L.T. File: 091: Sæ̀lɞmʉl-"Satchel-girl"- SAY-le-mool- "She who Carries What Returns"/ Thúú-Sæ̀lɞm- "The Final Carrier"
Sæ̀lɞmʉl is a curious being. At first glance, she appears as a beautiful young woman in her first years of adulthood. She has hair like coldenwheat and eyes that glimmer a strange pink and green, and are almost always filled with curiosity and the wonder of one who has not seen what she certainly has. Her skin is the color or peach and cream, though after a long day in the sun, she often displays a slightly redder tone, along with distinct freckles. She is almost always encountered in either a gown with flowers sewn into it, or rough overalls covered in dirt. She always carries her satchel crossed across her body, either in front of her, of on her back. She commonly wears sandals, and has no qualms about getting her feet or hands dirty. She fashions anklets from seed pods and crowns from flowers. She is slender, but is abnormally strong for her size, and anyone who holds her hands notes the feeling of callouses, despite the appearance of soft, supple flesh. Her hair is often in a thick, long braid, or a large crown on her head, but as if based on her emotions, it comes undone when she becomes overly jovial, or loses herself in the joy of the moment.
While she seems to be a young woman, be warned that these are her two aspects, rather than simply two forms of dress. She is an immensely powerful being, despite having access to divine domains.
Oftentimes, she seems to forget that she is not purely a young woman, and will sing, dance and make merry while planting seeds, or tending to dying plants and animals. When she laughs, it seems to brighten the room, and she often seems surprised by her own laughter, blushing if she catches herself laughing overmuch in the company of others. She takes joy in the simple aspects of life, and has been known to dance, sing, play, and otherwise make merry woth anyone who takes joy from life.
Her songs aren't those of the people she visits, but those of her original people, the ones who first knew her, and her dances are those of an extinct race. Sometimes her songs are translated into the tongues of those nearby, but, more often than not, they take her original, haunting language to bear. A whispy language reminiscent of laughter and the final sigh of the living. She often tries to get settlements to prepare for festivals that they've never heard of, with little success outside of Aulven settlements, where new aulven holidays have sprouted as a result of her interactions.
She does not like somber rituals, and instead, tries to bring a lightness to somber situations. making warm jokes about dark times, or remembering things in spoken word that she could never have seen about a person who has recently passed. She is known to tease, play, and work easily, but effectively in a warm, open manner. She never preaches, intimidates or judges, and has only ever seemed to complain about how short of a time she gets to spend with those around her. She seems to like the aulvi for this, and Aulven ghosts seem to forget that they are dead when they are around her.
She is almost allways accepted into a society without question, as if she had always been part of the society, being given roles of nurture and care without so much as a second thought. She enjoys planting and harvesting crops, particularly sweet fruits such as apples, pomegranates and Olfo berries. She seems to smile constantly unless people are being callous, or others are being harmed.
When she is sad, she cries, and it is a melancholy sound, but it is never for death itself, only the occasional unnecessary death through hardship or violence, or the many other small or large violences that people do to one another. It is said that when her village burns, the ransackers ignore her, killing her friends and burning their homes. She watches, though tales of her intervening are of most note:
Occasionally, a tale of her developing a kinship with an individual so great that it transcends her inability to interact with others. In these moments another of her aspects emerges. Her laughter stops, as does all other sound, as though that sound were muffled by six feet of soil. only her voice can be heard clearly, a whisper like thunder. Her eyes darken from pink and green to gold and black, and her shadows extend, and seem to take on a will of their own. Her creamy skin appears transluscent, and the skull can be seen beneath. From within her satchel the moans of an extinct people cry for deliverance.
In these terrible moments, she is instead known as Thúú-Sæ̀lɞm. Anything she touches turns to ash immediately, and without recourse. Everyone around her feels the dread, not of death, but of extinction, of being the last of a dying world, and having your light snuffed out, and no memory of you being saved, except by her grace, the grace of death. She doesn't dance anymore, she glides with the certainty of the end. Crops whither, animals fall and decay, and people cry silently at their ends meet them. Whoever her shadows touch tear at their flesh as plants burst from them like fresh soil, their bodies becoming the hosts of myriads of plants. She saves her friends at the cost of meddling with the reality that should have been. When it is over, she gathers the ash, and until it is all gathered, nothing stirs, and the wind is likewise dead, as if fearing her reprisal if it were to blow away the ashes.
"Where once there was laughter, there is silence"
"Where once there was dance, there is stillness"
"Where once there was mirth, there is dread"
And
"Where once there was fertility, there is finality"
"She doesn't represent just life and death, she represents beginnings and finality, friendship and extinction"
Her kin can never look at her the same after these moments, and she leaves, no longer feeling welcome, even if she saed them. There was only one exception to this...
Though she has interacted often with people, it is difficult to record her, as when she is around, it seems as though she is meant to be there, and even trained shadows have difficulty noting her presence.
Summary
I. Proximity Report: Operative Fatine-River Veil
Location: The Copper Road, multiple villages
Status: Extended Exposure, Minimal Awareness
Confidence: Low (subject-induced normalization)
I was within five paces of her for three weeks. I did not even realize it. She traveled with us. Or maybe we traveled with her. It’s hard to say. She carried a satchel. I remember that clearly because it kept changing where it rested—front when she laughed, back when she worked. She asked questions constantly. Simple ones. Earnest ones.
“What are the stones around your necks for?”
“What do you call this fruit?”
