• Snail’s Characters

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Part One: Isley

Pages 2-3

Part Two: Angelo

Pages 4-6

Part Three: Winter

Pages 7-8

Part Four: Llio

Pages 9-11

Part Five: Leya

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Part Six: Joaquín

Pages

Part Seven: Tilda

Pages

Part Eight: Blacklight Sword

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Isley R. Calico - Part One

Name: Isley Rhiannon Calico
Nicknames: Iz, Izzy

Age: 18
Gender: F

Home City: Voxthain
Role: Noble

Appearance: Isley’s shiny, golden blonde hair is woven with strands of strawberry, honey, and ginger, and it ripples down to her mid-back in loose waves. Her favorite way to wear it is either in a half-up style or just down because then she can flip it over her shoulder dramatically for fun. If she’s dancing or looking for an adventure, she typically braids or fishtails it to keep it out of the way. The only times she tolerates more elaborate styles are for galas and special, formal events. Her eyes are deep, cerulean blue with a few flecks of silver that make them appear to sparkle in the light. Being of noble blood and born into a charmed life, her skin is velvety soft, free of callouses except for her feet, which have been abused from excessive dancing despite her best attempts to care for them afterwards. A faded, white scar sits just above her left hipbone from a childhood accident, and a few, smaller scars, though very faint, are still visible around her hands and knees from various adventures in her youth. Her height is roughly 5’6, and she has a lean, toned dancer’s body and a heart-shaped face with a small splattering of freckles across her cheeks. Like her build, her facial features are petite and delicate, and she has a small, celestial nose and pale pink, bottom-heavy lips. She has an elongated neck, slim shoulders, and a slender waist, but her bosom is nothing to envy. Her hips are only a touch narrower than her shoulders, and she’s decently curvy. However, her long torso makes clothes shopping torturous. Lucky she comes from a rich family and can afford to have all her clothes tailored or custom made. Her long, slender fingers are perfect for music and dance, and she’s not above using her nails as tools provided she’s not planning on attending anything too fancy in the near future. Her ankles and feet are tiny, so more often than not she prefers to be barefoot if she can get away with it.
Her dress style is constantly changing as she loves to experiment with new styles and colors. One of her favorite past times is designing her own clothes, so she’s often seen wearing pieces that are uniquely her. Her taste in fashion and jewelry is exquisite (after all, she is a Calico), and she can piece together an outfit out of just about anything. Mostly she wears dresses of varying lengths and styles unless she’s out adventuring, in which case she opts for a skirt or shorts. As much as she loves strutting down the street in high heels like it’s her own personal runway, her small ankles make that especially challenging, so she can be seen barefoot or wearing flat shoes equally as often as heels. Her jewelry collection is extensive thanks to her dad’s wallet, so she’ll wear all kinds of pieces ranging from vintage to bohemian to minimalist styles, depending on what suits her mood. Her approach to makeup is in line with her ever-changing wardrobe, and she might choose to paint on a wild, outrageous look for kicks or just wear nothing at all, whatever she feels like in the moment.

Personality: Isley loves to have fun, no matter what anyone else may think of her for it. She possesses a strong sense of adventure and seeks thrills and excitement, always eager to try or explore new things and places. Because of her fearless nature and fascination with taking risks, she is a borderline adrenaline junkie. Rarely is she ever bored, and she is exceptional at finding or making her own fun. Although novelty has great value in her world, she is capable of finding joy even in small, ordinary things, and she has a positive, carefree outlook on life. She loves tournaments and games and parties almost as much as she loves to laugh or stop and smell the roses. Sitting still and quietly is not among her virtues, and she is always itching to be doing something or going somewhere. Her penchant for movement has been channeled into dance and music since she was young, and so she has flourished into a phenomenal dancer, adept at every discipline and style she can learn. Her talent and poise are rivaled by very few, but she has no desire to focus her attention on turning dance into a professional career. It is simply one of her favorite things to do and as such, is also one of the few regards in which she truly applies any sort of dedication. Her talents also extend to music, and although she has committed much more of her time to dancing, she can still play multiple instruments with moderate skill, having been in music lessons since she was a child. One of her favorite ways to amuse herself and her friends is to compose silly, little ditties and perform them in an especially exaggerated or ridiculous fashion, just to coax a laugh or tease a smile out of her friends, although her own smile is so infectious on its own that it typically doesn’t need any assistance.
Her idiosyncratic charm can draw most people in without any conscious effort on her part, and she tends to make friends wherever she goes. Her circle of friends is large and always expanding, and her friendly nature and fearless personality compel her to speak with anyone she crosses paths with. She is a popular socialite and tends to be the life of the party or the center of attention with her contagious laugh and lively disposition, but she doesn’t mind sharing the spotlight with other people, whether they be friends or strangers. In fact, she rather enjoys shoving her friends into the limelight because she thinks it’s more fun that way, though she does try not to make her shy and introverted friends uncomfortable. Her social influence is nothing to sneeze at. However, some of the nobility (particularly the older members) view her in a less complimentary light and think of her as too whimsical and avant-garde. None of this bothers her since she’s self-confident and content with the way she is, and she doesn’t like to compromise herself for the sake of others’ personal preferences if she can help it.
She is also fairly well-liked among the common populace for her charity work and positive, friendly nature. In addition to other things, she loves to organize concerts and music events for the city and even performs herself from time to time, all for free of course. Although she grew up in a very classist home, she likes to be out and about in the city among all the citizens whether noble or not, and she doesn’t see anything wrong with talking to people from common backgrounds. Anything new or different is fascinating to her, so she likes to meet all sorts of people and interact with them, even if they aren’t the types of people her parents would approve of. She still does discriminate against people of a lesser socioeconomic standing than herself. She grew up hearing that they weren’t as important, interesting, or smart compared to the nobility and that the nobles were superior in every respect. While she privately disagrees that the common people are incapable of being or doing anything of interest, her parents’ beliefs still form most of the framework through which she observes the general population. However, even though she thinks more highly of the nobles than the common citizens, she can’t help but be pleasant and positive towards them when she does encounter a commoner. It isn’t in her nature to behave in a spiteful or haughty way as that would interfere with her fun-loving spirit on an unforgiveable level.
She has excellent social smarts and is hyper observant of unspoken cues and minute changes in behavior, cadence, and tone. She also has a stellar memory for details and absorbs information like a sponge if the subject is of any interest to her. Otherwise, anything boring or tedious goes in one ear and right out the other. If she wanted to, she could be highly skilled at manipulating other people, but that doesn’t sound particularly fun or worth the time and energy to her. Her pattern recognition skills are superb. She sees and interprets everything around her in terms of rhythms and patterns, and she uses these skills to understand people’s personalities and motivations and sometimes to guess what their future actions might be given a specific set of circumstances. Mostly this skill set is wasted on frivolous purposes like games and the occasional betting, but it comes in handy when she needs it to.
She has a difficult time working hard at anything she doesn’t think is fun or worth her time, and she is adamant about what she does and doesn’t enjoy. Classroom learning is not her style, and to truly learn anything, she has to figure it out and teach herself. She is not a patient person except in regards to a few, certain interests, and she often procrastinates on completing tedious or useless (in her opinion) tasks in favor of pursuing some, other exciting exploit. Her status as a noble only further fuels this behavior as she believes she has the right to be irresponsible whenever it suits her and as long as she isn’t hurting anyone.
Her preferred way to trade is with favors and secrets instead of magic or tangible objects. To her, this is much more interesting and thrilling than bartering with traditional items to get what she wants. However, this tendency can skirt dangerously close to recklessness from time to time, and she enjoys thrills and danger a little too much for her own good. It hasn’t gotten her into trouble so far, but it likely will at some point.
All in all, despite her collection of bizarre idiosyncrasies, Isley is a very positive, friendly, and cheerful young lady. She loves nothing more than to bring a smile to her friends’ faces and to spread her infectious joy wherever she goes. There’s too much to love in life to do anything but dance through it.

Likes:

Crowds
Music
Dancing
Tournaments and games
Exploring
Candy
Spicy foods
Her family

Dislikes:

Sitting still
Being alone
Studying
Boring clothes
Rules
Obligations
Monotony
Cowards

Magic: Izzy never spent much time honing her magic skills, so her powers are limited. Her natural talent lies in elemental magics, and she can manipulate water and earth with moderate skills. Her strongest ability is her manipulation of plant life as that was the only kind of magic she found fun to learn and practice. She also has minor powers of illusion which she typically uses for fashion purposes (e.g. to make the fabric of her clothing appear to be color-changing) and other, frivolous aims and the ability to befriend animals.

Family:

Father: Eadric Calico
Mother: Elara Calico
Siblings: Alianna Calico, Alex Calico, Aiden Calico, and Artemisia Calico
Aunts: Esmeralda Delacroix, Elissa Calico
Cousins: Elliot and Draven Delacroix

History: Isley was born in the lap of luxury, the rich and illustrious Calico family. Her father spoiled her from the beginning. All she had to do was ask, and he gave her everything she wanted. Growing up, she felt a deeper attachment to her father than her mother, and though she did love them both, it was her father’s presence that she sought after more frequently. She loved to be near him, even if he was busy and couldn’t give her all his attention, and one of her most common requests of him was to tell her stories, preferably adventures and fairy tales. It didn’t matter to her if he told her the same story more than once as long as she was allowed to sit next to him. She always felt safe and loved whenever he was around, and whenever she suffered a nightmare or fell and scraped herself up, he was the first one she ran to.

