Nora Halloran
Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 2:23 pm
Player Name: Lex
Name: Honora Halloran, though she prefers to go by Nora
Age: 19
Race: Human
Height: 5'4
Weight: 135 lbs
Physical Description: Nora is a fairly average girl with nothing particularly striking about her. Her eyes, though a very pleasant shade somewhere between brown and amber, are neither unusual nor exotic. They are round and heavy lidded, with light brown lashes resting under fine but somewhat unruly eyebrows. She has a straight nose which tilts up slightly at the bottom and is lightly dusted with pale golden freckles. Her face is heart shaped, with a pointed chin and rather large, round cheeks. She has a wide, generous mouth which tilts up slightly at the corners, making her look like she has a perpetual smile.
Her hair is thick and wavy, though it generally refuses to behave and often has random flyaway bits around her face and neck. She usually ties it back in a cloth ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. It is a light golden brown which gets lighter still in the summer. When left loose, it reaches just below her shoulder blades.
Nora is of an average height and build, though her figure is very womanly and hourglass. She tends to carry all of her weight on her hips, thighs and upper arms, as well as on her rather generous bosom. As an early developer, she was always awkward in her shape and would dress in the most shapeless, drab clothing imaginable, however, as she gets older she is starting to embrace her shape, accentuating her comparatively narrow waist with belts and sashes to pull it in. She enjoys wearing bright colours, though she is sensible enough to know that it isn't always practical to do so. She has narrow sloping shoulders and thin forearms and calves, which make her upper arms and thighs look even bigger in comparison.
Nora has a slightly awkward gait from a riding accident when she was younger. She fell from her father's horse and damaged her right knee. Because she didn't disclose quite how painful the injury was until much later, it healed in a funny way, causing her to carry her weight mainly on her left side with a slight limp. It's nothing too major, and if a stranger were to casually glance her way he may not even notice anything unusual. However, it does tend to get worse when she's subjected to the cold.
Possessions:
Travelling trunk: A medium-to large leather-bound travelling case, locked with a strap and buckle. It is good quality leather and travels well, though it is quite old, and as such is battered and has lost most of it's original deep brown colour. It is lined with an olive green material, which has a few tears and loose stitches.
Plain bone handle dagger: One of her father's old leather cutting tools, the knife is plain and small, fitting snugly into a leather sheaf tied around her leg. It has a handle made from cow bone, fashioned by her mother, and though the blade is scratched and nicked, it is kept sharp with a regular turn to the whetstone.
A leather bound notebook: Another gift from her father for her sixth birthday. The pages have begun to curl and the ink faded, but Nora can't bring herself to throw it away. It is filled with stories and pretend maps of other words, as well and the nonsensical ramblings and doodles of a child.
Books: the majority of Nora's case is filled with books, though she managed to cull the original number from twenty down to eight. They are on many topics, from the law to theories of magic, to her very first anthology of tales. She even has an old leather working manual for sentimental value.
Valuable book: The Adventures of the Masked Man: a large gem encrusted leather book with a fine frame of gold around the edges. It was a gift from old man Trill, a neighbour in Shim, and was given to her shortly before he died. Just as the old man promised, the contents of the book are pure drivel, something about a man in a mask wondering cities with absolutely nothing of import happening, but the gems and the gold promise to fetch a pretty sum if ever the need arise.
Clothes: The rest of Nora's travelling trunk is taken up by a few changes of clothing. They are mainly practical numbers in light colours, though she has a few colourful scarves for interest, and some belts to nip in her waist.
Powers or Strengths: Nora has a quick and active mind. She absorbs facts and figures like a sponge, and more importantly, she enjoys doing it. She is most often to be found poring over a book or chart, her face lit up no matter how tedious or dry the subject matter is. She also loves to study other languages, and has been teaching herself elvish from a very young age. She is a talented scribe and would often make a little extra money doing some work in this field when she was younger.
As well as having a quick mind, Nora is also quick on her feet. Though she is not small or skinny, she can run as fast as though she were. She isn't trained in any kind of fighting, though she can be a ferocious young thing if she feels in any way threatened. She's awkward and random, but also speedy and fluid. The simple bone dagger which her father gave her to protect herself is always kept close to hand, and though she would usually run should a 'fight or flight' situation present itself, she could most likely cause a bit of a headache to whoever put her into that situation in the first place.
