( CHARACTER ★ INFORMATION )
NAME & AGE: Lauralae / Unknown
OCCUPATION: Witch
DETAILED HISTORY:
Lauralae was born in the realm of the Aellyn, her mother and father a secondary family that, while not having the greatest of power, had a settled and confident place in society that left her raised to have her magic encouraged; the hopes of her mother laid on her shoulders with the idea that she would be strong enough, smart enough, to prove herself. Eventually, this would mean she would have a choice of a match that would please her, but the idea never really interested her: she would rather spend the rest of her life reading and learning, ignoring any notion of picking from any lineup that might be put in front of her.
Her childhood was normal, by the terms of her people, with little remarkable about her; she had the same strength that was expected from her kind and she was raised to believe in it and, in turn, herself, the power that she would come to learn to use and bend to her will. Her mother began teaching her the ways of womanhood and how to behave, as well as leading her into the heavily guarded secrets of the magic they were all blessed with, as her father crafted her to be intelligent and wise. It was not a life that she enjoyed, however; Lauralae, while she enjoyed her books and her learning, craved something more than her lonely existence.
There was a passion inside of her; she wanted more than what her parents could offer, even with all their position and power. For all that she had been raised to know she would have power and security it was never enough - she wanted more, like an inbuilt craving, a hunger inside of her that was suffocating and dangerous. She recognised it as such, of course, but kept it to her own thoughts. Why waste time telling people that she wanted more power when power was strength here?
She discovered the deep libraries, lost down in floors behind locked doors, behind large steel and guards that would slit her throat faster than they'd allow her to delve into the tomes before her. The books she sought were those most feared by the rest of her clan, dark magicks that were whispered about to naughty children, to prisoners behind bars, trickery and evil that only the most desperate or villainous turn to. It was not a desperation for power that drove Lauralae, however; it was a craving for the information, for understanding, appreciation of a dark art that no one else dared to touch. It was desire. It was like there was a voice coming from the pages, tempting her with whispered words of the woman she could come to be, the people she could come to meet, the places she could go. It was a desire for escape and, in her blind want, she neglected to understand the price that would come from her choice.
The book she chose, after exploring maps, novels, romances and spell tomes, hidden histories of her people and beyond, was hidden in the back of the grand library, buried below a dozen others that described worlds beyond the glen of her people, across seas and deserts that waited for her to find him.
At first, the true nature of the book was foreign to her - it seemed like any other book of magic, covered in fine leather and decorated with bright print on the front. It was only when she opened it, touched the paper, coloured with age and crinkled from time, that she understood what it was she was reading. There were hushed whispers, there always were, about the kinds of things that not even the greatest of her people would dare to touch. As she ignored the warnings from her teachers, reading on, she felt as though something was watching her, seeping under her skin and slipping through to wrap around her throat - trying to take her, take as much of her as it could. Her palms pressed against the paper and she felt something grab at her, trying to enter her through the barest of touch of her limbs.
In her blind panic she dropped the tome, falling to the ground and cracking her skin, her hands, on the stone, but it was already far too late. Whatever it was had seeped into her skin, through the blood on her palms, the open sockets of her eyes and the desperation for something to fill the gaps inside of her and had left her twisted and a shell of who she had once been.
The magic of the book preyed upon Lauralae's natural born magic, her desire for knowledge, a unique power, something to give her allies, friends, strength, more than her pathetic existence, and it twisted her for her sins. It seeped into the magic in her blood and coerced it, tainted it, until there was little left to be considered good inside of her. It had been waiting for centuries, eager to find someone wanton enough, broken enough, desperate enough to feed on it's own arrogance and greed.
And, thus, Lauralae was born, a damaged shell of the young woman she had once been.
For hours all she could do was sit and stare at herself, the transformation inside of her, understanding nothing more than the fact that she had been cursed and she didn’t know how, exactly, to undo it. There was nothing in the barren remains of the book to guide her and she realised that she was alone, damaged and broken with a strange whispering in her mind for company; a half-possessed version of the woman she had once been, the shame weighing down on her.
The most unfortunate side effect of the reading was the effect it had on her gift and her very nature. The magic that once came to her easily become difficult to manage - rather than being able to call upon her powers as she had before it felt as though there was a barrier, something she had to push through and force her body to try and grasp in order to make it work. The most prominent change was, however, the twisting of her hands. Rather than the pale, pasty skin that she was used to her fingers and palms were blackened, as though the ink itself had seeped into her and poisoned her, and sparks came from them and left them aching, desperately.
Lauralae was shunned, deemed a demon, a traitor. She had ignored the rules of her people, the children's stories that told of the punishments for such evil and deceit, and was cast out for it. Where she had hoped for acceptance, uniqueness, the support of her parents and a place more fitting for her than simply a bride Lauralae instead found exile. Her name was torn from the family pages, from history books, and she faded into darkness as though she never existed at all.
The only reminder she had from her people was her own self-mutilation, cutting her ears as if to say the exile was of her own choosing, a statement rather than a choice. She wanted to reclaim it, as if all of the things that had lead up to her leaving home had been, somehow, something she had decided upon - rather than a punishment for an accident of fate.
In reality, Lauralae had been forced into a kind of exile she had never imagined possible. Lost in new power that was barely within her control she fled with the clothes on her back and some books stolen from the library – and that was all she had for some time. It took her a long time to find a place and for weeks (or months, she can never quite remember, the time fading into nothingness) she wasn't herself.
It was during this time that her mind began to slip away from her. Being without company, companionship or solace made it so that her mind cracked, the weight of the power she'd had forced upon her tying in with her loneliness and desperation to leave her a shell of the girl she had been, once upon a time, wishing she could go home but revelling in the power she had.
