Sophie Devereux (Dementia Kemik)

[Deon]

I have to do this in two posts since it's too long to fit into one.




Name: Sophie Esmé Devereux

Nicknames: Sophishka (She only allows Arkady to call her this)

Aliases: Dementia Kemik -- largely unused

Eyes: An icy, metallic blue-gray color

Hair: A very light silvery platinum blond

Age: A bit shy of 28

Marital Status: Very, very taken.

Sexual Orientation: Straight

Weight: 49 kg

Height: 180 cm

Ethnicity: Polish/French

Power: Plain and simple cell manipulation. She is able to manipulate, regenerate, create, control, and destroy any cell in her body. With this power, she can do things like force her bones out of her body by creating more to take up the space, even withdraw them entirely, as well as reshape them and her organs, rearrange all of her insides to bend into fantastic shapes while able to carry on life processes. Because of her rapid regeneration, she is able to recreate her organs, bones, and skin in an instant. However, she could only regenerate body parts if at least one cell was left to "clone," in a way. Such as, she could create more cells from the existing ones to regenerate her liver if most of it remained intact, but couldn't create a new one if the old one was ripped out. Now, her bones are many times more dense than the bones of a regular human and are extremely strong--almost impossible to break except by her own doing. Part of this is explained by the ability for her to retain intense amounts of calcium, phosphorus, boron, and vitamin D. Why her cells do this is unknown, but could possibly be an evolutionary trait. It is also due to the packing of cells in her bones that make them many times more dense than a normal human, due to the fact she uses her bones as a defense and attack system.

Power Related Issues: Well, her skin is extremely thin because of the constant regeneration of the cells (those cells aren't intensely fortified like her bones), and breaks easily. She endures blood loss whenever a bone breaks her skin or a vessel inside her body, which causes obvious problems. Also, due to the constant regeneration and recreation of her body, which consumes a lot of energy, she is still extremely thin, only gaining about a kilogram from ten years ago when she was nearly eighteen with her two centimeters.


Weaknesses: Sophie is extremely protective of and devoted to Arkady. She constantly fears that she will lose him in some way, and if something ever happened to him, she wouldn't be able to live any longer. She has an intense paranoia relating to him and herself as well, always fearing that someone is lurking to capture and kill her. She was conditioned for the fear reflex after being captured by the government in her wild search for Arkady years past.

She also has hemophilia, but that is a genetic trait.

Personality: She is even more wary of humanity than she was in her younger years, and, if possible, even more convinced of the evil that lurks in the human heart. The cynical worldview that she possesses is one without unselfish righteousness and good for mankind. She doesn't know if humans are truly capable of that, after what she went through. But she's starting to gain trust again, in baby steps, like when she was much, much younger. Her idealistic views of human nature that she once held will most likely never be attained again. But Arkady helps.

She doesn't feel as if she deserves the kind of things that she has gotten in life. Even though she has suffered a great deal, she still has some belief that she has been given far too much for the life she has lived, despite how much the love of her life Arkady tries to convince her of how much she does deserve and how good she really is. He is one of those things that she feels she shouldn't be allowed to have, but she is much too selfish to give him up and the love that she feels for him.. She believes wholly in punishment and atonement, and that people who have damned themselves with their conscious mistakes and misdeeds don't deserve help to pull them out. She therefore tends to keep her problems to herself and doesn't like to receive any assistance, even from Arkady. Especially from Arkady. Any more that he gave her would be too much for her to handle.

Despite some of the inner feelings that she has, Sophie is much more of a lighter person than she was in her teens. She almost seems like a different person when she is with her beloved Arkady. She has a devious, mischievous streak. She is sly, clever, intelligent, and analytical. She does love to have her own kind of fun, though sometimes different than what others perceive as entertainment, she has lost any joy she may have once held in her sadistic tendencies. She is very passionate and dedicated, and can even be a romantic dreamer when it comes to the future she hopes to share with Arkady.

History:

Before Cassis:

Dementia was born as Sophie Devereux to a rich family in France. Her father was a politically-minded entrepreneur who owned a string of international, five-star hotels, and her mother was the daughter of a renowned Polish heart surgeon who had retired years ago due to a long-running disorder in the family that was carefully covered up from the press: schizophrenia. During her pregnancy with Sophie, her mother fell into a state of psychosis. She was put into a mental institution after birth.

