[b]22. VERDÌNQA+NPCS[/b] (originally made for Back Alley Magic (polyvore)) URSTYLE CS (most up-to-date version): https://urstyle.com/topic/2404573/topic/6 [hider=The Homeless Dryad] "Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs; Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet Clear of the grave." -"Hamatreya", by Ralph Waldo Emerson ❂Name: Alicia ❂Username: @ayzrules ❂Top 3 role choices: (can write up to 5 if you chose popular roles) 1. The Homeless Dryad 2. The Eternal Fire 3. ❂Role being Auditioned for: -----The Homeless Dryad: *Powers: Feeds off of plant energy, and can induce plant growth at unnatural speeds. Vinelike hair can be manipulated. Can release poisons (both temporarily paralytic and deadly). Can communicate with plants, though these communications are more like emotional reactions. Is at the peak of their powers during the day. *Lost their forest due to human expansion, and while they are usually calm and peaceful, they can become quite spiteful and vicious towards people who show disrespect for nature. ❂Faction: Fae ❂FC: Blanca Padilla ❂Name: Verdínqa ❂Any other titles, nicknames, or epithets: La que Pertenece a la Selva, or or The One that Belongs to the Rainforest. Alternatively, she is La Madre de la Selva or La Madre de la Tierra; the Mother of the Rainforest and the Mother of the Earth, respectively. Those titles commonly get shortened to La Madre Verde (the green mother) or simply La Madre. In English-speaking countries, she is sometimes referred to as Mother Nature or Mother Earth (this is a /very/ flattering title, since Verdínqa only has domain over the Amazon Rainforest. But still). She was Pachamama to the Incans. ❂Age: As old as the Amazon Rainforest itself-which would be around 50 million years. Verdínqa only clearly remembers a couple thousand or so of those years, though, starting from when the first human civilizations began developing in the region ❂Personality (+ and -): Verdínqa, more commonly known as La Madre de la Tierra or La Madre Verde, comes off as a quirky, whimsical woman who may be just /slightly/ off her rocker. She is full of sweet smiles and melancholy eyes and flowing satin skirts, and she abhors violence and destruction. Verdínqa likes to wear flowers in her hair and dance to invisible music, and she flits about the world like a bird, full of dreamy nonsense and endearing eccentricities. Gentle and free-spirited, Verdínqa has a profound appreciation for the natural world (she is, after all, a being of the natural world) and all it has to offer. She is rather emotional, thinking with her heart more than with her head (so to speak), and can be prone to irrational flights of fancy as a result of her age and general personality. Verdínqa is perceptive and keenly aware of other people's emotions, despite her tendency to stare off into space with a dreamy expression on her face. Underneath her flower crowns and tangled hair, however, Verdínqa is distant and fragile. She misses her rainforest; she misses the cawing birds and swishing leaves and chirping insects. She misses the vibrant flowers and dark soil and towering trees. She misses the very /air/ of her rainforest; the lush smell of life and the sweet smell of fruit and flowers. She misses the lazy sloths and bright frogs and mischievous monkeys; the tireless ants and proud parrots and graceful jaguars. She misses them all, and sometimes, all she can do is stare out at the twisting skyscrapers and grey streets of Morrow and wonder what the city would look like swallowed up by verdant greenery. Verdínqa may be physically present in Morrow, but in her head, she is far, far away, thousands of years in the past, before the humans began poisoning her beloved rainforest. Verdínqa herself is very gentle and kind; she would never hurt a fly. But sometimes, she gets so /angry/ at the way that humans have treated the Earth-and it's all she can do to keep herself from replacing the steel jungle that is her new home with vines and trees; from reaching deep down below the ground to every little root and every little sapling that has somehow survived in this world of car exhaust and industrial toxins, and telling them to /grow/. Grow, she wants to say, and take back the land that is yours. Grow, and reclaim the world as your own, she longs to tell them. You belong with the sun and sky and sea, she wants to say, not buried under asphalt roads and twisting metal. But Verdínqa is frightened-she does not want to take any human lives, for only a small percentage of humans are responsible for the blatant destruction and degradation of the Earth and the wonders that it has to offer. So she retreats within herself, and tries to remember a time when humans lived in harmony with the land. It gets harder and harder with each passing day. Verdínqa, La que Pertenece a la Selva, La Madre de la Selva, was supposed to protect her rainforest. Was that not why she was created-to safeguard her home? But how can she do that if the humans fill her veins with lead and mercury from their paints and pipes, if they fill her lungs with carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide from their cars and coal? It's poison to her, just as it's poison to the air and water and trees. Verdínqa wants to be violent and destructive-she wants to burn their homes to the ground and let trees and flowers grow from the ruins; she wants to level cities and factories and highways and give her precious plants the clean air and fresh water they need to flourish. But how could she be so cruel? How could she be so cruel to those families who only cut down her trees so that they can have a fire to cook their food with? How could she be so heartless as to reduce their shacks and hovels to ash? So Verdínqa does nothing. She sits back and watches tides of destruction wash over the world in the form of slash-and-burn agriculture, in the form of bulldozing forests for farmland, in the form of blowing up mountains to mine coal that supply impoverished families with electricity. What /can/ she do, without hurting the innocent? She does her best to protect her plants, but she is weak without her rainforest, surrounded by smoke and smog. All she wants is to go back to a time when humans and nature lived in harmony. Is that /really/ so much to ask? +Kind +Gentle +Peaceful +Caring +Diplomatic +Calm +Nurturing +Slow to anger +Empathetic -/+Non-confrontational -/+Emotional -/+Whimsical -/+Dreamy -/+Sees all humans as inherently good -/+Wistful -/+Melancholy -Vicious and vengeful, when provoked -Passive -Eccentric -Slightly (okay, maybe more than /slightly/) off her rocker -Absentminded -Reclusive ❂Powers, weapons, and skills: *Verdínqa draws strength from plants. This is both a strength and a weakness, in the sense that before nations began industrializing, the ecosystem was (relatively) healthy, so Verdínqa was more easily able to feed off of the plants' energy. Nowadays, though, it's hard to find plants that haven't been touched by pollutants added to the environment by humans. *Verdínqa is more resilient than one might think. The Earth will endure-it /has/ endured-and so will she. *Can cause plants to grow at greatly increased speeds; is capable of transforming mere saplings into towering trees within seconds, for example. *Can "manipulate" plants in the sense that she can communicate with them, more so through feelings and instincts than coherent thoughts. *Can transform her hair into vine-like tendrils at will. These vines are surprisingly nimble and dexterous, acting as a cross between a lasso or a whip and an extra set of hands or arms. *Fluent in English (as a necessity), Spanish (again, as a necessity), and various indigenous languages that