Leaving her home and losing herself to the power that had tried to possess her it took some time for her to figure out where she had found herself. She had studied maps as she had grown and she knew the territory her people regarded as ‘safe’; she was far beyond those bounds, further than the things she knew. Ignoring what she knew of where she was she travelled south, by foot with nothing but herself for company. Food was scarce, rarely more than what she could pick from bushes and traps she could cobble together with twigs, but she found that hunger rarely came to claim her; there was something inside of her that seemed to sustain her but, the longer she left it the more deadly it seemed to feel - it was as though the power inside of her fed upon her hunger, her pain, and the longer she left it uncared for through ‘natural’ means the less she felt herself. It became a delicate balance and it felt as though there was not much she could do until she found a new home, a new place for her to live and survive.
The forest broke; what had been Noa Woods broke open into Moorlands. She didn’t dare venture far into them, knowing the tales of the witches that haunt the great lands to the East of the forests, and so instead she considered her options. She had no means of returning home and no desire to (even if she had an option to repent the way her people had reacted, while expected, had left a determined, stubborn feeling inside of her) and, so, she had to create a new home for herself, or the shadow of it. Deciding on her path, she turned and took the Eastern road, heading towards a place she knew might offer some haven for her; there were lands, even with the world changing outside of the insular world she was used to, that promised sanctuary to anyone that dared come to claim them. She would find her place there, if nowhere else.
The paths she walked were no safe haven for anyone and it was down to herself and no one else to try and find a means of making sure she was capable of surviving. Lauralae was afraid, and scared, and it was then that her first transformation was triggered, leaving her alone in the dark for longer than she can remember. When she woke she was herself but not, a twisted shape of who she had been, and finding a way to come back from that seemed to be one of the most difficult aspects of her magic. What she realised, however, that being the creature - learning, one night, that it was canine - was easier, faster, safer; who would attack a wolf travelling? What couldn’t a wolf learn to hunt, be it rabbit or something a little larger? She finally had a way of feeding herself instead of letting the magic taint her and she took to it as best she could, forcing herself to learn.
The place she had sought was Nimh Gleanne and while she found haven, of a kind, she dared not go too close to where the populace would gather. She kept to the outskirts, kept to the edges, as if that would be a means of keeping her safe. If she had any idea of safety she might have continued, moving south, as far from the homeland she had loved for so long as she could - but she knew her people and she dared not imagine that the kindness of the Southerners might extend to someone who had been changed as she had. The trust she might have held as a naive young woman was broken and shattered - she was alone, now, and she intended to keep things that way; if she was going to survive she had to do it without assistance. Nothing lasted forever, after all.
She simply lived, and existed, as much as she could without any aid - which, for a girl that had relied on family and magic for so long, was not the easiest of task. Relearning the things she had once understood to be second-nature to her was a long, arduous task and it seemed to near the edge of impossible for her.
She experimented with her new gift, of course, and found that the plants and the trees spoke to her, that her touch wasn't poisonous to them even though people turned from her in disgust, thinking she had a plague. The crackling power at her fingertips was enough to have everyone she met call her a creature that should be shunned; they knew of magic, of course, but the colour of her hands and the way they shook, the darkness in her voice and the wide, panicked gaze that never seemed to leave her left most people thinking her a madwoman come down with a sickness to which there was no cure. Perhaps the most damning aspect of it all was the easy default to blood magic to protect herself, forced to choose places higher on her arms to avoid the nature of her fingertips. The colour of her limbs, polluted from her own failures and inability to truly fight off the curse, had left her with the appearance of a monster, as though her body had begun to die and fail her but she had tricked death, somehow. She appeareed to be nothing more than a haunting image of a ghost mixed with what was left of her life and the people shunned her for it. Lauralae's hope in people began to fade and, so, she fled, adopting the forest as her home.
The most important thing she had to do was attempt to make a means of caring for herself, even if it was in isolation. Lauralae knew enough of potions, both things imbued with magic and tiny vials of things that were nothing more than ground herbs and lake water, to try and make a living but she was an unknown in the domain she had taken for her own. What she had to do was step out and find some way of showing her face that wouldn’t have her being ignored. The Drabworld, for all that it seemed to be as accepting of magic as she had ever imagined, was careful with what it shared. She understood, of course; something you did not understand was dangerous, something you could not trust.
Her lesson had simply come far too late.
As always, she harked back to her time at home, even if she loathed the thought of tying herself to memories of a place that she had abandoned, and knew that she had to find a teacher. To learn a means of producing things that people would want to buy, to barter for a circle of things that people might actually want. It was this that lead her to the rocky centre of the Nimh Gleanne proper, careful to keep her hood up as she considered what she could. It was on her third trip, when she had walked the streets of the city more times than she could count, that she found a place that seemed to be the best offer she would come to get.
An elderly woman needed help with her work in a store that Lauralae visited when her own stores were low, offering herbs and leaves from the outskirts of the forest, strips of skin she caught with her canine jaws, in trade for vials of poison and potion that she could use in her less than stellar campsite. While Lauralae offered little of herself - her name, her talent for poison making, her rather adept touch when it came to growing plants - the woman, Mayr, tested her, offered her plants to name, to judge which worked well with one another, and when she had shown that she knew more than the average wander she was ‘hired’, in a sense. She was taken on to learn, to be taught, and in return she continued to help with things around the woman’s home. Making things, cleaning up, going to the places the elderly woman couldn’t reach anymore - she proved to be a capable assistant, even if it took time for her to settle.
