Isabella Deathsbane

[~ Fiend ~ 610]

Isabella Deathsbane

Nicknames: (very commonly) Izzy and (used less often) Bella
Age: 73
Gender: Female
Race: Elf
Status: Kickin' it.

 

Description
Height: 5'2"
Weight: 120 lbs
Body Type: Thin - small and muscular.
Eyes: Piercing, intelligent, and bright gold.
Hair: Pure white.
Skin: Wood elven tan, with a grey tinge.
Markings/Tattoos: Sometimes tattooed with henna on her arms and hands.
Health: Better than before.
Personality: Kind and fierce is the best way to summarize her.
Inventory: At any given time, a ridiculous number of knives and potions. She carries all the tools for a basic surgery, and whatever jewelery she happens to have on.

 

Life Style
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Deity: The Aspects
Religion: Druidism
Alliance/Nation/Home: The Conclave
Job/Class: Druid
Title(s): Stewardess of Malin, Bear Druid, "Haelun"
Profession(s): Inn owner
Special Skill(s): Innumerous
Flaw(s): She's small and self conscious about it, takes on far more than she can handle at a given time, has a little too much going on in her head, takes things too personally, has issues with PTSD, and is completely insane.

 

Magic
Current Status: Magical
Arch-type: Druidism
Sub-Type: Pretty much whatever needs doing. Officially that'd be communion, control, healing, and blight healing.
Rank: Within the druidic order, she is a loud voice but not officially in a seat of power.
Weakness(es): She can't cast anything without natural things to work with.
Strength(s): She's an accomplished druid from having been trained harshly, and having the concept of failure being unacceptable deeply ingrained into her. She is very good at what she does.
Current Spell(s): #getcreative

 

Weaponry
Fighting Style: Disable, then strike.
Trained Weapon: Hand-to-hand, dagger, bow, magic, swords.
Favorite Weapon: Bare hands.
Archery: She's an impressive shot, now rivaling her teachers who have fallen from practice.

 

Biography
Parents: Nienna Calm and Dynasty Flormai
Siblings: Aramiene, five years older, Eventa, and Relgard Junior
Children: Almost too many to count, near twenty at the moment. Ilum'abeth is her only child by blood, though.
Extended Family: Her grandchildren, as well as the Flormai and Sintel families.
Pet(s): Two brown bears (not the original), a white wolf with blue eyes (old), an albino cat, and a large, red-winged hawk. (Not pets. Friends/companions. Druids, you know.)

 

No biography for now. Fiend is lazy. Perhaps another time.

 

The original, from last year.

Nicknames: (very commonly) Izzy and (used less often) Bella
Age: 28
Gender: Female
Race: Elf
Status: Alive

Description
Height: 5'2"
Weight: 110 lbs
Body Type: Pixie - short and very thinly built
Eyes: Right eye red, left eye hazy purple
Hair: Black
Skin: Wood elven tan
Markings/Tattoos: A long
Health: Pretty good
Personality: Kind and loving to all, unless she really likes you, then she has a full emotional range. In other words, she only gets mad at or sad in front of her close friends.
Inventory: Her circlet allows her to 'see', though she's still blind if it's taken off. A bag made from a wolf pelt, an iron dagger with 'Izzy' engraved into the side of it, healing supplies. A journal with drawings in it.
Further Details:

Life Style
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Deity: The Aspects
Religion: Druidism
Alliance/Nation/Home: The Druids' Grove
Job/Class: She's a healer
Title(s): Bear Druid / Head Scribe of Malinor / Berkano Healer
Profession(s): Pro ballin'
Special Skill(s): Memorization
Flaw(s): She's short, and only strong enough to pull herself up a tree. She takes failures personally. She can be too trusting.

Magic
Current Status: Magicless
Arch-type:
Sub-Type:
Rank:
Weakness(es):
Strength(s):
Current Spell(s):


Weaponry
Fighting Style: Speed over power.
Trained Weapon: Hand-to-hand, dagger, bow
Favorite Weapon: If she has to fight, her dagger
Archery: Aenor has taught her how to shoot, but she's still not very good.

