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houseofstrange2019-05-26 05:24 am
mimi_sardinia) wrote in houseofstrange2019-05-26 05:24 am
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Nightlands: Losá & Tirin Tales
A few story idea fragments that have come to me...
Disrespectful Suitor Envoys
First is some ideas around past incidents where more than one Quendár man thinks he can woo Losá to marry him, ignoring the fact that she is already married with children, even going to the extent of dismissing Tirin entirely and calling their children nothing but foul halfbreeds best left behind.
Of course, as one may imagine, talking smack about her husband and children like that pisses Losá off and she roundly drives him out of Hópa Elenna.
At least one of these cases is an Endánórian Isilmaquendár, another being Lómaquendár from one of the inland forest cities. In both cases it also results in the rejected suitor complaining to his respective king (the Lord Captain and the Night King) with more or less exaggeration about Losá's lack of hospitality and respect of diplomacy.
I am unsure which of the two kings is more understanding of Losá's position, though I lean more to the Lord Captain being the one, with him getting in contact with her and getting her side of the story and ending up interrogating his envoy for the truth and punishing him for being so disrespectful to an ally. The other side of this story would have a king who takes his envoy's side and ends up with relations with Hópa Elenna being strained as a result.
The Abduction Of Tirin
Another plot is one that seems to have also happened to Elenná and Ciaran - that is, some enemy figure - possibly a Morin Kessír sorceress - tries to attack one of the Three Sisters through what seems like a weak point - their bonded Edan husband.
In Losá's case, she gets trapped in a powerful circle of crystals, so the enemy has the time to try and turn Tirin. However Losá reaches into the Arcane to take a measure of the crystal circle and finds that it's arcane anchoring is not very deep (there's a line of thinking I am having about how a Morin Kessír would not be able to truly reach into the Living Stone) and Losá can stretch out more of her hidden arcane presence under the crystal circle and thus come up under it and shatter it violently.
In the process she shapeshifts into her Arcane dragon form, the Mythrál Dragon, and turns to flame the sorceress. This does not actually kills her, but alters the sorceress's powers, binding her from being able to do a lot of her usual crap. (There is pr0n-based ideas involved in this.) In the immediate aftermath Dragon Losá opens up her chest and puts Tirin inside, however that is more like she opens up a portal into the Arcane and puts Tirin in what is basically her arcane pocket, and flies off.
Tirin's experience during this time is basically a state of sleep where he dreamed of Losá's journey back to Hópa Elenna.
Losá Goes Missing
A recent line of thought I had is one where Losá goes missing and remains missing for over 500 years. In this time there are quite a few situations where women try to seduce Tirin only for him to roundly shut them down, and conversely he also gets quite a few male friends questioning why he refuses to take up any of those ladies. The truth is because Tirin basically exists as a symbiotic extension of Losá, he actually knows that while missing, his wife is still alive, somewhere.
Meanwhile, knowing about this insight Tirin has, Elená has her whole adventurer network searching for any clues, including Damián Russélaurë and his sister, who I now feel like naming something like Veriél Valeria - basically "Brave Daughter" in meaning.
It is Damián and Veriél who end up finding their mother, imprisoned by some enemy - could be Morin, could also be Unseelie. They free her but her captivity has had such a harsh effect on her that she is not totally sane at this point, but her instinctive response is to transform into her dragon form and fly off. Now being children of one of the Three Sisters means Damián and Veriél have some interesting powers at their call, the most significant in this event being their shapeshifting ability, with them transforming into dragon forms to fly in escort to their mother.
[Damián's form is gold with ruby highlights, while Veriél's form is bronze with gold highlights. I am inclined to say Damián having gemstone highlights is a reflection of him having stronger links to the Fae than his siblings may have developed. I also imagine these draconic forms are a good bit smaller than their mother's, a reflection of the children not being quite as powerful as their mothers.]
By the time they reach Hópa Elenna, Losá however heads for the mountains, landing in the area of the hotsprings, where Tirin is waiting. Losá returns to her Quendár form, and though she still seems not all there, but she still is drawn to her husband because of their bond. Tirin take her to the hot pool that is their special place, where she can rest and begin to recover before returning to Hópa Elenna proper. Damián and Veriél both head for the city, to let everyone know Losá has been found, and eventually head back to their respective homes.
It does take Losá a long time to fully recover, with the after-effects of her captivity not fully fading for over one hundred years, and her not taking up her position as High Priestess for at least the first eighty of those years.
