Lena Applin

[Lena Applin]

Lena Applin Appearance Race: Human Gender: female Age: 15 Birthday: 78, Winter, 497 AV. Birthplace: Syliras Appearance: Lena is of average height and quite skinny, but wiry and tough for her size. Her hair is reddish-brown and large hazel eyes look out intelligently under finely arched brows – both gifts from her mother’s pretty features. Her skin is pale, as she spends most of her days indoors, but sunlight does bring out a plethora of freckles over her cheeks and nose. She wears a bold, inquisitive look and walks with assurance, and usually with a very fast, purposeful gait. On most days, she wears her long hair plaited in a thick braid down her back, for she can’t be bothered to always be brushing it neat and she can not afford to have hair falling in the food she is preparing. Her hands are rough from constant exposure to water and kitchen work, and her arms are surprisingly muscled, for such a slight looking girl. She isn’t a merry soul, exactly, but neither is she dour or mousy. She smiles and laughs easily, when warranted, and can scowl like thunder when she is pissed. She isn’t quite pretty, but she isn’t so plain as to pass completely unnoted – there is something more about her face and the way she moves, and especially her tongue, which can be sharpish, that makes people remember her. Character Concept Lean appears to be just an ordinary girl, and in many respects, she is. She was born into poverty and neglect, and has raised herself, for the most part. But she has a core of strength and stubbornness, and a desire to do better for herself, though she is still quite young. She has aspirations to live a life where she doesn’t feel like a speck of dirt under everyone’s boot heel, and thus has set her sight on joining that organization of the city of her birth that holds out the promise of advancement for any who are tough enough to accept its challenges – the Syliran knights. Lena does not strive for glory or fame or power or righteous valor. She wants merely to be somebody, not just some nameless kitchen worker. Her close observation of the knights, from the time when she was first able to recognize who and what they were, has clued her in to how difficult an undertaking this will be. But she figures that in ten years, if she doesn’t try to go this route, she will still be kneading dough in the kitchens of the castle. If she tries and fails, well…she is determined not to finish that thought. Character History Nurture versus nature – environment versus innate temperament – genes influenced by nutrition, health care, and stimulation – or lack thereof. These are the questions that great minds ponder when we ask ourselves – Who am I? What potential lay within my zygotic state at the moment of conception? What was I destined to become? What was at that moment written in stone across my genotype and what was malleable, perhaps even to the point of breaking? Am I my mother’s child – can I divorce myself from my father’s half of what lies within, through sheer will power? Am I forever warped by the what came after that moment where their DNA joined and I came into being? Does it even matter, when perhaps who I am is who I was destined to be through no chemical reaction of nucleic acids but instead lay in the alignment of the stars above as my parents moved together in that mean, shoddy, bug infested bed? Or are we, despite all else, able to carve our own form, from the raw material of our essence? Are we able to choose, freely? Is there really such a thing as choice, when most of the cards seem to have been stacked against you, right from that very first moment? Big questions for big minds to ponder, minds that have the leisure to waste time thinking, as opposed to doing. Lena has never had that luxury, and her surroundings have never been overly conducive to philosophical musings. Besides, the scientific knowledge of genotypes and the effect of poor nutrition on infant brain development are not available to even the greatest minds of Mizahar. However, the saying, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” is yet a common one, and denotes in a vernacular style pretty much the same concepts. In Lena’s case, one might throw in – and her neighbors certainly have done so often enough – “The sins of the father shall be visited upon the sons” (or daughters), and the end result is much the same. We are our parents’ children, for better or worse, and in Lena’s creation, it was a case of very much for worse. Lena was born in the same bed in which she was conceived, a rough hewn frame of unfinished, and eventually worm eaten, wood which held a pallet of none too fresh straw. The bed was shoved into a dark corner of a dark, tiny, fusty apartment in the grand city of Syliras. Parts of that city shone like a gem – metaphorically at least – a bastion of safety and civilization in a world turned dark by the ravages of warring godheads. The part in which was to be found this particular apartment, and the bed, and Lena, and her parents, was not especially shiny. The Bittern District was smashed (as most parts of the