There hasn't been a dragon seen on the continent since the Splintering, a thousand years ago.
So, why then, are there three strangers standing in Keika's library at the end of the world, apparently on the search for one?
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Nobodies Hero is a fantasy series that follows a librarian, Keika, as he strays from his destiny and follows the blood-soaked call of adventure against his every instinct demanding he turn back.
this blog is actually for the universe of nobodies hero as a whole, which contains several other stories including the splintering (a prequel) and side quests* such as the angelfish.
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plot outlines
nobodies hero: the library keeper (book 1)
nobodies hero: a haunting (book 2)
nobodies hero: the unworthy king (book 3)
the splintering (prequel)
characters
Keika [X] [X]
Ahuru
Atlas Lavore [X] [X]
Esther
Ahria
Nhaev Miednic
Oveta Solari
Kova
Miecyzlaw "Mika" [X]
Korahi / Kiko
minor/side characters
oveta's kill count: 2
places
The Continent - map / visual
Omos
- Prota
- the Burrows
- the Blossom Lounge
Miednic / Northern Shore
- Kova
- Lhyr
- Espra
- Rawetua's Gate
- Salt Flats
- Korahi's Tomb
Nevmones
- Vinés
- Moriellé
- Bruasse
- The Bleeding Valley
*side quests are stories set within the universe of NH but with no direct relation to the original plot or characters. Angelfish, for example, is about a small crew of pirates searching for what lies beyond the map.
this story is nearly a decade old i promise if you ask me something i probably have the answer im just really bad at actually writing it down which is why so many things are blank
how much of my world building have i just completely failed to post about? do you guys know about the blossom war or the aerie? the seasons? the moons? have i said ANYTHING about the sprites??
Esther is a Prota local who was raised by her two older brothers – Sidiro (eldest) and Nima (middle). She was a trouble maker as a child, constantly being dragged home by the older siblings or parents of the kids she got in trouble with, and never truly grew out of it even as she matured.
They’re from an area of the city known as the “Rookery” which is a very tight, windy suburb of homes and streets and stores that intertwine and stack on top of each other like an ants nest or rabbits warren. This is the city slums, and its population are known as rooks or rookers. Years ago, an illness swept through the Rookery and took about a third of the population with it– including Esther’s parents.
Her brothers did their best with what they had, which was not much. They didn’t have time or resources, but they had an overabundance of love for one another.
To know Esther, you have to know her brother’s, so I will introduce them quickly.
Sidiro is a gentle giant. He’s asocial, preferring his own company over any other, he doesn’t like crowds or loud events or strangers in his spaces. Because of this, he struggled to make friends or connect with people outside of his siblings, and this earned him a lot of mockery and ridicule from his peers. A lot of the time, people would attempt to provoke him into reactions. (Sid is also trans, but that’s unrelated to the bullying bc transphobia doesn’t exist in my world.)
Nima is Sid’s opposite. He is very sociable, very loud, constantly seeking companionship and conversation and connection. Because his mind works fast and his mouth works faster, he can jump through 10 thoughts before you’re able to register what the first one even was, and he’s very creatively motivated so the way he views the world can be a little strange sometimes.
He’s got a heart of gold, but he’s not great at reading the room. A lot of the friends he thought he was making were actually people pretending so that they could make fun of him behind his back.
A lot of people lost a lot of teeth before they learned to stop fucking with Esther’s family.
Of the three of them, Nima and Esther are the only ones to have inherited the casting gene and it was Nima that taught Esther that her casting was hers. It got to look however she wanted it to. Nima himself, poured his casting into tailoring and is able to weave magic into the clothes and accessories he makes; which is a very rare skill to have. Esther, specialises in plant based magic.
She used to do street performances for money, like the magic equivalent of busking, and was scouted by a professor at Prota’s Academy for Beginner Casting (PABC) which earned her a scholarship. She started attending at age 13, with a lot to prove because most of the other students were there because they were rich. At PABC she met Atlas Lavore, and the two became friends the moment she dragged him into a lie to save her ass and he just went with it. They have been best friends since.
