Practice RP- Ohmywafflez and Kurokiku

[Kurokiku]

This is the designated thread for a RPA practice RP between user Ohmywafflez and Mentor Kurokiku. Focus will be on characterization and description in a fantasy setting.

[ohmywafflez]

Name: Rainer Faust

Age: Seventeen

Gender: Male

Appearance: What Rainer lacks in height he makes up for in attitude. He stands at a mere 5’4”. His black hair looks as if it hasn’t been cut in ages, his untamed bangs often falling over his pale eyes. His body is think and lanky and his skin extremely pale.

Personality: In short he’s a jerk. He has problems with trusting other people and with others trusting him, so he acts apathetic and mean to keep people from getting too close. Around others he tries to keep a cold emotionless demeanor, but his short temper often ruins it for him. He has a strong dislike of being touched and will often react with violence even to something meant to be friendly. His social skills are rather lacking because of his avoidance of others. He uses magic only to hurt others, not knowing any other way to use it.

Equipment: a staff, and a few magic scrolls

History: When Rainer was very young his mother died of unknown causes. His father was young and wasn’t happy about the idea of raising a child. He often used his son to lure in woman. But when he was nine and no longer a cute little kid he abandoned him at the local orphanage. The other kids at the orphanage enjoyed teasing him, not knowing how cruel they were because they were kids. So he learned magic to defend himself from them.

[Kurokiku]

Name: Elizabeth Pendragon
Age: 11
Gender: Female

Description: A well-bred young lady, Elizabeth is usually dressed from head to toe in fine fabrics and taffeta. Her sunny-blond hair is combed painstakingly and fixed in place with ribbons. As a child, she greets the world from a modest height of four feet and eight inches, and sees it though indistinctly grayish eyes.

Of course, this is only when she’s in front of someone who cares. When left to her own devices, Elizabeth wears hand-me-down linens from her nanny’s children, carries around a stick almost as long as she is tall, and has the wild, windswept coif of a troublemaking little hellion, undeniable fierce.

Personality: Elizabeth is in some ways a very ordinary eleven-year-old girl. She enjoys feeling the sun on her back, and the breeze as she runs about. Of less affectionate inclinations are the dusty old boring books her parents make her study and the proper way of comportment that she’s made to study. She has little patience for any of it, and would much rather swing around her “sword” (a sharpened tree branch of modest size) and terrorize all the neighborhood’s young males in defense of her feminine kindred.

She’s had the best in childhood education, and it shows: she doesn’t have any of the adorable or annoying (depending on how you look at it) speech quirks of many a young child, and she’s very well-read. Her sophisticated way of speaking is actually jarring issuing forth from such a young source, and it has netted her more than one strange look.

Mage-child she may be, but she’s not terribly good at magic. Her spells have a tendency to backfire or fail most of the time, even if she gets the wording right, and she doesn’t like using them for this reason. All of her escapades outdoors have made her into a surprisingly hardy individual, even if she is just a child, and she displays her bruises proudly.

On an average day, she treats most other people with a fierce haughtiness that belies her privileged upbringing. That said, she’s remarkably vocal (and sometimes physical) in her defense of the people she actually likes, whoever they may be. She’s got a soft spot for animals and people who look like they need defending.

Equipment: A sharpened stick, and usually also a well-hidden purse with her allowance in it. The sum is pretty exorbitant to anyone else.

History: there’s not much to say about where Elizabeth came from, but there is only too much to be speculated about where she is going. Born the only child of the Guild’s head mage, she was expected from an early age to have a preternatural grasp of magic. It’s really too bad that she’d rather be outside running about and climbing trees than studying her spellbooks. Even more unfortunately, her mother recently caught on to this habit of hers, and so she’s been forced to move her sneaking about to the hours after nightfall.

She’s spent the majority of her life in comfort, not really for want of anything, save perhaps a little freedom to be the person her child’s imagination bids her to be. She was never close to her busy parents, instead raised by a nanny, a woman enamored of grandiose tales of adventure and suspense, which she was only too happy to share with the young Elizabeth. The tendency was passed from one to the other, and on more than one occasion, Elizabeth has been spotted running about in the streets, chasing other children with a sword-shaped stick and getting into fights with the little boys that tell her to go play somewhere else.

