Writer's Notes: This is a Brujah character I created for a local vampire LARP (Live Action Role Playing).

The Cordoba family has been bladesmiths for generations, in the honored tradition of the Toledo masters. Our blades were once sought out by nobility--and royalty--from across Europe. But no more. I am the last.

I freely admit, being a woman bladesmith makes for an oddity, especially in my birthplace, rural Spain of the late seventeenth century. Unfortunately, it came about because at the time I was ruined for anything else. As a child, I had played near my father's forge with bits of discarded metal and leather. Too close, as it turned out, for one day while my father and his apprentices were elsewhere, I wandered to close and fell in. By God's grace, I survived--but not without consequences. Despite my father's best attempts at arranging a betrothal, no one cared to take to wife a girl with burned and crippled hands when there were more beautiful, more marriageable girls to be had. A little more than a year afterwards my mother died giving birth to a stillborn brother, and my father was left to raise me the best he knew how. So even as I had learned to sew and cook from my mother, I also learned from my father; how to temper steel, to hone an edge, and the ringing a blade makes when forged perfectly. Ironically enough, I soon outstripped the other apprentices in ability and strength, and eventually became a master in my own right in all but name. My blades were sold with my father's mark, since few would buy a woman's work. I didn't mind much--it was the doing that mattered to me. Still, one regret remained--the fact that I would never have a family of my own.

At the risk of being blasphemous, God seems to have damned me in more ways than one. Along with taking away my chances at a family, He soon took my life; in the guise of a wealthy patron. I remember our first meeting. I had been working at the forge late in the evening, as was my wont. I had straightened up to push the sweat from my eyes, and saw his eyes, intelligent and piercing through the sooty air as he talked with my father outside. I was 21. My father was excited about a new noble patron; even more so since he hand ordered two dueling blades and paid well in advance. He seemed very knowledgeable, and I must confess I found him handsome with his dark eyes and pale complexion. My father and I each made one of the swords, and when the blades were complete he complimented us extravagantly, hefting the swords with obvious pleasure as well as skill.

I did not see Senor de Tours again for some time--it was two years before he came again. Once again he ordered an expensive dagger, but was very definite in his request--he wished it to be my work and no one else's. In pride at being recognized, I exercised all my skill into the knife, and my father gave me permission to present it to him myself. As I handed the blade over to him, his eyes lingered on my hands. As he gave his praise at my work, his expression was strange. . . almost speculative. Senor de Tours and my father stayed up late that night, drinking and talking. To this day I do not know what was said--although I can probably guess.

At sunset the next evening he returned with an extra mule among his company of servants, and my father haltingly explained that I was to travel to Madrid, to work there under Senor de Tours' personal patronage. He couldn't meet my eyes until the very end, as we were about to leave. Then he gave me a quick, affectionate hug, and disappeared quickly into the shop before I could say a word.

Senor de Tours was considerate, if aloof--as was only proper for man of his station. As for myself, I was homesick and horribly afraid; to me, Madrid sounded as far away as the moon. That same evening after, we had stopped for the night, my fears seemed to become reality. It was pathetically easy for him--he merely gave me an intense gaze, and I became perfectly docile, even as he gripped my hair and sank his teeth into my throat. While I stood as stupidly as a cow led to the market, he killed me, and I slipped uncomprehendingly into the dark. I have no way of knowing how much time had passed before white fire seemed to burst behind my eyelids in my brain, and I opened my eyes to find myself sucking blood from his wrist with desperate strength. Filled with revulsion at what I was doing, I tried to pull away, but the need was too strong. After an eternity, he pulled his wrist away, and my strength ebbed again as that first frantic need passed. My new sire made arrangements as I lay, and after a time I do not remember any more.

it took me a small while to forgive Jean de Tours for damning my soul to hell for eternity. As time passed, however, I learned to honor and respect him, even damned as we both were. He encouraged my craft, and taught me the ways of the blade and fist beyond the forge. From him I learned honor and loyalty--and the inherent beauty in battle and conflict. He showed me the glories of Europe, and taught me to read and write when I wished to learn. Eventually my craftsmanship became known among my clan, then among the Kindred as a whole as the Brujah vied for my blades. I found a certain contentment in my death. When I heard my father had remarried within a year of my departure, I felt a certain anger--but the years seemed to have tempered me as well, for I found it hard to hate him. I sent him a shipment of fine Damascus steel, in congratulations on the birth of his first son; and watched from a distance as my family's forge continued from one generation to the next. After a century or so, due to a combination of bad luck and bad timing, I became caught up in a skirmish in Le Havre between my clan and the ruling Ventrue. This resulted in torpor for myself, while my Sire himself narrowly escaped final death. I was secreted away by clan mates, and then with typical intemperance, forgotten for a century or so. When my Sire fully recovered, he searched me out and revived me. After aiding him in some quiet (in the relative sense, anyway) retribution, I chose to relocate to the New World for a while, to attempt to learn how to live in this world I have been thrust into, and to practice my craft once again. It's been seventy years, and I have progressed. . .but I still have much to learn.

Sire: Jean de Tours--10th generation Brujah

Date born: August 9, 1675

Date embraced: 1698