As they traversed the campus that she'd be spending the next few years of her life on—a quickly-suppressed jolt of fear shot down her spine, they wouldn't make her go back after the school year was over, right? She'd be able to stay, right?—Kayo made sure to keep her eyes peeled. She wanted to remember everything about this place as quickly as she could.
As they kept going, she glanced over to her left where the tall fish girl Izuna was walking, and murmured as though in sheer awe of everything around her, "Woooow, we're really here! Can you believe it, Izuna-chan?" And the campus was nice, as expected of one of the best hero schools in the country. Still, though she of course didn't show any of it, her conniving thoughts belied how innocent and cheerful she seemed. And though she seemed as though she was looking at Izuna, her thoughts were on somebody completely different.
Kinzokuma Midori-sensei. She seems like a hassle.
Like bad news. Like she knew something.
Kayo ran her hand through her dry, slick hair, twirling a pale green strand around her finger as the tiny teacher led them around back of the school and giving them an excellent view of the campus dormitory buildings. While of course they weren't nearly as nice as Kayo deserved, she could use them just fine. Anything to get her away from the psycho bitch waiting for her back in Kyoto. As they passed, she wondered idly as she kept her mental mapping; she recalled there being roommates in Ishin, something that she had been less than happy with when she'd first heard.
So...who would hers be? Izuna the fish? The one with tentacles for hair? The tiny girl that walked nearby? The purple-haired kid?
Well, whoever it was, they'd better get used to someone else calling the shots.
Before she knew it, they'd gone around the back of the campus and headed into a huge, empty space. She craned her neck at the ceiling in genuine wonder. It was...really high.
"Alright."
Kayo couldn't stop herself from jerking at the unexpected noise, reflexively tensing up. But just half a moment later, she realized it was just the tiny sensei.
"Leave your belongings with Inuhara and come to the front of the room."
Walking over, she gave the backpack containing what were now all of her worldly possessions to that "Inuhara" guy and gave him a sweet, quiet "take good care of it, okay?" before she turned back around.
Somehow in the seconds she hadn't been paying attention, Kinzokuma-sensei was now holding a pineapple. She held back a heavy sigh.
- Full Name - Axan Endryss Sturke Age - 26 Gender - Female Heritage - Valefor, Land of the Dragon Magical Affinity - Fire
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Soul Alight Axan is an incredibly driven person. After she chooses a course to take—leaving her home, learning to fight with the best, honing her magic, becoming a mercenary—then come hell or high water, she is going to make it all the way, or she'll die trying. That's not to say she's stubborn, exactly. She knows how to be flexible or take a break; the world is too amazing to not sometimes. But what she doesn't seem to know is how to give up. However long it takes her to get where she's going, she is getting there.
Heart Ablaze But what's the point of getting anywhere if you step on everyone in the way?
Surprising those who have heard of her by name and reputation and nothing else, Axan is a very warm and caring person, always ready to help people out and to do it with a smile on her face. She has a strong moral compass, and this tends to be responsible for a number of those breaks and distractions; no matter the inconvenience it causes to her, she's not the type who'd find someone in distress and think, I'll leave it to someone else to solve.
Tears Aflame Driven, compassionate, helpful, intense. As might be gleaned, Axan is pretty much incapable of being clinical and emotionless. Partially as a side effect of using almost exclusively the chaotic strain of Incantation inherited from Vaalascha but mostly just because of the kind of person she is, she feels everything very strongly, from joy to hope to grief to sorrow. And no matter what emotion she's feeling, she shows it. Her heart is very much worn on her sleeve. It all comes together to form a picture most really don't expect; a caring, compassionate mercenary who eschews the cutthroat reputation of her occupation. After all, she's never really been one for rules.
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Dragonsong A wild, chaotic strain of magic, Vaalaschan Incantation is unpredictable and dangerous, often just as likely to injure the wielder or their comrades as it is the enemy.
Axan, thenn is an unusual case study.
From long practice and constant use, she has begun to exercise a strict control of that dangerous dragonic strain of fire, and bend it firmly to her will in a way that's not altogether common to see. And it makes her quite a threatening presence, because not only are Vaalaschan Incantations powerful in their own right...nobody really makes use of them. She is unpredictable and hard to read.
Emberdance All those dancing lessons as a child came in handy after all.
