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“Always one step ahead of death, just one step out of reach. But even so...here I stand.”


N A M E
Etoile Lécuyer
Émilie Couer (alias)

A G E
27

O R I G I N
Iquenos nobility

V I S A G E
Slim and slight and standing just beneath 5'7" with relatively undefined muscular tone, Etoile honestly doesn't look much like a soldier, and that fits her just fine. Though previous she carried herself erect and at attention at all times from her training, she's fought herself down into a more relaxed way to better blend in, and her crisp, snapping strides have gone the same way as her posture. Now instead of her hard-soled dress shoes, she wears a pair of tough leather boots, worn and patched in several places.

Her head of blonde hair, previously cut into sharp bangs, with more falling to the sides of her face in distinctive long chunks, has been chopped further, coming to rest messily at around the base of her neck. To further distance herself from what she once looked like, she tends to tie it up in a small, messy bun. Nearby are her eyes, a cold stormy-gray. They are narrow and calculating, always roving around as though she's always watchful for something or other.

Over the months following the disastrous event that removed Etoile from the Inquisition, she's piecemeal replaced every article of clothing she owned. Now she carries in her bag a set of plain green clothes, as well as a heavier set for winters and a long, cream-colored cloak. The picture is completed with her gloved hands, worn as such to hide the nature of her right arm, which is steel-colored metal all the way up to the shoulder. The joints glimmer faintly with ether when stretched, and engraved prominently on the shoulder is the crest of House Lécuyer.

P E R S O N A L I T Y T R A I T S
Calm. Collected. Unflappable. A gods-damned ice queen. These were just some of the descriptors used to describe Etoile by her subordinates in the past, and most are, or at least were, accurate. She is a cool-headed woman, thinking through the consequences of any given course of events extensively before taking action as long as she has the opportunity to do so. She is generally slow and methodical in her approach to problems, which can certainly lead to issues making quick decisions, and certainly has. She's quite a cold person as well; judgmental and disdainful, she is not afraid to let someone know exactly what she thinks about them. All that being said, she's become quite a bit more practical and pragmatic than she used to be, her worries about reputation and status having mostly been ground away over the past year or so.

Still, she's not just cold logic and practicality. Much of her personality finds its roots in a massive inferiority complex towards her elder brother, Edmund Lécuyer. She's struggled with this on and off throughout most of her life, and it's a lot of what set her along the course that her life eventually took. That leads into her final cardinal personality trait: she's stubborn. Incredibly so. Trying to alter her from a course of action that she's decided upon is like trying to stop a charging bull with a piece of tissue paper.

L I F E E X P E R I E N C E S
Etoile was on the path of conflict with the Ecclesiae and the rest of the Inquisitors from the moment she enlisted in their military. Of course, she didn't become an officer entirely on her own merits; though they were the majority of the reason, it certainly didn't hurt being of the Lécuyer noble family.

But let's backtrack some, because her story starts long before she became that officer.

The Lécuyer noble house had never been a military family. And when she was young, the second child Etoile had little interest in changing that. But as is the way of siblings, she felt a constant competitiveness with her brother Edmund, five years older than she was. And when he became an apprentice Inquisitor at thirteen years old, the eight year old Etoile had no chance. Praise was heaped on him, and she became a ghost in her own house as just a child. And so with a child's logic, she decided she would become an Inquisitor too. As she aged her logic grew more sound, until at twelve years old—a year younger than Edmund, that voice inside her still whispered—she pulled the trigger and joined up.

Her apprenticeship under one Salion Cherin was uneventful for the first two years. But when she was fourteen years old the cataclysmic final battle on the Eileithyia took place. She watched it happen from a safe distance. She was too young for real combat, of course, Salion had said. So instead of participating in the fighting itself, she found herself growing curious in the logistics of a struggle like this. The organization of troops. The strategies executed. The consequences upon a success or failure. And so as she aged and this curiosity grew into a full-on interest in all things tactics, she isolated herself from most real combat. Though there were places here and there, she spent a large part educating herself and being educated in military strategy.

It was in one of those rare stints of active combat—a raid on a small village called Hellion—that she lost her arm. While she wasn't bad at fighting, per se, she was also only seventeen. And so when a malum-enhanced hulking monster that might have once been a human bore down on her, she was unable to stop it from ripping her arm from her shoulder. The injury obviously took her out of training and study for a while before she was fitted with an advanced prosthetic that drew power from the ether in the air all around her. By the time she had recovered enough to return to her study, she was eighteen years old.

Time went on as time must do, and at twenty three years old she had come into her own as a powerful scholaris magi. At one point during that year, she was tasked with leading a small group to...eliminate a small malificarum holdout. It went off easily, without a hitch, and she was given commendation on how effectively she'd performed in her duties. All the praise turned sour, though, as in her room, underneath her pillow, was a book she hadn't quite had time to read all the way through just yet. A manifesto, of sorts, and a history book she'd taken on a whim from the malificara, just before everything else had been set ablaze. And though she hadn't had time to read it through all the way, she'd read it through enough to know that something was wrong. The accounts contained therein were strange; mutually exclusive with the heroic image that Januarius presented himself with. So then Etoile did the one thing that would seal her fate:

She started to dig.

Nothing major, really; asking subtle questions here and there when she traveled, combing the stacks of libraries from Thlecia to Ordos, and everywhere in between. It took some time for her to be discovered; until the cusp of her twenty-sixth birthday. She was starting to put things together into a picture. A fuzzy picture, distorted by time and secrecy, but a picture nonetheless. Until one day she returned home and found Inquisitors waiting.

Somebody knew. They might have known from the start. And now they'd decided that she was too great a risk.

Heresy. Treason. Conspiracy. Corruption. The charges that she'd levied against others she now stared down the barrel of, and of course the punishment was death. She almost laughed. She'd been unsure who or what to believe. But execution? The ultimate "be quiet" tactic? Well. She knew what to believe now. It was lucky she was an Inquisitor—or, well, ex-Inquisitor—herself. She knew exactly where to go, and how to escape the ether-drained cell she found herself in. She sucked in the ether from her arm hungrily, leaving it dead, but giving her just enough to break the lock with a quick Acer Ventus. Then, leaving behind her Inquisitorial cloak, she returned to her old home to grab the ancestral Lécuyer saber Vent Tranchant, then fled off into the night.

For a little over a year now, she's been wandering, leaving pieces of her Inquisitor past behind everywhere she goes. Always moving on, never stopping in one place long enough to put down roots. For as much as she fought to leave it behind...one never knew when the past would come calling.

E L E M E N T A L A F F I N I T Y
Ventus.

A T T R I B U T E S
Scholaris Magum - Etoile's proficiency with ventus-oriented magic comes from long, dedicated study. She is highly learned about the structure of magic, but because of her rigid nature and the educated nature of her magic, she finds it difficult to improvise, relying instead on a series of predefined spells. There are several, but those listed below are her most commonly used:
Acer Ventus: Etoile directs a narrow gust of slicing wind at any object she has direct line of sight on, though the effort to use it is increased with distance. Can cut through quite a few durable objects such as metal and stone.
Densus Ventus: Using this spell, Etoile can render air hyperdense, rendering it solid. Though it remains as such for no more than a minute or so, she can also manipulate it with her mind during this state. Used often for crossing gaps with bridges of air.
Gladius Ventus: Etoile enhances her sabre using a slight modification of the Acer Ventus spell, creating a lengthy Acer Ventus a centimetre or so directly in front of the blade, enhancing its cutting power.
Impulsus Ventus: Though it looks basic, this spell is deceptively difficult for Etoile to use. She holds out a hand and forces an immensely powerful blast of wind out of it, applying concussive force to anything in its path.
Tractus Ventus: The inverse of Impulsus Ventus to some extent, Tractus Ventus applies a similar powerful force to whatever is in front of her. Instead of a push, however, it's a pulling force, allowering her to yank people or objects towards her.
Frendeo Ventus: One of the more powerful spells Etoile has at her disposal, Frendeo Ventus crushes whatever she targets with it into the ground. While it's certainly not powerful enough to be lethal and is a strain for her to keep up for more than a few seconds, it's still a very powerful tool.
Reicio Ventus: Finishing off the spells that apply force, Reicio Ventus is something of a twist on Impulsus Ventus, blasting a powerful burst of air out all around her. While it's not as powerful as a full-on Impulsus, it's still more than enough to get herself some breathing room.
Levis Ventus: Finishing things up is a spell almost useless in combat but extremely versatile outside of it. Levis Ventus raises Etoile into the air, holding her there a moment before dropping her back down. This can be held with some strain, and combined with an Impulsus Ventus, allows her to completely avoid many hazards and obstacles by launching herself over them.

Swordsmanship - Etoile was a soldier until very recently, and was quite good at her job. She is a rather skilled swordswoman; though it wasn't her focus by any means, that's not to say she isn't a competent threat. She uses a slim, curved sabre, a family heirloom known as Vent Tranchant, when fighting is necessary.

Learned - As described above, Etoile gained her skill in magic through long study. However, her study was not limited to magic; she was expected to be both a noblewoman and an officer at the same time. Thus, while her street-smarts are debatable, she is highly intelligent and knows a great deal of natural science and logical reasoning, as well as being a bit of a literature buff by her own admission.

Prosthetic - Several years ago, she lost an arm during a military campaign gone wrong. Since then, her right arm has been replaced by an ether-powered prosthetic crafted of silver metal and engraved with the crest of house Lécuyer, rendering it quite durable and entirely immune to pain. However, it also draws attention very easily.

Strategic - As an officer in the military, Etoile became quite skillful in tactics and strategy. She is particularly skillful at deducing ambushes before they can occur, and at large troop movements.
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“Stay still, please, that's a good little boy. This won't hurt a bit.”


N A M E
Perfidia Mothwax

A G E
24

O R I G I N
Dryadalis

V I S A G E
Perfidia is a short young woman, all told. Not much taller than kids years younger than she is, she certainly doesn't look like she's in her mid-twenties. People have asked her, even, if she's lost, or where her parents are. And this isn't particularly improved by the waterfall of pale green hair that tumbles down her shoulders and back, reaching nearly to the floor. This frames her youthful face, which is

P E R S O N A L I T Y T R A I T S
Calm. Collected. Unflappable. A gods-damned ice queen. These were just some of the descriptors used to describe Etoile by her subordinates in the past, and most are, or at least were, accurate. She is a cool-headed woman, thinking through the consequences of any given course of events extensively before taking action as long as she has the opportunity to do so. She is generally slow and methodical in her approach to problems, which can certainly lead to issues making quick decisions, and certainly has. She's quite a cold person as well; judgmental and disdainful, she is not afraid to let someone know exactly what she thinks about them. All that being said, she's become quite a bit more practical and pragmatic than she used to be, her worries about reputation and status having mostly been ground away over the past year or so.

