As the heavy wooden sword swung down at the Valeforian's head like an axe, Luen sucked a quick breath of air in through her teeth in a sharp sympathy wince. The poor boy. That was going to hurt, wasn't it? She felt a ghost of a tug on her legs, an impulse from a hidden place in her mind that urged her to run out there right now and stop the oncoming blow. Or at the very least to help the poor guy find a place to sit after he was so thoroughly trounced. And she actually did shift like she was about to start running, though of course she stopped herself before he inevitably—
And then he had to go and surprise Keros with snow magic and knock him out of the tournament like the snap of a finger.
"Wow."
The word slipped out before she could really do anything about it, and a little smile grew on her face.
“Wasn’t expecting incantations this early. Especially not from commoners.”
"Neither did I, but I'm glad. This way nobody got hurt." A moment passed before she realized how incredibly sappy and—and—and womanly what she'd just said was. After a beat of quiet that she felt was far too long and a self-conscious cough, she added: "After all, a heavy waster like that could break, what was it? Ferros' shoulder, and a commoner might never be able to get it fixed properly. Failure and pain are one thing, but being permanently crippled is quite another."
Quinnlash, by force of long, long habit, was snapped out of her distraction by a question about pyromancy. Which was not exactly her favorite subject; it reminded her far too much of things she'd left behind. But still, something—maybe her massive venting of pyromancy in the hearthfire keep, the memories that had been gnawing on her mind, or Galiel's last few words getting under her skin—compelled her to answer. So she glanced back at the pink Hunter. Lexann, she thought, as she locked eyes—or, well, eye—with her. Her mouth was fixed into a scornful sneer, as it often was. But when she spoke, her voice, on the other hand, was most unlike her. It carried none of the loud, angry vitriol that characterized "Quinnlash" so much of the time. Rather, it was quiet, level, and deeply bitter.
"Pyromancy has more limits than you think."
She stared up at the dark, clouded sky, and a small, tightly-controlled flame leapt between her fingers. "There's only so much energy in one person. Humans are finite, by definition; the Void is infinite. And finite versus infinite reaches a predictable, inevitable outcome. Which is why we exist. We—Hunters—we're still finite in theory if not normal praxis. Just...less so. So the conclusion is less clear-cut and obvious."
For the barest fraction of a fraction of a second, her face was writ with something like despair.
Then her hand snapped closed, and the flame vanished with it. Her brow creased into a thundercloud, and she mantled a scowl once again. Stop it. Stop it! FUCKING STOP IT! You aren't like that anymore! You are better!
"Ugh! Fuck! Why am I even talking about—telling you about—FUCK! It's not like dumbasses like you can understand it anyway, so why am I even BOTHERING?"
“Doesn’t seem fair. They get to have fun and showcase their skills while we sit and wait our turn.”
Luen gave a tiny frown as the boy next to her made...a good point, if a little misguided, she thought. She stayed looking forwards as the first fights were prepared. "You're—" She coughed as, for just one syllable, something like her normal voice leaked out before she forced it back down into the quiet, gentle near-monotone that was Lucien's. "Ehem—you're right, it's not fair, is it? It's..."
She grappled for the word she was looking for. It was like...it was like a dogfight, almost. Two people sent to fight for the amusement of the nobility. It just didn't sit right with her. Needlessly... "...Cruel. It's cruel to them, don't you—"
She turned her head, and there her train of thought stopped and her mouth dropped a little ways open. Next to her—how didn't she notice?—there was a boy, about her height, she thought? With eyes like chips of deep blue ice, and stark white hair. Almost unconsciously, she reached up and stroked a lock of her own behind her ear with an almost paper-white, near-bloodless hand. She was...more or less to surprised to really speak for the moment. She had never, ever seen anyone else with hair like hers. Well, in fairness, she hadn't seen many people to begin with. But on the way through the city to this arena, she hadn't seen a single person that had hair like hers—theirs. She knew it was part of what marked her as cursed. So despite the slightly unsettling way he thought of this whole exercise—fun?—she felt an immediate kind of kinship with him. She closed her mouth. What could she say?
