#Züleyha Açıkgöz | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

corinthbayrpg · 3 years

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NAME. Züleyha Açıkgöz AGE & BIRTH DATE. 1,666 & June 13th, 354 CE GENDER & PRONOUNS. Female & She/Her SPECIES. Manticore OCCUPATION. Shop Assistant at Sybil’s Cave FACE CLAIM. Özge Yağız

BIOGRAPHY

( tw: slavery, death, torture ) Züleyha was born the daughter of a merchant trader in Constantinople, during the Byzantine period. She spent the formative years of her life in Anatolia, but after the death of her mother at eight years, it was then that she boarded a ship bound for Athens along with her father and her uncle, never to return in her human lifetime. The trio landed in the port city Piraeus before further traveling to Corinthia, where her father set up a shop to eke out a living. It wasn’t such a bad life, for a time. Züleyha grew up happy, so long as her father was around, and enjoyed assisting him with his trade. She adapted well to a Greek life, becoming familiar with their customs, and the outlook of her future seemed bright. Unfortunately, fate had other plans, as all that crashed and burned around her.

At the age of twelve, Züleyha’s father passed to a sickness, and her uncle, rather than choosing to continue to take care of the child, sold her to the temple in the city as a servant, before taking off with the money. It was a harsh transition, to go from a loving home to walls of cold stone, told to put her devotion into serving a goddess that did little for the girl. But Züleyha was nothing if not resilient, bending to fit the mold that was required of her while she waited for the chance to grasp her freedom. And the moment came in the form of a soldier from Arcadia. She was fifteen years old at the time, and had blossomed into a handsome young woman, who caught the eye of many men visiting the temple. Enraptured by her beauty, and in search of a wife, he paid for her freedom and took her back to Arcadia with him.

If only Züleyha were the type of woman who could be content with such a life. Though she had gotten what she wanted, in freedom from her life as a servant, her new husband was twice her age and a bore. He offered nothing stimulating, nor did their life together; all he wanted from her was a child, a son. Once Züleyha produced that for him, she was little more than a pretty trophy to parade around his fellow soldiers. It was an even more unhappy life than the one she had left in the temple, a different cage that felt just as suffocating, even though the bars were not as apparent from the outside. She wanted more from her life, something exciting, and the opportunity to make her own choices, for once. To guide her own destiny, rather than fall into the mercy of those around her.

And so as the years went by, the young woman slowly began to reach the end of her patience, putting together a plan that would require the favor of a god. With offering in hand she approached the temple located in the city of their home, dedicated to Hermes, and knelt at his altar, praying for the means to escape the marriage she so despised. Perhaps he sensed the guile in her heart, something cunning and ruthless that lurked beneath the surface, or perhaps it was her plea that impassioned him, but the end result was the same. It was then that the trickster god approached her, offering what at the time seemed to be everything she wanted. Freedom from her marriage, without losing the land and home it brought her, nor her son. For the remainder of her human years, Züleyha would live a pampered existence, and then in death, she would become his servant. Though far from fond of the idea of being bound to anyone’s will but her own again, even a god’s, the truth is that the girl thought herself more clever. That in the end, she would find a way out of the arrangement, after she had already taken everything she wanted. And so Züleyha agreed.

But Hermes did not act instantaneously, no matter how much she would have liked. Instead, he bid her to be patient, that when the time came the deal was fulfilled, she would know. It was during this time that she met someone who finally caught her attention, a traveler from her home country. Drawn in by the familiarity, she found them to be utterly fascinating, regaled by tales from other lands near and far. Introduced by the name of Phobetos, quickly Züleyha became enraptured by the mysterious person. While waiting for Hermes to follow through on their deal, she spent any time she managed to steal in their presence, forming a bond between the pair until they finally revealed their true nature to be that of a spirit — an oneiroi. Rather than finding such information intimidating, it only pulled Züleyha into their orbit even further. It was the most exciting thing she had ever known, until her feelings of interest developed into something deeper, a rush of affection she had never experienced before. She fell in love with the spirit, a fact that only further enforced her desire to be free of her boorish husband.

In the end, the wait was not so unreasonably long, only that it felt such a way while trapped from the inside. It was a terrible, unfortunate accident, they said. A day trip that her husband made into the city to attend the market, only for a horse to suddenly spook right as he passed by, the man trampled beneath his hooves. With a son to inherit the estate, in a time when she couldn’t hold it in her own name, Züleyha got to keep everything, just as Hermes promised. And she got to spend the rest of her mortal life with the person that she loved. It was the happiest period of Züleyha’s life, looking back. But nothing good lasts forever.

Indeed, the deal that she made to achieve such happiness would not be forgotten, and in the end, she could not outmaneuver fate. It was a sickness that did her in, the same as her father before her, though she had aged much further than most around her, living a long and happy life. Her final breaths were taken in the bed of her home, her lover by her side, only to wake up later as if time had reset. Back to her days of youth, not a day older than when she had made the agreement with Hermes, at first Züleyha was ecstatic about this rebirth. She ignored the god’s temple, enjoying her new beginning with Phobetos, blissfully unaware of the danger her new nature posed to them. It was only when the oneiroi realized pieces of it’s soul had been stolen away, nearly enough to kill them for good, did the pair figure out that Züleyha’s second life came with strings attached. It was only then when she approached Hermes again, demanding understanding, and the god explained all too gleefully what had happened to her lover — just what she had done to him, and what she would continue to do. In one small act of kindness, before departing Hermes left her with the information that a phoenix could heal Phobetos’s soul, and that he would be in touch with her again soon.

