don't mind me just dropping the bastard off at school in another country.

[hider=Well if it isn't a LIGHT nER][color=92278f][CENTER][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/220316/2686415bf4b6112d94a270b793182bbd.png[/img][/CENTER]
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[color=2E2C2C][sup]_______________________________________________[/sup][/color][/center][hider=// INFO][indent][sub][b]P E R S O N A L  D E T A I L S[/b][/SUB]

[sup][COLOR=SILVER]
[b]Full Name[/b][COLOR=#807B84] – Dorothy “Dot” Auferrum[/COLOR]
[b]Age[/b][COLOR=#807B84] - 14[/COLOR]
[b]Gender[/b][COLOR=#807B84] - Female[/COLOR]
[b]Heritage[/b][COLOR=#807B84] – Born to an Alexandrian family that can trace its long and winding roots back to penitent Maria, and utterly soiled by the presence of Grayle blood in her parentage.[/COLOR]
[b]Magical Affinity[/b][COLOR=#807B84] - Light[/COLOR][/color][/SUP]

[color=#2e2c2c]-[/color][/indent][/hider]
[hider=// PERSONALITY][indent][SUB][b]P E R S O N A L I T Y[/b][/sub]

[sup][COLOR=SILVER][b]Sheltered[/b]
[COLOR=#807B84]Having done most of her growing up in a solitary block of her home, Dot does not boast a particular broad understanding of the world. Sure, she had tutors for writing and mathematics, but she never learned the fine details of international relations, and the dance of courtroom politics was one for which she simply didn’t have the rhythm. She knows things are tense in the world, and that Alexandria is, allegedly, so much better than Grayle, but in all honestly she doesn’t very much care for either of them. Why should she? They never cared for her.[/COLOR][/COLOR]

[COLOR=SILVER][b]Curious[/b]
[COLOR=#807B84]Of course, a disinterest in world politics doesn’t preclude an interest in the world itself. You can’t spend years in one place and [i]not[/i] want to see what’s outside. Nor can you spend as much time interacting with very few people and [i]not[/i] want to make friends. Dot sees friendship as a beautiful flower waiting to be plucked on the other side of a river—she just can’t swim yet. Solitude might have stamped her adventurous spirit into the dirt, but plenty of things can grow from dirt with a little time and a nurturing hand.[/COLOR][/COLOR]

[COLOR=SILVER][b]Hang It All[/b]
[COLOR=#807B84]Disillusionment was sewn into Dot very early, and its roots grew deep. What was once a starry-eyed thirst for glory and adventure has devolved into a bitter cynicism befitting someone much older and world-weary. Dot hasn’t seen the world, but as far as she’s concerned, people are the same pretty much everywhere—they look out for themselves, and will bury anyone for the sake of their own ambitions. 

She harbors a burning resentment for the aristocracy, with a particular disdain for royalty. In her dreams their castles lay in ruins and their thrones sit empty. And yet, she cannot shake her fascination with knighthood, for which she blames Adean’s own fixation with honor and battle. Knights, she thinks—prays, even—are the exception. They live by codes, they don’t just fight for who’s in charge, they fight for good. They help the innocent. They right wrongs. They bring justice to the unjust. 

Dot wouldn’t mind meting out that justice herself.[/COLOR][/COLOR]
[/SUP][/indent][/hider]
[hider=// SKILLSET][indent][SUB][b]S K I L L S E T[/b][/sub]

[sup][COLOR=SILVER][b]Isolated Training[/b]
[COLOR=#807B84]Dot could write her name with both hands at the same time, backwards. Whether this skill was learned or came naturally is uncertain, but being cooped up at nearly all hours of the day left her with plenty of time to develop it. Coupled with a keen sense of hand-eye coordination, this made for phenomenal groundwork when her brother began training her in swordplay. Adean’s teachers were many, and skilled, and Dot accepted the funnel of their collective knowledge voraciously. She learned quickly, fixating on every lesson, working the hobby into a passion over years of practice. Unfortunately, she never got the chance to put her training to use at home, but Adean was proud of her progress, and that was enough for her. 

Presently, Dot favors a rapier in each hand, and tends to prefer offense to defense.[/COLOR][/COLOR]

[COLOR=SILVER][b]Dancer[/b]
[COLOR=#807B84]Dot’s room was very close to where the court entertainers would practice, and so she frequently found opportunities to observe, listen, and occasionally dance along to the music. Over time this frivolous hobby grew into practicality; in addition to building lean muscle, Dot displays a phenomenal sense of balance and agility, able to move unencumbered in frilled dresses and patched-up rags alike.

Naturally, she incorporated this into her training with Adean, despite his protests. According to him, dancing was elegant but too pretty, and fighting was supposed to be ugly and brutal. Of course, Dot was more stubborn than sensible, and while she ceased trying to pirouette in their sparring bouts, she never gave up the grace. Amateurish and unorthodox as she may be, there is an undeniably effectiveness in the bedrock of her style, it just needs some time and proper training to unearth.[/COLOR][/COLOR]

[COLOR=SILVER][b]Disgraced by Light[/b]
[COLOR=#807B84]While some of her hobbies were indulged, the one thing Dot was always forbidden from meddling with was her affinity for Light magic. Her father wouldn’t stand to see it, and her mother, not wanting to upset him further, stood with him. This, of course, did not dissuade Dot, who couldn’t envision a world in which she was somehow [i]more[/i] of a disappointment. So with tremendous effort and more than a few harsh punishments, she managed to eke out a meager study in what few light incantations she could get her hands on, but even then her results were mixed at best. Magic was [i]hard[/i], go figure, and it was far beyond Dot’s capabilities to teach herself its complexities by candlelight in the wee hours between dusk and dawn. With the right tutelage, she’s sure that will change.[/COLOR][/COLOR]

[/SUP][/indent][/hider]
[/cell][cell][b]Physical Description[/b]
[color=#807B84][indent]Of average height, slight but leanly muscled, toss a little dirt on her cheeks and Dot looks the part of a rugged youth, despite having grown up in a literal castle. Her dark hair is chopped short, and she possesses a stony yet serene countenance, cracked only under pressure, or when given something sweet. Like her siblings, she carries almost none of her father’s hard features, and knows that before long she will look very much like her mother—a thought that thrilled her once, but no longer. 

