Taelia Chiyoe

Tahanshi Chiyoe, best known as Taelia, is the aged-beyond-her-years Master of the Chiyoe Channeling Technique with a love of tea so extreme that it's strange for her not to be sipping some in between sentences. Very few people know the name of her village (or even that Taelia is not her real name) outside those that live there themselves; the clan collective is as secretive and abrasive as she is. She isn't known for her friendliness, with good reason -- she has very little. She does have some strange, vague sense of justice, however this is usually squashed by cynicism and unpleasantness. No one blames you if you don't want to talk to her.

Taelia's History
Taelia keeps her lips sealed regarding most matters of her personal life, and that goes doubly so for her life story. Woe unto you if you start asking too many questions.

Pre-Office
All that's really known about anything before the office at the moment is that she became the Master of her clan at either nine or ten years of age -- she said that she can't recall exactly, as those years are somewhat of a blur -- and that she is a previous victim of the notorious Medium Kidnapper.

Post-Office/Warehouse
For a long time, Taelia was simply a passive observer offering bitchy commentary to the events going on in the office or warehouse. It was not until a mysterious child, known only to her as Zashiki-warashi, started leaving pictures of constellations in the office did Taelia finally decide to nudge things along herself. With the help of Mariah Fey, Svyato Afanaseii and Yasha Afonos, the plot of Kurain Village to forcefully obtain an heir from Maya Fey was stopped. Aside from that, Taelia has always preferred to just watch things go down rather than do something about them.

Taelia's Personality
Tae is kind of like a porcupine with the spikes and all, except once you get her to uncurl you just get more spikes instead of something soft and cuddly. Understandably, she doesn't have many friends, and she doesn't seem to mind that. She's always been some degree of pessimistic, but to what extent has obviously changed throughout her life, just as all things do.

Pre-Office
Your guess is as good as anyone's.

Post-Office/Warehouse
When Taelia first visited the office, she was actually rather shy and easily traumatized by the random goings-on of the place (apparently tentacles really creep her out). It's assumed that at some point following this, something happened that was the final straw on the camel's back, so to speak, and she quickly regressed into bitter stoicism and hateful outlooks. She does have some soft spots, however, that can provoke emotional reactions besides annoyance or boredom, among them being tea, children (especially Svyato Afanaseii or Pearl Fey), her past, and to some degree, Maya Fey and Matthew Afanaseii. Those aside, though, while she is very good at stern politeness, Taelia is all-around just unfriendly and sour.

Chiyoe Channeling Technique
Honestly, more is known about her technique than Taelia herself. While she has never stated the name of her village, she has explained the workings of her powers and is often willing to do so if someone merely asks.

Powers
The Chiyoe technique is a careful balance between innate spiritual power and intelligence. Mediums with higher IQs in the clan are often stronger than those who shirk their studies, and sometimes if a medium is lacking in one aspect they may be able to make up for it by compensating with the other (for this reason, it is not unusual to meet naturally weak mediums who would be considered academic prodigies).

The iconic skill of the clan is the ability to channel the spirits of people in comatose bodies. This induces a temporary "death" (hospitals should always be alerted before channeling any coma patients so as to prevent disastrous results) in the body and enables the person to communicate through the medium, just as a deceased spirit would. The spirit always returns to the body afterwards, and by coincidence or some twist of fate, most patients wake up within a month or two of the channeling.

The clan's powers work best in cold, moist environments, hence their residence in the mountains. Dry heat spells are thus optimal training conditions, as a Chiyoe medium has to learn how to better utilize their powers in such situations, since naturally they will have worse control otherwise.

Heritage
It is known that the Chiyoe clan is distantly related to the Fey clan -- there have been ancestors in common in the past, and the former has adopted quite a few things from the latter, including the use of the mystical beads known as Magatamas. It is unsure as to if the two clans were separate at any point, which came about first, or even if one was a result from the other that branched out into a clan of its own; most spiritual villages aren't so big on written history, so records are sparse and muddled.

The Chiyoe have roots in Japan, however at some point immigrated to mountainous regions of the United States. But they have kept the vast majority of their culture; most of the members have knowledge of both the English and the Japanese languages, however the newer generations of mediums have difficulty with written Japanese and are only proficient in speaking it -- Taelia herself does not know too much beyond basic kanji.

Government
Taelia's clan is made up of one main family and a number of branch families, each of the latter of which elect their own representative and elder to attend council meetings. The Master, obviously, is the representative of the main family (however, the Master is not elected; it's a bloodline situation) and head of the council. In the event of the Master's absence, the next highest-ranking council member will be the acting head in their place until the Master returns.

OOC
Tae is 1/4 of what is jokingly known as the Happy Medium Adventure Club, or HMAC, which consists of Maya Fey, Pearl Fey, Matthew Afanaseii, and herself.