Light of Heaven
âMy mother says she named me after the moon. I donât really know why, but itâs only a name, and Iâve made it mine.â
âMy mother says she named me after the moon. I donât really know why, but itâs only a name, and Iâve made it mine.â
Avicii || Lay Me Down feat. Adam Lambert
Sia || Breathe Me
Vienna Teng || Landsailor
Florence + The Machine || Landscape
âNobody is really all that simple, you know? Complexity makes us interesting; people can only bore you if you arenât looking at things the right way.â
âNicknameâ
[ Occasionally, really close friends will call her Len, or Lenni, or whatever other diminutive they can come up with. She doesnât mind. ]
âAgeâ
[ 19 ]
âGenderâ
[ Female ]
âSpeciesâ
[ Nephilim || Believed to be Human ]
âRoleâ
[ The Mage Prodigy ]
âFace Claimâ
[ Irisviel von Einzbern | Fate/Zero ]
âI know I look strange, alien even. I canât explain why; Iâve always been this way.â
âHair Colorâ
[ Silver-White ]
âEye Colorâ
[ Wine-Red ]
âSkin Toneâ
[ Fair ]
âHeightâ
[ 5â6â ]
âWeightâ
[ 125 ]
âPhysical Descriptionâ
[ To call Lenore distinctive-looking is like calling the White Tower a bit tall. Calling her lovely is like saying that the sun is somewhat luminescent. To put it simply, there isnât anyone else around who looks quite like her. The uniqueness of her appearance is predominately due to her hair color. The soft locks that crown her head are naturally the color of driven snow. They fall in a cascade to her thighs, the individual strands almost incandescent, as though capturing some internal light of their own, celestial to mimic the moonâs glow.
Her eyes are just as unusual, though perhaps more subtly so. Framed by thick lashes of a deep black, they are themselves the burgundy color of a fine wineâequal parts red, purple, and rich rose, favoring one or the other color depending on lighting conditions. There is something subtly knowing in them, a permanent light of harmless, gentle amusement. She seems, indeed, like she could never lay a hand on another being in anger or violence, not even a fly. She has a serene, calming presence about herself, and moves with a rare, seemingly natural grace that she does not seem to be aware of.
Her features are strikingly-beautiful, enough to warrant a double-take from quite a large number of people, actually, though she does not notice these either. Lenore seems to be halfway in her own world half of the time, and itâs a wonder she doesnât accidentally hurt herself more often. Lenoreâs build is one best perhaps characterized as willowy or slender, though thatâs not to say she is entirely lacking in musculature. Indeed, her form seems well-toned, as though she regularly exercises in addition to otherwise looking after herself.
She smells faintly of lilies and honey, just strongly enough that people frequently notice it about her. ]
âI never asked for this, you know. All my life, Iâve been under a magnifying glass, while everyone tries to pick apart my every flaw. I wish I could just tell them where those were, so theyâd let me be.â
âPotential Interestâ
Hm?: It would not be a stretch to call Lenore oblivious to things like love and sex. She seems entirely too wrapped up in the rest of her life to spare things like that any thought. She would say, perfectly straight-faced, that the blood of virgins has a lot of advantages in alchemy, and its easiest just to take it from herself when she needs it. Itâs honestly never occurred to her that she might be missing anything. She has her friends and her magic and a life she loves; what else could she possibly need?
âSkillsâ
- â
Dance || Lenoreâs natural grace lends itself well to dancing, and like many mages, she comes from a noble family, which means that there are certain skills, including ballroom dancing, that she was tutored in from a young age. More than being good at it, though, she genuinely enjoys it, and will often do so by herself or with Cally.
â Puzzles || Though some of her mannerisms are so innocent as to border on childlike, there is no mistaking that Lenore is truly brilliant when it comes to things like magic, riddles, puzzles, and other academic subject matter such as that. She has an unconventional way of looking at things, to be sure, but that serves her well in those cases where the conventional becomes burdensome or slow.
