My headcanonned story about Tyler and Scarlett's mother (except it's really tragic and quite sad)
- Her name was Corae (which I took from the every illustrious @saedii-gilwraeth-simp )
- She didn't actually work at the camp Jericho was taken to. She would visit the camp once a day, to see her twin brother who was also a Waywalker. He was working inside the camp as a spiritual cleanser, praying over the space.
- Romeo and Juliet style, Jericho and her locked eyes across the camp by coincidence. He immediately thought she was the most ethereal creature he had ever seen, and she was immediately Pulled.
- Corae despised Terrans for what they had done to her people, so her deep attraction to Jericho was mixed with deep revulsion and self-hatred. But he was bold and charming, and her feelings for him were too strong for her to resist within herself. They quickly developed a relationship that they had to keep very very secret, hiding in the dirtiest of places within the prisoner camp, infatuated with a person they both knew very little about.
- She was an extremely magnetic person, well loved within her community and had a kind of aura that drew people to her naturally, even though she wasn't particularly social.
- She was extremely intelligent, but also very spiritual. While she preferred to keep to herself, and never spoke first in conversations, it never came from shyness. She was simply reserved, and very logical. But she had a golden heart and felt called to serve her community, caring for the children, the elderly, and praying over her village and those who needed spiritual guidance whenever they asked.
- Her seething hatred for Terrans was her greatest flaw, and it all came still from her love for her people and her grief over what the war took from them, but she still tried to keep it to herself. So when she felt called to Jericho, it was both the most beautiful and disgusting thing she had ever felt.
- Nontheless, their hidden love was passionate and loving, and learning to know each other very very quickly started to open both of their perspectives into seeing the humanity in the other side, and their care for the other became genuine and deeply emotional, even though it had started with lust and infatuation.
- Realizing she was pregnant, however, was horrifying. She knew that giving birth to mixed children within the middle of the war would likely end in the death of both her and her children. Jericho tried to frame it as something beautiful, even though they both knew he was terrified. She pretend to agree, even though she was distraught.
- The pregnancy was ultimately awful for both of them. Jericho had once wanted to be a father, but the circumstances terrified him, for his whole family. If the two of them were caught, they would be killed. They ultimately decided to hide Corae within the camp so that her village would not question her pregnancy, and it ruined her. Being away from her people, hiding in a Terran concentration camp, away from all she loved, amidst war, with a Terran man and his children who she did not want, took an awful toll on her mental health. She was terribly depressed, but nonetheless, she tried to let her love for Jericho win. He felt awful for her and tried to care for her best he could, and she tried to look forward to the birth. It was her love for Jericho against everything else in her life, all while hiding in a prison camp.
- When the twins were born, she had to stay silent to avoid the guards hearing. It was just her and Jericho on a dirty floor in a dark room, and the worst pain she had ever experienced. She had spent all nine hours praying to the Void for strength, praying that she and her children would be ok, and that they would look Syldrathi.
- When the twins were born, much like her love for Jericho, she had to try and let her genuine love for them win over the quiet voice in her head which still found them revolting, them and their Terran appearance. While she loved them, she couldn't bring herself to cry with joy. She was too tired, and too put off by the way they looked.
- Jericho immediately decided to try and break out of the camp, to give his family a better life, to free all four of them and live happily. He was pacing, crying, desperate, and Corae was too tired to disagree. Not just from the labor, but from the shell of what her life had become.
- They did everything they could to keep the babies quiet, not to alert the guards, to keep them safe. They never slept. But the exhaustion kicked in three days after the babies were born, and the two basically passed out against their will, and the baby boy started to cry. It awoke the guards in the middle of the night, and they were found.
- They had no weapons, and had to run instead of fight. Jericho and Corae tried to take a baby each with them as they escaped, but Corae's body was still weak from labor, and she couldn't run fast enough. She was shot in the shoulder, and while she didn't die, it became clear that she wouldn't be getting out of the camp. With the guards on their heels, there was no time for goodbyes. She shoved the second baby, the girl, into Jericho's arms, and told him to run with no emotion in her voice. He had no choice but to escape the camp with their children as the guards took advantage of Corae's weakness, deciding to take the traitor of the Waywalkers and make an example of her, rather than chase one Terran prisoner.
- She and Jericho never saw each other again. Jericho went on to do what we know he would, raising the twins alone. Corae died twelve hours later, after she had been taken to her village and publicly humiliated, where the guards announced her relations with a Terran prisoner, and that she had birthed his children. She was outcast by her village Elders, who had once adored her, who she had once thought she would be one of, and passed away only ten minutes after their declaration.
- Jericho thought she had never gotten to even know their names, because they had never talked about it. He named them alone, gave them Terran labels that were expected. But what Corae had never told him was that in her head, they had names too. Jericho's children were named Tyler and Scarlett, but Corae's were Caskien and Laniira, and they would die with her.