have been all but lost to time (Quechua, the language of the Incan Empire, among them). Knows a smattering of various European and Asian languages as well, mostly from observing immigrants to the nations of South America. *Decent at embroidery, if you're interested in the kind from Europe during the Age of Exploration. *Pretty good with floral arrangements and gardening, as well. Has a soft spot for botany. ❂Weaknesses: *Exposure to iron and silver leaves her dizzy and fatigued. In addition, direct contact with either substance burns her. *Verdínqa's powers are weaker after sunset. They are also weaker when she is isolated from plant life or around iron or silver. *Anything that has a detrimental effect on plants will affect Verdínqa as well. Even indirect factors take their toll; greenhouse gases that cause the warming of the Earth's climate don't /directly/ harm plant life, but the changes brought about by this phenomenon have already greatly decreased biodiversity and the overall well-being of many ecosystems, which has weakned Verdínqa. *Comes off as a bit batty, and unknowingly switches languages quite often. These traits, as you can imagine, are not exactly great for making first impressions. *Verdínqa's aversion to violence makes her quite passive and indecisive when she sees people ruining the Earth. It also makes her more likely to run away from a fight than to face it head-on, though if she gets angry enough- -well. Let's just leave it at that. ❂Likes and dislikes: Likes-flora and fauna of any kind (though she is especially partial to those species native to the Amazon Rainforest), the Amazon Rainforest, guavas, coconuts, pineapple, tropical fruit in general, the indigenous peoples of South America (though some of them had very /questionable/ practices), flower crowns, lace (especially of the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Spanish variety), long, flowing dresses and skirts, cotton sundresses and gauzy wraps, rural areas with picturesque farms and gently rolling hills, the sights and smells of a tropical rainforest, the emerging concern for the environment in certain human circles (though she fears that it is too little, too late), sunny meadows, snowy mountaintops, windswept plains, dry savannas, arid deserts, dense forests, environmental documentaries, books that raise awareness about the environment, the ideas of nineteenth-century "transcendentalists" regarding nature (though she couldn't care less about what they thought of "God"), rain, hail, sunshine, fog, thunderstorms, blizzards, calm spring days with not a cloud in sight, sunrises and sunsets, geologists and environmental scientists/activists, rainbows, stiff white blouses, the phenomenon of life, "La Vorágine" by José Eustasio Rivera, folk music (of any sort) Dislikes-wanton destruction and/or degradation of the environment, the conquistadors of Spain's colonial period, the Spanish colonial period in general, pollutants of any sort that cannot be naturally filtered out of the Earth's living systems at a reasonable rate, seeing all the areas of the world that humans have already destroyed, being reminded of how she allowed humans to exploit the Amazon Rainforest's resources, bullsh.t like sharkfin soup and modern-day meat packaging plants, powerful corporations who show no respect for the environment or their workers, sweatshops that are harmful to both humans and the environment, large-scale mining projects, nuclear power plants (despite their relatively low amounts of carbon emitted to the atmosphere), CFCs, DDT and other harmful pesticides, climate-change deniers, people who show no regard for the environment as a whole, Witches who compel her to go against her morals for their own gain, trashy rap music ❂Short bio: In a time before human beings-in a time before love and desire and wealth and sadness, in a time ruled by the basic, primal instinct to survive-Verdínqa was created. The Eocene Epoch: the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. It began over fifty million years ago. It ended over /thirty/ million years ago. That was when Verdínqa was created. Born, created, put on this earth, whatever you want to call it; as far as anybody knows, Verdínqa, La Madre Verde, La que Pertenece a la Selva, Mother Nature-she came to be millions and millions of years ago. Verdínqa doesn't recall much from her early days. Sometimes, hazy, half-remembered memories float through her dreams; she sees rushing rivers and sun-speckled tree trunks and animals both strange and beautiful that went extinct thousands upon thousands of years ago. She sees chaos and harmony; turmoil and peace. According to modern-day scientists, the Amazon Rainforest formed after tropical temperatures dropped when the Atlantic Ocean had expanded enough to bring a warm, moist climate to the Amazon basin. And with the extinction of animals that people now call the pterodactyl and the T-rex, Verdínqa's domain expanded even further. In the subsequent millennia, Verdínqa's home underwent innumerable changes, yet it was always /hers/. Verdínqa was one with the rainforest and the rainforest was one with her. Then the humans came. Homo sapiens, as they are now known. They now dominate the Earth. They create and destroy; they build and burn. They love and cry and laugh and scream, and Verdínqa does not know if she will ever understand them. Even now, at over fifty million years old, she cannot decide what she truly thinks of humans. At first, though, it was much simpler. The humans were only another animal living both with and against nature, just like the parrot or the boa constrictor or the poison-dart frog. If a snake killed mice and ate it, did that mean that the snake was evil? No; it was only trying to survive. So when the humans began developing weapons and taking Verdínqa's trees to cook their food, Verdínqa did nothing. All they were doing was surviving. When they began killing other animals, Verdínqa did nothing. When they began killing /each other/, again, she did nothing. That was not Verdínqa's domain; her domain was the flowers and soil and water of the rainforest. Nothing more, nothing less. Then the humans began to write. They began to speak, to communicate, to think. They began to see life as more than simply surviving. And Verdínqa did nothing, because in the end, they were animals, and all animals deserved her respect and protection. Animals and plants were two cogs of the same well-oiled machine. Animals could not survive without plants, and plants could not survive without animals. And humans, at their core, were still just /animals/. They call themselves mammals now, Verdínqa knows. Yet, they view themselves as somehow "above" other animals. It is pure hypocrisy, if you ask her. But nobody has ever bothered, so Verdínqa has never offered her opinion. She learned their languages, their arts, their way of life. Though some spread to parts of her rainforest, Verdínqa did nothing. The heart of her rainforest remained untouched, unsullied by the wholly human concept of "greed". Fast forward a couple thousand years. It is sometime in the fifteenth-century; the Incan Empire, which has some territory within or on the edges of Verdínqa's domain, is at the height of its power. Meanwhile, the Icamiaba dominate the banks of the Amazon River. And then comes a plague that has spread from Hispaniola and modern-day Mexico to South America, decimating the Incan population. Dead bodies are strewn in the soil and rivers of the Andes, some with sores oozing pus and blood. As if that wasn't enough, Francisco Pizarro lands on the coasts of what is now called Peru, and he wreaks havoc on Incan society. Verdínqa almost /does/ do something, this time; she