Biography
Parents: Biologically; Vallerye and Kaveric

Adopted; Hanna May and Gallen
Siblings: Aramiene, five years older
Children: She considers her bear to be like a son.
Extended Family: Dynasty Flormai ; current adoptive father
Pet(s): A brown bear, and a large, red-winged hawk. (Not pets. Friends/companions. Druids, you know.)

The Story

Birth and First Family

Her father Kaveric was a dark elf, a fisherman. Her mother Vallerye, a wood elf and a farmer. Her older sister Aramiene had her mother's tan skin, and her father's bright blue eyes and white hair. Our subject was born with the help of a somewhat inexperienced midwife, and promptly declared dead because she wasn't breathing. Aramiene, who'd been told not to watch but disobeyed, went storming out of the house, furious that she wasn't going to get the little sibling she was promised. An older woman ran into the child, and asked why she was so upset. Upon hearing why, she demanded to be taken back to the house.

 

The older woman was an doctor, and performed CPR on the supposedly dead body, just to be sure. The child's heart began beating, her first breaths coming by the hand of someone else, and she lived. However, she was oxygen deprived long enough to cause serious brain damage that cost her sight and nerve damage, causing her to react improperly to pain. When she opened her eyes for the first time they were a hazy purple, no one could be sure whether it was genetic or not. Her birth name was Yshabelle.

 

For the first four years of Yshabelle's life, everything was as normal as it gets for a child who can't see. Her mother taught her to walk and talk and use the bathroom like a civilized elf. She also quit her job so she could stay home and be a mother to the two, though she still kept a garden. Vallerye was encouraged by many people to take Yshabelle to a healer, to try fixing her sight. She adamantly refused, being very religious, not believing in healing magic and believing it was the creator's intention for Yshabelle to be blind. Aramiene, being an angry young one to begin with, was extremely jealous of all the attention Yshabelle got. She would often play mean tricks on Yshabelle, who was always none the wiser.

 

Vallerye never noticed the pranks, but she did notice the cuts and bruises that Yshabelle would turn up with from time to time. She taught the child to walk slowly, sticking her feet out in front of herself before taking each step with care. She'd often yell at Yshabelle for walking too fast, so she quickly learned to take life slow.

 

When she was four, however, tragedy struck. Her father, Kaveric, came down with a pneumonia, refusing medical attention being as he was religious as well. He couldn't fish while sick, and Vallerye would spend all of her time taking care of him. Near the end of his illness Vallerye contracted it from him. He died two days before her.

 

During her final days Vallerye struggled with finding a place for the sisters to go. In what she felt was most likely her final day, she reached out to a pair of traveling salespeople who had stopped in their town to peddle wares. Being that they had recently discovered that they were unable to have children of their own, they accepted with delight, taking in the two girls.

 

Childhood and Second Family

 

Aramiene, Hanna May, and Gallen all agreed on a conspiracy. They managed to convince Yshabelle that her parents' illness had caused their voices to change, and that they had decided to become traveling salespeople as an excuse to see the world. They also convinced her that, to blend in with the humans, they peddled to, they'd all adopted human names. Aramiene became Amy, and Yshabelle became Isabella. Gallen and Hanna May used the excuse that their names belonged to human friends who had long since died of old age, and that they used the names to honor them.

 

Isabella, with her young and underdeveloped brain was able to mold her memories to suit, and she believed them entirely. Only once did a customer refer to Gallen as a "human sir". They then added a sign to their cart, asking people not to refer to them by race. Gallen even took to occasionally calling Hanna May his "Elacal'Leyun", elvish for 'golden beauty', a nickname Kaveric had given Vallerye as a joke when he insinuated that her skin was 'golden-brown like a well toasted marshmallow'. When Isabella asked to learn elvish, though, they would say they'd teach her when she was old enough, so they could use it so speak in front of her to keep secrets. When they would keep these secrets, however, they were just speaking elvish gibberish and and writing to each other.

 

Only once did Isabella ask to feel her parents' faces, the day she had learned that people have differently shaped faces. To protect the ruse, her father scolded her angrily, pretending it was a very, very rude thing to ask of someone and punishing her by throwing cold water on her so she would never forget. She never again questioned other people's bodies, missing several very important subjects such as the concept of a pulse.

