Formerly a Priestess of the Light, her career was quickly taking shape and it was clear to most everyone that she had the ability and the temperament to elevate herself into a high position among the church -- she loved serving the Light, nearly everyone she met loved her, and she seemed to have a natural talent in weaving the Light's magic, and her innocent beauty and the grace she carried herself with made her the perfect poster child for the church to put forth and into the public eye whenever possible. In the years she spent in service of the cloth she'd received many accolades and honors, a couple bestowed upon her by the King himself, even to the point where she was becoming moderately recognizable among the common citizenry.
But then she abruptly and unexpectedly left the service of the church, for reasons that were only ever known by a select few: she'd been divinely touched when she was a child, and it turned her into a tool of the Light. What sounded like a blessing was actually a curse, because while the Light's divinity within her was responsible in a large part for how meteoric her rise within the church had been, it came at a cost no woman would ever want to bear.
She'd been molded into the perfect vessel to spread the word and influence of the Light to those that the more traditional activities of preaching and missions by the church could never reach. Those so deeply in the Shadow that simple words would never convert. Those to whom her actions would speak much louder. The Light had crafted her into its whore, imbuing her with the traits and desires best suited to that role.
When she understood the full extent of what had been done to her, she was angry. Angry at the Light for twisting her into a debaucherous pawn. Angry at the church, whose elite had recognized the 'blessing', kept it secret even from her, and exploited it.
So she quit.
But leaving the service of the Light didn't undo what it had done to her. She still felt the hunger of the deviant desires it had forced onto her. But even if she couldn't run from what she'd been crafted into, in her anger she vowed she'd never again use them to the Light's benefit. If she was to be a whore she'd be her own whore, and never the Light's whore again.
And that's exactly what she did. After leaving the church and struggling for weeks to contain her impulses, she found herself uncontrollably drawn to one of the city's seediest neighborhoods. A place where she knew nobody would recognize her, and where she could sate the base desires that roiled inside her. She sold herself to lowlifes and criminals for the few copper they could afford. It wasn't about the money -- at least at first -- she took payment only on principle.
A diamond in the rough doesn't go unnoticed for long, however, and word of the beautiful new whore spread. Men who could afford more sought out her company, which also drew her away from the city's slums and into slightly more respectable surroundings. The upward spiral continued despite her reluctance; the men of the slums sated the twisted divine lusts within her better than the commoners, merchants, and minor nobles she began spending her time with instead. For everyone except herself, it was natural. She'd been well-educated and cultured by the Cathedral. She could more than hold her own in intelligent conversation on science or art. Like the hetairai of the real world's ancient Greece, she wasn't just a typical whore.
Before she knew it, she found herself being hired not only for sex, but for company -- and not just private company. Wealthy and influential men wanted to be seen with her on their arm at fancy parties just as much as they wanted to enjoy her more carnal delights afterward. After an absence from the public eye, she was again thrust into being a very visible figure among the city's well-to-do and elite; and despite the open secret of her new profession, she'd held their respect as well.
The problem was that prostitution was illegal in the city. Sure, it happened anyway. Even openly in the types of places where Xariah had started her new career, but it was always of little consequence and it never attracted much attention from the people in power. Xariah became the exception -- and for the sake of the kingdom's law, she had to be dealt with. She was arrested, quietly and without fanfare, and taken to the King's jail.
"So it be declared, any unlicensed exercise of prostitution in any form within the boundaries of the King's realm shall be punished, expediently and thoroughly, with the execution of any woman engaging in the act."
Like most of the laws that were so basic they stretched back to the earliest days of civilization, the prescribed punishment was just as brutal as early civilization itself was: death. Xariah knew this, and fretted over it in her cell, awaiting her fate. What she didn't know was that she was useful enough to the King to merit some exceptional handling.
The crown and the church had long been at odds with each other, engaged in a very quiet and very subtle war over whose authority is prime over the citizenry. Do the people give their allegiance to the Light (and by association, the highest-ranking members of the church), or do they give their allegiance to the King, the crown, and his laws? Xariah had turned herself into a useful weapon in that ages-long conflict. Her presence and social status and success in her new profession of sin, chosen after abandoning the strict scripture of the church was an enormous black eye to the church's moral dominance; and anything that weakened the church strengthened the crown. It was in the King's best interest to not only keep her around, but make sure that she was seen as being on his team.
So the King himself, who'd on occasion in the past had pinned medals on her priestess robes, visited her in her cell; and they spoke privately and brokered an arrangement. The presence of the word "unlicensed" in the law left open a door that had never previously been used: the King could license and consent to her prostitution. And he would, but in return he reserved the right to draft her into service of the kingdom as the need arose. And she agreed.
Bolstered by the newfound legitimacy of her work, she became more popular than ever among even those nobles and elites who'd previously held back from her association out of fear of being tainted. The prices for her time rose even higher and, given that she was content with simple things and rarely splurged on luxuries aside from the lavish decorations of her apartment that made her clientele feel at home, her personal wealth ultimately accumulated to the point that her worth rivaled even the nobility.
