Lyra Melior

Age: Real: (Please do the math) & Appearance: late 20's

Face Claim : Megan Fox

Traits:

<tubborn, Spoilt and reclusive. | Kind-hearted under the surface, strong and courageous. 

58 A.D. marks the birth of our survivor. This is her story.

Let us set the scene, a large city near the Bay of Naples in what would be known as Italy. A city like no other, a city that would be known for years, a city named Pompeii. 

The town of Pompeii was located about five miles from the mountain, a mountain that rose from the ground and grumbled when the gods seemed unpleased by the offerings of the people, There lay a flourishing resort for Rome’s most distinguished citizens. 

Elegant houses of white stone, built tall and grand and elaborate villas for large families to prove their wealth lined the paved streets. Tourists, townspeople and slaves bustled in and out of small factories and artisans’ shops, taverns and cafes, and brothels and bathhouses like little ants working their way through the cities cobbled roads and pathways. People gathered in the 20,000-seat arena or lounged in the open-air squares and marketplaces. 

For those regal enough, they could pay homage to their gods, the gods of Vesuvius, in their own homes. Large vents had been built in living rooms where the more wealthy families of Pompeii could inhale the vapours thought to be from the gods. The molten core of Vesuvius warmed their baths and heated their floors. These families lived right at the base of the mountain, closest to the gods…Yet closest to the danger, it seemed. 

Leonardo and Rosanna met at the bay of Naples, Leonardo was Pompeii’s most successful slave trader and Rosanna had a rather profitable flower business, the pair earnt more than they knew what to do with. For years, they saved and saved, working their way up the social ladder until finally, almost 30 years after their first meeting, they were one of the richest families in Pompeii. Leonardo owned all the slave traders at the bay and within the cities walls, he loaned money to the citizens of the city and asked for extortionate prices back…That, or he would ask for their daughters to keep his sons happy. 

The Melior’s had four boys Alazia, Cristofana, Malvolio, Vitali. Alazia came first, a bold son with a heart of a lion and the arrogance to match. Then, Cristofana, timider that his elder brother and to his father, the shamed son, for Cristofana didn’t fancy any of the women in the town…Just the men. Then, Malvolio with his addictive nature, that lead only to alcoholism in his teenage years. Then Vitali came, the youngest and a complete book worm. 

The brothers were content, their father brought them all the women, and men, they could ever dream of being with. Cristofana found his one true love, Malvolio and Alazia wooed many of the women and their rooms slowly resembled brothels with the traffic that came in and out during the mornings or evenings. Vitali was different, he never bothered with any of the women or the men that visited the property, he would sit in his room, staring out across the veranda and speak to none. His father thought him a prude, but his mother knew different. Vitali was waiting for the one, a girl to start a family with, not a girl to bed and begone. 

Rosanna was a patient mother, she doted on her family for anything their hearts desired. Her husband was the happiest man, content and one of the only Roman lords that didn’t cheat or entertain mistresses, Leonardo had eyes only for Rosanna. The reason the Melior’s had such a large family was simple, Rosanna wanted a girl. Her heart desired another female to raise, a girl to bring to the vents the gods created, a girl to teach to reach the fumes the mountain gods sent them, a girl to bore into the molten core of Vesuvius and understand the gods will. 

She got her wish…Sort of. 

The fifth Melior child and the last Melior child was a bouncing baby girl with a mass of jet black hair. Rosanna swooned over the child, but unfortunately, five children was a lot for a body to handle. Rosanna grew weaker the older Lyra grew and when her death finally came, it broke poor Lyra’s heart. 

Lyra was 16 when her mother finally passed away. She had learnt to read the fumes from the mountain, to depict messages in the molten rocks that rumbled in their vents…She didn’t believe in it, but she had learnt from her mother's teachings. These were the memories that she kept close, hanging over the vents, breathing deeply with her mother, because it wasn’t the fumes she remembered. It was exactly how her mother's hair had been styled, and exactly how her perfume smelt, and exactly what colour dress she wore and exactly what her smile looked like. After Rosanna’s death, Lyra returned to the vents only to remember the details of her mother. 

The Melior’s grew closer after losing their mother, with almost 10 years between Lyra and her eldest brother, she always had protectors and when the men of the village came round calling for Lyra, they had to pass both her father and her brothers inspections first. 

Now, The Melior’s did have one secret. A reason why the women of the family spent so much time near those heated vents, a reason why they lived so close to the mountain. The Melior family were Italy’s resident Phoenix family. Each sibling had gone through the searing pain of the lines, etching their way across the flesh. Each Melior had gone through the pain of that first stretch of their wings and when it came to Lyra’s turn, each male Melior were dab hands at it. 

