Spoopy Scary

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

Just to clarify

Andrea doesn't know a fuckin' thing about superpowers, so she's just gonna hear a bunch of bullshit pretty soon.

The Elder Scrolls: Fruits of Contention - Chapter 2 (Completed)

You've made the correct decision.
Why aren't we talking about how good I am?
*slowly pulls the gun away from Dervish*
I am greatly appreciative and humbled that you would have me back, and I am excited to continue this journey with everyone!

The Elder Scrolls: Fruits of Contention - Chapter 2 (Completed)

What's up homies? Sorry I'm late - work wants me dead. I won't let them have the satisfaction.

Wy am I like this

ESO

Wylendriel Greensky

Female Bosmer | 60 | The Lady

Profile

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§ Birthplace

Grahtwood, Valenwood

§ Appearance

Her overall demeanor is as unsuspecting and as humble as she is dressed, in the layered robes bequeathed to her by the temple where she worships her goddess, Kynareth. One critical look at the Bosmer and her identity as a priestess becomes quite apparent. She seems as gentle and dainty a thing as one might suspect, looking doe-eyed around her as though she were at constant risk, and ever as agile like so many of her kind with her lithe frame moving with a sort of disguised grace. She has become fairly fit though a nomadic lifestyle, though weighing in at just 110 lbs. Standing at 5'3", her height seems as any other wood-elven folk, but her stance is a tall one, or at least like she's attempting to make herself seem taller than she really has; how the arc in her back seems to exist to support shoulders weary from hardship. You wouldn't think so to look at her, but she's actually lived through sixty years of life! That's technically pretty short for a Bosmer and is considered to be barely scraping by as an adult.

A heart-shaped face bears a stiff upper lip, but perhaps only if to steady the quivering lip beneath it as she fights to maintain her appearance of discipline. It is this very same face that also bears an upturned button nose which she keeps raised high in the air, as if to hold herself above whatever indignities, for she does not carry with her an air of arrogance or nobility; more as if she was being dogged and haunted by old ghosts and she seeks to prove herself to be above them. Her long and silky auburn hair is usually braided up haphazardly into a bun, which reveals a youthful - almost wild - face, given the thin jawline and pointed chin, the high cheekbones and wide forehead - but only attractive if a person could bring themselves to look past the the wide Bosmer pupils in her rich brown eyes and the array of sharp teeth that were made for tearing through meat.

Her robes are made from hide and thin leather in the middle of layers for durability and protection, with wool stitched over the outside as the outer layer, and treated with wax to protect against the rain. The inside of the robes is all grizzly bear fur warming her skin and absorbing whatever perspiration there may be. These robes adorned with a number of buttons made from polished bone and apparently just as many pouches hanging from a belt made from a thick leather, and with it, a curious trophy of an eagle skull. The robe's tailoring even applies to the hood, making this outfit a very heavy one to be lugging around - good for the regions of Skyrim, High Rock, and Wrothgar, but less so anywhere else south of Bruma. Beneath, she wears tight-fitted, black-colored, wool undergarments that cover her breasts and thighs, but otherwise leaves exposed her midriff and her arms and legs from the shoulders and knees down. Her feet are covered with fur boots and her hands are usually bare, but as a part time alchemist who follows the Green Pact, her hands are stained with all manners of ichors and ingredients, and frequently smell... obnoxiously robust, to be putting it gently. The sight of pointed nails that seem like claws tend to evoke even more anxious energy to bystanders. A leather satchel hangs at her side from a strap going across her chest and over one of her shoulders.

The robes can fortunately be separated from the inside layer of bear fur in case of warmer weather. The hide and wool outside layers function like a shell or windbreaker of the inside. Underneath her garments however, this young elf's sand colored skin is littered with scars. Some small, and others very, very large. If one didn't know better, they would think she had died terribly and was stitched right back up. Gnarly gouging scars in her abdomen, punctures in her legs, slashes over her arms, a smaller one down the side of both her lips, a bite mark on her chest, lashes across her back, and a long slash around her throat. Any attempt at questioning these are met with silence and are typically never answered. So gruesome is this sight, you may not immediately notice the tattoos on her body, markings of the winged herald. Feathered wings stretch out from the center of the back with the tips of its furthest feathers reaching down to her elbows. Smaller wings are placed on her chest by her collarbones, reaching to her shoulders. Feathers rest above both of her eyebrows.

Before she left Dawnstar, she mourned the loss of a friend, the argonian Pakseech, Tzinasha. As a part of honoring his memory, she wears a long quill on her hair: one of his feathers.

§ Personality

Lately, there has been a buildup of disturbing events that have left her emotionally distant and afraid to get close to people. She doesn't want to put anybody at risk out of this acquired fear of accidentally hurting those around her through whatever accident may arise from her compulsions. Yet, there also exists an element of distrust that makes it difficult for her to get close to people. This distrust is not so pervasive in her personality that it breeds conflicts with others, but impedes any progress in the development of a real, meaningful relationship. How this distrust affects her most is how, over the last couple of weeks, she has learned to put her own life in her own hands instead of relying on others. She has great potential for love, platonic or otherwise - she feels those emotions, but she fearfully rejects any oncoming advances and closes her heart to interested parties.

Continuing with this duality theme of withdrawn concern, she, as suggested before, prefers to take measures into her own hands. While some of it may come from a priestess' humility in not wanting to burden others with her own responsibilities, it too comes from that same distrust factor. Unaccountable variables could compromise the outcome, and therefore she would prefer to do it herself and take responsibility for any failure should failure occur. Insisting to her that it does not have to be that way, that she can rely on others sometimes, is a vain effort since her stubbornness blocks off any attempt to appeal to her vulnerability. She is paranoid, stubborn, caught up in her own sense of responsibility, and would just as quickly sit them down by force if they continue to pester her. This hedgehog's dilemma is not an ingrained flaw, but was acquired, and only recently.

This doesn't Wylendriel make callous though. She is still a healer, she has compassionate - on that same note, she's not a pushover. Her commanding tone is useful for bedside manner and her timid nature is thrown out the window when her areas of responsibilities (healing, sermon, etc.) come around. This dutiful disposition is tempered with motherly care, putting every ounce of effort into making sure her patients have a healthy recovery. Additionally, she is nonjudgmental of the other races. This even applies to the Nords – she understands that she entered Skyrim during a time of fear and struggle. She takes no absurd amount of pride in her elven heritage like the Thalmor do. Instead, she believes that there is something to learn from every culture. Still, she is understandably cautious while approaching nords she hasn't met yet (or any race of men for that matter, considering the Dominion's siege on the rest of Tamriel has left them suspicious of elves), Dominion races (the Dominion wanted her head on a pike), Dunmer (given the recent war and their association with the Kamal) - so perhaps it's safer to say that she's cautious of approaching basically anyone. At least that doesn't count as discrimination, right?

Even through her endearing visage, it is not difficult to tell that there is something more beneath the surface, and it cannot be pointed toward any one thing. It is an anger, it is an itch, it is a compulsion, an intrusive thought - a guilty conscience. It is as though a seed of evil was planted in her heart, and with all of her might she tries to reject it - bury it - kill it - but try as she may, it burns her inside like a craving and it only grows hungrier with time. The line between her desires and the compulsions of this seed are blurred, only distinguishable by how alien these sensations feel, because - Gods help her, she's a priestess for Kyne's sake, a healer. All of these little suggestions in her head, ever-so-subtle, this feeling of craving - is almost like a lust for violence, to feel in control, a sort of bestial blood-lust that is so damn insatiable that she just barely feeds into it to just the barest degree so that it does not overwhelm her; barely turning on the bleed valve before the pressure inside her head becomes too much. She knows it's not her, she knows it does not belong there, and she knows exactly where it came from... but fixing it isn't so easy.

Her guilt stems from many things: one being the doubt of her faith to her Lady. This guilt best summarizes her real self. She feels guilty for making the decision of accepting a deal that costed her soul, for choosing daedra over divinity, this evil that has planted itself inside her, and about her growing doubt in the Nine Divines. She once tried to justify it; after all, had they not left her to die at the hands of her betrayers? For Arkay's sake, perhaps it would be right for her to die, but where was Stendarr's mercy? Or Kynareth's gift to her faithful? Then comes the feelings of guilt regarding that sense of entitlement and her expectations of the gods. The guilt of her bloody crimes. The guilt of her own betrayal of another. She is torn in many different ways and wishes for peace inside herself to ease that discord, and there's little question as to why she has so little inner strength to spare.

With all her years as a healer and priestess under her belt, she thought herself ready for death, but in the end she found herself no more at peace than the lost and wounded souls she preached to. She beats herself up for it and belittles herself, and Molag Bal's corruption further taints her. With all of this inner turmoil, Wylendriel is growing more convinced there is no saving one such as herself. In the end though, she has come to find that there is greater justice to be found in healing as many as she can than in taking the easy way out. After some time and coming to terms with herself, she feels that it would be best to work at bettering herself one step at a time, and that the first step would be to remove the daedra's influence once and for all - which in itself is a monumental task, but prays that the mercy of the Nine Divines would be such that they would cleanse her spirit. The last few shreds of her faith clings to this desperate gambit; the deciding act that would finally determine her fate.

§ Background

Prologue

Wylendriel was born in Valenwood, to a respected mother and father that devoted their lives to Y'ffre in Elder Root, Grahtwood. They especially had taken to the Green Pact and were loyally faithful to the religion as Spinners, its enforcers. So much, in fact, their first born daughter, named Wylendriel, was conditioned to follow the Green Pact out the womb and would be raised with the intentions of making her a priestess as well - a Spinner. For the earliest years, the young and impressionable Bosmer lass adhered to family tradition, studying her people's history and following each and every rule obediently - there was nothing else, only Y'ffre - and was on the road to receiving the same kind of respect her parents had in her society. It went this way for a couple years, learning more and more about Valenwood, it's friends and enemies, healing; and all the while, the Aldmeri Dominion, formed a couple hundred years before she was even born, assumed a larger presence inside Valenwood. As she learned more about her allies, she learned more about their culture and about the Dominion's enemies, she discovered something about the Imperial Empire: their Nine Divines. They had a parallel to Y'ffre through Kynareth, except that she seemed to exemplify the beauty and force of nature. Wylendriel's family did not expect her to discover Kynareth in the world around her.

