Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2013 21:05:11 GMT -6
||| LYS ÅRUDSDATTER |||
#Name; Lys Årudsdatter (light, daughter of river clearing)
#Age Group ; Adult
#Gender ; Female
#Species; Magic Caribou
#CutieRunic Mark ;
Combination of Eihwaz (yew tree; trust, dependability, and protection) and Laguz (water; healing, mystery, and organic growth).
#Occupation ; Scout for the Bear Paw Expedition
#Powers and Abilities ; Air-walking; when she wills it, a magical aura forms under Lys’ hooves, extending a few inches in front of and behind her and giving her the ability to run through the air.
#Physique ; On the light and small side for a caribou, roughly equivalent to an earth pony mare, if a hair taller and stockier.
#Mane and fur color and style ; Her fur is the color and pattern of a snow caribou, with a tuft around the chest area. Her head-mane is worn loose, a light teal that matches the light of the bifrost that forms below her hooves.
#Eye color ; Icy blue
#Other appearance details (optional) ; Her coat is a little softer and fluffier than the average caribou's, as a result of spending much of her time high up in cold air.
#A more thorough description (optional) ;n/a (or tba)
#Personality ;
Despite growing up in the harsh conditions of Trottheim, Lys is a young soul. She sees the world in broad strokes, good-stuff and bad-stuff, and has a bit of a rose-colored gaze as to what falls under what. (Whether it’s naïve or optimistic depends on who you ask. But she’s no fool; she had a pretty tough time of it growing up in Trottheim without a blood-family legacy at her back, and more so because she had to prove her worth to the community. More likely she just wants very, very badly to hope for the best.)
While this can get her into trouble, it also lets her maintain a sense of playfulness and wonder with the world around her. She’s the type who jumps in puddles just because they’re there, and can spend a solid couple of hours guessing the shapes of the clouds. Her mannerisms and behavior can seem light, breezy, and even a little air-headed to those who don’t know her better.
But in truth, Lys is actually quite dependable. If she says she’ll do something then she’s going to do it, come hell or high water. However, although she acts steady-hooved and sure of herself, she knows she isn’t that experienced; if she can’t make good on a promise or makes the wrong decision, she gets miserable with self-doubt and shame. Letting someone down when it really matters is just about the worst feeling she can imagine.
One benefit of being an air-walker is that it always allowed her to explore, and she has one heck of a sense of curiosity to drive it. Her knack for finding peculiar objects and strange little places is something she takes pride in, though sometimes it ends up with her sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong instead.
#History ;
Lys’ surname—Årudsdatter—is literal. She was found by a passing farmer, bundled up in blankets and left in a clearing by a river not far from Trottheim. She had been a very young calf at the time, and so the weather had made her cold and sickly, but the caribou who found her took her into the settlement and nursed her back to health.
As a result of these strange circumstances, her birth lineage and ancestry are unknown (and to her, forgotten); something very unusual for a caribou, and doubly so to the close-knit community of Trottheim. The most common speculation is that she was the child of an outcast from some other settlement, who was either swept away by the river or chose to abandon their child where they knew it would be found. But in the end, it’s a mystery that has never been solved.
They say it takes a village to raise a child. For Lys, this was exactly the case; she was accepted as one of their own, and as she grew up she learned to work and contribute to the community as a way of repaying them for taking her in, as well as to do her part just to keep everyone fed and working. Since she was born an air-walker, she wasn’t quite big or burly enough to handle the hard manual labor of non-magical caribou, but she still managed to make herself useful. Mostly by scouting, weather watching and foraging when the elements allowed for it, and doing domestic work like cleaning or farm-tending when it was impossible (or there was no need) for her to be in the air.
In particular, Lys grew attached to the family of a calf close in age named Sjel Jernsdatter. She often did some of their farm work and brought foraged food in when the harsh winters came, in exchange for a comfortable bed and warm companionship. She and Sjel became close over the years, learning and growing (and sometimes butting heads) with each other along the way. Thanks to Sjel’s grounding influence, Lys learned to pull her head out of the clouds, and in turn she likes to think she kept Sjel from getting too serious. Their progression to oath-sisters was a gradual thing that scarcely needed words; kinship by sheer strength of bond, rather than forged in fire like some fairy tale.
Then, one year, things changed. The two had been fighting recently over one of Lys’ social blunders, when the Jarl learned of an impending troll raid coming to Trottheim. Though they were only teenagers at the time, they had both stood ready to defend the lands they called home. They left their argument at the door and stood by each other; and though the trolls decided to pursue easier prey elsewhere, being under that threat put things in perspective for the both of them.
Lys started taking her work for the good of Trottheim more seriously, and her eye drifted toward the adventuring crews, who always came back with such wonderful stories and goods to share with everyone. It was one thing to scrape by, but it was another to go out into that big, wide world and bring a piece of it back home. The introduction of foreign sports had briefly caught her interest, but it wasn’t enough—she was already bitten by the spirit of wanderlust.
When she was selected to accompany her oath-sister on the Bear Paw Expedition, Lys was both shocked and overjoyed; while she still has internal doubts as to her usefulness to the crew, she’s stubbornly determined to prove herself worthy and do good by Trottheim.The Roleplayer's Corner
#Nickname ; Dizzy
#Age ; 20
#Gender ; Female
#How did you find us? ; Written in a child’s dusty handprints on the inside of the television screen.
#Sample RP ;
Lys leaned over the edge, eyes screwed shut. Slosh, slosh, slosh went the sea below, flinging flecks of cold salt water up at her face each time a wave slapped against the side of the boat. It helped a little. But she still wished that the gods of travel would take a bit more pity on her than they had so far.
Sure, the journey started off well. She spent a lot of time up in the air over the boat, scouting out the weather conditions and making sure they were going the right way. It got harder once they left sight of any land, but there were ways around that; you just had to fly over the cloud cover and get the angle of the sun. The navigator hadn’t steered them wrong yet, but it never hurt to be sure. All in all, she was feeling useful, like she had really earned that ration at the end of the day.
Two days ago, though, they had hit a storm. It had come almost out of nowhere, forming right over the sea ahead of them; they only had time to fortify the stern, get Vind on the sails and put over half a raincover before it was on them. As the expedition’s Scout, it had been her duty to get a look and guide them out; she’d been out in that rain for what felt like hours, yelling back to Vind and Styrke whenever she caught a glimpse of an opening or felt a change in the winds. It had been a fight not to get herself lost in that—much less the ship.
The boat rocked as it hit a particularly large dip. ”Oogh,” she groaned. Trust Årudsdatter to get sick before they were even halfway down. She needed to get back up there, make sure they were still on course and keep an eye out for more storm formations… but it was all she could do not to throw last night’s supper into the ocean.
Sure, the sky was completely clear and the only winds were a light northeastern breeze and whatever Vind called to their sails. And maybe there was no need to row since this part of the journey was a straight line. But that was no excuse! … And besides, she was so blasted bored just sitting there and feeling nauseous, she needed to take her mind off somehow. Maybe she could bug her oath-sister.
”Hey, Sjel!” she called, finally bringing her head up again. ”Want a trade? Your sea legs for my ‘b’ legs!”