On occasion, the King calls her into his service -- usually to play a part in a diplomatic mission with the kingdom's allies or enemies. Her skill as a diplomat lays not in her ability to negotiate so much as it lies in her ability to 'sweeten a deal' with her more base offerings. Sleeping with the enemy may be grounds for treason, but certainly not when its done in service of the crown!
And from time to time she leaves the comfortable trappings of wealth behind and heads back to the slums and their relative anonymity to sate the dark, base desires that she can't help but have and that more cultured, refined men simply can't fulfill.
The Light shaped her into a vision of near feminine perfection with golden hair, soft curves, and a pretty face. The sorts of men she was intended to reach may have simply turned away or killed a male priest they came across, or even a plain-looking female priestess; but Xariah would have their attentions, as unpleasant as they might be, even if only for long enough to stoke their loins into taking advantage of her before intending on disposing of her.
But the rigors of her path would quickly trample any mere beauty, and so the Light ensured her alluring appearance would endure. It placed her into a sort of biological stasis at the peak of her bloom -- as a woman in her sexual prime, young enough that her look conveys a sense of innocence -- and keeps her there, so that even as the years tick by, she'd never seem to age beyond or change from her most tempting form.
The men intended to be snared by her aren't tamed. They don't bow to social norms, and they don't compromise for the sake of appearances. They live in a rough world, and rely on might and dominance to hold onto their space in it. They have no hesitations to treat a woman with a lack of care and compassion, and so the Light ensured she could endure their treatment -- at least as much as possible.
Her body was given an innate healing, to patch over the wounds she'd surely suffer in her duty. Anything short of killing her will eventually heal on its own, even without attention. Bruises and scrapes are gone practically overnight. More serious wounds like broken bones, or marks like brands on her skin or ink tattooed into it mend several days later. Even severed limbs slowly return, inch by inch, over weeks. Every wound heals clean, without scars, so as to remain the ideal picture of beauty the Light needs her to be.
Of course, her healing is far from invulnerability. It's slow to act, and is incapable of returning life after life has gone. If Xariah were to suffer a wound that would kill her faster than her healing could stabilize her, then without external care her condition would be terminal.
Xariah would scarcely be able of doing her intended job if she was afraid of the treatment she'd likely get at the hands of the men she'd need her innate healing after. If she cringed away from pain, or sought to avoid it, she'd both appear weak and would be reluctant to submitting to her role; so the Light twisted her sense of self-preservation to remove the fear one would normally have in making decisions that might lead to pain.
To be clear, she doesn't enjoy pain. It's cruelty bites her just as hard as it would bite any other woman. She merely doesn't have the instinct to avoid anything short of life-threatening.
The Light corrupted her desires to bend them toward the "wrong" sort of men. She knows they're no good, and that they're dangerous, but that's what makes them so damn alluring. Of course, she still has a head on her shoulders, and applying rational thought toward her actions can overrule the desires in her loins just as effectively as anyone else can; but her lust is different. It's like a hunger. The longer she tries to repress it, the stronger and more demanding it gets until it becomes absolutely unbearable and undeniable.
And like most, if she's already aroused, her rational inhibitions lose sway. It's difficult to get Xariah into a situation where sex is nonconsensual, because even if she's resistant at first once the embers of the divine lust inside her are properly stoked, she'll end up a willing and eager participant.
Finally, and most importantly to the Light's purpose for her, it imbued her with a subtle, hidden influence that bears down upon her partners when they're at their most vulnerable. When men couple with her to completion and keep their most sensitive part buried within her as they reel in the ecstacy of the moments after their orgasm, their guard and their willpower is at its weakest; and that's when the divine magic of her influence starts to rise.
Outside of her knowledge or control, the influence of her magic slips into her spent partner and begins to establish itself. It's an incredibly subtle force, and depending on the strength of will of the man it could start to have effect immediately, or it might take weeks or months of repeated, continued exposure to her before it begins to manifest; but eventually it will start to color their mind and make them more ... well, it's a difficult thing to describe.
"Amenable to Xariah's will and desires" is a blunt way of putting it, though it's not nearly so blatant. The Light's intention is that by seeing Xariah's faith, men would start to warm to it and embrace the path of the Light themselves -- and toward that goal is was incredibly effective. Until Xariah left the path of the Light herself. Now, the influence tends to manifest in making men more eager toward fulfilling whatever it is they think she wants of them. (Undoubtedly an important part of how wildly successful and profitable she's become in her prostitution since taking her own path.)
The magic of this influence might be detectable by someone well versed in magical arts, though it's far more likely to go unseen given it only rises when it's most likely that her partner won't be looking for it; and how subtle its effect is. Men that fall under her influence see themselves as making decisions of their own volition. The influence is not intrusive, and isn't seen as an external mind control.
(And as an OOC note: this influence need not play a role in any RP. As described, it's an incredibly subtle force, could take months to even have an effect, and given Xariah's not devout toward anything anymore, it's not entirely clear how it'd manifest. Though I'd be absolutely delighted if you were willing to explore this aspect further!)