The ice Elwens- helamani (hel-ay-MAY-nee) or "workers of ice" in Primal- are a numerous and, as their enemies would say, frivolous race. Most see them as refusing to settle down and grow into a proper society, refusing to take anything seriously, refusing to produce permanent works of art- in short, refusing to act Elwen. The helamani usually laugh merrily at this and blow ice in the lecturer's face.
Come among them, if you will- the ice Elwens, the Children of Freedom.
PHYSICAL LOOKS
Helamani have one of the most unusual skin colors among Elwens, in the sense that they have a skin color at all. Their skin is clear, clear enough to reveal the inner organs and veins in a colorful display. They resemble sculptures of living, crystalline ice. At times, especially when they have eaten or walked through an especially cold area, helamani may appear a bit more solid, as if frost had filled out some of the areas within them. This never lasts long before melting, however. When hit, a helaman's skin may crack or shatter, rather than simply splitting open like a normal Elwen's skin. Under enormous heat, like that of a desert or bonfire, it will usually begin to melt, though it grows back again when cooled.
Ice Elwen hair is usually clear and faceted, resembling strands of ice braided and sewn together. Gazing at a single strand of it is like gazing down a long glass tube that leads directly to a bright white light- the helaman's scalp. Other colors are not unknown among them- frost-blue, green, and white are also possible- but all of them will be clear, as if a mirror of colored glass. Helamani interbreeding with other races may produce children with a shock of brilliant white, but not actually transparent, hair.
Helamani eyes are not entirely transparent, but faceted like well-cut jewels. They often resemble such stones as well, having rich, deep colors like those of the finest rubies, sapphires, diamonds (most common) and emeralds. Alternatively, they may be silver or gold, and thus look more like most Elwen eyes. Helamani with dark eyes (as opposed to dark shades of brilliant colors, like purple or blue) are extremely rare.
Helamani show wild variations in height, standing between 5'4" and 6'3", though the greater height is more common than the lesser. They weigh much less than most Elwens at the same height would, due to the material of their bodies- perhaps 70 to 90 pounds. As a result, they almost never close in contests of strength, which they would lose, but strike from a distance using their magic, or giggle and run away.
Helamani have clear blood, most often visible as brighter fluid on a shattered piece of their skin, looking like glass heated enough to flow. They can run over a hundred miles an hour, and live about ten thousand years (unless they yield to the Calling; see below).
EMOTIONAL MAKEUP
As noted above, many other races find ice Elwens frivolous, as they seem undisposed to take anything seriously. This is largely true, though the helamani themselves think of joy as the only rational response to a world that has such beautiful things in it. More than even the lukalia, it seems, they embrace happiness as part of everyday life, and seem to forget grief more quickly than most. This last, however, is often masked by the fact that singing and dancing are part of the Children of Freedom's funeral rites. Outsiders often find it hard to tell where sorrow ends and exultation begins.
Most helamani adopt this joyous attitude precisely because of the one thing they do take seriously: the individual's right to make his or her own choices. In this they may be compared to the atagarni, though the ice Elwens take it even further. No one has the right to restrict the choice of another, among ice Elwens. If an individual wishes to wander off on his own, that is his decision. If an individual chooses to murder someone, even, that is her decision. (Of course, the one under attack will see this as an interference with her decision to keep on living, and will defend herself accordingly).
Most helamani dwell in an absolutely relativistic world, where there is no such thing as good or evil as the other races define it. If pressed to come up with a pair of oppositions they think of as similar to good and evil, they would probably admit beauty and ugliness as their poles. A helaman admires the stars because they are beautiful, and opposes the darkness between the stars less because of its historical enmity to Elwens than because he finds it ugly. This is what lies behind the long helaman alliance with the curalli as well. They find the shadowed Elwens more beautiful, especially for their grace of movement and their exotically dark hair and eyes. The atagarni, on the other hand, look too much like the helamani to be interesting, for all that they have philosophical similarities.
