(OOC: The following is a bunch of almost entirely unrelated character progression posts, compiled into one topic to save board space. Keep note of where each one occurs, as it may or may not be the same place. Obviously, mine will be in Yomeniampa unless otherwise stated.)

Dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, and a little more dark. This was what Charlotte's world was composed of for an unknown amount of time, at least to her. But perhaps one of the most interesting experiences was the dreams that never ceased, even thought it should have been impossible. Dreams of all those days she was nearly killed, or brutally maimed. All those days were painful to relive, ending with her very own death. Then more darkness, as though it was all leading up to something horribly epic, like a battle to end the world she had randomly awoken into. But this was not to be so, and with a jolt she felt her senses return. Her hearing returned only the chatter of songbirds, and she could feel the warmth of fine elven bedsheets. Perhaps most intrusive was the fact that she could feel the sheets and nothing else between her and the world. And the presence sitting atop the sheets next to her. No real notable aroma, so whatever awaited her couldn't be too bad. With that, she allowed her eyes to flicker open.

"Aaaaaawww, sleeping away your days, like usual, Charcolate?" Came the sweet voice. Charlotte glanced up to the girl in the garb of a cleric, cross emblazoned dress and a bizarre little hat on. The primary color in the dress was white, while the cross on it was a striking red. Most notably was the bright dark red skin the demoness was the proud owner of. A tattoo of three slash marks crossed her cheek, identical to those on Charlotte. Her bright yellow eyes were only intensified by the dark black eyeliner, which was a natural skin coloring for her, and the obsidian black hair. In short, she matched the clerical garb she wore, but what she was clashed with it. This was Cheysa, only daughter of a great daemon lord, and Charlotte's childhood friend.

"Hey Cheysa, what in the world are you doing in these parts?" Charlotte inquired. She yawned, and then tapped her hand to her mouth as though to stop it. Then she stretched, touching both the headboard and the foot of the bed. It was just a little too short for her. Cheysa giggled innocently at the sight, and sprawled out on top of the bed next to her her friend. It was somewhat like old times, when the two had gone off adventuring at the tender young age they had. It was an absurd amount of together time, an the two had formed a ridiculously strong friendship. Cheysa was completely unlike her heritage, and it was believed she was a half demon to explain her personality. She was what she wore, a cleric devoted to healing, and an absolutely sweet young woman when it came around to it.

"Oh, I heard you were around. I was getting bored with the whole finish up my young days in the chapel. All that religious study bores me, Charcolate. It isn't quite like adventuring, eh? Although that tavern part I could do without." Cheysa explained. The tavern incidents, with both of them initially in there to get a room always ended with Charlotte dragging Cheysa downstairs, Charlotte getting so drunk she couldn't find the stairs, and Cheysa dragging Charlotte up the stairs before Charlotte was dragged up the stairs by someone else. In short, Cheysa abhorred it. Cheysa poked at Charlotte's stomach, and emitted a little giggle.

"You, Charcolate, need to gain some weight." Cheysa stated with a serious tone, while trying to suppress her incessant giggling all the while. Thus comes the matter of Charlotte's stupendous nickname, Charcolate. No one knew where it originated from, aside from the fact that Cheysa thought it up, and it stuck with everyone who knew Charlotte. Initially, Charlotte had hated it and told everyone. Later, she still hated it, but kept quiet. Cheysa had always thought it cute, and never did a moment that went by the Cheysa failed to remind Charlotte of that fact.

"A bunch of people have told me that, Cheysa." Charlotte murmured. She felt odd, hollow even, but couldn't quite put her finger on the feeling. She sat up, careful to keep the sheets about her figure, and stretched her wings. Charlotte's whole world came to a crashing halt, as she realized what was missing. Her wings were gone, amputated, and she couldn't even elicit a movement from the powerful muscles that use to be in her back to assist the great appendages. She fell backwards into the bed, her green eyes locked onto the ceiling. Her mind shifted back to all those spectacular moments of flight, the thrill like no other. Now, it was gone. It was gone forever. For the first time in what seemed like her lifetime, tears slid from her eyes and across her cheeks, the barest of breathing from her lips.

"Charlotte, it will be okay. The wings had to go, we couldn't heal them any further, and so much bone and bone marrow was exposed it would have killed you to keep them. Infection, Charlotte, the battlefield's greatest killer. It was all to keep yo--" Cheysa explained, before being cut off by a sharp glare.

