#nettelia

The embrace was long, but only because Eren had felt the pain of permanently losing Nettelia once, and going through it again? Even the lion had his limits, and this war had tested every one of them. They pulled apart briefly, his hands on Nettelia's face for a moment before he finally dropped them. She'd done everything she'd could for him – his memories had already returned, but now he'd forever hold on to what had happened up until his death. Every moment, every heartache. Even the deja-vu of falling, of a daughter, of too much to understand – it remained in his head, compartmentalized away so he wouldn't have to think of anything to do with August and what had been broken.

Sometimes he'd think about that ancient city, Assyria at its height. Sand would swirl around them, the brilliant gold of the empire that hung from his neck, and there would always be Nettelia. "I didn't think I'd be in this position again. Not after everything. Didn't think I'd want it." Did he? Perhaps, but there was something about him knowing that he had a part to play, another destiny until his spirit was finally gone. Where would they go? What would they do? Answers he wished Nettelia would have for him once more. "It was strange. I felt like I was someone else. Living a fucking destiny over and over again. Only to end up here. With you. And I wouldn't trade it. So you can't go anywhere without me. Remember that. You wanna go on vacation? Pack for two."

He has desired. That had been the meaning of the very first name he’d ever been given. Erišum had grappled with eternity for only a few moments, before he’d seized what he’d been given and thrown himself into the fray at Nettelia’s side. A girl with hopes and dreams, a smile that mirrored his own as the world opened up to them. The Lion was the greatest of the beasts, the one that the prince had chosen immediately. That was so long ago, now, but it still rang true. A lion in every lifetime. Achilles had called himself one. There were no deals between lions and men. Alexander wore one upon his chest. The lifetimes and memories continued, and perhaps he was considered weak by the man he loved for not wishing to burn the city to the ground. It was more nuanced than that, now. He’d never get far, and that wasn’t the point. Every story had an ending. Historians fought over the reality of Achilles, the burial of Alexander – but Eren wished to finally control how his ended once more. Another fight, another battle – it would be his. And if no one remembered Eren Demir, then perhaps just Nettelia would.

The door opened to her room before he even had to knock. Eren could see it in her gaze; she’d known this was it for him. “I’ll help you destroy it. Whatever it takes.”

Illness did not suit the Lion. He always brushed it off, pushed it away as an inconvenience. He was as stubborn as all could be, but the damn funeral had been more than he'd ever bargained for. He did not want to play idle games, he did not wish to think about how he'd been reunited with August, only to watch the witch once again fall into his own death and ruin. The druid wasn't sure what to do, this final lifetime of his that had ended with the severing of their curse. Anger and hatred was easy for Eren, and he carried it like a second skin. War and planning was also easy enough, which is why he waited for Nettelia once more, head in his hands, "I fucking hate those goat men."

NAME. Nettelia AGE & BIRTH DATE. Prehistoric & Unknown GENDER & PRONOUNS. Female & She/Her SPECIES. Aspect OCCUPATION. Archdruid FACE CLAIM. Anya Chalotra

biography

Dark tresses tied loosely behind her, an eternal sun muddled with the Two Trees where no shadows could hold domain. In the gardens of Eden, roots wove between Nettelia’s fingers,  dirt was pressed under her nails, there was a magic beneath her feet that could be drawn from to those, like she, who knew how to listen. Trees had a language of their own, bushes and flowers too, it was the fey who had taught her this. On the bank of one of the rivers of paradise Nettelia dug up one of these such herbs, pruned away the thorns with little mind to how their sharp points occasionally drove into Nettelia’s fingers. In the years to come they’d say that in Eden there was no such thing as pain or sickness, but even immortality came with a cost, and pain was among the Gods most prolific forms of entertainment. They did not get sick, but not every form was made equal, they could fade and they could wane, and they could be overcome with such grief that they’d petrify once more. 

It was there that she found him, her artisan and the craftsman. Nettelia blamed him at first, if they were his burden to hobble together then there could only be some defect in his design. One of the avariel, her Prometheus, there were things that sat beyond his control. Beyond anything that the two could choose or manipulate, love was among them. Balms to ease passing, to soothe a broken heart, a splint to support a broken limb, this herb worked best on scrapes, while another could be worked into a salve to stave off the rot. Medicine came with a reverence that Nettelia had never expected so when the light of the golden seal descended over her garden - who was she to refuse a God?