Lately, she’s been forcibly restricted from as much, and to say she is miserable would be the understatement of the century (in her mind at least). She currently plots her escape from the perfectly droll, irritating presence of her tutors. She reckons that she’ll run away and find a pirate ship, or maybe a guild of thieves, meet a dashing hero, and live happily ever after, or else die bravely fighting off an army trying to take her treasure. Either one, really.

[Kurokiku]

Night had fallen over the Guild City, cloaking the streets in darkness broken only by the occasional pool of illumination spilling out from a pub doorway or perhaps the occasional scattered torch or mage-light. In the upper-class district, silence reigned, as all of the more mannered society types were long in bed by this ungodly hour of the morning.

It was, in a word, perfect, and little Elizabeth Pendragon smiled deviously to herself as her nanny made a final check on her before turning in. As soon as the woman’s footsteps had receded into the depths of the estate, Elizabeth threw back the covers and clambered out of her enormous four-poster bed, ducking under it to retrieve her “sword”- naught more than a sturdy former tree branch with one of the ends whittled to a point- and pulled off her stupid girly nightgown, underneath which were her much more practical "play" clothes. Hmph. As though she were just mucking about and not completely serious about her training. Then again, she could hardly expect her family to understand.

Strapping the sword to her back with a creative assortment of leather cords, Elizabeth crossed to the edge of her bedroom and hauled open the window, letting in the fresh night breeze of early summer. Tonight was the night; she had a good feeling about it. Slipping on her sturdiest pair of shoes, Elizabeth threw one leg up and over the windowsill, then the other, until she was hanging by her wiry little arms from a second story window. Taking a deep breath- I can do this!- she dropped, landing first on her feet, then pitching forward onto her hands and knees. Fortunately, the grass down here was soft, and so she hadn’t banged herself up too badly. Doubtless, she’d be bruised by morning, but that was then and this was now- and right now, she had to get out of here before anyone discovered she was missing.

Her lightfooted steps, hasty though they were, remained largely inaudible, and she made a beeline for the working class side of town, and old favorite haunt of hers. Here, when you played a bit rough with the other kids, nobody started a war over it. Well, okay, war was a bit of an exaggeration, but still! Around here, nobody was scared of her because of who her parents were, because they didn’t know. Nope, every single one of those scardey-cats was frightened of her, since she was the toughest kid around.

The toughest kid around wasn’t really paying attention to where she was going, though, and it wasn’t long before she smacked directly into someone. “Ex-cuse me!” she spat indignantly, immediately blaming the person she’d bumped into. “Watch where you’re going, stupid!”

[ohmywafflez]

Sorry this took so long, but I finally have a reply.

Rainer walked down the dark streets, searching for an alcove or alley of some kind safe enough to sleep in. It was only a month since he’d run away from the orphanage, but he still had to resort to living on the streets because no one would hire an underage kid with no work experience, especially his tattered clothes made it so obvious he was a runaway. He was irritated because his stomach wouldn’t stop growling. He knew he couldn’t last much longer out here on his own, but he refused to go back.

He stopped under the glow of a lamppost. Being alone in the dark was making him nervous, so he dug through his bag and took out his staff for protection. He was about to begin searching again when he felt someone run into him. "What the-"
He grunted, dropping his staff to the ground. "You're the one that ran into me!"

[Kurokiku]

"You're the one that ran into me!" As if such trivial details concerned Elizabeth. As if it wasn't his fault for standing there like some kind of fish-mouthed idiot, anyway. Really. Who just stood around in the middle of the street at night?

Actually, that question was probably important. Elizabeth gave a small "hmph" and glared up at the stranger from her meager height. He had a staff in in one hand, and so she immediately pegged him as a mage, which was even more confusing than the fact that he didn't actually look like a gaping idiot. He seemed almost... familiar with the area. Cocking her head to one side, Elizabeth continued unabashed in her scrutiny. She knew it was impolite to stare, but really she could not have cared less if she tried. If a little girl looking at him was enough to make this person uncomfortable, then he was a useless ninny anyway.

"Hmm..." she hummed, more to herself than him. "You look poor." Though she said it in a dismissive tone, this was actually not an insult. Elizabeth went to much effort to look poor sometimes, and generally preferred the company of people in rough clothes and with callused hands than the ones in silks and studies. Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, she inhaled to sigh, ignoring the slum-stench. That had taken more getting used to than anything else, the fetid mix of human waste and decay, but by now even it didn't bother her anymore. "You have to be a pretty bad mage to stay poor for very long. They pay the good ones lots."

