Alyssum or Alisons (Lobularia maritima syn. Alyssum maritimum)
House Alyssum :: With Eyes Averted
Alyssum is one of the most difficult to reconcile Houses in The Court of Night-Blooming Flowers. Modesty? With Eyes Averted? How do these co-exist in a world that places such high value on Love As Thou Will?
If you follow Imriel’s line of thinking, Alyssum lies in the same area as Valerian only instead of physical discomfort, Alyssum provides shame to its patrons.
I’d like to offer another way of looking at it, taken from the ideas of modesty and the characteristics of the plant as well as it’s meaning and the lore of Terre d’Ange.
Modesty isn’t an inherently negative thing, it is often based in the desire to keep things away from people that will not appreciate them as they deserve. In this way, Alyssum is the same; you go to Alyssum for what is kept hidden from the eyes of the undeserving.
House Alyssum is approached via a drive lined with cypress trees; cypress trees are revered in many traditions for their upright growth and their resistance to fire. What shame can survive a fire? Rather than shame, a knowledge of one’s own value is what survives, particularly if we are to assume that the Adepts of Alyssum are consenting in their trysts.
The Alyssum plant itself is incredibly hardy, surviving drought and flood when other perennial plants do not. This is not a plant that symbolizes weakness or susceptibility to outside influence.
An Adept that displays the virtues of House Alyssum is not an Adept that is weak as many assume modesty to imply. The Adept Imriel sees isn’t shamed by her desires or his, she isn’t uncertain. To me, this is a House of hidden strength, a House of Adepts that, though they may blush to speak what they wish, know what they desire. They know themselves in a way we all can aspire to.