#ilithra tillahnen

[attractthecrows]

god i wish i had the knack for comics. i'd be doing oc comics all goddamn day. id be unstoppable

[attractthecrows]

Ilithra my beloved. Ilithra my darling my doll

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Revallen was born in Tillahnen to Keeper Dirennen and Saoirse, the Craftsmaster. He showed a talent for magic at an early age, which thrilled Dirennen, who began teaching the boy immediately. They quickly discovered that Revallen's mana runs very hot; Dirennen's first attempts to teach Revallen to use wood-magic resulted in fires. Dirennen thus pivoted his focus to instilling in his son a sense of discipline and self-control.

When he was 10 or so, Clan Tillahnen encountered a family of city elves fleeing the Starkhaven alienage. Moren, his wife Ivanna, and their daughter Ilithra were welcomed into the clan. Despite fighting at their first meeting, Revallen and Ilithra became fast friends. Revallen took it upon himself to teach her the ways of the Dalish, and Ilithra was fascinated by magic, despite having no talent for it herself.

(cut for length)

In his sixteenth year came the Blight. Tillahnen favored the coastal, marshy regions of Nevarra, and were thus largely out of range of the worst of it. But there were still threats; desperate refugees and heightened tensions made their encounters with humans riskier than ever, and a cave in their favorite territory concealed a connection to the Deep Roads. When a part of the horde began to threaten the Clan, Dirennen took action. Over the course of two frantic, painful days, he pushed Revallen through his training as First, carving his full-body vallaslin and impressing upon him the need to keep the Clan safe at any cost.

Before the wounds had even healed, Dirennen set out to meet the darkspawn. He baited them, drawing the stragglers back into the cave connecting the surface and the Deep Roads. When they were upon him, every last one of them, he used every ounce of his mana to collapse the cave entrance, sealing it with a tangle of ironwood trees that even fire could not clear. Revallen grieved, he screamed, he thrashed in fury - but as First, and as his father's son, he had no choice but to take up the mantle of Keeper.

Ilithra supported him wholeheartedly, rallying the hunters and easing the transition from one Keeper to the next. Together, they led the Clan north, out of range of even the most determined of straggling darkspawn. Revallen and Ilithra were married within the year, and a year from that, they had Nessiava. The clan was happy for a time, though in unfamiliar prairielands. However, their lives of peaceful plenty were short-lived. Post-Blight panic and the influx of refugees from the south overtaxed the land; both human settlements and the Dalish were forced into lean times as harvests failed and game dwindled.

The clan grew desperate, hungry, and panicked. Remembering the kindness of the Chantry sisters in the alienage of her youth, Ilithra volunteered to lead a band of her hunters to try and trade with one of the nearby human villages. At a loss for better ideas, Revallen agreed. She took 5 hunters with what supplies the clan could spare.

But the human farmers, desperate and hungry themselves, saw a band of Dalish hunters, panicked, and attacked. By the time they realized their mistake, Ilithra and 4 of her 5 hunters had been killed. The survivor, a youth that had yet to earn her vallaslin, fled, bringing news of the slaughter back to Tillahnen.

Revallen was inconsolable in his grief and rage. He became unable to sleep, insensate to all but the needs of his daughter. His First, a youth named Tathamen, conducted the funeral rites in his stead, directing the clan to give Revallen the space to grieve. After days of this, grief gave rise to guilt, and he became convinced that the clan must resent him for allowing the hunting party to approach the human settlement. He stole away in the night with Nessiava, bidding the trees to conceal his tracks, and abandoned the clan.

Eventually, he and Nessie arrived at Clan Lavellan.

Deshanna had met him before, both as a child and then later as Keeper, and was alarmed by his sudden appearance. But when she heard his tale of loss, she could not bring herself to turn him away. She had already decided to accept them when Aiona, her niece and Revallen's half-sister, begged her to let them stay, volunteering to house them in the halla-keeper's aravel. Deshanna agreed readily, taking Revallen as her First; as he needed no training, he would help her train her Second, and could spend the rest of his time focused on raising his daughter.

In safety with Lavellan, Revallen and Nessie grieved. They grew around their grief, and they found some happiness. Nessie grew up well, becoming very close with her aunt. When she showed some magical talent, Revallen began to teach her as Dirennen taught him. Her mana doesn't burn like her father's, and she took very well to the wood-magic Dirennen wielded with such ease. Unbeknownst to Revallen or Deshanna, she began to wander the Fade; a Dreamer with no one to teach her, but the protection of the spirits of her kin.

In the aftermath of the events at Kirkwall, clan Lavellan fell on hard times. The mage/templar war caused widespread chaos, threatening their safety and decimating the wilderness they depended on for survival. Revallen recognized in this chaos the same lurking danger that stole his wife and Tillahnen's best hunters. When the time came, Deshanna decided to send a party to gather information at the Conclave - originally a group of Lavellan's best hunters.

Revallen intervened, pulling Deshanna into the Keeper's aravel. He impressed upon her the absolute necessity of keeping the hunters with the clan, to ensure their survival. He told her of the deadly mistake he had made. When she would not be swayed, he insisted that he be sent to the Conclave, rather than depriving Lavellan of the hunters they depended on for food and security.

After some consideration, Deshanna relented, but she was unwilling to send him alone. The Lavellan delegation would be only three in number; Revallen, the First, and the sisters, Valovera and Orathari. Valovera was a consummate warrior, more interested in battle than the hunt, and Orathari was the craftmaster's apprentice, clever and quick-fingered.

Revallen did all he could to console and reassure his daughter, promising to return to her no matter what. Aiona promised to him that she would keep the girl safe. Nessie was unconvinced, but at barely 10 years old, she could do nothing to stop him. Both shed tears upon his departure.

The journey to Haven was challenging between the dangers of the war and desperate human bandits, and the bickering between Revallen and the sisters. Valovera was always volatile, picking fights as if for fun, and Orathari, while patient, felt obligated to defend her. But they arrived at the Conclave without injury.

Then, of course, Corypheus and the corrupted Wardens changed that. Revallen survived, barely, because he interrupted their ritual and was cast into the Fade. But the Temple of Sacred Ashes and all within were destroyed.

[attractthecrows]

bits from the Driving Brainstorm yesterday. mostly ocs. yuh

-idr if i mentioned this but Laure's hair glows when exposed to lyrium or mana, either ambiently or directly via drinking potions/casting spells. this is bc lyrium potion got into the wound on her head- the lyrium scar on her scalp actually causes the glow, but the bleaching effect on the hair made them behave like fiber optic cables and transmit the glow from follicle to tip.

-everyone knows that charlie day in the mailroom trying to figure out pepe silvia bit. Revallen does that shit to his quarters at skyhold but about the threads of truth hidden in the distortions of folklore. it is a very imprecise way of researching, focused on the Dalish and their natures/reactions/biases/etc rather than historical record. it makes no sense whatsoever to anyone except him and Nessie, who was raised with it and does the same thing. this is how he came so close to intuiting the truth about the Evanuris before Trespasser.

-Nessie is a Dreamer, but no one in Tillahnen or Lavellan had any experience with which to teach her, so until she arrives at Skyhold and meets Solas she's reliant on luck and the helping influence of Dirennen's spirit(her granddad) keeping an eye on her as kin to keep her safe. Safe to say she is an extremely fortunate girl.

-both Revallen and Aiona inherited their flirtatious tendencies from their slutty, slutty father Dirennen, the previous Keeper of Tillahnen.

-I like to name my elves after their gods in some form or fashion. like Sylaira's obvious but there's also Ilithra (andruIL/ILithra), Mythiala, and Dirennen (DIRthamen/DIRennen)