The lost Children of the Barrani

There will be spoilers in here for various novels, starting with the Elantra series by Michelle Sagara (West). There will also be Tsubasa spoilers. And there are pretty much all CWs: you can think of in the main character of Elantra's series. While the ones most likely to come up are just violence and some bleeped otu swearing, other topics are very possible. You have been warned.

OOC INFORMATION
Name: Chicklet
Are you over 15? Ayep
Contact: Character journal, or plurk ChickletLARP
Current characters in the game: Apping Nadenagi at the same time, from Shugo Chara

IC INFORMATION
Names: Teela/An'Teela, Annarion, Mandoran, Sedarias, Karian, Eddorian, Terrano, Allaron, Valliant, Fallessian, Serralyn, Torridant.
Canon: Chronicles of Elantra
Why should they be combined? Other then Teela until the end of the events that took place in the West March during the series, the Cohort were all trapped in one place together, though place isn't the most accurate term, and mentally linked to each other. What happened to them as children happened also to Teela, but because of her mother's dying wish, Teela escaped with her life. When she was reunited with them, centuries later, and they were given their freedom, Teela became connected mentally to them again as well Terrano is removed because he more or less chose death over the rules that freedom came with and the forgiving of those who did this to them in the first place, and I will be writing him gone in the AU as well.

So basically... they are all mind linked to each other. What one feels or experiences, they all do. and they tend to give peanut gallery type commentary and advice on each other's lives, even from far away.

Age: Immortal. Several centuries at least, but exact number is unknown. But like all of their race, they stopped aging at the peak of their prime.
Species: Originally Barrani. There is much debate as to what they actually are now. Teela is undeniably Barrani, and a Lord at that, but the others are... less certain.
Appearance: As all their race they are virtually identical to each other until one learns subtle manerisims or choices in clothes or speech patterns to differentiate them.

Each of them has a slender body. Style of dress can make the gender more obvious, but the differences are small enough and subtle enough that even slightly loose clothes makes them androgynous. They all have long black hair that matches each other in length and is almost always worn loose down the back like a cape. Pointed ears. Pale skin that is unblemished and unmarred. Long slender limbs, long slender neck. The most notable feature visually are their eyes. Like all of their race, their eyes shift color with mood.

From the Author's website:
Barrani:
Green: happy, calm, neutral.
Blue: Anger/fear
Purple: grief, deep grief
Brown: Approval
Gold: Surprise
Violet: dominant desire/possessiveness.

Unlike most of their race, they are for the most part otherwise expressive, save for An'Teela. Most of their race manages to look just on the polite side of bored no matter the topic of conversation. Absent Teela, the Cohort have actual facial expressions that they use without concern for how they are seen. Teela, on the other hand, lounges like a cat, and speaks like a mortal most of the time.


History:

We know the most about Teela's history, though we know her story was very similar for the rest.

Teela was the youngest child of her father, only child of her mother, and only daughter to either of them. Her father was a Lord of some standing the High Court, her mother was of the West March and had no standing at all. Except that she married a Lord and bore him a daughter. She was born during the Draco-Barrani wars, though at the time the West March was not much contested, and so the Barrani there were markedly different from their High Court brethren. Where in the High Court power is the order of the day, and politics is synonymous with assassination, and no one dared show weakness, the West March Barrani - in the Court of the Vale - tended to be more open, almost kind. Teela was spoiled. She grew up knowing her mother and grandparents loved her. And that was something few of their kin ever took as a given, even as a child. And she, in turn loved them and her father. Openly.

The Barrani of the High Court had an idea to turn the tides of war in their favor. They wanted to expose children to an ancient rite called the Regalia, so that they would become more powerful and would serve their parents in the war efforts.

I'll go into more detail of terms in the proper section below, but for this to make sense I need to quickly touch on a few terms. All immortals in this world, be they ancient sentient buildings, Barrani, Dragons, or even the Elements themselves have a True Name. This is a Word that is in a language in which lying is utterly impossible, as is confusion. Barrani do not wake without this name, do not truly live. The Name is a binding. If learned by one with a stronger will, it can be used to enslave the Barrani. They are not seen to be truly anchored in their names, however, until adulthood, and then some even argue that only those who have survived the test of Name are truly secure in it. The Regalia is a story of True Words, and it is said that anyone who is not anchored in their name will have it swept from them, leaving them something worse than a zombie.

At the time, there was no law against bringing children to the Regalia, but as they are not seen to be firmly anchored in their name, and as the race was both at war and not swift to breed, it was considered too big a risk. But a number of the Lords petitioned the High Lord for permission to take that risk, and it was granted.

Teela was one of these children. As were the rest of the Cohort. They were brought to spend time together, in hopes that the strong would kill any too weak to have any value and those who were left would become strong enough to survive the telling.

Teela's mother was of the Green, The West March, where the Regalia is told. She knew that pleas to the Lord of the West March would do no good, as he would not speak against his brother or try to overrule him. So she gathered other Lords of the Green, who were not Lords the way the Lords of the High Halls were, and beseeched them to aid her.

For her part, Teela was like the other kids, excited about the chance to gain power, and to prove themselves their parents' worthy and true heir. Power was simple, if you could take it, you did. If someone could take it from you, you died. If you had it, your will was made manifest. Most of the children daydreamed, as Barrani children often did, of murdering their older siblings and being the one to carry on the line. There were reasons other than slow breeding that their numbers were few.

Among the Cohort though, Annorian didn't dream of killing his brother. He actually entertained daydreams of them growing up together, and as rarely happened, they actually got along quite well.

