Solenne Lagarde
 Solenne Lagarde
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| Gender | Female |
| Race | Elezen |
| Clan | Wildwood |
| Citizenship | Gridania |
| Server | Balmung |
| Marital Status | Single |
| Occupation | Conjurer, businesswoman, adventurer |
| Orientation | Heteroromantic Demisexual |
"To live is to feel death's shadow."
Solenne Lagarde. Conjurer. Conspirator. Cutthroat. A creature of storms and snowfall and green, growing things. A chaotic soul wrapped in the trappings of order.
Contents
Basic Info
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Appearance
Solenne's natural lankiness is softened by gentle curves and the lithe grace of a dancer. She is of medium stature, neither standing out from a crowd nor becoming lost in it. There are few visible scars or blemishes on her creamy-fair skin, but her body is not her canvas, and it hides her secrets well. Her hair is, to some extent, a different story. Since her adolescent years, she has been dying her pale blond locks a distinctive shade of silvery blue with frosted highlights. Her eyes are also blue and usually accentuated with smudged black eyeliner and lavender-blue shadow. Her pigmented lips are typically glossed in a neutral shade of pinky-mauve so as not to compete with her favored color palette. Her face is heart-shaped, her mouth generous, her eyes keen and tilted up at the outer corners. She often appears to be smiling ever-so-slightly over some private joke, and who's to say she isn't? Like her skin, her face divulges little about her rich inner life.
Personality
Solenne's manners and bearing have all the elegance and refinement that one would expect from the scion of one of Gridania's wealthiest and most respected families. She is poised, charismatic, and when the situation allows for it, vivacious. She sparkles at large social gatherings, yet seems equally content to enjoy a polite tête-à-tête with an acquaintance. But under all that good breeding is a wild, desperate yearning for freedom, adventure, and outrageous behavior. When she can escape from her duties at home and at the Conjurer's guild, she has a tendency to disappear into the wilds on mysterious exploits, emerging sometime later with a new vibrancy in her eyes, a new life in her step, and new secrets stored safely away in her pretty head.
One of her greatest secrets is that, although she is an accomplished healer, she loves the feel of a blade in her hand. At night when Gridania sleeps, she steals out into the courtyard of her family estate to practice her knifeplay under the stars. She can move in the shadows, pick locks and pockets alike, and she knows which poisons will kill a man silently and which will make him suffer for days. She revels in her own dual nature -- a cutthroat conjurer who carries death in one hand and life in the other.
What Solenne values most is liberty. Under the dutiful and law-abiding persona that she wears to honor her family name beats the heart of a rebel. If her own freedom or that of another is threatened, she will scheme and conspire and fight to preserve it, working tirelessly against governments, militaries, and law enforcement if necessary to achieve her ends. Moreover, she will relish every perilous moment of every daring plot she involves herself in. Although her outward appearance is that of a pretty, frivolous, wellborn lady, her core is fashioned from aether-infused steel. She is a force to be reckoned with, but she makes certain that very few ever realize it.
Biography
Born into a highly esteemed family among Gridania's gentry, Solenne's life was one of privilege and duty from the very beginning. She grew up knowing that, as a Lagarde, she was in the public eye. She was expected to conform to all the mores of Gridanian polite society, and so she did, at least to all outward appearances. But even as she learned to play the part of a fine lady, she was covertly honing other, less conventional skills. Her natural hunger for intrigue, coupled with a determined desire to test the limits of her own cleverness, drove her to study the arts of lockpicking and pickpocketing. She used these abilities, not to commit thefts, but to acquire information. It was a private game that she played with herself; she would decide on a tidbit of hidden knowledge that she wished to gain on a specific subject or person, and then she would employ all her secret talents and wiles to obtain it. And on those rare occasions when she was caught, her adroit tongue and graceful charm always came to her rescue.
While her parents didn't suspect that their well-mannered daughter had embarked on a career of espionage, they did realize that a precocious young mind like hers needed employment. Since she showed an early aptitude for conjury, they arranged for her to join the Conjurers Guild. which proved temporarily successful in diverting Solenne's attention from her less-than-legal pursuits. She loved conjury. In it, she found an endless source of knowledge that she did not have to plot and scheme to obtain. She might have been content to devote all her energies to conjury from that point on, if not for a fateful meeting with a certain Richaud Debonet.
Solenne first encountered Richaud on a stormy night when she caught him climbing over the wall that surrounded her family's estate. The boy seemed intent on robbing her home, so she informed him that she would not allow it. For his part, he seemed quite perplexed by this girl who had chosen such a strange time for a garden stroll. The two young Elezen struck up an unlikely friendship, and it was not long before Solenne was confessing her own interest in breaking and entering, and Richaud was promising to teach her a bit of knife play to complement her other unusual talents.
Solenne's lessons commenced almost immediately, and over time she and Richaud grew close enough that the boy was willing to trust her with his most dangerous secrets. She learned that his real name was Richaud Monsoulois, and that he and his mother had recently settled in Gridania after fleeing from Ishgard. His father, a falsely accused heretic, had not been so fortunate. Richaud's dream was to return to Coerthas one day and rescue as many innocents as he could from the clutches of the Inquisition. As time went on, that became Solenne's dream, too.
Their dream became a reality when they reached adulthood. Together they formed a secret society of spies, mercenaries, adventurers, and financial backers, all of whom were dedicated to the cause of liberating Ishgardian prisoners and assisting Ishgardian refugees. They operated in Coerthas for a number of years, hatching one daring scheme after another and saving as many lives as they could. Their exploits are, naturally, shrouded in mystery. None but those involved ever knew the names of the conspirators or the different roles they played in each dangerous rescue attempt.
There are whispers that a certain Elezen woman -- known only by the alias "Lady Winter," and by the myriad masks she donned like the consummate actress she was -- participated in several plots that breached the gates of Ishgard itself. Her impersonations of various Ishgardian noblewomen gained her entrance to that impregnable city not once, but on multiple occasions, and she never left empty handed. But that woman's identity remains unknown but to a few. Solenne keeps her own counsel on that subject, as on so many others.
Two years ago, Solenne's mother died suddenly. Her father was nearly incapacitated by grief, and Solenne felt it necessary to turn her attention homeward. She retired from her life of danger and intrigue, meaning to return to it as soon as her father had recovered. But in her absence, disaster struck the little society of liberators. Richaud was captured during a mission and summarily executed. Without his leadership, the group disbanded. It was the end of an era, and Solenne grieved as much for the loss of Richaud's dream as for Richaud himself.
After these tragedies, Solenne had no close affiliations with any organization other than the Conjurers Guild for a time. That is not to suggest that she allowed her unorthodox skill set to go to waste, however. Behind those vivid blue eyes, her agile mind has never been still, nor has she gotten over her habit of finding adventure wherever she goes. But recently, she has begun to reconnect with old allies, while also making a few new ones in unexpected places. She has offered her services to the Mithril Wings as a healer and spy, and she looks forward to whatever excitement may come from that quarter. Moreover, rumors have begun to circulate that Lady Winter has returned to the highlands of Coerthas after a two years' absence. Does she mean to renew her smuggling activities in Ishgard? Only time will tell.
Miscellaneous
Please feel free to add your own rumors under PC! ◢ Common Rumors
◢ Uncommon Rumors
◢ Rare Rumors
◢ PC Rumors
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Gallery
Links & Footnotes
Solenne Lagarde on Tumblr
With One Dream (Solenne Playlist I)
The Danger and the Power (Solenne Playlist II)
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