Leah

09

Names: Leah

Epithet: The Twins

Motifs: fear (Esther), sadness (Leah), theater masks, sunsets, haze/smog (Esther), rain (Leah), spider lillies (Ester), wisteria (Leah), gorgons (Esther), sirens (Leah)

Occupations: Middle School Students

Age: 14

Backstory: They were born to declining nobles as conjoined twins who shared an arm. Their parents were delighted to have girls who they could marry off to keep their noble status, but they knew that after surgery, only one of the twins would have both arms and be suitable as a wife. Thus, they kept one of the twins, who they named Leah, and left the other one for dead.

The orphanage named the other child Esther, and she was mercilessly bullied by the other orphans because of her disability. The orphanage eventually sold Esther to a circus, where she learned to mask her fear and emotions with a wide smile. It was here where her personality also became warped, as the circus had many members who had a few screws loose. Although she was initially intended to be a tightrope walker, she proved to be adept at knifethrowing. After four years of grueling training and performing, she eventually returned to the orphanage to exact her revenge on her former bullies.

Meanwhile, it was expected that Leah seemed to be living the high life as a nobleman’s daughter. However, behind closed doors, her parents would monitor and control her every move, giving her increasingly spartan punishments whenever Leah could not fulfill her parents’ expectations. Her parents poured every inch of their time and energy into making Leah the refined lady they envisioned, and even as a child her schedule would look busier than any adult’s, filled with lessons and extracurriculars and the minimal amount of sleep. The pressure was too much for young Leah, and she would often silently cry to herself, as making any noise would warrant another slap. Eventually she lost her voice after one extremely taxing singing lesson, and from then on, her parents deemed her as useless. They kept her around to degrade her and tell her what a disappointment she was, all while tracking down the orphanage that had taken in Esther, in hopes of switching the twins and training Esther instead.

They were successful in finding where Esther had been, and the twins were promptly switched. Esther was treated much differently than by her parents compared to Leah. They gifted Esther with a mechanical arm and left her mostly to governesses, who could act as scapegoats in the future. Leah, on the other hand, became the new target of those tormented by Esther’s revenge, although Leah greatly preferred being pushed around by Esther’s victims versus going through her regime as a noble. Eventually, both girls were sent to boarding schools to finish their education; Ester was sent to a private finishing school, where she became feared by the other girls as a wicked tormentor that was not to be trifled with, while Leah went to an institution that was funded publicly by the church soley for the image of “helping the orphans.” After their initial meeting where they were switched, Esther and Leah kept in contact with each other, and they would often skip school often to hang out with each other on the streets of the nearby city. Leah eventually regained her ability to talk, but she still prefers to stay silent.

Abilities: Esther can induce and manipulate fear, while Leah can induce and manipulate sadness and despair. Esther can paralyze her opponents with direct eye contact, learn of their phobias, and trap them in an illusion where they are fighting their worst phobias (Doesn’t work on Claire or her cameras). If the phobia involves a natural environment or a situation, Esther will be able to cast an illusion in a 50 ft radius around the target to simulate that phobia. If the phobia involves animals or objects, she can transform herself into the phobia. When casting her illusions, to outsiders it will seem like a hemisphere of thick smog has enveloped the area, and whoever enters the smog will also be caught in the illusions. Her abilities work best with one-on-one battles. If her opponents are two or more people, she can either choose one of the opponents’ phobias and have all of them in the same illusion, or try to combine the opponents’ phobias together, which doesn’t work as well because the individual fear factor gets diluted. As with Lutwidge, the easiest way to leave an illusion is to defeat Esther herself, however, if an opponent can clear their mind and let go of their fear, they can dissipate the illusion themselves (easier said than done). As Esther also used to be a knife-thrower, if her illusions get dissippated she can still fight with blades, and mostly uses box cutters since her daggers were confiscated.

Leah’s ability relies mostly on her singing, which can draw her opponents in like moths drawn to a flame. Similar to dementors, she can bring her opponents in close and absorb all happiness from them by touching their face, leaving only sadness behind. This has the potential to drive her opponents to suicide, but only works in one-on-one encounters. Due to Leah’s personality and lack of confidence, she rarely uses this ability. Instead, she tried to copy Esther’s eye-related ability and uncounciously transformed her powers to an illusion-based one triggered by her tears. Once her tears fall to the ground, they will seemingly start to pool onto the ground and will continually rise; her opponents will “drown” in the illusion and feel waves of immensely heavy stress and pressure, losing motivation to move. If the opponent can realize that they are trapped in Leah’s illusion and pull themselves together, they can dissipate it by finding Leah in the waves and disrupting her concentration. This technique also has a 50 ft radius, but her opponents must be in her direct line of sight; otherwise, they will only feel the heavy atmosphere and not be caught in the full illusion. It also doesn’t affect Claire, since Leah’s opponents must see the pool of tears to be successfuly caught. Unlike Esther, Leah does not have any physical fighting abilities if her illusions are dissipated.

Personalities: Esther always has an unnerving smile on her face and speaks in a deliberate high-pitched voice, mostly to irritate others. Very high energy and talkative, which makes her seem outgoing on the surface, but her true nature is sadistic and possessive. Esther still understands the concept of working hard to achieve her objectives, but will take the shortest route possible, even if it means getting blood on her hands. However, her main downfalls are her arrogance and immaturity, which makes her unable to see beyond the direct consequences of her actions, and is susceptible to strategists such as Percy, Lutwidge, or Cas. Although she now possesses a mechanical arm, she’s not very used to using it and sees it mostly as a liability.

Leah is much more passive and apathetic, and refuses to take any action unless someone orders her to. However, once given an order she will do anything to achieve it, but she’s mostly driven by the fear of punishment instead. To normal people, this makes her a bit annoying to be around, but since Esther likes bossing people around, their personalities mesh well with each other. She never fights back any tormentors and takes any form of abuse with no protest or reaction. This makes her an easy but boring target, which is how the bullying against her stopped. She rarely ever speaks, and even Ester has only heard her hum to herself once or twice. Surprisingly, they do not fight as a team; their abilities are more of a foil to each other rather than complete opposites, and each of them think the other will get in their way.