A U R E L I A N A

I am no bird, and no net ensnares me.

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☀ [ G E N E R A L ] ☀

☀  name ||  Aureliana

☀  nicknames || Generally insists her friends call her Auri

☀  age ||  24

☀  gender || genderfluid, most often she/her but all pronouns acceptable  

☀  height ||  14h

☀   breed resemblance || Dainty features, slightly dished profile, most resembles an Arabian/ Connemara Pony cross

☀   coat || Silver amber champagne tobiano

☀   drive || Knowledge above all else, desperate to see the world. Aimless after the Ball. 

☀   alignment || neutral good

☀   voice ||  

☀   patron god ||  If asked in public, she’d dutifully answer Ignacio, but in her heart Kaia or potentially Argus. Has a healthy interest in Cascade as well. Will never admit it but has a secret curiosity in Alya.  

☀   zodiac || The Phoenix: Celestial Spring Sign of Creativity

☀ [ F A M I L Y ] ☀

☀  orientation || poly/pan, serial crusher. Heavily leans towards women who can kick her ass, though. And knights in shining armor...

☀  partner || winks

☀  children || winks louder 

☀   father ||  Carlisle [deceased]

☀   mother || Rosalind [deceased]

☀   siblings ||  Rosalba, tentatively open to creation, as are other family members (ask first!)

☀   nieces || Sereya, Rosalie [deceased]

☀   cousins || Sylvia 

☀  slaves || Poe.  Open! Has a whole herd. Most technically belong to Rosalba, though. 

☀ [ A F F I L I A T I O N S ] ☀

☀  herd ||  Aodh

☀  rank || Eminent of Greater House Cardea

☀  location || Valore. Important: has not left Rosebriar Manor for five years (since the Ball). 

compassionate | curious  | charming | selfish | jealous | kind | paranoid | cunning | thoughtful | insecure

☀ [ P E R S O N A L I T Y ] ☀

Aureliana has lived the life of a spoiled noble Greater House child, and it shows. Privilege is something she has not truly grasped, expecting opportunities and open doors that would not exist were she born to lower status, because she has never known otherwise. Her life was very sheltered, to the point of stifling and made her yearn for something more, something like adventure, something wild and exciting to wake her up. She dreamed of travel and seeing the world, desperate to know what life was like beyond the borders of Eithne. She visited Bloom, Opulence, even Harborside, enchanted by the differences between, collecting memories like souvenirs, and it gave her just a taste of the sort of life she might be looking for. 

It all came to a crashing halt after the Ball. The walls around her were no longer a cell but safe, a gilded birdcage where she could roost comfortably. The world has narrowed to her home life and she is hard pressed to try and push herself beyond its borders.

For five years she has lived this way. Curious and starving for information and interaction, she invites others to her home constantly, never offering to meet them at theirs, and in this way she reveals her selfish nature. Let them come to her, let her not be moved from where she has safely placed her roots. Still, she’s a wonderful host, and at her young age her flighty nature is almost charming. She flits from one distraction to the next, chasing stimulation to rid her of her self imposed boredom, and always, always running away. She flees from her fears, from the expectations of her family, for the ever looming future that dares to steal her from the safety of her home. 

Once, life was an endless opportunity before her. Now the vastness of it all terrifies her, and she secrets herself away, disappearing into books. Still, deep in her heart, she longs for that freedom, for her old self again, to be able to walk down the street and gaze up at the sights instead of into the eyes of every stranger, anticipating a knife. 

She wanted to be a teacher, once. She wanted to educate, to share in the joy of knowledge and forge bonds with people. She cares deeply for others, wants to connect, but now she is limited to who can come to her home, the slaves who live with her. And she gazes out at the world beyond her window, and she wishes, deep and secret in her heart, that maybe, one day, she could join them all again. 

☀ [ H I S T O R Y ] ☀

 ☀ birth & childhood ||

Aureliana came into being with a weight of expectation set squarely on her shoulders. With a host of siblings and her promising oldest sister, there was no need to prepare her to be an Heir, but plenty of pressure to excel. Make the family look good from her example. She was expected to be an artist, an architect, a demure and well mannered beauty, a well educated obedient wife. A flashy trophy for someone’s home, good genes to carry future children.  

She aged into this role gracefully. She had no interest in being an Heir, quite happy in her role as a spare. As a child, life was easy- her parents highest expectations lay elsewhere, and near limitless opportunities rolled out before her hooves. She found quickly to have a skill in reading and writing, and this was encouraged as a form of art. She devoured books of all kinds, tutors scrambling to catch up as she raced through everything in her library, and then reached for more. 

Rosalba considered her an annoyance at best. When Aureliana was very young, she’d follow her biggest sister everywhere, only to flee and cower when she was inevitably snapped at. Nearly twenty years between them rendered their friendship strained before it ever began- Rosalba a grown adult while Aureliana was learning to walk. 

Her tutors and slaves were her family, mostly. She saw her parents for important events, trotting at their heels and fluttering her lashes, but at home she was left to her own devices. Sometimes it was a luxury she knew her older siblings coveted, but mostly she just found it lonely. She craved affection and closeness, and the approval of her family. Her sisters perhaps most of all. 

She would not find it.  

 ☀  teenage years || 

School would prove to be the brightest point in her life. 

She quickly fell onto the classics curriculum track, her parents hiring only the best tutors they could find, sending her to the best schools. She swept through her upper secondary years like a wildfire, burning a bright path behind her. Dreams of being a teacher danced in her head as she buried herself in books, in the art of writing and reading them, in poetry and historical literature. 

