Lerato
Mistress-Concubine Lerato Mpiload Mondragon- Umuzius
Many people strive for greatness.
Some are given it for one reason or another.
But a rare few merely stumble into power; happening to be at the right place at the right time. Lerato is one such individual who could not have imagined that a simple choice of self-sacrifice and submission to what she perceived as a god would set her on the path to such greatness.
Never could she have understood the world she would be thrust into and the fascination it would bring her.
Both The Pleasure AND The Pain! To her the world was once just the life of the essential housewife and perhaps apprentice village shaman...
And now she is Mistress to The Sun and at home within the grandest of holdings in all of the Empire Of Kanda! Because of him she has completely transcended humanity and become The Second Salusar...
Wife Of The Sun!
Some are given it for one reason or another.
But a rare few merely stumble into power; happening to be at the right place at the right time. Lerato is one such individual who could not have imagined that a simple choice of self-sacrifice and submission to what she perceived as a god would set her on the path to such greatness.
Never could she have understood the world she would be thrust into and the fascination it would bring her.
Both The Pleasure AND The Pain! To her the world was once just the life of the essential housewife and perhaps apprentice village shaman...
And now she is Mistress to The Sun and at home within the grandest of holdings in all of the Empire Of Kanda! Because of him she has completely transcended humanity and become The Second Salusar...
Wife Of The Sun!
Divine Domains
Lerato is regarded very differently depending on who is praying to her!
To The Kobori her domains are as follows:
Kandia Culture / The Kandia
Cooks / Cooking / Food
Herders
Farmers
Ideal Female Partners
Goats (Specifically Baby Goats!)
Prosperity
Peace
Self Sacrifice
The Sun To The Kandia Lerato's Domains Are As Follows:
Kobori Culture / The Kobori
Patience
Submission
Civilization / Civility
Education / Cultural Assimilation
Love / Romance
Goats (Specifically Baby Goats!)
Temperance
Exotic Beauty
Languages / Linguistics Since Her Transformation To Ta Mando's Second Salusar, However, Lerato Has Gained A More Recognizable Divine Nature That ALL Must Respect! REGARDLESS Of Who You Are... Lerato's Expanded Domains Are As Follows:
Transformation / Ascension / Adaptation
The Sun / The Dawn
The (New) Dawn Age (And All It Entails!)
Power
Magic
Knowledge / Learning
Infinity / Eternity
Books / Stories / Literature
Secrets / Hidden Things / Privacy
Technology / Advancement / Innovation
Exploration Of The Cosmic Unknown
Kandia Culture / The Kandia
Cooks / Cooking / Food
Herders
Farmers
Ideal Female Partners
Goats (Specifically Baby Goats!)
Prosperity
Peace
Self Sacrifice
The Sun To The Kandia Lerato's Domains Are As Follows:
Kobori Culture / The Kobori
Patience
Submission
Civilization / Civility
Education / Cultural Assimilation
Love / Romance
Goats (Specifically Baby Goats!)
Temperance
Exotic Beauty
Languages / Linguistics Since Her Transformation To Ta Mando's Second Salusar, However, Lerato Has Gained A More Recognizable Divine Nature That ALL Must Respect! REGARDLESS Of Who You Are... Lerato's Expanded Domains Are As Follows:
Transformation / Ascension / Adaptation
The Sun / The Dawn
The (New) Dawn Age (And All It Entails!)
Power
Magic
Knowledge / Learning
Infinity / Eternity
Books / Stories / Literature
Secrets / Hidden Things / Privacy
Technology / Advancement / Innovation
Exploration Of The Cosmic Unknown
Divine Symbols & Sigils
Baby Goats of all species and breeds are largely considered to be Lerato's Divine Animals and those who worship her that find baby goats away from their herds are expected to adopt and care for them to the best of their abilities OR bring them to The Great Mother's Zoo just north of Castan Mondragon! (Provided They Are In Soteri!)
Lerato is strongly associated with Simple Grains, Root Vegetables and Clothing; often her most prominent non-animal symbols being a head of grain, a yam and a bowl of fruit.
Most Recently Books And Scrolls have been strongly associated with her thanks to her newfound public love of reading. Finally, Lerato has adopted The Rising Sun as a personal sigil.
She believes this is fitting considering her presence as a symbol of The New Dawn Age and the time of her Transformation.
Most Recently Books And Scrolls have been strongly associated with her thanks to her newfound public love of reading. Finally, Lerato has adopted The Rising Sun as a personal sigil.
She believes this is fitting considering her presence as a symbol of The New Dawn Age and the time of her Transformation.
Tenets of Faith
Primary among her requirements is that Prayer to her must be spoken in a Kobori Tongue rather than any other language.
As part of Lerato's Portfolio has to do with the Kobori Culture and preserving it, she will only accept pleas and prayers that are spoken in a Kobori Language; normally the blanket Trade Language of her people. While Lerato herself had no particular part in this, it is largely considered appropriate that one does not directly speak her name when praying to her but rather to refer to her by one of her many popular Kobori Titles; lest one get negative attention for revealing her mortal identity.
As part of Lerato's Portfolio has to do with the Kobori Culture and preserving it, she will only accept pleas and prayers that are spoken in a Kobori Language; normally the blanket Trade Language of her people. While Lerato herself had no particular part in this, it is largely considered appropriate that one does not directly speak her name when praying to her but rather to refer to her by one of her many popular Kobori Titles; lest one get negative attention for revealing her mortal identity.
Holidays
The 13th Of Celebrating Is The Day Of Lerato's Ascendance!
However, no present traditions have been put in place for this day, as Lerato has yet to properly found any.
However, no present traditions have been put in place for this day, as Lerato has yet to properly found any.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Lerato is largely considered "Very Beautiful" for most cultures in Ta Mando; A woman as tall as a Kandia man but not so much as a tall man, with pronounced curves and deep, healthy skin the color of dark, fertile soil complete with a slight glow to show her good health and strong constitution!
Extremely fit, she is otherwise not unusual to look upon, possessing a standard Kobori Profile and body shape when considered next to her kin; though she is rather noticeably shorter than typical women of the local ethnic groups.
Exceedingly well groomed and possessing extremely fine, thin dreadlocks commonly dyed crimson red by sparkling crimson ochre, Lerato's entire form is always meticulously clean and well dressed whenever in public.
Identifying Characteristics
If there is anything that quite sets Lerato apart from the rest of the Kobori it is her extremely fine dreadlocks, which extend to her waist.
While it is considered a prestigious style of hair for her people, most are not able to grow theirs quite so long as she has, nor get the same look quite as consistently as she does.
Fastidiously tended to by Lerato herself, the young woman can often be seen fiddling with and reweaving her hair; re-dying it with the ochre that is so common among her people.
These hyper-fine, extremely tight braids perhaps number just over a thousand and are considered extremely difficult to care for, adding prestige to her ability to maintain them.
While others regularly offer to help her, Lerato is very serious that she and she alone manage her hair, claiming that there is magic in her style of personal grooming. Beyond that, Lerato has recently gotten a Gold Powder Tattoo in the shape of a perfect, filled in circle on her cheek bone just below the outer edge of her left eye.
This Tattoo is ACTUALLY made of superheated gold powder found in the area that's been embedded in the flesh of her cheek.
While she has not told anyone what this means and is generally secretive about it, her culture regards it as a spiritual symbol indicating one has been chosen by a deity and is publicly dedicated to them rather than mortal endeavors. Though she lacks the ability to use heat vision like her husband, Lerato's eyes have been permanently effected by her transformation to a Salusar!
Now an unnatural Crimson Red and perpetually glowing with the intensity of a modern wrist-watch, Lerato's eyes can easily be spotted in a line-up if it comes to it.
While it is considered a prestigious style of hair for her people, most are not able to grow theirs quite so long as she has, nor get the same look quite as consistently as she does.
Fastidiously tended to by Lerato herself, the young woman can often be seen fiddling with and reweaving her hair; re-dying it with the ochre that is so common among her people.
These hyper-fine, extremely tight braids perhaps number just over a thousand and are considered extremely difficult to care for, adding prestige to her ability to maintain them.
While others regularly offer to help her, Lerato is very serious that she and she alone manage her hair, claiming that there is magic in her style of personal grooming. Beyond that, Lerato has recently gotten a Gold Powder Tattoo in the shape of a perfect, filled in circle on her cheek bone just below the outer edge of her left eye.
This Tattoo is ACTUALLY made of superheated gold powder found in the area that's been embedded in the flesh of her cheek.
While she has not told anyone what this means and is generally secretive about it, her culture regards it as a spiritual symbol indicating one has been chosen by a deity and is publicly dedicated to them rather than mortal endeavors. Though she lacks the ability to use heat vision like her husband, Lerato's eyes have been permanently effected by her transformation to a Salusar!
Now an unnatural Crimson Red and perpetually glowing with the intensity of a modern wrist-watch, Lerato's eyes can easily be spotted in a line-up if it comes to it.
Special abilities
While Lerato was once a rather "average" young woman who had, once upon a time, failed to grasp MOST of the important cultural practices and magic of her people... that was before she became Ta Mando's Second Salusar and her mind went from standard to superhuman.
Now Lerato has a mind beyond that of the human limit and a perfect retroactive memory that has given her the benefit of ultimate hindsight.
Every mistake she'd ever made in her studies, every lesson she failed to grasp, understanding the driving intent behind sandwalking and grasping the DEEPEST mysteries of the Mountain God's teachings to the Kobori People...
She now PERFECTLY understands it all and cannot possibly forget.
... And that understanding makes her a master of magic; now capable of utilizing ALL of the magic she failed to learned as a child from the Speaker Of The Sun! Representative of the true durability of Salusaria, there are no presently known weapons or tools in Kanda that can penetrate Lerato's flesh.
Only the most powerful of blows, grandest of Primes and the attentions of the divines themselves could potentially harm her at this stage due to the mighty durability of a Salusar.
She needs no sleep, can withstand hard vacuum and heavy radiation, needn't breath, can tolerate cosmic temperatures and could potentially take a kiloton explosion to the face and walk away from it. In response Lerato could output about 200 kilotons of force if she really wanted to, though neither of these numbers is really known by her.
Her standard strength normally amounts to the same as Jon's; proportionate to stronk elephant strength, able to easily lift five hundred pounds and throw it around with a single hand.
However, under duress and when she really wants to, Lerato can punch out enough power to shake the very earth!
She can topple mountains, part great bodies of water and render lush fields to blasted craters with a single blow!
Lerato is SO powerful that she's legitimately afraid of her own strength, as her newfound intellect indicates to her that such catastrophic power would be traumatic for the entire REGION! While many believe that she has the power to tame animals and bless milk products, there has never been any evidence of this and nobody dares to ask her any longer about the veracity of these claims. While she certainly can't fly very fast compared to Jonathan Mondragon, Lerato is capable of easy flight!
Able to move at around fifty miles an hour through the air, Lerato can also hover and move in any direction she likes without loss of momentum or maneuverability. While Lerato understands she must have MANY more powers hiding within, just as her husband does... she is both uncertain of them and scared to unlock them, as she fears losing what humanity she has left and worries that she may lose the passion and motivation to serve the common folk that made her "Lerato" in the first place.
Now Lerato has a mind beyond that of the human limit and a perfect retroactive memory that has given her the benefit of ultimate hindsight.
Every mistake she'd ever made in her studies, every lesson she failed to grasp, understanding the driving intent behind sandwalking and grasping the DEEPEST mysteries of the Mountain God's teachings to the Kobori People...
She now PERFECTLY understands it all and cannot possibly forget.
... And that understanding makes her a master of magic; now capable of utilizing ALL of the magic she failed to learned as a child from the Speaker Of The Sun! Representative of the true durability of Salusaria, there are no presently known weapons or tools in Kanda that can penetrate Lerato's flesh.
Only the most powerful of blows, grandest of Primes and the attentions of the divines themselves could potentially harm her at this stage due to the mighty durability of a Salusar.
