something to be said about the fact firinne spent his life incredibly insecure about his worthlessness and how easy it was for him to be locked away and forgotten but his 'murder' by the brotherhood literally started the plot like he's the reason rin started planning to poison kiva firinne is arguably the cause of the next era of war between humans and wisers. like i do think there's something i could build on there how there's a connection between firinne and herines, and use that to write faucis's death. hmmmmmmmm
firinne is just so. so effortlessly upsetting like can you imagine you're firinne abalaoi and you're born the first and only boy in a crowd of sisters and your mother loves you in an excessive, doting way that makes your sisters jealous and you're firinne abalaoi and you're six when you're first told that lying is bad and you're firinne abalaoi and you're eight when you call out the last of your father's lies because this entire time you were his biggest one and you get locked in your chambers and you're firinne abalaoi and you're ten when you realise your mother doesn't love you anymore and when everyone goes to bed you sneak out of the broken door to try on hats and see what meals have been prepared for tomorrow and you imagine the conversations and how nebetta will kick cari in the knee and the exact tone your father will use when he shouts at them and you're still able to smile at the thought and you're firinne abalaoi and your voice breaks behind closed doors and your first stubble grows in an empty bedroom and you shed the shroud of childhood completely alone with no one to even note its departure and you wonder what you could have done so wrong to make them hate you so much and you're firinne abalaoi and you're fourteen when you stop blaming yourself and you escape and escape means it's truly over now means they're never going to love you enough to open the door and you're firinne abalaoi and you no longer go by abalaoi and you don't know who you are because you never even got to go outside and you're left in the fumbling, desperate aftermath of that and all people can do is call you moody
I just have to say the more you post about firrine the more obsessed with him I become. He really did not stand out to me at first but he just occupies so much of my brain he facinates me, especially his relationship with some of the other characters I think it's so interesting.
In that vein, I was wondering about his relationship with nebetta during the alliance and after the war. Would they be closer than before or would he hold any resentment towards her for his childhood?
no bc this ask made me so excited bc literally!!! even i have days where im like 'there are so many more enigmatic or charismatic or funnier or angstier characters than him he's not really that special' but that truly is the tragedy of firinne abalaoi and it links directly to how his relationship with nebetta pans out.
as children, nebetta was his favourite sibling. as the eldest, she was the most assured and had already been introduced to high society; she was growing independence from her parents and it was only a matter of time before she married and got out of lochfall for good. because of this, she wasn't as nervous of her parents' wrath as her sisters (a theme even when she was younger), so she would risk going to see firinne. she'd give him fruits and talk to him about her day and her inventions and books she'd read and people she'd spoken to in the capital and she'd create this beautiful tapistry of a wild, affluent life of the successful noblewoman, and as a boy, firinne would listen enraptured. he practically WORSHIPPED his time with nebetta and he was very grateful to her. that's important. because now we get into firinne's psyche, and the fact that as a child and very much haunting his adulthood, firinne is convinced he is bad. he is The Bad Child and he is a monster like the creatures roaming the deserts and he is unwanted and there has to be a reason his wonderful mother threw him away and so the reason must lie with him. he hates himself so thoroughly that it doesnt even register, it just is. so he's grateful for anything he's given and he doesn't envy nebetta. to him, she's a hero from a book. she is The Good Child. he knows he can never be her, but he dreams of her life and wonders about her and admires her and holds her to this high standard. it's sad because it's a very warped version of what typically happens with a youngest sibling looking at the eldest, but they never got that normality.
when firinne is fourteen and turns vengeful, he's the angriest he's ever been. he finally admits his parents were the monsters and he needs to get away, but he holds onto nebetta for a few years longer. it takes time with the brotherhood and their unconditional love and support for him to realise nebetta wasn't as perfect as he realised. he knows she loved him and he can never truly hate her, but she didn't love him enough to help him and he realises that now, allows himself to resent it now. during the alliance, he's TERRIFIED of nebetta. he tries to play off as bitter and moody and he IS, he really really is because why did HE have to get the wiser gene? it was literal pot luck and it could have gone to nebetta, and would their parents have kept her if it had been her? would it make him feel better to know they wouldn't have? but beneath all that aggression there's also a little boy who hero-worshipped his big sister and still very much ties her to the only positivity he had in his childhood. he wants - needs - someone from his real family to still love him because he still desperately craves their approval despite all of the healing he did with the brotherhood. so when he first sees nebetta and he gets standoffish and stares her down and is ready to argue with that 'i have just as much right to be here as you do' just to get cut off when she hugs him? he crumbles and nebetta is sorry and she acknowledges that she didn't do enough while also pointing out that she was never the all-powerful hero he saw her as; she feared their parents too. she's just sorry that the thing she feared was meeting firinne's fate, and she let it stop her from rescuing him from it.