walled city were) in between other bits – specifically the harbor and the docks and the warehouses to the west, and the far nicer Jordan District to the east. That apartment, and the female baby who was brought into its dank squalor on the 78th day of Winter, in the 497th year after said warfare, were both perfect metaphorical representations of why the Bittern buffer lay between these two ends of the Syliran spectrum of living standards, and why they were not meant to co-mingle. But co-mingle they had, and this child was the inadvertent yet unsurprising result. Where first her father had brought her mother for such romps, the gods only knew. By the time her mother was swelling enough for her own parents to have figured out what was going on, Lena’s father had secured this vile, desolate room as their love nest – though there was little enough of that sentiment on his side. Her mother, may she rest in peace, finally, was smitten and probably truly believed that she was in love. Her father, well, he somehow had convinced himself that there was something to be gained, in a very concrete and financial manner, from bedding this young girl from a well-to-do family of the city. She didn’t live long enough to learn the error of her thinking. But he did, in no uncertain terms. It was one of those meant to be a fairy tale romances that didn’t quite pan out to be the rainbows and roses that her mother imagined, or that her father semi-promised it would be as he was pulling her drawers down and gilding the lilly with his skillful tongue. Lena’s father was a smooth talker, that was for sure. At least, he was until he had half his skull staved in during a bar fight several years ago. But back then, when he had first cast covetous eyes on a pretty face and dimpled smile, he could have sweet talked the honey right out of the comb. How they ever crossed paths in the first place is still a matter for speculation, on Lena’s part. Her mother died long before the child could conceptualize such history. Her father has regaled her with various renditions of the tale, all of which have something to do with Lena’s mother – Alyana – coming down to the harbor with a brother or two to inspect a ship that was to carry some of their family’s trade goods to Alvadas. Lena’s father – Ephril – was a common dock worker - or perhaps an uncommon one in that he managed to catch the pretty Alyana’s eye. Somehow, they hooked up and there were months of clandestine meetings and uninhibited co-mingling ensued, all unbeknownst to Alyana’s wealthy merchant family. No doubt the young girl thought it all quite daring and bold and brave – to cast aside her own common sense to run around with this rake from the wrong side of the tracks. As has been said before, though, a pronounced bump in the fair Alyana’s belly gave away the game. It was then that Ephril stepped forward and brashly demanded a sizeable dowry to make a respectable woman and wife out of the disgraced daughter of the family. It was then that he discovered that her father had a hard heart and a tight fist, as well as a mean one. Her father and brothers gave Ephril a severe trouncing and sent him packing, Alyana tossed right out the door as well. This might have been the moment at which the poor girl first learned that her delusions of this grand, courageous romance were just that – delusional. She had to beg Ephril to not abandon her right there on the street, and grudgingly, he relented and together they made their way to the room which he had just begun to rent, in preparation for a marriage and better things to come. Neither of which came to pass. Ephril continued to work at the docks and Alyana alternated between weeping over the cruelty of her family and smiling over the anticipated life that was soon to join them. Ephril wasn’t too unpleasant. He still had a pretty, young, delicate flower of a lover and he thought a son would be a good thing for a man such as himself to have, a boy to raise in his own image and to carry on in his footsteps, to care for him in his dotage. Alas, it was not to be – somehow all of Ephril’s plans always went awry. Instead of a fine strapping boy, he got a red headed girl that had a lusty set of lungs and her mother’s fine eyes, nose and ears. Alyana was delighted. Ephril was philosophical about it all. Life went on, for a little while. Elena, shortened to Lena almost right away, was barely crawling when Alyana took to bed with a cold, which quickly turned into pneumonia. Within a ten-day she had passed from this world, leaving behind a puzzled baby and an annoyed lover. Ephril cursed his bad luck and there was no heart warming moment of father looking into his little daughter’s pretty eyes and vowing to watch over her and raise her with love and kindness as her mother would have wanted. Far from it. There was a woman who lived in the next squallid apartment with a brood of her own, her husband always gone as a sailor, and Ephril very begrudgingly paid her a copper a day to let Lena join the mob of kids that she nominally supervised. This was truly the beginning of Lena’s life, as she has always