Nikita Norman
Full Name: Nikita Sinra Norman
Nickname(s): Kita
Age: 21
Race: Human
General Appearance: Height: Average height at 5”4’ Weight: 150lbs—she has a fair amount of hidden muscle mass. Build: She's on the petite side. Hair: Pale brown like her father’s, she keeps it in a long-ish, spiky pixie cut, ensuring it’s short enough to not be a huge bother… but, regrettably, short enough to get her some flak about it being a “man’s hair length.” Eyes: She inherited her mother’s eyes. They’re a dark--and nearly ethereally--vivid green with silvery flecks. Anything Else: She's rather tan from working outdoors, and, though it doesn’t show unless she’s using her muscles, she’s quite strong from doing a lot of fieldwork.
Distinguishing Marks: Her hands are calloused. She has her fair share of scars from random mishaps, including one just beneath her left jaw joint that she swears itches in prediction of rain.
Clothes Wear: Never anything fancy, though she’s partial to wearing pants. You try chopping wood or hunting in a dress.
Prized Possession(s): A ring she inherited from her mother. Its silver band is inlayed with small purple stones Nikita believes are amethysts. Her mother always claimed that it was magic, though, if it is, Nikita has never been capable of making it do anything besides stay on her finger. So she’s pretty sure that that was just a fable. If it isn’t on her finger, then it’s on a chain around her neck.
Occupation: Whatever odd jobs she can get around town with having the reputation of being ‘cursed.’
Weapon(s): Depends on the situation. She has quite a few sharp pointy things around their cottage she could use, as well as a bow and arrows for hunting. And she'd be happy to use any of them in self-defense if she needed to.
Personality: She’s usually the determined sort, who has come to not take “no” for an answer. She’d always been a wild whirlwind, though that temperament has been somewhat suppressed over the years. While she tries to be positive, a weight lingers on her shoulders, and pulls at the edges of her every smile. She’s the caring sort, and, since she herself has been through so much, hates seeing others suffering.
Quirks: She often fidgets with her ring, and can frequently be heard singing or humming one of the many folk songs she learned growing up, some in languages from around the world that she doesn’t understand, but still knows the lyrics to… though, she’s sure she mangles pronunciation. And, one might add, she’s pretty good at singing. Her skills have even earned her a few coins.
Family: Parents (Deceased): Amira and Nicodemus III. Stepmother (Deceased): Marian. Siblings: Nicodemus IV. But he only ever goes by Nico. Nikita’s younger brother at age 10.
A Not So Short Bio: The people of her town call her family cursed—and she’s pretty sure they’re right.
When she was a child, she and her parents were nomads, moving wherever the wind took them, meeting new people with each turn of their head and making friends as naturally as breathing. Her house was a small, but cozy caravan pulled by two horses. Sometimes, they even traveled with others, though they never stayed together for long.
But then, when Nikita was eight, the unthinkable happened. They’d stumbled on a “small gem of a town,” as her mother put it. Known to the locals as Baxtree, it was nestled between a lush forest and the undulating sea. Back then, they hadn’t known the warnings, hadn’t known exactly how dangerous that forest could be.
But the forest didn’t let them remain naïve for long.
Having befriended the town’s healer, the woman offered to watch Nikita so her parents could have some time to themselves. Alas, instead of utilizing the time to walk the beach as the healer had suggested, they decided instead to investigate the forest.
It was rare, townsfolk said afterward, a freak happenstance; elves hadn’t ventured so close to the town in generations. Yet, it seemed, that night they had.
Though two of them had set out, that night, only her father returned, his foot caught in the reins of his horse as the half-mad creature dragged him through town. They had never been capable of getting a clear idea of what had happened, but one thing was discernable in Nicodemus’ pain-induced rantings; they had encountered two creatures somewhere on a game trail they'd followed, two creatures whose descriptions fit with the elves known to live deep in the heart of the woods.
After, her father could remember only bits and pieces. Nikita was never sure if the elves had killed the woman outward, of if it was a curst that had done her in. But they did find the mangled body of both her mother and the horse she’d been riding.
Alas, her father never fully recovered, needing a cane on his best days. Though, he’d admitted, even if he’d been healthy, he wouldn’t have wanted to leave where his wife was buried. And so, Nikita became a denizen of Baxtree.
The clergy of the town took pity on them, offering them a plot of land at the edge of town in exchange for a percentage of anything they grew on it, or anything they hunted in the outskirts of the forest until they paid off their debt.
Her father did everything he could to provide a decent life for her, encouraging Nikita and teaching her things that many of the town called “man’s work.” At first, it seemed like the effects of the curse, if that was what had happened, had ended with her mother’s death. Her father remarried two years later to a woman who had sailed in from another country. Not long after, they had a son.
A woman coming from a bit of money, he and his new wife, Marian, had a small cottage built on the plot of land, replacing the caravan. After all, as a growing family, the needed the space.
But that family wasn’t to last.
Nicodemus IV was born a sickly thing. At first, they hadn’t thought he would survive, but, through some miracle—or perhaps curse, depending on how you look at it—the child survived.
When Nikita was fourteen, Marian was struck with an illness neither the town healer nor doctor had ever seen before. The woman wasted away slowly. Then, with the earth of her grave still fresh, Nikita’s father contracted the same disease.
While some of the braver townsfolk came to help, including the healer, no one else dared come near them for fear of this curse spreading. But it never did.
Nikita’s father died before her fifteenth birthday, leaving her and Nico to fend for themselves. Though the healer kept a close eye on the children, neither of them caught the disease.
From then on, Nikita did everything she could to take care of her brother and herself. She took what odd jobs she could, though finding them was difficult. No one wanted to risk the spread of whatever curse had befallen her family.
It was her and the all-but-bedridden Nico against the world. But now, even he seems to be crawling ever closer to Death's eager embrace.