#ashetta yla | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ashetta-yla-blog · 6 years

Text

ASHETTA YLA

Rank: Commoner

Position: Messenger

DETAILS

Age: 18

Height: 5’

Weight: 103lbs

Physical Description: Ashe is both slight of stature and demeanor, preferring to maintain an air of anonymity. It’s a skill that’s perhaps not as necessary as it once was, but it’s been a tough habit to break. With raven black hair and skin as pale as a bloodfiend’s, the comely original certainly should not be short of suitors, but finds that a cold disposition and sharp glares with her unnerving blue eyes prove to be successful deterrents to most. Her lips are a shapely rosebud when not stretched into a smile or pulled into a frown, but she prefers to be without any sort of color or rouge. There have been those who have mistaken Ashetta for a feminine looking boy, surely showing hardly any shape of a woman in her frame. With a lacking bosom and hips that leave some to be desired, Ashe has found it easier to step into the role of a street urchin boy rather than try to fit into the mold of “woman”.

Personality Description: Prickly might be what comes to mind when asked to describe what Ashetta is like. She doesn’t have a warm or welcoming way of being, and most find that they don’t enjoy her bitter company much. She hasn’t got much in the way of a sense of humor, and most jokes are wasted on her. She takes life far too seriously, seeing everything as a desperate fight for life. Growing up as first a beggar, and then trained as an assassin, she has fostered a personality shaped by hyper vigilance and suspicion. Deep down, she is a lonely young woman whose parents are long gone, and those she thought were family betrayed her. She never trusted those that took her in, not truly, but the betrayal hurt all the same. It has hardened her, and convinced her that she must learn to depend on only herself. Her entire life, she has relied desperately on others to support and protect her. No more. She lives a solitary lifestyle with nothing but her magic. Ashe is not explicitly unkind to others, but rather standoffish. She avoids confrontation like a plague, preferring to deflect and placate. She is not strong, not large, and depends on a quick wit coupled with lightning reflexes to survive. In this new land, and new life, she has a hard time adjusting to lack of immediate danger to her life. She earns her keep as a messenger and appreciates the solitude, but cannot abandon the instincts conditioned into her.

Strengths // clever - perceptive - driven - brave - compassionate

Weaknesses // prideful - mistrustful - impulsive - obsessive - skeptical

COMBAT

Class: Magician

Sub-Class: Elemental Assassin

STORY

20 YEARS AGO

Vervain Clayborne was a young woman full of promise, such a vast life laid out ahead of the original. While still a commoner, her parents jealously guarded her hand for marriage. If she were to marry anyone but another original, all that potential within her would collapse. Her proud family kept a close eye on her, of course, as she was the only girl of their children and could afford to scrutinize each and every suitor that came sniffing at her feet. Vervain’s thoughts on the matter were pointedly ignored, of course. Silly girl, only sixteen, how could she know which family would bring her family higher? How could she know which she had to stay away from? She was restless, stifled, and all to eager to break away from the suffocating mold her parents sought to stuff her into - a tale as old as time.

Trusten Yla was entirely unaware of the role he would play in Vervain’s escape. A young shapechanger that worked as a horse trainer on a coast, able to turn from trainer to black stallion at will, he was a valued employee of the family business. They had dealings with people from all over Northwind, but there was one family they outright hated. The Clayborne family were pointed enemies of the Yla family - an old blood feud and horse-business rivalry that would never fade. Sensing the chance at rebellion, Vervain made a trip to visit the ranch. She did love horses, after all. Trusten soon became the Clayborne daughter’s most valued friend. He adored Vervain, and it was no secret that he was terribly in love with her within just a few months of taking her on her sunrise rides. She was the first original, that did not look down her nose at him, and found joy in his form of a stunning black steed. It wasn't long before he even consented to her riding him through the trails and galloping in open fields. How he loved bringing her joy, making her howl with laughter as he careened down the marketplace with her on his back and disturbing the city. She was the light of his life, and began to dread the day she'd be sold off the most eligible bachelor. Already it was a struggle to even see her with how desperately their families despised each other.

