The one who is always smiling
She can keep smiling long past the point where she has anything left, and look after everyone else in the room while she does it. It is the gentlest thing about her and the thing her companions worry about most.
Great Saintess of the Holy See · Chief Inspector of the Order of the White Veil
Claria Luminaria
Claria Célestine Luminaria
“Here — take my hand and count with me. One. Two. Good. Leave the rest to me; all you have to do is keep breathing.”
- The Holy State
- Great Saintess
- Order of the White Veil
- Called
- Claria. Public documents usually drop the middle name.
- People / Age
- Human / 19
- Birthday
- 12 April, 968 ST
- Affiliation
- The Holy State — Holy See — Order of the White Veil
- Office
- Great Saintess, Chief Inspector of the White Veil
- First appears
- Chapter 1 — The joint border relief effort
- Role
- Primary healing / purification / vitality management
- Fond of
- Serialised romance novels, very weak calming herbal tea, sheets fresh off the line
- Not good at
- Resting. She starts feeling guilty the moment she sits down.
Spoiler-free
She runs the See’s inspection work, which means most of her year is spent on the road: border relief this month, checking the seals on a mountain hospital’s medicine cabinet the next. People relax the moment they see the white veil at a distance. She knows this perfectly well, and she is very good at using it.
But walk into an actual emergency and you meet a different Claria — sleeves pushed up, jewellery off, triaging while turning every bystander in reach into a pair of hands. At those moments the courtesy disappears entirely and only the shortest instructions are left.
Her smile comes in several versions. The public one is for everybody. Only in private does it reach her eyes first.
How she got here
She was taken in by the Order of the White Veil as a small child and grew up inside the See.
The Order gave her two things: real skill, learned in border hospitals, and a carefully constructed image as a visible miracle. She did not accept that arrangement passively — she went and learned etiquette, and learned politics, because she worked out early that a saint’s reputation converts into things you can hold: medicine, budgets, and one border hospital after another that could not otherwise have been built.
She reads the mortality and refused-admission records every day, and pays particular attention to the cases written up as “arrived too late”. She knows what that phrase usually has underneath it — poverty, a blocked road, or an identity check.
In 987 ST, purification began failing in several regions at once. She took charge of the border relief as Chief Inspector, and there invited a stranger of unknown origin to travel with her.
Traits
Hands faster than prayer
She does not dismiss prayer — she simply knows to put the water on first. Real healing in her hands is a very plain thing: matching someone’s breathing, fine sutures, the warmth coming back into a wound a little at a time.
The bookshelf she will not admit to
She reads serialised romance novels, and she reads them seriously. When one botches its first aid, she fills the margin with unsparing corrections and finishes with “do not attempt this”.
Timeline
- 968 ST Born
- 971 ST Taken in by the Order of the White Veil
- 979 ST First deployment with an inspection party — her first real disaster site
- 982 ST Holds thirty-seven people alive alone after a mine collapse; the word “miracle” starts to spread
- 984 ST Becomes Great Saintess
- 985 ST Pushes through independent budgets for border hospitals; her first open clash with the Curia
- 986 ST Becomes Chief Inspector, and begins re-auditing local hospitals one by one
- 987 ST Leads the joint border relief effort, and meets the Stranger
Ties
- The Stranger (you)
- An investigative partner outside the See’s control, and one of the very few people who asks her “and what about you?”
- Selene
- A symbol of faith meeting an actual higher being. Claria is fascinated, and also a little angry.
- Evelina
- They fight over research ethics, and together they can take a miracle apart into medicine anyone can use.
- Cecilia
- A long-standing partner in relief work and escorts. Both are expected to always look dependable, which is why each can tell the moment the other is not.
- Byas III
- The Pope who promoted her and protected her. She respects him, and cannot agree with him about a great many things.
Voice
- First meeting
“Here — take my hand and count with me. One. Two. Good. Leave the rest to me; all you have to do is keep breathing.”
- Introducing herself
“Claria, Order of the White Veil. The title is long — you don’t have to remember it. Remembering that I can treat wounds is enough.”
- Directing a site
“Can you bandage? It’s fine if not. Hold the lamp for me, and keep your shadow off the wound — good. Just like that.”
- Small talk
“Wait, don’t turn the page yet. The author has sent a man with an arrow in him to take a hot bath… I have to write ‘do not attempt this’ in the margin.”
- Setting out
“Supplies counted, bandages sufficient. …Right. Let’s move. Nobody gets left behind today.”
- Ultimate
“It isn’t time yet — give me your hand. I’m bringing you back right now!”
- An ally falls
“No. Did you hear me — no! You promised we were going back together, so keep your promise!”
- Receiving a gift
“For me? Thank you… ah, wait. Let me wash my hands first.”
- Late at night
“Everyone came through today. …Mm, I know I should sleep. One more file. Just one.”
Drawn from the KTM2 WorldDict. Only the public layer of each entry is published here.