1 Arbelan is said to be in her mid-sixties. I've made her one year younger than Nemera, which is the closest age gap in his marriages.
2 In order to fit everything that happens in Nemera's life, I have him getting married remarkably young. My explanation for this is that his father was already old when he was born, and he had no brothers, so there was already some pressure for him to produce an heir of his own nearly as soon as he came of age—although of course that did not end up happening.
3 In divorced, died, died, divorced, survived I wrote:
In the fall of the eleventh year of your reign, fifteen years after your marriage
I wrote that fic before I attempted to create a coherent timeline, and in order to make things fit better, I've taken five years off of both dates, so it ought to read:
In the fall of the sixth year of your reign, ten years after your marriage
4 Another small departure from divorced, I have aged up Nemolis slightly and increased the age gap. I haven't written Nemolis much yet, but rest assured this is an important character choice for him.
5 I saw a post on Tumblr claiming that Chenelo is the same age as Nemolis, which I found very funny, as by my timeline she is actually slightly closer in age to Nazhira. Horrifyingly young for what happens to her...
6 Since I think Nemera initially remarried after Leshan's death out of a desire not to put his own heir Nemolis in the same position he was in as an emperor with no brothers, it is perhaps to be expected that Pazhiro is fairly young when they marry. They are evidently able to make the age gap work, although that doesn't necessarily mean it was never a source of stress. I left four years between for a larger gap between the children; this can perhaps be explained by Nemera wanting to choose his new wife very carefully.
7 The first character to have an actual canonical age! Vedero is 28 years old.
8 I am very fond of the idea that Nemera only came out of mourning due to the pressure to remarry. I don't think it's too unreasonable to assume two years of negotiations for such a complicated situation as his marriage to Chenelo. I didn't want to put this much closer, as I wanted Vedero to be young enough when her mother died so as to not have many memories of her.
9 Csethiro is 22, Csoru is very close in age to her.
10 The period of time between these three events is less than a full year, but almost certainly spans across two calendar years. I am unsure if Chenelo had turned 17 by the time she was relegated; it depends when her birthday is.
11 Despite the title of my fic, I don't think Chenelo was ever actually legally divorced. It doesn't seem like Nemera remarried until after she died, and she retained the title zhasan. (although possibly the latter is because she had a son)
12 Another canonical age, Idra is 14.
13 Canonically, the drama around Nemriän's marriage occurred when Maia was 5 years old, so 13 years ago. It's possible the actual marriage occurred a year or two after, but for simplicity's sake I've just put it here.
14 I considered making Ino and Mireän twins, since Maia estimates both their ages as being about how old he was when his mother died, but I think if they were twins it would have been mentioned at some point, and Ino being younger would not be. I put them about a year apart, so either 6 and 7 or 7 and 8. (Clarified headcanon to 6 and 7)
15 Heard you like age gaps... how this for an age gap? Seriously though, this marriage has always weirded me out. From what we know of Nemera's character, it is hard to imagine him liking Csoru in any way... My theory is that it was a political marriage, and he indulged her because he was old and tired and he didn't know how to (or want to try to) deal with her in any other way. He just really doesn't give lecherous old creep vibes to me, he's horrible in other ways...
16 I don't know exactly how long they've been engaged, but there is precedent for long engagements in some of the spinoff books, and they have already signed the marriage contract so I feel like it has probably been a while. I've made Stano about the same age as Ciris; this makes her seven or eight years younger than Sheveän.
