#Haldryn Elora

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

Kharish 16, Molly 3, Haldryn 7, and 20 for everyone :)

thank you!!

16. Is there any memes or running jokes associated with the character, both in- and out of universe?

fhsdklgjsf. let's see - in-universe probably the fact there's about a 15% chance on any given attempt that she fumbles her own punchline. out of universe... idek what counts as a meme anymore these days but that one post that's like "number one hottest thing a girl can be is funny. number two hottest thing a girl can be is lame as hell". and by "girl" here obviously I mean middle-aged woman

3. What was the first thing you decided on, the character's name, appearance, personality or their role in the story?

I guess appearance! she still looks pretty close to how she came out in the cc haha. not vanilla because the vanilla faces even now read to me like a photograph has been plastered to the model and the effect unsettles me deeply

7. What is an aspect of their appearance that you like the most?

surprising no one but my favorite thing to draw: CURLS 💙 but in general: her lil tooth gap makes me so happy. I just think she's really cute :')

20. Bonus question: share any additional thoughts, art, favourite scenes, anything you've been waiting for a chance to ramble about

if I can be a little c: for a minute: I still think skipping stones is perhaps one of my favorite things I've done in a while. Sheogorath as grief and specifically not-Molly-anymore as grief is a concept very near to my heart so getting to explore that with this one was important to me, with some of the ways that could manifest, down to it wearing more of the color the boy likes best.

for Hallie something that I haven't gotten to put a light on much yet is that in Chorrol she got her magical HRT from the chapel healer (trans man. to me.)... he seems to be friends with Seed-Neeus which I think is sweet. probably would say hello as the trio does their best impression of bowling pins running out the door just as he comes by. fits into Hallie's little "circle of people I know!" really well

in conclusion. librarian hug ↓

everyone gets a hug whenever she gets back from an excursion. this is a threat

[wispstalk]

revenge on @wouldntyoulichentoknow ft. the lovely mz haldryn elora.... fabulous hair must be maintained in between all that nerevarining

[wouldntyoulichentoknow]

tell me how it's better when the sun goes down

@tes-summer-fest day 3: ghost

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

I cannot explain rn as I'm really in the weeds tonight but. Hallie song ;-;

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

! hunter + hallie!

the hunter: surefootedness, predestination

Sitting at the funny bug table (she’s not supposed to call it that; it’s—artisanal, and shaped like it would be so hard to move house with) with a ridged cup in her hands, wedged between neat stacks of books and soul gems and spiralling metal tools she’s not yet gotten the names of, Haldryn feels a bit like a project herself. It’s hard not to, under the scrutinizing appraisal of the woman sitting across the table.

Straight-backed and proud despite the gnarling of her hands, the spider-line creases of her face, Mistress Dratha sets down her own cup and says, “I fear, child, that my age is catching up to me at long last, because you could not have said what it sounded very much like you said.”

“You told me you’d support me as the Nerevarine.” Haldryn is tired, mostly, she realizes. It’s all so much talking to people, and the rules change everywhere she goes. “This is what’s being asked of me for them to acknowledge me too.” It’s easier when people say what they mean. She does, as much as possible; she likes that Mistress Dratha does too.

Neht is silently stationed where he always is, when she comes to Tel Mora: by the door, arms crossed and eyes fixed somewhere in the distance, as if he can see outside still. She almost can’t make out the texture of the wall on the other side of him. He’s looked less like a ghost since—since. She squeezes her hands around the cup: her hands, hers, the right shape and size and colored all with life (her life), the only marks the same old faint scars on her palms where she scraped them up falling in the street years ago. They’re as faded as they ever will be, now.

