[h3]The Elder Scrolls; Updated[/h3] [hider=The Crone] [center][img]https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/yq9c3z3xe54.PNG[/img][/center] [center][url=https://open.spotify.com/track/7x8pIrhMu9FCmqqHNyuH0P?si=47f02f84d1f94fbc]Deia[/url] / [s]Dhalia[/s] 39 The Crone Nord[/center] [hr] [b]Appearance:[/b] It can be seen that she was beautiful once, but Deia has grown thin, gaunt, and wild. There are echoes of things that consumed her etched across her being. Her hands are restless. Fingers always moving to trace unseen symbols in the air and across her limbs when she speaks. Her hair, once kept neat in the schools of High Rock and her courts, has since grown wild, long, and into curls. Her thin body is crisscrossed with scars. Her hands, her arms, her throat… Some were earned in battle, others carved there by her own blade and will in moments of ritualistic fervour. There is a phantom elegance to the way she moves, her affluent upbringing existing still in her soul and she draws on it now in her new life. She has a habit of tilting her head when listening, as if she is catching voices no one else can hear. Thing unheard and unseen, a wisp of something from the other side. When she speaks, her voice is smooth until it isn't. Until her mania slips through in a burst of chilling laughter, her lips curled just a little too wide. The serpent ready to strike. [b]Personality:[/b] Deia prays in the shadows with her teeth bared and jaw clenched, hands gripped around a blade. To her, faith is devotion carved into flesh and screamed into the harsh and rotten void. When she speaks of her gods, there is a gleam in her eyes that is wide and fevered. When silence lingers too long, she fills it with laughter that blooms into something high and unhinged and frightening. She laughs at things that shouldn’t be funny. At sorrow, at regret, and at the trembling in a fearful voice. Fear delights her. She especially delights in other’s unease and in the way a man will flinch when she recites prayers not meant for his ears. Deia still wears talismans of bone and feather hidden beneath her cloaks, still mutters old prayers to gods most fear to name. But beneath it all, buried under the weight she carries there is still something fragile, something that aches in the quiet moments when she remembers what was taken, what was done to her, what she lost. She does not speak of love, but it is her deepest wound that has never closed. She does not weep. Her grief lives and feeds on her rage. It propels her forward, bringing lucidity from her madness enough to disguise herself in the city streets now. There is still fear that she is too far gone from humanity, that she will never attain a state of being recogniseable to the children who are searching for her. Not only will she live having had her children stolen - but that they will reject her as a thing of the wild, a creature, a monster. There are fleeting moments that something human from the past flickers behind her dull eyes and slips through and out of the madness. Something broken and bleeding. But then she laughs, and it is gone again. [b]Background:[/b] Skyrim’s chill was in her bones long before she was old enough to name it. Born to a Nord father and a Breton mother. Dhalia carried their two differing worlds in her veins. Unyeilding spirit of the north, and the thrum of magic in her breath. Having demonstrated affinity, she was sent westward, to High Rock and to the Mages Guild halls where they refined her wild talent. She devoured the secrets of the school of Destruction, binding herself to the fury of Kyne. When her time came, she was welcomed in Cyrodiil courts as an advisory mage, where she served high born families. It suited her well, and she took to her position as a serpent among the wolves, astute to the politics. It didnt take long for them to whisper in contempt of her. They spun their stories of her seduction and sorcery; rumours of a woman who let too many hands touch her skin, took too many men and women alike to her bed. A witch who took what she wanted without asking. The gods do not grant mercy to a Maiden like that. Such whispers of her indulgences turned to scandal and soon, undeniable proof swelled beneath her robes. Twins conceived in secrecy, their father highborn, bound to duty, and to his wife. Dahlia was hidden away, back over the border to Skyrim to hide the scandal. When her twins were born, she was poisoned by the very guards who had escorted her. Just like that, she was cast into the dark, taken far from the small town she had been imprisoned in, and left bleeding and broken. Mother for a day. She