Username: Aphelion
Name: Corivana "Vana" Espada
Age: 25
Gender: Female
Allegiance: Ayero
Weapon: She carries around a little trove of weapons on her person, from her rapier, to her dual scimitars, to her trusty boomerang. She has been trained in the use of all, but excels at dual-weapons combat above all else, but she will adapt as needed. In battle she can be a dirty fighter, as she only cares about the win above the methods, and has been trained in hand-to-hand martial arts to round out her repertoire.
Appearance:
She loves to play up her appearance as much as possible, almost like an actor on a stage. She typically wears the go-to pirate attire, save for when she swims. During those times, she will wear tight fitting shorts and a brassiere, if given the chance to change. She will wear her short-cut coat slung over her shoulders, rather than actually wearing it through the sleeves. On the left side of her torso is a tattoo spanning from her shoulder all the way down her waist.
Her brunette hair shimmers with faint red highlights, and her amber eye is slightly slanted. She usually has a smirk playing on her lips, and will bow flamboyantly before any lady she deems worthy of her attentions. She walks with swagger only adhered by those who have traversed the open seas, though she will make hers more exaggerated on purpose at times.
While she isn't exactly thin-as-a-rail, she isn't plump by any means. She carries lithe muscle on her body, toned to excellence. The only plump part about her is her bust-line, which is above average in it's girth. She's learned to maneuver around it during combat so it doesn't impede her.
In the pack attached to her belt she carries small bottles of sake, rum and wine along with a deck of playing cards. The deck of cards itself is water-pokemon themed, something she's continuously amused by.
Personality: She's one might expect of a debonair, swashbuckling pirate. She loves to play "games" while she performs her duties, but she will go deathly serious when she feels the occasion calls for it - which isn't often. She is lightly sarcastic, confident and self-assured, and prefers not to take anything too seriously outside of combat, much to the chagrin of her family.
She loves to loaf around, soaking up the sun or swimming in the oceans. Her favorite pass-times are drinking any form of booze, or flirting with the females she encounters - she particularly enjoys sweeping the fair gender off of their feet and making them feel beautiful. Many people have questioned her sexuality, but she's always grinned at them with a tip of her hat and been about her way, with no true reply one way or another. She gets along with men as well, but usually sees them as rivals and will meet them toe-to-toe in any combative arena they choose, from card games, to sword fighting, to fisticuffs.
The one thing she definitively hates is using pokemon as tools in battle. She refuses to use her pokemon as much as possible, another thing her family has come to regret dearly about her. She will do the work herself and let Kyo lounge on the side-lines until she desperately needs the help, which she hasn't let happen often. She will run from overwhelming fights, then turn around to lay traps. That's just the kind of person she is: play smart, not dumb.
Biography: The House of Espada is not quite the typical House as it is a lineage of sea-faring war heroes and generals serving the higher ranking nobility, and royalty, of Ayero. The children of Espada all serve their country in some fashion, whether in battle, in guard, or in farming. They have been called the "House of Guards" or the "Sword of Ayero", and even more rarely, the "Grocers of Ayero" for their plentiful farm lands that they guard with an iron-fist from would-be pillagers. They do not shy away from their given nicknames, and instead take pride in their humble services, but in the last twenty years their house has fallen on some disrepute and decline in wealth. Because of this, they have been pushing their children to take up the banner and restore their house to it's former glory.
Corivana was no exception to this rule, although she was far from the strict and upright personality her House expected of her. She was mischievous, rowdy, and she favored the company of females to a questionable extent, often flirting with the girls around her. Her behavior caused her mentors to be extra hard on her, though she would laugh off their attempts and continue her shenanigans until she was quite thoroughly finished. Her mentors, though they did teach her, were more like her parents and friends as well. The children of Espada were raised in a communal setting, with the elders of the families giving lessons and reprimands in turn to all children till they reached adulthood. All the adults capable of still working their professions focused on their craft, even if that meant hardly seeing their own children. From tradition they knew that their offspring were in esteemed hands of the elders.
Her biggest endeavor of tomfoolery changed everything for her. She was nineteen and her mentors were pushing for her to go into the Queen's Guard, many of them shared the opinion that she was perhaps the best dual-weapons fighter they had seen in many years, when she decided to take her lessons seriously, that is. Corivana fought that notion with every fiber of her being, though she made it look like laziness. She hated the idea of being confined to strict rules and prissy nobles, bowing her head before those who never knew a day's worth of hard work in their lives.
So, to make sure she would never be trusted in such a position, she decided to commit a taboo within her family: she trespassed on the sacred grounds of their patron deity, Kyogre. Commandeering a ship to get to the island was the easy part, finding her way into the center where a massive cove holding Kyogre was said to be was the much more difficult part. She could try to scale the rough mountain on top of the island and pray that a path led down into the cove, or she could try underneath the swirling currents of the ocean to find the cave that supposedly led straight to the legendary pokemon's hidey-hole.
Her heart sang for the challenge this presented her and needless to say she nearly died going underneath the water, with currents pulling her body this way and that as she desperately sought out air pockets so she could gasp in breaths between swimming further on. She found the venture exhilarating as she made her way slowly to where the cove was supposed to be.
