Atem Yuval - the missing twin Atem

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Design infos

► His hair is very thick, long and feels fishy to the touch. It is styled to resemble a fish fin.

► He has gills on his neck and at the sides of his upper torso.

► His eyes are dark with a light, slit-like pupil - like many of the seadwellers.

► His ears are fins which he can move around.

► Instead of masks, he used to wear viles. His clothes are mainly white.

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Likes

Ocean, lakes, painting, origami, traditional food of his kingdom (mostly fish), art, taking long baths or showers, fruits

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Dislikes

Soap or shampoos (hurting his gills), dry weather, rudeness, emptiness, being locked in, small rooms, loneliness

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Personality

Yuvals personality is versatile for sad reasons. When he was still quite young, he got abducted by Atem Harambe (more on that in his background story). Since then, he lives imprisoned in a single room in Harambes temple. Since years he lives on almost nothing. A mostly empty room, with little to do. The only social contact he has is when Harambes servants come to him to bring him food or to wash him. He despises this each and every time. Towards the servants, Yuval is either aggressive and violent, feral even, trying to break out - or he is absolutely apathetic. Mostly, he just sits somewhere and does not move or speak at all. He even tried to kill himself several times, but each time unsuccessful, and each time his little prison cell got emptier and emptier to take the opportunity away. The only way he was able to express himself was with colours. If nothing else, the room had enough walls to be painted. The guards allowed him to have paint as he was not able to bend it - and thus, Yuval brought his thoughts onto the walls. Some pictures seemed hopeful, with light colours and beautiful artwork, while at other times a whole wall could be painted in black. If there was no room left to draw, he would simply overpaint them again, and again, and again, as it was all he could do.
However - his true personality, which can come through once he is free from his prison, is quite different. Yuval is strong-willed and has his own opinions and does not shy back to stand for them. Yuval is a kind person at heart, not wanting to hurt anyone without reason. But the time imprisoned has taken a lot of his hesitation away. If able, he will fight for himself and does not turn back if someone foolishly tries to stop him.
Towards his twin sister or close friends, he is quite loving. At times he has moments where he is clingy and loves to be around his loved ones, until he needs his own peace of mind. Due to his imprisonment, he is not used to a lot of things, including being around people. New things scare him, but he would never back away from his dreams.

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Background Story

Yuval was born just shortly after his twin sister Azura. The twins grew up in a sheltered home with not many worries. They never had many friends as they had each other. They shared a special bond with each other, often feeling what the other felt. When they were young, they were even able to talk to each other just by thinking! But when they grew older, that were not the only powers the two developed.

While Azura - a wild girl, stubborn and hotheaded - learned how to use water to heal wounds, Yuval - the calmer and friendlier child - learned how to form water to his will and being able to turn it into ice instantly. Both each admired the other ones powers, but agreed that it was maybe better that the wilder one got the friendly powers, while the calmer one was able to freeze water instantly, which could be a potential weapon. Once the public knew about the sunblessed twins, the kingdom of the Sea went wild. Two Atems at the same time, twins! That was something that had never existed before. While each kingdom has either one Atem or none, they could have two, equally blessed by the sun. Needless to say, the rumors about the twin Atems started to reach other kingdoms as well.

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Atem Harambe of the Sublime always had an eye on the kingdom of the sea. Power was all he wanted, but invading them and killing the Atems would have been impossible. On the one hand the merfolk would be able to flee into the sea, on the other his land needed rain badly. The land of the kingdom of the Sublime was suffering a disasterous drought. A phenomenon that often reoccured - and only could be helped by an Atem of the Sea. However, before Atem Yuval and Azura were born, the Sea lacked an Atem for quite a while. Harambe was in need of the sensational powers of the Sea-Atems to summon rain for his land. But the young sunblessed would not help him voluntarily. For once, they were just young teenagers, and on top Atem Harambe was not making friends. He had enemies everywhere, and the Atems would decline every call for help.

Therefore, he did the only thing to secure the future of his own reign: He let one of the twins get kidnapped. He ordered for the girl to be taken, but when it happened, Yuval tried to defend her as much as he could, leading to his capture instead. Ever since then, since he was perhaps 13 years old, Yuval was being held prisoner in Atem Harambes chambers. The young prince fought and cried, but all his attempts failed.

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With her brother imprisoned, Atem Harambe blackmailed Azura, who soon got crowned after the incident. She had to do exactly as he wanted, or else she would loose his brother. Sharing the strong bond, Azura could not bring herself to abandon her brother and therefore complied to Harambes orders. First of all, she had to keep the existence of her brother secret. Rumors about twin Atems were supposed to stay just rumors. Her people and herself had to keep the truth to themselves. Then Harambe ordered her to come to his land and perform the ritual dance of summoning the rain to save his people. Azura followed it all, visiting the kingdom every so often to dance, with Harambe lusting after the beautiful Atem dancing. All while Yuval was imprisoned in his little room.

