Wanderlost
Ten of Swords
Perhaps a century after Talra laid to rest in the world of Siwailigol, a child was born. An Edian Angel, Kaia Miri-Lephka. In the vein of the blessings given to those of her kind, she had the markings on her palms--a viper. Eyes of gold and charcoal hair, she grew in the loving hands of her parents as an exalted child. She took well to magic and she learned well. Perhaps a prodigy among prodigies, and above all, she bore the horror and fear of death. It kept her awake at night. It forced her to jump out of bed and scramble to do anything but focus on her thoughts some nights. It was such a clutching terror even, that she couldn't stand a conversation that dug too deep.
So when she got her chance to hold a conversation with the god of their world, she begged Siwal to help her avoid death, vowing to do anything she could. Of course, he chuckled, none-too-surprised knowing the soul she bore. They negotiated in his domain, as she slept, and she woke having made a pact worthy of the cruelty of the world, and it was much that she gave for him to make her ageless. "Seven years of suffering" was a vague thing to agree to, but other clauses, like a complete removal of her ability to use magic, were significantly more explicit.
But of course, Siwal was true to his word, and the following seven years were tragic. Her parents died, she was bullied and harassed, was brought in by an abusive uncle who beat and eventually took to raping her before she fled him (after she came of age--how noble), and entered an underworld in what she had thought was a brilliant home, which taught her all there was to know of violence, pain, and anger. She slept in the streets and left town to bathe in the river. At times, owned little more than rags, and came to bear an abundance of scars. Scars now forgotten, and currently covered with a pale network of ones from her latest centuries.
But after all was said and done, and she was dragged and banished from the town in rags, lips cracked and open wounds bleeding, her consciousness faded, and she found herself before her god again. He announced to her then, when she was still gathering herself in a temporarily granted state of clarity, that she had fulfilled the first half of their agreement, and all that was left was to unleash her on the other realms, never to return to the Edian Realms for fear that Siwal would break another rule for her.
Next she was awake, she was still there, but she found the mechanism that would allow for her next few millennia of travel in her hand. A pocketwatch, simple and beautiful. To her, at the time, a symbol of freedom.
Part of her agreement with Siwal made a mechanism in her mind, resetting her memories to all but some of the most basic information she needed every 150 years, allowing her to continue in her agelessness indefinitely, in theory, without being driven insane of memories she was unlikely to lose due to the nature of the blessings that weren't taken from her.
Leaving with the watch, she lived the rest of her cycle on another world, Kenen, among automatons. She spent most of her years of her life putting herself and her well being before anything else--even her own desire to be good to others, which proved less of a concern as her cycles continued. She spent her second cycle hopping between worlds, experiencing all sorts of different places in the multiverse, learning of balances between magic and technology, and the possibilities of various existences.
Her third cycle was a significant point in her life. Still young, in a way, she met a man who left a very significant mark on her history: Avvercus Voxinium. Arguably one of her first true loves, he was also destined to be ageless, and the time they enjoyed in the country of Torlwin in Aslandier stretched on for years. In fact, he was also the first man who ever taught her how to fight with a sword. And surely, due to the things she took to later in life, their time together did leave a permanent impression, but eventually, she confided her greatest concern in him. She told him of her cycles, and that she was destine to forget him. And he had solutions--of course he had solutions--but they came to a conclusion: a bittersweet agreement in light of her adamant insistence that she couldn't bear to forget him if they continued.
Unfortunately, in that same cycle, the reality of Avvercus actually leaving crushed a part of her. It twisted her heart down to her morals, and though she eventually rose to the throne of Torlwin, everything she knew without him was empty, clearly marking their love as a thing unique from any other love in her life. In the following century, Antique became the tyrannical Queen of Youth, and abuse of power, genocide, hatred, and arrogance were all counted among her crimes. In the twilight of that last day at the end of that cycle however, she set the precedent for a tradition of leaving the world she was on the day before her memories reset.
