A Crooked Foundation
1921 marked the opening of a famine across Eastern Europe that would last two years. Nomadic for most of their independent life, Caine was too familiar with the uncertainty of living day to day. Born in 1899 to equally rootless parents, Caine spent fragments of their childhood from border to border; though their earliest and clearest memories would be traced back to Szeged, Hungary. Their life was in poverty; raised some small amount by a mother and father turned criminal for the sake of survival, though that would inevitably be what led each parent respectively into imprisonment and turned Caine out to fend for themselves at 14. This was no novel experience to the young one who had already spent a good deal of time looking after themselves and studying the most durable methods of living about the streets. As cunning as the child was, they found themselves in the clutches of the law on many occasions so that an extended presence in any city had become a thing to avoid as well as the suspicion that followed their thieving, rough ways.
By age 19 Caine’s petty pickpocketing and trickery had bittered into a desperate will to breathe another day, stave off the hunger, close out the cold. They’d turned toward mugging men along the twilight streets, slinking into homes at the dark hours to burglarize those more comfortable than them, and soon enough developed a violence that lay coolly just beneath the surface to lash at any threat to this perilous way of life that they had come to depend upon. Thus when the famine struck Caine was prepared to fight, though that did little to change their dismal luck in the event of such scarcity. It was no longer just the poor that lacked, now there was little if anything to be stolen from those who had.
Communion
Norway stepped in to help in 1922, by which point Caine’s life teetered hysterically upon the edge of existence. Bård Conradi was a part of the effort to help, on paper at least. The Norwegian’s job specifically was to document the effect of the famine as well as the results of the then ongoing relief effort. His personal interests however lay somewhere between the lines of that supposed job; upon the forgotten details of the fresher, messier deaths to which his own hunger was the cause. A wolf amongst helpless sheep, Bård was of the Gangrel strain of kindred and a particularly merciless hunter at that; with a history at his heels that suggested a vengeful streak toward the Kine he stalked to devour.
The winter had pressed Caine to their limits and that night they sought to bite the hand that fed, skulking with thievish intent into the home of the Norwegian. In fairness the impoverished still held fast at the final rung of assistance from abroad; likewise Caine’s crooked reputation did little to garner them an extension of that charity. Had they chosen any other home that night, perhaps Caine would have been successful in going unnoticed about their small heist; however the undead do not rest at such hours. When Bård caught the pathetic, mortal creature in the shadows of his haven seeking what had become notably nonexistent food rations, he anticipated an effortless blood meal. All other Kine before this had come begging, pleading and harmless before the Gangrel in hopes of scraps; this one however, Caine was armed and rabid with fight. It was of course with ease that the beast overpowered Caine, viciously beating them at that; though the fact alone that this mortal held strong to a stubborn volition to compete and kill fellow man if need be for their own survival was enough to win some semblance of respect from Bård as he bled them out on the floor.
It was within Caine’s wild, unyielding eyes that Bård was convinced finally to embrace a new heir to his carnage. “Eat me, and know no hunger.” The invitation stood not seconds before Caine partook in the unholy communion. They bit without fangs, tore into the flesh as a starved animal, gored their progenitor as they themselves had been. Mortal hunger was replaced by a gnawing, supernatural thirst upon the wake of Caine’s first night under kindred association. Bård greedily took up the opportunity of company in a hunt so vile the two were forced to flee the country for North America so that the sea could wash away their trail of blood. The Norwegian brought up his fledgling ward with ravenous disdain for the Kine, to distrust them both as prey and predator to the undead. Remaining always on the outskirts of society, swaddled in the incivility of nature’s thorny embrace. They existed socially as trappers, bringing into town with them the spoils of the woods like bait to lure back with them their own Kine meat.
Old Dog
Such a cruel existence could only foreshadow a crueler end. The two Gangrel had become too comfortable within their nest of briars, their butcher’s cabin. It was not, however, the Kine who interrupted this carnivorous den but fellow kindred sent by the court to punish these crimes against the masquerade; of which Bård had broken more than could be forgiven. The Sire’s end was a theatrically gruesome affair, torturous and drawn out for example to his Childer who was spared only for the sake of ignorance to the masquerade. Caine was given short lesson on Kindred law via the witnessing of their Sire’s final death, then turned out into the night to fend once more for themselves on the edges of an alien society.
Caine had to relearn everything they knew about the hunt, that to feed was not to kill, that from all shadows there were the eyes of the masquerade upon them. Kine were not in fact foe nor cattle, and to ingratiate oneself to them was to move through the world camouflaged for the better. It was as if caging a feral creature, Caine’s very humanity held by a thread behind eyes overcast with years of unspeakable evil. The fledgling could never make it far beyond the streets of human society, all the same they found their community amongst the scavengers of that world.
Through the decades Caine resided within the social brackets of outcasts, weaving themself into the counterculture of each era. They hit their most steady stride come the 1970s with the punk scene, where they found a place amidst the musicians of the time and took up the position of guitarist for any band that would have them. Caine had become somewhat endeared to the Kine that ran about like wild things and encouraged that rabid temperament that had been long muzzled behind the masquerade. At the very least, if Caine could no longer have their animalistic violence they could tether it to the end of a leash on the stage. It was in those years that Caine picked up a nickname from their bandmates to carry into the modern world, Rex. They had officially left their sire’s legacy somewhere behind them, although that perpetual hunger reverberated deep.
Tamed
It was 1976, Rex had established themself the guitarist for a ragtag band called Acid Priest. Still, their humanity tethered them about the neck as a fine thread pulled taught to snap over the slightest temptation of unholy evisceration. Then, Paris. An uncommon face in the crowd, yet one that would become so familiar to the guitarist every night they played the same local club. Always there, always present, yet so hidden, far away. When Rex finally met with Paris Clerk in the shadows one night, they learned of an otherness that existed within human society in a way that had never before resonated with them for the Kine so clearly. The Black Panthers, Paris referred to the organization she fell under; and with it what it all meant to her, the future, and the past. Rex was, for the first time in life or death, awestruck. The two became inseparable, and fought to stay as such until time betrayed kindred heart and Rex was forced to slip out of Paris’ life for the sake of the masquerade they so deeply loathed. However with this, their humanity had become anchored to that mortal.
