Diana

From OSWIKI

Name:	Diana Lake
Height:	5'10"
Weight:	140
Birthday:	April 30, 1970
Position:	Reclusive Writer
Clan:	Ventrue
Covenant:	Invictus
Status
Clan:	0
City:	1
Covenant:	1
Sire:	Helena Tanos
Childer:	none

Haven

Diana's Brooklyn House

Description

Diana Lake is a very attractive woman of 5'10 and weighs 140 pounds. She has an hourglass figure of full curves and fair, flawless skin. Her platinum blond hair flows to her back but is often arranged up highlighting her dark blue eyes. (Presence 4, BP 1)

Background

Diana Lake was born and raised in Brooklyn NY. Her parents were hard working honest people who made a modest living and lived a small full life. Her father was an insurance salesman and her mother worked as a secretary for the New York State Department of Transportation.

Diana spent her summers as a child Upstate in Saratoga helping her grandfather and grandmother run a horse stable. Her grandparents raised and sold thoroughbred horses that were raced at the Aqueduct and at Saratoga. Summers were exciting and being in the “country” was a welcomed change to being in the city. She learned to ride, although not well. She was more interested in the races themselves. The screaming crowds, the parties, and the general excitement were just the break from the boring life she was enthralled with.

As a teenager Diana began to write. She wrote poetry and short stories about life in the city, and what it was like to be at the races. She captured the gritty realism of life while exploring the softer undertones of romance and love unrequited. Several competitions that she entered gave her second and third prize awards. As she grew she began to be very aware of how her looks could be used to get what she wanted.

Her parents were proud, they encouraged her to travel and when she turned 19 they gifted her with a summer in Europe. She almost turned it down; her love of the races and a summer away from them just when she was old enough to really enjoy it seemed impossible to turn down. But in the end her mother convinced her to go saying that this would be the trip of a lifetime. Reluctantly Diana packed her bags.

It was everything her parents said it would be and a lot more. She stayed in Paris and visited the Louvre. She took a train through Belgium and through Denmark and visited museums and toured the country. She stayed in Germany and saw the fall of the Berlin wall and attended the waves of parties afterward. She then went to Italy and toured Rome and there she met a woman named Helena. Helena would change her life forever.

It started in Rome. She was sitting on a bench at night, writing near a large lit fountain when a woman came to sit beside her. There was an instant attraction. She had never thought about women being attractive before but Helena took her breath away. Helena struck up a conversation with her and invited her to dinner. Diana accepted, and that night after drinks they kissed. The resulting pleasure was without a doubt an addictive experience. She spent night after night with Helena and cancelled the rest of her trip to stay in Italy. By August, Diana was in love with Helena.

When she returned home to attend college, Diana was depressed and her writing changed to reflect it. She wrote a novel in her freshman year, about death aboard a train. A professor sent it to an agent she knew and at 20, Diana had her first book published. Her pining for Helena did not cease however and the essence of what she felt with her was often the subject of characters she wrote about. Although she tried to stay in touch, between college and her new writing career, Diana couldn’t make time to go back.

Diana took her junior year of college off to write another novel. This time she experimented with a pseudonym. The book enjoyed a moderate success among women who wanted to be swept away by idealistic love but was not what she expected. She went back to school hoping to gain new direction for her writing.

In her senior year of college three huge things happened .The first massive event happened in the spring. Her grandfather died, leaving Diana the horses and farm Upstate. She still loved the races, but her writing seemed so much more important. She hired an attorney and business manager who made very shrewd business decisions. They approached a developer who had a sub development plan for the area and parceled off the land keeping just a few small acres for the farm. They sold it for almost 5 times its value as a single unit. The horses themselves were worth a small fortune and they were sold immediately. Within a year Diana had over a million dollars in the bank after taxes.

In the summer of the same year, her parents went on a boating trip in the Adirondacks as they did every year. When they didn’t return on time, Diana called the police and three weeks later she was informed that they had been killed most likely by a wild animal. The police seemed to think that her father died trying to protect her mother. With his death, Diana found that her parents who seemed so boring, had done very well for themselves and they each carried a 5 million dollar policy. (In their wills it was obvious that they wanted each other taken care of, Diana was not the primary beneficiary, but the secondary) That, added to her fortune from her grandparents, created a very wealthy woman out of Diana Lake.

