hmmm that is a bit tough... though, if the MC becomes friends with him, it'll probably be easier to show him as being more than just flinchy and sad? like, being more well-rounded once he trusts someone more enough to show his personality around them?
That's good, yes. He has to do something practical too - he can be the one who runs for the doctor when the pregnant girl starts giving birth and has problems because she's so young and unhealthy, he finds the doc who runs the orphanage and persuades them to go get proper food and medical treatment with the promise they don't have to stay but it's so convenient they end up staying despite their leader's mistrust... I'm also trying to work out differences between dark and light elves. I don't want it to be Good and Evil as such, just easy to assume it divides that way. The light elves are diurnal vegetarians with a history of good relations with humans, and the dark elves are nocturnal hunters whose most popular goddess is the queen of Hell in the local human faith and still pretty terrifying to the elves even though they don't think she's Actual Satan. The half-elfin thief I mentioned earlier is a dark elf who claims to be a light elf in his writings and uses makeup to pass when he's in public. I think I need to find a reason for the split. Also working on a similar issue with kitsune and nogitsune; I can't think of a reason for there to be a split. Gods don't actually intervene with my characters' lives, so it can't be that.