Bonus Thought: In the aftermath of Losá's return, there are still people amongst the Hópa Elenna nobility (primarily the Eldarion elders) who questioned whether Losá was who she was claimed to be, insinuating that she was an imposter, even questioning whether Damián and Veriél were really who they claimed to be. This situation got so severe that there was a serious threat of rebellion from a substantial proportion of the Eldarion. The situation took a turn when Elossí and Elená, along with back-up (including Ciaran, Elossí's husband and children, including Carnéisil, Losá's reincarnated eldest son) came to visit Hópa Elenna to see their returned family member. Over half of the Eldarion - most of the elders of the clan - were found guilty of treason against the Hópa, and sentenced to Basalt Blood Ruby's Realm (the Basalt Realm linked to Hópa Elenna - a very young Basalt realm only established after Nightfall, to help stabilise the geothermal activity in the Númëoronti (Western Mountains).
The younger parts of the Eldarion who had stood in support of Tirin and Losá did so because they had found the rescue of the long-missing Lady of the Harbour to be an adorable romantic story (not in least because Damián had cast it as such when initially telling the tale of the rescue). They would carry on the Eldarion clan from that stage on.
The Junior Priestess
One thing that happens as Losá was in her latter recovery stage is the problems that had cropped up in the Hópa Elenna priesthood.
As Losá got to the stage of being willing to start getting back into the priesthood, something comes to her attention when a young Elven woman working as a handmaid in the Lord and Lady's Residence (pretty-much what it says on the box - Losá and Tirin's residence) almost has a breakdown when mentioning that the High Priestess will be visiting the temple. As it happens, the maid is also a junior priestess, but the reason for her distress is that the current Senior Sister is actually quite controlling and abusive. The handmaid got the worst, with the Senior Sister bullying and controlling her. This control was so bad the Senior Sister had poisoned her so she could force the girl to reincarnate as the child of close friends of hers. The girl tried to reach out to anyone else to be born elsewhere, preferably as Eleniquendár, the same racial group she was in her previous life, but the Senior Sister was able to block her and force her into being born to her Lómaquendár friends.
The maid is scared of the High Priestess because the Senior Sister had been talking up how the High Priestess would crack down on all the behaviour of the temple, strongly implying she would be even more harsh. It is obvious however, from what the handmaid says, that the Senior Sister had not outright stated that Losá was the High Priestess.
Losá is, of course, horrified and disgusted by this, so proceeds to secretly begin to organise a complete clean-up of the temple, starting with having the maid reassigned to her handmaid duties full-time. When she does go to the temple, she is on high alert to the Senior Sister's attitude and proceeds to tear up her structure of control, much to the Sister's horror, and when the issue of the handmaid comes up (the handmaid being at the temple during Losá's first visit, Losá is able to put the smackdown on the Senior Sister, dragging her through a court of the Priesthood for her crimes against the handmaid, as well as pulling the handmaid's current family in for trial for being accessory to murder, reincarnation theft, and abuse.
All this process runs into the winter solstice holidays, which means family come in to Hópa Elenna for the Solstice festival, including Carnéisil coming in with Elossí's group (not only because he is recognised family but he is also on the ship's crew). As an aside, I have decided that he is actually half-Eleniquendár and has dark hair because of it, but both the red tone in his hair and the fact that he can grow a beard are oddities that seem to be more due to arcane heritage than genetic, because his second family (he is reincarnated) don't have red tones, and beards are extremely rare amongst Quendár.
This becomes significant when Carnéisil takes an interest in the handmaid and proceeds to court her, much to the offense of her current family, who sneer at a mixed race sailor courting their daughter.
Of course, everything comes to a head with the trial, the handmaid finding she has a new support system to defend her from her abusive family, and the fact that the "mere sailor" is considered a high ranking noble of the Eleniquendár royal family, as he is the son of one of the Three Sisters, recognised and acknowledged by the family in his second life, his second family now holding roles of some honour and bearing on the Eärelenatollë. The girl they worked on stealing from her first life and control will get to return to her rightful people and marry into the most powerful royal family in the Nightlands.
Edit 11/7/19: Contemplating how Senior Sister could do something as egregious as killing someone, and it comes down to what is her perspective on it, because everyone is the hero of their own story.
So my idea is this, the politicking amongst the Quendár in Hópa Elenna had degenerated while Losá was missing, with it dividing up into tribalist lines - Isilmaquendár for Isilmaquendár, Lómaquendár for Lómaquendár, Eleniquendár for Eleniquendár.
