Character Profile -- Ophelia Piercy

Ophelia Piercy

Aliases or Nicknames:

Feels

Era:

Pre-Rift

Appears In:

Beverlee Hills Mummy

Importance:

Secondary Character

Main Goal:

text

Relationship to Other Characters:

Childhood besties with Candy and China Romney and Thai Martinez. Becomes friends with "Sunny". Has a dog named Prince Machiavelli, but Ophelia just calls him Mack.

Backstory/Infodump:

Growing up with Candy, China, and Thai, Ophelia was the natural leader. Thai wanted to be, but Ophelia was the one with the ideas. Thai and China were the closest pair of friends and Candy and China were twins, so Ophelia's role was to plan out adventures for the girls. She was the most naturally adventurous one of the group, and she used that tendency to make life as fun for the girls as possible, partly out of affection and partly to cement her place in the group.

In junior high, Ophelia was in a horrific car accident that left her paraplegic. Because she can't move her arms or legs, her superpower becomes planning. She wants to be a video game developer for people with mobility issues. 

After the accident, Thai, China, and Candy would come to visit. After a while, Ophelia realized that none of the girls told the other girls that they saw Ophelia regularly, so she realized that the girls didn't talk about Ophelia amongst themselves. In a way, she was relieved because she didn't want them bonding over their pity for her, but on the other hand, it was like she didn't exist unless she was in the same room with one of the girls. 

She started to purposely prevent the girls from planning to see her at the same time. She sensed that knowing that they all visited Ophelia, the distance that had grown between them might have closed up too tight to let her continue to fit in. One concern was that the girls are VERY wealthy and Ophelia's family is just comfortable (upper middle class). It was a distinction that was just starting to rear its head in junior high, and it's one that Ophelia is more and more aware of, even if the other girls aren't. 

The girls' families do help with Ophelia's medical bills as much as her parents will allow, though, so she feels even more at a psychological disadvantage toward the girls. She used to be the one who created a party wherever she went. What does she offer now? Survivor's guilt?

But Ophelia, like most teenage girls, undervalues herself. She is still the natural glue that holds the group together and there's a dynamic that they have together that they don't have without her. When Sunny comes around, Ophelia realizes that Sunny has a similar gluey effect on the girls, and starts to worry again that she'll be replaced and phased out. Instead, the group expands from Ophelia being a duo with her childhood friends to them being a quintet. 

By the end of the trilogy, Ophelia is full reintegrated into the group. Sunny is not just wealthy, she has ALL of the money, and can help Ophelia get her video game development financed. Sunny (aka Nakia), being someone who literally can't show her face to the world and has spent thousands of years in isolation, has a stronger empathetic grasp on the social and physical alienation that Ophelia is faced with. 

Author's Note:

In the last book of the trilogy, Nakia finds out about lush (see Worldbuilding) and is learning to manipulate her own body with it. She's also trying to figure out how to help Ophelia physically, but there's a responsibility, as writers, to not use lush as a magical solution that makes Ophelia "normal". First, because paraplegic characters are not often represented in fiction, and second, it's easy to take Ophelia's story in an ableist direction, and I'd like to avoid that.

Yes, being paraplegic sucks. I think that most people with paraplegia would agree with that. I haven't done a lot of research on it yet, but I imagine that it's physically and mentally taxing, not just dealing with a disability that severe, but also dealing with people reacting to your disability. (I have much more minor physical issues along with some mental illness and people are dicks about both.)

But people with severe disabilities AND fulfilling lives are underrepresented in fiction. Life is so hard even with control of your limbs, so when able-bodied person are confronted with the idea of losing that, it's hard to imagine any kind of life satisfaction for people with those issues. They become two-dimensional, heroic or pitiful figures, not people. And the way that people with severe disabilities are represented (WHEN they are), underlines that idea. 

I would like Ophelia, at least in this particular universe, to have an unrealistically high life satisfaction, just to balance all of that out. That said, this whole blog is about exploring all of the ways that one person can be shaped by different circumstances (hence, "a thousand" Auras), so I'm not opposed to exploring some parallel versions of Ophelia where she's still paraplegic but less privileged and seeing how she's affected by that. Or seeing what her life would be like if she had never been in the accident, stuff like that.

But another reason to avoid fully curing Ophelia through lush is that Aura has to gather up as much lush as she can in order to save the world when it's blown into four mini-planets. She has to go through as many parallel universes as possible and plunder their lush, too.