senses his greed and lust for power from hundreds of miles away. But she doesn't. Pizarro, too, is human, and therefore an animal, and therefore a being that deserved Verdínqa's respect and protection. Not long after PIzarro's arrival (a mere blink of an eye, to Verdínqa), Francisco de Orellana embarked on an expedition to explore the entire length of the Amazon River, cutting straight across the South American continent. And again, Verdínqa does nothing, even as smallpox follows in his footsteps, devastating the Icamiaba like it devastated the Incas. That was right around (or perhaps it was a little bit after? Verdínqa's memory gets a little fuzzy sometimes) when Verdínqa was summoned for the first time. Someone on de Orellana's expedition recognized her for what she was, apparently. A Spanish witch, his mind clouded by dreams of god and gold and glory, summons her. She appears to him in the form of a woman, with caramel skin and chocolate-colored hair and deep brown eyes. He dresses her in expensive silver shackles that burn like ice and fine lace that conceals her true identity and enlists her help in stealing the treasures of the Earth for the Spanish Crown. And Verdínqa has no choice but to obey. Potosí, the silver capital of the colonial world. Huancavelica, where poisonous mercury was mined to refine the silver ore of Potosí. These are only two of the mines that Verdínqa has found. And these are only two of the mines where Verdínqa has seen indigenous laborers being driven to exhaustion, dying in droves from starvation, cave-ins, or both. She hated the Spanish. She hated the Spanish witch, the one who forced her to find these mines through her connection with plants, the one who only cared about his precious gold and his deluded glory and his pretender god. This time, Verdínqa only does nothing for a decade. And then she retaliates, choking the Spanish witch to death with her vine-like hair, plant roots and tree trunks exploding from the ground as Verdínqa is blinded by her white-hot rage. She keeps the lace he was so fond of, though. She doesn't know why-she doesn't know if it's a reminder of her guilt or of her power. Perhaps it is both. The next few centuries would have been nothing more than a blur, if not for the humans. Verdínqa watched as they built contraptions and machines powered by steam and coal; she watched as they cut down her trees and contaminated her river. She watched bloody revolutions bring more dead bodies to her soil, she watched rubber plantations and banana plantations and even acaí berry plantations begin to develop. She tried to stop it, sometimes, but the rubber plantations provided people with the money they needed to survive and the people were cutting down her trees for farmland so that they, too, could have a soft bed and a full belly. Who was she to deny that to them? Sometimes, Verdínqa regrets her inaction. Because she was too gentle (or was she too cowardly?), the humans have now destroyed a considerable part of her home, wiping out dozens of critical species in a single blow. Because she was too indecisive, her river and her water and her soil has been poisoned with toxic industrial products that, by all rights, should never have existed. DDT is killing her birds. Excess phosphorus is killing her fish. And /everything/ is killing her plants. Verdínqa fled for Morrow, because the human poisons were causing her power to wane. She fled for Morrow to escape the wanton destruction of everything that she held dear. She thought that, maybe, in this magical crossroads, she would find an answer to her dilemma. None have presented themselves to her yet. In a time before human beings-in a time before love and desire and wealth and sadness, in a time ruled by the basic, primal instinct to survive-Verdínqa was created. But this is a vastly different time. This is the time /of/ human beings, of love and desire and wealth and sadness, of greed and avarice and lust and gluttony. It will not always be the time of the man, though. Verdínqa has seen millions of species flourish. She has seen millions of species die. Perhaps the better question is- -will the humans leave anything behind besides a barren, lifeless Earth? Well. Not if Verdínqa has anything to say about it. ❂Life in Morrow: Verdínqa lives in a tiny shack near Morrow's outskirts. She has no electricity or running water, and the inside of her "home" is overgrown with vines and branches. She lives near the water, and she hates leaving the vicinity of it. She hates the steel jungle that humans call a "city". Verdínqa is not formally employed, but she frequently speaks with environmental science majors from the nearby university about her knowledge. She doesn't know if any of them take her seriously, but it's good to have someone who is at least /pretending/ to listen to her. The Winter King, she finds, has no time for her eccentricities, and she avoids witches like the plague. ❂Why do they want the Stone? Verdínqa isn't exactly sure how she would go about doing this, but she wants the Stone in order to somehow fix the mess that humans have made of the planet. And she would not be opposed to freeing herself of the Witches, too, as some of them have forced her to go against her beliefs and morals in the past. ❂Greatest wish? For humans to finally get their sh.t together and realize that they are destroying their planet. Alternatively, to return to her true home-the Amazon Rainforest. ❂Greatest fear? That it's too late to stop anthropogenic environmental changes from completely destroying nature. ❂What 5 items would you put in a pentagram to summon them? *A bouquet of flowers, of any variety naturally found in the Amazon Rainforest. Preferably the entire flower, roots and all, though picked flowers and flower petals can work as well. Varieties not found in the Amazon but found in other tropical rainforests can be used too, to a lesser extent. *A handful of soil from the Amazon Rainforest (or, again, any other rainforest, to a lesser extent)-thin and poor in nutrients, yes, but this soil is Verdínqa's life blood. *Fresh, uncontaminated water from any natural source, untouched by society and civilization and all the pollutants that come with it. Harder to find than you would think. *A fresh pineapple, the freshest that you can find. There's no profound reason for this, really. Verdínqa just happens to love pineapple. *Copies of two of Ralph Waldo Emerson's poems ("Hamatreya" and "Earth-Song"). These poems are, Verdínqa feels, some of the wisest things that humans have ever written in their (relatively brief) history. Alternatively, a piece of fine Spanish lace, dating back to their colonial period, will serve as well. ❂Why did you choose this FC? Because Blanca Padilla has some really awesome photoshoots that give off the ~vibe~ that I'm going for ❂Backup FC if you have one Luiza Scandelari [/hider] [hider=Updated Version] The Homeless Dryad Powers: Feeds off of plant energy, and can induce plant growth at unnatural speeds. Vinelike hair can be manipulated. Can release poisons (both temporarily paralytic and deadly). Can communicate with plants, though these communications are more like emotional reactions. Is at the peak of their powers during the day. Lost their forest due to human expansion, and while they are usually calm and peaceful, they can become quite spiteful and vicious towards people who show disrespect for nature. Faction: Fae FC: Blanca Padilla Name: Verdínqa Any other titles, nicknames, or epithets: La que Pertenece a la Selva, or or The One that Belongs to the Rainforest. Alternatively, she is La Madre de la Selva or La Madre de la Tierra; the Mother of the Rainforest and the Mother of the Earth, respectively. Those