[quote=@Force and Fury] [hider=Penny Pellegrin][center][h2][u] Penelope 'Penny' Pellegrin [/u][/h2] [img]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/75/34/d1/7534d1c01e2381c58d68b9e9b60d178b.jpg[/img][/center] [b][center] "I admit to being more than a little distracted by the...wit and depth of the conversation at this table." "It seems [i]mother [/i]wishes to turn me into some sort of lifelong penitent for sins I've not committed."[/center][/b] [center][h3][b] 17 | Female | Perrench | Royalty | 8.11 [/b] [/h3][/center] [h3][u]P E R S O N A L I T Y [/u][/h3] [indent]❖ Sardonic ❖ Pessimistic ❖ Good-hearted ❖ Pampered ❖ Insecure[/indent] Most of Penny's life has been defined by being the family disgrace. She was born without a left leg and with a moderate form of ectrodactyly in her left hand and this was cause enough for her superstitious mother to see her birth as divine punishment for the sins of her and her husband. This would be quite a bad state of affairs in most families, but is only magnified due to the fact that Penelope's parents are King Rouis XI of Perrence and his wife, Queen Mathilde. Unallowed to attend balls, public functions, or even to venture past the palace gardens, Penny is a young woman stifled. She reads, (crutch in hand) she paces, she grows things and draws and writes. She pretends to hate those formal family dinners when both father and mother are home, but secretly, she loves them. She is a forgotten middle child in many ways, with no prospects for marriage despite her station and no hope of amounting to much, so she is not one to hold back on pithy observations and cutting commentary and it is oh so amusing, and often not only to her. The Gift is sometimes her plaything. When she's bored or sucky, she uses it to play tricks on her siblings, particularly if they're being obnoxious (at least one always is). A laugh at someone else's expense is still a laugh. Besides, they deserve it. However, deep down, beneath many layers of snark and resigned cynicism, there's a curious, big-hearted girl who has dreams of seeing the world, meeting new people, and being valued instead of either pitied, stared at, or avoided with whispers, stolen glances, and sad shakes of the head. Because you place you right hand on your left hip, pointing to your left leg to honour Oraff (the creator) when you make the sign of the Pentad, religious superstition holds that Penny's missing limb is a mark of that God's disfavour. She does not believe it. She refuses to. She has a private tutor and she practices Binding Magic for hours on end, quietly determined to prove that she isn't what they say she is. On some warm Dorrad nights, though, as she lies awake in bend, staring at the swirling patterns on her ceiling and unable to sleep, she worries that they're right and that she'll fail. She wonders why she couldn't just be whole and normal. She tries to dream that she is, but even in her dreams, she remains stubbornly the same person who she knows and does not love. [h3][u]C H A R A C T E R A P P E A R A N C E [/u][/h3] Were it not for her birth differences and their prejudices, most people would consider Penelope quite pretty. Tall and statuesque, with bright green eyes perhaps just a bit too large for her face and a resting smirk, she is the spitting image of her mother. Her hair is a rich chestnut brown and, when not styled in the fashion of the courts (even though she does not attend them), can usually be found pulled back in a Perrench braid. Since she was young, it has displayed a remarkable resistance to maintaining any sort of cohesive style or form for long and appears almost preternaturally tousled. Penny wears long, light dresses. They vary in colour and she has many - some hand-me-downs from her older sisters. She likes things that are lacy but feel solid and protective, so lacy hems and collars abound but not much else. She enjoys buttons, for whatever reason, and will often fiddle with those running down her sleeves. She also wears gloves. The left one is modified to fill in the gap in her palm and it has a dummy finger attached by a thin string to the one beside it. Out of habit, she does not take her gloves off unless sleeping or bathing. She has a pair of crutches, but doesn't like how they fill her hands. As a result, she often gets around with only one. She's rarely in a hurry anyway. There's nowhere to go and not all that much to do. [h3][u]L A N G U A G E S [/u][/h3] For a noble lady of Penelope's station, languages are a must. For her, they're something to do, and she has numerous correspondents all across the twin continents who she writes to. She is fully fluent in Perrench, Avincian, Revidian, and her mother's native tongue of Cirrimanic, and at least conversant in Eskandish, Torragonese, Joruban, and Belzaggic. She sometimes practices her calligraphy and is looking to correspond with someone in Oiyac or Mycormi, but yasoi are so much more reticent in real life than they are in all of her old books. [h3][u]T H E G I F T [/u][/h3] Penny approaches prodigious levels in her use of the gift - unsurprising for a blueblood of her pedigree. With little else to do but read, write, and learn, she also trains all day, memorizing focus words and inventing little spells of her own that she gives funny names to. While she's practiced with all five canonical schools, it is Binding that she puts most of her effort towards. She works with Kinetic to help ease the difficulty of walking long distances, and with magnetic because it's her tutor's favourite and she understands the utility of it. Guiltily, she dabbles in internal Chemical spells and tells herself it isn't so that she can make people like her. That's what a madwoman would think. Penny isn't mad and will not let herself go mad. She simply won't. Besides, Binding Magic is her preferred school. If she can't heal herself, she thinks, she can at least heal other people. Then she