The birth name she was given by the Academy was 'Trese Athanasia', a name which translates to mean 'Reaper' in the language of Lannelos.

Upon entering into the society of the human world in the 1930s, needing a more conventional name, she took on the mantle Alyssa Barr.

Appears 36; is roughly 2250 years old in Human years

She/Her

Alyssa was trained from infancy as a warrior, an elite knight and guardsman, one of the few women to survive training to graduate from the Academy. She served the High Elves of House Redmond in the kingdom of Ironrath for well over a thousand Human years, rotating between the siblings and their families as needs demanded, and eventually rose to Captain of the Royal Guard for Prince Valrose Redmond and his daughter, Princess Talisa.

She remained with them through the fracture of their realm and the remnants of the Ironrath kingdom's relocation to the mortal realm, Earth, in the 1930s. However, she did not take well to integration in the human world or the various tensions in the new court. When a murder scandal rocked the court, fingers pointed in Alyssa's direction. She was innocent, but the dishonor to her name and the scrutiny, fights and tension dragged her down to the point where after she was exonerated Prince Valrose thought it kinder to end her contract than force her to remain tied to Ironrath.

She's been out of work ever since. After all elvish gold tends to go a long way in human currency. But the past few years have been hard. She isn't sure what to dedicate her life to if she is no longer a Knight.

High Elf

February 5th

Mekenna Melvin

5 FT even

Curvy, Petite

Blue

Brown

Down to mid-chest, with some slight natural wave; she pulls it back into a ponytail or a tight bun when she's exercising or when she needs to keep it out of her face

She has a Celtic Infinity Knot on her upper left arm. [See Gallery for Picture.] This is an official sigil of the Academy and signifies her status as a graduate.

In her former kingdom of Ironrath, and among the elves of the Lannelos realm, this tattoo is a mark of both expertise, prestige, and novelty. Alyssa, as a woman, is a rarity within the ranks of the precious few who bear the Academy's seal of approval, making her mark worth even more.

Alyssa herself has complicated feelings towards it. Pride in some ways, shame in others. It is honestly a relief that those from other realms don't know the mark's meaning or its relation to the Academy. It's just a tattoo, to them. She prefers that. Although Alyssa won't lie about it when asked.

None, and Alyssa doesn't wear jewelry at all if she can help it.

Alyssa is the picturesque representation of a tomboy. While she can and does wear skirts or dresses, she is more comfortable in pants and leggings, preferring their ease of movement. Her color choices are particular; she despises the colors pink and orange, but loves green and purple.

She prefers outfits that are skin-tight or fit closely molded to her form, not because of the way it accentuates her curvy and petite form, but because of the physical advantages it provides: one, as a distraction for men and women who like a pretty thing to look at, and two, the clothing does not get in the way when wielding a blade.

Her Guard uniform was always pressed and in tip-top shape; she always prided herself that she never got a tear in the fabric because she was never hit while working.

While Alyssa does bear the scars one would find on a warrior woman, none of them are from her time as a Guardsman or while Captain of the Royal Guard for House Redmond. She takes a great amount of pride in that, to have gone her career rarely injured and never enough to scar, because her skill, speed, and luck surpassed her enemies.

All of her scars are old, soft, and don't stand out; some of them are invisible except by feel when touching her skin. They were all earned during her childhood and training in the Academy. Only a rare few still bother her today with residual aches or pains.

She cares about her personal appearance as a way to fit in with the elves around her, having always felt out of place due to the way she was raised. She is also somewhat aware of her own innate beauty as an elf, although she prefers personality over looks, and knows that she can use her good looks to her advantage among others. Sometimes turning on the charm, twirling a lock of brown hair around a finger, and batting bright blue eyes in someone's direction is better than pulling a blade on them.

Alyssa seems standoffish and unapproachable at first glance. Many find her curt and off-putting. Stoic but fierce, hard where most other women of the Fair Folk are soft. She has a massive case of resting bitch face. She is blunt, no nonsense, has an overly frank and unadorned way of speaking. Straight laced. Doesn't seem to have the sense for the tricky, political way of speaking commonly found in elves and fae. Her upbringing means she holds little stock in appearance and isn't easily swayed or fooled, and is mistrustful of others as a soft rule.

But in reality, it's just that it was ingrained in her psyche from infancy to be unemotional and detached. Connections outside of her oaths and her duty were heavily and intensely discouraged, to the point now that Alyssa feels alone and out of place and finds it difficult to build those connections with others.

She is always polite and respectful, especially to those in higher rank than herself. She's awkward at small talk and most social situations outside of her station in life which makes conversation difficult. She is kind to others and a little shy, as if she wants to reach out and be friends but there is a barrier holding her back.

