AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

Now and then, a small, diminutive shadow can be seen flitting about. A full view of her shows a young, beautiful drowess in dark grey and black silks and leathers. She seems to spend much of her time either coming from, or going to, the chambers once held by Councilor Gloth d'Tsab.

Books start being added to her travels. Mostly -not- about magic, she carries boatloads of books on governmental policies and institutional law.

Irae'arra and her mate, as well as a drow male in dragonscale armour, seem to have taken up permanent residency in Tarkuul now. While trade goes on unhindered, something seems to be percolating slowly through the young Drowess' mind. One day, she takes to an empty room, and speaks. The words, for the City and the City alone.

Whatever answers the young mage sought, she is soon leaving again, her expression hidden as always, and her step just as firm and deliberate as ever.

She seeks out her father, however...

She seems to have taken up a small unused office as her own, and when she isn't off training or trading, she can be found curled on a couch in "her" office, lost in paperwork or studies. Couriers come from L'Obsul, or go hence from her to deliver small parcels or letters.
Always hovering protectively nearby is her small dark shadow, Xun keeping her company unless she orders him out. Occasionally, they can be heard conversing in Drow, and the only time she bids him leave are the rare times her father finds his way to his progeny. She is clearly Xun's superior, but as near as she is capable of coming to care, she seems to care for him, valuing his and her mate's thoughts and words.
She also takes to meeting new people, though she maintains her aloof, cold nature, she at least tries.

Irae'arra sits, gazing at a half-played game of chess she and her father had been forced to abandon when he could no longer concentrate on the moves and strategy. Reaching, she plucks up the black Queen, examining it intently, her thoughts turned inward. Glittering violet eyes reveal nothing as she stands, nimble dark fingers sliding the piece into her belt-pouch. Turning away, a small smile curls her lips in the depth of her hood. She walks down the stairs to meet more new arrivals, her steps graceful, only the tap of small heels and her skirts' silken rustle hinting at her steps. Her fingers touch the wall, a light ebon brush of her fingers on cold stone to mark her passing.

Her thoughts...where she isn't sure she alone can hear them.
"I wonder...if you can hear me in here? What would you have me do, my home? We have so much to do, I am not sure...how to make it all happen. Only that I must keep my head up, my eyes keen, my ears alert. I wish only you would give me direction, tell me what needs doing to make you great...make us all great..."

Irae slips into her "office" after her travails in the Spires. Sitting in her chair, she holds the chess queen out before her again, dimly-glinting violet eyes focused on it. A whispered conversation with an inanimate but fully aware hunk of land is necessarily one-sided, for the moment. She sometimes wondered if it spoke to her personality that she preferred the company of a vast alien intelligence simply because she never -had- to explain herself, never had to justify her studies, her tastes, her predilections. She was simply accepted...or perhaps ignored...because she preferred to keep to herself.
Quar'Agh, as her father had said the man was called, had tried to incite...something in her. Jealousy, perhaps? Pain? She wasn't actually sure. Speaking of her father's lack of love for her. He didn't...and couldn't...understand. She knew Gloth would not.../could/ not...love her. But he found her intriguing, and appreciated her love for him, though in his own, detached way. That was enough for her. She had had a father's love from Cometer. This was something they shared, she and Gloth, and something she secretly coveted, being an object of pride for him.
Inasmuch as she felt her power grow, this self-proclaimed millenia-old drow hit something /off/ in her. He made her uncomfortable, and not in the way he might hope. She viewed him as something flawed, she saw his greed and lust for power in Tarkuul as something to shy away from. Nothing good could possibly come of it.
Silvery lashes fluttered as she slowly regained her senses. In her mulling, several hours had passed, and she had so very much to do. Tucking the queen away, she got into her studies, one ear open for the City's figurative voice, in case it chooses to respond.

It's hard to see ink stains on black skin. This is what Irae mused upon, drawing her fingers over the crisp pages of the book her own hard work had produced. The calligraphy was perfect, the ink even, the laws writ within the book almost a work of art aesthetically as much as they were mentally. She spoke quietly, as she tended to do, not knowing if the City heard, or even cared. However, speaking, forging that (possibly illusory) bond relaxed her and made her feel at ease.
"It is done. Once more, the Laws rest in the hands of those who would embrace knowledge, and all that You give to let us pursue it...at last, we can begin to restore what is rightfully ours, and through us, what is rightfully Yours...I can only hope that this pleases You..."
There can be no mistaking her tone as anything other than what it is. Pleased, reverent, and light with hope. The books themselves are only a token. A breath was rippling, and she heard it, felt it.

The young drowess is not out and about as often, but she is still a regular occupant. If possible, she keeps even more to herself, save when one of her co-Councilors or her father is about. She also seeks the Voice's council, at times, though whether it deigns to actually speak to her or not is something only she knows, and she's not sharing. She makes no effort to shield herself from scrying, or Dancers, however, so any who try would likely succeed. However, whatever she hears, she is left mulling silently, and alone, as she goes about brewing her many potion orders.

