Bite Me.

i. overview

Species: Hallow Blooded Familiar

Full Name: Calliope “Callie” Marie Taylor

Birthday & Age: June 21st, 1992 / appears 26

Rank: Regius

Occupation: Contracted Mechanic / Registered in the Book of Lucifer for the Church of Night / Servant of the Belmonte Household & Family

Neighborhood: Suburbia Living, 1 bed 1 bath - lives alone.

Hometown: South Dakota, United States

Residency Status: Born & Raised in Deadwood

Sexual Orientation: Pansexual

ii. personality

+ inquisitive, sly, intelligent, & spirited.

- brash, temperamental, guarded, & strongwilled.

iii.  about the species

familiars are actually goblins who take on the shape of animals to better serve their masters. wytches often choose their familiars from a registry book given by a hive which notes immediately the relationship between this kinfolk. most self-preserving wytch views the kind as property, collecting them like monopoly. however, the option of summoning a familiar is present but it’s a road less traveled - light and shadow blooded alike. taking even more ownership, they name their familiars, while others let them name themselves. it’s due to how highly useful they are as companions, strengthening both wytchcraft and malecium, offering protection from harm and are often very useful in the casting of spells and rituals.

iv.  the past

trigger warning: brief mentions of rape & abuse.

‘family’ was always a foreign concept to callie; she was damned from the beginning.

her parents were two perfectly obedient familiars for two imperfect wytches belonging to the church of night. their bonding was forced out of the desire to create two new familiars, each one as perfectly obedient as their parents. the first, was callie’s brother. he was made and grown long before she came along in 1932. another quick joining for nothing more than results.

the second child was born without a name in deadwood to be groomed by her impatient mother. names were not under the jurisdiction of the familiars - her future wytch would see to that if the child was deemed worthy of a name. the child’s upbringing was far from easy. familiars were not meant to be seen unless needed, nevermind heard. her opinion did not matter - she was to trust her master fully. if they were to demand that she bring them the still-beating heart of their enemy, then that was what she was meant to do. the child was the image of docile obedience - all it took was her mother’s quick hand and the child learned not to question anything. as the years passed, she would come to learn that her brother, who was only ever spoken about in hushed whispers, had somehow escaped. how he had done so was beyond her, but it was little wonder that mother kept such a close eye on her.

the girl was only seven years old when the second great war broke out. of course, the church of night had its own agenda to address. both her parents’ wytches were sent to fight on the enemy fronts - only her father never came back. they said that the wytch had been ripped apart by a german bomber. this was the ultimate shame, her mother would tell her when she returned from the front with her wytch well and alive. her father was useless. a waste of a familiar. a failure. a disgrace. the child should never bring her master such dishonor - it was far better that she die.

by the time the child met her older brother for the first time, the drugs had taken his mind. her mother was quick to be rid of him too. another disgrace, she would hiss before reaching for a new bottle of liquor. the child had seen the same wild look in her brother’s eyes as her mother’s when she’d had too many drinks.

perhaps it ran in their ‘perfect’ blood.

that night, the thirteen-year-old dared to run after her brother when mother’s snores filled their small lodgings. if her brother had done it, so could she. it didn’t take much for her keen nose to track him down and, while she hardly knew him, anything would be better than returning to mother’s chokehold.

their reunion was short-lived. a sheltered teenager and drug-addled goblin were no match for the church of night. she screamed his name as she was ripped from him, begging him to keep her away from mother - she knew the punishment waiting back home was going to be the worst thing she’d ever faced.

and it was.

the child was tossed on the cold floor at her mother’s feet. she didn’t dare move as she waited for the familiar sting of the back of her mother’s hand. instead, there was nothing. no harsh words, no slaps, no curses. it wasn’t until the girl finally looked up to her mother’s face that the older familiar spoke.

“so, you think you’re grown enough to run?” mother’s voice was eerily calm.

the girl quickly shook her head ‘no’, tears returning to her eyes. they were ignored.

“you’re grown enough to serve,” the woman said as she left. the girl hardly had the time to process what had just been said when an agonizing ripping sensation tore through her body. it only ended when she was in a new room, this time greeted by a sweaty wytch she’d never met before. later on, she’d learn her new master was a banker who liked the young ones - breaking them in was a specialty of his. he asked if she had a name. she said ‘no’. thus, the child was given the name of calliope.

she liked it. that was the only thing she liked about that man.

he reeked of unwashed pits and hair grease. she was convinced he bathed in the stuff. calliope grit her teeth through the years, pretending rough advances and the spittle dripping from his lips didn’t churn her stomach. she would often hear her mother’s reminders that this wytch was meant to be her entire existence until the day she died.

she hated him.

