Biography
Luidaeg is part of the Phrikborne clan of the
Metal Borne Witches on Niri (Planetary submission to be made in the future). She has no memory or recollection of her mother, though by all rights she ought to, for she had raised her until Luidaeg was five years of age, which ought to be sufficient for certain memories to take root. Upon her mother's death, the Matriarch of the Phrikborne took Luidaeg in, and she became one of the clan's many Witchlings. Throughout her childhood, she learned much of the ways of the witches, how to control their magic (read: the Force), and certain traits that she had possessed, as many children do, such as kindness and compassion, were beat out of her through a series of traumatic events designed through the millennia to make those of the Metal Borne to be touch, both inside and out.
When the time came to choose her clan, there was no doubt. Upon her first bleeding, Luidaeg made the choice of the Phrikborne, who had taken her in after her mother's death and had raised her for the past several years. She remembers little of the ceremony, save for the foul taste of the portion she had to take, and she remembers waking up days later, her retractable teeth and claws in place, made of iron. It took her several more years to learn how to control without harming herself.
But even though by all standards she was a youngling, she was very much aware that the clock was ticking. If she would not have a coven by her twenty first birthday, she would be executed, regardless of whether or not she was her Matriarch's favorite. During her teenage years, she hardly cared for the matter, believing that she was good enough to be picked out at the moment of
her choosing, yet time showed otherwise, and as the years went by faster and faster, she suddenly found herself on the eve of her twentieth birthday without a coven offer in sight.
Where others might have considered this a humbling experience, Luidaeg instead became angry. She was not permitted to kill other witches, for being a witchkiller was a grave sin among the Metal Borne, so instead she began to weave complex situations, ensuring not that she would kill other witches, but that other witches would be killing each other. Within a handful of months, seventeen witches had found their death because of petty bickering, two of them having been executed by their respective Matriarchs. But still, this brought her no closer; those covens sought to re-fill their ranks with other Witchlings and not with her.
Three nights before her twenty birthday, and after accumulating a series of failures to secure an invitation to one of the other covens, the Phrikborne Matriarch called upon her, and told her that she was failing, and that being the Matriarch's favorite would not save her from execution if she could not find a coven that would take her by her twenty first birthday. To remind her of what was in store for her should she fail, the Matriarch delivered a punch to the girl's face, breaking her nose, and gave her specific instructions that she was not to heal herself using her magic, but let it heal at a natural pace.
When Luidaeg entered the Clan Meeting three days later, all expected to see her executed. Instead, she called upon two more; her Second and her Third. Together, the three had formed a coven the night before, observing all the rituals required to make it official, but one – acknowledgement by the Matriarch. Smiling, the Matriarch granted the request, and Luidaeg as well as the two others survived not just the year to come, but the decades as well. Slowly, bit by bit, she began to collect Witchlings that seemed promising, not holding back from fights with other covens and clans for the right to add them to her own coven. Before half a century was up, Luidaeg's coven held thirteen – the maximum number of witches permitted in a coven, and held twice as many Witchlings they trained and waited to join them when openings happened.
At the age of sixty, the impossible happened. Luidaeg's heart wished for more. It was a flying accident many lands away from where the Phrikborne usually lingered at which found her splattered against the ground, her body broken in several different places. She was found by a man who lived at the edge of the forest. Their area was secluded enough that they'd only heard of the Metal Borne in myth and legend, but one had not been sighted in the area in centuries. He and his men took her in to his mansion, where she was nursed for months until her body healed. At one point, Luidaeg realized that she was strong enough to speed the healing up on her own, but decided to let it happen on its own as she got to know the man, and his people.
When she was fully healed and capable for walking unaided, the man proposed. Over the course of the months she had spent there and spoken with him almost every day, he had fallen in love. The people in his mansion adored her as well, all oblivious to her true nature and to what she was. That, however, was to be expected. The surprise was that Luidaeg found herself not wishing to leave his side at all. She wished to remain with him and to forget her Metal Borne roots, to treat it like the stories to scare children that they were used to care children into obedience around bed time.
