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Feb. 7th, 2020
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meadowlarkName: Arastra Ecces
Pronunciation: a•ra•stra eks
Age: 20
Gender: Female
Height: 5'6"
Build: Slim, lacking muscle
Voice: soft, speaks quietly and slowly, has clear enunciation
Pronunciation: a•ra•stra eks
Age: 20
Gender: Female
Height: 5'6"
Build: Slim, lacking muscle
Voice: soft, speaks quietly and slowly, has clear enunciation
Description
Observed from a distance, Arastra often seems like she's lost in thought. In a crowd she very much keeps to herself, keeping herself from taking up too much room and avoiding interacting with other people. In quiet spaces where she's more comfortable she relaxes and moves with a bit more confidence.
Arastra has dark brown hair and bright blue eyes, and a pale skin tone that clearly belongs to someone who doesn't spend much time in the sun. Her hands have some minor calluses from working with her tools, particularly her fingers.
Observed from a distance, Arastra often seems like she's lost in thought. In a crowd she very much keeps to herself, keeping herself from taking up too much room and avoiding interacting with other people. In quiet spaces where she's more comfortable she relaxes and moves with a bit more confidence.
Arastra has dark brown hair and bright blue eyes, and a pale skin tone that clearly belongs to someone who doesn't spend much time in the sun. Her hands have some minor calluses from working with her tools, particularly her fingers.
Skills
Speed reading: Arastra is a very experienced and quick reader. Her vocabulary and command of very dense or obtuse text is extremely strong.
Memory: A large part of her highly excelled studies are due to having a grand capacity to remember things. One pass through a text, one lecture, or one demonstration is usually enough for her to at least remember, if not understand, the material.
Meadowlark Ability
Construction. At it's basic level, this ability allows Arastra to make basic repairs on objects that she understands the composition of, given the proper materials. For example, if there's a rusted hole in a box she can fuse a compatible alloy to the spot and create a seamless patch, or if there's a broken gear in a motor she can fuse a compatible material to reshape the gear in the proper form, or even mend a hole in clothing. The damaged portion must be able to fit inside of 12 inch volumetric box, there must be a compatible provided material (cannot make something from nothing), Arastra cannot repair something that she doesn't understand, and she cannot do extremely fine repairs (such as one might do on a computer chip).
History
Arastra's world is one filled with magic. The setting itself much like one would expect out of Ye Olde Generic Fantasy England (cobblestone streets, swords and armor, carriages instead of cars, etc) but magic has been around as long as anyone really knows and drives everything. Magic is primarily conducted through inscribed symbols and can be used for many things such as kinetic movement, heat, light, defense, and combat. A good rule of thumb is: if it’s something we can do with electricity and machinery, it can probably be done with magic, with some exceptions such as the lack of any computer analog. Magic cannot heal directly, but magical study involves the study of medicine, and herbs and other medicinal remedies are somewhat strengthened when handled by someone with magical ability. The more magic one has, the better off they'll end up. The ruling noble families all have storied histories of great magic users and the richest districts have streets lit with magic lamps, whereas the common folk light candles and fires to keep warm in the winter.
Arastra's life begins in these humble homes, one of a number of children living in a group home. While she was able to go to school and receive somewhat of an education, it was mostly perfunctory in order to meet government regulations. Still, she enjoyed learning and received a little extra attention from some teachers due to her engagement and excellent command of the subject matter. Arastra spent most of her young age accompanied by the scattered books she could find and her own thoughts, until her 11th summer when a state examiner came to the group home to do a routine test for magical abilities. It was discovered then that she had no small amount of magical power which, combined with her studious nature, got her a scholarship and placed her into one of the main introductory schools of magic, Westridge.
Once at Westridge things began to change. Even though her state scholarship only placed her into the lowest tier of studies, the environment was drastically different. Arastra was placed into the dormitories with other girls her age, given sets of nice uniforms, quality meals, structured social interaction, and, above all, a highly driven education. Even though she retained her quiet nature, she began to bloom and make friends with her peers, and her academic focus won her friends and admirers, though the latter she was vastly oblivious to. After two years she was advanced on the basis of her exceptional academics to the next tier of courses, which allowed her to take magical courses more suitable to her ability, but within the expectations of her social status. Despite her studies remaining equally as un-challenging, Arastra was very content with her time at school and the friends around her.
And then in the spring of her third year at school, she awoke suddenly in the night with a feeling of unimaginable dread. The whole rest of the night she lay in bed, trapped by this feeling as everyone else in the dorm slept on. Even when morning arrived, no one else seemed to notice anything, though Arastra's friends were concerned by the fact that she seemed somewhat ill. Eventually she could take the dreadful feeling no longer and snuck outside despite all students being restricted to their dorms. Upon finding the source, she was caught and after extensive questioning from the Grand Magician of the Court Sevrian Aberdeen, she was released back to her dorm without consequences.
Over the summer she was visited again by Sevrian Aberdeen who revealed that her involvement with the incident last year revealed that her magical ability was vastly greater than anything expected for her standing. As such, the crown prince had taken interest in her education and would be sponsoring her education from now on. Arastra was moved from the regular student body to the advanced course, where she felt isolated and uncomfortable despite enjoying greater academic challenge.
