About Aria and Ezie

About Lorsett

Aria lives in a settlement at the northern coast of Terna's main continent. The Settlement goes by the name of Lorsett and is home to Grodi and Tigo alike, who once fled from the war between the two species that raged in the area of Grodan City. Since the founding of this town, 150 years have passed and it has grown from a few makeshift huts to a quite stable economy.
Since it is quite offbeat from any other civilization and natural resources , Lorsett is far from being as technically advanced as other Grodi cities. However, they don't look for contact with outsiders, since they fear that the war had changed things for the worse and other people would not approve of the symbiosis between the two species that is a core part of the town's life.
Thus, they are unaware of what happened in the outside world.

The Tigo also only speak the language of the Grodi. This is because  before the war, all of their ancestors had been living as slaves  to the bigger race for more than four generations, so they lost almost all of their culture. Maybe the only benefit is, that they don't follow their caste-system anymore and thus, the typical ear jewelery does not exist in Lorsett.
The past slave/slaveholder-relationship is sometimes brought up in daily life, but since the founders of the town were Grodi who were actively against this treatment. They had freed several Tigo slaves, to get them out of harm's way and found a community where everyone can live freely.

Tigo mostly don't live in the Grodi's houses, but rather have homes of their own. Only in harsh weather conditions, they seek shelter in the bigger and more stable houses.
While the Grodi thrive to improve the town's daily life by building machinery, the Tigo like to rely on more traditional methods and their magic abilities. Both species try to contribute with their abilities.

Aria's family produces yarn and fabrics from plant fibers. They also dye their produce with pigments they get from the surrounding plants and animals. They mostly sell to Tigo, since making pieces of fabric that is big enough for a Grodi takes a huge effort.


About Aria

Aria, also called „Ari“ by her friends and family, is 18 years old. She still goes to school, but often helps the business by gathering ingredients for the special dyes.
Her hair has the color of Lavender, while her eyes are light green. She always looks a bit frail and tired.
She has not shown any magic abilities yet, at none of the abilities known to the Tigo of Lorsett. She feels a bit insecure about that, since most Tigo develop their powers at the age of six or seven.
Aria is very studious and always tries to achieve good grades in school. She also likes to be outside in the surrounding woods or on the beach. Her parents don't really approve of that, because the flora and fauna is Grodi-sized and can be quite dangerous.
The thing that makes her the most special, is practically unnoticed by anyone. She perceives the world in a very different way. Although all her senses are working perfectly fine, she relies on another ability. She can sense all the objects (animate or inanimate) around her and it creates some sort of a map inside her mind .So she basically has a 360° view of all the things in her closer vicinity. She also can sense emotions of the people around her and if she really concentrates, she can also sense intentions.
What she, and the rest of the town does not know sit, that this is in fact her magic ability. The ability of mind control. It is very rare that a Tigo develops it and if so, it is really hard to train without an instructor. This is why Aria cannot use it to take control of somebody's mind. It also is the reason why she constantly looks tired. She is basically just draining her magic energy, the whole day without knowing it,



She has some friends in school, but did not really foster any tight bonds with them. Mostly because she always looks absent minded and seems to be a bit slow.
Her best friend is her neighbor Firn. He is a Grodi who was born on the same day as her, so they basically grew up together. His family's house is also where they spend the harsh winter nights. She likes to hang out with him after school and sometimes takes him along to her walks in the woods.

About Ezie

Ezie is a Jaffid-Spirit. Jaffids are mostly known as companion pets for Grodi, but the Jaffid she is a companion to, has not much to do with the tame pets. Her Jaffid companion Loffah is of the wild variety. He has much longer fur and is about 10% bigger than the tame version. He also very much has a hunting drive. So if he is really hungry, he would not shun from eating a Tigo, even if they are not his usual prey. However, he is still a pup and not as aggressive.
Ezie is extremely young for a Spirit with her 19 years and Loffah is her first animal companion. She  lost the Holy Grounds, the birthplace of Spirits only a year ago and still has to find a footing in the world of the mortals.
She is very curious about everything and often just blurts out the first thing that comes to her mind. However, she tries her hardest not to break the rules of the Spirits and to keep Loffah safe and healthy.  Like all spirits on Terna, she can't actually touch things of the mortal world, and can't be touched or seen by mortals. Only her animal companion other Spirits and animals with a Spirit companion can hear and see her.
If she would take off her mask, she would be able to be seen and touched, but would also be very vulnerable and weak.
Besides taking care of Loffah, she also has the task to ward off any Nightshades- evil creatures that want to mess with the Spirits and mortals alike. She already got into some nasty fights, but so far, she had always been victorious.

Normally, she would stay away from any bigger settlements of the mortals, but recently, there had been a bigger group of nightshades roaming around the remote town of Lorsett and someone has to take care of that.


How Aria and Ezie were able to meet

Even though Aria has that extrasensory ability, she can't see spirits, but she can sense that something intangible is around. So under normal circumstances, they would not be able to meet.
One day though, while Aria was at the beach collecting seashells for a special dye her mother wanted to create, she found a small crate washed against the shore. It looked very old and had some very intricate and valuable decorations. She took it home with her to open it and found an ancient set of Tigo ear jewelery. Since the culture of her people was not known to her, she first did not know what it was supposed to be. So it took a few days until she tried putting them on. She had her ears pierced anyways, so it took no big effort to attach them.
What she did not know was, that this artifact was supposed to be given to a very high ranked Tigo and thus had a magic amplifier build into it.
With her magic ability now trippled in power, she now could sense what was hidden from mortal eyes. It was a very overwhelming experience and she was sure that she had gone mad. Upon wanting to remove the ear cuffs, she was not able to, since they had a magic lock.
So she had to try to live with it now and slowly noticed, that she was now able to read people's minds... and in some cases, she could even manipulate them. She got scared of this and swore to herself, that she would never use this power ever again.
While taking a stroll outside of town, she could „see“ a big dark creature hunching over an unconscious Tigo. Of course she screamed for help. And help came in form of Ezie and Loffah, who fought a fierce battle with the beast.

Ezie was really confused that the mortal girl was able to see her and deemed it to be dangerous, since Spirits and Mortals should not have contact with each other.
Aria however was intrigued by this unusual person who was about two and a half times taller than herself. She tried to keep a distance from the wild Jaffid though, even if it did not show any kind of aggression towards her.
For now, Ezie left and hoped the two would not meet again.
The unconscious Tigo got help from the townsfolk, but they soon discovered that he could no longer use his magic.
During the next days, there were more incidents like this, but none of the victims had been able to see their attackers. Aria did not want to reveal her powers to anyone, but wanted to help. And the only person she had met who was able to fight these creatures was Ezie.

She eventually found her in the woods, considerably exhausted from all the fighting she had to do. Again, she did not really like the idea of a mortal being able to see her, bit she also knew that something had to happen, if the nightshades now went to stealing the Tigo's magic.
She takes Aria along with her, to seek out other Spirits to join them in their fight.