The ability to practice magic is Lark's most driving force. As a dark witch, dark magic is consuming and corrupting. Being turned to dark magic so young, Lark is obsessive about magic. Not knowing any different, she allowed herself to be content in captivity if she were allowed to practice magic. Now that she's gained freedom however, magic isn't all that drives her. It's a large source of motivation still yet, but largely her loyalty to the only 'family' she has is it what keeps her going. Add in a dash of seeking vengeance against the one who tortured her, and she's got enough fuel to keep her going for centuries still.

| WORLD BUILD

( note: initial story in world build is most relevant, not all creatures are relevant to lark's story. however, most world build that applies to lark has at least minor definition in below. link provided for deeper details if wanted. )

Born in 1727, Lark is the daughter of two nomadic white witches. Her parents met while both working in France to help with a sickness in a werewolf pack, and her mother returned to Italy from England with her new husband. Unknown to them, the Fiore family held a long lineage of witches that had been watched by a vampire coven in Messina, Italy. Lark's father's family had long moved away from the vampire menace and believed themselves to be safe, but the vampires had never lost track of the family and kept tabs on all descendants. When it came time to replace a witch, the Fiore family had the unfortunate circumstance of having a young daughter at the right age for their needs. Lark was snatched from her home at the age of four, before she would be able to fully remember her old life, and taken to Messina, Italy to be raised. To ensure there were no dreams of returning to find her family one day, the vampires were certain to kill both her parents and made Lark very aware of the fact that they were gone from this world when she cried for them.

Despite the unsavory nature in which Lark was brought to Messina, Larkin was not expected to be raised uneducated and untrained. While freedom would never be in her reach, a significant amount of independence to operate and carry out formal tasks was expected. To do so, Lark was raised with a solid education. Reading, writing, math, history, strategy, and more. There was a significant lack in arts and cultural, and anything taught was taught with a heavy stress on facts to keep emotion and similar out of it, but she was not left wanting in terms of education. Typically the vampires were the ones who taught her lessons like these, as well as starting her young at training with weaponry. During it all, the vampires kept her at an emotional distance and silenced any cries before they could start. It wasn't that kindness was beaten out of her, but rather that any kindling of a heart was blown out before it could catch.

When it came to magic, however, Lark was trained by the woman she was to replace. Mid-thirties, maybe older for she seemed so old to Lark in her youth and so young in retrospect, Mariana was tasked with preparing Lark's magic. For her first year, she was taught mostly fundamentals and history. They started her young and drilled it into her brain constantly. Her time with Mariana was also limited to only lesson time. This was done to prevent any sort of relationship from forming between the two witches. Although it wasn't entirely necessary, as having been raised in the same way Mariana did not form relationships with others well, either. She never treated Lark with kindness, instead challenging her young mind to not only be good but to surpass even herself. In this way, Lark was trained to believe that she needed to be better than Mariana, and Mariana would constantly force Lark to see she never could be. During her training, Lark's magic was perverted into dark magic at a young age to prevent experimentation with white magic and becoming attached to the light. At age five a human was brought to Lark for a small infraction against the vampire kingdom. It didn't matter, he was to die. Usually, the vampire king, Ilario, would simply feed him to the vampires. But Lark needed the push, and so Mariana taught Lark her first spell to choke a man to death. Knowing no better, an eager Lark performed the spell. And the slight praise she was rewarded with ensured that she'd never feel the need to pine for white magic again.

Lark's youth progressed much the same. As she grew, Mariana taught her more and the two began to form more resentment than relationship between each other. Mariana, sensing her imminent end, and Lark chafing under the cruelty Mariana taught her with. Eventually, the strain proved too much between them. Believing her life would last longer if there was no one to succeed her, Mariana struck out to kill Lark when she was thirteen. Lark begged the vampires to help her, but no one answered her. Fearing for her life, Lark fought back. Mariana relied heavily on magic to win, but Lark fought with a combination of fighting and magic. In the end, she was able to kill Mariana before the witch could take her out. Once she finished her, her guards retrieved the body in mere seconds. She knew they had watched the entire time, and even if they hadn't they would have heard. They always heard everything, after all.

