Dramatis Personae, Part I

In which we begin to explore the characters and their developments, starting with:

The Fire-of-Skies Family

Gwilym: (nickname Gwil) 37-year-old Aodhan Evayan, member of Resistance High Command, Captain in the Cineachan Army, partner of Fælen Rider-of-Stars

Character Development: Gwilym (gwil-lim) is a relatively young character to the story, some two or three years younger than his own daughter is in real life.  He was fully conceived as a character back in late ’06 or early ’07, when I decided that the heroine would no longer be an adopted orphan and that I would explore the history of her parents.  Gwilym is one of the very few main characters that have never undergone a name change—and his name is the Welsh version of William.

Mairéad: (birth name Mairah) 35-year-old Rioti’ordan, former Resistance operative

Character Development: Mairéad (mah-rayd) has been in the game ever since the fantasy turned from the original LotR cop-off to something a bit more like Eragon.  Her name has always begun with an “M” (originally Mereäré), and she initially featured only in a prologue in which she delivered her daughter to safety before being killed.  With the advent of Gwilym’s entrance, however, she managed to survive as a living character.  About the time the first draft of The Rise of a Legend (TRoL) was beginning, I decided that she would be a Rioti’ordan—the Rioti’ordane being the primary antagonists of the story.  This added a whole new dimension to the Fire-of-Skies family: most importantly, that the children (crucially important in the case of twins Aleine and Aidin) are half-Evayan, half-Rioti’ordan.  These are two races that have been at odds with each other since ancient times, making the marriage an extremely rare one.  Mairéad is the Irish form of Margaret (actually inspired by the Irish fiddler Mairéad Nesbitt of Celtic Women fame), and Mairah is derived from the Hebrew Marah, meaning bitter.

Aleine: (nickname Leine) 16-year-old eldest child, twins with Aidin, eochaidh, militia volunteer

Character Development: Aleine (a-layn) is one of the oldest surviving characters of the first attempt at Anira, and the reigning heroine throughout.  Her first incarnation was as Eläené, the princess-like daughter of the lord and lady of angelic beings that were a direct take on J. R. R. Tolkien’s Valar of The Silmarillion.  Several months later, the story changed drastically, and the angelic Eläené became an Elvish thirteen-year-old by the name of Elaine.  Elaine’s early story could be summarized as an orphan discovering her heritage and growing to live up to her destiny, similar to Tolkien’s hero Aragorn.  Around the conception of The Rise of a Legend, Elaine became Aleine, now fourteen and no longer an orphan.  In the redraft of TRoL, Aleine became a more realistic sixteen, and in this third draft of the novel, she takes on the more realistic role of a young woman who wants to fight but does not see full-pitched battle (originally, she did and was quite the fighter).  Eochaidh (yoch-hee) is Gaelic for horse-rider, from which we get our English word jockey—hence, Aleine is a horse jockey.  Aleine is the Welsh form of the name Elaine, related to the Greek Helen: helios, meaning sun.

Aidin: (nickname Aid) 16-year-old, twins with Aleine, militia volunteer

Character Development: Aidin (ay-din) was conceived in the fall of ’05, originally going under the name of Nathien, and then Arthur, before finally ending up Aidin.  With the focus of the story on a young girl, I didn’t want to lose the attention of a young male audience, and Nathien was born into the story as Elaine’s twin—unbeknownst to them in true Luke-Skywalker-and-Princess-Leia fashion.  Despite the fact that Aidin had a good deal of screen-time at the start of his career, it was not until The Rise of a Legend that he finally received better character development in-universe.  His name, strictly speaking, does not exist in reality, but is related to the Gaelic aodh, or fire (ironically, pronounced “may”).

Duncan: 14-year-old

Character Development: Duncan is a little younger than his brother, both in-universe and in real life.  Originally, he was the eldest child of the family that had adopted Elaine, and therefore of no biological relation to her at all.  With the advent of living parents for the twins, however, Duncan became Aleine’s little brother in blood as well as in fact.  Duncan has always been rather a stereotypical little brother, but no less fun writing for that, despite the small amount of screen-time he now receives.

Duana: 11-year-old

Character Development: Duana (doo-awn-ah) was the first of the “new batch” of children conceived as the twins’ younger siblings, in filling the blanks from 14-year-old (originally 11) Duncan to an at-the-time unnamed toddler.

Rae: 8-year-old

Character Development: Rae (ray) was next in line, and became the unfortunate sibling to be bestowed the role of “trouble child” (at least one of them had to do it).

Galvin: 5-year-old

Character Development: Rather inspired by a real-life little boy, Galvin was created as the sibling in that wonderful stage between toddler-hood and early adolescence.

Kelly: 3-year-old

Character Development: Not a little girl—Kelly happens to be a boy’s name as well.  The wee laddie is as much a darling as he is a holy terror—and though he gets very little screen-time, you can easily imagine that he doesn’t exactly make life easy for his older siblings (nor does his brother Galvin, who practically taught him everything he knows).