Post by Steinerman on Apr 9, 2010 13:46:30 GMT -5
Name: Laramie Wish (her friends she allows to call her Wish, if they so choose.)
Alias: Orphan Girl, “Hey you!”, Little thief.
Age: 16
Gender: Female
Nationality: Allondell
Appearance: Laramie is extremely thin and has a willow-like grace to her. She weighs around ninety-one pounds, and stands a little over five feet, three inches in height. Her hair is a ragged scraggly mess of brown, and is generally left to hang over her eyes (which are a soft blue in color) in an uncontrolled mop. Her skin is extremely pale, and burns easily in the sunlight.
Her face is narrower than average, And at one point had a very childlike beauty to it. Sadly, time has changed this beautiful face, hardening it, smudging it with dirt and charcoal and the fading bruises of too many horrible things to recount. The most prominent feature upon her face is a simple scar that stretches diagonally from her left ear down her cheek to the corner of her mouth. While this scar and her thin looks hide the fact, Laramie has a very open, gentle face, if one can see past the dirt.
Her torso is as thin as the rest of her from too many days gone without food. And yet, if one were able to see past the dirt and the bruises of dozens of back-alley scuffles, one would see a surprisingly appealing body structure and realize she is actually quite beautiful.
Her arms are thin and wiry, covered with far more scars than any teenage girl has a right too. Her hands are gentle, her fingers slender and delicate, her fingernails are cut short, and have the appearance of being chewed often.
Her legs, while thin, are extremely well-muscled, (as well as can be expected, given her eating habits, or lack thereof) her feet slender and graceful, the soles hardened from heavy use outside of ordinary footwear.
While she is nowhere near what could be called muscled, her body has a look of speed to it, and grace as well.
Attire: Laramie’s usual outfit consists of thrown-together odds and ends, and in polite company she’s liable to cause quite a stir.
Her feet are bare most of the time, though if ordered to she will don a pair of well-worn leather boots (with cardboard soles). Her pants are grey in color, threadbare in some places to the point of indecency, and covered with an extra helping of dirt and grime. A cardboard belt secures the pants to her thin waist. The clasp is dirty bronze and extremely worn. The only ornaments upon the belt are a few simple weaving patterns made of colorful thread.
Covering her torso in a large fluffy billow is a soft brown sweater, meant to conceal her feminine form from peering eyes. It is made of soft cotton, and extremely comfortable to wear. It is surprisingly clean, given Laramie’s lifestyle, and has the look of something thought important enough to clean regularly.
Around her neck is a bright purple scarf, and atop her head a black flat-cap. The scarf is extremely well-cared for and clean, made of silk and embroidered with small flower designs. The flat-cap is well worn, but equally well-cared. The brim is most often pulled down to shield her eyes.
On the occasion she is ever found in any place remotely resembling a social function, she most likely would wear the custom-made and fit Valtheran military uniform given to her as a gift. An entirely grey ensemble, with the exception of the boots (which are black in color and made supple leather) and the belt (which is also black and made of leather).
Personality: Laramie’s personality is a hard one, but also that of a young girl. Having spent most of her life on the streets of nameless cities and slums, she has a pessimistic view of the world. She is extremely wary of strangers, especially male ones. She shies away from human contact of any kind, wincing in pain if others reach for her. And if given half a chance she is most likely to run away from someone rather than speak to them civilly.
She has almost no friends, or as she prefers to call them “not-enemies.” And those who are able to keep her in the same area long enough to strike up a conversation generally find her to be quiet and nervous.
However, to the one true friend she has met and stayed with long enough to know, she speaks quite normally and civilly. Revealing an intelligent girl with a penchant for shiny and colorful objects.
When around others she keeps her eyes downcast, rarely making eye contact with anyone. She keeps her profile as small and unobtrusive as possible when in the company of strangers. (Though this doesn’t happen often, as she usually runs away from them.)
Possessions:
Small tarnished box: This brown rectangular box is rarely seen on Laramie’s person, as she learned the hard way that things she carries are generally stolen. It stays wherever she calls home for the day, and when moving from town to town it is always with her.
Inside the box are all the things Laramie holds dear in life:
A small worn picture of a woman that looks much like Laramie herself (She assumes it is her mother).
