Elysabeth is a striking and very attractive female elf. She possesses many of the usual traits, liked pronounced zygomatic arches, sharp eyes, and pointed ears. Her long, slender body, blonde hair, and balanced features, however, make her pass more easily as a human woman for their definitively and uncharacteristically effeminate natures.
As many positive adjectives as can be ascribed to her, however, her face is so often marred by a scowl, her voice coarse from anger, and speech punctuated by obscenities that her friends are few, and admiration rarely lasts long past after she's spoken her mind. Elysabeth is, above all things, an opinionated and angry person. Impatient, rash, rude, angry, spiteful, hurtful, pessimistic, fatalistic, determined, resolute, unabashed, and unafraid.
Simon Yates
Simon more closely matches the averages of his species. He has the height, build, speaking cadence, temperament, and education of well-to-do citizen of the central kingdoms, though his eclectic fashion sense, vernacular, and lifestyle choices are clearly influenced by the trade and travel that has shown him much of the rest of the world.
Like his traveling companion and friend, Simon is unshakable in many of his beliefs about the nature of man, gods, divinity, and purpose. Unlike Elysabeth, he's a willing and eager debater, willing to play devil's advocate, or come to conclusions and compromises through long deliberation, arbitration, and discussion. He has an insatiable lust for knowledge about the world, so much so that it is a wonder he hasn't forgotten himself in a library, or somehow otherwise neglected his needs while studying or testing as to die of exposure, malnutrition, or dehydration.
Elysabeth and Simon are on the road often. As such they travel lightly, with rarely more than food in tow. They're both well accustomed to sleeping on the ground or going a few hours hungry if that's the time between cities or settlements. By necessity defense is charged to the member of the duo far more qualified to provide for it, that being Elysabeth, who moves comfortably through the world clad in a scale and leather armored suit, equipped with swords employed ibidem and a bow. Simon, who practices a hypocritical form of pacifism, rarely carries a weapon. If he does, it's in the form of a tool or hatchet meant foremost to be employed as a tool.
Elysabeth owns a belt that wraps tightly around her hips to carry her scabbards and an assortment of pockets, pouches, and coinpurses. Simon's choices of robes or other vestments often provide similar storage options, though when it is necessary, he's more often given the job of pack muling supplies. It's not always a fair dynamic when travelling in lands of peace, but territory rift with crime have been crossed enough times that Simon knows that it is unwise to upset the balance, lest Elysabeth leave him to his own devices for defense.
Elysabeth is not a very physically vain person. She's aware of how attractive humans tend to find long, wavy-haired blondes. She has no interest in such pursuits, and so the blood, mud, sweat, grime, and euch that coat the scales of her armor are often left undisturbed like a declaration of active disinterest, a dissuasive qualifier for the kind of woman that she is, that hopefully deflects such attention before she turns violent. Despite her self-declared divorce from the crippling need for attention she accuses others of, one of her belt pouches is the dedicated protector of a pearl-handled comb she runs through her hair (sometimes for hours, when trancing) before pulling it into the ponytail. Simon is known to treat books or documents in a similar fashion, or at least until he's finished with them (at which point they're discarded like any other nonessential between towns). The only item he treats with the same covetous protection of is the gold octagonal pendant he wears on a cord around his neck, long enough that it rests on his chest, hidden beneath his shirt. It has streaks of a silvery-white, like marble that had painted gold forcibly rubbed off, leading many to mistake it for a fool's trinket, rather than something of great value.
Elysabeth hasn't told Simon much about herself, but he's pieced together what he's been able to. He knows by her features that she's from an elf family somewhere in the vicinity of the Central Kingdoms. By the accent she uses in her Elvish, and by the horrific brand burned into her left scapula, that she was first enslaved by the Sorra. For how long, he doesn't know, but at some point she was sold to a warlord in the south. For service or pleasure, Simon doesn't know; if he had to guess, given the reputation elves have garnered for their physical capabilities, and Elysabeth's considerable attractiveness, it would be for the latter, but she most certainly proved how much more capable she was of the former.
For most slaves, killing their handler (whether he be a racist or otherwise) is a death sentence. For Elysabeth, it was a godsend; her owner, rather than have her killed, had her punished, then made his expert in tracking down criminals and other escaped slaves. And she was good at it. She learned from those around her the precarious, whirling, dirty, ambidextrous fighting style that has gotten her through so many fights. She learned to fire a shortbow from horseback, live on her own a week away from civilization, track across desert and through forest, and kill. It was not a happy existence; her payment for services render was a life easier than that of other slaves, which had her to blame for their prolonged captivity, and an irreversible spiral into cynicism and blood lust.