had been cast out and left for the wilds to consume her. But the Reach does not waste what still breathes. Reachmen found her among the briars, half buried in snow as a grieving, screaming spirit too stubborn to pass and too full of primordial rage to die. They took her in, reshaping her in their image, unmaking the woman of courts and remaking her as something wild. Their old magic was carved into her skin, bled into her bones until she spoke in tongues she did not understand. Namira whispered to her through her grief in words of rot and decay until she buried and burned her name and Dahlia was stripped away. [i]Deia[/i] emerged - baptised in her antlered mask and crown of death, beneath a bleeding moon. They called her sister. She let them. The wild life of ritual drowned her own. Her pain and grief was forgotten. Her past was gone. Or so she told herself. It was the wind that brought the memories back. She heard them in her dreams, in the rustling of trees, in the flow of the rivers and streams, in the rain. In her rituals, the gods told her they were alive and raised by another. They needed her. The Reach could not hold her any more. She escaped the wilds with Kyne’s breath in her lungs. Stealing Namira’s hunger, folding it into herself. And so she traveled across the border. A Crone trying to wear the skin and disguise of a woman closer to cosmopolitan than she had been for many years. To ignore her inclinations to the wild ways of the time she had spent in celebration of the rot, decay, and abundant life. She had to relearn manners and the ways of an invisible, mindless, godless life in the pursuit of her children. Manners which were promptly lost when following a lead led her to a brawl... And led her to sinking her teeth into an unsuspecting arm. In defense, of course.... [b]Skills:[/b] Alchemy – Deia can craft deadly poisons from fungi, nightshade, and human /animal remains by smearing them on her blade. She is not above brewing hallucinogenic elixirs that bring her closer to her gods, particularly in her journey to find her children. Believing this communication to be paramount to her mission. Blade – Primarily a mage, Deia is no stranger to carving symbols into flesh with her ritual dagger, whether it is her own or someone elses... She fights with swift, brutal precision, aiming for arteries and weak spots if cornered, and she does try not to be cornered... [i]Magic[/i] [u][b]Destruction[/b][/u] – Her primary school of magic, she specialises in Lightning and Storm spells. Lightning Bolt, Shocking Burst, Lightning Grasp. [b][u]Mysticism[/u][/b] – The school of things unheard and unseen. Detect Life, Soul Trap, Minor Dispel. [u][b]Conjuration[/b][/u] – Having spent years among the Reachmen, she has learned minor conjuration. Summon Ghost, Bound Dagger, Turn Undead. [b]Equipment:[/b] [i]Personal[/i] A plain, hooded outfit which covers much of her skin, thin gloves, footwraps. A silk sash around her waist. [i]Lockbox[/i] Pouches of bone, herbs, and dirt. Empty glass vials. Saltpeter. A ritual Reachman dagger. A bloodied cloth. Ambition: Retribution and redemption. To reclaim her fragile humanity she once knew, to become the mother her children deserve while punishing those who abandoned her, and stole them from her. [/hider] [hider Joy] [Center][img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/370680283755708430/707714194081841192/image0.jpg[/img][/center] [center][h2]Joy[/h2][/center] [center][sub] 31 [b]|[/b] ♀ [b]|[/b] Honorhall, Riften [b]|[/b] Nord/Imperial [sup]_______________________________________________[/sup] [i]Barmaid, Bard, Aspiring Novelist[/i] [sup]_______________________________________________[/sup] Willpower (Major) Personality (Minor)[/sub][/center] [center][b][sub]══════ A P P E A R A N C E ══════[/sub][/b][/center] [indent]Joy is of average height - standing at 5'6. Her figure is womanly, soft, and unthreatening and it is clear she has a fondness for food. Somehow, she keeps herself in an enviably svelte shape that has caught the eyes of more than a few men and women. During winter, she has the pale appearance typical of a Nord, her hair falls like fire to her collarbones, in soft curls -- one section happens to be far more unruly and so she often tucks it behind a hairband. Joy does not care too much for over grooming herself, she is not a vain individual, and yet she still radiates an undone kind of beauty, her smile is especially disarming in its sincerity. If she is fair in winter, her Imperial heritage shows in the summer, the sun drawing out a more olive tone to her skin. Her hair, too, takes on a far more golden lustre in the