Post by Emma on Oct 3, 2010 22:34:14 GMT -5
Name:
Rusalka Venali
Age:
520
Race:
Elf
Occupation:
Librarian
Allegiance:
The Riders
Physical Description:
Rusalka and her sister Veela are rarely pointed out as twins, or even related- they are fraternal twins, and look entirely different. Veela is blonder, curvier, and fairer of skin, which usually points her out as the more attractive sister. However, Rusalka is not lacking in the looks department despite rarely standing out next to her twin. Standing at 5’10” with a slender frame and severe features, Rusalka is certainly the more intimidating sister. With golden skin and cascading blood-red hair, complete with a deep voice edged by her refined accent, Rusalka’s unusual beauty is mostly carried by her bearing and seductive nature.
Rusalka’s face is very exotic, mostly seen in her very prominent bone structure and profile. With full, straight black eyebrows framing small, but sharp jade green eyes and long lashes, drawn but full lips, high, noticeable cheekbones and brow, a sharp chin and jaw, and a large, sharp nose that flatters her profile, Rusalka’s unconventional beauty isn’t always called out at first glance. Her body, as well, is oddly toned, making her lean muscles more apparent than the curves of her small breasts and hips.
Rusalka's military background demanded neatness and simplicity, a trait beaten into her that she carries to this day. No matter what horrors she goes through, Rusalka is never seen in anything dirty, or with a single strand of hair out of place, and has a straight posture that she doesn't let down even when alone. Despite this inherent order in her appearance, however, she is not one for gaudy jewellery or full makeup, and when in court, she wears simple, unrevealing dresses that again fail to make her stand out next to her flamboyantly dressed twin Veela. Her duties as a Hive Associate as well as one of Dellanir’s few servants capable of moving freely throughout Broddring often have her wearing her favourite outfit, however- her Saxon military uniform, albeit without badges and stripes.
Personality:
At first meeting, most people would be utterly divided in their opinion about Rusalka or downright annoyed by her. She comes off as dominant and spontaneous, with a questionable attitude that can make her rude or just confusing. She has a tendency to contradict herself, and can occasionally be obnoxious and bossy, but carries herself with a very dignified air. She has a stern, no-nonsense outlook on life, and she often urges others to be the same, leading most people to believe she has no sense of humour whatsoever, and as too impulsive to be a countess. However, Rusalka’s intelligence mostly lies in finding and exploiting weaknesses in others and witty ripostes.
Rusalka also has a tendency to annoy and enrage by claiming to know better than everyone, but is also exceedingly polite when dropping insults. Her temper is also practically non-existent, and angering others is often her favourite way of making them vulnerable as opposed to seductive charms. One of the few things that do get Rusalka’s goat are commoners, which always find some new way to disgust and irritate her just when she gets the notion that they aren’t all that bad. After five hundred years surrounded by intelligent, beautiful people trying to destroy her at every turn, the simple ways of commoners, especially human commoners, are unworthy of her.
Rusalka also has some very severe ruthlessness, brought on by life at elven court and her mother’s assassin training. She is not sadistic about and even feels terrible about the murders she commits, but she will not hesitate to kill anyone who threatens her or her sister despite their power, wealth, or how much they beg for mercy. However, despite her survival-of-the-fittest outlook on life, Rusalka also holds a very strong sense of right and wrong and of justice, despite not recognizing the concept of equality. Though she and her sister are joint rulers, Veela doesn’t do much of the actual job, leaving Rusalka with most of the decisions. She is a very firm ruler, detesting cheaters and criminals, but not an unkind one, and is very aware that it is she who serves the people, not vice versa.
However, though Rusalka is not proud of the life of crime she leads to satisfy a paranoid queen and to ensure her and her sister’s safety, she understands quite well that sometimes she has to play with vermin to catch a rat. That sentiment is what has kept her going, and what also led her to become an associate of the Hive. Her alter ego of Rusalka the Associate, committer of murder and deceit, allows her to sniff out true corruption in her city and among the people she so cares for, which she can then exterminate as the rude and vexatious Countess Rusalka Venali.
History:
Rusalka’s parents were from across the western ocean, from the Saxon Empire, a country ruled entirely by elves who decided to use their superior power to overthrow and enslave the humans. Because of their constant desire to control more land, the country was in an equally constant state of war and terror. Rusalka’s parents were two very different people. Her father, Othello Venali, was the Duke of Coldharbour Province, second only to royalty. Her mother was a nameless wretch and a whore born under a rock. This woman was known as ‘Brothel Girl’ throughout much of her childhood and adolescence. Tired of being oppressed her entire life, she decided to strike back at them tenfold.
Though they were hated and feared and worthy of being killed on sight, Shades were very common in the Saxon Empire. The war created so many unhappy spirits that they were possessing even non-magical folk. However, Rusalka’s mother had always been a powerful witch. After honing her craft for decades on end, she purposely called the spirits to her, allowing them to infuse her with power. But since she allowed them to do so, she didn’t become insane or lose herself. She mixed her raw passion with power and logic, becoming the Shade Mercy. She set her sights on Duke Othello Venali, a man who’d personally tormented her on various occasions. She disguised herself as a noblewoman and visited his court, using her beauty and charm to trick him into falling in love with her. Eventually she convinced him to divorce his wife Ekaterina and marry her.
Over the following decades and centuries, she had three children with Othello, all girls. First there was Pele, a highly talented witch that eventually abandoned her inheritance to be with another woman. Mercy then produced two more heirs- Veela and Rusalka. All three daughters were born as normal elves, as Mercy hadn’t allowed her spirits to take control of any of them while she’d been pregnant. Veela and Rusalka, due to being twins, Rusalka the older by two minutes, spent the decades of their childhood together, with Pele often serving as their nursemaid. However, at age thirty, they were all split apart. Veela was sent to the countryside while Rusalka went to a convent.