 

Hanna May, being way less religious than Vallerye, had no moral objections about seeing a healer to fix Isabella's sight. They all knew, however, that of all things Isabella would be able to remember that about her mother. As a compromise, she came up with a new excuse. Thinking it would be easy, she told Isabella to earn fifty minas, which she would match, so they'd have a hundred to pay someone to give her sight. Isabella not only had trouble earning the coin, she was also far too generous with it. When her sister, who she loved dearly, would lie about needing coin for something, Isabella obliged, and was broke again.

 

They traveled for several years, teaching Yshabelle many things. Whenever she spouts a bit of wisdom that seems far beyond her years, odds are it came from Hanna May, a woman whose story justified her wisdom. Only Amy got to know Hanna May's real story, and it did a large part in molding who she turned out to be. Amy became significantly nicer to Isabella externally for the sake of the family ruse, though she still resented her sister in secret. She especially hated being charged with showing Isabella how to do certain facial expressions, but did it properly since Hanna May kept a close eye, and wanted Isabella to have a good childhood. This was also when she began to find her love of nature, spending time without a physical home and enjoying the great outdoors, even moreso than Amy.

 

Amy wasn't a big lover of all of nature, only birds. And, as it would happen, the feeling was mutual. Amy would seem to summon birds in her sleep, always having a bird or two her at any given time, whether staring from a distance or sitting on her head or shoulders. Isabella would always beg to play with Amy's birds, to which she would invariably refuse. That is, of course, until one of her birds brought her another, half-dead and blinded by a badger attack. She nursed the bird back to health, giving it to Isabella as a joke. It was her closest friend, until Amy got mad that her joke had backfired and stole the bird, telling Isabella it had learned to fly, and she should be happy that it was free. Isabella was crushed, and still not having a concept of how one person varies from the next, began forming the opinion that everything wants to be free and would leave her if given the opportunity.

 

Cannibals

 

One night when Isabella was seven and had ten minas to her name, the family lay sleeping under in small tent. Isabella, who always slept by the wagon instead, enjoying the feeling of the grass, wasn't asleep. She decided to sneak into the tent and steal one of Amy's birds and play with it. She went back, sitting next to the cart and feeding the bird some bread. She'd managed to wake up Amy, though, who wasn't happy. She stormed over, scolding Isabella for her 'treachery' for a long while before falling into an angry silence.

 

That was when a small group of bedraggled looking people with scary eyes and dark robes stumbled upon the tent. Isabella pointed out the footsteps to Amy who looked, then told her sister to stay down. Isabella listened with horror as the people talked of being hungry, and how her parents looked like an acceptable meal. Her parents awoke to the sound of voices, only to be attacked. To keep the bird from giving away their location, Amy shooed it while the fight was going on, throwing Isabella over her shoulder and sneaking away into the forest. Amy ran through the trees, an owl leading her somewhere as the forest echoed with two screams Isabella will never forget, no matter how much she wishes she could. The owl led Amy to a small town, where they rested in a ditch until morning.

 

And Then There Were Two

 

Amy and Isabella were able to live off of the ten minas they had between them for no more than a few days. Amy being too prideful to beg, she found a way to earn some money. A local shopkeeper offered to pay her for delivering a package, though it did take some convincing that she was capable. She dragged Isabella, feeling too guilty to ditch her in cold spirit despite how much she wanted to. The first few deliveries were successful, and they lived off the money this made them for a while, and things seemed to be looking up.

 

As another prank that backfired, Amy convinced Isabella to stop wearing shoes so she could feel the ground better, thinking it wouldn't work and she'd just end up hurting herself. Both ended up happening, Isabella was able to get around a little more easily, but she would cut her feet on things from time to time.

 

En route to deliver another package, the girls encountered a couple of bandits. The thugs had no trouble dispatching Amy, despite her angry shouting and attempts to put up a fight. They would have had even less trouble killing Isabella, but instead decided to leave her alive as a joke, hoping her death would be slow and painful when she couldn't figure out how to survive without her sister. Terrified by what they were saying, and the fact that she could no longer hear her sister's voice, she ran as far and fast as she could.

 

With the package in hand the bandits left, and the monks were able to save Amy in time. Once alive and well once more, Amy set out to find a teacher so she could learn sword fighting, unconcerned at the time with finding Isabella. The rest of her story perhaps to come later. ;D Isabella ran for what felt like forever and eventually collapsed. She managed to spend three days alive in the forest, long enough for her sister to be long gone before the monks had to bring her, too, to the cloud temple to save her from dying of starvation. She still believes Amy to be dead.