titles commonly get shortened to La Madre Verde (the green mother) or simply La Madre. In English-speaking countries, she is sometimes referred to as Mother Nature or Mother Earth (this is a /very/ flattering title, since Verdínqa only has domain over the Amazon Rainforest. But still). She was Pachamama to the Incans. Goes by Vera, nowadays. Age: As old as the Amazon Rainforest itself-which would be around 50 million years. Verdínqa only clearly remembers a couple thousand or so of those years, though, starting from when the first human civilizations began developing in the region Personality: Verdínqa, more commonly known as La Madre de la Tierra or La Madre Verde, comes off as a quirky, whimsical woman who may be just /slightly/ off her rocker. She is full of sweet smiles and melancholy eyes and flowing satin skirts, and she abhors violence and destruction. Verdínqa likes to wear flowers in her hair and dance to invisible music, and she flits about the world like a bird, full of dreamy nonsense and endearing eccentricities. Gentle and free-spirited, Verdínqa has a profound appreciation for the natural world (she is, after all, a being of the natural world) and all it has to offer. She is rather emotional, thinking with her heart more than with her head (so to speak), and can be prone to irrational flights of fancy as a result of her age and general personality. Verdínqa is perceptive and keenly aware of other people's emotions, despite her tendency to stare off into space with a dreamy expression on her face. Underneath her flower crowns and tangled hair, however, Verdínqa is distant and fragile. She misses her rainforest; she misses the cawing birds and swishing leaves and chirping insects. She misses the vibrant flowers and dark soil and towering trees. She misses the very /air/ of her rainforest; the lush smell of life and the sweet smell of fruit and flowers. She misses the lazy sloths and bright frogs and mischievous monkeys; the tireless ants and proud parrots and graceful jaguars. She misses them all, and sometimes, all she can do is stare out at the twisting skyscrapers and grey streets of Morrow and wonder what the city would look like swallowed up by verdant greenery. Verdínqa may be physically present in Morrow, but in her head, she is far, far away, thousands of years in the past, before the humans began poisoning her beloved rainforest. Verdínqa herself is very gentle and kind; she would never hurt a fly. But sometimes, she gets so /angry/ at the way that humans have treated the Earth-and it's all she can do to keep herself from replacing the steel jungle that is her new home with vines and trees; from reaching deep down below the ground to every little root and every little sapling that has somehow survived in this world of car exhaust and industrial toxins, and telling them to /grow/. Grow, she wants to say, and take back the land that is yours. Grow, and reclaim the world as your own, she longs to tell them. You belong with the sun and sky and sea, she wants to say, not buried under asphalt roads and twisting metal. But Verdínqa is frightened-she does not want to take any human lives, for only a small percentage of humans are responsible for the blatant destruction and degradation of the Earth and the wonders that it has to offer. So she retreats within herself, and tries to remember a time when humans lived in harmony with the land. It gets harder and harder with each passing day. Verdínqa, La que Pertenece a la Selva, La Madre de la Selva, was supposed to protect her rainforest. Was that not why she was created-to safeguard her home? But how can she do that if the humans fill her veins with lead and mercury from their paints and pipes, if they fill her lungs with carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide from their cars and coal? It's poison to her, just as it's poison to the air and water and trees. Verdínqa wants to be violent and destructive-she wants to burn their homes to the ground and let trees and flowers grow from the ruins; she wants to level cities and factories and highways and give her precious plants the clean air and fresh water they need to flourish. But how could she be so cruel? How could she be so cruel to those families who only cut down her trees so that they can have a fire to cook their food with? How could she be so heartless as to reduce their shacks and hovels to ash? So Verdínqa does nothing. She sits back and watches tides of destruction wash over the world in the form of slash-and-burn agriculture, in the form of bulldozing forests for farmland, in the form of blowing up mountains to mine coal that supply impoverished families with electricity. What /can/ she do, without hurting the innocent? She does her best to protect her plants, but she is weak without her rainforest, surrounded by smoke and smog. All she wants is to go back to a time when humans and nature lived in harmony. Is that /really/ so much to ask? +Kind +Gentle +Peaceful +Caring +Diplomatic +Calm +Nurturing +Slow to anger +Empathetic -/+Non-confrontational -/+Emotional -/+Whimsical -/+Dreamy -/+Sees all humans as inherently good -/+Wistful -/+Melancholy -Vicious and vengeful, when provoked -Passive -Eccentric -Slightly (okay, maybe more than /slightly/) off her rocker -Absentminded -Reclusive Powers, weapons, and skills: *Verdínqa draws strength from plants. This is both a strength and a weakness, in the sense that before nations began industrializing, the ecosystem was (relatively) healthy, so Verdínqa was more easily able to feed off of the plants' energy. Nowadays, though, it's hard to find plants that haven't been touched by pollutants added to the environment by humans. *Verdínqa is more resilient than one might think. The Earth will endure-it /has/ endured-and so will she. *Can cause plants to grow at greatly increased speeds; is capable of transforming mere saplings into towering trees within seconds, for example. *Can "manipulate" plants in the sense that she can communicate with them, more so through feelings and instincts than coherent thoughts. *Can transform her hair into vine-like tendrils at will. These vines are surprisingly nimble and dexterous, acting as a cross between a lasso or a whip and an extra set of hands or arms. *Fluent in English (as a necessity), Spanish (again, as a necessity), and various indigenous languages that have been all but lost to time (Quechua, the language of the Incan Empire, among them). Knows a smattering of various European and Asian languages as well, mostly from observing immigrants to the nations of South America. *Decent at embroidery, if you're interested in the kind from Europe during the Age of Exploration. *Pretty good with floral arrangements and gardening, as well. Has a soft spot for botany. Weaknesses: *Exposure to iron and silver leaves her dizzy and fatigued. In addition, direct contact with either substance burns her. *Verdínqa's powers are weaker after sunset. They are also weaker when she is isolated from plant life or around iron or silver. *Anything that has a detrimental effect on plants will affect Verdínqa as well. Even indirect factors take their toll; greenhouse gases that cause the warming of the Earth's climate don't /directly/ harm plant life, but the changes brought about by this phenomenon have already greatly decreased biodiversity and the overall well-being of many ecosystems, which has weakned Verdínqa. *Comes off as a bit batty, and unknowingly switches languages quite often. These traits, as you can imagine, are not exactly great for making first impressions. *Verdínqa's aversion to violence makes her quite passive and indecisive when she sees people ruining the Earth. It also makes her