Lemons

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn watched dumbstruck as the orange figure fell out of her Savior's mouth. She agreed a great deal with Quinnlash on that; who, and why? For what possible reason would someone actually volunteer to be eaten? If a single thing went wrong, then they'd've died exceedingly painfully. Or if the cable had broken and she couldn't get out, or...

Wait, were they waving at Quinn?

Mouth hanging open, she watched the figure slip out of sight around the neck brace platform, and she immediately started moving. Not a run, but absolutely a jog. Who would ever do that? It was insane. What if they...

"Quinn!"

Tillie?

In the space between breaths, fear and worry and memory slammed into Quinn like a sledgehammer, stealing her breath away as her eye shot wide. Her vision flashed back for just a moment, to a darker image of the Savior, from a far off night, and a different young woman. Her pace accelerated until she was moving at a run, sprinting full tilt around Ablaze and smacking the lift button as terrible images of Tillie withering away in modium burned behind her eyes. It felt like it took an eternity to rise as her heart pounded in her throat. Please be okay, she found herself screaming in her head. The piece of her that insisted that Tillie was fine, she was on the Aerie and nobody was hurt--was overshadowed and drowned out by the seething anxiety and fear.

By the time she arrived at the brace platform, her breathes were rattling unsteadily out, her whole body was shaking, and her mind was far away and long ago. She met Tillie's eyes then, huge smile on her face, and with barely a stutter in her steps Quinn cannoned into her and clung on for dear life.

"Tillie Tillie are you--are you okay--are you okay--"

Arknights: 5S

Aoife

"Rhodes Island, I'd like to extend the deepest of gratitude to you and request the privilege to join you as an Operator. Wha--? Code name? Um...I guess...Ash Girl will do."

★★★★★★

Operator Profile _______________________________________ Codename: Ash Girl Epithet: The Taran Pariah Real Name: Aoife Eóganachta Age: 21 Class: Guard Branch: Arts Fighter Race: Vouivre Affiliations: Dublinn (formerly) Height: 173 cm Weight: 75 kg Place of Birth: Post-annexation Tara Date of Birth: January 1 Gender: Female Combat Experience: 10 years

Clinical Analysis ______________________________________________________________________ Strength: Excellent Endurance: Excellent Mobility: Standard Arts Adaptability: Outstanding Combat Skill: Excellent Tactical Acumen: Normal Infection Status: Infected Imaging tests show blurry outlines of subject's internal organs, with a high amount of abnormal shadows. Her circulatory system shows an alarming degree of originium granules. It goes without saying that by these criteria, we can determine that the subject is infected at this time. Cell-Originium Assimilation: 28%. Multiple crystal lesions visible on the subject's skin. Blood Originium-Crystal Density: 0.32 u/L. Miss Aoife's condition is extremely aggressive and severe, and her prognosis is poor. Unless measures can be found to more effectively delay the progression of her infection, she likely has less than six months to live, if that.

Character Synopsis:

A former noblewoman and former revolutionary, forced from both of her homes and set adrift.

Personality:

Aoife tends to be a bit quiet most of the time, and when she speaks, she often sounds slightly strained and uncomfortable--almost stilted, sometimes--like she dislikes talking, and so people assume that she wishes to be left alone. Not so, actually; she is quiet and strained because her aggressive oripathy causes her a not-inconsiderable amount of pain on a constant basis. Rather, Aoife tends to be quite personable, if not entirely skilled in social situations, as she hasn't had a surfeit of healthy interactions, and enjoys being around and talking to other people as long as she's not the one doing most of the talking.

Though it's been a long time since her privileged and sheltered upbringing and she barely remembers a single piece of it, it still reflects on her character to this day. Chief among those reflections is how narrow her view of the world can be. She can be closed-minded, and has a tendency to discount things she hears that she doesn't want to. She knows this very well and actively works against it, but it's a trap that is all to easy for her to fall in when she's put under stress. The other major effect is, as mentioned, Aoife can have trouble relating to other people. Spending her very early life in the noblewoman bubble and a huge chunk as a (largely expendable) soldier has limited the people she's been able to open up to, and so she can have difficulties forming genuine friendships.

But despite all of that, Aoife is a good person at heart. Despite how she may look on occasion, she's not selfish, standoffish, willfully ignorant, or egocentric, and joined Rhodes Island as much to fulfil the duties of an Operator and help others as to be treated for her own oripathy. The fact that she's willing to endanger herself by pushing her Arts even when she reasonably shouldn't in the service of her work should be proof enough that she really is trying her best. It can just...be hard to see that sometimes.