Esther met her wife, Ahria, after she graduated from her apprenticeship and came back to the Rookery. Ahria was working in Sid’s forge, and Esther came to visit him and instead ran into a very tall and beautiful and sweaty woman who proceeded to bash her face open. Esther nursed her back to health, and it was pretty much love at first sight for both of them. They got married within the first few years of their relationship.
The Esther we meet in The Library Keeper is about 23/24 years old and while she still has a trouble-making streak she has mellowed out somewhat. Her temper gets the best of her at times, but it’s only ever driven by protective justice; she is not the type to lose her cool over something trivial. She is there to both challenge and support Atlas, as well as to grow into herself more over the course of the books. Esther is someone with a unique perspective on strategy and a strong sense of justice, and these traits come in handy in the future.
notes
esther is trans, and took her mothers name
she makes flower crowns for ahria and enchants them so that they do not wilt
enjoys hearty, warm foods. also tends to hoard food, and can be touchy about people going near her during mealtimes.
knows first aid both magical and non-magical, but is not anywhere near a licensed healer.
she holds the map and is generally their navigator, though the actual route-planning is a group effort.
she can sew, bc nima thought it was important for her to know how to mend her own clothes.
Keika stealing the crown and killing Sasha was never about being king, or taking control of Omos– it was about Sasha. It was about taking everything from him, including his life– it was about doing what Keika believed that Sasha had done to him. Keika unmasked him before the city to reveal him as nothing more than a man before slaughtering him like an animal.
He’s left with a crown and a country that he doesn’t know what to do with, but he will sit on that throne and rule it anyway because he simply does not know what else to do. Keika has not known what to do or where to go or who he is since waking up in Miednic.
His life ended with Ahuru’s, with Korahi’s, with Sasha’s. Keika is nothing but a corpse, a ghoul without a leash.
Keika is nothing more than the hollowed remains of a Revived. He is not following instinct, or desire. He is scrambling, desperately, for a script that was not written for him and is trapped in the world's worst imitation of improv. But how do you improvise a tragedy?
Keika sits on a throne that is not meant for him, and hides his face beneath the blood stained mask of a man who was always supposed to die. He will introduce ruin because he does not know what else to do. He will hide inside the palace and slowly lose his mind until he is finally pushed too far.
Mattie will be revealed as a traitor, Nhaev will lose her trust in Keika, Ahuru and Esther will be the last straw. Atlas, his hero. Always his hero. Will put him out of his misery.
ive always rly liked the idea of a member of a group of adventurers having what everyone assumes is very well trained hawk and then at the end of their journey its casually revealed that thats actually just his buddy whos a shapeshifter and just rly likes being a hawk
the guy also like thinks everyone knows bc he never tries to hide the fact that the hawk is a person but everyone assumes hes always just joking. like the others being like "damn its crazy how he knows exactly what you want him to do its like he knows english or something." and the guy is just like "well yeah thats his first language so ofc he's fluent??" and they all go "haha good one" and move on, leaving him confused
they just think hes a quirky guy that really loves his pet and says things like "the 9 of us" even tho there are clearly only 8 people! he just cares about the bird so much he counts it as a group member haha !
no thoughts just drako and atlas hanging out. what are they doing? i have no idea
i actually think they'd get on so welllllll idk why bc neither of them are really this archetype but they give me the vibe of when two jock boys hang out. like they're constantly sparring and roughhousing and quite boisterous and exciteable w each other they're both v curious about the world and they like animals and drako introduces atlas to dea and atlas has about 10000 questions that drako is MORE than happy to answer he is always wanting people to ask him about dea and atlas is v academic which drako has a lot of practice w bc it's a trend that his favourite people are quite bookish and go on lengthy rants about random academia they're interested in so drako in turn is good at listening and asking a bunch of questions and they compare sword-care tips and oh okay they're sparring again
HELP I NEARLY MISSED THIS THIS IS SO FUNNY as i was reading i was like with how much atlas hypes guards up surely there's no way they dont know he's there and i was worried they'd spot him and be aggressive or mean or smthn so when they didn't i was like huh. okay! BUT THEM KNOWING HE'S THERE AND JUST NOT WANTING TO TALK TO HIM IS SO FUCKING FUNNY HELP im obsessed w tasia and kova do we get more of them at all
THEYRE SOOOOOO i fucking love guards, they're my favourite sub-group in the whole series. imagine the scariest most badass creature on the planet, and then give them social anxiety. they're like wolves.
