Methrine Alexander
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| A girl and her gun. | |
| Methrine Alexander | |
| Player: @Mizythra | |
| Origin: | Technology |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Blaster |
| Security Level: | 50 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Methrine Alexander |
| Known Aliases: | None |
| Species: | Half-breed (elf/human) |
| Age: | 21 |
| Height: | 6'0" |
| Weight: | 165lbs. |
| Eye Color: | Solid mercury grey, no pupils |
| Hair Color: | Violet |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | Not from Earth |
| Occupation: | Mercenary |
| Place of Birth: | The Rellik |
| Base of Operations: | Skyway City |
| Marital Status: | Engaged |
| Known Relatives: | Daira SilentStriker; Cain Alexander; Alyessa Tricemoure |
| Known Powers | |
| Assault Rifle, Devices | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Making things go boom. | |
| Equipment | |
| Custom-made sniper rifle and assault rifle; various grenades, land mines, explosives; custom goggles. | |
| Likes anything alcoholic but prefers whiskey. | |
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A pirate born into a bloody life,
Thrown back in years to days before her own
This lass would learn of nothing else but strife,
For her a peaceful life would not be known.
Daughter of tragic love, of man and elf,
Her body marked of difference and hate
Never would she learn how to love herself
The pain she felt in life would not abate.
That this could change was much of a surprise
Along there came a man of mystic might,
He did not care she had quicksilver eyes
This man would look upon her with no fright.
But fate is cruel and ends all things it seems
So now she only sees him in her dreams.
~Written by @aberrantpvp
Contents |
Appearance
Born to a human father and an elven mother, Methrine stands at an even 6’0”, which is tall for one side and short for the other. Her limbs are toned from years of wielding heavy weaponry and carrying the weight of chain mail across her body and said weaponry upon her back. While she is not overweight, her frame is stocky and square with a thick waist, narrow hips, and a small bust which leaves her seeming oddly like a much taller person that was compacted downward.
Her violet hair is naturally colored (as are her eyebrows) and falls just past her shoulders in thick, coarse locks. Most often she can be found with the mess pulled back into a lazy ponytail or hastily divided pigtails at the nape of her neck which suggests she cares little for the look of it and simply does so for practicality. By the end of her day it can be found littered with a mass of tangles, traces of gunpowder, and whatever debris happened to fall into it.
Her ears are longer than a human’s though not in the graceful way of her maternal brethren. Both seem oddly deformed and while the left comes to a curved point, the right is clearly missing the tip and sports an angry, uneven scar. Other scars include a decent-sized gash above her left brow and what appear to have been deep, uneven gashes across both wrists.
Her eyes are almost always covered with thick, clunky goggles no matter what her attire. Few on Earth have seen the mystery beneath, that being eyes of solid mercury grey bearing no pupils. Beginning at her bottom lashes and sweeping down her cheeks are a pair of curved bolts tattooed upon her skin that seem somewhat stretched as if they were placed there at a very young age while her face was still growing.
Both ears are decorated with various hoops and studs added over many years in a random fashion. The right side of her nose displays a small, amethyst stud, a hoop of matching color adorns her right eyebrow, and a silver stud rests in her tongue. When wearing shorter tops, a silver hoop can be found in her belly button. All piercings are crudely done.
If not sporting loops of chain around her neck, she wears thick-collared shirts or other such means of covering her throat. A very select few people closest to her have been privy to the reason for this.
Aside from the two on her face, she bears sixteen tattoos total and most are covered up by her clothing at all times. They are crudely done with natural inks that pre-date modern tattooing practices. They are as follows:
- The name “Alexander” in scrawling black across the back of her neck.
- A medieval-style crest of a lion’s head on her left shoulder; a similar crest of a tree on her right.
- Skull with crossed swords jolly roger on her left shoulder blade.
- A broken, bloody heart with a dagger stuck in it on her right shoulder blade.
- Swirling purple serpent that covers most of her back.
- A small, whitish crab above her right breast.
- The letters “RDT” in purple script surrounded with hazy flames above her left breast.
- Purple lightning bolt spanning from crook to wrist on each forearm.
