Greetings Mizaharians!
I'd like to introduce you to a new award Mizahar is going to spotlight each and every month: Featured Thread! The way a Featured Thread is going to work is that the previous winners of the Featured Thread (be it a solo thread or a thread involving multiple characters) will be selecting the next featured thread and writing a review about it. However, since we launched this project, we needed to pick someone to select and review the very first featured thread. Our vote went to Kamalia Timandre, whom has been with us as a player from almost the very beginning. The lovely review, code, and stylish presentation are all Kamalia's work below. You can tell she lovingly reviewed her chosen thread.The Featured Thread winners will receive a unique medal (depicted above) and be expected to submit their choice for the Featured Thread next month along with their review by the 15th of their own award winning month.
Please Enjoy!
ur founders and the older Mizaharian members will agree with me that Sondra is among the most memorable characters in all of Mizahar. While there seems to be an inclination for konti PCs to be different from how they’re canonically portrayed (I’m one of them!), Sondra’s well-written history, unique personality and convincing character portrayal set her apart and make her shine in a post-apocalyptic world brimming with darkness, beauty and danger. For those who do not know her, K’Sondra Kore is a konti seer whose innate gifts are as powerful as they are treacherous. She is a Sinspeaker, for when she touches someone with her hands, she receives a vision of their worst sins—those that they have done or may do so.Sondra had always been very different from the sweet and peaceful konti stereotype. We knew her as a humorously sarcastic konti who spoke an abundance of the more colorful swear words of the Common language, broke men’s noses in tavern brawls, and ferreted out any poor sod’s dirtiest little secrets. Her witty chides, satirical remarks and her tinted perspective never failed to amuse her readers, and her threads were a lot of fun to read.
In the close-knit, family-oriented community of Mura, Sondra did not seem to get along well with her Grandmother Eunoe (or with any other konti, for that matter). Her gift for seeing past facades and discovering the darkest of sins must have weighed on her soul and turned her unsociable. She was never portrayed as a fragile princess; K’sondra was a tough woman capable of dealing with the everyday harshness of post-Valterrian life on her own—a tough woman with issues. She is now one of the Azenth Triad in the service of Ivak in Syliras, headed by Leo Varniak. Of course, beneath Sondra’s tough exterior lies a dark, foreboding past.
This is a tale worth retelling; a tale spun with beauty, tragedy and darkened passions, a tale charged with powerful emotions, and a tale I think every Mizaharian should know.
I present to you “A Wake in White,” the heartrending story of the White Witch of Avanthal.
Avanthal and Better Days  I went because I was told, because I believed such a dreadful gift could not be given without reason, because I was eager to be infinitely far away. Grandmother spoke of a man who wanted my service. It was my call, she announced, and my fair aunts nodded at this word. I found a frozen earth, evening skies so near and bright it was painful, rivers I couldn't bear, air that hurt to breathe. When I took Gregoire's hand, all I saw was a childish slight to his sister. He was warm to the touch, radiating summer.  I was given a seat at a table, wrapped in furs, offered adornment. They called me the white witch with awe and dread. When I spoke, men listened, so I did not speak often. When I walked beside Gregoire, he supported my arm. He gave me gloves on the anniversaries of my arrival. He bore my ill tidings with wisdom. His mother sat with me in the evening and his sisters braided my hair. They told me the moon I was born under promised me to this place. Eunoe said she foresaw him loving me forever. I thought he whispered it once.  The next time someone says "forever", I'm going to punch them in the face. |
-Excerpt from Sondra's Scrapbook
Set in Avanthal, the glimmering diadem on the silver bedspread of the icy north, the story of the White Witch had even made its way to Vantha fables. Years ago, Sondra was sent to Gregoire’s Hold, where she would work as a prophetess and a counselor in his service.
