Remnants of the Earth

Royal's eyes lit up as she looked over the various art supplies that had previously been hidden away within the confines of the bag. She'd always thought that Lilo's artwork was really pretty, and with all the supplies she had tucked away in there, there was no doubt in Royal's mind that some fantastic art was bound to surface. At some point. Even if she had to pick the other Pilot up and shake it out of her! Which probably wouldn't be all that difficult, all things considered.

...okay, well, maybe she wouldn't go that far. But if there was anything that she could do to help inspire one of her friends, then she was going to do it, dang it!

"Well, we've definitely gotta do something about that, then! Don't worry, I promise that we won't come back until we've found something to get those creative juices flowing. You can count on it!"

She gave a reassuring nod and just watched for a moment as Lilo started going off about... sugar? At least, that's what Royal was getting from it. She wasn't really the world's biggest fan when it came to sugar- like many Kulshedra, her favourite kind of food was meat- but seeing Lilo get so worked up about it was actually pretty adorable, despite the whole thing being a tad incoherent. It was more than enough motivation to go out and eat something sweet for a change.

"Ha! Ice cream it is, then. Let's try to not let ourselves get too carried away, though, yeah? We don't want to start falling behind in drills! Rodion would not be pleased."

And with that, she immediately turned around and started making her way down the hallway in the direction that Lilo was pointing towards. She made a conscious effort to get her tail to stay put this time- those spines could really do a number on someone if she wasn't careful with them.

18-15-15-11.

R-O-O-K. It's a simple code created by converting letters to an appropriate number based on their position in the alphabet. Unfortunately, I don't think this really gets us anywhere, unless there's something else significant about these numbers.

-Pilot Echo Estrada

His comment about her voice came out of the blue, and at first, Vanessa wasn't quite sure that she'd heard him correctly. The guy who very well could have made a living as a singer, telling her that she sounded lovely? It was like something straight out of a dream, and for a few seconds she just stared at him like a deer in the headlights as she tried to formulate a response.

"...Oh! Um. Thank you? I mean... it can't be anywhere near as good as yours is. Because... you know. You're you."

She felt herself starting to blush again, and quickly turned to stare down at her hands. For now, she was entirely content with letting Vaughan's weird anti-empathy-thing do its thing; the last thing she wanted right now was to turn as red as her hair and start projecting like crazy.

"My training...? Well, my limbs are all attached and fully functional, so... I guess I can't say it's going too badly..." She looked back up before going on, taking note of the practice ball hovering next to her. Reaching out towards it and giving a simple flick of her wrist, she produced a gentle telekinetic force of her own- not quite enough to move it very far, but enough to cause the ball to start rotating.

"...I do kind of wish that I could control my abilities better by now, though. A lot of the time, they just feel like they're a lot more trouble than they're worth. At least yours actually do something useful."

Understood! Nothing's gonna make it past us. You can count on it!

~Royal~

It took the entirety of Royal's willpower to keep herself from performing one of her signature tackle-hugs the moment that the door was opened and Lilo appeared on the other side. Her smile was incredibly inviting, and greeting people in that fashion just felt right to Royal. Made her feel happy. She felt her muscles tense up as she barely managed to resist flying into the other room at top speed, but she ultimately managed to hold it together. Over the years, she'd come to learn that there were quite a lot of people out there who didn't really appreciate that kind of physical contact, at least not without some kind of warning beforehand. Besides, Lilo was rather small in comparison to Royal. That wasn't a factor she had to worry about too much when she was interacting with Myrrh or another Kulshedra, but the last thing she wanted to do was to injure her friend in what was supposed to be a friendly gesture.

Of course, that didn't mean that Royal's excitement couldn't be displayed in other ways. Her ears immediately perked up from their default position while her eyes widened by a substantial amount which, combined with the steady swishing of her tail on the ground behind her, made her seem almost like some sort of kitty. Well. A giant-blue-scaley-lizard-human-kitty.

