Veatrix
11-29-07, 01:36 PM
Epilogue
“G-get away from me!”
Veatrix Bane wrenched her arm from her mother’s grip, backing away from her cruel parents into the crowded kitchen. Tears streamed down her fragile face, the indignation and injustice of her life setting her red aglow. Cassandra Bane took a few tentative steps towards her daughter, while Victor stood shaking in silence. Clumsily, Veatrix bumped into supper’s dirty dishes, sending them to the floor with a loud crash.
“Veatrix,” Cassandra started, her voice soaked in harsh remorse, tears trickling down her face as well. “It had to be done… my mother did it to me, too.”
With her arms outstretched, she started towards her daughter, desperate for forgiveness, or whatever else Veatrix would offer her. She wanted to give her a hug, for what, or why, she did not really know. Suddenly, her hands felt a thick wall block her from her child. It felt smooth, yet hard, and was definitely magical, as pointed out by the strange, uncomfortable feeling it left in the pit of her stomach. She tried to push through the invisible force, but a stony look from Veatrix told her that doing so was not wise. Cassandra read her lips.
“Protego."
Veatrix wiped her tears on the sleeve of her ragged dress, her thick silver eyelashes brushing her arm with hundreds of little hairs. She stepped out of the kitchen, over the mess of dishes, towards the stone stairway, avoiding any contact with the two people who supposedly loved her, but had brutally wronged her. Dropping her invisible shield, she stared knives at them, and if she could find any at the moment, she would have happily thrown them.
“N-no,” she began. “It shouldn’t have h-happened… but now look!” She turned her back to them and pulled down her shirt, revealing gnarled stumps on her shoulder blades, decorated with scars of many years ago, remnants of what would have been beautiful butterfly wings.
Despite seeing it many times before, Victor gasped, wincing at the sight of their crimes years past. Cassandra shut her eyes completely. The stumps looked grotesque and twisted, evil little things defiling a perfectly innocent girl. Memories of that night flooded his thoughts. Grabbing both his daughter’s hands tightly, so she wouldn’t be able to escape. All the blood, splattering him and his wife with sticky reds, as she cut away at the wings with a jagged pair of scissors. Worst of all, the screams that haunted him every night, screams of pleading, pain and terror, etched in his brain forever. Shivers traveled down his spine, reawakening him from his sorrowful reverie.
“Veatrix."
Pulling her shirt back up, she turned to her father, eyes blood-shot from all the tears shed.
“Go.”
“…W-what?”
“Go.” He sighed heavily, eyes drifting from his wife’s shocked expression to his daughter’s confusion. “Just… go. Leave.”
“B-but… I don’t have-"
“Leave! NOW!”
Astonished and hurt, Veatrix went to her tiny room, packed her most treasured belongings in her satchel bag, letting her tears fall freely in the short-lived privacy. Striding past her parents, she stepped out into the black chill of the night, all of Town Chrysalis staring at the Banes’ doorstep. People peeped cautiously through their windows, slivers of light peppering the streets, all watching the demon child and her next move. Anything would be better than having her in our town, they all thought.
With one last look at her home, she walked away, satchel bag dragging on the floor.
Basic Character Traits
Name: Veatrix Bane
Race: Human, with hints of Butterfly Elf
Sex: Female
Age: 18, give or take a few months
Height: 5’4”
Weight: 89 lbs.
Hair Colour: Golden blonde
Eye Colour: Chestnut brown
Physical and Personality Characteristics
Appearance:
A frail-looking girl, with a tiny frame and a sickly aura about her. A very thin young woman, she barely reaches 90 lbs., and her shortness only accentuates her smallish, child-like appearance. Her eyes are unremarkable, a soft chestnut brown, pleading for salvation and hope, an expression of helplessness. Her eyelashes are inhumanly thick, silver and glistening, almost four times the length of normal eyelashes. Her chestnut eyes are framed by a beautifully pale round face and smooth cheekbones, ended by a charming nose and lips that seem to want to smile, but can’t. Always covered up are her scars from the past – the gnarled stumps on her shoulder blades of what should have been her wings. Never has anybody else, apart from her wretched town, has seen the would-be wings.
Personality:
Veatrix is a very shy girl, avoiding large crowds as much as she possibly can. She seeks refuge in books, as she was an avid reader during the days when her parents forbade her to leave the house, in fear that the town would learn she was part-Butterfly Elf. Very soft-spoken and suffers from the occasional stuttering, she wouldn’t dare question authorities, unless dire circumstances arose. She is an easy target for pick-pocketing and upfront robbery, but is too frail and scared-looking to be trouble. She can put up a fight if she really wanted to, as the spells she learned from the Tome of Lestrange can pull her out of tough situations. Powered by the fierce realization that the world is a cruel place, she travels Althanas with a scared, cynical view of life.