Mistress Dratha barks a laugh, incredulous. “I understand very well what they’re asking of you. Set an impossible task before you to ensure you fail, and if you happen to be killed for the audacity of the question—well, let it never be said that it was I who deterred you from the path you’re on.” She narrows her eyes, her shrewd mouth thinning, and leans to refill Haldryn’s cup from the (artisanal) teapot, the shape uneven but elegant in her steady hands. Steam thick as spiderweb billows up past both their faces. “You understand, I have very little patience for the sort of games this Zainab is poorly imitating. You’re too young to have learned this the long way, so I will tell you now: when people want something of you, it is not helping them to comply. It is obeying them.”

Her long fingers lace together before her on the table as she arches a brow, and Haldryn blinks steam from her eyes. Her eyelashes are damp with it. “I think—it can be helping sometimes,” she says, slow. “It doesn’t matter what they do with the help I give. It matters I give it.”

An angry kind of pity flits across the line of Mistress Dratha’s mouth. “They will eat you alive, child. The only thing you are teaching these people is that you can be manipulated. You will extend an open hand and a smile to your own demise.” She holds up a hand before Haldryn can do more than draw a breath to protest, and asks lowly, “Is he here now?”

Neht turns his head slightly, but doesn’t shift his gaze from somewhere beyond the walls. Haldryn can’t stop her eyes flicking from Mistress Dratha to him and back. “Um—do you mean…?”

It seems all the answer she needs. Raising her voice but not turning around, Mistress Dratha says, “Listen to me, Indoril Nerevar. Whether you are with her by chance or destiny, you find a way to reciprocate what this young woman does for you, tenfold. I expect to hear of ghostly suffering in unprecedented magnitude.”

He says nothing she would have to relay—his voice still stays caged in her head alone, though she can almost tell the color of his eyes some days—but Neht does turn to look, the corner of his mouth twitching.

“I don’t want anyone to suffer,” Haldryn says, flushed. She wets her lips (her tongue doesn’t fill her whole mouth, doesn’t choke her; her mouth moves the way she wants it to, not numb). The cup to her lips: the tea is hot, bitter. “You—you really don’t know anybody?”

“I did not say that. Suffering does not care what any of us want.” With a wry little smile, Mistress Dratha stands. She always feels taller than she is, her presence like a pillar of stone; straight as she holds herself amid all her projects and pursuits, it feels like a surprise every time to wind up looking down at her. Haldryn tugs at the end of her scarf absently as she makes to stand too, unsure if she ought to keep herself lower for longer. “Except for me, because I am older than it is. Come back in three days’ time; I will have you an answer worthy of a hortator to take the Zainab. They want the Nerevarine to unite the Ashlanders and the Great Houses—then they ought to think very carefully what they ask.”

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

the hound - Hallie

the hound: loyalty, chains, promises

“—thus brought low, the warrior stumbled from one house to the next, crying out for anything that was familiar, but he recognized nothing, and nothing, in turn, recognized him. The sudden storm had left puddles all down the streets. He looked in each one, and in each one he saw a different face, but none of them were his.

“It was not until he fell to his knees outside the temple that someone saw through the curse, and the Lady Almalexia came forth from her shrine to see the warrior who had once been so brave, now weeping into his own strange reflection.

“‘You have forgotten your name,’ said Lady Almalexia, ‘but by name do I know you; by name do I love you.’” Llaalam’s eyes are all ember-glow with story, his whole body leaned forward and half off his cushions. “She touched the warrior’s head as he knelt there before her, and his mind was cleared of darkness, and he knew himself once more.”

Haldryn finds herself nearly scooted off the cushion saved for her too. She wriggles back onto it, remembering too late her handmade tail when the end of it bonks the wall behind her. “So—so what was his name?”

“He doesn’t know.” Amil leans over his husband’s shoulder with a wry twitch of his thin mouth. He drapes a blanket over Llaalam’s lap for him.

Llaalam reaches up to pat Amil’s bald head fondly. “That’s between the warrior and the Sacred Lady, I think.”

“But she knows it,” Haldryn presses, because it’s important. “Because—because he prayed, before Sheogorath got him?”