- A black flag emblazoned with a menacing jolly roger below her pelvic bone on the right side.
- A large, detailed claymore sword spanning the length of her outside right thigh.
- Ring of ivy encircling each ankle.
- A different word in elven script on the inside of each thigh, one translating to “divide” and the other to “conquer”.
- The Earth on her left calf.
Friends – Homeworld
Minaserana of The Silver Hand, human
Murthal Ironbane, dwarf
Jordos Lightbringer, dwarf
Gendo, elf
Wrenn Silthin, gnome
Lylia Sabershadow, elf
Sarekace, elf
Beil Shieldturner, dwarf
Tanzanite, vampire
Krazek, goblin
Friends and Acquaintances – Earth
Frank Gustbe
Wrenn Silthin
Erik Shanown
Downrange
Mike “Steelsoul” Clark
Mikuruneko
Joy Killer
Lily “Feral Gigawatt” Wolfhound
Temperence
Freazer burn
Connor “Lunar Eclipse” Gardener
Lineage
Methrine Athena Alexander was conceived on the bar of a seedy pirate pub, which probably explains most of her problems. Born to elven mother, Daira SilentStriker, and human father, Cain Alexander (Tricemoure), she has carried her share of problems both physical and emotional due to her half-breed heritage. Aside from the previously mentioned abnormalities, one little-known secret is her sterility. Much like a mule, the meshed genes left her unable to bear children like most of her kind. This is a depressing fact for one who adores children as she does.
Most of her paternal relatives are deceased and are buried in the family plot near a small, abandoned village they hailed from. As far as she knows, the only one still living besides her father is her half-sister, Alyessa Tricemoure, a professional assassin who left home long before Methrine’s birth and rarely visited. There are uncles unaccounted for who served in military positions and have not been heard from for several years.
Her mother was an only child, as were her parents, which left Methrine with only one other living maternal relative: her grandmother, Vreinari Azuralis.
Many of her crewmates over the years have acted as “aunts” and “uncles” of a sort and she considers them more family than most of her true relatives. Her mother’s best friend, Howen Céol Willow, has acted as the equivalent of a godfather throughout her life; his wife, Zoryah, poses as one of her “aunts”; and their twin children, Shadowfoot and Rijarin, have been as close as cousins. Other familial crewmates and such of note are Lylia Sabershadow, Murthal Ironbane, Beil Shieldturner and formerly Minaserana of the Silver Hand.
Childhood
She came into the world on a cold January morning in the admiral’s quarters of The Rellik – a war galleon and main vessel in the fleet of the notorious BlackFlag Armada. With her father running the infamously vicious crew as its admiral and her mother serving as his lieutenant, Methrine stood little chance of a “normal” life from the moment she arrived. No other siblings came into play and none of the men or women had brought children into the crew, therefore, Methrine quickly grew into the role of the selfish, self-centered, bratty pirate kid.
While her father doted on her, spoiling her rotten with all she desired, her mother seemed not to care much what she did with her time so long as it kept Methrine out of her hair. Because of this, she spent most of her time tagging along with the men on their landside dealings or sneaking about, poking into the otherwise silent affairs of the crew.
From the moment she could handle one, her dwarven “uncle” Murthal saw to it she learned to wield a battle axe. He personally instructed her training and before she had even hit double digits she was proficient for combat. Some time later, much to Murthal’s disappointment, she would trade the beloved blade for a new toy – the claymore. This weapon she carried upon her back at all times for more than a decade, only to discard it in her late teens for another axe.
Her father, once a proud warrior of a fallen nation and self-proclaimed sharpshooter, followed Murthal’s lead with a rifle. He quickly discovered she was a natural in the sport and before he knew it she had learned to outgun him with various types of firearms and he couldn’t have been prouder.
Armed at nearly all times with blade and bullet, it was no surprise the admiral’s daughter was far from a graceful beauty. In fact, her half-breed deformities combined with her short-cropped hair and penchant for obtaining cuts, bruises and a lot of dirt had shaped her into a rugged tomboy. For the first several years of her life she was easily mistaken for a little boy and she often used this to her advantage, for in her primitive world a man’s role carried more importance than a woman’s.
