Where shall I begin?  I think it best to set the stage of my homeland when I still drew breath and inhaled the sweet sea air of my precious coasts.  Charles the Third sat upon the throne and had made us truly the strongest power in all of the "modern" world.  We had settled into the Americas and had allied with France to make certain the English would not have a complete hold on this new territory.   We had pushed back the Apaches much in thanks to the great Marqués de Rubí and his brilliant tactical strategy  It was, however, a bitter war with the natives where both sides lost greatly.  A tragedy, really.

I was but a girl in a small village outside of Barcelona when all of this was at the forefront of the political arena and Baroque was the chosen style of art.  My parents were not royalty-far from, actually..  My father was a simple farmer who worked from sunrise to sunset within the fields and my mother cared for the house and four rambunctious children that gave her far too many headaches to be anywhere near kind.  We-my brothers and I- minded the livestock, helped within the field, and I was taught the ways of a woman.  This entailed cooking, cleaning, and sewing which my mother excelled at.  We also sang most nights for entertainment, telling tales and sharing stories.  My brother Hernado was always hushed as he...had a tendency to tell the off color jokes that my parents both saw as inappropriate.  You see, he was eight years my elder and had long ago sworn to take over the farm once Papa became too old.  Manuel, second to the eldest, had decided that there was money to be found with dueling much to my parents' dismay.  Enrique though...had made up his mind he would protect me.  He and I were incredibly close and almost inseparable most of my childhood.  We were the ones that got in to the most trouble and also the ones that had the wildest dreams.  We made a pact that once he was eighteen, we would run to Barcelona and find our fortune within the crowds.  He was incredible with a guitar and I...sang.  

I was sixteen when we ran away from home leaving little more than a note telling my parents where we had gone so they would not worry too much.  We swore to return for holidays and that we would bring home money enough to keep all of the family comfortable for the rest of the year.  Lofty dreams...but we were determined.  We found jobs as entertainers singing to small audiences while they danced and in turn, they loved us.  It was then that I began my love affair with what would become the very reason I would run from Spain and all I knew.  One night, a young Italian man had begun to frequent where Enrique and I had become local celebrities.  For whatever reason he approached us afterwards and told us of a traveling company he was drawing together.  He explained that they would showcase many different styles of entertainment from jugglers to singers such as ourselves.  We quickly agreed to follow him and he asked our names.  He introduced himself as Marcello del Torro and from him...I learned the opera.

The training was rigorous and near constant from the moment I woke until my voice would no longer obey my command.  Every day, we sang and rehearsed music he had poured his soul in to and expressed every emotion imaginable within.  I was so taken with him I think from the moment we met until the night he told me that he loved me.  I knew I would marry him and be eternally happy as his wife and constant companion.  Enrique was ecstatic and gave his blessings and so, Marcello began to court me.  My life had never been happier.  All fairytales though, have a twist.  Unfortunately, mine came in the form of a Lord's daughter named Maria.  She had decided that Marcello would be hers at all costs and so...one night she told me a poisonous lie.  She bragged that he had bedded her and wanted nothing more to do with a country girl.  She said that he had been using me and swearing his unyielding loyalty only so I would sing to my fullest extent.  I was...such a fool.  I was young and very impressionable and so...I believed her.  I vowed that I would finish the performance that night...then return home.

I was barely nineteen when I took the stage that night, my heart broken...my dreams shattered.  The piece that Marcello had selected for me that night was, aptly enough, a love song.  I remember being near tears as I felt the eyes search my face, study the elegant golden tissue gown that he had chosen.  I was his prize, his student...and I felt nothing but pain.  I sang, fueling the ballad of undying devotion with betrayal, giving it a near mocking tone.  The audience fell silent, their very breaths stilled.  I remember finishing, holding the note so long even I wondered when it would die in my throat...and I fell to my knees in exhaustion to their applause.  I looked up to gaze upon the only adoration that I had felt that night...and my eyes met -his-.  