Settling into her new life was almost easy. While she couldn’t touch people, she couldn’t be around people without fearing hurting them - even if she shunned the world she still wished for the ease of companionship that she’d had when she was younger - she was happy, as much as she could be with the way that her magic ate at her. She still felt half-possessed, as if the moment she let her guard down she might lose herself to it, but she managed. Trying to understand the power inside of her became her focus, her driving force, and the rest of her suffered for it. She ate little, read too much and slept barely enough to live, forcing herself into a life with a monotonous circle as she attempted to reach out to the people that she met, hoping for a chance to find something more - or something to fix all the mistakes she had made. She had no other choice but to continue to live this way, ignoring the rest of the world.
One day, when she came to ‘work’, Mayr offered her a gift; it had been weeks and the struggle to balance the things she could touch and the things she couldn’t had become a visible struggle and it was driving Lauralae to the brink. The gift she offered were gloves, made of spider spin silk, enchanted to keep magic bound; if she wore them she would be able to touch things, people, and live as she might have if she wasn’t cursed. It wasn’t a cure and it was hardly anything of a step in the right direction but Lauralae felt as though she had, somehow, found a means of going forward. If she could continue like this, finding short-term reparations for what had happened to her because of her choices, then she might be able to continue to exist without losing herself entirely. In return, Lauralae offered to stay with her, to care for her in her growing age, to act as a true apprentice in as many ways as she could. It was all she had, but it seemed to be enough.
Time continued and, for months after, life didn’t much change - not until someone else came into her life. With her gloves on and her hood down Lauralae appeared to be a normal woman, a girl learning a craft from her elders and hoping for more from her life than, perhaps, what her parents might have asked for her. A man came into the store, offering coin for poisons, and Lauralae was struck with infatuation - the first she had ever claimed to have in her life, the first time she had ever dared to show any interest in someone. The man, Aramas, was secretive, sly, and she was enchanted by the mystery he offered, the distraction from the ever present weight of the cursed possession she had almost lost herself to. With her hair over her face, in her eyes, her hands kept out of sight, she offered him the image of a girl that might be something normal, something safe, never mentioning the curse that darkened her doors nor the things she did alone at night, the hunting for her food, the way she slept in a ball of fur rather than as a person.
Encouraged by Mayr, who had been hoping to guide the girl she had come to care for towards a simpler life than what she seemed to want to lead, she pushed herself towards a chance at happiness. She had never spent much time around men before, not in a romantic sense, and she was little more than an awkward presence in his life for some time.
Time went on and she danced around him for weeks, unsure how to act, what to say, even with the safety net of her hands kept out of sight and out of touch. It wasn’t falling in love (how can anyone love someone they don’t know, after all?) but it was a step in the right direction, a step towards being happy. The darkness inside of her seemed sedated and quieter the happier she was and she worked towards that, even as she attempted to ignore the flush of her cheeks and the rush of her heartbeat.
Things continued, quiet and simple, until conversation turned from discussion of poisons and herbs to talking about power, magic, the influence and talent needed to use it. While Lauralae had known Mayr accepted her for who she is and what she did she had never imagined someone might wonder and think the same things she would; that magic is power, that knowledge is strength, that having both is a gift, something to be cherished and understood. She took to him, starting to spend her time at his side when she was not learning with her teacher, giving herself over to the idea that she might be happy; she had a new life, now, and a chance at making something for herself that no one else could touch.
In hindsight, Lauralae would like to believe that that they loved one another. She would like to pretend that what had developed between them was real, but she knows the truth; she was a young girl blinded by first infatuation and the last remains of her innocence.
While Lauralae may have been inexperienced when it came to any kind of relationship that wasn’t somehow parental (Mayr becoming a surrogate for what she had lost in her exile) she knew that any kind of romance could not be forged on lies. SHe wante dto hope, she wanted to believe, and she knew that the only way to see if such a future was possible was to tell the truth. Not about everything - she was sure her ears were enough to give away who she might have been, once - but about what she was, what had happened to her and what she had become. It had been months that her life have revolved around talking to him when he stepped into the store and she knew that if she was going to move forward she would have to make sure he was aware of who she was. He could not love her, all of her, if he didn’t know the truth; so she showed him.
His reaction was nothing like she had expected.
She had no idea what was going through his mind when she had invited him out to talk, drawing him into the forest, but she stood before him, hair tied back to bare her cut ears, scarred and prominent, her hands moving to peel back her gloves. The poison in her fingertips was as rotten as ever, leaving them blackened and disgusting, her eyes following his gaze as they go from her to her face. She explained what she dared to do, explained that she had been blessed (cursed, she thought to herself, but dared not say aloud) as much as she could give him the information, explaining how she had been teaching herself, how Mayr had cared for her, offering as much as she could, considering her own lack of knowledge, and felt her hands shake as she watched him shut down.
She had thought he saw her, saw her beyond what she might have been, that he would have understood that she was something that he had said was something worth having, but she was wrong. When she confessed herself to him she saw nothing but the same anger and shame that she had seen in the faces of others before she had learned to keep herself quiet, hiding her ills and her power; the same disgust that made her turn away from the population.
Instead of turning to her and accepting her for who she was Lauralae found that she was faced with a man that wanted to kill her. In a world where magic was normal, where she had expected a welcome, for people to understand, for her to be accepted in a way she had never been in her homeland, she found that she was on the edge of things even now. His hands went to his daggers, the ones she had given him poisons for, helped him to prepare for whatever he wished to hunt or fight, and she reacted. Her hands, bare of her gloves, slid up her arm, nails scratching at her arms, drawing blood, the power flying out of her and leaping forward to attack and punish him for his shame of her. What she had thought was love developing inside of her fell prey to the darkness she had hoped she was overcoming and it took control of her.