The pain rocked Lyra and, for some reason, the mountain too. The ground shook and grumbled beneath the surface as Lyra screamed in agony, a pair of fiery black wings growing from her back. Her father gasped as she stretched them out, finally panting from the hard work. 

Lyra took to her wings like a duck to water, she flew faster than all her siblings, her wingspan longer even though she was far shorter than her brothers, Her father told her time and time again that she was born to be a phoenix. She was born from the flames…This seemed to be the Melior’s saving grace. 

The day Mount Vesuvius erupted, bathing Pompeii in ash and fire, was the day the Melior family lost everything…Even their minds. 

August 4th, 79 A.D. in Lyra’s 21st year of life, the gods of Vesuvius erupted across Pompeii, fire and molten lava plaguing the city…The Melior mansion was the first to perish, along with the Melior family. They felt no pain in their passing but passed out because of the ash and debris in the air. 

The Meliors awoke from the ashes hours later to find Pompeii in ruins. They could still hear the screams of the citizens as they burnt alive, the smell of rotten, burnt flesh hung in the air. The Melior’s hardly recognized each other, their first rebirths. First of many for Lyra, because the sights she saw turned her heart cold. Lyra wept for every dead soul in Pompeii, she prayed in the ruins and made sure each carcass had words said to ease their passing, to join their souls with their gods. Lyra spent months praying, she spoke to no one, barely ate or drank and slept even less…Her mother would have wanted the unfortunate Pompeii victims to find the gods. 

Her father fled the city first, then her brothers, one by one they all left, they thought she’d lost her mind, desperation became her comfort and when her deed was done. Lyra stayed in Pompeii, she lived in the mountain with what she thought were the gods for years, secluded. 

When the time came for Lyra to join society, she was considered a freak, but she knew after her third rebirth that she had a life to live, a story to tell in some aspects. 

Live, was exactly what the young phoenix did. She visited her brothers often, the four of them had scattered off into different corners of the globe. Alazia the bold went to what would become Las Vegas, Cristofana the mournful grieved the death of his first true love and returned to Italy, living his days in Venice. The waters of Venice weakened him, but the men in Venice more than made up for it, Malvolio the addiction went to what would be known as London, drink and drugs fueling his days and finally Vitali the intelligent one, he rested where Cambridge university would be built and became a professor there. However, the more rebirths the Melior family went through, the more estranged they became. The death of Leonardo Melior was the last time the siblings truly saw each other. 

Lyra, however, travelled the world. She wanted to see every inch of the globe and she did for a number of her lifetimes. She found partners in some, married more times than she could count and she lived. 

She lived. She studied a handful of degree’s and gained two doctorates and all the relevant skills to work in any hospital floor, from the morgue to the brain surgeons tables. But education bored her. 

That’s whats took her the arctic. An expedition in the early 2000s took her to the north pole, a place that sapped every bit of energy from the phoenix…but unfortunately, it sapped her life force too. Lyra and a friend from the expedition had gone out on the boat to try and catch the Polar bears swimming when a riptide caught their vessel and Lyra plunged deep into the icy water below. She knew it was time for her to die, she’d lived too long. She didn’t fight the water as it burned into her throat and nose, she didn’t kick or swim as the air left her lungs. She relaxed into the arms of death as if she were greeting an old friend. 

And then she awoke. 

The confusion Lyra woke up with was maddening, the cold didn’t cause her pain anymore. She’d once again rebirthed and shed her skin for a new form…But this one was different. Instead of fire, ice became her weapon. Water was her strength and not her weakness. Instantly she knew what had happened as if by some sort of telepathic nature, she knew she was not a phoenix anymore…but a Niveis. 

Her new life leads her to a small, American city in Colorado called Evermore, where she met Anivia, the tribe's leader and other Niveis members that had also met gruesome fates as phoenixes and ended up with ice in their veins. 

Training as a Niveis was easy, manipulation of water and ice was the same as fire. It did, however, take some getting used to for Lyra that she wasn’t immune to fire and was in fact weakened to it, habits die hard. 

After turning, Lyra lost all touch with her brothers. They stopped contacting her and she lost their numbers and addresses. She had tried to visit the last addresses she knew for them, but all four had moved on and in all honesty, she didn’t even know what her brothers looked like anymore…nor would they recognize her. She’d gone through many hair transformations over the years, returning to long black curls. 

Lyra’s new life in Evermore was in the town's morgue. She didn’t pull many hours, but it was surprising just how many corpses frequented Evermore…Lyra kept more to herself than the other members of her Tribe, her years spent in isolation as a Phoenix meant she preferred her own company…The company of the voices in her head in any case, but she always has time for her tribe, whether its someone to talk to or a fight to be had, Lyra was useful in a jack-of-all-trades sort of way.