Khemrys (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
homeless_pard) wrote2014-04-09 11:06 pm
homeless_pard) wrote2014-04-09 11:06 pm
Entry tags:
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PLAYER
NAME: Beth Bederka (Steahl)
PREFERRED PRONOUNS: Female pronouns please.
TIMEZONE: Pacific Standard Time
CHARACTER
NAME(S): Khemrys, late of Rhystead abbey
AGE: Almost 21 by Dales reckoning
CANON: Witchworld (Tales of the Witchworld 3: Wereflight)
BACKGROUND HISTORY:
[Quotations from story and summation in bio]
"Many times had I heard how my mother rode into the small abbey at Rhystead with a babe at her back, and a dying warrior across her saddlebow. They told me how he bore the scars of many battles and that there were many fresh, grevious wounds. But of this my mother never spoke. Also, Dame Rimia, who had helped her care for him, talked of his appearance and garb, saying it was unlike that of men she had seen. Some of the Dames thought he was from the south, of which we knew very little. On that day, a part of my mother died. The remaining years granted her were spent as though she were always listening for a call that never came.
She was Lady Tirath, daughter of a house fallen to the invaders we called the Hounds of Alizon. When their strange machines of war destroyed her family's holdings, she escaped, turning north to join some kin. Once, as though speaking to herself, she told me how she met my father, Herwyrd, in the fens. She was sick nearly unto death from a fever, and he cared for her as tenderly as he would his own blood. That year they exchanged vows and rode the far Dales, seeking news of her kin and of the fighting brothers from which he had become seperated. In time, I was born, and shortly thereafter had come the battle from which they had fled to Rhystead. This was the closest I ever came to hearing of my father. She never mentioned this part of her life again.
Most of the Dames were beyond middle years, and they made much of me, undertaking my upbringing with great zeal, fussing over my mother and me. She would smile faintly and read to me many of our old tales, which was quite a relief to one as inundated with stories of the Cup and Flame as I. I remember that she always smelled of roses.
At times I walked with Dame Rimia, the still-mistress, and learned the uses of herbs and their lore. Others I spent with one or another of the Dames, learning to figure accounts, to embroider and to mend, to read, to cook and too oft times to pray. Our little abbey had so few visitors and was so far from any keep or village I wondered how it had ever come to be.
So fiercely had my mother ridden into the abbey's life, and so quietly she faded out of it. When I was there but eleven summers, she left this life...."
~Were-Flight~
Khemrys was born into a war-torn land. The Dales of High Hallack were invaded by the Hounds of Alizon and their uncanny allies, the Kolder. Many a keep and holding fell to their crushing boots and horrid machines, leaving many of the Dales without home or lands to call their own. Such was Khemrys's mother. Once a high lady of good standing, now homeless she fled...
The men of the Dales were overrun in chaos and broken defenses, and so they brokered a deal. The Were Riders from beyond the Wastes were of the Old Blood, that long gone from the Dales in favor of the younger race, and yet these men rode forth. They were outcast from their own kin and lands, but in exchange for their aid and skills in the war they were promised wives in the Year of the Unicorn. That is another tale for another time but what matters in this was that one man was separated from his brothers and found himself a wife far sooner than that distant year.
It was a love that was to destroy them in such harsh lands. They were wed soon after he found her, fevered, in the marshes, and their time together was one of flight ahead of the war. Not long after Khemrys was born ill fortune caught up to the pair and he took grievous wounds protecting his wife and daughter. Herwyrd died not days after they found sanctuary at Rhystead Abbey, and Lady Tirath lived as a ghost thereafter, always listening for a call that never came.
As a babe born forth from war, Khemrys landed in good stead. Rhystead was small and hidden, full of elder Dames who had no children to fuss over. She grew as a young woman with a dozen adoring aunts intent on teaching everything they could. She was closest to Dame Rimia, the Stillmistress, who taught her the art of healing and stillwork. Herb work, the needle, the knife, these were her calling and the village closest to the abbey was grateful for the skill. She also learned to figure, to write, to sew and all other things a gently reared lady who might wed well should learn...
...excepting that Khemrys was never expected to wed. Even the Dames, in their kindness, felt that a compromised woman had picked up a dying warrior so that she might claim her child legitimate. It was gently said, and softly murmured, but the Dames prepared Khemrys for the life of a bastard child. She was expected, in due time, to swear to Cup and Flame so that she might never need to leave the abbey. She was taught all the rules and forms of life as a Lady of some worth, but never given the promise of such. That was acceptable though, Khemrys was content in her life.
But old Dames age, they wither, and they die. Even as her mother faded when Khemrys was eleven, so too did most the Dames she was closest to before the fateful turning of eighteen. And so came the new Abbess, and the Young Ladies. The Abbess was a thief and a wicked woman who wished Rhystead to rise in glory as their sister abbey, Norstead had. She had no time or desire to support the life of a young woman who would not marry and give charitably to the abbey, and so Khemrys was made outcast among the women of Rhystead.
Contentment fled into misery as Khemrys watched her Dames being robbed; a woven rug, ages old, was taken. Small trinkets, rings, the precious oils from the stillroom, all disappeared into the coffers of the Abbess and adorned the fingers of the Young Ladies being trained and hosted while Khemrys did chores and maintained the abbey to the manner expected. She began to steal away, to take moments for herself away from the abbey and there her blood awoke. The Dales were once held by the Old Blood, the dark haired, pale skinned Firsts who held Power in their hands and Life in their hearts...and Khemrys was a child of such. Had her blood slept, forever dormant, she would have lived the life of a dales lass, a handful of years, the skill of her mind and hands, and nothing more.
Fate held otherwise.
Her blood awoke and she was Old Blood; dark of hair, milky of skin, and Power sang to her. Her inclinations were for healing, her skills in easing pain, and so she became a Healer. But more she yearned for freedom, for escape from the cage that was closing about her...and her Healing reached deep within her blood, examined it, and bequeathed to her a form from her father's blood. The Were Riders were shifters of high degree, they held forms beyond that of man; Bear, Wolf, beasts during the moon and any time they needed. There were, until Khemrys, no female shifters. Had her Power granted her a different aspect from Healing there would yet be no female shifters...