Dementia lived as Sophie Devereux with her father for only four years. She had a hard childhood--her father was never home, she didn't get along well with other children, and she had a mind of her own. Her social life was so terrible, that she in fact was able to realize her powers after a child pushed her off of a tall jungle gym, and she snapped her elbow on one of the metal bars, breaking her arm and sending the bone through her skin. When she arrived at the hospital, the doctors found that the bone had regrown at record speed, merging into the one that protruded through her arm so that it was in a strange Y shape. It ended up having to be cut off with a powerful electric saw. After finally heading back to school after receiving hours of unwanted attention from curious doctors, her father pushed for her to be sent back to school. The very same day she returned, she was detained by the counselor and sent home for blindfolding, binding, and gagging the boy who had pushed her off the jungle gym and lock him in a closet she had somehow learned to pick with her finger bones. At this point, her father didn't know what to do and feared he couldn't properly care for the child. Her mood was darkening by the second, and she showed symptoms of early depression. Distraught and unsure, Sophie's father sent her to live with her maternal grandparents back in Poland to insure she would receive the best care possible. He had no idea about her grandfather's mental disorder.

Life in Poland for Sophie was not exactly the best experience of her life. She lived in an ultra-traditional family with an insane grandfather and an old-world grandmother who believed that Sophie was the sole cause of her daughter's psychosis and the progressively worsening state of her grandfather, that was actually due to Alzheimer's and the deterioration of his brain. She also claimed that Sophie was possessed by the devil, and that's what caused her uncanny ability as well as her evil tendencies. Every month, her grandmother would try to exorcise the "demons" from her body with a new ritual. At this house, she ceased being called her birth name and was given the name Dementia by her grandmother to reflect what she felt she had caused; she also assumed the surname of her grandparents.

Still, Dementia, being a woman, was educated by her grandmother in the tasks a woman should know how to perform well: cooking, cleaning, etiquette, singing, dancing, and sewing. Her grandmother also believed that the more she occupied herself with "pure" tasks such as these, the more the devil would be unable to stay in her body.

Dementia wasn't allowed to go to school to be with other children, nor do any sort of online home school program, because her grandmother thought modern technology was evil. She was barely even allowed to go out of the house. Her father sent her textbooks and tests by mail in order to make sure that she was receiving a good schooling. However, she was allowed to go to the library to supplement the core courses that the textbooks her father sent her covered. Being miserable at home, she practically lived there and got lost in its myriad of books.

Dementia spent most of her time reading on philosophy and human nature, and it is assumed that she got much of her world view from the ideas she absorbed from the authors that so influenced her. She looked up to them as the epitome of knowledge. She ceased writing letters to her father and spent her time completely engulfed in her reading.

Her father, meanwhile, was worried about the conditions that she lived in, especially when she stopped writing. He discovered the insanity of her grandfather and worried for her own well-being, though in reality he was barely ever around. He learned of the boarding school at Cassis sent her here to meet people endowed with their own unique abilities and possibly alleviate her mood.

An excerpt from her journal at Cassis about her past:

"I don't get it. I really don't.

As soon as I find someone who understands me, as soon as I find someone who cares for me, as soon as I find someone with whom I can have a relationship with, as soon as I find someone whom I could possibly start to love, the world seems to find a way to torment me.

I thought that I had gotten over my past. When I told Seaheart everything, when I relayed every damn torturous minute of my past to him, I thought I was finally able to let go. Seaheart told me that I couldn't live in the past, that I couldn't be fearful and caught up in what happened long ago. He told me I couldn't cry, because I'll just be left afterwards with the same problems no matter what. I thought that I was finally strong enough. And then here, here comes this face from my past and all of a sudden everything comes crashing down. It makes it even harder that Seaheart knows about him, the only man I've ever truly loved. And now he's back. And I want him so badly, even though he's not the same man. But there's still Seaheart, whom I care about deeply, who cares about me, who I've shared my past with and he his. Yes. I told him all about my past, and I remember every word of what I said. And I'm going to record it here, because it's only consistent. I've recorded everything else here that tormented me so.

