#oyunbio

OYUN KIR-NARAN

TWENTY-FIVE ❈ HUMAN DIPLOMAT

In war-torn lands, there existed what felt like a collective fantasy among those who’d known what silvery and genteel elegance was like before it was stolen from them, a sense of hope that lived not in the abstract, but in an image of nostalgia. It lived in Oyun, a girl who only knew how to be coveted, a woman who knew only how to work in machinations. She was heralded as a living miracle as soon as she came to be, delivered swiftly and safely despite the odds working against her and her mother, although she knew few would think of how she must have fought for her survival, with teeth and claws and nerve; it made a far less pretty picture than the image of her dropped into the world after a quick hiccup. Life was gilded after. Her parents were not nobles, but they were respected and illustrious citizens, a family of strategists and advisers and scholars, and with it came along a privilege Oyun neither took for granted nor inflated. Dresses of silk that might have befit royalty, lessons in manners, philosophy, and dance, the advantage of having Shu Han’s celebrated intellectuals drop in and out of their villa for simple tea and highbrow conversation. They never minded Oyun as she played a melody on an instrument in the background, perhaps because they assumed she wasn’t listening or was absorbed in her own preoccupations, perhaps they couldn’t imagine the reason she excused herself was so she could quickly run to her study and jot down all her favorite words and idioms and ideas they discussed before they slipped from her mind. Sometimes the most erudite didn’t need to have all the nation’s resources at their fingertips—sometimes gleaning and taking what she liked and discarding the rest was enough.

Color oneself in a flower’s hues, let the swaying of one’s petals bely the venom in its roots. Oyun joined countless other well-bred girls whose blood wasn’t quite gilded enough to be royalty but whose parents were of good enough standing for their daughters to serve those who were. It was a coveted opportunity for those who imagined the nobility to have reason to look down upon the common folk—how grand to be in the company of royalty. And perhaps Oyun would have been starstruck at the thought as well, but what was the point of fawning if it was solely blood that determined stature? These crowned idols had nothing but fortune as their allies, and fortune ran out - Oyun had their favor, her wits and her ability to change; a less than noble birth allowed her that freedom, and freedom marked her apart. She was assigned to be the aide of the cousin or niece of the queen—she could barely remember now, but her name was Saran: a nice, but rather melodramatic girl who spun her dark locks round her fingers and dreamed rather than did. There was nothing to be said for the hapless, excepting that they could serve their use at the hands of another. She listened to Saran, penned her love letters and cooed over the girl’s decisions and indecision as if they were groundbreaking rather than grating, and waited until Saran simply opened the doors Oyun had been itching to unlock. Secrets and gossip and blueprints of those who ruled the kingdom - she created labyrinths of her own with those outlines and sketches, curried her own favor with nobles with what she’d learned and what they offered her for her own. There was prestige in beauty, but even greater in knowing how to use it. It wasn’t that she wanted power, or to become queen; she wanted exactly everything she deserved.

Then, Oyun found her ally in fortune, although lesser folk might have called it trouble. She and a guard were accompanying Saran to the northernmost parts of Shu Han—for what, she couldn’t remember either—but they were intercepted by Ravkan brutes who sought a Shu noble to take as a hostage, presumably Saran’s safety in exchange for pulling out Shu forces out of a Ravkan region, or something equally trite. The soldiers had them on their knees, in the dirt, as they sent a messenger to the Shu Han capital, fed them sparsely in the interim and taunted them often in hopes of breaking them. Initially it seemed best to keep quiet in the face of barbarians, to go the route of Saran and play dumb and not incite further stupidity, but as time went on and their fate remained uncertain with still no word from the capital, it was clear varied tactics were needed. “Write a new message,” she’d demanded, voice clear despite having not had water in twelve hours. “I’ll teach you how to be persuasive.” In the letter she’d listed every noble who had any sort of clout and their vices, from who they preferred to sleep with despite who their spouse was to what they liked to spend tax revenue on despite their own public declarations and promises. You’re not hitting them where it hurts - the queen’s cousin? They will mourn for a month and continue with their depravity. Not a day later they were back in the capital, and Oyun was praised for her ingenuity, for not only negotiating her own safety but the safety of her mistress. No sins were leaked, and she received a new appointment to make sure they would remain that way: diplomat to Ravka. That is, the carrier to the spark that would raze Ravka to the ground.

