Florence Cromwell

**Florence Cromwell**

History

The Cromwell women were witches. It was a well known fact within the villages in England, before the great witch hunts of England this was perfectly fine. The witches of the Cromwell line were treated well, they travelled the country treating illnesses, curing men, women and children right left and centre receiving gratitude from all over.

Being born in 1625 however, all of these were just stories to Florence. By 1625 the Cromwell family had went out of their way to deny all claims surrounding their family, as was to be expected when it was a capital offense. They struggled for a good long while in the beginning but after Oliver Cromwell rose in fame the reaction to the family stopped. They were convinced they'd managed to eradicate the magic from the family all together.

This however couldn't be farther from the truth. They'd just gotten very good at hiding it. They waited until a child was thirteen before they introduced them to the Grimour to see if they had magical abilities or not, this late introduction meant that their secret wasn't at risk of being exposed thanks to a child's careless magic.

Mildred Cromwell had met Edgar Byron at a ball hosted by his family. Edgar was the eldest son of some nobleman and Mildred was the distant relation of Oliver Cromwell meaning that his name alone was enough to get her into the events hosted by Englands elite. He'd fallen in love with her at first sight. Their courtship was brief and before either of them quite knew it they were married.

Florence was born to Mildred and Edgar Byron on October the 30th 1625 nearly giving both her parents a heart attack. Edgar because of his beliefs that witch's were evil and any link to the 31st was an abomination and Mildred because she wanted nothing more than to pretend that she had no link to those Cromwell Witches. You see Mildred was the oldest of five, and the only one who, when she touched the grimour had not been granted magic.

Florence grew up never wanting for anything. Her parents adored her, she knew exactly the right way to behave (they made sure of that), she was an intelligent child but the issue would always remain that she was a girl.Despite their many attempts to have another child, Mildred was unable to produce an heir for Edgar. This meant that once Edgar died his title would fall to his daughter. Edgar didn't believe in woman holding such important titles and as such, when Florence was only thirteen, he began looking for a suitable husband for her.

By sixteen Florence was betrothed to the second son of another nobleman, Richard Seymour. At only a year older than herself she supposed she couldn't complain too much but she barely knew the man, she didn't want to marry him. But she had no other options. By seventeen the pair were married and by eighteen she was pregnant with their first child.

It wasn't the worst life she supposed. Richard cared for her and he was loyal. She'd grown to care for him too over the years, love could come later. He'd been thrown into her fathers position suddenly shortly after the birth of their third child when Florence was 19 after he died suddenly in his sleep. The news had devastated Florence but with three young children, even with her mother and the nanny's help she had very little time to grieve.

By 21 the pair had six children and Florence loved every single one of them dearly. She was somewhat happy with her little family but it wasn't to last. For the year was 1646 and for the last few months Matthew Hopkins, the self proclaimed witch finder general, had been rounding up witches up and down England. The 14th of July 1646 was to be the worst day in Florence Seymour's very short life.

The witch hunters had located one of her mothers siblings and, after a rather long 'chat', the woman had revealed the names of her siblings. Including Mildred. They'd stormed the house dragging her mother from her bed accusing her of witchcraft. As her daughter Florence should have been taken too however without outright proof as the wife of a nobleman they couldn't touch her, her mother on the other hand had lost any titles when her husband had died. There was nothing to be done to protect her.

Florence had raced down to the village where her mother was to be burned. She'd arrived just as the pyre went up in smoke. She was too late. She'd collapsed to the ground still in her nightclothes and screamed. She wasn't to know that this simple act would be enough to activate the dormant magic inside of her sending everyone in the radius around her flying to the ground.

With so many witnesses it was all the proof the witch hunters needed. They'd recovered quickly taking her into custody, it would take too long for a pyre to be built and it was time they didn't have when dealing with a witch. She fought them the entire way and would up until the moment she was hanged in front of the entire town.

