Melek al-Hashim

Information
 **Year of Death** | ---

## Summary

Melek al-Hashim (born Melek al-Azra) is the middle child of Azra al-Mireya and her husband, Nereo al-Bahija. From an early age, she struggled with violent outbursts, disturbing visions of fire raining from the sky, and a whispering voice that urged her to take up arms against evildoers. This all made her an outcast from her pacifistic community in Andalus, and she left while still a teenager.

Taking advantage of her strength, Melek took a job as a caravan guard and traveled north until she reached Gaul. When her caravan reached the border town of Arroyo, the rain of fire from her visions came to pass, and she and other survivors sought refuge in the caves beneath the town. Finally Melek understood what the voice in her mind had been talking about for almost two decades: she was born to fight the demon invasion.

## Description

Melek is eighteen years old, and her youthfulness is readily apparent in her face and in her behavior; however, she's already taller than average, and she has a sturdy, athletic build. Her hair is dark reddish-brown, but she normally keeps it covered beneath a patterned headcloth, as is traditional for followers of Ereshkigal. Her skin is golden brown, and her eyes are a light gold with flecks of jade. She has a tattoo on her face: a black vertical line in the middle of her forehead that runs from her hairline to the middle of her nose. She wears long-sleeved tunics and trousers gathered at the ankle; her clothing often has owl and snake motifs.

In personality, it is clear that Melek has been told many times that she is too quick to anger and too brash; she will often react forcefully on instinct, then catch herself, apologize, and shrink back. When she is especially upset she will mutter a mantra or prayer under her breath to keep herself calm. She is quick to protect those she perceives as weak or defenseless, even if those people don't necessarily want her help.

When Melek's aasimar nature awakens, her eyes radiate a piercing white light. Additional eyes open all over her face and body, all emitting the same deathly white light. Her skin begins to flake and peel away as if her body can't contain the divine energy that is spilling out.

## Backstory

Melek was born in the city of Ibarra, state capital of Medina in the Confederacy of Andalus. Her parents, Azra and Nereo, were members of the pacifistic Allatu community - worshippers of the ancient death goddess Ereshkigal. The community they lived in was on the more devout side of the spectrum and was thus more insular than other Allatu; they kept to their own district in the city, forbidding the presence of butchers or fishmongers and pointedly averting their eyes from any outsider who walked the streets without properly covering their skin and hair.

From a young age, Melek was taught by her family and her teachers that physical violence was unacceptable; taking any life, for any reason, was an unforgiveable sin. However, there was a voice in her dreams - that even sometimes whispered in her waking hours - that suggested differently. The voice claimed he was Namtar, vizier to and messenger of Ereshkigal, and he told Melek that she had been brought above the earth by the Queen of the Great Below to serve as Her right hand; to protect those who could not protect themselves; and to wreak terrible vengeance on those who killed the innocent. There was a great catastrophe coming, Namtar said, when fire would rain from the sky and an ocean of monsters would flood the earth, and Melek needed to be ready for when that day came.

Namtar's words were so distressing that Melek tried to ignore them at first. But he didn't go away. After a while, he started to make a sort of sense. Melek was bigger and stronger than most children her age, after all - wasn't that a sign that Namtar was right, that she was supposed to use her strength to enforce Her will? She started getting into fights - not just arguments, but actual *fights* - so frequently that her concerned parents brought her to the head priestess, Mother Fatima al-Saliha to determine what was wrong with her. After some gentle prodding, Melek confessed to hearing Namtar, and what he had been telling her.

Perhaps understandably, Fatima did not believe Melek was actually being spoken to by Namtar. Instead, Mother Fatima explained to Melek's parents, Melek was a child with an unusually forceful and hotheaded personality - one that did not naturally mesh with the tenets of the Allatu, and so Melek had compartmentalized her "unacceptable" thoughts until they seemed like another being entirely. Mother Fatima suggested that Melek's urges be channeled into more acceptable avenues, namely training in an old self-defense style that had long ago been developed by Allatu with a more "active" interpretation of Ereshkigal's pacifistic mandate. Mother Fatima also gave Melek private lessons on Allatu philosophy and meditative practices, to help her better control her temper.

