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Gabriel Lermontante - Brujah

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“Nikita: I had a dream last night, you said certain things, you revealed your feelings. Michael: Sometimes all we have is our dreams.”

La Femme Nikita – Hard Landing

Gabriel was born in 486 B.C. in a long ago forgotten Etruscan city that had turned to dust before most of the Jihad elders had ever been born into their mortal lives. His mother was highly respected for her ability to negotiate a fair deal in the families trade business and his father sat among the elders that ruled the city. ‘Gabriel’ isn’t his real name, that being lost along with most of the memories of his childhood when he was ripped away from his family by raiding mercenaries from Greece, who carried him away when he was eight to become a slave in a rich household that sat on the Aegean Sea.

The family he found himself serving was kind enough and when it was learned that he had been taught to read and write his native language, he was set to aid his master because the languages were so similar. As he grew into his teens and early manhood, Gabriel traveled all of ancient Greece and most of the neighboring countries with his master and learned much of the world. But he was still considered a slave, regardless of the fact that it was he, and not the husband of the master’s daughter, who took her virginity on her wedding day.

In the year that he turned 27, Gabriel’s life was forever changed when he witnessed a Kindred feeding in an alleyway when Gabriel was supposed to be delivering a message for his master in the dead of night. They were in Constantinople and somehow Gabriel managed to slip away without being seen but from that night on all he thought about was the creature he had seen and hoping that he could be like him. He began to think that it was the only way that he could escape his existence where he was looked at as property instead of a human being. His master had always been kind enough to him during his years of service, but his master was getting old and Gabriel feared the day his ownership transferred to the master’s son, who was far from kind.

He began to sneak out whenever he could in the hopes of encountering another creature like the one he had seen on that night in the foreign city so far away. There was many a time when Gabriel was beaten to within an inch of his life by the master’s son for his absences without permission, but Gabriel didn’t care. He looked at the beatings as preparation time for the day he received his wish to life free of his chains.

His dreams were answered when he met his sire at a dinner that was held to honor his master who had died three days before. Gabriel knew that there was something special about the woman as soon as she entered the room and her eyes fell on him instantly. Gabriel left his master’s home that night with the woman without knowing even her name and began his tutelage that would eventually lead to the kiss that would forever mark him as a creature of the night.

In their many years together, his sire taught him everything he needed to know about being a vampire in order to survive, while impressing upon him the knowledge that he always had to hide his true clan. They were the Children of Lilith, descendants of the woman whose magic had helped to turn Caine when he had found her, the first wife of his father, after being exiled from his family. Their clan was a secret one and in order to keep it so Gabriel and the others of the clan had to pretend to be members of the other Antediluvian’s clans.

When it came time for the multitude of the Kindred of the world to split themselves into the Camarilla and the Sabbat, Gabriel and most of his family sided with the Camarilla and learned the rules of their Masquerade. Not because they believed in them, but because those of the clan had to pretend to do so in order to survive since it was easier to live among the peaceful Camarilla, rather than the chaos-loving Sabbat.

Gabriel served as his sire’s captain. Making sure that she, and those of her household, was never harmed from those who thought to take what was hers simply because she was a woman. They traveled from city to city so that the true nature of the household was never discovered since there were more vampires than just Gabriel and his sire that lived within the protection her vast wealth provided. Gabriel never learned her true name, referring to her only as his Lady and swearing to die in protecting her.

Gabriel served his lady well until the night that she disappeared. He would never know if she was killed, or if she just grew tired of responsibilities of what she called her ‘dynasty’ and left to find new adventures on her own. Gabriel assumed the leadership of the house and in going through the papers his sire had left behind, he came to understand the more delicate workings of his clan. He found the book where all the names of the Children were written, along with those of the vampires who hadn’t ‘made the cut’ according to the standards of his sire, whom he was able to confirm was the leader of the clan, and therefore called its Thane.

During the dark times of the Inquisition, Gabriel made the decision to dissolve the traveling house his sire had been so well known for in the hopes of saving the lives of those he had sworn to protect. He charged that the members of his clan go out into the world where they might populate the Camarilla and Sabbat ranks with members of their own number. He had no desire to bring down either group, choosing instead to learn what he can for use in a time when he might have no other choice.

Gabriel was looking for a place of his own to settle in when he met Lisette Sinclair in Marseille. He was traveling with his childe, Reese, and the three vampires that were her childer through Europe and the time and he found in Lisette a passion that he had never felt before. He knew that with her love he would find acceptance into the Brujah clan and therefore maintain his own personal masquerade. Her sire had recently met his final death and she longed to return to her native Paris and wanted him and his ‘family’ to come with her.

He built for Lisette a grand home in Paris and in a very short amount of time they had established their own power base in the city. Currently Lisette is one of the four Brujah elders who lead the clan, giving Gabriel the opportunity to have a large amount of his own clan members in the city as well. Lisette knows nothing of Gabriel’s true bloodlines and he wishes to keep it that way to protect her.