Character Arsenal
Clothing: white cotton peasant shirt, black cow hide jacket, faded black peasant pants, cow hide shoes, white cotton headband
Items: medium-sized satchel of water, Tome of Lestrange (see Character Special Abilities)
Character Special Abilities
Protego – A spell learned from the Tome of Lestrange. An invisible magical wall appears on Veatrix’s vocal command. The wall is thick enough to prevent normal people from walking through it, but is highly susceptible to magical attacks. Anybody else with above-average strength can walk through the wall without a problem. It can get stronger with practice, but as of now, lasts for only 30 seconds.
Illumina – A spell learned from the Tome of Lestrange. Adorned with many uses, the spell can be a simple lighting spell, or a destructive light-based attack, effective with nocturnal beasts. It takes the form of a small light ball on Veatrix’s vocal command. The ball itself is 300 degrees Celsius and can severely burn victims, but Veatrix is unaffected by the heat. It can get stronger through practice.
Pharotongue – A natural talent, honed through years of practice in her backyard garden. Allows her to speak with butterflies in a strange, hissing language. Initially a dormant gene from Butterfly Elf heritage, the language was unearthed at around puberty.
Tome of Lestrange – Stolen from the Forbidden section in a small Corone library, the spell book is a mysterious piece of magical literature. Seemingly intelligent, the tome only allows the reader to read spells they are “worthy” of learning, though Veatrix is unaware of this. She only realizes that she can only read five pages of the book (title page, foreword, the three spells she learned), as the letters begin shuffling when she turns to other pages. She may be able to read more of the book if she becomes stronger.
Character Background and History
Relations:
Cassandra Bane, descendant of Queen Lilianese of the Butterfly Elves, mother to Veatrix Bane
Victor Bane, town barber, father to Veatrix Bane
History:
Born on an ordinary day to ordinary parents in an ordinary town, Veatrix Bane was supposed to be ordinary. Unfortunately, being born in a completely ordinary village, where there was no violence or famine or poverty, played to her utter disadvantage. Veatrix just wasn’t ordinary enough.
She was just like any other little girl. Clingy with their mothers, loving towards their fathers, did well in school, ate ravenously but did not gain weight, was tomboy-ish to a fault. The only difference is she was part-Butterfly Elf. Mocked and rejected while growing up, Veatrix was a troubled child.
Being a Butterfly Elf wasn’t the best thing to be living in Veatrix’s ordinary village. They believed that anything out of the ordinary was evil, as they were too conservative for their own good. When they heard about witches, they were the first to burn them at the stake. Homosexuals? Stoned and fed to the vultures. Half-breeds, like werewolves, mer-people or giants, were driven away with fire, pitchforks and projectile vases, courtesy of the housewives. Butterfly Elves weren’t different from any other elf, except they had an affinity toward butterflies. They grew beautiful butterfly wings, had lavish eyelashes, longer than any humans, and could speak Pharotongue, the ancient language of the butterflies. They were a wonderful race, if only the village did not hunt down every last one of them in the only Butterfly Elf colony in existence. Had that colony been located somewhere, Butterfly Elves would still exist, but unfortunately, that colony lived right beside Veatrix’s ordinary village. After many screams of defiance, captive Elves and a forest fire or three, the whole race fell into extinction.
But not before one horny teenaged (257 years old) Butterfly Elf had a lovely night of passion with the extremely ordinary mother of Cassandra Bane. She was a rebellious teenager at the time, only 19, and she thought that she was right and the village was wrong (which is the case in all teenagers), about the Butterfly Elves. One night of fiery passion, one angry father on the verge of murder and nine months later, a half-Butterfly Elf was born, named Cassandra.
Cassandra was ordinary enough as well, until puberty came around. Her mother, still feeling the pain of her lover abandoning her to escape from her murderous father, got her 13 year old daughter severely drunk and cut off young Cassandra’s sprouting butterfly wings, leaving two ugly stumps on her shoulder blades.
The same exact thing happened to Veatrix. Her dad, being the town barber, tried to be as patient as he could be with her growing wings, until Cassandra just replicated her past, and made it Veatrix’s painful memory. Giving her barrels of alcohol, Veatrix got drunker than… well, ever. Her parents cut her little wings off with jagged scissors amongst the blood, screams and shedding insect scales. She couldn’t remember a thing the next morning, but she felt a sharp pain exploding in her back every now and then. Sad, really, and nobody would know what her wings could have looked like. When Victor and Cassandra finally told her the story of her shoulder blade stumps, a few months after her 18th birthday, she left, unable to contain her anger.
Or rather, she was kicked out of the house. For reasons both known and unknown.