cringes at the thought of how melodramatic and self-indulgent such a statement would sound aloud. [h3][u]B A C K G R O U N D [/u][/h3] Penny remembers the looks most of all, the first time that people saw her. It first really registered when she was around three or four years old. Until then, she was blissfully unaware of her differences and what they meant. She grew up playing with her siblings - there were many and they were close in age. There were servants' daughters and cousins too. They always told the most wonderful stories and she used to like to hear them until she realized that those were stories of a world that was being kept from her. They're now a weird, resentful kind of addiction. She still needs to hear them, bu they don't bring her joy. When she was seven, her parents attempted to arrange her a marriage with the second son of a Torragonese lord, but instead of making arrangements by proxy, he decided to visit. Penny played with the boy and they smiled and she teased him that they'd be married someday and that he should listen to his wife. Then, they left. One time, when she was ten, there was a ceremony at the Catherdal de Ste. Defrois. She rode in a carriage through the streets of Relouse, listening to the clatter of the horses' hooves and the church bells ringing. She remembers leaning out with her little tiara and waving at the commonfolk. They were loud and dirty and shouted, and she was a bit scared, but they waved back, and there were kids her own age in there too. She hasn't traveled since. She hasn't done much of anything since and wasn't going to be allowed to. That is, until her brother Arcel intervened. She is to attend Ersand'Enise under an assumed name, as the invented daughter of an unremarkable merchant paid a sum by her brother. She is to be his agent there. She is to meet with people and exchange letters with them. She knows Arcel. He is not vile, but he is ambitious and underhanded. Penelope - Penny Pellegrin now - doesn't much care. It's a species of freedom, at least, and she'll take it, even with all of the risk and the fear. [h3][u]M O T I V A T I O N [/u][/h3] More than anything, Penny wants to spread her figurative wings. She wants to live an actual life. She wants to prove to herself, at least, that her mother is wrong about her. There is a deep well of bitterness there, though she shakes her head to clear it and simply tries to appreciate that she has never hungered nor wanted for any physical need a day in her life. Penny is eager to be here and to make something of herself, but she is deathly afraid of the real, actual, wild people out here. How will they react to her? Will they laugh at her jokes? Will they just see her - Penny - a girl from Perrence, or will it be pity, awkwardness, or avoidance? She knows it will. It'll have to be. What if anybody finds her out - or whatever her brother is up to? Will she be able to play a merchant's daughter convincingly? She feels like a fraud when it comes to life. She hasn't lived very much and knows it. Still, sometimes she takes a deep breath and counsels herself that she can do it. She is a princess of Perrence. Her forebears earned the crown at some point. They were capable people. So is she... she hopes - she really, [i]really [/i]hopes. [h3][u]I N V E N T O R Y [/u][/h3] Penny almost always carries a satchel slung across one shoulder, with some basic jewellery, a small journal, letters and wax, and a comb (partly as a joke) inside. She uses one crutch when not forced to walk too far or too quickly and two when she knows that it's going to be a longer day. They're made of light, stained wood with soft pads on top for her armpits. She'll never be found using a wand or staff as a focus object, having practiced freecasting from a young age. For spells absolutely requiring one, a crutch is very much like a staff when held a certain way. She's recently taken to wearing a spare garter even though she already has one to hold up her stocking. She uses it as a strap to slip secret correspondence for her brother into and spends the next while paranoid that it'll slip out and Black Rezaindians will come for her in the night. [h3][u]S T R E N G T H S & S K I L L S [/u][/h3] [indent]❖ funny and clever ❖ grudgingly kind-hearted ❖ excellent courtly manners ❖ good memory ❖ skilled in language and literacy [/indent] At the end of the day, Penny falls on the side of being a good person. Her acerbic comments are more than just a cover, but also not her entire story. She's well-heeled and it shows. She can wield etiquette like a weapon if need be and generally has very good recall for obscure trivia and details. This carries over into languages and the written word, where she can speak seven languages, at least to some degree...usually. [h3][u]W E A K N E S S E S & F L A W S [/u][/h3] [indent]❖ anxious and insecure ❖ not very worldly at all ❖ proud and paradoxically judgemental ❖ tires quickly when walking ❖ questionable self-awareness and victim complex[/indent] Penny's upbringing and the constant feeling of being unwanted has done a number on her mental health. She's not a wreck or a basket case, but she struggles with intense flashes of anxiety and self-doubt. She worries about how people will perceive her and tends to assume the worst, though she actively counsels herself not to. She can be a bit of a stepford smiler at times. [h3][u]M I S C E L L A N E O U S [/u][/h3] Penelope of Perrence is here incognito, as a lowly merchant's daughter named Penny Pellegrin. It would be unusual for anyone but the high-ups in the school establishment to know who she really is.[/hider] Honestly, not sure how I feel about her. The angst is reaching epic proportions. [/quote] I personally like her, I think Penny's great. My suspension of disbelief wasn't broken, nor even strained as I read through her CS, which means she's a believable character within the context of the universe and its lore.