Most ice Elwens do not have close bonds of blood kinship. Almost from the moment a young helaman is born, he will be taken around to visit the adults and other children who might live with him. As soon as a child is four or five years old, he is expected to choose the set of people he likes best- whether the parents who sired and bore him, another pair of adults, a group of children, or a mix of all of these. These people will all likely have chosen families of their own, which may or may not include the other people the child chooses. "Family," therefore, is an intensely personal thing among ice Elwens, and often not the same for any two people.
Ice Elwens retain this openness towards others in other areas of life, as well, and quite often intermarry and interbreed with their cousins, or at least make them part of their chosen families. They tend to avoid humans and elves because these peoples find them the most frivolous, and have the greatest wish to strangle their freedom.
Almost the only thing other than freedom that helamani take seriously is the Calling, a longing to fade into the cold and snow that many who have wandered for a long time on the wild ice feel. This is another personal choice, and even if the helaman is young, a parent, or has duties, others do not try to forbid it. They gather and wave farewell as the ice Elwen, singing, dances into the middle of an icestorm that always rises at the exact time the helaman needs it to. They are not seen again. Whether they die, become part of the ice, or continue to exist in a different way is not known.
MAGICAL MAKEUP
The Children of Freedom all use magic casually, even for destructive purposes. They see no reason to revere a latent, in potentia gift when it has created nothing.
Common to all helamani are:
Wind-calling. A helaman can raise a wind- as long as it has ice in its teeth- at any time he wishes. This is sometimes used for defense, when a great gust may smack an attacker to the ice. More often, however, the ice Elwen wishes simply to bathe in the cold he loves.
Lirberad gifts. This all ice Elwens can do, gazing into ice mirrors to see what is passing far away. It is restricted to present time, but not by distance; a helaman can see something happening on the other side of the world as easily as he can something happening a mile away. This, again, is sometimes used for offensive purposes, as to spy out armies marching against the helamani and their curalli allies, but more often for entertainment. Some helamani are more strong-willed, and therefore will get clearer, sharper images, and often sound.
Ice-turning. A helaman can turn someone into an ice statue with a simple brush of his fingers. This is much like the freezing touch of the snow Elwens, but the person so frozen is not necessarily dead, unless pushed over and shattered. The helamani use it mostly to keep their enemies quiet for a time, panicking as they try to figure out how to move their unusual bodies of ice, and then turn them back into flesh when the battle is done.
Clarity. When seriousness is needed- as in battle- a helaman can close his eyes and effectively turn his mind into an ice mirror. Emotions become pinned things, under glass, to hear those who have spoken about it. Principles lie flat, two-dimensional, no longer crushing concerns; they can be seen from the outside and evaluated for what they really are. This often helps an ice Elwen decide on the correct course of action, though it cannot give information about something he does not know. Rather, it clarifies his own thoughts and feelings and lets him see what he may have been ignoring in the rush to do something.
Laugh-running. When an ice Elwen laughs, two things can happen (for the other, see below). The first, and more common, effect is that the ice Elwen changes from a physical Elwen into a continuing merry giggle, running along on a nearby wind in any direction the helaman chooses. This is similar to the wind-riding ability of the atagarni, but the helamani are in complete control. Only the absence of air can stop a helaman. As well, in an enclosed space like a house, an ice Elwen may laugh-run, but cannot leave the room unless a space (as under a door) is present for air to blow in and out of.
Mind-giving. When an ice Elwen laughs, he may laugh-run (as above) or else give whoever hears him, if an enemy, an ice Elwen mindset for about an hour. This is not often done, as the helamani believe it interferes with their enemies' free will, and they do not like to use it unless attacked first. While the mind-giving is in place, the enemy feels the same joy in freedom and the same relativistic tolerance that most ice Elwens do. He may desert the army, if he is with one, and run off to play in the ice and snow, or he may simply laugh himself and leave off attacking the helamani. The ice Elwens will sometimes stay and play with him, sometimes run away.
