Journal Entries.

[murderbaby]

Mhavos keeps several journals of random information, suppositions, and personal thoughts. All are encrypted in various ciphers. His favorite is one that requires his parents names as the key, and unless otherwise noted, he's using that one for all of these entries.

• 9:45 Harvestmere 10.
• 9:45 Harvestmere 19.
• 9:45 Harvestmere 21.
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[murderbaby]

Melisende Dolomieu.

Her author's biography only states: Recently of Haramshiral, she now lives with extended family in Kirkwall. Will receive inquiries about her published work only.

There is a bust of her image beneath, showing a fashionable noblewoman, though if one is the sort to keep an eye on such things, one may notice it's just a replication of a fashion plate.


The Mage or the Tiger

Jeanne-Tibelle (Jeanne-Tigre) - mc, byronic heroine, 'spirited', dead parents
Juste Lazare - owner of Maison Murée, escaped mage reclaiming noble house after circles broke
Renard - his elf blooded son
Agmemnos Polidori - his necromancer friend from nevarra
Leandrette - mother of renard.
Claudine Belrose-Thibault - jeanne tigre's mother and why her second name is 'tibelle'.
Lièvre - jean-tigre's father.
Merle - her dying childhood friend.

Lotte - Elven servant.

1- Introduction to Jeanne-Tigre, explain that she can't get a good job anywhere because her parentage is controversial but not more than that, can only get postings as a governess for people who have no prospects, thus she has to act as a governess to an escaped mage's elf-blooded child. meets him, doesn't like him, he doesn't like her, but she gains his respect when she doesn't hold her tongue or flinch when he threatens to whip her. She immediately gains his son renard's favor when she reveals she's elf blooded like him. he asks more questions, and she plays them off. later, lazare hears about it and wants to know the whole story, all he knows is there was 'controversy'. she hesitates to answer, but feels compelled to tell the truth from his commanding presence. cliffhanger.

2. she realizes he is using mind magic to pull the answer from her, and starts to scream in order to fill her mouth with sound so she can't tell the truth. he stops and asks her if her truth is really so terrible that she would not answer it. she says she won't answer any question under duress, it is a point of pride to her to always be true, and that includes the way in which she answers as well as her actual answer. lazare accepts that, and says she ought to get renard ready for a party. jeanne-tigre busies herself with making sure he is well behaved and speaks prettily for the guests. as she does so, in his playroom, she tries to ignore the strange scraping sound coming from the walls. renard says not to be afraid, because the sounds are from his friend. jeanne-tigre goes to bed and dreams of her mother's ghost, who is holding her arm and screaming unintelligably. she wakes to find a bruise in the shape of a handprint on her arm. She admits to herself that the screaming, in response to questions surrounding her birth, was her truth.

3. jeanne-tigre has renard perform to satisfaction at the party. lazare's friends are very impressed, except a dour foreign man named polidori. he is ininterested in the antics of children. jeanne-tigre asks him politely, and he says it is because he has other matters to attend to. renard is put to bed. eventually, lazare says that a necromancer has arrived and will summon spirits of dead loved ones to tell them terrible or fantastic truths. people leave the party one-by-one to recieve these messages in a separate room, and come back with wild tales. jeanne-tigre does not expect to be asked to participate, but finally is. they bring up the ghost of her dead father, who does nothing but apologize over and over. jeanne-tigre is upset by this, but anger makes her sharper, and she realizes she has not seen polidori in several hours, since this game began. lazare reveals polidori is a necromancer from nevarra, and he will be staying with them. jeanne-tigre is upset (and her sadness leads to loud, hot anger, which is unusual for her) and accuses polidori of playing tricks with people's hearts. polidori does not argue, but lazare becomes enraged at her treatment of his guest, and tells her to leave. she does.

