Tharakes
Tharakes · AR-014
Role: Underworld River Keeper
Homeland: root river
Weapon: fangs and scales
Power: Navigate the water and recognize the poison flowing in the same water.
Limitations: Can't create water from nothing. and can hold limited amounts of poison in its scales
Year joined: 19
Water that doesn't remember borders
Tharakes remembers the world with the taste of water. He knew which mountain it was raining from the cold. You know that fruit is ripe on the banks from the sweet smell that passes through the scales. Underground there is a river which connects hundreds of wells. And his tribe has maintained it for so long that humans have forgotten that each well is not separate.
When he was little, he liked to go up and listen to children tell stories along the canal. A child throws flowers every rainy season. When he grew up he became a dam builder. The boy returned with a plan to distribute water to the big city. Tharakes trusts familiarity. Allowing the construction of a gate to block the watershed, believing that it would be open according to the season. He had never studied contract language. And I don't think that the word temporary will last longer than the life of the person who says it.
Over the years, the water that flows down the root layer becomes bitter. The small pond dries up before the big pond. His tribe orders the underground waterway to be closed in response to the humans. Tharakes saw the dam builder's son scooping mud home and couldn't do it. So he secretly led the stream through a narrow rocky channel to save the village. However, that path drew water from the tribe's hatching basin. Some eggs stop growing. Kindness that doesn't consider the whole river causes another damage.
Tharakes admits his guilt and travels up to find the cause. He found an old dam technician lying sick with diagrams that he could no longer edit. The new owner added factory pipes without informing him. The old man angrily asks Tharakes to destroy the dam. But if the dam breaks The toxic water will flood the lower communities. Tharakes grits his teeth and asks for a way to vent instead of apologizing for not having time to solve the problem.
Nineteenth year Linyu and the surveyors arrived with a record of water quality. They disagree immediately. She wanted to open the pipe quickly to help the sick. He was afraid that the egg hatching basin would be damaged again. The two laid out the map on the rock and filled the same sheet with human homes and underground life sources. For the first time, no side was drawn beyond the margins of the paper.
Tharakes uses his body to pin down the water gate while the technician changes direction. He absorbed some of the poison in his scales. But when the scales start to turn black He accepted the signal instead of being the sole sacrifice. Eirin reduces the speed of the current. Malin arranges plant plots to filter water. and people along the shore take turns transporting sediment. The work lasted several days. There is no single wave that cleanses everything.
Gall flows back to the root layer the night the last egg begins to move. Tharakes did not receive a hero's welcome from everyone. The elder was still angry at his disobedience. But accepted the agreement to check water together with the above ground community. He asked to leave with the Coalition to search for the cut water line. and send the map back for both sides to read.
The dam technician brought dried flowers that he had picked up from his childhood. Tharakes is not kept as a sign that all is forgiven. He placed it next to the modified sluice model. It is a reminder that bonds must be maintained through action. It is not a substitute for responsibility.
Before leaving, he got out of the water to let the children along the canal see his whole body for the first time. The child asks who the river belongs to. Tharakes looked at the light from both sides of the house and replied that no one could drink from it alone. He moved beneath the still faintly bitter current, knowing that maintaining the water was a task he would have to do again and again. It is not a victory that can be declared in one day.