...but now there was Khemrys, a young woman living in the Dales with none of the Old Blood to teach and guide her. She was...free. Her form was that of a Pard, a cat that gave her soft steps and the ability to slip through shadows, a freedom in the night she had never felt! And for a month she was happy. She was free.
And the Abbess sent a spy. She expected to find Khemrys slipping away with a young man, sleeping under the stars with a farmer when the moon rose full. Such would allow her to be cast forth from the Abbey without belongings or recommendation. What the spy saw, though, was a woman pulled into fur when the moon rose, and what the Abbess did was hire a Hunter.
A persistent Hunter. A good Hunter. Khemrys left her home on four feet and fled just before her eighteenth birthday. She fled East and North, always just ahead of the man on horseback. She ran until her paws bled and she grew lean with the chase, she learned to hide her trail, to hunt and eat as she went, and ever there was the spectre behind her. She ran until her coat grew dull and her growth was stunted; though marsh and wood, and into the Wastes.
The Wastes were an uncanny place, a place of blasted landscapes from old wars and pockets of magic that were older still. In the Wastes she finally felt safe enough to wear her skin again, to walk on two legs before she forgot who she had once been. The first time was at a small hut, open and empty, she gave blessing to the hosting of the board and the door opened, allowing the naked, wan woman entrance and a time spent asleep in safety. Food was granted upon her waking, and simple clothes enough to feel human while she broke her fast. Carved above the door lintel was the symbol of Gunnora, an old Goddess; one who looked over the women of the Old Blood in all their forms.
The second time she wore skin was not so kind. It was a small pond and she had seen no sign of the Hunter for a week or more, and so she shifted, and she swam. To feel clean, to feel whole...to be caught. Bandits set upon her, three men who made a mean living in the torn land of the Wastes. After a year and longer of running she had never, ever been touched so. By men who thought they had rights to her flesh, hands harsh upon her skin and mouths full of laughter as they held her. There was no clothing to rip, she had none to her name, but they would have torn it from her in their haste...
...and she, gentle raised and Healer born....
...shifted and gutted the man who first tried to thrust himself upon her. His companions panicked to be holding not woman, but cat, no matter how small, and so she fled once more. Through the long days and nights, through her second year of fugitive state to the edges of the Waste...and beyond. The land beyond the Wastes was legend. It was green and soft where the Wastes had been scarred and broken, and the Hunter was still behind. She saw his horse on the horizon as she crested a ridge and she had nowhere left to run.
No place left to hide but the stones ahead. There was a crack within the rock face and she wove through, pressing back within the small cave until her back pressed harsh upon stone. And still...
...and still he came. His shadow moved within the entrance and she decided. She would die not as a beast, not wrapped in safe fur that had signed her fate, but as a woman. His kill would wear a human face and so she changed, naked and cold within the stone, and waited for the dart to come.
PERSONALITY:
Khemrys herself is as softly spoken woman who rarely raises her voice. She is calm and gentle in even trying circumstances and refers to most as Lord and Lady, an ingrained politeness that will be hard to break. She acts and holds herself much as a lady of the old world, and as such tends to unconsciously encourage those around her to act in accordance. She is firm and unshakeable within the bounds of her abilities, a healer in a sick room is NOT to be trifled with, but often unsure of herself in other aspects in the greater world.
Khemrys cannot be idle. As the only child in an abbey of aging and far past aging women, she did the brunt of all work as the years went by. She is as likely to be mending, sewing, or cooking when talking with people as she is to be moving about a room creating potions. To sit and do nothing is not in her and others may need to teach how to take moments for herself.
Due to her long hunt she fears warriors and adult men who might remind her of the attempted rape and necessary defense, but she will NEVER deny such treatment if they are injured, she just may lose her lunch afterward if they manage to frighten her. She is skittish when she feels cornered and as likely to tremble while locking gazes with someone as not.
As far as her world is concerned, by Dales reckoning she is a woman far past grown and may be headed to spinsterhood as an unwed woman of twenty. By the reckoning of her blood though she is barely past infancy, little does she know such.
Technology will be a hurdle for her honestly. She comes from a feudal and magical world, and the only experience she has had with advanced technology is that of the Kolder, horrid, dead corpses controlled by machines in their head who marched against her lands and wreaked horrid devastation with their crawling, fire spitting tanks. She will approach technology cautiously, and never truly develop a dependance upon it.
CHARACTER RELATIONSHIPS:
The Hunter: An inimical force that chased her forth from her home in the Dales and far into the wastes and the lands beyond. Ever at her tail no matter how she hid her trail, she ran herself ragged, barely ate, and stunted her growth for over two years under the shadow of this nightmare.
The Abbess: This bitter woman is the root cause of Khemrys losing her home before the age of eighteen and for being hounded forth by The Hunter. Greedy and petty, the woman craved more power than a secluded abbey would allow for in most circumstance, but in an effort to further trim the costs of maintain her responsibilities and line her own pockets she discovered Khemrys's shape shifting and had her declared anathema.
Dame Rimia: This elderly Dame was the Stillmistress of Rhystead Abbey and taught the love of life and joy in healing that Khemrys lives by. She served as a true mother to the young girl over the years living in the Abbey, Khemrys taking up the elder woman' sduties as age crippled, then killed Dame Rimia. The good woman passed away quietly in the garden they often sat together in. All she knows of herblore, surgery, and care came from this woman's lips and Khemrys holds her memory far closer than that of her own mother.
Lady Tirath: Khemrys's birth mother, a tragic ghost of broken beauty and displaced Ladyship, hiding from her fallen towers in a far off Abbey. She told endless stories to her daughter about past times and her lord husband, entrusting history and dream to her daughters care before slipping to the land of the dead to join her love.
