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Alys Flory (of Serell??)
late teens/early 20s??
noblewoman of Elyium
not a sorceress much to her chagrin

5'6 and a half
curly dark brown hair, long enough to reach the small of her back
blue eyes
seriously her hair is crazy curly
slim build, slightly top-heavy, boyish hips

as the eldest of three sisters, she's definitely not going to inherit anything (also to her great chagrin
seriously she'll tell you all about her chagrin
there's a lot of it)
basically an angry feminist
kind of rude but in a earnest way
fiercely independent, unhealthily thirsts for knowledge, both of which her father indulged and now look at her
direct, stubborn, pretty much guileless
not afraid to unleash her Opinions on people
confrontational and abrasive when people piss her off (see: firahal)
tsun tsun
dere dere
actually a very sweet, optimistic person
seriously
desperately afraid of losing her home and her family when her father dies
does not look forward to getting married
closet romantic

Ailin.
full name Ailin-liya ????????? something
18 years old
she's a princess, bitch
familiar: Rika, her phoenix

5'1
dark red hair, straight, long enough to reach the small of her back
light brown eyes
petite build, slightly pear-shaped
small hands and feet

has two younger sisters, aged 15 and 12
her best friend is her cousin whoiwillnamelater, but they were practically attached at the hip when they were children
has a moderately-sized extended family, most of whom live in the castle or nearby
her family is very close-knit and supportive
as the eldest daughter, she (and consequently, the man she marries) will inherit her father's lands

tends to be more tomboyish, though years of princessing have taught her how to act like a Lady
even-tempered, straight-forward, self-confident
used to being treated well and with respect. never wanted for much of anything.
spoiled, but not spoiled rotten
stubborn, thoughtful, curious
favorite hobbies: horse riding, singing, music
rarely raises her voice, though she's fierce when she gets particularly attached to something. not a big fan of getting into fights, though she'll stand her ground in a confrontation.
kind of a crier
has plenty of experience with flirting, though she's mostly a tease. has no experience with sex or anything farther than kissing (and light petting, but don't tell her dad)

swear (sihai&shakir)--
Bitch. She doesn't know the word, doesn't know what it means, but he can tell by the way she stiffens, just slightly, at his side that she'd inferred enough from the tone; if it weren't for her hand on his arm, squeezing, then Shakir is positive he would've punched the adviser in his smiling face and damned all the consequences.

inconspicuous (jas&khalia)--
She's like a fungus, Jas decides somewhere around the four month mark of their meeting; she's obnoxious and effusive and so prolific she's managed to take over every aspect of his life, invading his wardrobe and invading his thoughts and invading everything in between and steamrolling his every attempt to keep her out, until he finally looks up and realizes that he's wearing the jacket she forced him to buy and he smells very vaguely of flowers and her shampoo and it's been at least a week since he last thought of home, or at least the home he had before the one in her arms.

He doesn't know how to get rid of her. He doesn't know if he wants to.

dinner (jas&khalia)--
One evening, she sets up a picnic dinner out on the roof, where no one can find them, then lays her head on his shoulder as they watch the sun set and the stars rise.

When he asks why, she just huffs and tells him it's a date, of course, and he decides to shut up after that.

color (jas&khalia)--
"It's just hair," she'd said dismissively, after he'd run his hands through the blonde strands and asked why she was always dyeing it; now that she's shrieking about how her curling iron is stuck and she's going to burn all her hair off and why is he standing around doing nothing to help and why is he so useless, Jas is starting to think it's a lot more than just hair after all.

Miss Havim is yelling at Jayden again. Cadence narrows her eyes, watching him lower his head; she's too far to hear what their teacher is saying, but Cadence can guess. It's always some variation on the same thing she berates all her students for, with cheerful blind eyes from the higher-ups in the Program.

If Cadence interferes now, it would only spell more punishments for the both of them. They've long passed the stage where solitary has any effect on them; Cadence can entertain herself fairly easily in her room, without the network, and Jayden needs technology too much as part of his training, so they can't take that from him.

Still, Cadence waits. The next day, when Miss Havim moves to sit, Cadence pulls her chair out from under her, so that she falls to the ground into a heap and the entire class bursts into muffled laughter.

Cadence isn't the only telekinetic, but the trick is her style, so that Miss Havim suspects her immediately.

"Cadence," she says, and Cadence can tell just by that one word that she is livid, though she's struggling to contain it. The class is still snickering, which she knows will piss Miss Havim off to no end, though she won't lower herself to telling them to stop.

"Yes, Miss Havim?" She doesn't glance at Jayden, lest he give something away; he was never as good at hiding his emotions as Cadence was.

"Were you practicing your talents on my chair?" It's a carefully worded trap; Cadence shakes her head, shrugging her shoulders casually.

"No, ma'am."

"Do you know how it suddenly moved, then?"

"Maybe it was farther back than you thought."

Miss Havim purses her lips, almost as if to smile, but it's the furthest thing from a smile Cadence has ever seen.

"Very well. Class!" With one last, venomous glance at Cadence, she turns towards the screen to begin their lesson.

Cadence only smiles.

This is your home now too, he’d said to her, not long before he’d left for another lengthy campaign.

