The Summer Schoolmistress
"The space, halfway between a salon and a classroom, is lit to painful brilliance. The walls are hung with images of the sun. A chalkboard lurks in a corner, surrounded by piles of books. Creatures scamper and frolic at your feet – Whitsun hatchlings of all species and stripes fill the room. The Summer Schoolmistress smooths her skirts, sitting straight in a high-backed chair. When she is seated, you no longer need to crane quite so high to meet her eye."[1]
The Summer Schoolmistress is a very tall lady with pitch-black eyes living in the Summer Nursery a sprawling mansion hidden deep within the Prickfinger Wastes. She's known to take care for and raise Whitsun creatues. There have also been rumors of couriers delivering supplies as well as books of poetry to her manor.
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The Summer Nursery
"A mansion sprawls here, abutting stalagmites at each extremity, as if the house has been crammed into a clearing too small to contain it. A fierce excess of light spills from its myriad windows, casting long-toothed shadows over the Wastes."[1]
The Summer Nursery is a sprawling manor of several wing and my rooms. Important among those are The Candlelit Conservatory where most of the Whitsun creatures gather to play and frolick, The Botanical Laboratory where among bubbling flasks London's poetry is distilled in bowls of solvent and the Schoolmistress runs her experiments and The Twisted Greenhouse a bleak glass greenhouse filled with plants that sadly miss the light of the sun since the only thing outside the window is the brooding darkness of Prickfinger Wastes.
The first room most visitors of the Summer Schoolmistress usually encounter however is The Schoolmistress' Parlour a brightly lit room that is a cross between a salon and a classroom. Aside from teaching tools the walls are decorated with paintings of the sun and there are Whitsun creatures milling around.[2]
The Daughter of the Tree
""I was not born in the usual way. It was a subtractive process: all acts of consumption have their byproducts. Accidents. Waste. I am the remnant of one such consumption.""[1]
The Summer Schoolmistress is a very complicated being. She cam to be in what the academics of London would call a "Low Birth" one of many shameful acts committed by her so-called father the Bazaar sucking all the memories of the Sun from her "mother" - the oldest tree in London when it fell and the process turned the tree into what she is now. Unsurprisingly, she views her "father" with much disdain, calling it a parasite and blaming it's pride for the downfall of the Four cities that preceded London.[3]
Because of her nature she has a talent for botany and for a long time she had a deal with London's Department of Parks and Game where she helped them grow trees in London's parks and alleys in exchange for them supplying her with what she needs via couriers.[4] Sadly, acting on orders from an unknown entity(that seems to have the Bazaar's assent) - Licentiates have been sent to murder her couriers in great numbers and she now has to venture out of her mansion to take care of her supplies, having to employ outsiders to take care of her Nursery while she's gone.[5]
Currently she's spending her time educating and taking care of a host of Whitsun creatures sincerely believing that they're not being taken care of and they don't deserve to blamed or abandoned simply because of the failings of their creator (implied to be the Bazaar).[6]
One curious aspect of her biology is that she doesn't seem to feel many emotions by herself and it is the main reason for her laboratory where she distills London's poetry books into colorful liquids that she drinks (through her fingers in a manner similar to a tree drinking through it's roots) to experience the emotions evoked by the poems.[7]
Historical and Cultural Inspirations
It is notable that The Summer Schoolmistress has many similarities with the greek mythological beings - the dryads. Being a woman born/connected to a tree and exhibiting many tree-like characteristics. Sadly she also shares the dryad's tendencies to suffer due to misfortunes caused by other (often more powerful) beings. Fortunately The Summer Schoolmistress doesn't seem to be willing to let misfortunes dictate her life and it is likely her actions and presence will keep influencing the Fallen London in the future.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 The Summer Nursery, Fallen London
- ↑ The Summer Nursery, Fallen London The space, halfway between a salon and a classroom, is lit to painful brilliance. The walls are hung with images of the sun. A chalkboard lurks in a corner, surrounded by piles of books. Creatures scamper and frolic at your feet
- ↑ The Summer Nursery, Fallen London ""There are organisms that flourish in dark places, and human cities are not among them. But pride's blinkers are persistent. Four catastrophes in, and not a one has seen it yet – the Bazaar is a saprotroph, and drains his cities dry.""
- ↑ The Summer Nursery, Fallen London "Are you aware of the Department of Parks and Game? I have an arrangement with them." She gestures to the back wall, in the direction of her shadowed greenhouse. "I have a certain facility for botany. In exchange for helping my cousins to grow in your city, they provide me with supplies, and discourage visitors from London."
- ↑ The Business of a Licentiate, Fallen London A Licentiate has Bazaar permits for killing: that is the nature of the task. To put a name on the list must, presumably, require the Masters' authority, or at the very least permission from one of their affiliates. (...)'Whatever transpires here, it has the assent of the Bazaar itself.
- ↑ The Summer Nursery, Fallen London ""They deserve care. And they were not receiving it. Not properly, in your city, beneath his spires." (...) "The Bazaar's failings are his own, and should not be foisted upon the young.""
- ↑ The Summer Nursery, Fallen London Just as quickly as came, the tenderness drains from her face. She rolls her shoulders in discomfort. "Distillate of gratitude. Its effects are ever so brief. Forgive me – I shall be crabby for hours."
