aster

an assistant to nino.  because she can understand the voices of gods, she has a rather unique perspective on the subjects. she's known among the laboratory's staff and guests as someone who's rather friendly and cheerful, though a bit evasive when it comes to some topics. but that's okay, everyone has their secrets!

aster was born into a large family (one sister, seven brothers) that couldn't quite afford to take care of all of their children. this wasn't an unusual situation, and common practice was for overfull families to sell young children to facilities that would house them until they were old enough to work (and would then take a cut of the pay). aster was sold off to a facility run by a single woman in infancy, and ended up staying and working there once she was old enough. 

unfortunately, during aster's stay, a problem reared its ugly head. the woman in charge of the house was using quite a few children that came in for less-than-ethical or safe medical experiments in order to help her sick daughter. though very few outside of the house suspected a thing, aster and the others became aware of why every so often, one of them would end up disappearing in the middle of the night and not returning. however, there was no way out of the house or situation. as their numbers dwindled, and the woman ran out of smaller, defenseless children, and as her daughter got sicker, aster ended up next on the list. and then something interesting happened. a voice from somewhere in the basement of the house gave her a warning. told her that her life was in danger, and when to do something about it. as a result, when she found herself under attack, she was able to fight back, killing the woman in self-defense. rather than stick around to explain, she escaped. instead of going back to her family, who she had never known, the only other option that occurred to her was to get as far away from all of this as she could. 

through a series of not-entirely-legal boat and train rides, she ended up in maite one evening. she hadn't been planning to stay, but an escaped laboratory subject caused her to miss her next train (and made a mess of the few belongings she had). julia, whose subject it was, took her in for the night as an apology and one all-night conversation later (during which julia was able to figure out that aster could actually understand the noises that her subject was making), offered the girl a job. it wouldn't be a particularly difficult one, just monitoring subjects day to day and helping nino with research, but it was a paying job, and one aster found herself accepting without hesitation. 

after a few rocky first days, during which aster primarily slept in a supply closet and got upset if people got too close to her, she got more accustomed to the laboratory, its people, and its subjects-- pieces of a failed synthetic god created elsewhere. eventually, nino and julia realized the extent of her difficult situation and helped her get more settled in maite. and well, since she kind of started at rock bottom, things have been looking up ever since.

• enjoys taking walks at night.
• gets crushes embarrassingly easy, considerably slower to actually fall in love.
• in her spare time, she enjoys making cute little baked goods. she's not exactly good at it yet, but she tries. they taste better than they look, at least.
• sleeps with her bedroom door locked, even though she lives alone.
• she has a lot of plants in her apartment, courtesy of red.
• the name aster came with help from an old book on flower meanings; in this setting, it represents strength and patience.