So the Senior Sister is Lómaquendár aka Night Elf. The Lómaquendár in the city had grown resentful of how much control the Eleniquendár hold, considering that the Lómaquendár are the largest Quendár race by population.
Handmaiden was born Eleniquendár in her first life, and was starting to show, in her early adulthood, to be a quite powerful priestess.
As an aside, to reiterate the idea of Quendár special powers, there are small handful of specialised powers that any given Quendár can have, and usually they can hand only one or two of them, with the best result being having two complementary powers, like Scrying and Gatekeeping, as the portal transport system makes use of scrying to co-ordinate the connections and opening-closing of portals, or healing and communing with the dead. Usually any given Quendár will have one power strong than the other, like a transit worker with strong Gatekeeper powers but only mild Scrying. Also powers do seem to carry on in reincarnation, though it's possible they can gain another power in their new life.
Handmaiden was showing a very strong ability in Death Communion, and maybe moderately strong healing, resulting in her being strong in both aspects than Senior Sister and thus could eventually displace her as acting head of the Temple, and thus give the Eleniquendár of the city even more power and control.
So Senior Sister started trying to control Handmaiden, but Handmaiden's Eleniquendár family was offsetting all her attempts. Senior Sister gets desperate and ends up killing Handmaiden and arranges for her to be born in a Lómaquendár family, thus putting her powers in the control of the "right" people.
Of course, Losá's return ends up being a massive smack-down on the Lómaquendár trying to gain control, as Losá is firmly part of the Eleniquendár camp, considering some of the most influential parts of the Star clans were people she knew from Arélenimbë in her youth.
***
People Who Think They Have A Right To Go Anywhere
In the running theme of people who think they have the right to do whatever they wish, because they are Quendár envoys from other places, there is the cases (plural) of people whose disrespect for Losá's choice to live with humans and disregard her relationship with Tirin, there is the case of the envoy who thought he had the right to walk straight into Losá's personal chambers. While she was in bed. With Tirin. Not asleep.
And then he threw a fit about her "whoring" herself out to humans, which then of course offends her because not only is the "whoring" thing insulting, but one would think the envoy had been informed that Losá had a human husband.
I think the problem of Quendár envoys who think they have more rights to the High Lady of the Harbour is probably an issue that Losá has suffered multiple times. I also think there is a running long-distance discussion between her and the Night King* about how foolish various Lómaquendár envoys are. There is probably a degree of the same thing going on the the Lord Captain, but again I will say I think more of this comes from the Lómaquendár than the Isilmaquendár, probably wholly due to the population ratios involved, Lómaquendár also having a measure of superiority complex over who has rights to territory on the mainland, and most Isilmaquendár that come into Hópa Elenna are sailors who appreciate the welcoming port.
* - I just threw together "Lómëaran" for a translation of "Night King".
* - Also, "Minnóntarië" as a title for Losá's position in relation to the Eldarion line. That would necessitates "Minnóatári" for Tirin.
* - "Hestóheru" for "Lord Captain".
***
A Crater Where Once Stood A City
Inspired by a drugging scene in a fanfic, this one is pretty brutal and probably represents an event that casts the Lómaquendár opinion of Losá into one of quiet fear and probably put a halt to the various attempts by various envoys and lords to try and court her despite her being married.
This incident would definitely happen in a Lómaquendár city that is not their capital, but also not a minor location at the time. Maybe an influential trade hub. Losá and Tirin go there for a diplomatic mission, probably trade related. The lord of this city takes an obvious interest in Losá and keeps setting up situation that would mean Tirin is busy inspecting some aspect of the city separately from Losá - trying to keep them apart so the city lord has time to try seduce her. Obviously Losá remains stubbornly un-receptive of his attempts to "save" her from a "degenerate" marriage, so he makes a deperate move and invites her to discuss things privately (while Tirin is somewhere else).
Of course, the drink served to Losá is drugged, but also the room this meeting is taken in has hidden wards all around it that are intended to trap powerful arcane entities (which in turn implies some history of doing dangerous and likely unethical things to such beings). Losá senses this and also immediately senses the drug in her drink. She proceeds to go on a line of conversation about how she thought the city lord cared about his people and thought he was honourable enough to want to keep them alive and happy, but obviously she was wrong since he has chosen to commit genocide against his own people.
