Jaster

jaster mereel / she/her

grey - warriors, something special, holiness
indigo - truth, introspection
teal - uncertainty, heading into the unknown, decisive action

appearance: selkie, slightly tall, muscular, dmab. medium-light brown skin, straight black glossy hair usually worn long and tied back. steely grey eyes. a handsome, hawkish appearance. transformed she is a dappled grey seal.

a mandalorian, a dying beastclan religion that has been scattered into hiding in the past few decades. she's the leader of this little covert which is slowly growing. it's a waypoint for other beastclan travellers to rest and train with their warriors before they continue on their way (mechanically, get exalted-- they're not necessarily dead, but it's a big world and we probably won't hear from them again.)

jaster is a strong warrior and a scholar of history, politics, and theology. she's working on writing documents to help preserve her religion, shut up in her tiny study when she's not busy running the waystation. what started as a record of their struggles, historically and in the present day, is quickly shifting into a theological and political essay, answering the question: how do we survive from here? she is sick of working with ash. she is ready to start kindling flame.

as a person, she is strong and passionate, firmly moral and faithful, and logical and scholarly. she isn't afraid of hard questions and is good at in-depth questions and creative solutions. she likes other people and frequently finds herself torn between duties, trying to juggle leadership, academia, and being a good friend.

she comes from the depths of the sea of a thousand currents, from a small family of a small clan. her parents were journeymen protectors, patrolling the waters in search of people in need of help or justice. she always admired their work, and upon reaching adulthood continued the work herself. a few years later her clan was wiped out while defending from dragons seeking to expand into their territory. she was present at the battle, and was the only survivor.

deeply shaken, she attempted to continue her work, passion for helping others replaced with a burning need for justice. but it wasn't to be found. though she was able to continue helping others in small ways, larger attempts seemed doomed to failure. an attempt to aid a maren clan in reclaiming stolen treasures ended disastrously, and their territory and many lives were lost. revenge and justice seemed impossible. jaster spiraled into despair, shifting into being a sword for hire, losing her appetite for kindness.

but there was one thing that brought her out of that dark place: stories. hearing stories from clans she encountered as she traveled, folklore and day-to-day, people's thoughts and hearts expressed in prose, allowed her to begin reconnecting with others. as the numbers of clans were thinning by the year, she also grew a sense of how precious and fleeting all of this was -- half love and half terror. she started recording all she heard, and traveled with increasing numbers of scrolls and leathers and books. she shared the stories to keep them alive by word. she started traveling beyond the ocean, intent on sharing and learning more.

during her travels she met an emissary of talona, and eagerly accepted an invitation to their camp. she was traveling largely on land at this point, a cart full of stories and her skin worn as a battle-skirt to her armour. she spoke with the members of the camp and also to talona herself. the harpy judged her potential, seeing a strong, devoted warrior. though jaster had been an adult for many years by her own culture, she was barely into adulthood by other's metrics. talona saw a young woman with the potential of a dazzling, world-changing future.

but jaster herself still only saw her own trauma and heavy burden. she ardently refused to join their warband, fearing another loss. but she offered to help their information network. thus she found herself working alongside couriers who were already allies of talona. over the next several months she learned their ways-- not too unlike journeymen protectors in vision and code, though the different environment and culture made it very distinct from what she had grown up with. she was considering accepting an invitation to their clan, and making this her home, at least for the time being, with good purpose and good friends.

but it was around this time that she met myles. during a mission she was captured by a warband of dragons. she escaped, injured, but they still held her skin, and if they knew how to use it they would be able to control her. she was panicked and desperate at its loss. but the smell of her blood attracted a pronghorn on the hunt. weakened and disarmed, half mad at the loss of her skin, she was ready to make a last-ditch stand against the beast. but as it towered over her she saw it wore a necklace of bones, not dissimilar to her own, the last trace she had of her parents and clan.

her knowledge of pronghorns was that they were neither intelligent nor sapient. but here, in a necklace, was a connection. perhaps even a brother. so she chose not to make a final, violent stand against it. instead she talked. she begged him for mercy, and told it of the dragons who had hurt her. she did not know if it knew her language, but she could tell it listened, hesitating, head cocked. when she got a response in a low language of growls she mimed instead, sounds and movements, and dropped to her knees and plead.

