The evolution of elves and their characteristics
Originally, all humans had brown eyes. Around 10,000 years ago, a genetic mutation affecting one gene turned off the ability to produce enough melanin to colour eyes brown causing blue eyes. Since blue eyes have survived throughout many generations, researchers think there may have been some evolutionary benefit, though the exact reason is unknown.
At some point in time humans continued evolving further into elves and the mutation that caused blue eyes was the first sign. Since they still looked like humans and didn’t have abilities, they continued to have kids with humans (which over time caused blue eyed humans). However, as the elves started to have kids with each other, they evolved further. Slowly they began prolonging their life span, bit by bit, before reaching “immortality” a few hundred years later. In the meantime, the first signs of body temperature regulation and darkness vision made an appearance, and, with time, the rest of the skills that have to do with survival (breath control & appetite suppression) were fully developed as well.
Skills were developed before abilities, at least the ones that are slightly more “natural” as skills aren’t as complex and were helpful for surviving in the early stages of evolution. Blinking was the last skill to develop. Telekinesis, levitation, brain push and outward channelling came before it. With telekinesis their minds become stronger, allowing brain pushes to evolve and levitating to be introduced due to the ability of being able to use telekinesis to lift yourself. With brain push and telekinesis fully developed outwards channelling was eventually able to form. I think that blinking evolved from light leaping which was developing alongside their skills.
People with blue or light eyes tend to be more sensitive to light. This is because blue eyes, especially light blue eyes, have less pigment in the iris, making them more translucent. This can cause blue-eyed people to be more susceptible to glare and sunlight, leading to light sensitivity. I think this is why it's easier for eleves to light leap than humans, their eyes are more sensitive to light, due to thousands of years of developing specific melanin in it. This makes their bodies able to break down easier and is also why Sophie struggled when practising light leaping with Grady in book one, her eyes aren’t as sensitive to light due to the amount of melatonin in her irises.
When light leaping was first discovered an elf was resting under a beam of light that had been refracted by a giant salt crystal and faded away. At the time nobody knew what happened and were simply confused. This happened more frequently as their eyes continued to develop since the percentage of blue allele increased due to the lack of brown eyes. If the elves would sleep on a rocky beach or linger too long in a geode cave the light would take them away.
The first elf to survive a light leap did so by realising that his particles were leaving him and used his telekinesis to pull them back, holding himself together. He eventually found himself fully reformed and alive, and when the other elves found him—surprised he wasn’t dead by this mysterious sickness that kept appearing—he explained what had happened.
They began to experiment with light leaping, coming to the realisation that it a) takes you from point A to point b and that b) depending on how the light shines through the crystal, it takes you to different places (prompting the creation of leaping crystals). All of this (as I said previously) helped blinking to be created from which vanishing eventually sparked.
The order of which I think the abilties were created are as following:
Shade - I think that this was the first to develop due to darkness vision being introduced so early on. It was the only ability to develop whilst their skills were however it wasn’t seen as an ability until others started showing. The elves just assumed that some people were better with shadows due to more practice with darkness vision.
Element based abilities (froster, pyrokinetics ect.) - Elves weee pretty close with nature in early stages of devlopment which helped create element based abilities along with the help of their skills. Telekinesis was beneficial due to the way it could manipulate the elements and was able to draw the elements to the elves. Pyrokinetics was brought to light by the help of telekinesis (same reason) and body temperature regulation. (Technically Shade is an element based ability but it was developed way earlier so I gave it its own category.) Frosters were developed later when the elves discovered snowy biomes, elves with hydrokinetics learned how to manipulate the water in snow.
Inflicting (maybe slight tw(?) a bit unsettling) - Inflicting sparked from brain pushes and outwards channeling, and it consisted of being able to concentrate a large amount of your mental energy on a living being and inflict pain using outward channelling. At first inflicting was (even more) brutal, it consisted of keeping someone in a constant state of almost exploding using outwards channeling, causing actual physical pain instead of an illusion as it does now. Inflicting was further developed when telepathy was introduced, making the pain completely physiological instead of physical.
Vanishing - Seen first in elves who could blink over longer periods of time, was typically found in an elf with lighter blue eyes due to their eyes being more sensitive to light than ones with dark blue but grew to be found in all shades of blue with time.
Phasing - Around the same time as vanishers, while they couldn’t disappear for long periods of time, blinking and telekinesis helped phasers be better at letting their particles fade while remain in control of them, causing them to be able to phase through objects.
Flashers - Another element based one which was developed separate from the others. Was first introduced after light leaping with the help of vanishing. Instead of letting the light pass through their body flashers we’re able to “trap it” and manipulate it.
Telepathy - A little later on due to the sheer complexity, was actually a genetic mutation in which telekinesis was altered so that instead of moving things with only your mind, you were now able to hear things with only your mind.
If any of these don’t make sense/you want a more in depth description then send me an ask. I didn’t write reasons for some of them bc they were either quite repetitive or to complicated and probably need a post dedicated just for them on their own.
An important thing to note is that the laws of genetics state that eye colour is inherited as follows:
If both parents have blue eyes, the children will have blue eyes.
The brown eye form of the eye colour gene (also known as allele) is dominant, whereas the blue eye allele is recessive.
If both parents have brown eyes yet carry the allele for blue eyes, a quarter of the children will have blue eyes, and three quarters will have brown eyes.
Also: If a child that is born to two blue-eyed parents doesn’t have blue eyes, then the blue-eyed father is not the biological father.