Still, she's not just cold logic and practicality. Much of her personality finds its roots in a massive inferiority complex towards her elder brother, Edmund Lécuyer. She's struggled with this on and off throughout most of her life, and it's a lot of what set her along the course that her life eventually took. That leads into her final cardinal personality trait: she's stubborn. Incredibly so. Trying to alter her from a course of action that she's decided upon is like trying to stop a charging bull with a piece of tissue paper.

L I F E E X P E R I E N C E S
Etoile was on the path of conflict with the Ecclesiae and the rest of the Inquisitors from the moment she enlisted in their military. Of course, she didn't become an officer entirely on her own merits; though they were the majority of the reason, it certainly didn't hurt being of the Lécuyer noble family. As a fairly high-ranking member of the military when the final stand of the Magi aboard Eileithyia occurred, she became suspicious. Before then, she'd not paid them much mind; as a member of the Inquisitors, she'd been authorized to use magic in the service of Iquenos by the Ecclesiae, after all. But she'd known many of those magi for many years; due to her family, she'd had connections with many of the guilds, and she'd always found them perfectly normal, nice people, with the obvious exception of their magical abilities. Nothing heretical about them; many were, in fact, devout worshippers. So, she did the one thing that sealed her fate:

She started to dig.

Over the next decade, she would ascent in rank quite steadily and, more importantly, discover that there had never been any "dark magic" within the Nsiferum. And, inevitably, she was discovered. She was stripped of her title immediately, and sentenced to death for her heretical tendencies, and for conspiring against the Ecclesiae. Before her execution, though, she managed to slip her manacles with the addition of a well-applied gust of sharp, slicing wind, and escaped from the Church.

Now she roams the countryside, sleeping in places that she obviously finds distasteful and doing her best to stay ahead of the Inquisitors, her former colleagues, pursuing her, and those stationed in pretty much every town and village, which her prideful nature makes...difficult, especially on those occasions that she refuses to remove her immaculately-kept old uniform. It is largely due to pure dumb luck that she is still alive today.

E L E M E N T A L A F F I N I T Y
Malum

A T T R I B U T E S
Artificem Magum - Fidia has a somewhat unusual combat style. Instead of using a rod, or a sword, or a spear, she focuses her malum magic through a series of four razor-sharp blades attached to durable ribbons attached to her shoulders.

Swordsmanship - While nowhere near as skillful as most, Etoile can hold her own against an opponent that hasn't been formally trained due to her status as a military officer. She uses a slim, curved sabre, a family heirloom known as Vent de Trancheuse, when fighting is necessary.

Learned - As described above, Etoile gained her skill in magic through long study. However, her study was not limited to magic; she was expected to be both a noblewoman and an officer at the same time. Thus, while her street-smarts are debatable, she is highly intelligent and knows a great deal of natural science and logical reasoning, as well as being a bit of a literature buff by her own admission.

Prosthetic - Several years ago, she lost an arm during a military campaign gone wrong. Since then, her right arm has been replaced by an ether-powered prosthetic crafted of silver metal and engraved with the crest of house Lécuyer, rendering it quite durable and entirely immune to pain. However, it also draws attention very easily.

Strategic - As an officer in the military, Etoile became quite skillful in tactics and strategy. She is particularly skillful at deducing ambushes before they can occur, and at large troop movements.
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Physical Description
A sixteen year old just a hair under 5'2", Lina Massey is a short little kiddo. She's altogether incredibly average in terms of build, slender and petite as befits a young teenage girl. Her greatest distinguishing mark is her bright strawberry-blonde hair (she thinks that it's pretty), which falls to around mid-back, usually tied up in a ponytail in waking life. It's exceptionally messy and hard to control sometimes, but she embraces the chaos (she thinks it makes her look cool) and doesn't pay too much attention to how it's worn as long as it doesn't get caught on something and get yanked. Her face is kind and open, and ninety percent of the time, it's plastered with that gunpowder smile so typical of her. Her pale skin is covered in little scars, way more than most girls her age have, just because she's so good at accidentally injuring herself in creative ways. She's always bouncing her knee or tapping her fingers, always trying to find some way to let out the wellspring of energy that's always burning inside her.

The Pariah version of Lina isn't altogether different from what she looks like IRL. A little taller, maybe? her hair is definitely a little bit longer, and instead of looking disheveled it actually does look chaotically fun. Her build is the same, as is the near-constant bright-eyed smile. The jeans and tanktop are replaced with a short robe, tall boots, and a big ol' wizard hat, capped with a bright ribbon, that sits atop her head. She wears her weapon—her spellcasting focus, really—around her wrists, focus bangles instead of focus rings (she tried using rings for a while, but she kept needing to replace them after she lost them repeatedly), brilliant rose gold bracelets each set with a single bright red ruby. She habitually fiddles with them, almost constantly (she remains exactly as twitchy as she is IRL).

Character Conceptualization
It's not uncommon for those meeting Lina for the first time to assume that something awful happened to her. That something turned her life upside down, and that's why she acts so happy and dumb so much of the time; a coping mechanism, to ignore whatever darkness is in her past.

It's also not uncommon for those people to be confused when they discover that she's just a happy little idiot.

And she was always a happy kid, even way back when she was little. An only child, she was pretty much the sole occupant of both parents' time, and she had a really good relationship with them, all told. The worst thing that's happened to Lina is, when she was maybe ten years old, her mom Marian discovered that her husband was cheating on her and had been for a while. One thing led to another, and before long, Marian won custody of Lina and kicked him to the curb. She lived with her mom from then on. But the two of them certainly wasn't badly off, given how much her mom made as a pediatrician. And she'd always liked her mom more anyway. She always made time for her, and was...really, in all respects she was a model parent.

Which is good. Because otherwise Lina's atrocious grades would probably have stretched her to the point of snapping.

That's not to say she let her grades go out of laziness. On the contrary, actually: she tried. She really, really tried. But ninety percent of the time, things just did not click for her. Even in middle school they were pretty bad. Her essays were rambling messes. Her math was slipshod and shoddy at best and completely off base at worst. Languages just skated off her skull. And it was the same with basically every subject. She stayed after classes; talked to teachers. Her mom even hired a tutor for her. And it helped enough for her grades to be at least passing. But no more; among other things, her attention span was just far too short.

And of course, high school has been even worse for her thus far. Midway into her freshman year now, she's been beating her head against the wall of education with a great deal of vigor. And seeing that she was...well, not miserable, it's not certain that Lina being miserable is possible, but put out, she ended up buying Lina a proprietary peripheral for this new game on the market called Pariah. She's been playing it in between trying her best in school, and it's actually been helping her grades, helping get that energy out so she can focus a little better.

It's, uh...not quite helping anymore.

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Physical Details
Sirona was the runt of the proverbial litter, even before the lab. She started short, and never grew much at any one point. She's only five feet now, and she doesn't seem to be growing much right now. Maybe someday. Not today. Indeed, her build follows suit. At sixteen, she still looks like a thirteen or fourteen year old. Perhaps it's because of persistent malnutrition and poor treatment during her formative years; perhaps it's simply how she is. Her muscle mass is lacking, but it's quite a bit greater now than it was; while she never served as boots-on-the-ground, she was still member of the military, after all. Her skin is ghost-white and lined here and there with extremely fine, almost invisible lines of scar tissue.

A waterfall of dark brown hair cascades down her back. She probably has too much of it, but after it was chopped and kept short for an extended period of time, she's become rather protective of it, and has trouble letting it be cut. She has a round, heart-shaped face, set with chocolate brown eyes that betray both a deep-held sense of fundamental sadness, as well as a constant guarded caution against the world around her, always afraid that her past will come calling again.

And finally, a special mention goes to her grand coping mechanism, what keeps her from totally breaking down: the smile. The small, contented-looking smile that seems as though it's burned into her face. She's worn it for so long, she's almost forgotten how her face feels without it. If it's dropped for any reason, her emotional state is in such disarray that something very, very bad is happening or about to happen.

She has a relatively small wardrobe, but large enough that she can wear something different every day as long as she washes her clothes consistently. Overall, she prefers muted colors over bright ones; blacks, whites, shades of gray, navy blues, and such.

Background Information



Polaris Shift
Sirona already has trouble with terrible memories coming up at random, and her Polaris Shift does not help. It afflicts her with a kind of...temporal dissociation. Her awareness of time slips briefly, and memories blur together like smearing paint, sending her into a state of confusion and often panic as pieces of her past start to overlap both each other and her waking life. Memories that relate with strong emotional states are very much the most common to come back to her, and so a great majority of these moments are memories of pain and fear from her time in the laboratory. This has grown steadily worse; now instead of just isolated moments commonly occurring as a response to trauma triggers, she also occasionally has full-blown episodes that can last anywhere from five minutes to half an hour spent in absolute panic, sending her into long strings of begging and pleading to people that simply are not there.

Personal Mission
Above all else, Sirona wants desperately to be safe.

Trapped for so long in so many ways, literally or figuratively, Sirona feels constantly exposed. Like she's always being watched, always been watched, and always deeply unsafe. Her past is full of shadows—the doctors from L1, the military of Fairbanks, the last look that she took at her sleeping sister—that loom over her like so many swords of Damocles. So her ultimate goal, even if she doesn't quite know it, is to lift those swords away, one by one. She may never be able to rid herself of them all. She may never feel completely comfortable. The past may always haunt her through her nightmares.

But it shouldn't need to control her any longer.
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Physical Details
Standing at 5'11" and lean, Mia cuts a recognizable figure as she walks into the room. Slightly wavy and pale brown hair habitually tied up into a loose low ponytail—she has a tendency to fidget with it—and tanned, callused skin contrast themselves quite nicely around the eyepatch that clings to the scarred wreck that her right eye has been turned into. Jagged lines of white scar tissue peak shyly out from just underneath the patch. Her slim build has been reinforced with tight, lean whipcord muscle. She's not quite as strong as she used to be, since she can't push herself nearly as hard due to her shift, but she is absolutely still quite fit.

Her eyes are a piercing brown-black and dart around with a striking degree of speed. Though she's held at a general relaxed friendliness, it's not particularly difficult to see how tense she is at any given moment, and the cheerful smile on her face can collapse into itself at any given moment. All it would take is the space between heartbeats for her to tear the handgun from her hip, draw a bead, and fire in one smooth movement.

She wears casual, functional clothing for the most part. There's no point in trying to hide the holster, so she mostly wears things like tanktops and jeans. The faster she can move in combat, or the faster she can jump into her cockpit, the faster things get done. And she knows from long, long experience that a second is the difference between winning and dying.

Background Information
Message received
Mia A. Hartley (Lyssa)


Donovan,

I think I told you I was doing this, right? Going back through all of the video logs and finding a few of the really important ones? Well, here they all are. Was a hell of a time compositing them all, but got 'em all done. Fun stuff.

Oh, and try not to share it with the other Furies, okay? I know we're tight, you and I, but you know I can still be scary when I want to, and if Anya gets her hands on this I'm gonna be PISSED.

Gotta say though, it's been weird as hell to see my right eye again.









