Tatiana Marionessa

Human / Bard

Submitted character story

Tatiana never knew her father.

Her mother never spoke his name—if she even knew it herself.

She was raised in the rotting backstreets of a crowded city where hunger was common and kindness was expensive. Her mother worked honestly at first, washing clothes for nobles and wealthy merchants while raising Tatiana alone in a single damp room barely fit for living.

For a time, it was enough.

Then one night, exhausted from days without proper sleep, her mother accidentally tore the embroidered coat of a nobleman while cleaning it. The noble demanded compensation far beyond its worth, then added interest upon interest until the debt became impossible. It was never about the coat. Men like him simply enjoyed watching the desperate crawl.

Tatiana watched her mother slowly break beneath the weight of it.

The woman who once hummed lullabies while washing laundry became hollow-eyed and bitter. When the debt collectors began visiting their home, desperation finally consumed whatever pride she had left. She sold her body to survive. Men. Women. Anyone willing to pay.

But even that was not enough.

One winter, when Tatiana was still far too young to understand what was happening, her mother sold her too.

Tatiana learned quickly that beauty had value. More value than innocence. More value than dignity. She learned how people looked at her, what they wanted from her, how easily affection could be faked if the price was right. She survived by separating her body from herself, treating intimacy as transaction rather than connection.

And the cruelest part was this:

Her mother never apologized.

Instead, she justified it.
“This is how we live.”
“This is how the world works.”
“This is how I kept you alive.”

Tatiana grew to hate her for that more than anything else.

Eventually, she ran.

Half-starved and nearly dead in an alley behind a theater district, she was discovered by a woman named Margareth—a renowned courtesan and retired stage performer known among the elite as The Velvet Swan. Unlike the others in Tatiana’s life, Margareth asked for nothing from her.

Not at first.

Margareth taught her how to dance. How to walk into a room and command it without saying a word. How to turn desire into power instead of chains. She taught her that performance was not submission—it was control.

Under Margareth’s guidance, Tatiana transformed.

No longer a nameless girl from the gutters, she became the dazzling centerpiece of an elite performance troupe known as The Crimson Reverie. Nobles fought for invitations to their shows. Wealthy patrons crossed kingdoms just to watch Tatiana dance. Rumors spread that she was more fey spirit than woman, that looking into her eyes too long could make a man abandon his family by morning.

On stage, she was untouchable.

Off stage, she was terrified of silence.

Despite her fame, Tatiana never truly learned what love was supposed to feel like. Lust was easy. Desire was predictable. Bodies were simple. But genuine affection unsettled her in ways cruelty never did. She could seduce without effort, yet freeze at simple tenderness.

Then came the night that destroyed everything.

After an especially grand performance attended by nobles, dignitaries, and masked patrons from unknown circles, Tatiana was offered a drink backstage. She remembered laughter. Music. A strange perfume lingering in the air.

Then darkness.

When she awoke, she was covered in blood.

The members of the Crimson Reverie lay butchered around her.

Some had clearly tried to crawl away. Others looked as though they died terrified. The room reeked of iron and burned incense. Tatiana herself held a jeweled dagger she did not recognize.

Then the guards arrived.

Though no solid evidence proved her guilt, the city did not need proof. The famous beauty from the Crimson Reverie made for a far better monster than victim. Tatiana was imprisoned for three months while the investigation dragged on, suffering humiliation, violence, and abuse at the hands of guards who viewed her not as a person, but as a disgraced courtesan finally stripped of status.

When she was eventually released for lack of evidence, her life was already ruined.

The public believed she had gone mad and slaughtered her troupe in some jealous frenzy. Former admirers spat at her in the streets. Songs were written mocking her. Children whispered her name like a ghost story.

Worst of all, Margareth’s body was never found.

Now Tatiana wanders from city to city beneath fading fame and growing infamy, searching for the truth behind the massacre that stole her family and identity. Somewhere in the shadows lies the answer to what happened that night—and why she alone survived.

But beneath the glamour and confidence lies a woman fractured by the life she endured.

Tatiana treats sex as casually as conversation, not out of shamelessness, but because intimacy was stripped of meaning long ago. She despises parents who abandon or exploit their children. She distrusts love, seeing it as either manipulation or fantasy. Yet despite everything, some hidden part of her still longs for the one thing she has never truly known:

To be wanted for more than what she can give.