Character Name: Katelle Viljorn
Age: 19
Sex: Female
Race: Not 100% sure, but it is believed that she is wholly Breton
Occupation: Priestess (Restoration, Alteration, Alchemy, Speech, Cooking)
Birthplace: Unknown, possibly Riften
Current Residence: The temple of Dibella, initially, but currently traveling on her way to Riften.
Alliances or Affiliations: The Order of The Lily (At the time of her leaving The House of Dibella, she was their priestess, in training to be sworn to the ideal of Dibella) Although, she considers herself a follower of Saint Alessia, versus any single diety of the traditional nine divines, instead she respectfully worships each of them from time to time.
Appearance:
Katelle is slim and lithe for a Breton with pale alabaster skin, flushed with a freckled pink complexion. She has long, white-blonde tresses that she normally leaves as is, only bothering to tie it back into a ponytail when she is focusing on something important. Her eyes are a bright and piercing blue that tend to draw attention to her, even with a hood drawn about her head. They are almost too bright for her skin tone, giving her a slightly unearthly air about her.
Personality: Katelle is, by default, a very submissive creature. She spent a great deal of her childhood being picked on by her own siblings to an extreme degree, and instead of lashing out or forming a cold personality, this has led her down the path of least resistance. She will often be the last to draw a weapon in battle, and the first to try and talk a situation out. She is the level headed thinker of most groups and the mother figure of those that surround her. Her time spent studying at the Temple of Dibella has helped her gift of restoration grow and blossom into a very useful tool. She is an ideal healer, able to heal both physical wounds with her magic and, in some cases, emotional wounds with her kind words. Even in the face of hate and resentment, Katelle does her best to stay reasonable, polite and kind. There are few people she has encountered that cause her reason to be angry or upset and unluckily for her, she had to grow up with them.
When not seeing to the visitors of the Temple, Katelle spends her time reading, dabbling in alchemy and cooking. She finds that herbalism and alchemy go hand in hand, and if she’s going to be growing plants to put in potions, she might as well grow a few to put in her stew while she's at it.
History:
Katelle is the adopted daughter of a high-ranking Nordic man, Vharick Senior and his shrewd and caustic wife, Sevena. She has two elder siblings: Marienne, her sister and Vharick Junior, her brother.
Katelle remembers very little of her childhood, as she was taken in by the Nordic couple when she was still a toddler. Her memories of her life before Vharick adopted her consist mainly of dirty streets and seawater. If she concentrates hard enough, she can recall a smiling woman with grey-blue eyes standing on a bridge, but nothing ever comes from this memory except disappointment.
Vharick Senior was an honest fellow, always eager to share a kind word and cold drink with any man, woman or mutt that came into view. He was, despite being a Nord, much kinder towards non-nordic folk than most of his kin could claim. He believed that men and women of all races were the same on the inside, often known to spout off influential phrases such as “They bleed when ya wound em, they cry when they’re sad, they laugh when overjoyed, so whats it matter which way their ears are pointin?”
Sevena, however, could not say the same. Sevena was, at best, a very racist woman, and that was putting it nicely. So convinced was she of Nords being the better race that she wholeheartedly disapproved of her husband adopting a non-nordic girl, referring to her as “The help” when in public, rather than her child.
Sevena doted and fawned over her own blood-children, causing them to become spoiled and cruel, like her. However, for as cold as she was, she was also just as cunning. She and her children put on a convincing act for her husband, treating Katelle sweetly only long enough for her father to leave the room, before dropping the act faster than ice could melt in fire.
With such a cruel mother-figure looking out for her, Katelles childhood post-adoption was fairly rough. Her elder siblings were as foul and acidic as their mother, and despite her frequent weeping stories to her father, he never once saw the proof for himself and could do little to ease her troubles when he was gone. And so her childhood consisted of nefarious taunting and teasing from her siblings between the occasional beating from Sevena.
Her siblings would often taunt her about her Breton blood, as well. Vharick Junior, who was the brighter one of the two, enjoyed whispering to her how Bretons were secretly part elf and that someday when a war against the elves began, he’d be sure to tell everyone that she was one.
Marienne, however, enjoyed bossing Katelle around by following her with a toy dagger in hand and jumping out when she least expected it to threaten and frighten the girl into tears. Occasionally she would even go so far as to cut Katelle ‘by accident’ and then tell her mother it was Katelles own fault.
When Marienne grew older and took up swordsmanship for herself, learning how to weird a blade like a true warrior, Katelle learned to keep her distance as often as she could for fear of an ‘accident’ not so readily patched up.
