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Sayuri Tenaho


Comatose

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Sayuri Tenaho

Leyari Mathematician

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Player Information

Name: Comatose

Contact Information: PM me to talk about it.

Character Information

Name: Sayuri Tenaho

Race: Xaneth: Leyari

Age: 24

Gender: Female

Place of Origin: The Leya (Cherry Valley)

Class: Master of Mathematics (Currently an Accountant)

Relationship Status: Single

Channeling Capacity:

As a Leyari, Sayuri has a fairly high channeling potential. She is very skilled in telekinesis, and is able to move multiple light objects at once at varying speeds, but has never used this ability for combat. Her other talent is the generation of light, which she can create in a variety of colours and intensities. Other skills that are not as developed include the heating and cooling of objects and the preservation of perishable items, such as food and plants. After leaving Cherry Valley for the last time, Sayuri learned to create offensive blasts of pure energy to use in combat in order to prove to herself she had put the traditions of her people behind her. While she learned the technique, it is the least developed of her channeling skills, and she has yet to use it against another living being. Sayuri’s focus is the Cherry Blossom hair clip she uses to tie back her hair.

Appearance:

Like most Leyari women, Sayuri is petite, standing approximately five feet tall, and weighing less than most other women her size. Her skin is a very delicate and a very pale brown. Her black hair is thin and sleek, and hangs down to her lower back. In order to distance herself from her culture, she never wears it up. Instead, she leaves it hanging, only ornamented by the cherry blossom hair clip that keeps it away from her face. Her facial features are delicate and sharp at the same time. What sets Sayuri apart from other women of her culture is her eyes. While they are tilted and the same shape as the rest of her people, her eyes are pale blue in color, and are considered to be an ill omen. Forsaking the silk robes of her people, Sayuri often wears plain dresses with a shawl or cloak for warmth. She never wears make-up or face paint. Sayuri moves with grace, precision, and economy.

Special Skills:

Mathematics, rapid reading and memorization abilities, dancing and calligraphy.

Strengths:

Sayuri’s greatest strengths are her intellect, determination, and discipline. Using these three things, if Sayuri sets her mind to figuring out or learning something, she will accomplish her goal, no matter what hardships she has to face to get there. While her sometimes extreme practicality seems harsh at times, Sayuri refuses to let any foolish cultural norms or traditions stand in the way of efficiency and progress. Though she has not practiced for some time, Sayuri is a naturally skilled Leyari dancer. Other special skills include (obviously) Mathematics, rapid reading and memorization abilities, and calligraphy. While she no longer practices the Leyari traditional style, all her writing is still ornate and beautiful.

Weaknesses:

As a Leyari, Sayuri has absolutely no combat ability. While she has rejected the culture of her people, their beliefs were drilled into her since birth, and she still would have great difficulty physically harming another person, even to save her own life or the life of others. While she was very physically fit in her youth, her years as a scholar have made her physically weak, especially after she quit dancing recreationally.

Sayuri’s greatest weakness is her difficulty with interpersonal connections. While her own people find her offensively boisterous, to the rest of the world, she is still very reserved. This reservation makes her seem much colder than she is, making it difficult for her to form friendships with others. Her practicality and intense focus on her education isolates her, as when busy with a project any friendships she has managed to create are the first things to be neglected. Because of her previous experiences and upbringing, Sayuri also has difficulty trusting others and opening up to people, preferring to seek her goals on her own.

Personality:

While she likes to think of herself as rebellious, Sayuri is a very disciplined, practical, and emotionally reserved individual. She is a quiet and cautious woman who knows how to get a job done, and done right. She is no stranger to hardship, and enjoys overcoming it. In her view, anything that does not serve a purpose is pointless, and if it gets in her way, it must be discarded, no matter how important some people think it is. As an academic, Sayuri is also very curious and inquisitive, and is always finding new things she wishes to investigate, prove, or disprove. She is always pushing herself to reach her full potential, and loathes being blocked or stifled by anything other than her own talent. When it comes to something she desires, Sayuri can be incredibly stubborn.

Sayuri believes strongly in making her own way, and resents seeking help from others. She is slow to trust, and even slower to let her guard down and open up to someone. While she has rejected her culture, she still unconsciously holds several Leyari values inside of her, including a respect for life, dislike of violence, discipline and appreciation of nature. Sayuri is very open minded when it comes to other cultures and traditions, but she often becomes skeptical when she sees any short comings. Sayuri’s four greatest fears are complete and utter failure, being prevented from growing intellectually, being silenced, and that, like her father before her, she is going insane.

