[i]This is potential character one of two. Maybe we can see which one people like better once I've posted Yuri (the other one). Anyway, sorry if this is a bit long. She's partially inspired by Virginia Hall, who was a legendary badass.[/i]

[u][b]Name (or known Aliases):[/b][/u] Simona Ricci, aka. Gianna Verdi, Margarethe Vonlanthen, Hopper 

[u][b]Age:[/b][/u] 23

[u][b]Nationality:[/b][/u] Italian

[u][b]Affiliation:[/b][/u] Italian Red Cross, works personally for Princess Marie Jose of Italy when she's not looking out for number one. 

[u][b]Role:[/b][/u] Nurse, thief, infiltrator 

[u][b]Appearance: (shitty pic coming soon)[/b][/u] A slim and petite (maybe 5'2") lightly-tanned Caucasian woman in her early mid-twenties, with shoulder-length straight black hair, blue eyes, and a nose that's just a bit too large, Simona skews to the 'pretty' side of average. She has dimples when she smiles (though it's usually more of a grin or a smirk), and a slight case of buckteeth. However, these things are usually not what people notice about her first. Instead, it's the pronounced limp that she walks with or - when she's not wearing her prosthetic - the fact that she's missing nearly her entire left leg. Due to the height of her injury, she moves better on crutches, though she'll often use her artificial leg to blend in more easily. Indeed, when she's just standing in a crowd, she tends to fade into it. Simona's not exactly open about the cause of the injury, mostly because it's a touchy enough subject that she risks getting emotional. 

She usually wears her Red Cross uniform, which looks just a little bit like a nun's habit. Otherwise, she prefers knee-length dresses or skirts. She's unlikely to be seen in a revealing or provocative outfit except when she's drinking. Simona usually carries a large brown backpack stuffed full of first-aid equipment, clothes, a flask of Limoncello, a small satchel of tools that look like scalpels but are really for less legal uses, and sometimes her prosthetic leg. It really is amazing what she can fit in there. The leg itself is actually useful for holding things, as it’s hollow and she uses it to smuggle letters and contraband when necessary. That’s dangerous works, so sometimes, she also wears a leg holster with a small Beretta under her skirt/dress. She knows how use it, but that doesn't mean that she knows how to use it [i]well[/i]. It’s more for her own sense of agency. 

[u][b]Personality:[/b][/u] Simona is whatever she needs to be at the moment, whether that be a dutiful Catholic girl and committed nurse, a sophisticated and creative young woman from a wealthy family with contacts in the government, a physically and emotionally broken victim of war, or a loud, irreverent, warm, and somewhat uncultured rural Italian stereotype. Exactly which of these is closest to her genuine personality is up for debate, and the truth may be that she’s a bit of each.

The final one, however, is undoubtedly the face she wears easiest. Simona can talk. She loves spinning a good story, sharing a good laugh (sometimes about rather crude subjects), and engaging in frank, witty, and often quite incisive verbal fencing. She can appreciate a good pun, though she hasn’t mastered the art of making them herself (at least not in English), and will readily make self-deprecating jokes about her one-leggedness. Having witnessed a great deal of death and suffering, at some point she ‘got over the hump’ with regards to emotional attachment and simply learned to accept that people come and go and that they’re still worth investing in. She’s quick to get close with anyone who’ll allow it, and can be almost uncomfortably touchy-feely at times, though she will never make romantic advances, nor will she be stupid enough to trust them.

In general, Simona calls upon the powers of sympathy, stereotype, friendliness, and caricature to ensure that she’s seen as a complete non-threat by enemies and most friends alike. At best she’s plucky and admirable, at worst she’s either a vacuous and annoying chatterbox or a pity case.

Outside of the social aspects of her personality, Simona is intelligent, quick-thinking, and surprisingly competent (mainly due to sheer moxie) at a number of unrelated skills. Conversely, she can be impulsive, pushy, and Quixotic in terms of her personal quests and goals. She’s flighty but ambitious, and profoundly confident in herself on a basic level, though the loss of her leg has undermined this somewhat and occasionally leads to bouts of overcompensation. Regardless, Simona is used to succeeding and regularly getting her way. When she doesn’t, it can be ugly, both personally and professionally. 

If she’s a bit materialistic, it’s not for the sake of having pretty things, but rather more practical reasons. She believes that money and resources can buy both safety and happiness to some extent and that accruing them will benefit her and her family. Despite this, the war has touched her profoundly, and Simona has come to genuinely care about those affected by it. She wants it to be over, and she would go so far as to die romantically and heroically to that end. What comes next is no concern of hers. She’s pointedly apolitical, though socially somewhat liberal, and she distrusts communists and political radicals of any stripe. Her primary loyalty is to her superior and patron, Princess Marie Jose of Italy, and it comes second only to herself and her family.