When she woke up he was gone - she was weak, exhausted, and she had no idea what had happened or what she had done to him. All she knew was that moving hurt, the scratches on her arms were dirty with her blood and the only option in front of her was to return to her home and hope that no questions were asked. She had no choice but to continue as nothing had changed, to hope that Mayr heard nothing of the damage she had wrought and the things she had done to herself. She was no longer anything she had imagined herself to be, and she was forced to deal with that in the secrecy of her own mind. She became a shell.
Returning home took Lauralae some hours - to gather herself, to clean her arms in the river, to shove her fingers back in her gloves and hide her shaking body under the hood of her cloak. She made her way back to the house she called her own and slipped inside, climbing the stairs to find her surrogate mother, to ask for comfort, for something. Comfort was not to be found, however. Rather than finding her friend alive and well, waiting for her, perhaps fretting, Lauralae found nothing more than the body of the woman she had come to love.
There was no open wound, nothing more than a pale corpse and the scent of something familiar in the air - poison. She knew the source and forced herself to attempt to rationalise what had happened.
Aramas, damaged from Lauralae’s attack, had returned to the house of the woman he had assumed had been the one to teach her. She hadn’t told him the source of her power or the knowledge that she had been given from the attempt at her life in her homeland, only that she was loved by Mayr and given sanctuary, given a home, someone to love her. He had attempted to rid the world of the creature he thought was raising beings like Lauralae - and had broken her heart in the process. She buried Mayr and continued, living in her house, hoping that no one would ask questions - beyond saying that she had died in her sleep, Lauralae did not offer much.
She had something here, now. She had a home, a place to live, a means of earning money - people knew her name, now, and she continued for as long as she could. Living in the house her only friend had died in, however, grated on her, like a knife in her back that was being twisted by people each time they spoke to her, the distrust in their eyes; she had been loved by her Mayr but had never taken to the people around, too insular, too quiet, too sharp spoken and hard with her words. Lauralae was uncomfortable, she was unsettled, and she knew nothing but the fact that she couldn’t stay here. Living in the shadow of a death she had caused and the haunting knowledge that the man that had killed her only friend might return for her was driving her to the brink of insanity, as if she was giving into the voice that had first touched her when she had been home, and she began to travel. She kept the house, she returned when she needed money, when she needed things, but she dared not stay for too long. Each moment in that darkness made her feel as though she was losing herself to the curse that haunted her now - and she knew she had to escape.
This was how she became a wandering creature, reliant on the wolf she could claim to be and hiding in the shadows, only coming out when there was something to gain. She had fought for a new life, she had fought to survive with people, and had proven that nothing would change who she was. She could love someone, feel it in more ways than one, but it would never be enough. Her presence around people would do nothing more than cause more pain - first to herself, to the people she was close to and the people she saw as innocent, simply because she had no control over herself. She did not know how to manage the power she had and, so, she kept moving. Staying in one place was dangerous. Without her knowing Lauralae had become the very thing she had been taught to be afraid of as a child.
The desire to find out how to free herself of her bindings has lead her to using her other form to try and sneak, to try and learn what she could. Her time with Mayr had helped her learn to hunt, using her canine abilities to stalk prey for them to eat, and it was once she had realised the other potential for this that she came to think that, perhaps, she might have a better use for her abilities. A witch that could sneak around forests and places in the dark, hiding in the shadows with a natural instinct for the hunt? She was sure she could use that to her advantage - and so she started. She made promises to people looking for help - to hear if a rumour was true, to get something that had been stolen returned to them, to sneak into the dark of the forest to find a herb or a plant that no one else dared get - and she fulfilled them as best she could. She proved herself worthy and made a name for herself because of it; she was seen as a witch, a woman that could get things done, and she kept to it only because the money she could get was welcome. How else was she to bribe libraries, to take books, to study magic in the hope that she might free herself?
Today, Lauralae is little more than a woman that moves, the only tie that binds her to anything is the house that onced belonged to Mayr. It’s protected by her magic when she abandons it and she goes back in quiet moments, offering things for trade. Most of her time is spent in the forests in Unseelie territory, moving North when she hears whispers of magic that might help her overcome the creature she feels herself turning into. She cares very little for the upcoming war; her only goal is to break the curse that has seeped over her, to try and undo the things she had done so long ago, to find some measure of peace.
PERSONALITY:
Once, when she was younger, Lauralae had been a far kinder woman than the person she is today. The foundations of the girl are still present inside of her but the darkness has manipulated it, twisted it, and turned her from something sweet into something far less innocent. These founding aspects of her nature are important to the woman she becomes, however, more than just because they make up her history – they make up her choices and the way she interacts with people and reflects the differences between who she thinks she is and who she is truly becoming.
Raised to be a young woman of standing, Lauralae has had politeness and courtesy drilled into her since the moment she was old enough to read and write. She was always taught to stand straight, to mind her words, to be careful about who she speaks to and what she says; she was trained to be guarded, sly, secretive, prepared to use her nature as a woman and a spell master against anyone that would come to court her hand. When she was younger she embraced this side of herself with a playful innocence that would soon seep out of her; rather than enjoying the game for what it is, now, and using the tools she was given and raised by to make friends and alliances, Lauralae turns from them, intensely, shying from the knowledge she had forced upon her.