Moneywise, Nora is neither rich nor destitute. Growing up her parents always seemed to be able to provide no more nor less than the family needed, but with them getting older and her father's joint stiffness becoming more and more pronounced, Nora refuses to allow herself to be a burden and decided to make her own living, moving to Marn where there are more opportunities. Still, for the time being she is relatively fine for money, affording enough for accomodation and food, though she still needs to find a trade so she can send money back to her parents.
Among Nora's greatest assets are her vivacity and optimism. She grabs life by the horns and tends to try and make any bad situation into a better one through her intelligence and spirit. She is a jolly girl, who likes to crack a joke or sing a rude song, despite her complete dirth of talent in that area. She's friendly and kind, offering a smile to anyone who looks like they might need it.
Weaknesses: Though optimism and friendliness certainly have their appeals, they also go hand in hand with the fact that Nora can be a little naive and overly innocent. She can get herself into trouble through not recognising risks, or trusting someone who most people would see quite clearly should not be trusted. She also has a maddening habit of not learning from her mistakes. Her mother used to joke that she had all the intelligence of the most enlightened human or elf, but the common sense and instincts of a troll.
As already stated, she is pretty much untrained when it comes to fighting (except for a little self-defence training from her older brother, who promptly gave up when he realised that he would have better luck training a gnome), which coupled with the stiff knee means that she is hardly a seasoned warrior. She also has a stubborn streak which won't allow her to admit her own weakness. Though she has managed to get through a couple of tight spots in the past through sheer force of will and speed, she wouldn't be able to defend herself in a truly dangerous situation, or one where more than one assailant was after her.
Nora also has a tendency to be selfish. She won't do something unless she can get something out of it. This is a trait which isn't always apparent because she is pleasant, and her kindness could appear to be unconditional on the surface. However, Nora will first weigh the pros and cons of anything she does for anyone, and unless the pros are heavily in her favour, she will find an excuse to not do it.
History:
Nora was born in Downtown Marn to Noel and Jarissa Halloran. She was their second child, and entirely unexpected, what with the Halloran's getting on in years and expecting no more children after Teodinus had granted them their one and only child - a boy named Erich - sixteen years past. Noel was a leatherworker, and a fine one at that. He made a decent wage and had no troubles providing for his family, especially with Erich as a dilligent apprentice, who seemed to have inherited his fathers talents for stripping an animal of it's precious hide and working it into something utilitarian and handsome. Jarissa also helped, trading meat, bone ornaments and milk from the cows that they kept. Their house often smelt of leather and beef stew.
Nora had a fairly uneventful, happy childhood, excluding one event when she was six, where she had fallen from the back of her father's horse hard on to her knee. Being that even so young, she hated to make a fuss, she refused to disclose quite how much pain she was in until a week later, when her knee had begun to heal wrong, giving her the slight limp she has to this day. She was a popular little girl, always playing with friends and entertaining adults with silly little jokes. She had quite the imagination on her too, creating rich fantasy worlds for her friends to play in, which she would keep in the small leatherbound notebook she had gotten for her eighth birthday. It was also around this age that she started to take a keen interest in reading. She would read anything she could get her hands on, which in her family home would usually just be leatherworking manuals, and her mothers weathered recipe book. Nora would read them as avidly as if they were the most amazing, fantastical tales in the world.
When she was ten, her father decided to trade in a particularly fine leather vest for a large anthology of tales for his young daughter. Nora still counts the day she recieved it as one of the happiest moments in her life. The book was everything she had ever dreamed about. Rather than dry instructions on adding butter to milk, or dull diagrams on the parts of a calf, this book was filled with adventure and romance and illustrations of beautiful girls and dashing men. Nora would act out the stories with her friends, and over time, she would create some stories of her own. To this day Nora keeps her very first proper book, even though she has since added more to her collection.
In her twelfth year, a few big changes happened. Erich married a local merchants daughter. The original plan had been for him to move out of the family home, but Noel used the joyous occasion to do something he had been thinking about for a while - retire. He handed the business and home off to Erich, sold two of his cows, and moved the rest of his family to the small village of Shim. Initially, Nora felt like her entire world was falling down about her ears. She would be moving away from her friends, her big brother and from the noise and excitement of Marn, the only place she had ever known. The first year or so in Shim did little to alleviate her misery. The town was so small, so dull. There was nothing to do, and it was much harder to get her hands on new reading material. Indeed, it was only when her brother and sister-in-law came to visit, or that she and her parents would visit him that she was able to add to her slowly growing collection of tomes.
