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aroaessidhe · 3 years ago

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She Who Became The Sun character descriptions

for fanart! my full book character description database in linked in my pinned post

please note this is mostly in the form of copypasted paragraphs so may contain spoilers!

Zhu

"wide forehead and none of the roundness that makes children adorable, she had the mandibular look of a brown locust" "She took off her skirt and put on Chongba’s knee-length robe and trousers; untied her hair buns so her hair fell loose like a boy’s; and finally took the amulet from his throat and fastened it around her own" [wooden Buddhist amulet around his neck, glows gold in candlelight]

monk robes: their trousers and undershirts, then peasant-style short inner robes, then over them the wide-sleeved gray monastic robes,

She was smaller than the boys, but the enveloping robes made her otherwise identical. She touched her newly shaved head. Her hair was too short to even have a nap; it was as unfriendly to her fingers as a scrubbing brush.

later: She was wearing only her short inner robe and trousers, and now the Abbot draped the seven-panel robe over her shoulders. It was heavier than the novice robes

triangular silhouette

grid of 12 ordination scars on head

The black scholar-style hat she had worn for the wedding matched Chen’s perfectly, so that together they resembled a classic image of master and disciple.

She was wearing her usual combination of armor over old gray robes,

Xu Da

An older boy of perhaps thirteen or fourteen, to Zhu’s starved eyes he seemed outlandishly robust: almost too tall and healthy to be real. His features were as harmonious as if they had been placed there by a sympathetic deity, rather than simply thrown down in a jumble from Heaven like everyone else

Already twenty-one, he had matured into a strapping young man whose shaved head only highlighted the clean planes of his face. His ordination last autumn was still recent enough that Zhu found it odd to see him in a fully ordained monk’s seven-panel robe instead of the simpler novice robes, his scalp marked with ordination scars

His cheekbones stood out more sharply, and there was a new shadow in his eyes. His grown-out hair puffed around his head like the fur of a Tibetan temple dog. Out of his gray robes, which were the only clothes Zhu had ever seen him in, he seemed like a different person.

Under the downwards slope of his eyebrows, his right eyelid creased a little more than the left. His hair, in the awkward stage between shaved and long enough to tie up, gave him a disreputable look

Esen

The warm spring wind swept his loosened hair to the side like a flag

His deep outdoors tan concealed his naturally ruddy, fair-skinned steppe complexion, but his chest, visible through the gap in his robe, gleamed ivory in the firelight.

Tall and muscular, with a neat well-shaped mouth under his beard, he was so perfect an example of a Mongol warrior that he resembled the hagiographic portraits of the great khans even more than the real men themselves had.

Esen emerged from his ger in his ceremonial armor. His cape was silver fur, which flattered his browned skin. His beard had been trimmed so the column of his throat stood clear and smooth.

jade beads in his hair clicked

Esen’s familiar face, lined unfamiliarly with the pain he himself had put there. He saw the smoothness where the beard of Esen’s upper lip failed to meet his beard below, his strong neck with its fluttering heartbeat. The generous and well-shaped lips.

Esen, Ouyang and Wang-

The Prince of Henan swept across the courtyard and up the steps of the Great Shrine Hall. The lush fur of his cape rippled and flexed like a live animal. A plume of white horsehair bucked at his helmet. He was trailed by three radiant youths. Bareheaded, their alien braids tossed in the wind. Two wore armor, and the third a gown of such gloriously shimmering magnolia purple that Zhu’s first thought was that it was made of butterfly wings. “That must be the Prince’s heir, Lord Esen,” Xu Da said, of the taller armored figure. “So the one in purple is Lord Wang, the younger son.

Ouyang

[his] face, as bright and delicate as a polished abalone shell, brought to life every description of beauty that Zhu had ever read in poetry. And yet—even as Zhu saw beauty, she felt the lack of something the eye wanted. There was no femininity in that lovely face at all. Instead there was only the hard, haughty superiority that was somehow unmistakably that of a young man.

Ouyang had a vain streak when it came to armor: the mirror plates he favored were uniquely recognizable, a bold declaration of his status as a feared general of the Yuan.

He had been a youth then, probably younger than Zhu was now. Those years should have turned a youth into a man, but now Zhu had the impression of seeing an echo made flesh: someone as slight and beautiful as he had been all that time ago. Only his girl’s face had lost its pure loveliness to become something more unsettling: a sharp, eerie beauty held in as high a tension as the finest tempered steel. Instead of a normal soldier’s leather armor, the general wore metal. His circular chest plate was a darkly glimmering mirror. On each side of his head his hair was braided into the thin loops of a Mongol warrior. As he came closer Zhu saw he was actually of Nanren blood.

"She saw him in silhouette: black hair and black armor against a night sky. Behind him were the dark shapes of his ghosts, and behind them: the stars."

