Full Name (print): Scarlet Wisteria
I am a...: Dimensional Being*
My nature is: that of a third-generation vampire. I have markedly superhuman strength, speed, and regenerative ability, but suffer in the sunlight, especially if I have not fed on blood recently. I do not require live human feedings to survive, though my lineage gives me a preference for such. I am also attaching a document which should list my identification, powers, and weaknesses more thoroughly, as I acknowledge the potential risk I pose to the other students. I will also accept any restrictions the university chooses to place upon me for the purposes of keeping the other students safe and/or my whereabouts known.
I want to become a student at Eventide because...: it's my only chance at living anything approaching a normal life. I want to reintegrate with society and find safe ways to manage my cravings. I also want to ensure that what happened to me happens to as few other people as possible, and hopefully find ways to help them recover too. I also wouldn't mind helping to find ways to catch the ones that don't want to reintegrate or otherwise deal with them, and I'm willing to help do so in any way that doesn't involve something invariably lethal to me.
Additional Notes: Age: 16 physically, was born approx. 4 years before the First Awakening
Species/powers: Vampire (DB), originally human. Superhuman strength and agility as well as a natural inclination toward stealth, as well as some amount of hypnotic ability that functions on humans and most other mammals, potentially other undiscovered powers. Particular vampiric lineage tends to lose magical potency (and self-control) while gaining physical when deprived of blood. No hard requirement for fresh human blood, but steps away from this decrease "nutritional" value; blood stored at a blood bank, for example, is less nourishing, with the same being true for fresh animal blood. "Stale" animal blood is the least helpful, but will stave off bloodlust. Actually feeding on life force, with blood simply acting as the most easily accessible carrier of such; Scarlet wishes to investigate the possibility of curative magics being used as a substitute. If she has further powers, she's not aware of such; she might have used them unknowingly in the past, but has no actual memory of doing so.
She's also pretty flammable, though how badly isn't something she has tested or wishes to test. Her weakness to sunlight is inversely proportional to the quantity and quality of her feedings; at its lowest point, it is slightly worse than the sensitivity that an albino might experience in strong sunlight without the use of sunblock (and sunblock generally does not help, something she fairly quickly discovered.) It can progress to the point of scorching body parts or even causing the exposed area to burst into flame, though it doesn't
seem to progress any further than that. A stake through the heart has largely the same effect it would on a human, though with even less chance of attempting to do anything afterward; it disables her regenerative abilities which are in part how her body remains capable of motion. Decapitation, of course, is instantly lethal. She's also developed a small phobia of running water and doesn't appear in mirrors or many recording devices. She also has a silver allergy of middling severity.
Appearance: Long white hair and red eyes (often falsely attributed to albinism despite a relatively normal skin tone), of somewhat shorter than average height and a middling build. Tends to dress quite casually and simply, straying away from any overtly feminine clothing save for the occasional hair ribbon. Her obviously vampiric tells are somewhat controlled by how well-fed she is; fasting will cause her to look generally older, paler, and less healthy, before starting to turn nearly bestial in extreme cases with fingernails becoming claws and fangs becoming more prominent. She also has no noticeable pulse, though is at least not noticeably cool to the touch if she's "topped off," so to speak.
Personality: Scarlet is a somewhat conflicted individual. She is somewhat quiet but otherwise friendly and not opposed to socialization nor particularly awkward in conversation, as she simply prefers to listen to others rather than speak about herself - an outgrowth of her time with her father and the resulting preference to act with as much information as possible. Tends to be somewhat out of practice with the newest technology, though literate enough with it to function, as a result of the same. Used to being alone, but if she seeks such a thing out it's typically out of habit rather than predeliction. She is normally quite deliberate in her actions, but tends to react strongly and impulsively when pressed emotionally. She regrets her time as a thrall even if it's not entirely her fault; to her, she should have found a way to break free earlier, in her mind.
Background: Scarlet was born some time before the First Awakening to a relatively normal (if relatively large) family, and remained the youngest child - her parents may have elected to have further children, but the chaos caused by the First Awakening caused them to put those plans on hold. Despite this, she lived about as normal of a life as possible in those times, largely due to the efforts of her parents and the oldest siblings in keeping the family secure in all ways. Her father was a detective and her mother worked from home; it's up for debate whether the habits the former had taught the family saved her or damned her.