However, it was during her second year that Nora began to appreciate the little old town. This had less to do with the strange manor and spooky cemetary being fascinating to her - though it certainly was, once she decided to accept the town a little more - and more to do with her acquaintance with an elderly neighbour who went by Trill. Trill was a funny looking old man, so stooped that he was no taller than a dwarf. His white hair grew thin and scraggly down to his waste, and his eyes were the milky blue of the blind. Nora often walked by him during one of her deliveries. She would deliver leatherware that her father had repaired back to their owner for a few bishani, which she saved up for her next visit to Marn. Though rarely giving old man Trill much of her attention, one day she was stopped short by the fact that he seemed to be reading a book.
Nora had stared at the old man in confusion. She was positive that he was blind! She'd even heard her mother mention it before. As if sensing her presence, Trill raised his head and the milky white of his iris settled somewhere over Nora's left shoulder. Eventually it had come out that though he could no longer see the words on the page, the very act of holding a book on his lap still gave the old man some comfort. Nora immediately bonded with the old man over the magnificence of books, referring to her own collection. Shortly after, an agreement was reached whereby Nora would stop by for a couple of hours each day and read to the old man. He didn't have much money to give her, but the act of reading was enough for her. Especially when she saw the size of his collection.
At fifteen, Erich, his wife Ella and their young son Piers moved to Shim. During an order for a leather shirt, Erich had sliced his finger with the knife he was using to skin a calf. Though the cut was not too deep and he got it treated almost immediately, infection still set in and turned his blood bad, forcing a surgeon to amputate the entire hand. With his tool of trade gone, Erich could not keep up the family leather business and had had to sell the workshop and living area, as well as the family bull and cows. Feeling depression at his inability to provide for his family, they had moved to Shim to be closer to his parents, while Erich tried to decide his next move. Nora was deeply saddened by her dear big brothers misfortune, though she couldn't help but be annoyed that her link to Marn was now gone. Whenever she thought this she would feel deeply guilty and force herself to ask Teodinus for forgiveness.
It was also in this year when Nora was attacked. During one of her deliveries, a drunk patron of the red chalice lumbered after her, grabbing awkwardly at her breasts. Nora tried to remember the little self-defence her brother had taught her back in Marn, but her mind wouldn't allow her to think logically. Instead, she simply swiped at the man, catching his ear and cheek with her nails and drawing blood. When this didn't have the desired effect of making him walk away with his tail between his legs - if anything, it seemed to make him more enraged - she started punching and kicking anything she could make contact with, and when her boot made contact with that sensitive spot between his legs, she turned on her heel and ran as fast as she could. When she got home with a ripped shirt and a thin trail of blood across her shoulder, her father handed her his old leather cutting knife and made her swear to keep it on her person at all times.
The next year - her sixteenth - saw Nora's first taste of romance. A young man named Jacob had been paying her particular interest, bringing her small gifts and paying her compliments. Though Nora's had first developed a womanly shape at thirteen, it was only now that she was beginning to see what an advantage it could be. There was not a lot of people in Shim, but she had begun to notice that the boys around her age and even older had begun watching her with hungry eyes. Nora's instinct was not to shy away from them, scared by what their leering gaze seemed to suggest to her, but to embrace it. She started wearing clothes which showed off her curves more, and she learnt the art of flirting. She would let Jacob carry her deliveries for her in return for a soft smile here, a lingering touch there, and eventually a kiss. They had kissed a few times when Jacob went further, ripping Nora's dress off her shoulder and untying his own trousers. Nora was so lost in the moment that it wasn't until she felt a searing pain that she realised she had allowed Jacob to take her virginity.
Though there was a short period where she felt shame and avoided Jacob, she soon began to miss the feeling of being wanted in such a primal way. She soon found her way back to Jacob's side, and for a few months they remained intimate. She divulged her secret to her sister in law who taught her ways to avoid becoming with child. It was in their fourth month together, when Jacob asked her to be wed to him. Nora seriously considered it, after all, sixteen was more than old enough to marry and begin a family, but she felt in her gut that this wasn't how her life was supposed to be. She wasn't ready for her childhood to be over. She declined him, and it was only with a minimal amount of regret that she watched him marry another girl soon after.
