Lady Sabitha Bisland
There is a difference between things done in a scramble and things done well.
Description: The shape of Sabitha's face suggests a heart, high cheekbones reaching the narrow point of her chin. The sculpt of her features in her creamy skin is all fine bones, with thin dark brows in her high brow lending a skeptic's weight to her gaze: large, pale green eyes, light and leafy as springtime. Long hair of dark, dark brown falls, when loose, to her shoulder-blades; but most often, it is elaborately styled, not a wisp out of place. She is slim, of modest curve and lithe, balletic grace.
Personality: Sabitha is a force for organization: one of those rare souls with the power to forge order out of chaos, a one woman battle against the forces of entropy. Brisk, crisp, and assertive, with an iron grip on propriety and a seemingly endless supply of unimpeachable taste. She is endlessly practical, with a great wealth of sass up either perfectly tailored sleeve. Her sense of aesthetics is finely honed, across all five senses. Her wit is quick but composed. She is the most refined of hostesses, appropriate to any occasion, and more often than not, she is the force behind the occasion.
Background: Sabitha was born the second daughter of a lesser line of the Laurents, and felt the absence of position in her life like an ache when she was very young. It wasn't that Sabitha wanted power for any nefarious purpose, or anything. Even as a teenager, however, she felt overlooked, unappreciated, indistinct: a nebulous cloud of general restless loneliness. Even as she learned everything that she was supposed to learn and did everything that she was supposed to do, all the training, all the parties, all the gowns, all the hunting, all the /basics/ of being a young noblewoman, there was a voice in her head that would not be denied, and it said that none of it mattered.
At 18, the Laurents and the Bislands brokered a perfectly acceptable marriage for her. She met young, charming Lord Samael, and she was immediately attracted by his passion and his attitude. Neither was in love with the other, and but both were hopeful that love was possible. She married him, and went to Pridehall, and soon she was with child, and gave birth to a beautiful daughter, and everything was wonderful. It was easy to fall in love with her husband and how passionately he cared for his work and how passionately he seemed to care for her. The Bislands were quick to find work for her, helping in the management of Pridehall's servants and lands. For awhile, as a noblewoman, as a mother, Sabitha felt warm, and contented, and like she mattered.
She bore another child, and for awhile, she delighted in both her growing offspring, and at first, the increasing frequency of Samael's vanishing into his work was not so noticeable. But weeks turned into months and months turned into a year, and then two years, and their contacts grew more and more infrequent, and cooler. It became evident to Sabitha that he would never stop chasing his work, and that even when he was with her, his mind wasn't. They had a few fights, infrequent, hurtful fights that generally resulted in bitter tears from Sabitha while Samael held her, anxious and trying so hard to love her. It wasn't worth it. Sabitha began to separate herself from the problem, instead.
Finally, grimly, an adult secure in her own power, Sabitha began to build for herself a life that did not require her husband to provide her reason for being. She became, slowly but inexorably, a person to know. Intimate soirees. Large parties. Grand balls. She began to build on the Bisland store of social capital, and over the years grew from a hostess to The Hostess. Not the only one, of course; not the grandest Lady around. But between her impeccable taste in aesthetics, her eye for design, and her fierce, determined power of organization: she became one of the foremost social arbiters of Arx society.
Now, Sabitha and her husband live separately and, supposedly, chastely -- according to the marital contract, which requires that each be faithful -- and appearing together in public only on the most mandatory of occasions. Otherwise, they continue going about their separate business, avoiding each other and doing their respective very hard work for the House and for the Compact.
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