“She knows it,” says Llaalam, lifting a finger, “as Lord Sotha Sil does, and as Lord Vivec does. If you forgot yourself—”

“I wouldn’t!”

“—your ma would still know you, wouldn’t she?”

She opens her mouth, then closes it again, bewildered. She hikes her belt up to make her tail sit higher, the squished end of it dragging on the floor. There is no world she can think of where Ma wouldn’t know her. “She’s my ma,” she says. It’s the only answer there is.

“And you’re her Haldryn.” Llaalam makes a grand sweeping motion that she suspects is mostly to make his sleeves swish. “The Three are ours; we are theirs. If a Daedra knows your name, it means they’ve deigned to take special interest in you. The Three are gods because they love you. They are for us and we for them.”

“Or,” says Amil from where he’s gone back to the other room, sounding faintly amused, “you don’t worry about all that, Haldryn; just do your best. That’s all we can really do, any of us, even them.”

She recognizes the tone that means they’re about to start talking the boring bits that they disagree about, policies and stuff, so she scrambles to her feet and tugs at her belt again, tail swinging behind her. “Thank you mu—sera?” she corrects herself when Llaalam starts to huff a laugh. “I have to be home to help with dinner, but I’ll come back tomorrow, and on Fredas!”

“Tell your ma we said thank you for that soup.” Amil reemerges with a familiar jar held with both hands. “Washed it, don’t worry.”

The gold man joins her again right outside, with the jar tucked under her arm and a nice straight stick she’d left by the door dragging patterns in the dirt beside her. “You don’t have to like storytime,” she says, and kicks a stray little stone ahead of herself out of the way of her stick. “But it’s rude when you don’t even say goodbye or anything. You should pay attention to manners next time Ma explains them.”

He doesn’t say anything, staying alongside her with his head bowed to watch her stick squiggle through the dirt.

Haldryn stops to squint up at him. “Do you know anything about gods?”

His face does something awful, then, like he’s got a bad stomachache maybe. No, he says. Or at least: I know that I don’t know anything.

“Oh.” She uses the flat of her heel to smooth out some of the dirt, draws very carefully. “Well, this is supposed to stand for—”

Ayem.

The jar almost slides out from under her arm. The crook of her elbow is getting sweaty. “So you know your letters but not anything about gods?”

He’s crouched in front of where she’s drawn the letter. The tail shouldn’t be so long.

“I did it right,” she insists, insulted. “Anyway—” She scratches out another letter next to it. “That one means the Sacred Lady, and sometimes people call her after it too. She’s got a sword that’s on fire, and she’s tall as a mountain and stronger than ten bears—”

Is that what they tell you, at your storytime?

“I mean—not all of it, no, but she chopped up Mehrunes Dagon, so. But she’s really nice too, she helps people. And her hair’s red, and it curls like mine, except lots longer.” She points to the second letter. “This one’s for me, it’s a hekem. Nobody calls me that though, because it’s not my name, it’s just a letter. But it looks neat, right?”

His face isn’t doing anything now. She doesn’t know what that means. But he nods, slowly, and says, You’ll be late for dinner.

“Won’t either!” But she drops the stick and hugs the jar to her chest to start back for her own front door again, trotting a little faster. “Llaalam says they know everybody without even having to be introduced. But it’s sort of rude not to introduce yourself,” Haldryn says, pointedly. The gold man does a very good job not reacting to that. Maybe he didn’t get it. She continues, “I don’t want to be rude. Ma says the Hist recognizes its own, too, but if I met one I would—when I meet one I’ll still say hi, and tell it my name. And so I think when I pray I should say it’s me, too, so they know, and then when I meet them and they know me maybe they’ll remember easier what I’ve told them. Do you think if—”

But when she pushes open the front door and looks up, he’s gone off somewhere again. She huffs out a breath—maybe his ma just didn’t know manners as good as Ma does.

