Post by Nuala Byrne on Dec 18, 2016 15:55:39 GMT -5
BYRNE, NUALA
THE DRAGON WITCH
[ AT A GLANCE ]
Age / Apparent Age: 23 / Early 20s
Gender: Female
Height & Weight: 5’ 4” / 162cm & 130 lbs / 59 kg
Hair & Eye Color: Red & green
Positive Traits: Analytical, Civil, Driven, Pragmatic, Responsible, Worldly
Negative Traits: Bloodthirsty, Cold, Critical, Desperate, Dishonest, Malcontent, Untrusting
Loyalties: Fullbringers, especially young fullbringers, Nonessentia and Nonessentia’s mission. Nuala is her own boss, owing service only to the charter of Nonessentia’s advocacy for and agency over fullbringers and potential fullbringers, as written by her own hand.
Snapshots:
Nuala is born. (26 Aug, 1993)
Fullbringer abilities manifest, in response to Hollow attacks. (11 Feb, 1996)
Deirdre Byrne dies. (14 Feb, 1996)
Brendan Byrne distances himself from Nuala, blaming her for Deirdre’s death. (5 Mar, 1996)
Brendan surrenders Nuala to the Adoption Authority of Ireland. (12 Jul, 1997)
Nuala is taken back to Brendan’s care, then returned with non-contact requested. (12 – 18 Jul, 2000)
The Ursler family takes in Nuala. (9 Oct, 2002)
Katerine Urlser dies. (5 Jun, 2005)
The Ursler family throws out Nuala. (6 Jun, 2005)
A Shinigami buries Katerine’s soul; Nuala shadows him into the Senkaimon. (12 Jun, 2005)
Nuala is ejected from the Dangai and into Jamaica. (16 Jul, 2005)
Nuala travels the world to find a spiritual teachers. (Aug 2006; Apr 2014 – Sep 2015)
Nuala charters Nonessentia as a fullbringer agency. (Mar 2016)
[ ON THE SURFACE ]
Physical Description: Regardless of her clothing, Nuala looks like a one-woman riot just waiting to happen. Her body is toned and fit, with a full figure and a tanned, warm light brown complexion, covered everywhere in either freckles or ink. She has strong cheekbones, and features that are both rounded and generally symmetrical. Her large eyes are a clear, light green, limned along their edges with a darker green, making them stand out against her skin tone and the backdrop of her hair, which is a rich, natural red. Nuala wears her hair held back in dreads longer than half her back, decorated with many white bone tubes, wooden beads and solid steel wrecking balls.
Along Nuala’s arms, she is covered in a large pair of spiraling tattoos, one originating on the outside of each wrist with the head of a different dragon. The bodies of these dragons are interwoven with many feathery wings as they wend their way up to her shoulders and onto her back, where they cross together and their lines explode outward into a detailed mandala that covers her skin from the nape of her neck down to the small of her back. She sports hardware in silver and steel, with snake bites, a medusa, industrial bars, and piercings through her labret, bridge, septum, left eyebrow and navel. Her voice is a clear alto, and her body language typically suggests familiarity, a casual feeling, and her dismissive attitude.
Since acclimating back to her native Ireland, Nuala has settled on a favorite outfit consisting of a black hoodie dress with a light grey skull and crossbones on its chest, and a pair of faded black jeans that look like they've been stitched together from four of five different garments, with prominent pockets on their back side. She wears a pair of midnight gold glasses with small lenses in the John Lennon style, and also a pair of calf-length, fawn gray suede boots, covered with molded steel plating, buckles and silvered leather images of skulls. On her left wrist, she wears a simple but reinforced Quincy bangle, designed for long-term use.
Spiritual Description: In the instances that Nuala releases her own spiritual pressure, its effect is typically negligible. In great enough concentration, it manifests as an ethereal, muted mist that sinks and clings to the ground. An odd juxtaposition with her wild appearance and rude conduct, Nuala keeps this aspect of herself hidden as often as possible, preferring to use universal fullbring and Eagna Uisca whenever possible.
[ BEHIND THE EYES ]
Personality: Nuala is a collector. Despite her wild appearance, she is well-studied, intellectual, and worldly. She's been all over, gathering things for her collection. Although she would rather have a civil conversation with someone, preferably over tea, she will always make a stand for herself and her needs, and is ready to see violence as the solution to a problem just as often as the more peaceful alternatives. She uses her intellect to cut apart the world she interacts with both quickly and methodically, determining what she can use and what can be improved or discarded. This habit can make dealing with her shrewd at best, but more commonly, abrasive, and makes standoffish or combative personalities come to the surface more easily.
She has a certain kind of jealousy that can easily be seen as curiosity. If she doesn’t have it, she wants it, and if she can’t have it, she wants to know about it. This quality governs such a large portion of her personality that it is immediately obvious to some perceptive people just in the way she sizes up people and situations.
