#⌜❝ 𝙻𝙰𝚃𝙾𝙽𝙰. kill your conscience. better you than me. ❞ ⌟

[incendiorum]

1 & 2.

[incendiorum-arch]

older than io, latona was born in 6 CE, making her 2,017 years old. she's immortal like them, and nearly as powerful as io (the discrepancy between their power levels would be comparable to a hairsbreadth - the difference between them is that latona comes from a long, powerful line of magic-users. io's power comes from being a demigod).

latona joined up with lucius before io did, and was close friends with him and remained closed friends with him until his death. col's betrayal and lucius's death haunts her terribly, too.

she was born in roman africa, and tends to prefer staying in north africa nowadays, specifically egypt and libya.

she is nonbinary too, but prefers she/her. her relationship with gender is fairly 'eh.' she cares about it in a completely different way than io does, and is fine being perceived as a woman.

up until she joined lucius and his group, she made her life as a midwife in rome. appearing as a woman, the only way she could offer her skills with healing was to women, and she did the best she could. she still offers her healing magic to this day, although she must keep it quiet due to the hounds. they pursue her, mercilessly, as well.

her magical prowess is with healing, specifically. considering she's very powerful, there's not much she can't heal. she has her limits, of course, and some things exhaust her more than others, but she is very good at what she does.

her emotions do not guide her magic unless it's someone very close to her. otherwise, she remains cool and level-headed, only dealing with her emotions later, in silence and safety.

there's simply no way to escape her if you're close to io. she will be found hanging out in their shop, she does call them often, she texts them often, too. the advent of modern technology and the phone was fantastic for them both, as io and latona are not often in the same place

latona is the person who knows the most about io's past and trauma, and vice versa - io knows a significant amount about her past, as well.

I've always thought of latona and io as two sides of a morally gray coin. io is harsh, and will often lean towards violence first and foremost. they'd rather ignore someone in need, unless it suits their own goals to help. latona, on the other hand, is likely to help someone in need out of kindness, but in the same breadth can be just as ruthless and deadly as io. they often encourage other back and forth. io nudges latona towards the darker shade of gray, depending on situation, and latona might nudge them towards the lighter shade of gray.

[venenorum-archive]

does latona ever play off iovita's power, let when they're together in battle, does her power like make iovita's flames more dangerous? she's pretty dangerous herself i'm sure but like in a fight of 2 v 40 would she and iovita win?

❝ prompted but i’m too lazy to link.

          2 v 40? easy-peasy.

          she can’t bolster io’s power like that, but she can defend them very well. latona and io are both extremely powerful witches (latona born into it from a line of powerful witches, and io gets their own from being half god), they just have different skills. I like to put it as - io could burn a city to the ground. latona could defend it. she’s good at making traps, wards, etc. plus, the fact that she can heal anything from minor to grievous injuries is always a bonus.

          latona and io fighting together is io doing the attacking and latona making sure they’re untouchable. which makes them a very difficult duo to defeat. there’s also something to be said about the fact that they’re very close, and have known each other for several hundred years. they’re both quite good at anticipating the other’s actions. latona’s one of the few people who can handle the outbursts of io’s magic, too - both because, as just said, she anticipates it, and also because of her skill with defensive magic.

[incendiorum]

any game that involves latona and io quickly turns into a 'how hard can we fuck each other over' immediately. they will fully ignore any other players just to annoy the shit out of each other. losing doesn't matter because it's still winning if one of them ends it frustrated and cursing in depth in latin and latin explicitly.

[incendiorum]

two ways to put the fear of god into io:

say their full name. if you’ve ever been called your entire full name by a parent before you know why this is terrifying. it’s self explanatory.

threaten to call latona on their ass.

[incendiorum]

io who simply knows they have trauma and doesn't really know how to deal with it vs. latona who has used her immortality wisely and keeps going in and out of school to learn as much as she can about the mind & body

[incendiorum]

tag dump #1

[incendiorum]

latona and io are both about equal when it comes to power/abilities. however, the difference is that latona was born from two already powerful magic users herself, and inherited it. io was deemed a miracle child. an astonishingly powerful witch born to two very, very mediocre parents. the truth is that io is technically a demigod, and that's why their well of magic runs so deep. but io doesn't really know that yet. all they know for certain is that the man who raised them is not actually their blood-related father.

[incendiorum]

oh, latona certainly is the cooler, more level-headed one out of the two of them (io and her) but do not doubt io's ability to pull her into some kind of bullshit, or even doubt latona's ability to incite some bullshit. they are best friends. they're siblings in every way except for blood. latona is the one person in this world who has almost all of io's trust. trust only in their ability to whisper together in an incredibly suspicious way and then disappear the moment you take your eyes off them. where did they go? something about a boat, and the ocean? and io gets real seasick, sure. but it'll be fine. you'll see. they'll be back in like. a week. maybe. it's almost impossible to follow their conversations, too, unless you also happen to speak latin. and even if they are speaking a language you do understand, they interrupt each other and change the topic back, forth, back again, back even further, to something else - that it gets kind of hard to keep track. and besides that, they've known each other for 1700 years. they can communicate with some very specific glances. latona will lock an arm around io's neck until they plead uncle just because you asked but she's also the first one to nudge them towards a godawful amount of illegal fireworks, too.

