¶ Miranda Collins
- Age: 29
- Rating:
P14A-M10 - Preferred School: Dark
- Known Schools: Dark, Neutral, Technomancy
¶ Public Bio
Miranda is the daughter of Heather Collins, founder of the Church of Hekate, a neo-pagan religious movement that has become quite popular in the last decade. Her mother, a charismatic leader, is also an open practitioner of Magic, being known as "one of the most powerful witches of the modern era". Mir and her mother do not see eye to eye, and her family's legacy is something that Mir spent most of her life trying to escape. She spent a brief time in the military, completely disowning her mother. However, a rival of her mothers tracked Mir down and attacked the base where she was stationed. It was only due to her quick thinking and the knowledge her mother had given her about magic that allowed Mir to save herself and a handful of her colleagues.
It's only recently that Mir has embraced her magical talents, becoming one of the few experts in the growing field of 'technomancy'. Ignoring her family's talents for the darker arts, Mir now lends her talents to the local police, helping to solve crimes involving magical devices. Through this work, she met Emerwyn, and consequently, Liz. Out of all of the household, she has the most reservations about their host. On the other hand, Liz was more than generous with allowing her to make alterations to her basement apartment...
¶ Abilities
Miranda is a very well studied Magic User. She actively practices Neutral Magic, and researches Imbuement among other aspects. Still, her attunement is to Dark magic, therefore she is much more comfortable casting dark spells.
¶ Shadowmancy
Given her strong natural affinity to Dark magic, she has never struggled to focus Dark magic into a physical form. She doesn't like doing this; having seen her mother do this frequently. She attempts to maintain her skills, though she's not as avid a practitioner of this as Simon is.
¶ Summoning
This is one of the rare Dark magic skills she practices. Mostly, she is focused on extra-planar portals, as opposed to the creatures contained there-in. She has, unfortunately, had to gain a working knowledge of the residents of these other planes; she is not always as careful as Simon is.
While Simon would off the top of his head know the right spell to summon the right Devil for any particular pact you needed to make, Mir would more likely know how to open a portal to the demonic realm, and would know which denizens to avoid at all costs.
¶ Technomancy
Mir's major focus over the last few years as been combining magic and technology. Not something as simple as putting a spell on a phone; rather making a cellphone with perfect coverage, regardless of location, or making scratch-proof glass by freezing it in time, etc. A lot of her work is theoretical; she attempts actual experiments when she is able, but it's a costly occupation, prone to explosions.
¶ Teleportation
Mir is extremely good at teleportation. It takes her less energy than most, and she has always had a natural affinity for this type of Dark magic. It's the one thing that comes so effortlessly to her, she often has to concentrate not to use it; when she's extremely angry or afraid, she will naturally start using this gift.
This isn't to say normal teleportation rules don't apply to her; she has more than once fallen unconscious after 'tele-pacing' her room while ranting about something her mother did that greatly upset her.
¶ Relationships
¶ Fhadiana Fletcher
Miranda had always been on the hunt for places to buy rare books on magic. She got tipped off by an online group about a hole in the wall bookstore named "The Linwald Rare Bookstore", she had to go check it out. There she met Fha and got a lot more than she bargined for. (See Fhadiana's version for details.)
Miranda is much more willing to try the whole 'being in a lesbian relationship' thing that Fha is. She still find herself struggling, some times, because she just doesn't feel natrually attracted towards the female form, but when it's Fha, she had trouble keeping her hands to herself. The academic in her finds the whole thing wildly fascinating, meanwhile the rest of her just wantds to cry in frustration.
Miranda knows she loves Fhadiana, but she's been trying to figure out if she's in love with the wizard. She feels like all the other road blocks might be standing in her way for truely feeling like she's in love with Fha. It's hard though, because she feels like she might be running away from facing the hard truth that she is. After the last person she was in love with dropped her so unceremoniously, she's a bit gun shy.
¶ Lizbeth Locke
At first, Miranda felt jealous of Liz. She was woried that the flamboyant and direct mercinary was trying to steal Fhadiana for herself; repeated assurances that there was nothing between them didn't help. What finally did it for her was learning that they'd actually known each other for a long time and even lived together for a while, with nothing happening. The closeness she was picking up on wasn't romance, it was friendship.
Once she actually got to know the mercinary, Mir's admiration for the woman went up immensely. She deeply respects Liz's moral code; while she doesn't agree with the dynamic woman on everything, she respects that Liz puts herself on the line for her morals.
Miranda considered Liz to be a friend, just not a close one, yet. She would love a chance to deepen that relationship, but there's hardly been any time since moving in.
¶ Jonathan Simon
Miranda was unsure what to make of Simon at first. He was standoffish and rude, rolling his eyes at anything she said. The one night, she was up late working on a particularly frustrating magitech problem. She'd finally decided to step away and make her way upstairs to get a snack and clear her head. Not even thirty seconds later, Simon wanders into the kitchen and starts brewing some tea. Attempting to be cordial, Miranda asked what had him up so late, and without missing a beat he said he could hear her failure attempts across the hall. He came up simply to see what could have possibly possessed her to keep trying this early into the morning.
So, she explained the problem to him. He listened, without judgement, and then started asking her questions, seeing what all she'd tried. So Miranda (without thinking about it) just casually summoned her work notes and started going over them with Simon. He found a few places where she'd made some simple mistakes; the kinds of things she'd have caught if she wasn't so tired. Still, it didn't fix the overall problem. So, they dug into it. Next thing she knews, they're a few pots of tea, it's ealry morning, and both of them have been working at the kitchen table for hours.
In the end, days later, she had a breakthrough and showed it to Simon, who complimented her genius. Miranda has learned since he never gives compliments like that to anyone. She'd earned his respect, and since then, his friendship, after a fashion. He comes to her with tricky magic problems, and she comes to him with the same. They have a mutual respect for each other's craft, but more than that, she's the second person he actually implicitly trusts and isn't worried about appearances with. She deeply appreciates that.
¶ Linore Charon
The events of their meeting are told in the comic.
Miranda likes Linore, once they are forced to work together. What draws her to the Enclave Knight is the same thing she admires about Liz: Linore has a code and will put her own safety on the line to stick to that code. She thinks Linore is funny, kind, and incredibly intelligent.