Satisfying Substantiation: Saskia d'Auvergne

[Limine]

Saskia d'Auvergne

Closure Post (click)


Portrait

Saskia is a fair-skinned, charming, half-elven woman, though the points of her ears are often hidden in bright red locks of long hair. She wears dark purple and black leathers, that look like they were once well-crafted and covered in crests, or silk dresses and tasteful, minimal jewelry. She often wears a cloak pulled tight around her shoulders, and though she used to look around with unease and wariness, she is becoming more comfortable in this strange new land, and walks with the confidence and poise brought to her by her upbringing.

~

An outlander from the land of Faerun, Saskia has not only fallen far from her home, but far from her pedigree.

Born as a titled noble (well, halfways, through her noble father out of wedlock, though she was taken into the lineage due to a lack of many other heirs), Saskia was raised not only with the finest comforts the d'Auvergne estates (yes, plural, all along the Sword Coast) could afford, but also with the finest, and highest, of expectations. Since she was young she was trained in the arts, musical, magical, and practical, rhetoric, trade and commerce, even kept fit with lessons of the noble practice of archery, her arm-guards gilded and her arrows dulled. Nevertheless, her aim is true, whether it is pointed at a mink or was pointed at a target crafted out of polished redwood and endangered pines. The education started early and never stopped, until a horrific undead plague hit the countryside, wiping out many nobles and instigating a power struggle of epic proportions... of which Saskia's house was in about fifth place, behind those actually capable of taking power. Under immense pressure to maintain the prestige of her family name and prove herself (often reminded that she was not fully or truly noble...), Saskia set out from her home estate to find a group of adventurers or mercenaries capable enough to support her in finding a cure for the plague and secure her and her family's future. In her travels she saw disease and darkness, corruption and evil, and her naive and sheltered views of humanity, of social contracts and of grand heroism faded, month by month. Until, one dark and scary night, she and her hired group got lost in the woods, hungry and tired from travelling with little to show by way of success towards her goal. Running from a pack of wolves, she and one of the Mercenaries, Lucius, appear to have fallen through the dark, foggy forest and into a very different, even darker place.

And here her next story begins, disconnected from her only purpose in life, a cord cut clean through with no way to connect the ends ever again. She was trained for one world, and dropped into another where none of it seems applicable. No polished brass scales, inlaid with crystals and silver-vein embellishments, nor fine-grain wooden harpsichords with curved golden legs in sight. With one lifeline offered to her, she survives, and she learns, trying to decide what her life should look like with neither an inheritance, nor a lofty expectation to live up to.

[Limine]

Education



~

I sighed and sat back on the delicately carved mahogany chair, its well-crafted but old stretchers creaking under the movement. Miss Pacquet looked at me sternly, her bushy grey brows drawn together for a moment before she returned her scrutinizing gaze back to the parchment in front of her, penned by me.

“It is too long,” she said, sharply, after a moment. I sat up, arms on the table as I stared at her in teenage disbelief.

“I added details. Analyses. You told me to be specific,” I complained.

“Anything worth writing should be able to be written in two hundred and fifty words or less. In this world, we must be concise. Direct. This is not a drama class, lady d’Auvergne, and I do not want to see your elvish wordiness appear in your civilized work.” She pushed the parchment aside, back towards me, and sat up straighter, returning to her work. “Bring it back to me at the next lesson. Mister Thomas is waiting in the yard for you already.”

Mumbling, I opened my journal to make a note that I had finished with literature for the morning, but would yet need to complete my reading, my enchantment practice, the archery with mister Thomas, and of course, play the piano for the requisite hour before supper. Without another word I stood and passed through the brick archway in the entrance to the study, my mind wandering to thoughts of the worlds in the books I had written about.

~

[Limine]

Matriculation



~
Years later…

I walked down the carpeted, embroidered, crimson and gold hall, wishing it were a deep amethyst, instead. As I entered the ballroom again, he saw me, his eyes alighting as he made his way through the crowd to offer me his arm. I had done my work, previously, and well.

“My lady d’Auvergne, might you accompany me to the card tables? I have heard you bring good luck.”

“Of course, my lord, I would be delighted,” I said, with my winning smile, and off we went. I spent the entire dull night watching him waste his fortune and misread his cards, but I did what I needed to do. Waited long enough for him to loosen his cravat, remove his silk gloves. Linger as the night went on, flirt enough so it was not odd when I touched my bejeweled hand to his fingers, letting him kiss them.

He had a bad habit of rubbing his mustache, often, and licking his lips. I had noticed this last week. The other lady d’Auvergne, my ruthless grandmother, had found this to be a very good observation and devised a scheme.

The only difficulty was getting away unseen while he writhed on the floor, the blood trickling from his mouth hardly making a stain on the deep red of house Tellier’s carpets. In a world with dozens of noble houses vying for the power my matriarch wanted, and with my own inheritance on the line, I did anything that needed to be done.

~

[Limine]

Abdication



~

I introduce myself by saying I am formerly of house d’Auvergne. After all, how can I be a noble in a plane where my bloodline is non-existent? With no lands, no inheritance, I am simply nothing. But is that the worst of the circumstances I found myself in after we groped our way through the mists, my graying mercenary and I?