Women who carried an old-world, genteel elegance about them learn to hide their fangs and frays behind velvet words and a beauty to rival the willows and silks of the world, to smile as often as she seethes. She looks like a waking daydream, walks like rolling fog, speaks like wind chimes, and schemes like the Devil’s favorite. Her ambition is a selfish kind, unrelenting and unapologetic, but cleverly hidden until it isn’t. The world is teeming with dreamers, cowards who never dare to do, and she coos at them, strokes their hair and sings them to sleep, and takes what is hers while the lesser slumber. She is a wolf in swan’s feathers, gliding alongside the sheep until all that is left between her and calamity is a thin, laced veil.

CONNECTIONS

MAKSIM KAEV:  There’s nothing more delightful than knowing something so crucial about a celebrated man who's entrenched in ignorance. The good lieutenant who took to leadership like a falcon took to the sky, a man unquestionably Ravkan - what would people think if they knew he was Shu? That he was abandoned because he was disgraceful and his family only foresaw further embarrassment, that he was sent to Ravka to destroy them by misguiding them in his incompetence? Oyun still hasn’t decided when she’ll tell him or how, but she’s perfectly satisfied dangling a morsel in front of him and watching a man of such good standing snap at it like a feral animal - it’s her favorite kind of power.

TATIANA LANTSOV: She reminds Oyun too much of the mistress she used to serve, but her own brand of wrath is something the diplomat can commend - and use, as undignified as it was. She takes the lady-in-waiting to be narcissistic and predictable - whether or not she’s easy to maneuver, to coax into opening the doors that were previously locked to Oyun is entirely up to Oyun’s mood and whims. It would be all to easy to reach the Lantsovs through Tatiana and unearth that which has been buried - and history does love to repeat itself.

SERGEI VALKE: Like drew to like, and Oyun could spot a mask as easily as she could slip one on. There’s something about the man that seems off, and she has never doubted herself before, even as others accept him unequivocally. Listen closely, she tells herself. Sometimes his idioms and expressions were strange, sometimes he made the very same grammar mistakes she made when she was first learning the language, and she is not content to write off these idiosyncrasies. She will be there when the mask cracks, even if she must be the one to step on it with her heel.

OYUN KIR-NARAN

TWENTY-FIVE ❈ HUMAN DIPLOMAT

In war-torn lands, there existed what felt like a collective fantasy among those who’d known what silvery and genteel elegance was like before it was stolen from them, a sense of hope that lived not in the abstract, but in an image of nostalgia. It lived in Oyun, a girl who only knew how to be coveted, a woman who knew only how to work in machinations. She was heralded as a living miracle as soon as she came to be, delivered swiftly and safely despite the odds working against her and her mother, although she knew few would think of how she must have fought for her survival, with teeth and claws and nerve; it made a far less pretty picture than the image of her dropped into the world after a quick hiccup. Life was gilded after. Her parents were not nobles, but they were respected and illustrious citizens, a family of strategists and advisers and scholars, and with it came along a privilege Oyun neither took for granted nor inflated. Dresses of silk that might have befit royalty, lessons in manners, philosophy, and dance, the advantage of having Shu Han’s celebrated intellectuals drop in and out of their villa for simple tea and highbrow conversation. They never minded Oyun as she played a melody on an instrument in the background, perhaps because they assumed she wasn’t listening or was absorbed in her own preoccupations, perhaps they couldn’t imagine the reason she excused herself was so she could quickly run to her study and jot down all her favorite words and idioms and ideas they discussed before they slipped from her mind. Sometimes the most erudite didn’t need to have all the nation’s resources at their fingertips—sometimes gleaning and taking what she liked and discarding the rest was enough.