known it. It was a completely rough and tumble upbringing, where food was not plentiful and served at very irregular intervals. Clothing was never washed, nor were hands or face. Hair was combed erratically and braided and left for days on end until it matted and the tangles were basically ripped out from the screaming child’s head. Lena learned to get what she could when she could as quickly as she could and however she could. It was dog eat dog and it turned out that she had some inner core of strength, and a native cunning, that allowed her to often prevail in the fight for whatever was on offer. Of course, this didn’t really earn her any points with her ‘caretaker’ when it came to besting the woman’s own children for whatever was on the plate. Ultimately, the lady in question told Ephril that she could no longer care for such a bossy, bullying child (Lena was all of two and a half at this point, and able to beat off the five year old son) and that he would have to make other arrangements. Ephril, who had barely noticed his daughter over the two years, except to tuck her into bed at night, quickly and with no kisses, scratched his head in vexation, wondering what he should do with her. It was then that he had this brilliant flash of inspiration. Alyana’s family hadn’t wanted him, and they hadn’t wanted her – but surely they’d want this cute little granddaughter? They’d take one look at little Lena and feel so sorry for the way they’d treated her poor mother. Their guilt would overflow, as would their purse, and he would reluctantly agree that the child would be much better off being raised in the lap of wealth than with him, and he would go away with a pocket full of metal thanks for bringing her back to the family fold. But, like all of Ephril’s plans, his scheme came to naught. Once again, Alyana’s father slammed the door in his face – after threatening yet another beating. They wanted nothing to do with the bastard offspring of their ruined daughter. As far as they cared, the child could go die in the streets. Take her to the children’s home, if you are not man enough to raise your own mistakes, they told him. That last taunting bit of advice is probably why Ephril didn’t do exactly that. He had no use for a tiny daughter. He had no way to really care for her, or no will to do so, to be more accurate. She was an imposition and an inconvenience and an impediment to his own freedom. But by the gods, those wealthy toffee noses weren’t going to tell him what was best for his own child! So back to the apartment they went. And the next day, Ephril took Lena to work with him. That is to say, he toted her along and set her down near a stack of crates and told her to be good while he worked and he’d be back to feed her at noon. … Some god or goddess must have found it pleasing to watch over the tyke, for surely no-one else did. Having already toughened up quite a bit more than most toddlers, Lena wasn’t afraid of being left to her own devices and she managed to find quite a lot of things around the dock to entertain herself. She wasn’t a particularly tractable child, so when Ephril had told her to stay put and not to stray, she wasn’t all docile obedience. But there was some inherent smart sense in her that kept her away from the water, and the carters and their horses, and the heavy traffic going to and fro. She survived until lunchtime, and the prospect of food was always one to get her attention, so she was on the look out for Ephril’s return. They ate and he left her again and she survived the afternoon. They returned home and came back the next day and she survived that one intact too. And so it was that while some children played at their mother’s feet, or others went to school, or still others were apprenticed to learn a trade, Lena simply learned about her world through first hand experience. She was observant, and chatty, and intelligent, and bold. She made friends with everyone, though she was cautiously skeptical of strangers, until she had some measure of them. She was happy to listen to stories of any kind, and she even found those who took some amused interest in teaching her her letters and numbers. Over time, as she grew from toddler to pre-school age and then to school age, Ephril found that his smart, savvy little daughter could be hired out to run errands, delivering messages or collecting things for people, for a copper here and there. These Lena insisted on splitting with her dad – he wasn’t just going to take all her money, no sir. She began to see things that she wanted for herself – nicer clothing, a bath and a clean hair, a little knife for eating, shoes – very rarely a toy or any other such nonsense. She was eight going on thirty, and she learned how to care for herself, to make plans, to follow through, to be dependable in her little jobs. Meanwhile, Ephril seemed to be losing ground, as much as his daughter was growing more and more mature by the day. He had never been a temperate fellow, when it came to drink or otherwise. But his intake of booze was steadily increasing, in reverse proportion to the number of days