Ashen Beddau
Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2009 2:47 pm
‘The Shaden have chosen the other path; dream only of what lurks over your shoulder in the darkness’
{Shaden}
female + human|fae + 19 years old
{Statistics}
5’3 + 110lbs
{Appearance}
Twin set of coal black marks the intensity of the woman’s regard, the secrets and experience of initiation, manipulation, experimentation. Skin of pale hue contrasted raven locks of prodigious length. Willowy, slim – delicate would be fair. Most avert their eyes; beauty too alien, arctic in its sharpness. Arresting.
{Personality}
A cruel creature. Living in a world of nightmares partaken of in serene acceptance, it taints the physical presence. She bleeds malevolence, delivered with grace and elegance; the fae does not like. At all. A shift from delicate flower bloomed in death to a monstrous ruin for all. Caution is advised.
{Companions}
Domitian
male black cat
(familiar)
Nahar
black Arabian stallion
(steed)
{Possessions}
Journal
Bindings
(carried in satchel)
Daggers
----
{Powers}
Dreaming – The ability to Dream is seen as the natural tendancy, once asleep, to slip into the Astral Plane. From there, one can manipulate the surrounding plane to the extent that these changes are recognised in the physical world - this would be determined, however, on such things as age/training/experience. The basis of dreaming, is that one's body remains in the physical world. There are extreme cases when Dreamers of certain levels of power, may enter the Astral Plane in their entirety and use it for travel, but that has not been done in centuries. Use of a Dreamer's powers would include, of course, changing the physical world from the position of the Astral Plane. In the case of Ashen, though, she is only able to effortlessly manipulate the dreams of others and her own without fault. Her attempts at changing her world are often, sadly, an epic failure.
Shaden – With her choice in path comes the untapped potential to control shadow. However, unlike most shadow users, the fae does not conjure shadow. Instead, she controls present shadow that lurks in the wake of everything. That control includes shape, size and consistency.
Projection – One of the few skills she is adept at, is the ability to push planar energy through within physical combat. Competent with the use of her daggers and hand-to-hand combat, the presence of such energy will only increase the impact of her strikes and little more (about as strong as a young man). Lithe and agile, despite her small size, Ashen will rarely find herself feeling desperate in combat.
{Weaknesses}
Ashen is almost completely vulnerable in her sleep, for it is then that she will dream. And for a dreamer, what happens to them in the Astral Plane is felt and effected in the physical world. Anything can happen, but the fae will not realise and thus she can and almost has been killed whilst she slumbers. The girl also, because of her amatuerish control over her powers, dreams hard. In other words, when she is dreaming, she is completely unaware of the world around her and will only wake up when she has done what she needs to in the Atral Plane. No matter what is happening in the physical world.
{Her Story}
When the Awakening began its turn in her thirteenth year, the girl demanded its reasons to be foretold to her.
“Before this… this… this curse happened I was happy! They did not mock me because my ears pointed, and I was not teased for being paler than all, or because my eyes glowed oddly in the dark. I was happy and content. And now this! Father, we have been here almost my whole life but there is something you are not telling me. I can feel it like I know there is something wrong with me. For once in your life, be honest with me.”
Her father’s shoulders had drooped then, and the seat he had taken was done so with a heavy sigh and an indication for her to take the one opposite. She sat.
“I will tell you why then, you have to leave tomorrow.”
“Leave… why… what…” The words would not come.
“Hush, Ashen, and listen to me now.”
And then did Ashen Beddau learn of her heritage. Of her fae blood and the Court of Tears, who forbid consort with humans. Her father’s mistake then, his fraternisation with a human female and the subsequent discovery that she was pregnant. The female was killed, throat slit from ear to ear. Her father, stripped of his powers and excommunicated, saved his child and brought her to the streets of Marn, farthest from magic. And there he prayed she would not exhibit those traits that are inherent in her race.
But her Awakening put the fae child in danger, and it was on this token that Ashen’s father had her sent away to his sister, so that she may be trained in the control of her abilities. But even the best laid plans are laid waste and the caravan that carried the girl across the Sooqui Plain was attacked and Ashen kidnapped.
Fair of feature made for a killing on the platform that slaves take their stand, Ashen sold into servitude and taken aboard a ship to sail for Zhaltev. Years of harsh living, beatings and abuse hardened her temperament and bred an innate dislike for power and the people that hold it. With subservience came the insistence of her dreams, which she readily explored, untrained and unknowing. Lack of guidance led her down the broken path, Ashen finding comfort and home in nightmares – her own and others’.
It was at fifteen that she killed and made her escape, hopping ship and arriving alone and with nary a possession to her name in Semekhet. There she found herself apprenticed to a self-titled rogue, who educated her in such skills as he thought necessary for her survival. Expert hunter, better tracker, killed without a thought. Hard living breeds hard people and it was not long before Ashen took her leave of the man, bloodstained hands clasping the pommel of his stolen horse tightly.
The horse she rode to death, but the fae remained apathetic and instead sought passage across the Great Scar and into the unknown world of Sekhantos. Her adventures there she has made little known to those she speaks to, but Ashen returned to Semekhet some four years later with a cast of shadow to her visage, ignoring the whispers that ran in her wake.
Only the old sailor could provide some answer to the small boy who had known the fae once, and now could not fathom the lack of light for him in her eyes.
“What happened to her there?” he asked, tearfully staring after the retreating back of the woman.
“It is not my place to tell, boy. But I will say this of Ashen Beddau. Her years in Sekhantos were not peaceful ones, and have left her scarred beyond comprehension. She dabbled in things dark and devious, enigmatic magics that change the weilder so profoundly that they can not but accept the lack of light in their soul. She turned and though I will not say that she is evil, I would also not say that she will not readily kill you if she thinks the situation deems necessary. She may not know her own power, but do not doubt that she knows herself. I would caution you to forget the woman you once knew. She is as dead as her mother.”
“How would you know of her mother though, sailor?”
“I paid heavily for such knowledge, child.”
Days later, and the port city was empty of Ashen’s presence and only a small boy wept for her. But the whispers persisted and in Keltaris stories were told of a woman with hair as black as her heart, of a feline who clawed out eyes and a horse that sat the devil. Gone, leaving behind murder most foul. Their destination?
“The quickest way to Marn, brother?”
The man looked only once and gaped before averting his gaze, answering in the hurried tones of the frightened.
“The old Northern Trade Route.” And then, because he could not stop himself. “What would you want in that city though?”
“I am going to kill my father.”
Home. The thought led speed to Ashen’s journey.