Aster Vildrym

The Swan Princess

Once billed as a rising star of the ballet world in Paris, Aster gave up the limelight to teach, and more recently, gave up accepting new students. Aster has secluded herself from all but a chosen few as she handles personal issues. To those in the know, Aster is a daughter of the Swan Queen. She was recently outed as transgender by the demonic entity, Angelus, which ignited a civil war within the Faërie Court of Swans as various factions tried to seize control.

In supernatural circles, she may be known as a signatory of the Unseelie Accords, keeping the Maison de Vernais as her freehold.

Personality[]

Aster is a rather shy young woman, in part because of a natural inclination, and in part because she has what she feels is a deep, dark secret... Plus a genuine secret. Her status as a transgender woman is hidden from the public eye, something she has never revealed, both because of secret shame, and because she fears what might happen if one of the Fae find out. To the outside world, however, this shyness can seem like someone trying to cultivate an air of mystery, or someone being a bit aloof and 'better than' someone else.

Should one get past her initial shyness, they'd find a helpful young woman who just wants to be liked for who she is, someone who still isn't convinced she's pretty enough and seeking approval. Should the right person get ahold of her and manipulate her, Aster could find herself in some very dark places as a result.

When angered, she strongly resembles her mother, more force of nature than person. Should she or someone she cares about be harmed, she would lash out with what little power she has indiscriminately, doing anything she could to hurt her attacker.

SKILLS[]

ACADEMICS[]

Competent

Aster knows the things an American student should know upon graduating high school. While she's not overly fond of technology, she can make it work when she needs to, and knows how to do things like algebra and basic accounting as taught in a Home Ec type class.

ACTING[]

Novice

Aster could probably do well in a school play or community theatre, but she's currently not going to be landing the lead in a big Hollywood production.

COMBAT[]

Novice

Aster is being trained by various people in the basics of self defense and can hold off an attacker, unarmed and powerless, until help arrives... providing the help is fairly close!

DANCE[]

Expert

Aster is, quite simply, an amazing ballet dancer. She has the correct poise, form and control to have mastered the ability, and could easily perform on any stage after an audition. However, given her lack of raw physical strength and her delicate frame, she'd never cut it as a male dancer, and after a near miss with discovery of her secret, she's contented himself with taking over Madame Astrid's Ballet, a small business owned by her missing aunt.

EXPRESSION[]

Competent

When it comes to artistic expression, Aster is a natural. Her singing is lovely, her paintings are quite nice, and her instrument playing is pleasant to listen to. This is partially thanks to her Fae nature, but also due to her aunt's rigorous training. Should she encounter a new artistic pursuit, she can learn it swiftly and to an above average level with a bit of dedication.

LORE[]

Competent

Having been immersed more fully in the Fae world, Aster is coming into her own on Fae lore. She knows her mother is a powerful being, and who various courts are, how to garner political favors with various persons, general weaknesses and the like. Her knowledge of non-Fae has grown considerably due to time spent in idle research among her aunt's books, reading up on various beings such as vampires, werewolves, witches, wizards, etc.

POWERS[]

IMMORTAL[]

Enhanced

Once Aster hit 18, the blessings of the Swan Queen were granted to her in their fullness. Until her life is cut short by violence, Aster is effectively immortal. She will never age beyond her current years, never grow ill due to mortal disease, and never die of old age. Unless someone decides to kill her through force, Aster will never die.

PRECOGNITION[]

Enhanced

Aster is able, by looking into a scrying device such as a bowl of water or a crystal ball, to get glimpses of the future. She cannot get precise details, often, but major upcoming events will be quite clear to her, however briefly. If someone she's reading is due to be shot in the next ten minutes, she can tell enough to warn them not to go down Elm Street, and to take West Avenue instead, but beyond the immediate future, things get hazy as free will kicks in.

