Elizabeth Culmer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
edenfalling) wrote2005-07-14 07:19 pm
edenfalling) wrote2005-07-14 07:19 pm
Entry tags:
random thoughts on Ekanu, or, what Liz does when she can't go online at work
The great love of Ekanu's life is Ain h'sut chung h'Ril (or whatever his Pythran name is; I can't remember offhand), a half-breed Sheng who lives in Pythas and works as an engineer and architect. Pythas has welcomed the University, and Ain used the local chapterhouse as a way to escape his ghetto origins. (Sheng who leave Kengush tend to be ostracized in neighboring countries, because people fear and remember the great raids and invasions.)
Ain is a skin-shifter -- he can take the shape of a wolf. His mother was also a skin-shifter, and in fact Ain's father was a wolf. (Or maybe an Andarkin skin-shifter; I go back and forth on that point. Either way, the procreative sex definitely happened in wolf-form.) He doesn't know that for certain, since his mother never admitted to anything and died in childbirth, but his name is a big hint. His grandmother, Noshay, then took him and left her clan.
Ain is a quiet man, generally calm and controlled. But now and again he leaves the city and heads for the hills, where he sheds his human skin and lives for the hunt and the kill. Ekanu first meets him on one of his hunts, in wolf-shape, and treats him without much fear. In fact, she joins his hunt; that's something she's missed since she left the Ice and gave her dogs into Kadeotak's keeping.
When Ain meets her again in Pythas, he's surprised to see her as a composed Mistress of the University, and to learn that she's an expert in musicology and languages. Ekanu, meanwhile, wonders why he seems oddly familiar.
Anyway, they strike up a relationship during her stay in the city, but he won't leave and she won't stay, so they part ways. She returns to Yanomy several times over the next decades and they maintain contact, but they never marry. Possibly they have a child together; I'm not sure about that. In any case, the child would stay with Ain, since it would most likely be a skin-shifter as well and Ekanu doesn't know how to train that gift.
-----------------------------------------------
Her other romantic relationships are with Denifar Rollesdun, during their first visit to Gwynorae; with Darei Ko'en, during her stay in Merin after she fulfills her term of service as a chapterhouse inspector; with Kadeotak, when she's a girl and when she briefly tries to return to her people; with Refan sin Alar, an Akhite mystic, during her brief trip through eastern Estaria; and with Jou Shaha Vagyu, a fisher on the saltwater marshes of the Inner Sea, in Nivenos.
With Denifar, she crashes and burns on opposing expectations. Darei only asks for a brief interval, and that's all Ekanu wants at the time, so they mostly have fun. With Kadeotak, they both know it's not a permanent thing; for one thing, Kadeotak's married. But the Domaris make a place for close ties between same-gender friends, and sex in those relationships isn't considered adultery.
Refan isn't looking for a relationship and neither is Ekanu, but they find each other both intriguing and soothing. Vagyu is trying to find a new direction in her life after her husband's death, and Ekanu is trying to deal with the guilt of leaving her child behind in Pythas. (Yeah, on due reflection, I think she and Ain do have a kid. Gender as yet undetermined.) They never get further than a kiss or two, and some light touches, but it's a cathartic sort of thing for both of them.
-----------------------------------------------
Ekanu's other close relationships are with Denifar (they make better friends than lovers); with Jemry Hachak, her protege from Mohrad; with an Inquisitor of Shimat-Mek; with her mentors in Estara and Vinaeo; with her daughter (yeah, I think the kid's a girl); with Lya-Lya, her student in Gwynorae; with her family on the Ice; and with various colleagues in Estara. She travels a LOT, but she always seems to come back to Estara in the end. Her other recurring destinations are Pythas, Gwynorae, the Ice, and a few Akhite monasteries/shrines. She stops going to Vinaeo after her mentor dies.
Ekanu has a bad, and permanent, case of itchy feet. She spends a fair portion of her life searching for someplace she can settle down and be happy, but eventually she comes to understand that she enjoys travel for its own sake. She'll always be happiest when she has somewhere new to explore.
-----------------------------------------------
The beauty of Ekanu, to me, is that I have a character who by her very nature enables me to explore an entire world. And she's interested in all sorts of things, so I get to create and show off cultures, languages, histories, religions, technological infrastructures, political systems, wars, treaties, and all the thousands of facets that make up a world -- a world that actually functions.
