Candela Quitral

Appareance
Candela is a young woman with wavy shoulder-length burgundy hair and skin of medium-light complexion. She has brown eyes and has a curvy yet tonified body. Since she's a dog Faunus, she has a pair of black ears on her head.

Her outfit consists of a long vintage dress (inherited from her grandmother) in shades of wine red, burgundy, dark orange and black, a red/burgundy/black corset with copper buttons, black/light brown leggings that fade to dark brown, and vintage boots that have the same colors of her dress and that also have buttons made of lapis lazuli. She also wears a red choker with black frills and with a lapis lazuli stone, a hairnet with little lapiz lazuli beads, a black hat with flower and feather decorations (therefore hiding her Faunus ears), and light brown lace gloves. She also wears several gold and lapislazuli earrings in her human ears.

Time skip
WIP

Personality
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Candela is, funnily enough, a warm and understanding person. While she seems to be very lady-like and formal in her exterior, she's actually the opposite when people get to know her: she has a good sense of humor, is outspoken (sometimes too much), and sometimes behaves in a silly way, specially when she wants to cheer up somebody. She tends to swear frequently and pepper her speech with slang when she's with friends or when she's talking in an informal context. Because of her spontaneity, she can end up saying things that can be hurtful to others without noticing, but she always clarifies that she isn't talking seriously. However, she tends to be passive-agressive with people when angry.

Candela is a relaxed person and isn't a big fan of conflict, specially when she has to lead or when she's responsible of something important; because of this, she tries to keep peace in her team, though she's also conscious that she's the leader and that she has to keep order as well, and isn't afraid of expressing her discontent when things have gone too far.

She's also a highly intuitive person, and is surprinsingly a good strategist; these traits can be seen at how she manages to make team CHRL perform well in battle even if they don't have the best relationships each other. She's also a loyal person and can be very patient with the people she loves.

Even if she came from a wealthy family, she's very understanding with those in need (since she experienced being poor too) and tries to be as helpful as possible to both humans and Fauni. She isn't ashamed of her Faunus heritage, but hides her ears just for "strategical" reasons (and because Paz scares her). Besides her ears, some dog-like attitudes can be seen on her, such as her tendency to chewing on things (pencils most of times) when she's nervous, enjoying doing mock fights with friends, or curling up into a ball when she's cuddling with somebody.

When she was younger, she sometimes juggled and did firebreathing at the streets and festivals for getting some money for helping her family, and still does this occasionally for fun.

History
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Candela belonged to a upper class family, and her family had a business that was steadily growing. Candela's ancestors worked as Hunters after her grandparents decided to not follow that path because of health issues and started a light fixtures and furniture business. Her parents kept on with the new familiar business, and the family became wealthier as the business kept growing; because of this, Candela had a good childhood without major issues. However, because of her Faunus heritage and because of their wealth, Candela and her siblings didn't go outside too often, as her parents were afraid of getting them hurt or being targeted because of their background.

One day, Candela and their family were having tea time as usual, when one of the oil lamps that were near their table fell. The fire of it quickly spread to the curtains, and then covered the whole room. Candela's parents rushed their children to the exit and left them outside of home while they screamed to their workers to get outside and also tried to help them to make it to the door, but it was complicated, if not impossible to some. Having most, if not their whole home damaged, some of their workers with injuries or even dead, and few things left besides the things they were wearing, Candela's family had no choice but starting everything from scratch, and also assume the consequences of the accident; her parents had to pay for the things that happened to their domestic workers, therefore ending up poor and in debt, and the whole cause of the accident, why did that lamp fell, remained a mystery and Candela's parents had no choice but assume it was a design flaw of the lamp, and that it probably fell because of the wind from a nearby window that was open. Little Candela, eager to help and to be useful, wished to become a Huntress like her grand-grandparents so she could get a good job, and also help as much people as she could besides her family. While her parents wished her to keep up with their business at first, they came to the conclusion that this was probably the best option they had at the moment, as their work ended up in ashes and that if Candela followed the Hunting path then she would have both a safe income and she would be able to help her family economically as well.

Wielding Cristo de Mayo, her great-grandmother's weapon, Candela learnt in an academy the basics about Hunting, and also studied about her ancestors' fighting techniques with help of her family; when she became 17 years old, she applied for Beacon and got accepted. Now that she's older and that knows about the prejudices and racism towards Fauni, Candela has the suspiction that somebody made that lamp fell and cause the fire for harming her family and their business. She hopes to be able to clarify the case someday.

