Application for demeleier.
Player Name: Jen
Player LJ: redweth
Contact: redweth [AIM]; redweth@gmail.com [EMAIL]
Character Number: 1
Name: Avari; full name Alandrivel Lossemourne
Source: She is loosely based in an exceedingly poorly defined and nondescript fantasy setting by the name of Rhy'Din that was the generic setting for roleplaying on AOL chats. However, since her inception, I have taken great pains to remove her from the majority of those aspects and craft an original world for her back story. Nevertheless, she retains some oddities such as a knowledge (albeit spotty) of some modern technologies such as shotguns and microwaves and a proclivity for excusing said technologies as just some kind of queer human magic.
Appearance: Basically, this. Avari stands at about 5 feet tall, and though her frame is small and she possesses the lithe figure her race is famous for, smithing has built her a little more solidly than most elves. She is, also, notably lacking in feminine curves. Her hair is red and long, nearly to her waist, and her choice of hair styles are as varied as a single braid or worn loose and straight. Her ears, of course, taper to a point and extend about an inch to two inches past regular human ears. She is, however, missing an entire inch off the tip of one of her ears. Her eyes are green, slanted, and sharp and her smile is crooked. This is due to the jagged line of a scar that freezes one side of her mouth into a slight frown. Avari favors loose, button down shirts in forest colors and dark breeches. Though her wardrobe will no doubt have to change, it won't be by much.
Personality: Avari is best described by words like stubborn, pig-headed and ox. Her closest friend, in fact, insisted that she ought to have been born a dwarf if there was any justice in the world. Short, temperamental and quick to anger, she’s hardly pleasant on the base level. Her sarcasm even leans toward bitter. But direct and to the point as she is, she can be likable, particular by those who value honesty. She’s utterly inept at lying, in fact. And her natural and persistent curiosity often overrides some of the gruffer aspects of her demeanor.
Sadly, Avari’s not just a stubborn, sour old elf (with a whole heap of prejudices and superior notions due to this). Truth is, the girl’s a bit dull. While her tactics are sound, her reasoning is often flawed, and she is often duped, even to the point of taking the bait of trap even when she knows it’s a trap simply because she can’t stand not acting and sees no alternative.
Set a book in front of her, or an adventure, or a task, though and she’ll go at it with a vengeance. As lazy as the elf might appear what with crooked posture and how often she does little more than lounge around, she puts everything she has into whatever she pursues with an intent sort of focus that tends to exclude other things. She’s not very good at multitasking.
Avari isn’t one to talk about herself, or her past. She brushes off questions when asked. She even tends to mechanically respond to inquiries about her health and wellbeing with “I’m fine.” Defensive and closed off as she is, the woman is a great deal more determined to act on her own agenda than to let others know what she is planning, or even include them in those plots.
That said, while Avari may sacrifice a life in order to save her own or that of another’s, or to make her living, she’s not inclined to go out and murder people in the street, and she very rarely sided against peasant uprisings or with any cause she doesn’t agree with. Her morals are gray, loose and not what one usually would think of an elf of her nation ( example). They aren’t her father’s morals by any means. However, her morals are still cast in iron, even if they have wiggle room, and it would take a great deal for her to kill a child, for example. She’s also achingly loyal, persistent, somewhat dismissive, and has a motherly streak that’s hard to bring out but fairly blatant.
History: Avari was born Alandrivel, the youngest daughter of Tharivol Arillion Lossemourne, General of the armies of the Elven nation of Kazneathel. A smaller nation bordering human lands, frequent fighting erupted throughout her childhood, culminating in a full scale war which doomed Kazneathel from the very beginning. It also cut Avari's studies in magic incredibly short, as the mages were needed to defend, and her skill was far too minute to be considered useful on the battlefield. As her home came closer and closer to being overrun, Avari--still not yet old enough to go through the name-taking rite that would establish her as an adult in the eyes of her people--slipped out of her parents home and enlisted under false pretenses.
The first battle she was involved in went poorly, for all nerve left her in the heat of it, and the elf was sorely injured. She was lucky she even survived. After many days lost to field hospitals, she deserted as soon as she could walk. Brought up under her father's idea of honor and self sacrifice and his unwillingness to talk of war in any specific terms, she had built warfare up to a romantic ideal that it was not. For the first time, she had learned to fear death. Her fear outweighed her stubborn determination, and Avari ran.
