Christabel

TRIGGER WARNING- GORE/VIOLENCE

- from the Clan of Severed Lightning -


Born on Christmas Day

CRISTABEL Undead Princess of The San'layn

B I O G R A P H Y Cristabel didn’t want to follow the footsteps of her parents, but the Clan of Severed Lightning was vast and respected across much of Sornieth. Her parents, each in their own right, were famed in verse and legend. But mostly in campfire tales to scare young children into behaving themselves, not wandering off the beaten path, lest they be stolen and turned into monsters. She was born on Christmas Day, and as such the three-egg nest of perfect Christmas colours were heralded as a sign of good fortune. But Crista never thought of herself as lucky, saw her colours as what they were- blood and bone and ice, marks of her heritage, the war-torn line of her ancestors. Not long after her coming of age, her father the assassin sent his latest clutch out to survive a month alone in the beastclan-ravaged Fortress of Ends. If they survived that, he assured them, then Sorneith would hold nothing strong enough to stand against them, and they could walk the world without fear. But Crista did not survive, and the dragon which walked away from the Southern Icefields was not the same as the one who had entered it. She could indeed now walk the world without fear of death, because she’d passed over that bridge long ago. It was living, that posed a challenge- but she was determined to fake it until she could make it. Today, Crista is an entertainer with the Fete of the Fates, a travelling Carnival, with its home in Oakheart. She performs illusions and magic tricks to delight young and old, from conjuring to illusion, lion taming to sword swallowing, though she says she's given that up. Too close to the bone.

H I S T O R Y Cristabel was a child of an assassin, a stone-cold killer, and her mother an undead blood queen, advisor to Lady Vash'jir of the Clan of Severed Lightning. Her childhood was one of training, learning, preparation for whatever traits she might display over the course of her youth, to determine her place in the clan or elsewhere once she reached adulthood. Despite her father’s best efforts though, she never showed propensity for violence. Cristabel was never quick to anger, never a fighter, preferred to stand back and let her siblings the Wildclaws spar on the practice grounds. She was lithe, agile, could dodge and weave and roll with the punches so she was like a chill wind, her proud mother said, always wherever the enemy wasn’t. But she’d never wet her blade in another’s blood. she was the most hesitant to leave the fireside, when their father sent them away on their last challenge; survival. The wild claw twins raced off, jostling and roaring defiance at the distant horizon, but she dragged her feet, uncertain, a leaden feeling in her heart. It was alright for them- their natures begged for bloodshed, and she could hear them for the first few nights, off in the distance, baying like hounds at the delight of a chase, a kill. She stared at the stones around her makeshift fire, wishing that they were fish- it was alright for the meat-eaters, there was no water to be found in a place this cold. No food she could eat without falling perilously ill. But it was not in her nature to give in and wait for death to come, so when her fire died down to smoking debris and the sky lightened enough again to see by, she picked herself up and started her long walk again.

After a few days half-starved, wandering the howling frozen wasteland, when she came upon a pack of Wintermane Bowmen, hunting in the snow plains. She tracked them back to their camp, saw the laden supply-carts, and hatched a plan. When the fighters left, it was only women and children and the infirm left behind the guard, and it was in the dead of night that she struck. She crept on muffled paws through the sleeping tents, stole inside the largest and uncovered the hoard. Fish! Meat, seeds, hides and treasure too, but the frozen dried fish hanging from the walls seemed in that moment to her, like the greatest of bounties imaginable. She could not contain herself, so deeply did the hunger gnaw at her bones, and she lost all self-control, falling upon the food stores like a desperate animal, for that is what she was. She tore at the fish with teeth and claws, not caring about the dirt that caked them as she dropped some in her haste; she gathered up as much as she could carry, more, and turned to leave- only to see a young Wintermane juvenile, hands shaking as they held a spear too large for him, glaring at her in an unspoken threat. She was high on the first food she’d had in days, reckless with desperation, and she leapt at the centaur foal, claws and teeth outstretched. They grappled; scratching, kicking and biting- they rolled in the dirt, flinging gravel into each other’s faces and clawing at eyes, snapping at necks. Crista gained the upper hand quickly, much stronger and larger than the foal and with more desperation than he- she had both hands around the youngster’s neck and was holding firm while the centaur’s struggles grew weaker and weaker, before she woke up to herself. Realised what she was doing. Killing a sentient creature, over a brace of fish. She was mortified, dumbstruck by her own actions- she was becoming her father’s daughter after all, even though she’d sworn she would never follow that path- she forcibly released the foal, making her fingers release against her will- and the centaur struggled free, but then she felt a sudden white-hot sting, lance across her throat. She looked down in horror to see her own blood gushing out of her throat from a deep, wide cut- the knife still held in the Wintermane’s shaking fingers. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, but her mouth opened and shut as she mouthed words that had no voice, watched helplessly as he dropped the knife and ran for help, braying loudly to draw the rest of the clan- Crista crumbled to the ground, all her energy bled out into the muddied snow, blackness closing around her as she slipped into the abyss.

It came as a shock then, when Crista woke up, two weeks later. She was in a tent, the chill of the Southern Icefields in the air all round her, but the colours of her sheets and the colours of the tent itself were not beast clan, but Clan of Severed Lightning. A very familiar face peered over her with marginal concern, and nodded curtly. “You’re back from the dead, then. Wasn’t sure you’d make it for awhile. But I had to be sure.”
“You- you-“ Crista’s voice felt scratchy, she coughed the words- “What have you-“
“Oh, it was all your doing.” Her wildclaw mother smiled, her fangs glinting in the firelight; “I knew you had the makings of a San’layn queen. Not that you’d ever admit it.
“But- why am I not dead?”
“Oh, you are. But you’re also not alive, either. I didn’t resurrect you or bind your undead flesh to my will, you did the magic yourself. Welcome to the ranks of San’layn, my child.”
“I’ll never be one of those- vampires, those heartless- blood-magic slavers!”
“You are, whether you like it or not.”

