Stitches

The North Road

Can't believe Ardonne ignored grandad. It's ok, we'll get to chat soon D:

The North Road

For a moment Ardonne’s bow lowered in recognition of Zahir’s cautious approach before it - and the group as a whole - was forgotten completely. The youth was transfixed by the low, reverberating bellow coming from the swampy darkness of the woods. Her eyes strained for a glimpse, her breath went shallow, neck craning, pulse fluttering at her wrists and jawline before her lips curled up with enthusiasm. A breathless chuckle escaped without warning. She was distracted from her reveries when Galia called out to her and listened with a reinvigorated eagerness. She swung the bow to point into the woods. “There’s your beast, brave hunters!” she hollered back, drunk on adrenaline. “Within earshot! If you’re quick you can catch it before dawn!” Her challenge rattled through the cairns. She waited for no answer, merely hesitating where she stood before putting her arrow away and trotting up to the assembly of people by the road.

At a closer glance, Ardonne was undeniably the youngest of the group. No doubt she was half Galia’s age, a quarter of Zahir’s and remarkably swift and light on her feet in her approach. She wore no armour and only had fifteen arrows to her name along with the barest essentials. She was lean and cruelly built with an upturned nose and all the hot-blooded arrogance of youth radiating off her in droves. Her clothes were baggy, plain and pragmatically chosen for camouflage, and yet...they didn’t seem to fit her. Strips of leather and twine kept them from hanging off her body and getting caught on bristles and branches. Even up close she was incessantly restless. Her pale watery glare flitted from face to face, belt to belt, absorbing the collected party in glimpses and grimaces. It rested on Mort with recognition as she scratched her scalp and scrutinised the way he had aged. “Do you plan to wait ‘till morning?” she asked, directing it to him but leaving it open for discussion.

The North Road

The North Road

Dipshit McGee over here aggroed the beast. This shall be a short RP.

Edit: I'm going to give it a while so everyone gets a chance to scold her before I write a response, but I can assure you she's not about to go running headlong into the woods.

The North Road

I feel I need to emphasize that I honest to god think Ardonne is a grade A imbecile and needs a healthy dose of common sense knocked into her. If her internal monologue sounds melodramatic it's because she is and I cringe writing it. Either way, there she goes...off to do something stupid :')

Oh and when I say "a little deeper" I mean a few feet, not...full on going in. She's dumb but not that dumb.

The North Road

“No, no, I don’t mean any offense,” Petyr stammered, “It’s just-...well, you seem a little old to be courting.”

Ardonne smiled weakly. She was taking her time with the meal - partially to amuse her benefactor and partially to savour what it was going to be like being in a nice warm tavern for the last time. There were plenty of last times today. Just that morning she hugged her mother for the last time... Ardonne looked away for a moment and busied herself with dinner. "My mother had to remarry first. I needed to support the family." She drank her ale and watched Petyr's expression for the crinkle in the brow, the grimace, the doubt...there wasn't any. He was genuinely curious.

"Well, with me by your side you'll never have to worry about work again. I started looking into those books you like, too. There aren't many calligraphists in the province, but I was considering a wedding gift. Which tale was your favourite, again? The bear in the woods?" Petyr was a warm and personable man. For the fifth time that day Ardonne considered a life with him and took a deeper draught of ale to steady her resolve. It was bitter and room temperature.

"Oh, you needn't do any of that. I'm simply content to move out of Bresh." It wasn't a whole lie. Ardonne emptied her bowl and her flagon and lingered over it wistfully. Last hot meal. All gone.

"Oh but it'd be an excellent investment. You can read it to the little ones and when they're old enough they can pass it on to our grandchildren." Ah yes, there it was. Ardonne smiled blithely and rested her hand on her stomach, wondering if a human life felt like a full belly. Then again, she'd helped her mother birth her younger brother...it seemed more laborious than a heavy meal. She had finished her ale but the bitter taste revisited the back of her tongue at the mention of it.

"Perhaps I can teach them how to shoot," she ventured out of curiosity.

Petyr laughed. "If you still remember how by then! It'd be a good story for our son."

Ardonne smiled blithely.

It wasn't good enough. Petyr caught the dullness of her stare, the clenched jaw and the faraway expression. "Is your fever coming back, my sweet?" He asked nervously. "We don't have to rush anything. I promised your father two weeks, but I'm sure you can rest easy until you feel better."

Ardonne bit down on the opportunity and dropped the act, expressing her fretful nerves and everpresent nausea. "Well, I did not want to impose upon you," she murmured softly, fidgeting with a lock of her hair and looking away from him.

The merchant was keen to pander her. It would have been perfect. It should have been perfect, but Ardonne recoiled at the thought of a life with him. "Money is no object. Not when it comes to your health," he reassured her, reaching for her hand and giving it a squeeze. She wrapped her fingers around his. Last hand to hold.