Talents	Talent Description
Taran Swordsmanship	Brought up from a young age to be a noblewoman of Tara, Aoife Eóganachta of course learned the former kingdom's traditional style of swordplay from a young age. Though of course it wasn't intended to be actually used, not in the way she uses it now--it was entirely ceremonial to begin with--it has certainly come in handy as she became first a member of Dublinn, and then an Operator of Rhodes Island. The principle reason this is so effective is that she efficiently leverages her rather strange, almost dancelike, style quite effectively. Because most people aren't familiar with the Taran style--it's not extinct, but it's nearly so--it makes her rather unpredictable and hard to read, letting her get the drop on opponents before they're able to adapt.
Pariah's Oath	Aoife has gone through a great deal of pain in her life, whether it be physical or emotional in nature. Even now, her remarkably severe infection causes her not-inconsiderable suffering every minute of the day. There are many times that she's wanted to just...give up. To let it end already, to take the coward's way out, whether that be letting the heritage of Tara die, turning herself in to Victoria, or hurling herself from the landship. But because she hasn't, she's developed an astounding level of willpower, able to push through constant physical pain, emotional torment, and any number of roadblocks. She is going to get to where she's going, and good luck to anybody that tries to stand in her way.
Skills	Skill Description
Winter's Breath	Aoife's arts, channeled through her sword, are of a particularly unique variety. While they generally take the form of ice, they actually involve directly arresting molecular motion. Though it may have the same overall effect most of the time, when trying to freeze objects that are typically coldproof it shows its use in being remarkably good at freezing them anyway. Through spectroscopic measurement techniques, the peak of her freezing power has been measured between 170 and 175 degrees Kelvin (-103C and -98C, respectively).
Bitterwinter Bite	Though obviously the sword is a heavy part of her combat kit, the freezing power that Aoife possesses is used through more than just the sword. Given her powerful infection, she is able to channel her Arts naturally, of course, and is able to do so with a startling degree of intensity. Though they don't have much of a range to them--remember, not actually ice but manipulation on the molecular level which I am to understand gets exponentially more difficult past ten or so feet--within that limited range you are at constant risk of being both slowed to a crawl and frozen solid. Despite this obvious strength, however, subject has been heavily advised against using this more than necessary, as it seems to exacerbate her condition.
One Thousand Shining Teeth	Finally, we come to likely the most dangerous application of her Arts that Aoife can muster--both towards her enemies and towards herself through increased progression of her oripathy. When her life is on the line, though, anything is fair game. Through judicious application of her arts, everything around her is so molecularly strained that it becomes incrediby delicate, even metal and stone. With a sufficiently hard strike, they can shatter into storms of razorlike shards, serving almost like a shotgun; spraying out a surprising level of devastation. All that being said, this is not without further drawbacks. Principally, that she isn't necessarily immunte to the shards, nor does she have exclusive rights on shattering them. Still, if it's leveraged right, it is truly, truly a menace.

Equipment Module

---

Claíomh-na-Samhain

\

• Claíomh-na-Samhain - The Sword of Samhain: Aoife's bastard sword, forever and always by her side. Reclaimed from the ashes of her family home, this previously ceremonial blade has been turned into both a superb arts conductor and a vicious weapon of war.

Operator Archives

50% trust is required to view this file

The Eóganachta clan is a very old Taran family, going back far into when it was a kingdom of its own and nearly passing into myth in their own right. Consequently, even in the new, Victorian Tara, they occupied positions of power and privilege that would be the envy of any native Victorian noble, let alone those Tarans unfortunate enough to not have enormous family fortunes and a huge manor to retreat into. It was into this incredibly privileged upbringing that their youngest daughter of three, Aoife, was born. Her two elder sisters Siobhan and Bronagh had enough years separating them from her that they were less siblings, and more auxiliary parents. And so Aoife grew up coddled and spoilt, doted on by four separate different sources. It was an idyllic childhood, and she didn't spare a thought to look outside of the manor grounds.

100% trust is required to view this file

But all that changed when Aoife was more or less seven years old, when a rumor spread among the Tarans--whether true or not, nobody knows to this day--that the Eóganachta clan had sold out to Victoria.

And that was the only match that the powder keg needed to ignite.

In a single, brutally violent night, the entire Eóganachta estate was razed to the ground, and Aoife's parents were both killed, along with Bronagh and Siobhan. Aoife--scared, confused, and unable to understand what was happening--was pulled from the ashes of everything that she knew and thrust into the arms of a disorganized group of Taran malcontents. Perhaps if she'd been a little older, she would've been killed. But...

...Perhaps she also would've been able to hold on to herself a little bit better.