sunlight. Perhaps the most standout of her features are her eyes. They carry the colour of a brittle blue sky, and are warm with happiness. She communicates well with expression, not averse to raising a brow to be coquettish, or pulling her full lips downwards into a faux frown to coax a laugh from someone else. When Joy smiles, it is clearly a mischievous one that reflects her mind at work. Under her clothing, she bares the scars of her trade. An accident with a pan of boiling sugar has left a particularly nasty burn across her ribs, trickling to her hips. It makes her nervous and insecure, to have such a wound; at the same time, it is her secret. She sees it as a stream, and looks at it as her reminder of the current of life. As well as the sugar stream, her hands are peppered with knife cuts - scars from years ago, and always some more recent marks. She is not quite as bothered by these as she is by her disfiguring burn. [/indent] [center][b][sub]═══════ P E R S O N A L I T Y ══════[/sub][/b][/center] [indent]Joy is at her very essence, a hopeless romantic. She has searched endlessly for requited love, whether that is familial, found in platonic friendship, or romantic love. It is the only thing she has ever felt that her life was truly lacking. [i]A home[/i]. She found that, or so she believed, in The Blushing Hawk -- seeing the women she tended to with sisterly affection. During her time there, she saw many of them arrive, work, and then leave eventually, in a manner that was not too dissimilar to her upbringing in Honorhall. The friendliness they shared ended when they would leave. Despite this, Joy has fond memories of them too - and so is drawn to women as friends quite quickly. The women saw her through her own heartbreaks, and soothed her when she was sad too. She is naturally charismatic, with a curiosity about everyone and everything. She is the kind of woman who carries you away with her, and makes you feel as if you are the only one who matters to her. It is a byproduct of her living a life where people come and go as freely as they need to. She is poetic in her speech, and even more so in her thought. Observant of the world around her, she sees beauty in everything, even if her life has shown her nothing but ugliness. She has come to expect only short relationships from those she encounters. Her empathic nature lends itself well to finding trust in others quite quickly. They move on, and she stays behind - in the moments she shares with others, she wants to see the world through their eyes. Having never been adopted by a family, and having been sold to a brothel, her unorthodox upbringing has left her riddled with her own insecurities. She opts to hide this behind her trademark smile - never letting her vulnerability show for fear of judgement. She fears that she will never find stability in her life, with someone, with a family. Like anyone else, Joy is not without the ability to feel deep sadness from time to time too. She grieves for the life she never had, and the mystery of her parentage will always haunt her on some level. Her own insecure questions that she carries in her heart for her mother and father sting her from time to time. It would take someone who knew similar feelings of pain and loss to find them within Joy. The hardships she has faced have never truly broken her spirit, however, and instead they have only ever made her more adamant to find happiness in dark spaces. She brushes off negativity rather easily, and has an easy way of approaching almost anyone, finding it easy to make a good impression. A practicing bard and performer of sorts, she adores music and brings a flair of musicality to most of the things that she does - writing songs about her experiences in love, life, and even penning songs about the tales of deeds of those she has met. Joy is a caretaker to those around her, giving herself almost selflessly to the needs of others, she fills her cup by being a listening ear with a wise and uplifting word to others when they need it, even if they don’t know it. One would be foolish to pass her off as a simple barmaid spouting loving words. Many have, and many came to regret that. Joy was never formally educated, so she has no real intelligence of the world and it's history - only the stories she hears from others. Her emotional intelligence is much more astute and she is patient. This level of emotional intelligence has afforded her an almost fearless level of grit. She is more bold and daring than her lack of skills should allow her to be, and more outspoken than most too. She speaks for those in need, and is not afraid to speak her mind loud and proud when it comes to matters of morality and justice. She has no fear towards other people, no concept of authority and respecting a view because it has passed through a hierarchy. It is her ability to see the good in people that gives her the confidence to talk openly with anyone, about anything. [/indent] [center][b][sub]═══════ H I S T O R Y ══════[/sub][/b][/center] [indent] My name is Joy, [i]just Joy.