Sybil, why did you join the camerata? A popular socialite seems like the most unlikely person to be part of a secret cabal.
Anonymous. What I am about to disclose is very personal, do you understand? So I expect you to treat it with the appropriate tact, respect and discretion.
Now… Why did I join the Camerata?
I suppose because the Camerata provided me with a place in which I could feel… at home.
I never felt at home anywhere in my life. Not with my parents, my school friends, even amongst the highest of Cloudbank’s social elite.
I always craved love and attention. You know that. ‘I love people!’ It says so in my OVC profile. I did, and I do; very much so. But much of that love was knowing that they could potentially love me back, and how wonderful it would be.
So from a very early age I shaped myself in the image of others. Every part of my life – or lives, I suppose – was calculated to please. I refined my techniques as I became older, climbing the social ranks, building my empire. I adored helping others, playing parties against each other, pulling at my threads until I and my closest ‘friends’ got everything we wanted.
I believed that someday, once everything fell into place, I would be happy. And yet the more time I spent around other people the more time I realized just how little of a person I was. One evening I was a demure debutant, the next I was a wild gambler, the next a refined judge.
There were at once many Sybil Reiszs, and none at all.
Only rarely did the real Sybil slip out, and she was discontent. Very much so.
And then my dear, dear old friend Asher got married… He was so secretive after that, I’d thought I’d lost my only true companion… He’d always been something of a confident to me; someone who I was comfortable enough with that I could be… myself.
It was a rather difficult time. Not aided in the least by the unceremonious and quite frankly disgusting attacks on my favourite artist.
And then he up and invited me into the Camerata. Completely out of the blue. He told me we could work towards something great– something truly worthwhile.
‘They understand us, Sybil,’ he told me, 'They get that awful formless feeling, like we’re stuck standing still. Grant, Royce– They’re different. They can see past what everyone else is so blinded by. They can fix Cloudbank for everyone– even us.’
Of course, they needed someone who spoke the language of the people. Someone who could see past the blindness and look directly into it, too.
So I joined. And I never regretted the decision. Asher was right. They understood how I felt. I could finally put my skills to truly good use… And with them, I was free of expectations, of preconceptions and rumours and judgement. I was Sybil, of the Camerata.
Finally, finally I could become one.
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