[the_rabid_snail]

Isley R. Calico - Part Two

History cont'd: She also loved her big sister, Alianna, unconditionally. She thought her sister was the prettiest girl in the world, and she liked to try on her sister’s clothes and tag along with her when she was allowed. Sometimes, she sensed her sister was annoyed at something she said or did, so she tried not to repeat whatever it was because she wanted to keep the peace and make her sister happy. Alianna was the person she admired most, so she tried to do everything she could to make her sister smile.
Izzy was always in motion, always doing something, always going somewhere. Her parents put her in dance and music lessons, hoping they would provide an outlet for her endless energy. She fell in love with dance immediately, and it became her favorite activity. She practiced at every opportunity, and when that wasn’t enough, she sacrificed her other lessons in favor of dancing more. Dancing came to her almost as easy as breathing, and she learned quickly, picking up different styles of dance with ease. She tried joining a troupe when she was older but found that being part of a group was challenging. She liked total freedom when it came to her art, but she made several friends in the dance troupe and stuck it out for a year before deciding she only wanted to dance solo. Her experience with music was similar, though not as intense as her obsession with dancing. Through practice, she grew very skilled with multiple instruments, but again, she preferred to play solo or not at all. However, she didn’t mind making music with her friends if it was just for fun. It was only the heavily structured environment of dancing in a group or playing in an orchestra that stole the joy of dance and music from her.
She considered her cousin, Draven Delacroix, to be her best friend starting when they were children. Since they were the same age, they were often thrown together, much to Izzy’s delight. One of her many hobbies was to slip out of the clutches of her parents or chaperones and explore the city on her own, looking for any sort of adventure around every corner, and she would beg Draven to accompany her. It wasn’t very proper or ladylike of her to rub shoulders with the riff-raff, but the thrill of being on her own and knowing that if she got into trouble she’d have to rescue herself was intoxicating. As much as she loved her solo escapades, they were even more fun if she could convince Draven to join her. He turned her down a lot of the time, but that never bothered her. She would keep on inviting him with dogged persistence until he finally relented, and sometimes she tried to get his older brother, Elliot, to join them too.
Elliot Delacroix was like the older brother she always wanted. Anytime she was with Draven, she would go hunting for Elliot to tease and pester him. He might have thought she was an annoying twerp for that, but she never dwelled on what he might or mightn’t think of her. She just enjoyed trying to make him laugh, the same way she did with all her friends. One of her favorite ways to attempt this was to compose silly, little tunes and come up with a few weird or goofy verses and surprise him by randomly performing them whenever she thought he would least expect it. However, they drifted apart as he grew older and made his own friends. When she would go to visit Draven, she stopped seeing him around after a while, and the few times she did bump into him, he seemed more distant than she remembered. It stung, so she did what she always did: found an adventure, preferably one with a little danger, and then found something to laugh about.
Her parents had brought her along to social events for the city’s elite since she was a girl, and most people she met succumbed to her whimsical charms. She made friends easily as she grew older, drawing people in effortlessly with her smile and carefree disposition. Before too long, she’d become a prominent socialite, the highlight of every party and social event she attended with her innate ability to liven up any moment (no matter how dull or ordinary) and her natural talent for performing.
While she loved to bask in the glitzy lifestyle her lineage afforded her, she never lost her unquenchable thirst for adventure as she matured. She loved to slip out of her room at night and roam the city until she could barely keep her eyes open, and sometimes she would meet up with her likeminded friends and skulk about in the shadows after midnight. They called this secret club Phantasmagoria, and after her family, they were Izzy’s closest friends. On occasion, she even ventured into Asterath to see the city for herself. She fell in love with the colors and lights there, and when she went by herself, she liked to watch for new styles of dance or different types of music to learn.
Being the daughter of an old, noble bloodline, she was used to other nobles and young men from wealthy backgrounds trying to catch her attention, not to mention all the mothers who attempted to introduce her to their sons. She was never interested in any long-term, romantic commitments, but she entertained the occasional, casual fling if she met someone intriguing enough. However, in the end she always grew bored and restless and ended things before they could become serious. Her friends in Phantasmagoria liked to place wagers on how long she’d suffer a suitor’s attentions before breaking things off as her indifferent attitude towards romance was so widely known.
Her parents enrolled her in Cogworks to finish her education, but she hated sitting through the lectures and using her time to study. Very few of her classes interested her, and she had a difficult time forcing herself to complete her assignments. She was an average student during her time there, and that was probably largely due to her close friendship with Draven. He was the only one who could convince her to study and do the work necessary to pass her classes. Without him, she probably would have failed out of the school. She possessed the capability to do exceedingly well there, but she had no interest in distinguishing herself academically.
When her sister disappeared, it was one of the saddest days of Izzy’s life. She had no idea what could have happened to her, and she always hoped that someday Alianna would return. They may not have had a lot in common, but she loved her sister more than anything. When she was out and about in the city, whether during the day with her friends or at night with Phantasmagoria, she kept her eyes peeled for any sign of Alianna, hoping that her sister would simply appear and all would return to how it was. As time went by, she began to accept that her sister might not be coming back, for whatever reason, but she still hoped that they might be reunited someday.
News of the shadowfog moving towards Voxthain reached Izzy’s ears like everyone else, but so far she’s paid it little mind. It all sounds like a problem someone else will have to solve. Surely there must be a way to get rid of it, and she’s not about to let some dark, overly dramatic, magic-consuming fog of death impede on her fun. The whole thing just sounds too gothic to have much appeal to her. Its only redeeming factor in her eyes is that it’s something new and different, but if she wants to do or see something novel, there are easier ways to accomplish that than bothering with the shadowfog.

Other: Secretly hoping she doesn’t end up inheriting the family title.
She organizes a lot of music and dance related events for the community. She likes to teach dance classes periodically for the fun of it, and in addition to concerts and recitals, she puts on a few open mic, type shows a year where anyone is welcome to showcase their skills. Art is an obsession for her, and she’s put in the work to form connections all over the art scene, including in Asterath. If anyone is ever in need of a musician, dancer, painter, sculptor, etc. she’s the one to ask.

[the_rabid_snail]

Angelo M. Mantegna - Part One

Name: Angelo Michele Mantegna
Nicknames: Angel (most commonly used), Ange (he hates this nickname; his brothers use it to get on his nerves), Angelino (used by family or close friends)

Age: 20
Gender: M

Home City: Asterath
Role: Citizen

Appearance: Angelo’s curly, ginger locks are usually unkempt, tangled and falling into his eyes. Sometimes he jokes that he would cut it if he didn’t like being able to run his hands through it and tug on his curls when he’s frustrated so much, but if it’s especially in the way or irritating him, he ties bandanas around his forehead to help keep his hair out of his eyes. His eyes are light green sprinkled with a few flecks of gold and accented with long, dark eyelashes. Though normally hidden by his curls, his forehead is very broad, and he has well-defined cheekbones. He has an aquiline nose with a small dent near the bridge from a past incident, consigned to be forever jealous of his oldest brother’s Greek-like features, and a sharp jawline, typically clean shaven with a care and attention to detail that is mostly lacking in other aspects of his appearance. His complexion is light olive, but he tans easily and blushes even easier. His large hands and fingers bear several callouses as reward for much hard work, and old, faded scars are still faintly visible on his shins, knees, and elbows. At 5’10, he doesn’t appear very intimidating, and his disregard for proper posture does nothing to help. He’d rather blend into the background, and slouching is more useful for becoming invisible than standing at attention. He has a lean, toned build, and while he won’t win any weight-lifting contests, he’s quick on his feet and has impressive endurance.
His wardrobe is nothing interesting or flashy. He usually wears out his clothes quickly and has a habit of getting them dirty on a daily basis, so he doesn’t expend much effort into accumulating nice clothing. Simple trousers in dark colors and loose shirts in solid, lighter colors or basic patterns suit him well enough. He knows enough not to wear clashing colors, but aside from that he doesn’t care what he wears so long as it’s comfortable and easily maneuverable. He always has a bandana with him, whether it’s tied around his forehead or fastened to his belt loop, and he almost never goes out without his brown leather jacket and combat boots.

Personality: Despite his background and the fact that his family inherited a theater, Angelo is very shy and reserved around most people. He finds himself with little to say in large groups and prefers having deeper conversations with fewer people. He’s happiest at home or working on projects in peace, and whenever he does go out, he normally plays the part of wallflower. Because of this, people have often made the mistake of assuming there are only three Mantegna brothers as Angelo is rarely out and about and even more rarely noticed. Ironically, he’s the only brother with zero stage presence, but he prefers to stay out of the limelight whenever possible. Too much attention makes him uncomfortable, and although he can push through it and work decently under pressure, he detests having to do so. The spotlight is better left to his other brothers, and he’s perfectly happy to work behind the scenes or to provide support from the wings, just as long as he stays hidden from sight.
Around his brothers, he’s much more easygoing and talkative. His disposition is consistently mellow and laidback, but he brightens up a little when it’s just him and his brothers, although people who don’t know him well may not be able to tell the difference. His sense of humor is extra dry, and besides his brothers, most people don’t get his jokes. It probably doesn’t help much that he says everything in such a deadpan way, and his tone and expression don’t deviate from his norm even when he’s teasing. His brothers can usually tell when he’s just messing around, but it takes other people considerable time to be able to reliably tell the difference between when he’s saying something goofy and when he’s being earnest. As far as Angelo is concerned, it only adds an extra layer of humor when other people fail to pick up on the fact that he’s not being serious, and most times he doesn’t bother to correct people if they’ve mistakenly taken a joke for a sincere comment.
It takes a lot to rile Angelo up to the point where he visibly shows much emotion. He does feel things very deeply and is an introspective person, but he’s skilled at not showing it. Sometimes he’s paid the price for maintaining such a placid façade, and people have accused him of having all the emotional capacity of a ham sandwich. It isn’t even that he invests a lot of effort into staying cool and collected; it’s just his baseline. However, it does make things difficult when he’s expected to have a strong reaction to something, and he simply… doesn’t. His calmness is more often received as apathy or indifference, so even though it’s an immense advantage to have a level head in intense situations, he finds it serves as more of a disadvantage in ordinary situations. Fortunately, he lives in Asterath where there is no shortage of stressful incidents due to all the gang activity, so at least it comes in handy enough to seem worth the drawbacks.
Outwardly, Angelo appears to be the most reasonable of the brothers, but he has a mischievous streak just like all the Mantegna brothers do, although most people wouldn’t suspect it. Because of his cool and collected nature and his attention to details, he’s one of the more cunning brothers and likes to play clever tricks on his family members. He’s sneaky and patient, and he can plan things that take a long time to come to fruition if needed. All things considered, if he wasn’t so shy and uncomfortable with attention, he’d most likely make a decent night rider, but alas, he’d rather stay on the sidelines than actually get involved with any of the gangs.