[/i] Nobody knows where or when I was born, only where I was found. I was discovered abandoned in Riften, under the shawls of the first snow of Frostfall. It was the blurred vision of a blushing drunk, and his curiosity that followed that led to my being rescued from a sure death, and soon after that encounter, I was sent to Honorhall Orphanage. It was a bleak childhood. The Matron of the Orphanage was crueler behind closed doors and I spent most of my time dreaming about my future. I always felt so deeply unsettled, and I was never satisfied with the nonchalance and disregard of who I really was, of who left me, of who my parents were. My fellow orphans and I would play together with the few toys we had, often we’d fashion dolls and the like from the sticks and stones in the yard and we would play out our lives in those hours of free time. I have never been able to cast a spell, but I like to believe that the other orphans and I created magic by the fireplace from pure imagination. I watched over the years as one by one they were each adopted and I never saw them again. We had always promised to be friends forever, but once their ‘forever’ was with a family that loved and chose them… My forever with them was extinguished. At 14, with no hopes of adoption at my age, I was simply sold to a Dunmer Madam named Minasi. I rode with her in the back of a cart from Riften to Windhelm, I was frightened, my life, as miserable as it had been, was changing. I always believed that it was better the misfortune that you know, than the one that you did not. She barely spoke a word, only prodded and poked at me on the ride. I was soon put to work in her brothel, The Blushing Hawk. I was bought as her maid, since she was frailer in her age now and ailed with a rattling cough. The other women she employed were too busy with duties of a different kind to be of any other use to her. Minasi worked me hard, and over time I learned that this was simply her pride, and her need to run a safe place for the people who stepped in. She was certainly refined, and the unmistakable matriarch of her establishment, but I could see in the smouldering embers of her eyes that she was wounded in many ways more than her ill health. I theorised that perhaps once upon a time, she had been just a girl here too, how she may have loved and lost, as many of us did. Her temper was coarse, in a way that I could only liken to a saber-cat with a thorn wedged in her paw. She was eager to react to any touch. Her flame had gone out. After a year or two of that, the last of her kitchen staff left and I was then put to work in there. I’d never even picked up a knife or peeled a potato, but I learned quickly. Before long, I’d moved on from simple stews, to pies, to some rather exquisite desserts. When I wasn’t cooking, I was plucking the strings of a lute that had been left behind by a patron. The very same one I have now. I taught myself to play music, putting myself through the rigorous torture of freezing the tips of my fingers in the snow just so that I could play as cleanly as possible. What else could I do, but give something my all? It was how I showed the dedication to my craft. I still do it to this day. After this, Minasi saw something valuable in me and at the late age of 19 she started teaching me how to read and write. I struggled with it at first and she would slap the backs of my hands if my penmanship was anything less than perfect. I think for close to a year the skin was red raw -- but I learned. That’s my gift you see, persistence, and the voracious hunger to learn crafts. As she continued to lose her vitality, I became the one holding the establishment together. She was approaching the winter of her life, and I, my spring. I kept the girls and the patrons fed, I sang and played music while they waited, I kept the place clean, mended the sheets, curtains, and clothing. It had been a slow evening when I came to her in her bed, I could see that the colour from her eyes had drained completely, and there was no longer any light behind them. She was the cruel mother I had never wanted, a far cry from the kind woman in my dreams who nurtured and took care of me, held me, and fed me with