Print Page - Roosje Greenfields - Llaoihrr Brownie

I hope I got everything right...

Name: Roosje Greenfields
Gender: Female
Age: 40
Race: Brownie
Tribe: Llaoihrr Brownies (Vale Brownies)
Occupation: Messenger
Title: White Messenger

Appearance:
Height: 16 nailsbreadths
Eye colour: White
Hair colour: White
Physical appearance: Roosje was always just a little bit taller than Brownies of her age, although she was closer to the average when she'd grown up than in all her childhood years. More than her height, however, she stood out because of her colouring. She is one of the very few examples of a Birchbark Brownie, so that she is white over all her body, from the tip of her head down to her toes. Though she can see perfectly well, she appears to be blind because her eyes are such a pristine white, like freshly fallen snow. Strangely enough, the sun does not seem to affect her colour at all, so that she can stay in the sunlight for a long time without turning red.

With a row of teeth as white as the rest of the small body, her smile is generous but a little bit lopsided, giving her a slightly mischievous look. She shows this smile rather often. Her nose is small but cute. The skin around her eyes shows a few laughing wrinkles, adding to her generally happy appearance.

Her hair flows down from the top of her head down to her shoulders. She usually ties it back with a black leather string, which contrasts with the whiteness of her straight locks. Her shoulders are slender, her arms rather muscular. Working with her fox has left her hands rather rough to the touch, though it might not feel like that to a human, since her hands are so small in comparison.

Clothes: The white brownie has several kinds of clothing. Most are mouseskin leather, dyed in different colours. Each set consists of a sleeveless top, some pants and matching boots. The top is low-cut, showing part of her bosom even though it's pretty small in comparison with her body. When she is riding her fox, she will usually wear a red outfit, in a (oftentimes vain) attempt at blending in with her mount's fur colour.

When she wishes to show off her rare white colouring, she has a white outfit as well. This outfit is not only accompanied by the pants, but also – when she does not feel she needs to be dressed comfortably – a leather skirt. Another white outfit, which she only wears when she really wishes to dress up, is a long flowing spilk dress down to her ankles. She also has white slippers to accompany this dress. The last set of clothing is designed especially for standing out. It is dyed nor'sidian black, and contrasts heavily with her skin. The boots that match it are of a dark brown colour. She usually wears this when she is looking for a job, and wants people to notice her.

Personality: With a happy and bubbly nature, Roosje wants to be liked wherever she goes. When somebody does not like her, for whichever reason, it will make her sad, and she will do everything in her power to change it. This is a rather useful trait in making friends quickly. However, out of sight, out of mind – she is loyal so long as she's around these friends, but as soon as she moves on she will quickly forget about them. She is altogether too shallow to nurture a friendship for years, certainly if she knows she will not often get the chance to see them. When she sees the people again at a later date, she usually has no trouble reestablishing their friendship.

On the other hand – and this is a result of her shallowness as well – she is incapable of holding a grudge for long. Any slight, real or imagined, though provoking an immediate reaction, passes rather quickly. Depending on how serious the offense, she will forgive the offender within minutes to within an hour or two at most – though the latter is an extreme offense already. She simply forgets that she was supposed to be angry.

She is pretty inquisitive. Whenever she sees something that she doesn't understand, or that she wants to know more about, she will start raining down questions on the person or persons that might know more about it. This trait can have two effects on people – either it endears her to them, or the question-rain drives them crazy. As a result, she can talk about a wide variety of topics, and pretty incessantly at that. She does know when to stop talking so much, but when she does not see a reason for it, she can be quite the chatterbox.

The white brownie is a very caring sort of person. Most notably this trait is visible in the way she is always making sure that her fox has everything it needs, before taking care of herself. The same applies to other people, no matter what race they are – but only when there is something she can actually do for them. She won't fidget needlessly if she sees that they can take care of themselves just fine.

Roosje can be pretty brave when she needs to be, even though her bravery is tempered with common sense. When there's a dangerous trip to be made to get a message somewhere, she will not hesitate to do so. This, however, stems mostly from knowing that she will be able to slip through undetected. When there's a dangerous situation developping that might harm herself or her fox, she will usually try to stay away from it if she possibly can.