I'm still not sure how I'm going to keep The King and Nakia alive through all of that because they are characters in the Mended Era and their entire bodies are made of Lush. But, yeah, it would suck to cure Ophelia through lush and then take it all back.

Story Idea -- Sudoku Slaughter

 I watch the documentary "Wordplay" last night and had an idea for a murder mystery story. "Wordplay" is (in a nutshell) about contenders in a crossword competition. This one dude always comes in third and has a bit of a complex about it. 

I thought about someone who wanted to do a guy like that a favor, like his wife, maybe, who kills his competition so that he can come in first. Missing, of course, not only the point of competing in the first place, the rush that comes from being and beating the best -- but also the fact that these guys aren't just competitors, they're friends.

So, in my story, the third place guy would of course figure it out. He'd send his wife home in order to protect her, but they'd end up divorced.

In the documentary, the third place guy finishes first, but missed like two squares that he forgot to complete, so he ends up coming in third again. It's honestly devastating to watch (the documentary was really good) but a moment like that would be great in the story.

There are a couple of things. First, I don't really care about crossword puzzles; I'm not good at them and don't find them an enjoyable version of challenging. But I am a Sudoku fiend. I have eight Sudoku apps on my phone (all by Cracking the Cryptic because the other ones I tried are garbage) and play almost every day unless I get stuck and frustrated, in which case, I'll play Solitaire for a few weeks. The point being that I don't really want to research what makes a good crossword puzzle and how to make up clues and stuff that I can slip into the story, but I WOULD be willing to do that for Sudoku.

Sudoku has an interesting history and even though its popularity is more recent than crosswords but there IS a competition that has been running for twenty years, and it wouldn't be difficult to come up with a fictional one based on the real one.

I want the main characters to be two people who want to compete in this competition. I think the competition is still going but most of the people who played the year the murders happened haven't competed since. You have a building full of puzzle solvers, so a lot of people figured out who the murderer was but didn't want to expose her because they wanted to protect the third place guy. 

So, these are a couple of young people who come in, wanting to have fun and not understanding why all of their fellow contestants are also young and why there's just a pall over the proceedings. Maybe one of the two wants to understand and the other one doesn't care, and they can be foils for each other. Maybe the one who doesn't care is the one who accidentally finds out more information.

Anyway, we could have people involved in the competition who were there the year of the murders but they aren't competing. Maybe they're judges or the puzzle creators or whatever. If I wanted to go real dark, I could have the third place guy there and have him attempting to murder the nosy kids in order to protect his ex-wife. His life sucks now, anyway. His friends are dead and a decades-long obsession has been tainted.

That's all I came up with. It's much darker when I write it out but I'd want it to be like a Marple mystery where there's an emotional distance. I think writing about the competition aspects would be fun. And there were a lot of people in the documentary other than the third place guy who I thought were interesting. I will say that I noticed a sea of white, mostly male faces. I imagine Sudoku is a bit different, but then again the main two guys I watch on YouTube are white British dudes and my nemesis, Phistomefel, is German. I can never solve his puzzles without looking at hints. I hate him. Anyway. Just wanted to record that story idea. 

Character Profile -- China Romney

China Romney

Aliases or Nicknames:

None.

Era:

Pre-Rift

Appears In:

Beverlee Hills Mummy

Importance:

Secondary Character

Main Goal:

To be a flame ensconced in a block of ice.

Relationship to Other Characters:

Twin sister to Candy Romney, younger sister to Beth Wakefield, older sister to Jess Wakefield, daughter to Alice Wakefield and William Romney. Girlfriend to Zachariah Hahn. Besties with Thai Martinez, Ophelia Pierce, and our main character Nakia (aka Sunny).

Backstory/Infodump:

China has always liked the visual of her name: delicate, detailed, and deliberate. Inside, she feels anything but. Before the accident that left their mutual friend Ophelia paraplegic, she was closest to Thai, but Thai has pulled away emotionally, leaving China to rely on Candy who can't take anything seriously.

China spends most of her afternoons volunteering at a soup kitchen in L.A., which isn't so much a secret from Candy as something she doesn't mention. Candy is such a social butterfly that she doesn't notice. China's weekly visits to Ophelia IS something that she keeps secret on purpose. She loves her sister but doesn't like the way that Candy basically pretends that Ophelia never existed. 

When Thai insists on adding Sunny to the group, China correctly assumes that Sunny is supposed to replace Thai, so China resents Sunny, at first. It's easier than resenting Thai. But China likes the effect that Sunny has on Candy. Candy becomes more focuses and less needy of the affection of strangers. She also likes the effect that Sunny has on Thai. Thai seems warmer and more relaxed than she has in a long time. 

