Lady Decade

Maestro Amaryllis Decade

The plush seats are full in the large auditorium. The aristocratic, the sponsored, and the crafty and artful peering from their hiding spots all watch the stage curtains with reverent anticipation, akin to children awaiting their favorite supper.
As waiters and aides bring refreshments, the lights slowly dim, and a shiver of expectation comes across all in the seats, all in the room, all in the building, perhaps even all of Paris. As the large velvet curtains slowly part in the dim tones, darkness covers the main stage.
As silence floods the room, forcing even the most rapturous of viewers into patience, a slow, groaning note plays from a violin. And then another, and another, and another, until the Lady of the hour announces her name in song; D-E-C-A-D-E.
Then, the song begins proper, a crescendo of music announcing the starting line as the lights on stage flash on, illuminating the finely tailored suit of the lilac-haired maiden, the famed musician Lady Decade.

Born a poor urchin in the city of Paris, Lady Decade felt an enemy to the world even at a young age, as a childhood accident when running an errand for a mage rendered her blind. Alongside that, her families financial situation, the age of turmoil due to The Border Wars, and the general oppressive nature of Paris put her at a disadvantage for her one true dream: to play on the stage of The Grand Parisian Theater.
But, fate always has a way of granting dreams in strange ways, and one such way found itself to the young Decade. Her father had found a thrown-out violin, and repaired it to the best of his ability for the child's 10th birthday. While it was a creaky and worn instrument, the young Decade would frequently play it to her heart's content, making impromptu tracks and songs with the energy and creativity that only a child could possess.
This led her to the one who truly changed her fate, a meeting with a Gothica.
A member of the notorious Gothica Crime Family happened to stumble upon the child's neighborhood on the job, the normally haughty and cruel Vasago Gothica. However, she found something intriguing in the child's art and came to a mercurial decision. A musician herself, the crime lord decided to drag her and her family out of the slums and personally teach the child if she would get free tickets to her shows in the future.
While working with the Gothicas might as well be signing a deal with a demon, Decade's family knew that such a chance would never come twice, especially for their child, and agreed to her conditions, while taking on work under Vasago's less bloody operations themselves.
It was at this same time, with training under the mystical Vasago, that Decade awakened to her true talents, the true power of performance, and began her path towards greatness.
10 years, that's how long it took the blinded child to train herself and achieve her first goal, playing a grand solo performance before a crowd of critics, socialities, and benefactors, winning rave reviews and gaining a true name for herself. Due to that time frame, she decided to take on a new name for her art, especially since artistry in Paris can be a cutthroat career, and the artist known as Lady Decade was truly born.

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

Lady Decade keeps a slim and toned figure and engages in a lot of stamina training so that she can keep playing for long swaths of time, as well as breath training for her woodwind skills.

Body Features

When she isn't wearing silk gloves, one will usually see Lady Decade's hands swaddled in bandages, as the musician often works her hands hard enough to callous for the sake of her art and the intense practice she always puts in. This has gotten less severe as she's taken a step back from the more strenuous limelight in her old age, but she still keeps at her work nonetheless.

Facial Features

Lady Decade has a sharp and slim face, with a few wrinkles around the corners of her mouth. When she removes her unique eye-plates, one will also find her foggy eyes rather striking, along with the twin moles she has, one under each eye.

Identifying Characteristics

Aside from her oddly colored hair, Lady Decade is always wearing one of her many monogrammed eye-plates, printed with a musical score spelling the word DECADE.

Physical quirks

When left waiting, or otherwise bored, she has a habit of tapping her fingers in tune with a new score or song she has on her mind at any given moment. Failing that, she will usually resort to humming or rubbing her fingernails together.

Special abilities

While very few people know about this trait of hers, Lady Decade possesses a unique ability known as Soulsight. This allows her to see the true shape and nature of a person's soul and even gives her added insight into whether a person is lying or their true emotions.
This trait of hers is what ingratiated Vasago to her in the first place, as a fellow dealer in Souls, as the child wasn't scared by her rather unique kind of soul, and following the emotional changes in peoples souls is part of what has allowed Lady Decade to shape her musical talent the way she has, as her music is designed to effect that innermost part of a person.
It also helps her navigate through life, as she can see people and magical creatures, despite not being magical herself otherwise.

Apparel & Accessories

She enjoys wearing finely tailored suits, with plenty of angles and monochromatic colors accented by anywhere from Indigo to Violet to darker Pinks. She also keeps at least one instrument on her when outside her home.

Specialized Equipment

Lady Decade still possesses the first Violin her father restored for her and has put a lot of work into repairing it herself. Even fully functional, it's not a very high-quality item, but she still plays it frequently, for her own benefit or to entertain guests at casual get-togethers.

Mental characteristics

Gender Identity

Lady Decade is a cis-gendered woman but prefers to lean more towards the sharp and masculine when it comes to her clothing style and social interactions, out of a need to be dominant and sometimes aggressive in the competitive fields of artistry.

Sexuality

Lady Decade has been out as Bisexual for her entire adult life, essentially ever since she's been famous enough for people to wonder, however, she has never publically had a partner, always stating that music is her true soulmate.

Education

In her youth, Lady Decade received the base education available publicly for all citizens of Paris, although after being scouted by Vasago Gothica she received private tutoring, along with her music lessons from the crime lord herself.

