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[color=2E2C2C][sup]_______________________________________________[/sup][/color][/center][hider=// INFO]
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[COLOR=fc4a03][b]Full Name[/b][COLOR=#807B84] - Axan Endryss Sturke[/COLOR]
[b]Age[/b][COLOR=#807B84] - 26[/COLOR]
[b]Gender[/b][COLOR=#807B84] - Female[/COLOR]
[b]Heritage[/b][COLOR=#807B84] - Valefor, Land of the Dragon[/COLOR]
[b]Magical Affinity[/b][COLOR=#807B84] - Fire[/COLOR][/color][/SUP][/indent][/hider]
[hider=// PERSONALITY][color=2E2C2C]-[/color]
[indent][sup][COLOR=fc4a03][b]Soul Alight[/b]
[COLOR=807B84]Axan is an [i]incredibly[/i] driven person. After she chooses a course to take—leaving her home, learning to fight with the best, honing her magic, becoming a mercenary—then come hell or high water, she is [i]going[/i] to make it all the way, or she'll die trying. That's not to say she's stubborn, exactly. She knows how to be flexible or take a break; the world is too amazing to [i]not[/i] sometimes. But what she doesn't seem to know is how to give up. However long it takes her to get where she's going, she [i]is[/i] getting there.[/COLOR][/COLOR]

[COLOR=fc4a03][b]Heart Ablaze[/b]
[COLOR=807B84]But what's the point of getting [i]anywhere[/i] if you step on everyone in the way?

Surprising those who have heard of her by name and reputation and nothing else, Axan is a very warm and caring person, always ready to help people out and to do it with a smile on her face. She has a [i]strong[/i] moral compass, and this tends to be responsible for a number of those breaks and distractions; no matter the inconvenience it causes to her, she's not the type who'd find someone in distress and think, [i]I'll leave it to someone else to solve.[/i][/COLOR][/COLOR]

[COLOR=fc4a03][b]Tears Aflame[/b]
[COLOR=807B84]Driven, compassionate, helpful, [i]intense[/i]. As might be gleaned, Axan is pretty much incapable of being clinical and emotionless. Partially as a side effect of using almost exclusively the chaotic strain of Incantation inherited from Vaalascha but mostly just because of the kind of person she is, she feels [i]everything[/i] very strongly, from joy to hope to grief to sorrow. And no matter what emotion she's feeling, she shows it. Her heart is very much worn on her sleeve. It all comes together to form a picture most really don't expect; a caring, compassionate mercenary who eschews the cutthroat reputation of her occupation. After all, she's never really been one for rules.[/COLOR][/COLOR]
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[hider=// SKILLSET][color=2E2C2C]-[/color]
[indent][sup][COLOR=fc4a03][b]Dragonsong[/b]
[COLOR=#807B84]A wild, chaotic strain of magic, Vaalaschan Incantation is unpredictable and dangerous, often just as likely to injure the wielder or their comrades as it is the enemy.

Axan, thenn is an unusual case study.

From long practice and constant use, she has begun to exercise a strict control of that dangerous dragonic strain of fire, and bend it firmly to her will in a way that's not altogether common to see. And it makes her quite a threatening presence, because not only are Vaalaschan Incantations powerful in their own right...nobody really makes use of them. She is unpredictable and hard to read.[/COLOR][/COLOR]

[COLOR=fc4a03][b]Emberdance[/b]
[COLOR=#807B84]All those dancing lessons as a child came in handy after all.

Hand in hand with her magic, her fighting style further increases that strange combat style that makes her so hard to read and dangerous. While she is of course proficient in standard swordplay and often incorporates pieces of it in combat to confuse and distract, her principle form is that of a quick Valeforian dance. With the great deal of strength she has at her disposal, she can whip her greatsword around faster than it looks like she should rightfully be able to, whirling it in a dervish of brilliant sanguine steel and flashing fire. Her steps are quick, her smile is undaunted. And she [i]always[/i] keeps tempo.
[/COLOR][/COLOR]

[COLOR=fc4a03][b]Kindlesoul[/b]
[COLOR=#807B84]Keeping tempo indeed.

Axan prides herself on being able to react to anything, and do it with a smile on her face. And downtime is absolutely no exception to the rule. As merciless as she is in battle, once she gets off the battlefield, she is just as skilled and happy applying herself inside the home as well as outside. She may not look it, and she may not advertise it, but Axan is rather good at homemaking. Whether cooking a roast over an open fire, baking a pie, keeping a garden, or arranging flowers, she channels that privileged upbringing, putting it to good use to make herself and anyone around her at the time just a little bit happier.[/COLOR][/COLOR]

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[/cell][cell][b]Physical Description[/b]
[color=#807B84][indent]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.[/indent][/color]
[b]Character Conceptualization[/b]
[color=#807B84][indent]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 [i]outright hostile.[/i]

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 [i]was[/i] 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 [i]last family.[/i] 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—[i]his[/i]—family home. To see. To talk. To escape.

To [i]fight.[/i][/indent][/color]
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