"Cheysa...next time you decide to help me, know me." Charlotte murmured. Cheysa nodded, slowly, but she also knew that Charlotte understood. It was the worse part of their relationship, but it was also the part that worked the best. Cheysa had never felt rage or even annoyance in her life, ever patient and ever positive. Charlotte on the other hand sometimes required someone to vent to, to get her anger out. Then came the downpour of harsh words, all of them targeted at her own inability to annihilate chaos once and for all, remove it from the world as the plague it was. Cheysa gave the sweetest of smiles, and countered all of Charlotte's arguments in a sentence.

"Do you remember Arcanvis?" Cheysa inquired. Charlotte stopped, and allowed the memories to return. Arcanvis had been an anomaly, something that should never happen, something so incorrect and so wrong it deserved the destruction it received. Arcanvis had been a community where Order and Law had conquered, and Chaos defeated. The place was an autonomous community with citizens that barely spoke, not a scrap of art or original thought in the place. It was also a single color, and all the people looked about the same, excepting obvious gender differences. As Charlotte and Cheysa walked through the place, every house and every street being eerily similar, they came across the government building. A perfectly symmetrical dome, with the scales of justice upon every column that held it. They strode within, and caused a great stir to the single, tyrannical and unquestionable leader. His community was perfect, his laws had defeated crime and all other plagues upon society. The two adventurers looked at each other after he suggested they would have to stay to make certain the secret of the place would never leave. Before nightfall, Charlotte and Cheysa had fought their way through columns of untrained common folk, smashing them aside with their unlit torches.

The next day, they found the nearest military outpost and alerted the soldiers to the situation. A week later, the crushing force of the nation's army fell upon the village of Arcanvis and liberated the people. Three days later, the people starved to death without the instructions of their great leader, who had been detained in the initial struggle.

"Arcanvis." Charlotte agreed. The mercenary girl gave a weak smile, and sighed.

"Arcanvis."

At that very moment, in the Temple of Chaos...

"What the hell are you doing?!" The human servant's opening of the door to the Hall of Destruction suddenly quickened as she rushed over to the left side of the throne Ita had been sitting on. The Goddess was leaned forward on it as normal, her head resting on a gauntleted hand, golden eyes observing the workings of the Seldarine Board without attention to anything else. The object in question was a mundane-appearing basket sitting next to the great chair. Mashaka's long hilt had been leaning upon its side, at which two tiny hands were reaching out for the weapon from within. They were a pristine white in color, covered in downlike velvety-soft fur. By the time the servant fell to her knees next to it, the creature inside had already pulled the very end of the hilt down into the basket and was gnawing on it viciously. She gently slid the basket away from Mashaka so that it entirely fell to the floor and away from the baby's grasp.

Ita finally turned away from the Seldarine Board to observe the commotion. "He's teething," she explained with bitterness, "so what better point in life would there be to introduce him to weaponry?" The servant looked up at Ita in disgust, removing the baby from its basket as she did so. Its white fur extended across its entire body, but was considerably shorter in length than Ita's. He had many similar aspects to that of a lupine pup, but each seemed extremely toned down. His muzzle was shorter than normal, his ears were somewhat rounded at the tips, and he had nails on his fingers and toes rather than claws. He had no tail at all, but rather two feathered angelic wings proportional to his small size. Some might say he was 'cute,' had he been in the hands of someone other than the Goddess of Chaos and her subjects. The servant held him comfortably cradled in her arms, and shot a glance back at Ita.

"If he's teething like you say, you need to get him a proper toy to chew on rather than a tool that is feared throughout time for slaying thousands of mortals." Ita seemed bewildered at the very prospect.
"Toys will make him docile and weak!" the Vala roared, slamming her fist against her throne. The sudden noise caused the infant to gently sob, which the servant immediately attended to by rocking him in her arms. Ita snarled at the child's disobedience. "I refuse to give toys to Halrakka Kemensereg, my future Guardian of War! He will get his weapons, he will get his armor, he will get his shields, he will get his troops, he will get his siege machinery, he will get his creatures, but he will not get toys. People will hail him as Halrakka the Great, the mightiest general and tactician in Arda, because he is strong, not because he was given something 'proper' to chew on in his early life, as you propose." The servant blinked at Ita's small outburst, but to the Vala's child the yelling prompted him to merely cry louder. His holder gave an overworked sigh and continued attempting to comfort him.