Skating. This ability is rarely used in the Frigid Waste, where most of the wild ground is ice anyway, but on regular ice or dirt, a helaman can turn the ground to ice and go gliding along. This happens the moment the ice Elwen's foot touches it, and is often used to catch fleeing enemies.
ORIGINS AND MODERN SETTLEMENTS
Helamani were created by starlight, as were the other races of Elwens, but they don't care. They rarely sing to the stars, or at least to the stars alone; joyous singing is a common activity among them. The only legend they have of the matter is that some of the stars foresaw how most Elwens would become- ordered, regimented, giving up some of their freedom- and so determined that one race, at least, would remain as wild and fiery-burning as the stars themselves. Thus they made the helamani, who, as long as they dwell in the Euras Ataar, the Frigid Waste, have no need of shelter or settled homes, and who roam in constantly changing bands, singing and playing and hunting.
Most ice Elwens live in the Euras Ataar without homes, though they keep to the borderland between the Curalli Confederation and the snow Elwen cities most often, helping to defend their shadowed Elwen allies. There are a few cities, however:
Spúril. This helaman city is made of sculptured ice, growing like trees from the ground. The helamani here do not live here permanently, but are a rotating guard for the help of the curalli. They also help to keep some contact between the roaming bands more willing to help the shadowed Elwens.
Glacin. A more permanent settlement, containing many helamani of mixed blood. They watch the roads to the west, and help curalli who may need to vanish from sight for a time but do not wish to leave the Waste. Their culture is largely taken up piecemeal from the curalli or other races who have come to dwell there.
As well, ice Elwens dwell outside the northern Euras Ataar in the following places:
Manta. This is a large, ice-grown city on the southern slopes of the Coroni Ataar, the mountains that bound the southern Frigid Waste. The helamani here are more involved in politics than most, often encouraging anarchy in the cities of northern Sweptoria. They are tolerated, mostly because the other races are afraid of what might happen if they tried to attack. (What would really happen is that the Mantans would vanish from that place and rebuild in another).
Riata. This is an ice Elwen city in the southern Tableland, surrounded by miles of magically created and stubbornly maintained ice to fight off the warm climate. This is perhaps the only group of helamani with a serious purpose, dedicated to fighting off the dawn Elwens who would see the whole of the Tableland under the sway of their God.
LANGUAGES
Many might suspect the ice Elwens have no language of their own, and this might be true in the sense that they have borrowed much from other races (especially the atagarni, some of whom wander in bands much like their own and share the same territory). As well, ice Elwens are very adaptive and curious, and will often take new words from their neighbors into their tongues because they like them.
There is a native base to many ice Elwen languages, however: that of Krillú, spoken in the Euras Ataar many generations ago. (There is some indication this may have influenced the snow Elwen language of Balwan, before it sought to escape the linguistic influence of others). The descendants of Krillú in the modern day are almost too many to count, given how the Children of Freedom live far-flung from each other and change the language to suit their moods, but some can be named:
Milla. The most common tongue of the wandering bands, used when they meet on their long journeys and cannot readily understand each other's dialects. Its origin is uncertain. Some think it is a trading pidgin that sprung up and eventually grew into a kind of creole; others think it was the native language of a particularly powerful group that gradually became general. Free, loose, and easy, with the slipshod grammar consistent with the wandering bands' borrowings from anywhere and everywhere.
Béin. The language most common in Glacin, an intermingling of a Krillú base with other, mostly curalli Rirran, words. Varies enormously, with perhaps no one standard word shared by every individual in Glacin. Most atagarn purists would argue that this is the exact kind of language their too-tolerant cousins deserve.
Bónda. The language the ice Elwens generally speak in Manta, and the other southern villages in Sweptoria. Has changed a little less than normal because of the settled nature of these helamani, and been influenced mainly by nearby settlements of snow and crystal Elwens. Softer than most others.
Riatana. The tongue of Riata, which has changed to reflect the nature of the ice Elwens who live here. It is a more controlled tongue, with a more formalized grammar. A simplified version of it is often used in underground communication between those groups resisting the alalori.
More to come, I promise.
