Celeste Raven Hunter

Celeste has been referred to as "that red-headed girl" more times than she can count, and so thinks of it as her best feature, or at least her most notable one. It is an impressive, vibrant red ponytail that she's cultivated, and she makes a point to take care of it; if her hair is out of its ponytail, how disheveled it is is usually a good indicator of just how likely she is to blow her top at the moment, because in those cases she's just too distracted by sheer burning rage to care anymore.

Beyond the hair, though? Celeste just kind of shrugs and figures she's going to look however she looks and it'll be fine. She stands 5'6" and is overall slender, with skin that fluctuates between "are you okay?" pale and a light fawn tone, with no apparent capability to tan any darker. Her legs are toned from hiking (and running, lots of running) through all manner of terrain, and there's signs of muscle elsewhere when exerting herself (such as with heavy lifting) causes her to flex them, but that's about it for visible hints at her athleticism. Her bust and the curve of her hips exist, and are visible enough that people notice they exist with her usual choice of clothes, but that's about all she could say about them.

Celeste's got a babyface and knows it. Her features are soft with understated cheekbones and small nose, giving her large eyes plenty of chance to steal the show. Her irises are green, though whether they look more of a gold-green or just green really depends on the lighting. Her eyes, and to a lesser extent the rest of her face, are very expressive, though there's a natural intensity to her gaze that isn't so much 'resting bitch face,' since it doesn't look like a glare (but boy can she glare when she wants to) but just seems very focused, even a little bit 'stare into your soul.' She avoids a lot of direct eye contact specifically because of it.

When it comes to clothing, Celeste likes jeans, jackets, T-shirts, and hiking boots. She'll sometimes switch to tank tops when it's warmer, but doesn't like to show skin much if she can help it and so often overdresses for the weather and then locks herself indoors with the AC or huddles in the shade with ice cream to compensate. Her outfits tend to either be a mix of blues, greys, and black, or a mix of reds and golds, with the two colour palates rarely mixing. She also has a thing about gloves, feeling like she needs to wear them all the time around people she's not familiar with, but she's not sure why anymore. Faller amnesia sucks.

Celeste's hesitance to show skin is mostly due to her scarring; having people look at her and wonder what in the world happened and how she survived it isn't all that fun for her. She's got a pair of slash marks on her right, outer forearm that form a rough X-shape, as well as a patch of scar tissue on her right shoulder. There's a scar from a small stab wound on her left side, and one from a much larger stab wound directly below her ribcage. There's more minor ones scattered across her body from cuts and burns, as well, the only place she hasn't been injured in some manner being her face.

With new people, Celeste is awkward, a little skittish even, and needs some help to break the ice, but there's a warmth and friendliness to her demeanor that shines through even when she's caught up in a "how do I people?" moment. She wants to reach out, and does try, though it's easier when she's given the impression there's something she can help with, or there's pokemon involved. She's better with pokemon than humans, being much more relaxed around even the big, scary ones (or more like especially the big, scary ones) and enjoying speaking to them even when language barriers make it difficult.

Get to know Celeste a little better, and she will establish herself very quickly as the mom friend. In fact, she doesn't really make friends so much as make family, having very little middle ground between casual acquaintances and "I will bake you cookies and fight your enemies for you." This can come with a degree of separation anxiety that not everyone is prepared to deal with, as she's got some deep-seated abandonment issues that being dropped into a whole new universe did not help with. She's very affectionate when given the chance, though she's cautious about overstepping boundaries and so tends to err on the side of physical distance until she's absolutely sure the person in question likes random hugs.

However, being the self-appointed mom also means that she's the one who scolds and lectures when a member of her family does something unwise. Taking reckless actions that will get them hurt is a surefire way to make her furious, as is lying to her, and all of that skittishness and caution goes out the window when she's mad. She will tell a hulking, fire-breathing dragon what's what if she feels the need, so don't think she's intimidated by your squishy human self if you try to argue with her, either. She doesn't like these confrontations, and in fact she hates them, but there's no backing down once she's decided she's done with your nonsense.