Nuala has traveled so far, and experienced so many things, but has ultimately been betrayed and let down at every turn. Dissatisfied and disaffected with what’s in front of her eyes, Nuala is highly critical and belittling of other things and people in a way that could be described as borderline narcissistic. She believes that if greatness exists, the odds she would be the one to witness it are minimal at best. Someone somewhere must be better, and it would be delusional to think otherwise. No one is unique, and no one is special.
Honesty is not a virtue Nuala is highly familiar with. Dishonest and suspicious, she relies on herself first and foremost, and sees other people as little more than tools to an end. She makes no friends and few enemies, but allies and acquaintances freely. When her loyalties and responsibilities are tested, she simply absconds. She rarely speaks formally, unless she’s being sardonic, and peppers her vocabulary with slang from many different countries.
Nuala fears oppression and losing loved ones, leading her to becoming antagonistic and sometimes even combative of authorities, and hesitant to downright evasive of forming strong personal connections. At a glance, she is unburdened by either the joys or the shackles of sentimentality. She craves both knowledge and affluence, but also trophies that commemorate and chronicle her adventures and acquisitions. Without a support network or family to fall back on, her need to gain achievements and prove herself compels her to accomplish her goals with a sense of urgency. This drive demands that she quickly determine what she does and does not need, analyzing her surroundings and circumstances, and taking actions sensibly, based on her here and now, filling the compartments of her needs without taking extra time to consider the theoretical.
Nonessentia’s charter is vast. Certainly too large for any lone individual to complete, and Nuala knows this. In tomorrow’s generation, fullbringers should be a thing of the past, but Nuala is just one woman. Effecting a change of that scale is not only beyond her, but so far past her capabilities that self-doubt and anxiety creep into her thoughts with constancy. Without significant members or drastic measures, the birth of new fullbringers cannot be stopped. This truth rankles under Nuala’s skin, constantly tugging at her self-worth, and as a result, leads her to such a desperation that she will often consider accepting or extending aid even without looking into the long term consequences.
Nuala has cultivated an appearance and personality that are designed to drive away others, protecting her from any perceivable weakness or possibility of betrayal, as she's been intimately betrayed many times in the past. She keeps everything at arm's length, practically paranoid with how she keeps her walls up. Her first line of defense against "other people," ready as soon as soon as her veneer of civility is no longer necessary, is to make a rude or cutting comment.
Prone to absentmindedly taking things apart and putting them back together when bored, Nuala also has a habit of clicking her tongue, and often gives names to inanimate objects. Additionally, she has a personal peeve, bordering on extreme prejudice, against uncomfortable chairs.
Goals & Achievements: Nonessentia’s mission is Nuala’s own mission. Fullbringers ought not be given a chance to exist. They are the unnecessary byproduct of hollows, who are themselves the unnecessary byproduct of the cycle of reincarnation. Created from attacks by hollows onto innocent lives, the creation of any Fullbringer all but demands the suffering of children and their families, and all for no cause.
There is no result to a Hollow or a Fullbringer but more suffering, sorrow and loss of life. Therefore, it must end. Fullbringers must not be allowed to develop, and failing this, they must be cared and advocated for. No one else will work for their benefit; they are so rare they are all but invisible.
Simple, small and out of the way, Nonessentia is part tea shop, part museum, part library and all hole-in-the-wall. As an organization, Nonessentia operates for the protection of fullbringers. It also contains Nuala’s humble basement apartment and more varieties of tea than you knew existed. If the agency did have an overarching goal, it would be to find a way to stop fullbringers from happening at all. However, Nonessentia nearly exists only in Nuala’s own mind. She may attract other members to it someday, but for now she is alone. The membership roster is exactly as long as her name.
Racial Views
Shinigami and Pluses – One half of the cycle of reincarnation. Shinigami are Pluses with power; they are potentially dangerous, but can otherwise be used to protect humans and return the souls locked up in Hollows to the cycle of reincarnation. Pluses should be protected until they can be transferred to Soul Society by a Shinigami.
Quincy – Untrustworthy disappointments. They claim to hunt Hollows, but use methods that destroy souls. Still, they are functionally humans with power, and should therefore be responsible to humans without power. In a pinch, they can be used to protect humans from Hollows.
Humans – One half of the cycle of reincarnation. Except for those with spiritual power, these people need to be protected from hollows and other threats. Humans with power should be beholden to those without, protecting the other humans and the cycle of reincarnation.
Hollow breeds – An unfortunate byproduct of the cycle of reincarnation, typically caused by lacking attention on the part of Shinigami. Essentially living concentrations of wayward souls, these need to be returned to the cycle as soon as possible, for the good of themselves and others.
