Personality

RESILIENT • CALM • DUTIFUL
RUTHLESS • AUSTERE • REPENTANT

Calm and poised are the mantle Siofra wears well, ever-enwrapped in its veil of calculated words, precise gestures, and observant gaze. Held within her pale eyes is an unnerving knowingness, as if no secret sleeps unturned when it comes to her domain. This carefully crafted mien serves more like armor than anything else - meant to protect, obscure, and enthuse. She is precisely aware of her weaknesses and would apply no limit to the lengths she'd go to make up for them - born of a self-eating loathing that paints her insides with its shame. Weary, selfish, and angry are the true colors she hides.

At her heart Siofra finds solace in slivers of freedom, fed in half-spoons and always left wanting. She would see no soul tethered and chained as she. A painful fate, but one she's accepted with grace.

To protect herself, and her own: these are the ideals that carry in her step. For this, Siofra can be vicious - vengeful. Often unseen, she sharpens it to her own advantage and is unafraid to turn it on those who are in her way. 'Whatever it takes' is the byword of her ambition.

Yet for all her smoke and mirrors, Siofra is fiercely true and unwaveringly patient. A once tender empathy rested in her breast, pulsing with the heart that neighbors it.  Yet time has weathered her, building cracks in the surface and slowly filling them with its rancor. A hero tired of playing heroes - a moth lured to the flame - a walking promise, forever unbroken.
[255 wc]

History

Hers is a name shrouded in fable and fate - Siofra, eye of The Order.

But once, she was just Siofra, daughter of the wild clans. Nearly 300 years ago she lived a simple life in the southern fringes of Ivras, born to a lineage of jungle dwelling seers. Magic was an integral facet of their lives - for tradition, for faith, and for survival. For all their years they kept to themselves, as self-proclaimed keepers and protectors of their forbidden knowledge. Every vision a seer had was inscrolled and kept hidden. In the wrong hands, knowledge of the future could be ruinous.  And so the clan sequestered themselves away. They had little interest in Ivras or its  armies waging war on the southern lands. With each day sister clans were conquered and slain. Their secrecy was the only thing that kept them safe.

That was, until Siofra's magic blossomed early; divination born unto her blood offered the child a glimpse of tragedy... of fire, steel, and war. She saw that the clan's secret was loose, and it was already too late. By nightfall soldiers marched upon their homes with gleaming plated knights and wicked blades. The seers were deemed a threat with their mystical foresight, and hunted down.

When the embers settled, young Siofra was found by the knights. In a flutter of mercy - or perhaps cruelty - she was taken with them. The Order had only recently been brought to life, urged on by a nation-wide hysteria to collect and control the mages of Ivras. What could The Order do with an oracle on their side? A seer, trained and indoctrinated within their ideals... The secrets they could uncover, the knowledge they could glean...

The girl was delivered to Namarast and its newly minted Order. Fear seized her heart in its iron grip as she was corralled from place to place, surrounded by confusing sights and aloof strangers.

This was to be her new home.

Time soothed her horrors, if only misting it behind a veil. Siofra grew up in the winding halls of Namarast, raised by the many different professors who oversaw her training. Often it seemed like there was never a moment alone. Eyes, eyes, eyes - everywhere. Some professors were kinder than others, though Siofra longed for the warm embrace of her mother's arms. Sleeping cold and alone in the mages' dormitory never felt the same.

Her training was nigh constant, intensive and unforgiving. She was to be molded into the ideal mage, a picture-perfect servant of The Order and an example of the success it could offer. They wanted to convince the people of Ivras that The Order was the solution to all their fears; and Siofra was the first step. A mage who's magic served man and never ruled it - one who was obedient, docile, and efficient. The memories of her old life grew distant and faded as years rolled by, replaced instead by shackles, by discipline, by apathy. Yet as she aged, her training only got more arduous. She was meant to be perfect.

Once she was old enough, her handlers wasted no time in finally putting Siofra to work; all that she had trained for was coming to fruition. Her visions would root out dangers to The Order. She was presented as their High Oracle - an all knowing and all seeing mage meant to protect, and never harm.

Her debut was a roaring success. In only a month the seer had already helped uncover a group of budding rebels, and even prevent the assassination of a highly prolific noble. So much of the woman's day was spent in divination, exhausting her magic until her bones shook and her head swam, it felt like cracks splintering across her heart. The constant foresight took its toll on her body and soul, weariness lurching deep within her. Siofra's concept of time began to crumble; often she struggled with recalling her own memories... confusing them with the memories of others, or forgetting when things had happened - or if they had even happened yet. If any of her handlers had noticed the seer's worsening mental state, none did anything to help. They were all blinded by the glory and praise.