The road was still a bit of an unfamiliar sensation underneath the tall white figure's boots as she finally arrived at her destination. And just like before, when a knight looking up at asked for a name, he showed...well. There was a bit of surprise and confusion evident. And curiosity too. But what there wasn't was the dread, and hatred, and disgust that she'd so expected. Which she'd received close to none of on the walk through the city as well, and now the crowd clustered around. Oh, there were a few; people who so thoughtfully provided her with what she'd known was coming; the stares, the glares, the whispers. And yet somehow, despite the nigh-paper white skin, the long hair that nearly glowed such was its stark pallor, and the narrow red eyes...it all felt so normal.
Though, admittedly, her frame of reference was somewhat limited.
"Lucien Navietas." The name felt strange in her mouth. There was an instinctual draw to use her true name instead, but she ignored it as best she could.
Hailing from? "The city Grayle." This voice was okay, right? A little flat affect and it worked? It sounded okay, but who could be sure, really? Not her, certainly. Ah, and from which part of the city? "Along the eastern wall." A small sound of confirmation as he realized that this applicant was a noble.
Family background and rank? "Second son—" Oh gods that felt strange! "of Asceron Navietas. Honorable Lucien." It had all been easy thus far. She just needed to remember this stuff and to not call herself Lady Luen and she'd be fine.
Then came the question she'd expected to encounter sooner or later, if not right away: why did she look like this? She gave what she hoped was a disarming smile without being too feminine of one. "I'm not sure, Ser. I was born like this." And that was all she needed to say, right? No more? And indeed, it seemed there would be no more. She was waved through with a minimum of effort. That was easier than she'd though. Maybe it was because she was from an established (if somewhat obscure) family?
But that didn't matter. What mattered was that, despite her fears she'd be immediately recognized and sent home in laughter and shame...she'd made it through.
And so, head held high, she strode forward, doing her best to exude confidence despite the confusion she felt. Odd looks, certainly; but that was to be expected; her height had a brilliant white dot moving clearly through the crowd around her. But the vast majority just...didn't care. A few moments passed as she threaded through the people before she finally took up a position around the arena. Upon seeing it, her heart began to race. She'd made it in despite her fears, it was true. But that was just the first step. Now she needed to stay in. She twisted her bracer around her arm as her she took a deep breath. She could do this. She just had to keep telling herself that. That she could do this. Despite the misfortune she carried like a cross about her neck...she could at least do this. She just had to keep telling herself that. That she could succeed. That she belonged here.
That whoever stepped into the arena with her would be a fool if they took Luenciel—Lucien—Navietas lightly.
Alja sighed quietly, rolled her shoulders. Reflected briefly. Benkei'd just impressed the hell out of her. There were many words she could use for the fellow tank (though, classes were pretty much gone now), but she'd never thought to call him eloquent. But listening to him, she could feel the telltale thrill of inspiration beat through her chest. Turned out that the surly ass who'd yelled at her for not keeping up her end of the DPS charts that one time had turned, almost without her noticing, into...yeah, into a leader, huh? She'd almost managed to forget that he'd asked her a question, and she shook her head, a little grin clinging on to her face.
"Yeah, gimme a sec, maybe..." She thought for a moment, then snapped her fingers. "Ah! I gotcha. Last I checked one of the guild lieutenants was a support named Embla. We played together a few times, and we like each other okay, I think. See if you can search her out. I don't know exactly how useful it'll be, but it's better than nothin,' hey?"
With that said, she nodded at Benkei, at Rael, at Kazuki. "Well then, I'll see ya later. Might go back to the Worg, might join you at Letria. I'll figure it out." Then, nodding one more time to herself, she headed towards the chapterhouse's guts. As she passed by Luci, she murmured to the side, "I'll talk to you after I see Leaves, 'kay?" And then she was through.