"It's such a shame how much you focus on your son's future rather than his present. He isn't going to be a baby forever, so enjoy the only time in his life that he won't be cracking open skulls with a mere unarmed blow," she commented, her soft voice seemingly calming Halrakka slightly. His crying faded into a sob, but she continued to rock him. "Enjoy?! The faster he grows up, the better! He will be the perfect servant, completely and utterly loyal. He will strike fear into the hearts of his fellow Maiar." With this, the caretaker glanced back down at Halrakka. She felt almost guilty for aiding the corrupt Goddess of Chaos and helping turn the part-Vala-part-archangel into a killing, conquering machine, but her nurturing instinct knew full well that without her, Ita would certainly end up killing her son on accident or in an abusive rage. Ita herself was aware of that fact, which was why the servant was almost completely safe from her wrath for the time being.

Halrakka's crying suddenly spiked into all-out screaming, prompting the servant to stand fully. "He's hungry," she stated in dismissal, walking out of the room with Ita's son still in her arms. "Well, you'd better start mixing blood into his milk like I told you to last time! He's a vicious Maia, not a teddy bear, and I plan on keeping it that way!" She nodded at the goddess' orders, beginning to push open the Hall of Destruction's double doors with her shoulder. "Before you leave, tell me your name again. I've forgotten."
"Just call me Malisan," she sighed in reply, disappearing. There was a pause that hung in the air for a moment, Halrakka's cry slowly being muffled by walls and distance. Ita grumbled and returned her gaze to the Seldarine Board, sighing at the pitiful condition of her own pieces. Her eyes rested over each part of the massive board in turn, until they beheld the piece of the goddess' mortal archnemesis: Charlotte Arsydian, valkyrie mercenary who had done enough damage to Ita's influence in her seventeen years of existence that none other would dream of in their lifetime. But something seemed amiss. The two great wings her former daughter possessed were slowly becoming translucent and eventually transparent. Within moments, both of her wings disappeared entirely. Ita blinked three times, but her bewilderment easily turned into a toothy and sadistic grin.

About a week later, Charlotte was finally up and about. Cheysa had kept the mercenary eating, and eating healthily for once in her life. Although, some would argue eating vegetarian was a very healthy eating style. In addition to Charlotte's normal pasta, salad, or booze, there was the addition of peanuts and peanut products. The clerical demoness even went so far as to watch Charlotte eat, while enjoying herself with some overly-rare steak. This was perhaps the most demonic aspect of Cheysa, her love for rare and raw meat. Charlotte resisted the tempting window as best she could, but couldn't resist the urge to eat facing another direction from the demon. After one such lunch, the discussion flipped from nearly girl-talk(they had gotten to armor fashion and clerical garb) to weapons.

This talk continued, until Cheysa perked up spontaneously and rushed out. Charlotte leaned back in her chair, trying her best to ignore the bloody plate that Cheysa had eaten with such relish. Her own plate, holding some amalgamation of peanut butter, bread and grape jelly lay nearly empty except for the last quarter of the sandwich. Charlotte observed her surroundings, yet another tree-city restaurant. And yet again, she was wearing the oft-destroyed favorite green shirt, the one with the little golden vines coiling across it. It was an elven design of shirt, and thus it came in the all-too-skimpy version and the high collared version. Charlotte had always settled on the high collared variant. Then came the pitter-pattering of bare feet. Cheysa burst back into the room, holding a sheathed blade. The sheathe itself was wrapped in simple leather, and having a steel clip for belt use. The blade was no doubt just as simple, excepting the pommel stone was clearly one of magical origin.

"This is Fall of Blades. A very confused smith tried to give it to you while you were...indisposed. It was a destruction blade to be forged in your general image, but the moment you more or less fell the enchantments twisted. It has a slight curse, that against a weakly armed opponent it will not draw out its full force and fury. At least that's what the smith said." Cheysa explained, as sweetly as humanly possible. She handed the weapon to Charlotte, who promptly unsheathed the blade and stood up. An impressive four and a half feet long, with a hilt made for two hands but with a weight for one, it was a truly versatile weapon indeed. Unless she found herself in a cramped quarters, such as a man-made cave for burying people in, she'd be fine. Charlotte kissed the blade lovingly, and then looked back to Cheysa.

