VAMPIRE, anja lior

ANJA LIOR

nocturne in black and gold

RANK. Rank E
AGE. 1,248 years old
DOB. march 15
ETHNICITY. vampire
OCCUPATION. nightclub singer
RESIDENCE. the underground dracul castle

Anja was born a mortal human in the ninth century, Bosnia. She forgot her original name, when she first became a victim, enslaved as a blood cow of he reventual sire. He was an amateur, but he hypnotized her with his voice and with delicate, enchanting pains on her neck.

She was just a tailor's daughter, some poor Bosnian schmuck destined for a life of sewing, scullery, and popping out tots to the random twat her father approved of. The men swore in storms around her as she grew up, tongues full of insults. Challenges to manlihood. Ego-jabbing. People never said hello, they said 'What the fuck do you want?' in their colloquial tongue. It was an unfriendly world, and it rubbed off on her, and through her to give her an equally vicious, albeit more aristocratic, mouth. But the tailor's daughter, that wench, somehow attracted a vampire. He had found her cat, holding the squirming creature in his arms, when she first ushered him inside her home.

Her thick, dark hair was a medieval mess of curls. It didn't amuse him, who found her body so pleasurable. however, with every visit, her constitution became less vibrant as he used her and used her, the eagerness of her youth slowly deteriorating under his hollow touch.

She thought she was in love, or that was at least what she told herself as her mind ceaselessly drifted to wondering about him. Her stitches were frayed, her mind scattered in caustic circles that stole her from reality. All that mattered was him and his mouth on her neck and the way he shuffled through her thoughts as nonchalant as a deck of cards. He had hypnotized her, and so, she never spoke of him, she never considered the hour of his evening visits odd, nor did she ever think the ways he hurt her wrong. All she could think about was his well-being as she gave herself away to his hold.

Slowly, her life became scrambled. The teenager blossoming into a woman became quiet, almost like a drone. She could not remember, nor pay attention when people spoke to her, nor think of anything useful to say in conversation. Her parents were too busy to notice how she had lost her personality. They raised a garden of children, and she still managed her chores despite it all. Her mouth had turned to cotton, the bite of wit she always had lost as the nibbles blossomed around her neck. It lasted nearly ten years. She faded away, not expected to marry because she worked so wordlessly for her parents.

And then, one day, he became frustrated with it all. He was a weak one, really, and he hadn't exactly found any others to maintain him. (He was a coward too, and on top of that, he preferred her over finding others to support him.) But as she continued to give herself to him, the leech began to realize he had wrought his own undoing. She was over exploited, her cheeks deathly pale and sunken, her body flimsy, and her hair like a sheeps'. He was killing her, slowly but surely, a parasite that stupidly murdered its host, perhaps eventually to die with it.

He was inexperienced, and so, it was an experiment of his to let her drink his blood. She coughed and gagged on it the night he turned her.

And, oh, what a transformation in but a single night! She was nearly all herself again - nearly. Before she was, perhaps, an emaciated street-hound, but now, she was a doberman, collared in spikes, chained to the cache of food that was her master's wrist. They left the village together, hunting and laughing in the woods and along the roads. The Gothic merry-go-round lasted nearly 300 years (like deer and other such wild animals, they had stopped keeping track of time) until he was killed and the spell was broken.

She had never been attached, she realized, as the laughter shivered through her while she confronted his corpse. Free of the attraction of the Sire Bond, the world was lifted into a richer light. Blood tasted so MUCH better, as if his presence had muffled that sense. With her taste awakened, she began a brilliant life. She traveled, rising up and down the social strata of victims like Willy Wonka in his elevator. The creamy, buttery blood of elderly women. The iron of farmers. The sweetness of the gentlemen, and the bitterness of grandfathers. History was a carnival and she spun through it with laughter, free of time and that man!

Finally, the sixteenth century stormed into her life. She was in England at the time, employed as a maid for the household of whom we know today as Bloody Mary. Though she was originally after the Queen, she was swayed by the prince. She found him a glorious fellow, and the rare blood of a prince filled with all sorts of tastes absent in commoners made him a delicacy.

But what began as an appetizer turned into something that satisfied her each time she bit. He made her laugh. This one, he was quite interesting, and perhaps if she were not a monster, but her old human self, she would have genuinely loved him. But the seed grew convoluted, confused, as if it could not tell which way the roots ought to grow, and which way the stem ought to rise.

And so she enjoyed him, and she had her fun with him, and she lost her ambition with for the Queen, and that was all. However, the effects in him were far more dramatic as she consumed the heir apparent from the inside out.

It was he that persuaded her to make him a vampire. He that pressed her wrist to his mouth, and she watched, amused and curious until the unbearable pleasure of their bond forming made it impossible to keep her eyes open.

And like this, she came to rule over him with a new authority, the Sire Bond tied. He was a servant vampire. They spoke telepathically, stroking each other in word and musings while they were apart. She was quite taken with him still, and it was fun. She would be disheartened by his death as a girl for her dog. There was something in her heart for him, a pride, that was more needy than an attraction, but too selfish for love.

But then, not a hundred years into their affair, she was injured - just another innocent caught in the throws of some rebellion. He found her half dead, and it could have been the end for her. But he did not finish her off. No, her consciousness accompanied him as an ebbing spirit to the crypt where he stowed her. A friend aided in lacing her with healing magic and sealed her to sleep for a long time, hidden.

He left her for a long time.

When she awoke, it was 1973, and he was a distant memory. She could not tell if he was dead or alive because it had been so long since they had shared their veins. She resumed her lifestyle, wordlessly, like a tranquilized panther waking up and retreating skittishly into the foliage. Finally, she came to New York as an experienced and respected Ordo Dracul from the continent, and took up residency as a Chancellor.

played by circuit