The Apprentice, Resurrected

Childhood —

Elvira was born to Ignacio and Camila Casimiro on a small farm in the Venterre countryside. The small family was not wealthy and did not have the help of immediate or extended family. Ignacio was orphaned young and Camila had no contact with her parents or her older sister Marina. However, they were a very close and loving family unit. Elvira’s parents worked their land and managed farm animals, selling the products of their labor to survive. Camila was also a seamstress, and would make and repair clothes for the people in the nearby village. When Elvira was young, her father was in an accident on his way to a village further away to sell produce. He died and left Camila and Elvira to fend for themselves. Camila grew depressed when her husband died, but she tried to hide it from her daughter and continue to manage the farm without him. It became difficult to manage a young child, a farm, and herself as she grew sick from an illness she didn’t know she had at the time. Slowly, her health grew fragile, and many of the farm chores that couldn’t be supplemented by young Elvira went undone. The crops went unplanted, the farm animals were slaughtered for food. Eventually, food became scarce and Elvira had to steal from the surrounding farms for survival. She spent much of those years tending to a bedridden Camila. At the end of her days, Camila wrote a letter to her estranged sister Marina, letting her know that she was dying and leaving her little girl behind, and sent it to the last known place she knew her sister to be: Vesuvia. When Elvira was 15, Camila passed away, not knowing what would happen to her daughter. 

A couple of days after Camila’s passing, a woman dressed in black came to what was left of the Casimiro farm. She was tall, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a striking resemblance to Camila. She told Elvira that her name was Marina, and that she was her mother’s sister. Showing her Camila’s letter, she informed the young girl that she was to come and live with her in Vesuvia, upon her mother’s request. Initially, Elvira refused. The years of struggling and watching her mother slowly die had hardened the girl. She didn’t trust her aunt, who was a stranger to her, nor did she want to leave behind everything she’d ever known. Eventually, she came around and left Venterre with Marina to live with her in Vesuvia. Initially, living with each other was not easy for the two women. Marina had spent her adult life living alone and she had no children, so she frankly didn’t know what to do with a teenager. Elvira was also wary of her estranged aunt, unsure of how to react to her and her new living arrangement. However, the two eventually grew close and changed each other for the better. They were both guarded people, traumatized by their pasts. But, they made each other open up. Marina became Elvira’s mentor and taught her everything she knew about magic- from potions, to spells, to fortune telling. Elvira adopted many things from Marina, like her fashion sense and her love of worldly topics- like romantic poetry and foreign languages. Eventually, Elvira befriended a young orphan named Asra that she had met a couple of times during the Masquerade and Marina took him in too. The three of them lived in happy bliss until the Plague came to Vesuvia.

The Plague —

At the start of the Plague, Marina dedicated herself to the research effort at the palace, leaving Asra and Elvira to run the shop. After months of working tirelessly to find a cure, Marina caught the Plague and died, never having the chance to say goodbye to her wards. After this devastating loss, Elvira and Asra started debating on whether or not they should stay in Vesuvia. Asra wanted to leave, but Elvira wanted to stay and finish the work that her aunt had started by any means necessary. After a huge fight tore the two of them apart, Asra left Vesuvia and Elvira offered her help to Doctor Julian Devorak as his assistant. The two worked closely together during the plague and managed to find comfort in each other while the Plague grew worse and worse (NOTE: this manifests as a romantic relationship only in Julian’s route). Eventually, Elvira, too, fell sick and died of the Plague. She passed away alone in her home, and was found with forget-me-nots tucked into the bodice of her dress and a book of poetry in her hand.

Resurrection —

When Elvira was resurrected by Asra, she had lost all memory, along with the ability to speak, read, and generally care for herself. She spent many tireless months with her former-friend-turned-mentor relearning how to perform essential tasks and how to perform magic again. While she regained some aspects of her former self- like remembering how to play certain songs on her guitar and how to care for her plants- she was no doubt different. There was only one physical difference: the hair at her temples grew out white as snow (Asra quietly remembers this as the way that Marina’s hair used to look). Personally, she had become a person Asra hardly recognized. She had guarded her heart, shut the world out like she did when she was a child and rarely ever ventured out of the shop alone. Elvira had also become fixated on regaining her memories. Even though Asra had to stop trying to help her access her memories through magic, she still had an aching in her heart to know who she was. 

When Asra left on his first trip without her, she had to learn how to tend to her own needs. Her first time venturing outside of the shop, she found a small dog shivering in the cool night air out behind the shop. The dog was still a puppy and was scrawny. She initially avoided the dog, not knowing what to do or how to take care of it. But, the dog stepped closer and seemed to be illuminated by a moonbeam. Elvira took this as a sign to bring the dog in. She named her Luna and decided to keep her as a pet after she felt a connection with her. When Asra came back, he told her that Luna was likely her familiar, and the two have been inseparable ever since.