Boy Brashaw. 27. Omnisexual. Airbender. Tier 2.
"I’m restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.“
✔ Spontaneous, nonjudgmental, spiritual, headstrong
✘ Absentminded, unmotivated, precocious, fickle
Boy grew with flowers. That isn’t to say she grew up with flowers, for that would be too simple a phrase; they grew together. Born to a woman without a husband (and wanting for none), a woman with earth in her blood, a woman with the deed to the Dew Drop Flower Shop, Delia Brashaw inherited all these traits from her mother, Boy’s grandmother, who acquired them from her mother. In a superstitious light, one might have come to the conclusion that the Brashaw women were cursed: three generations of Flower Shop hung from their family tree. But, of course, witches are never superstitious, because they are the very creatures superstitions come from. Nor were the Brashaw women passive victims; they chose their own fate, and they needed no man to survive. Hence, when the next daughter was born, she was named Boy, as a statement: the only Boy the Brashaw women would ever need.
Boy would resent her name as a child, as all youths with unusual monikers are ought to do at first. But she listened to the tales her mother, and her mother’s mother, and even her mother’s mother told her while they sat in the back of the shop, drinking lilac wine, and then she understood her name. After that, she would only resent it for being a statement. She didn’t dislike the idea of making a point, only being made into a proclamation for someone else. But she got over that, too.
As all the women before her, Boy was expected to at least take care of the flowers, if not take over the entire shop when she came of age. This was an easy task to imagine, as she spent more time in the garden with her mother, grandmother, and “aunts” (considered blood by both covenant or womb), watching the older women trade advice on livelihood and lilies. They often called themselves the ”real” Steel Magnolias, laughing into their drinks or smiling knowingly. Though Boy was too young to understand much when she began sitting it on these talks, she began to revere both flowers and women as things of reverence and a quiet, mystic power. Boy eyed the shop, at the time more simply called Brashaw’s Flowers & Sundries, with veneration, awaiting the day she would officially have a hold on it.
But genetics do not always feel beholden to tradition, which came as a surprise to all when her powers manifested — unlike the terraformer women before her, Boy would find herself a child of the air (this shouldn’t have been much of a shock, in retrospect, for she was always whirring off in different directions without warning, as if a gust had taken her). At ten, this was something of a devastating blow for a girl who wanted so badly to emulate the women in the garden. But when those same women caught Boy crying amongst petunias, they gathered her in their soft arms and smiled. They would teach her all the basics, the important things, and the details no mundane book could teach: how precisely to hold peonies, what music daisies like best, where exactly birds of paradise should be planted and why. Under their tutelage, Boy grew with the flowers, tending to them with a skill and care that matched her teachers. Subsequently, her powers as an airbender took longer to grow, as her focus was always elsewhere. As of late, she has begun to fixate on her own powers, and the need to play with and strengthen them.
Of course, even the best instructors could not call out the wind from Boy’s bones. She would always blame her dreamy mind on the place she grew up - how could a girl be anything but quixotic, with roses and hanging vines as companions? - but the truth was probably far more to do with the wind in her. Boy was gifted with many things, including a quick mind and substantial memory that allowed her to carry far more than the average being, but it all seemed to be wasted. For all her intelligence, she only did moderately well in school; even with her photographic memory, she couldn’t seem to pay enough attention in class, and never did the homework. Even the women she had once so lauded could not convince her to turn her attentions more intently upon her work — even if she tried briefly, her mind always wandered elsewhere. After doing a spastic smattering of university courses within the span of three years, it was rarely more than two classes a semester, and they were chosen over interest rather than future applicability.
Boy still isn’t the official owner of the Dew Drop, but it was she who suggested and changed the name, and it is her you’ll see most often, if you enter the quaint shop, sitting cross-legged on the counter or amongst the flowers in the back. Despite her lack of earth magic, under Boy’s lead the roses of the Dew Drop have become rather infamous for their full, long lasting bloom and bright petals. Which is just as well, for the roses are her one source of consistency. Everything else seems to come and go as the wind blows, her interests coming and going in intensity before dropping suddenly. As such, she’s regarded as something of a burnout among the town - wasted potential. Though Boy often feels the need to try vastly different things (resulting in a semester of circus skill, an ability to read dead languages, vastly differing ex-partners), she isn’t bothered by any stigma placed on her. Boy is her mother’s daughter, a strong and spiritual woman that bows only to her own inner flame and that of the Goddess’.
Boy constantly smells like roses. Her mother jokes this is the tiny shred of Earth magic she inherited: her unshakable scent.
Grows and smokes her own marijuana. Only sells to people she already knows and likes (or at least gets a good vibe from), and is more likely to invite you to blaze with her for free than actually barter on a price.
Reads voraciously, but with no particular genre of interest. To read less than a book a week is highly unusual for her. Quotes or references novels often.
Has been a vegetarian since age nine, of her own volition; since then she has only eaten meat three times, twice by accident. The remaining incident was the result of too much weed and an unbending desire to remember what a cheeseburger tastes like.
Has a hoop piercing through her right nostril.
Wears her hair in a topknot/bun most of the time. It gets in her way too often, otherwise, and she’s far too lazy to style it in the mornings.
Generally passive to the struggle between Council and their opposition; though this is partially because she does not allow herself to think about the topic — too serious, with too many ramifications, should she pick a side.
A magpie at heart, Boy is a scavenger of odd and shiny things: dead languages, strange religions, odd talents, weird objects. As such, anywhere she inhabits for very long becomes cluttered, though she will claim an attachment to each object (even the ones that look like trash).
This character is taken by Taryn.
