"they don't think it be like it is, but it do."
Name: Bernia the Briar
Rank: Greenband
Appearance:It is said looks are oft deceiving, but if this were the case, nobody ever informed Bernia. Short in height and slight of build, the mercurial youngster cuts the same form one would expect of a guttersnipe. She is thin and scrawny, leaner than one her age has right to be and commonly hunches forward to further deprive herself of stature, though whether of habit or by malnutrition her posture suffers it is unknown. Her fur, frequently dirty and unkempt, is cinnamon brown in tone, intermittently specked with small pale spots along her back and softened into a milky white on her undercarriage. Her youthful features stand stark against the hardened, hateful look in her dark eyes, with a short muzzle, shiny black whiskers, and large round ears she's yet to fully grow into outing her as mouseling. She does not dress herself, seeing clothing as unnecessary, though she does keep a twine belt looped around her narrow hips to hold various pouches, tools and trophies, and perhaps more notably, insists upon wearing a copper band around the base of her tail.
Personality: In possession of an aptly given alias, Bernia can best be described as thorny. She is capricious and hot-tempered, unusually spiteful and almost universally mistrusting of those around her. She is first and foremost self-serving, considering herself to be the only ally in this world she is capable of trusting. She will put herself before others almost every step of the way if given such an option, although she is not above cooperation if it is apparent she will benefit from it in the long term. Greedy to a fault, the young mouse covets material possessions above all else, be they something so simple as an extra nut at meal time or the sparkling pyrite brooch of a wealthy merchant mouse. It goes without saying that she has little in the way of morals when it comes to obtaining such items, and finds herself at odds with companion and civilian alike when her impulsiveness gets the better of her, and she appropriates them.
Honor, justice and chivalry have little more value to the Briar than the dung which feeds Redfort's beetle population. She sees them as hypocritical at best, outright deceptions at worst, lies crafted by mice in high towers with full coffers to soften the guilt of their own actions. She knows the world for what it is, a cruel and hard place where mice are to the wider world, and even their fellow mouse, what the aforementioned words are to her. Bernia fully believes that those who embrace the nature of the world, mouse eat mouse, will come ahead of those who delude themselves with weak morality. She cheats, she steals, she claws and fights and scratches and bites without remorse, for experience has taught her that it works; it has gotten her this far, and she hasn't the inclination to try anything else. It is, therefore, obvious that she sees her apprenticeship at the watch as little more than an opportunity to reach a better life, a fully pragmatic decision rather than any kind of bright-eyed dream.
There is much in the world that Bernia holds in contempt beyond the mummer's farce of rules that bind civilization together. She rails against orders, her upbringing casting authority figures as the enemy, often complying only well enough to avoid punsihment without compromising her freedom too much. She has a tendency to see enemies in every crowd, knives in every corner, leading to standoffish behavior even in the face of the rare acts of kindness she has come to experience, as her own mercenary behavior has ingrained the idea that others merely utilize such honeyed words to lower her guard and obtain something for themselves. It is a painful truth for the young mouse to admit, but there is little in this world she has to enjoy. Aside from her almost comical greed and the brief, but intense thrill she gets from pocketing things of value, Bernia knows nothing of the simple pleasures of life. She lives every moment on edge, always ready to fight or take flight, never prepared to reap the benefits of laxity the society she so vehemently rejects provide mousekind.