“She understood much
but bore it silently.”


Aspara is almost the traditional unicorn. The most noticeable deviation is the dark blue coloring on the tip of her nose and the base of her mane and tail, like something deep and dark couldn't help but seep into her from the edges. Also of note is her spiraling horn, a dark cobalt blue instead of the traditional white. Her hooves are not cloven, and they are a pale shade of blue.

Here and there are suggestions of her parents, both obvious-- blue eyes from her mother (but darker), white coat from her father (but lighter)-- and subtle-- Eik's stern, brooding brow and Isra's walk, pure, regal, fearless confidence. Still, it is quite remarkable, like her sister, how much Aspara is her own being.

Aspara has the ocean in her; even when walking, she appears to be dancing. Even when present, she is elsewhere. Deeper. Darker. She wears her heart on her sleeve and oh, what a heart it is! Quick to smile, quicker still to cry... without hardly saying a word her face (not just her face, her entire posture) can transition through a multitude of emotions.

“She who was known as the Lover of Silence,
and who struck instantly and without warning,
as all lovers of silence”


The walls talk to Aspara.

They tell her stories of what they've seen and heard; sometimes in great detail, sometimes in brief but violent flashes of emotion. They teach her the quiet patience of stone. How to watch, and wait, and remember. How to cultivate stillness in a world of endless movement. How to listen. She learns that things spoken can never be taken back, once the world hears.

The trees talk to Aspara.

They tell her of an unseen world. A network of roots, soil, fungus, worms; death feeding life feeding death. They teach her how to move slowly and with intention; always forward, always deeper. They teach her how some things grow wild and chaotic, reaching in all directions, and other things grow careful, calculated, slow, and lasting; she decides early on to model her behavior on the latter.

The water talks to Aspara.

It tells her secrets she must never repeat, not even to her sister. It tells her of terrible loss-- lives thrown to the sea, lovers drowned, talismens and sacrifices offered to the depths. And it also tells her of peace and healing and home, the first home everything alive ever knew. It teaches how to hide her strength, how to move like the ocean, how to find and fill an empty space.

Everything talks to Aspara--

even the living, who take her uncanny quiet as an invitation to fill the empty space with talk. She is a listener, in a world that has long forgotten that ancient skill. It is only to her twin, her one safe space, that she ever talks back in full, chattering like a bird at sunrise. And when she is overcome with sorrow, or rage, or pure visceral emotion, which happens exceedingly often, it is only in her family she is comfortable letting loose her pain.

“She could not resist exploring the bizarre or ugly, even when it frightened or sickened her, and I could not help feeling that for a girl with a delicate equilibrium it was a dangerous pastime.”


Aspara and her twin sister Avesta, the love children of Eik and Isra, were born in Summer 504.

“The walls-
The walls were screaming again”
PSYCHOMETRY
Current Tier: III, Periti

What a strange and wild seed was planted in Aspara, long before she was born. Where her mother was a natural storyteller, she is a natural receiver of stories. Where her father could listen to the thoughts of strangers, she can hear the thoughts of things that do not have minds. See, Aspara’s magic grants her the ability to communicate with objects that cannot speak for themselves. This communication is far stronger when she is touching the object in question, although touch is not necessary for the strongest of stories.

Parvus

The sleeping world has a story that it wants told. Around Aspara, objects become excited. Candles will jump off the shelf, trees will reach out with their limbs, doors will shake on their hinges. Everything wants her touch, her attention, and things move against their nature to be closer to her. The effects of this Parvus magic are heightened when her magic is activated, although at later tiers she can quiet and even silence it with a little effort.

i. Disculpi

The magic burgeoning in her veins is savage. Stones scream at her of the vile things they’ve witnessed. Paper sobs with the memory of being a tree. Aspara has almost no control over what she communes with and when. At this stage she is prone to mistaking the feelings and memories of objects with her own, making her young life extremely confusing and overwhelming. Her magic also tends to burn itself out quickly, and as a result she has remarkably low energy levels for a girl of her age.

ii. Vexillum

At tier two, Aspara’s magic starts to be more of a gift than a curse. Now she can coax the story out of the shy landscape painting in her bedroom, and silence the screaming stones. She can actively wield her magic to sense objects of importance, and she is drawn to these almost against her will, in the same way her parvus magic draws things to her. She becomes obsessed with patterns and positions; her desk and living area are very carefully arranged in accordance with a harmony that is not understood by anyone else.

iii. Periti

Magic flows now, like water. It begins to fill her body. She knows there is more to be had, and she is greedy for it. She can commune with objects that are several lengths away just as powerfully as if she was touching them, and she can delicately sift out specific details from all the feelings and memories they spill.

iv. Dominus

Aspara lives now mostly in the waters of her wild magic. Most days she is lost in the thoughts, memories, feelings of the things the rest of the world does not consider alive. She can dive deeper into the stories by bringing together two objects that have witnessed the same thing. History becomes illuminated, truth becomes tangible.

“There is no better way to know us
Than as two wolves, come separately to a wood.”


FURFUR THE WRAITH WOLF

High in the Arma Mountains, Furfur, was left abandoned as a pup with his siblings. Far above the alpine zone where the prey was scarce and thin with hunger and the ground was almost always covered in snow, his mother wandered off too far from her cubs for hunting and never came back. By the time Avesta and Aspara found him and his siblings, they were alive but their hearts were slow enough to be sleeping. Avesta was only able to save two of them by telling their hearts to wake up and beat faster. Furfur has been loyal ever since.

Wraith Wolves look like nothing more than Arctic Wolves except for the splash of icy coloring on their fur. They are always slow to grow and what might take a natural wolf a year to develop might take them two. At a young age they can almost never take on their wraith form, and if they do so accidentally it never lasts more than a few minutes. But when they reach two, they can easily slip in and out of wraith form.

In his wraith form Furfur sheds all his regal serenity and becomes more like a demon. His size goes from four feet at the shoulder to six and half. All traces of gentleness are gone from his eyes and they start to glow the same color that the center of a flame might. His fur is replaced by something that looks both like ice, snow, and muscle. A shifted Wraith Wolf can also pass through objects at will such as a wall, a boulder or a large tree. Furfur is highly unpredictable in this stage, although he would never hurt Aspara or her family the rest of the world around her might be at risk. Once he's mature this form can last for days although the shift back to his resting state is often slightly more painful because of the extended time spent as a wraith.

(written by the lovely Nestle <3)