Eventually, China is the one who confides in Sunny about Ophelia and China takes Sunny to meet Ophelia. Ophelia confesses that Candy and Thai both visit her regularly and reveals that Thai gave her the first Prince Machiavelli. China knew that Thai's aunt was a Samoyed breeder but she never understood why Thai would change out dogs every eight weeks. It actually grossed her out a bit.

Meanwhile, China has been dating Zach, but Zach comes out as gay, which makes China feel exposed. She liked having the cover of a boyfriend because it stopped most guys from approaching her and now she has to confront the idea that she might be attracted to girls -- or not attracted to anyone. One thing is for sure, she is not attracted to boys, and she always liked that Zach was so "respectful" and never went any further than a peck on the cheek.

But this is a peripheral issue. The main problem she's been having for a while is that she is very interested in philanthropy, which is something very looked down upon in her family in general and that Candy is neutral on. She is shocked when Candy suggests that China apply to UCLA because of this interest. When had Candy started paying attention to China? It's a little scary. As much as she resents being so closely associated with her ditzy sister, it's also easy to let her sister be the interesting one while China fades into the background. If they go to different schools with different career goals, then China will have to step forward and make public the strong personality that she's always kept secret.

By the end of the series, China feels safe and seen in her small friend group, so glad that Ophelia has been reintegrated, and grateful to Sunny for bringing out the best in her sister and Thai. Although she feels the least emotionally connected to Sunny, she is the one who most strongly recognizes the strength of the bonds between the girls that Sunny has helped foster.

Character Profile -- Candy Romney

Name: Candace Romney

Aliases or Nicknames:

Candy

Era:

Pre-Rift

Appears In:

Beverlee Hills Mummy

Importance:

Secondary Character

Main Goal:

To keep everyone happy (and pretty)!

Relationship to Other Characters:

Twin sister to China Romney, younger sister to Beth Wakefield, older sister to Jess Wakefield, daughter to Alice Wakefield and William Romney. Girlfriend to Uncle Chester (nickname, not her uncle). Established bestie to Thai Martinez and Ophelia Piercy, and becomes friends with our main character "Sunny" throughout the series.

Backstory/Infodump:

Candy is lifelong friends with Thai and Ophelia, but after the car accident that leaves Ophelia paraplegic, Candy develops a resentment toward Thai who was always jealous of Ophelia. She and China make Thai the leader of their now trio, almost as a punishment for constantly competing with Ophelia before the accident. 

Candy seeks refuge in aesthetics. She loves to give everyone she meets a makeover. It's a way for her to make the world feel less ugly and gives her a sense of accomplishment. She can be a bit insensitive regarding her approach to the subject, but because she's known for this, it would be more of an insult for her not to walk up to a stranger and pick apart their appearance.

Candy is secretly dating Uncle Chester (not her uncle), a pudgy kid on the football team who is aesthetically challenged but absolutely refuses a makeover. It may be his way of punishing her for being ashamed to date him publicly, but Candy isn't really ashamed of him. It's just that she is so easily confused with her sister that it's hard to feel like she has anything of her own. And, although she may not admit it, she might be a little worried that if China disapproved of Unc, that it would affect her opinion of him. Although all of the girls are insecure, Candy is the least secure in her own sense of self.

Over the summer between junior high and high school, Candy and China got matching nose jobs. Their noses were the only parts of them that weren't identical and Candy is sad to be losing that tiny bit of independence. But, China never liked her nose, and, as she points out, now she and Candy can switch clothes during the day and take the classes they like twice and the classes they don't zero times. They plan to attend college together, and can do the same thing there.

Candy is very friendly and has never met a person who wasn't her new best friend, but she likes to keep things light. Even before Ophelia's accident, she would get annoyed when her friends wanted to get too into serious topics. Now, that tendency is even stronger because her sense of permanency took a huge hit when Ophelia was hurt so irrevocably. It used to be boring to be serious, now it's painful.

When she first sees Sunny, she sees a huge project -- Sunny is wearing the baggiest pair of sweatpants and saddest wig Candy has ever seen. She is uncharacteristically sensitive (for her) regarding her offer to makeover the other girl, but basically serves as Sunny's personal stylist throughout the series, until she sees Sunny develop her own style, at which point she backs off. 