Time skip
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Candela goes back to her parents' home to try to help them with the business, but they insist on having her training to become a Huntress, so they hire a personal teacher for her. Candela accepts the offer, but can't help but miss Paz and Victor; she meets Colby at least once a week since they don't live too away from each other so at least she retains contact with him. Candela isn't aware that Victor lied about being back in Atlas, when he's actually hiding in Vale.

Weapon


Candela has a Dust Ignition Zweihänder-Cross (DIZC) called Cristo de Mayo as her weapon of choice. It's a cross-shaped weapon that on its collapsed form is around 150 cm tall. Besides its idle/collapsed form, it has 3 modes:
 * Cross form, which is the default form;
 * Torch/trident form, which is the option that produces the most fire;
 * And Zweihänder mode; the shaft of the cross acting as its sheath. In this mode, Cristo de Mayo is around 180 cm long.

Cristo de Mayo has several fire Dust crystals incrustated, which turn the weapon on fire; though these can be changed for other types of Dust crystals if Candela wishes to, and Candela herself can change the intensity of the fire on the weapon with her Semblance. Cristo de Mayo can also shoot bursts of fire in torch/trident mode.

This weapon is named after the Chilean religious icon of the same name.

In the time skip, Cristo de Mayo gets a modification on its blade, now being a Flammenschwert (flame-bladed sword) instead of a common Zweihänder.

Abilities
Candela can be very destructive in battle thanks to both her weapon and her Semblance, and has good defensive capabilities as well thanks to this and her stamina; she's the tank of the team, taking and dealing damage for protecting her teammates and pretty much being a "moving firewall". She's also the strategist of the team. However, Candela is a slow fighter in comparision to her teammates, and lacks precision in ranged combat.

Her Aura's color is copper, and her Semblance is called Playing with Matches. It consists of Candela herself becoming inflammable by will; when she activates her Semblance, everything and everybody who happens to touch or rub against her body will get burnt or even set on fire; a faint touch will only burn slightly (and probably not burn enough for setting on fire), but a strong friction against the foe's skin can set them on fire and cause severe burns. Candela sometimes even uses her Semblance on herself, turning parts of her outfit on fire so enemies have a harder time reaching her. Her eyes get a slight copper-colored shine as a side effect when she activates her Semblance.

Relationships

 * Paz Himeyuri: Even if Candela is the leader of the team and they have a fair, conflict-less relationship, she's secretely scared of Paz and her cold, merciless attitude, and because of this she hides her Faunus heritage around her, as she's afraid of having her disobeying her orders and not trusting her; she prefers to have Paz as her ally and avoid potential conflict.
 * Victor van Rijn: Candela has a good relationship with Victor, as she's the only person of the team that treats him in a kind way, and the fact they're both Fauni make them have something important in common; not to mention Candela defends him often when Colby bullies him. They're good friends.
 * Colby London: Candela is one of the few people Colby treats with at least a bit of respect. Even if she has to deal with Colby's independent, stubborn nature (and the fact he bullies Victor) they manage to do well in battle.

Trivia
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 * She alludes to the Church of the Company fire, considered the deadliest fire in history.
 * Her emblem is a mix between an oil lamp (an oil lamp caused the fire) and a Chilean bellflower. Candela also happens to have Chilean bellflowers on her hat.
 * She also wears things made of lapiz lazuli, a semi-precious stone mined in Chile.
 * Her copper-colored Aura is a wink to Chile being the biggest productor of copper in the world.
 * Her clothes are inspired by 1860's fashion; the fire happened in 1863.
 * Not to mention the big hoop skirts women wore blocked the exit in the fire, and Candela wears a dress with a skirt that resembles a big hoop skirt.
 * Candela's appareance is somewhat based on La Quintrala's. Her weapon's name is also taken from the sacred icon that according to legend belonged to her.
 * "Candelaria" is the Spanish word for Candlemas. "Candela" is an unit that measures light intensity, and also means candle in Latin. Since candles are on fire, fire alludes to the color red. "Quitral" is a surname mostly found in Chile that comes from the Mapudungun word kütral, which means "fire".
 * She's specifically a Chilean Terrier Faunus, the first dog breed from Chile.
 * Funnily enough, it happens to be a hunting breed. Chilean Terriers mainly hunt mice.
 * She's from Vale.
 * She's an ESTP.
 * She's lactose-intolerant.
 * Her favourite sport is football (not handegg), and supports the Beacon Academy F.C..
 * She drinks a lot in parties, and while she doesn't get heavily drunk she becomes more hyperventilated and willing to fight when feeling tipsy.