Margarete/Backstory

### Magna Phylum

Several millenia ago, a pact was formed between humans and Dragons, meant to persist for the rest of eternity as the two races swore to watch each other's backs and attempt to coexist with each other. This pact served as a covenant btetween Humanity and Dragonkind, with those who broke it being punished accordingly by both races and the enforcers of the will of this covenant. Dragons and humans living together in perfect harmony was condsidered to be a feat near impossible, with many dragons having perceived humanity as lesser creatures and some even as food, while humans as a populace tended to see dragonkind as either weapons whose power should somehow be harnessed, or threats to the existence of their entire species. In those days, the individual, the humans that ended the hostility between humans and dragons long enough for the pact to be formed were recorded to bear the mark of a dragon on every part of their clothing, and a numbered few dragons took the form of members of humanity. This event, was the signing of the agreement known as the **Magna Carta.**Some of the peoplewho signed this agreement with the Dragons who agreed with this all, would become both the predecessors and ancestors of the people known as The **Dragon Lords.**

Many of the people who signed this contract would move together and live together, until an entire tribe complete with their own culture and beliefs would be birthed, following the principles and tenets of the Magna Carta as commandments. At the head of this hiearchy, was the God of the tribe, one of, if not the the most powerful Dragon the tribe themselves had ever seen, and an individual capable of taking the form of a human, the ancient Bahamut, otherwise referred to in the forgotten tongue of the Dragon as Krinrahjun. Said to be larger than life itself, the Divine-class Dragon Krinrahjun was said to have commanded the loyalty of many of his own kind throughout his life due to his overwhelming power, unwavering courage, and dedication to his people. The tribe would constantly migrate until settling down on a relatively peaceful island.As time passed, about several centuries ago, a healthy baby girl,was eventually born to Krinrahjun and the woman who would eventually become his wife, a descendant of the founder of the Dragon Lords and a carrier of the Tohsaka bloodline, a Joker and Dragon Slayer.

Margarete's birth was prophecied by the Oracle of her clan, in a similar manner to that of her older brother before her, and was described as a messianic figure of unknown purposes. and at one year old she was confirmed to have inherited the Sorcery Trait of her family and particular bloodline within the Dragon Lords, transforming her into an individual who could be considered to be the greatest anti-draconic entity yet the invididual with the closest possible bond to Dragons as an entire race, the **Dragonborn**, even closer than Dragons to fundamentally what constituted a draconic existence. The first five years of her life involved her being venerated as a sort of goddess to the Dragon Lords, humans who lived completely in hamony with the superior supernatural existences that were dragons, and dragons who were still staunch supporters of the Magna Carta. Margarete demonstrated an exceptional talent in the usage of mystical energies, channeling and manipulating these arcane powers to an efficiency far surpassing even the skill of natural masters of magic such as Dragons at her age, demonstrating a talent only rivalled by the prowess of her older brother, who was gifted himself.

Despite her status as a goddess to her tribe, the Dragon Lords lived among their gods as allies, friends, and even family. Krinrahjun was seen as a father figure and older brother in addition to his status as a "God", as worship in the eyes of the tribe was simply done out of nothing but love, admiration, and respect. Margarete's mother, Tamara, was the most distinguished member of the Dragon Lords apart from Krinrahjun, and held within her the power of a Sage Dragon, as well as her own personal element, rendering her a Sage Dragon Slayer. She also acted as a rolemodel, counsellor, warrior, scholar, and even tribe mother for the entirety of the tribe. Hansel, Margarete's older brother was a one of a kind prodigy in the utilization of Dragonscript, amongst other things. As the youngest of the House of Bahamut, Margarete was considered to be the baby of the entire tribe, and experienced a normal, if not idealistic initial childhood for the first five years of her biological life.

At some point in time before Margarete's sixth birthday, the Dawnguard eventually called a Buster Call on all of Margarete's tribe, a war/raid that would last several weeks due to the vast numbers and the power of the Dragon Lords, and their motivation to protect their divinities. In the meanwhile, due to Margarete's age, her body was capable of being the recipient of a ritual that would perhaps define the rest of her life. Margarete was infused with the draconic energy of her parents on a level unseen since the Dragon Slayer Enchantment processes of old and had her infant soul fused with that of her parents' upon their death, a unique Dragon Lord variation of the magical spell known as the Dragon Soul Seal. Bonding their souls with that of Margarete's, the hopes and dreams of the entirety of dragonkind, the will of her parents, and the vision of peace between humans and dragons was inherited by the young girl symbolically as her path became revealed.

Margarete and her older brother, Hansel, were concealed and forced into the form of tough dragon eggs that forced them underground, effectively rebirthing them centuries later. Hansel would reawaken first, breaking free of his shell in the middle of what is now Gula with the vaguest of memories of what occured, and would take care of his sister's form as an egg until she too broke out later, seemingly being "hatched" in the form of a six year old human girl. When she was reborn, Margarete had little to no memories of her life with the Dragon Lords, yet had a strange fascination with the mythological creatures and a love for jewels.