And there was the door. Looming closed in front of her. She swallowed, and a bolt of bitter self-recrimination passed through her. You should have come here sooner, you coward. Leaves needed help. And Alja SHOULD have been there to give it to her, instead of...whatever it was she'd been doing. She almost laughed at herself then.
Nicely done, Kelly. What a way to treat the woman you claim to love.
And then she knocked. Gently, gently; nothing like her usual bombast. "Leafy?" she called softly, hating the tremble that she could feel, if not hear, in her voice. "Are you awake?"
- Full Name - Lady Luenciel Aelissia Navietas Age - 15 Gender - Female Heritage - Grayle, The River Kingdom Magical Affinity - Water
-
Gentle As An Autumn Rain Grayle has not been kind to Luenciel—or Lucien, as the case may be. Her mere existence has ever been met with voices hushed in fear—"If you ever see the Ill-Starred child you'll be cursed."—and raised in anger—"Why should we let it live just because it's a noble!?"—for her whole life. And yet, despite everything levied against her...Luen is a soft, kind person. Though her social interaction up to this point has been limited, she hasn't changed, and they all point to the same thing: patient, gentle, caring, almost to a fault. That's not to say that she's gullible or easily taken in, not exactly. Rather, even when someone irks her, gets on her nerves, is a pain to be around; even then, she still cares.
Quiet As A Winter Mist Though, that might not be immediately apparent sometimes if you don't know her. In order for her to show that caring side of her she (not always, but usually) needs to speak first. It's not like she's shy or a wallflower, that's not why she's quiet. She's always tended that way, really. Just a generally quiet person, And the wire that she walks now to avoid being discovered has only made this more prominent. She is keenly aware that her voice is not a man's. And while she can get away with it for now, there's always a chance someone will realize she's out of place. So the less she talks, the safer she is from discovery and expulsion.
Fierce As A Summer Storm And expulsion is something she does not want. For all the noblewoman in her blood, all the quietude in her manner, all the kindness in her soul...she's still training to be a knight. And that means something. It means that despite her alignment to water, there's still a fire in her, one that is impossible to snuff out. And though slow to rouse, when that fire is stoked, she turns from a quiet child with too many rumors floating around about her to a skillful, relentless, and vicious warrior that belies her sheltered and pampered upbringing.
-
Crest Of The Wave Luen doesn't carry a weapon. Ever. But that doesn't mean she's ever unarmed.
The bracers that wrap around her forearms are scored all over with lines of runic script, each of which corresponds to a spell in Luen's trademark arsenal. She uses very little magic directly. Rather, it all gets filtered through the elaborate runes on her bracers. They conduct the water. Run it along their conduits. And finally, the water—whether liquid or simply condensed from the air—takes shape in her hand, and becomes a weapon. A rapier, a glaive, a spear, an axe, a knife; all of these and more are available to her through her bracers, and only dissipate when she lets them, loses focus, or loses consciousness. Her longer left bracer can additionally create arrays—from one to six, depending on focus, time, and available water—of watery knives that launch themselves at her foe.
Some may say that she's vulnerable without her bracers. It's true, she is. Take them from her, and she becomes a normal teenage girl. But good luck getting to them through the storm.
Born Under A Baleful Star Curse-child. Ill-starred. Monster. Thing. Killer.
Rumors have spread a long way from the Navietas household over these past years. Whispers down the lane, growing ever more distorted as they've slithered from house to house, ear to mouth to ear again. Dead-pale skin, like a corpse. And it only spun out as time had gone on, and her seclusion had remained. Red eyes, red like blood. And though she lived in quiet, these rumors—stark white hair, like all the light was drained from it—circled back around to her. Though her father tried to head them off as best he could, he was never able to stop her from wondering whether or not she's really safe to be near. After all, when something is repeated often enough...