The rest of Lark's magical education was spent primarily on pouring through grimoires and studying what was left behind of her mentor. As she grew, she didn't find the vampires to be more friendly to her or anymore her friend. But once she was allowed more freedom in the fortress she realized she was more kin to them than anyone else she met. Her freedom about the castle was only permitted when it was believed she was loyal to the vampires, and by that point she had shown herself to be at least obedient. She found the humans or thralls or even the other witch she'd been unaware of to be taxing on her energy. But the vampires never saw her as one of their own, no matter how much she did for them.

Ultimately, Lark was isolated and alone until Rafaello.

When she was eighteen, Lark was put to real work around the castle. The reason the vampires needed witches at all was to do with an ancient war between faeries and vampires for territory on Earth. Having been driven back centuries ago, one passage from Fae to Earth had been secured. The second passage was difficult to reach, centered in the depths of the oceans where the tailed fae dwelt. So instead of sealing it, the vampires of Messina kept the Fae from reaching the surface. Faeries, being made of magic, were hard to torture for vampires, though. Being in prolonged exposure to magic could hurt the vampire just as much as the faerie if not careful. So Lark was put to information extraction with the faeries where she met the one vampire who risked the magic to fight the fae. Driven to ending the menace against his kind, the king's "son" was only his son in name. In reality, Rafaello was more like her than like a prince. Maybe that was why the two could tolerate each other more than they did others. Working in such close quarters and so often, the two developed an understanding. They tolerated each other, maybe even liked, but they never spoke of it. And Lark never mentioned how like her Rafaello truly was. She let him believe himself to be the free prince of the king as long as it suited him. Ultimately, though, she knew they were just his "father's" tools.

The more work Lark did, the more it was apparent that her mind was more pragmatic and warlike than expected. Slowly, she was put into the infantry in the war against the faeries. Here she fought alongside Rafa, offering the aid of magic to the vampires to combat the fierce magic the faeries provided on the war field. Together, the two gave the vampires more victories than losses. It was apparent that the team was slowly turning the tide of war. As such, Lark was given more prominence in the army.

During Lark's lifetime, however, she saw a shift in the tide of things. Something had begun to happen in the magical world that put everyone on edge. Even Rafa. When another witch working for the vampires drew a card that promised trouble for Ilario's allies in England, Rafa departed to investigate and offer his aid. In England was the sealed passage from Fae to Earth, only this one was used by winged fae instead of the tailed fae. Following him, Morgana, currently leading the tailed fae, departed to England to offer her aid to the winged faeries.

Feeling Lark had proven herself more than enough, Lark was raised to the point of general by Ilario to replace his son while he was away. Lark readily accepted her position, and pushed forward against the faeries while she imagined them to be weak. Had they been left leaderless, they might have been as weak as she had imagined. Unknown to any of the vampires, though, an old king had returned to take back his throne among the fae while Morgana was away. Callum was an ancient one, once called Poseidon by humans in the days of old. He hadn't been seen in centuries, and his return was more than a shock for Lark and her comrades. They were defeated before they'd even understood what was happening. Many of them were taken to the kingdom under the sea to be prisoners of the tailed fae, and Lark was among their numbers.

Her time spent in the kingdom under the sea was a hellish nightmare Lark would never forget. Constantly she was physically abused, deprived of the smallest comforts, and brought back from the edge of death more times than she could count. Unlike her brethren, Lark's body was mortal and did not repair itself at an accelerated rate. Vampire blood, however, had the beneficial property of accelerating the healing of anyone who consumed it. With numerous vampire prisoners at their disposal, the faeries would torture Lark to the brink of death, feed her vampire blood to restore her, then repeat it all over again. Eventually, Callum took personal interest in her torture and continued to feed her vampire blood whether weakened or not. His goal was to be the one to feed her the blood, because as beneficial as vampire blood was it had the negative effect of causing addiction and dependence in the subject if consumed too often. Callum sought to be the one Lark became dependent on by giving her the blood himself and never letting her have contact with the vampire she was drinking from. It didn't quite work the way he imagined, her dependence was on the one whose blood she drank regardless, but ultimately the addiction weakened her in ways torture hadn't. Eventually it began to destroy her mind, causing the physicality of it all to slowly become unbearable.

