"So you wish to know my past do you? I warn you now that you may not enjoy the tale." She arcs a thin eyebrow, a small smile playing across her full lips.
"Very well then. I was birthnamed Serephina tu'Ophilia, born to a consort of my father. My mother Ophilia was a child herself and died giving birth to me."
She smiles wickedly.
"She was the first person to suffer my bloodlust. My father was a tribal shaman, the one whom overseen all the spiritual ceremonies of our small tribe of wandering humans. He was a cultist, a ritualistic man that worshipped fire and serpents. He called no god his patron, yet somehow his beliefs gave him magic. My earliest memories were ones of bloodshed and sacrifice, and I vaguely remember the pain given to me on the day of my 6th deepcold."
She trails a finger down the serpent tattoo on her cheek.
"It was a ritual to signify ownership, that i belonged to my father now and forever. I was given to the task of annointing the sacrificial blade, an honor among all my fathers children. I remember well the first ceremony that I took part in. I was 8 years old and my part was simple. The obsidian blade used for the kill must first taste the blood of an innocent to cleanse it. This involves a minor cut above the heart to draw the tiniest bit of lifeflow."
"By the time i reached my first bloodmonth, I had seen countless men captured by our tribe die at the hands of my father. Their intestines were used for oracle, their heart was burnt in offering to my fathers spirits. thier flesh was used to feed our warriors. It was a sight worth remembering."
She smiles grimly, a haunted remembrance slides through her eyes, quickly replaced by her usual cold demeanor. "Are you enjoying my tale thus far? No? I will continue nonetheless, for you have wished to hear of my life."
She smiles Maliciously and continues her bloody past.
"I kept it secret for as long as i could, but soon my father became aware that I had reached my bloodflow. I was then tooken as his consort. I was thirteen when my father first lay with me, and I remember well that pain." She gives you a look of hard ice, eyes narrowed. "Do not give me that look, I care not what you think of it. It was how things were done among our tribe. It was the way of things." She smiles again, dripping honey and venom all at once.
She smiles from some forgotten memory.
"The month following my fifteenth Birthing day everything changed, not neccisarily for the better. I recall the night was bittercold, the wind was fullon over the snowwastes, carrying the sound of death on its' whispering voice. My father screamed from his tent, a long wail of despair. He burst from it in his ceremonial furs and shouted for the warriors to take up arms. He was dripping blood from a sacrifice, his arms still dragging the serpentine intestines of his kill. The warriors had just barely donned thier crude hide armour and were looking to my father for what to do, when a shrill horn sounded over the iceplains. The sound of heavy hooves reached my ears like distant thunder. I stood frozen in fascination as men straddling huge horses and shimmering in metal armour rode our camp down. They parted like water around me and i turned to watch the carnage. Tents burned, Men screamed and died upon longspears thrust through them. Bones cracked and shattered beneath pulverizing hooves."
Her eyes are bright with the memory.
Her eyes are mirrored with moisture, though the look of them is more of joy than sorrow.
"As my father bled out upon the ground, feeding his hot life to the coldsnow, I stood before a man clad in gleaming fullplate spiked with wickedly barbed curving blades. The helm he wore was painted half black and half white, as was the trappings on his horse and the trim of his cloak. He raised visor to me, and I think I stopped breathing as I stared into the scarred face of the man. He smiled wickedly and nodded to a dismounted footman. The footman nodded back and picked me up. I was too full of confused and swirling thoughts to fight back and I was deposited into a cage, wheeled and drawn by horses similar to that the wanderers our tribe often attacked used to haul their belongings. As I looked one last time out at the carnage that had become of my first life, I could not help but wonder what awaited me."
She pauses, and takes a drink of a stiff liquor brought to her by one of the wenches, grimacing she stares at you. "Do you wish me to continue?" She blinks. "No, I have no knowledge of Helyans, only experience with slavers, those that had come to own me and the other youthful women of my tribe." She chuckles.
"No, my tragedy does not end there. It only begins there. It lays the foundation to support my entire being, of who I am." She nods and takes another drink of the stout whiskey, exhaling. "That night, I was forced upon by their captain, a man of entirely unimaginative means. He liked to inflict pain, but was sloppy at it, and mostly he just bruised me inside and out. Thankfully he was poor at such ministrations for he might not have left me whole considering his zeal to make me hurt."
