Tel's Troupe

Fray, the Voice in the Abyss Justice

Description pending.

Rough, crass and a little antagonistic. Sick of everyone's shit. Doesn't like to admit there's a good heart beneath her cynicism.

Black bodycoat, gold roaning, blue appaloosa blanket. Fire-orange eyes.

Wrath of the Light Sun Silver Mottle Female, Yaleelth

Speech: Bold #929292

Sometimes the hardest part about being good is utilizing the correct yardstick. What is goodness? Who decides what’s good and what’s evil? Should mitigating circumstance be counted? Does morality have wiggle room? All important questions to ask before attempting to understand where Yaleelth is coming from and where she’s going, even in her infant years. Before all else, Yaleelth is good. Sometimes she makes that hard to remember, because her view of good is washed in blood and steeped in violence, but she is, in fact, actually a warrior of the Light and a champion of the greater good.

Her understanding of good and evil is very stark. Yaleelth is didactic, ruthless, cold. She has no grasp of mercy, kindness, or compassion. How can such a callous creature embody goodness? That depends on whose yardstick you’re using. Yaleelth takes an almost deific view of good and evil, not as if she is herself a god, but in scope and scale of morality. Unconcerned with mortal, day-to-day concerns, Yaleelth exists to smite the darkness from the world and slaughter that which is evil. She is the scythe of Death that sweeps through the briars of corruption and fells invading armies. That much about her doctrine, at least, is simple and easily understood. As is her inborn hatred of all things undead -- given her Sunwyrm ancestry and blinding light breath, a hatred of undeath seems the logical conclusion. And that’s about where she stops being relatable and starts being alien and otherworldly. Yaleelth’s good is a long view, a goal, an eventual outcome not decided by myriad little details. And it’s those myriad little details, the vast swell of moral nuance, that she disdains if she deigns to comprehend. An injured civilian is not someone Yaleelth will stop and help. That injured civilian is, at best, a minor distraction to be ignored, at worst, an obstacle to be flung out of her way as she cuts straight to the heart of the problem. She’s a problem-solver at heart, and it never quite occurs to her that her methods are problematic. Sometimes she’s necessary, though, and the bright side to her demeanor is that her emotions will never compromise her judgment. Some might argue that isn’t a bright side, and they’d probably be right, except it does bear saying that Yaleelth’s decisions will always benefit more people than they don’t. That’s the thing about her long view and the scale of things she holds sacred. She’ll never choose the few above the many, no matter how precious those few are to her. Yaleelth functions on the absolute letter of the law and on cold statistics, which makes arguing with her extremely sticky, especially in hypothetical scenarios conjured for moral debates. Her tactics are geared to the all-important Bigger Picture, which makes arguing morality with her very difficult because she doesn’t understand moral quandaries like Telmaril does. She doesn’t get why he stops to save that one injured civilian when it might mean he loses a lot more people to the hypothetical crisis, whereas her method is guaranteed to be the quickest end to the crisis -- and pursuant casualties. Luckily for the injured civilians of the world, however, Telmaril is usually the one who gets the final say, and crises are rarely bad enough that the extremes of Yaleelth’s chopping block personality become relevant. That she is willing to sacrifice the few for the many, coldly cut down anyone standing between her and the resolution, does not mean the sacrifices will be necessary. When they are, however, and Telmaril is forced to make brutally calculated decisions where lives must be lost to save even more, Yaleelth will be the steady blade in his hand, the voice of surety and unflinching necessity. She isn’t pleasant, but she is confidence and conviction given form. When the stakes are catastrophically high and Telmaril can’t afford to hesitate, Yaleelth is the one with the strength and the faith to act as needed. Lest she be mistaken for a total despot, however, it should also be said that Yaleelth always plans for the fewest casualties. Oh, she’ll never let on. She’s content to wear the mask of a monster, even to the point of allowing Telmaril to assume she has no heart. What good would it serve anyone knowing how much thought she puts into these decisions and actions? The ultimate outcome is the same, lives are still lost, and Yaleelth is not totally unaware of the cost of each sacrifice...but dwelling on that cost is pointless and hesitation is a deadly weakness she refuses to have.

Even as a hatchling, there’s something regal about Yaleelth. Something ethereally beautiful and viscerally disconcerting, and she’ll only grow into it as she ages. Eventually she’ll reach a solid forty five feet from nose to tail-tips, large even for a Silver Mottle. Her forehead bears the trademark shield crest of the wild silver dragons, but that small shield with its two tiny horns is framed and dwarfed by the larger, pale gold horns of a Sunwyrm, the ancestor that also gave Yaleelth a ferocious underbite such that her lower teeth are always visible. Most of her hide is polished silver, though the burnished metallic yellow of her skull is echoed by a star-burst on her chest. She has no scales, however, making her almost perfectly Pernese in the rest of her shape, head aside. Her breath is a blinding ray of light that might or might not singe flesh, but will most definitely obliterate any undead who happen to be in front of her.

