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Snowdrops
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Dyelli Beybi
Framing A Moose
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__________________________________________ 21 | Blight-Born | Sage-Aspirant Field Researcher & Test-Subject __________________________________________ Kingdom: Lunaris __________________________________________ Magic Specialty: Psychic & Darkness __________________________________________ ✧ Height – 5’9” ✧ Build – Athletic/Slight Hourglass ✧ Eye Color – Glowing Lavender ✧ Hair Color – Snow White | B I O G R A P H Y “Though I am still young, I feel my story might stretch on longer than most would be interested in hearing. But I am nonetheless happy to share it. Before I speak on myself, I feel obliged to recount a few salient parts of my family history. My mother was always fond of saying that we were, all things considered, of excellent stock. That is to say, both sides of my family are, for the most part, minor nobility in some form or another. I could recount a long family history, but I will only trouble you with what is absolutely necessary. My father’s side once had the better titles, while my mother’s family still actually held land. But it really matters little in the end, because beyond matters of pride, I’m descended from long, long lines of younger children on both sides. My father’s family—the Tamera family—once had full titles to large swathes of woods in the southeast of the Kingdom. They bore the privilege of providing royal lumber, before one of our grandfathers some generations back sold off most of it, and then saw it divided more and more across subsequent generations. My mother’s side —the Cerathur family—never had so much in the way of titled land, but they did well with it for some time. Although my mother was in poor health for much of her pregnancy with me, I think, all things considered, that I enjoyed auspicious circumstances. My father was an oldest son and my mother the oldest daughter, and the only living child of her generation across her maternal line. And for what it mattered, I was the only grandchild by blood across both sides. For once, it seemed we might have seen a consolidation of inheritances rather than a division. As I understand it, I can remember more of my early childhood than most others. My mother’s family still had some amount of money in those days, so I would go so far as to say those first years of my life were a charmed existence. Even after my younger brother was born, I still gather I was the favourite child, swooned over by two entire families as one of only two grandchildren, and on my mother’s side, one of only two great-grandchildren. Though in hindsight, this was terribly unkind, I distinctly recall being elevated over my younger brother, considered to be a bright and promising young girl. I had numerous relatives grooming me to be an excellent young lady and, though there were even then bumps in the road, I understand that I did quite well overall. So I suppose the question is, what ultimately became of this charmed existence? I must confess that I cannot rightly claim to know why exactly things fell apart, as it eventually became increasingly difficult for me to learn anything useful. But I do gather that there were several factors involved. On one hand, one of my great grandmothers on my mother’s side, with whom we lived on the family estate, passed away when I was quite young, perhaps four. I bear few direct memories of her, but she was highly regarded across my family, even into my father’s family. As I understand it, she acted as the functional matriarch of my mother’s family, and kept everyone behaved and sensible. So it turns out, my grandparent’s generation on my mother’s side may be prone towards rapacity and spite. I gather there was no small amount of resentment, especially on my grandfather’s part, that my father did not have both a title and money to match it, not to mention their significant personal differences. On the other hand, it seemed the larger part of my father’s direct family ended up either subsumed into my mother’s or scattered to the winds. My father’s younger brother, as it happened, ended up married to my mother’s younger sister. My paternal grandparents and maternal grandparents failed to find one another agreeable, so I rarely ended up seeing the former as a result. I suppose in a way, the good feelings after those marriages wore off, as did my novelty. And with this happening simultaneously to my grandparents’ generation’s apparent failure to be sensible with the respectable, but still very finite sum they held, I suppose the good times were destined to end eventually. At this point, I recognize this story seems quite typical. Minor nobility, lords, ladies, and so forth, do wax and wane in their prosperity. And what greater trope is there than that of the “poor noble?” But if that were all, I like to