Name: Cecíle
Age: 22
Profession: spice and herb trader
Guardian: Anise
Personality
To describe Cecíle as a classical introvert would not be tremendously misleading. She's an often silent young lady, preferring to spend her days working on her small garden patch over discussing the latest local hear-say at a pub. When she isn't productive with chores, her leisure activity is still dominantly independent: re-reading the scant books she has managed to collect in her life, writing in an ancient dog-eared journal, or exploring the very outskirts of Wardwood with a pair of pet rabbits–an especially pleasing activity if they sniff out a new plant to collect.
This isn't to say Cecíle dislikes conversation or the company of a jovial soul; she's just much more comfortable keeping busy or being on her own. As a result of this solitary tendency, she has developed a few bad habits. Talking to herself (or her rabbits) and excessive day-dreaming are the least offensive of the whole; but at its worst, she has been known to become so wrapped up in a problem or a beckoning stray thought that she'd forget what she was doing in the first place. While it isn't much cause for alarm, it has given her a reputation of being more eccentric than not with her neighbors, along with a cheeky nickname of a sort.
Still, most people haven't bothered to think much of it. Cecíle is just barely a year away since she first took residency in Oldcastle, and has made little impression of the townsfolk beyond the appearance of a docile-yet-quirky girl who not only keeps her nose out of trouble, but sells a good variety of cooking and medicinal herbs at her morning cart. She's content with her routine, her neighbors, and even a few regular customers she has managed to gain within the last few months, and would like nothing more than for this ordinary life to continue. A desire that, unfortunately, would be left unfulfilled.
History
Until her recent arrival at Oldcastle, Cecíle had little recollection of a sedentary lifestyle. Her mother was a vagabond, true and true; a restless wanderer that carried her every belonging on the back of a cart and rarely settled town for longer than a month's span. Her travel cultivated a distinct passion and knowledge of botany, and so with each city she'd bring a new and exotic flower to entice noble courtships or a spice so fragrant it would stop people mid-stride should she open a full jar at just the right time. She was independent, flirtatious, and persuasive, the kind of personality that kept her in business and then, on one spring day, gifted her a daughter.
Having a child did not slow the woman down, and so Cecíle followed the footsteps of her mother, albeit begrudgingly so. Envy would often overcome her as a small child, a bout she'd spend most of a night and morning sobbing and hollering at how unjust it was that they could never settle and take root. Loneliness was a permanent struggle, only briefly relieved by the company of animals and the people they passed along the way. In time–a lot of time–, she learned to accept and even embrace what she had: pages full of adventures with the most amazing person she had ever known. Even at the end, her mother's strength and snark never wavered.
It was simultaneously abrupt and agonizingly slow. By the time they realized how high the fever was, it was beyond the help of their own herbal remedies and were tragically too out of reach from a doctor's helping hands. What had started as a headache in the early evening festered and claimed a life by sunrise, an irony not lost on the grief-stricken girl who was left behind. For the next two years, her life was the hazy gray of melancholy as she attempted to regain what was lost and move forward with little success. She didn't quite carry the same confident and charismatic poise that made her mother so successful in what she did. By the time Cecíle reached Oldcastle, she was despondent and tired to the bone, desperately needing a change.
Appearance
Cecíle is slightly shorter than average, standing at 5'5" without the aide of scuffed boots. She isn't slim like most lower-class girls her age. A lifetime of travel and hard work have earned her a lean-muscular frame, and she only recently began to grow into her mother's notorious curves. Her hair is thick, long, has been compared to dark mahogany and is constantly threatening to spill over her large honeyed eyes. On good days, it's tamed enough in a bun or a braid and secured with a bandana. On bad - well, let's just leave it on good days. In the summer, her skin is home to a smattering of pale freckles across her cheeks and shoulders. Having spent all of her savings and then some on the shoddiest of tiny homes on the northern edge of Oldcastle, Cecíle doesn't have much for clothes. Her dress, a colorful ensemble resembling a patchwork quilt, is just as well known and recognized as she is, if not more.
