My name is Zara Pécot. I was born in 1886 to Ferdinand Pécot and Marcella Disraeli. Ferdinand was the son of a poor Frenchman who moved his family to England after the Crimean War, and Marcella was a (very) distant cousin to the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli. Naturally, the family did not take kindly to her marriage of a soldier’s son, no matter how far they were removed from true blue blood…after all, they were quite wealthy. Wealth sets people apart, I suppose. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how unkindly they felt until much later.

When I was 13, my father, a soldier like his father, was sent off to fight in the Second Boer War in South Africa, and he never returned. Mama said she was an independent woman and refused to live off the charity of the family. I believed her, then. She packed me and my brother Henri up and we moved to America where she was assured that she could find her fortune. We settled down in Pennsylvania, she a factory woman, me the "happy housewife", caring for my brother after school while she was at work. Sometimes, I wondered where my childhood had gone as I watched Henri blissfully idling his days away among his friends.

It was at school that I discovered the world of painting. I picked up a brush one day, and never put it down again. My brother and I began working as well, to help support ourselves, as there never seemed to be quite enough money. I saved my money instead of buying candies and toys like Henri. When I had saved enough, I began going to the Pennsylvania Academy for the Arts in Philadelphia.

An American-born French woman, Mary Cassatt started the Academy, and I longed to meet her. I suppose everyone must have an idol…she was mine. I felt like everything I was flowed through my hands onto the canvas, my love, my hate, my sadness. I began to discover who I was and I wanted to be someone, suddenly. I wanted others to see what I felt; I wanted them to feel it, too.

I continued working at the factory, and it was there that I met Christien Soudeur. He was a dynamic young man with big plans. He was going to invest in big business and become rich. I was never quite sure how he planned to do it, but his optimism was infectious. Mama liked him, and he and Henri got along like brothers. Problems seemed to disappear when Christien was around, nothing seemed too difficult to accomplish. He and I became inseparable. He encouraged my artistic endeavors and even urged me to go to Paris. We decided that if I liked it there, I would send for him and we would be married there.

At the Academy, I not only learned the techniques of impressionist and post-impressionist art, but I began to learn French. I loved Monet, Serat, Degas, Renoir, and Goyes, and tried to expand on their styles, searching for my own. I began saving more, planning to go to Paris in order to observe the greats, and perhaps, if I was lucky or deemed talented enough, apprentice to one of them, maybe even Cassatt, herself.

At 20, I sailed to Rouen and spent a bit of time there before traveling on to Paris. They are less inclined to hire women in Paris, but I managed to find a low-paying job at a small café. I began looking for a teacher, and I found a former pupil of Cassatt’s willing to instruct me. When I wasn’t painting, I was at the Louvre or at work. I was blissfully happy to be there, but bliss is not forever. Christien wrote me from time to time, telling me about his plans and that he loved me, and that Mama was well and Henri still a clown and this and that. He never asked if I wanted him to come or if I was coming home, but I wanted to send for him soon. I missed him a lot. There just was never enough money for either of us, and things were always "just beginning to pick up" for him at home, I hated to ask for him to leave.

Paris is an expensive city, and after several years, I began to run low on money. I decided to go back to America where money is easier to come by if you don't mind long hours of chicken-plucking or sewing, and if you don't mind living in tiny spartan apartments that afford about as much protection from the elements as a sheet of drawing paper. I would see Christien again, and perhaps we could return to Paris when the time was right.

Still, I needed money. I crossed the canal to England, where tickets were a bit cheaper, and I bought a ticket aboard the Titanic. The biggest ship in the world. It was impressive, indeed—a huge unsinkable monolith.

Since it didn't leave for quite some time, I decided to try one last possible source of income that didn't involve poultry. I visited my grandmother...my mother's mother, Louisa. I was invited in and cordially received--until she found out just who I was. Then, dear Uncle Edward escorted me quickly and efficiently off the property, into a mud puddle outside the gates of the estate with the assistance of several barking, snarling bloodhounds. I was very generously invited to return...when my blood had changed. Ironic, isn't it? Now that it has, it’s too late to go back…

Ah, where was I? Oh, yes. So I returned to the docks—just in time to see the Titanic leaving the harbor. I didn't have enough money for another ticket...only a cheap room for one night and perhaps a coffee or a brandy. I compromised. I had brandy in my coffee. As I sat in the cafe, late into the evening, I noticed a handsome gentleman watching me from across the room. It was a bit unnerving. I paid my bill and left, looking for a small, cheap hotel or inn...someplace that I could stay the night. What I found was a stairwell. I curled up, cold, hungry, and alone, and fell asleep.

When I woke up in the morning, I found that someone had covered me with a blanket, and a small note was pinned to it. "I wish to meet with you for dinner this evening to discuss a business proposition," it read. It specified a local restaurant and a time. I sighed. What other options did I have? It was April 15th, a typical cold, foggy English day, and the nights were likely to be colder. Whatever business this person wanted, they were sure to provide some means of shelter, right?

