Siágh na Fiáin

Basic Information

 * Name: Siágh na Fiáin
 * Height: 4"11
 * Weight/Build:
 * Apparent Age: 14
 * Eye Color: Hazel
 * Hair Color: Red
 * Distinguishing Characteristics: 
 * Other Physical Specifics:
 * General Public Knowledge: Usually seen with Bevan.
 * Other Information: Not on Humanity.
 * Character Theme Songs:
 * add here

History
In 946AD, a lone Viking ship raided a small fishing post, five miles west of the village of the Water of Leith. Consisting of only three families, the small group had no chance in fighting them off. During the raid, a handful of people ran east, hoping to make it to the village across the river, but were found and killed before going far. As they fled, and saw that the outlook was grim, a woman paused her flight to hide her youngest child under a bramble, telling the girl to keep silent, that she would come back for her when it was safe. Only an hour later, the last of the small group were found and killed by the Vikings.

Come morning, the six year old girl left her hiding place and followed the path of broken plants and footprints after her mother. She found them, corpses warm and wrought with flies. After spending much of the day sobbing over her mother’s bloodied body, she stumbled east, too scared to return to home. By nightfall, she was lost, hungry, and cold. Finding a hollow sheltered from the wind, she slept. Over the next several days, she wandered in circles through the forest. Lost as she was, she was a child of the land, and was able to keep herself alive - making a small fire, finding some berries and grubs – a crude meal, but enough. Tired of aimless walking, bruised and scraped and gaunt, she made a rough shelter. Distrustful of strangers and terrified to be found by those that killed her family, she hid herself well. As a child, she couldn’t realize that the Vikings had already moved on – to her, they were always a possibility, becoming the bogymen around the corner; her nightmares turned even the thought of strangers of her own kind into looming shadows. Over the course of weeks, she gathered food and scratched out a home for herself, using every bit of what her mother and father had taught her of the land. She made herself a crude spear, practicing with slower creatures. Eventually, she found hunting trails and avoided them, becoming very good at being unseen. She eked her survival out of the wilderness, barely pulling through at first, learning.

Weeks turned into seasons, and seasons into years. The girl grew into a cunning hunter, but while she learned the ways of the wild, she also forgot the ways from before. She had become feral, stitching crude clothes from animal skins, slowly forgetting even language – with no one to talk to from six years of age, words had fallen to growls. Watching the small pride of European lions – rare though they were – that passed through her lands to follow game, she had learned the ways of predator and prey and had made it an art, feeling kinship with those fierce, proud beasts. She drove those people who passed into her territory away, by wrecking their camps or scaring game away from them, taking what she found of use. Eventually it wasn’t enough. A trapper from lands westward wouldn’t be driven from his camp, and after coming back to a particularly harsh rending of his belongings, he stalked out to track her. Though she laid traps for him, he avoided them, eventually making it to the grove where she lived. She killed him there, under the pale summer moon. That was the season marking her twelfth year of age.

Two more years passed. She continued the cycle of hunting, surviving, and driving others away. Several other times she was forced to kill a fellow human, less she be discovered; while she didn’t revel in the act, she didn’t shy from it. It was her or them, and she refused to be the prey ever again.

One early morning, barely more than a finger of time before sunrise, she awoke to the sounds of running in the distance. Calculating, she fetched her spear and knife and stalked quickly to intercept the intruder. She waited behind a rocky outcrop, rocking on her heals in anticipation of the threat. She was unprepared for the sight of what stumbled out from between the trees. Slouched, covered in coarse dark hair, with the flash of predator’s teeth and gnarled claws protruding from human hands, this thing was abhorrent. Memories flashed through her mind of the monsters, the bogymen of her childhood, now vague and terrifying. Snarling, she pulled back her arm and threw her spear as hard as she could, taking the monstrosity center mass as he stumbled. The spear sank into his back and out through the center of his chest. He fell to the forest floor, slumped in the leaves and loam, and she fell upon him with her knife, making low noises of rage as she tore into his body, rending him as if he were game. In her frenzy, she abandoned her knife, tearing at his body with her nails and teeth like an animal.

As the sun rose, the body began to smoke. Snapping out of her savage trance, tears running down her blood-smeared face, she scrambled away from what was left of the grisly remains – barely more than ribbons of flesh clinging to bone, pieces scattered. As the morning light hit the carcass, it burst into flames. Flinching, she snarled at it one last time before turning and running back to her shelter. She stalked around her camp, gore covering her skin, shivering. She could feel her heartbeat in her throat, a feeling of exhilaration, of power. Something had changed.

