So who am I? Honestly I am uncertain, here is what I do know.
I was born in Italy and awakened at birth. Italy is a place where magic is celebrated rather than feared and as one touched by god, my life were dedicated to the faith, to the state to the needs of the faithful. So I learned, and sung and was happy with my share. I showed early potential and could summon spirits at a very young age. These spirits were like friends to me and happily did even the most menial of tasks like playing or singing with me, reading me stories and so forth.
My early childhood was happy, but I was dedicated to the church my parents gave me away at a young age. This was I believe the first betrayal and most fundamental of them all, I lost contact of my parents and of my twin sister and as most of my memories are blurry, and some were manipulated I do not know to differentiate truth from fiction these days. Another question is who exactly manipulated my memories - which I suspect that it was myself. The thing is, I was considerably more powerful when I was younger and I excelled even among other awakened. I was top of my class and was accepted to the most prestigious program a young flower can ever aspire to - ‘special training’ these people actually do the will of the Church. They are the best of the best - and myself as a young prodigy passed in flying colors.
This is when my life turned upside down, special training taught me to be calculated. It taught me to be cruel and to follow orders blindly even when these orders were opposed to my inner conscious, to my own sense of right and wrong - even when they were explicitly forbidden by the same teachings I hold sacred. If this was not hard enough, I was born as an elf in a place of prejudice where the circumstances of my superior power were always questioned.
People feared me, hated me, adored me but deep down they believed that I came down from a demonic bloodline, that my power was unholy in nature.
The thing is, these beliefs were not entirely fabricated. My spirit did not manifest as the will of saints or as minor angles. They manifested as red daemons as sexy naked ladies and men. They had horns and other demonic features and they behaved in the most absinthe manner. In addition, the spirits I could summon were not all part of the Christian tradition, leading people to question - who was it that taught me magic.
Well, my real magical mentor was an arch daemon called Agrat Bat Mahalat. A daemon that every ancient text that mentioned her claimed to be a necessary evil at best and absolute evil at worst. Agrat was as old as the world itself. Agrat is the entity that introduced etiquette, diplomacy and dancing to the world. Her mother, Mhalat is the force of nature behind music. She introduced the first people to music and the emotions it raises. If I tell the story from Catholic eyes, Agrat introduced depict and intrigue to the world she taught early humans how to lie and manipulate. Her mother introduced music and religious rituals involving mass orgies and excessive drinkings both have led countless of good people to their doom, to hell seducing them to stray away from the way of the righteous.
You see every story has two sides yes and every villain thinks that he is a decent guy. The thing is, special training was really assassin training and my mentor Agrat was pacifist who believed in free choice. She believed that eternity is found in a single moment of lust and not in longevity and felt completely at ease to lie, manipulate and mock me when I did not do her bidding. She helped me protect myself from external influences. She helped me respond to the manipulations done with chaos and discord. At the time that my fellow priests grew in obvious magical power Agrat taught me to seduce, to inspire and indeed this was what I did. I slept with everyone of the priests in my age group despite their vows of chastity. Eventually I became more trouble than I was worth considering that my once impressive magical abilities begun lagging behind the rest and the numerous scandals I caused I was let go. Sent to Seattle where I was promised to be left alone as long as I never contact my family.
In Seattle I thrived, instead of a priest I became a prostitute a darn good one. Capable of sensing people's mind and understanding their inner desire. I could fulfill fantasies that people never knew they had. That they could never say out loudly and pleasuring all these people made Agrat happy and helped me progress within the art. I quickly improved and learned numerous spells. In fact I learned more in a year of freedom than I did in a lifetime of captivity.
Things were not as good between me and Agrat, her desire was too much for a mere mortal. I was beginning to develop drug abuse and I knew that if I fall there will be no one to pick up my pieces. So I did the most difficult thing I have ever done, I turned my back on Agrat - on the arch daemon. This is when things became interesting, I left Agrat but she did not leave me we continued as rivals, as friends - as lovers. No longer teacher and student but equals - as equal as a mortal mage can ever be with an immortal daemon as old as time.
Then came my first romantic love, Shilla schmidt a middle aged german woman that was one of my clients. She seduced me and gained intel on who I was until she learned my secret - the one thing that would make the Church kill me - my sexual scandals. Using this leverage she made me do illegal things for her. Well - usually the goal was noble but the means to that goal were illegal.
Sounds familiar ? These were the exact same claims of the priests I struggled so much to free myself from. We kill people - but these are enemies of the Church - dangerous to the faith - Daemons in human skin.
With all my magical powers I was nothing but a pawn to be played by smarter, richer and more powerful people and my own will was bent to that of these people. Well, one thing led to another and there was this infiltration job at the Stardust - a club that sold an illegal drug, a drug that killed people and perhaps made them magically active go figure. I honestly did not care much for the details at the time - I fell in love with a cold - calculated russian assassin. Everything else was minor - we got the evidences we needed, I freaked out a couple of times and eventually made progress in finding my bravery from within and understanding that magic is rare in the general public and not everyone are powerful mages like in my youth.
Then came the another betrayal the most fresh so far. She asked me to join her in a crusade to kill, to murder. Sure the people she wanted dead were all scum, they deserved to die - but where would one draw the line? We also killed people trying to close down the stardust - I helped tossing a jeep toward the ocean. Are their life less important than these of the stardust’s victims? Who are we to judge?
What would jesus do in that situation?
Well, I wanted to come with her - but I was not allowed to leave Seattle. I faked my own death, cutting ties with everyone I knew and resurfaced in eastern europe in a new skin, new name and frankly new personality. Faking your own death is a giant step - it changes you - takes away the innocence that once was and replace it with cynicism and critique.
So I helped Yelena, the assassin I fell in love with do her did, hunt her past. While I was at it I decided to kill her old mentor as well. Nikolai’s blood is the first one on my hands. Guess what, assassin training did teach me something. I discovered the horrifying truth that I am no pacifist at all - I am rather comfortable with death, with suffering with pleasure. I am a sociopath - in retrospect it makes sense how could I not know that right?
I mean I was trained as assassin since the age of five - why did I ever think that I could live a normal life? That I could trust people and love them and share my life with them. Whats next? Well, just because I can kill a man and then move on like nothing happened does not mean that I should start a homicidal campaign. I no longer believe in Christianity, there is no place for God in a world with monsters like Nikolai. What I do believe in? Freedom, my own freedom - these priests think they own me that because they raised me than I should do what they tell me to do.
I don’t - I want to free myself of these people and mend what is broken in my personality. Perhaps one day I will trust someone and love for real. As for Yelena? Well I loved her she loved me and then I did not tell her that I was faking my death. I broke her heart and her emotions are nothing like mine, for me this whole thing was cold and technical - for her it was personal. I guess understanding other people is going to be challenging with me being something else entirely. I think she hates me now, I doubt that she will ever forgive me for the grief I caused her when I used her to advance my agenda.
Guess what? I know no better - everyone used me. Including that Yelena - after all why did we kill Tsina and Nikolai?