Knowing later adventures in space, across genres and time, touching Earth and other worlds, she lived and loved a curse of a life, ever to wander existence. In a time, she fought with elves and bore a poor, half-blooded bastard. Much in the vein of his mother, Thelan lived a curse, but his truly felt like one. Suffering through more than a thousand years across dimensions, he tracked his mother at the expense of his own health, later met her, and only then did he discover that she had no memory of him. Thelan, the druid, passed at the hands of the very parasites that had sustained him.
In another time, she cultivated genocide from an innocent. Leolithandiansye was a peaceful scientist--a progressive in a world of violence and war, and she judged it best to commit an atrocity worse than any war or suffering she'd caused as the Queen of Youth. She was, when she went down to make contact with that planet, an emissary of an intergalactic organization who feared the developing civilization's potential threat to them and other worlds, but she came back a criminal. She led that scientist as a friend, and through discussions, he considered her such, and she was able to persuade him to help unleash a silo of devastation on his own world. Standing in the ash, sobbing for the horror of what he had done, she watched him take his own life without a single tear, and would later know that event as a truth of the depth of darkness in her. Fortunate for her that her cycles kept it all from her mind in future centuries, even down to the blackened, smoking planet dwindling in the distance.
Another time, she had known herself as a demon-slave to a living dimension, which had sold her to a mage in a pact, and her freedom was later gained by the intervention of a distant god. Meeting Kaia again was an eventuality Siwal had not expected, and he had changed in that time. Now less tempted for the woman bearing the soul of a dead lover, he found mercy for her in his buried feelings, and returned her to a better existence with a gift: Her immunity to magic.
In times, she had been drowned, and others, drifted through space, and though the experiences were similarly painful and horrifying, she had known these states where she would otherwise have died some of the most peaceful spans of dreaming she had ever known. But she was still a woman of many blessings, and she knew by Siwal's own words that she could die, and that it would just take someone determined enough to do it to kill her.
Further and further through time, the woman wandered, knowing each cycle as a life of its own, and changing and growing in ways she would never truly understand, but through all the oddities, none of her adventures were quite so interesting or exciting as those in her 3,300s, when she woke as an amnesiac, not for the first time, though it was a first time. When she had first come to the world she woke on, she fell in love with a soldier, and she spent much time with that soldier and his brother's family. They eventually gained their own farm through his service, and she lived in happiness until the last year, when she realized she would have to give it all up, and she didn't want to. The pocket watch he had given her was precious. Nearly as precious as the world-traveling one he'd given it in place of--the one she'd lost. She scoured that world in that year, going to the cities and seeking all of the worst of the knowers of the eldritch and practitioners of arcana, and it was through the efforts of a mage and a psion that she finally undid the bindings of Siwal's that had structured her cycles, but it was not what she had hoped.
She was still unable to access memories lost in those cycles, and perhaps that was best in that time. In the following years, she met Avvercus again, and though she did not recognize him, she did find love for him again, though he drove her mad as easily as he made her smile. Their travels were a treasure to her, and culminated in a grimy port city, where they parted ways, and she entered a dark land of ancient horrors kept relatively secret to the world. There, she eventually found the company of a psion, Larque, with whom she ventured through said land, which seemed to breathe animosity of its own lungs, to an eldritch colossal. The towering being of legend and myth was the one to undo the last of Siwal's effects on her mind, exactly to her wishes, granting everything that came with it, hoping she would return to it stronger and ready to hear a secret few could stand to hear. Unfortunately, not all things go as planned.
Antique was not to return to that place after she left it in madness, and we're nearing her most recent history at the end of that tale.
In the company of the nephew of her last cycle's partner and a blue-haired woman, she was brought to his brother's farm, and Avvercus was summoned there, who used magics unique in their power, and ability to circumvent the ward she had regained against such things, and bound her to the very tome that kept him from suffering the same insanity at the flood of excess memories. Then, some 3,315 years or so after her cycles were set, she knew all of her memories and her sanity at the same time, though she has yet to be given the time to sort herself out.
These events are fairly recent in her timeline as of this writing, and more is to be told after Avvercus broke the sexual tension they'd shared so long in a moment of arguable sin, and later brought her to train in the same organization he had spent so many thousands of years dedicated to: The Emerald Banner.
...
