[Q] Eir the Jelena Witch Hazel / Arctic Goat

[theLimeTree]

All the trees stood like skeletons
silhouettes of spilled ink
and the snows fell in sheets and got wrapped around our feet
we built the fire evermore with winter beating at the door

 

[theLimeTree]

User
Name: Petra Haugen
Age: 22
Magic Affinity: Life Affinity -Injury Empathy: through touch Petra will be able to take medical maladies away from people. However, given that you cannot create nor destroy any energy, this includes destructive and healing components, the injury will not simply dissipate but will transfer to Petra herself, mirroring the patient before. This only happens through touch yet, this means that a simple brush with someone and she will gain all or a large portion of their injuries. As she grows more aware he will be able to only take portions of an injury to even out the pain and even transfer injuries.

Appearance: Petra would never categorize her as a graceful dame, everything about her falls straight from her father’s figure. Her form is built, yet her appearance is stalky and short standing at 5'2". She isn’t thick but she is a far cry form her mother’s willowy and frail frame. Her hands are large and strong; her legs tight and powerful. She’s a born climber like her father- made from the warm rock of the mountains. Her hair lacks lustre and is as dark as boiling coffee. Her skin is pale and dusted with freckles, pebbles across her face and arms- pale next to her piercing gaze of fjord waters.


Personality: Of the 16 personality types- Petra falls straight into the ESTJ portrait. Petra knew nothing but love in her youth, she is strong minded and finds herself completely comfortable in her own skin. She believes that she can control her environment and needs to have her ‘world’ running smoothly and systematically. She values honesty, respects laws and traditions and has the expectation that her peers share a similar view. Petra is in that sense very close-minded, but not to a fault. She doesn’t attack an opposing stance so much as doesn’t comprehend and cannot understand. Her world is built on facts derived from observation, logic and direct sensory stimulation. She is quick to express her thoughts and judgments in a situation forwardly and often lacks the biting of the tongue response and will vocalize her thoughts without much of a filter. When hitting one of these ‘misunderstanding’ ruts with Petra, it is best to explain in absolute terms or it will be lost to her and she’ll move on to a different train of thought.

Emotionally she tends to be overly detail oriented and doesn’t quite recognize the depths of what emotions carry. This isn’t to say she doesn’t hold emotions- she may in fact express her emotions more than one of her peers- if laughter illicit a good feeling- she will laugh. However, she not deals with the other side of the coin. Anxiety, depression and sadness all carry bad feelings with them and thus she will avoid the root causes of the emotions that make her feel less than ‘good’.

As an overly logical being, Petra puts forth full effort in everything she chooses to conquer- however it has to be something that aligns with her goals otherwise she will put that task on the backburner and ‘forget’ about it. However, if Petra is able to see the relevance of a goal she doesn’t understand, she will put every effort into understanding said goal and incorporating it into her quest for clarity and security.

History: [x] To paint a family portrait…

Felix Haugen never had busied himself with life beyond the snowy peaks. Something about the clean mountain air cleared his head and he fancied himself a simple man. He was smart and sharp as a tack however the words never stayed in place long enough for him to capture them- reading was more of a chore and he took to the outdoors as his classroom. He was an honest man who believed your worth was in direct correlation to the callouses on your hands- like his father before him. He fell in love as a boy to a girl of scrawny frame, Hazel. While her pale skin and limp hair of strawberry blonde was nothing special- to him the light off the ice made her as beautiful as a china doll. He was certain, at the young age of 12, that this woman would someday be his wife. Three years passed and he learned some clever poetry- his vocabulary mashed and poorly pronounced, she agreed to courtship purely out of pity and a fraction of flattery. When he was 18, he began asking her every day for her hand- she was impressed with his persistence and finally agreed- young lovers at 19. Magic never developed in him; maybe there was a freak mutation in his genes blocking it that also caused his mental state. He didn’t think much of it- content with his life.