"Would you mind if I rested tomorrow? I want nobody to disturb me. Just...a loaf of bread, a pitcher of water. My stomach is-...unsteady." Not an entire lie either. Ardonne felt the bile ride again as she faced her decision as if it were inevitable fate.

"Of course, my dove. Would you permit me to bring you to your chambers this evening? If I'm to be away from you for the whole day…" Petyr's smile was hopeful and mischievous and Ardonne's heart ached for him. It felt like a cruel twist of the knife to put him into such a situation.

"Yes, but if you go any further than my door then I shall ride home to my father." Petyr's smile faltered and Ardonne cursed herself for being so steely. "I mean no disrespect, this is our first private outing. And I've heard such tall tales about some of the coarser village boys back home…"

Petyr laughed and Ardonne exhaled in relief. "I'm no mere village boy, my dove! I shall fetch you your bread and water."

Within the hour Ardonne had locked the door and barricaded it. She was staring at her naked body in the mirror. Last time she'd see her reflection. She took stock of what she had made of herself, poked and prodded her blemishes and got changed into her hunting gear. She checked her quiver. She packed her bread and poured her water. It was still light outside. She checked her belt and her field guide, fingers slipping absentmindedly over her real father's name in its browned ink on the contents page. "I'm so sorry," she croaked, looking for his ghost. The stress of it all made tears well in her eyes. She took a shuddering breath and stared at her face, willing herself to feel his hand on her shoulder, praying for a sign, anything…"I'm coming, dad. I'll be with you shortly."

It was like all the tales. Sometimes there wasn't a happy ending... sometimes you just had to accept your lot. She wouldn't face it as a blubbering mess. In whatever lay beyond her life, she could sit and cry for millennia. For now, she wanted to do it on her terms. Stoic, calm, and ready for what lay beyond. After she passes those cairns she will step into the limbo between worlds and she will test her mettle until the bitter end. And who knows? Perhaps she'll find her way out, a changed woman ready to face the North and take no man's order and foster no squalling babes in her stomach. And if not... she'll see dad again.

Ardonne only left once the smudges of orange had slipped below the horizon. It wasn't that hard to sneak out of the window, she'd been doing it for years back at her childhood home and Faro rural architecture was a fairly universal affair. What mattered now was making distance. They wouldn't be able to see much using torchlight but movement was quick to spot in one's periphery so she kept low and darted up towards the distant cairns, stopping only to crouch and hide behind an errant rock or the base of a tree. It was only as she made it to the edges of the woods that she noticed a group maybe a kilometre away, a little less, by the cairn adjacent to the one she was headed into.

What the group saw was a dim figure jogging up and even slightly into the heavy canopy of the forest before it stopped and lingered by one of the trees, staring unabashedly towards the gathered bounty hunters with an indistinguishable expression - it was too dark.

Ardonne thought fast. For one, there was no way anyone from the town over had noticed she was gone. Also... safety in numbers. She may be able to make some considerable distance if she travelled in a group. Then again, they may be guards patrolling the edges of the forest. They hadn't come to detain her yet...she started to panic. She wasn't expecting people to be as foolish as she was and she certainly wasn't expecting them to come armed and ready for a fight. Her flightiness kicked in as she hastily got her bow out, nocked an arrow, and fretfully skirted a little deeper into the beast's domain, watching to see what they'd do to her.

The North Road

I'm doing exams at the moment until mid may. I'm going to write a post now, and I tend to use RP to get through the long revision periods. However I only get little 5min breaks so I tend to write a sentence or two a pop. So yeah I won't be posting multiple times a day, that's for sure. Ardonne isn't going to be really chatty until she gets to know everyone though so it should be okay.

The North Road

Sorry for the delay. I'm GMT, so it's bedtime here. I'll reply tomorrow.

Edit: it's likely GM went to bed too, it's nearing midnight here on a weekday.

The North Road

@Stitches, what do you say to a prior connection between our two characters? What if Ardonne was one of the youths Mort taught to show a bow?

@Lugubrious

Nice idea! I had already singled out Mort as someone Ardonne might get along well with, he probably taught her when she was 10-12 before her dad disappeared.