She didn't replace Y'ffre, no. Rather, the goddess only added to the enrichment of Wy's world. If Y'ffre was the father, the state of existing, of only being - Kynareth was the mother, its force, it's passion, beauty and danger, she breathed the soul into life and made it beautiful. Life was essential, yes, but it was simply existing - what would life be were it not the soul and beauty that made life worthwhile? Kynareth was nature. This self-found philosophy touched Wylendriel so profoundly that she chose to educate herself how she could in order to follow in the footsteps of her newfound Lady. Such material was hard to come by in Valenwood, so her knowledge was only rudimentry, and her family never quite looked at her the same after it - but as long as she didn't forsake the Green Pact, they figured there was nothing wrong with it. She looked happy! She was interested in helping others. They still intended on keeping her faith a secret from the Thalmor of the Dominion. Who knows what they might think of it?

All that the Altmer and the Aldmeri Dominion had brought to Valenwood were not so great, though. They brought also strife to a few, select Bosmer communities. Rumors of purges spread across Valenwood, of isolated executions by the hands of Altmer inquisitors in the north. Word had it that the victims were deserving of such a fate. They were "unworthy savages, not befitting to be part of this grand alliance of Mer." Not many questioned it, they had this idea that their "close bond" with the Altmer was far too valuable to forsake. Wylendriel's family would of course be spared, being far too valuable and important to Bosmer society. It was not unheard of that some Bosmer took the Green Pact to extremes, and it was no wonder that the Altmer thought they were a barbaric people. While Wylendriel followed a watered-down version of it, where she and others rejected cannibalism, the purists hunted their enemies and consumed their flesh. It was a revolting thought in her mind, though despite that, there was still the sense of racial kinship. Then you have the ones supporting Imperial occupation, which would no doubt prove them as traitors. It was depressing to hear of the Altmer killing them, but she followed two deities of nature, and death and rebirth was a part of the cycle of nature. All she felt she could do was pray for them in honor of perpetuating that cycle.

The years had gone on and Wylendriel was growing into a full-fledged woman, and she and some others of her community has remained fairly ignorant of the events occurring in the outside world. She practiced her skills of restoration magic to heal wounded hunters after their return from the forest, and using conventional medicine to follow after, or if the wounds were small. As her reputation grew, she found herself healing soldiers doing only-Gods-know-what, but it wasn't her place to ask or to judge. While she had taken a path of faith that had warranted some disappointment from her family, she gained value in the eyes of some few Altmer agents of the Dominion. They took notice of not just her intense devotion, but her skills as a healer. Offered ever so diplomatically to enlist with the Dominion as a field medic, Wylendriel felt obligated to decline for she was no warrior. They saw it as a reasonable defense, though she was curious about the influx of Aldmeri soldiers coming their way. Had they been at war all along? Though they found her naivety cute, all they said to her was that it was nothing to worry about. Just some few skirmishes with the human empire up north. They let her be without further harassment on that note, but continued to send Altmer infantry to her in Valenwood if they were near enough. She came to be idolized as a highly regarded citizen in her community, endeared for her compassion and healing ability.

She found it cute. Rarely was one found without the other.

Though ignorant of world events she may have been, the news of conflict that broke out in northern Valenwood spread like wildfire. Separatist dissenters lashed out against the Aldmeri Dominion, and with the help of the Empire, drove them south. Dominion presence became more prevalent in the south and were organizing to make counter-attacks against the separatists and the Imperial Empire that backed them. The outside world's trouble have broken in, and truth of the Dominion's deeds had gotten clearer. The rumors of executions of the Bosmeri people were more than just rumors, and they weren't just isolated incidents. The purges were more like a systematic slaughter. Indeed, they saw the Bosmer as little more than barbarians. Though elven, they were still more like second class citizens than trusted allies. When a close friend of Wylendriel was ruthlessly murdered, only because they found her on her haunches and leaning over a bloody rabbit - for simply eating - she saw these purges for what it really was: cultural cleansing. They were the judge, jury, and executioner of any that the Altmer thought weren't good or "civilized" enough to be their underlings.

It was at the turn of her adulthood when Wylendriel defamed the Aldmeri Dominion, and sure enough, it wasn't a popular opinion. She was branded as a traitor, and before she could turn to flee Valenwood, she was briefly stopped by her family. They parted ways with a hug and a kiss, proud of their daughter's courage, and with a gift in the form of an eagle's skull. It was the acknowledgement and acceptance of her faith in Kynareth. What could have been more symbolic of the nature goddess of the wind than that? She escaped shortly after to the far corners of Tamriel attempting to evade the Dominion with war waging around her as she went. Whether it was by foot or by caravan, she eventually found herself in the wilds of southern Skyrim by the end of the year. She was found by a Markarth patrol in the Reach, and they reigned her in for questioning – mostly to her potential ties to the Dominion. She managed to convince them that she was no friend of the Thalmor, but they were still suspicious of the elf passing through. Still fearful of the Dominion's discovery of her, Wylendriel fled once again as soon as she was fed and rested towards the east, where the Nords of Eastmarch were notorious for their particular disdain of elven kind. This didn't worry her though; whatever vulgarity or mud they wanted to sling her way would be nothing compared to the punishment the Thalmor would deliver unto her.

She payed the carriage a hearty sum to take her to the other side of Skyrim, and instead she landed in front of Whiterun. They learned that the road ahead was blockaded by bandits and the man refused to go further. So she remained in central Skyrim. From the beginning, things were hard, but it was though the goddess herself was watching over her - she found her place in a Temple of Kyne, much to her fortune, in front of the Gildergreen. Here, her restoration magic and medicinal skills were highly valued. Her safety was assured here, behind tall walls and Skyrim's staunch stance against the Aldmeri Dominion. Also being a servant of the goddess, she could find respite from the Dominion under the Jarl's protection. When she first arrived at the temple, she stood at the door in ragged furs and hide, nearly destroyed by the long trip across Tamriel. She nearly looked like a beggar! But her devotion was unquestionable. They took her in and made her sturdy, warm, and reliable robes that reflected her Green Pact, but was befitting of a priestess. They reminded her of home.

The path ahead presented far more difficulties than she had anticipated. Cultural roadblocks, miscommunication, and just a general misunderstanding of how nord society even functioned. It proved difficult to gain the trust of the local nords, but her devotion to the goddess Kynareth was almost tangible and she treated every visitor with the utmost respect and humility. She poured everything she had into every restoration spell and genuinely cared about her patients. Such diligence guaranteed her respect from even Skyrim's most stubborn nords. It was heartwarming to find a place where she belonged. During her stay at the Temple of Kyne, the priestesses that already lived there taught her everything there was to know about Kynareth. Wy's rudimentary understanding was greatly expanded upon and she was taught practices that seemed totally unnecessary back home. For instance, it was tradition to learn how to summon a familiar, a guardian of nature, to perhaps protect or lead the way. The familiar would, in one way or another, guide the caster along their path. In addition, human priesthood expanded their services beyond just healing. She was expected to learn how to repel and banish the undead and daedric forces that threatened Nirn. They helped to bolster her powers of Restoration magic, and gave her a basic understanding of Conjuration. After getting over the initial learning curve, conjuring familiars came easily, but banishment is where she really struggled with. Turns out she has a much harder time with making things go away than she does with making things stay.

It wasn't before long that she decided to go on a pilgrimage to visit the Eldergleam. On the 26th of Mid Year, she hired mercenaries. They were nords from Eastmarch, and their job was to escort her on her hike eastward and protect her from the likes of bandits, and honestly, it was also a precaution to increase her chance of survival should a dragon find her (assuming that there was still one in hiding that the last Dragonbon had not yet slain). She left with her temple's blessing and set out on the long road ahead.

But all went south once on the 30th once they circled around the mountain, High Hrothgar. In the middle of nowhere, miles from any sign of civilization, Wylendriel was struck by betrayal. The very men she payed to protect her turned around and jumped her, before dragging her off to some remote location at a ruined site where she was thrown onto a stone slab. She was mugged, beaten, stolen from, and... Gods, violated. They passed her around like a toy, taking turns, laughing! They told her, every time they beat her... stabbed her... lashed her, and bit her - they told her that she had this coming. This was she got for being an elf. When they were finally finished with her, when she finally thought they would leave her be and let her wallow in her suffering, one of them slid their knife across her throat. She was spat on and left for dead, Wylendriel was spending her final moments bleeding out, gurgling and drowning in her own blood and unable to breath, laying there and clutching her throat. She spent her last moments fearful and in tears and in silent prayer. First to her lady Kynareth, but she was silent. Thoughts of the circle of life intruded into her mind, the lessons of the temple - but she couldn't let go feeling so betrayed – it was too unfair. As she felt her life slipping away, she prayed to any of the Divines asking for mercy and a second chance. Her prayers went unheard, and with her consciousness on the verge of slipping, she made a final cry for mercy to anything that would listen.

A gutteral, malevolent voice filled her mind. "I can save your life," it offered, "if just for now, and if you would pledge your soul to me..."

Blinded by desperation, she accepted the offer. Her vision went black and she remembered nothing between then and when she finally awoke in the small village of Ivarstead three days later.

When she awoke on the 3rd of Sun's Height, she was seemingly in complete recovery, though covered in gruesome looking scars strewn across her body. As fortune would have it, a hunter found her unconscious far off in the middle of nowhere, but said he found her unharmed. If he didn't know better, it looked as though she lied down and took a nap... were her clothes not torn in several places, mostly over her chest and around her waist. They were folded next to her with a needle and some thread for her to fix her torn clothing – apparently whoever took her in didn't have any confidence in patching it. Physically, she felt fine save for a gross feeling pit in the center of her chest. It felt empty. She felt violated. As she recalled back to the last thing she could remember, the horrifying scenes of her abusers wracked her mind. The mere memory was torture and she felt sick to her stomach, and no longer felt at home inside her own skin - as her memory returned, so did the same malevolent voice. What happened? What had she just done?

Painful headaches wracked her head. Ear-splitting droning sounds, a cacopheny of whispers, all trying to talk ove rone another - nothing was getting through - all of it - too much - an onslaught of sensory overload as she felt tears well up her eyes over the stress of everything over the last couple of hours - what had to have been hours - the sounds, the screeching, the incoherent chaos - it fell silent. She took deep, heavy breathes as she looked around the room feeling traumatized.

"What... what in Oblivion was tha--" The piercing frequency came out louder than before and was accompanied by what had to have been a thousand red images in rapid succession, "--AAAAAHHH! Gah! Ha... ha! What... What is--"

A thousand more images, barely decipherable, and she was clutching her head and squeezing her eyes shut as the chaos unraveled itself in her head. A man burst through the door of the cabin she was in, a fretful looking man, alarmed by Wylendriel's screaming, found her in this position with tears silently rolling down her cheeks. Among these images, she was able to discern the bloodied maw of a laughing daedric face and the realization of what she has done finally hit her. The blasphemy of her actions stabbed sharper into her chest than any weapon her betrayers used.