Within the disdainful Tarans, Aoife Eóganachta became...nothing. They refused to even use her name, refused to let her be Aoife Eóganachta. Just...You. Or Vouivre. And other things, of course, until eventually she the name stuck: Ash Girl. But never again Aoife, and certainly never Eóganachta. No name.

Until she forgot it on her own.

150% trust is required to view this file

For the next few years, she lived as something like a daughter, and something like a servant. She wasn't quite one, yet wasn't fully the other either. And after a year? Two years? Ash Girl had become her name. She barely remembered even the faintest fragments of her former life, and almost nothing at all of her old home. But still, she was...harmless. And, in turn, in no danger of harm.

But that all came to an end when Ash Girl was eleven years old.

The Taran malcontents--as a whole--were trending to more militant, and more violent. And when she was eleven years old...

Dublinn was born.

It took the Tarans by storm, and Ash Girl with them. She was still a child the first time a sword was shoved into her delicate hands. A scant year of training, and before her thirteenth birthday she was being involved in warfare.

She fought for years, until the sudden catastrophic incident in County Hillock. And it was there that she saw firsthand what Dublinn truly stood for. The blinders were pulled away from her eyes, and she finally saw the horrific biolence and pain caused even to Tarans for what it truly was.

She couldn't be here anymore.

And so Ash Girl ran.

She ran from County Hillock. She ran far, deep into the lands that used to be Tara, back towards where she knew. And eventually, her feet found half-forgotten yet familiar pathways that led her up to a ruin of collapsed, crumbled stone, charred wood, twisted metal and sodden ashes. She stared at it through the lashing rains, and memories began to slowly bubble up to the surface of her mind. as through through molasses. And the first to arrive was a name that she recognize, but felt somehow wrong in Ash Girl's mind.

Aoife Eóganachta had come home.

She couldn't go back to Dublinn. She knew that. Her home--her second home--was gone forever. She shook her head, trying to ignore the shivers that ran through her pale body. And as the rain began to peter off, she slowly, meditatively, began to walk through the ruins.

Every time her eyes played over something even the vaguest bit familiar, new memories began to surface. Memories that she knew belonged to her, but felt like someone else's. She came across her own room at one point, or at least she thought she did; as she stared at the third floor bedroom that had fallen into the first floor, she thought she recognized the shattered remnants of a fireplace and chimney that were piled up inside. She was in a daze as she passed through it all.

Finally, she wound her way into what she remembered now was the living room, and there, where her father once read by the fire, she found the collapsed remnant of the mantle. Almost hypnotized, she acted on a vague impulse and scraped aside the ashes, digging through the refuse of the years until her hand closed around the handle of Claíomh-na-Samhain. A sharp feeling of disorientation blurred through her; she was Ash Girl. But she was Aoife too.

So now...this home was gone, and there was no going back to Dublinn. Not after that. Never again. She thought she might puke.

She did.

But still, the question remained. Where? Where, with this sword on her back, should she go?

Not Victoria, obviously. Maybe Columbia? Yeah, that was...probably the best idea.

200% trust is required to view this file

Columbia was nice enough. But it didn't hold her for very long, and nor did anywhere else. Unsteady, unmoored, a self-imposed pariah from her homeland, she became a drifter, roaming hither and thither for the next several years. She took odd jobs; she took mercenary work; she took anything she could find. But Siracusa, Leithanien, Iberia; none of them held her for more than six months.

As she bounced around, she inevitably found herself drawn into conflicts, and struck out against what she perceived as injustice. Whether as Aoife or as Ash Girl, she kept roving, kept moving. Until the summer of year 1105.

She was caught up in a conflict again. She was prepared for many things; her skill with her sword and her tough Vouivre physique had carried her through much. But what she was not prepared for was a grenade of active originium detonating nearly underneath her foot.

The explosion itself didn't do a huge amount of damage. That wasn't the point. The problem were the countless shards of originium that blasted into her, afflicting her with a crushing infection immediately.

And...she didn't know what to do after that.

She never thought she'd be infected. And she wasn't exactly in a place with stellar treatment of the Infected; the south of Ursus was not a great place for her to be. So she just kept trying to do what she'd done before.

But it did not go well.

Even as close to the edge of the plate as she was, she couldn't even make it all the way. And it was then--barely functional, deeply disoriented and dizzy, aching all over from her oripathy--Aoife was discovered and saved from death's door by a woman who called herself "Firewatch." Said something about an organization; Ash Girl wasn't quite in the proper mental state to really figure out what was going on. And right before she passed out, she heard Firewatch talking to someone over a radio.

