[hider=Arin's Oath]I am fate's strike unexpectedly come, I come too soon and am before their time, I am reaper, predator, and I swear this Oath before Selene. I, [B]Heléine Äte Arin of Family Pierrebeau[/B] of Sweet Night, One Faint Kiss. Amongst Night's Chosen, I shall be [B]Arin, the Black-Blooded[/B]. 

The Chosen are my kin, I am servant to Selene for She is my patron, my Divine. Through my kin, I offer my skills to Selene. I offer [I]the blackness of my poisoned blood, and its sweetness as it slips into the flesh of a man, to aid in my kin's darkest endeavors with subtlety and finesse; my mind and memory, as honed and sharp a weapon as any dagger, to bring them every recollection I care to put forth to plot and scheme to the very last detail and my capacity to mold the minds of the idiot masses like clay; and my skill as a tinker, bestowing on me an ability to create and modify even the most obscure systems of Logos, to aid my kin in disarming the enemy and in securing ourselves against them and to develop mechanical weapons built to fight from afar[/I]. I submit my greatest flaws: [I]My delicate constitution, my fragile bones and my perpetual illness; and my propensity for mental games and for toying with food and friends alike[/I] so that my kin might aid me in my time of need. I recognize the Sweet Night knows no politics and declare mine openly to shed temptation. [I]I have forsaken my homeland of Lémuria with no intention of ever returning, and I remain firm in that decision—my head is wanted, and I'll have the head of more than one, should I ever return. I approach hesitantly—no, I'll admit, I fear—the ways of magic as it relates to my own body[/I]. May my kin aid me should I stumble as I shall do so for them.

Openly I declare with neither pride nor shame-- for Sweet Night knows neither-- my past as kin may know. [I]I was born far from a simple girl, raised on the grounds of a sprawling estate set all too far into the ruling domain of Lémuria. My father was a ruthless man, iron-fisted in his rule over both those on his land and in his household. My mother, in contrast, was a weak woman—demure, as she should have been. She was lovely, and he was cruel. It could pass, at first, for the most plain story of a duke his wife that might ever come to pass, but, then, I would urge one to look harder. My father was ruthless, and he tolerated no ignorance on the part of his children. We were educated, trained, alongside one another as figureheads of age-old tactics, as astronomers and navigators. We were educated to no end. The men of the family rode horses and sparred for sport, and the ladies wrote and dabbled in alchemy and mathematics. Should we fall in our studies, we would be reprimanded. Harshly. We feared our father, though, and we lived, obedient.

It was only for some time, though, that my studies would entertain me. As I grew older, I found myself fascinated by the ways of men—and no, not by their sparring and their ponies. The year before my first introduction into society, I kissed a guardsman. He was years older, and a brute, too, which didn't make for much of an experience, but even then, I'd dipped my toes into the warm pool, and I couldn't live a life without the excitement of flirtations and romance. My reputation didn't proceed me; I'll admit that the number of men I saw stays true to the words of gossiping maidservants. I suppose that was how I contracted my sickness. In fact, I suppose I could trace it back to one man, a fascinating man, a foreigner with the blackest eyes. His stay in town was short-lived, but I and every other girl on the island couldn't help but swoon at the sight of him. I pulled the hardest at his heels, and eventually, I got what I wanted: acknowledgement, as though it would reaffirm my existence for him to even speak to me.

He'd left in a couple of weeks. By then, my skin had become permanently inflamed with what was the beginning of the all-consuming magic sickness. At first, it would just be the color draining from my skin and the withering of my muscle and my bone, but after long, my very body began to rot, consumed by the magic in my blood. What was once blue and red darkened to black, as did the extremities of my flesh. Those who recognized magic knew what I was when they saw it. I feared magic, like every other inhabitant of that damned island. I began to fear myself. So did everyone else. Oddly, it took near three revolts and a knife to my brother's back for me to at last stand and cast myself from the island. I won't speak any more of those darker days. All I can say is that I left for good, thoroughly afraid both for and of myself.

I wandered. I didn't know where I was most nights. I was robbed blind my second night on the surface. At times, I considered the vilest of occupations, from whoring to secretary work. I had nowhere to stay, and as little more than a girl, my life came out to bear itself, vulnerable, every time the sun set. I'd descended into little more than a pile of sick flesh when Antoine found me. I can't say that he took me in, but I, desperate, found my ways to make him keep me around. An apothecarist second only to his father within the breadth of their city, he tried any number of treatments on me when I could repay him with written copies of his recited recipes. 

