Character Avatar: Tyra Banks
Player: Desdemona
Character Name: Mère Fleur
Past Names:Leila no' Jasmine and Leila Bourbeau de Hauet
Age: 36
Birthday: 4th of Nov
Height: 5' 10"
Rank/Title: Servant of Naamah, Owner of La Deuxième Cerise
Race: d'Angeline
Country/Province: L'Agnace
Townhome/Business Request: Night's Doorstep > La Deuxième Cerise > A Salon that specializes in well trained Servants of Naamah of a wide variety. They simply honor Naamah by Loving As Thou Wilt.
Appearance: Mère Fleur is a natural beauty, standing out even among the d'Angelines. She has warm brown skin, bright hazel eyes, and wears her brown hair long. She often dyes, lightening the color and giving herself streaks. Her face is proportioned perfectly with a broad but proud nose and very kissable heart lips. Mère Fleur is fit, but also curvy in all of the right places. Her skin is still flawless and her skin has held onto her fully completed Jasmine marque as well as it's hung onto it's youth.
Personality: Mère Fleur is proud of her Salon and she's proud of who she has become. She was able to break herself out of a bad situation and start one of the most talked about Salons outside of the Night Court. Mère Fleur is warm, charming and everyone's friend, unless you disrespect her, her Servants of Naamah, or her Salon. She can be the warm and charming Maquerelle, giving all of her clients the feeling that they are special and will receive the best service. She can also be strong and forceful when it is needed to further her business. She'll be a viper if it's needed to protect her Salon or her Cerises.
Additional Information
Marital Status: Divorced
Known Languages: d'Angeline, she knows greetings in other languages, but she is not fluent in anything else.
Strengths and Weaknesses: Strengths: Savvy business woman, Warm, Caring, charismatic, a beauty that stands out in a sea of angels. Weaknesses: She doesn't always feel as strong as she acts, the trauma from her history of abuse will sometimes break her self-confidence. She has a hard time performing as she once did as a Servant of Naamah, she is a good Maquerelle, but she wishes she could also serve Naamah properly.
Family Members/Important NPCs:
Ex-Husband: Baron Christophe Bourbeau de Hauet (NPC)
Mother: Solenne no' Jasmine (NPC)
History: Mère Fleur was born in Jasmine house to a lovely, but no longer practicing, Solenne no' Jasmine. Solenne wanted children so she requested a position in watching over the orphans in Jasmine and helping to teach the Younglings. Solenne was a talented adept and had a natural beauty that the House was more than happy to have repeated in her offspring. So, with their blessing Solenne lit her candle and was soon pregnant. Solenne had three children, all three Jasmine beauties, though her last child really shined. She named the little girl Leila.
Leila grew up in Jasmine house with her two older siblings and her mother. All three children had different fathers, all adepts of Jasmine that volunteered to assist with the pregnancies. Leila's father did visit her from time to time when she was younger, but he never showed a great interest and he ended up leaving Jasmine when Leila was 9 years old. She had the love of her mother, her siblings, and the other staff and adepts at Jasmine, so she did not feel any great loss at his departure. She also didn't put much thought into his absence when he never returned.
Leila did well at Jasmine, she flew her dove on her 16th natal and fetched a decent virgin price. She had learned her lessons well and had a natural charm that her Patrons felt drawn to. Leila truly loved being an adept and her Patrons could feel it in their assignations. Leila had originally planned on following in her mother's footsteps. She would be a Patron until age caught up with her and then she would have her own children and continue with Jasmine in the same manner as her mother. However, a man named Christophe showed up in her assignation room one day and all of her plans went out the window.
Leila was 19 years old when she had her first assignation with Christophe. Instead of Leila doing all of the work to make her Patron feel passion, it felt like Christope was doing all of the work and that she simply had to enjoy it. He returned for a second assignation and this time he brought a string of pearls as a gift before it even started. Soon Christope was visiting multiple times a month, bring gifts and sweeping Leila off of her feet. When he visited with an offer of marriage and a large enough gift to finish off her marque Leila said yes without any hesitation. It had only been five months and she had only seen him during assignations, but she felt like she really knew him.
Leila finished her marque early, largely due to Christophe's generosity, and was married at 20 years of age. Leila had plans to have children, but Christophe didn't want any quiet yet so she was happy to wait. Their marriage seemed perfect at first and Leila couldn't imagine a better outcome. Not only had she found the love of her life, she had also become a Baroness. She knew a lot of her friends at Jasmine hoped to find their true love and some just had eyes on a title. She had found both. However, her dream world slowly morphed and one day she woke up and realized that she had been living in a nightmare.
Christophe had slowly separated Leila from all of her friends. When they were first married Christophe would let her host dinners for her mother, siblings, and some of her closest friends from Jasmine. After a few months it seemed like they were always too busy for the meals. Leila would still visit her mother and siblings, but then Christophe always needed her by his side and time for that disappeared too.
Christophe also started finding more and more faults with Leila. Even though Leila had been a popular adept and had not lost any of her grace, she would still not be good enough. Jasmine had taught basic life skills, but they did not teach their adepts how to be peers. Christophe never seemed to be happy with her progress, even though the tutors that Christophe hired always told Leila that she was smart. Over time Leila found that she was just going through the motions and that couldn't remember the last time that she had truly smiled. Christophe had never hurt her physically, but he had somehow managed to break her soul.
