Anatou Icewolf

It all started with two Gangrel. As mortals, they had been brother and sister, but as immortals, they became the bitterest of enemies, the sister calling herself Mother Hulda of the Circle of the Crone, the brother making claims to the title of Dracula among the Ordo Dracul. Anatou never knew their true identities, if they were, in fact, lying. She never knew how old they were or where they came from. All she knew was that when Mother Hulda led her followers of vampires and mortals to the frozen Hudson Bay area of Canada, she was seeking a mythical figure known as "the Maiden" and that Dracula led his followers on the same quest, to spite his sister.

Anatou was born the first and only child of Karvik, the best hunter of the Inuit tribe, and Dyani, a woman who was cousin to the tribe's chief. A shaman visited the tribe a few months earlier and gave her mother an amulet to bring good luck, but it meant for a boy child, not a girl. The night before Anatou arrived, a storm hit Little Whale River, the village. In the morning, Anatou was born. Much to the horror of all who looked upon her, the child was deathly pale, with hair as white as the snow. The villagers immediately took her for a demon and sought to have her exposed on the frozen planes. It was only through the kindness of the chief that she was allowed to live, in the hopes that her hair and skin would grow darker as time went by. She was named Anatou, "the Fair One."

As Anatou grew up, her hair did not become darker, nor did her skin. She was constantly on the outside, viewed as different and bizarre by the tribal elders. When they returned from the hunt without meat, Anatou was the one they blamed, calling her a curse and a witch. Life among her peers wasn't much different. Many of the village children teased and tormented Anatou, except for her cousin Motomiak and his best friend, Tarto. Motomiak protected Anatou primarily out of a chauvinistic sense of duty. Before she was born, many villagers talked of a marriage between the two of them. Tarto, on the other hand, came to care for Anatou deeply and even fell in love with her by the time they were both fourteen.

Famine struck Little Whale River when Anatou was sixteen. Many, including her parents, went out in search of meat and never came back, lost to the snow. Without her parents to protect her, Anatou's position in the tribe became more unstable. For a time, she was able to support herself, exchanging meat for the textiles she could sew. Things got worse and worse, however, and eventually, the villagers demanded that the chief banish Anatou from the tribe, in the hopes that getting rid of her would solve their problem as they believed she had somehow angered the spirits of earth and air. The chief had no choice but to do so. Anatou was sent out into the wild, left to fend for herself. The chief died shortly thereafter to be replaced by Motomiak.

Tarto followed Anatou into her exile and promised to protect her. Although Anatou loved him, she would not allow him to die for her. She gave him the amulet her mother had once worn, hoping it would bring him luck and sent him away. But the next night, Tarto returned to Anatou on the border of the forest. And the night after that. Each night, he brought with him whatever meat and supplies he could manage to steal and soon enough, he and Anatou had established a little home where they lived together from sunset to sunrise.

Despite their small happiness, things were getting worse in the village as the famine continued. Motomiak began to grow suspicious of Tarto's late night walks and ordered him watched at all times. Afraid of leading the village warriors back to Anatou, who was still a scapegoat, Tarto was forced to remain apart from her. Anatou felt betrayed, having lost the last of her connections to the human world. In despair, she resolved to enter into the deep forest where they said the Wood God lived. There, she would pray and ask him to turn her into a wolf so that she wouldn't know human pain again.

The forest was every bit as frightening as Anatou had been told around the campfire. She called out to the Wood God and, after a time, a voice mysteriously replied. It asked her if she was "Maiden" and she answered that she was, as she and Tarto had not yet consummated their relationship. With that reply, a man as pale as Anatou descended from the trees. The next thing she knew, she could feel him draining her blood.

When Anatou awoke, she was a Gangrel, the captive of her sire, a man who called himself Dracula, and his followers of the Ordo Dracul. He was the only one among them who spoke her language and he explained to Anatou that his people had come from the other side of the world to find her. She was called "Maiden" and was told that his people meant no harm, but that they wanted to study her. Anatou's stay with Dracula and his followers was rather peaceful. Though she was poked and prodded, Dracula never allowed any harm to come to her. With all the affection of a father, he taught her how to survive. During her first few nights, however, Anatou realized that the cause of the famine suffered by her people was the vampires who were going out and slaughtering all the seals, feeding off of the blood and giving the meat to their mortal retainers and servants.