It started before, when my work furthering the house name led me to leave the marble eaves, looking for that damnable cure. I was dirty, muddy, without any bathtub, let alone a copper one. Without any soap, let alone a perfume. Surrounded by men and women I would better call wild dogs, and undead, from the plague. Worse, were my worries that I was chasing something elusive and unattainable. That there would always be one more scheme, one more reason to tell me I could not yet be named heir. The fear that my pointy ears and absent father would always stop me from having what I deserve.

So when I fell through the mists, I felt a sense of relief that the chase was over, but it was quickly replaced with anger. I lost everything I had worked for my whole life. I need to find my life’s meaning in this strange land, a goal to further. Power and luxury to amass. I make do without. But that damn statue and its moral questions made me think about my life, my past, my values. And I need more.

~

[Limine]

Devotion



~

So how did it start? Not how you would think. With his hand outstretched, telling me to pay him.

My mission had failed, and I was giving up on my grandmother’s crazy requests. The soldiers were interrogating, murdering, quarantining, because of the plague. We got questioned, the people trapped in that inn, and I lied to protect us all - claimed everyone there was my hire. It worked, and he said if I was going to claim it, I had better pay him. I refused, and then we all realized we’d be cut down in three seconds if we didn’t band together. So I joined them, Lucius, and a creepy druid and his ward. We headed out of the hamlet, back onto the road. A few nights passed and not a one we didn’t bicker, him sniffing at me and me threatening to tear out his hair if he didn’t shut his mouth.

And then that night. The druid disappeared, and the ward made us search for him. As time passes, I forget even what horrors we saw that night that scattered the group of us, sent us running into the woods, Lucius following me for gods know what reason.

We fell through together, and when we came through we bickered worse. But I was terrified of every shadow and every claw and every creature, and he protected me. Words changed. Gazes softened. Hearts bared. Bodies bared. He is all I really have here, and he is all I really want to keep anymore.

~

[Limine]

Incantations



~

When I think of magic, I think foremost of the wizened tutor they brought in when I was a teenager to try and teach me. He was frustrated when he found my innate Elven blood fizzling, incapable of sorcerous tricks. It was only after he left that I found a sharp command, a word of power would allow my blood to do what I willed in the air around me… but even that, limited. For years the best I could replicate was the stitching of a scratch, the slamming of a door from afar, a yell that hurt my servant’s ears.

When I arrived in this dark realm, I was exposed to powerful arcanists of all flavors. Fire mages, ward mages, insane mages, those that walk around surrounded in bubbles of runes and glowing blue, those that turn into horrific creatures or summon vile, loud storms to destroy creatures caught within it. My life for months was like one of those amusing magician’s shows, except every trick was the one where the magicians sawed a man in half, and every time the man was actually sawed in half at the end of the night.

Some were kind, sparing spells for others. I saw the way people under their “wards” swelled with pride, strength, robustness. I sensed how much harder they could hit, how much farther they could see, how much more strain and bloodshed they could withstand… and all with these simple words, words that almost made sense in my ears if I heard them a certain way…

I started to write down the incantations, to draw representations of the gestures made by the hands of the arcanists. My stacks of notes grew until I bound them into a book. And now that book is my spellbook, after hours spent in some corner of the library or in the woods translating these magical sounds into a language I knew, repeating them until I could make Lucius move like a giant, protect him like a golem. Every time I practice the spells I can feel the power flowing through me like it flows through the world around us, through the mists, and I love it. Lucius says magicians go insane because they have more room in their brains for crazy than anyone else. I think he may be right, but I have also assured him I could never be one of these mages that summons meteors from the skies or fiends from the pits of hell. I am content with the power to change small fates, to cast down mundane creatures, as long as it means that I can do all I wish to do, and learn all I wish to learn. There are more incantations in my messy little book than I rightly know what to do with. But I like having that knowledge at my fingertips, should I ever have need of the power it represents.

~

[Limine]

Inillumination



~

I hardly remember the night we fell through worlds and ended up face down in the dirt of this dread place. I remember the wolf den, the running, screaming, the chill air on my cheeks, the feeling of something slipping through my fingers. And I remember my life before that… yet, the longer I live here, the more it feels like a dream, rather than reality.

There is a strange nature to this world that makes my dissonance worse. When people ask, I say that I am familiar with it, that my home was as dark, plagued by undead, murders, secrets, greed, monsters… but it is far different, because in my world there was always a sense of light. The churches glowed with pride, even at night, and there was always a facade of goodness to escape to, a way to be ignorant to the dark going on around me.

Here, it surrounds everything. It lives deep within the earth I walk on, it sings in every brick I pass by, I see it in everyone’s gaze. Sometimes I wonder, is it me? Is it my new sense of the magic in the air? I cannot blame myself, nor the arcane; I must believe it is the world around me. There is a sense of foreboding, of danger, that has not gone away. Even though the comforts of civilization in Port have soothed my paranoia, every day I learn more, as I yearn to, I feel myself awakening to the realization Lucius made so long ago when we first came through. Is this place a purgatory? And if it is, what am I striving for?

