Post by achenar on May 14, 2007 20:05:32 GMT -5
Player
[/u][/center]Alias: Nikki
Gender: Female
Contact: achynarry on AIM
Location/Time Zone: AEST - east coast of Australia, GMT + 9/10, depending on DST.
Character
[/u][/center]Name: Achenar 'Rhapsody' Treharne
Gender: Female
Age: 20
City: Port Caynn
Status: Musician
Personality
Proud to a fault, but friendly enough, Achenar tends towards the dramatic whereever possible and as such appears to feel nothing in half doses. Anything beyond mild annoyance becomes deadly rage, while her happiness tends towards infectious joy. Similarly, she's a fiercely loyal friend, and a deadly enemy. As part of all this show, she also tends towards vanity and often more than a hint of shallowness.
For all this, she's not a bad person; intelligent enough, those dramatic, mercurial moods usually tend towards the more optimistic, no matter her straits. She's not bookish, no, but this is more due to her dedication to her music and a lack of formal education than to alack of will to learn.
Naturally inclined towards flippancy, faced with real trouble she is sympathetic at heart - probably. This largely depends on her feelings towards the world in general and the person in particular at the time. Should she decide that the problems of another are their own fault, and wilfully so, they may likely be offered thinly-veiled mockery in place of the genuine sympathy she's capable of if she actually likes someone.
-Personality Flaw:
In all honesty, the word 'mercurial' is really only a glamourous cover for the words 'moody' and 'flighty'. While watching her may be highly entertaining, in reality she may not be amazingly likeable. An inclination towards vanity and shallowness, while theoretically practical, in practice are likely to grate on the nerves; similarly her exuberance of feeling can be considered attention-seeking and are probably tiring to most. A spoilt childhood, while not making her exactly selfish, have certainly taught her that it's quite possible that she can get her way in anything - whether this manifests in tantrums, sulking, or manipulation is up to the situation but inevitably won't be pretty.
Appearance
Long, curling hair in deep wine-red tones frames a face notable for large brown eyes rimmed in thick, dark (and perhaps notably not red) lashes. Her lips are perhaps a trifle over-thin, her nose unremarkable, her skin a little too tanned for noble convention. On the short side and naturally slender, what curves she has are usually accentuated by cunningly cut garb; if it weren't for that vanity and her hair, her crowning glory, she could perhaps be mistaken for a particularly effeminate boy.
At her best - usually when performing - she is a great beauty; she has the sense to choose clothing and style according to fashion to an extent but largely to accentuate her own looks, and her dramatic flair lends itself to the overall impression. At worst - if, say, she hasn't had a chance to touch up her roots, or she's just woken up and hasn't accessed her cosmetics, she's pretty but nothing special.
-Appearance Flaw:
Rhapsody has no flaws! She is a perfect, stunning beauty! At least, she is when thoroughly made up, the dye in her hair hasn't faded to reveal mousey brown roots, and she's not a sleepy mess. She's attractive enough, yes, but this is with much work and is largely artificial. Without the work she's merely above-average and largely unremarkable.
History
While Achenar is at any given moment likely to embellish her past into a drama-struck tragedy, in truth her childhood is at best unremarkable. Born to middle-class parents, who ran a small series of produce stores around Port Caynn, she was the youngest of four - and their only girl. Spoilt appropriately, she grew up with the assurance that she would, if all else failed, be taken care of by her older brothers. While in another situation she might have grown up a tomboy, the close proximity of four men only prompted her mother to encourage more feminine pursuits in her daughter.
This may have backfired when, learning as a matter of education to play a small harp, Achenar fell deeply in love with the musical world. While she showed no aptitude for the Gift, and learnt such lettering and numbers as her parents could enforce but little more, she wheedled (read: whined) her mother into finding an appropriate tutor for her musical study.
This tutor - an elderly but experienced poet, also sometime musician - was happy to exchange food and board for his knowledge of the performing arts. Quick-witted and well-educated for a man of lower class, he soon became a more advanced tutor for Achenar's brothers as well as 'uncle' and confidante to the youngest of the Treharne children. Time not spent running errands for her parents and helping in the family business was inevitably spent rote-learning every song in her mentor's repetoire, and some besides.
Achenar grew up to be a small girl, pretty enough thanks to the softness of her life but unremarkable - at least until she began to sing or play. Perhaps no great talent, hard work stood her well and she sometimes accompanied her tutor to perform at festivals and the like. However, gaining no great attention, the girl - fourteen at the time - decided her lack of instant fame was due to physical appearances.
The initially shallow nature of this conviction developed, as she matured, into a more practical awareness of theatrics. Not long after her sixteenth birthday her aging mentor began to sicken; while her family were inclined to keep him housed and fed out of genuine affection, they could not afford the extensive medical aid to maintain his health.
With this in mind - and after a particularly explosive row with beloved parents and overly-practical eldest brother, over their (perceived by the girl) responsibility to find a cure - Achenar set out in the world to gain extra coin that might be used at least to make her mentor more comfortable. Dying her hair and maintaining an appearance that at last garnered attention, she spent two years plying her skills in Port Caynn.
It was after these two years that her mentor finally passed on; while she returned home to play a more traditional female role and grieve, the restrictive nature of her family responsibilities began to chafe and not long after she began to perform again, to the oft-expressed disappointment of her mother - who had, presumably, been hoping for her daughter to settle down and marry after her stint of freedom.
Achenar's most recent successes are largely also due to her mentor; having inherited his recorded work, she ventured to set some of the more poignant poems to music in memory to the man who had been her closest friend, under the name 'Rhapsody'. Whether due to her own skill or the underlying wonder (in her biased opinion) of his work, her popularity has grown over recent years despite the unconventional nature of her gender.
Family
While Achenar is not without extended family, she is rarely, if ever, in any contact with them; her immediate family is thus perhaps the only of note.
Her mother, Cira, while disappointed with her only daughter's choices in life, professes support and is the source of the henna Achenar uses for her hair. Having spoilt Achenar horribly in her childhood, the willful young woman is now able to walk all over her mother, which she does as gently as possible given her nature. Her father Duncan, on the other hand, she plays to mercilessly, not without his knowledge; while he chides her given the need, he has always been largely distracted with his business.
Her three older brothers - Duncan (the second), Caleb, and Edmund - tend towards overprotective affection to the most part, although the manner in which this is expressed is rather different. Duncan, a good ten years older than Achenar, follows his father's footsteps in being largely distant, and is often away seeing to some aspect of the business or another, more so as their father grows older. Caleb - who has some small but largely useless Gift - is but five years older than Achenar and largely indulgent of his sister's theatrics, while Edmund - only a year older and eternally aware of the coddling his sister receives - is more inclined to poke and tease her in some subtle revenge for the attention she receives from the rest of the family (though he professes it to be a way of thickening her skin and thus protecting her, naturally).
Otherwise notable is her deceased mentor, Aldan, who was unofficial uncle and confidante as Achenar grew up. Popular for his poetry in his day, he sank into obscurity with age and it is this latter fact that, perhaps, encourages Achenar's rigid maintenance of her appearance in the hopes of avoiding a similar fate.
Sorry!