Given Name: Kaiaea Miri-Lephka
Given Name with Native Titles: Siwaili Kaiaea Rhi Aiwal Miri-Lephka
Taken Name: Antique
Hair: Dark Black, very curly
Eyes: Gold, bright and unnatural
Age: 3,320-or-so, still looks mid-to-late twenties
Height: 5'5"
So when she got her chance to hold a conversation with the god of their world, she begged Siwal to help her avoid death, vowing to do anything she could. Of course, he chuckled, none-too-surprised knowing the soul she bore. They negotiated in his domain, as she slept, and she woke having made a pact worthy of the cruelty of the world, and it was much that she gave for him to make her ageless. "Seven years of suffering" was a vague thing to agree to, but other clauses, like a complete removal of her ability to use magic, were significantly more explicit.
But of course, Siwal was true to his word, and the following seven years were tragic. Her parents died, she was bullied and harassed, was brought in by an abusive uncle who beat and eventually took to raping her before she fled him (after she came of age--how noble), and entered an underworld in what she had thought was a brilliant home, which taught her all there was to know of violence, pain, and anger. She slept in the streets and left town to bathe in the river. At times, owned little more than rags, and came to bear an abundance of scars. Scars now forgotten, and currently covered with a pale network of ones from her latest centuries.
But after all was said and done, and she was dragged and banished from the town in rags, lips cracked and open wounds bleeding, her consciousness faded, and she found herself before her god again. He announced to her then, when she was still gathering herself in a temporarily granted state of clarity, that she had fulfilled the first half of their agreement, and all that was left was to unleash her on the other realms, never to return to the Edian Realms for fear that Siwal would break another rule for her.
Next she was awake, she was still there, but she found the mechanism that would allow for her next few millennia of travel in her hand. A pocketwatch, simple and beautiful. To her, at the time, a symbol of freedom.
Part of her agreement with Siwal made a mechanism in her mind, resetting her memories to all but some of the most basic information she needed every 150 years, allowing her to continue in her agelessness indefinitely, in theory, without being driven insane of memories she was unlikely to lose due to the nature of the blessings that weren't taken from her.
Leaving with the watch, she lived the rest of her cycle on another world, Kenen, among automatons. She spent most of her years of her life putting herself and her well being before anything else--even her own desire to be good to others, which proved less of a concern as her cycles continued. She spent her second cycle hopping between worlds, experiencing all sorts of different places in the multiverse, learning of balances between magic and technology, and the possibilities of various existences.
Her third cycle was a significant point in her life. Still young, in a way, she met a man who left a very significant mark on her history: Avvercus Voxinium. Arguably one of her first true loves, he was also destined to be ageless, and the time they enjoyed in the country of Torlwin in Aslandier stretched on for years. In fact, he was also the first man who ever taught her how to fight with a sword. And surely, due to the things she took to later in life, their time together did leave a permanent impression, but eventually, she confided her greatest concern in him. She told him of her cycles, and that she was destine to forget him. And he had solutions--of course he had solutions--but they came to a conclusion: a bittersweet agreement in light of her adamant insistence that she couldn't bear to forget him if they continued.
Unfortunately, in that same cycle, the reality of Avvercus actually leaving crushed a part of her. It twisted her heart down to her morals, and though she eventually rose to the throne of Torlwin, everything she knew without him was empty, clearly marking their love as a thing unique from any other love in her life. In the following century, Antique became the tyrannical Queen of Youth, and abuse of power, genocide, hatred, and arrogance were all counted among her crimes. In the twilight of that last day at the end of that cycle however, she set the precedent for a tradition of leaving the world she was on the day before her memories reset.
Knowing later adventures in space, across genres and time, touching Earth and other worlds, she lived and loved a curse of a life, ever to wander existence. In a time, she fought with elves and bore a poor, half-blooded bastard. Much in the vein of his mother, Thelan lived a curse, but his truly felt like one. Suffering through more than a thousand years across dimensions, he tracked his mother at the expense of his own health, later met her, and only then did he discover that she had no memory of him. Thelan, the druid, passed at the hands of the very parasites that had sustained him.