A newer, less-grubby picture of a young man with silver hair. (A man she holds dear to her heart.)
Various tarnished jewels and ornaments she thought unique enough to spare the space in her box for.
Special Abilities:
Laramie isn’t strong or well-trained in combat, but she is fast. Her leg muscles are well-developed and can carry her at great speed. Her dexterity and agility are also heightened, enabling her to dodge many attacks and make blink-of-the-eye course corrections in her movements. This all combines to make Laramie a very hard girl to catch, let alone hurt.
Her second ability is somewhat odd. Laramie is empathic, she can sense others’ emotions and feelings (within a short proximity), and generally gain some knowledge of their intentions as well. Unfortunately, this ability comes at a cost, Laramie is extremely vulnerable to powerful emotions, and will sometimes act oddly when in their presence.
Anger can be debilitating. Great sorrow can bring her to her knees in tears. Most emotions she attempts to block out of fear of what they may do to her. (Understand, this ability cannot be stopped, and works at all times. Thus Laramie must always rest some of her concentration upon blocking powerful emotions.)
This ability has two parts. The first was described above, and the second will be described here. Besides being able to sense emotions, feelings and intentions, Laramie has the ability to speak into others’ minds. It requires some concentration to do so, and when it happens, some of her current emotion seeps into the other’s mind with her thoughts. It is only a fraction of whatever she feels at the time, but it is very clear to whomever she chooses what she is feeling at the time she enters their mind.
History: Laramie’s recollections of her years before she was an orphan are scattered, hidden in pockets of painful and disturbing memory.
She dimly recalls a woman, (whose picture she now carries in her box) this woman cared for Laramie, always there with a smile and a hand to help her up when she fell, always calling Laramie “My little wish”. It is from that memory Laramie takes her last name, Wish. In honor of the kind woman she hopes and prays was her mother. Those were happy times, though they lived in poverty, Laramie never cared about their discomfort, simply enjoying the peaceful loving environment around her mother.
But then her memories fade, and she recalls very little except that her mother seemed worried much of the time. And then soldiers came and killed her mother, Laramie remembers that with exquisite and painful clarity.
Words she did not understand at the time were spoken, “Korin” and “Traitor” among them. And then without warning the soldiers (clad in the colors of the Holy Empire) cut her mother down. Laramie ran then, frightened and crying, a child of seven years old, running from the monsters who killed her mother.
After that, came pain. She wandered the streets, shying away from adults on general principle that it had been adults who’d killed her mother, in her mind, all adults had suddenly turned to monsters. When night fell, she found an abandoned box and lay in that, crying herself to sleep.
Slowly, Laramie began to learn the ways of the street. She learned what building belonged to what gang, that if she went to a certain restaurant at a certain time, she’d get a meal from the kindly cook. She learned how the Stamarian patrols moved and kept away from them out of deathly fear.
She grew quick and nimble enough to steal food when she was starving. She learned how to blend into crowds, to become just another orphan girl on the refuse-laden streets of the nearest town. And she learned to keep on the move, to never stay too long in one place.
And so, Laramie lived, each day a fight for survival as she aged and matured far quicker than any child should ever have too. She was careful, intelligent, never taking a risk she didn’t have to. Often going days without food because the perceived danger was too great. Her nights were spent in torment, crying out in her sleep as she relived the fear of her mother’s death in horrendous nightmares full of monsters and men, all of whom seemed to blend together and chase her in the darkness.
Years passed, Laramie grew ever-so-slowly into a young woman. And to her extreme horror, she realized that when others looked past the grime covering her, they found something beautiful. Realizing the dangers of looking like a helpless beautiful female on the streets, she quickly took to attempting to pass herself off as boy for her own safety. Among the homeless and orphans, anyone was fair game, and she didn’t intend to become any lustful man’s prey.
It was when she was thirteen that she found her feet had brought her to Minervum. She’d known how to read for sometime, but here she found her curiosity reignited. She slipped into the Library and spent hours on end reading manuscripts of any and all types. The Library staff chased her off each night, and found her hiding amongst the books every following morning.
