I met Moira Orseeva by chance.
I was new to the Isle, but I recognised what she was.
The shadow. My shadow. Winter written into a heart. A villain.
If I was going to be a hero, it would have to be the right way.
So if, in the end, I must kill her? I will know, there was no other way.
I will mourn what could have been.
So I studied my foe. I put her life, her story, to ink.
Morwenna - The Keening
In the old days of the first Ffolk kingdom of the Moonshae isles, the dark places of the world had not yet been forgotten. The men of that age built walls of wood and lit fires to ward off the wilds. In these places, those that knew the ways of the Old nobility (for that had not yet been forgotten) wrote wards in the soil, and whispered to the moon that the dark wood might not enter the places men slept. Yet on moonless nights when the fires burned low and walls seemed to bend; the wards failed. There are many stories of the nameless things that walked amongst the first Ffolk on those nights, but this one is about the keening spirit.
Amongst the Ffolk, keening is an expression of grief. A wailing of men and women to let the departed know that they were loved. That they will be missed. That they mattered. The keening of grief usually gives way to a healing. An acceptance of the realms of death and a return to the world of the living. But during the keening, the veil between life and death is thin. Grief does not always leave the heart, and sometimes the living forget that there is a world beyond it. Usually, those so consumed by grief are recognised by the wise women and compassionate men of a community. Hope is not so simple a thing as to be lost ever to those that yet live and with care and time they would heal. But some few would get lost. Without the light of community, they wandered into the dark woods. Those that returned, were no longer of the living. The keening spirit, or the banshee, is a soul consumed by their grief. Forever keening, to hear the Banshee is to know death comes soon.
Morwenna - The Woman
Morwenna was a woman wise in the ways of the Old nobility. She knew the name of the wind, and the dreams of the earth. She was a keeper of her community, and a woman of great empathy. When she was young, she was known to be a great healer. So it was that when a plague came upon the Ffolk a great many sought her out. She did all she could; invoked the rites and made the remedies of the land that her mother and her mother's mother had known. Though some recovered, a great many did not. Morwenna's keening for each was deep. It was not long before Morwenna herself took ill. That night there was no moon, and the spirits were not quiet. Death was a call to the dark wood, and the keening spirits answered. Morwenna heard their wail, and knew it called her to an ending. But Morwenna knew grief better than most, and in the keening of the banshee she heard her own loss. She was moved by it, not to an ending, but to become it. That night she walked among the unquiet spirits, and into the dark wood. To lose herself, but not her life. She forsook her oaths to her Mother, and used her grief and the secrets of the Old nobility to create an instrument of the keening. Morwenna's Baton. The keening thins the veil between life and death, and Morwenna thought to use her instrument to reach through it. To draw back the spirits of the dead to the lands of the living. She could not let go, and so, she thought to take control.
Morwenna - The Lost
Those spirits Morwenna brought back could not truly return to the realm of the living. They had known the secrets of the hereafter and in them found a place in the great dream of the land. Each spirit drawn back by Morwenna could only grieve for the life they had, and the rest taken from them. But Morwenna could never make peace with what had been lost. She believed that if she carved deeply enough, the realms of the dead would be open to her. That death need never again take from the living. That she would make something of all that she had forsaken. Grief had become guilt, and guilt had become a bitter prison. Morwenna could not let go because to let go would be to accept her losses, accept her sacrifices. It was too deep a pain. Though she fought it bitterly, Morwenna would never master the realms of death. Her unnaturally long life would come to an end, though in truth she had forgotten to live the day she walked into the dark wood. But the story of Morwenna's baton did not end here.
Moira Orseeva - Introduction
Today Moira Orseeva is also known as the "Conductor of Souls". She is the owner of Morwenna's baton at time of writing, and she is a popular performer in the under realms. I first met Moira Orseeva in the city of Guldorand, where she was walking under a false face. There we spoke of art, and imagination. Of how the very nature of magic is possibility; to understand it is to understand that nothing in the world is set in stone. That the impossible is always possible. To me, this means hope is forever. It means practicality is never an excuse for tyranny, that we should always dream of the best for our world; for the moment you accept a thing is impossible, it truly becomes so. Moira's conclusion was different. Bitter, and hurt, Moira has no faith in hope or dreams. She sees possibility as a means of conquering the world. Of breaking the things others take for granted. This, she revealed to me, was her true purpose. Conquest and power, in place of hopes and dreams. This story is biographic. I detail what I have learned about the life Moira Orseeva lived before she chose villainy. I believe she can still choose to live again. To dream once more. That's why this work is important to me. Some day, if she cannot heal, we must fight. But before the blood, we must dream of happy endings.
Moira Orseeva - The War
Moira Orseeva was born one of the Ffolk of the Moonshae Isles. She is daughter to Malcolm, who is son to William, who is son to Enserric, who is son to Eamon. Her parents both were loving souls, and her childhood was spent as well as every child's should. That would change, when violence came from hateful men of the North. Moira Orseeva and Malcolm both would lose her mother to their violence. Malcolm was a fisherman by trade, but he was fearful for his daughter and pained by the home they had shared with his wife. So he and Moira moved inside the walls of Caer Corwell. Life was difficult for Malcolm, but he found what work he could to give Moira the life she deserved.
