Calista stares, stunned and open-mouthed as Robyn relates her story. It is a tale of woe and tragedy and rising above all odds, of loss and heartbreak and revenge, and something in it stirs Calista's poet's soul. It is awful, but beautiful, like all good stories, and she commits the image of Robyn sitting and telling her tale to memory, focussing on each sound and sight and scent and vision until she is certain that it is indelibly burned into her mind. As Robyn talks, Calista lets the spell lapse, not wanting to distract. It is quickened now, a permanent expression of mana, and Robyn can borrow Calista's eyes whenever they are nearby, but Calista releases her grip on the spell so that Robyn may call and dismiss it as she chooses.
When Robyn is finished, Calista blinks and shivers, coming out of the reverie that Robyn's skillful tale-telling had induced. "Robyn...I..." Mutely she stands, walking over to stand behind the older woman and leaning down, her breasts pressing into Robyn's shoulders as she wraps her arms around her lover and kisses the top of her head gently, then the small scar on her temple. "Thank you for trusting me." She offers simply, still at something of a loss for words. "I don't know how I could possibly follow that," Calista admits after a moment, "But if you want to hear my story, I'll tell it."
Calista sits again in the sunlight, the overcast sky lightening her features and bringing out the nightshade-purple in her otherwise black hair. She glances out the window, then looks at Robyn's confused expression and explains, "I have a working that holds my allergy to sunlight at bay. Were I to lose it, I would burst into flames just as the legends say, but right now I am perfectly safe." She pauses for a moment, then adds, "The spell is still there. You may borrow my eyes at your leisure with an effort of will. Just concentrate on how it felt when I first essayed the working upon you, and it should come. It is no trouble, and is in fact semi-permanent. As long as we are within ninety meters of one another, you may jump into my head as you please."
Calista sighs, and her eyes take on a faraway look. "I was born in New Monaco in twenty fifty-three." She starts. "My mother was a Vicomtesse from Nantes and my father was one of the Auvergne research scientists working for Saeder-Krupp. Both elves, both good people, both devoted from what I can find about them." Her voice takes on a dreamy quality. "I was their first child. They had been trying for over a year. They'd seen every clinic, mage, houngan, witch, research facility, and shaman in France by then. Everyone said the same thing: my mother would never have a child. A side effect of The Mist in Bretagne, or so I understand. They could have tubed the child, I suppose, but my mother wanted to carry me herself. So they came here, to The House of Flowers seeking a miracle." She gestures at herself. "Clearly, the house obliged them."
Calista settles back, steepling her fingers and Robyn can tell she's no longer entirely there. "The House somehow managed to overcome whatever was keeping my mother barren, but in doing so, they meddled a bit themselves. My genetics are like a jigsaw puzzle. I was born healthy, but my immune system was shot to hell, I had all manner of problems within six months of being born, and because of my unique construction none of the normal clinics could help me. So back to London they came, and the House turned them away. I was too high maintenance, they said. I could be helped, I had to be cared for on a constant basis by the people who created me in the first place, or I would die." She laughs bitterly. "My parents loved me too much for that, so they handed me over to the House. I'm sure promises were made that I would be returned or that they could come and see me or something to that effect, but I don't know."
Calista's dreamy tone gives way to one of bitter misery. "For the first few years of my life, I was a science experiment, tweaked and altered and poked and prodded, a test bed for the flesh shapers as they put something in and took others out. They crafted how I would grow, what I would sound like, how I would look. Then, when they had the perfect little dryad all queued up, they took me to market and sold me, like investing in futures." She shudders violently. "I was seven when Melissa bought me. By the time I was nine, I could throw a lightning bolt or summon a Mari-Morgan. By thirteen, I could speak seven languages and remember everything said across a crowded room. Melissa's methods were effective."
Calista's fingers curl, her nails digging into the arms of the chair and she stares out the window at the sun, as if willing it to burn the memories away. "Melissa went very much for the negative reinforcement. She would cut me with a filleting knife, burn me with a hot iron, beat me with a thin steel rod or scourge me with barbed wire. And that's if she was merciful. When she wasn't she would rape my mind with her magics or else bind my power and throw me to the torturers and sadists of Valerian House. I've been physically hurt, abused, and used every way a person can be, Robyn. If not for Melissa's incredible magics, I would be nothing but scars and twisted bones." Calista shakes her head. "But I learned. Pain is a powerful motivator, and when I succeeded, there was pleasure. Pain, too, but muted by physical delights or drugs."
"At sixteen, Melissa began whoring me out. I'd been trained as a courtesan by then, but also as an observer, a sorceress, and a spy. I can sell ice to an elemental, so using me as a social cat's-paw made perfect sense. I've been doing it ever since." Calista shrugs. "Melissa is scarier than anything else I've ever faced, and she is relentless and ruthless. I'm only alive because I am still useful, so no matter what she does and what she asks of me, I'll do it. She's that bad. No matter the contract or the client, I go. I can find a way to survive any assignation she can send me on, but I don't know if I can survive her, even as a Banshee."
Calista considers for a moment, then continues, "I was infected with HMHVV a year ago. See, Valerian House has some two hundred adepts, mostly children and young people like me. I was Melissa's, so I had almost no freedom at all, but other adepts are not as restricted. One of them, a boy named Marko and I became friends. He was sixteen and blind, like you. I used to read to him. That's how I learned to mimic other sounds, so I could do the voices and sound effects in books for him." She smiles, remembering reading Le Morte D'Arthur to him for the first time, and how much he enjoyed her rendition of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight. Then the smile dies as she says, "He disappeared, taken off the street. Its London Below, these things happen, but he and I were close, brother and sister almost. I begged and begged for Melissa to let me look for him. She...tested my resolve with a silver spike, and I took it because I knew there was no other way to find him."
Calista's voice is sad now, heavy and quiet, and her eyes are sparkling with tears. "I found him alright. He'd been attacked by some thugs in Knight's Bridge and left to die. He'd crawled for help to the only place he could reach, to House Laesal, the House of Flowers." Her eyes narrow. "They gave it. A dying subject, willing to pay any price and renounce his house and the ward of protection that came with it? They couldn't have been more pleased. They took him and they twisted him into an abomination, a misshapen and awful thing with nothing but lust and rage and hunger that should have been dead but wasn't because it was infected with HMHVV and it could regenerate. I tried to get through to him and he...he..." Calista starts to cry, giving voice to a single wracking sob and then a number of smaller, silent heaves. "When he was done...with me...he drained the life out of me and the House sent my body back to Melissa. I guess they didn't expect me to wake up again."
She looks up at Robyn. "So there you have it." She says, her voice curiously flat. "The whole sad story of how I went from a tiny child to a strung out, fearful vampire whore." Her lips twitch into a bitter half-smile. "Still want me around?"
