Ethel

[Ethel]

As far as ghosts go Ethel is hardly gruesome or dramatic in appearance. Her hair is brown and messy, falling just above her shoulders in unruly waves just as it did in life. Death however has dulled her color overall, leaving her brown eyes nearly black and skin as pale as well... Death. Most often she can be found in very simple raggedy clothes, the ones she once wore while cleaning. Rarely she chooses to appear in an old dress. Heavy eyebrows weigh her face down in what can only be described as an expression of firm stubbornness. Her body overall is very thin, showing signs of one less privileged during life and lacking the luxury of very much food. A flat chest robs her of the curves usually looked for in a women, but at this point in afterlife this is hardly a detail she, or most living, would care much about. The Soulmist that can constantly be seen around her matches the almost irate expression on her face. It is usually fairly chaotic, whisping and waving around on its own. Ethel remains in the land of the living simply due to being completely, unrelentingly, stubborn. She refuses to accept her death as the end and firmly believes that she has every right to continue and do more with her "life." Overall she has a very dry, cynical view of the world. This leads her to having a distinctly sadistic and sarcastic attitude when it comes to dealing with people, and even though she has only been dead a short time, she finds herself biased against the living. Ethel is always up for a little action and mischief, basically up for any opportunity to use and misuse the things that come with being a ghost. Additionally, as much as she hated it in life, she finds herself irresistibly compelled to clean, as it was the very thing she did right up until her death. On entering a dirty house, whether she has any idea as to the residents or not, she will promptly have the urge to begin tidying up. This is a particularly painful habit, as she currently has little control in manipulating things of the physical world. Ethel's family was simple enough. She had a mother, she had a father, no siblings, no nearby extended relatives that she knew of. There was no death, no scandal, no traumatic hardships. They were just some small family of little note. There was enough money to just get by, but each member worked for it. Ethel started at a young age assisting her mother in cleaning and tending to the houses and business of those more privileged families. It wasn't an expensive service so you didn't exactly have to be at the very top of the class to have the two work, meaning the range of superiority complexes was varied. As her mother grew older and was less able to do as laborious work, Ethel went on to continue cleaning on her own. As time went on her demeanor became colder and she became more resentful of the people she worked for, each of which tended to be snottier than the last. Multiple times she attempted to pick up on some other skill or hobby, only to fail miserably at it and have to return right back to sweeping a kitchen. Sewing lead to needle injuries, anything music was torture, she hardly knew enough to read or write, and anything crafting lead to broken materials and thrown tools. In a typical angsty teenage way, Ethel finally planned to run off into the wilderness and either find something new and interesting, or die and force a terrible guilt on her parents for ever landing her this lot in life. The opportunity never arose, however, and if it did, she never took it. Years passed and Ethel continued into young adulthood. Spring was always a bit more pleasant a time to work. Customers tended to request work done outside in balconies or gardens, giving Ethel at least a change of scenery and some fresh air. This day was one of those odd hot weather days, when the clouds have simply decided to let the sun shine uncontested at the world, leaving one man's plants dying of thirst. Inside of his kitchen, Ethel stood filling a pail with water. She stared at the window, a scowl on her face, imagining all of the people who weren't stuck watering the garden of some old fart. They were probably swimming, or wandering around shops, drinking at inns, maybe even eating at a party. In her day dreaming she let the water go unwatched and it quickly overfilled the metal pail and began to spill over onto the floor. "Oh Gods yes this is exactly what I needed today." Grumbling, she stopped the water and set the bucket down on the ground. There were no cloths in the room, of course, so she would have to use her own cleaning cloths that she brought. Thank goodness they're all dry. In all of her grumbling, Ethel mis-stepped as she tried to cross the room, reaching out to catch herself far too late as the water slipped her up and sent her falling backwards. "CLAING!!" --- Ethel opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling. Gods... I must be nodding off again. Wonderful. Slowly she sat up and looked around her at the floor. The water was still there, now more thinly spread out and leading out the back door. She groaned as she remembered the spill and the fact that it would probably cause some stupid mess like a warp in the house's wood or something. Not only that, but a fog had come in and was clouding up the room. With a groan she stood up and went to take a step again to get the cloths, but moved much faster than she had anticipated, ending up a couple steps right out the door. Confused, she turned and went back inside, again, faster than she should have given what should have been her soaked state, and ended up standing right on top of her body. Right... On top...... "... What... What?! WHAT?!?!" Panicked she swung her hand through two ceramic cups, hitting and smashing another. "WHAT?! Ow?? What??" Rearing backward, staring from the now shattered cup, to the lifeless body on the ground, and back, she shook her head in complete denial. "No. NO! I DID NOT GET KILLED BY A PETCHING BUCKET!!!" Days were spent in a fit of rage. It was not so much that she was in denial of having died and become a ghost, no that in itself was fairly acceptable, it was just the means that she positively could not deal with. On slipping, she had fallen back just perfectly so that her head hit the pail, impaling it on the edge. It was such a ridiculously stupid way to die, not to mention the fact that she couldn't get a hold of touching anything securely enough to move herself and at least look like she had died via some more legitimate method. After an exhaustively long tantrum (how a ghost could get so tired she couldn't understand) she made up her mind. She was not leaving. She was completely determined to stick it to "who or whatever" that this stupidity was not her fate, that this was not the end. She would stay here, and do whatever she liked, for as long as she liked. It was simply and utterly impossible to accept that the little she ever accomplished in life was going to be the limit of her experiences in this world before leaving it. Skill Exp Total Proficiency Materialization +10 RB +20 SP 30 Competent Soulmist Projection +30 SP 30 Competent Lore Basic cleaning techniques Basic tools for cleaining Languages Common - Fluent Equipment -None Ledger Item Total SP 100 GM Housing None (currently wandering) Summer 513 Fall 513 Winter 513