Since autumn_sunfire gave into my peer pressure, I thought it was only fair that I returned the favor with another one of my "Stages of..." posts.

Feyla! Everyone's favorite warm-hearted, (former!) healer who has currently snagged herself the lead roll in Magic's Memories. I've been wanting to talk about her development for a while now so let's hop right in!

In the beginning...

Feyla started out the same way Fenroy and Eleyna did, a toy in a set of figures I played with as a kid. She was originally set up as Eleyna's best friend and usually played a supporting role in their adventures.

Continuing past childhood...

After I stopped playing with the toys, I began shifting the names and appearances of my characters along with expanding the roll of ones I'd made up that didn't have a toy counterpart, such as Beryn and proto-Sedgewick.

Feyla's hair was always blonde but her eyes shifted from light blue to brown to dark blue and finally to the dark turquoise Sedgewick loves staring in today. As Fenroy and Eleyna's adventures began expanding, I started looking for a reason for Feyla to be around so much. Since Eleyna was a princess, Feyla was typically her lady-in-waiting so she had an excuse to be at the palace all the time.

Contrast, contrast

Eleyna was my intellectual bookworm so Feyla became her counterpart. She was super feminine and liked doing hair and sewing which was why she was a lady-in-waiting. Her dream was to open up her own dress shop. Feyla had also attended Fantasy High School with Fenroy and Eleyna despite the fact that they were both nobility and she was not. I decided to make her a wealth merchant's daughter to explain why she was there. This part of her backstory ended up sticking through all the other changes, although her father isn't mingles-with-royalty wealthy anymore.

She also dated a guardsman friend of Fenroy's who was kind of goofy and irresponsible. He was an unnamed early version of Drey (see my short: In Which Fenroy Struggles with Flirting). Their steady relationship was supposed to contrast Fenroy and Eleyna's will-they-or-won't-they. He and Feyla's relationship eventually faded away naturally, although the part about her having dated guardsmen before remained (case in point: In Which Sedgewick's Secret is Out).

Shrinking role and expanding adventures

As the gang started going on more adventures outside the palace, however, I ran into a problem. Sedgewick and Eleyna had they magic and Fenroy had his guardsman training. But Feyla? Not so much. I ended up having her use these rope/ribbon whips that she invented while sewing. They wrapped around the enemy's legs and she somehow had the strength to swing the people around after that. Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous.

She was still, to put it bluntly, pretty useless and even with her ribbon-whips, there was no reason for the king to send her with the others on any missions. Her backstory was also pretty boring. Normal, happy upbringing. No nobility or tragedy like the others.

Witching hour

Thus began my journey to revamp Feyla. I gave her some throwing knives to go along with her whips and started trying to explain where her ability to throw people around and fight came from. The idea that emerged was...interesting.

Essentially, Feyla secretly grew up in a creepy witch cult led by her evil mother. She escaped as a young woman and took up bounty hunting before running into the others. I'd ditch the Fantasy High School by this time, so Feyla eventually got a job at the palace because...reasons?

This was actually the first inkling of a Sedgewick and Feyla romance because Sedgewick was the one who comforted her after they all found out about her connection to the witches. I suppose technically it could be considered an early version of him comforting her after Feyla broke her healer's vows.

Despite this ship tease, Feyla still ended up getting paired with Beryn around this time after I decided to cut a minor character he was paired with. I had them break up with the intention of having Feyla and Beryn get back together eventually (probably after Beryn got over his commitment issues).

While the witch cult was a cool backstory on paper, I couldn't shake the feeling that it didn't really fit Feyla, and I still wasn't a fan of her fighting style. So, a second revamp began.

Healing and Hardship

I finally came up with the idea to have Feyla be a healer. It fit her personality much better, which was even more of conflict-avoidant than she is now, with the addition of being much more of a pushover.

Her pacifist tendencies emerged as well, which worked well with the nerve pinch/magic block technique I'd decided to have the healers use.

Her backstory, however, was still somewhat different. I needed a reason for Feyla to pull up roots and move to the capital, so I decided that she'd given up healing when she couldn't save a little girl under her care who she'd grown attached to, and the girl's parents had blamed Feyla for her death.

Another, much briefer, considered backstory was—and you might want to sit down for this—that Feyla was secretly a widow who had uprooted her life after her husband died. I didn't like this idea for very long mostly because...

A "magical" connection

This is where Sedgewick comes in. I'd already been toying with pairing the two of them up, and since Sedgewick already had a lost love in his backstory, I felt they would be too similar.

When I started getting attached to Sedgewick and Feyla as a couple, I realized that their opportunities for interaction weren't as frequent as I wanted. At this point, while Feyla's battle healer training made her more useful on adventures, her "official" job was still Eleyna's assistant/lady-in-waiting. She would also occasionally help out the palace healer, who was an old mentor of hers.

Side Note: Before I dropped the character, Sedgewick and the palace healer kind of had a "thing". It wasn't serious, but the woman would scold him for coming in hurt and not taking better care of himself (sound like someone else?) and it was implied that they either had a brief relationship or flirted during the war when they were younger (this was before Sedgewick's backstory changed to him meeting Bilara during the war).

I don't remember how Feyla felt about that, but I think it kind of weirded her out. Did I mention the palace healer was blonde too?

Anyways, I wanted more opportunities for Feyla and Sedgewick to interact, so first I had her visit him for a weekly tea, then I had her help him out in his lab after she finished her duties with Eleyna, and finally, once Eleyna's backstory started being revamped, I changed her to being his assistant full-time.

Finishing touches

Once I started changing Eleyna's backstory, I decided to adjust Feyla's as well. Since I'd never completely liked the idea of the little girl dying, I changed it to Feyla breaking her healer's vow and taking a life. From there, it was easy to have Sedgewick offer her a job with him which eventually led to them falling in love.

With Feyla's backstory and relationship with Sedgewick finally in place, all that was left was a few tweaks to her personality.

Feyla was always supposed to be the heart and emotional support of the team, the one who tries to avoid conflict and help everyone. And she still is! But after moving her to Sedgewick's assistant, she became much more willing to voice her opinions and speak up when she felt someone was stepping over the line. I blame Sedgewick's influence, personally. He would have barreled over a more timid Feyla.

From the cliché best friend to the compassionate, strong woman we have today, Feyla's been through a lot and it's my hope that Magic's Memories will give her a chance to shine even more than she already does.