She needs no sleep, can withstand hard vacuum and heavy radiation, needn't breath, can tolerate cosmic temperatures and could potentially take a kiloton explosion to the face and walk away from it. In response Lerato could output about 200 kilotons of force if she really wanted to, though neither of these numbers is really known by her.
Her standard strength normally amounts to the same as Jon's; proportionate to stronk elephant strength, able to easily lift five hundred pounds and throw it around with a single hand.
However, under duress and when she really wants to, Lerato can punch out enough power to shake the very earth!
She can topple mountains, part great bodies of water and render lush fields to blasted craters with a single blow!
Lerato is SO powerful that she's legitimately afraid of her own strength, as her newfound intellect indicates to her that such catastrophic power would be traumatic for the entire REGION! While many believe that she has the power to tame animals and bless milk products, there has never been any evidence of this and nobody dares to ask her any longer about the veracity of these claims. While she certainly can't fly very fast compared to Jonathan Mondragon, Lerato is capable of easy flight!
Able to move at around fifty miles an hour through the air, Lerato can also hover and move in any direction she likes without loss of momentum or maneuverability. While Lerato understands she must have MANY more powers hiding within, just as her husband does... she is both uncertain of them and scared to unlock them, as she fears losing what humanity she has left and worries that she may lose the passion and motivation to serve the common folk that made her "Lerato" in the first place.
Apparel & Accessories
Lerato almost exclusively wears highly formal, even regal attire; made of silk, fine cotton, certain ultra-soft fleeces and even has a set of clothing made exclusively from the black hair of human virgin girls "No Older Than Twenty And No Younger Than Ten."
Moreover, her clothes are of numerous different styles from all over Ta Mando!
Whether it be classic Kandia Tulia or traditional Dragon Gowns from The Western Kingdom, she has found all manner of styles to wear and it can make her a delightfully exotic sight to behold in the otherwise rigid military culture of Soteri!
Needless to say, Lerato has quickly abandoned her leather, hide and woven grass clothing options of her people, preferring to live with the benefits of her new station as First Wife to a recognized Deity. When not wearing extremely high class cultural garments she often toys around with what few transdimensional articles she can get her hands on; possessing a fairly impressive collection of different modern Earth swimsuits that she was able to get from The Place Of Peace during her education under Su Kaolla Rose Gray! Since she doesn't talk much but changes clothes relatively often, Lerato's general mood can often be intuited by what she is wearing.
Calm, muted colors imply that she is feeling emotionally and mentally collected.
Vibrant colors indicate she may be feeling outgoing and passionate.
Deep purples and regal blues show people that she is wearing her station and desires to be seen as fancy and royal.
And natural greens, browns and grays often suggest she wants to walk among the people and act ALMOST normal. Having an extremely doting husband and many servants to rely upon, Lerato has no shortage of masterpiece outfits from ages long past that Jon has found on his many adventures with the Kandia Leconia that he leads.
Moreover, her clothes are of numerous different styles from all over Ta Mando!
Whether it be classic Kandia Tulia or traditional Dragon Gowns from The Western Kingdom, she has found all manner of styles to wear and it can make her a delightfully exotic sight to behold in the otherwise rigid military culture of Soteri!
Needless to say, Lerato has quickly abandoned her leather, hide and woven grass clothing options of her people, preferring to live with the benefits of her new station as First Wife to a recognized Deity. When not wearing extremely high class cultural garments she often toys around with what few transdimensional articles she can get her hands on; possessing a fairly impressive collection of different modern Earth swimsuits that she was able to get from The Place Of Peace during her education under Su Kaolla Rose Gray! Since she doesn't talk much but changes clothes relatively often, Lerato's general mood can often be intuited by what she is wearing.
Calm, muted colors imply that she is feeling emotionally and mentally collected.
Vibrant colors indicate she may be feeling outgoing and passionate.
Deep purples and regal blues show people that she is wearing her station and desires to be seen as fancy and royal.
And natural greens, browns and grays often suggest she wants to walk among the people and act ALMOST normal. Having an extremely doting husband and many servants to rely upon, Lerato has no shortage of masterpiece outfits from ages long past that Jon has found on his many adventures with the Kandia Leconia that he leads.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Lerato was born a simple girl to an average farming family in the grasslands of Soterri less than half a day's walk north from Jonathan Mondragon's home on the shores of the gulf.
Referred to as "Sweet Girl" for most of her life by those around her; she helped in the fields, milked the few cattle her family had, trained the dog, helped the local Shaman with whatever he needed and took care of her many cousins and sisters who her father was eager to marry off for impressive bride prices to more powerful tribes. bringing necessary peace between the little village and the rest of the region.
Though she never learned how to sandwalk properly she was good with animals and loved baby goats, so she was an excellent caretaker and found it easy to fit in in her tiny tribal community of less than five hundred people.
As she became a young woman her beauty and popularity grew all the more!
Unlike her other siblings, her father was sure to save her for the right man. The chief's son had grown up around them, always generous and kind and it was clear that he had a great affection for the now marriageable young woman; regularly doting on her and spending his spare time flirting with her while she worked the fields and herded the stock.
She was growing more beautiful by the day and her father could tell that he had a good deal with this arrangement.
Before long, in the safety of his own hut, Lerato's father recommended to the Chief that Lerato and his son join and their families become one. To his surprise, The Chief had long felt the same thing.
Lerato had become very familiar with the Shaman's needs and practices and the Shaman himself had communed with the spirits and determined that the two were meant to be.
The spirits had made it clear to him that she was to belong to The Chief's Son and she would produce many children who would carry both of their families into fame and bring the village higher.
So said the visions of the Shaman.
Low as he was on the proverbial totem pole, the man who would become The Speaker Of The Sun was STILL their community's primary religious authority and his visions were to be respected, as they had often come to reality! The Children were not told for at least a year, letting them grow closer together with the Chief regularly encouraging his son to watch after and protect the girl and lay ceremonial territory around her to let the other young men watching her know that he had chosen her and nobody would take her from him.
Only one challenge was ever made but the challenger was quickly slain and, upon the ritual consumption of his rival's still beating heart, the Chief's Son publicly announced that she was HIS woman and that as soon as she had a name, he would marry her; the Most Beautiful Of The Village!
Any who EVER dared to challenge his ownership of her were ALWAYS welcome to do so in any way they pleased. Two days later her birthday came and the Shaman gave her her adult name; Lerato, Most Beloved.
It gave her such pride and joy to know that she would receive a name that told everyone how valuable of a wife she was.
She had learned everything she needed and pleased him both publicly and privately for two weeks.
Their newlywed life was eager and frantically intimate!
The Village on the whole was glad to hear of their excited and youthful consummation, eager to see the children they would have in the coming years. But one day, as Lerato was getting done tending to the shaman and walked out to oversee some children and check over a growth on the head of a village goat, it happened!
Her life changed in that very instant... From the sun itself came beams of golden light, streaming down into the village and striking men down where they stood.
None had time to react, to get out of the way or otherwise do anything at all.
The sun itself had struck them down, every man in the village.
Clearly from the gods themselves, three such beams took sharp 90 degree turns to fly into the small windows and door flap of the Shaman's hut, melting off both of his legs and one of his arms with horrifying divine wrath! HE Was The Lucky One; The Only Survivor!
In front of Lerato her husband looked on in worry as all around him died right before a beam struck his head from above, another his chest and a third his still melting pile of self, rendering him to a pile of unidentifiable sludge on the ground. Shocked, the girl stood in horror, unable to move or even scream as a giant of a man descended; three times wider in the shoulders than even her strapping husband had been and well over a head taller at least!
As the man landed he looked around, hands on his hips and with a confident and smug smirk on his face. The grieving mothers and vengeful wives attacked.
Rocks were thrown, knives swung and at least one spear SHATTERED over the man's very eyes!
To No Avail...
He not only remained unhurt... but determined to completely ignore these paltry offenses. The orphans of the village, little outcasts led by one called "Big Girl," drove a more orderly and somewhat coordinated attack when the adults were done!
To no effect at all! Lerato saw something different than they did, however.
She saw her husband melt within arm's reach and then she saw her entire remaining community shatter the strongest of their weapons over this being's face.
This was not a man.
This was The Sun given shape and form in such a way that his image did not burn their eyes out upon being seen, did not flash fry the entire village just by being in their presence! Clearly... EVERYTHING had gone wrong.
Her husband was wrong, the sons and husbands of others were wrong.
The fathers, chief and even the Shaman were clearly just... WRONG!
And she was clearly wrong by association, as all the others were as well.
The Sun, whilst a life giver and powerful figure of order and warmth, was also the universal symbol of unlimited power and wrath to her people. How dearly they had angered him and how graciously he was acting in response to their ill will and clear defiance of his such obvious power.
He had come down personally to right their mistakes and NOW he was tolerating their outbursts with pure ignorance; TRULY the highest mercy such a powerful entity even COULD do, for his power was so great that even his most merciful forgiveness could possibly burn the whole village to the ground! EVERY MOMENT that he was not welcomed and placated was a moment that he could lose his temper and patience with them! She did the only thing she could think to.
She ran into the storehut and took into her arms the largest and freshest bowl of fruit she could find.
It had been gathered that morning from the community gardens and she had been talking to the Shaman to arrange which would be offered to The River Goddess.
It had been too long since they'd been able to leave proper sacrifices...
The heaping bowl was a bit heavy for her but the conflict outside would never do.
It would doom them all! She fell upon the ground before him as he went about smiling and looking into various huts.
Her knees dug into the dust as she bowed her head and held the bowl up above in offering, her arms shaking from the weight of it. She did not speak.
She knew that nothing she could say would mean anything compared to her perfect display of submission and sacrifice.
He could have her, so long as he forgave the rest of her village. For untold seconds he stared down at her.
The entire village halted, at this point awed into submission but still uncertain as to their fate in the eyes of this invincible avatar of the sun.
And then, slowly, he reached down and grabbed a fruit, publicly biting into it and easing the tension of all. Until the Shaman came crawling out of his hut with the one arm he had left, screaming and moaning in pain.
She left the fruit and ran to the shaman and then, when he came to her, BEGGED for forgiveness.
She begged that the old man had not known what he had done and to PLEASE spare him from this pain! In response the avatar of the sun looked around... and stole away the smallest of the local Orphans, surprising everyone while he flew BACK into the sun with her! For over an hour everyone waited.
The shaman stabilized but only just.
He moaned out in pain and fell into a dreamlike state where he gave orders to everyone to prepare for The Sun's return.
They gathered the remaining 8 orphans, washed them and readied them, hiding their own children in the huts in case The Sun would return to take more from them.
The women gathered food offerings and water and ferments and the shaman, half delirious, oversaw as best as he could whilst Lerato tried to keep the pests from getting into his half melted, wounds.
She worried he would die.
Slowly... Feeling The Same... The Shaman began to impart what wisdom he could on Lerato, claiming that his time was near and nobody else would be able to hold all of the knowledge.
She had spent so much time with him that he felt like a father again, seeing his daughter thrive. An hour later The Sun returned with a great beast made of strange substances that she'd never seen before, which he carried in his hands above his head as he soared through the air!
From beyond their capacity to see he descended from The Sun once again.
Her people didn't even have horses, let alone what she would eventually come to know as "Cars." When he arrived he produced from this strange beast a native just like her who knew the language and the man ordered them to bring all of the orphans, the Shaman and Lerato herself...
Then he said to the villagers as such with a great smile of perfectly white teeth...
"My name is Jonathan Mondragon.
I am the leader of the Empire Of Kanda in this land.
This village is now under the protection of Kanda.
But that means that no more attacks will be launched into our province, and in the weeks to come, we will begin to come and trade with you all.
Welcome to the Kanda Empire."
He Then Continued.
"I will be coming here tomorrow and beginning to check out your health.
I can help heal your injuries and sicknesses, and I intend to care for you, and to help you in little ways.
I intend for us to be friends."