Malcolm knew Moira had a talent for the harp and a love of the stage, and so he saved every copper so he could send her to the College of Mac-Fuirmidh. A famous bardic institution founded by the great bard Falataer. It was a painful thing for Malcolm, to send his greatest joy away. But his love was profound, and I do not believe there was anything he would not do to give Moira Orseeva a joyous life.
During the second year of Moira's studies she would get news of Malcolm's passing. The cause is not clear. Moira felt, without her, he wasted away in his loneliness. That he had only the bottle to numb himself, that had she been there things might have been different. But I wonder what Malcolm himself would say? If he regretted for an instant sending his daughter to chase her dreams? I did not know Malcolm, but I think if he regrets anything at all - it is that he could not tell his daughter he does not blame her. That he hopes she lives a happy life.
Moira Orseeva - Mac-Fuirmidh Academy
Moira Orseeva did not take well to the lessons of the Academy. She had lost too much to the cruelties of the world to believe in epics, and heroes. What use for fancies like that are there? Where were the heroes, when she lost so much? She applied herself with a vigour to her studies, but could not seem to match her peers. Her heart wasn't in the stories they were telling. It ached too much, to share their joy. But she was determined, and in time she found works that did speak to her. The forbidden of Ebonfar, the Talfiric shadow magic of the Ffolk's ancestors and the keening songs of the old times. It was also where she met Colin.
Colin was a man of charm, empathy and -ultimately - devotion to Moira. She found in him the flame of life. Just as the empathy of community would begin to heal the grief of the lost in the old days, Colin's care began to heal Moira. She found a vigour for life once more, and was less and less drawn to the forbidden works. Here, the story might have turned. Here, she might never have become the Conductor of Souls. But it was not to be. Her forbidden studies had been noticed, and though she had been giving them up, an unsympathetic headmaster summoned her to his office.
It was there, in a sealed case, that Moira Orseeva first saw Morwenna's baton. It was in this office that community was absent. The headmaster was unsympathetic to Moira. He did not see how hurt and misery are drawn to the same. He did not see how empathy and care were healing that hurt. He did not see that expelling Moira would rob from her the gift Malcolm had sacrificed so much for. That she would blame herself, and long to make something of what was lost. This is the folly of rules and laws without community and empathy. The folly of forgetting that we should judge first with the heart, and Good lives not in ignorance but understanding.
Moira was expelled.
Moira Orseeva - The Baton
Moira Orseeva could not reach Morwenna's baton, but Colin could. He was concerned for Moira, and wished only to give her peace. So when she told him the baton would give her something new, a way to move forward? He agreed to steal it for her. Colin would climb the tower the headmaster's office was in, and enter through a window. He recovered the baton, but as he made his descent a rock came loose. Colin fell from the tower, and lost his life. Moira would take up the baton and, in a moment of grief and desperation, she pierced the veil between life and death and dragged Colin's soul back. He was the first to be reanimated by Moira.
But, as with all the unliving, he did not return himself. He was cold and pained, forever grieving what might have been. Forever mourning what what was lost. In time, Moira would tire of him. Assure herself she never cared for him, that he was always a means to an end. But I know she knows better. I know she cannot ever truly be free of the regret, the guilt or the grief. Because she denies it, she can never heal from it. Moira would consider using the baton at the graves of her parents. Trying to bring them back. But she chose not to. She told me she was afraid they would not come back the same. That may be true. But I think she is also afraid of their judgement. Of what Malcolm would make of the daughter he sacrificed for. I don't know what they would say to her today. But I don't think they'd blame her. Colin didn't. I think they'd only be sorry for the life she might have had. A life she might still have, if ever she let go.Moira Orseeva - The Conductor of Souls
For her crimes, Moira was pursued. She fled far, and deep, into the Underdark. There she has become a villain; a necromancer and performer both. Whether she knows it or not she is shackled to fear, grief and regret, just as Morwenna was. She hopes one day to conquer death; to end the cruelty of loss. Just as Morwenna did. To do so, she shackles the souls of the departed and gathers power wherever she finds it. For this, she must be resisted. She must be fought. But the ending of Moira's story is not yet written, unlike Morwenna's.
The quill remains in Moira Orseeva's grasp, and I believe there can still be a happy ending. The chain that is Morwenna's Baton, that is this prison of grief, must be broken. Life is not a sum of wins and losses. It needs no justification, no matter how heavy the losses. No matter the mistakes you have made, you can heal. You can change your future. You can be forgiven, if only you find the strength to accept what has come before.
You can atone, and at the end of your story, you will remember the dreams of those you have lost.
Moira Orseeva's story echoed the creator of her baton. Morwenna's baton. I chose it, as my first battleground.
It was a shackle I would break.