Lord Herwyrd: Khemrys's father and source of the Old Blood in her veins that labels her 'other' giving her strength in healing and her other form as a Pard. What she knows of him is mostly tales from several perspectives, but Old blood breeds true and she is no more a Dales lass than she is a bird.
Gunnora: Gunnora is a very active and very powerful denizen of the Old Blood, she is viewed as a goddess by some but Khemrys, growing up in the Dales, never heard her name in the tales of Cup and Flame. She is the guardian of children and women, and patron saint of healers, mothers, and sorceresses, her sign an amber wheat sheaf surrounded by grape vines. The only time during the hunt, before the end, that Khemrys wore her human skin safely was in the shelter of Gunnora's shrine. There are many times in the tale where it is shown that Gunnora has her eye on the wayward child, through providence and the ability to escape evil.
STRENGTH OF HEART MOMENT SUMMARY: The hunt is a long a grueling one lasting well over two years. She has been worn to little more than fur and bones, and has traveled far beyond the wastes. The second time she chose to wear skin, to remember that she was a woman as much as she was a pard, she was beset by bandits and nearly raped. Instinct took over and she gutted a man with her claws after shifting to a cat once more, escaping but at a harsh cost to her conscience. Ate the end of her tale she has nothing left. No reserves of strength, no place to call home, and very little faith that she will live past the day. The Hunter had been too close for too long...and he had her cornered.
She found herself in a small cave, alone and afraid, furred back pressed far back against the cave wall as the end neared. And fur...fur felt wrong, no matter how comfortable it had become over the turns, she didn't wish to die as an animal, no matter how smart a beast.
She wished to die as herself.
Yes, die. She recalled the feel of blood on her claws and the tear of flesh and it made her ill in either form. Self defense may be seen as a worthy cause to kill but not to her. Never to her, never again. She would do no harm even should it kill her, and so she slipped back into skin and stood straight and tall, awaiting the killing the blow.
POWERS
SAMPLE - THE AWAKENING:
Death was surprisingly dark. She had thought it would be more reds, it was a color she felt went well with the pain she expected, but she couldn't recall her death wound, no she just found herself in the clinging, hungry dark. If she had to compare this inky void to anything it would be to bleeding perhaps, for it drew on her like any open vein would, pulling, drinking what life she had greedily to leave her shaky and unwell.
This, then, was death. She was not surprised that the Flame the Dames worshiped didn't come for her; she'd never taken her vows after all. No, but she had faintly hoped that she might find those she'd lost in years past; reaching arms, soft smiles or even whispered words of welcome. Such was not for her though. No, just this yawning nothingness and the feel of her legs buckling, finally, until she spilled upon the unseen ground. No grit met her weakened arms though, no stone ground into her cheek, instead there was the smooth feel of polished glass, and distantly the flutter of a heartbeat.
A pulse.
A blast of light that peeled the darkness away in tatters of shadow like birds rising into the inky sky. She didn't have the strength to rise at first, instead she stretched trembling, pale fingers along the warmed glass under her body, letting the heat leech into her chilled skin. That was one thing she could enjoy in either form now, the swell of warmth was a simple gift and one well worth smiling over even in death. In time she climbed to her feet, more curious about what she might be standing upon than wishing for an end now...
"Oh Dame..." she whispered softly, tears coming to her eyes despite the simple, gentle scene etched in glass under her feet. Stylized, yes, but she would know that kind, wrinkled face anywhere; Dame Rimia in her herb garden, gentle enough to nurse fledgling birds and strong enough to cut in the name of healing.
"And so you come to a choice, child."
There was a small shiver in the glass, three pedestals rising around the edges of the gentle garden scene, and upon each an item glowed, dangling like fruit in the still air.
"Upon which path will your feet tread?"
Dame Rimia had never asked her such in life; her path then had been set. A quiet life in the folds of the abbey, likely to take vows and live among her adopted kin for the rest pf her days. What would she have said then had she been asked? "I've gone far..." her voice was whisper thin and scratchy from disuse, she'd had no human tongue in quite some time and even less reason to speak.
"And farther yet to go," the voice promised simply.
Farther yet, death, then, was not an ending. That truth shivered through her like an icy wind, though it raised no gooseflesh in it's wake, she could feel the import tingling along her bare skin. In the wake of such she could lift her eyes and truly look upon what the pedestals held. The first she saw was a pard's head carved of silver, a large belt buckle upon an elegant leather band. It had belonged to her mother, a gift from her father to guard the growing life in her belly against ill fortune.
The second pedestal also held the likeness of her other form, a leaping cat was the hilt of her father's sword, how had she not realized that he would have worn a second form even as she did? Like the belt from her mother, the sword she had buried deep within the orchard around the abbey to keep such treasures safe from the grasping hands of the new abbess. In reality they no doubt remained there, though their likeness was here in the void pierced by stained glass.
The third pedestal held no treasure from her childhood; no token she had traced chubby, childish fingers along as stories spilled from her mother's lips. No, the third pedestal held a sheaf of wheat carved from glowing amber, and a vine of metal graced in amethyst grapes bound the whole. She'd seen the symbol before, carved above the lintel in a hut she had sought shelter in during her flight. Then, as now, it made her breath catch a moment in the sheer rightness of the symbol. Her fingers inched to trace the grain, but somehow she felt she should think, first, upon what this meant.
What it all meant.
"Dame..." Ah, but she was no child now to cling to the older woman's skirts with question upon question. She had her own mind and her own experience to rely upon now, limited though they may be. "...I'm afraid." That she could admit. She had lived with fear as her closest friend these past turns, certainly there was no shame in admitting she felt it yet.
"Choose."
Then the shiver of goosebumps came, washing along her arms as she lifted a finger to trace the edge of each pedestal. Her mother's belt, shelter and safety, a willingness to abide in obscurity to keep another safe. Her father's sword, the taste of acid fear and grim resolve on her tongue, blood on her claws and the ability to no longer be afraid. The grain, a swell of warmth within her breast and the gentle scents of the stillroom and healing.
