Astraea Vandran

Astraea Thoraval was born on Artbringer 17th, in the year 1886 of the Age of Awakening in Sandholm Palace. She was the illegitimate child of King Wilros Sarric. Her mother, Nora Thoraval, was the royal family's spymaster. Both parents were of half wood elf, half human lineage.   Being the illegitimate child of a king, Astraea was told to always keep who her father was a secret outside of a few select "safe chambers" of the palace to which only those in the know had access. She also had to keep her mother's real job a secret as Nora's official work title was handmaiden of Queen Estrid Sarric.   As such Astraea's upbringing was filled with the importance of secrecy and never getting too close to anyone and yet still make others feel close to you. Her mother started Astraea's spy training as soon as she could speak. Astraea thought it all very confusing and wondered if Nora even loved her if it was so important to stay emotionally detached from everyone. When she got old enough to understand what was going on with her mother and King Wilros and Queen Estrid behind closed doors, she wondered if it was all some sort of game to Nora or a way to keep in favour. Especially considering how she was teaching Astraea to manipulate people in any way possible to get information or achieve what she desired.   Astraea's favourite moments during her childhood were when she didn't have to spend time with her mother and was allowed to play with her half-sister Alydee and the son of one of the royal guards. During those times she didn't have to think about keeping up secrecy or the lessons in spying and deception, though she never told them what was being taught to her. It was difficult to shake a behaviour she had learnt practically since birth even if she wanted to and there were still more secrets and lies creating a barrier between her and her two friends.   It wasn't until Astraea's early twenties when she returned to the palace after having gone to study at a bardic college that someone really broke through to her. Godfrey, the aforementioned son of one of the royal guards, had done a lot of growing up while she had been away. Suddenly he caused butterflies to appear in her stomach every time she looked at him and his warm, trusting eyes made her want to open up to him completely. Despite all her training in secrecy she sought him out one night and told him everything. Godfrey was horrified at the amount of damage that Nora had really caused her even though she'd never seen it that way before.   Still, Astraea had to work for her mother and run errands in the city or use her charm on people that Nora needed information from. Godfrey was still training to be a royal guard but he told Astraea that once he was done with his training he'd find a job in another city and take her with him, away from her mother.   Astraea married Godfrey in the year 1911 at the age of twenty five, much to Nora's disapproval. Nora couldn't protest the wedding, however, because Astraea had acquired the blessings of King Wilros and Queen Estrid as well as Godfrey's parents. Astraea had always thought of Estrid as more of a real maternal figure while Nora was just a strict teacher.   After the wedding, Astraea and Godfrey moved into their own apartment in Sandholm and although Astraea was still part of the spy network she found her job a lot more tolerable away from her mother. Godfrey showed her that it was okay to open up to someone and have no secrets between them, forging a strong relationship built on trust and respect and love.   Their first child, Elina, was born on Endbringer 5th, 1915. Astraea decided to quit her job completely and outside of family gatherings at the palace she had no more contact with Nora.   A year later Godfrey got offered the position as the Captain of the Wadesten guards despite his relatively young age. He accepted the position and the small family of three moved across Eischland and bought a nice house in the Castle District using their combined savings.   In 1918 Astraea met Demetrius Farmourn for the first time at a feast in Wadesten Castle that she and Godfrey had been invited to thanks to Godfrey's status as Captain. All three instantly took a liking to each other, not being as snobby or full of themselves as it seemed everyone else in the room were. After that they became best friends and saw each other almost every day. Elina took to calling Demetrius "Uncle Dem" which he was embarrassed but happy about.   Despite having quit her career as a spy years before, in 1920 she was contacted by her father, King Wilros, who asked her if she could gather information about the strange things happening in Wadesten. Numerous half-elves were disappearing and either found later, dead, or not found at all. Astraea accepted the task, something that she would later come to regret, and found a lot of information that seemed to indicate that Duke Delmore Gildenstern had something to do with the disappearances. She could never find concrete proof, however, and her long investigation was interrupted when she became pregnant with twins in 1924.   Astraea and Godfrey had been talking about having more children for a long time and Elina had been pestering them about wanting siblings. The timing could have been a lot better but the family was overjoyed by the new addition which turned out to be two babies instead of only the one they first believed. The twins, Zephyr and Emrys, were born on Wildbringer 14th, 1925.   