He is confused and insulted by this, but Losá - while idly looking at the glow markings starting to show up on her skin - tells him the drug he put in her drink - one that, as one of it's side effects, makes people lose control of their magical defenses - might cause an outburst in a Kessír that would wreck a room like this, in a common Quendár might destroy the building, but in her... well she predicts it will leave a glassed crater ten miles in diameter, with only two survivors, herself and Tirin.
The city lord accuses her of lying, then of doing it deliberately, and even then still moving to block her leaving the room, fighting to keep her there even when she is losing more and more control of her magic - showing up in brightening glow lines and white fire starting to emerge from her skin - and she starts laughing at him and how he is going to die in the oncoming conflagration.
Now Tirin knows what is happening as he is getting side effects, like his own glow lines (which are mirrors of Losá's) showing themselves, and he starts warning people what is coming and sets in motion an evacuation, thanks to some of the people he's with taking him seriously.
But the explosion cannot be halted and the idiot lord's refusal to believe Losá kept her from being able to leave the containment chamber, so the city gets flattened in the ensuing explosion. As she predicted, the only survivors left in the blast radius are herself and Tirin.
Because some folk paid attention and believed Tirin, a significant number of people were able to portal away from the blast zone, but there was a substantial number of casualties.
This event caused quite a lot of problems for several centuries between the Lómaquendár and the Eleniquendár, especially the Three Sisters and Hópa Elenna. Much of the Lómaquendár became resentful of Losá, thinking of her as a dangerous monster, and by extension her sisters likewise, and resenting the harbour city as well. Lómëaran (the Night King) also initially was angry and willing to declare outright war, but when the real reason of what happened finally reached him, pulled back and refused to assent to his angry lords wish for vengeance. This did not however stop various sections of Lómaquendár society from starting their own vengeful actions, but when such things came to Lómëaran's attention, he would punish it, since he understood it was the trade city's lord at fault for the original event.
The modest Lómaquendár population in Hópa Elenna were split in their reactions, with some angry at Losá, but also some - those closer to the Eleniquendár of the city - hearing the true story of what happened and standing on Losá and Tirin's side. This split likely led to several of the Lómaquendár families who were angry being shipped back to Lómaquendár lands, as Losá would not tolerate having Quendár in her city who hold it against her for suffering the effects of a drugging.
Suffice to say, due to the cooling of interrelations, the periodic course of emissaries and envoys being blatantly insulting about Losá and Tirin's marriage was put to a halt, since there was an almost complete stop of any being sent, and when things started getting better, Lómëaran was extremely rigorous in his instruction of how they were to be respectful and not disrespect Tirin or his bond with Losá, with the explosion cited as what happened when someone went too far.
Bonus Thoughts: When Tirin sensed what was happening, he drew on Losá's powers and along with warning people what was coming, started opening portals and pushing people through them. The places he sent them were pretty random, but based on places he already knew - places like the Elenimbér, Endánórë, several of the Dwarven cities, the Southern Kingdom, Eärelenatollë, and key to this aside, Starfall Valley.
Specifically, those who e sent to the valley were a group of children who were in school, preschool children in a daycare, and a bit over two dozen infants from all over the parts of the city he was able to reach.
His wild teleporting saved hundreds of people, even though it in no way saved everyone - there were still a lot of deaths. However of those he saved, there were a lot of problems with families being able to reconnect, and the children sent to the Valley in particular never returned to their families. The reason they never returned was that Silmá sensed them appearing through her connection to the Valley, and thus the children were brought to the Queen's Domain to be cared for.
Close to fifty permanent residents of the Queen's hidden realm are Quendár saved from that explosion, who due to the amount of time they spent there refused to return to the Mundane, having come to feel more at home in the Fae, and in some cases amongst the youngest, had no memory of living elsewhere in their current lives (there were bound to be reincarnations amongst the children, but even they chose to stay, liking the quiet Fae life the Curwaquendár Queen granted them).
Yes, losing such a number of children also caused ill feelings, but in their case, the children were alive to speak for themselves, and one of the elder children, a reincarnation, chose to be speaker for all of them when issues arose, willing to visit the Mundane Realm and fight for his companions' rights to choose their lives, and considering such disputes did not truly kick off until almost all the children were over 50, their rights were theirs to decide by that point.
(There may also be extra issues engendered if some of the children who were reincarnated had past relationships that they refuse to return to, because they prefer the far more casual and carefree life of the Queen's Favoured Fae, and for a few who tried to speak to past family, found them too demanding and stressful.)