She is pretty good at Tharian. She has been practicing the language since she was about seven or eight years old, just because she liked the sound of it. She and her friends would 'have conversations' in Tharian. These conversations were never very long, or very complicated, and most of her friends soon stopped with it. Roosje kept at it though, soon asking a Babbler to teach her more. She literally devoured many of the scrolls and barks stored in the Council Tree. It led to her almost joining the Babbler clan herself, but she found that in the end, she wanted to train animals more than she wanted to talk Tharian. She has now found a job that combines the two, and she is still trying to learn more of the language wherever she goes and whoever she meets.

Strengths:
-Without a doubt, one of her biggest strengths is her ability to make friends. Her friendly nature usually endears her to people, and whenever she needs help for something, she will get it from her new-found friends.
-Thanks to her inquisitiveness there is a pretty wide variety of topics that she can talk about. Her interest is broad, though not always very deep.
-She's a fairly decent shot with the bow. She has learned to use it, her arrows covered with different kinds of poisons, while training for the ferretmaster clan. However, she rarely if ever uses it against another sentient being. The only time she shoots her bow is to hunt. She restocks the poisons every time she returns to the vale, buying them from the Bubbler clan because she cannot make them herself. Most of the time, she hunts from the back of her fox.
-The bond that she has with her steed is another strength. The small red animal not only serves as her mount, but in times of danger it can be a weapon, and it will defend its small charge with its life. Roosje is very prodigious in taking care of the fox and loves her very much, a fact that the animal appreciates, even if it has never really known the hardships of the wild. Apart from this, she can also travel much faster and farther than she ever could on foot.
- She has learned to speak Tharian as well as possible. It's not quite as fluent as a native speaker, but it comes close. Of course she also speaks her native tongue, Browniin.

Weaknesses:
-As she is around the bigger races very often, her height is a definite disadvantage. She has to be careful to be somewhere high up, for example on a table, to be sure that she is not trod upon. She also usually has to shout to get anyone's attention, since her voice has to carry a long way up.
-She is more empathic than is actually good for her. Her need to be liked by everyone sometimes puts her in a position where she will act against her own nature or better judgement just so someone will not be untouched by her. When she does not succeed in her attempt, she will feel miserable for a long time.
-In spring and summer, the small brownie always has a runny nose and often headaches, plus a very insistent cough. They're usually not too bad, and they won't really keep her bedridden for the duration of these two seasons, but the consistency of it can drive her wild with frustration, because they plague her almost continually, with only a few days respite – usually when the weather is not too good.
-Roosje likes milk. She really, really likes milk. Unfortunately for her, even the smallest bit of the liquid makes her face look a bit yellowish and upsets her stomach so much that she can't eat for a long time. It also gives her a rash, so that her arms are covered with small red dots. Every time that she has the chance to drink milk, it means an inner battle which she wants more: drink or stay healthy (and white) for the rest of the day.
-There's just one kind of animal that the white brownie Hates. With a capital H. And that's cockroaches. No matter what situation she is in, when she sees one of the icky beasts she will shriek and fly to the first safe place that she can find – usually either on Inuya or with one of the Big People if they happen to be around. She doesn't settle down until the animal is either squished beneath a boot or is no longer in sight. The boot solution is preferred though, as it assures her that the thing will not come back.

History: It was a sunny day in the Vale when a little white brownie was born. Her mother was a greenbark brownie, of the greengrower clan, while her father, a brownbark, was a ferretmaster. The two proud parents were somewhat surprised at Roosje's white colouring, though her mother did remember tales about an ancestor of hers who had been a birchbark. Research on the records kept in the Council Tree corroborated this: her great-great-grandmother had had the same white skin as her daughter. It made her happy, even if she had never known this grandmother. To honour the ancestor further, she gave the child the same name: Roosje.