Her Promethean husband could not agree. She did not understand the price that she would pay, that power did not come without strings where the Gods were concerned. Through the dim light of their home they fought in their back and forth, but what was done was done and Nettelia would be an archdruid forever more. Guardian and protector, over divine light and the people that were bathed in it she was a safeguard. One who stood alongside her chosen siblings, the family that had been conjured to her side, while a husband, stalwart but resigned, remained. 

Whispers came. Dreams and nightmares that polluted the minds of the people of Eden, they spoke of voices who begged for entrance. They refused, and that was when they came for him. So many years they’d shared together in twin immortality but nothing could have prepared her for what was to follow. The wrath of the Erinyes, the cruel sister, and the banishment that followed. Eden, the doomed garden inevitably fell and Nettelia watched on as she came to understand the truth of their paradise and the fruit that it was to bear. She was as a vessel, waiting to be filled, her siblings no different. Oztalun’s chosen few. 

In the wake of devastation there was nothing to do but to wander and to grieve. So far as Nettelia knew, there was no power that existed that would bring Promethean back to her, that would restore the family that had been so cruelly taken from her. In the garden Nettelia had been a healer and that carried on through her life as an archdruid with magic over the soul and the power to transfer energy from one place to another. At night images of the burning Trees broke in, of her husband dragged away by the seraphim that had been dispatched to take him away. Broken wings of angels, avariels and eladrins in their most profound grief. Nettelia had pleaded with Epimetheus, with Oztalun, with Eve, and with Adam because surely there had to have been something that could be done. 

Some mercy. Gods did not know the word, they knew of slights though, and they knew of retribution. 

This was the shape that had carved her, protector of humanity they came to call her and her siblings. Watchers of mortality that they themselves were doomed to never truly be a part of. In Assyria she found a king, the first that Nettelia deemed worthy. A friend that was a balm, a small measure that soothed some of the ache that had built a home inside of her. Had Nettelia known that there was something rooted inside that would ultimately corrupt her, perhaps she would have tried to stop it. As it happened, the archdruid could never bring herself to believe that to be true because for all that she had come to forsake and destroy, for all the darkness she unleashed on this world, that treachery would see her Promethean freed. 

Transference with its dark secrets allowed her to bring it all into focus. Souls too numerous to count, magic and vitality that stitched its way into dark pages - power lended to her from across the ether that wove its way with her druidic magic. The necronomicon. Book of the infernal, ancient and unyielding, she was its dark author and in it she poured magic of the divine so thoroughly corrupted that it rivalled the Gods themselves. Nettelia called to him now, her architect, her maker, her lover, her husband, and the only one who’d ever tried to warn her of the nature of the Gods. Across the Otherworld she reached for him, and through it she devastated everything that fell within her path. 

They came for her then, Dionaea and Octavian. Sibling archdruids that felt the truth of her dark magic and the breadth of the power that Nettelia had invoked. Driven into madness, her form bent and twisted, reared its heinous jaws and snapped towards them: the first of the chimeras, Nettelia might have destroyed them both but they managed to subdue her. They cut down the form and bound it from returning, but buried within the pages of the necronomicon rest Nettelia’s undying soul. 

Years stretched before her, one into the next as age upon age passed. The necronomicon bled, and from its ichor Nettelia was reborn once more. The chimera had been slain, cleansed, but the archdruid remained. 

personality

+ willful, loyal, pragmatic – stubborn, spiteful, merciless

Nettelia

NAME/ALIASES. UTP AGE & BIRTH DATE. Prehistoric & Unknown SPECIES. Aspect GENDER & PRONOUNS. Female & She/Her or She/They AFFILIATIONS. UTP OCCUPATION. UTP