â Memory || For whatever reason, Lenore only needs to look at something once to remember it. This includes things she reads, events she witnesses, and peopleâs faces. The same goes for sounds and textures. If she has perceived it, she can recall it with exacting detail. Very useful for memorizing long and complicated magical incantations.
âAbilitiesâ
- â Magic || In terms of raw potential, Lenore is the strongest mage on the mortal plane, never mind Elysia alone. That said, she still has a ways to go when it comes to training, being rather young. Even with that said, there is a reason armies fear magic, a reason Dorthonion wants the might of Elysiaâs magic before it turns its conquering sights on its larger fellow countries.
â Fencing || Given that their services are often needed on border garrisons and in defense of the capital city, at least in theory, mages are trained at least on a basic level to use at least one weapon, in case of emergencies. In reality, it is more a form of exercise than anything, since most of them will never face a situation where such a thing is necessary. Lenore actually liked the lessons, unlike the majority of her colleagues and fellow students, so sheâd pretty talented with an epee, flamberge, or saberâall light, one-handed fencing weapons.
â Sanctification || Itâs not exactly conventional magic, at least not of any established type, but Lenore is somehow able to heal without alchemy, purify things like water and poison with only a touch, and created sanctified areas that cannot be entered without her invitation. For lack of a better term, the talent has been named sanctification, and is currently the object of study by the Headmaster of the Academy. It seems that nobody else can do it, though both she and the Headmaster are flummoxed by its nature.
âHabitsâ
- â Lip-Biting || A habit of hers when she is deep in thought, Lenore will often pull her lower lip between her teeth and worry it, potentially until it is bruised. She does not notice this when she is doing it, of course, and it is a sure sign that she is either thinking quite intently or else worried over something, which doesnât happen very often, given her nature.
â Humming || She has a strangely resonant voice, one that seems to carry a warm, whispery undertone, even when she is only speaking. Her humming is a musical sound, and occasionally when her mind is wandering, she will pick up the tune of a lullaby her mother taught her when she was young.
â Reading || A poor scholar she would make, if she did not enjoy reading. While she is capable of absorbing their content at an extremely fast rate, she doesnât often do so unless she is studying, because she prefers to savor the process of reading them.
âLikesâ
- አBooks || Books are the gateways not only to other worlds, but to the minds of other people. Lenore firmly believes that if a person finds the minds of other people boring, then they are not seeing things properly, blinded by prejudice or cynicism or something else. There is much wonder in the world, and one of the surest ways to get at that wonder is to see it through the eyes of another person.
አPlums || Thereâs something about the tartness of that particular fruit that has always appealed to her. It helps that the first memory she has of the sensation is coupled with one of her clearest memories of her childhood, and itâs a good one, so she has always cherished it.
አButterflies || There something about them⊠or anything with wings, really. She feels an envy of that which she canât really explain, and also a kinship that seems equally mysterious. Lenore enjoys animals and plants of all kinds, but especially butterflies and birds.
âDislikesâ
- â Crowds || Sheâs a bit uncomfortable surrounded by people, and tends to feel boxed in or trapped. At times, the press of so many nearby minds can also be difficult in other ways as well, and tends to amp up her magical sensitivity to almost unbearable levels. She is sensitive to the pain of others also, which makes it very difficult to be near the sick or dying.
â Gowns || To put it simply, she finds dresses to be inconvenient. They restrict her movement and make her feel confined, like being in a very close cage or something. She much prefers to wander about in trousers and tunics or else loose, breathable Academy robes.
â Violence || It goes with the general tendency to feel the pain of others. Lenore finds it difficult to imagine doing violence to anyone else, be they human, animal, or otherwise. She does not, however, tend to try and push her beliefs on other people, though she will generally make it known if she disagrees with something, at least if asked. She seems reluctant to judge anyone morally, actually.
âStrengthsâ
- ⊠Magic || Not many people have it, and nobody has as much potential as Lenore does. That makes for some pretty potent stuff, and there are no few other people in the world who would like to be able to control what she does with that magic, to say the least. It is whispered in some circles, very secretly, that it is Lenoreâs existence, and the rumor of her potential, which drew King Siegmundâs eye to Elysia in the first place.
