Tera

The tera is a variety of Kitellian flower noted for its delicate beauty which grows from an umbrella-like tree having leaves much like those of the Earth tree called aspen; these leaves possess scalloped edges very much like the Yuniri shrubs from Fruglam.

The blossoms themselves are superficially similar to Earth’s rose in terms of how the bloom is arranged and the general shape and size of the petals.  The colour varies but is typically in hues of red, blue, or purple – and very, very rarely pink or fuchsia.  Regardless of the colour it is always distributed the same: a very pale, pastel shade near the centre which gradually and gracefully becomes richer, deeper and darker toward the outer petals; by the outermost it is usually a shade that is almost, but not quite, black.

The flower’s scent is reminiscent of the peach blossom of Earth or possibly the Narshri buds of Plokia.  Either way there is a subtle tone to the scent that hardly any two people asked will agree how to describe, though it is almost unanimously agreed to be a faint, vaguely spicy scent and one that is very pleasing.

This undertone aroma is the product of a type chemical compound that, so far, seems to be unique to the flora of Kitola called a tymphaor.  It has been described by many biochemists as being the bastard offspring of a benzene and a pheromone.  These compounds tend to be detected by the olfactory senses as a faint spice or musk while simultaneously registering in the hind-brain as pleasure, happiness, and/or arousal.  Many races’ brains will automatically register the smell as whatever scent the individual is already familiar with that it would find most pleasant or arousing (tera are widely sought as aphrodisiacs by some races for obvious reasons, and tymaphor containing perfumes and colognes are one of the Kitellians’ chief exports).

The tree grows primarily in rocky soils at high elevations along the banks of creeks.  It has a very specific salinity requirement — more than 2% too much or too little salt in the environment will kill the roots — limiting the tera’s viable habitat further to mountainsides near salt deposits, but not too near.  The plant is, as can be imagined, somewhat uncommon, if not exactly rare, in the wild, but a careful gardener who is willing to keep very close watch on soil compositions can grow them anywhere with a suitably cool environment.  It should be noted, though, that at lower elevations the tree is not fond of the increased air pressure and will generally not grow as tall at its mountain brethren.

Still, this ready acceptance of being cultivated has led the tera to often be a popular choice for Kitellian perfumes and incense.  The purple blossom’s flowers were traditionally used to make various dyes and pigments before synthetic means were found (the natural dye of the purple tera, while a truly remarkable colour has very poor colour fastness), and the red is often still used today to make candies as the resultant colour is a very festive and happy shade of scarlet and traces of the tymphaor compound remain to give a very subtle layer to the taste.

The leaves have seen an on/off vogue as garlands worn as a crown on the heads of, most often, adolescents, though this is not currently a popular style it can be found among some in a few of the smaller villages in the southern hemisphere and in any rural community where the wild trees are abundant.  The wood of the tera tree is used decoratively, only.  It has a density and texture that makes it a poor choice for practical purposes, but it is easily carved and sculpted as well as having a very rich golden shade that lasts for many, many years with little effort due to the wood’s natural oils.  Many fine Kitellian tabletops, and desktops have terawood inlays, figures and statues of the material abound, and beads of the wood is common in jewellery commonly worn by young boys.

Taredĵo Tera Evans

Bithdate: 4 Gadmeso 260
Birthplace: Outside of Lurenci, Delthakk Province, Sweytz, Sweytzian Alliance, Milky Way
Current Residence: Outside of Lus Ville, Delthakk Province, Sweytz, Sweytizan Alliance, Milky Way
Biography: Tera is the fourth child of Maia and Lana Evans and currently Delthakk Province’s Taredĵo.

Her mothers were not exceptionally well off people by Sweytzian standards, but they did make a comfortable enough living that their daughters were able to be born (the discoveries that would allow ova-merge techniques to be both more effective and significantly cheaper did not exist until Tera was 25 years old) and the family never wanted for necessities and small luxuries.

Her mother Maia had an interest in martial arts and was wont to watching tournaments and competitions when possible, and a very young Tera quickly took an interest in them as well. Before long she was a student of NenEG and winning many local competitions and tournaments.

