Antje and the third Dragon Arcana.

Notes

color plant Element Mineral Playing Card Pokemon Type Instrument

#000000 Solanaceae (Nightshade) Magi Moonstone I - The Magician Dark / Bug Mellotron

song of...

Deeper Surround
Sound of Ceres

~~

Youth

As a child, Antje was "one of the very last" magical prodigies - large crescent-shaped ears reminiscent of the ancient Acuity allegedly granted her power with ease, impressing most those she met. However, born the secretly illegitimate daughter of the Langoren heiress Wiephje van Severeijnsbroek, she grew up a despised and unwanted child. Her half-sisters had some sympathy, but were much older than her and wanted little to do with her. With her bitter mutual hatred of her wealthy family and their dogs, a channeling power so strong and untamed that it left her suffering spells of anemia, and her ability being credited to her ears exclusively, Antje developed an abysmal attitude and became an absolute holy terror to everyone she could get her hands on.

At nine years old, after being thrown out of church a third time, Antje's mother left her at a boarding school, wishing to never see her again. Hating being told what to do, she responded with violence and anger to everything expected of her, and refused to study or make friends besides her housemate Ellen. After attempting to strangle peers and staff on multiple occasions, she was expelled at age twelve. Ultimately she was sent away on a boat across the ocean for a private apprenticeship with the elderly theurgical archivist Themis III, Dragon Arcana, in an attempt to knock some sense into her as well as to have a productive outlet for her strong magical channeling ability.

Apprenticeship

Her work for the Dragon Arcana was grueling and difficult at first, but over the years isolated from others she learned to enjoy her work and forged a deep connection with her mentor. Antje lived with and spoke only to the Dragon Arcana for many years. She abandoned her aggressive behaviors, started using various pseudonyms, and eventually became very diligent in archival. Around this time, she discovered her ability to "style shift": an ability to slightly change her features to resemble certain art styles. Due to this power, she gains an obsession with mirrors, in order to keep her true appearance in check.

In her late teens, Antje recieved a letter from her older sister Adriaantje, with whom she had been in occasional contact and was on neutral terms with. Antje learned that her mother had died at sea. She took a leave of absence and sailed back home, broke into her mother's hat shop and wrecked the place. She tore up every hat that her mother had made, except for the one that she had been wearing the last time she saw her, when she was left at boarding school. Antje took it for herself and modified it to wear as a spoil of her own "victory".

Ascension

When Anje was in her twenties, the health of the elderly Dragon Arcana began to decline, and she assumed the role of caretaker as well as assistant. On his deathbed, when she was 27, Antje vowed to continue his work, and through this promise ascended to a divine status - gaining the title of the New Dragon Arcana Delfyne Stedelein, Themis IV. Delfyne was a name she had been using for some time, but still had trouble separating herself from Antje.

After her mentor's death, Delfyne remained assiduous in her work and her new status - for a while. Time passed, and mortals she once knew died, but Delfyne showed no signs of aging. In 1965, shocked by her sister Adriaantje's "untimely" death, she traveled to attend her funeral, where she discovered that she had been in her nineties. By the end of that year, with the death of another sister (the eldest, Wilhelmina), she decided to let Antje "pass on" herself, sealing herself within her new identity of Delfyne.

Losing track of time deeply troubled Delfyne, and she knew that she felt different as the Dragon Arcana. She shut herself off from the world, becoming a near hermit for decades, and quickly grew bored of her work. Alone in a new time she did not recognize, she lost her enthusiasm for archival and the ability to relate to mortal creatures....

Delfyne, sometime around the year 2000.

Notes

color plant Element Mineral Playing Card Pokemon Type Instrument

#000000 Solanaceae (Nightshade) Magi Moonstone I - The Magician Dark / Bug Mellotron

song of...