i can absolutely write more about tasia and kova if they want, but if you mean within the actual books unfortunately not- you DO get to meet basia (bah-zee-ah, pronounced different to tasia) and jula, though, and they are just as delightful.
their appearance is also the only close-up you get of the guards in the books, so it's an arc thats v dear to my heart <3
ANYWAY YEAH kova and tasia are fully aware theyre being watched, and atlas couldn't see it but they kept shooting each other looks and having silent conversations about whether or not they should say something or leave or what
OKAY IT'S TIME IM ABOUT TO READ THE ATLAS BDAY FIC YAYYYY <3333
"anytime he's on my screen, whether its the canonical novels themselves, a writing exercise, a self indulgent crossover with my latest fixation, an analysis of his character- i am ALWAYS writing Atlas for you" TEARS IN MY FUCKIGNN EYEESSSSS i love you i love him i love nh im so happy omg omg
i know i sent you a whole para about the opening message of this post but "you are my best friend and i am so excited to be working now, because it means being able to finally start that travel fund i've been meaning to. we WILL have our awkward airport meeting 🫵" genuinely i am so!!!!! like w me hoping to go to aus next year and you working it feels like after FIVE YEARS we might finally be getting to see each other soon that's so <33333 awkward airport meeting pending
i am literally always saying this but i love your scene setting so much like your ability to just immediately immerse a reader into a scene so vividly and succinctly is amazing
HE'S TADPOLE HUNTING HE'S SO ME
"Too old for a nanny, too young for politics. Ripe age for dirty knees and catching bugs." WAHHHHHH MY BABY HE'S SO TINY
him apologising to the tadpoles oh my god i want to squish his cheeks
MONSTER HUNTERS!!!!!
i love this universe so much everything is so clear and dear to me it feels like a dream i had a long time ago or i life i lived before this one
obsessed w the domesticity of the two guards and the way that so clearly juxtaposes the reputation and childlike wonder atlas gives them in his povs
"Catching tadpoles was probably a waste of his ability." I LOVE THIS ABOUT HIMMMM he's supposed to be stifled and stiff and proper but there's a such a wonder and lust for life and adventure to him even in the way he catches tadpoles he adores the world around him and always wants to know more he's curious and has a desire for knowledge I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM
"I’m going to be a monster hunter. " BABY BOYYYY YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU WANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HE'S SO EVERYTHING!!!!!!! he wants to guard the world i feel sick that's my son
WORLDBUILDING NOTES FUCK YEAH I LOVE YOUR WORLDBUILDING!!!
"The line that Tasia gives, about forgetting beauty leading to dying slow, is from a Guard folk song." this is so fun you're so good at writing characters in ways that just intrinsically make them feel real and human no matter how fantastical their appearance or role
I KNEW THAT'S WHAT EFF-OH WOULD MEANNN I WAS LIKE I KNOW THEO'S WRITING DECISIONS AND HE IS NOT ABOVE NAMING SOMETHING 'FUCK OFF'. AND I WAS RIGHT
"But then Mordred was born, and Atlas wanted to see him grow up; and then he realised that without Atlas there, Mordred would be expected to fill his role. Being a Guard became a daydream that he rarely let himself indulge in, which is why he's so starry eyed over the pair they meet in the Library Keeper." so what im hearing is he chose mordred over his dream. before mordred even knew his brother atlas had chosen him. coolllllllll cool cool cool!!! cannot fucking stand them
THIS WAS SO BEAUTIFUL i read the whole thing w a little smile it literally felt like i just got a summer's day in the nhverse as my bday present like it felt so real like i could close my eyes and see it all unfolding around me UGH I LOVE THIS STORY SO FUCKING MUCH AND (louder than everyone else) I LOVE ATLAS LAVORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thank you so much for this my love im going to reread it 10 more times xxxxxxx
YAAAYYYY YIPPEEE i really was just trying to wrap up a summers day for you so im so glad it like. carried over?? i wanted to give you something warm and bright that i could drop atlas into and he's so the kind of kid to have gone tadpole hunting and cricket catching and tree climbing, so it was just. the perfect scenario!! AND HES SO TINY!!! small and full of love and light and i hope nothing bad ever happens to him.
