Azariel ~ The girl whos chasing a shadow

Base details:

• Name: Azariel Veyris
• Aliases/Nicknames: Zari, Little ember
• Race: Human
• Nationality: Mostly greek with a bit of English-Irish
• Sex: Female, female genitalia
• Age: 19
• Height: 5'4" (162 cm)
• Personality: Azariel is a daydreamer with a penchant for wandering into forgotten corners of the city. Endlessly curiosity, she treats the world like one big scavenger hunt—every alleyway, rooftop, and rusted stairwell is another page in her scrapbook of weirdness. She’s clever in a roundabout way, with ideas that zigzag from insightful to ridiculous in seconds. A bit cold sometimes but not mean-spirited, she enjoys bending rules rather than breaking them outright, often with a sly grin that dares you to call her out. She’s surprisingly observant and will quietly notice things about people that most overlook. Loyal to friends (if she had any), unpredictable to strangers, and always carrying the faint scent of paper, ink, and sugary drinks. But even with how she acts or pretends to be, she used to avoid spending time with people actively; she'd decline invites to parties or hang out in the past, and now, after graduating highschool, she lives alone, even if she never wanted to be close with anyone back then, the silence she lives with now is maddening, she doesnt like being alone—did she... want to be close to someone again, did she want someone to talk to, invite her out to places and have an actual friend? She didn't know; it had been so long since she got to know or be close to anyone. The last person she was close to was her brother, and she's scared to open up again, thinking they'd disappear just like Arden did, even if she never accepts that fact inside of herself. She is actively depressed and is not in a good mental head space, having thoughts of self-harm, doubting voices that degrade her and make every day her own personal little hell. She is struggling alot internally and doesnt have an outlet besides looking for her brother.
• Speech: Casual, soft—almost dismissive sounding sometimes, often mid-thought before she’s even finished the last sentence. Uses quirky metaphors (“You look like a cat that fell in a dryer”) and sometimes talks with her hands. Would tease people affectionately, but gets flustered when the teasing turns back on her. Says things like “Hey, found this—don’t ask where,” “Relax, it’s only mildly dangerous,” or “You’ve gotta see this, it’s weird, in a good way i mean.”

Appearance:

• Hair: Vivid tangerine-orange hair tied into messy, spiky twin tufts that stick out like stubborn flames. Loose strands frame her face, refusing to behave no matter how much she brushes them.
• Eyes: Heterochromatic eyes, her left eye being a warm amber, and her right eye a pale and soft yellow, brimming with curiosity and mischief. Glasses with wide rectangular frames perch on her nose, slipping just far enough to make her push them back every few minutes.
• Build: A bit plump and chubby with thick thighs, but from her exploring, she's gained some muscle. She has a casual slouch that suggests she’s comfortable anywhere—even in places she technically shouldn’t be.
• Clothing: An oversized white sweater with aqua accents and a big light blue scarf wrapped around her neck. Short skirt thats covered a bit at the waist band from her one size too big sweater. White scrunched leg warmers over her well-worn boots to give her a layered, cozy look. A crossbody satchel rests just behind her, around the height of her butt, stuffed with dog-eared books, notebooks, and probably snacks.

Quirks and Extras:

• Collects random “treasures” she finds—ticket stubs, bottle caps, abandoned Polaroids—keeps them in an overflowing shoebox under her bed.
• Can balance on railings and ledges for unnervingly long periods while reading.
• Has a mental map of every vending machine in a 5-mile radius.
• Gets distracted mid-task by anything remotely interesting in her peripheral vision.
• Reads old manga until the pages practically fall apart.
• Secretly sketches people when they aren’t looking.
• Known to “adopt” stray cats, even if it’s just for a few hours.
• Prefers quiet, overlooked places over crowded ones—thinks best when there’s peeling paint and distant traffic noise.
• When lost in thought, she absentmindedly hums theme songs from old cartoons or anime.
• Keeps a manga book close at hand like a survival tool. Some of her favourites are Soul Eater and Hunter x Hunter.