Hand in hand with her magic, her fighting style further increases that strange combat style that makes her so hard to read and dangerous. While she is of course proficient in standard swordplay and often incorporates pieces of it in combat to confuse and distract, her principle form is that of a quick Valeforian dance. With the great deal of strength she has at her disposal, she can whip her greatsword around faster than it looks like she should rightfully be able to, whirling it in a dervish of brilliant sanguine steel and flashing fire. Her steps are quick, her smile is undaunted. And she always keeps tempo.
Kindlesoul Keeping tempo indeed.
Axan prides herself on being able to react to anything, and do it with a smile on her face. And downtime is absolutely no exception to the rule. As merciless as she is in battle, once she gets off the battlefield, she is just as skilled and happy applying herself inside the home as well as outside. She may not look it, and she may not advertise it, but Axan is rather good at homemaking. Whether cooking a roast over an open fire, baking a pie, keeping a garden, or arranging flowers, she channels that privileged upbringing, putting it to good use to make herself and anyone around her at the time just a little bit happier.
Physical Description
Axan Endryss Sturke. One of the more well-known mercenaries in Grayle. When people near the Alexandrian border hear the name, even if they don't recognize it, it often strikes a chord. Miss Axan.
Lady Sturke.
Firebrand.
Dragon Sellsword.
The Molten Lady
Axan has been called many different things in her life, and has lived many different lives. But all of them call back to the fire. And befitting that, she looks quite fiery herself. She's a tall young woman, but the most noticeable and recognizable of her features is her long mane of brilliant red hair.
Character Conceptualization
Asceron Navietas, Lord of a military family, is a man stricken by grief. His first child, Dicen, was a fine young man. He would've been eighteen now, by Asceron's reckoning. But he was taken young. Not by fire. Not by war. A strange fever that refused to break ravaged him, turning his tall, fit form into a shivering, wasted thing before finally, mercifully, letting him slip softly away into the night. And that, on top of his wife dying soon after childbirth years before, giving him his second child: a girl, who she named Luenciel before she passed. And a bizarre child she was; from the moment she opened her crimson eyes, Asceron knew that something was strange. And when her hair grew in stark and white, he was ever more concerned for her.
Her strange appearance, and Asceron's grief at Enuiel's passing, caused her life to be sheltered, secluded one from the beginning. And the spreading rumors—no doubt house staff who'd caught glimpses of white hair and red eyes, Asceron thought—convinced him quite well that he was right to do so. The outside wasn't just indifferent to her. It was outright hostile.
For years, she sought solace in her father and her brother. Though...at one point, her uncle came to visit. She'd never seen him before, but...he seemed nice, right? And the rumors hadn't truly found their way to her yet. He saw his niece, one of the very few that Asceron had let see her at all. He was nice. Gave her candy, patted her on the head, went to bed, and...the next morning, tripped and fell down the stairs. Broke his neck. And just like that, dead.
More grief from Asceron. Condolences from Dicen. And...confusion from the seven-year-old Luenciel.
A few years later, an elderly woman who lived next door to their house broke several bones from a fall and couldn't get up. She lived alone, and her voice wasn't loud enough. Unable to move, she stayed there until she died.
A year after that, a vendor hawking his wares in the street below seized, and his movement ceased as his heart stopped beating in his chest.
And then, when she was twelve...Dicen.
So very grief-wracked now, Asceron kept Luen inside not just for her own sake, but for his own. As strange as she looked, she was his last family. He wanted so desperately to keep her close. And though nobles came and went, events were held and released from the manor of the Navietas—though he told her to stay in her room, flashes of her were noticed, just barely, and the rumors intensified—the years passed, and Luen remained.
By now, though, she'd heard the rumors. So, so many of them. Enough that she started to believe them some: that her being around someone put them in danger. So she looked at her father. She looked at his glaive on the wall. She looked inward. Did she really want to be locked away like this for her whole life?
No. No, she wanted to make something of herself. She wanted to see the outside for herself. She wanted to talk to people. She wanted to escape her curse. And as she thought of these things, an ember kindled itself in her chest. What she wanted was...
...To fight.
Two more years passed in the blink of an eye. She trained with her father, learning from him how best to leverage her water magic and creating her bracers. She remained inside. And then, as she packed to leave, she sat down with her father again. She talked to him about names. About how she wouldn't be able to go by hers, and would need to find a man's name. Her father—upset she was leaving, but unable to bring himself to stop her—thought for several minutes as they sat together in silence one last time.