Bevan’s Point of View
During a spring night in 951, the pursuit of a Forsaken that he had wounded led him out of Lhiannan territory, westward past the Water of Leith. It was less than ten minutes until sunrise; desperately the Forsaken ran, seeking distance above all else, followed closely and silently by the owl that was Bevan. As his quarry broke the tree line into a clearing, Bevan heard a cry – almost that of a child, but more guttural, snarling. He banked, turning to find the source while keeping the Forsaken in his sights. No sooner had he done so when a spear sank deep into the Forsaken’s body, protruding from his chest – a heart shot, by the way the Forsaken fell immediately. Furious at the intrusion of his hunt, but out of time as the morning sun threatened the horizon, he winged to the ground to gain shelter. As he prepared to go to ground, his last sight was that of a scrap-clad child running from the trees to descend upon the torpored Forsaken, slashing at him with a knife before falling on him like an animal, tearing him apart with hands and teeth. Though irked at the theft of the kill, he grudgingly admitted admiration at the child’s feat.

Upon waking at sunset, he was greeted with the sun-burnt remains of the Forsaken. Taking wing, he circled the area, looking for the human that had stolen his kill, abet bravely. After several sweeps of the area, he found a crude camp – a bough-and-leather shelter, a pit fire, drying plants… and the child of the previous night, sitting fireside, sharpening a spear. Bevan lit upon a branch overhanging the camp, observing with narrowed eyes. From the look of the camp, it supported only the single occupant – and had been there for quite some time. Years, likely. The child was a girl – almost a woman, he noted, but just barely. From her size, he could tell that life had been hard on her. Still close to humanity, concern overcame his irritation. He watched her this night, and for several nights after. She never spoke, only growled and mumbled; not words but a sort of mix of humming and meaningless sounds. She hunted expertly for her age, and kept her own stores of supplies. He watched as she chased a traveler away without revealing herself, acting as if they were some other predator moving in on her lands. It was obvious that she had been lost to the wild for most of her life. Seeing her pass close to a local pride of European Lions – carefully, respectfully, while they watched her without startling – made his decision. He would embrace her. Of those he had met in his travels, none were so close to the land as she was. He knew it would take time – a lot of time, to gain her trust and make her understand – but he was patient.

Seeing her wariness of people, he decided not to approach her directly… as a ‘human’, at least. One night, as she sat by her fire, he walked up the well-hidden path to her camp in his Lion form, slowly and as unthreatening as he could manage (which was quite a task for him). A startled cry passed her lips before she cut herself off, freezing in place, eyes locked on his. Bevan padded softly into her camp, and lay down, across the fire from her. They stayed like this for several hours, neither moving more than to shift positions, before he left the way he came. He repeated this many more nights over the next month for longer periods, until she calm enough to continue her usual tasks – though she always remained alert and never slept while he was present. At the end, she had even come to putting aside a part of her kill for him; he was glad that he had the ability to hold it down until out of her sight.

Finally, he decided it was time to reveal his true form. One night, he didn’t show up at her fire. He had spent over a week strait at her hearth prior, and she was puzzled by his absence. She had grown used to his presence. As he had hoped, after a few hours, she went looking. He waited for her, sitting among the pride of lions. He had been careful to leave paw prints for her to follow. He wasn’t disappointed – after not too long a time, she emerged from the tree line into the pride’s clearing. She hesitated and stopped – the one lion she had come to know was one thing, but the whole pride was another. Bevan let her observe the lions for several minutes before locking eyes with her. As she watched him – her lion – he shifted up to his human form, and smiled at her. Frozen to the spot, eyes wide, she stared at him for several breaths – before turning and fleeing away.

He left her along for several nights. When he returned, he brought with him a spear – not a crude one like she kept, but a quality crafted throwing spear. She was nowhere in sight – she had heard him coming and vanished – but he laid the spear next to her fire, and left. When he returned the next night, he did so as the lion. This time she was there, though she crouched back from the fire, eyes narrowed – holding the spear he had left, he saw with approval. Once again, he locked eyes with her, and shifted up. She tensed and hissed at him, drawing back further, but didn’t run. Without breaking eye contact, he sat, repeating the routine he had used as a lion. This ritual continued for many nights until she finally relaxed around him, accepting him as a companion. Over the course of months, he slowly taught her language; when she could understand, he taught her of the Lhiannan. Just after her fourteenth year, he Embraced her, creating his first Childer. She proved to possess the same Disciplines that set him apart from the others, proving his Bloodline.

Quotes

 * "Victory in battle comes when your enemy does not know what they face. I have never seen this deception so profoundly mastered in the form of a single person." - Nessa ni Bhraonain
 * Add your own!