more likely to run away from a fight than to face it head-on, though if she gets angry enough- -well. Let's just leave it at that. Likes: flora and fauna of any kind (though she is especially partial to those species native to the Amazon Rainforest), the Amazon Rainforest, guavas, coconuts, pineapple, tropical fruit in general, the indigenous peoples of South America (though some of them had very /questionable/ practices), flower crowns, lace (especially of the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Spanish variety), long, flowing dresses and skirts, cotton sundresses and gauzy wraps, rural areas with picturesque farms and gently rolling hills, the sights and smells of a tropical rainforest, the emerging concern for the environment in certain human circles (though she fears that it is too little, too late), sunny meadows, snowy mountaintops, windswept plains, dry savannas, arid deserts, dense forests, environmental documentaries, books that raise awareness about the environment, the ideas of nineteenth-century "transcendentalists" regarding nature (though she couldn't care less about what they thought of "God"), rain, hail, sunshine, fog, thunderstorms, blizzards, calm spring days with not a cloud in sight, sunrises and sunsets, geologists and environmental scientists/activists, rainbows, stiff white blouses, the phenomenon of life, "La Vorágine" by José Eustasio Rivera, folk music (of any sort) Dislikes: wanton destruction and/or degradation of the environment, the conquistadors of Spain's colonial period, the Spanish colonial period in general, pollutants of any sort that cannot be naturally filtered out of the Earth's living systems at a reasonable rate, seeing all the areas of the world that humans have already destroyed, being reminded of how she allowed humans to exploit the Amazon Rainforest's resources, bullsh.t like sharkfin soup and modern-day meat packaging plants, powerful corporations who show no respect for the environment or their workers, sweatshops that are harmful to both humans and the environment, large-scale mining projects, nuclear power plants (despite their relatively low amounts of carbon emitted to the atmosphere), CFCs, DDT and other harmful pesticides, climate-change deniers, people who show no regard for the environment as a whole, Witches who compel her to go against her morals for their own gain, trashy rap music Short bio: In a time before human beings-in a time before love and desire and wealth and sadness, in a time ruled by the basic, primal instinct to survive-Verdínqa was created. The Eocene Epoch: the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. It began over fifty million years ago. It ended over /thirty/ million years ago. That was when Verdínqa was created. Born, created, put on this earth, whatever you want to call it; as far as anybody knows, Verdínqa, La Madre Verde, La que Pertenece a la Selva, Mother Nature-she came to be millions and millions of years ago. Verdínqa doesn't recall much from her early days. Sometimes, hazy, half-remembered memories float through her dreams; she sees rushing rivers and sun-speckled tree trunks and animals both strange and beautiful that went extinct thousands upon thousands of years ago. She sees chaos and harmony; turmoil and peace. According to modern-day scientists, the Amazon Rainforest formed after tropical temperatures dropped when the Atlantic Ocean had expanded enough to bring a warm, moist climate to the Amazon basin. And with the extinction of animals that people now call the pterodactyl and the T-rex, Verdínqa's domain expanded even further. In the subsequent millennia, Verdínqa's home underwent innumerable changes, yet it was always /hers/. Verdínqa was one with the rainforest and the rainforest was one with her. Then the humans came. Homo sapiens, as they are now known. They now dominate the Earth. They create and destroy; they build and burn. They love and cry and laugh and scream, and Verdínqa does not know if she will ever understand them. Even now, at over fifty million years old, she cannot decide what she truly thinks of humans. At first, though, it was much simpler. The humans were only another animal living both with and against nature, just like the parrot or the boa constrictor or the poison-dart frog. If a snake killed mice and ate it, did that mean that the snake was evil? No; it was only trying to survive. So when the humans began developing weapons and taking Verdínqa's trees to cook their food, Verdínqa did nothing. All they were doing was surviving. When they began killing other animals, Verdínqa did nothing. When they began killing /each other/, again, she did nothing. That was not Verdínqa's domain; her domain was the flowers and soil and water of the rainforest. Nothing more, nothing less. Then the humans began to write. They began to speak, to communicate, to think. They began to see life as more than simply surviving. And Verdínqa did nothing, because in the end, they were animals, and all animals deserved her respect and protection. Animals and plants were two cogs of the same well-oiled machine. Animals could not survive without plants, and plants could not survive without animals. And humans, at their core, were still just /animals/. They call themselves mammals now, Verdínqa knows. Yet, they view themselves as somehow "above" other animals. It is pure hypocrisy, if you ask her. But nobody has ever bothered, so Verdínqa has never offered her opinion. She learned their languages, their arts, their way of life. Though some spread to parts of her rainforest, Verdínqa did nothing. The heart of her rainforest remained untouched, unsullied by the wholly human concept of "greed". Fast forward a couple thousand years. It is sometime in the fifteenth-century; the Incan Empire, which has some territory within or on the edges of Verdínqa's domain, is at the height of its power. Meanwhile, the Icamiaba dominate the banks of the Amazon River. And then comes a plague that has spread from Hispaniola and modern-day Mexico to South America, decimating the Incan population. Dead bodies are strewn in the soil and rivers of the Andes, some with sores oozing pus and blood. As if that wasn't enough, Francisco Pizarro lands on the coasts of what is now called Peru, and he wreaks havoc on Incan society. Verdínqa almost /does/ do something, this time; she senses his greed and lust for power from hundreds of miles away. But she doesn't. Pizarro, too, is human, and therefore an animal, and therefore a being that deserved Verdínqa's respect and protection. Not long after PIzarro's arrival (a mere blink of an eye, to Verdínqa), Francisco de Orellana embarked on an expedition to explore the entire length of the Amazon River, cutting straight across the South American continent. And again, Verdínqa does nothing, even as smallpox follows in his footsteps, devastating the Icamiaba like it devastated the Incas. That was right around (or perhaps it was a little bit after? Verdínqa's memory gets a little fuzzy sometimes) when Verdínqa was summoned for the first time. Someone on de Orellana's expedition recognized her for what she was, apparently. A Spanish witch, his mind clouded by dreams of god and gold and glory, summons her. She appears to him in the form of a woman, with caramel skin and chocolate-colored hair and deep brown eyes. He dresses her in expensive silver shackles that burn like ice and fine lace that conceals her true identity and enlists her help in stealing the treasures of the Earth for the Spanish Crown. And Verdínqa has no choice but to obey. Potosí, the silver capital of the colonial world. Huancavelica, where poisonous mercury was mined to refine the silver ore of Potosí. These are