The banner of Alysia.
The late mother of the High Elf twins Teclis and Tyrion, Alysia of House Emeraldsea passed away in her husband Arathion's villa due to complications during birth.
Her sister, Malene, said she was always a merry soul; many were the people that traveled to Cothique just to see her.[1a] She was a true daughter of Lothern, as at home on the water as on land.[1e]
Lothern Townhouse
The home Alysia and Arathion lived in before having the twins sits high on a hill in a row of other houses just like it. Their old house stood tall, old and proud, and was actually older than even the Emeraldsea Palace, built in ancient days when Arathion's ancestors looked down upon the merchants literally beneath them.
It was tall, narrow and five storeys high. Each window facing outward on the side of street's descent had a balcony. Tyrion remembers standing on one of these balconies as a child and looking down into the harbour. He had been too young and too small then to really understand anything that was going on around him. He felt much older than that now.[1d]
When the twins returned to Lothern at the age of sixteen, Tyrion found the front door had been chained. Indeed, someone had taken the trouble to lock the place up, and visited every so often to see that it was maintained.[1d]
At age sixteen, Tyrion was able to clamber up the front of the house to reach the lowest balcony. The highest balcony, however, gave him a dizzying view of Lothern, able to see all the way down to the harbour. At night, the waves glittered sliver in the moonlight. The thousands of ships were like shadows, with their masts like a forest floating on water.[1d]
By using his sword between the gap in the shuttered windows, Tyrion was able to lift said-window's bar locking. Inside the top floor, Tyrion could still smell the familiar odors hidden behind the musty and stale air. The waxed floors, incense, the metallic tang of something connected to Arathion's researches.
The house itself was much larger than it seemed from outside. The interior was tall and narrow, but ran a long way back from the road, and it had many, many chambers. In the present day, lots of furniture lay covered in sheets and tarpaulins. There were mirrors in wooden cases that opened to reveal the glass within. A glow-globe comes to life when rubbed, its faint illumination enough to see by. [1d]
XI, 110
A century later, Arathion's townhouse would be renovated and occupied by both him and the twins, in no small part thanks to Tyrion's knack for finance and managing money.
Tyrion had also made a small fortune during the raids on Naggaroth, investing the proceeds in some spectacularly successful trading voyages, and the purchase of land which had been leased at high rents to the new breed of human trader down in Lothern's port.[2a]
Because of Tyrion, Arathion was able to move back in from Cothique, along with his research materials, equipment and Aenarion's Dragon Armour. They could afford retainers and indentured servants like Rose to maintain the property.[2a]
Since returning, Arathion has set up a laboratory in the townhouse basement where he and Teclis examined Sunfang.[2a]
Trivia
- Arathion keeps a portrait of Alysia above the sitting room fireplace of his villa.[1b] Lord Emeraldsea, her father, also kept a portrait of her in his study at the family estate in Lothern. Finally, one of the rooms in Arathion's old Lothern residence contains a full body portrait of Alysia. However, in this portrait, the noblewoman appears frail, sharing something of Teclis in her features and appearance. Tyrion suspects that was why his father was more affectionate towards his twin.[1c]
- Teclis always hated the house in Lothern, whilst Tyrion had always liked it.[1d] Indeed, for Teclis, childhood memories of sickness and pain surged back, the walls of the townhouse hemming him in.[2a]
Sources
- 1: Blood of Aenarion (Novel), by William King
- 2: Sword of Caledor (Novel), by William King
- 2a: Chapter 10