⊠Angel-Blooded || Part of the reason for that magical potency is, in fact, the fact that Lenore is Nephilim, the offspring of a Deva with a non-Deva. She is not herself aware of this fact, and simply believes that her abilities are an accident of genetics.
⊠Intelligent || A flexible, intuitive mind is a strength of its own, and Lenoreâs ability to think may well be the best weapon she has in any given situation. Power, magic⊠all of that is meaningless without the intelligence and creativity to apply it.
âWeaknessesâ
- ⯠Naïve || Lenore is the poster child for social obliviousness. It would be a mistake to say that she automatically trusts anyone, but she does tend to see things in a much rosier light than is perhaps warranted. Additionally, she is not always the quickest to catch onto conversational implication or subtle meaning, because her mind works very differently from that belonging to the average person.
⯠Apprentice || In spite of her raw potential, Lenore is only about halfway through her ten-year term as an apprentice at the Academy, and so while she is much better at magic than the majority of her peers, she does not yet have the spell repertoire or expansive knowledge of a fully-fledged mage. There are many things she still doesnât know, though one can be assured that when she does come into her own, she will be a force to be reckoned with, a cannon amongst slingshots when compared to the average mage or soldier.
⯠Self-Esteem || Perhaps surprisingly, Lenore doesnât think all that highly of herself. Part of this is due to the fact that she was frequently bullied as a child, and put down by other children of nobles for being too âweirdâ or âstrange.â Back then, Cally was probably her only friend, and she caught flak for that, too, being the friend of the princess. When she came into her own, other mages bullied her out of jealousy, to keep her humble, or so they said. And she is, indeed, very humbleâalmost too much so, as she does not value herself at all, making herself rather susceptible to certain kinds of psychological manipulation.
âOtherâ
- Though she herself is unaware of it, Lenore is the only child of the archangel Michael, commander of the Deva race. This has given her a great deal of magical potential, as well as several unique properties, manifested in her appearance and also the scent and taste (and alchemical traits) of her blood.
âIâm a bit⊠peculiar, I suppose. Then again, maybe I always was.â
âPersonalityâ
Odd | Thoughtful | Protective | Optimistic
Lenore has often been termed an odd duck as the saying goes. This is because her mind doesnât seem to work in the same way other peopleâs minds do, and her thoughts can often carry her away on strange tangents that have her living inside her own head as often as she lives in the real world, so to speak. Not, she would remind you, that something is any less real just because itâs only in your head. She views the world through unusual lenses, so to speak, and this fact leads her to act in ways that are considered very bizarre in most social settings, especially at court.
She is surprisingly frank in her speech, and doesnât generally use the delicate turns of phrase that most courtiers are fond of. Make no mistake, her vocabulary is noticeably extensive, and the arcane verbiage she uses can sometimes leave her conversational partners baffled, but more than that, she is rather blunt. She is not so out of a cynical tendency or the desire to be rude or cruelâitâs more that she doesnât seem to understand why anyone ever says anything other than what they mean. Subtleties of a non-academic sort will often fly right over her head, and she can seem almost absent when it comes to reading social cues that most people would pick up on with no difficulty.
This is contrasted strangely with a deep well of empathy, one that leads to her being able to interpret the actions of others on a level that they are not always conscious of themselves. In an incident rather famous in certain circles, when she first met the young Headmaster of the Academy, the then-fifteen Lenore walked right up to him and informed him that he was lonely, a fact he found he could not deny. She then said that she would be his friend, if that would help matters, and considers them such to this day. Her lifelong friendship with the princess, whom she calls Cally with no regard for propriety, was started in a similarly strange fashion.
She does tend to spend a lot of time in her own head, or buried nose-deep in thick magical texts that would be considered difficult going for scholars thrice her age, but she does this with no sense of boredom or even struggle. The smallest of details can fascinate her endlessly, but on the converse, she often entirely bypasses things that everyone else would give a lot of attention to. Sheâs just wired differently, and it can make her hard to relate to, for those who do not know her well.