only two of the mines that Verdínqa has found. And these are only two of the mines where Verdínqa has seen indigenous laborers being driven to exhaustion, dying in droves from starvation, cave-ins, or both. She hated the Spanish. She hated the Spanish witch, the one who forced her to find these mines through her connection with plants, the one who only cared about his precious gold and his deluded glory and his pretender god. This time, Verdínqa only does nothing for a decade. And then she retaliates, choking the Spanish witch to death with her vine-like hair, plant roots and tree trunks exploding from the ground as Verdínqa is blinded by her white-hot rage. She keeps the lace he was so fond of, though. She doesn't know why-she doesn't know if it's a reminder of her guilt or of her power. Perhaps it is both. The next few centuries would have been nothing more than a blur, if not for the humans. Verdínqa watched as they built contraptions and machines powered by steam and coal; she watched as they cut down her trees and contaminated her river. She watched bloody revolutions bring more dead bodies to her soil, she watched rubber plantations and banana plantations and even acaí berry plantations begin to develop. She tried to stop it, sometimes, but the rubber plantations provided people with the money they needed to survive and the people were cutting down her trees for farmland so that they, too, could have a soft bed and a full belly. Who was she to deny that to them? Sometimes, Verdínqa regrets her inaction. Because she was too gentle (or was she too cowardly?), the humans have now destroyed a considerable part of her home, wiping out dozens of critical species in a single blow. Because she was too indecisive, her river and her water and her soil has been poisoned with toxic industrial products that, by all rights, should never have existed. DDT is killing her birds. Excess phosphorus is killing her fish. And /everything/ is killing her plants. Verdínqa fled for Morrow, because the human poisons were causing her power to wane. She fled for Morrow to escape the wanton destruction of everything that she held dear. She thought that, maybe, in this magical crossroads, she would find an answer to her dilemma. None have presented themselves to her yet. In a time before human beings-in a time before love and desire and wealth and sadness, in a time ruled by the basic, primal instinct to survive-Verdínqa was created. But this is a vastly different time. This is the time /of/ human beings, of love and desire and wealth and sadness, of greed and avarice and lust and gluttony. It will not always be the time of the man, though. Verdínqa has seen millions of species flourish. She has seen millions of species die. Perhaps the better question is- -will the humans leave anything behind besides a barren, lifeless Earth? Well. Not if Verdínqa has anything to say about it. Life in Morrow: Verdínqa lives in a tiny shack near Morrow's outskirts. She has no electricity or running water, and the inside of her "home" is overgrown with vines and branches. She lives near the water, and she hates leaving the vicinity of it. She hates the steel jungle that humans call a "city". Verdínqa is not formally employed, but she frequently speaks with environmental science majors from the nearby university about her knowledge. She doesn't know if any of them take her seriously, but it's good to have someone who is at least /pretending/ to listen to her. The Winter King, she finds, has no time for her eccentricities, and she avoids witches like the plague. Why do they want the Stone? Verdínqa isn't exactly sure how she would go about doing this, but she wants the Stone in order to somehow fix the mess that humans have made of the planet. And she would not be opposed to freeing herself of the Witches, too, as some of them have forced her to go against her beliefs and morals in the past. Greatest wish? For humans to finally get their sh.t together and realize that they are destroying their planet. Alternatively, to return to her true home-the Amazon Rainforest. Greatest fear? That it's too late to stop anthropogenic environmental changes from completely destroying nature. What 5 items would you put in a pentagram to summon them? *A bouquet of flowers, of any variety naturally found in the Amazon Rainforest. Preferably the entire flower, roots and all, though picked flowers and flower petals can work as well. Varieties not found in the Amazon but found in other tropical rainforests can be used too, to a lesser extent. *A handful of soil from the Amazon Rainforest (or, again, any other rainforest, to a lesser extent)-thin and poor in nutrients, yes, but this soil is Verdínqa's life blood. *Fresh, uncontaminated water from any natural source, untouched by society and civilization and all the pollutants that come with it. Harder to find than you would think. *A fresh pineapple, the freshest that you can find. There's no profound reason for this, really. Verdínqa just happens to love pineapple. *A piece of fine Spanish lace, dating back to their colonial period. Alternatively, any sort of critter from the Amazon Rainforest that you can get your hands on, be it a sloth or a panther or a frog. [/hider] [hider=Vivian Chen, the Redeemer] NPC Name: Vivian Chen Special Role: The Redeemer Weapons:Staff stamped with a sigil on its blunt end for paralysis and tipped in iron (which is poisonous to fae and shifters). Believes magical creatures are a necessary evil, and may even be positive for maintaining balance in the city. They are worried the Pretender King is going to lead the city into a needless war. FC: Liu Wen Age: 35 Occupation: Knight Personality: +Very loyal, especially to the Knights and those she cares about +Very, very patient....except for when it comes to people that she deems "hopelessly incompetent" +Hard-working and diligent; has never been afraid of putting in effort +Confident in her own abilities as a Knight +Calm and collected, no matter the situation. Good in a crisis. +A good listener, and surprisingly good at explaining things and teaching other people, given her reserved demeanor +Analytical and observant. Doesn't miss much +Doesn't get stressed or distracted easily. Doesn't get too excited about anything that easily, either +Accepting and non-judgmental. Good at remaining objective in all situations; very diplomatic +Level-headed; keeps her wits about her under pressure and in emergency situations. +Dutiful, which makes her "brave". Though she doesn't know how courageous she would be if she didn't have the Knights to fight for. -/+Places value in "doing the right thing". Perhaps too much value. -/+Quiet and reserved; doesn't say much. -/+Rather stern, most of the time. She doesn't laugh all that often. -/+Doesn't trust easily -/+But once you gain her trust, she'll follow you to the edge of the world and back -/+A bit of the strong, silent type -/+Uses her stoic demeanor as a way of masking her true feelings -/+Unsure and uncertain about where she stands regarding magical beings and the Knights; she doesn't want to betray the Knights and everything that she has stood for and fought for all these years, but at the same time, she can't help but be convinced that the Knights are going down the wrong path -Not very good at talking about her feelings -Not very good at talking about feelings in general -Will drive herself to exhaustion if not stopped -Hates being viewed as weak or vulnerable -Tends to play by the rules, no matter what -Kinda indecisive, because she doesn't know how to do the "right thing" or what the right thing really is, at this point -A bit on the blunt side; has never been one for manners and wordplay when a