When docked on land and given lengthy leave, she loved nothing more than to hunt with her father. They would take to the woods or the plains, stalking game to salt and smoke for later rations. It was partially because of this that she later declared herself a professional huntress. This disappointed both her parents for her father had hoped she would follow in his warrior footsteps and her mother secretly wished for another assassin in the family. Instead, she paid tribute to her maternal grandparents, who had both been great hunters and soldiers for the elven race in their time.
Languages
Though her human father spoke only Common, the tongue of his kin, her mother was well-versed in three languages. Her primary, of course, was the elven of her race though she was fluent in both that and Common from a very young age. The third was that of the undead, one rarely spoken outside their people. Methrine’s mother had acquired a few close friends of this kind and as they lacked the physical ability to speak any other language, she took it upon herself to learn theirs. It was both practical and strategic for it opened the crew up to more contact throughout the known world. Despite her father’s extreme hatred for the undead, Methrine’s mother decided against his wishes to teach her this language alongside Common. Caring little for her own kind and knowing Methrine would not either, she did not bother with more than the basic conversational levels of the elven tongue. Thusly, Methrine’s primary language is the human’s Common, she is fluent in all aspects of the undead language, and can speak conversational elven though she cannot read or write it. More recently, she has been idly studying German, mostly so she can understand Rammstein and Megahurz when she hears them on The Cape.
Methrine’s name is neither human nor elven and is, in fact, a tribute to a fallen friend of her mother’s. It comes from the undead language and roughly translates to “mistress”. She isn’t entirely sure of the story behind it or why a person would choose to name their daughter a word with such negative implications, but she chalks it up to just one more reason for people to laugh at her. The pronunciation of her name is harsh and guttural with a silent “e”. The average person finds it difficult to correctly enunciate, including her own father, so she took to using a simpler “meth-rin” just to make things easier on the rest of the world and to not have to explain herself as much.
Acceptance
While Methrine’s mixed heritage is hardly blinked at on Earth, it places her somewhere between freak of nature and abomination back home. In a world of constant warfare, divided by race rather than creed, anything out of the ordinary is frowned upon and generally avoided. The greatest thanks she can offer, given her situation, is that at least both her parents were on the same side of the fence.
Even so, her human brethren look upon her and find her strange if not laughable. Her pointy ears and solid eyes give them the impression of a deformed elf and most would not consider her human in any respect. The elves, however, refuse to even acknowledge her existence. She is beyond mere disgrace to their arrogant kind and the majority would simply avert their eyes should she cross their paths and possibly go so far as to curse her very being.
Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule and most of them were found within her own circle or other rival crews. Always the central gathering of outcasts, pirate crews tend to contain a hodgepodge of races and The BlackFlag Armada was no different. All of them had turned to a life of crime and indecency for one reason or another so who were they to throw insults to a half-breed who hadn’t chosen to be?
Raizar
Like any good hunter, Methrine had a certain bond with animals and a knack for taming and training even the most feral. Her first serious companion during her younger years was a large, crab-like creature she caught upon the shore during a lengthy docking in a port city. Unfortunately, her aquatic friend’s lifespan was much shorter than she had realized it would be and she soon lost what had begun to feel like her closest friend.
At the age of 8, during one of their many treks into the wetlands to hunt, she and her father stumbled across an abandoned crocolisk nest. The large eggs had been smashed into a slimy mess within the marsh and a bit of tracking found the mother several yards away, her fresh carcass littered with arrows. A tribe of orcs called the nearby hills home and when the natural wildlife of the swamps got too close for their liking, they dispatched of the intruders. This particular mother appeared to have dragged herself a good distance from said hills before succumbing to death’s embrace, leaving behind a nest that would never hatch.
Crocolisk eggshells sold for decent money to the mystical druids for their incantations and potions which meant easy coin for the pair. The only problem lay in the completely shattered state of most of the eggs. As they poked through the mess gathering larger shards, Methrine discovered an even better prize than gold resting snug at beneath the rest. One egg and one egg alone had survived the attack.
