Esperanza Blacktip [WIP]

[Naginii]

Name: Esperanza Blacktip
Age: 32
Birthplace: Mossflower
Gender: Female
Species: Stoat (ermine specifically)
Job/Position: Healer, seer, life advisor
Physical Description:

Esperanza has the typical long, slender body of a lithe stoat, and her eyes are grey. She has chestnut brown fur on the top of her body, white fur on her underside, and black fur on the tip of her tail. It's short and she doesn't do much to it aside from occasional brushings. In autumn, her fur thickens and by winter, it is quite silky and, except for the tip of her tail, completely white.

As far as clothes go, Esperanza's go-to ensemble is a plain long-sleeved dark dress and black boots.

For traveling, she'll wear a dark cloak as well. If she has to go far or through a dangerous area, she brings a walking stick, carries a dagger in her belt, and wears a black jerkin that was handed down to her from her mother. The jerkin had been taken off of a dead enemy and is made of leather and lined with fur.

Esperanza hasn't devoted great time or thought to finding out exactly what kind of leather or fur (she suspects rabbit fur), and she avoids drawing attention to it when with other woodlanders.

Belongings:

Esperanza has a collection of things that've mostly been given to her as payment for her services. Of her garments, a few outfits are of higher quality and possess more detail than common clothes, but Esperanza's preferred and most often worn clothes are much simpler.

Amongst those clothes are a cloak, a couple of tunics, her jerkin, boots, and a handful of dresses. She also has a pack, various pouches, a polished walking stick, a belt, and a dagger.

In her house, Esperanza keeps common supplies for her work, including a pestle and mortar, some knives, chests, a kettle and cups, ink, candles, jars, and herbs.

She tries to keep her medical supplies as separate as she can from the ones she uses for seer and such work and other things, at least when storing them. Things still get lost and scattered throughout her house though.

Personality:

Esperanza has a strong sense of her personal morals and she tries to act decently and do good by them. She will rebuff attempts to impose disagreeable ones on her. If she can get away with ignoring or becoming exempt from them (such as through threats), she'll do her best to.

Esperanza demands respect and wants to be feared to some extent, mostly so she isn't bothered with frivolity. She has a poor sense of humor, often seems unimpressed with others, and dislikes being called an ermine. She finds the term unnecessary.

While Esperanza is a healer, she does more than treat flesh wounds and she isn't one of those "helping others from the very goodness of her pure heart" sorts. She does what she does because someone has to do it and that someone should do it well.

Esperanza is resolute about her work, even the unpleasant and unavoidable parts, and she won't apologize for doing what she deemed right. She sees herself as walking a path balanced between the double edges of life, death, and other conflicting things.

She has no qualms about appearing as a grumpy recluse that could curse someone with a hard stare, so long as it's remembered that she could also fix their broken limb and maybe get them back on good terms with a friend.

Much of Esperanza's work involves presentation and getting others into the right mindset, so she puts great effort into maintaining the grumpy recluse appearance. She's put years into training her skills in tone, facial expression, and other subtle forms of manipulation. She dislikes her fur turning white in winter and thinks of it as an interruption, especially if it unfavorably distracts someone.

She tempers her overtly intimidating aspects through little gestures of kindness, such as offering tea to visitors and not demanding (and often declining) monetary payment for what she does.

She deals more in trust, gift exchanges, and favors instead. Keeping up this reputation also affords her protection if she's in good company.

She uses common household materials for her more mystical work, because she feels the simple ones are just as good (if not better) than the pricey stuff.

She hates having to resort to fancier methods just to be taken seriously, but she keeps things of said fancy nature, like certain clothes and shiny objects, just in case she needs them. 

She knows how others can be persuaded by such methods, but she feels much more comfortable in drab. Esperanza finds it more honest that way.

She also dislikes fortune-telling and prefers giving vague advice regarding futures rather than get hopes up based on something specific.

History:

Esperanza was born in Mossflower to parents who were not originally from there. Her mother and father were battle-hardened warriors who'd come from the Land of Ice and Snow.

The pair made the difficult journey away from the far north seeking milder weather, calmer life, quiet retirement, and fewer vermin hordes. They settled in a village nestled in mideastern Mossflower and their daughter was born some years later.

Code Words: tears, trifle