warmth. But, however I looked at it, Minasi had raised me, and everything I had, I had her to thank for. There was no love between us, my coming into her life was a transaction, how could there be love? Minasi had told me once that we lived our lives like a stream, travelling in more or less one direction until we were broken off into something that led us to a new current, a new path... That change came soon enough after Minasi had passed. Disruption and bloodshed in the city brought tension, strangers, and whispers until finally the sky opened -- blooming like a flower raining fire. The shadows of wings darkened the streets, and the Blushing Hawk was just an obstacle in the path of someone else's terrible conflict. In that instant our lives changed forever, and we were forced to take what we could and flee, or perish. We had that choice, so many of the ones we knew were not given it. They were bones and dust on the ground. That day, the flow of my life was altered and I was torn from those I had chosen as my family, from the world that I had known for most of my adult life. It wasn’t until the sun came back, that I learned that throughout those definitive years, I had been blind. All I had seen day after day was The Blushing Hawk. It was so much so, that the only thing that had mattered in my world was that rickety brothel, in the backstreets of grey Windhelm. With only it’s ashes now swept into the air, I was forced to open my eyes and I observed that most people had nothing to do with my world at all. I couldn’t stop thinking about the life I could have led, had fate not carried me on that cart with Minasi from Riften to the doors of the Hawk. Sometimes the only way to carry ourselves through such tragedy is by believing that our dreams may come true, and our prayers are answered. My only hope now is that one day, in some quiet place, there will be a house on a hill with a candle in the window for me. Calling me home at last.[/indent] [SUB][b]▼ S K I L L S[/b][/sub] [sup]▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► [b]Speechcraft - Music and Empathy[/b] - [abbr=She has the gift of the gab, and a charisma naturally oozes from her. She is authentically herself, and tries to be a friend to all.]Expert[/abbr] ► [b]Provisioning - Culinary arts[/b] - [abbr=Give her ingredients and she’ll make you one of the best meals of your life, a dish that will leave you satisfied, happier, and warm to your very soul.]Expert[/abbr] ► [b]Tailoring[/b] - [abbr=Mending hands, she’ll fix holes in your clothing, repurpose drapes into a dress and vice versa.]Adept[/abbr] [/sup] [SUB][b]▼ R E L A T I O N S & A F F I L I A T I O N S[/b][/sub] [sup]▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► [b]Honorhall Orphanage[/b] ► [b]The now-destroyed Blushing Hawk[/b] ► [b]A number of adventurous men she once called lovers, who are occasionally the subject of her songs.[/b] [/sup] [SUB][b]▼ E Q U I P M E N T[/b][/sub] [sup]▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► [b]Stylish linen rucksack.[/b] ► [b]Coin Purse - 47 septims currently.[/b] ► [b]Lyre, Lute, Ankle Chimes.[/b] ► [b]A brooch in the shape of wings with a blue stone in the centre - the only clue she has to her parentage. She keeps this hidden.[/b] ► [b]Sewing and knitting needles, threads.[/b] ► [b]A set of 6 chef’s knives, and the tools to keep them sharp and well maintained.[/b] ► [b]Tasting spoons seem to litter her pockets.[/b] ► [b]Pinches and pouches of salt in various grind sizes, as well as sugars and other herbs - always somewhere on her person to sprinkle into a dish without searching too far.[/b] ► [b]Parchments, notebooks, quills, and ink pots -- a supply of everything she needs to continue writing her songs, and more recently, a novel that she is working on drawn from the stories of those she meets..[/b] [/sup] [SUB][b]▼ C L O T H I N G & A R M O U R[/b][/sub] [sup]▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► [b]Casual[/b]:[i]Never one for vanity, Joy dresses in simple outfits - usually in shades of light hues, figure hugging feminine clothing that do not necessarily have grandiose embellishments, but little touches here and there in pretty stitching. Practical clothing, that allows her to move freely. She will often be wearing her apron as she gets to work in the kitchens, or to her other barmaid duties.[/i] ► [b]Formal[/b]:[i]When performing, she dresses slightly more luxuriously - as much as can be allowed. She’ll wear deeper hues, revealing cuts, and often opt to go barefoot, banded chimes adorn her ankles and she will show a lucrative amount of skin to display them.[/i] [/sup] [/hider]