A letter to Ara Aquila from Shallager, 1 February, 1996

Ara,

As requested by your kinsman, I forward this story to you.

You, of course, know the price for the delivery of fresh information of this type. I expect that you will provide payment shortly, as you never have been one to renege on your debts.

As always, a pleasure dealing with your group. Please send my regards to Sasha and Blue. I trust they are well.

But I digress again...enjoy the tale.

troll

troll,
I really enjoyed the letter from Ara Aquila and if you meet her again, tell her that such a good story will be spread amongst the Gangrel of Scandinavia.

If possible, please forward the following narration of my background to her, so that she will know of my lineage and my standing.

May your Bacht prosper!

Shallager,
Gangrel Ancilla,
Childe of Camille, Progeny of al-Tariq,
currently residing in Stockholm, Sweden.

Whatever name once was mine, I am now known as Shallager, which, by the way,is a corruption from my native tongue.

Once, a long time ago, I was a fear-cinnidh of the Coinniche at the Rising.

It was in February during the end of the Rising that we gathered around Inbhir Nis to fight Loudon's soldiers. They escaped, we pursued them to Dornoch during the winter and then to Sgiathanach.But in April we heard of the disaster at Cuil-lodair. We could do nothing but to take to the hills.

It was near the time of Samhuinn that it was and several of us had been on the run for almost half a year. That was when I met Camille. Actually, what I met was a snarling beast on the moor. When I saw her with my eyes, she was a huge terrible faol. But not like any other wolf I've seen or heard of before. It was much larger and it's burning eyes looked at me with a feral inhuman intelligence.

At first I thought it to be of faerie-kind. But as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone. Yet I could feel its presence at times for the following weeks.

It was up at Shieldaig that I was, on my way south, when I was surprised by a small party of soldiers. I shot one of them and managed to escape but not before taking a bullet myself.

The moon was going up and I lay on a hillside, slowly bleeding to death. Then She came to me. Not as a beast but as a beautiful, fierce woman. I still recognized her eyes. Same eyes as the faol-allaidh, the savage wolf.

She said her name was Camille and She Embraced me there under the silent moon. I remained in the mountains for more than 50 years, honing my skills and Disciplines. (At one time I was even known by the locals as the 'savage hunter of Ben Dearg', one of the Unseelie.)

For almost seven years I followed the French Empire's New Army across Europe. I was there at Austerlitz, Pultusk, Friedland, following, observing, feeding. Like the carrion-birds following the trail of death. Observing and feeding upon a world I no longer was a part of. I've seen hundreds, thousands of young men march and seen them die. I've fed in the night from their recent dead bodies. Many years later, when I had learned about the Jyhad, I couldn't help wondering. What part had the little French pawn-emperor played in the Jyhad? Why did all those young men have to die? Though I don't know the answer to the former question, I can guess the answer to the latter; They didn't. It just didn't matter in someone's personal power play.

After an encounter with a Ventrue, who actually turned out to be a Malkavian, obsessed with purifying our kind with fire, I was gravely injured. My spirits were also low, after witnessing the brutal slaughter on the battlefields. I went into the ground and my sleep turned into torpor. For almost one and a quarter of a century I laid there, until my Sire woke me. By then, we were well into the 20th century and the world had changed.

When I woke up from my torpor in Bavaria, the world had changed profoundly. Machines ruled the world and I could hear a little mad soldier shouting in the beer-halls for a new Ordnung. Maybe I am a simple creature from a simple background, but my experiences during what is now known as the Napoleonic Wars and my encounter with the homicidal Malkavian had taught me one thing:

Adapt or go mad.

So I've learned.

I have discovered the wonders of the computers but also the horror of the exploitation of nature by multinational corporations. I've adapted to the use of telephones, faxes and modern clothing (much as I miss my old habits). But I've also realized that people and the dark, dirty streets of the city, despite electrical light, still remains much the same.