Name: Merida Isla Blair
Age: 22 (looks) 200 (actual)
Species: Turned Vampire
Rank: Community Member
Faceclaim: Claire Holt

Hot tempered || Selfish || Manipulative
Kind ||  Passionate || Adventurous

In the summer of 1915, in a tiny village that is East of Glasgow, Scotland, a small baby girl was born to Gretchen Blair on an early stormy morning. Yells and screams echoed throughout Gretchen’s home as she gave life to her baby girl. Everyone around Gretchen knew the happiness and pure joy she felt as her belly swelled with each passing month, ready to meet her daughter, Merida Isla Blair. However, on that early morning when the tiny baby girl was in her arms, Gretchen felt nothing like she anticipated. In fact, she felt nothing at all.

Gretchen tried hard in the first year of Merida’s life to feel a connection as she cared for the baby girl, but again nothing was felt for the child. She did in fact care for Merida like a mother should, but it was different. It was nothing compared to the feelings she had for her older son, Erik. She loved that boy with every passion of her heart. She loved him because it was the love of her life’s son, the man she cherished. Merida was born out of wedlock, to a man Gretchen barely knew, in fact it was a one night stand. Nevertheless, Gretchen was going to keep the baby and give the child the life she wanted her son to have had.

Years grew by, and Merida was mostly adored and cherished by her older brother, Erik. It was him who took care of young Merida in the early years of her life. Her mother wanted nothing to do with Merida after years of trying to connect with her. The cold disconnection Merida experienced with her mother left her feeling abandoned and worthless. Her connection with Erik was the only anchor she had to feeling happiness and also family, her world was only knowing about him.

Her world, at the age of 11, came crashing down when Erik began to show symptoms of a disease: a lethal case of tuberculosis. The case lasted for two years, those years Merida spent taking care of her brother for once, like he did for her. During this time, her mother began to drink, knowing Erik’s ill-fated death was inevitable. Knowing she was going to lose the only person she loved, she began taking her grief and anger on the little girl.

Fast-forward to the end of 1928, Erik passed away on a winter night. Merida, the age of 13, spent the night crying at Erik’s bedside. Tears streamed down the girl’s cheek, her blue hues now more visible behind her bloodshot eyes as she kept holding onto his cold hand, asking him to come back. That she can’t do this on her own. Merida became a different person after his death. She spent the the next three years learning how to fend for herself as her mother’s drinking only worsened. Which meant the more abuse Merida endured. It was until one night when she was 16 to leave. It was on the early morning of her birthday and she packed everything she had and could fit in her duffle bag, leaving the home that never once felt like it was truly hers.

From then on, the young teenage girl learned the ways of the road, making her cunning and charming as she tried to find ways for her to survive. It wasn’t until she was 19 years old where she found a town, the population of only 105 people. 106 when Merida moved in and found herself a small piece of heaven in a roadside motel. She worked as a waitress, as a  fast way to get to know the locals and also people that drifted through.

No one noticeable really caught her, however she had already charmed the locals. It was something that she never experienced before. Consistency. Everyone came in at the same time and ordered the same thing. It wasn’t until one graveyard shift did she meet someone that was unique. Usually a stranger coming in would make her nervous but it wasn’t until she realized it was someone she used to go to school with.

Brody was someone that used to be a good friend in her younger years, until he had to move away and she lost another person she was close to. However, the two talked and talked  over coffee and slices of pie until the sun came up. She couldn’t believe how easy the reconnection was but when she saw the sun rising, she knew that it wouldn’t last. As she said goodbye, she went back to her room with a bittersweet feeling. That’s until she saw him again a couple of days later, Brody had walked in again.

It turned out that Brody was moving to the small town, much to Merida’s surprise. It was there, in that small town is where she found something she longed for. Love and safety. Brody gave her that again as they fell in love with each other. She had moved out of the motel room and into a small home with Brody. She had found love and a home. At the age of 22, Brody had asked her to be his wife and she happily accepted. She felt her life was finally on the right track. However, there was a secret that Brody was harboring.

Merida didn’t know of anything supernatural but Brody did. He was a hunter and a coven of vampires was the reason why he had moved to the small town. Brody was almost successful of getting rid of the whole coven but what he didn’t expect was the work to follow him home.
It was early in the night where a few of the vampires from there had planned to ambush Brody. Merida had no clue what was happening as it all happened so fast. Her answering the door before being attacked. Blood everywhere, all over their home. One was feeding on Merida, almost sucking all the blood from her body until Brody came home and killed them. Merida still has memories of this but they are all blurred and disoriented memories. Just the blood and screams, both the vampires and hers, then Brody’s. She remembers his lifeless body falling right next to hers, his face covered with splatters of blood.

The next thing she remembers is her transition. The vampire feeding on her released his venom into her veins and as she awoke a new being, she looked around her home and then Brody. Tears filled her eyes as she held his body close to hers, before choked sobs left her lips as she stroked the face of the man she loved, not ready to let him go.

“I will make them pay, my love... They will answer to what has happened...” she vowed to him.

So she spent the next years making sure she kept her vow, she trained, both combat and with her vampire abilities. She also spent time tracking them down, with the help of other hunters that were Brody’s friends. They helped with her training also with taking them down. So when she finally tracked down the coven, she was the most lethal version of herself.

She found the warehouse in which they were staying, the year 1971 and that night was where she brought a massacre to everyone. Taking down all the vampires that were not as strong as her and others that were much more experienced. Adrenaline rushing through her veins as she found the leader, the one who killed Brody. She grabbed the head of the male vampire, forcing him to look at her. “I want my face to be the last one you will ever see,” she said before raising her blade and taking his head clean off.

After that night, she still felt the hole that everyone she loved had made but she used it to strengthen her. She spent the next 47 years trying to find a home but she also did a little bit of hunting jobs. She kept the ring Brody gave her around her neck in a necklace, knowing that when she did these jobs she was doing it for the sake of him. It also allowed her to help the newborn vampires she would find on these jobs and help them transition and train their abilities.

That’s when she had caught word of Evermore on one of those jobs, and she decided to check it out. The word of it being a safe haven for people like her and other supernatural beings made sound like it could be a home to her...or a recipe for disaster for the vampire.