Perseipola
From SCross
Perseipola Matthewson
- Born:
19th Titan, 1005 (equivalent)
- Age:
28 (equivalent)
History:
Prior to Perseipola's arrival upon Gaia, she had been a paladin and in control of the Grand Mistress of the Halcyon Crusade in the world of Azeroth. Her childhood had been rather dull, learning to read and write within the Tirisfal Monastery (later known as the Scarlet Monastery) where her parents both performed their crafts as priests. Early in her childhood, Perseipola had discovered her affinity for weapons training, having become smitten with watching the paladins of the Scarlet Monastery on chargers, practicing mounted combat, as well as a girlhood crush on one Prince Arthas Menethil (a second cousin).
Time passed, showing Perseipola to hold the abilities and skills necessary for a paladin. The plagues of the Scourge began to ravage Tirisfal Glade, forcing Perseipola's parents to send their daughter to the south, to Northshire Abbey in hopes to keep her safe. She was also charged with the safety of the remaining children of the Monastery to deliver them safely to Northshire--three children died along the way from hunger and sickness even as cities along the way turned them away due to the Plagues. In Northshire, she completed her paladin training and had been commissioned to further her training to defeat the Scourge, and later the Burning Legion threatening to invade from the Outlands.
During a usual trip between Outlands and Azeroth through the Dark Portal, a strange occurence happened. As Perseipola passed into the portal, the Dungeon's consciousness snatched her from mid-ride through the portal and threw her above ground outside the Capital City of New Junonsberg on a planet called 'Gaia'. Her abilites as a paladin had been stripped from her on this new planet, all except her Aura ability.
When she was found, she was immediately taken to the Church, the woman obviously delirious and speaking of a man and how it was a horrible plot against her. Once questioned by the College of Cardinals and the remnants of the Inquisition, it was decided this paladin would serve the Church in her capacity that she had once served in her native land.
As to what was discussed behind closed doors with the College of Cardinals and the remnants of the Inquisition is anyone's guess, but her strange Aura ability may have something to do with it.
- Update: 16th Leviathan, 1028 AH-- With the reassignment of Knight Ramdas to Valente, a hole was left in the Church Knights that thrust Perseipola into the position of 'Captain' and a new duty given to her. Information of ARMs (Ancient Relic Machines), as well as their upkeep and priming individuals, had been handed to her with her new rank for the Chapel at Highwind Point.
- Update: 15th Bahamut, 1028 AH-- In the late evening hours of the 15th of Bahamut, 1028 AH, the new ruler of the City, Lord Kefka Pallazo, made his way to the Chapel of Saint Hagele, requesting to speak with a priest. The stalwart knights, led by Knight-Captain Perseipola Matthewson, barred the ruler's entry. After much postulating, the Dark Jester asked the Knight-Captain for a dance, which she accepted. Much to everyone's shock chagrin, the Dark jester used incredible strength and ripped the Knight-Captain's arm from her shoulder and proceeded to beat her within an inch of her life with it. Knight-Lieutenants Heather Blackthorne and Hilgya Crystallode leapt to the defense of their fallen commander, the dwarven Crystallode attacking with her impressive maul while the porcupine-kinned Blackthorne tried to drag her fallen commanding officer behind the protective doors of the Church. After many attempts, the valliant Knight-Captain came to her feet, reciting a strange oath: 'I am a paladin of the Light. I will not fail in adversity. I will not let the weak to harm so long as my body has breath. I will not let the evil triumph over good. I am a paladin of the Light, I will destroy all enemies both foreign and domestic against the Light. I am a paladin of light!" This oath seemed to have invigorated many of the squires and knights, rallying while the Jester had been attacked by Lieutenant Crystallode to the head. The Dark Jester nearly destroyed the city before one of his followers talked him out of it. One thing remains for certain: the severed arm of the Knight-Captain has become a symbol for what happens to those who dissent against the Dark Jester's will, but it also serves as a beacon to those who want to oppose the Dark Jester.
