Aurelie Steerpike

Name: Aurelie Steerpike
Age: 19
Race: passive
Place of Origin: The Stacks

Backstory

Aurelie is the second child of Julietta and Edmund Steerpike. Her sister Lilliana is older than her by ten years, her parents having married unusually early in life. Aurelie's childhood was filled with tales of her sister's brilliance and prowess. For her own self, she idolized her sister whole-heartedly and without any traces of jealousy. While both Julietta and Edmund were both distant and strict with Aurelie, expecting her to live up to Lilliana's example, Lilliana was always kind to her younger sister during holidays when she would come home to visit.

Lilliana, having been raised with utter praise and adoration, was somewhat reckless and learned a variety of nefarious skills for the thrill of it. A few of these she taught to Aurelie when she was about seven or eight. Practicing the cheating and sleight-of-hand became a convenient release valve for the pressure she felt from her parents.

The year of her sister's graduation was the year of Aurelie's initiation test. She went into the exam with a false veneer of confidence, and when the examiner's expression turned to disgust she knew she had failed. Her face went white and she grew very still and quiet. She had to be carried out by servants, as no words could rouse her from her stunned state. Upon receiving the news that her daughter was a passive, Julietta proclaimed she only had one child, and she had already graduated.

Aurelie was then put to work as university kitchen drudge, which allowed her to hear, from time to time, of her sister's exploits and to discover a natural talent for cooking.

Personality

At first meeting she seems quite friendly, outgoing and cheerful despite her low station in life. However she tends to hold herself distant from other people, keeping her own thoughts and feelings private while being receptive to others'. At the same time, however, she is fiercely protective of other passives. She also lies through her teeth and is an excellent cheat, a skill she picked up from her sister and polished through the years. Despite a lifetime of unequal treatment, Aurelie feels no resentment or jealousy towards her sister, only a sort of blind, adoring love.

Aurelie trusts no one in her life except her now-estranged sister, believing that at any time she could be betrayed. Others are useless and cannot be relied upon for all but the simplest tasks in her mind. She is desperate to come off as cool and confident-- essentially as much like her sister as possible. Often she dreams of drowning; whether they are nightmares or not she has never been able to decide. Some part of her really does believe that she is cursed, that she is somehow flawed and that her passive status is a reflection of that.

Physical Description

Aurelie is of an average height at about 5'5". She is small-breasted but has generous hips and thighs. Her hands are rough from hard labour, but strong and warm. On her arms are scars from cuts and burns earned in her early days in the kitchen. Aurelie's skin is clear, with a bit of a reddish flush to it. She keeps her red hair clipped fashionably short, rarely letting it grow below her chin. Her eyelashes and eyebrows are also a pale red and seem to fade a little into her skin. She has a straight, average nose set above a mouth that is generous and wide. Her eyes are a sort of deep moss green, and are neither large nor small.

She tries to dress with as much polish as she is able when out of the kitchens to promote a positive impression; otherwise she dresses for practicality with no loose sleeves or airy skirts. All of her clothes are white or the blue traditional to university slaves, excepting only her slippers.

Inventory

Clothes:

Two heavy skirts, one in white and one in blue
Three shirts, a blue one for wearing in the kitchens and two white ones for elsewhere
Apron
Well-worn and oft-repaired black slippers

Other:

Camera spectra portrait of herself and her sister
self-made book of favorite recipes (from scrap paper)

Diablerie

Unknown

Career

Cook

reading/writing
recipe creation
visually pleasing culinary arrangements
limited knowledge of herbal remedies
cheating/lying
sleight of hand

Goals

One day she would like to meet her sister again, even if Lilliana resented her as much as their mother and father. Deep in her heart, Aurelie wishes for a normal, quiet life. She dreams of owning a restaurant and running it with a husband at her side. Sometimes she even dreams of children, and giving them the love she never had. Aurelie would also like to travel and learn more about the food of other cultures. Her heart longs for freedom, though she is pragmatic (and pessimistic) enough to know that such things are far beyond her.