[center][h1][color=paleturquoise]Aoife[/color][/h1][img]https://i.ibb.co/2vtPLsV/Aoife-right-sie.png[/img]

[i]"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."[/i]
[color=f7941d][h1]★★★★★★[/h1][/color]
[img]https://gamepress.gg/arknights/sites/arknights/files/styles/50x50/public/2022-12/Dublinn.png?itok=sz83u6U7[/img][img]https://i.ibb.co/Tv2kVbk/guard.png[/img][img]https://gamepress.gg/arknights/sites/arknights/files/styles/50x50/public/2021-09/sub_artsfghter_icon.png?itok=zxUqo-eq[/img][/center]
[table][row][/row][cell][indent][h3][b][color=paleturquoise]Operator Profile[/color][/b][/h3][/indent]_______________________________________
[b][u]Codename[/u][/b]: Ashgirl
[b][u]Epithet[/u][/b]: The Taran Pariah

[b][u]Class[/u][/b]: Guard
[b][u]Branch[/u][/b]: Arts Fighter

[b][u]Race[/u][/b]: Vouivre
[b][u]Affiliations[/u][/b]: Dublinn (formerly)

[b][u]Height[/u][/b]: 173 cm
[b][u]Weight[/u][/b]: 75 kg

[b][u]Place of Birth[/u][/b]: Post-annexation Tara
[b][u]Date of Birth[/u][/b]: January 1

[b][u]Gender[/u][/b]: Female

[b][u]Combat Experience[/u][/b]: 10 years
[/cell][cell][INDENT][h3][b][color=paleturquoise]Clinical Analysis[/color][/b][/h3][/INDENT]______________________________________________________________________
[b][u]Strength[/u][/b]: Excellent
[b][u]Endurance[/u][/b]: Excellent
[b][u]Mobility[/u][/b]: Standard
[b][u]Arts Adaptability[/u][/b]: Outstanding
[b][u]Combat Skill[/u][/b]: Excellent
[b][u]Tactical Acumen[/u][/b]: Normal

[b][u][color=ffffff]Infection Status[/color][/u][/b]: Infected
[indent]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.[/indent]
[b][u]Cell-Originium Assimilation[/u][/b]: 28%. Multiple crystal lesions visible on the subject's skin.
[b][u]Blood Originium-Crystal Density[/u][/b]: 0.32 u/L. Miss Aoife's condition is [i]extremely[/i] 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.[/cell][/table]
[b][u]Character Synopsis[/u][/b]:[indent]A former noblewoman and former revolutionary, forced from both of her homes and set adrift.[/indent]
[b][u]Personality[/u][/b]:[indent]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.[/indent][table][cell][indent][h3][b][color=paleturquoise]Talents[/color][/b][/h3][/indent][/cell][cell][INDENT][h3][b][color=paleturquoise]Talent Description[/color][/b][/h3][/INDENT][/cell][row][/row][cell][u]Taran Swordsmanship[/u]

[img]https://gamepress.gg/arknights/sites/arknights/files/styles/thumbnail/public/2023-02/技能_问雪.png?itok=DShMVbxO[/img][/cell][cell]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 [i]used[/i], 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 [i]extinct,[/i] 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.[/cell][row][/row][cell][u]Pariah's Oath[/u]

[img]https://gamepress.gg/arknights/sites/arknights/files/styles/thumbnail/public/2019-11/skill_icon_skchr_astesi_2.png?itok=rn7hDmmy[/img][/cell][cell]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 [i]end[/i] 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 [i]hasn't,[/i] she's developed an astounding level of willpower, able to push through constant physical pain, emotional torment, and any number of roadblocks. She [i]is[/i] going to get to where she's going, and good luck to anybody that tries to stand in her way.[/cell]
[row][/row][cell][indent][h3][b][color=paleturquoise]Skills[/color][/b][/h3][/indent][/cell][cell][INDENT][h3][b][color=paleturquoise]Skill Description[/color][/b][/h3][/INDENT][/cell][row][/row][cell][u]Sheer Cold[/u]

