bio ✫ red red roses, pinks and posies.

[medeaspilled]

…BASICS;



FULL NAME: Catherine Makatza Kyteler.
DATE OF BIRTH: Dec. 21st, 1988; 22.
FAMILY: Father Merryn (55, ...hitman with a rap sheet for theft, travels, home in London), mother Nadia (44, office administrator, resides in Surrey), step-father Ted Greene (50, accountant, resides in Surrey), half-brother Isaac (34, thief, travels), paternal aunt Eseld (52, pub manager, resides in Porthquin), paternal grandfather Jago (78, fisherman, resides in Porthquin).
HOME TOWN: Falmouth, Cornwall, United Kingdom.
EDUCATION:

• St. Mary's Catholic Primary (4-6, Falmouth)
• St. Mary's Hall (6-11, Lancashire)
• Sagesse High School (11-15, Beirut)
• Stonyhurst College (15-18, Lancashire)
• Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts (photography major, dropped out after only one year's study)

VOICE: On the husky side. Thanks, cigarettes.
ACCENT: Can fake RP; a bit Cornish, tiny bit Arabic.
CONCEPT: A secretive but promising young witch of Egyptian and Celtic ancestry, with a poised, domineering nature and a hedonistic sense of joie de vivre. Despite her mistake-littered past, she is attempting to rebuild the Cult of the Oleander's power and lead the first coven of the new era. Some people say she's a crazy, manipulative bitch (and a slag to boot); others figure she might at least be crazy enough to do some good.

…PHYSICAL;

FIRST IMPRESSION: Tall, dark, self-assured, tends to move with a natural grace that is serpentine, even sensual; she is faintly aware of this, but not at all fully. She stands out not just because of her height and appearance but because she has the wildness of spirit that characterizes most witches. She also frequently comes across as both very direct (she will say whatever she likes when she likes) and very secretive (she tends to keep her cards close to her chest). Her smiles are amicable, even warm, but skeptical; she looks people right in the eyes. There is very little in the way of a 'persona'. If she does smile, it is genuine. Well-spoken (a bit posh, even, but in an intellectual sense, not a cotillions-and-society-papers way), inscrutable, steely, unflappable.

DESCRIPTION: Catherine is a tall (5'8"/133 lbs.) and striking young woman, small-boned and on the slimmer side of average; she was gangly until about sixteen, and then suddenly filled out in the span of one summer. She is fairly evenly proportioned with a body type considered a 'small hourglass', and is in surprisingly good shape. Her posture is more than adequate, but her physical confidence is otherwise a fairly relaxed sort, and she tends to drape herself when she sits. Her skin is light brown, paired with very long, thick black hair, and very large dark eyes (so dark they appear black in some light) that are probably her most notable feature, as they have a particular heaviness about them, augmented by long eyelashes and a steady gaze. She has an oval face that is strong-featured with soft edges-exemplified in her full lips, the gentle but carefully manicured arch of her brows, and rounded tip on her straight nose-except for her cheekbones, which are a bit sharper. She favors her mother's side of the family and definitely looks more North African than Celtic. Attractiveness is subjective, and thus those strong features are not to everyone's taste, but she certainly meets the conventional standards to be considered beautiful, and on a daily basis prefers a natural cosmetic look-a little dark eyeshadow and mascara if anything, neutral lips and cheeks. While she doesn't have much in the way of obvious body modification, underneath the clothes, there's a decent assortment of ink. First there's the very small tattoos on the side of her neck, near the hairline, only visible when she wears her hair up, and those look like this; these are the symbols for a magical wand or staff, and by having them permanently inscribed onto her skin, Catherine's eliminated her need to ever use such an item, and most of her tattoos are practical in this fashion. There is also a tyet (Isis's version of an ankh) on the middle-back of her neck that's specific to her personal rituals, as it's one of her two sigils, and is used in her coven. On her lower stomach, just below the bikini line, she has a eye accompanied by crossed triple swords. This is not a large piece, but it is what she has made standard in her coven. On her right inner wrist, she has an ouroboros. On the left, the ouroboros is broken. Lastly, she has one vanity piece: an ode to Melek Taus during his fall from grace, a serpentine crimson phoenix bird, primarily on the left side of her back, seen here.

STYLE: A little 'alternative' (in that it incorporates a lot of black), but not enough to really be classified as goth or anything else with an appropriate label. Sartorially, Catherine draws from an idealized version of the 20s and 30s, favoring the more European styles to the American flapper look. She wears a lot of second-skin lace in a variety of shades, leather in unconventional formats (for example, leather skirts she makes quite casual, or that are embossed interestingly with patterns, but also trusty old broken-in leather trousers), and sometimes even velvet, which fortunately is fashionable again and thus doesn't date her hopelessly. Accessories are a big part of her wardrobe, including Spanish leather and suede boots (sometimes with a lower heel) in black, brown, white, and deep blue, thigh-high stockings in opaque black, sheer white, and rose print, hats in a good beret, cloche, or wide-brimmed floppy style, and bold, romantic antique jewelry-lots of lockets and flower shapes, but also snakes, swords, skulls, ankhs, and crosses. Some of her jewelry is as old as the 15th century.