He peddled drugs, though—opiates. I didn't mean to kill my first man. It was a terrifying experience. My knife hardly pierced him at first. He cut me, too, and I was taken aback at the way my blood gnawed away at his skin. I didn't return to Antoine's after that. As for my arm, and my leg? Lost to the sickness. And then replaced and fueled by it. But that's another story altogether.[/I]

I do not hide from the gaze of my kin. [I]I may be innocence, weak, but don't take me for a child or a flower. I may be no more than trickery and illusions, but believe me, my bite is stronger than my punch. After all, where is your dagger when you have no reason to draw it? How can your mind take up its sword when I have bent it around my finger? I don't kill with a stab or a cut. I kill slowly, by a poison that can reach places your glinting daggers and your brawny fists never could.[/I] 

Truly as I am [I]Arin, the black-blooded[/I] and amongst Night's Chosen, I seal my Oath. Of Sweet Night, One Faint Kiss. [I]Summer, 411 of the 4th Era.[/I][/hider]

[hider=Physical Appearance][IMG]http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz205/KittensFurever/f4e5ae22-c0e3-4917-bf59-a8106a242dc5_zpsfd07470b.jpg[/IMG]
[i]A childhood portrait of Arin.[/i]

Arin is a tall woman, graced with her mother's stately bones and a posture trained from years of rigorous adherence to the laws of etiquette. With pale, dead-straight hair tied back in a bun and light eyes forever cast down, she's every bit as cultured and demure as her posture would give away. She's pallid and wasted, though through allowing her blood to consume and by letting it to power her mechanical arm and leg she's grown more able to combat her illness. Her black veins show through in the veins of her arm, which she considers unsightly. She's usually clad in enough cloth to keep that hidden, though—a lady of her upbringing would never be caught in public in any less than a decent shirt and a pair of pants. She isn't prone to wearing colors, and as such, she doesn't own much colorful clothing. Usually, she'll be found in an undershirt, a white shirt (most likely a blouse, given her tastes for the impractical), and either her black or her brown pair of pants. 

She's about 5'8, not very well-set, and is in her mid-twenties. Though tall, she's perhaps the most un-threatening figure ever to pass through into Night Kiss. Just as she looks, she could never hold her own in a fight, though defense-wise, she's learned how to lose her iron arm and leg (her right and her left, respectively, for reference), as they have no sensation. She doesn't move in a very coordinated manner when she walks, and, in fact, she's a terrible runner. She also can't write very well anymore due to her dominant hand having been her now-sensationless right. She's very self-conscious when it comes to her arm and her leg, and she doesn't like to show them off to those who don't need to see them. She's completely reliant on mind games and limited protection from her metal limbs (which are most certainly more of a hindrance than a help) for getting herself not killed.

[IMG]http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz205/KittensFurever/Faint_by_gothic_icecream_zpsd613f951.png[/IMG]
[i]Source:[/i] [[url=http://gothic-icecream.deviantart.com/art/Faint-158127641]x[/url]][/hider]

[hider=Her Body (Illness/Prosthetics)]I'll elaborate some on how Arin's illness works. In essence, Arin has been afflicted with an sickness based in an uncontrollable, corrupted Lef. Its origins, really, are unknown: perhaps, her family has hidden a talent for Lef for generations since fleeing to Lémuria, or perhaps she picked up a bit of the stuff and it stuck to her like honey. All Arin knows is that the man from the world beyond didn't help her case. 

In essence, her blood has been infected to consume. It's simple. Without letting her blood consume outside entities on a daily basis by feeding it organic matter, it will turn on her and consume her own flesh. The blood consumes biomatter via a magical reaction, through which physical energy is produced. Arin has managed to harness that, and, in conjunction with one of the finest mechanical prostheticians of the modern world, she constructed an arm and a leg able to both prolong the time she had between "feeding" her blood and to allow her to replace the arm and leg she'd lost to the sickness. The mechanical parts take a vial of blood every six to eight hours - depending on the amount of activity she undertakes - and react it with woodchips, which is tough to break down but not indigestible to her blood. The woodchips are replaced weekly. She stores both reactants, the vials of blood and the wood, in specialized compartments in her arm. Without them, she can hardly move the limbs. After running out of energy, the arm and leg will deactivate, and reattachment to the nerves will be painful.

Though her arm was amputated just below the shoulder, the mechanical part attaches to her body at screws in the collarbone and shoulderblade. The leg attaches about halfway up her upper leg. Neither, physically, is completely removable from the body, though the main limb can be detached from the installed socket for repairs and modification. Reattachment is extremely painful, as in order to move the limbs through her own nervous system, the limbs must connect to the nerves again, which is painful and can take days, if not hours. In this same vein of theory, gaining the sensation of touch in is not at all improbably for Arin without massive amounts of pain and the use of Lef to recreate the nerve endings within her limbs. Arin, however, is unwilling to undergo that and has just remained with the sensationless limbs.

Arin is required to maintain her arm, and if she had another arm, she could deconstruct and rebuild her own mechanical one in under an hour. For her arm, however, when in need of full-scale maintenance, Arin will usually need to travel all the way to Sanctum to the woman who built her mechanical parts, as the arm itself is more complex than the leg, and Arin herself would be incapable of doing it. The woman is one of the rare few who had knowledge of both Lef and Logos; however, she specializes more in Logos and cannot actually generate and manipulate Lef, herself.[/hider]