It has been some years since this middle class Maormer from Pyandonea emmigrated to Skyrim to help combat the dragon menace. She now resides in a shack somewhere in the Rift, the most tolerable place for her to be, and patrolls her 'territory', fighting...
"Why are you here?” Vanye counters back, crossing his arms over his chest, tilting his chin to make himself look both taller and more intimidating, “I am allowed to go wherever I please, I do not need to -"
"We are here to investigate a rather peculiar case of lost magic." Faer breaks in again, glaring at Vanye who just huffs and keeps glaring at Kest, "It is becoming increasingly clear that these two -" she looks pointedly at Raakion and Vanye, "- are far more of a hindrance than they are a help."
"I did get you that information you needed.” Raakion says lightly, with a bit of a lilt to his tone, “I can’t help that her husband forbade us to go close to the mine. Nords are so boringly monogamous.”
Faer just rubs a hand over her eyes, “Kest, I need a favour.”
"I wasn't asking you, priest." Kest bites out, looking very close to shouting. And very close to Shouting, come to that. Blessedly, her only reaction to his attempt at intimidation is to roll her eyes. Hard. "Serpent's breath, the world doesn't revolve around you."
She barely listens to Faer's description of her mission. Something something magic something about mines. Uninteresting. Especially when she can be glaring at that thrice-cursed Vanye instead. That is, until-
"You what." Kest asks flatly, barely a question. Then, "No."
"You know her?" Raakion hits his brother on the shoulder, "Brother dearest, how could you not tell me?"
"I know it -" Vanye says, with not a little bit of contempt in his voice, "- only because she punched me." He sends a very angry kind of glare in her direction, "In the face.”
Raakion sends Kest a blinding smile at that, “Oh, I like you.”
Faer, sensing a kind of disaster coming, steps between them, “Raakion, stop acting as if though she is a show animal. Vanye, I’ll punch you in the face if you don’t stop talking like that.”
Kest is an adult. She is more than likely at least three times Vanye's age. Unfortunately that doesn't mean she's mature.
"Because you were calling me a savage. And an it. And I'll punch you again if you don't shut up." She objects petulantly, easily drawn into an argument with the younger mer.
"And you can-" She starts, before Faer intervenes. The sentence deteriorates into a directionless snarl, probably for the better.
"Why are you here." She tries instead, mood soured, glaring at the back of Faer's head.
"Yes. Yes he is." Faer says with a very bitten, gritted smile. At Kests story she nods attentively, even though she isn’t listening all that intently, "A great shame, is what it is. Tip: If you want to kill him, do challenge him to a duel first. Nords are surprisingly okay with killing as long as you announce it first and then do it publicly."
Raakion, having grown bored with parrying Vanye’s declining-in-quality insults, looks their way. He blinks, once, when he sees Kest before giving a gasp,
"Faer, darling, you did not tell me you knew a maormer." He claps his hands together once, in some sort of exclamation of delight, "Oh, brother, look, a maormer!”
Vanye, already having had his fur ruffled by his brother, gives a very deep kind of scowl, “Oh, look, its the savage."
"I plan to." She hadn't, actually, known about the duel thing. Kest tended to keep to herself if she had the choice. But, now that Faer mentioned it, she found herself distracted by the prospect of fighting that little swine - until the pale altmer behind Faer began talking,
A smile that was well on its way to becoming disturbingly savage disappeared completely upon hearing the word 'maormer', and worse, spoken like she was some kind of unique animal. Kest sneered and hunched her shoulders, looking both hunted and distinctly prepared to bite if she found it necessary.
"What." She mutters, mostly to herself, eyeballing first Vanye, then the taller one. "Be quiet. Damn Altmer."
"A rather fascinating turn of events made me find myself in Markarth, it started with an old friend and it will end with the same old friend either dead or maimed." Faer answers, a broad grin on her face, "But there is no time for such talk right now, I know you are a dreadfully busy woman just as I am. But why, my dear Kest, are you here?”
Vanye doesn’t even notice Kest, but what is even more remarkable is that Seron doesn’t, instead he is having way too much fun answering all of Vanye’s insults with very very thinly veiled sexual innuendos which makes Vanye sputter, rage and stammer all at the same time.
"Huh," Kest snorts, and she even grins a bit when she does. "Is this friend why there's two of them, now?"
She points, roughly, at Seron and Vanye. As one might point to an object of curiosity and repulsion, but doesn't want to come too close to it.
"Same reason I go anywhere. Word of a dragon. Shit word, this time. Nothing there but bandits and a lot of lizard skins." The scowl returns with a vengeance. Likely she'll be giving the same friendly greeting to the source of her tip that Faer is going to be giving her friend.
Or well, not just a random someone, but rather a rather specific someone.
The dubious honor of being this special person that manages to wear Faers rather extensive patience thin, goes to the Aldataur brothers who have threatened, chattered and been such general nuisance that Faer does not even bother to separate them into different people anymore.
Currently, they were fighting about something trivial. It had probably started with Vanye giving a thinly veiled insult regarding Raakions old profession, and Raakion responding with all the viciousness and clever tongue Vanye lacked. It had escalated, and they were now fighting over the proper proununciation of ‘vase’.
Faer, in a moment of weakness, turns her eyes skywards and prays to Gods she doesn’t believe in (or, well, they had existed, that much she was clear about, but she didn’t really think they were still there) for something to strike down the two brothers walking behind her. Her suspicions about Gods not really listening was once more proven correct.
Or, well, perhaps it wasn’t.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a familiar face.
Faer are many things, but above all, she is an opportunist.