The only thing that hinted at anything wrong the night it happened was the sound of footsteps in the small hours of the morning, coming from upstairs where the parents and the youngest slept. The eldest sibling had gotten up to go to the bathroom, and walked upstairs to investigate - some might have called it paranoia, but his father had always believed in being safe rather than sorry. A figure, stooped over his sister's bed, that vanished into the night almost as soon as it was spotted. A quick investigation revealed both parents in their beds, lifeless and still - though Scarlet seemed to have been spared, as she was still breathing steadily, though she was impossible to rouse.
When she awoke the next morning, though, she found herself feeling rather cold and a strange urge to travel to the edge of town. Once she assured her siblings she was fine, she told them that she needed to get outside and clear her head. The sun felt bright, almost painful, but she
needed to get out there; why, she couldn't say. The reason was fairly clear when she reached her destination; a man she couldn't remember seeing before, yet looked oddly familiar, one with a strangely compelling voice. . .
The years after this were spent in a haze, as if she were dreaming. She had some brief moments of lucidity, of wondering where the hell she was and what she'd been doing since the last time she actually felt awake, but these were rare, especially at first. Her sire and master took her with him wherever he traveled; to what ultimate end she was never really sure, though she can't imagine it was anything good for anyone but himself and potentially whatever "pets" he had acquired along the way. There were never many, though; large numbers were the death of secrecy.
Still, as time went on, moments of lucidity became more frequent. Scarlet wasn't sure if she was getting stronger in some abstract sense or if he was getting sloppier, but all but one flash of awareness ended in much the same way; he would reappear, reassure her that everything was fine in that voice, and she would drift off back into that dreamlike state, the familiar hypnosis settling back in as if it had never ceased. One day, though, it seemed that Scarlet had recovered sooner than the man had anticipated; when he moved into the room he'd placed Scarlet in for the day, he found it vacant.
The first and second nights were spent fleeing and hiding in a pack, using half-remembered survival skills from her time as a thrall to try and hide from people. On the third, she decided that turning herself in was the best bet; even if they killed her, it was better in her mind than being rendered a mindless thrall again, or losing control of her hunger. The subsequent "decision" to attend Eventide University wasn't quite deserving of the name; while she likely would have chosen to do so anyway, now that she was in the hands of the authorities there weren't exactly many possible choices for her to select from.
Minor notes: Despite being a vampire and thus drawing no real nourishment from typical food, she enjoys cooking and is quite good at it - not that she will admit this freely.
Tends to get competitive with people she knows well, whether she likes or dislikes them.
She fidgets with her hair when she's nervous, especially if she is wearing anything in it that day.
Potential backstory connections:- Her sire. Scarlet couldn't kill him, or rather didn't want to risk the attempt. He's powerful enough to keep thralls for years and crafty enough to do so without ever actually being caught by the massive number of people trying to turn him (and his minions) into kebab. She's not sure she could actually resist if he tried to enthrall her again, and while she might talk outwardly about trying to rehabilitate him, she really just wants him gone forever.
- Surviving family members. None of the rest of Scarlet's family to her knowledge fell victim, with the SPC arriving fairly rapidly on-scene once the deaths were reported. Her two eldest siblings became professional vampire hunters, with the second-to-eldest being KIA during a raid on a lair. This has caused no small amount of tension in the family, with many of them becoming hunters themselves for revenge or simply because they wanted to help the others, and most of the remainder being angry with the ones dragging others into it. A few chose a different method, going into the various supernaturally-inclined sciences to research vampires, their nature, and what can be done about them. It'd be quite awkward for her to meet any of these sections, and the third case is more likely as she's volunteered herself for any and all experiments the researchers there wish to conduct bar ones that would be predictably fatal.
- Any victims Scarlet may have taken during her time as a thrall. Her memories of the time are hazy and incomplete, with few things sticking out in particular. She knows that she did the bidding of her sire for a long time, she knows she didn't starve, and she knows the man wasn't exactly a fantastic person (generally good people don't turn teenagers into magically enslaved monsters.) The thought of what she might have done is. . . disturbing, to say the least.