☽ ＥＭＰＲＥＳＳ ☾
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❝ 𝐻𝒶𝓁𝒻 𝑔𝑜𝒹𝓈 𝒶𝓇𝑒 𝓌𝑜𝓇𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓅𝓅𝑒𝒹 𝒾𝓃 𝓌𝒾𝓃𝑒 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒻𝓁𝑜𝓌𝑒𝓇𝓈. 𝑅𝑒𝒶𝓁 𝑔𝑜𝒹𝓈 𝓇𝑒𝓆𝓊𝒾𝓇𝑒 𝒷𝓁𝑜𝑜𝒹. ❞
☽ 𝑵𝑨𝑴𝑬𝑺
She was born Mei-ying Wang (with her first name translating to 'beautiful shadows'), but to humans, she is known as Baigujing (白骨精), the White Bone Demoness popularized by Wu Cheng'en and his classic novel, Journey to the West. Mei-ying's epithet of "empress" came about after she got herself involved London's criminal underground.
☽ 𝑺𝑻𝑨𝑻𝑺
𝒜𝑔𝑒: around 2,000 years old
𝒞𝑜𝓁𝑜𝓇 𝒞𝑜𝒹𝑒: #5684a3
𝐹𝒶𝒸𝑒𝒸𝓁𝒶𝒾𝓂: Fei Fei Sun☽ 𝑨𝑷𝑷𝑬𝑨𝑹𝑨𝑵𝑪𝑬
Mei-ying wears black, almost exclusively. She always appreciates a well-tailored suit, though she's ruined quite a few of them by spontaneously shape-shifting, whoops.
☽ 𝑳𝒀𝑹𝑰𝑪
❝ 𝐼 𝓀𝓃𝑜𝓌 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓉𝓎𝓅𝑒: 𝓉𝒶𝓁𝓁, 𝒹𝒶𝓇𝓀, 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒹𝑒𝒶𝒹 ❞
☽ 𝑴𝑨𝑮𝑰𝑪𝑨𝑳 𝑺𝑷𝑬𝑪𝑰𝑨𝑳𝑻𝑰𝑬𝑺
Mei-ying is able to transform/morph into a creature that's a combination of some kind of giant bat, gargoyle, and dragon. However, she's also figured out how to limit the transformation, and nowadays, she prefers not to undergo the full transformation, instead bringing in certain things as she needs them. Her most common 'shift' involves changing her left hand into her alternate form's claws. She's also quite fond of bringing out the wings. It's a Good Aesthetic.
Additionally, to put it simply, Mei-ying's magic has made her capable of consuming the souls of others. When she's fully transformed to her alternate shape, she must consume souls to survive, which is why she doesn't like staying fully shifted for too long. In her "human" form, Mei-ying is still capable of consuming souls, and doing so gives her a huge boost in strength/power. She usually kills the person in the process, by sapping too much of their 'life energy' out of them too quickly.
In the human world, she is more well-known for being a demoness that feeds off bone marrow, which is how she is portrayed as in Journey to the West, but her soul-sucking abilities also means that she has an affinity for decay magic in general. Mei-ying is the encroaching cold of winter, the slow chill that creeps into the world slowly, as she patiently drains the energy from her domain, only to relinquish her control come spring.
☽ 𝑺𝑻𝑹𝑬𝑵𝑮𝑻𝑯𝑺
Perhaps Mei-ying's greatest strength lies in her calm, analytical mind. She is her usual composed self in any situation, and a very skilled strategist at that. In addition, she's always had a knack for analyzing other people, and she uses this to her advantage-she's quite a good actor. Her fighting style is very adaptable and combines speed with deadly precision. She is able to make almost anything into a weapon; there are times when she's escaped from tight situations armed with only a fork or a pen.
In addition, Mei-ying is charismatic and diplomatic enough to hold together the volatile personalities that her gang of unsavory individuals is comprised of, which is definitely saying something. She trusts the people who follow her, and they trust her, which makes for an extremely tight bond. Her analytical mind, combined with her natural charisma, makes her a fair, effective leader. She knows each member like the back of her hand, and is good at using each of them to their greatest ability while teaming them up with the members who would be best at covering their weaknesses.
In terms of magical abilities, being lowkey a goddess affords Mei-ying a variety of advantages - immortality and enhanced physical attributes being the foremost of them, of course.