Although never the deepest friend, she has a harder time getting close to people since Ophelia's accident. Even though Ophelia didn't die, it was such a close thing that investing in new people is too scary. But there's something about Sunny's dark sense of humor and total lack of interest in anything that Candy finds important that wins her over. Also, Candy is the only one nosy enough to ask about Sunny's past, so finding out that she's never had a boyfriend or been to a school dance touches her. It's not something Candy'd ever admit to, even if it were true. She has the world's biggest case of FOMO. So, although Sunny has a hard crust on her personality, Candy is the closest of the girls to sensing Nakia's true vulnerability.

Throughout the series, and with the reintegration of Ophelia into the friend group, Candy is able to work on her senses of permanence and self. It's Candy who realizes that China doesn't actually want to go to FIDM with Candy, and a couple of years earlier, she would have pretended not to know, but now, she suggests that China apply to UCLA instead. Both schools are in Los Angeles, so they can still take each others' places if needed.

Also with the reintegration of Ophelia into their friend group, and seeing how easily Thai gives up control of the group dynamic, Candy is able to let go of the resentment toward Thai, and the girls end up closer than before Ophelia's accident.

Character Profile -- Thai Martinez

Name: Atairal Martinez

Aliases or Nicknames:

Thai

Era:

Pre-Rift

Appears In:

Beverlee Hills Mummy

Importance:

Secondary Character

Main Goal:

To be perfect. And perfectly in control.

Relationship to Other Characters:

Best friends with Candy and China Romney and Ophelia Piercy, and becomes close to main character over course of trilogy. Engaged to Quincey Foster Benchley.

Backstory/Infodump:

Thai grew up in Beverlee Hills with her besties, China, Candy, and Ophelia. Thai felt very competitive toward Ophelia, who was the group leader before she was in a horrific car accident that left her paraplegic. Survivor's guilt leads her to keep her weekly visits to Ophelia secret from Candy and China.

Thai always had some control issues, and was concerned with what other people thought of her. Now, she uses the image that she protects as a barrier to emotional closeness as opposed to a shield from rejection. She genuinely loves her fiance Quincey Foster Benchley, who she met in kindergarten. They didn't start dating until third grade but they both agree that it was love at first sight.

The accident happened two or three years prior to the first Beverlee Hills Mummy book when the girls were in junior high. Soon after, Thai proposed to Quincey (who accepted). She is constantly planning her wedding throughout the series, with the plan to marry Quincey the second she turns eighteen. Although she decides against this plan eventually, she and Quincey remain a couple and very much in love.

Ever since the accident, Thai has pulled away emotionally from China and Candy, even though she is now the unofficial leader of the trio. Her discomfort with this role leads her to befriend "Sunny" on the first day of high school. Even through the bandages, Sunny has a lot of charisma and Thai unconscously hopes that Sunny will take over as leader of the group and she can distance herself from the twins.

As it's Beverlee Hills, everyone assumes that Sunny's bandages are due to plastic surgery, and as Thai started the school year with a brand new boob job, she respects the commitment that the volume of Sunny's bandages imply.

Thai also has a dog named Prince Machiavelli. Thai only had Prince Machiavelli for about eight weeks when it became clear that (after accident) Ophelia bonded with the dog, so Thai gave her the dog and got a new puppy. She told her classmates that it was because the other dog got too heavy to carry around and after this, she makes a habit of getting a new Samoyed puppy every eight weeks. It's an arrangement she makes with her aunt, who is a Samoyed breeder, but Thai likes the way that it makes her seem superficial and fickle. When the latest Prince Machiavelli bonds with Sunny, she gifts the dog to Sunny and decides to be done with this particular conceit of her personality.

Although she initially hoped that Sunny would take the leadership role of her clique so that she smoothly transition into college and out of her friendship with the twins, Sunny ends up being the glue that not only helps brings Thai closer to China and Candy than before, but Ophelia becomes a part of the group again. So, they start out as a quartet, and are a trio when the story starts, and a quintet by the end of the trilogy.

She goes into her college years secure in her friendships and with a much more solid sense of herself than she had when she felt so competitive with Ophelia in junior high.

Character Profile -- Ahmose

Name: Ahmose-Merit-Aten Sat-Nesu

(Born of the Moon, Beloved of Aten, Daughter of the King)

Aliases or Nicknames:

To servants, she's Princess Ahmose, to servants in favor with her she's just Ahmose, but this can change so the servants have to stay on their toes, Little Aten is her mother's nickname for her when she's talking to the king (king of an old royal version of YOUR daughter). Ironically, the king uses Little Aten as a term of endearment toward Ahmose when he's feeling proud of her.

