History: Fasalles

High in the sky above the Mediterranean Sea, hidden and shielded from outsiders by powerful magic, rests the Island Kingdom of Fasalles, inhabited by a population of women who are naturally born with wings and ruled by the Queen Cressida Panagakos. The people of the island separated themselves from the surface world long ago for their own safety after they were discovered by a group of hunters from ancient Greece. Fearing the people of Fasalles as the harpies of myth, the hunters opened fire with their bows while making their escape to alert a nearby city. They eventually returned with a small army of soldiers, ready to put the people of Fasalles to the sword. Instead, the Greek soldiers found nothing; knowing that retreat was their only hope, the most powerful sorcerers of the Fasall people worked a grand spell to raise a nearby island into the sky, so that their people could live upon it without fear of attack by the wingless ones.

Over time, the Fasall tribe grew in size, the winged women rescuing shipwrecked survivors and nursing them to health, under the requirement that they remain upon the island for the rest of their lives so as to keep the secret. As the species propagated, they were forced to explore and settle other tribes further into the island, or risk running out of room and resources to feed the growing number of mouths. The tribes grew into towns, and the towns into cities; chieftains were crowned queens and, for a time, they ruled their city-states in peace.

Peace can never last, however. What started as a border dispute between two city-states eventually blew up into a war that involved every nation as queens took sides and called upon their allies to back them. The warrior women of the island micro-nations fought long and hard, the days turning into weeks turning into months turning into years. Some believed that the end of the Fasall people was upon them - and, indeed, the war had taken a heavy toll in terms of body count, with almost a third of the population lost to the bloody fighting. They showed no signs of stopping, however... until one woman, Cressida Panagakos, finally managed to get the various queens to agree to talks that would eventually result in a peace that had been long-lost on the island. For her part in quelling the fires of war, Cressida was crowned the one true queen, and united the various city-states into one nation, Fasalles, and declared the central-most city-state, Atarnes, as the capital. To this day, the queens of Fasalles take Cressida's name as their own, in honor of the savior of their people as as a symbol of their right to rule.

Biography

Lysandra was born in April of 1979, to the current Queen Cressida and her foremost bodyguard and sherrif Youcef, who Cressida had helped rescue long ago from a wrecked Libyan boat. However, when Cressida finally took a husband of her own - a man that was not Youcef - and birthed an heir just a few months after Lysandra's birthday, she was removed from the line of succession so that the true daughter of the queen and king could rule when her mother passed away. Instead of being groomed for rulership, when Lysandra turned five, she was taken by her father to Artanes' esteemed military academy, where she would be trained in the arts of war so that, one day, she would protect her half-sister Leonora as her father protected her mother.

Lysandra, however, hated her sister who, as far as Lysandra was concerned, had stolen her life from her just by being born. While she didn't try to fight back against being enrolled in the academy, her showing was poor during her initial years, as her hotheadedness translated into poor decisions, both on and off the battlefield. It would take long years of drilling (and more than a few nasty lectures from her instructors) to work all the pent up frustration and hate out - and when Lysandra stopped trying to use her sparring partners as opportunities to vent her anger, she showed an incredible aptitude for physical combat that had been buried deep within. With her mind focused, she would eventually catch up to (and even surpass) her peers in hand-to-hand combat.

Lysandra graduated at the young age of twenty-three and was immediately enrolled into the military, as was required of all students who attended the academy. She served for five years, her duties shifting almost constantly - at times she would be on the rescue crew that was responsible for saving shipwrecked humans and bringing them to the island, other times she would serve with the military police that patrolled the streets of Artanes, working to keep the peace in the capital of Fasalles. The duties of a trained soldier were many, and Lysandra, along with the rest of her graduating class, would eventually spend some time performing all of them.

Unfortunately, during Lysandra's tour, Queen Cressida took ill and, when the foremost doctors of the kingdom were unable to cure her sickness, passed away. After a heartfelt ceremony to see her off into the afterlife, her youngest daughter Leonora was crowned the new queen. Her first order of business as the new monarch was to send Lysandra, who Leonora considered a potential threat to her rulership, to the surface world, under the pretense of gauging if it was finally time for the Fasall to make themselves known once again. Though she knew that her sister was just trying to remove her from the picture, Lysandra had no choice but to accept, or face imprisonment (and possibly execution).