As she wished for death, something turned that day. Rafa had returned not only to Italy, but had taken a perilous journey to the faerie kingdom to rescue Lark from her prison. It wasn't clear whether he had just struck at the right time, or if Callum had let Rafa take the witch with dark purposes in mind, but Rafa's rescue ended successfully. Lark was returned to the surface world at last.

Lark learned that the passage, the Door, in England had in fact been broken. Rafa had aided a boy like him in the England coven, a vampire prince with a Queen who ruled him, in taking over the coven and deposing the Queen. Then they'd banded together to fight back the fae and push them home again. They'd been successful, with the aid of a witches, werewolves, and halflings opposed to the faeries, but at a cost. Rafa and his ally, Nikolai, had both lost halfling lovers in the war. One had been believed to be killed, her heart torn out by the queen, and the other kidnapped to Fae before the Door was reclosed. Rafa had returned to Italy with his newly aquired allies, though, and finally saw the monster his father truly was. He had deposed of the king himself and now ruled in Messina. He had a pack of werewolves with him as allies, and a white witch in tow. And with his newfound freedom, Rafa offered Lark her own freedom. She was even given the option to leave should she so choose to. Lark opted to stay with Rafa, the only one who came close to being family to her.

It was a new world, and Lark was now a part of it.

Following her near death experience, Lark and Rafa struggled with the concept of her mortality in the face of his immortality. Seeking to keep her around, Rafa tasked Lark with finding a way to immortality. A task no witch had truly found before, though many had tried. There was always the option of vampirism for herself, but doing so would cost her her magic entirely. A break in finding the solution to immortality came when a witch whose family had spent generations researching immortality turned vampire. Her grimoires were seized by the vampires, and Lark gained personal access to them to study the research. Olena, the former witch, had been close to finding her solution which was likely the reason she was driven to vampirism. Outcast witches would never be permitted to grow so strong, but Lark was another story. Olena had found the link of faerie magic in thrall's blood after drinking from vampires. Lark found she didn't go back far enough, and instead went to the source. After careful research, Lark decided the key was through vampires and ritual. Rather than risk the ritual on a strange witch, Lark took the risk of testing the ritual herself. With Rafa's aid, he helped to remove her heart in a ritual that was both painful and traumatic. But the sacrifice of pain and suffering mixed with the elements from earth, and the blood of the three races from three worlds, Lark was able to keep her heart still beating outside her own body. From then on, her body could be hurt and would repair itself from any injury, but only destroying her heart could kill her. Where she keeps her heart, even Rafa doesn't know.

In the coming centuries the world changed drastically. Nikolai in the west, and Rafa in the east spread their influence over vampires in the countries between them. They built an empire in the vampire world, moving their headquarters to Prague to centralize their empire between England and Messina. They took great strides in hybridizing vampires and werewolves, and slowly built a business empire in the human world to secure their foothold publicly.

While the world changed around her, Lark struggled with the addiction forced on her. In those centuries she would fight on and off with addiction. While beating her blood addiction, ultimately when the vampire who she was partially enthralled to died, she couldn't quite combat what the trauma did to her. It didn't help that Callum was still trying to reach her. She found him in the reflection of water at times, and in places she shouldn't see even a glimpse of him. Whole battles were fought where he made it clear he was only trying to get to her again, and these battles tended to be the worst with the most loss of life. With addiction and Callum hound her, Lark replaced one vice with another, one after the other to cope. She was sober for periods at a time before she'd relapse into another chemical to abuse. This made her harder to depend on when she wasn't sober, straining her relationships at times. When she was sober, though, Lark could be counted on for many things.

Thus, she was charged with the care of Ciaran, the white witch from England. The boy, fresh with a familiar to strengthen his magic, was to be a part of her "coven." It was a new concept, one dark witches weren't accustomed to. Throughout the centuries, the pair of them found it hard to both find dark witches willing to listen to them and ones that would live long enough to join them. It remained the two of them for the longest time. So Lark spent most of her free time training the boy with magic, and when his magic turned dark after drastic matters that caused him to save Rafa's life, Lark helped him cope with his dark magic. Lark was also tasked with training the werewolf/vampire hybrid, Hunter. Hunter had had recent struggles with vampires that left Rafa concerned for the boy, so Lark was tasked with building his strength more mentally than physically. But weaponry and fighting proved a good outlet for their training. Despite her grumblings, Lark took care of the boys and slowly developed a pride in the little "family" she had gained.