Era:

Pre-Rift

Appears In:

Beverlee Hills Mummy

Importance:

Secondary character, but she's the nemesis of the main character.

Main Goal:

To rule.

Relationship to Other Characters:

Daughter of Neferkheperu Amenhotep IV and Sitdjehuti, owner of Nakia.

Author's Personal Canon Note:  

Ahmose is based on a cousin that I lived with for a year who abused me in every she could think of. My cousin is a human being, and I have often hoped for her to get some therapy and become a better person, but from what I understand, she's still horrible and hurts her own kids. So, for me, Ahmose does not EVER get a redemption arc. She can be sympathetic, multi-dimensional, charming, relatable, funny, stunningly beautiful, whatever. But she will never be a decent human being. We can empathize with the circumstances that made her the way she is, but at the end of the day, her own free will has the deciding vote.

I understand that this website is about exploring the possibilities across multiple parallel universes and even full-on foreign universes, and you are welcome to write as many redemption arcs as you want, but Ahmose as a good person is not a universe I will ever write about. My cousin does not deserve it. Her kids deserve better in this world. I deserved better. I haven't toned down her cruelty out of any regard for her; I just don't have the stomach to ask people to read about shit that dark.

Backstory/Infodump:

Ahmose is born around 1500 BC to fictional Pharoah Neferkheperu Amenhotep IV and Sitdjehuti (nickname Satibu). She was raised by wet nurses and attendants. She receives lessons in etiquette, religion, and music. Even as a small child, she is decked out in elaborate clothing and jewelry. She's constantly told that she's special, but her mother discourages physical affection, after around the age of four.

Other people don't seem quite real to her because they bow to her, they anticipate her needs, they aren't allowed to tell her "no". Their worlds revolve around her, but she knows nothing about theirs. She feels pampered, like a doll who is expected to sit in her perfect little dollhouse all day but never move unless she's told to, and even then she's told where to move and how.

When she is seven, she is left unattended for a few minutes, and she ends up wandering off. It's summer, so she catches heat stroke. A field worker picks her up and takes her home. She is nursed and coddled by the women of the village. The peasants recognize her and sent message to the palace. The king and queen, who were not aware that the princess was missing drop everything to pick her up from the village. Because she's so sick from the heatstroke, she isn't scolded, just cuddled by her parents, who take her home.

The next time she makes her way to the village, she is less celebrated, and her parents do scold her when she's taken home. But she escapes to the village so often that she becomes its unofficial mascot. She likes it best when she's treated as just another child of the village. She's able to blend better once she learns to take off her jewelry before setting off. (Her mother doesn't like it when she gives it away.)

She adopts Meryt and Paseru as her village parents. They have a four-year-old daughter named Nakia that Ahmose pretends is her sister. (She's not allowed to fraternize with the children of her father's other wives.) When she gets tired of being treated like a normal child with chores and getting scolded for doing dangerous things, she returns to the palace. Ages 7-10 are an ideal time in her life because she can switch between physical luxury and emotional comfort whenever she feels like it.

Ideally, she'd have both, and that's what she thinks will happen when she turns ten and decides that Nakia will come to the palace and be her closest personal attendant. (Nakia is seven.) Her parents agree, but her happiness is soured when Meryt and Paseru are sad to lose Nakia. Meryt makes Ahmose promise to protect Nakia. Ahmose agrees but is privately frustrated. Ahmose is supposed to be Nakia's responsibility, not the other way around.

She's also hurt that Meryt and Paseru seem to think she's stealing their daughter, when she thought that they thought of her as a daughter. She, as the princess, should be more important to them than their stupid peasant child. Insult is added to injury when Nakia also cries when she realizes that she's leaving her parents.

For Ahmose, who runs off to the village almost every day, the only thing that she thought was changing was that Nakia would be coming and going with her. When everyone is upset, it occurs to her to let Nakia stay, but a small, petty part of herself wants to punish everyone for being sad. As though rescuing Nakia from a hot, dusty village was some sort of punishment, not a reward.

Some part of her understands the community that comes from proximity and relying on each other -- that's why she's obsessed to going to the village in the first place. But she shakes off that thought and also thinks that maybe the village isn't that great and maybe she doesn't want to visit it very much anymore.

