Harriet

Harriet’s earliest memories do not consist of her parents. Instead, it was the company of her older brother and his companion. Both of them were essentially Harriet’s guardians for much of her life, and her her childhood memories often include their presence. 

During the times when Théodore and Konrad were out of the Saxifrage Abbey, they gave her the attention she lacked, whether it was for education or play. She made up for her inability to concentrate in studies with Theodore’s tutelage, and entertained herself by endlessly pestering Konrad to teach her what they taught him at the Grey Abbey. While she couldn’t get everything out of him, he did teach her a few tricks: how to slip past the Lacratelle estate unseen, how to defend herself, and how to scale a wall or a fence—all of which was the Pandora’s box that opened up both a world of possibilities and the advent of being a menace to her parents.

Augustine became her giant playground, and after scaling walls, she would learn to jump across buildings, run across narrow structures, and propel her body even further to leap and traverse great distances. She was content to keep this as a solo endeavour, though it would not go unnoticed. At the age of fourteen, a member of the Lajoie family saw her small figure when she scaled the basilica. Concerned that this was an act of blasphemy, she was asked to descend the building, though she struggled to find her way down. Konrad himself had to intervene. His face didn’t seem any sterner than usual, when he reminded her bluntly: “always know your way back out.”

Her parents, their patience completely exhausted, sent her to a remote part of Yarhurst, putting her in an all-girls’ seminary to study the Freysian religion. This was done in order to become a member of the clergy to prepare for the role of performing baptisms in Lake Vexil, though it was also her punishment. Two years of philosophy, and four years of theology—eight years in total of being in the extremely isolated highlands of Yarhurst. As she soon learned, it was essentially a disciplinary prison for young women. 

The days were miserable. A student in particular gave her a difficult time for being inattentive in her studies—one year older than her, Irais was dark-haired, deeply serious, and resented Harriet’s carefree attitude, being an obstacle to her at every turn. Tensions never quite settled. Fed up with being constantly targeted, Harriet resolved to escape the seminary and Yarhurst.

To her surprise, it was Irais who followed after her, though she said it was not out of obligation as a prefect. Her behaviour was baffling to Harriet—Irais was the only one who sought her out, despite her immense dislike of her. The two of them nearly got lost in the darkness with an encroaching snowstorm, though Harriet was the one who guided them back.

They shared their body heat before a fire, warming themselves from the cold. Her feelings softened, intrigued by the dichotomy of Irais’s actions. From asking around, she later learned that Irais was born out of wedlock and was striving to be a dutiful member of the clergy in order to be recognised by the family that discarded her. Her dislike of Harriet was due to her own prejudices, believing Harriet to be ungrateful and frivolous. 

Harriet began to take her studies and duties more earnestly after learning more about Irais, beginning to deeply admire the senior student and taking it as a challenge to befriend her. Irais was the one that tempered Harriet’s unruly disposition, reforming her to be more aware and conscious of the thoughts and feelings of others around her—including a duty to her family that she became keenly aware of, having felt that she failed in upholding the de Lacratelle name by her actions. 

In the winter of her seventeenth year, she returned home and asked her mother if she could be considered as a surrogate for Théodore and Konrad. Despite neither of them expressing their feelings overtly, their devotion to each other was a poorly-kept secret in the Lacratelle estate. Her mother broke down in tears, weeping bitterly. At first, she thought it was disapproval of Théodore’s relationship to a Kirchner, but she revealed that Harriet was infertile from birth, lacking a womb. 

It began to explain much in hindsight—how her parents were so distant, how they never seemed to know what to do with her, and never pressured her into being a woman. She was constantly reassured that the Lacratelles were late bloomers for menarche. Her parents were going to tell her until she was older, though they never found the chance when they sent her to the seminary. Neither Theodore nor Konrad knew of this until Harriet told them. 

The reveal was sobering, yet her heart felt light as though a burden was lifted. She resolved to travel back to Yarhurst to finish her studies, thinking of telling Irais herself. If there was anything she wanted, it was to see her time through at the seminary, and then eventually confess her feelings. 

She would never get the chance, however—in the two weeks she was gone, the seminary in Yarhurst was desecrated with the stain of demonic corruption. A monster had torn through the halls, its profane appearance and gangling limbs corpse-like and grotesque. 

If anyone in the seminary had the chance to outrun and escape the Corrupted, it would be the unruly girl who climbed the basilica. The only prayer in Harriet’s heart was for Irais to remain safe. Armed with only a broken part a processional symbol of Freysia as a makeshift spear for protection, Harriet  drawing the attention of the monster in an effort to give an opening for those in the seminary to call for help. Her gambit paid off, and it was ere long before word would reach the Slayers.

The Corrupted nearly caught her in its grasp, tearing at her body before nearly devouring her, until a veteran slayer intervened. The blood of the corrupted stained her skin and torn clothing. Harriet watched the masked individual bind the spirit of the Corrupted into a blank mask carved of bone. She made one plea to the Slayer before her:

“That mask—it’s mine. Don’t you dare think of giving it to someone else.”

Harriet left behind the seminary, trading any semblance of a normal life to pursue the path of a Slayer—her goal to obtain the mask containing the wraith that day, throwing away any chance of a normal future despite her family’s protests. Driven, physically talented, and fiercely determined, Harriet had the foundations to make an excellent slayer. With her brother’s ties with the Inquisition, it would give her ample opportunity to collaborate and assist in the future, even if he would have preferred her to stay out of harm’s way.

She did make one sacrifice that could have spelled her demise. To save Théodore from harm from an especially dangerous Corrupted while she was still a novice hunter, her legs were completely disintegrated by its desecrated magic. Experiencing blood loss that would have been fatal, it was only with her brother’s intervention that Harriet survived. He had fashioned a pair of prostheses for legs for his own potential use if his body and mobility began to fail him, sizing them down so that they fit his sister.  

Once she was able to perform with her new prostheses and after more experience as a Hunter, she was made a Slayer via the induction ritual, drinking the blood of the Corrupted and surviving its poison. As promised, the mask that day remained for her to choose, knowing the risk that should it reject her, it would tear her apart and shatter her body and soul. She survived, bonding with the wraith known as Irais, sealing an unspoken pact from beyond the grave—her first step as a Slayer marked with the contrition of never fully knowing what drove her first love to become a monster.