This also was not actually intended as an insult, and indeed, she was unaware that it might be construed as such. She was a bad mage, too; an absolutely horrible one, to be honest. Hers was the magic of exploded laboratories and hours of nothing where a simple alchemic transformation was asked. It was headaches and frustration and little curled fists banging against the thick wood of her desk. It was more than anything else the look of disappointment in her father's eyes. She wasn't terribly fond of skilled mages.

"Well, all right then. You'll do." She dropped her repose abruptly and continued in a no-nonsense tone she'd learned from her mother. "I need to go south, through Briar Forest, and you get to take me. I'll pay you, of course, and by the end of it you'll be much less poor." She had been saving her allowance for over a year, and now traveled with a considerable sum squirreled away on her person, in different places, of course. She was not so stupid as to make herself an easy target for a thief.

Not even for a moment considering that her generous offer would be declined, she turned on her heel and marched for the south gate out of the city. It would be guarded, of course, and they'd have to sneak out somehow, but she wasn't too worried. Elizabeth Pendragon was plenty sneaky when she wanted to be.

[ohmywafflez]

He blinked. It was just a kid. He’d expected a thief or some other kind of shadowy figure, really anything but this. He figured she was only around ten and she didn’t look the type of kid to be running loose at night. Most of the children he saw around here were messy, their clothes dirtied or ripped from rambunctious unsupervised play, or they were orphans like himself. He heard her call him poor and he took that as a sign that she definitely wasn’t from around here because here almost everyone was poor.

He frowned at the mage comment, only because he didn’t consider himself one, at least not anymore. Everything he knew about magic was self-taught. His father was an excellent mage, but he simply didn’t have the patience to pass on what he knew to his son. So Rainer found a teacher in dusty old books packed by the hundreds onto the towering shelves in his father’s small library. He had a natural talent for magic and quickly picked up on the basics. He spent the better part of his childhood in that musty room, spending day and night practicing. Practicing helped him to feel closer to his father and he’d childishly hoped his skill in magic would gain him his father’s approval, somehow. However, after he was abandoned he gave it up because it reminded him too much of home and those memories were painful to remember.

He could see how she would make that mistake because of his staff. He looked down at it, the heavy staff was now just a dead weight in his hands, but he couldn’t bare to part with it. It was a gift from his father, or so he liked to think. The truth was he only gave it to him because it was broken and he no longer wanted it. One of the golden wings at the top of the staff had broken off and there was a noticeable crack going up the side, but he didn’t care about the condition because it was the only gift he’d ever received from his father and now it was his only possession.

He looked back at the girl, realizing she was still there, and tried to push the memories to the back of his mind. He glared at her and was about to tell her to get lost when she spoke again and he listened to her offer, immediately wanting to decline. He though no amount of money could make up for being bossed around by some kid he didn’t know, but then his stomach growled and he remembered just how long it had been since he’d eaten something. He sighed seeing no choice but to accept. He followed after her, running a hand through his knotted hair, as he often did when irritated. “So, who are you anyway?” He asked not knowing what else to say.

[Kurokiku]

Elizabeth's feet were soft on the cobbles beneath them; she placed each foot with caution almost without conscious thought. You had to, when floorboards sometimes squeaked and people didn't want to be disturbed, else you were banished to the kitchens again and left to complain at your nanny about how unfair all of it was. Well, she was done with that, most certainly. Now, she was going to go where she pleased and do what she wanted, but her first step had to be the city at the edge of the sea: Vercenze. Oh, she'd heard stories about the place: magnificent airy architecture, the smell of the salty ocean in your nose, white birds cutting sweeping arcs in the sky and everywhere the lilt of music.

But most importantly of all, they had the Warrior's Guild. Elizabeth smiled as she thought of it, of all the people with swords and shields and knives and who needed magic anyway? It was going to be perfect; all she had to do was get through the forest and that man was talking again oh there it went heruinedit. Hmph.