Fullbringers – A frustratingly tragic byproduct of hollows attacking humans. Human souls tainted by Hollow power, the birth of a Fullbringer nearly always means human suffering. Therefore, their formation should be prevented at any cost. Once a woman with child has been attacked by a Hollow, however, the protection of the family and resulting Fullbringer becomes paramount.
[ GUARDIAN ANGEL ]
Mixed Martial Arts Practitioner – Karate, Kickboxing, Sikaran, and Tae Kwan Do: A basic fact of the human body: legs are longer and stronger than arms. As Nuala treks across the globe, she frequently makes sure to stop and spend time with martial arts schools, developing her skill with a diversity of combat styles that teach quick kicks, powerful kicks, adaptable kicks and any mix of the three. Combining these styles into a single, kick-heavy style, Nuala further underscores the terror of her kicks with a judicious application of her fullbring and the studded, spiked, and thoroughly customized armored boots she wears.
Eagna Uisca: When transformed, Priska's bundled ginto tubes change shape and collect along Nuala's left shoulder and half the length of her spine, where they form a coiled dragon with a long tail of seven segments. Each segment of the dragon's tail is a rich, emerald green color, visible beneath a molded steel plate. Drúcht anam fills the dragon's tail and disperses into the air around her as a fine, nearly invisible mist. Via precision applications of her fullbring, she focuses this mist into spells, allowing her to mimic the spellcasting versatility of the Quincy, but with a twist brought on by the jealous and denigrating nature of her own personality. These spells focus on counterforce, restraint and protection effects.
[ LEGACY CREATED ]
Origin: Deirdre Neal was twenty-five and living in a small apartment in Boston when she met Brendan Byrne. She was, at the time, a nearly unwilling member of a small group of spiritually-aware individuals. Like many fullbringers, Deirdre was unhappy with her powers and looked for an escape from them and the awareness that accompanied them at any opportunity. Brendan, on the other hand, was a foundry worker, with absolutely no knowledge of the spiritual world that Deirdre was steeped in. His problems were the normal things: a hard time paying the bills, and the struggle to succeed in a world that was not made for you. Deirdre liked it that way. He was her island of sanctity, and she was his ray of sunshine.
Yet, merely because she fled from them, hollows and the spiritual world would not stay away from Deirdre. To this end, she led a double life. At one front, she was a devoted wife and compatriot, and at the other, she needed to be a staunch protector and warrior. Despite the hardship of keeping herself and Brendan protected from spirits and poverty at the same time, she still managed to smile every day. Furthermore, to be an inspiration for Brendan to strive to achieve more, and support him at every opportunity.
Deirdre was twenty-seven when Brendan asked her to marry, and move away with him to a small town in southern Ireland. She agreed at once, leaving behind the hardships they knew for the challenges ahead. Later the same year, the couple had Nuala. Though they were a happy family, Deirdre's abilities had finally begun to wane. She found difficulty in adjusting to a life without the small group she'd come to rely on, and in keeping her daughter safe and her husband from knowing about the ghosts that plagued her from time to time.
It was on the seventh of February, in the year of ninety-six, when a powerful Hollow emerged to plague Deirdre and her family. Deirdre fought valiantly and defeated the creature, but was hospitalized with deep, acidic burns by the night's end of the twelfth. Despite urgent questioning from her husband, she made no claims on the source of her injuries, stating only that she had been tired and careless while taking care of the house.
Like the truth of her livelihood, Deirdre kept the most important parts of her prognosis a secret from her husband. She shared with him everything he wanted to know and had time for, except how long it would be before she would be well again. In reality, her doctor was baffled. She wouldn't be well again. The damage to her body was too traumatic, its progress too unreliable to combat, and she knew she'd be staying out the rest of her life in the bed where she lay.
Deirdre was sitting in bed, on the morning of the thirteenth, when she saw her daughter talking to a cup of water. Such an innocent gesture, until the water floated out of the cup for Nuala to drink from. For the first day since she'd met Brendan, Deirdre could not bring herself to smile. Brendan found her on the following morning, a bright red scarf for her daughter in her hands. Deirdre had worked all night to make it; crafted it from the cloth of her own fullbring, prayers sewn into the hem. Without a mother, Nuala would need protection, after all.
Nuala's abilities came to her naturally. She was not abashed or afraid of them; they were merely an extension of herself. She could see ghosts, she could ask mere objects for assistance, and they would bend to her liking. Brendan was investigated for any role he may have had in his wife's mysterious illness and subsequent passing; Nuala grew more strange by the day. From then on, he was distrustful and cold to his daughter, as wherever she went, the paranormal followed. In time, he began to suspect Nuala's strangeness was the cause.
