She looked about eighteen—a knight-appellant, likely, in her last year of training. Her average build and chestnut-brown skin could’ve placed her home anywhere in Scania, but small details betrayed her Myrhi heritage: a silver silk sash around her training tunic, the delicate weave of her ivory shirt. Of all Scanians, Myrhi cared most about sartorial elegance, and even the grime of knight-training wouldn’t rob them of it.
They were also usually even-keeled and poised, yet the girl before me seemed to have missed that memo.
She stood, scowling, knees bent, sword waving. “Fight me!”
Meet Dayoni, The Human Personification of the (ง'̀-'́)ง Emoji One of Sarra’s Other Nemeses
Her grip on the sword was off. The handle was too big for her—likely a family blade, made for another. She was short for a Myrhi; whoever had wielded the sword before her must’ve had bigger hands.
“Fight me, traitor!” She shoved me with her free hand, and I repressed the urge to grab her sword and thwack her over the head with it. “I challenge you! Your mother’s grandmother was a cowardly doe! Your home is built upon a pile of mule dung!”
That stung unexpectedly. Wolf’s Glen seemed to have become a bit of a sensitive topic. Go figure.
“To the death!” Her blade drew an angry X in the air. “Dishonorable cur! Grease stain on the glorious Knight Corps’ flag!”
Twin Gods, but she was imaginative. “Who are you, again?” I checked the forming spectator crowd for a hint of who’d put her up to this, but among the smirks and scowls, no one stood out.
The girl’s blade waved at my face, and I leaned back slightly, worried her uneven grip might slip and leave me short a nose tip.
“I am Dayoni Amel! Knight-appellant, next in line to take the Final Challenge!” She pointed her sword at my chest. “For the honor of the Knight Corps, I challenge you to a knight duel!”
“No, thanks.” I turned away. A stunned silence followed, but only for a second—then a hand gripped my arm and yanked me back.
“Coward!” shrieked the girl. “Weakling! Traitor! Too scared to face a true knight in—”
“Actually, you’re no knight.” I nodded to her training tunic. “Only anointed knights may fight a knight-duel. For anyone else to issue that challenge—such as agitated little knights-appellant who don’t know better—is a breach of Corps law.”
The girl looked off-balance, but only briefly. “I’m more of a knight than you ever were!” She spat on the ground. “You’re no knight! You’re nothing but a vow-breaking, dishonorable—”
“If I’m not a knight, then I can’t be challenged to a knight-duel.” I raised my eyebrows. “It’s right there in the name. Challenging anyone but another knight is also against Corps law... Don’t they teach you children anything in your Code classes these days?”
She stared at me, jaw grinding.
“Fine! Then I challenge you to a regular duel.” She stabbed her sword at the air, and gave me a defiant look. “Fight me!”
~~~~~~~~~~
Dayoni Amel is a knight-appellant (i.e. advanced trainee) in her last year of training). As one of few girls in knight-protector training at the time of Sarra’s (staged) defection, Dayoni suffered not only the disillusion of seeing the lady she admired betray the Corps, but also the unintended consequences of Sarra’s actions: various sexist jerks in the Corps decided to take out their hatred against Sarra on all girls training to be knights, making their lives in training a nightmare. Did Sarra’s boss, who knew the truth, stop this? No. He did not care.
Dayoni was the only girl to make it through this adversarial training, through a combination of skill, stubbornness, and cunning, but over her six years of suffering she developed a hefty grudge against Sarra, whom she blames for the horrible experience. When Sarra returns, Dayoni decides to kill her, to avenge the dishonor to the Corps, prove that girls can make loyal knights-protector, and thus make the training experience of other girls in the future easier than her own.
Best qualities: determined, self-confident, hard-working, intelligent, good fighting skills, strong sense of justice and responsibility, loyal
Worst qualities: impulsive, resentful, a little insensitive, stubborn as heck, she and Sarra have more traits in common than either cares to admit prideful, easy to anger
Goal: Kill Sarra for the sake of all girls who want to train as knights. LOGIC. altho in her defense anyone who had to listen to six years of ‘women are disloyal jerks’ might form some maladaptive cognitions around that
Biggest obstacle to her goal: Sarra isn’t easy to kill.
Times she says ‘fight me’ to Sarra: 50+
Times Sarra actually fights her: 2
Times Dayoni wins the fight: lol
Inventive insults hurled at Sarra: 4000
Inventive insults hurled at Sarra’s horse: 1 because then Sarra fights her. FOR THE HONOR OF THE HORSE. Ok i’m kidding that’s not why they fight.
Hello Other Dove! ^^! If you’re participating in STS, today is the beginning of Black History Month, please tell us about your Black characters and/or characters of color!
Thank you for this great q! i was actually sitting out STS today b/c of work, but briefly popping back in to answer this Black-History-Month-relevant ask.
While most of my main cast are characters of color (more about the various races of Knight Errant here), I’ll focus on Myrhi characters for this, since all the Myrhi in the cast are black. (there are non-black people living on Myrh Island, but the Myrhi as a people are predominantly black)
The two Myrhi in the central cast are Dayoni, a knight-in-training who holds a spectacular grudge against Sarra, and Sir Justus, the royal spymaster and Sarra’s boss. They’re both originally from Myrh Island (the island that was moved closer to the continent via magic, to join w/ two other lands and form Scania), and share some of the usual Myrhi attributes -- good knowledge of history, mastery of various languages, great sense of fashion -- but in most other ways they’re v different. Dayoni is stubborn, straightforward, action-driven, and sees everything as clear-cut right or wrong. Sir Justus thinks in more abstract shades of grey, and prefers subtle influence to the direct head-on approach.
As for their character arcs -- Dayoni spends most of the book trying to kill Sarra in a fair duel, to “restore the honor” of all young women who want to be knights and are doubted because Sarra turned errant. her actual arc is learning to redirect some of that anger toward the sexist jerks who came up with that narrative in the first place But also she gets in Sarra’s way at every turn. She is a very competent fight-me emoji.
Sir Justus wants to stop the Prelate from hurting the King and destabilizing Scania, and his arc is about trying to uncover all the threads of the conspiracy and see the full picture -- all the while being at odds with Sarra, who disapproves strongly of his methods. He’s pretty confident that his strategy is correct, but might exhibit some character growth if no one’s looking ;)
