Larissa

"Larissa" (also called the "little book" and "the Jesuitess") was a member of House Dvora who joined the Order of the Weal and became Chatelaine Thessalia's mnemonic. After the babel attack, Larissa avenged Thessalia in the 17th century Earth, which brought her into alliances with Aphra Behn and, later, Faction Paradox.

Biography

She came into the world as part of House Dvora; after the fall of the Imperator, she and her cousin were sent to live in House Ixion, where the housekeeper scared her. (PROSE: Newtons Sleep) Years later, she joined the Order of the Weal and was recruited to be Thessalia mnemonic. The housekeeper called her "my little book". When the babel attacked the housekeeper on the frontier in time, it left the little book alive, hoping she would follow it to Earth so it would be able to use her as an exit route after carrying out its plan. (PROSE: Newtons Sleep, The Book of the War) Indeed, the little book mercy-killed the housekeeper and immediately started plotting to defeat the babel. She was picked up by posthuman scavengers and bought a time-aware bio-suit that allowed her to travel through time.

After sensing ripples in time, Larissa used the suit to go to 17th century England, where she appeared out of thin air and killed everyone in her way before being subdued by physical effort and Faction Paradox's anti-Homeworlder loa, which prevented her from speaking any recognisable language. Since this was during an anti-Catholic craze, she was believed to have been sent by the Pope to assassinate the King. In this state, she was sold to Corinthian Tom, who presented her from the House of the Infernal in 1678 as "the Jesuitess".

Hearing that Faction Paradox was interested in the Jesuitess, Doctor Bendo sent Aphra Behn to preemptively buy her from Corinthian Tom. However, Tom would only sell the Jesuitess' sleek black skinsuit, which Aphra decided to keep for herself. When Faction Paradox infiltrated the House and restored the Jesuitess' power of speech while trying to kidnap her, an angry anti-Catholic mob attacked the building; in the chaos, the Jesuitess escaped and began to search for her skinsuit. When Ratcatchers arrived to quiet the mob, Cousin Greenaway pretended to be the Jesuitess so she'd be brought into Bendo's base of operations, where she overpowered the guards with her whip and stole the egg.

At Aphra Behn's house, the Jesuitess arrived to reclaim her skinsuit; however, Mother Sphinx and Doctor Bendo had traced her there, and Bendo shot the Jesuitess in the abdomen. Wounded, the Jesuitess erased him from time with the continuity needle and fled down Aphra's timeline, which her suit read upon tasting Aphra's blood; in the process, she regenerates into a new form.

A nymph appeared in a house near young Aphra Behn's house. Eff thought she was a nymph and pledged herself to her, naming her Larissa. Larissa travelled through Aphra's life, looking for moments where she interacted with temporal anomalies. This led her to appear in the Salomon House to ungag Aphra and knock one of the Servicemen unconscious; Larissa and Aphra confronted Nick Plainsong, but, before killing him, Larissa realised that, though he was a temporal anomaly, he was not her target.

Many years later, Larissa guided Aphra through London to a church where Nick Plainsong was showing Jeova Unus Sanctus was showing Nate Silver the Faction Paradox shrine. Identifying the babel within Jeova, Larissa attacked him, and the babel entered her. Furious, Aphra attacked Jeova with the continuity needle, causing the ripples in time that Larissa originally followed; she also destroyed Larissa's skinsuit to stop the babel from escaping. Finally, Greenaway and Erasmus together destroyed the babel and saved Larissa.

Now without a plan to leave Earth, Larissa allied with the Faction. (PROSE: Newtons Sleep)