In more recent years, the Door to the Winged Fae has begun to slowly dissolve, again, and to the point that the missing halflings were able to return to Earth. One of them, Atropa, joined the coven on her return. War still waged on with the tailed fae, but it was becoming clear that war couldn't last forever. Soon there would have to be an end to the conflict, and the biggest battles of their lives were still yet to come.

Since childhood, Lark was raised to excise as much emotion from her life as possible. Anger was more allowed than others, but for the most part anything like sentimentality and kindness were trained out of her at a young age.

Because of how young Lark was when taken, Lark never had a chance to form any solid relationships. What she remembers of her parents is nothing, really. Not a laugh, not a smile, not the way they spoke. There's nothing to miss because there's no sense of what a parent really is. And living only among vampires, the only “family” she's witnessed is the father and son relationship between Ilario and Rafaello. Being that both were more like master and servant, Lark's never seen what a familial relationship truly is to even consider forming one. She knows about family in theory, but it remains a concept to her. Thus, with no true example for family she can't miss what she doesn't know. For her, normal life is being alone. Even friendships were the same to her, though she had at least witnessed these. The truth remained that they were kept separate from her, and thus Lark learned to tolerate a life alone and in isolation.

Living so alone for so long, Mariana's attack on her didn't seem all that shocking at the time. It had only been frightening in that it was the first time Lark was truly tried as a warrior and a witch, and the danger had been very real. The betrayal only served to further isolate Lark in the end. In hindsight, Lark realizes this betrayal was likely orchestrated. Either Mariana was forced to attack or had been manipulated into it. Either way, Lark found it hard to connect with other witches from then on. She found that Mariana lost due to her high reliance on magic, while she relies on a mixture of fighting and magic. Her reliance on fighting teaches her discipline and pragmatism in place of acting with her gut and feeling for something that may or may not be there in magic. This leads Lark to feeling a stronger kinship with vampires than she does with Mariana. After all, her guards are more like her than Mariana ever was. Cold, seemingly disconnected, and pragmatic in their violent ways like she was. Even Rafaello would later cement this idea for her.

The reality, however, is that Lark is unlike vampires or witches. And in time, that isolation grows inside of herself. During the centuries Rafaello and the others around her form more solid relationships. Where once Ilario ruled with force and iron, Rafaello bound people to him with his charm and magnetism. The kingdom began to develop in a way that everyone was tied to one another and typically found themselves in each other. Yet as the years went by, Lark found the opposite for herself. She wasn't vampire, and she had no true trust of witches. But being alone for centuries takes it's toll on a person, and even Lark gets weary with being unable to connect with others. Though feeling unable to change, she more accepts this isolation for what it is than adjusts to fit the world around her.

Because ultimately, despite the difficulty in bonding with others, Lark doesn't see too much wrong with herself. This may be due to the stubborn streak bred into her by Mariana. Mariana had a habit of trying to keep Lark down, and Lark found she much preferred to be alive and on top.

This stubborn streak developed into a new kindling for witchcraft in a way that wasn't like how others operated. She was aware that many witches worked on instinct, but Lark preferred a deeper understanding of the magic she was to use. Always trying to find a way to better her skills and better her strategies, Lark began to look at mastering magic as a way to win the war. Yet another way for her to find her way to the top. Instead of finding pride in being a witch, Lark found pride in witchcraft itself. She's dedicated the centuries of her life to studying and collecting magic and grimoires. Maybe one day she'll be able to piece it all together into something beyond what even witches know of themselves. That would be her ultimate goal in the end.

As a result, Lark found a way to resolve the two sides of herself. Her pragmatism and witchcraft. A more instinctual practice, Lark's concise and clear way of thinking could make it challenging to work with magic. However, her sharpness proves most efficient when it comes to battle and strategy. As such, Lark used to find it hard to turn off the way she thought. Where others led with their hearts, she was always thinking of the more practical ways around things. In the end, she decided to stop resisting it and accept that it was who she was.

