Welcome to Gaia! ::

Name: Annantha Greyce Chandler

Age: 15

Location: Gadu, Imisus

Appearance: By no means is Annantha a stunning beauty. She is relatively short, standing in at slightly over five feet with some remaining child plumpness to her figure. Her skin is slightly tanned from working outdoors, and she has a scattering of freckles across her nose and on the back of her neck and shoulders. Her face is rather round, with a small chin, a small upturned nose, and large brown eyes. All of this is framed by her most noticeable feature, the veritable mane of thick, curly auburn hair that seems to float around her head and shoulders like a cloud.
Her clothes are serviceable and plain, though in bright and eye-catching colors. She favors full skirts along with a short sleeved blouse and a vest. She is often seen wearing a pocketed apron over her skirt, the pockets bulging with small knick-knacks and tools useful for when she is working in the store.


Personality:Annantha is not timid, that is certainly the first thing that people notice about her. She is not afraid to speak her mind and interject in conversations with sarcastic comments. Most of the time, especially around her friends, she tries to come off as a worldly person who knows everything there is to know about anything, and can at least convince them of it by interspersing small tidbits of facts she overhears from customers. Though she can convince her friends of her knowledge, older folks would be able to more clearly see through that façade and see the idealist underneath.

She had been raised on stories of the valiant knight in shining armor saving the damsel in distress, and really all she wants is that fairy tale romance. She constantly daydreams about being swept off of her feet by some dashing young man, off to take her to be his princess or something. The fact that this hasn’t happened and her parents won’t let her go out and flirt shamelessly with the boys in town puts her in something of a bad mood whenever she thinks about the sheer injustice of it.

On the subject of her temper, she has one. A big one. It is not a rare thing for her to be happy and laughing one moment to huffing and stomping off the next. She has slowly begun trying to control it a bit better, but it’s not working very well, especially when it comes to her younger brother.
In general, though, she is an overall happy young woman who, despite her endless supply of complaints and griping, is enjoying her life and strives to get as much out of it as she can while she has the chance.

History: Her father was a candle maker. His father before him was a candle maker. And his father before him was a candlemaker.

Suffice it to say, Annantha comes from a long line of candle makers.

Even if she is stuck in the family trade, though, she will not be left to start everything from scratch. For when she comes of an age when she will be able to take over the business she will not only take over the keys to the store, but the other two things that make their business such a success. The first is an old leatherbound journal stuffed full of recipes for candles, from simply how to make them or how to achieve certain colors, to recipes for different scents, many of which are said to have medicinal properties. The second is a small plot of land outside of town, which does not seem like much at first. From the road all that can be seen is a tiny one-room house located in the middle of a field of overgrown wildflowers. But behind the house and hidden amongst the tall grasses are rows of beehives which supply the wax for the candles as well as honey, which provides additional income.

Though her family is neither rich or influential enough to be noticed in social circles, they at least have gained enough attention for the quality of their wares. The various scents and designs of their candles have granted them patronage from several wealthy families and businesses, some of which have been buying from them for decades.

How She Got the Item: Something wasn't quite right, she could tell that right away as she started to head towards the beehives. Even though she was still relatively car from the hives, she was already able to hear the buzzing of the bees. The usual quiet, lazy hum had turned into something loud and angry, and she could see a thick cloud of the insects swarming around the hives. Muttering darkly under her breath, she shifted the basket she had been carrying into the crook of her elbow, and used her now-free hands to pick up the hem of her skirt so she could run freely.

She would have been able to tell something was wrong without having heard the bees. It seemed as if the entire hive had come out at once, and rather than flying off to the field of wildflowers near the hives, they were hovering around it instead, as if trying to ward some kind of predator off.

But nothing was there. She searched around the area, looking for any of the usual culprits, but there were none. No people or cats were in the area, and she couldn't see any sign of any wasps, either. She was about to head back to the small hut to fetch her father, for she had no earthly idea how to deal with this, when she saw it.

It was a bee, that much was obvious, but it was somehow....different than the rest. It was larger than most, and darker, and seemed to be flying in a circle over and over and over again, as if it were incapable of doing anything else. Some part of her kept her from running off, though, and instead she rummaged through the basket she held. A small, empty jar was eventually found (one that usually ended up having a frog or bug or something in it for her brother), and she carefully crept up on the strange bee, hesitating slightly before gently directing it into the jar.

