There is no way this will ever play in a mainstream Amber game. It’s just too dark, the sexual overtones too heavy. It was developed off the cuff for a one shot FtF game. The GM, a man I played Sabbat Vampire with for several years, listened and then walked off, saying he needed a moment alone.

But someone else, bless his evil and twisted heart, who is my Twin in Darkness, has a similiar character he has wanted to explore. So he is running a solo game so we can explore the psychological possibilities in this concept. I shiver in delightful anticipation.

Circe, and that isn’t the name she was born with. I rather think she was born Lynx, and Julian forcing her into the form of a lynx is just more of his twisted sense of humor.

She was fostered with the family of a hedgewitch out in a shadow. Fiona was careful, but not as careful, nor as clever, as she thought when she hid the child. She never noticed the watcher that followed her there through the shadow paths. A feathered watcher that trailed her from the skies, and through whose eyes his master could see everything, even from his distant forest fortress in the most ancient heart of Arden.

Gods, how he hated that red headed bitch. He had waited, watched, and hidden his hatred for years. But now, now it would start to pay off.

The watcher stayed, and was replaced with another after a time. But there was always at least one. They were careful to stay out of the sharp sight of the hedgewitch though. Just to be safe.

It was the watcher that alerted his master of the signs of war, and the alert that brought men to replace the birds. Men who stood in the shadows of the trees as the soldiers burned the home of the hedgewitch, killed the husband, and slapped the woman and children into chains, but especially the girl that was by now on the threshold of womanhood with a figure already soft with the promise of the lush curves of womanhood that the captain leered at openly, but refused to allow any man to touch.

One man stayed to follow, joined by a feathered watcher once more, while the other flew on swift feet back to man who commanded them. From the heart of his domain he watched as the girl refused to cower, refused to break, and he sneered in the dark.

He would break her.

He would own her in ever sense of the word.

And he did. His men returned and attended the auction. They made sure she was poked and prodded and examined thoroughly right there on the block, as they were commanded to. She still refused to break, to let them see just how she suffered, how humiliated she was when they bought and paid for her, when they snapped the ornate silver collar around her neck, tied the blindfold over her eyes, and tossed her over the back of a horse. They never once spoke to her, and if she dared, she was silenced.

All the way back to the dark and ancient heart of the primordial Arden. A dark, and sinister place, even in the bright light of day. She was carried inside and dropped at the feet of the man who was wreathed in darkness, despite the gleaming white of the armor he wore.

And he proceeded to break her to his hand, to his strap, to his leash. He broke her and rebuilt her until she knew in her soul that she was his, until she answered him with bowed head and on her knees, and then he broke her even further by demonstrating how completely he owned her by branding his mark on her hip and doing with her body exactly as he pleased.

Then, and only then, was she entrusted to the tender mercies of the teachers he brought in to harness her magics, a power that she only held but he commanded. Teachers as dark as his Master, and just as harsh, as domineering, and she paid for their attentions on her knees while He watched, and when they left, He would again assert his ownership.

Lynx, daughter of Fiona, was gone. In her place is Circe, pet and sorceress of the Warder of Arden. He owns her, and he is her world.

Fiona had never told anyone about her daughter hidden in Shadow, and her investigations to locate her all ended with a dead slaver, for Julian was nothing if not thorough. He watched with intense satisfaction as Fiona fell into open grief in that far distant Shadow.

No one outside a few trusted Rangers, Julian, and her teachers know what she looks like {and her fellow pet, if there is one}. The wider Arden and Amber have only seen Circe, Julian’s pet lynx and controlled by the collar woven of magics she still cannot fathom.