“Always one step ahead of death, just one step out of reach. But even so...here I stand.”
Etoile Lécuyer
Émilie Couer (alias)
A G E
27
O R I G I N
Iquenos nobility
V I S A G E
Slim and slight and standing just beneath 5'7" with relatively undefined muscular tone, Etoile honestly doesn't look much like a soldier, and that fits her just fine. Though previous she carried herself erect and at attention at all times from her training, she's fought herself down into a more relaxed way to better blend in, and her crisp, snapping strides have gone the same way as her posture. Now instead of her hard-soled dress shoes, she wears a pair of tough leather boots, worn and patched in several places.
Her head of blonde hair, previously cut into sharp bangs, with more falling to the sides of her face in distinctive long chunks, has been chopped further, coming to rest messily at around the base of her neck. To further distance herself from what she once looked like, she tends to tie it up in a small, messy bun. Nearby are her eyes, a cold stormy-gray. They are narrow and calculating, always roving around as though she's always watchful for something or other.
Over the months following the disastrous event that removed Etoile from the Inquisition, she's piecemeal replaced every article of clothing she owned. Now she carries in her bag a set of plain green clothes, as well as a heavier set for winters and a long, cream-colored cloak. The picture is completed with her gloved hands, worn as such to hide the nature of her right arm, which is steel-colored metal all the way up to the shoulder. The joints glimmer faintly with ether when stretched, and engraved prominently on the shoulder is the crest of House Lécuyer.
P E R S O N A L I T Y T R A I T S
Calm. Collected. Unflappable. A gods-damned ice queen. These were just some of the descriptors used to describe Etoile by her subordinates in the past, and most are, or at least were, accurate. She is a cool-headed woman, thinking through the consequences of any given course of events extensively before taking action as long as she has the opportunity to do so. She is generally slow and methodical in her approach to problems, which can certainly lead to issues making quick decisions, and certainly has. She's quite a cold person as well; judgmental and disdainful, she is not afraid to let someone know exactly what she thinks about them. All that being said, she's become quite a bit more practical and pragmatic than she used to be, her worries about reputation and status having mostly been ground away over the past year or so.
Still, she's not just cold logic and practicality. Much of her personality finds its roots in a massive inferiority complex towards her elder brother, Edmund Lécuyer. She's struggled with this on and off throughout most of her life, and it's a lot of what set her along the course that her life eventually took. That leads into her final cardinal personality trait: she's stubborn. Incredibly so. Trying to alter her from a course of action that she's decided upon is like trying to stop a charging bull with a piece of tissue paper.
L I F E E X P E R I E N C E S
Etoile was on the path of conflict with the Ecclesiae and the rest of the Inquisitors from the moment she enlisted in their military. Of course, she didn't become an officer entirely on her own merits; though they were the majority of the reason, it certainly didn't hurt being of the Lécuyer noble family.
But let's backtrack some, because her story starts long before she became that officer.
The Lécuyer noble house had never been a military family. And when she was young, the second child Etoile had little interest in changing that. But as is the way of siblings, she felt a constant competitiveness with her brother Edmund, five years older than she was. And when he became an apprentice Inquisitor at thirteen years old, the eight year old Etoile had no chance. Praise was heaped on him, and she became a ghost in her own house as just a child. And so with a child's logic, she decided she would become an Inquisitor too. As she aged her logic grew more sound, until at twelve years old—a year younger than Edmund, that voice inside her still whispered—she pulled the trigger and joined up.
Her apprenticeship under one Salion Cherin was uneventful for the first two years. But when she was fourteen years old the cataclysmic final battle on the Eileithyia took place. She watched it happen from a safe distance. She was too young for real combat, of course, Salion had said. So instead of participating in the fighting itself, she found herself growing curious in the logistics of a struggle like this. The organization of troops. The strategies executed. The consequences upon a success or failure. And so as she aged and this curiosity grew into a full-on interest in all things tactics, she isolated herself from most real combat. Though there were places here and there, she spent a large part educating herself and being educated in military strategy.
It was in one of those rare stints of active combat—a raid on a small village called Hellion—that she lost her arm. While she wasn't bad at fighting, per se, she was also only seventeen. And so when a malum-enhanced hulking monster that might have once been a human bore down on her, she was unable to stop it from ripping her arm from her shoulder. The injury obviously took her out of training and study for a while before she was fitted with an advanced prosthetic that drew power from the ether in the air all around her. By the time she had recovered enough to return to her study, she was eighteen years old.
Time went on as time must do, and at twenty three years old she had come into her own as a powerful scholaris magi. At one point during that year, she was tasked with leading a small group to...eliminate a small malificarum holdout. It went off easily, without a hitch, and she was given commendation on how effectively she'd performed in her duties. All the praise turned sour, though, as in her room, underneath her pillow, was a book she hadn't quite had time to read all the way through just yet. A manifesto, of sorts, and a history book she'd taken on a whim from the malificara, just before everything else had been set ablaze. And though she hadn't had time to read it through all the way, she'd read it through enough to know that something was wrong. The accounts contained therein were strange; mutually exclusive with the heroic image that Januarius presented himself with. So then Etoile did the one thing that would seal her fate:
She started to dig.
