| Name: | Saióne Grimaldi Malreuse |
| Generation: | 7th |
| Appearance: | Saióne's majestic height of 5'10" contrasts with a tenuous frame, accentuated by the jet-black power suits of a Yves Saint Laurent vein she has come to favour -- usually cut in anachronistic style with severe, high collars. Her brown eyes are ringed in bright saffron, their supernatural iridescence giving an edge of asperity to her gaze. |
| Background: |
Players The
Grimaldi The
Giovanni The
Tzimisce The
Ventrue Setting 1917 "When I say the words is irrelevant. My voice will carry all the significance Jacopo needs to act." Meric the Elder spoke with a confidence inculcated by two centuries of diligence and vigil. The crust of seniority was a palpable halo about him, and Saióne could only tighten the grip she held on her father's thigh when those soulless eyes brushed over her. The ancient revenant often studied each and every face with the gaze of a bull when the family gathered to discuss "business", but that didn't deter the tenacity with which she held it this cycle. "Ah .. Gianloren, but where is your sister Sian? She returned from Venice this morning, yes?" The Elder had noticed the girl's irreverent eyes, and checked a formal address in order to inquire into the whereabouts of her mother. Yet far he was from dismissing her. "As of yet, no word." The presumption that Sian was dead -- caught in a web weaved by decades of treason, and sucked dry by the unexpected predator -- was not offered from her father for the Elder's rumination. He remained quiet about his fears, and drained apprehension from his voice. "I wouldn't be surprised if unrest in the northern provinces held her." "Perhaps ... " The bull had reset his attention on that pad of honey which first drew it. "Little Saióne, is that?" "Yes, Uncle." "We will talk soon, Saióne."
"Yes, Uncle." "How else can you explain such concentration on the Giovanni assets? You are too intelligent to leave such a coincidence unquestioned!" Domenico would miss the intonations with which she manipulated the word "intelligent." He could never distinguish between the sardonic and the seductive. He excelled only in calling up the dead like the Saviour himself, and helping her discover just how attractive necrophiliac sex could be. Saione gauged the tradeoff's worth long ago. But now, far away from sepulchres and gravestones, they both sat in the foyer of the Giovanni Venetian estate, Domenico awaiting the arrival of the patriarch, Saióne attempting to convince the latter of the importance an immediate conference held. She continued. "The regime will keep forcing your family to surrender its holdings to the state, as long as you remain visible in Venice. Jacopo must know all of this already!" Domenico held an apathetic smile. Both had been the progeny of brother-sister procreation, but she had been lucky enough to have avoided the mental symptoms that manifested themselves violently in him. Still, he had the most admirable propensity for necromancy in his family. "Why do you insist speaking politics with me? What can I tell him that you haven't told him already? My hands are dirty, my mind thick, and you mock me with this high talk."
He wanted sex. She could sense his blood rushing to
one extremity. Sex he would have, then, and
whatever else it took. Meric Grimaldi knew the Tzimisce were on to the dealings of the family when Sian finally arrived home, her entrails sewn about her sunken waist as if she were some slavic ballerina. He had been ordered by the Voivode to display the body before the entire family, so that treason might be reconsidered. And only then had the confiscation of the neutral Giovanni's holdings in Venice began. Fiends were pulling the strings of this brewing revolution -- the Elder knew it. They intended to smoke out the possible defectors, and torture the clan that harboured talks of sponsoring the revenants. "Andrea Caradosso still offers options in the event of relocation to Flanders." "We are not leaving Sicily, Lorenzo!" He could not control the anger in his voice, and the snap left the youth cowering his eyes. Lorenzo had always championed the Ventrue over the Giovanni, citing the obvious advantages behind the clan's membership in the omnipotent Camarilla. Meric knew better. Why defect to another sect, when one might have neutrality as a mask for manipulation? Lorenzo was foolish. And his Saióne -- she sat there with a hard stare, strong, undaunted -- she was wise. Considering his partiality, of course. "Has that Ventrue Caradosso yet taken the seat of primogen?" Excellent question. Meric adored his niece -- and granddaughter, too. Preciously young, but incredulously precocious. "It is all but assured, if we were to back him in Flanders ..." Lorenzo continued in an uncertain voice, trading anxious glances between the Elder and Saione, the latter his cousin, lover, and opponent in all things political. "So he wishes that Grimaldi act as his pawns? We have fallen into disuse with the Tzimisce, it is why we fear genocide and bother with these dangerous negotiations." Her brow creased, distorting the thin layer of pale skin stretched across her forehead. "But with this disuse has come independence and wisdom -- why would we wish to reclaim pawn status, give up our power, and prostrate ourselves before new masters? You must know he cares for nothing beyond his ascension, Lorenzo."