Take the time to get to know her, and she is a great friend to have... provided she lets you in. The "letting in" is the hard part. Break through, however, and you will have a loyal and steadfast friend for life who just needs a lot of help to blossom into who she can be.

Alyssa has a strict moral code of honor and justice. She is a soldier first and foremost, raised from infancy to serve and protect, ingrained with a set of morals she can't break, and then is herself as a person second. It's been difficult, if not nearly impossible, to discover herself and who she is or can be outside of her role as a Knight.

Solitude, the forest, the ocean, wide open spaces, a clear view of the sky, poetry, theater, music, dancing, the arts, anything that can be considered self-expression, herbal teas, literature, fiction novels

Loneliness, isolation, small or cramped spaces, being underground, forced conformity, pitch blackness, loud and noisy crowds, belligerent and rude behavior, angry drunks, murderers, abusers

• Brave: Alyssa is fearless. There is no order she can be given that will give her even a pause to consider the risks to her own life. She is unflinching in the face of danger, can even be a little arrogant of it at times, and is known among her fellow Guards to be the one you want at your back in a battle. Woe be it to the one who finds her as an enemy; she will duel without a moment's thought.




• Intuitive: Alyssa is good at reading people and situations and making snap decisions to keep herself and others out of trouble, and she picks up on things fairly quickly. When the situation calls for it, she can act the part of whatever's necessary to keep the peace and control the area. She usually tries to head off disaster before it strikes.

• Emotional bonding: Alyssa has difficulty bonding with others. The Academy viewed emotions as a weakness that could be exploited, and thus they used a variety of ways to try and expunge any and all desire for their Guards to be close to others. While she has the surface skills to appear kind and friendly, she has a hard time doing so with any serious depth of feeling.




• Wary: Alyssa is wary and suspicious of everyone the first time she meets them, and is always braced for something to go wrong. In her world, no one can be trusted and everyone has the potential to be an enemy. This has proven invaluable in her time as a Royal Guard but ruins every personal relationship she tries to have.

Alyssa finds it incredibly difficult to make friends, and most of the few connections she had in the court of Ironrath, she had to leave behind when she was exiled.

Alyssa has never really been close enough to anyone to make true enemies, but anyone who hails from the Academy or any elves who actively controlled or supported the Academy are automatically enemies in her eyes. She can't stand the Academy or what they did to her and the others like her.

As a Guardsman and a Captain of the Royal Guard, Alyssa swore an oath to keeping herself pure and celibate and dedicate her life to her charges, and she took those vows seriously. Alyssa has never had a deep connection to anyone, and she is still a virgin.

That being said, since her exile from the Ironrath court, Alyssa has been in a super messy relationship with a vampire named Zayn Voigt. They are fundamentally different and everything he does goes against her moral code, but their history together and the mutual fear of being alone and abandoned, keeps her tied to him.

Alyssa doesn't know if what they have is love or kinship born out of mutual loneliness. It being her first relationship, she doesn't know any better and believes she doesn't deserve anything better than this. They haven't done anything physical outside of a scant few kisses.

As a knight and a soldier, Alyssa has been trained and is physically skilled in all forms of combat.

Her fighting specialty is with a blade, which she can use one or two-handed. Her other favorite is a quarterstaff.

However she is equally skilled in all forms of hand-to-hand combat and ranged weaponry.

Alyssa is super into all things Disney, particularly classic Disney. A Disney short was one of the very first "moving pictures" she saw on her own in the human world after migrating to Earth, and she has been obsessed ever since.

Green & Purple

Alyssa's accent is heavily Irish, although it tends to be a more proper, posh version thanks to the Ironrath court. Still, she's prone to slide into Gaelic Irish if emotions run high.

CW: while the Elves don't see it this way, this is basically trafficking/slavery/indentured servitude

Alyssa has no knowledge of her birth family.

The Academy hand-selected her as a child and then paid for the rights to raise her. She was so young when this happened, she has no memory of a time before the Academy. She doesn't even know if she had a different name before the Academy named her 'Trese Athanasia'.

The version Alyssa was told - along with most of the other children within her group at the Academy - was that she was one of a large number of siblings in a poor family, and her parents sold her. But it could be equally true that she was an orphan and the Academy took her from the orphanage.

Now that she has ostracized herself from the Ironrath court, and because the destruction of Lannelos means the Academy no longer exists, Alyssa considers herself officially an orphan.

While she was fond of her charges in House Redmond, particularly Prince Valrose and Princess Talisa, she was always aware of her role as Captain of the Royal Guard and never considered them family.