“Do you celebrate both the planting and the eating?”
She cried once.
Quietly. No one noticed but me, and even then I wasn’t sure why I noticed. Someone had died on the side of the road. Slimes. A child. It was an unnecessary death, a child should not have wandered off the path, should not have been able to. She knelt in the dirt and cried like it surprised her. Then she wiped her face and stood and asked if anyone wanted help cooking.
That’s when I felt it—the weight. Not grief. Responsibility. Like standing near someone holding something fragile and enormous. I should have marked her. I didn’t. Every instinct I have said: she is not a threat. Another instinct—older, deeper—said: she is a beyond a threatm she is a boundary. When she left, I tried to remember her face. I couldn’t. I remember her laugh though. Like the final wind-chimes of the harvest.
II. Indirect Encounter Report
Compiled by: Operative Tallow
Source: Farmhand testimony (non-operative, unaffiliated)
Location: Greendawn (Human agrarian settlement, northwestern Daebzat )
Confidence: Medium (Corroborated by multiple civilians)
The following account was reconstructed from interviews with Herren Bale, human farmhand, age 32, who worked the western orchards during late harvest. Herren does not believe he met anything divine. That is, perhaps, the most consistent indicator that he did.
According to Herren, “the girl” showed up mid-week, during apple season. No one remembers her arriving. She was simply there, barefoot in the dirt, already working. Someone assumed she’d been hired. Someone else assumed she was kin. No one asked. She wore overalls caked in soil and a flower crown she’d made herself. She laughed easily, apologized when she laughed too much, and asked if she could stay and help “until the apples were done deciding.”
Herren reports she sang constantly.
“Didn’t know the words,” he said. “Didn’t matter. Felt like I did.”
"She knew how to work. Better than most. Stronger than she looked. Her hands were calloused, though soft. She tied anklets from seed pods and gave them to children. She slept in the loft without complaint. At night, she danced." He reported, his voice belied that he had grown accustomed to her presence in his barn, and now felt the lack of her presence like a niece who had come to visit, and had been a joy to have around.
"Not alone." he continued “She’d pull you up, Didn’t matter who you were. You’d dance. Felt rude not to.”
She stayed five days. On the sixth morning, she was gone. No belongings. No farewell. Just the absence of her person.
III. Personal Account
Author: Princess ██████████ (REDACTED)
Location: Coralport
Status: Extended Companionship (Approx. 14 months)
Confidence: High
Note: Author does not identify subject as divine.
I thought she was strange. And wonderful. And lonely in a way I recognized. She was working in the inland gardens when I met her. Dirt on her hands. Flowers braided into her hair. She laughed when I introduced myself properly and said, “You don’t need to do that with me.” So I didn’t. I got used to ignoring my title with her. It was freeing in a way I never thought it could be.
We spent nearly every day together after that, picking blueberries and Olfo berries northeast of the city. She taught me dances she said were “old.” I taught her Aulven stories and songs. She pretended not to like the sea shanties and then sang them louder than anyone. She hated solemnity. She was funny in a way that made me blush. She wasn't uncomfortable with the aulven closeness, as many humans are, and did not begrudge me a light in the night when I slept, though we would often dance under the moons and stars before falling asleep.
“Death doesn’t need help being heavy,” she told me once. “People should be lighter about it.” I thought that was just… philosophy. I enjoyed her philosophical wanings.
We fished together, though she insisted we use a net instead of hooks, so we did. We laughed. We argued gently. I think I fell for her. I don’t know how else to say it. As a friend. Maybe more. I never pressed. She never pulled away.
The pirate attack happened while we were fishing. I remember the silence first. I grabbed for my spear, and then I looked to her. Until that moment, I had thought she was the most gentle creature on all of Vyům until I realized that the silence wasn't natural. Then I looked at her.
She didn’t look older. Or monstrous. She looked still. Which was so unusual for her. Her eyes went dark. Gold and black. Her shadow moved wrong. Her skin—gods—it was like seeing someone through thin glass. I thought:
a curse.
We all know what the Veiled Masters did to our people. I thought she was one of us. Broken in a way that only shows when something threatens what we love. I didn’t run, I stayed and raised my spear alongside her, the shadows wavered, she seemed surprised that I stood beside her. I'd seen more terrible things than that in the deep, and she saw past my scars, so I accepted hers. The pirates fled. When it was over, she cried and I couldn't tell if it was from relief or sadness. I held her.
She apologized. I told her she didn't need to. Later, when I had to leave Coralport — duty, adventure, all the things I thought mattered — she walked me to the docks. She smiled. She wished me luck. She said she didn’t stay in one place long.
I told her I’d come back. I still intend to. Whatever she is — cursed, strange, or something else entirely — she was real to me, and she loves the world too much to be a monster.
Archivist’s Closing Note
Subject does not announce herself.
Does not claim divinity.
Does not correct assumptions.
Do not seek her as a god.
If you find her at all —
you will think she is simply someone you met once
and never quite stopped missing.
In Literature
We laughed together, drifting on the sea,
as the fish lazily swam to our nets.
The flower of a human spring, and me
a scarred young woman, salt-stained and wet.
Her laugh was like windchimes in the harvest
The smell of her hair was spice and berry
In the fields where we would forage and rest
I would find myself smiling and merry
When I finally had to go away
I held her close, our hearts danced together
I found myself looking for words to say
I'd rejoin her in foul or fair weather.
She grinned with her eyes of green and coral
the wind blew her scent of salt and floral
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