Celeste McCullough - A story's end that shaped her own

[Celeste]

((Feel free to skip to the second post for the shorter version of Celeste's history, focusing solely on her))

Celeste's history is by happenstance and opportunity, a product of someone else's history. Specifically, she is the “child” of one of my former characters, Eowithiel.

Now, at this point, most good role-players who believe in lore and timelines will be wary or may even roll their eyes. In this case, however, I am proud to say that I needed neither strange mystical, magical or lore-breaking mechanics to accomplish this feat. Ten years ago (around 2007), through various roleplaying scenes, my former character and her husband adopted two children. They were twelve years old at the time. Now they are twenty-two. I honestly did not expect to be playing WoW ten years later and the adoption idea was part of an overall plot where my character was aiming to retire in peace. The End.

Not quite.

Before I expand into Celeste’s rather short history, I am forced to explain what shaped her teenage years and thus made her who she is. As this post’s title says, her story begins where another story ends.

Eowithiel, a night elf, was married to a human, Isral McCullough. Both were officers in the Cheshire Cats. Isral was a Shadow Knight, an enforcer for the Cats. Eowithiel was Kat’s Advisor. Except for Xrailax, no one was closer to Kat. The position wasn’t just about giving advice and helping people solve their differences. Kat trusted Eowithiel implicitly. Even if her advice sometimes did not suit her needs or even gravely annoyed her, Kat would still take the time to listen. I’m taking the time to make that clear as this has tremendous importance for what comes next.

Eowithiel’s advice often served to help the Cats respect a certain moral line. She did not always succeed but the Cats were not monsters either. Mostly. They were outcasts and misfits who decided to write their own rules since no one wanted to play with them (still are). Over the years, gentle-hearted Eow realized that eventually the Cats would consume her, turn her into someone she did not want to be. So she quit to live a life that she had slowly built and dreamed about.

Leaving the Cats is not so simple. You sign an oath to be there for your family, no matter what. There were OOC considerations as well behind this decision but I will not expand on them as they simply do not matter anymore.

Kat was heartbroken. Isral refused to join his wife and stayed in the Cats. Everyone was miserable.

Isral though, torn between two women he had sworn himself to in one way or another, ended up seeing Eowithiel in secret. When Kat found out, she killed Isral. I’m trying to be brief here but by doing so I’m doing a disfavor to the character of Kat. That event was a product of rage and betrayal but also of pure loss. Not simply cruelty. The scene in question can be found here: thecheshirecats.proboards.com/thread/4516/wolf-sheeps-clothing-pg-13

Meanwhile Eowithiel had been living that dream retirement I mentioned, raising the children she had adopted with her husband. Isral was not there often but she was confident it was a matter of time before he returned to her permanently. When he stopped coming, she knew they had been found out and that Isral was gone.

With the loss of her soul-mate, Eow’s plans fell apart. She still loved her children but every time she saw them, it reminded her of Isral. Bravely, she continued to raise her children but never recovered and slowly sank into the unresponsive, depressive state that was illustrated in Celeste’s introductory story. It can be found here: thecheshirecats.proboards.com/thread/9794/celeste-mccullough?page=1&scrollTo=56957

Because of this tragedy, Celeste's teenage years were more akin to a roller-coaster ride than an idyllic existence.

[Celeste]

((I lied, it's not really short *laughs*))

Celeste and her twin brother Tomlin were born twenty-two years ago. Like so many children who end up at the Stormwind orphanage, they lost their parents to the horrors of war that seem to constantly plague Azeroth.

They were eventually both adopted by a night elf and her human husband. For just under a year, their life had become an amazing new adventure. They were loved and well treated. Both of their adoptive parents taught them a wide variety of skills that would help them to thrive as adults.

Their mother taught them morality, respect and wisdom. She often took them into the wilds to learn to survive away from civilization and to understand how the natural world worked. She taught them how to life as a contributing part of society.

Their father taught them how to avoid trouble and how to safely seek it out. He taught them how to use weapons, how to navigate the dark alleys where danger lurked and the main thoroughfares of the city where danger hid in plain sight. He taught them about laws and politics, economy and trade. How everything was intertwined.