But he did NOT Return.
Instead an envoy arrived to find the village slowly packing up to join the rest of the Kandia population, their village to be abandoned as they slowly moved to the shores to join the Kandia in their largest population centers. Lerato's life would never be the same; flown with the Shaman on her lap and the children all around to a new place where stone houses and walls were built, where people had armor of gleaming steel and shields of finest wood and leather!
Here The Sun had a home and over a hundred of the finest slaves both Kobori and Kandia.
Some were able to speak both her language and Kandia perfectly and they began teaching her how to understand their language. And then she was brought to all manner of strange places.
She was taught how and what to eat, where to relieve herself, what to wear, that she MUST wear SOMETHING, shown magical surfaces that would show entrapped storytellers and warriors experiencing great battles, shown magical fire within his home that would cook but could be turned off with the spin of a small stone on the side of the stove.
There were guns and new seeds, new farming tools, new fishing methods, all manner of different types of building; some of which stood several times taller than the greatest chief's huts from her people.
Wild Elephants soon started walking alongside Kandia men, eating grain and readying for war.
Walls were erected in days, entire societies of progress made in the time between going to sleep and waking up and EVERYWHERE she looked the Avatar Of The Sun was awake and active and working on something! He spent the entire night FLYING into the ocean and recovering great fish that could feed a dozen warriors a piece so that the Kandia and Kobori alike would not starve.
He spent hours in the day individually picking every weed and leaving every edible plant in the available land.
He Personally Gained The Loyalty Of M'Tufakhalu; The Great River Goddess that her people had worshipped.
Huge portions of time would be used to train with the men so that he could PERSONALLY lead the charge against Kanda's enemies.
When her people declared The Final War of Kobori Prophecy he carried the head of The Savannah Prince back to the Grand Elephant Matriarch and made the alliance with the beasts.
And they would come to fight alongside the Kandia! His people called him "The Maiden Of Health" but to her and anyone who cared to look he was nothing if not The Sun!
He was "The Bigger Fish!"
He was the be all and end all of overflowing energy, such that he didn't even need to sleep! And he had chosen her as his bride!
Clearly... he had righted EVERY problem and would continue to do so.
Lerato knew better than to spurn The Sun for solving all of her life's problems... her mistakes!
The Sun Would Not Be Denied! .... Or So She Had Thought.... Soon she learned... was FORCED to learn... that Jonathan Mondragon was not the god she made him out to be.
He was NOT the ultimate, invincible force of power in the universe.
Powerful though he was... he was NOT what she had imagined~ He, like so many mortals, was a flawed being... a man from another world entirely with no understanding of this world and no awareness of the full scale of his abilities; picking fights with powers beyond his own and offering peace to those he could easily dominate... and extending SO much compassion to someone so small as her whilst regularly stating that Mortals... are no less important than deities.
Worse yet... an intellectually average young woman like herself was simply NOT ready to accept this...
So she denied it! And for a month, as he told her of his world and of his plans for her future... of his powers and his ideas of what they were and what they meant... she refused to truly process what he was saying.
All she cared about was following him into eternity... to fulfilling his plans for her EXACTLY as he said! ... And when those plans were fulfilled... it crushed her...
She was sent away to a faraway land to train brutally under a hilariously handsy, god devouring educator to prepare for her transformation into a being like Jon...
Into A Salusar! Lerato was stuck in what felt to her like three months of life threatening conditions; training, studying and even fighting to break her conceptual limits... to steel her mind against the eventual process of being changed so drastically... to losing her mortality and entering the realm of the infinite.
And, when she returned... it was a rush to follow the plan, giving her next to no chance to process what was REALLY to happen! The Average Salusar has a mind easily breaking the limits of the human brain.
They can track bullets in flight, process advanced mathematic equations intuitively in an instant and can win a chess game against a grand master on talent alone; having never before seen the game.
In mere moments Lerato was transformed from a strictly average young woman who had struggled to be a good student throughout the entirety of her life... to a superhuman sun deity that could do nobel prize winning mathematics in her daydreams!
EVERYTHING she'd ever failed to grasp was now elementary to her.
EVERYTHING she had missed, misunderstood or failed to notice throughout her entire life was now back at the forefront of her mind; processed instantly and simultaneously!
And the actions of her husband... suddenly... tore her apart.
She was suddenly too intelligent... too understanding... to deny reality anymore. Her life had been destroyed and now she had NOTHING to live for... nothing to motivate her...
Everything that she had thought about Jon was a lie she'd told herself...
And perhaps everything she'd known about her own people was just as much a lie they told themselves!
She had to know how far this would go... she had to return to her master and undergo an even greater degree of training and study.
Only her Master had the knowledge to educate her on the true scale of the world she was now living in.
Su was the only one she knew who had done this all before.
She was the only person who could help her understand why ANY of this had happened in the first place! And so, within a strange pocket dimension in the deepest bowels of The Place Of Peace's Capital Monastery, she trained with Dr. Su Kaolla Rose Gray: The God Eater And Master Of Death for what was, to her, seven months.
With her teacher she started to learn who SHE was... what SHE wanted... how to use the power she'd been granted... and how to come to peace with all of the tragedy of her past. Her education was not, however, merely personal and philosophical!
With her newfound supergenius and lack of need for sleep she blasted through a double major during her training; getting her bachelor's degrees in Agricultural Sciences and Anthropology.
The first degree was to help her stick to her roots!
The second degree was to help her figure out what her roots actually are... Over the course of her training she came to terms withthe reality of her life, with the state of her marriage, such as it was, to what she once naively thought was the true God Of The Sun.
Upon her return she slew a great deity of the waves to save Soteri but her mind was still uncertain.
She had come to accept her position alongside Jonathan Mondragon but, of course, she was no longer his servant... no longer the demure, quiet housewife that she'd always assumed her life would come to.
Accepting a new role under the Soteri Government, Lerato has since flown off toward the southeast of Soteri to bring the rest of her people into the fold as well as to take some time to find herself and explore her new life on her own terms. Having Realized EXACTLY What She Is...
She Now Considers What She Wants And Who She Wants To Be!
Though she never learned how to sandwalk properly she was good with animals and loved baby goats, so she was an excellent caretaker and found it easy to fit in in her tiny tribal community of less than five hundred people.
As she became a young woman her beauty and popularity grew all the more!
Unlike her other siblings, her father was sure to save her for the right man. The chief's son had grown up around them, always generous and kind and it was clear that he had a great affection for the now marriageable young woman; regularly doting on her and spending his spare time flirting with her while she worked the fields and herded the stock.
She was growing more beautiful by the day and her father could tell that he had a good deal with this arrangement.
Before long, in the safety of his own hut, Lerato's father recommended to the Chief that Lerato and his son join and their families become one. To his surprise, The Chief had long felt the same thing.
Lerato had become very familiar with the Shaman's needs and practices and the Shaman himself had communed with the spirits and determined that the two were meant to be.
The spirits had made it clear to him that she was to belong to The Chief's Son and she would produce many children who would carry both of their families into fame and bring the village higher.
So said the visions of the Shaman.
Low as he was on the proverbial totem pole, the man who would become The Speaker Of The Sun was STILL their community's primary religious authority and his visions were to be respected, as they had often come to reality! The Children were not told for at least a year, letting them grow closer together with the Chief regularly encouraging his son to watch after and protect the girl and lay ceremonial territory around her to let the other young men watching her know that he had chosen her and nobody would take her from him.
Only one challenge was ever made but the challenger was quickly slain and, upon the ritual consumption of his rival's still beating heart, the Chief's Son publicly announced that she was HIS woman and that as soon as she had a name, he would marry her; the Most Beautiful Of The Village!
Any who EVER dared to challenge his ownership of her were ALWAYS welcome to do so in any way they pleased. Two days later her birthday came and the Shaman gave her her adult name; Lerato, Most Beloved.
It gave her such pride and joy to know that she would receive a name that told everyone how valuable of a wife she was.
She had learned everything she needed and pleased him both publicly and privately for two weeks.
Their newlywed life was eager and frantically intimate!
The Village on the whole was glad to hear of their excited and youthful consummation, eager to see the children they would have in the coming years. But one day, as Lerato was getting done tending to the shaman and walked out to oversee some children and check over a growth on the head of a village goat, it happened!
Her life changed in that very instant... From the sun itself came beams of golden light, streaming down into the village and striking men down where they stood.
None had time to react, to get out of the way or otherwise do anything at all.
The sun itself had struck them down, every man in the village.
Clearly from the gods themselves, three such beams took sharp 90 degree turns to fly into the small windows and door flap of the Shaman's hut, melting off both of his legs and one of his arms with horrifying divine wrath! HE Was The Lucky One; The Only Survivor!
In front of Lerato her husband looked on in worry as all around him died right before a beam struck his head from above, another his chest and a third his still melting pile of self, rendering him to a pile of unidentifiable sludge on the ground. Shocked, the girl stood in horror, unable to move or even scream as a giant of a man descended; three times wider in the shoulders than even her strapping husband had been and well over a head taller at least!
As the man landed he looked around, hands on his hips and with a confident and smug smirk on his face. The grieving mothers and vengeful wives attacked.
Rocks were thrown, knives swung and at least one spear SHATTERED over the man's very eyes!
To No Avail...
He not only remained unhurt... but determined to completely ignore these paltry offenses. The orphans of the village, little outcasts led by one called "Big Girl," drove a more orderly and somewhat coordinated attack when the adults were done!
To no effect at all! Lerato saw something different than they did, however.
She saw her husband melt within arm's reach and then she saw her entire remaining community shatter the strongest of their weapons over this being's face.
This was not a man.
This was The Sun given shape and form in such a way that his image did not burn their eyes out upon being seen, did not flash fry the entire village just by being in their presence! Clearly... EVERYTHING had gone wrong.
Her husband was wrong, the sons and husbands of others were wrong.
The fathers, chief and even the Shaman were clearly just... WRONG!
And she was clearly wrong by association, as all the others were as well.
The Sun, whilst a life giver and powerful figure of order and warmth, was also the universal symbol of unlimited power and wrath to her people. How dearly they had angered him and how graciously he was acting in response to their ill will and clear defiance of his such obvious power.
He had come down personally to right their mistakes and NOW he was tolerating their outbursts with pure ignorance; TRULY the highest mercy such a powerful entity even COULD do, for his power was so great that even his most merciful forgiveness could possibly burn the whole village to the ground! EVERY MOMENT that he was not welcomed and placated was a moment that he could lose his temper and patience with them! She did the only thing she could think to.
She ran into the storehut and took into her arms the largest and freshest bowl of fruit she could find.
It had been gathered that morning from the community gardens and she had been talking to the Shaman to arrange which would be offered to The River Goddess.
It had been too long since they'd been able to leave proper sacrifices...
The heaping bowl was a bit heavy for her but the conflict outside would never do.
It would doom them all! She fell upon the ground before him as he went about smiling and looking into various huts.
Her knees dug into the dust as she bowed her head and held the bowl up above in offering, her arms shaking from the weight of it. She did not speak.
She knew that nothing she could say would mean anything compared to her perfect display of submission and sacrifice.
He could have her, so long as he forgave the rest of her village. For untold seconds he stared down at her.
The entire village halted, at this point awed into submission but still uncertain as to their fate in the eyes of this invincible avatar of the sun.
And then, slowly, he reached down and grabbed a fruit, publicly biting into it and easing the tension of all. Until the Shaman came crawling out of his hut with the one arm he had left, screaming and moaning in pain.
She left the fruit and ran to the shaman and then, when he came to her, BEGGED for forgiveness.
She begged that the old man had not known what he had done and to PLEASE spare him from this pain! In response the avatar of the sun looked around... and stole away the smallest of the local Orphans, surprising everyone while he flew BACK into the sun with her! For over an hour everyone waited.
The shaman stabilized but only just.
He moaned out in pain and fell into a dreamlike state where he gave orders to everyone to prepare for The Sun's return.
