Shara Devareaux

*She's the fire in the sin*

*And I burn breathing her in*

*Now it's love suicide*

*And I sell my soul for the high*

*Truth be told I don't mind*

*'Cause her hand's my paradise*

*She can crush every hope*

*Got her heels stomping down my throat*

*She got blood cold as ice*

*And a heart made of stone*

*But she keeps me alive*

*She's the beast in my bones*

*She gets everything she wants*

*When she gets me alone*

*Horns - Bryce Fox*

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(**TW**: The content of Shara's backstory involves potentially triggering content including vague allusions towards the following: parental neglect, religious trauma, child endangerment, kidnapping, ab\*se, allusions to SA, murder, body horror. Nothing in this background will go into detail but please be aware and tread lightly.)

Born in 1974 to a neglectful Marblehead home, Aisling was her parents attempt at keeping their marriage together. Between her father's distraction as a philosophy professor at Harvard and her mother's brutal turnarounds as a surgeon at MGH, the child they put all their hopes and pressures on was more oft than not forgotten about. Another sacrificial latchkey kid lost between the cracks; the day her sire kidnapped her off the playground shortly after the sun went down in the summer of 1984 was just another excuse for their own vainglorious pain. Imagining the horrors of what their little girl was going through was enough misery porn to keep them together for the press junket until another tragedy took center stage. After all, who could ever expect the Keatings to stay together after such hardships?

*What self-aggrandizing bullshit*...

It didn't matter that Elias was the exact kind of predator they were afraid snatched up the then ten year. A Lasombra hedonist Ductus on Cathari, Elias took great delight in Embracing his little Shard of the Abyss, the grandchilder of their bloodline Elias was every part the opposite of Izabella and his illustrious career with the Sword of Caine was one of bloodthirsty brutality and sadistic sociopathy unchecked and instead encouraged to flourish. Shara was expected to follow in his footsteps and more oft than not it was her cherubic looks of chaotic red hair and large blue eyes were used as bait to unsuspected kine. But some patterns rhyme and repeat and it wasn't long before Shara's newest 'parent' abandoned her to greener pastures without so much as a goodbye. And while she had decent status among the Sword as Proven, Initiated, and Loyal she was all but alone the spring of 2004 when she first crossed paths with the newly liberated Nigel Obertus. The pair of them would never been seen more than an arm's length apart if they could help it, the codependency lashing them together Ductus and Priest of their 'mighty pack of two' with it's occasional temporary additions until they joined the Bishop of Boston's pack in 2005. But they were not allowed entrance before she was expected to be 'fixed'; Nigel and Shara were informed that Shara needed to blend better, hypocritical considering the Sabbat wasn't beyond every other unsubtle breach of the Masquerade inhumanely possible. Apparently the monsters didn't want a reminder of their monstrosity, the irony of that fact not lost to her. But after decades of being stuck an adult Cainite trapped in the body of a child, it was time.

It took Nigel a good few months of testing and perfecting the exact measurements and silhouette to his liking and the sadistic Vicissitude master artist took to his masochistic subject. Most of the time Shara lost track of who and how and where she was but eventually Nigel completed his masterpiece and Shara was finally herself for the first time in decades. The next few months were infuriating in their continued petty gatekeeping inanity. There was always *something* about Shara that was not enough; she was on Path of Cathari therefore she was incapable of responsibility despite many prestigious members of the Sword were Catharists, her voice didn't hold weight despite being a high status Lasombra with a prestigious if disgusting sire, she wasn't fit for front line combat despite being a master of Potence, Obtenebration and Abyssal Mysticism, she was too liberal with the Dark Kiss despite plenty of others shovel heading childer when she handpicked her own, she was too dependent on Nigel despite her beloved being just as tied and devoted to her. There was always something and it was only a matter of time before she realized that she wasn't the only Lasombra they were icing out. Deacon was also being pushed to the side despite his own prestigious lineage and exploits. Was it any surprise when the pair began to splinter from the Sword, or Shara's desire to serve her naysayers the crow they'd so surely be force-fed one way or another?

Perhaps it would have ended the way they wished if they hadn't tried to drive a wedge between her and Nigel. The only person that stayed by her side, that chose her time and time again; Nigel was the other half of her soul and when she began to resent the Sword's treatment of her she decided to make one last plea to her eternal companion. She was turning apostate to the Sword and she wanted him to come with her. Truly Shara expected him to abandon her like the others but he didn't. The Cainite, who had never known a moment of humanity, was the only person who willingly chose her and Shara vowed to burn the world to cinders if anyone dare separate them. He stayed by her side even as she began to be rocked with night terrors and visions of a garden of thorn soaked with a sea of blood and tears. He followed her as she descended into madness, scribbling in journals and along walls the words and ciphers whispered to her in ancient and modern tongues. He stayed by her side as she finished rending the Path of Cathari out of her soul, a harrowing path started before they had ever left the Sword. He talked her back from the edge when her immortal damned soul hovered on that precipice of being lost forever before she found her footing back onto the way of the Mother. He followed her into that madness, that desperation, that revelation, that blissful peace blurring the edge of agony and ecstasy that only other Baharists could truly understand.

Still Shara continued her gospel, a mad pilgrimage through the decades taking the pair of them across the world. Eventually choosing a place back in Connecticut to call theirs, Shara insisted that Nigel stay while she descended into the other realms looking for answers whilst dodging Inquisitors of the Sabbat and the Alastors of the Camarilla. Rationalizing that it was better for her alone to face them as she could blend better than he could, what with her predilection to mimicking the fashions and vernacular of the era and he stuck in his beloved 80s when Revenant servitude gave way to Cainite freedom. He could keep a haven for them, experiment to his heart's content and not have to interact with mortal society. Shara's last known whereabouts were chasing a lead down in New Orleans, her picture being taken by Nyx the night the Poppets attacked.

It is safe to assume Shara recalls the events of the Apocalypse and perhaps more...

After Rosalie returned to the party assembled at Nigel and Shara's Haven, Shara volunteered to rescue Serg from whatever clandestine spell blowback had trapped him in an unnameable Torpor. After rescuing Serg with Shara and Nigel recognized the Nosferatu from their collective time in the Sabbat (be it as spy or once devotee). Combining their collective intelligence in regards to the five cities that sprung up out of nowhere (currently described by Nigel as the Mycelium) the assembled party headed to Kingsport, MA in the hopes of further looking into The Apocrypha Murders with the offer of respite open should they need somewhere local to regroup at.