Ambaros

"*I loved the fire first. My euma placed me in it when I was born and it was like learning some great, unfathomable secret. We cook with it. We make our houses with it. We warm our children by it. We paint our stories, bathed by its light. Everything we have, we have because of fire.*"
―Adali[[The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas, Chapter 33: End of an Era]]
**Ambaros** are Seelie fire fae who reside in the desert and are sacred to the god, Kabiri. As of *The* *Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire*, Eran Iliakambar is the last ambaros alive.

## Physical Description

They tend to be very beautiful in appearance.

Ambaros wear black eyeliner of kohl on their eyelids when they come of age, 'to accentuate the flame of their irises'. It is normal for family members to apply it to other family members, and for lovers to apply it to each other. Eran used to practice drawing eyeliner on his brother, Vhadi, and his euma (mother).

Ambaros tend to have golden or amber eyes. Due to Eran being a hybrid between the afrit and ambaros, even in his true-form, it's not known what the ambaros true-form actually looks like, only that they had wings of flame, and those wings were big enough to fly with. Eran's are smaller, due to his being a hybrid. Eran acknowledges that he looks ambaros in human-form, which, given he doesn't have horns like his father, seemingly indicating that the horns are an afrit characteristic, and not an ambaros one.

## Abilities

Ambaros have a strong affinity to flame, being spiritually connected to it, sometimes to the point of loving fire more than they love their family members. They are entirely fireproof, and babies are allowed to crawl into communal bonfires when they're young, and sit inside of the fires. Eran noted that they're more likely to reach for fire in combat.

Ambaros can speak in the language of flame, and sing to it to imbue it with different powers and strengths. They can also use magical glyphs and symbol writing, drawn in charcoal, to bless clothing, homes, and people.

In true-form, ambaros take on a much more animal-like appearance, with wings of flame, and are able to fly. They can also *run* as needed.

## Characteristics (culture, habits)

Ambaros are Seelie fae who used to serve the dragons, but forgot this knowledge when the dragons were destroyed and turned into Old Lore by Olphix and Davix. Ambaros are always Seelie, and enjoy some prominence in Seelie Court matters despite living a significant distance away from the Court.

'Ambari never used to be big fighters. They had the dragons to do it for them. They gravitated towards beings with huge amounts of power, and became a container for it, a guide. Ambari never desired to be dragons, they desired to guide them, protect them, help them. It was no coincidence that so many were drawn to the afrit then, when the dragons were gone.'

Ambaros homes are built with sand bricks made in a unique manner, specific to the ambaros. Almost all of the known ambaros in *Fae Tales* lived in a mixed-alignment Seelie and Unseelie community with marid-djinn afrit by the volcano of Oroboros, on the south side of the Aram-kelton hills, and given they were all killed by the ice plague barring Eran, it suggests that there weren't many ambaros in the world even before the ice plague.

They value belly dancing, song, and venerate all fire, treating fire like a living being, and venerating it to different fire gods.

'The ambaros valued gold more than anything'.

Ambaros have their own unique language. In it, euma = mother, eulo = father, alo = brother, ala = sister and a family is called a eumlek.

Ambaros have their own cuisine, including 'a shole-zard that did more than nourish, but filled one with a complex, loving magic. It was given to afrit and ambaros who were aggrieved or ailing due to depressions they couldn’t elevate.'

While Eran is the most notable and prominent ambaros character, he's also a hybrid with the afrit fae. Despite this, Kabiri - god of the ambaros - has claimed him fully as ambaros.

## Quotations

* Eran on the eyeliner: 'We wear it to draw attention to the fire that lives inside of us. To show that at all times, we know we are connected to Kabiri, and other fire gods besides. That we are of the flame and fire. We wear amber and gold, and we decorate ourselves to celebrate that flame. There were festivals, you know, where we wear more makeup, and veils over our eyes, and then remove each veil until finally you see this brilliance, our eyes alight. My mother had the loveliest dances with them. I was still learning, and not very good! But I remember how she used to move her hands.'
* ‘Our eyes hold our fire,’ Eran said. ‘And that fire is sacred to all of the fire gods, but especially Kabiri. Just like we cherish a fire by framing it in a hearth, or a fire pit, or cradling it in a torch, or letting it rest upon a wick, we also frame it with the black liner to give the fire of our souls a place to shine and rest. It probably sounds silly, but it honours the fire of all of us, and it honours our own fire as well. The liner says, ‘look you, I am ambaros, and my flame is sacred now and forevermore.’

## Trivia

* Ambaros are an invented species of fae, specifically for the *Fae Tales* Verse.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 18 November 2017. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036105/chapters/29092809. Chapter 8: Hand of God.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 12 March 2018. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036105/chapters/31845930. Chapter 16: Leave Be.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas.” *Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 27 December 2019. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17959874/chapters/52448491. Chapter 22: Service.
4. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire.” *Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 9 September 2017. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036105/chapters/27249219. Chapter 1: The End of the Hunt.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 21 September 2018. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036105/chapters/37471571. Chapter 29: Don't Look.
6. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 26 July 2018. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036105/chapters/35842707. Chapter 25: Circling Back Around.
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 28 May 2020. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17959874/chapters/58918213. Chapter 33: End of an Era.
8. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 3 - The Ice Plague.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 17 March 2022. https://archiveofourown.org/works/26266345/chapters/94345423. Chapter 28: Family.
9. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 23 January 2020. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17959874/chapters/53470720. Chapter 24: Bound Together.
10. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 21 October 2017. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036105/chapters/28296177. Chapter 5: Animosity.
11. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 6 September 2018. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036105/chapters/37093806. Chapter 28: Like Batteries.
12. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Court of Five Thrones.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 5 June 2015. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1749290/chapters/9186013. Chapter 46: Masque.
13. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 3 - The Ice Plague.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 5 August 2022. https://archiveofourown.org/works/26266345/chapters/102269367. Chapter 40: A New Season.
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 19 July 2019. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17959874/chapters/47044390. Chapter 10: Veils.
15. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 3 - The Ice Plague.” *Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 11 November 2021. https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/87334006. Chapter 19: Golden Bonds.
16. ↑ Not-Poignant. "What are ambaros, exactly?..." *Actually A Little Bit Poignant.* 20 Feb 2018, 6:40 PM. https://not-poignant.tumblr.com/post/171106921937/what-are-ambaros-exactly-ive-googled-around-and.