She was well-accustomed to her own unique abilities, and felt that she must be unique and special. Her conceit followed naturally. She had always been trouble for foster and group homes. No lock could contain her, no child could befriend her, and foster parents had always "returned" her within days or weeks. Nuala spent much of her time in solitude, in places far away from other people in the city where she lived. She would sleep sometimes in parks, or dark holes that no one else could reach. It was better than be elsewhere, where other orphans put gum in her hair while she slept, or adults claimed they wanted her to live with them, but became liars soon after.
Rise to Power: Nuala's studies into the spiritual realm began with a Quincy. Another spiritually-aware human.
At nine, she ran from a ghost that had found her hiding place in a park. With her powers, even the halogen glow of a streetlight could become a deterrent. Even a storm drain could help her hide, and she knew many ways to evade and chase them away. What she didn't know of was a way to fight back, so when she saw arrows of light pass her and eliminate entirely the ghost that harried her, Nuala had to know. At its source was just a person, a girl her own age, dressed in white, and holding a bow. And then others, older, but like her. Nuala was saved and destroyed.
Still alive, but suddenly... no longer special. It awoke in her a fire. Jealousy. Other people, with similar awareness of the spiritual realm, doing things she couldn't do. Having friends. Or family. To have it, she must understand it. She introduced herself, asking questions. The other girl was Katarine Priska Ursler. She was ten years old. Nuala called her Priska.
She learned there was a lot that she didn't know, and while she might be a little special, she was nothing like unique. She liked being unique, and simply by existing, these other people took that away from her. Because they had something she didn't, and couldn't have. The Quincy way could be taught, but required a natural knack for reishi control. Something Nuala did not have. Through the Urslers, she learned about and met other Quincies, who were interested in why Nuala was spiritually aware, alive, and yet not capable of learning the Quincy way.
They learned from one another, and eventually Nuala was accepted by the Urslers as a close family friend. Foster services considered her a runaway, and she spent nearly all of her time with the Ursler household, even so much as eating and sleeping there. She and Priska formed an inseparable bond; they were like sisters. They went everywhere together, especially when Priska was training, or out hunting Hollows. Nuala's ability to draw out the potential in other things was a big help for a budding Quincy, especially one like Priska, who needed a bangle to help her harness her abilities properly.
Call to Action: During a hunting and training expedition, a particularly strong Hollow got the drop on Priska and Nuala while they were away from their chaperones. Rather than run away, Priska stood her ground and readied a shot. Nuala used her fullbring to provide support. Priska died.
The Urslers blamed Nuala for Priska's death, claiming that her presence inflated the Quincy girl's sense of ability, and falsely lead her to believe that she was in control of the situation. Nuala was grieving and in shock, traumatized from seeing her best friend die before her eyes. And then suddenly, the people she'd come to think of as family turn-heel-faced and told her to never return. She complied, but stole as much of her friend's Quincy gear as she could. "Mementos," she told herself.
Nuala haunted her friend's Plus from afar, out of Quincy sight, until a Shinigami came to deliver her friend into the afterlife. Another spiritual person she'd never heard of. When the Shinigami arrived, the Quincy were curiously nowhere to be found. Nuala was beside them in a heartbeat.
She learned again. That there was more to the spiritual world than just herself, Quincies and Hollows. When the Shinigami performed the soul burial, Nuala tried to follow them, but was cast out of the dimensional rift and found herself elsewhere. A completely different country. Clearly, she had much more to learn.
And she did. Nuala first came to in Jamaica, where the Dangai Precipice World had ejected her. At first put off-balance by the radical culture shift from the Ireland she knew, Nuala spent the next eight years on the islands and eventually came to think of them as more a home to her as than any other. She found vagrancy in a place where “brisk nights” never means risking your toes to the cold to be far preferable over the locales of her past. Within days she had found useful applications for her particular skills, and in just less than a year, found for herself a far more experienced fullbringer, and through her, other spiritualists to learn from.
Seven years passed, grinding by in toil and study for Nuala, whose teachers were first pleased to have such an eager student, and later pleased to have such capable help. She learned to think of spiritual matters from many different perspectives. Each new one benefited her abilities further, spurring her on to finding new lore and methods to integrate to her knowledge. Eventually, however, it was time to move on.
Waving farewell to her friends and mentors, Nuala traveled first to Egypt. There, she learned the art of spiritual storytelling: how to tell souls the stories of others like themselves, to learn their histories from them, and to show them what they could be. Then, from Egypt to Australia, and from Australia to the Philippines… the young woman expanded her knowledge with each new setting and new teacher, blossoming from runaway to thief, from thief to student, and from student to rising star.
At last, Nuala returned to her native Ireland, moved as far south as she could manage, and established Nonessentia. Her home and refuge, her hall of victories, her livelihood, and her champion. From here, she could go anywhere. And perhaps she will.
