Once upon a time, twin children were born into an upper class of a species of humanoids only loosely known as Mystics in a reality that barely exists anymore due to the suffocating implosion of magic and blood. The younger of the twins, now known as Abney, would find her childhood rocky and unpleasant. While attempting to cling to their customs and give children an ordinary life, her family life clashed with a world turning more and more hostile toward the Mystics and anything like them, cherishing more of the normality that humans presented and the unpredictability of their nature. People turned from cherishing their unique inputs to fearing them and what they could do; it easily became a volatile powder keg of unstable tempers and people just trying to find a place to settle down and simply be. Abney's mother would break tradition and introduce her child to the grimoire that had been passed down from parent to child, teaching her the language in which the book was written in a desperate attempt to preserve some form of their culture in turbulent times. It would be the only thing her mother would teach her before a massacre broke out after months of tense, unending negotiations with Mystic's being murdered left and right.
In a fit of desperation to save her children, a forbidden ritual was performed to send both children through pockets of reality into one they would be safe in. The last gift her mother would ever give her was the grimoire, which a young Abney held tightly to her chest as they were ripped violently through space and time, clinging to one another and the only gift their mother gave them. The next thing Abney would remember is a man with the prettiest red hair and emerald eyes, rescuing her from the icy depths that she crashed into from the sky like a star.
For a while, she had no name and no home; the man, an vampiric Viking of old named Elias Demor, searched for their parents tirelessly until he gave up after no leads and even fewer clues. The children would say nothing about their trials or much of anything period, they would just cling to one another and the strange book that Elias had a gut feeling not to go near. His wife, another undead named Anna Demor, then suggested taking the proclaimed orphan children in since they had been welcomed in by the stonehearted crew and become a source of joy for everyone. The two would become her adopted parents, onboard a tiny airship floating above the ice and snow of the Arctic. Abney and Silas were seven when she was officially given her name, the ragtag crew they once had gathered around to celebrate her 'birthday'. It is a core memory for Abney.
Adapting to the world took its toll on Abney and Silas, having to learn her way around an airship while learning a similar yet different language to the one that was spoken from her homeland. Coping with the loss of her parents and the gaining of new parents was bittersweet and, in the end, Anna and Elias proved to be caring and loving parents when they weren't terrifying soldiers off of a battleground or having nightmares from the horrors of war. Elias would teach the children of ancient Gods that he still prayed to while Anna taught them how to dress in this new world, how to read and how to be children amongst the violence. Once the language stuck, Abney would find that everything else was easy to grasp but Silas had a bit more trouble grasping the concepts of language, dress and turbulent stability.
Soon after this, Abney would begin to struggle with her magic. It was harder to draw from this world than the last and she'd get quickly frustrated but Anna was there to help soothe the girl and, despite the many questions she had, help Abney work through the stages of her emotions and try again and again until small sparks became a small flame. Through a small flame, an inferno was born and accidentally singed a few unexpected eyebrows but it was brushed off with laughter.
As a year quickly came and went, at an estimated age of eight, Abney's brother would begin to sicken and grow weaker while Abney would dive into papers and sheets, coloring and designing as a coping mechanism and stick close to him. It was then that Elias noticed the young girl's aptitude for design and enabled it, fed into it by giving her designs for failed airships that he had come up with while traveling the skies and fighting in the wars. The child proved to be a budding prodigy at this, designing a concept that even Elias was impressed with. Eventually, working with Abney, they created a design that Elias was confident in and the captain would take her designs to the war counsel of the time. This proved fruitful and H.M.S Odin was born soon after and the pair would watch in pride as the ship went from a concept to a fully built, fleshed out warship that was beginning to be built.
