Post by Ze Flying Wraithetti Monstress on Apr 22, 2010 22:44:05 GMT -5
Name:
Laioni (lay-oh-nee)
Age:
Eighty; appears eighteen
Race:
Elf
Appearance:
Laioni is one to stand out, both among elves and especially among humans. Being raised in the wild, away from social norms, she has developed her own style that she is hard-pressed to abandon. She doesn’t conform to the taboo of wearing form-fitting, revealing outfits, nor does she wear armour or finely tailored girlish dresses. She wears whatever she wants to wear. She never had to worry about people looking at her oddly when in the wild, and she still doesn’t care what they think of her. Laioni wears comfortable outfits that don’t get in her way, all of which are made by her. Since she strongly dislikes throwing them away, most of them have rips and tears from use. Fashioned from natural materials like plant and animal parts, they range from feathers and down, leather, snakeskin, various animal pelts, bones and teeth, shed dragon scales and even Urgal horns in her outfits. All of her clothes are dyed black or shades like blood red, poisonous green or nightshade violet, revealing Laioni’s passionate affinity and love for the dark side.
Laioni’s goth tastes are also apparent in her natural appearance- years spent in a dark forest and her tendency to be a night owl has given her skin only the lightest tan, which she was actually born with. She stands at 5’9”, but often appears even taller because of her body shape. She is naturally thin, but lightly muscular from her constant exploits in the wilderness. With broad shoulders, elegant long legs and arms and an imposing height, she cuts an intimidating figure. Her chest and hips are a good size, and though they don’t add much to curvature because of her muscles, she often showcases them in her outfits. She has an attractive face, albeit in an odd way- with high, elegant cheekbones, a tall forehead, narrow but full lips, a pointed chin, and sharp nose- she has the exotic beauty so characteristic of an elf. Her looks are accented by thick black hair that hangs around her shoulders, and almond-shaped pale grey eyes that are framed by thin black eyebrows and full lashes.
Laioni, having an appeal for aesthetics like most women, adds to her looks with the help of makeup. Like her clothing, the colours are dark and brooding, as she enjoys looking like the agent of darkness she believes herself to be. Black mineral powders for eyeshadow, dark hues of kohl for outlining her eyes, blood red and black pigments for colouring her lips, and skin-coloured creams for covering the occasional blemish, as she is, after all, still very young in elf terms. Laioni’s jewellery is usually made of animal bone, Urgal horn, and the rare precious metal when she finds it. They cover her wrists, ankles, neck, and occasionally her fingers. Laioni has no piercings to speak of, but was given a small green snake tattoo on her left shoulder by her mother as a child. She constantly covers this tattoo with clothing.
Personality:
Despite her looks, race, and power, Laioni has a very low position in the Varden. This is because she very easily comes off as the biggest bitch anyone can claim to have met. Vain and arrogant, she disrespects any and all of her superiors, and makes her distaste for all of mankind very obvious. She is cynical, always ready to back up anyone’s positive outlook with smugness and sarcasm, and is extremely antisocial. She doesn’t want and makes no effort to have any friends, and is absolutely always off on her own. Besides all this, her love for the forbidden arts, the dark way she dresses, and her total insensitivity and vicious temper make her out to most people as some evil, malicious witch right out of hell.
However, Laioni is like this simply because she was never socialized. Nobody paid much attention to the sixth-oldest child in a royal family when she was very young, and then she spent the rest of her time living in the Spine with only her power-mad mother as company. She simply doesn’t understand things like courtesy, proper ways of speaking and dressing, and sensitivity, because they weren’t values she was raised by. She was taught that power is the way, and that only the strong should survive. Therefore, she looks down on the weak, and despises things like love, compassion, and mercy. Though somewhat savage, these values are how Laioni has survived the constant struggles in her lifetime.
Laioni is not evil, and her mother wasn’t, either. Though Laioni fears and dislikes her mother, especially after finding out that she is actually a Shade, she doesn’t hate her. She wants to separate herself from her; enough to drop her last name- Laioni’s full name is Laioni Venali, but she never gives out her last name and has chosen to ‘forget’ it. But her mother made her the person she is, and gave her the strength and beauty she so prides herself on, and Laioni is thankful to her for that. However, Laioni is also adamant on her own survival, and would not hesitate to truly kill her mother should the need arise- as her mother would not hesitate to kill her either. Mercy also loved Laioni, only wanting to take her body out of necessity. However, their passion for living and drive to fulfill their personal goals has torn them apart, and caused a mutual desire to murder each other.
