Post by Yue nó Valerian on Jan 3, 2011 18:55:14 GMT -5
Character played by: Connie Chiu
Name: Yue no Valerian
Age: 19
Race (Lineage Origin): ½ Ch’in/ ½ D’Angeline
Gender: Female
Height: 5’6”
Home Province/Country: L’Agnace
Appearance: Possessed of an ethereal and exotic beauty, Yue’s pale hair and skin make her stand out in a crowd. Her almond-shaped eyes are the legacy of her Ch’in mother and are a pale violet shade. She has a slight figure, and this, coupled with her “exotic” looks, often leads people to assume that she is either delicate or sickly, as fragile as a butterfly’s wing.
She dislikes D’Angeline dresses, finding it difficult to move in them. She much prefers the cheongsam of Ch’in, especially in darker shades which provide a stark contrast to her pale features. She keeps her long hair unbound or (for more formal occasions) pinned up using hair sticks.
Personality: Generally quiet and shy, Yue prefers to not draw attention to herself; not that she ever has to expend a lot of effort to do so, as her appearance tends to attract both curiosity and (sometimes) admiration. A more ambitious woman could use such attention to her advantage, but not Yue, in fact, she often seems possessed of a strange melancholy.
The truth, by and large, is that she loathes her “exotic” features: too “foreign” to be D’Angeline and too “D’Angeline” to be accepted by her mother’s people, Yue constantly feels as if everyone is judging her based on her appearance and profession, never looking past all that to see the woman at her core.
A child of two cultures, she can speak and write Ch’in as well as D’Angeline. While she is only half-D’Angeline, she views the gods of Terre D’Ange as her own, and makes regular trips to the Temple District.
Even among Valerian adepts, Yue is an oddity. She is not the sort of adept that is satisfied merely by experiencing pain, although she accepts pain and humiliation as a normal part of any assignation. A patron who merely uses and abuses her will find that she is quite compliant, but a patron who expects her to become wet with desire on demand will be sorely disappointed. It is said around Valerian House that Yue’s few patrons have made discovering her mysterious turn-on into a game of sorts.
History: Yue’s mother was a Ch’in courtesan who was born into a noble family. A vivacious and ambitious woman with no intention of becoming some wealthy nobleman’s broodmare; she brokered a political alliance with a D'Angeline noble house, casting herself in the role of an enticing and exotic bargaining chip.
Her behind-the-scenes maneuvering was quite effective, for it was not long before she found herself on a ship bound for Terre D’Ange. A little while later, she found that she was pregnant with Yue. It was a love match as well as a political alliance, the rumors said, albeit a strange match, indeed. For, as much as it was said that Yue’s father loved her mother, he soon grew distant from his new bride. Perhaps he had not been expecting his Ch’in wife to be so ambitious. Whatever the reason, Yue spent her earliest years in a fine townhome with a mother turned bitter by her ill fortune and a father who was nowhere to be seen.
When she came of age to leave her home and be fostered elsewhere, her mother--perhaps seeking to use her daughter to further her own ambitions—sent her to Cereus House, where her mother had studied for a brief period when she had first set foot on D’Angeline soil. After all, the courtesans of Cereus House were renowned as companions of royalty, being the most prestigious of Houses. Surely, she imagined, her daughter would naturally excel as a courtesan, it was in her blood.
Unfortunately, and to her mother’s chagrin, Yue’s marque was quickly sold to Valerian House, a house with a select clientele and a heaping helping of social stigma. Now emotionally isolated from her mother and her political machinations, Yue seemed to thrive in her new environment.
Then came her debut, the night when everything changed for the worse.
She fetched a high price, higher than other adepts who had been born into the house. The assignation began well enough, her patron did not tear her clothes in a frenzy of desire, taking her as if he were hunting boar instead of bedding a woman. But, by the end of the assignation, he stormed out of the room, his frustration evident, and Yue was found huddled on the floor, sobbing loudly. After being questioned regarding the incident, it became clear that her patron had grown frustrated when she proved unable to climax, even after he demanded it of her.
Yue was subsequently examined by several chirurgeons, who determined that the problem did not lie with her flesh, but her mind. Distraught and convinced that the gods were punishing her for some grievous sin, she sought solace in Kushiel’s temple, a place she had never visited before, inexplicably fearful of the god who dwelled there.
It was there, under the lash before the effigy of the Punisher, that she climaxed, spilling her fluids on the floor of the inner sanctum, a lascivious moan emerging from her lips as the salt water kissed her wounds. She was mortified, apologizing profusely while tears streaked down her cheeks, and yet, she felt that she now knew what had been missing the night of her debut.
Ritual. The D’Angeline nobleman had had no sense of ritual, but the priests had the masks, the incense, the pageantry. Even so, Yue could not help but see herself as a heretic and a blasphemer, to act so wanton in such a sacred place, even if it satisfied her deepest desires. She left the temple that day determined that such an event would never happen again.
She took other patrons, even after her disastrous debut, there were still men in Terre d’Ange who saw her as an exotic tool to be used to satisfy their own desires. She quickly learned that most patrons were satisfied if she merely pretended to climax, so focused were they on their own pleasure. It was a fair price to pay, she reasoned, to avoid the embarrassment of having to admit such a blasphemy to her patrons.