The Book of Knots - Jags

marble floors, and if one follows those channels they come to the very
heart of her domain.
At the center is a vast, white-water whirlpool—a thundering vortex that
makes the sound of wailing. The whirlpool can be viewed from higharched
glass doors and several verandas that look down into its raging
waters. Mists rise up into the sky, a vast dull-white cloud.
Operations
She is the architect of some of the most aggressively sadistic elements
of the Army of No. These were not all her ideas; she collected them
from other imaginative and inventive Caretakers. The thought of what
she’s doing pains her greatly, but given what humankind has done to her
there’s really no other choice.
She, unlike many of the other caretakers, also pursues operations
concerning specific humans. She has her agents (Waifs, amongst others)
searching the higher chessboards looking for people of interest. Her
“charity work” involves rewarding the virtuous and punishing the
deserving—although she has found (to her infinite dismay) that if she
watches long enough almost everyone is deserving.
Dramas
The Clear Widow is a creature of her dramas – her life is all drama and
she revels in it. Her domain is a vast graveyard of her victims: thousands
(tens of thousands?) murdered by her or driven to suicide (or worse).
She opens the game by giving of herself—helping some poor soul at
great cost to her own well being (after all, she is in mourning – even
getting out of bed in the morning is an impossible feat). The game
continues as she works the subject further and further into her debt, all
the while acting as a wise and kind benefactor.
She adopts orphans. She befriends the bereft. She gives succor to the
miserable and a helping hand to the humbled. She gives and gives and
gives (usually in ways carefully crafted to ensure that the subject will
still need more). And what she asks in return is friendship: “Come and
sit with me and let a sad, sad woman tell you her tale. Let me reminisce
about my dead lover. Visit me—for in my misery, the ones I had truly
thought were my friends have abandoned me.”
And over time, the demands become greater and greater, always in
accordance with what she has given. Soon, the subject is in her orbit and
in her control. To leave—to disengage—is to draw her wrath, and so she
takes and takes, requiring ever more to fill her emptiness.
And then one day, her new friend has nothing more to give and she finds
an urn, or a cabinet, or a plot of land for him, and she has one last thing:
another story; another wound. Another tale of woe to spin for the next
guest who comes to her domain.
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Book of Knots - The Caretakers