---

The eyes of the goddess are golden, as vivid-bright as the lava under Red Mountain, burning right through her and on out to the other side. The perfect serenity of the Lady Almalexia’s face ripples, a pebble of recognition tossed into an endless fathomless lake.

Do you really know me, Haldryn wants to ask, but her throat is closing up and she’s blinking very fast and the goddess is only looking at her as at an open window. Do you know me, can you see me, did you hear every time I prayed—

Neht is very still, behind her. She can’t look, can’t turn away, but she doesn’t need to, to know. He says nothing, nothing at all. The cold patterned floor judders all her bones when her knees hit.

The sound of the Mercymother’s voice is the top of a waterfall, great heights on the edge of thunderous force, lingering at the precipice, and the name she speaks is:

“My Nerevar.”

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

@tes-summer-fest day 1: breath

---

Under the water it’s very quiet, is mostly what she notices. She moves slower, and it’s quiet. The water pulls at her arm when she drags it in front of herself, trailing tingly little bubbles, her skinny fingers held apart and curled like claws. Her hair floats in front of her eyes—she gets a little giddy every time she’s reminded it’s long enough to get in the way—and she laughs. The sound is nothing; the bubbles from her mouth tickle across her nose something awful.

She did it just like it said, in the book she peeked at in the guildhall when she went for Ma’s scale tonic (she’s pretty sure, anyway, because she does get her letters switched around sometimes, but she made Dar-Ma and Dexion go read it too, because even though Dexion’s stupid with magic and Dar-Ma just doesn’t bother with it so much, both their letters always stay in the right order at least, and they both said it matched what she thought it did, so she’s got to have it right).

Still: she has a hard time trying to get herself to take an inhale. Now that she’s laughed out her air she needs it back, and she did it right, but her lungs are scared, because they don’t know they’re supposed to be alright.

Up. Up. Up. Get to air, they’re telling her, or we’ll burn up. We’re going to die down here.

Won’t either, she tells them back, and makes herself hold onto the big rock sticking up out of the pond floor. She tells herself on the count of three, and then three comes and goes and she’s still holding her breath. Her whole body disbelieves her that this once it’s not wrong, that this once the water won’t hurt to let in.

Her lungs keep burning, and she can feel her eyes stinging (from not the pondwater this time), and she thinks how it’s always easier doing things fast before you can change your mind about it, and she opens her mouth and breathes in.

Her lungs scream.

---

You know you really don’t have to, says Neht, his arms crossed where he’s standing atop the water. Look at this. It’s not exactly clean.

“It’s not so bad.” Haldryn sits on the edge of the canal to pull her boots off. “Probably it looks worse than it is because it’s dark in here. I’ve never been a pilgrim before, and now I’m here where they are I should get to show I mean it. Right?”

Neht only arches a brow. She knows what he thinks.

She rolls her trousers up to her knees. It probably won’t do anything, really, but it makes her feel better about it. Like a kid again, playing by the pond. Belt and bag and scarf by her boots. She thinks a moment before going to take out her earrings too. Just in case. One by one: she folds the six little hoops into her scarf and pushes everything back further from the edge. “‘Breathe the waters,’” she mumbles aloud. “Alright. And then I’ll just—know, I guess, when ‘the way is made clear’?”

Her palms are sweating, the waterbreathing scroll from her bag creasing under her fingers. (Ajira made it, and demonstrated the quality of her own work by bravely dunking her head in a washbasin, despite the distaste of her ears flat against her head. “See,” she had said upon reemerging some few minutes later, tail fluffed, whiskers bristling and dripping, “Ajira knows what she is doing. You are reassured?”

“Yes,” Haldryn had nodded, and bitten back a laugh at the way she put her face in the towel with a huff. “But I might need a second demonstration just to be—”

“You may do it yourself, friend Hallie,” proclaimed Ajira, wetly, “and this one will not even charge you extra for teasing.”)

