The Fifth Mixolydian Ruby

Suggested music: Jurassic 5 - Lesson 6: The Lecture

Basic Information

Title: The Fifth Mixolydian Ruby
Nickname: Lydia
Type: Dragon-Blooded Exalt
Age: 49 (now 57)
Aspect: Fire
Concept: Grass-Spider
Motivation: Live her entire life without ever being figured out.
Political Affiliation: The Hallowed Order of the Grass Spiders
Anima: Always shapes of flames formed from the unkempt ends of her hair, but never the same shapes...
Likes: Broken clocks, the idea of a round Creation, cats, sweets, hallucinogens
Dislikes: Raksha, beer, primates, the sound of flutes, rain

Familiars: Tarragon (Pelican), Gnotch (Rat)

Background

Lydia was born in the Realm to a pair of Ledaal Dynasts, both Air-Caste Dragon-Blooded of reasonably good pedigree. Though her red hair was considered inauspicious, her early Exaltation assuaged her parents' fears about any bad luck. Her Exaltation as a Fire caste was not ideal, but as her older sister did not Exalt, the relief of her parents far outweighed any concerns they had about the strangeness of her Fire-caste Exaltation (despite a lack of any Fire Castes in the family). Lydia's strangeness hardly ended there.

After her Exaltation, Lydia's already-odd quirks were magnified tenfold. Growing up, she was disinterested in physical training and actively resisted any attempts to introduce her to the politics of Dynastic society. Lydia was prone to random bouts of obsession, spending untold hours taking apart her parents' First-Age devices and putting them back together, other times going without sleep for days to perfect a pastry recipe. She saw little use for social interactions, sometimes going weeks or months without speaking at all. She had several nervous ticks, albeit minor ones, that she retains to this day, such as constantly cracking all of her knuckles when her hands aren't busy. She was frail for a Dragon-Blood, prone to coughing fits and dizziness. Despite its eccentricities, her mind was an incredible force to be reckoned with. A polymath even in her teenage years, she hopped from interest to interest, mastering it and moving on. She was fluent in most of Creation's languages before finishing secondary school, and is a virtuoso-level pianist and violinist. Among the Order, only Leviticus is a better linguist and she is on par with Mesa and Rizuka's musical talents. Later, she delved into more dangerous and more exciting areas, setting up a minor home alchemy lab. To her parents' frustration, she was bored by and relentlessly mocked the Realm's schooling system. Although she had good marks, the ease with which she obtained them made Lydia herself incredibly skeptical of the school system's effectiveness. Rather than devoting any effort to learning, Lydia harnessed her eidetic memory to memorize all of her course notes, and when she ran across information she hadn't memorized, she simply cheated - the fact that this was sufficient for success convinced Lydia that no real learning took place in schools. This was her first taste of rebellion, but it would be not be her last. Growing up, Lydia showed few hints of ambition, at least publicly, and preferred to be left to her own devices. The stubbornness that was a hallmark of her Caste, however, did manifest itself strongly in Lydia - she constantly ignored her parents' pleas to try fitting in, and as her experiments and interests grew more dangerous and outlandish, she proceeded as recklessly as ever, unconcerned for her safety or the prudence of her decisions.

Even in a scholarly Ledaal household, she was simply too cerebral and too asocial to function well. She was ostracized by her younger brothers, both of whom considered her a weirdo. This was still preferable to the treatment she received from her older sister, who bitterly despised her both for her Exaltation and her perceived squandering of it. Less forceful personalities would have been crushed by the treatment, but Lydia remained unconcerned. As she got older she quickly realized that her experiences in school were quite general - most systems could be tricked, exploited, manipulated. Although she had no real interest in attending secondary school, she also had little taste for remaining at home. Embracing her growing interest in alchemy, she decided to attend the Heptagram, although she did so only with the intent of proving to herself that one could game their way through secondary school as well. Her parents were thrilled at the slightest expression of ambition by their daughter, and the combination of her House's ties to the Heptagram and her good grades made Lydia's admission to the sorcery school a certainty despite her difficult personality.

With her intellect, Lydia could have been great a sorcerer, but this was not destined to be. Her experiences in primary school left her permanently skeptical of institutionalized education, and although she paid legitimate attention in her alchemy courses, she found that tricking her instructors into believing she was learning sorcery was far more entertaining than actually learning it. This was difficult - exceptionally difficult - but Lydia made through class after class, graduating from social tricks (memorization, knowing what to say, having the right body language to avoid being called upon, faking sick) to physical ones (alchemical explosions to substitute Essence clouds, steam-powered obsidian butterflies, and the like) as her courses grew more demanding. Lydia found that these illusions suited her mind and her personality perfectly - they satisfied her urge to learn and tinker while sating her bottomless appetite for subversion. The Fire-Caste managed to make it all the way through a Heptagram education without learning a lick of sorcery - an Exalted feat in itself, although not the one the Heptagram's instructors intended.

After her final exam, a sorcerous demonstration she faked with robotic Blood Apes and smoke pellets, she was leaving the auditorium, satisfied that her summoned "demons" had fooled her examiners. As she left, she passed a tall, cloaked man. With his distant expression, silvery hair, and raven familiar, he could easily have been mistaken for a faculty member at the Heptagram. He called out to her as she passed him, asking her if she was planning on removing the animating magnets from beneath the stage floor. Paralyzed with the fear of having been found out, Lydia considered making a run for it, but that was never her forte. She turned to face the man she believed would be her undoing, and with a smirk, he revealed himself to be Bran Weylin, sent on behalf on Gyoki, whose contacts in the Realm made him aware of Lydia. He informed her that although her talents were not appreciated in the Realm, there was a group who would embrace and cultivate her unique skillset. Caring little for her parents or siblings, Lydia, in her characteristically headstrong fashion, departed for the Threshold that day with Bran. She didn't pack her bags, leaving even her name behind. She took a new name, paying homage to her appreciation of musical chords.

Although she cared little for traditional combat, the Eight-Legged Harvest Promenade included a strong enough focus on trickery and deception to hold Lydia's interest long enough to complete the training required of her. Today, she serves as the Order's foremost expert on illusions, especially large-scale illusions. She comes off as undeniably brilliant, an image she does nothing to dispel, but it isn't entirely clear where her intelligence ends and her cleverness begins. There is some speculation that she's better at acting smart than being smart, and that her rapid learning ability is the result of tricks such as speed reading and memorization schemes. Regardless, her ingenuity is quite real - her illusions and traps are outlandish enough to fit right in with the Order, and many circles make use of her talents. She is also capable of completing solo jobs, usually employing a combination of illusions and traps to create an accidental death. As a result of her extremely private personality, she isn't particularly close with many members of the Order, although she is much more comfortable in this setting of misfits and outcasts than she was in the Realm. She has bonded to some extent with Oak over their mutual enjoyment of crafting, although she is much less a blacksmith and much more a tinkerer. Still, they remain congenial; the fidgety and nervous Lydia finds Oak's ancient presence and demeanor calming. They do occasionally collaborate on particularly elaborate and technological weapons. Similarly, she and Ash have enlisted one another's help in the past to create particularly potent or unique pyrotechnics or explosives. Despite her shyness, she continues to fill the role of a Fire-Caste well, ignoring any doubts or cautions about her latest illusion or scheme, each more outlandish than the last.