Though Laioni hates people more than anything, she also finds herself oddly intrigued by them. Their massive flaws, their passion, and their violence all keep her coming back to them. Though she doesn’t like actually interacting with them, she often eavesdrops on people, or just watches them from afar. She isn’t interested in anyone in particular or stalking, she’s simply curious as to their actions. When forced to interact, Laioni enjoys being cruel to those she considers lesser than her, which happens to be everybody. Stupidity and weakness make her irritable, and she is very easily insulted, which usually causes her to terminate her rare conversations and never speak to the person again.
Laioni does, like everyone, have a weak spot, though she hides it and refuses to admit to even herself. When in emotional pain, which is usually caused by when she finds herself missing her mother and family or when viciously mocked by other members of the Varden, she turns to silence and her own company for comfort, vehemently refusing sympathy from other people. Usually, she will retreat to her secret home in Silverwood Forest, which is actually a hollow tree stump that leads into some old underground elven ruins where she sleeps and practices her magic. Laioni repulses the other elves living there, and does all sorts of things to irritate them, like eating meat and wearing animal clothing. Laioni, perhaps because her mother is a Shade, has an odd need to eat meat. However, she is very respectful of nature.
Finally, Laioni’s one and only love is the love she holds for forbidden magic. Though she is well versed in the ancient language, making up for her total lack of combat training, she uses the mind, body, and soul in her spells. Her potions often use the body parts of animals and even people, and their dark ways make them very powerful. Laioni has tentatively been allowed to use black magic since it’s so effective against the Empire, but it is a tense agreement. Laioni cares little for the Varden or for the battle against the Empire. Her only reason for joining their ranks is for protection from her mother, and for backing to pursue her less legal magical studies. This, too, makes her one of the more unpopular members of the Varden.
History:
Laioni’s intense affinity for the dark may be connected with the darkness surrounding her conception. Her 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, their country was in a constant state of war and terror. Laioni’s parents were two very different people. Her father, Othello Venali, was the Duke of the Saxon Empire, 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, Laioni’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 to trick him into falling in love with her. Eventually she made him divorce his wife Ekaterina and marry her.
Mercy planned to build an army to destroy those who’d oppressed her during her entire life- the race of elves and the race of humans. Over the following decades and centuries, she had no less than seven children with Othello, four boys and three girls- Sammael, Rusalka, Sekarr, Veela, Castox, Laioni, and Nazara. All seven children were born as normal elves, as Mercy hadn’t allowed her spirits to take control of any of them while she’d been pregnant. Laioni, being the sixth-oldest child as well as the youngest daughter, wasn’t paid much attention to by anyone except her mother. Mercy trained all her children heavily in magic, and all of them proved to be very powerful, even for elves. However, unbeknownst to them, Mercy was also turning them into Shades like herself. This was done when the child reached sexual and therefore magical maturity, and was completely secret. To keep her husband from meddling, Mercy tortured him with such horrible hallucinations that he took a drill to his head to bore them out.
Now the Duchess of the Saxon Empire as well as with five of her seven children successfully turned into Shades, Mercy worked on training Laioni. But she was put off when her true nature was revealed one day when her magic slipped, and the entire court revolted against her, burning her castle to the ground. Mercy’s five oldest children escaped in various ways, but she was forced to make a choice between taking Laioni or her son Nazara with her. Since Nazara was still only a baby and Laioni had basic magical training, she picked Laioni. Nazara was left on the steps of a temple for adoption, and thirty-year-old Laioni was smuggled out of the Saxon Empire and into a boat with her mother.
Mercy went to the most magical place on the map- Alagaësia, birthplace of the dragons. Elves were common, magic was prized, and Shades, though greatly feared and hated, were not unheard of, unlike many other countries. The two of them sailed there, but upon landing in Teirm, Mercy got a rude awakening. The Saxon Empire hadn’t traded with Alagaësia for fifty years, which was because it had been overthrown. The dragons were dead and gone, save for a few, the elves had gone into hiding, and magic was feared. Dismayed, Mercy took her daughter to the Spine, as she was not granted access into Du Weldenvarden, and didn’t want to be forced to live among the inferior humans and dwarves in either of their cities. Forced to live humbly, she built a cabin suited to she and Laioni’s most basic needs.
