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Name Camryn Alwara Oxford
Age 35
Gender Female
Species Human
Height 5'7"
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Physical Description
Looking very typical for her race, Camryn is a bit smaller than the average female human, but not overly so. Her features are angular and sharp, hair a typical wild mess that she pays little attention to. When she was younger, Tanna's hair was more blonde but has now gone to mostly brown now that she is grown. Her eyes are vivid blue, a little startling when her full gaze is turned on someone, and though she grimaces when it's pointed out, her mouth is frankly sensual.
Camryn's body is lean and athletic without being muscle-bound, lithe and built for agility. Her clothing is almost entirely of butter-soft finished leather -- shirt, breeches, and boots -- and carefully chosen for its flexibility and silence. As the daughter of a tanner, this woman knows her leather and is meticulous in its care. A simple black woolen cloak for colder weather but she'll often leave it bundled with her simple collection of supplies at her lodging, wherever that may be. Packs annoy her as they make her feel bogged down, so three small pouches at her belt hold any necessities. Having a high constitution,Camryn eats like a bird and does not need to stock up heavily on supplies.
She does not weigh herself down with weapons beyond a set of small knives tucked in her waist, arm, and boot. Her boots are worth mentioning -- they are knee-high and tied cross-ways across her shins. These are not hard heeled but soft as slippers, and allow her to move about and climb silently. She wears no jewelry or any other female decoration save for a worn and faded silken cord around her neck, intricately braided, but as it's mostly under her shirt, it's always hidden.
Overall, Camryn's appearance is sleek without being sultry, lithe without the appearance of fragility, and strong without too much masculinity. Self-assured in her bearing, this is a woman who has enough experience to be fairly assured of herself.
Personality
Don't look for manners or gentle ways from this woman. Raised in impoverished streets and growing up among common laborers, her accent is coarse, her language rough. Camryn is not chatty; she'll speak when it suits her or easily ignore someone she feels is being a dick. Though she has a temper, she's learned to control it, but may look for an opportunity at sweet revenge should the offense be grievous enough.
Camryn is most comfortable in bars in the poorer quarters of town. She has little patience for nobles but will take work from them readily enough as long as the job is of limited duration. She has natural street-sense and thus wariness of just about everything. Though she can be a little aloof with strangers, she works best in a group where her specialized skills can help augments a variety of talented individuals. But once a job is done, she'll often move on, preferring fluidity to becoming too attached to any one place or people.
Stay on her good side by paying her on time, giving her fair warning of the difficulties of a job, and treat her with a reasonable amount of respect. To seriously piss her off, you could try to cheat her, look down on her as 'just a woman', or get the authorities involved in any aspect of her life.
Relationships
History
A mediocre-talented dancer and a soft-hearted shopkeeper --- those were Camryn's parents and the basis for her beginnings. Vito ran a small tanner's business on the border between the human and alien sections of Haviah. The work was dirty and the stench of the tanning process very bad but the goods produced in Vito's shops were well-made yet affordably priced so that only the poorest of the humans couldn't afford it. The older man generally took pity on those impoverished and slipped them shoes or breeches even if they could not pay -- after all, winter's wind was harsh on bare feet. As a result, his little family was always on the brink of poverty themselves.
Vito met and later married Ashli Whitcomb, a lithe and graceful creature . Tiny, with a puckish face and a laugh like spring water trickling over rock, Ashli was also from a low-born human family, a group of entertainers traveling around in brightly painted ships, earning their living on the road at festivals and taverns. At first, settling down in one place was hard for the free-spirited Ashli, but she loved Vito dearly and when their only child, Camryn, was born, life seemed complete. Perhaps because of the noxious fumes of the tannery or the unhealthy water and food available to the human parts of Haviah or even one of life's little perversities, Ashli contracted an incurable wasting sickness a few years after her daughter's birth and died before Camryn was seven. Vito was left heartbroken but he had a business to run and couldn't take long to mourn. The raising of Camryn fell to the wives of some of his employees -- most of whom were human and barely above the poverty line themselves -- but in the evenings after the shop doors were closed, he always tried to make time for his little girl.