imagine I would have ended up on a different path. My father would often travel to Lunaris, for he had taken up work as a local magistrate in order to ensure we could remain comfortable. Sometimes, these trips lasted for quite a while. But then, I think when I was perhaps ten or eleven, he never returned. Usually we received routine word from him by carrier pigeon, but on that trip, word never even arrived that he had made it to Lunaris. I wouldn’t feel right claiming that I know exactly what happened to him, but what I can say is that my mother and my mother’s family spoke quite poorly of him for some time around this, and then my mother announced her plans to remarry less than two years thereafter, despite being well cared-for by the family. I used to lay awake at night wondering what had happened, but I have, a decade on, resolved that there isn’t much more to be said. I never did get to actually see my father’s funeral, because I don’t think there was ever going to be one. But I will do my best not to dwell on the grim parts. After all, I’m still here, aren’t I? Mother remarried when I was twelve. The man she married had two children of his own, both of whom were older than myself. Mother spoke often of my brother and I “at last” having a “proper father figure” in our lives around this time, especially as it became apparent that we—well, I in particular—were not adjusting so well to this new familial arrangement. I, probably in no small part because, out of my brother and I, I was the most reminiscent of our father, had already fallen from being most favoured at this point. But what surprised me most was, for how fixated my maternal family had long been on blood ties, the warm reception my stepbrothers received, and the further cooling of their regard for me. Looking back, I could recount certain specific instances where I noticed that I was losing my family’s esteem, but at the time, it felt altogether sudden, as if I had suddenly become entirely unacceptable. I had grown up with strict figures in my life, so I had thought. My father was always quite diligent on matters of posture, diction, and so forth. So too had my great grandmother been, so much so that I distinctly recall, even at the extremely young age that I had been while she lived, she often corrected my speaking without hesitation. But I suppose these were more so matters of culture rather than exertion of authority. My stepfather was at once austere, authoritative, and plainly imperious. I realize, thinking of it, that for how much my mother spoke of him replacing my father, there was some measure in which the intent was that my father’s influence—that is, the part of me which came from my father—needed to be subsumed and replaced as well. Change is hard! And change one does not understand is even harder! Even more so is it hard when one is a child who has long taken pride in a great many things and was once even praised for some of them, only to then be criticized intensely for the same things. Where once I was well-spoken, now I was being rude for speaking too much. Where I was once well-dressed and well-composed, now I was being messy and improper for overadorning myself. So on and so forth, these criticisms which even now I fail to precisely understand went. Now, upon reaching this point, I must confess that I will for some time now be speaking not only with indignation but also with a fair amount of embarrassment, as my response to stress in those days was perhaps also improper. For any young noble of any rapport to be found with caches of—if I may avoid being too rude—excessively dashing effigies, alongside some other even less proper things, is of course going to evoke rather severe responses from their caretakers. Let me say that I, even understanding the sort of position a caretaker might be in, I felt the response was altogether entirely too severe. I grant that this may have been due to a variety of factors, such as how, as I have recounted, I had already fallen well out of favour by the time my problematic vices were uncovered, and due to the precise nature of what was uncovered—both in terms of content and that I had included in my diary some, let us say, novel stories—but even so, I could never help but feel that the implication that I were some kind of uncontrolled animal, and how I was given a treatment to match, was entirely too much. Let me clarify my circumstances thusly: I was sequestered in my room for the majority of time that I was neither learning, doing some sort of other necessary task, or being berated—the latter of which took far more time out of my normal day than one might expect. Anything that I wrote for any purposes, anything that I did for any purposes—all faced enduring scrutiny from my mother and stepfather together. I often found myself being interrogated long into the night over perceived implications of impropriety within my own studies! And perish the thought that I might see much of