Caria Cales

Age

She looks in her early 20s, but in reality was turned in 1812, making her 214.

Appearance

Caria is about 5'5" and looks to weigh around 118lbs, with neatly trimmed straight deep red hair to her shoulders and eyes so brown as to appear almost black. She has a delicate, heart shaped face, with a straight nose and slightly plump lips that she takes pains to accentuate. She is built along quite slight proportions, with a slender waist, narrow shoulders and average C-cup breasts. She appears to be proportioned quite normally.

Her skin is as pale as any other fairly young vampires, always with a redder flush after she's fed. She does her best to keep it free from blemishes and likes to wear a minimal amount of makeup to accentuate her eyes with a little bit of blusher to disguise her inhuman paleness and make herself more 'acceptable' to the humans she mingles with. Rose-, lavender- or violet-scented perfume covers up the smell, or lack thereof, that humans can find offputting.

The clothes she wears tend to change dependant upon what she's doing at the time. If she's on her own or with other people she's comfortable with, it's simple casualwear - expensive jeans or a long skirt combined with a fashionable T-shirt or oversized shirt. But if she's 'hunting', she finds that people tend to react better to what she refers to as her 'prostitutes clothing', a combination of a skirt so short as to be a belt (occasionally with stockings and suspenders to exaggerate the effect) and a top of whatever skimpy style most suits the place she's hunting in. It's certainly not her favoured kind of clothing, but she acknowledges that it helps her to get her meals.

Personality

When she was human, she was always pleasant and polite. She realised that this was what was expected of a fresh-faced girl who was looking to attract an eligable batchelor and, not wanting to disappoint her parents, she did her best to fulfill the stereotype of a sweet, slightly airheaded girl with no opinions of any importance.

After she was turned, however, she began to become disillusioned with the world. The more she saw, the more she began to despise those she had once considered friends. She came to realise that the still-living didn't concern themselves with the feelings of their neighbours, or if they did it was only for a few fleeting moments. Instead, they used every advantage they had to scrape and climb their way up the social ladder. This in parts distressed the young vampire and angered her.

She tried to distance herself from them, and in time she became more abrasive and less shy of saying what she thought. She had become so annoyed with seeing people say one thing and mean another, she decided to always say what she meant.

This has now ingrained itself so deeply in her that it's a struggle for her to be pleasant and polite to those she does not have a great deal of faith in.

Weapons skills

As a lady in the Regency period, she was not ever taught any kind of weaponry skills, as it would have been unsuitable for her position in life. Her short-lived husband demonstrated a few simple sword tricks to her, believing that it would both amuse and impress her - and in truth, it did for a while - but never taught her anything she could use.

After she became a vampire she realised that life would be a lot harder than she had ever known when she was a human and learned, over time, basic fighting techniques that were made easier by her preternatural speed.

Now, she can stand up for herself in an alleyway brawl, but wouldn't want to show off the fact lest people realise she isn't as normal as they would like to think.

Special Skills

Like many other vampires, she had ability to change into a wolf or flock of bats, which is taxing and inelegant, thus not something she commonly practices. Over time, her lack of practice has ensured that these skills have withered and now she is doubtful whether she could manage it even if she tried.

History

Born in 1791 to a well-connected and affluent family, Caria Cales was treated as any other child of the times was. She was taught English, French, music, needlepoint and artwork by her Governess; everything required to fit into society and be a good wife. She was introduced to Court at 16 and travelled the social circles, attending balls and soirées in the hope of finding an equally well-connected suitor. She was highly admired for her looks and pleasant demeanor, but despite this did not find a match until she was 20 - when her parents had given up on her and were looking to make a good match with her younger sister Amelia instead.

However, her eventual marriage to an attractive, if slightly bland young Lieutenant of much the same age was cut short by his death in the Americas in 1812.

She was shocked by his death, truly, but not particularly saddened. She had only been married to him for six months and had so far failed to conceive. She had liked him, but never truly loved him - having been assured that love would follow in their marriage. Now she would never know.

She resumed her circuit of parties and balls with seemingly indecent haste, always standing out still in her funereal gowns whilst other women wore muslins or elaborate evening dresses, and was quite the talk of London. She paid them no heed.

It was at one of these parties, only a few months after her handsome Lieutenant's death, that she was turned.

She would never truly understand why the dark and elegant Mr. Kedgewick chose to turn her as he never responded to her increasingly irate questions on the subject. She could only assume that it was his clumsy way of trying to help her, or perhaps that he was taken for a short time with her personality and appearance. But whatever his reasons, after a while they ceased to meet and she never heard anything of him again.

When her radiant looks began to attract attention for all the wrong reasons - when those she had known in life were married and ageing - she moved instead to the Americas that claimed her husband's life.

Her money carried her in conditions she was accustomed to for a time, but she found that after a while her finances were beginning to dry up. At this time, she began to plunge what remained of her finances into projects around her, some of which were successful and some less so. They generated enough to assist her to live in comfort, until such a time as she again had to move due to the whispers of such an exquisite, unageing beauty.

She began to move to larger areas and, eventually cities, trying to use her resources to finance companies and using the profits she made to keep herself in good clothes and decent housing.

Now she tends not to worry about money so much, trusting that her investments will keep her bank balance fat. Instead, she can devote her time to such things as hunting, painting and drawing. She finds that the life of luxury suits her more.