[hider=Witch - the Apostate] [center][Color=A2AEC5][H2]Witch[/H2][/color] [Img]https://i.imgur.com/rxaIRiv.png[/img][/center] [center][img]https://i.pinimg.com/736x/63/a6/83/63a683a18c29edf7790e9adb48e6d2c5.jpg[/img][/center] [center][img]https://i.pinimg.com/474x/c9/95/eb/c995eb06693e1ecf8b7f5c746f89307b.jpg[/img][/center] (Ignore what’s in her hair and the bones on her shoulder) What do I look like? I suppose that is a good question. My skin is… light brown. Olive, I think, is the term once used. My hair white - white as the driven snow, was the old expression. I keep it long and let it hang free. Tattoos. I have lots of tattoos. Some of them from the cult, some from before even then, I think. Some from after, too. My eyes… heh, well, wherever they are now I don’t have them any more. Priest sewed the sockets shut too after he took them, for good measure. [Color=A2AEC5]¤ Age, approximately.[/color] Unknown. Witch herself doesn’t remember. She looks young, but how young is impossible to place, and she seems to hold memories far beyond that. [Color=A2AEC5]¤ What Are You?[/color] The Apostate. She who looked from the light, defied the Maelstrom and its cult. She who wished for normalcy. [Color=A2AEC5]¤ What defines you?[/Color] Weird. I suppose. I suppose it is weird to see what the others cannot. Or refuse to see. [center][Img]https://i.imgur.com/rxaIRiv.png[/img][/center] [Color=A2AEC5]¤ Who are you?[/Color] I am Witch. Early childhood… of everything I’ve seen and remember, that isn’t one of them. I don’t remember… anything, really. Anything before Priest. I remember him extending his hand to me, a lost soul in the jungle. I saw, back then, I saw properly. I still remember his face. Clean, pale, like a ghost appearing from the mist. He gave me his hand, and I took it in mine. I don’t know how I looked then. Maybe younger. Maybe not. It’s impossible to tell. How long ago was that? Years? Months? Decades? Perhaps it’s been only a day. I don’t seem to have aged or changed much, so maybe it was. Perhaps it was a dream? Another concoction of the Maelstrom? Another distant memory from a time long past? I lived with the Cult for years. I… [i]”lived”[/i] with them, I suppose, but I always lived elsewhere in truth. Even when Priest took me with him to bed I was not truly there. Almost every second I spent with them seems like trance. A fever dream. The Maelstrom was all I knew. I suppose I did fill my role for them, then, the living conduit to the Maelstrom they always wanted. Less of a person, or their “high priestess”. Simply a thing that suited them well. I held the knife during the sacrifices, but it was they who killed them. I saw none of what I told them, saw nothing I recall, anyway. I know I saw something, of course - lying or theatrics has never been a strong suit of mine. Maybe I just chose to forget. Maybe the Maelstrom took it from my mind. All I really remember about those days was how much I hated it. How much I hated them. I wanted to leave. I wished for anything else - I saw visions in the Maelstrom. The lives of other people, [i]normal[/i] people. I wanted to be like them, I wanted to be like them so badly, so dearly. I told someone I wanted to leave, to live with them, to be normal instead. I thought I could trust her. Her name was… Blossom. They all had names like that. Priest named her Blossom of the Maelstrom’s Grace. He gave me a name too, not that I remember it. Perhaps it was the “Maelstrom’s grace” that took that too. Maelstrom couldn’t save my eyes, though. Priest did it himself. He held a knife to my neck before them all, he proclaimed that I was a false prophet, that I would be punished. Blossom stood to one side, smiling. The last thing I ever saw, really, truly saw with my own eyes, was her smile. It wasn’t directed at me, but at Priest. All of them smiled at him. He put his thumbs to my eyes and pushed. I don’t remember after that. I remember waking up in pain, clawing at where my eyes had been. They were gone, hollow sockets sewn shut with wire. I screamed for hours until they came, hungry for the flesh of the blind prey in their midst. I don’t remember how I survived, only that I did. Blood, blood was involved, I think. I was covered in blood. Mine and theirs. All I know is that I [i]Saw[/i] for the first time. I saw myself as the Maelstrom did, I saw my surroundings, the dead forms