RITUAL MAGIC[]

Basic

Aster is capable of casting spells such as wardings, blessings for guidance and other such things that a Pagan priest might cast. Unlike many of them, however, Aster's spells are backed by actual Fae magic, and have an extra oomph to them without needing to call on Elemental Forces, as she... sort of is one, in her way. Given time and the proper spell/components, Aster can work somewhat powerful magics such as physical transformation on herself or others.

SORCERY[]

Enhanced

Aster is capable of casting medium level spells such as weather working and the like at will. Using this ability, Aster is able to do things like generate medium power shields of a defensive nature, alter temperatures or local weather, or cause temporary changes to her own personage like altering skin tone, hair color or facial structure enough to be unrecognizable. These spells tend to be of a defensive or utilitarian nature, though Aster CAN fling eldritch bolts at need, too. Of note, the more power Aster taps into, the less control she has over her own actions while utilizing the power.

SWAN FORM[]

Basic

Aster is capable of turning into an enhanced black swan, capable of flying up to 200 miles per hour in even inhospitable weather. In this form, she is strong enough to break human bones with her wings, and can fit into smaller spaces than she otherwise would. All it requires is that she have her Token upon her, which is in the form of a small hair ornament, and that she wills the change. She can stay in this form for as long as she wishes, and return at will. While in this form, her Token cannot be stolen. In human form, the token can be stolen from her, rendering her unable to shapechange until she can spell a new token, which takes several days.

TELEKINESIS[]

Enhanced

Aster is coming into the magic of her mother, meaning that she has begun exhibiting telekinetic powers. She currently has very little finesse with them, but she can, for example, fling an attacker away and pin him to a wall. She must be able to see what she's manipulating, and have at least one hand free to direct her power.

TELEPORTATION[]

Enhanced

Born out of her mother's gifts, Aster has developed the ability to teleport vast distances in the blink of an eye, currently up to about two hundred miles in a single go, by herself, or one hundred with a single passenger, fifty with two passengers, etc. Aster must be able to touch the person she's teleporting with her, and any cold iron items will be left behind, as her magic cannot bring them along.

ADVANTAGES[]

FREEHOLD[]

Maison de Vernais is the Freehold of Aster Vildrym, which was ceded to her by her mother, Astrid. Aster has since become a signatory of the Unseelie Accords on her own merits and has all the rights and responsibilities outlined therein, primarily those of hospitality and conflict resolution.

MAISON DE VERNAIS[]

Construction of the home began at some point in the late 1800s, about a hundred years after Aster's biological mother, Astrid, had fled Vernais to survive the French Revolution with her head still firmly on her shoulders. A three story Queen Anne, the interior layout more closely resembles Astrid's manor home in Vernais than it does a traditional Victorian. The home has been renovated and has modern ammenities. It includes a small private garden behind the home, which slightly separates the Servants' Quarters from the main house. Notably, the home is surrounded by wards of protection from evil and from harm. While they are fading as Astrid's influence wanes, there are also several discrete solutions to block spirits, such as thin lines of salt in all the windowsills and doorways that the cleaning staff maintain. The home also has four regular staff, mostly Scions, who live on the grounds. Kelly, an older woman, is the head housekeeper. Summer, her niece, is her assistant. Andrea is the cook, and does most of the kitchen work in general, and Everett is the young man who keeps the grounds, gardens and does general home repairs. Each are paid a comfortable salary from an account set up by Astrid before she left.

STATUS[]

Though Aster knows only what her aunt has told her of her Fae heritage, Aster does know that she's a daughter of the 'Swan Queen', a force of nature in the Fae world. She also knows that the Swan Queen NEVER has male children, or so Astrid told her. Her Fae sisters would welcome her with open arms... only to stab her in the back as soon as she revealed her birth gender to them. So long as Aster keeps her birth gender a secret, other Fae with a friendly relation to her mother will treat her as her 'royal' title implies...

WEALTH[]

Aster inherited a large, large sum of money from her aunt on her disappearance. It's scattered through dozens of accounts across the world in reasonable looking sums, but she'd never need to work a day, if she didn't enjoy teaching ballet. As it is, she uses just enough to keep herself and the business living comfortably.