Evander was unlike anything I had ever seen.  He blazed against the more common people, his alabaster skin, his emerald eyes, his chestnut hair.  He was the first to rise to his feet and as if by command, the others joined him.  It was not a surprise to me that when I left the stage, he was waiting for me nor did it surprise me that I left with him to join him where he was staying.  I slept at his side so peacefully...as if instinctively I knew I was safe.  He never suggested anything more...never requested that I give myself to him.  All he wished was for me to stay with him as he slept.  The next night, he took me into the city proper, suddenly insistent that I see all there was in Barcelona.  He seemed almost appalled that so much of it was foreign to me but was delighted that nothing seemed to intimidate me.  We spent each day sleeping, each night drifting further and further from Barcelona, from my family...from all I knew.  I barely remember entering London on his arm dressed now as a formal lady, speaking English more than I did Spanish.  It was becoming very natural and also, very clear that this was my life now...with him.  I had fallen in love with him before he introduced me to so many powerful individuals that to this day, they are still a blur...save one.  He was intimidating, impressive, and powerful.  Even I could see this within him as Evander himself bowed to him, murmuring quietly, calling him Mithras.  I spent barely an hour within his presence and then Evander and I were pardoned.  It was this night that I first tasted Evander's blood...and he finally told me what he was.  From that night on, he began my education on Kindred affairs, making certain I knew every aspect as well as teaching me formally on the arts, languages, and philosophy for the main part.  I was allowed to eat, sleep, and sing.  Past that, I studied.  He swears to this night that his own sire was a much stricter taskmaster and from what he told me of Helios, I am not overly surprised.  His sire has always been kind...but brutal when it comes to education.  I suppose this comes from his own sire, Clymene who, to put it bluntly, was simply evil...yet...passionate about education, but I digress.  I also learned chess...which later on became perhaps one of the more important things he taught me.  This was how he explained so very much to me...the dynamics of politics, the Camarilla...everything.  I use it to this night how to explain many things myself.  

It was two years after we had met when he asked me something that I had known would come in time.  He asked if he believed I was ready to join him in eternity.  Still love struck, I quickly replied yes and  he Embraced me while he made love to me that night.  We made a pact to never be apart, and I had thought for certain that this was my forever.  I was twenty-one years old and now, a newborn vampire.  After a long celebration, we began to travel the world, visiting the places he had shown me sketched in books and talked about in exotic tales.  Greece, India, China, Japan, France...even the colonies.  It was as if he had regained his youth through me...and he planned to share the world with me as well as the new life I had been given.  I drank everything he offered me in and absorbed every word, every experience.  This continued for fifty years.  Each year, though...Evander lost more and more of himself.  He was becoming disgusted with the human race and what it was doing, sickened by Kindred and their thirst for total control.  Finally, we returned to London and he explained that he had to rest and he was not certain for how long.  He told me that I could not join him and quickly sent me away, promising me that someday he would return.  I was devastated and suddenly lost.  My reason for existing had been plucked...and I was alone for the first time in my life.  

I roamed aimlessly for a century, on occasion seeking refuge with my grandsire and other times staying in London for year after year, waiting for him to rise.  Helios kept me safe during the world wars, spiriting us away one step ahead of the forces that  he was assured would end us all.  He continued my studies, being sure that I never faltered and that I thrived despite Evander's absence.  After the wars ebbed away, I again returned to London during the early 1950's.  So much had changed and now, this was a central point for culture and expansive thinking.  The music was forming into a force that would forever alter our reality and spurred on every other radical change.  The 1960's found me following the call to America, listening now to the call of both coasts offering up a plethora of experiences yet still, the familiar whisper of England in the form of four young men that the world had begun to worship.  Music was a new god all its own...and it now ruled in a different form.  This generation raised men that would have been shunned a handful of years ago onto their shoulders, proclaiming them saviors.  I stayed until again, my heart pulled me back to London, silently praying that Evander had felt this movement as well but alas, he was still silent...and still would not rise.  I went into Paris and dissolved into the culture there for a time, content to devour the grandeur with the hedonism...and forget about my beloved ever rising again.

The turn of the century was fast approaching and I had all but surrendered all hope that Evander would ever return to me.  I adopted the name Angel Collins in his honor and began to build anew.  I began to stretch my wings and test the waters all the more.  I began to break away from the strictness I had been schooled with.  Anjelina faded and stammered where Angel flourished.  I had found my new strength...when a phone call came to me from a source in Necropolis, telling me that Evander had awakened and was seen there.  Immediately, I went to him and was within his arms again...but never as we once were.  He had found another to love and I had to accept it rather quickly.  My heart was broken, but my soul had healed.  We talked for months while he caught up on all he had missed and I learned of what his plans were now.  He had become the Primogen and I was now the prodigal daughter newly restored to him.  I soon found myself embroiled within the politics and aiding him at every turn.  People that would not speak with him would speak with me and we began to work effectively as a team.  The past affairs were pushed aside and I was content to be his childe.  I was introduced to many, finding my closest friends among a few...and bitter rivals as well.  I gained a talent for dueling with words where Evander would play the perfect politician.  We became formidable and indeed dangerous.  I became quite well known and feared by a few while he gained more and more public approval.  

