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► you were always there, smiling
Jul. 16th, 2025 04:42 pmFather: Uther (deceased)
Mother: Igrainne (deceased)
Legal guardian: Ector
Sister: Morgan
Brothers: Kay (honorary), Gawain (her actual brother).
Head of Lab: Merlin.
Lab researchers: Bedivere, Agravain.
→ All employees use codenames and are forbidden from speaking or giving their real names at all times.
⸨ background ⸩
► The Pendragon Group would be the equivalent to the Kirijo Group in the west, with Kouetsu and Uther carrying an unholy collaborative research effort. While Kouetsu became obsessed with bringing about The Fall to annhilate humanity, Uther saw potential in using this new power to correct it.
► Artoria (6) and Uther (47) were present during the incident 10 years ago. While Uther remained unharmed, Artoria took serious damage and had to be taken back to England for treatment. After this, the Pendragon Group withdrew all support and cut communications with the Kirijo, carrying on their own Questionable Research in isolation.
► Artoria Pendragon was a confirmed Persona user of The Fool arcana by the time of the accident, thus capable of summoning multiple personae. This fact was kept zealously hidden, and it was known only by the listed members of her sphere.
► A week after the incident, her organs start collapsing.
► Following Merlin's counter plan, they utilize their current research to entrap the soul, transferring it to a new developing body (clone). The ritual/experiment is a success but comes at the cost of Uther's life, who offered himself as the living catalyst needed for the operation (equivalent exchange). It also burns through their resources, leaving the laboratory in shambles and effectively putting their advancements in hold for the next five to ten years.
► (I envision the equivalent to a Summoner and other arcane shit in England operates closer to the likes of an Alchemist, with the fae obviously replacing demons and the likes).
► Artoria proceeds to stay in a coma, rapidly developing in her funky tube to match her "correct" age.
► When she wakes up her entire personality has changed and she is no longer able to summon multiple personae.
► Two years have passed since the incident with the Kirijo.
► Everyone around her is devastated, taking her change in personality and what they now perceived as her crippled ability as either trauma manifesting due to the questionable circumstances of her "rescue" or a complete failure of the experiment.
► Understanding that the latter would mean that Uther's life was sacrificed for nothing, she quickly starts to suppress her own quirks and personality to model herself after the hazy memories she has of what "Artoria Pendragon acted like".
► Her older sister Morgan (15) becomes enraged by her presence, immediately rejecting her and denouncing her as a failure and impostor.
► Old man Ector takes guardianship of the three siblings, relocating Artoria to the family's summer residence and secondary lab in the country to aid her in her recovery. His son Kay (17) decides to go along with her, while Gawain (14) stays in London, taking regular trips to the house to keep her from feeling lonely, doing his best effort to reconcile the sisters. . . by gently guiding her back into her "proper self", fully convinced that it is all a case of trauma induced amnesia.
► The only one that doesn't regard her with pained eyes is Merlin, who assures her that however she may now be, she is still herself.
► She doesn't believe him.
► Kay is the first of the kids to accept that Artoria is gone, but unlike Gawain's efforts to deny reality or Morgan's hateful rejection, he decides instead that the girl is still worth of love and acceptance.
► "Lily" is the nickname he gives her, which later on she will adopt as a middle name.
► She uses her time in seclusion to familiarize herself with her body, relentlessly training and studying about Persona and Shadows and the Dark Hour and The Unholy Things happening in England That I don't have the Brain Power to Think About Right now.
► By age nine she successfully manages to summon back her persona. . . to the disappointment of everyone.
► Artoria's initial persona had been Artorius, an offensive tank clearly referencing the legendary king of old.
► While Lily's Godiva (firmly syncretized with the figure of the May Queen) is still mighty strong. . . If Persona are a reflection of the user's inner mind and soul, then Artoria she is not.
► Morgan takes this as a sign that she has been an impostor all along, and demands that she be put down or cast away immediately. Gawain strongly opposes, arguing that since their sister's Artorius had been too strong a Persona even before the accident, it made sense for her to reconnect with her ability by unconsciously choosing a more manageable one. However long it may take her, he stands firm in his belief that she is indeed their sister.
► And so Lily does her best to try as hard as she's able to live as her true self (x). From the very start, she always had feared that the hazy memories that so made her heart ache were not actually her own, but more like echoes manifesting through the body she came to inhabit. Merlin once told her: when the mind forgets, the body always remembers. So perhaps, if she forces herself to shut down the wrong parts from herself, then the memories of the body will eventually awaken and overtake her.
► "That would surely be an outcome that would please everyone.
► For the next years, she continues to train and assist Merlin with his research while maintaining a prince-like persona around classmates and the public, embodying the calm, elegant mannerisms of the girl Artoria Pendragon would have grown up to be (according to everyone else).
► Until the eve of her 16th birthday, when she happens to stumble upon a phone conference between Merlin and Ikutsuki, barging in after hearing what the man had to say regarding the situation in Port Island.
► And so she decides to go back to Japan to aid the Kirijo Group. While Merlin agrees with her resolution, everyone else firmly opposes it. While arguing that they owe nothing to the Kirijo after that tragic night, they also remind her that should anything come to pass, they have no more miracles to rely on this time.
► But for Lily the answer is clear. Rather than to continue to aimlessly wield her sword, if by going to Japan and eradicating the Dark Hour from its bud they can put an end to what is presumed to be the root of all the distortions manifesting in England, then she will gladly take on any danger that may befall her.
► ( Back then... So many innocent lives were lost. Am I to turn a blind eye now to the suffering of more out of a sense of misplaced resentment? Is that what father would have wanted? It's been so many years already, but none of our efforts here have changed a thing. So if there's a chance, small as it may be, for this nightmare to end once and for all... Then I will gladly fight for it. )
► And so, two months before the start of a new school year, Artoria Pendragon leaves for Japan.