Finally, realizing that they couldn’t get rid of her, the staff attempted to care for her, in their own way. She always ran off when they came close, but they would leave food at certain tables, and she rarely went hungry from then on.
She stayed in Minervum for two years, learning all she could of far-off lands. Driven by one purpose, to leave Allondell and the Holy Empire of Stamaria behind her, and if that wasn’t possible, to find a place where she could stop running from the terrors of her dreams which still plagued her every night.
Oddly, on what would have been her sixteenth birthday (during her stay in Minervum), a very strange thing happened to Laramie. She discovered she had a very little magical ability. As she was walking down an aisle in the library one dim afternoon, she suddenly felt extremely lost. She found the emotion odd, as she had grown to know the library quite well, and was very sure of her position. And yet the emotion continued, growing stronger with each step she took.
It was when she rounded a corner and found a crying child, unsure of his position, that she began to realize her power. She calmed the child and led him to a nearby desk before retreating quickly, the sensation of being lost receding as she moved farther and farther away from the child.
The following hours the feelings of those around seeped into her, and Laramie’s fear began to rise rapidly, unsure of what was happening inside her mind. It took her almost a month of days plagued by odd emotions to come to terms with her strange ability. She realized that somehow, unexplainably, she could sense others’ emotions and feelings. Fearing for her sanity, she quickly took to training her mind, wishing only to block out the invasive emotions and feelings as it seemed her mind magnified the feelings of others around her.
With much practice, Laramie found she could block some of the emotions, but never well enough. Some always got through, and generally led to great pain if the emotions were violent enough.
So she took to distancing herself from others out of fear for her mind, realizing she could only sense the emotions of others when they drew near. When forced to speak to others, she kept at a distance. Knowing the closer they got, the more powerful and potentially painful the emotions would become.
After these odd incidents however, Laramie grew curious as to how she acquired this strange capability. She had never given much thought to her parentage, blocking all thought of the memories she had of her mother.
But now curiosity and bravery combined and forced her to delve into her mother's past. She searched through news recordings of the time surrounding her mother's death and discovered a shocking truth.
Laramie's mother, a woman by the name of Alexis Vister, had been a particularly violent and bloody-minded member of the Korin with a dangerous plan. Alexis, it was reported, had planned to start a Korin cell in Allondell and prepare a bombing campaign, culminating in a massive explosion inside the Minervum Library.
Sickened to learn that her mother had been a terrorist, Laramie forced back the bile in her throat and continued to research her mother, eventually discovering that they were descendants of a long line of people capable of powerful magic having to do with the mind.
It was then, in this fragile state, that something horrible and sickening happened to Laramie. There is no kind or easy way of saying it. Laramie was raped. It happened as she was in one of the poorer districts of Minervum, walking alone, (lost in thoughts of her mother and the sudden painful discovery of who her mother was). A man . . . no, not a man, a beast in human skin, assaulted her and violated her.
The monster’s emotions and feelings were almost as painful as everything else combined, Laramie could hardly think, the pain was so great in her mind. She was positive the man would kill her afterwards, she could sense the fear of being discovered in his mind. But then the man dropped dead, shot in the back of the head. And suddenly a figure was there, holding her tight and safe, wrapping her naked form in a huge overcoat.
For the first time in a long while, Laramie felt safe in the arms of that stranger, feeling no malice or anger from him. Only gentle kindness. She learned later that the man was a Valtheran infiltrator who’d been in the city on a mission. He couldn’t explain why, but he’d felt that someone nearby was in danger, and had come to help. Neither of them could understand it, as the man had been too far off to hear her cries for help.
It was from this incident that Laramie realized that her ability was two-part. The first, the part she had very little control over, was the ability to feel others’ emotions, feelings and sometimes even their intentions. The second part, she found, was that with a little concentration and effort of will, she could make others hear her thoughts. She could by no means control them, but she could make herself heard in times of need.
Her rescuer (his name was Jozin Nim.) Told her that it was an extremely alien and painful feeling when she spoke in his mind. Not wishing to harm anyone, especially her rescuer, she silently vowed to only use her form of telepathy in the most dire need.
Since that time, she has shied away from most men (more so than usual) except for her rescuer, who she travels with much of the time, aiding him in his information seeking. Acting as a sentry, allowing her ability to be put to some use in the service of her one and only friend.
