#i love...her...always...my original queen

General info:

Name: Nell Maddox Freeman

Age: 26 years

Height: 5’9”

Birthday: October 18th

Blood type: Newblood

Birthplace: Norta

Current residence: Montfort/undetermined, always on the move

Allegiance(s): None

Personality:

Nell is a reserved and quiet individual who has a constant sad look to her. She keeps to the backs of crowds, or avoids them altogether, instead content to sit and watch. She’s very aware of everything in her environment, despite people thinking opposite because she appears to be spaced out most of the time. She’s good at reading people’s emotions, always studying their faces, specifically their eyes. They say eyes are the windows to the soul after all. People often avoid her, both out of fear of her ability and because she is not very open or welcoming to an outside perspective. But she would never describe herself as lonely, she has plenty of otherworldly company. If someone took the time to get to know her, they’d find she’s a great listener and has a gentle kindness.

Ability:

Spirit Walking

Ever since she was 18 years old, Nell Freeman has been able to see spirits of the deceased. Her soul is connected to the spirit realm, allowing her to see, hear, talk to, and “touch” these entities. She can see spirits at all times and being able to see them does not involve her having to explicitly activate her powers. This comes as a result of her being tied to the crossway, the halfway point between the living and the dead. The only ones she’s able to see are those who are stuck in the crossway as a result of unfinished business or them becoming lost on their way to the other side, commonly know as the afterlife. Part of her job includes trying to help these spirits settle so they may leave the living world and reach the spirit world. She can also guide those who are dying over to prevent such things from happening.

Her ability actually being “activated” happens whenever she brings a living person with her into the crossway so that they may talk to a spirit; she would describe herself as a bridge of sorts in this regard. Doing this could be dangerous, since there is a possibility of wrathful spirits wishing to come after the person she brings. There is not much she can yet do about this issue besides refusing to host the connection between living and dead. When Nell activates her abilities, the sigils on her hands will begin to glow, as will her hair and the whites of her eyes. Her irises disappear and her hands will turn a bluish-white color, and this change in color will end up going about halfway up her forearms.

Though she would never wish to do so, she does have the power to trap a living person in the crossway. This could happen either on accident or on purpose, usually via the person letting go of her hands outside of the crossway or her of theirs. Such a thing results in the slow loss of their soul as they are left to wander for eternity or the forever torment from those after them, their body then left empty and paralyzed back in the living world. She can choose to get them out or not, and this has only happened once before. She wants for it to never happen again.

With time, she has discovered she’s able to tell when someone is about to die, no matter what way it may come. And with time, she has learned never to tell someone when she knows. It is usually only mere hours before it happens or less. There will be a certain energy around the person, one heavy with the weight of death and it will leave a sinking feeling in her gut.

Since she’s discovered what she can do, all she’s wanted is to help people. It does not matter their blood color or their status, if someone wishes to speak to a dead loved one and get closure, then she will give it to them. She will spend her life helping these spirits until she one day joins them.

Backstory:

Nell’s story started as any average Red: born to a poor family, in a poor town, destined for the battlefields once she turned eighteen. She grew up struggling as a Red did: getting the bare minimum education, the food on the table being whatever they could scrape together, fighting to keep things afloat. Her mother, Edith Freeman, and her father, Jasper Freeman, were emotionally distant towards her, as if they never truly wanted the extra burden of a child atop all of their other struggles. Her father fought through his time at the war front for fifteen years, coming out with a lost arm and a permanent limp, and her mother worked as an apprentice to a Red cook within a lower Silver house. Nell did what her parents told her, she was a quiet child which to them meant she was a good child, and she did her best to exceed in her classes even though it wasn’t ever very difficult. She wanted their attention and their love, but she never said as such, knowing she’d never get it.

When she was seven, her parents had a son, Oliver Freeman. He was like her exact opposite. He was loud, messy, and could never sit still. He made friends quite easily, something she could never do; not like she ever really tried for that matter. He would attempt to play with her but he was always too much for her and she was too quiet for him, so eventually he stopped. Something Nell noticed was how different her parents treated Oliver. It was like a flip was switched. They gave him their love, they gave him their attention, they comforted him when he was upset, they listened to him, they did everything she had wanted but they never gave her. This built a resentment for her younger brother, though she didn’t let it show.

