerhouse of temaire, bazgrik, and the cover-up only barely stopped it from coming true. it’s a really big subplot of the main narrative in later books too!

05. is there a prince/princess? why are they special?

yep, there definitely is. ylaissan culture and tradition actually centers itself around very large joint/extended families, so the ylaissan royal family is one of the largest royal families in temaire. however, that causes a lot of internal drama and competition. 

however, the current king has had two wives and several children of the former and one of the latter. the prince that is first in line for the throne is serin carstairs, a powerful mage and dragon lord. the youngest child is fiore carstairs ii. he’s not necessarily the black sheep, but because he is the son of the kings second wife (who was not of any noble blood), he’s viewed as an “outsider” to the throne by several members of the court. he shares a very tight bond with his immediate siblings though! 

fiore is part of the main cast and was born with abnormally strong talents, but honestly he’s special bcoz he’s an idiot and instead of choosing to be friends with anyone else, he went and became the doofiest friend of some feral mountain child that could commune with the gods 

07. has there been a war? if so, tell your readers about it!

i love fantasy wars,,,, so much,,,, u gotta know this

but yeah, there have been several. temaire is very very very old and has a lot of history in it, not all of it good. there are several important wars notated in the mortal histories, an archive ordered by the first kings of temaire to document their world history, but there is one major one that is known only through word of mouth and stories passed down from the abyssal age because it came during a time before temaire’s history was documented. 

in the current timeline, most people will refer to it as “divergence” or the “fall of arcanum”; what is remembered of it is a great divine war between sovereign gods and mortal men. several folk-tales from prehistory spin it different ways, making a solid account of what happened difficult to pin down - the only thing that is absolute about this war is that it brought down the veil, a barrier between the realm of the gods and the mortal earth. 

ever since then, three major mortal wars have been fought. the war for dawn was a massive war that separated temaire from its once brother-kingdom, touka, before temaire itself was split into countries in of itself and situated the state of the modern mortal earth. the second was a war that eventually broke temaire into kingdoms, and the third is one that will take place during the progression of the temaire books before the veil falls. 

I was wondering if this meant their own, or someone else’s.

Kin’troxa. She’s naturally a very generous girl, and I can see her planning huge surprise parties for the people she cares about on their birthday. Or doing something big and expansive they’d like if parties aren’t their bag. Damn, I just realised that Kin is Pinkie Pie. >.<

Temaire. Oh ye gods, while she’s not much of a partier for herself (though she’s been known to haunt a few parties whilst looking for jobs), the lengths she goes to for her siblings’ birthday are fairly epic. She reasons that they were brought up as Jedi, so every moment of joy they get will fill that empty void inside. Even if they protest, or don’t attend, fun will be had, damn it!

"Never again."

That was what Temaire had sworn after those last days on Balmorra. Explosions, giant bugs and all the toxic waste she’d waded through had made even the sparse comforts of Mirial’s Light a decadent luxury.

This of course made the grimy cantina on the edge of the sector pure heaven.

There were few drinkers in the dingy little place, but this one had the benefits of having booze, chair cushions that weren’t all flattened and shaped like her ass, and didn’t smell like wet Wookiee.

Most of the clientele moved through the place like shadows, but the boneweary Mirialan beamed as the bright pink hair of the grey Chiss woman attracted her tired eyes like a beacon.

"Hey, Meriak!" Even her boots hurt, but Temaire managed a swagger as the older captain looked up. The Chiss nodded first at her, then the empty side of the booth, and the aching freighter captain gratefully accepted the invitation. "Still running the Barrier?"

"Every chance I get, which is a lot less these days. The Imperial levies are going to kill me." With a flick of the wrist, the Chiss deftly tossed a warra nut from the dish in front of her into her mouth.

"If the Imperials themselves don’t first. I've heard about the blockades." Mauve eyes rolled ceilingward. There was no way Temaire would be caught dead selling to the Imps, but the Chiss was - in her own way - loyal to her people. It had to be difficult to be trapped between needing to help her people trade and running Imperial law.

"Well, you know, you get used to dodging Customs, or running the Chiss lanes. At least there all I have to do is flare my eyes…" The woman’s lined face lit with red fire as her eyes blazed. "…and tell them off in true nuruodo style, and they back off." As the crimson fire faded once more, Meriak shrugged and took a pull of her black ale. "Bribes are going up, though. It’s disgusting.

"Anyway, how’s business for you?"

Temaire couldn’t help the groan that escaped her as she melted into her seat, her bones seeming to lose cohesion as she slumped.