of the beasts of the forest, the spear in my right hand. The revolver in my left - a Taurus Model 689, a voice told me. One of the voices that talks most often. I don’t… really remember how I came to Steelbird Landing, either. I wandered for a while, I think. Shot things that needed to be shot. Stabbed things that needed to be stabbed. Fucked things that wanted fucking. Life is just a dream, anyway, isn’t it? We do what we will before we return to the Maelstrom. I do what any Weird person does in Steelbird Landing. I sell myself. Sex, plenty looking for that - some times I am too. Blood - everyone wants it spilled, some times they deserve it too, I suppose. I tell people what I see for them, or what was them. Some times they get angry when they don’t like what I have to say. Soothsayer, I guess, is the word for someone who does that. Never really felt like it applied to me. People come to hear what the Maelstrom has to say, though, and I tell them. Medicine too, I don’t remember where I learned it or why, but some come to me when desperate, when none of the other doctors or healers can help them. I do what I can, from what I remember. Some times it even works, too. It works often enough that they keep coming to see me, anyway. That’s Witch, I suppose, the sorry mess in front of you. What? You want more? [Color=A2AEC5]¤ What do you want?[/Color] I do not know this myself. I can list ephemeral wants and desires, infatuations and temporary fixations, but I myself drift through life without purpose, without guidance and direction. [Color=A2AEC5]¤ What do you believe?[/Color] The truth is that all is relative. We once believed we knew the ins and outs of the universe. We believed we knew what was up, what was down. The Maelstrom proves them all wrong. What can we judge, knowing that nothing is as it once was? Knowing that it never will be again. [Color=A2AEC5]¤ What do you follow?[/Color] The Maelstrom. For it is the one constant in life. I listen to its screams within my mind, and I know peace. The pain it brings will always be near, deep within me, nestled against my soul. I have no direction in life, and so life passes by me without notice. [Color=A2AEC5]¤ A scarcity embodied:[/Color] Hope. All I have known in life is the screaming of the Maelstrom within my mind. I have seen things not from this world - or perhaps they are. Glimpses into the past, a past so long distant it is as if the earth itself had forgotten until now. Perhaps it is the future. My life, my being, are carried along on the currents of a great river. I have never known anything but the whims of fate as they carry me through this river. All I desire is a raft. [Color=A2AEC5]¤ Basic Instincts:[/Color] The Maelstrom watches us. It always watches us. If you believe it does not you are a fool. Keep your friends close, and a weapon closer. Be prepared for betrayal. Be prepared to kill. The dead speak. And I listen. [center][Color=A2AEC5][h3]¤ Spill Your Guts[/h3][/Color][/center] [Color=A2AEC5]¤ What do you most regret doing?[/color] Not leaving the Children of the Maelstrom sooner. Not dying, and bringing them with me to the Maelstrom they so dearly loved. [Color=A2AEC5]¤ Who owns you? Literally or figuratively.[/color] The Maelstrom. I am its slave. I see because it wills it. I lost my sight because of it. I know not who I truly am for it has taken this from me. I see memories, my own or from it I can no longer tell. Some I think to be mine are far too far gone to be if I am who I think I am, yet I know them as closely as my last meal. [Color=A2AEC5]¤ Who makes you feel confused the moment you lay eyes on them? Why?[/color] Priest. The man who blinded me. The man who raised me. The man who took me to bed with him every night. The man who told me how I was his jewel. The man who I thought I loved. The man who gave me everything and took it away. [Color=A2AEC5]¤ What are you addicted to? What are you willing to do to acquire it?[/color] Sex. Pleasure. Alcohol. Drugs. Anything to dull the mind. Anything to escape the Maelstrom for a time. Some times it fails. Some times it succeeds. [Color=A2AEC5]¤ Who's intentions do you question?[/color] The Maelstrom. For it speaks to me, and I to it, yet it never says a word. I question my purpose within it. I question why I must know it. I question why it chose me, or perhaps why I was chosen by something beyond even it. It has defined my life, and I know much of it - yet I know nothing. [center][Img]https://i.imgur.com/rxaIRiv.png[/img][/center] [h3]Hear the Whispers...