Sage's Riddle
Twenty-Second Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC
"A beacon in the dark where night encroaches. A torch to shed light upon an empire's enemies. A flame to burn when corruption lays revealed. My voices which will not go unheard." Viserys' words were like shimmering fire upon the air, bright with the conviction, the
truth of their telling. Pride surged in Lya's heart for the purpose her work would be put to, and with that pride came understanding illuminated in the light of newborn flames.
Who are you?—the question she had asked since girlhood.
Diligently she had sought answers first in her past, her birth, the hand that lay her upon the temple steps swaddled and sleeping, then in the light of the Moon, in the tomes hidden row upon row in dusty silence, yet all she had found were more questions, more riddles to answer. For a time she had thought that the answer.
A seeker of knowledge that girl counter herself pridefully as she unrolled a scroll almost fallen to dust, as she spoke words of old and pondered abstractions of the soul as she questioned all she met that she might know the world in all its intricacies. But though she loved it dearly, that was not the whole of the answer, the edges still sharp and unfinished in the mind.
Where do you stand?
Unbidden came the second question as power and learning flowered in her hands, for knowledge alone was a barren thing. As truths wondrous and terrible lay out before her she knew she could not stand aside. She would fight besides her friends and loved ones against the dark, though she had no love of battle, Lya had vowed then. She would bear her own light into the world that others might fashion it after their own manner. Not one truth stood before her, but many. Not one virtue unassailable in purity, but many, wonder in their mingled radiance.
Distantly, she heard Viserys speak on: "Hear me now, for that which was lain to ruin by grasping fools now has risen anew."
A small nod followed the sort of thoughtful gesture all who knew Lya well would have recognized. 'She's on the trail of an answer,' they would say, and so she was. The young mage followed the silvered thread of understanding with the same determination as ever she had a mystery's key.
What will you do?
It was easy to destroy with magic, easy to burn and tear, to pierce and slay—these were among the first lessons the mage had learned and for good reason. There was much yet to battle and many foes to end, yet where her passion lay was in such as she now saw before her—a new thing born, drawn from her mind, forged with her power, yet now a part of the world, no longer under her hand.
That, Lya understood, was her legacy to learn all she could, and with that learning
make a better world.
The shadows in that twilight chamber shift... no, it was she who saw clearer, deeper, through the lens of her new understanding, the symbols beneath the symbols, the truths too heavy for the world to bear she glimpsed like great beasts moving under the waters of the sea.
Is this how Viserys had felt in Valyria? she wondered.
As though thinking his name had called him forth their gazes met, and in his eyes she saw wonder and joy of sharing just as she had that first night in the moonlight when she had understood the workings of his magic, taken them apart, and echoed them in her own way.
Yes, this was the way.
Where it led Lya could not say for certain, but she was all the more excited to find out.
OOC: The voting for Lya's mythic path is now open. I know things are a little tense but remember we all want to have an enjoyable story so it's best to either seek a compromise, or just vote for one's preferred option and let the count decide. As far as I am concerned there is no wrong answer here. I trust you guys to come up with something interesting whether it is from canon options or custom ones.