The fight between Methrine and her father was long and exhausting, but eventually Daddy gave in. After cleaning it off a bit and wrapping it in her cloak, dad and daughter saddled up to return to the ship with one more soul than they had left with. Methrine carried the egg on her lap for the duration of the ride and barely registered her mother’s cries of irritation as she took it to her quarters to prepare it for incubation. It would not be the last of fights between her parents regarding the creature they all knew stood a chance of breaking out of its shell someday. Methrine, however, worried the least of everyone and doted upon the egg as if her life depended on it until the day the first tiny claw poked through the surface.
One of her new friend’s first actions was to clamp down upon Methrine’s finger, much to her mother’s horror. Methrine only laughed, commenting on the razor-sharp teeth that had already begun to form in its tiny mouth, and that was how the crocolisk got his name.
Having hatched into a human world without the influence and education of other crocolisks or even other animals besides Auntie Lylia’s great lion, Raizar was quite the atypical reptile. Methrine raised him first as a domestic pet, feeding him only from her own hand and instilling a sense of etiquette and response to command within him. In turn, he provided her with companionship unlike anything she had ever found in another humanoid.
As he grew older she began to add to his training, all of it in her favored language of the undead, and by the time she was eleven years of age, Raizar had been molded into a fierce warrior in combat, moving with a certain grace to compliment his axe-wielding mistress. As the years progressed they became less huntress and pet as they were companions or, as strange as it seemed, mother and son.
By the time Raizar had matured into an adult croc, the once-tiny creature had grown several times in size and stretched almost twice Methrine’s height. He was an intimidating and vicious specimen of reptile and even her own parents kept their distance. Becoming something of a grumpy old man in his later years, Raizar grew quite protective of Methrine as she herself began to mature and develop. He could be counted on to hiss and snap at anyone he deemed ill-suited for his mistress, which put a bit of a damper on her budding social life.
Engineering
Though it was not until much later in her life that she learned of her maternal grandfather’s hobby of tinkering, Methrine took up engineering at a young age. As if battle axes and rifles, hunting and piracy were not enough, it came to light very early on that the girl was rather smart. Neither parent claimed to have been the one to pass on the genes as both were only averagely intelligent, yet their daughter could process basic math at lightning speed and solve more complex problems with ease and a bit of scrap paper. If not for her heritage and background, she would have been a shoe-in candidate as a scholar to the king himself. It was something that surprised everyone in her life, given her birthright and the generally simplistic world she lived in.
As she grew older, her mathematical aptitude gave way to something even better. Trade with the goblins of Kalimdor was commonplace and everyone knew that like their rivals, the gnomes, the goblins were some of the greatest engineers in the world. Methrine quickly developed a fascination for their technology and, much to her parents’ dismay, found a disturbing love for all things explosive. Of course, there were a few mishaps now and again as she tested and honed her skills in the creation and detonation of a varying degree of dynamite, bombs, grenades, land mines, and even the exploding chicken or two. From rocket boots and mining helmets to sharpshooter goggles and eventually her own custom firearms and ammo, her parents could not deny she had a gift and while it wasn’t one they would have chosen for her as a hobby, they as well as the rest of the crew eventually learned to deal with it. She also made friends with a number of goblins throughout their towns and in a criminal world such as theirs knowing people who know people can make a big difference in the long run.
For their sacrifice, they earned an extremely intelligent and talented daughter who could outfit the entire crew as well as the ship in the cheapest and most effective way possible. Many long nights were spent in the dim light of the legit pub owned by the crew, drawing up schematics by the dancing flame of a candle. Even more often she could be found with her feet up on her favorite table in the same pub, various mechanical parts strewn about as well as discarded beer bottles, a cigarette dangling from her lips and smudges decorating her skin as she fervently worked on her latest project.
Criminal Offense
Even the most notorious of pirates have their slip-ups and Methrine was no exception. It was often joked that any pirate who hadn’t done a spell in the stockades wasn’t a true pirate at all. Obviously, wearing the colors or a Jolly Roger in city limits was akin to painting “Arrest me!” on one’s chest, but even without such visible decorations the men of the law had keen senses and hard eyes. It also didn’t help to be caught committing crimes and in her younger, more immature years, Methrine suffered just that.