History:

I come from a place where men braid their hair and dress only in silk while women walk silently through the streets with painted faces. In the privacy of our home, my mother explained to me that a woman must always be silent in public, for a woman’s words are more valuable than a man’s, and must be used sparingly. Only in the privacy of our homes, when the face paint is removed can we speak freely. It wasn’t until I left my homeland that I realized a free speaking Leyari woman speaks far less than even the most reserved of foreigners.

As you have probably guessed by now, I come from The Leya, or Cherry Valley as the foreigners call it. It is strange that even though I have come to see myself as an outsider, I still use the name of my people when referring to my homeland. The valley is not large by the standards of countries and nations, but it is large enough contain three nodes, two weaker ones at either end, and a quite powerful one at the valley’s center. A strong ley line traces the valley’s floor, joining the three. The energy from these nodes has made The Leya a place of great fertility, and the forests of cherry trees that grow there give the valley its name. In the spring, the entire valley is blanketed with beautiful pink blossoms, and the paths are littered with fallen petals. In the summer, our famous Leyari cherries grow ripe, and in fall the leaves turn vibrant shades of red and yellow. It is always warm in the Leya, and we never experience a true winter, aside, of course, from the Season of the Serpent, when nothing grows, and our beautiful cherry trees shrivel up.

My people are pacifistic. They care little for the world outside The Leya, other than the merchants who come to buy our cherries, the vibrant dyes we make from both the fruit and the flowers, and the fine silks woven into garments from the cocoons of the worms and moths who fertilize our trees. The men, with their cheap words, handle the business aspect, while the women silently take care of the ‘important work’: tending the trees, harvesting the cherries, grinding both fruit and blossom into dyes, tending our livestock, and weaving fine silks. The livestock are kept, of course, only for their milk or wool. My people only eat what they can grow in their gardens, or harvest from our trees. The spilling of blood is forbidden within The Leya.

With such a rich land, containing three entire nodes, you may be wondering how my people have survived as pacifists when an army of any size could easily wipe us out and take the valuable resources we guard. The answer is the Peace Line. It is a wall of white stone, strange and smooth, that surrounds the valley. There are no gates, but it is barely a foot tall, so it is hardly an impediment to travellers. An artifact from another age, no one understands the Peace Line, who made it, for what purpose, or how it works, but we do know what it does. No man, woman or child can cross it while bearing arms or intending harm. While violence is possible within The Leya, my people have imposed strict penalties for any individual who breaks their peace, and no true Leyari would dream of committing violence against another living being.

Despite having a wealth of Ley energy at our disposal, the Leyari think of themselves as the people of the Ley Lines, and view the life giving energy within them as sacred. While all of my people have a relatively high channeling potential, it is never developed, as channeling the Ley Lines is strictly forbidden. The ignoring of this valuable resource is only one my people’s follies. Others include their rejection of higher learning (they believe knowledge that is not ‘necessary’ within The Leya always leads to corruption), and refusal of scientific advances are others.

The politics of The Leya are nothing of note, and probable seem laughable to the complex societies of other countries. The Leyari are ruled by a council of women and men, one of each gender from each of the nine clans. Decisions are made rarely, if ever, and most Leyari are content to let life go by as it always has, choosing conservatism and tradition over radical ingenuity time and time again. Each clan is headed by a matriarch and a patriarch. When a couple is married, they both forsake the clans of their birth, and join one of the seven others. Because of this, while the clans remain distinct, all Leyari are interrelated in some way or another. This relationship, isolation from other cultures, and our cultural dress (especially the face paint) lead many to believe all Leyari look the same. The men are all short and round, with handsome faces and dark braided hair, and the women are all tiny with dark mysterious eyes. This is not true. Foreigners just do not know where to look. Someone from a more cosmopolitan city might use the color of a person’s hair, skin, or eyes, or their height or girth to recognize them. My people use the ratio between the size of the nose and eyes, the thinness or thickness of the lips, the way someone moves or stands, or the way their face changes expressions.

I, of course, was always easy to pick out. The Leyari woman is short and thin, with sleek black hair, and tilted eyes that are dark and mysterious. She wears her hair piled on her head in complex arrangements, dresses in silks (or wool while working, but only if the woman is a clumsy worker) of white, pink, or crimson and paints her face white. The only color is a black liner with red accents to emphasize the eyes, and red paint on the lips with a single red line running from the bottom lip to the tip of the chin. My mother made sure I fit the mould as soon as I was able to keep food off of my clothes, and play without ruining my hair or face paint, but she never quite succeeded. My eyes were a problem you see. They are a pale, watery blue. While such a colour is hardly unheard of with my people, light coloured eyes were rare enough to be considered an ill omen, and they made me a prime target for teasing among the other children. Looking back, however, I’m grateful that the colour of my eyes made me different. They were the first thing that set me apart from the rest of the Leyari, and as I grew, I found I was far more different than just the colour of my eyes.