But it’s good, so she puts her fingertips to the sigil and fists her other hand in her shirt over her heart. The shift in her lungs judders down from her throat with her next inhale; she stays still until the air feels soupy thick to breathe before rolling up the used scroll and tossing it behind her with the rest of her things. “Here goes nothing,” she says aloud, her voice sounding strange and froggy.

Neht, still standing over the water, says, Don’t stay down there too long. I would hope courtesy extends to the pilgrim, too.

She pushes off the edge. The dark water closes over her head, in her ears and in her nose. The first breath is the hardest, still. Something tight in her chest that she tells herself is the pressure of the water.

Haldryn sits on the bottom of the canal and closes her eyes. (Llaalam’s voice drifts through her thoughts, the flicker of shadow in the water flourishing like one of his grand gestures: I see now that you are unarmed, said Lord Vivec, presenting their own fine silver sword to the nearest of Dagon’s empty hands; use this blade and I will best you then, for a fight against an unarmed opponent is merely an execution…)

And, breathing water, she waits.

And she waits—

---

It’s not easy—it doesn’t feel like breathing at all—she feels like she’s choking, but the urge to cough only makes it worse and her whole body is seizing with terror—but she did it right, she did, she knows she did—didn’t she—

Didn’t she—

---

Somebody snatches her by the shirt collar.

---

Somebody’s cold sturdy arm firm around her middle.

---

Up. Up.

---

The first thing she hears when the water breaks apart into air around her is her own ugly coughing. The pondwater feels sharp and prickly coming out her nose, her mouth, and Ma has her mouth open too, hissing like she can’t breathe either. “Haldryn,” she says, her bright sunny eyes gone a little wild, wide as the moons.

She can’t talk, coughing too hard, spitting out water. She wants to say—I didn’t mean to scare you, I thought I got it right—but even when there’s no more water coming out she can’t stop coughing, her throat and nose scratchy, her cheeks fresh-wet with tears. Her nose is probably gross too.

Ma puts a towel tight around her shoulders and hits her back a few times. Not enough to hurt, but it jolts her, makes her spit more water. “Say my name,” she demands. “Haldryn. Please.”

“Ma,” she croaks out, finally, and scrubs at her face with the heels of her hands, which doesn’t help because all of her is soaked, but it sort of makes her feel better to not be looking at her. “M’go—” She coughs again, gags on the taste of mucus and pondwater. “M’good!”

And then she’s being crushed in a hug, Ma’s heart knocking even harder than her own on her chest. “Hallie,” says Ma, shaky and thin, “Hallie, Hallie, Hallie—what were you doing? You are not—you cannot—”

She’s getting her pond-face gunk on Ma’s shoulder, on her favorite blue dress. She wipes at her nose with her own sleeve, embarrassed. “I did waterbreathing first,” she sniffs. “I thought I got it right, I cast it just like it said—”

Ma’s voice is solid ice. “What said?”

---

Haldryn can breathe just fine, which is the worst part. Shuddering and shaking driplets in her wake, and she’s not even really hurt, just trying to knock away the scared part of herself that’s clung along inside her (fine! breathing!) lungs. She staggers against the wall to mash her forehead on it, use the rough surface to focus on something besides the memory-fear. Water from her hair’s making puddles on the cold floor below.

Neht can’t touch her, but he puts a hand out by her shoulder anyway. She can almost pretend it’s warm. You’re alright?

She clamps a hand over her nose and mouth, to make herself feel her hand instead of water. “I’m alright,” she says aloud. She’s thinking of eight years ago, of Ma looking like a dragon, tall and proud and tearing into the bewildered steward of the guildhall for not watching their spellbooks better. Of being pulled out back into the world, and the way water couldn’t trade for air fast enough.

Pulled. Someone—

“Who got me out?” Haldryn twists to look at him. “Someone pulled me.”

