Ileana Leontine

[Ileana Leontine]

Name: Ileana Leontine, born Capria Arbandi.
Age: Indeterminate. Appears to be around 70.

Born a noble's daughter just outside Skara Brae, Capria, like most noble's daughters, spent her time being taught in those skills and talents deemed most appropriate to a noble's daughter. Despite this she developed a most unladylike interest in the alchemical and magical arts. Indeed, not only did she show an interest for it but she also demonstrated a clear talent for it, even in spite of her noble parents many attempts to discourage her. Slowly she became more powerful in its use though being able only to practice in secret. When it came time for her to be married to another noble's son as is custom, she chose instead to run away from the estate of her father and wandered Britannia.

In this time Britannia was much simpler and arguably purer than it was now; craftsman humbly went about their business, and monsters or a less sinister kind, perhaps, wandered the lands. It was in this time that Capria continued to practice her art until she could learn no more from simple wandering. She learned that the one place that would allow her to continue would be a monastic order that had isolated itself not far from Vesper. Travelling to this Monastery, she realised quickly that it was not merely an order of mages but indeed of the Virtues. Having never been concerned about the Virtues before she nonetheless became a member of the Order believing adherence to the Virtues to be a necessary beneficient to further study of magery. After all, why would the Order encourage it if it were not?

Once again her power grew and she became accustomed to the ways of Virtue, visiting Shrines and making pilgrimages. Still she considered the Virtues to be subordinate to the ways of magery, however, and soon grew tired of the limitations she felt the Order imposed on her studies. Soon, in search of other company, she began travelling to Vesper to meet with others there. It on one such occasion that she met a young trader who had stopped in Vesper called Leon Illian. They quickly became fast friends and then more than that. Though warned against such action by the leaders of the Order the relationship moved further and Capria became pregnant.

Upon becoming aware of this, the Abbot of the Order cast Capria out. She instead turned to travelling with Leon, though her pregnancy made such travelling difficult. A few months later, Capria entered labour but while this took place the camp her and Leon had made came under attack by brigands. Cries and yells rang  out from the forest nearby and soon a figure stumbled towards Capria. Temporarily blinded by the pain of childbirth Capria lashed out and caught the figure in the chest with her blade, causing the outline to drop to the ground and move no more. A short time later, it was over. The child was born.

Raising to her feet Capria staggered towards a corpse that lay nearby, baby in her arms. It was Leon, clearly deceased, by what appeared to be an blow to the chest. Walking shakily, she found whatever way she could back towards the Monastery of the Order she had abandoned so callously only months before. Though they knew that they had warned her, it could not be said that they were not compassionate, though they knew the danger that Capria's talent with magic may possess if she was alienated. So the Order did declare that Capria would be sent into exile into the lands of Ilshenar; and that she would bear a new name, Ileana Leontine, as a reminder of what her actions had caused. Also, her child would be taken from her and raised as a child of the Order.

And so it was that she wandered the lands of Ilshenar in exile, though whispers here and there caught Ileana's ears; rumours of the return of Lord Blackthorn, the exit of Lord British, and the discovery of new lands far away from Britannia. Not that it mattered to Ileana, for the Order had been wrong, as all except the Virtues often are; in exile she had not learned her lesson and still considered her power more important than the Virtues, if she still considered them important at all. Deceit led to control; control led to manipulation; and manipulation led to evil. Soon, Ileana became known and feared among some parts of Ilshenar as the Lionness. It was after many years that Ileana ventured across the Shrine of Compassion. Though she knew that such Shrines existed in the lands she avoided them as a matter of course; this time, however, she saw a figure lying bleeding across the dais of the Shrine.

Approaching cautiously, for she suspected a trap - many enemies Ileana had made during her time in Ilshenar - she was taken aback by the appearance of the young man, so near to death. For his appearance clearly showed a relation both to herself and her dead lover, Leon. Who else could this be except her son, lost so long ago? Though he was near death they had time to speak, and it soon became clear that his son had also left the Order seeking the truth about his mother and the death of their father. Withdrawing the dagger, the son showed it to her and told her of how he came to seek her down, and that he would die contented now that had happened.

And so Ileana realised that by her actions that she had caused the deaths of two people; both her lover and her son. How could she be forgiven now, after all she had done? From behind her, however, she heard a faint voice.

Ileana...

She turned around. On the steps of the Shrine stood a figure, dressed in the fashion of a bard. She recognised him as Iolo, one of the companions of the Avatar.

You can go back. You know what must be done.

And so she did, realising at last the mistake she had made; rather than believing that the Virtues served her power she realised that the opposite was true; her gift was to serve the Virtues. Lifting up the crook she fashioned herself from an Ilshenar tree to symbolise the new humility she had learnt, she travelled through to Britannia, returning from exile. There she wandered for a time in a world much changed, where strange men ran on beetles. Soon she came upon the village of Cove, that had grown much in her absence. But there was something strange here; unlike many other places that, while strange, had much of the same comraderie that had always been there was something much more sinister here.

That was work to be done, and Ileana intended to do it.