However, she could not return home. Ashamed, Avari spent nearly a year in the street, scraping by as the humans advanced further and further into her land. She hid until one day the greater concern of the military forces seemed keeping the people from fleeing the borders and deserting them, until the troops were so starved from lack of supplies that no one was safe, even from their own protectors. She was pressed into service this time.
As yellow and cowardly as she felt, Avari found her stomach now in the desperation of her country's last feeble stand. She learned to put aside the ugliness she saw, and that she had a hand in, and she fought on. She didn't try to desert. There was nowhere to go. Though she regained her confidence in those battles, her country lost everything.
The Queen surrendered, her King dead and the capital city razed to the ground. The terms were harsh, the citizens being displaced and forced to march beyond the borders of Kazneathel before they were freed. And it was amidst that pitiful gathering and long march that she learned in bits and pieces, what had happened to her family. Only her brother was unaccounted for, but she didn't find him among the refugees.
The neighboring kingdom, Altrane, offered basic assistance to those displaced, at first. But the assistance whittled off until there wasn't a scrap left for anyone, and they were forced to split apart and go where they could find work. There was little choice in it for Avari, she had learned to do little enough as it was, and the only thing that seemed in any demand was her sword arm--awkward and clumsy as it was. She became a sellsword.
She bounced from job to job, scraping together skill and training where she could, better equipment and a reputation as she went along. And gradually Avari became well enough known amongst a certain group of people to have steady work and live comfortably. She trained more, turned what knowledge she had in patching and repairing worn and inadequate armor into properly forging her own equipment and weapons. She traveled as she learned, as she worked. She took on jobs that had her ranging through forests and over mountains, across deserts. Jobs that had her working alone or with groups. Gradually she came to know the people in her line of work as well as she knew the work.
She gained friends and fell in love. Joulien was a mage. A human one. And though she harbored a deep resentment of humans, there were those that made themselves an exception, and Joulien was one of them. He helped her with what little magic she knew, taught her to make it useful to her in combat, to weave it into the openings her sword could create. And though the elf proved a difficult student he persevered, and they fought and worked side by side. There came a day when he convinced her that that was the best place to be, side by side. And Avari was happy.
The years passed too quickly, and Joulien grew gray. Yet Avari seemed young still. It would take an elf to detect the signs of her age. Joulien didn't care, but Avari did. But he made her forget his laugh lines and the gray creeping into his dark curly hair, and the uneasy dread that knotted her stomach only came on now and then.
A child was born to them, both relieving and aggravating the stress. The boy was frail, and doted on, a constant reminder of the words Avari had been told all her childhood. Humans and elves could not live together. But she was forced out of her homelands, wandering often in the regions humans controlled--larger with each passing year--and her very life belong with a human and their half-elf son.
And Joulien and she still worked together, and though the jobs were fewer, they were far more dangerous. And they paid better. Braedan was always kept safe, his needs seen to, his weak health kept stable. Between the anxiety of Joulien’s advancing years and the brutality of their work, the little family seemed happy enough.
Until one day, far before his time had come, Joulien threw himself in front of a sword meant for Avari. And he died. Distraught, Avari drew into herself. She left Braedan more and more often with what few she trusted, former refugees of her own people that she had caught up with. Many years of his childhood, he spent with them.
Avari sought out more vicious warrants, worked alone more often than not and became reckless, pushing her limits hard. How she didn't die, even she couldn't say. But she came close on more than one occasion. Her reputation changed as it grew. Those that hired her called her a mad-woman behind her back, those she worked with called her the same to her face. Rumors spread and exaggerated themselves. She was hell bent on washing her blade in blood; she held no loyalties or conscience, they said. That she refused much more than the barest of conversations didn't help, nor did it that she carefully painted the symbols of mourning of her kind across her skin, the bold black lines and her dour expression did little to ease people's minds.
Thankfully no one learned of the child she kept away from herself, whom she visited seldom. And his hate, growing every time she left once me, piling atop her loss drove the elf even further into her work.
