Role: Absentis
Gender: Female
Nickname(s)/Alias(es): Retch
Age: 19
Love Interest: Viola is alone right now, and unsure about love. And her familiar would most likely scare anyone away.
Appearance: Viola is the silent, sickly girl always standing in the corner of a room nearest the door. A slight wight of blight.
Her obscenely long hair is a heavy black, and frames her face in a way that shadows are deepened in the hollows and sides making her seem even more gaunt. The sockets of her eyes are blackened, even without shade and the skin in that area is irritated and red. This constantly tired expression makes Viola seem vulnerable. Even when walking, it is a stiff shuffle with arms drawn close to her body, and irregularly placed steps.
In ethereal form, the darkness wraps itself tight around her body in a thin and flexible suit. The black of this form makes it hard to discern any edges or break in the clothing. What little colour she has is consumed.
The disease from her locusts covers her hands and clings to her body in thick, ropey strands. It drips from elongated claw-like fingers and her hair, leaving a trail that dissipates into black mist that invades the lungs of passersby. The cause of many an unexpected coughing fit.
Preferred Clothing: Comfortable, dark-coloured, demure clothing. She usually wears loose skirts or dresses paired with a warm jacket or cardigan.
Height: 5’4
Weight: 94 lbs.
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Black
Notable Features: That obscenely long hair, those quiet eyes.
Personality: Viola keeps to herself except when she sees something that she can help out with. The maids in the house that she lived in during her life would often exclaim as she seemed to appear out of thin air to offer assistance. But apart from that, she isn’t one to try and connect to others.
Viola prefers to stick to the shade and away from crowds. This means taking detours through winding dark alleys and through back doors. If possible, she will run her errands in the evening or during grey days. In the end, the effort is worth it to draw the least amount of attention to herself.
Her death has not had much impact on Viola’s mental state. Even in life she had already felt detached from the rest of the world. She is, as ever; alone, glum, quiet.
When in ethereal form escorting a soul, Viola tries her best to act professionally and detached. But in truth, she cares deeply for the safety of the soul under her protection. No matter what kind of person her charge is, she is determined to protect them from the other fate worse than death.
Her shyness has gotten in the way of her ever making friends. After her death, she does not believe it possible, but given time she may again grow an attachment for someone.
Oddities: Viola always carries around a container of beetles or locusts in hand or in a bag which she likes to feed while she takes her own meals.
She feels extreme unease when being touched or being too close to another person.
Charm Points: Viola often tries to do things for people such as opening doors for them, doing their house-cleaning, and other small tasks that she feels she can help with. She feels most accomplished if she can do this without anyone noticing that it was her. If caught by normal people, they usually become disgusted that such a wretched thing was in contact with them.
When confronted with another’s charm, she will inadvertently stop breathing. Breathing resumes when the other party has departed or she realises that she is about to faint.
Likes: Winter and Autumn, fingers and hands, tragic films and literature, Francisco Goya and his house of the Black Paintings, dying fires and smoke, weeds, bones.
Dislikes: Summer, crowds, too much attention, hospitals, being held down, most perfumes.
Hobbies: Collects and makes taxidermy, bone, and other antique pieces. Also raises flesh eating beetles and rats.
Fears/Phobia(s): Kaius, infecting the wrong person with something she cannot cure, doctors, Richard Foley, Kaius coming out when she’s asleep, having her blood taken, musicians, and Kaius.
Skills: When in ethereal form, she is swift and precise with her strikes, but her body is still undeniably weak.
Powers: When fighting with her familiar, she can teleport between swarms and lash out from within them. Both the insects she uses and the black liquid that can become gaseous after a while are used to infect others as well as eat away at their flesh.
Her healing skill for mortal wounds is the weakest of the Absentii. At most, she could stop the subject from bleeding out of one wound.
Familiar: A swarm of locusts that can take on human shape. The buzzing of their wings can create a voice, and it has named itself Kaius. Kaius very much enjoys bullying Viola whenever he can. Oftentimes, he will forcefully guide her hand when in ethereal form.
Weapon: Hands covered in disease.
Fighting Style: Hand-to-hand combat. When fighting, her first priority is to nick the opponent and infect them. Then she will evade them and try her best not to get hit.
Personal History: Viola was, in her mortal life, a pianist. She suffered from a weak body and anemia. It was also hard for her to consume food, and she became too fragile to go outside. The piano became one of her only outlets.
She lived her life silently, practising and composing, watching out the window as people walked by her grandiose house. She saw something in their eyes, a secret language of looks. And her fingers wandered listlessly up the register as she struggled to understand why only she could not speak this language.
No one could understand her, someone who knew only the black and white of a keyboard. But that was all she was needed for. Her mother was an actress and her father a writer. They measured her worth by her talents, as they were measured in their time. And Viola was the product of their talent in parenting. When she kept falling in and out of favour with the Royal Conservatory, so she would fall in and out of favour with her parents. Her presence in their eyes flickered like a flame in wind. She considered stopping. No more music, no more being inside while the rest of the world passes outside. No more wondering what it would be like to feel happy, doing something that she loved.
Then, she met him when she was seventeen. Because she was unable to make it big as a soloist, Viola had recently decided to try being an accompanist and the Conservatory supplied her with a suitable cellist. Richard Foley was twenty-one, and played such music as to wake sleeping passion in Viola’s heart. He played all for himself and any audience who would listen. For two years they made music together. Viola began to enjoy her own music as well. Somehow, playing with this person made her life before seem like a monochromatic dream. Viola could not help but fall under the influence of this person.
However, she was not the only one to grow attached to the other. Richard had obtained a gift, a little pianist to enhance his own music. She was easy to control and already willing to stay with him. He became insanely possessive, wanting all her talent for his own use. Viola began to see this as she was torn between obligation to her parents and Richard’s constant hounding. She still did not know if she could truly be happy with her music, but she knew that she did not want to be used. After practising in Richard’s house, she decided that it was the last time and told him that she was no longer going to be studying music. She was not going to perform again.
In response, he struck her legs and bound her, then threw her body into the attic while promising to let her out once she was willing to cooperate. But when Richard turned to go back down the ladder, Viola used the last of her strength to hook her leg around his foot. She was rewarded with the sound of his body falling forward down towards the landing and the weight of his body falling onto his neck and head.
She was now alone, but too weak and bound too tight to escape. In that attic Viola rotted away and died.
The next time she gained consciousness, she was lying on a bed of locusts. They had eaten through her bindings and she was free to move, but dying once was a bit too much for her. The locusts, which she would later come to learn were to be her familiar, carried her off to an abandoned apartment and watched over her as she recovered. Possibly the single kind thing that Kaius has ever done for her.
She now works in an antiques shop below her apartment.
Theme Song: Philharmonics by Agnes Obel
Guess who died last night
In grey stockings, in all might
It was no loss
The only God of mine
He fell down just to drown
In a sea of delight
To tame champagne
And creatures of the night
As the water took him over
Filled his lungs inside out
I sold his gold
For flowers and rice
Speaking fire, he would hire
Pawns and peasants just like me
To feed upon the conquered ones
But now we are free