Breaking off her imaginings, she stopped quite suddenly. He'd asked the one question she really didn't want to answer, but she had the same smooth lie she told everyone else at the ready. "My name is Elizabeth; I'm from the merchant's district, originally, but that doesn't matter now, does it?" She grinned back at him and skipped ahead, unconcerned. He wouldn't know that the Guildmaster's failure of a daughter was named Elizabeth, and even if he did, nobody ever put two and two together on that one. What reason would such an illustrious figure have for being anywhere but in her tower, bent over her books and covered in ink-spattered evidence of her own diligence? Oh no, such a one was not to be found in the streets of this city, mingling with the common folk.

"And who might you be?" she asked conversationally as they drifted closer to the gate. She'd never seen him before, but clearly he was smart enough to take a good opportunity when he saw it, so he couldn't be all that bad. he hadn't even tried stealing anything from the closed-up food carts on the way here, which was extra points as far as she was concerned. Only an idiot wouldn't know that those things were empty at night.

The South Gate loomed ahead, and Elizabeth sank into the shadows beside a building, peering over at the arrangement. Two guards were posted, one on either side of the massive arch that was the portal into the city of magic. This was the only one in town that didn't close up at night, and so it was their only way out. "Do you think you could make some kind of big noise and flashy stuff over there?" she asked him, pointing in the opposite direction. "If they leave to search it out, we can sneak through really quick while they aren't looking."

[ohmywafflez]

Rainer followed behind the girl, everything was quiet in this part of town, and the only noise he could hear was the sound of his footsteps reverberating off the buildings and alleyways. Until the girl, Elizabeth, spoke up again in front of him.

“I guess not.” He mumbled in reply. She started to skip ahead of him and he increased his pace to keep up with her. Why would a merchant’s kid want to go through Briar Forest and have the money to do so? He wondered absently. He decided to drop the matter however. It didn’t matter as long as he got his pay and what reason would she have to lie anyway? “I’m Rainer.” Was all he said in reply.

As they reached the gate, the general smell of decay and garbage Rainer was used to faded, now that they were on the verge of the woods the air smelled almost fresh, clean. The gate itself loomed overhead and Rainer ducked into the shadows next to Elizabeth.

“I’ll try.” He said uneasily, his gaze shifting to the opposite corner. He raised his staff, but no spell came to mind, he felt like his mind had been wiped clean of any magic. Eyes closed, he tried bringing black those memories of eight years ago that until recently he’d been so determined to block out, but all he could think about was the sight of his fathers back as he walked away from the orphanage. He gave a long sigh and ran his hand through his hair again. His grip was so tight on the staff his knuckles where turning white.
“Any suggestions?” He hissed to Elizabeth

((Sorry this took so long.))

[Kurokiku]

For a moment, Elizabeth stilled in anticipation of one of those bright, loud flash-bangs that most mages could produce on command with nothing more than a flick of the wrist, but after a few seconds passed and there was none, she began to wonder if he was charging something even more impressive. Or at least, she was until his snappish tone demanded an alternative. On most occasions, she would have been only too happy to snap right back, not to be outdone and rather accustomed to the kind tones and murmured deference of those who believed themselves to be beneath her.

This Rainer, though, he was different. Defensive. Unafraid of her temper. Part of her immediately demanded that she fix that, remind him of what the pecking order was around here. But a different part, a decidedly softer one, asked something else of her. There was in her experience only one thing that could produce that kind of hissed speech, coupled with an almost-desperate kind of look, as though he was remembering something he'd rather not think about. Her grim determination eased into a sympathetic smile, and she nodded slowly. She understood exactly what had just happened, and it made all too much sense.

She'd probably have no more luck than him, but that didn't mean she was out of ideas. She'd been evading her parents and the staff for far too long to not have come up with some handy distraction techniques here and there. "Don't worry, Rainer. I've got it all under control," she asserted comfortably, flashing a self-assured grin that looked strangely out of place on someone her age. Scanning the area immediately around them, Elizabeth's eyes alighted on a small, oval stone, somewhat flat but about the size of her palm. That would do nicely, she was certain.

"Watch this." Grabbing the stone, she stepped back and away from Rainer and wound up, hurling the stone in the general direction of the gate. If she hit off to one side, the guard would obviously hear the noise and go after it.

