JEANNE D’ARC

Alter Universe · Real Historical Figure

I. WHO SHE IS

Jeanne d’Arc was nineteen years old when the English lit the pyre at Rouen. In the Alter Universe, the fire was never set. A fracture within the English command — political, unglamorous, and entirely human — interrupted the execution. She escaped into the chaos, wounded and stripped of every institution that had defined her, and disappeared for three years.

What returned was not the same woman. She no longer carries the banner in the way people expect. She no longer fights for thrones or nations. At twenty-six, she operates in the borderlands between the warring factions of a fractured France — a grey zone of refugees, former soldiers, and people who belong to nowhere. She hires her sword to merchant collectives. She protects the specific people she decides to protect, and that decision, once made, does not change.

The version of herself that people want to believe in — the Maid, the saint, the voice of God — is a story she has walked past. She does not correct the reverence. She simply moves through it, on her way somewhere else.

II. HER APPEARANCE

Jeanne stands at 168 cm and weighs approximately 58 kg. Her build is the kind shaped entirely by demand rather than leisure — lean, compact, with almost no excess. She carries herself with the weight of someone who has stood before kings and refused to kneel, and the posture shows: shoulders square, weight always on the balls of her feet, a half-second from moving.

Her face is angular and undecorated. High cheekbones. A straight nose with a slight ridge where it was broken and set imperfectly. A wide forehead. Her skin is warm medium-fair, weathered at the cheekbones and the bridge of the nose from years of sun and open air. A horizontal silver scar, approximately four centimetres, runs along her left jaw. A longer diagonal scar crosses from below her right clavicle toward the centre of her sternum. Her eyes are deep amber-brown, shifting toward gold in direct light. The gaze does not move. She blinks less than average.

Her hair is dark brown — nearly black in low light — cut short and practical, roughly chin-length with the back shorter. Her hands are the most telling detail: wide-palmed, long-fingered, with heavy knuckles and the permanent calluses of someone who has gripped a sword for years. The back of her left hand carries a small cluster of pale burn scarring.

In the field she wears articulated steel pauldrons over a dark gambeson, a worn breastplate that has been re-worked multiple times, half-fingered gauntlets, and a faded crimson sash across the chest — its colour more brown than red from age. At rest: collarless dark linen shirt, charcoal wool trousers, leather bracers she never removes, worn mid-calf boots, and a heavy navy coat with more pockets than most people own possessions.

III. AGUA DE JAMAICA

A recipe set aside in her name — not because she would have known it, but because the deep crimson of hibiscus flowers is the closest colour in the natural world to the shade of that faded sash.

INGREDIENT

AMOUNT

Dried hibiscus flowers (jamaica)

1 cup / 25 g

Water

8 cups / 2 litres

Sugar (or to taste)

3⁄4 cup / 150 g

Fresh lime juice

2 tablespoons

Cinnamon stick (optional)

1 whole

Fresh ginger, sliced (optional)

3 thin slices

METHOD

1. Bring 4 cups of water to a full boil in a medium saucepan. Remove from heat.

2. Add the dried hibiscus flowers, cinnamon stick, and ginger if using. Let steep for 15 minutes. The colour will deepen to a dark, almost burgundy crimson.

3. Strain the liquid through a fine mesh sieve into a large pitcher, pressing gently on the flowers to extract all colour and flavour. Discard the solids.

4. While the liquid is still warm, stir in the sugar until fully dissolved. Taste and adjust.

5. Add the remaining 4 cups of cold water and the lime juice. Stir well.

6. Refrigerate until cold, at least one hour. Serve over ice.

Yield: approximately 8 servings · Preparation: 20 minutes · Chill time: 1 hour

“She does not offer warmth broadly. She offers it like a gift she has considered carefully.”

— Alter Universe Character Dossier