When she was a young teen she married the woman with whom she’d been best friends since, literally, the cradle – the pair’s parents were very good friends and the two children were only a few days apart in age – Renata Kavaliro, a rising star in Ruvellian Fencing circles.

Tera, always seeking challenges, travelled the galaxies attending prestigious tournaments and even underworld competitions where the only rules were to win (well, she normally drew the line at one step better where it was frowned upon to actually kill the opponent on purpose, and never competed in any where the rules were that the fight was to death). This led to her first brush with the Terran Confederation.

At that time members of the T.C. were not a common sight on Sweytz, at least not in the sparsely populated northern Province of Delthakk, and even in New Junil, the thriving cultural and tourist metropolis saw so few of them that Terran Standard was on virtually none of the signs in the spaceport and when it was it was usually small. A friend had heard of a competition on one of the Centauri worlds and Tera agreed to go along as well. She was quickly and terribly irritated by the stifling piles of rules for the competition, but did well despite this and had spent the time leading to the fights carefully reading the rulebook that had been passed to a transreader (at the time the only language Tera knew was Galfarran and the rules were in English only).

There was a complaint from various of the other competitors who felt that someone so small couldn’t possibly have the speed and strength that Tera possessed. The tournament officials had already taken blood samples to test for performance enhancements, but due to the number of complaints checked again and ran more thorough tests which came back with indications that Tera’s DNA was artificially manipulated – one of the highest crimes in Confederate law as it violates several points in the very treaties that ended the third world war and founded the Confederation.

Tera was arrested and tried, being found guilty of fraud in entering a competition as a genetic construct, and of not declaring herself a genetic construct to customs entering a T.C. world. The judge was lenient as Tera’s defence asserted very strongly that, for her culture, she was not a construct by the standards of her society and that, conceding the point, her modifications were not performance enhancing. She was given a temporary ban from entering the T.C. and her passport was flagged to restrict both her activities and the duration of her stays when visiting the T.C., her file was also sent to the Bureau of Immigrations to be blacklisted – any application to become a Confederate citizen is to be automatically denied and she would have to seek dispensation of the ruling if her homeworld is ever annexed.

In 277 her wife joined Darrien’s Daggers and there met Viktor Blue, the Hero of Culs III from the recent fight with the Mugdarran Empire. Tera became instantly enraptured with his little girl, Virginia, and was fond of Viktor (who Renata was falling madly in both love and lust with very quickly) and, on 7 Feino 279, the trio was married.

Tera continued to compete so, while Renata and Tera did own a home in Delthakk, the family called home the house of Viktor’s parents because a) Renata and Tera’s home was scaled to women who are 18½ varĵé and just shy of 20, and Viktor is a korĵed and a half; b) Viktor and Renata would both be away often and for long periods for Darrien, and Tera would be gone for various frequencies and durations following the tournaments.

On 29 Makako 280 Renata had Lyndsey Katherine Kavaliro-Blue, the family’s first of many children together.

Near Spring Fest that year Tera met and began dating (and falling in love with) a vetaredi named Ruragak Tvilg’kirst Sullockalonesk, a quiet and thoughtful Kivanian man. They were married in Gadmeso 281

In 284 the family was grieving the assumed death of Viktor, who was fighting along with Renata and the rest of Darrien’s Daggers to end the Dichidian Expansion when she discovered a minor miracle had occurred: she was pregnant with Rur’s child.

It should be noted that, as a human race, Kivanians and Humans can interbreed and the successful offspring are normally fertile (fewer than 3 in 10000 such births are sterile) but due to the dramatic differences in Kivanian and Human circulatory and respiratory systems there is a very high rate of miscarriage within the early stages of the first trimester, though once past this hurdle no more children are born with significant issues than in normal Kivanian/Kivanian or Human/Human pairings. Put another way, she’d known the man for only 3 years and had already conceived a child with him, that survived to be noticed, a rather remarkable detail.