"Oh, of course that's okay! Besides, it could be kinda fun to just... walk for a little while. And I wasn't really gonna be doing anything else today. Besides sleeping."

She gave a reassuring nod and a toothy grin of her own before taking a couple steps back and stretching her arms. Her eyes gave the Pilot Cardinal a quick scan in the meantime, eventually landing on her... bag? Bags held things! Which made them interesting! As long as you didn't already know what was in them, at least.

"Soooooo. What're you bringing with you? I mean, I can't really think of too many things that you need to take with you on a walk."

"Royal? Are you awake? I believe one of your... friends is trying to contact you."

The sound of Myrrh's resonating voice stirred Royal from her rather light sleep. It wasn't uncommon for her to sneak in a few minutes of rest whenever she got the chance, and the fact that she woke up still fully clothed on her couch instead of in her bed indicated that this had been another one of those shorter naps rather than a full night's rest. While she wasn't exactly thrilled to have been woken up so abruptly, she appreciated the fact that her dragon was looking out for her. After all, what if her friend really needed her? She couldn't bear the thought of missing something important simply because she'd slept through it.

Still half asleep, Royal fumbled around for her phone on the table in front of her for a few seconds before her hand finally made contact with it. Bringing it closer to her face so that she could actually read it, she scrolled through a bunch of notifications from the Pilot chat until she found the message she was looking for.

Something from Lilo.

It was no secret to her that things had been kind of tense among the Harpies lately. It was uncharacteristic of Lilo to let things like that get her down, but even she had seemed a little on edge recently. Hell, there was four frowny faces in this message. Four! That was, like, four more than Royal had come to expect. Clearly, something had gone terribly wrong!

...okay, maybe not. But she certainly couldn't just leave her friend hanging! If she did that, then she had no business calling herself a "friend".

{Count me in! I'll just have to take a few minutes to get ready. Stay put, okay?

~Royal~}

Ice cream was great and all, but the thing that really excited her was getting a chance to spend time with her teammate outside of drills. Even if they weren't planning to do anything particularly exciting or significant, there was no way she was going to turn down an offer like that. That being said, she couldn't go out in public looking like she'd just gotten out of bed. She felt the need to look presentable, so the next few minutes were spent tidying her hair, getting washed up, even shining a few of her scales... generally, just making herself all pretty, or at least what she considered to be pretty.

As soon as she was all finished up, she was immediately out the door and on her way to Lilo's place. It didn't exactly take her very long- the were both in the Citadel, and she wasted no time along the way- and soon enough she found herself knocking rhythmically on Lilo's door, rocking back and forth slightly on her toes.

QUICK STATS
Name
Royal Bloom
Age
60. Not actually all that old, considering they can live to be around 300!
Gender
Female
Species
Kulshedra
Ethnicity
Blooooooooo.
Height
5’9”
Occupation
Pilot Noble, Combat Ops
Residence
The Citadel
IN-DEPTH STUFF

Physical Description
She is blue.

…

Well, kinda. Being a Kulshedra, Royal possesses a rather odd-looking combination of human and animalistic features. The more animal-ish parts would consist of her scales, ears, tail, and claws. The scales exist in several patches across her body, sporting a deep royal blue colouration, while the portions of her body that aren't covered in scales consist of fairly normal-looking skin. Her ears are large and floppy, with a tendency to perk up whenever she gets excited or anxious... which happens a lot. Her tail is thick and powerful, covered entirely by scales and even a few spines on its backside; it doesn't take much to deduce that getting hit by it would hurt like hell. Her feet function with only the toes planted on the ground rather than the whole foot, and end in claws.

Royal has wavy black hair, accompanied by several streaks a blue that match the colour of her scales. Her irises are a dark violet, and her pupils are almost always wide and attentive. She cannot open her jaws extremely wide (an ability common among males, but less so among females), although she would hardly have any use for such an ability regardless.