In stead of finding emotional ways to connect with people, though, Lark keeps them at a distance. Typically, this is best used with sarcasm and dry wit. It can seem as though Lark is rude and even downright condescending with her flippant tone and dismissal. It may even be right, but the reality is Lark finds it hard to care enough about others to develop more beyond it. Thus, she interacts primarily with the world through sarcasm.

There are few she can get close to, though, and this tends to be due to proximity more than shared interests. Ciaran, the dark witch under her tutelage, and Hunter, the werewolf she trains, are two people she's somewhat close to. Neither have yet to see a loving side to her, but she doesn't threaten to kill them so often anymore. It amounts to liking them. While with Atropa, who is new to the coven, Lark finds it hard to relate to despite having believed she might have found a kindred soul in the woman. A dark witch with a love of vampires who was prisoner to faeries made for a good friend on paper. In reality, the two struggle to resolve their separate issues in a way that makes them compatible. Both having a number of issues, the two end up in a more tentative state of friendship than actual friendship. Rafaello, though, remains her closest connection.

Rafaello is who she bonded with first, though bonding remains a loose term still. It was more that shared proximity again and the realization that both of them shared somewhat similar experiences. Neither of them ever discuss it in detail, but it does bring an understanding to them that makes the presence of the other one easier to bear. It is because of that that when Rafa becomes king and offers Lark her freedom, she chooses to stay with him and help him in his war. Among other things. Lark doesn't take lightly what happened to her, after all. But Rafa did save her and did offer her something no one else did. And because of this, Lark finally gets to define herself. Even if the real her isn't hardly any different than the her in captivity, at least she knows it's her by her choice and not because she's forced to behave a certain way. She will always be grateful to Rafa for having shown her that.

What happened to her in the kingdom under the sea, though, will always follow Lark around. Partly because she can't escape it, even if she wanted to. Only one person ever solved how to fight blood addiction in vampires, and he was trapped in Fae. Lark had to learn to combat her addiction herself, but because vampire blood is a magical substance and not chemical substance it can't truly be gotten rid of through sheer will alone. Lark's never found any other way to cleanse it, though, and thus she combats it by seeking to master it. Lark loathes to show vulnerability and weakness, something learned from watching vampires for so long, and so she thinks she can just fight it off. In the end, she has come back from it a lot more than expected. She has more control over her life. But the dreams always find a way back into her head. Dreams of her torture, of Callum, of a vampire she never met but who's blood keeps her bound through centuries. What doesn't help her, though, is that Callum still tries to stalk her. She finds him looking in corners she shouldn't be seeing him, and fighting to get her back.

Despite what Callum did to her, Lark isn't driven so much by vengeance over what she suffered but to win the war. Always wanting to prove herself, she doesn't want Callum to imagine her loss and suffering before were of weakness. She wants to prove that she can defeat him. And the fact that all she can do so far is stave off his advancement brings her no end of frustration, much to Callum's enjoyment.

And so, when these dreams from the addiction and taunts from Callum become overwhelming, Lark turns to self-medication to deal with her problems most often. She replaces one addiction with another, typically smoking or drinking or the favorite flavor of drug for that decade. She's always on and off some substance, rarely on for longer than months to a year at a time, but during this time she's not always the most dependable of people. She can be crueler, sharper, or even disappear entirely at times. Always desiring to be strong, however, she refuses to accept help or admit her problems. Currently, she had been sober for the last four years. Not a record, but it's going decently strong.

Lark can be a hard person to deal with. If she has a soft side, it's hard to find it. The best time to catch Lark during a softer moment is during aerial dance practice. Discovering this at the turn of the century in 1999, Lark found herself entranced with it. Despite her freedom, Lark sometimes feels the strains of her limitations in her inability to be flexible in her personality and her own hardness. This type of dance spoke to her of a whole other level of freedom, and she's spent years practicing it. She's not a public performer, though, preferring to practice privately. It's for her, really, and no one else. She doesn't mind if anyone happens on her to watch, she just doesn't seek out showing off. It's the one thing she's content to not have to prove herself in but truly just enjoy. This is why finding her during or after can be the only time to find her in a truly relaxed state. Lark isn't sure if whether she desires to always be like she is when she's dancing, calm and at peace with herself, or if she ever can be like that at all times. It doesn't necessarily matter in the end, though.