from that moment on they both realise they can build something again, something better than what they used to have. and that's what they do over tbos, and it becomes truer and truer and easier and easier.
when firinne loses faucis and nebetta loses darya not long after, they're both shoved into very similar times of their life, but they respond to it so fucking differently that it creates their first big rift since being reunited. because nebetta is The Good Child, and in the face of that gaping grief, she plants flowers and teaches kindness and quietly goes back to her duties and hobbies and she doesnt hide her face from the world no matter how much she wants to. her bad days are still so irrefutably harmless; she curls up in bed and refuses to come back until she feels better. and for a while firinne doesnt question it, doesnt wonder if nebetta's grief is just as furious despite looking so different to his, and it makes firinne defensive because nothing about his grief is soft. he lashes out and isolates and obsessively latches onto things and slips into depression and he hurts anyone who tries to help him and he throws things at the wall. this is what i meant when i said silverhall makes him respect nate, because nate is the only other person who let his grief be that ugly.
the quest features nebetta a lot as quite a nagging figure from firinne's povs. she's always checking on him and when she's not visiting she's writing to him and he starts to hate her for it, because he can hardly even hold a conversation without snapping at someone and she's good enough to do fucking admin right now. he feels like he did at lochfall in those last few days, when he was angry and bad and monsterous and alone. the quest and the third amagi gang are what pull him from his grief in the end, and when he expects nebetta to be angry with him for what he put her through, especially now he realises perhaps those letters and visits weren't as selfless as he thought; perhaps she was struggling just as much and needed her brother and he wasn't there, instead, nebetta welcomes him home with open arms and a smile.
like all siblings, it's complex and has good and bad days and they both are stubborn and righteous. firinne blames nebetta for things out of her control. nebetta cant help but be hurt by firinne's failings. but still, clumsily, they love each other for the rest of their lives.
firinne abalaoi is an ainebela who can always tell when someone is lying. he was born not only to two human parents, not only into a high house, but to the most traditional, old noble family in burnos. not great for him, obviously.
firinne is the only son of samas and cyra abalaoi, who had eight children total, the eldest being nebetta with firinne as the third youngest (he's child no.5). cyra was desperate for a boy and she adored firinne for much of his childhood, and he was too young to recognise how materialistic and conditional her love was until he caught her in a lie one day. it first happened when he was six, a trivial lie he cant even remember now, and from then on he constantly caught his parents and siblings out when they were lying. it was mainly childish snitching whenever his siblings did something wrong, because he was always so desperate for his mother's love and wanted her to appreciate him, but she quickly realised there was something strange about it and it started to include lies that firinne literally had NO WAY of knowing were lies, and samas got uncomfortable whenever she broached the topic. one dinner, firinne again called one of his sisters out, and cyra slammed her cutlery down, demanding samas tell her what was wrong with firinne. firinne was only eight, watching in confusion. samas lied and said he didn't know, firinne must just be different, or perhaps simple (his dad literally accused an eight year old firinne of that instead of admitting the truth. hot people hate the abalaois). it hurt firinne's feelings a lot, but he quietly pointed out that his father was lying because one thing about firinne is that he's suchhh a bitch without even meaning to be a lot of the time. samas snapped then and finally revealed that the reason he is so honourable is because their ancestors weren't always. his great-grandfather lay with a wiser. they were lucky that dreea's kiss skipped their blood by some miracle, until now it seems. the wiser had an ability surrounding manipulation; she could convince anyone of anything. it seemed that firinne had caught that gene, twisting it into his own ability; the ability to tell when someone is lying.
technically speaking, firinne is very much more human than he is wiser because he has two human parents, but anti-wiser sentiment and the dominance of wiser genetics fucks him over. he's very much considered a wiser now and in his mother's eyes he literally just stops being human to her OVERNIGHT. she begins to hate him. he becomes their greatest shame, and they hide him away. he literally gets locked up in his own part of lochfall and his sisters aren't allowed to see him and if anyone asks, they say he suffered an injury that has left him bedbound. it becomes common knowledge in the royal court that the abalaoi's only son is in a vegetative state somewhere in lochfall, and samas and cyra let people pity them, and all the while, firinne is alone and a child and he's scared and so so confused, but still so desperate for his parents' affection that he doesn't argue with them for a very long time.
