[Hider=Miranda Kross][sub]- - - - (Personal Details)[/sub] [b]First Name:[/b] Miranda (though she mainly goes under the alias: ‘[b]Mira[/b]’ these days). [b]Last Name:[/b] Kross (though she rarely uses it because of her past). [b]Age:[/b] 29. [b]Sex:[/b] Female. [b]Home Nation:[/b] Anu. [b]Appearance:[/b] [hider=Miranda Kross inspiration][img]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/ee/7f/d1/ee7fd1298c15406b6608f85ae6696db7.jpg[/img] All rights to the artist.[/hider] Miranda Kross stands at around 5’8” weighing roughly 137 pounds. Her frame is athletically built: neither thin, but neither fat. Her body is clearly honed through training and hardship and can withstand a large amount of physical distress. Her skin has been colored with a nutty tan because of her long hours spent in the No Man’s Land and its, at times, grueling sun. She has petite sharp features that are a trait she inherited from her An’shinian heritage and is common among the women from her nation. Similar to her wild shoulder-length red hair is her sharp amber colored eyes that seem to penetrate anything she looks upon. She tends to wear a remarkable amount of clothing, usually covering almost all of her skin. These outfits generally consist of a black cloak covering a black leather jacket and a white shirt underneath. Often Mira also wears a red scarf to keep her warm. She tends to wear relatively baggy military pants and leather shoes that have been made to withstand the harsh conditions of the No Man’s Land. Other than this another piece of important clothing she wears are a set of red and black leather gloves. If any part of her skin is exposed she tends to cover it with bandages. Lastly, whenever she travels into the No Man’s Land she always wears a slim gas mask with a set of goggles. [b]Personality:[/b] Miranda Kross had always been an energetic and curious child from the first time she could notice the world around her. This cobbled together with her high intellect meant that she has never taken the reality she sees as given: she always wants to question everything around her and try all the possibilities: often this ended in her being reprimanded from some form of tease or problem she caused. However, as she grew older she also became calmer: she learned the strictness of the military and became what can only be described as a precise person: she did everything as quick and precise at it was possible. Though she hasn’t forgotten her childhood fun: she can still crack a few jokes and tease those around her now and then, but sadly this energetic and life-fascinated persona has been buried beneath the layers of adulthood and suffering. Ever since she realized the truth of her past she has become more and more distant from the world around her: she tends to shy away from physical approaches and hides behind her clothe and loneliness in the fear that her abilities might suddenly awake and hurt those around her. This is also one of the reasons why she joined the Divers: she is searching for a cure to her abilities. Because of this she forces herself beyond what others might generally do to themselves - and this sometimes bleeds onto those around her: she can at times expect too much of those she begins to trust, often expecting them to be as strict as herself and most of the times getting angry that they aren’t. While she isn’t what could be called a “warm” person anymore, she still cares for those that has gotten close to her - sadly it is far too few that has, and most who has gotten to know her has ended up dead. [b]History:[/b] [hider=Background] Miranda Kross was born into the royal Kross family of the An’shin people. She was the first daughter of, but not the first child, however, because of the religious beliefs and culture of their society she became the heir to the throne through a series of unfortunate events. You see, in the An’shin society they worship what is known as The Void in the rest Thorisa, but The Void is not kind and devours those that are not deemed worthy. For a culture that is based largely around warriors and war, this means that the leader of the people must be one that is deemed worthy by The Void. For this reason every child that is born into the Kross family is tested by The Void at the age of 5 by connecting with small doses of pure essence of The Void: if the child is deemed worthy it will be taken in by the priests and Priestesses of the Temple of The Void where it would grow up until the child reaches the age of 25. Over the course of this timespan, the child is taught in the ways of The Void, the art of war, leadership, and most importantly receiving a constant flow of essence from The Void in small doses, until finally, if it manages to survive that long, blooms into the captain of the feared special forces of Anu known as “Spectre” - and later the leader of the An’shin people. For most this would be a grueling life full of pain and misery - not something you would wish for yourself or your child. But Miranda was the first child of the royal Kross family that survived the initial trial: her two older brothers were sadly both consumed by The Void. This meant that she grew up in hardship, but also with the responsibilities of a royal heir. Luckily for Miranda she was blessed with not only royal blood but also an incredible genius: it didn’t take her long to learn any subject and even the elusive teachings of The