For the next few years, Ahmose's life becomes more structured, with her education ramping up. Now she is also learning about ceremonial roles and making appearances at court rituals. She begins to understand politics, dynastic expectations, that she may be married for alliance (this explains why her mother doesn't look at her father the way that Meryt looks at Paseru). This is when her personality sharpens. To most people she appears witty, charming, and charismatic, but underneath she feels trapped, watched, and constantly evaluated.

At first, she showers Nakia with gifts; nice clothes, a comfortable bed, excellent food, some education. They still visit the village together frequently, and Nakia seems happy enough, but she obviously misses living her family. As time goes on, they visit the village less and less frequently. Ahmose remains generous, but she will fly into rages and take or break all of the gifts. Nakia's devotion never seems to shake, and she never seems particularly attached to any of the gifts, anyway. For whatever reason, these things only enrage Ahmose.

By the time she's thirteen and Nakia is ten, Nakia is not allowed to leave Ahmose's room or fraternize with the other servants. Over time, Ahmose has convinced the servants that Nakia is a cruel gossip so they don't like Nakia anyway. Ahmose takes away the nice clothes and bed and food until Nakia has one too-small shift that she's only allowed to wash once a month. She no longer has a bed, she sleeps on the marble floor underneath Ahmose's hammock. Ahmose frequently vents her stress on Nakia by beating her, so Nakia is constantly covered in bruises. And through all of this, Nakia's devotion never seems to waver. This is a comfort and a frustration to Ahmose who stops thinking of Nakia as human at all.

Now that she’s becoming a young woman, Ahmose participates more in court life: festivals honoring Aten, diplomatic ceremonies, public appearances, sings hymns to Aten, presents offerings, and stands beside the king during rituals. This reinforces her identity as a semi-divine royal figure. At the same time she cultivates fashion, influence over servants, and subtle political awareness. This is when people begin to notice that she's formidable as well as beautiful, like her mother.

When she's sixteen, her future becomes a political issue. Her possible paths are marriage to a noble or priest, marriage within the royal family, or remaining unmarried but politically useful. None of these options appeal to her. Court factions begin to circle around her. Outwardly she’s poised and dazzling, privately she feels terrified of losing control of her life.

At some point, in this period, she discovers Nakia playing senet with the king. And that this is something that they do secretly, often. Her sense of betrayal is real, her rage is violent and long-lasting.

When she's nineteen, her father dies. The world she grew up in is collapsing. The religious system centered on Aten is controversial, nobles are nervous, priests want revenge, and the royal family’s position is fragile. Ahmose responds to that chaos by tightening control over everything. In her mind, the logic is simple: Disorder leads to suffering. Obedience creates harmony. Therefore forcing obedience is mercy. Once she believes that, almost anything becomes justifiable.

By this point, she can't even remember ever having had any affection for Nakia. Nakia seems to get stupider, uglier, and more useless every year, and the guilt that Ahmose feels regarding the way she treats Nakia can only be justified so much. She considers letting Nakia just go and be a peasant again but Nakia knows the depths of Ahmose's cruelty, along with all of her other secrets. The only answer is to kill her.

Retainer sacrifice is a very old tradition in which a king is buried with attendants, money, and other comforts, so that he'll have everything he needs in the Afterlife. By this time in history, the tradition of killing servants has fallen out of favor and "servants" are represented by small statues. Ahmose convinces her mother to reinstate retainer sacrifice for her father because she "doesn't want to take any chances" that he won't have what he needs.

Satibu is game. She allows Nakia to be killed and also uses the reinstatement in order to remove enemies, reward loyalty, and demonstrate that resistance has consequences.

Ahmose should feel like a real piece of shit -- and she does. But, to maintain her self-image, she cultivates gestures that convince her she is compassionate. Things like talking casually with servants, remembering the names of stable boys, sneaking in common street food, funding a performer, singer, or storyteller she likes.

As she's further groomed and then takes over as ruler after her mother dies, she has two versions of herself in her head. First, there's Ahmose the Just -- protector of tradition, friend of the common people, restorer of ancient customs, humble despite royal power. And then there's Ahmose the Necessary who punishes traitors, removes threats, enforces loyalty, maintains order at any cost.

Whenever she does something terrible, she tells herself, “This is what Ahmose the Necessary must do so Ahmose the Just can protect the kingdom.”

Common people are fascinated by her charisma, impressed by her interest in ordinary life, and unsure what rumors to believe. Court officials are wary of crossing her, impressed by her intelligence, and unsure where her limits are. Close servants aware to some extent of her volatility, careful around her moods, loyal but frightened.