Her calling. Her ability, more than fur or skin, Healing was a true decision in such a place. The amber was warm in her grip as she took up the sheaf of grain, power thrumming through her bones for a moment before the symbol faded away like a dream.
"And what do you give in cost, child?"
Nothing without price, even here. She knew the need for balance even as she turned to face the treasures entrusted to her long ago. Sword or belt then? Fear had worn her thin and nervous in the life she'd left, to have the chance to leave it by the wayside was tempting, and she knew the grip of the sword would fit her hand if she let it. But to shield a life, was that not also the healer's path? To care for a body when the owner could not?
Fear...fear she might live with a bit longer it seemed. She knew it even as another might know a lover. "Take the sword," she sighed, watching the weapon begin to fade the moment the words dropped from her lips. She could live with fear, yes, but she wept softly to watch that mighty weapon fade away, lost even as her father had been.
Perhaps it would be found by one who could use it to a great good some day. She could hope as much as the light under her feet began to flicker.
"The choice is made, child."
Yes, made and accepted for what such was worth. "Thank you," she whispered softly to the light as it slipped away, leaving her once more in darkness.
SPECIAL ABILITIES:
[Canon write-up: HERE]
Pard-form: Khemrys's Wererider blood allows her to take the form of a pard (clouded leopard) at will. She has her own mind in either form, and it is not a curse, simply another aspect of herself awakened in her through her healing skill. She has no weakness to silver or wolfsbane or any such silliness, but she is bound to her pard form without the ability to change back for the full three days of the full moon each month. In this form she is less than intimidating; harsh living when she first awakened the feline form stunted growth. She has kittenish proportions, with paws and tail far larger/longer than they should be in an adult. An important note: There are NO female wereriders. Only her healing ability was able to draw that trait out in her blood and it was the subconscious work of years of wishing to escape the life she had. She in essence, broke herself in doing so. She can access her healing abilities OR her pard abilities, not both at once. Her bloodline is genetic though, and will be passed to her sons should she ever wed, while daughters are likely to inherit a broader range of old blood abilities but no shifting.
Dark-sense: Those of the Old Blood who have set themselves on a truly good path in life, those who fight for life and right develop a sensitivity to their opposite. Khemrys can sense evil in those who walk the dark path and being near it/touched by one who is so twisted will often make her ill. Likewise, those that are truly evil may often sense her in kind, and being healed by her may be painful for those who are of the Dark.
Healer: From herb-lore, medicine making, surgery, midwifery, and the art of true healing through Power, Khemrys has spent most the years of her life learning to aid and heal others and will ever continue to do so. She is unusually skilled in surgery being able to sense how a body is formed under her hands, and can often do corrective surgery to correct past, poor healing in those who thought to be crippled for life. She is also wise enough, having started on the path of healing at a very young age, to know when bones must be set and bodies realigned with stitching before magical healing can be applied safely. When not actively aiding a patient she is often harvesting, gardening, or distilling herbs, forging medicines, and weaving bandages. There is a great deal of busy work involved in being a healer and she is well used to hard work.
MAGIC (Active/able to use are bolded. Goals/future abilities are italicized font)
Healing: Her entire being is focused on an ability to heal; she casts heal at varying levels and incredible strength. She will wear herself to the bone as necessary to help others.
Group Heal: Khemrys has yet to have a reason to cast a group heal spell, this is a future goal.
Sleep: Sleep is an incredible aid to healing when rest is the only true way to aid a patient, the sleep status effect can be resisted, but rarely. All sleep events shall be discussed with other players.
Mass Sleep: Again there has been no reason for her to reach for this ability, this is a future possibility.
Paralysis: Like it's gentle cousin sleep, Paralysis is a boon to those who will hurt themselves more in attempting to move or flail when injured. She uses this sparingly, if calming a person does not help. Paralysis is also employed in her bounds and warding; when someone goes back on her word or attempts to invade a safe place with ill intent she is likely to hold them still. Like any status effect, this can be resisted, will discuss with all players when paralysis may be an option.
Mass Paralysis Very very much in the future or a panic reaction to many people attempting to invade a safe zone to cause harm.
Charm: A natural charisma and a slight boost to instill calm, she never uses this influence intentionally, it is simply a byproduct of her wish to soothe others.
Regeneration: Potentially, in the future, her ability to heal will grow to the point of regenerating lost body parts. FAR IN THE FUTURE.
Resurrection: Khemrys has never been given reason to believe bringing people back to life is an option. She wears herself to the bone dragging people back from the brink of such, nailing a soul into a dying body while she desperately battles wounds. Given the idea? She may work incredibly hard to garner this ability. Death is her only true, constantly battled foe.
Fire: Given time, and teaching she may eventually be able to develop the ability to...light a candle, or campfire. Or possibly keep the stove at a constant temperature. This is NOT what her body is geared for.
Shield: This is also an ability she has never heard whisper of, but once the idea is offered? Oh yes. The ability to create a safe zone on a battle field in which to heal people? YES YES YES. She'll need a teacher to learn this.
Lightning: She will NEVER learn offensive uses of this spell, but it is possible she will learn it for the sheer ability to be her own crash cart. She can massage a heart into beating with healing ability or open chest surgery, but a small zap will be less energy intensive. Again, training will be needed.
INVENTORY:
Khemrys is naked. No items, no clothing, she's been on the run as a cat for years.
NOTES/ASPIRATIONS
I desperately want Khemrys to find a place of her own. Whether this is a physical home and purpose, or people who need her, she has never, in her whole tale, truly been accepted and needed for who she she is. I want to give her that peace, as well as work her through dealing with the trauma of being hunted for well over two years.
Plus, I admit, giving an honest to gods heal stick to the group with no ulterior motives and an unshakeable moral code makes me giggle. She's powerful, but incredibly limited within the range of her powers. I look forward to how evil characters will deal with her and the debate of 'joining the hospital in her free time' or 'opening her own small shop' as well. She WILL be going out with mission crews as field medic
If possible Mary and I would like Khemrys and Magus (Janus) of Zeal to be found together!