Void came surprisingly easy to her - though the powers of The Void was not something even a genius like Miranda could control easily, and even through the many years of training she wasn’t able to control it. Yet she kept trying and so the years went by and before she knew it she had finished her grueling training: she emerged as the captain of the Spectres and the future heir of the An’shin people. However, because her parents were still alive she accepted the role of the An’shin princess. This position meant that she often had to travel to different regions of Thorisa: either as a Spectre or more frequently; on ambassadorial missions to the nations of Teknoh, Arcadia, Illon, Hyznia, and even at times Saiga. As she was part of the royal family she became well known among the upper echelons of the different societies of Thorisa, yet because of her people’s religious beliefs, she was aware of the whispers behind her back. Miranda didn’t think much of it, and her charming personality meant that even those that despised the An’shin society became enthralled by her. Her life continued like this for many years, but as she entered into her 27th cycle her life began to change. She had always been an energetic and curious person and had ended up in a lot of unfortunate situations because of this. Over the years she had calmed down a bit, but she was still an individual that sought out excitement, unknowns, and knowledge. These traits lead her onto the path that would ultimately shape her future. It was on one of her ambassadorial journeys to Arcadia that she overheard the whispers and tales of her older brothers: brothers she hadn’t known she had. For some reason this shook her on a personal level: her entire life was built on the corpses of her older brothers. She was only the person she was because they had sacrificed their lives for her. Miranda didn’t decide to act after overhearing this: She was a person whose genius liked to consider all variables before she acted and as such she let this new information about her life reside in her conscious as she went over and over it more times than even she could count. To her surprise she found herself filling with disdain. Disdain towards her life, her people, her parents, and even towards The Void itself: the religious idea that she had always found comfort in. It wasn’t soon until this disdain spread to her entire being and she began to despise herself and the abilities she had gained. She grew more and more distant as the months went by and began to refer to the abilities as a curse: “the Curse of The Void”. This hatred culminated in the day that disrupted her life and changed it so drastically that even she couldn’t have foreseen it. It started with her confronting her parents about the truth: at first, they brushed it aside as pure gossip, but as the conversation turned into an argument it became clearer that these rumors and whispered the truth: She was a child born of the death of her older brothers and the sons of her parents. Some people might not have cared much for this, but Miranda was different. She found herself despising everything about her: her family, her nation, even her religion. She could only see one way out of this ‘curse’: she had to escape. It wasn’t soon after she let go of her old name and left her nation for good. She drifted through Thorisa’s many nations, surviving only on the skills she had learned from her many years of training on how to survive in the wilderness, yet no single individual can survive alone in the harsh environments of the No Man’s Land. Having survived longer in No Man’s Land than anyone other than the Divers, Miranda’s luck finally disappeared. As she was making her way across a desert in an unknown part of Thorisa she was attacked by a group of wild beasts. Having survived on almost nothing she had no strength to fight this pack of carnivores. Her tries at fighting them off became more and more desperate and it wasn’t soon before she collapsed, but not before mustering up a wave of Void magic - something she hadn’t done since she ran away from her home. This wave pushed the beasts away from her and creating a large sand-cloud that rose above the endless desert. Her world became black as she lost consciousness. Luckily for her, this wasn't the end. Her last bit of magic had been strong enough to force the sand high enough up to alarm a group of Divers nearby and as the beasts came to their senses and readied themselves for a feast, they were once again forced back: this time by the group of Divers that came to Miranda’s rescue. When she woke up she was resting in the Diver’s camp, but it wasn’t soon after she woke up that she was attacked again, this time by the questions from the Divers that had saved her life and wanted to know who she was and what she was doing alone in No Man’s Land. As the questions overwhelmed her, Miranda somehow realised that she shouldn’t tell the truth: That she was the famously lost princess of the An’shin people, and despite the odds being against her that none of the Divers in front of her had seen her or heard of her, she decided that she had better keep her true identity a secret. This was when the individual known as “Mira” was born. She created a fragile background for herself as she was surrounded by the group of Divers; that she had been traveling with a group of soldiers and her family on the way to