4. jeanne-tigre travels to lydes, which is the city nearest to lazare's mansion. there she meets with an old friend of hers who is dying. merle went to the same orphanage for elf-blooded children of noble families jeanne-tigre did. they recount the story of how jeanne-tigre got her nickname, how it was originally an insult, until jeanne-tigre began to use it to scare the bigger girls from bullying her by roaring like a tiger. the headmistress found out and whipped jeanne-tigre for it. jeanne-tigre sits with merle, who has no one, as she slowly dies. merle is dying because of the hard labor she was put through at the orphanage is finally taking its toll; it weakened her constitution enough that when an employer beat her for stealing silverware (she did not, it was simply lost by the kitchen staff, but she bore the blame to spare them) it made it so merle can no longer walk. she is living off the tiny stipend her noble father allows her, but has no caretaker and is slowly wasting away from having to drag herself about the house. jeanne-tigre intends to sit with her while she dies, but gets up to close the windows, which are letting a chill in. a gentle gust blows in. when jeanne-tigre returns to merle, she finds her dead.

5. jeanne-tigre writes to merle's noble family informing them of merle's death. they send servants to take merle's things and sell them to make a profit off the stipend her father sent merle. jeanne-tigre feels anger rising within her as merle is given a pauper's burial, but anger makes her sharp (like tiger's claws), and she withstands it in stoic silence. At the funeral, the last rites are given by a man she recognizes, polidori. she asks why he is doing this, and he says being a foreign necromancer, he has few prospects to make more money, but more importantly, he wants to make sure the dead are cared for regardless of their status. jeanne-tigre says that is admirable, surprisingly so considering how he acted at lazare's party. polidori admits he was always under lazare's sway when he was at the circle, and now is no different; he has difficulty not doing what lazare says. jeanne-tigre says it's very simple, you just repeat the word 'no' until they understand it. polidori mentions reprisals. jeanne-tigre says she has never regretted anything she has done that has lead her to be whipped or beaten; can polidori say the same of his coerced actions? he does not answer, but does mention that her strong spirit would be welcome back at lazare's, because he is going 'quite mad' all alone with only his elven servants. he is beating them. jeanne-tigre agrees to return to stop him.

6. jeanne-tigre and polidori return to lazare's. they find the gardens a trampled mess, because lazare has rode his horse over them. inside, the house is still in good condition, but the servants are bruised and scared. jeanne-tigre is enraged, and rushes to confront lazare, who is quickly worked up into anger. while lazare's anger is loud and hot, jeanne-tigre's anger is cold and pointed. lazare says he may do as he likes with the people in his employ. jeanne-tigre says he admits they are people, then, and people deserve respect and the freedom to leave their employ. he replies that they can leave whenever they like. she replies that if they fear his beatings, they cannot do anything, for fear makes prisoners of any person. readers familiar with the works of philosopher Nannerl Proulx will recognize this didactic hypothetical argument for the rights of servants and passive citizens being played out almost verbatim as jeanne-tigre and lazare argue. as they argue, the scratching sounds from within the wall become echoing clawing noises, and there is a howl which lazare says is the wind. there is a pounding noise from within the wall. lazare, tired from arguing, asks if jeanne-tigre will stay the night. she says only if he will stop beating his servants. he says that he will, because it was upsetting renard. she replies that children are often wiser than their parents, and goes to bed.

7. all through the night, jeanne-tigre hears the sound of clawing at the inside of the walls. she gets up to inspect it, locating the noise and pressing her ears to it. the clawing sound grows louder. she attempts to talk to it. there is nothing. she finds polidori, and asks him to do an exorcism. he tries, but finds no ghosts to exorcise, and instead mentions there simply may be lizards (lézard) in the wall. he stumbles on his words and says 'rabbits' (lapin) by accent. she glowers, and he apologizes; his orlesian is not as good as he likes, not least because he spends a fair amount of time speaking with lazare, who mostly swears and is crude. keeps glowering, and polidori admits that he calls his servants rabbits, but only behind their backs. jeanne-tigre asks what she is called, and he says lazare calls her demi-lapin. The scratching in the walls gets worse, growing into a howl. jeanne-tigre asks how there can not be ghosts here. polidori admits that sometimes hidden secrets can manifest oddly in houses with multiple mages that do not have templars to counterbalance the effects. jeanne-tigre admits that she is keeping secrets, but she won't tell anyone but polidori, as long as polidori tells no one. she agrees.

