As do you, Vanya. That green compliments you and your companion both very well.

I met a spirit the other night who’d heard the two of you from the other side of the Veil. Funnily enough, it *had* been a Spirit of Innocence.

Trust me, everyone knows.

No. There are already too many voices trying to be heard, and I’m not in the mood to shout over them.

⇀ ooc. Backstory (cont.):

- no one else knows why she’s so connected to spirits and demons
- she figured out her whole soul thing a long time ago—if it bothers others, that’s their problem
- Dorian was her intro to the Shadow Dragons; she’s their personal apothecary now

( 🧵 #aureliastory )

⇀ ooc. Backstory (cont.):

- she’s become known as a “spirit talker” in Minrathous
- she can see spirits even when they’re invisible to other mortals, & is good at communicating their needs between them and mortals
- demons are harder, but she’s also good at banishing them

( 🧵 #aureliastory )

⇀ ooc. Backstory (cont.):

- but she didn’t cause trouble on purpose, so the Mercars raised and cared for her in their own way
- she learned from a spirit that she was related to the Pavus family, & when she was old enough she sought out Dorian to get to know him better

( 🧵 #aureliastory )

⇀ ooc. Backstory (cont.):

- she knew things she shouldn’t know (like how both her parents had died, tho she remembered it in fragments that made no sense to anyone else)
- talked to spirits like normal people (learned lots of secrets from them)
- and she spoke like an adult

( 🧵 #aureliastory )

⇀ ooc. Backstory (cont.):

- Aurelia’s birth parents succeeded in making a child with unusual magical skills, but it was due to Aurelia having the soul of a Fade spirit instead of a human
- so Aurelia was a strange kid from the start: weirdly quiet & observant, unsettling

( 🧵 #aureliastory )

⇀ ooc. Backstory (cont.):

- Halward Pavus was the only one who pieced together what had happened & he took the secret to the grave
- he arranged for the child to be taken in by the Mercar family—removed from the scandal but easy to keep an eye on; they named her Aurelia

( 🧵 #aureliastory )

⇀ ooc. Backstory (cont.):

- since Laenia & Romilian hadn’t told anyone their plans, no one knew the full story that led to the child’s birth but could guess enough—blood magic + demons = two dead altus mages & a mystery baby, aka A Scandal™

( 🧵 #aureliastory )

⇀ ooc. Backstory (cont.):

- Laenia was severely & permanently weakened by the ritual, & was bedridden over the next 9 months
- she was kept alive by family & slaves until she died giving birth Aurelia, a baby girl with mismatched eyes who started fires within an hour of birth

( 🧵 #aureliastory )

⇀ ooc. Backstory (cont.):

- by that point, they were too far into the ritual for it to be stopped, so Laenia could only hang on for dear life as her abomination-husband impregnated her
- once complete, Laenia was able to send the demons back to the Fade & kill the abomination

( 🧵 #aureliastory )

⇀ ooc. Backstory (cont.):

- when they went to do the ritual, the power they used from the demons was too much & made everything extremely unstable
- this instability frayed at the binding on Romilian’s demon, & it broke out mid-ritual, turning him into an abomination

( 🧵 #aureliastory )

⇀ ooc. Backstory (cont.):

- they eventually bound several demons in their home to use as power conduits for their ritual
- Romilian was paranoid that it wouldn’t be enough, so he secretly summoned and bound a demon into himself as an extra layer of insurance

( 🧵 #aureliastory )

⇀ ooc. Backstory (cont.):

- her parents couldn’t produce a mage child despite years of trying; only other child didn’t show magical talent fast enough and died in a “tragic accident”
- desperate, they turned to blood magic/spirit binding to ensure a powerful mage child

( 🧵 #aureliastory )