All Idleness and Ephemera

"Hey, cuz! It’s good to see you again! It really has been too long!" Yuel was only six years old when his mother died: put to death in a grisly public spectacle for her uncovered infidelity by her own husband, King Khalil. Yuel has carried the weight of his mother’s death around him for many years, and is no stranger to feelings of abandonment. Largely ignored by his mother, even during her life, and shunned by his powerful, megalomaniacal father, Yuel grows up bereft, lonely, and unhappy. Yuel’s only ally, as a young boy, is his kindly nursemaid, Safiya – but even she leaves him, once Yuel matures, and becomes a young man. Now, shortly after his eighteenth birthday, Yuel comes to a crossroads in his life. Driven to madness by his own misery, he turns to his older cousin, Tavi for comfort – but he finds much more than he originally bargained for.