Lord Wang

hands tucked fastidiously into his sleeves. A clot of stillness amidst the chaos, watching. As was his habit, the other had set himself apart: his fussy silk dress was as vivid as a persimmon on a snowy branch. Instead of Mongol braids, he wore a topknot. His only concession to proper Mongol fashions was a sable cloak, and perhaps even that was only a concession to the cold. As Ouyang and Esen dismounted and entered the courtyard, the Prince of Henan’s second son gave his brother one of his slow, catlike smiles. Blood ran strange in the half-breeds. Despite his narrow Mongol eyes, Lord Wang Baoxiang had the slender face and long nose of the vanished aristocrats of Khinsai, the southern city once called imperial Lin’an

smooth golden tone of her skin was only more luminous in contrast to a small dark mole high on her forehead. Her hair fell as straight and shining as black clouds. Perhaps her looks missed the Nanren standards of classic beauty, but in her face there was such a depth of raw and innocent emotion that Zhu’s eye was drawn as if to the scene of an accident

her hair fell in two shining sheets around her face. Through it Zhu glimpsed her high nomad cheekbones, and the floating eyebrows signifying future happiness that every mother wanted their daughters to have

perfect willow-leaf eyes

it was true, though, that male clothing did nothing to hide her feminine shape. With her sturdy thighs and rounded hips, nobody was ever going to compose a poem comparing her to a slender willow, or a gracefully bending blade of grass

"Ma was wearing red, the color of what had been ended so that Zhu could build the new. Her gold-embroidered sleeves draped nearly to the ground. Her upswept hair, as high again as her head, was crowned with hanging silk ribbons and golden threads that swayed as she walked. In silence she made her way between the bodies prostrated on the stone. Her skirts flowed behind her like a river of blood. At the foot of the stairs, Ma knelt. She was all smoothness and softness in the pool of her madder-dyed silk—"

Ma took off her veil. Her dangling hairpin decorations chimed softly against each other as she sat next to Zhu on the bed.

----

a few minor characters also in my database!

#she who became the sun #shelley parker-chan #char desc database

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royal-writer · 5 years ago

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Love Her Softly

hnnngg i’m mcfuckin falling asleep but you get the point i guess

softness =/= weakness

She was a vision of the most serene beauty and generosity. A glowing smile to go with her shining complexion. He could see the brightness of appreciation and warm in the man’s face, looking upon her. He could see the echoes of pain in her own; the tiredness, the way she stood rigid to pretend as though her limbs were not sore from the battle hard fought. Yet she still held tender to the man’s hand; still insisted on wrapping the gentleman’s fingers around the small satchel of her coin she placed in his palm.

There was no room in his heart to doubt. Essätha’s very existence was the traveling sun, breaking through clouds to bring light to the earth. She gave him the infinite hope of tomorrow. If she could live and breathe and fight through the hardest days, so could he. If surviving the worst of humiliation and agony life had to offer through hate and war meant waking to another day to see her smile, he’d put up the hardest fight possible. Anything, if only to have a moment to agonizingly pray she would allow him to hold her even so he could feel whole and soak his fondness in her autumn skin. Just to see her be was enough to change his world and make him see it from a perspective of beauty.

It brought him equal parts joy and fear then, to think that just a passing glance or word she said could make someone fall in love with her. Amon had no doubt it was possible. She was captivating. Her smile, her laugh, the way her nose wrinkled when she quirked her mouth deep in thought, how her eyes were like the rays of sunflower in dappled lighting. If the Gods had an image of perfection; they had made it, and placed the most blessed soul of thoughtfulness and love to reside inside of her.

Essie was profoundly easy to adore. She made it effortless. It was easy, when you saw the purity of her actions, and not feel touched just to be in her presence.

She patted the man’s hand who, begrudgingly, accepted the currency, and moved on to speak to one of the adjacent fellows to him in an equally polite voice and mesmerizing gesture of hands. They appeared rather shy and taken aback by her. The nobleman was understanding how they had so much trouble keeping eye contact. It was like looking directly at the sun when staring at her; blinding, radiant, alluring.

A snort to his left escaped a townsman with crossed arms. They elbowed the individual on their other side, speaking in a hushed tone: “Ever seen a woman hold a man’s hand like that?”

“Oh yeah. When they’re single, and not such bitter nuisances,” the later man chuckled.

Glowering, Amon slide his weary gaze upon the duo.

“None too wise is she?” the former snickered. “She’s got a lot o’ heart, I’ll give her that. Too much though. The weak one’s suffer the most. She’ll never last.”

He unclenched his jaw, and sharply cleared his throat to capture the twosomes attention. They whipped their heads towards, splotches of flushed markings creeping up on one’s face with embarrassment upon being overheard.

“Miss Meduza is far more insightful and compassionate than either of you two give her credit for,” Amon crisply informed them with a narrow-eyed gaze. “If either of you had half as much foresight, you’d see how much strength it takes for her to be so kind and selfless. It is her spirit and tenacity and makes her so brave. She is strong because she is willing to be soft. Nothing about her should ever be described as weak.”

“That’s a righteous sentiment,” the former grumbled, clearly unconvinced. “But bein’ sweet isn’t goin’ to win her anything. Not in this world, anyway.”

“Nothin but heartache, at least,” the later murmured with what sounded sympathetic.

