Paracelsus App

[blackskyfalling]

Player Information
Name: Myf
Pronoun: Her
E-mail: myfanwycariad[at]gmail[dot]com
Other Contact: Steam (I think right now it's [TDLM] Space Balls: The Lunch Box or something like that)

Character Information
Name: Ashtaroth Serafima Vorinskaia
House: Vorinsky (/Almagoras)
Birthplace: Corinth, Greece (Moved to St. Petersburg with her mother soon after the massacre)
Birthdate: September 14th, 1977
Age: 19
Gender: Female

Physical Details
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Black
Height: 5'11"
Body Type: Slender
Appearance Notes: Ashtaroth is her own little rain cloud. While she is a tall girl, she would be taller if she didn't hunch her shoulders so much. She prefers dark colours, navies and greys and most certainly black. She wears no jewelry or other accessories, but tends to wear heavier fabrics, stating that she gets cold easily. Her hair is thick and reaches mid-back; she rarely pulls it back, but is always pushing it behind her shoulders.
And it's not to say she doesn't smile- she does. But it's a slow and heavy thing and some question its sincerity. More often, though, her expression is either blank or stifling anger- the latter moreso since returning from summer break.
She's a slow walker and tends to keep apart from others, clearly preferring to have a wider bubble of personal space than most. Sometimes she seems to hide in her hair. She often avoids eye contact.
PB: Naomi Misora, Death Note

Life Details

Background: Ashtaroth was born two years after her brother, Aharon, in 1977. Her mother, Rotem Vorinsky, was promised from a young age to Eiranaios Almagoras. Their fathers were fellow businessmen, and decided a match between their children would be favourable. It was no love match, Rotem and Eiranaios were dependable, loyal and dutiful to each other, and their house was calm and content. Ashtaroth and Aharon were pleasant, agreeable children, and despite the vague disapproval of the extended families, lived peacefully in their father's house in Corinth. This upset some of the Vorinsky House, and there was usually a steady stream of relatives coming to visit, to make sure the children were as well versed in Russian as they were in Greek, and that their mother did not let them forget whose children they really were, and that was not of the Almagoras line.
Both children were present at the feast, neither quite old enough to understand what was going on. As tensions seemed to rise throughout the night, their mother ushered them into an unused bedroom to sleep and let the adults talk. Talking is not what they did- screams and spells rang out, and the children awoke in darkness, frightened, able to smell smoke and rotting plants from underneath the door.
The door burst open- a hand grabbed one child. An arm pulled another. Ashtaroth found herself in her mother's arms, with Aharon's name on her lips, but the boy was lost in the confusion outside in the hall.
Ashtaroth would not know for a long time what had happened that night, or why. The Vorinskies came for them and absorbed them once more into the fold. Her mother was treated as though this were, in some part, her fault. There was no finding Aharon- he had gone missing, or was dead. No one seemed to know or care. The Family looked after them, but did nothing more. Had they been any other family, they would have been destitute. Name meant something, but- that was all. Only the name.
Ashtaroth's childish pleasantness gave way to sullenness. She was taught superbly as she grew up, taking to music as both an escape and future profession. No one pushed her towards politics or civil work and she did not press the matter. Perhaps no one in the family would have wanted her name out there; that was the feeling she got, anyway.
Paracelsus Academy was a welcome respite from her home life. Her mother had become a broken woman, weeping without any prompting, wandering the halls late at night and early in the morning, looking through Ashtaroth whenever they had reason to speak, even when her mother seemed lucid. Paracelsus introduced her to people her own age, some with agendas, some without- a much more acceptable environment than the one she had come from. She opened up, cast off some of her sullenness. Made friends, worked hard. Mending and shifting emerged as her abilities and her professors encouraged her power and her musical talent. The only downside was the dread of returning home for holidays and breaks, and the looming Sealing that her heritage promised.
She had no idea who her "partner" would be. Knowing how strange it was for it to be kept from her, nonetheless she gained no clues into the identity of her opponent, though she had a plethora of distant relatives to choose from. When her eighteenth birthday came and her power began to wane, she felt suddenly and strangely calm- what did it matter who it was? She cared for very few of her family. She prepared as best she could, her swordsmanship passable, her shifting weakened and her mending presumably useless in a battle.
Arriving at the time and place specified during that not-short-enough summer break between August and September, Ashtaroth was presented with an all-too familiar, all-too foreign face. The confident grin that met her fell into horrified whiteness, mirroring her own shocked look. Older, yes, but twelve years could not erase her brother's face from her memories. Aharon was to be her opponent.
Perhaps it was a punishment. Or a joke. A quick glance around told them that this was a serious matter, regardless of what they thought. Unable to talk to one another, to cry or apologize, even to touch, they could only stare.
Aharon struck first.
It was not a long battle. She did not think her heart was in it, but when his rapier cut across her shoulder, she went into action. Cats' claws, bursts of fire, the swipe of a blade or a leg: the siblings seemed equally matched. The match was Ashtaroth's, however, when in a moment of desperation she used her mending to induce necrosis inside of him, causing his organs to rot inside of him. Not a pleasant death. Ashtaroth finished the Sealing and absorbed him, but was sick for days afterwards, and almost missed the beginning of school because of it. The ordeal left her mother no better off.
Ashtaroth did return to school, distant and cold, completely changed even from when she first came to Paracelsus. She has spoken to no one of what occured. If any outside of the Family that attended the duel were there, they have said nothing of it to anyone, or else the others have learned of it, were satisfied, and see no reason to say anything. Ashtaroth cares little for what the answer is. Her magic returned to her, she has fallen into wondering if it was worth it, if it only means for her to be trapped within the Family for another two centuries.

