OC introduction | Edel Therese Sephine Caldecott | 1756 - 1779
—
tw: deaths, mentions of violence, familial abandonment.
—
A young lamb laid curled up by the wolf, peacefully asleep, even if blood drips from the maw and canines abovehead. No other cur would dare approach. —How could they? —When they could risk a similar fate as the detached head which rolled not too far from where they stood?
—
as per usual for my ac stuff, a few ocs are from @onyxkis ! like beth and marin rothechild. do check their stuff out, a lot of edel's story is highly intertwined with beth's.
———
OVERVIEW
Born in London, Great Britain—June 1756—Edel was born to Therese Caldecott (nee Levesque). A child born in the midst of mourning— mourning for her father’s passing, whom she never once saw. Her father, Lloyd Hadyn Caldecott, had passed from a carriage accident the day before.
Therese was born in Marseille, France; a Frenchwoman with Gaul blood in her. Lloyd was an aristocrat with deep Scottish heritage in him. Both were raised under the Templar influence, though neither were devout participants of the ideology or methods of the Order. The Caldecott family was well-known to have aided the Order financially, but Lloyd himself had begun withholding his family’s fortunes, skeptical of the methodologies deployed by more active Templars.
Suspected of being a ‘traitor’, the Charpentier family (one of the most influential and powerful families of the Order throughout Western European history) and its patriarch, Pierre Charpentier, had ordered for Lloyd’s death. And that fate befell on the day before the young newlyweds’ child was born.
———
i. | BEGINNINGS | THERESE
Edel’s childhood was one of isolation. An ironic twist of fate, considering how her mother was raised under Marin Rothechild (“Sloth”).
In the years following Lloyd’s death, Therese steadily declined. Her cries of anguish filled the house (the very house she witnessed her guardian die in), alongside the sounds of ceramic and fine china breaking. Maids rarely stayed working in the house for long, for they could not stand their mad mistress’ hysterical ramblings and sobs and drastic shifts in her personality. Therese had planned a life of loving and familial warmth with Lloyd and their child, so close to finally achieving what she so yearned for, yet it was ripped from her once again.
Grief and guilt were unkind to Therese, yet even more so to Edel.
A father’s daughter, cursed to harbor the disdain towards him on her back. O young child, weep not. For she will not hear your cries, as he had not heard hers.
Young Edel, who knew nothing, only watched—huddled to her nursemaid, staring at the odd woman she was to call her mother who rejected her entirely. Young Edel, in her small age and petite body, would cry in hopes of gaining her mother’s attention. Tug at her dress, hoping the now limp woman would pay her some attention. Make a mess in the garden, in hopes she would scold her. Catch a cold, in hopes she would fuss over her.
Yet, Therese knew, the kindest thing she could do to her poor daughter was to distance herself away. She could not bear the idea of hurting her daughter, even if her distance emotionally scarred Edel.
In 1760, when Edel turned 4, unable to trust herself with the sheer load of guilt plaguing her, Therese chose to part with her daughter, sending her away to the care of a close associate, Daniel Raul Hillton. She turned her back to her daughter’s cries and begs, refusing to once look back while Daniel gently ushered Edel away.
———
ii. | CHILDHOOD | DANIEL
Daniel knew the Levesque siblings well. After all, he sired Antonio after the latter ran away from the grasps of the French Templar Order, though regrettably, he could not arrange for Therese to meet with her long-lost brother (under Antonio’s wishes) or let Therese know he once knew Antonio.
He was close associates with Lloyd who had been growing disillusioned with his family’s longstanding faith. Until Lloyd’s passing, that was. Through Lloyd, he came to know Therese, and saw in her another child who was ruined by the Seven in the Order. After Lloyd’s death, he had worked very closely with the Caldecott-Rothechild estate’s maids in order to ensure the running of the house and the caretaking of Therese’s daughter.
To Edel, he was not a foreign presence. He was like a godfather to her, or an uncle, or grandfather. And now, he became her adoptive father.
Daniel himself was once an assistant associate under Reginald Birch, though immediately distanced himself upon realising what Birch had done to Edward Kenway’s family. Since then, he became a devout assassin, and soon rose the ranks to becoming a master assassin. Following in his late lover’s wishes, he had been a privateer and merchant, sailing to and from Britain for his business whilst working with various Brotherhoods to curb the influence of the Order.
And now he took a young girl as his ward, as his daughter. He absolutely doted on her, alongside his quartermaster, Jackson Black, acting like her uncle.
