#yeisinderin

Still very much a WIP. Revisiting a sketch page I started on for Yei a while back. I am still overly reliant on teal-blue tones buuuut I think he’s turning out pretty neat :0

A few unfinished things I’ve been sitting on for the last couple months. 

Brenth being his usual jerk self. He’s always fun to draw, I'm not sure why I don’t do it more. He’s that manipulative character who will pick at your insecurities until your nerves are left raw.  There’s a segment of story with him fending off his sister on a Cyurian rooftop, and that’s what I pulled from here. Path will butt heads verbally with just about everyone she encounters if they’re stubborn enough, but her resentment toward her brother runs a bit deeper than trivial disagreements. He’s crossed her one too many times and clearly enjoys seeing her twitch. 

Yeisinderin is best known for being the Windcat’s close friend and advisor. He takes the best interest of Kirn and his bff’s well being quite seriously. So it’s quite obvious that when Path comes back in the picture to jeopardize what they’ve worked to accomplish over decades of truce with Cyurn, things get a biiit tense. He’s a strong ally to have however, he speaks is mind, and pragmatic as he may be, once you earn his respect it takes a lot to lose it. Hurt Arron though and you’re on his hitlist. Yei’s another fun character to figure out. Though I wish I could go back and fix a few things here, but it’s time to move on. 

HA then we have Tanuth. Not too happy with how unfinished this is but oh well, I didn’t wanna post the other two without him, SO... 

------------------

“What happened to your amulet?” Tanuth probed, striding in alongside Arron, “If you don’t mind me asking. I wouldn’t have had to heal so much of you if you had it.”

“I- well I lost it in the fight back there, I’m afraid,” Arron recounted with a grimace. “If I had to give Chelgro credit for anything, she knew exactly what to go for. The last time I saw it, your father’s pendant was falling into the ravine.” There was a brief silence as they continued along the shifting trail and Tanuth seemed poised to question him further.  He appeared hesitant, however, and probably thinking better of it, shrugged it off with a troubled sigh before continuing. 

“Well that’s a shame,” he stated frankly, “It’s a good thing I came when I did.”

“What does it do that makes it so valuable?” asked Kai, who had strode up alongside them and was listening with interest.

“Not too much,” Arron explained, “It monitors vital signs, heart rate, and feeds off my energy to help me heal quickly, should I find myself in a rough situation. It’s helped me out of many a tight spot in the past.” He glanced down at her and smiled, admitting, “It’s nothing like Tanuth’s healing though, more gradual, but just enough to keep me on my feet when I need it.”

“Is there a reason you need it?”

Both Tanuth and Path eyed him expectantly, already knowing the answer. Arron nearly choked. “Stupidity,” he confessed sourly, “Took too many blows to the head when I was young, wound up cracking my skull open once or twice.” (fell on his head too many times)

Path snorted.

Ignoring her, he added, “If not for my element keeping me light on my feet, I’ve been told I would run out of stamina a lot sooner.”

“You mean you get lightheaded, now, after suffering too many concussions when you were younger?”

Tanuth gave her a look and grinned. “Is that strange?” he asked.

“No I… I just wouldn’t have assumed you all could receive that sort of injury. It just never crossed my mind is all.”

“Huh, then you’d be surprised.”

“That amulet was made to help keep everything in check, though after so many years I’ve found ways to operate up to par without its aid. It was a gift from Tanuth’s father, and more or less acted as a symbol of trust between Kirn and Gairain.”

“Trust that you’ve since broken,” Path interjected, “Don’t just think they’re going to be happy to see you when you walk into Gairain.”

“You’re right, I’m here with you.”

“Ookay! Let’s pick up the pace some, shall we?” Tanuth exclaimed, striding forward.

-----------------

(Honestly it's funny for me to look back at all this because where I'm at in story, they're close as anything. At this point in the plot, though, these two get along when they have to, and cooperate well considering, but there are moments of tension. so yeeeah onto the text)

“Do we really have to go on about this now?” Arron gave her an irritated look, turning from the window in a move to leave, only to have Path dart around and cut him off, her gaze determined. “Look I’m here, aren’t I? I get it,” he fanned his arms out exasperatingly, “But if it’s an apology you’re looking for, I have nothing to give.”

                Path snarled and felt her fingers ball into a fist.  Her voice took an acid tone, “You left me to rot in that desert,” she started, “Don’t you dare stand there, smug, and act like this isn’t the right time. I warned you what would happen if you gave in to him, and you sent me packing. I want answers.”

                Straightening, he glared down at her with impatience, “What I did, I did for the safety of my people, and nothing more. I am not apologizing for that.”