Felix made his living through hunting, farming medicinal herbs of which his wife would use and concoct into medicines. The mountaineer and his apothecary wife lived a happy life far from the cities and in the harsh mountains. Then Hazel was pregnant with Petra. Her health was never strong before the pregnancy- the child in her only seemed to exacerbate her condition. 9 months and two weeks later Petra was born in a river of blood, healthy despite her failing mother. Hazel could not be saved and Felix was left with his wife’s ghost and newborn child. Initially the depression hit hard- but somehow he made it through his daughter’s early months. He vowed to keep her healthy and was born again as a new man by the time Petra offered up her first words of ‘poppa’, ‘goat’ and ‘no’.

Petra was a plump child; well fed and athletic- yet Felix always worried that his wife’s health would start shining through. It never did. Petra was a strong girl, learning ropes, knots and hitches so she could scale the cliffs like her father. She lived on the side of the rocks, in the rivers and never wandered far from her father’s loving gaze.

By the time Petra was 6, Felix knew his daughter had also dodged the proverbial bullet of ‘letter soup’. She attended classes like any other child and eventually grew curious to her mother’s books on medicinal properties of plants and stone. She was fascinated with the thought of her mother- an entity kept very much in mind through Felix’s tales- and strived to match Hazel’s intelligence. She did everything she could to commit the books to memory including creating field books of her own. During many pitched climbs she would stop and draw the fauna clinging to cliff face and take a sample to experiment with upon reaching home.

Felix was blessed with the best of both him and his wife- when he looked to Petra he saw the world he had shut out in fear of mockery. The world his wife left because of him. Petra was 8 when he sensed something was different about her. He had come home after cleaning game- a fresh cut seeping on his thumb and moved immediately to wash the wound and wrap it. Petra was dismayed and immediately went to her father’s aid- too young actually be of any help. As soon as her hands lain on his she shrieked and started sobbing. Fresh blood fell to the floor and he stood in awe looking down at his sobbing daughter. Her shaking hands now fresh with blood- a cut identical to his went up her finger. Felix immediately tended to his daughter’s wound- shocked to find his own hand devoid of any injury.

The pair hushed on the incident and Petra began to shrink away from her father until one day when she returned from the classroom she looked to him and stated solemnly. ‘I think I’m special like the other kids’. Magic was in his daughter and he had no other choice than to push her to lead the life he never could.

Petra dreaded the Academy but this was the only way to explore more of her ability and the studying was a familiar trend. Her father stayed on that mountain and despite his trouble with the written word he corresponded with his daughter- sending her sketches of the house, stories of Petra’s mother and praised. He was a rock for her in her difficult studies and tried to keep the salt stains clear of Petra’s letters but he couldn’t help but feeling the ache of having lost the last essence of his family too early. He was a changed man, quiet, vacant and never fully there. It’s as if he is halfway between that mountain home and in his wife’s embrace.

Petra faced her initial assessment later than most- mostly due to her unease about her magic. She finished her studies without being called for an assessment and immediately applied into a medic internship- knowing her strengths in this field and there she stays- moving from learning opportunity to classroom until the age 19 when she finally receives her medal. She chose the essence of Jenel witch-hazel, the coppery petals fitting her image of her mother- the flower one of healing and the name that of Felix’s blessed wife.

She wishes to move back to the mountains and be near her father once more.  

[theLimeTree]