Once immediate threats fade after her parents' deaths, Ahmose shifts into image-building. Her court becomes known for lavish festivals, theatrical religious ceremonies, music, poetry, and dance, as well as striking fashion and visual symbolism. She understands spectacle. This period makes her famous among ordinary people.

By her mid-twenties Ahmose has ruled long enough to accumulate real enemies. Court politics intensify. Ahmose becomes more guarded. In the palace, she starts to limit who can approach her, private conversations become rare, punishments become harsher.

She still maintains the public persona of the accessible ruler. She walks among market crowds, chitchats with peasants about upcoming harvests and local concerns, listen to street performers and eat street food. The whole time, her guards are invisible, so she seems as down-to-earth as ever but is really just performing humility.

In her late twenties, the duality of her personality is starting to become part of public conversation. The rumors range between acts of kindness or humility she has performed as well as her ruthless ability to destroy entire noble families and secretly has rivals killed. Both sets of rumors help her rule. Admiration creates loyalty. Fear prevents rebellion.
In her final years, forty-five to fifty, she's publicly radiant, privately ruthless. She continues her elaborate court life, patronizes performers, and occasionally mingles with peasants to reassure herself she’s “humble.” She also enforces her power: Retainer sacrifices, intimidation of nobles, and subtle eliminations continue. Everyone fears her, yet she believes her legacy is safe. She's sure she'll be remembered forever.

Death: At a ceremonial river festival on a palace canal or Nile tributary, Ahmose is adorned in gold, lotus crowns, elaborate robes. The court gathers in awe, music and incense filling the air. She boards a ceremonial boat. A sudden slip, misstep on the gilded deck. She falls into the water. She struggles briefly, surrounded by attendants and nobles. She dies.

Nobles and priests continue the narrative of “divine favor” in public texts, but later regimes erase her entirely. Her grand monuments, inscriptions, and records vanish from official history.

The only surviving artifact that leads directly back to her existence is a pendant that the king gave to Nakia, that Ahmose found after Nakia's death. (The entire country hear her screech of rage that day.)

Character Profile -- Nakia

Nakia 

Aliases or Nicknames:

[NOTE: Nakia is a thousands-year-old character, and she has probably at least a dozen aliases that I haven't thought through yet that allow her to be a person "on paper" and travel freely from country to country. I'll list the ones I know here, but I'm sure I'll be adding to this list as I work on the story and need more aliases.]

Sunny One -- The King's nickname for her.

Sunshine "Sunny" Sinclair -- Ironic happenstance that she ends up with the same nickname after thousands of years.

John Sinclair (deceased)

Karen Sinclair (deceased)

Era:

Pre-Rift, Rifted, Mended

Appears In:

Beverlee Hills Mummy, Beware the False Moon.

Importance:

She's the main character in Beverlee Hills Mummy, and a tertiary character in Beware the False Moon.

Main Goal: To find the king so that she can return to the Afterlife; the only place she's ever felt safe, loved, and happy.

Relationship to Other Characters: The king is her god for a long time, but she makes certain connections in Atlantis and in the 1700s. I haven't worked them out yet, so I'll have to update this. In Beverlee Hills Mummy, her closest friends are Thai, China, and Candy, Ophelia, and her assistant Kim.

Backstory/Infodump:

Nakia was a peasant in Egypt under the rulership of Neferkheperu Amenhotep IV (fictional king) (his friends called him "Khepu") around 1500 BC. When she was seven, she was taken from her parents, and brought to the palace to serve the sadistic princess Ahmose. For reasons that Nakia never knew (but that we'll explore in Ahmose's profile), Ahmose took an almost instant hatred to Nakia and spent years abusing her verbally and physically. She even forced Nakia to write a letter to her parents saying that she was very happy in the palace and didn't love them anymore.

Although being a palace servant, especially a retainer to a princess, was an elevated position, Ahmose didn't let Nakia socialize with other servants, kept Nakia in rags, and made up reasons to punish her, which she would do, cruelly.

Although the custom of retainer sacrifice was long dead (haha), when Khepu died, Ahmose insisted that he have his favorite servant be entombed with him. Nakia was killed and mummified and placed in the king's tomb to keep him company in the Afterlife.

The Afterlife was better than Nakia could have imagined. She wore fine clothes, the weather was always perfect, and she and the king only napped and slept for pleasure. They passed their days in a gazebo set atop a waterfall. There's no way of knowing how many aeons went on like this, but for Nakia, it was a blink before the king disappeared.

