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[kradeelav]

so in this fever dream somewhere before and very slightly during a 24 hour migraine, i reread The Kiesha'ra Series.

long story short is it was this YA series from 2003 of these animal shapeshifters suspiciously similar to the laguz from the FE: Tellius games. they're not what i would call an exceptionally masterful series; but y'all, for somebody who was exactly in that perfect age range and experience this still slaps so much i mention it here because it's almost a carbon copy of like, if the hawk laguz clan and if there was a snake/cobra laguz clan had a romance series written after them like, same kind of shapeshifting deal, there's crow shifters, there's falcon shifters that are basically herons with magic (but who can actually fight) and

uh i forgot how many sleeper cell laguz headcanons i had based off of these books lol

 

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• so the context for half of this yellin' and rereading is partially for sentimentality but partially b/c of that one kurthnaga/lehran fic i've been raving about for a month with SO MANY HERON MAGIC headcanons. so uh if you start see me yellin at the walls and wholesale designing a snake laguz clan that maybe nailah fights with in hatari y'all uh, know where that came from
  • like in the first chapter of hawksong alone the hawks have their palace called "the hawk's keep" (ikr so original) and the cool thing is it's seven floors with no stairs in between so assassins theoretically can't reach the top floors where the royals sleep so i'm totally shanking that for tellius ideas. wouldn't stop ravens of course but maybe that's fridge brirlliance as to why naesala found it so easy to slaughter tibarn's people eh eh
  • (cuz like historically the hawks have been allies with both the herons and the ravens aka the only other laguz that could fly, and well, dragons aren't known for up and randomly conquering other places)
• one of the other cool things is here, the snake shifters have both hypnotic eyes and venom and maybe that's how nailah lost her eye, she basically wipes out this snake clan to the north of hatari who was this snake laguz chick with almost a gorgon legend, and nailah kind of basically takes that legend for herself
• there's sparrow shifters! if i ever need to pull another laguz species out of a hat and say one went extinct or exists in hatari, totally going to mention sparrows.
• one thing i really like about this series is that the author gives common clusters of personality traits and behaviors to each species!
  
  • hawks are more stoic ("avian reserve") on average and can dull their own emotions to seem more in control of themselves and not be as affected by the heat of the battle. and i can't think how dragons and wolves especially would probably have the most obvious example of that -- how the dragon stoicisim would stem from their isolationisim and trying to model best behavior after dhegensia himself.
  • imo you can kind of feel this with how subtle both nasir and ena operate - they're not prone to emotional outbursts at all, and both have served for a long time in "enemy camps" or as spies. that takes a hell of a lot of emotional reserve! it's a little heartbreaking beecause almedha would be even more of an outlier given she feels a lot more emotional than the rest of the dragons so i see a lot of potential conflict there.
  • the serpentine on the other hand both have jewel-tone eye color, are known to be more emotionally (and sexually) free to a signifigant degree; and ngl i can definitely see this going for hatari what with the clothes that feel like references a culture that holds dance and being free with emotions in high regard. nailah's bluntness, volug's shirtlessness, etc.
  • which makes nailah's pariing with rafiel fascinating in that i can see herons having a smaller degree of reserve culturally. you see this a little with sephiran too, and how reyson's an outlier for being 'blunt for his species' kind of thing.

 

 

• IN THIS ESSAY I SHALL,,,, (lmao)
  there's also a plot point of the hawks having poison that specifically affects the serpents and that makes me wonder if poison that specificlally affects laguz is A Thing in hatari politics
  
  • laguz aren't going to use poison against each other in the other tellius contintents, and ngl i see begnion/daein being too arrogant with wyverns/pegasai/mages to resort to poison, but hatari's politics being like, harem levels of treachery would be a fun fic.