Guardian
Name: Eir [from Norse mythology, a goddess and/or valkyrie associated with medical skill]
Magic Affinity: Life - Accelerated cell regeneration, Eir possess the ability to influence the rapid growth of living cells through touch. With Petra specifically, Eir will aid in the rapid healing of tissue and skeletal injuries along with blood regeneration. However there is a point where too much of a good thing becomes poor and while the cycle of regeneration is expedited- so is the death. Cells can die quicker or tumors can form. Eir's ability is not limited to human cells but any living cell- read plant growth/death. Another limitation is the elemental requirements-- base level example being a plant. If Eir were too accelerate the growth of a sapling- death would occur much sooner because the required nutrients, metals and water may not be readily available- the sapling may produce a few more leaves however it will die without gaining in size. In the situation of a human body, all of the elements are readily available but as stated earlier- tumors and mass cell death leading to sepsis can easily occur. It is important for Eir to be cognizant of just how much cell regeneration is occurring.
Essence/Animal: Jelena witch hazel/ Dall Sheep
Appearance: I will leave this up to the artist and keep my suggestions/ requests to two The feathering around Eir's hooves resemble the petals of the Jenel Witch-hazel flower- this can continue up the fetlock. Healthy strong and long ram's horns. Otherwise- sky is the limit. I would like to maintain the arctic feel.
Personality: Very much like Eir’s user, the guardian is very goal oriented and a hard worker. Eir is, however, far more compassionate and understanding than Petra. Eir is far more quiet and reserved, preferring to interact with someone who is close and as a result has a small strong group of friends opposed to a vast group of acquaintances. Like Petra, Eir is more concrete than abstract in a very detailed oriented and will focus on the immediate and less on the future—however Eir is a very indecisive soul and would like to keep options open should the circumstances change.  

[theLimeTree]

Animal - Arctic Mountain Goat

Both male and female mountain goats have beards, short tails, and long black horns, 15–28 centimetres (5.9–11 in) in length, which contain yearly growth rings. They are protected from the elements by their woolly white double coats. The fine, dense wool of their undercoats is covered by an outer layer of longer, hollow hairs. In spring, mountain goats moult by rubbing against rocks and trees, with the adult bucks (males) shedding their extra wool first and the pregnant does (females) shedding last. In the winter, their coats help them to withstand temperatures as low as −50 °F (−46 °C) and winds of up to 100 mph (160 km/h).

The mountain goat's feet are well-suited for climbing steep, rocky slopes, sometimes with pitches of 60 degrees or more, with inner pads that provide traction and cloven hooves that can be spread apart as needed. Also, the tips of their feet have dewclaws that are sharp to keep them from slipping.

Nannies can be very competitive and protective of their space and food sources. They will fight with one another for dominance in conflicts that can ultimately include all the nannies in the herd. In these battles, nannies will circle each other with their heads lowered, showing off their horns. As with fights between billies during breeding season, these conflicts can occasionally lead to injury or even death, but they are largely harmless. To avoid fighting, an animal may show a posture of non-aggression by stretching low to the ground.

--snagged from Wikipedia  

[theLimeTree]

Essence - Jelena Witch Hazel

The witch-hazels are deciduous shrubs or (rarely) small trees growing to 3–8 metres (9.8–26 ft) tall, rarely to 12 metres (39 ft) tall. The genus name, Hamamelis, means "together with fruit", referring to the simultaneous occurrence of flowers with the maturing fruit from the previous year. Each flower has four slender strap-shaped petals 1–2 centimetres (0.39–0.79 in) long, pale to dark yellow, orange, or red. The fruit is a two-part capsule 1 centimetre (0.39 in) long, containing a single 5 millimetres (0.20 in) glossy black seed in each of the two parts; the capsule splits explosively at maturity in the autumn about 8 months after flowering, ejecting the seeds with sufficient force to fly for distances of up to 10 metres (33 ft), thus another alternative name "Snapping Hazel". Witch Hazel often blooms late fall or early spring giving it the alternative title of 'Winterbloom'

Medicinal Uses

The leaves and bark of the North American Witch-hazel Hamamelis virginiana may be used to produce an astringent, also referred to as witch hazel, and is used medicinally. This plant extract was widely used for medicinal purposes by American Indians and is a component of a variety of commercial healthcare products.
It's mainly used externally on sores, bruises, and swelling. Witch hazel hydrosol is used in skin care. It is a strong anti-oxidant and astringent, which makes it very useful in fighting acne. It is often used as a natural remedy for psoriasis, eczema, aftershave applications, ingrown nails, to prevent sweating of the face, cracked or blistered skin, for treating insect bites, poison ivy, and as a treatment for varicose veins and hemorrhoids. It is found in numerous over-the-counter hemorrhoid preparations. It is recommended to women to reduce swelling and soothe wounds resulting from childbirth.

-Also stolen from Wikipedia  

[theLimeTree]

Open and happy to receive critiques!