That said, Celeste's forgiving at heart, and while her temper flares hot, it also cools quickly. Once a fight's over, it's over, and it takes an especially impressive betray of trust for her to hold a grudge for long (which has managed to happen, once). Once a message is received, she sees little point in hammering it home any further. This doesn't only apply to those she's 'adopted' either; she's also pretty quick to put unpleasant interactions with people she's had an antagonistic relationship with from the start behind her, if they express a desire to start over.

Too quick, some would say. Celeste's very, very trusting, and while she knows that it could come back to bite her someday, she keeps giving people chances anyway.

She's a bit of a hypocrite, though. Mostly because she will most certainly put herself in danger far, far too often in the name of helping others, or even just to satisfy her curiosity. Hearing that people have been murdered in a nearby forest is likely to send her straight into that forest with thoughts of finding the murderer and avenging the victims with a firestorm of righteous wrath, and if you tell her that literally anywhere is haunted, she's going to go in and try to talk to the ghosts. She does have some self-awareness of this, but not enough, as there's this aggressive sort of optimism to her, an unwillingness to believe that things won't work out so long as she's there.

She won't ever quite say it directly, but she thinks she has a destiny. There's got to be a reason she's here, right? And, so, clearly she'll be fine until it's time for to do whatever it is that the Legendaries, or whoever it is who brought her here, to do. Yes, needing stitches again still counts as 'fine,' shut up. That said, Celeste is perfectly happy being a homebody when she doesn't have a reason to go on dangerous adventures. If left idle, she's more likely to curl up with a good book and a pokemon in her lap than go looking for trouble.

Trouble just tends to find her, or at least meet her halfway by coming to her attention in ways she can't bring herself to ignore. Life for those who find themselves in her social circle is going to be interesting, that's for sure...

Celeste began life unwanted, the product of a one-night stand between a married woman and a man who Celeste has never met, and now is all the unlikelier ever to. Foisted into her grandmother's care in the aftermath of the resulting divorce, she never had the chance to know if her mother had any love for her at all, because she died mysteriously in the wilderness not long after. They said it was wild pokemon who killed her, but Celeste knows better now.

She grew up in a town known for attracting ghosts and psychics alike. Her best friend growing up, in fact, was a psychic, a girl with minor empathetic abilities. Celeste herself never showed any signs of such talents, however, which was fine by her, as she'd seen her friend's struggles with control over her empathy and did not envy the experience. There wasn't much she could do to help with those struggles, either, but her friend always said just being around was helpful, giving her a specific person to focus on and block out the other 'noise.'

As a teenager, however, she'd move elsewhere, ending up in a peaceful little town surrounded by grassland. The region's local Professor had her Lab there, and Celeste would volunteer there for some time before she finally turned eighteen and turned her attention to something she would have done years ago, had her grandmother not made her promise to wait: pokemon training. With a young chikorita by the name of Jasmine in tow, she left home to travel the region.

And that's when everything went to hell in a handbasket.

Celeste's memories are most fragmented and scattered here, in the years between beginning her journey and Falling. Sometimes all she can bring herself to say to describe it all is that the world broke, and while that's an exaggeration, the fact that her region had been highly isolated (and yet, in some ways, all the more open; Fallers, including those who had Fallen en-mass, were a well-known phenomenon there) until then certainly made it seem like the world was falling apart.

And the catalyst for Celeste's involvement in what was the to come? A sneasel named Shilo, whose original trainer had been murdered and who'd then found her way into Celeste's care. It took time for the inexperienced trainer and the grieving pokemon to forge a bond, but once they did, they became nigh-inseparable. It only made sense that, when the they found the murderer, Celeste would stand by Shilo in her pursuit of vengeance.

Unfortunately, the murderer turned out to be not an ordinary human woman, but a strange, ghost-like shapeshifter, who could recover from Shilo's attacks with a mere thought. To this day, Celeste doesn't know why she let them live, fleeing instead of finishing them off, but the incident left her realizing how in over her head she really was, and that this was not a path she could walk alone.