They gathered the remaining 8 orphans, washed them and readied them, hiding their own children in the huts in case The Sun would return to take more from them.
The women gathered food offerings and water and ferments and the shaman, half delirious, oversaw as best as he could whilst Lerato tried to keep the pests from getting into his half melted, wounds.
She worried he would die.
Slowly... Feeling The Same... The Shaman began to impart what wisdom he could on Lerato, claiming that his time was near and nobody else would be able to hold all of the knowledge.
She had spent so much time with him that he felt like a father again, seeing his daughter thrive. An hour later The Sun returned with a great beast made of strange substances that she'd never seen before, which he carried in his hands above his head as he soared through the air!
From beyond their capacity to see he descended from The Sun once again.
Her people didn't even have horses, let alone what she would eventually come to know as "Cars." When he arrived he produced from this strange beast a native just like her who knew the language and the man ordered them to bring all of the orphans, the Shaman and Lerato herself...
Then he said to the villagers as such with a great smile of perfectly white teeth...
"My name is Jonathan Mondragon.
I am the leader of the Empire Of Kanda in this land.
This village is now under the protection of Kanda.
But that means that no more attacks will be launched into our province, and in the weeks to come, we will begin to come and trade with you all.
Welcome to the Kanda Empire."
He Then Continued.
"I will be coming here tomorrow and beginning to check out your health.
I can help heal your injuries and sicknesses, and I intend to care for you, and to help you in little ways.
I intend for us to be friends."
But he did NOT Return.
Instead an envoy arrived to find the village slowly packing up to join the rest of the Kandia population, their village to be abandoned as they slowly moved to the shores to join the Kandia in their largest population centers. Lerato's life would never be the same; flown with the Shaman on her lap and the children all around to a new place where stone houses and walls were built, where people had armor of gleaming steel and shields of finest wood and leather!
Here The Sun had a home and over a hundred of the finest slaves both Kobori and Kandia.
Some were able to speak both her language and Kandia perfectly and they began teaching her how to understand their language. And then she was brought to all manner of strange places.
She was taught how and what to eat, where to relieve herself, what to wear, that she MUST wear SOMETHING, shown magical surfaces that would show entrapped storytellers and warriors experiencing great battles, shown magical fire within his home that would cook but could be turned off with the spin of a small stone on the side of the stove.
There were guns and new seeds, new farming tools, new fishing methods, all manner of different types of building; some of which stood several times taller than the greatest chief's huts from her people.
Wild Elephants soon started walking alongside Kandia men, eating grain and readying for war.
Walls were erected in days, entire societies of progress made in the time between going to sleep and waking up and EVERYWHERE she looked the Avatar Of The Sun was awake and active and working on something! He spent the entire night FLYING into the ocean and recovering great fish that could feed a dozen warriors a piece so that the Kandia and Kobori alike would not starve.
He spent hours in the day individually picking every weed and leaving every edible plant in the available land.
He Personally Gained The Loyalty Of M'Tufakhalu; The Great River Goddess that her people had worshipped.
Huge portions of time would be used to train with the men so that he could PERSONALLY lead the charge against Kanda's enemies.
When her people declared The Final War of Kobori Prophecy he carried the head of The Savannah Prince back to the Grand Elephant Matriarch and made the alliance with the beasts.
And they would come to fight alongside the Kandia! His people called him "The Maiden Of Health" but to her and anyone who cared to look he was nothing if not The Sun!
He was "The Bigger Fish!"
He was the be all and end all of overflowing energy, such that he didn't even need to sleep! And he had chosen her as his bride!
Clearly... he had righted EVERY problem and would continue to do so.
Lerato knew better than to spurn The Sun for solving all of her life's problems... her mistakes!
The Sun Would Not Be Denied! .... Or So She Had Thought.... Soon she learned... was FORCED to learn... that Jonathan Mondragon was not the god she made him out to be.
He was NOT the ultimate, invincible force of power in the universe.
Powerful though he was... he was NOT what she had imagined~ He, like so many mortals, was a flawed being... a man from another world entirely with no understanding of this world and no awareness of the full scale of his abilities; picking fights with powers beyond his own and offering peace to those he could easily dominate... and extending SO much compassion to someone so small as her whilst regularly stating that Mortals... are no less important than deities.
Worse yet... an intellectually average young woman like herself was simply NOT ready to accept this...
So she denied it! And for a month, as he told her of his world and of his plans for her future... of his powers and his ideas of what they were and what they meant... she refused to truly process what he was saying.
All she cared about was following him into eternity... to fulfilling his plans for her EXACTLY as he said! ... And when those plans were fulfilled... it crushed her...
She was sent away to a faraway land to train brutally under a hilariously handsy, god devouring educator to prepare for her transformation into a being like Jon...
Into A Salusar! Lerato was stuck in what felt to her like three months of life threatening conditions; training, studying and even fighting to break her conceptual limits... to steel her mind against the eventual process of being changed so drastically... to losing her mortality and entering the realm of the infinite.
And, when she returned... it was a rush to follow the plan, giving her next to no chance to process what was REALLY to happen! The Average Salusar has a mind easily breaking the limits of the human brain.
They can track bullets in flight, process advanced mathematic equations intuitively in an instant and can win a chess game against a grand master on talent alone; having never before seen the game.
In mere moments Lerato was transformed from a strictly average young woman who had struggled to be a good student throughout the entirety of her life... to a superhuman sun deity that could do nobel prize winning mathematics in her daydreams!
EVERYTHING she'd ever failed to grasp was now elementary to her.
EVERYTHING she had missed, misunderstood or failed to notice throughout her entire life was now back at the forefront of her mind; processed instantly and simultaneously!
And the actions of her husband... suddenly... tore her apart.
She was suddenly too intelligent... too understanding... to deny reality anymore. Her life had been destroyed and now she had NOTHING to live for... nothing to motivate her...
Everything that she had thought about Jon was a lie she'd told herself...
And perhaps everything she'd known about her own people was just as much a lie they told themselves!
She had to know how far this would go... she had to return to her master and undergo an even greater degree of training and study.
Only her Master had the knowledge to educate her on the true scale of the world she was now living in.
Su was the only one she knew who had done this all before.
She was the only person who could help her understand why ANY of this had happened in the first place! And so, within a strange pocket dimension in the deepest bowels of The Place Of Peace's Capital Monastery, she trained with Dr. Su Kaolla Rose Gray: The God Eater And Master Of Death for what was, to her, seven months.
With her teacher she started to learn who SHE was... what SHE wanted... how to use the power she'd been granted... and how to come to peace with all of the tragedy of her past. Her education was not, however, merely personal and philosophical!
With her newfound supergenius and lack of need for sleep she blasted through a double major during her training; getting her bachelor's degrees in Agricultural Sciences and Anthropology.
The first degree was to help her stick to her roots!
The second degree was to help her figure out what her roots actually are... Over the course of her training she came to terms withthe reality of her life, with the state of her marriage, such as it was, to what she once naively thought was the true God Of The Sun.
Upon her return she slew a great deity of the waves to save Soteri but her mind was still uncertain.
She had come to accept her position alongside Jonathan Mondragon but, of course, she was no longer his servant... no longer the demure, quiet housewife that she'd always assumed her life would come to.
Accepting a new role under the Soteri Government, Lerato has since flown off toward the southeast of Soteri to bring the rest of her people into the fold as well as to take some time to find herself and explore her new life on her own terms. Having Realized EXACTLY What She Is...
She Now Considers What She Wants And Who She Wants To Be!
Education
Lerato, at least for most of her life, possessed a poor education in the most general sense.
She did not, until recently, know how to read and her skills mostly consisted of lay labor and experiential training in domestic skills like Childcare, farming, animal care, how to be "A Good Wife," etc.
She WAS, however, educated by her Local Shaman (Now the "Speaker Of The Sun") to follow in his footsteps, maintain ritual integrity, understand basic "medicine" and to know all of the names and customs of the local deities. Since her transformation into Ta Mando's Second Salusar and her training at The Place Of Peace, this has changed considerably!
Having once been a "normal" girl in mental capacity, becoming a Salusar has heightened her intellect to be able to understand any coherent language she perceives (short of divine tongues) and her incredibly enhanced mind allows her to process information far quicker than any normal human.
Lessons she'd failed to grasp as a child became elementary, difficulties with new concepts strictly academic and misunderstandings of ages past became embarrassing moments she could not help but to acknowledge.
EVERY teaching, every ritual, every contemplation of her spiritual education came back to her with exquisite clarity, filling her mind with the corrections to every mistake she'd ever made; from her failure to grasp sandwalking to her inability to understand the higher mysteries of Kobori spirituality and magic! To cope with this jarring transition from standard to superhuman she fled back to The Place Of Peace to continue learning under Su Kaolla Rose Gray: The Place Of Peace's Guardian Of The Eastern Shores and functional Professor of The Island. Through Intense "Education" Lerato had years of learning forced into her head, such that in seven short months (Within A Demiplane Wherein The Flow Of Time Is Much Faster) she was able to get her bachelor's degrees in Agricultural Science and Anthropology.
More than that, The Master Of Death is no easy teacher, with Lerato's Education being one of Su's personal greatest works; an educational plan specifically tailored to Lerato's own personal abilities to push her beyond her limits and make her realize exactly how invincible she's become, how intelligent she is now and how humanity fails to even compare. Pushed far beyond any mortal academic limit and able to stay awake indefinitely without fatigue, Lerato's Education has gone from nonexistent to exquisitely modern in mere months and her teacher has established that there is no reason for her to stop now that she's left the Pocket Dimension where time folds in on itself.
With all the time in the world now that she is a Salusar, Lerato has no reason to stop her studies!
She did not, until recently, know how to read and her skills mostly consisted of lay labor and experiential training in domestic skills like Childcare, farming, animal care, how to be "A Good Wife," etc.
She WAS, however, educated by her Local Shaman (Now the "Speaker Of The Sun") to follow in his footsteps, maintain ritual integrity, understand basic "medicine" and to know all of the names and customs of the local deities. Since her transformation into Ta Mando's Second Salusar and her training at The Place Of Peace, this has changed considerably!
Having once been a "normal" girl in mental capacity, becoming a Salusar has heightened her intellect to be able to understand any coherent language she perceives (short of divine tongues) and her incredibly enhanced mind allows her to process information far quicker than any normal human.
Lessons she'd failed to grasp as a child became elementary, difficulties with new concepts strictly academic and misunderstandings of ages past became embarrassing moments she could not help but to acknowledge.
EVERY teaching, every ritual, every contemplation of her spiritual education came back to her with exquisite clarity, filling her mind with the corrections to every mistake she'd ever made; from her failure to grasp sandwalking to her inability to understand the higher mysteries of Kobori spirituality and magic! To cope with this jarring transition from standard to superhuman she fled back to The Place Of Peace to continue learning under Su Kaolla Rose Gray: The Place Of Peace's Guardian Of The Eastern Shores and functional Professor of The Island. Through Intense "Education" Lerato had years of learning forced into her head, such that in seven short months (Within A Demiplane Wherein The Flow Of Time Is Much Faster) she was able to get her bachelor's degrees in Agricultural Science and Anthropology.
More than that, The Master Of Death is no easy teacher, with Lerato's Education being one of Su's personal greatest works; an educational plan specifically tailored to Lerato's own personal abilities to push her beyond her limits and make her realize exactly how invincible she's become, how intelligent she is now and how humanity fails to even compare. Pushed far beyond any mortal academic limit and able to stay awake indefinitely without fatigue, Lerato's Education has gone from nonexistent to exquisitely modern in mere months and her teacher has established that there is no reason for her to stop now that she's left the Pocket Dimension where time folds in on itself.
With all the time in the world now that she is a Salusar, Lerato has no reason to stop her studies!
Employment
Lerato is, legally, The Concubine of Jonathan Mondragon and is thus entitled to certain privileges that allow her a life of unemployed luxury.
