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Xanthis, Astra
Topic Started: Jun 29 2010, 09:24 PM (106 Views)
Astra Xanthis
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T H E P L A Y E R.
Name: Lauryn
Age: 22
Contacts: You can always PM me on here, or you can email me through the board.
How did you find us?: I made us, I hope I can find us!
Do you play any other characters?: Darwin Porter, Wendy Collins, Armina Krause, Sasha Pavrova

T H E C H A R A C T E R.
t h e b a s i c s.
Name: Astra Selene Xanthis
Nickname(s): Ursa (as in Ursa Major/Minor)
Gender: Witch
Age/Birthday: 30-31 / September 13, 1985

c a r e e r.
Playing as a… adult
Year: N/A
School: Beauxbatons
House: Hufflepuff
Job: Astronomy Professor (this is her ninth year teaching at Beauxbatons)
Best Class(es): Astronomy
Worst Class(es): Herbology
Spoken Language(s): Being from Greece, Astra's first language is, of course, Greek. She learned French quickly before the move there. She quickly picked up English in France, because her mother would take her to England quite often in the summers. She also speaks German, but she's not very good at it. Her accent is TERRIBLE.

m a t e r i a l p o s s e s s i o n s.
Wand: Astra joined the cue outside of Alister Doxiadis' wand shop in Athens at the age of eleven. She waited her turn and eventually she was chosen for a 10” oak wand with a phoenix tail feather for its core. The working end of the wand was light, and unstained, but the handle was a dark cherry and fittingly had little galaxies and other celestial bodies carved into it. The little knob at the bottom of her wand is even shaped like Saturn.
Broom: none
Pet(s): Astra has two. First, she has a rambunctious, pure white, female cat named Bouffie. Second, she owns a female Eagle Owl named Brise.

t h e i m a g e.
Eyes: At one time, Astra's large eyes were warm and full of life, but all of that has disappeared, and is only a figment of her longtime acquaintances memories. Now the pale blue hue of her irises is cold and uninviting.
Hair: Astra's hair is a light, golden blond. It's got a gentle curl to it, which she usually plays up, pulling her hair back into a loose bun. On the rare occasions that she doesn’t do this, it reaches to right about shoulder length.
Height: 5'11"
In depth:
Astra is coveted by many men. Her long, fragile looking frame gives her a "damsel in distress" look. Of course, her nearly constant downward glance only adds to that. Thin, but muscular, Astra moves gracefully, using her long legs to her advantage.

Astra has an oval-shaped face. Her pale peach skin is soft and unblemished. Each day she wears light, natural looking make-up, just to play up her features. She's never been one that felt the need for the dramatics.

p s y c h o a n a l y s i s.
The five words that best describe your character: lonely, lost, tormented, wounded, changed
Likes: stargazing, gourmet food, fine wine, love stories, bright colors
Dislikes: flying, chimaera, greasy foods, love stories, reading, defense against the dark arts, dismal colors
Secrets: Although she knows that Marc is dead, her heart won't accept it and to this day she still goes out to the top of the tower and hopes to see him returning to her. She feels completely crazy for not truly believing he's dead.
Common Knowledge: Her fiance, Marc Rochefort, was killed in a recent chimaera outbreak in Egypt. He worked in the French Auror department, and couldn't stand by and do nothing, so he'd gone to help, even though he wasn't a creatures expert. Ever since he died, Astra hasn't been the same.
When faced by a dementor, you relive… the knock on the door when Astra heard that Marc wasn't going to be coming home.
When conjuring a patronus, you think of… Marc. Any happy memories with him, especially the night he proposed, are enough to make a strong patronus. They don't work very long though, because each time she thinks of any of those memories, a deep pang grabs hold of her heart and won't let go.
When you encounter a boggart, you see… a chimaera.
If you were to look into the Mirror of Erised, you would see… Astra living in a nice, quaint house, with two children and her husband, Marc Rochefort, by her side.
In depth:
Of late, Astra has a bit of a mixed personality. She's almost bi-polar. One moment she can be happy as a clam, laughing and smiling, and the next she's a bitter old lady that won't let you get away with anything. Ever since she lost her love, eight years ago now, she has been this way. Some say that it was just too much for her and she went insane, but that's not the case. Astra knows how she generally acts is wrong, but she can't stop. She feels lost and scared and lonely, with nobody to turn to for comfort.