In the hours away from her family, Katelle would often read or write and occasionally she’d dabble in magic, as she’d found she had a gift for such art at a young age, when somehow managing to patch up her own wound by thought and prayer alone.
So while Marienne studied the art of battle In Whiterun and Vharick Junior left to be an apprentice merchant in the far off Imperial City, Katelle found her solace studying the art of restoration under the Temple of Dibella. After such a life of constant threat and abuse, it was nice to find peace for a change.
But one night, shortly after her 19th birthday, Katelles peace and quiet was lost.
While she was studying in the temple one evening, Marienne came barging in out of nowhere, drunk and angry, her eyes like fire.
“I heard you were here.” She slurred, inching in close to Katelle at an alarmingly fast rate. “Reading books and hiding was always your specialty, wasn’t it, Katelle?”
“If you have no business here, you should go.” Katelle replied, calm and quiet, though the edge to her voice suggested that she was not as composed as she let on.
“Oh, look at you. All high and mighty in your little priestess robe, healing the wounded and leading the lost. Aren’t you something? Little
elven bitch.” Marienne spat Katelles way, the glob of saliva landing somewhere near her feet, missing her frame entirely.
“I’ve told you a million times, Marienne. I am a Breton, I am not—“
“Liar! I know what you are! With your pretty little face and your nasty blonde hair. Why don’t you show me your ears, ELF!” It was clear Marienne was not in her right state of mind and this conversation was getting them nowhere.
“Enough, you need to leave, Marienne. You are upsetting the peace of this temple.”
“I need to LEAVE? Or what? You’ll
heal me to death? You can’t even swing a sword, let alone manage to fight me off. One of us is a trained warrior, the other is an elven whore.”
The words had barely left her mouth before Marienne found herself knocked back a ways, staggering to her knees with the force of the blow she’d just received.
Blinking once, twice, three times, Katelle lowered her palm, shocked by her open display of non-restoration magic that had caused her sister such pain. What had she just done? Had she always known she could do this? …and why did it reveal itself now?
“I should have known. Not only an elf, but a mage too. For a priestess, your sin is quite deep. Like mother, like daughter, I guess. Sin begets more sin. Dirt can only make things worse, not better.”
“What are you referring to?” Katelle asked, lowering her palm somewhat.
“You heard me. My mother told me about your parents. About that filthy orphanage in Riften my father got you from, god knows why. Born in the dirt, she said. No father in sight, she said. The daughter
of an elven whore, she said.”
“You lie!” Katelle hissed, pain striking across her face as if Marienne had slapped her.
Marienne, finally able to rise to her feet, albeit shakily, only laughed, a smirk so entitled and indignant on her face that it made Katelle want to scream.
“Don’t believe me? Go find out for yourself. I’m told she’s still there, slutting the streets like the elven bitch she is. Go find your mother, Katelle. Maybe you can offer the men a tag-team deal together. Two whores for the price of one!”
“GET OUT!” Katelle didn’t need to move, she barely even needed to breathe. Marienne was flung backwards, her body slamming into the temple doors and crumpling to the ground in a heap.
“Katelle, stop!” One of the Head Priestess of the temple fled past her, nearing Marienne to check her body for signs of life. It had all happened so fast, she couldn’t control it! She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone…
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Is she breathing? Is she alright?” Katelle began to move towards her sisters unmoving body, terrifyingly still on the ground.
“Katelle, you should go. We can take it from here.” One of her fellow priestess whispered, urging the girl towards the doors.
“Go? Go where? What do you mean? Is my sister alright?”
“We’ll do what we can but the commotion has summoned the guards! If they see what you’ve done, they’ll arrest you for sure!”
“But Marienne—“
“She’s alive. Just GO!”
Without a moments delay, Katelle was tossed a cloak and a bag and pushed out the temple doors into the cold, dark night, alone.
With nowhere else to go and no family to return to, Katelle found herself heading in the direction of the place she’d never imagined she would go before: Riften.
She didn’t want Marienne to be right. Couldn’t bare it! But at the same time… what if there was someone there who’d known her parents? Someone who recognized her from childhood? If all she found there was grief, well then, she wouldn’t have gained anything she didn’t already have in spades in the first place.
With the essence of time biting at her heels, Marienne fled into the night, with the goal of reaching the hold of Riften on her mind.
Text Color is as seen here.
I spent all day writing it so it should work out nicely.
