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Maria is a powerful witch of France that hates war and conflict and the main character of the series.
Appearance[]
Maria has short blond hair that curls on the ends, fair skin and blue eyes. She has been considered to be beautiful and wears two large red earrings, a black mini dress with slits on both sides revealing her black hot pants, and high thigh black boots. Maria dresses provocatively for a virgin.
History[]
Maria doesn't know much about her past, not even her parents or family. She only knows that her name was Maria, like the Blessed Mother, and that she was born a witch. In this world, witches are deemed heretics who are feared among the people, and because of this, she is treated as an outcast and rejected by most people.
When the Black Plague had struck the towns of France, people started to die by the hundreds. In one village, Maria heard that a child drank from a poisoned well, and she offered their people medicine that would end the sickness, but because she is a heretical witch, they refused her and threw stones. She found another village after, which was the first one to ever accept Maria. The people living there were saved from the plague by her medicine. It is deep in the forest near that village where she has made her home, and her friend Martha would visit her every day.
Present Time[]
Maria would not stand idle as men kill each other and commit horrendous acts in the name of God and glory. Using her powerful magic, she will summon various beasts and demons, even going as far as using her succubus, Artemis, to seduce soldiers into submission under the veil of night, all to stop the needless slaughter. Maria also makes special medicine for sick or injured people. While her displays of magic causes smaller folks around to love her, like Joseph and Anne, it also draws the ire of the soldiers and mercenaries, because they cannot earn their pay if they do not fight. The same is true for other witches who trade their magic for payment and work to prolong the conflict for greater profit, as her actions ruin their plans.
Upon defending Anne's village from marauding soldiers, Maria's meddling attract the attention of the Kingdom of Heaven. The Archangel Michael comes down on her for interfering in the natural struggles of man, planning to rid Maria of her powers or kill her if she resists. Joseph and Anne defend her and instead decrees that she will lose her magic if her virginity is surrendered. Ezekiel, an angel dispatched by Michael, is left to keep an eye on Maria for him, making sure she doesn't continue to interfere with the natural order. Maria is constantly irritated with Ezekiel's presence, but manages to keep up her works because she can only be punished if Ezekiel actually sees her perform the magic.
The Church also takes notice of her witchcraft as well and seeks to deal with her, deeming her a troubling heretic. The monk, Bernard, calls upon Maria to have her join the Church as a servant of God, which she refuses, much to Ezekiel's disappointment. Maria is then visited by a formless being who is long forgotten that lives in her forest called Cernunnos who will now watch her actions. After, a fellow witch by the name of Viv drops by her house who voices her complaints on behalf of the other witches, imparts a different view onto her situation, and offers her to join her witch guild which she denies.
The negative results that come from her actions leave Maria second-guessing herself, if some battles should be allowed to run their course, dealing with the scorn of the armies and the Church, as well as the feelings she develops around losing her virginity and her powers with it.
Joseph was tasked by his lord to convince Maria to stay out of an important battle that may bring an end to the war, when she finds out that he and Anne's father are involved, she decides to intervene nonetheless. Meanwhile, Ezekiel was ordered by Michael to kill her, should she use her magic in front of the masses again, but she barely avoids to fatally wound her instead. Maria is brought to the witch Edwina's home by her familiars and Viv to be nursed back to health. She meets the rest of Viv's guild while recovering in bed.
Maria returns home, despite not being fully healed, to discover that she is being blamed for the French defeat in the last battle, and the worsening of Martha's condition, which troubles Maria even more. Brother Bernard of the Catholic Church conspires to bring her down with help from the mercenary Galfa, who lost an arm in the last battle, after they have discovered the secret to the loss of her powers.
While Artemis does her usual duties, and Priapus and Ezekiel fetch Joseph to lift her spirits, Maria is ambushed by Galfa and the Church, aided by soldiers, in her own house. He releases a special drug in her own house to paralyze her and despite attempts to defend herself, he seemed to have robbed Maria of her virtue and her magic. She is then captured and imprisoned by the Church. Her friends determine that she hasn't lost her magic by the fact that her familiars still have their human forms. While Maria is imprisoned, she is examined by doctors, and it is confirmed that her virginity is intact. Maria is kept informed of current events by Priapus and her time in jail has allowed her to think about what she truly wanted from life.