Polaris Shift
Mia's been a pilot for a long, long time, so it's lucky for her that her Shift is pretty mild compared to a lot of others. No debilitating sickness, no mental lapses, no panic attacks or personality bleed. No, her Shift has steadily removed her sense of touch. When she first started, she would just get numb fingers after fullsync, the kind you get in cold weather, that would last for a few hours before sensation would return. But after years and years of rigorous and constant military work, she's reached the point of permanent full-body numbness. She needs to be really careful how she exercises, how she moves; she can't box anymore or anything, and she tries to let other people do the cooking instead of her since she can't feel the burns. But all told, she tells herself, it's not too bad. She's seen worse.

Much, much worse.

Personal Mission
Mia is an old hand at this. She's been though a lot of good times, and a lot of bad times. And much of her life has been spent and devoted to her home, Tartarus Squadron. She's done a lot of bad things, and she knows that very well. But that doesn't mean a damn thing to her. Because all she wants right now is—Commander AWOL, Melinoë unassigned, massive friction between members—is to keep Tartarus Squadron together. Because if she doesn't, she just doesn't know what she's going to do anymore.
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Physical Details
Quinn is a shortish girl, no more than 5'3" in height, with an extremely ordinary build. Despite that, she is extremely recognizable whenever she walks into the room thanks to a few very specific and unusual pieces of her appearance. And first and foremost is her hair. While dark gray streaked with yellow isn't exactly impossible, is is highly unusual. But moreso is the sheer volume of said hair. When tied up in a tight (if large) braid, it ends up going down to her upper thighs. Untied, it goes all the way halfway down her calves. Needless to say, she keeps it braided near permanently to avoid tripping over her own hair. She's reasonably athletic, another piece of her that is fairly average; but that average is applied to the average of a teenage girl, so she's not going to be running a marathon any time soon.

Next are her eyes. Or, well, her eye, singular. Only her left eye is intact, and it is a bright, sharp, violent yellow, wide and expressive, roving around with constant curiosity. By contrast, the other side of her face displays a black eyepatch, dyed here and there with goldenrod yellow. Faint echoes of scar tissue peek out from underneath, barely hinting at the mangled, mutilated mess that sits where her eye socket used to.

For the most part, she wears functional clothing; not out of any real desperate need, but simply because it's her taste. She's never really liked super restrictive fancy clothing. As a general rule, she likes duller, darker shades much more over bright colors or pastels. When asked for a reason, she simply claims that dull colors set off against her eye and hair a bit better, and that anything else would look weird.

Background Information
Quinn Loughvein's background is a bit mysterious, all told. With the exception of her parents, nobody really knows much about it, especially her. And she certainly doesn't want to spend much time around her parents. What can be loosely speculated is that she was born in Denver-Vegas in the summer of 2662, upon which her parents immediately tested her for NC compatibility. And upon discovering she was neurally compatible, they began feeding her and pumping her with a staggering array of neurochemicals and other morally dubious drugs in an effort to crank her neural compatibility up: to turn her into the ultimate NC pilot. She was steered away from ever leaving their sight; and so never being exposed to the world.

Unfortunately for her parents, working where they did meant working reasonably closely to Rebecca Darroux, the poster child of the jerk with a heart of gold. And, on top of that...canny. She noticed that there were some things wrong with the Loughveins; they were exceptionally cagey, so it took more or less eight years. But when she did notice, she decided to tail them with a drone to figure out exactly what was going on.

She did.

She called them in the next day and reamed them, tearing them apart for their mistreatment and giving them an ultimatum: either they give child up and forfeit parental rights, or she'd see them in court. With all the evidence she needed from the drone footage.

Of course, it was obvious to everyone that 'court' was a sham in a city like this. But Becca had a bit more cachet and notoriety; and thus, she made the rules.

It took a bit for parental rights to be ceded; and during the process, Becca decided to spend some time with the child to avoid leaving her alone with her parents. She didn't know exactly what had cause her to have an eyepatch at eight, but whatever it was, it was not good, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know. But then...something interesting happened: She got attached.

Quinn's life changed unbelievably quickly as soon as she found herself adopted by Becca. She chose to keep the name Loughvein; it just felt wrong to leave it behind. She was a child, after all. And her life going forward was...nice. Sure, Becca had her share of detractors. But she'd never been anything but wonderful to Quinn, and as time went on, to Delia as well.

Rebecca hoped that she could keep Quinn out of the NCs permanently; completely disregarding that pilots typically didn't live very long, she didn't know the full range of effects that the drugs that Luke and Shannon had given her had. But it was fruitless, because Quinn gravitated to them in the end; and at 15, she became one of the younger pilots out there. The notably sensitive Quinn didn't fare too well on the battlefield, but she was a pretty skilled pilot, and DV probably wasn't going to let her go easy.

To make a long story short, Becca eventually bought her out of the military. It wasn't exactly cheap, and it wasn't exactly easy; but Quinn was much, much happier. But still...she loved piloting, but didn't want to be in the military. So...what?

It was then that Becca put in her head the idea--the contract was free now--to leave DV, and go freelancing.

So she did.

She's been doing so for a little while now, and has happened across Lost Hope.

(She still calls Becca every night).

Polaris Shift
Quinn's a little bit of a special case in the way she thinks about her Shift. Not only does it not bother her overly much, but...she actually likes it.

Quinn's Shift manifests as a voice inside her head. As far as anybody can tell, it's got nothing to do with personality drift regarding any old pilots of Ablaze, it has nothing to do with anybody else at all. More likely it's just a kind of persistent psychosis. But whatever the cause, the manifestation remains the same: there's another person inside of Quinn's head, or at least that's how she puts it.

This personality--who she says also wants to be called Quinn and so she that's what Quinn calls her--as far as can be gleaned, is rather different from the Quinn that most people know. That bouncy positivity is markedly absent. In the fragments of conversations that can be observed, she seems much more cynical and aggressive. But regardless, Quinn seems to put a great deal of stock into the other Quinn's opinions and thoughts. And not only that. Quinn has...

...She's made friends with it.

A small side effect of her Shift and this bizarre situation is that Quinn can sometimes have difficulty in knowing whether she's talking to her internal Quinn through thoughts, or spoken out loud. Sometimes she'll cut in and out of a conversation, bits and pieces of it out loud and the rest remaining unspoken. It can be someone disconcerting at times.

Personal Mission
Above all else, Sirona wants desperately to be safe.

Trapped for so long in so many ways, literally or figuratively, Sirona feels constantly exposed. Like she's always being watched, always been watched, and always deeply unsafe. Her past is full of shadows—the doctors from L1, the military of Fairbanks, the last look that she took at her sleeping sister—that loom over her like so many swords of Damocles. So her ultimate goal, even if she doesn't quite know it, is to lift those swords away, one by one. She may never be able to rid herself of them all. She may never feel completely comfortable. The past may always haunt her through her nightmares.

But it shouldn't need to control her any longer.
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_______________________________________________


Physical Description
Ah, Lady Luenciel. To say that she cuts a striking figure would be something of an understatement. Much taller than her poor late mother was, she falls nearly to her father's height at an unusual and surprising 174cm. More intriguing is that she looks nothing like either of them, really; where her parents have tan skin, dark hair, dark eyes, Luen is none of those things. Whispers throughout the courts told of the Navietas child, born under an unlucky star, bleached of color, and light, and life. Quiet. Watching. Waiting. And everyone knows so little about this ill-fated child. Age, creed, name, even gender; all hazy and indistinct. Her father's reticence is proof: something about the second child of House Navietas is wrong.

Though, that's not quite the truth. As far as Lady Luenciel Navietas knows...she's simply unlucky.

Nobody quite knows why she looks the way she does. Not her family, not the soothsayers her father sought, not the books that she's read. But it's probably not from some kind of magical curse like people assume she has or is. Her ghost-pale skin; her stark icepick-white hair; her narrow eyes, dyed a vivid sanguine crimson; just how she is. A strange, unfortunate twist of fate that would perhaps not be called normal, but...harmless.

Tall, lithe, slender. Stick thin and skinny. While once upon a time she wore them openly, she tends to hide these aspects as best she can now, obscuring them with voluminous, billowing cloaks. Lucky she is indeed that she has very little obviously visible curvature, though underneath her clothing, she wears a well-kept, tightly wrapped sarashi to, as she would put it, "tighten everything up." Always best to ensure no clothing laying oddly on what should be a slender boy's frame gives her away, after all. What an embarrassing way to be exposed that would be. Her long, high cheekbones can give her a haughty, arrogant look that she tries her best to avoid.

Since determining her own fate to be a knight (or at least a cadet), she's had to change the way she carries herself quite a bit. Though she can't avoid the graceful, gliding steps that are so baked into her now, the primness in her bearing has gone the way of her her once-habitual curtsies and urge to take up less space. The urges are still there—one does not simply shrug off the years—but she's become quite practiced at avoiding them now.

...For the most part.

Character Conceptualization
Asceron Navietas, Lord of a military family, is a man stricken by grief. His first child, Dicen, was a fine young man. He would've been eighteen now, by Asceron's reckoning. But he was taken young. Not by fire. Not by war. A strange fever that refused to break ravaged him, turning his tall, fit form into a shivering, wasted thing before finally, mercifully, letting him slip softly away into the night. And that, on top of his wife dying soon after childbirth years before, giving him his second child: a girl, who she named Luenciel before she passed. And a bizarre child she was; from the moment she opened her crimson eyes, Asceron knew that something was strange. And when her hair grew in stark and white, he was ever more concerned for her.

Her strange appearance, and Asceron's grief at Enuiel's passing, caused her life to be sheltered, secluded one from the beginning. And the spreading rumors—no doubt house staff who'd caught glimpses of white hair and red eyes, Asceron thought—convinced him quite well that he was right to do so. The outside wasn't just indifferent to her. It was outright hostile.

For years, she sought solace in her father and her brother. Though...at one point, her uncle came to visit. She'd never seen him before, but...he seemed nice, right? And the rumors hadn't truly found their way to her yet. He saw his niece, one of the very few that Asceron had let see her at all. He was nice. Gave her candy, patted her on the head, went to bed, and...the next morning, tripped and fell down the stairs. Broke his neck. And just like that, dead.

More grief from Asceron. Condolences from Dicen. And...confusion from the seven-year-old Luenciel.

A few years later, an elderly woman who lived next door to their house broke several bones from a fall and couldn't get up. She lived alone, and her voice wasn't loud enough. Unable to move, she stayed there until she died.

A year after that, a vendor hawking his wares in the street below seized, and his movement ceased as his heart stopped beating in his chest.

And then, when she was twelve...Dicen.

So very grief-wracked now, Asceron kept Luen inside not just for her own sake, but for his own. As strange as she looked, she was his last family. He wanted so desperately to keep her close. And though nobles came and went, events were held and released from the manor of the Navietas—though he told her to stay in her room, flashes of her were noticed, just barely, and the rumors intensified—the years passed, and Luen remained.

