Satrai

Satrai is an Old One hybrid and a member of The Royal House of Thracia. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California.
==Bio==
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==Trivia (interactive)==
01. Satrai refuses to be in love with Moesi, for several reasons. It would displease his lord father, and he's desperate for his lord father's approval. It would weaken him as a kenthas, and kenthas is the whole of his identity. It would make him more like the lessers, and he aspires to become more like a god.
 
That he's certain he'd lose Moesi if he loved her is just one reason of many. It's not the most important one. It's not. It's not.
 
Thrace's reaction: Thrace knows full well that Satrai being afraid of losing Moesi is the most important reason. He approves of this because it gives him even more control over Satrai, but he's also disappointed. He thinks that being more like a god should be the most important motivation for everything.
 
Denna's reaction: Denna argues with this reasoning every chance she gets. Not because she thinks he should love his sister, but because she's certain that he does. She's gotten to like Moesi enough that she thinks the girl deserves to hear it, even if she doesn't find the absence of acknowledged love in their relationship to be a drawback.
 
02. He thinks that what he feels for Thrace is very much like love. He doesn't let it become love, even though Thrace would approve if he did. Love would make him less worthy to be a kenthas, would make him more like the lessers.
 
It's not because Thrace doesn't love him. And it's not because he doesn't want to love at all if he can't love Moesi. It's. Not.
 
Dardani's reaction: She can't understand this part of her brother's mentality. She gets that being more lesser-like is bad, but will never see anything wrong with loving her father. Though she did take one lesson from this--she doesn't go around saying "I love you, Father" all the time. She told him once she knew that she did, but has never said it again.
 
03. He is aware that he is prone to denial. Ironically, copulating with Moesi is the most effective way to counter that denial. Satrai may be capable of keeping secrets from himself, but he is incapable of keeping secrets from her.
 
Moesi's reaction: Moesi utterly loves this. She likes feeling like Satrai needs her.
 
04. His insignia is a starfish wrapped around a crescent moon. All kenthas have an aquatic animal as part of their insignia; his was the first to not be a predator. He did this deliberately, because he believes that the lessers will respond better to a symbol that doesn't imply violence.
 
Dardani's reaction: Her first draft of her insignia also had a starfish, but she opted instead for an octopus ultimately because she wanted it to be more easily distinguished from his. She liked the reasoning behind his choice, however, and his insignia is one of the only three besides her own that she has on a charm bracelet her illusion always wears.
 
05. He divides each day into four parts: Sleep, empire, training and recreation. He spends five hours sleeping, eight hours working to strengthen the empires he serves, six hours in various forms of training, and five hours doing whatever he feels like.
 
Denna's reaction: She's noticed that he seems to follow a fairly strict schedule, but has never commented on it. She's been dying to ask him to train with her, as she works on her physical conditioning and combat skills for a portion of the day nearly as long as his, but is afraid to ask him. She fears being emotionally hurt if he says no, and being physically hurt if he says yes.
 
06. He holds himself to a higher standard than anyone else, including Thrace. He doesn't have any specific reason for this, it just doesn't occur to him that other people should push themselves as hard as he does. It also doesn't occur to him that he doesn't need to push himself harder than everyone else.
 
Iesta's reaction: This is Iesta's favorite thing about Satrai.
 
Dardani's reaction: This is the trait of Satrai's she tries the hardest to emulate, with the exception of how masterfully he handles lessers. The trait annoys her a bit, too, though, as it makes him considerably better at everything than she is. He does, after all, have almost twenty-five years' head start.
 
07. He has a chest in his room in HQ which is locked and shielded with several spells. He keeps several things in it, including the following: Jars filled with water from every ocean, lake and river he's been in. Several weapons. A journal titled "The Chronicles Of Satrai, Volume One." A plush toy orca named Plato. The most powerful of his magical supplies.
 
Peter's reaction: The fact that Satrai still has Plato makes him ridiculously happy.
 
08. While he intends to become immortal, he believes that he will die. Possibly several times. He believes that as long as he is worthy, Thrace will resurrect him. He hopes that he will die like an Old One, not a lesser, and be dormant rather than transported into an afterlife. He doesn't care whether that afterlife would be Heaven or Hell.
 
Thrace's reaction: Thrace thinks this is the ideal attitude towards death for a kenthas.
 
Illyria's reaction: Illyria loves this about him, though it makes her smirk a little. His viewpoint on the possibility of afterlife is identical to her own, and she is both pleased and amused every time his thoughts are in perfect concordance with hers.
 
09. While he is unusually trusting for his species and family, part of him always expects people to turn against him. He believes that anyone who values morality might turn against him because he lacks morality, and that anyone who values emotions might turn against him because he controls and denies his emotions.
 
That people who value neither morality nor emotion might turn against him seems obvious.
 
Iesta's reaction: Iesta approves of this. Complete trust is for fools.
 
Illyria's reaction: Illyria is troubled by this. She tries not to take it for granted that she's trustworthy (intellectually, she knows she isn't), but when it comes to any of the kenthas, especially Satrai, she's slightly hurt by the idea that they believe she would ever betray them.
 
