#theseeker

O O C - I N F O

Name: Nikki

Age: 20

Timezone: PT (Soon to change, will be traveling during the summer but this is my ‘main’ one!)

Activity Level: In the coming week or two, things will be a bit hectic because I’ll be traveling to visit relatives overseas but I will most likely be on every few days. If any longer absences come up, I will definitely notify the masterlist or the OOC chat.

Extra: – (Sorry if the app is a mess, I got excited when I started thinking of things and now here we are.)

S K E L E T O N - I N F O

T H E - B A S I C S

Skeleton Title: THE SEEKER

Name: Tuilelaith Rinne

Gender: Female

Age: 25

Class: Ranger

Faceclaim: Caitlin Stasey

C H A R A C T E R - D E T A I L S

Nationality: Crywrenian

Appearance: Her brown hair falls in thick waves to her mid-back. Often, it is let down, allowed to spill over her shoulders, though sometimes it is pulled back or adorned with a simple band of flowers. With a height of 5'1" and features, star-touched eyes and restless lips, hinting at naivety and youthfulness, Tuilelaith is often brushed aside. She is summed up as a pretty thing of pleasant presence. Riling at her unearned dismissal, she tries to command attention by emulating a confidence and courage that she does not feel she possesses. She may stand as a tree or a rock, noble and immovable, but on occasion she may waver. The times she wilts are not too apparent. One may notice a flash of uncertainty, a shameful timidness before she excuses herself or squares her shoulders and lifts her head again.

Personality:

(-) Single-Minded;; With the pained cries of the Balance sounding so clear to her, Tuilelaith can not help but doggedly chase after any hint of a cure. Her inability to fix it pains her. There are spans of time when all she does is hunt for a solution, disappearing from others and submerging herself in research. She can only work on one problem at a time, or rather this problem has haunted her for far too long that she can no longer ignore it.

(-) Stubborn;; Tuilelaith feels as if she must prove herself. She needs others to believe that she is capable and strong. To do this, she stays her ground on things and in competitions that she would be better of letting go. Once she has made up her mind, it is nearly impossible to get her to change it.

(-) Judgmental;; She is wary of others and this wariness causes her to draw quick conclusions about the people around her. She has strong feelings about both crooks and people who show off their fortune. Having history with both, however, her opinions are rather muddled. Depending on her judgement of someone’s character, she may try to avoid them.

(+) Appreciative;; Though cautious of others, Tuilelaith can be won over by shows of sincerity. She is grateful to any act of kindness and isn’t one to let herself stay indebted to someone. She remembers what others have done to and for her.

(+) Brave;; She has learned how to wear confidence through imitation and so courage almost seems easy. Tuilelaith can be shaken. She is not one for fights but feels a duty to aid in combat. She is aware of death and of how quickly her mission could end if she falls. She is scared but her mother urged her to be brave. It is a command that echoes during times of weakness.

(+) Earnest;; There is too much happening, too much chaos, to worry about someone else’s feelings about her. Her words will be sincere, perhaps not too blunt, but should she dislike someone it’ll show. She will not hide her feelings and, if she can help it, her thoughts.

C H A R A C T E R - B A C K G R O U N D

History:

   Tuilelaith had lived, for a short time, in a town. At most, she can recall the looming mountains and the shadows of surrounding woods but that is all. The only faces she can remember are those of the shopkeeps her mother and her visited but their names escape her. Most of her childhood was spent in a cottage in a small valley hugged by the mountains of the Fydheim Highlands. Her mother, Muirgen, and her older brother, Fintan, would hunt for their meals and for hides and furs to sell. Her father, after they had gathered and prepared enough for a cart, would journey for days to a distant town to sell them. Tuilelaith, being only five then, did not think of their living as anything other than normal. It was lonely. There were days when she would only have herself to fill the silence. She would go out to walk among the flowers, raise her voice in song or hold imaginary conversations with the animals around her. Fintan later told her, when their mother had gone to gather wood, that their father had been run out of town.

    Lachtna, Tuilelaith’s father, did not know how to fight but he knew how to talk. He knew how to weedle his way to higher profit and he knew how to cheat customers for small amounts of money. When one of his regular customers found out, the word spread. He was to be brought to trial and then to justice. Muirgen, having known some of her husband’s tendencies, had prepared an old family cottage of hers for them to run to, to live in. They became a family that not only cheated but refused to face justice. Theirs was a family without honor. She did not know what to think of this.

    When she was seven, she dreamt of a tree. And it sang to her.

   Tuilelaith woke to the murmurs of life. She could feel the nature around her, the Balance, singing. It was a song that she could not replicate but she tried. When her family left her alone and she could walk out into the valley, she tried to join the singing. She would talk to flowers, ask if she was doing her part correctly, then listen to see if they would reply. They did not answer her, not directly, but she did learn from them. Coming across a flower stem broken in half, Tuilelaith felt the weakening hum of it, and willed it to get better. Putting her hands gently around the stem, the two halves connected once again. She ran to tell her family.

    Becoming a Ranger was a difficult task. As she grew, Tuilelaith experimented with her gift to the best of her ability but she lacked experience and training. She needed knowledge. The Balance was like an ever-present friend to her, a guardian, and, over the years, she could hear it weakening. She did not know what to do but she knew that something had to be done. She needed to leave and to learn. Her family would not let her.

