Catherine Keys
Monster • شَؾْء خُلُود • A Thing of Eternity
Catherine wasn't too old when The Dark Dancer came for her, but she had been training for the time when the Dancer's kiss would overwhelm her simple senses and plunge her into a life where only darkness ruled.
A vampire, in their earliest moments hears the internal call of another being: a monster, a beast. It begins a hunt on the human whose body it inhabits from the first moment. And this hunt never ends. However, the body-host can bargain with the inner hunter and it is the tentative bond and struggle for dominance that informs the vampire's hold on their own humanity.
And so Catherine was, a vampire left to her own ends struggling with the beast inside. She could feel it as it would rise when it was hungry...when she was hungry, and it's jaws would come to the surface and she would begin to look for blood. But in the times when she was sated it would hide beneath the surface of her mind, barely registering. It is because of this that she began taking the name of شَؾْء خُلُود (Shai-Hulud) from the Dune books to speak about this phenomena inside of her. Slowly her visual representation of the beast became like it's namesake: breaking the surface when it felt the stirrings of other monsters and when it was hungry, and beyond then only when she stirred it to act.
She has since walked the face of the earth for many years, her fangs becoming more apparent when the Shai Hulud is close to the surface of her mind and body; but still she maintains a strong control over her more primal instincts. And as the music of Paris fell away and the cold winds of Chicago flew about her short hair she changed with the times as much as one could. And in all this she drank in memories, becoming a repository for more information than even her own extended lifetime.
P H Y S I C A LCatherine has a dancer's physique as she was originally a Gypsy. She is muscular but mostly in the legs; her skin is dark with the color of sun and her eyes and hair follow suit. She wears a pixie cut in the modern day, frequently donating her hair to charity -- as it is one of the benefits that her hair returns to it's original waist length every night when she wakes. She is on the current average lines of modern height being approximately 163 cm tall and 61 kg. She still holds to the bohemian look and favors clothes that have a 'swish', particularly if they are of bright colors.
The strangest thing that she does wear is a small silver crucifix on a leather thong about her neck. Neither the silver or the image seem to burn her, despite frequently being thought of as a bane of vampires.
D I S P O S I T I O NCatherine is, in essence, a hunter. She views every initial meeting as someone who is looking to gain an advantage; however she is fairly comfortable around people and prefers to be friends than to just bite and move on. After all, being alive as long as she has been it's not worth it just killing people who could be friends. If she is hungry she will try to get the person alone, probably using some form of diversion technique than something out in the obvious because of the nature of the Shai Hulud, she does not raise to anger easily but will if necessary to protect herself or things she cares about.
N O T A B L E . S K I L L SCatherine is a master of the occult and of stealth; although she is not good at fighting she is good at getting away and of sneaking around. Obviously she is a dancer and that affords her a fair amount of dexterity and strength and she is very good at running away.
Catherine has access to general vampiric abilities such as increasing her strength or other physical abilities, running incredibly fast (up to five times a normal human), disappearing into the shadows to remain unseen, seeing incredible distances and heightened senses. In addition she can drink small amounts of blood to take memories from others either willingly or no in order to continue her collection of thoughts.
A R C H E T Y P ECatherine is considered to be a
Collector, a
Mystic, and a
Monster.
