Mara Talvin - The Taken Queen

There is more to these things that just power. I just know it! You can almost here them calling into the aether.

— Mara Talvin

"There are many things that I regret in the centuries that I have wandered across the Mortal Plain. Mara Talvin ranks high on that list. In that sense this is just as much a report as it is an admission of guilt. Another account of the failures of Darius Kaseidis. Don't let the Councilors see it. They'd never get enough of it."

Bright Young Thing

"I first met her back in my Orothian days. My fallout with the headmaster of Kugiren had made me look for other places to stay. Thankfully, Orothian had a few problems with Rouge Mages at the time so they gladly accepted my help. Mara quickly distinguished herself and became my protegee. She was smart, curious, not to fond of the Council's rules herself and took to my lessons with impressive speed. A perfect fit. Even then I probably favoured her too much. But what can I say? Having an heir to your legacy is something every mage dreams of."
"By then I had long since been taken off the general investigation on Theia and its rapture. Officially, at least. It didn't stop me from doing my own research and from letting Mara help me with it. The Council really should have learned their lesson by now. Prohibition only serves to make people more curious. We tried to discover what lay behind the Taken and their cores. Just what had brought them into this world. Mara was fascinated by them and claimed she heared them whisper something. I did not pay it any mind at the time."
"Her fascination with the cores grew into obsession and I was too blind to see it. Other matters occupied me and I just assumed that she was smart enough to be careful. It is amazing how stupid even someone as experienced as I can be. I ignored the strange turn her letters began to take. Ignored how she seemed increasingly troubled. Well, not "ignored" but pushed to the back of my mind. I had trained her for over a decade by then. I was sure she'd be fine. And then I got that letter telling me to meet her back in Orothian again..."

Taken Queen

"I don't really want to recall what happened during our last conversation. So I will only mention the result. Mara was transformed into something. She had been Taken but not like the others:

Body

"Unlike other Taken, she retained her features. Hair, face, body, all looked like it had before in form. But it had been morphed. Skin and flesh had become semi-seethrough and silvery in colour. Her eyes had become a faded shade of blue. She looked like a ghost turned flesh. Not dead. Not alive. But something else."

Mind

"The changes didn't stop there. Once caring, if a little too focused on her research, she had turned cruel and haughty. Seemed addicted to the power she now wielded. There was no regard for human life left in her. Only a mad desire to do... I don't really know what it was. Whatever her new god told her to, I guess."

Power

"She had always been strong, her being my student had only enhanced her abilities if anything, but now she was outright monstrous. Stronger, faster, able to phase through objects and attacks. Normal magic did seem less effective against her. And those blades of whispy, silver energy could cut a mountain."

"Arrogant brat thought she could take me on then and there. I reminded her of why the Council never hunts me down despite being basically a Rouge in all but name. She fled and what followed was a century-long chase. Mara stirring up trouble with some horrific ritual to further the Taken cause and me coming in to prevent whatever was happening from reaching its conclusion. It finally ended two centuries later with me killing her."
"Or so I had thought. It took a while but she reformed. She is different from the other Taken. Has kept what once made her Mara Talvin but in a twisted form. And that is what makes her more dangerous than any of the other unfortunate victims of the Rapture. It is the one time I actually think a name given by the Council fitting. "Taken Queen" they call her. If there really is some sort of hierarchy among the beasts then she would indeed be near the very apex. Question is who her husband is...
"Even the Sealing of Theia did not prevent her from coming back. And now, almost a thousand years after the events described above, I still sit waiting for any rumour about the return of the Taken Queen. Some say she herself has become my obsession. I do not disagree. But what happened to her was my fault. And I will always try to rectify my mistakes. Even if it kills me..."

Here's a lesson for you, kid. Whenever you see Kaseidis interested in something, walk the other way. Mages of his caliber only go for the apocalyptic kind of interesting.

— Servon Malis, Kugiren Mage, to his student

Current Status

Unknown

Life

690 HE 720 HE 30 years old

Circumstances of Death

Killed by Darius Kaseidis

Aligned Organization
Orothian Temple (formerly)
Theia - The Taken Kingdom

Threat Level
Master+

The Sealing of Theia
Memoirs of Taleus Moran, Noble of the Kingdom of Aramis:

"The worst decision that joke of a Council ever took was to seal off Theia. Four centuries of constant worry about it and just now they decide to actually do something about it? When our realms had been attacked and flooded with drugs they looked the other way. But if one of their own suddenly goes Taken it becomes the highest priority?"
"Every realm around Theia was evacuated, often by force. And when they sealed Theia all we could see was a bright flash of light and a wave of thunder that broke the very ground we had once called home. So this is what being "saved" by mages looks like. Broken homes, broken people and broken earth."

by Alexandre Honoré