C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T
C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T _________________________________________________________ C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y
C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y
Though she's the eldest child and (former) heir to a prominent and longstanding military family and as a result her skills are unimpeachable, Lina Ariesca is as far from the militant mindset as you can reasonably get. Enthusiastic and cheerful but a touch ditzy and oblivious (despite the aggression with which she was trained), she aims to do the right thing as much as she can, even if she might get a little bit lost on the way.
Age: 19
Race: Human
Nationality: Itenaian
Weapon of Choice: Twin Shortswords
Elemental Affinity: Fire
Spiritual Affinity: Light | C H A R A C T E R B I O G R A P H Y
C H A R A C T E R B I O G R A P H Y
The Ariesca noble family is one of the oldest military families in all of Itenaire. Their lineage can be traced all the way to the warlord Ariesc in the Age of Chaos, defying all any and all efforts to snuff them out. As you may imagine, then, they are immensely proud of their name, and of the military prowess that has defined them for over a thousand years. As a result, their children go through fierce and painful training in the family estate, turning them nearly without exception into masters of arms who take their family name incredibly seriously, and with an almost fanatical devotion to their heritage. And so the Ariesca family continues, and the wheel turns.
Lina...fits into those very rare exceptions.
As with all of the family's children, she had a sword shoved into her hands from the time they could lift it, and as an only child at the time, she was subjected to brutal study of combat against people far older, stronger, and more skillful than she. Not enough to injure her, but more than enough to hurt, and for hours a day. When she wasn't sparring, she was studying; language, history, and of course, an excess of tactics. The same training and education that the Ariesca family had levered on their children for centuries.
...But Lina didn't really get the whole thing. While she of course wanted to make her parents proud, and even according to her teachers she took to combat rather naturally as well, it was her attitude that caused her immediate and extended families alike to look at her with a blend of concern, pity, and anger. Whenever she hit someone in a spar harder than she intended, she would stop to see if they were okay. She would skip out on her interminable lessons on military strategy, only for her irate tutors to find her an hour later, instead laughing and chatting with extremely confused household stafff. Her seeming lack of dedication and indifference to the family name had her parents tearing their hair out, but as their only child, she was to be the heir, and so they would need to do their best with her.
But then, when Lina was eight, they had a son.
A son that, as the years went by, turned out to be much more receptive to their teachings. While he was never as skilled as Lina in pure martial combat at any age, he blew her out of the water in every other metric. And so, when this became apparent, the heirdom was stripped from the eighteen-year-old Lina and bestowed upon Anders. And almost immediately afterwards, her parents floated an idea to her: go to Atutania, and join the Order of the Glade. She was skilled enough in combat, especially now that her aptitude had awakened. It would be a great honor for the family; House Ariesca had never numbered in the Order's ranks before, she would be the first. And, they mentioned as an aside, it would allow them to focus more on Anders' training if she wasn't there.
Lina might have been an oblivious person who had a short attention span and was easily distracted. She certainly wasn't the smartest out there. But even she could recognize this for what it was: they wanted to excise her from her brother's life so he could focus solely on becoming the perfect heir they wanted. And, if she became a member of the Order, it would ensure that she wasn't a black mark on the name of House Ariesca. To her parents, her family, her brother--all of whom she loved--she was...an embarrassment. But, at the same time, she so desperately wanted to leave this stifling place, meet new people, see the world! So she agreed. She would go make something of herself, join the Order of the Glade, and become a knight. All, of course, to bring honor to her family name.
Yeah. Sure. Uh-huh.
C H A R A C T E R I Z A T I O N
C H A R A C T E R I Z A T I O N
Cheerful ⬗ Conflicted ⬗ Ditzy ⬗ Friendly ⬗ Gullible ⬗ Social
A B I L I T I E S
A B I L I T I E S
Those who know Lina but have never seen her fight are in for a rude awakening if they're to spar. Trained nearly from birth in swordplay with savage intensity, Lina is remarkably skilled with her chosen weapons, a matched pair of elegant, finely-crafted shortswords with blades about twenty inches long. While she doesn't have the best reach with her short weapons, her skill with them allows her to weave past guards and deflect blows all at the same time with a great deal of precision.
She's also not...entirely unskilled with magic. Though it was interrupted by the pronouncement of Anders as heir, until that point her affinity with fire was trained almost as incessantly as her swordplay. She's a bit inexperienced with it, given that it showed up less than a year before she was kicked to the curb as successor; but she at least knows how to control it with some level of tempo. Her greatest weakness in its regard isn't skill or power, but moderation. The impulsivity brought on by a general lack of foresight can manifest in bringing out way too much power way too hard, and so exhausting herself almost immediately.
There is one further wrinkle to throw into her life. An urge in her thoughts brought on by childhood pressure, a figurative whisper in her ear. A soundless, wordless voice that pushes her to be exactly as ruthless, cutthroat, and savage as her family always wanted her to be. The Voice of Ariesc. She ignores it as best she can, and usually it's no more than an almost unnoticeable background hum that she usually forgets is there. But in moments of strife, when she's under great pressure, it may come creeping back. And sometimes it can be...difficult to shut it out. |
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