By now, though, she'd heard the rumors. So, so many of them. Enough that she started to believe them some: that her being around someone put them in danger. So she looked at her father. She looked at his glaive on the wall. She looked inward. Did she really want to be locked away like this for her whole life?

No. No, she wanted to make something of herself. She wanted to see the outside for herself. She wanted to talk to people. She wanted to escape her curse. And as she thought of these things, an ember kindled itself in her chest. What she wanted was...

...To fight.

Two more years passed in the blink of an eye. She trained with her father, learning from him how best to leverage her water magic and creating her bracers. She remained inside. And then, as she packed to leave, she sat down with her father again. She talked to him about names. About how she wouldn't be able to go by hers, and would need to find a man's name. Her father—upset she was leaving, but unable to bring himself to stop her—thought for several minutes as they sat together in silence one last time.

"...Lucien."

And so, Lucien Navietas—scion of the Navietas family and a cursed child born under an ill-fated Star—left her—his—family home. To see. To talk. To escape.

To fight.
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Physical Description
Axan Endryss Sturke. One of the more well-known mercenaries in Grayle. When people near the Alexandrian border hear the name, even if they don't recognize it, it often strikes a chord. Miss Axan.

Lady Sturke.

Firebrand.

Dragon Sellsword.

The Molten Lady

Axan has been called many different things in her life, and has lived many different lives. But all of them call back to the fire. And befitting that, she looks quite fiery herself. She's a tall young woman, but the most noticeable and recognizable of her features is her long mane of brilliant red hair.

Character Conceptualization
Asceron Navietas, Lord of a military family, is a man stricken by grief. His first child, Dicen, was a fine young man. He would've been eighteen now, by Asceron's reckoning. But he was taken young. Not by fire. Not by war. A strange fever that refused to break ravaged him, turning his tall, fit form into a shivering, wasted thing before finally, mercifully, letting him slip softly away into the night. And that, on top of his wife dying soon after childbirth years before, giving him his second child: a girl, who she named Luenciel before she passed. And a bizarre child she was; from the moment she opened her crimson eyes, Asceron knew that something was strange. And when her hair grew in stark and white, he was ever more concerned for her.

Her strange appearance, and Asceron's grief at Enuiel's passing, caused her life to be sheltered, secluded one from the beginning. And the spreading rumors—no doubt house staff who'd caught glimpses of white hair and red eyes, Asceron thought—convinced him quite well that he was right to do so. The outside wasn't just indifferent to her. It was outright hostile.

For years, she sought solace in her father and her brother. Though...at one point, her uncle came to visit. She'd never seen him before, but...he seemed nice, right? And the rumors hadn't truly found their way to her yet. He saw his niece, one of the very few that Asceron had let see her at all. He was nice. Gave her candy, patted her on the head, went to bed, and...the next morning, tripped and fell down the stairs. Broke his neck. And just like that, dead.

More grief from Asceron. Condolences from Dicen. And...confusion from the seven-year-old Luenciel.

A few years later, an elderly woman who lived next door to their house broke several bones from a fall and couldn't get up. She lived alone, and her voice wasn't loud enough. Unable to move, she stayed there until she died.

A year after that, a vendor hawking his wares in the street below seized, and his movement ceased as his heart stopped beating in his chest.

And then, when she was twelve...Dicen.

So very grief-wracked now, Asceron kept Luen inside not just for her own sake, but for his own. As strange as she looked, she was his last family. He wanted so desperately to keep her close. And though nobles came and went, events were held and released from the manor of the Navietas—though he told her to stay in her room, flashes of her were noticed, just barely, and the rumors intensified—the years passed, and Luen remained.

By now, though, she'd heard the rumors. So, so many of them. Enough that she started to believe them some: that her being around someone put them in danger. So she looked at her father. She looked at his glaive on the wall. She looked inward. Did she really want to be locked away like this for her whole life?

No. No, she wanted to make something of herself. She wanted to see the outside for herself. She wanted to talk to people. She wanted to escape her curse. And as she thought of these things, an ember kindled itself in her chest. What she wanted was...

...To fight.

Two more years passed in the blink of an eye. She trained with her father, learning from him how best to leverage her water magic and creating her bracers. She remained inside. And then, as she packed to leave, she sat down with her father again. She talked to him about names. About how she wouldn't be able to go by hers, and would need to find a man's name. Her father—upset she was leaving, but unable to bring himself to stop her—thought for several minutes as they sat together in silence one last time.

"...Lucien."

And so, Lucien Navietas—scion of the Navietas family and a cursed child born under an ill-fated Star—left her—his—family home. To see. To talk. To escape.

To fight.
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S H Y S C A
S H Y S C A

"Everything's different now. I don't understand. Is this the Divine Aeter's path for me? Was the Virtuous Mother lying to me all along?"
C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T
C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T
_________________________________________________________
C H A R A C T E R N O T E S
C H A R A C T E R N O T E S
_________________________________________________________
Shysca Celicantha is a young quarter-elf Cleric who swore herself to a faith that worships an entity known as the Divine Aeter, and was gifted powerful divine magic. She doesn't need any kind of focus, but she finds that it helps her think more clearly if she uses a long metal staff colored white to match her clothing. Why metal? Well, in addition to a kind of spellcasting focus, it's also surprisingly useful for whacking a stubborn adversary over the head.

Speaking of her magic, it's very supportive in nature these days; healing, shielding, curing, reviving. While she can unleash the smite of the Divine Aeter in a flash of white light and flame, she very much prefers not to do that, firmly believing that violence should be the final recourse.

---

"I love you so much, my little light."

It feels like it's been a lifetime since then.

"Oh wow, Shysca, did you bake that all on your own?"

Like a whole world has come and gone in the time it took to blink the memories back behind her eyes.

"Of course daddy is proud of you, my little light. How could he not be?"

...Had it really only been ten years?

The cool morning air smelled of the past. Of early morning dew and early spring frost. Of strawberry pastries and pinecones, and the wide bank of the river. It smelled of the stones that she used to skip over the gray water. She breathed deep and closed her eyes, savoring this old simple joy, and all thoughts of guilt and redemption evaporated like mist in the sun as she walked lightly through Ardenfel like a great weight was gone, like she'd never known it was there.

As she walked, she saw the children that she knew so well. Danyl on the other side of the street. Lyndii would be reading, probably, even on a day like this. A kind of foolish pleasure seeped through her as she smiled. Mary walking in the other direction towards her and her heart swelled. She opened her mouth to call out when another smell undercut the blissful haze.

Smoke?

She blinked, and the world was suddenly a blur. Fire. Steel. Screaming that she didn't realize was her. She looked around frantically and found everyone gone except Mary. And as soon as she started towards her, her hands ignited in searing pain. She looked down in panic and found them livid with a seething white radiance that soon spread over the rest of her body as she fell to the ground, twisting in agony. She looked up, trying to find MARY again through the white light,a nd onl y f oun d h e r s e l f--
C H I L D H O O D I N A R D E N F E L D
C H I L D H O O D I N A R D E N F E L D
________________________________________________________________________________________


Mr. and Mrs. Yarrel and Talulah Celicantha (but please, call her Lulah) were fond of calling themselves the best bakers in Ardenfel. And they were very, very good at it; people would walk from the other side of the village to avail themselves of a fresh hot loaf, or a fruit pie baked to perfection. They were masters of their crafts; and though they were small town bakers that obviously didn't know how to make the delicate pastries that you might see in the big city, they were no less skilled for it.

But then everything changed, once their daughter was born.

Even Lulah didn't know that she had elven heritage. And Yarrel certainly had no idea at all; having hair that pale was unusual, but not impossible, obviously. Not until Shysca's birth. The hair that later grew on her head could be excused just like the mother's. The slightly oddly-colored eyes could be played off in any number of ways. Every odd quirk of her appearance could be explained away, save one. There was no getting around the sharply pointed ears. And Yarrel did not appreciate the idea of there being elf in his family.

Talulah loved Shysca enough for both parents, and made sure she grew up knowing that she was loved. But as she aged and her elven traits became more distinct, well, Yarrel grew what you might call...distant. He didn't grow violent, not until she was ten or eleven, when Talulah started to take ill. But moreso he just...neglected her.I t was like she'd lost her dad. Or, more accurately, like she'd never had one at all. Like she was a ghost to him. And so her mother's kindness became the most important thing in her life, and she began to mantle it. From that point on, she tried her best to be something like a mother--or, more likely, an older sister--to all the other kids in Ardenfel, or at least the ones she knew. After all, maybe if she acted like mommy then daddy would listen to her, right?

No. Obviously.

Once Yarrel started hitting her, that smile came less often. But, given she was in her double digits, that certainly wasn't the worst thing that would happen soon,would it?

Because then, the bandits came.

L I F E A T T H E O R P H A N A G E
L I F E A T T H E O R P H A N A G E
________________________________________________________________________________________
In the Landeil orphanage, though...the smile came back in full force. It needed to be. She knew these kids. She'd played with them in the street. She'd patched them up after they'd scraped their knees. She'd heard them talking about their parents. She knew those kids; she loved those kids.

And what those kids didn't need was another person crying.

They needed someone they knew to turn to, she thought. She didn't know what the family who owned the orphanage were like when she first got there, so, quite simply, she devoted herself wholeheartedly to making everyone's lives better. She threw herself into it and didn't look back. All smiles, all the time. She comforted Mary when she had nightmares. She tried to talk things through with Teth, even when she didn't want to listen. She spent hours around Danyl; he always seemed to lean on her so much, after all. She spent a whole year like that. It wasn't a particularly good life. It CERTAINLY wasn't a comfortable one. But it was all that she needed in the end, right? Even after Mary ran away, leaving Shysca's hands and lower forearms marred with a large and encompassing burn that turned into a painful scar, even then, she kept trying. There were still kids that needed her help.

But then the Church of the Virtuous Mother stopped nearby.

She didn't know much about them. Didn't know anything, really. But just out of curiosity, she went to listen to the sermon. Just once wouldn't hurt, right?

And then Shysca was transfixed. She fell hard, and fast.

All thoughts of responsibility fled her mind as she heard them preach, and she felt a fire stoke in her heart. After the sermon, she approached them and explained: she had just come to hear them speak, she felt as though she'd been born anew. She lived in the nearby orphanage, could she leave with the and join the Church? And they acquiesced and lifted her out of the orphanage to return to their monastery with them, and live her life anew.

O N W A R D: A N E W P A T H
O N W A R D: A N E W P A T H
________________________________________________________________________________________
It was in the Church of the Virtuous Mother--a monastery high in the mountains, a long way away--that Shysca first learned of the Divine Aeter, the grand embodiment of all light and purity in the universe. And though she had some doubt at first, she became something of a zealot in a relatively short period of time. The Virtuous Mother and, by extension, the Divine Aether became beloved in her eyes. An idol.

And the problem with idols is that you stop really thinking about what they're doing.