She has a long-standing love of lacy lingerie, but tellingly doesn't always care if it matches, and often layers with sheer blouses, sometimes cardigans over the top, and old-fashioned silk slips under her dresses and skirts. Catherine is not at all designer-focused, but much of her clothing is designer anyway, simply for the quality level involved. Other old-fashioned materials like velvet and brocade feature occasionally in her wardrobe. She has a gift for being provocative while also being almost totally covered, due to the aforementioned fondness for sheer items, but if she shows skin, it's usually focused on one thing at a time-a good amount of cleavage with covered legs, short skirts with high-necked tops, and so on. In accordance with her personality, she dresses for impact, even when in summer shorts or loungewear, and endeavors to do so without being overtly impractical while still accommodating her preferences. It's not unusual to see her in gloves nine months out of the year, or even just when she's driving in summer. Her nails are not long, but usually painted in colors like 'Rose Confidentiel,' 'vintage emerald' or just Chanel's classic gold. Mostly she favors deep colors along with the trusty old white, black, and brown, and not a lot of frilliness, or at least in moderation. She loves antique combs and barrettes. She is comfortable in terrifyingly high heels, but on a daily basis, she either wears flat boots or ones with only a couple inches of chunky heel. Lastly, when she says she wants vintage, she means actual vintage, not 'vintage style,' meaning some asshole over-distressed a perfectly good t-shirt and charged $190 for it, thank you very much.

DESIGNERS: Chie Mihara, Elle MacPherson, Urban Decay, Chloe, Felder Felder, Balmain, Lanvin, Current/Elliott, La Petite Salope, Topshop, AllSaints, Vivienne Westwood, Oscar de la Renta (occasionally), Issa, Valentino, Haute Hippie, Alex and Chloe, Charm & Chain, Phillip Lim, John Fluevog, Celine, Christopher Kane, One Vintage, Roksanda Ilincic, Yoana Baraschi, Erdem, Rag & Bone, and yes, Alexander McQueen.
COLORS: Gold, green, black, brown, white, and red.

PERFUME:

1. Guerlain - "Nahema" (1979). Signature scent. A throwback to the Guerlain scents of the 1920s and 30s, Nahéma is named after the heroine of one of the stories Scheherazade told; while Nahéma's sister was gentle and demure, as princesses are supposed to be, Nahéma herself had a name that meant "daughter of fire" and was of, to put it mildly, a passionate disposition. While not invasive or overtly aggressive, it is not a clean, innocent scent; rather, it is vibrant, and unabashedly sensual, unique among the rose perfumes for its spicy tones (also, for containing no actual rose oil), offset by the classic warm, smoldery Guerlain vanilla. There is a very delicate sweet note that carries through the dry-down, due to the peach underside. Described as "a complicated perfume for a complicated woman."
2. Creed - "Angelique Encens" (1933). Eveningwear. Inspired by Marlene Dietrich in the film Blue Angel, circa 1930, and thus it is heavily associated with elegant but hypersexed femme fatales...as well as the supernatural and blasphemy, given some of its origins are also in the incense used in religious ceremonies. While it is considered the most classical of the incense scents, Angelique Encens is less aloof than others of its type. Ethereal, warm, vanillic amber-tinged, and described as 'glowing, like a candle in the dark' by perfume aficionados due to the brighter, sweeter angelica and jasmine, it also retains the haunting, mysterious, almost melancholy quality typifying incense perfumes. Not heavy; acceptable for dinners out.
3. Heliotrope essence. Summer, evenings in. Not an actual perfume; the distilled essence of this flower was worn frequently in the days before commonly sold perfume, favored by courtesans and aristocrats alike. It has a warm, intimate note to its scent, said to remind fans of almonds and cherries.

POLYVORE: Wardrobe.

…PERSONALITY;

The impression most people have after meeting Catherine is that she's having a very good time not giving a fuck. She acts as though she does what she wants, when she wants, and where she wants. This is not a tough girl façade, and she's a little too well-bred to sell it that way; she's just "like that", as her grandfather ruefully says, when he's being polite about her headstrong sense of joie de vivre. As a result of being a witch, she doesn't always seem like she entirely belongs in this century or this world. These are traits characteristic of witches in her world, all of whom experience enormous difficulty ever fitting into the normal, 9-5 scheme of society-the witch hunts of previous centuries exemplified as much when they targeted outcasts and ostensible harlots, though far fewer real witches died than the Church believed. Catherine took the tactic of quietly accepting her strangeness, developing a nature that is difficult (albeit not impossible, since she's a person, not a fortress) to influence.

It's not to say she's incorrigibly selfish, because she's not, not at all. It's also not to say she's incapable of playing by rules, even ones other people set (or she'd never have been able to learn anything, even if much of what she does is self-taught), but she prefers to set them herself. Her mindset is one that a lot of people don't reach until they're much older than she is, and it's that most of the petty things don't matter, and there's no point in trying to impress anyone or stopping yourself from getting what you want, or sparing anyone the truth and common sense. She is naturally prone to taking charge, but has no driving need to do so, and will contentedly go with the flow until the flow no longer suits her; her ego is middling and realistic, but rock-solid, and not externally derived.

