Character Development Prompts: Eltanin: #100: Romance Novel Cover

"Join the Navy," they said. "No one would dare make fun of you once you're made in the Navy!"

 

With the blessings of her family (and her perfect grades), 18-year-old Morwenna Bligh signs on with Kilblane Academy, the most prestigious naval academy in the Avangard Fleet. Bullied all her life for her half-elf heritage, she hopes the world of academia and military discipline will be an escape from that torment. Imagine her disappointment when she finds more of the same from her classmates, led by none other than the star of the lacrosse team, Sinan Harlow. Things are looking grim, and she's about to drop out, until she meets Eltanin.

 

This mysterious Paperdemon is far from a star cadet. He openly challenges the professors, 'forgets' to do his coursework, and rumour around the dorms is that he once slept with Sinan, just to see if he could. No one knows just where he came from, how he hasn't been expelled yet, and why he feels the constant need to lie about things that are clearly untrue. Still, Morwenna finds herself drawn to him, if only because he's the only one who doesn't make fun of her ears.

 

"Do all your first dates go like this?"

 

Their first date is... not terrible. He spends the whole time throwing expensive grapes at cloud cuckoos and explaining how to break the law in a way that doesn't break the law. They find common ground in their wish to oppose an empire just beginning to brutally consolidate its monopoly on violence, but while Morwenna believes in working within the system, Eltanin thinks change can only come from the outside. He wants to become a pirate, the very thing she's been taught to hate and hunt.

 

As college flings so often go, they remain on-again, off-again for the next three years, up until graduation day. At the ceremony, Eltanin surprises the crowd with a scathing denouncement of the empire, then absconding with the ship he won from a prior engagement with a rogue privateer, the Redoubtable.

 

Sinan is quick to brand him a traitor, but Morwenna is just impressed. By Avangard's own prize laws, the ship is legally his, and he technically broke no speech laws. Her classmates don't feel the same way, and without the only friend she'd ever made by her side, Morwenna loses her faith in the navy.

 

She finds work as a civilian captain, hoping that someday, somehow, she'll find him again.

 

"No offence, 'Wenna, but as far as threats to my life go, this doesn't even scrape the top ten."

 

That day comes three years later, when Captain Bligh finds her ferry boarded by pirates, one of whom looks awfully familiar. By some miracle, she knocks him out, and the uncatchable Eltanin is suddenly back in her grasp.

 

It would be so easy to tap out a telegram and have the authorities come pick him up. So... why can't she?

 

He lies like he breathes air, but he never once lied about loving her.

 

"That last quote's terrible, by the way," Eltanin said, snatching the novel out of Hester's hands. "'I don't lie about things that matter' has a much better ring to it. I do like their lavish descriptions about Sinan's abs, though. You have to see those things in real life to believe 'em. Actually, on second thought, don't. That means you'd have to be within six feet of him, and that's hazardous to your life."