Roosje grew up a happy child. She played with the other Brownie children, who sometimes laughed with her colouring, but usually in good sport – many of them liked her enough to not really want to hurt her. She played many games, often using her fantasy to elaborate them. She also enjoyed the freedom of the Brownie Wings very much - although she didn't care for actual competition, she really liked to see how far she and her friends could go in one trek. Even now, whenever she returns to the vale, she will try to make at least one tour with her wings.

Another game she used to play was to speak Tharian – at first no more than a few simple sentences, but slowly gaining complexity. After a while, the others tired of their game, but Roosje enjoyed it too much to just let it go. As a result, she went to a friend of the family's, an elderly scholar, a member of the Bartering clan, who she now only remembers as master William, and asked him to teach her more Tharian. He did so, happy with such a diligent student.

Apart from her Tharian, she wasn't much of a scholar though. She always enjoyed learning practical skills, either from her parents or from the cunners. By the time she was nearing her age of choosing, she had found that most of all she liked working with animals. She was not sure yet if she wanted to be part of the Skydiver or the Ferretmaster clan, but with her father being a ferretmaster, she chose that clan in the end.

As an apprentice, she learned to really take care of the animals in her charge, starting with mice and shrews, working up to the bigger animals like foxes by the end of her apprenticeship. Apart from the care of animals, she learned to shoot with the bow, so that she can hunt or defend herself, if necessary – more thanks to the different poisons that the arrowheads are dipped in than from actual damage.

She was accepted as a full member when she was 30, by taming and riding a fox on an obstacle course. She quickly developped a bond with the fox, who she named Inuya. Her quick mount, combined with her knowledge of Tharian, quickly landed her some tasks as messenger to some human villages. Normally the Brownies would send one of the Babbler clan, but they often need a wagon to reach their destination, because they haven't learned to ride an animal. Inuya was quite a lot faster than the wagon, while nothing material had to be moved to those villages, which were located a few days away from the Vale even for the quick animal. Soon enough, her assignments reached even further afield, taking her away from the Vale sometimes for months at a time, and this is how she came to her current profession.

On one of these trips, when she'd delivered her message, a woman gave her some fresh milk to drink. She enjoyed the taste of it very much, it was so unlike anything she'd had earlier. Unfortunately, not long after her skin started showing red spots, and she became very nauseous. She didn't at first connect it with the milk, but when it happened a second time she realised what was causing the allergic reaction. She couldn't help really liking the drink though, so every once in a while she sins and drinks the milk, despite knowing the consequences.

This is how she's been living her life for the past ten years: travelling to the place where her clan leader needs her to deliver a message (though sometimes taking a bit longer than strictly necessary, just so she can enjoy the travelling itself), and returning to the Vale to replenish her stocks and receive a new assignment.

Weapons: she owns a simple bow, nothing fancy. The only decoration she asked for was for the wood to be as white as her skin. The arrows hang in a quiver on her back, and the different poisons that she uses are kept in a small sack that hangs on Inuya's back.

Belongings: She rarely takes much on her journeys. A tinderbox and a waterskin, so that she's sure that she can make a fire and drink, and her bow and arrows so that she can hunt. A small pot, kept in the same bag as her clothes on Inuya's back, ensures that she can cook what she hunted. She usually keeps the fire small, only for cooking – for warmth she curls up against her mount.

Familiar: Inuya is a Red Fox. Her belly is as white as her mistress's skin, as is the tip of her tail. The rest of her body is a rusty red colour, except for her paws which are black. She is 61 nailsbreadths long, not counting her fine tail. If it is counted, she measures a nicely rounded 100 nailsbreadths. She was still a small pup when the white Brownie started training her, and is now about 11 years of age, so she's slowly growing old, though she's still fast on her feet. Roosje rides her thanks to a kind of saddle consisting of ropes and leather, as is usual in her clan for long journeys on the fox. She does not use the extra loops for support, but like most experienced fox-riders sits on the saddle cross-legged while steering with the flaxen threads that are woven into the fur on the animal's cheeks.

Adventures of Caelereth

Archives => Approved Characters Archive II => Topic started by: Roosje Greenfields on April 16, 2008, 04:39:22 AM