Guinevere Liona Trimboli

         Guinevere Liona Trimboli was born a princess in modern day Italy in 1490. She was the youngest of 5, but was still expected to have a great deal of influence. Her eldest brother, who would be king at the death of their father, adored her and often heeded her advice. Guinevere was also close to her two elder sisters, but the second sibling, Vespasiano, was less fond of Guinevere. He was a very sullen child, upset that he was born with power and wealth, but would not have it handed to him as his elder brother had. He would have to work for it. When Guinevere was 15, she noticed she was seeing less of her brother. Vespasiano seemed to spend the days sleeping, only to be awake all night and seemed so different. But, he had never wanted much of a relationship with her, so she never questioned it.

         About a year after his unusual change in character, Vespasiano left without a word. Guinevere’s eldest brother and parents searched for him, to no avail. After a few months, they gave up the search.

         Now, at the time of Vespasiano’s character change, Guinevere had begun courting suitors looking for someone compatible and with enough wealth to take care of her and their children. She was less than interested in the warty old men that came seeking her affections. At 19, at her parents’ request, she consented to a marriage to the son of an influential lord in their small kingdom. He was a perfect stranger to her, but she agreed nevertheless. Not long after her 20^th birthday, she set out to meet him and be married. Along the way, her carriage was attacked. Guinevere pulled the dagger she kept concealed beneath her skirts out, ready to defend herself. She would not go down without a fight. The door to the carriage opened, but she didn’t even have a chance to lift her blade before a command was issued and she lost all reason. She let the ornate dagger fall to the floor of the carriage and her body carried her out and after the stranger, though her mind screamed and begged for her legs to run the other way. It wasn’t until later she was even able to fully process the dozen guards that had been escorting her and their bodies, bleeding out in the dirt.

         She was led to an old cave where there were countless others waiting, including Vespasiano. She could feel tears run down her face at his betrayal. The spell dropped and she turned to run, only to find the exit blocked and a pair of strong arms grabbing her from behind. Guinevere screamed and cried and begged for her freedom, but she was too weak. She was locked into a cage, while her brother watched with an apathetic glare.

         Time passed. Guinevere couldn’t have begun to guess how much. Days. Weeks. Months. Years could have passed and she never would have known it. The strangers would leave her alone during the day, when feeble streams of light would leak in and dapple the floor, too far from her to even feel the warmth of the sunlight. She would doze off after the sunlight faded, only to be awoken by chanting and rituals, some around her cage, but most having nothing to do with her at all. She sometimes tried to ask for an explanation, but never received an answer. One night, Guinevere was awoken, not by chanting, but by the strangers dragging her from the cage and restraining her. Blindfolded, gagged, and helpless, she was made to kneel and listen helplessly at the chanting around her. She tried to calm her racing heart as she waited, knowing what was to come. She felt something prick the skin of her neck and felt her warm blood running down her skin and felt the world fade.

         She didn’t expect to wake up after that though. Her stomach ached and her head was spinning. She found herself back in her cage and a cup on the ground. She didn’t know what it was, but the smell was amazing, so she picked it up and emptied it in desperation. She blinked and looked around, only to meet her brother’s eyes.

         “Sister. You are awake. Good,” he said to her, his expression unreadable.

         “Ves, what is going on?! How am I still alive?!”

         “Naïve as always I see. You have been welcomed into our family.”

         “Welcomed into… Ves, we already are family. I don’t-“

         “Not that family. Weak. Impermanent. Ready to toss away anyone not useful. They cast me aside. And then they sold you to the highest bidder. We saved you. We will not abandon you as Mother and Father did. As our brother did.”

         “I chose to enter the marriage! I was not coerced or forced. I chose it!”

         “Well, then you made a poor decision, sister.”

         “Why am I here?”

         “In time, we will tell you. For now, however, it is time for you to return home.”

         “Home?”

         “Yes. You’ve been begging and crying like a child for months. If you are so desperate to leave, then we will not stop you. But I will offer you some advice, my dear sister. Do not allow the light of the day to touch you, or you will not live much longer.”

         Guinevere asked him what he meant by this, but Vespasiano simply rose and opened her cage. She hesitated, but only for a moment, before rising and rushing out and toward the entrance of the cave. Her entire body ached from being confined and mistreated. Her dress was soiled and torn so much she frequently tripped over it, but she did not stop running until she saw her family’s castle. She ran to the gates and begged for entrance, but the guards refused. Why would the let some filthy beggar girl to pester the king? Tired and upset, she decided to force her way through. The guards retaliated and she was arrested.

         Guinevere screamed for her father as she was dragged to the dungeons. She had only just been freed from captivity and she didn’t want to go back into another cage. But, if her father heard her, he didn’t answer.

         She spent a few days locked in the dungeons, wishing to see her family again. Wishing they would come down to visit. Instead of the family she wanted to see, she was visited by the family that had abducted her. Two strangers in cloaks came in the night and released her cell.

         “Come. We have a task for you,” they said to her.

         Guinevere let them lead her from the dungeons, but as soon as they were walking down the familiar corridors of the palace, she took off running. What happened next is a blur. She remembers running into her father and mother on their way to bed. She remembers a sweet smell, followed by a delectable taste, a scream, and more of that delicious taste. She remembers a horrified look on her eldest brother’s face and guards rushing to attack her. After that, she woke up in a small bed in a little cabin.

         She was told by one of the strangers from the cave that she attacked her parents and drank them dry. Her brother saw and attacked her. They only just managed to get away with her. She was given some space after this. No one really talked to her. She didn’t really move or talk herself. She drank when a glass was brought to her, but otherwise, rarely reacted to much. Her parents were dead by her hands. She wasn’t allowed much time to mourn though. After only a few days, Vespasiano arrived and scolded her for being weak and lamenting death, something natural and important in the life cycle of a mortal. It didn’t ease the pain, but it did snap her out of her stupor. He answered her questions, some truthfully and some vaguely (when she asked about who her sire was, he told her the entire clan was her family, so it didn’t matter who turned her).

