𝓔sther 𝓟uniceus
☨
Kindred │ Ventrue │ 8th Generation │ 800+
𝓟ersonality
Cradled with the pompous peasantry of the Dream and clothed with the woven tapestry's of the truth's beautiful antiquities, Esther aligns her instrumental tune to the otherworldly harmonies with a gracefully pensive and distant ease of derision. Esther is steadfast in her beliefs and passive amongst conversations that try to sway her objective thoughts from her own knowledge of seeking. She prefers filling herself with the golden riches of history, and the past becomes ever more favorable in Esther's eyes as the secular lenses of modern society continuously kaleidoscopes into a crumbling entropy of foul smells and post-modern chaos.
She has little use for the workings of society and has given-up caring for coherence since the Romantic period, which was not as highly as elaborate or decadent as the lovely Baroque period. The intelligence of the World had dimmed its path in the likeness of the Enlightenment, and here she was, too pristine in her reflection to make small gossip about the dying world that the Camarilla was trying to preserve. However, it was true, this life was precious, each with its very own internal universe. Unfortunately, Esther can barely read the map of her own universal existence, lost to the soulless winds of the Embrace.
The Kindred's own journey has trained Esther to keep her nose nobly where it belongs, proven to be a much more efficient time spent of immortality, and thus, her dismissive, uninterested state could also be described as carelessly snobby, which is not too terribly far from the truth. In fact, it has been very well proven, she will not hesitate to bite when duty calls, as is tradition of her nature. For such reasons, she is seen with respect as an eloquently trusted keeper of secrets in certain parts of the Camarilla. However, playing puppeteer has never fancied this Ventrue. She prefers to be the one who purchased tickets to the show, sitting quietly in the shadows of the audience with her evening purse and date — judging the act.
𝓑iography
During the wake of the Long Night, the Sun was gleaming behind the triumphal arch of New Rome, offering a warm entrance of refuge from the setting Sun of the West as the Dream prospered in the haven of the smokey incense and reflective grandiose splendor like a golden halo in the midst of the Dark Ages. It was the end of the 11th Century when the illuminating manuscriptured Monastery of Studius was sliding from the centre of Byzantine religious poetry. However, despite the disposition, during this ending era of glorious hymnography, Esther Poniceus was born to a noble family, graced with prosperous wealth and an abundance of lavish privileges. Her parents raised her with great strictness through private tutors for education and the arts, grooming her in hopes of a more prominent future than the one they inherited from their ancestors. The same treatment was granted to her other siblings, dressed in the same vestments of honor and truth. Above all, the Poniceus family was taught the importance of upholding the beautiful, and in such a time, it was hard to miss the ancient beauty that embellished their furnishings and lifestyle.
The crude of their living was received as a merciful gift of Confession and the ever-flowing miracle of the Eucharist. There were threads of hope, sewn into silk garments that held true to Esther's heart that one day she might be chosen to be Empress if her prayerful life could be magnified. However, as time seemed to pass, fleetingly in perspective amongst aristocrats, there seemed to be no significant worth in holding her material riches so close to her heart. The fine scents and soft weaves were illusions of what was yet to come, as taught by the scholars of the Roman Empire. The only warmth she could find was from the burning flames that flickered on the Holy Table and the skip in her heartbeat when the taper-bearer Rodericus Terzi illumned the Divine Litrugy on the path walked by the hypodeacon. No riches in the world could express the burn of her rosy emotions flushed inside the embroidery of her head covering when she watched him light the candles.
Esther's prayers were not unnoticed by Rodericus. Perhaps it was her patterned attire, richly dyed and fitted for regalia, binding her to the costumes of the mosaic saints depicted on the walls of the Church. While mutual matrimonial love existed during he Dream, Esther's privileged lifestyle condoned any sort of romance between the two neighboring parties involved. For the Poniceus' family, Rodercius was not as wealthy of afamily and sharing Holy Matrimony with him was the antithesis of how Esther was raised. For the Terzi family, a covenant had been made that Rodercius would denounce the world and wear the monastic vows of a new name while abiding his remaining time inside the teachings of the Monastery of Studius. The two disciples were adamant not to part from each other but also determined not to be disobedient to the will of their parents, most often associated with that of the Divine Will. Both conjured a plan for Esther to cross-dress and join the Monastery. And that is what they did. At the age of sixteen, Esther disappeared from her home to took up living as a monk, side-by-side former Robericus for three years.
In 1204, the Crusaders destroyed the Monastery. She watched as the murals and pillars holding the city together were pillaged, alongside many of her brothers and elders that dwelled in the monastic family. The Esther was not spared during the Lasombra attack. She tried to find Rodericus before making her way to the Cathedral for protection. However, she failed broken-heartedly in both attempts and was capture, and for the first time during her monastic struggle, it was discovered that there was a female living abreast the monks, untouched and unsoiled.