She became obsessed with proving her own innocence and so, one night, snuck away from the camp and made her way back to the village. She found Tarto who was overjoyed to see her, but afraid for her safety. Before Anatou could explain everything to him, a hunter spotted her back in the village. A party was immediately called to slaughter her. Anatou and Tarto fled back into the forest, Tarto being called a traitor. They managed to make it back to the Ordo Dracul camp, but Tarto was injured by a spear. Dracula saw Anatou's love for him and, as a gift, he Embraced Tarto, allowing him to survive the injury. Dracula killed several of the hunters for daring to hurt his Maiden.

The villagers were restless following the events of that night and pressed Motomiak to do something about the strangers who had killed for Anatou. Eventually, Motomiak called for an enormous hunting party. They went into the forest just before twilight and sought out the camp. The sleepy members of Ordo Dracul were caught off guard and a terrible battle began between mortals and immortals. At first, it seemed that the mortals were winning. Dracula hid Anatou and Tarto out of danger before returning to the fight. The tide of the battle began to turn and the mortals started falling. Motomiak sounded a retreat and they fled, pursued by the remaining vampires who cut them down. Anatou and Tarto came out of hiding and found Motomiak about to be killed by Dracula's chief lieutenant. Anatou killed her and Tarto then Embraced Motomiak. Afraid of retribution, the three of them fled, unaware of how many of Dracula's followers had survived.

For several weeks, the three of them remained isolated in the woods. Their hiding place was discovered by a follower of Mother Hulda, from the Circle of the Crone, who brought them back to a hidden compound. There, Anatou was worshipped, all bystanders falling to their knees before her. The three of them were taken to Mother Hulda, the leader of the group. She explained that she had brought her followers (also contributing to the seal shortage) on a quest for the Maiden of the Maiden-Mother-Crone trinity. A prophecy had foretold that she would be born amidst the snow. Mother Hulda declared that Anatou was this Maiden.

With the object of their quest now in possession, Mother Hulda took Anatou, Tarto, Motomiak, and her followers down into the American colonies where Anatou first became aware of the calendar. The year was 1708 and for the first time, it was Tarto and Motomiak who were singled out for their skin color by the British colonists of New York. This caused Tarto to retreat further into the protection of Mother Hulda's group, but caused Motomiak, who longed for cosmopolitan acceptance, to drift outward in the direction of the Christian missionaries which then led him to discover the Lancea Sanctum. Despite Tarto's dire warnings about the evils of such a covenant, Motomiak finally left Mother Hulda to go with them, promising never to harm Anatou or Tarto, who had saved his life. They pledged the same.

Over the next few decades, Tarto grew more and more devout in his following of the Circle of the Crone. Anatou remained somewhat aloof, hating the way that pilgrims would visit, hoping to see her. When they sought her advice, she had no idea what to say. Only Tarto seemed to understand her uncertainty, but even he too began to believe that Anatou had a destiny. Nevertheless, the two of them eventually consummated their relationship. Unfortunately, it happened that on that night, one of Dracula's followers, an advance scout, had arrived in Mother Hulda's domain. When he spotted the two of them, he attempted to kill Tarto for defiling the Maiden. Tarto and Anatou killed him. They hurried to Mother Hulda's inner sanctum to warn her that Dracula's followers were on the move, but they arrived too late. A great battle had broken out between the Circle of the Crone and the Ordo Dracul.

Tarto raced off to defend Mother Hulda. As Anatou picked her way through the battle after Tarto, she found one of Dracula's men attacking an Invictus Reeve named Leticia Harris who had been sent by the city's Prince to break up the fight and protect the Masquerade. Anatou protected Leticia, fending the Ordo Dracul follower off. In the time that took, however, half of the city was on fire and Tarto was nowhere to be found. Distressed, Anatou went into an absolute frenzy, but was pulled away to safety by Leticia, returning the favor.