".... Faer." Kest scowls, in no mood to be cheerful to see anyone. Particularly not someone affiliated with snotty priests. Who seems to have... multiplied.
She eyes the two pale Altmer behind Faer mistrustfully. Her knowledge of the common tongue by now is fairly complete, but she still can't quite understand what their argument is really about. Which doesn't improve her mood.
"What is it." She eventually continues. The words sound pried out of her. Probably, she's meant to sound more social or at least more polite. "I didn't know you'd be in Markarth."
20. What is a self-inflicted misery of theirs? (i.e. something they perpetuate themselves)
Loneliness. Kest likes being alone and often finds people overly taxing to be around, but there is a difference between being alone and being lonely, and even she craves company sometimes. Which is difficult, because she is a stranger in Skyrim even after spending a year or two there by now, and because she keeps driving people away who might have wanted to be her friend.
It's not even a mystery to her. She knows she drives people away. And she'll keep doing it, too.
Dog helps, but he can't really talk when she needs to hear a friendly voice.
OH man. Kest is loaded up with emotional shortcomings.
She can and does make friends and establish emotional connections with a meager number of individuals blessed with either thick skin or a stubborn streak the size of a country mile. However, there is a problem. That being, she is extremely, extremely uncomfortable with confronting and expressing her own emotions when they stray too far away from her comfort zones of disgust and anger. Often she will outright refuse to acknowledge she has them at all. If the issue is pushed too much, she’ll lash out and overcompensate with the anger in an effort to prove that she’s right.
She’s even stubborn about how she definitely does not like Dog and he is the worst purchase she’s ever made, to the point of purposefully not naming him something decent and just calling him Dog. While she feeds him table scraps and lets him sleep on her bed.
Kest is a decisive person, but she is also very sedentary, emotionally. She’s just plain used to anger, and those softer emotions? They make her nervous, uncertain, and (in her eyes) dependent on other people. She hates it.
Understandably, this makes her a hard friend to keep and a very difficult person to love. It takes more time to ease her into being comfortable with those emotions than most people are willing to invest. And she can be! While she will never be the most overtly loving person, in some versions of her future she becomes very affectionate and physically expressive. But even in the best of those verses, it takes decades.
19. Is there anything they refuse to budge on? What are they stubborn about?
The Altmer-Maormer conflict, to give the most obvious answer. The annihilation of the Maormer fleet and subsequent sequestering of their standing military force to Pyandonea happened before she was born, so she has no direct experience meeting, fighting, or hating Altmer. But like any country, the history that is taught is the one that puts themselves in the best light and the enemy in the worst, so she grew up hating the idea of Altmer and what they, as the Maormer teach it, stole from her people. Whether or not it’s true.
So, hating Altmer. Snapping at them, sneering at them, generally thinking they’re the scum of the earth. That’s a thing she, right now, refuses to budge on. But that’s an inherited hatred, and isn’t the most perfect way to answer this question.
That Skyrim is a terrible, inane, stupidly cold country and the natives are even more terrible, inane, and stupid for living there. See above for how stubborn she is about her emotions. The Dawnguard is a stupid idea, who needs a guild of vampire hunters, just crush the one attacking you and move on. She continually expects there to be other dragonborn, but refuses the idea that they might be better at it than she is when she does meet one. Take your pick! There’s plenty to be stubborn about. She’ll even be stubborn about which utensil is the best one to eat with.
Toss some numbers in my inbox and the character I should answer them for.
1. What is one thing others might find intolerable about them?
2. Do they have any annoying quirks? If so, what are they?
3. Name one or more of their bad habits.
4. Any addictions? (Food, sex, drugs/alcohol, shopping, power/control, etc.)
5. What is one thing they do that can negatively affect their relationship with friends?
6. Their romantic relationships?
7. What is the biggest mistake they’ve ever made?
8. What mistake(s) do they continue to make/have not learned from?
9. Name some of their major physical shortcomings.
10. Some of their emotional shortcomings?
11. What are their intellectual shortcomings?
12. At least one thing that they tend to overreact to.
13. In what ways might they be overly negative and/or pessimistic?
14. Is there anything they are too optimistic about?
15. How might they be ignorant or prejudiced?
16. Do they have any behaviors and/or beliefs that cannot be adequately justified?
17. When would they be too judgmental of someone or something?
18. Are they ever a pushover about something? If so, how?
19. Is there anything they refuse to budge on? What are they stubborn about?
20. What is a self-inflicted misery of theirs? (i.e. something they perpetuate themselves)
"Those markings they have look really cool! I've seen some tattoos, but nothing like those, if that's what they are. They look like they could definitely hold their own in a fight and then some. Something about them seems...different, but I don't know how to explain it. ...I wonder where they're from, and where they've been."
Well. The khajiit is not wrong. -she proceeds to go about her business but you can tell. she's flattered.-
I don't remember her name, and she was rude to Jitters. ...About Jitters. I don't hold with people who are rude about my cat. They're usually bad news, in one way or another.
The cat is bald. I don't care how friendly he is, it's strange. At least the cat matches the mer. I guess.
Kest's face is a rectangle, essentially, from any direction. Her cheekbones are pronounced, wide, and low set in what I believe is typical of Maormer, in contrast to Altmeri high, delicate cheekbones. As are her short, blunt ears. Whether they are or not, they're certainly a trait of her particular family.
Also nabbing the opportunity to show how the rest of her head tattoo stretches beyond her hairline, and what that hairline actually is.
Her ears do stick out a little, but when her hair is down, it's harder to notice.