But one man managed to break though, not one she worked with, but one she met by chance and who claimed she was too much fun to poke and prod to abandon. Willow was an odd sort of person. She knew that from the start, but not quite how odd. Even so, she grew to take comfort in his too-calm exterior and sudden, barking laughter. His sly smiles and backhanded compliments and insidious humor. And though she began to perceive a pattern in his late night visits and lack of eating or drinking, Avari yet again ignored what she'd learned as a child (at least in part) and took him for a friend. As time passed he became something closer to a brother, and he pried her out of her misery and shoved her out into the world again.
By now, there were more than enough whom Avari's bloody services had pissed off to thin her line of work and even earn a price on her head, in some circles. Willow's nature as a vampire, coupled with his background reflected on him similarly, and the two fell into trouble and came to rely on each other's skill just as much as their friendship. On more than one occasion each was instrumental in saving the other's hide.
The only thing Willow was never able to assist Avari with, seemed to be the son who grew, thin and sickly as he was, while she made repeated excuses to stay away.
Over her career as a mercenary, Avari had amassed a fair number of magical objects that gave her abilities beyond her own, not the least of which was a cloak of invisibility. The cloak, however, came with its side effects, it seeped into and poisoned her mind into an over-reliance on it. It made her comfortable only when she was using it, and it weakened her mental defenses.
Gradually, slowly, until Willow and Dell (a mutual friend and Willow's love) discovered what was going on and took it away. Some damage had already been done, however, and when Avari accidentally freed a demon from a spelled container, it found little enough trouble in invading and possessing her mind.
The demon, Eolin, spent several months in control of Avari's body, working toward her own long dormant agendas that seemed predominantly concerned with wholesale slaughter. But Willow and Dell came to their friends aid yet again, and Willow succeeded in pulling the demon out of Avari's mind and body, at a high cost to him. The strain of the act began to unravel his control over his nature. But Willow told no one.
Recovering from being trapped in her own mind was hard, but she managed, with Dell and Willow's help. Soon enough her life returned to some semblance of normalcy. She stood at Willow and Dell's wedding. She made hesitant fumbling steps to make things up with her boy. She even built herself a respectable business in smithing. Everything from horseshoes and beam supports to proper blades and armor. She met a another elf, Leggula, drunk off his ass and sprawled among the roots of a tree.
Somehow, his bawdy songs and complimenting tongue charmed her. His stories and his honor and talk of past service drew her further in, and yet again Avari found a pleasant life for herself. Though she and her son didn’t get along, the boy and Leggula seemed almost to gain and unspoken understanding. And Leggula interceded on Avari’s behalf.
But her time with Leggula cut into her time with Willow and Dell, and the first inklings of understanding passed her by. Willow went mad, slowly. Piece by piece. And one day he found himself turning on Dell, inches from doing her irreparable harm. When he pulled himself back and stumbled out, he hatched on a desperate plan.
Leggula was dragged, and two former friends crossed swords. The battle was desperate, and heavily one-sided. Long years of pushing and prodding had told Willow exactly what to exploit in his pig-headed friend to provoke her to violence. In the end, the vampire died on her blade, and the elf sobbed over the corpse of her friend. Mad as he had been going, she would never had killed him if not in defense of herself and her loved ones.
Leggula, not as long removed from elven lands, proved somewhat less than sympathetic for the vampire’s death. Yet, he did try to ease her mind on the matter. Her son, who hadn’t known Willow, remained largely distant from his mother.
Avari, slowly, began to pick up the pieces and glue them awkwardly together. In her view, Willow’s death was her fault. She should have done something. However, just because that was true, didn’t mean she could let it crush her down. She had to keep going, for her son, and for Leggula.
In the midst of her recovery, however, Avari found herself spirited away to a city called World's End. In the game a_trialbyfire the elf was dumped in a ruined city with a mishmash of other refugees from other worlds, or maybe other planes. Regardless, Avari fell in with the locals, plying her trade in the bleak landscape and making herself rather well known amongst the people there. Though she was considered a friend to many, she reserved her dealings with others to the present, and proved closed mouthed about her past.
Nevertheless, there are a few individuals, such as Angeal Hewley and Karasu that she came to consider family, as well as Sir Crocodile and Lucifer Morningstar who she came to consider friends, though perhaps Nabooru was closer than any of them. In either case, being a mother had changed her, and she sought to help the younger of those stranded in the city. She did her best, it seemed, to look after everyone with a firm but guiding hand. In the process some left and came back, and Avari seemed not to bat an eyelash when they came back, treating them as she treated everyone. Still, each loss cut into her.