"And why did you withhold this lovely object from your favorite Charcolate for so long?"
"Because the Charcolate wasn't even fit enough to leave the bed, and it was hard enough keeping the Charlcoholic in bed and out of taverns." Cheysa retorted. Charlotte nodded, slowly, glanced to the empty bottle of one of Yomeniampa's finest wines, and nodded a little quicker. She might just be an alcoholic. Cheysa glanced to the wine as well, and shook her head. She expected Charlotte to be a drunk, as by racial stereotyping valkyries were absolute drunks for most of their lives. Not that the average ardian would ever know that, valkyries were nonexistant in Arda pre-Charlotte, excepting that one blue-haired imposter.

"So, Charlotte, what exactly do you plan to do?" Cheysa inquired. Char gave the slightest of smiles, and giggled.

"As I hear it, Ita doesn't have an army, and it shan't be hard to raise on of my own." Charlotte said. Cheysa blinked, realizing her friend was back on the kamikaze track to destroy Ita. Whatever had happened to Arcanvis, she wondered. If the demoness could look into Charlotte's mind, she would see the mercenary dwelling heavily upon Arcanvis and other events.

The rate at which deities grew seemed to both astound and be extremely convenient for Ita. Merely two months had passed, little change within the Temple of Chaos except the size of the once-tiny Halrakka and the once-tiny army in the Vala's possession. The goddess' right leg, covered by her robes, lifted and crossed over the left as (in many times before) her gaze moved over the Seldarine Board. The artifact was beginning to become a fixation, something Ita couldn't bear to be without for long. It had been the third time today that she had marveled at the growing amount of red pieces appearing on the board. These additions were either new recruits (thanks to ferocious efforts inspired by the old "join the Chaos Army" poster tactics in the age of Charlotte's position as Ita's daughter), or children born that were inherently destined by nature to serve Chaos.

Her attention broke from the Seldarine Board at the snow-white sight of Halrakka toddling to the edge of it. He peered at it inquisitively, even though his small height denied him a chance to see its very top where all the pieces were located. He was dressed in crimson robes to fit his size, almost similar in style to a toga, with slits crudely cut into the back to allow his wings to poke out. The infant had not mastered flying yet, or even attempted to lift off of the ground, but Ita suspected it wouldn't be long until an event such as that would happen. Halrakka lifted both his arms and latched tightly onto the edge of the Seldarine Board, looking back at Ita with large eyes to see if his plans were permitted. When he saw no attempt from his mother to stop him, the Maia tried with all his might to pull himself up onto the artifact. Arms shook, angelic wings flapped furiously, and both feet slid across the board's side in an attempt to push his tiny body upward. Ita had since directed her attention back to the Seldarine Board, but when she noticed her son picking up and playing with a rendition of a valkyrie, she immediately rose to her feet with fire in her eyes.

Ita's hand itched for the handle of Mashaka, but the abrupt and completely disrespectful entrance of Malisan halted any potential movements. Sweat was beading down her forehead while her chest rose and fell with each desperate gasp for air. "There he is!" she cried with joy, rushing over to the Seldarine Board and plucking Halrakka, who was giggling innocently, off of it. She placed him on the ground and gently took the pieces from his hands. The Maia's smile now bore tiny but sharp teeth, and he quickly displayed that smile at the sight of his caretaker. Ita grumbled and took a seat on her throne. "How long has he been in here?" Malisan inquired, keeping her focus mostly on the son of the woman she was regarding.

"Don't know. Maybe an hour minimum." Ita replied with a careless shrug.
"I've been looking for him all morning! Why didn't you alert me he was here?!"
"He is fine under my watch, but if you cannot even keep a firm eye on him then I am surprised I still even have you hired." Malisan fumed, but tried to remain calm for the sake of Halrakka.
"Did you hurt him at all?"
"Do you want me to?" Ita folded her arms and lifted an eyebrow at the babysitter. Malisan merely tossed a glare at Ita in reply, then promptly walked out of the Hall of Destruction. Halrakka followed close behind. Ita's gaze soon turned to the crebain perched at the window on the opposite side of the room. She had only noticed its arrival moments before her short conversation with Malisan, but the black bird was patient in waiting for its chance to speak.

"Fenrin is unavailable. It would be my pleasure to deliver your orders to your forces in his place, however." It spoke in a low monotone without opening its beak.
"It is time. Tell them to initiate attack plan Ruby and Granite. They will occupy Yomeniampa and force the Guard there to tell them where she flew off to."
"Very well," the crebain nodded, disappearing into the skies as a misshapen black blur. A smile played on Ita's face, knowing full well that Charlotte would be dead in a matter of weeks, thus eliminating almost all of Ita's problems.