Jacquard

Birth Clan - An unknown Plague clan Element - Plague Gender - Female Pronouns - She / Her Orientation - Bisexual Goes by - Jacquard, Jack

The pleasant, quiet mate of the wizard Damask, Jacquard draws little attention from others. Though she is quite lovely, she has been trained to make herself practically unseeen. Those who do take note of her remark that her body sometimes seems more real than other times, and she smiles and says nothing. She is well-versed in religions, both modern and ancient, and the iconography of various cults of the individual deities and the Shade itself are well within her grasp. She is very reverent of tombs, crypts, and ancient shrines, despite her choices which separated her from the path of exaltation. She has not cast aside these beliefs, but only chose to walk a path that does not force her to leave behind a life which pleased her. Her knowledge of mythology, history, and clerical iconography has served her and her companions well in keeping them safe and alive for many years. Strangers are markedly impressed by her manners, and those who are in her good graces or whom she needs to ask a favor are treated to divine tea, which is a ceremony she has not eschewed despite choosing to walk a mortal path. She knows her way around a market or two, and she is often the voice of reason regarding her companions' resources and abilities in tackling projects and contracts as they explore the ruins of Dragonhome and beyond.

"Please, enjoy this cup." Disrobed Divine Servant Trained to serve the gods but chose to walk the mortal path STATS STR ██████████ DEX ██████████ CON ██████████ INT ██████████ WIS ██████████ CHA ██████████

Damask - Jacquard's mate, he is a sorcerer of great skill and power. Together with their companion Ailbe, they wander the wastes of Dragonhome, seeking adventure and secrets, Jacquard is in awe of Damask's daring and ease, and she hopes to one day live so deeply in the moment as he does.

Ailbe - A traveling companion and trusted confidante, Ailbe is the muscle of their traveling group. Her directness and strength is a great boon, and Jacquard feels much safer in her presence than she ever did alone. Jacquard enjoys Ailbe's presence, and feels as if they are cut from the same cloth. The two often spend time in the evening playing deceptively simple board and card games of cunning and skill.

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Jacquard remembers the monastery. She remembers the way they bound her wings and taught her to groom herself to be aesthetically unobtrusive, for one day she would serve in the palaces of the gods. She remembers the headmistress' imperious stare and the way she often smelled of garlic after breakfast.

Jacquard remembers her first vows.

They were promises of service, devotion, and charity. They were promises easily made but harder to keep once she was old enough to join the older initiates on their trips to market and their other chores outside the compound.

There, amid the bustle and jostle of the crowds, Jacquard felt strangely alive. Her heart sang and she drank deeply of all the colors and noise that filled the market.

As she grew older, she was allowed more and more time to run errands for the headmistress, as the errands were sometimes quite complicated. And it was during this time that she met a young street magician named Damask. He flirted with her and teased her, and she found it so novel to laugh at his silliness. But she always returned to the monastery.

She took her next set of vows as she began the transition into adolescence. She pledged service and honor, fealty and grace, and she began her training in the kitchens to learn how to perform the tea services of her one-day masters.

Patience, grace, precision, and humility were drilled into her as she worked to perfect the service so that she could work as others had to serve the gods and their trusted advisors. She learned to read water temperature by sight, to test tea by smell, to taste the freshness of a given delicacy by listening to it as she set it on the plate. She learned to employ her senses in ways she did not expect, and she learned to conduct herself with an almost weightless grace.

When she met Damask again, as she was training, she had already been schooled to keep her eyes cast down, her hands folded pleasantly before her, ready to serve. He told her once that it was a shame they'd smoothed all the wrinkles out of her, and when he laughed loudly, she no longer joined him.

As Jacquard grew older, Damask told her more and more stories of lands beyond the city - lands of ice and cold, of searing sand, of infinite thunder. He told her of wars and politics and strife, and she remarked how strange that mortals should choose to live a wild and breathless existence when they could live in bliss and service.

"Have you seen beyond the city walls?" he asked her.

"Just the path to the monastery," she admitted.

And on that day, he cut the bindings on her wings and taught her to fly. Together they saw open fields and toiling serfs. Damask explained all the different dragons that were employed only to ensure the monastery was well-supplied. He told her how the headmistress would choose children early after hatching, and if their parents didn't accept the compensation offered, the child would be taken and raised as a willing novice.

He showed her paths traced in smoke that could be her life, and so many of them were more vibrant than the one that led to the services of the gods.

Jacquard returned late to the compound, and when the headmistress learned of the adventure she had had, the punishment was swift and fierce. It was many years before she saw Damask again.

She was with others, ready to take her final vows. They were traveling to the city to be fitted for their ascension robes. She had thought, perhaps, that the young sorcerer had long forgotten her, though she had not forgotten him. But when she saw him perched on a railing, she caught him staring not at the group, but at her.

She remembered the things he had said, the things he had shown her. Her heart was in her throat when she blinked and was somewhere above the city, and he stood beside her.

He asked if she was planning to stay on this path. He asked if she would consider another.

They argued. She wanted to live a life unbound, but she didn't know how to find the doorway out. He wanted her to take initiative and ownership of her life, but she wouldn't. And though they wanted the same thing, Jacquard could not shake the memory of her last punishment, years ago, for defying the mandates of their order.

"Think on it," Damask said. "I've studied your order since you disappeared. If you truly want your freedom and will not run, I have a way. You must drink this draught the morning of your vows. And it will seal you long enough for me to finish the act. If you do not drink it, or if I am too slow to finish the seals, you will transcend your flesh, and your life of service will spread before you. There will be nothing I can do."

Two weeks later, she knew she could not run, but she wanted a chance at another life.

The draught was both bitter and sweet, with a hint of earthiness that Jacquard sometimes sought in her teas. And when she drank it down completely, she felt a hardening and a chill spread through her. For a spell, she thought she might faint.

She recovered, then dressed for the ceremony.

With the others, she stood before effigies of the Eleven. She performed the tea ceremony before them while a choir chanted. They drank the teas they had prepared.

One by one, those around her burned away their robes and became beings of light, swelling and circling towards the open portal above.

But Jacquard's robes remained. And for a time, her mouth tasted of clay.

The choir stopped singing. The headmistress stormed forwards, her claws extended as she shrieked, "What have you done, you foolish girl!"

And in that moment as Jacquard cowered, the headmistress froze and pitched forwards on her face. Damask stepped from thin air, and he dipped his head to the shrine of the Eleven and to Jacquard herself.

He marked runes with slipped clay on her face and fur and feathers. "Say these words with me:


And when she spoke them, the soft white light of the ascension room shined blindingly bright. Her own robes burned away, and for a moment she felt her heart stutter awfully. The room spun, and when she opened her eyes again, she was on the floor, her flesh the same opacity as thick smoke, and across it all danced pale runes where the clay had been marked.

"Come on," Damask said. "We should go."

She looked up at his outstretched hand, gingerly took it, and the monastery faded away. In its place was the open sky, the outstretched land, and the smile of the cheeky young mage who stood beside her at a crossroads.

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Bio (except as credited), oak leaves, acorns, & layout by ixris / 26035 - all edits by later users
Horizontal dividers by Mibella / 47497