Such lowly, rancorous individuals would never understand. They’d never see behind their pessimism and anger at the world that some people could be made of starlight; whose souls would not be beaten and twisted to as nasty and vindictive as the rest of the world. They would never be able to appreciate a woman of such grace, and Amon truly pitied any partner these sort ever fell into. They would never be truly loved and appreciated; always nagged, viewed for their faults, seen as ‘the best they could do’. They were people who could never be happy.

While they could blissfully live ignorant, he was not going to let precious moments be spent lonely and jaded. He was going to walk right into that luminous sun and bathe in the unspoiled pools of streaming light. He wanted the true strength and power of a woman true to herself and her beliefs than he wanted anything else. No lies. No fantasy smiles. Something real, and tangible. Someone who knew the world could be cold, and cruel, and still fought tooth and nail for the right things; for justice, for the rights of others, for joy, and for the possibility of a better future.

Essätha was all that and more.

Ignoring the disgruntled staring and uncomfortable thinness of the air that suffocated all happiness in their realm, Amon pardoned himself with barely an uttered excuse. He was not going to waste his breath on people who could not see halos and the divinity of angel wings on people who sacrificed and were beat down time and time again, to rise up and still offer a hand. The admiration he had for her, still being able to smile, after all they’d seen; after what she had to live through, after all the fights they’d barely crawled away from, she was truly someone special.

As she gestured with her hands in animated motions, Essätha’s eyes tracked sideways to the movement of his approach. Her expression lit up with a brilliant smile that she could not erase as she almost dreamily tried to finish what she was explaining to the man before her. Every so often her glance shot right back towards him as she spoke. Maybe he should feel guilty for stealing her attention, but being her distraction had its own kind of thrill.

It should not be such an adrenaline rush to be noticed by her. He was a junkie, an addict, getting his fix every time she recognized him. Any time she noticed him. Dammit, he should be humiliated from wanting her attention; but he craved the shades of her smile and aura surrounding her like nothing else.

“Oh, that must have been something to behold, miss,” the man responded to her in earnest, his gaze turning respectfully. “Oh Amon! Gods bless you sir, thank you for your assistance as well.”

As the townsman extended a hand, the nobleman accepted it in a firm grasp, and generous shake.

“Sorry to have intruded on your conversation,” the Illiad replied.

“Think nothing of it!” The man shook his head. “You are just as much warranted to our gratitude and attention, my lord.”

A humorless dry laugh escaped him. He reached unconsciously for Essie’s hand, finding her fingers slipping into his seamlessly as she met him part of the way.

“It’s… just Amon,” he uncomfortably expressed; continuing on with far more charming warmth, “I’m afraid you’re wrong, there. There’s no one more deserving of your thanks than miss Essätha.”

A twinkle entered the man’s gaze, and he puffed up. “Oh I do say! I am surprised your friends to humbly offered to help fund to rebuild the barn.”

He arched a brow, casting a long glance in Essätha’s direction. Her cheeks were pink, and she refused to meet his gaze. Certainly this was the first time he heard they’d all pitched in any coin. And judging by her discomfort, he had a good feeling that the donation had entirely been out of her pocket.

“Oh, yes,” he smoothly responded, digging into his coin purse. “I had forgotten to add my benefits to the pool. My apologies.”

“M’lord-” Essätha exhaled, tugging on his arm.

He passed her a wink, and watched the color in her face grow deeper before he turned back to place some of his own coin in the confused man’s hand.

“Most gracious, my lord! Thank you!”

“It’s just Master Amon now, thank you.”

As the man turned, showing his companion the added funds, the nobleman turned his sly glance upon the glowering lady at his side, her face blushed so deeply it made her ears pinkish too.

“Why did you do that?”

He smirked at her horrified tone. “Why do we do anything?” he countered, “Or moreover: why did you do it first?”

She jumped slightly, turning her gaze away. Her nose was scrunched up a little like it did when she was frustrated about something.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she mumbled.

“No. But it feels like the right thing to do. If you can show a good example, why can’t I follow?”

Her teeth worried on her lower lip. The flex of her fingers worked against his grip. He waited for her to find the words to say; or for the combative nature to show itself. It surprised him when she couldn’t muster up something to fend off his praise with, so he took it a step further, squeezing her hand delicately.

“You didn’t need prove your heroics; or how much you care, anymore to these people once the job was done,” he responded. “You are a one-of-a-kind woman, Essie. Not many people have a heart a fraction of a size of yours. You really do aspire others to do better, to be kinder, to listen more, and to show that strength is not just muscle. That strength can come in all forms of will and character.”

Dumbfounded, she gawked at him with a mild haze of shock. She ducked her head aside shyly, rather than face him as he turned the spotlight directly on her.

Was it possible to revere her more, seeing her tongue-tied and shy?

As another townsfolk reached for his hand, babbling a high-speed rush of thankful words, he was forced to tear his gaze away from Essätha’s sheepish smile.

But he felt embrace of her hand in his increase suddenly, and it was one of the best ‘thank you’s he’d ever felt in his life.

#royal writes #essamon ship #Essie rw #amon illiad

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