Continuing the fashion theme, let's look at the royals and the non-Hyrule native Zora! And finally have some Sidons, he's been kinda sparse in the loreposting until now.
part 1 - commoners & nobility
part 1.5 - Seggin's outfit history
Read more for fancy fish outfits~~
Let's start with the non-Hyrule Zora! Represented here by Dorephan, Muzu, Yona and Khira, who were all born a fair distance away from Hyrule mainland, in the Necluda Sea Domain.
(I will elaborate on the Sea Zora and other Domains later, let's not make this thing any longer than it absolutely needs to be).
The Necluda Domain is close enough to Hyrule that their jewelry follows more or less similar design conventions (the outfits become less and less familiar the further east you go). The main difference is the metal used (copper and bronze) and common stone colors (purples and reds are common, contrary to Hyrule's blues and greens). Their outfits tend to feature more elements (such as rings, fin tips adornments and torso pieces) and no fabrics.
Family crests exist, but their designs are not gendered, and the practice of combining them is less common. Usually the partner who's lower in status just takes their new spouse's crest as is.
Another crest-related practice is royal servants taking on the crests of the family they serve.
In general, the Necluda Sea jewelry tends to feature more elaborate, intricate designs than Hyrule's and puts more emphasis on extensive chest adornments. The dangling torso pieces are decorated with plates of solid metal to flaunt wealth (metal is much harder to come by in Sea Domains than in Hyrule).
We never see any commoner Zora from this Domain (they don't really travel outside in the first place), which is a shame because their outfits are very different from the upper class. They wear barely any solid metal (only on the neck, if at all, it is really expensive) and their adornments are made from coral, shell and wire.
A guest can go around the Domain in their own adornments (although it's advisable that they remove any royal-coded stuff, such as headwear or pauldrons). If they choose to stay however, they will be asked to dress appropriately as to not stand out. For the Necluda folk this means throwing out basically everything, since even the metal is no longer appropriate.
Dorephan (a Necluda Sea Prince) got a whole new outfit upon his marriage to the Hyrule Domain's Zora Princess. His chest piece was swapped for the decorative engagement armor and an elaborate fabric ensemble on top. He had to lose the rings and the torso plates (Elder Council deemed them "too confusing") but managed to keep the little clips on the tips of his fins and Necluda-typical footwear (though in appropriate silver of course).
He also took on the Hyrule Domain's Royal Crest in its entirety (while Hyrule Zora noble families merge their crests, for the royals it's just the one that remains unchanging).
For Muzu, the new outfit was mostly whatever he was wearing before but in silver. The tail ornament, while purely decorative in Necluda Domain, conveniently fit his new position on the Council, so he could keep it without much trouble. He was also allowed the fin clips, seeing how Dorephan kept his.
The most drastic change was the chest piece, which became just a bit of silk rope denoting his "attendant" role. He really wanted to keep Dorephan's old crest on his neck, but was forced to go back to his family one (which got modified to be more male-coded, and thus appropriate for the Hyrule Domain nobility standards).
(If he was a servant of anyone else the situation would be different, it's just that the Hyrule Zora Council didn't want to have a citizen display allegiance to a whole another foreign power).
Yona's situation is mostly the same as Dorephan's, she has to take a new crest, lose the "weird" parts, wrap herself in silks and swap bronze for silver. She uses Dorephan's precedence to keep the fin clips.
Even her engagement jewelry (the tail ornament) got plated silver to match.
For Khira the required changes were least extreme, she just had to swap her set for a silver one with some minor redesign to fit in better (the damn gendered belts). Just like in Muzu's case, her torso adornment became an "attendant" rope detail. She also returned to her old family crest.
The Mipha illustration is to showcase how big of a deal fabrics are in the Domain! They're extremely expensive (made from fleet-lotus silk which is difficult to harvest and requires ages to spin and process) and limited to royalty and some highest-rank positions in the court (such as High Priests, top military commanders, guild leaders, Elders).
Mipha was quite shocked upon receiving her Champion outfit, it was more fabric than even she (a literal princess) has ever held in her life.
Sidon has multiple jewelry sets and then often forgoes some more annoying armor bits when he feels like he can get away with it (the Council is not amused). In private he basically just wears his neck brace with the royal crest (and the whistle, always the whistle) and a simple belt + arm brace + anklets set. The little feathered aigrette is usually the first to go (the way it attaches makes his forehead itch).
He also has a bunch alternate sets that don't follow his everyday outfit design, usually meant to be worn at casual gatherings or in private.
Back when he was younger and starting to pick up some royal duties he was really self conscious about being taken seriously and one of the ways he tried to remedy this was More Jewelry. In practice it made him feel even less confident and didn't seem to have any effect on the Council's attitude (if they found it pitiful at least they had the decency to not say anything).
The last illustration is mostly to show how different royal wear is from your normal Zora outfit. Bazz is, arguably, a guy with some really expensive taste in jewelry, and even he looks underdressed next to Sidon.
One big difference is the neck brace - both common and nobility Zora both use the same simple design, while the royals wear this big, elaborate construction that lets bits of their (pure, unblemished) neck skin show through (haha).
The exclusivity of fabrics was mentioned already, but it's the same with any headwear (tiaras, headbands, fin ornaments) or armor-inspired shoulder adornments, which are strictly royalty-only in casual wear. Similarly, only royalty is permitted to carry weapons without being dressed in full armor.
Royal belts, arm- and leg braces are of course really big and intricately detailed, but in this regard some nobles aren't that far off with the fanciness of their pieces (Bazz's arm braces are very comparable to Sidon's).
