Guilia Mingyu DeBorgea

Little is known about Guilia's birth though rumors had it that she was the illegitimate child of Giovan Borgea and one of his mother's maidservants, a woman of Eastern origin that no one knew her past. Even though there had been no evidence of Giovan's mother, Lucrice, being pregnant at the time, she one day appeared with an infant, demanding that a letter be sent to Rome, so that the Pope himself could baptize her new daughter. 

Around this time, the handmaiden from the East had mysteriously disappeared, never being seen again. And the teenaged Giovan was sent off to a Pope-appointed position somewhere on the coast of central Italy. 

As Guilia grew, it became more and more obvious that she was not of the local genetics--her facial features were quite different, looking more and more Asian with each passing year. Lucrice's reaction was to cloister the girl in the castle tower and allow her to help with the woman's studies of all things occult (something she would not trust servants to do). 

At her adopted mother's side, Guilia gained expertise over all things poisonous and deadly. As she grew older, however, Lucrice's feelings towards the girl began to change and shift. There was no pleasing the woman and often, the girl would be locked in her bedchamber, bloodied and bruised from the beating she had just endured. It was then that she realized that all of the rumors about her mother that she could hear wafting up from the courtyard below her window might be true. 

But short of attempting to poison the woman who had raised her, what could she do? She had no knowledge of how to navigate the town and surely she would be caught and executed before she could escape. The answer came in the form of a stranger. 

Surprisingly a small offense that her adopted father had made against a neighboring city had grown into a full-fledged war. After battling for months back and forth, the warfront had been pushed to the very gates of the city. The walls had held strong so far, but it seemed only a matter of time. With her stress level rising, Lucrise took it out on the girl, the beatings being closer between and more severe. All Guilia could hope for was for a stray shell to rattle the tower enough for her to get free--before she was killed by her mother's hands. 

One night, after Lucrice had been especially savage, Guilia heard an odd humming ringing sound. Believing that she was close to death, she sat up to try to pray for her soul. A being appeared in her room--a silver woman clad in the most finely ornate chainmail the girl had ever seen. The woman's cloak fluttered like wings in the swirling winds left by the light she had emerged from. 

The "angel" asked who had wounded her so badly and, when Guilia answered, the woman clenched her face, muttering something about the "damned Romans".  With barely an effort, the woman picked the girl up with a jerk, holding her on her hip as if she were a toddler and then shifting so that the girl rode her back. With one hand, she produced a small object that began to float in her hand and twirl. Out of it came a shimmering light that soon surrounded them. With the other hand, the woman flung fireballs that exploded against the tower walls, blasting them outward wherever they hit. Just before the whole place came crashing in on the pair, it was all gone and they were on the mountainside outside of the city. 

The woman allowed Guilia to slide down and get her footing on the solid ground. From here, they watched as the tower fell, followed by much of the castle. The falling debris took out a section of the city's perimeter wall, allowing the invading horde free access to the now panicked residents. Guilia looked up to see the woman smirking at the view. 

"Your God is not the only one who is vengeful, little one." the woman said quietly. 

The girl was then given the choice--to stay and try to seek out an existence as a survivor of the battle, or travel with the "angel" to a faraway island where her own army bivouacked. Guilia chose to go--and that was how she met and gained a reverence for the Firth Witch.

 

Over the eons, Guilia never had to be formally bloodbound to the witch. She was bound by an almost blind awe and allegiance. She sharpened her poisoning skills even more, trying to please her new mentor, and hoped one day to be included officially into the coven, though she never was. With all her knowledge and skill, she was fully human, a trait shared by none of the Firth Witch's coven daughters.

This was a sore point for Guilia and she resented those in the coven. Instead of quelling it, Aettrynne spurred on the jealousy, using it to motivate Guilia to do more, be better, etc. 

Aeval-Leigh and Dhampir could be cruel to her at times, when they grew tired of her antics for attention. They quipped often enough that she was "green with envy" or had a "wide celadon streak" across her. In a passive-aggressive move, she began favoring the color green in her clothing, and adding green poison-looking liquids to their meals when they weren't aware of it.

When it was believed that the Firth Witch had destroyed herself, Guilia only arrived to see the end result, just as Aeval-Leigh and the other members of the coven were making their escape. She believed that they were responsible and swore an oath to track down and destroy each one of them. However, navigation was never her strong suit, especially when portaling was used, and they avoided her detection for years.