"What happened?" Asked the panicked man. She couldn't see what he looked like, she was just wanting to make everything stop.

"This... this migraine..." She told him in weeping. "Make it stop..."

"You look like you've gone through Oblivion and back," he commented, "what's with all of your scars, what happened to you?"

Another thousand images played in her head, but they played slightly slower, almost like a recording of what happened to her. Her mind's eye stretched over Skyrim through red-colored spectacles, and found herself watching her own abuse from a bird's eye view. Over... and over again... she felt the rage and fury build up inside of her, this hatred. The images shot across Skyrim to the northeastern region of Eastmarch and into a cabin, where she got a close up view of her betrayers, their ugly mugs, laughing and drinking... Gods, this unnatural hatred that she did not understand, but at the same time... wasn't it natural? Wasn't it natural to hate the people who did this to hurt, the people who violated her as she watched over and over again... to crave their pitiful! Bloody! Murder--

No... no, no, no! No! This! Wasn't! Normal! Why is she thinking this? Why is she wanting and craving this?!

As she watched these images, as fast and as abrupt as they were, stalled for just a second on the slab she was layed on. Beneath the dust, she could barely trace out the faint imprints of daedric runes. One last image of herself being hurled into the mouth of a massive daedric beast before it stopped - an endless void of inky blackness, and a single whisper slowly echoed through her ears: "I own you."

Suddenly, everything stopped liked she was hoping it would. The stranger's voice was barely able to break through and Wylendriel was barely able to understand the flashes of images behind her eyes at face value, but something inside her gave this intuitive understanding of what was happening to her. The daedric face she was seeing had imprinted on her, and for some reason, recognizable. It's name was clear, and it wanted her to know what exactly that was. Molag Bal. Prince of Domination. Of Schemes.

"Ma'am? Can you hear me?" The stranger asked. "Where did you get your scars?"

The thought of her betrayers sprung back to mind. The sheer anger that she felt at just the image of their faces made her hands shake.

"Ask about my scars again, and I'll show you exactly how I got them." Wylendriels said without thinking. She paused and reeled for a moment. "That did not just happen..." she muttered to herself. The words had just fallen out of her mouth, there wasn't any hesitation, they just - they just...

"Shor's bones, fine!" The stranger retorted. "I won't pry any further, but I was just trying to help, damn it!"

Wylendriel speechlessly watched him march out of the cabin. She knew this wasn't good, but emphatically, for some reason, could not bring herself to care. What she was an image of the people who hurt her, and as far as she felt concerned, Molag Bal offered her a chance for revenge and she planned on taking him up on that offer. Stitching her robes back together the best she could (making it more of a patch job, she wasn't concerned with prettiness), and set out on the open road with nothing but the clothes on her back. Only resting when her knees felt like buckling marching across Eastmarch, finding raw food on the way - utilizing aspects of of Restoration magic she never dared to use before by sapping the vitality of animals and leaving their husks behind. It nearly took a whole week to reach the place that her visions scarred her mind with, but she eventually found the riverside shack in Eastmarch.

Staring it down, the same house from the images that flickered in her head, seemed to trigger flashes of individual images, almost like a magical flow, but something more sinister like a daedric energy. They made her aware of something that was apparently there from the moment she awoken in Ivarstead. Whatever it was she knew of Conjuration magic, it felt expanded upon. A sort of intuitive knowledge, but it didn't quite belong in her brain. She knew what it meant to take magicka and use it to summon a familiar. The sort of direction in which to swing it. The intuitive knowledge that Molag Bal had imparted unto her only concerned itself from where she could draw her power from. There was no plan of action. Calling upon this Conjuration magic, an ethereal daedric mace rippled into existence into her hand before she kicked open the door, surprising the three nords inside - and they looked at her in horror when recognition of her face set in.

Wylendriel roared at them in unbridled rage, fueling the hatred and blood lust that had seeped into her heart. "Did you think you could betray me?!"

Two of them scrambled for their weapons, but one of them was too surprised and confused as to how the Bosmer bitch was still alive, so much that he did not expect the wild aggression the Kynareth priestess exhibited as she lunged towards him and grabbed him by the throat with one hand with crushing force, her sharp nails sinking into his throat. A green aura surrounded her hand that sapped away the nord's energy. His arms fell weakly at his sides. The second and third nord came rushing towards her with axe and sword in hand. In her berserk, she ripped out the first nord's esophagus to be flung at one of their faces and swung the mace with all of her unrestrained might, knocking the second bearded attacker onto the ground with a crack of his sternum and another swift swing knocked away the third who was stunned by the bloody piece of flesh she threw at him - destroying his spine through the fur armor. Wylendriel contently watched them both squirm on the floor, savoring this moment while it lasted.

"I own you." She growled.

She turned to the bearded nord, squirming and scrambling to get away. She dropped onto her knees over his body with one palm firmly planted on his chest. It glowed a sickly green and steadily drained away the man's stamina, fueling repeated rage-filled swings of the =spectral mace into the nord's head until virtually nothing was left but shards of bone and liquefied gore. She was unable to feel it at this moment, but muscles in her shoulder were tearing with each swing, unable to hold themselves together with all the force she was forcing herself to exert. The third, crippled nord was later met the same fate.

When the last deed was done, the energy and the bloodlust that she felt coursing through her body dissipated until her body felt pained and weary. The mace evaporated into the air, and she weakly fell to her knees. Her conscience was now clear, and she looked around at the scene that surrounded her. Three utterly obliterated men, now unidentifiable, their blood seeping into floorboards - the scenes kept replaying inside her traumatized head. The emotions. Rage and blood lust. Their faces - splitting, with each and every crack... crack! Crack! Crunch! She - she... these unspeakable acts of, just... violence - committed by her own hand - they betrayed her! They were supposed to deserve this! Yet - her memories fell back to home, both in Valenwood and to her place in the Temple of Kyne. Recalling everything they had known then, and her values - even the Green Pact said not to kill wastefully. It all came rushing back to her, and all of the justification she thought she had melted away. What she had done here was indisputably evil, and here she was... almost... enjoying it. She broke down into sobs, all the while hugging her arms in trying to bear the agony they were under. It took a long time to bring herself to move, but she eventually mustered herself the will to use Restoration magic on herself. She felt the muscles sort of stitch themselves back together, and she would be okay - at least physically - but the the phantom pains will remain for a little while longer.

The moment she could bring herself to her feet, she ran. She fled from the scene, from the cabin, as fast as she could - as far south as her legs could carry her. Until finally, she fell down exhausted in the middle of Eastmarch. After their deaths, Molag Bal's corruption seemed to have disappeared from her mind. The images hadn't returned, but she still feared the possibility of hearing his voice again like from the time he offered to "save" her life. She prayed and prayed as her tears soaked the ground, but the Divines were deathly silent. They'd forsaken her. She had to do something about this. She had to do something other than run - she had to make a pledge to herself to reject the daedric prince. She'd prove it through a pilgrimage around Tamriel. She had to pray to each of the Nine Divines at their shrines, then maybe she could cleanse herself of this evil... but a sinking feeling told her that she would have to do a lot more than just simply pray to earn their forgiveness. In spite of her doubts, she knew from her studies that there was a shrine to Akatosh here in Eastmarch, and it should have been nearby. But weak from the journey, she just found the nearest bush and fell fast asleep.

When she awoke the next day on the 11th, it took some looking around. When she found Akatosh's shrine, she spent an entire day devoted to prayer in front of the dragon god's shrine. Even after an entire day of prayer, she heard nothing. Found nothing, just silence. She had to be persistent. Word had it that Fort Amol held a shrine of Julianos, which wasn't far from here – it was still in Eastmarch. When she arrived at the fort on the 12th, it was bristling with activity, filled with nervous and suspicious nords. They questioned her immediately, brandishing weapons, and she quickly explained herself while withholding some of the truth: she was on pilgrimage. They allowed her to stay for just that one day only because she was on pilgrimage, but warned her not to head to Windhelm to pray at Arkay's shrine. That was when she learned the city was completely overrun and taken over by an Akaviri army. This was the reason for the crowded occupancy of Fort Amol.

“Please,” Wylendriel pleaded, “let me help you. Show me your wounded.”

“There aren't many to show you.” One of the soldiers replied. It wasn't as much a blessing as the soldier made it sound – the battle was catastrophic. Those who participated were lucky to escape with wounds. Most of them died. Those “lucky” few could only manage to escape at the cost of missing limbs. With what few there were to take care of, the medics had already attended to them. But they did manage to do one more thing for Wylendriel after her unanswered prayer to Julianos: they pointed her to a direction. To the west was a shrine of Dibella inside this old abandoned fort, but was likely overridden with bandits or occult practitioners. Necromancy, and the like. Wylendriel was hesitant to pursue this shrine, fearful of not just the risk of going, but because there was also no telling what Molag Bal's curse might do to her. She asked for a different shrine.

“Well, to the northwest are a couple shrines to mighty Talos, just hugging the base of High Hrothgar. The closest one is actually where you follow the river north, then keep going north after it forks off.” They suggested. Then he narrowed his eyes at the Bosmer. “But last I checked, you knife-ears didn't like him very much. Damn near outlawed Talos worship a couple years back – I fought that war.”

“That was the Thalmor.” Wylendriel insisted. “I may not have prayed to Talos before, but I promise you that I will get to know him.”

After Wylendriel rested up and replenished her supplies, and set north for Talos' shrine, making sure to follow the river. Though a rather wet journey, she was greeted that day by the gorgeous sight of a weathered statue overlooking a pond. There she found another person in prayer. When she greeted him, he was alarmed and reeled back in terror. His face revealed pain with red eyes and a puffy faces. He was a man whose tears had run dry.

“What happened?” She asked.

“My wife,” the nord sobbed, “my home! Windhelm, ransacked. The akaviri... I... I've never seen anything like... like--”

The stranger took a deep breath to compose himself. Wylendriel's heart swelled with pain and fear. She had no idea what it meant when they spoke of the akaviri. An entire city was seized. By men or creatures she heard of only just yesterday by name. An alien force of unknown strength – chills ran up Wylendriel's spine as she looked over her shoulder expecting a monster, but found nothing there. When she looked at the man sitting on the ground, in the most humiliated and humble state possible, wracked with pain, she could help but feel tears well in her own eyes. He had something precious taken from him, and that was all it took for her to form an attachment with this stranger's kindred spirit.

“I'm just trying to make sense of it all.” The nord continued. “I want to know what Talos would do. What he'd have me do.”