any friend, for what acquaintances I had made in this time, I was often either forbidden from engaging with them or placed under intense supervision, lest some sort of impropriety arise. Increasingly, I failed to understand how I had misstepped when I was berated or inquisitioned, but when I earnestly confessed my confusion, I found even more…more harsh treatment. Indeed, when I failed to anticipate what I had done wrong, I was placed under the light of being a chronic liar—a fact which eventually trained me out of my natural expression of nervousness: a smile. I attribute these inquisitions to my difficulty expressing strong emotion, though I cannot solely attribute it there, as I was once praised as an even-tempered, even-keeled child. So let me, at this point, dispose with mourning myself, or, rather, sounding like I am. Being that I had never properly untrained myself to avoid such an undignified response to stress as I had developed, I indeed had periods where I, being so stressed as I was, failed to remain sensible. And as one might imagine, though I had gotten good enough at hiding things that I produced no direct evidence, there was still an inkling, I gather, that I had some source of stress relief keeping me from snapping. Three years hence, I had gotten sloppy. Actually, I had gotten brazen—more so than sloppy. After all, when one is always under scrutiny no matter what, why bother trying to avoid it at all? I kept some of my favourite creations and pictures inside a locked box, hid the key in my pillow, and hid the box in my mattress I don’t know how they found it, but they did, and it wouldn’t take any stretch of the imagination for someone to guess what finding such a thing would entail, especially in the circumstances. I remember that night vividly. It was my brother’s twelfth birthday, as I recall. We had enjoyed a feast and, for what it was worth, it seemed the night had gone well enough. But as we all retired, something I had mentioned about hoping to meet a friend had, I suppose, evoked suspicion. I had planned to take a hot bath that night—one of the few pleasant experiences I still got to enjoy with any frequency. I had just settled into the water and wet my hair when my stepfather and mother knocked on the door, and my stepfather roared about a “box in the floorboards,” demanding I unlock it for them. When I asked to finish my bath so we could speak, they barged in, holding the very same box. As I rushed to cover myself, my stepfather yelled, commanding me to rise and explain myself. Only after my mother affirmed my protestation that I be allowed to dress myself did they relent, if however briefly. I pulled on my nightgown. And then, by impulse, I felt the need to get out. I had thought of this scenario—ones like it, anyway—countless times in my head. I had imagined, perhaps foolishly, that I could have gotten away without such a damning proof of my failures to be revealed before I could find some way to go on, study to become a sage, and find someone sensible and quiet, far from my decaying relations and the ever-grim prospects at home. But that foolish dream had gotten the better of me, and, when backed against a corner, I did something perhaps foolish, certainly impulsive. I did something I’d only rarely genuinely considered, and never believed I’d actually do. I ran. In only my shift, with still-wet hair, I quietly opened the window and crawled out, closing it behind me. I…struggle to explain how I managed to climb down the side of the mansion and get over the wall, for I have never been so athletic as this, but I suppose some strength possessed me. For I ran and leapt in ways unlike myself, looking only to get further away. I on some account did not even register the temperature until I felt that my hair had frozen. But I kept running. My bare feet felt like death and then like nothing in the snow banks. I couldn’t feel my face or anything else, really. But I kept on, until I could barely bring myself to trudge. If I hadn’t seen the blight—that rot seeping out of the ground in a growing patch that we had some time ago heard about—my body surely would have been found frozen and mangled by starving wolves or some other beasts trying to survive winter—if it were indeed found at all. And there it was: the blight. If my nose had any feeling, perhaps it would have burned, as my lungs did. I could see it, and then I could see very little at all. I felt this draw, as if the rot were beckoning me. If the blight took me, after all, then my funeral would not have me to grace it. I was hopelessly lost, and ultimately had no real wish to be found. I remember my dying thoughts. I felt warm, if only for a moment. I felt safe, as if nobody would ever find me. Because if they did, they would surely not live to tell the tale. I awoke feeling comfortable, rested, and entirely unlike I had ever felt before. As I slowly rose, I felt strange, unbalanced, and my sight was entirely