to kneel is a grave and desperate gesture for her people. she had no idea if it understood the gesture and all it meant, but to her she placed her life at its feet. she had lost her skin, and not only was she at its mercy, it was her only hope as her injuries began to overtake her. and whatever it understood, it had made up its mind. it took her to the shelter of a cave, pressed leaves and herbs to her injuries, shared what it caught. and it asked her questions using shapes drawn in the dirt, some symbols she couldn't recognise, some obvious pictograms. it wanted to know the locations and numbers of the dragon band. she kept trying methods of communication until it was satisfied with the information. then it left her to her thoughts.

she burned with relief and shame. she had been completely misconstrued about an entire people. but she was a sharer of stories, and she would make sure those who were mistaken knew, and those who spread lies would pay. she studied the symbols in between sleeping. and when he came back, he was badly injured, but he had, among many treasures and a dragged fae corpse, her skin.

they tended to each other, and he brought her back to his home made of large woven sticks against a cave. she shared what supplies she had, used her own knowledge of field medicine to take care of him. he was alarmed by fire, so she extinguished it after making it, and ate her meat raw. he made her salves and wrapped her in furs at night. they slowly began figuring out how to communicate with each other. she was determined to learn his language, but their easiest connection was drawing in the dirt. she learned he was a he, and that his people did not use names. she learned his people lived solitary, that he was not alone by loss or cruelty. and then they discovered their true means of communication: art.

he showed her paintings and weavings, abstract designs that she understood deeply. she did her best to tell him stories, all of the stories she had collected, drawing in the dirt or on the cave walls in the blood of their kills. they told stories to each other in hand gestures and miming, laughing and healing.

she was eventually found by a member of her would-be clan, as she had been missing for weeks. they were initially hostile towards her new friend, and she stood between them, sword in hand, and made them listen to her story. warily they lowered their weapons. she went back to gather her possessions while her friend watched gravely. she herself felt a certain loss. there was a sense of home and love here, one she was struggling to find in the covert. they shared a long look. and then she invited him to come with.

he did, but he was not well received by the largely harpy clan. their leader accepted him with open arms upon hearing the story of how he had saved jaster, but there was still much wariness around his presence, and disregard of him as a person. people would talk over or around him instead of making an effort to understand what he told them. jaster found herself frequently translating, but many did not have the patience for their patchwork language with so many miscommunications and retellings. she had given him a name for ease of use, but it was an ill-fitting gift. she knew how uncomfortable he was, interested as he was in their art and ways, and joyful as the moments they spent alone were. she knew he was not seen as an equal, and found more and more she could not respect the clan.

so she told their leader of her intents, and then she and her friend left, to set out on their own. they had become steadily better at communicating, and she was learning to speak his language. and they had fun travelling together, bright fun and joy jaster hadn't felt since she was a child, and it was mutual. they traveled quietly and not without occasional persecution by dragons or other beastclans. they continued collecting stories together, when they were welcome. he had a fine hand for small detail and illustrations, and drew art paired with her writing.

it was the collection of scrolls, books, leather, parchment, vellum, tablets, and tapestries that convinced them to settle down, as it became too much to take with them. they needed a base, a covert of their own. this is when they decided: they really were a clan, a family. and together they worked to find him a suitable name, so that he might be communicated to others: myles. and they also found a brilliant idea. they would run a waystation, and themselves host and care for and protect travellers. they would still be able to trade stories and art, but they would have a base to do it from. and when he was ready, she swore myles in as a mandalorian.

they found a suitable location in the scarred wasteland, where unoccupied space was plenty and relief was needed for those passing through. she started to organise their information, read, study, reexamine, theorise. there was so much here, and she was figuring out what to do with it. recording and repeating was one thing: she was ready to start making stories of her own. meanwhile myles patrolled and hunted and maintained their territory, collecting bones to carve and dye into beads, and skins to paint. they made their waystation to not just a safe but beautiful place, dedicated to the cause and people they loved, all beastclans and their freedom, and the honor and justice and kindness jaster could once again reconnect with. people appreciated the waystation, the checkpoint, the kindness. and some of them stayed, and their clan slowly grew.

this is what jaster writes about: her experiences, and how they fit in to the religion she is still devoted to. how people like her, people like myles, can not just survive but thrive. how to do so without good fortune. how to believe in justice without turning to ash and despair. she still keeps in touch with talona, occasionally, keen for news on the rebellion and how she can help it from where she is and the life she leads. and some people have started to notice her essays: words from the clan of truth.

moodboard by borb :3