Wylendriel sat beside the miserable widower, placed a soft hand over his own. “What's your name?” She asked.

“Torvald...” He answered.

“Wylendriel.” She whispered to him. “Let me pray with you, Torvald.” Torvald said nothing, but she felt his fingers wrap tightly around hers, occasionally quivering. The two sat in silence for what must've been hours, and she prayed and prayed – not just for forgiveness and not just in pledge to a god who, honestly, she did not even know, but also on Torvald's behalf. She prayed for his safety, his heart, and his fulfillment. She also prayed not for answers and direction, but for understanding, so that she could know who Talos was – she felt a guilty conscious for having ignorantly supported the Aldmeri Dominion and Thalmor. She wanted to seek peace with Talos on behalf of elven-kind. Her thoughts returned to home and those she left behind, wondering if they were safe or if any more of her friends or family would see themselves be victim to one of the Altmer's purges. A sudden chill breeze blew against her neck, prompting her eyes open. The sun had begun to set, casting a pink canopy across the sky. Her years of interpreting the signs of the divines instinctively led her to an epiphany, and read the situation as though the voice of an emperor was speaking to her:

“I am all that makes Skyrim; it's bite and it's boldness – but also it's beauty and it's glory. We are of blood spilled, but strength provided, we reward in bounty. Visit the North star at the break of dawn, then retrace your steps.”

Warmth filled her chest and she looked to Torvald beside her with a smile, his eyes still shut. There was a riddle to be solved. She was about to stand and help him to his feet, to help guide him along his way.

Her body suddenly seized. Her blood began boiling. Pain was stabbing her from behind her eyes. Her hand clenched around Torvald's -- he was shouting in pain!

'N-no... no! No, no!' Wylendriel thought desperately as squeezed her eyes as tightly she could. 'Gods, no, please! Save me!'

Dozens more of gruesome, haunting images burned her mind as they flickered through with hundreds of angry whispers in the background, but there was a difference this time. When before they sounded mindless and were whispering over one another, these were unified and had one clear message: punish.

Her emotions began flaring and became more intense with each passing second. She felt furious, but also powerful, tantalized, excited - but for what? She felt a growing hunger develop in the pit of her stomach as one suggestion after another inserted itself into her mind. For a moment, she managed hold down the urges and thoughts as her own emotions kept them at bay. They had arisen as soon as she realized what she was being made to do, and horror had begun to envelop her.

"Please... don't..." Wylendriel muttered to herself, struggling to keep herself from enjoying this moment as the corners of her mouth began twitching. “I don't want this.”

Torvald, too, in his fear and confusion, found tears welling in his eyes. “W-what are you doing? Wylendriel? Please... get off me!”

More images began rushing to her, the same blood-red sort of haze as they gave her rapid, broken up glimpses of Skyrim. Suddenly she saw herself. Walking, almost zombie-like, covered in blood. The gap across her throat was slowly closing itself. She fell limply onto the ground. Another image, almost as if it rewinded, and then more - she mindlessly picked something up while she was at the sight. A stone. The last few images that flickered into her head and revealed to her that it was a fragmented piece of the slab she was thrown upon, and on it was a daedric sigil. Then suddenly, there was darkness.

A slow laughter filled every crevice of her mind and felt to stretch on for years, until finally, after a long pause, she could hear Molag Bal's voice clear as day.

"Enjoy the meal."

Wylendriel felt her muscles jerk as every urge and every emotion she tried so hard to suppress came rushing back and overwhelmed her. This time, she was overcome by an animalistic frenzy, and she felt with her a presence infinitely more evil. She felt feelings inside her that she knew did not belong to her, but to something else that co-resided with her. Regardless of whatever it was she was feeling at the time, the priestess' cannibalized Torvald alive with a sense of euphoria. Her poor friend's screams and sobs cut the air. It, and the sound of wet gnashing of flesh and the tearing rips of muscle and skin were the most horrific band of instruments she'd ever heard, and for some reason, just made it more reason to love what was happening.

When Torvald's last scream finally cut short, her eyes stared into his as his eyes slowly fell back and the light vanished. The energy she felt coursing through her body vanished as well, just as quickly as it came. Everything that she knew to be normal came back, and what flesh that still resided in her mouth fell out as her jaw dropped in horror. Her gut wrenched and she threw her head to the side to let bile come pouring out. With each gag and each convulsion, her stomach removed the last drop of fluid in her stomach that it could until she was dry-hurling into the river. Gasping for breath, she took a long look at Torvald, lying lifeless on the ground with a gaping hole in his neck with streams of blood trickling down into the river. With tears streaming down her face, she went scrambling to rip open her robes and search every damned pocket to find the stone she saw in her visions. When she finally did, she pulled it out and threw it as hard as could with a scream and set herself off balance. She fell to her knees layed her head on the ground until sobs turned into whimpers.

'Kynareth, what have I done?'

She jumped down into the water to wash the blood off of her face. When she climbed back up the rocks, she stared at Torvald a couple minutes, her face just as red and puffy and tears ran dry as Torvald when she first found him. She dragged his eyelids shut with her fingers, and prayed for his spirit to cross safely into Sovngarde. Among her sorrows, being wracked with devastation at the loss of a new friend and a newfound crippling fear of the daedric prince's curse, what plagued her most was the sense of betrayal that Torvald must've felt in his last moments by her own hand. She knew what that betrayal was like. She felt she had to find solace in that he was lucky to remain dead. She had to find solace in blaming Molag Bal for this. She had to convince herself that this wasn't her fault, no matter how much it hurt. Wylendriel moved his body in front of Talos' statue and set a hand on his head – already cold – and her other hand grasping the eagle skull hanging from her belt. Closing her eyes, throat swollen in her mourning, she focused all of her restoration magic on him as she began reciting Arkay's rites of consecration. His spirit deserved to rest in peace and reunite with his lost love.

As she finished the final verses, she closed her eyes and sighed deeply. Leaning down to gently kiss Torvald's forehead, she quickly muttered under her breath, “rest easy in Sovngarde, my friend...”

Later that night she turned west back towards the river, with her mind replaying the thoughts that played in her head. North star. Break of dawn. Retrace your steps. The only problem with this is that sunlight sheds the sky of its stars. Unless there was something she can only see in daylight, or if it referred to something else. Was it Dawnstar? It's along the northern coast, about another two days of travel! Sighing in resignation, she started setting up camp. She was treading unfamiliar ground in the middle of the night, and hasn't had any rest yet. For the next couple of days it followed this pattern. Ducking under branches, climbing over boulders, and treading through water. She knew that this was the river she followed at the start of her journey, but she think she was on the other side of it on her way there. This was a different angle and not as familiar.

Her mind fell back to the Eldergleam. Such a simple journey had gone so awry. She could've gone, could've finished it. She didn't want to desecrate such a holy place with her presence. Maybe once she was purified, she'll go back and try again - but not now. The sixth night, of travel, Wylendriel was exhausted. She swore that perhaps she had missed a turn somewhere. Did she miss civilization? Was it just around a tree that she didn't bother to look past? She was about to give up hope until torchlight shone some distance away, just north of a bunch of other flickering lights. She instantly recognized it. This was Whiterun Hold! That was Whitewatch Tower! Another twenty minutes straight of running on her weary, pained legs was dulled slightly at the sight of a familiar landmark, and as she inched closer, even the guards at the tower seems to have taken an interest.

“Who goes there?” One called out, waving their torch in front of them. As Wylendriel got closer, unable to answer through her panting, the light lit up her face. “Shor's bones – priestess! Where have you been! You've been missing for weeks!”

“Commander Sinmir!” Wylendriel exclaimed between breaths.

“Is that Wylendriel?” Another asked.

“It's... it's a long story...” Wylendriel answered. “But my journey has turned into pilgrimage... would you mind if I rest here?”

“Uh, of course priestess,” Sinmir replied, “but wouldn't you much rather resting inside the city where it's comfortable?”

She just laugh slightly in response, but it sounded hollow and fake in the face of what she has had to suffer through lately. “I'm afraid I don't feel up to spending all night explaining myself to the whole city...”

“Are you okay?”

“I will heal.” Wylendriel answered softly. “In time...”

That night, before she slept, she prayed a silent, unanswered prayer to the daedric prince - to allow her to finish her pilgrimage. She suggested it would present the lord with an opportunity not often seen: an opportunity to battle and dominate a Divine. While Wylendriel has great faith that the divines could easily purge the daedra and recover her soul, Molag Bal has so far remained silent and seems to be permitting her pilgrimage, indicating that she might have appealed to his arrogance and lust for power...

The next morning, she met with the townsfolk of Whiterun, shocked by the poor condition Wylendriel returned in - and her scars! Wylendriel kept the truth a secret, only telling that the men she hired had betrayed her. She told them that it was the kindness of Ivarstead that nursed her back to health, and here she was! She lied and said that she was motivated by her trip to the Eldergleam to make a full pilgrimage to communicate with the rest of the Nine Divines. She couldn't possibly allow them to know the truth. There wouldn't be any saving her. The rest of that day was spent preening herself and stocking up on supplies and belongings. She left by the carriage outside Whiterun on the 22nd of Sun's Height and payed the man to bring her to Dawnstar. It would take her there in half the time and would allow her an opportunity to reflect on the road that has brought her here. Her flee from home. The Temple of Kyne. Her betrayal. Her, Gods, her sickening... rape, her savior and then the voices.... her breakdown. Her mind fell back on Torvald as well, but her mind, in the end, always returned to home. Back to Valenwood.

Chapter 1

It was in the afternoon of the 25th of Sun's Height, 4E 205 when Wylendriel first rolled into Dawnstar. She had stopped first with an argonian refugee camp just outside the the city's perimeter and offered her aid to them. Though the group was cautious of strangers, they relaxed when she identified herself as a healer. She learned that these refuges, too, were displaced by the Kamal, and their wounds were severe and dramatic. Despite her lack of familiarity with argonian physiology, after some preparation with the help of their Pakseech, Tzinasha, she was able to heal first their senior warrior, Vija-Nim. Now that the test run was over, she instructed the others to gather all of their injured in one location and she was able to perform an expert level Restoration spell in order to heal everyone at once - sealing her place in their community as a trusted friend.

After some time between herself and Tzinasha, sharing thoughts and trading wisdom from their respective cultures, they bid each other farewell for now and she legged it toward Dawnstar. Though she had come here on pilgrimage and to track down a shrine to one of the Nine Divines in the area, she became troubled by how much this journey was costing her. Indeed, she was being payed back by the kindness and acceptance of people such as the argonian refugees, but she would not be able to keep up with the consumption of her supplies without first having a bit of coin to help replenish them. This brought her to Jarl's Skald's longhouse so that she could look for work. Though their reception to her was cold, they eventually directed her to Commander Ashav.