~

[Limine]

Postulation



~

In my world, every player worth anything had all the resources he would ever need. Notoriety, money, sheer bodies. The games were not games of wealth or greed. Everyone wanted to replace the iron fist that had ruled us for centuries, and the game had gone on for years, every family with an open, friendly face, all pretending they were united against the one that fell while secretly yearning his empty throne. The currency in this game was power, and with everyone equipped to the nines, their teeth sharpened and claws eager, it was knowledge, not money, that became the most important tool.

This new world confused me because I expected it to be the same, but it has more nuance. Other factors beyond these known secrets have merit. In my world, if I knew something, I could ruin that person. In this world, I know much, but I must carefully decide how to guard myself, how to use it effectively, as so often a secret is loosed and it has little to no effect on its target, or everyone knew it already anyways. This baffles me, but it also tells me there is something I am missing, that I used to have, that quality that made me someone in my previous world. 

I want it back. More than I want riches, luxury. I yearn for knowledge: that kind of knowing that makes others scared of you. The kind that made the peers I terrorized listen to me when I told them whom to dance with, which party to attend, and which goblet to spike. I will find it yet.

~

[Limine]

Regulation



~

The codes of conduct were strict. There were several qualities one needed to embody, and a whole host of those you needed not be thought about you. You must have been modest, kind, upright, withholding, learned, merciful, law-abiding, private. You must not have been unchaste, too strict or uptight, overly smart or overly ditzy, uncaring about the world or care too much, share too much or withhold too much gossip. A balancing beam in every respect, but easy for anyone to accomplish if they just followed the established rules. Follow the hierarchy, listen to your elders and the peers that ranked above you. Defer to others. Do not speak or act out of turn. Do not endanger other house’s positions or draw attention to the actual problems of the city. Enjoy the luxury. Follow your “responsibility” (collecting the taxes and rents, of course).

So much of this city seems this way to me. So many of the nobility gathered on the terraces do not grant me even a second look, rightfully so. And yet, the society seems to have these outliers. Vibrant beings, kind and generous truly, open with their lives and interested in the affairs of the poor. Some genuine, others confusing. In most cases, these anomalies do not make sense. They do not endear. If I had in this world all that I had in the previous, I would not throw it away on those who do not have the will to take care of themselves. I chafe and itch to fix the mistakes I see.

If it were my court, the rules would be followed.

~

[Limine]

Temptation



~

I never wanted power, not truly. I just wanted to belong to my own bloodline. I wanted to rule because the only people I trusted in this world, my deepest loyalty, told me I should get to. I clung to those notions, I tried to get them back. But all this world is, is a disturbing facsimile of what we once lived. Perhaps that old world I claim I do not miss is much the same. Perhaps it was all always an illusion, that there was nothing at the top after you claw your way there through all the people that stood before you. Even so, I sought it, because what else is there to do? Sleep? Eat cheese?

I cannot deny the flutter of my heart, the thrilling sense of mortal danger that comes with an idea so profoundly dangerous but with such incredible benefits. But when I thought it through, what shall I do with arcane power? Nothing profound. Nothing uplifting to my very greedy, simple soul. And, other forms of power? The one thing I want most can only be given to me by taking away the only thing I have that I treasure. Turn up true loyalty for another false life. No.

So then all that was left to me was a normal life, perhaps more wicked and more strict than others, because others are wild and idiotic, but a normal life nevertheless. And this felt even more wrong.

~

[Limine]

Resolution

(Purgatory)



~

What is it that we wish to see in an ending? A resolution. The top of the mountain, and the drop off below. A neat little bow on a glowing gift. A lover’s kiss, a bird flying high, perhaps those things called children that people seem to enjoy to watch while they scream.

I have never seen such an ending. Even this one is a slog through more muddy and undead-plagued roads to a place where it rains more than it shines, to live with a lot less silk than I ever have. But I chose it, so it feels like the kind of resolution I wanted, in some crazy way.

Why this? It is simple. I did not like the ending. It all went just as I thought it would; indeed, exactly as I predicted. So why did I care? I could have continued on as ordered, continued my work and my amassing wealth and growing power and sought out more. Perhaps because my paramour frothed at the idea of this ending? Perhaps because I had found some sense of a conscience? No, I think not. I think it is because despite all my moral apathy, the ending gave me something profound. A moment of true clarity, a realisation.

We are not in control.

This place is a fugue state. They speak of Ezra, of mine and Lucius’ misting being a twisted fate that brought us together, that it intended something. And I realized what was intended. When we came through the mists, we had died, and we have been like wraiths, walking the same path we walked in life over and over again hoping it turns out differently. We are fools. The mists have deigned to show us this: Stop, or fall. End your ways, or suffer for your wants. You were never worthy of what you wanted.

And I could never truly look past this realisation. So I took the cowardly way out; I left. I stopped playing. It is the only true way out. My friends, I urge you silently from my hermetic life: go or do not, lose yourself for your goals or take my way out, but whatever you do, do it with conviction.

~