[/h3] It’s adorable, and sad, and enviable, that some only know the Maelstrom in brief flashes. I hear it scream with soft whispers into my mind. When I became blind, it reached out to me, and I saw as it did. The ghosts living with us. The shadows upon the mind. I see it all now, through its eyes. What is the Maelstrom? Whenever I sleep, it greets me. It is different every time. A churning sea, colors out of space lighting the souls that swim within in an eerie glow. A blank mist. A brothel, the people within used by the Maelstrom and those yet to fall into its grasp. An open meadow. A distant land that surrounds me. The Maelstrom is everything and everywhere, and it is nowhere. [center][Img]https://i.imgur.com/rxaIRiv.png[/img][/center] [h3]Own What You've Become[/h3] "The Apostate, huh? I don't trust anything or anyone that closely tied to the Maelstrom. And baby, I can practically see it dancing around your pretty little skull." [Color=A2AEC5]¤ ONE MEMORY FROM THE TIME BEFORE PREACHER HORRIFIES YOU IN PARTICULAR. WHAT DO YOU RECALL?[/color] I told you, I don’t remem- I do. One thing. It was… oh… it was… why would you make me remember. Why is this happening?! I don’t know I don- oh god, wake up please. Wake up! I can’t, the ground swallowing all those people. Planes falling from the sky like stones. Those people, oh god, Juan, please wake up. Please, we have to go. We have to go now, I… we have to hide, to run. No, no! Not him! Not her! Not my little girl, please! The gun, yes, the shelf. In the safe. I can’t stop. What are those things? O-oh god, they’re… die! Die! Die you disgusting things! Run. Hide. Survive. It speaks to me. What is that in the sky? They call it the Maelstrom. I don’t want it to speak to me. I want Juan back. I want little Rosa back. Why did you make me recall that? Why? [Color=A2AEC5]¤ SOMEONE IS TRYING TO RESCUE YOU FROM THE GRIP OF THE MAELSTROM. WHO ARE THEY? WHY DO YOU WANT THEM TO FAIL?[/color] I… I’m sorry give me a second, I’m still recovering. I… maybe it’s Trinket. Nice man, I think. Shows up weekly looking for sex, pays in drugs. Not sure what he wants, truthfully, but he did say something about rescuing me from the Maelstrom once. Maybe it’s Rocket. He reminds me of Priest a bit, but in a good way, I suppose? He’s certainly interesting. Maybe it’s Brick, she shows up a lot too, built like her namesake even, I think she’s a real softie on the inside, she comes for sex too but also likes to talk. I… I don’t know, truth be told. I know a lot, but I don’t know this. [Color=A2AEC5]¤ THE LAST PERSON YOU KILLED WATCHES YOU IN YOUR DREAMS. WHAT WAS THEIR NAME, AND WHAT WERE THEIR LAST WORDS TO YOU?[/color] Piano wire. That’s what I used to kill her. Have you ever heard a piano? It’s a beautiful sound. Haunting, some times. Melancholy, others. Some times it can even be cheerful. No, really, I’m serious! Piano wire… She tells me every night how it felt as the wire cut her throat. Her name was Brass Tacks, for some reason. She just called herself BT, though. I wonder how her girlfriend and boyfriends are doing? I only saw them once, when she asked me why I took her from them. She showed me them all laughing, roasting the meat of some big animal over an open fire. Salt and spices rubbed into the meat, the fat dripped off and rose up in smoke, they all cut slices off and stuffed them into fresh baked breads. I took that from her. Her last words…? I never heard them myself, but she tells me every night. They all tell me every night. Every single one of them. Hers was… she asked me if heaven was real. If the Maelstrom was heaven. She asked me if I had ever known love. She asked me why I was taking it from her. Every night, she asks me. Some times she lets me talk back too. I wish I could tell her, but even I don’t know. Maybe they aren’t within the Maelstrom at all, maybe they’re with me, until I finally go to it as well, wherever it leads. I don’t know. Why do you have so many questions, anyway? [center][Img]https://i.imgur.com/rxaIRiv.png[/img][/center] [Color=A2AEC5]¤Your theme song goes here, if you are so inclined.[/color] Oh! I remember these! They were a thing, before the Maelstrom’s time. … Nah, pass. [/hider]