I Am Falion

[LithiumSedai 5750]

 

I Am Falion

 

 

A Salvian ball attended by Crown Prince Ottomar, c. 1789

((The Pleasures of the Ball, Antoine Watteau))

 

“I am Falion.”

 

She lowered her figure before the Crown Prince in an oft-practised curtsy, sweeping her foot behind her as instructed. But not a single word more followed her introduction, and in the young girl’s gaze flickered but pride and natural defiance, as if her gesture had already been a sufficient deference. The Prince, however, offered no complaint when he matched her gaze, responding with a simple nod before speeding onward. He was, after all, a boy of six summers, and despite his unusual eloquence for that young age, he appeared satisfied by the curtsy and wished for nothing more from the elfess, but a few years his senior. That she was also red-haired like him did not strike him as an oddity, nothing more than her presence in Fausten.

 

Falion knew nonetheless that both of these were rare traits. That she and her family were to stand before Prince Ottomar was, by all accounts, an immense honour for her kind, and that sense of superiority, so innate an expression of a High Elf, even when leveraged against their own peers, permeated her behaviour and had featured greatly in her upbringing and the precepts of her family. From a very young age, she was made to learn of the circumstances which had led to their settlement in Fausten and her birth as one of the few native High Elves of that City.

 

She knew well the course of her parents’ escape from their Silver homeland, where calls to purity were oft wielded as a weapon, and that they had chosen a shameful exile to the lawless reaches of Sutica over death by cutthroat politics; that in that hive of immorality they had languished surrounded by libertine masses of mixed blood which feuded daily and duelled by magic and by knife, and that when they were selected to partake in the Expedition as settlers, they grasped at that chance in spite of the imminent hardships of such an uncertain endeavour, and resolved to brave that three months’ voyage across the treacherous sea.

 

When the first halls of the City were raised over the ruins of that fallen Republic of days past, and chaos still reigned in the colony, it seemed evident that it would soon set on the path to becoming Sutica’s daughter in sin. But soon word came from the mainland that against all odds, a new Monarch of little tolerance for excess had seized the reins, a human knight exiled from Oren who professed the Canon faith; and the Governor of the City, a strange Dark Elf whose House had also pledged to the Creator and worshipped Him openly, declared himself a faithful supporter.

 

Her parents were observant enough to discern which way the wind was blowing. Soon these Dark Elves and their human allies occupied every facet of Fausten’s governance, and Sutican pagans and mix-breeds found themselves increasingly sidelined. Those who were smart and perceptive sought protection from Canonist priests and converted, and forged alliances with the Dark Elven Covenant of House Verethi; Falion’s father immediately entered the Governor’s service, and renounced his kin’s ideas of atheism, for which he soon attained high honours and considerable riches. Others, who stubbornly persisted in their adherence to “Sutican” ideals, soon found only hardships in Fausten’s labour market, and many doors to them were closed; most then sold their meagre belongings and returned to Arcas, and the few outspoken outliers were subjected to mysterious disappearances and natural accidents in the yet-inhospitable reaches outside of the City’s borders, and upon the surrounding seas.

 

 

The City of Fausten, c. 1800

((Market Day, Antwerp, Samuel Prout))

 

Such was the environment in the City of Fausten in which Falion was born, soon after the onset of the Merryweather War back in Arcas. She was raised to understand her superiority over the Sutican ilk and all those others who had failed to align with the new order of things, and the inborn arrogance of the High Elven race complemented these views well. Her parents had become ardent supporters of the Alstreim monarchy, and Falion remembered the patriotic fervour in the City when the Peace of Merryweather was signed. When Prince Ottomar was born to the King’s relatives in the royal residence in the City and declared heir, and Sutica was set to be ruled by a fellow native one day, Falion felt pride which could not be repressed even when the King was dethroned by pagan traitors. Although still a child, she cheered on the persecution of remaining mix-breeds in Fausten in retaliation, and pledged to take part in the glorious reclamation of Sutica once she came of age.

 

Falion was thirteen when the Prince met his death at the hands of Suticans, at the end of his infamous journey to Arcas. Any hopes that her personality and psyche could develop free of this cycle of violence and disdain were soon dashed. She began to hate them deeply, and though she could never part with her notions of inherent supremacy, she attributed it solely to herself and reviled her Elven blood which she shared with many of those pagans. Though the Prince was now dead, she came to envy him. She coveted the position and privileges of the Alstreim royals, and bitterly wished she had been born a human. Like the Alstreims, she had red hair; among High Elves it was an undesirable trait, but among human Salvians, it denoted royalty. Her ideals of dominance manifested in a yearning for noble blood, and all those traits of Canonist sons of Horen which put them at natural odds with the very mindset and existence of Sutican paganry.