the mistreatment from his parents continued until firinne was fourteen, when kiva was coronated and went on a royal tour around the noble houses. firinne was desperately excited as he had been raised in the very Traditional Abalaoi Way, so was obsessed with the harasaeons. to the old timey nobles, the harasaeons are gods of the earth. they ADORE them. on top of that, drako is like some super cool 19 year old when kiva becomes queen, renowned for his fighting ability, his bravery in the southern slaughter when he was the same age as firinne, the fact he has the most powerful aineanum EVER, and on top of all of it, his kindness and humility. firinne has a whole ass crush he's just a helpless teenage boy looking starry-eyed at this prince like anyone else.
of course, samas and cyra completely forbid him from leaving his part of lochfall, let alone joining the party. these past few years as firinne realised more and more that his parents genuinely hate him and he's never going to be able to get their love, he's become more and more bitter. he's in his rebellious tween phase and he's angry at the world and he's seen the same rooms and walls every day for years with only his sisters showing any form of kindness to him and even then only in secret. so, firinne finally argued with his parents, sick of being kept a secret for something so out of his control. worried by this outburst, his parents, who by now had no love for firinne, were desperate to get rid of him. the only reason they didn't kill him years ago was because they were too scared of dreea's wrath, as the westlands are full of monsters created by her and wisers are obviously dreea's territory because she created them, so killing one and a child no less (THEIR child no less) would piss her off to no end.
firinne overheard his parents discussing this and was just Horrified because he knows they hate him but they're literally talking about how to get around the fact they can't kill him. he runs back to his room in a panic, and there, lying on firinne's bed with his muddy boots kicked up on the covers, lounging about like he owns the place, flicking through firinne's diary, is nate.
he gives firinne the happiest little grin like 'oh good! you're back!' and firinne is just frozen to the spot thinking he's hallucinating. he finally finds his voice and notices the window is wide open and that means this guy - despite them being on the third floor - somehow CLIMBED INTO FIRINNE'S ROOM, and firinne is like 'who the fuck are you' and nate just gets up and brushes himself off and chucks firinne's diary over his shoulder very casually, before going 'you might have heard of me. im nathairan, pleasure to meet you' and firinne is still just in such a state of shock so he very quietly is like 'n...nathairan.... nathairan like... okay.... well.... that's an unfortunate name' which makes nate laugh and he's like 'well i would argue that abalaoi is also an unfortunate name, at least for a wiser' at which point the shock dissipates and all at once firinne realises how much danger he's in because he's pretty fucking sure that's nathairan of kroi in his room even though this guy only looks like he's not much more than a teenager himself and what the fuck is happening and why the fuck was he reading his diary and how does he know firinne's a wiser and- aaaaand firinne panics and grabs the closest object to him - a candelabra - and threatens to hit nate with it. nate literally almost doubles over laughing HE'S SUCH A CUNT and is like 'will you, lord abalaoi? im surprised you have time for such esteemed weapons training between all your sonnets about the youngest harasaeon' AND HE STARTS QUOTING FIRINNE'S DIARY WHERE FIRINNE LITERALLY WROTE ABOUT DRAKO AND FIRINNE LITERALLY WANTS TO DIE it's such a funny scene i love them so much.
anyway, it turns out that darra had a vision. ive said before but darra's prophecies tend to be very vague. he sees things that are going to be important but he very rarely sees WHY they're important, for instance in book 2 he knows the skelfornes are super relevant and he knows silverhall is super relevant, but he doesn't know why. this happens with firinne. he has a vision that shows him that the abalaois have a wiser in the family in the form of firinne, and somehow, this boy is going to be integral to the brotherhood. at the time, the brotherhood are still pretty small and only partake in petty crime. kawl has been dead a few years now, but still, when he died 'the brotherhood' was literally just darra, naithan, nate and gi, whereas in the few years that have passed, nate has singlehandedly got them a stronghold and significantly more numbers. when darra tells him about firinne, nate is sceptical. he'd go and help anyway because now he's aware of a wiser in such a precarious position he's hardly going to leave him there, but he doesn't understand darra's vision. still, he trusts him implicitly and sets off for lochfall, arriving just in time.
nate was very honest and told firinne all of this, ending by extending an offer to firinne for him to join the brotherhood, and firinne is still very much in the 'this is nathairan of kroi. this is literally nathairan of kroi. what the fuck' mindset so he's just stood there wielding a fucking candelabra and staring at nate like he has two heads. now this is where it gets interesting, because the thing with firinne is that - despite being a wiser and very much being treated like one by his parents - he's been raised as an abalaoi, therefore he's been raised to HATE wisers and has some really fucked up beliefs about them that he's never questioned to be false. he's got the worst case of internalised wiserphobia (?) youve ever seen, so he's TERRIFIED of nate and naturally wants to turn him down.