The Lords of the High Court could have forgiven that. Every few hundred years so you might get a pair of siblings who favor each other, and in youth it was all the more likely. It was presumed that would change over time.

What the children did next, however, the High Court would never have allowed had they asked permission first. The Cohort, knowing they were meant to be special together did something that shocked the adults who found out about it. Sedarias proposed a vow between them, that in their world was all but unbreakable. They exchanged True Names. This gave them the power to speak instantly to each other, across ay distance. They could let each other see what they saw, hear what they heard, feel what they felt...

As with most things having to do with True Names that they knew each other's was kept secret. They prepared for the recitation. They prepared to become the elite among their generation, among their kin. They prepared to take the power from the recitation and to use it to become the heroes of the war.

Things did not go to plan. To anyone's plan. The other Lords of the Vale met the Lords of the High Court on the Green. The Green is a sacred place to the Barrani, and there were laws about shedding blood there. The laws all added up to DON'T in all capitol letters, but with a lot more verbiage. The Court of the Vale, absent the Lord of the West March stood against the Lords of the High Court. And blood was shed upon the Green. The Lords of the Vale who had stood to protect the children had fallen. And with her dying breath, in her life's blood, Teela's mother beseeched the Green.

And this is where their paths diverged. The Green heard the plea for her child to be safe, to be spared. Teela became beloved of the Green. The main character in the novel series (more than a century later) is even told that every other member of the Barrani race would fall and die before the Green would ever harm Teela.

Because of this, Teela was little changed, the rest were very much changed. But much of the change was subtle. The telling was long, and difficult. The Harmoniste fainted at the end of it. And all who remained retired to rest in Hallione Aslanis.

The Hallione were altered by the Ancients to serve as more than simple buildings. Each has a life, and dreams, and I will get more into them in the terms section. What matters here is that each Hallione is charged with the care and protection of all guests within their halls. Given this is a race that kills each other for minor social jockeying, the Hallione were given powers to stop this. They could read the minds of their guests. Poisons lost potency before they could kill. Anyone not where they ought to be would find the room becoming unlivable, for them, until they retreated. They could alter their interior structure at will. But Alsanis could not read the 11, the children who were changed as Teela was not. Could not stop them.

The Eleven, the Lost children (though most of the Barrani count twelve, not eleven, despite Teela taking her place at the High Court) murdered most of the Lords that remained. Few, very few escaped. Teela's father was one who escaped. As was Eddorian's brother Iberenne and Annorian's brother Calarenne (Later known as Nightshade, and known as Nightshade for the rest of the app to avoid confusion).

Teela's father took Teela when he left. And as the remaining Lords escaped with their lives, the doors of Alsanis closed. And remained that way, for well over a century.

Within Alsanis the eleven, the cohort minus Teela raged. They wanted Teela back. They still were linked to each other, but somehow she was severed from their bond, which short of her death, should have been impossible. The thought the Green had harmed her by refusing to change her as they were changed, and they spent one or more centuries (the unreliable narrator getting unreliable information from multiple sources makes it hard to tell how many hundreds of years are involved, we know it is more than one hundred years, but it is unclear if that is between their recitation and the first time Teela returns... or the second time she returns. It is heavily implied it is about a century between each of those points, but never clearly stated. Immortals.) trying to reach her, and learning their new abilities. And they were many, and vast.

And the Green, wounded by all that had happened, was wounded further. And Alsanis, desperate to aid and protect the children remained closed to all others. For everyone's sake. And the Dreams of Alsanis, without Alsanis being able to sleep, became Nightmares - creatures of darkness and pain that haunted the Green.

Teela spent many of those first years after having to prove to the eternally wary that she was still herself. To prove this, she did a few very key things. She took the Test of Name - and survived - becoming a Lord of the High Court. She killed her father - which for Barrani is generally expected behavior. And she returned to the Green as an Adult and Lord, as Harmoniste at another recitation. While there she could not reach the others. She tried. She tried to use the power granted her by her role to free the others, and failed. They could not reach her. None but the children, Teela, Alsanis, and the Green were aware attempts were even being made.

Teela returned to Elantra, the city where the High Court resides, and when Court life bored her - boredom is a common theme among Immortals in this series - she took some handful of Barrani who had not taken the Test of Name, and the lot of them joined the Hawks.

An uneasy peace was in place at this time, between the Barrani and the Dragons. Mortals were no longer slaves or fodder for battle and magical experiments, but seen as actual people. A Dragon sat on the throne of the Empire of Alan, in which Elantra was located, but the High Halls sat in Elantra as a purely Barrani holding.

The Hawks were an invention of the Emperor. (I have the long history of how they came to be written in another journal and can link it to you, if you wish it.) He built three Halls of Law to police his people and uphold his laws. The Swords were to keep the peace. The Hawks were the investigators when the peace was broken. And when a criminal was considered too dangerous, or evaded the Hawks too well, a writ of hunting was written and the Wolves were to be mobile executioners absent a court.

While all three Halls were open to members of any race there were few races represented. The Hawks were the most multi-racial, having a Leontine Sargent, an Aerian Lord, and Aerians and humans on the payroll. Teela and her new group joined the Hawks, adding another race to the roster.

If asked, Teela said that she joined because she was bored. We get strong hints (The main character intuits this, but it is never honestly and fully answered) that Teela left to keep Tain - another Barrani who came with her - from taking the Test of Name. Which all but implies that she was certain he would fail it. Which is a fate worse than death as it involves the eternal imprisonment of your very much awake and aware immortal soul.