The nature of the lush (see the Worldbuilding section) that makes up this world is that it responds to thoughts, so when Nakia wants to be where the king is, she ends up back in his tomb. When she realizes that, she thinks she's a mummy and that is the form that lush allows her to take. Nakia missed The King by just a few moments. It's Nakia's own horror at her situation and body that prevents her from finding him immediately.

She finds some robes to swaddle herself in, and follows the footprints she finds leading out of the crypt. There, she loses track of the king, and spends the next several hundred years looking for him. She eventually tracks him to the island of Atlantis around 1000 BC. He's left by the time she gets there, but Nakia makes a friend, the daughter of a geologist. When the volcano Atlantis is built on is threatening to explode, the friend betrays Nakia's secret that she's a mummy and she's sacrificed to the volcano. The volcano erupts anyway, if you can believe it.

Nakia hurt and angry. She sulks in the silty ocean water for a few hundred years, processing not only this betrayal but the years of humiliation and abuse that Ahmose had heaped upon her. She also reflects on her tracking of the king and comes to the realization that he's been evading her. This hurts even more, and adds another thousand years onto her big sulk.

When she emerges, she's fully opalized bone. It's (barely) within the realm of reality for an entire human body to be opalized in 1500 years in the right conditions. 

Anyway, The Mummy emerges from the ruins of Atlantis, ready to find The King and drag him back to The Afterlife. She's tried being a person twice now, and has failed both times. She wants the comfort and beauty of her little gazebo and waterfall and her board games. She could actually return to the Afterlife at any time, but because she thinks that she needs the king in order to return, the lush doesn't take her.

Unfortunately, the king continues to evade her. The next part of her story that I know doesn't happen until around the 1700s. She makes the mistake of making friends again, and is betrayed again. After a witch trial that Nakia fails, she's burned at the stake.  She goes back to trying to find The King, triply done with trying to be a person.

The main part of her story takes place in modern-day Beverlee Hills (an alternate universe very similar to ours). She's had plenty of time to grow with new technologies, so there's not much she doesn't know. She has several aliases with paper and electronic trails, and she has an assistant named Kim (now that the king's nickname is Khepu, I may change that, I'm not sure). Kim's main job is to help Nakia with her investigations and to keep track of all of Nakia's aliases. They all live in different countries and travel often so that them suddenly travelling somewhere doesn't raise any red flags with the government, in case Nakia  needs to become them.

The inciting incident happens when a fictional couple, John and Jane Sinclair, who are two of Nakia's aliases die in a plane crash. A lot of Nakia's financial and other resources belong to the Sinclairs, so she has to decide whether to let those resources go, or pose as their equally fictional daughter, Sunny. The kicker is that the Sinclairs have a solid connection to one of the king's favorite aliases.

Nakia moves into the Sinclair's mansion and enrolls in Beverlee Hills High school. (This is her waking nightmare. She doesn't need to sleep but you can't stop a girl from daydreaming.) Anyway, Here, haunted by the ghosts of teenage girls that have made her entire existence torture, Nakia is more determined than ever to track down the king. 

She does! And he tells her not only that he's been avoiding her on purpose, but that she doesn't need to look like a skeleton. He tells her about lush and about how he chooses his own form. He has no intention of returning to the Afterlife any time soon, and he shoos her (gently) out to go build a life for herself.

The Mummy is crushed by The King's attitude. She'd hoped that he had been avoiding her in order to protect her for some reason. It doesn't help that him having this conversation with her a couple of thousand years earlier could have saved her a lot of heartache. She finally sees the resemblance between him and his daughter.

Her saving grace at this point is that she has finally made some true friends; the teenage girls at Beverlee Hills High. She also has a -- maybe -- boyfriend. She allows her body to grow flesh and hair and to even remove her bandages so that her friends get to see her. My favorite part is that they all just start talking to her normally before realizing that her bandages are gone. She's been emotionally stunted at the age she died for thousands of years and she finally allows herself to relax and grow.

The Rift (see the Worldbuilding section) probably a few years after this, and I don't have anything on this character until we get to Mended times, when she is a ship captain (maybe of illegal things) who helps Jane figure out that the prophecy is bunk created by The King for his own amusement. She declines the offer to join the group and see him. It's been literally thousands of years but she's not ready. She likes her life, and she's letting her body age naturally. She figures that when she's too unsteady on her sea legs, she'll sacrifice herself to the sea and go see the collection of connections she's amassed in the Afterlife (see the Worldbuilding section).