Ante-What happened before...
She
should not have been born. Her mother was long a prisoner in the dank
dungeons of Romilly. Imprisoned because she was different. Imprisoned because
she held power. Called a "witch" in the harshest sense of the word,
she was misunderstood and clapped in irons in the lowest cell beneath the
castle. Iron-her weakness. But she was beautiful, and no matter how the
years passed, her beauty remained. Sleek and seductive was she, though held fast
by the chains around her wrists and ankles.
And finally, finally...she got what she wanted. A particularly twisted guard by
the name of Gunther decided he would give this witch what she wanted--or take
what he wanted. Held fast to the wall, with no way of escape and her cries
muffled by the wet stone around her, he and his subordinates viciously raped her
again and again, night after night. Each night when they would leave her,
laughing maliciously and whispering of tomorrow's atrocities, she would lift her
head, and her bright blue eyes would flash... a smile would form and she would
begin her chanting. So soft, so alluring, filling the small cell to overwhelming
proportions.
Two weeks this went on, before Gunther and his crew were discovered mid-act.
They were warned, assigned elsewhere, and nothing more, for she was a
hated prisoner. But, during those two weeks, a seed had been planted in
the sorceress' womb. A seed she nurtured through dark spells and
suffocating incantations as the months went by. Dark was the cell, none noticed
her stomach growing or the growing stench of evil pervading her cell.
Until one morning, as a guard approached with her usual breakfast of dry bread,
cheese and water, an ear-splitting scream was heard. He rushed to her cell and
swung open the door- she was sitting with her back against the moist wall, knees
bent and spread apart as she gave birth. Dropping the tray of food, he left the
door open and rushed to find his superior.
Panting, the guard reached his superior's side, who happened to be showing the
Duke, Alejandro Declan,around the dungeon-the public parts that is. All three
rushed down to the sorceress' cell, and during the brief absence of the guard,
the girl child had been born and lay in a pool of blood and body fluids between
the sorceress' legs. A smile was on her mother's lips, and she chanted like a
mad woman, though the life ebbed from her. She would pass on her dark legacy,
this was what the fates demanded. A life taken for a life born. The Duke
drew his dagger and cut the lifeline between mother and child, and the sorceress
drew her last breath, still the incantations slipping from thin lips. Instantly,
the facade of beauty and youthfulness was drawn away, and the older woman
shriveled within her scant clothing, and lay dead in the midst of her own blood.
The guard and superior drew their swords, wishing to kill the offspring of the
witch, but the Duke refused to allow it, he did not think the beautiful newborn
should pay for the sins of her mother. She was only a baby, an innocent
baby...so he thought. Without mother or father, the Duke brought the baby to his
wife, and told her the story, and they agreed wholeheartedly to raise the child
as their own. His wife had recently lost a child during pregnancy, and this
lovely child seemed to fill the void that had left. She was a gorgeous
child, a head full of black hair, with the brightest blue eyes ever
seen..haunting even. She smiled readily, and was an easy baby. They took
her as their own, naming her Arabella Declan.
But easy babies often grow up to be difficult children, and such was the case of
Arabella. She seemed to possess very interesting gifts, and often chose to
remain alone in her room or in the garden, speaking to herself so it seemed.
The Duke and Duchess had grown to love her, and all but forgot her birth
mother, until she began to exhibit signs of a magical nature. It was more
accepted by this time, though they tried to hide it from the villagers, thinking
they would harm the child. But as she grew older and began to roam the
forests and meet other village children, the stories of her grew. When she
was a teenager, her parents called for a wizard from another realm to be her
tutor. A mistake.. for he found out her secret and was found torn to
shreds in the rose garden before he could report his findings to her parents.
And she disappeared, she could not be found anywhere. It was days after
her disappearance that a guard found her curled up asleep in the very spot of
her birth, in that deep, dank cell far below the surface of Romilly.
That was too much for the good Duke and Duchess, and so the teenaged Arabella
was shipped off to another realm for schooling. Away from such prejudice,
she actually did well in school, and was the brightest pupil in her small class,
winning her teachers over with her wit and intellect. She had learned the
usefulness of hiding her evil side, and did it quite effectively. It was during
her last year of schooling that she met Malachy, and became his apprentice. He
sensed what she had within her, the legacy of her mother, and assisted her in
developing into the woman her mother had wished her to be. He was powerful in
his own right, and more powerful than she. Sometimes their relationship seemed
more of a master and slave than a teacher and apprentice, and other times it was
more of a father and daughter relationship. He filled her mind with such twisted
philosophies, warping her fragile emotions and spirit into someone that would be
pleasing not only to him, but to her mother--whom he had known.
She took on the penchant of wearing red clothing and painting her lips bright
scarlet, and earned the nickname "Scarlett", which suited her. She
still thought the Duke and Duchess Declan her real mother and father, though she
had many conflicting thoughts and urges within her. Perhaps subconsciously she
knew there was more to her story than a noble born child, but she kept that
hidden, thought still searching for the truth. She knew that Malachy held the
truth, but he would only give her tidbits of information, in riddles mostly.
He wanted to keep her within his grasp until she was fully trained.
And so she is now in her twenties, and still she is devoted to Malochy. He has
opened her mind to the madness and darkness that dwells within, and she has
embraced it completely.
(4/6/02) Brought to the holy ground by Malochy, where she was given as a sacrifice to the Raven Fae herself. The voices she had heard as a child and into her teen years echoed around her as she knelt naked on the rough hewn stone steps and Malochy purged her body of its humanity through various means, some more cruel than others. The pain she had enjoyed as a half human had limits, but no limits were taken this evening. She would be reborn as a creature that needed no limits, a creature that could withstand pain as well as inflict it in greater severity now.
She was kept within an inch of death, her skin torn to shreds as she lay in a pool of her own blood, much like her mother. The Raven Fae appeared before the dying Scarlett and Malochy, and knelt, placing her cold hand on her forehead. She leaned down and pressed her own lips to Scarlett's tinted lips and breathed life into her again. If life is what it should be called. The Fae's breath traveled through Scarlett's body and began to rebuild the blood, this time even more magic than before flowed through her veins. Now a daughter of the Raven, she would embrace the fae, still dripping of her human blood. The Raven Fae whispered in her ear as she held her close, telling her the secrets of her new existence. And so the Raven Fae was born from a bastard human. Malochy laughed, and Scarlett could almost feel and see her mother's smile of pride.
A strange turn of circumstances, as Scarlett claimed a run down Hall as her own and began to infuse herself into and into the organization she wanted to begin--her blood brother showed up. Alakhai...whom was her brother on her father's side, revealed to her by various means. This man whom had forced himself on the witch that was her mother was a demon of ill repute. So she had not been fully human all along. This explained a lot of her gifts and taste for pain and suffering. And so with Alak, the clan Diaboli de Novo was born, and more Diaboli brethren had begun to emerge from the plague of humanity and mortality, given a gift of immortal bliss as a new devil.
Her own changes began to manifest themself, though most were so subtle they would not be noticed. When the need arose, her teeth would elongate and the tips would slightly sharpen. A tiny barb was on the tip of her tongue, barely visible...unless one was feeling its sting. She had a Diaboli tattoo that formed on her lower back, in the very center; it was of an upside down cross ringed with scarlet flowers that dripped faintly of blood. Underneath in black writing was "Obitus Primus." (Death is but the beginning.) Her body, as well, if the need arose, would show the scars and wounds made upon it by Malochy.