"I have had the worst week." With a thump her foot was on the table, the constricture of the plether boots finally making her fly the white flag. As she picked at the fasteners, she groaned, "Up to my hips in ooze, slime everywhere, and the smell! And that was just in the camps."

Meriak laughed, her pink dreadlocks jiggling in time with her mirth.

"And you want me to work with you?"

"We’d turn a profit, you have to admit." Her groan was near orgasmic as the boot released her foot, her toes wriggling as she pulled them free. "And it’d keep me off holes like where I just was. And you out of the minefields."

"There’s even more of them now." The Chiss grunted as she set the tankard down. "If I were you, I’d keep that Mirial of yours away from the Outer Rim right now.”

"Did you take any damage?" Even the rejoicing toes paused in their revelation of freedom as she looked at her counterpart with concern.

"Enough to keep me here a week over schedule." the Chiss grudgingly admitted. "I tell you now, these last few days…"

"…have kicked my ass." They spoke in unison, two exhausted captains together in the trials of the spacelanes.

"Maybe we should both go trade with the Hutts?" Temaire grinned, and Meriak laughed, slapping Temaire’s foot in agreement.

She hasn’t decided if she’ll marry Vadil’s first mate* yet or not - she doesn’t think she wants to be tied down to anyone.

She started out as a simple freight runner for her family’s business, but once she moved outside Mirial, she quickly grew to realise she was good at this smuggling thing, and could do it to help others.

She sees herself as a bit of a hero, and takes the title of “Republic Privateer” very seriously.

She has two siblings - twins, both Jedi. She hasn’t seen them in a very long time, but sends them things from time to time - usually extravagances and luxuries, as she thinks it’s nice for everyone to get treats now and then.

She loves man watching with Miskatoniq. It amuses the two of them.

Meriak, Novar’rae, Temaire

♥ - What does ‘love’ mean to them?

To Meriak, love doesn’t mean that much. She was raised in a place where love was sentimentality, and any exhibition of it other than faint affection was frowned on. She has changed quite a lot over time, but as she hasn’t had a partner other than the odd one night stand, love is something she’s not really into. Love is more about biological family, and that’s hard to show when you’re nigh on an exile from them.

Novar’rae feels that love is a many faceted thing. It’s a distraction from making credits. It’s disgusting to see people openly groping one another in public, but she’s been with the same woman for 30+ years. She isn’t a sentimental type, yet she has been mindlessly driven by the love of her missing brother for all her adult life. This is why those she cares most for and who care for her banter with and insult her, as the rest is useless wastes of air to her.

Temaire has been pondering a lot on the nature of love lately. She is very fond of Vadil’s first mate, and they’ve been seeing one another for quite some time now, when they’re in the same port, but now she knows that damned marriage question is coming up, and she’s torn. She does love him, but he’s a frustratingly old fashioned man, with ideas of settling down and restricting her freedoms. She loves travelling, and so is now in the process of weighing up whether she loves her freedom or her man more.

♪ - Are they musically inclined?

With the exception of ancient Chiss lullabyes and rawdy drinking songs, Meriak isn’t much of a musician. Get her drunk, though, and she might sing at length about the strength of her lover’s blasters.

Novar’rae was once quite talented, but abandoned all her musical instrument training (and anything that didn’t make her credits in order to help find her missing brother) back in childhood. These days her singing is like a rancor on the rampage and her musicality is about as cultured as an untuned hyperdrive - or so Vadil would have her know.

Temaire actually has a good voice, though quite warbly in the higher registers. She is especially good with lower harmony parts in religious chants, but would die if any of her business associates learned that.

✕ - How do they handle rejection?

Meriak was already betrayed by her family when they turned their backs on her choices. She was supposed to have married and had children, but instead went into business for herself. her reaction to it is to flaunt how much she doesn’t need them anyway, to metaphorically stick her finger up and succeed anyway.

Novar’rae gets angry. Very, very angry. And the old street fighter has moves people hasn’t seen yet. She’s got a lot of rage stored up in her heart, and betrayal is the quickest way to access that. You really don’t want that.

Temaire gets cold and will turn her back on betrayers. She will try to get her revenge in the most appropriate ways possible, often involving the authorities.

♔ - Do they value loyalty?

Meriak does, especially when it comes to family ties. She knows how hard it is to break through the norms, and will offer support and care to those who have it from nowhere else. And she really values it in those who offer it to her, as she has been betrayed by those who were closest to her.

Novar’rae acts as though she needs no one and nothing, but she values those who stick with her, no matter what rubbish she hurls their way. She’s not an emotive kind of person, but she really appreciates those who keep with her, even though she tries to manage without them if she can. She doesn’t know how to express appreciation, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.