☽ 𝑾𝑬𝑨𝑲𝑵𝑬𝑺𝑺𝑬𝑺
The partial-immortalization process that was originally performed on her has made her unable to derive the sustenance she needs to survive from regular food, but she is unable to survive without sustenance, either, since she's technically not a fully-fledged goddess. Instead, she must consume bone marrow: preferably human, but she can make do with animal, too.
When she's in her alternate "shape", Mei-ying must consume the souls of others in order to stay alive. For this reason, Mei-ying prefers not to stay in her other form for too long; getting animal bone marrow is much easier than sucking the soul out of someone without attracting attention, she finds.
☽ 𝑾𝑬𝑨𝑷𝑶𝑵(𝑺) 𝑶𝑭 𝑪𝑯𝑶𝑰𝑪𝑬
Mei-ying can make anything and everything into a weapon if she tries hard enough, but she's at her most efficient with a standard handgun and some daggers/knives. Her go-to weapon(s) would be her poison-soaked knives, sharp enough to cut through bone with minimal effort. The toxin is rumored to be so powerful that less than 10 milligrams could paralyze a whale. Mei-ying wears two of these knives under her clothes, sheathed in curved scabbards, so that she can quickly pull them out if need be.
☽ 𝑷𝑬𝑹𝑺𝑶𝑵𝑨𝑳𝑰𝑻𝒀
At a first glance, Mei-ying certainly doesn't seem like she'd be some sort of malevolent demoness. Polite, soft-spoken, and cautious, Mei-ying's cool calm and her penchant for darker, more subdued clothing means that more often than not, she simply blends into the background. She very rarely loses her temper, especially when compared with some of the more explosive members of the Winter Coven, and she is perfectly willing to bandy words about all day long, if it serves her purposes. However, if she wants someone dead, she is also just as willing to resort to violence without exchanging a single word with said person.
Mei-ying is observant and analytical; calm and collected under even the most trying of circumstances. She is logical and rational and constantly aware of her surroundings, and she picks up even the slightest of cues - she is quite perceptive when it comes to what others are thinking or feeling. Mei-ying is exceptionally meticulous and thorough in everything she does, and she tends to think everything through before she acts, covering all her bases and running through the set plan of action from every angle possible. Mei-ying is much more thoughtful and contemplative than one would expect, given her reputation, and she is definitely willing to consider other peoples' opinions, if she deems it of use.
Ruthless and amoral, Mei-ying holds no qualms about lying, cheating, stealing, blackmailing, et cetera to get what she wants, so long as she does indeed achieve her original goal. She is very protective of people she cares for, and takes betrayal very seriously. She is perfectly willing to be patient and play the "long game", if necessary, and though she rarely lets anyone see the sharp edges underneath her calm facade, there are indeed ways to anger Mei-ying - namely by killing someone that she considers one of her own.
Practical and pragmatic, with both feet planted firmly on the ground, Mei-ying's calm charisma and soft-spoken intelligence is not very flashy, but she doesn't mind not being flashy. And while she is a very capable strategist, Mei-ying is also completely confident in her own fighting abilities as well as in the other members of the Coven. Even in the tightest of situations, Mei-ying is unflinching and unshakable, calmly evaluating all her options with an eerie, cold-blooded detachment.
☽ 𝑫𝑨𝑰𝑳𝒀 𝑳𝑰𝑭𝑬
Mei-ying has been in London ever since the Great Summer God (Xiashen) killed the Great Winter God (Dongshen), AKA the deity who resurrected her and introduced her to the Winter Coven. Over the thirty or so years since, Mei-ying has solidified her control in London, founding a gang known as 'The Phoenixes', of which she is the 'Empress'.
☽ 𝑩𝑨𝑪𝑲𝑮𝑹𝑶𝑼𝑵𝑫
“She’s a monster,” they would whisper, eyes furtively searching the dark alleyway for any trace of the infamous Empress and her ruthless followers. Mei-ying ignores them; she's aware, yes, thank you very much.
“She’s a monster,” the others would spit out like a curse, watching the soul-devourer who was only supposed to exist in stories as she strode away and melted into the night, leaving behind the remains of her chosen victims. *I prefer the term ‘Demoness’, actually,” Mei-ying would think to herself. She is called Baigujing, the White Bone Demoness, for a reason.
“You're a monster," the man snarled, even as blood streamed out of his mouth and the last bit of life faded out of his eyes. Mei-ying feels her blood boil, when she's reminded of him. Takes one to know one.
