Lashana An Chiara, twenty six years old, born on July Eleven in northeastern Galla, in a fief that no longer exists called Demarra. Called Shana almost exclusively, she goes through a varying number of surnames and aliases, including ( but not limited to ) Demarra, Demeson and Brenna Corveda. She's the past year on so constantly on the move, travelling with Farnu Maderas, her fiancé, crashing wherever they could, but she entrusted their home, a large, elegant thing, to the care of her older brother while they were away.

( magic )

Quite a lot of it. She has an extremely powerful Gift that manifests as vaguely translucent, smoky shade of grey that‘s very, very, dark, so dark as to almost be a warm shade of black (think, looking through heavily tinted sunglasses) and clocks in at an 89 on the power scale. She actually has a tendency to Ward her own power up in a way that makes her appear significantly less powerful than she actually is ( obviously this only applies to Gifted Mages who can see latent magic, and those with the Sight to see the Gift ), visibly appearing more like a 70, not just as a defence mechanism but also as a discipline measure. She has a tendency to look down a fair bit on mages who can't, won't or just don't do the same, because in her eyes it also comes down to a matter of respect, a little like walking on someone's carpet with dirty shoes, as it were. She was actually born with the ability to see the magic of other Gifted mages, and can vaguely detect the Sight, for all that it requires more deliberate focus. Ninety percent of the time she augments her natural ability with a spell to sharpen her vision and make the magic of others clearer to her. She's been doing this, and the self-Warding, for so long that they're pretty much second nature at this point; she does it all without conscious thought.

Conventionally, she would’ve been a immensely powerful and talented healer ( it pretty much runs in the family ), amongst other things. She's still immensely Gifted, but her healing talent was turned back on itself to necromancy a long time ago, so much so that it’s now at the point where the shape is taking permanently, and she's losing the ability to heal others, and even herself entirely. It's something that she's starting to find increasingly troubling and it's something that's almost constantly in the back of her mind for several reasons, none of which I'm going to get into here because it's long, complicated, and confusing. She's also an incredibly adept and naturally talented Warder and can handle the construction of multi-layered illusions quite well, even though it's not something that comes so naturally to her as other things. Something she rarely utilises but remains skilled at is her ability to intrude on other, concious human minds. It's not something she's mastered, and she needs physical contact for it to work, but she can sift through memories and images without destroying the cohesion that keeps people sane. Beyond that, she possesses the standard basic talents that most Gifted have, casting light and fire and some telekinesis.

She tends to mess with spells a great deal, basically taking them apart into their component runes and workings and seeing if there's a better way to put them back together, which tends to become apparent to other mages in her Wards and illusions. She lacks any talent for the more physically destructive channels of the Gift; large scale fire-calling, battle magic; not being built for these things, when she needs to be grossly destructive she tends to improvise and expends a great deal of energy using raw power ( that is, Gift that’s not channeled by spells ) and it drains her shockingly fast. It's generally the sort of thing that leaves her in bed for a week. When it comes to destruction against people, however, it's clear that she excels. Through years of experimentation against other people she's discovered the better ways to make someone suffer, or, conversely, how to kill magically without pain for the victim. She's also skilled in using her Gift to kill in ways that mimic illness or ailment; fake heart attacks, aneurysm, apoplexy, or, with more effort, actually manifesting the symptoms of virulent diseases. All this, she learned via experimentation on live subjects and close study of the conditions in their natural forms. Basically, in summary? She's many, many kinds of messed up and dangerous.

( livelihood )

fighting watch this space!
occupation this one too.

( people )

mother & father ( deceased ) Maichen and Pavel of Demarra, both long dead and little more than a very vague and hazy memory in Shana's mind. She knows, from Andrei, that her mother was actually fairly loving and gentle, but they don't discuss it a great deal because Shana feels that she'd be happier not remembering more.

brother Andrei Demarra is her older brother by nine years. They have what might quite possibly the strangest sibling relationship ever, still partially governed by a number of self-imposed, peculiar rules that were created some time ago to make things livable between them. Before Shana took off with Farnu, they'd started to reconnect, rejoining strands of their past relationship. She loves him in a quiet sort of way, feeling a level of delayed guilt for the number of wrongs between them that were caused by her, but it doesn't eat at her and she'll get over it. She still hits him occasionally, though.

niece her somewhat eccentric niece, Katarzyna ( Katarzyn, Zyn ) kind of drifts in and out of the circle of Shana's world. Their relationship is somewhat odd, and better acknowledged as a friendship than any obligation to interact politely denoted by blood relation. They get along well, basically.