"i love this universe so much everything is so clear and dear to me it feels like a dream i had a long time ago or i life i lived before this one" insane thing to say me, at this point youre half the reason i write these books
i love when things just click - i always forget that i wanted two moons in nh bc there was never any impact on the story but i was writing and it just sort of. clicked. in my head.
there are two moons and they rotate in opposite directions; every 7 months (one moon cycle) they cross paths which marks the start of the whale migration. a full year in NH is two moon cycles, or 14 months. the second moon is also pink.
normally i'd feel like a cocky jerk for writing about my own book for your birthday, but not when this character is as much yours as he is mine. anytime he's on my screen, whether its the canonical novels themselves, a writing exercise, a self indulgent crossover with my latest fixation, an analysis of his character- i am ALWAYS writing Atlas for you.
today i offer a slice of his childhood: a summers day that changed his life; a moment where he gets to be a child, unburdened, unrestrained, barefoot in the sun and dreaming of a future beyond his family name.
though a lot has changed since your last birthday, my love and appreciation for you has not. you're my biggest inspiration as a writer and an artist, always pushing me to strive for more within my work in ways that feel fun and fulfilling. i love the way i think of you whenever teenagers starts playing, the songs in my playlists i discovered through listening to yours, the movies that haunt me and the books in my collection i bought purely because you mentioned them.
you are my best friend and i am so excited to be working now, because it means being able to finally start that travel fund i've been meaning to. we WILL have our awkward airport meeting 🫵
anyway love you hope youre having a wonderful trip and an even better birthday, enjoy your slice-of-life atlas ficlet ft. monster hunters xoxo
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A warm summer day carried with it the earthy fragrance of river weeds and fresh mud, water gurgling over smooth brown pebbles and stretching wide between opposing river banks. A boy of barely 7 crouched in the reeds, tailored trousers rolled and scrunched until they caught tight above the knees, dark curls loose and riotous around his face. Mud oozed between his toes, speckling the brown skin of his shins. Water lapped at his ankles. Somewhere, a magpie carolled, and ducks took off with a fluttering splash.
Atlas, busy hunting for tadpoles, didn’t look up from the shallows.
Leperonia grew in stiff bundles that towered over him, fronds bowing gently under the weight of their flowers, stems tangled up in frogsmouth and hyssop and river mint. (A guide to aquatic plants still sat, open, in the grass behind him, next to his shoes and a lid.) Cicada’s buzzed. The river moved slow and lazy.
Hidden in his pocket of mud and plants and shade, the world felt muffled and private. Atlas watched the water carefully.
Tiny bugs zipped across the surface, carving ripples in their wake. Small grey fish darted from rock to stick to algae, little fins fanning and closing in the rhythm of his breaths. He fought the urge to wiggle his toes.
7 was a peculiar age for Atlas. He was still too young for his parents to have any particular investment in his pastime, but just old enough for the staff to shoo him out from underfoot. His curls were wild and loose, free to grow down past his ears but needing to be tied back in company.
Too old for a nanny, too young for politics.
Ripe age for dirty knees and catching bugs.
Movement caught his eye, and they went wide in an instant. A tiny dot darted into an open patch of sand, tiny brown body with a tiny wiggling tail. There was a jar tucked clumsily into the tight packed roots of the river plants, and Atlas reached for it very carefully. The glass was warm to the touch, firm and heavy as he picked it up. It scooped through with a schloop, water closing over his knuckles, cool and startling. It splashed and dripped, noisy as anything, when he lifted it back up.
“Aha!” He crowed, wet hands holding the jar up to inspect the wiggling creature caught within. His jaw dropped when he saw more than one.
Somehow, he’d caught three.
Something shifted and came loose beneath his foot, throwing off his balance. He wobbled, teetering with a yelp as his free arm flew out to grab for the stiffer stems of leperonia, the other just trying not to drop the jar.
It tilted violently, water teasing at the lip, and he quickly twisted his wrist to keep it upright. His heart raced, legs and bum wet from the started flail of his legs when he’d started tipping. Inside, the conditions were choppy, tadpoles bullied back and forth by the force of the waves, and Atlas was quick to get both hands back on the glass, only letting go for a moment to wipe his hair out of his face with an open palm.