WEAKNESSES[]

COLD IRON[]

Aster, now being fully Fae, is weakened by Cold Iron as any other Fae creature is. It bars her passage, blocks her magics and renders her physically ill in close quarters. Actually touching it is rather like grabbing something extremely hot (or cold) though it doesn't leave a permanent mark, and injuries caused by cold iron heal at the normal human rate unless altered by magics other than Fae.

LOSS OF CONTROL[]

Simply put, the more of her Fae sorcery power that Aster taps into, the less self control she has. What starts out as Aster reaching into the magics to change the weather, as a weapon, could result in Aster losing control of herself temporarily and needing to be handled by a more powerful force. Aster is new to this sort of power, having only recently come into the powers inherited from her mother, and as such, lacks the control older Fae would have.

PROTECTOR[]

Aster has taken an Oath under the Swan Queen's secret name, to protect Astrid's family to the best of her power. Should she receive a vision of harm befalling one of them, she must make all effort he can to protect them. This includes the family in France, as well as recent transplants in San Francisco Astrid was most insistant needed her care.

REFLECTIVE SURFACE[]

While a minor inability, Aster MUST have a reflective surface for her precognative abilities to work. It can be as simple as a spoon, or as ornate as a floor to ceiling mirror gilded with naked cherubs and devils cavorting around it, it just needs to be a highly reflective surface. Her preferred scrying device is an obsidian bowl, filled with spring water, as her elemental connection to water seems to help in some fashion... but without a reflective surface, she's got squat.

TOKEN[]

Without her token, Aster is effectively a human with minor mystic power. She cannot fly, she's useless in physical combat, and incredibly frail.

TRANSGENDER[]

While being assigned male at birth isn't usually considered a drawback, Aster's spent the last eight or so years of her life living as a girl. She's made friends, become somewhat famous and even been courted and fallen in love, all as a girl. She is, in point of fact, more comfortable living as a woman at this point, and regards herself as one. Unfortunately, due to a prophecy about the Swan Queen's son usurping her throne, there has been civil war among her extended family. The majority of the Court sides with the queen and Aster, but a large number have split from the court and formed rival factions.

UGLY DUCKLING[]

Simply put, Aster still isn't used to being beautiful. Her first 13 years of life were spent being constantly told how ugly she was by the other children, and hearing the adults whisper about her 'unfortunate' appearance. She knows she has a face that could launch at least a few ships, but she's not quite ready to believe it, fearing the change has worn off every morning when she wakes up, leaving her once more male and an Ugly Duckling in a world where only Swans are allowed to be happy.

Section 1[]

My name is Aster Vildrym. I suppose I should start at the beginning... Sixteen years ago, I was abandoned on my father's doorstep by my mother. And by doorstep, I mean that quite literally. You see, my father was part of an old Romani Kumpania. Oh, not one of the truly nomadic groups in Europe, but an American phenominon, traveling across the country in a large caravan for, of all things, Ren Fairs. True Roma heritage... but exploiting it for profit. It worked, though. My father met a beautiful young woman with flowing black hair and huge violet eyes, one night, in a secluded campsite. He hadn't yet married, and, well... Nine months later, father woke to find me on the top step to the old wooden wagon he used during his Ren Fair months. During that time, father had married, and had a daughter, born a few weeks before me. While my half sister was a beautiful baby, with rich skin and a dark head of hair, I was a comparatively pale, squirmy thing, all blotchy and... frankly, ugly. Nobody cooed over me in the crib, let's just say. Ugly baby became ugly child, and despite that I wasn't hers by blood, my mother Ramae took amazing care of me and loved me as her own. No wicked step mother in this story. And father, well... he wanted a son to carry on the family name. If I wasn't a strapping Roma lad, well, that was clearly just the Gadjo blood. I wish I could say the rest of the Kumpania was as accepting of me. But to have fathered a child with an unclean outsider... It was bad enough to depend on them for a living... I wasn't /quite/ anathma, but I was damn close. Parents didn't want their children talking to me, I wasn't allowed to help with communal chores like cooking and the like, lest I taint the food...