At the age of eleven she did her first stint in the stocks. It was a petty charge for picking pockets and rather than talk his way into her freedom, her father let her serve the week-long sentence. While a week was nothing to the most hardened of criminals, to a young girl it was a lifetime. And as it was not often women were incarcerated, Methrine found herself tossed in random cells with men of varying ages and lifestyles from the town drunk to the hired assassin. All that truly saved her at that young age was her tomboyish nature and her ability to pass as a male. Because of this, instead of being picked on she was taken under the wing of many of the older men and thus learned even more tricks of the trade.
Age thirteen saw her in the stocks once again, this time for only three days as she and some much older crew mates had attempted to knock off a wine merchant’s shop. The others fled, leaving her to take the fall, and she did so with much bitterness as she waited out the time.
At fifteen, a public nuisance charge escalated when she drunkenly assaulted the guard who had attempted to shackle her wrists. The three-way brawl ended with three weeks in the stockades and, because she had still yet to develop, passed the time as one of the guys, learning even more to stash up her sleeve.
Age seventeen found her in her longest and most severe prison sentence of them all. A few drunkenly flung insults quickly spiraled into a shouting match which ended in a dead Marine and Methrine facing the world behind bars once again. Her father did nothing to attempt to overthrow or lessen her sentence as he had decided by then he’d had enough of her stupidity and she might learn a lesson if he let her stew for a while.
With a five-year sentence staring her in the face, she settled in once again with a few familiar faces in an over-crowded prison. Though she still remained tomboyish and compact in build, enough of her feminine features had fought their way past her protests and she could no longer be mistaken for a male. As the lone female in a house of criminal men, some who hadn’t so much as seen a woman in months, life suddenly became very dangerous.
Having spent the past couple of years with a reputation as a woman of loose morals and even looser pants, she found it easier to offer herself up in trade for money, cigarettes or other contraband as a way of keeping the rowdy animals at a certain level of calm. It worked for a while and the weeks passed quickly with this arrangement. Six months into her sentence, however, a new face was thrown into the mix and this one decided he didn’t like the house rules. He wanted things his way and that meant Methrine for himself.
Unsurprisingly, there was uproar and the most violent of fights broke out between those who favored the old routine and those who had decided to take up with the newcomer. Caught in the middle of the mess, Methrine found herself facing a crude shank aimed straight for her chest. One of the longtime inmates stepped between, throwing her to the ground as he took the hit. There was no time for offering thanks to her savior as the barbaric new gang made quick work of dissecting him before her eyes. The fallen man’s effort was one of futility for while she was spared her life she was still powerless against the number of men, though it took several to hold her thrashing body down as the new leader committed unspeakable acts against her person.
She had no choice to endure from that point on if she valued her life and when her father next came to visit, she begged and pleaded with him to pull strings, work his connections, anything to get her out of there. She never spoke a word of the reason why, but she managed to convince him and hours later she left a free woman, however violated and frightened under the departing gaze of her tormentors as she clung to her father’s arm.
The Incident
During her fifteenth year, Methrine finally started to develop and mature, her femininity becoming more apparent despite her protests against it. With this came a new curiosity toward men and women alike. Physical relationships between crewmates had always been evident and she had never given it much thought either way. It was just one of those things adults did that she had no desire to pay attention to. When the natural changes occurred, however, she found herself drawn toward one of the newer deckhands with something of a schoolgirl’s crush.
Though she still wore her hair cropped short and dressed like a boy, the twenty-year old human lad she fancied seemed to reciprocate the feeling of interest and soon they began to find excuses to steal away and talk. The talks quickly turned a whole new world of physical exploration for Methrine while he planted ideas into her head of love, a life free of crime, and a place they could go where he would treat her like the queen she deserved to be. Naïve as she was and overcome with what she assumed to be true love, she believed every word that crossed his lips, especially if they happened to be touching hers. It was with these promises that the man eventually persuaded her to lie down before him and in one very brief session he had stripped from her whatever miniscule bit of innocence she might have had left.
