Pale skin, piercing blue eyes, blonde--almost white--hair, often plaited in intricate braids.

Always wears well-made (and expensive) clothing with visually or tactilely-interesting patterns or textures.

Proud and petulant.

Aloof and solitary.

Capable of intense and prolonged periods of hyper-focus.

Perfectionist.

Takes quiet but intense pleasure in unique sensory experiences.

Disconnected from her emotions, but she's working on it.

As far as anyone in her family knew, Mélisande died that night in 571. They were right, though just not in the way they thought.

The night she “died,” Jean Luc, Mélisande mother’s sire, turned her over to a man named Jehan: a fellow vampire, to whom Jean Luc owed some ancient and petty debt. Jehan was satisfied with the payment, and immediately set about going even further in his conditioning of Mélisande than Jean Luc had with Amelie: feeding her constant suggestions, manipulating her, convincing her that her family was her enemy, molding her into his servant, his henchwoman, his thrall.

Eventually another one of Jehan's former thralls was able to contact Mélisande and slowly help her understand the truth of her situation and help her escape. Freedom came with new dangers, though, and Mélisande--full of equal parts bitterness, fear, and confusion as she tried to make sense of her past--hid out in a crypt located in a long-abandoned abbey far from Jehan's home. Seeing the religious fervor of many of the people in the village where the cemetery was located, Mélisande soon got the idea to turn the crypt into a fake pilgrimage site, using her power of suggestion to convince visitors that they had seen miracles in and around the tomb. The "holy site" gained significant attention, and Mélisande used the pilgrims' increasingly generous donations to fund an increasingly lavish lifestyle which she enjoyed by night when she dropped her guise as a solitary nun and explored nearby towns and cities.

It was in revitalizing and tending to the garden at the abandoned abbey that Mélisande began to develop her power of toxikinesis. She learned that some of the most beautiful-smelling plants in the garden were also poisonous…but by creating extracts from the plants and altering their chemical properties, she was able to capture and preserve the scents of the flowers without exposing herself or others to their toxins. Slowly Mélisande began experimenting with mixing scents, creating unusual and interesting concoctions. She took extensive notes, conducted painstaking and meticulous experiments, pursued her new passion with a cold but fervent single- mindedness that led to new breakthroughs and discoveries…but her curiosity and ambition soon led her to feel frustrated with simply playing with extracts from the flowers and herbs she found in the garden or in the forests surrounding the abbey. Eventually she abandoned her crypt shrine for good, leaving it in the hands of a dedicated and pious group of volunteers, and dedicated herself to studying the art of perfumery. In Persia she used her power of suggestion to grant her audience with some of the top perfumers of the day…who were all too eager to divulge some of the secret tricks of their trade. After several centuries exploring the Middle East and learning all she could about perfumery in the process, Mélisande returned to France, where she built a career, a company, and a small fortune for herself, creating unusual and beguiling fragrances made from neutered versions of some of the most poisonous substances known to man. She fled the French Revolution for the relative safety of the nascent United States, setting up shop in New York City and watching from afar as Europe seemed intent on destroying itself over the next few centuries.

In recent years, though, Mélisande has grown somewhat jaded and listless. Inspiration to create new fragrances has become harder and harder to come by, and the glamorous lifestyle her work has afforded her has grown dull. She has found herself yearning for something deeper and more meaningful than the solitary pursuit of new creations and the acquisition of new novelties. On the advice of her personal assistant, Mélisande sought out a therapist; what she had intended to be a meeting or two dedicated to her creative rut turned into years worth of sessions in which the supernatural-friendly psychologist helped Mélisande excavate and process the trauma she experienced for the first few centuries of her life.

It was over the course of those sessions that Mélisande became obsessed with a fragrance far different than any she had bottled and sold over the years: a scent she associated with her childhood. With her mother. With the few happy memories she had of her life before her mother left her and she herself was turned. The yearning for this scent has become almost as intense as her craving for blood after a day or two of not feeding…and it has led her to consider reaching out to her only surviving family member, her only surviving link to her past: her mother.

Mélisande's only surviving family member is her mother. She has no romantic or sexual partners, few acquaintances, and no one she would call an actual friend. Her closest relationships are with her personal assistant and her therapist.