Deirdre: A large, fat, grumpy raccoon that Alyssa picked up as a reluctant companion. Alyssa saved her when Deirdre was a kit about 4 years ago, and they have been together ever since.

Deirdre has yet to have any litters despite being a wild raccoon, and every time Deirdre disappears (which is a semi-regular occurrence for days at a time) Alyssa is afraid she'll come back pregnant.

February 5th

The Elvish realm of Lannelos

Ireland

Alyssa speaks Elvish, English, and Irish Gaelic

• These High Elves hail from the realm of Lannelos, connected to the mortal realm (Earth) via a portal deep in the depths of what is now modern-day Ireland.


• Lannelos was a huge realm, divided up among numerous kingdoms. The nobles and royals of these kingdoms all had a need for skilled knights to act as guards and soldiers to their people.


• This need for an elite fighting force was filled by an organization known as the Lannelos Military Academy - but, being the only one, is basically just called the "Academy" by everyone. Think of an entity to train an elite fighting force - Game of Thrones' The Unsullied, the Spartans of Ancient Greece, Kaer Morhen in the Witcher - and that's the Academy.


• The Academy took children from birth up through age 5, raised and trained them within the Academy's compound until adulthood, where they proceeded to take the 'graduation exam', take their oaths as Knights, and their contracts would be sold to the highest bidders among nobility and royalty throughout Lannelos.


• The children they took became the 'wards' of the Academy, regardless of whatever prior background they had before. All ties outside of the Academy were permanently broken.


• The training to mold their charges into an elite fighting force were intense, grueling, and often cruel. Many of their wards did not survive to graduation. If you did, however, you were considered elite, prestigious, and the pay that came with the contract could make the knight fabulously wealthy.


• Because of the harshness, the Academy recruited exclusively through boys throughout most of its existence.


• However, a long term war in the realm between the wood elves and the dark elves and a declining birth rate in general left a shortage of recruits in some years. When that happened, the Academy would open their ranks to girls, as well, but with a stricter admission process to ensure likelihood of long term survival.


• Alyssa was one of only five girls within her age group at the Academy.

Alyssa is a High Elf, from a race of elves from the realm of Lannelos, a fantasy land connected to Earth via a portal system.

The High Elves of Lannelos considered themselves descendants of gods, created when their pantheon of gods mated and had children with a fairy race that (likely) hailed from Earth, originally. Their connection to nature and affinity for magic put them above many other races of elves who inhabited Lannelos alongside them, hence the designation "High Elf".

The entire realm of Lannelos was fractured and destroyed in a calamity event called "The Great Chaos". All survivors were forced to use the realm portal and relocate permanently to Earth as Lannelos was now uninhabitable. In Earth time, this took place around the end of the 1930s, and much of the relocation was possible due to the chaos and confusion in Europe during WWII.

Many other fantasy creatures inhabited the realm of Lannelos, as well as the addition of other races of Elves - Light, Dark, Deep, Wood, etc. As a Knight and Guardsman from the Academy, Alyssa was intimately familiar with anything that could be encountered in Lannelos.

However, she was wholly unaware of anything that could be encountered on Earth and the various magicks and species there prior to Lannelos' destruction and their people's relocation to Ireland. And even though she's spent the last near century in study, Alyssa is still unfamiliar with a lot.

The High Elves of Lannelos as a whole tend to look down on other creatures that aren't High Elves themselves (because they believe they're descended from gods and fae magic and that makes them superior) so even to this day after having integrated with Ireland and its culture, they frown upon and judge any relationships with other species, particularly dangerous ones like vampires or werewolves.

Alyssa, who has always felt like a stranger among her own kind, doesn't share these ideals.

Magic

The High Elves of Lannelos were once mighty and powerful because of their magic - heavily tied to and in tune with the world of nature around them. That magic still exists on Earth, albeit it in a different form.

Alyssa's source of magic, like the rest of her kind, comes via "ley lines". Ley lines on Earth are an interconnected network running through nature, and stems from one of seven basic sources: earth, air, water, heat, light, flora (plants), and fauna (animals).

All High Elves have a little bit of innate magic regardless of their power, skill, or abilities, and Alyssa is no exception. However, training is required to harness and adequately control that magic and Alyssa was trained as a warrior, not a mage.

Her magic is that of travel, things that would be useful to protect her charges or assist in an army on a march: the ability to purify drinking water, neutralize and resist poisons, communing with plants and animals to discover where safe places to sleep or things to eat are, stay warm in cold environments, make rudimentary shelters from plants, etc.

While she can wield magic outside her skills, they're weak and non effective. If required to channel more power, especially in emergencies, it can be physically harmful and leave her weak and drained.

