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Bridget's Important Info

Name: Bridget Tulip

Guardian's Name: Mary Tulip

Parentage: Unknown

Heritage: Irish

Past life: Leprechaun. In her past life she was the guardian of a large pot of gold. (Possibly 500 + coins). So when a young man came and stole the gold from him (she was a man in her past life) his life became meaningless and he died, vowing to return the gold to its rightful owner (himself) and to seek revenge on the young man who took the coins. (For more information see "Past Life" post)

World: "Real" world, Present Day

Location: A little spit of a town at the foot hills of Pennsylvania's Appalachian Mountains with an almost 100% Irish population

Sex: Female

Age when found by Guardian: about a year...we think?

Age when crossing over to Gaia: 16

Height: 3 feet, and two inches (Bridget is very picky about her two inches)

Body type: Slender, but not skinny.

Pets: Seamus (pronounced SHAY-Mus, a small mutt dog that looks like a miniature Irish wolf-hound

Hobbies:
(hobbies not spawned from her former life) she dances, she's talented at traditional irish dance and plays the flute well, not supernaturally well, just as well as some one who's practiced for a number years. She crochets, it's especially a nervous habit and she's rarely found with out yarn and hook.

(hobbies spawned from her former life) Bridget loves shoes. Leprechauns are cobblers (shoe makers) and spend their whole lives making shoes. While Bridget has no idea how shoes are made, she loves them, any time she finds a new attractive pair, she must own them. Also, Bridget loves to cause mischeif, nothing serious, she never means to hurt anybody, but she would just make sure to really mess up the rest of your day.

Appearance: Bridget has a pile of curly bright red hair that is almost never combed out (she breaks combs in it). Her ears are slightly pointed as are her teeth (she had the front few capped last year because the pointed teeth freaked out her peers). She's short. Her most noticeable feature are her eyes, a deep rich green. She also always wears a large gold coin (slightly larger than a silver dollar) around her neck

Personality: Bridget has always been a bit strange. For starters her "mom" isn't her real mom, she found her in the snow when she was a baby. She has no father. In the very family oriented Irish-Catholic neighborhood that she grew up in this was a huge scandal. This has made her a rather mild mannered girl, usually. Most of the time she's fairly meek, your usual misfit dorky type. She's intellegent but not super smart, she's cute but not super pretty. She's shy but she has a few friends. However, everynow and again her inner leprechaun comes out and she just can't contain herself. She has to cause some mischeif or wreak some havoc. Her mischief is always benign in nature, she never means to actually hurt anyone.

Bridget dosen't want to admit to it, but she is very greedy by nature. Leprechauns are consumed with their love and attatchment to their gold, and that has permiated through to Bridget's new life. Being raised a catholic and taught that greed is bad, she's tried to control it, but deep inside, she has to have everything.

Love Life: None, but she's not opposed to the idea, just dosen't have a lot of luck with the boys she knows. Of course they're all a bunch of jerks so who needs them?

Powers:

Coin Manipulation: Bridget can telekinetically manipulate the gold coins from her past life. Eventually, as she gets older and finds more of them her power will get stronger. She can make them fly at great speed almost like bullets, or throwing stars (except they're blunt instead of sharp) to use like a weapon.
I would like for her to some day be able to lift herself off the ground and hover/fly with the number of coins that she'd have, but that of course won't come until much later, probably not until she is an adult or older.

Blinking: More of a reflex than anything, and not a power that she would have immediatly when crossing over (although I would like for her to begin to develop it shortly after coming to Gaia), Bridget has the ability to "blink out of existence" or rather to disappear suddenly. She reappears in a different location, which eventually she will be able to control, she can't blink great distances, (inside of a building to the outside would be about it). She has this power because of the portion of the leprechaun legend that says that if you are lucky enough to come across a leprechaun, you can't take your eyes off of them, even to blink, because if you do, they'll be gone.

Lucky Breaks: this power is almost completly unconscious, possibly once she becomes an adult she'd learn to use it consciously, but basically she has the power to bestow luck upon those she favors, and take it away from those she dislikes. It's not obvious nor is it something she thinks on, but it might have lasting consequences:
for example, if Bridget decided that she liked some one the day that they had a job interview, they might get the job they want. If she decides that she dosent like some one, they might loose their wallet, or trip over soemthing they hadnt seen just a moment before.


Weakness:For starters, her conscious power only applies to her coins, so she can't be telekinetic on anything else (although she can use the coins to lift things... once she gets enough) Her other powers are really weak when she first comes to Gaia, it would be through RP that would dictate which get cultivated. She's also really short, which in any sort of physical confrontation would be a major disadvantage.