foreign to me. Both I and my mother had come to rely upon spectacles—expensive as they were—and yet mine sat in the snow. When I reached for them, I realized that I could see in a way I had not been able to for years. Mind you, I cannot see terribly well even now, but my vision has remained stagnantly mediocre ever since that day. And as I reached for my spectacles, I saw my blackened hand and recoiled backwards, falling onto my back. Then I felt it—alien appendages—what I would learn were my wings and tail. When I blinked, I felt lashes collide and stick in the frost, ways they never had before. As I again reached for my spectacles, I found they granted me little help, and sat in my field of vision incomprehensibly. At last, I felt my face properly, and realized something really had changed irrevocably. Sometimes I wonder if I am indeed in a dream, some sort of nightmare, or the afterlife, for how much I struggle to maintain constancy across my two alien forms. The creature I once was bears little resemblance, in terms of sensation, to what I have become. But no matter, I sat up, breathing in the toxic air, and yet feeling no pain, no harm, and scarcely even feeling particularly cold. I held my hand to my head, recoiling again when I made sudden and unexpected contact with those changed ears of mine, and then scratched my head. To my horror, clumps of hair fell out as my fingers made contact, and I held them in my hand only to realize that my hand indeed looked as if it were dying. But having heard of the blight-born, I think it was that moment where I realized properly what must have been happening—or rather, what had all but already happened. I carefully rose and stumbled around the rotten woods until I found a poisoned puddle and got a glimpse—however imperfect—of what I truly was. I was, in truth, one of those men made demons by the blight. How does one confront this feeling? Already alienated as I had been, now there was no returning even if I wanted to. I felt that I was seeing something in that puddle that nobody was ever meant to see—something unholy, meant to be confined to after death. This deep sensation of unease set deeper into me when I realized that I was seeing my reflection in a dark puddle, illuminated only by the moon’s kindly light. Truly, there was no denying what I had become. So the blight saw it unfit to allow me a death in dignity, I said to myself. Wondering then what else there was, I could only imagine that I owed to myself the opportunity to see what other indignities awaited my memory when it became apparent that the winter had taken me. I felt my wings, and knew suddenly that I had control over appendages no human has ever been graced with in our age. I flew—quite clumsily—as high as I could sustain, and saw the path forward. Shrouded by the night, I began to gather my surroundings and get a vague sense of where I had come from. It took no time at all to arrive home. I landed on the roof, as carefully as I could, and clung tightly there so as to avoid being seen. I admit, now, that the impulse which drove me there was less so specifically that I wanted to see what had happened and more so that I needed something from my former home—something which I had never before and will nevermore go without. I was given a soft lamb-doll of sorts—I suppose it’s more of a little blanket—but in any case, its “wool” is in fact silk, and stroking this silk has, as long as I can remember, been the deepest source of comfort I have ever found. I needed comfort. Needed it more desperately than anything else. More than I had ever needed anything in my life or had ever before conceived of needed anything. As I was flying back that day, I felt my soul wretch for how it longed for some comfort, and the grim thoughts of funeral were replaced by the screaming of a child in need of warmth. I waited until everyone went to sleep that night, and crept in through the same window I had escaped from. I snuck as quietly as I could, picking up my beloved toys and the few other most prized belongings of mine that I could gather, and I left through the window again. This time, I realized I had nowhere else to turn, and crawled along the roof until I recalled how my ancestors had, after a major storm damaged the roof, neglected to refurbish a section of the uppermost floor and instead sealed it off, for there was no need for the extra space or trouble in cleaning it. I pried a window open while my tail wrapped tightly around my toys, and found the space as empty and desolate as I’d imagined it to be when I’d first learned of it. I have no idea how long I sat in there, motionless except for my fingers stroking the silk waves of my lamb-blanket’s wool. I stared at a point on the wall for such a period without blinking that I finally felt myself blinking out tears as I remembered to blink. That’s when I found that I cried—well I call it tar, but it’s not quite as thick, I suppose. But it was after