Though he was as jaded a man as she ever saw, and maybe slightly doubtful of her ability to protect herself, he was nonetheless impressed when she fixed his nose with barely any effort and took a chance on her and permitted her acquaintanceship in his company as their chaplain. Her first job: find the company throughout town and help some of their injured. They, too, had just come from Windhelm, and the Kamal had left them battered. One such mercenary was the dunmer woman, Niernan. They were cautious with one another at first, but as they talked to each other during Wy's treatment of her, from their reasons to being her, to the war, and then to handling their self-doubts, they warmed up to each other a little bit just before Niernen's exhaustion was beginning to overtake her. They bid their farewells, and they both resigned themselves to bed for the night.

When the town awoke the next morning, the town was in a buzz, and it wasn't until halfway through Wy's breakfast did she learn why. In a recent string of murders, there had been another victim: her new friend, Tzinashsa. This news had thrown Wy into a fury, and she immediately brought herself to Commander Ashav's tent and demanded a place in the murder investigation. Though she met some resistance out of concern of her race being a threat to the town's stability, she remembered to humble down a bit while addressing him halfway through the conversation and was able to secure her place. Her first stop was at the scene of the crime within the Argonian Refugee camp, and she spoke with their leaders. Vija-Nim, Wuska, and Inan - they all had a close relationship with Tzinasha, and together, they were able to help narrow down the options of the culprit to a dunmer or a dunmer taking advantage of the chaos instilled by hateful nords. Their meeting was interrupted when the camp was met with a khajiit woman, asking to see the body, and claimed to be one of the mercenaries.

Wy met with the khajiit personally, soon learning that her name was Khazki. Their meeting was tumultuous; Wy was cautious and Khazki was abrasive, and they tentatively entered a temporary partnership after learning that they were both on the same team. They followed a lead which lead them to some tracks outside of the argonian camp. When they eventually lead them nowhere and turned up dry, they had no where else to go other than back into town, and their conversation turned to a short-lived discussion of religion.

As they treaded back into town, they came upon a commotion: the murderer was here and was attacking the Jarl. Khazki pushed Wy off, urging her to find Ashav. Though Wy was overcome with thoughts of revenge, Khazki's sensibilities helped to ground her. Wy followed her direction and ran off to find Ashav. Upon returning to the scene with their commander, the deed was already done: the assassin was apprehended, but Jarl Skald was already dead. Ashav wanted the assassin guarded by his own men, and asked Wy to organize the local priests so that Dawnstar's dead could be sanctified and a proper funeral could be had. Wy tended to Khazki's wounds after some persuasion, and moved to heal the rest of their company.

Unfortunately, she wouldn't have the time to perform the ceremony before chaos in Dawnstar broke out.

Capabilities

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§ Attributes

Major: Willpower
Minor: Speed

§ Skills

Expert: Restoration – (Wylendriel's long time commitment to Kynareth did not go without merit – she is valued as a healer and has fixed up even gutted soldiers on the brink of death, while supplementing her magic with practical medical expertise. On the other side of the coin, she can use the same magical powers that allows her to revitalized others to inflict great harm upon them... not that she'd ever willingly do so.)

Adept: Medicine – (The healers back home and the priestesses in the Temple of Kyne in Skyrim both taught her many things about medicine, and how to heal by utilizing Her Graciousness' gifts instead of relying on magicka. Specially talented, perhaps, as her Green Pact forbids her from harvesting her own vegetation for her craft. Working around that gave her a specialized niche in medicine using strictly animal-based ingredients, but still knows a select few recipes utilizing plant-life.)

Adept: Conjuration – (At first, Wylendriel was just a novice. Just like any of us are when we learn something new. But in this case, Wylendriel has very little gained or practical knowledge. Most of what she now knows is intuitively gained. One of Molag Bal's "gifts". His boon used her existing knowledge of Conjuration as a foundation for him to selectively impart his intuitive understanding of magic onto her, and determining what she is and is not allowed to know. There's a cruel irony to be found in that he chooses not to champion Wylendriel with the true Mace of Molag Bal, yet arms her with a magic spectral daedric mace anyways.)

Adept: Bosmeri – (She's a Bosmer who grew up in the center of Valenwood, enough said.)

Novice: Speech - (Her nature and disposition keeps her from being a true silvertongue, but as a priestess, sure can give a mean sermon. This shows that she can at least publicly speak about something passionately enough that it could possibly convert prospective worshipers.)

Novice: One-handed (Blunt) – (Wylendriel doesn't have much in the way of actual skill in using maces. It's more like Molag Bal's curse making her really angry and putting her into a berserker state, and swinging it really fucking hard.)

Novice: Athletics – (Bosmer are naturally stringy and swift, and it only helps matters that Wylendriel enjoys being active and is prone to embarking on pilgrimages.)

Novice: Acrobatics – (Bosmer are agile, and Wylendriel is no exception. She spent much of her time growing up traversing the wilds, and she can climb trees with ease.)

Novice: Tailoring – (She has a basic grasp on how to stitch her clothing back together, but it's gonna look like patchwork. It's either that or sporting holes. Your choice.)

§ Weaknesses

Non-combatant: Wylendriel's naturally pacifistic nature is actually somewhat compromised, but now she consciously tries to avoid getting involved in the middle of the fray. She'll do anything to get out of fighting in all-out battle to avoid the risk of going mad. Also, a lack of conditioning, training, and natural strength keeps her from helping with any of the heavy lifting without hurting herself. Though to some degree, she has to learn to give herself in to these impulses just enough and direct them towards people who would do others ill, just so the glass won't overfill.

Hedgehog's dilemma: She's distant and emotionally unavailable even to her friends and allies. It's ractically paranoia; on one hand, even if you're close enough to her that there's zero chance of you betraying her, she fears there's the possibility of her hurting you.

Foreign ignornace: She's was isolated in Valenwood for a while without much news of the outside world seeping into her circle. When she left Valenwood, she barely knew a thing about the other cultures outside of home except for a few details that are typically common knowledge across the world. I.E. Nords don't like elves, Altmer don't like humans or beast races, and Dunmer don't like anybody at all. Not even each other.

Cursed: The curse is a slowly eroding corruption of her soul. She gets intrusive thoughts, feelings that shouldn't be there, and there are subtle inklings of violent urges implanted into her nature, and the compulsion to dominate. Another unfortunate side effect is, when she finally does give in to this curse, the sort of berserker mode she enters does not serve her well. She is going to hurt herself. The body puts limits on itself in order to keep things like that from happening and she has a tendency to break them. The curse is a significant cause of her depression.

Wanted: Avoid Dominion soldiers.

Other priorities: She's still on a pilgrimage, and that might put her at odds with some of the party's plans. She's dead-set on finishing what she started and cleansing the curse from her soul as soon as possible.

§ Spells

Expert Restoration: Grand Healing, Circle of Protection, Repel Undead, Devour Health, Close Wounds, Heal Other, Fortify Fatigue, Absorb Fatigue, Cure

Adept Conjuration: Conjure Mace, Conjure Dagger, Banish Daedra, Summon Familiar, Soul Trap, Reanimate Dead

§ Tactics

If she can help it, Wylendriel won't fight. Aside from being a healer at heart, the stress of combat and intense feelings such as anger, misery, or fear actually has her run the risk of succumbing to Molag Bal's suggestions and her own dark urges and intrusive thoughts. Say she succumbs, though: there isn't any real strategy. She seeks to surprise and ambush her foes with unbridled aggression and a summoned, bound mace. Then she can use her restoration skills to drain away her foes' health or stamina, rendering them weak and helpless as she beats them repeatedly into the ground until they're liquefied.

Her mind is not so clouded and her willpower is not so weak that she cannot tell between foe or ally, so she will (at least for the most part) be able to restrain herself from taking out that same aggression on her friends. Anyways, in this respect, her "berserker mode" has her serve as a glass cannon. She cripples and executes her enemies, but is totally armorless and lacks the natural durability to take very many blows herself and lacks the strength and skill to stand toe-to-toe with a practiced fighter. Only in dire situations where she cannot fight an enemy on her own will she call upon Molag Bal's conjuration magic to summon daedra or reanimate corpses. Note that never in her right mind would she ever consider using such vile magic.

§ Relations & Affiliations

Wylendriel is a priestess of the Temple of Kyne in Whiterun, and is a rather respected member of the clergy among the locals despite her elven blood. She has not been there for very long, but she has proven her devotion and ability to the nords and they've taken her as one of their own. Most have, at least. Her family back in Valenwood is all she really has otherwise, and she doesn't even know how they're doing at the moment. Her mother, Virwe, and her father, Galandrel, are both highly respected Spinners within their communities.

§ Opinions

Ashav: He's a jaded sort of man, and Wylendriel is still learning how to properly communicate with him. She respects his station, but she's still too new to the company to have formed much of an opinion. Though she has taken notice that he's not a very lucky man. She foresees this man being her most frequent patient. Perhaps she should put him on extended illness or light work duty or something.

Niernen: Not much to say after a single conversation after healing her. She's a sweet girl, if a bit paranoid. Wylendriel thinks she means well and she sees some common ground between them.

Khazki: A royal bitch, but at least you can trust the fur ball to cut the shit and do the job. She earned some of Wy's respect when she ran headfirst into danger to apprehend Dawnstar assassin. Unexpectedly wise, if a bit jaded.

§ Other

Has a cast iron stomach and is able to digest damn near any edible piece of food available. Having a strict meat-based diet, some of it even raw, tends to build up your immune system like crazy. She has some resistance to disease and poison effects because of this.

Inventory

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§ Cash

10 septims

§ Keys & Lockpicks

1 key to the Temple of Kyne in Whiterun.

§ Tools & Crafting Materials

• A skinning knife
• A feathered quill and inkjar.
• Threading needles and a spool of sinew fiber.

§ Clothing & Armor

• A set of robes; water-resistant (waxed wool), leather supported, cold-weather (bear fur), hooded, seperable (bear fur)
• Fur boots
• Black wool top, sleeveless
• Black wool tights, down to knees
• A leather belt

§ Weapon & Ammo

Though not really a weapon, she has a skinning knife if she's feeling desperate.

§ Potion & Arcane Supplies

• 3 bottles of Potion of Magicka

§ Jewelry & Valuables

An amulet of Kynareth with a minor stamina enchantment, and an eagle skull hanging from her belt (a memento from home, also serves as a second divine focus).