As the years went on, she saw how her parents relationship deteriorated. She never knew why, but they started fighting more often, over the smallest things, getting louder and louder. One day when she was sixteen, it seemed her mother had had enough and she took a small bag of her belongings and left with Oliver without a goodbye, leaving Nell with her father. Nell never saw Oliver or her mother again after that day.

Her father became more bitter than he already was, taking his anger out on her. He’d call her endless names; useless, worthless, a mistake, anything he could think of. He told her how she had to support the family, as if there was much of a family left to support. He constantly pressured her to find a job, telling her the horrors of the war and what would happen to her if she was sent out there. She was glad when she finally found a job that took her out of her home and away from her father. She was able to take a position within House Welle, the house of the greenwardens. It was the closest she ever got to Silvers, powerful ones at that. She wasn’t scared of them like most Reds, she was more fascinated by them and their powers. However, she stayed out of the way of the Welles, simply doing her job and sticking to the shadows. She sent half of whatever measly money she earned back to her father and kept the rest within her safe box in her servants quarters. She was able to keep herself from the war, but another problem wasn’t afraid to show itself when she was eighteen.

It first started with her dark, reddish-brown roots turning white. She already had some of the usual Red hair, gray and brittle at the ends from years of stress and hard work, but this was unusual. Luckily, no one paid any attention to another simple Red servant so she was able to keep it hidden until it began to spread. The second thing that came was the sigils and designs that appeared on her hands, made from light blue ink that seemed to be etched permanently into her skin. She woke up with them one morning and in a panic tried to scrub them off to no avail, then having to beg one of her fellow servants for an old pair of leather gloves they had to spare. From then on she kept them over her hands at all times. As time with these changes went on, she noticed her eye color changing and becoming duller, her normal light brown instead becoming a cloudy blue. It was like all of the color was draining from her, like her life was draining from her. She didn’t understand what was happening to her, only that she could be killed for this. That was until she saw her first spirit.

She had been going about her job as normal, trying to avoid suspicion when she noticed someone next to her. She looked up at the person, a young woman, and she looked like a normal human except for the fact her body was transparent, slightly blue in color, and she seemed to be floating off the ground by an inch or two. Nell thought maybe this was some Silver ability she never heard of before, so she kept cleaning, looking like a dutiful Red with nothing weird going on. Then the woman spoke to her.

“It’s nice to meet you, Nell Freeman,” she had said. ”We’ve been waiting very, very long for someone like you to be given to us.”

Nell had looked up again, confused. She didn’t understand what the woman meant, or how she knew her name. The woman saw her confusion and went on to explain.

She smiled. “You have a gift, my dear. You see, I’m a dead woman, have been for the past fifty years. You’re the only one who is able to hear and see me right now. You’re able to see all kinds of spirits and talk to us. You’re meant to help us.”

Nell could barely comprehend what she heard, she simply stared in shock before she hurried away from the woman with her hands shaking. That couldn’t be right, could it? Seeing dead people?

After that day, she saw spirits everywhere. They were all ages and types, ranging from young children to elders and both Red and Silver, not like blood type really mattered much when they were all dead. They looked at her with interest, and she tried to ignore them, but luckily none of them tried to talk to her again like that first woman. She heard their whispering, their tales and woes in the back of her mind, she could feel their weight, it all kept her up at night. Though nothing had freaked her out more than when she opened her eyes once in the dead of night to find several of them bent over her bed staring at her. She had screamed in terror and demanded they never do that again and thankfully, they didn’t. That was also the first time she ever spoke to them.

She was nineteen when she met the man with the red eyes, Jon. He came to her when her hair was almost all white, her eyes nearly completely blue, and she was out of ways to try and hide herself and avoid the spirits who followed her everywhere. Jon told her to trust him and come with him. He told her quite bluntly that if she didn’t, she’d be sentenced to death, and she couldn’t argue with that. She decided to trust this strange man and follow him, leaving House Welle, her father, and basically anything normal about her life behind.