Over the past ten years, there are numerous times that Shysca, using her newly-learnt holy divine magic, 'brought nonbelievers into the Divine Aeter's light' in the most permanent way possible. Things that she would've balked at not long ago, she barely noticed, she was so thoroughly indoctrinated into this cult. It was like she had only half a mind of her own. Word has begun to spread about her, slowly spreading through pockets of people: stories of the wrathful black-clad cleric with the burn-scarred hands.

Though...she did keep one secret from the Virtuous Mother. When Mary had fled the orphanage, Shysca had seen horns on her head. She'd seen the phantasmal flames that had writhed around her in her sleep back then. She knew that there was something demonic going on with her. She should report it, and she should be brought into the Divine Aeter's light. But...

But she couldn't. It just felt wrong.

Not long ago, she remembered something that she'd nearly forgotten. Old friends. A promise to meet. People--children then--whose faces she could still see ever so clearly in her mind's eye. And as she thought about their smiles, she felt a revulsion rise in her throat.

Would they ever smile at her like that if they knew that she had killed?

With no warning to the Virtuous Mother, she dropped the amulet that marked her as a member of the Church into a mountain chasm beside the monastery, replaced her black church robe with a dress of pure white, then fled off into the night to return to her old home, see the old faces. Perhaps it is only when she does that she'll resolve the crisis of faith that swirls inside her skull, and the horrible nightmares that have again to begun to plague her will perhaps abate.

The Church is behind.

The road awaits.

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18 - Capricorn- Senior- 5'8" - Lee Bo-young



"I get called heartless a lot, and every time I want to scream."
Shin-ae Yun



Appearance Details

Tall and lithe, Shin-ae cuts quite a recognizable figure walking through the halls. While she couldn't be called buxom by any stretch of the imagination, she is not entirely devoid of curves; she does have an unmistakably feminine shape with a modest bust. Her angular pale face is framed by silky, pin-straight black hair that falls to somewhere just north of the small of her back, and set with eyes that are dark enough brown to be nearly the same. That face is set with a near-permanent expression annoyance or frustration. Combined with the prim way that she tends to carry herself, it tends to give people the impression that she doesn't like them, regardless of anything that she might actually feel regarding them. Or, to put it simply: she has a colossal resting bitch face.

She has (or had, evidently) a closet filled with proper clothing. Button-down shirts and blouses, pencil skirts, cashmere cardigans, most done up in monochrome. She is looked at somewhat strangely sometimes, as her bearing and clothing combined with her overall attitude lend her an air of professionalism beyond her years, one that is far more formal than her actual genuine thought processes.
Characterization

A whole lot of Student Council President Shin-ae's life has been defined through expectation.

Being the child of two Korean immigrants, she was, from the beginning, subjected to the tiger mom style of parenting, with all that entails. She had expectations HEAPED on her. Things that she needed to do. Things that were demanded of her, or else she'd be yelled out. The stringent rules in her household couldn't be called entirely negative, as they did impart to her a great deal of tenacity and discipline. But that's not really a consolation to a child so choked under those expectations, and while straight A's and knowing how to play the violin might impress her mother's co-workers, they do very little to prepare one for speaking with your peers on any meaningful level.

On that note, this has had a number of effects on how she interacts with others, first being 'the Shin-ae Stare,' dubbed as such by her vice president; that terrible resting bitch face that dogs her feet. She has a reputation among the student body for being a hardass, and the persistent reminds that she gives about decorum and conduct, something that she's a bit picky about, really has not helped. Consequently, Shin-ae is alone a great deal of the time; not only is she not really allowed to hang out with friends outside of school because of the draconian rules of her household, but there are few enough people who know what she's actually like. Which is quite personable, actually; she's not relaxed and laughing all the time, obviousl, but she's friendly and helpful enough, and if you pay enough attention you can find the streak of dry humor that she has under the surface.

And it's a very good thing that she's started flaunting her parents' rules now and then to spend time with other people. Because just like preparing one for a social life, those straight A report cards and violin recitals have done very, very little in preparing her for the apocalypse.
Character Notes

- Her mother works for a prominent tech company in a fairly high position. Shin-ae has no idea where she is right now.

- Her father is a freelance photographer who works from home. She's extremely worried about him.
Inventory

N/A


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Aoife


"Rhodes Island, I'd like to extend the deepest of gratitude to you and request the privilege to join you as an Operator. Wha--? Code name? Um...I guess...Ashgirl will do."
★★★★★★


Operator Profile
_______________________________________
Codename: Ashgirl
Epithet: The Taran Pariah

Class: Guard
Branch: Arts Fighter

Race: Vouivre
Affiliations: Dublinn (formerly)

Height: 173 cm
Weight: 75 kg

Place of Birth: Post-annexation Tara
Date of Birth: January 1

Gender: Female

Combat Experience: 10 years
Clinical Analysis
______________________________________________________________________
Strength: Excellent
Endurance: Excellent
Mobility: Standard
Arts Adaptability: Outstanding
Combat Skill: Excellent
Tactical Acumen: Normal

Infection Status: Infected
Imaging tests show blurry outlines of subject's internal organs, with multiple dark inclusions. Her circulatory system shows an alarming degree of originium particulate matter. Through these criteria we can determine that this subject is infected.

Cell-Originium Assimilation: 28%. Multiple crystal lesions visible on the subject's skin.
Blood Originium-Crystal Density: 0.32 u/L. Miss Aoife's condition is extremely aggressive and severe, and her prognosis is poor. Unless measures can be found to more effectively delay the progression of her infection, she likely has less than six months to live, if that.

Character Synopsis:
A former noblewoman and former revolutionary, forced from both of her homes and set adrift.

Personality:
Aoife tends to be a bit quiet most of the time, and when she speaks, she often sounds slightly strained and uncomfortable--almost stilted, sometimes--like she dislikes talking, and so people assume that she wishes to be left alone. Not so, actually; she is quiet and strained because her aggressive oripathy causes her a not-inconsiderable amount of pain on a constant basis. Rather, Aoife tends to be quite personable, if not entirely skilled in social situations, as she hasn't had a surfeit of healthy interactions, and enjoys being around and talking to other people as long as she's not the one doing most of the talking.

Though it's been a long time since her privileged and sheltered upbringing and she barely remembers a single piece of it, it still reflects on her character to this day. Chief among those reflections is how narrow her view of the world can be. She can be closed-minded, and has a tendency to discount things she hears that she doesn't want to. She knows this very well and actively works against it, but it's a trap that is all to easy for her to fall in when she's put under stress. The other major effect is, as mentioned, Aoife can have trouble relating to other people. Spending her early life in the noblewoman bubble and her later life as a (largely expendable) soldier has limited the people she's been able to open up to, and so she can have difficulties forming genuine friendships.

But despite all of that, Aoife is a good person at heart. Despite how she may look on occasion, she's not selfish, standoffish, willfully ignorant, or egocentric, and joined Rhodes Island as much to fulfil the duties of an Operator and help others as to be treated for her own oripathy. The fact that she's willing to endanger herself by pushing her Arts even when she reasonably shouldn't in the service of her work should be proof enough that she really is trying her best. It can just...be hard to see that sometimes.

Talents
Talent Description
Taran Swordsmanship

Brought up from a young age to be a noblewoman of Tara, Aoife Eóganachta of course learned the former kingdom's traditional style of swordplay from a young age.

Though of course it wasn't intended to be actually used, not in the way she uses it now--it was entirely ceremonial to begin with--it has certainly come in handy as she became first a member of Dublinn, and then an Operator of Rhodes Island. The principle reason this is so effective is that she efficiently leverages her rather strange, almost dancelike, style quite effectively. Because most people aren't familiar with the Taran style--it's not extinct, but it's nearly so--it makes her rather unpredictable and hard to read, letting her get the drop on opponents before they're able to adapt.
Pariah's Oath

Aoife has gone through a great deal of pain in her life, whether it be physical or emotional in nature. Even now, her remarkably severe infection causes her not-inconsiderable suffering every minute of the day. There are many times that she's wanted to just...give up. To let it end already, to take the coward's way out, whether that be letting the heritage of Tara die, turning herself in to Victoria, or hurling herself from the landship. But because she hasn't, she's developed an astounding level of willpower, able to push through constant physical pain, emotional torment, and any number of roadblocks. She is going to get to where she's going, and good luck to anybody that tries to stand in her way.
Skills
Skill Description
Sheer Cold

Aoife's arts, channeled through her sword, are of a particularly unique variety. While they generally take the form of ice, they actually involve directly arresting molecular motion. Though it may have the same overall effect most of the time, when trying to freeze objects that are typically coldproof it shows its use in being remarkably good at freezing them anyway.

Through spectroscopic measurement techniques, the peak of her freezing power has been measured between 170 and 175 degrees Kelvin (-103C and -98C, respectively).
Bitterwinter Bite

Though obviously the sword is a heavy part of her combat kit, the freezing power that Aoife possesses is used through more than just the sword. Given her powerful infection, she is able to channel her Arts naturally, of course, and is able to do so with a startling degree of intensity. Though they don't have much of a range to them--remember, not actually ice but manipulation on the molecular level which I am to understand gets exponentially more difficult past ten or so feet--within that limited range you are at constant risk of being both slowed to a crawl and frozen solid. Despite this obvious strength, however, subject has been heavily advised against using this more than necessary, as it seems to exacerbate her condition.
One Thousand Shining Teeth

Finally, we come to likely the most dangerous application of her Arts that Aoife can muster--both towards her enemies and towards herself through increased progression of her oripathy. When her life is on the line, though, anything is fair game. Through judicious application of her arts, everything around her is so molecularly strained that it becomes incrediby delicate, even metal and stone. With a sufficiently hard strike, they can shatter into storms of razorlike shards, serving almost like a shotgun; spraying out a surprising level of devastation.

All that being said, this is not without further drawbacks. Principally, that she isn't necessarily immunte to the shards, nor does she have exclusive rights on shattering them. Still, if it's leveraged right, it is truly, truly a menace.
Equipment Module


  • Claíomh-na-Samhain - The Sword of Samhain: Aoife's bastard sword, forever and always by her side. Reclaimed from the ashes of her family home, this previously ceremonial blade has been turned into both a superb arts conductor and a vicious weapon of war.
Operator Archives




Trivia:
  • As mentioned, Aoife's health is not exactly stellar. Specifically, her oripathy has gifted her with several unfortunate symptoms. In addition to the crystalline lesions--she has over a dozen now--she has tremors, fevers, and full body aches, and a few other unpleasant things. These can be largely managed through oripathy medication, but they can only be managed, never completely removed. There's always a chance one of them will strike.
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_______________________________________________


Physical Description
Quinn Aldis is a woman of fairly average height, all told; perhaps a little above, maybe in the neighborhood of 5'5". Her pale, watery blue eye is framed by her sharp bangs, the dark gray hair falling a little ways down her back, usually tied in either a braid or a ponytail. Her right eye, the one she lost on her final tour of duty, is replaced with a plain black eyepatch; she refuses to get a glass eye of any kind, insisting that she prefers this, as looking in the mirror and seeing two eyes but only seeing from one seems extremely disturbing. While she's working at the police academy, she's gotten special permission to wear her old military fatigues, attached as she is to them. When not teaching, she tends towards long pants and trim jackets. Her favorite color is yellow, and she has a brown leather coat with bright yellow trimmings that she's very fond of. She always wished she could streak her hair yellow, but the professionalism standards of the military and the academy have rendered that dream impossible. As a result of all that she's dealt with, her face is set in a permanent scowl.