Where, once, she might have used her appearance to her advantage Lauralae would now rather hide in the shadows; there is nothing that can coerce her into becoming the flirtatious, careful young woman she had once been raised and educated to be. It does not mean that she is at all immune to the way other people react to her, of course. While she is shy, a cross woman with more frustration with interaction than enjoyment, she is still a person; when she is comfortable, when she is happy, aspects of who she had once been appears - the shy, quick to love young woman that had been betrayed.
This twist of her original nature, stemming from the ‘betrayal’ of both her people and the only man she dared love, has turned her away not just from the innocent nature of her childhood but also from those people that act in ways she had once thought to be 'correct'. It doesn't take her long to have a dislike for anyone that plays around with others, for people that use lies and wiles to get their way, and the idea of being false makes her distrustful and irritable towards anyone that dares even pretend to be that way. That life, and those choices, hark back to a world she had once left behind and being reminded of it makes her sour, angry, frustrated – and it makes her even more difficult to talk to and get along with. Lauralae is no friend to those that play the game of courts and alliances; she will consider herself an enemy even before making an acquaintance.
This foundation of distrust and distaste towards people is not only based upon her upbringing, however. Throughout her life Lauralae has suffered at the hands of the people she has met, not just for her exile and her choices but because of her own mistakes – putting too much trust in the wrong people and being, in her eyes, punished for the attempt. When she had fallen in love with Aramas she truly believed that this outlook on life was the wrong way to live, that she ought to change and become someone else, perhaps, try to be better for him, to prove that she was worthy despite the curse that haunts her being – but she was proven wrong. The trust she had thought right to be placed in him was abused, in her eyes, and she found that her attempts to give herself to someone had been nothing more than a fraud.
Perhaps, once, she might have been capable of recovering from this drastic emotional turnaround. When she was younger Lauralae was far more hopeful with an incredibly optimistic outlook on the world and the way that it worked: she believed in the collection of knowledge, of proving yourself, of finding your place in the world and falling in love. The society she grew in embraced the ideals of female power and the ceremony of magic and the trust required to learn and control it – trusting in yourself and in your teachers to show you the right path, the right way to learn and evolve. Having all of that ripped away from her because of her own failings (though she denies, even now, that what happened to her was her own fault) left a mark on Lauralae that was impossible for her to ignore; it was as though someone had reached inside of her and ripped the goodness out of her and stomped on it until there was nothing left. All the ideals that had been ingrained on her suddenly seemed worthless, pointless, and she turned away from them and left them to rot in the back of her mind.
After her curse, Lauralae turned and began to abandon the person she had been to try and become the person she thought she had to be in order to survive. She had been exiled from her home, forced out and pushed into ignorance and pain, and she had to try and find a way to survive that to the best of her ability; she had never been alone before, she had never attempted to survive without her family, her parents, and so she was forced to try and find a way to fend for herself. She imagines it, now, as a process of shrugging off the shackles of a previous life to embrace a new one, even if the new one felt more cursed and imprisoning than the first one had ever been.
Lauralae traded the innocence of her youth, the trust in people as individuals, her faith in her kin and her magic, for disillusion, personal strength and a means of forcing herself to become stronger than she had ever been before. Everything she has done since then has done nothing more than add weight and strength to the pillar of her independence and, now that she has grown, she refuses to allow herself to lean on anyone else. To do so would be to give them too much power over her and she refuses that; she refuses to let anyone have any kind of sway over her nature of her heart.
As mentioned, much of this twist of her personality was developed and inflamed by her idea of a relationship with Aramas. There had been a spark inside of her after her exile that, while she had wanted to smother it, had been inflamed by him. She had given her heart over to him and this is where we see the softer side of her nature, something long buried but still ever present. She was kinder, sweeter, and supported him, attempted to offer her magic as a means of protecting him, of saving him from anything the world might throw at them. Lauralae, losing her home so young, held a shyness that lead to her being willing but uncomfortable with the sudden flirtation and intimacy that a relationship offered her: she didn't know how to handle it, how to control herself.
It's times like this where we see just how dedicated and determined Lauralae can be – she threw herself into the relationship entirely, gave everything that she had to this man, only to be betrayed, shattered and heartbroken. The last remains of any trust she had in people was taken from her – and while it might have been unjust for Lauralae to pain the entire world with the brush of the actions of a scant few it is impossible for her to deny that every interaction she has had has left her with nothing but pain. Turning away from them seemed to be the best and only option. Having hands that, even now, curse and burn people only made this choice all the more obvious to her.
The betrayal and distrust harked back to the relationship she had imagined to have with her parents, before she read the book that cursed her. She had been raised as an only child, the pride of her father and the loving daughter of her mother, and she had truly believed that, no matter what were to happen, she would be safe and cared for in their arms. What became true, however, was something entirely different – her parents shunned her, turned from her, abandoned her when she needed them the most and that is something she will never forget. To Lauralae the ties of blood and loyalty are meaningless in both name and practice: if even someone who gave birth to you, who was supposed to love you no matter what choices you made and what ills befell you, could cast you out without a second thought what was to stop a stranger from doing it? An ally, a friend? The twisted view she now has of her parents (two people who saw their daughter cursed by evil and suffered for it, forced to give it up) has lead to her dismantling the idea of kindness and tenderness even in the closest of bonds – she tells herself that she will never again believe that such a thing is possible.
