#priestess of the everflame

[fireeaglespirit]

viviane-lefay

Lovely. Just like the priestesses of Vesta in ancient Rome. ^^

@viviane-lefay

Owh sorry for the very old reply, but YES. The priestess of the “everflame” are directly based on that.. I just really love that part of history and such a nice example of lovable/harmless spirituality. I wanted to have a bit of that on my story too, to balance things out. And it suits Aquila’s back-story perfectly and her relationship with her mom... and her protectiveness. More to come of course, but some stuff I thought is so classical its almost obvious...

Prepare for I’m gonna dump huge amounts of info, lol.. 

The everflame is part, or better said, is the core of an ancient structure left by the avian predecessors, it seats right in the middle of the central floating isle... of course its some sort of spark of life or sacred thing that must be kept burning steadily or chaos will ensure and it could consume everything, but if it goes out, worse things even could happen... those are in the core of the avian worship of the sun and fire, the phoenix, etc... just a very drafty view of that... the everflame can’t be duplicated, as all tentatives resulted in failure... it burns so intensely that anything throw there turns to ashes almost instantly... it must be fed with appropriated materials that are deemed as sacred, in fact very like the nest of the phoenix from Greek and Egyptian legends, if not it goes unstable and roars dangerously.

This flame seats above a very peculiar structure and perhaps or most likely cannot be moved from there. The priestess that tends to it are often garbed in white, but to enter the room of the flames they must cover themselves in a protective armor or cloth woven with golden flammerium (a heat resistant metal), thus their relationship with the color of gold. 

I also like to relate this to the worship at Heliopolis, closely associated with the rising sun and the Egyptian sun-god Ra...so this everflame stands as a symbol of rebirth and quite literally in some ways its a cyclical entity and a bit of Aithnë that still lives in this world. Its a dangerous and wonderful thing.

So it all ties, more or less like this: the phoenix reigns as sovereign of birds, its more or less the ‘pharaoh’ of avians. As the pharaoh is the son of Ra, the phoenix king or queen, is the offspring of Aithnë and its representation on earth... Almost all of avian myths circle around the ancient predecessors that they call ‘gods’, but the myth that crowns their monarch is an older one and mostly misunderstood.  To sum it up, avians only accept a true reborn phoenix to rule over them... as in Arthurian legends, said person must not only be ‘a phoenix’ but be accepted by the flames, as in... its another ritual involving the legendary sword of Solaris in a way that certainly mirrors Excalibur but not exactly like it.  But as you know I’d like to turn around a bit this whole chosen one complex... 

Regarding Aquila’s parents... I don’t think the priestess are forbidden from having lovers, as the avians nature is one of freedom... they are required to be most diligent in the presence of the flames, and thats about it. On top of that, the avian culture has a certain female bias, as birds of prey are known to have bigger and more powerful females, I thought it was an interesting touch... so the position that Damaris is in is very respected, to the point that she is queen regent until the Solaris ritual is complete. Obviously Damaris as high priestess of that faith do believes her husband was all of that but she truly loved his more ordinary side tbh... I really want to one day work their relationship in more detail, but in my mind despite all this and his legendary heroic status, Suzaku is a down to earth guy, he’s just really wants the best for his people and feels a lot of guilty for some things... To sum it up, the female status of those priestess represents power instead of ‘purity’.

I just wanted to share with you some stuff, idk I’ve been thinking so much on how all of those characters entwine and..

This isn’t all set in stone or canon, but I do think, after Seryndra’s demise that her sister Kigaly went upon the floating islands to try to steal that flame, because of its rumored propriety of being able to bring the dead back to life.... of course she wasn't able to do so... because even if she rose to power, the Draconians have limited resources and even so they are a very militaristic society and they have this huge respect for the ancient dragons, so even the monarch can’t act without their consent... in this case once again Polaris saved the day (lol). as you know its a very Kigaly fact that unlike Sindra, she isn't focused on revenge and justice... she’s more concerned on attaining every bit of hope to bring her sister back, so it suits her that she would do this and even that she would have to encounter Suzaku back then... they certainly had a clash there and whatever happened was important for both as he disappeared little time after those events, and Kigaly went back home broken and deranged, to lick her wounds... 

I think right after this Kigaly became truly ‘mad’ and started her bigger experiments that in the future would ‘awaken giants’... 

And Suzaku... perhaps Suzaku went on some quest that he deemed more important than ruling the avians? I think so.. even so, Damaris was left alone with all this, she’s certainly not happy... she starts to believe that perhaps he’s really dead... But Solaris sits still in the everflame and haven’t accepted a new owner ever since... what does that means?

In fact, talking about him.. the whole chosen one complex isn't far from truth, but I want to bring out this whole thing into a more complex view of the world where these two opposing forces are up to their own desires, and its left for our heroes to find a middle ground or a balance.. so its left for Aquila to uncover the truth on those matters, and finally for her and Sindra to find a way to peace in a world doomed to war and hatred... yes I do steal those concepts from Kishimoto, but let’s hope it will end much better and more interesting.

So the Aquila you see that I often draw is not exactly the starting point as she will go thought much trouble before coming around, and even so, believe me as she gets closer to her father’s story she will learn things that are not so good regarding the whole phoenix thing... as its quite a destructive entity and selfish at the most imperative god-like way... so its either leaving the world to darkness, as the ancient serpent returns ‘to eat the light out of it’, or trusting the fury of the phoenix, to banish it once and for all... then there’s the whole other set of problems.. well I hope it all works someday! I certainly love the phoenix theme but I also like to add some ‘darkness’ to it, so all kind of things are possible, yet... 

[fireeaglespirit]

Damaris & Suzaku theme

(just imagine the guy with red hair)

Damaris & the priestesses of the Everflame

Heavenly music for the golden queen. This theme makes me feel like flying :3