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you poor thing
sweet mourning lamb
there's nothing you can do
it's already been done
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♱ PAST:
Trigger Warning: Sexual Abuse & Domestic Violence 
𝓜arch 27, 1614, Yorkshire, England. Antigone is born the daughter of a fisherman's wife and a carpenter who should not have been together, for clearly, she was married. After giving birth to Antigone, her mother dropped her off at her father's house, and never went to see her again.
For reasons never quite explained to Antigone, she is given to her aunt and uncle to be raised right after receiving her first name - before even her formal baptism. So, she was brought up on a farm with extended family and properly baptised. The only thing she ever heard about her father was that he was a monster who murdered his youngest brother as a child and got away with it. These rumors at times even indicated her father might have been a werewolf, though it's very difficult to make out with all the secrecy and resentment her caretakers held for the man, especially with her father himself having disappeared before she turned one year old. She got compared to him constantly - how much she spoke like him, acted like him, thought like him. It placed a heavy guilt upon her shoulders from birth that her caretakers do not regret putting there.
Childhood to Antigone much feels like a fever dream that she hasn't quite woken from yet. She doesn't remember a lot of it, nor of most of her life - recent years feel as surreal as those a decade back. Ultimately, she knows she did not like her home life. She was not a favorite among the six children, being the eldest, and took many beatings for offenses she can't remember well. Sometimes she dropped an egg, and sometimes she'd forgotten to clean her room. Usually it had to do with chores at first, then later with disrespect, and then later promiscuity (probably the one that made the least sense to her, for all she had to do was make eye contact with a boy for this, really). She'd usually shout once, twice, and then stop. She remembers the adrenaline better than the words spoken during these confrontations. She'd always stick up for her younger siblings when similar incidents happened and often take their beatings in early years, until two of her younger cousins (Polly and Cathy, three and four years younger than she) later grew to resent her once their mother began favoring them over Antigone, and would pick on her in result. After that, she bickered with them instead and lost that close sibling bond she'd had with them.
Then, of course, there were the moments at night when she was half asleep where her uncle hurt her in a way she would later come to learn was rape. This mostly happened between age six and nine, and after that no more. She repressed these memories for a very long time.
So, Antigone spent as much time as she was afforded outside. As a child, this entailed playing with other kids (she had no issues socializing and had plenty friends), and playing tricks on bullies. Bullies could be anyone to Antigone, whether they be grown and with three children or about her own age. Many of her friends' parents qualified for her pranks. As a child she didn't fear adults more than she did children.
This fearlessness disappeared around age 16, for the memories of the sexual abuse she'd faced began resurfacing. The nightmares she'd had all her childhood suddenly became frighteningly real, and for about two years she slipped in and out of delusion. She could no longer tell what was real and what was not. Regularly her senses betrayed her. At times she saw people that weren't there, or felt things that weren't touching her, or smelled the foul scent of decay even when no rot was to be found near. At night she heard and felt demons (incubi, for the vivid flashbacks she had made no sense otherwise to her), and there was little she could do to cast them out. There were days she wasn't sure who she was or what her name was, and other days she would wake up and be incapable of any movement at all. Even blinking was nigh impossible while she'd lie frozen for hours with her caretakers standing over her bed and talking to her.
These psychotic episodes strangely ended up making the abuse milder - her uncle stopped fighting her entirely, resorting to damage control more than anything once she began babbling about incubi visiting her at night and realizing this might be because of his deeds. At first, the abuse from her aunt got worse, and then after a few dreadful months it fully stopped.
Antigone still wanted to leave. She was too ill to do so, but she badly wanted to anyway. She'd rather die than stay with her family forever. So, as if it was fate, during the winter of her seventeenth year, a strange man appeared into their village. His name was Geoffrey Lamb, and he was seeking for a wife.
During the first full conversation Antigone had with him he was already persuading her parents to marry her. She'd seen him before, sure, and spoken a few words to him every now and then in passing, and probably he observed her among her friends where she was louder and talked and laughed until her throat was sore - but she didn't know him, and his proposal frightened her.
He asked for no dowry, and thus her parents were sold easily. He was richer than the other men they'd had in mind for Antigone. She married him half a year later.
Geoffrey was fond of Antigone, sure (too fond), and in the very least quite young (32, if she had to believe him), but she didn't really trust him. He was attractive, and intelligent, yes - but something about his obsession and intimidating aura warned Antigone that she was standing eye to eye with some kind of predator, even though she was not quite sure which kind exactly.
In truth, Geoffrey Lamb (originally named Geoffrey d'Aubigny, closer to 300 years old than 32) was a vampire who'd grown smitten with her after watching her for a few years. He didn't want to be stuck with a teenage girl for too long, so decided not to turn her (maybe once she'd grown older, and would be more understanding of the violent nature he swore he saw glimpses of within her), but he wanted to keep her around, too, so elected to go the traditional route and simply marry her. For the time being, he decided against feeding on her too (later, once she'd let her guard down), but it was always in his plans to do this eventually. He decided that if she got too annoying, he could always just kill her - so why not?
The first step would be to get her out of England, naturally. Isolating her from her friends so she couldn't run too far off was a top priority. Besides, he was sick of Europe - so after about a year of careful proposals to Antigone to leave, reminding her of how badly the land had treated her with faux concern, they took off to Greenstone. Antigone didn't fully let her guard down, but did cling to Geoffrey more in a grasp for stability.
So, they arrive, move into a house in Montandon, Geoffrey continues to isolate her and makes sure she stays inside unless chaperoned so that no one else kills her before he can (growing increasingly impatient with her reluctance around intimacy but still trying to go slow and steady (occasionally failing at this and ending up hurting her) so she doesn't bolt and flee into hunter territory, something he hadn't anticipated could happen), and then in frustration, murders another girl vaguely similar to Antigone to feed on and is in turn killed by a hunter. His body is thrown into the sea and disappears forever. Antigone has no idea where her husband went. It's been about a week now, and she's beginning to grow seriously worried for her future. She, at this point in time, does miss him - but not as much as she would a man she'd married fully of her own volition.
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Dubhaile
