Ellie's Biography

Name: Elise (Ellie) Blackrain

Age: 19 and has been for 349 years

Nationality: English - moved around a bit but kept her rather common British accent and sense of humour.

Personality: Fairly easy going (largely due to the weed she smokes), sarcastic and a born charmer. Ellie developed a liking for Marijuana in the 1960's and never stopped smoking as she found it helped to control her thirst and her quick temper.
Although she is generally pleasant enough despite her sarcasm, she can snap without warning and become vicious and bloodthirsty, however, most of the time she likes to charm the ladies and can even be a huge dork if it gets her what she wants.
She blends in well with the Humans with her easy-going nature but something about her tells you not to take anything too far or you will come off worse.


Born March 1st 1650 ~ Liverpool, England.
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During the times of pre-industrial Britain. Life was tough and short. Smuggling was rife, most of the imports were rum and cotton but tobacco had just made an appearance and was like gold dust in the streets causing all kinds of criminal activities.
Punishment for crimes was severe and hanging was common. The small city was still getting over the devastation of the great plague, and the poor lived on a basic diet of bread, gruel and vegetables, with meat on the menu only rarely.
The Blackrain family were working class, living in the slum backstreet terraces of Liverpool in a house they shared with two other families. Beth and William Blackrain were married with a newborn daughter, Elise.
They struggled but got by on Williams mere wages from the jobs he would pick up at factories that were beginning to spring up all over the city and the few coins Beth would earn doing someone’s cleaning or washing in the upmarket Doctors and Lawyers houses of the Rodney Street area.
Elise, named by her music-loving Father after the Beethoven work 'Fur Elise', was not schooled as she should be however one of the gentlemen from the family, who shared their house, was a teacher who had fallen on his luck and lost his job and he took joy in teaching the quick-minded girl as she grew up.

Elise was far from being the delicate rose of a girl her Father had expected her to be. She was brash and common and rather than mooning over frocks in the shop windows she would spend her days wandering the streets of Liverpool listening to the musicians out to make a few pennies or hanging around the house singing to herself or drawing with the charcoal from the fire, much to her Mothers fury on washing day.
Living in such conditions death was an everyday occurrence, some from disease, some took their own lives in desperation... some just disappeared, but life went on tragically and those missing were presumed dead or gone in search of a better life.
People were superstitious but no one ever put the disappearances down to anything supernatural, nobody ever thought anything more than 'stupidity' of the richly dressed pale looking upper-class that would walk through their streets at night, seemingly unaware of the danger they were in of being mugged or assaulted for their fineries.

Liverpool, England 1664.
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By 1664 Liverpool had grown, people from the surrounding farmlands had been put out of work by the growth of machinery and were coming to the cities in their droves to look for work.
Elise was old enough to make money and was herself doing what she could to help her family survive by stealing, pickpocketing and most other urchin tricks in the hope of bringing home something to eat or a new item of clothing that would be worn till it was threadbare.

By the age of fourteen she had her first job in a 'mild' distillery sweeping hops and the family were able to start eating a little better, although Elise hated the soul-destroying job and would leave as early as possible to go and sit on the cathedral hill to write poems and draw scenes of the city she loved to observe so much, but just as life usually goes as one thing looked up something came along to bring it down....

Elise's mother Beth became sick.
Mercifully the Typhoid was very quick to complete its work and Elise dealt with her Mothers death very well for her age, having come to learn death was an all too common way of life around the city slums.
Suddenly life became difficult again, they had no idea how much Beth's wages had contributed and without them, they were going down like a sinking ship. Elise carried on her job at the distillery but much to her father's dismay went back to her old ways of stealing now with much more vigour than before.

She was beginning to acquire the body of a young lady and though she favoured long pants over frocks she was still feminine and pretty enough to turn heads. Realizing this she used it to her full potential to mislead rich handsome young men, usually to an untimely end in a back alley or dark tavern. By the age of seventeen, she was a skilled assassin of sorts, able to bring home well enough for their rent and food.
Of course, the local police were becoming suspicious of the deaths but in such days of chivalry not once did they suspect a young girl of such terrible crimes, no, it was a ruthless gang of muggers they were after and they were sure of it.

Liverpool, England 1669 ~ Endings and Beginnings.
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The eyes that had watched Elise for so long glistened and a smile once again played across the face of he who had been watching her deadly deeds for so long. There was no way she could deny what she had done now, he had information on her to put her right where he wanted her and it would mean a big promotion at the station.
She had two choices ...death....or prison followed by death and he was ready to make his move but he needed to watch her just a little longer, gain a little more evidence that would stick.

Such a shame that such a pretty girl would have to die, he had been watching her so long he had even started to like her...... felt like maybe he understood her ....maybe even loved her a little, her murderous activities almost intrigued him and he felt a kind of admiration for her boldness, yes he definitely had affection for the girl with the ivory skin and raven black hair.

