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Arrianna de Mornay
A History by Paige W. |
Arrianna de Mornay has dealt with evil
and hardship her entire life. Born outside Toulouse, France in
May of 1510, her parents (Renaud and
Clara) were delighted to add another child to their family
. They saw it as a blessing that God had bestowed upon them four beautiful children – Gerard,
Antoine, Marguerite and now Arrianna. Europe having recently
been besieged with the Crusades, ravaged
by the Black Death, and now an even crueler force danced on the horizon
– the Inquisition. Renaud’s devout faith and his belief
that a noble’s life is dedicated those who server him as much as to
be served, created a haven for those dark times
At
the age of ten, the Mornay household suddenly seemed smaller, as her
older brother Antoine was sent to Toledo to continue his education. Barely two years later, her world again contracted
with the marriage of her sister Marguerite. With the
loss of her closest siblings, Arrianna felt truly alone for the first
time. As time passed and she approached the day of her own marriage,
she learned the skills necessary to govern a noble house. When the time finally arrived, her
parents found her prospects not as suitable as they hoped – for in
these dark times, smart people trusted very few. Wanting only the best match for their daughter, her father biased as he was– would
not consent to marry is youngest daughter to just anyone.
When not traveling or handling the day
to day operations of the house, they
would spend hours reading together – they loved dashing heroes, epic
battles, and exotic, faraway places; and while he was away, she would read those same stories over and over again
to keep that connection close. During the summer of her sixteenth birthday,
the family received an invitation to Pamplona, Spain for her cousin
Isabella’s wedding. These beautiful time were not
to last.
As they returned home, a band of marauders attacked – in the brashness
of youth, Gerard attempted to defend his family. As he closed the
distance, his horse stumbled sending the young man crashing to the ground,
killing him in the fall. Chaos ensued.
Clara attempting to flee towards safety with her remaining child abruptly
fell from her horse with a bolt protruding from her back. Using the chaos to his advantage,
Renaud grabbed his daughter and
escaping into nearby woods. Being an experienced hunter and rider,
he drove the horse hard through the forest until
they came upon the first sanctuary – a cloister. The nuns , more than happy to take the girl in, as the father promised
to retrieve her after he checked on the others and notified authorities
of the attack. Arriana watched her father retreating into the night
praying that he would return soon, he never did.
Antoine was informed of the tragedy, but being in no real position to
help his sister replied to the
nuns to watch over her while he made arrangements. After news
spread of the attack, no suitors wanted anything to do with Arriana, or the Mornay family. But tragedy
was far from done with her.
One
day dusk had just fallen and she found herself returning
home from errands in the nearby village.
As she emerged from a dense grove of trees a man
apparently being accosted appeared on the highway stood before her.
Memories flooded her senses, bringing her back to her own attack, and
without thought she dropped her goods and began pelting the perpetrator
with stones and pebbles from the road. The assailant disposed
of his victim and before she knew what happened, a burning pain shot
from her neck through her body as her vision
faded into blackness. She awoke the next evening still in the
grove of trees with a hunger unlike anything she had ever known - a
hunger for blood. From this point forward her
life would never be the same.
Tearing large section of her clothing and that of the first
victim, Arrianna staged her own abduction. At first, her morals
and upbringing forbid her from feeding on anything except animals. Soon, however, animals
only sated the beast so far. The stress
of a nomadic lifestyle, and the paranoia of being discovered, intensified the bloodlust until nothing could fill
her. Despite her morals and reason, she knew of only one thing
that would quench her thirst; she needed human blood.
Eventually
she found an ailing hermit, but
inexperience and bloodlust lead her to feed until his heart stopped. Arrianna had done the unthinkable, taking a life. Completely devastated by her sin, she fled. .
To atone for her sin, she knelt every night for a week outside a small
village chapel clutching her cross and rosary praying for forgiveness.
The image of the cross burned into her flesh, but she refused to let
go, clinging to her faith. Eventually she began
to grow stronger, faster, honing her survival skills, even learning
how to gauge life force enough to know when a person was on the brink
of death. She could feed without killing them – a kind of coma that the person could wake up from. Over the course
of her travels, her heightened senses picked up a smell, something Arrianna
recognized but couldn’t place. Considering she
really had no direction to her life, she decided following the scent
would be interesting enough.
Almost
a year and a half later she found the scent’s origin; a man named Sorin Vidalski, her maker.
His arrogant pride prevented him from helping her openly, but he directed her to a small coven of vampires
in Florence, Italy. One of the women, Eleanor, shared
a love of literature particularly mythology and lore and Marcus their
leader, taught her to truly survive in the world. The coven
made Arriana, who had now taken the name Collette be Breton
to avoid any possible complications, as happy as anyone could be under
the circumstances. Marcus, a former Crusader, cared for the family’s
wellbeing as a father would, the other were her brothers and sisters.