She is mercurial and flexible, perfectly comfortable making nice and charming in cities at parties in cocktail dresses, but truly at home when she's with what's natural and wild. She lives a life of necessary adaptability: you must be practical and sensible when it is demanded of you, and this way you make room for the frivolities. There's a time and a place for everything, but she likes to choose both of those. Most people won't find her hugely rowdy at first, but extremely dry-humored and prone to banter, which some can find abrasive. Catherine possesses something more weathered and earthy than "moxie", precisely-it's more like moxie's older sister who'll play it mendacious and manipulative if that's what it takes, but ideally, she's just going to tell you like it is. She's not discourteous or rude, but doesn't afford anyone extra manners because of a title, and everyone is pretty much the same to her. Inflated egos make her roll her eyes. She's not prone to snap judgments or writing someone off entirely because of a bad first impression, but there is a limit to how many chances Catherine will give, and when she's done, she's done. Her willfulness-stubbornness, if you prefer-is defining, and she can become relentless.

This does not mean she's immune to weakness or temptation-temptation of the flesh, in the past, has been something of a particular problem. She doesn't care whether or not she's a sinner, but she does have a history of bad idea relationships and rendezvous with people when she absolutely knows better. Some of what is at fault is that though she's beyond the fruitless endeavor of trying to become someone she's not, genuine acceptance is something she still craves, and if she manages to open up enough in its face, she responds poorly to any personal betrayal that ensues, and by "poorly," we mean she gets very quiet and then a day or a week later methodically destroys as much as she can, particularly if it belongs to the object of her ire. Catherine is a very clever girl with the potential to be very devious, and while she endeavors to use her powers for good, teaching herself to remain calm in a crisis-she's excellent in a crisis, generally speaking-there are exceptions.

She's generally quite empathetic, insightful, and kind-hearted, but it's sometimes easier for her to express this when it's someone she doesn't know very well. Give her the opportunity, and she'll take care of birds with broken wings and lost cats (or lost animals not nearly as cute; she doesn't discriminate), and while people are a much more complicated ordeal, she'll do what she can, there, too. Sometimes it's magical, particularly if it's a physical malady, but it doesn't have to be. In a relationship, she has the potential to be destructive, pushing away those who care about her-she has her secrets to maintain, and she doesn't like to be pushed to share what's hers. If she feels smothered, things get ugly and tangled. Most of her exes have strong feelings about her, positive or negative or just a little dazed. Fire and warmth are oft-seen in her magic and in her personality, but she is aware both of those can become harmful if she's not careful. There is the sense she holds just a little of herself back not entirely for fear of getting herself hurt, but for fear of hurting the other party with who she is when she is unbound. Physical or emotional injury is sometimes tactical, but it's never something she inflicts blithely.

In those relationships, she's easy to please but difficult to keep for long. An aspect of her nature both as a witch and as just herself is that she's often left wanting more-she's wondered if it's that her standards are too high, so she tries to expand her preferences and often dates people just for the hell of it, even though she knows it'll never work. Part of the problem is she wants to be challenged (and her definition of being challenged is naturally going to be a lot more extreme than the average person's; she's a bit of a closet romantic, but Catherine's idea of romance involves a lot more danger than it should), but she doesn't accept being mistreated, and finding the balance is difficult. It has been extremely easy for her to default to being the kind of force of nature person who hurts people with how thoroughly she pursues her own desires, and she's actively always reminding herself not to be selfish that way, worrying over it in the back of her head, reminding herself that when you are a witch, there are consequences not just for you, but for other people, too, possibly on a large and fateful scale. She doesn't think she's at all innocent, which is up for debate, because she's not quite as jaded as she'd like to believe, but she's certainly less so than almost everyone she meets; this does not prevent her from endeavoring toward goodness, which Catherine believes is a conscious battle one must undertake. Self-awareness is key-mostly.

That lingering "mostly" pops up in the fact that there are aspects of her own nature she's left unexplored, either because it hasn't been convenient, or because she's a little concerned about what she'll find. She knows what she's like now, and tapping into her dark side strikes her as the sort of thing that'd end really badly. For the most part, she wants to know everything and understand it so that it can serve her purposes either as a witch or just a hedonist, but there are desires and curiosities in her mind she leaves locked up, many of them violent or suggestive of the faint predatory impulses that were kick-started into action by the soul-related spell performed by her grandmother. Catherine has a peculiar and particular sense of honor; she has never slipped when it comes to refraining from abusing her powers, and she's had opportunity to do so. This is something of a point of pride.

Of course, while she's got a lot more life experience than is common for her age range, that doesn't mean she doesn't fuck up, and won't continue to do so, intermittently. She takes her mistakes to heart when she recognizes them (provided she isn't stuck in her once-in-a-while rut of thinking she's right and refusing to consider other viewpoints, and it often takes someone forcefully breaking her out of that rut to get her to realize she's been wrong), and while she doesn't spend a lot of time angsting, they bother her. She doesn't let go of them easily, and they tend to stick in her mind for a long time, as do her wounds and losses. Catherine is used to being the unimpressed one who walks away first, but she can't walk away from herself and her own mind.