Magic: Angelo is unskilled with magic, and he doesn’t practice it much. The most he ever uses it for is to make himself less noticeable (e.g. make shadows darker, enchant people to ignore him or find him uninteresting, etc.) or to make candles flicker to freak out his overdramatic, little brother.

Family:

Father: Fabrizio Mantegna (deceased)
Mother: Anna-Colette Mantegna née Dumont
Oldest brother: Federico Mantegna
Older brother: Santino Mantegna
Younger brother: Brio Mantegna
Uncle: Leandro Mantegna
Aunt: Giada Mantegna
Cousin: Livio Mantegna
Grandfather: Nicolò Mantegna (deceased)
Great-uncle: Fedele Mantegna (deceased)
Great-grandfather: Timeo Mantegna (deceased)

History: Angelo was the third child born to Fabrizio and Anna-Colette Mantegna. His family wasn’t well-off, but they had enough to be relatively comfortable for Angelo’s early life, no thanks to his mother’s family. His father grew up in Asterath, but his mother was raised in Voxthain. Anna-Colette was born into the Dumont family, and they were distantly related to some noble house, though Angelo could never remember which one. The Dumont family was renowned in the performing arts, and many members of the family were famed actors, singers, and musicians. Anna-Colette was no different. Her talent for singing was recognized from a young age, and by the time she was a young adult, she was a household name. She met Angelo’s father during a brief tour of Asterath when she performed at his family’s theater, and against the wishes of her family, they later married. Since her family didn’t approve, they stayed in Asterath and ran the theater together. All growing up, Angelo heard stories about the difficulties they faced maintaining the business, but despite setbacks and many challenging seasons, they managed it, all without any help from the Dumonts. He never met any of his mother’s relatives. They never had any interest in getting to know him, and after being ignored for so long, he couldn’t say he had any desire to be introduced to them either.
Despite the lack of Dumont presence in his life, Angelo was still surrounded by family. His father and mother were both active and involved in raising him, and his three brothers kept things interesting with all their random antics. He also had an uncle, his father’s younger brother Leandro, and a cousin, Livio, who was only a year younger than him. He didn’t remember anything about his father’s younger sister, Giada, as she changed her name and disappeared before his younger brother was born to become an actress in Voxthain.
His parents homeschooled him and his brothers, and because his mother grew up affluent and well-educated, his schooling was exceptionally thorough. He and his brothers learned all the basic subjects, but there was a special emphasis on history, politics, literature, and handwriting. They made good use of the library Angelo’s grandfather had amassed, and most days their lessons took place in the theater – upstairs in the attics or on the stage if there was no rehearsal that day. After lessons, they helped out their parents with the theater, cleaning the dressing rooms, sprucing up the paint, running errands, designing flyers, and so on. Angelo enjoyed creating the props and scenery the most. His brother Santino was the true artist of the family and usually painted the backdrops and other set pieces, but Angelo found he was good at building things. Between the two of them, he thought they made a pretty stellar team.
When he was nine years old, his mother left them. Discontent had been brewing in their home for a few years, and he supposed one day it became too much for his mother. He knew she missed her family, but most of all, she missed singing and touring. It had been all she’d ever known before marrying his father, and once Angelo and his siblings were born, she had only performed from time to time in the family theater. Sometimes Angelo wondered if she thought her family would come to forgive her and allow them all to come to Voxthain one day. She used to entertain them with story after story about her upbringing there and how she hoped to show them all her favorite places when they were older. Somehow, she was the only one who didn’t know that day was never coming, and when she finally realized she was going to have to live the rest of her life in Asterath, well, Angelo guessed she couldn’t live with that. She returned to Voxthain and worked on rebuilding her singing career. Sometimes they heard bits and pieces about her from people who had been to Voxthain, but they never communicated with her directly after she left.
Their father fell into a slump. It was understandable, and they were all reeling from the suddenness of her departure. None of them had ever expected that they would wake up and find her gone, only a few, short sentences written in familiar, swooping cursive on a notecard explaining that she was gone and never coming back. Her absence created several gaping holes in their lives, and sometimes Angelo felt like his entire day was spent bailing water out of a sinking canoe just trying to keep up with everything that his mother had previously taken care of. His father kept the theater and his side businesses running, but he was distracted and started getting careless. It would eventually cost him his life.

[the_rabid_snail]

Angelo M. Mantegna - Part Two

History cont'd: The Mantegna theater had a long and sordid history. Angelo had heard the stories growing up so many times that he could recite them all by heart at the drop of a hat. It had started when his great-grandfather, Timeo Mantegna, bought the theater. The building had been empty for some time and had fallen into disrepair, but this was no matter for Timeo. He did not intend to use it as a theater. Instead, it functioned as a hub for all sorts of illicit activity: gambling, potion sales, even contract killers sometimes slunk into the darkened boxes to find clients or receive payments. Eventually, Timeo’s dangerous lifestyle caught up with him, and he was killed, probably by one of the gangs. The theater then went to his two sons, Nicolò and Fedele.
Nicolò and Fedele were determined to restore the theater to its former glory and use the space the way it was originally intended to be. They also built up a considerable collection of books because Fedele was obsessed with history and philosophy and Nicolò loved stories and biographies. Like several Mantegnas before them, they could not resist the lure of danger and excitement, and they were both members of the Night Riders. They used their talents building props and sets for the theater to create spaces with hidden compartments that could be used to hide other Night Riders who were in trouble. There were many nights when a fellow Scorpion knocked on their door in need of protection, and they made use of the trap doors and false walls in the theater to keep them safe. There were several close calls, but on one such instance, they were hiding a Scorpion who had accidentally killed someone. A member of another gang came looking for them (not a wholly unusual occurrence), but Fedele was caught in the crossfire and was killed. The Scorpion they were hiding managed to escape, but the Mantegnas paid a hefty price for it. Nicolò remained loyal to the Scorpions until he died, at which point the theater passed to his son, Angelo’s father.
Fabrizio kept the theater running, but he was never initiated into the Night Riders. He saw more profit in remaining neutral, and he was an enchanter and illusionist of enormous talents. He fashioned briefcases and other objects with hidden compartments, enchanted to ward off suspicion and scrutiny, perfect for smuggling, and he used his skills and magic to supply paying clients with whatever they asked, regardless of gang or non-gang affiliations. In the end, that was probably what got him killed. He became less vigilant after his wife left, and one day, when Angelo was ten years old, his father disappeared without a trace. His oldest brother, Federico, assumed he had been killed, either by a disgruntled client or by one of the gangs.
Whatever happened, they never saw or heard from their father again. Since their mother was unreachable, Federico took charge of the theater. They moved out of the modest house they’d grown up in and took up residence in the theater, turning some of the unused areas into living spaces. They had all been helping out around the theater since they were young, so at least they were well-versed with the inner workings and talented enough to hold it together, although their grasp on it was fragile even at the best of times. Federico worked a lot of odd jobs just to help pay the bills, and Santino and Angelo were tasked with watching over the theater whenever he was at one of his other jobs.
Even though it was just the four of them taking care of the theater with no parents to answer to, Federico ran a tight ship. Technically, their Uncle Leandro was now their legal guardian, but he wasn’t around much, only dropping by occasionally if he needed a place to sleep off a potion or a favor he wanted to ask the brothers for. Federico insisted that Angelo and their brothers keep up with their schoolwork, and he would leave lists of all their assignments and tasks around the theater for the day before leaving for whichever of his many jobs he was supposed to be at that morning. Angelo suspected that Federico wasn’t even human. How he managed to keep all the brothers in line, hold the theater together, work several jobs, and keep at bay the loan sharks their father borrowed from seemed impossible, but Federico thrived on impossible. He faced challenges, not only head on but as stylishly and as suavely as possible. Angelo never knew him to be dressed anything less than impeccably with manners that were anything less than flawless. The one downside to this was that no one was ever dressed to his standards. Angelo and their brothers could get away with wearing what they liked as long as their clothes were clean and didn’t clash, but no one else was exempt from Federico’s criticism. If life was fair, Angelo thought Federico should have been a designer, but instead he made do with taking care of the myriad of costumes that made up the theater’s wardrobe, designing and creating new outfits whenever necessary. Angelo usually ended up being sentenced to modeling duties because he was the only brother that would stand still long enough. Santino and Brio inevitably ended up getting in the way of an open safety pin on accident, and after enough mishaps, Angelo became the default for that particular job. It was odd how many things he ended up being tasked with simply because he was the only option that wasn’t blatantly unsuitable, not that he minded too much. At least he got to learn a wide variety of skills because of it.
The thing he found most interesting about Federico was his obliviousness to how intimidating he looked. His oldest brother was taller than most, toned, and without much conscious effort, had the most overpoweringly confident and charismatic aura that Angelo had ever encountered. Somehow Federico had no idea how daunting it was for most people to be in his presence, and anytime people appeared unnerved or intimidated by him, he chalked it up to his dashing good looks and stylish attire. Angelo had lost count the number of times he nearly cringed watching some poor, unsuspecting person approach Federico, not knowing what they were in for. Afterwards, Federico would often ask him if he thought his outfit was too much, which Angelo quickly learned was always a trick question. If he said yes, he’d just signed himself up for a lecture on not allowing other people’s pathetically low standards to drag him down. Federico had a reason for everything he did – even if Angelo didn’t always see the point – so to ever answer a question in a way that implied doubt in Federico’s actions usually meant he was going to be on the receiving end of a very passionate and somehow disturbingly articulate verbal essay – unless he was in an especially bad mood, in which case there would be more nonsensical idioms than anything else.
Angelo was closest to his brother Santino. The two of them looked so much alike that they were often mistaken for each other, and on occasions where both were present, most people assumed they were twins. They were very different in disposition, though. Angelo was calm and controlled, and Santino was hotheaded and reckless. The only times he ever saw Santino stay still for more than a few minutes were when he was reading, drawing, or painting. Angelo’s favorite times together were when Santino was working on his art or studying and he was beside him crafting something or doing another task. Usually, Santino insisted on gallivanting wildly through Asterath, so Angelo cherished the rare, calmer evenings they spent together.
When he was young, he had an intense fear of heights. Anytime he was sent to the balconies in the theater or had to go up high somewhere else, he tried his hardest to get out of it. Santino was generally willing to do it for him, but Angelo had to endure his teasing in return for the favor. Overall, he was timid and nervous, and Santino mocked him mercilessly for it. He decided he didn’t want to be inferior to his brothers anymore and began working on conquering his fears. He went up to the balconies and leaned over the railing as far as he could without toppling over, and he forced himself to climb ladders and scale buildings. Eventually, he did overcome his fear, but it was too late to escape Santino’s teasing. He’d have to put up with it the rest of his life. However, with his newfound freedom, he started figuring out how to perform cool tricks and stunts. The flashier ones were more enthusiastically received by his brothers, but he found that they didn’t come in handy as often when trying to keep ahead of Santino and their cousin, Livio, while they were being chased through the streets and alleyways.
Given Santino’s thrill-seeking and chaotic personality, Angelo wasn’t surprised in the slightest when his brother decided to join up with the Night Riders. He always managed to get himself into trouble, even inadvertently, and his favorite thing to do was run wild through the streets, causing mischief and mayhem. He loved to paint over signs to make them misleading or funny, but he loved to paint murals in the most random places all over the city even more. On the outside, he looked like just another dumb kid vandalizing public property, but most of his murals were elaborate and meaningful hidden commentaries on sociopolitical issues or historical events. He used symbolism and other abstract means to paint his thoughts out in these beautiful murals, but there was nothing he could stand less when people – whether it was another Scorpion or a random person on the street – looked at his murals and said, “cool painting, bro.” There was more than one occasion where Angelo had to drag Santino away before he started throwing hands over it. Most people didn’t understand what his artwork really meant, and to his dismay, he didn’t even get a cool name out of it. He was just the nameless guy around the city that sometimes painted murals in weird places. That was it. No name, no notoriety. Just another misunderstood, underappreciated artist.
It was widely known that Mantegna brothers were a little unusual, but Angelo thought his younger brother, Brio, took first prize for strangest and quirkiest personality. He was a hopeless romantic and an aspiring writer. Novels, poems, plays, drab essays, he did it all. However, he had an annoying habit of interpreting everything around him in terms of stories, particularly over-romantic and dramatic narratives, and he also narrated ordinary things that were happening as if he was writing a book out loud. Angelo had to learn to ignore Brio’s especially unflattering descriptions of him every time he entered a room. The first time Brio narrated him “skulking into the room, oblivious to the fact that even the wall decorations were offended by his proximity,” almost made him turn right around and leave the room. The one silver lining to this was that Santino often got the most viciously sarcastic commentaries, so the rest of them could have a good laugh at his expense.
Brio’s sense of humor was no less odd than the other Mantegna brothers, but Angelo found it far more amusing than many of his other antics. He liked to break the fourth wall as a joke. If Federico got turned down for a job, his contribution was to say, “well, they couldn’t hire someone more attractive than the main character.” If he found himself stuck in the middle of a boring conversation, “this isn’t plot relevant. I’m out.” Not everyone found it funny. It was received as insolent and insensitive more often than not, but Angelo thought it was highly entertaining.