Past Life Info (Two points of view of a classic tale)

The Young Man Who Out Smarts The Leprechaun (this is the usual format for a leprechaun myth)


It had been a fairy typical Sunday. After church Grandpa came over to the house to help Mary cook a great big dinner and watch Bridget. On that particular Sunday it’d been raining all day and the five year old Bridget was growing increasingly restless. The little girl was so antsy that her coins had started darting all over the place in the house. Mary did her best to make sure that Grandpa didn’t see the little girl’s trick, worrying that he might thing she was some sort of witch. Of course Grandpa was pushing 80 by this time and his eyesight had failed him. So when he saw the great gold coins whizzing all over the place he assumed that Bridget (or Munchkin as he called her) was throwing a temper tantrum because she was bored. Mary, having confiscated Bridget’s coins and threatening not to give them back until she calmed down, effectively halted the tantrum and started chopping up potatoes for the stew.
Bridget climbed on Grandpa’s lap and stared up at him with her big green eyes.
“Tell me a story Pap-pap” she asked, fluttering her long eyelashes. Grandpa laughed a great, deep belly laugh and launched into what he claimed to be “The true story of the leprechaun of Tralee and how I stole his coins”.



When I was a child I grew up just outside of the town of Tralee in the county Kerry. There were always rumors about town about a man or woman who had seen one of the Little people. Little red headed men in green suits that made shoes and smoked from great long wooden pipes. They were crude, bitter little fairies that resented being born ugly. However, they were also the richest of fairies, selling the shoes that they made for incredible prices and keeping all of their gold in great black pots hidden at the base of the rainbow. Now everyone knew that if you were lucky enough to come across such a fairy, a Leprechaun as they were called, you couldn’t take your eyes off of them and you couldn’t let them use their Blarney on you or else they’d make off and you’d get nothing in return. Of course it was also well known that there were no Leprechauns in Tralee-

“Pap-pap?” Bridget pipped up.
“Yes Munchkin”
“I thought you just said that people said rumors about seeing Leprechauns”
“That’s true”
“Well, then you said that there weren’t any in your town”
“Er..um, well let me explain”

Now, everybody knows that Leprechauns live in towns. They live in Fairy villages and almost never leave them. Fairy villages are invisible to us big people-

“I’m not big” Bridget interrupted
“No, you’re quite small, almost small enough to be one of the little people” Grandpa tweaked her nose and Bridget giggled “Now, do you want to hear the story or not?”
“Yes I do want to hear it! Really!”
“Then hush and listen closely”


Where was I? Oh yes, the villages. Now, no one ever saw a leprechaun in a village, but every so often one would be kicked out had have to leave his home and take his shoe making supplies and his great big pot of gold with him. One such leprechaun just so happened to have been evicted from his home and settled near my village. Now, this leprechaun was kicked out of his leprechaun village because he refused to make leprechaun shoes the normal way. He wanted to decorate his with ribbons and bows and bells and great big silver buckles. But the other leprechauns said that this was just plain wrong and kicked him out. So the poor fancy shoe making leprechaun left the village. He set up shop in a nice little wood near by boyhood home and started making his shoes. Day in and day out he pounded away, the little cobbler hidden by magic. When I was about your age I heard him once, but my mother insisted, as mothers often do, that the little people aren’t real and that it was just a bird making all the racket. So I grew up, and every so often I could hear the hammering of the Leprechaun’s shoe making. One day, when I was nearly grown I went out into the woods, just to have a nice little walk and think about things. This was just before I went away to go to school to be a doctor, and that was going to cost me an awful lot of money. Then I heard it, the pounding.
Unfortunately it just so happens that on that very day I had a terrible cold and couldn’t stop sneezing. So, as quietly and as sneakily as I could I snuck through the woods, brushing past brambles that scratched and bushes that poked. And finally I found him! He was sitting right in the center of a clearing sewing a button onto the front of a purple satin slipper with one hand and pounding the heel onto a black leather boot with the other. I knew that I couldn’t take my eyes off of him or he would vanish. So very slowly I crept across the clearing careful not to step on any twigs or make any such noises as to alert him of my presence. But Suddenly I sneezed, a loud sneeze that got his attention. He looked up and I made my lunge for him. I grabbed him around his tiny waist and held him up in front of me! He struggled, kicking and yelling and threatening to curse me with bad luck if I didn’t put him down that instant. I told him that if he wanted to ever be put down again he’d have to give me the pot of gold. He bargained with me for a little while, trying to convince me to take some wishes instead. He made a very good argument, as Leprechauns often do being that they were the inventors of blarney. But I was not swayed and finally the Leprechaun surrendered his gold.
What I didn’t know at the time, and found out later was that once you steal a Leprechaun’s gold, the Leprechaun no longer has a reason for living. Leprechauns are greedy creatures that love their gold more than anything in the world, to steal it from them is to take their life. What I also didn’t know at the time and found out later was that with is dying breath the little fellow vowed to return his gold and seek revenge against me. Of course, I haven’t seen a leprechaun yet… except…

