Sanguida

Her name - Sanguida, even that was a gift from her mentor. At birth, she was Serenity, a name which spread well-wishes across her childhood and younger life. Life was hard here for many, but not so much for her; only the caress of her family and friends, her artistic interests and music.

Those first 15 years... they should have expected it to end sooner. It wouldn't fly for long to flaunt the family's own wealth and comfort in a town like Durham, but what was Shartak supposed to be if not another opportunity for mercantile profit?

Like a whirlwind of brimstone and flame, brigands and raiders overran their estate in the night, looking for their own 'share' of those amassed riches. She was soon captured - held by the arm, a blade to her throat. The family patriarch was given orders to pay-up if he wasn't willing to watch her die. He refused, and they pricked her neck.

"Tell me old man, this won't be the end of what might happen to your precious daughter." His pleas ignored, he marched to the large painting kept in the stately living room and pushed the code he'd so jealously guarded - a hiding-space stuffed to bursting with gold and precious gems, some things difficult to describe.

His cronies were stunned into silence, but the boss of the motley gang was not impressed. "Holding back on me?" He could smell fear and lies as easily as you can I can smell burnt flesh, and her father stank. "This isn't the full amount, is it, old fool?" He gibbered denial, extolled his own honesty. "Hand the girl to me now."

They tossed Serenity to that swollen wolf of a man. He sliced open her top with a pitted knife, greedily grasped what'd lain beneath in proud view of everyone. "Tell me, or we're going to have our way with her. Think she's got the stomach for it?"

Her father led them away, defeated. A hidden passageway in the basement revealed more, so much more. The family could never in their lifetimes have even used more than a fraction of it. Her father demanded they let her go now, with all the force he could muster against so many blades.

The leader politely thanked him, then gave the order for them all to be killed. "Save the girl. We can keep her for ourselves, sell her for profit later." It was all before her eyes. She was bathed in their blood, and from that day on, something in her psyche shifted; she withdrew from reality. Day and night for longer than she could remember, the raiders used her body for their own sick pleasures. They didn't deign to put her up for sale until she was so emaciated and battered that a lucrative deal with the Royal Court of Greater Raktam soon fell through - what status was there to be gained from having a White merchant girl as servant when she was bound to die within the week?

One on the slave market would take her. Her new owner was a scientist who lived as remotely as it was possible to be on the island. They spent their nights dabbling in body augmentations through any means they could imagine, they wanted to make a superhuman. And their estate was littered with the remnants of previous 'learning experiences'. No-one could withstand the trauma, nor host hostile spirits and chemicals.

Lyla's hands were gentle. She told Serenity she was her 'guardian'; took her in, and over a course of a half-year the experiment was to her a success. Lyla gave her half-creation a new name, Sanguida. What her work was actually bound to do remained a mystery... it'd require further research, but just before the dawn one night, Sanguida disappeared from her care without a trace.

It's been many years since, and the few people left in Durham swear that something different has descended to slope through the moonlit streets. A half-thing with strikingly beautiful eyes which peer-out from between covers pushed onto her face, strange and warped pieces of iron and arsenic dredged onto her body.

Whatever she might've been, it was another reason for them to bar their doors at night.