THE DRAGON WITCH
[ AT A GLANCE ]
Age / Apparent Age: 23 / Early 20s
Gender: Female
Height & Weight: 5’ 4” / 162cm & 130 lbs / 59 kg
Hair & Eye Color: Red & green
Positive Traits: Analytical, Civil, Driven, Pragmatic, Responsible, Worldly
Negative Traits: Bloodthirsty, Cold, Critical, Desperate, Dishonest, Malcontent, Untrusting
Loyalties: Fullbringers, especially young fullbringers, Nonessentia and Nonessentia’s mission. Nuala is her own boss, owing service only to the charter of Nonessentia’s advocacy for and agency over fullbringers and potential fullbringers, as written by her own hand.
Snapshots:
Nuala is born. (26 Aug, 1993)
Fullbringer abilities manifest, in response to Hollow attacks. (11 Feb, 1996)
Deirdre Byrne dies. (14 Feb, 1996)
Brendan Byrne distances himself from Nuala, blaming her for Deirdre’s death. (5 Mar, 1996)
Brendan surrenders Nuala to the Adoption Authority of Ireland. (12 Jul, 1997)
Nuala is taken back to Brendan’s care, then returned with non-contact requested. (12 – 18 Jul, 2000)
The Ursler family takes in Nuala. (9 Oct, 2002)
Katerine Urlser dies. (5 Jun, 2005)
The Ursler family throws out Nuala. (6 Jun, 2005)
A Shinigami buries Katerine’s soul; Nuala shadows him into the Senkaimon. (12 Jun, 2005)
Nuala is ejected from the Dangai and into Jamaica. (16 Jul, 2005)
Nuala travels the world to find a spiritual teachers. (Aug 2006; Apr 2014 – Sep 2015)
Nuala charters Nonessentia as a fullbringer agency. (Mar 2016)
[ ON THE SURFACE ]
Physical Description: Regardless of her clothing, Nuala looks like a one-woman riot just waiting to happen. Her body is toned and fit, with a full figure and a tanned, warm light brown complexion, covered everywhere in either freckles or ink. She has strong cheekbones, and features that are both rounded and generally symmetrical. Her large eyes are a clear, light green, limned along their edges with a darker green, making them stand out against her skin tone and the backdrop of her hair, which is a rich, natural red. Nuala wears her hair held back in dreads longer than half her back, decorated with many white bone tubes, wooden beads and solid steel wrecking balls.
Along Nuala’s arms, she is covered in a large pair of spiraling tattoos, one originating on the outside of each wrist with the head of a different dragon. The bodies of these dragons are interwoven with many feathery wings as they wend their way up to her shoulders and onto her back, where they cross together and their lines explode outward into a detailed mandala that covers her skin from the nape of her neck down to the small of her back. She sports hardware in silver and steel, with snake bites, a medusa, industrial bars, and piercings through her labret, bridge, septum, left eyebrow and navel. Her voice is a clear alto, and her body language typically suggests familiarity, a casual feeling, and her dismissive attitude.
Since acclimating back to her native Ireland, Nuala has settled on a favorite outfit consisting of a black hoodie dress with a light grey skull and crossbones on its chest, and a pair of faded black jeans that look like they've been stitched together from four of five different garments, with prominent pockets on their back side. She wears a pair of midnight gold glasses with small lenses in the John Lennon style, and also a pair of calf-length, fawn gray suede boots, covered with molded steel plating, buckles and silvered leather images of skulls. On her left wrist, she wears a simple but reinforced Quincy bangle, designed for long-term use.
Spiritual Description: In the instances that Nuala releases her own spiritual pressure, its effect is typically negligible. In great enough concentration, it manifests as an ethereal, muted mist that sinks and clings to the ground. An odd juxtaposition with her wild appearance and rude conduct, Nuala keeps this aspect of herself hidden as often as possible, preferring to use universal fullbring and Eagna Uisca whenever possible.
[ BEHIND THE EYES ]
Personality: Nuala is a collector. Despite her wild appearance, she is well-studied, intellectual, and worldly. She's been all over, gathering things for her collection. Although she would rather have a civil conversation with someone, preferably over tea, she will always make a stand for herself and her needs, and is ready to see violence as the solution to a problem just as often as the more peaceful alternatives. She uses her intellect to cut apart the world she interacts with both quickly and methodically, determining what she can use and what can be improved or discarded. This habit can make dealing with her shrewd at best, but more commonly, abrasive, and makes standoffish or combative personalities come to the surface more easily.
She has a certain kind of jealousy that can easily be seen as curiosity. If she doesn’t have it, she wants it, and if she can’t have it, she wants to know about it. This quality governs such a large portion of her personality that it is immediately obvious to some perceptive people just in the way she sizes up people and situations.
