Sisterhood of the Featherleaf Ravine
Once during the heights of the First Age, a Solar Exalt of the Zenith Caste looked upon Creation and saw that it was rotten. A sorcerer and summoner, the Zenith had long worked closely with spirits, histories speaking of them having been a friend to the Lesser Elemental Dragon Cselena and having argued without success to the Most High that Heaven ought find a way to heal the mind of the great Kukla instead of locking him away (though their words, perhaps, turned the Unconquered Sun to granting the great Gardullis the boon of imprisonment at His own hearth).
The Zenith’s mercy was perhaps born from their bosom companion, the Elemental now known as Succour of Life. This spirit was not summoned or bound, for she had been the Dryad born of the tree beneath which the Zenith played as a child, and had been playmate and confidante… Exaltation had not weakened this bond.
By contrast, even in the First Age, one could easily see the mistreatment of lesser elementals such as Dryads at the hands of Forest Walkers and Wood Kings, and the abuses of summoners were even worse, with flesh parlors and moliation galleries finding new heights of horror to visit upon them even as artifice forged them from thinking beings into weapons and eldritch devices. The Zenith and her companion refused to accept that this state of affairs was as things had to be, and so deep in the jungles of the Southeast, in the hidden Featherleaf Ravine, they worked Essence and Sorcery to forge a refuge, within which the call of summoning could not reach, and a Spirit Court for those elementals who sought safety there. The Zenith’s spirit companion, grown from her origins to a Lesser Elemental Dragon of Wood, served as Master of the Court, helping elementals adjust to their new lives. Succour of Life was bound to the Zenith by a Pact, that she would answer the call when summoned by the Exalt without recourse to sending a subordinate.
Even the Solar Exalted do not live forever, and the Zenith grew old over the millenia. Towards the end of their life, the Exalt began to speak ever more strongly about the injustice of summoning… for elementals, of course, but also for the demons bound to answer by the oaths of the Primordial surrender. Perhaps all could be freed, by dissolving the metaphysical binds of summoning, and the bonds that made a soul responsible for the crimes and promises of the greater being of which it was a part. How they migght have implemented their radical solution remains unknown, for the Zenith vanished soon after, and the Solar Deliberative immediately welcomed their replacement.
The subsequent bearers of the Exaltation were far different from their predecessor, exploiting the Pact with Succour of Life to pry out her secrets and harvest the elementals and demons concealing themselves in the Ravine. When at last the Usurpation came, even as her bindings forced her to defend him, Succour laughed as her Zenith master was cut down, and exulted as the shard was locked away from Creation forever, limping back to the Ravine and to her surviving charges so she might rebuild their haven.
The loss of records during the Usurpation, and the lack of interest amongst the Dragonblooded, meant that Succour was able to do so, quietly gathering Dryads and other elementals to her in the shelter of the Ravine as her existence was forgotten. Their culture is one of art and song, but also of battle, for none who enter their realm can be allowed to leave, either being welcomed into their Court or destroyed without mercy.
Though isolated, Succour of Life has recently learned that the Jade Prison was broken, and that the Solar Exalted are loose once more in Creation, including the Zenith shard which once belonged to her friend. Thinking it is only a matter of time before some new incarnation remembers the Ravine and the Pact binding her, Succour has grown increasingly paranoid and militant, much to the worry of the spirits she has guided for so long.
See Also: Membership in the Sisterhood of the Featherleaf Ravine.