Together they improved their skills, studied together, laughed together,
and hunted together – like a family, really. Being with real
vampires, “Collette” had to acknowledge the monsters of her stories
were real and very dangerous, especially lycans and hunters. Keeping her faith, she attended Mass at a
small church in a nearby village. Some thought this folly, but to Arrianna
this remained the last vestige of her former life.
One
of her brothers having been attacked by
a lycan barely escaped and retreated to the haven.
A clever group of hunters managed to follow the trail and raided the haven. The ambush was fast
and efficient, few escaped and even more were killed including
Marcus and Eleanor. Three vampires including Collette
were captured and brought before the
Vatican. The first vampire didn’t last two days;
the second eventually went mad and had to be destroyed. Sheer
will and faith sustained the young woman, resisting
their torture until one day reason snapped and confessed everything,
including her lineage. As it happened, one of the errand boys
had studied with Antoine at Toledo and vouched for the character of
the de Mornays, including their devout faith.
The
hunters and Inquisitors had found a rosary hidden inside Arriana’s
cloak and they had noticed the brand of the cross on Arrianna’s hands
but figured they came from another hunter or some other occasion.
She was brought before the high Inquisitor, Paolo Umberto, who asked
her how she could carry a cross being the spawn of Lucifer. Her
reply came proud and true, “Suicide is a mortal sin, your Excellency,
and I hoped that I would live long enough to learn some way to reverse
this curse or beg god to deliver me.” Apparently it was the
correct answer for he stayed his hand. After hearing her life
story again, including the devotion to the cloister, and examining her
rosary beads and brands (which matched size and shape) he determined
only a person of devout faith could create such marks on a creature
as she. Arrianna was barely kept alive (mainly for research purposes)
while Paolo deliberated. A couple days he delivered his verdict
– an alliance of sorts. He would spare her life in return for
her continuing devotion and service to God.
Turns
out he was a member of a very secret sect of the Church called the Sanguin
de Christi – created and sustained to study (and purge) supernatural
evil. The Order would hand down assignments, targets to investigate,
and she would carry out their orders and report her findings.
She had no choice but to agree. To join the Order, Arriana would
have to prove her worth before God.. If God favored her,
he would help her keep control and stave the Beast, Paolo told her.
As
bizarre luck had it, Easter was fast approaching, which seemed a perfect
time frame. Good Friday found her crucified on a giant wooden
cross, settled in the underground altar room of the Order. The
cross was placed facing an altar with holy water, candles, a wooden
cross, sharpened at the edges, and a large Bible. Behind the altar
were various icons of Christ and the Virgin. If anything went
amiss, her death would certainly be swift. For three days she
lay crucified as it were, hands and feet nailed to a cross. On
the third day, barely ‘alive’, she was taken down, cleansed and
taken down to the nearest lake. There, Paolo blessed her, poured
a large pitcher of lamb’s blood (transubstantiated to symbolize Christ’s
blood) over her head and body, baptizing her in the water.
Arriana was then dressed and brought to the nave where Mass was recited,
lamb’s blood given to her to drink, and blessing placed upon her. She then went to Confession,
did her penance, and was determined worthy to do God’s work.
For Arrianna, the worst part was holding the finely crafted silver cross
Paolo had given her throughout the Mass, earning her new, larger cross-shaped
burns on her palms. He told her it was for banishing the evil
undead creatures of Hell, and to this day she still carries it in a silken burgundy pouch with her rosary
beads when not in use. The cross was a symbol of the Order, it
protected her, and it gave her knowledge and further improved her skills.
She studied, reveled in the sweetness of life and the ever-changing
world, history in the making.
That
is how life continued for the former noblewoman, year after year through to the present
day. To sate the hunger, Arrianna used the terminally ill, rapists, thieves, and murderers,
always avoiding taking life and doing penance afterwards. During
one investigation, the vampire-turned-hunter was sent to Vancouver to
track down a demon. She chased the demon all the way to Northern
California, just outside San Francisco. After
dispatching the demon, and with no new orders, Arriana was forced to
find some way to earn money in the interim, and, as luck would have
it, a junior college was hiring for an associate history teacher.
Over the last decade she had earned her Master’s degree in history
and minored in literature, so she applied and was offered the job.
Arriana even bought a home close to the college in a town called, Aleister
Cove. Mostly she keeps a low profile except for the work she does with
JT and his group, though she enjoys helping out at the local library
whenever free. She lives alone except her fish and is close to
only one person – her contact and friend Bruno Pertelli who works
in the Vatican. When she needs information she contacts one of
the few vampires that survived the attack over 400 years ago, but only
in times of desperation. So, for the history of Arrianna
de Mornay, that is all she wrote… for now.