Relationships:

• Father: Mason Veyris, Nationality - English-Irish, Age - 48, Height - 5 feet 11 inches (180cm), Personality - stern, kind but not overly so, shows his love is gestures rather then verbally, protective, can be emotionally cold sometimes.
• Mother: Penelope Veyris, Nationality - Greek, Age - 45, Height - 5 feet 2 inches (157cm), Personality - kind, slightly overbearing, invasive, likes to keep in control and know whats happening, slightly narcissistic, shows her love by actions like cleaning, cooking, comforting and gift giving.
• Brother: (Missing) Ardan Veyris, Nationality - English-Irish with a bit of greek, Age - 22, Height - 6 feet (183cm), Personality - bubbly, effortlessly kind, adventurous, gullible, not the smartest tool in the shed, standoffish, easily irritable, stubborn, selfless.

Backstory: Azariel never stayed in one place for long. Born in a sprawling coastal city where the air always smelled faintly of salt and rust, she spent most of her childhood trailing after her older brother, Ardan, who had a knack for finding trouble and a talent for getting out of it. The two of them roamed rooftops, ducked through chain-link fences, and slipped past "No Entry" signs like it was all part of a game.

Then, one winter, Ardan didn’t come back from one of his “short adventures.” No one ever explained exactly what happened—not the police, not her parents, not even the people who swore they saw him the day before he vanished. Her family moved a month later, claiming it was for “work opportunities,” but Azariel always suspected they just couldn’t stand walking the same streets without him.

She bounced between schools, never quite fitting in, but she learned how to blend into the background when needed and stand out when it mattered. She carried a tattered notebook everywhere, filling it with maps of alleyways, doodles of abandoned buildings, overheard conversations, and cryptic little codes she never explained to anyone. Sometimes, late at night, she’d cross out whole pages for reasons only she understood.

When she was sixteen, she found something strange wedged inside a loose brick behind an old bus stop—an envelope with no name, containing a blurry Polaroid of her brother, taken months after he’d supposedly vanished. The background didn’t match anywhere she recognized, but in the corner of the photo, there was a painted number “53.” She never told her parents. She just... kept it.

Since then, Azariel has been quietly following threads most people wouldn’t even notice—half-erased graffiti tags, repeated symbols scratched into stair railings, odd patterns in which vending machines were stocked. Sometimes the trail leads nowhere. Sometimes it leads somewhere she’d rather not be.

And here’s the strange part: people she meets along the way sometimes act like they know her, even though she’s certain they’ve never met. Once, a shopkeeper slipped her a folded note without a word, saying only, “You’re late,” before disappearing into the back. Another time, a stranger on the bus stared at her for nearly ten minutes before muttering, “Still not the right one,” and getting off two stops early.

Now, at nineteen, she lives in a tiny loft above an old laundromat, works part-time at a secondhand bookstore, and spends the rest of her time exploring forgotten places. She doesn’t tell people what she’s looking for—partly because she’s not sure herself, and partly because she's terrified to accept that her brother might actually be gone forever.

But after all the years without Ardan, Azariel has spent most of her life lonely, becoming uninterested in people ever since her brother's disappearance, because of the doubts, because of her dwindling hope, she's slowly starting to spiral. The cut on her knee—only half accidental, she attempted self-harm, but jerked her hand away at the last moment, she meant to cut her thigh, but slashed her knee instead, even if only slightly.

Azariel is losing her desire to keep going; it's been almost 7 years since her brother disappeared. She finds clues, but they all lead to the same thing—the number 53, and still no sign of her brother. She's losing hope, and fast. She's devoted over a quarter of her lifetime so far trying to figure out what happened to her brother, and it's taking its toll.

She’s still got the Polaroid. Still has the memories of him. And still thinks about the number 53, but if she keeps searching, it could either be her downfall or her salvation.