Thoughts of Bells

Name: Vision of Bells (Jian Apach)
Age: 16
Exaltation/Caste: Lunar - No Moon
Affiliations: Sijan, Sun-King Senechals, Silver Pact

Bio:
With all the tales of great deeds and events, some tend to forget that one does not always need to be brave - or even particularly heroic - to become one of the Celestial Exalted. Such is often the case with those chosen by Luna, who selects those to receive her power on a basis of survived hardship... or for whatever inscrutable reasons his mad, wyld-twisted mind concocts. Such is the case of Vision of Bells, who while neither heroic nor particularly brave, nevertheless became more than her humble beginnings.

Sijan, practically bordering a large Shadowland, is very much a city of death. It is populated by morticians, experts on virtually every burial rite and funeral practice in Creation. And indeed, the dearly departed from all over Creation are sent to the bleak hills of Sijan, to be respectfully interred among it's countless crypts and mausoleums. It was here that Jian Apach was born, and here that she grew up surrounded by respectful - and slightly fearful - silence. She grew from a quiet little girl into a quiet young woman under the thousands of graves of her home city, tending to the needs of the dead, and their grieving left-behinds. Of a mild temperament, a morose demeanor, and cripplingly shy, she fit right in.

And at one point, that became a bit more literal than she liked.

One night, helping her father tend to the lamp-oil deep in the catacombs, Apach was caught in a small - but brain-rattling - gas explosion that knocked her and her father senseless. He was buried alive, and shortly not alive, under the deluge of rocks and skeletons. Apach was trapped in a short, dead end length of tunnel for... hours. Days. The catacombs went on for miles beneath the city, and depending on your belief in ghosts and shadowlands, perhaps were infinite in complexity and size, like the Labyrinth itself. Someone might eventually find her. It'd be a miracle if she were still alive when they did.

So she sat. And waited. Her lamp oil eventually ran out, so she sang to herself to ward off the loneliness and to attempt to appease the dead surrounding her. When she ran out of songs, she moved on to stories she'd read. When she ran out of those, she starting making new ones up. Disturbed ghosts were not the only spirits to keep vigil over her, and listen to her stories. Something about singing in the face of absolute, anonymous death in the dark may have appealed to Luna, who appeared before Apach as a softly glowing huntress, and imbued her with the power to escape, and to use her newfound life in service to all of Creation - not simply the dead. Apach had been all but unable to dislodge the heavy stones and sarcophagi that'd entombed her, but now she was able to grow smaller, and squeeze between them. Her eyes were well suited to the catacombs, and it was a simple task to find her way to the surface.

Death, in Sijan, is a big deal. When she returned to the surface, Apach discovered that - in the absence of bodies to lay to rest - the city had nevertheless created symbolic graves to appease the dead spirits of their own, a far more opulent ceremony than her family would have been able to afford. Her father's ghost would cross the river Lethe happily, with such respect paid - and her mother had crossed another river. Having lost a in infant daughter to pox two years after Apach's birth, and now her husband and daughter, Sijan held too much death for her. She had left the city for parts unknown, hopefully to begin again.

With a two week head start on Apach, she may as well have faded into myth.

Unwilling to disrespect the services paid to her family by reappearing from the dead, Apach decided to seek her mother - a daunting task, to be sure. She was not far from Sijan when set upon by a pack of fellow Moon-Children, those imbued by the Huntress' power. The state of the world - and her part in it - was explained more clearly. She was marked with silver tattoos and endured trials, given a new name and inherited purpose. And before long, she was fostered to a kind, soft-spoken woman of considerable years named Shatterpaw. Shatterpaw empathized with her need to find her mother, but urged caution - for the world was more dangerous than a sleepy like in Sijan might imply. Over years of travel, searching for Apach's mother, Shatterpaw taught her ways and means of defending herself, and defending those important to her. Apach - Who had fully embraced her deed name 'Vision of Bells' - took to the arts of stealth and speed, even if it seemed she would always hesitate before harming another.

It was not to be forever, however. One of the many dangers Bells had learned about was the Wyld Hunt - a hit squad from the realm, who killed her kind for sport. It was one such Hunt that fell upon Bells and her sifu in the night, and although Shatterpaw was terribly formidable, so to were the Immaculate Monks. Her sifu fell to overwhelming numbers, and it was all Bells could do to escape with her life - watching with tears of impotent rage as the leader of the Hunt took her master's beloved weapon as a trophy and left her body for the Raitons.

By the time she had seen to a properly respectful grave for her master, the burning need for revenge had abandoned the young woman - leaving only a hollow, empty ache and a desire to even the score for lack of a better purpose.

Appearance:
Bells is a pale, nearly silent beauty who tends to dress in simple clothing that gives her a respectable degree of mobility - Although it is recognizable as a variation of Sijan's traditional mortician's garb. She speaks softly, steps softer, and has a habit of starting in random directions or anywhere but at people talking to her. When she can find and afford it, she favors lavender shampoo. She often wears a large, fluffy bow with the intent to hide her cat ear tell, but this doesn't work so well considering she has yellow cat's eyes and a matching tail to boot.

When she moves, Bells is dreadfully fast.

Potential Plot Hooks:
-Bells' baby sister was presumed to die of pox shortly after birth. This is not the case.
-Bells is a member in good standing of the Silver Pact, and counts herself along the Sun-King Seneschals. If you belong to either, you may know her.
-Although she is borderline-cowardly when it comes to combat, Bells seems to have a temperament flip when confronted with the living dead, necromancers, and other such beings that disrupt the rest of the deceased or abuse those who have passed on.


Past RPs:

Character sheet (30BP, 0XP)