It is this that has made Lauralae into the quiet, dark and shy woman that she is now. She keeps to herself, both out of the necessity of her own nature and because of the way people look at her with fear, and she is loathe to make contact with people unless she has to. Some people might mistake this for arrogance, or the idea that she thinks of herself as better than someone else, but it stems down to a shyness and insecurity; she doesn't want to get hurt again and believing that all people are out to harm her or break her is easier than believing that, somewhere, there might be someone that might embrace her with open arms. While she is more than content to make an alliance for her own benefit she will continue to be quiet, subverted, dangerous – a true reflection of the wolf she can become with her magic. She is determined to prove herself to anyone she meets even while keeping her nature and her life a well kept secret.
This determination, her proud nature when it comes to her gift of magic, is one of the few things that is obvious about who Lauralae is as a person. She is obsessed with finding out a means to control and use her power – while she might not be entirely comfortable with breaking her curse, considering it's one of the most obvious aspects of the person she has become, finding a means to control it, or manipulate it, is an obsession; it's why she trades services for coin, why she travels across the Drabworld seeking answers and why she is so obsessed, at times, with locking herself away and desperately researching all the magic she has in her possession. She truly believes that if she can find a way to break her curse she might be able to crawl out of the pit she has found herself in and make a new life, recreating herself once more.
All of this doesn't mean that Lauralae is empty or shallow, however. Despite her failings and her hatred of the things around her she is still a person and she cannot deny that she finds some joys in her life, as much as she might be loathe to admit it. She has a special place in her heart for flowers, for example, and the trees and roots that her magic speaks to. She also can never help but fall helplessly in love with artisans that create comedy; the fictional nature of it is enough to delude her, at least for a short while, and she can believe that there is some good in the world – even if reality soon comes crashing down upon her. It's very easy to imagine her to be far older than she is, that the world has broken her spirit entirely, when really she is just a young woman that has been hurt and has decided to shut herself off from the world to protect herself from it.
The trouble with the person she is becoming, however, is that Lauralae is terrified of herself. Becoming stronger and allowing her power to slip around her, to draw on her energy, to strengthen what was inside of her, is leaving her terrified of what is to come. She fears losing control again, she fears losing herself to the power inside of her and she is terrified that there might come a time she won't be able to step back from the edge and will end up destroying herself.
While Lauralae might be magically strong and capable of defending herself she is, at heart, still a broken, fragile woman. She has been betrayed, constantly, and finds it difficult to talk to people, to interact, without suffering for it. Her relationship with strangers is an obvious example of that; rather than using them to try and dig out information she turns from them, shies from them, and attempts to bury herself in the shadows to keep herself safe and warily protected. Her only true source of arrogance is her power, but even then she keeps it to herself, hiding her pride behind her distrust of people and her dislike of the world as a whole.
ALLIANCES & CONTACTS:
› Officially, Lauralae has no alliance. She cares little for what the courts are doing and is more focussed on keeping herself alive and exploring the realms of magic. She is a witch and spy for hire and will take the money of anyone, no matter who they are or where they are from, and so she finds little place for herself in either of the two main factions. Neither has done anything to aid her and neither would offer her a place.
› She can admit, however, to having an affinity to the ideals of the Unseelie Court. Her exile from her people and the nature of her life has made it so the idea of honour, valour and having any kind of place, kindness or home are foreign to her and completely out of her mind. She finds the idea of blindly following a code, moral or not, because it is the 'right thing to do' to be foolish and ridiculous and the sign of a person who hasn't given thought to who they are or what they intend to do with their lives. Lauralae's main ideal is that of survival; she cannot abide by the idea of being tied down by chivalry or duty. She cares for her magic and her forestry and little else.
› Her contacts throughout the Drabworld consist of people she has worked for, innkeepers and apothecaries. While none of them would be considered her friends nor would she use the term 'ally' she can go to them for information, a cheap place to stay or to call in a favour in exchange for work she has done. These people are dotted around, mainly in the north of the map, and know her by her human form. Lauralae is known for her work and her position and people are aware they can turn to her to find information or for magic and potions, but she doesn't go out of her way to associate with anyone unless forced or because she needs something. She is a recluse, a hermit of sorts, and does not intend to change her ways any time soon.
ABILITIES:
› Lauralae's magic is founded upon the basis of using blood to perform and cast her spells. Unabele to use her palm due to the poison of her hands she is forced to use her wrists and forearm, making blood magic itself especially dangerous for her - it runs the risk of more blood looss than she might be able to handle. It’s because of this that blood magic becomes a near last resort for her when all her other tried and tested means - the spells she can remember from her childhood and her understanding of plant life is no longer enough.
› Her magics is her only way of making money, too. She uses craft of potions and small charms which she offers in return for money and favours of gifts of protection. The things she learned through assisting Mayr came to be her main source of income and she kept those things in mind, using the front the woman had given her in order to continue her business. Things have gotten darker since Lauralae took over, of course, with her ire and distrust towards the world ever present in what she does, but she still offers poisons, simple concoctions, what people come to know as simple easing tonics. No matter what it is she is offering for trade she makes sure, without doubt, that she knew that it worked. Lauralae would never abide people coming to her in anger, not with her hating most that she has ever met. She has a reputation for being a hidden, quiet sort, and many children think her home is haunted by ghouls and creatures - that's why not many dare turn to her until there are very few options and it is also why she travels, turning herself away from settling for too long.