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Yuval only had a single room to himself. And, obviously, water was prohibited in his room as he could easily form weapons from it. When young, Yuval tried to keep it together, holding out in the hopes of someone coming to rescue him. But Azura with her healing abilities was powerless against Harambe and his army of fanatic followers. Azura tried every time to see his brother, but she was just allowed to see him from afar, to 'know that he is not dead'. Yuval became desperate, missing his sister and his freedom so much. Even the link he had to her had broken, leaving him without any connection to his sister. After waiting and waiting, Yuval became more and more frustrated. Thus he began to plotting and planning, how to escape or even how to kill himself. One time he hid behind the door when it was opened by the guard who brought food and water. Once he stepped in, baffled that he could not see the seadweller, Yuval used the water of the drink to form a dagger. With his icy knife, he attacked the guard and stabbed him down, already with victory in his feral eyes. And he would have escaped, if it werent for Harambes paranoia. The temple was well guarded, and with no water available to Yuval, he had nothing to really protect himself with. The guards managed to overpower him and throw him back in his cell.

Once more, Yuvals spirit was broken. Ever since then, Yuval was living a dire existence. Miserable, hopeless, absolutely overcome with dispair. He was granted nothing but paint to color the walls with. Thus art became his only way of expressing himself. He created incredible paintings on the walls of the room. Some pictured memories of the beautiful sea and the cities he used to know, some seemed hopeful. Then others were dark, black, thrown together by frustrated hands. The paintings of the room were always a good indicator to how Yuval felt - aggressive or passive. Guards often refused to do any more than putting his tray of food down onto the ground when seeing horrible and grotesque pictures on the wall. And those few poor servants that felt empathy with the imprisoned sunblessed, who even dared to talk to him or even help him, were always executed once other guards found out. The only people that helped him getting through these times all vanished, and Yuval knew why.

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So whenever a new servant has to enter his chamber to give him the basic and minimal care, Yuval warns and scares them. For him it was better if they feared him and did not try to befriend him - or else these poor monkeys would find an early death. Eventhough he disliked it, Yuval soon got the reputation of being a feral monster, bloodthirsty and evil. At least it helped to save a few servants who were just as miserable as Yuval, being mere slaves to the Atem.

And thus Yuval spends his time in his lonely chamber, with no one around him, with no way out, and with only one hope left: to die an early death.

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Atem powers

His powers compliment with the powers of his twin sister Azura. While Azura, with a wild personality, developed the skill to heal almost any wound with the help of water and her powers, Yuval developed the skill to form water into ice. As long as water is around him, he can bend the water to his will, letting them instantly freeze. He could also move the ice freely as well. He can for example create icy spears and throw them at enemies, he can create barriers out of ice or even freeze people into iceblocks. The more impure the water, the less it is controllable for him.  He could bend tears and salliva, but not blood or paint.

Without access to water, however, he is powerless. Harambes men know this and therefore limit the liquids that enter his room very carefully. He only gets half a glass of water to drink at a time, so that the servants or guards have to look after him more often. Yuval also needs water for his skin and his gills, that need to be moisterized at any time. Thus, Yuval gets washed down by the servants every day, with just enough water to wash him down.

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Relationships

Jin-Jin - Jinjin is one of _those_ people. The kind of people Yuval desperately tried to protect by making himself as unlikable as possible. But that did not stop this curious and friendly monkey.  One day this monkey just appeared, being one of the many slave-like servants of Harambe. Apparently he had to work off debt that his family had incured and had to serve for many weeks. Despite Yuvals attempts to scare this monkey off, Jin was simply too curious and stubborn to let go. And once Jinjin started to learn that Yuval was not the evil man he was made out to be, this monkey just tried and tried his best to help him. Yuval feared for Jins life more than one time, but somehow he managed to be sneaky enough to get away with it.

Jinjin introduced him to origami, teaching him how to make the many beautiful forms out of paper. As paper was one of the very few things allowed in his room, he gave him another way of expressing himself - and a very new way to get little messages to the outside world, with Jin as his messenger. Jin has shown more kindness than he could have hoped for, and he soon grew to like Jin. He enjoyed every second with him, and became angry when he heard of Harambe abusing the little monkey. Jin is everything good left in his life, and Yuval looks forward to each meeting with him, just hoping that his little shenanigans stayed secret. Or else, they would take him away... and Yuval was not sure what to do if he was suddenly gone.

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