I grew up within the Tenaho clan, and lived in Myrashi, the largest of The Leya’s three cities, built over top of our largest node. In any other nation, it would be called a town, if a large and very beautiful one, but to a rural people like mine, it was our capitol. It was a sprawling place, the houses spread out to accommodate the forest, andnbuilt with what stone or marble could be imported from outside. Wanting to save as much space for the trees as possible, our buildings are built as tall as possible, creating stone towers that stretch out above the trees, and offer amazing views of the Leya. While some of these towers are made of plain un-ornamented stone, just as many are made of marble and decorated with gold and silver. My people’s simplistic lifestyle leads some to forget how wealthy we are. Our cherries, dyes, and silks are in high demand, and our cities are where our wealth is displayed.

Within Leyari society, the balance of power between men and women is very difficult to grasp to outsiders. Some see the women are silent in public, and think the men control them. Others see the women’s control of ‘industry’ and wealth within The Leya, and think they hold the real power. In truth, their power is balanced. A woman’s power is the power of the body. She is in charge of her family’s wealth and livelihood, and is taught to excel in all her crafts at a young age. It is the women of the council who set the prices for our exports, and distribute wealth among the clans. The men, however, hold the power of the voice. They hold sway over relations with the outside world, make laws, and uphold cultural traditions within The Leya. They also administer justice. And so, they are balanced. In times of conflict, however, it is the women who take charge. So you see, a woman’s silence in public is not an arbitrary restriction placed on them. It is a statement of power. By keeping silent, the Leyari women provide their men with a constant reminder that men cannot exist without a body, but a woman can exist without a voice.

As it turned out, I had no father to tell me stories, or teach me to dream. All I had was a mother to teach me discipline and grace. My father, they told me, was a brilliant man, but not a good Leyari. No one said anything overtly, but I pieced this much together on my own. Around the time he married my mother, he began neglecting his duties. He’d vanish for hours at a time, and no one would no where he went or what he was doing. Steadily it got worse and worse. They didn’t find out what he was doing until after I was born. Stashed carefully away in a cleverly made lock box, something that should have been made by a woman, were notes. Thousands and thousands of pieces of paper, filled with numbers and strange diagrams. No one could decipher what they meant. My mother even had a male member of the clan to take the notes to a university when he and his wife went travelling, but no one there could make any sense of them either.

The discovery of my father’s secret did not stop him. If anything, it spurred him on. He began forgetting to eat and sleep if he wasn’t reminded, and his only daughter was completely forgotten. I remember approaching him one day and asking him for a story. He looked me straight in the eye for a moment, with a completely unreadable expression, and then his eyes went blank. He didn’t even recognize me! He didn’t say anything, just turned back to his piece of paper and continued scribbling. My family tried everything, we took his paper and his pens, and locked him away, or locked him outside, but he always ended up scratching something into the ground, or his walls. Once he used his own fingernails, and continued to scratch numbers into the floor of his room even after his hands started bleeding. He died when I was six, still not old enough to really understand what happened. He just died one day, like he had given up on living. His funeral was a small affair, with only me and my mother, and my father’s immediate family present for his burial beneath a cherry tree. We buried him, his father and brother honored him with a single death song, and my mother, grandmother, and aunt perfromed a single death dance. And then we left him there. His behaviour had shamed all three families, you see, and they were all ready to move on.

The Leyari have no formal schooling system. Children are instructed by their parents, and the elder members of their gender from within the clan. Children are taught cultural traditions, and the basics of all the crafts and arts available to them, before they choose their specialty or specialties. Boys are taught bargaining, diplomacy, politics, law theory, debate, and the arts of story telling, music, poetry, and oration. All women will eventually harvest and tend the cherry trees, but we are also taught gardening, the harvesting and spinning of silk, dyeing, dye making, animal husbandry, accounting, food preparation, and the arts of painting, calligraphy, and dance. So, it was within my family’s tower and the surrounding forest that I spent most of my childhood. I was eight when I began realizing the limits of our education system. The Leyari are experts in their field, but they have a very narrow view of the rest of the rest of the world, mainly things that do not involve cherries or silk. They have all kinds of answers for why things are the way they are: it is the will of the Ley-Heart, or the decree of our ancestors, or a boon from an ancient spirit, but they never examine the how. As an inquisitive child, my questions were met with stern disapproval from my teachers, and my overactive tongue earned me hours of extra chores. One day, when I was fourteen, I broke my woman’s silence to ask about the my father’s notes, and had to walk the length of The Leya, picking a cherry from every tree in my path. Not only had I asked a question that was considered taboo in a rude manner, but I was also a woman by then you see, and should have known better. My mother shook her head, and told me I reminded her of my father.