Section 2[]

Ramae, however, kept Catya and I busy, both during the traveling season at the Faires and during the off season, on our private camp grounds. There were our own goats to milk, there were tricks to be learned to entertain the Gadjo during the season. Acrobatics, dance, singing and sleight of hand. So it was that even an ugly child can pass the time. With Catya and I the same size, though I far more gangly, (and, well, as I've stated a few times, ugly...) we developed a bait and switch trick that kept the crowds entertained. And the local mudshows always needed children to help with clean up of the benches, and even just picking up litter at the end of the day, all of which Catya and I did quite enthusiastically. As we grew older, Catya grew more lovely, and the boys started trying to catch her attention. For my part, I was jealous... I too wanted the boys seeking my hand, to find me beautiful. Ramae expressed sympathy, father only a faint and quiet disapproval. In Romani culture, that's an amazing thing in and of itself. You think the South is repressive? Being 'gay' in Romani culture is cause for expulsion or death, depending on the family! My parents kept my secret, and Catya? She found herself engaged at 12, married at 13. We marry young. But no one would consider someone as ugly as me to be a suitable mate. Nevermind the halfbreed status.

Section 3[]

So it was that at age 13, after my sister's wedding, that I found myself alone, near the water at a campsite. And it was there that I met the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. Long black hair, huge violet eyes, and the most wicked smile I've ever seen. It didn't help that she was dancing atop the water, moving with all the grace of a swan. Her gown was made of feathers, black with violet and green tinges to them, and sweeping so dangerously low on her shoulders it seemed the gown would fall off any moment. This woman, she had to be the woman my father spoke of when he told of my making. My birth mother. She smiled at me as I approached, and held out her hand as she stepped from the water's edge. I couldn't find my voice, my eyes were probably as big as saucers. "Poor child, abandoned by a wayward mother. I see so much of myself in you that it breaks my heart. My name is Astrid, and you are my nephew." I couldn't speak, rational thought was lost in those mesmerizing eyes. Surely, she was one of the evil spirits we warded against, for nothing so beautiful could be pure. As if reading my mind, she laughed. "No harm will come to you, ugly duckling. I've heard your dreams. Your pain echoes through the world of the Fae to all born of the Swan Queen. And so, young Prince, I have come to help you, as one once helped me. Take my hand, and all of your pain will melt away. You will be remade. Young and beautiful, more beloved than Catya, forever." How could I not take that hand?

Section 4[]

The world disappeared in a flash of light and a swirl of darkness, and when I awoke, I found myself in the most comfortable bed I'd ever known existed. Sitting at a vanity nearby, brushing back long hair, my new aunt. I sat up slowly, acutely aware of the reflection I cast in the mirror, hiding my face behind my own dull, coarse hair. She laughed at me as I rose from bed, standing to take my hands in her own and brushing my hair back from my face. Ugliness, she explained, was just a part of our youth. The curse, before the blessing. To truly appreciate beauty, one had to understand what it was to not have it. Well, I certainly understood THAT. Remaking, however, would not be simply a Bibbity Bobbity Boo spell, she explained. First, there was the Token... It was then that she placed a small, ornate decorative hair comb into my hands. Adorned with black feathers, it was a thing of beauty... and incredible pain. Once, as a small child, I burnt both hands in a cooking fire. The pain was so bad they actually had to take me to the hospital. This was worse. So much worse. It felt like every bone was being broken and reshaped, like my skin was being scoured off, and my hair ripped out by the roots... In point of fact, it sort of was. The magic of the Swan Queen was reshaping my form, as it had so many of the children she'd birthed before. When I woke again, I felt like I'd been thrown into the fire I'd escaped with only burned hands. Every nerve, every fiber of my being was singing in pain. Sitting up took an age, and when I did, Astrid was there, smiles and laughter in her eyes. "It will pass, as it did for me. My process took years. You're lucky I chose yours for a single day." I looked up at her accusingly, and she laughed. "Anything worth having is worth suffering for, my darling. Now. Stand up and get dressed. You're going to be sick with hunger in about five minutes, as soon as the pain wears off. Up!" She clapped her hands at me. Groaning, I could only move my strange new limbs in the most futile of fashions. She finally had to lift me from the bed and dress me herself.