It was a star flecked morning at the top of a knoll that he asked for her hand in marriage, She cried openly, knowing what could happen, how furious their families would be. But for all she had tried to avoid it, Vervain loved Trusten with all of her heart. They married quickly and quietly, and they fled their families to find a home for themselves. Trusten established himself as a horse trainer on his own on the coast, trying to gain a foothold in a society that saw him as less than. They lived peacefully. Comfortably. He did everything in his power to provide for his wife, to give her the life she deserved. Vervain was unaccustomed to doing her own work - laundry and dishes and cooking and cleaning. These were skills foreign to her, and she was quite terrible at them. She did not complain, though, and her husband was patient. It was hardly a year into their time as newlyweds that Vervain announced herself pregnant.

ASHETTA YLA

Ashetta was a stunning little girl, her eyes bright blue and hair raven black. Vervain and Trusten never knew they could love so much until they laid eyes on her, and Ashe believes she will never know love as pure as what her parents wrapped her in and nurtured her with. If she’s being honest with herself though, she realizes she hardly remembers her mother, with no memories at all of her beyond the age of four - no memories of the way her mother praised her baby's lightning, no memories of the way her father urged her to keep it hidden.

For you see, Vervain grew very, very ill. Her family, the Claybornes and Rowans, knew magic healers, but when Trusten approached them, to beg them to heal their daughter? To be sure their granddaughter had a mother? No, they told him, we will not. She was no longer their child, and Ashetta was no relative of theirs. Ashe’s father tried and tried and spent every penny they had trying to keep her alive. He stopped working, he needed go take care of his wife, raise his daughter. Nothing he did could save her. Perhaps a healer might have, but an unemployed shapechanger could not afford such services. Ashetta lost her mother a couple of months after her fourth birthday. She stopped using the magic her mother loved so much.

Trusten had forsaken his livelihood to care for his sick wife, and with her gone, he lost much of his purpose and life. He did not abandon Ashe, at least. He was there for her, never brought up her missing magic and certainly never spoke of her mother anymore, and loved her more than ever... but being there for her with no income soon lost them their horses, their belongings and soon their home on the ocean. With no other choice, the family of now two abandoned their seaside farm to seek refuge and salvation in the capital city.

Having lived rurally for a long time, Trusten never expected it to be so hard to find work in the city. He was a shapechanger whose form was a stunning black stallion - surely someone could use him as a worker? He even began to offer himself in his animal state, a horse that could pull and work and do it more efficiently than a normal horse could. It was with no avail. His late wife’s family had worked hard to spread the word of who he was, tarnishing his name and reputation. With every employer wary of hiring someone so "morally corrupt", he was turned away at every door. He and his small daughter were beggars now, and he had nothing to give her.

Ashe never fully understood what it was that they had lost. She knew she missed her mother desperately, and cried for her often, but her father was quick to sooth away the tears. Sometimes, she would awaken to a soaking wet bed, thinking it was the blood her mother had vomitted on her death bed. Sometimes she swore she could feel a snap of electricity when she was angry... but Trusten was always quick to calm her fits, never making her think it was unusual. He took her on many rides, developing her skill as a master horseback rider and effectively distracting her from the woes of street life. This could not last forever, of course, and soon hunger became a constant companion to the little girl. By the age of five, she looked more like she was three with the extent of her malnutrition, and her father seemed to have aged ten years. As time progressed into the harshest winter they’d known, Trusten knew his little Ashetta would die there on the streets if they didn’t do something.

With trepidation, her father took her on another horseback ride. She lay on his neck and held onto his mane, savoring the warmth of her father as he plod through an unfamiliar part of the city. ‘Papa, where are we?’ she’d mumbled, forgetting that he could only answer her with a chuff and a swish of his tail. He halted outside of massive iron gates, distinctive enough that Ashetta recognized the place from other street urchins speaking of it. This was the assassin’s guild.

