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Take the smallest of things and more times than naught, you will find surprise and – to some degree – a level of intrigue that is otherwise lacking in the more broad and straight-forward of individuals. For one that is large, he or she can also be assumed to be either A. Strong or B. Slow; sometimes even both at the same time. There are several more deceitful variables to consider when judging the short-folk. From a young age, Celes has always been on the lithe-side with little or no strength to show for it. At one time, before the academy and everything that came with graduation, her height remained consistently stunted. Having barely breached four feet by the age of eleven. Some worried (okay mainly her family) that her external growth had been affected by an adverse reagent or a genetic defect, but there was nothing to be done in that regard. Neither could the facts be proven, not that they had to be though. Between the years of eleven and thirteen, she grew nearly a foot and a couple inches here and there. The root cause being: a hormonal defect in which she has an abnormally high amount of estrogen, that had up until this point prolonged childhood at the expense of young adulthood.

With a sudden spurt as that, her body raced to keep up and still several of her muscles, specifically her biceps, triceps and calves are undeveloped and naturally, for lack of a better term: weak. Despite her nimble appearance, she is anything but quick and instead only boasts the given deception that comes with mistaken adolescence and youth. Assumptions based on physical traits are hardly intelligent to make, yet there are those that would just take for granted her size and demeanor upon which she carries herself. In the simplest way, her slender stature in spite of its shortcomings, does provide certain advantages. She is not one to be noticed, save for the glimmer of ginger hair and bright blue eyes but nor do her physical ailments direct her into obscurity and forgetfulness. During times of great exertion, or otherwise physically engaging activities, she has been known to favor her stronger side: the right. This alters the way she walks as she tends to put more pressure on her right leg than the left. In addition, it also takes longer for the acid build up to fade and thus the pain from fatigue to simmer out of her muscles. It does not hinder her much but enough to influence the breadth of her pyhsical capabilities.

Wherein she is not the most physically fit (or healthy for that matter), she does have a pleasing and well formed facial structure. Her fair skin compliments the soft tone of her blue eyes and a modest mouth grants her a look of innocence that a person would be hard pressed to find in the more battle-hardened. This is only further attributed to the lack of both visible and shielded scars. Pristine tone and quite beautifully untouched flesh, that almost gleams in both bright light and in the dim. It's a shame that so often most of her body is clothed in such a way that much is left to the imagination (if not everything; given her youth it's for the best) Currently, in a phase of modesty, she prefers light, although plentiful, garments which are both easy to move in and comfortable. This is usually some manner of sweats with matching upper long-sleeved shirts that are of rather dull colors of gray and faint teal. It is not as though she goes out of her way to blend in, but her outfits cannot be described as anything other than plain and rather ordinary. Upon her feet she favors either traditional sandals or sneakers, and usually the latter should she be going any greater distance than a few standard miles. Traditional footwear after all, is not the most comfortable to travel in. It is for that reason she is almost never seen in dress or kimono, not that she dislikes either of those. At an age where she does not see herself as very feminine, several tom-boy tendencies are more akin.

Of short auburn hair, that is brushed most oft down on all sides covering ear, neck and back, eyes evenly spaced, spherical-round and titled, and a vacant yet filled face, Celes, bears every resemblance to a not-yet bloomed flower. Still in the first-year of teen hood, many of her more female features have not yet matured, nor are they anything to strike awe. A vague visage of shyness, mostly present in an expressive use of curved lips that is not quite a smile, presents a rather chilled and perhaps distant exterior as though she is not looking at the world but instead through it and into something of her own creation or telling. This is not to say she always appears absent, or generally uninterested, however much could be said about the aloof aura that surrounds her persona. Only matched in toe by the equally as surprising and albeit reluctant smile; so rare is it, that when she does smile, it is as though she is taking a breath for the first time.

Growing up in a big family, it is easy to forget that each and every person within the family is not only the sum of both his or her father and his or her mother but also the siblings that he or she learns from. Being the youngest of several children, Celes, had the opportunity and the chance to see several of her closest relatives grow and in turn go their separate ways into lives that were of their own making. In a way – actually in more than just a way, several – she looked up to the decisions they made and tried to emulate them, rather than try to understand what she wanted. Despite the lack of tragedy, and a relative lack of drama, she never really and still has not found out just who she is. A blank slate would be the perfect way to describe her; instead of acting through her own moral principles she sees how others react and then responds in a way that she thinks they will find pleasing.

It is a trait, or a mental deficit that largely goes unnoticed and why is that? Well simply because it is hard to find fault in one so young and almost just as hard to find that fault in someone that on more the one occasion, agrees and falls in line with a certain way of thinking that is entirely agreeable and not in the least bit unpleasant. This, she does without thinking, first observing and then appeasing whomever she is with, because she does not know how she as her own person should or would really act. Yes, it is existentially cliché not to know oneself, but it is also completely realistic when she has had the beliefs of not just one but several older siblings along with their accomplishments and expectations reined down upon her since the day she was born.

