Character Reference:
Pictured Above is Llivia Cerca 2E 582 by the talented @spinchmuth on discord
Backstory:
"Yi hilyed khosid po'tosh ae aln'muhr khis... Ae Nammu yi yaglad... difshid ae mer. Amuhr norid AlmSiVi Yi fredad."
"I wait to walk beyond the waiting door. As a no-name I will come to rest among my kin. Alive through faith I will protect."
Early Life: (2E 461-2E 493)
Almsti Dres Llivia Thiralas of Tear, daughter of Serjo Dres Avron Thiralas of Tear, and his wife, Sedura Dres Dinaesi Thiralas of Necrom, was born on the 21st of First Seed under the sign of the Lord in 2E 461 in a secluded villa on Azura's Coast in Vvardenfell at her family's vacation home.
Llivia resided there with her Alma Dinaesi for the first few months of life until Dinaesi had recovered enough to travel home to Tear. Pregnancy had not treated the mer well, to the point that Llivia's health, along with her own, was a miracle worthy of praising Ayem for her love and mercy.
Her childhood was far from uncommon for a mer of noble birth in House Dres. Tutoring for agriculture, politics, and buisness as well as in the deeds of ALMSIVI, something Llivia showed quite the fascination with even in her youth. Her favorite book was the Homilies of Blessed Almalexia, with her being able to recite many of the stories from heart. As she grew her tutoring also grew to various small forms of magicks, often showy types, and formal training with a spear and shortsword. Though Llivia's parents saw to it that their daughter was well educated and tended to from birth, neither would be by any stretch considered active parents in the Mer's developmental years, the two often being too absorbed in work or travels across Resdayn to give Llivia much attention... resulting in her forming tighter bonds with her cousins, which shared her familial homestead, and her paternal uncle Rindral Berendil. Under Rindral's more active tutelage a teenage Llivia became far more invested in her studies, and martial training, as well as helping him rear her much younger cousins, Rythe, Thauraver, Irvsie, and Tanisie, who Llivia viewed as her siblings rather than her cousins... with the five of them getting into plenty of trouble... Until Llivia's Ata and Alma abruptly returned from a trip to Ebonheart for business with another Mer in tow...
This mer would happen to be Llivia's soon to be first husband Dres Tiras Drilvi. A fellow plantation owner who had just begun expanding into the Kwama business. Avron, Llivia's father, had offered up his only daughter to Tiras in exchange for a partnership... a political wedding that would be the first of many for Llivia... Something she never quite forgave her Ata, but much more her Alma, for. Tiras was around the age of 140 while Llivia was just shy of 20 when they joined circles on the 12th of Second Seed 2E 480.
Llivia detested everything about their marriage, finding her now husband little more than a revolting, paper pushing, affluent snob with the personality of a dim Alit and the manners of a wild Vardvark. The two moved into the inner city of Tear, living in the opulent yet cramped upper cantons near the council hall. Unhappy in her new life Llivia ended up spending most of her time holed up in the local abbey in Tear, The Abbey of Saint Llothis, reading in the library about the Dwemeri and their magical machinations, along with the beauty in Seht's goals... But, when she wasn't in the Abbey, or gardening, Llivia would find herself being harassed by her husband for her lack of spunk and unwillingness to bed him so that his lineage may live on. Eventually, after over a decade, and her surrender to her station, her lot in life, she did. They were expecting her first child, a son, in the early months of 2E 492. Llivia, barely having turned thirty one years old. Around this time she had somewhat grown attached to the mer, but he became ill and senile, and with his illness came paranoia. Tiras accused her of plaguing him shortly before she learned her Ata had taken advantage of Tiras' condition to swindle him out of most of his assets...
Regardless of her House's actions Llivia remained loyal to her husband, staying beside him until his death at the age of 153. At this point Llivia found herself surprisingly alone in the world, especially for a mer always in the company of N'wah. With her cousins all too young to be of much real help, her uncle in Vvardenfel, and her parents too focused on chasing coin Llivia was nursing a one year old baby alone. Guilt struck and afraid of her own ability to raise a child, she chose to leave the child to her deceased husband’s family, his younger brother and wife, whom gladly accepted the child and raised him as their own...