However, Lerato has recently voiced a desire to do something more productive for Soteri and has thus taken on the burden of spreading the word of Kanda's spread to the distant southwest to bring the remaining Kobori in the region under Kandia control.
While she is not, in all technicality, a member of the military she still has some authority to call for aid from any nearby Leconia if she feels the need and has a good reputation with the soldiers of Soteri. For her diplomatic and spiritual duties maintaining good relations with the people and deities to the southwest Lerato receives a generous salary of 400 Imperial Keys a year in lots of a hundred a piece with a twenty key bonus on the new year.
Furthermore, though she has almost exclusively chosen to eschew such benefits to date, Lerato's position under the government of Soteri entitles her to her choice of apprentices, servants and attendants to maintain the important bureaucratic duties of her job.
She has been informed that after ten years of service in this role as an international diplomat to the people of the south she will be granted full Kandia Citizenship, a prospect that seems to please her.
However, Lerato has recently voiced a desire to do something more productive for Soteri and has thus taken on the burden of spreading the word of Kanda's spread to the distant southwest to bring the remaining Kobori in the region under Kandia control.
While she is not, in all technicality, a member of the military she still has some authority to call for aid from any nearby Leconia if she feels the need and has a good reputation with the soldiers of Soteri. For her diplomatic and spiritual duties maintaining good relations with the people and deities to the southwest Lerato receives a generous salary of 400 Imperial Keys a year in lots of a hundred a piece with a twenty key bonus on the new year.
Furthermore, though she has almost exclusively chosen to eschew such benefits to date, Lerato's position under the government of Soteri entitles her to her choice of apprentices, servants and attendants to maintain the important bureaucratic duties of her job.
She has been informed that after ten years of service in this role as an international diplomat to the people of the south she will be granted full Kandia Citizenship, a prospect that seems to please her.
Accomplishments & Achievements
While it may seem entirely mundane compared to her more superhuman qualities, higher education stands as one of the accomplishments that Lerato holds particularly near and dear; coming from a culture where formal learning is literally nonexistent and day to day living is so comparably underived from early agriculturalists that the Kobori had only had metal for a few hundred years before the Kandia arrived.
While comically powerful in body, Lerato has grown absolutely obsessed with more intellectual activities like reading and writing, learning new things and investigating the unknown, relying on her newfound ability to more deeply explore the universe as a far greater boon than her near invulnerability and super strength!
That she can consider herself a legitimate scientist, that she even knows what science is and has joined its ranks, is something that she takes great pride in and finds far more valuable than the ability to simply destroy. Far more internal than her acquisition of higher education, Lerato considers leveling with her mental conflicts and rejoining society to be a big achievement and her teacher feels the same!
Shortly after the transformation Lerato was a nervous wreck and didn't understand what she was supposed to do or how to handle her new abilities.
Now, while still struggling with issues as anyone does, she can handle life again and even seeks to integrate herself into the workforce.
She desires to help the common folk and use her revolutionary up-time knowledge to reform society and make it so nobody has to go through another Kobori Final War
She's made a lot of emotional and mental progress since becoming a Salusar and she reminds herself of that on a regular basis to avoid losing track of how far she's come!
While comically powerful in body, Lerato has grown absolutely obsessed with more intellectual activities like reading and writing, learning new things and investigating the unknown, relying on her newfound ability to more deeply explore the universe as a far greater boon than her near invulnerability and super strength!
That she can consider herself a legitimate scientist, that she even knows what science is and has joined its ranks, is something that she takes great pride in and finds far more valuable than the ability to simply destroy. Far more internal than her acquisition of higher education, Lerato considers leveling with her mental conflicts and rejoining society to be a big achievement and her teacher feels the same!
Shortly after the transformation Lerato was a nervous wreck and didn't understand what she was supposed to do or how to handle her new abilities.
Now, while still struggling with issues as anyone does, she can handle life again and even seeks to integrate herself into the workforce.
She desires to help the common folk and use her revolutionary up-time knowledge to reform society and make it so nobody has to go through another Kobori Final War
She's made a lot of emotional and mental progress since becoming a Salusar and she reminds herself of that on a regular basis to avoid losing track of how far she's come!
Failures & Embarrassments
Lerato's greatest embarrassment is being blind to what was going on around her for so long...
While Jonathan Mondragon was more than transparent with her about what he was, where he came from, his lack of understanding at any of this... she refused to process it because she wanted it to be simple and easy.
Upon her ascension this became outright impossible and it broke her for a time... leaving her unable to think about what her purpose in the world must be... or why she was chosen in the first place. While she has done a lot to get over the jarring transformation from standard to superhuman, she still doesn't care to talk about her life before she became what she is today... and she prefers others don't talk about it either.
Back then she was, in her mind, still a little girl.
Her transformation was the perfect representation of her, as that naive little girl, being too eager and excited to be an adult without understanding what it actually meant to really grow up. Now she is all too aware that perhaps, in some ways, she was better off staying a simple child in this great and terrible landscape of gods and monsters...
While Jonathan Mondragon was more than transparent with her about what he was, where he came from, his lack of understanding at any of this... she refused to process it because she wanted it to be simple and easy.
Upon her ascension this became outright impossible and it broke her for a time... leaving her unable to think about what her purpose in the world must be... or why she was chosen in the first place. While she has done a lot to get over the jarring transformation from standard to superhuman, she still doesn't care to talk about her life before she became what she is today... and she prefers others don't talk about it either.
Back then she was, in her mind, still a little girl.
Her transformation was the perfect representation of her, as that naive little girl, being too eager and excited to be an adult without understanding what it actually meant to really grow up. Now she is all too aware that perhaps, in some ways, she was better off staying a simple child in this great and terrible landscape of gods and monsters...
Morality & Philosophy
Lerato believes deeply in the idea that most people are essentially good in their core.
She is all but blindly confident, in fact, that everyone deserves a second chance at life even if they otherwise seem to be disgusting and deplorable.
She values children and babies of all animals, young mothers and strong warriors eager to prove themselves.
All life is, just as she once was, trying to survive this tragic mess called reality.
And something deep inside of her tells her that this makes them remarkably innocent and valuable in her eyes. Following this, she works hard to make things better for everyone.
In Soteri, thanks to the order of their establishment and the systems by which they live, Lerato has seen that people can exist happily and strongly connected in groups larger than any community she'd ever seen during her upbringing.
And Lerato sees those communities as new opportunities to form ever larger families and bonds with new people, finding family to be important. However, Lerato is not merely some gooey avatar of friendship and compassion.
While she loathes the idea of killing anyone and desires only to see people happy and comfortable, she understands that there are all too many forces around her that have little desire to coexist with anyone else, let alone her and the mortals of Soteri.
And those who threaten her friends and loved ones, her family both domestic and abroad, will inevitably be dealt with.
Very much like her Kobori culture recommends, Lerato believes that those who DO deserve death must be dispatched without emotion or hesitation and their existence must be erased down to the very soul.
Though one might get numerous warnings before they are ultimately handled, Lerato does not seem to care about the considerations of the enemy once they have forfeit their right to peace and views the deaths of those that have wronged her to such a point to be... unworthy of discussion.
She is all but blindly confident, in fact, that everyone deserves a second chance at life even if they otherwise seem to be disgusting and deplorable.
She values children and babies of all animals, young mothers and strong warriors eager to prove themselves.
All life is, just as she once was, trying to survive this tragic mess called reality.
And something deep inside of her tells her that this makes them remarkably innocent and valuable in her eyes. Following this, she works hard to make things better for everyone.
In Soteri, thanks to the order of their establishment and the systems by which they live, Lerato has seen that people can exist happily and strongly connected in groups larger than any community she'd ever seen during her upbringing.
And Lerato sees those communities as new opportunities to form ever larger families and bonds with new people, finding family to be important. However, Lerato is not merely some gooey avatar of friendship and compassion.
While she loathes the idea of killing anyone and desires only to see people happy and comfortable, she understands that there are all too many forces around her that have little desire to coexist with anyone else, let alone her and the mortals of Soteri.
And those who threaten her friends and loved ones, her family both domestic and abroad, will inevitably be dealt with.
Very much like her Kobori culture recommends, Lerato believes that those who DO deserve death must be dispatched without emotion or hesitation and their existence must be erased down to the very soul.
Though one might get numerous warnings before they are ultimately handled, Lerato does not seem to care about the considerations of the enemy once they have forfeit their right to peace and views the deaths of those that have wronged her to such a point to be... unworthy of discussion.
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
Formerly Lerato's primary motivations were to please and serve her husband, Jonathan Mondragon: Maiden of Health and Embodiment Of The Sun.
Considering herself his first wife by every traditional definition, Lerato believed she was bound to represent herself as such and hold herself with no small degree of authority and regality after entering Kandia life! Lerato has since lost most of that motivation, finally seeing Jonathan Mondragon for what he is and finding herself confused and directionless.
Instead, at the behest of her Master, Lerato has dedicated herself to self improvement; to learning and training and working to increase her capacity for understanding and changing the world around her.
She's signed a ten year contract as a diplomat for the Longar of Soteri, been assigned to patrol the southwest peninsula and registered herself with the Longar's Personal Scurilos, marking her legitimacy as a proper immigrant into the legal census of Kanda. Having lost most of her culture to its own hubris, Lerato has started feeling the need to catalog and preserve as much information from the old ways as possible; such that she might work together with other native figures to completely reform and codify Kobori culture and history for future generations.
While no longer captivated by her people's traditions and beliefs, Lerato acutely understands the value of monitoring and recording everything about the Kobori so that nobody will ever again make the same mistakes they did... and so that the practices that DID serve them well may be retained and integrated into the much less xenophobic and far more adaptive Empire Of Kanda.
Fortunately her new position as diplomat to the region's "Exotic Peoples" has allowed her considerable leeway in recording every story or ritual she finds.
Considering herself his first wife by every traditional definition, Lerato believed she was bound to represent herself as such and hold herself with no small degree of authority and regality after entering Kandia life! Lerato has since lost most of that motivation, finally seeing Jonathan Mondragon for what he is and finding herself confused and directionless.
Instead, at the behest of her Master, Lerato has dedicated herself to self improvement; to learning and training and working to increase her capacity for understanding and changing the world around her.
She's signed a ten year contract as a diplomat for the Longar of Soteri, been assigned to patrol the southwest peninsula and registered herself with the Longar's Personal Scurilos, marking her legitimacy as a proper immigrant into the legal census of Kanda. Having lost most of her culture to its own hubris, Lerato has started feeling the need to catalog and preserve as much information from the old ways as possible; such that she might work together with other native figures to completely reform and codify Kobori culture and history for future generations.
While no longer captivated by her people's traditions and beliefs, Lerato acutely understands the value of monitoring and recording everything about the Kobori so that nobody will ever again make the same mistakes they did... and so that the practices that DID serve them well may be retained and integrated into the much less xenophobic and far more adaptive Empire Of Kanda.
Fortunately her new position as diplomat to the region's "Exotic Peoples" has allowed her considerable leeway in recording every story or ritual she finds.
Savvies & Ineptitudes
Despite her position as a diplomat for Longar Meningitis Soterion, Lerato isn't actually a very social individual, especially since her transformation into one of the People Of The Sun!
Seldom smiling, if only due to a cultural habit, and often softspoken, Lerato tends to maintain a gentle but definite social distance to almost everyone in her life, even her own husband.
While her affection for those precious to her may be nearly bursting at the seams, she seldom shows it and only those who either know her closely or who have some special ability to detect emotions can tell how she really feels.
Despite this emotional distance she is never rude or cold toward others, maintaining the pleasantries and excusing her absentmindedness when she gets distracted by the sheer novelty of her new life. The fact of the matter is simply that the proverbial pond she grew up in was tiny compared to the mighty ocean within which she's been dumped and the true size of the universe around her has long since left her a bit uncertain about how to interact with people.
That being said, Lerato is nothing if not a studious individual and seeks to learn all she can about making friends and influencing people so that she can carve out a life for herself, even if that means sometimes being away from those she treasures for weeks at a time to take care of business faraway.
