It's taken me this long because I am having trouble deciding who I want to rp as in game. But here is the "origin story" for my character Brigida. People are going to think this is an all-dwarf guild!
“You want ta study what now?” her father asked, as if he hadn’t heard her, and exchanged the parchment in his hand for another from the pile on his desk.
“Absolutely not!” her mother protested from her chair by the fire. “Ridiculous! Unheard of! What will the other families think? Who would ever make an offer for your hand, if they thought we raised a Dark Iron sympathizer for a daughter? Do you really want to be a burden on this family for your entire life? I’m just thankful my dear departed mother is resting in the embrace of the Stone, so she would not have to suffer the shame….”
Brigida bore the brunt of her mother’s outrage and her father’s inattention with a fortitude born of years of hearing the same things over and over again.
“Ma… Don’t upset yourself,” her sister Briony interjected, laying a comforting hand on her mother’s arm and glancing at Brigida with the slightest grimace of commiseration. Not slight enough to escape their mother’s notice, unfortunately.
“You’re in league with her in this madness!” she shrieked and covered her face with her hands. “Oh, whatever will become of this family, once everyone finds out?”
Brigida sighed. “Absolutely nothing will happen, Ma. No one who knows anything cares. Go to the Mystic Ward yourself! It’s full of dwarf mages! And I won’t be a burden, because I”ll be...” she hesitated. What would she be doing exactly? What did mages do with their time, after they were done learning about magical theory and practice? How did a mage make a living? She set that troubling thought aside. “Well, anyway, I won’t be dependent on you. I’ll have a... job,” she ended lamely.
“Dwarves should not be mages. It’s inappropriate and unproductive,” her father declared, shuffling through his papers again. His work as a merchant certainly kept the parchment makers in coin, Brigida thought sourly. “You’ll have ‘a job’, eh? Tell me, how does finger-wiggling help put food on the table, hmm? You haven’t a clue.” He nodded to himself, satisfied that he’d scored a point.
Brigida sighed inwardly. She had to give her father credit. He knew her too well.
“I don’t have a son,” her father continued, “more’s the pity. Either you step up to run the family business or one of you will marry someone to take it over. And your mother is right; magery stinks of the Dark Iron. They are supposedly allies, for now and for as long as it suits ‘em. But they are not our kind.” He glanced up from his work long enough to lock eyes meaningfully with his wayward daughter. “You have responsibilities, my dear; best you begin to act like it.”
Brigida cringed as her sister visibly shrank into herself and lowered her eyes. Her father’s look had been intended to end the discussion, but as usual she refused to heed the warning. “You always do this, Da. Briony is your daughter too, and she is more of a merchant than I will ever be! She wants to do it! Why don’t you apprentice her? Problem solved! And do you know what's shameful? This anti-Dark Iron prejudice of yours!”
Her father smacked the parchment he was holding down on his desk and stood up, his face reddening with anger. “You’ll no’ tell me what’s best fer this family, girl! This conversation is over!” He stormed out of the room and Brigida’s mother followed soon after, muttering furiously and not quite to herself about ungrateful and uncooperative daughters. The two sisters were left alone; the silence in the room was louder than the shouting.
Brigida felt a headache blooming between her eyes. She rubbed her forehead and sighed. “Well, that could have gone better.”
Briony glanced up at her and cocked an eyebrow. “Were you expecting something different? That’s basically the same argument we’ve been having for the last ten years or so. ‘Variations on a Theme’ by Our Parents.”
Brigida smiled sadly and sat down next to Briony, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and giving her a quick squeeze. “I don’t know why Da is like that, Brye,” she said softly. “You deserve better. You deserve respect.”
Briony leaned into her sister’s embrace and laid her head on her shoulder. “To Da I’ll always be a pretty girl who’ll snag a wealthy son-in-law and have lots of babies. Nothing I ever do or say will make him see anything else.” Brigida nodded to herself; Briony certainly was the pretty one, with black hair and blue eyes, and the voice of an angel. Brigida herself was, as her father liked to call her, a red-headed speckled pup, covered in freckles that no powder could quite disguise, and she had always been more of a scholar than anything, much to her mother’s dismay. Flirting, dancing and needlework were quite beyond her, but give her time to herself and a book or manuscript - especially one that had anything to do with magic - and she was in heaven.
Briony sat up and turned to face her sister. “Listen, Bree, you have to get out of here. You’ve got a chance, you’re of age, and you know what you want. Do it, and don’t look back.”
Brigida looked down at the letter she held in her hand. She’d not even had the chance to show her parents the good news she had received that morning: she had actually found someone who would help her learn to become a mage. She shook her head and slipped the letter into the pocket of her apron. “I can’t leave you here to deal with them alone.”
“I’ll be fine. No, I am fine here. Our parents mean well; they really do love both of us and want the best for us. Well, what they think is best for us. And this is where I belong. But you are meant for something else. I don’t care if you have to go all the way to Dalaran, it’s the right thing to do.”
Brigida frowned, hesitating. “But what about Ma? And Da? They’ll never agree.”
Briony shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. You have your inheritance from Nana. You don't need their permission or their money. What you need is to do this. You’ll go crazy if you stay here. I’d say you’re about halfway there already,” she added, teasing. Then she laid a hand on her sister’s shoulder and looked into her eyes intently, her face solemn. “Do it. Promise me.”
Brigida’s eyes filled with unexpected tears and she whispered, “I promise,” reaching out to hug her sister tight.
Later, sitting on the edge of her bed with her portmanteau half-packed on the floor in front of her, she paused and thought back on the last few hours. How had this ordinary day suddenly become an end? But she knew her sister was right. This was something she had to do and she could think of no reason to wait. She took the letter back out of her pocket and looked at the return address. Where exactly was Elwynn Forest, anyway? She supposed it was time to find out.
» Edited on: 2016-06-09 09:11:46
» Edited on: 2016-06-09 09:18:22