some time of this that I realized how hungry I was. And suddenly, it was all I could think about. I felt myself craving all sorts of things—all sorts of meats. And as my mind wracked through every dish I’d ever eaten, the meats got juicier, less cooked, and then at last, I recalled the times I had hurt a finger and put it in my mouth. Dear Seluna, thinking about that first hunger makes my insides burn as if I had never before eaten, just like that first time. I needed blood. Even as I wrestled with myself over such an insane notion, I could feel myself compelled towards the window, needing to go out and find some blood—any blood! Like some sort of horrid bat or bird, I leapt from the window and flew into the woods, scouring the landscape for anything I could possibly find. Still, recalling this animalistic urge, I cannot help but feel monstrous for having done it. I scoured the countryside until I found a fox, and in movements which I had never before made, I felt compelled to snap its neck and drain it of blood. And like an insatiable creature, I discarded it and immediately began to clamour for more. It blurred together, all in a messy haze, as I felt overcome by this hunger and rampaged across the countryside, licking any blood I spilled off of the snow itself, even. I have no idea how long I was like this for, but when I at last felt sane, like I was no longer starving and going mad, I collapsed and slept. When I awoke, I felt cooler, more collected, yet still hungry. It was then when I realized I had changed in other ways as well—that my teeth demanded this life of me. But rather than spreading carcasses all over the place, I felt it only decent to be more discerning, and so I began to try and hunt reindeer instead. I got kicked no small amount of times, but found myself crawling up and clamouring for more, until I finally managed to get a good bite in and drink. Oh, how the warm, live blood felt so much better than even the freshly dead stuff! But I, even then, even as shattered as I was, had some sense left! I mourn the little beasts I have killed, for I have no wish to be some rampaging beast of the woods! I only drank sensibly from the reindeer, and always let go before they seemed to grow weak. But now, one might imagine, I looked the part of a monster. I felt myself splattered with animal blood—sticky with the entire result of my maddened feast. Now, I at last considered propriety again. And it was at this point that I contemplated what I could even do. I had failed to die. I had failed to be human. What could I avoid failing to do? Could I ever bear a semblance of the future I might have had? Obviously not, but what I did have was freedom. When I at last returned to the family home and snuck into my stolen quarters, I overheard, as I contemplated how I might find my way to a decent bath, my mother and grandmother speaking. My hearing, as I found when I gingerly pressed my ear to one of the chimney, was good enough that I heard it in excellent detail. I would, indeed, enjoy a small, private funeral. And so, in death, there was truly nothing more to be expected of me. A ghost, after all, cannot be held to her living expectations. And ghost I became. I found a routine, creeping around my own home at late hours or when my kin were away, slowly stealing things from my room, which my mother had left entirely untouched out of grief. Though I regretted how she accused the few servants we could still afford of stealing, I realize there was little that could be done about it. I became a ghost, haunting my own home, and slowly but surely, I even nicked things from my mother and stepfather. Like a bird retreating to its nest, I made off with jewelry and all sorts of other beautiful things—inheritances which I would never enjoy, but that I decided should be rended from the hands of those who had, in a way, stolen mine. Time became nonsense to me, as I knew only sleep and activity. I learned and changed, fiddled with my appearance once I stole a mirror, and stole as many books as I could get away with, but I ultimately often found myself sitting up during the waking hours of the household, listening for the voices of my younger brother, and our little half-brother. I could say nothing, but hearing the sound of speech reminded me—if only for a moment—that I was still something that had been human. That I was not some ghostly apparition or some animal that had snuck into a place, but someone who was born in this house, raised in this house, and had as much of a right to be there as everyone else. I heard my brother through the chimney once, saying my old name—the one my coffin took with it. For I remind you now that “Nesna” is not my old name but the moniker I have earned, for what was I but Belonging to the Dead? In any case, in these precious moments I cherished my humanity, and dreamt of what I might have been. Longing, though, is an insufficient emotion. I found myself reminding myself