The Inland Sea
North of the Blessed Isle's Shadowed Coast
Descending Fire, Realm Year 758
Five years, four months before the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress.
The fog encloses your small ship like the jaws of a hungry beast. It presses in from all sides as though summoned by malignant forces that are being only grudgingly kept at bay by the thinnest of margins. The worst part is, you know that in every sense that matters, this is true.
You can't see them, but you can practically sense it on the air: there are
things in the churning water, riding the bitterly cold autumn wind, in the unnatural fog that swirls around you. Spirits tasked with guarding your destination from all unauthorised access. If it weren't for the irritable, plain-faced instructor speaking incantations at the prow of the ship, this vessel and everyone on it would be swallowed up, never to be seen again.
You pull your fine cloak tighter around yourself, more against the thought of such a death than against the cold itself. You look around the ship's deck, at the tense but confident crew going efficiently about their business, and then at your fellow students:
You range in age from fifteen to twenty-three years, Chosen of the Dragons all. The eldest among you are feigning ostentatious boredom, talking and laughing a little too loud, leaning casually against the railing in a way that makes the crew have to skirt around them to carry out their work. Your fellow first years, however, are altogether less calm, mostly grouped up in twos or threes, or sticking close to older students from their own Houses, shoulders stiff and gazes nervous.
Something your mother said to you before you left comes to mind, during a rare meeting that has been replaying in your head off and on ever since:
"There comes a time in every young Dragon-Blood's life when she realises that, Exalted or not, there are things in the world bigger than she is. Studying the sorcerous arts, you will learn this sooner than many." You suspect that some of your year mates are already beginning to get an inkling of this lesson. She was wrong in your case, of course. There's never been a moment in your life, before or after the Dragons Chose you, where you had any illusions about just how small you are.
There are a few first year students notably standing apart from the others even on the cramped confines of the deck. You find yourself taking note of each of them.
A wide-eyed girl with bone white hair sits cross-legged on the deck, back braced against a barrel, looking at the gloom around her and scribbling frantically in a notebook.
Near to her is a timid, mousey looking thing whose clothes are noticeably less fine than the rest of you, standing apart less by choice than by default. The water droplets from the fog and the waves have declined to settle on her at all, almost as though out of respect.
Most memorable of all, however, is the strange girl who is practically leaning her entire body over the ship's railing, ignoring the frigid spray and the furtive glares from the crew as she peers around at the wind and the water through an expensive looking hand mirror. Her clothes are both foreign and a little garishly decorative, the crystals gleaming in every strand of her hair only adding to the effect.
Then, of course, there's you. You're used to standing apart, however.
"She's watching the spirits," a voice tells you. You look over your shoulder to see a boy standing behind you. Tall, auburn-haired, marble-skinned.
"I know what she's doing," you tell him. You've seen that trick with a mirror done before, even been shown the creatures revealed in the glass by one of your tutors.
"I suppose
you would," he says, pleasantly enough to set your teeth slightly on edge. "Mnemon Keric, by the way. I believe we've met?"
"Briefly, I think," you allow. It had been at least two years ago. "I am Ambraea."
"I know," Keric agrees. "I think most people here know who you are."
It's true — you've hardly failed to notice the stares when people think you're not looking, but you're distracted as well as being accustomed to them. "The Heptagram isn't large," you say. "We'll all get to know each other soon enough."
"Yes, I expect so," Keric agrees. "Especially once the chaff gets sifted out — we've got a few in this group I don't expect will last." He doesn't look at the girl with the mirror, or the mousey looking girl standing on her own, but you can tell that they're included in this estimation. "Do you know what the older students call us in our first year?"
"Yes," you say.
"Well, then you understand no one gets through seven years here without people to rely on," he says. His smile is genuine enough. "I'm just looking to introduce myself to someone who I can expect not to wash out."
"I don't think anyone plans to wash out," you say, looking out over the water. A violent swell strikes the ship, and you're forced to grip the railing to avoid stumbling.
"Well, of course, but some of us have more pressure on us than others," he says, giving you a meaningful look you don't particularly appreciate, for all that he's right.
You're still thinking about how to respond to this when you're distracted by something far more important: Out of the fog, a rocky edifice looms ahead of you. "We're here," you say.
"Oh, we are!" Keric says, trying hard not to sound as relieved as he clearly is.
The fog parts like a set of gates as the instructor works the wind that, so close to your destination, would ordinarily dash you all against the rocks. This reveals a tiny, cliffside jetty, the crew already working to bring you into dock with it. Soon enough, the journey will be over, and the work will begin.
In addition to your unique situation, part of the gossip surrounding you relates to your unconventional father — even with your mother's prolific reputation, he's not what anyone expects. Who is he, and what elemental Aspect have you inherited?
[ ] Air Aspect: Your father is of House Ferem, the largest of the Realm's many minor Cadet Houses, which in centuries past once fancied itself a rival to the Scarlet Realm.
[ ] Fire Aspect: Your father is a foreign outcaste who was briefly the talk of the Dynasty. Now, you sometimes think you're the only one who even remembers his name.
[ ] Earth Aspect: Your father is an emissary from the distant satrapy of Prasad, which has adopted heretical practices and styled itself an empire in its own right.
[ ] Water Aspect: Your father is a former general and war hero born to an ailing patrician class family, who mysteriously joined the Immaculate Order shortly before your birth.
[ ] Wood Aspect: Your father is a Lookshyan defector who arrived on the Blessed Isle with little but his honour.
Starting this thread while I have as many other things on the go as I do is a Bad Idea, but I'm doing my best to manage that. The way Last Daughter is structured, each of the seven years of Ambraea's academic career is intended to be covered in a relatively small number of updates, with each year end offering a natural stopping point for me to put it down and focus on other things.
The idea for this thread has also just been burning a hole in my back pocket for almost a year.