[the_rabid_snail]

Angelo M. Mantegna - Part Three

History cont'd: The day Brio came home with an actual job – well, sort of – was astonishing to all the brothers. He was the most persnickety and flaky (qualities he insisted were a great writer’s key characteristics) of the brothers, and they had all long assumed that they would be supporting him for the rest of their lives. So when he flung the door open with a dramatic gust of wind, struck a ridiculously pompous pose, and announced that he had a job writing a relationship advice column, it was all Angelo could do to hold in his laughter and to elbow Santino in the ribs to get his brother to stop snickering. Brio? Writing relationship advice? The boy had zero experience with dating and relationships, and Angelo doubted that he had ever even had a crush on anyone. Still, he had landed the gig, and even though it didn’t pay much, Angelo could tell that Brio enjoyed it. He wrote under a pseudonym, and despite his lack of personal experience, he was exceptionally well read and made good use of that in his column. Sometimes it got to his head, and he’d try to give Angelo advice, which mostly consisted of suggestions to “stop being a wallflower and build yourself a personality, you clodhopping wastrel.” Angelo knew it was meant as friendly teasing and didn’t take much offense to it, and he soon learned that the less time he spent being upset with Brio, the more time he had to laugh at how badly Santino handled being teased. When he wasn’t being a little twerp, he managed to say things that weren’t entirely foolish. He was able to say wise things and at the same time still be void of common sense. How he managed to do that was a mystery to everyone.
The brothers were mostly raised by Federico. Every now and then Uncle Leandro would pay them a visit, but he always had ulterior motives. Sometimes he just needed a place to crash, and other times he wanted to talk Federico into reviving their father’s old business. Federico was adamant that they were never going to sell themselves out the way their father had, but that never deterred Leandro from trying to persuade him the next time he came around. Angelo had long suspected that the real reason Leandro tried so hard to convince them was that he wanted to use the old business as a means to settle some of his debts, but he never tried to prove it. He didn’t have to. Federico was never going to custom make equipment for illicit activities and sell it to the highest bidder, the way their father had. Although he was the only one with enough skill and talent to do so, he said it was disgraceful, and with Federico, that meant there would be no reconsideration, no reversing or altering the decision. When he laid down the final decision, that was that. They did assist the Night Riders from time to time if they needed it because Federico said they should honor the family legacy, but the theater mainly served as a just a theater.
Although it was fun to use his and Santino’s almost identical looks to play pranks, it wasn’t so funny when other Scorpions mistook him for Santino. Even when he tried to tell him that he was the younger brother, they didn’t usually believe him. Apparently, Santino had already pulled that stunt with them, so whenever he said he was Angelo, they just thought it was Santino running the same old joke into the ground again. Even worse was when Santino had an assignment and couldn’t carry it out for some reason. Of course, his solution to that problem was to pester Angelo into completing it for him, but Angelo found a way to have his own fun with it. Even better than any incentive Santino could offer him was the chance to mess with him. While acting as Santino, he pulled off a few stunts here and there. Nothing too dangerous or flashy, just tricky enough that he knew Santino couldn’t do it. He never was around to see it, but it was satisfying just knowing that at some point some Scorpion would ask him to do a stunt and Santino would have to figure out a way to get out of it.
The shadowfog is definitely worrying to him, but he doesn’t know what he can do about it. While he has a better education than a lot of the population, he doesn’t think of himself as particularly bright about that sort of thing. He’s better with his hands than he is with academics. Hopefully, the councils can work together to find a solution, although he’s not too optimistic about that happening either. Oh, well. The show must go on, as they say.

Other: Jack of all trades, one of his favorite things to do when someone asks him to do something is to say 'no' just as he's doing what they asked.

[the_rabid_snail]

Winter S. Devoe - Devoe Granddaughter - Part One

Name: Winter Sonnet Devoe
Nicknames: Snowdrop, Winnie, Wintry

Age: 18
Gender: F

Home City: Voxthain
Role: Noble

Appearance: Winter’s name is well-suited to her appearance. Her pale blonde locks of hair fall softly down to her mid-back. Even though her stick-straight hair refuses to hold a curl, she prefers to wear it down and loose whenever possible. For the rare, formal occasion she attends, she suffers her hair being arranged in more complex styles, but mostly she lets it fall freely. Her idea of doing her hair for the day-to-day is to tie it off in a low ponytail or to gather the top and side strands into a half-up style. Her eyes are soft blue-gray, though often partly veiled by strands of hair falling in front of her face, and she has long, dark eyelashes, which she often tugs on absentmindedly. She has pronounced, high cheekbones, a delicate nose, and small, pale pink lips. Her height is an unimpressive 5’5, and her build is slender and delicate, mostly due to her fragile health. She has slim shoulders, a thin waist, and narrow hips, so her curves are almost nonexistent. Her wrists and fingers are slender and elegant, but her narrow ankles and feet cause her to trip or roll her ankles frequently, potentially disastrous when paired with her unreliable sense of balance. Her alabaster skin is smooth and velvety soft, and she has a few faded, white scars across her knees and a faint, slashing scar just below her right collarbone.
Winter’s wardrobe is made of light, flowy materials, soft pastels, and warm neutral colors. She mostly wears dresses of soft, light fabrics that reach just below the knee or to her ankles because anything heavy or bulky is too difficult and uncomfortable for her to move around in. She never goes anywhere without a sweater or coat since she is almost always cold, and her preferred footwear is socks. No shoes, just fuzzy or wool socks. For the rare, formal events she attends, she likes wearing floor-length gowns just so she can discard her shoes and stroll about in her socks without anyone being the wiser. She hates wearing makeup and usually goes without, unless one of her family members badgers her into letting them do it for her. Although she is a noble, she wears very little jewelry, except for the silver snowflake pendant she wears around her neck daily. Otherwise, she only wears additional jewelry for special occasions.