That man had been her husband’s brother. Yes, her husband; she had been married, once. That always seemed to surprise people.
In a previous life, longer ago than she cares to remember, Mei-ying had been...a normal girl, for the most part. She was born and raised in a prosperous village along the Yellow River to a relatively wealthy family, and at the age of thirteen, she was sent off to live with her husband-to-be in the neighboring village. They were wed when she was sixteen, and for the first few weeks, all was well.
Mei-ying’s world came crashing down around her after the crops failed that year. The superstitious villagers called her an evil demon sent to them to bring famine - she had just married the leader of their village, after all, and they said that there was no other reason that this would happen - and, deciding to take matters into their own hands, they left her on a cliff as a sacrifice to the gods.
Mei-ying died, on that cliff, and the gods came...too late to truly immortalize her, but they came. Although she was already gone by then, her mind and soul swallowed up by the darkness, she would later see through the memories of the Great Winter God that the Four Seasons Gods of the Eight Generals came, and they gave her to Winter, to Dongshen.
(“They left her out here because the crops died. That’s your responsibility,” the Great Spring God sniffed, and that was that.)
Dongshen resurrected her, but she didn’t come back the same. Later, Dongshen would say that when he normally immortalized those who had already died, he was able to recover some of their soul, still. But Mei-ying had been dead too long, and her soul was gone, somewhere in the spirit world, waiting for the rest of her to catch up.
The first thing Mei-ying remembers is the pain, the pain, the pain - she watched, confused and horrified, as long, curved claws wrenched themselves free of her thin fingers and ragged nails, as wickedly sharp fangs burst through her dry lips. And her skin was so wrong, so pale and papery that it was almost translucent. Dongshen took her to one of his sanctuaries, deep within the mountains, and in the next few weeks, Mei-ying discovered that she could make her claws and fangs disappear, though the process of re-arranging her entire bone structure was the most painful thing she had ever experienced. She found that she could make her shoulder-blades grow wings (they were no pristine white angel wings, but more like those of a bat's; black and leathery and surprisingly maneuverable), and that her feet could twist themselves into talons. It was an ugly, grotesque transformation, but Mei-ying reveled in the sheer strength that it gave her.
Dongshen, worshiped as the Great Winter God, began to teach her the ways of the deities. He showed her the magic in the ice and snow, and the rest of the Winter Coven welcomed her into their fold as if she were one of their own, despite the fact that she was too dead to even be a true deity. Mei-ying was not worshipped as the goddess of anything; rather, she was whispered about - she was the demoness with a touch as cold as death who ate souls and bone marrow to survive; she was the demoness whose slowly encroaching chill meant that winter was on its way.
(One night, years later, Mei-ying found her husband's brother, the one who started it all, and attacked. He called her a monster. Mei-ying smiled, and ripped his heart out.)
In time, stories of a shape-shifting, soul-eating demoness with eyes as cold as winter were spread from village to village by word of mouth, so much so that Baigujing, the White Bone Demoness, was written into Wu Cheng’en’s Journey to the West. Mei-ying didn’t mind her reputation (it wasn’t like she cared about what humans thought of her, anyway), and she would spend her time with Dongshen and other members of the Winter Coven, bringing cold winds and icy air to every part of China.
Mei-ying’s world fell apart for the second time when Xiashen, the Great Summer God, betrayed Dongshen for the Summer Coven. Knowing that she could not defeat Xiashen by herself - Mei-ying might have been old, but Xiashen was ancient, as old as the earth itself - Mei-ying left for London, getting more involved with the affairs of humans than she had ever been before.
In London, Mei-ying quickly became the leader of the gang that held Chinatown, thanks to her soul-eating powers. Once she had established herself as Empress, Mei-ying waited. She bided her time. And sure enough, within the next fifty years, two more of the Winter Coven’s deities were killed by the Summer Coven.
Mei-ying knows that a war is about to break out. In fact, she is welcoming it - finally, after all these years, she’ll get her revenge on the people who killed Dongshen, the only person who ever cared about her through the millennia. Finally, she’ll be able to kill Xiashen for good.
Some call her a monster out of spite. Mei-ying thinks that they’re cowards. Others call her a monster because they truly believe she is one. Mei-ying thinks that they’re hypocrites.
And as for the people who call her a monster because they truly, in their hearts of hearts, are afraid of her?
Why, in that case, Mei-ying is flattered.