...You start to believe it.
Quickstep It might be surmised by her slim lines, weaker physique, and the fact that she uses magical water-blades instead of any real weapon, but Luenciel is not what you would call strong. It's very likely that almost everyone else around her could overpower her through raw strength without a huge deal of effort (except maybe Julian).
And yet, she's still a competent combatant, because as much as she lacks in might, she makes up more than enough for with speed and technique. Doesn't matter if you're weaker if you're too agile for them to hit you, and too good for them to block (she can thank her dad for that one).
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
Earl 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.
- Full Name - Lady Luenciel Aelissia Navietas Age - 15 Gender - Female Heritage - Grayle, The River Kingdom Magical Affinity - Water
-
Gentle As An Autumn Rain Luenciel—or Lucien, as the case may be—is a soft, kind person. Though her social interaction up to this point has been limited, she hasn't changed, and they all point to the same thing: patient, gentle, caring, almost to a fault. That's not to say that she's gullible or easily taken in, not exactly. Rather, even when someone irks her, gets on her nerves, is a pain to be around; even then, she still cares.
Quiet As A Winter Mist Though, that might not be immediately apparent sometimes if you don't know her. In order for her to show that caring side of her she (not always, but usually) needs to speak first. It's not like she's shy or a wallflower, that's not why she's quiet. She's always tended that way, really. Just a generally quiet person, And the wire that she walks now to avoid being discovered has only made this more prominent. She is keenly aware that her voice is not a man's. And while she can get away with it for now, there's always a chance someone will realize she's out of place. So the less she talks, the safer she is from discovery and expulsion.
Fierce As A Summer Storm And expulsion is something she does not want. For all the noblewoman in her blood, all the quietude in her manner, all the kindness in her soul...she's still training to be a knight. And that means something. It means that despite her alignment to water, there's still a fire in her, one that is impossible to snuff out. And though slow to rouse, when that fire is stoked, she turns from a quiet child with too many rumors floating around about her to a skillful, relentless, and vicious warrior that belies her sheltered and pampered upbringing.
-
Crest Of The Wave Luen doesn't carry a weapon. Ever. But that doesn't mean she's ever unarmed.
The bracers that wrap around her forearms are scored all over with lines of runic script, each of which corresponds to a spell in Luen's trademark arsenal. She uses very little magic directly. Rather, it all gets filtered through the elaborate runes on her bracers. They conduct the water. Run it along their conduits. And finally, the water—whether liquid or simply condensed from the air—takes shape in her hand, and becomes a weapon. A sword, a glaive, a spear, an axe, a knife; all of these and more are available to her through her right bracer, and only dissipate when she lets them, loses focus, or loses consciousness. Her left bracer can create arrays—from one to six, depending on focus, time, and available water—of watery knives that launch themselves at her foe.
Some may say that she's vulnerable without her bracers. It's true, she is. Take them from her, and she becomes a normal teenage girl. But good luck getting to them through the storm.
Born Under A Baleful Star Curse-child. Ill-starred. Monster. Thing. Killer.
Rumors have spread a long way from the Navietas household over these past years. Whispers down the lane, growing ever more distorted as they've slithered from house to house, ear to mouth to ear again. Dead-pale skin, like a corpse. And it only spun out as time had gone on, and her seclusion had remained. Red eyes, red like blood. And though she lived in quiet, these rumors—stark white hair, like all the light was drained from it—circled back around to her. Though her father tried to head them off as best he could, he was never able to stop her from wondering whether or not she's really safe to be near. After all, when something is repeated often enough...
...You start to believe it.
Quickstep It might be surmised by her slim lines, weaker physique, and the fact that she uses magical water-blades instead of any real weapon, but Luenciel is not what you would call strong. It's very likely that almost everyone else around her could overpower her through raw strength without a huge deal of effort (except maybe Julian).