[img]https://gamepress.gg/arknights/sites/arknights/files/styles/thumbnail/public/2021-12/skill_icon_skchr_gnosis_2.png?itok=3PdsefkG[/img][/cell][cell]Aoife's arts, channeled through her sword, are of a particularly unique variety. While they generally take the [i]form[/i] 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).[/cell][row][/row][cell][u]Bitterwinter Bite[/u]

[img]https://gamepress.gg/arknights/sites/arknights/files/styles/thumbnail/public/2022-10/skill_icon_skchr_mlynar_3.png?itok=q2kOTMjr[/img][/cell][cell]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. [/cell][row][/row][cell][u]One Thousand Shining Teeth[/u]

[img]https://gamepress.gg/arknights/sites/arknights/files/styles/thumbnail/public/2023-01/skill_icon_skchr_lin_3.png?itok=YYOC_6gF[/img][/cell][cell]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 [i]judicious[/i] 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.[/cell][/table][indent][h3][b][color=paleturquoise]Equipment Module[/color][/b][/h3][hr][hider=Claíomh-na-Samhain][center]\[img]https://i.ibb.co/94DCFVR/samhain-sword.png[/img][/center][/hider][/indent]
[list][*][u][b]Claíomh-na-Samhain - The Sword of Samhain[/b][/u]: 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.
[/list][color=paleturquoise][indent][h3][b]Operator Archives[/b][/h3][/indent][/color][indent][hider=50% trust is required to view this file]The Eóganachta clan is a [i]very[/i] old Taran family, going back far into when it was a kingdom of its own and nearly passing into myth in their own right. Consequently, even in the new, Victorian Tara, they occupied positions of power and privilege that would be the envy of any native Victorian noble, let alone those Tarans unfortunate enough to not have enormous family fortunes and a huge manor to retreat into. It was into this incredibly privileged upbringing that their youngest daughter of three, Aoife, was born. Her two elder sisters Siobhan and Bronagh had enough years separating them from her that they were less siblings, and more auxiliary parents. And so Aoife grew up coddled and spoilt, doted on by four separate different sources. It was an idyllic childhood, and she didn't spare a thought to look outside of the manor grounds.[/hider]
[hider=100% trust is required to view this file]But all that changed when Aoife was more or less seven years old, when a rumor spread among the Tarans--whether true or not, nobody knows to this day--that the Eóganachta clan had sold out to Victoria. 

And that was the only match that the powder keg needed to ignite.

In a single, brutally violent night, the entire Eóganachta estate was razed to the ground, and Aoife's parents were both killed, along with Bronagh and Siobhan. Aoife--scared, confused, and unable to understand what was happening--was pulled from the ashes of everything that she knew and thrust into the arms of a disorganized group of Taran malcontents. Perhaps if she'd been a little older, she would've been killed. But...

...Perhaps she also would've been able to hold on to herself a little bit better.

Within the disdainful Tarans, Aoife Eóganachta became...nothing. They refused to even use her name, refused to let her be Aoife Eóganachta. Just...[i]You.[/i] Or [i]Vouivre.[/i] And other things, of course, until eventually she the name stuck: [i]Ash Girl.[/i] But never again [i]Aoife[/i], and certainly never [i]Eóganachta.[/i] No name. 

Until she forgot it on her own.[/hider]
[hider=150% trust is required to view this file]For the next few years, she lived as something like a daughter, and something like a servant. She wasn't quite one, yet wasn't fully the other either. And after a year? Two years? [i]Ash Girl[/i] had become her name. She barely remembered even the faintest fragments of her former life, and almost nothing at all of her old home. But still, she was...harmless. And, in turn, in no danger of harm.

But that all came to an end when Ash Girl was eleven years old.

The Taran malcontents--as a whole--were trending to more militant, and more violent. And when she was eleven years old...

Dublinn was born.

It took the Tarans by storm, and Ash Girl with them. She was still a child the first time a sword was shoved into her delicate hands. A scant year of training, and before her thirteenth birthday she was being involved in warfare.