House Politics: Ashtaroth has little interest in House politics and even less in her House in general, though she would never admit as much aloud. She'd much rather escape them, if she could, and tends to keep on the outskirts of most conflicts. She also recognizes she would not be much welcomed into the arena by her extended family, and so is content to keep away and focus on her future separate from House ideologies. She has two hundred years to plan for, after all, and to do it as quietly and discretely as she can. She remains wary of House Patisse as well, always wondering if they had anything to do with her brother's disappearance and maybe, just maybe, if there's anything else they have planned and aren't telling anyone...

Personality: The difference a few weeks can make! People who knew Ashtaroth before her Sealing would say a different girl came back. Then she was sullen, yes, but longed for friendship and welcomed it when she found it. She was like a summer storm, patient and kind one moment, hot and angry the next, always with some underlying desperation. She never seemed to much care that others of her House tended to ignore or look down on her. Being happy was never her strong suit, but neither did she press her sullenness on others, used to being apart from others.
She's different now. Before, her distance was to keep herself away from others- now it's to keep others away from her. Dutiful as ever, she performs everything with the same clear head and calm hands, but her attitude towards others is cold and distrustful, and her temper is shorter and easier to trigger than before. She's not a big fan of people at the moment, and prefers to keep her attention on her studies.

Flaws: Ashtaroth was never known for being the best at rational thinking when angry. Once her fuse is blown, it stays that way, and she remains unforgiving and angry despite logic that might say she should reconsider. She's rarely had reason to work through troubles with others and prefers to dismiss issues outright than deal with them. This happens more regularly now since her Sealing, frustrated in general with her situation and has found lashing out to be the only real means of expressing that. She remains inordinately stubborn.
She has also become much more secretive, distrusting of others, particularly those of her own House, though that doesn't mean anyone else is exempt. It is slowly building to a place of paranoia now, and most peoples' motives are questioned, inwardly if not outright. She knows she's been humiliated and betrayed and knows it to be for reasons beyond her helping. She keeps toying with ideas of betraying her House, but that's probably not the smartest thing to do.
But she's young, and she's angry, and she's not known for being rational when she's angry.

Beneath that anger is the absolute horror and disgust of what she's done and who she's done it to. She feels unclean since Aharon's death at her hands, but has no idea how to deal with it, or with her own mother's reaction to it. Having received her share of crazed verbal abuse from her mother on the subject, she has taken the ranting as though she's deserved it and internalized it, skewing her perception of herself and worsening an already negative viewpoint.

Magic and Skill Details

Magic and Skills:

MENDING: Ashtaroth is a skilled healer, though most definitely still in the process of learning. She is meticulous and careful but speed is still against her, so that is her current area of focus. It should be easier now since the Sealing, since most of her eighteenth year saw her power flickering like a lightbulb about to go out.
Minor injuries and illnesses are easy, but anything beyond that takes longer to heal- a broken leg, three or four days. Fatal wound? Let's give it a week or two. On the plus side, there'll probably be no scarring and nothing out of place. Perfection takes time, after all.
Though she'd heard of the possibility, of course, she'd never thought to try out the idea of reversing her healing's effects until her Sealing. Seems she has a bit of a knack for that, too, though she has no conscious plans to test it again anytime soon.

SHIFTING: Perhaps brought on by her desire to hide, Ashtaroth caught on to shifting quite easily, and often takes time-outs in the form of a raven or a cat, getting herself up into high places away from others. This is something she does easily, having gotten a lot of use out of it outside of the classroom. She toys with the idea of doing something a little more imaginative sometimes, maybe something with size or composition but, as of late, hasn't had much interest in experimenting with the skill. Forms so far include:
-Black cat
-Raven
-Black leopard
-Starling
-Black labrador
The first two are the easiest due to usage, and she can stay in them longer. The others require more concentration to shift into and give her less time in the form of.

MUSIC (cello): Her mundane skill. Sparked in childhood, it is one of few things she's kept to and enjoyed that might actually give her a passable skill in adulthood, and has dedicated the appropriate amount of time to it, though very little love, and if she's to be found anywhere that isn't a roof, it's likely the music room, practicing her cello playing. Family has been kind enough to offer her auditions to several orchestras once she's done her studies, though she would prefer to get those auditions on her own. She has no desire to entwine her magic into her music and prefers to keep it wholly separate.


~*~*~*~*~Addendum~*~*~*~*~
Ashtaroth went missing several times after her return to Paracelsus. Part of it was for growing hostility towards her own House, with reprimands and forced promises for improved behaviour. The last time has lasted up to several months- with all else going on and her own lowly status within the House, not much has been remarked upon. She has recently returned, stating that her mother had fallen gravely ill, and Ashtaroth had gone back to St. Petersburg to take care of her until she became better.

In truth, Ashtaroth did not go home. She did not go anywhere- Ashtaroth remained at Paracelsus for the whole of those few months, simply not in her own form. As a cat, or a raven, or a little black starling, Ashtaroth has kept to the campus throughout the winter and has kept abreast of all that has happened in the interim.

Unable to control her anger any longer, she traded one existence for another. Any time a student on campus has made note of an overly curious raven or a black cat decidedly going about its own business between the buildings, it has likely been Ashtaroth, finding her own way through the convoluted bitterness and guilt that her Sealing gave her. Feeling that she has become able to control them, she has returned, occupying her old room once more and attending her new Spring semester classes as though she had never left.

Because she never really did.