Sima, the Seven-Tailed Comet
Demon of the Third Circle
Fetich Soul of the Dragon Beyond the World
Wandering hither and thither within the skies and seas of the Demon City, the heart of Oramus goes where she will. In her wake the stars of Malfeas are sent into a tizzy and spin in mad spirals before crashing down into the layers below. Around her rocky grey body seven tails of impossible colours protrude, and where they point calamity comes. She casts light upon her cousin's black moon within the depths of Cecelyne and she skims the surface of the green sun. Ligier has warred against her many times for this insult, but she views his conduct with weary eyes. She tired of his behaviour long before Creation was forged. As the Dragon's fetich, she is ancient beyond belief and little lives up to her expectations or standards.
Sima is a harbinger of the death of princes, the decline of empires and the shifting of the ages. Before Oramus stirred to wakefulness in the Time Before her light was seen throughout the wyld and the innocent lords of chaos gazed up in the fearful realisation that there was something outside their stories and games. She was seen in the skies above Meru during the first day of the Usurpation and astrologers of the Shogunate were still trying to deduce what her appearance meant when the first reports of plague hit the prayerwires. Five years ago, she burned moon-bright over the West. Some wonder if it is her presence alone that causes calamity and disaster, or whether she is drawn to it. If she knows herself, she does not speak.
Her favoured lesser form is that of a great seven-tailed grey tigress that stands as tall as a yeddim. Her eyes in that form burn with impossible colours and her teeth and claws gnash at the fabric of Fate. This great tigress is a principle of uncertainty, and where she sets foot omen weather spills forth across the land and mists choke regions, filling them with madness and confusion. Frogs rain from the sky, rivers flow with blood and flocks of birds spell out profane runes. Those who look for her may find her even when she had been far away, for searching for her can call her to you. Should she prowl through the lands of a lesser lord, his throne will melt. Sometimes she folds herself into unreal places where her greater self was born, and when she does that all save her gullet and her fangs exist outside of what Is - though this does not stop her gnashing mouth from consuming those who cross her or stop her criticising.
When she walks in human form, she takes the form of an aged queen, grey hair wild and features distended by misery and long torment. Seven tails protrude from under her tattered flowing robes made of woven omens. Within her arms, she carries a newborn babe and that babe is Sima as well. The child speaks with aged cynicism while the old woman wails and moans, singing heartbroken melodies. Sometimes she sets down the child to pluck at a glass-threaded ravanahatha. Should she wish to devastate a city, she casts off her cloak and the land is consumed by natural disasters.
In any form, she is an eternal outsider. She holds no domain and accepts no followers. Should she stay in a land for more than seven days and seven nights, her feet glow red hot and she must flee the familiar for stranger lands. Thus does she follow great elliptical paths through the Demon City, often returning to where her greater self is chained but never staying for long.
If she had her druthers, Sima would see the passing of ten thousand ages and the fall of all great kingdoms. Her patience is that of the mountains, and her spite for the treachery of the gods is slow and reptilian. She would have the sun burn to embers and the stars of Creation extinguished as the strings of Fate snap from overuse. She would have Yu Shan fall into wreck and ruin as the hounds that sit in the hallowed halls she once knew prove utterly inadequate to their usurped tasks. Perhaps then Luna might remember how the two of them danced in the skies of Creation, and show pity.
But if her misbegotten daughter will not release her, let time itself crush the domain of the gods and of the Exalted, and let history see if the binding of the Yozis is eternal. When all the old kingdoms are dust and their successors' successors to the nth degree are sick and ailing, she will be there, to herald in a new age. And when the barbarian savage remains of man squat among the ruins, perhaps then Oramus will work loose his wings, the cycle of the aeons will be complete and once more it will be the age of the Dragon.
Sima can be released into Creation riding upon her comet at the turning of an age, the coming of a great disaster, or the death of a prince. So are omens seen with these events, though her time is short. Some say that there are arcane mathematical solutions which use the imaginary numbers of the Beyond which permit her egress in her human or tiger form if they are solved. If they exist, they are not known to the modern Age - and this is for the best.
Notes and Abilities: Wise sorcerers do not call upon Sima, for they are mighty men and kings and her presence might herald their fall. Still, many sorcerers are not wise and so they invoke her for knowledge into ancient things and to blight their foes with disaster and ill omens. Her presence tears gaping holes in Fate and thus the Sidereals petitioned the Solars to summon her no longer - and yet a rogue Solar called her upon the first day of the Usurpation and she was released when the Sidereals slew him.
Sima is not a queen of men and she is not a leader. She builds no mighty things. She is a harbinger of change and devastation, and a man who seeks to channel this to his own benefit will find that she does not control her effect on the world. Still, there is another service that she can provide a sorcerer, and if commanded she can dive into the Beyond and recover many lost and impossible things that never were. Such things are marked with Sima's nature, though, and an empire forged with a sword she gives will die by that selfsame sword.
Sima and the All-Thing: Sima will push for actions against the divinities of Creation. She cares less about the Exalted, but she would topple the thrones of the usurpers and let their souls wither and die until they are stunted, lesser things. She may exempt Luna and her servants, but all others are fair game. Sima therefore will push for the destruction of temples, the blighting of geomancy and the bringing of natural disasters. Some say that the perverse nature of Oramus means that she has spoken to powers within the lands of the Dead and might twist the paths of the Green Sun Princes to aid the Dead Princes when both their goals would aid her revenge, but if so that has surely never been proven. Still, Sima certainly will push for actions and disasters to compel the turning of the ages, and may serve as a lynchpin for a faction of Unquestionable who seek a more unified effort for revenge on the gods.
