OC questions: 1. What was Mairsil's initial reaction to becoming a vampire? 2. Why did she turn Brandon? 3. What was her human life like? 4. Did Brandon kill anyone he knew when he was a human after he became a vampire? Did Mairsil? 5. What kind of houses (or what have you) do Mairsil and Brandon live in?
I love these questions!! Ive been working for a while on an OC questionnaire / ask meme specifically for vampire OCs and a lot of these are similar to ones I wanted to put on it. Some of these I’m going to go over or explain more deeply too when I finally write out their back stories / current storylines and post them.
but I loooove these questions and I’m going to answer them in a few parts so that I don’t make one really really long post
1. What was Mairsil’s initial reaction to becoming a vampire? Mairsil willingly became a vampire so it wasn’t really a surprise to her. She was actually very happy to become a vampire and have a stronger body and the potential for immortality. She was much more zealous about killing in the early period after being turned which had a lot of repercussions for her.
2. Why did she turn Brandon?because he was dying.
Mairsil meets Brandon when she is living in the woods in northern England about 1,000 years after she was turned. Brandon was commanding a royal army sent to suppress a peasant uprising and he and his troops were camping in the woods, which were host to a number of supernatural beings and rumored even among his troops as being “haunted”.
Initially Mairsil attacked Brandon thinking to drink his blood but he turned the tables on her by attacking her with silver weapons and took her as his prisoner. Mairsil escaped briefly after being taken back to his camp but before getting to exact revenge on him, the encampment is attacked by a small coven of other vampires who also live in the woods (known by but unaffiliated with Mairsil) which distracts them from their fight.
Mairsil, being older than the vampires in the attacking coven suppresses their attack and dominates the eldest of their group in a brief battle and verbally lays claim to the royal troops and Brandon himself as her prey and untouchable. The attacking coven vampires leave but warns that their maker, the coven leader, an older vampire who had not come with them, might consider her actions a declaration of war.
Mairsil then agrees to assist Brandon and his army with their suppression of the local uprising because he and his troops will not survive in the area by themselves. Brandon is left with no choice but to accept her help but is wary that she will extract a greater price than her help is worth at some point. This begins their uneasy alliance which often consisted of trying to gain leverage against one another. For example, Brandon refused to give up any of his silver weapons and made himself the only liaison with Mairsil- not wanting any of his men to fall under her thrall (which is how she’d initially escaped) and often in the first days of their alliance had her blindfolded or bound in silver before he’d be alone with her. Mairsil convinced a very reluctant Brandon that in exchange for her help and sparing his troops and to better coordinate with him during battle, that he allow her to drink his blood routinely which would not turn him but would form a temporary psychic bond between them and sate her appetite.
While the relationship is initially very suspicious and competitive, with each vying for dominance over the other, eventually with time spent working together towards common goals and fighting common enemies together, their antagonism toward each other dissolves into a camaraderie built on deep (if not unspoken) mutual respect and friendship.
After knowing each other for several months they are still competitive and disparaging of one another but mostly in jest. In a decisive battle the two are fighitng separately and Brandon is mortally wounded. Because of the psychic bond they share from Mairsil drinking his blood, Mairsil feels his pain and cries out in agony, fleeing her battle post and going to his side. Because he is on the verge of death Mairsil asks his permission to turn him into a vampire which he gives.
(sorry this is so long I went into their entire origin story bye)
