Born: 26 January 1918 E-10
Heritage: Herrenic, Regalian (Ceretsi), and Archdaimen
Origins: At every stage of her life from her birth until her liberation at age eighteen, Thelia Sparkes was reminded she shouldn’t be alive. The child of an Enzian slaver and his concubine – the product of an archaic practice abhorred by “modernized” Tartarus – she and her twin brother Markis were expressly unwanted, even in the dark corners of occupied Enzia. The Empire did not want kids like her who looked and acted different, who got angry too fast, who had magic they could never hope to control.
And, every step of the way, Thelia told everyone who believed those things to fuck off. By age eighteen, she’d been arrested for arson and destruction of Imperial property a dozen times, and she was an active, leading member of the North Enzian Resistance League.
By the time she reaches age thirty, she has fought in two civil wars, led a class uprising, and killed multiple high-ranking members of the imperial Enzian governing class.
And she wouldn’t have survived it without her brother and the mentors who convinced her self-preservation was worth the effort.
Fun Facts:
- Was raised into a revolutionary, and was a child slave before that, so she never really got to be a kid.
- Has an identical twin, Markis, who works alongside her throughout the Tartarun Civil War but is critically injured near the end. He lives, don’t worry, but he faces a lot of public scrutiny for his disabilities afterwards, and he kind of backs out of the political scene (with much more success than Thelia, to his benefit).
- Lost most of her hearing during the TCW, and needs hearing aids to make out much of anything.
- Learned Enzian Sign Language, a handful of Tartarun battlefield signs, and how to read lips to cope/mask.
- Punched former Overlord Azennia in the face. Twice.
- Incredibly smart. Also incredibly scatterbrained.
- Comes to be mentored by Arinya Chirrell and Aviera Lance, but was first mentored by Evansen Stark during the Tartarun Civil War (not, notably, by Emperor Razienne…).
- Does! Not! Want! To be! Queen-President!
- She keeps trying to step away from the political sphere to heal and become a normal civilian, but her people love her too much to let her out of office. They keep voting her back in, or choosing her to be on special committees, or nominating her for awards… ugh.
- So, so, sooooo gay. Also super trans <3
- Has an immense capacity for love, even towards the people who have hurt her – but holds a terrifying grudge.
- Huge weaponry nerd, even though she herself doesn’t fight much beyond casual training after the TCW.
- Really likes modern plasma artillery.
- Fluent in Enzian Sign Language, Ialukan, Morean, Standard East Coast Tongue, Base Tartarun, and 3 other very niche West Coast dialects.
- Is tangentially related to Alkaline and Ameria Aviligne somehow on both their mothers’ sides (cousins, or second-cousins… so, whatever that makes Al, Am, Thelia, and Markis lol)
- Learns to swim so she can have regular meet-ups with Al (to keep them both sane).
- Not afraid to punch a man in the balls or bite hands.
Thelia Sparkes is an anomaly – which is perhaps how and why she endeared herself so easily to the Aetherian intervention corps sent into post-Civil War Enzia to help resolve the small Enzian provincial civil war. The corps leader, who was purportedly the Emperor but insisted on being called Ev Stark, saw something familiar in her.
She never decides whether or not that was a good thing.
Still, being the figurehead of a revolution and the poster child for class reform in 1900s E-10 Tartarus changed her life, mostly for the better. She found friends, and allies, and good influences amongst all the badness she had been raised around. Nothing could make her wish for anything different.