Standing silently in the shadows is a young woman with a long dark chestnut hair worn in a single braid that reaches her waist in length. Her deep emerald eyes watches you and those around you as a lock of her hair falls across her face. Dressed in a faded dark green blouse and a formfitting charcoal gray leather vest with matching leather pants tucked into black soft leather boots. A black hooded cloak shrouds her in the shadows making her seem almost invisible to those around her.
Her earliest memories are not of loving parents or of older siblings playing outside the home, but of the cold gray walls of the Suceavan Orphanage. Of the harsh lessons she and the others at the hands of the taskmasters. As they were all physically and mentally trained behind the closed walls of the orphanage, all in the service of the Mistress. Those that failed the training were sent off with the dark cloaked servants�never to be seen again. As with all training, a time of testing is necessary to prove the student�s skills and abilities. Most went on to be �collectors� of information for a very secretive and well-hidden group in outskirts of Suceava. Those of exceptional skills were sent elsewhere�to other cities most assumed but no one really knew or heard of them once they left Suceava.
It was time for Varenynn�s testing. Her task was to go to the city of Chester and locate a member of this obscure group and gather as much information as possible then to report back to the Mistress with her findings. It took her several days of discreet probing to locate one of these members. Knowing she sometimes frequented a small pub in Chester called The Hidden Dragon. Varenynn went there and struck up a conversation with this strange dark skinned woman who seemed to be constantly scribbling in a notebook in a strange language. They spoke at length for several hours and at the end, Varenynn felt like it was she that was being probed for information. For at the end, she knew even less about the strange woman than when she began. Knowing failure was not an option�her future looked bleak. Then the dark woman asked her a question as if able to read her thoughts, a choice�to go back and face whatever death lay in waiting or to go with her and have what she called �eternal� life. A chance to learn more�a chance to go places that she once only dreamed about. After choosing the life offered before her, she traveled to far away Narbonne to meet the others for the first time. It was there she met another dark skinned woman named Dakshata and even darker man named Rhael. His presence was overwhelming and Varenynn felt compelled to follow his every command. He ordered Varenynn to kneel down before him. As she dropped to her knees before him, Rhael ran his blade through her chest and pulled it out as the blood poured out through the wound. Not making a single sound, Varenynn collapses forward and about blacks out as the last site she sees is the woman Dakshata leaning over her with long fangs protruding from her mouth. Next thing she knows she is laying on the ground alive�how? Looking down to where the huge gaping wound once was�its gone! She tries to sit up but is considerably weakened and falls back. Varenynn is told by Dakshata that she has lost a lot of blood and must feed. Confused, she sees the cut arm of the other woman and a hunger strikes�a hunger like none ever experienced. Out of almost reflex, she grabs the arm and begins to drink of vitae offered. With that began her eternal life of learning and training at Alamut, with her new family�the clan called Assamite. |