The falsity of his claims shone bright the next day when he all but refused to acknowledge her. When his uncharacteristic snubs turned to cutting snickers amongst his friends, the broken-hearted Methrine realized how wrong she had been. It was her mother who found her puffy-eyed and sobbing beneath the blanket of her bunk in the ship’s sleeping quarters. After much convincing to force the story out of her, to say her mother was upset would have been an understatement. Even so, she instructed Methrine not to speak a word to her father, knowing how much worse his reaction would be. Before Methrine could so much as nod in agreement, her father appeared, having heard rumor that his beloved little girl had shed tears. Though both Methrine and her mother fumbled to dissuade him, the truth came out and his furious wrath would soon be known.
Within the hour, her once-lover had been strung up by his ankles to the mast and stripped of all but his trousers. As if she had not suffered enough, Methrine was forced to sit upon a crate in front of the gathered crowd of crewmates and watch as her father slowly tortured the man with both blade and whip. There were two lessons to be learned from the display, her father declared. The first was that no other man would lay so much as a finger of dishonesty upon his daughter’s flesh or that man would meet the same fate. The second was to Methrine herself, that she might understand the error of her decisions and would not be so gullible and stupid next time. And so she watched, pale with fear as she tried desperately to stall her tears. If ever she shot a pleading look to her mother, Daira would only avert her own gaze, her face contorted with pain and guilt but also with the knowledge that there was nothing she could do to stop him.
With each strike against the man’s flesh, Methrine’s own spirit shattered a little more. When finally her father had tired of his game, she was released from her post and sent below deck where she curled up in the dark corner of one of the cargo holds and simply sat in silence throughout the night. When at last she emerged from her solitude, the news had already spread throughout the crew of her lover’s departure. Though the words they spoke were that of desertion, of jumping ship in the night, Methrine knew differently. One did not spend a lifetime with her father and not understand that no one threatened Admiral Alexander or his family and lived to see another day.
From that very moment on, one might say that she withdrew into herself and shut down emotionally, at least in that department. While she continued on as usual, finding joy in all other aspects of her life, she never allowed herself to become close to anyone. Only Raizar seemed to win that affection from her. Rather than becoming a recluse in the area of physical relations, she surprisingly took quite the opposite path. Without discrimination toward race, creed or even gender, her social life erupted into promiscuity and practically every leave from the ship, however brief, was spent at the closest party.
From humans to trolls, fierce warriors to vixen rogues, she bedded them all with very few exceptions, thoroughly convinced that meaningless one-nighters were the only real way to go. Anything else was too time-consuming and a real drag anyway. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? And with this new way of life, amidst the many gatherings, the already lifelong boozer found joy in more rare and exotic liquors as well as an introduction into the world of mind-altering substances. Her favorite of these was a goblin specialty called “dream dust”, which was made from the magical essence found in green dragon wings and when inhaled caused the ultimate state of euphoria. With all these new discoveries, Methrine was convinced this lifestyle was the way to go, and if it should kill her at an early age, at least she would die happy.
((More to come here.))
Random Facts
- Has intense love for all music, though anything loud and abrasive is her favorite. Favorite band is Flogging Molly.
- Favorite drink is whiskey, and though none on Earth are as good as back home, she prefers Jack Daniels.
- Her middle name, Athena, is homage to her maternal grandfather, Athenos, who was killed in combat before her mother was born.
- Her accent is unique; a mix of traditional seafaring, mainland human, and dwarven.
- Once had a tattoo upon her left wrist bearing the inscription “Cain Alexander” in black in tribute to her father after his death. When it was discovered he lived, she removed the tattoo herself over many days of scraping off layers of skin with a sharpened chunk of mithril.
- Smokes hand-rolled cigarettes and drinks cheap beer when working on her devices but never around gunpowder, thankfully.
- Once woke up sans clothing next to an orc with no recollection of the night before and she doesn’t want to know.
- Dreamed of flying for years and, as such, considers her jetpack one of her most cherished possessions.
- She is a rather talented artist though she rarely draws anything not related to her engineering.
- Cell phone ringtone is “Never Too Late” by Three Days Grace.
