|Sundarata| (ToNE: Star Anise) by SpicecreamSundae on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

History:

In Southern India around the area now known as Karnataka, in 1644, was born a child. The son of a wealthy Kshatriya nobleman and a poor woman of a much lower caste, he abandoned the child upon its birth so that his grievous act would not be found out.

The child, abandoned and left to die, was soon found by a poor woman of the working Shudra caste; she named the child Lavraj, a name relating to lightness, as she had seen the baby as a beautiful light, a sign or a gift, shining from the darkness and attracting her to it.

For the first seven years of his life, the woman and her husband took decent care of Lavraj, though he was deprived of love and attention and grew depressed and very lonely, always wanting more than he was allowed. He was also treated much less carefully as the many other children in the family and was often discriminated against due to his already low caste, as well as his mysterious appearance as an infant granting him a rather “untouchable” status.

Over time the little boy grew to be an extreme pleasure seeker, a major problem since he had major limitations placed on him by society. He would often break the rules and be severely punished or beaten. In 1651, he committed a crime so humiliating for one of his age, insulting members of a higher cast due to his stubbornness, that Lavraj's family decided that it was enough, and threw him out.

Devastated and left to wander endless roads once again, the small child grew even more in loneliness and became even more attention-starved and greedy. However, in a way, he also began to appreciate himself more; no one had the right to deprive him of anything, no one could understand him, he was beyond society and better than anyone else. These were just the seeds beginning to grow in his mind, of the source of many of his major decisions going forward.

Ridiculed daily, without consistent food or shelter, nor anyone to look after him, Lavraj nearly perished several times over the course of the next four years and indeed grew a very tough shell. In fact, it was a miracle that he survived at all, and realising how strangely the event unfolded despite the odds stacked infinitely against him, he felt he was favoured by the gods and began to become extremely ambitious. His goal in life was not to become higher up in society, to gain wealth or even necessarily to survive, but to enjoy life as much as he could as it lasted, while defying anyone who dared to get in his way (which was a great many people since he was now considered outside of any caste.) Since he was living so much for pleasure he often prayed to the goddess Rati, and developed a major devotion to her.

One day, at the age of 12, the starved boy accidentally consumed a poisonous plant, weakening his strong immune system. Though he survived, he was predisposed to other ailments, and soon after, contracted a particularly bad strain of malaria. Although he did not know what exactly was happening, he became disoriented rather easily and was constantly in severe pain, vomiting whatever he did eat. This newfound greater starvation, combined with the dreadful disease, brought him closer to the brink of death than he had ever before been.

In desperation, he cried out to the God of Life for relief; following this, he began to go through a near death experience, in which his spirit seemed disconnected from his body and he saw many mystical visions of the future. Sleeping on the floor of the jungle for several days, and protected by a shield of light and magic, Lavraj awoke fully healed.

Upon his cure, the boy felt he was immediately indebted to Shiva and Rati even more; however, he also began, as always, to look for ways to use the gods' extreme favouring of him to his own advantage.

Following this event, Lavraj began to become attracted to the idea of using the gods' powers to his advantage, and he began to be very attracted to the occult and to magick. He often sneaked into large cities and temples, usually trying to imitate upper classes with stolen items of clothing, and listened in on the priests there, as well as steal things at any opportunity. Combined with his existing knowledge of plants and nature, and his intelligence, he learned many spells quickly.

Unfortunately for Lavraj, he was not always too careful, and eventually was caught. As the priests did not wish to stain their hands, he was taken to a common man to be killed fittingly. As he was about to be executed, Lavraj caught the man muttering something about his apparent grief over his son's illness. Immediately struck with information, the wise little boy claimed that if the man did not execute him, he could cure the other child. Tempted by this offer since many others in higher castes refused to assist him in his troubles, the man gave in, and allowed the boy to attempt to cast a spell of healing over his son.

