5th century A.D.
412 – Born in the Clan Ó Conaill to the chieftain Ruarc and his wife Aoife. Knowing she would someday lead the clan alongside her future husband, Ruarc allowed his daughter to train as a warrior. She eventually became the finest scout and archer in the clan.
428 – Married to a young warrior named Dubhán in a traditional druidic ceremony. Maeve loved her husband, but it was soon obvious that Dubhán did not respect her as an equal.
431 – Ruarc’s king Lachlan converted to Christianity, and ordered the chieftains loyal to him to do the same. While not a particularly spiritual man, Ruarc was suspicious of the Christian missionaries. He didn’t trust their intentions, believing they were simply paving the way for Éire to fall under foreign rule. The majority of the clan had already converted, and were loyal to the king, including Dubhán. With Lachlan’s blessing, he took control of the clan and forced Ruarc and his followers into exile. Ruarc and his followers soon found that no one would take them in, not even chieftains he’d once considered allies. They took up a nomadic lifestyle, supporting themselves with whatever work they could find. Before the year was out, they were calling themselves Clan Ruarc. Since a number of the Ruarcs were warriors, they often found work as mercenaries. However, the line between mercenary work and brigandry was sometimes blurry.
437 – As more and more clans embraced Christianity, more and more of them turned their backs on the Ruarcs. No one wanted to be associated with thieves and “devil-worshippers”, even if they had once employed Ruarc steel. In addition, the clan’s numbers were dwindling, from combat fatalities, to disease and accident. Life as outcasts made it difficult for the teenagers to find mates, and the remaining Ruarcs were too closely related to marry one another. Finally, a prime job dropped in the chief’s lap and he took it without hesitation. When Ruarc and his warriors geared up for battle, he ordered Maeve to remain in camp and see to the defense of those unable to fight. After Ruarc left, Maeve disobeyed his orders and followed him. When she finally caught up to her kinsmen, she saw they had been lured into a trap, and were under attack from clan Ó Floinn. With the warriors of clan Ruarc surrounded and grossly outnumbered, they had already suffered serious losses by the time she arrived. Keeping to the forest, Maeve loosed her arrows at the enemy, firing on the move to keep hidden and misdirect them. Eventually she fired her last arrow, forcing her to draw her sword and break cover. Maeve was engaged with her first melee opponent when a second ran her through from behind, killing her. The Ó Floinn withdrew his weapon, but her body fell into a ravine. When Maeve revived and climbed out of the ravine, she found the battle long over, and many of her kin slain, including her father. She returned to her clan’s camp only to find that another group of Ó Floinn warriors had already destroyed it. While some Ruarcs had fallen defending the camp, others had been taken prisoner. When Maeve finally located her missing kin, she discovered that they’d all converted, in hopes of finding acceptance in other clans. Blaming herself for the fall of her clan, Maeve retreated deep into the forest.
452 – Maeve spent several years in self-imposed exile, either hiding when others entered her forest, or driving them off when they got too close. Occasionally she robbed them, if they had something she really needed. Eventually, people stopped coming completely. One day a handsome man arrived, one who showed no fear of her woods. Maeve spent the better part of a day tracking him, only to feel a curious buzzing sensation when she got too close. When the stranger camped for the night, she approached him, intending to warn him off with a few well-placed arrows. Even though Maeve was hidden, the stranger seemed to know exactly where she was and coaxed her to reveal herself. He introduced himself at Laurentius Batiatus, and offered to help her understand what she had become. Travelling with Batiatus, Maeve left Éire for the first time in her life. Together the two warriors travelled to Europe, Asia and North Africa. In addition to refining her swordplay, Batiatus taught her to read and write (skills she’d never needed before), as well as several languages. Maeve fell in love with Batiatus, but he rejected her advances. He’d been married to a fellow Immortal before, and was unwilling to go down the same road again. Hurt, Maeve left him and struck out on her own.