Melek learned a lot over the next several years; she grew even stronger with regular athletic training, and the mantras Mother Fatima taught her did seem to help her maintain composure... but only to an extent. No matter how diligently she studied, no matter how often she talked through her feelings and her impulses with Mother Fatima, the whispering voice of Namtar never went away. If anything, he grew ever more insistent. Fire was coming, monsters were coming; she dreamed of them frequently. It all became too much; Melek couldn't take any more of Mother Fatima saying *she* was the problem, the monsters and the voices were all in her head and if she just were a better Allatu she would be cured. They quarreled, Melek lost her temper, and she struck Mother Fatima. Melek was young and strong; Mother Fatima was neither.

Striking someone out of anger was already a sin for the Allatu; seriously injuring a high priestess in a fit of rage was almost as unforgiveable as murder. Melek knew she had done a terrible wrong and submitted herself to whatever punishment the community deemed appropriate. There was little debate, especially given her history of outbursts: banishment. Additionally, she was subject to the rarely-enforced punishment of having her face (the one part of her body that isn't traditionally covered) tattooed, forever marking her as a dangerous outcast. She also was forbidden from using her birth surname and was instead bestowed with the moniker al-Hashim, "the breaker."

Though Melek could have chosen to stay in Medina - indeed, she could have stayed in Ibarra as long as she moved to a different district - but she felt like she needed to get as far away from the source of her shame as possible. Deciding to put her martial skills to some use, she took a job as a guard for one of the many caravans that travel north out of Andalus. When that job was done, she took another one that went even further north - and on, and on, further north and east. Over time she gained a reputation amongst the merchant companies for being effective at "persuading" would-be troublemakers to back down with minimal bloodshed, and for being willing to help civilians she met en route even if it wasn't directly related to her guard duties.

Eventually, Melek reached Gaul. She decided to spend some time resting in Arroyo... and that is when the demons came. The nightmare had finally come true. Melek helped as many civilians as she could flee into the caverns. But she's convinced that she was not meant to cower underground forever.

## Epilogue

Melek felt utterly betrayed by Ash, Arturo, and Jables for making compacts with Asmodeus. It seemed to her that Asmodeus had abandoned his one mission, the one purpose that made his existence justifiable. So, therefore, he could no longer be allowed to rule. Almost immediately after she was returned to Avalon, she made another excursion into Hell - alone. She assumed (perhaps wrongly) that none of her former companions would be willing or able to join her.

Her attempt went... not great. Even though Avernus (ruled by Arturo) and Malbolge (ruled by Jables) were *curiously* devoid of devils trying to stop her, that still left several other layers of hell to fight through alone. While on Maladomini, Melek finally got bogged down by the flood of enemies, and might not have survived if Hector Diversey and Morrigan Devlin hadn't portaled in and extracted her. They had arrived at Ash's request, they explained, which at first only inflamed Melek's resentment towards Ash - it seemed that they had simply wanted to avoid the possibility of Melek reaching Cania.

However, while Melek was recuperating in Slewej, she received an invitation from Ash. No harm would be done to her while she was in Cania, and she was to harm none while there. Most intriguingly, Ash claimed they had important information about Melek's parentage, so despite her hesitations, Melek agreed to meet. In Cania, Ash revealed three important things: 1) if Melek succeeded in killing Asmodeus, he would simply assume control of Ash's body and be reborn; 2) Duraz was alive again, having been resurrected as part of Ash's compact with Asmodeus; 3) while wandering Avalon for a time, Ash had had a chance encounter with her mother, Azra. They'd had a chance to speak. Azra wanted Melek to come home.

Oh, also, Asmodeus was Melek's biological parent all along. Though, honestly, by that point there had been so many theories about her true parentage, that revelation was almost an anticlimax.

After exchanging many words and more than a few tears, Melek was forced to accept that, as much as it galled her to let Asmodeus get away with his plan seemingly unpunished, killing him would simply be playing into yet another one of his carefully placed gambits. To truly defy Asmodeus, Melek should cease her violent quest and pursue a life of peace. The best revenge is a life well-lived, after all.

So Melek went home to Ibarra, to the family she thought she'd never see again. Though not everyone in her community was pleased by her return, the general consensus amongst the Allatu leaders was that the extraordinary, extenuating circumstances of the past year allowed a rescinding of her banishment. Many also concluded that having a warrior of her strength and ability to serve as a protector of the Allatu was a good idea. And so that became Melek's new role: the guardian, the lioness of Ereshkigal, the sole Allatu given sanction to use deadly force if necessary. And though she would be forever marked as different because of this role, she was accepted by her people nonetheless.