And yet, she's still a competent combatant, because as much as she lacks in might, she makes up more than enough for with speed and technique. Doesn't matter if you're weaker if you're too agile for them to hit you, and too good for them to block (she can thank her dad for that one).
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.
But, she reflected as she walked quickly down towards the front of the hall, at least it had sucked successfully. She'd done what she wanted to do, which was to draw eyes; hence the stares she could practically feel still burning into her back. Burning into, warming; they were the same thing in the end, right?
As she continued roughly shouldering her way through the crowd, she passed by Tentacles and a few others talking, though she couldn't hear what about over the noise of the hall. She sighed quietly. She'd made an enemy already. God. God, she hated this, and she hated how much she craved it. A small, bitter smile came to her face. It was almost funny in a mundane kind of way, wasn't it? Here she was at a hero school. A really good hero school, too. One of the best in the entire country, where she could eventually learn to help people, most especially by way of her Quirk. After all, a hero without a Quirk wasn't much of a hero at all.
So in a place designed around working with Quirks, wasn't it funny how much she hated hers? It almost made her laugh.
Or, no. She didn't hate her Quirk, not really. Otherwise she really wouldn't have come to Ishin. What was the...ah. That was it. She didn't hate her Quirk. She resented it. Perhaps she wasn't mad at it, but she was definitely mad about it, that it had been inflicted upon her. And as she walked by the crowds of people with their multiple arms, metal hands, and cat heads apparently, she did laugh. Quietly, but not too quiet; rather, just loud enough.
No one here knows what it's like, huh?
Good for them. That sucked too.
Ah, there we go. Right up front, row second to the front. Perfect. She plunked herself down in the chair, distractedly fiddling with a strand of her hair. She was surrounded by people on all sides now. No way it'd go unnoticed if she disappeared. She felt the tension in her stomach unknotting as much as it ever could. There. Safe.
Full Name - Quinn Loughvein Callsign - Ablaze Age - 16 (b. 2662) Birthplace - Denver-Vegas Pilot Type - Assault -
P S Y C H E
Cheerful!! Quin is something of an anomaly sometimes. With all the nightmare that piloting can be, especially for one as young as she is, it comes as a genuine shock to some people when they find that not only is she personable, but she's downright chipper. She's overall just a genuinely nice presence to be around, especially if one's been beaten down by the dark side of piloting for any length of time.
Supportive Hand in hand with that cheery nature comes the next symptom of Quinn's terminal case of positivity: somehow she's become a highly supportive and empathetic individual. While she is, of course, a pilot and thus has devoted much time to becoming skilled in the art of war, she really would rather talk it out with whatever's going on than jump straight to the nuclear solution.
Volatile Still, despite all that, Quinn is a pilot, and she does have that skill. And it's hard sometimes, for her to reconcile who she is at heart—that cheerful kiddo—with the things that she's done. She's formed a kind of...semi-stable suspension of emotion, where as long as she doesn't think about all the awful stuff behind her she can ignore it. But because that delicate balance is so tenuously struck, it can have dramatic fallout if it should ever be lost.
G E A R
Thermal Lances Something of a misnomer, as they're not really thermal lances, or any kind of "lance" a all. The thermal lances are a pair of small fuel tanks strapped to the underside of her forearms when going into combat proper. Though they're generally subtle and harmless, when Quinn flicks the toggle rings attached to them (which can be done with the thumb of the same hand, with a bit of stretching) nozzles pierce out from said tanks. At that point, flicking her wrists backwards triggers the tanks, which proceed to produce a stream of cohered thermite that can burn through nearly anything she points them at. They're small, so each one is a single use before it's refilled, but really, one use is all you need of something like that, and luckily refills are just iron, aluminum, and petroleum.
Journal Quinn chooses to eschew the modern convenience of the datatool for a normal, old-fashioned pen-and-paper journal. Given to her as a gift by Becca years ago, it's very important to her. There are memories years old written in there now, and every time she reads the first few pages, a kind of melancholic smile plays over her face. It all feels like it was just yesterday, after all.