Personality
Royal is very easy to excite, and possesses a seemingly boundless amount of energy that she is more than willing to put to good use... then immediately crash and fall asleep the moment she's alone and off duty. She likes to think of herself as being very pretty, and any odd looks she might receive from those who see her for the first time are automatically taken as compliments unless explicitly stated otherwise- hell, even if they are stated otherwise. She is ever the optimist, usually being very quick to point out the positives of any situation, even when doing so might not be entirely appropriate. She doesn't really seem to understand the idea that being sad isn't necessarily always a bad thing, and thus will go to great lengths to cheer others (and herself!) up. That being said, even she has her breaking point, and being unable to heal someone- physically or emotionally- is one of the few things that could really dampen her mood.

She adores giving hugs. Plenty of hugs. Because hugs always work, right?

Magic/Abilities
Her most notable psionic ability would be her hemokinesis, which is fairly powerful and focuses on closing wounds or otherwise minimizing the damage caused by an injury (for example, by restricting blood flow to a certain area in order to reduce the amount of blood loss) until proper medical care can be provided. Combined with the fact that she's not exactly a pushover on the battlefield, her ability to keep people alive and (somewhat) unharmed makes her a very good combat medic.

...she can also hit things pretty hard. :l

Relationships
Myrrh: The dragon that Royal is bonded to. Myrrh is slightly smaller than the average dragon, and is mostly coloured a pale yellow. She initially fought adamantly against the experiments that the Aedolian dragons what they are today, sustaining several injuries and eventually losing her tail in the process. Most of her wounds were fixed up well enough, either through standard medical procedure or by introducing new mechanical parts, but she never found a replacement for her tail that worked well for her. The absence of her tail made flying much more difficult, and thus she spent many years without ever bonding to a Pilot- the other dragons could make much better use of them. When she finally did decide to choose Royal as her Pilot, it was for a good reason- her tail. She discovered that, with the help of the psychic connection between a dragon and their Pilot (and plenty of training), Royal could use her tail almost as if it were Myrrh's. The two quickly build a strong bond with each other, and nowadays they are so synchronized in flight that you could mistake the pair them for being a single creature. Due to the strong dependency that has formed between them, they are fiercely protective of each other.

History
blehhhhhhh i'll finish this later. Maybe.
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Name
Lorraine Estrada

Age
25

Gender
Female

Species
Human-turned-Arcaeles

Ethnicity
Aedolian

Height
5'4"

Occupation
Pilot Echo, member of the Ryun Ravens

Residence
Ryun, Aedolis

IN-DEPTH STUFF

Physical Description

Having at least some amount of Serenian ancestry, Lorraine is relatively light-skinned and fair-featured. Her hair has a deep rose colouration and can grow to be quite long, so she often takes to braiding and tying it up when she's on duty in order to make sure it doesn't get in the way. However, she occasionally lets it flow freely when she's off duty. Her most immediately striking feature, though, would probably be her eyes. They have a deep purple colouration, and are often responsible for a piercing gaze which can almost feel as if it's performing an interrogation all on its own. An extremely attentive observer might notice a couple unusually sharp teeth, although the difference is quite subtle.

As an Arcaeles, prolonged exposure to sunlight is problematic for Lorraine. Generally, she attempts to keep to shaded locations whenever she can, but she keeps well prepared in the case that she needs to step out into daylight. She covers up extremely well- long sleeves and ankle-length legwear are basically a given for her, and certain oddities such as gloves and umbrellas aren't uncommon. She favours dark colours for their greater ability to absorb light.

Oh, and sunglasses. Always, always sunglasses. To protect her eyes, of course (but also because they look very cool). Obviously she'll wear them over her eyes if she's going out in the sun, but otherwise she's usually content to let them rest higher up on her head.

Personality

Lorraine is someone who has a lot of difficulties fitting in with her surroundings. Despite being an Aedolian native, the culture never really rubbed off on her. She has very little interest in hard drugs, sex, and many other things that are prevalent in Aedolian culture, and seeing how much these things appealed to those around her has always been confusing for her. However, she's trying to learn not to be too bothered by this- there's much more important things she could be worrying about rather than what other people spend their free time doing.