One morning Leila woke up and realized that it was the 8th year anniversary of their wedding. She was preparing herself to go through the motions of another unhappy anniversary when a servant informed her that Christophe had left on a hunting trip and would probably be gone for a week. At first she was disappointed, it was her anniversary. But, then she realized that she was free. It was not the first time that he had left her alone for a week or two, but in the past she had spent that time frantic, wanting to make sure everything was just perfect for Christophe when he returned. This time, she didn't care. She was going to enjoy her week, and she did.
Leila pampered herself with new clothes, long baths, and fancy dinners. She scheduled dinners with her mother and siblings. She had lost contact with most of her friends from Jasmine, but one had not left the house so Leila spent a day with her as well. It was while she was visiting this friend that she also realized that she had not made love to anyone, even Christophe, in months. Leila couldn't even remember the last time that she had enjoyed the arts of Naamah. Her friend was fully marked so she spent the night with Leila and reminded her what real passion was. After that Leila knew she could no longer stay with Christophe. She didn't let herself think about it for more than a moment. She packed her bags and traveled back with her friend, staying in her mother's room at Jasmine on a temporary basis with the Dowayne's blessing.
The next few months of Leila's life was difficult. Even though most noble marriages included investments and lands for both parties, Leila's marriage had not. Leila hadn't thought about her financial future and Christophe had turned her into his soulless puppet before that maturity could come. Leila was determined to get something out of Christophe and in the end she resorted to something that was more of a bribe than anything else. While Christophe had not done anything completely illegal, he had played dirty with some of his so-called friends and Leila threatened to spill everything she knew about him if he didn't divorce her without issue and leave her with a healthy amount of gold. Christophe agreed and Leila left that part of her life behind completely. She had not made any true friends among the peer, more due to Christophe's control than any sort of dislike toward's the people that she had met.
Leila could not go back to Jasmine. Her mother had been helping her rent a small apartment while Leila worked as a server in one of the many taverns on Night's Doorstep. With the money that she had received from Christophe, Leila was able to buy a decent salon and return to her life as a Servant of Naamah. A life that she had missed and a life that she thought that she would thrive in once again. However, Christophe's damage had run deep and Leila had a hard time really giving herself to her clients. Some of her previous Patrons from Jasmine had visited and they all seemed to notice. Some of her previous patrons never returned and a few even commented that something seemed different about her.
Leila tried many things to try and get whatever it was she had as a younger adept and nothing seemed to bring it. She visited priests, healers, and even saved up for a trip to Balm and later Jasmine as a Patron. While she was slowly feeling a little better, it was taking longer than Leila wanted it too. She was pretty enough to attract enough clients to keep her far from starvation, but she did not feel good about what she was doing.
One day while walking through Mont Nuit, trying to figure her life out, Leila was distracted by the sobs of a little girl. A young girl with a head full of curls and a face full of freckles was distraught because the Dowayne of one of the houses said that she had too many freckles for the Night Court. The girl's mother was with her and was obviously upset as well. Something about the little girl's cries snapped something in Leila and she knew exactly what she needed to do. She told the mother where she was working and asked that she bring her daughter back in 6 months, since she had some prep work to take care of. Leila was going to create a place for the unwanted but still more than worthy children turned away by the strict rules of the Night Court. Leila didn't have kids of her own and didn't know if she would, but she could still care for children and be the mother that she wanted to be.
After Leila's initial excitement she did visit her mother and her best friend at Jasmine to talk over the idea and make sure she wasn't being unrealistic. She would have to be very tight with her money as her house grew and Leila did take those 6 months to make sure she had all of her ducks in a row and everything planned out perfectly. The girl that Leila had seen was barely 10 and Leila knew she couldn't support her idea for a new Salon for 6 years without being able to hire clients. So, she walked around the darkest streets of Mont Nuit and looked for already practicing Servants of Naamah that were not living up to their full potential.
Leila's salon was born with three Servants of Naamah. She named her Salon, "La Deuxième Cerise," which means, "the second cherry." She liked that the name was a little bit of a tease, but also relayed the true idea of her Salon, second chances. She also gave herself a new name, one that also had many layers. She was an adept of the Night Court and was one of their little flowers, but cherries also came after cherry flowers. So, she was the flower that prepared her cherries to be Servants of Naamah that could be truly proud of their vocation and their performance. So, from the first day of her Salon she named herself Mère Fleur and was Leila to no one other than her mother.
The La Deuxième Cerise has been open for 8 years now. It has grown from three wayward servants of Naamah to 12 Servants of Naamah that have flown their dove and 8 who are not of age and are still learning their lessons. She has moved from her original Salon into a larger one, one with a main building for guests and a couple of houses in the back that are dorms for her trainees and any established Servants that need a place to live.
Her original inspiration, the freckled face girl, has flown her dove and is now a Servant of Naamah. Mère Fleur does her best to balance the cost of having young trainees that cannot earn income with the older adepts who can. Her Cerises have chores just like Night Court adepts do, which helps to cut costs since she does not have to hire extra help. She also allows other Servants of Naamah who are not apart of her Salon pay to attend the classes and training that she gives her already practicing Servants. If one of her Servants has not had very much attention then she will plan small events that seem like random happenings, such as a trip to the bath house that turns sensual, as a way to have them seen and to start gossip and create interest.
Mère Fleur's entire life centers around her Salon. She loves her Cerises and where she has taken her life.
Updates:
Approved by Janet on 23rd November 2018