She threw in her lot with a team that could provide her with resources, training, and allies, and, in exchange, she found herself on the front lines of a war. A renegade tribe from the neighbouring region to the north, blocked off by mountains that had been before thought impassable, devastated two of their cities with a great war machine that was only stopped by the reigion's Champion temporarily recruiting Kyurem to turn the valley that made up final battlefield to ice. With the machine lost, so was the war, and their war-pokemon, despite attempts to capture them (Celeste managed three, one in the immediate aftermath and two much later; one of those two left the marks on her arm for her trouble) turned feral in the wake of the defeat and left the ecosystems they invaded forever changed.

The experience led to Celeste breaking off from the militaristic team and joining a new one. It had been founded by what could only be described as a rag-tag band of misfits, their base a ranch in the very town Celeste had gained her starting pokemon in. They took her in, and while the nightmares kept coming and never quite stopped, the place granted her some peace. It also allowed her pokemon to roam free even when she wasn't actively using them on her team, which led to a small army of ghosts that she'd collected taking over the forest on the edge of the property, as well as the lake becoming infested with sea monsters.

Together, the six of them took titles: The Black Joker, The Jack of Diamonds, The Queen of Spades, The King of Hearts, The Aura Knight, and the Wild Card. The first was their leader, the last was Celeste herself, and all became her new family.

But the peace couldn't last, and Celeste's world kept breaking.

There were beasts in her region, things that were not animals or pokemon, that would grant marks of power if sought out, but had little problem with killing the unworthy. The first Celeste faced nearly drowned her and her pokemon, the second left her with the scar on her shoulder, and the third...never arrived to face her.

Instead, she was surrounded by ghosts that had been twisted, corrupted, and controlled by something, and it was the intervention of a more powerful being and its gift that allowed her to survive. Together, she and her pokemon left the area cleansed, and Celeste was left with a different sort of mark, one that locked ghost fire that should have burned her into her body instead, allowing her to interact with ghosts in ways that humans normally couldn't.

The mark let her do more, too, as she found out when she faced Shilo's trainer's murderer again, the Black Joker nearly losing her life in the process, and found out that she could make the killer burn. In the end, she got away again, and in the aftermath...Celeste and the Black Joker yelled at each other, a lot, about danger and recklessness and who should be protecting who, until the Aura Knight shouted them both down for how they were acting.

The Aura Knight, in fact, became one of the people Celeste clung to the most, alongside the Black Joker. They were alike in so many ways that they naturally drifted into each other's company, and the time when their similarities made them clash instead, they managed to sort things out. It took time for her to realize, and admit, that she was falling in love with him, and to accept that he was, indeed, falling for her in turn.

Celeste eventually learned what the something that had turned that horde of ghosts against her was, having found an amulet bound to a strange, shadow-like creature. Its kind were parasites, granting power to a host in exchange for a proper form, and one of the ghosts, one that Celeste had been forced to destroy, had fallen prey to such a parasite and gained the ability to mind-control others. This shadow, though, stayed in its half-existing state by choice, given some form by being bound to the amulet but not the power it would have with a host.

Celeste ended up running afoul of hunters of the shadow's kind, mistaken for a host and earning a new scar from one of their knives before the shadow got her away from them and saved her. She forged an unlikely friendship with the creature after that, and it would not be the last of its kind she would meet. In fact, she would find another, bonded to a Ninetales, the day she and the Aura Knight returned to confront the hunters and Celeste found that her gift had yet another facet, the ability to walk through flame unscathed; she saved everyone she could in the resulting forest fire, but it never felt like enough...

With the hunters dealt with, Celeste almost found some stability. Then the King of Hearts betrayed them, physically breaking the Black Joker but leaving her alive. Celeste wanted to burn him for his betrayal, burn him to ash, but he was so much more powerful than them, even put together, and so she was left to simmer with rage that she had no outlet for.

