Teletha Testarossa
 Teletha Testarossa
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 Tessa shortly after arriving in Gridania. | |
| Gender | Female |
| Race | Hyur |
| Clan | Midlander |
| Citizenship | Garlemald |
| Place of Birth | Garlemald |
| Nameday | 1559 |
| Age | 18 |
| Guardian | Llymlaen, the Navigator |
| Profession | Captain |
| Theme Song | |
Teletha Testarossa, or as she prefers to be called, Tessa, originally grew up in the Garlean Empire. Then known as Teletha nan Terezia, she fled the country very recently, shortly after the Eorzeans defeated Ultima Weapon, using the event as a distraction to steal the prototype airship, Tuatha de Danaan. She is a wanted criminal in Garlemald for the crime and this fact has caused a bounty to be posted in Eorzea via Garlean plants and moles for her capture. Tessa currently resides in the Black Shroud some days north of Gridania.
Contents
Personality
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Appearance
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Biography
Early Life
Teletha is the second generation child of what was originally a conscripted family from one of Garlemald's conquests a number of years before they considered attacking Eorzea. Originally stemming from Adelaide Terezia's, Tessa's great-grandmother, conscription, the family established themselves as well meaning and loyal to the Garlean Empire shortly after the conquest of Adelaide's homeland. A fair minded youth of her old homeland, Adelaide was keen sighted and could see a losing battle when she was faced with one. As such, she accepted her new lot in life and took her forced enlistment in Garlemald in stride, quickly forming her person to fit her adopted homeland and took up arms willingly for the Empire.
Most of the family's standing, however, was due to Adelaide being the mistress to Magnus sas Seneca in her later life. Though her great-grandmother's partner never did much more than the coital with his kept woman, it did serve to influence Teletha's family's standing, as the bastards produced by their coupling took on a more Garlean appearance and as the Terezia family began to fit into the culture. The Terezia line was born from that point with predominantly white or silver hair colors and light eyes, though they did not inherit the third eye of a pure Garlean. On the offhand, Adelaide's involvement with Magnus also became something of a plague upon the Terezia line, as not did Adelaide's surname become the family name due to the inability for her and her children to take his name, but her being a mistress became something of a whispered-behind-the-back slight. Calling the women of the Terzeia family whore was not uncommon, whether they were married in or not. Only the Terezia family line's penchant for producing smart minds and capable fighters saved them from being a continuous scandal.
By the time Teletha was born, this family history had become but a stoked fire, still something of a dark mark, but not enough that the general populace considered them in an ill light. Born in 1559 with a twin brother, Leonicus, Teletha and her brother exhibited above-average intelligence from even a young age and was both were quickly scouted as two who would be viable technicians or engineers. This observation became doubly true when both Teletha and Leonicus showed great aptitude with working with magitek. As such, both siblings were entered into a rigorous schooling alongside other youths. Much of the twins' schooling was in part due to the exodus of a number of Garlean engineers following the Bozja Incident, Cid nan Garlond among them. Though Teletha was only three at the time, the loss of a number of the Empire's brightest left a gap to be filled and called for the Empire to seek out new engineers and young hopefuls whom could be trained to the same caliber as what had been lost. This cause and effect greatly increased the strain and workloads placed upon those entering programs of study, often causing a discrepancy between age and material taught.
Though Teletha was outshone by her brother, Leonicus, she was no slouch, proving at an early age that she was just as capable of understand and executing complicate schematics and magitek designs as those around her, despite being graded as less ambitious than her brother. As per usual, most of the designs and principles taught in these classes pertained to military, given Garlemald's tendency to develop for their armies first, and their civil sectors second. The Terezia twins showed perseverance and dedication and were two of a number of young hopefuls thought to be among the best of a new generation of engineers.
The Calamity
When Teletha was ten, her and her brother were handed over to a senior engineer, Lucien nan Creta, whom was thirty-seven at the time, and his wife Caecillia. Spending much of their time with the older man, the twins began to learn much of their more practical design applications from him. For a number of years, they trained under Lucien, often accompanying him to workshops and aiding him with designs. Teletha and Leonicus were both with Lucien when the Calamity occurred, though Tessa was as far removed from Eorzea's issues, seeing as she was only thirteen at the time and quite far from where the moon fell and shattered. As it were, though, the fall of Bahamut's prison was the cause for Garlemald's second retreat from the Eorzean realm as they turned homeward once more. Lucien himself began to work on a new prototype of magitek reaper in hopes that someday it would serve his country to reclaim the Eorzean front they so desperately wanted to assimilate.
