[hider= Aeolia Ferrar][center]
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Aeolia
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[color=steelblue][b]Name:[/b][/color] Aeolia Ferrar
[color=steelblue][b]Age:[/b][/color] 23
[color=steelblue][b]Gender:[/b][/color] Female
[color=steelblue][b]Race:[/b][/color] Elf
[color=steelblue][b]Height:[/b][/color] 180cm/5’11
[color=steelblue][b]Weight:[/b][/color] 70kg/154lbs

[color=steelblue][b]Appearance:[/b][/color] Aeolia’s appearance is wasteful, a disappointment to seemingly everyone besides Aeolia herself. Long blonde hair, straightened and neatly braided for her debut, curls forlornly between her shoulder blades, cut cheaply and poorly maintained. A pristine complexion that earned her compliments in her youth is marred by the pallid hue it has gained after months deep within ancient chambers, surrounded by shuttered windows and old books, and she long since sold her makeup for an experiment which at the time seemed so very promising. Despite protestations, and half-serious offers to send rags and pouches of stamped gold, she wears the finery she is prescribed by her fussing mother: once-crisp white shirts long since in need of ironing drape her slender figure, trousers of fine wool cover her long legs, bearing the specks of old ink and the patterned ghosts of alchemical mishaps. She keeps the sole ball dress she had foisted upon her in good condition, locked out of sight of her narrow, hawkish eyes and their inquisitive, hurried gaze. She walks with a steady pace that is always slightly too fast to be acceptable. She speaks in crisp, richly-accented and clipped words, fluctuating between tacit and lugubrious depending most often on the current state of her dissertation. Her hands are clever and long-fingered, calloused and dexterous, and rarely content themselves with stillness when she is in conversation, either to gesture or fidget. She avoids eye contact not out of nerves but out of skittish distraction, her fascination pulled to the lines of an interesting nose, to the ripples of water, or to the proud cerulean sky and its soaring occupants.

[color=steelblue][b]Character Concept:[/b][/color] Aeolia is an innovative, if not particularly powerful, Spirit User, and a shining star of the youngest generation of University students, a scholar to the very core in constant need of money to fund her research. She is the scion of the affluent, new-moneyed Ferrarus family, the second daughter of two and the fourth child of four. Her mother was born to failing aristocrats, her father to a jewel trader, and together they raised her with all the advantages wealth and modest status could bring. From an early age, she proved a prodigious student, and was blessed with a Spirit, and her oldest friend, Tacitus. She lacked the charisma and ambition that drew her father’s love to her older brother, or the demure beauty and grace that made her mother dote on her older sister, and so she found patronage in books. She excelled in school, impressed the private tutors she demanded, and exhausted the family library in impressive time. It was only natural for her to continue her education at the University, studying Natural Philosophy and Alchemy alongside her magics. She is the archetypical struggling graduate student, balancing her dwindling allowance from her family with teaching, research, writing and maneuvering within the bureaucracy of the school. She has poured her entire being into the pursuit of knowledge, but in doing so has shuttered herself from the other joys of life, and has resigned herself to the fate of the candle burning at both ends, to be brilliant and poorly-planned. She works fingers to bones to stay afloat in the life she’s chosen, but whispers in the back of her mind, doubts gnawing at her, are making her wonder if her choice couldn’t be improved somewhat.

[color=steelblue][b]Combat, Abilities and Skills:[/b][/color] Aeolia is not much of a combatant. She’s naturally frail, lacking in much physical constitution, weak and easily startled. She’s never been in a real fight, much to the chagrin of her spirit, Tacitus, and despite his urging has taken few steps to learn how to better protect herself. She took a fencing class when she first came to the university, but had no special talent for it, and so quickly discarded it as a waste of time. With the help of her Spirit, she has a versatile and worthy set of abilities if she ever was to put her life in danger, with Tacitus being a Spirit with an immense and exclusive affinity for metals in general, and Iron in particular.
To Aeolia’s parents, she is defined by what she cannot do. She cannot dance, she cannot sing, she can weave to only the most meager standards. The last time she tried to cook without a recipe she ruined not only the dish but the pot it was cooked in, and she is by no means a great beauty, especially in regards to her womanly assets. She has never had interest in money as an abstract concept, never had the heart for stern negotiation or vicious back-alley deals, never had the charisma to trick or inspire or convince outside the debating hall. She has little patience for politics, and truth be told has very few true friends.
She prides herself on what she can do. She can speak three languages at a conversational level, and read two different kinds of long-dead runic scripts. She can write ten pages of research notes, or a particularly inspiring thesis proposal, in a night, given a hot pot of tea and no distractions. She could navigate an alchemy lab blindfolded and still distill whatever was asked for her. She can treat rheumatism, flux, and a hundred other ailments of the body. She is the authority at the university on the study of explosive reagents and chemical fuels, and has taken work as a teacher, an accountant, an assistant engineer, and, rather bizarrely, on the night before a formal ball she was a crude jeweler for an old acquaintance looking to impress.


[color=steelblue][b]Equipment and Inventory:[/b][/color] Aeolia goes nowhere without an inkwell, pen, and several pages of cheap paper. Besides that, she travels light. She has good quality, if not always fashionable, clothes for all weather, and she often travels with Iron for Tacitus and a small pocketknife for when she forgets her dormitory key in the library.

[color=steelblue][b]Sample Post/Introduction:[/b][/color] [hider]“I swear, Lia, you’ll turn invisible if you stay locked up there forever!”

Sander, dutiful and longsuffering as ever, trailed a stride behind Aeolia despite his impressive size as she rushed from the library to the Masters’ quarters. She clutched reams of parchment and beakers as she rushed through the cloisters of the university, boot heels clicking on the stone. She weaved through the small groups of fellow students, skirting around clusters of gossipers and between those who didn't share her sense of urgency, weaving a sharp and nervous dance towards her destination.

"I'll not tell you again, Sander, I'm too busy, I need this grant or I'll have to-"

She spoke in her usual rushed alto, the wealthy accent losing itself in a sea of similar voices. Sander, with his deep bass, cut her off with a scoff. "Talk to your mother? You're going to ha-"

"Just drop it, boy: she's not stopped moaning about this for weeks. Let her see the end of it, for my sanity." The little ball of coruscating grey metal materialized behind Aeolia's shoulder, the customary form of her Spirit. Tacitus sounded as weary as Sander was exasperated, worn down from another night as Aeolia's sounding board and reluctant rehearsal partner. His deep bass scraping, the sound of a pick on stone or an axe being ground, was more dull than usual.

Aeolia, distracted by the new entrant into the conversation, badly misjudged the gap between two shoulders. The shock made her gasp, and as her hands clutched at the valuable notes and samples she held, she left herself no time to save herself from the hard ground. Sander's arms propped her up, less than gently, and she felt a blush form as she muttered out two different apologies and a gruff 'thanks' to her old friend.

"You know boy, I'm beginning to think you have a point." The spirit faded with its closing remark, and Aeolia heard a chuckle as she sped away, unable to concentrate.

Three hours of impassioned research proposition later, she slid onto a tall bar stool next to the distracted form of her burly friend at the University tavern. Shocked eyes met her elated stare, and her smile infected him. "I don't suppose your shiny new grant has room to pay for drinks?"

They both knew it didn't, but neither found themselves caring [/hider] [/hider]