Trusten secured employment and residency as an infiltrator and stablehand in the massive estate, but for a price. With great regret and desperation, he handed over his five year old little girl to be trained and schooled as an assassin. Growing up was comfortable - she had her father still, and she was given wonderful clothing. Ashetta ate delicious food, and she was taught to both read and write - something not usually available to a girl of her station. And? She learned to fight. She learned to kill silently. She learned to wreath herself in shadow and disappear before anyone knew where the kill came from. It wasn’t often that the guild got to mold someone from such a young age, and soon she was favored by the Master of the guild. Some called her his prodigy, something that had something snapping and crackling in her bones. Every day, every month, every year that passed, Trusten became increasingly sure he’d sold his daughter to the devil.

Ashetta, now twelve years old and proud of her skill, loved her home and her role. She was a force of nature, unstoppable, and her masters had fostered a deep seeded hatred within her for the injustices of classism and racism in the world. Trusten tried to reason with his daughter, to convince her that enough time had passed, he was confident he could find work elsewhere, they could leave! Ashetta was no fool, of course. The guild would never allow them to leave - she and her father would be killed before they could ever leave, and she told him as much. He tried to promise they could get away, she’d get on his back and they’d gallop as far as he could. She refused, reminding him that her first solo contract would be assigned soon, and then she’d have a place in the guild, a real place. She could start paying off their debts. Trusten was unable to convince his daughter that becoming a killer was not the answer. He was a fool, she thought. He was the one who’d brought them there seven years ago. She’d swept away from him and headed for the training rooms, entirely aware of the burn marks in the shape of handprints she'd left on the table... and unaware of the man watching them from the shadows. Her father would have to deal with the consequences.

She was sent on her first mission a week later, a contract to assassinate a minor lord in a specific manner - she had to send a message to whoever his allies were and leave his ring finger at their door. She’d killed before, so this was not the concern for her, not anymore. Her masters had provided controlled kills for her, taught her do it quickly, silently, effectively. She knew how to torture a man, she knew how to destroy them, but… this would be different. All those people had been evil, terrible people. Rapists. Murderers. Pedophiles. This was just a man. Something in Ashetta broke that night, something that had been poised to fall and break for quite some time. There would be no coming back from that, her hands would never be clean.

She returned home to the estates the following evening, the job done. She was hungry and tired and only made a swift report to her masters before retiring. She did not look for her father. Her relationship with him was strained from then on. He wanted to take her away, to save her from the brutality of the guild and their work, and she railed against those desires. This was her job, and she was good at it. Nevermind the abuse she suffered, the intense discipline and violence inflicted on her. Daggers and darkness and silence were like a second nature, and Trusten would not take that from her.

Years passed, and she grew more skilled and more sought after for contracts. She constantly had to evade the Storm Guard, but this soon became much easier as they were called away to handle the war that loomed on their doorstep. War was good for her, profitable. It would get her closer to paying off her debts, because her father’s meager wage certainly brought them no closer to not owing anyone. Sometimes, she had a good evening with her father, or he’d take her on an early morning ride and she was reminded that she did love him.

It was a few days following her seventeenth birthday that something in her snapped.

Ashe had disobeyed. She had gone against her master more than once, yes, but this had been different. Ashe had been returning by carriage to the estate, having had a nice evening blowing some of her Master's money on dresses and jewelry and delicious sweets. At a stop, a scantily clad woman slipped into her cart. Ashe had drawn a blade, but held back when she saw the tiny baby in the woman's arms. 'I must leave,' she cried, tears streaming down her face. 'I've been sold to a man far more cruel than your master. You must take her! Your master must not know of Theea, and I cannot bring her. Keep her safe!