Simon was born to a wealthy family with stakes but no ownership in several mines and other activities around the central kingdoms. He was sent abroad by request to study and learn under the tutelage of whosoever he chose; he had an older brother to inherit the family estate, and cousins to take his place should any complications arise while he was gone. He learned alchemy, science, math, history, literature, art, magic, language, and theology-a student of all trades, but master of none. He worked odd jobs throughout to utilize everything he learned, and to gain more skills and knowledge. Eventually, he lost contact and care with the Yates family, and when their stipends stopped being delivered, he had already sold his services as a sorcerer to a warlord in Iberan, a nation that lasted about as long as it took to pronounce its name.
Simon learned, and stole, much. Not just the knowledge that he was taught explicitly, but secrets. Everywhere he went, there was a magistrate with a peculiar fetish, or a servant with an exploitable secret; no matter what it required, Simon lied, cheated, bribed, stole, and weaseled his way to secret books, hidden libraries, and private accounts. Never maliciously, but always with a dangerous disregard for the consequences. He demanded to know everything, no matter how dark or personal. Necromancy, making pacts with demons, binding gods, warping reality, corrupting history; such tombs were rare, but Simon remembers the cover of each one he's gotten his insatiable hands on. He's a master of mixing poisons, baking explosives, and knows exactly how much pain a mortal can tolerate.
Such pursuits were what led Simon to Iberan. Rumors of powerful sorcerers in the Caliphate's employ were all that justified his rule. Simon came to find disappointment, but what was available was sufficient that he remained in the doomed state. He offered his own services to the Caliphate to stay close to him, and garnered a false reputation for unimaginable cruelty and unending power that he became crucial to its function. While in Iberan, he heard many rumors of the slave-elf that was feared far more than he was; a woman, of all things, that could nail a fleeing criminal in the thigh from the saddle at two hundred paces. Of course he just had to meet her, and learn her secrets.
Simon purchased Elysabeth. That night he found himself pinned against a wall with a knife to this throat, and was told that if he ever touched her without permission, he'd lose his hands. Their friendship blossomed and soon they were inseparable. Simon appreciated her candor, and was intoxicated by the dangerous and exotic circumstances of her employment; she appreciated having an owner that didn't smell like goshmagluk and threatened to add her to a harem if she spoke out of turn.
The next day, through an exciting string of events, Iberan collapsed. Civil war, invasion, famine, financial bankruptcy, plague-some of which was Simon's fault-had an inevitable culmination that left neither "Shimon the Sorcerer" or "Elybech the slave-master hashsassine" a welcoming home. Under false identities (which weren't difficult to assume; they reverted to their real names, rather than the mispronunciations the lazy and dead Caliphate had chosen), the duo took the safest and fastest route they could to flee the southern kingdoms. Simon had ownership papers for Elysabeth, but they only went so far when they were stamped by an office that no longer existed, and so many lusty raiders abounded the perilous and tumultuous south. Simon eventually forged paperwork with the signatures he'd so carefully learned to fake from around the central kingdoms.
Simon returned to his home estate with Elysabeth in tow. She was glad to be out of the desert, but Simon knew there would be no where in the world that she could call comfortable. She didn't know how to be a woman, and didn't know how to act like an elf; it had likely been decades since she'd worn more than two layers of clothing, and she'd never ridden a proper horse before. They were like angry pissant camels, and she hated them. She hated the food, music, dancing, art, fashion, politics, religion,and everything else new she encountered, not that the old stuff was any better, and she was very glad to let Simon know it.
Simon's return was not to much celebration. Mismanagement, deception, political shifts, and closed mines or competition had caused his family to be outbid, bought out, or otherwise lose most of its investments. What was left was sufficient that inheritors would not have to worry about poverty for some years, but the cousin that inherited the estate was not happy to share Simon his lawfully owed due. Simon didn't press for what he was owed; he asked only for what was needed to continue funding his travelling, angry but respectful of his cousin's decision to stop sending his stipends.
Negotiations went poorly. Simon was exploring the color of the local underworld and was beset by forces hired by his cousin to eliminate him. Elysabeth earned her weight in gold, dispatching so many so quickly that by the time Simon brought his cup to his lips with a smirk, there were four dead assassins (well, thugs with knives) and more fleeing. It was difficult to force testimony from one of the henchmen, and his cousin was arrested.
But, alas! The greed of bureaucrats and the peculiar wording of the law did not have the Yate's investments returned to Simon. They were claimed by the state, which again Simon was fine with; it was inconvenient, but Simon had no desire to stay and manage finances for the rest of his life. He sold his family home and the land it was on at a steal to another family he had known to be good, invested in what he thought was wise, placed a trusted childhood friend in charge of dealing with all the paperwork that involved at a generous rate of the profits, bought horses, and left once again.