"...Lucien."
And so, Lucien Navietas—scion of the Navietas family and a cursed child born under an ill-fated Star—left her—his—family home. To see. To talk. To escape.
As the heavy wooden sword swung down at the Valeforian's head like an axe, Luen sucked a quick breath of air in through her teeth in a sharp sympathy wince. The poor boy. That was going to hurt, wasn't it? She felt a ghost of a tug on her legs, an impulse from a hidden place in her mind that urged her to run out there right now and stop the oncoming blow. Or at the very least to help the poor guy find a place to sit after he was so thoroughly trounced. And she actually did shift like she was about to start running, though of course she stopped herself before he inevitably—
And then he had to go and surprise Keros with snow magic and knock him out of the tournament like the snap of a finger.
"Wow."
The word slipped out before she could really do anything about it, and a little smile grew on her face.
“Wasn’t expecting incantations this early. Especially not from commoners.”
"Neither did I, but I'm glad. This way nobody got hurt." A moment passed before she realized how incredibly sappy and—and—and womanly what she'd just said was. After a beat of quiet that she felt was far too long and a self-conscious cough, she added: "After all, a heavy waster like that could break, what was it? Ferros' shoulder, and a commoner might never be able to get it fixed properly. Failure and pain are one thing, but being permanently crippled is quite another."
Quinnlash, by force of long, long habit, was snapped out of her distraction by a question about pyromancy. Which was not exactly her favorite subject; it reminded her far too much of things she'd left behind. But still, something—maybe her massive venting of pyromancy in the hearthfire keep, the memories that had been gnawing on her mind, or Galiel's last few words getting under her skin—compelled her to answer. So she glanced back at the pink Hunter. Lexann, she thought, as she locked eyes—or, well, eye—with her. Her mouth was fixed into a scornful sneer, as it often was. But when she spoke, her voice, on the other hand, was most unlike her. It carried none of the loud, angry vitriol that characterized "Quinnlash" so much of the time. Rather, it was quiet, level, and deeply bitter.
"Pyromancy has more limits than you think."
She stared up at the dark, clouded sky, and a small, tightly-controlled flame leapt between her fingers. "There's only so much energy in one person. Humans are finite, by definition; the Void is infinite. And finite versus infinite reaches a predictable, inevitable outcome. Which is why we exist. We—Hunters—we're still finite in theory if not normal praxis. Just...less so. So the conclusion is less clear-cut and obvious."
For the barest fraction of a fraction of a second, her face was writ with something like despair.
Then her hand snapped closed, and the flame vanished with it. Her brow creased into a thundercloud, and she mantled a scowl once again. Stop it. Stop it! FUCKING STOP IT! You aren't like that anymore! You are better!
"Ugh! Fuck! Why am I even talking about—telling you about—FUCK! It's not like dumbasses like you can understand it anyway, so why am I even BOTHERING?"
“Doesn’t seem fair. They get to have fun and showcase their skills while we sit and wait our turn.”
Luen gave a tiny frown as the boy next to her made...a good point, if a little misguided, she thought. She stayed looking forwards as the first fights were prepared. "You're—" She coughed as, for just one syllable, something like her normal voice leaked out before she forced it back down into the quiet, gentle near-monotone that was Lucien's. "Ehem—you're right, it's not fair, is it? It's..."
She grappled for the word she was looking for. It was like...it was like a dogfight, almost. Two people sent to fight for the amusement of the nobility. It just didn't sit right with her. Needlessly... "...Cruel. It's cruel to them, don't you—"
She turned her head, and there her train of thought stopped and her mouth dropped a little ways open. Next to her—how didn't she notice?—there was a boy, about her height, she thought? With eyes like chips of deep blue ice, and stark white hair. Almost unconsciously, she reached up and stroked a lock of her own behind her ear with an almost paper-white, near-bloodless hand. She was...more or less to surprised to really speak for the moment. She had never, ever seen anyone else with hair like hers. Well, in fairness, she hadn't seen many people to begin with. But on the way through the city to this arena, she hadn't seen a single person that had hair like hers—theirs. She knew it was part of what marked her as cursed. So despite the slightly unsettling way he thought of this whole exercise—fun?—she felt an immediate kind of kinship with him. She closed her mouth. What could she say?