On the way to Jon’s supposed home, he explained who he was. How he was one of what they were calling “Newbloods”, people born with Red blood that have Silver type abilities. He explained how his ability was to see the future, every possible twist and turn and path that time could take, unlike an Eagrie who could only see bits of the immediate future. He told her how she was one of those, a Newblood, and that she was like him in a way. Born with an ability dealing with the otherworldly, something other people would never be able to understand. That’s why he wanted to help her, both so that her power didn’t go to waste with her untimely death and so that she could use it properly.

She spent the next five and a half years of her life with Jon. She lived in his small, barely furnished cabin in a location she didn’t know, sleeping in the spare room which was really just an oversized closet. It was better than what she was dealing with at House Welle, so she’d take it. Jon was indifferent towards her, not showing any particular affection towards her but still being kind enough that she would consider him a friend. Her first friend. He was her mentor as well, as was more or less the whole purpose of their relationship. He taught her everything about her ability, how to use it, what to do, how to show the proper respect needed when dealing with the dead. She trained and she practiced, even managing to help a few spirits cross over to the other side. Doing that always filled her with good feelings, knowing that she helped someone at last find their peace. Some just needed help finding their way while others needed her help to complete one last thing before they could pass on, and she was happy to help however she could.

She was twenty-two when Jon took her to take someone’s spirit and guide it over for the first time. He told her this was better for them, it kept the spirits from getting lost and becoming wanderers like the ones she saw around all the time. He brought her to a nearby village and to a young boy. The young boy was dying from an illness, and didn’t have much longer to live. His parents knew this, and while they were sobbing over their child, they allowed Nell to do what she must. Jon guided her, telling her to do what she normally would to find the spirit world and to bring the boy over. After getting over her initial hesitation, she did just that. She comforted the boy who was far too young, telling him how much his parents loved him and how he’d feel better soon. She held his hand all the way, then passing him over to his aunt and grandma who were waiting for him on the other side. He had hugged her before he left. While it brought tears to her eyes, she was still happy to have been able to give the boy his peace.

Much of her training went this way, Jon taking her out to places to get hands on experiences. He was also out a lot as well, doing who knows what to change the course of who knows how many futures. It was like they were in their own little world, unbothered by the outside, by the divide of Red and Silvers. She even ended up helping a few Silvers along her journey, though they were only ever low Silvers, and they never knew she was a Red. Her skin had become pale enough that they could never tell. Jon had told her that one day it’ll be all up to her who to help, who to go to, who to find, and how she’ll handle that responsibility. She had given him a small smile and told him she could do it and he gave her a smile in return, and with him she didn’t know if that was good or bad.

She never knew her time with Jon was coming to an end until it was already over. It’s not like he told her anything, after all. It had seemed like a normal day, though Jon was bringing her along on one of his trips without saying any specific reason. He brought her to an abandoned town covered in soot, the town of Rosen. She doesn’t ask what happened to the town, she already had a feeling based on the amount of spirits she saw milling about the place. She was confused as to what they were there for until she heard a group enter the area, a group of five. Jon kept the two of them hidden until the time was right, but he still told her to stay behind when he went to go speak with them. Based on what she could hear, it seemed they weren’t huge fans of the seer. Then it started to rain. The group was boarding an air jet, one girl trying to still speak to Jon, when he made Nell come forward. He told her to go with the group. She was confused, stricken with fear as he sprung this on her so suddenly. He put a hand to her back and with a smile on his face, told her this was her path to take. The last thing he told her was that he enjoyed his time with her before he turned and left as if he was never there. With no other choice, Nell boarded the air jet with the group who gave her suspicious glances and kept their guns at the ready.