She did, however, die, the victim of a serial killer who carved the numbers "5/21" into her chest. And that act, though she doesn't let on, has scarred more than her flesh. Even though Avari had befriended vampires and other undead or immortal creatures in her time, she cannot shake the belief that to return from the dead is somehow perverse. That she returned from the dead has intensely unsettled her, as if something in her is wrong since she returned. Though Avari lost one of her memories to that death, she doesn't know which one, or if that's truly the reason she'd unsettled.
Specific Abilities: To her everlasting irritation, Avari's skill set slot well with the traditional Bard class. She, quite vehemently, refuses to acknowledge this, but that doesn't make it any less true. Possessed of considerable reflexes and dexterity, Avari is nimble and she weilds her blades with grace, and her lockpick with a minimum of fuss. However, an injury to her knee has somewhat lessened the spring in her step. Though she compensates well, the sheer fact that she has to compensate is quite a drawback. In addition, because of her forge work, Avari is a bit stronger and stockier than she initially was, though only marginally above average. She's also adept in playing the flute, though it isn't a side of her she allows to be seen by many, let alone in public.
Where the comparison ends is with coercion and the expectation of a silver tongue. Avari is blunt and straight forward, often bordering on crass, and she is incapable of lying in any believable way. When she attempts to hide something, she clams up and generally behaves in such a stilted manner that it only draws further attention to her poor attempts at covering or lying. While she does have a head for stories, they also tend to veer away from more traditional Bardic fare, favoring abrupt and often anti-climactic endings. But I digress.
Avari also dabbles in magic, though dabbles might give the impression that she enjoys doing it. In point of fact, Avari has little control of her magic. Though she did go to mage school, briefly, she was forced out before she learned much of anything. What little she cobbled together in her mercenary years is largely simple, cheifly elemental in properties, and has a rather dramatic propensity to backfiring egregiously. As such, Avari is about as like to use a spell as most soldiers are inclined to use a grenade, and she will use it with the same general once-and-done tactics. Her true strength, and the only thing she's comfortable relying on, is her bladework.
Additional Information: I would like to bring in Azrael if I could as well. While he is not a familiar, he is possessed of intelligence. Said intelligence doesn't range much further than a lofty vocabulary and a snotty attitude, but it is worth mentioning that that cat is capable of telepathically projecting his thoughts in order to speak, either individually or to a group. He cannot, however, read another's mind, or otherwise hear with this ability. Beyond this, Azrael is a normal house cat. If this is not okay, however, that's perfectly understandable.
Sample Journal Post: Why not see her in action?
Sample Post: The air from the forge was hot, roasting, as it poured out the low door way. She had left it open in a vain attempt to promote a cross breeze through the small, glassless window set high in the opposite wall, but it didn’t seem to be doing much of anything. Soot hung heavy in the building, trapped by the squat roof and unwilling to climb out the little window, or the door, into the still evening air. Something else tinged the air amidst the soot, something electrically charged. It had practically cracked with each steady blow of the hammer, but now it was sizzling temperamentally.
The heavy air had reddened her eyes, and she again pulled one dirty sleeve across them now. The elf's fair, freckled skin was now sticky with soot and sweat, and she pushed the drenched strings of hair out of her face, back into the ratty braid as best she could. Letting the hammer drop to the anvil again, she shoved the half finished blade back into the embers, pumped the bellows twice to get them going hotter, and stepped back from the anvil, wiping blackened hands on her leather apron. The elf was weary, her arms felt like rubber, and she sank back on a simple stool by the door to watch the fire. Only her head titled back against the wall, and all she was really paying attention to anymore was the breeze.
There were plenty of blades in the small squat building, set up on pegs on the wall. But none of them sparked with energy the way the bare, unfinished metal in the fires did. None of them had quite driven the sharp pain into the base of her spine that this did. Settling both hands at the small of her back the elf shifted forward and arched her back. Stretching like that was painful, but so was not stretching, and soon enough there was a gratifying little pop as her back cracked. A little hiss escaped her and a barely intelligible grumble.