Firsthome is my favorite of all my worlds, because to me it's the one that really, truly exists as a world. I care about all of it, not just the bits and pieces that are most relevant to my stories. I didn't really design Firsthome, not the way I designed some of my other settings; it just kind of grew and evolved, along with Ekanu and with me, over the ten-odd years since I first went digging through my imagination and found a place that looked kind of interesting.
Ekanu isn't my favorite character -- I don't really have favorite characters -- but I consider her my alter-ego. She shares almost all of my interests (except for storytelling), but her attitude towards life runs counter to mine. She does things. She goes places. She prefers the new over the familiar; she isn't a homebody. She understands and appreciates solitude, but she's comfortable with people and with her sexuality. She internalizes her issues and angsts more than she really needs to, but then she reaches a decision and acts on it, calmly, whereas I just keep letting things slide and tangling myself in guilt and anger.
She really is, to a large degree, the other side of me.
-----------------------------------------------
Magic in Firsthome is an erratic force. Many people have a small knack for this or that, like Marcan the trader, who can seal mended seams. Other people are stranger, with larger gifts that dominate their lives, like Ain and his skin-shifting. Ekanu's gift, which she doesn't pay much attention to or do much with, is to use music as an evocation. She can, if she wants to bother, tune an audience's emotions to her songs. But Ekanu prefers to rely on her own skill and the unadorned music; she considers evocations to be cheating and thinks they downplay the effect of the actual melodies.
The University has yet to come up with a satisfactory explanation for magic. It's considered a somewhat esoteric field of research, and also somwhat impractical -- it is, after all, easier to use technology, which has predictable results for a given input -- but it's not unprestigeous. After all philosophy and religion are also somewhat esoteric and impractical.
Denifar has a gift for listening to and watching a mechanism and intuitively understanding how the parts fit together. This, however, is as much training as it is magic. Darei Ko'en can set dyes permanently; that is, he can pass his hand over fabric and keep the colors from fading. Kadeotak and Refan have no magic. Vagyu has a sense for fish and crabs and the shifting channels of the saltwater marshes in which she lives.
Magic tends to shape itself to a person's desires and environment. For example, when she was very young, Ekanu had an uncanny sense for understanding dogs, but she lost that as she grew and left the Ice. She's still good with animals, but that intuitive knowing is gone, fed into her music instead.
-----------------------------------------------
God, I wish I still had internet access at work.
I think, if I'd been born ten years later, I would probably have been diagnosed with ADHD. Ekanu has itchy feet. I have an itchy brain.
Ain is a skin-shifter -- he can take the shape of a wolf. His mother was also a skin-shifter, and in fact Ain's father was a wolf. (Or maybe an Andarkin skin-shifter; I go back and forth on that point. Either way, the procreative sex definitely happened in wolf-form.) He doesn't know that for certain, since his mother never admitted to anything and died in childbirth, but his name is a big hint. His grandmother, Noshay, then took him and left her clan.
Ain is a quiet man, generally calm and controlled. But now and again he leaves the city and heads for the hills, where he sheds his human skin and lives for the hunt and the kill. Ekanu first meets him on one of his hunts, in wolf-shape, and treats him without much fear. In fact, she joins his hunt; that's something she's missed since she left the Ice and gave her dogs into Kadeotak's keeping.
When Ain meets her again in Pythas, he's surprised to see her as a composed Mistress of the University, and to learn that she's an expert in musicology and languages. Ekanu, meanwhile, wonders why he seems oddly familiar.
Anyway, they strike up a relationship during her stay in the city, but he won't leave and she won't stay, so they part ways. She returns to Yanomy several times over the next decades and they maintain contact, but they never marry. Possibly they have a child together; I'm not sure about that. In any case, the child would stay with Ain, since it would most likely be a skin-shifter as well and Ekanu doesn't know how to train that gift.
-----------------------------------------------
Her other romantic relationships are with Denifar Rollesdun, during their first visit to Gwynorae; with Darei Ko'en, during her stay in Merin after she fulfills her term of service as a chapterhouse inspector; with Kadeotak, when she's a girl and when she briefly tries to return to her people; with Refan sin Alar, an Akhite mystic, during her brief trip through eastern Estaria; and with Jou Shaha Vagyu, a fisher on the saltwater marshes of the Inner Sea, in Nivenos.
