Appearance[]
Clank is 5'6", neither skinny nor chubby but a bit on the softish side. Her hands are a little large with long yet delicately shaped fingers. They are lightly callused. Her skin is tannish and her hair is shoulder length and brown. She wears a scarf of some kind over her hair most times. Hazel eyes accompany a wide and infectious smile that tends to make her whole face crinkle up.
The Cinder was once covered in soot most times, but after her dip in the waters of Elysium, her skin is clear. She can still be seen occasionally covered in soot or oil when she hasn't bothered to clean herself up.
Clank likes bright accent colors to spice up the drab work clothes she normally wears. She always wears her Vestige locket.
Background[]
Fae[]
Cordelia was told she was born on the stairs between the giant boiler room and the kitchens of a massive steamwork mansion in the middle of Falias belonging to House Malbecco. Her father (Henry Oak) worked in the boiler and her mother (Alice Oak) in the kitchens, but she rarely saw them until she was grown and working herself. She was largely raised by an old Termagant named Granny Poppy, a woman too old to do hard work (or so she claimed), who instead cared for the few children of the servants. Cordelia did a bit of everything as soon as she was old enough, but always the same schedule. Every day she would wake before sunrise to start the kitchen fires for breakfast before rushing downstairs to switch the vents on to warm the rooms of the household, followed by assisting with the morning rush of breakfast by cooking the gruel and bread that would be fed to the servants that day. Midday she would stoke the fires in the kitchen, then go downstairs to feed the workers in the boiler room. Then she would quickly eat, and take some quick time to work on her own projects, a brief time to herself, not quiet or long, but belonging to her. In the evening she would restoke the fires for dinner before heading back down to shovel coal to keep the house bright and warm in the cold darkness of Falias. After the family would go to bed she would have another hour to herself to eat before finally she would fall exhausted into bed. Some days were busier and harder than others, but never interesting. Her free time was spent crafting tiny pretty bobbles, just something that existed simply to be beautiful. But she would need to hide them from her parents, as they would break and destroy them. “What a waste!” “You should be resting, you need to work later.” “Frivolous nonsense!”
But Granny Poppy loved them. She would give Cordelia extra wire and beads to play with. It was the only thing that kept Clank going, that and the encouragement and love from Poppy. Poppy even taught her the ways of healing, as it was dangerous in the boiler and kitchens. She grew into an adult. She could coax a fire from nothing but ashes, start it with nearly soaked wood. She was good at what she did. And so the head servants put her in charge of stoking the fires in the kitchen and the boiler room, and that was it. Not even chopping vegetables or serving dinner, not even fixing pipes. The same thing, one thing, every, single day. It was driving her mad, if only she could get out of here, do something else. There was word of something called fatebinding. It became the talk of the house after one of the beloved daughters of the Master disappeared to Earth, having made some sort of deal with a human. Cordelia wanted that. More than anything. Earth would be exciting. She would be no one’s servant! But how to escape the house? Cordelia was sure she would be caught and beaten, maybe even chained to the furnaces. Each night she tossed and turned, thinking of a way to escape.
In desperation, Cordelia decided to approach Granny Poppy about her wish to leave Tir Na Nog. Poppy instructed her on how to get to the Endless Ocean and into Demos Oneroi. From there Poppy assured her, she’d find a way. Escaping was strangely easy once the Cinder put her mind to it. She left with nothing but the clothes on her back, a apparently unopenable locket and a small piece of paper from Poppy with a sigil on it. “Show this to the old black Cait Sith at the docks. He’ll get you across.” Her withered face crinkled into a wide smile, “He owes me a favor.” That night Cordelia simply slipped out the kitchen window in the dead of night, made her way to the docks, and never looked back.
Cordelia didn’t spend long in Demos Oneroi. She wandered out of a large bustling city and through a land of fog that opened into an ancient and apparently empty Labyrinth. There, Cordelia would meet Klara.
Mortal[]
Klara was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina on February 26, 1987 to Croatian parents. Her mother, Anka, was a housewife while her father, Petar Novak worked for the BH ground forces as a mechanic. Her brother Niko is 2 years older. Klara’s family lived through the Bosnian Civil War starting in 1991 and finally leaving Bosnia just before the end of the war in 1995. From Bosnia they headed to KGC’s Little Moscow district where other family had fled to during the earlier part of the war.