☽ 𝑶𝑻𝑯𝑬𝑹 𝑰𝑵𝑭𝑶𝑹𝑴𝑨𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵
Despite Mei-ying's apparent ruthlessness and capacity for inhuman mass murder, she's quite...civilized, normally. She's never been one to purposefully draw attention to herself for no reason.
❆ 𝐁𝐀𝐇𝐋𝐔
⇒ "Bahlu is...interesting, I suppose. We have very different worldviews, but we agree when it matters."𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒛𝒆𝒅 𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈
⇒ Mei-ying and Bahlu met at some point in the past, and Bahlu heard about Mei-ying before they met, when she was taken into the Winter Coven. The two of them are very different, because Bahlu generally keeps out of human affairs, while Mei-ying has been in the thick of them for quite some time, now. When Xiashen betrayed Dongshen, AKA the god who immortalized her and took her in after the incident that ended her human life, Bahlu was upset - he'd known Dongshen for quite some time now, after all - and when he went to Mei-ying, intent on revenge, who was Mei-ying to say no to him? They've been working together for the vengeance that they both want, and so far, only good things have come out of the partnership.
❆ 𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐇
𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔
⇒ So when Mei-ying first gets to London (during the 1890s), she'd be like "yo whaddup" to any Coven people in the city, and make it a point to visit wherever they are. She'd also make a point to like, at least acknowledge people who came after her. If we want them to meet, maybe it could be while Mina's working and Mei-ying comes into the store in the guise of looking for new clothes but then on the DL is like "hey wassup" to Mina! ~2 years ago b/c Aminah just started her Mina persona𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒛𝒆𝒅 𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈
⇒ TBD
❆ 𝐑𝐔𝐍𝐄
⇒ "Rune and I are quite similar, when it comes down to it. We take what we want, when we want it, no matter who it is trying to stop us."𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒛𝒆𝒅 𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈
⇒ Mei-ying and Rune had vaguely heard of each other through the Winter Coven grapevine, but the first time they meet in person is when Mei-ying hits up her fight club, during the first month that she's in London. Since then, Rune has become loosely associated with the Phoenixes, providing information for Mei-ying, and in turn, Mei-ying has hyped up Rune's fight club, generating even more revenue for the other deity. During the Summer Coven's attack in the Solstice celebration, they found that they fight exceptionally well together - something that will surely come in handy in the war to come.
❆ 𝐀𝐍𝐘𝐀
𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔
⇒ Mei-ying probably has heard of Marzana/Marena's ancestor, but may not be the most familiar with the conditions re: Marena's powers manifesting and such. So I think for right now, Mei-ying has a pretty neutral opinion of Marena, though she wouldn't quite understand how she's so passionate about human affairs - Mei-ying's like 2000 something years old and has long since distanced herself from having strong feelings about the lives of mortals, which could be a potential point of conflict.𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒛𝒆𝒅 𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈
⇒ TBD
❆ 𝐈𝐒𝐀𝐁𝐄𝐋
⇒ "Losing her sister must have been hard. I know how it feels."𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒛𝒆𝒅 𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈
⇒ Though Mei-ying and Iz (as well as Lottie) have met in the past, seeing as they're all from China, Mei-ying and Iz only became close when Iz came to London. When Iz arrived, Mei-ying made it a point to welcome her to the city, seeing as they're both Winter Coven, and she frequently goes to Iz for intel, making Iz loosely associated with the rest of the gang. Mei-ying feels very bad for Iz; she knows exactly what it feels like to lose someone you're close to, and she is HERE for helping Iz get revenge. Mei-ying is also one of the few people who knows about the new moon weakness Iz has.
❆ 𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐇
𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔
⇒ Mei-ying knows of Hades, and thought his death was kind of a Big Deal, but she has very rarely paid any attention to the girls he brought down to his domain, so she literally has 0 idea who Edith is, besides the fact that she now has Hades' powers. Mei-ying might be curious about her just because of that fact, but if it's common knowledge that Hades has a "type", she might not be that inclined to talk to Edith. Regardless, I think it'd be super interesting for them to have a convo at some point - Mei-ying has long since stopped being salty about the fiasco that was her own marriage way back when, but I can see her being pissed off by Edith's view of it/women in general.𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒛𝒆𝒅 𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈
⇒ TBD
❆ 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐀
⇒ "All I know about her is that she only seems to care about partying."𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒛𝒆𝒅 𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈
⇒ Since Helena has never been to London before, plus has very little interest in combat or politics, the two of them have vaguely heard of each other, but never interacted.