Outside of that, Lark can seem wound tight with her harsh words and her constant sarcasm and pragmatism. Since she tends to think clearly and logically, she has little room for people who think more emotionally. It's not impossible for her to work with them, it's just not on very friendly terms. Because of this, she can get too aggravated quickly. She has a short amount of patience that seems to be spent very quickly. Her sarcasm can become too biting, her dark humor too cruel, and her attitude verging on almost frustrated. The truth is, she has more patience that she appears to have. It's more that the breakdown in communications can make it harder for her to communicate, and so she relies more heavily on her natural attitude. With her natural behaviors already verging on cruel and unkind, it can be hard to work with her if one takes things too personally.

Lark herself doesn't take too much too personally, though. When she's not offended, it easily rolls off her. What can get her defenses up fast, however, is taking control from her or implying she's not adept at any one thing. The latter is due to the competitive nature Mariana instilled in her. While she doesn't have to be the best of the best, Lark does like to be seen as competent. And implying she's anything less can truly drive her to more anger and cruelty. The former, though, is from having her freedom restricted too often. Lark has a slew of authority issues now. She works best with Rafa because despite him being the one to ask a lot of her, she can always say no and he still sees her as an equal and not a subordinate. Though even he can test those limits if it seems to be pushing past equality and more demanding. As such, Lark doesn't like to command so much as work together. In fighting, sometimes someone has to give direction. It's different from simple order and typically, at least in her experience, tends to be more considerate of others and their skills than authority figures do. But implying she's incompetent and wresting control from her can really be the quickest way to anger Lark.

All in all, Lark struggles with her past. It's left her hard and pragmatic. She finds it difficult to form relationships, and after a few centuries even she's looking for someone like her. Having found no one, though, she doesn't try to change. She's set in her ways and can come off cruel because of it. She really only gets offended rarely so often, preferring her own company most of the time now. If anyone can stand her, her sarcasm and dark humor can almost be a relief. She really just wants to continue her studies, though, and finally put an end to this war.

POWERS

Dark magic does not differ from white magic so much that it departs from the natural order. Where white mage focuses on defensive techniques, healing capabilities, and using the living world for aid and support, dark magic is more offensive in nature, damages many greatly, and uses chaos in the natural world to provide its strength. For example, a white mage may use a bird who has died naturally in life to boost defensive barriers. A dark mage would kill the bird and use it’s blood to sharpen offensive weaponry. While dark, and somewhat chaotic, dark magic still follows a natural set of rules that pertain to Earth. Thus, Lark’s own magic depends heavily on blood, sacrifice, and generally more chaotic elements.

Some things, however, both subsets still utilize the same sorts of concepts and some of the same spells done differently. Some concepts include the use of life ( given freely in the instance of white witches; taken for dark witches ). Patterns and drawings are also very common, but white magic tends to use more circles and swirls and loops. Dark magic is more prone to using sharp lines, tight angles, and lots of crosses.

As far as shared types of magic, scrying is one such type. Scrying is more difficult, however, to a dark witch than to a white one. A white witch might use water from a naturally flowing spring, where a dark witch would use blood or pomegranate juice. A white witch would find scrying easier to do than a dark witch might, as dark witches would be better at concealing rather than revealing. Another such magic the two share is that of tarot. Witches communicate strongly with forces that move the world, and thus can channel these forces to find answers in tarot. Tarot is more dependent on user, though, rather than on dark or white magic. Dark witches tend to get more direct answers from tarot, though, where witches tend to get more optimistic outlooks. Thus, a dark witch tends to have a more clear idea of the future from tarot. Lark’s own tarot is sharp, curt, and direct.

Lark’s own abilities tend to be more war-centered. She finds the magic that creates the most pain and chaos and spreads it wide.

