Crane

[Personality]

In a word, apathetic.

Days for Crane run on the same predictable pattern. She sleeps outside in the park, surrounded by birds, and only awakens to give prophecies and advice to those who come seeking her counsel. Once she's finished offering her sage - and always accurate - guidance, she falls asleep once more, escaping the exhaustion of the waking world through the paradise of her dreams. To those that are helped by her wisdom, she seems like a distant, aloof soothsayer, completely detached from the mortal world and more akin to a spirit than a human being. Who could possibly understand a creature like that?

Nights for Crane are slightly less predictable... but only slightly. As the sun goes down, she stirs, and then wanders the streets in search of magi who need her comfort. Those who use magic are capable of working great miracles, but they are burdened with a horrible curse that constantly works off their negative emotions, twisting their hearts and turning their souls to despair. It overwhelms those who are afflicted, transforming them into demons that seek to consume the blood of other beings. Crane - due to the... unique circumstances of her birth, has been spared from this curse. She is the only magus in the world who is pure, and due to that, she is seen as a miracle-worker and as a symbol of hope for the wizards who know the depths of what she can do. Someone who bears the dreams of those who are fated to fall into despair... who could possibly understand a creature like that?

Crane knows the entire world would be better off if she accepted her fate and became a god. Yet, simply being human is already unbearable for her. How could she handle being divine? So, she escapes this by trying not to think, trying not to care, and trying to soothe the guilt of not wanting to bear the burden of humanity's sins by using her powers to help in small ways.

Underneath this protective layer of indifference, Crane is a sweet, inquisitive girl. She possesses very little knowledge of the world, making her endearingly naive, and though her flat affect makes everything she says sound incredibly serious, the content of her statements and questions are so peculiar that it comes off as cute rather than intimidating. She's sincere, trusting, compassionate, and though it's disguised by extreme self-loathing and exhaustion, she's capable of loving so strongly and completely that it could change the entire world. 

[Biography]

One day, completely by accident, a young boy out hunting with his father shot a crane instead of a duck.

In that place, cranes were rare and treasured, so he begged his father to somehow save its life. Knowing it was too mortally wounded for normal medicine to work, he brought the bird to a respected wizard in the community, who made miracles occur for the price of a thousand things - such as a thousand bracelets, a thousand thank-you cards, or... even a thousand paper cranes. The wizard said that - yes, he could preserve the crane's life... sort of. That bullet had fated her to death as a crane, and no magic - without delving into the forbidden art of blood - could prevent that. But it could... shift her fate, by transforming the crane into something else.

To save her from death, that wizard turned a crane into a human girl.

There are many folk tales of animals becoming human beings, but none describe how horrifying of an experience it really is. Suddenly, this bird's world was expanded - she smelled more, tasted more, thought more, and felt more. She had morality. She had a human soul. And all of them had been suddenly foisted on her after having experienced a painful trauma. She lost things, too - the ability to fly, the comfort of her old life, the certainty of who she was and where she belonged in the universe...

And an unintentional power was bestowed upon her.

Magic works off of perception. The more powerful the world thinks wizards are, the more powerful they become - which is why they cloak themselves and their spellcraft in mysticism. Crane's very existance was created from a miracle, therefore, part of her very essence became miraculous. She was not subject to the curse of the Beast, due to not being born a human, and combined with a relatively unknown law of the universe - that is, things that have been transformed once are easier to transform in the future - Crane was imbued with the qualities necessary for her to become a god.

And the magi needed a god. Their old goddess - the Queen of Buttercups, Ranuncula - fell into madness and is responsible for the magi's curse. Only a similarly powerful being could possibly hope to lift it. Yet... Crane never chose any of this. She never chose to be some miracle-girl capable of saving the world.

She's just a scared, overwhelmed bird who never asked for any of this... and who, every time she uses her powers to help others, feels herself being pushed farther and farther towards becoming something she cannot bear to be.

[Relationships]

Two-Bit (Aegis)

Crane and the former Inquisitor in Training of Spaghorde have a... friendly relationship? Sort of. Two-Bit feels incredibly intimidated by Crane, a bastion of purity, while Crane looks after Aegis, visiting them frequently to soothe their fears about falling to the Beast once more. Two-Bit's natural inclination to protect those they encounter would be very helpful to Crane, and Crane's personal insight would be very helpful to Aegis, due to their own inability to deal with their own emotions, but... there's a barrier of awkwardness that neither can really cross. They'd be excellent friends to each other if they could just find a way to cross the rift that their mutual self-hate has created.