ALMSIVI's Call: (2E 493-2E 578)
Feeling more alone than she ever had before in life, Llivia roves out in search of purpose, and finds herself crying on the steps of the Abbey of Saint Llothis one rainy afternoon in Sun's Dusk of 2E 493. She's approached by one of the Abbey's Priestess', a kind mer who had offered Llivia council in years past. The mer suggests Llivia should kneel before the Teacher's chair, and heed ALMSIVI's call...
Unsure of what exactly ALMSIVI's call was, Llivia spends the next weeks traveling to Necrom to pray to her ancestors for their guidance... And that guidance, while cryptic, tells her to return home, so that she does. Llivia returns to her familial homestead at the turn of 2E 494, road worn and ragged, to find her Ata and Alma had fallen ill to the same plague that had taken Tiras little more than a year before. Unfit purely by experience Llivia throws herself into the foray headfirst, feeling an odd obligation to don her parent's mantle and assume their duties. While her Ata had led with an iron fist, Llivia's cunning and flexibility quickly earned her favor with her Ata's partners... and by the age of 34, in 2E 495, Llivia had managed to narrowly keep her family's assets in order, and even slightly increased yields... an achievement that was sadly overshadowed by her still ill Ata calling her to his study one morning, and just as had happened with Tiras before... A mer stood at her bedridden parent's bed, a shrewd faced Hlaalu by the name of Tharlos Ulven.
Pictured Above is Llivia Cerca 2E 495-496 by the talented @Nenyve on discord
Llivia joined circles with Serjo Hlaalu Tharlos Ulven of Ebonheart on the 5th day of Frost Fall 2E 495. They stayed married for three years, the first year was fairly calm... The second, Tharlos wished to change how the family was handling its assets, and Llivia began to notice small inconsistencies in the ledgers, along with in harvest yields... When she asked Tharlos about this the mer became so enraged, he laid his hands on Llivia. He threatened that if she ever accused him of anything again she'd experience a fate far worse than death... And this was the beginning of the end for the two of them. Tharlos hired guards to "protect" the Thiralas estate, locking Llivia away in their room supervised by the guards... until Llivia's parents passed in the night of the 17th of Sun's Dawn 2E 498... While preparing for the funerary rites at the Abbey, Llivia confides in one of the Priests her fear that Tharlos is stealing from her family... and that he had laid hands on her. Six days of mourning pass, and Llivia returns to her family's estate to find the gates closed and guarded... gardens turned asunder, banners cut down. Tharlos had played his hand.
Llivia doesn't look back as she runs to the Abbey. Her world was gone, and she had engraved upon her eye the image of injustice. On the 23rd of Sun's Dawn, 2E 498, Llivia is taken in by the Abbey of Saint Llothis and begins on her way to become a priestess of ALMSIVI. Having nothing, no one, to turn to, Llivia devotes herself to her studies, to ALMSIVI... and while not much is known about her activities while serving the Abbey of Saint Llothis for the next eighty years, this much is certain... Llivia is a devout follower of the Three...
Khaos in Kragenmoor: (2E 578-2E 582)
In early 2E 578 Llivia is drawn to Kragenmoor while on sabbatical from the Abbey of Saint Llothis by her cousin Rythe Berendil... Tharlos had died, and House Berendil had managed to regain what little of House Thiralas Tharlos hadn't gambled away... A plantation, Sathram Plantation, just northwest of the city... And a long since forgotten Ebon mine... A new beginning. Together, Rythe and Llivia begin to work to restore their houses to their former glory...
Early in her time in Kragenmoor Llivia decides it might best serve her and others if she returns to her service of ALMSIVI, but with her home Abbey so far away she offers her services to the local Abbey from Ebonheart, the Abbey of Saint Delyn. They Abbey's Magistrix sends a priest to 'oversee' Rythe and Llivia and ensure their aspirations do not interfere with a local tyrant, the Ash Kahn, Dres Arthryn Sarthos while Llivia does what she can to serve the Abbey, to heal, to teach. In the process of this Llivia, and the priest sent by the Abbey of Saint Delyn, a Mer by the name of Redoran Darvasso Urovayn, fall for one another.