The triple loss hit Diana hard and the money seemed trivial in comparison to what she lost. She felt lonely, bewildered and misplaced in the world. She stumbled through her days, locked herself in her parent’s room and cried for days on end. Months later, Diana had lost 30 pounds; she was listless and had no spark. Everyone from her publisher to her business manager and even professors tried to get her to seek professional help. Diana refused doing only what was minimally necessary although she continued to write. She begged Helena for advice.

Around Christmas-time a familiar face appeared at her door in the middle of the night. Bleary eyed, she answered the door and in walked Helena and a small entourage of travelers. Helena spent the night talking to Diana and while she disappeared by day, every night she appeared at the door and slowly took total control of Diana’s life and home. Helena oversaw everything from her meals to an exercise regime. Inside of a year, Helena had transformed Diana into a vibrant woman again.

Helena began giving advice to Diana about money. She purchased a five story house and deeded the house in Diana’s name. Diana was incredulous and so in-love that she could see no wrong in Helena. But during one their intimate midnight chats, Helena revealed to Diana what she truly was and what she intended to do both to and for her. Diana saw the idea as slavery. When she refused, Helena stopped seeing Diana. The loss difficult to bear and within a month she accepted.

The acceptance led to the most intense period of learning Diana had so far had. She had power, she had money, and now she had a deep bond with a woman who made her feel with a single kiss better than she believed any man ever could. Her works were published again and she seemed to radiate a new found confidence. The cost of all this was far from cheap. Diana did more and more for Helena. She took long trips to handle business affairs for her, allowed others like Helena to feed on her and entertained in grand style, all of Helena’s friends. Helena transferred vast sums of wealth into Diana’s name as investment capital creating fake companies so that Helena could live off the money without arousing suspicion about her.

On Diana’s 30th birthday, Helena sent Diana to entertain a man named Ian. It started well. They had drinks, and saw a very late show then went back to a basement apartment. But this friend was different. He told Diana about his secret hatred for Helena. He mentioned an oath she had taken that never been fulfilled and vowed to get revenge. Diana was less than comfortable and tried to leave but the man held her there smiling wickedly. Step by step he told her what he was going to do. Drain her of blood, feed her his own, and steal Helena’s little prize. Diana was not strong enough to stop him although she fought for as long as she could.

When it was over, she felt disoriented, angry and so hungry her body ached. Ian had provided her a woman to drink from and before she could stop, she had killed. Diana bitterly hated the man in front of her and herself more. Ian brought Diana to Helena introducing her as his childer. Helena flew into a rage and in a bitter horrific fight, forced Ian into Torpor. She then set his body on the roof of the building before dawn so that he could burn in the sun.

Diana was introduced to the city by Helena. Helena took responsibility for her and agreed to accept all consequences of Diana’s behavior. Helena taught Diana to hunt and how to use the Invictus ways to her advantage and to please the elders of the city. But she kept Diana on a close leash. Things changed between them however. Helena wasn’t close to her anymore. She quickly picked another to fill Diana’s place as her favored companion and while she was precise with her lessons on survival and etiquette, she was distant and cold.

Diana poured her time and energy into learning but the entrenched understanding that she was without Helena’s love was overpowering. Over the years she grew jaded and cynical although she was now writing volumes of books, she was not sending them anywhere. They sat in her office in color coded files. She couldn’t stop loving Helena and it was driving her insane.

On what would have been Diana’s 35th birthday, Helena again planned a surprise. She threw a wild midnight party and at the end of it announced her plans to return to Italy. Diana was devastated when she was not invited but in the years that followed her departure, Diana rose to the occasion. Helena’s money was still growing in her accounts (although she didn’t spend it) and she was releasing 1 work a year to small publishing houses to keep herself busy. She completely redecorated the inside of the house in lavish style. Her love for Helena never faded but her mind was focused and that helped her through.

In the spring of 2009, Diana felt the immediate release of Helena’s blood bond. She wept both in sadness and in joy. Months later she discovered that Ian’s sire had killed Helena in much the same way she had killed Ian. She lives in Brooklyn in the same house Helena bought, and meets nightly with a small group of women poets that often last far into the night.