Well, Pariah has no professionalism standards, and upon signing into the game for the first time Quinn was delighted to find that her hair had indeed become streaked with bright yellow, and had grown into a long braid. Less fantastic was the fact that her eyepatch was still present; sometime in the past year or two she'd grown so used to it that it was just kind of a part of her subconscious now, which she's not super happy about, hoping she'd get the use of both eyes again. Her clockwork rifle is carried in a long case on her back that can serve as a bludgeoning weapon all its own. When it's borne in her hands, it looks for all the world like it belongs there, like Quinnlash is the person fated to use it. Her clothing is...similar...ish? Her general attire is a somewhat shredded up coat-cloak, worn over a gray linen shirt. She keeps armor to a minimum for obvious reasons; it would just slow her down. And though she still looks just as grumpy, she is smiling more.

Character Conceptualization
The story of Master Gunnery Sergeant Quinn Aldis, U.S.M.C., begins in a small house outside of Portland, Maine, where a husband and wife lived: Luke and Shannon Louvain.

Quinn's first memories are of smothering attention. Constant, assiduous lovey-dovey-ness layered over and over on her by Shannon; saccharine nigh-obsession. It was so all-encompassing that she didn't even realize that she was being abused. It took a teacher--and CPS worker--noticing some telltale signs of emotional and psychological abuse for things to come to a head. To make a long story short, Shannon and Luke were arrested for child abuse, and Quinn went into the foster system when she was eight years old. She bounced around foster homes for a little while, about a year and a half, before she was fostered for an extended period by an up-and-coming politician named Elizabeth Aldis. And after that extended period...neither of them wanted to let go. Liz applied for official adoption, and Quinn Louvain became Quinn Aldis.

Other Information
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Physical Description
As soon as you look at Haruhi, you know that she lives up to her name, spring sunshine: blonde-haired, tan-skinned from working hard out under the hot sun, and almost always bearing a bright and chipper smile. She isn't exactly what you would typically call a cool beauty; she isn't nearly stately or demure enough for that. What she does have, though, is a strong and striking sense of exuberance about her that seems to light up whatever room she walks into, and even when she isn't smiling, it always somehow seems like her wide warm purple eyes are doing it for her.

The skin on her tough hands is hard and callused from rubbing against tools, and that of her feet is the same from hours in her heavy workboots. Completing the picture is her musculature. She's a farmer, after all, and she has been for pretty much her whole life. That tanned skin lies taut over a physique of hard muscle, bought and paid for with hours upon hours of hard farm labor.

But despite that hard-labor athleticism--or perhaps because of it--when she's not working she's a bit of a klutz, and quite spritely in the way that she moves through the world. Running barefoot, skipping down the road, or laying on long grass staring up at the cloudless blue sky, it would be fair to say that when she's not working she doesn't exactly portray a sense of gravitas, nor really even act her age. And the fact that she's constantly smudged with dirt and mud and sweat from working in the fields doesn't really help matters.

As a rule, she dresses in practical farm clothes, and her hair is typically tied up in either a ponytail or a braid to keep it out of her way. Though she has a few pieces of very nice formal attire, she doesn't really know when she'd ever wear them, since it's not like she ever goes to formal functions. She doesn't even really know how to put on a proper kimono!

Character Conceptualization
All things considered, Haruhi has had a pretty good life. Born to a pair of successful farmers--Akiyama Akito and Hanako--she grew up with a deep love and appreciation for the outdoors, and as time went on, an equally powerful one taught be her parents: a sense of responsibility for one's actions, and the sweat of one's brow. They were hard workers, and wanted to instill into their rough-and-tumble daughter that she should do the same.

And they succeeded in spectacular fashion! It wasn't long before kiddo Haruhi began to help out in the garden, pulling weeds and snipping beans off of vines. It was looking like she was set up for a wonderful future, despite her propensity to get into everywhere she probably wasn't supposed to go.

Like, say, the Heiseina shrine, where she met a lonely girl who called herself Fuyuko and decided then and there that the two of them would be the best of friends. From the time she was eight and onward, she would go and visit her friend, always bringing her something fun from the outside world; whether a flower crown, or a basket of fresh vegetables and rice that she'd grown and harvested herself.

Speaking of, it would seem her parents underestimated how deep into her heart she took the sweat-of-her-own-brow lesson on self-reliance, because when they discussed her learning some Signs to till her soil and grow her crops faster, she staunchly and immovably refused, no matter how they cajoled or convinced. This was when she first showed both one of her great strengths or her greatest weakness, depending on how you looked at it; that streak of mulish stubbornness. They thought she'd grow out of it, but she never did, insisting on doing all of the work herself.

When she was thirteen, they realized that she really wasn't going to budge, and brought home a strong bay draft horse from the stables to help plough her field in lieu of magic. Haruhi fell in love with him instantly, naming him Asahi and, with her own hands, building him a paddock outside of the barn so he could stay outside and get exercise when the weather was good.

And so her life has gone on from then, and been a good and simple one. One of earth, and water, and plants, and animals, and nature. She loves everything and wants everyone else to love it too. She loves people, and wants people to love her back. She wants to live a good, simple, peaceful life surrounded by the people and places she loves.

You don't always get what you want.

Other Information
As mentioned, Haruhi has refused to learn any labor-saving Signs, preferring to do the work herself over using magic to do it. Her parents are still alive and happily working on the farm with her, though they gave her a smaller personal plot of land, one that wouldn't be touched by any of the Signs that her parents used themselves.
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Hff!

Chuck

Hff!

Chuck

Hff!

ChCLANK

Haruhi, breath still coming hard, stared at the suddenly bladeless hoe in her hand, and at the blade where it had bounced after striking the rock. She shook her hand out, wincing a bit at the ache where the reverberation had shot through her hand.

Oops.

For a moment she wondered whether or not she could reattach it somehow--after all, she wasn't done yet!--but as she jogged over and picked up the blade, she saw that was...rather unlikely. If the whole socket had come off or the shaft had broken she could just stick it on a new one, but the blade had actually broken off of the socket, leaving a twisted jagged stump of steel.

She glanced behind, to where she'd been hoeing a line to prepare for planting the leek and cabbage. It wasn't much all tols, so she hadn't thought she'd need to get out the plough, but maaaybe that would've been a good idea. She idly twirled the broken shaft in her hand, rolling her stiff shoulders in the early morning chill. It'd been quiet a while since she'd broken one of her tools. Well, nothing for it, she supposed; she'd need to go visit the smith! Hopping up and down a bit to keep herself from getting too cold--she could feel the sweat on her skin starting to chill her, and a warning shiver ran through her--she hefted the blade in her left hand and kept on twirling the shaft in her right, occasionally dropping it, as she meandered through the fallow fields.

Once she reached the road she tossed the shaft, watched it spin, and snatched it out of the air, then started to skip along the road, feet striking the hardened dirt and sending up pale brown puffs of dust that dispersed away into the early spring winds. As she went, she flicked the shaft into the same hand as the blade, then dipped into her pocket and pulled out a handful of soybeans. A grin popped on to her face as she scattered them off, followed by another handful, then another, twirling as she went and sending them soaring off into the trees. “Demons out, luck in!” Her words were followed by a joyous laugh that echoed off into the still, quiet valley.

By the time she'd made her way to the entrance of Heiseina proper, scattered soybeans trailed behind her, her pockets were empty, and her heart was light. Humming tunelessly and occasionally breaking out into quiet singing, she slowed to a walk, shaking out her hair behind her, setting her ponytail back to something at least resembling neatness. Reclaiming the shaft in her right hand, she waved at those she passed with a bright smile on her face. The clattering of the beans tossed from windows and doors all around punctuated her steps as she wended her way through the village, and finally arrived at her destination.

----
tsubasa and keiko interlude
---

That done, she cupped her hands around her mouth and called out in the direction of the tall girl that was busying herself at the other side of the shop, “Mi-chan! Hey, Mi-chan! Can you fix my hoe?" She trotted up to her then passed it over, and beaming up at Mio:

I hit it on a rock!
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Physical Description
Saiba Aoi is...not tall. Standing at a tiny 148cm (more or less 4'10"), she is head and shoulders below several of her classmates, and still significantly shorter than even the other 'short' students. Cornflower blue hair tied in twintails and bright blue eyes frame and sit atop a narrow, pale face that is nearly always sporting a big smile. Her frame is as small as the rest of her and as narrow as her face. Her legs are long (proportionately, at least) and as slender as the rest of her. She is fairly weak as far as appearances go, with relatively undeveloped musculature. Still, though she isn't strong by any means, she's much stronger than she looks. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the obvious appearance: her legs evaporate into pixels and electricity, and then nothingness, from her mid-shin down. She can't fly or anything, but it does mean she never needs to touch the ground.

It must be noticed that with her Quirk fully active--that is to say, with her entire body digitized--she changes appearance slightly on whatever screen she manifests on. Her cornflower blue hair fades to glowing electric blue at the tips, and her blue eyes turn to a bright turquoise-cyan. She gains a few digitized lines on each cheek. Whatever she's wearing or carrying at the time comes with her when she jumps in. Excepting, of course, her phone if she uses it to jump in.

While at school she wears her Ishin Academy uniform as per requirements, when she's got the choice to wear something else she is inordinately fond of a tracksuit jacket with hugely oversized sleeves into which her arms just about disappear.

Personal History
Aoi has always been a computer person.

Even when she was a small child, she was endlessly fascinated by them, often spending hours poking at them (and accomplishing nothing, of course, she was a small child after all). Her mother Kimiko, a four-armed programmer, indulged her daughter, let her fiddle around to her heart's content as long as she didn't touch the work stuff. Still, as Aoi grew, she nursed a private worry. Quirks were inherited. But Aoi didn't have four arms like her, and her husband...

...Well, Saiba Ryoutarou was Quirkless. And as Aoi grew and grew, past six, seven, eight, it looked like she might be Quirkless too. And some of the kids at school were starting to notice.

So both Kimiko and Aoi were delighted--though Kimiko was deeply confused--to find that Aoi's legs had flickered and faded into pixelated data. And when she proudly walked into the classroom, hand in her pocket with her phone, and fell due to her unfamiliar physiology...she vanished. The class was instantly freaked out, and the teacher, even more so, running over in fear. Until...

"Whoaaaa!"

Character Arc
Perhaps it's not obvious at first glance what's up with Aoi, and where her character development will go. Well, I point you to the above backstory and ask you to consider it. For as cheerful and chipper as Aoi is all the time, she's also burdened down by feelings of inadequacy. Being treated as Quirkless until mid-elementary school, and then being told, however gently, that her Quirk just wasn't cut out of hero work... well, it's left some marks on her psyche.