Much to the continual favour of Lavraj, the spell was successful, though Lavraj boosted the effect by making the little child eat many anise plants, associated with healing effects. In extreme gratitude and astonishment, the man bowed before Lavraj and vowed that he would kill himself to keep him from the hands of those who had attempted to execute him. Seeing the great opportunity presented, Lavraj told the man of his plan's idiocy. The man, in his excitement, told many others about this boy with magical abilities, just as he had assumed would happen, and his name spread rapidly, earning him many followers as well as alerting those in higher positions to his stubbornness and defiance of society.

Though he was still very secretive, and considered to be an outcast, many people came to him to be cured or for his variety of white magick spells, albeit most were commoners. He began to travel around, getting sheltered by and meeting many people. Seeing his small successes, Lavraj, though still lonely and unhappy, began to enjoy life a bit more and felt his life was finally taking a turn for the better.

In 1662, the wife of a very wealthy man had become enraged due to the involvement of another illegitimate woman, and wished her to die, although she knew that this would cause an outrage and her husband would likely kill her if it were to take place. Totally miserable and desperate, she came to Lavraj for assistance, and requested him to curse her competitor.

Lavraj did not wish to take this request, as he felt sympathy for the less wealthy woman, disliking those in higher positions, as well as never having used black magick before. However, the greedy boy could not resist the opportunity this would give him, and successfully cursed the opposing woman, with her ending up experiencing an agonising death soon after (it was not actually Lavraj's intention to kill her, as despite his directions he was stubborn as always and felt it would bring him unwanted attention, but he was not good at using this kind of spell yet).

In gratitude, the wealthy noble, discreetly as she did not wish the spellcaster to be known to her husband lest he guess what his wife was up to, decided she must repay him. Obtaining many extremely fancy accessories and teaching him of the esteemed ways of the brahmins, she set up the boy to easily achieve a higher caste by impersonation.

Though he still continued to travel, Lavraj was much better off, and was appreciated by many women due to the fact that his most used and popular spells besides those of healing were love and fertility spells due to his devotions to Shiva and especially Rati; he was also beloved by women due to his intelligence and lovely appearance. Resulting he was often hated by other men because of how they would lose the attention of their wives for a time. Many began extreme efforts to strive and hunt him down once and for all.

During this time, he also began to grow in self confidence and esteem, and became more and more greedy for wealth and attention. Though retaining his tough demeanour, he began to indulge his more fanciful, lazy side and love for opulence. Sometimes being more satisfied than ambitious, missing opportunities and blinded to many dangers now that he did not have to worry as much about survival, he cared less for secrecy and made many public mistakes, heedlessly giving his location and identity away to many enemies.

It was on an occasion like this in 1663 that a woman named Kumodine, a prized wife of an extremely influential and royal man, had fallen desperately in love with him, despite being older than Lavraj. The situation had begun when the vain Kumodine, dissatisfied with her homely husband Areeha, wanted the young man to cast upon her a spell of affection. She had not specified what she meant, whether to be made attractive or to feel affections to another, and Lavraj carelessly cast a spell without much intention and thinking primarily of himself and his own greed. Resulting, the spell's effect caused the woman to fall in love with him.

This lasted for a rather long time, and the newly socially numb Lavraj noticing only too late what had taken place, began to despise Kumodine and her continual visits to him. Selfish and vain as she was, the noblewoman began to verbally complain and without thinking, let her husband know of him and what had been going on. Enraged, Areeha questioned her severely, and after learning everything he could from Kumodine, killed her in cold blood for her betrayal, as he was as ill natured and self-centred as she was.

As a very influential person, and knowing once and for all about the troublesome Lavraj's location and just how horrible he could be to another man's life, he began to tell everyone of the incident.

Word had spread of the scandal quickly, and immediately fearing for his life, Lavraj felt he had finally earned the wrath of the gods for taking such advantage of them. In terror he fled as promptly as he could, but the men inspired by the words of Areeha had surrounded the city and had traps laid for him at every corner. He was easily caught by them, and though many of the men wished to do the honours of killing this outcast once and for all, the royal had warned them of the horrors that would take place if anyone were to interrupt his personal vengeance.