“No!” Crista stood, frills flared in fury. “You can’t make me be like you! I’m not a killer, and I never will be!” A stinging sensation made her reach for her throat- there were fresh bandages there, slick with red. She clawed at it, but her mother stopped her-
“Don’t look. Won’t do any good. It’s laid open, but the bleeding will stop soon. You’ll heal differently now.”
Crista felt the gash, dully realised as her fingers probed it beneath the muslin that it would most certainly have killed her. Had, killed her.
“What do you mean- differently?”
 The Wildclaws reached up and tugged, pulling all her billowing robes away at once, along with her gauntlet- Crista took a deep breath of shock, she’d never seen her mother without her robes- and then let it out all at once in a shriek as she scrambled backwards away from the Wildclaw, eyes wide. What she saw, was less a dragon, than a skeleton, with some strips of flesh still attached in places like fresh carcass- muscles flexed, tendons pumped, fingers moved- like a puppet on a string.
“Our blessing and our curse, my daughter. It doesn’t matter what’s taken away. We still fight on.”
“You mean I’m- like that?!” Crista’s hand hovered over her neck bandages- then reached out to almost, but not quite, touch her mother’s skeletal, monstrous hand.
“Yes. Be sure you never show anyone, they won’t understand. They think necromancy is an evil art.”
“It- it is.” Crista tried to shake the feeling that she wanted to be sick, or cry, or hug her mother, but none of these would be acceptable behaviour in her mother’s eyes, so she was stuck with sitting on the bed, frozen to the spot.
“Try not to think about it, I don’t.” Her mother quietly sheathed the exposed bone and sinew hand in its gauntlet, and replaced her billowing robes once again, covering the gaping wounds and all of a sudden, was her usual cool-mannered mother once more. “You can’t go back, of course. You’ll have to move on. People can’t know that you died, can’t know that my bloodline produces children which are-“
“Immortal?” Crista supplied, but the word had lost all of its shine, as she wrapped the bandages back around her throat with shaking fingers.
“Ha, I suppose you could say that. Not much of a boon, though, when you look at it from this angle. I’m not even sure we *can* be killed, excepting rituals and spells to remove curses. It doesn’t matter how many hits you take, how much is torn from you, you will still move, still fight, still feel every pang of pain.” Lanathel replaced her gauntlet over the skeletal hand, flexed it demonstrating; “Through magic were we made, through magic can we be undone. But aside from that, we must follow the calling of our creation, becoming the San'layn and serving our masters in war and sacrifice-“
“NO.” Crista had found her voice at last. She stood from the bed, finding it hard on legs that were aflame, but did so anyway. “I won’t. I’m never going to take a life. You can’t make me, and I won’t do it no matter what horrible godless spells you cast on me. I should have died, mother. You should have *let* me die, not doomed me to this- this eternity of suffering! I’m not just a weapon to be wielded by whomsoever pays!”
She flung down her cloak, threw over the table of healing supplies in a rage. Her mother stood back impassive, unimpressed by this display of emotion.
“You won’t make me your puppet, or your protoge,” Swore Cristabel fiercely, “And if that means I never see you or the Clan again, then so be it. Consider me dead to you,” She swallowed against the lump in her throat, fighting back tears- “Tell them all I’m dead. Especially Father, I don’t care if I’ve let him down- tell him I’m dead. Because that’s the truth, isn’t it? That’s what I’m always going to be. But at least I *won’t* be a *killer*.”
“You even take after me in eloquence, but always the wolf of your father in your tenacity.” Her mother smiled briefly, putting a paw on both of Crista’s shoulders and kissing her head lightly, which the Coatl tolerated through she trembled in anger and fear and sorrow. She knew it was goodbye. 
“I hope you enjoy your second life, daughter of mine. I will see you again- in this world or the next.”

Crista walked and wept, until the days turned to night, the snow melted and gave way to fresh grass. She took menial jobs, earned coin enough to feed herself- she never seemed to be able to eat her fill. It seemed permanent, and caused her much sorrow. She bought more clothes, after a time’s indentured service with a whaling ship, and joined a travelling circus. It is this which led her to Oakheart, where the circus is lingering for an unusually long spell, feeling no strong inclination to leave, as happened to many which wandered into the Heart Oak’s warm shadow.
She makes a good living with magic tricks, juggling, acrobatics and the like. Delights hatchlings with juggling or pulling coins from ears, rabbits from under her hood, you name it. But she never takes off the billowing robes, which have become a part of the identity she carved out for herself, so she forgets they are even there for a reason. But, Crista remains cautious, ever watchful- she steers clear of any necromancers, death-dealers or mediums in the clan or passing through, because they can see her for what she is; the reflection in any mirror, the guise fallen away, the half-life undead monster all that remains. She doesn’t sleep; can’t, for rest is one of the main things denied to the unquiet dead. That gives her an awful lot of time on her hands, which she spends reading. She hopes to find a cure for her undeath, a cure for all those her mother and her kindred have enslaved. But she keeps very secretive, makes sure her research is never discovered, so no questions are ever asked about her vested interest. No one must ever suspect the truth.