daughter Elian, her daughter by her first marriage, to a man named Alaric, aged four. Shana's relationship with her daughter was exceptionally complicated, and has recently been simplified by the decision to send Eli to a private boarding school within the city. She loves her fiercely, though, something that's untouched by her confusion on how to really handle such a small and intelligent child.

niece and nephew Callette and Kitson Demarra, twins and runaways from their home in Galla, children of a sister Shana is aware she has but never actually met, named Adia. They get a mention because they're in Corus, and now that Shana's returned they're almost certainly going to collide.
etc.family most of her family are dead; this includes parents ( as above ), siblings and cousins, and she largely doesn't care. It was something that impacted her life with moderate significance when she was younger but is no longer important. She actually has a few living relatives back in Galla, but their existence barely registers.

farnu A novel could be written on her relationship with Farnu Maderas and how she feels about him, and it would still fail to competely cover everything. She returned to the Rogue intending to take the crown and kill whoever wore it at time; it turned out to be Farnu, and rather than following through with her plan, they became friends, she became fascinated by him, and then fell in love. That's about where the simple part of it all ends, and from thereon in thing became increasingly complicated. For a very brief period, they were together before he left her and she left the city, unable to stand still and nurse her broken heart. She returned when the successor that he appointed to the throne of the Rogue was usurped by a man named Lucian and he reappeared not long after and eventually they found themselves involved again in a tangled, complicated relationship that settled into what they have now, and she is absolutely, competely and entirely in love with him. They took off for a year, give or take a little bit, and are now returning, engaged to be married.

nina she's exceptionally close to Menina Maderas, who is Farnu's half sister and someone who she actually really adores. If there was a label for their relationship, it would probably be "best friends"; Nina's magic gives her an excellent understanding of all the things Shana doesn't say, and she gets on marvelously with Eli.

jazmin for a time she was growing close to a woman named Jazmin Baird, friends in their own right and connected further by the fact that Andrei was involved with her. She and Farnu left the country just after Jazmin and Andrei fell apart, and she's hesitant to try to reconnect with her friend since arriving back, for obvious reasons.

dent Dentatario. The simplest explanation for their friendship is this; Shana completely and unswervingly loves and adores Dent. They're best friends in ninja-ry and shenanigans and he has a calming and/or soothing influence on her, especially when she's upset or depressed.

( appearance )

hair deep, dark and incredibly black, without any hint of brown and really fine, the kind of fine that's basically impossible to purposefully style and hard to do anything with, really. It's the kind of hair that hangs quite straight regardless of the length she keeps it at, holding little shape for long. Currently she keeps it a few inches past her jaw in the front and generally about six inches below her shoulders everywhere else and pretty much does her best to keep it at those lengths, wearsing it loosely up most of the time, though sometimes she goes to sleep with wet hair on purpose to get tously bed hair, just for a change.

eyes Definitely what she considers her best feature ( she's a little bit blind to the fact that she has stunning cheekbones ), they're naturally overlarge and very, very green; think dark grass green, really, that lightens as it draws towards the pupil. Framed by moderately long, soot-coloured lashes, they're also the most expressive part of her face, sometimes giving away her mood when her face is otherwise blank.

features Undeniably beautiful, her face is composed of delicate, feline angles; high, smooth cheekbones slope down to a curved, delicately defined jaw that ends in a small, sharp chin. Her eyes, which I've already covered, are deep-set beneath dark, smoothly arched brows that lead down to a thin, sharp nose that flares just slightly before the tip, marked by a very slight bump in the bridge, the sign of a long-healed break. Her mouth is soft and wide, the lower lip being notably fuller than the upper, which forms a gentle cupid's bow. She's pale, and always has been, but not unhealthily so; when she spends time in the sun she'll tan lightly, but rarely enough to darken her skin a great deal.

body she's... actually kind of tiny. Standing at only 5 feet 5 inches, she's just sort of slender all over, with the kind of wiry muscle that's stronger than it looks. Her body's composed of smooth planes and angles, with only a little curve, thankfully in the right places, with a relatively small bust. She's actually beautifully proportioned, with startlingly long, slender legs. Apart from a few neglectful periods, she tends to take good care of herself, so she's thin without looking frail, though she seems to retain a slight, breakable quality because of her size. She'll occasionally go through brief bouts of physical insecurity, but mostly, she's pretty okay with the fact that she's made of legs and angles.

