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Name: Aurelia Hargrave
Age: 22
Gender: Female
Appearance:
Tall, lithe, and graceful, Aurelia projects an image of cool confidence. She stands at 5'11", favoring tunics and boots over dresses, so as better to perform acrobatic maneuvers in. And a fancy hat. A witch is nothing without the hat, after all.
Personality:
Underneath the confident, professional demeanor she gives off, one would never guess that Aurelia is a former criminal and thrill-seeker with no regard for established law or rights. While her poise and surety are very much real aspects of her personality, they only serve to accentuate Aurelia's need to test herself against her peers and elders rather than the Labyrinth.
Underneath all that, and motivating it, is a lingering sense of insecurity regarding her status as an adopted orphan rather than a true scion of Hargrave blood. A proper Hargrave wouldn't have the trouble she does with mana capacity, for instance. The way she carries herself and her need to compete against others are both driven by such, despite the fact that she takes pride in getting around her limitations.
She’s gotten better at hiding the more unpleasant parts of her personality, at least. Considering her status as a paroled prisoner, it wouldn’t do to get thrown right back in lockup if she can help it.
Abilities:
Black magic, black magic, black magic. There is nothing else. With Aurelia’s more reasonable capacity for spellcraft compared to her peers, she had to specialize in one field alone in order to control her spells well enough to be as efficient as possible in her use of mana.
Elemental assault is her bread and butter, with spells coming out in varied combinations and focused through her guns. However, she’s also rather skilled at debilitation, especially sapping the physical attributes of others in order to enhance her own temporarily. Aurelia possesses a knack for breaking through wards and defenses, her knowledge of how to defeat defensive white magic coming from her years of breaking and entering through magical defenses.
Owing to her lack of mana capacity, Aurelia pre-crafts many of her more taxing spells in the form of bullets to be fired through her Witch Arms, the spells releasing upon impact.
Skills:
As a (former) phantom thief, Aurelia is an accomplished acrobat, capable of feats of athleticism and nimbleness alike. She’s also a sneak thief, adept at breaking and entering even without the aid of magic, including locks and the picking thereof.
Considering the form her Witch Arms take, she’s also a more than adept marksman, capable of picking off targets from quite a ways away with mundane pistols and rifles alike. She’s more comfortable with a gun than a wand, really.
Owing to the fact that she knows how to cover her own tracks quite well, Aurelia is able to put her skills to use on the opposite end, showing a knack for investigation and forensics.
Equipment:
Considering her family’s resources, Aurelia bears a finely crafted wand and broom alike: ornate, but not overly gaudy. Just tasteful enough for anyone with an eye for craft to truly appreciate the care that went into them. And to notice how little they’re used. Considering her previous extracurricular activities, Aurelia didn’t particularly have much need for them.
Her Witch Arms take the form of a pair of mastercrafted double-action revolvers: six shots in the cylinder each. Runic engravings line the grips and silver barrels, with the latter able to fit bayonets below them, and Aurelia carries a pair for exactly this purpose.
And while she can’t wear it without alerting certain authorities, she does still carry her elegant mask from her thieving days, if only for the good memories.
Brief Backstory:
The Hargrave name is an old one: dating back to the Witch of Starlight’s time and being known for producing witches of great skill. It is not the name Aurelia was born with. The last generation of Hargrave witches died young due to various circumstances and accidents, and its elderly matriarch, Helena Hargrave, was left with no choice but to salvage something from the shame.
An infant was found, abandoned at the orphanage. Her parentage was unknown, as was the case with many orphans whose sires simply didn’t have the resources to feed yet another hungry mouth. Of all the girls available, this one at least displayed enough magical capacity to be worth training. It wasn’t as much as would be preferable, but this was what was available. Money changed hands, and the baby was adopted as Aurelia Hargrave.
Childhood passed. Aurelia was trained to carry on the Hargrave legacy. What she lacked in raw power, she would make up for in skill and resourcefulness. Specialized tools were crafted to hone the talents she did have, her adopted mother forging her Witch Arms in the form of guns after she witnessed the girl’s burgeoning talents at marksmanship.
Of course, Aurelia had her own opinions about all of this. Helena had never hid the truth of her parentage from her. While she was grateful to the old nag for raising and training her, Aurelia also didn’t want to be known solely for her name. The opposite, really. If she could prove her skills without even being known as a Hargrave, it would more than soothe her worries.
At the age of seventeen, whilst in the middle of her tutelage at one of the finer magical schools in Lumiere, Aurelia began her double life. Phantom Thief Etoile burst into the capital’s consciousness with a string of dazzling, audacious heists, all directed at valuables guarded by magical security in particular. She avoided casualties altogether and violence if she could help it: she was a thrill-seeker, not a psychopath. But Aurelia deliberately targeted Witch security rather than mundane in order to prove her skills. She started with merely arbitrary targets, selected for their security or lack thereof. Then she moved on to targeting the families of her peers, especially those that annoyed her in schooling. Aurelia was petty like that. A few other unrelated ones to throw the trail off, and then an established Witch or two. While they were out of town, of course. As good as she was, Aurelia wouldn’t have been able to penetrate a truly skilled Witch’s security while she was present without triggering some sort of alert, resulting in a fight she’d surely lose.
All good things had to come to an end, of course. Two years of heisting passed, and she seriously debated hanging up the mask before she was caught in the act. The last few heists had been far, far too close. But just fading into the limelight with a whimper would have been too pathetic to consider. At the very least, she’d have to perform one last act of grand larceny to cap off her career, now that she’d proved herself above her peers and elders in more than a few ways. The plan was made, the stage was set, and Aurelia set off to have one final, grand heist.
There was only one small hiccup, but the worst occurred: she made a single mistake and was caught in the act. Disarmed, magically neutralized, and locked up, it didn’t take long for her mother to make contact, and then, in true Hargrave fashion, have it all covered up for the good of the family name. Deals were struck: Aurelia would be released and her name would be redacted from the official press release. But in exchange, she would put her skills to use in the Society’s name as a more direct agent at their beck and call.
That was three years ago. Now, Aurelia still serves as that agent, going where she’s dictated by her superiors and solving whatever problems that arise. It’s not a life she necessarily enjoys, but she’s thankful that things could have been far worse. Rather like her childhood, really. Funny how things come in cycles.
Other:
Voice claim: Claudia Jolly