As it turned out, the logic was only quite so crisp in her own head. In reality, it translated rather horribly, starting when instead of landing to the side, the projectile clocked the guardsman square in the chest. "...Oops." The man, ill-disposed to appreciate being hit with a rock, zeroed in on the trajectory and traced it back to where Elizabeth was standing, somewhat away from the cover they'd been stooped behind. They made eye contact, and he yelled something she couldn't hear, advancing in her direction. Elizabeth's eyes went comically wide, and she turned to Rainer. "Okay, so... plan B is run. Very fast, and preferably towards the gate."

So saying, she actually headed towards the guard, hoping to simply run past him without getting caught. With two of them to contend with, she might succeed. Of course the slapdash plan depended on the cooperation of her ally, but she wasn't really thinking he'd do anything but what she said.

[ohmywafflez]

"Don't worry, Rainer. I've got it all under control"
Elizabeth’s assertion brought Rainer’s mind back into the present. “Okay.” He forced himself to say. He loosened his grip on the staff and watched carefully as she picked stone off the ground. He could guess at the plan forming in her head that is until she threw it straight at the guard. Rainer gasped loudly and then froze in place as the guard began coming their way.

In response to her “plan B” Rainer could only stutter “What? Towards the gate, but-,” before she was gone running straight towards the guard. He looked from where she once stood to the gate, every nerve in his body told him to run away from the trouble, but something else told him he couldn’t ditch his ally either. He sighed and ran after her, the adrenaline pumping through his body urging him to run faster.

As he ran past, the guard managed to grab hold of his arm, shouting something incoherent as he did. Rainer tried to simply run free, but his grip was firm. Rainer managed to shove the man away, the adrenaline pumping through his body giving him the strength to do it. Then he ran as fast as he could through the gate and into the woods behind it without looking back. He hunched forward breathing heavily and looked around to see if Elizabeth had made it through.

[Kurokiku]

Elizabeth, contrary creature that she was, had almost made it to the gate when she realized that she could no longer hear Rainer behind her, and she came to as abrupt a stop as was possible given her impressive momentum, thin shoulders moving up and down in tandem with her accelerated breaths. Her heart thundered in her ears, and she was quick to spot her... pseudo-escort-person, if that was even a designation that made sense, struggling to break free of the guard's grip.

"Oh, why I ought to..." she wasn't actually sure how to best finish that sentence, as the myriad of witty, threatening, or raunchy responses that could serve that function were something her years had yet to provide her. Therefore, she forgot it as soon as she'd uttered it, and instead ran back tat way, detaching her stick from its place o her back, fully ready to smack the armored man with the piece of wood until he let go. That this would be little more than a minor annoyance was something that hadn't really occurred to her, as she wasn't really the best at thinking things through past the part where she got to hit things.

Luckily, she didn't have to find out the hard way, as the slight mage somehow managed to overpower his captor and make another break for it. Sighing gustily, she reversed direction yet again and followed after him, not stopping until he did, when they were both well clear of the city. She mirrored his posture, hands on knees, body slightly stooped, but she was actually in pretty good shape for a child, and her breathing returned to normal soon enough.

"Well," she said loftily, casting a glance at Rainer, "He wasn't very friendly, was he?" The danger already forgotten and replaced with amusement, she flashed a Cheshire grin and jerked her head towards the dirt road, worn with ruts from that passage of many a trading caravan. "That's the path we want; might as well get a move on, huh?" Without any more consideration than that, she made a beeline for it and took the first steps she'd ever taken outside the city in which she'd been born and raised.

It was something of an overwhelming feeling, and though she tried very hard not to gawk too much at the moonlit trees or the huge expanse of starry sky stretched before them, she couldn't help the fact that her mouth hung open for a few seconds before she remembered to close it, nor that she nearly tripped and fell over several times, so engrossed was she in the prospect of a vast expanse of stars with no artificial light to pollute them.

[ohmywafflez]

"He wasn't very friendly, was he?"
“Can’t say he’s the nicest guy I’ve ever met.” He said, rubbing his arm where a small bruise was beginning to form. Rainer looked down the long path and sighed, it’s longer than I thought. He followed behind Elizabeth and yawned slightly, all the excitement at the gate left him exhausted now and his stomach was still twisting with hunger. He wasn’t sure he could keep this up for much longer.