So her story goes.
“G-get away from me!”
Veatrix Bane wrenched her arm from her mother’s grip, backing away from her cruel parents into the crowded kitchen. Tears streamed down her fragile face, the indignation and injustice of her life setting her red aglow. Cassandra Bane took a few tentative steps towards her daughter, while Victor stood shaking in silence. Clumsily, Veatrix bumped into supper’s dirty dishes, sending them to the floor with a loud crash.
“Veatrix,” Cassandra started, her voice soaked in harsh remorse, tears trickling down her face as well. “It had to be done… my mother did it to me, too.”
With her arms outstretched, she started towards her daughter, desperate for forgiveness, or whatever else Veatrix would offer her. She wanted to give her a hug, for what, or why, she did not really know. Suddenly, her hands felt a thick wall block her from her child. It felt smooth, yet hard, and was definitely magical, as pointed out by the strange, uncomfortable feeling it left in the pit of her stomach. She tried to push through the invisible force, but a stony look from Veatrix told her that doing so was not wise. Cassandra read her lips.
“Protego."
Veatrix wiped her tears on the sleeve of her ragged dress, her thick silver eyelashes brushing her arm with hundreds of little hairs. She stepped out of the kitchen, over the mess of dishes, towards the stone stairway, avoiding any contact with the two people who supposedly loved her, but had brutally wronged her. Dropping her invisible shield, she stared knives at them, and if she could find any at the moment, she would have happily thrown them.
“N-no,” she began. “It shouldn’t have h-happened… but now look!” She turned her back to them and pulled down her shirt, revealing gnarled stumps on her shoulder blades, decorated with scars of many years ago, remnants of what would have been beautiful butterfly wings.
Despite seeing it many times before, Victor gasped, wincing at the sight of their crimes years past. Cassandra shut her eyes completely. The stumps looked grotesque and twisted, evil little things defiling a perfectly innocent girl. Memories of that night flooded his thoughts. Grabbing both his daughter’s hands tightly, so she wouldn’t be able to escape. All the blood, splattering him and his wife with sticky reds, as she cut away at the wings with a jagged pair of scissors. Worst of all, the screams that haunted him every night, screams of pleading, pain and terror, etched in his brain forever. Shivers traveled down his spine, reawakening him from his sorrowful reverie.
“Veatrix."
Pulling her shirt back up, she turned to her father, eyes blood-shot from all the tears shed.
“Go.”
“…W-what?”
“Go.” He sighed heavily, eyes drifting from his wife’s shocked expression to his daughter’s confusion. “Just… go. Leave.”
“B-but… I don’t have-"
“Leave! NOW!”
Astonished and hurt, Veatrix went to her tiny room, packed her most treasured belongings in her satchel bag, letting her tears fall freely in the short-lived privacy. Striding past her parents, she stepped out into the black chill of the night, all of Town Chrysalis staring at the Banes’ doorstep. People peeped cautiously through their windows, slivers of light peppering the streets, all watching the demon child and her next move. Anything would be better than having her in our town, they all thought.
With one last look at her home, she walked away, satchel bag dragging on the floor.
Basic Character Traits
Name: Veatrix Bane
Race: Human, with hints of Butterfly Elf
Sex: Female
Age: 18, give or take a few months
Height: 5’4”
Weight: 89 lbs.
Hair Colour: Golden blonde
Eye Colour: Chestnut brown
Physical and Personality Characteristics
Appearance:
A frail-looking girl, with a tiny frame and a sickly aura about her. A very thin young woman, she barely reaches 90 lbs., and her shortness only accentuates her smallish, child-like appearance. Her eyes are unremarkable, a soft chestnut brown, pleading for salvation and hope, an expression of helplessness. Her eyelashes are inhumanly thick, silver and glistening, almost four times the length of normal eyelashes. Her chestnut eyes are framed by a beautifully pale round face and smooth cheekbones, ended by a charming nose and lips that seem to want to smile, but can’t. Always covered up are her scars from the past – the gnarled stumps on her shoulder blades of what should have been her wings. Never has anybody else, apart from her wretched town, has seen the would-be wings.
Personality:
Veatrix is a very shy girl, avoiding large crowds as much as she possibly can. She seeks refuge in books, as she was an avid reader during the days when her parents forbade her to leave the house, in fear that the town would learn she was part-Butterfly Elf. Very soft-spoken and suffers from the occasional stuttering, she wouldn’t dare question authorities, unless dire circumstances arose. She is an easy target for pick-pocketing and upfront robbery, but is too frail and scared-looking to be trouble. She can put up a fight if she really wanted to, as the spells she learned from the Tome of Lestrange can pull her out of tough situations. Powered by the fierce realization that the world is a cruel place, she travels Althanas with a scared, cynical view of life.