› Another side effect of her reading of the book, almost losing herself to possession, is the poison of her hands; her magic is contained in her palms like electric wildfire and she has no means of controlling it or hiding it, beyond forcing herself to hide her fingers in gloves. Should they be destroyed she would be unable to do anything to keep herself from hurting anyone or anything; the power in her palms is uncontrollable and she cannot reign it in, though she is doing everything she can to overcome the weakness. It does, however, offer her a special form of protection that not many people know about. The fact that this 'power' (or gift) is contained to fingertips clad in fabric means that not many people are aware of it - especially given Lauralae's reclusive nature and her affinity for hiding herself away from the general populace. Hiding this part of her curse causes her pain (rather like the original story of the Little Mermaid's curse when she gained her leg where each step was like being stabbed by a knife) but she bears it because to do otherwise would be to lose control. In appearance, her hands appear like they’re painted in black paint, the pulse of her power like blue lightning, and they look far too and almost decrepit.
› Her favourite and greatest gift, however, is that of transformation or shape-shifting. She has no added strength strength nor abilities from it – she simply becomes the beast. It allows her to travel, to hide, to spy and to protect herself from her own misguided powers: when she feels herself losing control she can transform and hide herself away in a form where no one can touch her. The transformation is not easy, however, and weighs down upon her; it is not something she can do often or without consequence. It feels as though she is drained afterwards, as though there is a lead weight resting on her shoulders and the life has been sapped out of her. This gift is a side effect of her affinity with nature rather than a part of the curse that she suffers - it is something given to her by her people that she has moulded and used to allow herself to become a far better spy.
› A mixture of her magic and her ability to shape change lends itself to Lauralae being a capable and adept spy mistress and secret finder. She is known as a woman that can find things, that can hide her face and slide into the shadows, becoming like the night itself - because of the fact that she hides in the depths of her cloak and because of the fact that she can turn into a beast the colour of midnight. A wolf is a hunter by nature and Lauralae has adapted that to allow herself to become a hunter of secrets, able to follow, track and watch people, to let herself see them.
INVENTORY: Considering her history and her need to travel to keep herself safe she doesn't carry much on her person.
› She inherited a house from Mayr, a desolate building that has a front of a shop and a tiny living space behind which Lauralae has adapted; the ground has dirt for the plants to grow, the owner unconcerned - no one else is likely to see it, after all. The front is nothing more than a bare storefront and shelves of vials, herbs and plants, the most dangerous and important things kept behind with the protection of magic to keep them safe. When she has left it to travel it is blocked by a thick wooden door, locked and appearing to be nothing more than an unused hovel. Only people that have been in the town for long enough will know it’s true nature.
› In her hovel of a house she keeps nothing more than a flat bed, a table with some wooden implements for crafting and eating and her herb collection. The largest part of her home is dedicated to scrolls and books in order to practice her craft. They take over the place, on her table, on the shelves, in a chest, all the hiding places covered in moss and roots to protect them from wandering eyes - mostly so that they don't get hurt poking into things that are none of their business.
› With her she carries a small belt laden with pouches; a set for her coin and separate parts for the herbs, mixtures and potions she needs to give as trade, payment or for her magic. The only clothing that goes with her wherever she travels is a long charcoal coloured cloak that wraps around her and almost buries her in it's depths. It has many pockets for her to hide things that she might need and it's enough to dissuade most people from stopping her if she walks a road alone.
› Beyond the necessities Lauralae keeps very few material items and even fewer that hold any real meaning to her. She refuses to allow herself to have anything that ties her to her previous life and, so, has nothing that reminds her of home. This includes jewellery, portraits, sigils, symbols and clothing with her house colours. Due to the fact that she roams for hire she doesn't keep much at all - only the things she knows she will find useful and necessary or something she feels she can trade for something she requires at a later point. The only belongings she truly cares about are her spider silk gloves.
› The gloves themselves were made for her by Mayr. They're finely made from the silk of a spider and are capable of hiding and smothering her cursed hands. The fact that the magic in her fingertips is being contained, rather like a pillow pressed over a face, wearing them causes her pain - but she suffers it because otherwise she would be unable to have any control. Her hands are, to her, the ultimate curse and she would do anything to keep them hidden away to be used as a last and final resort.
( WRITING ★ SAMPLES )
TRAVEL LOG SAMPLE:
She hated travel.
The very idea of leaving her tiny home and stepping out into a world that had betrayed her and harmed her so many times over left her a mixture of anxious and disgusted, moving through her house to gather the things she would need – herbs, some paper, a quill and a small pot of ink, the necessities that would allow her to cast her magic even on the road. Other people might feel weighed down by the mass of things she needed to summon a simple spell but she hardly cared; if it was a choice between survival and a few extra pouches she knew which she would suffer. It wasn't as though there was anyone to judge her – no, no one cared enough to sugges tthat she employ a bag or a sack around her shoulders. It was better that way.
The door, made of roots and vines, coiled shut behind her as she stepped out and breathed in the air around her. As much as she enjoyed using her legs while she walked there were other, easier ways for her to travel unnoticed – especially when she had somewhere she wanted to be, and fast. Adjusting her stance, Lauralae closed her eyes and summoned the power inside of her, the flickering energy that she could always feel; it haunted her even when she was asleep, like a fire that was never doused, an impossible storm that wrecked her limbs and weighed her down.
Slowly, as though her body was turning into dust rather than another feral creature, her limbs twisted and she moved, falling onto all fours. In the place of the woman now sat a wolf, as dark as the night with eyes wider and brighter than her own human ones, glancing around the forest and lifting it's snout to sniff the air before she huffed out a noise. There was no one nearby, which was a small mercy at best. It takes her a few moments to adjust to the new world view, to having four legs instead of two, but soon she is off, trotting along and scenting out the right path.