A year later, old man Trill called for her at an hour she did not usually read for him. Nora was concerned, as the old man had been coughing and wheezing a lot more lately. As expected, he was frailer and weaker than she had ever seen him, and they both knew that he didn't have long left for the world. He pointed her to one particular tome on his shelf and asked her to bring it to him. Nora located the book, which was gaudy and heavy. Trill explained to her that the story within was one of the worst written pieces of drivel he had ever had the misfortune to look upon, but the book itself was valuable, being as it was encrusted with gem stones and framed along the leather bound edges with a thin band of real gold. He told Nora to take it as her payment for making an old man happy at the end of his life, and refused any of Nora's arguments against such a valuable gift. That night Nora snuck the book into her house, not quite ready to disclose to her parents her new possession.
Over the following years, Nora would make little bits and pieces of Bishani through writing letters for those around the village (and some clients of the Red Chalice) who were not adept at writing themselves. Finally, shortly after her nineteenth birthday she decided to move to Marn. She was perfectly content in Shim, being as she was surrounded by her family - including Erich and Ella's second son, who had arrived the year before. However, she felt a little thrum under her skin, and it took her a while to identify it as restlessness. She could probably find a nice young man in the village - though Teodinus knew there was very little variety in that particular area - and settle down, adding to her family income by continuing to scribe. There was even a small part of her that would prefer that lifestyle, one of ease and comfort, with no uncertainty. But the little girl who had created fantasy worlds and led her friends on an epic adventure was still there, just under the surface, and she would not be stilled.
Though her family was not thrilled with the news, and (quite rightly) suspecting that she was really too naive to be alone in the world, they also understood her stubborness, and knew that short of shackling her to her bed frame, they would not be able to make her stay. Her years of scribing had afforded her 150 Bishani, and her parents gave her another 300 so that she would be able to comfortably support herself for two months. They also arranged for her to stay in a room with an old family friend in the residential district. With a heartfelt goodbye to her family, Nora returned to her childhood home. For the first month, she managed to survive mainly on the hospitality of the family friend, a kindly old lady named Seralla, though she spent a chunk of her money on a new book which she couldn't resist. She offered her services as a scribe around the city and made a modest amount from that, though she realises that to survive long term, she will have to find a trade, or more permanent employment.
Name: Honora Halloran, though she prefers to go by Nora
Age: 19
Race: Human
Height: 5'4
Weight: 135 lbs
Physical Description: Nora is a fairly average girl with nothing particularly striking about her. Her eyes, though a very pleasant shade somewhere between brown and amber, are neither unusual nor exotic. They are round and heavy lidded, with light brown lashes resting under fine but somewhat unruly eyebrows. She has a straight nose which tilts up slightly at the bottom and is lightly dusted with pale golden freckles. Her face is heart shaped, with a pointed chin and rather large, round cheeks. She has a wide, generous mouth which tilts up slightly at the corners, making her look like she has a perpetual smile.
Her hair is thick and wavy, though it generally refuses to behave and often has random flyaway bits around her face and neck. She usually ties it back in a cloth ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. It is a light golden brown which gets lighter still in the summer. When left loose, it reaches just below her shoulder blades.
Nora is of an average height and build, though her figure is very womanly and hourglass. She tends to carry all of her weight on her hips, thighs and upper arms, as well as on her rather generous bosom. As an early developer, she was always awkward in her shape and would dress in the most shapeless, drab clothing imaginable, however, as she gets older she is starting to embrace her shape, accentuating her comparatively narrow waist with belts and sashes to pull it in. She enjoys wearing bright colours, though she is sensible enough to know that it isn't always practical to do so. She has narrow sloping shoulders and thin forearms and calves, which make her upper arms and thighs look even bigger in comparison.
Nora has a slightly awkward gait from a riding accident when she was younger. She fell from her father's horse and damaged her right knee. Because she didn't disclose quite how painful the injury was until much later, it healed in a funny way, causing her to carry her weight mainly on her left side with a slight limp. It's nothing too major, and if a stranger were to casually glance her way he may not even notice anything unusual. However, it does tend to get worse when she's subjected to the cold.
Possessions:
Travelling trunk: A medium-to large leather-bound travelling case, locked with a strap and buckle. It is good quality leather and travels well, though it is quite old, and as such is battered and has lost most of it's original deep brown colour. It is lined with an olive green material, which has a few tears and loose stitches.