                “You were a coward!” The words rolled icily off her tongue, and that was enough.

                “I did what was right for Kirn! Your presence put everyone in danger, Path. Your being there drew Brenth toward the city,” his tone grew more heated and he gestured to her in aggravation. “What was I supposed to do?”

                “Stand up to him!” she shouted, “Instead you chose to sit on your hands while he grew stronger off your people. You fed into his game and you let him play you for a fool.” By then they were in each other’s faces. Path could feel the heat of his breath on her cheeks as he spoke.

“You’re impossible. Do you have any idea what I had to do to keep Brenth off your tail for as long as he was?” Arron shot back scornfully. With that, he backed off, his usual schooled composure lowering itself to something borderline arrogant. This was the side of Arron she remembered facing all those years before, impatient and brash. He rolled his eyes and shook his head dismissively saying, “You don’t know what it is like to be made to answer to someone like him,” he scoffed at that, “To have him poised to trample everything you have worked centuries to build. You should be counting yourself lucky I told you to leave while you could!” he said, “You should be thanking me, I—!”

“Thanking you?” Path cut him off, yelling over him before he could finish. She stood there, tears welling in her eyes. Her lip curled slightly as she choked, “I have been made to bear the consequences of my brother’s actions every minute of every day, for the last forty seven years.” She paused, the arm she held between them lowering in defeat, “You have sat in privilege while he has taken everything from me. Though you stand here whining about, what? Your soiled pride? I know full well how much of a burden it is to live isolated under his influence, Arron, and yet you want me to thank you for that?” She felt herself back away from him, his downturned face flushed, unwilling to answer. He would not even look her in the eye. Giving up, without a second thought, she turned on her heel and stormed off.

  Raising a hand to his face, Arron uttered a curse, quickly clearing the moisture from his eyes as he raised his head, only to bring his hand over his temple and bury his face in his palm with a sigh.

“Ouch, I don’t even think I would have gone that far.”

                 Glancing up and turning toward Yei’s voice, as the Ice Oriancarus moved out of the shadows of the hall, quiet footed as ever, he asked, “How much did you hear?”

                “Enough.”

                Arron looked stricken, in every literal and hypothetical sense of the word, and he knew, even without sight, Yeisinderin could pick up on his insecurity and as much as he hated the other Oriancarus’s serpentine sensitivity, he appreciated his friend’s company.

DANG you’re making me pick favorites!

Okay let’s see, your question (before I asked who you wanted <3) was "What’s your characters earliest childhood memory (or equivalent)"

Path: Oh that’s painful. The smell of the ocean and the steady breeze rolling into the coast off the Cyurian plains (an arid desert environment like Ruanhai leaves much to be desired, that would be one of the images of “home” she would keep). Her and her brother would snag books, scrolls, and even giant codexes out of their parent’s study (or the city archive) and drag them out into the farmland along the plains to study and mess around when their parents’ backs were turned. Her and Brenth used to be inseparable as kids. I guess you could say a childhood memory for her is something she misses from an era of innocence. So yeah, the earliest thing she can remember before things turned to shit? Looking out for her baby brother.

Tanuth: The first time Maegolian was assigned to him as mentor. Everything before then would be rather vague reflections of him constantly being handed from one teacher to the next because his mother (being the matriarch of the city) had her hands too tied with political matters to actually oversee his development herself.  So he had to rely on a handful of Gairainian lesser elementals to teach him vastly different areas of his craft. But when Maegolian was appointed as High Mage, he was assigned specifically to Tanuth as his master and mentor. Let’s just say Tanuth, so used to getting his way with past coaches, didn’t really see Maegolian coming. As a councilman, to him Tanuth’s status as Oriancarus was null, and he made it clear on their first meeting he wasn’t going to take any crap from him if he didn’t follow instruction. But yeah, to get back on topic; getting the fear of god struck in him by a man he would eventually come to admire and rely on as a father figure. That would have happened before Karjia was old enough to start learning her element, so Tanuth was the first of Mae’s two charges.

Yeisinderin: I guess this is when I talk about bro times with Yei and Arron, right? He didn’t just become Arron’s advisor figure on a whim, the two of them grew up together as friends. So one of his earliest childhood memories? “Watching” the sun rise over the eastern side of the mountain range from a favorite spot of theirs. Back when Arron had sustained a series of concussions from training and became understandably ill in the weeks following, as his health improved, Yei would drag him out to one of the nearby mountainsides for some fresh air where they would sit and chat. Arron enjoyed it for the view and Yei for the subtle warmth of the sun as it climbed in the sky that winter and heated the valley below. Sometimes they would talk about a variety of things, and other times they’d sit in mutual silence, and Yei would have held onto those moments.