After an awkward silence, Nell decided to introduce herself. Saying she’s a Newblood seemed to ease the group a bit and the girl from before then introduced herself in turn. Mare Barrow. She explained who they all were, what they belonged to. A rebellion and revolution called the Scarlet Guard, built for the liberation of Reds across the continent. With her was a woman named General Farley, a young fisher boy named Kilorn, and the exiled crown prince of Norta, Tiberias Calore VII - but they all just called him Cal. Nell had heard whispers of what had happened within the palace, the death of the old king, but she never paid much attention to any of it and as such, barely knew what was going on. Mare said how they were collecting Newbloods like her, and that she was a Newblood herself; someone capable of controlling and creating lightning. When Nell spoke of her own ability, they seemed both surprised and a little off put. The prince denied that seeing ghosts was even possible, but Nell could see in his eyes that he had far more thoughts about it. Perhaps it was because he had someone who recently crossed over. An interesting group.

Being around the rebellion introduced her to the talk of war, and reintroduced her to the hatred Reds and Silvers hold for one another. A hatred that she did not share. With her abilities, she had learnt she doesn’t favor one side or the other, she only wants to help people find peace no matter their blood color.

The sense of death around the Scarlet Guard as a whole was very heavy, as was a sense of anger from the realm beyond. There were clearly a few spirits who wouldn’t mind taking vengeance on them. She never found too many spirits lingering with the rebellion, though she did try to help and speak with the ones she did see. They all died in the line of service it seemed. She wasn’t a fighter by any means, which allowed her to simply stay back and out of most conversations which was just her style. She felt others eyes on her a lot, but they always looked away when she turned towards them. She guessed people weren’t really fans of someone who could talk to things they wanted to believe were long gone.

It was almost her twenty sixth birthday when she was discovered by the king himself, Maven Calore. She had followed the Guard wherever they fled to after Mare got captured, but she went off on her own often to tend to the spirits or get a hold on her surroundings. She’d never seen so much of the country before. She had been doing just that when she ran into what looked to be a group of high ranking guards of some sort. It turned out she had been at the wrong place at the wrong time and said the wrong thing because next she knew she was being hauled off. She was taken to Whitefire, the size of the palace and the capitol city amazing her. What also amazed her was how powerful the feeling of death was. It almost choked her as she entered the city borders. She was then brought before a lonesome court, and there, sitting on a throne made of Silent Stone, was his majesty.

She’d only seen Maven once before when she was younger, in a broadcast. This version of Maven was wildly different. The first thing she noticed about him was his eyes. They were a bright, almost ice blue color but they were so… sad. Desolate. The stains born from sleepless nights beneath them held much the same story. His face was set in a displeased expression, brows slightly furrowed with a downturn to his mouth. She could sense the resentment and anger around the young king, and she felt powerful spirits wandering near him, both of them so terrifyingly fresh to the other side that they were no more than blue wisps to her eyes. It sent a shiver down her back.

“You’re Nell Freeman, correct?” He had asked her. He sounded so tired, and slightly annoyed. She definitely had to be careful; dealing with a man who had all the power in the world and was tipping over the edge was a dangerous combination.

She nodded, all of her actions hesitant. “Yes, sir.”

“And you’re able to interact with the dead?”

She paused. “Yes… sir.”

His demeanor changed, he sat up a little straighter, curiosity sparking within the icy blue depths of his eyes. “And how can you do that?”

How could she do that? She wasn’t really sure herself. She was acutely aware of her situation, the sentinels standing around, the king himself in front of her. She had no other choice than to try and explain herself. “Well, I’m able to see those who have become recently deceased and talk to them. I can also allow others to talk to spirits. And I can help lost spirits pass on to the other side.”

He nodded, more to himself than anything. He was thinking about something. His silence was enough to make her hold her breath, mind racing with thoughts about if she was going to be executed. Then he spoke. “Nell Freeman, I welcome you into my home, accommodations have been prepared for you to stay here. You’ll be called on again in a few days time.”

And with that simple statement, she was dismissed. She felt nothing but confusion and fear as sentinels herded her out of the room and down too many hallways before she was left in a room that she guessed was her new bedroom. With no belongings and nothing to do, she sat, listening to the spirits whispering around her. None of it was distinct, and she couldn’t see the entities they belonged to, but it kept her busy.