Personality: Winter is a very sweet and thoughtful girl. Despite her sheltered upbringing and limited relationship skills, she is kind and empathetic, able to feel what others are feeling intensely. She has a difficult time understanding people who are cold and cruel, but she still sees them as people with their own experiences and feelings. She is often awkward around other people, especially people she doesn’t know, but given time, she can be a fascinating person to talk to, once she feels comfortable enough to open up to others. She is a loyal and devoted friend to anyone who cares to befriend her, and she’s happy to be friends with anyone, regardless of their class or upbringing, as long as they aren’t rude or spiteful to her. However, she struggles to initiate friendships due to her shy nature, and it has cost her some opportunities to get to know other people who could have been good friends.
Although she appears fragile on the outside, Winter is anything but. Her personal discipline and intense focus are rivaled by few, and she always does things to the best of her ability, even to the detriment of her own health sometimes. When she sets her mind to something, she doesn’t give up, even when faced with obstacle after obstacle. Sometimes it would be wiser to give up, but she hates quitting anything and normally has to be persuaded to. Her inability to reach her own perfectionistic standards is the greatest source of her frustration, and she allows other people more grace and forgiveness than she gives herself. She wants to believe that if she tries hard enough and has a strong enough will that she can do anything that anyone else can, and it can be devastating when she realizes that her limitations are different than most people’s and has to accept that she might not be able to do something to the degree that others can or even at all.
She used to care a lot more about what people thought of her, but after being written off immediately by most people (especially other nobles), she’s gotten used to it. There is something freeing about being invisible to the majority of people, and she simply goes about her business, not concerning herself with how she appears. Her whole life she has been an anomaly, and being ostracized, ignored, and taunted are all old hat to her. From being excluded as a child to bullied at Cogworks, she’s learned not to let those kinds of things wound so deeply. Although as a result, she tends to be more comfortable around commoners than nobles, and she would count more than one of the servants in her family’s home as her good friends.
She has a vivid imagination and an unquenchable love of books. One of her favorite activities is to create her own sketches of book scenes and slip them in between the pages once completed. Stories and poetry are how she makes up for her lack of experience out in the real world, but they can only do so much. She is rather naïve and gullible, and it has gotten her into potentially dangerous situations on several occasions. So far she hasn’t suffered any disastrous consequences or humiliated herself too severely, but it’s likely to catch up with her at some point, especially now that she’s eighteen.

Likes:

Reading
Sketching
Painting
Hot tea
Snow
Fairytales
Poems

Dislikes:

Parties
Fancy clothes
Rain
Arithmetic
Stairs
Shoes
Spicy foods

Magic: Winter never learned much magic, between her fragile health and limited schooling. She has a little talent for evocation magic and can summon and manipulate basic elements.

Family:

Father: Devoe Younger Brother (uncreated)
Mother: (also uncreated)
Siblings: (if any, same as above)
Uncles: Ezekiel Delacroix
Aunts: Evelyn Delacroix, Charlotte Fitzpatrick
Cousins: Lorelai Delacroix, Athena Delacroix, Corinne Delacroix, Park Sua Devoe

History: Winter was born into the noble Devoe family. As a child, she was unusually small and plagued endlessly by illnesses and ailments. Her health was fragile throughout her childhood, and she spent more time battling sickness and recovering than anything else. Other children her age were able to run and play and go to school while she was mostly stuck indoors and at risk of falling dangerously ill if she went out in the rain or cold and caught a chill. She was always envious of her siblings and cousins and wished she was able to join them when they went outside to play or left the house to visit relatives or see the sights around Voxthain. She grew up hearing about all their adventures, living vicariously through them. It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than nothing at all. Perhaps they grew frustrated with her pestering them for stories. Maybe she asked too often or at the wrong times. Whatever the reason, she could tell she was becoming a nuisance. She counted herself fortunate that she knew how to read and could escape into her books for adventures and companionship instead.
Whatever her other shortcomings in her schooling might have been, she was at least an excellent reader. It was slow going at first because of her weak constitution and intense bouts of illness, but once she got the basics down, she devoured books any chance she got. She loved when other people would read to her too, but the independence of being able to read on her own (provided she was well enough) was something she held onto dearly. It was one of the only things she could do on her own semi-consistently. Whenever she grew tired of reading the same stories, she tried her hand at writing her own, but she always felt that she failed to capture what she imagined and usually ended up discarding her manuscripts or tucking them away somewhere she would forget about soon after. Fairytales and anything dreamlike or whimsical were her favorites both to read and write, and poetry was a close second. She was even worse at crafting poems than she was at stories, so she mostly focused on enjoying the verses in her favorite collections, which were very well-loved volumes, the pages yellowing, binding falling to pieces, lettering faded on the covers. If she wanted, she could have asked for new books. There was no reason why her family couldn’t afford it, being nobility and all, but she loved the feel of the worn pages she’d flipped through hundreds of times before and the intimate familiarity with each book, as if they were her oldest friends. In a way, they were. She knew every crease, every stain, every faded letter, every loose page. Sometimes she felt like she knew her books better than she knew herself. The ones she loved most she could nearly recite by heart. Eventually, she would probably have to if she didn’t acquire new copies before they fell apart completely.
When she was well enough, she loved to wander the gardens on her family’s estate. She grew to love sketching, and she would sit on a picnic blanket on the estate grounds and draw her favorite spots in the garden from different angles or at different times of day. The finished projects she would use to decorate her room with, so that whenever she was ill and bed-ridden, she could look at her sketches and imagine she was sitting in the gardens peacefully. During her good days, she put considerable effort into brightening up her room. Since she spent so much time confined to it, she wanted it to be as pleasant and comfortable to be stuck in as possible. It sometimes felt like a prison cell, but it didn’t have to be an uncomfortable one. There was a small veranda accessible from her bedroom, and she filled it with potted plants. That way she could have a little piece of the garden outside her window for the times she was too ill to leave the house. She tried to take care of her plants as much as possible, but when she was in the throes of illness, she had to rely on family members or the servants to remember to look after them.

[the_rabid_snail]

