also the odd repeating motif of 'brother' throughout some of the major player ocs.
gharial who felt a hollow spot in her being all her life. the place something vital was ripped out before she knew it existed. and he's the end of her childhood and the start of the adventure and she'd give anything for him that he accomplished what she couldn't in freeing their father. but he's also the sun and he scorches her, the laughter in the face of her rage, the beloved to her never belonged. it's complicated, the serpent and the crocodile twining around each other, are they embracing or are they trying to kill? god split her and her brother wrong in the womb. he got kindness, and (she) got longing. he got complacence, and (she) got ambition.
carmille who was never really meant to have a relationship with her older brother. thirteen years, different mothers, he left to pursue his own fate when she was almost too young to remember him, and most of what she recalls is their father separating them from bickering. but he was the last pirate left in the family as she came of age, and when her living situation became untenable, she thought he would understand. he doesn't. he doesn't understand anything but his own strengths and ambitions and ennui. she played the part of silent sentinel and attendant as he carved greater infamy into the family name. even if it wasn't good for her, it was great for him, and she was proud of all he accomplished -- until he threw it away to be a dog of the navy. the parting was acrimonious. their dealings in her adulthood are purely pragmatic on her part. she still begged her leader for her brother's life when the military comes crashing down. he's still in the shadows of her performances. if you love me, it is not in a language i speak, but it's spoken all the same.
oriana who had nothing but her brother, her little brother, a year behind, a world away. the servant girl and the cossetted heir. he lost the soul that was supposed to be at his side, but he still had a sibling in her. a childhood spent seeing her only as his ana, trying to bring her into the world he thought she deserved, a place where they were equals and confidants and like the other siblings he saw in society. a young man speaking freely of when he rules the family, when he breaks her bondage, when he takes over from their father. the only love she had for so long, and their father saw it as distraction, a sickness to be cut out. they haven't seen each other since she was 18 years old. her brother still prays for her, wherever she ended up, that she at least broke her chains. she mourns that her crusade and his, tradition versus liberation, are so at odds that he'll just be another opened throat during judgment day. but they are still brother and sister. nothing can take that from them. not even the war.
and then there's dulcinea, who was taken so tiny she doesn't even know there was a brother to miss, a family that would have loved her. she only had an imaginary friend who tended to her wounds and wore a funny coat. then the reality arrives during the worst span of her life, easing her in to truths she thinks are the delusions of an enemy. it's just that she can't help loving him. she thinks he's as lonely as she is, maybe more. she doesn't want anyone to feel that way, even if she does think he's cracked. she's the north star and the sunshine to a waning moon of a man that keeps getting beaten down and has since childhood, and the trade off is she finally feels safe -- even if she still wonders whether any of it is true or not. it doesn't matter. the man she's blood related to made her so unsafe. she can't choose her father, but she can choose a brother, right? she can follow what feels right instead of what the world forced on her. all she has to do is love him, and help him, and not worry about anything else.