During Astraea's pregnancy and what was essentially maternity leave, she had instructed the small spy network she had built during her investigation of the disappearances and murders to continue without her direct involvement. Perhaps one of them wasn't as skilled in espionage and got caught and interrogated or influenced through other means to betray Astraea's work.   When the twins were barely a year old there was a fire in their house one night. Starting from the roof it spread incredibly quickly and before Astraea was even alerted from where she was downstairs, the fire had destroyed the structural integrity of the beams holding up the ceiling. She rushed upstairs to find Elina's lifeless body crushed by a burning beam where Emrys' crib had been before. Godfrey who had been on his way home from work already came rushing in as well and together they got the twins out before any lasting harm was made to them.   Astraea led Godfrey down to the secret trapdoor that led down to the sewers that she had built into her study without his knowledge. She climbed down and had him hand her the twins and before he could follow, making a quick and desperate decision she altered Godfrey's memories of having been inside of the house and instructed him to go outside where the false memories would go into effect. Astraea then travelled through the sewers to a grate leading up to the Temple District where she knew of the Everlight Orphanage. She left the boys in their blankets on the front step of the orphanage and used Sending to let Rona know that she had to come outside and get them quickly. Then Astraea hid in the shadows, making sure that her boys were taken inside before she went back into the sewers.   The only person that Astraea told that she was still alive was Demetrius. She needed someone to help her with what she had to do and he was the only one she believed had the right skills for the job and that she trusted. In her mind Godfrey had to remain in the dark about the survival of her and the boys for her plans to work as he was not a good enough actor to make his grief seem real. This was the only way she would be able to protect the only people who truly meant something to her. She wouldn't fail them like she had failed Elina. Demetrius told Godfrey that he had to return to his family estate outside of Vattencliff and joined Astraea in her hideout in the sewers.   Over the next five years Astraea and Demetrius worked together to take over the criminal underground and turn them into a spy network. At first no one but them knew what the purpose of The Faithless, as Astraea had named it, truly was but ironically their presence lowered crime rates and the brutality of the crimes. They made a disparate and lawless group into more of a family where everyone took care of each other and made sure that no one went hungry. Anyone who broke the laws of the guild were dealt with swiftly and Astraea's persona, the Duke of Whispers, started gaining a real reputation though only few ever met him.   It was a slow process to manipulate people into gaining information about Duke Gildenstern and his inner circle without having anyone questioning why. Most of it entailed keeping civilians safe from being kidnapped or murdered by people working for Duke Gildenstern. Astraea was tired and broken from her daughter's death. Everything that her mother taught to her was coming back, including the complete emotional detachment from others. Over the years she slowly forgot about taking down Duke Gildenstern and those on his side, merging with her persona of the Duke of Whispers so much that she barely remembered who she had been before. Demetrius did his best to keep her on track but it was difficult for both of them but at least they agreed that their priority would be to keep life easier for Godfrey, removing the worst elements of the city so that he wouldn't have to deal with it.   In 1935 Astraea forcefully took over the worst brothel in town named The Shrieking Siren. It catered to the worst type of people and the workers there were tortured and abused. She personally slit the throats of the previous management and gave every worker there enough money that they would be able to live the rest of their life with modest comfort without having to work again. When the previous clientele came back, unaware of the changes, Astraea had her people torture them and, if they were part of the upper echelon of society, extract information.   Astraea renovated The Shrieking Siren and made it a high-end establishment, getting new workers and putting safeguards in place to make sure that no one was treated badly. It became the main office for any of her business as the Duke of Whispers, though only a very select few knew as she projected her image into the sewers in the meeting place she had created there.   