- Update: 15th Chocobo, 1028 AH-- While out in exile with the rest of the Church Knight contingent, Perseipola was contacted by the spirit Carbuncle. A pact was formed rather quickly between the two and Carbuncle had taken Perseipola to the gates of the Holy City of Alexander, where she met the spirit, Guardian. Much talking had been had and it had been said by Guardian that in order to pact the city Alexander, Perseipola would need to move up through Alexander's spirit court, which meant starting with Guardian himself. A task was given to the Azerothian paladin, but what that is remains to be seen.
- Update: 11th Typhoon, 1028 AH-- After having pacted the Greater Spirit Carbuncle, Perseipola had been approached by the Esper, Ekess, to perform a pact. With the pact was the offer of protection for the simple price of a protection ring.
- After the attack of the Greater Spirits upon Highwind Point, Perseipola fell into a deep depression in her failure to keep the settlement and its Faithful from harm. The missing arm, along with the crippling depression, had led Knight General Cailet Ambrai to have her reassigned to a convelescent period. During this period of rest, many attempts to biocraft Perseipola's missing arm back into place were notably written off as failures, one researcher noting it akin to 'taping a brick to a ceiling of wet plaster'. Members of the Wolf Pack (Followers of Mako under the guise of being Holy Engineers) had designed a mechanical arm for the Church Knight powered by a magitech core in order for her to continue on her duties as a Church Knight. Physical wounds more or less healed, emotional turmoil remained.
Following the testing period for the mechanical arm for combat, Perseipola was reassigned to Santa Meringia under the command of Captain Ramdas Sachetan Pramath, just prior to the Valente uprising. Her service during this time had been rather lackluster, serving alongside Knight Hilgya Crystallode and Priest Uriel Highwind--former compatriots from Highwind Point. A brief romantic entanglement with Knight Crystallode ignited a minor scandal which has left Perseipola extremely reticent to speak upon.
Several months later, Perseipola had been running squires and knights through their daily exercises. A strange occurrence took place in which a portal opened up and she was pulled through, disappearing from Gaia. This brought her back to her homeland of Azeroth.
Nearly a year had passed, letting Perseipola reacclimate herself with her homeland as well as trying to forget the lingering cold from Gaia. Her left arm remained mechanical, needing a gnomish engineer to attend to it every so often while she refused to leave the warm forge fires of Ironforge. Until a Draenei messenger brought news that A'dal, Naaru of Shat'trath City, had requested her presence in an important matter regarding planar travel.
Upon arriving in Shattrath, A'dal had spoken to Perseipola regarding the matter of planar travel and returning to Gaia in order to warn them of a possible Burning Legion threat. When she refused to return, A'dal used compulsion to send her through the portal back to Gaia, and thus Santa Meringia.
She serves, once again, as Ramdas' second-in-command.
- Update: 16th Typhoon, 1033 AH: During a raid against undead underneath the Espera Abir's island, Perseipola broke ranks in order to attack a large Dracolich. The attempt, sad to say, had been botched and left the paladin cut ff from reenforcements. Eventually, she succumbed to wounds and her body was dragged back to the dracolich by a small horde of undead imps. Upon getting the body of Perseipola (her spirit still able to feel her body being moved around due to Gaia refusing her spirit), the dracolich shredded her body, ripping it limb from limb. This act of destruction and mutilation rallied Church Knights to destroy both the dracolich and the true Lich controlling it. Afterwards, Knight-Captain Ramdas Sachetan Pramath ordered everyone from the cave. He knew something they did not.