New Valore University was competitive and challenging, and Aureliana relished in the struggle. She pushed herself above and beyond, always hopeful to be noticed and commended by her family, but her efforts were met with satisfaction, no more. They had expected her to perform well, and she did. 

She could still be better.

She worked harder, took on more courses. Somewhere along the way, learning for the joy of learning disappeared, and education became a means to an end, collecting knowledge like trophies, carefully displayed and hoping to catch her family’s eye. Her first semesters had a few classes not strictly necessary, but fascinating  to her, but by the end of her schooling she only focused on her most core classes. What had started as her greatest joy became a bitter chore, and graduation loomed like a gravestone. 

Clutching a bachelor’s in literature and a minor in adult education, when graduation came at last, she felt transparent. Exhausted after spreading herself paper thin, she quietly retreated home for a break, deciding if she was truly ready to pursue a master’s. 

The clock was ticking. Her family would marry her off before too long, and she would be a good wife, she would,  but she still had a few years to do as she wished. One day, children would keep her tethered here. She didn’t dread them- looked forward to them, even- but she relished her freedom while she had it.

In her daydreams, in the stories she read, she dreamed of the idea of traveling. Of learning about the world, of teaching others. She wanted to see everything, wanted to learn it all, wanted to meet people at every corner of the world. Maybe she’d find what she was looking for, out there. Coming back from school to her manor, her world felt impossibly small all of a sudden. The walls were suffocating. She needed to run. 

Her parents weren’t fond of the idea, but agreed to allow her to travel to study for a year or two- she’d be accompanying another relative, an architect traveling to study other culture’s architecture. 

She would leave and see as much of the world as she could before settling down for good. She would return and pursue her Master’s, her wanderlust at an end. 

She simply had to attend a few parties first, put out some feelers for a future matchmaking to return to. 

The last party she was slated to attend before leaving was the New Year’s Ball of 1697. 

 ☀ adulthood || 

She remembers the ball in too bright colors that taste bile sour in her mouth, coppery on her tongue. The night is a canvas splattered in fluorescent paint, jumbled and jarring, every color swirling into crimson. 

She lost her leg. Her niece.

Her parents. 

She nearly lost Rosalba, grateful beyond words to still have her big sister. Their relationship shifted, straining under the pressure of Rosalba stepping into the role as head of house. 

Aureliana’s travel plans were canceled without a murmur of protest. After the ball, she locked herself in her rooms, and did not show herself at upcoming events. She cited her lost leg, her other injuries from the night. As they healed and her limp became less pronounced, she found more excuses to stay indoors. Headaches, a mysterious stomach upset, a cough. 

Rosalba stopped inviting her anywhere, after a while. Aureliana still cherishes it as her greatest kindness to her. 

Leaving the house seemed insurmountable. Crowds of equines made her missing leg throb, string music made her nauseous, anxiety a live wire wrapped around her throat away from the safety of her home. She barely made it out to the gardens, and could go no further without collapsing into tremors. 

Rosebriar Manor was her fortress. Nothing could hurt her, here. 

Travel was a far off dream, and she could almost laugh at her prior naivety. Didn’t she know there were monsters, out there?  

She spent much of her time reading, writing. A sanctum attendant named Kaspar was kind enough to give her monthly private sessions, messages of hope and faith, encouraging her. Answering her endless questions patiently.  They skirted at the edges of counseling, his tone gentle, but she shied away from confronting her issues head on. She just needed time, she kept saying. Another day. 

Tutors came to the house to educate her on anything she could find someone to teach, friends came to keep her updated on the latest gossip, and life seemed to have found a new normal. 

No one knew of her more private writing, where she explored made up faraway lands. No one knew of the pre dawn mornings she would inch her hooves across her self imposed border, breathing shakily as she watched the sun rise and christen the world anew. No one knew of her gazing longingly out at the waking city, the horizon beyond, the shaking steps she would take closer before fear clasped around her throat, jerking her to a stop like a leash. 

Another day, she would tell herself as she backed away, shutting herself back into the welcoming arms of her home. 

Another day. 

☀ [ A D D I T I O N A L   I N F O R M A T I O N ] ☀ 

• Capable of painting, mostly does so when she needs to do something mindless with her teke while she thinks. Just likes to swirl paint around and call it abstract. Enjoys sketching more, has a talent for it but is more embarrassed about it then she lets on. Likes to lay out in the garden and draw intricate pictures of roses, or gestures of a slave at work.  

• Useless in a kitchen but likes to try, especially baking. The slaves politely dispose of her experiments before anyone can accidentally consume one. 

• Oddly interested in familiars. Attempting to learn their language- she believes they will have fascinating things to tell her about the world as they see it. So far, this has yielded few results, but she can often be seen in the presence of someone’s borrowed familiar furiously taking notes. 

• Neutral on slave rights. Never thought much about it before the labor slave seize, when her home was suddenly very empty, and she was very, very lonely. When her slaves- her best friends-  returned to her with hollow eyes and new scars. She doesn’t know what to think, anymore. 

• Loved to dance, once. She hasn’t in five years. 

☀ [ I N V E N T O R Y ] ☀

A beautiful leg prosthetic, commissioned from an artisan by Rosalba. Given without a word. 

Roses from the garden, picked fresh almost daily. 

The tattoos she got in college.



(FB by @/tae-bun with help from @/Lebazardesmondes ! Design by @/queerly.  Bust by @/nychnymph !)