No one else is here, he says. His face is cut glass, is sharpened stone, is angled gold and lying again.

“I felt it,” she insists. “Someone pulled me.”

His expression is unreadable. No one else is here, Neht says again, in the deliberate hard tone of an answer. Haldryn stares back at him, jaw set. It’s not any more of an answer than he ever gives. He holds her gaze for a moment before turning back to the shrine, a set of stairs that wasn’t there before. This is important to you.

“It is.” She takes a deep breath, unhindered, and pushes off from the wall to gather her things. Nearly there. Nearly there.

I am tired, he says—quiet enough she almost misses it—of the games gods play.

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

Hallie 💔🚫🤍

💔 BROKEN HEART — what are three of your oc's negative traits?

puts my hands over her ears. shh you're good just as you are don't worry about it. ahem. 1) stubborn 2) naive 3) competitive

🚫 PROHIBITED — does your oc drink/smoke? do they do it regularly, or is it more on occasion or for special events?

she doesn't smoke! prior to Vvardenfell she'd tried some alcohols and not found any she really liked. on Vvardenfell, she does think greef is good... but she is also a lightweight lol. so she tries to be very careful about moderation!

🤍 WHITE HEART — what are three of your oc's neutral/questionable traits?

hmmm... unsure what qualifies as "neutral" but I think these count? 1) takes things to heart 2) committed 3) observant

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

🖤 for the ladies. dramaaa

DRAMA...

🖤 BLACK HEART — has your oc killed or seriously wounded anyone before? have they broken someone's heart and/or broken someone's trust?

Kharish answered here :')

pre-Crisis Molly you would not think so, but she did get in a few scuffles as a kid and broke a boy's nose once. during the Crisis she doesn't kill as many of the Mythic Dawn agents who are ~undercover~ in the cities (inspired by how I mostly encountered them in-game, which was. the city guards started yelling and smacking someone with their swords and I went "oh golly! what's happening over there? ...THE MYTHIC DAWN??") but she does kill a fair amount as the main quest would suggest. it gets concerningly easier each time. and Eldamil she shoves into the lava when he tries to suggest she climb into a cage so that he can help (she does not accept his help.)

Hallie was always a GOOD KID. except for all the times she and Dexion fought. but he was fine, really! and then she was shipped off to Vvardenfell because she did set him a little bit on fire for crossing a line. she doesn't find this out, but he does end up with a big burn scar over one shoulder and is permanently a lot stiffer afterwards. and through the course of the main quest she ends up having to kill more people than she would like (she would like zero please). it does not get any easier for her :(

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

🎮🔱🍔 for Haldryn, Molly and Kharish :)

🎮 VIDEO GAME CONTROLLER — what are three of your oc's favorite hobbies?

Hallie: answered here!

Molly: 1) stargazing... she always thought there was something really peaceful about lying on your back and seeing how the stars move through the sky bit by bit through the year. 2) card games. her poker face is unbeatable and she is ruthless. 3) hiking - it's kind of a joke in the area that if you're from Kvatch, of course you like hiking, because of the switchback up to the main city gate, but she always thought it was a good way to shut off thinking for a while and that the kind of tired it makes you is more rewarding than unpleasant

Kharish: aside from the obvious: 1) dancing! not alone though that's not as fun :( 2) does a little embroidery when she can, mostly to put little flowers all over her things 3) no one will ever find it but she's been writing a terrible heartfelt novel for like twenty years. it's never going to be finished and it's very earnestly overwrought in what hypothetical critics would call, appropriately, a love letter to the romance genre

🔱 TRIDENT EMBLEM — can your oc swim? do they enjoy swimming?

Hallie: can swim! VERY ESSENTIAL skill in Ma's opinion, so she learned pretty young. used to enjoy it, does not anymore. (<- points for no particular reason)

Molly: can get around in the water but not, like, elegantly. a seasoned swimmer would cringe at her form. doesn't really enjoy being wet but will tolerate it if necessary.

