Sjekyrta Nis

“There is peace in all things, running deeper than our savage eyes can see.

Seek not the embodiment of rage and pain; that avatar of fleeting, useless hate.

Remember such, when your blade is broken and your blood is spilled.

Honor to creation, and all the ties that bind it.

Amen.”

-Old Irra prayer, most commonly used among the ranks of their knights.

Sjekyrta Nis is one of the oldest knights in Irrum Vath. Even among the Irra, who live for long centuries, her age is legendary. She is the last of the generation that remembers the world before the inexorable death of magic was set in motion.
Nis, for her part, is unusually reticent for an Irra. Their eldest knights are traditionally relied upon not only for their martial prowess but also their breadth of knowledge and stories born of priceless experience. Yet while Niss is quick to offer impartial wisdom on forward-facing matters, she almost never mentions her past or the ways it has shaped her. Gossip does not come naturally to the Irra, and as such it falls to the other races to fill gaps in knowledge with wild speculation. For even outside the Irra, the name of Sjekyrta Nis is a common legend that still has the power to gather excited children eager to hear a story.
They say she was mentor to the old prophesied hero, the very woman who prevented the return of the old human lords. They say she has travelled from one edge of the world to the other; to places where the land gives way to endless water stretching beyond horizon, to cities great and small, and to places where great forests grow on the surface instead of far beneath it. They say Nis must be magical, for how could such a mythic figure not be ? They say she is a demon with her needlepoint broadsword, a flowing and terrible force that has cut down mortals of every caliber and race. They say she has slain dragons, yet others say no, she has ridden them. Some even whisper that when the great hero of prophecy grew proud and sought to use the might of creation for the purpose of pain and vengeance, it was her first teacher who struck her down in sorrow before an evil as great as the humans took hold.
But that last tale is a rare one indeed, something traded in secrecy among only a few. Let it be said that in times of grief and loss, stories that lay a manner of blame on others have an especially potent power over the mind.
In this day Nis speaks nothing of prophecies, old wars, older regrets, or the world beyond Irrum Vath. She is a knight before all else, and as such has spent her twilight years rallying her kind against the mounting threats of maddened monsters. Unlike some, she cares little for deliberating over the worth of aiding other races facing the same threats. The knights of the Irra can trace their duty back to the first insurgents who rose against the humans, martyrs who fought under the shadow of dragons for the belief that all races had the right to exist and prosper. Nis remembers such ideals, and strives to embody them in word and deed. It is little wonder that she is all but beloved outside her own people.
There are few knights of the Irra who achieve both true renown and a death by old age. But those few who still truly know her agree that Nis is stubborn enough to try and lay claim to the feat. By all accounts, she is close to succeeding. Death comes quick and suddenly to old Irra, not as a years-long failing of mind and body, but as a keening sensation that is felt only once in a lifetime. It is an instinct that tells one it is time to find a quiet and peaceful place, to curl up there in the dirt among the growing things, and to listen to the sound of gurgling water as the final stillness sets in. Perhaps when Sjekyrta’Tra Nis feels this pull someday soon, she will take a moment to share some portion of the whole truth with those who yet remain.
If not, the world must make do with only the legends.