The combination of my father’s early ad mysterious death, the lack of answers to my questions, and the inability to ask them created an enormous frustration within me, which I redirected against my people, particularly my mother. We fought often, though an outsider would likely take our fights for pleasant conversation. We might disagree, but we were both Leyari women. As I grew into my teens, I began to rebel more and more, refusing to tie my hair or paint my face, earning myself several days of confinement within my family’s tower. When I turned sixteen, my mother had enough, and so, she began making arrangements to marry me off to the son of another clan. While some marriages come from romantic courtships, most are arranged. Only the most charming of women can woo a man without speaking to him, after all. And all marriages must be approved by the governing council.

All I heard when my mother told me I was to marry were the whispers surrounding my father’s death, and how he had began his decline soon after marrying my mother. Taking this attempt to get rid of me as the last straw, I packed my bags, and crossed the Peace Line with a group of merchants. My specialty would have likely been dance, or perhaps accounting, for I have always found the movements of Leyari dancing comforting. While I enjoyed working with numbers and keeping accounts, it came too easily too me, and I found no challenge there. I left before I could choose a specialty though. It was probably for the best. A life dedicated dance would not have satisfied me or my mother. She was a skilled dancer herself, but in her opinion, the womanly arts were meant to be hobbies, and a true woman used her specialty to benefit The Leya. As one of the best robe makers in The Leya, she lived by this belief.

I began to travel the kingdoms of Alteiryn. The Leya is on the eastern edge of the continent and isolated by both the Leyari culture and the Peace Line. The entire journey was eye opening to me, and my inquisitive mind uncovered new facts every day, but my true intellectual awakening didn’t begin until I reached one of Alteiryn’s famed Universities. For the first time in my life, I came home. Using funds raised by selling all my silks, leaving me only wool to wear, I paid for my first term at the university there. The first day alone was amazing. Not benefiting from the education of others, I quickly became overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information. Within the first week, I began despairing, and thought of going home, but the image of my mother’s calm and collected painted face stopped that thought in its tracks. Though it was hard, I felt alive for the first time, like a woman who had lived her life in starvation, and had just swallowed her first Leyari cherry.

I threw myself into my studies, neglecting food, sleep, and friendship, and finished my first year in the top half of my class. While I performed decently (well considering the circumstances), the only class I truly flourished in was mathematics. Where the other classes involved endless lists of facts that I would have needed years to memorize in order to truly excel at, once I began to understand the rules that governed numbers, equations became putty in my hands. Though my experience with mathematics was limited to what I needed to participate in my people’s economy (and because of this, I failed my first few assessments), with hard work, dedication, and what I can only call natural talent, by the end of the year I had the eighth highest scores in my class. The masters, eager to encourage talented young minds, paid the tuition for the top ten students of every discipline, and so, my academic career took off.

By the end of my second year, I was the top of my class, and I graduated as one of the most talented new mathematicians in the mapped world. While math was both my talent and my passion, I had other areas of interest as well. My background and curiosity led my to pursue as much as I could handle with my studies in biology and ecology, but I never achieved mastery in either discipline. I also enjoyed learning of the other known cultures in the world. My official minor, however, was in channeling the power of the Ley Lines. It took me a full semester before my curiosity over-powered the beliefs that had been built into me since birth, but as soon as I began learning about how these lines shaped and made our world, I could not stop. It was then that I discovered my people had a natural talent for shaping the power. Backed by my new found understanding and knowledge, the Ley Lines were the final piece, and suddenly, the world made sense. I saw things that my people had taken for granted, or attributed to some higher power, and how they fit into the greater scheme of things, and the symmetry with which it was all connected. There was still much to be learned of course. The intellectual revolution of Alteiryn was just beginning, and there was much left to discover.

I was in my early twenties when I decided to return home. Naive as I was, I thought it would be impossible for my family to ignore facts when I presented it to them. My head was filled with ideas of how I could improve life in The Leya, and increase the importance of education, perhaps even develop an exchange program. It shouldn’t be very surprising that the reality did not live up to my expectations.

I prepared all day before I finally got up the courage to cross the Peace Line. It had been years since I had wound my hair in complex knots, or applied paint to my face, but I still remembered how it was done. I had to send one of the merchants I was travelling with in the day before, to buy the things I needed to make myself presentable. When I was ready, it was almost noon, and it took several more hours to reach my family’s tower by foot. By the end I was huffing and puffing. The lifestyle of a Leyari woman had made me fit and healthy, but me years of study indoors had stolen most of the muscle I had built in my youth. Still, it felt good to be back in the Leya. Amidst the stone of the rest of Alteiryn, I had made my own home, but I had forgotten the sheer beauty of The Leya. Coming over the Peace Line and seeing the valley again, it took my breath away.