The start of her fourth school year only increased her discomfort as her new peers were a small and insular group. While some were politely nice and welcoming, she never felt at home in her new setting and spent most of her spare time studying by herself. While the new classes still did little to push the limits of her magical capacity, the new concepts and higher expectations were a welcome challenge and she continued to excel in her studies. However, it was in late fall of her fourth year where she finally discovered the true extent of her magical ability. She was walking through one of the old buildings and took a detour down a long hall with stained glass windows. The tale was that the greatest of great magicians could see their future reflected in old magicked windows such as these, though there was no record of this happening. As she walked down the hall Arastra saw not herself walking along in the reflection, but rather someone twenty or thirty years her senior. As she watched, the woman raised a finger to her lips and Arastra understood through her eyes, the knowing look on her face, the grace that she carried herself with, that her power was a secret to keep and never tell, and that one day she would be like this woman.
Even though nothing changed in her circumstances, things improved for Arastra from then on. She held more confidence in herself and while she grew no closer with her peers she found it easier to separate herself from them and spend her little free time reading and studying matter that she found interesting, even if it had no significant relevance to school. Slowly her essays and practical assignments began straying into more unconventional applications of magic, which Arastra found more interesting and enjoyable. Finally, just before winter break, a girl a year her senior pulled her aside and gave her a long lecture about her behavior and ended by committing to stay at the dorms for the break in order to tutor Arastra on proper manners and politics. And that was how Arastra met her best friend Ydera Gladstone.
While Ydera was sharp spoken and critical, she gave off no animosity and her pushy nature meant that she got through Arastra's general indifference. The two spent winter break together while Ydera coached her junior on politics, manners, and general social knowledge for their standing. When the rest of the students returned, Arastra finally joined the social circle due to Ydera's influence and coaching, though she was never as close with any of them as she was with Ydera. The rest of the fourth year passed much in this manner, and the two continued to grow closer.
Arastra's fifth year saw her continue to excel and passed remarkably peacefully until the end of the year when she was confronted with Ydera's graduation and departure from her life. Though Ydera tried to remind her throughout the year, Arastra had avoided thinking about it and what it truly meant, and found that she was suddenly devastated when it finally sunk in that she and Ydera would be parting. Although they promised to write, and kept the promise, that summer was a long and lonely one, and even as Arastra entered her sixth and final year at Westridge, the classes she usually loved could not lift her spirits fully. She drifted away from the other students in the advanced class under the pretense of needing to study for her entrance exams.
After winter break she began her own university process and went with the other advanced students in her year to tour the local schools and attend seminars to learn about universities outside the capital. One after another she found uninspiring and until she toured Campbel Hill. There she attended a demonstration at an art studio showing how they were integrating magic into various crafts, in this particular case metal work. Arastra was captivated and inspired by what she saw but knew she had a responsibility to the crown prince to attend a more traditionally prestigious university to repay his generosity. So when the examination time came, she took the placement for Waverly University, the sister school to Campbel Hill and the highest ranking university in the country. She was easily accepted and at the age of 18 graduated from Westridge with the highest honors.
Once at Waverly she doubled down on her studies with renewed motivation. Once students reached the equivalent of third year standing, they could be permitted to take some courses at Campbel if their grades were good enough, and so she made it a goal to take as many classes in advance as she could possibly manage. Arastra made little effort to get along with her new roommate or any of her peers and almost universally ignored them in favor of studying, and thus made no new friends, but found great comfort in having greater freedom in her studies. She entered having tested out of a number of introductory courses and took as many courses as she could convince the advisors to give her, and finished the fall term with perfect scores. As a reward for her excellent academics, she was allowed to take exams in winter term for classes she did not attend, and receiving full marks for all her exams, entered spring term with the standing of a second year student.
However, winter term held a far more important event. Her roommate, irritated by Arastra’s near perpetual silence and unfriendly attitude, made comments about her attire, and said she ought to get a job so she could afford better clothes. While Arastra unilaterally did not care that her clothes were slightly baggy and plain, she happened to glance at a job board on campus and notice a posting for an assistant at a magical repair shop. Curious about what the job entailed, she went by later that day and fell in love. The shop was cramped and old, but she found the repair work endlessly fascinating and after a short trial was hired on as an assistant. Fixing magical devices was like solving a new puzzle every day, and she cut back on the number of exams she had planned on taking to make more time for work or studying techniques or spells for work. Quickly she was given tasks with increasing complexity and, recognizing that her talent was far beyond the scope of a humble shop, she was recommended to a creator and repairman of great renown, who took her as an apprentice. Throughout the spring term she worked in this new shop and began work for noble families who had sophisticated requests that challenged her skills.
By the end of spring term the university council decided that due to her prestigious academic ability that she would be able to have a room in the competitive special studies dorm, which housed only the top third and fourth year university students. This attracted her equal measures of interest, animosity, and jealousy from those living there and those who felt they deserved her spot, but Arastra continued to largely ignore the people around her and keep occupied with her studies, work, or spending time in a workshop at Campbel Hill. She’d attended an open workshop and had been invited back by the students there to watch them work, and even though the cranky professor who ran the workshop didn’t allow her to do anything other than observe, she loved watching them work with metal, glass, and gems. Unfortunately it wouldn’t last, as she had an uncharacteristically heated argument with the professor in winter term while trying to prove she should be allowed to participate and not just watch, and they parted on terms such that she would never return there. However it did not stop her from creating, and she began using her savings to create miniature pieces of magical art, primarily jewelry and depictions of nature.