They ask Viv for help in rescuing her, but Michael interferes and ends up fighting her, resulting in her being injured by Ezekiel. While she recuperates at Edwina's, she convinces her to come out of hiding and save Maria when she is about to be burned at the stake. Both of them and their familiars escape in a magic bubble.
Meanwhile, Joseph and Galfa both go off to war and confront each other in a church. While they fight, Maria has Edwina take her to the town England is occupying to save Joseph, despite being powerless. As the fight ends with Galfa's loss, Maria and Joseph argue over each other's personal flaws and in the end, realize their true feelings for each other. Joseph proposes marriage and Maria, overcome with joy, regains her magic. With her powers restored, she casts a powerful display of magic to restore her burned home, grow large trees and plants to deal with the soldiers, and lift their weapons into the sky. Maria, Joseph, and her familiars appear in a flash of magic and with flower petals raining from the sky. She heals her bruises and changes into her witch outfit, declaring to everyone she has found happiness. She then makes her cauldron appear and summons many beasts at once to scare the soldiers into running away from the battlefield. Afterwards, Maria and Joseph are forcefully called by Michael.
As Michael is fully prepared to kill Maria, Viv, Edwina, and the other witches arrive to fight for her against Michael, despite Maria's objections. Even Ezekiel defies his orders and refuses to be her spear. Confused by their united desire to defend Maria, Michael uses his heavenly powers to ask persons from afar who are involved with Maria their opinions of her, then passes judgment and decides to spare her, with Maria having been deemed a part of the world's natural balance by God. He then judges Ezekiel, an angel who has embraced free will and sided with Maria. It is decided that Ezekiel will be reincarnated as a human with Maria as her mother. Maria is the only one who objects to this, knowing she will lose her magic, but eventually gives in. Joseph leaves his lord's service, and takes Maria, as his wife, who says her goodbyes to Cernunnos as they go to live together in Ann's village.
Personality[]
Maria is a compassionate, willful, naïve, and idealistic woman who hates fighting and bloodshed of any sort. She does as she pleases and is determined to use her powers to stop war for the simple reason that she hates it, and rarely thinks before she acts. This causes her to be rather short-sighted, ignoring the ramifications of her actions, causing others to get hurt by proxy, and prolonging the war, which Michael calls her out for. Nevertheless, Maria is a very kind woman who is willing to help anyone in need, even those who have previously hurt her, going so far as to stop Joseph from beating Galfa to death after the latter had "raped" her.
Even before her virginity became tied to her magic, Maria had little interest in sex, and often got annoyed at Artemis' constant teasing of her being a virgin (especially since, as a succubus, seducing men is Artemis' job). However, she is deeply disappointed when she is told that losing her virginity will also mean losing her magic, since it means she may die without knowing the love of a man. As a virgin, she gets nervous about the idea of having sexual intercourse with men, having never experienced such a prospect before, preferring to be on her own.
Although she can be impulsive, Maria is quite clever. When Ezekiel mentions that Michael can't be watching her every second, she uses that to find ways to meddle even with Ezekiel guarding her, because she has to actually see Maria using her magic. These include sneaking off without her knowledge, flying ahead of her, or having her familiars cover her eyes. Maria also manages to talk down Bernard's constant ramblings about God by pointing out that for a supposedly all-knowing being, He has done little to benefit humanity, causing Bernard to have a crisis of faith. Because of this, Maria has a dislike for angels, God, and the Church in general and they in turn disdain her, as they believe her magic interferes with the natural order.
As stubborn as she is, Maria can be reasoned with, an example being when Joseph begs for her not to interfere with an upcoming battle, as it may very well decide the outcome of the war. Maria relents and changes her mind only by request of Anne, due to the fact that her father is fighting in the battle. Far from arrogant, Maria admits to not being perfect, stating that there have been times when people she's saved try to kill each other regardless. She even wonders if she is chasing after a hopeless dream, though she ultimately always stays true to herself. Maria also does not like people who can't think for themselves, such as when she calls out Ezekiel for never questioning her masters, asking if she's nothing more than "Heaven's mouthpiece."
