I want the story to have a heroine

As I have already said, Rawiya was meant to be the eyes through which the story is told. She's an important part, but she's not who the story is about. Candice is who the story is truly about.

I very much enjoy the story concept of the hero or heroine being amnesic, not remembering who they are or that they are the hero. The Long Kiss Goodnight is one of my favorite movies, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is second favorite only to Planescape: Torment. I love the idea that the hero has the skills, doesn't need to be trained, but has to remember them. In so doing, they learn who they are, and sometimes that isn't who they were. It's a different sort of discovery, rather than training for and molding into what they need to be.

So when Rawiya meets Candice, Candice doesn't know who she, herself, is. A lot of the story I wanted to tell was about her discovering who she is. But I wanted to put a twist on it, Candice doesn't want to know.

This was probably the hardest part about telling the story from Rawiya's point of view, I couldn't just tell Candice's point of view. And Candice isn't one to just confide in people, but I was working up to that. There were some specific events I had in mind to happen once Rawiya had moved in with Candice and things settled in.

Candice, as you may have already guessed, isn't human. She's fae, sidhe, of the fair folk. In so many mythologies, the immortal can become mortal. Like an Angel cutting off their wings, or otherwise losing them. The fae though, they are elemental beings, they are forces of nature, they simply exist. Becoming mortal isn't as easy as removing a part of their being, they have to forget who they are. Candice was fae, she's not any more.

But this is a tricky thing. It doesn't all happen at once. At first its just your memories. But you still retain the aspects that are fae. So while Candice couldn't remember who she was, she could still see the world through fae eyes, she still maintained the attitudes that were long since established in her psyche. She needed to forget those things too, and that requires time and influence. She needed someone to model for her how to be human.

Now this gets into motivations and needs that I'm not yet ready to reveal. For now I want to dwell on why Candice might be mortal.

One thing about the fae is that if you know their name, their true name, you can summon them, track them, even control them. Summoning them is as easy as saying their name three times. Which is why you must be careful to use a sidhe's name, even saying it the first time will make them aware of you. And just because you've summoned them, doesn't mean that you are protected from them or have any control of them. If you haven't prepared yourself, you may not even see that you have summoned them, after all they won't be seen if they don't want to be.

A fairies name is as much a part of their being as their nature, it isn't just their identifier. Part of forgetting ones self is to lose ones name. It is perhaps one of the worst things you can do to them, you remove them of their nature and leave them mortal and vulnerable. It is a death sentence.

But once the fairy loses their name, they can no longer be summoned, tracked, or controlled. The sidhe can voluntarily, and in rare circumstance will, forget themselves.

I wanted to spend time getting to know Candace. I wanted to show how her attitude changes as she slowly forgets her nature. When she first comes to in the hospital, she's still fairy, she just doesn't remember. So she still acts like a fairy would. She's practically captured, constantly under guard, and she hurts from injuries that should have long since gone away. She can't hide, but she also can't escape because she can't remember how. So she's indignant, even when the people around her are trying to be helpful. There's one more aspect to that, but I won't reveal it yet.

What changes is meeting Rawiya. Up until she does, Candice is simply surrounded by people who are constantly pestering her. Asking her questions she doesn't know how to answer, her in laws are horrible towards her, and the doctors keep poking, prodding, and telling her what to do. She's not able to see where she is or what's going on around her. But when Rawiya wanders past her room, even though she's staring at Candace, she looks away embarrassed and tries to leave. Candace reaches out to her, asking for help, and finds someone not expecting anything of her. As they talk, Candace comes to learn the nature of where she is, it's not a prison but a place of healing. Rawiya is like her, injured differently, but on the mend. In her fairy mind of trying to figure things out, Rawiya becomes the person after which to model. And this is why Candace latches on to her.

The time I wanted to spend getting to know Candace was time I wanted to show her struggling with her nature. As much as anything, I wanted to use this to create an air of mystery around her and help tip off that she wasn't human. I wanted her to be curious about the world, indicating a change in her perceptions, but at the same time her joy and fancy would work to highlight her nature.

After Rawiya moved in, I wanted her nature to become more apparent. Sleeping all day and being up all night, her affinity for cooking, and her difficulty with technology.

The one event that I was working up to, was for Rawiya to come home and find Candace dancing. Candace is lost to her dance and isn't paying attention. So caught up in her nature, her wings reveal themselves. Normally to any human this wouldn't be an issue, but Rawiya isn't like other humans. I was going to use this event to highlight how she sees things that others can't.

Prepared for it to happen I had already written this:
“It might be easy to say they were dark in color, but that would almost be wrong. As I sit here pondering how to describe them, I find myself thinking about how ancient peoples described the night sky as a blanket covering the world. If such a silken blanket were to actually exist, her wings would have been cut from the same material. They were translucent in a way, you could see through them, but it was as if what was seen through them was seen in the dark; like the lights were turned out and you were seeing by the light of the moon and stars.”

Of course, Rawiya still isn't completely aware that what she is seeing is real. So she writes it off, though it becomes important later when she admits to what she's seen.