WITCH, saskia verso

[attr="class","appbody"]

i. winter

The wise men of your tribe claim that the omens foretell a boy, abyss-eyed and brave. You are born instead: silent in your mother's arms with a hooded gaze and clutching fingers. Your father declares he has no more use for portents. You will be his heir. You will be the only child he requires, though no stone of his realm shall endure that you might inherit it.

ii. spring

The Baronies are indolent in bloom, splendid and enduring in majesty. Though you are only a child, already you seek to climb the peaks of the mountains that encircle your father's lands. Your voice rises and falls in song, brighter than the pale sunshine on the rocks. And the jewels of kingship, hallowed by a divine hand, are bound around your neck: the Goddess' gift to your father's line, that they may reign forever over this land.

Or that is what the stories say. And the jewels are beautiful. That much is true.

iii. summer

The soldiers flow over the mountain, and the summer sun turns the shine of their swords into a river of gold. Your father is not the only lord to dwell in these mountains. And it is his desire to remain removed from the world of humans and monsters alike, to remain secluded behind the great gray peaks and sheer cliffs, and to be content in the work of his people. But he is not the only lord to dwell in these mountains, you remind yourself, and your neighbors to the north tire of isolation.

They will return to the lands of the empire, to submit to the emperor's will. But their lord has no desire to go empty-handed to his new ruler. He will buy his place with silver and gems. He will buy his place with your necklace of white jewels, set in gold. They give off their own light and return the light given to them in a thousand shining refractions, and when the usurper clasps them around his neck his beauty is beyond compare, because they are the work of the Goddess, so the stories say, and their like shall never be seen in this world again.

Of course your father dies rather than submitting, but dying he clasps your hand. His blood dries sticky under your fingernails. He makes you swear. Neither law nor love nor league of hell shall keep me from regaining the Goddess' blessing. By Her name I swear, and none less. Let the void take me if I fail.

And so you willl carry out your father's will. This shall be the only work of your hands that endures the changing of the seasons. This oath, and nothing more.

iv. autumn

In the absence of fall, winter can come again. In the absence of spring, summer rises. But in you nothing is absent. In you is the presence of all seasons, both the soft and the bitter. In you, there is no room for new growth.



Saskia is a witch, and in the manner of her people, her strength lies in her voice. She invokes magic through words of power, chants and song.

Sang in answer a song of staying,
Resisting, battling against power,
Of secrets kept, strength like a tower,
And trust unbroken, freedom, escape;
Of changing and of shifting shape
Of snares eluded, broken traps,
The prison opening, the chain that snaps.

The fulfillment of her oath does not lend itself easily to white magic. But that was originally the magic she was taught by her mother, and her heart lies with it still, though she uses it less. It is the magic of changing shape, of healing and valor rekindled, of small lights glittering like ice against the darkness: frail but valiant.

The wind wails,
The wolf howls. The ravens flee.
The ice mutters in the mouths of the Sea.
The captives sad in dungeons mourn.
Thunder rumbles, the fires burn ---

Black magic is the more useful discipline for what she must accomplish, she tells herself, and her voice does not shake. She might even believe it to be true. Songs of tearing, hurting; songs of sleep and chants of destruction. Words to strike a man blind or deaf or dumb or dead. Curses that sit in the blood and wait. This is what she teaches herself in exile.

I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness,
nor the arrow for its swiftness,
nor the warrior for his glory.
I love only that which they defend.

But a witch is not always unobtrusive, and sometimes that is what Saskia needs to be. Once she used her pair of kerambits to climb among the mountains and wander far from home. Now she finds they make for exceedingly useful weapons, well-suited to ripping and slashing. She also has a blacksnake whip, with the handle weighted to function as a club.

[attr="class","appname"]SASKIA VERSO

[attr="class","appicon"]

[attr="class","appstats"]
AGE: 19
SEX: F
RACE: HUMAN
HOMELAND: THE BARONIES
CONTRACT: N