Color oneself in a flower’s hues, let the swaying of one’s petals bely the venom in its roots. Oyun joined countless other well-bred girls whose blood wasn’t quite gilded enough to be royalty but whose parents were of good enough standing for their daughters to serve those who were. It was a coveted opportunity for those who imagined the nobility to have reason to look down upon the common folk—how grand to be in the company of royalty. And perhaps Oyun would have been starstruck at the thought as well, but what was the point of fawning if it was solely blood that determined stature? These crowned idols had nothing but fortune as their allies, and fortune ran out - Oyun had their favor, her wits and her ability to change; a less than noble birth allowed her that freedom, and freedom marked her apart. She was assigned to be the aide of the cousin or niece of the queen—she could barely remember now, but her name was Saran: a nice, but rather melodramatic girl who spun her dark locks round her fingers and dreamed rather than did. There was nothing to be said for the hapless, excepting that they could serve their use at the hands of another. She listened to Saran, penned her love letters and cooed over the girl’s decisions and indecision as if they were groundbreaking rather than grating, and waited until Saran simply opened the doors Oyun had been itching to unlock. Secrets and gossip and blueprints of those who ruled the kingdom - she created labyrinths of her own with those outlines and sketches, curried her own favor with nobles with what she’d learned and what they offered her for her own. There was prestige in beauty, but even greater in knowing how to use it. It wasn’t that she wanted power, or to become queen; she wanted exactly everything she deserved.

Then, Oyun found her ally in fortune, although lesser folk might have called it trouble. She and a guard were accompanying Saran to the northernmost parts of Shu Han—for what, she couldn’t remember either—but they were intercepted by Ravkan brutes who sought a Shu noble to take as a hostage, presumably Saran’s safety in exchange for pulling out Shu forces out of a Ravkan region, or something equally trite. The soldiers had them on their knees, in the dirt, as they sent a messenger to the Shu Han capital, fed them sparsely in the interim and taunted them often in hopes of breaking them. Initially it seemed best to keep quiet in the face of barbarians, to go the route of Saran and play dumb and not incite further stupidity, but as time went on and their fate remained uncertain with still no word from the capital, it was clear varied tactics were needed. “Write a new message,” she’d demanded, voice clear despite having not had water in twelve hours. “I’ll teach you how to be persuasive.” In the letter she’d listed every noble who had any sort of clout and their vices, from who they preferred to sleep with despite who their spouse was to what they liked to spend tax revenue on despite their own public declarations and promises. You’re not hitting them where it hurts - the queen’s cousin? They will mourn for a month and continue with their depravity. Not a day later they were back in the capital, and Oyun was praised for her ingenuity, for not only negotiating her own safety but the safety of her mistress. No sins were leaked, and she received a new appointment to make sure they would remain that way: diplomat to Ravka. That is, the carrier to the spark that would raze Ravka to the ground.

Women who carried an old-world, genteel elegance about them learn to hide their fangs and frays behind velvet words and a beauty to rival the willows and silks of the world, to smile as often as she seethes. She looks like a waking daydream, walks like rolling fog, speaks like wind chimes, and schemes like the Devil’s favorite. Her ambition is a selfish kind, unrelenting and unapologetic, but cleverly hidden until it isn’t. The world is teeming with dreamers, cowards who never dare to do, and she coos at them, strokes their hair and sings them to sleep, and takes what is hers while the lesser slumber. She is a wolf in swan’s feathers, gliding alongside the sheep until all that is left between her and calamity is a thin, laced veil.

CONNECTIONS

MAKSIM KAEV:  There’s nothing more delightful than knowing something so crucial about a celebrated man who's entrenched in ignorance. The good lieutenant who took to leadership like a falcon took to the sky, a man unquestionably Ravkan - what would people think if they knew he was Shu? That he was abandoned because he was disgraceful and his family only foresaw further embarrassment, that he was sent to Ravka to destroy them by misguiding them in his incompetence? Oyun still hasn’t decided when she’ll tell him or how, but she’s perfectly satisfied dangling a morsel in front of him and watching a man of such good standing snap at it like a feral animal - it’s her favorite kind of power.

TATIANA LANTSOV: She reminds Oyun too much of the mistress she used to serve, but her own brand of wrath is something the diplomat can commend - and use, as undignified as it was. She takes the lady-in-waiting to be narcissistic and predictable - whether or not she’s easy to maneuver, to coax into opening the doors that were previously locked to Oyun is entirely up to Oyun’s mood and whims. It would be all to easy to reach the Lantsovs through Tatiana and unearth that which has been buried - and history does love to repeat itself.

SERGEI VALKE: Like drew to like, and Oyun could spot a mask as easily as she could slip one on. There’s something about the man that seems off, and she has never doubted herself before, even as others accept him unequivocally. Listen closely, she tells herself. Sometimes his idioms and expressions were strange, sometimes he made the very same grammar mistakes she made when she was first learning the language, and she is not content to write off these idiosyncrasies. She will be there when the mask cracks, even if she must be the one to step on it with her heel.