Magical Affinity

Each Elf has an affinity to one of the seven basic nature sources that makes their magic in that area more powerful, and come to them more naturally than others.

Alyssa's affinity is in air, therefore making wind magic her magic of choice.

She uses it primarily to give her superhuman boosts to her speed, agility, and movement while in battle. She can also use blasts of air as a weapon, a shield, a distraction, or as a way to dodge a blow.

Outside of battle, she can do things like warm or cool a small area of affect around herself with breezes, dispel gasses, and smother fires - or stoke them, as the case may be.

Glamour

As a High Elf, Alyssa has access to an ability called "Glamour" that allows her to transform her appearance into that of an ordinary human woman. Glamour takes constant concentration to upkeep, but High Elves are trained from infancy in its use and execution, and it comes to her as second nature as breathing.

Still, strong enough disruption or injury can cause the Glamour to break.

Foresight

A side effect of the transition from Lannelos to Earth, Alyssa as a High Elf has the gift of Foresight. This is a difficult ability to control and is more like the Oracles of ancient humans than pure foresight. It only points towards the Future, not the past, and can range from hours to days to years in the future. For Alyssa, the ability is mostly random, and events don't always come to pass as she sees them in the visions.

Intense concentration, meditation, and a kind of ritual is required for her to call upon and focus this ability if needed for something specific.

Enhanced Vision

As a High Elf, Alyssa has eyes enhanced to see with amazing clarity, distance, and color. With focus and concentration, this can be expanded into a different spectrum of light all together like a built in night vision, at the expense of headaches and eye strain from prolonged use.

She can perceive things in a more detailed manner. In battle, she can see incoming attacks and quickly find a way to dodge said attacks.

Magical Reserves

High Elves have the largest magical stamina of all of the species, meaning they can use a lot of it before getting worn out. They can also restore their magical stamina by drawing from any of their seven sources of nature magic.

WEAKNESSES

Corrupted energies - such as from dark spirits, demons, or general miasmas that can affect nature directly such as pollution - are especially toxic to High Elves. Long exposure to it is, unfortunately, lethal. Alyssa has a hardier constitution than most, being a warrior, but she is still forced to rely on her magical reserves when in heavily toxic or corrupted areas.

Alyssa is more susceptible to magic that manipulates the mind than most - a mermaid's Ocean's Call, a vampire's Thrall command, drugs, alcohol, magical potions, illusions, etc. She is aware of this and does her best to mitigate it by either a.) avoiding it all together, or b.) removing herself as fast as possible when encountering it. She has a strong enough will that she can usually protect herself from the effects before they overwhelm her.

Because of their descent from a mixture of gods and fae, High Elves did not always look fully human enough to pass among people on Earth. Typically, only nobility and royalty had outlandish or fantastical features, while common elves appeared the most human, with some exceptions based on the High Elf, their bloodlines, and their magical affinities.

Alyssa's non human features are:

Pointed ears: Alyssa has the typical pointed ears of an elf when un-Glamoured. They are easily hidden beneath her hair, but more often than not, she Glamours them away like she does with her wings.

Wings: Unusual even for a High Elf, Alyssa has a pair of feathered wings on her back. While silver-white in color and pointed like an angel's wings, they are shaped more like that of a butterfly. [See Gallery for picture.]

Her wings are too small for actual flight, even with her wing magic affinity - her wingspan is roughly 48 inches when fully extended. She can use them to float or glide, and when in use can grant her a major speed boost.

She is self-conscious of them though. Wings are rare even among High Elves. She was forced by the Academy to perfect her fighting skills with them as well as without, which often caused her injury and other disadvantages as they are sensitive, fragile, and often in the way.

She normally keeps them Glamoured away at all times. The rare times that they are out, she normally keeps them closed and tucked in tight against her back.

Raghnall - an augmented sword given to her by the Academy as a graduation gift, and is Alyssa's treasured possession. She named it Raghnall, "Mighty Power", and it has a number of magical properties:

• The blade will never grow dull, even after heavy use in combat


• The blade can be summoned back to her hand as long as she is still nearby


• The blade can grow or shorten in length to some extent depending on Alyssa's needs. The default is about 28 inches, but it can grow to 38 inches or shrink to 18 inches.


• The blade can be stored inside of a decorative stone she wears in a leather cuff around her wrist. In very much a hidden wrist blade style. She doesn't like it because it's longer to summon back out than if she just had it on her person, but it allows her to bring the sword places she otherwise couldn't.


• The blade can be temporarily enchanted to perform actions on its own, such as attacking an enemy from one angle while Alyssa attacks from another with a different weapon. Alyssa is connected to the sword via a magic link for the duration of the enchantment, and if that link is severed, the enchantment immediately ends.