straight-forward answer will do. But at the same time, she knows how to word her criticisms and advice without offending anyone -As mentioned before, Vivian really isn't very good at talking about feelings/emotions; she tends to bottle everything up because it's "not important" (at least, in her eyes), and she can already feel herself cracking -Plagued by nightmares involving a certain incident in Peru, though she refuses to talk about it. But people who know Vivian well can see it in the bags under her eyes and her pale, drawn face -Has no idea what the hell she's doing, only that she must do what's right for the world. But what's "right" is only becoming more and more ambiguous as time goes on Short bio: The entirety of Vivian's immediate family was composed of Knights, and the entirety of Vivian's immediate family was killed by Powered beings (well, besides her mother, who is a half-lucid paraplegic. But still). Vivian grew up with her parents always away, chasing down some Shifter or witch or Fae or the other. Vivian's father was killed by a Fae when she was five. Her mother was permanently paralyzed from waist-down by a Shifter when Vivian was twelve. Her younger brother, who was part of a team sent to track down a rogue witch, is missing and presumed dead. That was ten years ago. Vivian was always dutiful and hard-working, and although she was no prodigy, her quiet diligence and unwavering loyalty in her earlier years caught the attention of the other Knights and the Pretender King. She slowly but surely rose up the ranks, and she didn't question anything. She didn't question the fact that her family was ripped apart by this lifestyle. She didn't question the fact that some of the Powered beings the Knights hunted were perfectly innocent. The thought that what the Knights were doing wasn't /right/ never even crossed her mind. However, as Vivian learned of the Pretender King's true intentions, she began to question the path that the Knights were on. If all Powered beings just disappeared from this world, what would happen to the Knights? What would happen to everything they'd built and created and looked after? Vivian began to realize that a certain /balance/ was needed, and she wondered if there was a better way-one that didn't involve so much bloodshed, one that didn't involve families being ripped apart and innocents being murdered. Of course, Vivian kept these thoughts to herself. They were practically /traitorous/, and for someone like Vivian, who had always followed the rules to the T, it was, well...frightening. It wasn't until Peru that Vivian began seriously considering these thoughts. When a Shifter who could turn into a jaguar stole several important magical artifacts that the Knights were keeping locked away in Morrow, Vivian and a couple of other Knights were sent to get them back. They found the Shifter in Peru, on the edge of the jungle. Thinking that he was alone, the Knights decided to attack-only to be ambushed by a couple of the Shifter's allies. Vivian doesn't remember much besides the pain and the confusion and snapping jaws closing around her shoulder and arm and leg, and the pain and the darkness and the /red/ and the pain and the pain and the pain, and every time she /tries/ to remember more her head hurts and her body gets all tense, so she just doesn't try anymore. Sometimes, she thinks that she's just imagining things, but the scars-the scars, two running down her face from her left eye to her chin and the scars all over her back and her limbs-they are proof that it was /real/. The other Knights left her for dead, and truly, Vivian doesn't blame them. She herself thought that she was going to die, too, but instead she woke up in the deep depths of the rain forest, and although her memory is quite hazy, Vivian remembers the faint smell of guavas and the sound of someone murmuring in a strange, foreign language, and the gentlest hands that she'd ever encountered. And the pain, the blood, the jaguar-all gone. Next thing she knew, Vivian was being shaken awake in a hospital, and then she left for Morrow, as bewildered as her fellow Knights about her miraculous survival. She brushed off the memory of the jungle as a fever dream-or she would have, if her clothes didn't smell like sticky-sweet guavas and if there weren't dried flower petals caught in her pockets and zippers. Vivian suspects that it was a Witch Proper that healed her in that jungle, but she cannot say why. All she knows is that now, more than ever, the Knights are on the wrong path. The Pretender King will destroy all of Morrow, if he must, in the name of "justice"-and Vivian knows that it's just plain /wrong/. Connection to the magical side of Morrow or to your character: Being a Knight, Vivian is very well-versed on all the Powered beings and is quite knowledgeable on how magic works. She has encountered all sorts of Powered beings in her lifetime, and has been actively hunting them down for years and years now. Recently, she has been frequenting spots that are known to be popular amongst the magical folk and trying to learn as much as she can about them-for "research purposes", of course. Vivian would probably feel some sort of recognition if she ever crossed paths with Verdínqa-she felt her presence back in the jungle, after all-but she also probably wouldn't know /why/ she recognized her. Vivian thinks that it was a Witch Proper who fixed her up (and indeed, it was, though that witch only helped Vivian because Verdínqa asked her to). Of course, Vivian is aware of Verdínqa's existence, thanks to the Researcher's book, and she does have a slight suspicion that Verdínqa had something to do with her miraculous survival, but she isn't really sure /how/. How much do they know about the magical aspects of Morrow? Do they favor a faction? Vivian knows quite a lot about the magical aspects of Morrow, and she's always trying to learn more. Obviously, Vivian favors the Knights, though she wishes for balance and peace in between Knights and magical beings. She doesn't favor a specific magical faction, really, though she isn't too fond of Shifters due to...personal experience. Greatest wish? To figure out what she should do-right now, all she knows is that what the Pretender King wants to do is wrong, and that she needs to find a way to stop him and maintain the balance. But she doesn't know /how/. Greatest fear? That the Pretender King will have his way and destroy Morrow in his delusional quest to eradicate all magical creatures from this world. [/hider] [hider=Elena Pavaloska] NPC Name: Elena Pavaloska FC: Vlada Roslyakova Special Role: N/A (shopkeeper) Age: 32 Occupation: Florist, environmental activist, tutor, co-chair of the Morrow Environmental Awareness Association, and kickss stay-at-home-mom (wants to return to her previous position in a research facility after her kids have gone to college) Personality: +Kind, caring, and friendly-Elena is, overall, just a nice person. She’s very friendly and always down for striking up conversations with strangers. She genuinely cares about the wellbeing of others, and she will 100% be willing to listen to your problems and offer her advice if she can. +Reliable-If Elena says that she will do something, then she’ll get it done. Period. She is also as constant and as bright as the sun-always there with a bright smile on her face, no matter what. +Organized-Elena is a total neat freak, something that her husband and children don’t always appreciate. With Elena, everything has its proper place-and as a result, she can find even the most obscure of objects in a cluttered (but organized!) closet with only a moment’s hesitation. +Practical-Elena is a very grounded, down-to-earth person. She