Next time she woke up--just a month ago now--she was in Rhodes Island's medical bay, and felt better than she had in weeks. It took time for her to mend, and to discover what had happened, and where she was. And soon afterwards, she discovered her Arts. Her very, very powerful freezing arts. And as she recovered, she came to a resolution. It had been years ago now since she'd lost her second home.

It was time she find another.

Trivia:

• As mentioned, Aoife's health is not exactly stellar. Specifically, her oripathy has gifted her with several unfortunate symptoms. In addition to the crystalline lesions--she has over a dozen now--she has tremors, fevers, and full body aches, and a few other unpleasant things. These can be largely managed through oripathy medication, but they can only be managed, never completely removed. There's always a chance one of them will strike.
  
  Her theme song is The Parting Glass.

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn sat back into her chair with a thump, taking a long deep breath and trying to purge the cloying guild that tore at her mind and dug little needles into her skin. She was met with...limited success, but it's not like she could just not do things today, as much as she wished. She turned to Roaki's door, wondering if she was up and at sims already or if she was just asleep. After a moment of consideration, she pulled out a piece of paper--Roaki still didn't have a phone--and wrote out in her shaky handwriting,

Roaki,

I went to the hanger to look at my Savior and make sure everything is okay. I should be back soonish and then I can join you in sims if you want.

Love you <3
Quinn

She slid it under the door (distracted enough that she didn't spend time considering that Roaki probably wouldn't be able to reach it, let along read it), headed to the door, grabbed her gray and yellow coat, and set out. At this point she could probably make the brief jaunt to the hangar blindfolded with both legs asleep, she'd gone down it so many times. In fact, she'd gone down it enough times that she didn't even have that stomach-churning anxiety anymore; it had just become another place to go in the routine. It was one of the reasons she'd started this, and she was exceptionally pleased that it had worked.

Forsaking her heat suit once again because it was a pain to change into and it wasn't worth it for just a few minutes in the cockpit, she meandered up the long hallway before emerging into the cavernous space. She took a deep and appreciative whiff; over here, there was none of the horrid smell that she'd grown so afraid of. There was only the smell of ball bearings and engine oil, something that she'd grown to appreciate. The first person that turned to her--her name was Elise, Quinn thought--brought a knot of tension to her stomach once again. If she gave Quinn the same dark stare...

...Well, she expected the dark stare, or at least indifference. Not the huge smile. Elise nudged the person next to her--Quinn didn't remember her name fully but she knew it also began with an E--and she looked up as well, and also smiled and waved.

She panned her eye over the hangar as people began to take note of her. And every single one gave her the same looks that they always had. The tension came unknotted, and she wiped away a tear. Then, after some time to compose herself, she waved back, and began to walk across the floor towards Ablaze.

Her face was spread with a huge smile.

Amygdala Circuit

A sick feeling began to roil in Quinn's gut as Dahlia began to shiver apart, bubbling higher with each word until...

"I'm sorry."

Then without really even realizing or processing it, she was on her feet, wrapping her sister in a big hug as her old friend Guilt began to gnaw at her sides. "No, Deelie, no, no," she cooed, doing her best to be a soothing as possibly even though she wasn't very good at it; this had always been Dahlia's job. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked, I'm so so sorry." How dumb could she be? It was a pilot who had died at Hovvi. Sometimes she grew so lost in her own memories of Hovvi that she forgot that it had been Dahlia's home too, much much more than it had ever been her own.

She gave a tighter squeeze, not tight enough to hurt but enough to comfort, she hoped. "You never ever need to apologize to me about anything, Deelie, never ever." Without exception, whenever Dahlia apologized to Quinn she felt a sharp pain in her chest. Why should she be apologized to? And least of all about Hovvi! Hovvi was her fault! All of her sister's traumas and pains were because of her.

She'd almost let herself forget that. She wouldn't do forget it again. She felt a lump beginning to build in her throat and the guilt tore at her skin.

"And if there's ever something you don't want to talk about, you don't need to talk about it, I shouldn't have asked, I'm sorry."

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn mulled over what she was being told, blinking a few times as she tried to remember the Hovvi Saviors. But whenever she tried to punch through into her memories of that night she was blocked by a wall of cold shivers. So instead, she shook her head, finished the last of the chocolate-ish vitamin drink, and continued eating with somewhat reduced gusto.

"Think I’m headin’ for the sims. How about you?"

She jerked again as Dahlia spoke, still a little twitchy. But a moment later the twitchiness died, and she looked up at the ceiling in thought. Where was she going?

Only, it wasn't really a question. She already knew where she was going, she'd missed it a few days in a row because of, well, everything, and she felt bad over it. She needed to head down to the hangar, check on her Savior--it was getting easier to call it that--and talk to the hangar staff. It had been a bit since she'd seen them, after all. A part of her was concerned; the hangar had always been a place where people didn't care much about things like Roaki or anything, she always felt welcome there. She supposed she was worried about that changing.