History

First daughter of Eden, like the others, Nettelia was crafted by the artisan Prometheus and given life by Titania and Ulthar. Chosen by The First to safeguard the people of Eden and the Two Trees: Laurelin and Telperion, Nettelia and her siblings grew up eating the ambrosia fruits harvested from the trees and lived to protect the perfect realm that they had been born into. Beautiful and unchanging, Nettelia studied the creatures that Epimetheus crafted and memorized their shapes, marveled as Oztalun gave them life and lavished under the gold and silver light that cascaded from the Two Trees. In this age sickness and disease never touched Eden, the people were blessed with a true immortality that had been shepherded from the realm of the Gods. Seeded by the Gods themselves before their departure from the realm, it was Nettelia’s sacred duty to see to it that this paradise went unprovoked. Humanity and the offspring that would later be called demigods were born with a cursed fate, but Prometheus held a secret that he gifted to Nettelia first: the man behind the curtain who bore a terrible secret. The truth of the Gods was nestled in the truth of their immortality, to Uthenera they slumbered when their bodies were destroyed and their magic retreated, but only immortal hosts could contain their souls upon their return. Eden was a garden, but not for humanity. Prometheus brought free will to Eden, with Nettelia as his accomplice as he stole from Ulthar himself. Punished before the days of Lucifer’s rebellion, Nettelia would have followed had the most beautiful of the seraphim not refused to kneel. 

Eden burned and the Two Trees were destroyed, in the cruel sweep of fire mortality was brought to the race of humanity. Grief defined the archdruid, but she was possessed also by a far greater purpose, she bore the truth of the Gods and their intentions for the race of mortality. Watched as the Inferno was crafted by Oztalun and understood that the demons that crawled forth were also unfit, but their divine children when strengthened with the lines of fey would prove enough. It was in the aftermath of Eden’s pillage that Nettelia unearthed some truth to her abilities, that her power of transference could do more than mend a wing or help a plant recover, but she could heal and rend curses. The whispers came and those she confided in wouldn’t hear her, Nettelia, the grief-ridden sister who ranted at the injustice of the Gods, who turned those that she thought were possessed of the sort of righteousness that wouldn’t allow them to falter. More and more her dreams haunted her, in them she saw visions of a binding, of a transference, of sacrifices too great to number. She’s seen so many die before, fallen wings and monstrous cries of anguish and pain. This was her solution, her salvation and means to an end: her answer came in the binding of the necronomicon, to its blood hewn pages that were born from the lives of countless supernaturals. Nettelia had enough time to break Prometheus’ chains, then her siblings came for her, learned the truth of what she’d done, and slayed the chimera that she had become. 

Connections

Aren: Of her three siblings, Aren slumbered while she was killed after her descent. He remains the only one who did not see her at her worst, and for that she is grateful. 

Apollo: Companion of Eden, Nettelia got her first lessons in the healing arts from the God. While Gods are fickle, Apollo at least has always been upfront about his nature. 

Pythia: Her grief manipulated, Pythia used Nettelia’s anguish and hatred for the Gods against her - twisted her thoughts towards blood magic and aided Tiamat in instructing Nettelia on how to craft the necronomicon. 

Abilities

Author: as the creator of the necronomicon, Nettelia is immune to necromantic spells and manipulations. 

Immortal: as a druid, Nettelia will always reincarnate after she dies. Her lifespan lasts for up to five-centuries before she will inevitably begin to fade. However, her connection to the necronomicon will see to it that she is resurrected shortly after her destruction so long as the book remains. 

Archdruid: as an archdruid, Nettelia’s ability to turn into the chimera was destroyed, but she has retained her ability to shift into animals. An archdruid only has to look at a creature for a short while before understanding their habits. 

Transference: an elevated power of transference allows Nettelia to move magic and souls from one location to another. To this end she is able to heal any injury, illness, or curse.

Weaknesses

Mortality: While durable, Nettelia’s body is still mortal and she can be killed by mortal means. 

Binding: Several witches, druids or fey can bind her to the necronomicon if killed.

Animal Binding: Several witches, druids, or fey can bind her to an animal form if banded together. 

Lycanthropy: As an archdruid, Nettelia cannot be turned into a lycan, their bite however is poisonous to her and would prevent her from using her magic until recovered.