Nuala has traveled so far, and experienced so many things, but has ultimately been betrayed and let down at every turn. Dissatisfied and disaffected with what’s in front of her eyes, Nuala is highly critical and belittling of other things and people in a way that could be described as borderline narcissistic. She believes that if greatness exists, the odds she would be the one to witness it are minimal at best. Someone somewhere must be better, and it would be delusional to think otherwise. No one is unique, and no one is special.
Honesty is not a virtue Nuala is highly familiar with. Dishonest and suspicious, she relies on herself first and foremost, and sees other people as little more than tools to an end. She makes no friends and few enemies, but allies and acquaintances freely. When her loyalties and responsibilities are tested, she simply absconds. She rarely speaks formally, unless she’s being sardonic, and peppers her vocabulary with slang from many different countries.
Nuala fears oppression and losing loved ones, leading her to becoming antagonistic and sometimes even combative of authorities, and hesitant to downright evasive of forming strong personal connections. At a glance, she is unburdened by either the joys or the shackles of sentimentality. She craves both knowledge and affluence, but also trophies that commemorate and chronicle her adventures and acquisitions. Without a support network or family to fall back on, her need to gain achievements and prove herself compels her to accomplish her goals with a sense of urgency. This drive demands that she quickly determine what she does and does not need, analyzing her surroundings and circumstances, and taking actions sensibly, based on her here and now, filling the compartments of her needs without taking extra time to consider the theoretical.
Nonessentia’s charter is vast. Certainly too large for any lone individual to complete, and Nuala knows this. In tomorrow’s generation, fullbringers should be a thing of the past, but Nuala is just one woman. Effecting a change of that scale is not only beyond her, but so far past her capabilities that self-doubt and anxiety creep into her thoughts with constancy. Without significant members or drastic measures, the birth of new fullbringers cannot be stopped. This truth rankles under Nuala’s skin, constantly tugging at her self-worth, and as a result, leads her to such a desperation that she will often consider accepting or extending aid even without looking into the long term consequences.
Nuala has cultivated an appearance and personality that are designed to drive away others, protecting her from any perceivable weakness or possibility of betrayal, as she's been intimately betrayed many times in the past. She keeps everything at arm's length, practically paranoid with how she keeps her walls up. Her first line of defense against "other people," ready as soon as soon as her veneer of civility is no longer necessary, is to make a rude or cutting comment.
Prone to absentmindedly taking things apart and putting them back together when bored, Nuala also has a habit of clicking her tongue, and often gives names to inanimate objects. Additionally, she has a personal peeve, bordering on extreme prejudice, against uncomfortable chairs.
Goals & Achievements: Nonessentia’s mission is Nuala’s own mission. Fullbringers ought not be given a chance to exist. They are the unnecessary byproduct of hollows, who are themselves the unnecessary byproduct of the cycle of reincarnation. Created from attacks by hollows onto innocent lives, the creation of any Fullbringer all but demands the suffering of children and their families, and all for no cause.
There is no result to a Hollow or a Fullbringer but more suffering, sorrow and loss of life. Therefore, it must end. Fullbringers must not be allowed to develop, and failing this, they must be cared and advocated for. No one else will work for their benefit; they are so rare they are all but invisible.
Simple, small and out of the way, Nonessentia is part tea shop, part museum, part library and all hole-in-the-wall. As an organization, Nonessentia operates for the protection of fullbringers. It also contains Nuala’s humble basement apartment and more varieties of tea than you knew existed. If the agency did have an overarching goal, it would be to find a way to stop fullbringers from happening at all. However, Nonessentia nearly exists only in Nuala’s own mind. She may attract other members to it someday, but for now she is alone. The membership roster is exactly as long as her name.
Racial Views
Shinigami and Pluses – One half of the cycle of reincarnation. Shinigami are Pluses with power; they are potentially dangerous, but can otherwise be used to protect humans and return the souls locked up in Hollows to the cycle of reincarnation. Pluses should be protected until they can be transferred to Soul Society by a Shinigami.
Quincy – Untrustworthy disappointments. They claim to hunt Hollows, but use methods that destroy souls. Still, they are functionally humans with power, and should therefore be responsible to humans without power. In a pinch, they can be used to protect humans from Hollows.
Humans – One half of the cycle of reincarnation. Except for those with spiritual power, these people need to be protected from hollows and other threats. Humans with power should be beholden to those without, protecting the other humans and the cycle of reincarnation.
Hollow breeds – An unfortunate byproduct of the cycle of reincarnation, typically caused by lacking attention on the part of Shinigami. Essentially living concentrations of wayward souls, these need to be returned to the cycle as soon as possible, for the good of themselves and others.
Fullbringers – A frustratingly tragic byproduct of hollows attacking humans. Human souls tainted by Hollow power, the birth of a Fullbringer nearly always means human suffering. Therefore, their formation should be prevented at any cost. Once a woman with child has been attacked by a Hollow, however, the protection of the family and resulting Fullbringer becomes paramount.