The Prince banished all members of the Circle of the Crone and Ordo Dracul following the incident, which fortunately was passed off as just another skirmish in that pesky Revolutionary War the mortals were having. Leticia, however, passed Anatou off as her Groom, thus providing a way for her to stay in the city and wait for Tarto as a member of the Invictus. Anatou was grateful to Leticia for her kindness and served as a loyal and faithful Groom for many years, happy to be out of the position of Circle of the Crone figurehead for awhile. She was still desperately unhappy without Tarto, however, and in 1815, with Lecitia's blessing, left New York to head south.

Down south, Anatou found herself quite justly horrified at the racial segregation taking place. Due, in large part, to the treatment she had received as a mortal for her skin color, she was driven to get involved with the Underground Railroad. This had the duel effect of both satisfying her mortal sensibilities and allowing her the opportunity to travel frequently, looking for Tarto. She had no luck finding him, but in 1830, she ran into Motomiak who had risen in the ranks of the Lancea Sanctum quite impressively. Motomiak promised to keep Anatou safe from any messy Lancea Sanctum encounters and also agreed to use his own influence and contacts to help her locate Tarto, but again, no success. Anatou continued her work and Motomiak remained in contact as much as possible, their old differences erased in mutual concern for Tarto.

As the new American nation expanded west, Anatou followed after it, using her various connections to the Circle of the Crone, the Invictus, Ordo Dracul, and Lacea Sanctum whenever necessary to get where she wanted to go. This did not come without problems, as her status as Maiden still would draw her a curious following, especially from Ordo Dracul and the Circle of the Crone. This ended up a bit of a blessing, however.

In 1846, after Texas was voted into statehood and war broke out in the region, Anatou arrived to find many of Mother Hulda's old followers siding with the Mexicans. One of them told her that Tarto was still alive and took her back to the compound. Sure enough, it was Tarto. He explained that after the battle in New York, Mother Hulda had disappeared and her followers had unanimously elected Tarto as their new leader. He had been guiding them across the country, fleeing the influence of Lancea Sanctum ever since. Anatou joined Tarto, siding with the Mexicans, but very quickly realized that it was all due to the fact that the Lancea Sanctum had decided to back the Americans. Much to her horror, she learned that Motomiak had brought his followers to fight against Tarto's followers.

Anatou arranged a secret meeting between the three of them. Tarto and Motomiak agreed that they couldn't stop the fighting, but took a vow of brotherhood, swearing that the winner would protect the loser at all costs. Two years later, when the war ended with the Americans victorious, Motomiak looked the other way, allowing Tarto and Anatou to lead the surviving followers of Mother Hulda out of Texas. Unfortunately, in the chaos, Tarto and Anatou were separated again.

Returning to the South, Anatou resumed her work with the Underground Railroad, serving it faithfully all throughout the Civil War. By 1866, her former protector, Leticia Harris, had become the Prince in New York City. Anatou returned to her and agreed to serve as her Groom again, in exchange for being allowed to go back and examine all the remaining evidence of the battle between Dracula and Mother Hulda, in the hopes of finding out exactly what happened to these bitter enemies. Through her investigation, Anatou learned very little about the events of the battle, other than the fact that several witnesses had seen both Dracula and Mother Hulda walk away with their lives.

Early in 1890, several followers of Dracula decided that the old ban on Ordo Dracul in the city had been lifted and dared to challenge Leticia's power. They sent a team of skilled assassins to scare her, not kill her. Anatou was present during the attack and defended Leticia, earning herself a great deal of respect from the Invictus Advisors present. Unfortunately, Anatou was severely injured and wound up in a torpor, her body protected by Leticia in a Snow White-type coffin, inadvertently earning her many more visits from pilgrims and the epitaph of Ice Wolf Maiden, since she fought with the ferocity of a wolf and, in her glass coffin, looked as if she were made of ice.

During her torpor, Anatou dreamed frequently of her relationship with Tarto. Just as frequently, however, she was visited by the Greek deities Lachesis (who appeared just like Anatou's mother) and Atropos (who looked like Mother Hulda), calling themselves the Mother and the Crone, who promised her great things. Each time they visited, they called her another name, but the most frequent was Clotho. Later, after she woke, Anatou learned that Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos were the three Fates. She also woke with a burning question as to whether or not her parents had been Embraced by some of Mother Hulda's followers.

