Ridaine's Links
His feelings towards Chira are fairly neutral, but a little complicated. He'll work with her to protect Halia, but there are times when he sees himself in Chira and it makes him uncomfortable.
She doesn't know Niamh well, but much like her Halia is the only family they feel like they have. They're willing to work together if it means keeping her out of danger but they're not exactly close.
In Halia's last reincarnation she grew up on the streets. An acquaintance of hers was killed, leaving her sickly daughter behind at a young age. Not wanting to see anything bad happen, Halia made the choice to take this child in and started mercenary work to help fund her medical expenses and eventually to sponsor her further education.
Chira has very few memories of her mother, so Halia feels like the only family she has left. She hates feeling like she's been a burden on her, and spent much of her life trying to compensate for that in various ways. She loves Halia dearly and hates watching her throw herself into danger so willingly all the time.
Halia feels strange about Cathe. She's come to learn that she is more or less a fragment of what was once a complete being, and though she is her own person many of the sides of her she tries to smother resemble Cathe. She isn't fully aware, but Cathe's fondness of Moira over the other gods led the Valkyrie to be more drawn to her.
Cathe was the complete god, who's death left behind a void to be filled. Though gone, what remained of her divinity was used to create the Valkyrie.
She trusts him with her life, and through her memory problems relies on him to keep things in check. She has no idea she's being used and misled.
He's promised to help her and restore her memories if she helps him. She doesn't know he's mostly talking out his ass and is using her to take out his enemies and get what he wants.
The last time Niamh saw Laoise, Halia was using it to cut him down. He managed to get past his negative associations upon meeting the spirit sealed within, and has been found a companion in her that he didn't expect. They have a lot in common, and he often wishes they'd been able to meet when she was still alive... Maybe they both could have avoided their mistakes.
Laoise was hesitant about him at first, but eventually came around to him through their common goal. She's come to care a lot about him, and is sympathetic to his past and the things he's done. Unlike with Halia, she's told him a little bit about her life as Eithne and the things she did under orders to relate to and sympathize with him. She wants to see him get the happy ending through his second chance that she never got.
She never expected to die by the hands of a mortal, and accepted her death with a strange calmness that unnerves Eithne to this day. She warned her that nothing would change, but Eithne didn't take the warning to heart until it was too late.
There's little she wouldn't do to undo what she did to Cathe. She now knows she was an innocent bystander, and not the evil force people claimed she was.
Though they met in the past, Halia has no memory of the woman who became the god-slaying sword. Though Laoise was someone she often confided in, she was too stubborn to heed her advice most of the time. She often wonders about the spirit of the sword and she she gave her Lugh's divinity instead of destroying it, but the spirit's secrets are not easily learned.
In her mortal life she was spared from death by Halia, though she knows she doesn't remember. When they met again when she was Laoise, she agreed to help in this war because she felt she owed Halia a debt. She's very frank with Halia, though thinks she's too stubborn for her own good.
Even after all the years of Halia being gone, she still remembers the woman she was and waits for her return. She holds a deep respect for Halia and would do much to keep her name from being tarnished or misremembered in history.
🎶 Cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance well, they're are no friends of mine 🎶