It was in 1938 that Astraea found out that Zephyr and Emrys, now Noa and Aon, were living on the streets. She figured that Rona and Naelie wouldn't kick them out and that they had left on their own. However, it was only then that she told Demetrius that the twins were alive and asked him to watch over them. The twins managed on their own for five years before Noa unfortunately ran into one of the rougher members of The Faithless while Demetrius was busy elsewhere. Like everyone in The Faithless were instructed to do, this member offered Noa to be part of the guild or stop stealing but did it in the most frightening way possible. Astraea was angry both that Noa had been inducted to The Faithless and that it had been done in a way that would turn him against the guild and its values. She cut off the hands of the member that had caught Noa stealing and left him to rot in a cell.   She made Demetrius into Noa's mentor and asked him to show him things that would help him survive in the world. It was extraordinarily bad luck that Noa met and fell in love with Ava who was Astraea's most promising spy in her renewed efforts to take down Duke Gildenstern. Then it was even worse luck that Duke Gildenstern's men killed Ava in front of Noa and made him think that it was people from The Faithless who killed her.   Demetrius had tried to convince Astraea over and over again to tell the twins and Godfrey the truth but she was afraid of the hate they would surely feel for her and worried that everything she'd done could be turned against them. It was far easier to remain the Duke of Whispers and try her very best to protect them from the shadows. She had turned into everything that her mother had taught her and everything that she hated and it was easier to keep all of that self loathing and fear behind a mask.   In Craftbringer of the year 1948 of the Age of Awakening Astraea met face to face with Noa for the first time since he was a baby. To him she looked like the hateful leader of a guild he despised but that was when the first crack in the armour she had built around herself appeared. By the time around a month later when Noa and Chloe confronted her to ask if she was his mother, the cracks had spread enough that she couldn't lie convincingly enough to fool Chloe's insightful gaze. All the pain that Astraea had been repressing for twenty three years came back in full force that day and she swore to herself that she would do whatever her sons wanted from then on, even if it meant staying away from them for the rest of her life.   As it turned out, Astraea wouldn't have to stay away from them but instead she was enlisted to help them start a revolution against Duke Gildenstern. Where Astraea had been so focused on getting hard proof of Duke Gildenstern's deeds, she had never thought of the power of turning the public's opinion against him. The training she'd received on keeping absolute secrecy had turned out to be a weakness once again.   With the evidence her sons and Chloe and Sonata combined with her own story and the things she'd seen, she was fairly hopeful as she made the journey back to Sandholm in Endbringer 1948 for the first time since she left so many years ago. She was also terrified that she would have to see her mother again, not knowing if she still lived in the palace. Her sister Alydee was now Queen, but Wilros and Estrid were still alive though they had stepped down from ruling once they felt that Alydee was old enough to rule and bring a fresh perspective.   Astraea was happier than she'd thought she'd be meeting all of them again despite the circumstances. Their anger at her for letting them believe that she was dead for all of those years almost made it easier somehow. Nora was the only one who wasn't angry, however, and instead looked at Astraea with a proud that made her feel almost sick.   The reunion was cut short. At the stroke of midnight during their end of the year celebration with all of the family gathered - with the exception of one of Alydee's children - giant vines burst through the entire palace and killed everyone inside almost instantly. However, Astraea was left alive with one of the vines simply piercing through her leg and pinning her there. She watched as vines burst through the chests of Wilros, Estrid, Alydee and all of Alydee's children that were present at the time.   Horrified at the display in front of her, Astraea took a dagger that she'd kept on her despite her formal dress and tried to cut through the vine in her leg. Finding that she couldn't even leave a mark on the vine, she slowly climbed up, dragging her leg free on top of it. She dragged herself to one of the doors but found that vines created an impenetrable wall around the entire chamber. After the exertion she passed out for a few hours. When she woke back up, still trapped in this nightmarish scenario, she decided that she wanted to see her husband and sons one last time before she died. She mustered up the strength and concentration to project her image one last time to speak to her loved ones.   Astraea died on Changebringer 1st, 1949.   She was reincarnated one day later, her soul taking residence in a new tiefling body of red skin, gold eyes and curled horns. The only resemblances were her long, black hair and her height. Reeling from the death of her parents, her mother figure and her half-sister as well as her own death, she decided to move back in with Godfrey and leave The Faithless to the inner circle and have someone else look and act like the Duke of Whispers. She wanted no part of her old job or cause death anymore.