Teela's relationship to the other Barrani Hawks is odd and amorphous. They subtly defer to her, even over their supposed superiors in the rank and file. We know they joined with her, and that among them, she is the only Lord of either court.

Tain, however, stands apart from the rest, and is generally the only Barrani Hawk that is named besides Teela. They are usually partners, except when Teela decides to partner with the main character (Kaylin), at which point Tain does paperwork in his office. Which all the Hawks seem to hate equally, with very few exceptions.

But Tain... sometimes she treats him like a servant (One time Kaylin asked her what she does about getting into some very complicated dresses and the short version of the answer was "that's what Tain is for." Sometimes she treats him as a friend. Sometimes, it is implied that there is a physical side to that friendship. But it is really hard to tell. All Barrani relationships are complicated and hard to define, even if Teela is, according to the main character, the most human of the Barrani.

Teela and the others served as Hawks for a while, and then one day, something interesting happened. A thirteen year old underfed scrawny scrap of a human girl was brought down the stairs that led to the Hawklord's tower. She had not gone UP those stairs. Being human, she lacked wings.

That child said her name was Kaylin Neya. The way she said it made it clear it was a lie. This clearly must have amused Teela. Kaylin said she wanted to be a Hawk, and the Hawks more or less took her under their collective wings - literal and figurative, depending on the Hawk.

Kaylin was marked in the same way many corpses from a cold case almost a year old had been. She was the first person so marked to ever be found alive, though all the victims had been about her age or younger.

Teela found Kaylin interesting, and like many Hawks, kept a close eye on her. One of the first cases Kaylin was allowed to tag along on that Marcus (their Leontine Sargent) wasn't present for was supposed to be a relatively safe one (this comes from a short story in an anthology, but is intended by the author to slot in as a prequel to the events of the first book, and take place somewhere after the events discussed in the fifth book.) They were investigating a kidnapping, one in a long string of missing children cases.

Simplifying here for trigger reasons, but can elaborate if need be. They found not just a clue while the mascot, Kaylin, was tagging along, but the criminals and what was left of the children who still lived. Kaylin lost her temper. Which in a 14 year old human should have been laughable at best. But the marks on her arms started to change in color and brightness and Kaylin grabbed one of the men and he just... turned to dust. The look in her eyes was pure murderous delight as she grabbed the next one and killed him more gruesomely.

Teela and Tain were able to get her out of there and back to herself. They called in the other Hawks to see to the children and reported back. To the Hawks, since it was clear that these men would have been executed following a court case, or hunted down by Wolves and killed anyway... they closed ranks around Kaylin. She was, in their eyes, a child. Fourteen years old, who had lashed out after seeing what had been done to other children. A child they knew had a horrific life before she joined them, but that they knew none of the details of.

The Emperor was not so willing to protect her. He held Court. One of the reasons the Barrani could tolerate a Dragon Emperor was the Caste Court system, but another was that he actually listened to arguments from all races that chose to offer them. His decision was final, in theory, but he did listen.

While none of the argument was witnessed by Kaylin, it was all relevant to her. What was relevant to Teela, however was her role. Even though they almost never attended the Dragon Court, Teela went. She wore the armor she wore in the Draco-Barrani wars. She wore her sword. But she made no other threat than her attire and her appearance. Instead she belittled those who saw threat in Kaylin. Pointing out that she is a mortal child. That even with the marks of the Chosen... she has a handful of years to her, a few decades at most.

The youngest of the Dragon Lords, Tiamaris, argued that if she had such a small span of years, what did it matter cutting them short then and there?

In the end, the Emperor chose to spare her life... conditionally. Kaylin was given a bracer of ancient and little understood magics. What was known was that once it was on her wrist, her power was contained. She couldn't use it. She was under imperial fiat to wear it at all times.

What most of the Hawks knew... was that Kaylin's power to kill came also with the power to heal, and that the Hawklord had taught Kaylin in secret how to remove the bracer.

Barrani are plagued by boredom, as are all Immortals, and Kaylin was interesting. Barrani are also moved by power. Kaylin clearly had a vast store of it, but used it in ways no Barrani would ever think to. She was interesting. Barrani also lie more easily than they breathe and are always plotting something. Kaylin couldn't lie to save her own life and was blunt and honest and open. Teela, like many of the Barrani Hawks, chose to find this endearing. At the least... she wasn't boring.

Teela all but took Kaylin in as a sister. Kaylin was HERS in a very meaningful way. In a "no one gets to break her but me" sort of way. She, along with Marcus, drove Kaylin HARD on the training field. She taught Kaylin ways of fighting no other mortals on the force used. She was amused and impressed as Kaylin also learned Aerian forms of fighting, despite an obvious lack of wings. Teela would sometimes take Kaylin out drinking, because it was amusing. She started that when Kaylin was about fourteen and change.

And then, around the start of Kaylin's second decade of life... the deaths began again. Corpses showing up in the fiefs where Kaylin used to live, marked as she was marked. Technically, legally, the fiefs were not part of the Empire, and the Hawks had no legal rights there, no power. Each fief had it's own law, and the Fieflord was the one who decided it, and meted out punishment. Most didn't bother. They held against the Shadows at the interior (Much more crucial to Kaylin's story than the Cohort's) and little cared for the people who lived and died on their streets.

But one of the fieflords was Nightshade. He had, since the tragedy at the Green become Outcaste. Which meant no Barrani Lord would speak with hm publicly, among other things. But Teela was, of course, well aware of him. She was also aware that it was in his fief, Nightshade, that Kaylin had been born. It was in Nightshade where all the murders happened. And Nightshade, for reasons of his own, allowed a runner to report the murders to the Halls of Law.