Quirk Description
Aoi's Quirk is Cyber Jump.


Description in brief: Passively, Aoi has digitized legs that have different properties than normal people, cutting off some avenues and opening up others. Actively, she can transform into computer data, jumping inside of a terminal. She can travel at internet-fast speeds on Wi-Fi, data cables, or wire connections, but needs to open a channel through cell data by making a call at the moment, and can only travel between devices; she can't jump out midway. If the device she's in is disconnected from all data, she can't exit it. If it's turned off, she goes unconscious until it goes back on. If it's destroyed, she dies.
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_______________________________________________

Physical Description
Hiei Moeko is a bizarrely tall girl, standing at nearly six feet already. Consequently, she stands much taller than most people in her class, including the boys, but especially the girls. She has long, bright red hair which she ties up in twin tails every day to keep it out of her face and off of her neck, and brilliant orange eyes held often at some degree of aggravation. She tends to wear an intense expression on her round face, like she's concentrating really hard on something a lot of the time. But the most notable part of her body is the center of her chest over her heart. It glows with a brilliant yellow-orange light that pulses along with her heartbeat. As her solar reservoir fills it grows brighter, and the pulsing less frequent. When it's full, it's a brilliant, unbroken light.

As far as musculature goes, she doesn't have a ton. That's not to say she's unfit; but it's certainly not something she's prioritized, choosing instead to hone her Quirk.

Though of course at school she wears her uniform, outside of it she prefers lightweight t-shirts and shorts. Because of her Quirk heating her from the inside it's difficult for her to get cold much of the time, so she just wears what she finds comfortable. She carries herself with pride, as—in her mind—befits a hero-to-be.

Personal History
Aoi has always been a computer person.

Even when she was a small child, she was endlessly fascinated by them, often spending hours poking at them (and accomplishing nothing, of course, she was a small child after all). Her mother Kimiko, a four-armed programmer, indulged her daughter, let her fiddle around to her heart's content as long as she didn't touch the work stuff. Still, as Aoi grew, she nursed a private worry. Quirks were inherited. But Aoi didn't have four arms like her, and her husband...

...Well, Saiba Ryoutarou was Quirkless. And as Aoi grew and grew, past six, seven, eight, it looked like she might be Quirkless too. And some of the kids at school were starting to notice.

So both Kimiko and Aoi were delighted--though Kimiko was deeply confused--to find that Aoi's legs had flickered and faded into pixelated data. And when she proudly walked into the classroom, hand in her pocket with her phone, and fell due to her unfamiliar physiology...she vanished. The class was instantly freaked out, and the teacher, even more so, running over in fear. Until...

"Whoaaaa!"

Character Arc
Perhaps it's not obvious at first glance what's up with Aoi, and where her character development will go. Well, I point you to the above backstory and ask you to consider it. For as cheerful and chipper as Aoi is all the time, she's also burdened down by feelings of inadequacy. Being treated as Quirkless until mid-elementary school, and then being told, however gently, that her Quirk just wasn't cut out of hero work... well, it's left some marks on her psyche.

Quirk Description
Moeko's Quirk is Cannon Core.

In addition to all normal functions, her heart serves as a reservoir for solar energy that she fills up every time she's exposed to sunlight, though of course the more direct the better. In addition to gaining physical resilience, speed, and strength, as well as resistance to heat and cold, commensurate to the state of her reservoir, the main function of her Quirk draws on her reservoir instead, funneling power out of it to create destructive lances of firelight.
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________________________________________
Lina Anastasia Delikhova
FEMME | 23 | RODION
Scion of
Wouldn't you like to know, weatherboy?
_______________________________________________
"I'm never quite sure whether or not my daughter knows what she's doing, and I don't think she is either."
________________________________________
"Pfft, why're you being so serious? Lighten up, spoilsport!"

Holy Sigil Location
Her holy sigil appears just left of her left eye.

Appearance
Can describe your character here what pictures don't show

Personality
should be obvious

Biography
include where you were born, your status (if you're a noble), how being a Scion has affected your life, and any current personal goals. If you weren't expected to be a Scion, explain how you found out.

Weapon of Choice
Setting is pretty modern but there be monsters on the road so what do you use to defend yourself?

Misc.
  • Lina has a final wrinkle to complicate her life more. As sweet-tempered as she is, all that pent-up anger and aggression from her childhood had to go somewhere, and it manifested as a voice that urges her to act as cold and merciless as her father always wanted her to: the Rodion Voice.
  • use a list to make it nice and neat
  • :)
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A M I E M O T H W A X
A M I E M O T H W A X

"Mmmnnn, hush...I just woke up..."
C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T
C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T
_________________________________________________________
C H A R A C T E R N O T E S
C H A R A C T E R N O T E S
_________________________________________________________
The chronically-sleepy Amie Mothwax has a tendency to appear stoic and emotionless, eyes blank and unfeeling. She speaks relatively little, and when she does, it's usually flat in its affect. You could be forgiven for thinking she has no emotions at all.

Which, of course, is quite far from the truth. She has an emotional range that's plenty broad, just as much as anybody else. What she doesn't have is a particularly good way of displaying that range. While those that don't know her wonder if perhaps she's been abused and that's why, that couldn't be more wrong. She's just...like this.
---

"I love you so much, my little light."

It feels like it's been a lifetime since then.

"Oh wow, Shysca, did you bake that all on your own?"

Like a whole world has come and gone in the time it took to blink the memories back behind her eyes.

"Of course daddy is proud of you, my little light. How could he not be?"

...Had it really only been ten years?

The cool morning air smelled of the past. Of early morning dew and early spring frost. Of strawberry pastries and pinecones, and the wide bank of the river. It smelled of the stones that she used to skip over the gray water. She breathed deep and closed her eyes, savoring this old simple joy, and all thoughts of guilt and redemption evaporated like mist in the sun as she walked lightly through Ardenfel like a great weight was gone, like she'd never known it was there.

As she walked, she saw the children that she knew so well. Danyl on the other side of the street. Lyndii would be reading, probably, even on a day like this. A kind of foolish pleasure seeped through her as she smiled. Mary walking in the other direction towards her and her heart swelled. She opened her mouth to call out when another smell undercut the blissful haze.

Smoke?

She blinked, and the world was suddenly a blur. Fire. Steel. Screaming that she didn't realize was her. She looked around frantically and found everyone gone except Mary. And as soon as she started towards her, her hands ignited in searing pain. She looked down in panic and found them livid with a seething white radiance that soon spread over the rest of her body as she fell to the ground, twisting in agony. She looked up, trying to find MARY again through the white light,a nd onl y f oun d h e r s e l f--
C H I L D H O O D I N A R D E N F E L D
C H I L D H O O D I N A R D E N F E L D
________________________________________________________________________________________


Mr. and Mrs. Yarrel and Talulah Celicantha (but please, call her Lulah) were fond of calling themselves the best bakers in Ardenfel. And they were very, very good at it; people would walk from the other side of the village to avail themselves of a fresh hot loaf, or a fruit pie baked to perfection. They were masters of their crafts; and though they were small town bakers that obviously didn't know how to make the delicate pastries that you might see in the big city, they were no less skilled for it.

But then everything changed, once their daughter was born.

Even Lulah didn't know that she had elven heritage. And Yarrel certainly had no idea at all; having hair that pale was unusual, but not impossible, obviously. Not until Shysca's birth. The hair that later grew on her head could be excused just like the mother's. The slightly oddly-colored eyes could be played off in any number of ways. Every odd quirk of her appearance could be explained away, save one. There was no getting around the sharply pointed ears. And Yarrel did not appreciate the idea of there being elf in his family.

Talulah loved Shysca enough for both parents, and made sure she grew up knowing that she was loved. But as she aged and her elven traits became more distinct, well, Yarrel grew what you might call...distant. He didn't grow violent, not until she was ten or eleven, when Talulah started to take ill. But moreso he just...neglected her.I t was like she'd lost her dad. Or, more accurately, like she'd never had one at all. Like she was a ghost to him. And so her mother's kindness became the most important thing in her life, and she began to mantle it. From that point on, she tried her best to be something like a mother--or, more likely, an older sister--to all the other kids in Ardenfel, or at least the ones she knew. After all, maybe if she acted like mommy then daddy would listen to her, right?

No. Obviously.

Once Yarrel started hitting her, that smile came less often. But, given she was in her double digits, that certainly wasn't the worst thing that would happen soon,would it?

Because then, the bandits came.

L I F E A T T H E O R P H A N A G E
L I F E A T T H E O R P H A N A G E
________________________________________________________________________________________
In the Landeil orphanage, though...the smile came back in full force. It needed to be. She knew these kids. She'd played with them in the street. She'd patched them up after they'd scraped their knees. She'd heard them talking about their parents. She knew those kids; she loved those kids.

And what those kids didn't need was another person crying.

They needed someone they knew to turn to, she thought. She didn't know what the family who owned the orphanage were like when she first got there, so, quite simply, she devoted herself wholeheartedly to making everyone's lives better. She threw herself into it and didn't look back. All smiles, all the time. She comforted Mary when she had nightmares. She tried to talk things through with Teth, even when she didn't want to listen. She spent hours around Danyl; he always seemed to lean on her so much, after all. She spent a whole year like that. It wasn't a particularly good life. It CERTAINLY wasn't a comfortable one. But it was all that she needed in the end, right? Even after Mary ran away, leaving Shysca's hands and lower forearms marred with a large and encompassing burn that turned into a painful scar, even then, she kept trying. There were still kids that needed her help.

But then the Church of the Virtuous Mother stopped nearby.

She didn't know much about them. Didn't know anything, really. But just out of curiosity, she went to listen to the sermon. Just once wouldn't hurt, right?

And then Shysca was transfixed. She fell hard, and fast.

All thoughts of responsibility fled her mind as she heard them preach, and she felt a fire stoke in her heart. After the sermon, she approached them and explained: she had just come to hear them speak, she felt as though she'd been born anew. She lived in the nearby orphanage, could she leave with the and join the Church? And they acquiesced and lifted her out of the orphanage to return to their monastery with them, and live her life anew.

O N W A R D: A N E W P A T H
O N W A R D: A N E W P A T H
________________________________________________________________________________________
It was in the Church of the Virtuous Mother--a monastery high in the mountains, a long way away--that Shysca first learned of the Divine Aeter, the grand embodiment of all light and purity in the universe. And though she had some doubt at first, she became something of a zealot in a relatively short period of time. The Virtuous Mother and, by extension, the Divine Aether became beloved in her eyes. An idol.

And the problem with idols is that you stop really thinking about what they're doing.