So she dropped her head back down and made eye contact with Dahlia "I'm gonna go down to the hangar, I forgot to do it for the past few days, y'know?"

She let silence hang for one more moment, still thinking a bit about what Besca had said. One of the pilots who died in Hovvi...

"Um, Deelie? Before you go," she paused; it felt a little weird to ask this, and she wasn't quite sure why. Maybe it was the vibe. But still, her curiosity was still running high, and the TV was still showing it anyway. "You knew Lucis, right? What was he like?"

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn continued taking small sips of her shake--she had no idea how Dahlia could down 'em in one go--and nibbling on her pancakes as she watched the TV. She did love blueberries; she'd found that of all foods, fruits were probably her favorite. Which was a shame, since it was really hard to get fresh fruit up on the Aerie. Maybe next time she went down for an interview or something she could wheedle Besca into letting her go into a grocery store and stock up or something.

Beside her, Besca twitched.

Quinn was nothing if not attuned to Besca's feelings at this point, and she knew when the woman was upset for sure. So she paid special close attention to what was going on on TV. There was a countdown to the singularity, people were being cheered getting into their Saviors, and--a face was in the corner. She didn't know Casobani so she had no idea what the newscaster was saying, but that didn't stop her reading the name underneath the picture, and when she did, she frowned. She thought it was familiar somehow, but couldn't place it. Lucis. Where had she heard that before? Lucis, Lucis, Lucis...

It didn't come, and she made a small sound of irritation. "Besca?" Her voice was cautious; she didn't want to upset Besca, but her curiosity was fatally piqued now and she couldn't outrun it. So it was slowly, almost meditatively, that she continued.

"Who was Lucis Abroix?"

Arknights: 5S

Ay we're done, she's up for the approval process!

Aoife Eóganachta - "Ash Girl"

Aoife

"Rhodes Island, I'd like to extend the deepest of gratitude to you and request the privilege to join you as an Operator. Wha--? Code name? Um...I guess...Ash Girl will do."

★★★★★★

Operator Profile _______________________________________ Codename: Ash Girl Epithet: The Taran Pariah Class: Guard Branch: Arts Fighter Race: Vouivre Affiliations: Dublinn (formerly) Height: 173 cm Weight: 75 kg Place of Birth: Post-annexation Tara Date of Birth: January 1 Gender: Female Combat Experience: 10 years

Clinical Analysis ______________________________________________________________________ Strength: Excellent Endurance: Excellent Mobility: Standard Arts Adaptability: Outstanding Combat Skill: Excellent Tactical Acumen: Normal Infection Status: Infected Imaging tests show blurry outlines of subject's internal organs, with multiple dark inclusions. Her circulatory system shows an alarming degree of originium particulate matter. Through these criteria we can determine that this subject is infected. Cell-Originium Assimilation: 28%. Multiple crystal lesions visible on the subject's skin. Blood Originium-Crystal Density: 0.32 u/L. Miss Aoife's condition is extremely aggressive and severe, and her prognosis is poor. Unless measures can be found to more effectively delay the progression of her infection, she likely has less than six months to live, if that.

Character Synopsis:

A former noblewoman and former revolutionary, forced from both of her homes and set adrift.

Personality:

Aoife tends to be a bit quiet most of the time, and when she speaks, she often sounds slightly strained and uncomfortable--almost stilted, sometimes--like she dislikes talking, and so people assume that she wishes to be left alone. Not so, actually; she is quiet and strained because her aggressive oripathy causes her a not-inconsiderable amount of pain on a constant basis. Rather, Aoife tends to be quite personable, if not entirely skilled in social situations, as she hasn't had a surfeit of healthy interactions, and enjoys being around and talking to other people as long as she's not the one doing most of the talking.

Though it's been a long time since her privileged and sheltered upbringing and she barely remembers a single piece of it, it still reflects on her character to this day. Chief among those reflections is how narrow her view of the world can be. She can be closed-minded, and has a tendency to discount things she hears that she doesn't want to. She knows this very well and actively works against it, but it's a trap that is all to easy for her to fall in when she's put under stress. The other major effect is, as mentioned, Aoife can have trouble relating to other people. Spending her very early life in the noblewoman bubble and a huge chunk as a (largely expendable) soldier has limited the people she's been able to open up to, and so she can have difficulties forming genuine friendships.

