To anyone else, Eosthura is a hauntingly beautiful alabaster-white mare with dark brown eyes, her white mane falling like strands of starlight, hooves smooth as polished bone. She looks like she was carved from marble. Eosthura is similar in height and build as an Andalusian.

But Galatea sees the truth beneath the lie.
To her, Eosthura is a hollow thing. Her flesh is paper-thin, stretched over bones scorched black. Her mane falls in clumps, tangled with grave dirt, thorns, and dried blood. Where others see shining silver hooves, Galatea sees them cracked and splintered, dripping with a black resin that eats into the earth. Her eyes? Empty sockets crawling with insects, and yet they still lock onto Galatea like they see into the depths of her soul.

When Eosthura whinnies, the sound is distorted to Galatea's ears, layered with the moans of the dead and the crack of splitting earth.

At times, Eosthura will peel back the illusion and show others her true form - a rotting, hollow-boned mare stitched together by spite and graveyard hunger.

She is beautiful. She is wrong. She is perfect for Galatea.

Her wavy white hair, cascading just past her shoulders, shimmers like moonlight, framing her delicate face. Her pale blue eyes, due to her partial blindness, give her gaze a eerie allure. These eyes appear almost white on some days, long eyelashes frame her cold eyes. Galatea's lips are full with a soft, defined curve and a subtle cupid's bow. Naturally rose-toned, they appear richer in color. Her skin is soft and creamy, flawless except for a small beauty mark just below her eye.

Galatea often adorns herself with gold jewelry that enhances her beauty. She wears an array of earrings, bracelets, and layered necklaces that glimmer with every movement. A small golden headpiece wraps around her head, featuring three flat spikes pointing upwards, two thing bands branching from those spikes bleed over her head, and a solid circle in the middle with another flat spike pointing down towards her nose, giving her a regal appearance. Among her necklaces, one stands out - a blue sapphire pendant in the shape of a circle. This precious gem has been passed down through generations. But it is no ordinary stone, it helps her manage her powers - muting them to some extent when the dead become too much.

☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓

Galatea is the embodiment of controlled chaos, thriving in unpredictability and never hesitating to dive headfirst into the unknown. She lives for spontaneity and adventure, driven by a restless spirit that refuses to be confined by rules or expectations. Her wild-child streak is balanced by a razor-sharp intellect and keen observational skills, allowing her to navigate even the most complex situations with cunning ease. Her innovative mind is always searching for unconventional paths, fueled by an eccentric charm that both bewilders and fascinates those around her.

While she exudes fierce confidence and a quick-witted tongue, Galatea masks a softer, people-pleaser side beneath her bold exterior. She is fiercely independent, but she secretly craves to please others, often disguising her compassion beneath layers of sarcasm, sass, and playful mockery. Her bubbly energy and infectious humor can light up a room, disarming even the coldest heart, though her sharp tongue and volatile temper ignite just as quickly when her values - or those she loves - are challenged.

Resourceful and unapologetically direct, Galatea doesn’t wait for permission to act, speak, or challenge authority. She is a force of nature who refuses to back down from confrontation, meeting adversity head-on with fiery resolve. Yet, for all her ferocity, she is also adaptable and deeply loyal, standing as an unshakable pillar for those fortunate enough to earn her trust.

☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓

Galatea’s voice is melodic and lively, flowing quickly with a playful charm that mirrors her energetic personality. Her Greek accent adds a rhythmic, lyrical quality to her speech, rising and falling softly. Her tone is smooth but sharp when needed, especially when delivering sarcastic remarks, with a breathiness that emerges when she's excited.

☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓

Origins:

Galatea was born in Skopelos on a small farm and raised in the embrace of her mother and grandparents. Surrounded by a family where tradition coiled around them like ivy - tight, suffocating, and inescapable. Her father? A ghost in the wind. No one dared speak his name. When Galatea asked, her Yia Yia would spit on the ground and mutter curses, blaming every feature that didn’t look Greek on his bloodline. Pale skin, white hair, those eerie near-colorless eyes - marks of something foreign, something unwanted. But Galatea never took those to heart, she knew it was mainly hurt and anger for her mama.

She was raised in a house brimming with Earth elementals, though their magic took on darker, more feral flavors than the polished temple healers of the cities. Earth isn’t just about healing roots, sturdy stone, or growing crops. It’s about what the earth keeps buried. Bones, decay, rot, the endless cycle of death feeding life.

Her Papou and mama taught her the old ways - potions that tasted like wet dirt, brews that bubbled with spores, poultices made of roots, moss, and the bones of small beasts. Her mother was what some called a Flesh Weaver, threading spores and tendrils of fungal bloom through flesh to seal wounds, letting the body knit itself around living plant matter. They healed, sure, but never cleanly. Never gently. Papou used soil rich with grave rot, saying the dead ground remembered wholeness better than the living. He was considered a Graveborn Gardener. To him, the dead weren’t to be feared - they were to be honored, fed, and made part of the cycle again. His garden bloomed from burial dirt, his cures brewed from marrow and moss. He always said the earth listened best when you spoke its oldest language: death.

But Yia Yia was something else entirely. Her branch of Earth twisted toward rot and ruin, a corrupt art called Sporesong. She grew sickly fungi, poisonous molds, creeping blight that choked out life in soft velvet waves. In the quiet corners of the island, she ran a sanctuary for battered women, offering them refuge, healing... and vengeance. Somehow, the abusive husbands always fell deathly ill. And though people whispered, they never dared point fingers. The Vasilis family was not to be crossed - the earth itself seemed to turn against those who tried.

Galatea’s ability blossomed at a young age. Her mama was always cautious with her, aware of their raw, untamed force. They tried to contain her magic using a stone. Without it, her abilities were rampant, uncontrollable. Necromancy, or something similar they weren't quite sure. She can tap into the rotting underbelly, the grave-rich soil, the memory of bones.

It was dark, powerful, and unpredictable. Her family taught her that the Earth remembers the dead. Holds them tight in its dirt-stained hands. Witches like Galatea can pry open those memories, call up the voices buried beneath centuries of mud and root, raise bodies that the soil was trying to forget.

Her Yia Yia became the one to nurture these powers. For once, she took Galatea under her wing, removing the pendant that kept her abilities in check. Yia Yia showed her the true extent of her gifts, teaching her how to bend death to her will. That death was never truly the end. This was always useful for Yia Yia’s... disposal methods. The bodies typically vanished without a trace, thanks to Galatea’s powers, leaving no evidence but the faint whisper of the dead in the air that could be excused away with Papou's ability.

She might have lived her whole life on that island, another strange Vasilis witch in the shadows, if the world hadn’t come knocking. The cracks split the earth like open wounds, crawling across oceans, clawing their way onto her island, bleeding into the soil she’d once thought was hers.
And where the cracks spread, strangers followed.

Witches with polished magic and cold, clean hands dragged her from her home, tearing her from the wild place she belonged.

They didn’t ask. They didn’t explain. They shoved her into the center of their crumbling system and told her she had a claim to leadership - alongside seven other young adults dragged from their corners of the world and forced into the same gilded cage.