It may be true that she sees things in a rosier light than she really should, and that her odd mentality makes it hard for anyone else to understand what sheâs thinking, but there is still no mistaking that Lenore is exceptionally loyal, and very good to her friends. While the majority of people she has ever met disdain her almost immediately, dismissing her as oblivious or stupid or just too weird, those few who have taken an interest in her for her own sake have made themselves an ally for life, and she is very protective of them in her own way, always looking out for their interests in the ways she can. And as a mage, those ways are more numerous than one might expect. Lenore has a soft, tender heart, but catching it is rather like trying to cage the air: nearly impossible, but for those few who can manage it, there is scarcely a more rewarding accomplishment.
âWhere we come from does mean something. But not nearly as much as where weâre going. And I can only go forward.â
âHistoryâ
The first thing she remembers is a melody. A song, hummed by her mother at her cradle, and it is one that she can recite perfectly to this day, though the words to it are nothing she has ever heard. Lenore was born out of wedlock to the Lady Penelope Ourania, a duchess in the court of Elysia. It was a bit of a scandal, considering Penelope was unmarried when Lenore was born, and to this day, has not divulged the identity of her childâs father.
Bastard or not, Lenore was raised as the heir to House Ourania, one of the four most prominent houses in Elysia, alongside House Nishant, House Galdera, and House Pallas. This meant that her social status was always relatively high, but given her strange demeanor, unconventional from the time she was a very small child, and her technically illegitimate status, she was never held in esteem by the peerage, and surviving at court proved to be a difficult task, even after making fast friends with the young princess Calliope, or as Lenore would call her ever afterwards, Cally.
Mage children generally discover their gifts at around the age of fifteen or sixteen, when those believed to have it are sent to the White Tower, the location of the Academy, on the palace grounds for examination by those trained to measure potential. To say that Lenoreâs latent talent came as a shock to her examiner would be a vast understatement; she was immediately remanded for instruction at the Academy, not least of all because untrained magical talent can at times turn destructive, and nobody with any sense wanted to risk letting a child like her walk around untrained. It was at about this time that the incident with the headmaster, the youngest in Academy history and himself an extraordinary level 77 mage, occurred, and though it ended favorably for them, it also cemented Lenoreâs status as a pariah even among her classmates, and she was accused quite often of being pretentious or putting on airs.
As a result, she had few friends even in adolescence, but it never seemed to bother her. She has trained at the Academy for almost five years now, her talent and hard work combining to make her an exceptional student, and she herself greatly enjoying the pursuits she was now able to follow. She was nearly always to be found in the library, nose firmly in-book, and she was quite content with that and the few, but precious, good relationships she had in her life.
That was all before Dorthonion began to threaten war. Lenore is far from stupid, and the situation is clear to anyone who has bothered to think about it: even with all their magic and all their talent, Elysia cannot hope to stand against an Empire that huge without massive casualties and devastation. With diplomacy ground to a halt, Lenore knows that something has to be done to even the footing and make Dorthonion more likely to see the value in negotiating rather than fightingâand that means Elysia is going to need an ace up its sleeve that they do not currently have.
She has tried contracting with Deva and other, little-known extraplanar beings like djinn, but none of them care enough what happens to the mortal plane to bother contracting with her, though several have commented that they find her personally rather intriguing, for all the good thatâs done. With no other options left, she has decided to take a riskâand form a contract with an Asura. She expects that her current level of power will be enough to summon a mid-level knight of Infernoânot itself enough to call a halt to the war, but certainly enough to make Dorthonionâs king think hard about his strategy.
What she will actually call up from the Asuraâs realm is much, much more than that⊠and sheâs not the only one in for a surprise, either.
âEveryone has something to give. But⊠some of us were born with more to spare. I will keep bargaining away pieces of myself until nothing is left, if that is what it takes.â
