Fife
A mute urchin raised in the streets of Elbion. Self-named and self-taught, she is a terrible thief and an even worse Empath.
Appearance
Tiny is a great word to initially describe Fife. Whether her diminutive stature is due to natural genetics or stunted growth due to malnourishment during childhood, one cannot be sure, and Fife can’t offer an explanation either. Her small size, however, has proven invaluable in passing herself as a young boy.This deception is accomplished by a combination of her androgynous features, cropped shoulder-length hair, and the use of cloth bindings. Mousy in coloration, her unremarkable appearance warrants her a great deal of anonymity in Elbion, which is only broken when she gets caught stealing or attempting to slip into parts of town to which she does not have legal means to enter.
Personality
+ Persistent. Some city guards would argue that this is not a positive trait, but it’s some of the only real personality Fife has.+/- Loner. Fife’s status as a homeless street urchin in Elbion and mute don’t usually help her case when it comes to making friends and allies. She tends to rely only on herself and can go days -- even weeks -- without interacting with another person. This life suits her just fine.
- Haunted. In the past, she has trusted kind words and gentle eyes, and has paid a high price for such blind faith. This past trauma is the root her forced isolation and fuels recurrent nightmares. She is more than a little jumpy and doesn’t often get peaceful rest.
Skills & Abilities
WhistlingThough she can't speak, Fife can certainly whistle. She is a proficient and skilled whistler and can imitate the instrument of her namesake.
Journeyman Thief
Fife has sticky fingers. She is a decent pickpocket and her stealth skills are fair at best, but improving with practice.
Empath
Without knowing what she is doing, Fife has been using basic Empathy magic. Though she wields it poorly and at risk to her safety, it has often tipped the scales between capture and escape. She really has no idea what she is doing with this mysterious ability until she is already feeling the effects of the emotions she has siphoned and use, and is often left feeling out of balance for extended periods of time afterwards.
Illiterate
Fife is completely illiterate, having neither learned to read nor write. She can recognize familiar shapes from various store signage, but has little idea of which sounds they correspond to.
Mute
Fife is mute; for whatever reason, she is unable to produce sounds via her vocal cords. She compensates this by communicating with gestures and whistles but often forgoes human interaction at large.
Biography & Lore
Born to unknown parents, Fife’s first memories are of being reared by other children in the streets of Elbion. As the shared responsibility of three older children, her “brother and sisters” would be the first and last people she could consider family. Each would disappear suddenly over time until she was left alone to fend for herself.The rest of her life has been a pendulum swing of good and bad fortune. Never quite good enough to be accepted into any underground thief guilds, she doesn’t have any other viable skills that could have helped her. She managed to pull herself up by the bootstraps when times got hard and has brought herself to what she assumes is adulthood (she’s not really sure how old she is, after all). She continues to maintain herself as an okay pickpocket and terrible thief.