NAME: Beth Bederka (Steahl)
PREFERRED PRONOUNS: Female pronouns please.
TIMEZONE: Pacific Standard Time
CHARACTER
NAME(S): Khemrys, late of Rhystead abbey
AGE: Almost 21 by Dales reckoning
CANON: Witchworld (Tales of the Witchworld 3: Wereflight)
BACKGROUND HISTORY:
[Quotations from story and summation in bio]
"Many times had I heard how my mother rode into the small abbey at Rhystead with a babe at her back, and a dying warrior across her saddlebow. They told me how he bore the scars of many battles and that there were many fresh, grevious wounds. But of this my mother never spoke. Also, Dame Rimia, who had helped her care for him, talked of his appearance and garb, saying it was unlike that of men she had seen. Some of the Dames thought he was from the south, of which we knew very little. On that day, a part of my mother died. The remaining years granted her were spent as though she were always listening for a call that never came.
She was Lady Tirath, daughter of a house fallen to the invaders we called the Hounds of Alizon. When their strange machines of war destroyed her family's holdings, she escaped, turning north to join some kin. Once, as though speaking to herself, she told me how she met my father, Herwyrd, in the fens. She was sick nearly unto death from a fever, and he cared for her as tenderly as he would his own blood. That year they exchanged vows and rode the far Dales, seeking news of her kin and of the fighting brothers from which he had become seperated. In time, I was born, and shortly thereafter had come the battle from which they had fled to Rhystead. This was the closest I ever came to hearing of my father. She never mentioned this part of her life again.
Most of the Dames were beyond middle years, and they made much of me, undertaking my upbringing with great zeal, fussing over my mother and me. She would smile faintly and read to me many of our old tales, which was quite a relief to one as inundated with stories of the Cup and Flame as I. I remember that she always smelled of roses.
At times I walked with Dame Rimia, the still-mistress, and learned the uses of herbs and their lore. Others I spent with one or another of the Dames, learning to figure accounts, to embroider and to mend, to read, to cook and too oft times to pray. Our little abbey had so few visitors and was so far from any keep or village I wondered how it had ever come to be.
So fiercely had my mother ridden into the abbey's life, and so quietly she faded out of it. When I was there but eleven summers, she left this life...."
~Were-Flight~
Khemrys was born into a war-torn land. The Dales of High Hallack were invaded by the Hounds of Alizon and their uncanny allies, the Kolder. Many a keep and holding fell to their crushing boots and horrid machines, leaving many of the Dales without home or lands to call their own. Such was Khemrys's mother. Once a high lady of good standing, now homeless she fled...
The men of the Dales were overrun in chaos and broken defenses, and so they brokered a deal. The Were Riders from beyond the Wastes were of the Old Blood, that long gone from the Dales in favor of the younger race, and yet these men rode forth. They were outcast from their own kin and lands, but in exchange for their aid and skills in the war they were promised wives in the Year of the Unicorn. That is another tale for another time but what matters in this was that one man was separated from his brothers and found himself a wife far sooner than that distant year.
It was a love that was to destroy them in such harsh lands. They were wed soon after he found her, fevered, in the marshes, and their time together was one of flight ahead of the war. Not long after Khemrys was born ill fortune caught up to the pair and he took grievous wounds protecting his wife and daughter. Herwyrd died not days after they found sanctuary at Rhystead Abbey, and Lady Tirath lived as a ghost thereafter, always listening for a call that never came.
As a babe born forth from war, Khemrys landed in good stead. Rhystead was small and hidden, full of elder Dames who had no children to fuss over. She grew as a young woman with a dozen adoring aunts intent on teaching everything they could. She was closest to Dame Rimia, the Stillmistress, who taught her the art of healing and stillwork. Herb work, the needle, the knife, these were her calling and the village closest to the abbey was grateful for the skill. She also learned to figure, to write, to sew and all other things a gently reared lady who might wed well should learn...
...excepting that Khemrys was never expected to wed. Even the Dames, in their kindness, felt that a compromised woman had picked up a dying warrior so that she might claim her child legitimate. It was gently said, and softly murmured, but the Dames prepared Khemrys for the life of a bastard child. She was expected, in due time, to swear to Cup and Flame so that she might never need to leave the abbey. She was taught all the rules and forms of life as a Lady of some worth, but never given the promise of such. That was acceptable though, Khemrys was content in her life.
But old Dames age, they wither, and they die. Even as her mother faded when Khemrys was eleven, so too did most the Dames she was closest to before the fateful turning of eighteen. And so came the new Abbess, and the Young Ladies. The Abbess was a thief and a wicked woman who wished Rhystead to rise in glory as their sister abbey, Norstead had. She had no time or desire to support the life of a young woman who would not marry and give charitably to the abbey, and so Khemrys was made outcast among the women of Rhystead.
Contentment fled into misery as Khemrys watched her Dames being robbed; a woven rug, ages old, was taken. Small trinkets, rings, the precious oils from the stillroom, all disappeared into the coffers of the Abbess and adorned the fingers of the Young Ladies being trained and hosted while Khemrys did chores and maintained the abbey to the manner expected. She began to steal away, to take moments for herself away from the abbey and there her blood awoke. The Dales were once held by the Old Blood, the dark haired, pale skinned Firsts who held Power in their hands and Life in their hearts...and Khemrys was a child of such. Had her blood slept, forever dormant, she would have lived the life of a dales lass, a handful of years, the skill of her mind and hands, and nothing more.
Fate held otherwise.
Her blood awoke and she was Old Blood; dark of hair, milky of skin, and Power sang to her. Her inclinations were for healing, her skills in easing pain, and so she became a Healer. But more she yearned for freedom, for escape from the cage that was closing about her...and her Healing reached deep within her blood, examined it, and bequeathed to her a form from her father's blood. The Were Riders were shifters of high degree, they held forms beyond that of man; Bear, Wolf, beasts during the moon and any time they needed. There were, until Khemrys, no female shifters. Had her Power granted her a different aspect from Healing there would yet be no female shifters...
