Rielle

I'm tired, Toby. I'm so, so tired.
If you asked me to do it all again, I don't think... I don't think I could...
Lore notes:
- She's a superhero! Goes by the "Starlight Crusader", though whether anyone actually uses that title is questionable.
- Though she does do good, she's very showy about it - she loves her dramatic entrances, and she probably doesn't need to name her attacks.
- Scratch that. She definitely doesn't need to, and everyone knows it.
- That doesn't stop her.
- If it annoys her enemies, all the better.
- Her familiar, Toby, is capable of glimpsing the future, and directs her to where she needs to be. This is how she always seems to show up just in time.
- Secretly thrives off of adoration. She's ashamed of that, and it's her biggest insecurity.
- She, Foxglove and Amaranth make a big show out of being enemies. But, the twins are too dramatic to actually be doing anything too evil, and Rielle loves having a villain that lets her monologue.
- The end result is that the three of them are best friends and firmly in denial of that fact.
- Being a hero is actually pretty rough on her, though she doesn't show it. She has a darker side of her personality, tired and hurt and a bit cynical, that only Toby's really seen.

Foxglove and Amaranth are the two villains that Rielle encounters most frequently. Such is the curse of sharing a clan with one's greatest foe. The twins are proudly guilty of horrid crimes such as necromancy, swiping Rielle's cape, and stealing snacks from the Mirror. It's only polite that the two let her monologue, and they aren't so evil that they wouldn't return her cape when she started crying. That's just common decency. The cake that Rielle made them on their birthday? That was just to get them to let their guard down! Of course they aren't friends. That would be ridiculous. They're only in the same clan so she can keep an eye on them. Really. And if the twins bailed her out when she got in over her head, well, that was just respect against a common enemy.

Not all villains are made equal. Some are quiet, and scheming, and dark. Some match Rielle's intensity, and they fight in flares of fire and light. Rielle doesn't always win, and the villains she loses to are bad, yes. But selfishly, she doesn't think they're the worst. No. The worst ones are when she has the looming suspicion that, if the world was kinder, they might have been friends.

In the heart of the Windsinger's domain, there lives a great beast, with dark powers beyond anyone's control. Including his own. While Rielle showed up expecting a great battle between light and dark, the reality was that while Vahruta still struggled to maintain control, he hadn't hurt anyone in a long time. She offered a friendly contest instead, in the other drake's favored art of "skateboarding". She... competed with admirable grace, and certainly did not lose terribly, and certainly didn't bruise her pride that day.

While a superhero usually has more urgent concerns than theft, Rielle isn't one to turn away when she's called upon! The Mirror is a fierce foe in combat, but annoyingly, she can't actually... find the thief for the life of her. While Nightingale's crime isn't too severe, it's personal now, and Rielle is too competitive to let it go. She's sworn justice on the Nocturne, which annoyingly, seems to amuse Nightingale more than anything...

The lands of the Gladekeeper are terrifying, filled with bloodthirsty beasts and monsters. Shigemi is but one of those - when she and Rielle square off, the fights are quick and brutal. While the Mirror can usually fend her off, or at least vanish with her would-be prey, she hasn't been able strike down Shigemi for good. She's always too quick, too clever, for the Mirror to catch. Rielle occasionally escorts traveler's through Shigemi's territory, though the distant scent of death weighs on her mind... it's a harsh reminder that the beast still feeds, and Rielle can't save everyone.

Knuckles is, to put it gently, persistent. Rielle's made it one of her many missions to dismantle her underground extortion system after encountering one of the families the Pearlcatcher had been blackmailing. She's fought with Knuckles and her minions quite a few times, though only one of them actually seemed to have his heart in it... ... for now, the two of them are mutual thorns in each other's side: Knuckles usually has the upper hand, but Rielle worms her way out of the Pearlcatcher's deathtraps just in the nick of time. If nothing else, the Mirror has to begrudgingly respect her flair, and is polite enough not to interrupt any monologues.

Kunik is frustrating, and sickening, and she's sick of him. He's toying with her, and she knows it. She tries not to fight to death, usually, and yet she fantasizes about digging her claws in his stupid smiley face. He leaves her crime scenes to find, even - knives and petals and blood, so much blood. On the rare occasions they meet, he seems so innocent and friendly. But she knows what lies beneath the surface, and she's promised herself she'll destroy him, one day. He'll get cocky, he'll think she's stupid, and then. And then. Toby tells her, gently, that perhaps the only way to win is not to play. But isn't that just giving up? And isn't that just another way of losing?

Always by Rielle's side is a golden kitsune named Toby. He was the one who granted her power, and neither of them realized until it was too late that it came with a price. Not in the traditional sense. He didn't take anything from her. This is the cost: With the power to do good, comes the obligation to do good. He sees the exhaustion in the way Rielle carries herself when she's alone. He sees her wince from phantom pains that the Power sealed, but did not heal properly. He worries she'll tear herself apart, and he can't forgive himself for what he did to her. Still, he'll be there until the bitter end. Perhaps he sees it as some small way to atone. And if, when predicting the future, he lies and says there is peace whenever Rielle needs to rest... isn't it worth it, to let her sleep at night?

- Blindness