BUT never underestimate the power of an angry traumatised fourteen year old. it's BECAUSE he has so much disgust and hatred for nate and the brotherhood that firinne actually considers nate's offer. he's MAD mad at his parents rn and this is literally the biggest teenage rebellion of the century. the brotherhood are a symbol of everything his parents hate; in joining them, he is giving them the most brutal middle finger ever. so he agrees, and he leaves with nate to join the brotherhood. he thinks he's all grown up and being super clever but it was actually a really dumb thing for him to do. the fact the brotherhood are actually nice and didn't take advantage of him was pure luck; he could've been manipulated by ANYONE when he was in this mindset and it's just another shitty thing his parents allowed to happen to their son. hearing the brotherhood had been west when firinne disappeared, samas and cyra covered any traces in firinne's room of what looked very much like he'd run away, and claimed the brotherhood had murdered him. firinne resented this at first and insisted he make it public that he'd joined the brotherhood, which darra, naithan and gi were all for because it's a HUGE symbol, but nate refused and said they were going to instead take full credit for killing firinne. literally NO ONE agreed with him but they all also would trust nate with their lives, and low and behold as i'll explain in a sec, this wound up being a really clever move by nate.
in the meantime, the brotherhood embraced firinne and he, slowly, very fucking slowly, unlearned a lot of his beliefs, realising the beauty of wisers and their abilities. for the first time in his life, he had a family that loved him, and he never regrets leaving lochfall.
one thing about the abalaoi sisters is that they're very, very good at listening. cyra told nebetta about how, a few years before nebetta was born, kiva harasaeon stayed at lochfall to give birth to a child that was half wiser. cyra tells nebetta all about what happened after, how lilla was killed (because lugalia tells the abalaois that lilla is dead in order to ease their minds). nebetta, not realising the gravity of such a story at such a young age, goes on to tell her sister, who tells her other sister, etc etc until it gets back to firinne. it's just basic family gossip but when firinne joins the brotherhood he is out to Get his parents like he wants to ruin them and the rest of the nobility that hated him so much, so he tells nate anything he knows, even if it's just useless gossip. this, of course, includes kiva's secret, which nate latches onto. even with lilla supposedly dead, it's the kind of thing that could topple the very concept of the monarchy as they know it, and he gets super excited and starts plotting but the whole time darra and naithan are just Looking at each other. they never told nate about lilla, first because he was quite young and it just wasn't really relevant, and after kawl's death because they knew nate would want to take advantage of it, and despite everything, darra and naithan are still honouring the promise they made to kiva and by extension the promise they made to arta (moreso for arta obvs). they're protecting lilla from nate, which is really fucking sad if you think about it, but firinne triggers everything because it forces them to tell nate the truth. it leads to a big argument between darra, naithan and nate because he's naturally furious that they kept quiet about this, but they resolve it and sure enough, nate goes to get lilla, and a few years later, tbos starts.
firinne's actions lead directly to a period of exponential success for the brotherhood. amongst wisers up north, lilla becomes a very well kept but for all that open secret. she shows them her birthmark and that's that. the brotherhood now has a plan; get lilla on the throne and enter a period of wiser/harasaeon unity just like the old times long before the first war. because of this actual solid goal, recruitment is higher than its ever been. amongst humans, the brotherhood stop being a ragtag group of bandits and become the notorious group that murdered a high house son in his own home. they become more than feared. nathairan of kroi's bounty goes from fifty gold pieces to five hundred almost overnight. they actually become a Threat and it puts them on the radar. this is what darra's prophecy foretold.
