Art by Saturn
“One of us is going to die for the truth, so what’s it going to be - you or me?”
“Suffering doesn’t tech you anything, it just makes you suffer. It’s up to you to figure out the rest.”
Zarina’s story is a tale about bravery in the face of adversity, and constantly putting your best foot forward even when it seems like there’s no hope for the future. Another major theme in her story is the importance of found family & friends - people that would gladly stand by your side when no one else will
Zarina is designed to be a foil to the main antagonist of King’s Requiem, Cordelle. While Cordelle is someone who lives in the past and makes it everyone else’s problem, Zarina is someone who fights for her future, and strives to protect others in need.
The primary locations mentioned in her story are Fellnore and Savellor (wip). You can learn more about these places by clicking the links.
Louis Ymir was an elf from Fellnore who was a member of the Sages of Sacred Knowledge. Their mission was simple: to protect all knowledge. Louis specialized in arcane matters of [WHAT]. Cassandra was an elven songstress from Lunivale who met Louis when he visited the Castle in search of certain magical information. What Louis was not aware of, as many are, is that dragons have a humanoid form they can take at will. Cassandra was one of them.
Regardless of this missing piece of information, the two fell deeply in love. One thing led to another, and suddenly a child is born outside of wedlock. This did not bode well for either of them. In Fellnore, the punishment for such sinful deeds includes death, among other worse fates. If Louis were permitted to live, at minimum he would lose his honor as one of the Sages, which meant taking away his life’s work. Among the dragons, they do not intermingle with true humanoids, also called the “saloal”, despite their apparent compatibility. If a child is to be found, the other dragons might seek to kill the child. It is already a deep violation of dragon code to teach their language to saloal, let alone to join yourself to one so intimately.
Timeline: Zarina born 1248
Given the circumstances, they went partially into hiding for a few years, hoping to raise the child in secret with the help of a friend. They named the child Zarina.
Timeline: Last War 1250
The Last War began in the year 1250. This was the first war that the dragons chose to involve themselves in, despite their long history of refusal to interfere with the petty squabbles of man; to be no more than observers to war. The Last War was different than any other war; it threatened to destroy all life as we knew it, dragons included, so naturally they set out to protect the Castle Lunivale, as well as their own kin.
During the Last War, every creature fought to survive. For parents of an infant child, this meant that you would have to fight not only for your life, but for the child’s life as well. Louis and Cassandra were two such parents.
Zarina grew up on the streets of Deysire, a desert city of Elves in Fellnore. It was rare for children to become orphans here, and even rarer for them to survive. This is not caused by a lack of care and generosity, mind you; it is merely one of the countless side effects of a city with high standards, and strict enforcement of rules.
In 1954, the Year of Terror, a 6 year old child with firey red hair was appeared in town, hungry and lost with no parents to be found. No one knew where she came from. More than likely it was that she had been abandoned, but many in Deysire believed she was a devil child. Heads would turn, not in her direction but away, so as not to risk incarceration for involvement with a stray child.
No one dared to look at her. Though she tried so desperately to get anyone’s attention, people looked away in fear, kicked her if she grabbed at their clothes, or even ran to keep their distance from her. The only ones who willingly approached her were the guards who snatched her by the arm and dragged her away.
On her first day in Deysire, she was jailed.
This would set the course for several years to come. Zarina practically grew up in the cells, raised by guards that spat on her, and cell mates that hated her. To the guards, she was just another criminal, scum beneath even the Indigents. Time and time again she was tormented by them, being told that by the time turns 10 she would already have been reset.
Her cell mates were no kinder. If this crying child weren’t here, there would be a bit more food to go around, and they wouldn’t have to listen to her whine about her damned parents all the time. Most of the people in these cells were jailed for unjust things, so their outrage was often taken out on each other.
There was one exception, however. Ardryll Valkian was more than just a fellow inmate. He was respected in these cells for his seniority, having practically lived behind bars for most of his life.
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