Seldom smiling, if only due to a cultural habit, and often softspoken, Lerato tends to maintain a gentle but definite social distance to almost everyone in her life, even her own husband.
While her affection for those precious to her may be nearly bursting at the seams, she seldom shows it and only those who either know her closely or who have some special ability to detect emotions can tell how she really feels.
Despite this emotional distance she is never rude or cold toward others, maintaining the pleasantries and excusing her absentmindedness when she gets distracted by the sheer novelty of her new life. The fact of the matter is simply that the proverbial pond she grew up in was tiny compared to the mighty ocean within which she's been dumped and the true size of the universe around her has long since left her a bit uncertain about how to interact with people.
That being said, Lerato is nothing if not a studious individual and seeks to learn all she can about making friends and influencing people so that she can carve out a life for herself, even if that means sometimes being away from those she treasures for weeks at a time to take care of business faraway.
Likes & Dislikes
Lerato Likes:
The Sound Of The Ocean
Shiny Stones And Shells
Things That Smell Good
Pretty Flowers
Soft, Little Animals ("Like Baby Goats!")
A Clean, Organized Home
The Sound Of Children Playing
The Smell Of Freshly Cooked Food
Balmy Days Where It Rains Lightly
Milk, Butter, Cheese And Yogurt
High Society Festivities
Good Clothes And Jewelry
Dr. Su Kaolla Rose Gray: Master Of Death, God Eater And Guardian Of The Eastern Shores Of The Place Of Peace
Cinema And Action Media
Literature (Particularly Science Fiction And Alternate History) Lerato Dislikes:
Needless Violence And Fighting
Lies And Those Who Lie To Her
Talking About Her Mortal Life
Others Talking About Her Mortal Life
Being Mocked / Being Called Daroba
The Sound Of The Ocean
Shiny Stones And Shells
Things That Smell Good
Pretty Flowers
Soft, Little Animals ("Like Baby Goats!")
A Clean, Organized Home
The Sound Of Children Playing
The Smell Of Freshly Cooked Food
Balmy Days Where It Rains Lightly
Milk, Butter, Cheese And Yogurt
High Society Festivities
Good Clothes And Jewelry
Dr. Su Kaolla Rose Gray: Master Of Death, God Eater And Guardian Of The Eastern Shores Of The Place Of Peace
Cinema And Action Media
Literature (Particularly Science Fiction And Alternate History) Lerato Dislikes:
Needless Violence And Fighting
Lies And Those Who Lie To Her
Talking About Her Mortal Life
Others Talking About Her Mortal Life
Being Mocked / Being Called Daroba
Virtues & Personality perks
Lerato is, if nothing else, near endlessly patient!
Having lived a simple life of near constant inconvenience among a close and loving community, she has learned to ignore the least of the annoyances in life and forgive the greater ones.
Those who show legitimate remorse for their malignant actions should be forgiven and those who do not should be seriously observed in order to find out if they are merely in need of support and rehabilitation rather than punishment
Even though her own society has long supported the abandonment of orphans and the alienation of them from the community, Lerato has always done her best to produce a sort of culture of support for those less able and less fortunate than the rest and she has encouraged her people to see orphans and the disabled as valuable members of the community, if admittedly with less than stellar success.
And yet, even when they falter and do not see things the way that she does, even when she is mistreated, alienated or outright shunned due to her proximity to the divine, Lerato does not begrudge her people, nor anyone else. At her core, Lerato is simply... Good!
Having lived a simple life of near constant inconvenience among a close and loving community, she has learned to ignore the least of the annoyances in life and forgive the greater ones.
Those who show legitimate remorse for their malignant actions should be forgiven and those who do not should be seriously observed in order to find out if they are merely in need of support and rehabilitation rather than punishment
Even though her own society has long supported the abandonment of orphans and the alienation of them from the community, Lerato has always done her best to produce a sort of culture of support for those less able and less fortunate than the rest and she has encouraged her people to see orphans and the disabled as valuable members of the community, if admittedly with less than stellar success.
And yet, even when they falter and do not see things the way that she does, even when she is mistreated, alienated or outright shunned due to her proximity to the divine, Lerato does not begrudge her people, nor anyone else. At her core, Lerato is simply... Good!
Hygiene
Having lived most of her life in a tribal setting, relying on sand bathing and occasional river baths or not bathing at all, Lerato has taken fondly to the Kandia Style of hygiene as a whole.
She appreciates lounging in the pools with everyone else, though is not certain about the desegregated nature of the bathhouse and generally prefers to avoid speaking to men while enjoying a good soak; taking protection in the presence of other females if at all possible even if she isn't very talkative. Having possessed tight but rough dreadlocks before being taken by The Embodiment Of The Sun, Lerato has since tended to her hair at Jon's estate and it has been rewoven and twisted with the finest of Kandia tools and oils and even the touch of magic.
As Kandia barbers occasionally possess magical instruments, she has found these such tools and commandeered some for herself!
Such is her joy at this that Lerato has quickly grown even more caring and attentive to her hair; now sporting the hyper-fine, ultra-tight locks so esteemed in her culture and dyeing them with the classic crimson ochre that her people find so beautiful!
While this style of hair, called "Flowing Blood" by her people, represents the ancient traditions of hair care passed down by The Mountain God, (There seems to be no evidence for this style before his reign began) Lerato simply finds the appearance to be attractive and well kept and so has opted to keep this tradition alive. While ultimately Lerato is working as hard as she can to demystify Kobori Hygiene and decouple it from The Mountain God's Origins, it still stands to reason that the highest of Kobori fashion requires consistent work and Kobori Women are highly esteemed if they can properly maintain their hair in the style of Flowing Blood while carrying out all of their necessary chores and duties.
Due to this labor heavy nature of personal grooming, Lerato is seen as a firmly established woman who is exceptionally well organized and solidly put together, as she insists upon maintaining her hair herself as a point of pride typical of her people!
She appreciates lounging in the pools with everyone else, though is not certain about the desegregated nature of the bathhouse and generally prefers to avoid speaking to men while enjoying a good soak; taking protection in the presence of other females if at all possible even if she isn't very talkative. Having possessed tight but rough dreadlocks before being taken by The Embodiment Of The Sun, Lerato has since tended to her hair at Jon's estate and it has been rewoven and twisted with the finest of Kandia tools and oils and even the touch of magic.
As Kandia barbers occasionally possess magical instruments, she has found these such tools and commandeered some for herself!
Such is her joy at this that Lerato has quickly grown even more caring and attentive to her hair; now sporting the hyper-fine, ultra-tight locks so esteemed in her culture and dyeing them with the classic crimson ochre that her people find so beautiful!
While this style of hair, called "Flowing Blood" by her people, represents the ancient traditions of hair care passed down by The Mountain God, (There seems to be no evidence for this style before his reign began) Lerato simply finds the appearance to be attractive and well kept and so has opted to keep this tradition alive. While ultimately Lerato is working as hard as she can to demystify Kobori Hygiene and decouple it from The Mountain God's Origins, it still stands to reason that the highest of Kobori fashion requires consistent work and Kobori Women are highly esteemed if they can properly maintain their hair in the style of Flowing Blood while carrying out all of their necessary chores and duties.
Due to this labor heavy nature of personal grooming, Lerato is seen as a firmly established woman who is exceptionally well organized and solidly put together, as she insists upon maintaining her hair herself as a point of pride typical of her people!
Social
Contacts & Relations
While not otherwise very chatty in her day to day life, Lerato has received many hundreds of letters from various Kandia figures in her brief time with Jonathan Mondragon; most of which congratulate her on one thing or the other regarding becoming "Properly Civilized."
Many of the Kandia nobility consider her to be an ideal example of how Kanda can "Educate The Daroba" and have sent all manner of festive invitations offering for her to come and spend time in the core where they will "Entrance" and "Excite" her with "The Finest Of Modern Technologies!" Still, not all of her contacts are strangers and self important pen pals from faraway lands!
At least one of her favorite contacts is a TEACHER from faraway lands!
Dr. Su Kaolla Rose Gray: Guardian Of The Place Of Peace's Eastern Shores, is also her personal tutor and martial arts master!
While perhaps a terribly handsy pervert, Su is someone Lerato trusts implicitly and has shown time and again over the course of Lerato's training that she may ACTUALLY care about the young woman and her future; though Lerato still doesn't understand why.
If The Dawn Age Mistress ever finds herself in a particularly bad situation she is always welcome to contact Su or even visit her master in The Place Of Peace via The Circle Of The World teleportation ring in the Kobori Temple Of Genesis.
Presumably, if she could, Su would even come to Lerato's rescue were she to know the young woman needed it!
While gruff and self interested, Lerato knows that her master will always support her.
Perhaps more personally, Lerato and Su have shared many extremely close, intimate moments together and, while Lerato refuses to talk about them to anyone, Su is more than happy to tell anyone willing to listen! (Except Jon, Whom She Loves Teasing!) Though Lerato's contacts are growing every day, she is not particularly close to anyone outside of Soteri and has not personally reached out to new parties to seek some form of relationship.
All the same, figures like The Detective Chiyo Donahue and Head Letanar Marna Of Navo Kanda have begun getting closer to The Second Salusar, helping her clear her husband's name during the Elephant Trials of Soteri wherein Jonathan Mondragon would stand trial for breaking the laws of Kandia Warfare.
While she has never been the most social of people, Lerato has certainly begun to attract powerful individuals who share her interests.
Many of the Kandia nobility consider her to be an ideal example of how Kanda can "Educate The Daroba" and have sent all manner of festive invitations offering for her to come and spend time in the core where they will "Entrance" and "Excite" her with "The Finest Of Modern Technologies!" Still, not all of her contacts are strangers and self important pen pals from faraway lands!
At least one of her favorite contacts is a TEACHER from faraway lands!
Dr. Su Kaolla Rose Gray: Guardian Of The Place Of Peace's Eastern Shores, is also her personal tutor and martial arts master!
While perhaps a terribly handsy pervert, Su is someone Lerato trusts implicitly and has shown time and again over the course of Lerato's training that she may ACTUALLY care about the young woman and her future; though Lerato still doesn't understand why.
If The Dawn Age Mistress ever finds herself in a particularly bad situation she is always welcome to contact Su or even visit her master in The Place Of Peace via The Circle Of The World teleportation ring in the Kobori Temple Of Genesis.
Presumably, if she could, Su would even come to Lerato's rescue were she to know the young woman needed it!
While gruff and self interested, Lerato knows that her master will always support her.
Perhaps more personally, Lerato and Su have shared many extremely close, intimate moments together and, while Lerato refuses to talk about them to anyone, Su is more than happy to tell anyone willing to listen! (Except Jon, Whom She Loves Teasing!) Though Lerato's contacts are growing every day, she is not particularly close to anyone outside of Soteri and has not personally reached out to new parties to seek some form of relationship.
All the same, figures like The Detective Chiyo Donahue and Head Letanar Marna Of Navo Kanda have begun getting closer to The Second Salusar, helping her clear her husband's name during the Elephant Trials of Soteri wherein Jonathan Mondragon would stand trial for breaking the laws of Kandia Warfare.
While she has never been the most social of people, Lerato has certainly begun to attract powerful individuals who share her interests.
Family Ties
Lerato had many sisters and brothers, (About half of which survived childhood!) though most of her surviving brothers went off to other villages in search of fame and notoriety while her surviving sisters were married off to various tribal figures in the area to secure political and social connections with powerful warlords and chiefs.
While her mother died about a year before the arrival of the Kandia from a disease that swept through the community, her father Mpilo survived and arranged her marriage with the Chief's Son. Just a few days before the arrival of Jonathan Mondragon, while Lerato and her first husband were still in the throes of their honeymoon stage, he set off to Tando Lands with the Village Chief to discuss working together on starting diplomatic talks with The Kandia; their own village having already fallen under Kandia influence over a year before and having gained some reasonable protection and stability from it.
