#like genuinely. mine is ALSO post EOD

[glowingplant]

I kept trying to add these as tags and wondering what went wrong! The issue is that I'm too rambly and it was too many tags, so I'm adding it (now edited for readability) as a readmore instead!

This is lore I've kind of kept close to my chest, but it's borne from the fact that for my lore and my commander, just saying Trahearne lived and doesn't die doesn't fit the understanding of my commander, that I'd had for literally years.

I did still hit a point where ultimately I did want him to be alive again though, so short version: necromancy and special circumstances regarding Caladbolg, that occur waaay later. like post-EOD-later.

The long version with lots of rambling about my commander and his relationship to Trahearne is down there. It is WAY too long and no one has to read it.

So as I said, Trahearne's death is very important to Rhydenach and the lore! I can't just extricate the fact Trahearne died- it's kind of EXTREMELY important to him as a character, and the grief of Trahearne's death can't just be like.. purged from his narrative.

For starters, yes they were in smoochies together, and hey this is a readmore now so I can add a picture:

So okay, I swear this is going somewhere but I have to set the scene for Rhydenach becoming a necromancer as it's all important to me, and his journey to actually reviving Trahearne. So Rhydenach is initially a berserker warrior he's big and strong and dumb? He's a hotheaded himbo, and doesn't really get necromancy, he admires Trahearne for being smart but that is not him!!! Rhydenach can a) pick heavy thing up b) smash heavy thing into enemies. He's actually a very skilled fighter and his strength and combat skills are admirable but he's certainly not booksmart.

After Trahearne dies, he for a long time, filters his grief into his anger, and his hotheadedness, it alll feels very fitting with his berserker-ness! He's angry and grieving and it's all resurfacing as rage. He's in a very bad place mentally. He does have Caladbolg, and reforges it, and he ends up keeping a lot of Trahearne's old books about all sorts of things, but some of those are necromancy books (and a lot are Trahearne's own necromancy research.) And he just stashes them all away somewhere safe where they can be pristine and untouched. I think he almost feels he doesn't deserve these things? Of course, Trahearne would want him to have them but as I said, Rhydenach is in a bad place mentally.

Aurene is a spot of light in a very grim time in his life, and being able to parent a dragon is something that alleviates his pain and stops him from completely falling apart, but for the most part, he's very sad. He's making no effort to do anything other than distract himself, from his grief and is sort of destroying himself in the process.

BUT! during LWS4 he finally sort of has a breakthrough? A few things contribute... part of it is having died in POF, and this new lease on life and the process of regaining his memories and all begins it. He's still quite sour and prickly but I think it opens him up to healing in a way. His friendships with Caithe and Braham, also help. He's friends with most NPCs you're 'meant' to be friends with but these two probably are the closest? And they definitely help him the most in this phase of his life, especially with Caithe's reemergence. That's his friend who he platonically co-raised a child with.

LWS4 is honestly pretty harrowing in its own way and I think all the terrible stuff happening and then how when you hit Dragonfall suddenly Aurene is back and everything is working out and it all seems fine!!! I think just kickstarts his brain into being in a better place. Additionally, in Jahai Bluffs there's the poem fragment that was Trahearne's favourite, and despite suppressing his grief all this time, he finally instead starts to take comfort in Trahearne's memory, and actually feel his grief instead of trying his hardest to push it away.

So now, despite not being booksmart, or getting it very well, he's reading Trahearne's old necromancy research (it's a lot), and he finally entertains the idea of using reforged Caladbolg, instead of keeping it all pristine and shut away. He's not using it as his actual weapon at that point, but he finally sort feels okay using it, as he starts to practice and try out necromancy things he's learning. He starts to sort of get necromancy? He's not as magically inclined so he more infuses it into his normal fighting style. In-game up to this point, he's a physical skill hammer/greatsword berserker, which is very very him and so he's infusing necromancy into this sort of fighting style.

Then, at the end of LWS4, after the delight of Aurene being alive again, and this insurmountable enemy being dealt with, Aurene ascends to being an elder dragon! At this point in my lore, Rhydenach in the same moment, gets Aurene-branded like Caithe did, but prismatic-style (rather than the original purple/blue Aurene). So at that point because it's sort of a symbolic new Rhydenach, but also because he changes colour and stuff, I made a second Rhydenach alt to represent his visual changes, because there was no way I was making over original Rhydenach. (He's called 'Commander Rhydenach' in game, rather than just Rhydenach, and now he's a necromancer!!! But I'm actually not done with his look so you can't see him I'm sorry.)

