#st has warned us that glasgow is gonna be nuts

[kentuckycaverats]

overdue del lore update:

we're about to start the glasgow arc which is heavily tied to both del and tara, so del busts her girl out of the university and brings her back to the bookshop. when they roll up they see neville being weird on a phone call so del eavesdrops (real auspex hours) and realizes it's her mom azumi on the other end. del's told neville all about her parents (the tsugas) but it's brand new information that they're in contact. she gives him one (1) chance to explain himself and he bungles it by trying to mess with her head to erase the memory of what she overheard. she beats him by one success and Freaks tf out - he knows that's a huge trigger from the sabina days and now her faith in him is obliterated. she thinks he's tremere lying about being caitiff, and she thinks he dragged her mortal parents into the shitshow she's been trying to shield them from for years. he immediately realizes how badly he fucked up and apologizes in tears but, uh. too little too late.

he finally gives her the truth: she has fae lineage, and was meant to be a changeling. she had a fae soul in addition to her mortal one, and they should have undergone chrysalis but sabina embraced her before that happened, and the fae soul was displaced in the process. her parents knew and have been protecting her from afar; neville is actually a kiasyd, sent by his sire (also a kiasyd) to look after her.

neville says he understands if she never wants to see him again and she says she doesnt want to see him again tonight at least; not until they're back from glasgow. after he leaves she digs up some books on fae and starts doing some reading, and she comes across a page in one book that has a bunch of notes in the margins. there are some drawings as well that she recognizes immediately; theyre fae, definitely, but she knows them somehow. herself and her parents. the name below her portrait is aelsidhe aen tsugaen- the dragon wind. keeper of joy.

she unlocks a memory of ael fleeing the dreaming, her parents (they too are fae, not mortal as she always believed) telling her to run and promising they'll come find her; ael stepping through a portal into mortal baby del's childhood bedroom at her bio parents' and asking if she can stay with del awhile - "i need someone brave to protect me."

shaking, she goes upstairs to the landline she caught neville talking on earlier. she still has her parents' phone number memorized after all these years. she calls them, fully intending to hang up after hearing their voices, but as soon as azumi answers she breaks.

del is such a mama's girl :') she sobs through the entire call; they call her "my joy" and "my brilliant girl" and tell her how much they love her. she tells them she needs them to tell her the truth--she's tired, so tired, of being kept in the dark and not knowing who she can trust. and because they are the sweetest warmest most loving people who adore her with all their hearts, they agree. they confirm what neville told her and give more context; back in the dreaming they were her knights, sworn to protect her. they died helping ael escape to this world, awoke here themselves, and were amazed to find her again so easily--she and the true delphine met as children at school. they didn't know anything about vampires or the sabbat being after her, and by the time sabina sank her claws in it was too late. neville's sire knew/knows something about her, knew she was arriving in edinburgh, and sent neville to look after her. he was also the one who put neville in touch with the tsugas to keep them updated from afar.

del's friend/coterie mate mitra has been having dreams about this weird maze and he and a few SPCs have seen sabina there guarding a child trapped in a cage of thorns; we now know that it's ael, though we don't yet know why. del is going to have to face sabina for good to get to ael, and chances are good that sab makes an appearance in glasgow--as well as del's bio parents, the fujinamis.