[ GUARDIAN ANGEL ]
Mixed Martial Arts Practitioner – Karate, Kickboxing, Sikaran, and Tae Kwan Do: A basic fact of the human body: legs are longer and stronger than arms. As Nuala treks across the globe, she frequently makes sure to stop and spend time with martial arts schools, developing her skill with a diversity of combat styles that teach quick kicks, powerful kicks, adaptable kicks and any mix of the three. Combining these styles into a single, kick-heavy style, Nuala further underscores the terror of her kicks with a judicious application of her fullbring and the studded, spiked, and thoroughly customized armored boots she wears.
Eagna Uisca: When transformed, Priska's bundled ginto tubes change shape and collect along Nuala's left shoulder and half the length of her spine, where they form a coiled dragon with a long tail of seven segments. Each segment of the dragon's tail is a rich, emerald green color, visible beneath a molded steel plate. Drúcht anam fills the dragon's tail and disperses into the air around her as a fine, nearly invisible mist. Via precision applications of her fullbring, she focuses this mist into spells, allowing her to mimic the spellcasting versatility of the Quincy, but with a twist brought on by the jealous and denigrating nature of her own personality. These spells focus on counterforce, restraint and protection effects.
[ LEGACY CREATED ]
Origin: Deirdre Neal was twenty-five and living in a small apartment in Boston when she met Brendan Byrne. She was, at the time, a nearly unwilling member of a small group of spiritually-aware individuals. Like many fullbringers, Deirdre was unhappy with her powers and looked for an escape from them and the awareness that accompanied them at any opportunity. Brendan, on the other hand, was a foundry worker, with absolutely no knowledge of the spiritual world that Deirdre was steeped in. His problems were the normal things: a hard time paying the bills, and the struggle to succeed in a world that was not made for you. Deirdre liked it that way. He was her island of sanctity, and she was his ray of sunshine.
Yet, merely because she fled from them, hollows and the spiritual world would not stay away from Deirdre. To this end, she led a double life. At one front, she was a devoted wife and compatriot, and at the other, she needed to be a staunch protector and warrior. Despite the hardship of keeping herself and Brendan protected from spirits and poverty at the same time, she still managed to smile every day. Furthermore, to be an inspiration for Brendan to strive to achieve more, and support him at every opportunity.
Deirdre was twenty-seven when Brendan asked her to marry, and move away with him to a small town in southern Ireland. She agreed at once, leaving behind the hardships they knew for the challenges ahead. Later the same year, the couple had Nuala. Though they were a happy family, Deirdre's abilities had finally begun to wane. She found difficulty in adjusting to a life without the small group she'd come to rely on, and in keeping her daughter safe and her husband from knowing about the ghosts that plagued her from time to time.
It was on the seventh of February, in the year of ninety-six, when a powerful Hollow emerged to plague Deirdre and her family. Deirdre fought valiantly and defeated the creature, but was hospitalized with deep, acidic burns by the night's end of the twelfth. Despite urgent questioning from her husband, she made no claims on the source of her injuries, stating only that she had been tired and careless while taking care of the house.
Like the truth of her livelihood, Deirdre kept the most important parts of her prognosis a secret from her husband. She shared with him everything he wanted to know and had time for, except how long it would be before she would be well again. In reality, her doctor was baffled. She wouldn't be well again. The damage to her body was too traumatic, its progress too unreliable to combat, and she knew she'd be staying out the rest of her life in the bed where she lay.
Deirdre was sitting in bed, on the morning of the thirteenth, when she saw her daughter talking to a cup of water. Such an innocent gesture, until the water floated out of the cup for Nuala to drink from. For the first day since she'd met Brendan, Deirdre could not bring herself to smile. Brendan found her on the following morning, a bright red scarf for her daughter in her hands. Deirdre had worked all night to make it; crafted it from the cloth of her own fullbring, prayers sewn into the hem. Without a mother, Nuala would need protection, after all.
Nuala's abilities came to her naturally. She was not abashed or afraid of them; they were merely an extension of herself. She could see ghosts, she could ask mere objects for assistance, and they would bend to her liking. Brendan was investigated for any role he may have had in his wife's mysterious illness and subsequent passing; Nuala grew more strange by the day. From then on, he was distrustful and cold to his daughter, as wherever she went, the paranormal followed. In time, he began to suspect Nuala's strangeness was the cause.
She was well-accustomed to her own unique abilities, and felt that she must be unique and special. Her conceit followed naturally. She had always been trouble for foster and group homes. No lock could contain her, no child could befriend her, and foster parents had always "returned" her within days or weeks. Nuala spent much of her time in solitude, in places far away from other people in the city where she lived. She would sleep sometimes in parks, or dark holes that no one else could reach. It was better than be elsewhere, where other orphans put gum in her hair while she slept, or adults claimed they wanted her to live with them, but became liars soon after.
