Personality

Snarky and sassy, Lovo has a hard time around people, and it shows. Harsh and sometimes cruel, she uses her business acumen and cunning to craft deals that mostly benefit her and her sister. Indeed, her deals are downright predatory, seeking to harm those that do not give her and her sister the proper respect they are due as witches. She is irreverent towards those in power, and asocial, preferring to be left alone except when gold is needed, or when a particular outsider catches her eye. 

However, there is a kinder side to her, one rarely seen by anyone but her daughter and her plants. Towards them, she is kind and caring, maternal in all the ways that matter. Calm, and capable of performing many tasks, she is loyal to her family and her home, and resentful and spiteful towards any who would take her from them. 

(148)

History 

CW: Stillbirths, severe birth defects, murder, suicide

The line of Medved witches travels far into the past, into time immemorial. For as long as the Jungle has been occupied, there have been witches living in a swamp at its center. They were kind to those who respected them, but wrathful to those who harmed them. Once upon a time, it was a multi-family affair, practically a Clan in and of itself. They were isolated, yes, and preferred their own company over that of any newcomers, but they were kind, if a bit standoffish. 

No one knows when or why the witches turned cruel. Some say it was due to a deal gone wrong, where outsiders took more than their fair share and hurt those living there. Others say it was due to an Order raid, where young ones from the witches' coven were taken by force to Namarast, kept there forever and denied their heritage. A few say that it was due to personal choice- that a past leader of the coven decided for herself that the outsiders were not to be trusted, and closed them off from all but the most worthy petitioners for aid- and implemented a steep, unfair price for their help. 

No matter how it happened, the coven closed itself off, and were cruel to the wrong person. Their name and face has been lost to history, but the curse they placed on the coven was felt for many years after- that there shall always be two coven members. No more, no less. 

The coven's descent began slowly. Children born just after the curse settled on them were stillborn or so heavily deformed that they could not survive. Disease came and wiped out half of their population in three days, a coven of a hundred or more down to only fifty or so members. Whispers in the trees, they say, drove others to madness, leading them to slay kith and kin before being burned on the pyres themselves. Others, so afraid of what was happening to their once vibrant community, decided to end it all before they were killed in gruesome fashion. 

It took only a year for the coven to fall, leaving only the former leader, Celestyna, her wife, and the babe she carried. Celestyna, once a powerful leader of a powerful coven, had fallen. Her wife, Elizabet, remained by her side, trying to support the woman who had been so much, and was now so little. They had nothing left, nothing but ashes and dust, but still they carried on, mourning the fact that their babe would no doubt be born dead- for they would be the two that survived. 

But that was not what fate had in store. The babe within Celestyna grew, and was born a few months later, as healthy as can be- and upon her first cry, Elizabet collapsed to the ground, dead instantly. Celestyna mourned, screamed and vented her rage at the powers that be. They could not do this- could not steal her wife from her, could not leave her alone to raise this child. She was nothing without her wife- nothing!

Her cries fell upon deaf ears. The curse was complete- only two remained. That was all that would ever remain of their coven. Through tears, Celestyna named her daughter the name that Elizabet had wanted, Gosia, and pledged herself to live only for this child. 

For a while, Celestyna and her daughter, Gosia, lived together in calm. The daughter learned the mother's craft, and while the mother mourned what had been lost, she cared for her daughter. They lived alone in the swamp, lashing out at any who dared visit them. But the curse would continue on- for Gosia met a charming young man, who loved her once and then left her. Once was all it took- soon after, she found herself pregnant. Knowing of the curse, and of what her mother went through, she decided that she wanted none of it. The coven would die with her, so she took the appropriate measures to end the pregnancy. 

However, it didn't take. The curse would not be stopped. Although she hated the child for what it would steal from her, she found that she could not bring herself to try to remove it again. The daughter told her mother, and though there was rage and anger there, it was stirred on by sorrow and regret, but also relief. Finally, Celestyna would be at peace with her wife, though she mourned leaving her daughter alone to face what she had once. 

And, as expected, the curse struck again. As soon as Gosia's daughter cried her first sounds into the world, Celestyna died, struck down by the gods above in favor of the child. 

On and on it continued. The mother would raise the daughter, who would be practically entranced by a charming stranger. They would find themselves pregnant, get a few months to learn what they could and spend time with their mother, only for their mother to die as soon as the child screamed their arrival into the world. Though there were those who were trans or nonbinary among the line, as was expected, the curse did not care. They would carry, birth, and raise a child, and then end up dead. 

And so it continued, on to Lovorka. Her mother, Malina, raised her, teaching her of their crafts and helping her to hone her magic. She met a handsome stranger whose face and name she can no longer recall, and bore and birthed her daughter, Fenrir. She knows that, any day now, Fenrir, too, will meet a charming stranger and, against all better judgement, lay with them, and the cycle will continue. 

It has been so long in this that there is no more memory of the coven that once was- this was how it has always been, a curse hanging over their heads from a past none of them can remember. There is no breaking this curse. It will remain forever, punishing them for deeds so far removed from them that they should not matter- so why try to fight it?

(1020)