Personality

Nym is generally a quiet, caring individual, one who keeps to herself but will help those who ask her. Generous to those who respect her, and fiercely loyal to her friends, she tries to do the best she can to help others with the wealth she has gained from her centuries of life. Although she can be a bit of a gossiper and very secretive about who she really is, she does try to be her best and help others where she can.

However, she also has a dark side. Due to her requiring a host in order to form her own body, Nym is calculating and manipulative when it comes to securing a target. Ruthless in securing what she needs, Nym will trample others if it means that she stays corporeal and alive. If she needs to, she will abandon clients that begin to suspect too much, or arrange for the alleviation of their memories. She is borderline predatory in her pursuit of what she wants, and can be downright vindictive when wronged.

Centuries of acquired wealth also make Nym indulgent and borderline hedonistic, basking in the wealth that she has accrued. Though shrewd and logical, she is also joyful and fun-loving around those she trusts. If she considers you friend, she will be helpful and kind- but if she considers you foe, she will hunt you down and tear your life limb from limb. 

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History

Nymphodora was born an incredibly long time ago- so long ago that she has forgotten her own age. She remembers that Faline was once called Ivras, remembers the fleet of merchant ships of the first King. She remembers the patriotism that surrounded the conquest of Ivras, the cries of nationalism that led to its expansion. 

But her personal history? Practically forgotten under the length of time that she has been alive. 

She remembers that she had two parents, though their faces and names have long since been lost to history. She was born on the sea, aboard a ship carrying new settlers to a new city, a port for extensive trade- what was then known as Ivras. Where her family was from, she does not remember, but she remembers her shaky legs scrambling off of the ship and onto solid ground, onto cobbled streets, the strange feeling of steadiness beneath her. Her horns had been little more than nubs then, so tiny behind her ears. 

She cannot remember much more of her childhood, much less her actual face. She remembers her schooling, her mind carefully cultivated to make some man a happy husband. She learned to read and write, cook and sew, the discussion of the intricacies of politics and world happenings. 

The one event she does remember from her childhood is the day she turned seventeen- the day her magic manifested. Her parents came into her room to wake her, to give her gifts and bring her the sweetcakes she so dearly loved, when she- according to her horrified mother- saw them, and her body changed into someone different. 

Her father's eyes widened, and he called her by a different name- perhaps Jasmine, or Heather, all Nym remembers is that it was a flower- and her mother recoiled. That was the name of a woman that he had been seeing on the side, one that he had told her mother over and over again that he had left behind. The arrival of her magic- and the fact that she had then turned to her mother and had become her father- broke apart their marriage, in time. Once she had been given to a tutor for training and the nature of her magic was revealed, it broke her mother's heart. She left to wherever they had come from, leaving her father and daughter behind in Ivras. 

Furious at his daughter for robbing him of his wife- even though, as she would point out numerous times, he clearly didn't find her beautiful and he should have left long ago- he removed her from their house, cursing her name. He gave her a small bag of gold for her to take with her, and her clothing, but it was all the love he would show his daughter- still under eighteen- for what she had done, robbing him of a steady home life with a woman who cooked and cleaned and a lover on the side.

After a few days on her own, with no one to latch her magic onto, she felt herself beginning to fade for the first time. She remembers looking down to find that her legs were transparent, the dizziness that filled over her head. Terrified, she took to the streets, latching her magic onto whoever she could so that she might still exist when all was said and done. It was a rough four months- with the money running out ages ago and her feeling hungry, but appearing beautiful and renewed, she found it difficult to acquire food by any method other than stealing- but once she turned eighteen, she found employment in a brothel in the red light district of Ivras- now known as Faline. 

Magic was still unheard of to most, and even Nym couldn't name the basics of her magic, only that it existed and that she needed a host's idea of beauty to give her a body. When she told the matron of the brothel- she had not begun her life of sex work, not yet, and had instead cleaned for the sex workers present- she quickly became something that the owner of the brothel was attracted to, something that he had to have. She hated that time- when she was trained to be a sex worker, known only for the "exoticism" of a girl who could become anyone's wildest dreams of beauty, who never aged and would stay young forever- and she saved every coin she could in an effort to escape. 

In the end, her long life made it possible for her to find something better. The coins she saved bought her freedom from the new owner of the brothel- it had been around seventy years in that place, and she was ready to leave. With the old owner dying suddenly, and the matron long dead, no one knew of her magic, of what she could do. She bought out her contract and that of another young woman, Eliza, and together they fled the brothel in hopes of something better. 

For a time, Eliza served as Nym's host. Her ideal of beauty became Nym's form, and together the two of them worked as luxury courtesans for the rich nobility of Faline. Nym had never hated the work- rather, it was something she enjoyed- but she hated being underneath the thumb of someone who cared only for what money she could bring him. It was during this time with Eliza that Nym found a new tutor, and she learned more about her magic. As Eliza aged, she discovered that she could be her own host, and so she painstakingly made herself find her old horns beautiful so that she might keep that one bit of her that she could remember, her old form lost to the years and years in the seedy brothel near the docks of Faline. 

When Eliza died, Nym moved away from their small shared flat, finding a small, luxurious home on what was then the outskirts of Faline from which to conduct her business. She continued on with her work as a luxury courtesan, trading in the faces of beauty her clients favored at night for her "own" face during the day, hiding who and what she was from everyone who asked. She monitored her magic, keeping it controlled as it grew, and strengthening it so that she might be able to take on longer and longer jobs. 

She watched as Ivras grew and changed, as it spread to cover the peninsula, as mages were found out and feared, then respected, and now feared again. She watched as the world she had known changed so much that she could hardly recognize it, continuing to hide her power in order to protect herself. She knew what it would mean if she was trapped in Namarast, if she could not use her magic. As much as she sometimes wishes that she could move on, she isn't ready to fade away. So she watches, and waits, and serves those noble clients who wish to have a taste of true beauty. 

And above everything else, she refuses to let herself fade away- even if it means doing things that others may find horrid in order to save herself.

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