Her clothes are not quite rags, but are still simple and offer ease of movement. She wears cloaks often, having always favored the flowing nature they granted to her dancing, and now preferring how they obscure her movements. Hoods, gloves, and boots are also not uncommon, mainly because she owns little else, and she’s been instructed that more coverage is better. 

It would be hard to see nobility in Dot at a glance, but in motion she displays a sort of grace unbefitting of street urchins. She doesn’t move like a knight, nor entirely like a dancer either, but rather in some awkward amalgamation of the two. Time and training may yet refine it into something effective and beautiful.[/indent][/color]
[b]Character Conceptualization[/b]
[color=#807B84][indent]Lord Heron Auferrum was a proud man, with a proud lineage and a proud legacy. He wore his family’s colors with pride, he ruled his subjects with pride, he combed his moustache with pride. The people of the Ferrous Shore were proud to call him lord, his sons were proud to call him father. At night he would stand in front of a mirror and tell himself just how proud he was to be Lord Heron Auferrum, and then he would climb into bed and dream that penitent Maria herself would descend to pat him on the head and say that she was proud of him too.  

At least that’s how Dot imagined it from her hole in the castle. 

Often times the lastborn child of nobility is doted upon, shirking all responsibility, but still managing to bask in the glory of their name and reap all its benefits. In a way that was true, Dot’s third brother was lazy and witless and did next to nothing and yet he would be recorded in the Auferrum records with beautiful marks. 

Unlike him, though, Dot was a bastard. 

Not Lord Heron’s bastard, no. His wife, the venerable Lady Lesca, had been exchanging love letters with an anonymous member of the Grayle family, and on a certain diplomatic visit to their neighbors, sealed them with a kiss. 

At first this was not a problem. Despite Heron’s strong bloodline, all of his children most strongly resembled their mother, and Dot was no exception. It wasn’t until the discovery of her magical affinity that things took a turn for the worse. Her father was crestfallen, her mother was mortified, and two of her brothers were quick to write her out of the family. Adean, the middle brother, felt sorry for her and still called her sister, but as second in line his say was ignored. 

Blessedly, no one outside of the immediate family knew, and Heron was desperate to keep it that way. He had his daughter confined. At the age of five, Dot’s world shrank to the size of her room, expanding only occasionally to other cramped areas of the castle. Her only visitors were the guards that brought her food, the tutors who disappeared if she told them her secret, her mother—though that became less and less frequent over the years—and daily visits from Adean. With few feasible hobbies, Dot spent a lot of time daydreaming about being free, seeing the world, living out the adventures in the books she hoarded. But eventually those dreams soured. Childlike wonder withered early for her, and she became moody and resentful of everyone, even Adean—though she always felt guilty when she snapped at him, and he always came back the next day anyway. Adean tried to ease the gloom. He taught her swordplay, and brought her to dance while the musicians practiced, when he could sneak her out, but for every bright moment he gave her, there were always hours of silence to follow. 

Eventually he decided enough was enough. Dot wasn’t sure how exactly it happened, but her brother managed to leak her secret to the court, and from there it spread like wildfire. Lord Heron Auferrum, proud descendent of the penitent witch, renowned knight of Alexandria, had been cuckolded by the fucking [i]Grayles[/i]. Mockery and contempt rained down upon their house, and in a matter of weeks their standing had begun to crumble. Heron raged, demanding duels from all those who darted impugn his honor, and though he managed to lay a few hecklers low on the field, the rest simply ignored him. 

It was too much. Heron had his wife exiled, and in a fever of newfound hatred for his countrymen, sent Dot “back where she belonged.” Adean and the rest of her brothers were now the ones confined to the castle, until he could manage to find them suitable prospects for marriage so that he might, slowly, begin to rebuild the Auferrum name. 

Armed with a humble pouch of coin, Dot was sent to Grayle as a “Grudge-Born-Gift,” which seemed in all practicality to be synonymous with “soon-to-be-prisoner” or, perhaps like her mother, “exile.” Alexandria despised her, and Grayle, she was sure, would carry no love for a bastard whose mere existence called the royal family’s honor into question. The only thing saving her from the gutters, or worse, living in another small room as a political hostage no one wanted, was her affinity for Light magic. Regardless of her dubious birth, turning away a rare gift, even one given out of spite, was surely unwise. 

Dot found little resistance in her decision to try for knighthood. It seemed girls joining was something of an open secret, discouraged but not rigorously policed. “Cut your hair, wear baggy clothes,” they said, “and don’t piss around anyone.” It didn’t sound so tough, and for a brief moment Dot felt the world open up just a bit more. 

But the feeling didn’t last. Dread was more familiar. She was used to closed doors, and it was only a matter of time before this one shut, too.[/indent][/color]
[b]Other Information[/b]
[color=#807B84][indent]Questions of Dot's parentage travel briefly up the chain of command before being stonewalled. Though her roots in the Grayle bloodline are undeniable, it would seem someone is protecting the identity of her father—or perhaps, protecting themselves. 
[/indent][/color]
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