§ Books & Documents

• Unsent letters addressed to Valenwood, sealed with wax.
• Several pieces of blank parchment and empty envelopes.
• A copy of each: Healers Fieldbook, Herbalist's Guide to Skyrim, Notes on Racial Phylogeny, Nine Commands of the Eight Divines, The Consecrations of Arkay, and the poems Hymn to Kyne and Kyne's Tears on single pieces of parchment.
• A book containing a compilation of poetry, alphabetically listed, from the Death Blow of Abernanit to The Warrior's charge, and all of the lesser known poems that came before, in-between, and after.

§ Food/Drinks/Ingredients

Preserved beef and venison, water, and medicinal herbs. Other provisions include a mortar and pestle, dressings, bandages, a splint, and a tourniquet.

§ Load Bearing Equipment

• A satchel, carrying most of her stuff.
• Five pouches hanging from her belt, carrying medicinal herbs.
• A waterskin, on sling slung over her shoulder.

§ Other

Wy has a love for poetry, and for no reason, she's self-conscious and slightly embarrassed about it.
Spotify Playlist

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

Having them meet within the RP sounds like it would be interesting!

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

Then that would make for an interesting dynamic between Paige and Andrea! Assuming they both know each other's story. Andrea might be more likely to stay secret though. Her guilty conscious might be cause enough for her to befriend Paige.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

I'm gonna doxx you so hard one of these days.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

@Ciaran She seems interesting! Given the cause of her disability, does she have a negative opinion on people with a history of drug abuse? I mean, more than what's considered normal. I know that if it had happened to me, I'd feel pretty resentful.

Just because I'm curious, what's she going to school for?

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

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Grand Ridge - Outside

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If there was anything that could be said about Grand Ridge, it was, despite it's prestige, far more relaxed than the likes of other universities such as Yale. This academy was a bit less stringent and bit more flexible with class scheduling – and if there was anything that Andrea learned from her first attempt, it was that you never signed up for early morning classes. Not if you wanted to get a good night's sleep and actually be able to function that day. Andrea was instead able to use that time to take it slow and get ready for the day. A leisurely breakfast, an easy jog around campus, take a quick shower, and do some light reading back in her dorm over a cup of french-pressed coffee with the pumpkin spice creamer she kept in the mini-fridge... and most of the students were either in class or just waking up. There was something to be said about keeping a good schedule. Mom taught her that.

The only difference now is that her light reading normally comprised of actual, good literature. Long gone are the days of binging on the Guardians of the Flame series, or Dorota Masłowska's Snow White and the Russian Red. Oh, and Stanisław Lem's The Star Diaries! Good times, good times... but now? A collection of online newspapers, new and old, dating all the way back to the Great Depression era. She didn't realize it before, but Farmer's Hill has, ah... something of a problem, if you will. People living here had the nasty habit of dropping like flies and going missing like hair bands. She didn't mean to reduce all the tragedies to a handful of similes and idioms, but one would think that people would stop for a second and notice the statistics and try to solve the problem. For whatever reason, Farmer's Hill somehow fell off that radar and the people in the town refuse to talk about it.

Honestly, it felt like a live rendition of Silent Hill. Ever since the terrible tragedy that happened this last summer, she found herself looking into the town's history. Now she wondered if every new second she spent here was worth the risk. It was a shame. Most of the states in America's countryside seemed to have problems with confronting issues such as healthcare, especially of the mental health variety. Andrea was lucky she was taken care of by New York, but out here? Farmer's Hill was the only place worth visiting for quite a few miles. And some of the, uh... what do Americans call them? Good old boys? That's so weird. Apparently it was a nicer way of calling someone another American slang for the rural types: “redneck”. Well, she heard some of the “good old boys” around here weren't the type to visit the doctor. It might have been an exaggeration, but apparently they'd sooner splash liquor on an open wound than go the doctor, and if it were mental health, they just called them retards and slapped them around with paddles.

Rural America had some problems, but so did she and she wasn't about to presume the worst of anybody here without knowing their story first. She'd want the same to be done for her.

The muffled sound of a bell rang three times in succession, followed by a pause, and then repeating the sequence. It bounced through the hallways of Grand Ridge and reverberated through the walls of her dorm. The fire alarm? There was no announcement of a drill or test or anything. Either this was some kind of prank or this was the real deal. Then again, America... Andrea just sighed. It didn't help ease her mind that she was just thinking about the poor management of mental healthcare in this country.

“Attention fire brigade,” and intercom spoke calmly through the speakers, “sprinkler code three-one-one has sounded. Repeating: attention fire brigade, sprinkler code three-one-one has sounded. Students and personnel, calmly follow evacuation procedure to the nearest safe location.”

'Please don't let this be the day that I die.' Andrea thought to herself. She didn't hear any fireworks or anything going off from where she was, and there wasn't any sound of screaming college students either. That was promising. She looked at herself up and down. Perhaps there was once a day that she would've asked herself, “Am I really going to go out like this?” Even after the breakfast, the jogging, the shower, she ended up moving back into her comfy, sky-blue pajamas with a bunch of little cartoon-looking sheep on it. Her feet were wrapped up in bunny slippers like she was some cliché on a television show, and her blonde hair was still slightly wet from her shower and was messily put up in a bun – and was in dire need of a thorough brushing - but it didn't bother her self-image too much. Something like this? It was inconsequential. She was seen in far, far worse, but more importantly, she felt comfortable. She wasn't going to let today bring her down. After all, today was one of her favorite days of the week: rehearsal day.

With that, she went to her desk and withdrew a book, Ready to Fall by Marcella Pixley, from one of the drawers and topped off her tall thermos with coffee, and shuffled her way out the door, following the flow of people towards the nearest evacuation zone.

---

The drive with Dexter went relatively... uneventfully. Britney was wondering if she should bring up what happened in the camp with him - but, maybe another time? She didn't want to drop a whole lot on him out of the blue, so she just kept the conversation light. Like discussing how good his new vehicle was! It wasn't long until they came up on Grand Ridge - Farmer Hill is only so large, and one can reasonably get from one point to another on foot - aaaaaaaaaaand... everyone was flocking outside because of the fire arm. Britney's rather bright smile contorted downwards as her eyes drooped a little. It's gonna be one of those days, ain't it? She asked herself with a deep sigh as the vehicle came to a stop. She had, unfortunately, missed what prompted the fire alarm - but she hoped that it was just some stupid highschool prank so she can go to her damn classes. Britney shook her head as she stepped out the car - might as well stick around, and if classes are cancelled, the Sucre isn't that far away. She decided to take a look around, trying to find somebody that she recognized so she could ask what happened.

What definitely caught her eye was a rather tall, blonde haired girl that she had sort of recognized at first glance. Turning her head and giving her a good look made her realize that it was Andrea - one of the transfer students that she had befriended - and immediately honed in on her. Slowly but shortly, Britney tried to make her way through the crowd as she followed her, and once she closed the distance, she greeted, "Andrea!" She cheerfully said, "Do you know what's going on?"

Andrea was currently in the process of figuring out how to drink coffee and be nose deep in a book at the time as she slowly shuffled along with the crowd, which was quite frankly an awkward and embarassing time to be caught by one of the friends she's made here. With a mouthful of coffee, she looked doe-eyed with surprise to see Britney, and held up a finger to excuse herself as she swallowed it all down. "Cześć!" She cried back to her with her Polish accent. "I'm sorry! Please forgive, well..." Britney merely laughed.

She made a gesture that went down her whole body, indicating her choice of clothes, her hair, lack of makeup, and so forth - then raised both hands in the air - the book and the coffee. She greeted Britney with a smile, "Fire alarm. I hear from some of the others that there were fireworks in a girl's bathroom. Hopefully not a sick white boy, yes?"

Britney couldn't help but laugh at that last comment much to her friend's satisfaction, but she was annoyed at the possibility that, yes, it could have been a stupid prank. Still, at least her classes won't get cancelled. "That joke made my day," Britney said as she realized that she may have caught Andrea a little off guard. "I'm just glad it's something harmless - it seems like we never catch a break here."

"Oh, yes..." Andrea agreed somberly, looking at the friendly little eyes of her slippers for a moment before looking back up into the eyes the much taller girl. She's been trying to dodge this conversation for a while now out of respect, but part of her also wanted to be able to reach out. The only way she saw that happening without coming off as too desperate or clingy was to get Britney to reach out as well. Finally, Andrea said, "I was actually reading about it again this morning. I can't imagine what that must have been like."

"For some..." Britney trailed off as she talked about it, "... It was worse than others. I was there, but I didn't get to see the worst of it..." She shook her head as she wondered if there was a little more she could had done to stop that senseless death.

Andrea looked carefully at Britney, but otherwise didn't say anything. She took in what she could in the moment - the sound of her voice, how it softened and slightly trembled, the fidgeting in her fingers and the blankness in her eyes as it seemed like she was revisiting the scene. It was a look that she had seen far too often in the mirror, so she knew that there was nothing anyone could really say to make it better - there wasn't any making it better. The truth was that it was one sad day in the Hill's long history of travesties; not that she would ever say anything like that to her, she had no intention of belittling her trauma. Only that there were a lot more people in this town who would understand how she felt. There was a lot of potential for a huge support group, larger than even what the college had to offer, but only if more people were willing to open up.

"The college has counselors," Andrea meekly suggested, "have you tried talking to them? Maybe a support group?"

"I talked with the counsellers," Britney admitted, "But, I don't think they really understand...." Her voice dropped as she shrugged, avoiding eye contact. How in the world would Britney explain the dreams that she has been having? And how they seem less like dreams, and more like seeing. She shook her head.

"... But, a support group?" Britney almost smiled at that idea, "That sounds like an incredible idea..." Especially since she wanted to test something among the survivors... if she thinks what did happen, happened then it was only going to get worse from here and they needed to stick together.

"I'm just lost how I'm going to get everyone together," Britney sighed, "Especially how... should I just say divided the group is."

"Myślę, że... there's more people feeling just as scared and confused than you might realize." Andrea reassured, remembering the days she spent in the care centers in New York. "Will it be easy?"

Andrea answered her own question with a shrug, but then continued, "but maybe the group will bring everyone together. Just don't tell them the people they don't like is going. Maybe the fact they see them there is... uh... ah, głupek... makes them empathy."

The polish girl made an awkward and frustrated grimace as the verb-case for the word managed to escape her, though apparently fully aware that whatever it was she just said sounded pretty stupid.

Britney thought what she just said sounded pretty stupid... but she got the gist of it. She understood what she meant. Whether or not Andrea realized it, but Britney had a lot of power. Merely through her insane amount of connections to the people of Farmer Hill - from Grand Ridge and beyond. Even if a few people didn't care for her, they couldn't help but listen when she spoke.