Disrespectful Suitor Envoys
First is some ideas around past incidents where more than one Quendár man thinks he can woo Losá to marry him, ignoring the fact that she is already married with children, even going to the extent of dismissing Tirin entirely and calling their children nothing but foul halfbreeds best left behind.
Of course, as one may imagine, talking smack about her husband and children like that pisses Losá off and she roundly drives him out of Hópa Elenna.
At least one of these cases is an Endánórian Isilmaquendár, another being Lómaquendár from one of the inland forest cities. In both cases it also results in the rejected suitor complaining to his respective king (the Lord Captain and the Night King) with more or less exaggeration about Losá's lack of hospitality and respect of diplomacy.
I am unsure which of the two kings is more understanding of Losá's position, though I lean more to the Lord Captain being the one, with him getting in contact with her and getting her side of the story and ending up interrogating his envoy for the truth and punishing him for being so disrespectful to an ally. The other side of this story would have a king who takes his envoy's side and ends up with relations with Hópa Elenna being strained as a result.
The Abduction Of Tirin
Another plot is one that seems to have also happened to Elenná and Ciaran - that is, some enemy figure - possibly a Morin Kessír sorceress - tries to attack one of the Three Sisters through what seems like a weak point - their bonded Edan husband.
In Losá's case, she gets trapped in a powerful circle of crystals, so the enemy has the time to try and turn Tirin. However Losá reaches into the Arcane to take a measure of the crystal circle and finds that it's arcane anchoring is not very deep (there's a line of thinking I am having about how a Morin Kessír would not be able to truly reach into the Living Stone) and Losá can stretch out more of her hidden arcane presence under the crystal circle and thus come up under it and shatter it violently.
In the process she shapeshifts into her Arcane dragon form, the Mythrál Dragon, and turns to flame the sorceress. This does not actually kills her, but alters the sorceress's powers, binding her from being able to do a lot of her usual crap. (There is pr0n-based ideas involved in this.) In the immediate aftermath Dragon Losá opens up her chest and puts Tirin inside, however that is more like she opens up a portal into the Arcane and puts Tirin in what is basically her arcane pocket, and flies off.
Tirin's experience during this time is basically a state of sleep where he dreamed of Losá's journey back to Hópa Elenna.
Losá Goes Missing
A recent line of thought I had is one where Losá goes missing and remains missing for over 500 years. In this time there are quite a few situations where women try to seduce Tirin only for him to roundly shut them down, and conversely he also gets quite a few male friends questioning why he refuses to take up any of those ladies. The truth is because Tirin basically exists as a symbiotic extension of Losá, he actually knows that while missing, his wife is still alive, somewhere.
Meanwhile, knowing about this insight Tirin has, Elená has her whole adventurer network searching for any clues, including Damián Russélaurë and his sister, who I now feel like naming something like Veriél Valeria - basically "Brave Daughter" in meaning.
It is Damián and Veriél who end up finding their mother, imprisoned by some enemy - could be Morin, could also be Unseelie. They free her but her captivity has had such a harsh effect on her that she is not totally sane at this point, but her instinctive response is to transform into her dragon form and fly off. Now being children of one of the Three Sisters means Damián and Veriél have some interesting powers at their call, the most significant in this event being their shapeshifting ability, with them transforming into dragon forms to fly in escort to their mother.
[Damián's form is gold with ruby highlights, while Veriél's form is bronze with gold highlights. I am inclined to say Damián having gemstone highlights is a reflection of him having stronger links to the Fae than his siblings may have developed. I also imagine these draconic forms are a good bit smaller than their mother's, a reflection of the children not being quite as powerful as their mothers.]
By the time they reach Hópa Elenna, Losá however heads for the mountains, landing in the area of the hotsprings, where Tirin is waiting. Losá returns to her Quendár form, and though she still seems not all there, but she still is drawn to her husband because of their bond. Tirin take her to the hot pool that is their special place, where she can rest and begin to recover before returning to Hópa Elenna proper. Damián and Veriél both head for the city, to let everyone know Losá has been found, and eventually head back to their respective homes.
It does take Losá a long time to fully recover, with the after-effects of her captivity not fully fading for over one hundred years, and her not taking up her position as High Priestess for at least the first eighty of those years.