Edel soon opened up to Daniel with his fatherly warmth and patience, and he soon came to realise the bubbly inner world the girl had hidden behind the tumultuous household she was raised in until then. She was curious and merry, with her eyes as bright and blue as the oceans he sailed across.. Through the crew upon Daniel’s ship, The Ambassador, Edel became fluent in the likes of Gaelic vulgarities and sailor speak.
Daniel never once allowed Edel to call him ‘father’ or the like. He called himself Edel’s father, guardian, paternal figure—but never once did he allow Edel to call him that title. In his mind, he may adore the young girl as his own, but always made sure she knew the names of her biological parents, even if Edel grew up to reject them. Instead, she called him “Terry”, after mistaking him for a different crewmate, and having the wrong name stuck. The crew affectionately called her “Daky”, after she misspelled the nickname “Delly” as “Daky” while practicing her letters.
With The Ambassador and Daniel, Edel grew up learning her letters and Gaelic (properly; not just the cuss words), while sailing around South Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa and the West Indies. To her, she had long denounced her mother, and embraced the ship as her family and life. She was raised on the sea, and adored every second on the ship. At different ports, she relished in exploring different cultures with her guardian, or learning how to fight with her uncles. She also learned how to pickpocket from Jackson, even if Daniel disapproved of it. Though Daniel was her main teacher in marksmanship and swordsmanship, her uncles all taught her snippets of how to fight in more casual settings. She also enjoyed exploring islands, from which her agility improved greatly.
Edel adored Daniel. To her, he was her father, her family.
The issues arose when Daniel brought the ship to the ports of Boston in December 1769.
It was supposed to be a supply trip to aid the Brotherhood stationed in Boston. It was not even the first time The Ambassador had docked in the American colonies. They were supposed to move to Nassau and the rest of the West Indies to make a loop, before returning to Portugal to rest there for a few months.
Yet, the day before they departed, when the ship was quiet with just the two talking about the ship’s logistics, two figures approached the docked ship at the port.
He was the first to notice them. And Daniel’s face turned pale, before he quickly ushered Edel to climb towards the crow’s nest.
The young girl had barely just reached the top, when the two entered the ship. She didn’t get a good glance, nor did she have the time to, before there was a gunshot that rang out.
“I do not remember his last words, and forever that is a guilt I shall bear till I lay in my grave. All I remember was his kind smile and the warm crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He would always smile. Perhaps that was his sin, being far too kind.”
In December 1769, Edel witnessed Daniel’s death.
Lying there, frozen stiff with fear and shock, unable to move as she watched the two leave the ship. Only once she saw them leave did she rush down. Bleeding all over the upper decks was Daniel, with the blood seeping through the wooden planks, as she clutched onto him, too afraid to cry out in fear they would return for her.
———
iii. | ADOLESCENCE | BROTHERHOOD
News of Daniel’s death unnerved the crew. It wasn’t long until Edel realised that many men she once knew to be respectable sailors all fled away (some further inland, some out of the port and seeking other ships). What she knew to be a family had disbanded almost overnight, leaving just her and Jackson alone.
The two buried Daniel at the outskirts of Boston, only for her to learn of Jackson hoping to sell the ship. Crying out about their safety, and how she should not be associated with him lest the Templars, Jackson chased her away, forcing her to scramble out into the city of Boston in the dead of night, forcing her to abandon everything she had known and leaving her to fend for herself.
And so the lass ran. Chest marked with the clench and ache of loss and anger towards the unknown, she just ran.
In the large city, where she knew no one, Edel began her life as a street urchin. She lived off scraps, pickpocketing, attempting to associate with other street urchins and children that roamed the street.
She was soon spotted by a mercenary leader, Glenn Kirk, after she was found attempting to steal from the latter’s tavern. It was then she, at last, was given access to proper food and shelter and clothes, after Glenn took pity on the young girl. It was also around then she was introduced to the group of other adolescent children who loitered around street gangs and other orphaned children. She began tucking her hair under hats, in order to seem more like a boy as well.
Her orphanhood. For Edel, the revelation sunk in then.
Still, during her time with the other street urchins, Edel proved herself useful in better-than-average combat and agility. She slowly gained new allies, even if their activities consisted of mostly breaking-and-entering, theft, vandalism, etc. To her, it was survival, and if what the gang did helped feed her, how could she complain?
She began slipping away from Glenn’s gaze, growing bold in her endeavours. Edel was still starving and meals were seldom regular, but through her life on the streets, she caught whispers of news regarding the fallen Brotherhood. It was the start of her growing obsession to find the fallen links.
And, in early 1771, the gang of street urchins was caught whilst trespassing, marking Edel’s first direct encounter with the Order.
