Stats

Personality

I don't talk about the thing that torments me. I'd rather not burden others with my curse.

Ideals

My spellbook is my legacy. I keep all my thoughts and discoveries in it.

Bonds

Knowledge is a right. It needs to be free.

Flaws

I am very averse to touch. I may startle at sudden movements. It takes a long time to earn my trust.

About

Vija, at first glance, looks like a... dead... person. With donkey's ears. Her hagsblood — er, hexblood, as she's learned it's more commonly called, gives her skin an anemic appearance and, for reasons unfathomable, gave her the longest ears of anyone in her home village. She is not too tall, nor too short, and skinny as a stick. She experiences the world through quiet study. If one were to look deep enough into her eyes, they might notice the bright red reflection of the fires that haunt her.

I'm being followed by the night sky

A bargain with a hag was never free, but Althea was certain she had locked down all possible loose ends in the deal she made with Baba Madara. Her child would be beautiful, blessed, kind and intelligent; her pregnancy, a breeze; her family, happy with her success. She sighed, at peace with herself and the world, and strode away from the gnarled oak tree and its squat, angry-looking hut.

The next nine months passed in a stream of glowing memories. The elder healer said it was one of the easiest pregnancies she'd ever seen, and Althea laughed, knowing it would stay that way until the day her baby was born. And that day, too, was wonderful! Her new daughter was rosy-cheeked, almost to the point of being pink, cried just the right amount, never fussed overnight, and was the envy of all her friends. "Ausma," she called her, "because you are the bright primrose dawn in my heart."

It stole away my sight

Five years later, as Ausma charmed the village with another of her beautifully written ballads, Althea sat with her partner, pleasantly muzzy from the elderberry wine they'd been passing back and forth all night. Ausma would be staying with a friend, and they both had a concept of the direction their night would take (and take it did.) They were far too busy to even notice the scraping of the tree branches against the walls of their house, tree branches grasping like hands, like talons...

Less than a month later, it was clear to Althea and every other being with a uterus that she was once more with child, but this time, it was quite a different story. She was stiff and sore, and got sick every morning. Her sleep was interrupted with terrible dreams, and her appetite failed. Not even lovely little Ausma's delight and good cheer could improve her mood. The night of the birth, a terrible storm came, and the trees moaned and cracked as Althea labored for hours and hours. The healers later said they weren't sure how she survived all the blood loss, but both she and the child lived. As they handed her the bundle, she squinted. The child's skin was grey like death, but it still breathed. She noticed something on its head, and rubbed at it, hoping to wear it off, until the baby howled in pain. Only then did she see it for what it was: the very faintest patch of oak bark, on each side of her baby's head. "Vija," she declared simply. "Vija... Tamm."
"You will not give your daughter your name?"
"No."

it seems I have lost my way

Eight years passed. Vija revealed herself to be a quite unremarkable child, not particularly talented in one way or another, but always ghosting along in her sister's shadow. It was clear to her that she had been unplanned, despite her mother's occasional efforts to not make her feel totally unwanted. As she sat, playing gently with a toad she'd found near her house, a soft voice spoke from somewhere in the trees:
"Child, dear child. Would you be a dear and come help an old woman?"
Obediently, Vija stood. "Where are you?"
"Just here, over here... This way..."
Vija followed the instructions until she found an old woman, her cloak tangled in the low branches of an oak tree. She reached for her hand, finding she had to step closer than she'd originally thought...

The old woman's hand closed over her wrist with impossible strength. She crowed victoriously, a wordless yell, and dragged Vija into the shadows of the forest at an inhuman run.

I need someone to be my guide

Within three days, Althea stopped looking. In six, she stopped calling. In nine, she'd stopped even pretending to cry, and the matter was settled. For her, at least.

Vija found her time in the haghouse dismal on a good day. She was no longer ignored, but instead worked to the bone from dawn until well past dusk. As she came into her magical talent, she was set to copying down spells until she couldn't hardly prestidigitate a witchlight. She was allowed no paper for herself, as she quickly found out. However, the hag's paper was rough, and her eyesight not that good; she never missed the finger-high strips that Vija secreted away in her socks. She learned to write in tiny, cramped handwriting, fitting spells into unimaginably small spaces, before secreting them away in the straw lining of her mattress.

Fear's only a choice

On the morning of her twenty-first birthday, Vija stood in the ashen ruins of the haghouse. She let her eyes linger on the white fragments in the ruin, and she felt the pain of the too-bright flames sear itself into her memory forever. She knew she'd made a mistake. She knew she should regret it. All she could feel, at the moment, was numb. Her fingers clenched around the strip of paper, rendering the word "Chromatic" nearly unreadable.

She had saved from the fire some supplies, her spell-strips, and a singular journal (which she intended to copy them into, to finally give them room to breathe and flourish, as all spells deserve) but not until she was miles and miles away from here.