PROUD , CUTTING , JUDGMENTAL
---
RESILIENT , ARTFUL , CHARMING 

PERSONALITY

• August is known for her wit. She's quick with a phrase, and she's got a wicked sense of humor. Her demeanor is often playful, and sometimes you don't even know you're being laughed at and not with.
• August can be punishing and vindictive. There's a mean streak in her that likes having power over others and making them pay for slighting her. That said, she's willing to bide her time, and she'd rather keep her face on.
• August enjoys spectator sports. Though she's not an athlete herself, she knows the rules and likes to watch, particularly tournament-style combat. The rougher the better. She really gets into it.
• In general, August likes a thrill. Her life has been thoroughly padded, and she gets a kick out of feeling a little unsafe.
• August is good at math. She can do sums in her head quickly, and she's got a mind for managing money.
• August is proud to the point of haughty. She's a woman of her class. She's tolerant but skeptical of mages, and she doesn't associate much with lowborns. She's sometimes in danger of overconfidence.
• August understands power. She's got a good political mind and is a fantastic navigator of delicate situations. She gets satisfaction from doing this.
• August cares deeply about her family. For all their faults, they are hers, and she'll go the mile to do right by them, even when she doesn't like them much.
• August is a complicated woman. There's a lot going on in her mind, cognitive dissonances that she spends her free time parsing, desires and ambitions that are hers alone.

[266 words]

HISTORY

• August was born the middle of three daughters to Lord Justinian Becket and his wife, Verity. House Becket was (and is) a very old Ivratian family, one of the original noble houses dating back to the founding of Faline. The Lords of House Becket made their legacies as record keepers rather than soldiers. While they never gained tremendous power, they were known to be educated and shrewd, and their role in Ivratian civil infrastructure -- censuses, zoning, and the like -- has been uninterrupted for centuries. Lord Becket himself remains a fringe member of the Royal Council to this day.
• August herself had an upbringing fairly typical of her status, though she and her sisters were forced to navigate the casual misogyny of their father. He was loving and fair on the surface, but he always regarded his daughters with some dismissal and rarely invited them to participate in his work, believing their ultimate purpose to be marriage. August grew up listening quietly to her father in conversation with other men, absorbing sensitive information and becoming highly attuned to political concepts he believed she couldn't understand.
• The way Justinian treated his daughters was the same way he treated his wife. Lady Verity Becket was an unhappy woman with a destructive streak, and she spent her marriage embarrassing her husband, having frequent affairs with lowborns and mages. She was a person to be managed, and August, in her youth, took her father's side, seeing her mother as a silly woman without fortitude who needed to be controlled for the sake of the family's reputation.
• As the Becket daughters grew, their father ascribed to each of them a single personality trait by which he identified them to suitors: August was "the witty one," the one who was quick with a turn of phrase, charming to some and prickly to others. Her persistence in receiving higher education and her inability to suffer a fool without a laugh at his expense made her more difficult to marry than her sisters. For that reason, she was the one who remained as an adult in her father's estate.
• Once Lord Becket had made marrying off his daughters less of a priority, August was able to place herself in rooms she hadn't previously been allowed in to hear conversations she wasn't privy to before. It was then that she learned a truth about her old and noble house that had been kept from her before: House Becket had been staving off financial ruin for years. While her father loved to tout his family's legacy, he had none of his ancestors' skill in practice. Between Justinian's own incompetence and his wife's sabotage, House Becket was flat broke.
• August knew that the only thing between House Becket and complete disgrace was the land they owned. A tenacious woman who was skilled in calculations, August began having her family's possessions appraised in order to decide how much they'd need to sell to avoid losing their property. When she had enough information to present the plan to her father, he denied her outright. Though one argument wouldn't normally have been enough to deter her, it was then that her mother, Lady Verity, fell ill.
• After months of illness, Verity died. With her mother gone, her father in a complex state of grief, and her plan to save her family name at a standstill, August found herself feeling once again as helpless as she had been as a girl. Through it all, she carried on, chin high, as if nothing was wrong, as if grieving a long-troubled mother was the only thing on her mind. All the while, she waited for the moment when she could approach her father again and ask him to consider her proposal.
• That day never came. Someone else got to Lord Becket first, with an offer he couldn't refuse. Lord Bartolemy Grail XIV, the well-connected son of a renowned Ivratian general and a decorated officer in his own right, was suddenly asking for August's hand in marriage. It didn't take a genius to determine that Lord Becket had made a deal: connecting his only unmarried daughter to one of the wealthiest men in Ivras would solve his financial troubles, and he, apparently, had something Lord Grail wanted very badly.
• August tried disbelief, but it wouldn't come honestly. This had been her father's plan for her since birth, and no twist or turn of life had changed the outcome -- but there was the question of why someone in society's stratosphere was willing to take her with no dowry, sight unseen. She was harsh and prying with her father until he relented: this Lord Grail was a mage with considerable power, and he wished his identity to remain secret. August would comply if she knew what was good for her.
• August knew what was good for her. She was relocated without resistance to Grail's home in Upper Faline, and she took to playing the part of woman there. Now, she seeks to understand her place in this man's life, and to decide if it's possible to make it work to her advantage.

[851 words]