Eventually, he tired of the game and decided to return once more to London with the love of his life, Talia Devonshire.  I followed only to make certain that all was well when they arrived and then I returned home for many years, once again delving into the Camarilla all the further.  I served as Whip for a time, but my true place was as a social assassin, sometimes referred to as a Harpy.  It was my calling, some would say.  In all honesty, it became my way to vent and rage...but...in a more artful manner.  It takes much more skill to kill one with words rather than a sword.  Over time, the Domain faltered and Evander wished me to return to him until stability was regained.  Emotionally, I was ready to return and recuperate.  I had too many betrayals for my liking and none save one that I could turn to fully.  I came back to London to lick my wounds as it were...and think.  My intentions were to stay within the great city, but fate again had another choice.  

I was hunting the night I saw Eddie working on the docks.  He was my intended victim for the night, but something about him begged that I wait.  He saw me and quickly approached, asking if I were lost.  We ended the night within a small pub that he frequented, talking the majority of the night about very little at all.  He charmed me from the beginning, reminding me of the Americas every time I heard the sweet Southern drawl of his accent and smelling...of the most heady combination of the sea, youth, and blood.  Something told me that I knew he would not leave my sight.  I walked him to the apartment he was renting and I near drained him there...by accident.  He was too appealing...too enrapturing.  I have always admired the male form...the sleek lines and strength.  He was easily the most perfect example I had ever seen.  I ghouled him to save his life and thus began my nights considering exactly what I would do with this beautiful toy.  Slowly, I began to see him as more than a toy.  I impressed upon him his place...what most would expect him to feel.  In the back of my mind, I had already decided that he would become my childe.  I quickly sent a message to the Prince, Queen Anne, and as soon as my response came, I Embraced him.  Within him, I did not see an artist, but one that could succeed with me within the careful play of the Toreador.  Where my plans turned from wishing him as my partner to wishing him as my mate, I am not entirely sure.  I would say it was slow in coming, but...I do not think that would be the correct term.  Kismet, I suppose would be more accurate.  It was as if he was born for me to find...to become so enraptured with that little else would matter when I have him near.  I love him and I see him now as my mate as well as my childe.  I know that I shall never Embrace again...that he will always be the only one that shares my blood.  In this, we are bound in a way few can be.  

The nights hold much within them, waiting to reveal that which can be seen.  I hope to be here for at the least another century, to see my beloved Eddie grow and thrive.  Together, I believe that we will see the end of all time...and tell the tale while we watch the world crumble.  So long as I have him, it matters not where we find our refuge.  We have honestly come to a point to where we are comfortable enough where we seek the comfort of others from time to time.  He has his playthings...and I?  I have...found love in a rather unexpected place within a former lover whom I keep on returning to and an old, cherished friend's arms.

   Nicolo Di Mera and I have had our moments throughout the years and always, the flames burn hot and then extinguish again only to be stoked once more further down the line.  He has returned yet again and perhaps he will actually stay this time.  I cannot say I would object too strenuously.  I find myself missing him more and more each time we separate.  I can only hope that this is the final chapter in which we accept one another finally.

The other I speak of?  Desmond Chambers...my musical soul mate within this new millennium...the one I have found my resurgence of inspiration pouring from.  Do I love him more than I do Eddie or Nicolo?  Never.  Do I love him as much?  Easily.  You see, that is a fault that most of our kind make when they seek love.  They attempt to categorize it.  They forget it is an ever powerful force that will take what it needs when it needs.  This...is why I find myself with the three men I am quite happy enjoying.   Bah, I make it sound too bland.  Why am I with Desmond as well as with Eddie and Nicolo?  Because I need them...I love them...and I want them.  They know of one another and I do not demand that their love is bridled to me.  Why should I?  Desmond taught me this...calmed me and helped me come to full grips with the passions as relation to this sort of thing and I finally battled down my upbringing...with Eddie help as well of course.  Nicolo, I had to reassure and remind him once more that this changes nothing between us.  I love them...for their understanding and their need of me...as much as I need them.

I have a new Court to charm.  Detroit awaits...and my entire cotreie has come with me for the proverbial ride.