Winter S. Devoe - Devoe Granddaughter - Part Two

History cont'd: Sometimes she pretended her fragile health was due to how much her room loved her and wanted her to stay. It seemed to let everyone else come and go. Family, servants, doctors, and nurses, they were all able to enter and exit as they pleased, and only she was the one who could not. Her bed and pillows had a special affinity for her, she reasoned. Her early years were spent being probed and examined by various doctors attempting to find the root cause for her weak constitution. Sometimes she was grateful for her family’s money and status, and other times it was more of a pain than anything else. She supposed she should be more grateful that her family had the means to pay doctors and experts to see her, and she felt guilty for not appreciating the advantages she was lucky to have more fully. However, she strongly disliked having so little privacy and having to explain her symptoms over and over again to each new physician, only for no conclusive results to be found. Several theories were posited by different physicians, though Winter herself only heard the simplified versions if she heard anything at all. The more detailed explanations were given to her parents. In each case, there were recommended treatments to lessen her pain and reduce the frequency of illness, but there were never any cures. Still, the carousel of doctors revolved on. Winter made frequent requests to her parents to let it be, but they were not as quick to give up as she was. Eventually, they conceded the point: nothing further could be achieved from getting other opinions. Winter’s health would do what it willed, and they could only do their best to manage it.
Oddly, her room felt empty once the physicians and nurses stopped visiting so frequently. They were irritating to deal with, but at least she had someone to talk to. Some of them were cold and distant and not much fun to talk with, but others were pleasant and friendly, willing to spend a few minutes of their time talking to her. Once the doctor visits decreased, she usually only saw them if she was especially sick or if some new concern had arisen. It got her into trouble occasionally, but sometimes if there was something bothering her that seemed minor, she kept it to herself instead of notifying her parents. She usually mentioned it to one of the doctors the next time they happened to see her if she was well enough to say something, just in case it turned out to be something significant, but she had long given up hope that any answers for her condition would be found.
During her better periods, she was allowed to attend parties and social functions for the city’s elite. She didn’t go to many and was normally one of the first to leave once she became too tired to stay any longer, but that was alright by her. Her social skills were lacking, and she spent most of those events feeling awkward and out of place, not knowing anyone outside her immediate family members. Sometimes she could persuade the servants at the house to help her practice conversations, but while it helped some, she found that most of the other nobles were in an entirely different league than she was. Her lack of dancing skills was another issue, and even though she tried to learn on her good days, her health prevented her from practicing consistently enough. It might not have been so bad if she didn’t push herself so hard, leaving herself vulnerable to catching sick, but she grew so frustrated sometimes with not being able to keep pace with everyone else. Music was another thing she dearly wished to learn, but like dancing, it was challenging to practice regularly and required strength, coordination, and stamina that she was not always in possession of.
The one bright spot in all of that was the assistant to her primary physician. When she was a teenager, her physician took on a student a few years older than her and hired the boy to be his assistant. Leon became one of the only friends she ever managed to make, and she could never figure out exactly how that had happened. It probably wasn’t anything of her own doing as she hadn’t had much luck befriending other people before now. She concluded that Leon must simply be a very kind-hearted and accepting person, even if he did insist on calling her Winnie when he knew it annoyed her. He was very supportive and let her talk about whatever she liked, whether it was a disastrous ball she’d attended or one of her favorite books. He quickly became her closest confidante, and she looked forward to his visits. Sometimes her physician couldn’t make her appointments due to emergencies at the hospital, so he sent Leon to check up on her instead, much to her delight. After he asked her questions about her health and made notes for her physician to follow up on, he would spend the rest of the afternoon taking her on walks if she was well enough or hanging out in her room with her. Normally one of the maids was in the room with them or nearby, so it was all very proper. She persuaded him into helping her practice dancing a few times, but since he didn’t know how to dance very well, it didn’t accomplish anything other than the two of them laughing at their own clumsiness and giving it up.
When she was sixteen, her parents enrolled her in Cogworks. She had learned to better look after her health, and except for unusual circumstances, she didn’t fall seriously ill as often. Going to school for the first time was overwhelming. Before now, she had studied on her own and had periodic lessons from tutors when her health allowed it. Even Leon helped her from time to time when she was struggling in a subject he was good at, so she at least knew more than nothing when she started attending Cogworks. However, in addition to learning to navigate the school and the social hierarchy, she had to deal with being behind in every subject, except for reading and writing. She was placed in a grade lower than her same-age peers, but she still struggled with the material. Leon tutored her when he had time to spare, but he could not prevent her from being bullied. She was shy, awkward, and vulnerable, an easy target for predators. The constant bullying made it challenging to focus on her studies, and after the first semester, her instructors recommended that she resume being homeschooled as the environment at Cogworks was not conducive to advancing her education. Her parents pulled her out of the school, much to her relief, and she continued to work on her studies on her own. She kept to a strict schedule as much as she was able, not wanting to fall further behind in her schooling now that she realized just how far ahead of her everyone else was. There wasn’t much she could do about her health, but she at least had some control over her studies.
In the midst of all that, there was the strangeness concerning her physician. When he visited her for her periodic check-ups, she could tell there was something changed. She didn’t know what it was, but she recognized that his behavior had altered. He stayed to talk with her longer, asked her questions about herself and her personal life that had nothing to do with his ability to provide care, and didn’t bring Leon with him as often. On more than one occasion, Winter was almost sure he was flirting with her, but she convinced herself she was imagining it. He had been her doctor for a few years now, and their relationship had always been strictly doctor and patient. Maybe she needed to stop reading so many romance novels for a while if she was imagining things like this. She began to dread when she was due for check-ups because it had become so uncomfortable to interact with her physician, but she never said a word, believing that it was all in her head. Whenever she saw him, she did her best to be polite and respectful, the way her parents had taught her, silently wishing he would take his leave as soon as possible.
One day, while her physician was checking her pulse, he admitted his feelings for her and asked her if she would be willing to give him a chance, if she would consider a romantic relationship. No one had ever asked her anything of the kind before. All her manners failed her, and she simply sat there, speechless. When she didn’t respond, he listed off several things he admired about her and attempted to convince her to say yes. Still, she did not know what to say, and her physician said he would give her time to think about it. The next few visits, proceeded in a similar fashion. He would invent a task or an errand that would get rid of the maids just long enough for him to pester her about dating him, and she could never find a way to refuse him firmly enough. Fortunately, one of her maids returned earlier than anticipated one day because there was a clarification she needed from the physician about something he’d sent her to fetch, and the maid overheard enough of the conversation to go running in search of Winter’s parents to report the situation. Her father summoned the physician away from her room on some pretense, and that was the last Winter ever saw of him. Unbeknownst to her, Leon was the one who had truly saved her. Suspecting there was something off about his employer and the fact that he was often told not to accompany the doctor whenever he went to see Winter, he had asked the maids to keep a close eye on Winter, just in case. The maid who had returned too early had done so on purpose, at Leon’s request. Eventually, a new doctor was found. He was younger than her previous physician, but he was very professional and pleasant. At Winter’s request, he agreed to take on Leon as an assistant since he had turned in his resignation to the previous doctor and was looking for a new position.
Things proceeded normally for the next couple of years – at least what Winter considered to be normal. She remained devoted to her studies and to her favorite activities, reading, writing, and sketching. Her health was a constant challenge and the main source of her frustrations, as always, and she had an alarming bout of illness when she refused to stop pushing herself, determined to build up her physical strength and stamina. It set her back a great deal, and she was forced to be extra cautious for a long time after. Leon stayed true like the loyal friend he was, and she was always overjoyed when he had spare time to walk around the grounds with her or to tell her about everything that was happening with him.
Then the shadowfog and the murders began. Being so sheltered her whole life, it was both difficult and easy to understand the shadowfog. She had a superb imagination from reading so much, so it wasn’t difficult to picture what the shadowfog was. It was another matter entirely to understand what it was and what it meant. So many things that were normal for others were foreign to her, and in some ways the shadowfog fell into that same category, though she did come to understand the urgency in time. The murders hurt her heart to hear about. Although she did not personally know the people who had been killed, she felt so sorry for their families and loved ones. She realized how lucky she was that it was unlikely she would be a victim of whoever the murderer or murderers were with how little she left the house and even then, never on her own and rarely at night. Her safety was a privilege that many others did not have, and she sincerely hoped the criminal or criminals would be caught soon for the sake of everyone’s safety. Most of all, she worried for her best friend. She couldn’t see why anyone would want to murder him, but then, she had a hard time imagining why anyone would ever want to kill anyone else in the first place. What cold hearts some people must have. And while Winter might have been cold to the touch, she was anything but cold at heart.

Other: She adores any purple flower.

[the_rabid_snail]

Llio S. Grimcroft - Twilight Singer - Part One

Name: Llio Sigrid Grimcroft
Nicknames: Lili, Lia (she hates this one), Lilo/Loli (usually a mispronunciation/misspelling of her name), Sóley (used exclusively by family and maybe a close friend if she ever manages to make one)
Alias: Elin Solfrid

Age: 28
Gender: F

Home City: Voxthain
Role: Twilight Singer

Appearance: Llio’s magic brings the phrase “two-faced” to life, and the face she was born with and the appearance by which everyone knows her are not the same. In her natural appearance, Llio’s wavy, dirty blonde hair reaches to the bottom of her shoulder blades, but she has been dyeing her locks a light auburn color for years. Because of how easily her hair tangles and its slight frizz, she rarely leaves it down and never When she’s in a rush, her go-to styles are quick braids, a messy bun, or loose ponytail, and she uses clips, pins, and headbands to keep all her curly wispies and baby hairs out of her face when she wants to appear more presentable or for the occasions she wants to leave her hair loose. Her eyes are hazel with stunning gold flecks, and they can appear brown, green, gold, or amber depending on the lighting and what she’s wearing. Her skin is fair with pink and gold undertones, and a generous helping of freckles are scattered across her rosy cheeks and nose. Her eyebrows are darker than her hair color, but though they arch nicely over her eyes, they are too thick for her liking. Her eyelashes are short and dark, and she has soft cheeks, a small chin, a dainty nose that turns up a touch at the end, healthy, pink lips, and a large mouth, which is evident whenever she smiles. She has an elegant, long neck, slim shoulders, and a tall, lean torso, and her height is 5’9. Her long arms and strong hands make climbing trees easy, and her slender fingers were made to play the piano. Her hips are just wider than her shoulders, and she has a full bosom, giving her a decently curvy figure. Perfectly proportioned to her torso, her legs are long and graceful, and her feet have small arches. She has no notable scars, but she does have a small, light birthmark in no discernible shape on the side of her right shoulder.

The face everyone else sees is not so drastically different from her natural one, just free of all the imperfections, at least in Llio’s opinion. Her hair is wavy, thick, and silky soft, with none of its normal frizz and propensity for tangles. She keeps it the same length and auburn color as her “natural” hair, and even though she doesn’t need to, she stays vigilant about dyeing her hair. She could simply color it using her magic – and she does from time to time if she’s unable to dye it again before it starts returning to its normal color – but it’s easier to maintain her illusion if she doesn’t have to think about hair color. She loves to leave her hair down and loose, but just as often, she pins it up in sophisticated styles, weaving in a few braids here and there for fun. Her eyes remain the same color, the gold flecks a little brighter if anything, but her lashes are long and black. Her complexion is fair and flawless, not a freckle or blemish in sight, and the golden undertones are warmer and brighter, making her appear more radiant and healthier. Her nose she keeps the same, but her eyebrows are lighter, thinner, and perfectly arched. Her cheekbones are sharper, and her mouth and lips are smaller and more delicate. She keeps her build mostly the same, adding higher arches to her feet and softening her skin, and because she believes true perfection shatters illusions, the birthmark on her shoulder remains.

As Elin, she has shiny, golden blonde curls that brush the tops of her shoulders and hazel-brown eyes with deep maroon flecks. In certain lighting, it can almost look like her eyes are dark red or reddish-brown. Typically she leaves her hair down because she loves the way her curls bounce when she walks or turns her head, and she adds in gold or sparkling pins when she wants to dress up, which she usually does when she’s playing as Elin. Her complexion is light olive, warm, and healthy, and her cheeks are naturally rosy and of course, without freckles. Her eyebrows are lighter to match her hair, thin, and more rounded than her illusory appearance, and she has a straight Greek nose, delicate chin, and full, pouty lips. Her height is the same as her natural appearance, but Elin’s shoulders and hips are a touch wider, creating more severe curves. Her build is lean but more toned, and the birthmark on her shoulder is absent in this appearance. Instead, she has a beauty mark on the outside of her right hip.

Llio’s dress style is simple but elegant. Her favorite colors are red, beige, gold, pink, and violet, and she prefers dresses over pants or skirts, though she will wear either if the occasion calls for it. Strappy sandals or heels are her usual shoes, and her favorite piece of jewelry is a hair comb adorned with a golden songbird. She likes stud earrings, chokers, and rings the most for jewelry.

Elin’s sense of style is much different from Llio’s normal wardrobe. She prefers cocktail dresses, Bardot sleeves, pumps, fringed shawls and fur capelets, asymmetrical and high-low skirts, silk scarves, and anything with beads. She gravitates towards bold reds, emerald and dark greens, blacks and grays, sapphire blues, and other jewel tones and darker shades. She never goes anywhere without nail polish and lipstick, and she loves to use glitter and tiny rhinestones in her hair or makeup. Brooches are her staple jewelry piece, but she likes earrings, necklaces, and anklets too. She tends to lose rings and bracelets all too easily and usually avoids wearing them, and she normally wears rose or jasmine-scented perfumes.

Personality: Llio is confident, ambitious, and disciplined. She knows her limits and is always trying to push herself to expand them. Sitting still or staying in the same place (figuratively and literally) is not for her, and she is restless and discontent if she isn’t working towards something. However, the victory of accomplishment often feels hollow since she has so few people to share it with, and she finds herself immediately thinking about what she’s going to do next.

