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Name: Antonella "Nella" Hamilton
Age: Antonella was born in 1851 so she is 162 years old including mortal years. Antonella looks to be about 25 years old.
Sex: Female
Clan: Toreador (8 generation)
Sect: Camarilla though Antonella is also somewhat involved with the Anarchs.
Location: Paris
Appearance: Antonella is just a bit over average height and she is very slender, she is long limbed and elegant. Antonella have a oval face with sharp, defined features, thin lips and a nose a bit on a big side, her eyes are dark, sapphire blue and have a haunted expression in them. Antonella is fair skinned and her face is framed by long, sand blond hair that reaches her to her waist but that she usually wear braided into a bun at the nape of her neck. The young Toreador wear 1950's style dresses and always wear high heels, she do wear a few pieces of tasteful jewelry, including a gold pin in the shape of the Toreador Clan symbol which was a gift from he Sire. Antonella is a handsome woman but her nose is a bit to big and her features a bit to sharp for her to be called truly beautiful. One thing which can be a bit creepy when looking at Antonella is that unless she have a reason to do so, she do not move at all, her long years staked have removed all ticks and habitual motions so when she sit listening to someone for example she sit there like a doll, which someone can see as somewhat unnerving. Antonella have a very beautiful voice and that move others more than her somewhat plain appearance.
Biography: Antonella was born in Philadelphia to a wealthy property owner and his wife in 1851. Young Antonella had all the benefits that money provided, she had the best education that could be afforded a girl, she ha servants to wait upon her and the security that came with being a part of the elite. The young Toreador remember her childhood as a happy, carefree time filled with tea parties with her mother, gossiping with friends and listening to her father tell stories from the time he was a ship captain at night. Young Antonella lived well but she also always had a rebellious soul and when her father picked out a husband for her that she did not want and threatened to disinherit his daughter unless she agreed to the union she packed her bags and left.
Life on the streets of Philadelphia was something quite different than the luxurious life Antonella had led in the Hamilton manor, but the young woman was resourceful and while she got into more than a few dangerous situations she managed to get out of them as well and land on her feet. Antonella knew she had a good singing voice and the young woman begun to earn coin by singing on street corners, many a tired soul found comfort in the beauty of the fallen socialite's voice and so the young woman earned what she needed to survive. One night while Antonella was performing a man came along who took a special interest in her, Sindra Wright ran a local restaurant and she loved Antonella's voice so much that she hired the young woman to sing in her establishment as a permanent employment.
Antonella was given a small room on top of the restaurant and every evening she entertained Sindra's guests with cheerful ditties and romantic ballads, Nella was so grateful to her employer who had rescued her from a life on the streets, and slowly the two of them got closer, far closer than what was consider proper between two women in the 1800's. Antonella fell in love with Sindra but the woman also made her wonder, why did she never see her during the day? Why did she never eat in the presence of others? The question of why Sindra was only seen at night however was revealed in the most shocking of ways one evening as the two women where in one another's arms, Sindra had taken Antonella out to celebrate her 25 birthday, and as the two of them made love Nella suddenly felt a quick pain in her neck followed by more pleasure than she had ever felt before, then the world went black.
Antonella awoke in horrible pain, she could feel herself changing...feel herself dying. Sindra lifted Nella up into her arms and soothed her until it was over then she gave the young woman bottles of thick, red liquid that Antonella eagerly drank. In the nights that followed Sindra told her new childe about what she had become, that she had loved Antonella's voice so much that she could not allow it to age and die with it's owner so she had made Nella into what she herself was, a vampire. At first it was hard for Antonella to accept her new existence, but with Sindra's kind, guiding hand she came to terms with it and even begun to enjoy her new, vampiric condition. Nella was trained by her Sire for 30 years and then she was presented to the Prince and accepted into Camarilla society.
Years passed and times changed but Antonella stayed the same, she was a tavern singer, a nightclub singer, and a radio starlet but she always kept away from real fame only earning enough of her performing to keep herself with a comfortable apartment and whatever else she needed, when she had used one alias for so long that people was starting to question why she did not age she would vanish from the public for a few years only to emerge with a new name, she was Nelly James, Antonia Whitman and Nella Blue, all of them singers and all of them expressing Antonella's great joy of song.
As time went by Antonella and Sindra fell out of love but Sire and childe maintained a close relationship, Nella was happy with her unlife but then in the 1950's something terrible happened. Sindra had a feeding accident and a newspaper reported on a devil woman who had been seen ripping people apart. The Primogen demanded someone lose their head over the Masquerade breach and Prince Daniel himself was not much more pleased. Antonella knew that sooner or later the Sheriff would figure out that the devil woman from New Town was Sindra and then she would lose her beloved Sire, there would be shown no mercy to the elder Toreador. Antonella however was friends with Prince Daniel, the two of them had shared a weekly chess game for well over two decades now, so if she confessed to her Sire's crimes perhaps the Ventrue would go easier on her.