Saiga when they had been attacked by wild beasts and she had fled. Knowing that this story likely wouldn’t be believable, after all, who was sane enough to travel lightly in the No Man’s Land - other than the Divers, of course? But to her surprise, the Divers didn’t push her story further, for they could see in her eyes that she wouldn’t tell anymore. Through a series of events the woman once known as Miranda Kross became a Diver that went under the name of ‘Mira’: a Diver that became well known for her daring journeys and mysterious abilities that didn’t seem to correspond with any of the known magics that the other Divers used. However, whenever someone pushed for her backstory she always kept quiet, a personality trait that only served to further increase her status as the mysterious Diver that always kept away from the different nations as much as she could and had a much too keen interest in old historical artifacts. The reason for her obsession with old artifacts was born from a sudden realisation that occurred to her back when she had only just been saved by the group of Divers and were travelling towards one of their safe havens: She could never rid herself of The Curse of The Void, she would always be trapped by the magic that had been forced upon her and threatened her life every second of the day if she wasn’t careful - and she craved peace like nothing else in her life, peace to live without the burden of her dead brothers, without her past and without The Void. As she learned more and more about the Divers and their society she realised that perhaps the very nature of the Divers could be her salvation: perhaps one of this world’s hidden artifacts would reveal a way for her to cut the ties she had with The Void - and as such she could gain her freedom once and for all. [/hider] [b]Occupation:[/b] Former occupation: Princess of Anu and captain of the Spectres. Current occupation: Diver. [sub]- - - - (Power Matrix)[/sub] [b]Primary Focus:[/b] The Void [b]Magical Capabilities:[/b] - Construction and deconstruction: because of the very nature of Void energies Miranda possesses the ability to construct and deconstruct matter: however it has to be done through physical touch of her skin, and proves unusable if anything is in between. This has also meant that she has had to construct special clothing that can withstand this effect. Unfortunately for her these capabilities are also the core of her problems: the Curse of The Void - as she likes to refer it to. She lives on a knife’s edge, her body is constantly constructing and deconstructing itself because of the energies from The Void that has been imprinted on her through her time at the Temple of The Void and her closer ties with The Void. Because of these energies, it isn’t rare that certain small areas of her body are deconstructed, however, it all appears to depend on her mental stability and strength. Furthermore, she cannot construct or deconstruct just [i]anything[/i]: the size and force of the matter will consume an equal portion of her energy - ultimately resulting in her own death by deconstruction. Because of this and her troublesome past she rarely, if ever, utilizes this ability despite her relative proficiency in it. This ability is also the reason she despises human contact and keeps to herself. - Warping imitation: This magical ability, whose name Miranda herself has come up with after learning of the Warpers, is basically relying on the very foundation of The Void itself: the lack of space, time, or energy. Using these variables Miranda can somehow move herself or anything she is in contact with to any point she can observe, instantly. Mind you this requires quite a lot of concentration and calculation and as such isn’t easy to pull off: in fact, it might actually require someone of Miranda’s intellect to be able to use. This also means that a significant drawback is a danger of warping, or teleporting, yourself into something - or more horrifically: splitting yourself apart. Luckily Miranda has yet to experience this... On herself. [b]Body Modifications:[/b] None. [b]Weapons and Equipment:[/b] - Basic survival gear: healing materials, medical supplies, etc. - 2 swords that are made of a black metal that once fell from the skies many millennia ago. These have been masterfully worked into thin blades similar to a Chokutō, but with blades on each side. They are so sharp that they can pierce thin sheets of metal with ease. - Knives: Mira always carries around a more than necessary amount of knives for various purposes. - 2 pistols with A/A bullets she herself have constructed. - All of Mira’s clothing has been enchanted by runes to protect them against the touch of Miranda’s skin. [b]Specialties:[/b] Miranda is quite skilled as a tracker, utilizing her intellect and knowledge to consider the variables. Mira is a skilled fighter and she can keep herself alive in close quarter combat because of her understanding and harsh training in the different martial arts that together with her sword-skills make her a feared fighter. Her skill with handguns is also something to take note of. It should be noted that because of her hate towards her the power of The Void she has used a lot of her time training to rely more heavily on her weapons and equipment so that she doesn’t have to rely on anything but the smallest amount of power from The Void to keep her alive. [/hider]