She pulls a slender dart, and begins to clean her nails.
"By weeks end, I had been passed around to nearly everyone in the company, save for one of them, who disdained women and preferred small boys. I had long since grown accustomed to the ragged screams made by my younger tribeswomen, and more than one did not survive the trip. Their body proving to small for such brutality, they were dumped upon the coldsnow like the pelt and bone dolls that we often made for the toddlers to play with."
She shakes her head. "No, I do not think about them anymore, their will was not strong enough, so the spirits took them and sheltered them."
"Now, by the end of the second week, we had reached a small settlement near the coast, where more of these men had gathered to exchange what prizes they may have took in their hunts. All of them were well armed, and armoured, organized by some unseen faith, though of course, they seemed godly to one such as me. With their rigid discipline and their forged weapons and armour."
She shrugs, stabbing the dart into the table. "For three months, I was passed from man to man, some better than others in their treatment, but all of them taking from me what I would not have given willingly."
She nods. "Yes, again thanks to some spirit, god, or goddess, I did not become with child. Nor did I suffer any of the camps diseases that inflicted some of the other women there." She laughs. "My will was unbreakable, not a man there could dominate me. They could hurt me, bruise me and batter me, and take me by force, shoving their foulness into any orifice they could reach at the time, but the could not BREAK me."
She shakes her head, and turns cold eyes to look at you, her full lips turning up into a smirk. "I told you, you would not enjoy it. I lived it, you are hearing it, who do you think fared worse?"
"To continue, I found myself watching the drills and practices held near to my tent, for miraculously, they liked to have their pleasure slaves sequestered alone. I had my own tent near to their practice field, and though I was manacled to a 6 foot stake sunk into the frozen ground with only a small clay furnace to warm my pile of furs, I could peek through a small tear in the fabric of the wall and watch.
"Soon I found myself practicing the complicated foot work and motions that I witnessed, admittedly, without the lack of a weapon. That mattered little though, for after months of such practice, I felt pretty confident that should I acquire a weapon, I would know how to handle it, at least well enough to save my own skin.
"I was nearing my 17th deepcold before I ever had the chance. As luck would have it, the captain whom had first taken me from my razed and destroyed tribal home paid a visit to me, for nostalgic purpose. I watched him strip his armour down, and I lay in my pile of furs like a meek kitten, which was not far from the truth, for I felt gripped by fear considering what I was intending to do. I did my best to hide my thoughts as I watched him drop his hip frog that held both sheath and dagger beside his thick notched sword. I rose and came to him, feigning submissiveness as I stood before him, my toe silently working to draw the dagger from it�s oiled sheath, thankfully, it worked and I only suffered a small scar on the pad of my foot for the attempt. I managed to cover the sound of the dagger with a ragged cough, as I slid it over to the pile of furs in which he meant to force himself upon me.
Smirks. "Do you wish to hear the end or not, quit looking at me like that. You will hear it to the end, whether you like it or not."
"As the captain, whom I had never once put a name to, forced himself inside me, I bided my time. Seperating myself from his forceful thrusts and occasional backhand to the face, I slowly inched my hand to the dagger in the furs, and made ready with it. Sure enough, as he ripped himself from me with the intent of gagging me with his manhood, I took hold of the organ, and with a quick swipe, separated it from his body.
She smiles, her eyes impossibly bright.
"Oh, how the blood flowed from his groin. He screamed, high and loud. It sound like a womans scream, and was likely dismissed considering where the scream was issuing from. I washed myself clean of him in that moment, in his own lifeblood. He clutched himself, and using what I had practiced so hard to do, I upended him in a swift motion to the furs, and with a practiced thrust, slid that dagger into his throat, silencing him forever."
She smiles, dripping venom. "It is nearly over, drink something, you look pale." She chuckles.
"With a bit of luck, I used a rock climbing piton and a hammer to open one of the links on my chain. I dressed in his furs, leaving his armour behind because it was two heavy, bringing only the dagger in which I used to liberate myself. Under the cover of darkness, I stole a horse and rode it into the wilderness, after gathering what I could of supplies. Thankfully, I was only 4 days out of IceHaven, and that is where I found myself."