i waited a while for a moment to say

Information on Wave's story pre-game and Coriolis as a whole.

World Background:

✦ Wave comes from a country called Coriolis, which is composed of 13 city-states (or Sectors, though they each have their own name) under the rule of one man (Adonis-baal), who simultaneously rules the capital city of Anire.
✦✦ The only important one to know for this is Vairenn, also known as the Second Sector.

✦ Coriolis has a ton of magic which transmits chiefly via an underground ley line system--the details of the system aren't super important, but what is is that (1) giant ancient trees known as Veloi trees serve as anchors for these ley lines and are fonts of magic themselves (and are hugely important in a lot of Coriolan traditions), and (2) mages who can tap into this magic are known as Veloi themselves.

✦ Coriolan laws dictate that rulers must be Veloi. Most of the noble families can trace their lineages way back, but you do get kids popping up here and there with no magical ability (as the exception that proves the rule). It's not uncommon for magicless noble children to be disowned, particularly in ambitious families or if the child is the firstborn, but neither is it expected.

✦ Veloi magic can be used for ill purposes, particularly if the mage knows the true name of the person they're targeting. For this reason, children are known by their family names (or nicknames derived from their family name) until they reach age 12, at which point they name themselves in a formal ceremony where they announce their new name to society. These names are very rarely anything that could be construed as a name and are usually nouns, verbs, or adjectives (ex. Wave, Dusk, Scar, View, Shroud, Sentinel, etc.).

✦ Yes, they can change their names later on if they choose to. "Darkness" can become something a little less edgelordy once they grow out of that :')

✦ There is a contingent that believes that this whole "must be Veloi to rule" thing is bullshit and that leaders should be those who can best do the job. They charge that a lot of the current rulers are doing wrong by their citizens and that they treat non-magical people as lesser. (They're not entirely wrong.) This contingent seeks to topple the current ruling structure by any means necessary.

Wave, Part 1:

✦ Wave is the daughter of Rigel-an, Lord of the Second Sector. She is the second child, with a big brother about 13 years older than her.

✦ While training in Anire as part of Adonis-baal's personal guard, Wave's brother dies during an attack by the aforementioned organization on Anire's castle. Wave is visiting with him when the attack starts and long story short, she's with him when he dies. Oops.
✦✦ Enter debilitating claustrophobia! Double oops.

✦ Wave is now in line to take Rigel-an's position as ruler of Vairenn. Which would be cool, except for the fact that this is definitely a patriarchal society, but even that would be fine except... Wave has no capacity for magic. THREE OOPS AND YOU'RE OUT. So now whoever she marries will take over ruling, right-hand to Adonis-baal himself.

✦ Honestly Wave doesn't want to marry any of these jokers around her. She recognizes that she'll probably need to make a strategic marriage at some point, because Duty and all, but these boys ain't shit and anyways there's an arranged marriage contingency if she doesn't find anybody she prefers before then so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ If she doesn't find anybody, she'll marry whoever her father matches her with. IT'S THE JOB SHE GUESSES

✦ Yeah, Wave doesn't find anybody she prefers before the arranged marriage comes up. She heads to Anire, accompanied by a man who she might have started to feel something for, and... we pause for

AN INTERLUDE AMONG THE STARS

✦ AN ATTACK. AN ATTACK BY MYSTERIOUS CREATURES. Coriolis is destroyed and Wave, along with the man escorting her to Anire (Scar) wake up in a ramshackle refuge created by other who have lost their worlds and come together to try and regain them once more!

✦ They get the general gist of things--worlds destroyed, trying to figure out what caused all of it and ultimately find a way to undo all the damage that's been caused--and settle into a new kind of life. Wave learns to fight with twin daggers, and she and Scar do work here and there to help where they can. Somewhere in here they get inter-area transportation via airship and continue on the whole "adventurer-for-hire" thing.

