A n d r o m e d a B a i r
Ethnicity
French/Austrian
Nationality
Isolian
Birthplace
Eury, Isola
Former Occupation
Madam of one of Isola's leading escort services. More bluntly put: she ran a brothel.
Appearance
Andromeda is a woman of luxury. Her honey-golden locks fall at the middle of her back when they're loose, but more commonly she wears it half-up/half-down, making sure that it's voluminous and mane-like. That's a pretty accurate parallel to make; Andromeda can be best described as a lioness. Her figure is full and unapologetic, yet fit. Most of her outfits consist of high-end dresses and heels sharp enough to carve with. She is usually adorned with tasteful jewelry, the only constant being a thin, simple, silver ring she wears around her pinky.
Personality
The whole lioness metaphor is applicable to her personality, as well. To work in her field, one cannot be a sheep; Andromeda is an exceptional example. She is strong-willed and silver-tongued, yet it takes a lot for her to get angry for petty reasons. It's a quiet yet piercing confidence she possesses; one that assures everyone knows of her presence and character even if she doesn't make a sound. In spite of all this, however, she's not much for small talk, and really keeps to herself unless it's necessary for her to engage another. The one thing Andi is quick to do is defend herself or her principles, and if there's even a whiff of threat to either, she will pounce.
Hobbies / Interests
As a woman of luxury, Andromeda's hobbies include rolling in sheets of silk and drinking champagne in a bubble bath. Cleanliness and organization are both important to her, so she spends whatever energy needed making sure her possessions are in order, and that the house never falls below her standards. She also enjoys reading historical texts, as well as those that explore the psyche; mostly to educate herself on the human condition. With knowledge comes power, after all.
Skills / Talents
Make no mistake; while Andi - as only a rare few know her - has cravings for the finer things, she also knows how to get her hands dirty. As a Madam, she's had to learn how to assert herself from the more uncivil characters that slip into the rooms and foolishly try to cheat their bills or take advantage of her. She is passable at hand-to-hand combat and is definitely not afraid to deliver a swift kick between the legs. She also has a particular knowledge of how people tick, and therefore can charm people to her way of thinking.
Motivation/Crime Committed
Andromeda dealt with the most classified clientele that passed through the house. Surprisingly - or perhaps, unsurprisingly, really - a good percentage of those VIP were members of the hallowed Executive Consortium. One such Executive had a particularly promiscuous daughter, who began working on Andi's team of girls under a different identity. Unfortunately for the girl's poor father, he found out after having accidentally been brought to her room for the night. As one can imagine, all hell broke loose - the Executive raged on and on about the immorality of the place and eventually managed to shut the entire operation down, claiming that Andi was using magic to trick the girls into working for her. The other major clients, not wanting to have their names tarnished by multiple visits to the brothel, supported the claim. This of course was not the case; all the girls that worked at Miss Neela's were there voluntarily, either for pleasure or for profit.
Andromeda was consequently arrested for human trafficking and illegal use of magic, but since the Consortium couldn't prove that she had done anything to deserve a heavier sentence, she remained in a general correctional facility with Jaemy. Still, she was furious. The house was the only remaining memory she had of her mother, and the only family she had were the women in it; and it had all been taken away from her by selfish hypocrites. This, coupled with the abuse she was experiencing from the guards who prattled on about how "she should be used to this after working in a whore house", was enough to warrant a festering need for vengeance. She got her hands on a small, sharpened piece of metal fashioned from an old razor blade, and when the guards invaded her cell for their weekly fun at her expense, Andi stabbed their smug grins right off their faces. This earned her a sentence of death.
History
Raised by a single mother who had really only used her biological father to produce a child, it was no wonder Andromeda turned into the resolute woman she was. Neela Bair, the original inspiration for the person Andromeda molded herself into, was the creator of Miss Neela's - the brothel her daughter would eventually inherit, if she wanted it. Contrary to what one might think of having a Madam as a mother, Neela dutifully kept her daughter from the house and made sure Andi had a good home away from business. Of course, she made sure to be honest with her daughter, and told her little tidbits of her occupation as she grew older. Andi absolutely admired her mother, and absorbed everything the woman had to teach her like a sponge.
Other than her mother's unconventional job, Andromeda (who wasn't really magically inclined) was just like any other girl. She sang to herself, played with dresses, and had a best girl friend; Jaemy Galland, who, interestingly enough, was born to a woman who worked closely with Neela in the bordello. Andromeda's mother promptly offered to have the child stay at the Bair residence during work hours, and Andi was more than happy to have a friend. Being a few years older than Jaemy was, she took lead and cared after the girl, simultaneously a mother and a sister.
In school, she was intelligent and keen to learn - regardless of the disapproving looks, and sometimes words, she received from teachers and parents who had hunches of what her mother did. While all this negativity probably nestled itself somewhere deep in Andromeda's psyche, she refused to let it touch her and instead became incredibly excited to join her mother in the business. Only when Andi turned sixteen did Neela finally allow her to step foot into the workplace, and after years of having taught her that it was not anything to be ashamed of, Andromeda welcomed the house and its girls with open arms. She began learning the ropes of the business in terms of how to run such a place, with the most important rule being that there should never be a woman under that roof that didn't want to be there. The place was a sort of sanctuary for girls that needed or wanted to be there, and the Bairs treated it as such.
It was around the tail end of Andromeda's seventeenth year that her mother developed lung cancer from the years of smoking. Neela Bair passed away on Andi's nineteenth birthday, and she promptly dropped out of college to tend to the only remaining link she had with her mother. Business flourished thanks to Andromeda's proactivity, although she herself was never involved in anything behind closed doors. It was her job to get paying men in and out, and so she swooned and sweet-talked clients into spending evenings in their rooms. Eventually, hushed word carried up into the big leagues, and her rooms began filling with Executives from the Consortium. All was going swimmingly until the incident, and the rest is history.
Relationships
N/A
Jaemy Galland
- Andromeda's right-hand woman at Miss Neela's, and possibly the only person she trusted aside from her mother. The two were basically sisters; Jaemy's mother worked for Neela, so she was a frequenter at the Bair residence for playdates with Andi while their mothers worked. Jaemy was also arrested during the incident, but the two were separated after Andromeda was sentenced to death.
Magic
Sway
- This spell allows Andromeda to alter or plant thoughts, ideas, or memories into another's psyche by way of direct eye contact. The receiver of this influence will think these new pieces of information are facts, and will not be able to differentiate between the altered/planted thoughts from their own. The duration of this spell depends on how big or notable the change in memory is; the bigger the change and the longer it needs to be planted, the more magic it requires.
Dissolve
- This spell allows Andromeda to turn objects of solid matter into ghostly forms of themselves, allowing for safe passage through them. For example, if Andi casts this on a section of wall, she, and whoever is touching her at the time, will be able to walk right through into the next room. This spell has a short duration and will only last for a few moments unless Andromeda recasts it.
Other
- In another life, light-years from this one, Andromeda would have loved to have children of her own.
Concept
