History
She could not tell you when first she chose to take the name Ceylon, but if she ever went by any other name it is equally forgotten. Vibrant and visceral, she is a soul unjaded despite the millenia of life she has enjoyed. Created in the familiar, striking image of most Vila, she is a breath-taking creature to behold. Skin the satiny white-gold of lightning at first strike, her hair is only a scarce few shades darker and richer, sun-streaked and tightly curled. Her eyes were the sea in sunlight, a vivid blue-green that seemed to lean toward the latter whenever her power was upon her, a simmering green flame more hypnotic than snake eyes, and twice as luring. Sleek of figure and slightly on the tall side at five-eight, she was a marvel to human eyes.
It was over a century after she came into being, that she first began to dabble in human affairs. What began as passing curiosity, however, soon consumed her as an affliction of interest. She watched them feel, watched them bond, watched them suffer and gain and lose. She learned the emotions, began to study the habits and events which triggered or suppressed them, observed even the more carnal acts that formed the culmination of their pairings. Ceylon learned, and she mimicked.
During this time, the Vila learned what it was to feed from humans as from the storms, to pluck and pull away the shivers, the yearnings, the needs, in order to survive. She learned what it felt like to steal the rush of another's climax, or to eat away at the darkness devouring a mind in depression. Eerily singleminded in her pursuits, the more she learned, the more adept she grew. Any who mistake a Vila for anything other than a predator are often sorely misled. They are created from tempests, from lightning and elemental energy - they take. They cannot give.
But it was at the height of the Roman Empire, lodged in palatial splendor overlooking the vast blues of the Mediterranian, that the Vila learned why. She could not feel love, perhaps, but she could understand its conception, believe in its resonance. She had not loved him, of course - the younger brother to the emperor, the dark-haired and silent artist who claimed her as his muse. But he had demanded that she give to him as he had to her, insisted that she inspire him, enliven him, know her as she truly was.
She was given no second chance, with Eamon's life. Mourning in a manner peculiar to even her own kind, she shed her first tears, and knew the first stain of regret. She was human, brief as a candle in a storm, before even that light extinguished. But the horror did not end there. The dead prince was found, and the magi of the kingdom pointed the finger where it rightly belonged: at Ceylon. She did nothing, as they weighed her body with chain and shackle, allowing the men their anger and pain. Her ears were deaf, when her sentence was decided, and it was only when she saw the pyre after days of isolation that she understood.
She was a witch. And she would be burned. The Vila could have escaped; there is little made by mortal or divine hand capable of containing a creature of the sky, but she allowed the procession. Yielded to chain and rope and curse and blame. She let them burn her. She never screamed, never cried out. Only tears, endless and silent, stood hallmark to the pain. It was only once her temporary human shell had been fully decayed into ash, that the Vila abandoned her punishment, agonized and delirious, and returned to the Storms. Belittling any chance of a return to the world of men - to the world that embodied the mistake she had made.