(Gugu Mbatha-Raw/2655/Female+She/Her) ALDORA LADON has been in Eden Ros for ONE YEAR, and is from LESBOS, GREECE. They are 2655 YEARS OLD and work at THE DRAGON'S HOARD as its OWNER. Rumor has it, they’re a VAMPIRE associated with ALBEDO. They are CHARISMATIC and COMPASSIONATE, but also STUBBORN and OVERLY SENTIMENTAL. (doodle/30/PST/SA, Eye gore, pregnancy trauma, suicide)
Introduction:
Name: Aldora Ladon Age: 2655 Pronouns: She/Her Species: Vampire Faction: Albedo Occupation: Owner of The Dragon's Hoard Hometown: Lesbos Greece Sexuality: Sapphic Relationship Status: Single
TW: Death, grief, terminal illness, murder, war and historical persecution (WWII/Nazi Germany), cult-like behavior, trauma, survivor's guilt
dividers by @uzmacchiato
It’s been so long now that you don’t remember much of the time before the change. You remember the smell of the olive groves. You remember the way the waters were so much clearer then. Most of all, you remember her. The way she wove violets into your hair. The way the muses themselves seemed to have blessed her poems and songs. You could never forget her, even if you wanted to. History wouldn’t allow it. Even though her poems exist only in fragments now. The once-nameless love you shared with her now bears her name—empowering women similar to you everywhere. Violets are still your favorite. You always have them somewhere in your home.
It’s hard to remember, but you know the first century was the hardest. You missed the feeling of the sun on your skin. You struggled at first to keep yourself properly fed. But you adjusted. You learned. The hardest part, though, was the goodbyes. The clearest memory is of the woman who was your sister in all but blood. She was smart. She was curious. She loved you unconditionally. It was strange seeing your dearest friend wrinkle and grey without you. The only one who stayed after the change. You had offered her eternity together a few times. She declined each time. Instead, she simply asked you to remember her and to care for her descendants. You agreed without hesitation. You were the one to place the coins on her eyes for the ferryman. In your mind, she is as eternal as you are, for you carry her memory. You carry one of her perónē with you as a memento.
The decades begin to blur. As do the centuries. You have an eternity, after all, so you take your time. You explore. You travel. You watch as empires rise and fall. Sometimes you’re in the thick of it among the countrymen. Sometimes you are deep in the remote and untouched places of the world, and when you return, civilization is vastly different than when you left it. The very air had shifted at one point in a way you couldn’t quite place. You think nothing of it, though. Everything is a cycle. There is never a shortage of things to learn. You carry many small mementos of each human lifespan you've lived.
You keep your promise to the best of your ability. Sometimes time slips away from you. But you always find your way back to them, even as they have traveled far from your homeland. They kept records of you. They gave their children middle names that honored their origins for you. They spoke of you like a revered guardian spirit. But the line is close to ending. You linger this time, protecting them more directly. What would later become known as the Renaissance has begun. The newest descendant is named Orpheus, for you. He is smart. He is curious. You love him unconditionally. You see so much of your friend in him—the one you made the promise to. He has such a bright future, one you intend to see him through.
Orpheus falls ill. His life is going to end before it even has the chance to truly begin. You can help him. You can save him. You can’t bear to lose him. You can’t bear to lose the last connection to your friend. You offer him eternity. He accepts. The tears you shed are both to mourn the life he should have had and of relief. You give him your blood and hold his hand when the sickness takes him. You make sure you are the first thing he sees when he reawakens. You promise him that he will never truly be alone.
Centuries pass again. There were growing pains at first, but you and Orpheus have fallen into a rhythm. You re-enter the world together time and time again as siblings. It's natural at this point, like there was never a time that Orpheus was not your precious younger brother. He loses track of time more easily than you do. His curiosity leads him away at times. Sometimes for a few years. Sometimes for a decade. But he always writes. He always comes back. And the two of you exchange the most wonderful stories of your experiences while you were apart.
One spring, during one of Orpheus's longer wanderings, you meet a young woman who reminds you of him. She is clever. Ambitious. Bright in a way that draws people toward her like moths to a flame. By the time the sickness takes hold of her, you already love her like a daughter. When she accepts your offer of eternity, you find yourself holding her hand through death just as you once held Orpheus's.
For a time, you are happy. You laugh together. You build lives together. Then the cracks begin to show. She embraces immortality with a hunger that unsettles you. She turns mortals freely. Surrounds herself with devoted followers. Encourages them to do the same. What begins as a family becomes a congregation. What becomes a congregation slowly becomes something else. You try to reason with her. You try to remind her of compassion. Of restraint. Of responsibility. You tell yourself there is still time. There is always time. Until one night you are forced to accept a truth more painful than any stake or sunlight: you love her, and she has become a monster.
