#zira the apprentice

[celticat21]

A little self indulgent post about my other non-binary apprentices celebrating Alessa coming out. In hindsight with so many non-binary, feminine presenting apprentices I should have seen it coming. 😂

[celticat21]

Alright, this was one of the most difficult as I technically did three different portraits! I'm really proud of the embellishments on Zira's bodice though. Some of the most detailed work I've done! I worked on it way too long last night then still wanted to revise it this morning. Hope you enjoy!

Edit: Zira is a duchess, or in line to be a duchess, and thusly is wearing the headwear that one would from her world. Masha did not want to be left out so Zira got a little one for her, too. She calls herself the “little duch”.

[celticat21]

Zira and Masha at the masquerade! Masha loves the selection of food, as that's her favorite part of exploring this strange new world. Masha's mask is a peacock and she made it herself, and Zira's is a moth.

I was sort of upset I worked so hard on the background but Zira and Masha cover up the window! Lol Although I realize I forgot to turn down the opacity on the background outline now that I look at it but it's late and I'll fix it later.

[celticat21]

Here are my other apprentices in snowy weather! All handling much better than Tabitha did. (Left to right: Winona, Zira, Katarina with Masha on her lap, and Freya. 

Winona was trying to throw a snowball passed Freya, at Asra. It did not work. Also their aesthetic is 100% early 2000s Barbie movies. I don’t usually draw Freya in red or warm colored clothes, but I think it looks pretty nice! 

Another thing of note is Zira and Masha are pretty used to a cold climate, as their dimension is pretty cold. Masha is just wearing gloves and a scarf for the aesthetic.

Edit: Added the close ups of Freya “this-is-fine” and Winona “this-is-not-fine”. And I almost forgot to mention that once again my baby sister did the background and snowman for this picture, mostly just playing around with how to do digital art.

[celticat21]

Mermay with Zira and Masha! They are already a water dwelling species but I figured they should be deep sea mermaids, so they are anglers!

One of them shows Zira with her bioluminescence, which she also has in canon.

[celticat21]

Got back into it again! This is Masha and Zira at the masquerade! Masha is more interested in the food and probably followed Volta around a lot. Zira's mask is a moth and Masha's is a peacock!

[celticat21]

Echoes of the Past day 5: The Aunt

@arcana-echoes

So many of my apprentices didn’t originally have an “Aunt”, Alessa’s just worked out on accident lol. Some of these stories ignore a bit of canon.

Alessa: As stated previous, Alessa’s aunt was her connection to learning magic. Her Aunt, Leonor, left Padr to pursue magic after being exposed to it in a positive light while traveling. Her family didn’t want to keep in touch, unfortunately, but sometimes Alessa and her would find ways to communicate without it being intercepted by her parents. Leonor was very well respected in Padr until she got into magic. She was known for being caring, compassionate, and a wonderful baker. Alessa and her would get along great and Leonor would often babysit her when she was little before leaving Padr when Alessa was eight. 

When Alessa left Padr to pursue magic as well she went straight to Vesuvia to find her Leonor. All that she would find, however, was an abandoned shop with her things still inside. After asking a few locals she learned of Leonor’s sudden death a few months prior and broke down in tears. Alessa decided to take up running the shop in her memory.

Tabitha: She did not have an aunt, or even a family friend that was connected to the shop. Tabitha just ended up in Vesuvia along her travels and decided it would be a good place to settle down for a while. Plus, she heard the city had a very cute procurator. ;) She came upon the shop almost by accident and learned the current owner was ready to retire, so she spent a few months learning how to run the shop properly before taking over completely. 

Freya: For Freya the “Aunt” was a family friend. After Erika (the “aunt”) had heard that Freya was planning on leaving the tribe she offered for Freya to come to Vesuvia and stay with her. Before leaving the tribe, Erika was very much like everyone else there. When Freya was younger, Erika had believed that her parents were doing the right thing in sheltering her so much. Not many people left the tribe anyway, so she wouldn’t have to worry about being on her own. However, she did change her mind after leaving for herself and seeing the disservice Freya’s parents were really doing, even if Freya really would stay in the village her whole life.

Erika would eagerly take Freya under her wing in her young adult life, and they became much closer than they had been in the tribe. Freya owes a lot to Erika teaching her how the real world works, not just the bubble her tribe had put her in. Eventually Erika would pass away at the age of 76, which didn’t come as a surprise and it allowed Freya the closure to speak with her one last time. By that point she had considered Erika an aunt. Erika had left the shop to Freya who has been looking after it ever since. 

Winona: This was actually Winona’s half-aunt, as it was their mothers half-sister, though that didn’t mean anything was different. Enola was her name and she left the tribe shortly after her sister and brother-in-law went missing, in order to try and find them. She would be the inspiration for Winona doing the same when they became a teenager. Winona didn’t remember much about her as they were young by the time she left, and they would only remember stories people would tell about her. According to them Enola was very strong, and her magic was nearly as powerful as Dakota’s. 

Winona met with them a few times in Vesuvia, as they were working on ships at the time and frequently came to Vesuvia. When they felt they were ready, they went to stay with Enola. She left Winona in charge of the shop one night while she left to continue looking for clues on Dakota and Nahuel’s disappearance, but her ship became lost at sea after a horrible storm. Winona began to feel their family was cursed and has reoccurring nightmares of this happening to them, especially after they had a child. 