Over the past ten years, there are numerous times that Shysca, using her newly-learnt holy divine magic, 'brought nonbelievers into the Divine Aeter's light' in the most permanent way possible. Things that she would've balked at not long ago, she barely noticed, she was so thoroughly indoctrinated into this cult. It was like she had only half a mind of her own. Word has begun to spread about her, slowly spreading through pockets of people: stories of the wrathful black-clad cleric with the burn-scarred hands.

Though...she did keep one secret from the Virtuous Mother. When Mary had fled the orphanage, Shysca had seen horns on her head. She'd seen the phantasmal flames that had writhed around her in her sleep back then. She knew that there was something demonic going on with her. She should report it, and she should be brought into the Divine Aeter's light. But...

But she couldn't. It just felt wrong.

Not long ago, she remembered something that she'd nearly forgotten. Old friends. A promise to meet. People--children then--whose faces she could still see ever so clearly in her mind's eye. And as she thought about their smiles, she felt a revulsion rise in her throat.

Would they ever smile at her like that if they knew that she had killed?

With no warning to the Virtuous Mother, she dropped the amulet that marked her as a member of the Church into a mountain chasm beside the monastery, replaced her black church robe with a dress of pure white, then fled off into the night to return to her old home, see the old faces. Perhaps it is only when she does that she'll resolve the crisis of faith that swirls inside her skull, and the horrible nightmares that have again to begun to plague her will perhaps abate.

The Church is behind.

The road awaits.

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S H Y S C A A U S L E Y
S H Y S C A A U S L E Y

"Everything's different now. I don't understand. Is this the Divine Aeter's path for me? Was the Virtuous Mother lying to me all along?"
C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T
C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T
_________________________________________________________
C H A R A C T E R N O T E S
C H A R A C T E R N O T E S
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Shysca Ausley is a young half-elf Cleric who swore herself to a faith that worships an entity known as the Divine Aeter, and was gifted powerful divine magic. She doesn't need any kind of focus, but she finds that it helps her think more clearly if she uses a long metal staff colored white to match her clothing. Why metal? Well, in addition to a kind of spellcasting focus, it's also surprisingly useful for whacking a stubborn adversary over the head.

Speaking of her magic, it's very supportive in nature these days; healing, shielding, curing, reviving. While she can unleash the smite of the Divine Aeter in a flash of white light and flame, she very much prefers not to do that, firmly believing that violence should be the final recourse.

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"I love you so much, my little light."

It feels like it's been a lifetime since then.

"Oh wow, Shysca, did you make that all on your own?"

Like a whole world has come and gone in the time it took to blink the memories back behind her eyes.

...Had it really only been ten years?

The cool morning air smelled of the past. Of early morning dew and early spring frost. Of strawberry pastries and pinecones, and the wide bank of the river. It smelled of the stones that she used to skip over the gray water. She breathed deep and closed her eyes, savoring this old simple joy, and all thoughts of guilt and redemption evaporated like mist in the sun as she walked lightly through Ardenfel like a great weight was gone, like she'd never known it was there.

As she walked, she saw the children that she knew so well. Danyl on the other side of the street. Lyndii would be reading, probably, even on a day like this. A kind of foolish pleasure seeped through her as she smiled. Her beloved Mary was walking in the other direction towards her, and her heart swelled. She opened her mouth to call out when another smell undercut the blissful haze.

Smoke?

She blinked, and the world was suddenly a blur. Fire. Steel. Screaming that she didn't realize was her. She looked around frantically and found everyone gone except her sister. And as soon as she started towards her, her hands ignited in searing pain. She looked down in panic and found them livid with a seething white radiance that soon spread over the rest of her body as she fell to the ground, twisting in agony. She looked up, trying to find MARY again through the white light,a nd onl y f oun d h e r s e l f--
C H I L D H O O D I N A R D E N F E L D
C H I L D H O O D I N A R D E N F E L D
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Shysca's first memory is of the road.

She remembers little enough of it; just faint flashes of her mom carrying her down a gravel path in a forest, snuggling up against her an inn's bed. Only the vaguest of images, now, but enough to remind her that wherever she was born, she would probably never know. But that doesn't matter, she tells herself. Though the vague flashes of town and wilderness nip at her heels now and then, Ardenfeld was home. An end to the traveling; a roof over her head; a warm fire every night; a father; and most important of all, a sister. Who she loved dearly. They were only half siblings, of course, but she didn't fully understand the concept at the time. All she knew was she had a little sister now, and she was the best.

Her new sister Mary was a handful, certainly; disappearing for hours at a time, showing up bruised and dirtied and causing Shysca no end of worry. But despite the struggle, she took to it like a duck to water. Patching up a hurt knee here, trying to keep her from running off into the woods there, singing some of their moms' old songs to help her when she was having trouble going to sleep: anything and everything she could do to help. And somehow, she just couldn't bring herself to be mad. Maybe a bit chastising; mom and dad were worried, after all. But then Mary would say something sweet, and press a pretty stone that she'd found near the lakeshore into Shysca's hand, and she was all smiles again. She would line the pretty stones and strange branches next to the fire, right against the wall on the left side.

Perhaps some are still there, even now.

And of course, though it started with Mary, it certainly didn't end there. Shysca had gotten a taste of caring for people, and it stuck. Before she knew it, she'd become a pseudo-older sister to many of the other kids in town too, with careful hands and a gentle smile. She never knew where her mom came from, and where she came from either. She never asked; she simply didn't care much. She didn't remember much of where they'd traveled, given her age, and she had new family in Ardenfeld. Leaving it was out of the question.

That said, by the time she was eight or nine, she came to the realization that her ears were shaped different from the rest of her family. Her mom, dad, and of course Mary all had nice round human ears; but hers were quite pointy, more than enough to recognize. Unlike the whole rest of her family, Shysca was an elf (well, at least half of one). It brought a host of conflicting feelings with it; isolation, pride, fear, intrigue, confusion. Over the course of the next few years, she eventually untangled these feelings, coming to the childishly simple conclusion that it really didn't matter, because even if she wasn't the same as her family—she even looked different, even from her mom—they were still her family, they loved her, and she loved them.

Though perhaps she should've gotten used to that feeling of isolation and fear

Because then, the bandits came for Ardenfeld. And just like her life on the road, there are—mercifully—only flashes. Scattered, fractured images.

The warm fire in her memories, now consuming everything like a ravenous beast.

The roof that she'd come to rely on crashing into itself.

Her mother running out to fight and not coming back.

Her father's slumped body.

She remembers Mary's tiny hand trembling, cold as ice against her own. She remembers running. She doesn't remember quite where. The horrible feeling of her whole life crashing down around her. Everything was just...gone.

L I F E A T T H E O R P H A N A G E
L I F E A T T H E O R P H A N A G E
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Everything except Mary.

Mary, and the other kids that had survived the attack. Who had also seen their entire lives shatter. And Shysca made a resolution, hard as it was. She was the oldest, and she was one of the few—if not the only—who hadn't lived her whole life in Ardenfeld. So she had a responsibility to them now. They needed someone they knew to turn to, she thought. Someone from home that wasn't crying. Stability. Comfort She didn't know what the family who owned the orphanage were like when they first got there, so, quite simply, she devoted herself wholeheartedly to making everyone's lives better. She threw herself into it and didn't look back. All smiles, all the time.

She tried to talk things through with Teth, even when she didn't want to listen. She spent hours around Danyl; he always seemed to lean on her so much, after all. She spent a whole year like that. It wasn't a particularly good life. It CERTAINLY wasn't a comfortable one. But it was all that she needed in the end, right?

And above all, her sister.

The sounds she made during her nightmares broke Shysca's heart every night, and the flames that would race over her during them had her worried sick. So whenever she would fall asleep, Shysca would creep over and lie down next to her, stroking her hair like their mom used to. A horrible hollowness ripped at her whenever she thought of home, but she could not let it eat her. Not while Mary was still here.

Then came that horrific night, when the last leaves were shaking themselves free from the skeletal trees outside. When Shysca fell asleep early by mistake, too tired after a long day to keep her eyes open. She'd awoken to Mary's nightmare-torn cries, and to phantasmal fire rippling over her body. And, guilt tearing at her for not staying awake, she rushed over to try and shake her sister awake.

And the fire had lashed out.

She remembers screaming in sudden agony and shock as her arms and forearms were eaten by the flames and horribly burnt. The blinding fear, rendering her senseless to anything else as she shrieked until her voice grew ragged. The matron of the orphanage desperately trying to help her, and so delirious was she in her panic she thought that mom had come back.

Her memories of the next few weeks, like so many others, are mercifully just the thinnest torn shreds of what they were. Horrible pain in her hands, that somehow grew only worse. A foul smell. Fever. A priest kneeling over her bedside, speaking indistinctly to the matron. Drinking something foul-tasting.

And then, the church.

The strange, vaulted ceiling above her, and the fear. "Who are you? Where am I?" And then, chief in her thoughts:

"Where's Mary?"

They let her ask. They let her scream. They let her cry. And only once she was done did the monks tell her with solemn voices that her sister had been corrupted by demons. The sickness that had gripped her—cured, now—was the grip of infernal fire. And then a final awful revelation: when her sister had been corrupted, her hair had turned silver-white, and her eyes a burning yellow-orange.

...Just like hers.

She was under threat of corruption as well, they said. The only way to hold it under was to follow the righteous path of the Divine Aeter and purge the rest of the demons from the world. She didn't want to believe it. But they had saved her life, they said, and stopped her from being corrupted like her poor sister. She had a duty to them now. They said it over and over.

Until—still a child—she eventually believed it.

O N W A R D: A N E W P A T H
O N W A R D: A N E W P A T H
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But she didn't remember that for long. Threw herself into her duties as a member of the Church of the Virtuous Mother until she forgot, and all that was left was the knowledge that she had to do this. And...she did.

Over those ten years, Shysca is unsure of how many people she cleansed with the divine fire of the Divine Aeter. Things that she would've been horrified at not long ago, she barely noticed, she was so thoroughly indoctrinated into this cult. It was like she had only half a mind of her own. Word began to spread about her, slowly bubbling through pockets of people: stories of the wrathful black-clad cleric with the burn-scarred hands...

And yet...

As much as she knew she had to for reasons she could no longer remember, she couldn't ever bring herself to imagine Mary as anything but her baby sister.

And not long ago, she remembered something that she'd nearly forgotten. Old friends. An old promise she'd made to meet with them again. People—children then—whose faces she could still see ever so clearly, so much she felt she could almost touch them. And as she thought about their smiles, an intense and sick revulsion rose in her throat.

They would never smile at her again, if they knew what she had done.

With no warning to the Virtuous Mother or any members of the church, she dropped the amulet that marked her a member into a mountain chasm beside the monastery, tore apart her black church robe and replaced it with a dress of pure white, then fled off into the night to return to her old home, see the old faces. Perhaps it is only when she does that she'll resolve the crisis of faith that swirls inside her skull, and the horrible nightmares that have again to begun to plague her will perhaps abate.

And though the Church is behind her, she knows what she'd done will follow her to the end of her days.

So all these long years later—no longer a child by her mother's side—Shysca takes to the road.

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