Framed Picture Kept far away from the insides of Ablaze, her nightstand holds a framed 4x6 picture that shows Quinn standing front and center, with Becca on one side, leaning against her so Quinn's head falls into the crook of her neck, and Delia on the other side, giving her a side-on hug with a big smile on her face. Quinn looks at this often, and is open about the fact that it's her most prized possession.
N E U R A L C O M B A T A N T
Armor Ablaze is a slim, quick, lightweight NC, jet black and accented with silver metal; the relative weight of her primary armament and the propulsion system means that if she wants to be light on her feet, she needs to forgo a lot of armor. And she has. This Assault-tyle NC is quite vulnerable to anything that Quinn's shield doesn't protect it from, so its principle defense is high mobility, skirting around the edges of a fight with the propulsion system on its back.
Hands Quinn's calling card is Undying Light. Though it's not a quick or lightweight weapon by any means, what this enormous thermal cannon lacks in maneuverability, it makes up for quite thoroughly in sheer blistering firepower. As tall as her NC is, it has a long cycle even by default. But if she takes the extra time to let it charge, the devastation that it can wreak could only be described as spectacular. Not only that, but when Quinn is in fullsync, she can reroute some of the additional power through induction plates in Ablaze's hands, letting her substantially increase the power of Undying Light. Precise? Not nearly. Less 'shoot this NC' and more 'shoot in the general direction of this NC and watch the thermal bloom envelop everything.' But when you want to blow a particularly bothersome foe off the map entirely, accept no substitutes.
Back The back slot of Ablaze is taken up by a large, heavy propulsion system. High-powered and versatile, it allows for sudden bursts of directional movement. Once Quinn hits fullsync, the additional power allows for much high propulsion, as well as a far longer duration to the time she can spend in the air. If she's willing to really commit, she can even reach limited flight. Which, as you can imagine, can be absolutely devastating when combined with her cannon.
Right Auxiliary Ablaze indeed.
The right shoulder of Ablaze plays host to an innocuous-looking fuel tank. Now, for a girl that uses a thermal weapon, 'fuel tank' probably sounds strange. But if her cannon was her only weapon, well, where would she be then? No, this fuel tank—with attached barrel, of course—serve a very simple purpose, one shared by her thermal lances.
It is a flamethrower. A very, very powerful flamethrower.
At a brief impulse, she can set loose a stream of cohered thermite, burning in a flare as bright as the sun at thousands of degrees. There isn't much time in it, so she needs to be careful when she uses it; wasting it is a big waste indeed. But when employed properly, this weapon is an absolute nightmare for anything unshielded.
Left Auxiliary Slightly more pedestrian than the insane contraption on her other shoulder, her left auxiliary is a much more typical shield generator, though it does have a slight quirk to it. Weighing her odds, Quinn figured that she was probably more likely to run into ballistic weapons than anything else on the battlefield. So with some tinkering, the Perihelion SP actually gains energy from kinetic impacts instead of losing it. That benefit, however, doesn't come for free. While it's true that ballistic weapons don't do much to it now, it's lost pretty much all of its thermal dispersal qualities as a result, meaning thermal weapons will pass just about right through it. Just like her flamethrower, it needs to be used carefully and correctly to work well, but when it is, it's a very powerful tool.
R E L A T I O N S
Rebecca Darroux (goes by Becca) Quinn's parental figure for about eight years now, Becca is a bit of an interesting case study in care and contradiction. To pretty much anyone else (bar one), she's like...the dictionary definition of a hardass. She talks tough, fights tougher, usually carries a gun, and does her job very well. To Quinn, though...to Quinn, she's an incredibly empathetic, caring, and motherly figure who tries her best to not refrain from her vices; doesn't smoke, doesn't drink if she can help it, hides her gun, even tries not to swear. Always an interesting reaction from people that know her, but haven't seen her with her definitely-not-daughter-I-promise; she really is like a whole different person.
