TWENTY-ONE ❈ ALKEMI
THE ORDER OF FABRIKATORS (MATERIALKI)
She was born amid mortal customs and propriety, with a midwife by her mother’s side, her father’s cooing washing over her mother’s panting and hushed, awed murmurs, and all she would ever need then and now within reach of her tiny, pink fingers. But even then, there were murmurs of her peculiarity, how she never quite acted like a child, much less a girl born with all the world’s luxuries and silver spoons offered to her at every turn. She was alone often, mostly out of choice and preference, impatiently shooing away her father and mother and peers when they become too noisy and disturbed her reading. Arina was nothing less than an enigma, almost ethereal in her disinterest of material indulgences and other preoccupations that seized the hearts of her peers, but terribly mortal in her eagerness to learn of the secrets of the earth, the space in between stars, but especially of the body and what happened to in death and beyond.
Wild-haired and never quite tethered to the earth, Arina eschewed convention as if it was an easy choice (and it was always easy to her), finding her home in tomes promising ancient secrets, passages seldom traveled, the strengths of men and their weakness, and the morbid shadows most sought to avoid. How fitting, that the Alkemi with fire for hair and hands made slender to lift veils was born to seek out the macabre and to find her talents in poisons. For while explosives are much too flashy for a wisp of a girl who operated in the forgotten minutiae of the universe, toxins in all their delicate fatalities suited her nicely. The workings of poison were quantifiable, easy to study, calamitous with the right mind commanding them, and conducive to an elegant, beautiful death. However, it was the idea of death, of inciting it herself and watching the soul drift from one plan to another in however way she wanted, not the aesthetics, that beguiled her most. With physical trauma it was no mystery what killed the body - look for a puncture wound, gashes, signs of injury and you’d find your cause of death, sure enough. But poisons were riddled with intrigue and mystery and puzzles, and so was she.
Arina had no illusions about herself. She was no battle-torn soldier, and neither was she a survivor. War and strife and battles weren’t made for her, at least, not initially, not at first glance. Her realm was in the unknown and obscure, a scholar of the strange and unexplained, and the thought of fighting and working for a man she didn’t know and frankly didn’t care about offered her simplicity in her choice. “The Second Army? Preferably not.” Feather light in voice, thin-lipped smile that was an enigmatic as it was dismissive. “Wherever we decide to place you is not your choice to make.” “I know. But I will remain here, in the Little Palace. I’m wasted anywhere else.” Cockiness or insight, it depends on who one spoke to and their impression of the little Alkemi, but in the end she was kept in the Little Palace, a decision she expected and accepted with little more than a tilt of her head. Feet that seemed to float and not walk turned on their heels to head back to the library, as they always did, when a man cloaked in shadow approached her with words irresistible. Not the Darkling but his right-hand, a Corporalki, perhaps the strongest in the Second Army - had he not specified, she wouldn’t have known. Until now, her experimentations were entirely theoretical, the dark edges of her curiosity too sharp to put into practice. But when Altan offered her the chance to study that which she thought was impossible, the effects of different poisons on the human body (on the living, on prisoners, on the dead), she found her fortunes changing irrevocably.
Most things that are capable of burning brightly happily consume themselves to watch the glamour of their glow turn to ash, to find meaning in the last flicker of light of a dying spark. She glimmers like a wayfinder navigating through a sea of fog and strife and anarchy, searching for truth while weighted by unfulfilled knowledge and promise, beguiled only by that which promises wisdom beyond Grisha and humans and self-righteous kings. Innovators and savants rarely live on the same plane as the politics of men, but one managed to fathom her out just long enough to realize matters of territory and strength and power wouldn’t coax her into action, into loyalty - the promise of a veil lifted would. And so, like Alice into the rabbit hole, she happily immerses herself into shadow and darkness in the hope it will shed light.
FELIKS BAZIN: Altan’s favorite trophy, the culmination of his talents and capabilities, Feliks is an anomaly that should not be, and yet here he is. He who has been living and dead and must have seen everything in between, logic and reason and compulsion demands Arina’s fascination, and she very much is. She finds herself lingering in his orbit, a persistent star finding a strange new universe to traverse, and she seeks out his company even if it is to sit in companionable silence. He meets her curious questions with impatience, but she continues, intrigue and will unfettered.
ARISHA KOVROV: There is much to say about women whose veneer deceive and bely a more fatal core. Arisha is, as expected, condescending, as is every other human nobility with too much wariness and distrust weighing them down. But regardless, the advisor seems fascinated in her practice, sees it for the art that is is, and for that Arina respects her enough not to ignore her completely, to humor her and curiosity. The woman’s intelligence does not escape her own observations either, how she answers Arina’s riddles with puzzles of her own, and the two have a camaraderie that mixes a distant respect and kinship in shrewdness.
SHONA YUL-JUN: Although Shona seems to have only the most fleeting interest in her craft, enough to take pause to watch her as she works when he passes before languidly moving along to the next shiny thing, his compulsion to say whatever he’s thinking complements her eccentricity well. While she has no opinion on his hedonism, there is no denying their willfulness drives their own respective single-minded disregard of anything that doesn’t immediately capture their interest, and that and the fact that he doesn’t seem to find her particularly odd, or doesn’t care to, has meant his companionship has been the most stable one she’s had yet.
ARINA IS PORTRAYED BY SOPHIE TURNER & IS TAKEN BY JENN.
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