#oc cerrin

[lumpawhump]

A whump-themed ask for your birthday: how do Leila and Cerrin act when they're sick? Are they the kind to power through it until they pass out, or the kind to curl up in bed and whine about it? And how do their friends/family respond to it / take care of them?

~ @memento-morri-writes

Oooh, interesting! I think out of necessity Leila learned to power through it, because Hera is not the type to take 'having a 102 degree fever' as an excuse. Probably she ended up doing all sorts of unwise things to keep herself functional -- using magic to lower the fever forcibly, giving herself an adrenaline boost, good old fashioned refusing to sit down and rest until she can't anymore. Once she's no longer beholden to Hera, though, and in an environment where she's able to prioritize her own wellbeing, I think she flips to the other end of the spectrum and takes full advantage of the freedom to prescribe herself bedrest at the first sign of a sniffle. Cerrin and Ilsabet, who knew her when she was working for Hera and understand what this is a reaction to, are pretty patient about this, but it comes across as melodramatic to other people.

For Cerrin it kind of depends on what it is. A runny nose or a mild cough he'll ignore, a headache? He might die. This could be the one that kills him. You don't know. Of course as the de facto leader of a rebellion and then the king he is also in a position where sometimes he has to be the one to handle something and it can't be put off and in those cases he will always try to power through it. (Leila will also do this on occasion, but she's not the king, so it comes up less often.)

Ilsabet is the kind of person who wants to solve problems and doesn't do well when a big part of solving the problem is waiting for it to fix itself. After she's done everything she can to help, if she doesn't have anything to distract herself with, she gets real antsy and starts pacing.

Cerrin and Leila do tend to enable each other when they're powering through it, so sometimes Ilsabet is the voice of reason telling them to sit down, eat something, take a nap. Do they always listen to that voice of reason? Ehhhhh

[lumpawhump]

Happy Birthday Snowy!!!!

What was the last birthday Cerrin or Leila got to actually celebrate for themselves?

Did the Queen do anything for Cerrin's birthday during his time at Grim Isle?

Ooooh a fun theme!

Ilsabet always made sure Cerrin had good birthdays growing up. They were small, because of the need for secrecy, at first just her and Cerrin, but then Cerrin befriended Paurel and he was included, and then a few more very close friends. Ilsabet did her best to make sure he had as normal a childhood as she could manage, and they kept celebrating his birthday with a little gathering and a nice dinner well into adulthood.

For Leila it's been longer. As a servant in the castle during the reign of King Romin, she had her birthday as a day off, and the cook at the time would take input for the menu from members of the household whose birthday it was. This practice fell out of use after Hera took over. Certainly Romin could be unreasonable, and might order that a servant he perceived to be slacking off be whipped, for instance, but the steward could simply lie to him and say it had been done when it had not, and Romin never followed up. Hera, however, was more likely to simply kill you in the same circumstance, and the cook that served under Romin was executed about eight months into her reign for attempting to poison her. So birthdays became more of a secondary concern to staying alive.

Hera actually gave Leila her birthday off. But Leila spent pretty much all of those birthdays alone. Most of her old friends among the servants considered her a traitor for working so closely under Hera and helping her commit her atrocities, and those that didn't she chose to avoid on her own, so they wouldn't be targeted for being her friends. Eventually she started going to Ilsabet's house on her birthday and hanging out there, but I don't think she told Cerrin and Ilsabet it was her birthday. She just hung out, enjoyed being around friends.

So in terms of actual celebrations, her last birthday would be the last one before Romin was killed and Hera took over. She had been independently studying magic on her own time for a few years and she took advantage of the day off to travel down to one of the port cities and buy a book about it. :)

I actually wasn't thinking Cerrin's time on the Grim Isle would coincide with his birthday, but you have me Thinking Thoughts. Maybe it was. Maybe his birthday was just a week or two after he was captured. Maybe Ilsabet already had the makings for his birthday dinner and as the days passed with no sign of him and the weather worsened, she had to stare at them in the kitchen -- and the day she realized she had to either eat them or give them away before they went off hit her like almost nothing else had, that he was gone, maybe never coming back.

When I first read, "the Queen" in your ask I interpreted it as Hera doing something for Cerrin's birthday, but that's kinda funny because she might. Well, the particulars of Hera's relationship with Cerrin and Cerrin's birthday are something I'll get into in your other ask, so I'll answer it then probably.

[lumpawhump]

Sorry for YET ANOTHER ASK, but @sunrise-lemon-bar's ask inspired me: What would Cerrin and Leila's ideal birthdays look like? Do they want a big celebration? A lazy day to sleep in bed? Do they like getting gifts? Do they like surprise parties?

~ @memento-morri-writes

Don't ever apologize for sending me asks about my OCs.

Also I'm sorry this took so long to answer. It's been an... interesting week :P

Hmm I think Cerrin likes a big party. It wasn't something he could ever really do growing up, since he essentially spent his whole life in hiding. He had to be very careful about who knew who he was and the general area where he lived. Only a handful of people ever knew the location of his mother's house until the events of Rose of Pyrea.

But if he could, I think he would have loved to have a lot of people, a lot of food, etc. He wouldn't organize a big party for himself after he becomes king, because Pyrea is struggling at that point, but maybe after a few years when things had stabilized he could use the excuse to have a party. :)

Leila I think would be the opposite. She got so used to spending time by herself that it would feel weird to have a big party. And TBH she also doesn't have that many friends. She would want a small, quiet birthday with only a few people there.

As for surprise parties, it's a little hard for me to say because I don't like them personally, but I think Cerrin would enjoy them. Maybe the first big party he had after he became king was a surprise party -- maybe he thought they should keep on waiting, give the country another year to recover, but his mother and some of his friends put something together. That could be pretty fun to write sometime. Not exactly whump, but they need some nice things in their lives too…

Leila isn't a huge fan of surprises. Most of the surprises in her life have been bad ones, unfortunately.