Contrite, he pulled the jar close to his face, willing the water to go still. “I’m sorry!”
The tadpoles, now swirling much slower and beginning to dart about in their own patterns, said nothing. Tentatively, Atlas hoped himself forgiven. It was an accident, after all. His eyes flicked back down to the water, riverbed already settling. Maybe they’d feel better with some friends–
A sudden bark of laughter across the river startled him, already-wet hands slipping on the glass. The jar landed with a splash that soaked his shins and part of his face, sank instantly and spilled out bubbles as the tadpoles made a break for it.
He felt a pang of loss even as he ducked further behind the frogsmouth, wet hands pressed over his mouth. Through his fingers, the earthy scent of river-mint floating up amongst pond scum and duck feathers and silty sweat.
Too old for a nanny, too young for politics; but unfortunately still heir to the estate. For a long moment, he held his breath, heart hammering against his ribs for a second time until he was sure it would be bruised. When no one called out or grabbed him, Atlas carefully peered through the stalks.
His lungs emptied, eyes wide as saucers.
Guards.
Not the city guards, with their shiny armour and clean swords, who hung around the bridge playing cards, no. These were something else entirely.
Taller than any person he’d ever met and draped in danger, two figures noisily made their way down to the river with armloads of washing.
One, with the long tufted ears of a lynx and frizzy red curls falling out of a ponytail, was dressed in a wildberry gambeson and faded red boots. He held a crate of dishes to his chest, a stray mug hanging from a clawed finger.
The other, holding laundry, had very short black hair that stuck out like banksia leaves. Her arms were bare, the tanned skin scored with deep scars and mottled pigmentation that looked like scales. She was barefoot, dressed in a sunny yellow chemise with the sleeves ripped off and clay-orange pants.
Awe swelled in him like daybreak. The tadpoles were forgotten.
Both creatures were covered in soot, and shiny with sweat. Their swords hung through their belts without sheaths, blades still wet and glistening with blood. Monster blood.
Guard's were bedtime stories. The heroes in every cautionary tale. Unseen warriors, fighting back the dark tide of Taiua’s illness to leave the day's filled with light.
Atlas had never seen one before. No one had.
They kept to themselves, separate from civilisation, only drawing near when it was necessary. It was always said, though, that you'd know one when you saw one.
Now, he saw two.
They reached the edge of the water and dropped their hauls with twin grunts, the banksia-like woman taking advantage of the freedom to stretch her arms high above her head. As they came back down, she held them out int front of her, frowning. They were wrapped in splotchy, mismatched bandages, her hands black and clawed. Thin spines grew from her skin, laying flat over her elbow. They fanned out, dangerous, when she bent one arm, lifting her wrist to inspect something on it.
“I hate nippers.” She decided, words hacked and hissed but the voice smooth and rich. Omossi. Somehow, Atlas had never considered that they might speak common.
The lynx snorted, shrugging out of his gambeson to roll up the sleeves of his olive dress shirt. Like the woman, his arms showed signs of wear and tear, big hands stained a deep purple-black that faded as it climbed up towards his elbows. Each finger ended in a sharp claw at least half the length of the longest knuckle, hooked viciously at the tips.
He bent over to pick his crate back up, stepping into the burbling water (boots and all) and taking a seat on the first moss coated rock big enough. When he put the crate back down, wiggling it to get it stuck firmly among the river stones and dirt (the dishes made soft hollow taps where they collided, everything sturdy and wooden), the water rushed over everything inside, uninterrupted.
As he did this, the woman had slipped her sword free and was wiping the blade against the grass. “They’re always so bitey,” she complained. “And wriggly.”
“They’re all bitey,” The lynx pointed out, digging through the bowls for something. His accent was a little broader, somewhat lazy in the way most Miedians spoke. “And they’re not going to just lay down and be skewered.”
She sloshed through the shallows to get to him, his arm lifting to make room for her to take his sword too. The blades glittered under the sunlight, famously stained dark with the blood of the creatures they were built to hunt. She paused for a moment, water rushing around her shins and darkening the hems of her pants to a rich brown.
“Do you think we could?”