The royals can also wear any number of clip on accessories without any regard for their significance.
For public appearances, it's expected that a royal will wear a full set (neck, royal crest, belt, arms, legs), a fabric ensemble on top, some kind of shoulder wear and a designated headpiece. Ideally one or two more ornaments should be added for more impressive overall effect.
One of the reasons I think that I’ve been stuck with When Shadows Fall lately, is that there is not a whole lot of interaction between Khira and Silena who are basically my OTP among my OCs.
They are both very dangerous and highly-trained spies/assassins. Khira works for the Triad in Azura and Silena, who goes by an alias, is more of a mercenary, but does a lot of work for the Triad, especially if they don’t want to be linked to the dirty work.
Khira and Silena do not know each other’s identities; they only know of the other by their alias and their reputation. And both think that the other is male.
Now, there is a sequence of interaction between the two in Book 1, but it’s complicated. They start off the story on opposite sides of the coming war. While she and the other prisoners who escape are on the run, Khira goes off on a little side mission thing to get someone important. But she ends being followed and confronted and fought to a standstill by Silena (who is masked and her armor gives no clues as to her identity or gender).
Silena brings Khira back to Azura, fulfilling the terms of her contract with the Triad. Silena does stick around because the Triad has more work for her to do, considering that Khira has turned traitor and the rest of Khira’s special ops unit is now dead.
As Khira is imprisoned and tortured and mistreated, Silena (under her mask and alias), visits her, originally just to talk. But then they start to be more open with each other, Khira is still very cautious b/c she’s in prison, but she’ll tell Silena about missions she ran and share details about her former missions. And Silena starts to bring Khira extra food and water, or medicine after a brutal questioning sequence, or a blanket. And it’s the brutal treatment that Khira is subjected to that begins to change things for Silena, bringing up memories of someone from her past.
When Khira’s friends come to break her out of prison, Silena helps her. The rescue attempt goes awry, but Silena manages to aid Khira and her compatriots without drawing attention to herself, leaving only a note for Khira, saying “I’m so sorry.”
That’s the entirety of their interactions for When Shadows Fall.
In the planned second book, they have another single interaction. It is absolutely crucial to the plot and its point in time is fixed.
Khira is infiltrating a ball in Azura, searching for intel when she’s accosted for a dance by a beautiful woman (Silena). Khira knows that the resistance has a man inside, but didn’t know it was a woman and assumes the woman aiding her is the ‘inside man,’ which technically Silena is, but she feeds information through a middleman. Khira doesn’t suspect, until later, that the woman could be Silena’s true identity, not her alias.
They share a short, heated dance and that’s their interaction in Book 2.
Until the very end of Book 2. Silena has decided to turn her skills to the resistance but was captured by the Triad’s forces. Khira and co find her imprisoned on a Triad base after they destroy the weapons being built there. Khira tenderly removes Silena’s helmet so that they can get her medical help and that’s when she finds that Silena is [ALIAS] and the woman that she danced with.
Understandably, that’s a shock.
Book 3 is when they start to work together and start to fall for each other (slowly).
But I really want to get more interaction with them into the earlier books because I love writing them as a pair. But I can’t think of a way to do so. There’s no way to do that without drastically altering the plot.
Every single interaction between them, from B1 with their fight to their conversations in the prison to B2 and their dance has immense repercussions and is monumentally important to the plot.
So, idk, this was a rant about Khira and Silena, my OTP, and me lamenting my plotting that keeps them from each other for so long.
Khira woke with a start, arm flailing out and knocking over an empty bottle as she jolted upright. She took more than a moment to survey her surroundings, blinking away the blurriness of the world to reveal her mess of a workshop. The Keeper woman groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose as reality set in and the land of sleep and dreams faded away.
“Ugh… another dream, another glimpse into the past. Not something I’ll ever get used to…”
As she pulled herself up from the couch that was her makeshift bed she glanced around the room, eyes settling on the ominous sword suspended above her workbench, a flamberge covered in small rifts and fang-like protrusions.
“Still no change. I admit I was half expecting you to turn back into a normal sword once Starlight was destroyed and yet here we are a moon later and nothing.”
Ever since she had returned from that incident her mind had been abuzz with nothing but more questions, some justified and others bordering on paranoia. Was the blade /really/ just created as a prank or did Starlight have an actual goal in mind? Did she know it would be effective against her to the point of piercing her own defenses so utterly? That it would be brought against her? That she would die while impaled on it? Khira closed her eyes as she played the scene over again in her mind. The childish voidsent cackled with laughter as that very blade ignored her attempts to block it and plunged through her stomach and into the snow behind. No screaming nor crying just… playful laughter. Moments later, unable to bear an ally’s pugilistic assault, she disintegrated into nothingness. They had all seen it, felt it even, the end of a life. Khira shook the memories away and moved over to the weapon, peering at it hesitantly.
“Could it be possible I wonder… that you somehow managed to survive after all of that? I mean what am I even saying!? You were just a child, there’s no way you could have known that the circumstances would have aligned. She never would have raised it against you, or any weapon, so even if it was possible that this sword could be some sort of fail-safe phylactery of sorts there was no reason to ever think that…”
She shook her head, hands clenched as she let out a frustrated growl.
“No… no, enough. The thought of something like that is little more than paranoid speculation with no basis at all. Besides… I’m sure the Whiteseer would have known if something like that had occurred anyway. No, this is nothing more than a void cursed sword that eats aether and that’s final.”
The woman turned away from the blade, grabbing a jacket from the end of the couch before heading up the stairs and then out the door. As she left the sword just hung there, twitching and hissing as it always did, no different than before.