Plain bone handle dagger: One of her father's old leather cutting tools, the knife is plain and small, fitting snugly into a leather sheaf tied around her leg. It has a handle made from cow bone, fashioned by her mother, and though the blade is scratched and nicked, it is kept sharp with a regular turn to the whetstone.
A leather bound notebook: Another gift from her father for her sixth birthday. The pages have begun to curl and the ink faded, but Nora can't bring herself to throw it away. It is filled with stories and pretend maps of other words, as well and the nonsensical ramblings and doodles of a child.
Books: the majority of Nora's case is filled with books, though she managed to cull the original number from twenty down to eight. They are on many topics, from the law to theories of magic, to her very first anthology of tales. She even has an old leather working manual for sentimental value.
Valuable book: The Adventures of the Masked Man: a large gem encrusted leather book with a fine frame of gold around the edges. It was a gift from old man Trill, a neighbour in Shim, and was given to her shortly before he died. Just as the old man promised, the contents of the book are pure drivel, something about a man in a mask wondering cities with absolutely nothing of import happening, but the gems and the gold promise to fetch a pretty sum if ever the need arise.
Clothes: The rest of Nora's travelling trunk is taken up by a few changes of clothing. They are mainly practical numbers in light colours, though she has a few colourful scarves for interest, and some belts to nip in her waist.
Powers or Strengths: Nora has a quick and active mind. She absorbs facts and figures like a sponge, and more importantly, she enjoys doing it. She is most often to be found poring over a book or chart, her face lit up no matter how tedious or dry the subject matter is. She also loves to study other languages, and has been teaching herself elvish from a very young age. She is a talented scribe and would often make a little extra money doing some work in this field when she was younger.
As well as having a quick mind, Nora is also quick on her feet. Though she is not small or skinny, she can run as fast as though she were. She isn't trained in any kind of fighting, though she can be a ferocious young thing if she feels in any way threatened. She's awkward and random, but also speedy and fluid. The simple bone dagger which her father gave her to protect herself is always kept close to hand, and though she would usually run should a 'fight or flight' situation present itself, she could most likely cause a bit of a headache to whoever put her into that situation in the first place.
Moneywise, Nora is neither rich nor destitute. Growing up her parents always seemed to be able to provide no more nor less than the family needed, but with them getting older and her father's joint stiffness becoming more and more pronounced, Nora refuses to allow herself to be a burden and decided to make her own living, moving to Marn where there are more opportunities. Still, for the time being she is relatively fine for money, affording enough for accomodation and food, though she still needs to find a trade so she can send money back to her parents.
Among Nora's greatest assets are her vivacity and optimism. She grabs life by the horns and tends to try and make any bad situation into a better one through her intelligence and spirit. She is a jolly girl, who likes to crack a joke or sing a rude song, despite her complete dirth of talent in that area. She's friendly and kind, offering a smile to anyone who looks like they might need it.
Weaknesses: Though optimism and friendliness certainly have their appeals, they also go hand in hand with the fact that Nora can be a little naive and overly innocent. She can get herself into trouble through not recognising risks, or trusting someone who most people would see quite clearly should not be trusted. She also has a maddening habit of not learning from her mistakes. Her mother used to joke that she had all the intelligence of the most enlightened human or elf, but the common sense and instincts of a troll.
As already stated, she is pretty much untrained when it comes to fighting (except for a little self-defence training from her older brother, who promptly gave up when he realised that he would have better luck training a gnome), which coupled with the stiff knee means that she is hardly a seasoned warrior. She also has a stubborn streak which won't allow her to admit her own weakness. Though she has managed to get through a couple of tight spots in the past through sheer force of will and speed, she wouldn't be able to defend herself in a truly dangerous situation, or one where more than one assailant was after her.
Nora also has a tendency to be selfish. She won't do something unless she can get something out of it. This is a trait which isn't always apparent because she is pleasant, and her kindness could appear to be unconditional on the surface. However, Nora will first weigh the pros and cons of anything she does for anyone, and unless the pros are heavily in her favour, she will find an excuse to not do it.
History:
Nora was born in Downtown Marn to Noel and Jarissa Halloran. She was their second child, and entirely unexpected, what with the Halloran's getting on in years and expecting no more children after Teodinus had granted them their one and only child - a boy named Erich - sixteen years past. Noel was a leatherworker, and a fine one at that. He made a decent wage and had no troubles providing for his family, especially with Erich as a dilligent apprentice, who seemed to have inherited his fathers talents for stripping an animal of it's precious hide and working it into something utilitarian and handsome. Jarissa also helped, trading meat, bone ornaments and milk from the cows that they kept. Their house often smelt of leather and beef stew.
