10 October 2022

After what I learned about Elsenaia and her past in the previous posts, it didn't make sense for some memories and ideas to be as accessible as they were, at least to me. I started trying to figure out what her life meant for the way her mental palace appeared and functioned, and rewrote the first introduction to the mental world here.

It's kind of fun, trying to put physical descriptions to such abstract ideas.

When I opened my eyes, to my surprise I was in a long, palatial hallway, perhaps thirty feet wide and fifteen feet tall, with innumerable mirrors spaced out along its walls. Here and there between them hung both gorgeous wall-to-ceiling paintings and life sized dioramas made with marionettes.

Meanwhile, I could sense Elsenaia trying to sift through my brain. She felt lost, and her frustration emanated out of the mirrors around me. Before I poked around the hallway, I asked, “Need help finding anything?”

“That will not be necessary.” The embarrassment I felt from the mirrors undercut the dignity she tried to project, but since I started remembering things, from old friends to travel locations, I figured she was getting the hang of it.

I turned my attention back to the dioramas, and found one that seemed to represent her argument with the guard earlier. While both were jointed like artists’s mannequins, it was curious that only the guard had a proper face, while Elsenaia’s did not. Instead, she wore an elaborate silver diadem I hadn’t seen in real life. On top of that, she was held in place by puppet strings leading to the ceiling, although the guard had none.

Out of curiosity, I touched the figure of the guard, and voices echoed around me. Somehow, I was able to understand everything perfectly, despite the fact the conversation was in Elvish. Direct brain-to-brain communication?

“You cannot mean to bond with this human?” the angry guard, labeled “Darrett”, demanded.

Waves of indignation pulsed out from the princess mannequin, indignation that hadn’t been visible in real life. I heard Elsenaia’s voice, where she sighed and replied, “Of course not. This is an interrogation not–”

“Huh,” I said to myself, and walked away. Some of the dioramas featured Tairsi or Darrett; others placed her on a throne before some ordinary citizens; and others what I assumed to be her family. In addition to her father and mother, she had one older brother and a pair of older twin sisters.

A painting on the wall gave a better depiction of them, at least at first. When I found it, it seemed for all the world like a normal royal family portrait. And yet, as I moved and the angle changed, the painting shifted. The king’s eyes grew darker, and his crown taller. The queen’s mouth disappeared, and she had a collar around her neck with a chain leading to the king’s hands. Elsenaia herself was once again faceless, while her brother now had an almost bestial snarl warping his face. One hand was held behind his back with the tip of a knife barely visible. Only her sisters looked relatively unchanged.

Intrigued, I walked down to the next portrait, which was much more straightforward. Tairsi, as a knight, kneeled before the faceless princess in all her glory on a throne. At Tairsi’s back, though, hidden in shadows, a young elven girl I guessed to be a younger Elsenaia reached out for her.

I stepped closer. Below the painting, a nameplate read “Loyal Knight”. I traced my finger along it, and a voice of a young girl came out of the painting. “I guess princesses aren’t allowed to have friends.”

As soon as the voice finished, though, mirrored walls slammed down around me like prison walls. I felt Elsenaia’s fear spike, and her voice boomed through the room I was now in. “Wha… You’re not… How are you in my head!?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. You’re the one who did the magicy bits. I didn’t even think magic was real an hour ago.”

I could sense Elsenaia’s disbelief change into shock as my memories verified what I said. I asked, “So, what do you know of that could cause this?”

She just shook her head. She seemed to be at a total loss, so I decided to poke around to find out if there was anything about the spell that might help.

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26 September 2022

This one is pretty self explanatory; rather that write prose, I took the hour to brainstorm what Elsenaia’s past might have been like. Most of the time I do this sort of thing in the 10-15minute prep time before I write, but this seemed big and complicated enough I went ahead and took the whole block, and used it for my writing for the day.

This is pretty much just backstory ramblings, so quality and coherency may not be super high.

Elsenaia was a lot happier as a child. She and Tairsi were thick as thieves, and Tairsi would drag the princess all over the place for little “adventures”. Nothing too serious; they never left the palace, and they never caused any real trouble. That would be rude to the servants.

However, it was considered unseemly for Elsenaia to express her emotions so strongly, and to be running around like that in general. So they were separated. The king found a prestigious promotion for Tairsi’s parents out near the borders of the kingdom, and it would be years before they saw each other again. By that point, both had changed.

What made it worse was the last day before they parted. Tairsi ad been heavily scolded by her parents, and so when she went to say goodbye, she told Elsenaia, “I guess we can’t be friends anymore.”

“What!? Why?” Little Elsenaia had tears in her eyes.

