// SOMEWHERE ACROSS THE SEA OF TIME.         A FISHERMAN FINDS A CORPSE. washed up in a rocky inlet just past the edge of no man's land, the body is cold. blue lipped and deathly pale, the woman has no bloat: a victim of the cold, perhaps, not quite the sea. he parts from his his coat to clothe her, to follow custom: all must return to the sea, if the thirteenth house has closed its doors. not everyone believes, but the little village does. in the morning, he will return her body to the water.   in the stumble back --- heavy rain, slippery rock, biting wind --- the body saps his heat. before he can reach his shack, to leave her cool until the morning, she grips at him, suddenly a living thing, white eyed and terrifying and beautiful.     he gives her his home and hearth.     in return, she gives him a son.// a love immortal such as mine.         she leaves as fast as she'd come. the boy-thing parts from her like a cell split in two : the fisherman himself no part of the equation. still, he recognises the gift, a forebearance of good fortune. LOVE IS THE NAME OF THE GAME, at least for yousef firth. he thanks god for the child.   it grows obscenely fast, walking and talking and running of its own accord in a matter of weeks, evolving into a strangely genderless thing. one fishing trip, yousef sighs, tells the creature the world will do him better as a man.

// will come to me.         into a boy it grows. my love, yousef calls it. my heart, come here. ishq turns into ishaq, turns into his name. it is lucky he is named when he is, because some nights after he grows taller than his father, he cradles him at the bedside, unable to stop, but able to see, a pulmonary embolism that takes yousef instantly.// eternally.         the parents yousef had once tried to escape find ishaq. though they are hesitant, his grandfather, lucas frith, is only too glad to have a grandson with his own complexion. the pictures, the signed diaries, the final will and testament -- all prove that ishaq was a loved son. his grandmother, aisha, is more hesitant, but he wins her over eventually.// .         now a grown man of dubious age, ishaq wanders, found most often near bodies of water: lake superior, rocky coastlines, waterfalls, and rivers. to the untrained eye, he seems to be nothing but a man clad in black, a heavy coat out of season, staring listlessly at the spray of water. with an unerring nose for death, he attempts to fulfill some adjacent form of HIS FOREMOTHERS' JOBS, going out of his way to comfort those he senses may meet their ends soon.

// mayday / may / lav         general notice that ishaq is a conceptual character, and may shift and change goals and desires according to plotted events. i'd like him to be a slightly different experience for every muse, especially given that he is more omen than person. i would liken him to verna, from house of usher, or death, from dickinson's poem Because I could not stop for Death. elements of poe are present more vaguely.my wishlisted ideal is that ishaq has existed within or on the fringes of a muse's friend group for several months or years, only changing from human to not when plot-related events occur.  like, if henry from the raven cycle was actually overtly literally death taking gansey to glendower. and later choosing to save him/prevent his permadeath. um. iykyk?

name.       ishaq c. frith
nicknames.       ishq, eye, frith
gender.       nonbinary he/they.
sexuality.       asexual, demiromantic
date of birth.       end of November, 1979.
age.       ?? physically appears to be in his late teens or early twenties.
occupation.       trust fund baby, vague, distant presence
birthplace.       along a scottish coast.
current residence.       minnesota, lake housepositive.       ???
neutral.       ???
negative traits.       ???
likes.       warmth, friendship, open doors
dislikes.       loneliness, death, losseyes.       stormy blue, sometimes reflecting white as a result of tapetum lucidum.
hair.       mid length, curly, black. forever tousled. never seems to dry.
build.       slender, lean.
modifications.       none. teeth and nails are naturally sharper and narrower than average. 
 
 
 
 
 
 on the thirteenth house it would be remiss for me to pretend there is no theological allegory here, but i will note for personal reasons that the entity in the deep is a false god, a falsity that is deeply relevant. It is simply a massive beast. a creature from the time of fungi, or an alien, or simply a mutated dolphin. it has evolved the way it has due to age, outliving many ice ages. to call it god is a thirteenth house decision, cultlike, all too human.

DEATHBED COMPANION.       IS A TERM BORROWED FROM ELDEN RING. it bears no other resemblance to miyazaki's definition. ishaq exists as a functional omen, appearing before a doomed figure to offer some beauty and comfort. quite literally, he accompanies those at their deathbed. this is a somewhat holy act, with connotations of gentleness and love.HOWEVER, in much the way of a lighthouse warning ships away from crashing on its shores, if and when ishaq chooses to act or not act can change the course of a person's life --- though this interference is deeply frowned upon, borderline blasphemous: some interpret it as interrupting the course of death, which is deeply respected in the twelfth and thirteenth houses.siren       generally more aligned with mermaid & selkie lore. a siren in this universe beckons sailors to their deaths as sacrifices, be it at sea, or on land. they exist in amphibian, humanoid forms, though their internal structures have closer resemblances to single-celled entities like bacteria, amoebae. a connected hivemind that operates alien to human societal structure, sirens operate as both procreational and defensive systems for a much larger alien entity in the deep. it is older than human society itself.the thirteenth house       is a variant of kenneth's twelfth house. largely structured around coastlines and prone to quieter forms of individual worship, they respect the entity in the sea: rumor says their founder clawed his eyes out after a chance encounter with the alien in the deep. it saved him from doom at sea, beguiled him with an isle of pure beauty, and spat him back onto continental shore.ishaq       unlike traditional forms of siren procreation, his unnamed maker left the 'child' with its 'father'. she chose, of her own volition, to even make him. in evolutionary terms, this is a result of some form of mutation, which makes ishaq a freak accident of nature, in that he shares this ability of choice. what does that mean for the future of this world? will this coat pattern, so to speak, survive?