Because she knew the fief well, Kaylin was one of the Hawks sent. My theory is that Teela and Tain would have gone with her, had the Fieflord not been Outcaste) Corporal Severn Handred of the Wolves was seconded to the Hawks for his knowledge of the same fief. He knew it as well as Kaylin did, because they apparently grew up together, as evidenced by Kaylin trying to kill him the second she laid eyes on him in the Hawklord's tower. The third in their party, because of his extensive knowledge of the fiefs in general, because he had studied the previous deaths in detail, and because he had been Nightshade's guest in the past, was the Dragon Lord Tiamaris who had spoken for Kaylin's death.

The three, forced to work together, went into Nightshade. When they came back, Kaylin bore a new mark - this one on her face. It was Nightshade's mark, a mark of Errenne - of a consort. Teela was LIVID. She informed Kaylin that were she Barrani, she would be gathering as many people as she could to aid her in killing whoever had marked her so. Early in the series it is implied that Teela DIDN'T go kill Nightshade for doing this because he was fieflord, and whoever kills the fieflord has to become the new fieflord, and hold the Shadows at bay. Given that we learn (much) later that he was brother to Annorian, and that Annorian loved him dearly, there is reason to question how much impact that had on her choice to not kill him. And because she did not kill him, none of the other Barrani Hawks would, though they were ready to march to war for this. At her command they would have. At her command they didn't.

The three, after another attempt by Kaylin to kill Severn - this one in public - wrapped the case, but not before Kaylin brought herself to the attention of one of Teela's more annoying cousins, Lord Evarrim. For a Barrani, Evarrim is almost uncharacteristically blunt and open. Through Kaylin he challenged Nightshade. And he constantly tried to maneuver around Teela to get to Kaylin.

This led to him being in the office when Kaylin, Severn, and Tiamaris brought in the child, Catti, who had been abducted and marked, but who had been saved by those three before she could be sacrificed to the death magic that was, it turns out, an attempt to use Kaylin as an enslaved dark god of death. Kaylin, exhausted, and clearly - to Teela's eyes - having had used her magic, snapped something unfortunate at Lord Evarrim. That she had been fighting undead Barrani. He left, in haste.

The presence of any such undead would have been bad at anytime. They were what Barrani became when their True Names were removed from them. Who they had been was gone, and they were more or less alive at the whim of the one who took their names. However, they were drawn to True Names and tried to remove the Names of other Barrani to fill the hole inside them. That never worked, but it could create more of them, and these unbeholden to anyone.

The timing, however, was disastrous. The High Festival was coming, and with it Leoswuld. Leoswuld is one of the very few times all Barrani would set aside their plots. Because the cost was too high. Leoswuld is, in short, the High Lord passing his position on to his son, and the Consort passing her position on...to whoever can take it. (Her daughter is, by tradition allowed to test first, but the testing will continue until someone survives it.)

The High Lord had two sons. The Lord of the Green was the Eldest, the Lord of the West March the youngest, and his daughter between. The High Lord could gift the High Halls to either son, but tradition said it was usually the elder. Teela was one of the few Lords to know that there was something wrong with the elder son. Evarrim was another. But neither of them knew what exactly was wrong.

Like Annorian and Nightshade, the Children of the High Lord and Consort were abnormally fond of each other. Even loved each other. There were epic ballads sung of their love for each other, it was that strong and that unusual.

The Lord of the West March went to see his brother. Something happened and he fell. He was not, as near as anyone could tell, injured. But he would not wake. If there was no one to pass the High Halls onto, they would fall. If they fell, that which was contained below would be free and there would be no more city. There might not be any more Barrani. If what was contained reached the Lake, where Barrani names sleep until the Consort gives them to the babies, the race would end. Teela knew the Lord of the Green could not take the Halls. And now the Lord of the west March had fallen. And Leoswuld was coming.

So Teela took Kaylin to Court, called her Kyuthe - a phrase which basically means a combination of "the family I would chose if I could and actually like my family" and "she's mine, hurt her and you answer to me". It was just barely enough to make them overlook the insult of her very mortal presence there, and the large insult of Nightshade's mark on her face. She bade Kaylin to heal the Lord of the West March, and when he awoke, hustled her out of there as fast as she could.

But the Lord of the West March had a Barrani sense of debt. He hated it, and in hating it, called upon her more. Basically he owes her so he treated her like any other race would if she had owed him. He called her Kyuthe himself, before the Lords of the High Court. Before the High Lord. And it was accepted, despite the mark she bore.

She was invited to return for the festival, along with Severn, as his guests. When they came, they came with two of Nighthade's guards, Lord Andellen and Samaaran. The High Lord chose to tolerate their presence, but just barely. If Teela had known what Adellen was going to do, she might have risked killing them anyway. Andellen and Samaaran brought Kaylin and Severn to the Test of Name. There two things happened that had never happened before. Mortals took the Test, and the Test allowed two people to Test at the same time. Both emerged, and did so together. Both were thus Lords of the High Court, the first mortals ever to hold such a title. What Teela noticed, however - because she touched them both was that Kaylin now had a True Name - which usually more than race separated the mortals from the Immortals, and Severn did not. Kaylin showed a wisdom she'd lacked before. She didn't mention the name. Evarrim lacked wisdom and grabbed her to asertain if she had one. Both survived.