"I think I can pull a few strings to get as many people in the group as possible," Britney said, "But... I still think I could use a little help organizing everything and... perhaps you could be that help?"

"Sure!" Andrea happliy agreed with a smile. Then her expression on her face began to look a little more embarassed and subdued, "Actually, I, ah... well, nevermind that. It's very easy. We can just talk with the counselors and schedule a date. A roll with butter!"

Andrea's metaphor went over Britney's head, but she still understood the main point. She could only help but smile at Andrea's embarassment, "I'll get started..." She looked at the crowd and saw them going back into school. "Looks like the coast is clear... but we can always afford to make a stop by the counsellor's office - but...." There was something else on her mind, though she just shrugged her shoulders. "... Uh, nevermind, let's go." She gestured for Andrea to come along.

"Empathetic!" Andrea muttered to herself as she trailed behind Britney. "The word was empathetic! Psia krew... "

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

Wassup homies?

Surtr, where's my review? Tell me how good I am. I thrive off praise.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

Andrea Pasternack

╚══════════════╝

"The story of Icarus is one that I'm intimately familiar with."

[ 21 | 5'9" | Polish | She/Her | 116 lbs ]

[Shame]

APPEARANCE

"Nie wszystko złoto, co się świeci."

Since a young age, Andrea has been seen as developed beyond her years. She stands taller than many women and even some other boys at her age. She possesses long and naturally wavy bright blond hair that one would notice is well taken care of, thought it still appears a little bit brittle. Her features are further accentuated by hazel blue eyes and pale skin, which is often done up with with a few dabs of makeup so that her skin appears to possess an even tone without the underlying blood and veins creating pictures on it. Her complexion, otherwise, gives you the impression that she was quite the beauty - and though she still meets the conventional standards, there is something else present in her face that'd give away a history with struggle. Where perhaps she passed through a dark time in her life and is slowly coming back from it. Faintly noticeable, but ever-present bags sit under her eyes. Her skin is stretched tight over where there's bone and cartilage, and the pink of her lips appears dehydrated and bears a tired expression. She's always trying to mask it with a faint, kind smile that also tries to keep her mouth closed to hide the barely yellowed teeth, no longer the pearly whites they once were. No scars or freckles to speak of, but the puncture scars on her arms. She wears a little button nose on her heart-shaped face, the left nostril of which is adorned by a piercing with the littlest diamond you ever did see. She also has earring studs, one on each lobe. Other adornments includes a silver band on her left hand and red polish on her fingernails, giving it a clean looking guise, but closer inspection reveals that she picks at it. Perhaps the result of a nervous tick?

Her frame is petite and slender, bust measurement at 28E, and most of her height seems to come from her legs. She lacks enough upper strength to be even remotely threatening though, and while she can carry most of the stuff she'll ever need to carry, nobody will be asking her to do the lifting for them. Most of her workout routine is concerned about jogging and yoga, as it keeps her cardio up and figure right, but it doesn't do much more than that other than the mental therapy the exercises provide. Despite her efforts to maintain her health, her actual body still appears thin. Pronounced collarbones suggest, while perhaps naturally sharp, could not be so sharp that they exist the way they do without Andrea lacking some musculature. The same goes for other areas of her body - shoulders, hands, hips, knees, ankles, her cheekbones - no amount of exercise can allow her to gain weight if she lacks the appetite to fuel that activity. She is not so skinny that she appears anorexic, but she isn't packing any heat. She instead moves with the same sort of careful grace and caution as a cat would have.

When she speaks, she does so with a fairly heavy Polish accent - and it can be clearly seen that there are some pronunciations that she struggles with, such as the differences between sheep and ship, kiss and keys, lid and lead, to the point where they sound alike to one another. Andrea's method of speech is rather soft-spoken and gentle, doesn't quite project very much to cover distance or be heard over others (much to her chagrin). However, she is deliberate and thoughtful. She chooses her words carefully and considers what she has to say before she says it, as if weighing it in a scale in her mind.

Regardless of her body-type, she tends to avoid provocative clothes like the plague and so she is spared from sexualization at first glance. Typically, she is fitted with a black wool peacoat when she goes outdoors, buttoned all the way down, even on somewhat warm spring or autumn days, as it serves as something like a security blanket. Underneath, one of her favorite outfits is one that serves it purpose in both casual and professional environments. It could be any color of blouse tops, button-up or v-necked, it didn't matter - as long as they're long-sleeved. She often wears her top with a buckled strap going around her waist and it's usually tucked into a black laced pencil skirt, and is sometimes in different colors depending on the occasion - other lower garments may include formal pants, long skirts, and if she's relaxing at home or in a super casual environment, very billowly, loose, "feels-like-you're-wearing-nothing", comfortable skirts, dresses, etc. Underneath, she always has black leggings or yoga pants and she prefers to wear shoes or boots with thick cuban heels. Somewhere in her wardrobe are some jeans or other tougher clothes, but it isn't very often that she finds the day calling for that unless it's really cold. This might mean Andrea appears prude, but she tries her best to ignore those sentiments.

PSYCHOLOGY

"Is there anything you need? I'm happy to help."

MAIN GOAL ⫻ At the end of the day, Andrea just wants to get better. She wants to be able to leave her shameful past behind her and make for herself a bright future that she can be proud of despite the awful things she has done whether that means fulfilling a fruitful career, graduating, or finishing some obscure, personal journey of significance and coming to terms with herself.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ She clings to the Christian values she was raised with, but her faith has since shattered. She finds it hard to believe in a God or in any God who could love her, but the teachings of Christ are something she holds dear to her. They tell her that everyone is worth saving. They told her that when Jesus sat with pariahs and with the beggars and whores, the bastards - all of them. They were all deserving of love. She wants to believe there's still a chance for her, so she still carries on while trying to love thy neighbor, not to be the judge of a person's worth, and sharing what she has. She wants to believe that being kind and remaining true to herself is all it takes to show herself worthy of the life she was given.

SECRETS ⫻ Oh boy. Pretty much her entire history between high school and where she's at now. She probably wouldn't even mention her time at Yale, because that too would require an explanation. "Why come to Grand Ridge when you were at Yale?" So she just plays it like a transfer student. She doesn't want everybody to know she visits the college counselors and support groups. She doesn't go out of her way to hide it or to lie about it, but she doesn't want people asking questions about her history. The best way to avoid that, she figures, is to never bring it up. She also never shows off her arms, as they are always covered down to the wrists.

DESIRES ⫻ Honestly, her desires aren't that far off from her main goals. You could say that her short-term goals align fairly well with her long-term goals: focus on her studies, to be and to stay happy, and to ultimately find her place in the normal world once again. She wishes to fit in with her peers like she once did, and so far, she still feels like she's wearing sheep's clothing.

SEXUALITY ⫻ She isn't well informed about that range of sexual identities, so asking her personally wouldn't get you an answer, but she can be best described as grey-A (or grey-asexual). She doesn't normally experience sexual attraction to people or have a sex drive, if ever, but is still capable of feeling sexual arousal. If in the abnormal circumstance that she does, it's not ever strong enough for her to want to act on them.

FEARS ⫻ Relapsing is her biggest and greatest fear. Relapse, and everything else goes down with her. Aside from that, the months she's suffered makes her feel anxious about certain things. She's not fond of sex, and just hearing about it brings up bad memories and anxiety. While the following isn't really a fear, she doesn't like the feeling of wearing short clothing as it makes her feel too exposed. Show off too much skin, and she starts feeling self-conscious and anxious.

REPUTATION ⫻ Virtually non-existent. As a girl from Poland who originally moved only to the east coast of the United States, there likely wasn't a single soul in Montana who knew who she was. What minor reputation she acquired for herself in her second week of school is just as one of the law majors whose also taking theater. She's quiet and reserved, and none of the townsfolk actually know her, but she always seems more than willing to help out the other students on campus. Andrea has shown herself to be an over-achiever once again, but she never does seem to talk about herself very often. In fact, her whole presence here is kind of a mystery.

PET PEEVES ⫻ She'd sooner shut down or dodge drama when she can, but she has been through too much and understands all too well what it's like being on the bottom rung to let it happen to other people, and certainly not to watch some elitist berate them for it. It's a passionate anger that makes her lose sight and perspective and it's embarrassing for her when it happens. She can also be a hypocrite sometimes, as she is the first one to give people her condolences and sympathy, but she hates pity. She could appreciate it when she was first admitted into rehab and was in dire need of help, but she's in recovery now and is trying to be on her way to being normal again. The last thing she wants now is people's pity.

QUIRKS ⫻ Andrea has the nervous tick of picking at her nails whenever shes anxious, nervous, upset, or uncomfortable, and she's aware of it - so she tries to avoid picking at her nails and clicking them together instead. Sometimes it works. Sometimes the tick is bad enough that she goes straight to picking at it. What's more, she seems kind of jumpy and is always looking around as if she's waiting for someone. If someone compliments her appearance in any capacity, she'll either tug at the bottom of her coat or other article of clothing, hug her arms, or nervously tug at the end of her hair if it happens to be down.

BACKSTORY

"Hey, it's okay. We all have old ghosts. There's nothing wrong with that."

Andrea's story is one of a girl who was set up for success in every possible way, but lost everything. Growing up, Andrea was completely unaware of her own privileged life, and how lucky she has been for the majority of it. She was born to a Christian high-middle class family in Poland. They could afford good schools. Andrea was encouraged to take up painting, she learned how to drive, started working early, she learned, was raised to be faithful, and she learned English and French on top of her native language. Hard work carried her to be her high school's valedictorian. She had boyfriends, broke her heart a couple times, and moved on. All the while, she had multiple opportunities made available to her such as offers for placements in a couple different commercials by different producers with the help of her loving family.

Everything was essentially handed to her on a silver platter, and that is not to knock her own intelligence down, no. She was smart and balanced her early life out nigh perfectly. In the senior yearbook, was voted Most Likely to Succeed. Amidst all this fortune and the popularity she had in school, it didn't do much to alter her nature. She's naturally been a sweet-tempered and reasonable girl, if a bit naive of her place and the place of others in the world. She denied the existence of her privileges and good fortune and insisted that she has worked hard to earn what she has – which may be true to some degree, as she is no stranger to responsibility, but it's clear that a lot of things in her life has been handed to her on a silver platter, and she is currently on the beginning of a long road that's keen on not giving a single damn about "all the good things" she's accomplished. Right outside of high school, the world is very different.