It was a typical warm night, the stars overhead shining their brightest now that they were free from the suffocating light of the city. The forest was nearly silent except for the sounds of the crickets and an occasional animal call. The dirt underneath his feet was cool, but already he was beginning to miss the smooth cobblestones of the city. Occasionally he’d step on a rock and mumble a swear under his breath.

After a few minutes of silent travel, Rainer looked to his partner who was practically gawking at their surroundings. Rainer chuckled, “Having fun?” She reminded him much of himself when he’d first left the orphanage and took a similar woodsy path to the city. He remembered how happy it’d felt to finally be rid of that place and the freedom of being on his own, emotions which were now being reflected in Elizabeth. He wondered if Elizabeth came from a similarly bleak situation, which was why she was running away.
“So why are you leaving the city, anyway?”

[ohmywafflez]

Over top the path a thief hid in wait. Covered head to toe in black, Kris leaned forward on the thick tree branch watching below for any wayward travelers. The moonlight illuminated the worn down path just enough for her to see. In her black gloved hand was a dagger that reflected the moonlight, just one of the many new things she’d bought from the last heist. Its twin was hidden in her boot.

She was growing restless waiting in the trees, her energy built up and her body sore from a day of sitting. The occasional rustle in the trees gave away that her partners were still here, even though she couldn’t see them. She was just about to give the signal to go back to the campground when she heard a voice from down below. On the path two travelers appeared, they didn’t look like they’d have much, but she figured they were worth a shot just to get some action. Swiftly she hopped down from her hiding spot onto the path and soon after he comrades did the same. She smirked at the travelers, now right in front of her.
“Hand it all over, now.” She threatened.

[Kurokiku]

"Having fun?" Rainer's first question brought her back to reality, and the grin abruptly left her face, falling off into the nether. Elizabeth remembered herself, and straightened her posture, fixing her eyes on the road ahead. The question clearly hadn't been meant as a reproach, but well... it was how she was used to taking such words, and she reflexively fell back on a less-impressed demeanor. Swallowing, she didn't answer. Mostly, this was simply because she didn't know what to say. In some strange way, the answer was yes, she was having fun. This was more fun than anything her parents had ever let her do, more fun even than antagonizing the neighborhood children or practicing with her sword-branch.

Maybe it shouldn't be, though. Elizabeth was a fair degree more self-aware than other children, though really that wasn't saying much. She knew enough to understand that her undertaking was dangerous, and that she'd probably never see her mother and father again, at least not until she was old enough to be free of their control. Assuming they didn't disown her for this. It was a ghost always at the edge of the worst of their conversations... the word construed loosely. Yelling matches, more like. But, even still, the reality of what she was doing was only now beginning to settle on her, and it weighed more than she had thought it would.

There was a silence, during which Elizabeth was entirely lost in her ruminations, but another question followed eventually, and this one, she was more inclined to answer, at least partially. "Why? I want to join the Warrior's Guild, of course!" She drew herself to her full (and entirely unimpressive) height and crossed her arms as she walked. "I want to learn to fight, and then become a mercenary! Or a soldier, maybe..." She trailed off, suddenly uncertain of which one of these things should be her goal, and might have asked him which one he thought was better, had not a dark figure dropped out of a nearby tree and approached them.

Elizabeth's eyes went wide as the figure, a woman, apparently, demanded all their money. The Guildmaster's daughter narrowed her lids immediately after and scowled; she did not like being threatened, and there was clearly an implicit threat here. "Oh really? Do you not know who this is?" She pointed dramatically at Rainer, meeting his glance with feigned disbelief. Shaking her head, she clucked her tongue. "Obviously not," she cooed condescendingly. "This here happens to be the esteemed Sir Rainer, Adept of the First Degree, Chancellor to the Guildmaster, and one of the most powerful mages in the entire country, you fool! He's feeling merciful today, so if you turn around and leave now, he probably won't decide to turn you into a toad, but if you take too long, I can't make any promises. I'm so sorry, Sir Rainer, please don't be too upset with them; they obviously have no idea who they're dealing with."

Elizabeth sighed dramatically, tapping her foot on the ground as if with extreme impatience of her own. She had no idea of this was going to work or not, but she'd gotten pretty good at spinning a yarn over years of trying to cover for her frequent disappearances. Who knew? They might be dumb enough to fall for it. If not... she didn't really want to think about that too much.