The witch finders had been too excited at having caught two witches in one day that they only did a very quick check to make sure she was dead. She was bundled into a wagon to be taken from the city and burned. It just so happened that halfway to the intended spot the wagon was met by a figure on the road. A vampire. The driver stood no chance against the vampire. He'd been about to leave after his meal when he discovered something he hadn't been expecting. A second heartbeat.

The vampire, she'd come to know him as Francis Del Valle, had pulled back the sheet that had been used to cover her to discover her just barely alive. What made him do what he did next she never found out (even if she did pester him for a good few decades about it), but the next thing she remembers is waking up in a hut with a completely insatiable hunger.

Francis had told her everything, about how he'd saved her from the brink of death. About how she was a vampire now. He told her that in order to live, she had to drink a humans blood. Florence wasn't completely disgusted by this (surprisingly) and put up virtually no fight in completing her transformation. For days he helped her get used to being a vampire but Florence, although not the same as she once was, could only think of her family and what she had left behind.

It was only two weeks in that Francis finally broke the news to her. Her husband and children had been killed in a fire started by the people of the village who were determined to rid themselves of the 'witches'. Florence hadn't believed him. She'd fled from the house racing for her family home. The building was nothing more than a pile of ashes. The news broke her, this would be the first time Florence turned her emotions off. Blinded with rage she went after the townspeople and the ones who were responsible for her mothers death. Not a single one survived.

The witch hunters were a little harder to find, but Florence had all the time in the world to find them. She spent years hunting them down, which eventually drew the wrong kind of attention. Only twenty years into being a vampire she was caught by a self-proclaimed vampire hunter and buried alive in the foundation of a church.

Florence would spend the next 150 years buried under that church and she probably would have remained there for the rest of her immortal life, if the church hadn't been destroyed in a particularly bad storm and had to be completely demolished and rebuilt. It was a worker that discovered her, he'd bent down to examine her more closely cutting himself on the wooden box they'd buried her in. That little amount of blood had been enough to wake her.

The world Florence found herself was much different to the one she'd left behind. Nothing was the same as she remembered it. She stumbled through the next twenty years trying to figure everything out. She's not ashamed to say she turned to drink to help her through it. Eventually, an innkeeper took pity on Florence offering her a job as a barmaid. To Florence it was just something to keep her busy, but either way she accepted the job.

As it turned out, she was very good at her job. With her memory as good as it was she could rattle off the ingredients to a number of different drinks without having to check. She was incredibly good at her job but she always found something to be missing. It wasn't until Francis Del Valle walked back into her life that she realised what it was.

He'd been just as surprised to see her as she was him. They'd talked for a good long while, filling each other in on the events of the past hundred years or so. It was him who told her about Olympus Academy, a safe haven for those like them. The thought intrigued her, even long after he'd left to continue on his way. Less than a year later she packed in her job heading for the Academy.

Olympus Academy was everything she expected and more. She let them teach her the things she'd never quite had the time to learn and once she was finished she returned to the outside world exploring it for the firs time without fear of harming anyone. It wouldn't be until the 1930s that Florence would return to the academy and it's newly founded city Tenebrae City having missed the peaceful nature of it. It was here she would open her bar, The Grim and Ghoul, with her old friend Noah Grimaldi, a werewolf.

Personality

Florence often comes across as cold making many think that she just permanently has her emotions turned off. She doesn't. She just likes to keep things to herself. After those 150 years numb in a box she hasn't ever messed with her emotions again. As far as she's concerned part of life is the ability to feel all those awful emotions that everyone hates. It's the only way to prove you're truly alive, and she doesn't always feel like she is.

Florence goes by Cromwell these days. It's the first name she can truly call her own and not one she inherited from some man. To her, the name is what started all of this. She's absolutely going to use it. She's a very withdrawn person and doesn't easily. She's a very good listener, after hundreds of years as a bartender she's had more than enough practice. As much as she pretends not to, her vampire memory means that she remembers everything that's ever happened in her life. Even if she refuses to speak about it, it will always haunt her.

Relationship
* Family
* Friends
* Enemies

WIP

WIP