She was miraculously saved by an Elder Monk who having gone to protect the Library of Saint Jean Studius, Elder Name, a Ventrue, bestowed some sort of mercy upon her as a young virgin, attempting to fend off the hungry Crusaders who had maimed and heavily wounded the nun before attempting to deflower her. Elder Name was willing to die protecting the Library, but it must have been Esther's astonishing rendition of expose that turned his attention to save the rarity from perishing. The obedient Kindred, having willed her mortal life as a nun for a romantic relationship that would never blossom in the likeness of Marriage was righteous in purity and blood. There was no doubt in his mind that she would make a worthy Ventrue, full of dignitas and noble respect for the etiquette of the Clan:
Elder Name instilled in her the knowledge that she had saved him the night of her Embrace; yet he had also died that night in Face for having withdrawn his aid from the Library of Saint Jean Studius. She was not to disrespect him in any way, shape, or form. He was her Sire even after Final Death. Thus, her training was founded on the obedient hierarchy of which granted her First Death. He taught her the Truth and opened her eyes to the powers of the Undead. Elder Name thickened her knowledge and skin with trials and tribulations, all to be expected of him as a Ventrue Sire. He unveiled the lies she had been living as a human and stripped her cassock for more worldly beauties that resounded trinklets of delicate lace and frou-frou intricacies of the historical ordination that was paving the carpets in the World of Darkness. However, underneath her feminine assuage, a masculine boldness was pressed under her thumb: For the love of Rodericus, under the dearest Obedience of Elder Name, she would honor the Dark Father, through Enoch the Wise.
After her acceptance as a Ventrue, Esther made her way to the Empire of Nicea to live under Anna Comnena and made herself useful with the calligraphic education from the Monastery of Studius, by corresponding and helping transcribe the traditional manuscripts sought forth by John III. This skill later resurrected itself for her after the shattering death of the Marble Emperor John Paleologus Constantine in 1453 and the awakening from the Dream, when Esther continued pursuing the dead Cainite Dream, theorized as a Third Rome gloriously under Moscow’s gold, shining forth like the halos of New Rome during the Darkness Ages and helped the Kindred against the Lupine. The Ventrue traced her works with the literary genre of hagiography in pleasure to the Toreador (as her secret honor to Mi-ka-il's desertion of Western Rome) and preserved the art through the Enlightenment and sacredly scribing her political career eventually with the Russian's new found love of ballet and then as the Russian-American Company recorder who covered the details of the Camarilla's workings in North America on Kodiak Island (infamously known for Abbot Symeon Ivanovich Yanovsky's misinterpretation of the hagiography of Saint Herman of Alaska spread by of Valaam Monastery).
A year after the War of 1812 fueled between The United States of America and the British Empire and the end of the Russo-Persian War, she was captured by the Society of Leopold, under the guise of Inquisition of the Jesuit Order, imposing themselves on the heretics of the Russian Orthodox Church — as Esther reported incorrectly. There were many others taken captive and imprisoned Mission Dolores, California and eventually martyred. Esther escaped with several others by an acquaintance of her sire. The Kindred's alternate identity was "Ivan Kiglay." The Ventrue is still unsure of what his real name is, but there was something unquestionably stern about the Malkavian's presence that made inquiring further on his truth would be disrespectful and thus a strike against Elder Name.
Ivan and Esther took refuse in Fort Ross for some years. Ivan claimed that there would be a Rebellion that would oust the Kindred Princes in Russia; the golden opportunity would be snuffed by an iron shadow. His presence was needed in the conducting of political affairs in Fort Ross as the Russian presence became more influential. When Don Sebastian became Prince in 1870 of San Pedro, Los Angeles, Esther parted ways with Ivan, finding more dignity in the artistic developments conspiring south of For Ross. It was in Los Angeles that Esther resided under the Camarilla with anthological literacy and helped flourish the City of Angel's poetry scene through her Ancient hymnography skills. She has weaved herself through the music culture, keeping strictly to the fundamental classics that have helped pave the foundation for several celebrities in the pop light. Esther also has a strong hold in connecting the past to the present and operates several museums in Los Angeles. Despite the Civil Wars and political upheavals, Esther has kept to the shadows as opposed to exercising her Ventrue lust for power. There is a time and a place for everything, and as an Kindred, Esther has found that doing everything at once takes way too much time for such a short immortality.
𝓝𝓟𝓒s
➺ Grigoriev, Alexandra - Esther's Retainer, Ghoul, and daylight operator of her
Domain. She is carrying on Yuri Grigoriev School of Ballet (see below) legacy.
➺ Grigoriev, Yuri - Esther's Childe. Esther embraced him several years ago. His whereabouts are currently off the scene of the Yuri Grigoriev School of Ballet. He is in communication with the Federation of Russia through the Russian Orthodox Church, holding ties with
Patriarch Kirill.
➺Hanks, Tom - Esther's
Ally. He is a famous American actor and filmmaker and is known for his comedic and dramatic roles. He attends the same church that
Chester Charles Bennington and
Chris Cornell attended.
➺ Kiglay, Ivan - Kindred friend to Major Russell Bell, the Malkavian Clan Whip and also, Sire of Peter Lapin (see below).
➺ Lapin, Peter - A
Malkavian she has been bound with duty to protect in respect to "Ivan Kiglay."
➺ Miracle Mile - After the opening of Disneyland, Esther acquired the
Neighborhood. Miracle Mile offers Esther a hand in shadowing her Ventrue powers as part of her domain.
➺Yuri Grigoriev School of Ballet - The Domain operated by her Retainer and Ghouls who teach. (see above).
SmileyJaws,
TokyoPewPew,
Leaves,
shylarah,
Mole,
Little Bill,
iibread,
Infinite Cosmos