I still don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive my father for sending me to my grandmother in Poland. Oh, that damn woman made my life a living hell. She convinced me as surely as she believed herself that I was possessed by the devil's demonic force. I thought that I was evil, that I endangered everything else, that I tainted and cursed everything I touched. She had a way of getting into your head that way.

God... My life was horrible. She whipped me every Sunday morning, at the sound of the church bells. God, I remember it so clearly. She would yell incantations at me in Polish, she would scream bible verses, all the while inflicting as much pain as she could on me to try to drive the devil out. I remember pleading with her... pleading for her to stop, and she would only do it harder. Even with my healing, it still left scars. They're all over my back, like ropes sticking out of my skin. They still hurt... every once and a while.

And every month, under the full moon, she would perform some kind of sick occult ritual. I remember it all too clearly. First she made me wear this white dress of 'purity.' Then she would bind me to a cross, like Jesus, she said. She would slit all the way down my forearm with a knife in the same exact place, over and over again, whenever it healed up, letting the blood drip into a vessel that collected it. When I had bled about two liters and was barely capable of even thinking, she took me down and forced me to kill a lamb as sacrifice, to slit its neck and put its blood into the collection. Somehow I always managed to comply. It was horrible. I always got its blood all over me, all over that pure white dress. She took that as a sign of evil, that it bled on me and ruined its purity. As if anyone could stop it from bleeding on oneself after its neck was slit and that person was the one who slit it. After that she sprinkled holy water on the mixture, poured in what she called the blessed wine and bread that was supposed to turn into the blood and flesh of Jesus, then boiled the thing and put incense into the fire, all while shouting these incantations and prayers and god knows what else. Then she forced me to drink it. The entire thing. It tasted horrible. It burned my tongue and throat. I always vomited afterwards. She took that as another sign that the devil rejected the holy purified blood.

When her rituals didn't work, she started getting innovative. Once she tried to seal the devil into a teapot by luring it out of my body through blood. Another time she tried to drown me in holy water. After that she just began to try to kill me whenever she could. She even made a voodoo doll of me and started stabbing all over my abdomen. I've still got the scars. I don't know how it worked. God, I tried to commit suicide so many times. I threw myself off of our balcony, I slit my throat, my wrists... I did whatever I could. It hasn't worked or else I obviously wouldn't be writing this right now.

The worst thing is that I damn wanted her to do it. I wanted to be tortured, I wanted to be hurt, because I thought that I was the most evil thing in existence. I loathed my very core. I felt that I deserved only the worst, I wanted to rip my black heart out every second that I lived, I was so convinced that I was the source of everything horrible and evil that happened in the world. I thought that I was cursed with existence, and that my grandmother was doing me a favor, and she did everything she could. Many times she even brought men from the group she was in to try to rape the devil out of me, because apparently an orgasm was a the blissful gift of god that the devil couldn't stand. And I hid everything from my father. I didn't want him to interfere, because I thought I deserved this. I wrote about my studies, anything but what was really happening in this house.

And then I finally meet the one person around whom I didn't feel like the evil burden of society, the one person who uplifted me, the one person who held me up rather than put me down... the one person whom I really loved. I was thirteen then. Was it only four years ago? And you know what I did? I killed him. I killed him willingly. I killed him horribly. I killed him so that he suffered. I didn't deserve to feel like that. I was the most evil thing in existence.

Then my father came. He somehow got word of what was going on for... god. It was ten years. Without fail. 52 weeks in a year. 520 whippings. 12 months in a year. 120 rituals. 121 sacrifices. And I didn't want to leave. Again I tried to kill myself when he rescued me from her. I needed her. Her work wasn't done. I hanged myself off the roof of one of his hotels. As you can see, I'm still alive, still tormented.

Dariusz. I haven't been able to speak his name since I was thirteen... since I killed him. But I must record everything. I must get it off my chest. I want it to glare at me whenever I open this diary as a show of my strength that I was able to do it. I was able to do it again. I was able to do it in ink, permanently, in my hand. My history. There. His name. Here. And it will stay.