Grandpa eyed Bridget over, her green eyes widened.
“What Grandpa? What?”
“Why, I may have never noticed it before, but… Yes… I think so”
“What? What?”
“You’re pretty gold pendant! It looks exactly like the gold coins that I took from the Leprechaun” Bridget gasped and toughed the coin on her necklace, wishing she had the three that her mother had confiscated so that she could show them to Grandpa too. “Why yes, and you’re pretty green eyes, they’re just the color of Ireland. And you’re pointy ears! Why Bridget! Why didn’t you ever tell me that you were a leprechaun!” Bridget sat on her Grandfather’s lap, aghast, mouth open in shock.
“I never knew I was a leprechaun. I have to tell Mommy!” And with that she shimmied down and raced into the kitchen where her mother was finishing up the stew.

“Mommy Mommy!!” She yelled jumping up and down.
“Yes sweetie?” Mary asked distractedly.
“Pap-pap says I’m a Leprechaun! Look! I have pointy ears and green eyes and my coins are just like the ones he stole from the leprechaun, Mommy! I’m a Leprechaun”.
Mary looked down at her daughter for a second, giving herself the space of a few breaths to decide what to do.
“Bridget, you are not a Leprechaun. You are a perfectly normal little girl”
“Nuh-uh. Pap-pap says I’m a Leprechaun”.
Grandpa stepped into the room and Mary looked at him disapprovingly.

“Grandpa, I wont have you filling her head with such nonsense, Bridget is completely normal in everyway. She’s just a lovely little Irish girl and nothing more. Now let’s all stop this nonsense and all have dinner”.
"Mary my dear, can't you just let an old man have some fun with his great-grand child? I know damned well that she's a normal child, calm down".

From that day forward Mary never entertained the suggestion that her daughter was anything but human and was highly intolerant of Grandpa’s stories about the little people. But Bridget was fascinated by them, so anytime they were alone Grandpa would tell her stories about all kinds of fairies. Her favorite, of course, were always the leprechauns.


The Sad Tale of Rory The Leprechaun (This is my take on the old legend)

Every year since time out of mind the leprechauns had gathered at their fairy fort outside of Tralee to renew their bonds to the earth and replenish their numbers. Leprechauns were a non-reproductive race, because they were all men. So every year they would have to make up for their fallen or faded brethren by stealing a human baby and replacing it with a fairy doctored to look like the child. At their yearly meetings they would treat the child with special magical potions in order to change him into a shrunken old man. Then he would be inducted into the world of the Little People.

Rory had no knowledge of how this process worked. He didn't even really know how his yearly bond with the earth was renewed or why it was important. All he knew was that once a year he had to take one of his precious coins and burry it some where outside the fort. Then, for a heart breaking week he had to wait, and wait, and wait with the rest of his brethren for the coin to be magically replaced in his stash so that he could return home and continue his shoe making. Granted, the week wasn't all bad. There was music provided by the pretty pixies and fairies that flitted about, and plenty to eat and drink. But Leprechauns were not particularly social by nature, and this was all one great hassle for the lot of them.

This year, there had been a buzz going around the drinking halls, it seemed that every year they were loosing more and more of their men. The Big People had learned their secrets and were having less and less trouble catching them. On top of that, many of the Big People had ceased to believe in them, and there fore their magic was much less potent then it had been a century ago. It seemed to be a growing trend that if a Leprechaun was cornered by a human who knew all the rules, he'd have no escape!

Rory didn't believe all of this hullabaloo about fading powers and humans growing in intellegence. They were big and smelly, and had silly ideas about compassion and greed being a bad thing. He had little use for them. So when the elders gathered all of the Leprechaun men around to brief them on how to cleverly avoid or trick the humans and preserve their gold, their connection to the earth and their life blood, Rory day dreamed, thinking about the next pair of shoes that he was going to make when he returned to his mound.

On the day that the coins were returned, Rory was the first to leave, dragging his heavy pot of gold behind him all the way back to his home. Then, he set himself up on his little mound with his hammer and his leather and began to make a new pair of shoes, these ones with brass belts! He was so focused on his work that he didn't hear the approaching foot steps coming through the brush. When he did, it was too late.