In the time she was rendered powerless and imprisoned, Maria was given time to contemplate why she hates fighting so much and what she ever truly wanted. All her struggles, she tells herself if she heals the sick and stops war, everyone would be better off, but then she wonders if she wanted to be praised for saving lives. Ultimately, since she has been treated as a heretic by the world, Maria realized that deep down, she wanted to be loved by someone and for people to understand one another. Upon her escape by her familiars and Edwina, Maria rushed off to the current battle to find Joseph, whom she realized was in love with and asks to stay with her forever. Upon this, Maria concludes that everyone, including herself, is part of this world and that everyone can be happy if they find their own happiness, like she has.
Abilities[]
Witch Sorcery[]
Maria was a powerful witch who could do almost anything with sorcery. She channels her spells through a staff which she flies on like a witch's broomstick as her means of travel and a cauldron to summon her creatures and mix concoctions. She is rivaled only by Viv and outclassed by heavenly beings.
She can cast spells to generate shockwaves, barriers to shield others, create light orbs, project energy blasts, form bubbles and platforms, levitate countless objects, cast illusions, teleport herself and others with her, control weather, grow an entire forest, transform objects, heal injuries, and restore her destroyed home instantly. In the English anime, Maria implied she could charm people and turn them into toads.
She also makes special medicines using ingredients bought from Edwina that have miraculous curing properties, which she freely provides to save her village from plague and care for Martha.
Familiars[]
She can also create familiars from animals to be loyal servants. They can speak human language and are given human forms designed by their witch they can transform into at will. This is how she made Artemis and Priapus, her owl succubus and incubus created for the purpose of bewitching soldiers into leaving battlefields through sexual intercourse, though Priapus is incomplete because of Maria's innocence about male bodies. When Maria lost her magic, they reverted back to normal owls.
Summoning Creatures[]
Maria constantly summons and commands mythical beasts to interfere in human wars, enlarging them to massive proportions or at smaller sizes to defend against normal humans. She can even summon many creatures all at once. All of her monsters are listed below:
- Dragon: Her most frequently summoned monster. A blue-skinned dragon with large wings to deflect raining arrows, hard scales, and can breathe green fire to devastate battlefields.
- Cyclops: A large brute with great strength and uses a tree as a bashing club.
- Serpent: A brown-scaled snake that can fly and project a sea of flame to cover a town.
- Taranis: A mythical lightning spirit that can blind the eyes of humans specified by Maria.
- Tarasque: A green-skinned demon creature with a lion's head, six bear legs, and a turtle shell.
- Vouivre: A red, wyvern creature with pointed wings, diamond eyes, and a snake head.
- Melusine: A female, serpent-like, mermaid creature.
- La Velue: A purple creature with a snake's neck, head, and tail, tortoise-like feet, and spikes on its back.
- Graoully: A dragon/bird-like creature with green color and blue eyes. It attacks with flame.
Relationships[]
Artemis[]
Maria's succubus familiar conjured from a female owl. She was made to bewitch men through sexual intercourse and has been her loyal servant and ally for a long time. Even though she is her master, Artemis treats Maria more like a friend, and teases Maria for her young age and virginal status.
Priapus[]
Priapus is Maria's second owl familiar, who made him at Artemis' suggestion. Maria created an incubus body for him, but it is incomplete because of Maria's innocence about male bodies. Even though he complains about this, Priapus is fiercely loyal to Maria as expected of her familiar. He mostly cooks meals, runs errands, and does surveillance missions for his master.
Joseph[]
He is a local villager who is also a virgin and comes to know and fall in love with Maria. She also develops feelings for him, creating internal conflict within her whether or not she should remain a virgin. He gets shy and awkward around Maria, having low self-esteem. They finally realize their true feelings for each other, and Joseph and Maria eventually become married to each other in the final episode.
Ezekiel[]
Ezekiel is an angel of heaven who has been sent by the Archangel Michael to observe Maria and make sure she doesn't use her magic to interfere on the battlefields. Maria constantly finds ways around this by casting magic when she is not looking and pretending it wasn't her doing, or having her familiars blindfold her, which frustrates Ezekiel. She eventually begins to sympathize with Maria as she lives with her. In the last battle against Michael, she is to be reincarnated as a human with Maria as her mother-to-be.
Viv[]
A fellow witch who has different outlook on life than Maria.
Martha[]
An elderly woman who is Anne's grandmother and Maria's good friend from when she was a child.
Anne[]
A young child who takes a liking to Maria.