A S P H O D E L
Details
Full Name: Asphodel Avarice
Race: Rathor, Neoalt (Fox)
Sex: Female
Age: 23 Years Old
Height: 5'7
Weight: 125 lbs
Birthdate: The 88th of Frost in the Year 4599
Birthplace: Unknown, Estimated Somewhere In Daravin
Profession: Mercenary
Housing: Tent/Anywhere Convenient
Partners: N/A
Titles: N/A
Factions: N/A
Fluencies: Common, Vithmi
Conversationals: None
Ineptitudes: None
Appearance
Asphodel was born a white fox rathor neoalt. As such she was born with three distinctive forms. It's entirely uncertain what species of fox she actually is, as the color of her fur remains starkly white all year round. She's theorized that it might go past species and into albinism but the color of her eyes doesn't support this conclusion, nor the strength of her eyesight with is relatively normal for her race and subspecies.
Asphodel's natural form, or her true form, is the one that she spends that vast majority of her time in. She's a decent height, 5'7, with a relatively lithe build and slightly underweight from the years spent in the badlands. Like most rathor she shares the trait of vitiligo. Her arms, legs, and a good majority of her lower abdomen are crisscrossed with marks both darker and lighter than the rest of her skin. While not as prevalent, there is also some striping along her collarbone that stands out, almost looking intentional with its patterning. Unlike some other rathor both of her eyes are actually the same color, that color being a sharp dark kind of blue akin to the night sky. As mentioned before, Asphodel is a fox rathor. So the traits she shares with her patron animal are the large fuzzy white ears and the tail, as well as a small patch of fur where her tail meets her back. It's worth noting that in Asphodel's true form her hair actually mimics the color of her fur, so the head on her hair is just as white as the fur of her tail and her ears. It's a trait that could very easily draw attention, but fortunately Asphodel grew up in the badlands, so she's used to covering up most of the time in heavy cloaks to avoid the blistering sun or the freezing cold. Additionally, she has sharper teeth and her nails are more akin to claws.
In her human form Asphodel is mostly similar but there are a couple distinct differences. Her hair takes on what could be considered a more "human" color and shifts from a noticeable white to a might lighter kind of blonde. Her markings fade slightly, becoming darker or lighter to better match her normal skin tone, but they don't disappear completely. It's actually her human form where it becomes slightly more obvious that there's a slight different in the hue of her eyes. While both are still noticeably a dark blue, her left eye has a tinge of gray to it and her right eye is a smidge brighter, but it's not something you'd regularly notice without getting right in her face. Her teeth and nails noticeably dull, but there's still a distinct sharpness to her front canines. Something note quite completely and wholly human about her.
Her faunis form is pretty standard to a neoalt. It's just the form of the animal from which her traits were based off. The one oddity especially worth note, however, is once again the mention of Asphodel's fur. Regardless of season or time of year or even temperature it remains thick, heavy, and white. Freshly fallen snow kind of white. While she'd taken to dying it ever once in a while to give herself the appearance of your average red fox, all the dyes she's ever gotten her hands on were temporary and faded back to a sharp white. At the very least, her coat does a fairly good job at keeping her warm.
Personality
The first thing worth noting about Asphodel's character is that before she acts, she very often watches. While by nature she's more inclined to help people that drive isn't to a self sacrificial fault. She isn't going to die for a stranger when living will not only let her continue to persist but in the longer term allow her to help more people. So first and foremost, whenever she's in a new situation, her first instinct is to watch. Watch and analyze. Foxes are well known for their intelligence and their cunning and Asphodel as a rathor falls well into this stereotype. Knowledge is power, it's something she learned very early on. Back when she was practically a pup she realized that knowing a situation in its fullness allows for one to fully take advantage of it, and it's something she's since applied to most real world encounters. The badlands where she spent the majority of her formative years weren't a kind place. Most die young, most don't get old, most live lives that are miserable. But Asphodel? Asphodel had one advantage. Smarts. A natural type of cunning to take advantage of a situation even if she's hesitant to take advantage of people. That's a skill she well and truly learned to hone. One that's since followed her for as long as she can remember.
