devil in your heart.

FOG HUNTRESS

Rising from the flesh of unholy divinity, THEY have sworn loyalty to the HOUSE OF SPIDER as an IMPURE vampire. Blessed by the blood moon, their power comes from their TOUCH. Turned at the age of THIRTY-FOUR, they have walked the earth for THREE CENTURIES.

POWER

All elements were once earth, their fundamental bones and veins made up of the minerals and natural components of land and silt. Your hands summons the rudimentary form of anything you touch, reaching into its raw substance, weaponizing it. Wood, stone, metal — each have its own language, a natural flow of shape and composition. It is not so much a bending of will, but a translation into another form. From any blade, your touch reveals its history and forging, every strike of hammer against steel, the secrets and inner workings of its wielding and artistry. In your hands alone, anything can become a weapon. 

HISTORY

TW: gore

THERE ARE NO BARGAINS BETWEEN LIONS AND MEN, BUT IN THE WILDERNESS OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM, IT IS THE HUNTER THAT DEVOURS THEM ALL. You were a sliver of pale moonlight shot through dense forest, half-wildling and half-beast. You had no people, no home, nothing to call your own but the woodland and creatures that accepted you as wind and earth. There was no story to dwell in the dregs of: the forest was all that you had ever known. Sifting through the riverbeds of time and memory elicited only an echoing ache, a starved longing to grasp at strands of hollowed air. Besides, the forest taught you everything you needed to learn. Guardian, teacher, keeper — you ate from the land, discovering which poisoned flora to avoid and which fruits bloomed ripest and sweet. The way of the wild: you caught your own meat, with a prayer of thanks to the earth and spirits that gave their life so the cycle could begin anew, in you. There was freedom to be found in your wilderness. You were rain fall that quenched the earth and star light that lit the path through the trees, the breath of the forest was your tongue.

You were on the cusp of what men would have called adulthood when the fires came. The blazing torches, the burning catching and spilling from leaf to branch to tree. It was mere collateral damage, a devastation you had no word for in your language. There is nothing more terrifying than fear that has no name. As the forest burned, a great, towering shape rose out of the smoke and blaze. It called you a word you could not recognise, beckoning you from the blackened trees and screaming beasts. The man turned and gripped a lifeless shape from the dark, dragging it behind him, all the way to your feet. You had seen dead animals before, but never a dead man. All pink and red, viscera spilling from the great tear in its stomach, guts everywhere like a thing turned inside out. In its hand was a torch, calcified. Ah. You blinked, peering up into the eyes of the man that was not a man. They took you from your razed forest, gave you a name and a house, all the strange, ungainly bindings of being human and not creature. What you already knew of scent and hunt came innate — the rest he taught you. The art of the hunt, the science of scenting blood and fear in the shadows. When the time came, he turned you and set you free. You stepped back into your beloved forest for the first time, the pale green of new life and earth recovering, breathing in all the scents, sounds and tastes you had always felt humming beneath your feet, alive.

CONNECTIONS

SEPIA SONG-TONGUED— ( AS CERTAIN DARK THINGS ARE TO BE LOVED )

Otherworldly, mesmerising, so beautiful all language failed you when you first saw her, she is a creature that seems to belong in a dream. Before your turning, you could not have imagined that there could be such beauty in the world, distilled in the silhouette of a single woman. Your fascination with her was a silent awareness, a fluttering of pulse and breath when you’d catch a glimpse of her through the crowd. And then one day, you had the opportunity to save her. With freshly-drawn blood splattered across your palms, you reached for her. A beast and a beautiful thing — isn’t that what all the stories say? You wouldn’t know, you’d never heard of a fairytale until you heard her sing. If there was more of you to give, you’d surrender it to her. But what place is there for a monster in her heart? 

STEELE CARNAGE  — ( MY TONGUE, TOO, IS A DOUBLE-EDGED KNIFE )

In your rebirth, you found your way to the House of Spider. A unique situation for a vampire already nearly a century young, you were an impressive anomaly for your capacity to survive in solitude all these years. Spider, Beetle and Cicada all made attempts to enlist you, but Spider promised you freedom while the others demanded subservience. STEELE CARNAGE was one of the few that saw opportunity rather than disrespect in your decision. As an assassin for the House of Spider, you see and hear more than you wish you did. Occasionally, you let slip strands of whispers and revelation to him — information to keep the dogs of the humans in line. If he is aware of the duplicitous nature of Spiders, he should know better than to trust you. There is nothing that passes your lips that isn’t tied to a string wrapped around the finger of the Mother of Spiders.

COAL UNKNOWN — ( I’M SORRY ABOUT THE BLOOD IN YOUR MOUTH )

There is no greater privilege in the world than having a friend, and no greater betrayal for you to have befriended her. You, the slaughterer. The executioner sent to assassinate her parents, part of a splinter faction that had refused to bend to the government. It was your duty, nothing more than another job in the ceaseless tide. You couldn’t have known you’d one day befriend the daughter of the people whose lives you extinguished. She found her way beneath your defences, disarmed you, taught you laughter and the sweetness of the sun even in perpetual dark. The guilt weighing upon you cinches tighter around your throat with each day, an unbearable burden you have no choice but to carry. She will never forgive you. You will never forgive yourself.