 

Apprentice

 

With nothing to do and no one to stay with, Isabella took to asking around for anyone who needed an apprentice. She was desperate to learn a trade, anything she could use to earn herself the coin she needed to survive, but no one would take on a blind child on. She spent a lot of time traveling to different cities, living off of food given by strangers and doing her best to find someone, but no one would take her.

 

She met a man named Dynasty, or "Uncle Dyn Dyn", at the cloud temple who told her of a school being built down the road where people could learn all sorts of skills and trades. He took her there but it was yet to be completed. She ended up spending most of her time at the cloud temple, going back to the school every few days to check if it had been completed.

 

The people she met in this part of her life were the largest contributing factor to who she is today, the only people willing to talk to her were the kind and cheery sort, so she assumed that was how one was supposed to talk to strangers. She was always naturally a nice person, but she of course had other emotions all along, she just thought they must all be rude to show in front of people.

 

The college wasn't completed before 2.5

 

The Cursed Man

 

Isabella made the transition to Kalos with a newly founded hope for her future, only to be once again disappointed as no one showed her much more than a simple, obligatory sort of kindness. It makes sense, then, when she lay downtrodden and alone, crying in the rain that she was almost happy to be approached by a strange man with garbled speech. She didn't even notice just how creepy he was. Being that she didn't grasp the concept of different people being different until far older than most kids, she doesn't have any idea what's normal and what isn't, even still.

 

The man was confusing, speaking in different accents and tones, but he told Isabella about his situation. He was apparently cursed, unable to die until different parts of him passed on using the bodies of different people. He gave her a a rancid eyeball, telling her that if she accepted his deal she'd be able to see. She was about to accept, when he elaborated that she'd die within the week if she did, as an exchange, unless she kissed someone else, who would die in her place. Terrified, she tossed the eyeball away. He simply laughed, walking away and telling her it was too late.

 

Still terrified now not only for herself but for others, she went and picked back up the eye, keeping it in her pocket. She was slightly reassured by the fact that she still couldn't see, but she was still terrified of the curse. She ran away from where she'd met the man, barefoot, and bloodied up her feet pretty bad. She collapsed near a tree in front of the White Roses' base, where Nienna Calm spotted her bloodied feet and insisted that she be allowed to bandage them.

 

Worried that she only had a week, Isabella opened up to Nienna about the cursed eyeball. Nienna took her to see the druids, who she claimed might be able to help. They claimed that curses weren't their department, and that they couldn't help, but they suggested sarcastically that the pair see a mage about their problems, so they did.

 

Nienna took Isabella to speak with Blundermore. On the way they ran into a man who Nienna seemed to know. He was in an awful mood, so Isabella tried to cheer him up, to no avail. He claimed the only thing that would cheer him up was 'a good druidic poem', so Isabella promised to find one to tell him if they ever met again, and they parted ways. Once at the mages' tower, in a single nervous breath Isabella huffed out everything to do with the curse, to which Blundermore simply nodded and asked to see the eyeball. He destroyed it with his magic, freeing Isabella of the curse, if there ever was one, and once again leaving her with a blank slate.

 

As they were about to part ways, Isabella admitted to Nienna that she had been an inspiration, and asked if she would be willing to take her on as an apprentice. Nienna said she couldn't really teach her methods, since she'd learned them over a long period of time by trial and error. Isabella wondered aloud if the druids could teach her healing, to which Nienna told her they could. Nienna offered to drop Isabella off at the grove as she passed by.

 

Dedication and Tenacity

 

The druids were apprehensive at first about letting Isabella close, until she assured them that her curse was gone. She asked about joining, and The Wilting Druid gave her an interview right then and there. He asked her questions about nature and what it meant to her, all easy questions in one way or another. She was accepted, and given a place to stay in the grove. She went to Wilting to ask him about druidic poetry, and how it was unique. Wilting told her, encouraging her interest by assigning her to write a druidic poem as her first task. Initially, she had planned to simply memorize her poem as a workaround to her blindness.

 

Until, that is, this happened.