### Hansel and Gretel

For as long as Margarete could remember, she and her older brother Hans roughed it alone in life, with no mother or father to protect them or guide them through the harsh world around them. Living and getting by through activities less than morally outstanding in the world around them, such as theft and sabotage, Margarete and Hansel proved to be two of the youngest and most skilled human thieves within Gula. Taking special routes through the alleyways and dirtiest portions of the city, while ensuring that they made sure to avoid the territory of Ghouls, Margarete and her brother were almost never seen in public, and whenever they were, they made sure to not be seen shortly after. For unexplained circumstances, Hansel was always faster than the others around him, escaping and disappearing through some of the strangest of situations, and saving her life. Quite frankly, to the young six year old girl, Hansel as she called him was more than just her brother. He was her father figure, her mentor, and finally, her hero. She was never quite sure how he did it, but whenever she was near her brother, she just..felt safe. She couldn't quite explain it, but she greatly loved her brother above anything else in the world.

At the very end of Gula, a few kilometres away from exactly where the Blood Breed territory lay, Margarete and Hans had found an abandoned safehouse and made it effectively their home after patrolling the area to ensure no-one came this close. While the two often found themselves sleeping in shifts during the night in the rare occassion that someone decided to investigate, it had already been two years, they were sure they were fine enough. Hansel was quite intelligent, so intelligent in fact, that he had recreated the pheromones that vampires produce to distinguish their species from the others living in Gula. It wasn't done through conventional methods of course, but the books in the house were quite strange. Almost as if people were here before her. While suspicious smelling, this proved to be a powerful diversionary tactic and a good means of concelaing their presences. With a roof over their head, the Hecate siblings seemed to be doing quite well for orphaned humans in the nation with the deepest supernatural presence.

However, all this would change on the 5th of May, Margarete's birthday. She was just becoming a seven year old girl, when there was a strange creaking sound coming from the wooden safehouse. As the young girl began blowing out the salvaged candles placed in a stolen, pre-baked cake, quite extravagantly made if she was allowed to say such a thing, Margarete watched as her big brother told her to stay back, taking up the role as "Man of the House". To Hansel's surprise, a very beautiful maiden, with long flowing hair the colour of polished gold stood before him within the building. Caught off guard even despite the relative age difference, after the initial hestitation the boy wasted the least amount of time humanly possible to pull out a shotgun, and aimed it directly at the woman, demanding that she explained herself. Introducing herself as Rosina Leckermaul, the woman claimed to be a human traveller looking for a place to get away from others, and that she was on their side, but Hansel showed her out. Margarete still had no idea what was going on, and wondered why her older brother was taking so long to come back and cut the cake for her. Creeping down the stairs, Margarete came down to see that Hansel just stood there, with food on the floor next to him near the gun.

The next week, Margarete became suddenly ill, and Hansel went off to the city by his lonesome to find medicine for his ailing sister. During the period of her affliction, Margarete would go through some of the books that her brother would usually read. Apart from a few story books, the young girl began to read studiously, getting into the habit of reading some of the most advanced of books. While Hansel seemed to be intelligent, Margarete began to believe that it was these books that granted him all of this knowledge. It was quite strange, however, as to why a random safehouse would have such beneficial books. Were people here before them? Regardless, Margarete enjoyed reading almost as much as she enjoyed the outdoor activities with her big brother. Her favourite topic? Why, crystals of course. Diamonds, and therefore crystals, were a girl's best friend, and technically, this book about crystals was probably the closest thing she had to a friend that was not also her family. The book was trustworthy, it's information was true, and honest, and she enjoyed learning.

However, as she read, her condition slowly grew worse, and Hansel's attempts at identifying and finding a medicine for this particular condition was not going so well. Saddened, the young boy would complete the trudge back home to find Rosina on her way back to what appeared to be deeper into the city. Not too suspicious, Hansel explained the situation reluctantly and somewhat tearfully to the blonde woman after being asked what the problem was. He was visibly not fine, but at that time, the strangest thing happened. Rosina gave him some medicine, and told him immediately that this medicine would work, and even told him what was inside the medicine. Going off to give it to his sister after a brief thanks, Margarete was surprised when Hans came back with a small red bottle. Drinking it, Margarete had already begun to feel better than she was before already.