In the words of Siana of the Skyglow Hold, a Vantha storyteller:
 "In life, Gregoire had been a handsome and charismatic man. He had been born the second son in his father's house and could not inherit any lands or titles. But in all other ways, it seemed that fortune favoured him. When he came of age, his father gifted him with the keys to a great house in Avanthal, where he would reside as lord and master. Gregoire graciously assumed his place at the house his father built for him. Through the years, he earned his place so well that no one ever contested his leadership. He earned the devotion and fealty of the men who served him. Best of all, he earned the service of a remarkable woman, the woman that everyone called the White Witch."In truth, she was no witch at all, though many would have called her powers eldritch and magical, even unnatural. Her hair and skin were as pure and pale as newly fallen snow, and her clear, sharp eyes were an unchanging blue. They seemed to see past the visible, everyday world into the realm of the unseen and unspoken. There were those who said she could look into the future, others who claimed she could read a person's past, and even some who credited her with the ability to do both. Her name was Sondra.” |
The konti sinspeaker dedicated her life to serving Gregoire. Sondra’s main duty was to hold the hands of those who wished to join the ranks of his household’s guardsmen and servants. Whenever Sondra’s hands came in contact, the seer would see visions of their blackest sins—sins buried deep within their heart and clung to their soul. Whenever the White Witch was about, Gregoire’s men stared with awe and reverence. Whenever the White Witch spoke, everyone listened. Only to Gregoire’s ears did she whisper what she saw.
For five winters, this had been her duty. Sondra had come to love the household as her own. She had come to love Gregoire, who in turn offered her home, furs and adornment. Perhaps their love could have blossomed further, perhaps not, but everything was beautiful then, until the time came when Gregoire brought home a foreign woman, Lorna. Hers were the only hands the White Witch had never held.
Lorna was a voluptuous woman, blessed with a pulchritude that could ignite the lust of any man. She warmed Gregoire’s bed, and filled his ears with impassioned lies. The White Witch was soon half-forgotten, and her words no longer heeded, while Gregoire grew obsessed with his new lover, and her whispers became his command. Sondra watched as the house slowly plummeted into ruin.
In time, Sondra snuck a hand to touch Lorna, and sifted lies from truth. Through Divination, the Sinspeaker saw Lorna’s former lover dead at her hands, scavenging what fortune he had left on his corpse. The White Witch saw that she made her way to Gregoire’s hold for the same intent. Sondra tried to whisper to Gregoire’s ears of the harlot’s intent, only to find out that they were already occupied by Lorna’s lies.
Concerned for the life of her master, Sondra confronted Lorna when they were alone, and ordered her to leave the household once and for all. Lorna refused vehemently, and the two fought in a brutal struggle between life and death. In the end, the White Witch slashed her blade across Lorna’s throat, ultimately ending the charlatan’s life.
Gregoire arrived, broken at the sight of his mangled lover. He would no longer heed any words from the White Witch, already too entrenched in Lorna’s envenomed lies. As Sondra held him close, a vision flashed in her mind: Gregoire pushing his dagger through her stomach and her body fading into snow. Before Gregoire could murder her, Sondra grabbed his knife and twisted the blade into his gut, taking the life of the man she loved.
The pristine bleakness of snow had turned incarnadine, as Morwen froze the White Witch’s tears.
You can read the full version of "A Wake in White" here.
You can also read the story as retold by a Vantha storyteller, Siana Skyglow here.
As I said, I chose this story as I thought it was worth retelling. Long buried in Avanthal’s archives, ”A Wake in White” is an old thread and I did not want it to be forgotten. Somehow, it teaches us, as if have not stressed enough in my signature, that “loveliest are the things that surely must end. Dawn is hope, but true beauty is found only in twilight, when all that is fades away.” I hope you enjoy reading!
Thank you for sharing your wonderful story with us, Sondra. I hope that you will write more! Someday, maybe Sondra will find that beautiful ending that awaits her despite all that she’s been through.
Someday.
We really hope this new, community-granted award can spark more interest in threads and PCs that are sometimes not as well-known, but certainly deserve to be read and praised.