Sensitive spots include her parents, who genuinely meant well, but were really fucked up with their own lives and neglected large parts of Catherine's. Her mother has been sober for a few years now, remarried, and has a step-son. Catherine sees and speaks to her very rarely. Her father, the criminal element in her upbringing, occasionally makes attempts to reconnect, but often those come in the form of money or gifts, because Catherine will hold grudges like no tomorrow, never forgets a slight, and she thinks he deserves what he's getting. Their parenting contributed to her feelings of alienation over the years, and exacerbated her rebellious, "pave my own path" tendencies. She doesn't like to think she's often hit hard by sadness, but she's a deeply emotional, intense person, and when she is wounded, it's hard for her to let it go without trying to do something about it. A couple past relationships still haunt her, too, and she struggles with putting out of her mind the ways she feels taken advantage of, manipulated, or even just still emotionally connected. This probably contributes to her emotional recalcitrance. Catherine is social, but she takes a little while for even a nice person to genuinely win over.

While she doesn't flatten her personality out or make herself less than what she is to please people, she does internally struggle with what she is. This is because she shares Amirah Barzani's identity (if you find out about that and really want to get under her skin, call her Amirah), and is not sure it's properly hers. It's difficult for Catherine to tell where her original self ends and Amirah's begins; she is two souls blended into one, and it augments the natural wildness of witchcraft. It's hard for her to find people, even sometimes among witches of the old lines, who can really accept that she's going to be a brutal, frightening person sometimes, and that she is a woman with multiverse-changing plans and the willpower to make them happen. It adds to her wariness in regards to caring deeply about others-she doesn't think most humans, especially, could ever really accept her, and that does sometimes make her sad. Her most recent relationship involved keeping her entire reality at bay from what went on with the two of them, and he could sense the dishonesty, so she's not entirely sure what to do there; she can't give herself completely and be honest without wrecking most individuals' worldviews, and she can't seem to stay away, because she's ultimately a pretty social, caring person. (Also, she shamelessly just really likes men in general, but it would probably work just as well to stay casual-it's her own fault she doesn't learn.)

Witches are, by nature, dangerous and consumptive, the new lines more so. They exemplify the standard of people who have great personal power-in many ways, not just magically-and who have to make the choice to use that power for good or evil. Catherine is considered troubled by many, but she has etched out her purpose in life: to revitalize witches and to lead them into power over the supernatural in her world again, maintaining balance between both sides. This requires a nature of duality, the young woman and the witch running side by side. She does not feel this is contradictory or even alarming. Her lust for life is undeniable and unstoppable; even among witches, there are very few boundaries where Catherine is concerned, though her morality does leave some doors closed. Life is meant to be experienced with blood and sweat and tears, and thus she accepts pain as a natural consequence for her vivacity, but, as noted, she finds it difficult to connect in the long-term to anyone who isn't supernatural, and frankly, she's never found a partner she feels keeps up with her sufficiently, which is a bit arrogant and a bit true. It's not that she doesn't care, deeply, but she can overwhelm or, with her assertive nature, run roughshod over most people. It's that "force of nature" thing again; she's aware of it, and tries to control it, but that doesn't make it go away. She was simply made for life among the monsters, not the mundane.

Overall, she's an earthy type that's more visceral than hippietastic (even if she does like animals and gardening), with a firm hand and little fear of blood or adrenaline; she is sensual with hardly any shame, a wanderer sometimes called "sawah", heavily verbal, self-assured, comfortable with but unattached to being the center of attention, manipulative out of necessity, usually unflappable, sometimes mysterious, occasionally kind of a sharp-tongued condescending take-charge bitch, and always keenly connected to magic. Her moral code is not set in stone, but she does have something of a do-gooder personality, even if it's...not always immediately obvious, what with how she regards the truth as something she needs to know and something others not in her circle of friends sometimes need to only receive in pieces-but then, she gets shit done, and she's not convinced everyone else can say the same. She's also drawn to new experiences and secrets (she is also a hypocrite, and doesn't like to divulge her own secrets), so she's bound to find trouble wherever she goes. Catherine knows there's an overarching something happening in her world, and that her family has links to some very old things along the lines of 'ancient cults' and 'the end of the world', but she's only just begun to discern what's really going on.

…HISTORY;

Catherine hails from a world in which God (and the lowercase-g gods, who are not less in power but nevertheless still adhere to the laws of grammar) is gone, and has been for thirty years, though the process itself took several decades. "Death" is not really applicable to the divine, but God (who is also the devil, as explained below), many angels, a number of demons, nearly all the gods-they were stolen, ripped apart, and extinguished. This leaves the secret supernatural underworld in chaos, as its denizens attempt to reorder themselves and struggle for power; once upon a time, witches would have protected the status quo, but they're weakened now. Witches come from many bloodlines, all of which are not obligated to be good or evil in behavior when using their powers, as this is a world of grey areas, but they are inclined toward making good use of their free will. By some they are called the Bene Elohim, descended from the angels who fell from grace during or sometimes after the war in Heaven. After a handful of those angels seduced mortal women, they produced offspring, some of whom survived the Flood, and while they might have been descended from fallen angels, they weren't obligated to take after their once-divine parents. Prior to the Devouring drastically shifting their priorities, occasionally made attempts to helpfully "reinvigorate the bloodlines" by sleeping with each other's descendants, but this was usually unsuccessful.

