Ompha application

[sorcerer_vaati]

PLAYER
NAME: J
AGE: 27
PERSONAL LJ: hylian_shadow
LOCATION: Arkansas, United States [Central Timezone]
EXISTING CHARACTERS: MM Link [doublehelixhero]

CHARACTER
THE BASICS
NAME(S): Vaati the Wind Sorcerer
CANON & TIMELINE: The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap [just after final battle + several months of post-game living in zelda_dressing]
CHARACTER TYPE: Mostly canon
AGE: 25 by Minish reckoning, appears 16 - 17

THE CHARACTER
APPEARANCE:
In his human form, Vaati stands 5'2" and weighs roughly 100 pounds. He looks Hylian, pointed ears and all, but his hair is a light purple color and his skin pale lavender; his eyes are red with oval-shaped pupils. Except for rare instances of needing it out of his way for delicate work, he always wears his hair loose. He wears a purple tunic over red pants and red sandals with straps around his legs, as well as a yellow belt with a yellow-and-red buckle. It isn't visible, but he also has a high-necked, long-sleeved black shirt on under his tunic. He also wears a dark purple cape and a matching hat with a large red stone along the yellow brim. He has a mark on each cheek, a black arc curving along his cheekbone under his eye, with a second arc stretching down from the middle of the first; they look vaguely like tornadoes. Though rarely seen, he also has a long, narrow scar curving along his ribs on his left side, a souvenir of his battle with the hero. [ visual reference]

Vaati also has his Minish form and what he calls his 'amplified' form. His Minish form is tiny, just two or so inches tall and light as a feather. He looks vaguely animal-like, with a long almost snout-like nose and large eyes; his skin coloration is the same. As a Minish, he has paws like a rodent instead of feet, and his 'tornado' marks are so faint as to be nearly unnoticeable. He wears a purple conical hat and a long purple robe in this form. [ visual reference]

In his amplified form, his magic and connection to the wind (and all the good and bad traits associated with it) are heightened. He stands roughly 5'7" and weighs roughly 140 pounds. He looks like an older version of himself with long lavender hair pulled back from his face and an ornate purple robe that clings to his chest and flares outward at roughly his hips; the robe is longer than he is tall and billows in a breeze that perpetually surrounds him, so it appears as if he has no legs. (Though he still does, and he wears black slacks and knee-high black leather boots underneath the robe.) In this form, he has a copper line stretching from mid-chest to mid-stomach; this line is where the eyelids meet for a large red eye on his torso. When he has this third eye open, he can "see" magic as a glowing haze around people/things/places. [ visual reference]

PERSONALITY:
The first thing most people would notice about Vaati is that he's very arrogant. He sees himself as the greatest sorcerer in the world, and as such, everyone else is weaker than him, and he treats everyone that way as well. He's cocky and proud, and it's rare that he does something the mundane way when magic can do the same, especially if someone's watching.

After all of the time he's spent trying to prove himself, he tolerates no weakness in himself. That isn't to say he doesn't recognize his limits, as he knows good and well what he can and can't do, but he also knows what he can push and what he can't. He tends to push the limits he knows he can, purely to get stronger. His pride also rears its head when someone else is around; it's a rare person indeed who ever hears him admit to needing help.

Despite his fascination with humans and all the time he has spent as one, he still sees himself as Minish. Many "human" customs and such confuse him, though he has little interest in learning what they are and how they work. To him, it's irrelevent. It didn't help him when he tried to take over the world, and even though now he's trying to figure out what to do with himself, he still doesn't understand a lot of things about humans and is either too busy to care or too unwilling to admit he doesn't know.

Vaati tends to hide his emotions behind smirks and neutral expressions, except around the few people he actually deems trustworthy. He has a bit of a temper, and he tends to counter even slight irritations with snarky comebacks and pointed comments, looking for anything that might come in handy for getting answers or as something to keep in mind.

He's recently calmed down somewhat, losing his former lust for power and some of his arrogance -- but not all. He no longer sees himself as better than everyone else by default, but he's still well aware of the skill he's honed, and he has no qualms whatsoever showing that skill off. He's also learned that humans aren't all stubborn, ignorant fools and that at least a handful of them are actually trustworthy. It's been hard for him to admit that and trust others, but there are those he actually cares for. Most humans are still to be watched closely and potentially milked for information, but some are worth protecting, and those few are the only ones he ever drops his guard around.