It was fortunate for the oneiroi that they had known one of the species in days past, and so they approached the original phoenix for help to restore what had been taken. But even with Phobetos’s soul returned, it did not fix the new barrier between them. The couple chose to stubbornly deny the inevitable at first, too in love and too selfish to let go of each other, but it is a difficult thing to love someone when you cannot be with them, and to have to watch them be with others. The happy bubble they made in her human life was no more, and eventually, their relationship crumbled under the strain. Züleyha does not remember her last words to the spirit, but she knows they had been spoken in anger, a cruelty to her tongue that had never been turned against Phobetos before. She left the region of Arcadia entirely, following the bidding of Hermes as he directed her across the world. The succubus spent most of her time traveling with merchants, a familiarity to it that reminded her of her childhood, taking the souls of any who displeased the god.

But she never forgot her love for Phobetos, no matter how much at times she had wished. Even though two hundred years had passed since they last saw each other, when word traveled of rumors of a spirit being captured in Macedonia, Züleyha found herself abandoning her current path to race towards the country under the chance that it might be the oneiroi she once knew. Tracking down the genasi was not a mission of particular difficulty; blinded by their own arrogance, their success in managing to possess an oneiroi, the man thought himself untouchable and openly bragged to any who would listen. Though his soul was tainted by the dark stain of his magic, he was not immune to the cubi’s charms, beguiled by her pretty face and sweet words. It did not take long at all before he willingly brought her to where he kept the oneiroi imprisoned, showing her the talisman that kept it under control. Underestimated by her small and seemingly human appearance, he never even saw the blade until she had dragged it across his throat, a spray of blood cast across the wall.

Freeing her former lover, Züleyha did not hesitate before returning their talisman to them. It was a bittersweet reunion, the acknowledgment that while their feelings had not changed, neither had their circumstances. But they parted on much better terms this time, and for the rest of her life, the two weaved in and out of each other’s company throughout time.

And so life continued. She kept moving frequently, in order to hide the fact that she never seemed to age, her paths mostly moving along the trade routes as Hermes bid. She watched much of history from the sidelines, a nameless observer to moments that would redefine the world. The most notable instance being when the succubus had returned to the city of her birth, and held residence in Constantinople during the siege of the Fourth Crusade. For days the Crusaders looted and terrorized the city, partook in the murder of thousands of innocents, but Hermes kept his servant protected by guiding her to a shelter hidden by his magic, and so she watched it all unfold before her eyes. It was not the first, nor the last time that she would ever be in the city, returning throughout the centuries to witness both the rise and height of the Ottoman Empire, but the senseless violence never left Züleyha; it developed a morbid fascination for the darkness of the human mind, which would only fuel her own, in the years to come.

Perhaps it was the corrupted nature of her soul, the horrors she had witnessed across the years of her long life, or perhaps it had always been there simmering underneath the surface, but the woman slipped into a darkness that she would not recover from. She began to enjoy her existence as a succubus, the destruction she could cause to life around her. The fact that she could feel no pain, that her injuries would heal near instantaneously, and the experience of hurt long faded in her memories, all led to a certain thrill in causing it in others. Either through a kiss or a blade, Leyha enjoyed the damage she inflicted upon others. But her cruelty made her reckless, too arrogant from years of being protected by her god’s favor, and the near invulnerable nature of a cubi.

She had started going by Leyha Açıkgöz by that time, residing amongst the wealthy in London during the Regency era. Trade had been disrupted by the war between the United States and the United Kingdom, something which displeased Hermes, and thus he had sent his creature to punish those responsible and assist the few merchants who still prayed in his name. Though she followed his direction faithfully, remaining in the city until a conclusion was reached, it was also in London where she fell into trouble that would soon become her doom.

She had taken the soul of a shifter, merely for fun, then promptly left his bloody and cut corpse in the street. But Leyha had been careless in returning to her estate, leaving a trail behind that her victim’s grief stricken brother followed to her door. Though she fought back against the shifter, leaving him wounded and bloody, in the end, his teeth found purchase in her shoulder, a bite that would bring her second life to an end. Aware of the fact that she was dying, and the knowledge that Phobetos also resided in the city at the time, Leyha stumbled her way to her former lover’s door, where she took her final breaths held in their arms.

But what waited for her beyond was no peace. Hermes had no claim on her soul anymore, the twisted and dark thing it had been turned into, instead taken by the Erinyes. She was sent to Tartarus, to spend an eternity in torment for all the harm she had committed while on earth. What was two hundred years for the mortal world, passed by as thousands for Leyha. It was a torture that would break anyone, and she could not say that she had been strong enough to fight against it, her very being corrupted into something more monstrous than even she could have imagined. The only thing that kept the woman from losing her mind entirely was to focus on thoughts of Phobetos, and to plot her escape. It did not matter that the idea had been little more than fallacy at the time, it gave her something to cling to. Until the day came when it was no longer so outlandish. The veil fell, and then was repaired with a patch job, but in doing so, tore a wider gap and unlocked the gate of the cage that held Leyha in place. It was the opportunity she had been waiting for, and the woman struck without hesitation, escaping from her prison and emerging as something new.

A manticore, Typhon had called them. His prized little creations. Had he always intended to unleash them upon the world? To release them from Tartarus? It matters not, now that Leyha has escaped her confinement she will not allow herself to be taken back. Spit out from the veil into the city of Corinth Bay, she is no longer bound to the will of anyone but herself. The freedom she always desired from her life, but could never quite reach is now within her grasp, and Leyha will do anything to hold onto it.

PERSONALITY

+ adaptive, quick-witted, spirited - temperamental, manipulative, ruthless

PLAYED BY Abby. CDT. She/Her.

#taken #female #manticore #Züleyha Açıkgöz #Özge yağız

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