Character Arsenal
Clothing: white cotton peasant shirt, black cow hide jacket, faded black peasant pants, cow hide shoes, white cotton headband
Items: medium-sized satchel of water, Tome of Lestrange (see Character Special Abilities)
Character Special Abilities
Protego – A spell learned from the Tome of Lestrange. An invisible magical wall appears on Veatrix’s vocal command. The wall is thick enough to prevent normal people from walking through it, but is highly susceptible to magical attacks. Anybody else with above-average strength can walk through the wall without a problem. It can get stronger with practice, but as of now, lasts for only 30 seconds.
Illumina – A spell learned from the Tome of Lestrange. Adorned with many uses, the spell can be a simple lighting spell, or a destructive light-based attack, effective with nocturnal beasts. It takes the form of a small light ball on Veatrix’s vocal command. The ball itself is 300 degrees Celsius and can severely burn victims, but Veatrix is unaffected by the heat. It can get stronger through practice.
Pharotongue – A natural talent, honed through years of practice in her backyard garden. Allows her to speak with butterflies in a strange, hissing language. Initially a dormant gene from Butterfly Elf heritage, the language was unearthed at around puberty.
Tome of Lestrange – Stolen from the Forbidden section in a small Corone library, the spell book is a mysterious piece of magical literature. Seemingly intelligent, the tome only allows the reader to read spells they are “worthy” of learning, though Veatrix is unaware of this. She only realizes that she can only read five pages of the book (title page, foreword, the three spells she learned), as the letters begin shuffling when she turns to other pages. She may be able to read more of the book if she becomes stronger.
Character Background and History
Relations:
Cassandra Bane, descendant of Queen Lilianese of the Butterfly Elves, mother to Veatrix Bane
Victor Bane, town barber, father to Veatrix Bane
History:
Born on an ordinary day to ordinary parents in an ordinary town, Veatrix Bane was supposed to be ordinary. Unfortunately, being born in a completely ordinary village, where there was no violence or famine or poverty, played to her utter disadvantage. Veatrix just wasn’t ordinary enough.
She was just like any other little girl. Clingy with their mothers, loving towards their fathers, did well in school, ate ravenously but did not gain weight, was tomboy-ish to a fault. The only difference is she was part-Butterfly Elf. Mocked and rejected while growing up, Veatrix was a troubled child.
Being a Butterfly Elf wasn’t the best thing to be living in Veatrix’s ordinary village. They believed that anything out of the ordinary was evil, as they were too conservative for their own good. When they heard about witches, they were the first to burn them at the stake. Homosexuals? Stoned and fed to the vultures. Half-breeds, like werewolves, mer-people or giants, were driven away with fire, pitchforks and projectile vases, courtesy of the housewives. Butterfly Elves weren’t different from any other elf, except they had an affinity toward butterflies. They grew beautiful butterfly wings, had lavish eyelashes, longer than any humans, and could speak Pharotongue, the ancient language of the butterflies. They were a wonderful race, if only the village did not hunt down every last one of them in the only Butterfly Elf colony in existence. Had that colony been located somewhere, Butterfly Elves would still exist, but unfortunately, that colony lived right beside Veatrix’s ordinary village. After many screams of defiance, captive Elves and a forest fire or three, the whole race fell into extinction.
But not before one horny teenaged (257 years old) Butterfly Elf had a lovely night of passion with the extremely ordinary mother of Cassandra Bane. She was a rebellious teenager at the time, only 19, and she thought that she was right and the village was wrong (which is the case in all teenagers), about the Butterfly Elves. One night of fiery passion, one angry father on the verge of murder and nine months later, a half-Butterfly Elf was born, named Cassandra.
Cassandra was ordinary enough as well, until puberty came around. Her mother, still feeling the pain of her lover abandoning her to escape from her murderous father, got her 13 year old daughter severely drunk and cut off young Cassandra’s sprouting butterfly wings, leaving two ugly stumps on her shoulder blades.
The same exact thing happened to Veatrix. Her dad, being the town barber, tried to be as patient as he could be with her growing wings, until Cassandra just replicated her past, and made it Veatrix’s painful memory. Giving her barrels of alcohol, Veatrix got drunker than… well, ever. Her parents cut her little wings off with jagged scissors amongst the blood, screams and shedding insect scales. She couldn’t remember a thing the next morning, but she felt a sharp pain exploding in her back every now and then. Sad, really, and nobody would know what her wings could have looked like. When Victor and Cassandra finally told her the story of her shoulder blade stumps, a few months after her 18th birthday, she left, unable to contain her anger.
Or rather, she was kicked out of the house. For reasons both known and unknown.
So her story goes.