Rachel

### Songs

Charm (All/3), Entropy (Corporeal/3, Ethereal/6), Fruition (All/3), Harmony (Ethereal/3), Healing (All/3), Light (Celestial/6), Shields (All/3), Thunder/6

### Skills

Dodge/3, Emote/3, Fighting/6, Knowledge (Child-rearing/6, Occultism/3, Research/3, Theology/6), Language (Latin/3, Greek/3), Large Weapon/6 (sword), Lying/3, Move Silently/6, Ranged Weapon/6 (shotgun) Small Weapon/3 (knife), Tactics/6

All she ever wanted was a child. That's what God wanted too, surely: why would She give the Watchers the ability to procreate with humanity if they weren't meant to exercise it?

Apparently, the malakim disagreed. Worse, they were able to do something concrete with their disagreement. Rachel remembers that day quite well, the day when the massed forces of Heaven turned their backs on the grigori and condemned them for loving well, if not wisely. Eli tried to stop it from happening, of course: he went as far as anyone could without stepping over the line into outright rebellion. In fact, her old Superior actually went a few steps over that line. If it wasn't for Dominic's timely intercession, there might have been one more archangel going outcast that day. Rachel doesn't blame Eli for what happened next.

What happened next came perilously close to being a slaughter. Someone had tipped off Hell that this was going to happen, and the demons came out to play. The next few years were nightmarish: too many Watchers were trapped, tortured, played with . . . and what happened to their families was simply obscene. And, of course, above it all you could see the black wings as those sanctimonious emotional weaklings looked upon their handiwork and found it good. But the battle wasn't one-sided: oh, no. The grigori have always understood the virt . . . the *benefits* of togetherness, and they were able to do a little trapping and killing of their own. And, if a few malakim disappeared now and then, well . . . so what? It's a dangerous world out there.

Rachel wasn't ever involved in that sort of thing. She just wanted to try to help the humans that she lived among, trying her best to keep true to what she believed in. Eventually, she settled in what would become the Roman Empire, taking on the identity of various members of an extensive Roman clan. She had her children, she had her family, she had her purpose.

And then the malakim took everything away from her again.

Those grigori living in the Roman Empire were always fond of the holiday of Lupercalia: its emphasis on fertility resonated with their own nature and tragedy. Rachel was especially fond of the festival and made it a point to walk among the crowds and help, anonymously, those in the crowd especially desirous for children. It made them so happy, nine months later ~ and Rachel would smile when she saw a baby of the right age and wonder whether she was the facilitator of this most priceless of gifts. Still, when the Christian Church finally managed to suppress the holiday, Rachel was disappointed, but didn't see it as a premonition of disaster.

She spent the next thousand years cursing herself for her blindness. You see, certain servitors of Purity had ferreted out the grigori presence in Rome and had bided their time until the natural unrest from the suppression of such a popular holiday could hide their activities. That night, every grigori in Rome was attacked. Many died: most, even. Rachel survived ~ but wished she hadn't. For, you see, the malakim also struck at the Watchers' families. They killed every single mortal member of her kin, down to the smallest baby. They even took the time to sow the ground with salt.

After that, Rachel was happy to play the game. Well, not happy, but willing. The blackwings had killed her family, in defiance of even their own hypocritical rules: well, if the rules had been tossed aside, then there was no reason to being a fool. 'Ten for one' became her motto, and by now she's about halfway there. It took forever to discover the actual participants of the attack on her family, and almost as long to soul-kill them all. After that challenge, she branched out to the worst examples of the breed ~ not that any of them are especially worthwhile, in the grigori's view. Rachel wants to live to enjoy each drop of her revenge, so she is careful to attack only when she's sure to win ~ and when she does, it's without mercy.

Her deepest regret is that she couldn't be there when Uriel was exiled in his turn. But that's fine: Rachel suspects that the archangel of Purity can still observe events on the three planes. She’ll be happy to give him an especially good show. Uriel was responsible for the death of her sons: somehow, someday, she’ll be responsible for the death of his. Rachel is probably insane by now through grief and anger, but she still realizes that killing the archangel of the Sword is beyond her powers ~ but there must be a way. There must be. It's the only comfort that she can allow herself. She doesn't even associate with her Choir-mates anymore. They always end up trying to dissuade her from her purpose.

All she wanted was a child.