Within her cell, the silent silver-haired Arsa Sidhe writes until her hands hurt. Missives of parchment tucked under the wings of crows are sent out into the Reach. They read as so:
When I was a girl, my foster father, a nobleman of Mariza, had coined a mantra that he sought to pass unto me: in life, all are either butcher or meat; you are either perpetrator or victim. Though he desperately wanted to mold me into something worthy of holding the knife, I was sickly and prone to emotions. He would thrust the first knife into my hands only to watch me tremble and succumb to empathy in my attempts at using it. I was meat. Therein a victim was made.Many– if not all of us– spend our lives ceaselessly pushing ourselves against the tides created by those above us. Victims drown in the sea as their perpetrators watch from afar atop their gilded ships, such has always been the woeful tragedy betwixt the privileged and the unprivileged. My father bought me for a single crown– thinking he could be the patron of unseen merit, yet stripped me down to naught once I forewent any use to him. It is only when we try to survive the waves they cause that they take interest in us; we reach up from the deep, trying to clamor our way aboard the ship only to see the ladder ripped from our hands. The butchers hold the knife.
Meriel Noctis– if what you say is true, then you most of all are both victim and perpetrator. Witch. Oathbreaker. Stain on the Spire. Meat. You listened to the pleas and admissions of a victim; you heard my truth, what I endured, and the choices I struggled to make– the mistakes I made– and you empathized with me. I felt as if I was an apprentice looking up to her mentor and finding respite. You promised to give me a voice so I might be heard. You promised to guide me from the dark. I thought I had found camaraderie in a woman of shared plight. But you held a knife behind your back. Butcher.
The Witch, Meriel Noctis, causes a witch hunt on the victim that sought her help. I found myself breathing above the waves, but you shoved me back under to drown. I found myself dragged through the muck and mud while you wallowed and thrashed out from your mansion on the hill. Many of us have come to the Spire to escape oppression and tyranny, but we fail to see the fission between Pariahs and False Kings growing wider. Meriel Noctis rides upon the laurels of her ancestry, presuming that her bloodline might supersede any merits of our own. And yet I only find myself pitying her; I find kinship in her– knowing she was once a victim who now desperately clutches the knife she fears will be taken from her.And I thank her for teaching me this valuable lesson: oft times, the right choice is to simply let the knife go; I did. I relinquished control and gave my faith to her. And now I write this from a cell. Now let my voice be heard above the screaming from the palace.On Theft: I stole the trunk– emptied of the artifacts of ruin the Witch sought. I was to bargain my freedom with a trunk that contained merely waterlogged dresses and rusted jewelry. The true artifact the Witch seeks lies therein Meriel’s own possession: a staff capable of rousing a monster from the sea.On Kidnapping: I took the Wax-Wight Lettie from the Assembly’s basement– the very Wax-Wight that aided in the Witch’s kidnapping of me. The very Wax-Wight that watched me tortured and maimed aboard her ship. The very Wax-Wight that voluntarily serves the Witch for her gift of immortality.
On Assault: A baseless accusation to villainize me further. The only assaults I have made were onto those kidnapping and torturing me– the ones I presumed were enemies of the Spire.On Treason: I did seek to commune with the wax head of Vicoria. I wanted answers that the Spire needed. I learned that Vicoria was nothing more than a medium of Scrying for the Witch to keep the location of the trunk. And I did ask her what the Witch offered in exchange for the trunk besides my freedom. But I did not commit treason– I bartered with an empty trunk and never had an intention of bringing harm to the Spire. I wanted my freedom, but I realized in the last moments that my freedom was not worth the price of those I love.I find myself once more that sad, broken girl from my father’s manse; it is the price we pay for deigning our fate to the privileged. But I do not want to live any longer betwixt the constants of meat or butcher. If we allow the Council of Four and self-ordained people like Meriel Noctis to shape our Spire, then we will earn nothing beyond what the Aedall suffered in this very Reach: vanishing from the annals of history with nothing more than a whimper– snuffed out from the stained fingertips of those who write over our legacies with the triumphs of their own.Do not let the False Kings deem you Pariah as I have. Do not let them make you meat.
Spoiler
No ill will towards Pyrias or the Council's players OOCly. I have just felt a little powerless recently on the OOC perception of my character and wanted some semblance of agency over the narrative that she's been painted with. How your interpret it ICly and whether or not you trust these words is entirely up to you and I will have no ill will!