All that being said, by nature Asphodel is a benevolent type of person. While she grew up in the badlands and knows that rule one is always to focus on her own survival, she's the type that leans more towards mercy and charity. If she can take care of herself and help someone else than she's much sooner do that even if she knows she'll have to work twice as hard or that her future might be a bit more uncertain. That being said, she isn't a saint. She isn't going to try and save those who are openly antagonistic or malicious. She won't save someone from themselves unless she genuinely thinks there's something still there worth saving. Even if the person in question didn't deserve the road they've walked, if there's nothing left to be saved there isn't a point in wasting her breath now is there?
Given all that, Asphodel does possess a distinct distrust for others. While she's helpful by nature and more than willing to work with someone if she thinks it'll benefit her without hurting someone else, she takes a good while to warm up to a person fully outside the realm of "business acquaintance."
History
Her first memories are of a place that was cold, dark, and damp. There isn't much more she can say about the place, as the memories are fuzzy at best. She knew there were magic users there, a lot of there, there would have to be after all. It was the place where Asphodel got her most notable two magics. Baptism and Nightfall. But that's later. Her first memories are of being an existence just short of a slave. Something loathed and looked down on, something lesser. She couldn't begin to tell you why, and there was no one there to explain it to her. All of those early memories were parentless, her only companions the few other children who were in the cages with her. So many different children, so many different races, not enough water, not enough food. It was always so cold. Asphodel's pelt was thick and warm but she wasn't allowed to be in her faunis form often. Even if she was some dirty animal to the people keeping them, they worried she was just small enough to slip out. If she knew what her future was going to be, she might have called that foreshadowing, but it wasn't a fate she'd manage to manifest for a long while still.
She stayed in that damp, cold, cold place for a couple years. Terrified of dancing shadows and the constant dripping of something slick and gross that she could tell you most certainly wasn't water. At least not something that could drink. Another rathor child, a year older than her, had tried it once. He didn't wake back up.
The oldest person there was probably only in her twenties at most but she did her best to be a parent to all of the kids. She wasn't a rathor, at least, Asphodel didn't think so. But she had the largest black wings. They were absolutely beautiful even if they were also terrifying, like liquid darkness, quivering and shifting as their owner twitched and stirred. Asphodel didn't know the woman's name, never learned it, but the woman helped teach Asphodel who she herself was. The little fox rathor, never gifted a name, had been given the name Asphodel in that dark and dingy place. There was a fondness on the woman's face when she'd given Asphodel the word and described with longing words the beauty of the bloom. For short, the woman simply called her Az.
She stayed there for a long while. Until one day children started to disappear. Asphodel couldn't say she remembered it well. Was she four? Five? Maybe six? She was sure that she'd been no older than seven. Those kids disappeared. First in small numbers. Then in larger numbers. Until slowly it dwindled down to just Asphodel. The pretty winged lady was never taken, but they poked and prodded at her and demanded various things of her. They tried to get her to feed them the strange dark liquid she was able to sometimes produce, but she always refused. Right up until Asphodel was taken, right up until for a moment she'd hesitated. Ultimately, she still said no. Asphodel was the last. Taken down cold echoing hallways. To a large room where a man had stood in front of a basin of water. He summoned Asphodel forward and she'd obliged because she knew nothing else. He pressed fingers to her forehead muttering words in a language she couldn't speak. Then he pushed her head down into the water. She couldn't breathe, it was terrifying and painful for a girl who was only a child. That was Asphodel's first true brush with death. The first time Asphodel died. Drowned in a pool of cold silvery water while hands held her down.
Looking back, it was also probably the first time she'd felt anger, alongside a bitter desire to live.
