#Just for his civilization or group hasn’t begun existing yet

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 244

Danny sighs in exhaustion, rubbing at his eyes with a too-long sleeve. He was honestly getting really tired of getting de-aged. It was annoying, and even if he did stuff differently there was still a lot of stuff the same. Not to mention that being partially alive (and unkillable) meant that it couldn’t be reversed, he just had to wait for his body to grow back up. Urgh. 

At least his babysitter- even if he doesn’t need one- is pretty nice, if a bit quiet. They’re not too busy, especially for being a reaper, and honestly it’s always nice to meet another of Clockwork’s kids. Which if someone had told him that CW had a habit of adopting anomalies to the timelines, he probably wouldn’t have believed them. 

But hey, he guesses Mr Speedforce-Death is his big brother anyway. And it’s not too boring, kind of nice to just chillax. Oh- the cowl-thing is going on and he’s getting an offer of a shoulder ride. Guess it’s someones time to die- hey, maybe he’ll be able to befriend their ghost! 

[brymione-nettle]

Character Profile: Brymione Nettle

Name: Brymione Nettle (Brim-eye-oh-knee)

Aliases: “Brie”, Miss Netty, Madam Wren

Profession: An official notary who moonlights as a tattoo artist; also a struggling novelist. 

Appearance: In human form, she’s a bird of a woman, coming to just over five feet—five feet and a half with the right pair of boots—with a slim, banana shaped build. She is tan, especially so about the neck, face, hands, and the tops of her feet; peppered with freckles. The palms of her hands are almost as rough in human form as they become as a worgen—nails kept short that while otherwise healthy, are perpetually caked with dirt. Her eyes are hazel green with flecks of dark gold. Her lips are rosy, but thin unless she paints them, and seem naturally wrinkled with a soft frown unless she thinks to smile. Her hair is a curly walnut mess that either hangs along her shoulders or is piled up atop her head while she works. She wears clothing that buttons high up on her neck. But in the crutch of shoulder where she was bitten, she has had a tattoo penned over the scar of the bite--made to appear as though little wildflowers flowers are blooming from the old wound.

In worgen form, she is quite a bit something else—taller, faster, stronger, of course—with slate, cowlicked fur and eyes of piercing gold.

Personality: Brymione is highly independent, organized, and no-nonsense. Naturally distrusting of most, but anyone attempting to be kind, she always suspects an ulterior motive. A serious and somewhat cynical creature, she often comes off as condescending and out of touch with her own humanity. And yet many of her actions, while executed with cool logic and an air of begrudging, belie a deep concern for others over herself that is not easy for her to express in a way that would be better understood.

Childhood: Brymione was the youngest child of a wealthy Gilnean merchant and a young woman he was not married to. For Eleanor Nettle, this was hardly the first grand mistake she had suffered of her high-functioning alcoholic of a husband Maurice, but it was certainly the grandest nonetheless. Regardless, Elle took pity on the babe left at their doorstep and raised and loved his daughter as her own.

She was a bold and fearless child, always running off into the woods when she should have been doing—well, anything else. If she was not digging in the dirt, she was atop the tallest trees trying to journey to the moon. One day, a fierce storm rolled in while Brymione was out playing. Elle went looking for her and in a freak accident, a decrepit tree branch fell and struck her dead. Her death took a hard toll on the Nettle family, but especially on Maurice, who had depended upon Eleanor for everything. When his business suffered and his debts ran high, her half sisters went to live with his mother in law—but not him and certainly not Brymione, whom the noblewoman refused to acknowledge as a legitimate member of the family. She remained with her father when he sold their family home and much of their belongings to settle his debts, and they moved northward, into a smaller shack on the outskirts of a hamlet in the Northgate Woods.

Maurice loved his daughter, but in his mind, she symbolized all his faults and mistakes turned manifest, and was a constant reminder of Eleanor’s death. To numb the guilt and resentment in his heart, he drank away what money he managed to make and fell into deep despondence. It fell to Brymione to provide. She made herself a helpful nuisance to the locals, doing a bit of everything from milking cows to fixing fences—as well as assisting an old hermit named Cheryn tend her garden when her eyes had begun to fail her.

Cheryn was a harvest-witch, and while she carefully kept this from Brymione’s notice in the beginning, she weighed child’s worth as a pupil. When it was clear the girl would make a suitable successor of her knowledge, and that her time was dwindling, the harvest-witch revealed the truth. In the years that followed, Brymione spent all of her time with Cheryn, learning to hear and tend to the heartbeat of nature, and to even write living magic upon a page with careful instruction.

