hoppiholla391

Mirror, Fox, Key

because it occurred to me earlier that there is one medieval profession no one ever seems to go for:

Lily Madyne

Lɪʟʏ Mᴀᴅʏɴᴇ

(LIL-ee Muh-DIE-nuh)
A practical lady of the night who has decided it’s time to move on.

Road Clothes

Ask anyone in the lower quarter of Enn—Lily (although no one really believes that’s her name) is a florist. A successful florist. A curiously successful florist, actually, for someone who lives in one of the poorest district in the city, where few people have to coin or the urge to buy the delicate blossoms she peddles. Occasionally, she’ll take her wares to the upper districts and actually come home with an empty basket—but that’s not really how she makes her livelihood, and everyone knows it.

Almost six years ago, times were tough on the docks of Enn—there was little work, all of it backbreaking, and much too difficult for Lily’s widow father or her three younger sisters to keep up for long. For months, as the family got closer and closer to starving, Lily tried to find work for herself, and took any and all jobs to keep the family afloat. Every once in a while, though, she’d dream of leaving the city and finding adventure and riches—but she’d never abandon her family like that.

One day, some rich merchant’s boy offered her an entire silver piece for a drunken kiss, and she had her ‘eureka’ moment.

Things quickly escalated, and these days she’s making enough to support herself, her father, and her sisters—all three of whom now have lives of their own, in Enn and in other cities, all of which Lily paid for. The youngest is studying at the Royal University, the next oldest works for a seamstress in the next city over, and the second oldest lives on one of the outlying farms as a stablehand. Their room and board, their food, their tuition, father’s medicine—all of it, bought on Lily’s dime, and she doesn’t mind one jot. As far as she’s concerned, once she crossed the line, she might as well do the best she can. ‘Shameless’ is an understatement—she’s actually very proud of how far her family’s come.

These days, though, things are not as good as they were a year ago, even if her sisters are largely supporting themselves now. Her father’s wasting sickness has only gotten worse, and even with more and more coin going towards his care, his condition declined. Rapidly. With all her experience, she could see what was coming plain as day, but refused to believe it.

She saw the notice calling for Traveller’s companions on a Saturday. Her father died on Tuesday. Today is Thursday, and she’ll be at the east gates with all she owns at the crack of dawn. There’s nothing left for her to do in this city now—time to find those adventures she’s been dreaming of.

Mirror, Fox, Key: Chapter Two Now Recruiting

absolutely interested! trying to decide between a healer/medic bookworm character and prince zuko-style honor journey warrior. can't wait until the OOC crops up!

Elementals: The Scarred World (Semi-Open)

Vanahara's eyes narrowed as the ice mage swung her staff behind her ear, readying for a blow. Unfortunately for her, she raised her forearm in an automatic defense, forgetting for the moment she wore no bracer—fortunately for her, Master Alexander knew his craft. As the flare went off, she shifted from her ill-advised defensive move into covering her eyes with her arm, and afterimages still bled through. Ling raised her crossbow, and Vana winced; they'd have to do some quick talking after this was over to maintain their cover. The bright light could have been a gunpowder flash grenade...right?

Somehow, over the sudden cries of those caught unawares and momentarily blinded, Vana heard a splash, and her eyes were drawn to the ice mage. The woman's eyes were wide, her attention on her armor, sweeping her hands up and down in an attempt to refreeze the rapidly thawing ice—her spear had already been reduced to little more than snowdrifts on the ground. Every distraction was an opening.

As soon as Ling fired her vial, Vanahara lunged. She grabbed the ice mage by the hair and arm, yanking her forward and slamming her face-first into the table. She followed it up with a sharp kick to the kneecap that should, with luck, send her to the ground. She could feel the icy plate that had been so solid-looking splinter around her heel—Drew worked quickly.

A flash out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, and Vana dropped into a crouch behind the table, wincing as a jet of flame burst over her head. Karina's mercy, we're literally stuck in a corner.

Elementals: The Scarred World (Semi-Open)

The hours until the ship touched down were...uneventful. Pained as she was to admit it, even to herself, Vanahara was...not so great at small talk. At least at the Academy among her fellow Metallics, things had settled into a kind of pattern—people didn't talk to her, and she didn't talk to people. Now that she was thrown into a group of strangers, however, she was out of her element (literally). After parting ways with Drew with a stilted smile, she wandered the ship, at a loss for what to do. She almost paused in the common room, but spotted one of the hydromancers—Nataly; she really needed to remember names—sleeping in a corner, and crept past.