What makes her unique and definable from others, is not just how she acts in accordance to a brief inquisitive and overly shy nature, but the fact that she is unaware that people – including herself – strive to be better not for others but for themselves. In the same way a child will not do something because he or she has been scolded time and time again, she will not act unless she is sure that the outcome will be the one that is desired for the person she is with, or the one that she expects to be 'normal' based upon what she has seen and gathered from her older brothers. The fact of the matter is 'normal' here is an expected value and not based upon the interactions of a group of individuals. For very similar reasons she has trouble when it comes to interacting with larger groups of people or even when it comes to simply understanding what she is feeling from one moment to the next. Happiness. Sadness. Fear. Anger. She knows what they feel like but when asked what she is feeling during any given moment in time, the answer would come as a struggle.

Perhaps it will not seem all that odd from this standpoint now that it is rather clear, but, Celes over time has developed a irrational fear of both crowds and 'crowding' in addition to small spaces. They all have a certain thing in common: the feeling of being 'overwhelmed.' In her case, it is no so much something she can grasp logically or even emotionally, but just that ever present knowing that something is either going to go wrong or will go wrong because there is either too much going on or not enough room to 'spread out.' Now it would be wrong to consider all of these as mental barriers or defects, however it would be just as wrong to solely attribute it to growing up in the midst of a large family and, well, getting lost within it. That did happen, and is especially noticeable in her indifference upon her graduation. To her, becoming a ninja was no more of an accomplishment than waking up in the morning; and as crazy as that sounds, it is the truth.

If you asked her why she wanted to become a shinobi, she most likely would have responded: because her brothers did, or because she wanted to be stronger, like them. Both impersonal and not very practical justifications of what is expected within a ninja village. Though, as with her day to day interactions, would be perceived as completely normal. And why? Because she has not given anyone a reason to think that something is wrong. She can be both polite, shy, and at times even aggressive. However, at the same time none of those responses are drawn from her own feelings, instead they are taken from the social norms she has observed or has seen before. It has been said before, but let it be reiterated: she is not aware that this is happening, but it is what she does and how she interacts with others.

Previously mentioned but not entirely thought out, is the notion that simply having a large family would not be enough to cause this sort of malfunction. Yet, in a way it would be. Think about cutting two oranges directly down the middle, on either side they would obviously be congruent. However, within each would be all the different sectionals of slices based not only on the curve of the knife and its sharpness but also on the uneven pressure applied to either side during the cut. In this way, like the orange Celes is like most people only one sum of a similar equation or 'cut.' There is no direct 'scarring' event that changed her for good or bad, or worse for that matter. But the point is there does not have to be drama for one to be emotional unaware of their own choices. Sometimes, the most impressionable of all persons is the person that is the slowest to develop an own sense of individuality. In this case, Celes has a long way to go and it is because of that that she can really be considered: a blank slate of neutrality. A person would be hard pressed to find a topic upon which she would be so emotionally vested in as to become biased. For what its worth, being that way has many disadvantages but it is not without the vast innocence and blissful ignorance that comes with that, making each experience different and almost as interesting as the last.

***Setting: High Fantasy over a breadth of time, although the character is not named, this describes the village of elves upon which she grew up and how she came to leave her home. This sample was written about a year ago. The one below only a few months. Both are of the same archetype character, just different incarnations of said character. I also wanted to show you how I deal with posts that last over a breadth of time and give overview in addition to typically roleplaying.***

Whence she came was like a basin of stars. The pleasant, but not abnormally pleasant Candle Grove, was nothing less than an encampment, and nothing more than a village perched and protected by endless green leaves and brown bark of trees that dotted a path upwards into cliffs and to a desert that lay beyond. Further still was a forest, and beyond that of course, was the sea.

Named for flickering, night flames that sat in between half-shuttered, wooden windows and described often as a basin of light in the dark of night. She had been told once that it was no elf that named Candle Grove, in fact it was a Human trader; a trader by the name of Roland Bentham, whom often still visited to sell wares of butchered meat and stalked corn. He was from the nearby human encampment of Fel Reach, which resided along the cliff side east of Candle Grove. Their people had only been there a few years. He called himself a gypsy, which literally means traveling trader. Before that time, she had always referred to Candle Grove as simply home. It was long after the reaching whispers of her kin reached her that she started calling her home Candle Grove. By then it was only a place, a place that no longer held even passing importance.