clothing Black, grey, red, cream, all colours you'll find repeated constantly in her wardrobe, over and over in simply cut, well made shirts and soft, tight pants, clothes that don't necessarily speak of money but at the same time, aren't the clothes of a poor woman. She owns dresses but generally avoids them, preferring comfort over current style. Her gloves, which she keeps on her person most of time, bear mentioning, because while servicable and plain in appearance, they're heavily Warded; they leave no trace of essence on things she might touch, and they help to counter magic she might run into. They don't affect the Sight, latent or preexisting magic (they don't negate things such as existing Wards for her) but they're undeniably handy. She's rarely unarmed, for all that it might be unnecessary, choosing to carry and conceal knives in various places on her person.

scars Other than the usual motley assortment of scars (dozens of thin, pale ones on her hands and forearms from everything from fighting to magical accidents and occasionally papercuts, several long-healed childhood scrapes) she has a wide, slightly messy one marking her left hip from an incredibly random incident some years ago, as well as a pale, jagged star marking one shoulder, the remnants of a particularly nasty arrow wound that, along with a dangerous fall and several broken bones, left her in a coma. Excellent times. Rarely mentioned is a faintly raised scar on the right side of her neck; located about two inches below the jaw, it curves over the skin there, a raised line about two inches long.

&etc. She tends to keep it pretty simple; she enjoys jewellery well enough and owns a good deal of it and both her ears are pierced, but she tends to err on the side of caution and go without, because getting into fights, it happens. She's long ago abandoned her old wedding ring, which reduces her only constant ornamentation to the chain with her anti-pregnancy charm, which comes off when she bathes, but that's it.

( personality )

( a.n. this is slowly being reworked! but for now, this is what you get )

Shana is... complicated, to say the least. She's been described on multiple occasions as cold, disdainful, arrogant, prideful, cruel, focused, dangerous, vicious, damaged, quiet, thoughtful, and not a one of them is false, but they don't even begin to encompass her as a whole. Outwardly she tends to display a coolly impassive front, occasionally exhibiting some dry amusement, though it by no means implies that she's enjoying whatever's going on. She tends to be relatively unapproachable and a little intimidating, and though that used to be relatively painless to get by, lately she's grown a lot colder and a lot less receptive to strangers and people she considers unintelligent or simply not worth her time. Fairly recent personal/emotional trauma left her with even less of a tolerance for other people, and she's not one to balk from point-blank rudeness; a lot of her diplomacy also evaporated at about the same time.

She's got a fairly unique moral compass that rarely ( but occasionally ) coincides with that of general society; stealing is okay by her, as is murder, obviously, and she's very, very self-serving. If someone's stupid enough or so unaware of their possessions that they don't realise they're being stolen from? Then it's their problem. She applies the same logic to herself; if she's unobservant enough for someone to steal her purse, then that was her fault. When it comes to killing, she pretty much subscribes to the axiom of "( when under threat ) kill, or be killed", especially when it comes to people she shares a social circle with. Wanton slaughter is something she actually frowns upon, simply because it's a waste, but killing someone as a means to an end, even one that might be viewed by others as frivolous, is fine. She's also possessed of the ability to entirely disregard the suffering of some people, and just... disassociate from them entirely. It's a little bizarre and leans heavily on a sociopathic mindset ( which is covered further down! ).

On the inside, she's basically something of a shambles. She's possessed of extremely little middle ground, and that's gotten smaller in recent years. She used to be incredibly impulsive, however, it's something she's gotten better at, and she actually does impulse control these days! It's shiny. Still, she's just not the most mentally stable. While she does actually have more emotional control than most would assume, she still tends to swing to extremes that are often damaging for her, and the people close to her. She doesn't actually often do out-of-control anger; the angrier, or more upset she gets, the more she withdraws from a situation, getting colder and quieter, with a tendency towards verbal formality. She's still angry, but she's also very much in control. Obviously, she has a breaking point that pushes her beyond any level of control, but it's rarely, rarely reached; people tend to realise that riling her up isn't the smartest of things. She's actually also possessed of a fairly broad self-destructive streak that manifests during emotional lows ( stress, depression, that sort of thing ), which she actually hides really well, pretty much by going out and beating people to death, because sometimes she craves violence that's purely physical. Sometimes, though, she'll deliberately pick fights where she knows she'll get hurt, and won't bring magic into it to cover her disadvantage, and it's mostly just... her at her worst. Leaving that, though!

