▏her moniker.

ㅤㅤㅤSHE entered into this world nameless – for who would name a commodity bartered for peace between men? ‘Father’ had christened her under another name, and she was reborn. But that girl died too, when she was only twenty summers young; in the embrace of the unforgiving waters of the Sea of Swords, she breathed her last sigh, a memory swallowed by the depths of Umberlee’s wrath. It was not that girl who climbed her way up from the sea's depths, nor was it she who washed ashore, coughing and sputtering, lungs filled with brine. She did not look into the faces of her ‘brothers’ and saw the horror in their eyes – the disbelief, the fear, the realization that death had been denied its rightful claim. It wasn’t that girl who killed them, either. No, the hands that wrought such devastation belonged to another – the tempest incarnate; a creature who skirted the very edge of oblivion, born again amidst the carnage of her previous self’s kin.

ㅤㅤㅤA collection of heads – lowered, with clasped hands touched to foreheads –raise in unison, turning to look upon her; the very woman who they cast away to the sea stood before them. Bare feet shamble over cobblestone as she crosses the distance of the sanctum to the altar. Thick silence hangs heavy in the stale air, broken only by the rhythmic echoes of her footsteps. Anxious glances dart among the clergymen, their murmurs of prayer fading into uneasy whispers. For this was not their sister, the docile acolyte they once knew. No, she is something else entirely – a being of unadulterated rage, with eyes ablaze with fervor, her body running on the fumes of a euphoric high, beset by the escape from death’s cold grip.

ㅤㅤㅤBehind her, she leaves a trail of damp footprints as she ascends the steps heading up to the altar. Above her, the stony countenance chiseled in the likeness of Talos looms, a silent witness to the impending chaos she intended to carry out in His name. Differently colored eyes lower to the sacrificial dagger before her, caked in coagulated blood, her blood. The same blade used to carve wounds that still ache now she holds, white - knuckling the hilt, the metal cool against her skin.

ㅤㅤㅤSwiftly pivoting on her heel, the half - elf approaches the priest leading the sermon. He cowers under her intense stare, taking two paces back as she advances two forward. The dagger, held aloft by trembling hands, rises with lethal intent. Her arm becomes a blur of motion as she brings the dagger down with a decisive strike, its blade catching the flickering candlelight, a silver streak promising death. It finds its mark in the back of the man who, in attempting to dodge the incoming strike, made the grave mistake of turning his back on her. Steel bites into the Storm Herald’s flesh, drawing forth a spray of crimson that stains his pristine robes, body crumpling to the floor with a guttural cry from deep in his soul.

ㅤㅤㅤHis vision swims as he staggers away, reduced to crawling on hands and knees – like a wounded animal, making a futile bid at fleeing from the predator that shadows its every move. She saunters at his side, her gaze, as frigid as the ocean that threatened – and failed – to consume her, remaining fixated upon him. With a deft hand and determined stride, Trinity removes the blade embedded in his back, its edge slickened with his blood. A weak groan escapes the priest’s lips, parted in a supplication of mercy that goes unspoken, as his body slackens, his head hitting the stone floor unceremoniously as he succumbs to the pull of unconsciousness.

ㅤㅤㅤTalassan clerics understand structure through acts of violence and fear, their hierarchy maintained through the ruthless assertion of power. In an instant, the balance of power can shift, and those once revered may find themselves cast down, their authority usurped by a new order more ruthless than its predecessor. Blade clutched at her hip, the woman lifts her chin, eyes sweeping across the silent throng of clergymen with a predatory gleam. A look that dared anyone to challenge her, and face the same fate as the one that lay dead at her feet; seeking not approval but defiance. How they react matters not, though. She acts as she has learned from them, unwilling to extend to them the courtesy they had so callously deprived her of. Her submission to their authority had not spared her from their cruelty, nor had her pleas for mercy ever fallen on anything but deaf ears. And so, she had decided : they are all marked for death this night.

ㅤㅤㅤIt was a bloody baptism; the most macabre of metamorphoses. The serpent molts, shedding her scales; the ashes of her former self are scattered to the wind, and from the embers rises a new being. No holy waters sanctified her, no solemn rites marked her passage, but the storm itself bore witness to her transformation, the roar of its raucous applause thundering in her ears.

ㅤㅤㅤAnd it was then, as the storm clouds parted, the heavens opened, and the space between the Prime Material and Outer Planes were bridged, that she – fresh from the womb of slaughter – looked into the singular eye of Talos, the Storm Lord. Within his divine gaze, she beheld the tempest’s fury, the thunder’s roar, and the lightning’s flash. It was as if Talos himself spoke to her in the language of the elements, and she was enlightened with the understanding of her new name – TRINITY – and the divine mandate thrust upon her. She was to be his judge, tasked with discerning truth amidst onslaught, to be the eye of the hurricane. His jury, weighing the deeds of those who defy her Lord’s creed and rendering verdicts with an unbiased heart, echoing the impartiality of wildfires that care not who they burn, of floods that sweep away both the rich and the poor, the good and the evil. His executioner, wielding His wrath as her righteous blade, delivering swift justice to the deserving.

ㅤㅤㅤTrinity : the embodiment of Talos’ will, threefold. His most loyal servant, whom would do anything to satisify Him; for in Talos, she was convinced, lay her redemption.

ㅤㅤㅤBut, bitterly, she recognises that, no matter how she tries to separate herself from him, she has become exactly what Draven wanted of her : a thing of wrath and malice – an agent of chaos, capable of killing without remorse. His influence runs deeper than any biological connection could ever hope to achieve; he may as well have sired her himself, for his mark upon her is indelible, a brand that will forever mar her soul and flesh; scars, painful and raw, that are both metaphorical and literal. For her body will forever remember his shape, and his teachings are deeply engraved in her brain. In an ironic sense, she owes to him credit for her reckoning; he crafted Trinity from his malevolence. Trinity is his masterpiece, his magum opus – his open love letter to the Storm Lord he praised so highly.