Tristys of Paru

Tristys At-a-Glance

Full name: Tristys of Paru
Former name: None
Nicknames: Tris
Birthday: 415 (AUC) Ramidin eleventh
Hometown: Paru, Cyraea
Books: Eternity in an Hour

Magics: Eś, Oś, Uś, Iś, Aś, Yś

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Table of Contents

Revivification of Coquellian Magic (Unnamed Eternity Sequel)

Gallery of Images

Early Life

Tristys was born to Midrys and Tyspal in Paru, a town in the northern panhandle of Cyraea. Midrys and Tyspal were first-generation Paruans, their parents having come from inner Cyraea, and consequently their family is much lighter-skinned than the average resident of Paru.¹. Because of this, Tristys felt a pronounced difference from his early years, far before he had his sexual awakening that would ultimately drive him away from Paru and Cyraea as a whole.

Despite this, the first few years of his life were relatively uneventful. Paru is the largest town in the panhandle, and yet life in Tristys's household was quiet and well-off, with his mother the bookbinder and his father the baker. When Tristys was five, however, neighboring Spȧlor went through some drastic political upheavals, resulting in the resurrection of the Spȧlorian slave-trade as well as renewed efforts to conquer Cyraea, particularly the Cyraean panhandle. Fighting broke out all along the southern panhandle, on both sides of the border, and Paru became a hub of military activity due to its strategic location. As Tristys grew, the conflict worsened, and by the time Tristys was thirteen, the war had moved to Paru's front door: the Spȧlorians were kept out of Paru thanks only to the incredible defenses developed over the past few years by the military, who recognized that Paru would be necessary for the Spȧlorians to invade Cyraea proper en masse.

Tristys had three siblings: an older sister (Nyler), an older brother (Evynn, nicknamed Vynn), and a younger brother (Keltyn). Nyler was seven years older than Tristys, and the two were close from an early age, but Tristys, as well as Keltyn, idolized his older brother, Vynn. When Vynn was 17, Tristys 13, and Keltyn 11, Vynn joined the Cyraean military, which inspired and encouraged both younger brothers, though for different reasons.

Puberty

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During the year Vynn fought the Spȧlorians, Tristys was fighting his own inner battle with his sexuality. Paru was a village steeped in a strict, nearly ascetic religion, and nearly every deviation from the norm became a target for hatred and condemnation. Same-sex attraction, obviously, was high on the list of trespasses. It is no surprise, then, that Tristys fought his own same-sex attraction when it developed just months before Vynn left for the military. His brother's move gave Tristys a role model to aspire to be, and he drew strength in his fight from his brother's, paralleling the two careers. During his struggle, Tristys confided in only two people: his two best friends, fraternal twins Rylin and Kitadyn. Before long, Kitadyn confessed his own uncertainty about his sexuality, but he swore Tristys to secrecy, not even wanting his sister Rylin to know. From then on te two boys thought of themselves as comrades, often playing war games in which they fought the same enemy, often given a physical form in Rylin.

A year passed. Tristys was now 14, nearly 15, and in the throes of puberty, with his hormones and his sexual drives running wild. Over the past year, Tristys and Rylin had grown increasingly closer. Paru had become a veritable military base, and the two would often scout the soldiers, each pointing out to the other who was the cutest, who would be the best kisser, and other such things. Tristys took comfort in the fact that Rylin seemed to find no problem in his attraction, because he himself saw no real threat in it. Nevertheless, he knew he ahd to continue fighting, like his brother Vynn continued fighting, and he continued playing war games with Kitadyn, though they had rechristened the games as training sessions. Unlike the war games of before, these training sessions often excluded Rylin and involved more close-contact fighting than they had in the past.

Just as Tristys turned 15, his family received a message that would forever change his life: Vynn had died in an attack on Veloẋa Tȧnor, the Spȧlorian hub where many of the slaves captured in the Cyraean panhandle went for breaking. Tristys's younger brother, Keltyn, immediately swore revenge on the Spȧlorians, and his parents had to restrain him physically from leaving at once to join the military. They were so occupied with Keltyn they did not notice that their other son was crumbling. Not only had Tristys's older and beloved brother died, but so had his own struggle with his sexuality. The soldier inside of him, the soldier fighting his attraction to men, had been so identified with his brother the soldier that Tristys felt as if his inner battle had been lost, along with the battle at Veloẋa Tȧnor. In a moment fueled by grief, by frustration, and by hormones, Tristys tore to Kitadyn's house and, in broad daylight and in front of his entire family, began to kiss him passionately.