When she found a suitably dark corner, Vana paused, checking that no one was watching her too closely. She pulled one of the pouches from her belt and tipped its contents into her other hand. With a sound like sloshing water, a scrap of the Storm-steel from earlier that she'd managed to hold onto dripped into her palm, gleaming slightly even in the dark. Eyes lighting up with interest, she cupped both hands around it, tilting it back and forth to study the way it moved. She'd never seen metal like this before—it was almost like molten silver, but it was cool to the touch and the battle on the deck had been proof of its strength, not to mention she could sense it was very fine quality. Its only fault was its unwillingness to hold one shape—while it was easy enough to form a sphere or a cube standing alone in a hallway, it still took focus she might not have in the midst of battle. After a while, she sighed, letting it drip back into her belt pouch before setting off again on her rounds of the ship. For now, she'd keep it to herself, but later she'd see if their new arrival knew anything about Storm metals.

Inevitably, she found herself back in the engine room. This time, at least, the engineers didn't seem to object to her presence and simply ignored her. That suited her just fine as she made sure to stay out of their way and merely sat, palms pressed to the metal pipe behind her, gaining a little more understanding of the ship's workings with every passing minute. When the call came that they'd landed and the Commander was going into town, Vanahara joined the small party. At the order to not give themselves away as mages, she blinked, both confused and concerned as to why it would be necessary. It was simple enough, though—her clothes were rough as they were. The only strange thing about her attire was her bracers, and she merely tucked them into a larger pouch at her side. Her arms felt strangely bare without them, but they'd be at hand if she really needed them.

Stepping into the tavern, she realized she probably would. This was a rough joint, that much was obvious before they even entered, and once Vana was inside, her nose wrinkled of its own accord.

"Scantily clad women, an undercurrent of violence, and utterly drunk men," she muttered as she sat with the other mages on one of the outer seats. "What a dazzling combination." For a moment, she thought that the atmosphere could only get better, not worse—and then a boulder crashed through the door, a man was set on fire, and Vanahara could feel a headache coming on. She couldn't keep the scowl off her face, either—this was exactly why mages were feared throughout the known world. Bad examples, the lot of them.

And one of those bad examples was coming their way now. The ice mage was making a circuit of the room, slamming her fist into people or tables with impunity. Vana's fists clenched under the table, knuckles going whiter and whiter with every crash of cutlery and tankards as the mage hit each table hard enough to send them bouncing. She ground her teeth, but stayed where she was, remembering clearly Hayes' instructions to stay incognito and trying to block out the jeers from the other mages.

The ice mage, of course, made the mistake of coming around to their table. With a sneer, the woman raised her fist to slam it into the table—

And found it stopped, inches above the wood. Vanahara's hand was clenched around the bottom of the mage's fist, forearm straining as she kept it from making contact with the table. Once she was sure the other mage wouldn't be making the same deafening racket as at the other tables, she released her hand easily enough, settling her own back in her lap and meeting the ice mage's eyes calmly.

"That's enough of that, thank you," she said quietly.

Primas Learning Center - School for Ex-Heroes

You're fine. Everything's fine. Just breathe.

Even as Amelie repeated the mantra to herself, she knew it was working just as well as usual—which was to say, not at all. She was perched on the soft leaf cover within Primas' park grounds, wrapped in the soft white feathers of a dove. The disadvantage of smaller forms, though, was one of the deeper biological changes—her heartbeat was intrinsically faster. Not exactly helpful when trying to calm down.

The young Korean woman turned her focus inwards, yellow birds eyes sliding closed and feathers settling. She concentrated on her heartbeat, breathing in deeply and letting it out twice as slowly. She'd only had scant months to adjust to being in the outside world, so she had to stick to the most basic tactics to calm down. From a few hundred beats per minute, her pulse slowly calmed from three hundred, to two hundred, to finally a calm one hundred bpm.

Amelie opened her eyes, wings having melted into arms, feathers flattening into smooth human skin. For not the first time, she was infinitely grateful that her clothes seemed to shift with her whenever she changed forms. Standing, she dusted herself off and lifted the bag she'd been using as a nest only minutes earlier across her shoulder. She couldn't hide anymore. Sooner or later, either she'd walk into Primas herself, or they'd drag her in, she was sure of it. Might as well enter on her own two feet. She just tried to empty her brain of anything but the map she'd tried to memorize, kept her head down, and walked forward. Of course, she wasn't counting on the common room being full when she got there.

"Oh," she squeaked out, surprised and embarrassed that she'd been surprised. The first thing she'd noticed was the several people standing around the room; the second was that everyone was so tall. She herself came in just under five feet; if she was going to be dwarfed everywhere she went, things were going to be even more difficult. The others seemed to be introducing themselves; Amelie herself slid to the back, hanging around one of the couches and clutching her bag. If someone asked, she'd give her name, but she wasn't going to talk about her powers with strangers.

