Tomaeran

Prologue

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Dyana who was the niece of Misty Hold. She was pretty and dimpled and loved parties and pretty things - and hated fish. Fish, salt, the ocean itself, boats; there was, indeed, nothing about her home Hold that she liked, except perhaps that they were prosperous enough that she could have those pretty things, even if the salt and sea tended to stain her silks and ruin her hair.

Perhaps the best thing about Misty, aside from that, was that they were an important enough Hold - even if they were minor - that when Dyana was sixteen, her Uncle the Holder began to cast around for suitable men for her to marry. Men who didn't live at Misty! Briefly, there was some talk about Balen, which was on the ocean and thus immediately impossible, but finally, happily, a match was made with the eldest son of River Bend. Inland!

Dyana never looked back. She married Henret, a stranger to her, with a smile on her face and joy in her heart, and if their marriage was never built in love, it was undeniably a successful one in the beginning.

But Dyana's happiness turned to ashes. She'd followed along with Henret's plots: she'd liked the idea of being Lady High Reaches well enough, even if High Reaches WAS on the coast. She'd liked the idea of her young husband as Lord Holder without doubt. But his plans faded to nothing, and worse, to /exile/: she spent turns being angry with him, abandoned on an island in the middle of the ocean, destined to die in Thread, or wither away from hunger. Where was High Reaches, now? Where were her dresses, her pretty things? She mocked Henret, as he took leadership of the island. Lady Exile? She laughed. She cried.

"They'll rescue us, one day," she swore, staring out over the ocean day after day, as her hair frizzed and her skin turned to leather. "And we'll be ready. My son, or his son, or his son in turn, but they will rescue us. And we will have our vengeance."

She didn't live long, Dyana of Misty. Of River Bend. Never of the Island. She wasted away to nothing in their first winter, leaving behind three motherless children - children whose only real memory of their mother would be her regular reminders: "We will have our vengeance. Never forget that you are Blood. Never forget what is your right."

Background

Unlike many of the exiles, Tomaeran's family has stayed more or less intact: two parents, one sibling, grandparents living appropriate lengths of time even if they're now no longer alive. His uncle is the current leader of the exiles, and it's a family connection that Tomaeran's mother has long pressed into her children as being important: she can trace her lineage straight back to Lords, and her children should never forget that.

Unfortunately, Tomaeran has always been of the opinion that while yes, of course he's better than those who can't do that, it doesn't mean that much in the scheme of things. He'll never lead the islands; he'll never /leave/ the islands. In fact, all he seemed inclined to do with it was push his weight around, a practice that got him into trouble when he was seventeen, and one of the (very much not Blooded) young women turned up pregnant, claiming him as the father.

Not even family connections could save him from that: if he'd gotten her pregnant, he'd have to marry her. Anything else would just complicate matters. Seani was a nice enough girl, and pretty, but it shamed Tomaeran and his family that he should have to sink so low. The marriage faltered from the start, and the whole thing became all the more complicated when Seani's child was born still. Tomaeran's mother argued that there was no need for the marriage, then, but to no avail: it was done.

If there's some surprise that there have been no more children from the pair in the five turns since - well. These things do happen.

#1f4770