Some great brute of a man was staring down at him, unblinking. Rory, not believing that he had been found out, tried clumsily to disappear, but since the young man's gaze was so unwavering, he couldn't!

"Give me your coins, Elf!" the brute thundered.
"I'm not an elf!" Rory replied. The brute picked him up by the beard
"If you don't give me all of your money, I'll kill you" he said, sneering at the elf. His breath was putrid and his eyes were red and blood shot, he'd clearly been drinking a great deal. Rory began to cry and plead for his life. But the young man cared not. He through Rory against a tree and picked up the cauldron of coins, running away with it, laughing the whole time. Rory slowly picked himself up off the ground and staggered over to where his pot had been.

The young man had taken it all, all but one coin. Rory could feel his life seeping out of him. He fell to the ground and slowly pulled himself to the coin and clutched it to his chest. With his dying breath he swore to avenge this injustice. He swore that some day, he would have all of his coins again, he swore that the brute of a young man would pay dearly for his crimes. He swore that one day, the whole world would believe in Leprechauns again. And, in his final moment, he swore that he would attain these goals through any means necessary.

And so he died, on the mound where he had lived, clutching his last gold coin to his heart.

Fifteen Years Pass... A brief overview of Bridget's life growing up as a lost child

- Bridget learns Walking, Talking, Potty Training, Reading, Writing and all the other usual little kid things at a fairly normal pace, except her height, by the time she's 16 she has just barely surpassed three feet tall.

- She excels in Dance and Music, especially the pipe (Mary bought her a flute for her 13th birthday and she loved it, takes it with her everywhere).

- She makes friends, looses friends, is generally a bit of a loner but is always very close to Mary.

- Bridget uncovers other 10 coins. Three from Grandpa's basement. He claimed they were from "The old country". Mary tells Bridget not to think about it and wonders why her daughter has such an obsession with these strange gold coins.

- Bridget uncovers the ability to affect all 11 of her coins. Usually done in her room with the door closed she learns to lift some what heavy objects with them and use them as weapons (poor Seamus was once at the brute end of one of her experiments, he still has a scar on his rump under his fur from it)

- Bridget gets herself into trouble at school, she has a fondness for practical jokes and causing mischief. She's never purposefully harmed anyone, mostly because she does things for the fun of it, and if some one got hurt that would take away from the fun.

- Aside from her coins, Bridget lives a fairly normal life.


Until....

Idea's I'm Playing With

I'm considering having Bridget move back to the "Real World" Temporarily as an adult to fulfill her life's mission of seeking revenge on the man who robbed her in her past life. Unfortunately, that man was Mary's grandfather, the kindly old man who served as the father figure in Bridget's life. As a youth in Ireland he'd found the pot of gold that had been over seen by a leprechaun, he took the gold, not knowing that it would kill the Leprechaun to do so. Three of the gold coins (that Bridget found later in life) he kept, the others mysteriously disappeared. When he noticed the coins missing he put two and two together and realized that Bridget must be the next life of the leprechaun whose gold he'd kill. He never told Mary or Bridget. The rest of his coins, when they mysteriously disappeared from the "Real World" they ended up in Gaia (except for seven which he actually dropped in the woods behind his house when he was drunk one night) where Bridget will find them over the course of her life here.

Once they get over the rainbow I would like to have Seamus rejuvenated, by the magic in Gaia.

I'm thinking about having Bridget speak in Limerick when she's feeling particularly mischeivious.

Hmm, to ancient or not to ancient that is the question... Now, at current Bridget would love nothing more than to be a "normal" person. However, I think that as she grows and discovers her powers and becomes comfortable with the person that she really is, I think that she might give up the dream of having a family and being "normal" in favor of exploring her true potential. Of course, this is all to be decided IC'ly.

Should I take the time to pretty-up my fae quest or not?

::more ideas coming soon as I continue to develop the character::

Pictures
A gift from Drac, By Prox... cute like whoa

By Megarose...gorgeous headshot showing off those cute little teeth!

FAQ and X-tra resources

Q: If Bridget was a man in her past life, why is she a girl in this life?
A: Leprechauns are very sneaky, since Bridget (in her past life) swore revenge on the man that became her great grandfather, what better disguise than the opposite gender, in his family no less?

(more to come as they arise, if you have a question please, by all means ask me, it will help tremendously!)


Wikipedia Article on Leprechauns

Wikipedia article on Changelings

Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them by New Scamander (Yeah, I totally read the little Harry Potter knock off book. It was pretty awesome)

Is this what she should look like?