Rise to Power: Nuala's studies into the spiritual realm began with a Quincy. Another spiritually-aware human.
At nine, she ran from a ghost that had found her hiding place in a park. With her powers, even the halogen glow of a streetlight could become a deterrent. Even a storm drain could help her hide, and she knew many ways to evade and chase them away. What she didn't know of was a way to fight back, so when she saw arrows of light pass her and eliminate entirely the ghost that harried her, Nuala had to know. At its source was just a person, a girl her own age, dressed in white, and holding a bow. And then others, older, but like her. Nuala was saved and destroyed.
Still alive, but suddenly... no longer special. It awoke in her a fire. Jealousy. Other people, with similar awareness of the spiritual realm, doing things she couldn't do. Having friends. Or family. To have it, she must understand it. She introduced herself, asking questions. The other girl was Katarine Priska Ursler. She was ten years old. Nuala called her Priska.
She learned there was a lot that she didn't know, and while she might be a little special, she was nothing like unique. She liked being unique, and simply by existing, these other people took that away from her. Because they had something she didn't, and couldn't have. The Quincy way could be taught, but required a natural knack for reishi control. Something Nuala did not have. Through the Urslers, she learned about and met other Quincies, who were interested in why Nuala was spiritually aware, alive, and yet not capable of learning the Quincy way.
They learned from one another, and eventually Nuala was accepted by the Urslers as a close family friend. Foster services considered her a runaway, and she spent nearly all of her time with the Ursler household, even so much as eating and sleeping there. She and Priska formed an inseparable bond; they were like sisters. They went everywhere together, especially when Priska was training, or out hunting Hollows. Nuala's ability to draw out the potential in other things was a big help for a budding Quincy, especially one like Priska, who needed a bangle to help her harness her abilities properly.
Call to Action: During a hunting and training expedition, a particularly strong Hollow got the drop on Priska and Nuala while they were away from their chaperones. Rather than run away, Priska stood her ground and readied a shot. Nuala used her fullbring to provide support. Priska died.
The Urslers blamed Nuala for Priska's death, claiming that her presence inflated the Quincy girl's sense of ability, and falsely lead her to believe that she was in control of the situation. Nuala was grieving and in shock, traumatized from seeing her best friend die before her eyes. And then suddenly, the people she'd come to think of as family turn-heel-faced and told her to never return. She complied, but stole as much of her friend's Quincy gear as she could. "Mementos," she told herself.
Nuala haunted her friend's Plus from afar, out of Quincy sight, until a Shinigami came to deliver her friend into the afterlife. Another spiritual person she'd never heard of. When the Shinigami arrived, the Quincy were curiously nowhere to be found. Nuala was beside them in a heartbeat.
She learned again. That there was more to the spiritual world than just herself, Quincies and Hollows. When the Shinigami performed the soul burial, Nuala tried to follow them, but was cast out of the dimensional rift and found herself elsewhere. A completely different country. Clearly, she had much more to learn.
And she did. Nuala first came to in Jamaica, where the Dangai Precipice World had ejected her. At first put off-balance by the radical culture shift from the Ireland she knew, Nuala spent the next eight years on the islands and eventually came to think of them as more a home to her as than any other. She found vagrancy in a place where “brisk nights” never means risking your toes to the cold to be far preferable over the locales of her past. Within days she had found useful applications for her particular skills, and in just less than a year, found for herself a far more experienced fullbringer, and through her, other spiritualists to learn from.
Seven years passed, grinding by in toil and study for Nuala, whose teachers were first pleased to have such an eager student, and later pleased to have such capable help. She learned to think of spiritual matters from many different perspectives. Each new one benefited her abilities further, spurring her on to finding new lore and methods to integrate to her knowledge. Eventually, however, it was time to move on.
Waving farewell to her friends and mentors, Nuala traveled first to Egypt. There, she learned the art of spiritual storytelling: how to tell souls the stories of others like themselves, to learn their histories from them, and to show them what they could be. Then, from Egypt to Australia, and from Australia to the Philippines… the young woman expanded her knowledge with each new setting and new teacher, blossoming from runaway to thief, from thief to student, and from student to rising star.
At last, Nuala returned to her native Ireland, moved as far south as she could manage, and established Nonessentia. Her home and refuge, her hall of victories, her livelihood, and her champion. From here, she could go anywhere. And perhaps she will.
About Nuala and her friends, you've hit it spot-on. For now, she doesn't have any. It would be a completely new territory for her as, as I mentioned, she goes only as far as making allies and acquaintances. If she does make a friend, it will be in her future, and the process for that will stem from what's already been established here. A rocky start, to be certain.