You cannot bring yourself to do what must be done. So you ask Orpheus for help. Together, you remove your heart. You leave it in his keeping and swear you will reclaim it when the task is finished. Heartless, you hunt your fledgling across countries and decades. You end her. Then you keep going. Her fledglings. Their fledglings. Every branch of the tree you planted. Every trace of the cycle you started. You tell yourself you are preventing future suffering. You tell yourself you are being thorough. In truth, there is simply nothing left inside you to tell you when to stop. Orpheus is forced to stop you himself. Forced to return your heart despite your protests. When your emotions come rushing back, the horror nearly drowns you. There are survivors. There will always be survivors. Some undoubtedly hate you. Some may still hunt you. You do not blame them. You never remove your heart again. Some cycles must be broken, you learn. Even the ones you began yourself.
You notice the world seems to be changing faster and faster now. What once took fifty years to change now shifts in ten or less. Industrialization is starting to sweep through civilization at an almost alarming rate. After a longer-than-usual withdrawal, you come back to find out that almost the entire world had been at war—and was about to be again. You witness the early signs. You witness the first book burning in 1933. You will not be a passive observer this time. You ache that so much of your own original culture had been lost to time. You aren’t going to stand by and let others be forcibly erased.
You aren’t on the front lines, but you work in the shadows. You end up aiding the MFAA, or Monuments Men, as they would later be called, at every opportunity you can. It's while you're on your way to what you suspect is a hidden cache that you meet Emory. You have never met a woman so thoroughly exasperating. You almost consider using compulsion on her to get her to sit still long enough to let you apply first aid—almost. A stern grip on her chin and a stubborn look work well enough that you don't have to. The air is thick with a different kind of tension—but it is not the time or place for such things. You let her go, fairly sure you won’t see her again, even as she stubbornly lingers in your memory.
The war eventually ends. The war has changed you in ways you didn’t expect. You find yourself not only keeping mementos and memories of your own experiences, but now drawn to objects that seem to hold stories and memories in general. Even broken or misshapen things. Sometimes especially the broken or misshapen things. Your collection is growing. Rapidly.
Orpheus is not handling the aftermath of war well. He tells you he needs to be alone for a little while to heal. You of course let him go. You’ve been around long enough to recognize the ghosts lingering in his mind—shell shock, as they’re calling it now. He promises to write to check in once in a while. You believe him. You will miss him, as always. But you love him too much to not let him go.
Six years pass. You don’t hear very much from Orpheus, but that isn’t too out of the ordinary. He has wandered off for this long before. And he asked for space, so you don’t think much of it for now. Time feels strange these days, anyhow. It’s getting close to time for you to leave and re-enter the world somewhere else, but one night before you do, you decide on a whim to attend a gathering of other veterans from the war. When you sit at the bar that night, an impossibly familiar voice appears by your side. It’s Emory. She has not aged a day. She notices you also haven’t aged. A hushed confrontation in the alley behind the bar confirms it. Emory is a mer.
You keep running into each other. Accidentally at first. Emory is just as exasperating as you remember. You swear she has a sixth sense for exactly which buttons to push. The tension boils over one night into a shared bed. And then it happens again. Before you realize it, you start seeking her out on purpose. The exasperation is still there, but fond now. You have a home together in Casablanca. She teases you about your collection being a dragon's hoard, even as she brings you things to add to it. You weave violets into her hair. You love her.
Everything is a cycle, you had learned. A constant flow of beginnings and endings. You have nine wonderful, peaceful years with Emory. But all things must end. Emory’s family needs her—something about her sister. You have a very long, difficult conversation. It is getting close to time for you to leave and re-enter the world again. It breaks your heart to do so, but the two of you decide to amicably part ways. On your last night together, you stand by the ocean. You wrap your himation around her shoulders—one of the few items you still have from Lesbos. You had paid a witch to enchant it so that it would neither be damaged nor slow Emory down in the water. You use it to pull her in for one final kiss goodbye before you watch her disappear into the waves, holding the memento she gave you to your heart. You love her too much to not let her go.
Emory’s departure brings a startling realization. You have not heard from Orpheus since 1945. Seventeen years. Something isn’t right. Request for space or not, he has never in the centuries you have spent side by side gone this long without so much as a letter. You need to search for him. You need to know what happened. For sixty-three years, you tirelessly search for him. You even end up joining the Albedo faction for additional resources.
Eventually, there is a lead. An associate in your new faction informs you that someone fitting Orpheus’s description had been seen a few years after you last saw him in the city of Eden Ros, Scotland. You're close. You don't know how you know, but you do. You move there immediately, surprised to find it quite the hotbed of supernatural activity. Something about this place charms you. You decide that once Orpheus is found, perhaps you’ll spend a century or two here.
A year has passed since you came to Eden Ros. You have hit a wall in your search for Orpheus. You know he is here somewhere. You can feel it in your bones. But you don’t know the area well enough yet—too much has changed since your last brief visit centuries ago. So you decide to settle in. You open a little curiosity shop—The Dragon's Hoard—and offer good payment on any interesting items brought to you, especially broken or misshapen things. Happy customers bring good information. You learn as much as you can.
Everything is a cycle, and some must be broken. Orpheus's is the one you refuse to let end.