I wandered around Liverpool for the rest of the day in a sullen mood, until I happened to glance at the newspapers. "The Unsinkable Ship Goes Down!" they cried. "Iceberg Rams Titanic, thousands dead!" Suddenly, for me, the sun began to shine. I was alive! My contemptuous relatives had unknowingly done me the biggest favor. I laughed at them. I laughed at myself. Life was one big irony.

It proved itself again at dinner. I presented myself at the appropriate time and place, and found that my unknown benefactor was the man from the cafe. After a pleasant dinner, we took a walk. He said he was looking for an artist for portraiture work. He offered me room and board as well as some extra benefits: spending money and, after I told him my story, passage to Paris when the project was finished. It was an extremely generous offer, and I thought about it for a moment. As I turned to answer, another whisked me into the shadows.

I watched as the man I had been walking with brought the knife he had been carrying into the light, fighting my savior. The second man just glared at him and he dropped his knife and started to run off screaming in terror, but my savior grabbed the man’s arm. The attacker looked about for his knife, but the second man drew him closer, and then…I turned away, horrified. Then, the man turned to me.

After a second chance at life, the very day, in fact, that I could have died at sea, I died on land. My benefactor was all rather dispassionate about the whole thing. I had temper tantrums as my new-found life was ripped away. I was starting over yet again. When I calmed down, I began to laugh. I laughed for a long time, relishing the delicious irony that engulfed the world. I laughed until I cried again. When I finally calmed down, my protector began to teach me what I could now do. I’m not sure what he thinks of me, for he turns from grudging acceptance to vicious derision in the span of an instant.

We spent some time in England, before Emil finally became intrigued with my stories of America. He seemed to think that it was some barbarian culture of heathens—it would explain me, he kept telling me. I just think that he refuses to admit that he isn’t up with the times. He seems stuck in the past, so much of the time.

We moved to Georgia and were quite happy there, I suppose, for all the fighting we did. All I really wanted was to go back to Paris and resume painting. Emil called my paintings a waste of good canvas and said I was a disgrace to the art. I wanted a family of my own; I had lost Christien, but not the longing for love. Even a pet would have been nice. He offered to get me a monkey, to teach me a thing or two about art. Still, he could have thrown me out at any time, but he didn’t and I am grateful. I don’t know where I would go or what I would do anymore. I’ve spent almost a century under his reluctant wing. Without it, I would be alone. A fledgling in an empty nest. And now, he’s dragged me to some northern hellhole in Michigan. I wonder what I did to deserve this. Funny, though, no matter how many times I leave, I am repeatedly drawn to return. I hate him so. Hate like boiling water in my veins. I despise him so much that I wish I were dead. I've even gone as far as writing suicide notes.

And yet, I can't stop loving him. I can't leave him. I feel bound to him.

Once in Michigan, along with a Ventrue from Washington DC that we met in Georgia named Morraine Daringil, we began trying to initiate the development of some sense of culture in this depraved and war-ridden city. Eventually, Morraine’s sire called her back to Washington. I haven’t seen or heard from her in months. The one time I visited her, her sire did me a favor, dissolving my bond to Emil. Much good that did me, since I returned from Washington to find Emil dead. That was the final insult. He left me nothing. The eldest and most influential of the Kindred snatched his estates and I, who was his bird-dog for over a century, got nothing. Nothing but an unfilled debt to Morraine’s sire and a box with a black rose and a note that read "I will return to take back what is mine." I suppose that means that he is still alive. Not that I care. When Sabine told me the news, she thought I would cry—and I did, eventually…after about an hour of hysterical laughter. That same night, the new prince, Christina, refused to acknowledge me in the city until all the rumors of Emil’s continued existence were put to rest. Rumors never die easily, and I hit dead-end after dead-end. Then I considered killing myself. But I didn’t. Instead, I ran back to the consolation of Paris. Elodie, the ghoul I’d made in spite of Emil, stayed in East Lansing. While in Paris, I decided to use the money I’d made in the charity auction to purchase a portion of one of Emil’s galleries. Travelling between New York and Paris, I sold more artwork and bought and sold young artists’ works from America and France—became a sort of talent agent. Elodie kept me informed of the news in East Lansing, and from time to time, a letter or phone call would arrive from Sabine.

On one of my many trips to New York City, I met a man named Lord Malkos. He was a patron of the arts and he began telling me of the freedom freely given by the Sabbat. There would be no Emils or Christinas. My talents would be recognized and rewarded, not scorned or ignored. Perhaps because I felt so constrained or perhaps as a final jibe at Emil, I agreed. To prove myself, I was to subvert my friend Sabine, which I have recently accomplished. At her behest, I agreed to remain in East Lansing to help her adjust to her new life. After all, she is my best friend…

Now that Alberto has given us away to that creature which has stolen my dearest Elodie from me, we have fled to Detroit to wait for our time. For now, small strikes are necessary from time to time, to keep the Kindred on their toes. But we will not fail. Not while I lead the pack…