First Projects
Given Lucien's focus in weaponry and arms, that became what the twins were most adept at designing. As young as fourteen, the two began to establish a name for themselves amongst the engineering crowds, turning out theoretical designs of magitek weaponry unlike what Garlemald had. It was then that a change came over Teletha's life. Leonicus's designs quickly became classified and gathered up by the Imperial Shadows and the boy was removed from Lucien nan Creta's care. To Tessa's best knowledge, Leonicus was taken to work closely the shadows to develop technology in-line with their needs. Given Leonicus's penchant for designing small arms and devices most useful to those in the subterfuge field, this was the most likely explanation. Disheartened by the loss of her brother's company, Teletha's bond with Lucien and his wife Caecillia grew to fill the gap left behind, and the girl began to think of them almost as family.
Tessa's strengths as an engineer began to emerge as she matured into a young woman. Primarily her best ideas and designs seemed to be aircraft and devices designed shield against aetheric energy. For countless hours she began to sequester herself away in her room, working on some airship here or some shielding generator there. She became a common fixture around the Creta estate as the years went on and as her apprenticeship with Lucien continued. Small and silent, many conversations passed Teletha's ears when she would sit in a corner and sketch an idea. Of the most interesting to her were those told by a friend of Lucien's, Striking Falcon. An officer in the Imperial Shadows, Falcon often shared evening meals with the Creta family, telling tales in a drunken rapport about his conquests and feats in Ala Mhigo during its seizing. Having initially never understood why Falcon was friends with her guardian, Teletha looked past this when Falcon began to mention new technology entering the Shadow's hands from an up and coming engineer they'd taken in. Deducing this was her brother, Teletha was pleased to have found some form of contact with her sibling, even indirectly.
At least reaching the final year of her apprenticeship with Lucien, Tessa entered the engineering team as a full fledged and vetted designer, despite her age. She was well beyond a number of those who had been in the same training she and her brother had entered. Nevertheless, she quickly delved into work for the good of the Empire, crafting designs and weaponry and putting it through rigorous tests with her co-engineers. Coincidentally, she ended up working with the same engineering corp as Lucien.
The Tuatha de Danaan
By her sixteenth year, Teletha began to work closely with Lucien and a team of engineers on a prototype of small fighter craft based on an advanced design Teletha had created and Lucien had vetted. For the few long years, Tessa and a corp of engineers worked on realizing a small battlecraft design, breathing life into a schematic and turning out a working prototype. The craft would take up nearly all of Tessa's time as she fine-tuned the creation. Though it was small, only roughly twice the size of the craft commonly used to ferry people from city-state to city-state in Eorzea, it was entirely streamlined in purpose. Capable of fully supporting a four man crew, the ship was beyond the specifications of many of the previous Garlean small craft and displayed frightening possibilities as an air domination unit, equipped with powerful weaponry as it was.
A fair few higher ups in the Garlean military and research and development took interest in the design, and Lucien seemed hopeful that the Danaan and its following line might become a Garlean stable.
Faltering Loyalty
As days turned to months, the politics of Garlemald grew much more dire. Gaius van Baelsar took it upon himself to bring Eorzea into the fold even as the emperor's condition wavered, taking it up as his own agenda to conquer the realm. Teletha heard much of the distant realm, a land of Primals and, for the first time in years, wondered on the idea of the Empire taking yet more people under its wings. For the first time in her life she truly witnessed and understood as conflict broke out and began to effect her, as her work on the Danaan was shelved for the much more pertinent project of supporting the XIVth legion's advance into Eorzea.
Shortly after the Legatus began his conquest, Teletha was struck with an unexpected string of contact with her distant brother. Leonicus was terse in his messages, talking only of a secret project to which he had been assigned, taken away from working with the Imperial Shadows. His notes were delivered to her sparingly, by someone he described as an ally in his letter, but whom never gave her name to Teletha. To this day, she does not know the woman's name, but she refers to her as Wraith when in contact with her in secret locations she was informed of mere hours before she was meant to meet her. Delighted at the prospect of being able to communicate with her sibling, Teletha found great solace in Leonicus's contact, but much worry in his words, as he seemingly appeared to be much closer to the conflicts in Eorzea from his letters.
Still more tension grew in Teletha as the XIVth legion advanced. The first prisoners of war began to return from the front, shipped there much like chattel as they were conscripted into different parts of the Imperial military. She was not shocked to find them unwilling, given their circumstances. Though she did not deal with many directly, as most were conscripted as fighters, not engineers, she did make the acquaintance of one Eorzean a few years her junior, a hyuran girl named Kaysen Hudson. Though few captured Eorzeans were given the choice, Kaysen opted for the role of an engineer when presented with her dire straights and, thus, landed within the engineering corp Teletha worked for. As such, Kaysen became the first Eorzean Teletha had ever met.