only a few months passed and word finally reached calliope that mother had died. an assassination attempt. her wytch had survived and her miserable existence had ended just as she’d hoped. ‘an orphan,’ she’d think to herself once she’d had the time to process. she should mourn, she thought… but she’d never considered the woman her mother beyond her title. father was just a word to her. mother… mother was meant to be warm hugs and loving words, not quick slaps and stiff commands. perhaps she’d always been an orphan, but only now realized it.

soon, calliope’s existence was forgotten as well. a new, younger plaything had come along and she was tossed back to hell to wait for her new master. the smell… was something to get accustomed to. hell’s influences on her seventeen-year-old mind were overbearing. the screams of the damned, the searing heat, the horrifying demons. calliope had believed that she had been trained to handle anything. she was wrong.

it took her a long time to adjust, but there were other familiars who were kind enough to act as guides. some were familiars just like her, waiting to be freed from their own version of their books’ restraints. others were free familiars. free. familiars. calliope had no idea such creatures existed. there had always been the church of night and familiars in servitude. at first, she denied that they could ever exist… but, her curiosity got the better of her. it was only a matter of months before she was willing to speak to anyone and anything. gone were her warped views of self restraint. she learned what goblins were truly like when not forced to work for wytches. she had friends and mentors who might as well have been considered her lifelines. and then some.

let’s just say there ain’t no party like a party in hell.

the years flew by before she was needed again. frankly, calliope was under the impression that she had been abandoned, much to her delight. however, the same ripping sensation pulled her back onto the mortal plane and into the 70’s. the lost time was jarring. cars were common. telephones had replaced telegrams. women wore pants. calliope was in a state of shock. her shock wasn’t permitted to last long, though. it was time for her to prove her worth - this time for a younger wytch who practically screamed ‘blue blood’, even in america.

from there, it’s a blur. calliope found herself sinking into what she’d been taught during her formative years, her mother’s harsh commands reminding her how to act. years may have passed, but the purpose for her existence was the same: serve the one you are assigned to. who cared that television sets were the most fascinating things on the face of the planet? she needed to help her wytch with a spell. sure, airplanes were no longer meant to be killing machines but commonly accepted methods of transport, but calliope needed to gather intelligence on another woman looking to gain influence with the belmontes.

as calliope proved to be more and more useful, more came to be required of her. worse yet, she learned how much she truly was regarded as an object. when she acted or assisted in a particularly desirable manner, she was passed along to someone ranking slightly higher in the church of night. every now and then, she’d find herself plunged back into hell. it was rare that she would find the goblins she had once called friends there, but when she did, it felt like a damn miracle.

she fucking hated the church.

eventually, after enough wytches were assisted, calliope found herself being summoned by none other than one of the servants of the belmonte estate. she should have been elated, but she couldn’t find the strength to smile. she was told time and time again how great an honor it was to have received the greatest gift of all: serving a master at belmonte manor.

like hell she was.

calliope was ready to do something she would undoubtedly regret when she was actually asked a question.

“familiar - you are known as calliope, yes?”

calliope stared at the wytch who summoned her wearily. “yes.”

“you may not share the same name as the lady of the house. your name is amanda.”

calliope felt her upper lip twitch into a slight snarl but she willed it back into place. “then call me callie,” she dared, her first defiant act in her decades of servitude to this wretched church.

at first, the wytch seemed taken aback, but eventually nodded in agreement. at least she had enough sway with the wytches to keep her god damn name. callie hardly had enough time to gloat before she heard it: the sound of babies crying. now, you don’t exactly see babies in hell. sure, calliope understood the concept of infants. she’d been around a few here and there, but wytches tended to be careful about the choice to procreate and she had minimal experience with goblin babies.

color her curious.

calliope played along, allowing herself to be commanded by the head butler whose close position to the belmonte’s required her extra muscle. she rarely saw the twins but in quick glances here and there. even so, she slowly found herself drawn to the babies. it got to the point where she would occasionally dare to wander off on her own to observe them.

the first time she dared to, she was horrified. she found the twin she’d learned to be lucius draining his nanny of her very life force. she had heard whispers of complaints from the nannies over the weeks. of course, they weren’t the type to dare to make their complaints common knowledge, but the fox’s ears were keen to pick up whispers here and there. callie wasn’t sure she could believe it until she witnessed the horror herself.

after the incident, the rumors were rampant and the complaints only grew. even so, the familiar found herself inevitably drawn to the baby as the months passed. she heard how he was feared and even occasionally referred to as a ‘monster’. worse yet, she watched how his mother acted as though he barely existed. it was as though he was an object to pass on to the nannies - her work was done in birthing him. that was no mother… and she could relate.

she would never dare to think of the twins as neglected but… her stomach churned as she learned that their mother stole the second twin away, all but abandoning lucius as though he were some sort of liability. she heard the whispers and watched the sideways glances thrown towards the infant. his every need was seen to, and yet there seemed to be no care behind the actions. it was all out of pure obligation. callie couldn’t help but pity he who never needed to be pitied.