Lysandra first traveled from the island to Greece, where she spent some time familiarizing herself with regular human society and building up a cover identity under the name 'Sandra Palmer', before finally migrating to the United States after hearing stories about Millennium City, where, on both sides of the law, men and women with amazing powers congregated. If she was going to be stuck here, Lysandra planned on at least enjoying herself; adopting the name Falconet, she took to the skies as one of the city's newest defenders.

Appearance And Personality

The Fasall people as a whole tend to be tall and naturally predisposed to lean, muscular builds. Falconet is no exception, measuring in at a solid six-foot-one and weighing about two hundred and five pounds, with most of the weight that doesn't come from her wings being muscle. She wears her black hair long, the tips reaching all the way down to the middle of her back; it's usually well-kept, though flying through the air at high speeds tends to leave it a bit tousled at times. Her skin, already naturally a light brown tone, is further tanned due to long amounts of time spent in the sun and her eyes, thin and almond-shaped, are a golden brown approaching amber. Falconet's facial structure is fairly rounded, though her cheekbones are high and slightly pronounced. It only serves to make her nose stand out; hooked and just shy of being too big for her face, Falconet's nose almost resembles the beak of the bird she's named after.

Falconet's most outstanding feature is, of course, the pair of wings on her back, attached near the shoulder blades and supported by extra muscle groups that the Fasall developed to aid in their flight. Falconet's are large, with the wingspan measuring in at twelve feet, almost twice as long as she is tall! The bones of the wings are springy and hollowed out in the center, making them deceptively light and flexible, so they don't interfere too much in her daily life. Her feathers are, for the most part, a deep dark brown, though her pinions trend towards a lighter, almost tan color. Falconet usually keeps them folding up against her back when she's not using them to fly, though she has been known at times to fan them out when she's trying to impress or intimidate someone.

Falconet is every bit as proud and noble as her bearing would indicate; she strives to achieve excellence and even perfection in combat, and refuses to back down even when the odds are clearly against her. Her fervor in combat translates into a personally demanding attitude off of the field, as well - no matter what Falconet is doing, she intends to do it to the best of her abilities. She refuses to be outdone in anything, and challenging her to a task, no matter how mundane, will usually be treated with the same competitiveness as something far more trying. She isn't loud about her pride, however; in fact, Falconet approaches most conflicts and competitions with a silent intensity, whether the challenge is life-threatening or not.

Those who meet Falconet on the battlefield would likely never believe she's a highly social person. Nevertheless, not only does Falconet enjoy spending her time with others, she prefers doing so in large crowds, where everyone is enjoying themselves and talking and, in general, having a nice time. As such, when she's not fighting crime, Falconet tends to frequent nightclubs and bars, enjoying the atmosphere and, though she would never admit it, the attention that her wings usually attract. She's easy to approach and friendly enough, tending towards a quiet and sincere politeness, though at times she can come off as condescending, especially when speaking to other women. She grew up with the understanding that the wingless were inferior to the Fasall and, though her time on the surface has, partly out of necessity, curbed her superiority complex, it hasn't entirely faded away.

Allies & Enemies

Allies: Unaffiliated

Skills and Equipment

Falconet is a trained warrior and has, through her time at the academy, gathered quite a few skills to help her both on and off the battlefield. On top of that, she also wields the legendary Bracers of Brisai, which further enhances her abilities.

• Flying: First and foremost, Falconet is capable of flying at high speeds using her wings. Normally, she can maintain an average speed of fifty miles per hour, though inclement weather and other hazardous conditions force her to go slower or else risk losing control of her own flight. When she dives, Falconet can reach speeds as high as two hundred and fifty miles per hour!

• Sword Fighting: Falconet is an incredibly talented fighter with her choice of weapon: the greatsword. She wields the massive slabs of metal with an almost unnatural grace and has proven herself many a time against those who would try to stand up to her. She also has passable skill in a variety of other weapons, though she only resorts to them if she absolutely has to.

• The Bracers of Brisai: These magical bracers were given to Falconet to help protect her on her trip to the surface world. They once belonged to the hero Brisai, who wielded them against a tyrannical queen who usurped the Fasall throne and subjugated her people. The power inside them increases the physical capabilities of the wearer to superhuman levels, as well as providing them with a weapon with which to dispense their justice. The bracers have proven themselves to be somewhat empathic in this application: where Brisai bore a massive battleaxe, when Falconet calls upon the power of the bracers, she's gifted with a greatsword instead. These weapons are magical in nature, impossible to break, and, on the bearer's whim, can be switched into a 'non-lethal' mode that prevents the blade from breaking skin.

Powers And Abilities

Weaknesses And Quirks

Trivia

Comments

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