Back in her "golden days", Astra was the sweetest person you could ever meet. She still is deep down inside, but she doesn't want to reach out, because she's terrified that she'll just end up getting hurt again. She almost always had a smile on her face and refused to look on the dark side. Everything was always the glass half-full rather than half-empty. She's turned cynical and anti-social, still secretly waiting for her knight in shining armor to return and rescue her.

h o w y o u g o t t h a t w a y.
Blood Type: Pureblood
Parents:
Father – Artemis Xanthis, 76, pureblood, Gryffindor, author
Mother – Helia Xanthis (nee Makaros), 72, pureblood, Hufflepuff, homemaker
Siblings:
Brother – Oracle Xanthis, 28, Hufflepuff, currently working as a reporter for Le Journal Amical, France’s premiere newspaper.
Other Relatives: none at the present time.
Hometown/Area: Astra grew up on the all-wizard island of Dragonada, near Crete. She now lives in a small village off of the Gulf of Lion, in France.
History:
Dragonada is a small lush, beautiful island off of the coast of Crete. This all-wizard hot spot was home to Astra Xanthis until she was twelve. Life on Dragonada, as you can imagine, was magical. Astra spent most of her days ambling down the cobblestone streets of the town, looking at the newest arrivals in the shops. She couldn't have been happier than she was on Dragonada.

She was not meant to stay there, however. Her father, Artemis Xanthis, was a writer and needed to follow his work. He'd been struggling for nearly a year to get inspired for a book, or find a steady paycheck on Dragonada, but he got an offer for a job in France as an editor for Francoise Robert, the leading publisher of the time. With this job, he could stay in the writing field and he would receive first crack at any books that the head honchos wanted written and he would also have an in if he wrote any other books. Needless to say, he packed up his wife and two children and moved to France, more specifically, Nice.

At first, Astra hated her father for taking the job. She had just started school the year before and she was not looking forward to being the new kid in school all over again. She wasn't worried about making new friends, that had never been a problem for her, but that didn't mean she wanted to leave the friends she already had behind.

Beauxbatons was a big, intimidating place to Astra. Simainomorfos, the Greek wizarding school that she had attended in her first year, was a cottage compared to this place! Small and quaint, everyone seemed to know everyone else at Simainomorfos, and that was CLEARLY not going to be the case at Beauxbatons. The class size was AT LEAST three times as large and even though she was perfectly comfortable in crowds, she had to admit that she was scared. Her nerves were all a flutter when she first walked up the steps of the castle a day before the rest of the students, as they had to figure out which house to place her in and Madam Maxime had thought it would be kinder to Astra if she didn't have to go through the curious stares of the other students as she dropped a feather from one of the winged horses into a small, elegant ivory pot. When the feather hit the bottom of the pot, it would shoot up, no longer white, but the color of the student's true house. In Astra's case, it popped out yellow.

The next day, when the other students showed up to school, she still had to suffer the embarrassment of being the only person sitting in the dining hall when the doors opened. Thankfully, she was almost instantly surrounded by a group of second year Reaux girls, whom she found out later had been briefed on Astra's arrival and asked to make her feel at home. They kindly shielded her from the curious glances of the others around her and immediately began the friend making process. Within the first week, the stares went away and Astra had many friends in all of the houses. The girls that had saved her on her first day were now her dorm mates and thought it was "so cool" that they got to have a foreigner in their dorm. By the end of her first year at Beauxbatons, Astra had fallen in love with the atmosphere and bustle of the place and wouldn't dream of returning to Simainomorfos. She did, of course, miss her old friends, but she'd made so many new friends that it would kill her to leave France now too.

The next five years went by rather uneventfully. Astra was one of the most popular kids at school and she did well in most of her classes. It was rare that she went without a boyfriend. None of them were really serious until her sixth year when she started dating a Cielaigle in her year by the name of Alain Aucharme. They went out pretty much up until the time that they were finishing up their seventh year. Alain and Astra broke up with roughly two weeks left in the school year. They still both cared deeply for each other, but Alain wanted to travel and Astra had a job lined up at the French Ministry of Magic when she was out of school. They just thought it would be best if they weren't tied down. They both agreed that if they happened to cross paths again, there was no reason they wouldn't rekindle the old flame, excluding already being in another relationship, that is.

After Beauxbatons, Astra went to work in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts branch of the French Ministry, as an intern. It was very dull work, but it was a step towards a great career in the future, and Astra knew that she had to do it. Lucky she did take the internship too! Roughly a year after she started there, a young man joined the auror department. This handsome brunette's name was Marc Rochefort. Astra and Mark had instant chemistry, but neither made a move for a month. By that time, Astra was no longer an intern, she was now working in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office full-time. She had intended to try and get a job some place else in the ministry, but that was before she found the hobby of glancing at Marc in his cubicle.

