Juul-wryl'ithe II

One of my favorite characters yet: Juul-wryl’ithe (jooh’l-w’rill-ith).

I adore him SO much! Juul is from an rp I have with my friend KC (Slarenkou) and he was a total bs character made up on the spot without any real purpose other than to proceed with the plot. He somehow mutated into a incredibly significant character with deep meaning and ties to her main character, Liege Lord. Their relationship is unique and I love them both soooo much. It’s sad since we’ve been lagging on the rps for a while, but you will see a lot of Juul in my art. He embodies a lot of what I enjoy as an artist and is a special character to me.

In this picture you see not the Juul I use in my RPs with KC but rather Juul-II, the post-war result of Liege’s actions. He’s slightly different from Juul but still the same in many ways. Mostly he looks slightly different and he’s more opinionated/less soft-spoken than before his transformation.

Here’s some info on my buddy!

Name: Juul-wryl’ithe II
Age: ???
Height: 6’5”
Weight: 154 lbs
Species: Sacred
Breed: Lant
Status: Kindle
Element(s): Shadows
WOC: Rune-Base Magic
Hair/Mane: Silvery Black
Eyes: Silver
Skin: Olive
Wings/Tail: Silvery Black / Cyan ends
Antlers: Silver
Description:
Juul II, as he has been called by The Patron, was only born after much torment and effort, on his part and on the part of the Lord youth named Liege. The first of his kind, Juul II stands for the perfection and wholeness that Patron sought when first designing the Lant.

His journey to becoming “repaired” began with him being unique to begin with. Of all the Lant that have been created and are regularly recycled, only a handful have what Juul has: an ability to question and even break the Rules set in place for their breed to keep without distorting their spiritual being. This unique trait allows Juul, and those few others like him, to retain their sanity even as they break rules and question their orders. So when Juul was cast aside by his brothers and deemed a Turned Lant, he lacked the insanity other Turned Lant have. Juul was able to continue to function as a Lant without becoming unstable.

The next step was his crossing with Liege Lord. This could have been by chance, or perhaps it was by fate; either way, this was a vital step in his growth. Liege was able to further test the lines Juul had in place, gradually breaking down the strict case he’d been forced to exist within by his breed’s standards and expectations. Even as he retained the innate awkwardness of a Lant, Juul became friendlier and more tolerant.

This relationship was what led to the next step in Juul’s rebirth: his destruction.

In order to expel the chaos of his Turned side, Juul had to die, and he could not be simply destroyed. There had to be specific things in place for this process to continue.
First off, he would have to ‘Shatter’. Shattering occurs when a Lant’s spirit is exposed to vast amounts of spiritual distress caused by chaos in their environment that their own energy cannot Balance. Liege’s war provided enough spiritual pressure on his friend to destroy him in this fashion. Had Juul-wryl’ithe returned to his home world, he would not have Shattered, but he made a conscious decision to stay, well-understanding what would happen. He wanted to die in their world, with his friend, and ultimately did just that.
Second, a Lant’s parts, known as Shards, must be isolated from other Shards to prevent them from being recycled and birthing a new Lant. When a Lant Shatters (or dies naturally), the individual pieces that make up their design are forced to separate and expel from one another. A Lant is made up of a Lanix (a special form of phoenix), which provides them their element and key emotions; a willow tree, which provides a connection to nature and makes up half of the body; a dragon (usually a Lung), which gives a Lant its strength; and a Lamp, which holds a Lant’s memories and intellect. To keep this recycling from occurring, a Lant’s Shards cannot be near other Shards, which will find other Shards and fuse together. Once a new Lant is created, you cannot take the Shards and put them back together for they shall be essentially different from before. So for Juul to be reborn as Juul II, his Shards had to be kept pristine and apart from other Shards. This was only able to occur because a Lant girl named Wendy gave Liege a special item to give to Juul.

This item was created specifically for Juul by The Patron several hundred years in the future to keep Juul’s parts from returning to their world after he died by marking the Shards with a rune to prevent just that. Wendy had Juul’s Lamp and thus had his memories, so when Liege went to find the Lamp and found it was tainted and could not be used, Juul was never reborn.

Wendy died to bring Liege the item, and her Lamp was the only thing that remained of her. But Liege gave the item to Juul to consume, not telling him the purpose, and was now informed of his friend’s future demise. Though Liege would try hard to avoid this fate, Juul would still be destroyed by his war, and his feelings of guilt and responsibility to his friend is what leads to the final stage of Juul’s recreation: his parts being brought back together and re-bonded.
Liege returned to his mansion post-war, hoping Juul would be waiting for him, but instead found nothing but a large willow growing from the floor and a Lanix resting in its branches. Once realizing his friend had been destroyed, Liege recalled what he’d been told and began his journey to recollect his friend’s Shards. He took one of the whips from the tree and the Lanix followed him (naturally inclined to do so by the emotional connection Juul and Liege shared) to begin searching for the other Shards.