He watched her as she manoeuvred the young man's body to the edge of the alley and dropped a sack of refuse over him, using his shirt to wipe clean her hands before shoving it into her pocket along with his jewellery and cash.
Once again a smile crossed his lips, she was his obsession, dressed in her tomboy clothes she looked as sweet and pretty a girl he had ever seen in a frock, yet he knew inside she was filled with a poison as deadly as snake venom.
Deep in his thoughts, he laughed to himself and she stopped, looking around nervously. He pulled back into the shadows and knew it was time to put an end to this before she fled but just for one more minute he watched the rise and fall of her chest, her pale smooth skin which would be paler still when he had clasped her shoulder and blown his police whistle .....he appraised his perfect beauty, her long midnight black hair falling over her shoulders and sighed, stepping out from the shadows to meet her emerald green eyes with his own ....

Elise fell back against the rubbish bins with shock shaking her head in disbelief which made her obsidian tresses shine in the streetlight. He paused, feeling like he was losing a most precious jewel, but he knew what he had to do, he opened his mouth and brought his police whistle to his lips.

Elise screamed as the policeman slumped to the floor and the woman behind him wiped the blood off a silver clawed ring that adorned her finger, on a handkerchief.
"Hush your mouth silly girl" she spoke "do you wish for another to come running I can't stand here killing policeman all night you know! Its a highly inefficient use of time considering I prefer not to drink from men....all those whiskers and facial hair urgh! now if we had female police then maybe..." She was cut off by Elise's mind and mouth coming back to reality.

"Who the hell are you? how did you know I was here? are you crazy? you killed a policeman!" The woman laughed and stared wide-eyed at Elise's torrent of questions.
"number one young lady ... it is very rude to fire questions at people in that manner, number two you should be thanking me for saving you from prison and probably hanging"
Elise swallowed hard, she was correct of course, on both counts but Elise never cared about manners and acting ladylike, it was point two that struck home.
"Shit...Yes.." she stammered "of course, um ...thank you"

The woman lifted her skirts and stepped over the body bleeding in the alley "that’s more like it " she crooned reaching out to brush Elise's hair off her face "such a pretty thing....we couldn’t have had you swinging from the gallows could we"
Elise simply shook her head slowly, stunned, and the woman, who was extremely nonplussed for saying she had just murdered an officer of the law, began fussing around the girl as if she were her Mother, dusting off her clothes wiping speckles of blood spray from Elise's cheeks with her hanky and twisting up Elise's hair into a comb.
"There!" she exclaimed once finished "now let us get out of here we have lots to talk about.

Before Elise had even time to reply, the woman had taken her arms and there was an overwhelming rush of air. Elise felt suddenly sick as if she were spinning on a fairground ride yet she wasn’t moving at all, she shut her eyes till the air became still again. They were in a room in what looked to be a public house.
"Oh! I'm so sorry sweetheart, I should have told you to shut your eyes that can be a bit unnerving the first few times"
Elise was aware that she, for probably the first time ever, couldn’t talk, she had so many questions but not one of them would leave her lips.

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To choose between death... and death may seem like an unfair proposition to most and Nightshade was aware that it wasn't one that many mortals would relish....but then Elise wasn't just any mortal.

She had watched her for so long now, how she grew and how her relationship with her father had deteriorated to little more than an untrusting friendship.
She was sure the girl was ready and besides in a few months, she would be twenty years old surely it would be more of an attractive offer to the girl to be a flawless teenager for the rest of eternity than a flawless twenty-something?
Nightshade herself had been just 19 when she had been turned and when she thought on it she was glad she had been so young - it would have been hell to have been stuck in time with the face of a hag!

Nightshade looked at the dumbfounded girl and smiled her sweetest smile before starting to explain to the girl who she was and what she wanted. As she had come to expect from her observations of Elise, the girl took all the fantastic truths and seemed to be considering their plausibility and long into the night they talked, Elise becoming so at ease that even after only a few hours they were chatting like old friends.

Nightshade had been 99% truthful and the girl had taken all the information in her stride which, if Nightshade hadn’t known better would have been surprising to her as not many people were prepared to accept talk of vampires and curses.
However, 99% truth is not 100% ...there was one thing that Nightshade didn’t want to share and that was the fact that if Elise turned down her offer now that the truth was out, she would have to die anyway to ensure Nightshades secret was safe. Nightshade hoped it wouldn't come to that.

So after many hours of talk, to a thoroughly intrigued Elise, the question was put - would she carry on her tragic life until she got caught and hung or died of some hideous disease? or would she die now in this room and be reborn ever beautiful, ever young, above the laws of the land and immortal?
Nightshade made no mention of the fact that whichever she chose, she would not be leaving this room alive... yet as she suspected she didn’t have to. Elise made the decision quickly and selfishly and Nightshade drank deeply that night.

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Elise awoke from a long dream, or a nightmare, she wasn’t sure which.
Nightshade was by her side as she sat up her new eyes adjusting to the darkness with ease her whole body vibrating, yet the stillness in her chest overwhelming.
Nightshade's words were flowing over her ....something about 'much to learn' and 'responsibility to her kind' but the thirst was all she could think about, all she could feel. The woman stopped talking and watched her, Elise smiled as she looked over her surroundings with an expression of awe then Nightshade broke the silence once more "my poor dazed daughter" she crooned "are you hungry my sweet? come... I have a gift for you"
She led her by the arm into the next room and closed the door.... the muffled screams stopping as quickly as they started...

London, England. 1918 ~ From here to eternity.
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