that I had the freedom to cry, to smile, and to feel whatever I wanted or needed to. But in truth, the only feeling I have most often needed is peace. Peace is a quiet, gentle feeling. And I have come to love it more than I have loved any feeling in the world. Perhaps a second life of quiet contemplation is a sort of afterlife, but I am no longer in that old home for a simple reason. My time there, just like everyone else’s, was made to end. When news of the sun’s plight came, my relations, I recall, at first laughed. Our ancestors—indeed, my great grandfather who, when my family last left our ancestral seat, still lived and may still live—fought the Aurelians and still bear them no love, so how delicious was it that they might have at last lost the patron who kept them able to swat us around? I remember at first thinking that, in light of how research into the blight had begun a number of years prior, there might yet be something changing more in the world. In truth, though, nothing did at that point. What ultimately changed was when the blight began encroaching on us. Having already lost much of our estate to it, I was not surprised to learn that the final response of my relatives was utter spite. Over the course of a month, they gutted the property in preparation to move to Lunaris. When I at last heard talk of busting open the confines of my little space to be certain that there was nothing else to pilfer, I realized I needed to leave. Having overheard my grandfather’s bitter complaints over the King’s decisions around my sort over the years, I knew if I ever wanted to hear another person’s voice that I would need to make my way to Dawnhaven. I have nothing but what I have carried here with me, but if nothing else, I beg that you might take my earring collection, sell it, and use the money for this cause of sanctuary, and that you grant it to me. To see a person’s face makes me weak with relief. I never imagined that I would miss eye contact.” B L I G H T - B O R N Nesna has been permanently altered by the blight, resembling her former self in appearance only superficially. Though her face has changed little except insofar she has transitioned from youth to adulthood, her complexion is pallid and grey, rendering her appearance corpselike. As can be seen when she blushes, however, her lips are not black from any sort of makeup, but rather because her blood is black as well. On her face, her eyes have lost their pupils and duplicated, resulting in two pairs of eyes which glow a weak, haunted purple, with her second, smaller pair sitting parallel to her nose on either cheek. Her lashes have grown thicker, duplicating in layers and occasionally show beads of thick black liquid—which, much like her lips, is not makeup, but rather comes from her, for just as her blood is black and viscous, so too are her tears, saliva, mucus, and every other fluid which comes from it. Indeed, when she opens her mouth to speak, even before her teeth, what is most obvious is how the interior of her mouth is pitch-black and how her molasses-like saliva seems to form gossamer strands between her teeth. Over the years, her teeth have become stained grey by this same dark interior, but, looking past her otherwise normal front two teeth, more changes in her mouth reveal themselves. Her secondary incisors form smaller fangs, while her canines extend much like those of many other blight-born. And behind these sharpened teeth are no premolars or molars, but rather dual paired rows of sharp teeth not unlike her secondary incisors. Even Nesna could still keep normal human food down, she could scarcely chew it effectively. Due in part to her black blood, her large, batlike wings appear entirely black, as do her arms and legs past the elbows and knees. Where her wings meet her body near the top of her lumbar, on her lower ribcage, the black fades into her pale skin, with dark veins creeping outwards, making her wings superficially look as if they might be rooting themselves into her back. Similarly, her hands and feet appear entirely black, as do the lower parts of her forearms and calves, then fading into her normal pale-grey complexion as they near the next joints, with black veins creeping further only to fade into her knee and elbow joints, almost giving the appearance of socks and gloves which have started to meld into her. What most obviously disproves this notion, other than how she maintains normal, if not heightened sensitivity in these extremities, is that her nails still grow all the same. Strangely enough, they remain quite normal in the sea of inky black, being entirely unremarkable other than being unusually healthy-looking for nails sitting on beds which seem as if they’d long died. When allowed to grow past the nail bed and left unpainted, their ends appear strong and pearly-white. Atop her head sit horns, which Nesna, having once attempted to remove them, knows have no bony core to them, instead simply