One month turns to three, and with it... a surprise, unplanned, but not unwelcome... On the 9th of Sun's Dawn, 2E 578, at the age of 117, Llivia discovered she was with child. and with this news she and Darvasso quickly joined circles. This was the first time in Llivia's life she was given the ability to choose, a freedom as intoxicating as it was liberating. Though the scales of pitiless justice did not let her joy go unchecked. While pregnant the looming threat of this "Ash Khan" and a possible war grew... So, for the safety of herself, her husband, and unborn child, she left with Darvasso to his familial home in Gnisis to carry out her pregnancy.
It was storming when her second son was born, it was not an easy birth... But just as light cracked over the horizon on the 29th of Last Seed 2E 578 Llivia gave birth to a premature boy, who she named Dres Darion Thiralas.
Pictured Above is a piece of Darvasso and Llivia done by the amazing Maki!
The first few days after Darion was born Llivia began to notice Darvasso growing distant, until the mer up and disappeared on the 5th of Hearthfire, 2E 578. Llivia, nor her infant son, would never see him again. Entirely unsure as to why he would leave, the grief struck and confused Llivia would return back to Kragenmoor after searching high and low for Darvasso until the turn of the year.
On the 2nd of Morning Star, 2E 579 Llivia returned to Kragenmoor with her son, Darion, to find all she and Rythe had built destroyed... and Rythe dead, beheaded by Arthryn Sarthos, the Ash Khan of Kragenmoor. Once again Llivia engraves upon her eye the image of injustice... and over the next six months amasses all the assets she can, and contracts that which one would consider equivalent to a small militia with the sole goal of rending this "Ash Khan" to ash... A goal that would falter in those six months as the Ash Khan simply relinquishes his hold on Krag and... disappears into the wind shortly after Llivia reclaims the desecrated remains of the mer she saw as one of her siblings, Rythe.
Finding no closure in this chapter of her life, she returns to her clergy duties, taking residence in the Abbey in Kragenmoor while raising her son alone in a small house she had purchased in the lower district of Krag. While returning home after preaching, some few blocks away, she is assaulted by a highwayman, a mer swooping in to her rescue. This mer, Serjo Dres Dreik Reyaleth, through a series of precisely calculated lies gains Llivia's trust... and even with Llivia's reluctance, becomes her next suitor. The two join circles in Last Seed, 2E 580, and lead Sathram Plantation together. After years of betrayal and distrust Llivia forces herself to trust, almost blindly, Dreik... a trait the mer uses to his advantage, as he embezzles coin from their operations to try and bail out his indebted Ata, in an attempt to keep the Tong from taking him.
While leading Sathram Llivia and Dreik contract a bounty hunter by the name of Dres Saran Kharlu. Saran quickly became Llivia's confidant and closest friend on the plantation, and inevitably, Saran was the one who allowed Llivia to see Dreik was pulling the ash cloth over her eyes. With Dreik's deceit exposed the mer chooses to run... Leaving Llivia alone once again to pick up the pieces. She sells Sathram Plantation, and most of her N'wah, before Saran approaches her about coming to the employ of her house, House Kharlu, as an Almsti... Having no living kin whom she could turn to now, with House Berendil blaming her for Rythe's death at Arthryn's hands, Llivia reluctantly agrees to Saran's offer, entering the service of House Kharlu as a priestess. While its not exactly clear what all Llivia has done in service of House Kharlu, it is certain she lost her left arm and her right eye... Not to mention she has been seen on more than one occasion with some foreign brass fixture fused to where her now malformed and disfigured left shoulder is...
As of 2E 582 Llivia has returned to service at the Abbey of Saint Llothis in Tear, and the Kharlu hold of Ald'Tos. She can often be found sermonizing, healing the injured, feeding the hungry, and caring for all of ALMSIVI's children in any way she can... For the Thrice-Sealed house withstands the storm.
Blessed are we who serve ALMSIVI
Almsti Dres Llivia Thiralas