Post by Firehead on Dec 10, 2010 12:31:26 GMT -5
Age: 32
Gender: Female
Profession: Ex-Ranger/ Retired due to medical reasons.
Appearance:
Gender: Female
Profession: Ex-Ranger/ Retired due to medical reasons.
Appearance:
Simone is rather beautiful, although she tends not to care--at least, not sense Garet died. She has long, curly black hair, dark and glossy like a ravens, that falls to mid-way down her back. If she cuts it short, she tends to look a little pixieish or elfish. She has high cheekbones and an attractive face, with one dark, lake-blue eye and one medium mist-grey eye. The fact that her eyes are different colored isn't exactly noticeable if your at a distance from her. It's only when you get up close, within a hundred feet of her that you really notice it.Personality:
Her skin is tanned from a life spent outdoors, and she stands 5'3, and weighs in at 134lbs. She has a slender, athletic build, and she keeps her body flexible as a gynasts'--you never know when such an ability will come in handy. Simone tends to walk with a limp, made more distinct by cold, snowy weather--a permanent side effect of the injury which resulted in her medical dismissal from the Rangers.
She still often wears clothes similar to that of the Rangers, although she will sometimes deviate from this dress code. On rare occassions, she will wear a dress, but it's got to be a once-in-a-lifetime occassion. She still has her old Rangers cloak and knives, although she's had to make a new bow and arrows, and she wears the gold oak leaf of a retired Ranger.
She can be sweet and feminine, when she wants to be, but of late, she hasn't been in the mood. She hates the fact that she has been retired so early in her career and she hasn't been taking it well at all. She's kind of at lose ends as to what she should do now--She's adrift and with no prospects in sight--at the moment. She's turning into someone similar to Ben Skevlic and Badger Cheeseman--a grouch. She tries not to rub it against anyone, but with a chip like this one on her shoulder, it's kind of hard not too.History:
She's aimless and wandering around the countryside and into Picta and Scotti and Celtan and even further, overseas, hasn't done anything to get her interest. So she continues to wander. No purpose is something that she hates with passion, especially now that she's had a taste of it. But no other job holds the appeal or action of the Ranger Corps. At times she get's so down, that she goes hunting for trouble for something to do, but when she finds it, she either winds up hurt, or she has a dismal time of it.
When she is in a good mood, Simone is easy-going and agreeable, filled with laughter and good humor. She enjoys a good time, same as the next person. She is smart, tenacious, and very skilled, and when she puts her mind to something, she usually gets it done. She's loyal to her friends, although she doesn't make them as easily as some because she tends to be aloof and stand-offish at times.
She is over all, a warm and passionate woman, although if anyone tries to get closer to her than just regular friendship, they may have a tougher time of it. She's not going to jump into another relationship gung-ho. It's going to take a little time and patience, along with being the right man, to get her to accept and try a new relationship.
She was born to Arianna and Jacques Talley, shortly after the two had married and moved to Gallica. her father was a merchant; her mother and homemaker. Three years after Simone was born, her father was killed in a freak accident, and her mother took up the merchant business. Arianna did well withthe store, but the business took up much of her time, leaving little over for Simone. Because of her young age, Simone was often left with, and watched over, by the neighbors.Additional Information:
The neighborhood where Arianna and Simone lived, was one of the more run-down areas of town, with mostly lower class families and resident hunters and poachers. But these were the sorts of people who kept their eye on Simone for her mother, and subsequentially taught her many of the things she would use later in life. The washer woman three houses down taught Simone how to keep her clothes clean and presentable, The tanner taught her to craft various articles from leather, the weaver taught her weaving, and the local "old crazy man" taught her...trivia and miscillaneous this-and-that, but the people who taught her the most important skills in her life were the hunters and poachers.
These men looked at her as though she were one of their own children, and since she had lost her father at a very young age, they became the sub-fathers in her life. They taught her to carve wood, shape arrowheads and bows, make bowstrings, track, staulk, ride, shoot, and most importantly, to think "outside the box". As she grew older, she was more and more often out in the woods playing any myrid of games that one or the other of the hunters and poachers had thought up.
About the time she turned 13, her mother was murdered walking home from work one day. The crazy man saw what happened from where he was hidden in a barrel, peeking through the bunghole. It was over so quickly, that he didn't have a chance to warn her, or to interfere. The minute the murderers were gone, he sprang from his barrel and raced for home to spread the news.
Less than an hour later, the washer woman was coming home from a laundrey delivery when she was halted by three men just outside the house where Simone and her mother lived. The men asked if Arianna had had any relatives, for they were the berers of sad news. The washer woman, who didn't know yet of Arianna's murder, told them that yes, Arianna had a daughter--Simone was her name, she should be home shortly. The three men said that they would wait then, and went inside the house, while the washer woman went on her way.