When it does come to the few people he cares about, attacking them is worse than attacking him. He bears grudges, and he will get even. He may not be evil, but he isn't entirely nice, either.

Regarding his forms, he sees his Minish form as tiny and a bit of a liability most of the time (mostly because he's used to spending so much time around humans and other things that could squash a Minish flat without even noticing), while his amplified form makes it easier for him to feel the wind and mix with it, though he tends to only use it when he needs the extra power. This is partly not wanting to be attacked for being a monster and partly keeping his trump card well hidden.

One thing he will not admit to is that he has absolutely no idea what he should do. He's trying to continue his studies and hone his skills further, but there's the question of "...and then what?" that looms ahead, and he doesn't have an answer to that.

Vaati isn't particularly showy about it, unless his greeting the dawn/dusk with song counts, but he's animistic.

HISTORY & WORLD-BUILDING:
The Minish are a hidden race in Hyrule, a race of tiny beings no larger than a human thumb. The fairy tales of Hyrule speak of them as the Picori and say that only children can see them; many think they don't actually exist. But they do, some living among humans while others remain in the Minish realm. As a general rule, the Minish love helping people, leaving them gifts or helping them with their work or hiding treasures like spare Rupees in the grass for people to find. They're a jovial, fun-loving race.

One of these little people, however, wasn't quite so friendly.

Once, a Minish village was destroyed by a tornado, leaving only a single survivor: a little boy who had, at the very last moment, heard a voice in the storm and wandered away from all of the others. From that moment on, that little boy heard the voice of the wind.

The boy was taken in by a nearby village. The villagers quickly found that the nameless boy had a strong gift for magic and that he was a clever little thing. The sage Ezlo offered to take the boy on as his apprentice, since surely one so gifted would end up great. The elders, seeing the boy's survival as an omen, named the boy after the storm that spared him: Vaati, the Minish word for "tornado".

His name wasn't the only thing that set him apart, however. Vaati's knack for magic was almost entirely focused on wind magic, something unknown and foreign to the much more earth-centered Minish magic. His appearance set him apart as well; Minish normally have blond or brownish hair, peach-toned skin, and dark eyes, a far cry from Vaati's purples and red.

For a while, things went well. Ezlo began teaching Vaati the basics of crafting and magic, and Vaati eagerly studied everything he could. But Ezlo, great as he was, wasn't truly prepared for the task of training an apprentice, especially one as intelligent as Vaati. To him, the boy was slacking off, speeding through his work and spending far too much time reading things that had nothing to do with his studies, watching the humans who lived nearby, or just sitting around talking to himself. The fact that such a distracted slacker could still answer any and all questions about his studies only frustrated Ezlo more.

It also frustrated Vaati. He saw it as his master trying to hide knowledge from him, holding him back from where his studies should rightfully be by denying him the answers he sought. He grew tired of being called an idiot and a slacker, and he resented Ezlo for mocking the wind's voice as a figment of his imagination. The near constant teasing from others his age didn't help, and Vaati started spending more and more of his free time hiding in the mushroom forest near the village instead of staying around other Minish.

Eventually, Vaati started sneaking Ezlo's journals and other books from the sage's study, deciding that since the strongest humans he saw took whatever they wanted, he would, too. All of the knowledge he "wasn't ready for", yet he claimed, anyway. To his chagrin, some of it he truly wasn't ready for, but he saw that not as an end but a challenge. Those that were within his understanding he studied voraciously, determined to prove he wasn't the slacker his master claimed. At the same time, Ezlo began working on a project for the humans -- a magical hat that granted wishes -- and spent long days in his workshop, ignoring his apprentice entirely.

One day, Vaati found a book of legends, of the Force and the holy blade given to the humans long ago and of the doorway between the two worlds that opened once every hundred years. Ezlo wanted to have his hat finished before that day, so Vaati knew exactly when it was. And he made his choice. With the Force, he could make his master respect his power and skill. With the Force, he could make everyone respect him. He'd show them all. He'd prove to all of them once and for all that he was just as great of a sorcerer as any of them -- if not better.

But first, first he had to ensure his master couldn't interfere. He waited patiently, and the day before the gateway was to open, his master finally left his workshop open and untended. By the time Ezlo returned, Vaati had claimed the Hat of Wishes for himself and wished for power. To reward his master for his devotion to a hat, Vaati turned Ezlo into one -- a living, talking hat with the head of a bird, capable of hopping around, but unable to pose a threat. Vaati then left for the human world and put his plan into action.