10. He often wonders how he will react to Illyria's eventual death. He knows that surviving the deaths of those he cares for will be part of immortality, and he has accepted that ever since he was a child. However, he has difficulty imagining a world without the God-King, and he's certain that his grief for her (assuming he's still capable of grief, then) will change the way he thinks of mortals.
 
Illyria's reaction: When he told her this, she was deeply touched. This viewpoint is yet another reason he is her favorite--as far as she knows, of her nieces and nephews, he's the most attached to her. She wanted very much to hold him when he told her, but settled for cradling his face in both hands and murmuring endearments in their language. This was also the first time she ever corrected her pronunciation of her personal name for him, "Shining one," so that it sounded more like a title than a nickname.
 
11. He is always thinking about how to manipulate people and events to benefit Thracia. Always.
 
12. Of all the kenthas, he is the most comfortable with being touched. This is partially because he is unusually trusting, but also because he is exceptionally curious about people; he enjoys the information he gains through contact, even when it is irrelevant.
 
Triballi's reaction: Triballi envies this. He shares Satrai's curiosity, but lacks the self-assurance required for that kind of trust.
 
Denna's reaction: Though she doesn't know the whole story, this is still one of her favorite things about him.
 
Illyria's reaction: Illyria appreciates this every time they touch.
 
13. Part of his responsibilities as kenthas is knowing when to back down from a challenge, when to retreat so he can regroup, and when to simply cut his losses. He's willing to do this, but absolutely hates it.
 
Illyria's reaction: Illyria both sympathizes with and envies this part of him. She understands very much how aggravating and, in her case, at least, shameful it can be to have to give up on something, and feels sorry for him every time he has to do it. She envies it because he's able; she remains to this day the type of overlord likely to get asked, "My lord, why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?"
 
14. He has met his birth mother, Datrala, a few times. They mostly talked about what her species is like, which Satrai considered to be valuable information. Satrai had hoped that he could at least respect her, but he ended up being indifferent to her.
 
Denna's reaction: Denna is moderately disturbed by this attitude. Had her father lived to have other women, she would have considered them just as much her mothers as the woman that gave birth to her, and automatically worthy of her respect, even without ever meeting them. The idea of anyone having a parent they're totally indifferent to makes her viscerally uncomfortable. She's not sure how, but she is sure that Thrace is to blame for this attitude. If she knew about Julian's existence and his own indifference to his birth mother, she'd blame Illyria, too.
 
15. He's enough like a lesser that he dreams, but he almost never has his own, natural dreams. Imortaes is usually in his mind when he sleeps, connecting him to Moesi. Normal dreams make him feel lonely.
 
Imortaes' reaction: Imortaes has made it her personal mission to make sure that Satrai never has to have normal dreams, and she feels guilty every time he does.
 
Arian's reaction: When all of the squidlets were born, Arian did her best to manage their dreams. After Imortaes was given to Satrai and Moesi, the first thing she ever taught her after being allowed to start tutoring the girl was how to maintain a constant presence in both of their heads while they slept. Once she was confident in her sister's skill, she never interfered in Satrai or Moesi's dreams again. She still misses it.
 
16. While he does genuinely like seafood more than any other kind of food, he only buys it for show. He hates the impact that human fishing has on the oceans, and would much rather hunt for his food himself. However, sharing meals is an important part of lesser society, and eating seafood is an effective way of reminding the lessers that he is an aquatic being. Therefore, he puts up with supporting an industry which is destroying his oceans.
 
17. He thinks of the oceans as his. Naturally, the entire world belongs to him and his family (even if the world doesn't happen to realize it yet), but the oceans in particular.
 
18. Satrai once killed an innocent (by any reasonable definition of the term) person in cold blood, simply because Thrace ordered him to. He found out about a month later that the whole thing had been an illusion caused by one of Thrace's Dreams; a test to see how Satrai would react.
 
19. He barely cares about his status among his siblings. He'll do whatever it takes to make Thracia stronger, even if it means losing favor with Thrace. This is part of why Thrace favors him so highly.
 
Triballi's reaction: Triballi thinks that only someone who is in little danger of losing status can think like this. He's certain that Satrai would see things differently if he were lowest-ranking.
 
Dardani's reaction: Dardani absolutely hates this, because she envies it like crazy, and will probably never be able to adapt her own feelings and behavior to emulate him this way.
 
20. When Satrai was a child, Thrace showed him a memory of Thrace in his original form, in the Primordial. Ever since then, Satrai has desperately wanted to be more like that being. He thinks of everything he is now as temporary, a necessary step in becoming a pure Old One, a true god.
 
Illyria's reaction: She was surprised that Thrace shared such an intimacy with one of his children, and is both pleased and disheartened by it. Most of her disheartened feeling comes from the fact that she loves Satrai as he is and is afraid of what he'll be like as he matures and changes, but a small part is jealousy. She would've loved to be the one who showed him that.
Category:Characters
Category:Old Ones
Category:Active Characters