...but now there was Khemrys, a young woman living in the Dales with none of the Old Blood to teach and guide her. She was...free. Her form was that of a Pard, a cat that gave her soft steps and the ability to slip through shadows, a freedom in the night she had never felt! And for a month she was happy. She was free.
And the Abbess sent a spy. She expected to find Khemrys slipping away with a young man, sleeping under the stars with a farmer when the moon rose full. Such would allow her to be cast forth from the Abbey without belongings or recommendation. What the spy saw, though, was a woman pulled into fur when the moon rose, and what the Abbess did was hire a Hunter.
A persistent Hunter. A good Hunter. Khemrys left her home on four feet and fled just before her eighteenth birthday. She fled East and North, always just ahead of the man on horseback. She ran until her paws bled and she grew lean with the chase, she learned to hide her trail, to hunt and eat as she went, and ever there was the spectre behind her. She ran until her coat grew dull and her growth was stunted; though marsh and wood, and into the Wastes.
The Wastes were an uncanny place, a place of blasted landscapes from old wars and pockets of magic that were older still. In the Wastes she finally felt safe enough to wear her skin again, to walk on two legs before she forgot who she had once been. The first time was at a small hut, open and empty, she gave blessing to the hosting of the board and the door opened, allowing the naked, wan woman entrance and a time spent asleep in safety. Food was granted upon her waking, and simple clothes enough to feel human while she broke her fast. Carved above the door lintel was the symbol of Gunnora, an old Goddess; one who looked over the women of the Old Blood in all their forms.
The second time she wore skin was not so kind. It was a small pond and she had seen no sign of the Hunter for a week or more, and so she shifted, and she swam. To feel clean, to feel whole...to be caught. Bandits set upon her, three men who made a mean living in the torn land of the Wastes. After a year and longer of running she had never, ever been touched so. By men who thought they had rights to her flesh, hands harsh upon her skin and mouths full of laughter as they held her. There was no clothing to rip, she had none to her name, but they would have torn it from her in their haste...
...and she, gentle raised and Healer born....
...shifted and gutted the man who first tried to thrust himself upon her. His companions panicked to be holding not woman, but cat, no matter how small, and so she fled once more. Through the long days and nights, through her second year of fugitive state to the edges of the Waste...and beyond. The land beyond the Wastes was legend. It was green and soft where the Wastes had been scarred and broken, and the Hunter was still behind. She saw his horse on the horizon as she crested a ridge and she had nowhere left to run.
No place left to hide but the stones ahead. There was a crack within the rock face and she wove through, pressing back within the small cave until her back pressed harsh upon stone. And still...
...and still he came. His shadow moved within the entrance and she decided. She would die not as a beast, not wrapped in safe fur that had signed her fate, but as a woman. His kill would wear a human face and so she changed, naked and cold within the stone, and waited for the dart to come.
PERSONALITY:
Khemrys herself is as softly spoken woman who rarely raises her voice. She is calm and gentle in even trying circumstances and refers to most as Lord and Lady, an ingrained politeness that will be hard to break. She acts and holds herself much as a lady of the old world, and as such tends to unconsciously encourage those around her to act in accordance. She is firm and unshakeable within the bounds of her abilities, a healer in a sick room is NOT to be trifled with, but often unsure of herself in other aspects in the greater world.
Khemrys cannot be idle. As the only child in an abbey of aging and far past aging women, she did the brunt of all work as the years went by. She is as likely to be mending, sewing, or cooking when talking with people as she is to be moving about a room creating potions. To sit and do nothing is not in her and others may need to teach how to take moments for herself.
Due to her long hunt she fears warriors and adult men who might remind her of the attempted rape and necessary defense, but she will NEVER deny such treatment if they are injured, she just may lose her lunch afterward if they manage to frighten her. She is skittish when she feels cornered and as likely to tremble while locking gazes with someone as not.
As far as her world is concerned, by Dales reckoning she is a woman far past grown and may be headed to spinsterhood as an unwed woman of twenty. By the reckoning of her blood though she is barely past infancy, little does she know such.
Technology will be a hurdle for her honestly. She comes from a feudal and magical world, and the only experience she has had with advanced technology is that of the Kolder, horrid, dead corpses controlled by machines in their head who marched against her lands and wreaked horrid devastation with their crawling, fire spitting tanks. She will approach technology cautiously, and never truly develop a dependance upon it.
CHARACTER RELATIONSHIPS:
The Hunter: An inimical force that chased her forth from her home in the Dales and far into the wastes and the lands beyond. Ever at her tail no matter how she hid her trail, she ran herself ragged, barely ate, and stunted her growth for over two years under the shadow of this nightmare.
The Abbess: This bitter woman is the root cause of Khemrys losing her home before the age of eighteen and for being hounded forth by The Hunter. Greedy and petty, the woman craved more power than a secluded abbey would allow for in most circumstance, but in an effort to further trim the costs of maintain her responsibilities and line her own pockets she discovered Khemrys's shape shifting and had her declared anathema.
Dame Rimia: This elderly Dame was the Stillmistress of Rhystead Abbey and taught the love of life and joy in healing that Khemrys lives by. She served as a true mother to the young girl over the years living in the Abbey, Khemrys taking up the elder woman' sduties as age crippled, then killed Dame Rimia. The good woman passed away quietly in the garden they often sat together in. All she knows of herblore, surgery, and care came from this woman's lips and Khemrys holds her memory far closer than that of her own mother.
Lady Tirath: Khemrys's birth mother, a tragic ghost of broken beauty and displaced Ladyship, hiding from her fallen towers in a far off Abbey. She told endless stories to her daughter about past times and her lord husband, entrusting history and dream to her daughters care before slipping to the land of the dead to join her love.