Then the Black Joker left for the region to the north, only recovered enough to barely be able to stand and walk and leaving all means to contact her behind. She came back, with a new friend to join them in tow at that, but it still wasn't long after that that Celeste broke down crying in front of her, begging her not to leave again, not without saying goodbye. Her increasing fear of abandonment would only become clearer, when she later screamed at the Aura Knight for leaving on a dangerous mission to face a Legendary, not for the mission itself (because, by then, she trusted him to be well-prepared rather than do such a thing impulsively) but for the note he'd left her, implying that he wasn't sure he'd come back.

But, slowly, things seemed to be recovering, more people joining their team to fill the void left behind by the betrayer. And Celeste learned something new about herself, and her blood family, when she wandered through a dream to find a great, dark bird who claimed to be her (great, great) uncle. He explained that his brother had turned himself mortal long ago, and her father was that brother's grandchild; he gave her a set of wings for Christmas, to make up for all the ones he'd missed, and introduced her to cousins, strange creatures of varying ilk with the same intense, green eyes she had.

Somehow, her team believed her when he told them, too. After all, they'd all seen stranger things, and they couldn't deny the existence of the wings...

The Black Joker's health returned to her, too, enough that Celeste eventually turned to her for help investigating a series of killings in a far-off forest, her interest drawn due to the victims being found in the same place and condition that her mother had been, all those years ago, and the current victims having the eyes of her father's bloodline. Said investigation led her to something like the shadow-infected pokemon, but so much worse, and Celeste nearly lost her life in the resulting battle, instead rising like a fire-hurling phoenix and being left with yet another scar from the near-fatal wound.

Even with the monster put down and her mother avenged, any peace and quiet Celeste enjoyed afterward could not last. Trouble was brewing in the region again, and the sudden death of the Black Joker finally shattered what had been slowly cracking. Unable to stomach staying in the place that had been home for so long, she spread her wings and flew as fast and as far away as she could. She'd planned to return, eventually, but, instead, a portal opened up and swallowed her, and the wings were gone on the other side, leaving her plummeting to the ground.

---

She woke up in Carrefor Town, having been found in the graveyard. Apparently, one of the inhabitants had been bodily dragged to her side by their pet absol, who'd sensed that there would be someone to find. Due to her muddled memories, Celeste wasn't even able to tell anyone the name of the region she'd originated from, only that it definitely was not here, and that she had no idea why she was here and not there. She did learn quickly to stop babbling about missing wings, though, as it was not helping her get out of the hospital any faster.

Lost and unsure of what to do with herself, she settled into the spooky town, finding it strangely comforting. She would wander among the graves at night, singing haunting, half-remembered songs. And, eventually, creatures started answering the strange calls. Pokemon who were just as lost as she was, pokemon she realized upon meeting them that she recognized them, even with everything as jumbled as it was, were appearing here as well. She never actually saw them emerge, doesn't even know if they were all taken at the same time and scattered or if it was happening more slowly, and so is no closer to figuring out the circumstances of her own arrival, but she does at least know that she's not alone anymore. It's only a small fragment, but she has part of her family back.

Eventually, she'll wander from Carrefor to see the rest of Veria. She's still a pokemon trainer, after all. And who knows? Maybe there's more family out there, old and new, for her to find. She can only hope.

Pokedex Name: Weavile
Nickname: Shilo
Gender: Female
Ability: Pressure
Moveset: Agility, Slash, Ice Shard, Feint Attack



Pokedex Name: Gardevoir
Nickname: Charity
Gender: Female
Ability: Telepathy
Moveset: Teleport, Heal Pulse, Draining Kiss, Psychic



Pokedex Name: Lucario
Nickname: Thane
Gender: Male
Ability: Inner Focus
Moveset: Endure, Force Palm, Reversal, Swords Dance



Pokedex Name: Absol
Nickname: Spectre
Gender: Male
Ability: Super Luck
Moveset: Slash, Night Slash, Psycho Cut, Detect