Section 5[]

My new clothes were strange, but beautiful. Elegant, layered silks, soft and feminine garb the likes of which I'd never seen... and the corset. The damnable torture device she insisted I wear, to 'improve' my posture. I was to become her accolyte, her student, her greatest masterpiece. That's a lot for a thirteen year old boy to live up to! Also, I wasn't to be 'a boy' anymore. As Astrid explained, The Swan Queen NEVER had male children. To protect me from my other sisters, who distrusted men and hated them as no other woman could, I would have to, at least in appearance, be a girl. That didn't bother me overmuch, once I looked at myself in the mirror. I had become everything I ever wanted. Dull, listless hair had become raven locks, and lifeless brown eyes had become dark purple, almost black, glittering with secrets. Much of this, Astrid explained, could have been done with simple potions and better grooming, but some of it was pure magic. My skin hadn't lightened, but the color had evened out. I was... beautiful. Androgynous, Fey, and subtly... Other. Like Astrid. The next several years were spent in lessons. Ballet, singing, proper behavior for a lady. I was, after all, to be the next Vicomtesse de Vernais, Astrid stated. Of course, the French nobility had been abolished long ago, but Astrid had kept the title alive through centuries, pretending at being her own children. It was a usurped title, but one Astrid was particularly fond of. With someone who looked so like a child of her own blood, Astrid could simply swap places with me every generation or so to keep the title and family estates around without arising suspicion. And those lands were important for her... because her own human sister's descendants lived in the area, and it gave her a base with which to keep them safe in.

Section 6[]

I was privately tutored by Astrid, my accents beaten out of me, figuratively speaking. I now spoke flawless English, which we only had used when entertaining the Gadjo, as well as French, Latin and Italian. She wanted me to know the languages I would eventually need to rise in the world as a prima ballerina. My fourteenth birthday saw us move to San Francisco from the family lands, where Astrid purchased a small space in which to open a ballet studio. Others joined me in my studies with my aunt, for Astrid, despite being well over three hundred years old, looked no more than twenty five, if she were a day over twenty. I found myself uniquely suited to ballet, and began to attract attention by sixteen, starring in a local production of Swan Lake that simply blew critics away. At seventeen, I was flown to Paris to debut at Palais Garnier. Hailed as a rising star of the ballet world, all of it almost came crashing down when one of the male dancers got a little too forward with me. A well placed knee to the groin halted those advances, and I went home with my head held high, amid accolades and praise... But unlike Astrid, I couldn't see how I, no matter how cleverly disguised, could ever fool the world and become a star of the ballet world... the night before I tried to tell her that, my 18th birthday, Astrid disappeared in a flurry of feathers and shadows. A note on the table left the studio to my care, and gave me access to the funds I'd need to do whatever I might want in the world, begging me to keep myself safe...

Logs featuring Aster Vildrym:

Aster Vildrym

Personality[]

SKILLS[]

ACADEMICS[]

ACTING[]

COMBAT[]

DANCE[]

EXPRESSION[]

LORE[]

POWERS[]

IMMORTAL[]

PRECOGNITION[]

RITUAL MAGIC[]

SORCERY[]

SWAN FORM[]

TELEKINESIS[]

TELEPORTATION[]

ADVANTAGES[]

FREEHOLD[]

MAISON DE VERNAIS[]

STATUS[]

WEALTH[]

WEAKNESSES[]

COLD IRON[]

LOSS OF CONTROL[]

PROTECTOR[]

REFLECTIVE SURFACE[]

TOKEN[]

TRANSGENDER[]

UGLY DUCKLING[]

Section 1[]

Section 2[]

Section 3[]

Section 4[]

Section 5[]

Section 6[]

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