Escaping the forest isn't the difficult part of her journey. What proves to be hard is keeping herself safe as she makes her way out of the wooded shadows and into the path of people that might trip and stumble over her form or see her as nothing more than a predator and raise sword or magic to try and take her down. She keeps her head down, for the most part, darting between bushes and small oasis of trees as a means of protection, safe in the darkness as she has always been. Lauralae is no stranger to the hard part of moving around for her coin, not anymore, and she finds the calm peaceful at times. She can't use her magic to summon a means to fly through the air and she knows that she doesn't have the right brand of power to let her travel using the means that the newcomers (and that's a far better word than whatever the rest of the people she's met use for them) are gifted with. Oh, no, you must be a friend of the court for that and Lauralae is a friend to no one.
Around her the forest creatures dart out of her way and whenever she sees someone coming to close she lowers herself to the ground, fur and hackles rising as she growls low and deep in her throat. That's normally enough to turn anyone with sense away – who wants to attempt to best a dangerous, feral wolf, after all? Few people, and she's glad of that. There's power in her disguise and she abuses it whenever she can.
It's only when her faster canine legs tire that she's forced to move through into a village, sneaking back and using her nose to scent out a tavern or an inn, letting her body twist and shift so she can stand, limbs stretching out as she becomes human again. Sliding through the door of the tavern she pauses, her wide eyes taking in the patrons, assessing them, before she finds a table and sits. Tomorrow is another day and she is exhausted – both from the travelling and the magic she has to use each time she becomes a wolf. Soon she will have escaped the closeness of her home and begun the longer journey to her destination: for now, she rests.
DIALOGUE LOG SAMPLE:
“Do not touch me.”
Her voice is low when she speaks and she backs away as though she's a mouse cornered by a cat; rather than stepping forward to face the stranger she buries herself in the cloak, the hood thick and heavy around her face. The darkness, as it has always been, is her one source of protection and she revels in it even as her eyes move and roam over the figure in front of her. It takes her a moment to gather her words but, when she does, her voice is quiet, almost like the whisper of the wind on a stormy day.
“You come here and expect that this world will open its arms for you and welcome you, cherish you, as though it is simply waiting for you to touch it with your grace and warmth. Are all of your kind so foolish, so thoughtless? Do you truly believe that the King and Queen, whichever court you choose to dedicate yourself to, will be kind to you? Just? True? Or are you so deep in the mire of your own foolishness that you cannot see beyond the nose on your face?” Each insult is thrown as a hiss as she moves forward, her eyes flickering and her hands shaking. She is far too used to her own solitude; finding a person willing to speak to her is daunting, frightening, and she rejects it outright.
Her hands grip at nothing, clenched tight, her nails digging into her skin before she manages to breathe out and find words once more. Her head lifts and Lauralae can do nothing more than stare, her expression turning into something more stern and serious.
“You come to find me because of my reputation, I imagine. You seek – what? Vengeance? Information? Security? Perhaps blackmail, that is what they all desire. Knowledge is the most dangerous weapon any man or woman can dare weild and so many ignore it, shrugging it off as nothing more than a librarian's work. How stupid can any creature be?” Slowly, she steps forward, swallowing back the rising pressure of fear and panic inside of her before she breathes out. “Ask me what you came here for. Tell me what you desire. Pay me and be gone – I will get you what you want.”
WILDCARD LOG SAMPLE:
She walks forward with a quiet, stern gaze, her eyes moving over the plains in front of the town in front of her. Each step is soft and near silent, the shadow under her hood masking her face before she breathes out. Her interest here is made to be unnoticed, made to be as shadowlike as she can manage, and it’s only when she stops, here and there, to try and find something to barter with, something to trade to get a book or a text, a scroll, that she changes her direction. Lauralae is not here to mingle with the crowds and learn how to play by the rules being introduced; she is here to get what she can before she moves on, to learn whatever she can manage without getting dragged down into the alliances that swan around her.
Sometimes, when she hears a voice that’s too familiar to her, she turns, twisting her fabrics around her, eyes blazing in the darkness.
She refuses to ignore her ghosts and she goes to them, breathing out and feeling eyes on her that don’t really exist. Her hands shake until she clenches them, the dark colour of her gloves hiding the pulse of magic she can feel under her skin, destroying her from the inside out.
Anyone walking by may notice the figure, the way she never seems to stay still, the way her eyes go here and there, taking in the world around her and dismissing it even as she sits in fear, but she will ignore them as much as she can. Only people with books, with knowledge, are of use to her and she dares not speak to anyone else.
What does distract her is when she feels the prickle of magic that she’s come to know as a shard. Something that is unique, people brought from worlds that she cannot begin to imagine that might have knowledge that could save her from the creature she is becoming. Her eyes light up when she feels that familiar touch and she follows them, a few steps behind, creeping behind them even as she dips her hands towards books for sale and maps that could lead her to hidden troves.
Today she has moved to the North, to the lands inhabited by what she knows to be Unseelie, and she thinks that this might now be the time to move to learn more about the warfare that is beginning. People that come here, brought by Morla (a woman she has never met and hopes never to have the chance to, a vague knowledge that she must be like the women of the Aellyn land, powerful and unforgiving) may have knowledge that can help her - and Lauralae has things she can offer in return.
She knows the lands around her, she knows the people, where to find books, where to find herbs, flowers, poisons. She knows who you can trust to carry out a murder and which inn will serve as the best place to sleep without fear of theft; she knows these lands because she has lived in them, and she relishes the chance to offer her knowledge for the hope that she might find her own kind of freedom.
When she moves to their side, sliding up behind them, her lips twitch and she leans forward, hoping her meaning comes across. She is sly, she knows, but not so sly that her meaning isn’t obvious;
“What do you know of ‘riddles in the dark’?”
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