Mpilo is presently the only relative whose life Lerato is uncertain of, remotely confident that the rest of her relatives not living around Castan Mondragon died in The Kobori Final War or shortly thereafter during the Grand Matriarch's several week long genocide against "The Naked Humans."
His Whereabouts, As Well As The Chief's, Are Presently Unknown.
While her mother died about a year before the arrival of the Kandia from a disease that swept through the community, her father Mpilo survived and arranged her marriage with the Chief's Son. Just a few days before the arrival of Jonathan Mondragon, while Lerato and her first husband were still in the throes of their honeymoon stage, he set off to Tando Lands with the Village Chief to discuss working together on starting diplomatic talks with The Kandia; their own village having already fallen under Kandia influence over a year before and having gained some reasonable protection and stability from it.
Mpilo is presently the only relative whose life Lerato is uncertain of, remotely confident that the rest of her relatives not living around Castan Mondragon died in The Kobori Final War or shortly thereafter during the Grand Matriarch's several week long genocide against "The Naked Humans."
His Whereabouts, As Well As The Chief's, Are Presently Unknown.
Religious Views
It was Lerato's PERSONAL view that Jon is "The Embodiment Of The Sun."
While she still vaguely believed in the old practices as taught to her by her village shaman, she had also turned her back on near every cultural or traditional practice the Kobori had embraced during The Age Of The Council, preferring to study the older ways from before The Age of The Mountain God. In Kobori beliefs The Sun is "The Bigger Fish" and is absolutely unable to be defeated or even inconvenienced by any other forces.
It is a being so powerful that it may ignore its assailants, though if it is annoyed may also destroy them effortlessly.
But the sun is also perfectly neutral!
It is a life giving and ending essence that simply IS and there is never going to be any changing that!
You can try all you like to talk yourself up... but you will never be as grand as the sun! Such was the sight of Jon in her eyes before her transformation!
Lerato was CERTAIN that Jon was the arrival of The Sun in human form and she worshipped him as such, viewing herself as His First Wife; a sacred title in her culture!
When Jon arrived and killed all of the men in her village and then showed his great power by simply ignoring those who attacked, it occurred to Lerato that they had ALL erred harshly in their methods of worship... and The Sun had arrived to correct things personally. Lerato grew to view herself as the Chief Mortal Amongst Humanity in Soteri, to be the perfect example of how one should serve the gods.
She thought she understood how important it was that Jon picked her instead of any other woman in her village.
She felt she had to become the perfect role model both for the world around her and for the cult surrounding Jonathan Mondragon! And then she became a Salusar...
She became a god in her own right.
With her newly enhanced mind and her extensive learning under "The God Eater," Lerato was forced to VERY quickly acknowledge that she had been mistaken in her beliefs the entire time. Jonathan Mondragon was, in many ways, JUST as human as she had been!
He had not CHOSEN her beforehand but had selected her on a whim thanks to her quick thinking and submission.
She had not had some fantastic spark that inspired him... but rather had presented him with a purely mundane curiosity that drew his attention!
And the gods around her had been, her entire life, JUST as flawed, absent, self centered and corrupt as any humans could be; as Jon HAD Been!!! Even Worse... the Gods Are Capricious and Mortals Are Flippant And Easily Misguided!
Having studied anthropology under The Master Of Death, Lerato has come to accept that even her own culture's age old traditions covering tens of thousands of years are but coping mechanisms and stories invented to explain the world her ancestors had no understanding of.
If not that, then lies concocted by the countless divine beings that have come and gone since the arrival of mankind with the sole purpose in mind of misleading her people...
Of convincing them of things that simply never were. All of humanity did NOT come from a crack in the ground that The Earth God opened up out of pity for them.
No Doubt it was merely a small band of people stuck in a cramped cave that were let free by the god and their delusions surrounding that event fueled the first Proto-Kobori Stories.
The Great Desert of Soteri is NOT the result of The Sun God and Earth God fighting millions of years ago, even if it MAY have been their battleground.
Rather, natural conditions sometimes spurred by the divines resulted in a general lack of seasonal rainfall over TENS OF MILLIONS of years, resulting in The Soteri Desert that she knows today.
ALL of it, she's come to feel with her newfound education and intellect, has been lies and half-truths to deceive mortals into blindly serving The Divine! Lerato, all that said, has grown jaded and surfeited over religion and the practice of cultural traditions and rituals.
She has grown unable, with her newly enhanced psyche, to see Jon as some magical being worthy of praise and adoration... but rather as the misled superman who brought death and destruction to her village, killed her first husband and took advantage of their cultural traditions to meet his agendas just like every other god...
Only to VERY QUICKLY grow to regret his atrocities, as all flawed mortals eventually do through one experience or another.
... Only to emotionally collapse under the realization that perhaps something had been terribly wrong with his mind before and shortly after his arrival in Soteri! These days, having trained under (and even slept under!) someone who can and HAS devoured the flesh of deities to consume their power, Lerato finds it difficult to regard even the oldest and most powerful of deities with more respect than she would give any random stranger... and she largely fails to understand any longer why all of these deities think they can demand worship in the first place... So her master has told her...
"No Entity Or Institution Worthy Of Worship Would Want It!"
While she still vaguely believed in the old practices as taught to her by her village shaman, she had also turned her back on near every cultural or traditional practice the Kobori had embraced during The Age Of The Council, preferring to study the older ways from before The Age of The Mountain God. In Kobori beliefs The Sun is "The Bigger Fish" and is absolutely unable to be defeated or even inconvenienced by any other forces.
It is a being so powerful that it may ignore its assailants, though if it is annoyed may also destroy them effortlessly.
But the sun is also perfectly neutral!
It is a life giving and ending essence that simply IS and there is never going to be any changing that!
You can try all you like to talk yourself up... but you will never be as grand as the sun! Such was the sight of Jon in her eyes before her transformation!
Lerato was CERTAIN that Jon was the arrival of The Sun in human form and she worshipped him as such, viewing herself as His First Wife; a sacred title in her culture!
When Jon arrived and killed all of the men in her village and then showed his great power by simply ignoring those who attacked, it occurred to Lerato that they had ALL erred harshly in their methods of worship... and The Sun had arrived to correct things personally. Lerato grew to view herself as the Chief Mortal Amongst Humanity in Soteri, to be the perfect example of how one should serve the gods.
She thought she understood how important it was that Jon picked her instead of any other woman in her village.
She felt she had to become the perfect role model both for the world around her and for the cult surrounding Jonathan Mondragon! And then she became a Salusar...
She became a god in her own right.
With her newly enhanced mind and her extensive learning under "The God Eater," Lerato was forced to VERY quickly acknowledge that she had been mistaken in her beliefs the entire time. Jonathan Mondragon was, in many ways, JUST as human as she had been!
He had not CHOSEN her beforehand but had selected her on a whim thanks to her quick thinking and submission.
She had not had some fantastic spark that inspired him... but rather had presented him with a purely mundane curiosity that drew his attention!
And the gods around her had been, her entire life, JUST as flawed, absent, self centered and corrupt as any humans could be; as Jon HAD Been!!! Even Worse... the Gods Are Capricious and Mortals Are Flippant And Easily Misguided!
Having studied anthropology under The Master Of Death, Lerato has come to accept that even her own culture's age old traditions covering tens of thousands of years are but coping mechanisms and stories invented to explain the world her ancestors had no understanding of.
If not that, then lies concocted by the countless divine beings that have come and gone since the arrival of mankind with the sole purpose in mind of misleading her people...
Of convincing them of things that simply never were. All of humanity did NOT come from a crack in the ground that The Earth God opened up out of pity for them.
No Doubt it was merely a small band of people stuck in a cramped cave that were let free by the god and their delusions surrounding that event fueled the first Proto-Kobori Stories.
The Great Desert of Soteri is NOT the result of The Sun God and Earth God fighting millions of years ago, even if it MAY have been their battleground.
Rather, natural conditions sometimes spurred by the divines resulted in a general lack of seasonal rainfall over TENS OF MILLIONS of years, resulting in The Soteri Desert that she knows today.
ALL of it, she's come to feel with her newfound education and intellect, has been lies and half-truths to deceive mortals into blindly serving The Divine! Lerato, all that said, has grown jaded and surfeited over religion and the practice of cultural traditions and rituals.
She has grown unable, with her newly enhanced psyche, to see Jon as some magical being worthy of praise and adoration... but rather as the misled superman who brought death and destruction to her village, killed her first husband and took advantage of their cultural traditions to meet his agendas just like every other god...
Only to VERY QUICKLY grow to regret his atrocities, as all flawed mortals eventually do through one experience or another.
... Only to emotionally collapse under the realization that perhaps something had been terribly wrong with his mind before and shortly after his arrival in Soteri! These days, having trained under (and even slept under!) someone who can and HAS devoured the flesh of deities to consume their power, Lerato finds it difficult to regard even the oldest and most powerful of deities with more respect than she would give any random stranger... and she largely fails to understand any longer why all of these deities think they can demand worship in the first place... So her master has told her...
"No Entity Or Institution Worthy Of Worship Would Want It!"
Social Aptitude
Lerato, a rather typical woman of her people, does not talk very much and isn't terribly expressive with those around her.
Jon is able to know her emotions so acutely because of his ability to feel the emotional state of others through magic.
However, most people regard Lerato as moderately distant and, while perfectly able to be engaged and never rude, she is seen as relatively laconic in her interactions with people; not otherwise known for reacting strongly to jokes or social quips. This is NOT because she does not have feelings!
Individuals from her culture and especially those from a small village like hers merely don't have the resources to spend on things like big celebrations or strong emotional reactions.
This is an expenditure of resources that they would rather not indulge most days.
Furthermore, it is regarded as EXTREMELY attractive for women of her culture to refrain from smiling in public; to show self control and awareness of resources and social limits. While Lerato no longer holds these cultural practices as sacred like she once did, having academically learned their anthropological utility, old habits die hard and Lerato still finds it difficult to smile, laugh or otherwise react strongly in social situations; calm and seemingly emotionless most of the time. Moreover, her transformation from "average girl" to overwhelming supergenius has left Lerato much less talkative even than she was before...
Preferring to keep to herself and read Earth books in her spare time, she is seen lately as a veritable recluse by those who don't spend their days close to her, even in light of her new position as Diplomat to the "Exotic Peoples" of the south.
Jon is able to know her emotions so acutely because of his ability to feel the emotional state of others through magic.
However, most people regard Lerato as moderately distant and, while perfectly able to be engaged and never rude, she is seen as relatively laconic in her interactions with people; not otherwise known for reacting strongly to jokes or social quips. This is NOT because she does not have feelings!
Individuals from her culture and especially those from a small village like hers merely don't have the resources to spend on things like big celebrations or strong emotional reactions.
This is an expenditure of resources that they would rather not indulge most days.
Furthermore, it is regarded as EXTREMELY attractive for women of her culture to refrain from smiling in public; to show self control and awareness of resources and social limits. While Lerato no longer holds these cultural practices as sacred like she once did, having academically learned their anthropological utility, old habits die hard and Lerato still finds it difficult to smile, laugh or otherwise react strongly in social situations; calm and seemingly emotionless most of the time. Moreover, her transformation from "average girl" to overwhelming supergenius has left Lerato much less talkative even than she was before...
Preferring to keep to herself and read Earth books in her spare time, she is seen lately as a veritable recluse by those who don't spend their days close to her, even in light of her new position as Diplomat to the "Exotic Peoples" of the south.
Hobbies & Pets
While the word "Hobby" doesn't translate properly in her language, it goes without saying that, based on her likes, Lerato is fond of the more natural and peaceful scenes of life!
If she could be said to have a proper hobby it would be shell and stone collecting, which she indulges in as she walks along the beaches around Castan Mondragon. Though she doesn't consider it a hobby even after understanding the definition of the word, Lerato loves to cook and often makes food for the sake of fun rather than sustenance; so much so that she has gone out of her way to take some modern cooking classes under Su, specifically Molecular Gastronomy!