Bonus Thought: In the aftermath of Losá's return, there are still people amongst the Hópa Elenna nobility (primarily the Eldarion elders) who questioned whether Losá was who she was claimed to be, insinuating that she was an imposter, even questioning whether Damián and Veriél were really who they claimed to be. This situation got so severe that there was a serious threat of rebellion from a substantial proportion of the Eldarion. The situation took a turn when Elossí and Elená, along with back-up (including Ciaran, Elossí's husband and children, including Carnéisil, Losá's reincarnated eldest son) came to visit Hópa Elenna to see their returned family member. Over half of the Eldarion - most of the elders of the clan - were found guilty of treason against the Hópa, and sentenced to Basalt Blood Ruby's Realm (the Basalt Realm linked to Hópa Elenna - a very young Basalt realm only established after Nightfall, to help stabilise the geothermal activity in the Númëoronti (Western Mountains).
The younger parts of the Eldarion who had stood in support of Tirin and Losá did so because they had found the rescue of the long-missing Lady of the Harbour to be an adorable romantic story (not in least because Damián had cast it as such when initially telling the tale of the rescue). They would carry on the Eldarion clan from that stage on.
The Junior Priestess
One thing that happens as Losá was in her latter recovery stage is the problems that had cropped up in the Hópa Elenna priesthood.
As Losá got to the stage of being willing to start getting back into the priesthood, something comes to her attention when a young Elven woman working as a handmaid in the Lord and Lady's Residence (pretty-much what it says on the box - Losá and Tirin's residence) almost has a breakdown when mentioning that the High Priestess will be visiting the temple. As it happens, the maid is also a junior priestess, but the reason for her distress is that the current Senior Sister is actually quite controlling and abusive. The handmaid got the worst, with the Senior Sister bullying and controlling her. This control was so bad the Senior Sister had poisoned her so she could force the girl to reincarnate as the child of close friends of hers. The girl tried to reach out to anyone else to be born elsewhere, preferably as Eleniquendár, the same racial group she was in her previous life, but the Senior Sister was able to block her and force her into being born to her Lómaquendár friends.
The maid is scared of the High Priestess because the Senior Sister had been talking up how the High Priestess would crack down on all the behaviour of the temple, strongly implying she would be even more harsh. It is obvious however, from what the handmaid says, that the Senior Sister had not outright stated that Losá was the High Priestess.
Losá is, of course, horrified and disgusted by this, so proceeds to secretly begin to organise a complete clean-up of the temple, starting with having the maid reassigned to her handmaid duties full-time. When she does go to the temple, she is on high alert to the Senior Sister's attitude and proceeds to tear up her structure of control, much to the Sister's horror, and when the issue of the handmaid comes up (the handmaid being at the temple during Losá's first visit, Losá is able to put the smackdown on the Senior Sister, dragging her through a court of the Priesthood for her crimes against the handmaid, as well as pulling the handmaid's current family in for trial for being accessory to murder, reincarnation theft, and abuse.
All this process runs into the winter solstice holidays, which means family come in to Hópa Elenna for the Solstice festival, including Carnéisil coming in with Elossí's group (not only because he is recognised family but he is also on the ship's crew). As an aside, I have decided that he is actually half-Eleniquendár and has dark hair because of it, but both the red tone in his hair and the fact that he can grow a beard are oddities that seem to be more due to arcane heritage than genetic, because his second family (he is reincarnated) don't have red tones, and beards are extremely rare amongst Quendár.
This becomes significant when Carnéisil takes an interest in the handmaid and proceeds to court her, much to the offense of her current family, who sneer at a mixed race sailor courting their daughter.
Of course, everything comes to a head with the trial, the handmaid finding she has a new support system to defend her from her abusive family, and the fact that the "mere sailor" is considered a high ranking noble of the Eleniquendár royal family, as he is the son of one of the Three Sisters, recognised and acknowledged by the family in his second life, his second family now holding roles of some honour and bearing on the Eärelenatollë. The girl they worked on stealing from her first life and control will get to return to her rightful people and marry into the most powerful royal family in the Nightlands.
Edit 11/7/19: Contemplating how Senior Sister could do something as egregious as killing someone, and it comes down to what is her perspective on it, because everyone is the hero of their own story.
So my idea is this, the politicking amongst the Quendár in Hópa Elenna had degenerated while Losá was missing, with it dividing up into tribalist lines - Isilmaquendár for Isilmaquendár, Lómaquendár for Lómaquendár, Eleniquendár for Eleniquendár.
