Blessing Saraja

Blessing has always had big shoes to fill and have always fallen just-short of expectations. Their parent, Hope Saraja, was the heir to Virtue Saraja - and Virtue was the founder of the Sumoxan temple. Hope Saraja built empires, swayed monarchs, inspired schools of monks in their faith and insight. Hope's older sibling, Passion Saraja, ran away from duty and obligation. Blessing dutifully played the role Passion refused to, but found themselves struggling.   Blessing was born in 1700, and was raised partially by Hope's consorts, other members of the Saraja family, and Sumoxan paladins. There was an expectation that they would naturally rise to greatness, and Saraja certainly took to learning and clerical magic well enough. However, when Blessing was sent by Hope to mediate the Sakeshan civil war not long after they came of age in 1735. Blessing failed quiet badly. They healed people, reduced damage, but ultimately failed to wield their power as a Saraja effectively.   After their failure in Sakesh, Blessing began to panic and their relationship with Hope soured. Haru intervened and helped Blessing tour the world and rebuild themselves in a safe environment. Blessing learned to love nomadism, love solar-kind and the way that they lived with untainted curiosity and detachment. Blessing grew as a cleric, mastering magic under the tutelage of a living God. But Blessing never did quite develop the political acumen of Haru or Hope - maybe out of fear for how they'd made things worse in Sakesh, maybe out of a genuine disconnect in thinking. Regardless, Blessing began to be the go-between between the Sumoxan Sarajas and Haru's entourage: taking care of family problems, minor local problems, and representing the Sarajas to the faithful when needed. Over the 1800s, Blessing developed as a person and grew to be a respectable and competent Saraja with close ties to solars around the world. Blessing and Hope healed their relationship, and Blessing began to take on a role as the Saraja family mediator and unifier.   When Blessing and Hope finally agreed that Blessing would not lead or protect the Sumoxans as Hope had, Hope ventured off to seek immortality or some other solution to protect the flock. Blessing accepted that this likely meant death. Suwota's agents hunted stray Sarajas; the aging solar was probably doomed and knew it, but wanted to die on some grand religious adventure. Blessing would not begrudge them their final wish, even if the implication of Blessing's insufficiency as a protector stung.   It took some years for Blessing to get over that. But recently they have. Free from the shadow of Hope and of obligation, they realized that their true skills are with children, education, and personal relationships - and so they settled down to have a family. Their partners, Reminiscence Sirsupet and Ten-Beams Hill-Circle-Standing, are both solars that Blessing has known for some time as friends. Ten-Beams (Tenny) is from the far lands and was born among solars who refused to interact with non-solars; Reminiscence (Remmy) is an old Sumoxan.