         After that, she let the clan begin to teach her. She was given her dagger, the same one that she had lost when she had been kidnapped, and a second to match. She was trained with the daggers, and countless other weapons. As the years passed, she felt her attachment to the human world decrease. Until 1694.

         Guinevere, now going by Gwen, was on a mission to assassinate an influential member of the Inquisition. She killed without mercy, but was then forced to run and go into hiding after having missed a guard, who got away and reported her identity to his superiors. Gwen had to go into hiding until the matter was sorted. She took up residence in a small town in the northern Italy. She got a job as a the nighttime barmaid in a small tavern. It was a good place to hide out. She was given a room to herself in the basement, where she could happily sleep the day away, taking a little snack on travelers too drunk to find their rooms as she escorted them there. She didn’t totally hate it, until she noticed a young man come in every day. He would order one drink, then sit and watch her. After about a week, she confronted him, feeling uncomfortable about how he kept staring at her. He confessed that he had been struggling to find a way to ask her out. He introduced himself as Amatore de Benedictis. She was flattered by his interest in her, but turned him down. So he returned the next night and asked her out again.

         Amatore kept coming in and asked Gwen out, every evening, until she finally agreed to go out for an evening walk with him before her shift started the next night. He arrived, dressed up as nicely as a farmhand could and walked with her through the sleepy little hamlet. In truth, Gwen agreed to the date, hoping to appease him and end his interest, but instead, she found herself interested in him as well. They continued these little evening walks for two months, when Amatore asked her to marry him. Gwen turned him down, and left him kneeling by the little creek, and set to work at the tavern.

         “Why won’t you marry me?”

         His voice startled her, a mere hour later as she set a tankard of ale down on a table for a patron. She turned to face him, frowning.

         “Amatore, must we discuss this now?” she asked.

         “Yes,” he replied. “Why won’t you marry me? I like you. I know you like me.”

         “It isn’t as simple as that…”

         “Why not?”

         “What do you mean? Life is messy and complicated and I won’t be here forever. I can’t stay, and I can’t make you happy.”

         “You already make me happy. And whatever is calling you away, doesn’t need to take you away if you want to stay.”

         Gwen stared at him. She was angry that his words made sense and that his loving gaze melted her heart so. She sighed, gently took his hand, and led him down into the basement where her room was. There, she sat and told him her secret, her age. Everything. At first, he accused her of  lying, trying to scare him away so she could avoid her own feelings. But, when she showed him her fangs, he believed her. He turned and left without another word, and Gwen returned to work.

         She never expected to see Amatore again, but two weeks later, he returned to ask her to marry him once again. This time, Gwen couldn’t turn him away. They were married a week later, and she embraced him the same night. They got a little house together, ready to spend their unlives together for all of eternity. Two years after their marriage, one of the cultists arrived to inform Gwen that she could come out of hiding. She informed him that she wanted to leave. She had found happiness and nothing could change that for her. He said nothing, and left.

         About a month later, Amatore and Gwen were on their evening walk to the stream where her proposed the first time, when they were attacked. Knocked out, and taken away, Gwen awoke in a very familiar cage, her husband tied up on the floor just beyond the bars. She begged with the cultists to spare him, knowing they were not pleased with her turning someone without permission and particularly not happy she made an attachment. So, a bargain was struck. She would become blood bonded to one of them, and her husband would be allowed to live. She agreed.

She followed their rituals to the T for 3 days, until she was fully bonded to one of the cultists. She found her mind was hazy and yet very fixated on pleasing him. Perhaps that was why, while she felt her heart shatter, the rest of her felt nothing as she was made to watch her husband’s execution.

From then on, she was blood bonded to someone at all times. As the centuries passed, her receptiveness to the vitae increased until just one partaking in it was enough to forge a full bond. Around 1820, Gwen, now going by Vee, was bonded to a pack priest called Fyodor. He was new to the position, so she was there to help keep his subordinates in line and demonstrate the expected level of loyalty. She spent decades tied to him, until one day, she felt the bond fading. Her mind was still a haze, but she felt more like herself than she had since she had lost her Amatore. Every day, she tested the limits of her freedoms, allowing herself small rebellions and to dawdle when summoned. Eventually, she felt separated enough to make her escape, but she was instead faced with Fyodor.

He told her he had been allowing her more freedoms, to test her true loyalties and to see if she was ready to obey without needing to be forced. He expressed disappointment in her for failing the test, then commanded she partake in his vitae and reform the blood bond. Vee felt an internal battle. The bond demanded that she obey, but her heart begged her to run. She found herself incapable of taking either path, paralyzed by the internal fight, and so Fyodor’s vitae was forced down her throat, the bond reforged.

Vee was bonded to Fyodor through the rest of the 19^th century and most of the 20^th too. In 1983, Fyodor set out for the Americas, though Vee never learned why, and she was sent to work in France. She heard from her bonder that Fyodor died in the Battle of New York. Part of her felt bad, but most of her felt a vindictive pleasure in knowing one of her tormentors was gone forever. She continued to obey until 2021, when she and her bonder found themselves in a fight with members of the Camarilla. She survived, but he died and the bond shattered. Her mind was finally and fully her own for the first time in almost 400 years. She laid low for a few months, waiting for the Sabbat to believe she had died as well, before setting out for the Americas. She had heard rumors that the Sabbat had a limited hold their and decided that was her escape. She changed her name, and set out for New York City.