• starting the second book, [vibrating] i think this is the one i liked the most
• THIS omfg this is the one wherre i fucking swear the author swiped half the lore from tellius BECAUSE GET THIS
  
  • there's this ancient near-god-critter dude named Leben(!!!!)
  • THAT SOUNDS AWFULLY LIKE LEHRAN that was around since the dawn of civilization for this series and gave gifts to the first species and there's two god/esses, one that's more order/power/bondage/silence and another that's free will/life/light
  • and it just straight up STARTS with talking about how the falcons (heron counterpart) are at the apex of their power and the other species can't risk offending them cuz there's miND READING INVOLVED HELLA FUCK YEAH
  • yeeeee oh i am so vibrating ready to write this fic idea of mine of lehran going off on a near myth of this heron empire that- [gags self before i spoil the entire fucking fic lmao]
• i really would swear this author played the tellius games except PoR came out in 2005 and hawksong came out in 2003

• okay have some more headcanons i'm yanking from this series like naesala yanks coin out of the daein army pockets:
• there's this old crow scholar in this series that's FABULOUS and snarky and studies the ancient tounge and now i want to believe she exists considering it's a thing with tellius that crows are the one laguz type more willing to mingle freely with beorc, and even socialize a bit with daeins. imagine this roving crow scholar who loves to sample all the different cultures, almost like a nasir?
• book2 here goes into more about the (heron) species/empire/what are they like socially -- with the idea that they're all about "face", and not disturbing that sense of order. that the appearance of order is more important than anything else.
• which makes TOTAL SENSE when you've got a species that can mind read, most important thing would be to just simply ignore the outlandish thoughts in other people's minds, but the actions would be everything, i feel like you see this with rafiel especially who's always held up as the ~ model ~ heron with how he's always very demure / respectful / all about upholding that appearance.
  
  • i've always wondered what "normal"(?) non royal herons both look and act like since the tellius games only go into the royals so we get an incredibly skewed/niche view of what herons in general are like.
  • ALSO.... what if..... this heron empress i'm inventing wholesale has silver hair because micaiah's silver hair had got to come somewhere and i'm sort of in love with the idea that the elder heron royals were almost these unearthly spooky beauties with silver hair and unsettling gold eyes

 

• the cool thing about (herons) here is that, well, not cool, but metal - is that b/c all the focus was put on that appearance of order / face, is that the empire is fuckin BRUTAL, like, you could be tortured/executed for simply accidentally cursing in the presence of a royal, and that implying that the royals was anything less than perfect, pristine
  
  • kind of reminds you of a final boss goddess doesn't it
• (it'd also create a sense of - everyone would be a criminal in the heron empire, because it'd almost be impossible to not break a rule or order)
  
  • i could very easily see that being why the other laguz races have complete and utter respect (/fear from a long time ago) for herons and not treat them like pussies/weaksauce versions of themselves. like 'holy shit thank god they're not like the ABSOLUTELY FUCKING METAL 'death to everyone else' versions that they used to be, reyson's actually aright after all'
  • what if herons way back in altina's era were more like that eh like it would make a lot of sense why lehran is ashera's favorite, he'd be that living legend of total order EHHH....
• (also this gets into like, fridge horror but the (falcons/herons) here have a very... strong... loathing for mixed parentage (falcons/herons here are framed as the villains which is okay maybe why i'm having so much fun here with these books because the idea of tellius herons as villains is ENTERRTAINING) and i wonder if there would be echoes of that with tellius considering how,,, how do i say this, i could see the "elder herons" having this thing about keeping their bloodline pure not only with the branded thing but also keeping their skill with the gladarar as strong as it could be without diluting it
  
  • (which is a gross way to put it but like, that would be their reasoning) which makes lehran's whole story all the more deeply tragic, my man T_T the one guy that goes against all of that stupid ignorance only to get bitten in the butt in a pretty horrific way what with the branded.
• oh my god so this book goes into some delicious territory of like the kind of magic that this mix of like .... stillness/power would attract. or vice versa. like imagine instead of the heron royals "just" being able to mind read, they could plant suggestions in other people's minds, pursuade them to do simple tasks for a short while. you could wreck an entire empire out of a tense peace with just a few suggested words. but the ironic thing here is that because they're so aligned with stillness and unchange, that's the one thing preventing them from making a bloodbath. (the heron/falcon royal guard here is also called "The Mercy" which is like. so pitch perfect for ashera's whole shpliel.)

• there's also some stuff that i wasn't able to write about how the herons/falcons here are susceptible to loosing their minds in "the void" if they aren't trained early enough, because reality's so noisy and painful and loud -- and considering Reyson is not a complainer at all, mind, but still grudgingly bites out how hard battlefields are to deal with ... this feels relevant.

anyway! enjoy teh feels ;D