 

Newly empowered with a way to read and write, she created her poem, a beautiful, heartfelt piece about her favorite sounds and how wonderful her life is even without sight. In the days between finishing her poem and getting a chance to read it to Wilting she carried it around constantly, even using it on occasion. Somewhere in the middle it became a song, and she was able to use it to put a troubled man to sleep and calm a crying woman.

 

This was around when Isabella's roommate, Gwendolyn, was attacked by orcs. Isabella ran to be by her side, bloodying up her bare feet again. Nienna was there to stitch up Gwendolyn, and afterwards ended up stitching up Isabella's feet again. She insisted that Isabella get shoes so it wouldn't happen a third time, to which Isabella simply said she would, not wanting to trouble Nienna with her problems about how it would be harder to get around.

 

When she finally got the chance to read it to Wilting, she was accused of 'taking his advice too literally'. She took the criticism in stride, thinking it was only his way of showing he cared. She had come to an idea, though, that she decided to entertain in the time Wilting was giving her between tasks. She found a long branch and stripped it of its bark, swinging it around in front of her. She learned to use it as modern blind people use their canes, and was able to start wearing shoes just as she'd promised to.

 

Matchmaker

 

When Isabella was in the library with Gwendolyn after the orc attack, she charged herself with calming the other people there. One man in particular identified himself as Randolph was grief stricken, blaming himself for Gwendolyn's injuries since he hadn't been present to prevent them. Isabella calmed him down, assuring him that Gwendolyn wouldn't want him blaming himself. He admitted that Gwendolyn was special to him, but he didn't know how she felt. Isabella, touched by how much he cared, agreed to play the matchmaker.

 

Isabella began visiting the library regularly to visit, and to give advice, even coaxing some information out of Gwendolyn to give to Randolph in secret. She brought Randolph a bouquet to give to Gwendolyn when he admitted his feelings, giving him specific advice on how to word his confession based on things Gwendolyn had said about her opinions on men.

 

The Staff

 

Isabella's second task was to find a tree, live and meditate by it until she knew true love, and then carve a staff from its branches. She ventured into the woods of Malinor, seeking for such a tree that would suit her. Still unaccustomed to using her cane to get around, she ended up almost back where she started, fairly close to the grove, though not in it. She found her tree and meditated by it for a full day before she couldn't help falling asleep by it. When she awoke she was covered by some blankets, and a woman stood over her, asking if she was alright.

 

Isabella explained her situation, and the woman, despite being weirded out, took it in stride. Isabella then admitted that she would eventually have to fell the tree, but she would definitely replant it. The woman identified herself as a sort of keeper of the forest and said that that was fine, since Isabella had shown she cared the woman wasn't worried.

 

Learning to love people, in general, more and more, Isabella asked if the woman would be willing to share a story. She obliged, leading Isabella back to her home, but not before Isabella marked the tree with some seed-symbols in case she couldn't find her way back. The woman told the story of how she and her friends met, and all about how they now lived together and were enjoying life's simple pleasures with each others' company. Isabella thanked her for the story, and returned to the tree. She pondered for a moment, then cut it down, planting a sapling as she promised and carving her staff - a unique staff that doubles as a cane.

 

Isabella's next task was to name her staff, write a poem about the tree it came from, and engrave it into the staff. The name was easy, she chose the name Elacal'Leyun, after the name her father used to call her mother. Still not knowing elvish much, she assumed it to be some sort of endearing term, so it would work. As for the poem, she wrote it first on a sign, then pressed hundreds of tiny seeds into her staff. It was painstaking, but worth it. To someone who knows seed it's a poem, to someone who doesn't it's a beautiful pattern.

 

A Pink Rose

 

Wilting had been missing for a while, so Isabella asked Callax if he could give her a task instead. He accepted, sending her to find 'a pink rose from the dwarven lands of snow'. She set out, arriving at the docks with no problems, but realizing that from there she didn't know how to get any further. She wandered around a bit, even asking a few strangers if they knew the way, but none did. Just as she was about to head back, she ran into Darian and his friend.

 

Darian not only knew the way, he offered to be her escort and she was absolutely thrilled. She referred to him as 'her knight', after a story Hanna May used to tell her about princes and knights. They traveled to the dwarven lands, Darian leading Isabella by the hand and having her examine different flowers. Eventually they found the pink rose, and she shaved off the thorns and stuck it behind her ear to carry.