Teela was aware that Kaylin spent time alone after that point with the Consort and the High Lord. But what had transpired there was not shared with her. When the Leoswuld began, like all Lords present, Teela made her way to the High Court. The High Lord held his gift in offering... and neither of his sons arrived. Instead the Shadows did. The worst of what lay at the heart of the High Halls could not yet escape, but a door was opening, and until the ceremony was finished, it would open wider and wider, and their foes would grow in number and strength. She fought, as most of her kin did. Unlike many, she did not die. She was not alone in surviving, and she was not uninjured. In the end, Kaylin arrived... with the Lord of the Green. Whole. Able to take the gift offered. Teela missed the exact moment power transferred in that she was not looking at them at that time. But like all Barrani in the city, she was keenly aware of it. She FELT the moment it happened.

The battle after that point was of so little note it might not have happened at all, and Barrani began to move the dead and see to the wounded. Teela was aware that when the daughter went to aid her mother, the Consort, instead of being aided by the Consort to the site of her test, Kaylin went with them. Another thing that should not have been necessary or possible.

Kaylin emerged and joined the others in the waiting. It was, as Tests for the Consort went, fast enough to be in legend. Almost as if there had been no test, which had happened for on of her brothers. It was auspicious, and worrying.

But the Consort and the New High Lord took their thrones, brother and sister still, now also husband and wife, and parents to their race, in so much as the Barrani accepted parents they were not actively trying to kill.

The new High Lord offered Kaylin a singular boon. She asked for Lord Andellen to be allowed the freedom of the High Halls as Lord for the duration of the festival. The High Lord granted him instead a hundred years, despite his service to the Outcaste, which he would not abandon. The High Lord offered to remove Nightshade's mark from Kaylin, and for reasons not clear to Teela, she refused. Oh the reason she gave publicly was surprisingly well said but even with this being Kaylin, Teela suspected there was more, and was aware that every Barrani present was sure of the same thing.

Kaylin and Severn were pretty much default partners, back with the Hawks by the time Teela returned from the festivals, most of which Kaylin and Severn had been excused from. The reason given, more or less, was their mortality. The truth, Teela suspected, was that there were those, like Evarrim who would use the presence of two mortals that had the favor the High Lord, the Consort, and the Lord of The West March to challenge them. By killing the mortals in question.

But for a time, Kaylin was not Teela's direct concern, and her having a regular partner was as much a rite of passage in Teela's eyes for the mortal girl as being a Lord was, since she knew Kaylin could not live long enough to understand the whole of what that meant.

Though she could harass Kaylin endlessly in the office, and get everyone else to do the same. Life resumed its routine of cases and betting pools and teasing Kaylin, and jst... living.

And then the city was almost drowned in a flood because of the murderer who killed a couple that Teela and Tain had been investigating tied into a case Kaylin and Severn were on where a Arcanist who once worked for the Emperor had gone rogue and stolen a Tha'alani child and a very magical box from the Garden of the Keeper. The Oracles were concerned, the Dragons were concerned, and of course the High Lord was concerned, and Teela found herself the one who stood for hours absorbing messages he wanted passed along to Lord Kaylin.

Of course, once the threat of flood was over and Donolan Idis was safely dead, life did not quite resume the normal mortal pace she had become accustomed to. There were riots in the streets. Somehow the Tha'alani had thought they could stop the rising waters by walking out of their quarter in greater number than they ever had before, and placing themselves between to port and the city. Which lead most people who saw them, and the water, to think they had been trying to drown the city. Given how mortals feared the Tha'alani she could see why they made that intuitive leap, but a that meant more work for her, she resented it.

And then a call came in to the office, for Marcus. A friend hinting that Sarabe, Marcus' youngest wife, was in some danger. Well, she presumed he meant to hint. Leontines had all the subtlety of their breath, or a brick wall, hitting you in the face. Where humans might grow to be interesting if they had more than a handful of decades in which to learn to lie and plot, Leontines were straightforward enough that they never would be.

Marcus didn't return to the office after his meeting. The Hawklord called Sargent Mallory from missing persons into his office, then came down with him into the main office and informed them all that Sargent Marcus Kassan had been arrested by the Caste Court for a crime that affected only his own race - meaning unless the Caste Court handed him over to the Halls of Law, his case was not their jurisdiction. They did not. Sargent Mallory would be acting Sargent in charge of the Hawks until Marcus either returned to them and took back his job, or had been executed for his crime, in which case Mallory's appointment might be made permanent.

Teela had been there when Mallory and Marcus had both vied for the job Marcus won. Most of the Hawks had been. And like most of the Hawks, Teela disliked Mallory. While his personality offered them all plenty to dislike, what unified them all was that Mallory had argued vehemently against Kaylin being a Hawk at first, and still did. Caitlin. Marcus' secretary, and office den mother cashed in all her vacation time, rather than work for Mallory directly. Teela stayed on, and not just because the High Halls was her waiting other option. She was going to do what she had to to make sure Mallory couldn't cashier Kaylin.

But it turned out to be unneeded. She wasn't the only one who took matters into their on hands, and give them this... Dragons had rather large hands, even in their upright forms. Lord Sanabalis of the Dragon Court, who had been assigned as Kaylin's magic teacher after the events that sent her back to Nighthade, brought imperial power into play, seconding her and Severn for a sensitive mission in the palace that he assured Mallroy only they could do. Mallory, spiteful ****** that he was demanded Kaylin check in every day before her duties - on time - and tender a written report every night. Since most of the best betting pools in the office centered around how late Kaylin would be on any given day, Teela was preparing herself for a fight. Well, a political one.