"Saióne is right. The talks with the Giovanni
will continue. If you must continue entertaining
your Ventrue confidant, Lorenzo, have him know the
stipulations will not include relocation of the Grimaldi
family to Flanders. We have too much invested in
Italia." These were the rites of passage. Sian had seen the blood staining her bedsheets, and immediately taken her to the bowels of the Grimaldi estate. Only nights before Saióne could recall lying across her father's thighs in these same chambers, tantalizing his pectorals in the same fashion she had her mother's when she was small enough to be breast fed. He had spoken of forcing the rites. He had whispered to her that she was already a woman, for what else could do such things with a tongue? These were the rites of passage. The jorum containing the concoction which would bond her to all Tzimisce ranking bishop and above teased her from the hands of Meric the Elder. He wore robes sewn with human skin, and eyes that mesmerised all the will her small body held. Lorenzo lay in a crumpled heap near the wall, his naked twelve year-old body reddened with lacerations. And beyond him, an alien being watched. Piero Veneziano -- the Tzimisce bishop that would oversee these rites. Piero watched her. "You will remain loyal to those relations nearest to you." These were the rites of passage, and Meric had begun. Sian having abandoned her daughter before the Elder, Saióne met the glare of the revenant with childish bravado. "You will remain silent when silence is needed, for silence can never be wrong." My importance to you will be infinite, she thought, as the bowl was lowered to her lips. She drank, determination vivid in the strangely saffronish-brown irises of her eyes. Meric, and all she served, would see.
And then the pain began. The fascists had succeeded forcing the King's submission, and Mussolini was Prime Minister. The regime had taken nearly all strategic Giovanni holdings in the North for the state's use. Grimaldi and Giovanni alike were both dying in mysterious, horrific ways. Domenico had been found dead, his body fused with perhaps seventy severed phalluses belonging to corpses, including one organ stuffed within his mouth -- a disturbing replacement for his tongue. Her beloved father, Gianloren, had been rooted out as a traitor who'd aided his sister and wife Sian in 1917, and left to starving peasant folk at dawn. Piero Veneziano had carried out all of these executions briskly and harshly with a small team of toadies, those hellish ghouls mutilated by vicissitude that served their masters to the death. He then requested an audience with Meric, Lorenzo, Saióne, and three other Grimaldi. Saione, punctual and seated beside Lorenzo the night of the meeting, kept a calm demeanor, holding onto her courage despite the intimidation her executioner exuded. Lorenzo squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. Meric began dialogue, as always. "What is the meaning of this? We have three months before the next passage ceremony, and no children at this moment." Piero borrowed Meric's infamous gaze, cycling it over every visage, the fervor of a jackal the only distinguishing feature behind it. He paused on Saióne, and watched her -- much like that night years ago when she had dictated her fealty to her family. Piero was smiling, the several rows of teeth beyond his receding lips all visible -- all sharp. "You will be assured I have succeeded in rooting out all the traitors, Meric." Yet he continued to watch her, insulting the Elder. "The impartial punishment of your family ends tonight, with the deaths of our remaining enemies. Enemies, yes ... " Dragging a claw over his tenuous throat as he began to approaching her, lecturing in an effeminate voice. "... because a traitor to the Tzimisce is a traitor to the Grimaldi! We are one organic being, albeit infected with a few malignant cells. And I will cut out those cells tonight." Meric held his words, and he fought an implicit glance to Saióne and Lorenzo -- for Piero did not boast of smoking out and killing the treasonous Grimaldi, and the last three did sit in that room. The other three: innocents. "And just what did Jacopo offer rivaling death ... " Piero had paused aside her chair; she could no longer tell whether he was looking at her or not. He emanated coldness. " ... hm, Lorenzo?" Before Lorenzo could respond, a nail was protruding from his nasal cavity, littered with bloody cartilage and shards of broken bone. Piero had discovered all, despite one insignificant error. Saione tilted her chin toward her dead cousin, preparing for her gutting. "And you ... As if a power-hungry blue blood would have enough clout to give you amnesty in Flanders. FOOL!" A flinch, and one of the nondescript Grimaldi was decapitated. Carlo. She could feel Piero moving away, and turned her head to see him licking blood from a saber wielded of bone, jutting from his wrist. He grinned toward a pallid Meric, crimson slathered across the multiple rows of fangs. "A tragedy, yes, but will it happen again? No. We can only resort to manipulating masses so many times a century, as it is written in the Cainite pamphlet." "I would know nothing of that, Piero." Meric weathered the relief in his voice well, holding onto an edge of asperity. "I want you to send that woman-child to New England in the West. We need her there." |
| Activities: |
Saióne worked with the Grimaldi base in New England from
1923 to 1960, traveling between newly acquired Sabbat
holdings where Tzimisce presence was strong. Coming so
close to death before had done nothing to clot her
treasonous (or what she might call ardently loyal)
dealings that might secure safety for her revenant family
should the Tzimisce tire of them -- she had simply
utilised more clandestine methods. However, with the
Sabbat having captured much of the East Coast, brighter
Cainites began to arrive in New England each night, which
forced her to lobby for relocation; she ended up in Miami
after much manipulation, sensual favoring, and pleading.
Perhaps she was being manipulated unwittingly, and had
been sent to Miami to be watched by the Tzimisce Mikos
Vashra, one of a paucity of suspicious Elders. Time most certainly told. Embraced soon after her arrival by the Tzimisce elder, Saióne assisted him in maintaining the Ministry in Fort Lauderdale, acting as a diplomatic envoy between the independent entity and Miami's Camarilla. Now, after the break-up of the Ministry and the disappearance of her sire, Saióne works to hold Fort Lauderdale as Tzimisce territory, her motives perhaps more complex than simple loyalty. |
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