Name: Mariana Santiago
Gender: Female
Appearance Age: 30
True Age: 320
Description: Mariana’s form is thin and tends towards the laziness of a predator at rest. Her skin is almost transparent with it’s paleness, giving her an overall fragile appearance. Her veins are most notable near her wrists, changing color from blue before feeding and deep, crimson red after feeding. Her eyes, a warm, chocolate-y brown before her transformation, are now empty pools of darkness, that suck all energy from anything that falls under her gaze. Her hair is perpetually shoulder length and jagged around the ends. Its shade is the same absence of color as her eyes.
History: Mariana Santiago grew up in a very common way, in a small village in Spain, circa 1696. Her father was a farmer and her mother a midwife. She was their only child. Happiness was the only thing that colored Mariana’s childhood. Her parents were not well off, but they were able to provide for their child well enough.
Mariana reached adulthood normal, if somewhat more independent than the typical woman of her upbringing and age. She had not taken a husband and was perfectly fine living with her family. Her father had reached an age in which he could no longer harvest the crops from his field, so the family sold the farm and moved closer to the nearest city, a place known for it’s dark side.
Mariana’s mother had also faded with age and had naturally entrusted her trade to her daughter. Mariana found her true calling in bringing babies into the world. It gave her such joy to see their beautiful faces, clean of any of the world’s shadows. She liked nothing more than to hold them in her arms and breath in their warm scent. Eventually, however, she would have to give them over to their mother. A longing for her own child started growing in Mariana’s heart, to the point that she finally conceded to take a husband. He was a sweet, if simple man, and was able to provide for both herself and her parents. Mariana stopped her midwife visits and instead focused on having a baby of her own.
Sadly, Mariana and her husband soon discovered that she was unable to conceive. This was a heavy blow to Mariana and she fell into a deep depression. Her husband grew angry and abusive, having grown cruel from the lack of children to carry on his family name. He called her a witch, claiming that she absorbed all his possible children and sent them to her master, the devil. Mariana was forced to leave her home, for fear of her life. Her family welcomed her with open arms back into their home. However, her husband was persistent and came with a group of men he had recruited to burn Mariana and her parents alive. Mariana was able to escape the house fire moments before it collapsed, trapping both of her parents inside. Mariana spent the next year of her life roaming from town to town, always feeling the need to run, never trusting anyone, always mourning the life that she knew that she deserved. She took to beggary and petty thievary to survive.
Mariana arrived in a small port town not long after her thirtieth birthday. She had been begging in one corner of a vast marketplace when, clear across the space, Mariana spotted the most beautiful young girl she had ever seen. The girl’s hair was as glossy as silk and as golden as the sun. She skipped freely, no guardian in sight. Eventually, she made her way over to Mariana and stopped at the sight of the once beautiful woman. The girl was saddened and asked Mariana to come with her. Her father was a man of great worth and would heal all her wounds and feed her an entire feast. Mariana was tired and the young girl was exactly the type of child she had pictured in her mind’s eye when she dreamed of the daughter she might have. So, she followed the child.
She was led all the way out of the city to an abandoned manor house. The sun had long since fallen under the horizon, and the moon shown eerily on the vines that snaked all over the house’s exterior. Mariana was cautious, but the child encouraged her onward, trapping her with the plea of having always wanted a mother like her. They entered the manor, climbed the cracked marble staircase and entered a parlor of sorts, a fire the disturbance to the cloying darkness. There was a tall armchair and from that armchair rose a tall, dark form, bright flashes of pale skin glimpsed at his throat and wrists. He approached Mariana cautiously, his hand outstretched to touch her face. She flinched only slightly, entranced by his perfect beauty. Yet, a part of her felt the underlying energy of a predator lying in wait. He introduced himself as Emilio and the girl as Valerie. He didn’t try to hide his strangeness from her, revealing his curse as a vampire, right off. He had been changed against his will, years before and only sought the peace that a family could bring. He had found Valerie dying of hunger outside of an orphanage that was unable to care for her. He wanted her to live a human life as long as she wished and only cared to be a guardian to her. However, Emilio was lonely in his life of blood soaked pain and sought a partner who had had their fill of a human life. Mariana felt her sadness reaching out to his own and knew immediately that this was the life that she had always known that she deserved, with Emilio as her partner and their beautiful human daughter, Valerie.
So, Mariana agreed to the transformation and joined Emilio and Valerie’s family. They spent the next few years as one, always living on the outskirts of cities and always traveling. However, the movement came from a place of wonder, not a place of fear or sadness. The world was massive and their small, strange family wanted to explore it.
Unfortunately, their movements were being tracked. A group of blood-lusting Shadowhunters had been following Emilio for years, having mistaken him for his maker as the author of a massive massacre in Portugal. They caught up to him, Mariana, and Valerie on a night they had ventured into the city to attend a festival. The Shadowhunters cornered the family in a dark ally and fought to kill both Mariana and Emilio, as well as to free Valerie. The girl screamed at them fruitlessly, telling them that this was her family. The screams burned Mariana’s ears and she fought back with a vengeance, killing two Shadowhunters. There were too many of them, though, and Emilio fell under their hands and Valerie was pulled away. Mariana’s heart was broken once again and she ran, her mind full of anguish.
She spent the next 168 years hidden in the manor house that Emilio had first revealed himself to her, only taking blood from the few people that would stubble upon the house. Mariana’s grief felt never ending, always washing over her anew. It never really left her really, but was just covered by a flash of fiery anger that would never burn out until she had ended all Shadowhunters. Though her years in hiding had driven her mostly insane, she quickly formed a plan to kill the current head of the London coven. And, once that was achieved, she would lie in wake for the moment in which she could strike out at the Nephilim and make them all pay for destroying her beautiful family.
Personality: Mariana’s personality is very erratic, tending towards fits of depression and rage. She is extremely cunning and analyzes every move made my herself and others with a predators deciding eye. She distrusts anyone whose motives aren’t immediately known. The only time her motherly affection returns is when her gang of followers finds her a forgotten orphan to coddle. She eventually tires of them and devours them, falling into a period of self-hatred afterwards. Despite her insanity, she is a competent and feared leader.
Likes: golden-haired children, music from a violin, silk
Dislikes: Nephilim, mention of her past
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