“Skewer them?” He asked, water spilling from the rag he unearthed, running down his wrist.
“They’re not the worst tasting.” She defended, splashing her way back to shore to give his blade the same treatment as her own. It left sticky trails in the grass, like snail slime.
(Atlas couldn't believe they were so close, and so...ordinary. He wanted to know what a nipper was, how the Guards got so tall, if they always made small-talk over chores.)
The lynx seemed to consider her words as he lathered up the cloth with a sliver of soap. And then, with gravity and aged regret– “Eff-oh’s.”
The woman made a retching noise. “Disgusting, it’s been a decade and I still can’t get the taste out of my mouth.”
Something cold bumped Atlas’s foot and he startled, snapping his head down. It was the jar, bobbing gently in the slow moving current and now caught between his foot and the hyssop roots. He reached for it, pruny fingers meeting river-chilled glass. It was heavy and water-logged, pouring out slow and thunderous as he lifted it free. He cringed at the continued splash, no louder than the cicadas but still drowning the conversation happening across the river.
Quickly, he twisted to put the jar up on higher ground, suddenly aware of the ache in his legs from crouching for so long. He didn’t want to leave though, enthralled with the fabled beings only a short swim away.
He’d missed some things, the woman now stretched out in the grass like a cat, the man slowly accumulating a pile of clean dishes on the rock closest to him. His ears flicked.
“Are you going to chip in any time soon, or are you just here for the sun?” He was asking, monstrous hands suddsy and gentle in their movements.
Atlas could hear the smile in her voice. “To forget there's beauty is to live a life that dies slow.”
The lynx barked a laugh that was part animal, part something dark and foul like the marshes after dark. A sound of humour either way, shoulders shaking and ears pricked high and delighted as he grinned down at his task. “Prick.”
She waved him off with a lazy hand and for a long moment neither of them spoke. Bugs clicked. The river murmured. The plants whispered and sighed. The afternoon was swelling into something fat and lazy, but the water was cool and refreshing around his feet.
A little bit bored of watching them do nothing, Atlas decided it couldn’t hurt to resume tadpole hunting- as long as he was quiet about it. He looked at the Guards for another moment before turning his attention back to the water, peering intently.
This time when he caught the flicker of movement, the briefest wiggle of an impossibly small body, Atlas let his hands get warm and tingly. The water around the tadpole went still, and then swirled up. He held his palms out, nailbeds burning but not painful, as the small pocket of river water floated in a rippling bubble. The tadpole swam in circles. Atlas let it settle in his hands, a balm against the reddening skin of partial starburn, and brought it close to his face. Along with the tadpole, there were some small stones and a cloud of silt, leaves from an underwater plant dancing lazily.
He glanced up through the plants.
Guards were supposed to be magic. But it was one of those things that no one knew if was really true. Casters could be Guards, but apparently people had seen minglings or shifters perform spells against monsters.
Atlas watched the water in his hands, and then lowered them back down, releasing the hold of his magic and letting it disperse into the current. The tadpole looped around his fingers and fled. His arms ached, now, veins and tendons tight and overworked, the skin around his nails raw and close to peeling. He’d had morning lessons, his parents determined to instill casting discipline as early as possible.
It was important, apparently, for a Lavore’s stardust to be as controlled and graceful as everything else about them. A perfected dance, rather than a beloved craft.
Catching tadpoles was probably a waste of his ability.
Atlas peered through the leperonia again.
The woman had now joined the man, her hair and clothes dripping from where she must have taken a dunk. She seemed happy enough though, clean of soot and wringing out a patchy travel blanket. As far away as he was, Atlas couldn’t tell if either of them had the tell-tale starburn of a regular caster, but he wondered if it would show up at all on creatures already so different.
Atlas looked down at his own hands, smooth and baby soft, raw fingertips already starting to develop a permanent redness that would soon be glittering scar tissue. They were wet and pruny, speckled with silt and bits of grass and algae.
He looked back to the Guards, now idly quizzing each other on monster statistics as they dried dishes and hung up laundry, moving onto other menial tasks like mending. A gruesome reminiscence of a school lesson was paused to compare threads that were promptly swapped as the story started back up.