growing upwards as fast as her hair used to no matter what is done. Though their thickness and position makes them inconvenient to file down at the best of times, Nesna has made a point of coaxing them into their current shape and filing them to keep them a consistent shape and size, lest they become unwieldy and too inconvenient. While her horns take the show, Nesna has found that the rest of her scalp is not to be underestimated. Her hair is not only snow-white and just as shiny, but shockingly fine, soft, smooth, and cool to the touch—altogether an unusual texture for hair, much unlike the dark, thicker hair she once bore. Despite its other properties, it is unexpectedly strong, holding up much better than would be expected for hair of its density. When she was younger, Nesna had maintained shorter hair, but this changed hair of hers grows quickly and more densely, by her estimation ending up with at least twice as much hair on her head after any amount of time, and so Nesna has become accustomed to wearing her hair long, cutting it haphazardly only as absolutely necessary for practicality and vanity. Poking past her hair are Nesna’s ears, which have not only lengthened to points but grown. They are quite sensitive, both to sound and to the touch, enough so that Nesna has not found it comfortable to sleep on her side ever since her mutation and, much to her chagrin, has not been able to tolerate wearing even the smallest from her once-beloved earring collection. Beyond this, Nesna’s ears seem to have developed more muscle behind them, such that they move slightly in response to sounds and have otherwise become quite expressive—often much more so than her face. Lastly, while she most often keeps it buried underneath her clothes, Nesna possesses a long tail ending in a spade shape—not unlike some old depictions of demons. When it can be seen, directly or indirectly, it is apparent that Nesna’s control over it is much less than any other appendage of hers, as when it is not curled and anchored firmly around one of her legs, it often fidgets and arcs like the tail of a nervous cat. Type: “Classical” Abilities: Beyond abilities such as flight and enhanced hearing clearly bestowed by her changed form, Nesna enjoys other changes which are less obvious. Nesna is shockingly resilient. Blunt-force trauma is of much less concern to her than one might expect; indeed, Nesna has found that she can handle crashing into things mid-flight without much lasting discomfort. Alongside this, though her skin is no less vulnerable to being pierced than before her mutation, the black-blood running through her does not so readily bleed as normal blood might, making a death by a thousand cuts a poor choice in taking her down. Those who come into prolonged contact with her blood can expect themselves to feel increasingly heavy and anaemic. While no less uncomfortable than going days without eating, Nesna can withstand longer without blood than many similarly blood-reliant blight-born can sustain before experiencing genuine ill effects. Beyond this, when not overexerting herself, Nesna has impressive stamina—able to go through a full day of moderate exertion without feeling any more tired than when she began. Lastly, Nesna has found her already-extant affinity for magic greatly bolstered—a fact which she places immense pride in. Weaknesses: Nesna is rather sluggish for a blight-born, largely incapable of reacting at the same blinding speed that many of her fellow blight-born might move at, and arguably less reactive than even some normal humans. Although she can fly much faster than any person can walk, her speed is anything but supernatural—if a pigeon is putting in the same effort as her, she will be entirely outpaced. Nesna is certainly stronger than her build would suggest, but less so than most comparable blight-born. Most notably of all, though, Nesna is sensitive not only to the sun, but to bright lights and the heat as well; most logs around the average fireside would be too close for her. Contrary to what might be expected for someone even more confined to the night than the average blight-born, Nesna’s night vision is not what one might expect for a blight-born, though this is less so an expression of her struggling with the dark and more that Nesna has overall middling vision—she has four eyes, and none of them work exceptionally well. Lastly, Nesna is, much more so than the average person, prone to choking on herself, resulting in her suddenly doubled over and sputtering with a terrible-sounding wet cough. Beyond these more overt struggles, Nesna also faces less obvious physical challenges. Her joints are prone to aching, and can often be heard to crackle and pop, especially after a bout of inactivity. Likewise, Nesna’s limitations are much less flexible than they are for many others. If she overexerts herself, she can reasonably expect to crash as soon as she reaches the next lull in activity. |