Nora had a fairly uneventful, happy childhood, excluding one event when she was six, where she had fallen from the back of her father's horse hard on to her knee. Being that even so young, she hated to make a fuss, she refused to disclose quite how much pain she was in until a week later, when her knee had begun to heal wrong, giving her the slight limp she has to this day. She was a popular little girl, always playing with friends and entertaining adults with silly little jokes. She had quite the imagination on her too, creating rich fantasy worlds for her friends to play in, which she would keep in the small leatherbound notebook she had gotten for her eighth birthday. It was also around this age that she started to take a keen interest in reading. She would read anything she could get her hands on, which in her family home would usually just be leatherworking manuals, and her mothers weathered recipe book. Nora would read them as avidly as if they were the most amazing, fantastical tales in the world.
When she was ten, her father decided to trade in a particularly fine leather vest for a large anthology of tales for his young daughter. Nora still counts the day she recieved it as one of the happiest moments in her life. The book was everything she had ever dreamed about. Rather than dry instructions on adding butter to milk, or dull diagrams on the parts of a calf, this book was filled with adventure and romance and illustrations of beautiful girls and dashing men. Nora would act out the stories with her friends, and over time, she would create some stories of her own. To this day Nora keeps her very first proper book, even though she has since added more to her collection.
In her twelfth year, a few big changes happened. Erich married a local merchants daughter. The original plan had been for him to move out of the family home, but Noel used the joyous occasion to do something he had been thinking about for a while - retire. He handed the business and home off to Erich, sold two of his cows, and moved the rest of his family to the small village of Shim. Initially, Nora felt like her entire world was falling down about her ears. She would be moving away from her friends, her big brother and from the noise and excitement of Marn, the only place she had ever known. The first year or so in Shim did little to alleviate her misery. The town was so small, so dull. There was nothing to do, and it was much harder to get her hands on new reading material. Indeed, it was only when her brother and sister-in-law came to visit, or that she and her parents would visit him that she was able to add to her slowly growing collection of tomes.
However, it was during her second year that Nora began to appreciate the little old town. This had less to do with the strange manor and spooky cemetary being fascinating to her - though it certainly was, once she decided to accept the town a little more - and more to do with her acquaintance with an elderly neighbour who went by Trill. Trill was a funny looking old man, so stooped that he was no taller than a dwarf. His white hair grew thin and scraggly down to his waste, and his eyes were the milky blue of the blind. Nora often walked by him during one of her deliveries. She would deliver leatherware that her father had repaired back to their owner for a few bishani, which she saved up for her next visit to Marn. Though rarely giving old man Trill much of her attention, one day she was stopped short by the fact that he seemed to be reading a book.
Nora had stared at the old man in confusion. She was positive that he was blind! She'd even heard her mother mention it before. As if sensing her presence, Trill raised his head and the milky white of his iris settled somewhere over Nora's left shoulder. Eventually it had come out that though he could no longer see the words on the page, the very act of holding a book on his lap still gave the old man some comfort. Nora immediately bonded with the old man over the magnificence of books, referring to her own collection. Shortly after, an agreement was reached whereby Nora would stop by for a couple of hours each day and read to the old man. He didn't have much money to give her, but the act of reading was enough for her. Especially when she saw the size of his collection.
At fifteen, Erich, his wife Ella and their young son Piers moved to Shim. During an order for a leather shirt, Erich had sliced his finger with the knife he was using to skin a calf. Though the cut was not too deep and he got it treated almost immediately, infection still set in and turned his blood bad, forcing a surgeon to amputate the entire hand. With his tool of trade gone, Erich could not keep up the family leather business and had had to sell the workshop and living area, as well as the family bull and cows. Feeling depression at his inability to provide for his family, they had moved to Shim to be closer to his parents, while Erich tried to decide his next move. Nora was deeply saddened by her dear big brothers misfortune, though she couldn't help but be annoyed that her link to Marn was now gone. Whenever she thought this she would feel deeply guilty and force herself to ask Teodinus for forgiveness.