But despite all of that, Aoife is a good person at heart. Despite how she may look on occasion, she's not selfish, standoffish, willfully ignorant, or egocentric, and joined Rhodes Island as much to fulfil the duties of an Operator and help others as to be treated for her own oripathy. The fact that she's willing to endanger herself by pushing her Arts even when she reasonably shouldn't in the service of her work should be proof enough that she really is trying her best. It can just...be hard to see that sometimes.

Talents	Talent Description
Taran Swordsmanship	Brought up from a young age to be a noblewoman of Tara, Aoife Eóganachta of course learned the former kingdom's traditional style of swordplay from a young age. Though of course it wasn't intended to be actually used, not in the way she uses it now--it was entirely ceremonial to begin with--it has certainly come in handy as she became first a member of Dublinn, and then an Operator of Rhodes Island. The principle reason this is so effective is that she efficiently leverages her rather strange, almost dancelike, style quite effectively. Because most people aren't familiar with the Taran style--it's not extinct, but it's nearly so--it makes her rather unpredictable and hard to read, letting her get the drop on opponents before they're able to adapt.
Pariah's Oath	Aoife has gone through a great deal of pain in her life, whether it be physical or emotional in nature. Even now, her remarkably severe infection causes her not-inconsiderable suffering every minute of the day. There are many times that she's wanted to just...give up. To let it end already, to take the coward's way out, whether that be letting the heritage of Tara die, turning herself in to Victoria, or hurling herself from the landship. But because she hasn't, she's developed an astounding level of willpower, able to push through constant physical pain, emotional torment, and any number of roadblocks. She is going to get to where she's going, and good luck to anybody that tries to stand in her way.
Skills	Skill Description
Winter's Breath	Aoife's arts, channeled through her sword, are of a particularly unique variety. While they generally take the form of ice, they actually involve directly arresting molecular motion. Though it may have the same overall effect most of the time, when trying to freeze objects that are typically coldproof it shows its use in being remarkably good at freezing them anyway. Through spectroscopic measurement techniques, the peak of her freezing power has been measured between 170 and 175 degrees Kelvin (-103C and -98C, respectively).
Bitterwinter Bite	Though obviously the sword is a heavy part of her combat kit, the freezing power that Aoife possesses is used through more than just the sword. Given her powerful infection, she is able to channel her Arts naturally, of course, and is able to do so with a startling degree of intensity. Though they don't have much of a range to them--remember, not actually ice but manipulation on the molecular level which I am to understand gets exponentially more difficult past ten or so feet--within that limited range you are at constant risk of being both slowed to a crawl and frozen solid. Despite this obvious strength, however, subject has been heavily advised against using this more than necessary, as it seems to exacerbate her condition.
One Thousand Shining Teeth	Finally, we come to likely the most dangerous application of her Arts that Aoife can muster--both towards her enemies and towards herself through increased progression of her oripathy. When her life is on the line, though, anything is fair game. Through judicious application of her arts, everything around her is so molecularly strained that it becomes incrediby delicate, even metal and stone. With a sufficiently hard strike, they can shatter into storms of razorlike shards, serving almost like a shotgun; spraying out a surprising level of devastation. All that being said, this is not without further drawbacks. Principally, that she isn't necessarily immunte to the shards, nor does she have exclusive rights on shattering them. Still, if it's leveraged right, it is truly, truly a menace.

Equipment Module

---

Claíomh-na-Samhain

\

• Claíomh-na-Samhain - The Sword of Samhain: Aoife's bastard sword, forever and always by her side. Reclaimed from the ashes of her family home, this previously ceremonial blade has been turned into both a superb arts conductor and a vicious weapon of war.

Operator Archives

50% trust is required to view this file

The Eóganachta clan is a very old Taran family, going back far into when it was a kingdom of its own and nearly passing into myth in their own right. Consequently, even in the new, Victorian Tara, they occupied positions of power and privilege that would be the envy of any native Victorian noble, let alone those Tarans unfortunate enough to not have enormous family fortunes and a huge manor to retreat into. It was into this incredibly privileged upbringing that their youngest daughter of three, Aoife, was born. Her two elder sisters Siobhan and Bronagh had enough years separating them from her that they were less siblings, and more auxiliary parents. And so Aoife grew up coddled and spoilt, doted on by four separate different sources. It was an idyllic childhood, and she didn't spare a thought to look outside of the manor grounds.

100% trust is required to view this file

But all that changed when Aoife was more or less seven years old, when a rumor spread among the Tarans--whether true or not, nobody knows to this day--that the Eóganachta clan had sold out to Victoria.

And that was the only match that the powder keg needed to ignite.

In a single, brutally violent night, the entire Eóganachta estate was razed to the ground, and Aoife's parents were both killed, along with Bronagh and Siobhan. Aoife--scared, confused, and unable to understand what was happening--was pulled from the ashes of everything that she knew and thrust into the arms of a disorganized group of Taran malcontents. Perhaps if she'd been a little older, she would've been killed. But...