Laioni was taught to forget her old life, and considering she was approximately six years old in human terms, she quickly did. Instead, she learned the rules of the wild and the importance of survival of the fittest. Contact with anyone but her mother was strictly forbidden during her childhood, and she knew only her mother and the wilderness for many years. Mercy also brutally taught her magic. The Shade was no longer interested in building her army. Now she just wanted to survive. Since Mercy relied on feeding on elves to sustain herself, which she could no longer do, her body had begun to age and wither. She needed a new body, a fresh one, and she had her eyes set on Laioni.
Laioni, of course, had no idea of her mother’s true intentions, considering Mercy nothing but an ill-tempered old biddy. She grew up wary of civilization as well as cynical of it, and preferred to keep to the forests. She didn’t learn anything about nature’s magic like other elves, as her mother focussed mainly on the dark arts. And Laioni adored them. She trained long and hard in spells of the mind, body, and soul, focussing on them rather than physical things. However, she does appreciate the silent beauty of nature, her main reason for not touching it. Laioni did rebel against her mother several times, going off to the nearby towns and villages to meet with the people there. They knew her as a stranger, and she was repulsed by their ways. However, she was oddly intrigued by them.
Laioni’s life might have stayed like that forever- learning black magic, long walks through the forest, spying on the human race- if her mother’s health hadn’t rapidly started to fail. Laioni had just turned eighty years old, and had grown into a young woman, so Mercy decided not to wait any longer. She began to prepare the rites for switching her spirits to her new body. But she was frightened of not making it in time, and with the fear of death hanging over her head, she began to grow careless. One day, she accidentally left her grimoire, a book of her thoughts and spells, where a pair of raccoons could reach them. Laioni spotted them dragging it off and reclaimed it, and, curious, began to read.
She was horrified. Though her mother had always been brutal and unsympathetic with her, she’d never guessed that she was a Shade, or that she would want to kill her. Inspired by self-preservation, Laioni decided that matricide was the only way to go. That night, she poured a circle of oil around the cabin as her mother slept, and filled the inside with anti-spirit objects and spells, and then set it alight. The entire building caught fire, but as it fell apart, an enormous shadow rose out of it. The black figure had no physical form, but it looked meaningfully at Laioni before it flew off, disappearing into the Spine.
Laioni was terrified. Her spells hadn’t worked and the magical flames hadn’t either. She knew her mother would come back for her, and she was alone in the wilderness with no friends, no allies, and the only family she knew of was across the ocean, which she had no means and no money to get to. She would have to stay in Alagaësia, at least for a little while. She wanted to remain in the Spine, but she would be alone, and she was afraid of the greater, powerful beings residing deeper within. She was left with four choices- go to the dwarves, the elves, or join either the Varden in Surda or the Empire. The dwarves would give her the seclusion she wanted, but not much in the way of magical protection. She wasn’t interested in being forced into the wars and politics between the Varden and the Empire, either, so she decided to try her chances on the elves of Du Weldenvarden.
Laioni had never met an elf before, so she didn’t know what to expect. She travelled to Du Weldenvarden, and was allowed inside, since their borders were now far more open than when Mercy had arrived half a century earlier. It wasn’t long, though, before Laioni found herself appalled by her own species. They abhorred any kind of magic except natural magic, and yet used it to make nature do what they wanted, were uppity and arrogant towards her for being foreign, and were complete cowards. They’d hid in their forests for over a hundred years with their power instead of taking over like they should have, and only the will of a young boy with a pet lizard had coaxed them out. And besides that, they weren’t sympathetic to her needs for protection from her Shade of a mother.
Furious and disgusted, Laioni turned her back on them, and was forced to pick between the Varden and the Empire. She could also go to another country, but Laioni wanted to pick between the two evils she knew. Her first choice was the Empire- big, interesting, and good for protection. But the Empire was also known to have several Shades serving it, and her mother might have joined them. Besides that, Galbatorix scanned all his servants’ minds, and he’d be very interested in an elf with a Shade for a mother. And so, Laioni resignedly turned to the Varden, joining their operations in their camp in northern Surda.
Laioni swore her oaths, but she was neither sympathetic to nor interested in the Varden, and so she was consigned to the very low position of witch. Besides that, though she followed orders, she was highly disrespectful to her superiors. However, since she was so powerful, she was given the duties of participating in skirmishes and researching magic for the good of the Varden. Laioni, however, was confident that she had the protection she needed from her mother when the time came, and the Varden allowed her to continue her own magical studies in peace. In the past few months, Laioni has participated in the occasional battle, and has found a secluded home for herself in Silverwood Forest.