But Severn took that in hand himself. He went to her apartment and all but dragged her in on time, every morning, without fail. And she knew that Severn and Kaylin were not so quietly, and not as secretly as they seemed to think, investigating Marcus' case. Kaylin seemed to fail to understand that with so few Dragons left after the wars, each and every Dragon that was awake was a POWER and when they moved, they were felt. She got Sanabalis to come to the Leontine Quarter, and he told a Story to the Leontines, and exhumed a body.

Mallory, meanwhile, was being his usual charming self. Betting was forbidden. Which mostly meant done in secret. Kaylin had introduced betting to the Hawks and it had caught on like wildfire. He tried to forbid swearing. That did not go so well for him. And then he tried to demand that everyone's hair be cut to regulation length.

The Barrani were unified on that without need for leadership or prompting. The mortal Hawks stood back and let them handle that, and that particular order was set aside for the time being. The Barrani did not cut their hair in the wars, they would not cut their hair on the word of the merely mortal. His attempts to make them all wear regulation armor and weapons was met with a similar refusal. Barrani wore armor in war times, in combat that mattered. They would not belittle the armor by wearing it else. It was why Teela wearing the armor when she bespoke the Emperor made such a statement. Likewise she would not insult the sword she carried in war by carrying it any lesser time, and here here will was manifest and followed by the other Barrani Hawks. They carried long sticks on the beat, and largely didn't even need those. They were mostly investigating mortals, after all. Barrani crimes generally wound up with the Caste Court, and the few that were left to the Halls generally ended in the hands of the Barrani Wolves.

Kaylin managed to prove Marcus innocent had got him restored to his proper place. The riots calmed finally. Caitlin returned. The window, however...

The Hawks had a large window by which the time of day was told. It was magicked, of course, and installed at great imperial expense. It also functioned as a mirror. It recorded what happened in the offices. Teela, like the other Hawks, had attributed the changes to the glass to Mallory. For it announced the hour, reminded people to clock out on time and hand in their paperwork. And chided people for swearing.

Within minutes of Marcus' return there was a betting pool for who would break the thing and when, and how. Kaylin's instance that Marcus' failed attempt should count was amusing. There was also a new betting pool based on her attendance. She hadn't been late yet since Mallory's ascension, and they wanted to see how long that would last.

But the mirror got more and more annoying. It started greeting everyone in the office by name, including civilians. When things were slow, it got chatty. Mostly at Marcus, which was why his was the first attempt. Teela mostly found excuses to not be in the office where possible.

But amidst these amusing, and not so amusing happenings, Kayln was accosted on Elani Street by someone from her life in the fiefs. Not Nightshade.

A round or two of drinks after work had Kaylin finally telling Teela and Tain how she had come to be in the Hawklord's tower that first day. The Fieflord Barren had sent her, at thirteen, across the bridge to assassinate the Hawklord. She had climbed his tower, tried to kill him, an failed. He was now trying to blackmail her to come back to do work for him, threatening to tell the Hawks why she had crossed the bridge in the first place. She didn't seem to get that the Hawks would rally around her, seemed terrified they might see her differently. Honestly, mortals were exhausting.

But Kaylin was determined she'd go. Teela felt she needed to, for herself, to prove to herself that Barren no longer had power over her. But she didn't go alone. Severn, her partner, went with her. As did Tiamaris.

Teela, however, wound up roped into what had started as a routine enough investigation, that quickly exploded into a huge conspiracy. The human Caste Court leader was embezzling imperial funds through the Exchequer of the Exchange. Which might have been simple enough to wrap up, except no one could figure out where those funds WERE. The Barrani, in theory needing no sleep to function we given extra shifts. Teela was too busy to be able to look after Kaylin though it grated her nerves to leave her in the are of a Dragon, especially Lord Tiamaris who, while seeming to feel differently now, had argued so strongly for her death.

Kaylin returned to them at the end of her adventures in the fief injured - which was typical for her - and calmer. More settled. Tiamaris, on the other hand, had settled differently. And for the first time in the history of the city - and she had lived it all - there was a Dragon Fieflord. This, of course, caused concern for the High Court, and Teela was called in to consult. On top of her extra shifts.

But it looked like they might be on their way to a break in the case when a hack fortune teller told Lady Alissa Larienne that her father, Garavan Larienne was going to be arrested for embezzlement. Alissa had apparently approached Kaylin on her beat, demanding that Margot - the hack in question - be arrested for Slander. Kaylin proving she had no head for politics, even after everything, ha apparently informed the girl that if she didn't know what Margot had said, she couldn't arrest her for saying it. Alissa stormed into the Hawks' office and made a complaint to the Hawklord about Kaylin, which was bad. She told her father, which was worse.

Evidence they had been gathering vanished. Leads started to turn up dead. Wen, not long after, it started raining blood, this was less of a concern to Teela than the blown case. Sanabalis made it clear that investigating both the Exchequer and the seeming expanding circle of unpredictable magic was to be given the top most priority, as both were crucial and time sensitive. Teela was no longer pulling doubles. She and the other Barrani Hawks all but moved into the office. The office which was at the edge of this magical issue. Which meant mirror access was extremely restricted. Of course Elani street being closed and quarantined as the center of the difficulty also flooded the office with outraged mortals, such as Margot, demanding to be allowed back into their homes and businesses. Only the Keeper and his apprentice were not forced to leave. Mostly because if they did the Elements in the Elemental Garden might well break free and destroy the world anyway.

And of course, Teela was required to report in to the High Halls. She was aware that the High Lord and the Consort did something unprecedented and visited the imperial palace to meet with the Dragons about the crisis.