Simon thought it would have been good for Elysabeth to return to what he assumed was her homeland. He thinks despite her adamancy that she has no recollection of her childhood that she does know where she's from, or at least did at the time, and simply lied. She has no interest in recovering her past, trying to start over and be a good, happy elf like everyone else. Her life is linear by her own choice and there's no need to re-assimilate and pretend she was never the murderer-for-hire she was, and often still functions as.
While in the snowy elf lands, her swords (which had been to that point iconic but old, iron scimitars) were replaced the straighter-edged weapons she carries today, and passing the display of an artismith (the self-chosen title of a wonderful blacksmith), Simon had commissioned (at high price) the suit of armor that has saved her life so many times.
[hr]Story Excerpt (because that's a thing now)[/hr]
"I told him to halt. Didn't I say halt? I said, 'halt, or I'll shoot you.' And I fucked waited, Simon. I did. Almost loosened the string. I gave him time, Simon."
Simon pressed his lips together, then shrugged and held up his hands. "I'm not accusing you of anything."
"Yes you are. You have that... that... Shut up. Your face. I know what you're thinking. I'm not dumb."
"He threatened us with a sword. You're well within the law to..."
"Show him why that's a mistake."
Ten feet away a bandit lay in the dust of the misbegotten dirt trail through unmapped forest. He wasn't dead, and wouldn't be for at least another minute; the arrow went through his chest and pierced his lung, but low enough that the filling blood pooled slowly, and he'd have time to take a few wheezy breathes and regret life. Elysabeth slung her bow over shoulders. "I told him to surrender."
"I know, I was there."
"You said I'm too violent. Don't ask questions. Just kill."
"I spoke out of concern for your soul, Elysabeth, not deference to your character. I don't think you're a murderer. I'd... just like it if we arrested people more often. You know the baron pays more for living victims."
"I'm not doing this for money," she retorted with a knife in her left hand. She approached the failed highwayman slowly and kicked his sword aside. He stared up at her, obviously in great pain and with all due fear. She pressed a booted foot against his sternum, shifting the arrow shaft far enough for him to gasp an excruciating exclamation. "So what were you saying? About how elves and women should know better than visit 'your' woods at night?"
The man wheezed, lifted a hand, and let his arm fall back down. She offered her most sincere look of innocent confusion. "Well I'm very sorry if I happen to be trespassing on 'your' woods, mister. But uh... seeing as you'll be dead in a minute, why don't you hand over the key?"
It was the bandit's turn to show genuine confusion. Simon joined her, trying to plead for some kind of mercy. He was ignored.
"You said they were yours. Surely, then, you have the keys to the front door." She put her weight against her boot and compressed his sternum. "No key? Then maybe the deed! Surely, being the owner of this forest, you have that. No?" She cracked one of his middle ribs. He passed out, from shock, pain, or blood loss. She was disappointed.
"We were supposed to interrogate him."
"...what?" Elysabeth removed her foot and sheathed her knife.
"He might have known where Nickelsbi is."
"He's somewhere in the forest."
"...Elysabeth, it's a big forest."
"Then we better start looking." She started back down the trail, the direction they had been going before getting accosted by the now-dead bandit. She didn't take the time to strip him of his stolen money or weapons; she had satisfied her need for cruelty, and returned to her quest for retribution. Simon didn't touch the body, either; he offered a silent prayer and apology, and bounded after the elf. "It will be dark soon."
"'The stars show what the sun doesn't.'"
"Now isn't the time to quote scripture, Elysabeth. We could be walking into... a dozen highwaymen!"
"A dozen?" Elysabeth chuckled. "Then it will be a night worthy of my time, Simon. Try not to get stabbed."
There walked for some time in silence before Simon finally couldn't stop his damned mouth from belittling her for the upteenth time. "You didn't have to torture him, Elysabeth."
"You said the hearts of vile men are black, and contagious. What my arrow didn't pierce my foot crushed. The world is a better place."
"Violence doesn't improve the state of the world, Elysabeth."
"Your psalms and apothegms and nonsense are hypocritical, and that's what you are, Simon."
"Maybe I am a hypocrite. Notwithstanding I object to future applications of unnecessary force, especially in such circumstances as what previously transpired, proving the invalidity of the tactic!"
"Keep to your books, Simon. This is not your realm. While I cannot for the life of me force you to part ways, I can promise that if you don't shut your mouth I'll guarantee you won't be able to open it again. I hear footsteps, and I will not have us led into another ambush because of your incessant complaining!"
They stopped. Simon felt his hearbeat; Elysabeth closed her eyes and let out a slow sigh. "Fuckin' birds," she muttered. Simon could only faintly hear chirping, then fluttering wings. "That way. More than one person, and a horse."
"Your talents are-"
"Without value, I know," she interrupted with caustic sarcasm. "Write a eulogy about it later." She set off, hands on the pommels of her swords.
"I think you meant ballad."
"You're going to need a eulogy if you don't shut up."