Part 2: Growing Up
15. How would you describe your childhood in general?
"Shite. I mean, come on. Scrounging for scraps, stealing food, hoping not to get murdered or worse for your rags or just your warm spot to sleep? What else would you call it? Oh, aye, we tried to make games of things, and told each other tales we made up, and such like. But no child should grow up the way I did. It was shite."
16. What is your earliest memory?
"Being smacked around by Marney until she got me crying too hard, and then tried to apologise and cuddle it out of me. Not sure which time. There were lots. Kinda all runs together."
17. How much schooling have you had?
"Hmm. Scut like me didn't get proper schooling as such. But then there was my time in Imladris. And with Drel after that. And I suppose even the language practice with Leoffrith might count. So that's a few years, and some of that was pretty intense. Especially with Mirwen."
18. Did you enjoy school?
"Aye. I enjoy learning things. Of course, I was a bedridden captive audience for Mirwen at first. And it gave me something to do, rather than just lie there and hurt and feel sorry for myself. But, again, I enjoy learning things. And she didn't ever want to stop with teaching me. So that worked out pretty well."
19. Where did you learn most of your skills and other abilities?
"That would still be Imladris. Though, I suppose, considering the tongue we're speaking, you might know it better as Rivendell. Anyway, I learned other things from Drel, and Cwynbur – especially about horses – but you said 'most'."
20. While growing up, did you have any role models? If so, describe them.
"Hrm. Role models… that's a puzzler. The people I most admired and most wanted to be like… well, I ain't no six-foot-and-more elf. And I can't keep going like one. And yet… there's something of their outward calm, and such, besides their application of skill when needed… aye. My role models would still be Fingwen, and the twin elf-lords, the sons of Lord Elrond."
21. While growing up, how did you get along with the other members of your family?
"Well, now. 'Growing up', to me needs being old enough already I didn't have a family. Not that I knew of – or that thought I was alive. And Magpie and Wren, for all they were what I knew of as having a family… well, that's different. Of course I got on fine with them. But being as they were also children, just older and looking out for me… don't think that quite is what you meant to be asking."
22. As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
"Hrmph. Alive. Warm. Full." She tapped her jaw as she pondered. "Well, those are all true, but… 'good enough'. That's stuck with me a long time, from how things were with Marney before being out on the streets. And to some extent, because of how hard it could be to keep ourselves fed, even after. So that would really be it. I wanted to finally be good enough."
23. As a child, what were your favorite activities?
"Eating. Especially when we had enough. Oh, and getting to be the middle spoon when we were snuggling for warmth." She ponders with a small sigh, then brightens a little. "Oh! And once we discovered them, and could sometimes get away with listening to them, listening to the tales the travelling traders told. Or tales in general, but we got chased off from the regular entertainers too much."
24. As a child, what kinds of personality traits did you display?
"I… ain't real sure I know. I reckon I understand the question – it's not that! But trying to see myself from the outside in that, even looking back… it's hard to be sure. Well, quiet and sneaky sure started then, what with the stealing to eat. But somehow, despite it all, I also had a sense of… fairness, I suppose might be the word. Not sure how. Maybe I got it from Wren. But I didn't want to steal from the people who made it easy. They were good people. I worked hard at being sneaky enough to steal from the mean people who seemed to want us to starve. So there's that." She shrugs. "Can't really say as I know, beyond that."
25. As a child, were you popular?
She laughs bitterly and shakes her head. "Street-scut? Popular? Not even with others like me. Too much competition for getting food and rags and such. It was the three of us against the world. Not that all of it was actually against us, like I already hinted. But popular? Not that I could tell, at least. So, no."
26. When and with whom was your first kiss?
"How would I even know? Oh! You mean a romantic kind, not like Marney or Wren. Right. Hmm. That would have been Wendiwyn." She stops suddenly, looking down sadly, and not volunteering any more details.
27. Are you a virgin?
She snorts derisively. "Who even asks that? You got some dragon somewheres with a weird dietary restriction? Then I ain't eligible for feeding it, no." She shrugs. "Some folks defines that differently from others. But by most definitions, I ain't, anyways. By some, it's a stupid question just from knowing how I grew up. But if 'voluntary' be part of the definition, not since Wendiwyn, anyways, unless you got a really odd meaning for it."
28. If you are a supernatural being (i.e. mage, werewolf, vampire), tell the story of how you became what you are or first learned of your own abilities.
She sits up a bit straighter at her small campfire and raises her left eyebrow, peering at her interlocutor for a moment. She then returns to a more normal expression with a small shake of her head. "I reckon it was rising up from the snow, blending in with the blizzard all barefoot and sneaky, and – according to the legends folks tell – killing well over a dozen orcs all by my lonesome." She heaves a sigh. "But then I come up with a serious case of indigestion, what with the sword poking through my back and out my belly, and I slumped over dead. Rather disappointing, that."