Needless to say, nobody except Rilyn reacted positively. The reactions ranged from cheering (only Rilyn) to curses to physical violence. This was the first time Tristys would be physically abused because of his desire, and Kitadyn through the first punch, followed quickly by his brothers. Nyler, who had noticed Tristys's odd behavior and followed him, and Rilyn intervened, jumping atop Tristys to cover him from the blows, and they helped Tristys return to his own family, who were still devastated from the news of Vynn's death. His parents barely reacted, but his brother shouted obscenities, threatened a punch, and tore out of the house, cursing and threatening revenge.

The Aftermath

Days later, Keltyn returned. He hadn't joined the military like everyone had feared. He no longer threatened physical violence to Tristys, but he acted as if Tristys didn't exist. The rest of the family, Nyler included, pretended as if Tristys's outburst had never happened. Even once word spread throughout the town, and Tristys became the brunt of everyone's anger and rage — usually only verbal, sometimes physical — his family never spoke of it. His father treated him differently. He was cold and reserved, very unlike the warm father from before. His brother simply didn't treat him anymore, acting as if Tristys as well as Vynn had died with that telegram. His mother and sister never changed their behavior, and he continued to have a strong, close relationship with them. They became his best friends, to replace Rylin and Kitadyn. Kitadyn often headed the charges, especially the physical ones, against Tristys, and Rylin had been banned by her parents from seeing Tristys. At first, she snuck out often, but as time passed, they grew apart. Within two years, Tristys and Rylin had lost touch completely.

Teenage Years

Tristys had come out when he was 15, and for the next seven years, Tristys lived an unhappy, lonely life. He had had so few friends before, and he lost them all in the aftermath. His mother and his sister were his only companionship, and even that was tainted: when Tristys was 16, Nyler married and moved hours away, and Tristys often heard his mother crying at night, especially after attacks made against Tristys for being diverted. Tristys hated the pain he caused his mother, the distance he made between him and his father, and the neglect he suffered from his brother. And, though he readily admitted to himself how ludicrous an idea, on some level Tristys blamed himself for his brother Vynn's death, as if his own subtle acceptance of his sexuality, of his own surrendering, somehow led to Vynn's defeat.

Just before Tristys was 22, he had had enough. He was miserable, and the attacks on his own character were getting worse. The jeers and catcalls were now being directed at his mother and father as well as him, and his mother had been chased on more than one occasion. His brother had grown increasingly belligerent, and after one attack against his mother, Keltyn demanded that Tristys leave. Their mother wouldn't allow this, but Tristys noticed his father said nothing, either for or against the suggestion. A few days later, when a group of soldiers tried (unsuccessfully) to burn down his house, Tristys decided it was time. In the middle of the night, he packed his scant belongings and left.

He had nowhere to go. He left Paru and walked east until the ocean, when he began to head south. He had no plan. All the nearby towns followed the same hateful religion of Paru, and he knew that even leaving the demesne of Paru's religion was futile, because every religion in Cyraea spouted the same hate for the diverted. Besides Cyraea, the only other place to go was Spȧlor, home to bloodthirsty barbarians who sold his people into slavery. He had no options, and so his destination did not matter. He just kept walking.

He didn't walk for very long. He had not gotten very far along the beach when a Spȧlorian slave ship spotted him. He was captured quickly, but luck finally befriended him in the form of one of the slavers, Lhox'toh Vungor, who fell in love with Tristys, pulling him aside and treating him much better than the other slaves. Nevertheless, Tristys suffered on the ship, at the hands of other slavers, at the hands of other slaves (who hated Tristys for his being privileged by Lhox'toh), and by Lhox'toh himself, who had anger issues and such. Mere days from arriving at its destination, however, the slave-ship ran into a double whammy: an unexpectedly strong storm and inexplicable currents. The boat was destroyed, along with all its passengers; Tristys survived only because of Lhox'toh's sacrifice, giving Tristys the plank with which to float rather than taking it for himself.

And Tristys did float. He floated for days, until he arrived at a secluded beach near the town of Lower Ramidalé on Quelles, one of the seven islands of the Coquels, a magic-wielding, xenophobic nation unknown to both Cyraea and Spȧlor.