Anatou didn't wake again until 1925. Leticia was still Prince, but New York had changed drastically and it took Anatou a long time to adjust. Hoping to protect Anatou from too many unwanted visitors, Leticia set her up as the ward of Ben Weatherstaff, a local mover and shaker among the Carthian Movement and a personal friend of Leticia's. Ben was very kind to Anatou and helped her to adapt. When she finally felt ready to leave his care and seek Tarto again, Ben arranged transportation to take her west, down to southern California. She arrived in 1933.

She wasn't in California for two days before the rumors started spreading among the vampires of San Francisco that the Maiden had been spotted. Despite Anatou's best efforts to keep a low profile, she was ambushed and abducted by several members of Lancea Sanctum who were under orders to bring her directly before Archbishop Matthew Snow. Much to her relief and shock, she learned that Matthew Snow was really Motomiak. Motomiak took her into his protection and confidence, telling her that he had grown quite disillusioned with Lancea Sanctum and desired to restore the old Camarilla. His partner in this action was none other than Tarto, who was living up in Washington state, having risen to a high status within the Circle of the Crone. Anatou became the go-between for Motomiak and Tarto, serving in her capacity as Maiden to penetrate the protection of the Circle of the Crone and serving as Archbishop Matthew Snow's personal ambassador to safely travel through Lancea Sanctum territory. Despite being apart for months at a time, Anatou and Tarto's old flame burned brightly, a bit to Motomiak's jealousy.

For the first time, Anatou found a vampiric cause that she could really care about and she used her connections with both Leticia Harris and Ben Weatherstaff to bring factions of the Invictus and Carthian Movement into Motomiak's great plans. This greatly expanded Anatou's duties, sending her from the west coast to the east coast frequently throughout the 1950s and 1960s, but she was happy to serve as the great link between these four leaders.

In 1976, Anatou took Motomiak with her to visit Ben Weatherstaff and Leticia Harris. It was then that Ben proposed the idea of a meeting. Leticia was a bit nervous about the thought of leaving behind New York, but Motomiak decided it was a good idea. Upon returning to San Francisco, he sent Anatou out across the country to scout out the best location for a meeting between the factions. She had virtually no success in finding a location, although every now and then, she would find some new recruits, especially among the Carthians.

She stopped by Washington to visit with Tarto, who by this point had taken on the surname Frost, around 1999, just before New Year's Eve. The Circle of the Crone held a massive party to bring in the new millennium and right as the clock struck midnight, Tarto asked Anatou to marry him (an idea encouraged by Motomiak, who saw this as a chance to publicly "unite" their covenants). In the midst of all the excitement, however, a brick was thrown through the window. Attached to it was a copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula with the words, "Tarto is a slave" written in blood on the cover. Anatou, Tarto, and Motomiak all secretly agreed that the brick had come either from Dracula or Mother Hulda, who would both profit from discrediting Tarto. They agreed, after the incident, to exclude the Ordo Dracul from their Camarilla plans for the time being.

Early in 2007, Leticia and Ben both suggested Anchorage as a potential location to hold Motomiak's meeting. Anatou and Motomiak spent a good amount of time using all their contacts and resources to study the history of Anchorage. Motomiak finally deemed it a suitable location. Anatou traveled to visit all three of the other leaders, in person, to share Motomiak's plans. The meeting would be held on the birth of the New Year, 2010. Anatou would be the first to arrive, at the end of 2009, to scout out the city and learn as much as possible about its inhabitants, in order to adequately prepare Motomiak, Tarto, Leticia, and Ben upon their arrival. By the first midnight of 2010, all of the others would arrive and set up a headquarters for the new Camarilla.

Anatou elected to call herself Ana Icewolf, both for ease of pronunciation and to, hopefully, avoid some unwanted Ordo Dracul attention. She departed from Anchorage, assuming her role as personal assistant to Archbishop Matthew Snow, with a signed and notarized letter from him to be given to anyone who might question her business in the city, detailing that she was there to prepare for his visit.