Dariusz. Oh, it's been so long since I felt like I did when I was with him. And here he is, back again, as if the world is giving me a second chance with the worst timing possible. I met him in the main hallway, and then again in Xavier's dorm room. Apparently he's Xavier's new roommate after he tossed Salvador. The resemblance is uncanny between the two--he looks exactly like an older version of Dariusz. It was so hard to face him. As soon as I saw him, god, I wanted him so badly! I'm admitting it now, so that I can move past it, because I know I can never give in. At the same time, the horrible guilt washed over me, a guilt that nearly brought me back to the loathing of myself that I started with. It was so painful. I knew I couldn't have him. I'm too afraid of what that would do to me... to Seaheart. And yet I'm drawn to him more than ever. Arkady. Arkady.

I've put my thoughts on paper. That's the first step to acceptance. That's the first step to putting everything behind me.












I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux. I am Sophie Devereux.


I am Sophie Devereux, and I killed Dariusz Bzornej."

[Deon]

During Cassis:

Sophie, known as Dementia during her years at Cassis, was not given any break at the school either, even though much of the hell she lived in was self-created and self-imposed. She just couldn't let go. She was bad-tempered, made few friends, and asserted her power over others. She had a brief relationship with a man named Cobalt Pelasci; they had a mutual lack of feelings for each other. It was all just for lust. He was possessive of her even after she broke it off, because no one ever did that to a man like he. He was determined to get back at her.

Meanwhile, Dementia met Seaheart. They hit it off immediately, after a dangerous motorcycle race that didn't end too well. But it was nothing she hadn't handled before; she raced bikes to clear her head, and had gotten into quite a few tight situations. Their relationship was a rather strange one, full of devotion, hatred, spurts of love, all smashed in with reality. They were two pained people who were trying to use the other to make themselves better, when both of them knew it wasn't possible.

Only a short time after she got together with Seaheart, she met him. Arkady. Or as she called him, Dariusz reincarnate. The one person that she hoped never to see again, but desperately wished for. The one that she had killed not out of hatred, but out of love. Because she didn't deserve him. The world didn't deserve someone like him. She confessed what she felt to Seaheart, a mistake with consequences she couldn't foresee. Seheart's foresight, however, was quite good, and at the masque ball he realized that Sophie had fallen too helplessly in love with Arkady, and that he had lost her even before she had decided.

Cobalt was determined to get his revenge on Dementia. The day after her eighteenth birthday, he planed a bomb in both her and Arkady's rooms, for he thought that they were together and wanted to hurt both of them as much as he could. Him, for being his rival and stealing away the girl who refused him, and her, for doing just that: refusing him. Dementia received severe injuries from the bomb; it blew her arm off, to say the least. She was, however, able to recuperate. Arkady's injuries hurt her the most. She was nearly thrown over the edge when she realized that she was the cause of him getting hurt again. She had already refused him, insulted him, and hurt him enough; she couldn't bear to cause him any more pain.

But eventually all the emotions that she had kept inside of her exploded out, and she told Arkady everything. The deal was sealed with a kiss, and that marked the beginning of their relationship and mutual healing process.

Here's another two excerpts from her journal about that time.

I don't clearly know what it is that I want anymore.

There are just too many conflicting emotions that I have, too many contradictory wants, too many twisting and turning unexpected aspects of life that have never been part of the equation, and I can't even possibly fathom how to solve it.

And the worst part is, I don't know what to do about any of it. I can see nothing ahead of me but dark, foreboding alleyways winding through possibilities with no end in sight, no end that I can imagine. It's blanketed in an opaque fog, and the path that it enshrouds is wrought only with suffering and doubt. All my life I've been able to calculate the result, to anticipate events, to know where my path leads, to have some sort of control over the situation.

Now I'm in so deep that I can't even see my hand in front of my face. And no matter how far I run down those damned alleys of actions and outcomes, of cause and effect, the fog only gets thicker and thicker, impairing my vision even further, stifling me in its claustrophobic grasp.

I don't even think I know down which alley I've gone, or what awaits me at the end. If there is an end. But I'm not even sure of that anymore.

