Analir

Analir was born in Skosgrå, into the Earthcarver clan. As part of an ancestral line of hunters, they were trained for the job practically as soon as they could walk, with everyone from their parents to the Megin expecting them to get the snake totem from birth.

Among the social butterflies of their family, Analir stuck out like a sore thumb. They were shy and reserved, they stumbled over their words when they talked, and they stayed on the sidelines during every major gathering they went to. Part of this was due to the fact that the Earthcarver clan’s shadow was so large they were all but smothered in it. But most of this was just Analir being Analir.

During their Slaugh ceremony, nothing seemed amiss. Analir gained the power of water, just like the majority of their family. Their ability to seemingly communicate with water itself raised some eyebrows, culminating in some curious Sagan historians practically interrogating them as to how it worked, but other than that…. It was like they stepped forward to take the Sluagh and then just faded into their family again. One among many; “just another Earthcarver.”

And everything remained normal for them until roughly a year later. Analir and most of the other Earthcarvers were out on a group hunt; they were after an elk that seemed determined to get away. The group chased the elk all the way to the river, where their father and older brother finally brought it down. Analir’s father placed a paw on the elk’s chest to pin it down, then stepped away from its throat and gestured for them to finish the job. It would be the first time they’d managed to deal the killing blow. The weight of several expectant stares — the rest of the group, catching up — bore into Analir’s back as they lunged forward. Their jaws closed around the elk’s throat and blood poured into their mouth. And then…

A scream echoed through the clearing.

It wasn’t the elk’s.

Analir whirled to see a massive Naaeta looming over them, their mother’s beheaded corpse grasped firmly in its jaws. Their father and brother had already fled into the treeline, and they were pinned between the murderous beast and the torrential river behind them.

The Naaeta swayed, making eye contact with Analir…

They did not stop to see what would happen next. A deep, unfamiliar instinct had activated within them, and with it a swell of power crashed through their body. Analir jumped into the river without hesitation. Their mother’s blood clouded the water as they used their newfound water mimicry ability to become one with it and escape.

Analir woke the next day on the river’s bank, soaked and far from home. They had used a strike to get away from the Naaeta; they felt the exhausting weight of it pulling them down. But they had to get home. And so they turned upstream, trying to ignore the lingering taste of elk blood in their mouth, and began to walk.

It would be several months before they finally reached home. Analir had never been far outside the Skosgrå, and so their journey was an almost neverending cycle of getting lost and getting into trouble they didn’t know existed. During that time, they had used two more strikes.

The night the guards saw Analir stumbling towards them, fur floating in the breeze and a look of vague confusion on their face, they almost didn’t recognize them. The only reason they knew Analir was an Earthcarver was because of their tail - forked like a fish’s, the calling card of their family.

It was a long night, filled with baffled Elskas, the pitying looks of every canine that they passed by, and their family’s desperate eyes: ”Look at me, Analir, don’t you remember me?”

They did not react when an uncle informed them of the deaths of half of their family. The Naaeta herded and ran us down like prey… you were lucky to escape.

Lucky to escape... Analir didn’t feel lucky. They just felt confused. Why can’t I remember anything?

They rejoined their family, the remaining Earthcarvers. The cave system they used as homes felt so much emptier. No one looked at Analir with love, but instead with pity and concern. They watched the love in their family’s eyes slowly die as they realized just how much of them had changed.

When a sickness began to take hold in the Earthcarver den, Analir left, vanishing into the forest. They could not bear watching their family get sick and die and feeling nothing in response.

Between sickness, the Naaeta attack, and old age… when Årelang fled Skosgrå, it became quickly apparent that they were the only Earthcarver left. Since their arrival in the Radaga, they have lived as a hermit on the outskirts of their pack, just barely present enough to count as a member.