Some think a subset of humanity is responsible for the loss of the gods, given the scientific furor kicking up. Undoing and anti-matter nibble at the edge of the universe, drawing out what power it can and making it not; this is a Devouring worse than death. Only the strongest witches were previously capable of the Devouring, but they're now largely much too weakened to attempt anything of the sort. The universe, while inspiration from Catholicism and Gnosticism can be found, is largely based on the world's most ancient faith, the religion Yezidism, in which the demiurge who created Earth and the devil are the same. It's a controversial cult of angels in the real world, and in this one, members belonging to a fringe group were selected by Melek Taus-otherwise known as God-and his haftan. They had children with those selected Kurdish women, creating new lines, a handful of which still exist today. In response, evangelical and fanatical belief is on the uprise, but it may be useless, or perhaps the result of another organization's machinations; "Numen," the secret half of a pharmaceutical corporation called Telesis, International, has developed a black market of supernatural parts and psychic surgeries. For a price, an ordinary man can temporarily possess the strength of a werewolf, or the glamour of one of fairykind. Man has begun to use its technologies against the supernatural beings who presented it with said innovations, and no one is safe-angels and demons may work alongside Numen for shared goals or self-preservation, but if they don't help, they aren't safe from the operating table, either, even if they're much harder to acquire and keep contained.

Catherine is not descended from one of those new lines of witches, but through scheming and opportunity, she became one of them in spirit. Over the years the lines have faded badly, and there are no more than thirty or so left worldwide, with very few in the Western world. Catherine might have been little more than a hedge witch if she hadn't-purely by chance-had an uncommonly potent knack for the ability that caused the Cult of the Oleander (as witches were known in many countries) to be feared for centuries. While succubi are popularly considered to be demons, they are actually a subspecies of witch, developed through the use of a witch's innate ability to consume the actual soul or whatever anima/animus a being possesses, which often does include supernatural beings. Lilith, also gone from the world Catherine inhabits, is the best and first example of a witch becoming a succubus, though arguably she was also related to the deity Ishtar. One incident of consuming another being's soul (the word that will be used, even if what animates the specific being is something else that approximates a soul) is dangerous. Twice and it becomes a problem, a temptation. Thrice, and a witch cannot stop: she's become one of the succubi. The rare witch of the old lines who has these powers typically never uses them.

Catherine wouldn't have, but that decision was made for her in infancy. Her grandmother Demelza was not an especially powerful witch, but she knew enough to understand the impact losing even one more of the new lines would have on the world, and while she wanted to do well for the world at large, she also saw the opportunity to rejuvenate her line. When one of the witches of the new lines was killed in action, it was concurrent to Catherine's birth-and her grandmother made the decision to feed the infant witch the soul of her sister in magic, which she had acquired through making some very dark deals with a very bad being. The traumatic process spiritually and physically damaged the elderly woman, and after about three years led to her death; it is likely her soul was claimed by the demon afterward. Whether he'll want to check up on the very powerful young witch he helped create remains to be seen. Catherine grew up different, and yet unaware of just what had transpired to exacerbate said difference; she could see clearly in the dark and was never afraid of it, grew up seeing ghosts out the corners of her eyes, having dreams that were just a little too vivid and sometimes seemed to come true, suddenly knowing things she shouldn't know, but these were small things that made her a bit of a loner, not a full-blown witch. Catherine wouldn't come into her own until she was in her late teens, and she needed a trigger.

She was raised primarily by her mother, in an assortment of interesting and questionable places-when her father, a conman and thief (later professional killer, after prison finally changed him for the worse) was not locked up, they all resided in Cornwall, spending summers with Catherine's grandfather in the rural Cornish town of Porthquin. If he was locked up, though, Catherine's mother could scarcely stand to be alone without him, and traveled frequently-as a result, many of Catherine's formative years were lived abroad, though she spent the most time in Lebanon. Her mother was what is probably best called a "functional alcoholic"-well-meaning, but often inattentive, and very unhappy. When they were in England, they'd occasionally receive shakedowns or intimidation from people who knew her father, which was a significant part of why when he was "away", they'd stay in Beirut or elsewhere. Catherine blamed her father for their problems, and when her older half-brother (the result of her father's first marriage as a very young man) took up the criminal arts, too, albeit in the con artistry sector, she just about killed him. She somewhat objects to the crime, but what she really hates is the utter selfishness of it all.

At seventeen, her mother finally divorced her father. It was a long time coming, and in some ways kind of a relief from the constant push-pull of childhood-Catherine felt somewhat caught between them, though, since her father was out of prison and both parents wanted her to come stay with them. Instead, she elected to spend the summer with her grandfather in Porthquin, where she met and developed an intimate friendship with the new, young local priest. It probably would have stayed physically platonic, but forces beyond them both sought to use the young priest to jumpstart Catherine's powers-and with magic and manipulation, pushed him toward her. The relationship was brief, only a couple months long, and ended badly-she was never in love and thus never as completely under his spell as might have been intended, but he was her first, and the intensity of lust sometimes felt like enough. As her powers manifested, she begged him for help, feeling certain something terrible was happening to her, and he would not assist her; he pretended, but things were getting ugly, controlling, and psychologically manipulative very quickly, and Catherine broke it off. He wasn't good enough at it to keep her tied to him.