he made it to work. More and more frequently, Lena could not rouse him from his filthy bed of a morning. More and more frequently she found herself running to the docks to explain to his boss why he could not be present – he was sick. He had a fever. He had a chill. He hurt his hand. The boss' skeptical expression darkened with time and one day he swore and told her not to come running to him with her lies. Everyone knew what her father was. A drunk. A no-good lazy bum and she could tell Ephril not to bother to come around when he sobered up. He was sacked. This was not good. Lena was ten, and she knew in her heart and her hard head that Ephril was not likely to ever hold down a steady job again. And she was right. He found another but lost it after a few months. And so began a downward spiral where Ephril just drank himself silly and finally didn’t even try to look for work. Well, this was Syliras. Men weren’t allowed to just be drunken layabouts. And there was also the very pressing matter of where their next meal was going to come from, and how they would pay even their minimal rent. Luckily, Lena had still her network of people that would employ her to run their errands and such. But it wasn’t enough. She needed a real job, but had few skills that she could turn to. What to do? One day, she was running an errand to one of the better homes in the city – delivering a message to one of the ladies of the wealthy family that lived there. As a random gesture of kindness, she waved Lena to the kitchens and told her to ask one of the cooks to give her a bite of something. Perhaps it was the girl’s pinched face that plucked at some string in the woman’s heart. In any case, when Lena did as she was told, she discovered that just on that very day, one of the kitchen maids, that helped prepare the food, had run off with a merchant who was traveling back to his own city. Of course, tongues were wagging on both ends about what fate the girl could expect from such a villain, but Lena only looked speculative as she gnawed on the heel of bread the cook had given her. When she was done, she asked to speak to the cook in charge of the kitchen, and she asked if she could have the now vacant position. The head cook looked the thin, bony girl up and down with some skepticism, bit finally agreed to have her on trial. That was four years ago. For four years, Lena worked in the kitchen of this great home, helping to prepare many different kinds of food for the family and its guests. She acquired much experience from working day in and day out in the kitchen, and now has some skill at cookery. But, being a girl who always has a plan, she has determined that one day, she will move up in the ranks. She’s actually become a dab hand at pastries, and the head cook has told her she has a great future in dough. But who wants to spend their life up to their elbows in flour? Her father is no help whatsoever. He finally found a position as a watchman that requires little effort and allows him to sleep on a cot in the back of the warehouse he watches over. So Lena had no place to call home anymore, other than a cot in the communal room where the kitchen help slept at night. With observant eyes, however, she has watched carefully those who protect the city - the knights. She has seen even the meanest and poorest applicants be accepted to try their hand at being squires, in hopes of becoming fully fledged knights. And she has decided that she wants that kind of life for herself – one that brings with it merit and respect and privilege. She knows that she has it in her to learn whatever she sets her mind to. She is just waiting for the right moment to make her move and ask to join up. That day is coming…soon. But first, she has applied for a job as a cook at the castle, helping to prepare the meals for the knights and the squires. She hopes that this first step will set her on the path to what she desires, and she is determined to make it happen, however difficult that path may prove to be. Language Fluent Language: Common Skills Skill EXP Total Proficiency Cooking 15 RB, 9 SP 26 Competent Food Preservation 10 SP 10 Novice Leadership 10 SP 10 Novice Organization 10 SP 10 Novice Running 9 SP 9 Novice Lores Lores: Lore of Syliran Geography Lore of Syliran Culture Possessions 1 Set of Clothing -Simple Shirt -Simple Pants -Simple Undergarments -Simple Cloak or Coat -Simple Boots 1 Waterskin 1 Backpack which contains: -Comb (Wood) -Brush (Wood) -Soap -Razor -Balanced Rations (1 Week's worth) -1 eating knife -Flint & Steel 100 Gold Mizas Heirloom: a gold necklace which belonged to her mother, made of a fine chain and five small golden roses Housing Location: Syliras House: a 20x20 apartment situated deep within the interior of Stormhold Citadel and does not include any windows, only ventilation shaft to bring in fresh air. Each hallway is lined with torches which are kept lit at all hours of the day, allowing for light and giving residents free access to something to light their hearth from. A diagram is included below: Ledger Purchase Cost Total Starting +100 GM 100 GM Thread List