Tairsi wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Princesses aren’t supposed to have friends.”

For a long time, Elsenaia didn’t move. Then her tears overflowed, and she ran. Even she’s not sure if she’s ever truly smiled after that.

Tairsi, for her part, was literally parroting what her parents told her word for word. By the time she realized how much that must have hurt the princess several years later, it was too late. The damage had been done, and she had no way to apologize.

There is now an awkward dichotomy, where the only thing Tairsi could think of to do was serve Elsenaia whole-heartedly to make up for her mistake. However, on the contrary, every bow, every term of respect, every servile action only drove it home to Elsenaia that Tairsi is not her friend; she is her servant. And Elsenaia felt more and more isolated.

After Tairsi was sent away, Elsenaia was forced to spend all her time studying. The angry guard from before was actually one of her tutors; swordplay, specifically. She didn’t particularly enjoy or pursue it, but she’s passable with a blade, which is more than can be said of me.

Her truest passion was magic. I think it was a form of escapism; leave behind all her duties and responsibilities to focus on breaking the very rules of the universe.

As for as her family, her parents are both alive, and they see each other often enough, but there’s also a certain distance between them as well. Like the king (or whatever his title actually is) must keep that royal persona on at all times, even with family. I suspect her mother just follows along with whatever her husband says; someone with little to no will of their own to exert, even if they wanted to.

As for siblings… Elsenaia is certainly the eldest. She has at least one younger brother, I think? How much of this is patterned after the Schnee family? …Nah. Anyway, the next eldest is a brother, who is jealous of Elsenaia’s status, and the youngest are a pair of twin sisters. I’m still deciding if they’re malicious pranksters or something else at the moment.

Each has a day of the week they are assigned to “listen to the voice of the people”, though each of the twins’ days are cut to noon, and they always have one of their parents around to supervise due to their age. Elsenaia finds it very boring; she is, unfortunately, very good at it, and tends to draw bigger crowds than even the king. No telling how he feels about that; could provide an escape opportunity for Elsenaia if he turns out to be jealous.

Unless… I her brother’s actually older than her, and Elsenaia’s the one that “never measures up” in their parents’ eyes, always choking at the last minute, that could be an interesting dynamic, as well. I’ll have to think about that.

Yeah, I like that image; where she was the baby of the bunch, and the twins would always tease or prank her, perhaps because they were jealous of how happy she was roaming around with Tairsi. Then the incident with Tairsi leaving happened, and Elsenaia became way too serious, and the twins were filled with guilt.

When it comes to stories… The sheer shock she had in the last scene doesn’t make sense, I don’t think. Elves have stories, whether real, fictional, or legendary; it’s just a question of which ones Elsenaia was exposed to. And given the general attitude her parents/father had about Tairsi, I think it’s safe to say that her media intake was heavily censored. If it didn’t teach her something (and that something was both specific and approved by the king), it didn’t get anywhere near her.

Which does leave the question, wouldn’t some of the petitions on her public day be about requests to read or watch some of their artwork?

It also makes me curious what she does, exactly, the other six days of the week. I’m sure she’s kept busy, but doing what? Diplomatic meetings? I’m sure that’s part of it bu certainly not all of it. Flower garden tea parties? I’m sure she hates those. Leah Aragaki from Out of Touch might be decent inspiration for her personality; it would explain why she can’t trust anyone without reading their mind.

Does she paint? That might be the one “personal” thing she’s been allowed. Of course, it would still be heavily regimented; what kind of princess gets paint in her hair, for example? This would change on earth, though.

Yeah, I kinda hate her father the more this goes on. That kind of makes it fun, though. Does Elsie get banished, and that’s what lets her cut loose? Or is he an ever-present threat, always looming in the back of her and the MC’s minds, wondering when the other shoe is going to drop?

How big is her country? Initially I thought it would have to be quite small, but if it takes place on a whole different world, it could be quite the empire. Which would explain all of the diplomatic meetings. What kind of communication technology/magics do they have there? Whatever it is, what I’ve seen makes me think the king would make heavy use of propaganda. 

Ooh, what if his kingdom is small and failing, and that’s given him a chip on his shoulder? All his people know it, but he has that royal pride, and so has refused to let his children see it. The others have likely figured it out to one degree or another, but not Elsenaia. It’s a fun idea, but it doesn’t quite fit.

Also, what sparked their invasion? Did the portal reawaken suddenly, and they sent a party through to head off any potential threat? I like that idea. The question, then, is what is Elsenaia doing on this trip? There are two main possibilities, which are very much NOT mutually exclusive. Either she finagled herself onto the trip so she could actually see the world, or else her older brother arranged it in hopes of eliminating her.

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