Afterward, both of them left Porthquin, though as far as she knows, the good father hasn't given up preaching, simply moved to another rural area of SE England. She doesn't know that the spiritual contamination has continued to grow in him, though, and he's now both hideously corrupt and frequently leading his parishioners into temptation and demonic circles, as he's basically become a hedonistic, cynical, miserable flunky. Someday she'll find out what's become of him and have to deal with it, and it'll be heartrending and terrible, hooray.

Following that, she accompanied her father on what turned out to be a professional job! He had intended to keep her from finding out, but their fun trip to Russia involved him disappearing for a couple days at a time...to go down to Grozny. Catherine got a taste of much realer problems than she'd really seen before; it's one thing to have an alcoholic for a mother and a criminal for a father, but it's quite another to grow up in a war zone. It was perspective, and it also made her incredibly angry that her father was profiting from it-he said he only went after people who deserved it, but she didn't care much. When he'd been away, she'd started to wander the city, and she met a couple other witches there, acquiring baseline training in her abilities, but they warned her that whatever she was, it was very complicated: essentially, she was carrying around two witches' fates at once.

It was obligatory, though, that she try her hand at normalcy. Just once. She associated magic with her father's family, and him, at that point in her life-things she wanted to reject. Her grandfather is a good man, in her eyes, but she wasn't sure if that goodness would perpetuate itself after he passed on. In London, living the life of a party girl, she met and fell for a young, scruffy American guy who wanted to stay on in England. She got the feeling he was running from something, too, and about two months into their very weird little courtship, they elected to get married. And, for the record, eight months later, when she gave into the magic and her own powers dogging her at opportunity: they didn't get divorced. They're still married. It's convenient for visas, and there's a bit of complicated emotional attachment left over, even if they're both terrible about divulging what's going on in their lives.

(His name, by the way, is Abel Treschow. And no, she did not even contemplate taking his surname.)

So she was nineteen, married to a man she doubted she'd see again, and a witch. Her mother got remarried and moved to Surrey. Her father kept busy with whatever the hell he was doing, and she wasn't all that keen on trying to figure out what it was. Her brother had his first jail sentence, though it was brief. Life moved on, but Catherine wasn't the same person she used to be, and she had an entire magical world to explore. For the next two and a half years, that was what she did: all over the UK, and in other places, too; in Brussels, she tried her hand at university (and ended up in a relationship with her college roommate's father, whom she retains as a knowledgeable contact). She worked very briefly as a dancer and then a model, but it became apparent she'd have to lose about ten or fifteen pounds to really compete in the modeling industry if she wanted to do fashion; instead, she took fetish photos, and then eventually segued into being her own sort of photographer, though she has very specific tastes in subjects and a propensity toward dark material. Over the course of time, she managed to track down a decent number of the old lines and even some new, specially focusing on the ones remaining in England, Scotland, N. Ireland, and Wales-those somewhat local to her. It became apparent that through fate or coincidence (and she was inclined to suspect the former), the lines were being drawn to the South of England.

Before that, though, she had things to do Stateside. Specifically in New York, where she was embroiled both in a relationship with a man who had no idea what she was or why she was in New York (and she became far too attached to him, she knows that now) and a witch hunter named Nicolas de Grieu, who was born hundreds of years ago. She wondered at his passion for the destruction of witches, who had largely been dormant for a long time, but as he explained: there were prophecies in store about the revitalization of the covens, the resurgence of the witches' power. A shift. God would wear a new face, a new name. Maybe a new gender. They'd change things, and there were people who didn't want that. Catherine and de Grieu fought for weeks, stopping only when the source of that prophecy appeared; Numen, the secret side of Telesis International, whose goals had more to do with the eradication of all divinity and all magic. When Catherine looked their nothingness in the face, all her nightmares and fears looked back at her, and they had nothing to do with darkness or monsters. Instead it was brightness, a white clear nothingness that could never be named or filled; that was what Numen represented. If no replacement for what they had lost could be found, that was what waited for the multiverse.

Numen sent three men to her home. When those men never returned, Numen's following employees discovered their bodies propped up delicately in the hallway of the small apartment Catherine had lived in. They were alive, and apparently in perfect health. They were also completely psychically empty, and their souls were never found. She did not consume them, and a soul cannot be otherwise permanently destroyed, but she knows where they are. That's good enough. It does, however, mean she has both Nicolas de Grieu and Numen hot on her tail.

When she left New York, she didn't say any direct goodbyes to the man who'd come closer than anyone else to really finding his way into her heart; in her mind, the good doctor Ben Lombardi would settle down with a vastly less complicated girl ("any other girl," she put it) and forget all about her. She left him a note that was uncharacteristically terse, packed up her things, and went back to England without a word to anyone else. Catherine settled in the Southwest, specifically Bristol, with the intentions of forming and leading the first coven of the new era. The other six would follow when she found them; it was time to live up to her second soul's responsibility. She owed the woman whose fate she inadvertently stole that much, and the world even more.

