Character Name: Isabel Amalthea St. Germaine
Age: 27
Homeworld: The Eternal Sky [Destroyed], Fort Temperance [Lost to Darkness]
Statues: Light but clouded
Side: Freelancer
Rank: None
Element: Ice, Wind
Description: Isabel stands out in any crowd. Scarcely a hair taller than five feet, small and slender but far from delicate. Hidden behind a mane of deep indigo broken by two streaks of shimmering sky blue, which she wears differently depending on her situation, usually in a single long braid or loosely tied back behind her. Her eyes are an unearthly blue to match the highlights of her hair, frequently red-rimmed from either weeping or lack of sleep, either of which seem to be regular issues with her. She favors a very practical wardrobe, consisting mostly of padding and pockets.
Personality: Grim, desperate determination. She's lost two homes and two families, but refuses to give in to despair. Inwardly, Isabel grieves continually for her family and the whole of the Eternal Sky, but she cannot allow herself to weep alone for them- until she knows for certain what has become of Gabriel, alive or otherwise. Further, having been educated on the nature of the Heartless by Merlin and Cid Highwind, she's certain that she can restore Fort Temperance and give her young wards back their parents. The children under her protection have only seen her smile once in the ten years she's been their protector.
Weapon(s): The Seven Gales- A delicate-looking silver rapier imbued with the full might of the Seven Winds of the Eternal Sky. The guard of its hilt is carved into an elegant swooping falcon.
Falcon's Cyclone Strike (Sleight): Drawing upon the power of the Seven Gales, Isabel delivers a dizzying assault that strikes the target from virtually all sides as she sweeps around them with blinding speed.
Abilities:
Wise Owl's Eyes (Passive) - Isabel isn't merely perceptive, but uncannily keen of sight under any circumstances. She can read fine print from several feet away, her vision is as good in pitch black as in brightest light, she is strongly resistant to blindness, and can pick out the subtle hints and flaws in any illusion or disguise. She can also read lips perfectly, and can temporarily memorize text and maps at a glance.
Curse of the Oracle (Passive) - Since just before her mother's death, Isabel has seen glimpses of possible futures, all of them terrible but sometimes avoidable by immediate action on her part. The visions come to her like seizures, sudden and overwhelming and impossible to forget.
Streetwise (Passive) - She may have been nanny to a gentleman's son, but her young ward was a street rat at heart, and Isabel never passed up a useful lesson on his nightly jaunts. She knows how to fit in with the local rogues and misfits, how to intimidate and bluff her way around both thugs and cops, and how to escape a hot pursuit through even a sparse village.
Debutante (Passive) - Being employed by a man of high station and breeding, Isabel is perfectly at home in any form of high society, ever ready to observe the niceties of culture, and adept at the verbal sparring that permeates the upper classes. Thus, she can gather both information and support from circles that would otherwise look down their noses at the group.
Summons: None
Bio(Before SOTH): Isabel grew up the youngest of her family, the peacemaker and mediator among her twelve older brothers, and the only ally to her immediate elder, Gabriel. A rowdy, brawling family, their father a just man but the devil himself when intoxicated (as often he would be in her life), Isabel was as much another brother as any of them, foregoing any of what other worlds would deem "ladylike behavior." To escape their draconian brothers and their father's drunken rages, she and Gabriel made a second home for themselves in a disused hangar, where they worked together on Gabriel's dream, a new aircraft to carry them far beyond the distant clouds that seemed to fence in the world as they knew it. Driving each other on with this dream, Gabriel and Isabel would excel in their training beyond their elder brothers. Isabel was a clear prodigy, the youngest ever under the escutcheon of Saint Germaine the Noble to earn her wings at eleven winters old, beating out Gabriel for the honor by a full year of life. Part of this was due to Isabel's unusual gift of prophecy - she suffered from random, sudden, and powerful visions of the future, sometimes by mere minutes, sometimes by months and even years.
The beginning of the tragedy that would eventually grow into the death of their entire world took place when Isabel was barely reaching her tenth winter. Already bedridden from three traumatic births, including Isabel's own, their revered mother took ill and passed away just before Gabriel's birthday of that year. But before she died, she passed along to Isabel a secret that changed the young girl forever...
Bio(Strength of the Heart): The next thing she remembers is waking up in the mental ward of a hospital. According to her doctor, she had been delirious and hallucinating for several weeks after she was found in the twisted wreck of her fighter just outside the walled city of Fort Temperance. Her first interviews, about herself and her strange arrival, were taken as further hallucinations and she was subjected to several "treatments" intended to shock her back to "reality." Rather than risk further "treatment," Isabel kept silent about where she was from, knowing full well that no one would believe she came from another world altogether. Feigning amnesia, she persuaded the doctor to recount the visions she'd spoken of in her fevered half-sleep, listening in horror at the retelling of Gabriel's deal with unholy powers and of the nightmare he had become to save her life. Though the doctors were skeptical, Isabel successfully bluffed her way to a bill of generally clean health, and found employment soon after as a governess for two young children of one of the hospital's directors- Abigail and Connor Tremayne.
Isabel ran the nursery with special care, a loose ship with a tight rein. She encouraged independence but not misbehavior, allowed Connor's nightly escapes to further his learning in the school of hard knocks and Abigail's secret forays into the library while their parents slept, but kept them both as clean-cut and sternly disciplined as befit the children of a nobleman in a generally prudish and backwards culture. Connor and Abigail soon grew closer to Isabel than to their own parents, a relationship that may well be the only reason they are still alive and still together.
The night of the Battle of the Eclipse, Isabel had her first vision since the death of her world. Regaining her composure, she found the entire city in a panic over strange phenomena and disappearances, culminating in the sun failing to rise that morning. Instinct took over where reason failed, and by the time the first Heartless began to attack the city's terrified constables, Isabel and her employer's family were already packed and making their way to the train station. But the assault from the Darkness took the whole city at once, and the children were forced to witness their parents' hearts being stolen by the Heartless. Surrounded and cornered, the three fought with all their might even as the fight seemed hopeless.
And then they heard barking behind them. Isabel looked back in time to see a rather strange-looking yellow dog leaping into a shimmering hole in the air. Taking chances on uncertain doom rather than the certain one that had the city in its jaws, Isabel pulled Connor and Abigail through the portal. They emerged in the Radiant Garden, falling through the roof of the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee's headquarters. There was no sign of the dog, but they WERE safe, and soon found themselves among friends.
Bio(Current): In the last five years, Isabel's visions have remained quiet, save for one nightmare that never seems to vanish, nor give any explanation. A looming, formless darkness in the distance, seven shadows blotting out a setting sun, and a thousand scattered points of light. She has kept these a secret, revealing them only to Merlin and Leon, and only because she feels they may be tied to the mysterious breaking of the World Borders. To further study this, Cid and Isabel have rebuilt her old fighter, Nightingale, in Gummi form, ready once again to return to the skies.