Lucien, who had since been assigned head of the engineering corp, assigned Teletha as Kaysen's caretaker and teacher. Initially, the two did not get along, as Teletha was not surprised to find. She could tell that the girl was bright and understood much in the way of technology. Just from documentation provided as the girl was assigned to her, Teletha knew that Kaysen understood some means of magitek weaponry, as she had been found and captured with a modified magitek firearm. Still, contact with Kaysen had an effect on Teletha. She could see the way the Eorzean's eyes light up with interest when Teletha tried to coax a word out of her with some schematic or design or bit of tech as she tried to ascertain the woman's skills and levels of knowledge... but she could also see the dark fiery rage that burned and smothered that interest as the woman realized at what cost this new Garlean knowledge had been bought.
Nevertheless, Kaysen proved at least willing enough to produce work that allowed her to keep her new conscription and, after proving her abilities and Lucien's suggestion, Teletha was able to procure her the right to live at the Creta estate in a secure room rather than the conscripted barracks. This allowed Kaysen some small amount of leisure in her new life and the first few days saw Kaysen actually reacting favorably to Teletha's interactions... and a new resigned sorrow as Kaysen began to accept her new reality. There were many a evening, as she returned with the silent girl in tow to the Creta estate, that Teletha wondered how she might react if forced to produce weaponry meant to kill her kinsmen.
Like a crumbing tower, things happened in quick succession that would shatter the precarious world view that Teletha held. Firstly, as she woke for the morning and proceeded make ready for another long day, she heard some small ruckus going on in the room conjoined with hers, the one that Kaysen had made hers after some month's time. Hurrying to it and sliding her access card, she was stopped dead in her tracks. A smattering of blood, a broken dish and Lucien attempting to force Kayzen down, half dressed, to the ground. The man was the first to recover, standing upright and tossing the inconsolable Kaysen aside. Lifting the woman's shirt from the ground, he used it to staunch the sluggish flow of blood from his arm before he looked at Teletha and said, quite simply, that she ought to get ready to work for the day. Without another word, he left.
Standing in shock for a moment more, Teletha rushed forth in an attempt to check Kaysen over for injury or worse. She was greeted with scorn and anger and the accusation that she was "just the same as him and all the rest." This had a profound effect on Teletha and she watched in silent sorrow as the victim of her Empire's crimes collected herself of her own willpower and dress, albeit shakily, for her condemned job. As for the matter of Lucien, no small amount of digging on Teletha's part revealed a string of similar cases... though it seemed he had never been so bold as to force himself on someone at his own residence, having always chosen other locations for the misdeed. Enraged and betrayed by someone she had considered a friend at least she began to look into options of transfer, but found that none allowed her to take Kaysen as a pupil under her and would squarely leave the girl in Lucien's charge.
As it would turn out, Teletha's breaking point came before she could work out any alternative to hers' and Kaysen's situation. The woman she knew as Wraith came to her. This time, she bore no sparing letter from her brother, but a sheaf of notes and documents and a letter nearly thick enough to match them. And this time, she bore news of Leonicus's death. For the second time in as many weeks, Teletha was stopped dead in her tracks. She pleaded with Wraith for more information, clutching the notes and letter as the woman left without another word, shaking her head. With nothing else to do, Teletha looked to the documents in her hands. The designs were her brother's, what she assumed was every project he'd ever worked on... and one frightening one was notes and copied diagrams of something listed as the Ultima Weapon.
With trembling hands, she read his letter, wherein he predicted his own demise at either the hands of attacking Eorzeans or a kill order from their Garlean overseers and thus, he had taken the matter into his own hands and had taken his own life. She continued reading to learn that Leonicus had entrusted her with all his designs and with all the knowledge he had gleaned from the Allagan monstrosity known as the Ultima Weapon, the behemoth that Gaius van Baelsar planned to turn against the Primals and the Eorzeans without discretion. Floored by the revelation, enlightened by the knowledge and shattered by the realization that her Empire was homogenizing cultures at a massive cost of life and identity, Teletha felt her precarious world falling apart around her.
Still, as she bore the notes close against her chest as if they might embrace her back as her brother once had, she began to devise a plan.
Operation Archon
Traits
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Combat
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- Lances:
Relationships
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Rumors
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◢ Common Rumors (Easily overheard.)
◢ Uncommon Rumors (Moderately difficult to overhear.)
◢ Rare Rumors (Very difficult or rarely overheard.)
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◢ PC Rumors (Rumors from other player's characters.)
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Music
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Trivia
- The name of the Ixal tribe that Tessa befriends is a reference to huroks, the mythical species from The Immortals series.
Disclaimer
This character's personality and back-story is an adaption of the Full Metal Panic! character Tessa Testarossa. I do not own the aforementioned work. This character is only a derivative and an homage. As much attention as possible was given to make things lore appropriate and she is not merely a fandom insert, nor is she self-aware of anything related to Full Metal Panic!.