I was probably as close to death as I have been since my fourteenth birthday only a short time ago, practically on the fourth anniversary, as well. I thought that I might have some kind of a realization, a clarity of thought just before the end.

But... nothing.

Nothing at all.

I'm still as confused as ever, still as tortured as ever, still as doubtful as ever about the path that I'm taking. I feel as if I've been ripped apart and that my pieces were strewn about those dark alleys, never to be found again in the fog. Have I lost myself in this madness? In this maze of possibilities?

I need someone to talk to, someone to help me clear my head. I can't even look inward anymore, because my mind is what's torturing me the most. My father heard of my injuries. He wants to come to Cassis City, to take me back to France for a while to get away from everything, maybe even permanently. He says he worries about my well-being--a well-founded fear. His suggestion is almost tempting.

But if I know one thing, it's that I can't escape. There's no way out, and I have to see my path through.

I want to talk to you, Arkady, because I feel like you would understand. But I'm afraid in a different kind of way. Am I afraid of being comforted? Am I afraid of being happy again? Am I afraid of being helped? Or is it just that I'm afraid of feeling weak? Seaheart... let me be held up by someone other than myself just this once. I've borne my burden for too long, and the harder I try to lift it the heavier it gets. I know that I can't do this alone, but I'm afraid to be with someone else. But all these stupid contradictions just cause my inaction, which is worse than the choice between one or the other.

Dammit, Dementia, why can't you choose? Because you don't know the outcome? Because some things might be out of your hands?

I know it, I know it, I know it! I've become that stupid weakling that I've so despised! But it's worse than that, so damn worse, because it's myself that's made me weak! My own mind has forced me into submission and inaction! I'm not even strong enough to venture into the unknown, so I just sit here, unable to go on and at the same time unable to escape, trapped in between the beginning and the end.

Seaheart... I'm afraid to move forward.

Arkady... I'm afraid to move back.

Either way something is left behind, and I just can't seem to let it go.

----------

I can't keep traveling down the middle of the road anymore, passing all the tributaries that stemmed off from my river of unsureness and despair, passing all the choices. I've finally come to that final crossroads, where I have to choose, where I can't just sit and remain still any longer, or else I'll lose everything.

I kissed Arkady today. It seems so trivial when I write it down, those four simple words. I kissed Arkady today. But what makes my heart jump even faster is the fact that he kissed me back. I kissed Arkady, and he kissed me back. The feeling is almost incomprehensible, impossible to put into words, the most confusing and clear, wonderful and painful, guilty and righteous thing that I've ever felt. I feel as though a huge weight has been lifted on my chest, and I can finally breathe air for the first time in years. It marked the end of my just meandering through life, avoiding choices, tortured by whatever I passed, afraid of whatever would come up in the future. I have to make a choice. And I have a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right. That's good enough, right? I just... I don't know what I would do if I got it wrong.

Arkady... The option that I never thought was an option before, a person whom I never thought I would let myself have... he's now opened. With that one moment, that wonderful kiss... My heart flutters even thinking of his name, jumps when I see it on paper. With Arkady... I was able to release my emotions in a way I never could with Seaheart, to lose control and know that his reassuring grip would keep me in check, steer me back in the right direction. For once I didn't have to be strong, I didn't have to deal with it myself, I didn't have to hold it inside, and I found someone who would gladly share the burden of knowing my fears, my emotions... But at the same time I put myself a his mercy to whatever he wanted to do with it. But I'm learning to have faith again, and I feel that nothing bad can ever happen to me in his arms, and I know he will never use that knowledge against me. He was lifting me up... I never thought it would feel so good to get out of my self-imposed hell, even though I was still so guilty, so undeserving. What can I do to deserve this? To deserve him, when all my life was spent doing... I can't even bring myself to describe it. I'm so horrible. He opened up Sophie, pulled her out of Dementia's clutches. He's put me back into my past, as if I could redo my life, redo what I did to Dariusz, now, with the insight that I have from living for so long in the delusion called Dementia. But how could I? What if I do everything wrong again? How can I go back to being weak and vulnerable? I know the answer when I'm in his arms: Because he will protect me. But... once I'm away from him, I just slowly start to sink back into unsureness. Oh, Arkady... I love you.