    Lachtna warned her of his enemies and told her how dangerous others were. He, himself, was a person who lied and cheated and those who weren’t called for blood far too eagerly for his liking. Stay where you are safe, he said because they would not follow her. Their home was here and if she was leaving the nest she would be doing it on her own. He was angry, not so much at her, but of the people outside and of his own mistakes. He had lost his fortune and lost the home he had claimed for himself. The Rifting will come, Lachtna knew that, but he was a bitter man that did not want to see his family raise a hand to help those that didn’t deserve it.

    What can you do? He asked her, telling her to leave adventures and fighting to people who were more capable and more suited to die.

   Fintan raged then sulked. He was a fire that would blaze then cool to ash. He was older by six years and, still, he hadn’t left their family for any longer than a journey to town. You don’t do anything. He had been the one to care for their mother when she had gotten sick. He had been the one hunting for their family, travelling and trading for their family. She was young and he was burdened. And their family was something to be held above all because of how they lived and how they had run. They only had each other and she was leaving. It was a betrayal.

    You know nothing but your own needs. He said nothing else.

   Muirgen was quiet and still. After Tuilelaith announced her decision to leave, Muirgen had simply turned to silence. This lasted for days and broke only when Lachtna and Fintan left to sell their goods and to escape the tension. She packed Tuilelaith’s things and spoke to her softly about how to be brave. She told her of how stars are small but burning things and of how she, too, could be that. How she, too, must be that.

    And, love, pursue good and believe you are strong enough to grasp it.

Reason for joining the Wardens:

 After arriving in Siften, Tuilelaith searched for the Druids of the Fenarious Faith to learn from them. There was a rising urgency in her development as a Ranger. Everyday, she took notice of the dwindling magic, the disturbances in the Balance’s song. But she did not know how else to help. She could help nurture plants and animals back to health but the progress was slow and the effect unnoticeable. Her efforts did nothing. When she heard of the Wardens, Tuilelaith found that she could finally breathe. This was something. They had to be something.

    For all her will and fire, she knew nothing. The Wardens, however, might.

R O L E P L A Y - S A M P L E

(Please provide a sample of your writing to one of the prompts below or use another setting which fits with your character’s background and story.)

   Three hours down the Spine Mountains, the chilling winds cut less at one’s skin in favor of taking ice-brushed nibbles. The path through the mountains and into the Targun Forest was marked with rocks frosted over white from dropped temperatures and storms turned to cold. Tuilelaith strode in expert silence, shoulders dusted with snow, in a thick fur-lined dress that seemed warm enough but unusual wear for a mountain traveler. She had no horse or any weapons that one could see. If it were not for the backpack she carried, almost bursting with its burden, she would have seemed to be a ghost, a lady of the mountain that was all but a dream.

    But she was real and her dress seemed a fine thing and she, herself, appeared as if a doll. To the shadows around her, the grinning squinting gloom, she was a target of opportunity. A lady alone, seemingly rich. It was luck.

    Tuilelaith walked to the side of the road and rested her hand on a tree trunk. To the bandits laying in wait, she seemed nothing more than tired. But, she had heard them. They were clumsy fellows, loud fellows. Their footfalls, rushed in their hunger and carelessness, had been like distant thunderclaps beneath the nipping winds. As she concentrated on the nature around her, the tree roots in her mind extending in pulsating green, she caught glimpses of where the bandits were. She pressed her forehead to the bark and whispered her thanks.

    Turning, she put her back to the tree and lifted her dress by a few inches. Tuilelaith bent down and took off her slippers, placing them neatly beside her. After shrugging off her pack, she stretched her hands in front of her. She stood still, relaxed. Closed her eyes. Felt the sharp air frost over her lungs. Then she lifted her chin, eyes open and challenging.

    "You’ll be given five seconds to leave. After that, I will try not to kill you but I will also be trying not to die. Please consider this, I do not like fighting.“

    Four cloaked figures broke from their cover. One, a lanky fellow that seemed all elongated bones beneath a darkened face, grinned. His eyes were the black beads of crows but without the bird’s innate wisdom, only the glazed brightness of malice. "Tell ya what, lass,” The voice that came from him was the scratching of stone against stone.He shrugged, the movement traveling up his spine to his shoulders. “we like gifts. Leave yer gold-”

    With one quick stamp of her foot, four tree roots shot out of the earth to knock the bandits down. The man, surprised at the interruption, was shoved prone to the ground, the root then snaked over him and dug back into the earth. One root clamped around one bandit’s leg while another wrapped around one’s torso. There was a single bandit that managed to leap back. With a flick of his hands, two knives sliced towards her.

    Tuilelaith moved with a nimble grace that appeared almost as if she were dancing. The knives hit the tree behind her, embedding themselves deep into the wood. As Tuile finished her spin towards the bandit, she traced the tips of her toes in an arc on the earth. Dirt kicked up as another root broke the surface, jetting towards the bandit in a smooth curve. It curled around the bandit’s chest, immobilizing him.

    Without a glance towards any of the other bandits, she hurried to dig out the daggers from the tree’s bark. “Thank you for the aid.” With a pat, Tuile healed the tree’s wounds. “As for all of you…” She turned to the bandits and looked over the one who had spoken to her. “Fighting is a mess and I do hope you stop this because if I do see you a next time attempting thievery I will have to hurt you.” Then, with a hefty kick (sometimes multiple), she knocked each of the bandits out.