Ailin didn’t ask how long he would be gone, because she’s hoping it will be forever. She didn’t ask where he was going, because she doesn’t want to know, because it’s pointless to learn the name of a place that will soon fall, to wonder after the people who live there, who will leave their homes in the morning and not return.

If this is her home, then she wishes she could leave.

But it’s not, she tells herself rebelliously. Her home is in Renhua, with her family and friends, with everything she has ever known and loved.

It’s not here, with him, within the cage of his cavernous halls and grandiose rooms. She can’t help but think that everything here, from the lush couches to the polished stone floors to the watchful, vicious eyes of every dragon scroll on the walls, is fit for a king.

An emperor.

She finds family portraits while wandering the halls off of his suite, in a quiet, ponderous wing she assumes is meant for extended family. They all have the same inky black hair, she notices, and eyes that seem to leap out at her from the paint itself. They are all composed the same: formal, distant, regal.

There is one with a child that draws her attention, a young boy she guesses to be about nine or ten nestled between his parents, amber eyes intense. The same intense eyes are in the next portrait, the boy older but not yet fully grown, a red-gold dragon rampant curled around his body, and Ailin recognizes the familiar from near-reverent whispers in her father’s halls and her own half-lucid nightmares.

It’s Souza.

She steps back hastily, as if the man himself is standing before her instead of his likeness, and nearly jumps out of her skin when someone speaks from behind her.

“Is there something I can help you with, Princess?”

It’s one of his advisors, she finds when she whips around, an old man with a visible limp that she recalls being introduced to months ago. It takes her a moment to place his name.

“No, thank you, Master Goroji.”

But his eyes are kind, kinder than she remembers them being, kinder than she’s ever seen before in this lonely place.

“You found His Lordship,” he says, favoring his left leg as he limps forward, towards the portrait she’d been examining earlier. She doesn’t know what to say that isn’t deprecating, and so she finds herself unable to say any of it in front of this disarming old man.

“He’s sixteen here—this was painted when he gained his familiar,” he continues, tone wistful. “It was quite impressive, when he came back with this giant dragon in tow. He was gone for quite a while, you see, and I knew when he left that he had a plan—he’s always had a plan—but I didn’t think it would be this.”

He chuckles softly, and Ailin finds herself staring openly at Goroji, mouth ajar, because the fond bent of his words and the image she conjures in her mind of teenage Souza, fierce and wild as he parades his massive dragon home, don’t seem to reconcile each other.

Before she can mask the awe in her voice, she asks, “How did he do it?”

“No one rightly knows,” Goroji says, with a light shrug of his shoulders. “He’s never said, though I imagine he went north, and followed the legends from there.”

She knows the legends; everyone knows the legends, the rumor of scorched bone high in the mountains, of thin air made thick by the smell of burnt flesh. If she hadn’t heard the ring of truth in Goroji’s words, in the words of so many others, she would’ve scarcely believed anyone could harness that sort of power.

“It seems natural, I suppose, that he would want only the most powerful of familiars,” she says, not hiding her disdain. “When you bring a dragon into battle, half your work is done for you.”

“He’s always been ambitious, yes,” Goroji says, and there is something akin to pity in his gaze, something that makes Ailin feel inexplicably childish and small. “But I don’t think anything less would’ve suited him. He’s much like his dragon, in many ways.”

“Murderous?”

Goroji chuckles again, then sighs in a long-suffering way. “Princess, have you ever met a dragon?”

She shakes her head no. Before she’d been married off to Souza, she’d never even met anybody who had one as a familiar, let alone found one that was unattached; even since then, she had yet to see her husband’s familiar in any shape.

“They are dangerous, yes,” he says. “Very proud and withdrawn, but they are animals just like any other. Just like your phoenix.”

She thinks of Rika, of how her fussiness drives her crazy, of how little she complained when Ailin worked them both into exhaustion in the aftermath of that first, terrifying battle with Souza’s forces. Without Rika’s power, many more soldiers would’ve died that day, and for that Ailin is eternally grateful.

Her relationship with Rika is more like a partnership, just like everyone else; she cannot imagine Souza’s to be the same.

To her silence, Goroji only turns towards the portrait and says, “A few days after this was painted, his father died in battle.” He pats his stiff leg, his face turned away. “That’s also where I got this.”

There’s something about the gentle cadence of his voice that makes her glance at the portrait she’d examined first, the young Souza ensconced between his mother and father. His parents’ features exist in the shape of his face, the slant of his eyes and the set of his mouth, a legacy she can’t imagine being extinguished so soon.

“His mother?” she finds herself asking, braced for the inevitable disillusionment.

“Illness, about a year later. Though we all knew it was grief.”

She wonders what it must be like, to lose the comfort of both parents, and finds nothing but heartbreak. She wonders what his mother must’ve been like, to love a man like his father so wholeheartedly. She wonders, irrationally, if she could’ve saved them, had she been in the right place at the right time.

She wonders if things would’ve been different.

Souza’s eyes don’t answer her.

“Thank you,” she says quietly, tipping her chin down. “For your help.”

Goroji smiles beatifically, bowing his head deeply in a way that settles over her like a weight, and starts to hobble away. “You’re welcome, Princess.”