Hiding in the frogsmouth and the hyssop at the edge of his family’s estate, watching the Guards talk about monsters amidst laughter and humming and chores...Atlas felt something inside him shift, and wake up.
He imagined himself on the other side of the river, barefoot on Lhyr - Miednic - soil. He wanted, desperately, to know what an eff-oh was, what it tasted like that was so horrible. He wanted to have a bestiary always on the tip of his tongue, ready to spill out names and statistics like they were little more than tableware.
He imagined himself impossibly tall, with a dark sword in hand, guarding the world.
I want to do that. He realised, watching the woman stretch to pull the swords towards her, whetstone in hand. I’m going to do that.
It unfurled in him like a flower, hardening like clay in the kiln.
I’m going to be a monster hunter.
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notes on guards:
The Guards depicted here are Tasia (the woman) and Kova (the man). Tasia’s name is pronounced like asia, and she is a tiger snake shifter.
The line that Tasia gives, about forgetting beauty leading to dying slow, is from a Guard folk song. It’s often quoted amongst Guards as a motto of sorts.
“Eff-oh” is short for the nickname Guards have given to a particular monster. It’s an absolute pain in the ass AND comes in flocks. The general reaction to this creature is a dismayed ‘oh fuck off’ leading them to be called Fuck Off’s or, simply Eff-Oh’s.
Practically every monster has two names, the literal one that would be found in bestiary’s, and the nickname Guards have developed for it. (Eg: bogsnake, nipper, fishface.)
Atlas really did try to become a guard, and it was part of his original plan when he started to campaign for PABC. he was going to leave for Prota, but disappear before he could get there and find Krev'atu instead. But then Mordred was born, and Atlas wanted to see him grow up; and then he realised that without Atlas there, Mordred would be expected to fill his role. Being a Guard became a daydream that he rarely let himself indulge in, which is why he's so starry eyed over the pair they meet in the Library Keeper.
was thinking the other day about the different ways the core three grew up affect them across the quest. atlas was a noble, so there's some obvious things there. but i wanna talk about the giirrrlllsss.
ahria, despite being poor, never truly wanted for food. the blossom lounge keeps their workers fed on hearty meals meant to give them energy and keep them healthy so that they can do their jobs properly. it's nothing fancy, but its filling, and there was always enough for everyone. on top of that, the lounge is riddled with grazing tables for the clients; platters of fancy cheese and fresh fruit and chocolate that a quiet little girl could sneak things from easily. ahria was never hungry. what she didn't have, was an education and a social life with kids her own age. while she can read and write as an adult, it's all very basic. probably not much higher than lower primary school? enough to get her by, enough to allow her to communicate with her mum and navigate the world but she still struggles. it's something atlas doesn't address because he's worried about how it would come across if it came from him, and esther unfortunately perfectly understands ahria's refusal to ask for her help. ahria's not a proud person, necessarily, but we all have our insecurities. it's actually keika who pushes the issue, who notices that ahria struggles and then notices that it bothers her. he helps, in his own grouchy im-not-helping-you--im-just-bored kind of way. it's part of what bonds them across their journey, along with ahria teaching keika sword work.
esther on the other hand had an education, albeit a simple one, and was scouted for PABC when one of the instructors saw her street magic one day; but what she didn't have easy access too, was food. her brothers did their best but they were two teenagers in the rookery who worked hard but never enough to afford to eat well and send their sister to school and keep their house and pay the fines when said sister got in trouble with the city guards. so food was scarce and often unappetising and the three of them learned all sorts of tricks in preserving and stretching meals and making something out of nothing. it means esther can be really weird about food. and its far more noticeable when they're on the road and no longer have a stable supply. its not intense, but there's habits and tricks that slip in here and there. pushing herself to finish everything so there's no waste, complaining that a bit of mold isn't enough reason to throw out the bread, hoarding berries and mushrooms in her pockets. markets stress her out, but they stress her out more not to go because she doesn't trust atlas not to fall for the vendors lies (again) and ahria, bless her, has the weirdest taste.
yes it DOES stress her the fuck out when they wind up w an extra mouth to feed, which is why she's so snippy the first couple nights keika's with them until he starts proving he's not useless. (mans staying up half the night squinting at foraging books and trying to remember what Toa taught him about hunting 😭)
