Name: Lady Cordelia Abney Age: 25 Birthplace: Northstead Hall, Darlington, County Durham, England Parents: Countess Leona Abney and David Wynn Sibling(s): none Race: Witch Nationality: British Background: Cordelia (sometimes "Delia" or "Del" to friends and family) is the heiress to the Earldom of Darlington (Earl has no feminine equivalent, therefore Countess is used). Her mother is the current Countess, but the title is hereditary and will be passed to Cordelia upon her mother's death. The Abney women are witches, which is also something hereditary - that is, genetic. Witches have golden-yellow eyes, but are otherwise indistinguishable from humans, unless you see one do magic. Witches call upon nature-based magic, such as the elements, and do not generally get on with vampires (something of an understatement: most vampires and witches seek to kill each other on sight). Witch society is very matriarchal, and witches do not generally marry; the Abney women are therefore an exception among the Peerage as well as among witches. Delia, as a child, cared little for magic training; she was more interested in the family secret: that the women in her family are the Black Lioness, an infamous airship pirate who preyed solely on British nobility. Her grandmother, Violetta, was the first Black Lioness, and the mantle was passed to Delia's mother, Leona. Being an airship pirate was all young Delia ever cared about, and she threw herself into THOSE lessons with gusto. Now a young woman, Delia has been used to living a double life: in one life, she is the party girl heiress/socialite known for going through men like Kleenex. She has a scandalous reputation in the tabloids, which is exactly what she wanted to throw people off of her second life - the Black Lioness. The men she is seen with at the fancy society parties are different members from the crew of the Desdemona, the Black Lioness's airship, brought along to help her case the ritzy airships of her peers in advance of their attack. Her closest friend is Cleopatra Massri, a vampire who's been a friend of the family since Violetta's time, despite the historical hatred between vampires and witches. Cleo is also the 2nd-in-command aboard the Desdemona. In addition to Cleo, Delia has cobbled together an international crew of pirates and miscreants, but she runs her ship tighter than any military zeppelin flying, insisting on uniforms, protocols, and heirarchy. Her officer crew includes a gypsy werewolf from Eastern Europe, Lucius Comaneci, and an American fugitive, Ryker Everhart. Though she hates the idea of striking up a relationship with an officer under her command, she's rather attracted to the handsome American computer nerd. She's made some poor choices in regards to that attraction and, in general, is trying to sweep the whole affair under the rug and move on. Meanwhile, her life has undergone a drastic change of late: in the course of raiding an airship, she discovered proof that the owner of said ship was, in fact, a traitor to the Crown. Risking her own neck, she brought this information to the attention of the Queen of England, who responded by essentially deputizing her as an Aerial Privateer. No longer able to prey upon peerage airships, she instead works directly for the Crown, under the watchful eye of two NSY detectives, as they were the ones initially assigned to catching her. Personality: Delia is a no-nonsense sort of person most of the time. The term "stiff upper lip" would not be entirely amiss. But she needs downtime from Propriety now and again, as well as from the pressures of Image and Appearance. She has long had two Images to keep up, neither of them entirely Her: the Fluffheaded Party Girl and the Black Lioness. Delia is, as Ryker would put it, very, very British. She likes tea (English Breakfast, Earl Grey, and Darjeeling, depending on her mood and the time of day), shopping at Harrod's, and chocolate oranges. She is fiercely protective of her family and her crew, and has been well trained in sword/knife combat, as well as basic marksmanship with a gun. Trivia: There *was* an Earldom of Darlington, twice. The title was created originally in 1722, for the Baroness von Kielmansegg, and then again in 1754 for the 3rd Baron Barnard. The Darlington earldom has been extinct since 1891. I chose it because I liked the name; reading The Remains of the Day, with its Lord Darlington, was quite amusing to me. So, in this world, the title was created for an ancestor of Cordelia's and has stayed in the family ever since, passed on via right of female primogeniture (a switch made in deference to the matriarchal society of witches).