when he finally grew to be a toddler and was not watched quite so closely, she grew braver. his nannies would give him a wide berth whenever they could afford to. if he would begin to hiccup, as she’d learned hiccups were the warning sign right before he’d start crying, callie would appear out of the shadows to rub against his chubby arms and soothe his whimpers before he grew too frantic. she would venture into his room at night to comfort him during his nightmares or put his toy back in his crib with him. sometimes, she’d lay beneath his crib, singing him quiet lullabies telepathically so that no one else could hear.

as time passed, he learned how to speak. the fox commonly came to be accepted as his imaginary friend. callie was delighted to listen to his quiet babbling when she wasn’t preoccupied with her standard duties of prowling the grounds for intruders and some tasty gossip.

it was the prowling that got her in trouble. another wytch spotted callie and wanted her for himself. the transfer was quick and without warning. one second, she was contentedly sleeping on the warm nursery windowsill, the next she found herself standing face to face with her new master.

as enraged as she was, she knew she needed to play it safe if she wanted to return to ‘her’ boy. her stints in hell meant she’d made plenty of friends - if there wasn’t a familiar who knew someone, there was a goblin who did. she had enough sway to pull some strings and find a goblin who was willing to add a new tattoo to her growing collection of forced runes and sigils. all it took was a few juicy whispers that could easily be used as blackmail without truly damaging the belmontes and callie had attained charmed tattoo ink that would, in combination with the right sigil, return her directly to the mortal plane in the belmonte manor. the catch? she had to ditch the wytch. sure, the sigil was strong, but nowhere near as strong as the bond between master and familiar.

so, began callie’s reign of terror. the first one was easy - no self respecting familiar in their right mind would give up on the honor of serving a wytch of his standing. she was easily rid of him and was gruffly sent back to the book from which she came in a matter of days. at least, that was what appeared to happen. instead, she popped up in the yard of the belmonte manor according to plan.

it was the closest to freedom she’d ever tasted. with no wytch to command her, the book substituted as her ‘physical tether’, allowing her her first taste of freedom. she could not only wander as she pleased, but she could also dote on her favorite child. every time she returned to the toddler, the nannies would wonder at how his imaginary friend had finally returned to him.

one day, as she was playing as a fox with the growing boy in the yard, far away from the prying eyes of the nannies, lucius asked a simple question. it was one that she would never forget.

“what’s your name?”

in that moment, callie nearly cried.

of course, keeping a secret like hers didn’t last too terribly long. once she was finally sniffed out, she fully expected to be punished. however, their first mistake was confronting her in front of young lucius, who was quick to defend her and demand that they let him keep her. they acquiesced to his pleas, but with the thought that he would eventually tire of his ‘safety blanket’.

every now and then, they would try to take callie away. each time they bound her to somebody new, she made their lives a living hell. they knew better than to truly do anything to callie for fear of the young master’s wrath. eventually, even the most stubborn and prideful ones gave up.

it rarely took arson, but she loved it when it did.

over the years, callie often blurred the societal line between goblin and wytch, becoming more and more daring with her opinions and her protectiveness. when lucius was upset, she was always right by his side as either a shoulder to cry on or a pet to hold. the two of them held genuine conversations and he wanted her opinions. he was the first wytch to ever treat her like a creature with thoughts and emotions, only serving to make her bond with him stronger.

v.  the current

callie now works as a mechanic for the belmontes, since getting rid of her isn’t exactly an option. her long standing fascination with electricity has made her quite proficient at taking things apart… but putting them back together is an entirely different story. she prefers small, quick projects but does have a few pet projects here and there. she’s currently working on salvaging a totalled motorcycle for herself.

as for her relationship with lucius, she is as protective and motherly as always. when she’s not busy ruining the next fool to try and break her behind lucius’ back, she can be found lurking in the shadows near lucius, or even blatantly perched on his shoulders as a fox. she is aggressively opinionated, but is keenly aware of the precarious position she’s placed herself in. still, she guards lucius as if he were her own, and would lay down her life for him, bound or not.

when it comes to her brother, their relationship is still rocky. occasionally, she tries to reach out but hasn’t put in too much effort. all she truly recalls of him are faint, childhood memories, but all of them are stained with his previous drug usage. on rare events, a christmas card may appear in his mailbox, wishing him a generic happy holiday in a feeble attempt to reach out to him, but she never bothers pursuing it beyond that.

vi. connections

✗ THE CHAMPION - the two were born with a steely control of where and how they wanted to navigate their life. at many points, the two had to have eachother’s back otherwise their own family would have long banished them back to hell. they even tried to run away from the church of night’s coil around their existence, but were met with their mother who was a hundred steps ahead of them. the years have dampened her brother’s once fiery spirit, but she’s still as relentless.