Simone
Faction: Children of the Night · View the Gallery · Listen in the Songbook
Simone has been still for longer than patience has a name.
She was a merchant's wife in a city that no longer exists — kept accounts, raised children, managed a household with the quiet efficiency of someone who understood that most things could be solved before they became problems. The gesture she still makes — three fingers raised to the temple, thumb curled beneath — is a habit from that life. She made it when her husband talked too long at dinner. When the ledgers wouldn't settle. When the noise was too much.
The husband is centuries gone. The children longer. The gesture remains.
She joined the Ladder the way most join: through a meeting that felt like coincidence and wasn't. She rose through the lower ranks without visible effort, which is how she prefers to do most things. She is not interested in the Eldest's throne. She is not interested in the politics of the upper branches. She is interested in being left alone to pursue what she considers the only interesting question left: how long can a mind stay sharp when the body no longer ages, and everything familiar turns to ash around it?
The answer, so far, is longer than expected.