The Three Sisters

*In the sun-soaked seaside vilage of Santarez, there is a church.*

*Like many of the buildings in the town, it is made from fine white stone, carved from the sheer cliffs that isolate Santarez from the rest of Titan Vale. The steeple of the church rises high above the otherwise flat, squat houses and stores. Halfway up the steeple, a scene has been cut into the stone. Three little girls sit facing one another, their hands joined in some children's game. They smile. Carved so realistically, one would be forgiven for thinking they were real, if it wasn't for the centuries of sea moss and salt rot building up in the hollows of their eyes and the crooks of their elbows. The church is silent. Santarez is silent. The only sound comes from the unending crash of waves as they collapse against the cliffs. Nobody has lived here for a thousand years.*

The above description comes from the journal of Georgette Harper, captain of the fine Nikemmi sea-flyer *The Widow's Wake*. She wrote it when her ship was stranded, her mainmast broken in the Ashwater Gulf, just by the western shore of Titan Vale. The sea and land surrounding Santarez is typically heavily patrolled by the Vallic Army, and ships are generally not permitted to linger near the shores of the abondoned city of Santarez. However captain Harper had little choice, and while the Vallic Army barred her crew from alighting the ship to wait on land for repairs, they were allowed to remain on board their ship for the week it took to fix the mast. Allegedly, in the time spent waiting, a crew member of Harpers named Doran told Harper that the church that they could see in the distance reminded him of story that his grandmother used to tell, and old folk tale from Colhar. Harper transcribed the tale for him. It follows.

The Three Sisters of Colhar

Long ago, in the time before the binding of the dark and the light, Colhar had a King named Gauldin. Gauldin had three daughters, but he had no sons, and no wife, and he was King of a land of shadows and death, so he became sad, and then he became cruel.

His daughters were sweet children, beautiful and kind. The eldest was called May, the middle Ygritte and the youngest was Nessa. They spent their days together in the empty halls of Gauldin's castle. They were often lonely, but they had one another, and May took good care of her younger sisters, she taught them to read and to sew pretty dresses, which they wore around the castle, although there was nobody to see them twirling and dancing in the rich silk and gauze.

After they had together made a particularly fine set of gowns, they tried to show their father. Gauldin sat in his dark throne room, staring through a window across the wasted fields of Colhar, watching the dark shapes swim through the evernight.

"Leave me." He told them. "I have no time for silly dresses and useless girls. To have three daughters is a curse."

May woke that night to Ygritte crying, and asked what troubled her.

"Our father does not care for us, May. We are all alone, and will be forever."

"Hush," May told her. "Father does love us. Remember, he once told you that you had such strong arms for a little girl, that time that you climbed up the railing in the watchtower."

"That is true." said Ygritte. "And he once said that Nessa had the same beautiful eyes as our mother. I believe he cared for her."

"Yes," said May. "And he said once, years ago, that I had the good sense of a King. In the days before we closed the castle doors."

"He does like pieces of us," agreed Ygritte. Her tears stopped, and she went back to sleep, so May rested too.

In the morning, May found blood on her pillows, and her sisters nowhere to be found. From the next room she heard a whimper.

There she found terror, for Ygritte had taken a needle, and sewn herself and Nessa together, fine and detailed stitches lashed them together by the skin of their arms.

"What have you done?" said May. Little Nessa whimpered again.

"Ygritte says that Father will like us better this way. He likes pieces of all of us. Together we will make him one good child."

Ygritte had handed May a needle. "Come May, join with us."

May did not want to sew her skin to her sisters, she tossed the needle on the ground. "No"

"Suit yourself," said Ygritte. "Be alone."

Ygritte and Nessa, walking as one, made to leave the room. As soon as they did, the darkness of the castle seemed to double and grow around May. She was alone alone alone.

"Wait" she cried, and snatched up the needle, sewing herself to her sisters. "You are right, we are better this way."

So they went to the king, three sisters made one by needle and thread.

"Look, Father" they said, in unison. "We've made ourselves one for you. Now you have a daughter with good sense and strong arms and fine eyes."

The King rose from his throne, disgust shadowing his face.

"I have no daughters. This land is filled with beasts and terrors, and you have added one more to it. You are an aberration."

With that, King Gauldin snatched up his daughters and threw them from the window. the tumbled through the darkness, over the cliffs below, and landed on the sand, a jumble of stitched-together arms and legs.

They say that the cliffs took pity on the three sisters, and grew a great tower around them to protect them from the things that haunted the ever night. They once again found themselves trapped in the dark, behind stone walls.

"Oh we are wretched!" said Ygritte. "We are alone!"

"No" said May, raising the sharp needle she still held in her hand, comforted now by the tug of the stitches that bound her to her sisters. "Never alone."