Remidigon Otsby
| Also known as | Remi |
|---|---|
| Species | Otter |
| Title | Captain of the Guard |
| Affiliation | Sacred Guard |
| Home | Morgaedion |
| Family | Lumikki Otsby, twin sister |
| Status | Alive |
| First appearance | Sacred: Eslura's Calling |
Remidigon Otsby, called Remi by his sister, is the Captain of the Sacred Guard at Morgaedion and the twin brother of Lumikki Otsby, the Sacred Ruler of the Book of Water.[1][2] He commands the prison island's garrison, and the units there answer to him rather than to the Sacred Head.[3] He loses the island, his squadron and his liberty in the course of the two books.[1][4]
Appearance
Remidigon is a white sea otter, about waist-high to the human-sized Guards he commands, and small enough that he and his sister fit down a Veskadoth drainage pipe.[1][5] He is the only Guard on the bottom landing at Morgaedion who stands unmasked.[1]
His eyes were once a deep blue. After the fall of the prison they are a dull grey with the life gone out of them.[6] By the second book his white fur is a mix of black and grey ash marks, and burn scabs have to be pulled out of his coat.[7][4] He has not cut his claws since he and Lumikki moved out of their mother's house.[8]
Personality
Remidigon takes his reputation seriously and his housekeeping not at all. His bedroom at Morgaedion is hung with gold, silver and bronze awards, and the curtain rod for his window has leaned unmounted against the wall collecting dust since his sister's first visit.[6] Lumikki puts it down to a lifelong habit of putting off the simplest chores.[6]
He teases and he deflects. Shown the thing in his vault, he refuses to answer his sister's question until he has enjoyed the moment, and asks whether she must ruin all his fun.[6] Under real weight he turns the same humour on himself, and it curdles: he calls himself the fool who failed Eslura and expects never to be given the Guard back.[4][5]
He is cautious where his sister is impulsive. He tells her to wait before crossing a cell to help a stranger, argues that they cannot help the woman by staying locked up with her, and wants a plan before a move.[9][5]
Background
Remidigon and Lumikki are twins, raised by a mother who knitted blankets for them when they were pups.[2][4] They kept the last day of every new moon for tea together, and by his own account the captaincy made him realise how much he missed her company.[10][4]
His promotion brought him a well-kept two-storey log cabin on the island, which he calls his new castle in mockery of his sister's lighthouse and has ringed with little flags to give it a more regal look.[6] Built into the bedroom wall is a vault painted to match, and inside it the giant metal S that opens the door of the ground block, the cell block that holds Eslura's most vile criminals. Remidigon showed it to Lumikki once, and it was the proudest she had ever seen him.[6]
His name carries ahead of him. Demise had heard of him many times and had been warned of his power before ever setting foot on the island.[1]
Story
Sacred: Eslura's Calling
Demise walks into Morgaedion through gates held by hostages and is taken down to the bottom landing, where Remidigon waits with his Guards. Remidigon calls Officer Kazke forward, and Kazke lifts the metal S into the cutout of the cast iron door. Several clicks sound inside it and the ground block opens. Remidigon waves Demise through.[1]
Some days earlier he had begun a letter to his sister. Strange things had been happening on the island, he wrote, and their special guest had been in unusually high spirits, threatening the Guards on their rounds with the promise that they would fall at the feet of their rightful king. He never sent it; Lumikki finds it drowned under a spilled bottle of ink in his flooded cabin, along with an emptied vault.[6]
She finds him at last in the third cell on the right of the ground block, cowering, mumbling, his eyes gone grey. He raises one shaking finger and points her to the last cell on the block.[6]
Sacred 2: Flames of the Awakened
Remidigon wakes in a cave beneath Veskadoth, burned and unable to stand, with Lumikki beside him and a sick woman named Amelia across the room.[7] He has lost his entire squadron and is certain his reputation is gone with it.[4][5]
It is Remidigon who finds the way out. Recognising that their gaolers never planned for prisoners of less than human height, he points his sister at the drainage cap in the corner of the cell, and the two of them lift the lid and drop into the sewer.[5] Lumikki's water carries them through the pipes and out into Veskadoth.[5]
Above ground he throws the commander Ferra Ellisvat's borrowed cloak over them both and takes his sister's paw, and Ferra addresses him as Captain when she explains the enchanted necklace that keeps her on the island.[11][8] Hidden in Ferra's wardrobe while Calamity complains about missing prisoners, he is the one who remembers that Ferra wrote something down before leaving, and he climbs the desk and finds it to be a map: tunnels crossing the whole of mainland Eslura and converging on the Sacred City.[8]
At the Veskadoth docks, launched into the air by Trelluby, he digs his claws into Calamity's side and forces her to let his sister go.[12] He is flung clear, and afterwards hoists Lumikki out of the water onto the sea serpent's back and briefs Trelluby on the plan.[12]
The two otters reach the Sacred City together and find Alistair Archibald there with the new Sacred Head. Remidigon scans the crowd for the people they had come to look for and reports that they are not there.[13]
Relationships
- Lumikki Otsby: his twin. He misses one tea and she crosses the sea to find out why, which is how she ends up in the same cell.[10][6] He tells her that being Captain of the Guard taught him how much he had missed her, and that she was always welcome in Ovallia.[4]
- The Sacred Guard: his command, and his shame after the island falls. When Officer Kazke drags himself to Galecrest with news of Obellius, it is without the mask and cloak he apologises for losing.[1][6]
- Ferra Ellisvat: the Eslurian commander of Veskadoth, who hides the two otters and hands them their route home.[11][8]
- Demise: the Shadow Reaper he bowed through his own prison door.[1]
Behind the scenes
The pronunciation guide at the back of both novels gives his name as Reh-mih-dih-gon, his nickname as reh-me, and the surname as Ots-bee.[6][13]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Book 1, Ch. 1.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Book 1, Ch. 6.
- ↑ Book 1, Ch. 22.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Book 2, Ch. 11.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Book 2, Ch. 15.
- ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 Book 1, Ch. 26.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Book 2, Ch. 7.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Book 2, Ch. 22.
- ↑ Book 2, Ch. 12.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Book 1, Ch. 7.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Book 2, Ch. 19.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Book 2, Ch. 25.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Book 2, Ch. 28.