It is a grim chore, as the cave is sealed, and Ramdas is left alone with a rake, the bones and detritus of the decayed corpses of foes, and ... the shreds of Perseipola. His eyes darken, as he begins a grim, and sombre labour. Measuring twenty paces by forty. He begins with the bones. The largest bones, of the dragon; jaw broken part, the scraps of meat carefully pulled from between teeth, scraped from undead gullet. His eyes pained, and sad, the work silent, but for occasional grunts of strain. The dragon's skull pulled free, and dragged out of the zone; then claws checked, cleaned. A finger here. An eyeball, carefully cupped in his hands there, finally brings the first tears. The remains of her face, slowly, ghoulishly pieced together. A macabre jigsaw puzzle, with too many misshapen parts to identify. All that helps is that his foes were dead, and his friend was not; sorting the rotten and putrid from the merely dead. It is seven hours of labour; a breast lopped into place, the torn shirt carefully moved to cover it chastely. What scraps of her clothing remain intact, lovingly adjusted, giving her what dignity he may.
The pieces are quiet, of course. The dead do not speak their words of gratitude for even the smallest of dignities. But even then, there's the sense that the woman is grateful.
Only as the last of the eight hundred square paces is raked and clear, does he sink to sit, upon the dirt and stone of the cave; his cape spread out under the assembled parts of her. The tear tracks down his face have dried and wettened; their monsoons come and gone and come again; some mingling with her blood upon her face, as he hunches over her, to crane his head, and to touch his horn to the remains of her crown. Ramdas says, "Please." he whispers softly. And if it is plea to the All Father, or plea to her, or any fate that will intervene, he cares not. "_Please_." Let his labour, his tears, his moments of vomit when his gorge had turned over the moment where he'd had to cut half of her face out of an imp's stomach, let this not be in vain. Shaking fingers unscrew the vial; the tiny bits of dusted feather dropping down to her lips. "Please." he whispers again, tears afresh, a grieving sob half-choked between hope and desperation."
His horn touches to her crown; feeling... feeling for the soul that he knows, for the woman that is, in ways few who aren't in his position can understand, the woman whom is akin to a second wife; a second mother to his "children"; every life and soul that he is entrusted with. "Please."
The soul is there, quiet and scared beyond words. The flesh knits together as the powdered feather dust is sprinkled over her lips, a soft 'shushing' noise coming from the mangled parts as the body is put back together. The corpse's eyes are wide open and finally it ceases to be a corpse as the first breath is drawn...
...and it is soon followed by a blood-curdling scream as the pain settles into Perseipola's being.
Somehow those screams manage to articulate into words as the Knight-Lieutenant blindly reaches out, hand flailing even as the rest of her wounds knit themselves together in a grotesque patchwork that will leave innumerable scars. "All-Father! Why?! The pain!" Her body is at least not missing any parts due to Ramdas' careful efforts, and she feels some sensation of someone there to comfort her, but the pain doesn't stop. The screams start to wane,
And then there is light from his horn; but more, the touch of his soul, wrapping around hers, protective. Like a spiritual fetal position, that love within him wells up; the ocean before the great firey sun of the monster, the warm, healing waters. It is an intimacy beyond lovemaking; it is his very soul.
Like the tsunami they rise; flooding, as his arms gently draw her in. His prayer silent, but fervent; a silent plea for mercy for this woman, this perpetually hurt and frightened child within her.
And it comes; that mercy. Blissful white, within and without; flesh knitting, healing, pain blasted apart by bliss, by euphoria. The All Father is there, and he loves her, just as Ramdas does, and all those whose lives he guards. And when the light is gone; there is just the dim shadow of the cavern, and the light of the pendant, and the steady, quiet breathing, the awareness of him there for her.
She stares silently as her pain is shunted away, but its memory is a raw wound. The woman's head lilts to the side like a child's ragdoll. Her fingers feel around blindly for his, needing that comforting feeling of warm flesh. Slowly, very slowly, she opens her mouth to work her jaw again, and closes it again, unable to vocalize her thanks as she brings her eyes to his face. The heartache, both physical and spiritual, burns in her, but it's nothing compared to the Paragon's of having seen his comrade and friend ripped apart, then having to put her together.
"Ramdas..." she whispers, her voice dry and rasping like brittle leaves dragged across cobblestones.
