Personality

Missy never really learned to smile, unless she was being praised for doing her work well. Her resting face is bored to snide, a sneer easy to call up in moments. She enjoys keeping up this façade of "you matter less than nothing at all," though internally she frequently slips. There are many things she cares about, and most of those center around Antioch. He was the one who found her when she was young, when she helped to rescue him. He was the first person she used magic on. He was raised a prince, likely to become a king (though not of a bordered country). He is her light, her life, her hope, her reason. She loves him absolutely, with her entire heart, and has little other love to spare, and in other times some might call her a priestess to the god he can become. This love is purely platonic, though one may not believe it by the way she drapes herself across him.

Due to her age and magic, chipping away pieces of her morality and sanity, she is colder, harder, and incredibly more lethal than she was a hundred years ago. Her master might not even recognize her anymore. (203)

History

Born Dominique Pereira, though she doesn't remember a time when she responded to that name. The people who gave it to her, who tied her to them by it... they don't exist. They never seemed to before, and they definitely don't anymore. She lived in a time of little, or so it seemed, though there were many who had more and a few who had much. When you have little, though, all you see is the little to go around. Dominque was tossed out, just another mouth to feed, and fell in with a band of homeless children. She was quiet, but quick to fight, using anything sharp that she could reach. She learned to pick pockets, but her favorite thing to do was hide by the bladesmith and take anything that looked like a knife (usually garbage, but beggars and choosers). She loved watching her talk, often to herself (the bladesmith likely knew Missy was there), naming her creations in a singsong voice. The children called her "Nikki", which she hated, but she wouldn't speak up to tell them she didn't like it - she'd just strike. Names, however, are important, and the fact that no one picked up on the fact that she was primarily scuffling because of use of "her" name didn't even cross their mind.

She - along with many of the other urchins - were collected by a "well meaning individual," who was "just trying to make the world a safer place for the children (and the rich folk) who wanted to walk about town." They were pitted against one another, and she spoke even less. The children were pitted against each other, promises of more and better things if they "chose" to win. Missy didn't see much reason - the adults would lie again, nothing was going to change - but the children taunted her, called her soft for being able to fight on the streets but unwilling to here. And so she did, and she moved up, higher and higher, the fights turning more and more violent and real as time went on. They stopped fighting for boredom or over scraps, and instead it started to mean something.

And suddenly the children were dying of something other than hunger.

There was a child who was treated differently. It was never supposed to be obvious, but his clothes were just that much better, his face that much fuller. She was to fight him, and he called her Nikki, and she saw red. She sliced him with one of her stolen "knives", looked down on him, and said, "That is not my name," before realizing who it was that she'd made bleed. She blanched, covered the wound with her hand, and healed him, the first time she'd even used magic. He looked at her, eyes lacking horror, and responded, "Oh? Then what is your name?" She balked and went to pull away, but he held her hands, just enough pressure to let her know that he was there. "Misericorde," she finally responded, trying the word she'd learned from the bladesmith on her tongue for the first time. He smiled, "That sounds like a very sharp name. I like it." She blushed, though she didn't need him to like it or like her, but he did not rat her out her magic, did not call attention to the fact that she had damaged the heir in an unanswered strike. And she almost didn't notice that a piece of her felt like it was missing.

They were as inseparable as she could possibly choose after that, following him, watching him, protecting him. If he was heir, if he was to rule this place next... she wanted to be close to him, to have his power at her back so that she'd never go back to the streets. It started out as a selfish desire, but her devotion to him grew as he laid bare who he was and did not lie about the man he was becoming.

She felt only pride when he left Siregal to her.

Cirocco had watched her, however. Watched her grow in power, but, more importantly, watched her grow close to his son. He tried to seduce her, undermine her, charm her away from Antioch, but she did not listen, would not see what he was doing. He was not her lord, her master, her one-and-only, and he did not matter. Her perfect devotion and lack of self-awareness would mark her fall from grace. Antioch's father began to write to her, imitating Antioch's words and flourishes imperfectly. Missy did not believe them at first, but when no other letters came (Cirocco was interfering with any letters she may actually be getting, she began to crave any sort of interaction with the man she'd turned into her drug. The letters mentioned how well she was doing at her post, but they started to insinuate that it wasn't the best use of her talents. After all, anyone could run a country's underbelly - but not many could claim her assassin skill. There were people who she was needed for, but only if she would leave her place. It was okay, it was alright, there was a nobody who was good for nothing but this - she had a higher purpose. The fact that this "nobody" was a puppet for the old "king," well. Missy was clever - she never claimed to be smart.

So she left her posting and traveled to a small kingdom named Inannys, far and farther away. She was to watch, to wait, to seduce, to suffocate. The letters mentioned that this was to become a country where Antioch would finally be laid out on a true throne, the world able to see his might and glory and worship as she worshipped. She wouldn't hear from Antioch there, of course - the letters could fall into the wrong hands, jeopardizing the mission, and it was only after she knew every nook and cranny and person of influence that she could contact him. It took her several years, but eventually she knew all there was to know. She began her letter, excited to finally hear from Antioch again, when she realized... what if she went a step farther? He was far away - she could find him a crown with the information she'd gathered.

Misericorde ended up in jail.

How? No one really knows, no one speaks about, but she did, her knives - gifts from Antioch before he'd left - stripped from her and gambled away. She was in there for years, alone, slowly going mad as she was forced to heal herself. Her jailers came every once in a while, just long enough to check that she was still living. She would ask the year, and they would answer, and she would become confused. Why was she alive? How was she still living? It didn't make sense, not really, but she could feel that something was still missing. Something didn't want to let her die, not yet.

In the years since healing Antioch, she had learned more of her craft, understood the pieces of soul that she would use to heal another's life. She'd learned that these pieces came back when the healed one died, and she was sure to kill everyone that she healed. Except for one. Except for one.

Eventually, she was freed from the prison tower, rescued not by a knight in shining armor or her Antioch in glittering black, but by a revolution. The kingdom of Inannys had fallen, and the prisoners were to pledge allegiance to the new order or be banished from the country. She chose to leave, weary of her time spent away, and still confused as to why Antioch was still living. She listened for whispers of him, words spoken softly in the undercurrents of time. He hadn't found his crown, but somehow... he was still living. She heard that he was still in Ivras, and so she followed his trail to a country she'd never been before, a question on her lips.

Why had he sent her away, and why had he never come to find her? (1353)

Animancy