When my mother saw me, her eyes went dark, and I became afraid. After nodding curtly to each other, we moved inside to speak. I suffered in silence until we had washed off our face paint and finally faced each other. As a Leyari woman, I know the importance of words, and I will remember these until the day I die.

“You’re hair is still so beautiful,” she said, her face still a mask even though it was bare. “You should take good care of it.” From anyone else, that might sound like a compliment, but from a Leyari, it was an open insult. I resisted the temptation to to reach up and check my hair. I thought I had it perfect! It wasn’t until I looked at my mother’s hair that I realized my mistake. Her complex knot was immaculate. The kind of perfection only achieved after tying it over and over for every day of her adult life. To an outsider, the difference between us might not have been noticeable, but between Leyari women, it was as clear as the difference between harvest and the Dark Season.

“I have not had much time to tie it,” I said, not knowing what else to say. “I have been very busy.”

“I’m sure you have,” said my mother, her voice betraying no emotion. Pausing, she reached out and poured us both a cup of cherry tea. We sipped our tea in silence, but a Leyari woman knows how to make even her silences count. My mother looked down, not meeting my eyes. As a gesture, in Leyari culture, lowering one’s eyes can be taken either as a sign of respect, or an insult. I was not sure which my mother intended.

“Your leaving saddened me,” she said softly. “You would have made a beautiful bride.” Again her words were ambiguous. Was she sad because she missed me, or because my leaving shamed her? Her tone and face gave no clues. As I have said before Leyari women take emotional reservation to the extreme. I was out of practice. Out in the world, I had grown used to reading a man’s face with ease. Back in The Leya, I was completely lost.

“It saddened me as well,” I said, then, hoping to break through to her, I added, “I have missed you. And The Leya.”

“Outsiders call our home the Cherry Valley,” she replied. She spoke it as if it were an observation, even though it was a reprimand. She said the word ‘our’ like I was included in it, but if I had been, she would not have said the rest.

Something inside me snapped. Hadn’t this been why I had left The Leya in the first place? To escape from the mind numbingly infuriating culture and traditions?

“Did you miss me at all? Or was it just a nuisance? Just a wrinkle in your robe, like always?” I realized I had spilled my tea, and barely managed to avoid getting it on my robe. In silence, my mother gracefully stood, left the room, cleaned the spill, and returned to her seat. Then she sipped her tea for a time. Her silence made me want to scream, but I held my tongue. A Leyari can use her silence as an insult when speaking to another woman in doors, and my mother was doing just that.

Finally, she spoke. “Your leaving was hard on me. I missed you very much. I am disappointed.”

I struggled to keep my face serene. “I’ve learned so many things. Things the Leyari don’t even understand! I think I can improve our life here, make a difference!”

My mother calmly set down her tea, but the way she did it made me feel as if she had stood up and started shouting, even though her voice was soft. “We of The Leya understand more than most outsiders think we do. Why should we seek to be different?” Her lips twitched slightly at the last word, as if it had left a bad taste in her mouth. Even though I was out of practice, I still recognized this as the sternest reprimand I had been given since I was a child, when more overt signs of displeasure were necessary.

Stupidly, I tried to reason with her. “I know how The Leya works now though; why our forests produce higher quantities and better quality cherries. The nodes and Ley Lines fill this valley with life, and power the Peace Line...”

“All life comes from the Ley-Heart. This knowledge is not new.” Her interruption stunned me, no matter how politely it was phrased. A Leyari woman never needed to interrupt another. I suddenly realized how much I had been speaking. I had switched from Sayuri the Leyari to Sayuri the academic without noticing.

“Mother,” I said, bowing my head with respect. “I know the way I have followed is not the way of the Leyari. But I think it is the way the Ley-Heart has set out for me,” inwardly I cringed at the explanation. Leyari beliefs about destiny seemed awfully shaky out in the real world. The Eternal Conflux was just an exceedingly powerful node. It had god like power, but it was not a god in and of itself, like my people seemed to think.

“The Ley-Heart sets all paths.” said my mother, and it was clear she meant I had not followed mine.

“And did it set father’s?” I asked, my insides turning from fire to ice in an instant. Since his death, my mother and I had never spoken of him. I’d asked questions, but answers were never given. All I knew of him, I had learned from whispers or pieced together from the memory of a six year old.

“Your father was sick.”

“He was oppressed,” I said coolly. It was strange. I felt like I was screaming at the top of my lungs, saying all the things I’d always meant to say to my mother, but my words came out as cold and soft as hers. Yes, a Leyari woman’s words were valuable, if she knew how to use them.

“The Peace Line gives us freedom.”

“It creates a prison. Father was trapped. I broke free.”

“Your father was sick” she repeated. Her voice was barely a whisper, but her dark eyes seemed to be afire.