His eyes meet hers, but there's no need; the touch of his soul, as always, so open, so whole. Tears again slip from his face, onto her cheeks; the gentle touch of the back of his fingers along her. There's to be no lecture this time. No rage. No anger. The cost is higher. The cost is his grief, his sadness, his helplessness. The effect of the grim toil upon his soul; his heartsickness. Shame. Not because he wills shame upon her; but because those eyes show that in this, forever, he has finally been forced to weigh her soul, against those wishes of his own heart.
"Once." he whispers. "I took a brave bella dancing... and duty called me away." His hand settling against her cheek, the gentle palm. "And I felt so shamed for that, for so long. Because I had to ask, so often... who would that bella have been, if I had stayed. Just a half-hour. Just enough." He draws a shaky breath. "But I am just a brother to her, a friend... I am never all those she's had to leave behind. I can never be. And vai, how she misses them so... so much..." a gesture of his free hand around the ruins of the undead. "... she cannot wish for anything but to rejoin them."
A shiver runs down Perseipola's newly pieced together spine, causing her to nuzzle the hand on her cheek for warmth. She stares toward the cavern walls, glassy-eyed. "...But those left behind ... wouldn't have s-sacrificed a p-part of their souls to help bring m-me b-back," she stutters. "They can burn in the Twisting Nether," she curses softly, letting her eyes drift slowly back to Ramdas' face. It's like a tiny little invisible chain has been severed, that want to go back home just simply gone after such a sacrifice made for her benefit. And an even heavier task falls upon her aside from warning of the Burning Legion: redemption and repayment to her brother and friend for madness endured to give her this gift.
He curls her in against him; pulling his cape around her gently, preserving for her what modesty he may, chin resting atop her head. "Some of them would have." he whispers. "Some did. Broken hearts in your wake, sorella, broken hearts and no few of them yours. So many doors, barred tight." A long swallow. "Tomorrow I will demote a lieutenant, or I will expell her from my regiment. And then I will go to La Cercio and I will find a poor soul to sob my heart out upon. And tell them I cut from the belly of a fiend, half of a beloved friend's face, that she might live."
Ramdas says, "I will tell them everything you know. How it feels to watch someone whose life is entrusted to you, die before your eyes. To feel that whole failure in every crevice of your soul. To mourn and grieve and know the guilt." he whispers. "That they died under your orders. That your shield and faith failed.""
Ramdas says, "And I will hope one day again that I meet the sorella I once knew, the brave bella at the dance; and that within her still beats the heart of a person."
Perseipola is very quiet, her breathing the only noise from her. Her heart hurts at his words, shoulders slumping as she's wrapped in the cape. Shaking fingers reach up to touch the new scars of where the bottom half of her face had been shredded and then reattached to her face. "If you must expel me from the Knights, I understand, Ramdas. I disobeyed, and it put everyone at risk," she whispers raspily. Her fingers trail down to the scars on her neck, disgust coming to her eyes as she feels all the scars. She knows she is covered in them--having felt every single rend and tear from the dragon on her 'dead' body. "I'm sorry, Ramdas." Her fingers move from her neck to the back of his hand, offering a gentle stroke to his hand and fingers, but she's far from being a comforting individual.
Ramdas says, "It will be your choice, tomorrow." he says softly. "Accept the demotion, or transfer out of the regiment. This regiment needs more than I leading it. But I cannot have you... not /this/ you... any longer. Maybe one day los bella at la danza will emerge from her doors again. That sorella, I would have as my lieutenant once more. The one that loved and cared more than she mourned. More than she wished upon herself the suffering." His voice so softly quiet. "
And then there is silence; for a long time. His horn dipping again, to touch her crown, to share simple, stark relief, from worry and grief, that she breathes again. "I am sorry for the scars." he finally whispers. "Your flesh is not as here; it heals badly by magic."
