Nesrin
Live your life as a string of jewels, bright and beautiful and of utmost value, for upon your death this alone can not be taken. That way, when life is cheated from you (and it will be), you have had the joy of it.
(pronunciation: NEZ-reen)
Nesrin’s life began on the streets of Cairo. Though she had a father, she was mostly left in the care of prostitutes, and learned to look after herself from a tender age. Unusual gifts smoothed the path to her survival in a dangerous world. Now she is somewhere in her early twenties, and is a woman layered in artifice. Once engaged, she is confident and charming; a story-teller, con-woman, and charlatan to her core. It makes her affable and easy to trust, for few would figure her as a threat. There is something preternaturally compelling about her voice that others are inclined to like. She leaves a pleasant taste. But most would not give her a second glance in the first place.
Beneath is something beguiling and devious that few are ever invited to glimpse in full. Nesrin is a ruthless self-survivalist who puts herself first. Her soul is one marked with the resilience to rise from the ashes.
Talents
She sparked young and developed a block quickly, only able to channel to press her will upon others. Desperation improves her control. She will likely develop some illusory talents once she realises other ways the Power might be used. Otherwise she is a Dreamwalker, and has been doing so since she was a child. Mostly she uses it for spying and suggestion.
Associations
Nesrin’s talents were recruited into the folds of the Di Inferi as a teenager, via a seemingly chance encounter with Balthazar Asquith at a university in Giza. Though she suspected a con, she latched onto the opportunity, and through his family she is both educated and well-travelled. She considers Balthazar a friend, but there has never been anything romantic between them, if clearly his parents have pressed upon him for otherwise. Their reasons for that are unclear. He is the brother of Helena Asquith, and a member of one of the most prestigious families in old-blooded British aristocracy.
Upon arriving in Moscow, Nesrin searched out Helena, and approached her for employment at the underground fight club Almaz. She has used her job there to become familiar with the big names and faces that own all the power in Moscow’s underbelly, and where those very same people intersect with the city’s highest elite. Her presence at Almaz is nondescript, which suits her well. Under different aliases she has explored other areas rich with opportunity, such as the Red Light District.
Moscow
Nesrin has no permanent residence in Moscow (although she recently engineered the funds to rent herself a modest place, it was not with the intention of actually living there, and she rarely stays in it). Instead she breaks into rich houses and apartments while the owners are away, and enjoys all the luxury they have to offer whilst her marks remain none the wiser.
She generally stays a while, and is brazen with it, making up lies to suit her story and even befriending neighbours. Finding out about people is easy. Act like you belong, and others rarely question what you say.
She feels no guilt, and doesn’t take from people who can’t afford it. It’s not so much the money that lures her as the thrill of the lifestyle, for she seems to have no problem actually working the dead-end jobs that form part of her networking. But she has no desire to live an ordinary life or earn an ordinary wage. Nesrin frauds or steals credit cards, or cons others into giving her what she needs or wants. Mostly she relies on her own skills for this, though in the past she has also worked with m’Antinomian. Her handle on the dark web is “Bode”
All graves are unmarked; all cemeteries full and empty. I am the dancing skeleton at the feast, I am the voice whispered in the triumphant general’s ear: Remember me. Remember death, so that you may understand how to live.
Secrets and Schemes
If anyone were to dig into Nesrin’s background, they would be unlikely to find much of interest. Records simply show she was born outside of the Custody and became a CCD citizen as a teenager. Her education and citizenship were sponsored by the Asquith family of DVII, although it appears to have been little more than charity after a chance encounter between one of their sons and Nesrin when she was studying in Giza.
Her address is listed as an apartment in the poor district of Moscow, and she is enrolled at MSU as a post-graduate. Her employment history is mostly temp work, presumably to make ends meet while she is still studying. There is little else to note. She has no criminal record.
Should anyone visit her listed address, they would be unlikely to find anyone there, though the apartment itself seems well-kept and looks lived in. Neighbours would likely shrug away any knowledge of who lives there. Likewise, a trip to the university would yield little beyond confirmation of her enrolment.
Anyone who instead looked into any of her various aliases would simply find a tangled maze that led them on a merry chase. If they had the patience to unpick the knot of her identity, they would only find it frayed away in their hands, until there was nothing of substance left. In the past she has employed Zigzag to muddy the trail and set markers in the labyrinth which ping alerts for any unusual scrutiny. When things get too hot, Nesrin has no problem cutting and running.
A Dark Inheritance
The Asquiths have ancestral ties to the Di Inferi, and intended to bring Nesrin up in their image. It was no accident that Balthazar befriended her in Giza, for the family had long been looking for a suitable candidate for their schemes, and could not have found anyone more perfect to enact their will. That is, they intend to plant someone close to the Ascendancy.
After so many years (and having paid for both her education and her citizenship) they have no reason to doubt she is fully loyal and indoctrinated to the cause, having no inclination of her true nature. They do not even know she is a channeler.
Evidence produced by the Asquiths suggests Nesrin is Nikolai Brandon’s daughter, a claim she is not sure she believes, but will nonetheless use to her own advantage. The Asquiths instructed her to await further word in Moscow, but of course Nesrin intends no such complacency. She has taken matters into her own hands.
A Mother’s Love
Nesrin knows little about her mother, who died when she was small and is a figment of mystery and sometimes comfort. She greatly resembles her in appearance; they have the same black hair, brown skin, bold nose, and intense eyes.
Mariam Shaaban was a shrewd and outspoken journalist who rose to some notoriety in the later part of the 2010s, and eventually turned her hand to politics in the wake of the ASU’s rise and the catastrophic spread of natural disasters across the globe.
Mariam was a vocal supporter of unification, a matter of controversy at the time, perhaps especially given her gender and youth. She faced several close-call attempts to be silenced, but never stood down from saying her piece on the world stage. She was a member of the secret organisation the Di Inferi, who were drawn to Brandon’s sharp rise to power and the way the world was shaping itself around him.
She encountered President Brandon in the early-twenties, during his diplomatic world tour, and before the annexation of the Middle East.
There was a flutter of media stories linking her with him at the time, though neither ever remarked on the nature of their relationship beyond their professional affiliations.
Though it was opportunistic rather than calculated, the resultant pregnancy was certainly intended on her part. It is unclear if Mariam ever intended to tell him. When she discovered it, she first returned home, but later travelled to nearby Cairo. Her actions were recorded in a journal later discovered by the Asquith family, but never truly made clear her intentions. Whether she planned to use the child for Di Inferi purposes, or regretted the decision to create an innocent life for her society’s scheming, we will never know.
The baby was born outside the Custody, and upon Mariam’s unexpected death, was left in the care of disinterested relatives. The Di Inferi remained unaware of Nesrin for many years.
Mariam herself was killed in an accident as a direct consequence of the continued disasters that struck the world at the time.
Other Lives
1st Age: Nesrin Aziz
2nd Age: Lilis Moiraim, an advisor of no real note in the Age of Legends who used her position to sabotage the forces of the Light.
3rd Age: The Forsaken, Merihem
5th Age: Naamah, Angel of Prostitution, and instigator of the fall of the Watchers, which ultimately led to the earth being wiped clean in the Flood.
6th Age: Angrboða, Norse jötunn integral to the final destruction of the gods of the 6th Age.
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