Eventually, her head breached the surface where the cove was, and it was unlike anything she had ever seen. The roof far above-head of the cavernous cove was in eternal storm, with an indoor weather-system all it's own. Rain poured, thunder pealed as lightning came down in brief flashes, and in the middle, floating above the water, was the enormous form of Kyogre as it slumbered. All along the sides, where there was land, greenery grew in abundance with the leaves on the plants almost too big to be real, spanning twenty feet or more for each one.
Something told her, in her heart, that this was an unwise plan. Being here was suddenly not something she wanted to do, but she couldn't stop her incorrigible nature to delve into trouble. She swam to just below Kyogre and threw a pebble up at the creature.
Nothing happened.
Corivana was tad disappointed, but she persevered. Instead, she took her boomerang and flung it up at Kyogre, where it slapped against it with a loud, wet sound and came falling back into the water just feet away from her. She gave out an unladylike curse and swam to retrieve the boomerang, but as her hand closed around the curved wood she heard something unusual.
Nothing. No thunder, no rain pelting down from the indoor rain clouds, no wind. In the absence of all else, a shadow moved along the water, causing her to look up at where the Kyogre
should have been. Near her face was one large, piercing yellow eye as the ancient pokemon stared back at her. She couldn't help it, she gulped audibly and gave the Kyogre a small wave as her hand clasped the boomerang that had just awoken the God of the Sea. Only one thought came to her mind at this point.
"I'm freakin' fishbait."
The events that came after surprised her nearly as much as her mentors back at the Espada estates. Corivana tried to escape by diving back underneath the water to the sea cave leading out, as she expected her rude awakening to piss it off Kyogre royally. Kyogre plunged it's massive body into the water just breathless moments after, coming straight for her.
The moments of that fight or flight situation have been ingrained perfectly into her mind, as if etched into her brain by their intensity. She twisted around as she drew her sword from it's hilt, intent on living even if it meant killing the deity of her family. Kyogre's body began to glow a virulent looking red, casting thousands of different ominous shades of the color throughout the water around them. She lunged as it approached her, her sword aimed for the middle of it's head, but a pulse of water emanated from around Kyogre's mouth and swirled around her body, thrusting the sword out of her hand with such force that it buried itself in the floor of the sea cove. She remained unharmed, if a little bit shell-shocked. Before she could react to it's next action, Kyogre swam with godly speed and came underneath her, then propelled them both out of the waters of the cove.
She made to jump off the back of Kyogre, to escape it's wrath, but the pokemon wasn't finished with her. She felt a building sensation through it's back, as if geyser was about to blow up, then from it's mouth came a huge blast of water, aimed at the roof of the cove. Rocks began to fall, rocks as large and bigger than Kyogre itself, but the pokemon expertly dodged through them, still keeping her on it's back all the while. She knew she was dead in her heart of hearts, but she was
thrilled! She had never had so much fun in her life as she had, had riding through that avalanche of boulders.
Her heart throbbed in her ears when she stood up on the back of Kyogre to shout her excitement, which echoed back across the rocky island and desolate ocean. From underneath her, Kyogre gave it's own cry to match hers. A feeling of warmth and peace radiated from the creature, and suddenly Corivana found herself confused. She thought it was pissed, but it was
playing with her! It had thought the whole venture was a game, the boomerang might as well have been her tickling it awake.
When she arrived back at the town, with Kyogre carrying her there above the waters, her entire family was shocked at first, then outraged that she had dared do such a thing. She was practically shunned within her family, this one frivolous and careless action was a step over the edge in their collective opinion, but they couldn't outright ignore that Kyogre chose her as it's companion. They still respected and even worshiped Kyogre. After much thought to how Corivana could pay for waking the slumbering pokemon, they decided that Corivana would serve the royal house of Ayero till her dying breath, with Kyogre as their mascot.
She gained a place in the Queen's Guard, but she hated serving in the palaces and Kyogre was a hindrance with it's large-scale body. They caused many disturbances over the two years that they were there, though none could deny her skill as a combatant, and eventually the Captain of the Guard proposed that she serve her country in a different way: as a Privateer plundering from the ships on the high seas. They reasoned that Kyogre would make for the perfect weapon in that arena, and she could damage trade to Lugere and bring it to their own country all in one decisive action. The higher-ups approved the idea, and Corivana would do
anything to escape the strict rules of the palace.
She has been secretly serving the country of Ayero as the Dread Pirate Vana, though only the higher ranking officials and royalty know of her service. On the open seas, she prefers to keep the peaceful pokemon out of the fight against the ships she plunders, often jumping on board and demanding their surrender of valuables instead of using outright force. Kyogre has proven as a good bargaining tool, as they will look at the impressive pokemon and usually surrender without a fight, but it wasn't that way in the beginning. Kyogre and her have had some bloody battles in the past, and she strives to keep up her reputation so that they can avoid needless bloodshed, for the people she's plundering as well as for her kind pokemon. During one such battle she lost her left eye, but she's made it into a strength rather than her weakness.
With her actions, she has brought favor to her family, who still shun her, but she couldn't care a whit for the fools. She has been recently summoned from her duties on the open sea, for what she doesn't know, but she's heard whisperings that the hostilities between her nation and Lugere might break out into war.
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