some fun facts about firinne:
he never really got a childhood so his personality is very temperamental because he's literally a kid that just never got socialised with other people like man was on lockdown for six years that's gonna fuck with you. he's bitchy and mean and has a super quick temper that's very hard to navigate, he doesn't really know how to read social cues, he can be incredibly immature, and he actually can be quite annoying sometimes. still the brotherhood are super fond of him and they Get him even when he's being difficult
on a good day firinne is just very pissy like he's not helpful AT ALL and that's the noble in him. firinne x manual labour is the biggest rarepair in tbos
there is always a betting pool on firinne and what's gonna make him snap next LMAO because he's so generally pissy that it all kind of builds and builds until one tiny thing/person (usually person) makes him snap and he just tears a strip off them. loki always starts the betting pools. little does everyone know firinne is actually well aware of these and will cater his temper to who's pissing him off lately and/or who he's getting on well with. one time naithan - who had bet on lilla being the next thing to set firinne off - gave firinne the biggest portion of food bc he'd made firinne's favourite and firinne literally took the bowl, went 'thanks :)' and immediately turned and started YELLING at lilla while she just sat there spoon half-raised to her mouth like 'what the fuck did i do im literally just sitting here'
fourteen year old firinne wrote an entire para in his diary about how excited he was to meet the royals and how much of a crush he had on drako and this is the part nate teases him about when they meet. on top of that, nate continues to tease firinne about shit he read in his diary and firinne is literally at a loss for words bc nate literally managed to read the whole thing in like 5 mins AND proceeded to use it as bullying material for the next five years. until he doesn't and the tables turn very substantially
firinne has dirt on a lot of people because he notices them actively telling a lie but Will Not Say Anything, so they'll think they got away with it and then a month later he'll bring it up like an absolute shit
out of everyone in the brotherhood, firinne has the most difficulty with nate. he still can't get over the whole 'nathairan of kroi' thing and it doesnt help that when he feels attacked nate's go to is 'actively provoke'. also at the end of the day nate is very much the one in charge and firinne will take one look at an authority figure and go 'no <3'
his favourites are nareen and faucis, who i'll talk about separately
firinne and nareen BOTH struggle with social cues, except firinne is like 'haha yeah my parents literally locked me up for a massive portion of my formative years' and nareen is like 'my guy i am just neurodivergent'. they understand each other a lot better than the rest of the brotherhood members do though and there's a real solidarity there
firinne has a very brotherly relationship with faucis because faucis is just never ever put off by firinne's temper/general shittiness and firinne doesn't know what to do with that. it's like a very clumsy navigation of friendship that sees firinne being generally very confused a lot of the time but faucis just teases him and continues to enjoy his company regardless. faucis reminds firinne a lot of nebetta
firinne has a massive issue with authority but like. can you blame him
his anthem has always been 'boys will be bugs' by cavetown for me like every time i listen to it i think of him 'i just turned fourteen and i think this year im gonna be mean' yesss!!!
being an abalaoi, firinne is very tall and impressive looking. he's dark-skinned with a beautiful loose afro that falls around his ears, and he's absolutely obsessed with hair jewellery. like one thing about firinne is he still has a LOT of his noble habits despite spending the past five years living in the northern mountains as a fucking bandit lmao. im talking gems and golden hoops and little jewels and coils and beads etc etc. his hair is like a little nest of beautiful trinkets. it's loki's favourite thing and he helps firinne pick jewellery sometimes. firinne leans more into northern fashion than western fashion for mainly obvious reasons in that if he wore what he did at lochfall in the kroi mountains then he would freeze to death, but also because he's trying very hard to reject 'firinne abalaoi' because it rejected him first. it's a bit confusing because he's still very snobby so you'd think he'd cling to fancy clothes, and while he does despair over the quality of his clothes, he does just prefer a nice, common layered look. so earth tones and lace-up tunics and trousers tucked into boots and leather wraps on his wrists and layered belts etc etc. he looks a bit like a pirate <3
he's the laziest motherfucker you'll ever meet im talking will not do chores will not do anything athletic early to bed and late to rise possibly with naps in between one thing about firinne abalaoi is that he is sleeby
If you're still doing the names... Firinne and Runa Thank you so much, Kitty! You're amazing and I adore your blog!
Thank you! I really like asks like this that feel a lil bit personal :3 I adore you right back, anon!
Firinne
Burgundy
Coldy windy days that whip against you and collared shirts. Tying your jumper around your waist and playing those claw arcade games with your friends at movie theatres. Someone indulgent, but indulgent in self love, who just knows how to deliciously and decadently look after themselves. Bowling tokens and roller skates and going out until 3am because you simply don’t want the morning to start yet.
Runa
Glossy black
Endless hours watching netflix with someone you care about and a sleek, warm cat curled up on your feet. A homebody, someone who cares a lot and who spends a lot of time inside. Nighttime, when the moon filters through your blinds and leaves shadowy stripes on your bedroom wall. Old, worn but comfy slippers and listening to playlists you’ve played to death a thousand times. Silk ribbons and nail polish bottles.