...Perhaps she also would've been able to hold on to herself a little bit better.

Within the disdainful Tarans, Aoife Eóganachta became...nothing. They refused to even use her name, refused to let her be Aoife Eóganachta. Just...You. Or Vouivre. And other things, of course, until eventually she the name stuck: Ash Girl. But never again Aoife, and certainly never Eóganachta. No name.

Until she forgot it on her own.

150% trust is required to view this file

For the next few years, she lived as something like a daughter, and something like a servant. She wasn't quite one, yet wasn't fully the other either. And after a year? Two years? Ash Girl had become her name. She barely remembered even the faintest fragments of her former life, and almost nothing at all of her old home. But still, she was...harmless. And, in turn, in no danger of harm.

But that all came to an end when Ash Girl was eleven years old.

The Taran malcontents--as a whole--were trending to more militant, and more violent. And when she was eleven years old...

Dublinn was born.

It took the Tarans by storm, and Ash Girl with them. She was still a child the first time a sword was shoved into her delicate hands. A scant year of training, and before her thirteenth birthday she was being involved in warfare.

She fought for years, until the sudden catastrophic incident in County Hillock. And it was there that she saw firsthand what Dublinn truly stood for. The blinders were pulled away from her eyes, and she finally saw the horrific biolence and pain caused even to Tarans for what it truly was.

She couldn't be here anymore.

And so Ash Girl ran.

She ran from County Hillock. She ran far, deep into the lands that used to be Tara, back towards where she knew. And eventually, her feet found half-forgotten yet familiar pathways that led her up to a ruin of collapsed, crumbled stone, charred wood, twisted metal and sodden ashes. She stared at it through the lashing rains, and memories began to slowly bubble up to the surface of her mind. as through through molasses. And the first to arrive was a name that she recognize, but felt somehow wrong in Ash Girl's mind.

Aoife Eóganachta had come home.

She couldn't go back to Dublinn. She knew that. Her home--her second home--was gone forever. She shook her head, trying to ignore the shivers that ran through her pale body. And as the rain began to peter off, she slowly, meditatively, began to walk through the ruins.

Every time her eyes played over something even the vaguest bit familiar, new memories began to surface. Memories that she knew belonged to her, but felt like someone else's. She came across her own room at one point, or at least she thought she did; as she stared at the third floor bedroom that had fallen into the first floor, she thought she recognized the shattered remnants of a fireplace and chimney that were piled up inside. She was in a daze as she passed through it all.

Finally, she wound her way into what she remembered now was the living room, and there, where her father once read by the fire, she found the collapsed remnant of the mantle. Almost hypnotized, she acted on a vague impulse and scraped aside the ashes, digging through the refuse of the years until her hand closed around the handle of Claíomh-na-Samhain. A sharp feeling of disorientation blurred through her; she was Ash Girl. But she was Aoife too.

So now...this home was gone, and there was no going back to Dublinn. Not after that. Never again. She thought she might puke.

She did.

But still, the question remained. Where? Where, with this sword on her back, should she go?

Not Victoria, obviously. Maybe Columbia? Yeah, that was...probably the best idea.

200% trust is required to view this file

Columbia was nice enough. But it didn't hold her for very long, and nor did anywhere else. Unsteady, unmoored, a self-imposed pariah from her homeland, she became a drifter, roaming hither and thither for the next several years. She took odd jobs; she took mercenary work; she took anything she could find. But Siracusa, Leithanien, Iberia; none of them held her for more than six months.

As she bounced around, she inevitably found herself drawn into conflicts, and struck out against what she perceived as injustice. Whether as Aoife or as Ash Girl, she kept roving, kept moving. Until the summer of year 1105.

She was caught up in a conflict again. She was prepared for many things; her skill with her sword and her tough Vouivre physique had carried her through much. But what she was not prepared for was a grenade of active originium detonating nearly underneath her foot.

The explosion itself didn't do a huge amount of damage. That wasn't the point. The problem were the countless shards of originium that blasted into her, afflicting her with a crushing infection immediately.

And...she didn't know what to do after that.

She never thought she'd be infected. And she wasn't exactly in a place with stellar treatment of the Infected; the south of Ursus was not a great place for her to be. So she just kept trying to do what she'd done before.

But it did not go well.

Even as close to the edge of the plate as she was, she couldn't even make it all the way. And it was then--barely functional, deeply disoriented and dizzy, aching all over from her oripathy--Aoife was discovered and saved from death's door by a woman who called herself "Firewatch." Said something about an organization; Ash Girl wasn't quite in the proper mental state to really figure out what was going on. And right before she passed out, she heard Firewatch talking to someone over a radio.

