From SuspireWiki
Lineage
- Kevin Henne, Unaligned, Deceased
- Amber Westbrook, Ordo Dracul
The Known Information
Her sire, a Ventrue who's name was simply "Kevin", was one of the Unaligned coterie members who caused the Masquerade breach. The speculation as to why he embraced Amber after she had already been "claimed" by the Crone ran the gamut between "old feud" and "revenge", but Amber has claimed Kevin told her it was because he wished to have her spend her requiem with him.
Without saying, the blood hunt on her sire by the Invictus regime was short and quick, and they utilized the blood sympathy of Amber's to find the Ventrue Kevin and his coterie-mates. The Ventrue clan refused to claim her as an "official" member, and she was left to her own devices for the most part for a good term of time. She was always avoidant of the other vampires (with good reason) during this time and kept herself out of trouble while managing to pick up the good basics on how the society of Kindred worked. She was Unaligned, but not by choice.
When DuQuette took over in '83, she sided with the new regime (for primarily survival reasons, she was still technically Unaligned). Later in the mid-eighties is when she became an official member of the Ordo Dracul.
She hasn't disclosed to John Q. Public why she was brought into the Ordo, but she does not fit the stereotypical Dragon. She's much too social for that, and she tends to lend herself to more temporal things. Either way, at this point, she doesn't seem to be having any difficulties with her membership - or at least, none that the general Kindred know about.
After she actually became part of the Dragons, the Ventrue clan opened up a little to her, enough for the phrase "acknowledging your right to exist" to apply to Amber in the eyes of the Ventrue clan. She hasn't really shown any sort of derision for her clanmates openly, though she is known to have a habit of the occasional scathing comment or two (but it's never directed at the Ventrue in particular) - which has had more ... neutral-leaning Dragons to have had "conversations" and "discussions" with her. As she doesn't speak for the whole of the Dragons, though, it seems her tendencies to be flighty or with repartee have thus far been tolerated.
The Real Background
I could always hear them next door after 9 pm. The walls were thinner than they probably realized, and I was the only person who actually was their neighbor. Wait, no, let me start over. That starting sounds like some sort of a campy entrance to some teenage "horror" novel.
Okay, so, this is an autobiography of someone who is a vampire. It's not an interview since no one is going to read this. Maybe it's a secret autobiography that someone will read post-post-mortem. I made a funny, did you see that?
My name's Amber, sometimes, some people's slang and southern accent is so thick that they call me "Hamber". The only thing you can do is just grin and bear it. Before you ask: yes, I have a last name, in fact I have a couple. See, there's Amber Lorainne Westbrook - that's the one I was given when I came popping out of the womb like a cork with a mission. Then you have Amber Lovelace - the author of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution's "love" column (they insisted that something sultry was the way to go). Then you have Amber Westbrook-Gerrard, the author of the Southern Woman's weekly column "Women talk".
Sure, I'm a writer on the side of all my blood drinking and baby killing habits. Bet you didn't see that one coming.
It's really simple being a vampire and a writer. See, writers and vampires actually have a lot in common. For instance, both a vampire and a writer sucks the life force out of people, both tend to be liars, both tend to keep odd hours and both think they know everything better than anyone else. So, obviously, vampire + writer is a win-win combination. Heck, you don't even really have to go into the office - except for those rare occasions where you actually need to be seen in the flesh by /someone/.
Anyway, so, I wasn't always a vampire. You don't get born into it, last I heard. No, God didn't curse me (though the Lancea Sanctum would argue vehemently otherwise - but they're not really important), I wasn't killed and buried without salt, I don't have unfinished business, yadda yadda. No, it's actually a lot simpler than that.
A few years back I was enamored by this idea called "freedom". I was a young country gal; just old enough to be legal enough to drink (that is, eighteen then) and I had been working two jobs to get enough money for tuition to Georgia State University in Atlanta. It was a big deal for me, because I surely - bright eyed and bushy tailed in my innocence - always wanted to be a real journalist.
Before I go on any further I should probably mention that my psychologist, when I was alive, liked to say that I had "abandonment" issues because my parents died at a young age and I got shipped off to an orphanage in North Georgia. He always said that right before he ... but hey, psychologists are never manipulative bastards looking for a quick piece of blonde ass, right?
So anyway, back to the story, after I got enough money and got myself accepted to Georgia State (which was actually harder than it sounds now, females still weren't as readily accepted - even in the 70's - as they are now) I got a little shitty apartment with amazingly thin walls a few miles outside of downtown in the area called little five points. The rent was cheap and the roaches were plentiful. The race riots were pretty nasty in that time - don't let anyone fool you - and there were many nights that I had to quickly tell different types of people different things just to make sure I didn't get raped, brutalized or killed just for walking home.
I did get a job as an intern with the Atlanta Journal (it didn't have "Constitution" tagged on until the 80's), which was fantastic since, you know, all college kids are stupid enough to work for free if they think it's going to get them ahead in life. I didn't have any transportation though, which is why there were those random encounters with dangerous elements on the walk back home from the MARTA station. I guess I never really thought too much of it, on the whole. Sure, I might have been shaken up for a little while, but it was almost like it was an accepted thing. Poor people live in the dangerous areas of town. Rich people... were leaving.