SEMA - Supernatural Events Management Agency

Nikita Klimpner

BASIC INFO​
Name: Nikita Klimpner
Aliases: Artemis, Nick, Nikki
Age: 24
Date of Birth: 15/10/1996
Place of Birth: Tucson, Arizona
Gender: Female
Sexual Orientation: Bisexual
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Status: Single
​
APPEARANCE​
Height: 5'7
Weight: 169lbs
Eye color: Green
Hair color: Blonde
Identifiable traits: Bite wound, left bicep. Ragged gouge marks from mid to lower back, right side. Broken nose. Small scarred cut on chin. 1x0.5cm chunk missing from right ear. Split left eyebrow.
​
PROFESSIONAL​
Current Position: Field Agent.​
Employed since: 05/08/2017
Skills: The agent is proficient in hand to hand combat, marksmanship and most tasks that require athleticism. She excels in using her surroundings to her advantage and does not shy away from coercion and intimidation when needed. She has more experience with sentient, humanoid supernatural creatures.
​
CHARACTER​
Strengths: The agent has formidable strength, an elevated pain tolerance and is desensitised to acts of extreme violence.
Weaknesses: The agent is susceptible to manipulation, possession, mind control etc. She can be easily distracted and has a tendency to overestimate her strength in combat.
Hobbies: The agent spends most of her time weight lifting and taking part in mixed martial arts classes. When she isn't exercising, she plays video games and likes to draw.
​
PSYCHOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL PROFILE​
"Kinda like a sledgehammer with a smiley face on it." - Agent Stubbing

Agent Klimpner has bi-weekly psychological assessments due to her status as field agent, with considerations for her previous experiences. Most of her psychological anomalies come from her coping mechanisms; repeatedly donning her wrestling persona 'Artemis' and subjecting herself to combat up to three times a week for several years has blurred the boundaries between her true self and the habits of her character until some aspects are nigh indistinguishable, such as her keen interest in weightlifting and her desire to remain chaste. She misjudges the severity of certain injuries and underestimates her own limitations. By associating real combat with staged wrestling matches, the agent copes better in violent situations and shows less of an aversion to gore than the average person.

Outside of combat, Agent Klimpner puts effort into her sociability. She often befriends her co-workers, compensating for her somewhat hindered empathetic skills by being careful and apologetic when she unintentionally upsets someone. Her gentle demeanor counterbalances her shortcomings. She is easily excited, often energetic and easily distracted. She finds comfort in owning and collecting colourful and eye catching objects such as stickers, cheap plastic toys, novelty items and gaudy clothing.

​
BIOGRAPHICAL OVERVIEW​
Born into a low income family of six in downtown Tuscon, Arizona, Agent Klimpner was encouraged by her siblings to learn and practice self defense after hitting puberty and to become more self sufficient, as the elevated levels of juvenile crime made the trips to and from school risky. She was given a decent yet somewhat negligent childhood and struggled in academia. To offset the second hand anxiety from her parents' financial difficulty, she was quick to pick up exercise and weightlifting and found a sense of community in her local gymnasium. Her friend group began to show interest in mixed martial arts and wrestling clubs held in the evenings as a means of displaying their strength in a controlled environment. Being overweight as a result of malnutrition, Agent Klimpner was especially self-persuaded into attending due to her insecurities about her appearance which she countered with her 'gains'. She did well enough to attend local and regional competitions, but felt unrecognised for her achievements by her family as her parents worked long hours and could not attend the matches.
​
Agent Klimpner was peer pressured into spectating an underground wrestling match at age sixteen with her friends during the early hours of the morning. There she met Donnie 'Seltzer' Bartholomew, and was subsequently introduced into the unlicensed supernatural wrestling scene. This marks the beginning of a several year descent and extended involvement with the Nayaki Family, a middling organised crime ring that fixed matches and bought out bookies across the state for substantial profit. Adopting the anonymous persona of 'Artemis', Agent Klimpner was publicised as a plucky underdog against various supernatural opponents including (but not restricted to) ogres, oni, a minotaur and a hobgoblin. She used her percentage of the profits to finance her family but her academia further suffered from the long nights. Coming home injured caused various disturbances in her home life as well; the resulting stress and alienation from her friends and family caused the agent to invest further in the Nayaki Family and become close with some of the members. Frustrated that her portion of the cut was not increasing, Agent Klimpner eventually refused to throw a match. Her belligerence irritated Donnie and his cohorts as she was subjected to threats and coercion. In response, Agent Klimpner fled the city and tried to extract herself from the organisation by crossing the border. She did not graduate from high school and was reported missing in August 2014.

During this time Agent Klimpner met Agent Stubbing and the two made an arrangement wherein Agent Klimpner acted as security for Agent Stubbing's pop-up shop. The two frequently crossed state borders until a case involving demonic contracts lead SEMA agents back to the duo. When detained and interrogated, Agent Klimpner was quick to negotiate and in 2017 both agents were signed on a probationary period of 4 months to undergo formal field training and prove their proficiency for the agency. Upon passing assessment, Agent Klimpner has been assigned on twelve assignments with varied success and shows no signs of relapsing into criminality or breaking her contract.

ADDITIONAL INFO​
The agent makes full use of the company benefits and lives in agency-funded accommodation, regularly visiting therapists and physiotherapists. She manages the 'SEMAsquad' group chat and likes to organise informal gatherings with coworkers.