She never thinks she is good enough at anything. Even though she is the Twilight Singer in the Coven, she believes there is still more she can learn to increase her skills and knowledge. Just being awarded the rank of master doesn’t mean there isn’t more to learn. She never allows herself to be lazy or to let achievement make her lax, and she keeps to a strict schedule to maximize her time and efforts.

The one thing she has always been insecure about is her natural appearance. Being criticized for her looks frequently as a child made her self-conscious enough to disguise herself using magic, and even as an adult, she continues this practice. It isn’t enough for her that she has attained formidable skill with magic or risen up in the Coven, and so she has no plans to ever stop hiding behind her illusions. They are her armor, and she uses them to shield her from other people and the world.

She walls herself off from other people, not wanting to give anyone a chance to hurt her or see how vulnerable she is behind the strong, driven façade she wears everywhere. More than anything, she wants to be both beautiful and unbreakable, and she will do almost anything to stay that way, even locking everyone out. There are people she might call friends, and she does socialize within the Coven and with certain family members. However, she doesn’t let any of them truly get to know her, and her relationships with them are mostly surface-level, though she may act as if these friendships are deeper than they are to prevent other people from noticing how much of a loner she is.

She has high standards for herself and other people, and even though she can be impatient with herself, she has more patience and grace with her pupils. Life isn’t easy, and magic isn’t something to be taken for granted or used frivolously. She’s a difficult teacher when it comes to magic and certainly doesn’t give out free passes or let anyone slack off under her tutelage, but she is invested in her initiates and wants them to succeed. She can come off cold at times, but she isn’t heartless and will go out of her way to help anyone who’s struggling.

Her behavior when she’s acting as Elin is much more talkative (to give the appearance of openness), silly, and light-hearted. She smiles, even laughs, a lot more frequently and is more outgoing and relaxed around other people. Elin can tell stories, share secrets, and open up to other people in a way that Llio cannot because at her core, Elin isn’t real – even if she’s very real to Llio. It costs Elin very little to be authentic and happy and free, and she is unashamed to be herself. She craves spontaneity and excitement, and as a result, she tends not to have many close friendships because she hates to be in the same place or doing the same thing too long. It’s also a way to keep people at arms’ length for the sake of Llio’s comfort. However, Elin is very sweet when she wants to be, and though Llio would never, she can flirt and tease other people with ease.

Likes:

Reading
Magic
Jewelry
Oranges
Piano

Dislikes:

Her natural appearance
Laziness
Her family (except Sassa)
Gardening
Failure

Magic: Llio is the Twilight Singer in the Coven, a master of illusion magic. She can cast illusions of various types (visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, etc.), change her appearance or the appearance of other people and objects, and can make herself, other people, or objects invisible. Additionally, she can manipulate other people’s dreams, can perform telekinesis for short periods, and knows a couple, minor enchantment spells. Instead of using transmutation magic to send short messages to her sister and cousins (if they're close by), she uses her illusions to create auditory hallucinations only the target(s) can hear when they are within range.

Family:

Father: Owen Blaine
Mother: Anya Grimcroft
Stepfather: Erik Vaalea
Stepmother: Danika Blaine
Sister: Leya Vaalea
Aunt: Liv Grimcroft
Cousins: Astrid and Theodora ("Sassa and Teddy") Grimcroft

History: Llio Sigrid Grimcroft (formerly Blaine) was born to Owen Blaine and Anya Grimcroft in Voxthain. Her family was by no means wealthy, but they were able to live comfortably enough. Her father worked as a concert pianist and composer, and her mother, in addition to being a daughter of the Grimcroft family and a Coven member, worked part time at the library and sometimes for beautification projects around the city.

Although she was too young to understand what was wrong, she picked up on the tense atmosphere in her home. When things were good, their lives felt marvelous to Llio, but when her father was short on work or frustrated with a composition, things were dreadful. The first couple years of her life were overall happy ones. Her father’s compositions were mostly successful, and there was little financial strain on her family. However, not long after, he lost his muse, and commissions dried up until they were almost nonexistent, only a few of his numerous works being well-received. The name Blaine became synonymous with failure. Her father had such a bright future at the beginning of his career, but now he was another washed-up composer, disgraced and turned to potions to forget his shortcomings. The stress took a heavy toll on her mother too, and she was impatient and cross with young Llio, even over minor trespasses.

[the_rabid_snail]

Llio S. Grimcroft - Twilight Singer - Part Two

History cont'd: When Llio was three years old, her parents separated, and her mother changed their names back to Grimcroft. She and her mother went to stay with her aunt and cousin in their home until they could get back on their feet again. Aunt Liv’s home was spontaneous and chaotic, but it was a welcome distraction from the strain she had been living under in her old home. She made fast friends with her cousin Astrid, whom everyone affectionately called Sassa, and the two of them were joined at the hip for the duration of her stay. It was just as well that she spent her time with Sassa, so that at least she was not around to notice her mother crumbling. However, when her mother remarried, she was forced to leave the sanctuary of Aunt Liv’s home and move into a new home with her mother and stepfather.

It hadn’t even been a year since her parents had separated, and already her mother had brought a new man into their lives. There wasn’t anything specifically awful about her stepfather besides the fact that he wasn’t her real father, but she didn’t much care for him. He was a botanist, not as glamourous a career as her father’s but at least more stable, and her mother said they had met while she was volunteering on a beautification project for the Voxthain. The truth was that they had met in a bar, but that was the story they told Llio when she was little.

Like her mother’s first marriage, things went smoothly in the beginning. When Llio was five, her mother delivered a little girl, her half-sister Leya. Even as a baby, Leya was beautiful and sweet and good, everything that Llio later came to feel she was not. Llio was unsure at first, but she grew to love her sister over time, determined to make sure that nothing hurt her. She loved watching over her sister, singing her to sleep, and helping her play with her toys. When Leya said her first word, it was “Lolo,” her best attempt at saying Llio’s name. Llio was so overjoyed she felt like she was surfing on clouds the entire week.

But just as before, cracks threatened to rock the foundation of her mother and stepfather’s relationship. Llio didn’t know what happened behind closed doors, when she wasn’t around, but she could tell when things were off. And things were very, very wrong. It started off small, her mother snapping at her for leaving a plate out or forgetting to make her bed, being punished for misunderstandings or small mishaps, and the like. Eventually, she and Leya were being sent to live with her father and stepmother for a few days at a time every other week. They were eight and three years old at the time, respectively. Llio hated staying with her father, and not because of him but because of her stepmother. Her father had sobered up, started writing again, and had gotten a job teaching piano, so she had no issues with him. Her stepmother, Danika, was another matter, and Llio thought she was cold and vain. Danika disliked both Llio and Leya, and she was only kind to them when Owen was around to see. She called Llio an ugly duckling and told her she wasn’t allowed to smile because her mouth was hideously large. She said her limbs were too long and awkward and that she was thankful she didn’t have a child as unattractive and useless as Llio. Llio cried and cried when she was alone in the guest room, and at night she waited until Leya fell asleep and then cried silently into her pillow until she fell asleep too. It was miserable being at home, and it was miserable at her father’s house.

One lucky day, Aunt Liv invited her to come stay the weekend for Sassa’s birthday. Llio agreed, desperate for any escape, but she felt guilty for leaving Leya behind. She tried her best to enjoy her time with cousins (by now Aunt Liv had another daughter named Theodora, Teddy for short), but she couldn’t help venting a few of her insecurities to Sassa. She was nervous after, wishing she had kept her thoughts to herself, but Sassa and Aunt Liv decided to plan a girls’ day. They took her shopping for clothes, and afterwards, she got her hair done at a salon that was run by Aunt Liv’s sister-in-law. She had always wanted different colored hair, so Sassa helped her find a lovely shade of auburn to dye it. After that, she never wanted to be seen with blonde hair again, and she dyed it the same light auburn color vigilantly.

That one, bright spot sustained her in the dark days that followed for a long time. Even when it was hard, even when her stepmother was being unkind to her, she held onto her memories of Sassa and Teddy and Aunt Liv. She was willing and able to bear her stepmother’s harsh words, but she wouldn’t let Leya fall victim to them too. Her stepmother spoke cruelly to Leya only once, and Llio flew into a fit of rage, shouting at her loud enough to draw the attention of her father. Her father sent her and Leya to the guest room, and whatever happened between her father and stepmother after, she barely saw her stepmother at all until her mother came to collect her and Leya. Her father privately apologized for the things her stepmother had said, but Llio didn’t want to hear it. He was her father, and of all the awful, messed up people in her family, at least he should have been the one to defend her. It was too late now. He had been blind to what was happening for too long, and she didn’t want to trust him anymore.

At home, her mother either ignored her, leaving her and Leya alone while she went out, or she helped Llio practice magic. Her mother was a Coven member and specialized in enchantment spells, and she wanted her daughters to one day be able to join the Coven too. Llio tried her hardest to follow her mother’s instructions, practicing every chance she got so that she wouldn’t disappoint her, but she didn’t like to enchant other people. It felt manipulative and cold, just like everyone around her. And once she knew how to recognize it, she could have sworn her mother tried to enchant everyone around her, including her stepfather. It further turned her off to enchantment, and she promised herself she would never do such a thing to anyone else. Instead, she focused on things that she found useful, like telekinesis and protection spells. If it came to the worst, she wanted to be able to take care of Leya, so anything she thought might help her to do that she tried to learn. She even tried to teach Leya a little when her sister was old enough, not wanting her to be defenseless.