Employment

As a child, she often ran errands for those who lived in or would come to her low-income neighborhood, as even blind she had a good knowledge of the layout of the neighborhood. After being scouted, she didn't need to do the odd jobs and focused entirely on honing her musical talents, which has been her career ever since.

Accomplishments & Achievements

Lady Decade has won various awards for her skills in Classical music, along with winning various individual contests for Violin, Piano, Cello, and free-form Jazz Trumpeting. (She would never say this out loud, but she's most proud of the last one.)
Alongside that, she is the 2nd-ranked Bard in all of Edda, only surpassed by the likes of the world-renowned Crocodile Man.

Failures & Embarrassments

The public often wonders if Lady Decade views the success of Crocodile Man, the crocodilian Lizardfolk bard known by all in Edda, as a failure of her own, as she has often come close to topping the charts, but in truth the two are good friends and harbor no ill will.

Mental Trauma

Lady Decade is fearful of things that are hard to notice with her other senses or the unfamiliar. Along with that, she has a fear for alchemical laboratories due to her injury as a child.

Intellectual Characteristics

Lady Decade is an analytical thinker. Her greatest talent is parsing apart things, whether it is a musical score, an instrument's construction, or the true meaning of a sentence. Essentially, all is laid bare before Decade.

Morality & Philosophy

Lady Decade believes that everyone should have a right to achieve their dreams. While she counts herself fortunate to have the former tutelage of Vasago Gothica, she does not think people, especially the less fortunate, should have to rely on chance meetings, especially with less-than-moral sources, in order to have a semblance of self-satisfaction. To this end, she does a lot of campaigning work and assistance for basic needs programs in Paris.

Personality Characteristics

Motivation

Lady Decade is driven by the pure nature of Art in itself and wishes to mark her name in the history of the field. As a child, she snuck off and was able to sequester herself inside The Grand Parisian Theater for a few minutes, while her parents were running an errand in the area, but those short few minutes lit the fire of creativity in her, as the sound of the instruments and the performers affected her to her very core.

Savvies & Ineptitudes

Lady Decade is a virtuoso at just about any kind of classical instrument, and even some more "modern" devices, although she fails to grasp the very new "electric" instruments, and loathes the very loud minority of "rock musicians" cropping up in Paris. She'd never say so publically, as to not stifle creative minds, but the fact remains.
Alongside that, a secret that Decade keeps very well is that she is a terrible dancer. She can move just fine on her own, but even with her unique version of sight, she has two left feet when dancing with a partner.

Likes & Dislikes

Likes:

• Dedication
• Creativity
• Amaryllis Flowers
• Cheesecakes
• String Instruments

Dislikes:

• Stagnation
• Mass-Production
• Alchemy
• Bitter Foods
• Percussion Instruments

Virtues & Personality perks

Lady Decade in her years of success has turned into a benefactor herself. While she is very picky and selective about who she personally teaches, she uses her earnings to fund educational and artistry programs for many low-income communities in Paris and Atalanta as a whole, and personally commissions or provides instruments for schoolhouses through the Decade Community Program.

Vices & Personality flaws

Despite her generosity and kindness, Lady Decade is a bit of a snob and is very picky about who and what she personally spends her time and effort on. Alongside that, she can be very narrowminded when it comes to certain topics, such as her feelings towards Alchemy, the nature of 'modern' instrumentation, and her food preferences.

Hygiene

Lady Decade has very rigorous hygiene and skin-care routines and regularly anoints herself with scents of lavender when out in public.

Social

Family Ties

After being suddenly released from Vasago's service in 1004 AC (5 years before 'present day'), Lady Decade used her earnings to help her family buy their own Music Store, where they repair, rent, and sell instruments at a lower price than most to be more accessible, assisted by community support and donations.

Religious Views

While not religious, Lady Decade carries the belief that it wouldn't be foolish to at least partially invoke The Inspired and The Decorator, the Ascendants of Art and Creativity respectively.

Social Aptitude

Lady Decades' second strongest skill after music is her social face. She knows how to carry a conversation to her own tune, and in times of necessity how to manipulate the situation towards the ideal outcome for herself, with words, implications, and emotions alone. Her unique ability of Soulsight also lends itself well to emotional understanding.

Wealth & Financial state

While nowhere near the vast wealth of her own sponsor, the crime lord Vasago, Lady Decade has become very successful in her own right, and makes sure that herself and her family lives comfortably, as well as providing funding and chances for those in the same situation as they were.

(Icon made here: https://picrew.me/image_maker/1287132, slight color/logo edits made by myself)

Alignment

Neutral Good

Current Location

Paris

Ethnicity

Half-Elf

Honorary & Occupational Titles

• Maestro
• Classical Head of the Parisian Harmonic Guild
• Lady of the Half-Moon

Date of Birth

27th of Falling Winter

Year of Birth

957 AC 52 Years old

Current Residence

The Half-Moon Ward of Paris, Atalanta

Pronouns

She/Her/Hers

Gender

Female

Eyes

Glazed over Pink (like Rose Quartz)

Hair

Lilac, cut short and brushed to the left side

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Pale skin, faint wrinkles

Height

5' 6"

Weight

152