“And were you his sickness?” My mother’s eyes widened, and I knew I had hit the mark. Never would I have dared to say such a thing, had I not seen the world outside The Leya. I continued on, before she could respond, shocking myself with how cool and collected I remained. “He was like me. Different. He wanted more than what The Leya could give him. But he couldn’t get it because he was trapped. Trapped by the Peace Line, trapped by the Leyari, and trapped by his arranged marriage to you. The Leya is beautiful and the Leyari are good, but we don’t have everything. There is so much else out there, that you can’t even imagine until you’ve come out from behind your painted face and seen it for yourself. Maybe that’s what he was scribbling all that time. It didn’t make sense because he himself didn’t understand what he wanted; it was beyond his understanding because he never got the chance try to piece it together. All he had left to write was jibberish.” I remembered suddenly that my father’s books were filled with numbers. What if he had been a mathematician, like me? The basic arithmetic taught to Leyari children was mostly reserved for girls. What would it have been like, to desire something so badly, not knowing why, or even understanding what you desired? I silently thanked the Ley-Heart before I realized what I was doing, for giving me the strength to leave.

My mother’s words caught me off guard yet again. “Our marriage was not arranged.”

The cold anger that had sustained me faded. My mother had fallen in love? The epitome of tradition and conservatism had been one of the few to choose her own husband? Suddenly, my mother was not the easy target she had been. How had it felt, to see the man she loved fall apart? What had it been like to know people were silently judging her, attributing her tragedy to her not letting her parents choose a husband for her?

“I am sorry,” I said.

“The tea is cold” said my mother, obviously trying to end the conversation so she could compose herself.

“Leave it,” I said, before she could reach for the pot. Not thinking about what I was doing, I reached up my sleeve, and pulled my focus from a hidden pocket. It was beautiful: a crystal cherry blossom, affixed to a hair clip. My first Channeling master found it for me when he realized the talent I possessed. He explained that an old channeling master had been a woman of great beauty, and the cherry blossom focus had been a gift from an admiring student, who had compared her beauty to the Cherry Valley in spring. He thought it only fitting that the first channeler from the Cherry Valley should have it.

Mathematics was always my primary passion, and the theory of Channeling has always interested me more than the practice of it, but between practice and my natural talent, I know enough to do a few very practical things. I can heat or cool things, which comes in handy when you are a busy student, and I’m very good at creating a floating light to read by. Besides the light, the only talent I’ve really cultivated is telekinesis, both for study and the sheer practicality of it.

Using the clip as a focus, I drew on the power of the node. The central node of The Leya was bigger than the one at the university, so I was careful not to take too much. Transferring my focus and the ley energy to the tea pot, I willed for it to start heating itself. Almost instantly, steam began rising from the spout. I’d done such things a thousand times since learning how, and I barely thought anything of it.

For the first time in my life, I saw my mother’s beautiful face contort in shock. “What have you done?”

I realized my mistake at once, but tried to play it off. “I wish to keep speaking with you. The tea has been heated.”

My mother stood and began backing away, shaking her head. “What have you done?”

I stood and moved towards her. “It’s harmless mother. The Ley Lines are not what you think they are. Their power is made to be harnessed...”

“Leave this place. Channelers are not welcome in The Leya.”

One look at my mother’s face, and I knew my cause was lost, and so, I turned to leave my homeland forever. As I moved to go down the stairs, however, I stopped suddenly, and turned back to face the woman who had raised me. “I want father’s notes.”

“Please leave.”

“Not without my father’s notes,” I said, feeling like a child as I crossed my arms petulantly.

My mother fought for control and then mastered herself. I could see the revulsion my use of the node had caused. “They are filed with our family’s papers. Take them and leave.”

I nodded slowly, turned, and left. Saying good bye would have only made things worse. I easily found the notes, at least, those that had been saved. My mother had filed them under ‘Miscellaneous Notations’. I ended up needing the help of the merchants to transport them all back to the cart. How had he written so much? And why had my mother kept them all? I began to read through them as soon as we crossed the Peace Line. The first few pages were filled with poetry. Before his decline, my father had been a brilliant poet. At the beginning, most of them were exquisite, and yet standard examples of Leyari poetry: praises to the Leya, ornate descriptions of nature, and shockingly, even some love poetry, no doubt meant for my mother. While poetry was never an interest of mine, my father’s poems made me want to weep.

As I read on however, I began to sense a strangeness to my father’s poems. The began to grow darker. The shift was subtle, and would never be noticeable unless all the poems were read in succession. But steadily, all the praises for the Leya began to have an ironic twist, or a description of nature lacked a key element. Sometimes, there seemed to be extra lines added, that had nothing to do with the subject of the poem, or had an entirely different meter. One read:

I look unto the cherry tree,

Blossoms, Fruit, and Ivory Bark.