Lord Herwyrd: Khemrys's father and source of the Old Blood in her veins that labels her 'other' giving her strength in healing and her other form as a Pard. What she knows of him is mostly tales from several perspectives, but Old blood breeds true and she is no more a Dales lass than she is a bird.
Gunnora: Gunnora is a very active and very powerful denizen of the Old Blood, she is viewed as a goddess by some but Khemrys, growing up in the Dales, never heard her name in the tales of Cup and Flame. She is the guardian of children and women, and patron saint of healers, mothers, and sorceresses, her sign an amber wheat sheaf surrounded by grape vines. The only time during the hunt, before the end, that Khemrys wore her human skin safely was in the shelter of Gunnora's shrine. There are many times in the tale where it is shown that Gunnora has her eye on the wayward child, through providence and the ability to escape evil.
STRENGTH OF HEART MOMENT SUMMARY: The hunt is a long a grueling one lasting well over two years. She has been worn to little more than fur and bones, and has traveled far beyond the wastes. The second time she chose to wear skin, to remember that she was a woman as much as she was a pard, she was beset by bandits and nearly raped. Instinct took over and she gutted a man with her claws after shifting to a cat once more, escaping but at a harsh cost to her conscience. Ate the end of her tale she has nothing left. No reserves of strength, no place to call home, and very little faith that she will live past the day. The Hunter had been too close for too long...and he had her cornered.
She found herself in a small cave, alone and afraid, furred back pressed far back against the cave wall as the end neared. And fur...fur felt wrong, no matter how comfortable it had become over the turns, she didn't wish to die as an animal, no matter how smart a beast.
She wished to die as herself.
Yes, die. She recalled the feel of blood on her claws and the tear of flesh and it made her ill in either form. Self defense may be seen as a worthy cause to kill but not to her. Never to her, never again. She would do no harm even should it kill her, and so she slipped back into skin and stood straight and tall, awaiting the killing the blow.
POWERS
SAMPLE - THE AWAKENING:
Death was surprisingly dark. She had thought it would be more reds, it was a color she felt went well with the pain she expected, but she couldn't recall her death wound, no she just found herself in the clinging, hungry dark. If she had to compare this inky void to anything it would be to bleeding perhaps, for it drew on her like any open vein would, pulling, drinking what life she had greedily to leave her shaky and unwell.
This, then, was death. She was not surprised that the Flame the Dames worshiped didn't come for her; she'd never taken her vows after all. No, but she had faintly hoped that she might find those she'd lost in years past; reaching arms, soft smiles or even whispered words of welcome. Such was not for her though. No, just this yawning nothingness and the feel of her legs buckling, finally, until she spilled upon the unseen ground. No grit met her weakened arms though, no stone ground into her cheek, instead there was the smooth feel of polished glass, and distantly the flutter of a heartbeat.
A pulse.
A blast of light that peeled the darkness away in tatters of shadow like birds rising into the inky sky. She didn't have the strength to rise at first, instead she stretched trembling, pale fingers along the warmed glass under her body, letting the heat leech into her chilled skin. That was one thing she could enjoy in either form now, the swell of warmth was a simple gift and one well worth smiling over even in death. In time she climbed to her feet, more curious about what she might be standing upon than wishing for an end now...
"Oh Dame..." she whispered softly, tears coming to her eyes despite the simple, gentle scene etched in glass under her feet. Stylized, yes, but she would know that kind, wrinkled face anywhere; Dame Rimia in her herb garden, gentle enough to nurse fledgling birds and strong enough to cut in the name of healing.
"And so you come to a choice, child."
There was a small shiver in the glass, three pedestals rising around the edges of the gentle garden scene, and upon each an item glowed, dangling like fruit in the still air.
"Upon which path will your feet tread?"
Dame Rimia had never asked her such in life; her path then had been set. A quiet life in the folds of the abbey, likely to take vows and live among her adopted kin for the rest pf her days. What would she have said then had she been asked? "I've gone far..." her voice was whisper thin and scratchy from disuse, she'd had no human tongue in quite some time and even less reason to speak.
"And farther yet to go," the voice promised simply.
Farther yet, death, then, was not an ending. That truth shivered through her like an icy wind, though it raised no gooseflesh in it's wake, she could feel the import tingling along her bare skin. In the wake of such she could lift her eyes and truly look upon what the pedestals held. The first she saw was a pard's head carved of silver, a large belt buckle upon an elegant leather band. It had belonged to her mother, a gift from her father to guard the growing life in her belly against ill fortune.
The second pedestal also held the likeness of her other form, a leaping cat was the hilt of her father's sword, how had she not realized that he would have worn a second form even as she did? Like the belt from her mother, the sword she had buried deep within the orchard around the abbey to keep such treasures safe from the grasping hands of the new abbess. In reality they no doubt remained there, though their likeness was here in the void pierced by stained glass.
The third pedestal held no treasure from her childhood; no token she had traced chubby, childish fingers along as stories spilled from her mother's lips. No, the third pedestal held a sheaf of wheat carved from glowing amber, and a vine of metal graced in amethyst grapes bound the whole. She'd seen the symbol before, carved above the lintel in a hut she had sought shelter in during her flight. Then, as now, it made her breath catch a moment in the sheer rightness of the symbol. Her fingers inched to trace the grain, but somehow she felt she should think, first, upon what this meant.
What it all meant.
"Dame..." Ah, but she was no child now to cling to the older woman's skirts with question upon question. She had her own mind and her own experience to rely upon now, limited though they may be. "...I'm afraid." That she could admit. She had lived with fear as her closest friend these past turns, certainly there was no shame in admitting she felt it yet.
"Choose."
Then the shiver of goosebumps came, washing along her arms as she lifted a finger to trace the edge of each pedestal. Her mother's belt, shelter and safety, a willingness to abide in obscurity to keep another safe. Her father's sword, the taste of acid fear and grim resolve on her tongue, blood on her claws and the ability to no longer be afraid. The grain, a swell of warmth within her breast and the gentle scents of the stillroom and healing.
