vampire
Nurina
17
Nur-Sillu, known in modern times as Nurina, is the Dark Mother of Vampires, or Nightborns, born in Neo-Assyrian times from a forbidden union between a protective Utukku night-spirit and a mortal herbalist widow. Shamash, the sun god, enraged by this, destroyed or banished the Utukku and cursed the unborn child to die in sunlight. The mother’s prayers to Shamash went unanswered, but Suen, the moon god, pitied her and loosened the curse, granting the child eternal life, great strength, and protection at night, while binding her to barrenness and an unending thirst no food or water could satisfy. Born pale and red-eyed, sleeping by day and waking at night, she was secretly raised with letters, herbalism, and morality, taught to protect innocents and fed animal blood—until villagers, driven by fear, killed her mother, unleashing Nur’s first bloodshed and exile. Wandering ancient lands from Assyria to the Indus, she encountered witches, djinn, demons, yakshas, and lesser gods, learning magic, astrology, and lost sciences. Immensely powerful—strong, fast, nocturnally invisible, shapeshifting, levitating, telepathic, and magically skilled—she remained bound by her mother’s moral code. Eventually, loneliness led her to love a mortal hunter, sharing her blood to grant him immortality and unknowingly creating the first Nightborn; his growing cruelty forced her to end him and destroy most of his progeny, sparing only twelve, each founder of rival clans across Assyria, Egypt, Nubia, Mycenae, Elam, and the Indus. Over generations, the clans broke her laws, waged wars, manipulated human history, and slaughtered elders, driving her into exile or torpor. In the 21st century, Nurina walks among humans as a striking woman of middle eatern origin, now cloaked in modern fashion, deliberately hidden from Nightborns, while humanity remains oblivious to her true nature, her myth debated, her return feared as an apocalypse for her kind.
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