Miscellaneous: N/A
Alias: Orphan Girl, “Hey you!”, Little thief.
Age: 16
Gender: Female
Nationality: Allondell
Appearance: Laramie is extremely thin and has a willow-like grace to her. She weighs around ninety-one pounds, and stands a little over five feet, three inches in height. Her hair is a ragged scraggly mess of brown, and is generally left to hang over her eyes (which are a soft blue in color) in an uncontrolled mop. Her skin is extremely pale, and burns easily in the sunlight.
Her face is narrower than average, And at one point had a very childlike beauty to it. Sadly, time has changed this beautiful face, hardening it, smudging it with dirt and charcoal and the fading bruises of too many horrible things to recount. The most prominent feature upon her face is a simple scar that stretches diagonally from her left ear down her cheek to the corner of her mouth. While this scar and her thin looks hide the fact, Laramie has a very open, gentle face, if one can see past the dirt.
Her torso is as thin as the rest of her from too many days gone without food. And yet, if one were able to see past the dirt and the bruises of dozens of back-alley scuffles, one would see a surprisingly appealing body structure and realize she is actually quite beautiful.
Her arms are thin and wiry, covered with far more scars than any teenage girl has a right too. Her hands are gentle, her fingers slender and delicate, her fingernails are cut short, and have the appearance of being chewed often.
Her legs, while thin, are extremely well-muscled, (as well as can be expected, given her eating habits, or lack thereof) her feet slender and graceful, the soles hardened from heavy use outside of ordinary footwear.
While she is nowhere near what could be called muscled, her body has a look of speed to it, and grace as well.
Attire: Laramie’s usual outfit consists of thrown-together odds and ends, and in polite company she’s liable to cause quite a stir.
Her feet are bare most of the time, though if ordered to she will don a pair of well-worn leather boots (with cardboard soles). Her pants are grey in color, threadbare in some places to the point of indecency, and covered with an extra helping of dirt and grime. A cardboard belt secures the pants to her thin waist. The clasp is dirty bronze and extremely worn. The only ornaments upon the belt are a few simple weaving patterns made of colorful thread.
Covering her torso in a large fluffy billow is a soft brown sweater, meant to conceal her feminine form from peering eyes. It is made of soft cotton, and extremely comfortable to wear. It is surprisingly clean, given Laramie’s lifestyle, and has the look of something thought important enough to clean regularly.
Around her neck is a bright purple scarf, and atop her head a black flat-cap. The scarf is extremely well-cared for and clean, made of silk and embroidered with small flower designs. The flat-cap is well worn, but equally well-cared. The brim is most often pulled down to shield her eyes.
On the occasion she is ever found in any place remotely resembling a social function, she most likely would wear the custom-made and fit Valtheran military uniform given to her as a gift. An entirely grey ensemble, with the exception of the boots (which are black in color and made supple leather) and the belt (which is also black and made of leather).
Personality: Laramie’s personality is a hard one, but also that of a young girl. Having spent most of her life on the streets of nameless cities and slums, she has a pessimistic view of the world. She is extremely wary of strangers, especially male ones. She shies away from human contact of any kind, wincing in pain if others reach for her. And if given half a chance she is most likely to run away from someone rather than speak to them civilly.
She has almost no friends, or as she prefers to call them “not-enemies.” And those who are able to keep her in the same area long enough to strike up a conversation generally find her to be quiet and nervous.
However, to the one true friend she has met and stayed with long enough to know, she speaks quite normally and civilly. Revealing an intelligent girl with a penchant for shiny and colorful objects.
When around others she keeps her eyes downcast, rarely making eye contact with anyone. She keeps her profile as small and unobtrusive as possible when in the company of strangers. (Though this doesn’t happen often, as she usually runs away from them.)
Possessions:
Small tarnished box: This brown rectangular box is rarely seen on Laramie’s person, as she learned the hard way that things she carries are generally stolen. It stays wherever she calls home for the day, and when moving from town to town it is always with her.
Inside the box are all the things Laramie holds dear in life:
A small worn picture of a woman that looks much like Laramie herself (She assumes it is her mother).