Primas Learning Center - School for Ex-Heroes

heyo, sitting in a train station right now on my way home, ill make my first IC post later tonight. sorry about not posting sooner!

Primas Learning Center - School for Ex-Heroes

Amelie Song

NAME—
Amelie Ki Song

AGE—
20

GENDER—
Female

APPEARANCE—


PERSONALITY—

Amelie has been called birdlike more than once—small, soft, and eager to stay away from any trouble, awakening protective instincts in just about anyone. She's almost painfully shy, stemming from a genuine fear of other people—in large crowds, she can become almost nonverbal, choosing to sign or mime instead. It takes a lot of work to get to her clever, compassionate, fiercely protective core, but once her considerable defenses are down she'll support her friends, subtly but totally. Her loyalties aren't unconditional, but those bonds she does have are very strong. Understandably, she suffers from PTSD and an anxiety disorder, both from being a child soldier on the front lines, and what came after.

She wasn't like this before the war and her subsequent experiences. She was always outgoing, loud even, joking with friends and charming strangers. Any who knew her before would be shocked at the change after almost a decade. Deep, deep down though, there's a seed of rage and bitterness festering, held down for the moment by fear and self-distrust.

HISTORY—

For some of the heroes of the War, the transition from child soldier to civilian was difficult—sometimes, impossible. Amelie never got the chance to try. She was one of the youngest fighters in the War, still in her pre-teens when conflict first erupted, and lost her immediate family to the ashes—convenient, that no one questioned where she'd gone when she disappeared.

Being a lab rat was an excruciating process, one she tries not to dwell on and never speaks of, even if to this day she insists the scientists were just trying to do their jobs. Most of the time spent in the facility was in isolation—her keepers were worried about her impersonating one of them and escaping, so they largely kept her in solitary, only bringing her out to perform some test or another. This treatment contributed to her quietness today, and her fear of sudden noises—the slam of her cell door opening without warning still haunts her nightmares.

She doesn't entirely remember leaving the facility, or the circumstances of her departure—she thinks she remembers fires blazing and alarms wailing, but that could just be a fever dream. She seems sure that one of the small needle scars on her arms hides a tracker, and lives in fear that those who used her before will one day come to take her back for more tests. A Primas official approached her in the scant weeks after she gained her freedom when she was still homeless on the streets, and although she has little trust for any kind of authority these days, she had little other choice.

ABILITIES—

Amelie is a powerful shapeshifter—or, she would be powerful, if she weren't so afraid of herself. Back during the War, her form morphing from a white tiger to a massive polar bear to an albino constricting snake as necessary was a common sight at some minor battles; nowadays, transformations are extremely rare, and only into largely harmless forms. She hasn't mimicked a person since before the War. Most of this is due to her conditioning—the technicians at the facility wanted to duplicate her powers, not have to deal with her rebellion, so they made sure she understood that her abilities were evil. Using them extensively is physically painful these days, although that's almost entirely psychosomatic. On a smaller scale, though, Amelie is also afraid of herself. She clearly remembers the gleam of blood on her own massive claws at an age when she should have been worrying about her freshman year of high school—in contrast, she avoids violence at all costs now, and thinks of that side of herself as a monster. It'll take time and effort to work past the mental blocks she's put up.

For now, she only uses a few forms regularly: a small white dove that can be seen in the park on the hospital campus, a large white moth, and on occasion a white ferret. She's lost many of the finer skills she developed during the War, such as shifting select parts of herself, or copying a person exactly. Deep down, though, she misses the confidence and power of her larger, deadlier forms.

BELONGINGS—
None other than the necessities, aside from the downy feathers, small scales, and animal hairs that always seem to cling to her pockets.

Primas Learning Center - School for Ex-Heroes

no problem! i guessed you'd missed it, lol.

Primas Learning Center - School for Ex-Heroes

@Tancuras any word on my CS...?

Heart Of Gold - Firefly Inspired RP - Closed

"Oh, no!" Hannah called back, using the railing under her arm to pull herself along. "I'm quite alright, thank y—"

She paused at the top of the stairs, looking down the seemingly endless expanse with trepidation. She sighed. "On second thought, yeah. Yeah, I could use some help." As the man approached, she pulled on a smile, quickly cataloging his features—Jeff, he'd called himself. Jeff moved oddly for a mechanic. "Pleasure to meet you!" she piped up, leaning heavily on the railing. "Where'd you spring from? Did Captain sign you on board?"