So here is Zik'Pra & her bff who, in conjunction with their moms, protect the interests of the Coven's industrial orphans. She thinks other girls names were prettier so she goes by Prala. She's 5 & will fight you.
Here’s some exposition on Prala, the tiny hylden, for those interested. That’s her mama Fol’Oran. Writing as a brief aside in my internet chat mode as opposed to putting it in the fic b/c I’m not sure how much of my OC’s personal lives I can reasonably involve the Main Characters™ in.
So for anyone that doesn’t know I’ve been writing this Legacy of Kain fanfiction (tagged under rhetoricfic) which has introduced a faction of rebels and refugees in the Blood Omen 2 era called the Coven. The Coven is led by the Seer, the only canon character in it, Zekiel ( @lynnora-v bby Ancient Vampire OC), as well as an old as fuck hylden & his apprentice. When met in the fic the Coven had been around over a hundred years & they are not fans of the Neo-Sarafan regime. They spent much of that time being humanitarian badasses, rescuing & harboring anyone in southern Nosgoth that they reasonably could.
A handful of engineers that had escaped their work on the Device were relatively new & included Alj’Pak. Also among them was a human maintenance slave named Thomas Doherty. Because Thomas was expendable, fit in ventilation & was often stationed near Glyph Wright barracks he knew there were a group of consorts the high ranking Wrights coveted that were keen on any kind of freedom. The Coven began planning an operation to covertly recover them.
Most of the consorts were hylden brought through the portal for the comfort of the Glyph Wrights once they established themselves as law in the Sarafan Keep of Meridian. One particularly high ranking Wright, General Rig’Dom, lorded his favorite over even the few unfortunate enslaved vampires & was seen as even more culturally risqué. His escort was Fol’Oran. Although the hylden consorts were sold on the idea as an honor to the army members of her specific clan, diluted as they may be, were traditionally not consorts. Descendants of Gatakfĭr, Life Givers, as implied were much more fertile & therefore not favorable for concubines.
The probability of a hylden conceiving in a dimension they weren’t themselves born in & so far from traditional social brooding behaviors was astronomical. Rig’Dom thought he was statistically safe being an edgy douchebag. Forcing someone to rear young by themselves was seen as heinous in hylden culture. That was one taboo step too far for Gen. Rig’Dom. When Fol’Oran turned out to be gravid he figured it’d be easier to kill her & send for a new one. When he lost his temper there was no going back once he had cracked her across the face & fractured her cheekbone. He hurled her over the edge of a parapet.
Luckily at that moment the alarm was raised for a breach in the Keep & Rig’Dom opted to protect the Neo-Sarafan’s assets rather than walk his dumb ass down three stories to make sure Fol’Oran was dead. The alarm was a distraction triggered at the opposite end of the Keep. This allowed the Coven to smuggle out the consorts that dared to flee. The Seer was not initially going to get involved. Glyph Wrights could see through any illusion she may cast. However, a sudden sense of urgency seized her along with a strange new feeling. The feeling was literally a new feeling, something about it screamed “A new thing is happening!”
The Seer was able to teleport into the keep & whisk poor Fol’Oran off the ground & back to safety. Thomas & another deserter Hylden had been the very last to ensure everyone escaped safely. The two did not escape themselves but gave up no information as they were dragged from the vents & promptly murdered. The Coven’s perimeter was thoroughly checked in a hurried somber silence.
Shortly thereafter Fol’Oran had an egg, green of course & glowing very slightly. It had a misshapen dent in one side that Fol’Oran always had her fingers on but otherwise seemed healthy. All of the hylden in the Coven had a very infectious excitable energy that spread to the whole temple. By the time a tiny, miniature hylden hatched from it several of the humans had already donated blankets. Another new mother, a Meridian woman named Elise, shared her daughter’s toys.
The Seer was phenomenally excited. She had never felt many of the energies she was feeling surrounding a brand new hylden coming into existence. Spoiler alert: The Seer is half hylden. The other hylden filled her in on how these energies worked in their society. Sanctioned farseers & sorcerers were able to get an impression of the child as a person & give them a name accordingly. The Seer named the new hylden girl Zik’Pra & she’s being raised in the Coven’s hidden temple.
Zik’Pra means Sword Tongue which was affirmed as soon as she started learning to talk. Despite the central fluke of her head crest being somewhat disfigured she was strong, confident, & very vocal. Seeing all the refugees taking care of one another, she started helping as first nature. She gathered information through the temple with the eyes of the other children & her second-in-command Anna. If she thinks you’re out of line you will be challenged to a duel which means she will hit you with her stick, Rock Cleaver, until you comply.
She asked to be called Prala so she had pretty name like other girls. Besides that she barely recognizes she is different & doesn’t let that, or anything, stop her. Fol’Oran has found Prala to be growing much more rapidly than children did in the Demon Realm. She has no idea why. Zekiel reports to Prala from time to time as if she were in command to amuse her. Zekiel was on one level scared but mostly excited that a hylden was born in Nosgoth for the first time in millennia. No one has any idea what exactly that may mean, if anything.
Do we have any consensus on hylden "wings"? In the murals they were, yeah, sickle shaped limbs jutting from their backs but they didn't look actually capable of flight. But the hylden champion was depicted fighting the vampire presumably in the air. Its entirely possible that was just artistic license for allegorical sake.
I get the angel wing vs demon wing parallel but tbh that's kinda boring. I could still happily work with it. But I was sitting here meticulously designing my hylden ocs & thought it'd be really cool if the appendages we see on them were just wing covers bc they had insect wings that were rendered useless in the demon realm's environment.
Need that video of those idiots playing with a huge water beetle that suddenly flies at them & there's screaming.