Poison in bullets - spread by magic not gas so can’t be filtered
Flash fire - not so effective against water types but it makes a point, this spell creates fire quickly that burns bright and harsh and is usually used on the edge of a blade
Concealing talismans - only work to avert the gaze, only to be worn once. Once taken off or the necklace broken, the talisman comes off. If standing out too much/being too loud, can null the talisman
Immortality - this involves physically tearing the heart from the witches' body and a great deal of vampire blood, though not to turn vampiric. Using the vampire blood brings about a perfect mixture of faerie and demon blood that when combined with the trace elements of elfin ancestry together makes just enough magic to keep the heart still beating
Concealing spells - work in shorter range on those within hearing, low chant that keeps things from being seen. With enough binding, can be placed on an location for permanent concealment, this is used to conceal her heart.
Scrying - typically uses blood to accomplish this task, involves being in a vary vulnerable state
Sleep spells - effects weakened minds the best, long string of spell work to accomplish, though, can leave her vulnerable while casting
Blood magic - usually through others, like making blood boil inside someone
Choking spell - combined with proper elements, an incantation that can control someone's breathing, like stealing their breath and giving it back. Requires natural elements to make effective

Most of Lark's spells are incantation and nature-based, a mixture of both to make them workable. It's also nature's way of keeping her in balance. As a whole, these are spells that are most often used by Lark. Some take greater strain than others in this list, with immortality taking the greatest sacrifice. Anything else she learns, or does, takes greater strains and tolls on her body. Sometimes she can be left blind for days after a spell, even one that goes well.

Ultimately, witches are mortal and still susceptible to being killed fatally. Lark's immortality, however, means she can survive nearly any attack and be able to come back from it. But being dismembered can make it hard to put yourself back together, so some things are more effective than others. If her heart is ever found, though, it would be simple to destroy it and kill her.

SKILLS

In addition to magic, Lark has been taught/picked up a number of skills in her lifetime that have become useful to her:

•	Research, documentation, and application - in her pursuit of magical knowledge, Lark has researched a lot. She has learned the most effective ways to find what she needs, search them quickly, and extract what remains relevant to her. In doing so, she's also learned to document her tests and record her successes in her grimoire. This is something she has great practice in.
•	Stratagem - over the centuries, Lark has been given more responsibility in Rafaello's army as one of the few he trusts. She's done extensive research on battle strategies, and tried her best to adapt them to fighting an enemy with tails and who's home turf is in the water. As such, her more practical knowledge tends to be for small battalions and in adverse conditions.
•	Aerial dance - a past time of Lark's, she's used to climbing things and pulling her body into weird positions. She's also not afraid of falling. This has also helped give her stronger core muscle strength and tight control over her body.
•	Peak human condition - most days. When not abusing substances, Lark will train herself to keep physically fit. She takes as much pride in her combat training as she does her magic, and as such knows the necessity of keeping a healthy body. She also trains a young werewolf in fighting, and thus always finds time for more practice.
•	Hand to hand combat - one of the fighting techniques she does decently. She can fight hand to hand and in close combat generally, though she doesn't typically favor this kind of fighting style.
•	Weapons Training - swords, knives, and daggers are her preferred weapons of choice. She has some passing knowledge of bows and arrows, and she can use a gun. Though she's allergic to modern weaponry and prefers not to use guns.
•	Reconnaissance - along with stratagem, her greatest strength is strategies for recon teams. She works better in smaller groups with more exact targets, and her magic is best with deception and covert operations.
•	Psychological warfare/Torture - along the same lines, she knows how to push bodies to physical limits. A lot of research for her magic has involved dissecting bodies of all kinds, including humans. She knows the ways to hurt people and how to use that pain mentally to torture them. It was among her first non-magical skills learned.
•	Mental/Physical Fortitude - after what she's had to endure with vampires and then the actual torture she's endured, she's learned how to take it more than most. That's not to say she can't be broken, she's been pushed to the brink and beyond, but it takes longer with her. And it takes a lot.

- 1 blouse
- 1 pair of pants
- 1 belt
- 1 pair of boots
- 1 necklace
- 1 bracelet set
- 1 ear cuff
- 2 rings
- undergarments
- 1 grimoire ( not applicable in this world )
- 1 cell phone ( obsolete )
- 1 credit card ( obsolete )
- 1 identification card ( obsolete )