What's In A Name?

In Torna, that golden country full of light and prosperity not just for its brethren but for its kindred friends from overseas, they all have names. They all have ways to be identified, from title to simple nickname. A name is how, among others, you most wholly come to be. I've said it before, and I don't think I was wrong then. But...well. Maybe I'm wrong now.

We have the Lord of Aletta, the Emperor of Mor Ardain, the - no, see, I'm not serving my point, here. Or the counterpoint, as it were. Because we have these titular roles into which we can slot many a person, many a people, but they're not descriptive enough. Not quite.

Say we abolished names. Then who, what, why, when, where, how would we have...how would we have what? Our cast. As ever, as ever, as ever, our beloved thrice-trice-triplicated cast. To embellish, I'll rattle off monikers: the Lord of Aletta, the Emperor of Mor Ardain, the Knight of Torna; the Aegis of Light, the Jewel of Mor Ardain, the Paragon of Torna; the...oh, goodness. It's breaking down again.

We might term Minoth the Auteur of Indol, to complete his parallelism across from Addam and Mythra who also defy sensible, consistent continental affilitions, but then wrinkle our noses at the same because certainly he bears and wants to bear no ancestry from there, of all places. We might, and indeed should, deem Aegaeon, as the shield to Brighid's sword, the canonical Crest of Mor Ardain arcing like a noblest wave.

If Haze is a priestess, she belongs to no initinerant ministry, no place of inborn stagnance; it would be impossible, unthinkable, because the wind always, always, arrives to one place and then just as swiftly rushes galing gaily on. What title? We know what we might call her later, and it calls back to Minoth as - much as I hate to say it - all things in this anti-cursed world seem to do, but that won't do now. For Lora, so afraid even to hold Jin for fear she might dirty him, or worse lose him, Haze cannot be borne to bear a title.

And then - why, and then! Then we have our bit players, our sidekicks who we certainly won't be kicking aside this time, no no! Milton...he's a wet-blanket (for Mythra, anyway, or perhaps only) catboy in britchy overalls. Mikhail...he's a war orphan who is much, much more reticent than any cocky Cockney-styled child played with a woman's pitched-up timbre would ever be; more like a silent stick of hay, is he - and I mean no offense, dear boy. It's simply the truth! You'll have time to grow into your muscles later. Much, much later...

Calling these back to those usurped by the Praetorium's greed in quite alternate fashions, then, we have, indeed, a freshest-faced babygirl priestess and a cowboy who's going stale. So that's fine enough. We revisit those already categorized and find them accordingly: the himbo dilf prince, the short-stack sovereign, the martial-artist mercenary; the adolescent-angstified earthside angel, the flaming femme fatale, the not-quite-stoic not-quite-samurai. Alliteration is a hell of a device, even as it drives me on to not quite knowing where I'm going with all of this.

And, there are four more stereotypes we've left unpacked at home: the dryest drawling draconic dad-once-removed, the parochial princess so pretty in pink, and a pair of twins who've not quite got any personality to be reductive about in the first place, when we've drilled right down to it. Ring back to our most watery, bestest of boys...he will be deemed henceforth a glorified Common Blade. I know, I know...! I shall defend his honor another time, I swear it.

So we've got a cast settled. Done, dusted, squared and cubed and hyperbolized all the way round the ring. And now, you ask, to the anonym-pseudonym most illustrious, most insouciant, and most irritatingly unframed, what is the goddamned point of it all? Is this just a chance for me to exercise my intangible thesaurus - it's practically quantum, the way the words are superimposed between existing and not, really - and make you sorry you clicked, cracked the incorporeal leaves, yet again?

Well, see...here's the thing. It wasn't. There was supposed to be a plot here. Once more, I swear it! I was meant to lay out the requisite glossaried literature without all this rampant ado and adumbration, and then we'd get on with a tale of goofing off within the rolling hills of that selfsame golden country, and you'd all smile to yourselves and think, ah, I'm glad I spent the time.

But, as yet, I haven't done that. Is it too late, do you think? And would you even be interested in another retelling of the heroes' so storied prosperation over the bad guy--

Oh! There's something, I've left out our villains. Yes, right now they're all villains, unless you'd like to argue that Amalthus hasn't been rightly painted as one yet, because Malos, bad bad bad, is still covering for him. I'll leave the evil pope aside to focus on Mr. Not-So-Buenos, who will give us a fair bit more trouble in pinning down.

Does he even belong to a stereotype? From voice, not quite, because he booms and he blusters but he's also...quite pathetic. Are you afraid of him? I'm not. He's a big bully. Shall we call him the big bully? I like that, actually. You'd have to be a bully to wear shoes like that. Just walking around looking for someone to kick when they're down - not nice! Not nice.

How many is that, then? Count the core nine, plus two, plus four, plus one more, makes sixteen. A nice round number - a nice square number, even - and so I think we're ready to begin. Pretend I'm clapping. Pretend you're clapping. Don't pretend, even. Places, everyone? Curtain up? Up, up, up, up...before we bring down the house. Or die trying, anyway.

"You know, I've been thinking," says the martial-artist mercenary with a tap of her index finger upon her opposite upper arm, as the both of the appendages are spritely crossed into and over each other. "How do we really plan to defeat the big bully? We didn't have too good of a time of it in front of the palace last week..."

"I've been wondering about that myself," the himbo dilf prince muses with characteristic hand also propped intrinsically somewhere, but his laid to chin, for a first foray into variety. "He did seem quite distracted by the not-quite-stoic not-quite-samurai we've got here, after all, but will that really be enough?"