She cooks especially frequently when upset, as it calms her and the feel of making things with her hands leaves her with a sensation of accomplishment that other tasks simply do not. If given time and invitation, one could imagine Lerato delving into all manner of handicraft, as she has collected many domestic skills in her upbringing! Lerato is an unashamed cinephile, having grown attached to many different up-time and pandimensional shows when training under the Master Of Death and since introducing her husband to the delights of such action packed names as Pandimensional Powerhouses, Verdant Vantage and The World Of Dag.
While she is not exactly a media addict, per se, there is not a single day that goes by when she is at home that she doesn't sit down for an evening movie or a couple episodes of some sort of action oriented programming; preferably with explosions, lasers, super hero fights, giant monsters, lots of guns, apocalyptic incidents, emotional damage and/or any combination of the above!
In having a photographic memory and perfect recall, Lerato generally only needs to watch any given thing once but, unlike with most of the books she reads, she still watches them over again for the sheer, visceral experience of it all.
If she could be said to have a proper hobby it would be shell and stone collecting, which she indulges in as she walks along the beaches around Castan Mondragon. Though she doesn't consider it a hobby even after understanding the definition of the word, Lerato loves to cook and often makes food for the sake of fun rather than sustenance; so much so that she has gone out of her way to take some modern cooking classes under Su, specifically Molecular Gastronomy!
She cooks especially frequently when upset, as it calms her and the feel of making things with her hands leaves her with a sensation of accomplishment that other tasks simply do not. If given time and invitation, one could imagine Lerato delving into all manner of handicraft, as she has collected many domestic skills in her upbringing! Lerato is an unashamed cinephile, having grown attached to many different up-time and pandimensional shows when training under the Master Of Death and since introducing her husband to the delights of such action packed names as Pandimensional Powerhouses, Verdant Vantage and The World Of Dag.
While she is not exactly a media addict, per se, there is not a single day that goes by when she is at home that she doesn't sit down for an evening movie or a couple episodes of some sort of action oriented programming; preferably with explosions, lasers, super hero fights, giant monsters, lots of guns, apocalyptic incidents, emotional damage and/or any combination of the above!
In having a photographic memory and perfect recall, Lerato generally only needs to watch any given thing once but, unlike with most of the books she reads, she still watches them over again for the sheer, visceral experience of it all.
Speech
In Any Language Lerato works as hard as she can to enunciate everything as clearly and precisely as possible, having learned from her local Shaman how to speak several different languages growing up and having been instilled with the importance of doing things properly when interacting with others.
Much like a priest in the core of Kanda, she tries to keep her tone level and avoids filler words like "Uh" and "Hmm;" instead maintaining silence right up until she says what she wants to, often speaking slowly and with a calm and easy to listen to cadence. Despite her religious training, Lerato works as hard as possible to avoid metaphors, insisting they are confusing for little children, which she spends much of her time caring for. Though she does not share them with anyone, generally speaking, Lerato has many small phrases she whispers to herself to keep herself on track; personal reminders and simple instructions to maintain focus and avoid distractions.
Such Phrases Include:
"Two Teats At The Same Time, Not One Then The Other."
"Always Put The First Root You Pull Back Into The Ground."
"Never Leave A Pot Alone, It Will Always Go Wrong."
"Roar Like A Lion When You Hurt Yourself And It Will Chase The Pain Away!"
While these things are not something she tells others, if she were to have a child they might be part of the lessons she would teach as a parent.
Much like a priest in the core of Kanda, she tries to keep her tone level and avoids filler words like "Uh" and "Hmm;" instead maintaining silence right up until she says what she wants to, often speaking slowly and with a calm and easy to listen to cadence. Despite her religious training, Lerato works as hard as possible to avoid metaphors, insisting they are confusing for little children, which she spends much of her time caring for. Though she does not share them with anyone, generally speaking, Lerato has many small phrases she whispers to herself to keep herself on track; personal reminders and simple instructions to maintain focus and avoid distractions.
Such Phrases Include:
"Two Teats At The Same Time, Not One Then The Other."
"Always Put The First Root You Pull Back Into The Ground."
"Never Leave A Pot Alone, It Will Always Go Wrong."
"Roar Like A Lion When You Hurt Yourself And It Will Chase The Pain Away!"
While these things are not something she tells others, if she were to have a child they might be part of the lessons she would teach as a parent.
Relationships
Shared Acquaintances
Lerato is NOT Recognized as a legal companion to Jonathan Mondragon, though she is recognized as a Concubine and is afforded such Legal Protections.
Presuming she stays with Jon after any more legal marriage in the future, she might still be legally recognized as his Mistress, thus the name "Mistress-Concubine."
It is apparent to all that Jon is very fond of her and nobody has any illusions that he will discard her once married to a more official bride.
Legal Status
Mistress-Concubine
History
Unamakhalu has known Lerato all of her life and, for a time, enjoyed her company and cared to impress her as the logical heir to The Village Shaman's title.
However, after a certain amount of time as an Orphan and gaining her own children to take care of, Unamakhalu drifted apart from everyone in the village; including Lerato.
All the same, Unamakhalu was never treated poorly by Lerato and does not hold any contempt for her or The Speaker Of The Sun.
One thing that Unamakhalu never lost in the relationship was her attraction to Lerato's most beautiful dreadlocks and they continue to talk about them from time to time and tend to their hair with each other.
Relationship Reasoning
Unamakhalu understands that Lerato is a permanent fixture in Jon's life and so she puts on the public act of caring for her and having a good relationship with The Mistress-Concubine of The Maiden Of Health.
It serves everyone that they get along well and, dare either of them think it, even consider regularly enjoying each other's company in public.
Since their respective ascensions, Unamakhalu has started showing a bit more interest in The Mistress-Concubine and regards her with considerably more respect than she used to.
Though their relationship is, at best, still a bit awkward.
Perhaps, deep down, Unamakhalu understands that Lerato is now one of the few people from their village that she can even talk to, as both of them are all but shunned by their previous relations in reverence of their newfound power and positions.
They are the only people who can really understand the transition from tribals to gods.
Commonalities & Shared Interests
Mostly Unamakhalu and Lerato "Bond" over hair and the sights and sounds of the ocean.
They are both extremely fond of the coastal environment and warm rains.
Lerato was the inspiration for Unamakhalu's choice in hair style so they are regularly seen ochering their hair together.
Indeed, recently Lerato has started helping Unamakhalu better her own dreadlocks; helping teach The Great Mother how to make them finer and thinner and to keep the ochre dye lasting longer.
Though it is thought that Una's geokinesis allows her to keep the dye in much longer than Lerato, the older of the two still knows many secrets to proper Kobori hair care that the younger was never taught!
Nicknames & Petnames
M'Tufakhalu Regularly Calls Lerato "Pretty Girl"
Wealth & Financial state
Most of her life Lerato could be considered filthy stinkin middle class, so far as a tribal villager goes.
Her family were herders with a few prize cattle and many good goats.
She was well liked and trained by the Shaman, allowing her family some wiggle room in the harder times and ensuring that they had no unnecessary hardships while she grew up. However, upon her ascendance to Mistress-Concubine of Jonathan Mondragon, Lerato has become functionally as rich as a resident of Soteri can get!
Almost everything that she may have access to comes next to free, she is able to wander about the land as she pleases and there is no place in Soteri she cannot simply walk into if she likes.
Nobody could stop her.... While once almost regarded by the Kandia as Jon's property, there are few who would think of her that way now.
Though she did not previously have personal riches, her recent employment under The Longar Meningitis Soterion has given her an extremely generous salary which she has already begun to benefit from, allowing her 400 Imperial Keys a year alongside an extremely kind 20 Imperial Keys as a bonus for The New Year.
While she has many plans for what to do with her eventual fortunes Lerato presently has done next to nothing with what pay she's been allotted, leaving her fairly wealthy for a trophy wife in Soteri and allowing her no small number of options when considering how to invest.
Her family were herders with a few prize cattle and many good goats.
She was well liked and trained by the Shaman, allowing her family some wiggle room in the harder times and ensuring that they had no unnecessary hardships while she grew up. However, upon her ascendance to Mistress-Concubine of Jonathan Mondragon, Lerato has become functionally as rich as a resident of Soteri can get!
Almost everything that she may have access to comes next to free, she is able to wander about the land as she pleases and there is no place in Soteri she cannot simply walk into if she likes.
Nobody could stop her.... While once almost regarded by the Kandia as Jon's property, there are few who would think of her that way now.
Though she did not previously have personal riches, her recent employment under The Longar Meningitis Soterion has given her an extremely generous salary which she has already begun to benefit from, allowing her 400 Imperial Keys a year alongside an extremely kind 20 Imperial Keys as a bonus for The New Year.
While she has many plans for what to do with her eventual fortunes Lerato presently has done next to nothing with what pay she's been allotted, leaving her fairly wealthy for a trophy wife in Soteri and allowing her no small number of options when considering how to invest.
Divine Classification
Salusar / Solar Deity
Alignment
Maternal Contemplative
Current Status
Patrolling Southwest Soteri To Bring The Remaining Kobori Into The Fold
Current Location
Ethnicity
Realm
Honorary & Occupational Titles
Kobori Titles:
First Wife Of The Sun
Umama Wembuzi (The Goat Mother)
Umlindi Wasekhaya (Home Watcher)
Intombazane Enhle (Pretty Girl)
Owesifazane Obomvu (The Red Woman) Kandia Titles:
Concubine To Jonathan Mondragon: The Maiden Of Health
Soterri's Lady Of Love
Marine Slayer (Mass Title)
"Civilized"
The Undefeated Universal Titles:
Second Salusar (Of Ta Mando)
The Dawn Age Mistress
The Salusar Storyteller
Threshold Walker
Seer Of The Unknown
The Atomic Fist
First Disciple Of The God Eater
The Valedictorian
First Wife Of The Sun
Umama Wembuzi (The Goat Mother)
Umlindi Wasekhaya (Home Watcher)
Intombazane Enhle (Pretty Girl)
Owesifazane Obomvu (The Red Woman) Kandia Titles:
Concubine To Jonathan Mondragon: The Maiden Of Health
Soterri's Lady Of Love
Marine Slayer (Mass Title)
"Civilized"
The Undefeated Universal Titles:
Second Salusar (Of Ta Mando)
The Dawn Age Mistress
The Salusar Storyteller
Threshold Walker
Seer Of The Unknown
The Atomic Fist
First Disciple Of The God Eater
The Valedictorian
Date of Birth
6th Of Preserving, Day Of The Arts
Year of Birth
1614 BCV
18 Years old
Circumstances of Birth
Unremarkable, Simple, Beloved
Birthplace
Near Where Is Now Castan Mondragon, Longo Soterri
Spouses
Jonathan Mondragon
("Husband")
Siblings
Children
Current Residence
Castan Mondragon, Longo Soterri
Pronouns
She/Her
Gender
Female
Eyes
Crimson Red, Often Dimly Glowing, Perfectly Horizontal, Typically Shaped
Hair
Waist Length, Thin, Fine Dreadlocks Of Deepest Black Dyed Crimson With Red Ochre 
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Dark Brown, Uniform, Unblemished With A Slight "Glow"
Height
5' 5"
Weight
275
Aligned Organization
Her Family Language
Her Village Language
The Regional Language
Kobori "Trade Tongue"
Tando "Trade Tongue"
2 Nearby Regional Kobori Languages Her transformation Has Allowed Her To Learn Mortal Languages Unconsciously; Her Superhuman Brain Using A Sort Of Strange Power Of Tongues To Freely Communicate With Anything That Even HAS A Language! Like With All Divine Languages, Lerato Must Learn Them As Mortals Learn...
However, Due To Better Understanding And Memory Of Her Childhood Lessons Lerato HAS Gained Fluency In The Following:
Soterri Spirit Speak
Adima (The Language Of The Primordials)
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