For a few months prior, they had been messing around with packages that operated under the noses of authorities (essentially items on the black market). Unbeknownst to the teenagers—of course, they were just reckless youths—they were toying with Thomas Hickey’s items. Upon capture, Hickey assumed they were young lackeys for lingering assassins. Feeling a need to tie all ‘loose ends’ of the Brotherhood’s fall in 1763, his men were ordered to dispose of the teenagers. They were just street urchins after all.
Only Edel escaped.
After days of starvation and assault from his men, she escaped. Running through the woods, with hounds hot on her trail, body covered in bruises and injuries. Finally she found a farmhouse outside of Boston, which she hid in the barn. Her aching body was found on top of the stack of hay in the morning by the elderly couple who owned the barn, who took her pitiful state in. Covered in blood and dirt, her old clothes—clothes she wore since Daniel’s death—were ill-fitting, and her hair was all matted with filth.
She spent a month recovering in the farmhouse. Weaving in and out for consciousness for the first week, a fever had wracked her body, her breaking out in cold sweat and shivers while the old woman, Mrs Crombe, took care of her. They bathed and fed her, and insisted she had little reason to pay them back. Through the delirious fever and fear from such an ordeal, she spent a few months adjusting to the quiet farmhouse life, and not jumping at every sound and movement. It was also during her stay with the Crombes that she sought the companionship of one of the foxes that visited the barn regularly, which soon grew to trust Edel and follow her around. She named it Wilde.
If Edel had the gnawing desire to find the remaining bits of the Brotherhood before, then during this time it became a full-blown obsession. The moment she could stand, she tried to set out to seek the Davenport homestead in Massachusetts. The Crombes gave her their horse, some clothes and food for her journey (which she vowed to repay later on). Wilde followed her on her journey, and proved to be a constant companion from then on.
In 1772, upon reaching the Davenport homestead, Edel was initially met with expected hostility. But once she told Achilles the name Levesque (her uncle’s name, Antonio, as Daniel had told her), the old man hesitated but took her in. It was from there she learned of the history of the Brotherhood and the Order in the Colonial Americas, and also when she began planning her plan to avenge Daniel.
For if the sun breeds maggots in a dead dog. She sees the sinews of the cheek; the urge to claw and tug and string him like an instrument is a slippery slop. For they all lack the gall to confront a grieving girl in the midst of her vengeful vindication.
And in 1772, she was inducted into the Colonial Brotherhood.
———
iv. | COMING-OF-AGE | ORDER
In 1772, she returned to Boston, where it all started. Yet, unlike in 1769, she had an agenda.
To start, she sought out Elizabeth White. A high-ranking Templar official. Who better to aim for, than someone the Grandmaster himself trusted?
The tragedy of Edel Caldecott was the choice she made to follow in her late uncle’s footsteps. The moment she left the Davenport manner to seek Achilles Davenport, she marked out her fate to end in nothing but her own death. Which she wholly accepted, for she had nothing to lose, after all.
Her first step was to try to persuade Elizabeth to allow Edel to work as an errand girl, or a messenger. Much to surprise, Elizabeth, or Beth, needed little persuasion before she took the girl in. It wasn’t long until Edel started work, though Beth began mentoring the girl personally herself upon noticing Edel’s patchy swordsmanship. Around the same time, Edel reunited with Glenn Kirk as well. She became acquainted with the likes of Haytham Kenway and Henry Charpentier (son of Pierre Charpentier, the assassin hunter who had ordered for her uncle’s death, unbeknownst to her).
In 1772, she was inducted into the Order, as a mentee under Elizabeth. Edel’s role in the Order grew quickly, due to her association with Beth. She was fed better under Beth’s tutelage, she was clothed and given shelter, alongside Wilde. All the while, she began her private investigation as to Daniel’s death and how to aid the Brotherhood as subtle as she could.
In the later half of 1773, she finally encountered Connor. She knew of him from months of correspondence with Achilles, but Connor had little knowledge of her other than when he saw her with the Order. Naturally, he distrusted her even after knowing she was an Assassin. Still, she started working with him, though discreetly, in order to hide the fact of her double role. It took him a while to get used to her, and for them to begin working together as a duo.
Around the same time, she began working with the orphanage in Boston during her spare time, teaching children how to read and write, staging self-written play performances. All in hopes that the children could have a silver of better future and not fall into the pitfalls she did when Daniel passed.
Throughout her time with both the Brotherhood and the Order, Edel worked with Connor often to help mend the Davenport homestead and regrow its community in hopes of bringing the Brotherhood back to its glory days. Beth and Haytham knew little of their relationship, other than that they knew each other’s faces. Edel took care to ensure her tracks were all covered. She wasn’t one to leave loose ends untied, unlike Hickey, whom she sought some degree of pleasure knowing the man who killed her peers back then died to Connor’s hands.