Generally, Lorraine is a quite a serious and responsible person. It would be highly unusual to see her participating in the same kind of antics that some of her coworkers might (although she's been known to contribute her fair share of snarky comments regarding such behaviour), and she prefers practical and straightforward solutions to problems over the more creative ones. She's not usually the type to joke around, which can lead to her being a bit of a buzzkill at times, but hey- she gets things done.

Lorraine takes her role and responsibilities as a Pilot very seriously. She's constantly pouring most of her energy into her work, which is something she actually finds comforting- it's much more stressful for her to not be able to work then it is for her to be working 24/7. Some might argue that it's unhealthy how much energy she puts into it, but good luck getting that through to her- getting her to take long breaks can be like pulling teeth. The bright side of this is that she's extremely reliable and very, very good at her job. The more problematic side is that she doesn't really know how to turn "Pilot mode" off and let herself just... relax once in a while.

Notes:

- Has a mechanical heart in place of a natural one, serving the purpose of preventing interference with her psionic abilities.
- Doesn't like to be touched. Like, at all. There are very few people she's willing to make exceptions for regarding this, and even then, she'll rarely tolerate it for more than a few seconds.
- Although she has no intention of ever getting particularly drunk, she has recently developed a bit of a taste for wine, with a particular fondness for fruitier varieties.
- Doesn't know how to feel about compliments to her appearance and gets pretty easily flustered by them.

Abilities

Psionics!

Vibrokinesis- A very particular and specialized form. Specifically, she possesses the ability to sense heartbeats from a distance. This ability is most commonly used to find or track people she doesn't have a line of sight on- one might liken it to a form of echolocation (haha), but it also has some other potential use cases. Sensing a quickened heartbeat might indicate that her target is nervous or worried about something, for example. A chip next to her brain allows her to tone down the strength of this ability, which helps to prevent massive headaches resulting from being around lots of people- although crowds are still fairly uncomfortable for her, so she tends to avoid them when she can.

The sensitivity of this ability varies depending on how close she is to someone. Making direct contact amplifies it greatly, to the point where it's incredibly uncomfortable for her to do so. Therefore, she avoids touching people- or being touched- whenever possible.

Telepathy- Enough to bond with a Dragon, but nothing too special otherwise. She's not talented enough to forcibly dig through someone's mind, but she can receive and project thoughts (and prevent them from spilling out accidentally) fairly well.

Vampirism!

Being an Arcaeles comes with its own set of powers. She possesses slightly enhanced senses as well as increased speed, has the ability to heal at a faster rate under moonlight, and is generally pretty difficult to kill outside of a few specific methods.

She can also shapeshift into a bat! Specifically, the form she can shift to is a species that resembles a grey-headed flying fox, although it strangely seems to retain the same deep purple eye colour as her usual form.

Relationships

Parents: Both members of the Aedolian military. She didn't have much of a bond with them (partly due to the fact that they were rarely home, but also due to the fact that she's always been a bit withdrawn) but she had always looked up to them regardless. They went missing during her Candidacy and are currently presumed dead.

In reality, her parents are still out there somewhere. A duo who secretly worked against the Aedolian power structure, their plans became much more complicated when their daughter developed psionic abilities and began her Candidacy. Fearing what might happen to the Pilot-to-be if their work was ever traced back to them, they devised a plan to fake their own deaths after the end of the Edani War, cutting out their ID chips and slipping away into the Midhaven. At least for now, their current whereabouts remain unknown. (Profiles for these two to come eventually^TM)

Camus: An older dragon who, at this point, is probably more mechanical than organic. His scales have a metallic quality to them, being very reflective and sporting the same kind of colours one might see in a precious metal. He chose to bond to Lorraine not necessarily for her psionic abilities, but rather for her personality. As far as their relationship goes, though, they're mostly indifferent towards each other. They're not friends, but they work together well enough.

Reyn: An orange-ish cat that she adopted from another Pilot a while back. He demands a lot of attention.