…POWERS;

Catherine serves as a link between the old lines of witchcraft and the new; while by birth she is one of the old, she has inherited Amirah Barzani's soul, blended it with her own through no choice of her own, and thus has two fates, Amirah's and her own. She is aware that there was a price her grandmother paid to take Amirah Barzani's soul when the woman died, and that a deal with one of the fallen angels was made, but is unsure whether it effects her personally; if she has outstanding debts with one of the damned, she's sure she'll find out eventually.

An important aspect of Catherine's nature and something to note is that she does not know herself completely yet, and this extends to her powers. The things listed here are things that she theoretically can and should be able to do, but because of the unconventional means by which she came into the circle of the new lines, she has not yet completely familiarized herself with her powers. Thus, some of these presently exist only in possibility.

Her abilities are as follows:

1. Spell-casting: A key part of witchcraft. It often necessitates an expansive library, which Catherine certainly has on hand. Spells are performed via rituals and usually take a little time to accomplish.
2. Physiological differences: Witches have changes in their physiological make-up (which can also make it difficult for them to seek conventional medical treatment). Some are actually immortal thanks to spellcasting, but the basic abilities in Catherine's case involve seeing in the dark, poisonous blood-thus the Cult of the Oleander moniker historically given to witches-and slightly increased speed, strength, and flexibility. She can't bend steel like it's nothing, but the edge she has is visibly not natural. Of all weapons, she's fondest of the bagh nakh, then blades (scimitars), then bows, then small handguns.
3. Tempestarii: Weather control. This is not done simply or easily, because the weather is a tricky, finicky beast with its own form of rebellious quasi-sentience. It requires an understanding of the types of clouds, of the rain, how storms grow and how they change the environment. It is also best done in concert with other witches. Witches have been accused of causing droughts or storms for years, so it's an ability with a lot of history. Members of the new lines like Catherine can also cause geomagnetic storms if put in very bad situations, but those are catastrophic and cause radiation damage, so they...don't do that, bar a couple exceptions that Catherine fortunately had nothing to do with, personally. Witches may also resist fire, drowning, and other harsh elements for longer periods of time than are expected, which permitted many of them to survive the Great Flood thousands of years ago, as the old lines were more powerful.
4. Dreamworld: Succubi are a subtype of witch who excel in dream exploration (they result from abuse of the soulcraft ability discussed below), but other witches can enter the dreams of others, too. They usually use them to terrorize an enemy's unconscious or leave messages. All witches share a private dreamland that only they can access, and they use it to communicate with one another. Dreams are accessed via a particular method of focus, usually hallucinogenic drugs, or, among some witches, self-mutilation.
5. Sight: "Don't look a witch in the eyes," people say, and for good reason. They see things other people don't, and in Catherine's case, that includes ghosts, fairies, and other hidden charms. She can detect the presence and nature of the supernatural through sight (unless it is very well-concealed), and with concentration and a specific hand ritual, opens herself up to seeing the emotions and desires of others. Her ability to hypnotize and suggest with her eyes is somewhat increased compared to many witches' of the old lines, but can still be broken with a very strong will, a clear mind, and absolute resistance.
6. Resistance: Witches are naturally imbued with a resistance to mind control and illusion. The strength of this resistance depends on how invested the witch is in building their shields. Catherine is pretty damn good at it. Better at the former, though, as that sort of willfulness is in her personality.
7. Psychic phenomena: Sometimes manifests as instinctive 'knowing', but often more like the following.
   • Psychokinesis: The physical manipulation of molecules on our plane. With Catherine, it is usually demonstrated in a pyrokinetic fashion. This is actually a very simple, common trick among witches; what is somewhat unusual about it in Catherine's case is that she doesn't need to be watching what she's doing to know it's happening, and the intensity of the spiritual force behind it.
   • Psychic healing: Not as simple as physical maladies; with spellwork, Catherine can try to cure physical problems, but you're better off seeing a doctor unless it's a magical injury. Psychic illnesses have to do with the mind, and involve exploring a person's unconscious. Telepathy can work in a similar fashion, but Catherine avoids anything to do with trying to explore that particular talent, which strikes her as more trouble than it is worth, and difficult for witches to control once it begins to grow. This is a dangerous ability, as detailed in 'overextension' under weaknesses.
   • Psychometry: Touching an object or person and receiving a vision of the past or future. The stronger the emotion attached, the stronger the vision. Witches may also reverse the process and deliberately imbue objects with compulsions that drive them to act on the emotions attached. However, the more people touch and are affected by the enchanted object, the more it weakens the witch. People affected are drawing from her actual emotions, so it is all at her expense.
8. Natural affinity: A gift with flora and fauna, even the frightening and less cute specimens. It's not quite ruling over the jungle; rather, it is a system of giving and receiving favors. Betraying nature's trust has dire consequences. Witches have a high place in things, but they are not permitted to be tyrants.
9. Curses: Also applies to geasa (a peculiar magical taboo that grants power as long as it is followed, but leads to disaster if it is broken, usually having to do with hospitality). Catherine's specialty is placing curses on people. These curses are usually conditional, such as "if you steal again, something terrible will happen to your hands." Curses require self-assurance and clear speech to solidify correctly.
10. Soulcraft: The rarely-practiced but incredibly dangerous art for which witches have historically been known. In the old lines, Devouring is rare, and it's spoken of as being a dangerous curse more than a blessing-it is literally the ability to devour the spiritual essence of another being, supernatural or otherwise, up to and including gods and angels. Their bodies will remain, whole and alive, but what animates them is gone; it does not have to be a soul, but can be anything else that animates a being, provided it's not an AI or computerized person. Catherine has the Devouring, and has only inadvertently practiced it once, when she was fed Amirah Barzani's soul as baby-she has no intentions of using it again, because three times a Devourer, and you're on the fast track to becoming a succubus, who must compulsively feed on souls. Witches of all origins can manipulate a soul once it has been removed from a body but they treat the endeavor respectfully. They understand it too well to be cavalier.