It started with her parents disappearance. Their names, although hardly important, were Isilindil, and Finduilas, the latter was her mother and the former was her father. Simple folk really; simple folk in a simple log-cabin town. Her father, the carpenter had built their house when she was young, much younger than a still young age of one-twenty-four. If she were human, she still be regarded as a teenager in society. Younger still, at that time she was perhaps only five or six. She could not remember a time before Candle Grove. Although, she felt stretched thin as if they didn't even belong in a town they had helped to create.

Over years, Candle Grove grew into a thriving community of wayward elves. Travelers from distant lands, perhaps her true homeland settled and what was once a few scattered cabins became an entire town. Hundreds of cabins, several businesses and population steadily increasing. By Candle Grove's first millennium it was a town of key interest, for it had the only water for miles extending outwards into the desert proper. Traders came and went, skirmishes were fought, won and lost, yet Candle Grove still stood another quarter century, almost. Her departure came at the end. However, it was not the cause of the end. She did not even see it, because her parents disappeared. Before the end she had long since traveled up the windy path that led up and up out of the town. A year she searched for her parents, during that year, Candle Grove was set aflame by its own fires and was enveloped in a brutal civil war.

Her travels led her across the desert, through the great forest and eventually out and across the sea. By the time her basin home was in ruin she was aboard a ship, with clotted and threaded white sails and a deck made of oak and elm. She worked to pay for the trip and soon departed all of the crew and left the captain in less pleasurable company when they ported. A year to the day since she fled, she came upon a town in the middle of nowhere. A town which existed on a frontier of a different landmass, and spread out into the unknown. She learned its name soon after: Wistvale. She came in search of her parents, but in her heart she knew the truth. They would never be found. Perhaps, that was what they wanted, but she didn't believe that. They had led her away for a reason.

***Setting for this particular post was a medieval high fantasy roleplay. This was written several months ago. I figured this is probably the most accurate presentation of my writing as it stands now. However, please note that this was written in a more...purple prose style given the genre. Same character as before except now named. For reference she is an elven ranger with a touch of nature magic. ***

The crossroads beckoned; swept across with layers of dusted greens and yellows upon which bladed grass sprung up in root among, as well, with bush and fern. The trail itself a mix of stone, dirt and plant, was well worn, heading towards the North and then astern towards the East along the bank of a river which flowed in quite the opposite direction and sported an array of longboats and their fresh-water fishermen. No doubt from the village whose rooftops just barely peered above a Southern knoll's crescent rise, between two others in kind like rising plains; planked rooftops of plywood and various wooden struts and beams, that now were only a fading image in Ránëwén's field of vision. From the top of the third hill she stood, her far-seeing eyes strained towards the distant canopy of trees.

'Twas the Old Forest, as it had been called by the men of Orska – whom had themselves been pleasant enough – still miles off and separated by several walkways and forks along the path that had in turn been created by akin traders, soldiers and others whom had once, and most likely, would pass-it-by again. However, it had hardly slipped her attention fully, that they were wary of her. And in a certain respect, she supposed they had every right to be. She had left swiftly enough, after all, choosing to push on before nightfall and before she had to take up residence within the local tavern; which was really nothing more than a two bedroom pit of piss, alcohol, and drunkards. For some reason, it occurred to her that its name had had Leaky in title, but she could not place the rest. She titled her head, sweeping the thoughts away and enhancing her vision, albeit, momentarily. As far as she could tell, she walked this way in solitude. She took to it.

Her steps became a muffled array of pats, as first she pranced, but then more gaily in fact, sprinted, increasing the -thump-thump- of her heart. Taking in wide and deep breaths of air, she winced at those smells that came off bitter, but were nevertheless part of nature she had come to love, and smiled, allowing herself to be carried away by her feet.

Behind her, both quiver and bow bobbed; the arrows that were neatly locked in place by shafts along either side, shifted left-right-left right, and reaching a hand back she adjusted the string of her bow to firmly grasp it upon the lower plate of her shoulders and then run it into its slot at the hem of the quiver. There was a click as it took place. The long locks of her hair, both untied and free, first rose and then billowed out behind her, revealing the points of her ears, just as she began to laugh, rather happily at that. Right now, she did not care if she was in a potentially dangerous territory, nor did she care about those that would seek her out in hate, simply because of what she was; right now she was just apart of the ever changing and natural scenery of what made up a portion of Southern Eldrayon. And that was just alright.

Ahead, the path flattened and she bounded over the last rise and onto it. The forest still loomed in the distance, and above the sun had become an orange, setting flame, opening the horizon to an assortment of reddish hues that just pierced lightly through a layer of puffy, white clouds. Even at a sprinting pace, she could see its slow descent as it passed before her very eyes. A gift of her heritage, and the one she appreciated the most. Other persons did not know what it was like to see the sun, truly, set way into an 'eve. It still struck deep into her, just like every time before.