“Old bones aren’t what they used to be.”
Player LJ: redweth
Contact: redweth [AIM]; redweth@gmail.com [EMAIL]
Character Number: 1
Name: Avari; full name Alandrivel Lossemourne
Source: She is loosely based in an exceedingly poorly defined and nondescript fantasy setting by the name of Rhy'Din that was the generic setting for roleplaying on AOL chats. However, since her inception, I have taken great pains to remove her from the majority of those aspects and craft an original world for her back story. Nevertheless, she retains some oddities such as a knowledge (albeit spotty) of some modern technologies such as shotguns and microwaves and a proclivity for excusing said technologies as just some kind of queer human magic.
Appearance: Basically, this. Avari stands at about 5 feet tall, and though her frame is small and she possesses the lithe figure her race is famous for, smithing has built her a little more solidly than most elves. She is, also, notably lacking in feminine curves. Her hair is red and long, nearly to her waist, and her choice of hair styles are as varied as a single braid or worn loose and straight. Her ears, of course, taper to a point and extend about an inch to two inches past regular human ears. She is, however, missing an entire inch off the tip of one of her ears. Her eyes are green, slanted, and sharp and her smile is crooked. This is due to the jagged line of a scar that freezes one side of her mouth into a slight frown. Avari favors loose, button down shirts in forest colors and dark breeches. Though her wardrobe will no doubt have to change, it won't be by much.
Personality: Avari is best described by words like stubborn, pig-headed and ox. Her closest friend, in fact, insisted that she ought to have been born a dwarf if there was any justice in the world. Short, temperamental and quick to anger, she’s hardly pleasant on the base level. Her sarcasm even leans toward bitter. But direct and to the point as she is, she can be likable, particular by those who value honesty. She’s utterly inept at lying, in fact. And her natural and persistent curiosity often overrides some of the gruffer aspects of her demeanor.
Sadly, Avari’s not just a stubborn, sour old elf (with a whole heap of prejudices and superior notions due to this). Truth is, the girl’s a bit dull. While her tactics are sound, her reasoning is often flawed, and she is often duped, even to the point of taking the bait of trap even when she knows it’s a trap simply because she can’t stand not acting and sees no alternative.
Set a book in front of her, or an adventure, or a task, though and she’ll go at it with a vengeance. As lazy as the elf might appear what with crooked posture and how often she does little more than lounge around, she puts everything she has into whatever she pursues with an intent sort of focus that tends to exclude other things. She’s not very good at multitasking.
Avari isn’t one to talk about herself, or her past. She brushes off questions when asked. She even tends to mechanically respond to inquiries about her health and wellbeing with “I’m fine.” Defensive and closed off as she is, the woman is a great deal more determined to act on her own agenda than to let others know what she is planning, or even include them in those plots.
That said, while Avari may sacrifice a life in order to save her own or that of another’s, or to make her living, she’s not inclined to go out and murder people in the street, and she very rarely sided against peasant uprisings or with any cause she doesn’t agree with. Her morals are gray, loose and not what one usually would think of an elf of her nation ( example). They aren’t her father’s morals by any means. However, her morals are still cast in iron, even if they have wiggle room, and it would take a great deal for her to kill a child, for example. She’s also achingly loyal, persistent, somewhat dismissive, and has a motherly streak that’s hard to bring out but fairly blatant.
History: Avari was born Alandrivel, the youngest daughter of Tharivol Arillion Lossemourne, General of the armies of the Elven nation of Kazneathel. A smaller nation bordering human lands, frequent fighting erupted throughout her childhood, culminating in a full scale war which doomed Kazneathel from the very beginning. It also cut Avari's studies in magic incredibly short, as the mages were needed to defend, and her skill was far too minute to be considered useful on the battlefield. As her home came closer and closer to being overrun, Avari--still not yet old enough to go through the name-taking rite that would establish her as an adult in the eyes of her people--slipped out of her parents home and enlisted under false pretenses.
The first battle she was involved in went poorly, for all nerve left her in the heat of it, and the elf was sorely injured. She was lucky she even survived. After many days lost to field hospitals, she deserted as soon as she could walk. Brought up under her father's idea of honor and self sacrifice and his unwillingness to talk of war in any specific terms, she had built warfare up to a romantic ideal that it was not. For the first time, she had learned to fear death. Her fear outweighed her stubborn determination, and Avari ran.