There, they lived quietly. Her parents were still protective even though mortars no longer boomed in the night and people were safe from sniper fire. Some of her family was… changed. Her Uncle Samuel was now stouter, wider. He grew a long beard the color of hammered copper. Her father brushed it off when Klara asked, . Klara spent most of her childhood going from school to straight home. By the time she was 14 she started working for her aunt’s cleaning business. Her little free time was spent watching her uncle working in his garage. Slowly, he let her try her hand at it. He started to call her Clank as many mornings he would find her tinkering away before school in the garage, or up late after cleaning, still shoulder deep in parts and grease. By the time she was 18 she was wicked with a wrench, but frustrated with the endless work her life was becoming. Her uncle finally decided she was old enough to know his secret, he was a fatebound, a dwarf specifically. It opened her eyes to a new possibility for her life. At this point she had no chance of college, and her family wanting her to live at home, still living like a child but working like a dog. She dreamed each night that she was trapped in a labyrinth. Searching for the way out but with no way to be seen. Until one night, she met Cordelia. A thin and constantly dirty young woman with a drawn face, tired face and yet bright excited eyes. This was the woman she would join with, body and mind, soul and fate, to become something more.
Fatebound[]
Feeling unlike Klara or Cordelia, Clank was the new name the fatebound claimed. After an angry confrontation with her mother, father, and older brother, Clank left town, again with only a few worldly possessions, including the VW camper van she had fixed up with the help of her uncle and father. She began traveling the country, doing odd jobs fixing cars, bikes, farming equipment, you name it, to survive. She mostly lived out of her van, never staying in one place for long. Eventually she started to earn enough money to make jewelry. She began to sell it, enough to live comfortably, as long as you are comfortable living out of a van and couchsurfing most of your life. Every once and awhile she would call or write home, and slowly her connection with her family repaired, though it still remained strained.
She made a lot of friends on the road over the next 10 years, especially with other artists who would travel with her to craft and art festivals across the country and world. She spent most of her time in North America, traveling by van. Living a homeless lifestyle, she met a lot of hungry and sick people. She used and improved her abilities to help them as her heart ached for them. Fixing was something that she did, almost instinctively, whether it be for vehicles and tools, or animals and humans. Something broken should not be left in that state.
A year ago she ended up in a domain, actually interacting with other fatebound after a call from her uncle warning her of huntsmen in the area. There she met Layton and they became friends of sorts. When Layton expressed a wish to see his grandaughter in KGC, Clank offered to drive, and thus the prodigal daughter returned.
Slowly Clank got used to the city and it's residents, slowly rekindling her relationship with her family. Once she realized how dangerous it was here, and thus how dangerous it was to her family, Clank decided to put down roots. Clank was was drawn to the kind young man behind the bar who would become Hearthtender, after many long talks Clank decided to become a sorcerer to better help those that needed it. Tex became Clank's friend and later mentor once she decided to dedicate herself to not only sorcery but the order of the Materia Medica de Azariae. During the chaos of Samhain Clank became an Adeptus.
Clank slowly worked her way to becoming a Dominus, learning to use magical healing and helping her fellow sorcerers. She met dokkalfar, explored the Labyrinth, watched the upheavel of the courts, and generally grew closer and closer to her fellow sorcerers and their friends outside the Order.
The sorcerers began visiting the Tesseract to unlock secrets surrounding Blackhorn and the First and Last Prince. Prior to entering the Tesseract Clank was in the Labyrinth where she began seeing stars. Later that night it was revealed the stars belonged in the skies of Elysium. Clank is still uncertain why she sees these starts, but continues to see them whenever she looks up at a ceiling.
After a trip to the Tessaract led the sorcerers to an enchanted pool in Elysium, Clank was not only cleaned of her soot, her locket finally opened revealing memories of two lovers parted by Lady Acrasia. It was only later on another trip to Elysium that Clank realized these lovers were truly her parents, and that her mother is most likely in Hell while her father's wereabouts are unknown.
Clank now seeks to seal the realms to block out the Before, even if it means the Fae may never return to their home.