The road was still a bit of an unfamiliar sensation underneath the tall white figure's boots as she finally arrived at her destination. And just like before, when a knight looking up at asked for a name, he showed...well. There was a bit of surprise and confusion evident. And curiosity too. But what there wasn't was the dread, and hatred, and disgust that she'd so expected. Which she'd received close to none of on the walk through the city as well, and now the crowd clustered around. Oh, there were a few; people who so thoughtfully provided her with what she'd known was coming; the stares, the glares, the whispers. And yet somehow, despite the nigh-paper white skin, the long hair that nearly glowed such was its stark pallor, and the narrow red eyes...it all felt so normal.
Though, admittedly, her frame of reference was somewhat limited.
"Lucien Navietas." The name felt strange in her mouth. There was an instinctual draw to use her true name instead, but she ignored it as best she could.
Hailing from? "The city Grayle." This voice was okay, right? A little flat affect and it worked? It sounded okay, but who could be sure, really? Not her, certainly. Ah, and from which part of the city? "Along the eastern wall." A small sound of confirmation as he realized that this applicant was a noble.
Family background and rank? "Second son—" Oh gods that felt strange! "of Asceron Navietas. Honorable Lucien." It had all been easy thus far. She just needed to remember this stuff and to not call herself Lady Luen and she'd be fine.
Then came the question she'd expected to encounter sooner or later, if not right away: why did she look like this? She gave what she hoped was a disarming smile without being too feminine of one. "I'm not sure, Ser. I was born like this." And that was all she needed to say, right? No more? And indeed, it seemed there would be no more. She was waved through with a minimum of effort. That was easier than she'd though. Maybe it was because she was from an established (if somewhat obscure) family?
But that didn't matter. What mattered was that, despite her fears she'd be immediately recognized and sent home in laughter and shame...she'd made it through.
And so, head held high, she strode forward, doing her best to exude confidence despite the confusion she felt. Odd looks, certainly; but that was to be expected; her height had a brilliant white dot moving clearly through the crowd around her. But the vast majority just...didn't care. A few moments passed as she threaded through the people before she finally took up a position around the arena. Upon seeing it, her heart began to race. She'd made it in despite her fears, it was true. But that was just the first step. Now she needed to stay in. She twisted her bracer around her arm as her she took a deep breath. She could do this. She just had to keep telling herself that. That she could do this. Despite the misfortune she carried like a cross about her neck...she could at least do this. She just had to keep telling herself that. That she could succeed. That she belonged here.
That whoever stepped into the arena with her would be a fool if they took Luenciel—Lucien—Navietas lightly.
Alja sighed quietly, rolled her shoulders. Reflected briefly. Benkei'd just impressed the hell out of her. There were many words she could use for the fellow tank (though, classes were pretty much gone now), but she'd never thought to call him eloquent. But listening to him, she could feel the telltale thrill of inspiration beat through her chest. Turned out that the surly ass who'd yelled at her for not keeping up her end of the DPS charts that one time had turned, almost without her noticing, into...yeah, into a leader, huh? She'd almost managed to forget that he'd asked her a question, and she shook her head, a little grin clinging on to her face.
"Yeah, gimme a sec, maybe..." She thought for a moment, then snapped her fingers. "Ah! I gotcha. Last I checked one of the guild lieutenants was a support named Embla. We played together a few times, and we like each other okay, I think. See if you can search her out. I don't know exactly how useful it'll be, but it's better than nothin,' hey?"
With that said, she nodded at Benkei, at Rael, at Kazuki. "Well then, I'll see ya later. Might go back to the Worg, might join you at Letria. I'll figure it out." Then, nodding one more time to herself, she headed towards the chapterhouse's guts. As she passed by Luci, she murmured to the side, "I'll talk to you after I see Leaves, 'kay?" And then she was through.
And there was the door. Looming closed in front of her. She swallowed, and a bolt of bitter self-recrimination passed through her. You should have come here sooner, you coward. Leaves needed help. And Alja SHOULD have been there to give it to her, instead of...whatever it was she'd been doing. She almost laughed at herself then.
Nicely done, Kelly. What a way to treat the woman you claim to love.
And then she knocked. Gently, gently; nothing like her usual bombast. "Leafy?" she called softly, hating the tremble that she could feel, if not hear, in her voice. "Are you awake?"