Dark Ages - Maeve wandered from place to place, working as a mercenary with whatever companies that would take her. Although female warriors weren’t completely unheard of, they were rare enough that most men didn’t take her seriously. During this time, she met and married fellow Immortal Eiríkr Ásbjörn (Erik Osborne). However, the marriage was troubled from the beginning, and they often bickered. The two Immortals started their own mercenary band, with Maeve fighting by her husband’s side as a shieldmaiden. After encountering the warrior-priest Darius, Eiríkr decided to disband the company and take up metal smithing. He and Maeve continued to travel together as he studied forging techniques in various lands. However, their bickering grew worse, and their marriage unraveled. They decided to split up after Maeve drew her sword during an argument. Although they never remarried, Maeve and Eiríkr eventually reconciled and remained friends over the following centuries.
Middle Ages - Renaissance - Although she didn’t actively seek war, Maeve found it impossible to avoid, although no army would take her as a soldier. However, her extensive experience with combat injuries helped her become a battlefield nurse. When she wasn’t working as a healer or a midwife, Maeve usually found work in taverns and inns.
17th century - 1663 – While living in Ireland, Maeve befriended a pregnant prostitute named Alice. As Alice’s due date approached, the two women were caught in a thunderstorm, and took shelter in a barn. Alice went into labor during the storm. Despite’s Maeve’s best efforts, Alice bled out during the delivery. She lived long enough to name him “my wee little Royce.” Knowing the life of an Immortal was too dangerous and unpredictable to consider raising him on her own, she took the pre-Immortal infant to Belfast and left him with a priest named Seamus Flynn. Maeve got a job in town to keep an eye on Royce from a distance. Much to her chagrin, he turned into a street urchin. Still, she did her best to help him, even steering towards the right ship when the time came for him to leave town.
18th century - Maeve emigrated to the New World, settling in Boston. She worked as a field medic for a Colonial militia group, who were quite surprised to learn that she could fight as well as any man. She returned to Europe by the end of the century.
19th century After several years in the UK, Maeve returned to America, this time settling in New York in the notorious Five Points neighborhood. There she becomes romantically involved with Irish detective Liam McAllister. One night, police responded to reports of a lightning strike in a back alley. Arriving on the scene, they found the decapitated body of a wealthy businessman named Laurence Bates. Although the crime stumped detective McAllister, his lover Maeve wouldn’t let it go. One day he received word she’d gone to Boston on a family emergency. However, he never heard from her again. Bateman had actually been Laurentius Batiatus once upon a time. Maeve followed the Immortal who killed him to Boston, and settled there after taking his head. At the outbreak of the Civil War, she travelled to the front, where she worked in a Union field hospital.
20th century
WWI – Left her job as a school nurse to join the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. She was assigned to an ambulance company on the Western Front, where she occasionally worked alongside fellow Immortal Duncan Macleod. She returned to the states and civilian life after the war.
WWII – Returned to the ANC under a different name. However, she remained in stateside commands and was never deployed overseas.
Korean War – Assigned to MASH 8063rd as Head Nurse at the rank of Major. Although the MASH units were supposedly far from the front, they still took occasional fire. Towards the end of the war, several nurses were killed when the 8063rd took artillery fire, Maeve among them. Maeve revived in a body bag on the way back to America, and was forced to play dead until she could escape. She sought out Erik, who helped her establish a new identity and forged her a new sword. She never worked as a military nurse again.
Vietnam War – While living in Boston, Maeve worked in a V.A. hospital, treating soldiers returning from the front. During this time, she fell in love with Ronald Belcher, a mortal veteran fighting a heroin addiction. Ronnie rekindled Maeve’s love of the outdoors, dormant for decades, and the two often took extended camping trips in the mountains. During one of these trips, Maeve slipped on a loose rock and fell into a gully, breaking her neck. She revived to find Ronnie weeping over her body, and explained her true nature to him. Ronnie was unable to deal with the complications of dating an Immortal, and broke up with her.
1970s-1990s Various identities in North America.
The Plague - Maeve worked as a trauma nurse in Boston’s Suffolk County Hospital. She was on sabbatical when the plague hit, hiking the Appalachian Trail with the intentions of going the full 2200 mile length. After several days of not meeting a single other hiker, she went back to civilization to investigate. Only to find that civilization didn’t exist anymore. That night, she began dreaming of a house in the corn, somewhere in Nebraska. With no other real plans, the Celt hitched up her pack and headed back into the mountains, this time going west.