Ashe didn't even have a chance to protest before the infant was left in her arms and the nameless woman was gone. Ashe was left with a child of the man she hated and feared. She managed to sneak into the manor undetected. Ashetta fell in love with little Theea, managing to care for the child for months before she was finally discoved. She had never seen her Master so angry, and... Ashe wasn't afraid. She didn't remember much after she had set the child down behind her, taking up a defensive stance in front of the baby. She remembered suffocating heat and snapping in the air, her hair standing on end. And then?

She was in darkness. Complete, suffocating dark. Ashe had been in this pit before, and always, it brought panic. She was in a small space, nothing more than a deep hole dug in the earth. She didn't know much time passed. More than a week, at least, with nothing more than stale bread and a flask of water lowered down now and then. She had been in there so long, she nearly forgot who she was, where she was. It was insanity that frayed her mind, made her feel like her very soul was being suffocated by the earth.

When she was dragged out, she was covered in her own filth and mud, and blinded by the sudden sunlight. Rather than be allowed to wash and return to her rooms, her arms were strung up at the posts. She registered the sound of a whip slapping the ground. 'Twenty lashes, Ashetta. The sound of his voice stirred up a deep sense of hatred in her. Where was Theea? She suddenly remembered the babe. What had he done to her? 'You will count each one.

The first lash came with searing pain, but she made no sound. She did not count. 'If you do not count, I will keep starting over at one. His voice was chillingly calm. He swung again, and still she made no sound. By the time he reached twenty, still she did not count. He started over again, and again, and again. She shook violently, and her shirt had long since been sheered off by the whip and leaving her torso bare. The earth greedily soaked up her blood, and she could have sworn it had been steaming.

It wasn't until one of his lashes ripped through an already slashed open wound that she screamed. He did it again, and she cried now. She heard the whip slide back to strike again, but someone's murmuring stopped him. She didn't know who saved her, and never discovered it. She screamed when she was moved again, blacking out before she'd been fully dragged down the stairs and to the healer's cellar.

She spent five weeks in that cellar, laying face down while the healer worked on her. It was during that time when she became aware of something… alive in her blood. The first instance was a jolt of electricity that was too powerful to be called a static shock. She began to see and feel and understand that magic was crackling to life in her bones, whispering in her blood, pulling at her heart. It was real and there and strong and alive, boiling her blood and cooling her bones. She had magic, real magic. Through her physical therapy in the cellar with the healer, she gently explored her budding abilities with lightning, feeling like she'd found someone familiar.

When she was allowed to return to training and accepting contracts, she never spoke of her ordeal, and her Master never did either. She was muted, less sassy and more bitter. She was interested in her newfound abilities, though. A trained assassin and a magic original? Commoner or blueblood, soon she would be unstoppable. Ashe ran to her father and begged him to take her on a morning ride. He was all to eager to agree, considering she had hardly spoken to him since the whipping - he hadn't tried to save her. When they reached the outskirts of the city she asked for him to find them a secluded place. It was there that she showed him the electricity that hummed to life in the palms of her hands. She looked at him with such a grin, it broke Trusten’s heart. His daughter looked so much like her mother just then, Vervain’s stunning smile shining through the darkness that Ashetta had been forced to endure. He was proud of her, so proud of her, and he told her so. But… yes. But.

Ashe’s smile faded, her brow furrowing as her father expressed his fear for her, how he was sure the guild would use her magic, and her newfound status as a blueblood. Well yes, of course, she thought. Of course they’re going to use my magic, they need to use me! She did not seem to understand what they would ask of her. Trusten recognized the magic she used as destructive, as dark. What else could it be? There'd been hints of it when she was a child. At first he'd thought her one of those Elementals, but lightning was not their domain. It would destroy her. In anger, she demanded he return her to the estate. She stormed to her room and retired for the evening, but something about what he said had wormed into her head.