However, she could not return home. Ashamed, Avari spent nearly a year in the street, scraping by as the humans advanced further and further into her land. She hid until one day the greater concern of the military forces seemed keeping the people from fleeing the borders and deserting them, until the troops were so starved from lack of supplies that no one was safe, even from their own protectors. She was pressed into service this time.
As yellow and cowardly as she felt, Avari found her stomach now in the desperation of her country's last feeble stand. She learned to put aside the ugliness she saw, and that she had a hand in, and she fought on. She didn't try to desert. There was nowhere to go. Though she regained her confidence in those battles, her country lost everything.
The Queen surrendered, her King dead and the capital city razed to the ground. The terms were harsh, the citizens being displaced and forced to march beyond the borders of Kazneathel before they were freed. And it was amidst that pitiful gathering and long march that she learned in bits and pieces, what had happened to her family. Only her brother was unaccounted for, but she didn't find him among the refugees.
The neighboring kingdom, Altrane, offered basic assistance to those displaced, at first. But the assistance whittled off until there wasn't a scrap left for anyone, and they were forced to split apart and go where they could find work. There was little choice in it for Avari, she had learned to do little enough as it was, and the only thing that seemed in any demand was her sword arm--awkward and clumsy as it was. She became a sellsword.
She bounced from job to job, scraping together skill and training where she could, better equipment and a reputation as she went along. And gradually Avari became well enough known amongst a certain group of people to have steady work and live comfortably. She trained more, turned what knowledge she had in patching and repairing worn and inadequate armor into properly forging her own equipment and weapons. She traveled as she learned, as she worked. She took on jobs that had her ranging through forests and over mountains, across deserts. Jobs that had her working alone or with groups. Gradually she came to know the people in her line of work as well as she knew the work.
She gained friends and fell in love. Joulien was a mage. A human one. And though she harbored a deep resentment of humans, there were those that made themselves an exception, and Joulien was one of them. He helped her with what little magic she knew, taught her to make it useful to her in combat, to weave it into the openings her sword could create. And though the elf proved a difficult student he persevered, and they fought and worked side by side. There came a day when he convinced her that that was the best place to be, side by side. And Avari was happy.
The years passed too quickly, and Joulien grew gray. Yet Avari seemed young still. It would take an elf to detect the signs of her age. Joulien didn't care, but Avari did. But he made her forget his laugh lines and the gray creeping into his dark curly hair, and the uneasy dread that knotted her stomach only came on now and then.
A child was born to them, both relieving and aggravating the stress. The boy was frail, and doted on, a constant reminder of the words Avari had been told all her childhood. Humans and elves could not live together. But she was forced out of her homelands, wandering often in the regions humans controlled--larger with each passing year--and her very life belong with a human and their half-elf son.
And Joulien and she still worked together, and though the jobs were fewer, they were far more dangerous. And they paid better. Braedan was always kept safe, his needs seen to, his weak health kept stable. Between the anxiety of Joulien’s advancing years and the brutality of their work, the little family seemed happy enough.
Until one day, far before his time had come, Joulien threw himself in front of a sword meant for Avari. And he died. Distraught, Avari drew into herself. She left Braedan more and more often with what few she trusted, former refugees of her own people that she had caught up with. Many years of his childhood, he spent with them.
Avari sought out more vicious warrants, worked alone more often than not and became reckless, pushing her limits hard. How she didn't die, even she couldn't say. But she came close on more than one occasion. Her reputation changed as it grew. Those that hired her called her a mad-woman behind her back, those she worked with called her the same to her face. Rumors spread and exaggerated themselves. She was hell bent on washing her blade in blood; she held no loyalties or conscience, they said. That she refused much more than the barest of conversations didn't help, nor did it that she carefully painted the symbols of mourning of her kind across her skin, the bold black lines and her dour expression did little to ease people's minds.
Thankfully no one learned of the child she kept away from herself, whom she visited seldom. And his hate, growing every time she left once me, piling atop her loss drove the elf even further into her work.
