Kurenai Nagimae
- character study by @savothesewercat
Au Ra Raen
Birth-date: Sometime during Second Umbral
Nick-Names: Nai, Curry, Kunai, Rei
Origin: Doma
Orientation: Pansexual
Interests: music, fashion, calligraphy, reading, divination, jewelry, singing
Romantic Partners: Allyn Grav’nost, Lif Silverlode
Family:
Father - Kyokuho Nagimae - deceased
Mother - Ochimi Nagimae - deceased
Half-Brother - Tuyaa Dataq
Appearance:
Barely four fulms nine ilms tall Kurenai is short even by Au Ra standards. Kurenai has the look of someone who suffers chronic illness leaving her thin in a way that many would not consider attractive - though she makes up for this by capitalizing on her ephemeral waifish appearance.
Kurenai was born with extremely pale skin that could be described as ‘paraffin’ in color. She developed a permanent pallor due to her chronically poor health. She burns in the sun quickly, easily, and painfully. Due to this she prefers to cover up even in hot weather.
Her natural hair color is a very dark blue-black, but for several years now she has been glamouring it white, sometimes with a streak of red.
The feature Kurenai is most proud of are her eyes, her namesake. Her irises were once a vivid red, striated here and there with slivers of purple, though now it’s a brighter purple due to her circumstances. Her limbal ring is reflective and can seem to glow in the right lighting. Though Kurenai never knew her mother she was told that she has her to thank for this.
Kurenai also has several tattoos on her person, all of them the same aetheric geometry done in aetherically conductive inks. They can be found on the back of each hand, tops of her feet, high on her chest, and below her belly button.
Personal:
A series of traumatic events during her youth imposed an underlying current of melancholic apathy on Kurenai’s soul, she is usually cheerful, friendly, and outgoing to the point of being “the life of the party”, though she sometimes still succumbs to her melancholic side she has overcome the majority of that darkness and developed a particular gratefulness for the good she has in her life.
As a result of her negative body image Kurenai developed an interest in fashion and while it began from a point of insecurity she now genuinely enjoys dressing up and planning outfits, makeup, and hair for its own sake. She almost turns this into a performance on its own with impractical cuts, unnecessary eye-patches, or some other purely aesthetic element, sometimes even dressing in as much white as she can muster as this is an unsettling funerary color in her culture of origin and Kurenai is ever drawn to the macabre.
When it comes to romantic relationships Kurenai has a natural inclination to polyamory and tends to be excited about and supportive of the happiness that her partners can sometimes find in others. She rarely experiences jealousy and can be quite supportive and in tune with her partners needs and wants.
Kurenai can be rather spontaneous when it comes to money. Her childhood as a wealthy scion of a noble house and vagrancy in early adulthood meant she’s never had to learn how to manage a budget.
Professional:
For a long time Kurenai was a freelance musician that would play anywhere she was allowed to, this meant she went through times of plenty and not-so-plenty, she was unbothered by this instability as she’s never had trouble finding a place to spend a few suns and has been able to avoid spending a night on the street.
Kurenai also has several skills that she could put to use for an income; conjury, astromancy, ninjutsu, and research experience gained as a scribe.
Currently she lives under the alias “Rei” as the live-in maid for the Greinsyn family in Sharlayan.
Aetheric Peculiarities:
Some time ago Kurenai died.
However her soul did not return to the lifestream because it was imprisoned in her flesh by the work of the Wizard L’yhta Mahre, whose love for Kurenai could not stand letting her go. This was accomplished via “soul imprisoning” tattoos writ with a preserving enchantment that maintains her body.
- art by L’yhta Mahre
These tattoos are located on the back of each hand, tops of her feet, high on her chest, and below her belly button. Due to the nature of the aetherically conductive ink used the application process was extremely painful.
While her body at first glance seems no different from a living persons those who are aetherically sensitive will notice that something is wrong. There is a stagnation to her that bends to the astral, a stillness of her aetheric systems that just “isn’t right”.
Kurenai’s body will always return to the state it was in at the time the enchantment took effect. She does not need to eat or drink though the feeling of dehydration and starvation remains unpleasant. She cannot be “killed” via bodily harm that does not also destroy all of the soul imprisoning tattoos on her body, this means she will persist in agony with horrific wounds that would instantly kill a person normally. It would not be wrong to call her an immortal undead.
Sickly when she was made as she is now, Kurenai is constantly wrestling against fatigue and other symptoms of chronic illness.
She does not heal as a living person does, so healing magicks do not work on her but feeding her aether directly does speed the enchantment’s restoration process. This has lead to her being mistaken as a voidsent or vampire, and Kurenai herself has trouble arguing against the idea that she is not either of these things.
Kurenai was ignorant of her reality as a very well animated corpse for years after she died only realizing her condition when comparing herself to others that went on to age normally. To her knowledge it is not possible for her to grow physically or mentally beyond young adulthood, get pregnant, or really “change” in any way as other people do and has struggled with this stagnation of spirit for a while now.
