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The Ace of Spades Joined: 7 May 2006 Posts: 398 | Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 1:50 pm OOC:I... have no idea.
Name: Joan Bordel Age: 21 Occupation: manor servant Alliance: the Lord and Lady Devereaux of Vaeron Items: a long dagger concealed in the top of her right boot; several gold coins and bits of expensive jewelry in a pouch tied to her left leg; a peregrine falcon named Althalos (who is not so much an item as a rather stubborn shadow.) Description: Expensive brocades and gold embroidery help, but Joan has more than mastered the smaller subtleties that allow her to pass as nobility: she holds her head high, keeps her hands folded delicately at her waist, and speaks just loudly enough to be heard. Her auburn hair is kept perfectly coiffed, and her bright green eyes are veiled by long, dark lashes. She has the look of a noble, and that in itself is enough to keep most people from asking questions. However, Joan has never had to keep this ruse up for more than a few hours at a time. Beneath the jewels and the delicate mannerisms, she is a servant girl through-and-through. She learned to curse at a young age. She is stronger than any noblewoman ought to be. She’s always been a bit clumsy as well, and although she no longer possesses that uncanny ability to knock things off shelves just by being in the same room as them, she still breaks things occasionally out of sheer dread. Joan is also extraordinarily hot-tempered, and is often unable to hide her emotions, though she does give it a valiant effort. Happiness can be mellowed down to appear nothing more than contentment; grief can be tempered into something like gloominess. Anger, however, is always anger, as several verbally abused merchants can attest to (at one point, Joan actually looked forward to her outings to buy supplies for the manor’s kitchen, as it gave her a chance to vent her frustrations on the hapless butchers and produce farmers who happened to be in her path.) Although she knows how to make conversation with the stuffy members of court, Joan has always preferred the coarse company of innkeepers and peasants. Her earliest years were spent in this kind of environment, after all; an outdoors servant was hardly treated with any kind of deference, as the manor servants often were. Her sense of humor tends toward the crude, though she usually sits out the sidelines and appreciates the humor, rather than chiming in. She is, despite all of this, extremely well-read for a woman. She attended lessons with the Lord’s daughter for many years, and is fluent in French and English, as well as being able to read and speak small amounts of Latin and Spanish. She can embroider, draw, dance, and play several musical instruments, though none of these with any particular amount of talent. She does ride exceptionally well, and has always enjoyed falconry. She is better suited toward such outdoorsy activities, and her small frame conceals the fact that she is, in fact, exceptionally strong for her size. She knows a very small amount of swordfighting, due to her camaraderie with a few of the knights at the manor, and she’s gotten into more than her fair share of fist fights (mostly due to her temper, but also not entirely her own fault.) All that she’s done has been done out of loyalty to Lilian Devereaux. As a servant, she was raised to believe that there is nothing better than that loyalty, that to serve is her natural place in the scheme of things. She has yet to discover that the option of freedom is, in fact, available to her—she has these thoughts occasionally, but believes that they are products of her own weakness. She dutifully takes care of everyone around her, and in doing so often neglects to take care of herself; she will not hesitate to throw herself into danger for someone if she believes she ought to, even if she feels no particular sense of loyalty toward them; she does not, however, expect for others to do the same for her. Although she is friendly, Joan is also very good at keeping secrets. She was Lady Devereaux's closest friend for a long time, and knows many things about various members of court that she would never breathe a word of to anyone. Likewise, her sense of loyalty forces her to keep secret most of the details about her current situation-- Lady Devereaux's death, among other things-- and even if she trusts a person completely, she will often appear closed or guarded toward them, especially where information regarding others is concerned. History: Joan was born to a servant woman in the house of Lord and Lady Stafford in a village several miles from Vaeron. She grew up serving the family, and was generally given the more physically taxing outdoor tasks, such as milking cows, tending gardens, cleaning and laundry—as such, she grew to be a strong girl, and very healthy. Lilian Stafford, Lord Stafford’s daughter, was an extremely frail girl the same age as Joan. Although it was severely frowned upon at first, Lilian became rather fond of Joan and often delegated the servant girl’s tasks to some other servant to allow Joan the free time to entertain her. Lord Stafford, surprisingly, did not object—perhaps, some said, because Lilian was beginning to look stronger after a few weeks of running about the manor grounds. (Other