She was welcomed to the dinner that night, something offered to most Newbloods that came through the palace, it seemed. But there she saw someone familiar.

“Jon? What in the hell are you doing here?” She asked as she sat next to the seer.

He smiled his kind, slightly unnerving smile at her. “Ah, I was wondering when you would finally arrive.”

No you weren’t. She thought, knowing Jon knew exactly what second she’d walk through the dining room doors. He sees this, chuckling to himself.

The dinner went smoothly. She didn’t speak much, instead studying her surroundings and the Newbloods around her, wondering what their powers are. Every one of them seems to be so different. His majesty sits elsewhere in the banquet hall, making it easy to ignore the fact that someone who practically holds her life in his hands is in the same room as her.

Retiring for the night left a strange feeling in her gut, uneasiness about being in the palace keeping her tossing and turning throughout the night.

True to his word, the king called on her two days later.

Nell was brought into a private room where he was waiting for her. To say she was nervous was an understatement.

He wasted no time. “If what you say about your powers is true, I wish for you to allow me to speak to my recently deceased mother. You can do that can’t you?”

His mother. Queen Elara Merandus, if she remembered correctly; brought down by Mare Barrow in a gruesome end. She could see the uneasiness about the young king, his tense posture and eyes constantly scanning around him giving away more than he’d probably like. Back to the task at hand, she realized she had never attempted to call on a specific spirit before. She didn’t know if it was possible, but perhaps if Maven was with her in the crossway, it would help.

It’s not like she had much of a choice, so she nodded. “Yes, I believe I can.” She held out her hands to him, palms up. “Take my hands and don’t let go in this realm. If you do, the connection will break. I will lead us both into the spirit crossway and that should be where your mother is.”

He did as she asked with surprising ease. His hands were soft, but they were oddly cold for a burner. She closed her eyes, she took a deep breath, she concentrated. The markings on her hands began to glow softly, the color draining from her hands and turning them a bluish-white color. Her hair glowed as well, and her irises disappeared from her eyes. The room around them shifted, and they (or more specifically their souls) were transported to a ghostly valley covered in grass and trees and flowers, created by the spirits of said dead plants. Everything was in the different shades of gray, the only splashes of color being herself and Maven and the spirits within the valley.

It’s strange, because if anyone was to walk into the room back in Whitefire, they would find them just standing there frozen, hand in hand, with the eyes of someone who’s soul is no longer with them.

Maven was clearly unnerved, though he did his best not to show it. A spirit formed before them. It seemed his mother was making things easy. She didn’t know how to describe the emotion she saw in Maven at that moment. Relief? Shock? Some wild determination? She wasn’t sure.

She stepped back and let the two of them speak, not wanting to get involved with that in any way. The mother and son spoke urgently and for quite a while. Over time, she could feel her connection beginning to slip, caused by staying too long and her own stamina not being up to par.

“Your majesty,” She said. She held firm when he turned that icy gaze to her. “We must get going. I can’t hold this much longer.”

He said some parting words to his mother before joining her again. She breathed in and out and they were back in the room in the palace. She put a hand on the table next to her, trying not to fall over from the use of power. “You may go. Thank you.” Maven said, and just like that she was being escorted back to her room.

She thought that that would be it, that he wouldn’t need her anymore after that. She was sorely mistaken. He called on her at least once every other day, wanting to speak to his mother. It seems her council was more important to him than Nell realized. Despite all their time together, Nell never discovered anything about the king. It was all business between them, and he left no time for her to linger afterwards. She wasn’t particularly upset with that.

She let this go on for perhaps too long, causing more harm than good. But she never saw how she could leave. Until there was a wedding.

It was chaos; Silvers running, guns firing, and lightning splitting the sky. She joined the other Newbloods escaping thanks to the Scarlet Guard, more than happy to leave Whitefire far behind her.

The next chapter of her life led her to Montfort, a free republic where Reds and Silvers could live in peace with one another. It was a land mostly unburdened by spirits, however the otherworldly beings would always find her no matter where she went. She made herself a home there, and even though she’d spend the rest of her life going across the continent helping those that needed her, she always found herself going back.