always has an elegant solution to everyday problems to the everyday problems that pop up, be they as trivial as a bad hair day (there’s nothing that a snazzy hat and a bit of hair-spray can’t fix!) or as colossal as anthropogenic climate change (a bit harder to fix, admittedly, but Elena firmly believes that everything starts at an individual level-carpool and ride those bikes, people!) +Sympathetic and empathetic-Elena will always “feel” for people, and she’s very understanding and nonjudgmental. She firmly believes that everyone has their own story, and that everyone deserves a chance. +Cheerful, optimistic, and welcoming-Elena is the type of person to always look on the bright side. She will always welcome others with open arms, and she takes joy in the simple things in life. -/+Very forgiving-Elena tends to view all people as inherently good, and she is extremely quick to forgive and forget. -/+Generous-Elena is always willing to give to others, and she is full of generosity. Her husband, for one, doesn’t like that she always gives people stuff for free. -Gullible-Elena will believe any sob story she hears. She can be a bit naive and more trusting of others than she should be. So far, this hasn’t landed her in much trouble (she lives in one of the wealthier areas), but in a city like Morrow, being too trusting could have serious consequences. -A worrywart-Elena worries about /everything/. As such, she is always ten minutes early to everything, and her handbag is filled with everything from Kleenex to a collapsible umbrella. -Bossy-Elena is a bit of a control freak, and this can make her come off as bossy sometimes. Of course, she is always exceedingly nice about bossing people around, but the fact remains that she can be quite controlling. She’s not a perfectionist-she’s much too laid back to be one-but she’s getting pretty dam.n close. -Constantly busy-Elena tends to overextend herself and overestimate her own capabilities. It’s perfectly reasonable to tutor elementary schoolers in science, volunteer at the animal shelter, give a presentation at a Morrow Environmental Awareness Association meeting, run her flower shop and cafe, tend to her garden, ferry her kids to and from school, and have dinner on the table by the time her husband comes home all in one day, right? (tl;dr she’s basically /that/ girl in school who’s involved in every club and is the president of half a dozen organizations who’s annoyingly cheerful and peppy all the time) Short Bio: Originally from Russia, Elena attended Morrow University and majored in botany and environmental science. Her husband, Alexei Pavaloska, went to college in Spain, though he was born and raised in Morrow. Elena met Alexei while he was visiting his friends at Morrow University during one of his breaks. The two eventually got married and settled down after both of them had completed grad school. Alexei became a Spanish professor at Morrow University, and Elena found a research position at the university, though she decided to quit that job after she had her second child. Speaking of children-Elena and Alexei have two daughters and a son. Their oldest daughter, Natalia (usually referred to as “Nat”), is ten years old. Their son, Nicolas (usually referred to as “Nick”), is seven, and their youngest daughter, Natasha (usually referred to as “Tasha”, so as to avoid confusion with Natalia), is five. All three of them attend an elementary school only a couple blocks away from their home (though Elena /insists/ that either she or Alexei walk them there and back every day, much to her entire family’s chagrin). After Elena had Nick, she decided that she wanted to open a flower shop (with a cute little cafe inside of it as well, of course), just to give her something to do besides waiting for her children to get out of school. Elena has always had a green thumb of sorts, and she supplemented her supply of flowers (which she always ascertained were grown without fertilizers and pesticides that would harm the environment and the exploitation of workers in places like Colombia) with flowers that she’d cared for herself in the small garden behind the building. Elena currently lives with her husband and children in an apartment above the shop. Elena is also very active as an environmental activist and spokesperson in her community. She is the co-chair of the Morrow Environmental Awareness Association (a friend of her husband’s is co-chair alongside her) and frequently organizes presentations, events, and volunteer operations. Finally, she volunteers as a tutor at the public library, tutoring students in Russian and the life sciences. Connection to the magical side of Morrow or to your character: Elena met Verdínqa for the first time when she found her reverently stroking the petals of a peony. Upon further inspection, Elena realized that those specific peonies were the ones she’d noticed were wilting a couple days ago-yet they were now colorful and vibrant and more alive than they had ever been before. Fishing the story out of Verdínqa was a bit awkward, at first-what Elena managed to piece together was that Verdínqa had noticed the flowers were wilting and had cared for them while Elena was away. Elena was still puzzled, but she accepted the vague explanation (which was half in Spanish and some other unintelligible languages; Verdínqa unknowingly switches tongues quite frequently, Elena has found) and invited Verdínqa in for coffee. (More cautious people would have wondered why this woman with tangled hair and bare feet and a dirt-streaked face was even in that part of Morrow. Elena didn’t question it.) Elena and Alexei have managed to decipher that Verdínqa is not homeless (even though she looks like she could be)-she lives near the docks-that she is originally from “the Amazon Rainforest” (Elena and Alexei believe that she has indigenous ancestry and was born in Peru), and that she is /very/ good with plants. Natalia, the oldest child, was the first to discover that Verdínqa isn’t fully, well, /human/ after she made a sapling grow into a mature tree in less than ten seconds. Natalia has tried to hide this fact from her parents-she believes that they, being adults, would immediately try to report this to the police, thereby causing Verdínqa to be taken away or locked up (Natalia’s in a comic-book-superhero-phase right now). Although the secret has been shared with Nicolas and Natasha, Elena and Alexei do not know…yet. Verdínqa frequently visits the Pavaloska’s flower shop and apartment. She’s stayed over for meals before, and although Elena and Alexei always offer her a place in their home (and a shower, and new clothes, and money, and perhaps a job), Verdínqa always shrugs her shoulders noncommittally with a faraway look in her eyes and drifts off before they can ask again. How much do they know about the magical aspects of Morrow? Do they favor a faction? Elena and her family remain blissfully unaware of the magical aspects of Morrow, mostly because Verdínqa isn’t the best at expressing herself clearly (and she doesn’t really keep up with the going-ons of other magical beings, either). Only the children know that Verdínqa is more than human, but being the children they are, they don’t really question it. Greatest wish? To somehow, with all the might of middle-aged stay-at-home moms, stop (or at least /slow/) anthropogenic changes to the environment. Also for her kids to grow up into happy, healthy, and successful adults who don’t have to worry about BS like contaminated water and polluted air. Oh, and add on finding a good vegan substitute for honey. Greatest fear? That something will happen to her husband or kids (or Verdínqa, who is basically a kid, anyway)[/hider]