"Angel will make a good Lieutenant for you," Perseipola whispers, letting her eyes drop away from Ramdas's face. Slowly, shaking fingers reach up to touch the scars on the ruins of her face. "It has always healed badly by magic here." She gives a scant smile, the scars pulling it grotesquely into what could almost be seen as a sneer. Deep down, her emotions are a varied mix from confusion to relief at being alive once more, and anger for disobeying the orders to depression for failing to keep the dragon from casting and hurting those of her unit.
Ramdas says, "Vai. I won't be naming a replacement soon." he murmurs. "And Angel hasn't one one-hundredth of the field experience." His arms pick her up; wrapped as best he can around her weakened form by the cape, cradling her as a father would a daughter, and moving slowly towards the sealed entrance."
It's a mixture of loving sadness and fondness that sinks across his voice. "Vai. You are a troublesome woman, Persei."
Perseipola has no witty quip to counter with as she lays her head against his shoulder. Glassy eyes watch the cavern wall with only half a care as she is thoroughly drained, the woman's body resembling a patchwork quilt wrapped in a cape. She knows she's trouble, and a whole lot of it.
The late afternoon sun is jarring after the darkness of the cave for so long; Ramdas emerging out of the sealed entrance, to whatever mixed eyes might remain to witness. His dirt-marked face and hands, his clothing fouled by dust and blood, and Perseipola made so small, cradled in his arms. "Medic." he calls softly. "The Lieutenant needs soup. Mix chocobo blood in with it, and marrow. Her body needs nourishment."
The Lieutenant turns her face away from prying eyes, ashamed of the scars. She lacks the energy to argue, and simply lets Ramdas give the orders on nutrition for the injured woman.
Kharma is, quite clearly, taken aback. "By the three saint's sweet mercy," she breathes, and then shakes her head. "I'll get it myself." She turns, and walks off; or rather, runs, with a total lack of dignity, towards the nearest place that might possible have food of any sort.
Ramdas says, "And blankets." he calls after her. "Quickly now. Who's left at camp?""
Izolde was at the camp and looking fairly tired. Although one of the few who came out unscathed, she'd used up the vast supply of her mana pools in the fight. She had a cot to herself and sitting with her staff angled from the ground over a shoulder. She gives a mild yawn rather randomly
"I don't want them to see me," Perseipola mutters quietly, shame rolling off her. She hides behind clumpy and patchy hair that's drifted into her face, the woman trying to nuzzle close in the cape that's wrapped about her.
Ramdas gently pulls the cape tighter where he may. "I've sent for blankets." he says softly. "That's the best I can do for now." His chin carefully resting along her head, protecting her faces as best he can from prying eyes. He ducks into the first hospice tent he finds; settling Perseipola down, and turning to wait at the door for Kharma's return. Blocking the door, quite deliberately.
Kharma eventually does return. She carres a pair of robust woolen blankets slung over her shoulder, and in her hands, a steaming hot bowl of soup, complete with some chopped up bits of bone floating in it so the marrow may dissolve into the blood-tinged broth. "Here," breathes Kharma, breathless. "Soup.. and blankets, Paragon."
Ramdas accepts the bowl in one hand and the blankets in his other arm. "Send for clothes for her please, Kharma, and a veil, please." Pausing to meet her eyes. "She needs some time. We'll let her decide when she's ready for company, si?"
Izolde doesn't make a move when Ramdas is seen. Her ears heighten at the withdrawn woman he was carrying..but given his movements..she remains still, eyes lowering to her staff. Once he was past, she uses the rod to stand and turns towards the outer edges of the temporary settlement to leave.
Kharma nods her head. "Of course," she replies, still looking... well, surprised to say the least. She turns to go, and then looks back. Her eyes meet Ramdas', and she just... stares, for a moment, before she opens her mouth to utter a single word. "How?"
The door flap closing is the only response; and the sounds inside of Ramdas propping Perseipola up, covering her with the blankets, and feeding her weakened form. It would seem, some questions aren't to be answered.
The paragon emerges some time later; taking in a second bowl of soup and the clothing, and then leading Kharma gently away by the elbow. "Leave it be." he says evenly to her. "Now, I've to go find my squire."
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