She fought for years, until the sudden catastrophic incident in County Hillock. And it was there that she saw firsthand what Dublinn [i]truly[/i] stood for. The blinders were pulled away from her eyes, and she finally saw the horrific biolence and pain caused even to Tarans for what it truly was.

She couldn't be here anymore.

And so Ash Girl ran.

She ran from County Hillock. She ran far, deep into the lands that used to be Tara, back towards where she knew. And eventually, her feet found half-forgotten yet familiar pathways that led her up to a ruin of collapsed, crumbled stone, charred wood, twisted metal and sodden ashes. She stared at it through the lashing rains, and memories began to slowly bubble up to the surface of her mind. as through through molasses. And the first to arrive was a name that she recognize, but felt somehow wrong in Ash Girl's mind.

Aoife Eóganachta had come home.

She couldn't go back to Dublinn. She knew that. Her home--her [i]second[/i] home--was gone forever. She shook her head, trying to ignore the shivers that ran through her pale body. And as the rain began to peter off, she slowly, meditatively, began to walk through the ruins.

Every time her eyes played over something even the vaguest bit familiar, new memories began to surface. Memories that she knew belonged to her, but felt like someone else's. She came across her own room at one point, or at least she thought she did; as she stared at the third floor bedroom that had fallen into the first floor, she thought she recognized the shattered remnants of a fireplace and chimney that were piled up inside. She was in a daze as she passed through it all.

Finally, she wound her way into what she remembered now was the living room, and there, where her father once read by the fire, she found the collapsed remnant of the mantle. Almost hypnotized, she acted on a vague impulse and scraped aside the ashes, digging through the refuse of the years until her hand closed around the handle of Claíomh-na-Samhain. A sharp feeling of disorientation blurred through her; she was Ash Girl. But she was Aoife too.

So now...this home was gone, and there was no going back to Dublinn. Not after that. Never again. She thought she might puke.

She did.

But still, the question remained. Where? Where, with this sword on her back, should she go?

Not Victoria, [i]obviously.[/i] Maybe Columbia? Yeah, that was...probably the best idea.[/hider]
[hider=200% trust is required to view this file]Columbia was nice enough. But it didn't hold her for very long, and nor did anywhere else. Unsteady, unmoored, a self-imposed pariah from her homeland, she became a drifter, roaming hither and thither for the next several years. She took odd jobs; she took mercenary work; she took anything she could find. But Siracusa, Leithanien, Iberia; none of them held her for more than six months.

As she bounced around, she inevitably found herself drawn into conflicts, and struck out against what she perceived as injustice. Whether as Aoife or as Ash Girl, she kept roving, kept moving. Until the summer of year 1105.

She was caught up in a conflict again. She was prepared for many things; her skill with her sword and her tough Vouivre physique had carried her through much. But what she was not prepared for was a grenade of active originium detonating nearly underneath her foot.

The explosion itself didn't do a huge amount of damage. That wasn't the point. The [i]problem[/i] were the countless shards of originium that blasted into her, afflicting her with a [i]crushing[/i] infection immediately.

And...she didn't know what to do after that.

She never thought she'd be infected. And she wasn't exactly in a place with stellar treatment of the Infected; the south of Ursus was not a great place for her to be. So she just kept trying to do what she'd done before.

But it did not go well.

Even as close to the edge of the plate as she was, she couldn't even make it all the way. And it was then--barely functional, deeply disoriented and dizzy, aching all over from her oripathy--Aoife was discovered and saved from death's door by a woman who called herself "Firewatch." Said something about an organization; Ash Girl wasn't quite in the proper mental state to really figure out what was going on. And right before she passed out, she heard Firewatch talking to someone over a radio.

Next time she woke up--just a month ago now--she was in Rhodes Island's medical bay, and felt better than she had in weeks. It took time for her to mend, and to discover what had happened, and where she was. And soon afterwards, she discovered her Arts. Her very, very powerful freezing arts. And as she recovered, she came to a resolution. It had been years ago now since she'd lost her second home.

It was time she find another.[/hider][/indent]
[b][u]Trivia[/u][/b]:[list][*]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.[/list]