So anyway, here's the part of the story where I tell you about the thin apartment walls. Since most college kids have a whacked out schedule, there were many nights I could sit in my pretty barren apartment and hear different conversations, depending on what side of my 1-room apartment I was on. On the back wall, where my bathroom was, I could hear the murmurs of junkies and squatters from the apartment behind me. On the right wall, where my so-called kitchen was, I could hear the pacing and whining of the dog that my neighbor had while they were never home. And finally, on the left wall, I could hear the weirdest conversation snippets, so that's where my couch and coffee-table desk were put.
Knowing what I do now, it's amazing I got away with it for as long as I did, and it's also amazing that some vampires just expect that if people get a hint of what you are (i.e., tiny masquerade breach) they'll run off and tell the world.
So what exactly did I hear through those walls? Well, apparently, for a good solid year, I was living beside a small coterie of two unaligned Gangrel an unaligned Daeva and a Ventrue who was to be my sire-to-be. Cool huh? I heard all kinds of weird things there. They talked a lot about how much they hated so and so, and yapped a lot about who they should kill or ignore or whatever, but it seems like they were just the sort to yap about that sort of thing in private. Being me, I was scared shitless and I was stupid.
So, I put out this little article, after about a year, labeled "Living Next Door to Vampires - a Fictional Story About Atlanta Housing". Apparently "fictional" to the Butcher meant checking into it two days later and delivering someone to a Crone named Evan for "fixin'". Eh, that's the way the chips fall sometimes. So I wound up dropping out of college because I was entirely too infatuated with being bitten by vampires to give a damn, and I was fired from the Atlanta Journal for too many tardies and absences. In short, my life dream really went down the tubes.
Did I mention that writers and vampires are similar, also, in the fact that they are selfish?
I guess that went on for a year, or so, the time sort of blurs together around there. That's when I got so hopped up on drugs and whatever-the-fuck people wanted that I think I lost a good portion of the brain cells I should have kept for the future. It was an... interesting time. But, like I said, it didn't last all of too long. That Unaligned I told you about earlier? The "sire" guy? Yeah, apparently he believed in liberation through stealing and killing.
I was embraced because he thought I'd understand him, or something, and join his coterie of miscretins that was straight out of the 60's. I suspect if they could still smoke, they'd have been puffing the reefer all damn night in addition to spouting off lyrics from old Hendrix songs. But seriously - I blamed him for ruining my life. If they weren't so stupid, I'd have never found out about vampires, and thus, I'd never have been turned into some bloodletting fiend, and then turned into a damn vampire on top of that.
I don't know, I was more pissed than afraid for at least a week. It wasn't until I got found out as a new vampire that there was some 'splaining to do, Lucy. So, what did I do? Ratted out that little bastard cell of Unaligned hippies. The Invictus were pretty quick to smash that group, and I guess I should have felt a little guilt, but I'm a vengeful sort of person so there wasn't any. First step to giving into the beast, there. Tough luck.
Evan was pissed. Hell, if it happened to me now I might consider taking a shovel to someone's head, I understand "mine" much more intimately than I ever could have when I was alive. I actually think he helped smash that little Unaligned group but I'm not altogether sure. I didn't really consider them good enough to even find out their names. So, they're "that Unaligned hippy group".
Originally, I raised myself and stayed clear of the incessant Carthian and Invictus fighting, if only for survival purposes. When DuQuette took over in ’83, I wasn’t even a ten-year-old vampire yet, and you’re damn skippy I kissed that man’s ring. If I’m one thing, it’s a self-preservationist. It was essentially "join or die" you know, because I was still yet Unaligned.
It wasn’t until the mid-80’s that the Ordo Dracul actually took an interest in me. I was handling some basic media outlet rumors on a story based on some fellow coming back from the grave to toss sharpened forks and knives at people (specifically, vampires who were stupid and got caught involved in a ‘weird-atlanta’ show recording) at behest of one of the local Carthians and making sure it didn’t actually become a masquerade breach. I was asked if I was actually interested in it, and I said I was – it was something different than the norm, and the norm kind of gets boring. I don’t really think they expected me to actually be more than a cursory member.
So I got the spiel about enlightenment and change and I recognized the Ordo Dracul as an avenue for protection. Sure, the Invictus and the Carthians (and the Lancea and the Crone) could have offered protection all the same, but none of them could be really considered “neutrals”. Now, I’m anything but neutral, but I understand the benefit of being considered middle-ground.
Anyway, to make a long story short, I signed up with the Ordo Dracul. I’m not like a lot of the other “typical” Ordo in that you won’t generally find me at the bottom of a tomb studying about ancient artifacts of the Aztecs or anything like that. Rather, my job (and my expectation) is mainly to watch for and redirect any “weirdness” that should be brought to the attention of the Dragons that shows up in the news, or gets pushed out of the papers.
Naturally, that gives me a lot of work that I have to do on the side, investigation-wise sometimes, but I figure a little breaking and entering never hurt the career of a rarely-seen advice-columnist. Besides, it’s sort of a goal to lead some sort of dual-life. On one hand, I’m sort of considered too “materialistic” and “temporal”, but at the same time, they still need people who know what the hell is what with the local mortal news populace. I get protection and the understanding that I can learn (tentatively) how to change myself and become more, and the covenant gets someone who is not a complete idiot watching for “fortean events”.
And that’s where I am today. Stupid columnist by night, with an ulterior motive at the behest of my protectors.