 

Being that Darian was a dedicant as well, he led her all the way back to the grove. They would have parted ways there, but Darian decided to follow Isabella into her room. He scared her at first until he identified himself, but then he started saying things Isaeblla didn't understand.. he had to explain himself, but Isabella still didn't quite get it. This was how she ended up thinking sex is some sort of disease. She's still a little nervous around Darian because of this.

 

The Bridge

 

Isabella was on her way out of the grove when she heard shouts at the end of the bridge, prompting her to stop. Gwendolyn yelled for her to run back but she didn't react fast enough, falling into the water below as the bridge collapsed. Unable to swim, she had to be saved by Faolin and pulled to shore. She tried to help pulling the other people to shore, but didn't end up being much help.

 

Milo was furious, shouting at the dedicants to fix the bridge. While the seeing tended to the wounded, Isabella painstakingly hauled planks of driftwood out of the water, laying boards across the bridge so it was passable. Milo came back, yelling furiously again about how they'd done a bad job, and it looked horrible. Feeling the tears well up, Isabella ran away. She ran to the only place she could run to without thinking about it, the library, where she sat in the corner and cried a tear for every time she'd upset someone just by being blind.

 

Gwendolyn had followed her, and asked what was wrong. With no good escape routes Isaeblla had to open up, telling her about how she would never be able to earn the minas she needed to get her eyes fixed. Gwendolyn insisted Isabella take her coin, leaving it with Isabella and returning to the grove so she wouldn't have a chance to refuse. She felt bad at first, but when she tried to return it Gwendolyn told her 'that's what friends do', and Isabella wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to have someone consider her a friend.

 

She headed out to the docks in search of a healer. She didn't find one, though she did get the name 'Sankar' from someone, though she's still yet to find the person with this name. She also met a man whose name she forgot to ask, an old eccentric alchemist who gave her a potion he'd mixed up for repairing damaged eyes. She tried to pay him but he refused, saying it was only natural for things like that to be passed from one person to the next.

 

As instructed, she dropped a single drop in each eye every elven day. Each time it would sting, she'd endure the pain as long as she could, then she'd wash out her eyes. She continued this for a long time, until one day when she dropped it in her right eye it stung more than usual, even burning. The pain was far worse than anything she'd experienced before, and she still couldn't see, so she put the potion away for good, fearing it might kill her. She doesn't know that the potion repaired her eye, though only the eye itself, turning it red.

 

Hammer and Chisel

 

Sage is special. Isabella enjoys making games. She'd created one already, but her crappy old knife wasn't doing the job anymore, so she decided to go out and get some proper wood carving tools before she continued. She planned to go speak with the dwarves, since she'd finally grasped the concept of the different races and figured it would be a good learning experience. She ran into a boy on the elven docks, apologized of course, then one thing led to another and they ended up talking.

 

His name was Kalameet, and he was bored. Isabella asked if he wanted to come with her to the dwarven lands, but forgot to mention why she was going until later. He accompanied her, though this time she knew better than to let him get too close. She led the way, and kept quiet about her excitement towards having her own knight again. They entered the dwarven city and Isabella began asking around for someone to help her, only to be met with a surprising amount of racism, a concept she'd yet to understand.

 

She eventually ran into some dwarves who demanded to know the reason for their presence, which Isabella finally got around to revealing. Kalameet pointed out that he was a smith as well, but it was already a bit late as they were being led down the way to the forge. The dwarf they'd run into explained their situation to the smith, who refused to smith for her simply because she was an elf. Kalameet grabbed her hand, pulling her out of there almost frantically with a whispered promise to explain later.

 

He led her back to the docks, offering that he was a smith, and he'd smith her tools for her. He led her back to an open forge in the elven lands, where she sat by while he worked. He even showed her his masks, explaining to her that he needed them to feel. She didn't quite understand it, but she figured it made as much sense as about anything else. As they were about to part ways she made hopeful leap of faith, referring to him as her friend. He was confused by the notion, but he didn't refuse, so Isabella was happy to finally have another friend.

 

To be continued...

[Moot 1715]

All of the feels, I feel! Keep up the good work, Fiend.

[hex37 734]

A fantastic read. Great work.