Irae'arra came to Tarkuul, one late night, and vanished into her study.

She emerged long enough to speak with the Voice, who had become her lone companion of late, whether It wanted to or not, before vanishing once more, into the library. There she remains, between making potions and scribing scrolls, for several days. Whatever it is that's caught her or kept her silent, she doesn't seem about to discuss it.

The young drowess takes refuge in her office, penning letters and poring over tomes that she's taken, or taken copies of, from the Demiplane of Knowledge. Everything about these changes of the Ley Nodes seemed horribly off to her, something was wrong, every bit of her gut screamed it...but she could find nothing, /nothing/, to substantiate it. Sighing, she plants her elbows on the desk, face in her hands, as an aggravated stream of mutters comes from her.

"What to do, what to do..."

Irae is still hard at work. Fingers stained with ink, pens tucked in her knotted-back hair, she flits between the library and her office all day, and well into the night. If she sleeps in Tarkuul, it's usually because Xun finds her curled up one or the other place and carries her into bed.

It would seem she's delving into Cordorian and Tarkuulian history, as deeply as she possibly can.

The plaque of the Magisterium Mortis now seems gone. Irae had instructed her servant to rip it from the wall.

In its place, a more welcoming wood and golden sign, glowing warmly, reads, "Tarkuul Magical Arts Academy". Below it, in softly pulsing red arcane light:
Irae'arra D'Tsab, Headmistress

In her office, she's filing paperwork, tossing anything that isn't research into a "To be burned" pile.

"Out with the old. In with the new..."

A messenger, a cleaned skeleton with Irae's sigil emblazoned on its forehead from her making it, shambles forth. Clutching a letter, should one follow it, it heads for L'Obsul, then Edonil.

A letter passed from a small figure in gold and black to Irae, by way of messengers is read. Violet eyes widen, then narrow, and she looks up to the wall as though she speaks to a person...

"She will see me, as you wished it..."

The shadows in Irae's room in Zanshibon are deep, the dark silks of black and violet obscuring the pale form of the darthiir beside her, the woman's curves alluring in sleep as they were when she was awake. The drowess, however, sought neither sleep nor reverie, and she slid from the bed to check on Kalian. Her beautiful little darthiir son slept the sleep of a babe full of milk and warm and happy. Wrapping in a kimono of Kozakuran azure silk, she slid into her desk chair to pen a letter. The brush strokes are solid but delicate, feminine but strong.
She finishes it, and pads out, the heat of the Abyss caressing her dark skin. Portaling, she hands off the letter to a messenger in Wiltun, then continues on to Tarkuul, taking up temporary residence in her office the night through, researching and drawing up notes....

Notes, one might see, on the Monolith of Mystra, and its history...

A long time has passed, and the chambers of the former Headmistress have sat empty.

Late one night, though, there is the unmistakeable sound of a woman's voice, whispering to the halls themselves.

"...have returned...tell me what I have missed, and how I might aid once more..."

She stands beside a wall, rocking a newborn drow that sleeps in her arms, while a tiny elven toddler, perhaps all of two years old, curls on a couch nearby, deeply asleep and utterly sure of his safety around the woman.

Delicate dark fingers caress the floor of a small suite. A soft, sweet voice purrs in Drow, a speech for herself, perhaps, or more likely for the sentient isle that is her erstwhile and longtime companion. Irae'arra, if scried, sits in the middle of a circle meant to serve as a site of sacrifice and power, a small body before her; a child of the brogdenstein barbarians, perhaps, or the Bitter Coast bandits, taken on her travels. Whatever the child's origin, it is certainly dead now, the blood and life sacrifice having paved the way for the young drowess' communion with the City.
And so she waits, listening, one ear cocked, her beringed hands awash in blood.

Irae can be found in the library, buried amongst books on several subjects, including ley magic and transmutation of matter. It would appear she's taken to the list she was given and tackled it head on.

Time finds Irae one of two places, anymore. In the small confines of her Cliffside home, or in the Triumvir's Demiplane of Knowledge, studying.

Studying what, exactly?

Inquiring minds would find out.

Irae has taken up residence again, and done so with her usual tact and lack of flair. In the laboratory she can be found, preparing unguents and potions, ointments and powders. To any familiar with such things, it is the very beginning of the spells to reanimate a masterly undead, though any familiar with the young archwizardess would know that undeath is not her preference, despite a vast store of knowledge on the subject.

(Screenies to come, stay tuned!)

The candles burn late in Irae'arra's chambers. To be precise, they burn all night long. The flickering shadows on the walls show an agitated woman, pacing up and down the rooms irritably, and the mutterings within confirm it. In a rare event, she's warded herself, and warded herself well, against scrying.

Dark Passings

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