8. flashback to an elven man named Lièvre in halamshiral. he is an assassin who is working to kill a noblewoman named Claudine Belrose-Thibault, because her husband wishes to remarry. However, when he steps into the room and sees Claudine's sleeping form, he is confronted with her beauty, and hesitates. claudine awakens but does not scream, because she has fallen in love with him at first sight. they decide to run away together, using claudine's money from her family and husband. they make it to val royeux before they are caught, and Lièvre is killed in front of her. she escapes and hides in lydes to have the baby, which she names jeanne so she will be unremarkable and safe, and tibelle after her maiden name Thibault. They live together in lydes for eight happy years before claudine's money runs out and she is spotted trying to sell her expensive things. her family seizes her, and sends jeanne-tibelle to an orphanage for elven-blooded children whose family want to make them disappear. most die in the hard labor they are put through, or the poor quality of food, or the harsh punishments from the headmistress. after two years there, jeanne-tibelle believes she can no longer feel pain or sorrow, until the headmistress informs her that her mother has died. jeanne-tibelle screams and will not stop screaming, and they say she howls like a tiger. jeanne-tibelle takes this as an insult and lashes out at the headmistress, who whips her severely. jeanne-tibelle is given food to eat at lunch, but she is expected to be too weak to get it from the table after her beating. the local children laugh at her and call her jeanne-tigre. she howls and throws the food at them, saying she would rather starve than serve as their amusement. she accidentally hits a girl named merle, and the two become friends. merle suggests that jeanne-tigre use the name as a badge of honor, because then the older children will not use it against her. they spend the next four years at the orphanage, before being turned out to find employment. most end up as beggars. merle and jeanne-tigre decide to try and become child-minders, and it works out for merle, who slowly becomes a governess, but jeanne-tigre is repeatedly turned away because the story of her parent's scandal is now well-known due to a gossip columnist. jeanne-tigre has difficulty finding work, and has to lean on merle for support, until she mage / templar war, where returned mages are already so scandalous that they do not care what jeanne-tigre is. this makes up the majority of her clientelle.

9. the moaning and scratching stops, and now the sound of weeping comes from the walls. polidori attempts another exorcism, and finds nothing. jeanne-tigre asks to sleep in his room instead, because she is afraid. polidori is confused, but she says she will bring a trundle. polidori says he would prefer it, because he has learned much of her and her honor, and would hate to have any role in destroying it. they wake the next morning to lazare infuriated because he believes they were sleeping together. polidori is too meek to say anything at all. jeanne-tigre does not deny it, but challenges him: what business is it of his? he says it is his business what his servants do. she says it is only his business insofar as it pertains to how they serve him. he counters that her acting whorishly makes it difficult to believe she will not poison renard's mind. she counters that renard is rich and a man growing up in orlesian society; blaming one woman who has never done a slovenly thing in front of him is like blaming sundew for a flood. those who have read josselin roux's writings on the dichotomy between the personal, impersonal, professional, and unprofessional selves that make up one whole being, may recognize his theses in their arguments. lazare becomes so enraged that he throws her against the wall with his magic. polidori finally stands and does the same, throwing him so far into the wall that he makes a crack in it. through the crack, dirty fingers emerge and snap lazare's neck, killing him. jeanne-tigre asks if that was part of polidori's, and he denies it. slowly, a creature emerges from the wall.

10. the creature is so dirty and starved that jeanne-tigre does not initially realize she is an elven woman. in a creaking, quiet voice that never would have been strong enough to make it through the walls, she asks where her son is. jeanne-tigre asks if she wishes to meet him in such a state, and perhaps they can bathe and clean her. one of the elven servants, lotte, sees this and says she will run a bath. lotte calls the elven woman 'leandrette'. lotte says that she is sorry lazare kept leandrette locked inside the house; he could not bear to kill her or let her free. leandrette woman stares at her hands, and lazare's body, and says she will never be clean, that she is tainted forever, and begs them never to tell renard what she has done or what she is. She screams, hysterical and mad, and runs from the house, into the woods. polidori and jeanne-tigre watch, and polidori says that he hopes leandrette will find a dalish clan that will help her. jeanne-tigre says that she has never seen a carriage's broken wheel salvaged and re-purposed, but it would be a fine world if people did such things. they agree to free lazare's servants, sell his belongings, and set the house aflame. they will live together on limited means, and raise renard together. it is ambiguous whether or not polidori and jeanne-tigre ever become romantically involved, but it is mentioned that renard grew up to write a biography of his mother; it is not clear whether he meant the woman who birthed him, the woman who raised him, or both.