After nearly a year of living in Myrkur, Analir had settled into a steady routine. They rarely returned to the Radaga with the rest of their pack; it was no more home to them than the vast wildernesses of Myrkur -- and those wildernesses had a lot of prey in them. It was on one of their typical looping routes through the forests just outside Årelang's territory when they came across something strange -- a gap in the trees that hadn't been there before. The stench of fear filled the air. As Analir drew closer, they realized that the earth itself had caved in, leaving a massive hole in front of them. Drawing closer to the side of the chasm, they peered over the edge...

Someone was inside! Analir jerked back and nearly fled. They were sure the stranger hadn't seen them, but something they hadn't felt in months kept them tethered there -- worry. Analir was quite sure they were the first to find this stranger, whose name they would later learn was "Jasmin". Furthermore, the smell of mold on her was more than enough to confirm Analir's suspicion that this was one of her packmates. They couldn't just let her die.

Jasmin must have found it strange that Analir never sought help from the Årelang, just as Analir found it strange that Jasmin never spoke to them. It was only later that Analir would find out Jasmin was mute. The truth was that Analir spent so little time around the Årelang at this point in their life that the thought of asking them for help felt impossibly alien. But Analir had to help somehow -- so they kept returning to the hole with food and water, keeping Jasmin alive until help arrived. Each day they thought about journeying to the Radaga to tell Jasmin's packmates what had occurred, and each time the thought filled them with so much anxiety they shied away from it. Thankfully, it was only a matter of time until Jasmin's close friends found her.

Analir watched the reunion from the sidelines, unable to take their eyes off of it. A deep guilt had begun to pool like rot at the edges of their chest. If a search party hadn't found Jasmin by chance, Analir's refusal to seek help could have cost her her life. How fiercely would her family have grieved? The event reminded them of someone else that brought them even more guilt to dwell on.

More than the remorse, there was loneliness -- in that moment Analir felt that no one would ever be as happy to see them as Jasmin's friends were to see her. They walked away, feeling as if a cold stone had settled in their stomach. It was the first time they had ever felt the desire to change.

The next week was agonizing. Analir crept closer and closer to the Radaga, too anxious to get close. To the Årelang, they were a ghost. It was strange to be a member of a pack and yet feel so deeply isolated from them. At the end of the week, Analir was considering giving up, possibly even fleeing Myrkur entirely -- but then they met Ida.

It was a fairly short encounter, but Ida was the first canine Analir had really talked to in years, and the first that they felt understood them. Slowly, Analir began to grow closer and closer to their pack, until finally they felt like one of them again. It was only a matter of time until another encounter changed their life again.

Although they didn't want to admit it, a large portion of the reason Analir had avoided returning to the Radaga for so long was because a ghost from their past still haunted those lands. Kiarun and Analir had grown up together as siblings, but after Analir's disappearance, both of them had met each other again irrevocably changed. Kiarun, despite all that had changed, recognized Analir. Analir did not recognize them back. Hurt, confused, and trying to pick up the pieces of a life that didn't feel like theirs, Analir crumpled under the weight of Kiarun's expectations to be the same sibling they had always been. The two had a vicious argument, and then Analir had disappeared again. This time Kiarun didn't follow.

It was... difficult at first. Analir was painfully awkward, and neither wanted to dwell on the way their relationship had nearly ended. But slowly, painfully, they began to grow closer. Now, Analir finds it hard to imagine a life without their sibling. Despite not remembering Kiarun, they had missed them without knowing it for years.

A year and a half later, the packs returned from a journey to Skogsrå to find that Saruman had invaded their home. In the battle that ensued, the Naaeta that had taken so much from Analir would finally be vanquished as a threat, once and for all. Seeing this ripped the veil over Analir's emotions open and they spilled out all at once. Happiness, fear, anger, sadness; everything that they had missed out on feeling for years flooded to the surface like water breaking through a dam. In the aftermath of the battle, they faded away again, but this time Analir is determined to get them back. They spent years rebuilding memories they'd lost to the Sluagh -- now they could take back their emotions, too.