Nothing major, really; asking subtle questions here and there when she traveled, combing the stacks of libraries from Thlecia to Ordos, and everywhere in between. It took some time for her to be discovered; until the cusp of her twenty-sixth birthday. She was starting to put things together into a picture. A fuzzy picture, distorted by time and secrecy, but a picture nonetheless. Until one day she returned home and found Inquisitors waiting.
Somebody knew. They might have known from the start. And now they'd decided that she was too great a risk.
Heresy. Treason. Conspiracy. Corruption. The charges that she'd levied against others she now stared down the barrel of, and of course the punishment was death. She almost laughed. She'd been unsure who or what to believe. But execution? The ultimate "be quiet" tactic? Well. She knew what to believe now. It was lucky she was an Inquisitor—or, well, ex-Inquisitor—herself. She knew exactly where to go, and how to escape the ether-drained cell she found herself in. She sucked in the ether from her arm hungrily, leaving it dead, but giving her just enough to break the lock with a quick Acer Ventus. Then, leaving behind her Inquisitorial cloak, she returned to her old home to grab the ancestral Lécuyer saber Vent Tranchant, then fled off into the night.
For a little over a year now, she's been wandering, leaving pieces of her Inquisitor past behind everywhere she goes. Always moving on, never stopping in one place long enough to put down roots. For as much as she fought to leave it behind...one never knew when the past would come calling.
E L E M E N T A L A F F I N I T Y
Ventus.
A T T R I B U T E S
Scholaris Magum - Etoile's proficiency with ventus-oriented magic comes from long, dedicated study. She is highly learned about the structure of magic, but because of her rigid nature and the educated nature of her magic, she finds it difficult to improvise, relying instead on a series of predefined spells. There are several, but those listed below are her most commonly used:
Acer Ventus: Etoile directs a narrow gust of slicing wind at any object she has direct line of sight on, though the effort to use it is increased with distance. Can cut through quite a few durable objects such as metal and stone.
Densus Ventus: Using this spell, Etoile can render air hyperdense, rendering it solid. Though it remains as such for no more than a minute or so, she can also manipulate it with her mind during this state. Used often for crossing gaps with bridges of air.
Gladius Ventus: Etoile enhances her sabre using a slight modification of the Acer Ventus spell, creating a lengthy Acer Ventus a centimetre or so directly in front of the blade, enhancing its cutting power.
Impulsus Ventus: Though it looks basic, this spell is deceptively difficult for Etoile to use. She holds out a hand and forces an immensely powerful blast of wind out of it, applying concussive force to anything in its path.
Tractus Ventus: The inverse of Impulsus Ventus to some extent, Tractus Ventus applies a similar powerful force to whatever is in front of her. Instead of a push, however, it's a pulling force, allowering her to yank people or objects towards her.
Frendeo Ventus: One of the more powerful spells Etoile has at her disposal, Frendeo Ventus crushes whatever she targets with it into the ground. While it's certainly not powerful enough to be lethal and is a strain for her to keep up for more than a few seconds, it's still a very powerful tool.
Reicio Ventus: Finishing off the spells that apply force, Reicio Ventus is something of a twist on Impulsus Ventus, blasting a powerful burst of air out all around her. While it's not as powerful as a full-on Impulsus, it's still more than enough to get herself some breathing room.
Levis Ventus: Finishing things up is a spell almost useless in combat but extremely versatile outside of it. Levis Ventus raises Etoile into the air, holding her there a moment before dropping her back down. This can be held with some strain, and combined with an Impulsus Ventus, allows her to completely avoid many hazards and obstacles by launching herself over them.
Swordsmanship - Etoile was a soldier until very recently, and was quite good at her job. She is a rather skilled swordswoman; though it wasn't her focus by any means, that's not to say she isn't a competent threat. She uses a slim, curved sabre, a family heirloom known as
Vent Tranchant, when fighting is necessary.
Learned - As described above, Etoile gained her skill in magic through long study. However, her study was not limited to magic; she was expected to be both a noblewoman and an officer at the same time. Thus, while her street-smarts are debatable, she is highly intelligent and knows a great deal of natural science and logical reasoning, as well as being a bit of a literature buff by her own admission.
Prosthetic - Several years ago, she lost an arm during a military campaign gone wrong. Since then, her right arm has been replaced by an ether-powered prosthetic crafted of silver metal and engraved with the crest of house Lécuyer, rendering it quite durable and entirely immune to pain. However, it also draws attention very easily.
Strategic - As an officer in the military, Etoile became quite skillful in tactics and strategy. She is particularly skillful at deducing ambushes before they can occur, and at large troop movements.
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