Rendered with such dignity,

The Ley-Heart’s darkest hour.

The poems became more and more scrambled and ambiguous, and soon, it was difficult to discern any sort of topic, meter, or meaning. By this time, however, and meaning that could be taken out of the gibberish, was dark. It was at this point that the numbers began appearing. It was as if my father, one of my people’s greatest poets, was being consumed by an idea or concept he could not understand or express. The numbers, it seemed, were meant to symbolize something that could not be expressed in words. I began to grow excited. My mother would not have sent my father’s poems to that mathematician all those years ago, she only would have sent the sheets of numbers. Perhaps the poetry was the key!

I put my father’s notes away for a time when I reached the University. I had work to do: equations to find, proofs to create, and young minds to tutor. Though I am an excellent student, I do not think I am a very good teacher. My students often find me harsh and unyielding in my desire for perfection. I know this, and yet somehow, I cannot settle for less, nor can I change my nature.

Wanting to cut myself off from the Leyari culture, I burned the few silk robes that remained, quit dancing recreationally, and began learning to channel offensively. I hoped that, when these changes were done, no one would ever be able to call me a Leyari again. You might thing I did this out of hate for my people. I didn’t. It was out of love that I stripped myself of everything Leyari. While I disagreed with their ideology, I loved my people dearly, and any reminders of them while I was cut off were too painful for me to bear.

When I reached the university however, I realized something it had taken being cut off from my people to make clear. I was respected and praised by my colleagues and teachers, but I was friends with none of them. In my pursuit of knowledge, I had ignored all else, partially to compensate for my lack of education, and also because the reservedness drilled into me by my culture made it difficult to get close to people. I was surrounded by people everyday, and yet, I was entirely alone.

Until I met Alexandre.

I had been aware of him during my time as a student, for he was another of the brightest mathematicians in our age group. I had set aside my fathers notes for a time, and was doing research in complex analysis. Everyone worth their education had been trying to get it right for some time now, and it had quickly become a race to see who would figure it out first.

As we started realizing the periodicity of complex-valued logarithms, and as we worked hard to find the truth that seemed so close in our grasp, the sense of competition in the air at our college intensified, and nearly all the mathematicians of note began working on it, hoping to use it to build their career. Alexandre came to me with an offer. He acknowledged that between us, I was the more talented mathematician, but pointed out that my lack of formal education might be holding me back. As the son of two famous mathematicians, Alexandre had been schooled to follow in his parents footsteps since the day he was born. While he was not as bright as either of his parents, he had more knowledge of the history of mathematics than almost anyone. Desperate to earn his parents’ approval, he came to me in the hopes that together we could find the formula first.

Eager for the emotional connection I had unintentionally been starving myself of, I agreed, and so Alexandre and I set to work. We pushed ourselves hard, sometimes working through the night when a break through was made. As I worked with him, I quickly realized what I had been missing in the Leya. There, I had trouble relating to others, as if we were speaking different language. As a fellow mathematician, and a fairly talented one, Alexandre seemed to be able to read my mind, and I his. There were days when it seemed we didn’t even use words, speaking in objective numbers and beautiful formulae instead.

I did not realize I had given him my heart until he broke it.

Finally, one night, we had a break through. After hours and hours of trying proof after proof, we had one that worked. We were tired and exhausted, both of us had stayed up for the last twenty four hours and I had classes to teach in the morning, but we had it! Alexandre, or Alex as I had begun calling him, was taking a few minutes rest to refresh his mind. ewe were close, I decided to stay up for a few more hours. Then, suddenly, I had it. The elegant proof came to me like silk from a worm. When I woke him to tell him it worked, Alex jumped out of his seat, picked me up in his thin but graceful scholar’s arms, and spun me around. At the time, it was one of the happiest moments of my life.

I told him I could barely stand from excitement. He told me I was likely over-exhausted, and offered to take my class in the morning. After some protest that he was just as tired as I was, I agreed, and fell happily into my bed. To this day, it was the best sleep I have ever had.

I woke up the next evening, to the sound of celebration.

After washing and dressing, I made my way into the halls of the college, and asked one of my colleagues what all the noise was about. She looked at me like I was insane and asked, “Didn’t you here? Alexandre Dupreau had done it! He found the formula!”

“You mean Alexandre and I found it,” I corrected, trying not to sound too smug. “I did the last proof before going to sleep.”

My colleague game me a flat look. “Nice try Sayuri. I know you’re on the of the most talented mathematicians of our generation, but that doesn’t mean you can steal Alexandre’s moment. If you discovered the equation why was Alexandre the one to present it to the Masters today? Why were all the proofs in Alexandre’s writing, and why wasn’t your name on anything.” She went quiet for a moment before continuing. “Though, out of anyone to suggest such a thing, I suppose you would be the one I’d be most likely to believe. I thought you would find it for sure. I guess Alexandre just found it first.”