Zira: To get to the point, Zira had absolutely no one in this dimension that she knew, much less family or close friends who would give her a shop. After crossing over into this dimension she stumbled around to find a place to stay. She came upon an old abandoned magic shop and decided to buy it. She had no concept of money in this world, so she basically just bought the whole shop in cash as she threw a bag of gold at the person she bought it from. For a while, though, she had forgotten she bought a shop as well as a place to live, so it wasn’t until about a month later that she realized she would need to start making money and tried her hand in shopkeeping. 

Katarina: Similar to many other apprentices, this “aunt” was a friend of the family rather than her real aunt. This friend was Gabriella, and she had known the family for a while; since Kat was very young. Since Kat lived in Vesuvia, she was very familiar with the shop and would often go to spend time with Gabriella when she had free time. When she got old enough Gabriella allowed Kat to use her shop for her sculptures, since she had a giant basement she didn’t really use. She was always supportive of Kat and her art, and would even sell some of her pieces. 

After Kat decided she didn’t want to run the family tavern, Gabriella gave her the idea to help around the shop. She could decide if it was something she wanted, even if she did’t keep it as a magic shop, but there was no commitment. Kat did end up deciding to run the shop. At first it was mostly an art shop, but she realized the market was asking for a magic shop so she changed it back, but still sells her art and does commission work. Gabriella ended up retiring and moved somewhere else during the plague. They still keep in touch.

[celticat21]

Echoes of the Past Day 6: Friends

@arcana-echoes

Alessa: She had two main friends; Emma and Sofia. She was also friends with her sisters, Laura, and Violet, but outside the family Emma and Sofia were her friends. They were the absolute best of friends and inseparable when they were younger. They were her friend group that became interested in magic with her. They would read the history of magic and pretend to be witches in their little clubhouse in this woods. This lead Emma to getting in trouble and she was forbidden from seeing Sofia and Alessa again. Alessa had also gotten into trouble with her family for it. However, Emma, Sofia, and Alessa would still hang out together in secret. As Alessa got older and decided to leave she grew apart from her friends. She still is in contact with Emma sometimes, but hasn’t seen either of them in years. 

Tabitha: She had so many friends. All of the children in her tribe were her friends, and she loved to play with them when she was little! As she grew up, she gained more friends in some of the older people int he tribe. Her main friend, however, was a girl named Uma. They became better friends because Hemi, Tabitha’s brother, started dating her. He was really happy the two got along so well, and all three would hang out together and craft things together. Tabitha still keeps in touch with Uma today and always clears a day to spend time with her whenever she goes and visits her home. 

Freya: Because of her upbringing, she didn’t really have many friends, especially when she was young. Most of the children were told to stay out of her way, or not be too rough with her, or that they couldn’t play with her because she and her powers were important to the tribe. The first person she was friends with was when she started to hang out with the boy she was betrothed to. Even he wasn’t allowed to hang out with her too much when they were little because they didn’t want Freya to become distracted from honing in on her magic. They thought it would cloud her visions of the future. While her and Lukas got along well, and she felt he respected her wishes better than anyone else in the tribe, the marriage didn’t work out. However, it did not end on bad terms so they are still friendly when Freya comes to visit. 

As discussed previous, she did find a friend in Erika. Erika had been helping her parents for a while before she left Vesuvia, and when Freya made her way to Vesuvia they became even better friends that lasted even after Erika’s death. 

Winona: They make friends with just about everyone they meet! They are such a friendly, approachable, social butterfly. They had many friends in their tribe, but haven’t kept much in contact with them. Similarly, because they would travel all the time as a young adult, they haven’t kept in contact with much of their friends. The only friends they did stay in contact with were Asra, Muriel, and Enola. Ever since settling down in Vesuvia, though, they have gained many many friends! Especially the vendors int he markets, whom they always say “Hi” to everyday. 

Zira: She had a few friends back in her home dimension named Alamon and Emoran. The three were always sneaking around and pulling pranks on people, though very harmless pranks. The staff at her palace and even her father would always laugh and even suggest who should be their next “victim”. As they got older they remained good friends. They did silly things and experimented with different styles and hobbies together and they could always look to each other for advice. They even became Masha’s godparents after Zira adopted her and they absolutely spoiled her silly! Unfortunately, after Zira and Masha were forced to leave their dimension, they couldn’t keep in touch with Alamon and Emoran anymore. 

Making friends in Vesuvia is hard for Zira, as she doesn’t look that approachable or friendly at first. Her friends are now are Asra, Nadia, Portia, Julian, and the courtiers, but only really Asra, Nadia, and Portia are her best friends that she trusts more than anyone, and it took a really long time to begin to trust them. 

Katarina: While they were friends with many people around Vesuvia, their best friends were Gabriella, the person who would give her the shop, and Edmund, a young boy who lived not far from her. She also did know Asra and Muriel, but wasn’t well acquainted with them for a while. Gabriella would be busy most of the time with the shop so they would play with Edmund, mostly “hide-and-seek” or “explorers” where they would run all around Vesuvia. As Katarina was starting losing her ability to run for a long time and would struggle keeping up, Edmund would just carry her around or run around while pushing her in a wheelchair. On more than one occasion they ended up accidentally tipping over, but Kat would just laugh it off. They will always say they’re grateful for having him as a friend, and they are still very good friends to this day.