Shannon and Luke Loughvein Quinn's biological parents, and a deeply, deeply problematic presence that hangs over her head even now. They are a pair of scientific authorities, specifically the foremost scientists in DV with regards to the study of Neural Combatants. This is the root cause of the extremely problematic relationship that they cultivated, and still to some faint extent have, with Quinn, and the horrifying situation that Becca saved her from all those years ago.
Delia St. Seine Delia St. Seine has been referred to as many things over her 18 year life. People have called her a prodigy. A genius. A menace. A disaster. A symbol of the problems inherent in the system.
Quinn calls her a sister.
After her parents' untimely demise when she was very young, she was taken care of by a family friend for several years. During this time, she demonstrated an amazing aptitude for engineering, and Rebecca Darroux took notice of that and took her under her wing, begin teaching her all about the process of weaponmaking. As she learned from Rebecca, Delia heard rumors that she had an adoptive daughter, which of course, Rebecca mercilessly crushed down, and so Delia didn't really put much stock into them. Until one day when she was eleven, when she--completely by accident, when she was looking for Rebecca--ran across a shy, quiet girl, must've been eight or nine years old, with a long black and yellow braid and wide, apprehensive yellow eyes. Or...eye. The right one was gone.
To make a long story short, the two of them eventually grew close to each other, and Delia to Becca. And when Delia's adoptive father Mendez died, she was (informally) adopted by Quinn and taken into their family.
Now, though...she's been missing for a few months now, with no word at all. And both Becca and Quinn are getting very, very worried.
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.
Perhaps it was fine that she was in the class of this 'Justice,' Kayo though, her smile for a moment turning almost catlike in its satisfaction. On one hand, it did rankle her slightly to be called Mi-Me. She didn't know exactly what it meant, but she could probably guess, given, you know, her eyes. But on the other...in her experience, at least, cutesy nicknames led to being thought of as cute quite efficiently. And she craved the compliments that would come with it (or at least, what she perceived as compliments).
So this...kid would—just like the newly-introduced fish girl Izuna, who she was glad wasn't a third year, this was far better than what a third year would've gone for her and she privately congratulated herself for introducing herself to her—just ease a journey that was already going to be remarkably easy.
Not to mention, there were insecurities there in Mr. Justice. Kayo was no mind reader, but it didn't take a mind reader. Just someone like her, who was smart enough to notice it. Losing his train of thought. Eyes staring into the distance. Losing control of his Quirk, like only an idiot would. That turned-down smile, covering what was no doubt pain and fear and someone that was looming over him, watching him watching everything he did and punishing him whenever he did something wrong and making him look into the mirror into her eyes—
Her face twitched again as she violently wrenched her mind back into shape.
The point was, something was eating at him. She didn't know what, but she knew that she didn't have any doubt. She was 100% right, this boy was someone she could pick slowly at, and watch as he fell apart piece by piece and left her at the top, as she so rightly deserved. But that could—would—come later. What was important now, was...well, getting to the hall. Nigata Kayo was not late for things. If she ended up coming in after the bell rang, then it was their fault, not hers.
Speaking of "their," oh boy, Izuna. Could she just...not control her Quirk? It was almost sad, seeing her shiver like that.
Returning her smile to its normal oblivious innocence after the moment had passed, she cleared her throat a little bit. Affected her own shiver, clutching at the sleeves of her big fluffy sweater (she'd be sad taking it off, honestly).
"Yeah, I think I'd like to get inside too, it's so much colder in Hokkaido than Kyoto!" Heading off towards the door, she shot a sidelong glance at the other two as they went. "Justice-san," she had to swallow the disdain back into her throat, "Izuna-chan—can I call you Izuna-chan?—where do you come from?"
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