Elias would take full credit for the design since he never thought anyone would listen to input of an eight year old on the matters of groundbreaking designs with the blessing of a young Abney. Elias and Anna would put her into some of the best education a moving military couple could offer their child while they were on the move constantly. Abney was placed in a beginning course and it would be frustrating for the child but she'd soon grasp it and even excel at it, much to the surprise of the teacher and her parents. Abney was soon able to catch up to peers at her age and continued to excel at things when she wasn't daydreaming and drawing on spare paper in the sickbay. In her middle years it was suggested that they put Abney into an honors course for science and technology, much to Anna and Elias's surprise. To Abney's delight - they accepted and Abney would dive into challenging material that seemed to fascinate her. Science and technology seemed to flow within her brain, making as much sense as the water's flow in a stream.
Abney would be placed in more and more challenging technology and science classes, but math lagged behind a bit. The girl would proclaim that her and numbers didn't get along while everything else just clicked in her mind. Anna and Elias would help her as much as they could but Abney would still struggle and even throw a math book down the hall at one point in frustration. Despite this setback, the girl would thrive and graduate early at fifteen with honors and a letter of recommendation to an engineering school. The crew and her would celebrate, the pictures of that night still hanging on Elias's wall.
At seventeen years old, Abney had graduated from engineering school with a master certificate and aided in the building of Odin's engines, having helped create a whole new design of engine to keep it long running with limited fuel that was based solely off of crystals and clean technology. While skeptical, small scale versions of the technology had worked so Elias helped persuade the war counsel of the time to let the highly skeptical plans into fruition on a larger scale. Through hard work, tears and struggle - the technology Abney and her assistants created turned theoretical physics into plain physics, a monumental task that earned her team worldwide recognition.
Soon after Odin's completion and the sensitive technology of its engine classified it as a warship - a third world war broke out among the land. It would be devastating. Odin was filled to the brim with refugees, many of them from Viking settlements while their land was ravaged and it was then that Abney, at just 18, began to see the worst in people but was determined to help however possible. At this turn of attitude, Abney began to teach herself basic healing spells, enough to tide injured and sick people over until the refugees could get to the proper medics. Abney would see the horrors of full war and had quickly grown up while protecting Silas from this as much as possible to keep the sick boy from worrying and fretting too much.
Abney began learning the ins and outs of combat, quickly finding out what she was capable of and how to keep her head leveled in stressful situations although she never quite got the grasp of the anger that bloomed when someone shot at her ship. Anna, and her sisters in arms, would teach her how to be a shield maiden, while Elias would teach her how to defend herself if she didn't have a shield. It was too much, too fast and Abney would metaphorically stumble through it, turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms.
During the course of the third world war, and the desperation to have more vessels to aid in the war, the H.M.S Persephone and U.N.S Thor was born from ragtag designs and quickly built. The ships were smaller than Odin but served as more support vessels than combatants, taking refugees to camps or sending more soldiers to the frontlines to see their demise.
The halls of ship's would be filled with creatures' regardless of legends: vampires, werewolves, golems - the types of creatures living and breathing with magic. The people who chose to stay and found a niche in their halls, led by an undead Viking and his equally undead wife, would become her ragtag family. People who had started as refugees were staying aboard, sticking around until they could see an end to this war. Several minor wars broke out among the different nations and why this happened, Abney would never know but it was then that she felt true frustration in the human race. The war lasted until Abney was twenty-four years of age.
As things settled around their world but her brother worsened, Abney began playing with the new powers at her fingertips, expanding them and trying to master them outside of basic combat and healing. In a fit fueled by caffeine, sleepless nights and desperation - Abney would make a grave, extremely foolish mistake which would result in the end of her brother's life, causing Abney to be recognized as the last of her kind.
With the potent magic of her line refusing to die, it infused with her very essence, forcing her immortality at an agonizingly painful price. Since that day - Abney has walked in her ship's halls, fixed their engines, kept them up and maintained them for just under one hundred years. Refusing to give up on her family line, Abney studied her magic and forced herself to get a handle on it, mastering it more and more as time went on and she taught herself. The Witch soon saw world peace, something she didn't think she'd see; the world had been so devastated after the last war that they created a world government called The Counsel. It was led by representatives from every walk of life everywhere on the planet and, soon, a tentative peace flourished and people began rebuilding with the ragtag crew across their three ships.