Focused on the Exchequer, Teela got her information about the rest in pieces and she was certain not all in the right order. But the summation seemed to be the Orcales kept shortening the time they predicted was left before a portal opened over Elani, disgorging thousands of mortals of no known race, and that they were being followed by the Devourer. The eater of worlds and Words. She was aware that the Consort and KAylin repaired to the High Halls. She was carefully and deliberately not aware of what they did or discussed there. But after any warmth the Consort had held for Kaylin, and there had been much, was gone.

The world didn't end. Somehow Kaylin wound up in the middle of everything again. Teela would not admit how little she understood the Role of Chosen before. She would not admit how little she still understood it, but she though that through knowing Kaylin - the Chosen - that she perhaps understood more than even the High Lord and Consort. Something else she would never admit.

In the end, the portal closed, magic more or less returned to normal, and the new people, the Norinarr settled into the fief of Tiamaris. But the case was getting more and more tangled, and the investigation was going nowhere. Fast.

Kaylin and Severn, as near about the only Hawks NOT working on the case as far as Teela could tell - oh she knew there were others, but she was irritated and tired enough to not care - wound up seconded to Sanabalais again, having been given permission to investigate a crime in the fief of Tiamaris. Teela had to let that go, and focused on her own case, though when Kaylin showed up with a magical swords that had no scabbard, Teela had taken the time to get one from Evanton's shop. Dropping it off while Kaylin was asleep, she found Kaylin curled around some sort of egg. Severn, who had been making Kaylin breakfast told her that Kaylin had gotten the thing during the magical chaos. Teela had tried to touch it, and it had scalded her hand. Did nothing to Kaylin who was still fast asleep with her arms around it. Teela told Seven to explain biology to Kaylin and left to work on the investigation into the Exchequer.

And then Kaylin emerged from the fiefs with a new roommate. A Dragon. A Female Dragon. A female Dragon who was an adult, but hadn't existed in their world since the Wars, a Dragon who had been lost to Shadowstorms. A dragon that was the only female Dragon meant the Dragons could, in theory, breed again.

Many Barrani Lords were very much displeased. Teela was among them, but as the Dragon, Bellusdeo, often trailed Kaylin into the office, Teela got to see that she was someone she might have almost gotten along with, were she not a Dragon. Teela was aware that Bellusdeo revered the Chosen and was appalled at how little respect Kaylin was given. She was content to leave things as the were and keep focusing on her own case. Barely.

Until Kaylin's report to Marcus took a dip into that case. She claimed that Nightshade told her he had information to trade about the Exchequer. Buying information from informants was a common enough practice, but he didn't want money. He requested Kaylin get a leave of absence and travel. The timing did not escape Teela's notice. Many of her kin were preparing for a journey to the West March. She had been once, since she was a child. She had been Harmoniste and had tried to use that role to bring the Cohort back. She had failed. She had not attended since, and had never planned to return. But they needed the information. Kaylin confirmed her suspicions. Nightshade wanted her to go to the West March. Clearly he also had thoughts on the role of the Chosen. Teela had a feeling that in this... what he wanted and what she herself wanted were aligned. He wanted, doubtlessly, his brother back. She wanted all of them back. She told Marcus that if the information was good she would join Kaylin, bring her back more or less in one piece.

The information was good. The money had been funneled to Lord Iberienne, a Barrani of some note magically. And sibling to one of the lost. Eddorian. Eddorian's brother.

That was bad. Teela could swear in every known mortal tongue except Norinarr, and in both High and Low Barrani, but she lacked words for how bad thing were. And then they got worse.

Ibeirenne (though they did not know it was him at the time) threw and arcane bomb into Kaylin's window, attempting to assassinate Bellusdeo. Kaylin's egg chose that moment to hatch into what looked like a tiny, semi-translucent baby dragon. A Familiar. The Familiar ate most of the explosion, and Kaylin and Bellusdeo both survived. And both moved into the imperial palace. The offer was of course made for Kaylin, and Kaylin alone to live in the High Halls as was her due as a Lord. She refused. She likewise refused, presumably, the hospitality of both the Sargent and of Severn. But those Teela was not privy to.

The Emperor flew. He landed at the High Halls, and breathed fire. They very nearly went to war again. With any other High Lord, they probably would have. But the High Lord made it clear that the assassin had no permission, not even tacit permission, to attempt such a thing. He yielded the assassin to imperial justice and declared him Outcaste. This barely backed the emperor off, but it did. The Hawks were, of course, ordered to find whoever did it, and YESTERDAY. While still investigating the Exchequer, of course.

Kaylin and Severn were investigating something different. An imperial citizen had crossed the bridge into Tiamaris on a dare... and never came back. It turned out there were other disappearances in the fiefs. Needless to say Kaylin couldn't put off going to the West March to investigate, but before they left she found a signature on a door leading from Tiamaris to the Otlands. The same signature that was on the bomb that destroyed her apartment.

Teela was the only Barrani Hawk who was a Lord of the Court, and so the only one who was allowed to attend the regalia. Kaylin, as a Lord was. Severn did not take time off to join them, instead he was seconded by the Wolves to hunt Iberrine for his attempt on Bellusdeo's life and his involvement with the Exchequer.

Nightshade did not join them for the first leg of the journey, but Lord Andellen did. And the Consort traveled with the caravan as well, for reasons of her own. Teela and Andellen rode with Kaylin, Severn, and the familiar. Who mostly draped on Kaylin's neck like a scarf and smacked at Kaylin's face.