"You think we'll win if I act as bully bait?" His brow is arched, and the mask is off, both literally and figuratively. "I would think we'd do better sending the adolescent-angstified earthside angel in to push his buttons. He certainly seemed interested enough in her," he finished with a derisive, if "accidentally", glance.

"Hey!" The addressed (only not quite, and so you'd better mind your manners better, silent knight) jams her fists into her hips and leans forward accusingly. "It's not my fault he thinks we're destined partners! That's all a load of bunk, anyway." She leans back. "You really expect me to believe that the glorified Common Blade and the flaming femme fatale are on equal footing? Puh-lease."

If he is affronted, he doesn't show it, merely locking his forearms behind his waist. The short-stack sovereign also remains still, almost mirrored. My, but we're on about postures today, aren't we? And isn't that just the key? One doesn't name a character in flashing lights when they draw them, when they depict them static yet dynamic on a canvas. So it's crucial. The action, the pose, the positioning is the thing.

Meanwhile, she scoffs mightily. "Please, yourself. It would do you more than a little bit of good to pay some respect to the envoys of the Empire - your elders, as it were. You'd know that, of course, if you had any respect," she bites off to a point. "For your Driver as well as for the rest of us."

The angel, the miniature goddess, rankles. Scrambling to lay appeasement over the whole affair, the freshest-faced babygirl priestess pipes in, "My lady - ah, my other lady, that is - I'm sure it'll all be fine. Really, the adolescent angel means none of us any harm or ill will, even if she is a...little gruff sometimes. Right?" she offers with a cock of her head.

The holy lips purse, shrivel, pinch. "Right," the angel grinds out. "Not one single iota." She means it, of course, it's just tough to...wrap herself around.

"Save some of that ire for the bully," the cowboy going stale remarks under-sarcastically and over-sagely. "I'm gladder that you're on our side than I can ever say, but even I've only got so much patience." The silent stick of hay nods along with him, and the wet-blanket catboy observes his reaction approvingly. Playing nice, boys?

No further, more constructive conclusion comes, and with yet another fruitless roll-calling conversation over, they disband and book it in to lay another day to the books. In another few days, the time to confront the bully arrives, with the appropriate preparatory advice delivered by the dryest drawling draconic dad-once-removed. Something about a little patience here, a little living in the moment there, and all of it cryptic and rather useless. So thanks for nothing, Gramps.

He delivers tidings from the parochial princess so pretty in pink, as well: news of twins, boy and girl, who are bright and personable and so eager to meet every new visitor from the militia. At this, a wistful look comes into the himbo dilf prince's eyes, and every one of the others jibber-jabber jabs him about it, but they're excited too, and all the more charged to wrangle the bully and flee to warmer, calmer shores.

"You got here fast," is his quasi-menacing herald when they step to and turn about. "I thought you'd jump ship with the rest of the rats." But the thing is, but for MacNeth who'd turned out and over with a new leaf, and whatever nonsense had come of and from that cruising crustacean gang, they don't know any rats. So who does he mean...?

"You're nothing but a big bully, you know that?" the martial-artist mercenary cries out as she delivers a whaling roundhouse kick directly into his crystalline sternum. "You don't know how to treat others with respect, so you just taunt and tease and destroy things to get what you want!"

The not-quite-stoic not-quite-samurai rushes in then to block any further physical, nay mechanical, monadical outbursts, and the focus shifts to the goddess girl. Respect, is it? But she's better than that. Isn't she? Hasn't she been trying? Why should she not be?

"You're really gonna listen to this goody-two-shoes crap, partner?" the bully yells, strained underneath the weight of the flat of the samurai's nodachi blade. "We're the same, you know! We have the same destiny. But if you won't rise to your calling, well..." With a sudden burst of strength, he pushes away the brutal assault and leaves his attacker stumbling. "I'll just have to claim all the destruction for myself!"

We're the same. We're the same? But why? What makes us that way? A title? A crummy old title? They didn't even choose it for themselves. And the things you choose for yourself, you can always change, if you've got a mind and a need for it.

"You don't have to be like this!" the goddess cries, watching the demonized divinity vessel pace back to ready an artifice of anarchy. "What would you call yourself, if you could choose?" Because you can. You can!

"What?! What would I call myself? You've gotta be out of your mind, partner!" But, like it or not, he's still in his, and it starts churning. I mean, if it were up to me, really...I'd like to be just a little...a friend.

A friend? The opposite of a bully, really. Yeah. A friend!

He doesn't come any closer, but he stops moving away. "What would you call that group of bozos you've got with you, there?" Rats, maybe? It's really quite a crucial question.

The answer, however, is none so precipitous, so precarious, precious though it might be. "They're my family! And a family can be whatever you want it to be!"

Why are they screaming? It's the Soaring Rostrum, not the Roaring Rostrum, for Elysium's sake... (Yes, I just used some proper nouns there. Get over it. It's my story. Punk.)

So they stop screaming, and the angel and the bully-turned-friend come together over middle ground to shake hands, and the cowboy going stale gives him a crusty glare, but they pack him in - not rats! not rats!!! - and head for the stony fellow again.

"Tell me, our dryest drawling draconic dad-once-removed," the short-stack sovereign begins curiously, conversationally. "What did you say the names of the twins were, again?"

"You know," the dragon rumbles, "it's the funniest thing. I don't think the princess could think of any."

"Fine by me," mutters the silent stick of hay boredly. Why is that, do you think? "What's in a name, anyway?"