 

Three years later, in a cruel twist of fate, Falion and her family were beset by an ailment endemic to those they despised most. The final outbreak of the maligned Sutican rot in the City before its eradication swept across its homes and streets, and those who succumbed to it were fortunate to face a quick death. This was the fate of Falion’s parents, and their servantry and household staff. Falion was the sole survivor, and soon came to know unbearable torment. The rot first manifested upon her body as painful scarring of the flesh similar to marks left by searing flame, and this scarring soon overtook the elfess and covered her arms, shoulders and neck. It spread to her jaw and her cheeks, and soon claimed her pointed ears, whose soft tissue was susceptible to decay. Then came the fever, and where most who were afflicted died in such a state, Falion suffered through the inflammation which sought to torture and unravel her brain.

 

As a parting favour to her father, amidst the efforts to subdue the outbreak, the Governor himself resolved to save Falion’s life. She was carried from her broken household to the holdings of House Verethi, and their greatest physicians and magi, immune to the Sutican rot, laboured around the clock to stave off the illness. And though all afflictions of the body could be remedied through ample effort, there was little hope for the spirit. The feverish state persisted, and Falion was trapped in her feverish mind; she was beleaguered by vivid delusions and scenarios which stretched for pretend-years in her thoughts whenever but a single night had passed.

 

Falion believed she was human. In her mind played an entire constructed parallel life, in which she was born a scion of the House of Alstreim. She found herself a devout Canonist in those vivid scenes, dubbed herself a pagan-slaying dame, and over and over recollected her various knightly exploits which had never been, and her presence during many events in the history of that storied House. She explained her lifespan and everlasting youth as a miracle, and the scars which marred her as a pagan curse. The affliction of the mind persisted even when most scarring beneath her neck had subsided and once strength had returned to her body, though she sought to suppress and conceal her true thoughts. In the mirror, she perceived her mangled ears, and had the scarred tips seared off to the horror of her physicians.

 

The observant eye of the Governor, Virvyn Verethi, could not be fooled by Falion’s mere physical recovery, and though she never spoke of her delusion even when the rot was made to withdraw from her vocal cords, he noted a significant dissonance in her bearing and behaviour. For reasons known only to him, however, he never pried regarding the nature of Falion’s hallucinations, and he allowed her to stay in the quarters he had assigned to her. Tutelage of any nature she desired was made available to her, and the Governor noted her penchant for the Waldenian language and the history of the royal family, and all which pertained to human knighthood and chivalry.

 

 

The demise of RSS Laura, c. 1840

((A Ship in Need in a Raging Storm, Willem van de Velde II))

 

After decades of studious isolation, Falion committed herself to physical fitness and martial pursuits, and sought to join the Royal Salvian Regiment. Virvyn Verethi, now elected Syndic, gave her his three blessings. She passed the rigorous aptitude tests and was assigned as a guard to a merchant vessel on a trade mission to Cathant. But while Falion was present in body, and partook in daily tasks alongside the crew, her mind was still seized by her vivid illusions, and she dreamed of commandeering the ship, the Laura, to her own ends. On a particularly gloomy night, as a thunderstorm raged across the sea, that plan was unravelled by the ship’s demise amidst the crashing waves. None survived but Falion, who was thrown upon a nearby rocky isle by a stroke of luck, moments from drowning; but the momentary lack of air, and the subsequent days of starvation drove her to a point of no return.

 

Falion cast off her Elven lineage completely, and drowned herself not in the raging waters, but instead in her delusion. Her mental fortitude was shattered for good. She cursed the Suticans with every drop of her being, ambling about the isle and begging the Lord to send her, the Alstreim heiress, salvation. She chanted litanies and prayers in frantic voices, conversed with herself in the Waldenian tongue and archaic Common, and recited knightly ballads. Debris from the shipwreck was appropriated as her weaponry, and she practised in endless imaginary fights against legions of enemies unknown even as her strength withered.

 

The rescue party came across her in this sorry and dishevelled state, and had her returned to the Syndic’s estate after a recovery regimen which lasted weeks. But to them her identity was unknown, and their rescue mission had been assigned to them privately by the Syndic himself once remnants of the ship were witnessed by Salvian patrols; he personally had the named crew of the Laura all marked as perished when Falion’s survival was relayed to him, and none but him knew Falion’s name when she was brought before him. She marched into the hall, head held high, and showed no sign of her earlier torment; but a fiery fervour danced in her gaze. The Syndic’s aide requested of her to introduce herself.

 

I am Falion. I am Falion. I am Falion.

 

“I am Katharina, scion of the Elder Line of Alstreim.”

 

 

Spoiler

Introduction post for a new (but actually old) character. As usual, please do not metagame this information.

 

[Lirinya 4021]

Spoiler

15 minutes ago, LithiumSedai said:

As usual, please do not metagame this information.

Don't tell  me what to do.

 

 

I love lithium posting.