On the other side, there's Seaheart. My future. Dementia's future. The very epitome of everything I stood for then, and still stand for now, to an extent. What I felt for him, and I guess, still feel, to an extent... it's a different kind of love than what I feel for Arkady. Between Seaheart and I, it's like an exchange between two great, similar people for mutual benefit, like trade. Commerce with intimacy, to be discarded once the other was of no use anymore for whatever pleasure they were seeking. The kind of love that I wanted. That Dementia wanted. But with Arkady... It's different. It's two people who are trying to learn from each other, to help each other past whatever flaws they may contain, to give love without expecting something tangible in return, but to love for the sake of loving.

But it looks like Seaheart isn't an option anymore. But I don't think he ever was, as soon as he saw Yuna again. Maybe it was an omen, like he said. Arkady and Yuna. Arkady and Yuna. Sophie and Twilk. We're both going back. We weren't meant for each other. So all I have left is Arkady. But I think that was my only option anyway. I don't think I could ever bring myself to leave him, because I have finally realized the true extent of my love for him to be deeper than I could have ever imagined. If he ever left me... if my love was unrequited... I don't know what I would do.

There's just so much confusion in my mind right now. I... I don't want to think right now what I'm sacrificing, what I'm putting on the line for something that might not happen, or my feelings for Seaheart. No. They're not my feelings. At least, not when I'm with Arkady. It's what Dementia feels. What Dementia wants. But Sophie wants Arkady. Sophie loves Arkady. Dementia would never survive with him. But who do I want to be?

Huh. Identity crisis? Laughable.

During the War:

Sophie went into a deep, angry depression after she realized what happened to Arkady when he was kidnapped. There were always those paranoid doubts that he had left her, the kinds of doubts that troubled her sleep with frantic nightmares that left her in a cold sweat under the covers of her bed. And the fact that Maya was missing didn't help quell her fears. But it wouldn't make sense. He wouldn't promise to see her again if he was planning on going away. It must have not been planned. Then the announcement came from the principal, that people were going missing -- being captured -- and the truth barely put Sophie's tortured mind at ease. She practically tore herself apart looking for him, threatening anyone who seemed capable of taking him down, seeking out as much trouble and displaying her power as much as possible to make her a prime candidate for the next capture. She didn't know where they were being taken. She didn't know who was doing it. She didn't know why. So she struck out blindly at anyone who spoke to her, alienated herself from all human contact except insults and outbursts at whoever happened to be nearby.

Finally she pushed Marshall Titus too far. And apparently Arkady wasn't the only one who smelled alluring... especially when her blood was being shed. She wasn't even targeting the janitor, but was rather ripping bones out of her body to scream at the juggernaut who stood about a meter away from her. The rippling cords of muscle on his frame made him a prime candidate to be a match against Arkady. But the juggernaut didn't have to worry about fighting back, because Marshall couldn't control his impulses and instincts any longer. He jumped at her, teeth bared, and sunk into the flesh of her shoulder and left arm from behind. She didn't even know he was coming, so focused was she on the current target of her anger and suspicion. Even through the blood lust Marshall was able to recognize that he had blown his cover, and that he had to get out of there fast. He was able to take her down by wearing out whatever stamina she had left and taking any physical attacks she was able to get at him. Marshall realized that perhaps this could be one of the greatest catches of all -- after all, a perfect soldier, able to heal himself and use his own body as a weapon. Combined with the supersensory possibilities and other powers of the gifteds that they had attained... the possibilities were endless.

He threw her into a dank cell, cut off from any outside human contact, constantly experimented on and tortured when she didn't comply, until finally she didn't have the will to resist anymore. It was eight months before the war was over and she was freed by her fellow gifteds.

But there was no rest for the weary. She had to find him. He was on her mind every day of those long months in her own little solitary prison. It had gotten so bad that she could almost feel his hands on her back, in her hair, the touch of his lips, so vividly as if she were still experiencing their first kiss. As of yet, their only kiss. Sophie couldn't stand never being able to see him again. She had already lost one love, and had all but died, though she tried to many times. She knew that if Arkady died, then she wouldn't be able to take it anymore. She had been saved by him, and wouldn't be able to support herself if he was gone.