With Denifar, she crashes and burns on opposing expectations. Darei only asks for a brief interval, and that's all Ekanu wants at the time, so they mostly have fun. With Kadeotak, they both know it's not a permanent thing; for one thing, Kadeotak's married. But the Domaris make a place for close ties between same-gender friends, and sex in those relationships isn't considered adultery.
Refan isn't looking for a relationship and neither is Ekanu, but they find each other both intriguing and soothing. Vagyu is trying to find a new direction in her life after her husband's death, and Ekanu is trying to deal with the guilt of leaving her child behind in Pythas. (Yeah, on due reflection, I think she and Ain do have a kid. Gender as yet undetermined.) They never get further than a kiss or two, and some light touches, but it's a cathartic sort of thing for both of them.
-----------------------------------------------
Ekanu's other close relationships are with Denifar (they make better friends than lovers); with Jemry Hachak, her protege from Mohrad; with an Inquisitor of Shimat-Mek; with her mentors in Estara and Vinaeo; with her daughter (yeah, I think the kid's a girl); with Lya-Lya, her student in Gwynorae; with her family on the Ice; and with various colleagues in Estara. She travels a LOT, but she always seems to come back to Estara in the end. Her other recurring destinations are Pythas, Gwynorae, the Ice, and a few Akhite monasteries/shrines. She stops going to Vinaeo after her mentor dies.
Ekanu has a bad, and permanent, case of itchy feet. She spends a fair portion of her life searching for someplace she can settle down and be happy, but eventually she comes to understand that she enjoys travel for its own sake. She'll always be happiest when she has somewhere new to explore.
-----------------------------------------------
The beauty of Ekanu, to me, is that I have a character who by her very nature enables me to explore an entire world. And she's interested in all sorts of things, so I get to create and show off cultures, languages, histories, religions, technological infrastructures, political systems, wars, treaties, and all the thousands of facets that make up a world -- a world that actually functions.
Firsthome is my favorite of all my worlds, because to me it's the one that really, truly exists as a world. I care about all of it, not just the bits and pieces that are most relevant to my stories. I didn't really design Firsthome, not the way I designed some of my other settings; it just kind of grew and evolved, along with Ekanu and with me, over the ten-odd years since I first went digging through my imagination and found a place that looked kind of interesting.
Ekanu isn't my favorite character -- I don't really have favorite characters -- but I consider her my alter-ego. She shares almost all of my interests (except for storytelling), but her attitude towards life runs counter to mine. She does things. She goes places. She prefers the new over the familiar; she isn't a homebody. She understands and appreciates solitude, but she's comfortable with people and with her sexuality. She internalizes her issues and angsts more than she really needs to, but then she reaches a decision and acts on it, calmly, whereas I just keep letting things slide and tangling myself in guilt and anger.
She really is, to a large degree, the other side of me.
-----------------------------------------------
Magic in Firsthome is an erratic force. Many people have a small knack for this or that, like Marcan the trader, who can seal mended seams. Other people are stranger, with larger gifts that dominate their lives, like Ain and his skin-shifting. Ekanu's gift, which she doesn't pay much attention to or do much with, is to use music as an evocation. She can, if she wants to bother, tune an audience's emotions to her songs. But Ekanu prefers to rely on her own skill and the unadorned music; she considers evocations to be cheating and thinks they downplay the effect of the actual melodies.
The University has yet to come up with a satisfactory explanation for magic. It's considered a somewhat esoteric field of research, and also somwhat impractical -- it is, after all, easier to use technology, which has predictable results for a given input -- but it's not unprestigeous. After all philosophy and religion are also somewhat esoteric and impractical.
Denifar has a gift for listening to and watching a mechanism and intuitively understanding how the parts fit together. This, however, is as much training as it is magic. Darei Ko'en can set dyes permanently; that is, he can pass his hand over fabric and keep the colors from fading. Kadeotak and Refan have no magic. Vagyu has a sense for fish and crabs and the shifting channels of the saltwater marshes in which she lives.
Magic tends to shape itself to a person's desires and environment. For example, when she was very young, Ekanu had an uncanny sense for understanding dogs, but she lost that as she grew and left the Ice. She's still good with animals, but that intuitive knowing is gone, fed into her music instead.
-----------------------------------------------
God, I wish I still had internet access at work.
I think, if I'd been born ten years later, I would probably have been diagnosed with ADHD. Ekanu has itchy feet. I have an itchy brain.