Nina Kaina

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Nina Kaina (Нина Каина) was the matriarch of the Kain family and ruler of the town. She was the Scarlet or Nocturnal Mistress, and stood in opposition to Victoria Olgimskaya.

Description
A radiantly beautiful woman with deep eyes the color of French plum. A dark chestnut with an intricate hairdo. She was very tall, and her waist was so thin that a man's hands could clasp it with his two hands. Her features were noble and elegant, and her deportment was imperial.

She gave the impression of self-control and absolute sanity, yet committed insane acts. Easily bored and seemly capable of fulfilling any of her whims. When she was alive, she was feared; and after her death, she is thought of almost as a goddess. There is no clear evidence of her performing magic or of having "special" abilities, but she was considered a powerful witch and Mistress, emanating a special sort of energy and radiating the faith in the limitlessness of humanity's potential.

Background
Nina was a bright, refined and devilish aristocrat from the Capital. Victor Kain became acquainted with her when he lived there at a young age and made connections in those circles. Eventually, Nina fell for Victor, and he brought her to the Steppe. Enjoying the freedom and power of the Kain family, and impressed by Georgiy and Simon, Nina harboured plans concerning the town and became ruler of the land.

As a Mistress
"The whole time that Nina was the Mistress of the Kain family, she held the town in fear. Paradoxical, but that was the cause for the increase of love towards the Kains, that took place lately—compared to Nina, all the other members of the family looked extremely humanist. Nina broke and crippled dozens of lives, families broke up because of her, and houses were taken down on her command. Any who she didn’t think to be her equal weren’t worthy of taking into consideration at all—people for her were some kind of ants. When Nina was bored—and that was quite a frequent event—she behaved as if she were Dracula, simply went around the city looking for situations that could interest her and solved different things according to her understanding of justice. She could easily take a child from a stupid mother, give him to the Master of the Abattoir for him to make a steppe scout out of the child. She could enter a house and order its inhabitants to show her the most precious thing they had and if the people tried to conceal the real item, she would order for the liars to be dealt with. No matter how strange, but the people were quite patient about this. Nina was taken for a beautiful and awe-inspiring protector of the town, who had to be propitiated by means of bloody sacrifice. When Nina died, the inhabitants took a deep, easy breath, but continued to treat her as before, in fact, even with more piety, because now she obtained another quality that was added to what she already had—she was dead."

Corpus
When Nina Kaina ruled the town, the people, who weren't used to monarchy and even more so to pristine magic, watched with awe and fear how a demonic queen can rule. It seemed that a figure of a divine woman with a sweeping wave of dark hair is soaring in the sky, her exquisite features wrapped in clouds; she seemed to be a massive monument of an ancient sovereign. They said she was almighty. They said that at night, in her true form,&mdash;her head touching the sky, her figure slim and lithe as an ivy branch and as the lightning,&mdash;she walks around town, lightly moving her pale shoulders, and takes what is hers, but gives with godly generosity what otherwise mortal men could have under no circumstances.

That's what they used to say and that's what they say today. Now that it has been fifteen years since her death and her biography is history and legend, it is worth looking at Nina’s image and separate the truth from fiction.

First of all, the truth is that during the short period of her rule, Nina managed to shake both souls and minds of people who weren't at all inclined for reasonless exaltation. The truth was that she was indescribably beautiful&mdash;even the most captious judge would find her appearance both perfect and demonic. Imperious gestures of her delicate hands, milk-white skin, pitch-black eyes, majestic deportment and iniquitous forms of her bitten lips. The truth is that the people’s memory gave her such features that both refined tyrants and enlightened emperors would love to have.

However, the most interesting thing is that everyone called her a witch despite the fact that she never demonstrated some supernatural deed, not once. In fact, she actually didn't have any "special" abilities. She couldn't throw lightning, nor could she do any tricks, nor stop enemy legions by means of gesture, nor transform lead into gold. But what really was? The masses’ memory is the most sober historical source; it cannot be cheated or bribed by planned falsifications. What happened?

This woman emanated this special sort of energy&mdash;the energy that allowed her to create things that shouldn't be. Next to her seemed possible&mdash;and in fact were&mdash;such things that wouldn't be possible under any other circumstances. This energy was extremely strong within her. It was like a fiery column that stretched from her head to the sky, one could almost feel it. Being unable to make this image more vivid, the people invented a legend about a woman that was extremely tall, reaching the sky, and went about playing with the town as if she were a child playing with toy bricks. That is actually the image of the Mistress Nina on children's pictures of that time. Rapture, violent happiness and passion were the feeling that filled the space where she went. That was her witchery.

Her nature suited that of the Kain family. The Kains have this heritage of inclination for brave and dangerous experiments, impudence and absence of any desire to acknowledge any laws, no matter if they are the laws of physics or history; this virtue was the very environment that Nina was most comfortable with. Their manner of ruling by means of invisible power, regulating the directions of the people's mood, its uprises and storms, all this gave her great opportunities. Nina took the town in her warm hands, squeezed it into an obedient lump of clay, softened it and began shaping the realm of her dreams.

Meanwhile people loved her more and more! Her passion was, in fact, contagious; her strict eyes burned with furious mirth, which had no effect on her mimics or behavior. Nina was the kind of person that is so vividly seen in Maria now: one of coldness, absolute self-control and total sobriety, with the ability to perform foolhardy deeds.