And finally she found him in the wreckage of the town, in the confusion after the prisoners were released from the headquarters. She swore to herself that she would never again be separated from him, no matter what.

After the War:

Of course, that promise of no separation didn't hold too long, for she went off to college, trying to move on from the painful past, while Arkady returned to his duties. She had a double-major in philosophy and psychology. She then once more followed Arkady back close to the place she had lived for so long, unable to keep herself away. She moved in with him and traveled wherever he did. She didn't want to be separated again like those painful four years of college.

When she finally felt as though she had the courage, Sophie traveled to Poland with Arkady to visit her grandmother and hopefully get her blessings for their future. It had been over a decade since she saw her last, and no matter how much Sophie despised her and was hurt by her, she still wanted to receive her acceptance of the relationship between herself and Arkady. Her grandmother was the only sort of mother-figure she had ever had, since her own was put into an asylum with schizophrenia and severe post-partum depression shortly after she was born, and died there when she was eight. Her father was already involved with someone else at the time, even before he was divorced or there was no longer any need. Anyways, Sophie was viciously refused any entry to her grandmother's house, saying that she would bring the devil back in to kill her like she did her grandfather, who had died a few months ago after a long decline into senile dementia and the family schizophrenia gene. She accused Sophie of being a temptress who was trying to seduce the sole remainder of the wondrous Belmont clan into a false sense of security and kill him and all the vampire slayers, thus clearing the way for his immortal army to have free reign over the world. Contrarily, she practically worships the ground that any Belmont walks on. Apparently some of her superstitions and fears of vampire, demon, and other sorts of problems in the town that Sophie so easily disregarded have some foundation after all. Still, she cursed the couple with disease, death, anguish, birth deformities on their children, and such until she was blue in the face. It was all Sophie could do to restrain Arkady from attacking her the way that she talked to his love, but even harder to keep herself in check. She let Arkady take her away, thoroughly brought down by the refusal of the only family member who every really took care of her, though her hopes for redemption were ideal and unfounded at best. It wasn't the first time she felt pain all because of her powers... all because of who she was. She shuddered to remember the months she spent in that dank cell while the war was raging all around her, and everything that was done to her there. It had been mostly blocked out of her mind, shoved into the back of her memory.

Nonetheless, Sophie was and is still intent on marrying Arkady. She once broached the subject, but could easily see that he was uncomfortable about discussing it. Through his explanation that he didn't want to marry her for her sake, so that she wouldn't be as devastated if something ever did happen to him, the way things were for his parents. He has a dangerous job, and he is afraid of binding himself any more to her. Sophie however responded simply that if Arkady died, there was no longer any point in her living. She would kill herself, no matter whether or not they were married. The love was still there, whether or not they were legally bound.

His job was another thing to her. Despite how much she hates it that he could put himself in any danger, and despite how much it kills her every time that he is away and every instance with gifteds that he covers up against the knowledge of the NSA, she never once utters a word of complaint or tries to keep him from doing his work. She realizes the importance of what he does, for she knows too well what it feels like to be persecuted because of the powers that one possesses. She only wished that she could do more to help him, even going so far as to offering to be his partner, but she knows all too well that she is his only liability and weakness. He would never cave under torture or pain, but would give up anything to anyone if she were threatened or hurt in any way. There was nothing she could do for him, and nothing he would let her do. He didn't want to see her in harm's way, either. She realizes also that if they were married, and if Arkady's gifted smuggling was ever found out, or, um... if vampires came and decided they wanted to possess the upper hand on him, she would be the prime candidate for a hostage to get him to comply with their demands. Still, she is unable to let go of her selfish desires of marrying him, of starting a family, of growing old together... despite realizing that it's not feasible. Maybe it's just the age. Maybe it's the maternal instincts kicking in. Maybe it's because she's been with Arkady for so long, and loves him so much. The third seems the most logical. But she's gotten used to the way they live.

She still frets whenever he is gone on a "special" assignment, and worries even more when he completes it. But she trusts Arkady that he would never let anything happen to himself, especially (or at least, she hoped) because of her own pledge that she would not exist without him. He better care about her too much to let himself die.