Yaleelth’s mind-touch is the cold sharp slam of a guillotine blade dropping down. Her mental presence has all the subtlety and mercy of an executioner’s axe, and always gives the impression of calculation. Her mind is an odd, almost itchy mix of extreme patience and impatience, the proportions of which change by circumstance -- cool, statuesque patience for action, reaction, situation, and that bridge between plan and execution, but prickling impatience with emotional distractions and what more social creatures deem ‘acceptable social interaction’. Strange minds meet no quarter, but Telmaril finds himself the one upwelling of love and affection that Yaleelth both understands and accepts.

Tesla, the Deus Ex Machina Puzzle Female

Speech: Italic #92036d

Almost every Puzzle likes a good puzzle as a matter of course, but this girl takes her rank’s propensity towards dismantling technology to a new extreme. More than taking things apart to learn how they work, however, she also strives to put things back together. Of course, simply restoring things isn’t challenging or interesting enough when she could be, instead, making things better.

“Better”, mind you, varies by interpretation.

Telmaril is going to find, someday, that his toaster shoots lasers, hides small objects in secret compartments, calculates light years, generates a random numbers list, and connects to the internet, but it won’t ever toast bread again. Whether that’s an improvement or not is purely subjective. She’ll insist it is, indeed, better now than it ever was before, but it likely won’t ever be good enough to match her brutally exacting standards. While fiercely aware of her own intelligence, you see, this Puzzle is also aware that there’s a lot she doesn’t know. Doesn’t know, hasn’t learned, hasn’t done. She expects intelligence in others, but as harsh as her evaluations seem at times, she rides herself even harder. To call any of her work perfect or complete would be to be complacent and dull, stupid, foolhardy, shortsighted.

There’s always room for improvement.

Though not all of her is strict and exacting. Her brain clacks around, a complicated machine with a trillion spinning and interlocking gears, constantly analyzing the world by its components, deconstructing problems and solutions into mental diagrams and pieces-parts with glee and an almost child-like wonder at times. The universe is such a big place! And the things that make up other things are numerous and fascinating. There’s a beating heart, a pulse to the way things work. It’s a rhythm, a beautiful and complicated aura of life and she’s part of it. She soaks it in, she breathes it, and she thrives on it. It makes her boundlessly energetic, thrumming with endless kinetic force even when she’s physically still, and it drives her to never, ever stop pushing herself to improve, to learn, to reach ever-higher new summits and peaks. While her zeal sometimes makes her difficult to fathom or consistently get along with, it also makes her an invaluable companion when you’re in a tight spot and you need a talented machinist to get you out alive. There’s actually nobody better suited to dungeoneering in places rife with mechanical traps or other brilliant feats of engineering.

Dainty and petite, this Puzzle is dwarfed by most of her rank, standing barely above three feet at the shoulders. Her pelt is mostly a rich golden-brown, like the lionesses of Earth, though she has paler creamy tan stockings on her unusually dexterous paws and the tip of her tail tuft seems dipped in mahogany ink. Her mane is equally mahogany, silky and adorned with various braids decorated with beads, feathers, and bits of bone. Unlike most Sphinxes, this Puzzle ornaments herself with only either things found in nature (bone, feather, beads of wood or stone) or things part of various gadgetry (wire coils, wingnuts, gaskets, bolt nuts), but never jewelry or precious gems. Her wings are crimson like all of her rank, though every feather is tipped with obsidian at the very edges, as if they were drawn on with ink and then filled in with dye. Her front paws are comprised of abnormally long, almost finger-like toes, giving her ample ability to deftly fiddle with things as if she had actual hands with functional thumbs.

Bedisa, The Shadow of Fate's Hand Zahanzai
Lawful Neutral

Speech: Underline #6b1390

A belief in fate and predestination does not generally play well with the Caradras meritocracy. One’s rank and worth of respect is earned, by conventional wisdom, is fought for and attained by hard labor. No one is destined for any one role, they contend, and on that, Bedisa is determined to agree to disagree. All things are fated. If you work hard to win the leadership role of the A’ni, it is because you were destined to be awarded that role. As a Zahanzai, Bedisa lacks authority, which may be why the Legion let her beliefs slide as long as they did. They also couldn’t exactly argue against her when she proved herself extraordinarily adept at the role of scout, not when she could disappear into the shadows of the wild with nary a trace to mark her passing and return with vital information, her departures and arrivals unseen and unmarked by potential hostiles and indeed her own Legion. It wasn’t to last forever, however, and the day came when she had to leave.

