Nineve

'Epithet: The First Muse

“Art is the destination of every journey.”

Introduction

Across distance and time, worlds and fables, there has always been the idea that something more could exist. Since the beginning of mortal thought, the First Muse has been there, guiding crude and fumbling animals into poets and painters. It is she who taught birds how to sing and mortals how to dream in their waking days. She who caused the first death from heartbreak, and taught the first tyrants that they should covet gold.

Background

In the beginning, Titania crafted two children from wood and air. One of them would understand war, and fire, and be as the sun. The other would understand art, ice, and would be as the moon. This was good and proper, and so the second Fairy was named Nineve. Then, as now, she coveted that which yet was not. Art. The culmination of many parts, the whole that was greater than the sum. After all, it is art that gives meaning to a bleak and brutal world, that gives context to ends and provenance to beginnings. She was of the Fae, and knew that for their world - and all others - to be worthwhile, there had to be something more.

In the time after Yggdrasil was fully grown, but before mortality itself would come, the Fairy Courts began their eternal dance. In this early era, Titania appointed her the crown of the winter court, becoming the incarnation of the Lady of Winter. Though Nineve holds that seat to this day, it is a mantle capable of being held by another of her race, just as any other role within their mercurial courts. It is merely a role, not the core of her being. For that, one looks to the First Age itself.

So it began, eons past, as newly forged planes settled, that there was a single mind in all of Creation devoted to that single subject which did not matter, yet mattered so much more than anything else before. Nineve, Lady of Winter, was inextinguishable in her pursuits. For her domain was that of privation and growth after thaw, and that was fundamental to her obsession; winter was the inner world, and there could be no inspiration without introspection. Her plane, borne of chaos and creation and delight - was inspiration itself. She had no better teacher than the excesses that bled from the skies and ground, and she learned well. Of the grim beauty from blood and bone, to the bleak austerity of ivory order. Even of the last, which was in a way the thing furthest from art it could ever be, she learned. Such that every time she returned to her Queen, there was more to draw and create. Until, as with all times, that era came to an end.

Now there were mortals, in all their imperfect foibles, each stutter and stumble something that had never been. Original souls danced through the Great Cycle, and Nineve watched as they made their way to the other planes. There, and then, she knew that all she had ever done was yet incomplete. For art was not worthwhile unless it, too, was made something more. There could only be meaning with others to see it. There could only be something more if others were inspired to make it. So it was then, and as it is now, the Lady continues her works.

There is a saying, sometimes, when an author finishes their magnum opus, or when a painter declares their masterpiece to be complete. If it is good, others will say that they must have been touched by a Fairy during their work. That it was in some way blessed by a muse. Sometimes it has, but it is not just those great works that have been elevated. What many never realize is that Nineve has never cared what art is used for, so long as it is worthy. Her guiding hand has blessed the inspired works of killers painting in blood; of revolutionaries and tyrants who set their nations ablaze with words that touch the soul. Much like her season, she does not shy away from the death that comes as a result. Winter holds the quintessence of change; that which is old must die for the new.

There is a touch of the ineffable in all works Nineve graces with her attention, a quality that few have ever reached without the General’s guidance. So it should come as no surprise that many are willing to sacrifice everything for her eye. Texts recovered from radical artist collectives - a niche, yet enduring flavor of extraplanar cultism - speak of several methods by which someone may seek the Muse. They might seek out dangerous and forbidden works locked in the greatest mortal vaults of nations, seeking to release them freely to the public. The most desperate may go even further than that, forcing a kind of dark inspiration that Nineve offers through certain rituals, seeking to create those dark works themselves. The Lady of Winter favors audacity, adoring those who would willingly flee the comforting warmth of safety for whatever lies in bleak unknowns.

In pursuit of her favor, countless mortals have been driven to untimely ends, afflicted with that which the Lady reserves only for the obsessed.

Those who seek Nineve and enact certain rituals open themselves to being struck by strange moods. Driven by mad inspiration, they fall far and deep into the darkest wells of their own psyche. They become locked within a prison of the self; with no thought, want, or need but to create something from the twisted revelation that she allowed them to glimpse. These come about in the darkest times of Winter, and those who undertake this rite find themselves isolated from the world itself by untimely storms. Often, these individuals do not emerge from the enduring cold, and starve or die of exhaustion before their unfinished works. But sometimes, rare as pale blue moons, they will manage to finish it. There is no public example of these works on Rhyst. They are captured, destroyed, or contained the moment they are known - for their mere presence has been known to cause roving masses of hysteria, for stone to twist upon itself, and for the colors of cities to die. It is rumored that Nineve keeps some of them for her personal collection.

Some whispered legends speak of certain famous examples. Days Cut Short is a painting rumored to have been made in Highshield dozens of Convergences past, which upon its unveiling caused every bladed implement in the nation to spontaneously animate and seek out living flesh. Stranger still, The Walk of Seven Worms is a work by the famous Isegradian novelist Vemin - all copies were banned and subsequently burned after it was found to cause city-wide epidemics of a phantom plague; tides of white worms overflowing from the mortal nightmares of readers, eventually escaping from dreams to flood the cities themselves.

Nineve is known for many acts done by her and in her name. Since the dawn of the first age, she coaxed the first mortals into building great works, beyond even what their own Eidolons may have imagined.

In that act - that sin - she gave those heirs of the universe a reason.

For anything.

Trivia

Nineve is known to frequently contact mortals of Rhyst, though never on their terms, and never in person. Among her greatest skills is the ability to touch lightly past the barriers between planes, never risking a direct intrusion - lest she risk the ire of the Greater Spirits.

It is said that Nineve takes the last incomplete work of any who she favors, hiding them away in secret ruins across Rhyst. She grieves all that has been left unfinished, and leaves them as a test - to watch for any that might finish the works of long-dead masters.

There are many lesser Fairy Muses that one might encounter under the Lady of Winter. Claiming interaction with any of them is a high crime in many nations of Rhyst, sometimes punishable by death.

Credit

Author: Sishio https://forum.verdict.dev/showthread.php?tid=3873