Arriving at her home the woman was accosted by the crazy man, who told her of the murder. The washer woman was agast, for she had just told the murderers of Simone's mother that Arianna had a daughter. The entire neighborhood sprang into action.
One of the hunters immediately went to find Simone and bring her home. He found her not far from town, just finishing a game of tag with two of the poachers, and told her of her mothers' death. He then escorted her to the tanner's house, where an emergency meeting was held.
One of the men pretended ignorance of the situation and went over to SImones house to find out what the mens' motive for murder was. He was told (truthfully or untruthfully) that Simone's father had some outstanding debts owed to some very wealthy people, and that since he couldn't pay in cash, he would pay in blood. It didn't matter to them whether or not Mr. Jaques Talley had been dead for neigh on ten years--his debts had to be repaid.
The man returned to the tanners with this information in hand, and it was decided that Simone should leave town for the sake of her safety. She was provided with a horse and supplies--but what would she do for money? The neighborhood crazy had the solution for that: He bought her house and paid her with money that he'd saved up over the years--money that no one had known he'd had. The money was in several different currancies, but that probably wouldn't cause too much of a bother, exchange being what it was.
Late that same night, Simone set out, beginning her two-month journey, across country, to eventually wind up in Araluan with her mother's sister, Julianna. Along the way, her survival skills were honed to the highest degree possible, and she realized that she liked this sort of life, living by her wits, instinct, and skill.
Two months and many miles and dangers later, Simoe came to live in her Aunt Julianna's household, with her husband and six cousins. Aunt Julianna had married a step up from her sister, and was rather wealthy. She tuaght all her daughters the ways of a higher-born lady, and saw no reason to do otherwise with her niece. Simone went along with it, for the most part, although she missed being out-of-doors sorely, when it came to fancy stitchery and sitting around listening to her cousins gosipping.
She lived with her Aunt and Uncle for about a year, until she was 15, when her aunt told her she had arranged for her marriage to a wealthy merchant. That was it: Simone didn't want to marry yet, and so she ran away from home. The Ranger of that fief at that time, was ordered to head out after her, but she led him a week long chase before he finally caught her.
She walked in a stream to the nearby river and dislodged a downed tree from the bank, using it as a raft to float down the river a ways. She would have stayed on it, but they were approaching a waterfall, and she didn't want to die yet. So she'd gotten off, by climbing into a tree, and there she'd stayed until the Ranger caught up to her. Impressed with her resilince and her ingenuity, the female Ranger had offered her an apprenticeship, which, given her choices, Simone had accepted.
At the age of twenty, Simone earned her silver leaf, and was given her first fief two years later. She held that fief for eight years. During that time, she became very good friends with another Ranger, Garet Stanton, who held the next fief over. After nearly seven years of being good friends, Garet proposed to Simone, who was delighted, and accepted. She planned to turn in her leaf and marry Garet at the next Gathering. But their happy ending was not to be.
Less than a month before the Gathering, She and Garet were doing a joint patrol along the conjoined borders of their separate fiefs, when they walked square into an ambush. It was over in less than a minute--Garet lay dead in the road, Simone's horse had been killed, and she was pinned beneath it, an arrow in her shoulder and her leg shattered. She should have died too, but apparently the ambushers thought that she was already dead. She lay there for eight hours, bleeding out slowly, before a Guard patrol found them.
She was taken to the nearest castle, where her injuries were tended to, and she slowly recovered for the next four months. It was there, that she learned of Garet's death and she was devastated. It was also there that she learned of her medical retirement from the corps. It was hard to tell which hurt worse. Had she been alone when the ambush happened, she would have at least had Garet. But he had been with her, and now she had nothing.
Crowley asured her, when he brought the news of her medical retirement, that the Corps would do everything they could to find the murderers and bring them to justice. She swears that there was a witness to the crime, and that someone was there with her up to the time when the Guard aririved, but in the years since the attack, no one has been found. And they--the Guard and her once-fellow Rangers-- believe that she imagined it when she was delerious from bloodloss.
It's been almost two years since the accident, and while she's managed to get over Garet's death, she's now drifting aimlessly around the country. Crowley once told her that she could always join the other retired Rangers based at Araluan, but she refused--they're all way older than her.
As far as she knows, she's the youngest Retired ranger in Araluan and the known world, and she is the first to have been medically retired in over a hundred years.
No one knows about her and Garet's engagement, as it happened before her next report and they were bushwhaked before she could write it. Since then, she has not told anyone of it either. What's the point, now?
She rides her first Ranger horse, Snap, a rangy bay, 15.0 hands high, 21 years old, male. Since he was too old for active service, they agreed to let her take him back.