Name:Captain Minerva Fairchild -- "The Lion's Fang"
Age:21
Gender: Female
Race:Human
Appearance: As seen above, Minerva possesses all the regal stature of a human noble. Unless incensed in a particular way, she is poised, elegant, with chestnut brown hair and often ruby lips. The only odd mark about her is that she possesses an eyepatch over her right eye. Having lost it in battle, she covers the scar with such a piece of fabric as she is ashamed of it. Even as a Knight, she primarily wears light armor, with only gauntlets about her hands and wrists and leather armor everywhere else. In fights, she prefers mobility and swiftness, for reasons that shall be detailed below.
BackstoryMinerva Fairchild, often called "The Lion's Fang" was born to an impoverished mother, and a missing father. Raised with the best that her mother could muster, the small family of just two were happy with what they had. With her mother working hard to keep them afloat, Minerva worked equally hard in school to make her mother proud. Excelling in most subjects, she was selected for a full scholarship to a prestigious school of Magi.
However, such things would never come to pass.
On her twelfth year of life, Minerva's mother fell gravely ill. Slowly, she was forced to watch on as she worked through painful misery to provide for her family, and Minerva began to steal from merchants. Desperate to try and conjure up enough money to pay for the treatment that would've saved her mother's life.
Yet such a cost was steep, and she never even came close.
On an autumn day, as the leaves turned gold and the trees fell into a slumber for winter, her mother passed away. Without a penny to her name, and a life in squalor, despite the monstrous sacrifices she had to make. As Minerva sat on her mother's deathbed, she discovered a note. And in a parting, rasping whisper that bespoke of the agony she was experiencing, her mother told Minerva who she believed her father to be.
His name was William Fairchild. A great Magi of the prestigious Fairchild weaponsmiths, who were known for the exquisite craftsmanship of their blades throughout the lands. He had disappeared one year after Minerva had been born without a word, without warning. Pointing her daughter towards a closet that she had been forbidden from opening, she soon found a sword. A beautifully crafted blade whose flat was inlaid with rubies bearing runic designs. It glistened and shone in the daylight, and her mother told her it was once her father's, and despite its pricelessness, she dared not to sell it.
Beneath it, she directed her daughter to an envelope, and within it was a simple sketch of her father and an address. As she sat beside her mother and her only true family drew her last breath, Minerva was told to call it. So as she wept, she walked for days by herself on winding country roads, and on the eve of her thirteemth birthday, her life changed as she knew it, in ways that she could have never possibly expected.
She rang the bronze bell at the front door, and it took only a secnd to open. Beneath the archway stood an imposing old man with broad shoulders, looking down at the street urchin lf a girl with the utmost contempt. Contempt that abruptly turned to outright fury once he saw the hilt of the sword in her hands. His hand shot out, striking her across the cheek and making her world spin into darkness.
She woke hours later, tied to a chair and before a table that seemed to stretch for polished eons to each side. The dreadfully heavy rapping of fingertips atop the table foretold of her company, and her azure eyes rose to see none other than the man who struck her still glaring in a seat across from her, and a blonde girl who appeared to be about her age, staring with equal ferocity. There, in that moment in time, she learned who William Fairchild truly was.
He was a monster, an abomination, and she was his daughter indeed. She learned of how the man before her was her uncle, and the patriarch of the family. How the girl before her was named Leonora, and the heiress to the family. She, the daughter of the Bastard was a black sheep, an outcast, and destined for nothing more. She came to know how he had incited a civil war within the family, costing thousands of lives over selfish idealism, and how he had tried to bring the family to its knees. How he nearly succeeded, but had been betrayed by his followers once they saw the destruction he had wrought; and that he had disappeared.
She was told then however, that much to the Patriarch's ire, the family council had decided that she was not guilty for the actions of her father. That she would inherit his estate and fortune, and that she would be taught the ways of the Family's magic.
Suddenly, the street urchin of a girl had a fortune greater than she could have ever imagined, land and riches beyond her greatest dreams, and a new outright hatred for her father. After all, he had thrown all of such away for foolish ideals, and as a result her mother had never been able to receive the treatment that would've saved her life. Inwardly, with her hatred, she swore to herself that she would have her vengeance.
It drove her, the quest for revenge consumed her for the next six years. Allowing her to endure the massively painful and straining training that the Fairchild family shaped their magi with. It was with her father's sword she trained, as she was intent on ending his life with it. Eventually, she found it had a name: Caladbolg, and with the surety of her tutors, she rose to become an adept Magi. However, once more as she decoded the Runes on her father's sword, she uncovered the magic her family hoped she would not.
One day on her seventeenth year, she was sparring with her beloved cousin when she finally awakened what was known as 'The Ultimate Eye'. Her eyes filled with white fire that laced across her pale cheeks, and she moved with such rapidity that Leonora could barely perceive her strikes, and she resoundly defeated her. Instead of pride, she was met with horror and judgement. She was forced to enlist into the clergy of Reon, as a Knight. Where she found judgement from her family, the clergy embraced her, and she soon found herself fighting side by side with some of the bravest and noble people she had ever met.
She rose into the rank of Captain by her first year, and it was in this year she finally had her vengeance. There was rumor of a swordsman with white eyes terrorizing a village, and she was dispatched to the scene at her request. Three days later, she arrived to see a burning village, countless bodies sliced in two, and her father standing in their midst. With a screaming fury, and to his surprise, rhe lone Knight engaged him with his own magic and his own sword. The resulting fight was just as hard to watch as it were to see as strike after strike of blades resounded through the air with horrific rapidity, and in a flash, he had taken her eye.
She had taken his arms.
As his blood spattered across the earth, Minerva removed her own father's head from his shoulders, and went to the Fairchild family's head mansion where her uncle slept. Upon her arrival, she delivered her father's head, and with it she was accepted into the family at long last. With such acceptance, she was finally forged her own sword, named Durendal, a twin to Caladbolg. With both her father's blade and her own sheathed upon the backside kf her hips, they reminded her of where she had come from...and where she would eventually go.
So now, in her second year in service to the Knights, she seeks to further sharpen her razor edge, and help those in need, nothing more.
Equipment:Durendal & Caladbolg -- Two longswords light enough to be easily wielded single handedly.
Gauntlets
Leather Armor
Skills:The Ultimate Eye -- Minerva's trademark magic, and the most feared magic of the Fairchild Family. While some magics comjure fire out into the world, this one harnesses the fire within. Causing perception and bodily enhancement to maddening levels as she she can be described as moving faster than some can even see. Survivors tell of tales where she was standing before them fifty feet distant, and when they blinked, she was upon them. If used for short periods, she suffers from some physical exertion, however for extended periods (Half an hour or so), she will be magically exhausted for a full day afterward.
The Rose of May -- A blossoming of fire around her form that explodes outward. White hot fire, that appear to be flower petals swirl about her form in countless thousands of tiny blades that burn and slice through even the heaviest armor, if it were not magically warded. She can additionally shape and change the direction of these petals into focused and intensely piercing attacks.
Kirah