So the Senior Sister is Lómaquendár aka Night Elf. The Lómaquendár in the city had grown resentful of how much control the Eleniquendár hold, considering that the Lómaquendár are the largest Quendár race by population.
Handmaiden was born Eleniquendár in her first life, and was starting to show, in her early adulthood, to be a quite powerful priestess.
As an aside, to reiterate the idea of Quendár special powers, there are small handful of specialised powers that any given Quendár can have, and usually they can hand only one or two of them, with the best result being having two complementary powers, like Scrying and Gatekeeping, as the portal transport system makes use of scrying to co-ordinate the connections and opening-closing of portals, or healing and communing with the dead. Usually any given Quendár will have one power strong than the other, like a transit worker with strong Gatekeeper powers but only mild Scrying. Also powers do seem to carry on in reincarnation, though it's possible they can gain another power in their new life.
Handmaiden was showing a very strong ability in Death Communion, and maybe moderately strong healing, resulting in her being strong in both aspects than Senior Sister and thus could eventually displace her as acting head of the Temple, and thus give the Eleniquendár of the city even more power and control.
So Senior Sister started trying to control Handmaiden, but Handmaiden's Eleniquendár family was offsetting all her attempts. Senior Sister gets desperate and ends up killing Handmaiden and arranges for her to be born in a Lómaquendár family, thus putting her powers in the control of the "right" people.
Of course, Losá's return ends up being a massive smack-down on the Lómaquendár trying to gain control, as Losá is firmly part of the Eleniquendár camp, considering some of the most influential parts of the Star clans were people she knew from Arélenimbë in her youth.
***
People Who Think They Have A Right To Go Anywhere
In the running theme of people who think they have the right to do whatever they wish, because they are Quendár envoys from other places, there is the cases (plural) of people whose disrespect for Losá's choice to live with humans and disregard her relationship with Tirin, there is the case of the envoy who thought he had the right to walk straight into Losá's personal chambers. While she was in bed. With Tirin. Not asleep.
And then he threw a fit about her "whoring" herself out to humans, which then of course offends her because not only is the "whoring" thing insulting, but one would think the envoy had been informed that Losá had a human husband.
I think the problem of Quendár envoys who think they have more rights to the High Lady of the Harbour is probably an issue that Losá has suffered multiple times. I also think there is a running long-distance discussion between her and the Night King* about how foolish various Lómaquendár envoys are. There is probably a degree of the same thing going on the the Lord Captain, but again I will say I think more of this comes from the Lómaquendár than the Isilmaquendár, probably wholly due to the population ratios involved, Lómaquendár also having a measure of superiority complex over who has rights to territory on the mainland, and most Isilmaquendár that come into Hópa Elenna are sailors who appreciate the welcoming port.
* - I just threw together "Lómëaran" for a translation of "Night King".
* - Also, "Minnóntarië" as a title for Losá's position in relation to the Eldarion line. That would necessitates "Minnóatári" for Tirin.
* - "Hestóheru" for "Lord Captain".
***
A Crater Where Once Stood A City
Inspired by a drugging scene in a fanfic, this one is pretty brutal and probably represents an event that casts the Lómaquendár opinion of Losá into one of quiet fear and probably put a halt to the various attempts by various envoys and lords to try and court her despite her being married.
This incident would definitely happen in a Lómaquendár city that is not their capital, but also not a minor location at the time. Maybe an influential trade hub. Losá and Tirin go there for a diplomatic mission, probably trade related. The lord of this city takes an obvious interest in Losá and keeps setting up situation that would mean Tirin is busy inspecting some aspect of the city separately from Losá - trying to keep them apart so the city lord has time to try seduce her. Obviously Losá remains stubbornly un-receptive of his attempts to "save" her from a "degenerate" marriage, so he makes a deperate move and invites her to discuss things privately (while Tirin is somewhere else).
Of course, the drink served to Losá is drugged, but also the room this meeting is taken in has hidden wards all around it that are intended to trap powerful arcane entities (which in turn implies some history of doing dangerous and likely unethical things to such beings). Losá senses this and also immediately senses the drug in her drink. She proceeds to go on a line of conversation about how she thought the city lord cared about his people and thought he was honourable enough to want to keep them alive and happy, but obviously she was wrong since he has chosen to commit genocide against his own people.