So she said yes.
Two years, was the time the two had together. Luidaeg was the Lady of the House, and she was treated as such. Never before had she even contemplated on the concept of love, yet she knew now that she felt it with every breath, and down to her very bones. After those two years, she found herself pregnant. Fear gripped her, as she knew that not only were fertility rates low for the Metal Borne, but that the likelihood of a stillbirth was very much prevalent. Additionally, she knew that she would not be able to conceal her violet blood from them when labor set in. The nine months went by with very little side effects, and when she felt her child kick in the woman, she smiled, believing that everything would work out.
But it did not. When labor came, there was no denying of the color of blood that came from her. Giant amounts of it came out of her as she screamed and fought for life while delivering her child. Her teeth and claws escaped as well, almost killing her midwife in the process. Three days later, she held her in her arms – a daughter, strong and healthy.
But the people could not ignore what they had seen and heard during the labor, and neither could her husband. That night he sat by her bed and she confessed to everything – to what she was, to what her age was, how long she would live, and what it all meant. Fear gripped her, deeper than any she had felt during the pregnancy.
Her nature got the better of her.
That night, she slaughtered all of them. Her husband, his servants, the people in the village around. For the first time in two years her teeth and claws were out and not by accident, but because she willed it. She knew what it was to be a witch. She knew that they already were considering setting her afire, as if they even could. And she knew,
she knew, that discovering what she was meant that she would not be able to live there as she had for the past two years, in happiness that was nothing but a hallucination. What she had not counted for, was that one of the servants would get her new daughter, her Witchling. For Witchlings were sacred in Metal Borne culture and to intentionally harm one was unthinkable. But these were not her people, and when her child was tossed out through the window, she was too late to save her.
The pain was too great to bear. It was one thing to return to her clan and tell them of her adventures with unsuspecting men of the previous years. It was quite another to return to them and admit that she had lost her very own Witchling. For the next few months, Luidaeg massacred and razed the entire area, killing any person she found there be they man, woman, or child, and any animal that was bigger than an insect. Once she was done, she set everything on fire, leaving that area of the land, which had once been a lush and green place teeming with various forms of life, nothing but an ashy wasteland. When she returned to her coven, she spoke not a word of her Witchling, and spoke only of the fool who had thought her to be a blushing bride.
A few year of Witch-peace followed before the next plot unveiled itself – through no small amount of luck and a little bit of investigation, Luidaeg unfolded the Phrikborne's heir to betray the witches by killing all three Matriarchs at once. Her plan, Luidaeg discovered, was to undo the Witches, and use the period of time of confusion and re-organization to remove the rest of the witches from existence as well. Luidaeg and her coven slaughtered the woman, and tossed her head at the feet of their three leaders. But where Luidaeg had expected nothing but a nod for gratitude, instead she was named as a potential Heir.
This was new. Until then, there had always been one Heir for every Matriarch. Yet now, the Phrikborne Matriarch announced not one but
three potential Heirs, and said the next century would decree which of them would remain. The others, she announced without ceremony, would die, and their covens with them.
Some months ago, the planet of Niri discovered that it was not the only planet that existed. In fact, many of them had not known it was a "planet" at all, but merely all of life. The discovery of other planets and a galaxy that expanded beyond anything the Witches had ever known had brought fear and uncertainty to their hearts. The Matriarchs all called their coven leaders ot them, but the Phrikborne Matriarch did not. Instead, she called her three potential heirs, and tasked them each with one
simple responsibility – to venture out into the galaxy and see what was there. To take notes, make plans, and come up with a way for the Metal Borne Witches to conquer it all.
Ships and some basic money were provided. For the rest, they would have to learn how to handle themselves.
Luidaeg inspected the maps she was given, and decided to begin as far away as possible.
And thus, begins her story.
