________________________________________ Miriam Grâce “Maya” Desrosiers Female | 22 | Veradis, nee Doumerc Scion of Gravity _______________________________________________ “Did you see Scion Maya’s Instagram story?” ________________________________________ | “Let me guess: the Bishop wants to see me.” Holy Sigil Location Maya’s Holy Sigil is located on her throat. Appearance Maya is average height for a woman at 5'5", though she's usually boosted a bit taller with heels. She has a slim but shapely build, fair skin, and long, straight black hair, fairly typical of her Doumercène heritage. She typically dresses business casual, preferring skirts, stockings, and blouses in various styles. Her eyes are the colour of dark red wine, and her face, conventionally pretty, is often slack with boredom and mild contempt. When the cameras are on, however, her crowd-pleasing smile is second to none. Personality should be obvious Biography Maya was born in one of Doumerc’s smaller cities, an ancient settlement called Rivière-des-Larmes located on one bank of a wide river forming part of Doumerc’s historically contested border with Kaudus. One of the last remaining border settlements in Doumerc (after the rest were gradually abandoned in a diplomatic effort to ease tensions with Kaudus), tensions in Rivière-des-Larmes often run high, and the settlement is closely monitored by the Doumercène military, a rare sight in the rest of the country. However, being situated on a vital trade route both out to sea and inland to Rodion, Doumerc has yet to concede the town to Kaudus’ posturing from across the river. For Maya’s part, she was born into some privilege; while they had no claims to noble lineage, her family was fortunate as Rivière residents went. They owned a family business of some repute running cargo barges up and down the river, and while their contracts weren’t huge, they were consistent, and with hard work they made enough to live comfortably, a luxury not all in their town could afford. Maya herself was a difficult child, prone to stubbornness and temper, but she performed well in school; so well, in fact, that by the time she finished high school, she had earned herself a scholarship studying physics at a university in the nearby city. It wasn’t ivy league - it was an open secret that one needed lofty connections to get into one of those - but a degree from any Doumerc university would all but guarantee Maya a life much easier than the one her parents had worked for, and they were elated. Unfortunately, Maya’s scholarship worked more against her parents’ interests than in their favour. In her time away, Maya grew haughty, acquiring a taste for the sophistication and style of “big city” life and learning to look down upon the small-time border town and kitschy cargo business that raised her. Her summers home felt like prison, and even her advanced physics homework appealed to her more than helping out with the family business. But books still needed balancing, and cargo still needed checking, so Maya was unable to escape helping her parents out on the barges. One interesting bonus of the business was that, as a cargo carrier, the Desrosiers company was one of very few civilian companies with authorization to cross the river into Kaudus. With foreign relations strained as they were, they never had Kaudian clients, but the passport was necessary to get through checkpoints and to secure some limited protection in case docking on Kaudian shores was necessary. As it happened, one of the summer days that Maya’s father could drag her out to help with inventory was one such occasion, their barge suffering engine difficulties and a rudder failure that forced them to make landfall in Kaudus. An unscheduled landing in waters as well-traveled as the Larme would raise tensions anywhere, but a Doumercène ship in Kaudus doubly so; as such, tensions ran high as Maya, for once, stayed dutifully inside the bridge while her father attempted to explain the situation to the Kaudian authorities. However, while her father struggled to communicate in broken Kaudian, armed men from the shore boarded and began sweeping the ship. Then physics rolled over, and they fell into the sky. Things moved pretty quickly after that, and after narrowly avoiding several Kaudian attempts to kill her, Maya was secured by the Doumercène military and shortly thereafter, taken under the care of the Church. It was determined after a short investigation that she had become the new Scion of Gravity, after the widely published death of her predecessor two months prior. Maya was 22 years old at the time. It was jointly decided by the Church and Maya’s family (albeit strenuously objected to by Parliament) that, for her safety, Maya would leave Doumerc and reside in Veradis, at least for the time being. Maya, who had never been strongly religious and was loath to be told what to do, chafed under the Church’s tutelage at first, and to this day has a talent for pushing the buttons of the clergy, but you will never hear her complain about the accommodations: The Holy City of Juniperus is as far a cry from backwater Rivière-des-Larmes as one can get. On top of that, there is nowhere in the world where a Scion enjoys as much doting attention, and in the few years since inheriting her gift, Maya has become a darling of the media - maybe a little too chummy with them, if you were to ask her bishop. Weapon of Choice In circumstances where she's been approved for blatant uses of Gravity magic, Maya uses a blade-backed custom hammer. Otherwise, she carries a concealed handgun on her person at all times. Misc.
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