β P e r s o n a l i t y
Curious β Stubborn β Profound β Mischievous β Utilitarian
Florian, at the age of 21, is more or less finished with finding himself. He's settled on a life course and is now in the process of steering himself there. If asked to either lead, follow, or get out of the way, he tends to favour the third and will almost always avoid the second. He's learned that voicing his opinions often gets him into trouble, so he tends to avoid doing so except with closer friends. Once he gets going, though, he can ramble. It kind of puts a ding in his whole 'diligent academic' persona, but he considers himself smart and his words worthwhile, so... you be the judge.
Perhaps ironically, or in an example of youthful obliviousness, he finds most people too wrapped up in themselves for his liking and so tends to avoid anything more than perfunctory interactions with them. There are even times when he uses his abilities to... hasten interactions, taking care to stifle the smug smirks or much-put-upon sighs that sometimes try to blossom. This, at least, is true inside of his head, where resides a much cooler, more competent, and more mature individual than in reality. The front crumbles quickly and he's actually rather good at making friends, though these relationships tend to be mostly experience-based. Florian is, for lack of a better descriptor, a fundamentally 'good' guy. He can be a bit of an academic snob and bloviator at times, but more or less comes across as emotionally healthy and well-adjusted.
His sense of humour is a bit paradoxical, consisting mostly of gags and pranks for which he will go to exceptional lengths, counterbalanced by incongruously high-brow puns, satire, and what he thinks are clever and witty observations. He has his moments, and then he has his moments, all told. It's all coloured by a distinct averageness, or at least appears to be...
β H i s t o r y
Florian doesn't have much of a personal history, and less every day. With each rewind and redux, he loses a little bit more of his past. This was not such a big deal when it was distant: people and places that, aside from family, were not particularly relevant anymore. The devil is nipping at his heels now, though. Meaningful moments with his family, discovering his gift, his first time on a waaga: those will find themselves on the chopping block soon. He tries to leap forward now, or hasten things when he can, to regain some time. Life is a balance and, nowhere has that been made clearer to Florian than in his imperilled memoryscape.
Beyond this lurking crisis, there isn't very much about his early past that others would find interesting. He hasn't had epic adventures. He doesn't come from a great noble family, a ground-down minority, or an exotic outlier culture. Born on the island of Delaruyne, second son and fourth child out of five, he grew up happy enough, his older sister Lamarque having been the only other person in his family to manifest an aeonheart. That is a memory, incidentally, that he's lost. He navigates the conversation with caution, his young age at the time acting as a shield for his lack of in-depth recall. Why does his power exact such an odd price? Is it normal? Is there some key to it?
The inception of his gift, unsurprisingly, was a confusing and near-traumatic one. Burgeoning new powers invited themselves to redact seconds, minutes, hours and, in extreme cases, even days of his life, forcing him to repeat these and causing the youth to question his sanity before the mystery was solved. In some of the longer instances, he suffered from splitting headaches, lethargy, and nausea. As temporal manipulation is viewed as a potentially very potent ability, Florian found himself the subject of significant interest within the magical-scientific community. Most importantly, he was brought to the attention of the eminent magitech engineer Laurent Zemellin, shortly before departing for the academy. It was here that he gained the temporal gloves and chestpiece that he often wears, these acting to help channel his time manipulation so that stray thoughts do not trigger it. In the intervening years, he has become quite skilled at maintaining the device and even others, turning into something of a low-level tinkerer.
β R e p u t a t i o n
Florian is a good student, above average in all subjects and even a standout in some, but never quite a prodigy. He has friends, but isn't one of the 'populars'. He's a member of a handful of student clubs as well, and a regular on his House's waaga team, though not a starter. What he sadly lacks in is main-character energy. The poor lad was simply not born with very much of it. He tries to combat this by being 'mischievous' and 'witty', and some consider him one of the school's better pranksters. He's careful not to do anything too daring, and quick to reset matters if he does, but he's a paper tiger at the end of the day, and comes across as more of a sidekick. When it comes time to graduate, Florian's signature will inevitably appear in a number of yearbooks. He'll attend his share of parties. One imagines that some people will remember him fondly. Will he remember them, though?
β G o a l s
Florian, more than anything else, wants to be a skyship pilot like his mother, but on a more remote, relaxed, and flexible route. Just the idea of having something of his own to maintain, to move about on, and to meet people with. It sounds goofy but, on some level, that would probably make him happiest. At the end of the day, he knows that he's smart, but maybe not quite smart enough to ever teach as a professor. besides, there's some element of carrying on a family legacy involved.
β R e l a t i o n s
In terms of in-school relations, this remains very much open to revisitation. There are plenty of opportunities, and Florian will just have to see how things play out.
Lamarque Yorick-Winthrope: older sister, an astra who can extract the physical manifestations of people's feelings towards others from their chests (and hers) and use these.
Casca Winthrope: father, an architect and psychiccer who can manifest heightened perception and spatial intelligence. Gets much of his sense of humour from here.
Zandra Yorick: mother, a skyship pilot and somatic who could heighten all of her senses and reflexes to superhuman levels. Pilot on the Delaruyne - Academy express and three-time Blue Riband winner.
β "You can't run from your past or, at least, you shouldn't." β
β M y s t i c C l a s s i f i c a t i o n
Astra?
β G i f t
Hands of Fate
β M y s t i c C o d e
With a focused thought, sometimes paired with a motion, Florian is able to displace himself forward or backward in time by up to a few days, though this does not come without serious repercussions. His gloves and chest piece help him to actually project his powers when he intends to instead of randomly resetting himself.
β L i m i t a t i o n s a n d W e a k n e s s e s
Hands of Fate has precisely two obvious weaknesses, though Florian keeps one carefully hidden. This is the fact that every reversal of himself within the timestream results in the loss of memories equal in duration to the among of time rewound. This is permanent and continuous, starting from his birth and working its way up to the present. He's currently reached about age twelve in this memory loss and fears losing his sense of self. He can, however, 'bank' time by stepping forward within it, to some extent.
The second major limitation is what he refers to as 'time pressure'. While the exact mechanism is unknown, it is felt as a pressure building up in his prefrontal cortex, chest, and stomach. In some metaphysical sense, Florian is 'anchored' to his current spot in the timestream. The further that he travels from where he started, the more intense that the time pressure gets, escalating from very mild discomfort when dealing in seconds to blackout-level agony when dealing in days. Alleviating the symptoms involves either immediate travel back to his starting point or gradually 'waiting it out', where he waits for himself to catch back up with his original position in instances of backwards travel or for his original position to catch back up with him. He has learned that his relationship with time is somewhat elastic. He suspects, however, that the more serious instances of time pressure may hide permanent consequences.