With the incredibly deep bond the two shared, Rosina's actions immediately began to gain Hansel's trust, due to helping his sister to get better. Inviting Rosina in later, Margarete, Hans, and Rosina all sat a table together and shared a small supper, consisting of fish, vegetables, rice, and a small slab of beef. It wasn't the best meal out there, but it was definitely balanced. Margarete laughed and giggled while eating, and so did everyone else at the table. Life, while not good, wasn't terrible. That was the general unspoken consensus came to by everyone at the table. Little did they know that the friend they invitied in the building was not such a nice person. In Gula, vampiric manipulation into blood consumption was common, and Rosina, despite how she appeared on the outside, was monstrous on the inside. However, she didn't break into it right away of course. Where's the fun in that? She needed to see their tiny little faces writhe in terror and agony.

As they continued to eat, the Leckermaul suddenly began to express the fact that the food in her opinion was quite good, but the strange bit about the entire thing was that she didn't seem to chew the food at all whatsoever. Margarete was quite observant of the smallest detail and asked her if she even tasted the food at all, which drew a retort from her brother. However, as Margarete talked, something seemed to snap within the woman, as she began to emit strange guttural laughs. Rushing back over to her older brother's side, the siblings would watch as the woman seemingly shifted into something awful, a hunched over feminine creature of a visibly predatory nature, with teeth jutting out of it's mouth, an elderly modern day vampire.

As the siblings panicked, she began to explain exactly what she was doing. For centuries, the Leckermaul Family underwent a very traditionalistic ritual in these grounds. Whilst the Great Nation Gula would usually have the Leckermaul locked up for even thinking of doing such a thing, this particular one had not yet committed the deed, something she aimed to rectify. The process usually went as such. Humans found the abandoned warehouse and exploited the fact that no-one visited to get free housing. The books and other things found inside there were small amenities to give the house a dated feel. Finally, the humans would rub themselves with a "pheromone". This pheromone was directly linked to the Leckermaul Family, something they could smell over quite some distance. After that, it was just a bit of manipulation and ensuring the blood wasn't sickly. Imprisonment or not, the ritual had to be done.

"First, I'll begin with you...Hansel~". In an incredible burst of speed, the monster suddenly appeared before the young boy who put Margarete behind himself as so as to protect her. As the creature's claws swung through the air, the world seemed to stop around Margarete. She could see the tears stream down her older brother's face. She could feel the tension in the air. This was an event that she wasn't sheltered from. Despite the entirety of her world basically being confined to a given, happy go area, and the fact that her brother would have her be a child forever, she suddenly felt like no more could she do that. She couldn't pretend to be an oblivious child anymore. Tears streamed down her own face. As waters flowed down her face, the first thing she could taste was salt. As she thought of salt, the one thing that comforted her came to mind. Crystals. With a melancholic wail, Margarete opened her mouth and suddenly, winds seemingly rushed forth and attacked the woman, before becoming a virtual horizontal tornado of crystal, shredding through her assilant with a deafening pitch. Piercing through the building's walls, whatever she just did had enough power to completely annhilate this woman.

*"...I...I didn't mean to...Hans I didn't want to kill her.."*Hans had always thought that his ability of speed was rather unique, and that because he had this particular power, he had to be the one to protect Margarete no matter what, but what Margarete had done, showed a power far beyond what he could have ever possibly imagined. Speed and Crystals, the two now revealed to be Jokers, and finally drawing the attention of those around them, were not prepared for what happened next.

## Krystals and Avarice

The monster's body fell with a thud that resounded across the sudden silence of the room, it's transfigured husk mangled and disfigured beyond recognition by the seven year old girl's desperate onslaught of a sudden overwhelming destructive power, an innate power remanifested out of simply love. However, this silence would only be momentary, as the siblings both agreed that they needed to get out of the safehouse before anyone further inland began to suspect the fact that someone had gone missing. As perhaps the nation's most skilled thieves at the time, Margarete and her brother left no stone unturned and no trace of their presence behind in escaping the building, taking refuge within the forests of Gula effectively as fugitives for the next two years, the culprits behind one of the longest unresolved mysteries

The now nine year old girl and her older brother, on the cusp of puberty, had witnessed and experienced quite a few things in the two years leading up to the present. Accomodating to life in the forest, both Margarete and Hansel remarked on a sense of familiarity they seemed to have with the lifestyle, as if they had lived there before. Not exactly in those forests, but the concept of isolated living within a similar habitat seemed to strike a chord of familiarity within their subconscious. Margarete and Hansel were both quite grown, and while she always thought that she appeared to be much stronger than the regular civilian girls she would see during their exploits within the nation's towns, in the past two years she noticed a dramatic improvement in her physical power, accidentally toppling a tree the two would use for it's wood later on and forcing them to have relocated once. Chalking up these greatly improved physical characteristics to simply be the result of exercise on her body, her older brother appeared to be no exception to this rise.

Due to the lives the siblings currently lived, Margarete's perhaps sheltered view of the world, especially when put in tandem with killing someone for the first time, appeared to be slowly evaporating, and started to become replaced with a cunning she needed not only to survive in the forest, but also to escape suspicion or something innit.