Her childhood was a long and lonely one. She was never allowed to see her sisters, and Mercy trained her daughter ruthlessly in combat and stealth. Rusalka was schooled in everything from mathematics to magic to literature to politics for decades, but had no friends and was viewed with distaste in the convent- it was well-known that Mercy’s background was questionable and that she had whored her way into Duke Othello’s favour- which only got worse when the Duke suddenly committed suicide and Mercy became Duchess. Rusalka herself also found this questionable- though the prospect that her mother was responsible was laughable, Rusalka began to grow wary of her.
When in her teens, border wars became increasingly prevalent in Saxony. It was one day when Rusalka saw innocent civilians trapped in a crossfire that she decided to join the military and devote herself to their protection- and besides that, becoming a soldier would remove Mercy’s control over her and save her from a life of political intrigue. And so Rusalka signed up at the age of seventy-five and began her training. Swordsmanship proved to be her greatest talent, and to this day her favourite weapon is a sabre. Over the years, Rusalka rose in the ranks, and with her wit, tactical knowledge, and intelligence, the higher-ups decided to put her on the front lines of Saxony’s wars.
Rusalka’s task was simple- exterminate all who opposed the Empire. It was on the front lines that she saw the real effects of war- she was ordered to kill vast amounts of civilians to weed out a few insurgents within, and eventually, her eyes of youthful hope were replaced with the eyes of a murderer. The exorbitant death toll she was responsible for erased all of Rusalka’s idealism. After slaughtering the people she had sworn to protect, and even being regarded as a hero of Saxony for said massacres, Rusalka became lost and miserable. She began failing to follow orders, and her disgusted superiors sent her back to Coldharbour, where the army stationed there was under the command of a foreign ebon-skinned man named Symmachus- the Imperial General.
Rusalka was neither the youngest nor the most beautiful woman he’d ever been attracted to, but she was intelligent, witty, and when he met her, vulnerable. After befriending her, Rusalka told Symmachus her thoughts and fears, and of her own self-hatred. He presented her with a new idea, however- that she could rise in the ranks until she was the one in command, and then she would never have to follow unreasonable orders ever again. This inspired a spark of hope in Rusalka’s aching heart, and she began to have a sense of direction again. Symmachus then further surprised her by professing his love for her- and Rusalka realized she loved the patient, devoted, faithful Imperial General back.
Rusalka and Symmachus were married not long afterwards, and a baby was born to them when Rusalka was two hundred and fifty years old. A beautiful girl named Mnemosyne, Rusalka found that she was happy for the first time in her life. However, it did not last. Mercy’s true race was found out, and she led the humans of Coldharbour Province into a brutal civil war, slaughtering every elf she could. Symmachus and Rusalka led a fruitless battle against them, and eventually Symmachus forced them to flee with Mnemosyne. Rusalka was later ambushed by her mother, however, and the resulting battle left Mnemosyne deeply wounded and Symmachus missing, and probably dead.
In the city’s flaming ruins, Pele, with Veela, found Rusalka. Pele offered to care for Mnemosyne, but ordered her younger sisters to flee. They did so, making for the docks and jumping on a randomly picked cargo ship. Rusalka was shattered, but Veela even more so- her son and husband had been murdered, her mother was a Shade, and she had been physically and psychologically abused for the past several decades. Unable to cope, Veela became suicidal. Rusalka was so frightened of losing her only family that she immediately took hold of Veela’s mind, wanting to wipe her memories. But no magic could remove them, and so she buried them, so deep and far beneath that no mental probing, merely the code word, that only Rusalka knew, could ever retrieve them.
Once in Alagaësia, Veela and Rusalka disguised themselves as the major race there, humans, while Rusalka learned about the continent’s current state of affairs. There was a war called the Blue Divide between humans and elves that had been going on for twenty years, and both sides were evenly matched. Since it was anything but safe for them in the human country of Broddring, Veela and Rusalka fled north to Du Weldenvarden. There, their arrival was anything but welcome- the elves, tense from war, were not about to trust foreigners. However, Rusalka managed to win the guards over with flattery and fishing for sympathy enough to be allowed sanctuary at one of the border posts. Ignoring this, Rusalka took her sister still further north, to Ellesméra. Since neither of them had any intentions of harming the forest, the trees let them be. Rusalka managed to worm her way into the city and approached the palace, wanting to see Queen Dellanir.
The queen was violently opposed to letting strangers take refuge in her kingdom in wartime. Rusalka listened to her vicious words with keen ears, and realized that Dellanir was paranoid- dangerously paranoid. Veela and Rusalka were removed from the queen’s sight and ordered to leave the country. However, Rusalka realized the queen’s desperately needed peace of mind, and formulated a plan. She did not tell Veela any of it- the girl was innocent and believed her sister was perfect, and Rusalka wanted to keep it that way. After much deliberation, Dellanir found that she liked the plan very much, resulting in the birth of the Hive’s connection with Du Weldenvarden and Palancar’s untimely murder by them. Rusalka was given the position of countess of Ceunon, but chose to jointly rule with Veela. As they were twins, it was allowed.
Rusalka rode out the last third of the Blue Divide relatively safely in her palace, as most of the fighting was south of Ceunon. When it ended, she took matters in her own hands about rebuilding Broddring’s economy, and has since spent her time doing two things- caring for her city and doing Dellanir’s murderous requests.