Of all the children this group had taken and tried to initiate, in the end Asphodel was the only one to raise her head. The first one, the only one, to jerk back from the basin and start hacking up water, heart pounding too hard for her little body which was thrumming with an energy she didn't understand. The man had simply smiled, pleased, and send Asphodel back to the woman with her beautiful black wings who'd wrapped Asphodel up gently in her arms and cried.
That was Asphodel's first brush with magic, though, far from her last. As she grew older she still couldn't really say the purpose of this group. She became more aware of her standing in it, though she couldn't say why she existed or for what reason they wanted her. The magic which she'd been initiated into before she even knew what an initiation was they'd called Baptism. They taught her how to use it and carefully observed her. They weren't her main teacher though. The woman with the black wings, though she didn't have Baptism, still helped her learn more about herself and her magic than the people of this place ever did. Asphodel grew, and her magic grew with her, inch by inch and piece by piece, careful to never overstep too dramatically no matter how desperately these people urged and pushed at her. The gentle chidings and reminders of her actual mentor, her angel, were enough to keep her from acting.
She was eleven when things finally started to make sense. It was when she was eleven that more children suddenly started to appear and fill the surrounding cages. When noise and tears started to echo around the room that had once upon a time just been Asphodel and her angel. She was eleven when the man who'd drowned her told her he'd be teaching her how to perform initiations and everything clicked. It was damps, cold, and dark when Asphodel pushed her face against her angel and sobbed because she didn't want to. Not on someone unwilling. Not at all. Her angel listened, sympathetic and miserable as Asphodel herself, before offering Asphodel an alternative. A chance of escape. A dark thick liquid pooled in her angel's palms and her angel urged her to drink it. Told her it was a risk, that it was dangerous, but one way or another it would ensure Asphodel couldn't do an initiation on any of these children. It was either her escape or a way to make her useless in terms of magic. So Asphodel drank it. The Umbralplasm was thick, disgusting and wrong as it slid down Asphodel's throat, but it was all things considered just as much a relief. Baptism was something she'd never asked for but had learned to make a piece of herself despite the pain it'd caused her. Nightfall was special, because it was a choice that she'd made for herself. In some ways it was probably the first.
She was sick for days to either the anger or the distress of the men and women keeping them. Her angel had done nothing but glare and keep Asphodel wrapped tightly in her arms, trying her best to protect the both of them. When Asphodel finally recovered, well, most of her memory from that point are a blur. She knows she woke to her angel urging her to leave the moment they'd both realized that Asphodel survived the initiation. She could remember using her tiny, malnourished form to her advantage and slipping down hallways she'd only loosely memorized over the course of years. She remembers stashing away in boxes and hearing sirens when they realized she was gone. She remembers running. Outside that, the memories are loose and vague. Fractured and best between the running and the fear and the looping endless hallways that haunt her nightmares.
When she saw the outside world for the first time she didn't stop running. It was mostly all just a blur of color and existence and too much, too bright, too real. She ran and ran, though she could no say for how long. In the end, Asphodel found herself in the badlands. An old lady who'd lost most of her kind found Asphodel in her natural form and grew sympathetic of this young child's plight. By the time she found her temporary caretaker, she couldn't have been more than twelve years of age. The old woman took care of Asphodel for a number of years, all the way up until Asphodel was seventeen. The woman helped her in those early years and Asphodel did everything she could to help the woman back. When she finally turned seventeen though, she left. Becoming a wandering trader and mercenary of sorts. She hopped from group to group, keeping her head down, but honing her skills none the less. The badlands weren't a kind place, but Asphodel was a kind enough person, so maybe she could do something with herself. It's not like she had anything to loose.
Asphodel's coming of age ceremony was accidentally preformed a couple of days too early. Thanks to how small the margin is there isn't much lasting damage as other rathor have seen performing the ceremony too early, but it has muddled her understanding of her purpose into something a lot more vague than other rathor tend to experience. So she's mostly just making her best guess and trying to follow wherever her intuition leads her.
Character Secrets: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1609