Brought before the man, Lavraj felt more bitter than ever; his life had amounted to this moment, he was to be killed young by a man that held strongly to the very society he opposed, with no true friends, no means of escape. In addition, for the first time he felt true shame, as he had excited the wrath of the gods he had loved so much. He also began to feel as though he had been missing something his whole life … he had never once truly cared for another human being, he had never officially been integrated into society, learned of other peoples' experiences, had any true friends, he'd lived forever in secrecy, and even when more well known, he had lived only thinking of himself, for pleasure. He had never been taught otherwise, and in this seemingly immortal moment, he felt he was a truly cursed individual, cursed with a false success. The gods had preserved him, only for such a savage end. His cruel fate was too much for even someone as tough as he to bare.

Though he was to be executed by one of the prized elephants of the royal man, Lavraj wished for a quicker end; though he was bound and could not kill himself, he still had his tongue, and used it to insult Areeha so much, in hopes that he would wish to bring an end to the wretched youth personally. As his efforts most always had, this succeeded, and extremely enraged, he was impaled with an elephant tusk by his enemy's own hand.

He was thrown out of the royal estate, left to die once again, abandoned and alone. However, as he lay dying, a sorrowful woman approached him, a person who had admired him and always wished to meet him. As she assumed he would have wished, she laid many star anise herbs, famed for their healing properties and symbolism of love, upon his wound and in his mouth in the hope that he would swallow it. As he begin to slip into the sleep of death and life of the New Eden to which he had always been called by, he felt a comfort of sorts. Perhaps it was due to the herbs, or perhaps by the knowledge that someone (even a stranger) had cared for him …

He would have another chance, reborn in the Garden of Curses ...

Relationships: -Very good friends with Nakhla.
-Treats Orchid as an elder sister or mentor, and much respects her. Since she appreciates this, the two become great friends. This does not stop them from disagreeing on a lot, however.
-Thinks of Nasturtium as a little sister and teaches her everything he knows. She's the only person who ever has actually made him feel strong pity or sympathy.
-Gets on well with Suzie, half the time. The other half of the time, they fight incessantly.
-Doesn't understand Cantua and doesn't like him much resulting. Similar properties make up his relationship to Madrono.
-Gets along pretty decently with Liu and Romashka, all of them being extreme opportunists. However he also feels very competitive towards them.
-Gets on well with Wisteria; the two are close and can relate quite a bit to one another.
-Likes Be decently and feels he can relate to her, but he also severely disdains her. He has similar feelings toward Amaryllis but admires him more.
-Low key despises most everyone in New Eden.

Fun Facts:

-He speaks Kannada and Hindi (may change)

- He is obsessed with health and herbal medicine. He also likes inventing things. Thus, in the modern timeline, his magnum opus: A healthy cigarette, made of other very addicting herbs, that are actually more healthy for you the more you take them and are addicted to them.

-He looks tall from afar but is actually embarrassingly short.

-He can still cast spells by New Eden's power even in the modern world, but the others don't wish him to do this for fear they could discover the source of his powers. Of course, he doesn't listen to them.

-He loves fashion and will go out of his way to buy the best accessories and even perfumes. However, he will also give awful looks to those who look spoilt, rich or seem to not care for the poor (this includes others like him who simply dress well ... he's a big hypocrite sometimes )

-Likes to flirt, but dislikes being flirted with.

-Loves memes and the internet more than life, and has a youtube account growing in subscribers all the time (XD)

-Like Nasturtium he's a prankster, and likes to make others mad with really clever and awful pranks as well as groan inducing wordplay.

-Yes, he has a gaping wound under his clothing. Though flowers grow on it, it's giant, like Tsubaki's; resulting he is afraid to wear any less clothing.

~Thank you for coming; be well on your way~ And WHY ALL THE PAGEVIEWS RECENTLY?! I'M BLOWN AWAY, THANK YOU GUYS

Tales of New Eden ©Art © LaReina-QuyaKoroleva; my characters are mine only, and not up for taking. Do not trace, copy, edit or steal my designs in ANY WAY, thank you.