Lexicon/WanderingWillow
Wandering Willow
Shataina, Speaker of Lost Secrets, Lady of Legends, tells the tale:
Wandering Willow and her sister, Wine-Coloured Edge -- the only blood sisters ever to Celestially Exalt together, and that not only under the auspices of the same god, but also under the same constellation -- were born in the area of the Bitter Flower Empire which later became the Varang City-States. A pair of statues of the two women, posed standing back-to-back and forged of indestructable sunset topaz by Lady Rage of Seraphs, still stand in the centre of Yane. The Varangians of today believe these statues to be two local heroines who will doubtless be forgotten within a millenium or so, but the true subject of the statues is known to all those who existed in the days when they were made, and is further recorded in the White Words Codex.
One thing not mentioned by the Codex, however, is the story behind the statues, whose telling grows rarer and more muddled by the season. On the table in Wandering Willow's library, neatly positioned between the two stacks of her seven hundred treatises, was found a letter on the morning after the night that she disappeared. In this letter, Wandering Willow herself wrote that the statues contained the one thing that would ensure the institution of ourinesse; furthermore, she stated that she knew how and when this would someday be released, and that on that day, she herself would return.
This promise briefly formed the core of a heretical cult based in the city of Altend, but of course agents of the Grand Solar Monarchy quickly stamped it out, as well as destroying most of the town and terribly abusing a young Air-Aspected prodigy named Coruscant Breeze. (She overcame this personal tragedy to start one of the greatest Dragon-Blooded lines of the pre-Contagion era, which was subjected to a gruesome mass execution a thousand years later after a heresy similar to that of Altend was discovered to be passed down among its members.)
The story itself, though, has not yet died in the thousands of years of its existence -- and has, more interestingly, continued in an essentially unaltered form throughout that time. The letter, and all of Wandering Willow's treatises and diaries, were burned in the final, mad days of Ivory Testament's rule, so that all that is left of them is scattered quotations and fragments. Wandering Willow's closest friend was her sister, who also disappeared and left few traces, and there is a surprising lack of information about her; one might almost suspect a purge, although none of the great dictators (the only ones who would be capable of such a thing) appear to have held any particular grudge against the woman.
As to the statues -- they are, well, simply indestructable. Prior to her precipitous descent into obsession and despair, it is known that Rage of Seraphs considered them to be her greatest creation -- a high honour. She, however, created no blueprints and spoke to no one save Wandering Willow about the details behind their construction; rumours of a sorcerous compulsion were rife when the statues were unveiled. Even Simula, Goddess of Statuary and Representation, has been queried, and professes to know nothing. Any facts or even myths regarding the statues, save the one I have recounted, have been quite well-hidden, although the serious researcher might do well to consult the library of the Enchantress of Nine Ice Swans -- if she can find it.
References:
~ Shataina
See also Shataina's other Lexicon entries
Comments
Varang are central south. Telgar
They are not. Yane is right on the mountain range that separates the South proper from the Southeast jungle. Main book, p.66: "Yane is located in the Southeast." _Ikselam
Okay. So is Yane the capital?
~ Shataina
Yane is the capital. - Kalisara
Thank you.
~ Shataina