The bees quieted down as she tightened the lid on the jar, almost like magic. She held the jar up in front of her face, trying to get a better look at what she had caught. It was a bee, alright, and from the looks of it it was a queen bee as well. But something was strange, like it was drugged or something. It's movements were slow and sluggish, and it continued to only fly in a circle, around and around the inside of the jar. It was also almost entirely black as well, devoid of any yellow or brown that could usually be found on a bee.

Any further inspection was cut off by a call from the hut. "Annantha, what is taking you so long?" And with a grumble she stuck the jar back in her basket and hurried back to where her father was calling.

Intended Faction: Mazzarine would try and get her to join the Imperial Guard, for both of their sakes. Mazzarine would wish to know how to fight and defend herself in her new body, and she would think that Annantha would need to learn that as well.
Of course, an untrained teenager probably wouldn't fit to well into the guard.
Annantha wouldn't really know which faction to choose, as she's heard bad things about all of them. The Fellowship of the Mages would probably be her first choice though.

Other Things:
-Not a big fan of the dark, usually has her room filled with defective candles and things that couldn't be sold in the store and keep them lit for most of the time while she's in there.
-has one younger brother ( cool who's (she thinks) only purpose in life is to make hers completely miserable.
-there is another candle-making family in town that shares a fierce rivalry with them that has been going on for generations Any mention of one family to the other with often result in stories of how terrible they are.
-has a very basic knowledge of reading and math, just enough to read the labels on things and add up people's purchases

Family things!
And extra stuff!

Family:
Father, mother, younger brother.
All has a part in the family business, which has been in the family for generations. The children have basically been raised in the shop and around the bees and the candle making process, so it is something they have learned steadily since they were young. By the age Annantha is, she would know how to tend to the bees without being stung, learn a good deal of their normal behavior, know how to make basic candles, and would be in the process of learning the more decorative ones and how to add scent and color to the candle itself.

-Her father actually was the one who married into the business, her mother's family owned it before then

Father:
A big, burly man with a pretty awesome beard. A big sucker for his family, which Annantha is perfectly aware of and doesn't hesitate to exploit.
Mother:
A calm and composed woman, is the one who deals with the business for the most part.
Brother:
Young and annoying and seems to live to cause trouble. Tries to act big and manly like his father at times.

Shop:
Candles! Lots of candles! And honey!
some links about medieval beekeeping for future reference for me mostly :v
http://suite101.com/article/history-of-beekeeping-a161621
http://zeidlerguild.awardspace.com/beekeeping_in_anglo.htm



That other family that they all hate:
The Skeppers.
They suck.

Need to go through this again, so if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear 'em!

That'd be awesome! My Skype name is snagoster c:

went through and changed the concept for the plague, added a few things to the bio as well :v~
some of it is still hasn't been fully written out yet, but the basics of everything is there!

Aaah, thank you! :V Hmmhmm, I'll answer them here and then put them into one of the extra posts or incorporate them into the other ones.

Annantha:
-Lots of terrible decisions and her thinking she knows better than everyone else! Also a lot of learning by mistakes. I figured this would be an interesting thing to explore, considering she's at a very impressionable point in her life and could be easily swayed by things around her, and considering all of the politics and such that surround the Plagues, it would be something of a struggle for her to navigate through all of that safely.
-I think her family would try and stay out of the plagues as much as possible, thought hey would know about them. Don't want to attract the trouble that seems to follow in their wake. If they ever found out about Mazzarine (she would probably try and keep her hidden), they would try and keep it quiet, which would probably mean taking control of her, yes. Which would not make either of them happy and conflicts would ensue!
-I figured the mages would be a good place for her to go, since learning magic would require a good grasp on your emotions/temper, which she would have a big problem with at first.

Basically I'm thinking of having her mature and grow a lot mostly through terrible teenager decisions and having them blow up in her face 8V

Mazzarine:
-No! I was thinking of having her come from a wild colony, but the idea of having her belong to the other family would be interesting! Might have to use that, actually...
-See, I was originally thinking of her being a Phasmas, so she could be the other half magic-wise to Annantha, but having her eventually turn into an Infitalis to keep more bee-like qualities (stingers and the like), also having the ability to spread the disease as an equivalent to stinging? I think I'm leaning more towards a Phasmas at the moment, though. Might just need to sit on it for a bit!

Yes! Please let me know if you can think of anything else, you've helped a great deal! biggrin I don't have AIM any more, but you can always PM me~