Using the magic and fencing skills he'd learned without his master's knowledge, he easily won the swordsman's tournament and won the right to approach the sacred Picori Blade. From there, he shattered the Picori Blade, unleashed a wave of monsters, and turned the human princess into stone.

Eventually, he found that the Force slumbered within the body of the petrified Princess Zelda and set to extracting it, not caring if the princess survived or not. With the Force, he would be great. With the Force, he would be as a god. But there had been one young swordsman who tried to stop him, and that swordsman returned with the holy blade reforged and challenged him before he could finish extracting all of the Force from the princess. Nevertheless, Vaati gathered what Force he had and set out to destroy the hero once and for all.

In the end, however, Vaati had made one assumption: he had assumed that he could control the Force, but it was the Force that controlled him, twisting and distorting his body to feed his desire for power. The hero struck him down, but didn't kill him.

The next thing Vaati knew, he was in a field he didn't recognize, and the brat was gone. He had somehow found himself in a Hyrule that wasn't his own, surrounded by heroes from all times, though the brat was notably absent. Vaati quickly ascertained that his powers weren't sealed and set out to take over this new Hyrule as his own kingdom. For a while, that was what he did, scheming behind the scenes and waiting for the right moment.

But then the colored Links showed up, namely one in red and one in blue. The one in blue was ever so much fun to goad into a fight, and the one in red laughably easy to startle, and Vaati enjoyed tormenting them. They asked him questions that he couldn't answer, and for a while, he ignored the words entirely. But they kept coming back to him. Red called him a good guy; Blue suggested finding a house and making a life for himself.

Vaati decided to make himself a home, claiming a windmill as his own and using it as a place to study every book he could get his hands on. At some point (he isn't really certain when), he stopped wanting to rule the world and instead wanted to merely master as much magic as he could. It took some doing, as the final rounds in the battle so many weeks before had cost him all of his acquired power and he was forced to start farther behind than he saw himself, but do it he did.

Not long after, he found a hero in a tree. The hero, Linksha, ended up being ever so much fun to torment, and he seemed impressed with Vaati's magic; this combination led to Vaati keeping tabs on the human for entertainment. Linksha also had an impressive knack for pushing Vaati's buttons, and eventually the human managed to get Vaati to talk about his past, and Vaati ended up blurting it all out. He expected it to get used against him in some way or form, but that didn't happen. Instead the human started trying to help Vaati figure things out and feel better about the situation.

It took time and they got in more than their share of arguments, but eventually Vaati learned to trust 'his human', as he took to calling Linksha. Through Linksha, Vaati met the other people he grew to trust, and it helped reinforce what Red and Blue had convinced him about humans being more than Vaati had given them credit for being. (He still doesn't admit this to most humans, however.) It's because of Linksha that Vaati calmed down. Red and Blue started it, but Linksha was the one who helped him figure out the things he has.

It's also due to a chain of events that Linksha (accidentally) started that Vaati discovered that his amplified form wasn't strictly due to the Force he'd siphoned from Princess Zelda, and that he can assume it at will, provided he has enough magic to do so. Vaati also used his magic in defense of the town he lived in when it came under siege, and again when one of his comrades was captured by Ganondorf.

Not long after, Vaati decided he needed a sentinel, something to watch the town at all times. He finally decided to magically create a servant for such a purpose. He chose the form of a winged eye, much like the creatures he'd summoned when fighting the brat so long ago. For several days he worked at carefully crafting the servant's form from cloth and thread, adding in some of his hair to help create the connection between creator and created. Finally, when it was ready, he gathered the supplies he would need, told Linksha he needed room and time to work the spell, and headed up into the mountains. There, he cast the spell and awakened his little servant and, exhausted by the effort, found a place to rest a while.

He woke up in the cenote.

THE DETAILS
STRENGTHS/SKILLS/ABILITIES:
Vaati's most important skill/ability, in his eyes, is his ability to hear the wind. As long as there's airflow where he is, he can hear it singing and talking to him. For the most part, it tells him of the layout of an area and the people and creatures in it and motion -- the same kinds of things that normal senses reveal with a good look around. It can also tell him of magic in an area, if he can understand it.