It was also in this year when Nora was attacked. During one of her deliveries, a drunk patron of the red chalice lumbered after her, grabbing awkwardly at her breasts. Nora tried to remember the little self-defence her brother had taught her back in Marn, but her mind wouldn't allow her to think logically. Instead, she simply swiped at the man, catching his ear and cheek with her nails and drawing blood. When this didn't have the desired effect of making him walk away with his tail between his legs - if anything, it seemed to make him more enraged - she started punching and kicking anything she could make contact with, and when her boot made contact with that sensitive spot between his legs, she turned on her heel and ran as fast as she could. When she got home with a ripped shirt and a thin trail of blood across her shoulder, her father handed her his old leather cutting knife and made her swear to keep it on her person at all times.
The next year - her sixteenth - saw Nora's first taste of romance. A young man named Jacob had been paying her particular interest, bringing her small gifts and paying her compliments. Though Nora's had first developed a womanly shape at thirteen, it was only now that she was beginning to see what an advantage it could be. There was not a lot of people in Shim, but she had begun to notice that the boys around her age and even older had begun watching her with hungry eyes. Nora's instinct was not to shy away from them, scared by what their leering gaze seemed to suggest to her, but to embrace it. She started wearing clothes which showed off her curves more, and she learnt the art of flirting. She would let Jacob carry her deliveries for her in return for a soft smile here, a lingering touch there, and eventually a kiss. They had kissed a few times when Jacob went further, ripping Nora's dress off her shoulder and untying his own trousers. Nora was so lost in the moment that it wasn't until she felt a searing pain that she realised she had allowed Jacob to take her virginity.
Though there was a short period where she felt shame and avoided Jacob, she soon began to miss the feeling of being wanted in such a primal way. She soon found her way back to Jacob's side, and for a few months they remained intimate. She divulged her secret to her sister in law who taught her ways to avoid becoming with child. It was in their fourth month together, when Jacob asked her to be wed to him. Nora seriously considered it, after all, sixteen was more than old enough to marry and begin a family, but she felt in her gut that this wasn't how her life was supposed to be. She wasn't ready for her childhood to be over. She declined him, and it was only with a minimal amount of regret that she watched him marry another girl soon after.
A year later, old man Trill called for her at an hour she did not usually read for him. Nora was concerned, as the old man had been coughing and wheezing a lot more lately. As expected, he was frailer and weaker than she had ever seen him, and they both knew that he didn't have long left for the world. He pointed her to one particular tome on his shelf and asked her to bring it to him. Nora located the book, which was gaudy and heavy. Trill explained to her that the story within was one of the worst written pieces of drivel he had ever had the misfortune to look upon, but the book itself was valuable, being as it was encrusted with gem stones and framed along the leather bound edges with a thin band of real gold. He told Nora to take it as her payment for making an old man happy at the end of his life, and refused any of Nora's arguments against such a valuable gift. That night Nora snuck the book into her house, not quite ready to disclose to her parents her new possession.
Over the following years, Nora would make little bits and pieces of Bishani through writing letters for those around the village (and some clients of the Red Chalice) who were not adept at writing themselves. Finally, shortly after her nineteenth birthday she decided to move to Marn. She was perfectly content in Shim, being as she was surrounded by her family - including Erich and Ella's second son, who had arrived the year before. However, she felt a little thrum under her skin, and it took her a while to identify it as restlessness. She could probably find a nice young man in the village - though Teodinus knew there was very little variety in that particular area - and settle down, adding to her family income by continuing to scribe. There was even a small part of her that would prefer that lifestyle, one of ease and comfort, with no uncertainty. But the little girl who had created fantasy worlds and led her friends on an epic adventure was still there, just under the surface, and she would not be stilled.
Though her family was not thrilled with the news, and (quite rightly) suspecting that she was really too naive to be alone in the world, they also understood her stubborness, and knew that short of shackling her to her bed frame, they would not be able to make her stay. Her years of scribing had afforded her 150 Bishani, and her parents gave her another 300 so that she would be able to comfortably support herself for two months. They also arranged for her to stay in a room with an old family friend in the residential district. With a heartfelt goodbye to her family, Nora returned to her childhood home. For the first month, she managed to survive mainly on the hospitality of the family friend, a kindly old lady named Seralla, though she spent a chunk of her money on a new book which she couldn't resist. She offered her services as a scribe around the city and made a modest amount from that, though she realises that to survive long term, she will have to find a trade, or more permanent employment.