said it may have had something to do with the fact that Joan had Lord Stafford’s emerald eyes… but they never said it loud enough for either Joan or Lord Stafford to hear, and the matter remained a mystery.) Eventually, the manor servants gave up trying to separate the two girls. Joan was allowed to accompany Lilian to her language lessons, her riding lessons, and various other things usually reserved for nobles; Lilian, on the other hand, sometimes snuck out with Joan in the middle of the night to learn less ladylike skills from some of the older servants; basic swordfighting, for example, and how to spit long distances. Some secret part of Lilian reveled in this chance to be free, or as free as the daughter of a Lord could ever dream of being. Joan, for her part, admired Lilian above anyone else—she was strong-willed, proud, and graceful, exactly the kind of woman that Joan knew she would never have the means or inclination to be. When Lilian was sent off to be married to Lord Devereaux at the age of fifteen, she insisted on only one thing: that Joan be allowed to accompany her. And so, curious and ready for whatever came her way, fifteen-year-old Joan Bordel left the Staffords and her mother and went to live with Lilian at her new home. Things remained more or less the same, although Lilian had new duties and they were slightly more difficult to shirk. Joan was given easier indoor tasks that allowed her to remain near her Lady, and in her free time (which she had considerable amounts of now), she was Lilian’s confidante, of sorts. The resemblance between the girls had become even more apparent as they aged, and now their games became more daring: Joan even went so far, once, as to dress up as Lady Devereaux to receive the King at their manor, when Lilian was feeling ill and Lord Devereaux was away. Only the servants had any idea; Joan had spent so long around nobility by this point that she was relatively comfortable playing the part, though this specific audience had her scared nearly out of her wits. Still, she did it willingly out of loyalty to Lilian, who had recently given birth and was in no condition to entertain anyone. Lilian’s son, Phillipe, spent nearly as much time around Joan as he did around his own mother, and she became extremely fond of him. So when Lilian fell ill, Joan continued to care for the three-year-old Phillipe, and when Lilian died, Joan had only the child to console her. When Phillipe began to show similar symptoms as his mother had, Joan knew something had to be done. She had never felt any close ties to Lord Devereaux, but this was Lilian’s son as well, and she knew she couldn’t sit by and watch him fall victim to the same illness that had claimed his mother’s life (and, it appeared, may have been about to claim his father’s life, although Lord Devereaux seemed to be dealing with the illness better than Lilian had.) Knowing that such a thing was punishable by death, Joan stole one of Lilian’s best gowns and a few pieces of her nicest jewelry. Enlisting the help of several of the manor servants, she managed to make herself into something very closely resembling the late Lady Devereaux. She also enlisted the help of a young man she had become acquainted with who worked at the stables; no lady, she knew, would ever travel so far without some sort of a guard. Because the King had only seen Lilian once or twice and word had not yet gotten out that she was dead, Joan figured she had a good shot at fooling the court. Her goal was to petition the King for a witch or a wizard—anyone, really, who knew anything about magic. Traditional forms of healing had not worked on anyone who had come down with this mysterious illness; magic, she reasoned, was their last hope. She made a strong case and by the end, she had most of the court sympathizing with her. The King said no. Magic, he said, was too volatile a resource to trust with things such as healing; besides, wizards and such were not allowed in court, and so how could he be expected to approach one with an official decree allowing their return to the lives of “normal” people? No, he said, it was too drastic and too sudden, and the court had no difficulty understanding that it was also too wounding to his pride. So Joan returned to the manor, practically in tears, and then lots of stuff happened, including (but not limited to) the arrival of Westbrook, Mo, and Amelia’s characters. OOC:I don't know whether I ended it in the right place. Haha. Ha. Oops.
Don't know whether I like her very much, either. >< |
Digithe Joined: 24 Aug 2003 Posts: 884 | Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 12:49 pm Yeah, I don't like her very much, either.
JK, she looks great to me! I hope someone's character can get on her nerves every now and then, because it could be fun to see how she deals with her temper and acting the noble at the same time ;) Even if you say you don't like her now, she seems like a character that could become really fun as you roleplay with her more. As far as where the history ended, that's probably about as good a place as any. If we start it a bit later, then we can agree as a group where that start is, I guess. Now we need to bug Boots and Mo to finish so we can start somewhere... >_< Approved! - The Administration |
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