So now, officially, he's a Reaper in-game, which I feel is fitting fighting style-wise as an extension of rhydenach's previous berserker-ness, but filtered through a necromantic lens. So his berserker mode is like. reaper shroud, the slamming of the scythe is like his old fighting style of slamming the hammer. He still uses a greatsword but finally, he's actually picked up Caladbolg, and takes it as his main weapon, and is fighting with it and using necromancy regularly. He doesn't fully get the magic from a scholarly standpoint, and he does use it in a brute-force sort of way way but he's definitely getting it more!

Now the weird thing is, when he was Aurene-branded, she shared with him some of the Joko magic she absorbed, which manifests as weird inherent necromancy knowledge that he doesn't fully get, when he thinks too hard, but it is just there now. It sort of plants a seed and he comes to start to wonder if he could revive Trahearne. Holding Caladbolg and learning necromancy and having some inherent knowledge implanted in his brain sends him down this little path where he's secretly thinking about this, from post LWS4 onwards, as a secret background goal, whirring away behind the scenes in his mind.

Moving forward, Icebrood is very rough for him but he's feeling better now! He's stronger and he holds out against it despite losing Almora, who is admires and respects a lot. He also partly remains strong, as he does back to talk to his old Pact friends, Faeilaeth and Dionaeri (two other ocs of mine, they're gfs!) who he'd been neglecting and they sort of stopped reaching out because they'd been trying so hard to help and support him and he'd just been determined to destroy himself regardless, and was pushing them away. SO, they help and support him a bit in his flimsy moments, and are happy he's actually accepting their support again.

So! EOD is sort of his last rodeo as Commander! After it, he's like 'Nah. I'm good! The dragon cycle is done! I'm checking out!' This is something I knew I wanted for him before even deciding about Trahearne revival, but it also works with that. (Do not ask me who my new commander is this is STILL a problem I haven't solved in my lore for an entire year at this point.)

And now, it gets wishy-washy, as this is still quite new lore for me, but the general idea is that because Rhydenach is appropriately ushered out of the story so I don't have to deal with the lore ramifications, of reviving Trahearne, he, through the weird circumstances of his necro magic absorption and using Caladbolg all the time, and post-EOD, maybe some weirdness with the dragon magic (Mordremoth in particular), he finds a way!

I believe it's mostly that he needs to craft a new sylvari body through necromancy (both learned and the stuff he absorbed) and plant magic and stuff, and stick Trahearne's soul back in it, but this requires Caladbolg and all to do it, and maybe he has to do it in the Heart of Maguuma where he originally died? Either way, something about the process necessitates Caladbolg, as this is something he can only really do with Trahearne specifically (he'd be reviving many more people otherwise and I don't want that all over my lore, I like this as a very significant one-time thing.) Well two-time thing but that happens with two completely separate characters who aren't at all attached to any of this, I'm only allowing Rhydenach to do this one time.

I also want to add I just think it's very romantic to literally know your lover so well you can perfectly craft their body as it once was. And I like this as actually, Rhydenach DOES get to be happy! He doesn't have to sit with his grief, after all he's done, he gets the person he misses more than anything back. Even if it's many many years after the fact. Maybe that seems a bit silly, that he worked through his grief and his ending wasn't that he was content with it now, but that he gets his lover back after all? But I like it better this way actually.

As I said, I haven't fully firmed up the details of the revival, like it's ??? still, but it's going to happen., just offscreen while my new commander who I do not know yet is running around. When I finally figure them out, it will be that they've been learning from by Rhydenach's side for a little while, and were inducted into their order via one of the orders Rhydenach didn't join through (Rhydenach is Vigil), and still lost their mentor at Claw Island, just, they did some other stuff for a while before ending up in the midst of Dragon's Watch, so they can still fit with the newer stuff that's happening, since Rhydenach quit lol.

I think Trahearne's revival will sort of be a half-secret? Like close friends will know, and maybe it's a rumour throughout Tyria, but they're not making an announcement to the world, and most people probably scoff and think it's ridiculous. I think the two of them will prefer that.

If you did read all of this I give you a medal and my many many thanks lol.

Hey question for the Trahearne lovers here

For those of you that have a Trahearne lives AU, how do you go about it? How does he not die? Feel free to ramble about it :)