Tingara "Tia" Tomae
Human ~ 28 ~ Aurelia ~ Priestess
AppearanceTia knows she draws attention - she always has. With delicate features, eyes as dark as the night sky, and a quiet, meditative air about her, Tia is the picture of pious wisdom and mystique. She’s shorter than average, and slender beneath the layers of her priestess robes.
But in recent months, Tia has had to come to terms with her two new defining features: the first is her shock of blonde hair, so pale it’s almost white, and unrecognizable from the black hair she was born with. While just as long and thick as before, the stark transformation has been the topic of rumor and gossip amongst more idle members of the clergy.
And then there are her scars. Fresh and pink, they are a raised landscape sprawling across her neck, a gruesome reminder of trauma that most are too nervous or polite to ask about - but that doesn’t keep them from staring. While before Tia ignored the stares of others, (even found some small, decidedly
unpious pride in them) now she finds herself shrinking away from crowds, their gazes heavy on her throat. Beneath the scars, her vocal cords are a mangled mess. Her voice, once smooth and clear, is now a weak rasp, and she finds it strenuous to speak more than a few words at once.
MagicOnce regarded as the most promising healer of her generation, Tia has felt the depletion of her magic as harshly as her fellow Aurelians. But while her ability to mend, ease, and cure earned her quite the reputation amongst the common folk, few know of another ability she has been fostering - Tia has the gift of prophesy. She’s been instructed to keep this power hidden as she learns to develop it, but it’s certainly caught the attention of those higher in the Aurelian clergy.
HistoryTingara Tomae was born hungry. The seventh child of a poor family in a village that may as well have been an accidental
smudge on the Aurelian map, Tia was always fed last. With too many mouths and too little food, it was decided that her siblings - older, sturdier, with a better chance of seeing their next years - would be given priority.
It should’ve been no surprise then, that when her parents finally gave up on the idea of keeping
all of their children, Tia was the first to go. But it shattered her, all the same.
‘
Go, my little beetle. They can care for you better than we can.’
Tia was given to the church of a neighboring village, and the priests and priestesses set to work molding her into a respectable member of the clergy. They taught her to read using their scriptures, they made sure she had enough to eat after she’d given proper offerings to Aelios, and they disciplined her thoroughly whenever she so much as rolled her eyes at their repeated instructions to ‘
Sit up straight Tingara, you are not a stalk of grain bending in the wind.’
It was when she showed an aptitude for healing though, that she first felt their approval like the warmth of sunlight on her cheeks. She had prodigious talent, an unending well of power to draw from, and an innate understanding of the many systems that made up the human body. She nearly sobbed with delight when, after healing a man’s shattered hand, Sister Fumi put an arthritic palm to Tia’s cheek and murmured, ‘
Well done, child.’
She never heard those words from Sister Fumi again. The next day, Tia was to be carted away to the Aurelian capitol. She screamed as they forced her into the carriage, tears burning tracks down the skin of her cheeks as she fought against the priests trying to rip her from her home
again -
Sister Fumi slapped her across the face. The air seemed to freeze in Tia’s lungs.
‘
You embarrass us and you shame Aelios. Go. They can care for you better than we can.’
The years passed in a blur at the capitol. Tia never went hungry. Her magic was nurtured and her studies never suffered. She joined the older priests on missions throughout the city, bringing Aelios’ light to the sick and injured and collecting tithes from those who offered as payment. She pretended not to notice when the high priests began whispering words like
promise and
legacy and
potential when they thought she couldn’t hear. Hope gripped her heart - and
fear.
But when she awoke with a gasp one night, drenched in sweat, and frantic with dreams of unending darkness - when two days later, the sun didn’t rise - that was when the whispers became declarations. Tia was brought before the high priest of the Aurelian church, a dour old man who seemed to see through her without looking.
‘
My child,’ he’d murmured. He’d clasped her hand and smiled at her, and Tia swore she didn’t need the sun to ride again - not when she had this light beaming at her, filling her soul until she glowed. ‘
You’re home.’
And thus it was decided that the high priest would take Tia on as his protege in secret, quietly grooming her to take his place at the head of the church when the time came, and refining her gift of prophesy. Tia excelled under his tutelage, even with the disappearance of the sun slowly draining her magic. The high priest stressed the importance of being amongst the people, aiding the needy at every opportunity so they might grow accustomed and fond of her. She was a woman, from an impoverished border village, with uncommon features - the people of Aurelia would need to be on her side when the time came for her to take her place as High Priestess, whenever that may be.
Tia drank in his praise like water, desperate for approval, affection - any sign that she would be kept, this time. Perhaps that is what led her into more and more dangerous territory.
Against the requests of the clergy, Tia joined a scouting mission of three soldiers and a ranger, venturing out into the outskirts of blighted territory in search of survivors. She doesn’t remember much - a cart carrying a handful of survivors, freshly healed. A bone-deep weariness after struggling to pull her magic to the surface again and again. A shout. The flash of fangs and glowing blood-red eyes. A scream - hers? No, that wasn’t possible, not when her throat was
burning, filled with something hot and sticky, coming up through her mouth, spelling onto the muddied silk of her robes, and -
Numbness. The inky, sunless sky littered with stars above. Her hand slick with her own blood as she tried desperately to hold the shredded remains of her throat together. And then a light so blinding and pale she’d almost thought the sun had risen again.
When she finally woke up hours later, was on the ground, covered in her own blood, and surrounded by bodies. Her hand was nearly melded to her throat, it was so coated with dried, flaking blood. Tia felt a scream building in her chest, terror reaching a boiling point as she looked around at the corpses of the soldiers, the ranger, the people she’d healed not hours ago… But when she screamed, nothing but a strangled, breathy rasp came out, her vocal cords scratching together like gravel.
Tia, half dead and delirious with grief, eventually managed to walk back to the nearest outpost. The soldiers nearly killed her on sight, thinking she’d become blighted herself. It was only when Tia saw herself in the washroom mirror that she understood - the scars were ugly and fresh on her neck, an imperfect and desperate heal as she’d laid dying and drained. Her hair, once raven black, had bleached to a blonde so pale it was nearly white.
The high priest’s disappointment was like dying all over again. A voiceless priestess couldn’t conduct a sermon - she couldn’t inspire, she couldn’t recite scripture, she couldn’t
lead. Tia couldn’t lose him, lose
home again, she was so stupid and useless and
she was going to be alone and -
‘
My child… the church may have a use for you, yet.’
And so, Tia finds herself traveling to Dawnhaven. She has been tasked with a sacred duty for the good of Aurelia, and she will not fail the high priest. Not again.