She left to bond to psychic junior weyrwoman Abigail Offob, and the relationship was simultaneously close and strained. It was Abigail who gave Bedisa her name, who at once challenged the Zahanzai’s beliefs and obliquely supported her. Powerful personalities both, the two tended to clash more often than not, but Bedisa still recalls her former bondmate with a great deal of affection and respect. The bond was obviously not destined to last, however. Abigail was dying a slow death, the kind of slow death that allowed for frank discussions and years of prior planning. Despite all appearances, Bedisa was not willed to Telmaril by chance, did not have her fate decided by the arbitrary flip of a coin. It was, in all of Abigail’s visions and otherworldly knowing, predestined. And Bedisa can work with that. She lacks the awkwardness one might expect from inheriting a bond from a dead woman, instead slotting herself neatly into Telmaril’s life. Most of the time. Bedisa is not naturally a contentious creature, but her beliefs are what they are and she will defend them. This does not always make her easy to get along with, but it can be worked around with enough respect for Bedisa’s skill and professionalism. She responds well to respect, though she hasn’t learned to expect it. Mostly, she’s a task-oriented creature. Give her a task, and thy will be done. Swiftly and neatly, Bedisa follows the will of Fate and does what is asked of her with minimal complaint, so long as the request or command comes from an authority she respects. Beyond that, Bedisa is the ideal soldier, after a fashion, with a penchant for regimented chains of command and the determination to follow her orders through to the end. She is hard, sharp, and a little cold, but she’s the best at what she does, and what she does is what is necessary. It won’t begin as a comfortable fit, but eventually, probably, Telmaril will learn to live around Bedisa’s edges and she might learn to be less the ever-present shadow of Fate and more sociable. Or perhaps that’s asking too much, but she might eventually warm up enough to let loose her rare moments of warm humor.

Bedisa is a lithe creature. She’s even a little small for her species, shorter at the shoulder than most of her kind and the kind of slender that usually doesn’t fit in with the warrior culture of the Caradras. She makes up for it by moving like smoke, just as silent and just as prone to dissipating on a morning breeze and vanishing from sight with the ease and alacrity of long practice. At a distance, one might describe Bedisa as being “black”, but up close and under detailed inspection, nuances of black become visible, ranging from dove greys and charcoals to ebony and dyed tileblack. It prevents her from having a solid profile when she takes to the shadows, providing camouflage sufficient that it is rarely, if ever, necessary for Bedisa to dye herself in disguise. Her horn and tail blade appear to be obsidian, and are every bit as sharp as the sheared-off volcanic glass they so resemble.

Azeyma goes here! ...once she's written!

Key, the More Than You Are Male Night

There’s something intensely, unnervingly artificial about Key. Even when Telmaril’s shinies can’t agree on anything else, they accept that one fact as true. What’s less certain is just why he inspires such universal mistrust. His strangely fake body language almost certainly plays a role, as does his stilted speech and staring eyes, but those individual factors can’t account for everything, can they?

What Telmaril and company fail to recognize is that Key is fake, inasmuch as it is possible for a persona to be faked. More specifically, Key is what happens when a hippogryph is left isolated, unsocialized, and conditioned to fear the hand that feeds him. Key broke shell in a bandit camp, one of two survivors of a clutch stolen from their mother’s nest. The men who ‘owned’ him were new arrivals to Teragaia, as yet unfamiliar with the habits and rites of their new planet. They viewed Key and his brother, another Night summarily named ‘Lock’, as little more than glorified attack dogs. With hand, with fist and with considerable coercion, that’s precisely what the young hippogryphs became.

Key spent nearly five years with his ersatz masters before he outlived his usefulness. They abandoned him in a forest near Haven Village. Only the timely arrival of Telmaril saved Key from an ignomious end. Nursed back to health and treated with respect for the first time in his life, Key found himself faced with a dilemma: did he pursue his once-masters and exact revenge, or follow the example of the Au Ra who had saved him? By the time he settled on the latter a bond had formed, one that promised him the warmth and belonging he’d never had before.

In the months since his rescue Key has grown into a solemn and somber creature. He watches more than he speaks, absorbing everything he missed with a fervency that many call unnerving. He knows he’s walking wounded, fears he’s too broken to ever mend, and wants to be ‘human’ with a fervidness that’s almost frightening to behold. ‘Humanity’ doesn’t come easy to him, not after the isolation and deprivation of his foalhood, but bit by it the pieces are starting to fall into place. No matter how scarred his frame or his heart is, Key loves as only a kind creature can. For now he does it from afar, too uncertain to risk closing the distance and finding rejection, but slowly but sure he’s learning to open up. His observance, his tenaciousness and his vast, almost alien intellect all help speed this pursuit along. He’ll likely never be an outgoing creature, but with any luck he’ll learn to show the love that burns in his heart.

Key does not wear his rank well. He’s painfully thin even for a Night, every bone and tendon standing out in sharp, almost etched relief. His stark, staring hide is an unnatural shade of bleached white, utterly unwavering from head to toe. Even his eyes are a shade of grey so pale they could pass as white. He’s not a handsome creature, nor does he look healthy, but there’s a certain terrible grace in his long legs and razor-sharp edges.