Beyond her close relationships with Beth and Haytham, she started to grow acquainted with Henry Charpentier. To her, through his facade, she was reminded of Daniel, ultimately leading her to consider him a friend. It was also during then when her investigation was beginning, and when Charpentier started planting seeds of doubt in her mind about Haytham’s leadership. Hints of how Antonio Levesque died, hints of how The Ambassador was sold and utilised by the Order under the Grandmaster’s ruling. Because, unbeknownst to her, Charpentier’s ambitions went beyond being an assassin hunter. His intentions were similar to his father’s; gain control of an influential figure in the Order to utilize them as his puppet and gain leadership in the colonies.
Yet it came to light, and she started learning the truth. The truth that it was through Charpentier’s orders that her uncle had died, that Daniel’s presence in Boston was known in 1769 and thus was killed when they docked here. The truth that Charpentier was responsible for her late adoptive father’s death, and how Haytham and Beth were the two people she saw aboard The Ambassador. In late 1775, her campaign turned against Charpentier, despite his attempts to weaponise the new young member for his own gains.
In 1776, she hunted down Charpentier. Blinded by rage, she was unable to kill him, but the job was finished by Beth executing Charpentier afterwards.
The thought that his infectious, curdled blood taints her wounds fills her with a shudder. The taste of blood and vengeance so sweet, so saccharine with the promise of forsaken catharsis, she shudders like a starved dog who's caught whiff of a butcher's cut. Perhaps not even the stray dogs would lick upon the worm's mangled flesh nor offals nor the veloute of his blood; not even the region kites would seek to fatten themselves with him.
Beyond Charpentier’s death, she continued with her ‘plan’, though it began growing ambiguous. From 1772 to 1776 she had grown close to Beth, until she started seeing her as a mother figure. What was a joke of calling Beth ‘mama’ soon became a regular occurrence. Beth held her as she cried bitter tears of anger and grief after Charpentier’s death, and fulfilled the revenge she so wished to carry out. Beth became the one person in her life who embraced her parental ties with Edel, and unofficially adopted the young girl as her own ward.
Her control of her circumstances started fraying. With Haytham working with his son in capturing Benjamin Church, the extended duration of time spent with Connor, Haytham and Beth all aware of each other began putting a strain on her role as a mole for the assassins. Still, she continued supporting the Brotherhood and Connor, aiding him and joining his side whenever her duties allowed her. It was also around then that guilt cemented itself on her conscience, a fate shared by her uncle in the later years of his life.
It was during 1777 when she received a letter from Therese, who came to learn of her daughter’s survival and location in America. Through her letter, Edel learned of Therese’s remarriage to James Lawrence (an aristocrat within the Templar Order) and how she gave birth to Edel’s half-sister. She burned the letter.
In 1778, she was travelling back from Monmouth alongside Connor when she came to know that Jackson was invited to the Davenport homestead, as Daniel’s old crew. When Edel confronted Jackson, he fell onto his knees, begging for forgiveness which she did not give (she could not, how was she to trust and forgive a man who had abandoned her when she needed him the most?). It took a few months for her to finally open up to him once more, and she learned of his advanced tuberculosis. Edel sat by his bedside on the day he passed. Upon returning back to Beth and Haytham, she wept over the loss of the final connection she had to Daniel.
In 1779, aged 23, she began getting tangled further with the revolutionary war. Whilst on a mission with Connor, she was caught between a crossfire.
On 19 December 1779, Edel died of her wounds, bleeding out in Connor’s arms.
Daniel’s grave was relocated to a cemetery in Boston. She was buried next to Daniel, as per her wishes.
———
ADDITIONAL NOTES
-> Inspiration for Edel are Brave (2012), Amicia de Rune from A Plague’s Tale: Innocence and A Plague’s Tale: Requiem. As well as Hamlet. - The themes of daughterhood and being a child-of-war are things very prevalent in Edel’s story. -> Edel’s symbolism deals with buttercups (flower), lambs, foxes, guardian angels, the ocean. - Wilde, her pet fox, dies a few months after her. -> Elizabeth plays the role of Edel’s ‘guardian angel’ and mother. -> Edel wears her late uncle’s black coat and hidden blade after being taken in by Elizabeth. - She is made known of this fact after Haytham finds her wearing it. -> Elizabeth and Haytham are made known of the fact of her double agent role posthumously. Despite her concerns, they harbored little to no resentment towards her.
———
fin. | do not plagarise, steal, modify or translate my works without my explicit permission.