The child was born, a daughter, Rialanna Nahirim Sullockalonesk-Evans on 11 Vendredo 284 just a korva and a half after Viktor had returned to them from his captivity.

At that point Tera retired from her far flung tournament fighting and joined the Delthakk vetaredi.

The family would have more children; thirty children for her family in total not counting their various spice.

Georgia and Crystabel, Tera’s second pregnancy and first with twins was one that started out a bit troublesome. Tera had learnt with Rialanna that her morning sickness and other unpleasant early pregnancy symptoms were a bit worse than average; it was exponentially worse with twins. She made it through, and the girls were born.

In 296 Salandra Leah Sullokalonesk-Evans was born, making her second child by Rur. Later she would have yet another, Aldrick, showing a remarkable fertility with her markedly exotic husband.

On 21 Kvara 298 Tera would become Delthakk’s Taredĵo and has been serving in this capacity since.

303 saw the last children Tera would ever have with any Human man with the birth of yet another pair of twins, Yvonne and Daphne. She has become convinced that she can only have single births with Rur especially as Renata has had twins with both Lance and Viktor (as well as quadruplets). While Renata’s multiples have all been fraternal, and Tera while fully aware the difference she points out that hyperemesis is perfect justification for illogical paranoia.

Most recently she has conceived two more daughters, one by long time best friend and lover, Renata, and one to her. Arianna Hashrad Evans-Kavaliro and Arcielle Viona Kavaliro-Evans.

Complete list of children:

  • Virginia Lily Bishop-Cedaris ❦ 18 Vendredo 274†‡
  • Lyndsey Katherine Kavaliro-Blue ❦ 29 Makako 280
  • Seán Garbhán Julian Ó Neill ❦ 30 Gadmeso 280
  • Tomás Finnén Ó Neill ❦ 24 Okona 282
  • Ráichéal Ciara Muire Canadien-Ó Neill ❦ 16 Dekdua 284†‡
  • Rialanna Nahirim Sullockalonesk-Evans ❦ 11 Vendredo 284
  • Sarah Anvi Kavaliro-Blue ❦ 7 Ĵaudo 287
  • Sven Matthias Kavaliro-Blue ❦ 15 Kvina 288
  • Merideth Cynthia Feldhaus-Kavaliro ❦ 5 Kvina 289
  • Richard Samuel Kavaliro Reddige ❦ 5 Kvina 289
  • Georgia Ellen Blue-Evans ❦ 26 Gadmeso 290
  • Crystabel Darlene Evans-Blue ❦ 26 Gadmeso 290
  • Krisverin Elias Sullockalonesk-Kavaliro ❦ 10 Kvina 292
  • Catrina Lillian Kavaliro-Blue ❦ 4 Unua 294
  • Kayden Lonari Kavaliro-Blue ❦ 4 Unua 294
  • Drucilla Allison Kavaliro-Blue ❦ 4 Unua 294
  • Veronica Juliet Kavaliro-Blue ❦ 4 Unua 294
  • Salandra Leah Sullokalonesk-Evans ❦ 12 Ĵaudo 296
  • Courtney Evelyn Reddige ❦ 13 Feino 300
  • Aldrick Kavhain Sullockalonesk-Evans ❦ 22 Makako 301
  • James Dorian Reddige ❦ 13 Mirtelo 303
  • Yvonne Salena Evans-Blue ❦ 28 Vendredo 303
  • Daphne Sylvia Evans-Blue ❦ 28 Vendredo 303
  • Arthur Lawrence Kavaliro-Blue ❦ 8 Kvara 304
  • Elizabeth Danielle Kavaliro-Blue ❦ 8 Kvara 304
  • Amelia Marissa Reddige ❦ 20 Vendredo 305
  • Kylan Diaséim-Blue ❦ 1 Feino 305
  • Arianna Hashrad Evans-Kavaliro ❦ 9 Unua 309
  • Arcielle Viona Kavaliro-Evans ❦ 19 Ĵaudo 309
  • Rysia Diaséim-Blue ❦ 6 Dekdua 309

Child by a relationship that precedes meeting Tera.
Married name.