[incendiorum]

latona was born much earlier than iovita - year 6 CE, making her, currently, 2,017 years of age. she was also born in rome, but in roman africa and a city known as leptis magna (located in present-day libya). both of her parents were gifted with magic, and quite powerful. she was their only child, and loved dearly. she was especially close to her mother, who she learned the art of healing from. and how to hide magic in mundane remedies. her father's business was in trade, sending ships back and forth across the mediterranean. when she grew older, she was married. she left behind the only home she had ever known, and was thrust into the worst years of her life. her husband was heavy-handed and cruel-tongued. for a long time, she didn't know how to fight back without being punished afterwards. sometimes, she debated it, anyway, consequences be damned. anything would be better than living like this. she clung to stories, myths, for a long time. and slowly, very slowly, an idea began to form. utilizing her own magic she gave herself the ability to shapeshift into one animal - a hyena. her husband stood no chance against those bone-crushing jaws. after, she fled. her, missing, and her husband torn apart by some wild beast? it was assumed that she, too, had succumbed to the same mysterious fate. eventually, latona joined up with a man who had two goals of his own in mind: to stay out of the eyes of rome, as he had deserted his military position; and to try and manage any ill-doing magic-users before something worse could befall them. his name was lucius, and he welcomed latona with open arms. it was with lucius that latona eventually met iovita. at first, she saw the same scrappy, angry person lucius saw, and welcomed them. she helped them choose a new name and honored it with the nickname, io. but, believe it or not, for a while she found io... a lost cause. in her defense, io at that stage of life only knew one kind of way to live, and would lash out and pick fights for seemingly no reason. lucius was the one who stepped up and started working with them, through rose-colored glasses, no doubt. but it was through his patience that io and latona could eventually grow as close as they did - as close as family. they're still close, to this day, even if their travels throughout the world take them different directions. the invention of the cell phone was highly valued by both of them, and they keep frequent contact that way. otherwise, sometimes one or the other will take a week or so to visit. hanging around inter mundos or getting into trouble in a city somewhere.

[incendiorum-arch]

art cred 1, art cred 2.

[incendiorum-arch]

          col, io, and latona are all the living relics of the roman empire, and each one tends to continue to haunt the places they frequented hundreds of years ago, even if those places are under different names. io likes to frequent places in italy, spain, greece. col went a little further north than them - as he went that direction after rome was sacked in the fifth century - and ending up establishing hound headquarters in southern france, but also tends to frequent italy and spain as well. latona, on the other hand, was born in northern africa and continues to spend most of her time now in libya and egypt.

[venenorum-archive]

can you go more in detail about col and latona's powers? the weakness in those powers? something that makes them stronger?

❝ prompted.

          of course! I’ll start with col, first.

          I’ve ranked my magic users in tiers, before, based on amount of power and the strength of that power. col stands at a tier below iovita - he’s quite powerful. or rather... he could be. he doesn’t use his magic anymore due to his own fear of it, except for when it’s absolutely necessary. because of that, even the tiniest bit of magic is hard for him to do. he strains to do it, as if his power has atrophied from disuse. 

          putting that aside, however, and viewing it from the standpoint of not atrophied, col’s magic is fairly similar to iovita’s. he does best with heat and fire (the reason why io decided to teach him how to use his magic in the first place). however, unlike io, col has amazing control over it. his emotions never override his mind, and he never has spits and starts of uncontrolled magic that io does.

-

          latona’s big weakness is that she has amazing defense, and isn’t very good at offense. she can’t attack outright with her magic, but she can shield herself very well. her talent with healing is also a strength. she can quickly stop bleeding in the midst of a fight, and deal with the actual injury afterwards, since actually healing something takes anywhere from thirty seconds of complete focus to hours of it.

          latona also has impeccable control over her own magic. she has too. trying to heal a deep wound while battling her emotions would be a mess.

          her power is on the same tier as iovita’s - she’s strong, and skilled, and even if she can’t strike with her magic, you’ll have a near-impossible time trying to get past her shell.

[venenorum-archive]

          io’s magic runs hot and chaotic -- latona’s magic runs cool and controlled. hers can be as relieving as cool summer rain or as terrifying as a hurricane, but only when she wants it to be. the difference between her and io there is that she always has control over her magic. she wouldn’t have made a good healer if she didn’t.

          col’s magic is atrophied and intentionally repressed, cold as a day-old fire. he barely ever uses his magic anymore and it shows when he does, struggling to even light a candle despite having a wealth of power to call his own. before he used to have wonderful control over it, turning it into an artform. that was, of course, before he grew frightened of magic - including his own.

[venenorum-archive]

latona: alright. so ur obviously in love

io: I AM?

[venenorum-archive]

kill your conscience, better you than me.

latona, no chosen surname. she simply floats through the world and offers her help when needed. her and io are two sides of a morally gray coin. where io leans into darker gray, latona leans into lighter. they play off each other, too. io encourages latona to lean darker, and latona encourages io to lean lighter.

they’ve known each other for centuries. latona was also born in rome, in a city known as leptis magna in what is now libya. she met io when they joined up with lucius, and they’ve been solid friends since then, bordering into something more like found siblings.

io often calls latona latty, despite the fact that she hates it.

in terms of power, latona is extremely powerful, and specializes in healing. she’s spent many, many years as a midwife in particular, part of a reasoning to her choice in name. even so, she’s a force to be reckoned with. she killed her first husband, after all. // art cred 1, art cred 2.