[Other OPEN] Noble Magic [M]

The Quinn family has a long history with the Graf barony. They've been in service to the Grafs as gardeners and estate security from the time of Sasha's great-grandmother, just after the Graf family was granted their current status.

Sasha's mother, Chelsea Quinn, continued that trend. While her older sister was married off to the son of a marquis who had an eye on their natural magic, Chelsea was trusted not as groundskeeper like her father, but as the personal caretaker of the Graf's eldest daughter, Michaela.

Being the oldest of three children made Michaela the baron's heir apparent, and the family's varied life magic was certainly nothing to scoff at. For the longest time, she was expected to take a husband or wife of some repute, and other families acted as such. It was more than a little stressful for her to worry about between lectures and having to appear at public functions.

Manipulative. Incompetent. Too perfect. Riding on her brother's coattails... She only liked him as a friend. Michaela's complaints were as unceasing as those who approached, and the ones she had no immediate qualms with she knew nothing about, nor they her. She likened it to hell.

Mind, she was certainly no angel. Her favorite application of life magic was distinctly violent—Michaela was well-trained in combat, coating her body in healing magic to harmlessly incapacitate someone while still feeling all the satisfaction of delivering a no-holds-barred beatdown; as she blossomed into her womanhood she did things with her sister that neither of them can take back; and she'd openly offended more than a few nobles in a wide variety of ways without a hint of remorse.

For Chelsea, it was through all her days supporting Michaela and making her more presentable to others that she realized she had fallen hopelessly in love with her charge.

However, luck smiled on her one night when she could bear keeping quiet no longer. As Michaela wished for a way out of the inevitable, Chelsea offered herself, and although it took a moment the former wasn't slow to accept. Michaela was all too happy to cite the Quinns' generations of dedication and magical aptitude in favor of it to her father, as well.

The two were wed a little over a year before the war began, at twenty years old. Michaela's sister made a peculiarly embarrassing name for herself with her unbelievable healing abilities, but Michaela and their younger brother, Hunter, stayed in the barony. Hunter was too young to fight for the first half of the war, and Michaela drowned in administrative work while helping her parents.

Even so, she and Chelsea at least found enough free time to vent their "frustrations" and then some to each other, and it's safe to say they were particularly inventive in doing so. As such, their activities resulted in the safe birth of not one, but two children—a girl and a boy.

Sasha was the younger of the two, born seven years into the war and now nearing eighteen. His sister, Charlotte, inherited a brand of the Graf bloodline's life magic, and in the meantime Sasha had a rather unique inclination towards the natural magic he was born with.

For much of his childhood, Sasha used his magic freely. He was perfectly willing to learn the plant manipulation magic that Chelsea frequently used, but more than anything he proved to be a natural at shapeshifting. It quickly came to a point where he was transformed more often than not, and he'd gone so far as to teach himself how to transform his clothes with his body before he had a full grasp on language.

Chelsea did manage to wean him off transforming so much by putting his human hands to work more frequently, at the cost of some internal conflict. Charlotte helped, too, being a good big sister and praising how cute he was whenever he wasn't in an animal form. He started using his talents to stay cute as he grew up and make her happy since he enjoyed the praise, and soon enough came to like it himself.

Still, by the time he was ten Sasha grew uncomfortable if he wasn't at least partially shifted at any given time, and he'd go into days long fits of depression trying to restrain himself. Shapeshifting was as normal to him as breathing—or rather, though he couldn't say why, it wasn't his original form that he felt normal in.

He'd gone through a tail, wings, claws and even venom among many other things, and took detailed notes on each one for himself, until he finally settled on a pair of ears to become a permanent fixture on his "original" human body. That said, that wasn't entirely natural in itself, having already gone through various alterations of its own in Charlie and Sasha's little quest for a (mostly) human form he was happy to keep.

He wasn't sure whether the ears were those of a wolf, fox or some kind of cat, but his sister seemed to love the result as much as he did, and there was no describing the comfort he felt after all was said and done despite how relatively simple all the changes were. The ringing after loud noises was a small price to pay for the enhanced hearing as well, and Sasha's desire to shapeshift as much as he once did slowly began to subside.

It was around then that he came into the service of his aunt and her wife at their behest, taking up residence in their manor west of Artez. The estate was located so far in the woods that the closest semblance of civilization was two days' carriage ride and another two days' hike through the forest away, but somehow the distance passed in the blink of an eye.

His aunt's wife saw value in Sasha's abilities, to put it simply, and his parents watched as the manor's location and residents additionally proved to be conducive to his mood and education.

After making himself at home, Sasha was tasked with assisting in the care of his cousin—a little platinum-haired girl who, much to his surprise, was a year his senior. And while he was unhappy knowing contact with his sister and parents was lowered to visiting each other, his cousin's smile had an infectious quality to it, and within days Sasha found himself wanting to make her happy all the same. (However, he was unsubtly instructed by his aunt to never shapeshift into any sort of swine. He was never told why.)

As the next few years passed, Sasha had plenty of time available as he always did, and used that time to help the servants when he wasn't taking care of his cousin. It did take him a while to get used to her magic, though... and the fact that she never got anywhere close to puberty.

Unfortunately, during all the time he had to practice his skills, he discovered that he was... less than stellar, with plant manipulation magic after constant neglect. At the very least, he learned to cook and sew quite well, and can grow medicinal and culinary herbs and such without issue; but modifying them or manipulating plants he didn't grow himself still ends up taking much more time than viable.

On the other hand, his shapeshifting magic continued to improve at a rapid pace under the guidance of one of his aunt's former bodyguards, both in speed and variety. In the process, he even learned how to use an animal's traits without having to transform into it. His mentor taught him to use normal weaponry, too, often referring back to a shapeshifter's weakness to ranged combat.

Sasha was equally proficient in communication with the many animals he morphed into, and he learned to reliably call and command animals of different species without shapeshifting first. As a result of his progress, Sasha was later entrusted with his cousin's security and care when she was given the chance to leave the estate, and attend court at the royal palace.

Additionally, as a reward and parting gift from his teacher of six years, he was taken to have some equipment forged for him. The end result turned out to be a particularly hefty bracer that fit snug to Sasha's left arm; it was made from a dragon's scales and his own blood, allowing it to follow him through his shapeshifting and transform at his will, and act as both armor and weapon. How his teacher managed to acquire enough of a dragon's body parts to spare for this, however, is a story for another time.