Marc and Astra dated for almost a year and a half. The week before Christmas, exactly a year and a half since Marc had met Astra, he proposed. Of course, Astra said yes! She had been dreaming of the day for so long that she had most of it planned out, so they agreed to try to be ready to wed in the summer.

In April, Astra got devastating news from the love of her life. There was a chimaera reaping havoc in Egypt and the Egyptian ministry was seeking aide from the world's ministries, hoping that with more troops, they could down the beast. Although he was far from an expert on dark creatures, Marc couldn't stand by while others were in danger. It was one of the many things Astra loved about him. After a lot of coaxing, and promises of his swift, safe return, Astra finally agreed to give him her blessing to go to Egypt.

On the first of May he left for Egypt. That was the last time that Astra ever saw Marc. For a while he kept in touch through letters, but as the reinforcements fell to the chimaera, his letters became more sparse. Eventually they stopped all together. Astra would go outside each night and look up at the stars, hoping that Marc was doing the same and that he was safe. She'd also scan the horizon, hoping to see a shadow, in the form of an owl or Marc, flying to her with news.

Two months after the letters stopped, Astra quit her job at the ministry, due to the constant reminder of Marc. The next year she took over as Astronomy professor at Beauxbatons. In that first year, an Egyptian official came to her office door and told her that there had been an accident. The volunteers had gotten desperate and had thought it would be a good idea to try to make the chimaera explode. This, of course, didn't work. The explosion backfired and wiped out a dozen or so volunteers. Marc had been there at the time, and was now missing and presumed dead. After taking a month off for mourning, and getting no closer to getting over Marc, Astra returned to her post, hoping it might distract her from the pain ever so slightly. To this day, she goes out to the top of the Etoille Tower every night, praying that somehow, someway Marc will come back to her.

a n y t h i n g e l s e?
If you have anything else that you’d like to mention about your character (or want to credit someone/thing for inspiration) you know where to do it!

T H E R O L E P L A Y.
Experience: Maybe, 4 years?
Sample Post: [size0]OOC: feat. Armina Krause BIC:
Armina glanced behind her. She had an odd feeling that someone was watching. Her breath quickened pace a bit. Try as she might, she just couldn't shake the feeling. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her legs felt shaky, she hated this feeling. I should be used to it by now. I've only been living with this for seven years... Wow. Mom's been gone for seven years now?

Minnie stifled a sob as she turned her back to the feeling and gazed into the ominous, impressive facade of the Poenari Castle. She'd received an invitation to a Halloween party here, and since it had been a while since she had been to a party of any sort, she hadn't had the heart to turn it down, even if she did know that Poenari Castle was located in the middle of a forest. A shudder ran down her spine as she thought, once more, of the night seven years ago.

Darkness. A full moon. Her mother screaming in terror. Undiscernable charms. Flashes of light. One last bone-shattering scream. Her own terrified footsteps running toward the commotion rather than away. Her legs giving out as she reached the clearing where the magic carpet, and her mother lay. The fierce snarl coming from behind her that made the hair on her neck stand up on end. The look of death in the eyes of the monster that had killed her mother. The smell of blood. Her mother's blood. The shout of her father as he vanquished the beast before it could get Mina too. The agonized sob emitting from her father as he cradled his wife's limp body in his arms. A set of howls in the distance.

"Werewolves." Armina said under her breath as she shook her head, glad for once that they were going to be in Poenari Castle. "Afterall, vampires and werewolves are mortal enemies and this is definitely vampire territory."

She let her breath spill from her mouth, still caught a little off guard at the pleasant weather and the fact that she couldn't see it condense in front of her face. Her thought brought a whole new set of fears into her head. Her boyfriend, Rune Wolfe, was also going to be attending the party and he was a werewolf. He wasn't your normal werewolf though, at least not in Minnie's eyes, he was tame. The thought of Rune, while it sent anxiety through her whole core, also gave her mind a sense of calm and contentment.

Realizing that she still hadn't entered the castle for the party, she blushed a bit and pulled open the large double doors and entered the enterance hall. She headed straight for the table full of masks set aside for the women. She didn't care much what her mask looked like, especially now that she felt the unfamiliar eyes boring into her back once more. She hastely grabbed one, a simple, blood-red mask with what looked like tear drops dripping from the bottom. She gave a small laugh before tying it on and grabbing the first feather that his her fancy. There was an olive feather that reminded her of her beloved's eyes. Without a second thought, she pulled out her wand and fastened the feather to the right side of the mask, as she was suppoed to, and darted forward, toward the courtyard, her anxiety bubbling up once more.
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