- Full Name - Lady Luenciel Aelissia Navietas Age - 15 Gender - Female Heritage - Grayle, The River Kingdom Magical Affinity - Water
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Gentle As An Autumn Rain Grayle has not been kind to Luenciel—or Lucien, as the case may be. Her mere existence has ever been met with voices hushed in fear—"If you ever see the Ill-Starred child you'll be cursed."—and raised in anger—"Why should we let it live just because it's a noble!?"—for her whole life. And yet, despite everything levied against her...Luen is a soft, kind person. Though her social interaction up to this point has been limited, she hasn't changed, and they all point to the same thing: patient, gentle, caring, almost to a fault. That's not to say that she's gullible or easily taken in, not exactly. Rather, even when someone irks her, gets on her nerves, is a pain to be around; even then, she still cares.
Quiet As A Winter Mist Though, that might not be immediately apparent sometimes if you don't know her. In order for her to show that caring side of her she (not always, but usually) needs to speak first. It's not like she's shy or a wallflower, that's not why she's quiet. She's always tended that way, really. Just a generally quiet person, And the wire that she walks now to avoid being discovered has only made this more prominent. She is keenly aware that her voice is not a man's. And while she can get away with it for now, there's always a chance someone will realize she's out of place. So the less she talks, the safer she is from discovery and expulsion.
Fierce As A Summer Storm And expulsion is something she does not want. For all the noblewoman in her blood, all the quietude in her manner, all the kindness in her soul...she's still training to be a knight. And that means something. It means that despite her alignment to water, there's still a fire in her, one that is impossible to snuff out. And though slow to rouse, when that fire is stoked, she turns from a quiet child with too many rumors floating around about her to a skillful, relentless, and vicious warrior that belies her sheltered and pampered upbringing.
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Crest Of The Wave Luen doesn't carry a weapon. Ever. But that doesn't mean she's ever unarmed.
The bracers that wrap around her forearms are scored all over with lines of runic script, each of which corresponds to a spell in Luen's trademark arsenal. She uses very little magic directly. Rather, it all gets filtered through the elaborate runes on her bracers. They conduct the water. Run it along their conduits. And finally, the water—whether liquid or simply condensed from the air—takes shape in her hand, and becomes a weapon. A rapier, a glaive, a spear, an axe, a knife; all of these and more are available to her through her bracers, and only dissipate when she lets them, loses focus, or loses consciousness. Her longer left bracer can additionally create arrays—from one to six, depending on focus, time, and available water—of watery knives that launch themselves at her foe.
Some may say that she's vulnerable without her bracers. It's true, she is. Take them from her, and she becomes a normal teenage girl. But good luck getting to them through the storm.
Born Under A Baleful Star Curse-child. Ill-starred. Monster. Thing. Killer.
Rumors have spread a long way from the Navietas household over these past years. Whispers down the lane, growing ever more distorted as they've slithered from house to house, ear to mouth to ear again. Dead-pale skin, like a corpse. And it only spun out as time had gone on, and her seclusion had remained. Red eyes, red like blood. And though she lived in quiet, these rumors—stark white hair, like all the light was drained from it—circled back around to her. Though her father tried to head them off as best he could, he was never able to stop her from wondering whether or not she's really safe to be near. After all, when something is repeated often enough...
...You start to believe it.
Quickstep It might be surmised by her slim lines, weaker physique, and the fact that she uses magical water-blades instead of any real weapon, but Luenciel is not what you would call strong. It's very likely that almost everyone else around her could overpower her through raw strength without a huge deal of effort (except maybe Julian).
And yet, she's still a competent combatant, because as much as she lacks in might, she makes up more than enough for with speed and technique. Doesn't matter if you're weaker if you're too agile for them to hit you, and too good for them to block (she can thank her dad for that one).
Physical Description
Ah, Lady Luenciel. To say that she cuts a striking figure would be something of an understatement. Much taller than her poor late mother was, she falls nearly to her father's height at an unusual and surprising 174cm. More intriguing is that she looks nothing like either of them, really; where her parents have tan skin, dark hair, dark eyes, Luen is none of those things. Whispers throughout the courts told of the Navietas child, born under an unlucky star, bleached of color, and light, and life. Quiet. Watching. Waiting. And everyone knows so little about this ill-fated child. Age, creed, name, even gender; all hazy and indistinct. Her father's reticence is proof: something about the second child of House Navietas is wrong.
Though, that's not quite the truth. As far as Lady Luenciel Navietas knows...she's simply unlucky.
