Characters/Gilda
From EHOL
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A.K.A.: Giruda |
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OVA Timeline
This character only appears in this timeline.
Tall, grim, and imposing, Gilda is the Captain of the Creterian Armored Guards.
It's a tough time to hold a position like that, too, considering that Creteria is
slowly falling apart as its power source, the Spring of Life fails. With the loss
of resources, a greater strain is put on the citizens of Creteria, and with that
greater strain comes rising discontent, as well as the hungry eyes of rival nations,
who would jump at the opportunity to take down the once-mighty Creteria, as a more
immediate problem, White Bugrom are chewing their way into the basement of the imperial
castle. To top it all off, the man who signs her paycheck is Emperor Dall Narcis,
a flamboyant, self-absorbed, egotistical lump who seems perfectly content to spend
his days drinking instead of actually addressing any of the problems plaguing his
nation.
Yes, this woman is under a lot of stress, and it shows. She regards any newcomer
with instant paranoia, and suspects them of being spies regardless of their behavior.
The city of Creteria has been sealed. No one is allowed to leave. To ensure this,
platoons of her heavily armed and armored soldiers patrol the streets and guard
the city walls. Any aberrant behavior is first met with a hostile show of pikes
and axes and any resistance is met with lethal force. With the floating farming
colonies beginning to mutter angrily about the harsh taxes levied against them,
every tax collection is performed by an airship brimming with still more armored
soldiers.
Gilda is dedicated to the preservation of Creteria at any cost. As time passes,
and her options rapidly dwindle, she turns to more and more desperate measures.
Eventually, she turns to the Spring of Life. If it can be restored, Creteria could
be saved. If it could be harnessed, Creteria could return to its former glory! It
seems a reasonable plan, except when you consider that messing around with the Spring
of Life is a terrible breach of holy protocol, and that the door sealing it away
is one absolutely forbidden to enter. Most citizens of Creteria would consider her
mad for such a plan, and when her plan is revealed, many do. Fortunately for Gilda,
she is much loved by the soldiers under her command and enough of them are willing
to stand behind her that she is able to force the issue.
To go to such lengths to preserve her country, one might guess that she's quite
the patriotic Creterian. It might be surprising to discover that, originally, she
was not Creterian at all, and that her motives go rather deeper than simple patriotism.
Gilda first came to Creteria as an arranged bride for the young emperor-to-be, Dall
Narcis. It was a political arrangement, but the two of them were quite taken with
one another. At the time, she was as feminine as one would expect a young noblewoman
to be, a rather glaring contrast when compared with the cold, tough-as-nails soldier
she eventually was to become. At the time, Creteria was apparently a prosperous
nation, and the marriage looked as though it would benefit both countries.
Then, Dall Narcis got it into his head to take a peek at the Spring of Life. After
all, his noble blood gave him the ability. Why shouldn't he use it? Well, holy scripture,
tradition, and law were all good reasons, and Gilda reminded him of that. It was
to no avail, however, and Dall treaded where he shouldn't have.
When he emerged from the chamber of the Spring of Life, he was a changed man. In
spite of Gilda's concern, he refused to be consoled, going so far as to call off
the wedding and order Gilda to return home. Jilted and confused, Gilda nevertheless
remained devoted to Dall and was determined to remain by his side. In order to accomplish
this, she left her native nation behind and joined the Creterian army.
Time passed and as Creteria gradually fell into ruin, its emperor changed into a
debauched lush and her disgust for Dall Narcis grew and grew. Though her disgust
never completely eclipsed her devotion to him, she began to lose faith in the possibility
that the love she and Dall had shared would ever return. With her primary reason
for remaining in Creteria gone, she came to be more concerned about the nation itself,
determined to preserve it in spite of its lazy emperor. Indeed, perhaps even TO
spite its lazy emperor, as it slowly became clear that Dall at least partly longed
for its destruction. Her devotion to Creteria eventually became strong enough that
she was willing to stage a coup to overthrow the emperor, to save the nation from
his incompetence. Perhaps she would have even been willing to execute him, had she
not needed his cooperation to control the Spring of Life.
In spite of everything, though, her love for Dall was never far below the surface.
Soon after she had critically wounded Dall while under the control of the being
known as Arjah, she was at his side, doing her best to preserve his life. As Dall
revealed his secrets, Gilda was quick to forgive him. Among those secrets was a
surprising one that turned out to be a blessing for the evil Arjah: Gilda's family
also possessed the genetic code necessary to control the Spring of Life. Neither
she nor Arjah had ever needed the emperor at all to achieve their goals. This, in
fact, was Dall's reason for jilting Gilda as he had. If they were to have had children,
those children would have inherited the responsibility of guarding the Spring of
Life. After the horrors he had witnessed there, he did not wish to inflict that
on them, or on Gilda.
In the end, thanks to the timely intervention of Makoto and his friends, everything
that Gilda had hoped for became a reality. Creteria was saved, and restored to a
new prosperity. Leaving the life of a soldier behind, she and Dall Narcis were wed
and seemed destined for a happy future raising an adorable daughter. With the Eye
of God and the Spring of Life forever sealed away, that daughter would never be
forced to bear the burdens that Dall had feared.
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