[u][b]Service History:[/b][/u] Simona joined the Italian Red Cross as soon as Italy entered the war and her brothers, Giacomo and Vittorio, were deployed to Southern France. She has never been one to simply sit idle, especially not when others are out doing what is expected of them. Sent to the African theatre, she served in field hospitals and POW camps for the better part of two years, often working in collaboration with British and American Red Cross units in the area. This is where she picked up most of her English, though she has some cousins who live overseas. Most of these places were chronically underfunded, so she had to find...creative ways to finance them at times. Whether it be pickpocketing the dead and dying, skimming supplies intended for military garrisons, or stealing officers’ bonuses right out of their safes, If her superiors disapproved of her methods, they never had the chance to voice that disapproval, because that would've involved catching her first.

She was working in a field hospital just outside of Addis Ababa when the forces of her own country strafed the entire compound (this is based upon a real historical incident). While attempting to evacuate the wounded, she was shot high up on the left thigh with a heavy-caliber round from one of the aircraft and she passed out almost instantly. Simona awoke minus a leg and fell almost immediately into a serious depression, partially due to the injury and partially due to the fact that her own country's forces had been responsible for the monstrous attack. The government, of course, vehemently denied such absurd rumours, and the incident was quickly buried, though not before it was brought to the attention of the head of the Italian Red Cross, Princess Marie Jose. When Simona was shipped back to Italy to convalesce, she was personally visited by the princess, who was something of a personal enemy of Mussolini and was looking for ways to bring the war to a close as soon as possible. Though it was officially supposed to be little more than a courtesy/publicity visit, the princess was eager to confirm the rumours that she had heard, and the two women ended up speaking for hours. Simona was deeply impressed by the patron of her organization, and it inspired a degree of personal loyalty that she previously hadn't felt towards anyone outside of her immediate family. They talked deeply and frankly, and she must've made an impression herself, because Princess Marie personally paid for her rehabilitation and prosthetic leg. Not to be outdone, the Italian government, under Mussolini, awarded her a medal for bravery and being wounded in service (despite the fact that she was wounded by [i]them[/i] and was in the service of an international NGO). 

Unwilling to simply return home and collect a disability pension, Simona returned to her duties, albeit in what were considered safer, more 'home front' areas. However, with the allied invasion of Italy beginning in 1943, the home front became a front in the true sense, and not only was her brother Giacomo one of the early casualties, but her upper-middle class family’s finances were devastated when the bombing campaign destroyed her father’s auto factory. As the situation worsened, Marie Jose stepped up her anti-fascist activities, and Simona, in secret correspondence with her superior, offered her services above and beyond the call of the Red Cross. When Mussolini's regime collapsed and he fled to the north of the country, Simona followed, albeit as something of a mole. She's been working tirelessly for the last six months in hospitals and POW camps in North-Central Italy, not only healing and feeding, but also working clandestinely with POWs and wounded fighters from various partisan groups to subvert the new puppet regime. A couple of days ago, a critically wounded republican fighter, remembering that another member of his cell had told him that "you can trust the one-legged woman", pressed a message into the palm of her hand with a mysterious address in Ulm, Bavaria. 

[u][b]Other:[/b][/u] Simona's a lot stronger than she looks, able to lug around her backpack/prosthetic/crutch(es) without complaint and despite her small size. She’s a generous 5’2” and weighs all of 78 pounds. Combined with her natural flexibility, this allows her to squeeze herself into extremely small spaces if need be. She’s picked up a number of other useful skills over the course of her relatively short life: She can play the flute and violin reasonably well thanks to lessons during her childhood; She speaks passable Swiss German as a result of growing up in Northern Italy not far from the border; She’s also picked up some English and some Ethiopian from her postings during the early part of the war and learned to swim while undergoing rehabilitation. Picking locks and pockets were further skills learned while in theatre. She also became pretty good at table tennis from playing with wounded soldiers in the various hospitals that she served in, though she’s not as good as she thinks she is. 

This tendency to overestimate herself extends to drinking. Her tolerance for alcohol is much lower than she’s convinced it is (this is partly due to her being smaller than she used to be), and she is liable to make a fool of herself when drunk. In the past, this didn’t extend to throwing herself at men, as she was saving herself for marriage, but after becoming an amputee, she decided that her marriage prospects were slim to none and that waiting for something that would never come was a daft idea. She’ll still never outright make the first move, but she’ll definitely respond. The truth is, Simona doesn’t really know how to act around a man who she finds legitimately attractive. In particular, she has a thing for Americans, American culture, and motorcycles.
Culturally, she’s far from traditional, with a love for Big Band Jazz, fast cars, days at the beach, and late nights out dancing, though she’s a bit self-conscious about the latter two now. She’s eager to squeeze everything that she can out of life, she’ll make sport of anybody, and she can sometimes come across as a bit of a misandrist. She has a nickname, Legnoso (which means ‘Woody’ in Italian), for her prosthetic leg, and sometimes talks about it as if it’s a person with a will of its own.

Ultimately, as an Italian in late 1943, Simona knows that she can play either side if need be. As a nominal member of a neutral organization, she can gain access to people and places that might be impossible otherwise. As a small disabled woman, Simona knows that she won't readily be viewed as a combatant or any type of threat but also that it's not exactly easy for someone with such a visible difference to be inconspicuous if her cover is ever blown. She's never looked a man in the eyes and shot him, but she's certain that she could do it if the need ever arose.