He's very skilled with wind magic. He can use it to attack, defend, fly, and teleport. He can create a blade of wind to use as a rapier. He can also call up small balls of fire and hurl them around, though nowadays he uses it mostly to start fires and light lamps. He can also curse people into stone statues, though he's a bit out of practice with it and would have trouble since his power has changed. Vaati can also shapeshift (he assumed the form of King Daltus in canon); transforming is energy-intensive enough that he sticks to his own natural forms. It's easier on him that way. His alternate form are his Minish form (his true form) and his amplified form. Even shifting to these takes him a few minutes. In his amplified form, his third eye can see magic as glowing auras.

Vaati is intelligent, observant (when he's not working on something, that is), and stubborn. He's able to focus his thoughts on a single goal, something used to great effect with his magic. Eloquent and naturally wary of others, he can twist his words to hide his true meaning.

Vaati's more mundane skills include cooking and sewing. He can read and write Hylian and Minish; his handwriting is very neat and precise. [I'm assuming that since Minish is spoken only by, well, Minish that the spores would have trouble translating it]. He moves gracefully, whether dancing or fighting. He's somewhat skilled with a rapier, combining it with magic to turn the tide in his favor. He also sings, as Minish tend to do while they work, but though he can carry a tune, he's merely an average singer.

LIMITATIONS:
The most obvious limitation is evident in his title: Wind Sorcerer. His magic is almost entirely based on manipulating air, and aside from his simple little fire spell and his stone curse, he can't do much else. Because of this and his connection to wind, he also can't stand being in tight, confined spaces -- if the air can't move easily, it makes him feel trapped, and when he feels trapped enough, he starts to panic and can't focus his magic properly. His teleportation magic is very solidly limited to places he has been and can distinctly visualize, i.e., places he's specifically made it a point of knowing. He can't teleport to just any of the little caves, but once he sets one up as his own and makes it distinctive, he can teleport there. His transformations take time, and if interrupted, he may end up losing the energy [Minish <-> human] or ending up stuck in an awkward half-shifted form that makes it harder to move and focus [human <-> amplified].

Being a mage, he is sensitive to the flow of energy. This means he can sense magic. This also means that the natural fluxes in the energy of the caves [i.e., new arrivals] are going to give him headaches. Vaati tends to get pissy when he has a headache; it's harder for him to focus on what he wants to do. Also, whereas the wind can tell him all kinds of things, if he can't understand the message, it does him no good. And being in an alien environment, the vast majority of what he hears will be unintelligable or worthless due to the language barrier between the magic he's used to and the energy in the caves.

He also sometimes gets himself into trouble by letting his pride get in the way and insisting he can do something he knows he can't. It's hard for him to even ask one of the few people he trusts to help him with something he's convinced he can or should be able to do. His stubborn streak also leads him to being hard to convince of things sometimes.

He also has the slight problem of even now feeling the urge to flee from large creatures; it's a holdover from growing up two inches tall.

EQUIPMENT/PETS:
Vaati has a backpack containing the following: his journal of notes, a couple of quills, a small bottle of ink, three sticks of chalk [white, red, and blue], a small sewing kit [thread, needles, small pair of scissors, etc], some trail rations, a bottle of water, a pair of knee-high black leather boots, and the pouch normally worn on his belt. The pouch holds non-essentials like a few Rupees, a couple of random Kinstone pieces, two chess pieces [two knights, one black and one white], and a couple of strings of smoky gray beads. He also has a rapier, but he doesn't carry it with him. When he needs it, he calls it, weaving it from solidified wind and returning it to wind when he's done with it.

Vaati also has a necklace that was given to him by Linksha. The necklace is a circular malachite and rose-gold locket on a rose-gold chain. Inside the locket are four pictograph panels that snap out into a 2x2 grid. The four pictographs are: a lovely woman and a large man, each carrying an infant; a younger Linksha, a pony, and three other humans, one of whom looks like a more feminine version of Linksha; the same young woman holding a little boy; and a picture of Vaati, drawn by Linksha, that covers a pictograph of a beautiful blond woman. The back of the locket is engraved in foreign script. [Description courtesy linkshaia]

Also with Vaati is his creation/servant Aifor. Its body and wings are entirely made of cloth, though the wings have been stiffened to give them the stability to support Aifor's small weight. Aifor's body is roughly the size of a softball, and its wingspan is roughly a foot and a half. Aifor has two little feet made of stiffened cloth claws that can curl up into balls; the feet are attached to its body by very short little cylinders. They're short enough that Aifor walks by partially spreading its wings and waddling.