Camryn grew up running with human children, street kids and boys mostly for she found hovering around the skirts of the wives and daughters while they baked, laundered and gossiped deadly dull. It was much more exciting to run the alleys, skitter across badly-patched roof-tops, or create a myriad of private 'assassins guilds' in abandoned buildings. While she grew, Camryn's inborn abilities were honed to accommodate these activities. She was incredibly agile and hadn't met a building yet she couldn't climb. The grace she'd inherited from her mother also allowed her to move silently, earning her the nickname of 'Silentfoot'. It proved a valued skill among the other children as spies were nicked from windowsills for their enjoyment. But as her little band grew into adolescence and they became more aware of the hopelessness of their situation and lives, many of the children began to turn on her, the race and symbol of their oppressors, the humans. She began to be taunted for her ears, her angular features, and even her agile skills, once so admired. This hurt Camryn deeply and she began to spend more and more time alone. The rooftops were still her refuge as she brooded, crouching and often taking bitter pleasure in eavesdropping on her neighbors -- who was cheating with whose wife, who was nearly penniless, who was beating their children.
Her teen years were bleak ones for Camryn. Her father's business was finally failing after long-term debt. He tried to keep it from her but she was a listener from the shadows, after all, and knew it all. He'd become distant to her the last few years, from disappointment perhaps (or so she thought), but more probably because she looked so much like her mother (which she was unaware of). Camryn was aware of the tension but had no idea how badly it affected him until she came home late one evening to find his body hanging from a rafter, a simple note of 'I'm sorry' on the floor below. In shock, Camryn had turned the paper around hopelessly in her fingers -- she'd never been taught to read and the blocky scribbles meant nothing. The sale of Vito's shop and belongings brought only a meager handful of coins once all his debts were settled, leaving Camryn with only the butter-soft leather clothing she habitually wore, a silken cord necklace said to belong to her mother, and the crumpled note from her father. How she was going to live, she didn't know.
Then but four and ten years old, Camryn steeled her trepidation and tried approaching the people on the other side of town, but they would have nothing to do with her. Humans who chose to live among other species were considered the lowest form of human, and Camryn's mannerisms, even her speech showed her contamination by the lower forms of life. None would take her in or even give her a job. 'Go hunt in the forest' they would suggest coolly but Camryn could only turn away in shame. She'd never been taught to hunt and had no bow or blade. She was forced to forage through cast-offs and garbage for food and grew ever more desperate.
It seemed so easy then -- to just nick an apple from a street vendor's cart, or slip a bit of bread while wandering in the baker's. Camryn's dexterity served her well, and though the shame of stealing still burned her, at least she was now fed. It was a natural progression to slip a delicate thin hand into the occasional pocket of a passer-by, rewarded by a coin or two. But one of those times, a large hand clamped down on her wrist, pulling her into an alley.
"Well, well," a large dark man said. "What have we here?"
That was when Camryn came into the acquaintance of Slate, scout-for-hire and presently working for a shipping company out of Aurora. Sly, reflexes faster than an eye could blink, tracking skills valued by experienced drovers, Slate bought her the first decent meal she'd had in weeks and talked, describing his life, explaining the skills and training. Tanna was wary at first, mistrustful of a stranger offering help to a nobody.
"Why you doin' this?" she asked.
"Maybe because... some time ago, someone else did the same for me," Arno replied. And so began her second life -- as Arno's apprentice. Over the next ten years, Slate taught her everything he knew and imparting to her his own peculiar brand of philosophy. It didn't matter who you worked for, you should be one-hundred percent loyal to them until the contract was up -- then move on. No country or city or individual deserved your loyalty unless they paid for it. Insist on half now, half when the job was done -- anything less is asking to be cheated. And information was always, always more valuable than any treasure. To that end, Arno encouraged Camryn's tremendous climbing and acrobatic skills, where she was able to listen outside upper-story windows to private meetings, nick away secret documents, or spy on forbidden trysts. Arno may have used Camryn's talents shamelessly, but he made sure she was treated well and made to feel part of a family.
Arno also taught Camryn the rudiments of what it meant to be a person, introducing her to the forests, teaching her the names of trees and animals, showing her how to survive there too in case the atmosphere in any city became too uncomfortable. Most of all, he taught the girl how to keep her eyes open, how to react quickly to any situation and how to use her inborn skills of agility, silent-movement and a wary, careful nature to the greatest advantage. He made her a survivor.
She was appreciative of his attention, but Camryn bid Arno farewell and headed out on her own. She'd always felt more comfortable on her own -- if she did the leaving first, she wouldn't have to watch him be the one to go first, something she had painful experience with. Camryn did well on her own, and it has been many years hence that she's become one of the better scouts (and occasional spy) that money could buy. She prefers to work within a band or guild, enjoying the safety in numbers, but perversely, does not stay with one group too long, ensuring that she never grows any attachments. Being too close meant inevitable betrayal, and she would not go through that again.
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