Eventually, Leya was old enough to join Llio in their mother’s magic lessons. She didn’t have the same work ethic and ambition Llio did, but it quickly became clear that she was in possession of enormous talent for illusion magic. The sights and sounds and textures she created were impressive and detailed, and although she was untrained and unfocused, even Llio could recognize that her amount of potential was rare. She helped her sister practice when she could, not wanting Leya to be on the receiving end of their mother’s disappointment and harsh words. If Llio could help it, she didn’t want Leya to ever know how self-centered and apathetic their mother could be. Through this, she discovered that illusions came easily to her as well. Before she hadn’t bothered with them much because they didn’t seem especially useful, and even though she wasn’t as phenomenally talented as Leya, she still had a generous dose of her own talent for it. For the first time, magic was almost fun to practice. She could change her hair color, eye color, even the size of her stupid mouth, and more. Looking in the mirror, she felt beautiful and confident, comfortable in her own skin for the first time. Her illusions were like armor to her, protecting her from all the bad in her world. She could be anyone, go anywhere, do anything she wanted. Magic had finally provided the key that unlocked her cage. But Leya. She could not - would never – leave Leya behind. Someday, she promised herself, she would get her and Leya away from this place.

Leya always wanted Llio to go with her wherever she went. Llio would have done anything, including falling on her own sword, for Leya, but there were times when she was so exhausted that she just wanted to be alone for a little while. She always felt guilty for refusing her sister’s requests, but she didn’t know how else to soldier on without a little rest here and there, even if she wasn’t sure she deserved it. It was especially difficult when Leya wanted her to join an outing her stepfather was taking her on. Llio had never learned to like her stepfather, only to tolerate him for Leya’s sake. He had always been kind to her, but Llio suspected he was just trying to win her over to make her mother happy. She didn’t want to know him, didn’t want to like him. What she wanted was for her real father to love her and care about her the way her stepfather loved and cared for Leya. It wasn’t fair. She loved her sister and wanted the best for her, but it cut so deeply that Leya had a father who adored her and she didn’t. She tried so hard to follow the rules and make her parents proud. She guarded Leya from everything, would wish away her own existence for the sake of her sister if it would help, so why at every turn was she denied the one thing she wanted for herself? She felt like she was being torn in two, hating the whole world and everyone in it but loving Leya with everything she had at the same time. Deep down, even she knew it was unsustainable to go on like that. But she didn’t know any other way, and she was alone.

When she was fourteen, her mother and stepfather separated. At least she wouldn’t have to suffer her stepfather’s presence in the house anymore, but the separation also meant that she saw a lot more of her mother. Her mother, refusing to acknowledge that her own manipulation and enchantments had been one of the root causes of the problems she faced in her marriages, blamed everything on Llio. It was Llio who had driven her stepfather away and destroyed their relationship, and there was nothing that could persuade her otherwise. The same cruelty that she had suffered from Danika returned in the form of her mother. It was almost comical that her mother truly hadn’t noticed she’d been dyeing her hair for the last six years, but suddenly it was an issue, along with her freckles and imperfect skin and yes, her mouth that was too large. Llio invested all her effort into perfecting her illusions. It was difficult to maintain them for hours at a time, but she forced herself to do it. Someday, when she left this place, she’d need to be able to sustain her illusions for as long as she needed, so no one would ever know what she looked like underneath. Leya didn’t understand it, but Llio didn’t expect her to. Her sister was effortlessly beautiful and had never been made to feel less than based on her looks. Even though her sister was the way she was because of how fiercely and vigilantly Llio had always protected her growing up, it was becoming increasingly difficult not to be envious of her. She had wanted Leya to be this way. It had always been her goal, but sometimes she just couldn’t stand to be around her sister. Leya was a constant reminder of how much she had been made to suffer and how everything was wrong and upside down and utterly unfair.

It was a relief when Leya went to stay with Llio’s former stepfather. Sometimes her mother wouldn’t be around much, and Llio could find some peace and quiet in their absences. She kept practicing her magic, dreaming of the day she was old enough to join the Coven as an initiate. It was one of the first goals she had for herself that didn’t revolve around Leya, and she was determined to achieve it.

[the_rabid_snail]

Llio S. Grimcroft - Twilight Singer - Part Three

History cont'd: When she was finally old enough, she was allowed into the Coven as an initiate. Her aptitude for illusions was recognized quickly, and she trained under the then-Twilight Singer until she was a full-fledged Coven member. It wasn’t easy, but she was disciplined and organized and strived to do the very best she could. By the time she first entered the Coven, she had perfected her illusory appearance, and so she felt comfortable around the other members, able to maintain her façade flawlessly. She made the acquaintances of several of the other initiates, and while she called them her friends, she never truly let her guard down around them. She was used to disappointment, and she didn’t have the heart to give anyone else a chance to hurt her.

Of course, a few years after she joined the Coven, her half-sister Leya was initiated in, specializing in illusion magic just like she did. By this time, Llio’s illusory appearance caused the two of them to look very different, and Leya was also going by her former stepfather’s name, having never adopted the Grimcroft name. So it was unsurprising that not everyone connected them as sisters. Llio suspected most of the older members and leaders were aware, especially if they had known her mother, but her same-age peers and the girls younger than her often made the mistake of assuming they weren’t as closely related as they were.

Loneliness increasingly pervaded Llio’s life. Even though she had achieved her goal of becoming part of the Coven, she still felt empty. She wasn’t sure what possessed her to do it, but she remembered something she used to do when she was younger and decided to try it out again. She created a new face for herself and went for a night out in the city. The freedom of being no one, of being anyone she felt like, was just as intoxicating as she remembered. There were no expectations and no limits, and she could do whatever she felt like. She found herself spending more and more evenings this way, trying out different faces and personalities. One such evening, she was perched on a barstool when a stranger managed to coax her into conversation. Usually she didn’t entertain conversations long enough to give away much personal information, but the man who’d approached her piqued her interest. When he asked for her name, she gave him the first one she thought of: Elin. She never saw the man again and never felt like looking for him, but that face – the persona she’d named Elin – became the one she wore the most when she was in need of an escape.

It was Elin that first met her ex-husband. Sure, she flirted, and sometimes she entertained a fling here and there for a week or so. But there had never been anyone that truly captured her interest before. It took months of teasing and almost but not quite committing for her to decide on giving him a real chance. She was older, things were different now, so why not? They dated sporadically to accommodate her busy Coven life, but after a year of dancing in circles around each other, things became more serious. Until then, she had never thought about revealing Llio to him. She had always been Elin around him because Elin was the one that everyone liked. Debating between telling him the truth and keeping up the ruse tormented her, but when he proposed, she decided she was going to have to tell him. He took it better than she expected, but understandably, he was still hurt that she had been masquerading under another appearance for as long as he’d known her. They spent some time apart after that, but in the end, he forgave her and proposed a second time. She accepted, and they were married when she was twenty-three.

Although she had admitted to using her illusion magic to alter her appearance, she never showed her true face to her ex-husband, only Elin’s and the one she wore around everyone else. Sometimes she even made up other faces just to casually run into him on the street or outside his workplace. To her it was like a fun game, getting to interact with him (however briefly) as different people, seeing glimpses into different sides of him. But one morning she slipped up and gave herself away. He figured out it was she who had “accidentally” spilled coffee on him on the sidewalk, and that marked the beginning of the end. She was emotionally closed off, didn’t like to communicate, and sometimes did or said things that were a little manipulative, and sooner rather than later, all of that contributed to her divorce. She knew things were reaching the end, and one day, she realized she had instinctively begun to enchant him. Just like her mother had done in all of her relationships. Just like Llio had always promised herself she would never do. It hadn’t mattered when Elin had enchanted random strangers she met, but this time meant something. Horrified, she fled their home and spent the night with Leya at her place. The sisters were no longer as close as they had been growing up, but Llio didn’t know where else to go. At least Leya wouldn’t ask her a million questions or judge her for running away. The next day, she left Leya’s without saying a word and returned to her home. She initiated the divorce proceedings, and it was all over within a matter of months.

Not long after her divorce, she became the new Twilight Singer in the Coven at twenty-five years old. It was a great honor, and she was elated to finally be recognized for her talents with illusions. It was the icing on the cake to be chosen over her sister, who was objectively more talented but lacked ambition, not that Leya ever cared about such things anyway. Her relationship with her sister had been rocky for years, but she didn’t think there was anything to be done about it now. She had her own life and her new position as Twilight Singer, and Leya had… well, whatever it was that Leya had.

Since the shadowfog’s encroachment, Llio has been searching for something to help combat it. She’s not sure illusions are going to do much good against it, but there has to be something else that could help. So she spends her spare time scouring the texts she’s gotten her hands on and asking other magic masters questions about their fields of expertise.

Other: Llio loves wearing rings as herself, but for some reason Elin always loses them. Go figure.

[the_rabid_snail]

Leya - Coven Member? - In Progress
(view spoiler)[
Name: Leya Vanadís Vaalea
Nicknames:

Age: 23
Gender: F

Home City: Voxthain
Role: Coven Member? (or Botanist, idk)

Appearance:

Personality:

Likes:

Dislikes:

Magic:

Family:

Father: Erik Vaalea
Mother: Anya Grimcroft
Sister: Llio Grimcroft
Uncle: Lars Vaalea
Aunt: Liv Grimcroft
Cousins: Astrid and Theodora ("Sassa and Teddy") Grimcroft

History:

(hide spoiler)]

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Leya - In Progress
(view spoiler)[
History cont'd:

(hide spoiler)]

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Leya - In Progress
(view spoiler)[
History cont'd:

Other:

(hide spoiler)]

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Joaquín - Stormvale Cousin - In Progress
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Name: Joaquín Cerulean Stormvale
Nicknames: Kino, Kix (both used by family and close friends), Jack (mostly used by acquaintances or his family when they want to annoy him)

Age: 19
Gender: M

Home City: Voxthain
Role: Noble

Appearance:

Personality:

Likes:

Dislikes:

Magic:

Family:

History:

(hide spoiler)]

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Joaquín - Stormvale Cousin - In Progress
(view spoiler)[
History cont'd:

(hide spoiler)]