Then their adoptive father did not return home every night. He was there only for short times and often wouldn’t return for days and weeks. Their mother continued to take care of them but some of her energy had gone. She smiled less often, sang more softly and cried when she thought they were in bed, sleeping.

The day everything changed, Celeste found her mother passed out on her bed, drunk. Something she had never seen before. Over the following days, their mother would go about her day in a trance, her motions mere reflex. She said very little and cried a lot. They never saw their adoptive father ever again.

Over the following years there were ups and downs. Sometimes their mother’s mood would improve and they saw a glimmer of who she had been but, inevitably, that reality would come crashing down again.

Tomlin was the first to walk out. He had been caught doing petty crimes on several occasions and had been told that his age would not shield him from prison if he continued. To everyone’s surprise, her twin sister’s most of all, he enlisted in the army. He had somehow lied convincingly about his age and got in earlier. Celeste knew her brother was no hero out for glory. He preferred getting rich without having to work for it. Despite her misgivings, Tomlin seemed to enjoy his work.

Meanwhile Celeste stayed at home. She took care of their mother who mostly stayed in her dark room. Celeste’s existence became a solitary one. She took a job at a local apothecary’s, sorting herbs and selling simple potions. It didn’t pay much but it kept her and her mother fed.

After several tries, Tomlin managed to convince his sister to sign up as a recruit in the army. He assured her that her skills would help her find a better role than that of a grunt on the frontlines. He promised her that they would work together, side-by side. Celeste wasn’t so sure but, tired of her solitary existence, she agreed to visit the recruitment office.

Her mother had listened to her plans and though the notion of seeing Celeste turned into a soldier worried her, she understood that it was time for her daughter to find her own path. It even seemed to reinvigorate her and a semblance of her old self returned. When Celeste left for the training camp, she wasn’t worried that she would one day come home to find her mother dead of starvation or worse.

Visiting every time she had leave, Celeste recognized the signs. Her mother had lied, likely so Celeste wouldn’t feel guilty about leaving and change her mind. Every time she visited, the shop where they lived was in an increasing state of disrepair. He mother looked more and more gaunt, thin and frail. There was little she could do to change that and both kept up the pretense.

A few months before the end of her training, Celeste discovered her brother had been operating a smuggling ring out of the army quartermaster’s office where he worked. She caught him in the act, selling weapons to people she suspected were local thugs. Tomlin had long ago stopped asking about news of their mother and was often dismissive when she paid him a visit as if she was an inconvenience. Feeling betrayed by her brother’s empty promises of wanting to have her near him and realizing he hadn’t stopped being a criminal but simply graduated to bigger crimes, she reported his misdeeds to her superiors.

That deed ended up making her a pariah among the soldiers and recruits in the training camp. Apparently there were several who profited in some way from her brother’s business while the rest shunned her for being a snitch. Though it left her baffled that doing the honorable thing could backfire so badly, the situation was exacerbated when she finally completed her training. Instead of being assigned to one of the postings she had hoped to get, they made her a provost. Provosts were in charge of upholding military law and in her case, specifically, to hunt down deserters.

Her first task had been a sergeant in the Westfall Brigade who had deserted in order to return home for harvest time. Celeste had managed to hide the nature of her work from the locals and found the sergeant at home where his presence was indeed badly needed. With her duty on her mind, she ordered the man to surrender. In desperation, the sergeant had attacked her instead. ((If you have not read that story yet, find it here: thecheshirecats.proboards.com/thread/9794/celeste-mccullough?page=1&scrollTo=56957))

That was the day she killed someone for the first time, leaving her conflicted. She had understood the man’s situation, sympathised even. Her loyalty to her duty had won out and a good man in a difficult situation had died. It left her questioning her beliefs or, to be exact, questioning the fact that despite the moral dilemma she had faced, she felt no remorse in killing the deserter.

[Celeste]

Want to know where the story went after that? Everything is available with links to side stories in the post that gathers Celeste's thoughts: Celeste's Thoughts