Ashe was sent on another contract, leaving without telling her Master of her discovered abilities. She tried to learn and fiddle on her own, but the electricity was unpredictable and hard to control. She knew she’d need to tell her Master soon, she needed to learn. But… would she learn the right things through them? Perhaps her father could find a way to get her into a magic school without Master knowing. She never got the chance to ask him. When she returned home, her latest target’s lifeblood still staining her clothes, he was nowhere to be found. On an infiltration mission, they told her. Odd, it’d been a long time since he’d been sent on one of those.

Ashe patiently waited for her father to return. She trained, she secretly tried to practice with her lightning. Two days passed. Four. A week. Ashetta approached her Master, demanding to know where he was. I have not heard from him. the masked man had told her. Yes, that was normal. Sometimes they didn’t hear from spies for weeks, even months. And yet something didn’t feel right. Her father was not a spy. He was a stablehand, and he occassionally helped spies get to where they needed to go. No he was not stuck on a mission. Something was wrong. Ashetta set to work, gathering all the information she needed on where he’d gone. She discovered that he’d been sent to a merchant’s manor, deep in the heart of the city. He was not there, nor was he anywhere close by. No, she learned with carefully, torturously, gleaning information from a guard that she would never find him. Dead,he’d panted in his wet, fear drenched voice. I remember now! Dead, buried a big black horse outside the city, gold cuff ‘n all.

A certain kind of silence gripped her then. Ashe doesn’t remember much of what followed. She did not return to the estate and murder them all, as the magic in her bones roared at her to do. She played nice until she got a chance to slip away, shaking any tails following her. She approached the authorities, the King, and she sold out the guild. She witnessed a few public executions and trials, and she knew many of her former “family” were locked deep down in the dungeons. Many, though, evaded capture. Many searched for her, for her life. She hid, desperately trying to preserve her life through whatever means she could. She knew they would kill her if the impending war didn’t, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could evade them. Finally, a chance arose.

She approached her rulers and her oppressors again, reminding them of the information she gave them, and begged for passage to the new world. She would put her skills to use as a master horseback rider, run messages, and she would attend the new magic school to hone her gifts. Please, she begged. Yes, they decided. Magic blood running through her veins, she was perhaps worth saving.

And so Ashe’s new life began, sent in the second wave to The Settlement. Still she lives looking over her shoulder, wondering when the guild will catch up to her and seek retribution. She spends her days maintaining her skills, and trying to master this strange, unknown magic within her.

Perhaps somewhere along the way, she'll learn of what she truly is, rather than believing herself to be an arcane mage.

RECENT UPDATE:

When Ashetta first came through the portal, she was hardly a husk of what she once was - which was something altogether dark to begin with. She was bitter and cold and distant, wrought with paranoia that everyone could be someone from the guild sent to exact revenge and take her life. She never imagined how much worse her situation really was: her Master had followed her through the portal, and he was intent on making her his once more. While her paranoia heightened to a constant state of fear… There have been other, unexpected changes in the Assassin in Blue. She has long since discovered her magic to be a one of a kind elemental combination, and through making friends for the first time, finding people she loved and loved her, she had uncovered parts of herself she never knew existed. Her desires and hopes extend far beyond being so powerful no one could hurt her again. She has gotten to know the people in the settlement in addition to the people she has come to love, and has found she would gladly use her dying breath to protect them. Many events have occurred to spur these awakening changes in her: falling in love, building her own family, defending Northaven.. her Master murdering people she cares about, and remaining more untouchable than ever. She is on a crusade to find her Master and put an end to things once and for all, to stop him from hurting anyone else she loves.

Ashe is still impulsive. She is intense and obsessive, certainly still riddled with paranoia and self loathing, and perhaps she will never be someone normal that fits. But she laughs brightly, loves fiercely, and has begun to learn about life and death and humanity in a way she never had the chance to before: through trust and connection…and hope.

#ashetta #ashetta valentus #ashetta yla #ashe yla #ashe valentus #character bio #original chatacter #oc

2 notes · View notes