Despite some sociopathic tendencies, she's actually very capable of forming attachments to people, and can indeed love. Unfortunately, when she does, she tends to pour her heart and soul into it, she also has a lot of trouble with... well, personal relationships in general. In other words, when she actually falls in love? It's amazingly, heartbreakingly intense. She does alright with friendships, but because of intense need to love and be loved in return and refusal ( or inability ) to accept anything less than the best someone has to give is pretty much the sole reason behind her shredding so many romantic relationships. She needs more affection that anyone has ever known or guessed; it's not something she's ever admitted to anyone because she's also afraid of being interpreted as too needy and being left, which... really terrifies her. I'm not sure if there's actually anything that scares her more than being left alone because of who she is. Tying into this is her somewhat overdeveloped fight/flight impulse. Often, when approached or forced to deal in a way that doesn't sit well with her, she either reacts exceptionally violently, or takes off, often disappearing for months at a time. Yeah, it's proven to be slightly problematic. Still, it's really important to realise that she is actually very secure with herself as a person. She doesn't indulge in bouts of self-doubt or lie awake at night constantly wondering if she really is a terrible person. That's not to say that it hasn't happened before, but it's an exception when it does, not the rule.

The way she sees and treats her fellow man ( and woman! ) and interacts with them emotionally is also pretty important, because it really gives a window into the kind of person she is, and how greatly her ability to trust and forgive has been damaged - and also! That ability to point blank not care about people, as mentioned above. It's important to know that she rarely attaches herself to people, emotionally, and as previously mentioned, she pretty much doesn't do middle ground, so it's often srs bizniz, no matter what kind of relationship it is. It's also rare for her to form a connection with someone where she doesn't stand to gain anything for herself. As mentioned way up there, she does put herself first pretty much all of the time. So no, unless she needs you for something, or you have her interest or some kind of leverage over her, she simply fails to care. Like her? Love her? Hate her? Does not matter! That said, she can fake interest to establish if there's anything to gain relatively easily. She's intensely insistent about things going the way she wants them to, especially when she believes that it's in the best interest of the people involved. She can get along with people fairly easily when she actually wants to, but there's very few people she's actually seriously attached to. She doesn't take at all well to be rebuffed and when she is, it borders on impossible for that relationship to be reestablished. She can actually disconnect her feelings when something like this happens, as easily as turning a light off, though there's a few exceptions. When she does it, though, it's pretty much... it's actually very hard to describe, but if she's so wronged or wounded by another party, she often just loses all human connection with them. If they meant something to her, she'll still remember that hey, this person was my friend and we used to have good times, but she becomes almost incapable of reforming an emotional attachment.

( history )

Born a long time ago in a land far, far away, basically. She was born in Galla, to a slightly overbearing mother and a disinterested, bored father and raised with her siblings by servants and schooled in both magic and some academia by tutors, and was just generally well cared for until the age of nine when an argument over land ( bigger neighbours with more money wanted their land, they were unwilling to give it away ) caused paid raiders to decimate the family home. The main holding was burnt and, in an attempt to flee, she was caught outside when the windows ruptured; a fragment of ragged glass caught her on the right side, embedding in her neck. She was initially passed over, presumed dead by the wound and the blood in the snow, and found later when belated help arrived, but disappeared not long after being patched up.

Fast forward five or six years and she turns up in Carthak, already with sizeable magical training, to study at the University there and work towards gaining a Mastery, but a failed affair with a fellow student saw her return north several years later, already with a quiet but fast-growing repuation as one of the things that go bump in the night. At some stage she returns to Carthak very briefly, coming away with the right to wear Mastery robes and practice under the qualification, but it's not something she earned legitimately; she bought it. With money. That... was mostly likely stolen.

Close to her twentieth birthday she made herself known in Corus and at the Inn, joining the Rogue; over the next two years she rises smoothly through the ranks of the Rogue. However, when she failed to gain the crown and throne first by inheritence and later by trial through combat she seperated quite quickly from the organisation and immersed herself in building a family.

Recent years saw her return to the Court of the Rogue, no longer married, and hungry for the crown, but somewhere along the way, despite her intense ambition, she developed a friendship with the current King, which evolved into unrequited love that hit her hard. Insert here several complicated years, taken up by personal issues and a civil war within the Rogue that rocked both the city and the organisation, all things that I could write about but would take up a great deal more time to do justice. During the tail end of the war, she properly reconnected with Farnu and their relationship shifted, to the point where it seemed like they were both just waiting for something. He left for Carthak and she became Queen of the Rogue, something that should've made her happy but instead only suceeded in depressing her, and upon Farnu's return to Corus, she gave the crown up to him for a brief period before they left together to see what they could of the world. And now they return! And all is well.