History

Being born an only child to parents who were never around much, Lorraine learned to care for herself at a young age. She quickly got used to the feeling of acting independently, and although this had its fair share of benefits, it also left her with difficulties making connections with people that she still struggles with to this day. In any case, growing up in a military household led to her developing a great deal of respect for the military, and she constantly worked herself to her limits in the hopes that she might one day join their ranks. That day came sooner than expected- in a checkup following complaints that she was getting frequent headaches, Lorraine's psionic potential was discovered and she was shipped off to the ATC in a matter of days.

Candidacy had its ups and downs for her. Due to her dedication and discipline, she excelled in her studies, and she was capable of being intimidating enough that most people knew better than to bother trying to mess with her. Learning to properly control her psionics was by far the most difficult part for her, but with enough time and effort, she eventually got the hang of them.

Left without any immediate family and few friends after graduating from Candidacy, Lorraine instead threw herself immediately and enthusiastically into her work. She worked as a Seeker for a while, during which she developed a peculiar form of vampirism after a particularly dicey investigation in the Midhaven. The changes to her body were unexpected, but came slowly enough that she had a decent amount of time to adapt to them.

Lorraine didn't bother too much with trying to make new friends or connections for a good while, although this is something that has recently changed. Her recruitment into the Ryun Ravens meant the introduction to a few people that she would interact with regularly. While some of the squad's members might have their... eccentricities, she does occasionally make an effort to connect with them. It seems to her that getting along well with them would contribute to a more cohesive and effective squad.

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TOTALLY NOT REPOSTED FROM SOTE OR ANYTHING


What types of plots are you interested in playing?
Most things, honestly. I'm not the biggest fan of combat-heavy stuff since I'm not too sure how to make it flow well, but small bursts of it is fine.

What are your favourite character types to play?
I tend to play a lot of:

- Nerds of all kinds.
- Eccentrics and characters who get a little... lost in their own worlds.
- People who could use a hug, or people who like giving hugs.
- Mages! Yay magic!
- Shifters and other humanoids with animal bits/characteristics. Ears, tails, horns, etc. Especially wings.
- Girls, apparently.

How often can you reply to any given thread?
It really depends on how busy I am. Could take less than a day, could take weeks if I don't have the time.

What is the longest you're willing to wait for a reply to a thread?
A looooooong time. Basically forever- just let me know if it'll be a while so I know I haven't been forgotten about.

Are you open to RPing over instant messengers? If so, what's the best way to contact you and what times are you generally available?
I'd rather keep roleplaying mostly to the forums.

Are you open to post volleying?
I might do it occasionally, but I don't like writing really short posts. If we're in a group of multiple people, I like to establish a post order so people don't get left out (unless everyone agrees to it). If it happens, it happens.

Anything else?
If you want to write with me or tell me something, please approach me directly. I can be pretty oblivious at times so dropping hints might not work with me.


What are you limits regarding powerplay/godmoding?
I'm okay with it, within reason. Just don't try to tell me what my own character does and we should be fine.

What are your limits in regards to romantic situations?
Romance is not usually something I have in mind when writing up characters. I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea, but I'm probably not going to approach someone with a romance plot and many of my characters will shut down romantic advances for various reasons. Just don't jump into a thread expecting my character to automatically be into yours.

What are your limits in regards to sex?
Basically, I don't write sex. I don't necessarily have any problems with reading it (although it isn't really my cup of tea), but you're never going to find me writing out a sex scene myself. Expect implied/fade to black from me on this one.

What are your limits in regards to pregnancy within plots?
No limits here.

What are your limits in regards to violent scenes?
See above.

What are your limits in regards to abuse/rape in plots?
Again, see above.

Are you okay with characters being transformed against their will?
You can attempt to do so, but you should ask me first before permanently transforming a character.

What about healing?
Healing minor, recently received wounds is usually okay. As a general rule, any injuries described in a character's profile are probably going to stick around.

Anything else?
Please let me know if there is anything you're uncomfortable with.