Antonella went to Daniel and told him that the feeding accident and following frenzy that the newspaper had reported on had been her and she threw herself at the elder Ventrue's mercy. There was a trial and while the Primogen council called out for Antonella's head Prince Daniel manged to talk them into a somewhat milder punishment, though not by much. Antonella was sentenced to fifty years staked, and to make things worse she would have blood trickled down her throat at regular intervals so she would not be allowed to escape her torment in a torpor. Antonella was terrified, she had only been staked once before and that was done by Sindra and she was only kept that way for a few moments, but still the memories of that told the young Toreador just how much it would hurt. Nella tried to keep calm and dignified when the Sheriff came towards her with a stake, but that was not easy and soon she was on the floor crying and begging. Prince Daniel weaved Sheriff Rigmar away and instead he took the stake and did the deed himself, better a friend do it than the cruel, brutal Sheriff.
The only pain Antonella could remember which had been worse than what she felt as that piece of wood pierced her heart was the first few moments after her Embrace, however the pain of the Embraced had quickly passed while the pain the stake gave her was constant. Every inch of her throbbed with pain and the young Toeador wanted to scram but she could not muster enough control over her own body to do so, worse than the pain however was the panic, the terrible fear that filled her and nearly drove her mad. Vampires have an extreme sense of self preservation and to just lie there, completely helpless scared Antonella beyond anything she had earlier experienced. All Antonella could do was to feel bloody tears roll down her cheeks as some ghoul lifted her and carried her into the basement where she was placed in a bed where she would wait out the fifty long years of her sentence.
The fifty years Antonella spent staked was hell, the young Toreador knew that if she had been asked a week into it if she would have rather had the execution the Primogen called out for she would have answered yes, anything to escape the constant agony and fear bought on by the stake. Sindra visited her childe regularly and those visits provided a bit of respite, Sindra would lift Antonella up into her arms and rock her gently while whispering sweet nothings to her, at those times Nella felt safe, if only for a little while. Prince Daniel visited Antonella a few times to on rare occasions so at least the young Toreador was not alone in her agony, but it was all just to much pain and eventually not even visits from her Sire and friend could cheer Antonella up. Time ceased to be for Nella, there was only pain, endless pain and terror, as the years went by Antonella begun to telepathically beg her Sire to kill her when she visited and then she just gave up using Auspex to communicate at all and she just lay there, paralyzed, in pain and suffering without any hope that her torture would ever end, but end it did.
On the day 50 yeas after she had been staked Prince Daniel gave the order that Antonella was to be released. Nella was in a terrible condition, at first she did not even dare to move at all as she had been paralyzed for so long, and every loud sound frightened her, even that fact that she was free of pain after so many years in constant agony scared her. if Antonella had been left to her own devices she would not have survived, she was so out of it that some young Kindred eager to lower his generation would have had no problems with taking her out, luckily for Antonella Sindra stayed by her side and nurture her traumatized childe back to health.
With time Antonella recovered, she was still haunted by those 50 years and she had developed a strong phobia of stakes and her days where filled with nightmares, but she recovered enough to take care of herself. The world had changed allot in the 50 years Nella had spent in the cellar of the Elysium with a piece of wood though her heart however and even if Sindra had told her about the development the young Toreador found it difficult to adjust. Antonella was released from the stake in 2003 and it took until 2007 before she had recovered enough and caught up on modern times enough to actually function on her own again. For about a years Antonella continued living in Philadelphia but she had to many bad memories of that city so she decided to leave. Prince Daniel had some contacts in Paris and he helped her with travel arrangements. Antonella did not like the idea of leaving her Sire but she just could not stay, and so one evening she left for Europe and her new life alone.
Antonella was accepted by the Prince of Paris and the young Toreador have become a part of the city's vampire population. Antonella have taken a job as a nightclub singer in a 50's nostalgia bar named Betty's where she go under the name Nella Gold, this pay for her second hand car, her clothes and a small cellar apartment with painted over windows that she uses as a haven. Antonella keeps in contact with her Sire through letters and over the phone and she misses the other Toreador dearly but Nella is also sort of happy to be on her own for once. Antonella have grown bitter on the whole ancient system of law and justice the Camarilla live by, being staked for fifty years can do that to you, and so she have started taking an interest in the Anarch movement, however Antonella is still to much of a traditionalist to truly become one of the rebels, she was Embraced by a very old and fine Toreador after all. Antonella sometimes serve as a go between when the Anarch need to meet with the elders of the Camarilla since she have a bit of a foot in both worlds.
Personality: Antonella is will full, charming and passionate, song is what truly make the young Toreador's dead heart beat and she loves to perform, or just plain sing for the joy of it. Music is what can lull Antonella into that state of ecstasy when she forget the world around her, the state other clans call the Toreador weakness. Antonella is terrified of stakes and just the sight of one can make her shudder and she have to fight not to leave the room, the young vampire struggles with daily nightmares of her time bound by one. Antonella is kind but over 130 years as a vampire have made her loose some of her humanity, she do try not to harm anyone or kill though if she can avoid it. Antonella is very loyal towards those she considers friends and she would die for them if need be. Antonella is smart but she is more of a quick thinker than a philosopher, she only desires a peaceful unlife dedicated to music with a few good friends and loved ones to keep her company, off course the turbulent life of a vampire have a tendency not to let this wish be fulfilled however.