Kharish: did not encounter a body of water where one might learn to swim until embarking on the trip from Orsinium to Winterhold. does not know how to swim and does not particularly relish the idea of learning how in the Sea of Ghosts. would like it just fine if she did know how though!

🍔 HAMBURGER — is your oc good at cooking? are they good at baking? which one do they prefer?

Hallie: good at both! but she likes cooking better because there's more wiggle room to try different things or mess up a little bit without completely ruining the end result. too many ruined cookies :(

Molly: decent at cooking, doesn't have the patience for baking. she prefers baking if only because it always meant mostly getting to spend time helping someone else do the actual baking.

Kharish: a fair hand at either as long as she has instructions! would tell you she doesn't have a preference, but prefers cooking because flour getting everywhere is a little bit of a sensory nightmare.

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

🖤🐷🍃 for kharish 🍎📚🎮 for hallie 💘🥯😞 for molly !!

Kharish:

🖤 BLACK HEART — has your oc killed or seriously wounded anyone before? have they broken someone's heart and/or broken someone's trust?

killed/seriously wounded: not prior to Labyrinthian :'| it's fine don't worry about it we're not thinking about that and neither is she and there are no consequences from this whatsoever. broken a heart though yes... I've alluded before to the unfortunate thing with Murz she had in Shatul but: she was under the impression it was a casual thing, he was mentally picking out names for 2.5 kids and a dog. she was very literally packing to leave for Orsinium when he was like OR, YOU KNOW, WE COULD GET MARRIED and she laughed because she didn't think he was serious 😬 took several years to stop being horribly awkward, but it's all good now!! he got over it and married a nice gal who was NOT heading for the Big City and when she writes home she makes sure to check how he's doing.

🐷 PIG FACE — what is your oc's favorite animal?

she's biased towards the majestic echatere of course, but also really likes rabbits! small and twitchy and very cute. which could mean nothing,

🍃 LEAVES FLUTTERING IN WIND — what is/was your oc's favorite subject in school?

unsurprisingly: AVID READER. learning how to read was The Point of schooling for baby Kharish; the other stuff was an exciting bonus. (Mom & Dad, who were very much hoping she'd have a head for numbers, aware how expensive books are: alright I know a guy who might know a guy who knows where to find some secondhand; does your cousin still keep in touch with that ex in-law who lived next door to a printing press -)

Hallie (books emoji answered here!):

🍎 RED APPLE — where was your oc born? do they still live in/around their place of birth or do they live somewhere else? how do they feel about their birthplace?

probably at least still near Chorrol, but she doesn't know for sure - Ma's had her since she was a baby, and while she's wondered occasionally where she came from, she already knows the only parent who really matters. but she likes Chorrol! she daydreams about travelling the world, but even in those she always ends back at home.

🎮 VIDEO GAME CONTROLLER — what are three of your oc's favorite hobbies?

1: gardening! let her sit in the dirt for a while and make things grow that can be pretty, or helpful, or sometimes even both! 2: drawing! she mostly does portraiture because Ma mostly does landscapes and she gets self-conscious comparing her landscapes to Ma's (sweetheart she has several more years of experience than you do pls). in a modern AU she would have multiple sketchbooks full of bug-eyed anime people. 3: she's been trying to get into whittling, using one of her bound daggers instead of a regular knife. it is not going very well :(

Molly:

💘 HEART WITH ARROW — what and/or who does your oc consider the most important to them?

before: her brother Matty. after: Brother Martin. this is healthy and normal and involves no codependence at all for sure. (Agdis. being able to be proud of the work she did, making people leave feeling more like themselves than when they came in. and then: keeping Baurus alive. trying to give that wolf an ending it deserved. and then: oh, nothing.)