A newer, less-grubby picture of a young man with silver hair. (A man she holds dear to her heart.)
Various tarnished jewels and ornaments she thought unique enough to spare the space in her box for.
Special Abilities:
Laramie isn’t strong or well-trained in combat, but she is fast. Her leg muscles are well-developed and can carry her at great speed. Her dexterity and agility are also heightened, enabling her to dodge many attacks and make blink-of-the-eye course corrections in her movements. This all combines to make Laramie a very hard girl to catch, let alone hurt.
Her second ability is somewhat odd. Laramie is empathic, she can sense others’ emotions and feelings (within a short proximity), and generally gain some knowledge of their intentions as well. Unfortunately, this ability comes at a cost, Laramie is extremely vulnerable to powerful emotions, and will sometimes act oddly when in their presence.
Anger can be debilitating. Great sorrow can bring her to her knees in tears. Most emotions she attempts to block out of fear of what they may do to her. (Understand, this ability cannot be stopped, and works at all times. Thus Laramie must always rest some of her concentration upon blocking powerful emotions.)
This ability has two parts. The first was described above, and the second will be described here. Besides being able to sense emotions, feelings and intentions, Laramie has the ability to speak into others’ minds. It requires some concentration to do so, and when it happens, some of her current emotion seeps into the other’s mind with her thoughts. It is only a fraction of whatever she feels at the time, but it is very clear to whomever she chooses what she is feeling at the time she enters their mind.
History: Laramie’s recollections of her years before she was an orphan are scattered, hidden in pockets of painful and disturbing memory.
She dimly recalls a woman, (whose picture she now carries in her box) this woman cared for Laramie, always there with a smile and a hand to help her up when she fell, always calling Laramie “My little wish”. It is from that memory Laramie takes her last name, Wish. In honor of the kind woman she hopes and prays was her mother. Those were happy times, though they lived in poverty, Laramie never cared about their discomfort, simply enjoying the peaceful loving environment around her mother.
But then her memories fade, and she recalls very little except that her mother seemed worried much of the time. And then soldiers came and killed her mother, Laramie remembers that with exquisite and painful clarity.
Words she did not understand at the time were spoken, “Korin” and “Traitor” among them. And then without warning the soldiers (clad in the colors of the Holy Empire) cut her mother down. Laramie ran then, frightened and crying, a child of seven years old, running from the monsters who killed her mother.
After that, came pain. She wandered the streets, shying away from adults on general principle that it had been adults who’d killed her mother, in her mind, all adults had suddenly turned to monsters. When night fell, she found an abandoned box and lay in that, crying herself to sleep.
Slowly, Laramie began to learn the ways of the street. She learned what building belonged to what gang, that if she went to a certain restaurant at a certain time, she’d get a meal from the kindly cook. She learned how the Stamarian patrols moved and kept away from them out of deathly fear.
She grew quick and nimble enough to steal food when she was starving. She learned how to blend into crowds, to become just another orphan girl on the refuse-laden streets of the nearest town. And she learned to keep on the move, to never stay too long in one place.
And so, Laramie lived, each day a fight for survival as she aged and matured far quicker than any child should ever have too. She was careful, intelligent, never taking a risk she didn’t have to. Often going days without food because the perceived danger was too great. Her nights were spent in torment, crying out in her sleep as she relived the fear of her mother’s death in horrendous nightmares full of monsters and men, all of whom seemed to blend together and chase her in the darkness.
Years passed, Laramie grew ever-so-slowly into a young woman. And to her extreme horror, she realized that when others looked past the grime covering her, they found something beautiful. Realizing the dangers of looking like a helpless beautiful female on the streets, she quickly took to attempting to pass herself off as boy for her own safety. Among the homeless and orphans, anyone was fair game, and she didn’t intend to become any lustful man’s prey.
It was when she was thirteen that she found her feet had brought her to Minervum. She’d known how to read for sometime, but here she found her curiosity reignited. She slipped into the Library and spent hours on end reading manuscripts of any and all types. The Library staff chased her off each night, and found her hiding amongst the books every following morning.
Finally, realizing that they couldn’t get rid of her, the staff attempted to care for her, in their own way. She always ran off when they came close, but they would leave food at certain tables, and she rarely went hungry from then on.