But one man managed to break though, not one she worked with, but one she met by chance and who claimed she was too much fun to poke and prod to abandon. Willow was an odd sort of person. She knew that from the start, but not quite how odd. Even so, she grew to take comfort in his too-calm exterior and sudden, barking laughter. His sly smiles and backhanded compliments and insidious humor. And though she began to perceive a pattern in his late night visits and lack of eating or drinking, Avari yet again ignored what she'd learned as a child (at least in part) and took him for a friend. As time passed he became something closer to a brother, and he pried her out of her misery and shoved her out into the world again.
By now, there were more than enough whom Avari's bloody services had pissed off to thin her line of work and even earn a price on her head, in some circles. Willow's nature as a vampire, coupled with his background reflected on him similarly, and the two fell into trouble and came to rely on each other's skill just as much as their friendship. On more than one occasion each was instrumental in saving the other's hide.
The only thing Willow was never able to assist Avari with, seemed to be the son who grew, thin and sickly as he was, while she made repeated excuses to stay away.
Over her career as a mercenary, Avari had amassed a fair number of magical objects that gave her abilities beyond her own, not the least of which was a cloak of invisibility. The cloak, however, came with its side effects, it seeped into and poisoned her mind into an over-reliance on it. It made her comfortable only when she was using it, and it weakened her mental defenses.
Gradually, slowly, until Willow and Dell (a mutual friend and Willow's love) discovered what was going on and took it away. Some damage had already been done, however, and when Avari accidentally freed a demon from a spelled container, it found little enough trouble in invading and possessing her mind.
The demon, Eolin, spent several months in control of Avari's body, working toward her own long dormant agendas that seemed predominantly concerned with wholesale slaughter. But Willow and Dell came to their friends aid yet again, and Willow succeeded in pulling the demon out of Avari's mind and body, at a high cost to him. The strain of the act began to unravel his control over his nature. But Willow told no one.
Recovering from being trapped in her own mind was hard, but she managed, with Dell and Willow's help. Soon enough her life returned to some semblance of normalcy. She stood at Willow and Dell's wedding. She made hesitant fumbling steps to make things up with her boy. She even built herself a respectable business in smithing. Everything from horseshoes and beam supports to proper blades and armor. She met a another elf, Leggula, drunk off his ass and sprawled among the roots of a tree.
Somehow, his bawdy songs and complimenting tongue charmed her. His stories and his honor and talk of past service drew her further in, and yet again Avari found a pleasant life for herself. Though she and her son didn’t get along, the boy and Leggula seemed almost to gain and unspoken understanding. And Leggula interceded on Avari’s behalf.
But her time with Leggula cut into her time with Willow and Dell, and the first inklings of understanding passed her by. Willow went mad, slowly. Piece by piece. And one day he found himself turning on Dell, inches from doing her irreparable harm. When he pulled himself back and stumbled out, he hatched on a desperate plan.
Leggula was dragged, and two former friends crossed swords. The battle was desperate, and heavily one-sided. Long years of pushing and prodding had told Willow exactly what to exploit in his pig-headed friend to provoke her to violence. In the end, the vampire died on her blade, and the elf sobbed over the corpse of her friend. Mad as he had been going, she would never had killed him if not in defense of herself and her loved ones.
Leggula, not as long removed from elven lands, proved somewhat less than sympathetic for the vampire’s death. Yet, he did try to ease her mind on the matter. Her son, who hadn’t known Willow, remained largely distant from his mother.
Avari, slowly, began to pick up the pieces and glue them awkwardly together. In her view, Willow’s death was her fault. She should have done something. However, just because that was true, didn’t mean she could let it crush her down. She had to keep going, for her son, and for Leggula.
In the midst of her recovery, however, Avari found herself spirited away to a city called World's End. In the game a_trialbyfire the elf was dumped in a ruined city with a mishmash of other refugees from other worlds, or maybe other planes. Regardless, Avari fell in with the locals, plying her trade in the bleak landscape and making herself rather well known amongst the people there. Though she was considered a friend to many, she reserved her dealings with others to the present, and proved closed mouthed about her past.
Nevertheless, there are a few individuals, such as Angeal Hewley and Karasu that she came to consider family, as well as Sir Crocodile and Lucifer Morningstar who she came to consider friends, though perhaps Nabooru was closer than any of them. In either case, being a mother had changed her, and she sought to help the younger of those stranded in the city. She did her best, it seemed, to look after everyone with a firm but guiding hand. In the process some left and came back, and Avari seemed not to bat an eyelash when they came back, treating them as she treated everyone. Still, each loss cut into her.
