Editing Orphea (section)

=History=
Life in Sijan is stately, ordered, and graced with the dignity of the dead. Those who live there appreciate the complex web of family and tradition that permeates the lives (or unlives) of all Sijanese.<br>


	None understood this better than Orphea, a young scion of an expansive family full of uncles and half-cousins and great-grandparents. She grew to maturity surrounded by the wisdom of her ancestors, learning the frailties and triumphs of the human condition at their knee. When she was older, she put this wisdom into practice and soon became a famous and popular matchmaker for those who didn't want to leave such things to chance. She even found herself a husband, a handsome and talented mortal mortician named Rising Smoke, and after a year of marriage Orphea gave birth to a beautiful baby daughter: Cymbeline.<br>


	Years passed for the young family, and though their lives were never perfect, Orphea was happy. Until one day, when Orphea was out buying bread, the now 8-year-old Cymbeline's hand slipped from her grasp. Intent as she was on haggling, Orphea didn't realize her daughter had gone until it was too late. The mischievous young girl, curious and intrigued by the forbidden districts of Sijan's dark underbelly, slipped past the guards on ancient tombs and entered the dark and dangerous mausoleums where even experienced morticians feared to tread.<br>


	When Orphea realized her daughter was missing, she instantly felt that something was wrong. Dropping everything she had, Orphea began a frantic search for her child that eventually led her deeper into Sijan than she'd ever gone before. Charming the guards on Sijan's deepest tombs, she followed her daughter further and further down, until she realized with sickening horror that she had entered the Labyrinth itself. It was there she found her daughter, teetering glassy-eyed on the lip of a gaping maw of utter darkness. Before Orphea could grab her, the girl slipped into the Void as her mother cried out in despair. Knowledgeable as she was about the Underworld, Orphea knew exactly what that final darkness was, and knew that she couldn't follow.<br>


	That night, under a dark moon, Orphea sobbed and railed against the fate that had taken her daughter, frightening even her grieving husband with the rage of her despair. All night she cried, trying to grasp the finality of what had happened, but unable to accept that she had lost her daughter. Finally, she rose from her knees determined to enter the Void and retrieve her daughter, refusing to acknowledge the impossibility of the task. As she rose, however, she noticed a silver light enveloping her, and power and hope filling her soul. A small voice whispered in her ear, “Perhaps there is another way.”<br>


	The very next day, Orphea was retrieved by the Silver Pact, who told her all about her new condition and helped her understand her power. She was quickly caste as a No Moon, but didn't linger long with her fellow Lunars- she had a child to save.<br>


	Orphea slipped into the Underworld and made her way to Stygia, where she spent the next several years of her life immersing herself in the ebb and flow of the Underworld. Though she played Stygian politics well, her concern was not the Dual Monarchs, nor the Deathlords: it was the Neverborn themselves, and she studied them and the Void itself in exacting, sanity-shattering detail. Orphea spent long hours in debate with Weeping Raiton Cast Aside, the self-proclaimed avatar of the Neverborn in Stygia, and endured days upon end of combing the libraries of Twinborn's Death for the secrets of the dead titans.<br>


	Eventually, Orphea found what she was looking for. It was the smallest of hints, a suggestion at the passion at the hearts of the Neverborn, but it was enough. If the Neverborn were fettered to Creation, then that is what she would become. Once she became the tether that held the dead titans to existence, she would beg, plead, bargain, strangle- she would do anything at all, until they relented and returned Cymbeline to her. After that, her research went smoothly; learning to become the fetter of a ghost was positively trivial in comparison. Orphea expects that applying such techniques to the Neverborn will not be easy, but at least now she knows where to start.<br>


	After years of living in the Underworld, counting days by the Calendar of Setesh, Orphea returned to Creation. If she was to become the world, first she must know it. She began to travel, roaming the world, collecting the form of every species she found, and filling herself with the knowledge and essence of Creation. Along the way, she made a few friends...<br>