Azaraiel

Introduction

• Basic Info

  • Name: Azaraiel
  • Gender: Genderless, but associates as female
  • Age: Unknown, but ancient
  • Race: Djinn

• Appearance

  Azaraiel is a shapeshifter of sorts. She has no true physical form, and can take on whatever animate shape she chooses, be it human, animal, or anything in between. The only thing she cannot take the form of is an inanimate object. However, this is her preferred form:
  

• Backstory

  Imagine this: you live in a place all your own. It's a nice place- quiet and peaceful. You're alone there, but you like it that way. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want. An open space, calm and free. It's hard to explain a place like this, because one doesn't exist here in this world. But imagine it does, and you live here. And then, all of a sudden, one day someone takes you from your home and throws you in a tiny cell. One that is barely big enough for you. Cramped. You can't move at all. It's hard to breath, there's no air. No food or water. No light. Nothing. Just you crushed between walls of solid iron. Can you imagine what that would feel like? No? Well, I don't have to imagine it, because I live it. This is what my life has become.
  
  In the beginning, things weren't so bad. We Djinn exist on a different plain than that you other sentient beings do. We were there long before you existed, and we will be there long after you are gone. We don't age. We don't change. We just are. In fact, we don't even have a physical form there. Nothing does. It's at the same time a place, and yet no place, at the same time. As I said before, it's hard to explain. Usually we were left there in blissful, peaceful solitude. But every once in a while, someone from your world summons us through the gate. Why? Because they want something from us. Because we have magic that they don't. We Djinn possess a wide variety of different magics, each unique to the user. Humans, on the other hand... The only magic they have is the ability to summon us through the gates. If they know our names. If they know the proper rituals. And we are bound to obey those who summon us, as long as they perform those rituals properly. They always want us to do something for them. Usually something simple. They want money. Or fame. Or free labor. Or they want us to get rid of someone for them. Occasionally they ask us to do something stupid. Like bringing the dead to life, or making someone fall in love with them. Magic is a powerful thing, but there is no magic that can do that.
  
  But the last time I was summoned- that time was different. I don't even know the name of the man who summoned me. I never do. Names have power. It is in knowing the name of a Djinn that a human is able to summon them. And for a Djinn, learning the name of our summoner frees us from their control. And I don't even remember what it was he wanted me to do. It has been so long since then. But I do vividly remember what came after. How could I forget? Because instead of releasing me to return to my solitude, he used his magic, that used to control my kind, to seal me inside this small iron bottle. Not because I had done anything wrong, but because he wanted the permanent use of my magic. And there was nothing I could do to stop him.
  
  For a while, he would release me every once in a while. I was bound to perform whatever task he set me, and then he would lock me away. I quickly grew to hate him. But as long as he did not make a mistake in the rituals he used to control me, I could do nothing to him. As much as I loathed the sight of him, I looked forward to our meetings, if only to get out of the bottle far a while. And for the chance that he might make a mistake, and I could make him pay for what he had done to me. But one day, something changed. When I was released, he was not there. And that's when I learned that he had passed away. And rather than releasing me, he had passed me down to his son. Who used me and kept me bound just like his father had. And so the cycle continued. For how long, I do not know. It is impossible to mark the passing of time from within a bottle. And besides, time means nothing to a Djinn. But I do know that it has been a long, long time since anyone has released me from this bottle, and I fear that I have been forgotten, and I shall spend the rest of eternity in this cursed prison.