The journey, at first, contained much of what Teela expected, or should have expected. Severn silence, and Kaylin' never ending question and very mortal reactions. Until they got to the first Hallionne. As was typical of such journeys, those who had been to Hallionne Sylvanas before were welcome, they touched the bark of the tree that was her outer form and entered. Those who had not offered their blood, and then were welcomed. Rank was a factor in the progression, with the Consort entering first and the mortals - new come to the court - last. Except that Kaylin didn't. Enter. Teela went back to investigate and found that the familiar was refusing to let Kaylin offer her blood to the tree. When Teela snapped at him, he bit the Hallionne and Kaylin was granted entrance. She advised Kayin to tell NO ONE of that and went in. Teela had attended the meal and left to fetch Kaylin. Kaylin was late to the meal. She knelt and bowed her head to the Consort. Who did not give her leave to rise. Teela could swear she could hear Kaylin's stomach over the conversations of the meal, but Kaylin didn't budge until well after the Consort and the other Lords had left.


The Hallionne gave them each rooms, as the Hallionne were wont to do. Teela had, of course, made sure that Kaylin had dresses appropriate for Court. But other than the dress they rode in... none of them mattered. Because Kaylin left her room n a green dress with gold mesh sleeves and green boots. She came out in the Blood of the Green. She was to be the Harmoniste for the Regalia. This both made her more of a concern to most lords, but also guaranteed her safety until after the Regalia. None would harm the Harmoniste. None would dare.

While it was impossible to know if a recitation would have a Teller or a Harmoniste for sure, and impossible to influence who was chosen, having one of each was a portent of a significant and difficult recitation. As were the illuminations Kaylin was granted at the Hallionne.

Teela knew it as impossible to influence who would be chosen, but she suddenly suspected that Nightshade had a suspicion that Kaylin would be, and had orchestrated this.

His arrival, wearing the crown of the Teller, only cemented that in her mind. In many minds, she was sure. But the Consort set the tone. As Teller he was not to be harmed, and she favored him as she might any Lord of the Court with whom she wised to speak.

Then the Hallionne more or less dumped Kaylin in her room at night. They spoke. Teela wound up telling Kaylin about her mother, a little about the other children. About what happened. The differences between mortal and Immortal memory. It was the first time Teela had ever shared any of this with anyone, and irritatingly, it made Kaylin protective over her. But... But she couldn't shake the thought that despite being mortal, Kaylin would have adored the Cohort, and had they grown us with mortals as people not slaves, they would have adored her. Mandorian and Terrano especially.

Things only got more complicated from there.At Hallionne Kariastos, The Consort needed to awaken the Hallionne enough to make the entrance viable, as in his resting state, his is a rushing river. She sang, Nightshade joined her. And the River took the form of a large dragon. Which apparently insulted the familiar who argued with it. Kaylin tried, and failed, to stop him. To preserve her, the Consort fully awoke the Hallionne. Fully awake, they tended to interact with their guests, and answer questions and thoughts left intentionally unspoken. Half the Court chose to risk the wilds. Teela entered, as did the Consort who must, Nightshade, Kaylin and Severn.

There was trouble, the Barrani who remained outside were attacked. Someone tried to attack Nightshade within. Nightshade and Andellen were sent along the portal paths to the next Hallionne, while the rest of them were sent outside to deal with the forest and what remained of their kin. On the way to Hallionne Bertolle, they were attacked by creatures of Shadow that infected the ground where they fell, and infected those they injured. Kaylin was kept busy healing. But Teela was kept busy.... with the man who commanded the beasts.

He looked as all her race, save the consort did. Tall, slender, graceful. High cheekbones, clear eyes, long ravenswing black hair neatly down his back. She knew him at once, and knew also that he looked unlike himself. Didn't matter. He was still Terrano. He could have looked like a Dragon, and she'd have known him. He always did like dogs, and his creatures almost resembled them.

Terrano said that if she and the Consort remained with him, he would allow the others to proceed to the Green unhindered. The court, unsurprisingly, refused. Oh, they would have left Teela without hesitation, but the Consort's role was crucial to their people. Without her no babies would have their name, would live, until another was found. Teela was among the few aware that the Consort presumed Kaylin could fill her role. Teela wasn't even sure the Consort was wrong.

Terrano backed off, the familiar followed him, Kaylin followed the familiar. She was aware Kaylin wanted to go after her. She left Kaylin to Severn to deal with.

(The following is all guesswork as Teela was closed lipped about what happened when she followed after him.) Teela dogged Terrano's trail. He kept calling back to her, saying she belonged with them, she should come back to them, assuring her they had a plan to save her. Which of course ticked her off. Because Terrano should know better, Teela did not take well to anyone being concerned about her, she found it insulting. Always had. The Familiar chose that moment to settle on her shoulders. Teela was caught between the reminders of two very different lives. But she couldn't just join Terrano. If it were that easy, she would have done it a century ago. She turned back, and rejoined the Court.

Things, of course, were on track to get worse. Bertolle informed them that the forest paths were unsafe. Somehow Kaylin had awoken what she claimed were his brothers, and they joined them on the Portal paths.

(Bookmark)


What happened to your character in their canon? We require a history covering both events directly concerning your character and a brief explanation of any jargon relevant to them. Headcanon should be marked as such by writing it in italics. You may also provide a brief summary of your character's history to show how you understand their role in canon in your own words and then attach a link that goes more in depth. Bullet points are acceptable. If your character is an original character, please outline the world they live in as well.

REINCARNATION
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