In another time, she cultivated genocide from an innocent. Leolithandiansye was a peaceful scientist--a progressive in a world of violence and war, and she judged it best to commit an atrocity worse than any war or suffering she'd caused as the Queen of Youth. She was, when she went down to make contact with that planet, an emissary of an intergalactic organization who feared the developing civilization's potential threat to them and other worlds, but she came back a criminal. She led that scientist as a friend, and through discussions, he considered her such, and she was able to persuade him to help unleash a silo of devastation on his own world. Standing in the ash, sobbing for the horror of what he had done, she watched him take his own life without a single tear, and would later know that event as a truth of the depth of darkness in her. Fortunate for her that her cycles kept it all from her mind in future centuries, even down to the blackened, smoking planet dwindling in the distance.
Another time, she had known herself as a demon-slave to a living dimension, which had sold her to a mage in a pact, and her freedom was later gained by the intervention of a distant god. Meeting Kaia again was an eventuality Siwal had not expected, and he had changed in that time. Now less tempted for the woman bearing the soul of a dead lover, he found mercy for her in his buried feelings, and returned her to a better existence with a gift: Her immunity to magic.
In times, she had been drowned, and others, drifted through space, and though the experiences were similarly painful and horrifying, she had known these states where she would otherwise have died some of the most peaceful spans of dreaming she had ever known. But she was still a woman of many blessings, and she knew by Siwal's own words that she could die, and that it would just take someone determined enough to do it to kill her.
Further and further through time, the woman wandered, knowing each cycle as a life of its own, and changing and growing in ways she would never truly understand, but through all the oddities, none of her adventures were quite so interesting or exciting as those in her 3,300s, when she woke as an amnesiac, not for the first time, though it was a first time. When she had first come to the world she woke on, she fell in love with a soldier, and she spent much time with that soldier and his brother's family. They eventually gained their own farm through his service, and she lived in happiness until the last year, when she realized she would have to give it all up, and she didn't want to. The pocket watch he had given her was precious. Nearly as precious as the world-traveling one he'd given it in place of--the one she'd lost. She scoured that world in that year, going to the cities and seeking all of the worst of the knowers of the eldritch and practitioners of arcana, and it was through the efforts of a mage and a psion that she finally undid the bindings of Siwal's that had structured her cycles, but it was not what she had hoped.
She was still unable to access memories lost in those cycles, and perhaps that was best in that time. In the following years, she met Avvercus again, and though she did not recognize him, she did find love for him again, though he drove her mad as easily as he made her smile. Their travels were a treasure to her, and culminated in a grimy port city, where they parted ways, and she entered a dark land of ancient horrors kept relatively secret to the world. There, she eventually found the company of a psion, Larque, with whom she ventured through said land, which seemed to breathe animosity of its own lungs, to an eldritch colossal. The towering being of legend and myth was the one to undo the last of Siwal's effects on her mind, exactly to her wishes, granting everything that came with it, hoping she would return to it stronger and ready to hear a secret few could stand to hear. Unfortunately, not all things go as planned.
Antique was not to return to that place after she left it in madness, and we're nearing her most recent history at the end of that tale.
In the company of the nephew of her last cycle's partner and a blue-haired woman, she was brought to his brother's farm, and Avvercus was summoned there, who used magics unique in their power, and ability to circumvent the ward she had regained against such things, and bound her to the very tome that kept him from suffering the same insanity at the flood of excess memories. Then, some 3,315 years or so after her cycles were set, she knew all of her memories and her sanity at the same time, though she has yet to be given the time to sort herself out.
These events are fairly recent in her timeline as of this writing, and more is to be told after Avvercus broke the sexual tension they'd shared so long in a moment of arguable sin, and later brought her to train in the same organization he had spent so many thousands of years dedicated to: The Emerald Banner.
...
Given Name: Kaiaea Miri-Lephka
Given Name with Native Titles: Siwaili Kaiaea Rhi Aiwal Miri-Lephka
Taken Name: Antique
Hair: Dark Black, very curly
Eyes: Gold, bright and unnatural
Age: 3,320-or-so, still looks mid-to-late twenties
Height: 5'5"
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