Right out of high school, not even a legal adult yet, and Andrea already had high expectations of where she planned to go, but she was determined to smash those barriers. She wanted to travel to the United States to pursue law at Harvard, which was a massive undertaking on its own. At the same time, she also wanted to balance with it an acting career, which would help pay for the expenses. Then the heavy hand of reality squashed her Legally Blonde fantasies: despite valedictorian status and scholarships, Harvard never replied to her applications. She went down the list applying, and all the while also auditioning for acting gigs so that she wasn't wasting her time. Oxford? No. Cambridge? No. Stanford? No. She got only small gigs playing extras in commercials. Submitting submission after submission, at this point only waiting to see if one of the big colleges notice her, she eventually got acceptance at Yale University in the US. The university was prestigious in its own right, but it didn't make Andrea feel very special after being ignored so many times. Still, she persisted through Yale, where she sought to practice public law and become an attorney

Trying to balance her life became challenging when she was on her own in Yale. She survived her first year, but entering her second year of university, she was caught like a tight-rope between trying to survive, succeed in school, and salvaging an already drowning acting career. She was being stretched thin. She felt herself falling apart at the seams with her pushing herself far beyond what she was capable of. She refused to let go of acting and "come back to it later" and she had no family around to support her. They could give her money, but they couldn't give her more hours in the day. She was barely sleeping, always hungry, and she couldn't find any respite until one "concerned friend" wanted to give her something that'd help pick her up in no time, claiming that it was ten times better than coffee. Andrea was desperate and she didn't want to think about what it was, and it only struck her when it was too late after she ingested crystal meth.

The magnitude of the situation she found herself in was overwhelming, and she didn't want to accept that she did it. She tried to ignore it, but the addiction swooped in and snatched her up. It might have helped at first - it might have started like, "well, one more tiny hit couldn't hurt," but in no time at all her grades were already plummeting as this new addiction started taking over. She couldn't think of anything else. Her relationship with her parents overseas had become tumultuous as her grades were suffering and they deduced that not all of the money was being put to use in her education and the essentials. When they called her out on it, her backlash only separated them further.

It got so bad that she ended up dropping out entirely and fell out of contact with her parents while in a foreign land. Now without her family's support, she couldn't support paying for college and her addiction at the same time. Any chance she had at landing good jobs in acting completely shriveled up. She had nearly no marketable skills and she practically turned homeless overnight. The drugs she took helped her to ignore everything and become numb for a few hours, but she didn't know what to do. She just knew she had to survive, and she was desperate... so she did what she could and sold her body on the streets of New Haven; occasionally hitching rides that eventually brought her to New York.

It was a vicious cycle. A vicious cycle that lasted only four months. In a mere four months, everything she wanted was taken. Everything she stood for was stripped. She didn't feel like the same person, she felt dirty and sinful and suicidal. Her faith was shattered, she was afraid, and what little money she made was just enough to feed her and fuel her addiction to meth and at some point, heroin fell into the mix. All throughout it, constantly daydreaming about the life she originally aimed for. In a mere four months, everything she used to be was dead. But as far as the governments were concerned, she was still a registered person. When she went missing, they went looking for her. When they finally found her, they only found a young drug-addicted girl. She didn't know why they chose to save her. They just as easily could have let her rot in a cell, but when they sent her to the New York Center for Rehabilitation, their first action was to detox her and put her in therapy programs.

It was agonizing. She couldn't imagine what it would have been like for a person doing this for multiple years, but whatever medicine they were pumping into her was burning her insides. Detox was a straight week of solid agony, pain, nighmares, hard breathing, sweating, and wringing out her insides, dropping every contaminated ounce of fluid in her body while she could thing of nothing else other than relapsing. Even in the end, when everything was pumped out of her body and the detoxification process was complete, the psychological damages remained. From the addiction, to the depression - what she has done to herself has traumatized her. She wanted nothing more than to punish herself, but the faculty insisted that it wasn't her fault. They promised her that they'd put her back on the road to recovery and assign her a particular therapist that might be able to help her through these motions. All she could do was cry tears of relief.

She has gotten healthier with each passing day and is finding new reasons to keep on smiling, each a step towards self-mastery. Her old nature is beginning to resurface, and her very sensitive history has gotten her into some personal conversations and relationships with the NYCR personnel and the other patients, endearing herself to many of the faculty as they become more familiar with one another. Though many of her darkest emotions are still buried along with the lingering urges of her old addictions, which has been the cause of a couple of scares that had her put on the facility's suicide watch-list, she is finding it easier to find hope in tomorrow and to accept herself and what she has been through. Still, she looks back on her life with regret, and if there was an opportunity to go back and make different decisions that didn't lead her down a path of suffering, to be normal, she'd take it in a heartbeat. Even if it meant never meeting the people she met in the NYCR... not that'd she ever tell them that.

After all, they were the ones who somehow reconnected her with her family. After a long and strenuous process, they reach them and organize their transportation in order for them to meet their daughter. After everything she has been through, seeing them again was probably the hardest of all of it. She couldn't bring herself to even look at them. Never mind look them in the eyes, she couldn't even bring herself to look at their shoes - her eyes were tightly squeezed shut and she was pursing and biting her lips and she held her arms stiffly at her side, but none of that could stop the flood of tears, the whimpering, or the trembling as they held her. She anticipated her mother being emotional, but she had never heard her father cry before. She had never imagined him to be the type who would be bawling with grief.

When she began to approach the end of her time with the NYCR, they helped her try to get back into the world. Her family wanted to take her back home, and part of her desperately wanted that too. But she also had unfinished business here. She knew that if she really wanted things to return to normal, she should try to pursue her former aspirations. So despite that she against her parents' pleas and decided to go back to school, her mother and father chose to give her the second chance. They still supported her, only grateful that Andrea was okay now - but there was consequences to pay for. Yale was no longer an option since she dropped out and still owed fees.

However, there was still an option in Grand Ridge Academy in Farmer Hill, Montana. With their help and the help of the NYCR, she transferred her college credits from Yale, found a scholarship that was willing to sponsor her, and entered an agreement with her parents. She was delivered to Montana, and was given a recommendation for one of the local treatment centers in case of an emergency. She enrolled into the academy with a clean slate and seeks to pursue a major in General Law and a minor in Theater Arts. Now that she has a lot less on her plate, she feels better prepared to pursue the challenge. She just hopes that the stress doesn't drive her over the edge again. Fortunately, she became familiar with the on-campus counselors and support groups. Hopefully, that should help her cope with her problems.

SKILLS & TALENTS

"I put a lot of time into school, God forbid if I have nothing to show for it."

[Scholarly] ⫻ Learning doesn't seem like much of a skill, but in actuality, it reflects the years of intensive study she's gone through at previous schools. Andrea is as sharp as they come. She naturally absorbs information like a sponge, but she combines that with extensive investigation and study techniques, and a student's discipline, latching onto new ideas and concepts with ease. Give her one night to study something; whether it be a subject, a crime scene, records - you name it - she'll give you a stack of her homework the next morning. It's little wonder that she's able to succeed as a Law major. Her knowledge of which would be quite useful if she's attempting to defend someone.

[Trilingual] ⫻ Andrea knows three languages, demonstrating a linguistic intelligence that suggests good listening, reading, discussion, and debate. Polish is actually her first language, but she can hold fluent conversations in both English and French.

[Acting] ⫻ All throughout her teenage and child life, she wanted to be an actress. While she never got gigs larger than some commercials, the likes of which would never be seen in America, the market in Poland isn't quite as big. As a theater kid in high school, and now taking Theater Arts classes in Grand Ridge, there's no doubt that Andrea has a knack for it. What's more, lying is a lot easier when you just think of it as acting, though that's not a skill that she would ever brag about. Honesty is the best policy, after all.

[Painting] ⫻ It isn't a skill that Andrea has had much time to practice lately, but it's a skill she possesses nonetheless. Her art is good enough that she could probably take commissions and get paid for them, but there is always room for improvement. Perhaps she will have more time to practice now...

[Empathy] ⫻ Andrea's fall from grace was an incredibly humbling experience for her to suffer. While she has always been a caring and sweet individual, her trials and tribulations granted her a perspective she had never even dreamed of before. As a result of having stepped foot in both worlds, her capacity to relate to other people and their struggles have been expanded. Now her loving nature can be utilized to a greater extent.

ABSTRACTION

"I wish that never happened."

SIGIL & LOCATION ⫻ An hourglass with only a few grains of sand left in the upper bulb, which can be found on Andrea's upper left forearm.

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Temporal Rewind, the ability to briefly reverse time within a certain radius.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Andrea's abstraction allows her to alter the temporal flow of the universe in a short (four meter) radius. Specifically, she causes time to flow backwards. She creates an effect field that wraps around everything which appears to be blurry, and surrounded in a blue tint. While under this effect, time rewinds backwards up to a maximum of around ten seconds. Objects, people, and Andrea, are restored back where they were ten seconds ago - the Awakened are immune to this effect, but they can perceive the changes in the flow of time. The Blind are none the wiser, and won't even notice the changes. Using this, Andrea is able to move herself out of danger, react to events that are going to happen, and her own wounds heal wounds that she has sustained. While the max is ten seconds, if she pushes herself, she can extend it to around thirty seconds.

IN THE PRESENCE OF THE MOUNTAIN ⫻ The mountain greatly enhances her rewinding ability, and allows her to rewind time up to around a minute and a half - and is capable of pushing it to three minutes. In addition, her range is goes up to nine meters.

AURA SENSING ⫻ Andrea is particularly sensitive to negative emotions and the threat of danger, whether it is sadness, guilt, shame, anger, trepidation, or even negative thoughts such as ill intention. Having suffered so greatly in her time, her awakening has allowed her to see the aura of such emotions. While she perceives the color of these auras differently, the aura of malicious or bloodthirsty intention is unique in that she can feel it coming before she can see the light-consuming and inky blackness of its aura.

LIMITS ⫻ Andrea is only able to affect time in a four meter radius, everything outside of it is immune to the temporal changes. She can reverse up to ten seconds without straining, and afterwards she requires a thirty second rest period before she can rewind time again (regardless of whether or not she's near the mountain). This recharge period is longer if she pushes herself past the limit. Awakened (and certain other supernatural beings) are completely immune to the changes, and are able to move freely while she changes time. Which can allow them to interrupt her.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ Andrea's abstraction doesn't exactly have any weaknesses. Using it a often takes a toll on her body. Excessive usage will cause nosebleeds, headaches, and may even knock her unconscious. Only other thing is that certain beings are immune to it's effects, and may negate it's main strength.

OTHER

"Pychy niedobry koniec bywa."

A playlist, dawg.