Unleash the Beast
Will I answer when you call? Gisela Bärchen.
What I've Won: Fraulein Bärchen (Little Miss Bear).
Not that the number means much anymore: Twenty-six.
When I pick a Mate: Homosexual.
My Public Power: Just joined. I'm still a little green.
When you Cross me: A flintlock pistol and my bear claws.
When Weapons Fail: Red-Tailed Hawk.
As the Writers say: "Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear." - Marcus Aurelius.
Mirror, Mirror: Full Body /
Head.
If you were wondering:Gisela was a strange child who lived through a hard life with quiet kept serenity in the North of the Holy Roman Empire, newly christened the Germanic states. For most of her formative years, she defied expectation by surviving the hardships of a poorhouse. She was plain, quiet, and possessed of an uncommon resilience to life's efforts to extinquish her. As she gained adolescence, she was bought by a strange man of science to aid him in his laboratory. Her quiet nature and plain appearance drew him to her as a safe choice. He found more use in her than what he thought.
Gisela always knew herself to be different from her contemporaries. She knew that she possessed a greater acuity of sight and hearing than most of the other children in the house. She was also quite sure the other children and adults didn't change into graceful hawks once a month. But, it was her uncommon strength that earned her the ironic title of Fraulein Bärchen (Little Miss Bear). It was this same strength that attracted the attention of her newest master. It was little surprises in the beginning; that she could lift a fifty pound bag of flour without a grunt or carry huge boiling pots of stew across the house without a bit of a pant. Eventually, he began to test her and she exceeded his every expectation.
The scientist found he could make much more money in renting Miss Bärchen to a traveling circus, rather than to put her to use making him meals and cleaning his underwear. By the time that Gisela was sixteen, he had swollen his coffers to bursting with proceeds from her shows with local circus' and freak shows. And, he was ready to sell his little discovery for a final huge sum of marks.
This final sum came from an interested Englishman who was recruiting in the Germanic states. He immediately put down the money for Gisela, whisked her off to England, and began dressing her in fine English clothing. She now washed every day, rather than once a month. She wore high necked collars and great wire bustles. Her hair was styled and beautifully tied every day. The Englishman was the owner of a circus, but his fascination with Gisela was certainly not with the amount of money that she might make him in the ring.
Gisela, for her part, was unimpressed. She did not find men to be very interesting, really. And, her monstrous strength had served to keep the overwhelming majority of them away. But, the attentions of the Proper Englishman made her supremely uncomfortable.
So, when Gisela met another were-beast at the age of twenty, she succinctly left the side of her attentive Englishman to join the faction.