But still the seer travelled across Ivras at the behest of her foresight - to stop burgeoning insurgents planning betrayal, or warn villages of upcoming dangers. To capture fleeing mages and return them to The Order.

"There. They shall be past the river, seeking shelter within wooden red walls. A barn, dilapidated and aged. There will be seven." Siofra's quiet, emotionless voice trilled softly above the droning of rainfall thudding upon mud and silt. Knights stood flanked at her side, the hiss of their blades scraping against leather sheathes. The sound stirred memories in her chest, thick and heavy, of a childhood lost by the very same death knell. Her fingers twitched, growing numb in the chill.

"Wait." She wasn't sure what forced the word from her mouth, but it was already uttered and could not be unsaid. "...The south. It will be a barn to the south." The lie fell so easily from her lips, sugar-sweet and sickening. Disobedience had never been an option, until suddenly it simply... was.

Siofra was punished for failing to capture the mages. The mages, of course, would never know the words she spoke that saved their fate. We must eradicate any margin of error within your divination, they had told her. You can not afford to err again. The unspoken words ached in her soul; she was only here for as long as she was useful.

The seer's renown grew across Ivras as the herald who served the people. A word here, and eye there, and soon enough everybody sought the Oracle's gaze to solve their problems. Her reputation to Ivras had been meticulously crafted by her handlers - she was never dangerous, never faithless. Propaganda for The Order and its crown spilled from her lips. Look, oh look, at the hero mage who's leash was tight and training flawless. Witness the glory of The Order.

How odd it was that the people so viscerally abhorred mages until they were collared and put on display. Like a fanged hound turned pet, forgotten how dangerous it could be.

Siofra, however, was no hound. She was a moth, bound by nature to flutter ever onwards towards an uncaring light. Despite its blistering heat searing her wings, she could not stop herself from plunging into its devouring blaze. It was simply her nature to soar, and to die.

She saw her grave once in a divination. She never realized what it was until the moment came too late.

At the height of her herodom, Siofra foresaw calamity upon Faline. She saw the wrath of a tempestuous sea, thrashing wildly and swallowing all in its depths.  Siofra wanted rest. Siofra wanted peace. Her weary bones cried - but still she had strength, for all she could save and those she could not.

She had decided this would be her final sacrifice.

Centuries later, memories of this day have been blurred and muddled, but every tale speaks of an oracle who gave her life to defend the city, head tilted to the sky as raindrops flitted across her face. When the mist cleared, all that was left behind was a solitary cocoon.

Centuries would pass, the cocoon left in its eternal slumber.

Until now.

Chaos and violence have troubled the lands of Ivras in recent times; political unrest brought a boiling tension, while horrifying monsters had begun plaguing the lands. The people were scared. Their faith in The Order was shaky, permeated with unease and conflict. With Archon Miriam and her iron rule at the reigns, magic, rebellion, and betrayal were rampant now more than ever.

A group of researchers within the Order saw their solution within the opalescent surface of a cocoon. The Reliquary, the researchers had named themselves, studied artifacts of the past. Lured in by the fables of an ancient seer, they endeavored to unlock the magic within her cocoon. Their experiments had ended up cracking the shimmering, chrysalid surface, breaking it open in a way that felt so viscerally wrong, wrong, wrong. The seer within was roughly awakened, drowning in blurry waters of confusion and pain. Memories of her past self rushed past her mind, splotchy and drifting like slippery currents she could barely grasp. They... they had broken something - snapped it in two. She felt weakened, misplaced. These memories felt like they belonged to an entirely different person. Yet Siofra bore her name, her face, her legend.

Her burden.

Once more the world sought her service, once more summoned by never-ending duty. Secrets slept in Ivras, and they saw her as their key to uncovering them.

'H-High Oracle...' one of the professors had stuttered in disbelief the day she woke, 'for months we have endeavored to rouse you from your tragic slumber. for months Ivras has been terrorized by monstrosities born of mages' flesh. we have read tomes upon tomes about your divination...The people need you to root out these abominations. With you here now, perhaps even before they happen.'

The Reliquary were responsible for guiding Siofra into this new era. Simply a different flavor of leash, meant to control and  confine her. Dregs of resentment grew in Siofra's chest. To be used, and used, and used. Is that what it meant to be a hero?

Whispers of The Oracle's return spread across Ivras like wildfire. For some it inspired hope, and others fear. Seer and Inquisitor both, no secret would hide from her many, many eyes. For so long they had only known her name from tales - and now she has stepped from the pages of a storybook and into real life.

[1629 wc]

mothsight