A Lot's Gonna Change
Weyes Blood

~~

Presence

Rarely seen outside of her auspicious dwelling far across the continent, the mysterious Delfyne Stedelein began to resurface more and more often in the Megalopolis - gaining a reputation among her witnesses as the "Lady in Black", called a temptress, a witch, or even a succubus. Still quite early in her ascension to the divine, those who have passed her by do not immediately sense anything out of the ordinary, much less that she is a dragon from another time.

Upon closer inspection her appearance seems to warp, shifting slightly as the lady in black looks for something in the web of streets that cannot possibly be seen. Infinitely intricate abstract markings crawl across her body. Unnaturally long ears with a spiral helix at the base, reminiscent of the ancient dragons and once the tell-tale marking of the great and powerful magi, have all but lost their meaning in a city beginning to crumble.

Era of Crystallization

In the 1970s, the deity Delfyne Stedelein was pulled halfway out of her solitude, as the news of a distant city hosting mysterious phenomena reached her. Managing to put it off for another two decades, she finds herself in the late 1990s, traveling to investigate Crystallization, which has choked much of the Megalopolis since she had last thought about it. Ruling that it is magical retribution, and herself so far removed from the lives of mortals, she immediately stops caring.

However, in her investigation, she comes across Dr. Ida Faulkner, a mortal marine biologist at the Megalopolis Laboratory. Struck by his incredibly pathetic soul, Delfyne is enamored with the shiny new toy she has found to play with. Ida, incredibly lonely, immediately falls in love with her. The two are married within the week.

Delfyne reveals herself to be a witch, and Ida struggles with this. Delfyne is extremely annoyed by his confusion, and this is the first issue in a long list of many.

Their relationship is intense but incidentally mind-numbingly atrocious. Delfyne's horrifically naive nature and Ida's dry and pessimistic personality cause the instant destruction of their marriage. They piss each other off enough to divorce within another two weeks, realizing that they cannot possibly live together.

Delfyne, thinking herself far more important than the foolish whims of mortals such as divorce, continues to bother him relentlessly. Their relationship continues off and on, and Ida continues to stay at her home for extended periods of time, which she is glad to host. This is to both salvage the only remaining facets of their relationship that worked, as well as giving Ida the chance to rest, research, and overall disappear for a while.

Over time, and unexpectedly, Delfyne begins to find herself changed in his presence. She realizes she feels fear for Ida, as the threat of Crystallization looms over his head...

Delfyne in the Era of Parhelion.

Notes

color plant Element Mineral Playing Card Pokemon Type Instrument

#000000 Solanaceae (Nightshade) Magi Moonstone I - The Magician Dark / Bug Mellotron

song of...

Picture Me Better
Weyes Blood

(it has teeth duller than i remember)

Presence

A very long time has passed since the conclusion of Crystallization and the death of the scientist Ida Faulkner. Once a naive and careless deity with no reason to care for the lives of mortals, Delfyne has changed - and truly grown into her role as the Dragon Arcana.

Through time and experience, together with the understanding of mortality, love and loss, she has learned to treat others and her own magic more seriously. Calmer and far more mature than she once was, Delfyne now appears even remotely wise when consulting with others. She keeps three white ermines as familiars.

Being an elf as well as a divine dragon, Delfyne wields a very unique combination of skills. Her alignment to the spiritual world, as well as the fine motor skills that humans and more specifically elves possess, allowed her to become a master artisan of magical objects, from repairing them to expelling curses. Delfyne has also followed in her mentor's footsteps by extending her knowledge to tutor the mortal witch Adrste, who speaks highly of her.

While she has mellowed out significantly her appearance has changed in the long time since she was alive. She has grown taller, but her posture has grown worse and near animalistic. Her hair has grown even longer, and her dragon script "scales" have covered much of her body. She dresses more elaborately, still near exclusively in black, often with spiky black jewelry and new glasses fused from two separate pairs. She is overall sharper and more disheveled, attributed partially to the draconic aging process as well as thousands of years of referencing her appearance from memory.