Aifor is colored like its master, with a purple body, lavender 'webbing' in its wings, and a single large red eye ringed by large coppery 'lashes'. It has no mouth but is capable of speech. Its voice is higher-pitched and sounds like a child, which isn't helped by Aifor's simple vocabulary. The little watcher is very intelligent and highly observant, though it sometimes has to make up words to describe what it sees. On occasion, if Vaati feels like it, he can literally see through Aifor's eye, but to do so, he has to block his own vision and focus on their connection, and that can leave him a sitting duck.

It is fiercely devoted to its master, listening to Vaati over all others. If given a choice, it prefers to be near its master as much as it can, and as such, it spends a lot of time perching on its master's shoulder or flying behind him. For those who can sense such things, Aifor's aura feels like an extension of Vaati's, because it is. Aifor's one means of defending itself is to teleport itself back to Vaati's side; apart from shrieking and squeaking, there's little Aifor can do to attack. Because of Aifor's size, it also can't carry much weight.

THE WRITING
SAMPLE - LOGS:
His first waking thought is that this isn't Death Mountain. He slowly opens his eyes and looks around, trying to move as little as possible. A cave of some sort, it seems. He knows he wasn't in a cave before, yet here he is.

He groans lowly -- he should not ache this much, even after a working like that -- and works himself up into a sit. As he does, something falls to the ground beside him with a soft whump.

A mushroom cap. It's a strange shade of blue he hasn't seen until now, and it seems to be ever-so-faintly glowing.

"What magic is this?" he murmurs, carefully picking it up for a better look.

"It pretty," a soft voice says; it's close.

Vaati snaps his head towards the sound and reels, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth as the world lurches around him. It doesn't hurt, strangely; instead, he feels unbalanced and disoriented, and every muscle aches like he's done far, far more than he has.

"Master?" the voice says again; it's even closer.

Something lands on one hand, and he opens an eye enough to peer at it. It's the mushroom cap.

"Who's there?"

There's a squeak not far from his ear before something small and soft lands on his shoulder and starts working towards his head; he can feel tiny claws pulling at his tunic. "It me, Master."

Ah, yes, his little watcher. He'd scarsely had the time to see it awake before now. He reaches up and strokes one of the cloth wings. "So I see. Did you find this?"

"Yeah! It pretty!"

"Where did you find it?"

"I not know. There lots here!"

The little watcher is right. The mushrooms are everywhere, from tiny to massive; their caps are all colors, and indeed, there are plenty of combinations he has never seen. Many of them are glowing, the same faint, gentle blue as the one he has.

He doesn't know of any place in Hyrule with mushrooms like this. He checks; no, he's still in his human form, so that doesn't explain this.

He grits his teeth again and pulls himself up to his feet. :Wind, show the way out.:

He barely gets the words out before he regrets asking. The wind screams in his ears, but he can't understand most of it -- and the little bit he can still understand doesn't make any sense. Caverns and mushrooms and what is going on here? He's on his knees before he even realizes it; the air's all wrong here.

It reminds him of when he found himself in the new Hyrule, only much, much worse. No, he refuses to accept that possibility. This place must be some place in Hyrule, odd magic and mushrooms or no.

Vaati glares at one of the nearby mushrooms. Perhaps this is all some strange dream or hallucination; perhaps if he rests a bit and properly recovers... yes, perhaps then this will make more sense. It can't make much less.

SAMPLE - MESSAGE:
Oooh, water talk! Water smart, like me! [A squeak; the voice sounds almost like a child's.] Hi water! I is Aifor! What you called?

What are you doing? [His voice is farther away and older sounding.]

I is talking to water!

Yes, I see that. Are you certain that's water? It doesn't look like any water I've ever seen.

It feel like water. See? [A small splashing sound that's louder than it should be.]

Aifor, stop that!

Stop what? [Cloth rustles, followed immediately by a frantic squeak and a splash.]

Aifor!

[The sound distorts, the voices drowned out by loud, mostly rhythmic splashes and more frantic squeaks.] It heavy! Master, help! It heavy!

[Abruptly it all stops aside from a gentle drip. Someone growls.] What am I going to do with you?

I not like heavy...

There's not much I can do about that now, now is there? [A heavy sigh.] Very well, let's find somewhere to dry you out.