Nobody quite knows why she looks the way she does. Not her family, not the soothsayers her father sought, not the books that she's read. But it's probably not from some kind of magical curse like people assume she has or is. Her ghost-pale skin; her stark icepick-white hair; her narrow eyes, dyed a vivid sanguine crimson; just how she is. A strange, unfortunate twist of fate that would perhaps not be called normal, but...harmless.
Tall, lithe, slender. Stick thin and skinny. While once upon a time she wore them openly, she tends to hide these aspects as best she can now, obscuring them with voluminous, billowing cloaks. Lucky she is indeed that she has very little obviously visible curvature, though underneath her clothing, she wears a well-kept, tightly wrapped sarashi to, as she would put it, "tighten everything up." Always best to ensure no clothing laying oddly on what should be a slender boy's frame gives her away, after all. What an embarrassing way to be exposed that would be. Her long, high cheekbones can give her a haughty, arrogant look that she tries her best to avoid.
Since determining her own fate to be a knight (or at least a cadet), she's had to change the way she carries herself quite a bit. Though she can't avoid the graceful, gliding steps that are so baked into her now, the primness in her bearing has gone the way of her her once-habitual curtsies and urge to take up less space. The urges are still there—one does not simply shrug off the years—but she's become quite practiced at avoiding them now.
...For the most part.
Character Conceptualization
Earl Asceron Navietas, Lord of a military family, is a man stricken by grief. His first child, Dicen, was a fine young man. He would've been eighteen now, by Asceron's reckoning. But he was taken young. Not by fire. Not by war. A strange fever that refused to break ravaged him, turning his tall, fit form into a shivering, wasted thing before finally, mercifully, letting him slip softly away into the night. And that, on top of his wife dying soon after childbirth years before, giving him his second child: a girl, who she named Luenciel before she passed. And a bizarre child she was; from the moment she opened her crimson eyes, Asceron knew that something was strange. And when her hair grew in stark and white, he was ever more concerned for her.
Her strange appearance, and Asceron's grief at Enuiel's passing, caused her life to be sheltered, secluded one from the beginning. And the spreading rumors—no doubt house staff who'd caught glimpses of white hair and red eyes, Asceron thought—convinced him quite well that he was right to do so. The outside wasn't just indifferent to her. It was outright hostile.
For years, she sought solace in her father and her brother. Though...at one point, her uncle came to visit. She'd never seen him before, but...he seemed nice, right? And the rumors hadn't truly found their way to her yet. He saw his niece, one of the very few that Asceron had let see her at all. He was nice. Gave her candy, patted her on the head, went to bed, and...the next morning, tripped and fell down the stairs. Broke his neck. And just like that, dead.
More grief from Asceron. Condolences from Dicen. And...confusion from the seven-year-old Luenciel.
A few years later, an elderly woman who lived next door to their house broke several bones from a fall and couldn't get up. She lived alone, and her voice wasn't loud enough. Unable to move, she stayed there until she died.
A year after that, a vendor hawking his wares in the street below seized, and his movement ceased as his heart stopped beating in his chest.
And then, when she was twelve...Dicen.
So very grief-wracked now, Asceron kept Luen inside not just for her own sake, but for his own. As strange as she looked, she was his last family. He wanted so desperately to keep her close. And though nobles came and went, events were held and released from the manor of the Navietas—though he told her to stay in her room, flashes of her were noticed, just barely, and the rumors intensified—the years passed, and Luen remained.
By now, though, she'd heard the rumors. So, so many of them. Enough that she started to believe them some: that her being around someone put them in danger. So she looked at her father. She looked at his glaive on the wall. She looked inward. Did she really want to be locked away like this for her whole life?
No. No, she wanted to make something of herself. She wanted to see the outside for herself. She wanted to talk to people. She wanted to escape her curse. And as she thought of these things, an ember kindled itself in her chest. What she wanted was...
...To fight.
Two more years passed in the blink of an eye. She trained with her father, learning from him how best to leverage her water magic and creating her bracers. She remained inside. And then, as she packed to leave, she sat down with her father again. She talked to him about names. About how she wouldn't be able to go by hers, and would need to find a man's name. Her father—upset she was leaving, but unable to bring himself to stop her—thought for several minutes as they sat together in silence one last time.
"...Lucien."
And so, Lucien Navietas—scion of the Navietas family and a cursed child born under an ill-fated Star—left her—his—family home. To see. To talk. To escape.