Pokedex Name: Sylveon
Nickname: Changeling
Gender: Male
Ability: Pixilate
Moveset: Refresh, Swift, Misty Terrain, Moonblast



Pokedex Name: Chikorita
Nickname: Jasmine
Gender: Female
Ability: Overgrow
Moveset: Synthesis, Reflect, Light Screen, Magical Leaf



Pokedex Name: Spiritomb
Nickname: Mischief
Gender: Female
Ability: Infiltrator
Moveset: Curse, Confuse Ray, Ominous Wind, Dark Pulse



Pokedex Name: Sableye
Nickname: Lucky
Gender: Male
Ability: Prankster
Moveset: Detect, Feint Attack, Fake Out, Shadow Claw



Pokedex Name: Chatot
Nickname: Hunter
Gender: Male
Ability: Tangled Feet
Moveset: Mirror Move, Chatter, Roost, Uproar



Pokedex Name: Pachirisu
Nickname: Doreen
Gender: Female
Ability: Volt Absorb
Moveset: Nuzzle, Swift, Sweet Kiss, Discharge

Faller (1 Point)
Celeste is from a world that does have pokemon, but is otherwise pretty alien to this one, full of all kinds of not-human, not-pokemon, not-animal creatures, some of which she'd fought in the past and others she'd befriended instead. Not to mention that there were all kinds of potential superpowers beyond just psychics and aura users (but plenty of those, too). She had some very unusual abilities of her own back in that world, having an affinity for ghosts and flames in particular, as well as being able to fly, and while the haze of typical Faller amnesia has blurred the details of what exactly she's lost, she still sometimes acts on subconscious fears that she'll, say, set something on fire if she touches it.

Athleticism Major (2 Points)
Celeste looks delicate at first glance, but a mix of deliberate pragmatic effort to survive as a human in a world of monsters, and the byproduct of going through the kind of brutal trials she has, has made her a well-rounded athlete who can manage some impressive feats when the going gets tough. "An Athleticism Major can carry about 125lbs (56.5kg) comfortably, lift 250 lbs (113kg) in a short burst, and do some pretty nasty damage in a fight. Their hand-eye coordination is generally good enough to hit a bullseye between half and three fourths of the time, and they might push themselves as well as an Endurance Minor under stress. They can maintain speeds of 10-12mph (16-20km) for a good hour or two when starting at peak condition, and might hit 18mph (29km) for a few seconds under high stress."

Outsider: While having an advantage over some Fallers by having experience with pokemon, Celeste's a bit behind the generational curve, so to speak. For the most part, everything Gen IV and earlier is something she knows and takes for granted as the default for how pokemon work, all things Gen V are things she's well-versed in but still considers a bit foreign, Gen VI is familiar-ish but is all the more foreign, and Gen VII is completely new to her. This means that she has experience with Fairy types, but sometimes forgets which pre-Gen VI species have 'changed' to Fairy (and they did indeed change, in her world), and is familiar with the concept of Mega Evolution, but not how to go about doing the thing, while she knows nothing whatsoever about Z-moves and is thrown for a loop by the existence of regional variants.

Caged Bird: Despite her Falling having taken her wings from her, Celeste still feels a strong connection to the sky. Before she gained her wings, she was adept at riding flying pokemon, and with them gone, she's likely to fall back on this skill once she has a suitable mount available. She has no fear of heights whatsoever (though the lack of fear might end up a danger, now that she doesn't have a way to keep from going splat if she does something careless and falls off), and doesn't get airsick. That said, being so tied to the open sky does give her some issues with feeling closed in. She's drawn to open spaces, likes to sit on roofs and other high places, and her claustrophobia can send her into a panic and make her bolt from situations that make her feel trapped, heedless of whatever or whoever gets in her path.