She stayed in Minervum for two years, learning all she could of far-off lands. Driven by one purpose, to leave Allondell and the Holy Empire of Stamaria behind her, and if that wasn’t possible, to find a place where she could stop running from the terrors of her dreams which still plagued her every night.
Oddly, on what would have been her sixteenth birthday (during her stay in Minervum), a very strange thing happened to Laramie. She discovered she had a very little magical ability. As she was walking down an aisle in the library one dim afternoon, she suddenly felt extremely lost. She found the emotion odd, as she had grown to know the library quite well, and was very sure of her position. And yet the emotion continued, growing stronger with each step she took.
It was when she rounded a corner and found a crying child, unsure of his position, that she began to realize her power. She calmed the child and led him to a nearby desk before retreating quickly, the sensation of being lost receding as she moved farther and farther away from the child.
The following hours the feelings of those around seeped into her, and Laramie’s fear began to rise rapidly, unsure of what was happening inside her mind. It took her almost a month of days plagued by odd emotions to come to terms with her strange ability. She realized that somehow, unexplainably, she could sense others’ emotions and feelings. Fearing for her sanity, she quickly took to training her mind, wishing only to block out the invasive emotions and feelings as it seemed her mind magnified the feelings of others around her.
With much practice, Laramie found she could block some of the emotions, but never well enough. Some always got through, and generally led to great pain if the emotions were violent enough.
So she took to distancing herself from others out of fear for her mind, realizing she could only sense the emotions of others when they drew near. When forced to speak to others, she kept at a distance. Knowing the closer they got, the more powerful and potentially painful the emotions would become.
After these odd incidents however, Laramie grew curious as to how she acquired this strange capability. She had never given much thought to her parentage, blocking all thought of the memories she had of her mother.
But now curiosity and bravery combined and forced her to delve into her mother's past. She searched through news recordings of the time surrounding her mother's death and discovered a shocking truth.
Laramie's mother, a woman by the name of Alexis Vister, had been a particularly violent and bloody-minded member of the Korin with a dangerous plan. Alexis, it was reported, had planned to start a Korin cell in Allondell and prepare a bombing campaign, culminating in a massive explosion inside the Minervum Library.
Sickened to learn that her mother had been a terrorist, Laramie forced back the bile in her throat and continued to research her mother, eventually discovering that they were descendants of a long line of people capable of powerful magic having to do with the mind.
It was then, in this fragile state, that something horrible and sickening happened to Laramie. There is no kind or easy way of saying it. Laramie was raped. It happened as she was in one of the poorer districts of Minervum, walking alone, (lost in thoughts of her mother and the sudden painful discovery of who her mother was). A man . . . no, not a man, a beast in human skin, assaulted her and violated her.
The monster’s emotions and feelings were almost as painful as everything else combined, Laramie could hardly think, the pain was so great in her mind. She was positive the man would kill her afterwards, she could sense the fear of being discovered in his mind. But then the man dropped dead, shot in the back of the head. And suddenly a figure was there, holding her tight and safe, wrapping her naked form in a huge overcoat.
For the first time in a long while, Laramie felt safe in the arms of that stranger, feeling no malice or anger from him. Only gentle kindness. She learned later that the man was a Valtheran infiltrator who’d been in the city on a mission. He couldn’t explain why, but he’d felt that someone nearby was in danger, and had come to help. Neither of them could understand it, as the man had been too far off to hear her cries for help.
It was from this incident that Laramie realized that her ability was two-part. The first, the part she had very little control over, was the ability to feel others’ emotions, feelings and sometimes even their intentions. The second part, she found, was that with a little concentration and effort of will, she could make others hear her thoughts. She could by no means control them, but she could make herself heard in times of need.
Her rescuer (his name was Jozin Nim.) Told her that it was an extremely alien and painful feeling when she spoke in his mind. Not wishing to harm anyone, especially her rescuer, she silently vowed to only use her form of telepathy in the most dire need.
Since that time, she has shied away from most men (more so than usual) except for her rescuer, who she travels with much of the time, aiding him in his information seeking. Acting as a sentry, allowing her ability to be put to some use in the service of her one and only friend.
Miscellaneous: N/A