Catherine also has weaknesses and flaws, as follows (heavily WoD-inspired):

1. Witchbane: Witchbane (or rowan) will weaken a witch considerably if burned in their presence or consumed. It can eliminate all of their abilities bar their innate soulcraft and poisonous blood. During Nicolas and Gilles de Grieu's hunts in medieval Europe, they called it their holy herb, that which revealed the presence of evil. Most witches will sense and react to the presence of rowan immediately.
2. Mortal vulnerability: Some witches are immortal and more durable because they have invested time in becoming so. Catherine is not one of them. Shooting, stabbing, etc., will all harm and kill her. She is flesh and blood, albeit of a different make and model to what one conventionally sees.
3. Mental blocks: Because Catherine has never explored her abilities in their entirety, some of them are and probably will forever remain a mystery to her. She has a lot of guilt (and to be frank, discomfort, because who could've expected this) attached to essentially stealing Amirah Barzani's entire destiny, and feels it would be appropriative to use talents she only has because she took the woman's soul.
4. Emotional vulnerabilities: Catherine is a good warrior, but she has buttons you can push, like anyone else. Hers have to do with her loved ones and parents. Additionally, if she ever found out what happened to the priest she knew as a younger woman, she'd be severely shaken. Witchcraft means she does have an automatic connection to some very dark things, and ordinarily she's fine with that, but she doesn't like to think of herself as corruptive, even if it's sometimes true, and a natural result of a strong personality.
5. Overextension: Overusing her abilites, especially the psychic ones, has severe drawbacks. When sapped, a witch's body begins to fall apart, a sharp reminder that she is still a creature of flesh and sin, not pure magic. It starts with nose bleeds, then ears, then eyes. Then she begins to have trouble thinking and seeing clearly. Then she may fall into a coma or catatonic state, and this can lead to death. There have been a lot of cocky young witches who have died due to overestimating the weight of their abilities.
6. Hunted/notoriety: Catherine has recently made a lot of people very angry. The Kytelers have history with Nicolas de Grieu, so he's still hunting her. She is also being tracked by Numen, who have just realized she even exists (they had no idea what happened to Amirah Barzani's soul) and are extremely curious about her, as well as a little ticked off she managed to mess up their operations in New York. This is part of why she's reforming the covens in Bristol; she can't fight all of Numen by herself.
7. Rule of three: Overusing her abilities or making mistakes in spellcasting can also result in blowback. What she does to someone else can, with one misspoken word, strike back at her-especially with curses, which are delicate by nature. A little arrogance is okay, but magic reacts against those who think themselves invulnerable. Much like the green earth and the weather, magic has its own personality.
8. Mundane attachments: Loved ones who must be protected and are unaware of the supernatural. Her father and brother are pretty competent for normal people, seeing as they're criminals (a professionally violent one, in her father's case), but they're not invulnerable, either, and her mother is especially vulnerable. Mortal past lovers, as well as magical and non-magical friends are also ways of getting to her.
9. Debts owed: Catherine's grandmother made a deal with a demon to blend Amirah Barzani's soul with Catherine's. Catherine has no idea who this demon is and has never been able to find out, but she knows that her grandmother owed him, and she's not certain the price was ever fully paid. She spends a good amount of time wondering when he'll appear wanting her to pay up on her grandmother's behalf, and what she'll do in response. She's certainly not inclined to roll over for anybody, even one of Hell's own angels.
10. Powerful enemies: Numen controls half the pharmaceutical traffic in the entire world, and is dipping its fingers into chemical weaponry. Their public face, Telesis, is internationally known, and even considered fairly respectable for a pharma company. Hiding from them for long is extremely difficult, and they have a great deal of financial and social power. (And de Grieu is nothing to sneeze at, either.)

…OUT OF CHARACTER;



PB: Leila Bekhti.
PLAYER: Kay.
CDJ: None currently.
GAMES: xanadoodle, multiversal, PSLs.
CANON: Original.
ICON CREDIT: Mostly mine; otherwise noted.
LAYOUT CREDIT: 67
INFO CREDIT: [splott [@] rp_tutorials]