She did, however, die, the victim of a serial killer who carved the numbers "5/21" into her chest. And that act, though she doesn't let on, has scarred more than her flesh. Even though Avari had befriended vampires and other undead or immortal creatures in her time, she cannot shake the belief that to return from the dead is somehow perverse. That she returned from the dead has intensely unsettled her, as if something in her is wrong since she returned. Though Avari lost one of her memories to that death, she doesn't know which one, or if that's truly the reason she'd unsettled.
Specific Abilities: To her everlasting irritation, Avari's skill set slot well with the traditional Bard class. She, quite vehemently, refuses to acknowledge this, but that doesn't make it any less true. Possessed of considerable reflexes and dexterity, Avari is nimble and she weilds her blades with grace, and her lockpick with a minimum of fuss. However, an injury to her knee has somewhat lessened the spring in her step. Though she compensates well, the sheer fact that she has to compensate is quite a drawback. In addition, because of her forge work, Avari is a bit stronger and stockier than she initially was, though only marginally above average. She's also adept in playing the flute, though it isn't a side of her she allows to be seen by many, let alone in public.
Where the comparison ends is with coercion and the expectation of a silver tongue. Avari is blunt and straight forward, often bordering on crass, and she is incapable of lying in any believable way. When she attempts to hide something, she clams up and generally behaves in such a stilted manner that it only draws further attention to her poor attempts at covering or lying. While she does have a head for stories, they also tend to veer away from more traditional Bardic fare, favoring abrupt and often anti-climactic endings. But I digress.
Avari also dabbles in magic, though dabbles might give the impression that she enjoys doing it. In point of fact, Avari has little control of her magic. Though she did go to mage school, briefly, she was forced out before she learned much of anything. What little she cobbled together in her mercenary years is largely simple, cheifly elemental in properties, and has a rather dramatic propensity to backfiring egregiously. As such, Avari is about as like to use a spell as most soldiers are inclined to use a grenade, and she will use it with the same general once-and-done tactics. Her true strength, and the only thing she's comfortable relying on, is her bladework.
Additional Information: I would like to bring in Azrael if I could as well. While he is not a familiar, he is possessed of intelligence. Said intelligence doesn't range much further than a lofty vocabulary and a snotty attitude, but it is worth mentioning that that cat is capable of telepathically projecting his thoughts in order to speak, either individually or to a group. He cannot, however, read another's mind, or otherwise hear with this ability. Beyond this, Azrael is a normal house cat. If this is not okay, however, that's perfectly understandable.
Sample Journal Post: Why not see her in action?
Sample Post: The air from the forge was hot, roasting, as it poured out the low door way. She had left it open in a vain attempt to promote a cross breeze through the small, glassless window set high in the opposite wall, but it didn’t seem to be doing much of anything. Soot hung heavy in the building, trapped by the squat roof and unwilling to climb out the little window, or the door, into the still evening air. Something else tinged the air amidst the soot, something electrically charged. It had practically cracked with each steady blow of the hammer, but now it was sizzling temperamentally.
The heavy air had reddened her eyes, and she again pulled one dirty sleeve across them now. The elf's fair, freckled skin was now sticky with soot and sweat, and she pushed the drenched strings of hair out of her face, back into the ratty braid as best she could. Letting the hammer drop to the anvil again, she shoved the half finished blade back into the embers, pumped the bellows twice to get them going hotter, and stepped back from the anvil, wiping blackened hands on her leather apron. The elf was weary, her arms felt like rubber, and she sank back on a simple stool by the door to watch the fire. Only her head titled back against the wall, and all she was really paying attention to anymore was the breeze.
There were plenty of blades in the small squat building, set up on pegs on the wall. But none of them sparked with energy the way the bare, unfinished metal in the fires did. None of them had quite driven the sharp pain into the base of her spine that this did. Settling both hands at the small of her back the elf shifted forward and arched her back. Stretching like that was painful, but so was not stretching, and soon enough there was a gratifying little pop as her back cracked. A little hiss escaped her and a barely intelligible grumble.
“Old bones aren’t what they used to be.”