✦ Wave finds that she likes this life. A lot. Is it weird if you're happier with your world being destroyed and everything you've ever known gone for possibly ever? It's weird. But she also has more of a purpose than she's had before; in Coriolis she was just a placeholder until a man came along to take the reins (and the reign, heyoooo) from her and here... what she does makes a difference.

✦ After a while, she and Scar meet up with a few other people. The five of them travel for a couple days, but then are separated when the world they're on starts to fall to the darkness.

✦ Wave wakes up in yet another unfamiliar place with one of those people, a man named Ailanne. Ai is possibly the worst person for her to end up with; he's an asshole, he's rude, he's quick to jump to violence... aaaaaand god help us the two of them are in love with each other, aren't they. Fuck. That sure happened.

✦ Apparently all she really ever wanted in life was to go trotting through the worlds bickering hand-in-hand with a douchecanoe on his way to becoming a (slightly) better person. Huh.

SOMEONE ELSE FIXES IT IG, Wave, Part 2:

✦ But things can't be that nice. APPARENTLY THEY WERE SUCCESSFUL AND SOME OTHER MAIN CHARACTER FOUND THE MACGUFFIN, because Wave wakes back up at home approximately two weeks after everything originally went down, sans Scar. Wave has to play like she has amnesia and has no idea what happened to her, because who's going to believe "our world was destroyed and I was actually gone for a couple years"?

✦ Which means that, given there's no Ailanne in Coriolis, the wedding is back on.

✦ Wave has no idea what to do about this, because on the one hand, she's found someone that she actually loves and wants to be with, but on the other hand, (1) he's not Veloi, so he couldn't rule, (2) he'd be a terrible ruler, do not let this man anywhere near a throne, and (3) there's the little fact that he's gone back to his own world because the two of them didn't think to talk through what might happen if the worlds were actually somehow restored. So what else is there to do but go through with it...?

✦ As it turns out, Dusk (her betrothed) also survived the fall of their world. He recognizes that Wave's heartbroken by coming home, and he offers her a deal: Play along with the marriage, let him become Rigel-an's heir, and he'll help her find a way to leave Coriolis again. It's a win-win situation; she can be certain that the Sector is in good, capable hands, and he'll be established in a place he wants to protect. Wave decides to go along with it, because it's her best opportunity to achieve her new dream... but Dusk is an incredibly manipulative man.

✦ CW: Abuse (mental, emotional, close enough to sexual that I'm gonna warn for it to be safe) | Even from their first meeting, he begins working his claws into her, feigning concern for her and framing everything he wants from her as reasonable requests. On their wedding night, he has every reason why they can't just pretend to have consummated the marriage. On their way back to Vairenn, their travel caravan is "attacked" and Dusk's man locks himself and Wave inside the carriage for her "safety" (and then Dusk gaslights her later that night when she tries to confront him about it). He sounds entirely reasonable as he asks, pleads for her to help him overturn a Vairenn lord's supposed campaign against him (even though said lord is already in Dusk's pocket), for her to give him more time before she leaves, for her to give him an heir to ward off any claims that they're a barren couple and can't ensure the line of succession. Wave is led by the lure of being able to leave Coriolis and pursue her own life once Dusk has settled into his role as heir, and doesn't realize what's happening as she withdraws into herself, trying to become what Dusk wants and complying with his wishes.

✦ Wave gives birth to a daughter. Unfortunately, a daughter won't ensure the line of succession, Dusk explains...

✦ Around this time, Rigel-an dies of mysterious circumstances.

✦ Wave begins to break free of the fog, something only hastened when her mother, View, steps back from ruling to allow her and Dusk to ascend and become Lord and Lady of the Second Sector. She starts to realize that there will always be another reason for Dusk to postpone finding a way to help her leave Coriolis, and that she's been drifting in his wake for far too long.

✦ Wave decides it's time to burn this motherfucker to the ground.

And that brings us up to speed!