It took years to locate the untainted Lamp and the dragon (and he had to convince the dragon to come at all), but he finally finished. Disappointment awaited him when Liege discovered that the parts did not come together as they should once gathered.

Something was still missing.

It was then that The Patron came to him again and explained to Liege that she had discovered two new elements of Juul’s creation that she had never seen before in the Shattering of a Lant. Juul had expelled two human souls, one representing his Turned half, the other representing his innocent half. Both would likely look very different from the Juul Liege knew, and both were in the Patron’s world as they had not been foreseen and had not been affected by the item Liege had been given.

This meant that the Lord would have to travel to the Lant’s home realm to locate these other Shards. And most importantly, keep the Turned human away from them. If he were to fuse with the other Shards, a true Turned Juul-wryl’ithe would be created as a result. Liege would need to find the other side and convince him, or her, to re-bond with the other parts to recreate Juul: a daunting task.
Not only did Liege not know where to begin looking in a world larger than his own, but the human he searched for would neither remember him nor feel for him as Juul had. Searching for this person could take years, and he only had a human’s lifespan to do it. And even worse, if human-Juul were killed, Liege’s journey would be in vain.
Joining Liege in his search was Jireh, the First Generation female Keidral that he’d befriended several years prior. Jireh had been taken to a secret location; apparently that had been one of Patron’s temples. Here, he and Jireh met back up again and she offered her assistance for his journey.

After gathering basic supplies, they both left to search for Juul with only a photograph of the human to go by. This photograph had been given to Liege by another futuristic person, a dragon named Dominyk, whom traded time with his father (whom was dead in the future) for a photograph of Juul’s human counterpart. The photograph would later be destroyed, and Liege would have nothing to go by but memory.

The Turned representation found Liege before Liege found the other half and attempted to fuse with the other Shards. Liege was able to stop him. At this point it became even more important at this point to locate the other Juul.
Liege and Jireh would eventually find the youth they searched for, who turned out to be a stable boy living in a small village along the coast. He was small and fragile, very different from his friend, but Liege knew it was Juul immediately and his attempts to convince the youth to come with them began. But this human did not recognize Liege and repeatedly ignored him, asking the Lord to leave him alone, but Liege was determined. He couldn’t give up after coming this far. The boy would come with him eventually, like it or not.

Before he could plot a kidnapping, Jireh explained that the youth had to make a conscious decision to come back together with his other parts. He could not be forced, or the transformation would be mutated. They would have to use other methods.

Even as he began to realize what Liege was saying was the truth, the human did not want to give up his individuality. He had no memory of Liege or Juul, only his innocence and the humanity of Juul’s heart. It was ultimately the preceding Lant’s sense of duty that convinced the boy to return to his old self. The Turned human made for an attempt at killing his other side. Jireh was able to subdue him to finish the sequence of events, allowing the Shards to come together once again.
It was only then that Juul-wryl’ithe was reborn. Not quite returned to the way he’d been before; different but still the same. Juul no longer had the pain the Turned portion of his soul experienced in the past. No more would he feel anguish or emotional torment from making personal decisions against the Rules. He was now blessed with a greater understanding of the world around him—a human, emotionally-driven understanding.

He was shorter but more filled-out and more human in shape. The lankiness of his old body was gone, melted in to the features of this softer skin and flesh. In place of his Lamp beat a heart, with warm blood flowing through veins and feeding his muscles and bones.

The most notable change was the physical one, but he had gained many new abilities and was far more powerful than before. Juul II was capable of supporting the Balance of an entire world on his own, a feat never before seen. In many ways he had surpassed the limitations of a mere Sacred: Juul had become god-like with this newfound humanity and freedom.

He was the first of his kind, the very first Kindle Lant, and was the answer to the problem Patron had been dealing with. In order to fix the Turned glitch in her Sacreds, they would all have to go through a similar process to reach perfection. This was a process she could not control, but she could accept the fact that this was a healthy glitch the Lant had formed in response to the rules they were made to follow. It was a self-fixing mechanism, and depended not only on their environment, situation, and personal choices, but the actions of others. It most of all depended on love and friendship to reach completion.

Patron could only sit back and observe her children interact with others. But one thing she was aware of: her Lant were strangely affected by the Lord family. In some way, a Lord affected a Lant’s spirit, mutating them into possible Kindles. This was a special and unique relationship, and proved to be a bond that neither time nor death could smother.

Juul II would remain with Liege until both of their destruction, and other Kindle Lant were sure to follow with their partners.