Singer: Celeste isn't formally trained, but she has a natural ear for music and a distinct, haunting-sounding voice. It's common for her start singing in response to boredom or stress, as a way of occupying herself or calming herself down. She likes to sing for pokemon, though finding out another human has heard her tends to leave her blushing in embarrassment unless she knows them well.

Whip Wielder: Celeste's second team had a thing for electrified weaponry, and her own weapon of choice for some time was a whip that zapped anything she struck with its metal tip. While she doesn't have said weapon anymore, the muscle memory for using it is still there. Give her the choice between a makeshift whip and any other improvised weapon, and she'll take the whip every time.

The stars were wrong.

Celeste was among the graves again--there had been attempts to discourage her from the nightly excursions, but once the pokemon had started appearing, those attempts had stopped--and she leaned against a tombstone as her gaze focused skyward. Gloved fingers ran through thick white fur as Spectre leaned against her side, and Shilo stood to her other side, out of arm's reach and silent and still as the stones. With them, she felt confortable looking to the blanket of stars instead of watching for danger, trusting them to keep her safe.

There were patterns above her that were almost familiar, right until she saw something missing, or new dots of light where she didn't expect them to be. In a way, a truly alien sky would have been more welcome, rather than this uncanny similarity that had her constantly searching for the old shapes she'd used to guide her nightly flights. The jarring reminders of her distance from home made her feel small, putting a chill in her that had nothing to do with the cool night air.

Why?

She'd asked that question so many times, as well as the others that chased after it.

Why? Why bring me here? What am I supposed to do here?

What do I have to do to appease you, and make you bring me home?

Home. Home had no name for Celeste now. Neither did the family she'd left behind, other than the handful she'd found again in her pokemon. Faces were blurry, voices required increasing effort to recall, but the pain of loss was still sharp and biting, burying itself in her heart, tormenting her with fragments. She'd loved, and been loved, and now she was here, unable to reach them.

Celeste finally looked away, staring at her boots instead and fighting back the burning in her eyes that threatened tears. Spectre made a sound, a soft rasp, and leaned against her all the more, while Shilo turned her head slightly, watching her trainer quietly out of the corner of her eye.

Deep breaths. No crying. No more crying.

A slow, shuddering breath, and Celeste looked up again. Not all the way at the sky, but forward to stare out at the shadows and stones. Another breath, and her voice echoed through the dark night, mournful and longing.

"The treetops, the chimneys,
The snowbed stories, winter grey.
Wildflowers, those meadows,
Of heaven, wind in the wheat.

A railroad across waters,
The scent of grandmotherly love.
Blue bayous, Decembers,
Moon through a beautifly's wings."

There was a faint sound of Spectre's tail cutting through the air as he swished it left and right to the song's rhythm, but otherwise, nothing accompanied the notes that Celeste willed to project as far as they could.

"Where is the wonder? Where's the awe?
Where's dear Alice knocking on the door?
Where's the trapdoor that takes me there,
Where the real is shattered by a Mad Marsh Hare?

"Where is the wonder? Where's the awe?
Where are the sleepless nights I used to live for?
Before the years take me,
I wish to see the lost in me..."

She trailed off, and listened, ears straining for some form of reply to be found on the cold night breeze. She waited, letting the seconds stretch into minutes.

Nothing.

Again.

Celeste sighed. The songs had worked at first, drawing her pokemon back to her, but it seemed as if she'd have to leave Carrefor soon to continue her search. She gave Spectre a gentle pat on the head, then stepped away from the tombstone and gestured at the pair to accompany her. If she was going to leave here, she'd need to get back into the town proper and get some sleep.

If the nightmares would let her.

OOC Name: Windchime
Player Pronouns: She/Her
Face Claim: [b]RWBY[/b], Pyrrha Nikos as [i]Hunter, Celeste[/i]
Continuity: Import. Weavile, Gardevoir, Lucario and Absol are all in this post, Sylveon is in this one, Chikorita and Pachirisu are in this post, Chatot is in this post, Spiritomb is in this post, and Sableye is in this post.
Starter Items: 10-mon Import - No Items