🥯 BAGEL — what does your oc's typical breakfast look like? do they usually eat breakfast?

during the Crisis it's just whenever and whatever she can find; she's largely disinterested in food and doesn't differentiate much on how it tastes, which means her most regularly scheduled breakfasts are at Cloud Ruler, where the Blades are furiously trying to one-up each other in their best imitations of royal chefs. (to Martin's chagrin. please just get him some toast or something. Molly agrees toast is both easy to accomplish and inoffensive.) prior to the Crisis she liked breakfast a lot because they got plenty of the "rejects" from the bakery. her favorite was a cheese pastry!

😞 DISAPPOINTED FACE — does your oc attract others, or do they tend to be left alone?

THIS IS AN INTERESTING ONE. I'm interpreting "attract" here not necessarily in the romantic/sexual way but just like... attention? idk if that's right but that's how I'm reading it! I have to imagine she suffers from the Curse of the Redhead in the "strangers and little old ladies in particular have strong opinions about your hair" sense, but for the most part she's left alone! at least until she starts wearing the Kvatch armor everywhere, and then the attention is pretty inescapable.

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

📚🎻🩹 for any or all of your TES girls (canon or canon in your heart)

📚 BOOKS — what level of education has your oc most recently completed/is currently in (GED, undergraduate, grad school, phd, etc)?

Hallie: no higher-level education, though before she got yoinked to Vvardenfell she was angling to join the Mages Guild and make her way to the Arcane University :')

Molly: also no university-level education; she went from grammar school to apprenticeship under her dad for barbering!

Kharish: did her higher-level studying in Orsinium! though she's more than happy to listen in on classes in Winterhold and is studying Urag's conservation techniques 🔍

🎻 VIOLIN — does your oc play any instruments? what is their skill level (beginner/intermediate/advanced/virtuoso/etc)?

Hallie REALLY REALLY wanted to play the vossa-satl as a kid. however there is not really a good way to get a giant frog-singing horn in Chorrol, and also no one to teach it, and also, again, this thing would have been bigger than she was :'(

Molly does not play any instruments 😔 as Sheo she has all the time in the world and also kind of sort of maybe an obligation to learn every instrument ever, though, which Sheogorath plays either very badly or the best you've ever heard, depending on which it feels like at the moment.

okay I very recently learned that apparently the accordion is popular enough among Orsimer that there's a variation called "Orc-cordions" and that's the funniest thing in the world to me right this second. Kharish can probably play a small handful of simpler songs and she would be SO enthusiastic about it.

(also not OC but since you said canon too: I think Faralda should have a dark secret fiddling past. she does not talk about this.)

🩹 ADHESIVE BANDAGE — does your oc have any physical and/or mental disabilities?

Hallie: I write her with ADHD tendencies, and she's a little dyslexic as well (put a pin in that... this will be relevant in but a few short days. smiles so big)

Molly: well. obviously. the trauma... even prior to that though she struggles with anxiety and is prone to depression, both of which are only exacerbated by the Events

Kharish: AUTISM BLAST... also the fairly typical achiness of being middle-aged, which she will cheerfully insist does NOT bother her, really!

(and again not OC but obligatory because,, Important To Me: Archmage Ervine and her good day = cane; bad day = chair... <3)

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

because of [REDACTED] I've been thinking about certain things again and I don't think I've said here yet but Hallie and Vakka-Ei living in Chorrol MEANS. if we abide by the ages in my head. Hallie and Dar-Ma would have been around the same age... they were friends 💙 when she started going by Haldryn Dexion said that she should've picked a name that started with D so the three of them could all have the same first initial. then he suggested they just call her "Drynnie" and Dar-Ma had to haul her off where she tackled him into the dirt 😔

[wouldntyoulichentoknow]

are you all getting ready for artfight!!! 💪⚔

[wouldntyoulichentoknow]

more dressup :')

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

🎵 for hallie? <3

I'm a child in everyone's eyes, making peace with only words // when nothing works, I'll be the first to say your name