But even as level-headed as she was, she had unrealistic ideas of what could be done with her newfound strengths. Brie began trying to work her magic on her father, penning soothing glyphs beneath the flower pots she placed strategically at his sill and by his bed—hoping to cleanse his “corruption” and bring him clarity from the unending grief that kept him from being the father she remembered. Not only did it not truly work (as Cheryn warned her), but when Maurice discovered what she was doing, he became violently angry and frightened. Things were done and said that could not be undone or unsaid, and he returned to the city without her. Brymione lived with Cheryn from that point on, in her home in the thickest point of the wood, on a knoll that the locals called Wren Hill because the birds that loitered there.

Recent History: When Cheryn died of old age, the locals who had once gone to her for aid now sought out Brymione instead, the new Madam Wren. Having lived much of her formative years in the shadow of the Wall, her heart was with the Rebels and more so, with their people abandoned beyond the colossal impasse, left as fodder for the Scourge and wolfmen by a selfish King. She ignored the increasing correspondence from her loyalist father demanding she return to his side and the safety of Gilneas City. Instead, she remained in Northgate Woods to provide succor to those rebels she could reach, and sanctuary to those rebels who could reach her. She became familiar with the shotgun, entangling wards, and some of Old Cheryn’s more…’offensive’ remedies to ‘discourage’ loyalist soldiers and civil war ‘opportunists’ from harassing her or her patients. When the rebellion failed, and those who were not brought to court fled into hiding, her name came up and she was brought to trial. But because it could not be proved that she did anything more than provide medical aid to wounded rebels and there were far bigger fish to catch, she was released. (After all, you can’t prove much without a body.)

But the divided nation’s troubles and her own were just beginning. The worgen curse infiltrated the walled in nation, and what seemed at first like terrible accidents led to truths much more sinister. People came to her with wounds and stories of fearsome wolfmen—and then never returned. The nighttime howls became ever louder, ever closer. Then one day she went to the hamlet—and it was abandoned, all except for the dead.

“Run,��� a man told her as the life fled from his eyes and onto the ground through his wound, too quick for bandage or magic to mend. “But don’t go to the city. They are damned—we are all damned.”

Her haven became a lonely prison. By day, she watched the feral worgen prowl past her home in packs from the loft of her boarded-up shack with her gun in her lap, waiting for the right moment to sneak out and collect the wrens and rare vermin that lay across her yard from drugged seed to cook and eat. She purified rainwater collected in her gutters with cleansing magic. By night, she dwelled in the cellar, busying herself in her journals by cautious candlelight to the sound of distant howling and screams beyond her door and boarded windows—taking detailed accounts of what she saw and heard, and studying the more complex spells and rites left behind by her mentor, though much of them seemed indecipherable without Old Cheryn’s guidance.

Then one day, she heard a sentient beating on the door, and a familiar voice yelling for entrance.  And that was the day she was bitten.

When her mind returned to her much later, she was in Tal’doren. There was still wildness in her blood, and fleeting memories of nights with cold dirt in her nails and moon in her eyes. 

But there was balance now—and most importantly, control, which she resolved to never lose again.

Not to anything. Not to anyone.

Usually Found: In Old Town, where she holds a position as an official notary.  After hours, some may know that other ink-related services are available. Alternatively, she can be found at quiet taverns, nursing wine and trying to write the Novel.

Strengths, Talents, and Points of Pride: Brymione is a survivalist, and keeps a rational head when most people lose theirs. She is a talented writer and scribe, and while she hasn’t penned any novels under her own name (yet), she has helped pen some beautiful tomes of others fledgling authors’ works and designing tarot cards for coin. Her knack for trivia is useful, and she isn’t afraid of dirty work. Her actions are often driven towards her concern for the welfare of others, and to revealing the heart of any given matter.

Weaknesses: Her inability to easily trust others or to relinquish control to someone else makes it difficult for her to work well in groups, and to have meaningful friendships. She is always ready for the other boot to drop, and her rationale can come off as cold and condescending. Her anxiety that she may cause undue harm with either her magic or her existence as a worgen can send her into death loops of inaction as she overthinks herself into a corner. Inaction also has its consequences. 

Unless she is in worgen form, she is not very strong at all, she no longer has access to most of her druidic abilities. But she is starkly adverse to that side of her, and retains her human appearance in towns and populated spaces unless necessary.