Her calling. Her ability, more than fur or skin, Healing was a true decision in such a place. The amber was warm in her grip as she took up the sheaf of grain, power thrumming through her bones for a moment before the symbol faded away like a dream.
"And what do you give in cost, child?"
Nothing without price, even here. She knew the need for balance even as she turned to face the treasures entrusted to her long ago. Sword or belt then? Fear had worn her thin and nervous in the life she'd left, to have the chance to leave it by the wayside was tempting, and she knew the grip of the sword would fit her hand if she let it. But to shield a life, was that not also the healer's path? To care for a body when the owner could not?
Fear...fear she might live with a bit longer it seemed. She knew it even as another might know a lover. "Take the sword," she sighed, watching the weapon begin to fade the moment the words dropped from her lips. She could live with fear, yes, but she wept softly to watch that mighty weapon fade away, lost even as her father had been.
Perhaps it would be found by one who could use it to a great good some day. She could hope as much as the light under her feet began to flicker.
"The choice is made, child."
Yes, made and accepted for what such was worth. "Thank you," she whispered softly to the light as it slipped away, leaving her once more in darkness.
SPECIAL ABILITIES:
[Canon write-up: HERE]
Pard-form: Khemrys's Wererider blood allows her to take the form of a pard (clouded leopard) at will. She has her own mind in either form, and it is not a curse, simply another aspect of herself awakened in her through her healing skill. She has no weakness to silver or wolfsbane or any such silliness, but she is bound to her pard form without the ability to change back for the full three days of the full moon each month. In this form she is less than intimidating; harsh living when she first awakened the feline form stunted growth. She has kittenish proportions, with paws and tail far larger/longer than they should be in an adult. An important note: There are NO female wereriders. Only her healing ability was able to draw that trait out in her blood and it was the subconscious work of years of wishing to escape the life she had. She in essence, broke herself in doing so. She can access her healing abilities OR her pard abilities, not both at once. Her bloodline is genetic though, and will be passed to her sons should she ever wed, while daughters are likely to inherit a broader range of old blood abilities but no shifting.
Dark-sense: Those of the Old Blood who have set themselves on a truly good path in life, those who fight for life and right develop a sensitivity to their opposite. Khemrys can sense evil in those who walk the dark path and being near it/touched by one who is so twisted will often make her ill. Likewise, those that are truly evil may often sense her in kind, and being healed by her may be painful for those who are of the Dark.
Healer: From herb-lore, medicine making, surgery, midwifery, and the art of true healing through Power, Khemrys has spent most the years of her life learning to aid and heal others and will ever continue to do so. She is unusually skilled in surgery being able to sense how a body is formed under her hands, and can often do corrective surgery to correct past, poor healing in those who thought to be crippled for life. She is also wise enough, having started on the path of healing at a very young age, to know when bones must be set and bodies realigned with stitching before magical healing can be applied safely. When not actively aiding a patient she is often harvesting, gardening, or distilling herbs, forging medicines, and weaving bandages. There is a great deal of busy work involved in being a healer and she is well used to hard work.
MAGIC (Active/able to use are bolded. Goals/future abilities are italicized font)
Healing: Her entire being is focused on an ability to heal; she casts heal at varying levels and incredible strength. She will wear herself to the bone as necessary to help others.
Group Heal: Khemrys has yet to have a reason to cast a group heal spell, this is a future goal.
Sleep: Sleep is an incredible aid to healing when rest is the only true way to aid a patient, the sleep status effect can be resisted, but rarely. All sleep events shall be discussed with other players.
Mass Sleep: Again there has been no reason for her to reach for this ability, this is a future possibility.
Paralysis: Like it's gentle cousin sleep, Paralysis is a boon to those who will hurt themselves more in attempting to move or flail when injured. She uses this sparingly, if calming a person does not help. Paralysis is also employed in her bounds and warding; when someone goes back on her word or attempts to invade a safe place with ill intent she is likely to hold them still. Like any status effect, this can be resisted, will discuss with all players when paralysis may be an option.
Mass Paralysis Very very much in the future or a panic reaction to many people attempting to invade a safe zone to cause harm.
Charm: A natural charisma and a slight boost to instill calm, she never uses this influence intentionally, it is simply a byproduct of her wish to soothe others.
Regeneration: Potentially, in the future, her ability to heal will grow to the point of regenerating lost body parts. FAR IN THE FUTURE.
Resurrection: Khemrys has never been given reason to believe bringing people back to life is an option. She wears herself to the bone dragging people back from the brink of such, nailing a soul into a dying body while she desperately battles wounds. Given the idea? She may work incredibly hard to garner this ability. Death is her only true, constantly battled foe.
Fire: Given time, and teaching she may eventually be able to develop the ability to...light a candle, or campfire. Or possibly keep the stove at a constant temperature. This is NOT what her body is geared for.
Shield: This is also an ability she has never heard whisper of, but once the idea is offered? Oh yes. The ability to create a safe zone on a battle field in which to heal people? YES YES YES. She'll need a teacher to learn this.
Lightning: She will NEVER learn offensive uses of this spell, but it is possible she will learn it for the sheer ability to be her own crash cart. She can massage a heart into beating with healing ability or open chest surgery, but a small zap will be less energy intensive. Again, training will be needed.
INVENTORY:
Khemrys is naked. No items, no clothing, she's been on the run as a cat for years.
NOTES/ASPIRATIONS
I desperately want Khemrys to find a place of her own. Whether this is a physical home and purpose, or people who need her, she has never, in her whole tale, truly been accepted and needed for who she she is. I want to give her that peace, as well as work her through dealing with the trauma of being hunted for well over two years.
Plus, I admit, giving an honest to gods heal stick to the group with no ulterior motives and an unshakeable moral code makes me giggle. She's powerful, but incredibly limited within the range of her powers. I look forward to how evil characters will deal with her and the debate of 'joining the hospital in her free time' or 'opening her own small shop' as well. She WILL be going out with mission crews as field medic
If possible Mary and I would like Khemrys and Magus (Janus) of Zeal to be found together!