“But...” I protested.

“But nothing Sayuri. You’re more mature than that. Besides, your story doesn’t hold up. What mathematician worth their salt would share their research with a competitor?”

I was speechless. The reality of what had happened was finally sinking in. Alexandre had been with me throughout the research process, helping me every step of the way, and memorizing every step as he did so. He had rewritten all the notes I had worked on in his own handwriting, and presented them as his own. He had stolen our moment for himself. He had used me.

Unable to face my shame, I fled from my stunned colleague. Not really knowing where I was going, I soon found myself at the door to Alexandre’s apartments.

“You betrayed me,” I said as I burst in.

He had been sleeping, likely exhausted from the hours he had spent rewriting the notes and presenting them to the Masters. I was seriously doubted he had found time to teach my class.

“Sayuri, what are you doing here?” he asked. Sleep filled both his voice and his eyes.

“What am I doing here?” I asked. I had expected to be angry. I wanted to shout and scream and rave at him. Instead, I felt my heart turn to ice, and my voice grow frosty, as it had during my last encounter with my mother. Yes I thought to myself. This was better. This way, I would not let him know how much he had hurt me. “You stole my work. Did you not think I would confront you?”

Alexandre looked down at his feet. “I know. It was horrible. I’m sorry Sayuri, I really am. It’s just... you don’t know what it’s been like for me, growing up under the shadow of not one, but TWO famous mathematicians. Let’s face it Sayuri. I’ve had a lot of training, probably more than anyone, but that’s all I have. I’m smart sure, but my parents... they’re brilliant. Like you. This was my one chance to prove myself.”

“You used me.” I said, refusing to be moved by his story.

“Yes. I did.”

That was it. He’d never wanted my company. He’d wanted my brain. He’d used me, and now it was time for him to discard me, like a cherry once it’s juice has been squeezed out. That’s all I was to anyone now: a mind to be exploited and used. Sayuri the person might as well have been left in the Leya. Not knowing what else to say, I left, and never spoke to Alexandre again.

As I went through my day to day activities, I felt a rising sense of shame within me. When my colleagues and students looked at me, it felt like they all knew somehow. And so, after a week of avoiding all unnecessary human contact, I packed my fathers notes, and left the University forever. I got a job doing sums and accounts for a merchant caravan, and began traveling the continent once again. The work was simple and un-fulfilling, but it was work, and it helped me get away. I interacted with the merchants as little as possible, and spent my solitary hours pouring over my fathers notes, trying to find some pattern or meaning hidden within. That is, I did until today...

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I feel like I just ran a marathon with my eyes @_@.

That said, an absolutely brilliant character, Coma. Literally and metaphysically. I really love the concept of the Leya and Leyari, and Sayuri is a fantastically deep character.

Consider yourself Approved, good sir :).

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ohmy.gifohmy.gifohmy.gifohmy.gifohmy.gifohmy.gifohmy.gifohmy.gif

How am I supposed to compete with that!

Beatifically written, Good Sir!

Ahh, but that's the nice thing, you don't have to compete! It's not like you're fighting for the spot of 'Sayuri'. Coma made her how he felt she should be made, adhering to the template I outlined. You by no means are required to go to the amount of work he did. Create your character the way you feel they should be made :).

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Thansk for the compliment Emeralis, but if you think about it, I think you'll find a lot of what you are impressed with is the culture component. When you take away the fancy words, Sayuri is an antisocial Mathematician with culture issues. While I think she is fairly unique, her overall characterization is nothing awe inspiring or unheard of. The real test will be to see how she RPs. And I'm sure any character you write will be just as good at that as Sayuri is. Just remember it's characterization and conflict that are important. Elaborate world building and fancy powers are just colouring.

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Thanks for the compliment Emeralis, but if you think about it, I think you'll find a lot of what you are impressed with is the culture component. When you take away the fancy words, Sayuri is an antisocial Mathematician with culture issues. While I think she is fairly unique, her overall characterization is nothing awe inspiring or unheard of. The real test will be to see how she RPs. And I'm sure any character you write will be just as good at that as Sayuri is. Just remember it's characterization and conflict that are important. Elaborate world building and fancy powers are just colouring.

Ah, but thats just it. The World-building. To me, most characters are merely vehicles through which I get to see the world. Its one of the reasons I enjoy things like The Malazan Book of the Fallen, and Brandon Sanderson's magic systems. I tend to let 'shallow' or 'uninteresting' characterization slide if enough world accompanies it. I suppose that is why I enjoy reading those World of Darkness supplements so much, since they are nothing but world-building.

It was still a good read anyway, I think she will do fine.

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