He is confused and insulted by this, but Losá - while idly looking at the glow markings starting to show up on her skin - tells him the drug he put in her drink - one that, as one of it's side effects, makes people lose control of their magical defenses - might cause an outburst in a Kessír that would wreck a room like this, in a common Quendár might destroy the building, but in her... well she predicts it will leave a glassed crater ten miles in diameter, with only two survivors, herself and Tirin.
The city lord accuses her of lying, then of doing it deliberately, and even then still moving to block her leaving the room, fighting to keep her there even when she is losing more and more control of her magic - showing up in brightening glow lines and white fire starting to emerge from her skin - and she starts laughing at him and how he is going to die in the oncoming conflagration.
Now Tirin knows what is happening as he is getting side effects, like his own glow lines (which are mirrors of Losá's) showing themselves, and he starts warning people what is coming and sets in motion an evacuation, thanks to some of the people he's with taking him seriously.
But the explosion cannot be halted and the idiot lord's refusal to believe Losá kept her from being able to leave the containment chamber, so the city gets flattened in the ensuing explosion. As she predicted, the only survivors left in the blast radius are herself and Tirin.
Because some folk paid attention and believed Tirin, a significant number of people were able to portal away from the blast zone, but there was a substantial number of casualties.
This event caused quite a lot of problems for several centuries between the Lómaquendár and the Eleniquendár, especially the Three Sisters and Hópa Elenna. Much of the Lómaquendár became resentful of Losá, thinking of her as a dangerous monster, and by extension her sisters likewise, and resenting the harbour city as well. Lómëaran (the Night King) also initially was angry and willing to declare outright war, but when the real reason of what happened finally reached him, pulled back and refused to assent to his angry lords wish for vengeance. This did not however stop various sections of Lómaquendár society from starting their own vengeful actions, but when such things came to Lómëaran's attention, he would punish it, since he understood it was the trade city's lord at fault for the original event.
The modest Lómaquendár population in Hópa Elenna were split in their reactions, with some angry at Losá, but also some - those closer to the Eleniquendár of the city - hearing the true story of what happened and standing on Losá and Tirin's side. This split likely led to several of the Lómaquendár families who were angry being shipped back to Lómaquendár lands, as Losá would not tolerate having Quendár in her city who hold it against her for suffering the effects of a drugging.
Suffice to say, due to the cooling of interrelations, the periodic course of emissaries and envoys being blatantly insulting about Losá and Tirin's marriage was put to a halt, since there was an almost complete stop of any being sent, and when things started getting better, Lómëaran was extremely rigorous in his instruction of how they were to be respectful and not disrespect Tirin or his bond with Losá, with the explosion cited as what happened when someone went too far.
Bonus Thoughts: When Tirin sensed what was happening, he drew on Losá's powers and along with warning people what was coming, started opening portals and pushing people through them. The places he sent them were pretty random, but based on places he already knew - places like the Elenimbér, Endánórë, several of the Dwarven cities, the Southern Kingdom, Eärelenatollë, and key to this aside, Starfall Valley.
Specifically, those who e sent to the valley were a group of children who were in school, preschool children in a daycare, and a bit over two dozen infants from all over the parts of the city he was able to reach.
His wild teleporting saved hundreds of people, even though it in no way saved everyone - there were still a lot of deaths. However of those he saved, there were a lot of problems with families being able to reconnect, and the children sent to the Valley in particular never returned to their families. The reason they never returned was that Silmá sensed them appearing through her connection to the Valley, and thus the children were brought to the Queen's Domain to be cared for.
Close to fifty permanent residents of the Queen's hidden realm are Quendár saved from that explosion, who due to the amount of time they spent there refused to return to the Mundane, having come to feel more at home in the Fae, and in some cases amongst the youngest, had no memory of living elsewhere in their current lives (there were bound to be reincarnations amongst the children, but even they chose to stay, liking the quiet Fae life the Curwaquendár Queen granted them).
Yes, losing such a number of children also caused ill feelings, but in their case, the children were alive to speak for themselves, and one of the elder children, a reincarnation, chose to be speaker for all of them when issues arose, willing to visit the Mundane Realm and fight for his companions' rights to choose their lives, and considering such disputes did not truly kick off until almost all the children were over 50, their rights were theirs to decide by that point.
(There may also be extra issues engendered if some of the children who were reincarnated had past relationships that they refuse to return to, because they prefer the far more casual and carefree life of the Queen's Favoured Fae, and for a few who tried to speak to past family, found them too demanding and stressful.)