Next time she woke up--just a month ago now--she was in Rhodes Island's medical bay, and felt better than she had in weeks. It took time for her to mend, and to discover what had happened, and where she was. And soon afterwards, she discovered her Arts. Her very, very powerful freezing arts. And as she recovered, she came to a resolution. It had been years ago now since she'd lost her second home.

It was time she find another.

Trivia:

• As mentioned, Aoife's health is not exactly stellar. Specifically, her oripathy has gifted her with several unfortunate symptoms. In addition to the crystalline lesions--she has over a dozen now--she has tremors, fevers, and full body aches, and a few other unpleasant things. These can be largely managed through oripathy medication, but they can only be managed, never completely removed. There's always a chance one of them will strike.

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn always liked the chocolate shakes more. They were the least bad.

The vanilla ones tasted like chalk and sadness and she honestly didn't know why Dahlia liked them the most. Or...disliked them the least. And the strawberry ones were...well...there was something about them. Quinn didn't know exactly what it was; maybe it was the way it was flavored, or some other ingredient that was absent or covered up in the others. But the first time she drank it--soon after she became a pilot and only a few days on the Aerie--she'd thrown the bottle across the room and stumbled backwards into a corner away from it, face white as a sheet. She hadn't had one since.

So yeah. When she retrieved her shake from the fridge, it was chocolate.

The TV was on now, and she felt a guilty sense of relief that it wasn't about her for once. It was something in Casoban, some smallish singularity. But that sense of relief was ruined in short order, as she gazed at the two saviors over a small town filled with people. Her heart squeezed painfully, and she turned quickly away from it and down to her pancakes.

The first meal that Quinn had ever had on the Aerie had been Besca's pancakes, so they were always a treat. She'd missed them so much in the past few weeks, and tucked into them eagerly, pointedly ignoring what she'd just seen.

"How ‘bout you?"

She jerked in her seat, looking back up at Besca, eye wide. While she was still more cheerful than she'd been in the past few days, absolutely, she was still bouncing her knee, a habit she'd picked up as she'd grown increasingly twitchy. Her stomach was tied up in knots as a matter of course now, and it was just as knotted as she stared up. But after a moment, she grew relaxed, or at least more so. Besca's smile always had that effect on her. She finished chewing her bite of pancakes and made a face as she downed another gulp of her chocolate-adjacent vitamins.

"I slept okay, I guess." She gave a little smile as a fuzzy memory of last night bubbled to the surface of her thoughts. "I had a dream about--" She interrupted herself with a brief head shake, still uncomfortable talking about the lake. A beat of silence passed.

"Well, it was a good dream!"

Arknights: 5S

Oooh more people, hell yeah!

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

---

Well, she wasn't wrong. He did not in fact dodge the knives.

But what he did wasn't really any better. Honestly, it was miles worse. Luen almost laughed as she batted aside the obviously mocking blows; there was no way for them to even reach her, such was the difference in their reach. As it was, a small and deeply bitter smile spread across her face. Of course I would fight a fire aura. Why did I think my luck would be any different? After all, she was born under a star too, she thought. Just a different one, apparently.

But still. She wasn't going to just throw her weapon down. She knew she was going to lose; it was obvious from the start. But that was no reason to give up. Not until she landed at least one hit. So in response to his jibe, she flourished her glaive again, brought it to bear, and redoubled her offense. Stab, slice, sweep, strike; she wove them together into an elaborate string, striking from every angle that she could.

And yet still he remained untouched. It didn't even seem possible.

Her pallid face finally began to show some color: a furious flush of anger and embarrassment as he made a mockery of her in the most thorough way possible. The lightness of her weapon let her keep going past when her arms would've otherwise tired, but even then, she was starting to feel the fatigue of constant movement; she wasn't quite sure how long she'd been in the arena, but it felt like an eternity.

Still, she refused to use her magic again for more than the glaive. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

With a sudden burst of speed she moved closer in; further in than spacing with a glaive would dictate in a normal fight against a swordsman. When she was nearing the range of his sword, she feinted high, then dropped low and swirled it at his legs. She was close enough now, she was pretty sure, that he couldn't just backstep it, and he'd need to jump. And she'd be there: with a final twirl, she cannoned her elbow back with all her strength. If she'd read the situation right, then she'd clock him right in the chin.

And then the fight would probably end, since she was too close now, and she sincerely doubted an elbow to the chin would knock this boy down, given that her strength wasn't exactly something to write home about. But, she hoped, she could at least say she'd landed a hit on him.